Brentmeister

@Daddy@OlivierL I also got very lucky that a wonderkid spawned while I was holidaying during the first season. That worked out to a £15m headstart. I'm running into new problems now though, my board insists on giving me negative transfer budgets, despite our 20m in the bank, European football, and a soldout 21k every week. The board takes control of player sales during transfer windows and there's nothing I can do about it. I've brought it up in the Belgium finances thread.

Season 9 Summary A frankly wild season where giant strides were taken on and off the pitch. ____________________________ Domestic form An excellent season saw us qualify for the championship group for the first time. This meant that we got to play 10 games against the 5 best teams in the league and the chance to play in Europe the following year. We managed to secure 4th position and guarantee our second consecutive season of European football and the much needed injection of funds that comes with it. I feel like we've firmly established ourselves amongst the best of the rest in the league. Club Brugge, Anderlecht, and KRC Genk are by the far best teams and then there's little to choose between the next 3/4. We lost in the round of 32 in the cup to lower-league opposition after some heavy squad rotation. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Europe Our first foray into continental football was an eventful one as we made it to the semi-finals, even knocking out favourites Crystal Palace along the way. After a quite ridiculous 18 games, we narrowly lost to eventual winners AZ 1-0 on aggregate. We were very unlucky with injuries towards the end of the season. At one stage, right around the time of the semi-finals, we were missing up to 8 players including both of our goalkeepers. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Youth For the first time in the save, we had players in the NXGN list. 2 of our boys made the top 50. Intake 6 elite talents were signed but this was the least excited I've been about an intake since we started. We'll see how they pan out. Young midfielder Antonio Valdes was considered best in class. Here he is 6 months later. I decided to change it up and hire a new HOYD. He's a model citizen who also has extensive knowledge in Czechia and Slovakia, hopefully we'll get a few kids through from here. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finances This is where we took massive strides this season. We made almost 12m in prize money, mainly due to our run to the Europa Conference League semi-finals. We made 4.2m from a sell-on clause we had in place. We sold a squad player for 3.5m with a 40% sell-on clause added. All of this meant upgrades galore! Our training facilities were upgraded twice, youth facilities once, and youth recruitment once. Leaving our infrastructure looking like this: I'm hoping all this, coupled with our new HOYD results in some juicy intakes. I also earned my Continental C coaching qualification. Our projected finances are looking good. Have we finally overcome the bug? Spoliers.....no we haven't! ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3 of the best 8 wonderkids in the world? Nice!

This has probably been asked a hundred times but what did you use to make those kits?

Season 8 Summary We're going on a European adventure! An excellent season saw us in and around the Championship group for large parts of the season, only for us to fall into the Second Phase towards the end. It didn't matter though as we dominated the Second Phase and secured our European playoff with 3 games to spare. We faced 5th-placed Westerlo who edged out Genk (they would've been much tougher to play) at their ground in a 1-match shoot-out for a place in The Conference League. We were rarely troubled and ran out comfortable winners to secure our first taste of European football. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Youth 4 elite talents led by GK Jan Dekkers With excellent handling, reflexes, and agility, he could be pushing for the number 1 shirt in a few seasons. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finances We had to say goodbye to another star player this season. Our best player had his paltry 2.5m release clause activated by AS Saint-Étienne, which means no sell-on fee either He promptly became a wonderkid (we still haven't had one!) with a valuation of between 39 and 62m. Because of the new stadium loan and continued losses, we still haven't been able to persuade the board for any upgrades or coaching courses. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Other Stuff ~ We passed 300 games in management ~ We got our first job offer of the save from rivals AA Gent Our league history since we took over. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How stupid is this? So every season the board gives me a negative transfer budget, this means that during the transfer windows, they take control of my transfers and accept bids for any and all players. So why did they accept this? They accepted a loan bid (that I couldn't cancel) for zero money, so my best youth prospect can go and sit on the bench of a second-division team. It makes no sense.

England and Italy are a real slog! You could try somewhere with a 2 league system. Croatia, Austria, Switzerland or Czechia could all be fun. If you want to try somewhere other than Europe, South America is wild! In Brazil you'll end up playing 70+ games a season, Uruguay has a weird league system that runs every 2 years based on average points or something crazy like that. But the newgens are excellent.

Season 7 Summary ____________________ Domestic performances Another comfortable mid-table season saw us again qualify for the second phase group where we scored a disappointing 9 points from 10 games. We fell at the first hurdle in the cup 1/32. I feel like we're getting better but youth players in general are so inconsistent. In one match we'll score 4 goals from an xg of 3 and then struggle to score in the next 3 games with a combined xg of 1.5. Hopefully, with experience, this evens out as we become more comfortable as a top 6/7 side. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Squad review I thought I'd introduce a couple of youngsters who are members of the first-team squad to show the level we're currently operating at. The next Phillipe Albert, Rogier Parmentier has fully established himself as our best BPD. _________________ The next Emile Mpenza, Romain Chaix is on the verge of becoming our starting AF or IF. He struggles with injuries unfortunately so he needs to be handled with care. _________________ Timon Deceuninck is your classic player who rarely puts a foot wrong and scores a 7/10 most weeks. Equally adept at FB as he is at DM, his versatility is a real asset for our squad. _________________ I feel like these players are the absolute ceiling that our club can produce with the current finances and facilities. A squad full of players like this can easily get me into the top 5 and Europe, but to kick on and challenge for honours we desperately need funds and upgrades. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Youth An excellent youth intake saw us sign 6 elite talents, led by promising forward, Niels Deckers. We only have 2 players left from the original squad now and one of those is leaving soon. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finances Finances are still an issue, we're making a running loss of around 4m a season. Because of this, we were forced to part ways with our star player for the second time in 5 seasons. Christophe Leroy headed to Union SG for around 4m + a 50% sell-on clause. Despite our financial problems and the board insisting I sell players and/or clauses they still haven't negotiated a buyout for this 6 months on. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Other stuff ~ No upgrades ~ We were invited to tour England next pre-season as we're popular there apparently (probably due to me). According to the board, this could raise our profile and in turn, give us some more money. I'll try anything at this point. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Season 6 Summary Mid-table mediocrity! I feared the worst after the media had us at 1000/1 again, but, a comfortable season saw us safely mid-table for most of the campaign, we briefly even flirted with the top 5. We qualified for the second phase group where we finished second on goal difference, narrowly missing out on a European play-off. _______ We also made the semi-finals of the cup where we lost to Club Brugge over 2 legs. Next season, European qualification is a real possibility and also a necessity due to our finances (see below). ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Youth 5 elite talents, with better personalities this time around. Young striker Geoffroy Blancke looks particularly promising. Here he is 9 months on. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finances Just when I think I'm coming to grips with the finances in Belgium, they throw another spanner in the works. The board is building a new stadium, and we have to repay 275k a month for the loan to do so. We're already losing 2m a year now it'll be closer to 5m. I have to make Europe or sell my best prospects every season just to stand still, I also need lots of upgrades if I'm ever gonna build a Champions League winning team. We did get stadium naming rights of 14m over 10 years but that's only 1.4m per season compared to the 3.5m loan repayments. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Transfers and other stuff ~ We reached our 200th game in management ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Can you ask the board for more wages?

To get 101 points and not go up is brutal. With a year of growth for the players, there's no reason you can't do it again next season.

Season 5 Review Back to the top flight we go! Another excellent Division 2 campaign saw us in and around the automatic promotion spots all season, finally securing automatic promotion in the final round. It was less straightforward this time though with 4 points separating the top 5 teams. It was a battle for automatic promotion right up to the last weekend. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Youth Another intake that was labeled as excellent When the players arrived I was not disappointed 8 elite talents, led by star man Christophe Leroy. The only downside of the intake was that 9 of the players had an unambitious personality. This seems really high for 1 personality to dominate so much. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 'The Next'.... A feature that I've always loved while doing this challenge, is when the media dubs one of your newgens as 'the next'.... Right now in our squad, we have the next: Michel Preud'homme, Philippe Albert, Lorenzo Staelens and Emile Mpenza. I'd love to hear any of your players dubbed 'the next' Here's the next Philippe Albert who has firmly established himself at the heart of our defence _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Other stuff ~ No transfers in ~ A few transfers out due to the board giving me a negative transfer balance and then complaining that I have a negative transfer balance ~ No upgrades or coaching courses ~ We won our 3rd Manager of the Year award _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A great HOYD there, especially for a first season team

I'm terrible with tactics, I wouldn't know where to begin to analyse it! I usually pick a preset and tinker with it a little to fit my squad.

Very true about his personality. I don't play with wide CB's either so I'm currently playing him as a complete wing-back.