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FM16: Athletic Bilbao - No puede comprar un trofeo


Guest El Payaso

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I'm wondering who to sign as head of youth development.

Does it make a difference whether he is Spanish or foreign? Or is nationality less important and it's all about his personality and attributes?

You can get Rodolfo Borrell right away if you're quick. He's excellent.

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Guest El Payaso

I always find the staff with job adverts. After many weeks Phil Cannon declared his interest in the job. Also sacked all the scouts as I don't need any because I am not signing any players in this save.

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So, as I'm coming out of the winter transfer window I was thinking... How should I assign my scouts? With this being my first stab at an Athletic save, I was wondering what you do for your scouts? I plan to have one look for just 16< guys in Spain and one in France, but otherwise... what should I be doing with them considering Basque players are few and far between.

You don't need very many. I generally have around 4 or 5 but I don't search for Spanish 16 y/o's without Basque nationality. In that situation it's such a small player pool you only have to scout a few places occasionally and then you can just do it through player search.

I would have one assigned to next opposition (with good tactical knowledge), then the others assigned to useful regions e.g. France and Spain. You could assign a scout to under 19s, and one to Segunda B, one to Liga Adelante and one to La Liga. Then one to France as well. If you're signing 16 year old Spaniards without Basque nationality, then I would get your scouts primarily looking for players within that age restriction so they bring up more results. A lot of La Liga clubs will send their good youngsters to B teams, so they will be in the lower leagues and not just the under 19s.

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I'm wondering who to sign as head of youth development.

Does it make a difference whether he is Spanish or foreign? Or is nationality less important and it's all about his personality and attributes?

Borrell is a good option. You want to consider their personality, preferred formation/coaching style and of course obvious attributes as they will affect the players you have come through. To a certain extent though, there's a reasonable amount of luck :)

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Just started my annual save with Bilbao. As usual I've made no signings in the initial transfer window but I'm still struggling to get the team to gel and play my preferred tactic. We've managed to scrape through the Europa League matches and have been drawn with Steaua Bucuresti, Sampdoria and Videoton. A 1-1 draw at home to Sampdoria started the group off.

We managed to beat Barcelona 3-1 in the first leg on the Supercopa, but were battered 4-0 in the return leg. However, the league is where we've really struggled; we're currently 17th after 5 games with 2 draws and 3 defeats. Hopefully we'll gel soon and really push on!

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Just started my annual save with Bilbao. As usual I've made no signings in the initial transfer window but I'm still struggling to get the team to gel and play my preferred tactic. We've managed to scrape through the Europa League matches and have been drawn with Steaua Bucuresti, Sampdoria and Videoton. A 1-1 draw at home to Sampdoria started the group off.

We managed to beat Barcelona 3-1 in the first leg on the Supercopa, but were battered 4-0 in the return leg. However, the league is where we've really struggled; we're currently 17th after 5 games with 2 draws and 3 defeats. Hopefully we'll gel soon and really push on!

Good luck!

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Managed to find quite a few regens that will be fitting in to my team from this season onwards, a good striker, MC and a CB all of whom I think can have starting roles in the future.

Current XI going in to the third season:

GK: Arrizabalaga

DR: De Marcos

DC: San Jose

DC: Laporte

DL: Balenziaga

DM: Iturraspe

MR: Susaeta

MC: Herrera/Unai Lopez

AMC: Muniain/Aketxe

AML: Griezmann

ST: Inaki/Hernandez (regen)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ended up 4th in my first campaign and qualified for CL with Ruffier being my only transfer, but I got a good feel for the majority of the roster and got a couple good regens.

It was a weird season Real ran away with the title, but Valencia was clear cut second place with a flat 433 (yes, 3 true strikers) that absolutely crushed me all 3 times I ended up playing them. Barca and I traded spots down the stretch and I needed them to draw to finish 3rd and Messi got a hat trick, so no dice. Athletico ended up 8th, so hoping I can knock Griezemann loose since they're not even in Euro.

Just a quick question about BBVA: Does the TV money improve? I'm used to playing EPL so it was a bit shocking to see the money for fourth, just trying to think ahead.

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Ended up 4th in my first campaign and qualified for CL with Ruffier being my only transfer, but I got a good feel for the majority of the roster and got a couple good regens.

It was a weird season Real ran away with the title, but Valencia was clear cut second place with a flat 433 (yes, 3 true strikers) that absolutely crushed me all 3 times I ended up playing them. Barca and I traded spots down the stretch and I needed them to draw to finish 3rd and Messi got a hat trick, so no dice. Athletico ended up 8th, so hoping I can knock Griezemann loose since they're not even in Euro.

Just a quick question about BBVA: Does the TV money improve? I'm used to playing EPL so it was a bit shocking to see the money for fourth, just trying to think ahead.

TV money will improve as the club gets more successful. It's financially a very unfair league!

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Guest El Payaso

Anyone tried the new update? Have there been any changes to Athletic players? Seems that Muniain is finally coming alive IRL and Aduriz still world class and right there with Suarez and Benzema.

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Won't give away CA/PA's or too much info to try to avoid spoilers but here is a bit of an overview:

Aduriz - slight boost, I think mainly to mentals but not gone through all the attributes

Kepa - Given a fixed PA rather than a variable one. It does fall into the range of the old variable PA, but if I'm honest I expected it just to be left as variable for now.

Laporte - Slight boost

Mikel Rico - Slight drop

Inaki Williams - Slight to Reasonable boost

Xabi Etxeita - Slight boost

Ibai - Slight drop

Borja Viguera - Slight drop

Mikel Balenziaga - Slight boost

Overall I think quite reasonable, but don't think it has addressed the issue with Aduriz's physicals causing premature decline which is a major concern. Think a few of his physicals are still too weak to start with and a boost to natural fitness to help his longevity would have been reasonable.

I had a quick look at Bilbao and Baskonia as well but nothing jumped out at me

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Guest El Payaso

Cheers bowieinspace. It's a shame that Premierleague seems to get that much more attention and those attribute changes are more accurate there. The good thing is that it is quite simple to edit these on our own. Not sure that I will start a new one anymore. Might go with Villarreal or just stick with my DoF with Everton.

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No worries. Not sure on the process to stat adjustment, I guess they will always be cautious if anything.

I was considering a new Athletic save but didn't fancy a second one. In my first season with Gladbach now, though I'd go for a Bundesliga save!

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Cheers bowieinspace. It's a shame that Premierleague seems to get that much more attention and those attribute changes are more accurate there. The good thing is that it is quite simple to edit these on our own

Great point, I would try to do this but don't wanna go "over the top" in comparison. Using the spoiler tags if need be, what CA/PA do you see the "starters" as? Be interesting to see if we all agree on similar figures. I would really like to speak with the Athletic researcher as some of these are baffling!

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  • 2 weeks later...

2016/17 -

La Liga - 3rd Place - Copa del Rey: Winners! - Europa League - Last 16

Star Men!

Aritz Adurrrritz... 39 goals

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...Oscar de Marcos... 21 Assists, Inaki Williams... 23 Goals..

Best new youth intake

[sT]Javier Alonso, 5/5star

[GK]Mario Diez, 4.5/5star

[LB/DC]Sergio Casado, 4star

[AM/ST]Ibon Saizar, 4 star

2017/18 onwards...

Return of Herrera!

yOtxqoy.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Started an Athletic save after choosing them randomly.

This thread is a great help.

First three games were against Barca, first two in the Spanish Cup, where I won 3-1, then lost 7-1!!!!!

Won the opening league game of season against Barca 2-1.

Lots of bids unsettling my players whom I am finding quite hard to passify after I refuse the bids.

Got through to the transfer deadline without losing anymore major.

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I just refuse bids and when they get unsettled I just keep playing them. They eventually turn happy again, as long as you're doing well. I haven't had to sell anyone I didn't want to.

Yup very true this.

I had to sell San Jose this time around, but Monaco offered his 32million (GBP) release clause, which was a bit ridiculous.

I've had a few issues with De Marcos becoming unsettled on this version as he's on the ambitious side personality wise, but in reality he's stated multiple times he will never leave Athletic, and did so again recently when he was linked with Chelsea and United.

Laporte seems professional enough in real life not to get unsettled like he does on the game, but to be fair, it's hard to see Athletic keeping hold of him forever. In the game I've managed it but his buy out clause is definitely within reach and in real life he's signed something like 6 contract extensions in 3 years to bump his release clause!

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Finished my first season, came 2nd behind Real Madrid who were too good.

Aduriz was top goalscorer with 20 goals, Susaeta was my best player.

Transfer wise no one came in; De Marcos went to Juventus for £9.5m, Williams to Man Utd for £35.5m and a few fringe players as well.

What was your thinking behind letting De Marcos go for 9.5? That's an absolute bargain! Was 35.5 the release fee for Williams? That's decent enough money but hope it doesn't hinder you too much as the flow of striker options once Aduriz declines too much is limited. Sounds like you had a good first season though :thup:

Did anyone watch the Granada match on Sunday? Painful 90 minutes, you could just see it was going to be a draw after all the chances we missed :rolleyes:

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Found that the midfield of midfield is the weakest area of my side, and the only way to improve it is by bringing home Ander Herrera for an initial £29m rising to £46m over two years.

He's definitely a good buy if you can get him. Benat I've found is great, but perhaps a little underrated on the game compared to real life in some ways, and not as good as Herrera. I dropped San Jose to CB and played Benat/Iturraspe as the two CM's in a 4-2-3-1 and they did well for a while until better options appeared. I found Mikel Rico was a great option to have if I needed someone to cover ground/tackle as opposed to create - I often used him against the big teams.

Fair enough on De Marcos, he's a great player but he's certainly not a defensive full back! I'm very cautious about player sales as I do my Athletic saves only signing youth players who already have Basque nationality, so selling Williams risks not having a player of that level for many years potentially as the pool is so small. I actually got a lot of success from Viguera (unexpectedly!) in this years version, so he's worth a bash up front as well.

Good luck!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just finished my first season with Bilbao, managed to scrape 4th place in the league. We were challenging for the title until Manchester United activated Williams' release clause of £35.5M. I offered him a new contract but he opted to join United :( I managed to scrape fourth place in the league though. However we did win the Euro Cup, beating West Ham in the final 5-2. Though we lost the Spanish Cup against Barcelona on penalties after Suarez equalized at 90+1. All in all an extremely pleasing season, Aduriz was outstanding as was De Marcos and Suasreta.

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In previous versions of Football Manager, I spent outrageous sums of money on terrible youth players from small Basque clubs like Eibar, Osasuna and Lemona, sometimes giving £10m to each club every summer :D

I hoped that the money would eventually allow those clubs to better themselves and move up the leagues, creating a bigger pool of Basque nationality regions in the long term.

I didn't get the opportunity to see the results but in the short term (this was on FM13) the clubs generally didn't do very much with the money and just plodded along :(

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I started a new save with Athletic on FMT last night, still in the transfer window. Seems we have a fine bank balance, but the board don't fancy sharing any of it yet. I've set up in a fairly standard 4-4-1-1, which seems like it will suit the players well.

Seems like Aduriz is better than he was in 15, but perhaps still underrated? Regardless, will do the job for at least a few years hopefully.

Raul Garcia is going to be an issue. I've built the team around him in the AMC slot, but there's no one else at the club like him to rotate.

Inaki Williams at left mid is showing signs of being something great.

On the transfer front, I've brought in Zouridine Thior, Pepelu and Pau Miguelez as cheap youngsters, all look like they could develop into great players. For the first team, I spent 10m+Iraizoz to bring in Ruffier, and sold De Marcos to Porto for 8.5m.

I think I'll sell Viguera and promote Villalibre, he's not really ready for first team football, but it'd help him develop more quickly.

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I started a new save with Athletic on FMT last night, still in the transfer window. Seems we have a fine bank balance, but the board don't fancy sharing any of it yet. I've set up in a fairly standard 4-4-1-1, which seems like it will suit the players well.

Seems like Aduriz is better than he was in 15, but perhaps still underrated? Regardless, will do the job for at least a few years hopefully.

Raul Garcia is going to be an issue. I've built the team around him in the AMC slot, but there's no one else at the club like him to rotate.

Inaki Williams at left mid is showing signs of being something great.

On the transfer front, I've brought in Zouridine Thior, Pepelu and Pau Miguelez as cheap youngsters, all look like they could develop into great players. For the first team, I spent 10m+Iraizoz to bring in Ruffier, and sold De Marcos to Porto for 8.5m.

I think I'll sell Viguera and promote Villalibre, he's not really ready for first team football, but it'd help him develop more quickly.

Best of luck in your save, I am 9 seasons in and in mine Inaki Williams has become a beast (Manchester United activated his £35.5M release clause early on, before I bought him back for not much more). Could be a mistake selling de Marcos though, he retired in my team after being a stalwart at RB, thankfully though I have a couple of regen RB's who have replaced him seamlessly.

I still haven't won the league after finishing behind Real Madrid for the past 6 seasons :( However this finally did happen:

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Which was unexpected to say the least against a team who have been relentless in Europe:

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Some screenshots of key *real* players and their careers:

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And a couple of my best regens so far:

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They're some mighty regens you have!

Selling De Marcos wasn't ideal, to be honest, but I'm more comfortable with a more defensive RB with this system anyway, and it did help me fund Ruffier, one of my fave buys for Athletic.

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They're some mighty regens you have!

Yeah, they have turned out well, being allowed to sign u-16 Spanish youngsters has been a godsend.

They're some mighty regens you have!

Selling De Marcos wasn't ideal, to be honest, but I'm more comfortable with a more defensive RB with this system anyway, and it did help me fund Ruffier, one of my fave buys for Athletic.

Yeah, de Marcos only knows one way on a football pitch and that's forwards! What are you going to do with Ruffier when Kepa comes back? Kepa's been a mainstay for me, though his attributes aren't exactly amazing, granted.

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Yeah, they have turned out well, being allowed to sign u-16 Spanish youngsters has been a godsend.

I like that SI leave in that one bit of leeway, it's really helpful, especially on Touch where you may have smaller intakes.

Yeah, de Marcos only knows one way on a football pitch and that's forwards! What are you going to do with Ruffier when Kepa comes back? Kepa's been a mainstay for me, though his attributes aren't exactly amazing, granted.

I'll probably rotate them, Kepa can play all the cup games and half the European games.

We've been killing it so far, 5 games, 5 wins, 5 points clear at the top, beaten both Barca and Real at San Mames. Can't go on forever, but it's a fine place to start the season.

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A pretty plain 4-4-1-1, the only slightly unusual thing being Raul Garcia's role behind the striker, playing him as a plain AM(support), with extra instructions to close down more and tackle harder, taking advantage of his workrate and good defensive skills for an attacker.

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Raul Garcia is superb, can pull the strings in midfield as well as link up play with the striker. Benat is another absolute worldy. Hope the season carries on well for you (and that Ronaldo gets injured :p).

Robles, my regen right winger, has just won the World Golden Ball:

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Turned out so much better than I ever thought he would when I bought him as a 16 year old from Leganes. Never had a regen win the Golden Ball before, so quite chuffed. Just hope PSG don't nab him off me!

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Yeah, love Raul Garcia, definite key player and can do a bit of everything, I just fancied having him stick to boot in when the opposition have the ball.

Incredible work with Robles, 18 goals and 22 assists is a fantastic haul.

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I like that SI leave in that one bit of leeway, it's really helpful, especially on Touch where you may have smaller intakes.

Personally I don't like it as I don't feel it's a fair reflection on real life policy. However I can (and do) just choose not to make use of it, so it's not problematic at all, and if it gets more people using Athletic then :thup:

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Hmm, board gave me some money mid season, and I spaffed the lot on the only better Basque player who was interested in joining, Nacho Monreal.

17m, way too much, especially at his age, but he's far better than the fullbacks at the club and with a good personality and decent natural fitness, I should get a few years out of him, which is all that matters.

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Hmm, I won the league by 5 points in the end, and the Europa, but lost in the Cup to Real Madrid in the semis.

Sadly, Laporte won't consider a new contract, fear a big European club will hit that release any time now, and the club have given me a disappointing 20m + 130k wages to build in the summer.

On the upside, Sociedad were relegated, so I may be able to poach.....

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Hmm, I won the league by 5 points in the end, and the Europa, but lost in the Cup to Real Madrid in the semis.

Sadly, Laporte won't consider a new contract, fear a big European club will hit that release any time now, and the club have given me a disappointing 20m + 130k wages to build in the summer.

On the upside, Sociedad were relegated, so I may be able to poach.....

Can you get Inigo Martinez? If so :thup: Laporte would be a huge loss, fingers crossed for you!

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Can you get Inigo Martinez? If so :thup: Laporte would be a huge loss, fingers crossed for you!

I'd have to hit his 27m buyout, which I could scrape, and no bid has yet come in for Laporte who's now saying he wants to move to a bigger club.

I could get Ander Herrera for about 35m, which would if anything be easier as Man Utd will be open to negotiations, so I could stretch the finances.

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No idea what happened, but after a few months of being transfer listed(by request), Laporte asked to be removed from the list and would finally consider a deal. Which is great as Inigo Martinez was pinched by Arsenal..... He's not playing for them much though, so one to keep an eye on.

Anyway, on to the important part, cost the club a fair bit, but we're in a very strong position with Laporte now.

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The club have about 50m in the bank and won't let me have a sniff, so whatever, I don't mind spending a lot on such a key part of the team both present and future.

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