FM16 Youth Academy Challenge

[Braumiller]

Fraserburgh FC - Season 2 Review (2017/18)

League Table | League Positions Graph | Squad Stats | Transfers | End of Season Awards | Season Review | Injury Report

Competitions

League One : 5th (Fixtures (1 2)

Scottish Cup : 4th Round

Scottish League Cup : 1st Round

League Challenge Cup : 3rd Round

Season Review

A very interesting season.

In the league we lost our first game, but then went the next 5 unbeaten (4 wins) to occupy 2nd place for 4 of the first 9 weeks of the season. We soon came back down to earth with a bump. By the halfway mark of the season we were in 7th, but within a point or two of the relegation playoff spots. The main reason for this was our tactic became less effective. Well, it became ineffective. At one point we lost 4 in a row in the league by a combined 18-4. Our tactic that last year won many shootouts, was now being overpowered by the step up in quality. Once our honeymoon period came to an end, it turned ugly. It was not pretty, so we stopped, took stock and took a risk.

Time to try and become more difficult to break down. Strikerless. Initially it worked, we only lost one of our next 7 (and that was to a 90+3 minute winner!). We lost our next two (one heavily) and then drew two. At this point I panicked and change tactics again. After an unimpressive flirtation with 442 I again took a step back and re-evaluated.

The one heavy defeat aside, we were on the right track and accomplishing what we wanted. We were more solid, although not to where we wanted to be. So the adventurous full backs were dialled back and we became more counter attacking.

I am now a lot happier with where we are and by the end of the season we had become a very solid mid table team.

"Fraserburgh Five" - 2016 Edition

Dan Gordon - While not highly rated by my staff, he is by me. Dan put in a player of the year performance this year, scoring regularly and adding a nice array of passing in the middle of the park

Chris Esslemont (YP 01) - A surprise entrant. Chris played at the end of the year after we went to strikerless and performed nicely. Not a regular, but an interesting one to keep an eye on

Hamish Burr - Hamish has great versatility and that helped in a season of tactical uncertainty. A steady, somewhat unspectacular piece of the puzzle

Stuart Yates (YP 01D) - The lesser heralded of last seasons double DC intake, Stuart saw less game time but ended up with the higher average rating of the pair.

Adam Cross - Last years player of the season underwhelmed to begin with, but slowly warmed up as the season went on. Retraining to a central attacking midfielder and it is going nicely

Youth Intake

Certainly less impressive than our debut intake, but beggars cannot be choosers

Ryan Clayton (YP 02A) - A left footed midfielder with a very nice personality. Nothing stands out about him, but hoping to mold him into a handy team player

Dean Blackett (YP 02B) - A central midfielder. Again nothing outstanding, but may well see some first team action in the years ahead.

Miscellaneous

Off the field we had a handful of improvements to report. During the preseason the youth recruitment network was upgraded (from 'Limited' to 'Basic) and our junior coaching was upped for a 2nd time (this time from 'Basic' to 'Adequate).

In March during my contract negotiations, I was also able to get my chairman to agree to a 2nd youth recruitment network improvement! Only a small one though, as it is still described as 'Basic'.

Season 2 (2017/18) Goals

* Survive! Achieved

* Begin to give our first batch of youth players first team action Achieved

* Survive! Achieved

Season 3 (2018/19) Goals

* Consolidate

* Continue the journey to youth takeover

[Shakes]

We seem to be progressing along the same path Braumiller, promotion followed by a roller coaster second season. Interesting choice to give so many games to someone with low potential like Esslemont, I assume injuries? I would have been playing higher potential players out of position to cover, but your choice worked for sure.

[Bartrcm]

Nice progress Braumiller, but your are allready in league 1.

[Garthy_1706]

Never seen this challenge before but definitely one that intrigues me. After looking at all the various leagues I have decided that I am going to start in Norway as they seem to produce quite a few good young players.

The team I have chosen is FK Toensberg. The reason I went for them was after looking at the history of the club they were once in the Premier League so at least have some history. They is about a dozen or so first team players so I will either be using youth of greyed players to start with. When the youth intake comes around I will be integrating as many as possible.

The cross over date for Norway is around the 17th Jan.

[Braumiller]

Nice progress Braumiller, but your are allready in league 1.

Fixed

Good luck Garthy_1706!

I was going to say the same thing Shakes, looking forward to your season 3 report.

With Esslemont, it was injuries that forced my hand. He had been on the bench for a while and then made 3 sub appearances and played well. I didn't have many other options and out of all of the lower potential options I had, I really liked his passing in the middle of the park.

[Shakes]

Season 2018/19 - Scottish League 1 - 2nd

League | Positions | Playoff Semis | Cups | Squad | Transfers

A big improvement from last season, although my efforts at being more defensive didn't always pay off, the tactical changes saw a huge uptick in offense, particularly through the right wing position, where my first choice saw a scarcely believable improvement from 4 goals to 21! This meant we were always in contention for the title, and after 3 times through the teams we actually had the lead. However we weren't quite strong enough towards the end, losing the crucial last matchup with the eventual winners Alloa in what might have been the decider. In the end we lost on the last day anyway and fell 4 points short.

So we had to brave the playoffs, and in the away leg took a 1-0 lead. Sadly we gave it up in the first half of our home leg, and the stupid goal keeper hover bug struck in the second half, denying us the chanced to settle it before extra time. Extra time we had a goal waved off and it went to penalties, which we lost.

I would have taken 2nd before the season but after gunning for first and missing it not getting the promotion hurts. I definitely leant on experience in the side and with a fairly light injury list this meant the youths didn't always get a look in, so setting sights high and missing will hurt us long term.

Youth Intake

No can't miss prospect here but some interesting players.

[19a] Kenneth Archibald - DL - Good potential but is going to need to spend some time in the youth team before he's ready for action.

[19b] Kyle Hamilton - MC - Either footed and a good passer, but so small, may lack the physicality needed for a 2 man midfield.

[19c] Garry Millar - MC/ML - Looks like a good utility left footer, but probably not a star.

[19d] Stephen Wilson - AMR/MR - An either footed right winger really excites me, the number of chances I'm generating when that position cuts inside that would benefit from a left foot ...

[19e] Iain Bavidge - DR - Not rated as a huge potential, but the fact he's already decent gives me more hope he'll reach it.

Youth Updates

Some good progress, some not so good. I'm hoping to have a lot more to report next year.

[17d] Dean Fulton - ST - Asked for 20+ and got 24 goals. Could easily have been more, he had 14 goals from 14 games before he got hurt, and never quite recaptured his golden touch. Broke his ankle in the second playoff leg, will miss the start of next season.

[17f] Ryan Scullion - MC - Looks great on paper but has never quite been a star for us, and struggles to see out games. If he continues to refuse to re-sign then my main regret will be that someone gets him for free, not that we lose him.

[17c] Fraser Massie - DL/DR - Starting to show signs of topping out, so I'm thinking our other talent is going to make him a backup to both fullback positions, but that's a useful thing to have.

[17h] Brian Stewart - DC - Don't really trust him yet, and his mistake cost us the goal in the playoff. Has to step up as the other option is 32.

[17i] Ross McHardy - GK - Ended up starting a bunch of games because our keeper was injured so I feel like I may as well just let the incumbent walk and hand him the starting spot.

[18b] Ryan Taylor - MC - Starting to get the hang of his new position, so will get more games next year. Mostly filled in at striker during an injury crisis up front this year.

[18a] Craig McIntyre - DL/ML - Didn't do a lot in limited chances but he's progressing nicely, so will throw him in the deep end next year.

Next Season

Unfortunately scoring 21 goals in a season has meant that Greg Mitchell has inflated his sense of self worth and won't sign a new contract. Other's I'm just going to have to let walk, they're blocking the future. If this means we take a step back then so be it, I feel like given a whole season a number of players will be as good as the guys they're replacing. It's just too hard to give up the temptation to push the old guard for a promotion run while they're still at the club, so I'm going to have to tie my hands.

[brugi82]

Just to double check with everyone... You can only offer 1 year contracts, right?

[Braumiller]

Just to double check with everyone... You can only offer 1 year contracts, right?

You can offer whatever contracts are available to offer.

Now, in many instances 1 year contracts are the most. It was for me for some players in my first two seasons as a semi-professional club in Scotland

Turning professional cannot come quickly enough for this and several other reasons!

[Nottingham Forest]

Seems you're both going well Braumiller and Shakes. Our bad form kind of continued and then didn't. I'm hoping we can string together a few results. There is some quality in my squad I am sure of it .

[Bartrcm]

Second challenge of the year came to an early end. The older players were awful, and the yougsters were to young to cope with the pressure.

Decision time, back to Dafuge challenge or a second try in this challenge.

[brugi82]

You can offer whatever contracts are available to offer.

Now, in many instances 1 year contracts are the most. It was for me for some players in my first two seasons as a semi-professional club in Scotland

Turning professional cannot come quickly enough for this and several other reasons!

Hm yeah. 1 year contracts are going to be very hard to overcome. One good season from some player and he's gone. And our careers are dependent on team consistency and trying to improve in small steps.

Anyway, I'm really close to starting first proper attempt in FM16. "My heart is telling me yes, but my mind is telling me no" to go to England I had 5 attempts in England in FM14 and they all ended in Vanarama Conference. I still have nightmares about 24 team league, having 10 match losing streaks, losing money like crazy even with smallest budget of all teams... What's not to like?

[Bartrcm]

OK, next try is in Italy. Meet the new manager of Parma.

[Braumiller]

Me right now.....

[XaW]

I love that this challenge is still going strong. After getting fired in dafuges (21 damn games without a win!) I'm going to try to avoid getting the boot here. Not quite sure where I want to manage yet, but I want to complete this challenge for once....

[korvalis]

Off to Turkey for me, Reset day is the 19 June.

Profile

Squad

Facilities

I'm at the team I picked, since we have some history...

[officiallydeej]

2 games to go.. tight is an understatement..

[Shakes]

brugi82 - I can offer 3 year contracts to players of rotation status or better. 1 year staff and backup contracts. It depends on your chairman how much they're prepared to let you spend into the future. My club is in great shape financially which might help.

[brenosantos]

Good luck Garthy_1706 and korvalis!

I'm not struggling with Grótta, but this isn't a season to dream so far, except for the cups, we're doing very well, surprisingly.

[officiallydeej]

Our season has finished before Boston's.. what is this?!

[XaW]

Well, I've decided to go to a place I've been before. I think it was in FM10 or something, where I played in Gundos challenge in this country. Belarus is my chosen nation. When I last played here, I got taken over by a Scottish tycoon who pumped in over £100M and gave me a transfer kitty of over £20M while the priciest player I could buy had a value of £50k.

Anyway, I'm back here now. My profile and Information. I'm the new manager of Volna Pinsk. Facilities and profile of the club. I like the fact that they have "Great" youth facilities, this should help out developing those youngster. Volna Pinsk is a small working class town in the south of Belarus, and according to Wikipedia not known for much except that former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir lived there for a couple of years. Now, with a squad of 13 players this are going to be interesting.

Oh, and the reset date is February 14th.

Edit: My board seems like nice guys. 3 day in and I got approved a coaching course and the youth philosophy.

[Shakes]

Good luck XaW and korvalis, good to see you guys back.

[Makoto Nakamura]

After my South American Journeyman went...well....South I've decided to try the Youth Challenge and here is my club of choice:

MAS Pydna Kitros F.C. is a Greek football club, based in Kitros, Pieria.

The club was founded in 1977. They will play for 1st year in Gamma Ethniki for season 2015-16.

So in the FM world they have gotten back-to-back promotions from the 4th tier to the 2nd tier of Greek football and staying here is going to be tough. The league reset date is 19th June.

Manager Profile

Squad 1 - Squad 2

General Club Info

Club Facilities

The first job will be to get some staff! There's just me and a goalkeeping coach right now!

[Jambo98]

Ah someone just had to get Parma this year

[ManUtd1]

Debating FM16 still, but my challenge attempts last year (completed with IFK Malmo, with strong runs in England and Greece that I abandoned due to not enough time) have me contemplating the purchase...

I've got teams in mind already!

[Bartrcm]

Ah someone just had to get Parma this year

Couldn't resist them, but it could be a very difficult challenge with the board expectations. And we don't have a team that will run away in the league.

[Jambo98]

Jambo 98 - FM 2016 Youth Challenge Attempt 1 - Beira-Mar

Season 1 - 2016/17

Division - Portugese National Championship

Final Position - 4th (First Stage League Table) (Relegation League Table)

Cups - Nae Danger...

Season Summary

We started very slowly, having looked at the squad i tried to set us up in a 41221 system, and we lost our first 3 games, conceding 8 goals and scoring only 2. At this stage i decided i couldnt resist the lure of my beloved 451 tactical system, so switched to that and saw an immediate improvement. We won 7 of the next 8 games to shoot right up the table. The top 2 in the first stage group (of 10 teams) qualify for the promotion stage, and we were starting to put ourselfs in the mix. An away tie to the league leaders put us back in our place, and we slipped slightly off the pace.

As happens to me in every single save in FM for the last 2 years, January brought about a slump. A run of 4 draws and a loss in 5 games put us out of contention for the top 2, but still in a respectable position given it was our first season and we had a few existing youngsters in the squad.

The other 8 teams who dont make the promotion group go into a relegation group, and each starts with 50% of your points from the previous stage, meaning we were starting in a strong position. Relegation was never an issue, and the season petered out a bit with nothing to play for really. We finished top of our relegation group, which is not really any achievement and brings no reward!

Notable Performers

Dani - 26yr old midfielder, and our highest value player and he was a real presence in midfield. 9 goals and 9 assists is a good return from the middle of the park and he was always consistent

Bernardo Balseiro - This young striker was not well rated by my Ass Man, and i expected him to be nothing but back up. but i started him the first 2 games of the 451 tactic and he was excellent. He scored a good few goals in the first part of the season, but as the season wore on he picked up a few knocks and form fell of slightly, meaning he rotated more with our other higher rate striker (A swede named Junior Bangoura, who i vaguely recognise from FM past!)

Youth Intake

The intake - Going by the ass man, a good intake in terms of potential, none look particularly amazing attributes wise, but we get a couple who have good CA as well it seems, which is a bonus to the squad right away. I will tag only 2 each year but i signed everyone with this being the first intake

YP17a - Joao Soares - A pacey looking left midfielder which is handy as my current player there is 38yr old. Will try to develop this guy and use his pace in the lower leagues

YP17b - Fernando Paulo - A classy looking CM who has a couple of interesting PPMs. We have Dani who is our main CM(a) so this guy might slot right in as DLP(s) in my system. Has good technical skills which is a nice bonus

Tagged Youth Updates

N/A for now

Transfers

Just the one pre-arranged one from before i joined. No one left the club so far, but that will change as i do my end of season "prune"

Transfer History

Facilities

YRN - Average

Junior Coaching - Average

Training Facilities - Average

Youth Facilities - Below Average

No upgrades this year, but we had a good starting point

Next Season

Challenge to get into the promotion Group

Start to integrate some of the better youths

[Wavelberry]

Had an absolutely awful pre-season with Piacenza losing 6-0, 3-0, 4-0 and 1-0.

Came to my first Serie C Cup game away to Parma who had already won their first game.

Beat them 3-1. GET IN!

[Bartrcm]

I'm terrible at FM16. 3th sack in a week.

[Shakes]

Finished my next season, write up after some sleep. But a "fun" mini update ...

Greg "You can't meet my ambitions" Mitchell who left after last season (as the winner of league 1 player of the year mind you) sat unemployed for half the season before signing for a team in the division below me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Since the same waste of talent is about to start to happen to my youth players I think I'm reporting this in the bug forum and then putting this on hold until a patch. Youth challenge saves are no fun if your young players bugger off to worse clubs.

[brugi82]

Ok, I'm getting in. Meet the new manager of Kettering. Team has very good facilities for this level. Board already wants me to develop players using club's youth academy.

Club is predicted to finish 22nd in Vanarama North, so I hope that we will manage to avoid relegation.

[Jimbokav1971]

Hi guys.

I'm afraid I must bow out of this thread because after being sacked at Regensburg, I took over a Turkish team, but because there were so few players, I let the board appoint a DoF and let him flesh out the squad a little, (so I am no longer Youth Only).

Do you mind if I ask, how did you create your game Worlds to generate so many players being in the squads at promoted clubs?

I think I would have eventually been sacked at Regensburg anyway, but certainly in Turkey, they just weren't enough players to get the job done.

Good luck to all.

[Shakes]

how did you create your game Worlds to generate so many players being in the squads at promoted clubs?

Pick the right country, some have more players in the database than others.

[Makoto Nakamura]

Hi guys.

I'm afraid I must bow out of this thread because after being sacked at Regensburg, I took over a Turkish team, but because there were so few players, I let the board appoint a DoF and let him flesh out the squad a little, (so I am no longer Youth Only).

Do you mind if I ask, how did you create your game Worlds to generate so many players being in the squads at promoted clubs?

I think I would have eventually been sacked at Regensburg anyway, but certainly in Turkey, they just weren't enough players to get the job done.

Good luck to all.

For me, I just loaded all players based in Greece and all players from the division 'G' Ethniki just to be sure and I ended up with a small squad from possibly one of the smallest sides that are able to get promoted. Best of luck in Turkey Jimbo

[officiallydeej]

2016/17 Season - National League North - 2nd

Finances | Transfers

So after the fiasco of my season finishing before Boston's, they won their last game to condemn us to the playoffs by the virtue of goal difference. 2 Goals at that. Ouch.

The season itself started with a 4-0 win which rocketed us to the top of the league after the first game. It then ebbed and flowed up to Christmas which saw us in upper mid table at the turn of the year, before we kicked into gear. We were second all the way from week 23 to the final week of the season where we briefly led the table until Boston's game 3 days later. We ended in second place which game us a place in the play offs. We seemed to take the lead every game we played, if matches ended after 10 minutes we'd have finished up on 100 points!

We drew our away game at Altrincham, giving me hope we'd turn them over in the second leg. Then his happened...

2 men sent off. Perry's red was his FIFTH of the season. Who gets sent off 5 times in 30 games?! He refused to sign a new contract and I can't say i'm disappointed with a disciplinary record like that either. It's not all bad news, promotion first season would have helped financially but I have no doubt we wouldn't have coped in the National League just yet.

Cups

FA Cup - A decent little run which made the board happy and ended in a decent money making tie at Charlton.

FA Trophy - I hadn't really planned to go anywhere in this but half a team ground out 3 wins before we threw away a lead at Torquay.

Youth Intake

Youth Intake - Some nice looking players though i'm not sure how far their potential will actually go.

Scott O'Neill (17a) - Winger who has already had some game time, scored in the playoffs.

Dominic Hayes (17b) - Will be the starting LB next season as my first choice won't renew his contract.

Matty Blake (17c) - Ditto for this lad, first choice right back has also opted to leave.

Robert Walker (17d) - I like his finishing and he's banging them in for the U18's. Will get game time next season (You guessed it, the first choice striker is leaving.

Craig Blake (17e) - Already played a few games this season but his lack of pace is a worry.

Youth Updates

N/A yet..



Next Season

As i've alluded to, a lot of my first teamers have no interest in staying with us next season. 6 out of 11 in fact, including my goalkeeper. This means we're going to have to move towards youth a lot earlier than i'd anticipated as we only had 17 players before the intake anyway, and 4 were strikers (I play 1 up top). Considering these facts, I honestly don't expect we'll be anywhere near where we finished this season. I'd take a top half finish if I was offered it now and hopefully the board won't have got ideas above our station and will be more than satisfied.

As you can see at the top of this post, the finances are in excellent nick. £850,000 means i've already had approval for an upgrade to both training and youth facilities, which unless the board choose to cancel will start in the next few weeks in game. I've had my junior coaching upped too, to the dizzy heights of adequate. Most of my money came from a Dan Burn sell on clause (Fulham sold him for 1.5million in August), but if we continue to make a small profit each year without the clause i'm not in a rush to get promoted until i've shifted more towards youth to keep the progression sustainable..

[Garthy_1706]

I don't know what tactics and instructions other people are using but I'm struggling to buy a win at the moment. Just hope I win enough to stay up otherwise I will be getting the sack.

[XaW]

Oh, this is not good. I have a total of 13 players and i just got my 4th long term injury. This means that almost a quarter of my players are out injured. I need that youth intake soon...

Luckily this ref really wanted me to win.

[brugi82]

@officiallydeej Very good first season mate. I think that Vanarama National League is the most difficult division for this challenge. So it would be smart to stay few years in North/South and build a team capable of survival. On the other hand I am concerned about contract renewals and how can we build a team when we are going to lose 5-6 first team players every year.

p.s. I have already reported a bug on this. It wouldn't hurt if you report it too (or at least leave a comment that this thing is happening in your save).

[Makoto Nakamura]

Gutted Going to attempt again but in a different nation, just got to decide which one. Quick question though, do we have to play in Europe?

[brenosantos]

@Makoto Nakamura, look at the first post:

The Available Countries

Any Country in Europe is eligible as long as you can get a previously unplayable side promoted from Holidaying.

For example Holland is no longer available as there is no longer any relegation from the 2nd tier.

[Makoto Nakamura]

@Makoto Nakamura, look at the first post:

Ah, my apologies.

[Forest]

Belgium is very tricky, I noticed that nobody got promoted after the first year?!

[Braumiller]

I go away for 24 hours and there is a bunch of activity to catch up on!

Also have my season 3 review to write, so will do that first and then catch-up and participate

[brenosantos]

I'm finishing my first season, I'm surprised because the team is playing very well, but I don't think that we'll reach something this year.

[Makoto Nakamura]

Setting up to holiday in Sweden. Short seasons, 4 divisions and if I recall it's also where the whole idea of a 'Youth Challenge' made it to the 'mainstream' with hrbfcrule and IK Tord back on FM11.

[dan_simmonds]

FC Vitkovic - The Beginning

Season 1 - 2016/17



Little known English manager Dan Simmonds is named as the new manager of recently promoted FC Vitkovice in the Czech Second Division, Fotbalová Národní Liga. Bankrupted and renamed in 2011, FC Vitkovice have had their stadium rebuilt and boast a not insignficant transfer budget. Worryingly for Vitkovice fans, Simmonds intends to grow the club and turn them into perennial contenders by only using youth academy products. Can a team who have such high expectations to reach the dizzy heights of 1985-86, really be expected to grow at the speed required by only strengthing with youth? Simmonds only has a one year contract, so we'll soon find out. Ostrava expects!

First Team Squad

This is an aging squad, with a number of players over forty. There's also a significant amount of amateur players, the best of which will need to be tied down to a professional contract as quickly as possible. Predicted to finish tenth in the league, I'm glad this is a youth challenge because we'll need to overhaul this squad sooner or later. No assistant means no ratings, this is going to be an old school first season, maybe a bit of sprinkling of youth. Ha!

Youth Team

Awful. At least this guy can finish. I need to get a Head of Youth Development asap.

Facilities

Actually not bad for a newly promoted club. I doubt if there's much budget for youth development though, unless I can persuade the board to move some money from the transfer budget. I'm not even sure that it's an option, but we'll see.

Finances

Finances are in a really good place at the moment, and the way I'll be setting up the club and focusing on youth means I'll very rarely make a loss. Redistributing the wealth in the correct way will be crucial for me, but again, that will involve me exceeding expectations.

Tactics

On FM15 my most effective formation was a 4-1-4-1 and I'll be looking to replicate that here. Given the immense challenge facing me and my squad both this season and going forward, being tough to beat is priority number one, but this gives us balance in defence and attack. It could work.

Board Objectives

Fotbalová Národní Liga - Midtable respectability

Ceská pošta Cup - 3rd Round

This season's objectives

Midtable would be nice, but I won't know anything about this team until we get going.

Build a backroom staff

Do well enough in the cup competition

Generate enough profit to improve facilities

That's it.

NB: I've started and failed a couple of these challenges over the years. I'm hoping another country other than England will help me complete it as I won't be able to see how well/badly Arsenal are fairing and the temptation won't be there to start that particular save. In addition, finding a really great regen in my first couple of seasons will encourage me, so keep those fingers crossed. I've also got a career thread named Vitkovice? More like Kidkovice!, so my progress will be documented both here (seasonally) and there (monthly).

[XaW]

XaW - Volna Pinsk - Belarusian First League - 2016

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Back in Belarus. The season starts in the spring and ends towards the winter, so the possible future of European campaigns will be a challenge. When I first took over the club I found I had a grand total of 13 players, and this includes a couple of 16 year olds. However, to my grand surprise, I found out I actually had some quality players. After reviewing the squad I thought we could do ok if we only had some more backups. This turned out to be true as we placed ourselves midtable early on. Then I got my only goalkeeper injured for 4 weeks. This led to a string of losses that was only stopped when our goalkeeper were fit enough to hobble onto the field to replace the cone we had set up in his place. Other injuries came as well, but we found our form after getting a propper goalkeeper back on the pitch and went 7 games without a loss. This propelled us towards the top, though no one could even try to take the top from Smorgon who ran away early. For a while we fought for the second promotion slot, but some crucial injuries towards the end led us to lose a match or two too many. When we finally got our sought-after youth intake, I, to my horror, found out we couldn't play them until the next season due to the registration windows being closes. In the end, our poor 13 players gave a great fight for promotion and we should have a good chance for it next season after getting some actual players to back up the dirty dozen (+1).

In the Belrusian Cup we beat Viktoiya and ****sk, before losing to top tier outfit Gomel in the 3rd round. (Edit: Really? Censored? This is Scunthorpe all over again...It's a team!)

Youth:

Our first youth intake was going to be great no matter, but we got some actual quality youngsters.

First intake:

Iliya Krotov (YP1a) - Promising winger with loads of speed.

Sergey Rusetskiy (YP1b) - Highly rated left back. Got his debut for Belarus U19 already.

Alexey Vasilevich (YP1c) - Goalkeeper who will be 2nd choice next season, might get some matches as he could be better then our only other one.

Sergey Matyukhevich (YP1d) - Very excited about this kid, since I lack attacking midfielders.

Alexey Demidovich (YP1e) - Talented striker who will get his share of matches next season.

Maxim Korzun (YP1f) - Right winger with a bit of skill.

Denis Melnik (YP1g) - Big central defender who should be useful.

Denis Petrushevskiy (YP1h) - Left back with some talent.

Valeriy Trubilo (YP1i) - Striker who might be good.

Alexandr Verbitskiy (YP1j) - Talented defender.

Season	|     League	     |     Position	|    Europe	|         Top scorer   	     |    Achievments
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2016	|     First League   |	     5th	|      N/A	|  Dmitriy Malashitskiy (19) |   Close to promotion

[Makoto Nakamura]

Attempt 2:

The club is named after Aerostar SA, a local aeronautics company and the sponsor of the team.

The team's best performance was 8th place in the Divizia B, in the 1989–90 season.

The club is best known for producing the Manchester City goalkeeper, and Premier League winner, Costel Pantilimon



Squad - General Info - Facilities

Fun fact - at the end of the 1st season Romania's 2nd division goes from being 2 groups of 11 to one league of 22 which means 42 league games and 5 relegation places with a 3 month winter break and a 3 month pre-season!

[Forest]

Frigg Oslo FK

Background l Information l Manager Profile 1 l Manager Profile 2 l Squad

After being sacked in Moscow, I will try my luck again. This time in Norway. I found a very intresting team. SK Frigg is located in Oslo and named after Frigg of Norse mythology. She was a goddess associated with foreknowledge and wisdom and the wife of Odin.

SK Frigg was also one of the founder members of the first Norwegian Football League. They won three times the Norwegian Cup, the last time nearly 100 years ago in 1921. They even competed once in the european Cup against Dunfermline in 1966/67.

So a great club to play with. And with Valerenga, Lyn, Skeid, KFUM we got a lot of Derbys in Norway.

The Squad should be good enough to stay in the league the first year.

[Braumiller]

Fraserburgh FC - Season 3 Review (2018/19)

League Table | League Positions Graph | Squad Stats | Transfers | End of Season Awards | Season Review | Injury Report

Competitions

League One : 7th (Fixtures (1 2)

Scottish Cup : 3rd Round

Scottish League Cup : 1st Round

League Challenge Cup : 2nd Round

Season Review

A rollercoaster season for sure!

We started out the year with our new strikerless formation and high hopes. They quickly disolved as in our first 8 games we won once (a cup game), crashed out of both cups (including to a non league team 3-0!) and went winless in our first 5 league games.

We did somewhat steady the ship, but we never really hit our stride. This led to a little tinkering with our strikerless tactic and perhaps a little improvement, but we were not playing as we should. For the first half of the season if we were not in the relegation spots, we were always never more than 2 or 3 points above them. Eventually I cracked and around the 20 game mark in the league we ditched the strikerless and went to a much more vanilla formation, 44 f'n 2 We actually only played this formation for 2 games (two away draws!), before I dropped a striker back into the AMC slot and we settled on a 4411. Performances were noticably better, instantly. I will write a separate little post below on it, as I found it interesting.

Anyway, we won our first 4 games on the bounce with the 4411 and suddenly we were in the promotion playoff picture (there is such a fine line between relegation playoff teams and promotion playoff teams in the Scottish league set-up!). With 5 games to go we hit 4th spot and were in the playoff places! Injuries then killed us and we didn't win again in the league (actually only winning 1 of our last 9) and we tumbled to 7th spot.

Even with thr bad run to finish the year, I still feel positive about next season.....

"Fraserburgh Five"

Dylan Honeyman - Dylan missed a large chunk of the season during our tactical indecision, so he missed out on the lower rating games! Still, one of our new widemen now we are playing wingers again, and he logged some impressive games for us!

Steven Davidson - This one is a little depressing! He did not fit into our strikerless set-up and was not happy with his retraining schedule. We fell out, he got mad and decided to leave. Well, at the end of the season during our injury crisis I had to throw him (and his finishing of 4!) out there as the lone striker and he scored in 5 of the 7 games, and 7 goals in total in those 7 games! He never forgave me and left on a free at the end of the season.

Callum Tremaine - The main reason Steven got his chance is due to Callum picking up two separate hamstring injuries! Callum was reveling in the new striker role and he will be key to us moving forward, due to him being the only player on our books with double digits for all three of finishing, composure and pace!

Adam Cross - Our other first choice wideman. Adam played nicely down the left hand side for us and will be a key player until the youth system spits out a possible replacement for him

Adam Clark - A very steady consistent presence in our back line, Adam is rarely anything other than a quality player. Another who should be a key member until I find a suitable replacement.

Youth Intake

Certainly not a standout intake this year, but our main product should be a regular performer for sure.

Scott McLean (YP 03A) - An attacking midfielder who in natural all across the field at this position. Sadly I only play one attacking midfieler now, but I will find ways to incorporate him into games for sure. Has a nice bit of pace (for our level) and everything else is fair to ok. Can also fill in upfront for us in a pinch

George Martin (YP 03B) - A headline writers dream with all the possible 'fire' and 'ice' headlines! A central midfielder with good vision and perhaps decent passing with some training. Will be hoping to involve him in the first team as next season progresses.

Mark Ferry (YP 03C) - With our lack of depth Mark may well see some first team games, but he makes me nervous currently. Short and Tackling of just 4 is asking for trouble, but I may end up asking.....

Miscellaneous

So in terms of league position this season was a slight step back. I do feel better about our tactical approach now, as it is more back-to-basics and demands less from our youths when making the step up.

One concern this year is no youth products broke into the 'Fraserburgh Five'.

Of the field we managed another upgrade for Junior Coaching, but nothing else.

We finally finished burning through our cash from the Rangers cup game in season one, losing 122k for the year to put us around 15k in the red.

Season 3 (2018/19) Goals

* Consolidate - Kinda

* Continue the journey to youth takeover - Kinda

Season 4 (2019/20) Goals

* A solid season

* Definitely involve more kids, this needs to improve much more or I am just sitting on a ticking timebomb

[Braumiller]

nevermind, this tactics post was garbage