matta252

US Créteil-Lusitanos - France - Introduction / Season 23/24 Introduction I chose to make my first earnest attempt at this challenge in France because it is a nation I've enjoyed in the past and because Ligue 1 is at a level where you can enjoy some of the benefits of larger leagues (i.e. money, reputation to retain players) while also being a smaller pond to fool around in. After looking through teams promoted to the Championnat National, I chose to manage USCL because they were tied (I think) for the best facilities and their starting squad looked relatively well rounded. Definitely not the most challenging club available but, I was not feeling masochistic enough to dive into the full semi-professional, basic facilities, one CB in the squad experience for my first attempt. 23/24 Season The team managed to barely secure promotion in the first season. I had no expectation of reliably being able to pull it off, being a semi-professional team trying to place in the top two when there are four fully professional sharks in the league but, for most of the season it went very well. Choosing a club with a well rounded team was likely a smart move and we seemed to be a class about most of the other semi-professional clubs. Even the professionals weren't as dangerous as I predicted as Niort and FC Annecy seemingly stumbled pretty hard following relegation. Thanks to good fortune in coin-flip type matches and a relatively low number of injuries, we were firmly in the promotion hunt by December and were looking strong. Unfortunately we hit a SIGNIFICANT rough patch in March which threw our promotion into question. In the end however, a few wins to round off the season sent us ahead in the 6 team race for 2nd. This promotion obviously places the club in a great position going forward as now that we are (very likely) going fully-professional I can send the lads into the training mines full-time for those sweet green arrows. My nightmare was getting stuck as a semi-professional with aging players and difficult circumstances for developing the youth and thankfully that's been averted. Given the importance of the league this year, the French Cup was an afterthought in which we bombed out to a National 2 side. Youth After taking a look at the class of '23 when I took over, it seemed that the club was at least capable of producing some talents worth developing. The December preview was unfortunately nothing to write home about. Getting a good keeper to develop early is nice since they can take a while in the oven but, I would have liked to see a lot more green to kick things off. The intake itself looks much better than the preview suggested. Yes, the keeper came as promised but, there also came a healthy mix of high potential attacking, midfield, and defensive talents. I love reading these tables people make to document saves year on year, so here's the start of my own. Format stolen from Libbyshuss.

Can someone tell me the proper way to start this challenge in France? Since (I think) you can't immediately manage a National 2 team, do I choose a team promoted to National, or is there some work-around to manage in National 2?