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@XaW Someone has completed it with Mexico according to the leaderboard. I think I've got it working with the underlined ones below. The others are back up in case the database doesn't work. I'm on FM20. On the edited database, if there's no promotion to the lowest league, I load all but the lowest league, then there'll be a promotion there. I assume this is what others have done @darren1983 can you confirm this is okay? Oceania - Vanuatu, Tahiti, New Zealand North America - Costa Rica, Mexico South America - Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia Europe - Germany, Croatia, Denmark Asia - Qatar, China, UAE Africa - Egypt, South Africa, Ivory, Coast

Right. I let this challenge go, but you've inspired me so I'll have a go myself. However, my original goal was to complete it in each continent in different saves and that remains the main goal. I need to do North and South America and Oceania anyway. So I'll start there and see how my computer is running. If, say, after the second one it's lagging a lot I may have to give up. I will QR a lot as well. I also hope to complete with some countries that haven't been done before. I want to give myself options along the way, so I've mapped out 3 or 4 options for each continent for when I get there. I've tried to add the lower leagues, but it wasn't also possible with the edited databases. The only exception is I will (try to) finish the challenge in Germany which was always the original intention. I haven't done any research into the added databases, but have uploaded ones from people I've used before (mostly Riddler). The I'll add the following databases at the beginning, and plan to complete it in the following order: Oceania - New Zealand, Fiji , New Caledonia North America - Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras South America - Argentina, Colombia Africa - Egypt, Cameroon, Morocco, Ghana, Ivory Coast, South Africa Asia - North Korea, Australia, China Europe - Germany Let me know if you see any issues with any of those countries. I can always use a vanilla league if necessary along the way. I am running a small database to keep the computer sane.

Kelaa Sports - Maldives Seasons 6 - 10 Review The last 5 seasons has been one of gradual progress. Nothing much happened. Until now - the Board has finally agreed to take the club professional. Finally. Domestically we continue to dominate. I've been holidayed through whole chunks of the season as we're winning pretty much every game. The games we've been focusing on are the AFC Champions Leagues games. As per the last update, our coefficient become too high that we no longer qualified for the AFC Asian Cup. This cup was where we were generating most of our income, so as we moved into the AFC Champions League I was expecting progress to slow and I was right. In Season 7, 8 and 9 we were respectable in the group stage, picking up points, but finishing mostly 4th. Then finally in Season 10, we made it out of the group into the knockout. Ultimately we were knocked out in the round of 16. However, immediately after being knocked out we asked again to go professional and the board agreed. Whether it was making it out of the group stage (and the reputation boost), or the club's steady progress had tipped it over the line, I'm not sure. But, finally we will be able to offer proper contracts, rather than the non-contracts that we've been living on. I have a new found respects for contracts - it feels so nice to be able to sign them after 10 seasons. Division wise, the Dhevehi Premier League is now up to 17th in the Asian rankings and Maldives is 6th in the Asian coefficients - all coming from our team. We now get two teams directly into the AFC Champions League group stage. As mentioned there's not a massive amount of money from this though, but it'll help the other teams be able to attract better players. On the international front, nothing much as all has happened. The Maldives' ranking is about what we started - slightly lower in fact. Though Maldives did come quite close to qualifying for the Asian Cup, so maybe there's progress to come. We won't be focusing on international management for at least another 10 seasons. The run to the AFC Champions League knock outs in Season 10. After much asking, they finally agreed. I was starting to doubt whether it would ever happen. I was concerned the database hard coded the teams here as Semi-pro. One of my happiest moments in FM. And we can offer contracts. First one goes to our best player. A new stadium as well - with a capacity of a mighty 4,000. But with a current ticket price of 11, we can make 44,000 per home game if we fill it. That's a lot for a club like us. First of many takeovers. A nice 375k in the coffers. Other teams in Maldives I've started to check the state of the other teams in the league every 5 years and keeping records. To my suprise, when I checked some of the other teams in the league have gone professional before me some with a reputation of only 0.5. I note that all three who've gone pro and have made upgrades have made it into the continental competitions and have a relatively large stadium - which many teams from the capital share. And 2029/30 saw the first transfer fee paid by another team in the league - 8.5k from a 35 year old striker from Tanzania. Finances We currently have 2.45m in the bank but a million of this is going into Youth and Training facility upgrades. The vast majority of our income is coming from prize money which shouldn't change much in the coming years - domestic prize money should increase. The new stadium potentially puts gate receipts around the 1m per year, but that assumes we fill out the ground every game. Squad This save is starting to resemble a youth academy save. We've maxed out Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment so we are starting to produce some good talent. It's been increasingly more difficult to find foreign talent at our level of reputation (and on non-contracts) good enough to play with our academy players. Overall, this squad have been the trailblazers for Kelaa and Maldivian football. They're not the generation that will qualify for the World Cup or Asian Cup, but they might win an AFC Champions League, and they've taken the club up the rankings and laid the foundations. For example, Lisam Moose and Hasan Niyaz have been with me from the start and have made almost 250 league appearances. Diawara is banging in goals at a goal a game, and scoring over 50 a season. I think there might be a possibility of a 1,000 goal striker. Youth Intakes Some nice intakes over the last 5 years. The one below was by far the best. Hassan Mohamed is by far the best Maldivian newgen I've seen and genuinely not a bad talente. Anwar Mohamed should also turn into a good player. I wonder if either will see a move to Europe at some point? We've also had our first non-Maldivian come through but he wasn't any good. Also, one player came through with joint German/Maldivian nationality as well - I wonder which country's youth rating was used to generate him? The Next Step As mentioned above our next step is to max facilities, win the AFC Champions League and make money. The focus will continue to be on the academy. The transfer policy will be buy and sell, with a focus on trying to find the one player who could make us millions - likely through a clause.

Kelaa Sports - Maldives Seasons 3 - 5 Update Well our first goal was to dominate Maldivian football in the first 5 years, and after 5 years I think we can say we've achieved that - with 4 League titles and 3 Cup wins. We have all 11 players in the dream eleven. The main reason is the non-contracts. Most of the players in he league are on non-contracts, so we can take them easily. The only hiccup was getting knocked out the cup early in Season 4, then almost losing the league. We were heavily rotating for the AFC Asian Cup, and lost focus. At the halfway stage we were 11 points of New Radiant in 1st, but we pulled it back. Just. With 12 games to go our job security was "Insecure" and I was panicking a little. We have also made very good progress in the AFC Asian Cup and this has massively boosted our bank budget. In Season 4 (or halfway through season 3), we progressed to the Interzone final, where we lost to Johor Darul Ta'Zim from Malaysia. This was a good run and we made around 400k in the process. However, winning the Interzone final is lucrative - the winner goes to the overall final where just the appearance money is over half a million. Still, good money earned towards our goal of becoming professional. In Season 5, we did manage to go one step further, making it to the overall final. We were hammered 5 - 1 by Al-Wathba from Syria, but appearing in the final made us around 750k. The prize money was 500k and we also made 250k from gate receipts. As we only have a stadium of 1,000, luckily for us the AFC Asian Cup offers joint gate receipts, like the FA Cup in England. We managed to draw a couple of teams who drew in 50,000 for home games and made lots of money that way. We now have 1.6m in the bank, and I'm hoping we can go professional soon. Our reputation has gone up to 1 star and we are the most reputable club in the Maldives. Unfortunately, we still can't offer even part-time contracts. We're not losing our domestic players but our foreign signings are being poached by foreign teams on a consistent basis. In the 2 transfer windows, we spend the 20k on a World scouting budget, bring in 5 foreigners on frees, then they get slowly poached. Then we repeat in the next window. On the domestic player front, our Maldivian players are starting to develop. We're almost maxed out in Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment, so it's starting to look like a Youth Academy challenge. At certain points we couldn't find any foreigners good enough, as our reputation wasn't high enough but our youth players were good quality. Nothing too exciting on the international front. The AFC Asian cup is where the money is. Money Update A balance of 1.6m look nice. You can see that almost all the money comes from the AFC Asian Cup prize money and gate receipts. "Unfortunately", our progress has boosted our coefficients, meaning the league winner goes into the AFC Champions League instead. In the Europe this would be the dream, but there's very little money for making the group stage in Asia. The problem with that is we're probably not good enough to make the group stage unless we get an easy draw. There's more prize money than the AFC Asian Cup but only if you reach the knock out stages. Also, there's no split gate receipts (I don't think), so I don't think we can make much money. Would the board allow me to come second in the league so I can enter the AFC Asian Cup? I'm not sure. We have one more season in the Asian Cup, so we need another 750k, or progress might halt. The Squad Starting to look more and more domestic player based as highlighted above. Lisam Moosa is our (and the Maldives) star player. Mohamed Hussain came through the youth ranks last year and looks a good talent for this level. Hopefully more to come. Next stage As per the original post, we now move on to stage 2 of the plan - to build up club up to be the best in Asian. In the plan, we have this down for 15 seasons. I'd thought we'd be professional by now, so 15 years might be a bit ambitious. Breaking down this stage more a) Go professional (5 years). Keep doing what we're doing. Limit spending. Make runs in Asia. b) Once professional, start investing in facilities to develop youth. Aim to get to good facilities in 5 - 10 years (probably not going to max these for a long time unless we sell a clause) c) Once the reputation is high enough, we might be able to make money through transfers. Bring in some wonderkids from Asia and Africa, then sell them on with % profit clauses. hopefully one of these will make a lot of money d) Then, use the money to bring in the best foreign players, alongside our talented Maldivians, and win the AFC Champions League.

Just to confirm - If playing with edited database you need those loaded when you set up the game? You can't add them along the way? If so, in the Vietnam save I'd have to stick with the Vanilla databases. Hmmm, you've got me thinking about it now :-) I'm thinking if I started, what would the six countries be - as you'd have to have them loaded (if edited) Who's the team in Curaçao with Colombian newgens? That sounds a lot of fun. Colombia was probably going to be my next country.

Well, best of luck to you and your computer! I think it's a fantastic challenge. Do you have a powerful computer? I still have the compelted Vietnam finished. I loaded up Colombia as well just in case I wanted to move on to there in the same save. The problem is I have quite an old computer and it's slowing down a fair bit after only 16 seasons. Assuming 15 seasons per club, that's 90 seasons. The furthest I've gone with a save in this version is 2055. It's just about playable but I had to restart the computer twice a day. I think I'll to doing it with 5 different saves, but the best of luck to you!

Kelaa Naalhi Sports - Season 2 - 2021 - Madives - Maldivian Dhivehi League - 1st So our first year in the top flight, and our first division title. In the end it looked comfortable but we were neck and neck with Club Eagle for most of the season. With 10 games to go we had a six point lead. Then we played Club Eagles at home 4 days before the cup final against the same team. We decided to risk it and rotated the whole squad, and lost the game. But we then went on a good run and clinched the title with 2 games to spare. We then went on to win the cup final to complete the double, and two of the two criteria needed to complete the challenge. This was much quicker than I was expecting, and the other 8 are clearly going ot take much, much longer. Part of the reason is the contract system. As mentioned in the previos post, players are mostly on non-contracts, meaning we can poach them. One one issue is our reputation was still low, so many players wouldn't join us. This will likely be the last time I post a summary of the league season, as hopefully (for us), it will be domination and not very interesting, On the international side side the Maldives international team fell from 161st to 173rd in the rankings. However, they did win the South Asian Football Federation Championship (SAFF), against the likes of India and Afghanistan. Not the most prestigeous trophy but it's a good start. On the Dvision side, the Dhivehi League dropped 5 places to 46th and Maldives fell down the Asian coefficients from 26th to 30th. This means the league has the league champion (us) moving into the AFC Asian Cup Group stage and Club Eagle going into the first qualifying round. As we are a winter league, the qualification places change midway through the seaosn in January, so we don't know what places we're fighting for at the beginning of the season. As mentioned before I see the AFC Asian Cup as one of our priorities in the early days - money, coefficient points etc. I most likely won't update for a couple of seasons, unless something interesting happens such as a run in the AFC Asian Cup. The next 2 - 3 seasons are to exert dominance in the Maldives. First league title of many I hope. The Squad The squad has many similar faces to the first season, as we didn't bring that many players in. Defender Hassan Shafiu was the fans' player of the year. The defender scored the 9 goals and had the highest average rating. We need to work on the squad much more. Bring in young Maldivian players and get the best foreign players we can afford. Youth wise, two nice talents came through the youth system. Mohamed Hassan is a decent left back, so I'll put into the first team next year. I have already had 2 upgrades in Youth Recruitment and Junior Coaching so I will run this similar to the Youth Academy challenge. Money We end the season with 96k in the bank. Last part I discussed how important money is going to be. In original plan, I put seasons 5 to 20 as the time when we will focus on money. But I feel we are a bit ahead of schedule so I'm already looking ahead. Below are the income and expenditure for the last season. For once in FM, my club made money without me selling players. Over the season we made a profit of 110k. Income wise, gate receipts were at 90k. Given our average attendance was 785 (out of a stadium of 1,000) that's not going to go up much - maybe to 110k next season. There's also the AFC Asian Cup matches - with a guarantee of two home games. There was also the prize money of 75k from the league and cup. hopefully we'll get the same next season alongside some Asian Cup money. It's winning the whole thing which is the goal, something I think we can achieve. Winning the whole thing would net around 1.4m, and even semi-finals would be around 250k. That would surely be enough to go professional. One other source of income is a new stadium. the current one is only 1,000, whilst other teams have a 10,000. A stadium of 10,00 would be a game changer. On the spending side, it's mostly wages, or specifically non-contract fees. Hopefully this year I'll be able to start offering real contracts. However, this will be much more expensive, so I'm tempted to to keep them on non-contracts until the AI starts poaching my players. There's also scouting costs. Over the summer in July I'll spend one the expensive scouting packages to try and get some good foreign players in. Overall, if I can keep spending down I think I'm going to make around 100 - 200k a year. I'm going to hoard this. First Game in the top flight - social media We just got promoted and won 1 - 0..... Challenge Progress (2/10)

Already exists. I was tempted but wanted to do this outside of Europe, as I manage there so often.

Kelaa Naalhi Sports - Season 1 - 2020 - Malvides - Maldivian Second Division - 1st (Promoted) So, the first season in this challenge. We went up fairly easily in the end, but the first two months took a lot of work bringing in players. We're semi-professional, but can't sign anything but non-contracts. This has pros and cons. On the pro side we can bring anyone in for free who wants to join (who's a free agent or on a non-contract with another club), then see what their CA is then keep them or move them on. It's a bit like trialling, but generally we couldn't bring in the non-contracts players from other clubs on trials. On the con side, the AI can poach our players. They don't seem very activie in this division though we lost a couple of foreign players. We also brought in over 100 trials to see what's what and eventually we found the right group of players. An interesting quirk in the database loaded (I note this is not the case in real life). The league is a winter league, meaning the season starts in June. But then there's a 2 month winter break and there's only two weeks between the end of one seaosn and the start of the next season. This means the fixture list looks like a summer league. This should suit us well for Asian qualification. Another quirk is the seaosn starts in early June but the transfer window doesn't open until July 1st. At the strat of the season this meant we had 4 non-greyed out players. I do find it interesting managing these things. Thinking long term, I'm struggling to see where money will come from. There's 43k from winning the top division, a total of 15k for winning the cup, around 50k in gate receipts and maybe 10k in sponsorship. Hopefully this will increase along the way. I'm being very careful with the non-contracts. Strangely, you can have two very similar players and one might want €100 per appearance whilst another might want €10, so I'm being careful there. Lots of cups in the winter brings in a few thousand. But all that together probably own't be enough to go professional, and I can sign contracts yet so transfers fee will be small or nothing. The league winner goes in the 1st preliminary round of the AFC Champions League, but I believe the prize money doesn't start until the group stage (then only 39k per victory). Also, I can't see us reaching the group stage. One possible path I can see is winning the cup puts us into the AFC Asian Cup. From my time managing in Indonesia, this cup is winnable. It would be trying to win the cup, but then purposely not winning the league (assuming that's an option). Squad wise, it took a wise. The best players last season were Stephane Bougha and Soloman Kanform. Hassan Waheed looks our best prospect at the moment. Money is going to be an issue. €86 for the cup prize money....

Kelaa Naalhi Sports - Maldives Welcome to the Maldives. For the first try at this challenge I've chosen the Maldives. I originally looked at Tajikistan as foreign players can gain nationality after 3 years, but they don't start their season until March. The preliminary rounds of the AFC Champions League are usually in January so I thought the AI might struggle with fitness. Still, it would be an interesting save. I chose the Maldives due to their decent youth rating (50), and well, it's the Maldives. In this long winter, some sun will be much appreciated. The Maldives is an archipelagic nation with a population of just over half a million. In the version of the game I'm playing, the top division, the Dhivehi League, has 10 teams with each team playing each other 4 times for a total of 36 games. In the game, the current league champions are Club Eagles, who hail from the capital of Male. In the Maldives we decided to take over Kelaa Naalhi Sports, a team from the capital of Male. I couldn't find too much about the club. There is more information about the Futsal team online, which is where I've taken the team logo from. After this challenge hopefully the world will know more about Kelaa Naalhi Sports and Maldivian football. We start with 36k in the bank and a wage budget of 12,778. The squad. All players are on non-contracts. The Maldivian Dhivehi League is ranked 41st in Asia Their current FIFA ranking is 161st. in game their ranking is also 161st. This save will obvously be a long term one. The plan is something like: Part 1 (5 years) - Dominate Maldivian Football Part 2 (15 years) - Make lots of money through transfers and prize money in the Champions League. Use the money to max facilities. - Success should boost the nation's coefficient and reputation naturally Part 3 (30 years) - Develop the league by - 1) Continuing my club success, 2) Loan Farming, 3) Selling players domestically - Develop the national team by - 1) Good performances to boost reputation and ranking, 2) Facilities in the country, 3) Convincing players to repsent our nation (if applicable) Is 50 years too ambitious? I can't wait to get started, This should be fun.

Leaderboard will follow here. Extra information for choosing your country So far only Asia is available as this is where I knew I wanted to do the first attempt. The below i created by looking at the editor (for years to nationality) and trialling different databases. If you see any mistakes please let me know. Note- these were made using databases by Riddler and Timo. Tajikistan, with the 3 years to nationality, looks really interesting. Asia

The Build a Nation - Club/Country Challenge Introduction The aim of the challenge is to take one of the minnows of world football and build them up or even turn them into a footballing powerhouse. Choose a nation outside the top 50 of the current FIFA rankings. Then choose a previously unplayable club from that nation and lead club and country up the rankings to glory. To complete the challenge you must achieve the following 10 criteria: Club Honours - Win the top domestic league - Win the domestic main cup competition - Win the champions league of the continent your club is based in - Have the club's reputation be in the top 5 of all clubs in the continent Division Honours - Have your domestic league's reputation be in the top 5 of all leagues in the continent - Have your country's coefficient be in the top 5 of all nations in the continent Country Honours - Have your country reach the knock out stages of the World Cup - Have your country reach the Quarter Finals of the continental championships - Have your country move up 40 places in the World Rankings - Have a regen national team player score 75 international goal Available Leagues and Databases The available leagues to play are any where the country is outside the top 50 of the current FIFA rankings. For the current FIFA rankings, please see the official FIFA rankings here, not the in game ones. Note - use the FIFA rankings as at the starting date of your save. Some of these nations are included in the base game (e.g. Indonesia) but for the majority you will need to download a database as this challenge is focusing on the minnows of the footballing world. If you want to focus on leagues in the original database please see the FM24 Global (Less England) Small Club to Big Club Challenge (I don't want to take away from that challenge). I personally use the databases from Riddler and Timo, but any are fine as long as they haven't been unfairly edited to give the nation a boost. The Set up - As you are most likely using an edited database, load down to at least the second tier in this database (you can go further if you wish). If there's only one league in the database then use that. - You can choose the size of the database and what other leagues you load. You can just load the leagues from your chosen nation if you wish. Adding other leagues in the Custom Database option might help depending on your nation - e.g, other countries and leagues in the game might produce regens with your country's nationality or second nationality. Adding these leagues as View Only rather than Playable will help with game speed or you can add the players based in nation and region in the Custom set up. - For advanced options, no use of the in-game editor is allowed and you must enable attribute masking. - All others are optional. ADVICE - I'd highly recommend clicking the "Add players to playable teams" options. This will generate players at the beginning of the save for all teams in the league. MORE ADVICE - I'd also recommend simming the database for a season or two, making sure all seems to be working fine. Choosing a team - Use the same process as per the excellent Youth Academy challenge. - In short add a manager at the start of the game called holiday man. Then holiday one season to the reset date of the league. Then choose a team in the second division that has just been promoted (to see this go to season preview and you'll see a "P" next to some teams). Or, if you only have one division in the database, choose a team that has just been promoted. Or if more than 2 divisions go to the lowest loaded league. - As you are probably using an edited database, it could be that no team is promoted. In that case, you can choose to take over a team who is in the bottom three on the season preview odds (this gives you a choice). - When you add your manager, choose the lowest possible experience (sunday league) and no coaching badges. Your manager can have any nationality and second nationality you wish. Then retire holiday man. - For the International side, you do not have to achieve the goals whilst manager of the national side. As long as your nation achieves the specified goals along the way, that's fine. I know many players, including myself, don't particularly enjoy the international side of the game. I will say it will be easier to complete the achievements if you manage the national team. - In order to become international manager, the rules are flexible. Ideally, you become the manager naturally. However, sometimes this can take years/decades. Therefore, you may choose to add a second manager to manage the national team. Or you could add a second manager as manager of the national team, then resign, and then apply for the job with your original manager. If you get sacked, I believe it can be very difficult to get the job again so you'll probably have to add another manager. Finishing the Challenge - The challenge is complete when you have achieved all the 10 conditions listed at the top of this thread. - If you are fired you can apply for a job at any other team in the league when it becomes available (no need to start at the bottom again). However, you cannot get intentionally fired in order to build up another team. This is meant to be a one club challenge. Posting Guidelines - I'm pretty flexible here. This is your story so post what you see as appropriate and interesting to read. - As for general guidelines: - When you start the challenge, please post a screenshot of the club and country you are taking over. Include details such as league ranking, country's current international ranking etc. Post a screenshot of your manager showing the experience and coaching badges. Finally, post a screenshot of the nation's current FIFA rankings. - You can post updates when you see fit. I'd recommend either at the end of each season or when interesting things happen. It might be you post a few seasons at a time, especially early on when not much happens. - Each update, post the new rankings for Club/Division and Country. Again, choose how you want to do this. Below I have given an example. Club Update Division/Club Update Challenge Progress Finally, good luck to everyone. I hope we hear some interesting stories of taking the minnows up the World Ranking!

Thanks. Other managers have done it much quicker than me though. I really wanted to do Japan, but am using FM20 which doesn't have the official leagues. I could have used a database but wanted to do a league no one had completed. It's a long grind. Took me 8 seasons and lots of improvements before I saw progress.

Thanks. That was much tougher than South Africa. There, once you became the best team it was pretty quick to win the Champions League. Might continue this save on to build the nation up.

Lam Dong - Season 17 - 2036 - Vietnam - Wake UP 247 V. League 1 (Tier 1) - 1st - AFC Champions League - WINNERS! CHALLENGE COMPLETE! Oh man. What a season. We won the AFC Champions League and therefore have complete the challenge. I'm playing on FM20 if that's important. The number one emotion is relief. I've come so close the last few seasons, so it feels nice to finally get over the line. This challenge tests you so much along the way. I've been totally obsessed with it over the Christmas period. I've now completed Africa and Asia. The next continent will be North or South America I think. I see Colombia hasn't been done yet so that's high on the list. AFC Champions League - Winners We drew a medium to tough group with Ulsan Hyundai, Shanghai SIPG and Hokkaido Sapporo, and took 7 points from the first 3 games. We were then 3 - 0 up in the 4th games, then Hokkaido scored 3 goals in the last 5 minutes. A loss away to Ulsan left the group wide open as we travelled away to Shanghai SIPG. A tight game saw Lukas Etterlin score the winner and put us through top of the group. This season really was about Lukas Etterlin, and all action seemed to revolve around him. As mentioned in the previous update, he started the season at left wing, but things weren't clicking. We then put him back up front, and he then went to score more than a goal a game including the winner to put us through top of the group. Finishing top of the group, we were hoping for a good draw and Melbourne City was pretty good, and we battered them at home to go through. Then it was time for Jeonbuk - we seem to play them every year - three years in a row to be precise. Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors had knocked us out twice in recent years and won the competition numerous times. However, we enacted revenge again, and brushed them aside fairly easily. The semis against Shangdong Luneng was a tight affair. In the away we were pretty dominant but they hit us on the break twice to win 2 - 1. The AI had started playing 2 up front against me, and it was proving really effective on the break with quick strikers. In the second leg Lukas Etterlin stepped up again. He scored a penalty in the first minute to settle the nerves, then again inthe 23rd minute, before completing his hattrick in injury time. In the final we faced Al-Sadd from Qatar, a team who had won the Champions League 6 times in the last 10 years. Featuring a load of foreigners who had acquired Qatari passports (3 years needed), an old Bakaya Saka had scored the winner in the final last year. In the home leg, it was somehow goal less - Lukas Etterlin hit the post 4 times and they had 5 clear cut chances, but then we had a man sent off in the 57th minute. They peppered our goal but it finished 0 - 0. Then, disaster - we lost 8 players who went to the AFF Championship with Vietnam. We managed to put out a team, but our bench was full of U19 youth players. I genuinely thought we had no chance, but then Lukas Etterlin made his presence felt again. A 5th minute penalty was given to us and a golden chance for the away goal. Etterline stepped up and....put it wide. However, he scored a first time half volley in the 24th minute after a knock down from Nguyen Van Hien. Al-Sadd drew level in 49th minute with a header, but then Lukas Etterlin scored a header of his own following a cross from Truong Tron Sang. They scored a penalty to equalize and it was 2 - 2, but we were ahead on away goals. They absolutely dominated us for 30 minutes, and I was struggling to watch. But then he popped up again, laying on an assist for Nguyen Van Hien to make it 3 - 2. It was all over, and the trophy was our's. Had I been Al-Sadd I would have been gutted. Not quite an FMing but they deserved to win. Elsewhere in the League The league was won again, but only by 3 points this time. We also won the cup and the Super Cup. In total we won the league 6 times and the Bamboo Airways Cup 4 times. More on Lukas Etterlin As mentioned above this season was all about Lukas Etterlin. He is the most memorable player I've had in the game even though I've only managed him for 2 season. Last season he was a bit inconsistent up front so I thought I'd put him on the left wing and I have another good striker to go up front. however, it wasn't working, so we moved him back up front. After a poor start to the season he then started firing at a goal a game. With 5 star ability and plenty more to go, he's far too good for this level, and he knows it. I rejected an offer for him from Hoffenheim and he kicked the toys out the pram. Luckily he was on a long contract with an extension clause. He missed training after staying out late to enjoy the Dalat nightlife 4 times. During this time he also acquired Vietnamese nationality. I'm quite tempted to continue the save, become Vietnam manager and see if he'll change nationality. He also did something I'd never seen before - scored a penatly from a rebound. The Final Squad In the end I don't think the squad had any big weaknesses. Normally, with these saves, you lack in one position. Perhaps midfield we lacked during the save, but we have a couple of young talents coming through. Lukas Etterlin was undoubtedly the player that got us through. We had a team to compete in the knock out stages of the Champions League, but his goals were what helped us win it. It's strange. In my South Africa Youth Academy challenge I had a similar player come through at the same time - young foreign striker (Jamie Wood from England), who helped us win the Champions League. Player Records Youth - for what it's worth

Lam Dong - Season 16 - 2035 - Vietnam - Wake UP 247 V. League 1 (Tier 1) - 1st - QF in Champions League Again, I thought we were going to do it. We drew a tough group in the AFC Champions League - Suwon Bluewings, Guangzhou Evergrande and Yokohama Marinos. Winning awy to Guangzhou in the first game set us up and we qualified easily in second place behind Bluewings. In the second round we faced Jeonbuk, the team that beat us in the Semis last year, and the team that has won the whole thing three times in the last six years. But this time, we outplayed them over two legs and took our revenge. Again, I started to believe. We avoided Suwon in the Quarters and I thought we had a favourable draw against Pohang Steelers. We went 1 - 0 in the home leg and whilst pushing for more goals, they hit us on the break. And again. And again. In the second leg they went 1 - 0 but we pulled one back, then they went 2 - 1 up and we pulled one back. Going into the second half we had the momentum and needed one more goal to face extra time. Then they had two men sent off with 25 minutes to go. And, well, I didn't have another highlight for the rest of the game. Might need to look at my tactics there. Still, again, it's progress. One or two more steps up in quality and I feel we're there. Vietnam are now up to 5th in the coefficients. There's 3 Vietnamese teams in the group stage of the AFC Champions League. Won the league and cup double again. The depth is coming to the squad though we still lack in midfield. Etterlin played up front this season but I'm going to retrain him as a left winger. He didn't score enough for me, and Van Buu seems more of a natural scorer. Etterlin already wants more wage than we can afford. But I put him on a 3 + 2 deal last season. TRan Tien Thanh will step into the first team this year, and he seems our best long term central defender. Those two moves should see us take a step up in quality. Have spent some money upgrading Training and Youth Facilities. It didn't look like the best intake from the youth intake preview. But there were two or three players who look good, and have okay personalities and determination. Pham Manh Hung went to 5 star potential so I think he and Tien Thanh are the starting centre backs in 2 or 3 years.

Cononor Grant. Wow. Best I've seen at that age I think. Those mentals.

Lam Dong - Season 15 - 2034 - Vietnam - Wake UP 247 V. League 1 (Tier 1) - 1st Close to completion! I really thought we were going to do it. We won the league and cup double again fairly easily. We've now got enough strength and depth in the team that we can rotate in the league and still do well. Also, AFC Champions League qualification now goes down to 3rd place so we don't necessarily need to win the league. In the AFC Champions we had a really good run to the semi finals. We easily beat Wuhan away in the first group stage game and it was clear we'd stepped up a level. By the 4th game we were through with Jeonbuk topping the group. We faced last year's losing finalists Shangdong Luneng in the second round. It was a tight encounter and could have gone either way, but better finishing put us through. In the quarters we faced Japanese team Kawasaki Frontole, but the Asian games took our 5 best players. We somehohw won the first leg 2 - 0, then our players returned for the second leg (though they were tired), and we held on. In the Semis, it was Jeonbuk again, who have won the competition twice in the last 5 years. We edged a close first leg 1 - 0, but then we had both our midfielders suspended for the second leg. It was close again, but they went ahead in the tie late in the second half then scored two on the break. Still, overall I feel we can now compete at this level. We need a bit more quality in the team and a bit of luck and I feel the end is in sight. We had an interesting youth intake, with the first two players from outside Vietnam, plus a Vietnamese with French nationality. Luka Etterlin looks a great prospect at this level. He's already on a nice long contract so hopefully we can hold on to him. We also got some youth in midfield. Much need.

Won't the club put in extra funds when the club goes too far into the red - as per in England? Or is it they will but won't agree to any improvements?

I think I read this before. What are the financial problems in Belgium?

Lam Dong - Season 13 & 14 - 2032 & 2033 - Vietnam - Wake UP 247 V. League 1 (Tier 1) - 2nd and 1st Season 13 Played this season fairly quickly as we weren't in Asia - despite coming 2nd the previous year. We lost the league to Ha Noi FC on the last day of the season and then lost the cup final to Ha Noi FC. Vietnam's coefficients have improved so Asian qualification will go down to 4th place in the league next season Season 14 We ran away with the league as Ha Noi FC didn't dominate the league as per the previous two seasons. Even with rotation in the league, it was fairly comfortable. I feel we went up a step this year. The season prediction jumped from 11th out of 14 to 3rd, and our board's expectation went through mid-table to qualify for the AFC Champions League through the League. We'd put some young players with talent into the first team. This makes us weaker in the short term but means they will develop quicker. We'll do the same next year, and we finally had a decent midfielder come through the youth intake. In the AFC Champions League we put up another good showing but weren't good enough to go through the group stage. It was frustrating as the away game against Adelaide United I had 7 players away on international duty. A draw in that game would have seen us through. Still, I feel progress and I think we should start qualifying for the knock out soon. I think in a couple of seasons, we'll start having a chance at finishing this.

Thanks for that. I see what you mean. I wanted to say that for this challenge you almost definitely need to add additional databases. There's another challenge on here (called the Global Small Club to Big Club) that doesn't allow extra databases. In the opening post I'll make it clearer. Thanks again.

Oooh sorry. The guy's a beast for this level. Even got van Persie's hair.

I have an idea for a challenge and wanted to get some feedback before posting. I'm going to do this challenge anyway myself, but I enjoy posting and reading other people try challenges, so would like to do it here. I've been looking for this challenge on the forum but can't find what I'm looking for. There are some that come close and this challenge is heavily influenced by other challenges. The closest one I can find to this challenge is - link. However, these threads seem dead, they only seem to include the main databases and the challenges are divded into different continents. The challenge would be called Build an Obscure Nation - Club/Country Challenge. This is based on: - I really like building up small clubs - like the Dafuge challenge - I really like managing in smaller countries - like the San Marino challenge - I'd ideally like to do the Global Small Club to Big Club Challenge, but this one doesn't allow additional databases, and I really want to take an obscure nation The challenge would look something like (more details would obviously follow) - Choose a nation outside the top 150 of the current Fifa Rankings - link. You will need to install additional databases. - Choose a previously unplayable team from this nation (as per Youth Academy/Dafuge) - Aim for success at both club and country. There are 10 criteria that need to be complete to finish the challenge Club - Win the top flight league of that country - Win the main cup - Win the champions league of that continent - Win the Super Cup (or continental equivalent) - Have the most reputable league in the continent - Be top of the continent coefficients - To add - To add Country - Qualify for the knock out stage of the continental championships (e.g. Euros) - Qualify for the knock out stage of the World Cup I've made it mostly club based challenges as I'm not a big fan of international management. Also, I've not made it to win the World Cup as again I'm not a big fan of international management. Also, you only have 1 chance every 4 years. But I may change this. Any fedback would be most welcome, especially around the 10 criteria. My current idea is to start with Bhutan, but I'm going to load a few databases and see what's what before deciding.

Lam Dong - Season 12 - 2031 - Vietnam - Wake UP 247 V. League 1 (Tier 1) - 2nd Well. That didn't go very well. Because of Vietnam's poor coefficients, last year's league win meant we still had to enter the AFC Champions League at the 1st prelimary stage. We managed wins over Yangon, Selangor and Urawa Red Diamonds to qualify for the group stage. We drew a tough group with strong teams Shanghai SIPG and FC Seoul alongside Chiangrai from Thailand. We didn't embarass ourselves, finishing 3rd, and it's more points for the coefficients. On the domestic season, things went wrong for the first time in the save. Focusing on the AFC Champions League meant we were heavily rotating in the league. Alongside this, our 442 formation wasn't working, and Ha Noi FC were almost untouchable for the whole season, so we finished 2nd. The other qualification place for the Champions League was in the cup so I focused there. We managed to knock out Ha Noi FC and just had to beat Nam Dinh in the final, a straight forward game. However, the game was scheduled during an international break, meaning we had to play a greyed out keep in goal and didn't have our 5 best players. We then missed a penaly, had a man sent off then lost on penalties. So we will not be in Asia next season. Oh, this game. Next update in 2 seasons as no point updating next season.