Braumiller

Oh man, sometimes this game makes it really hard to like it! Still a ways to go in my current season, but I already have my working title..... The 13 days from hell.

Season 06 - 2029/30 FC Biel-Bienne Surprising improvements! Very happy with that, even if we did miss out on big landmarks. We started out selling one of our big starlets, Orlando Kwasie (YP01-Elite). AC Milan made a bid again and this time FC Porto came in too. We accepted both (flat 4.2m from Porto, 5.25m from AC Milan although a good 0.75 to 1.5 were in potentially unobtainable clauses). Orlando chose FC Porto and we had a healthy bank balance again (but not a healthy projection!). We got a Junior Coaching increase in but that was it. On the field we played pretty nicely. We settled in around 5th spot after the first third of the season and stayed there, even though we were anticipating a horrible fall off like last season. It never came and while we did start losing ground we went into the last game of the main phase of the league needing a win to cling onto 6th place and a place in the Championship group. We managed to beat Young Boys and we became 1 of the 6 to fight for potentially 5 European places. As you would expect though, the 6th place team is the weakest and we were also punching above our weight anyway. We finished 6th, missed out on Europe by just 3 points but more importantly we didn't have to worry about a relegation fight! League Table Squad Stats Youth Intake - Nobody to immediately get a look at the senior squad, but 3 Elite tagged kids. Gianluca Gatta - A resolute defensive midfielder. Needs to become physically better, but I fancy his chances the best out of this intake Valerio Di Palma - A right back, which I'll be honest I could currently use some competition at. Too slow for my liking, but hopefully he can mature over a couple of years in the u18s & u19s. Liam Lebrun - To be honest, not horrible. Will have to do well (or a big injury crisis happen) to see any of the senior squad anytime soon, but fingers crossed. Transfers Well, if I can get a couple more stabilizing seasons like this then I think we are going to be in good shape. Financially we are good to go for a couple of seasons with the big sale, and as it stands right now there are no more big clubs interested or players stating they want to leave for greener pastures..... Intakes could do with improving a little to be honest, given our investment into them, but we are seeing a settled first team squad for now and I think seeing the benefits of that.

With how this is worded "Should be focusing on becoming a more consistent performer at this stage of his development" is there anything I can be doing to help him with that or is it purely on him? Would love to hear if there are anyways that I have missed where I could have even a small chance of helping improve consistency.

Season 05 - 2028/29 FC Biel-Bienne I did not deserve that..... Well that was a beyond frustrating season in the Swiss Super League! We actually won our home season opener 1-0! Lost a couple, then draw, win, draw and we were feeling alright about things, hitting 5th. Lost 3 on the bounce to start a little worry and hit 9th, then we won 3 on the trot! Up to 4th for a couple of weeks and then 5 straight defeats..... At this point I was desperate and chopping and changing roles in the tactic and players playing. Then an improbable 2-2 away draw at runaway leaders Young Boys triggered another violent swing in form! That draw started a DWWWD sequence and all was right in the world! 12 games left until the league split (top 6 go off to play for European places and bottom six get into a deathmatch for relegation) and we were genuinely having half an eye on maybe sneaking 6th. And then...... We didn't win a single damn game out of the remaining 12 games before the split. So many late goals, penalties and other incidents. Just terrible all around. So here is where we were at league split. 9th, but only a point off of 11th and a relegation playoff. An under 12s team would have fancied their chances against us at this point. So, 5 games to save the season against the other 5 worst teams in the league. We get lucky and 3 of our 5 are at home. Game 1 at home top Lugano and maybe just maybe karma paid a visit to repay us. We completely undeserved 1-0 win where we were outplayed and scored with our only attempt on goal.... Game 2 and on a little high we rode our luck again to another 1-0 win, away at Lausanne. We played better this time and had a better xG than them, but they hit the woodwork as did Lugano in the previous game. Game 3 at home and normal business is resumed. A limp display and a 0-2 loss but other games go our way and we are safe! We then played woeful Winterthur and won 4-0 in our only comfortable game this side of the winter break. And just so we cannot dream of a corner being turned, in our final game of the season at home to Vaduz we raced into a 3-0 lead only to end up losing 3-6!!! I genuinely could not have complained if I was pushed into the relegation playoff, we were abysmal in the 2nd half of the year. Thankfully Winterthur were even worse and we scraped a few points together at critical times. League Table Squad Stats Youth Intake - Actually looks ok. Truth be told I barely paid attention to it once I saw we did not hit the lottery like odds of getting an instant impact kid. I will reassess those I signed in the summer, as a whole squad overhaul is needed. The elite tagged kids Transfers Next season..... Well I cannot see anything other than more short term pain to be honest. With the promotion fight at the end of season 4 and the constant fighting this season there were very few youth opportunities given. I need to change that and I need to see which of season 4 & 5's intakes will sink or swim. In theory everyone in the first team should have improved a little over the year with the higher level experience, but whether that is anything more than negligible we will see. And then possible exits..... Orlando Kwasie (YP01-Elite) was on the transfer list most of the season. He has underwhelmed so much, but his transfer value has always stayed good. I had agreed to sell for any bid at 3m last year and then with his contract getting close to 18 months left I triggered his 1 year extension. That pissed him off and he demanded talks with me. So I agree again to sell for the right price, but this time I could only push the value up to 2m - big error on my part. AC Milan had minor interest all year, and truth be told I would have took their money but they never came knocking. As the winter transfer window closed he came back again and said he understood I tried to sell him and no-one offered, so he was ok to stay now. Then, a month to 6 weeks later, back he comes wanted to leave again..... Another chat, but this time his value had increased even more (I believe i shown 1.8 to 3.5m or close) and in our discussions on what I would sell him for I was able to push him up to 4.3m..... AC Milan are back interested and I am going to push for a sale. Might as well cash in and reinvest instead of being disappointed for another 2 years. Financially we are doing ok. The extra TV money helps and we basically broke even for the year. The projections are still horrible and show around 1 millions losses each year (as they did this year), but we did just fine. A good sale would get us to the point where I can hopefully get another upgrade (and cause more penny pinching further down the line! lol).

Irrational things that make you like one of your youth products more? I'll start, you put a 15 year old kid on the bench for the first time, you go to assign him a squad number and he tells you he wants the number of your star player. You got brass ones kid, I like you

Season 04 - 2027/28 FC Biel-Bienne And breathe..... Wow, a season that started as expected ended unexpectedly! Before our first preseason friendly even happened what we feared and expected happened. Borussia Dortmund came knocking for Mirco Isler (YP01-Elite) and while they did not hit the 3.8m I had agreed with the player and agent to sell him for, the 3.4m they did offer was too much for my chairman to refuse. I cannot say I disagree with his business decision, and even though I had the option to protest the sale all I did was suggest we renegotiate a sell on clause. They did, and the 3.4m now includes a 20% future profit clause. We immediately went off a asked to spend as much as we could, and a very hefty training ground upgrade was approved (1.7m) and increases to both junior coaching and youth recruitment were granted as well. A late season additional youth recruitment increase was the cherry on the cake too. Facility-wise we are now rocking GREAT training facilities, GOOD youth facilities, EXCELLENT junior coaching and EXCEPTIONAL youth recruitment. Very happy with those! On the field we had a great year! It took a little bit of chopping and changing to find new best partnerships across the park, but we hit top spot twice in first half of the season but both times lost our bottle. Second half of the season we were part of a 4 team break away and it got tight in the run in. Schauffhausen & Neuchatel Xamax both fell away and it was left to ourselves and Vaduz to fight for the automatic promotion spot and the playoffs. Penultimate game of the season saw us away at Vaduz and trailing by 2 points. They took an early lead, we pulled it back to 1-1, but then they outplayed us and celebrated as champions in front of us! The Swiss play-offs are a simply affair. 2nd bottom of the Super League vs 2nd place in the Challenge League. 2 legs, extra time and penalties as needed. First leg at home was a borefest..... I was nursing 3 players through the game who would miss the decider if booked and we didn't have a shot on target until the 90th minute. That is when Armando Mancini, who has already signed for Serie C Catanzaro on a free in the summer and was only on as a sub for an injured sub, tucked in the winner at the far post!! Second leg I was nervous for. And then Jonathan de Donno had a day! Had had broken Challenge League records with 33 goals in 35 games, added 3 Swiss Cup goals in 3 games and then hit a hat-trick in the first 26 minutes! Up 4-0 on aggregate and despite Luzern grabbing a goal back it was a surprisingly stress free second half! Promotion! League Table Squad Stats - Still 2 and sometimes 3 non youths who I cannot shake of the team, but loving the way they are starting to shape up. No idea if we can hold our own in the Super League though. I have kept way too many players the last couple of seasons with not knowing if we are ready to let them go. I now am. Time to start getting a little more ruthless. Youth Intake - the preview was not very good reading to be honest, but this is not as bad as I thought it would be. With the end of the season the senior squad had I didn't promote any of them yet to start getting minutes. Not sure how many they will get in the Super League campaign either tbh. A lot more undesirable personalities this time around. Juddy Kabongo - Looks to be the best of the batch. Not currently playing an AMC, so retraining to MC although tempted to see at AMR too Ergi Bushi - A second intake with a high potential GK. Much needed depth at the position. I really need to look into those newgen pics I see people use!..... Wirth - Another AMC, so another retrain project. I am overstocked at MC currently, so I may retrain as a wide player next year. Pace and finishing are prohibitive though. Terraz - Rough around the edges for sure, but has the beginnings of a decent striker. No clear route to first team football currently, but if he scores for fun in the u18s then who knows. Transfers - several out of the door, with Mirco Isler (YP01-Elite) being the obvious headliner here Next season - a simple battle for survival I would imagine! Will be interesting to see how finances fare as well. With all of our infrastructure improvements we are losing money every month, it would be nice if they was lessened. Anyway, a 12 team Super League awaits. 12th is relegated, 11th goes into the playoffs and I will happily take 10th right now if offered!

Season 03 - 2026/27 FC Biel-Bienne Another interesting season in the books! Same finish as last year (4th!) but I am happier with that all things considered. We won more games, but lost more games. However, big strides were made into being a youth product only team as by the end of the season we played with 8 starters from our first 3 youth intakes a couple of times.... That will no doubt happen more often in our upcoming 4th season due to more outgoings.... League Table - 4th - Jumped over local rivals Xamax on the final day of the season too! Squad Stats Our front 3 were clicking nicely quite often. For most of the season we were playing with 3 up top (AML, AMR, FC) and they all ended up in double digit goal totals. However, both Orlando Kwasie (YP01-Elite) and Mirco Isler (YP01-Elite) came knocking as the season wound down letting me know they wanted to move on to bigger clubs.... I couldn't fight it and have told them I will sell them if clubs meet my valuation. After a quick back and forth the highest they would accept are 3.8m (Isler) and 3m (Kwasie). Their values had slowly risen all season and this is just a bit higher than the upper range of their values at the time. To give a yard stick to those numbers, my total income for this season was 2.47m and my total expenditure was 2.71m. So a sale of either would be huge to us. They are happy now, and they will play until they are sold. Unlike my club captain and first choice goalkeeper who last summer refused to sign a new contract and during the winter break agreed to join Winterthur of the Swiss Super League for free on contract expiration. As events would unfold, he got injured with 7 games of the season to go, my youth intake had just came in with a decent GK in it, so he never played for me again - once a player is dead to me, they are done The youth GK got 6 senior games under his belt (he didn't sign his contract in time to play in the first game of Radke's injury) and I've moved on Youth Intake! Decent, with a handful expected to make an impact over time. Michael Jutzi - I like the look of this kid! No games yet, but expecting to bring him into the first team fold next year. Professional, great technique, determined, team oriented and aggressive. Gonna make a DM out of him! Goncalo Lopes - My new GK! Unless he does anything stupid the shirt is his until better comes along Roberto Carducci - A good looking striker. Unambitious, but will train up his AML as well to give me more options to get him games. Gio Barcherini - Another good looking midfielder. A bit of steel in the middle of the park never hurt anyone (on my team). Levin Winistorfer - Rounding out a great crop of midfielders. Hoping at least one excels and makes a first team role their own asap. Transfers - Just the outgoing as usual.... So, we really hit our stride near the end of the season and I am confident of getting 4th or higher again. A lot, as usual, will depend on the new kids not buckling, but the new youth GK did well in his 6 first team games so expecting he will be fine going forward as my new first choice. If I have to sell either or both of Isler & Kwasie then my bank balance should be very healthy and I can push for more infrastructure improvements to boost long term success. The previous improvements have certainly been worthwhile, so hoping any temporary backwards steps on the field with transfers out are papered over with better facilities.

I'll just jump in here and say that Belgium has been completed, but the list of completions doesn't go back that far

Season 02 - 2025/26 FC Biel-Bienne Well, an interesting season for sure! The good? Several youths are now first team regulars and a handful of them were not expected. Our starting left back is one of last intakes 'good' rated youths and not the 'elite' rated left back we got in. Due to a dearth of central defenders (and senior players complaining about that lack of depth) I threw a youth in at DC for the season and he mainly swam (and didn't sink! lol). Due to having two elite rated strikers and a quality existing striker (for our level) I tried to implement a 2 striker formation in the first half of the season. While we did ok, we were far too soft. I eventually reverted back to my old favorite formation (41221 - DM and IF's) and began retraining both youth strikers to play out wide as inside forwards on either side. That went well, thankfully! Orlando Kwasie (YP01 - Elite) is apparently a handy little player. The dutch capped him at u19 level while he was 16 and his transfer value is 1.3m-2.6m, FAR above anyone else in the squad. The bad? Unhappy players. This time not with me (directly), but with the lack of depth and/or quality at the club. I was able to placate a couple, but others not so much. We are losing 2 of our best players this offseason and two more (including our only decent GK!) are going to explore their options at the end of their contracts..... We finished 4th this year, which was a great improvement and we had an outside chance of the playoff spot right up until 3 games to go. Next season would have been interesting for sure, playing a full season in our new approach and with a full squad, but our dominant DC and DM are off.... DC next year will be a 16 year old and a plan B I haven't quite decided on yet! lol Youth Intake Actually decent. The preview was horrendous. One 'C' and the rest 'E' at best..... But there is definitely potential in there. Both AMCs will be retrained to MC playmakers and Gashi got a couple of short sub appearances near the end of the year. Neither add any steel to the middle of the park, but both can pass the ball around. Transfers - One big outgoing, after he was unhappy with the squad and Aarau (last seasons Champs in our division) came knocking. Next year.... Not sure how this will go. We were on an upward trajectory, but the outgoings and unknowns in defense will temper expectations. With the transfer funds we were able to upgrade the training facilities and also managed a few junior coaching and youth recruitment upgrades. Training facilities, youth facilities, junior coaching and youth recruitment are now all rated as 'Good' which I am delighted about. Our financial projections suffered because of the upgrades over the past 2 years. Originally we were making a handy profit month over month, now we are losing 50k plus a month....

Season 01 - 2024/25 FC Biel-Bienne (I have no template or plan for seasonal updates yet....) A challenging first year as expected, but not always for the expected reasons. On the pitch we held our own for the most part. Spent most of the season between 4th and 6th (out of 10 teams in our division), with a couple of bad dips in form, including a 5 game losing streak around the winter break. Our main issues were off the pitch. Early on the influential core of the group decided I was out of my depth and I lost the dressing room. We SLOWLY improved there and they eventually dropped it, but 2 of the main players had by that point decided to see out their contracts (still had 18 months to go, so I have them for one more year). In the second half of the season pretty much everyone who was half decent told me they wanted to leave for a bigger and/or more ambitious club. Fine. Tried to talk the first one out of it, and that went badly. So I told the rest I would sell if a bid of a certain amount comes in. We haggled, I set it as high as I could get away with and now we wait. If a bid comes in, then I'll bank the cash. The main 4 are set at 325k, 105k, 100k and 100k. So not pocket change for sure (our gate receipts for the year was 334k as a comparison). Final League Table Squad Stats Youth Intake Not too bad! I gave a handful some sub appearances in the final half a dozen games of the season, especially as I fear I might need them sooner rather than later with potential exits. Marco Isler (YP01-Elite) - Promising looking striker. Not a position I am in urgent need of, but never hurts to have a backup here Kuzey Yigit (YP01-Elite) - Like the look of this full back, apart from his height. Again, not an urgent need as I have a decent amount of options here, but would love for him to force his way into the starting XI Orlando Kwasie (YP01-Elite) - Again, another striker, but lets see if he can develop! Transfers this year Next season will be interesting. Outlook depends entirely on whether I have big sales in the summer or not. I'll take another 7th place finish though if we could manage it and hopefully get some promising development from the first youth intake! (Loving the bingo card idea! Have started to develop one for my Swiss save, but way off of being done yet.......)

Nope, belatedly found out they have a no u17s rule for the league and that didn't mesh with how I like to play My fault for not looking into it before many, many reloads

Ok, here we go! I've landed in the picturesque Swiss town of Biel/Bienne. Sitting on the north end of a lake, with Neuchatel ~5 miles away on the south end. Neuchatel Xamax are in our league, so we have a natural rivalry from the get-go and play them 4 times a year!

Oh boy..... This years edition of the challenge has got off to a fantastic start..... Spent more hours than I'll admit reloading trying to get a specific club to appear that I wanted. Finally gave up last night as I was happy with an alternative that had appeared. Spent a couple of hours or so getting the save set-up, played 3 friendlies in the preseason before I noticed that in Croatia you cannot play anyone under 17 in the league. That doesn't vibe with my playstyle, so the save has been deleted! I think I have found my new home (Switzerland) and a possible new team (not the same as @Potat just posted above me as I type this out! ), but will reload a little more at lunch to see what other options I might have. Will finally get this off the ground tonight I hope!

So it is my fault for even checking in on the new thread, but it is also all of your faults for making it look so tempting for the 10th or 11th season in a row? I haven't been able to dedicate myself to a long term save for far too long, and I don't even have the new version of the game yet, but I have an inkling that may change soon... KUTGW all!

Yep, same. Shorter passing, play out of defence and still it is often hoofed up to a lone striker. And often their attacks start when this invariably means they pick up the loose ball

That's my next port of call sorted should things go pear-shaped in Sweden

Notes Another season of struggle that the final league position masks! Technically a top half finish, but we were still fighting for survival from the relegation playoff until the final whistle of the final game! That said, for the first time in seasons I am starting to find a little confidence in our future after the way we finished the season. Our dramatic annual nosedive started much earlier than usual this year and I thought we were doomed. I was struggling to find a formation and I was stubbornly sticking to anything that used a Shadow Striker as last years intake star Daniel Onnervik (07-Elite) had established himself as the main man ahead of expectations and that is his best role. During a suspension of his I switched to a wide 433DM and it clicked. This gave me issues when he came back, as he can currently only play in AMC and FC. I started training him at AML, but stuck him up front at the expense of others and it worked well enough. We actually finished the league 5th in the form table and if it had not been for that uptick in results we would have been comfortably in the relegation playoff spot. Youth intake was very interesting. Not much to write home about in general, except Oliver Andersson (08-Elite) has a Model Citizen personality! He is also an interesting prospect in our right winger spot for the future. I had wanted to give him some minutes off the bench in our last two games, but couldn't risk it. Will start putting him in the mix next season and hope to get him established in the senior squad ASAP. Finances have slid from worrying to uh-oh again. Wage budget has been slashed to just above our current spend and I can only offer 1 year deals. Something to keep an eye on and I fear will be a hot topic in upcoming updates. Screenshots

+1 here for Key highlights user. This is what I run all my matches on

Notes It won't look it from the above, but this was a lot better than last season. That said, the precipitous drop off at the end of the season happened again. We lost our last 5 this time, 6 of the last 7 to fall out of our mid table safety. Relegation was never on the cards, but these end of year losses of form are worrying and frustrating. We played in a new "withdrawn 442". Most would call it a 460. Basically from a 442, the two MCs dropped to DMC and the two forwards dropped to a pair of shadow strikers. We were a lot more solid (until the end of the season) and competitive for nearly all games. In fact early in the season we had a run of 9 unbeaten. 4 wins, 5 draws, only 4 conceded during that stretch. I began wondering if the formation held us back at the end of the year, but I think I will give it one more year. Plus our stand-out intake kid this year is an AMC who looks like he can make a contribution. Going into year 8 and we are still massive favorites for the drop (200-1 in the league, next longest odds are 3 promoted teams at 33-1, 50-1 & 50-1). I guess I should see this as a solidification period, but it feels a little stagnant. Screenshots

I have a squad view with these two columns that I use when the youth candidates come in (this is just taken now with my senior squad for screenshot purposes): I then do a Print Screen via the FM menu and save as a Web Page. I then open that in Chrome (my default browser) copy and paste that into my Text file (which is saved as the .lnc file) and format. My text file looks like this currently: The extremely helpful post I used to learn this method is this one from @SuperRedditch

My nicknaming this year is [YearNumber-IntakeQualityDescription]. And using the .lnc file method now my eyes have been awakened to it My first image is making fun of myself, because year after year, if/when I run into issues I usually revert to a strikerless setup to try and consolidate.

Not a list, but I know when I did Holland that they were (or at least the team I chose)

Notes Absolute torture. Season 06 was a massive letdown for all concerned. We started off with a loss and a draw and sat bottom. We then won our next 4 games to go top! (Including a 7-0 away win!). Then I genuinely cannot put my finger on any one thing (although I did update from beta to release around the time brown stuff started hitting the rotating device.....) Anyway, we got dumped out of the cup at the first stage and then fell apart in the league, including losing our last 7 games and 9 of our last 11. This meant we fell into the relegation playoff spot on the final day of the season. A two legged affair with a high flying IFK Berga from the division below. Home in the first leg and we grab an undeserved lead, but their dominance wore us down and we did well to keep it to a 2-1 loss. Second leg at their place 4 days later and it should be a formality, right? Well, we score two quick fire goals just before half time and we actually had survival on the cards again! Second half they finally woke up and tore at us. Equalizing in the 63rd minute and going for the jugular. We hit them on the break in the 77th and take a 3-1 lead on the night, 4-3 lead on aggregate. The next 15 minutes were the most defensive and time wasting you could imagine and despite a couple of scares we did it! Past positions screenshot included below to show the almost terminal decline of the season and then a new items which made me chuckle. At least we were record setters This close season will see some wholesale changes. Not 100% what they are, but things need to change. Staying as-is will just mean more of the same and a definite end of this adventure. Might as well go down swinging, and that usually means one thing for me and saves like this..... Screenshots