keeper#1
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Posts posted by keeper#1
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Summer 2029 Musings and Transfer Notes
The Lens summer was an interesting one with the aforementioned approach by Lazio and Olivier turning down the offer even at the hit it took to his personality. The 2028-29 Ligue 1 Manager of the Year wanted to stay at Lens and see the project through. Ligue 1 had grown in both stature, as the league saw a 1% bump in TV revenue, and European standing when it came to Champions League places. Olivier was able to able to keep top goalscorer Reto Braun at the club for another season. The media expect to see a lot from the 19-year old this season putting in with the likes of Mbappe and Balogun. On the whole, the media expect Lens to be in the mix for the European places but do not expect them to duplicate last season's runner-up finish. The opinion in the media is reflected by the lack of splashes that Lens made in the transfer market. The club only made two permanent transfers and one of those was activating the optional fee clause in loanee Mika Faye's loan deal. The other deal saw a bit of playmaking ability added to the defensive midfield as Spainard Jose Domingo Linares (DNA Score: 182) was brought in from Real Madrid's reserve team on a free. A steal for the club. The rest of the transfer window saw Lens looking around at a lot of players but not finding the right deal for them. The Lens Academy continues to build with some players from the reserve team out on loan to get some first-team experience before, hopefully, joining the senior team next season.
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2 minutes ago, Hootieleece said:
Where is Personality listed on the Profile? I can't find it.
In Rensie's skin, it's by the manager name
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1 hour ago, Shrewnaldo said:
Huh, I've never noticed that personality impact from declining interviews before. Is that a new thing?
Good work on turning down Lazio though. Not a fan, regardless of the lack of completed objectives.
I've had it happen to me a few times in 23 as well. I'd rather see it go from 'balanced' to 'loyal' than 'unambitious'
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Sorry Lazio!
Let's take a look at the objectives:
Olivier has not won the Coupe de France or Ligue 1
Olivier has sold a player for, at least, 1,000,000 Euros
Olivier has NOT had five academy players play 2,000 minutes in the same season
Olivier has had an academy player make a Senior National Team appearance
Olivier has his UEFA A and UEFA Pro Licenses
Oliver has reached the Europa League or Europa Conference League Phase
He has only achieved four of the six objectives and for those reasons, his job at Lens is not finished so he rejected Lazio without even taking an interview and took the personality hit to "unambitious" by declining the interview.
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39 minutes ago, warlock said:
The eternal conundrum! Good luck with the next attempt
Rennes broke the PSG machine and won the title in the 2027-28 season. It can be done. I just don't have the right squad balance, at present, to do it.
Rennes have quietly built the second best club in France.
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6 hours ago, Shrewnaldo said:
Seems a bit odd that the NxGn player of the year 'only' has 4* potential in a Ligue 1 club
He could have a low PA ceiling. One of those players who peaks early and then never finds that next gear to become truly elite. But, right now, he's going to be one of the first names in the starting XI so he will continue to develop and, hopefully, grow.
6 hours ago, MattyLewis11 said:A fellow FM'er using the DNA Pathway spreadsheet, things you love to see!
You have a few good players in that intake, I already like the look of Schultz.
How do you think you will approach recruitment, what is the strategy to improve the quality of the squad ready for UCL?
The strategy is to see what players we have ready to make the jump up to the senior team and give them the first crack at becoming members of the senior team. If we have a position where we don't have someone ready, I'll look for players from the outside. The final pathways sheet is broken down into senior team, reserve team, and U19 team which is why there is some overlap with the pathways as some players get stuck behind other players. Not all of those players are with the club especially in the reserve team as some of them are out on loan with other clubs where they could get playing time.
Lens is two seasons away from moving into a new stadium so I need to have some level of fiscal responsibility so we don't go deep into debt and be forced to sell players.
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2028-29 End of Season Update
Defender of the Year LB/CB Mika Faye (on loan from Barcelona): Faye was a very versatile defender for us this season. Can play both the left back and center back positions. Started to take over the starting left back job from Antonee Robinson toward the end of the season. We may need to activate his 7.75 optional loan transfer fee before the end of his loan. Need to see how other priorities in the transfer window shake out.
Midfielder of the Year DM Fabian: The age-less Fabian put in a great final season for Lens in the 28-29 season. I've already secured a younger replacement for the player with the highest Lens DNA Score at the club. Not the greatest stats with six goals and one assist on the season. But his experience was vital for our defense this season.
Forward of the Year CF Reto Braun: The 2028-29 NextGen Wonderkid of the Year led the squad with 17 goals in all competitions including 15 goals in Ligue 1 play which was good enough for 5th in the league. At just 18 years old, this rapidly developing talent will be a player for us to build around in the coming seasons before one of the major clubs come in for his services.
The Story
Lens rode a 16-match unbeaten streak in the middle of the season to finish the season in second place but ten points behind league champion PSG. Good enough to skip over the Europa League and go from the Europa Conference to the Champions League for the 29-30 season. The question will be "are we ready for Champions League football?" We have some players who are getting on the wrong side of 30 years old and are looking for new challenges and we need to see if our internal options are good enough before we go out and look at options outside the club. Here's what our priorities are in the transfer market:
- A deep-lying playmaker to replace Fabian - this priority has already been filled
- Playmaking right winger
- Figuring out if Faye stays or goes back to Barcelona
- Center back depth
- Center forward depth
Here's how the Lens Academy stands after two seasons of using the @MattyLewis11Ajax Way Methodology
The kids seemed to do okay this season
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2029 Youth Intake
Full Youth Intake Average DNA Score: 121.17
CB Timothy Rey 29A (DNA Score: 120)
GK Noah Caron 29B (DNA Score: 102)
AM Gregory Schultz 29C (DNA Score: 152)
AM Anthony Geay 29D (DNA Score: 140)
RW Laurent Soler 29E (DNA Score: 116)
As I am trying to turn Lens into a French version of the Ajax Academy, I am including the DNA Score of the entire class and the top five players of each class using @MattyLewis11 DNA methodology.
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That spreadsheet:
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Beat Caen: BOOOO!!!!!!
Lost to Lens: YAY!!!!!!!!
Keep it up. You can keep the club up for another season.
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5 hours ago, Swaban said:
Are there any particular books you'd recommend, either about Ajax, or football in general
This was once a book but now the full document can be found online: http://laderasoccer.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AFC-Ajax-Youth-Program-Guidelines.pdf
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4 hours ago, Jogo Bonito said:
Good form there, well positioned to challenge (most of) the top clubs. Enjoy your days at sea!
There was nothing "enjoyable" about them. 40 mph (64 kph) winds on deck and 10 foot (3 m) waves at sea. Fortunately, the ship is big and had stabilizers so never really felt the ship swaying. If you stayed closer to the center of the ship, you felt it less since the ship is a pendulum in the waves. At night, the waves just rock you to sleep. Now at the airport lounge hoping the weather cooperates enough so I can fly home.
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2028-29 Midseason Update
I've spent the last two days on my cruise stuck at sea due to the weather. My stop in the Bahamas was cancelled because of high winds (34+ mph) and rolling seas. All of the beach activities were moved inside but they didn't lower the volume so the main atrium is very loud. I don't do very loud so I've spent most of the day in my stateroom playing FM while watching it rain. It's just like home!
Defender of the First Half RB Sergino Dest
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Well done first season. Can't wait to see how much Ajax improves in season two.
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I hope so too and I haven't even spent all of the funds generated from the sale either.
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@MattyLewis11 There's a decent chance that I'll be in Amsterdam in late February/early March. If I am, I'll let you know and try to hook you up. Ajax is high up on my places to visit too.
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Summer 2028 Transfer Window and Early Matches
An update while I'm on my "work trip" because it's raining at my stop in Honduras and my beach excursion was cancelled due to weather.
The window started with the early sale of Elye Wahi to Manchester United for 100M euros plus another 23M when he plays 50 matches for United. I can do a lot of squad rebuilding with the funds generated from that transfer.
Europa Conference League Phase Fixture List
New Tactic - Lens Squeeze Play - more on this in a later post when I back on dry land
The Story
The sale of Wahi to United gave Olivier the ability to do some tactical rethinking and reshaping of the first team. He was sent some footage of a field hockey team in New York (a team that I umpired IRL this season) that played with a very interesting system. They played on the attack. What made the tactic unique was in defense. When opposition had a 16-yard hit (think goal kick in soccer/football terms), they set up with all ten field players with 25 yards of the ball and all on the ball side of the field. The defense has three options: a) try to slog through all ten opposition players, b) quickly cycle the ball to the weak side or c) play over the top. Olivier liked what he watched on the game film and wanted to bring that style of squeeze play system to Lens. With the money from the Wahi, he had the funds to help build a team to play such a tactic.
Olivier builds his teams from the inside out and from the back to the front. He needed to solidify the goalkeeper position first and that was done with the acquisition of Michele Di Gregorio from Monza for 8.25M. Not a great long-term buy low/sell high type of player but a solid netminder who can start while Elias Andersen continues to develop and slowly take more of the match time at the goalkeeper spot. He moved forward to the center back position - this is already a position of relative strength - but has shown signs of cracks. Olivier brought in Mika Faye on loan from Barcelona to see if he has the ability to move one of the established center backs out of the position. Out wide, American Sergio Dest was available on free from Barcelona. Not good enough to stay in the Barca squad but definitely good enough to take over the right back position at Lens. Olivier also scooped up youngster Chris Jung as a long-term right-back project from Lyngby. Continuing to move forward into the defensive midfield: he poached the Barcelona squad a third time for creative defensive midfielder Pau Prim. He could become the long term partner for defensive midfield destroyer from Mexico: Abraham Huerta. Moving on the attacking midfield line, a pair of players were brought in basically on free signings. Cher Ndour from PSG and Dijon Kameri from RB Salzburg. Kameri cost us a little bit of compensation money to Salzberg but he worth much more than 6k in comp money that we paid to sign him. Both play in the central attacking midfield but we have a lot more matches now that we are in Europe so there should be plenty of playing time for both of them. Who did we get to replace Wahi at center forward? We went into Switzerland and signed a 18-year old, who is already getting caps for the Swiss National Team, Reto Braun. He looks like the ideal replacement for Wahi and we will be able to turn a tidy profit for him in a few seasons. Lastly, we did sign a center-back project from Monaco in U21 international Remi Pinelli.
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Sometimes my travel agent job has its perks. Today, I got to go on a behind the scenes tour of the cruise ship that I'm currently sailing on. It included a stop on the bridge.
And I have drinking quest to complete by Friday at 11:59 pm.
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I'm thinking I might have to at this point.
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9 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:
I'm still having trouble getting reports. But i wonder if it's because of my small region focus 🤔 Will need to try to see if it's still difficult in another save with broader scouting focus.
I'm scouting entire leagues and nations but only getting one or two players per report.
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On 07/12/2023 at 13:47, crusadertsar said:
Wow! No kidding. Maybe I'll try putting the star ratings as low possible and see what kind of players i get.
I'm trying this now. I've been having the same problem in My Builder save. My scouts go out and come back with one or two players per report.
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3 hours ago, Hootieleece said:
Same problem here. I'm supposed to be signing under 23 players for the first team and the Scouting department always comes back with 29-32 year olds. I don't set assignments because I don't think I would be allowed based on my background as a manager.
Mine don't come back with anything. Maybe one or two players per assignment. Very frustrating. I've started to manually scout just find players.
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1 hour ago, Jogo Bonito said:
Wahi is a name I remember well from time managing in France with Montpellier. If he stays, great. If he goes for that kind of money, you'll be able to improve the whole squad. That's a comfortable position for you either way.
Do you think you can improve on 7th next season or will you be satisfied to just match it?
Lens bought Wahi from Montpeiller for 30M back in 2023-24. We sold him to Manchester United for 100M+23M in performance clauses and a 20% profit sell on clause. We are in a good place financially...if only my scouts can find players. I had a couple of players lined up but bigger clubs swooped in and took them from us. Damn you Liverpool, Dortmund and Galatasaray.
I'm hopeful that we can just match our 7th place from last season.
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[FM24] The Ajax Way
in FM Career Updates
Posted
@MattyLewis11 Where do we put the links to the two positions that you attached?