Adelaidean

Nice! Thanks heaps. Will be keeping up with this thread (though I mostly lurk)!

Been reading through this - what a thread! Grats on your success. If you have time, could I see a screenshot of Reynolds with the little attribute polygon included? I really like comparing the polygons . He looks immense! Keep it up!

Any former youth products made a notable move? Great read!

Well, looks like it's set for the next 15-odd years now 5 clean sweeps in a row is nuts, by the way. Congrats!

What do your GKs look like - both from the youth setup, aren't they?

Has that Djiboutian from the South Africa intake been capped for the national side yet? He looked like a real talent! I don't suppose he'd be interested in a return to his homeland

Wow, Foukas looks great . A shame to lose him but 30m is great money for an Irish club! I expect an update on him when he hits his peak Really cool signing from Haiti as well, hope Durand develops nicely. Great to see you keeping a reasonable number of Irish players in the squad. Well done with the national team at the WC!

I think the cost (around $1.6m AUD per year) was more of a factor; only a handful of the dual nationals from the COE/AIS have played for their other country - most notably Josip Simunic (Croatia). Because of the modern history of football in Australia (originally mostly played by post WWII migrants from Europe) a lot of our players have European ancestry, as you can tell just by looking at our current squad (Rogic, Juric, Hrustic, Degenek and others, plus coached by Greek-Australian Ange Postecoglou and his Croatian-Australian assistant Ante Milicic!) but most of them are happy to play for Australia as most were born and raised here as the kids and grandkids of the post-WWII migrant wave. It is an interesting point though, and it's possible that it was a consideration. If you want a good read about Australia's football history I recommend David Goldblatt's The Ball is Round, which is a global history but has an excellent chapter covering Australia. Anyway, I won't derail your thread any further! Hopefully those Aussie signings turn out good for you. We'd love a right-back like Spencer IRL, and at least Foukas has already chosen Australia!

Ooh, nice couple of Aussies there @BoxToBox! 4 caps at 16 is impressive. Been following this, enjoying it greatly The FFA are closing it to allow Australian clubs to better develop their own academies, rather than the centralised youth model the COE provides. It's an interesting move with pros and cons, on the one hand cutting the program will save money and allow clubs to develop their own youth, but on the other the program has been successful in the past, producing players like Mark Viduka, Lucas Neill and Mark Bresciano. Hopefully the Aus youth rating gets a small bump next game to account for the change, since the COE won't be there to pump out all the Aus talent

Very cool that Dustin Burns is listed as a wonderkid now. Hopefully he can become a key player for club and country!

Wonderful read. Great to see the success you're having and the success of your academy graduates in general! Who are Iceland's best players at the moment? Many IR alumni I assume! Keep up the good work!

Always happy to see an Australia-focused save. Great read so far, keep up the good work!

I'm sure I remember you playing in South America more recently than that. *Goes to check* Ah - you spent three seasons at Botafogo in your FM11 journeyman save, resigning after the chairman sold all your best players

Wow, Afghanistan at the World Cup... any screenshots of their best players? Nice job with Hamilton, and good luck with Burnley!

Cheers for the response, doesn't hurt to ask! Yeah I'm not expecting different - it would be a pleasant surprise more than anything if a non-Steam version were available. I'll still buy FM17 as I've bought the last five editions through Steam but hopefully in the future a non-Steam version will be an option! I don't have anything against Steam or Valve but for personal reasons Steam can be inconvenient for me.