Shrewnaldo

Well my plan was to delegate the hiring of the minor staff at the B team and under-19s to my new Technical Director. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have much of a work ethic and hired precisely no-one so far. I'm going to give him until the start of the season and then step in. I'm hoping the biggest gain will come from them playing competitive fixtures - plus I fully expect that the B team will coast through the Segunda and the constantly high morale should provide another boost to development.

I was enjoying the update until this bit. How very dare you

I will make you regret this request :-D

Huge boost for the save as Sporting B are promoted into the fourth tier and therefore into the playable leagues. Really, really pleased to see this

Season 1 and lookahead A Sporting Heritage - The Guajes of Gijón An odd season, for me. It didn't feel like we were that good but, in the end, we were two points away from securing a playoff spot and, according to the underlying numbers, were probably unlucky to not be significantly more successful. Somehow Zaragoza held onto the playoff spot despite losing their last five games on the bounce. For us, losses to Espanyol and then a shocker at arch-rivals Oviedo saw us drop to 7th and out of playoff contention. Indeed, that Asturian derby match is a good example of our season in microcosm. 3 (three) catastrophic individual errors, including two own goals, gifted our greatest enemy the lead and we managed to underperform our xG by 1.45 in order to lose 4-1 despite dominating the game. But that's football. Individual matches can always go either way and these sorts of events should even themselves out over the season, right? Wrong. We underperformed our overall xG and xGA to leave us 5 places below our "expected" finish - second place bringing with it automatic promotion. And just look at Eibar and Valladolid - over-performing to the tune of 15 and 25 points respectively. But that is what you'd expect good teams to do - over-perform against the average. We, on the other hand, have performed below the average at both ends of the pitch. All told, I'm not too disappointed by another season in Liga 2. I think another second-tier campaign in which we can blood some youngsters and start to mould the squad is going to suit me fine - whilst the three clubs that are coming down from La Liga (Almería, Las Palmas and Osasuna) do not strike me as likely to dominate the league and hog the promotion spots next term. And so now I'm on to one of my favourite parts of any save - the first summer window. Referring back to the targets in my planning posts, I'd eventually like to have 60% of the first-team squad from our own academy (or trained at Mareo), whilst those players will also command 50% of the game time. For both measures, we're a bit short of that for now and so my first port of call has been to identify existing prospects within the club that could be ready for first-team football next season. The updated squad planner for 2024/25 currently looks like this: I appreciate this will be hard to read for many of you but I don't think the details are all that important to anyone but me. For a bit of context, the colours represent the following: bright orange are those of questionable talent that are subject to replacement; dull orange are those which will be promoted from the squad below; blue are new signings; and green are those that I would consider selling. Before any further recruitment, this would then boost our "trained at club" contingent in the first team to 50% - closer to my target but conscious that the number will likely drop once some of those gaps are filled over the summer. Borja Montes is one worth highlighting - having had an outstanding season in the under-19s I have decided to jump the B team and put him straight into the first team squad. Because we're still in the second-tier, I think that jump is easier to make - plus we're really short of options at the back. Montes will likely be back-up for both the right and centre DC positions - for the former he play understudy to another 6'4" defender, Pelayo having agreed a pre-contract to come in from Barca. Whilst the latter will never become 'trained at club', having come through La Masía, he was born in the Asturian town of Avilés and therefore forms part of my wider strategy. Also coming through the door will be former-guaje Pablo Pérez. Pérez left the club in 2022 to play in the Indian Super League - a move which doesn't seem to have worked out as he spent last season at Rayo Majadahonda in the Primera. 20s for Aggression, Bravery and Work Rate are going to grab anyone's eyes and I really like him as an option off the bench. Those are the only two deals I've pre-arranged and were aimed at positions I knew needed replacements - 35 year-old Argentine centre-back Carlos Izquierdoz and Mexican loanee striker Esteban Lozano both on their way out the door. They'll be joined by Romanian centre back Alex Pascanu and another Mexican, Jordan Carillo. I'd really like to keep Carillo but he had no future fee agreed and will most likely return to Santos Laguna. All-in-all, we'll see nine members of the first team squad leave: That's just under £35k a week, about 22.5% of our overall budget, leaving the club in the summer. You might wonder why Cote, playing 2700 minutes and of the Guajes, will be allowed to leave - he has been excellent but he'll be 35 at the start of next season and his physicals have already started the inevitable decline. With Diego Sanchéz picking up 1300 minutes this year and Pablo Garcia stepping up from the B team, we have two Guajes ready to pick up the reins. Speaking of the B-team, I have yet to see any indication of their status and whether or not they'll be promoted into the playable leagues. I really hope so because arranging 42 friendlies to keep them match fit has been somewhat tiresome. If they are, then there's a number of gaps in the B-team squad planner that will also need filled. For these, I've been looking to Liga MX and the affiliate deals that we have with Santos Laguna, Club América and Atlas Guadalajara. Being a second-tier club in Spain, we can't attract the best youth prospects yet, but I wanted to start the trend and reflect the Orlegi ownership of Sporting. Luis Guerrero will hopefully be the first of many. Whilst clearly not of a level for my first team, should they be promoted, Sporting B will still be in the fourth tier I'm hoping that Guerrero will be of sufficient quality to operate as a quality 6 - a slot which you'll see in the squad planner is vacant and so, importantly, he will not impede the development of any guaje. Again, for me it's about committing to the premise of the save and starting to understand how early I need to scout the Mexican players, what level of player will be willing to move to Sporting and (in an entirely imaginary sense) starting the trend of Mexican players finding a route to European football through Gijón. And for now, those signings will almost certainly have to free transfers with the board (all "never use the money of the future to resolve a problem of the present") giving me just £450k for transfers. That may be supplemented by some sales if the likes of Rubén Yañez (GK), Christian Rivera (6) or Uroš Đurđević (9) attract solid bids. All three were first team-members but combine underwhelming performances with not-being-Guajes. Đurđević was particularly frustrating - despite top-scoring with 15, he at one point went on a 12-game barren streak and barely exceeded his xG. At £14,500 a week, he's almost 10% of my entire wage budget and I feel his cost outweighs his value. To be fair, there aren't many players who I would consider 'must keeps' - wingback Guille Rosas being one of the very few. He's literally out on his own in terms of creativity from the flank and was tied down to a new deal, with a much higher minimum fee clause, in January. Other than Rosas, fellow Guajes Nacho Martín (6) and Gaspar (10) would take an awful lot of money for me to accept their departure. Everyone else has a much more reasonable price, should interest arise. And that leads me into the transfer window which, like I said, might genuinely be my favourite time of any FM save. ¡Siempre Sporting!

Fair point. I'm primarily on the look out for Professionalism and, recently, Determination for the personality indicators. I guess "fickle" just sounds bad intuitively rather than necessarily indicative of these attributes. His media handling is "media friendly" so not great help there wrt his Professionalism.

Missed this, apologies. Welcome to the new thread! I was thinking more that Mario bad guy, Prof Eggman? All fair. Some players just don't develop until their early 20s and some even later. I've always thought FM represented this quite well - you could pick up a high PA player who had suffered for lack of game time and, at 24 or 25, still make a really handy player out of him. The problem was always that there's too many world beaters at 17. Lovely

There were supposed to be changes this year about late developers and variable progression, so hopefully a bit more realistic. Agree that there are too many 'first-team' ready newgens but then I tend to play in leagues where newgens come through at older ages. Starting at 15 is a bit new for me. Oooooh, intrigue as to what the *'d word was. Afraid my recall of Spurs' shirts isn't that good. I basically remember the Holsten shirt per Klinsmann, the Puma one with the navy band and... that's about it

It's interesting, I don't know how much faith to put in the star ratings. My current setup suggests one and a half star rating but it flies along and I very rarely have any genuine processing time. Certainly not enough time to go and do anything else - even browsing on another screen. I've been into the Detail Level screen and it suggests that I can add full detail to "all senior competitive matches" in all 22 loaded nations without any impact to the game speed whatsoever. That just doesn't make sense. I might just experiment for a while and see what happens. Don't want to derail your thread into a discussion on detail level :-D

Yikes at that Determination. The shirt has massive van de Vaart flashbacks for me Thanks, though. I don't recall if Kane developed as well in FM10 as he did in real life?

After signing most of the intake, two additional players have been classified as "top talents". They are: Centre back Paz has a 'fickle' personality which isn't a great start and suffers from the same shocking physicals as the rest of the newgens. His Teamwork and Work Rate also suck, so I don't have much faith in him. Romanian Chiripus looks like a decent 6. 6'2", aggressive with some decent mentals and his physicals aren't absolutely awful. I'm really not sure about the Stops Play trait, but I think the Romanian has something about him. I prefer Escribano, who is listed as the intake's star graduate, but he should get me a little bit of money even if he doesn't push on into the first team.

4 games left and the race for the playoffs is on. Valladolid are 13 points clear at the top and will win the league. Zaragoza are probably favourites to take the second automatic spot but their remaining home games are tough. Espanyol have the hardest run-in but we're not far behind with the Asturian derby making that Oviedo game even tougher - and Cartagena might still be fighting for survival. I would not be upset if we didn't go up. I think we really need another season in the second tier to develop some of the youth. I've been doing some experimenting tactically - trying out two striker systems - and giving a lot of minutes to peripheral guajes so I can see who are candidates for next season. Unusually, our away form has been keeping us in the playoff spots and we've really struggled to score at home

Love little tweaks like that when they come off. What detail level do you have set for your database? I'm similarly running most leagues in Europe (but with way fewer players) but I haven't beefed up the detail level because I'm worried about how much it'll slow my game down. I'm got a really decent machine but even so... it's a risk.

Quiepo looks like he could be decent, but he's really been quite poor this season. I sent him out on loan to Cultural Leonesa and he's been average in the Primera. Leonesa might be a poor team but I'd have expected him to be way better at that level.

Maybe José Gragera? He's a holding midfielder that's pretty decent but was sold to Espanyol. He's definitely one I've got my eye on and would love to get him back to El Molinón.

Thanks all, really appreciate the feedback. I think it's safe to say that I shouldn't give up on these newgens thanks to their physicals just yet. This is he: I don't know that any of this lends itself towards specific attribute strengths or deficiencies? Perhaps the coaching style being 'tactical'? But I think that's just a reflection on his coaching attributes... I'm leaning towards this just being the way that 15 year-olds come through. Some good comments above about the natural physical development between 15 and 18, so perhaps this is just more realistic?

How have you been finding the altitude? Much impact on you or your opponents?

I do like this idea. The 2-1 has a lot of advantages in build-up. I find that lone 10s go missing in games, whereas having two in there forces them into positions which are conducive to line-breaking passes through "the midfield box". But the 2-1 means I struggle to get a runner in behind, in the same way that I get with a two-striker system that has one drop and one go. Certainly something to think about next term. It's a lot of fun but it can be exhausting at times, particularly when you run into ways in which the interface just makes it very hard to know what's going on - because the game just isn't built to accommodate it.

That was in the Feralpi / Hellas Italian save. I wanted to go back to using Rensie's skin and I'm a bit graphical-attributes'd-out for now

The first intake A Sporting Heritage - The Guajes of Gijón The first youth intake of the save has arrived and, given the importance of youth to my chosen style, I've decided to give it some focus. I wasn't all that enamoured back in December when we received the preview. The 'golden generation' moniker arrives with such frequency that I never pay it much attention, and the role specifics were mediocre. However, this looks a lot more promising (as I write this, I haven't looked at the players yet). And now, taking a look through the players one-by-one, I'm returning to the general disappointment. Some of them seem fine but I can't say that I'm overly excited about a single one of them. Focusing on those that the game has described as 'top talents' then: Goalkeeper - Roberto Vacas Our options in goal are limited and a talented newgen 'keeper is the holy grail. Vacas is not likely to be it. Really good Determination and Handling, whilst his Reflexes and Positioning should tick over into double digits relatively soon. I also like that he has low Eccentricity and decent starting Agility, Balance and Concentration. But One-on-Ones and Command of Area have a long way to go before he could be considered viable. Only 15 and born in Gijón, he's get the chance to develop. Centre Back Jaime Luis Ok, he's only 15 but boy do those physicals need to develop. 18 attribute points away from double digits in Acceleration, Agility, Balance and Strength for a centre half feels like a long way to go. And only 6 for Heading. Good starting Positioning, Tackling, Aggression, Bravery and Decisions. Plus primarily left-footed... I'm sceptical though. Born in Villaviciosa (Asturias). Centre Back Welton Born in Brazil, eligible for the USA and awaiting his Spanish passport, multi-national Welton looks more of a likely option to me than Luis. Slightly better physicals but weaker mentals, I could be wrong if Luis' mentals help him develop faster. Welton, though, has an Ambitious personality which is likely to help his development. He'll also go into the funnel. 6 Domingo Escribano Born in Gijón and described as a 'committed' player by the coaching staff, I think Escribano is probably my favourite of the intake. Relatively two-footed and with physicals that aren't far off double-digits for speed and strength, plus excellent Natural Fitness which will reduce his fatigue levels very quickly, he looks like he could become a very handy ball winner at 6. Brave and aggressive with good Teamwork and Work Rate, tidy no the ball and a good decision-maker... ok, I like Escribano quite a lot. I should be able to get his Determination up with some mentoring and maybe teach him some traits like Stay Back At All Times and never dribble... He's the best of the intake for me so far. 10 - Luis Ochoa Sadly no hint of a Mexican heritage despite the name, Ochoa is another Asturian with terrible physicals. Seriously, don't they have PE at Asturian schools?! Again, pretty two-footed and with some really solid attributes in good areas like First Touch, Passing, Decisions and Balance. There's a player in there and his Fairly Professional personality will help him develop to meet his potential. But there's clearly some gaps - he can't dribble, he lacks composure and concentration, he can't shoot and he doesn't work for the team... plus those physicals. I see a squad player at best. Left-winger Alejandro Soriano I don't play wingers, so that's not a great start., Plus he's unambitious. And then we have a winger with 8 pace... I clearly can't turn him into a wingback with 1 for marking, 4 for tackling and 3 for positioning. So what can I turn him into? Honestly, I can't see much of a future for Soriano but I'll retrain him as a 10 to give him a chance to prove me wrong. Striker Francesc Polo You may be sensing a theme here but... those physicals. Am I wrong here? Do physicals progress more than they used to? For 15 year-olds, are these physicals actually ok? Because the rest of Polo is pretty damn good. Impressive Determination, Decisions, Flair and Teamwork with solid Off the Ball and, at 15, already pretty handy at most technical attributes for a 9 - Finishing, First Touch, Technique, Passing and Dribbling. It's just those physicals.... so if he develops there then he's another two-footed technically adept option for us - even if he is from the capital down the road. --------------------------------------------- There are also 7 'good' talents and two 'decent' - none of which I think merit mentioning. So that gives me seven 'top talents' from the so-called Golden Generation. I think Escribano and Polo are the two most likely candidates for future first-team football but I'm certainly open to other ideas. It's been a long-time since I've focused on youth development and even longer since I've done so in a country that allowed the production of 15 year-olds. So I'd welcome feedback on those physicals specifically. Should I expect to see some sky-rocketing physical attributes across the board? I wouldn't have expected speed attributes to increase all that much, but Strength typically increases over time. What's the general consensus these days? Would a 3-4 attribute point increase for Acceleration / Pace or Agility / Balance be reasonable between 15 and 20? Thoughts welcome. ¡Siempre Sporting!

I have it pencilled in as one of my potential future amendments. I also tried it out in a cup game using one of my back-up centre-backs, Robér Pier, who is more suited to it. I did like the way it could switch to a 2-3 build-up but the two DMs didn't split wide enough when the libero advanced, which was a little frustrating. What I've been finding, though, is that I need to commit one of the two DMs forward a little more once we're established in possession - so I'm thinking that the libero could step up so I get a transition through 3-2 into 2-3 then 2-2 as play progresses up the park. I might look to employ it more next season and use Insua, the left centre-back, as the libero to push up and cover the space by an RPM or segundo in the left DM slot.

Like you say, I think most of us will have some sort of soft priorities in our head for most saves - certainly with your style of game and other folk who tend to prioritise youth development, or just want to see lots of domestic players in their team. It's the thing I get most out of from this sort of thread - just organising my thoughts and putting some kind of structure to it, rather than just a general sort of inherent bias. Thanks! Hope to keep you all entertained.

Boooo (but thanks)

Yeah that all makes sense and is aligned with what I was thinking - that's it's all about helping you put other statistics / metrics in context. I guess it might be useful in isolation if you had a reliable baseline for what was a mean level in your system. So if you knew that, over the last three seasons, your DM had a "progression effectiveness" score of, let's say, 70 then, ceteris paribus, you can tell if a new player coming in is better or worse - or, presuming your unders are playing the same system, you have a semi-reliable baseline with which to check your academy's players' progression effectiveness in the same role. But it's knowing what that baseline is, without any other complementary metrics, that is the difficult part. Too many variables.

Tactics A Sporting Heritage - The Guajes of Gijón In the post above, I outlined a general strategy for bringing the youth products through the Mareo academy, supplementing them with some Mexican talent, and providing a pathway through the B team into the senior squad. I also mentioned that I want to tailor the whole system into producing players that fit our tactical strategy - that means looking for key staff that share these principles and shaping the training / traits to suit the anticipated system once the players get to the first team. All very straightforward but the obvious question is then: "what is Sporting's tactical identity?" I have asked on twitter and looked around online, but there doesn't seem to be any club / fan expectations about particular styles of football. And this is fine - I think the whole idea of 'supporter expectations' of certain types / styles of football is usually sanctimonious nonsense. So unless someone on here is a Sporting fan and wishes to enlighten me, I've just decided to go with my personal preferences. And having come from the low-block, counter-attacking strategy that we employed at FeralpiSalò and Hellas Verona, I wanted to embrace the change and go back to a shorter passing, more technical style of football. This suits both the current squad and what I typically associate with Spanish football. The exact shape and roles etc may well change over time - I don't want to constrain myself and get bored - but this system largely suits the starting squad and the key prospects that start at Sporting. A back 3 is another departure from what I'd played in Italy but let's me go with a 3-2 build-up system whilst still employing the strong wing-backs (Cote and Rosas) we have. Sporting also have really good options through central midfield with Mesa and Rivera excellent DMs, ably backed up by Nacho Martín and Jonathan Varane (younger brother of Raphael). Villalba, Méndez, Gaspar and Carillo are all good 10s, whilst Uroš Đurđević is an excellent 9 for this level. The only players this system doesn't currently suit are wingers Juan Otero and Haissem Hassan - however both are on loan and I was happy to sacrifice their game time in favour of permanent players, particularly Guajes such as Martín and Gaspar. Like I say, I am not beholden to the shape or the roles. There's enough flexibility there that I can adapt for the players that come through - perhaps opting for a libero or two at the back, perhaps switching the 10s to wide roles, perhaps going to 1-2 up top rather than 2-1. What will not change are the principles behind the style of play - short, quick passing with creativity and flair prioritised and defending on the front foot. Nothing spectacular but a framework to build around and attributes to prioritise. We've started pretty well, with the board expecting a top half finish. The table itself only tells half the story, with the xG table indicating that we 'should' be top and are underperforming against both our xG and our xGA. I'd immediately identified that goalkeeper was going to be a problem position for us, but the goalscoring is a disappointment as I feel we have the personnel to do well here. But really, it gives me something to work on and that also suits me. The dozen league games has given me the opportunity to build up the squad depth chart, identifying the two 'incumbents' within each of the three squads for the eleven profiles in the first team. I did try using the in-game squad planner but I'm afraid I find it so buggy, lacking in customisation and clunky to use - so I just went back to excel. The blank spaces indicate a lack of quality, not quantity. Per the post above, there are 91 players across the four squads but I just couldn't accept some of the options that are available in the B-team or under 19s. Leaving the blank spaces just means that I get to go shopping for youth options as well as first-teamers. And just because there are players in the slots for the first-team doesn't indicate that I'm entirely comfortable with the quality at my disposal. I've already mentioned goalkeeper as an obvious weak spot, but centre-back lacks quality in addition to quantity whilst the two 34 year-olds and one 33 year-old gives me cause for concern. I really like the recruitment side of FM, though, so this (again) suits me just fine. Having blocked the first transfer window, we may get an option to do some shopping in January (funds permitting) so I've busied myself with the usual early-game task of recruiting staff instead. I'm starting top-down and whilst Director of Football Gerardo García is too expensive to let go, I've brought Esteve Calzada in as Technical Director, primarily in the hope his Model Professional personality will provide some influence to the club. I haven't used a Technical Director before but I plan to delegate the appointment of the B team and under-19 coaching team and medical staff to Calzada. I will retain the power to appoint the senior staff and B-team / U-19 manager until I've seen how Calzada performs. Whilst I'm still on the lookout for people to fill the manager roles, I've decided to keep the current Head of Youth Development and Assistant Manager in place. These are the other two roles where I want to find the 'perfect fit' in terms of personality, tactical preferences and preferred formations. Garro as HoYD has the attributes I want but not the personality, whilst assistant Gabiña has the attributes and a pretty good personality but not the tactical preferences. Each is good enough for now whilst I keep an eye out for the right option. Because I don't use the Staff Search screen, this can be a long, drawn-out process. I'm also beginning to build up the scouting network to give me knowledge in the key markets that I plan to exploit. I plan to set up the scouting assignments, as well as the recruitment focuses, myself but I'm still on the look out for a Chief Scout to head up the team. Carlos Ruiz and Manolo Salvador are superb domestic scouts and I'd like to add one more to allow me to cover senior, part-time and youth football in Spain comprehensively. Alberto Macías doesn't have the greatest attributes but, crucially, comes with knowledge of the all-important Mexican market. Budimir Vujacic comes with extensive knowledge of Albania, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Turkiye, Serbia, Montenegro and England. That's crazy good and he'll be my Eastern European scout. Henrik Andersen, meanwhile, can cover Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the Faroes and also brings extensive knowledge of Germany and Belgium. One more domestic scout and a Chief to rule them all, then I think we're set. And they'll be busy. In addition to the gaps I've listed above, four loanees and eight first-team members are out of contract come the end of the season and I intend to keep only one of those - centre back Pablo Insua. So it's very likely that next summer is going to be a busy one and I wouldn't be surprised to see a much higher turnover of personnel than any other season - both in terms of first-team members and development players for the unders. The recruitment priorities will be clear: Promote from within Bring back former Guajes Other Asturian players Youth players from Asturian clubs Players from Liga MX Players from other Spanish communes Non-Spanish signings To help with items 2-4, I've set up a number of saved filters in the Player Search area. Item 2 is easy - just search for those who are "Trained At Club". For the second and third, I've used the editor to identify all cities and clubs in Asturias. I've then saved searches for every player born in the Asturian cities and every player currently at any Asturian club in top 6 tiers. In truth, I don't expect to pick up much from priorities 3 and 4, but I'd like to keep my eye out just in case. I think it's both realistic that Sporting would look to hoover up local talent and in line with the Orlegi Sports commitments to benefitting the local area through their investment. Their other stated ambition, to recruit from Liga MX, will be constrained by two factors: first that players under 18 are not allowed to be transferred out of Mexico, and secondly that my in-game scouting range is currently restricted to Western Europe. I can do something about the latter and will, as soon as possible, open up the range to include not only Mexico but also Eastern Europe and Scandinavia per the two scouts I've picked up. That, though, will require some additional funding and that will depend on selling players. Therefore, I await January with some interest. Hopefully we can stay in and round the playoffs but I doubt we are quite good enough to go up this season. We were comfortably beaten by Elche and Eibar, two of the stronger sides in the league, and I see us as being somewhere between 5th and 8th come the end of the campaign. For one final time, that'd suit me just fine - a summer to do some recruitment and then develop a few players next term whilst launching a proper promotion campaign. ¡Siempre Sporting!