raeburn Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 An Introduction to Litex Lovech After casting around the editor a little bit, trying to find the perfect club to start a long-term youth focused career with, I landed on the unlikely Litex Lovech of the Bulgarian A Group. The Bulgarian league has a built in wage limit at 60% of the club’s annual turnover, which seems like a great way to incentivize a focus on youth development and sustainable management. Beyond that, Litex boasts an extensive youth recruitment network, and exceptional junior coaching which should bode well for the quality and potential of future youth intakes, especially if the current squad is any guide: of the 19 players age 21 or under in the squad, three have 5 star potential, six have 4.5 stars, five have 4 stars, three have 3.5 stars, and only one each have 3 and 2.5 stars. It’s hard to pick favorites from a group that promising, but the standout for the moment is Simeon Slavchev, a well-rounded central midfielder who could play any of the three positions in my central triangle. His Off the Ball and Finishing ratings should give him a strong future as a CM(a), but for the moment he is going to be deployed as a DM(s) making runs from deep. Speaking of tactics, a look at the squad, combined with my personal stylistic preferences has yielded a short-passing 4-1-4-1 formation with a Very Fluid mentality, and an attempt at a triple-pivot in central midfield. Primary Goals: * To develop players with high levels of decision making, teamwork, technique, stamina, and work-rate using the club’s youth academy and feeder clubs. * To add one player from the academy to the starting XI each season. Seconday Goals: * To have an American citizen come through the academy as a part of the yearly youth intake. * To have a Cuban citizen come through the academy as part of the yearly youth intake. * To have a Filipino citizen come through the academy as part of the yearly youth intake. * To have a backroom staff made up of only ex-Litex Lovech players. * To develop a player with double digit stats in every visible attribute. * To develop two-footed players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
raeburn Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 A Side Project As a person with Cuban and Filipino heritage I am very disappointed with the states of their respective national teams. Currently, in my save, Cuba is ranked 81st and the Phillippines are ranked 147th, just ahead of Palestine. A side project that I will be taking on is trying to develop young Cuban and Filipino players, and thereby hopefully get both teams to a place where they can reasonably compete in their regional international tournaments. While I will primarily restrict myself to only using players from Litex’s youth system, as well as those of our feeder clubs, I will make an exception for promising young Cubans and Filipinos. The first of these players is 17 year-old Alien Perez, a CM/AMC with 3 caps and 1 goal to his name already in the Cuban national team. Unfortunately, he can't officially sign with the club until next summer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dexter_Morgan Posted July 21, 2014 Share Posted July 21, 2014 Had a cracking save with these on FM11 and 12, good luck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
raeburn Posted July 29, 2014 Author Share Posted July 29, 2014 February 2014: The Split A peculiarity of the Bulgarian league is that in order to conduct a 38 game season with only 14 teams in the league the FA has created a system where after two rounds (26 games) the league splits in two. The top 7 teams form 1 league in which each of the 7 teams plays the other 6 twice, with the league champion being rewarded with a spot in the Champions League, and the 2nd-4th placed clubs qualifying for the EURO Cup. Meanwhile, the 8th-14th placed clubs form another league with the bottom 4 clubs from that league being relegated to the Bulgarian "B" Group at the end of the season. The 13/34 season started off well for us and allowed us to build up a decent lead on the 2nd place club, but a slump of only 2 wins and 5 draws in the final 11 games led to Litex slipping out of the top spot in the final weeks before the split, and only a win on the final day brought us back within striking distance of the top 2 clubs. A New Signing Early in the season I added the Belarusian club FC Minsk as a feeder club with the hope of their bringing through a few good youth players for me to sign. FC Minsk has an "Established" Youth Recruitment Network, and early signs our good as I just recently agreed to sign this player from their U-19 squad for 225k. He is currently rated at 1.5 stars, with a 4.5 star potential. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
raeburn Posted July 30, 2014 Author Share Posted July 30, 2014 2014 Postseason: Qualifying by the skin of our teeth Despite the league's best defense, conceding only 30 goals in 38 games, our offense just could not put things together for the run-in. Part of this was down to a second torn calf muscle suffered by our star winger Momchil Tsvetanov, who contributed 4 goals and 6 assists in the 16 matches he was able to play this season, but a larger portion of the blame has to go to inconsistent performances by the team's primary striker, the 22 year-old Wilmar Gil. Our 2-8-2 run-in meant that on the final day, a draw would have seen us level on points with the 3rd-7th place teams, but luckily we were able to put in a good performance and walk off the field with a 2-0 win to take us into 3rd place. While 3rd place and EURO Cup qualification met the board's goals for the season, our failure to win the title is going to cost us at least one if not more of our star youngsters. Armando Vajushi has already put in a transfer request, and I'm afraid that Simeon Slavchev isn't far behind him. Slavchev in particular has developed really nicely this season, and I'm hoping that if he does leave, he'll be in high enough demand to start a bidding war. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
raeburn Posted July 30, 2014 Author Share Posted July 30, 2014 Or maybe we won't lose Vajushi! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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