Ceching You Out

The CA and PA here are good, but those personalities... [chef's kiss]. Doing a little happy dance that our cult of personality will get another big boost here. I still need to do that deep dive on what I've been doing on that front this year. Time is also here since the big milestone at work cleared; now I just need the family to stop getting each other sick. Kids are little disease factories.

If we're sticking to our hypothesis, this batch of youth is good-ish in PA but poor in CA: The Board continues to shoot down the last Junior Coaching upgrade and any Youth Facilities, so we may plateau for a bit.

Mid-season 2026/2027 An atrocious start to the season is the only thing standing between us and a legitimately promotion challenge at the moment. In our first 8 games we only picked up points in 4 (2 draws and 2 wins); all three of our attacking midfield band threw a fit when we refused transfer offers for them and it tanked morale, performances, you name it. Despite that we're 4th in xPTS, 3rd in GD. And despite that we sit back in 6th, 10 points behind the leaders. If some combination of our recent form continuing and leaders flaming out, maybe we've still got an outside chance. I've deliberately slow-rolled some our high potential youngsters, trying to shape their personalities more before they become entrenched members of the first team. Is it working? No idea. Most of our starters are in the 90-100 CA range which is about what's required to be a challenging team.

Post-season 2025/2026 A surprisingly solid season given the amount of players we turned over, mostly intentional. We're down to just Marceta and Fetahu from our original group of senior players, and both will be shown the door this summer as part of our continued personality culls. At this rate I think we're two seasons away from actually challenging from promotion. I'm leaning quite hard into managing the personality of the squad. Next time I have to do a deep-dive I'll elaborate on how I'm using my U18s and Reserve side to control exposure (or trying to, anyway). I should probably start tracking the hard data at some point too.

Starting off strong in supporting this theory. Best two players by PCA are DR and AML, matching the highest letter grades. Great intake here which introduces 4 of our 5 best players by PA. Personalities worse than last year and much more Austrian/Liechtensteiner intake; not sure if that's random chance or what.

Even if it would be a rich benefactor, I'd still prefer things to remain how they are. Good news then.

After my repeated jokes about 5/5 stars, I stumbled across the always thoughtful @Jimbokav1971 suggesting in his new thread that the letter grades are CA and the stars are PA. That could make sense? So let's pay a little more attention here for a few seasons to see if we can gather any evidence either way.

Well this is new. Probably not an improvement since our current Board has a preference for an amazing youth setup...

Mid-season 2025/2026 How's the season going? Better than expected actually. Why the sudden interest? No reason. I'm suddenly suspicious. No, no. I just genuinely am interested. What's going well? Well, we seem to be coping with selling some high potential players just fine. We're not pulling up trees but that was never in the cards after we put the focus on Austrian-pot income (immediate failure) and then our cult of personality. Ahh right. Hail Leader Reçber. Hail Leader Reçber. We've been unable to convince the board to invest in our Youth Facilities, which is a bit of a damp towel, but I think our intake might be stellar. So all-in-all, a qualified success. I guess it's safe to say you won't get relegated any time Vidal Sassoon then, eh? ...that was a lot of lather for a callback to shampoo puns. You know what currently grinds my gears? This fine youth was Fairly Professional in March last year with a 16 for Professionalism. Now in November he's Balanced with 11 (!). No off-field events, not even a "bad characteristics of the squad" message that I can recall. So frustrating. I may start tracking key attributes year-over-year to see if our cult is having any impact.

Well, one of these targets nearly took a hit immediately but we were able to keep Leader Reçber. Didn't take long for another to age poorly either. Three of our bench players have decided they'd rather represent Liechtenstein, which is great, but they did it a game into the season outside an international break? Which means we can't reasonably field 12 Austrians in our matchday squads. Auf wiedersehen, free money. Guess we'll increase our focus on development then? At least until something throws a wrench in that too!

Oh no, our Leader forsakes us for the temptations of Belgium. Isn't that always how the story ends. EDIT: Scratch that. Rejoice for he is faithful to our cult!

I've spent a good deal of time staring at my squad and trying to figure out how to have my cake and eat it too. But there are too many competing priorities to chase a good squad personality, meet our Austrian quota long-term, avoid relegation, and develop youngsters. So here's our realistic target -- turn over the worst of the influential bad personalities this summer, leaving the other half for next. Push for the Austrian quota for one more season, recognizing it'll likely be out of reach next. Avoid relegation (duh) but be prepared to scrape it next season if necessary. Give youngsters the opportunities we can afford with the first three goals in mind, knowing there will be more next season. In practical terms, that means we send Bitsche, Nussbaumer, and Cavafe out the door for whatever cash we can get -- just short of $800K in total. I'm a little disappointed by the combined figure, but we're committing here to the cult of personality. All hail the blessed, Model Citizens! Lead us, Reçber!

Very cool, isn't it? I love "foreigners" coming through intakes. My only complaint here is I'm trying to grow Liechtenstein and meet Austrian quotas! But I still can't help but enjoy it despite the complications it brings. In other news, boooooo. That takes us down to 9 from 10. Fixing that is doable but will come with a price tag.

Post-season 2024/2025 Uhh...hello. You still there? Always. Did you forget about your gimmick? I... uhh... no. Definitely not. I've just been very busy, you know. With brushing my teeth, washing my hair, that kind of thing. Basic hygiene is keeping you busy? If your avatar is anything to go by, you don't really have much hair left to wash. Well that's hurtful. But my beard, it takes a lot of shampoo. Special shampoo. Like a lot. So much. Can you even name a brand of shampoo? Herbal Essences. Do they even still make that? Yes? I mean, yes. Of course. For my beard. Try again. Head and Shoulders. Well that is-- Because we're head and shoulders better than we were last season. Ehh? Ehhhhh? ...just show them the table. Horrible puns aside, our improvement is actually marginal -- up a position with a few more points. The journey was smoother however, with no flirtation with the relegation zone. The offseason will be dominated by two questions: (1) how much should we prioritize personalities by moving on our better, more influential players with mediocre Pro/Det/Amb (<11)? and (2) how do we construct our squad to keep hitting the $500K jackpot every 9 games for as long as we can?

Spellecchia has come on leaps and bounds in just half a season. He's 10 points better in ability and done fairly well with a 6.98 average rating. I don't believe he had so much PA in my last save, so I'm guessing he has a randomized value there. I'd expect the main language to be German in Liechtenstein too so that's quite odd. I'm a little shocked any player can come through the Academy without knowledge of the primary language, unless the game is essentially representing a kid joining the club at 13/14/15. Success on upgrading Junior Coaching after our next $500K Austria-pot payment (I've been gunning for those), but despite $1.2M in the bank our Board is still scared of financial trouble to update Youth Facilities. Hopefully we can get that in the summer.

New intake drops and it's certainly worth talking about. My thoughts in no particular order: Personalities here are quite possibly the best I've ever had in total across an intake. Two Model Citizens is for sure a record for me. Those Youth Recruitment upgrades have radically changed the nationality distribution. Only half the players here are primarily Austrian. Normally I'd be stoked by that! But unfortunately, that does not bode well for continuing to meet our 12 player per matchday squad Austrian quota for the free cash. Depth is very solid -- 8 players in the 100ish PA range, most of whom have good personalities so they'll hopefully grow on their own. Two players with the exact same name is quite funny. Both defenders both with decent PAs. Welcome Fabio Fehrs, (a) and (b). The most interesting two players are both Croatian only. (25i) Begic is a Model Citizen with 100 PA that I won't be able to stop myself from trying to develop into a future captain, even if his PA isn't really high enough for that to be feasible. And of course, (25c) Vikario the (eventual) star of our show. He gone be good. EDIT: This is fascinating. Apparently some of these players have come through our Academy without learning German?!

Spellachia joins us in the winter transfer window. He's 74 CA / 119 PA having just turned 18. $110K to Vaduz is on the high side for that, as is his $45K/year salary. There is a chance this move backfires depending on our intake but we could really use an attacker for the rest of the year given how lean our squad is running.

Mid-season 2024/2025 Nothing of particular note to report. We're chugging along in a clear middle third of the division, while title charges play out above us and relegation dramas below. Interesting fact -- Lafnitz started 13 for 13, taking max points. Exceptional start that would be demoralizing if we had any promotion aspirations. Hint: we do not! Oooh I'd never tried this before, but worked out. They wanted to offer me a new contract and I suggested they spend it elsewhere. Gave me options that were currently timed out for Board requests, so we're able to sneak an extra one of these in. I think this will max us out?

Relentlessly asking earned us one of the two "free" upgrades: EDIT: And after 9 more games where I made sure to have 9 Austrians, we get Junior Coaching bumped too.

So I think I've figured out the parameters around this funky (substantial) bonus payment. It appears every 9 games, not just contained within a season. It only counts players with Austria as their primary nationality, not secondary. There's a flat rate ($56K and some change) for each squad that meets the requirements. At this point it's a large enough revenue source that I think I want to be intentional about it, but the secondary nationality piece makes it less straightforward as I bring in Liechtensteiners and have players declare.

won the battle above, but didn't take long to lose the war. Popovic is sold at the Board's insistence, although I was able to nearly double the fee. He'll stay with us until the end of the season, but we'll have a big hole then.

What a cool friendly! Didn't see this get scheduled initially.

This took 5 different complaints to get overturned. Ugh, come on Board. He's a 19 year old 89 CA / 120 PA they're willing to sell for such a low fee; his value is $240K on the high end and we've got $400K in the bank. FFS.

Thanks, syemo! Quite the slide and it starts to feel very ominous. Passes to nobody, loose balls lost. Just takes a win to turn it around.

Post-season 2023/2024 Oooh boy, did we wobble. Frustration ran high in the middle of the season and I wondered if we'd immediately fail after spending so much time researching and testing. Started to feel like my least favorite season of FM, in stark contrast to our great escape in the last save after a 18 (!) game losing streak. We dropped into the relegation places after this miserable streak: 8 without a win is not... not good. One of those low points where you begin to question your abilities - there wasn't any obvious fault. No radical change in tactics, personnel, etc. Morale plummets and then you're just looking for a lucky break. Instead, against Stripfing we put up this performance. I literally laughed when Fetahu was through on goal and missed a sitter. When your ST who finishes the season 1st in xG per shot, 2nd in conversion rate, 2nd in G/90, and 2nd in overall goals essentially trips over his shoelaces... well, that feels like it's time to accept relegation. What felt like the lowest point of the season, ended up being that in fact. Because we ripped off 9 unbeaten (with only 1 draw) to close the season. That meant a relatively comfortable finish in 9th, which does not at all match my perception of the season as it played out real time. I suppose this means we're actually a pretty decent side at the moment? Challenging for promotion next season is probably too soon, and actual promotion would see us immediately yo-yo, but we might just be... good. If we can bump up our facilities before our next intake we may be poised to really gain momentum.