[FM16] Partisan (adj) strongly supporting a person, principle, or political party,

[Bedese]

2 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Bayern ranked #4

Monaco ranked #13

Inter ranked #20

Partizan ranked #51

[Edit]

Red Star ranked #43 

It's worse than I thought, then, but how on earth are Red Star above you?

[Jimbokav1971]

Just now, Jupjamie said:

It's worse than I thought, then, but how on earth are Red Star above you?

Well I have had such tough groups in recent years that I have just been playing the kids for experience once I actually got to the group stages, (until I realised they were ahead of me and decided to do something about it). 

At the same time, they have got out of the Europa league Group stages on each of their last 4 attempts, (and even got the the Qtr FInals in 2022/23. 

In the last 4 years they have won 15 and drawn 7 games at the group stages or after. 

In the last 4 years we have won 5 and drawn 3 games at the group stages or after, (and 3 wins and a draw of those were in 2021/22 when we got to the 2nd Knockout Round of the Europa League.

Played 2, Lost 2 so far this year.

[Jimbokav1971]

Yeah I know that £24M on wages for 1 player is a little obscene, (ok, it's a lot obscene), but the fact remains that he is the best player that we have ever produced and if I am going to get anywhere with this save then I need to keep our best players at the club. 

We are not doing well in Europe, but I think that's down to my tactical inadequacies, (and the fact that I am using the IR button of course), rather than anything too ability based with regards to the squad. I have tried to me more defensive this season in Europe and as a result I have dropped the AP(a) in favour of a (RGA), but it meant that the balance of the team was wrong and of course I have not been developing a (RGA) because we don't use one. After a 4-1 defeat to Bayern, I have just decided to go back to playing with my old formation, but I have changed the midfield roles slightly in order to give us a little more protection. I have also added some new team instructions to give us a little more stability, but at the same way not change the way we play too much. 

[Edit]

It should be mentioned that we have £150M+ in the bank, so we are not exactly poor, so I am not risking it all with this contract. 

[BoxToBox]

I kind of like splashing the cash on Kriss Kruc, tbh. Not only is it nice that you're able to keep key players like him, you had mentioned earlier that you had fine finances and nothing to do with it.

[Jimbokav1971]

Diego Costa might be playing at our rivals Red Star, but all is not going as planned. 

 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Our league form on the other hand is going ok and as well as being unbeaten in the league in 25 games, (22 of which have been wins), we have now won our last 10 league games. 

[Jimbokav1971]

There are no Serbian players on the 2025 World Golden ball shortlist. 

By Keeping the likes of Kriss Kruc (2020) at the club, am I hampering the end to this cycle though?

[Jimbokav1971]

Barcelona have come in with a £39.5M +25% offer for Djuradj, but I'm really looking for £50M+.

I think I will hang on for a bit. 

[Jimbokav1971]

I think it's time to show myself up for the tactically inept moron that I am. 

We have really struggled in the Champions League over the last few seasons and in fact the only single season where I think we did well was 5 seasons ago where we never made the Champions League and instead we went into the Europa League and then did well enough to progress into the 2nd knockout round. 

Since then we have had tough group after tough group to such an extent that I noticed that Red Star are now above us in the rankings because they never get into the Champions League so don't play against such stiff opposition, (therefore gaining more points than we do, which isn't too hard if I'm honest). 

For the previous 3 seasons I have also fielded weakened teams once I got to the Group stage, (we now qualify automatically for the Group stages), so just played the high PA kids in all European games. This meant that we invariably struggled, but of course the experience for the kids is invaluable. 

Anyway, so this season I decided that we couldn;t continue wuh Red Star bearing us at anything so I would have to change tact with regards to European games. As a result I now rotate players before every European game, (meaning that they will be fresh), and I have been adapting a more defensivetactic that will hopefully stand us in good stead for these tough European games to come. 

I will be honest and admit that the European campaign has been a struggle this season and although I didn't expect us to get out of the group, I hoped that we might still have a chance of finishing 3rd with a couple of games to go. It didn;t work out like that however and after a number of heavy defeats, (wose than the scorelines suggest if I'm honest), we were rock bottom of the table with absolutely no chance of finishing anywhere else going into the last game of the Group against leaders Monaco. 

Partizan 1 - 3 Inter.

AS Mnaco 3 - 0 Partizan.

Partizan 0 - 2 FC Bayern.

FC Bayern 4 - 1 Partizan,

Partizan 0 - 2 Inter.

It's been a long day, we are going to finish bottom anyway and oh what the hell. I just decided to play our normal domestic tactic against the Champions League group leaders and see how we got on. 

That's it. From now we play our way the whole time!

This is how Group E finished. 

[Edit]

Upon further investigation it appears that we did indeed use the new "counter" tactic, but I can't work out of I changed and just didn;t realise, or whether it hadn't been changed back since the previous Champions League game. 

Meh! 

[Jimbokav1971]

Tutoring.

I have been tutoring (23d) Srboljub (Amb) with Pavlovic (F.Pro). 

We have a Highly Ambitious squad and this is something I am obviously keen to change. I would obviously prefer a move to more Professional, but failing that, I am actually happy to even tutor (Amb) players to (Det) in order to lower the overall ambition levels. 

So what does (Amb) actually mean?  Amibitous Amb 16-19, Loy 1-9, Det 1-17

The Ambition rating is obviously high, (not good), but the loyalty rating is low, (and I dislike that even more). Determination could be anything from 1-17 so could be good or bad, *(but has only increased 1 point in 2 years anyway so is largely irrelevant). (It has moved from 14 in Feb 2023 to 15 in Jan 2026).

So what does (F.Pro) actually mean?  Fairly Professional Pro 15-20, Det 1-14

So in terms of what is going to change in this instance, the (Amb) is likely to drop, (good), (Loyal) hopefully might rise, (although there is no guarantee), (Det) we know stayed largely the same, (Pro) is probably going to rise. 

To my mind that means that I am expecting this player to become (F.Pro) like the tutor, (and that will do me nicely. 

Instead, the player has actually become a (Resolute). 

So what does (Res) actually mean?  Resolute Pro 15-20, Det 15-20, Pre 1-16 Spo 5-20

The reason that I got lucky with this mentoring and the player popped to (Res) rather than (F.Pro), was because of his determination level. The fact that his (Det) level is 15 now rather than 14, (as it was 12 months ago), means that he pops to (Res) rather than (F.Pro)

[BoxToBox]

Why do you dislike ambition, find the players are too much trouble to keep in line?

[Jimbokav1971]

(23i) György (Spirited) has been tutored by (17e) Dali Radovan (SRB) (Pro).

So what does (Spirited) actually mean?  Spirited Pre 15-20, Tem 10-20, Pro 11-17, Spo 1-14

So what does (Pro) actually mean?  Professional Pro 18-19, Tem 10-20

(23i) György (F.Pro) is the end result. 

So what does (F,Pro) actually mean?  Fairly Professional Pro 15-20, Det 1-14

That suggests to me that the (Pro) attribute was at the lower end of 11-17 and it has now moved to between 15-18. Because the Temperament attribute will already be within the 10-20 margin, it means that all I need to do to get (23i) György from (F.Pro) to (Pro) is increase his (Pro) attribute by 2 points, (should be doable), and if I can also work on his (Det) at the same time and boost that by 3 points, (less easy I know but still achievable), then (Res) will be the end result.

 

[Bedese]

13 minutes ago, BoxToBox said:

Why do you dislike ambition, find the players are too much trouble to keep in line?

I'm wondering this as well. It makes them a little harder to keep around, but IIRC doesn't ambition have an affect on the rate a player develops as well? Not as much as Professionalism, but I thought it was still a factor?

[Jimbokav1971]

8 minutes ago, BoxToBox said:

Why do you dislike ambition, find the players are too much trouble to keep in line?

No, it's that they constantly seem to strive for the next level of success. As soon as they are in the squad then they have the desire to win things, (which is great), but it's not the Ambition that helps them win it on the pitch, (but determination). So it basically sets these goals, but benefits them in no way at all in actually achieving them. That's ok here because we have won the league every year, but of course in now gives them designs on European success. Initially this just manifests itself in the form of wanting European football, (not a problem either), and then the next step is qualification for the Champions League, (again not a problem as we go straight into the Group stages now). The problem is the next step when one of these players decides that winning the league isn't enough and playing in Europe isn;t enough and playing in the Champions League isn't enough, but that they want to play in a team that is competing in the latter stages of the Champions League, (or the one after that is winning it I think). Obviously we are quite a long way off that and as a result less (Amb) and more (Loyal) would be better for me. I think that (Amb) offers such a small benefit to player development as to make it irrelevant. 

[BoxToBox]

Ahhh, right, I thought ambition helped quite a bit with development so was useful if I couldn't have the ideal professional, or really high in both.

[Jimbokav1971]

There has been some research done by....Merry Guido on the Strikerless.com website that is really interesting.

Rather than shoe-horn the results to fit is expectations, he just lays it out for you and let's you draw your own conclusions. 

What drives player development. A few factors you never considered.

What drives Youth Development? A follow-up.

What drives Youth Development? Another attributes experiment.

Really worth a read. if the stuff in my thread interests you. I'm not saying that everything he says is right, (I certainly agree with most of it), but the way he sets out his explanations is absolutely excellent. 

[Jimbokav1971]

7 minutes ago, BoxToBox said:

Ahhh, right, I thought ambition helped quite a bit with development so was useful if I couldn't have the ideal professional, or really high in both.

Well that's what a lot of people have thought for ages and even when you tell people, "No, I don't think that's how it works", it doesn't seem to matter, so it's a bit of a self-perpetuating myth.

Have a look at the links above and make your own mind up. I had made mine up long before Strikerless tore it apart so well. 

[Bedese]

Very interesting. It seems like, for you, ambition is a bad thing like you said. Players wanting to leave would outweigh the minor development boosts it provides. It's a matter of context, though, because it won't be a bad thing everywhere. For me, and I imagine @Ceching You Out as well, ambition would probably actually help - players in our situation don't tend to leave because they want to move to a better club unless they're clearly too good to play for the club, and any extra inch of development you can squeeze out from them is massively helpful.

 

Thanks for the links Jimbo. I'd read them before but forgotten some of the information. Very interesting 

[setzel]

@jimbokav1971

 

I think most people who did or do youth challenge understand your predicament , you want a squad of professionals so you can keep in check the depth tutors and the youngsters especially if you are like me and like to bring them gradually and gain a natural progression and turn the youngsters exactly how you want not just rush them and get attributes all over the place because of their playing time in a prestigious competition

 

Call me crazy but what i used to do even at small clubs was to get staff with resolute/prof and loyal personalities nothing else ! So i could manage the team easier and from my experience get more positive personalities even i had to loose on the training/tactical side of things.

[Jimbokav1971]

Transfers Jan 2026. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Transfers, but not sold my soul to the devil transfers. 

Stevanovic (SRB/BIH) (Resolute) HG, is a right back who can cover centre0half at a push. You can see from his history that he is actually a product of our academy but I sold him for £2.4M in my 1st season in charge because I had an older player who was better but who had poorer re-sale value. It was a shame that I had to do it given the nature of the save, but it was a decision that had to be made. He is immediately our best DR, (rated by PA), although the young (ARG) player has significant room for growth and should soon out-strip him. I paid £7.5M for him , but it's actually his wages that are the big deal. He's on £85,000 per week which equated to just under £4.5M per year, and he's signed to a 3 year deal so that's a smidgen under £14M that we will have to shell out in wages. I don't have an issue with that because although I have started splashing out on the wagesrecently, we have enormous sell0on potential available and if we have to sell at some point then we will. The added benefit to signing Stvanovic is that with the scarcity of quality Model Pro's in the database , (of any Nationality), I have widened the search to (Res) Tutors, and in this respect, he fits the bill perfectly. 

Zoran (SRB) (Resolute). is a player who I had signed to the club previously, (and then solf on), but he is not a product of our academy. He will hopefully never have to play foe us, but should still be influential as a tutor. The fact that we can pay £2.5M and offer wages £3m over 6 years is proof enough that we have a cash surplus at the moment. 

 

[BoxToBox]

13 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Well that's what a lot of people have thought for ages and even when you tell people, "No, I don't think that's how it works", it doesn't seem to matter, so it's a bit of a self-perpetuating myth.

Have a look at the links above and make your own mind up. I had made mine up long before Strikerless tore it apart so well. 

Cheers, I'll pour over them tomorrow(got the fights on now), when I can pay them due diligence. I'm pretty happy to listen and learn, while I almost always focus on youth development, it's one part I never paid too much attention, long as I had the players professional, resolute or at a push ambitious, I was happy. My players always grow quickly as I give the ones I'm most invested in football right away. Heck, in FM 14, I had a save where I was giving a kid football at 14(I've never seen a player generate that young since, now days you don't even get 15 year old regens in loads of countries, sadly), and he was my first choice(in the English Prem) right back by 15, and one of the best in the league, must see if I still have that save.

[Jimbokav1971]

15 minutes ago, Jupjamie said:

Very interesting. It seems like, for you, ambition is a bad thing like you said. Players wanting to leave would outweigh the minor development boosts it provides. It's a matter of context, though, because it won't be a bad thing everywhere. For me, and I imagine @Ceching You Out as well, ambition would probably actually help - players in our situation don't tend to leave because they want to move to a better club unless they're clearly too good to play for the club, and any extra inch of development you can squeeze out from them is massively helpful.

Thanks for the links Jimbo. I'd read them before but forgotten some of the information. Very interesting 

Absolutely agree about (Amb) being very much relative to not only the save, but also the way that the manager plays it. Even though I am not doing a rigid Youth Challange as some of you are, I wouldstill prefer to keep the likes of Kriss Kruc (2020) here because the whole point of the save is about players such as him. If he has to go then fairynuf, but if I can keep him then I want to. (Amb) in this instance makes that harder. In my opinion, what gain is worth more than the potential loss that I might have without the (Amb) value, (little though I believe it to be). 

[Jimbokav1971]

14 minutes ago, setzel said:

@jimbokav1971

I think most people who did or do youth challenge understand your predicament , you want a squad of professionals so you can keep in check the depth tutors and the youngsters especially if you are like me and like to bring them gradually and gain a natural progression and turn the youngsters exactly how you want not just rush them and get attributes all over the place because of their playing time in a prestigious competition

Call me crazy but what i used to do even at small clubs was to get staff with resolute/prof and loyal personalities nothing else ! So i could manage the team easier and from my experience get more positive personalities even i had to loose on the training/tactical side of things.

That's all well and good, but you will notice that I am not managing in one of the Big 4 European structures so what happens is that all these World Class coaches who have just the required personalities are none to keen to play in what is effective a European back-water. I could of course opt to lower the standard of my staff and prioritise personalities over their abilities, but when they are instrumental in training the players in the first place, then it seems couter-productive to work so hard on the personalities only to neglect the actual player development itself. Each has to work in tandem with the other and prioritising one completely over the other causes issues. The game gets around this, (at least for me), by only making staff of a certain reputaton available to me on the shortlist, and that;s who I am prepared to sign, I don;t trawl the database looking for the best in the game and chuck money at them. IN fact I don't do much of anything except ask the DoF to sort it out at the moment, (because it was too much like hard work).

If I were to only appoint (M.Pro), (Pro), (F.Pro) & (Res) staff, then I would have hardly any staff at all and the quality would be significantly weakened to such an extent that our players would never reach their PA, (even those with goof personalities). 

 

[setzel]

4 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

That's all well and good, but you will notice that I am not managing in one of the Big 4 European structures so what happens is that all these World Class coaches who have just the required personalities are none to keen to play in what is effective a European back-water. I could of course opt to lower the standard of my staff and prioritise personalities over their abilities, but when they are instrumental in training the players in the first place, then it seems couter-productive to work so hard on the personalities only to neglect the actual player development itself. Each has to work in tandem with the other and prioritising one completely over the other causes issues. The game gets around this, (at least for me), by only making staff of a certain reputaton available to me on the shortlist, and that;s who I am prepared to sign, I don;t trawl the database looking for the best in the game and chuck money at them. IN fact I don't do much of anything except ask the DoF to sort it out at the moment, (because it was too much like hard work).

If I were to only appoint (M.Pro), (Pro), (F.Pro) & (Res) staff, then I would have hardly any staff at all and the quality would be significantly weakened to such an extent that our players would never reach their PA, (even those with goof personalities). 

I' have a tendency to play a lot in Eastern Europe (my origins) and after i pass 6-7 years into the save i tend to find decent to good staff with good personalities if i load a big"ish" DB i always seem to find those (Pro) italian coaches (ah who doesnt love them) and build slowly and year by year letting the "undesired" personalities staff go  , i tend to be rigid sometimes at FM especially with my little rules and thats why maybe i get so into every SAVE

[Jimbokav1971]

1 minute ago, setzel said:

I' have a tendency to play a lot in Eastern Europe (my origins) and after i pass 6-7 years into the save i tend to find decent to good staff with good personalities if i load a big"ish" DB i always seem to find those (Pro) italian coaches (ah who doesnt love them) and build slowly and year by year letting the "undesired" personalities staff go  , i tend to be rigid sometimes at FM especially with my little rules and thats why maybe i get so into every SAVE

Database size is probably the issue then. I worry about a big database with long-term saves a little on my little old laptop. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Squad Management. 

I've got a bit of a decision to make with regards to selling a player to make way for Stevanovic (Res) Tutor, (who has immediately been tasked with tutoring 19yo Argentinian DR (23b) Nicolás (ARG) (F.Amb).Stevanovic may have the best CA, but Nicolás has significant room for growth. 

I know I have mentioned that I am looking to sell striker Djuradj, but he needs to be replaced in the squad by another striker and 1 of the 3 right backs in the squad has to make way for Stevanovic. It obviously can't be Nicolás, so that means that it is a straight choice between (20g) Samardzic (F.Det) and (20b) Jelic (SRB/BIH) (Det).

Something that I find quite interesting, (and this may be of interest to @CechingYouOut), is that (20b) Jelic, (who was obviously ranked 2nd in the 2020 intake), is rated at 2.0 for both CA & Pa, however (20g) Samardzic, who was ranked 7th in the same intake, is rated at 2.5 for both CA and PA. I know for a fact that (20b) Jelic will have played significantly more games than (20g) Samardzic, and I have just checked that (20b) Jelic hasn't had any seriously debilitating injuries, (and he hasn't), so the only conclusion I can draw is that the original PA evaluation was incorrect, (but not sure which one), and it was only found out quite recently after (20g) Samardzic returned from 2 season-long loans, where especially in the 2nd season, he played a lot of football. 

I've found this pic which shows squad depth at right back from Jan 2021 and it's interesting to look at the comparison between the 2 players mentioned above. 

(20b) Jelic had 5.0 PA at this stage, (although it's worth pointing out that it might have been as low as 4.0 PA).

(20g) Samardzic had 3.5 PA at this stage, (although it's worth pointing out that it might have been as low as 2.5 PA).

Just to add an extra comparison (18b) João (POR/SRB) Det was sold because both his CA and PA were both 2.0 and obviously we had better options. This suggests that the (20b) Jelic was relatively accurate and it was the report on  (20g) Samardzic that was significantly under-cooked. 

Either way, one of these players needs to be dropped from the SuperLeague squad and sold as a result. 

It's actually a relatively simple decision, (but one I still don't like making because of my fondness for the player). Both players are similar but (20b) Jelic is worth more and is not performing as well. Additionally, he has a pretty rubbish pink hair-cut. That's it, he's outa here!

[Jimbokav1971]

New Affiliate.

I've been trying to get a new affiliate for quite some time and it has finally worked. We did have the same type of link with someone before, (was it Boca Juniors in Argentina or River Plate in Uruguay?), (I've just checked and we had  River Plate relationship in July 2018 before the new board dispensed with it. We only managed to produce 1 South American youngster during our time with River Plate, (and we was (ARG) rather than (URU), but the scouting knowledge certainly came from them and without them we certainly would not have generated that player. 

Ideally I want to keep generating these types of links to increase the potential intakes each season, and hopefully the fact that the board have relented on this one means that we will have another in the pipeline before too long.

We now have 9 feeders of varying types and the most frustrating one for me, (now that we have got a South American Youth Feeder again), is that Teleoptik can't get out of the non-playable 2nd Division and into the playable First Division where they will actually be of some benefit. I'm tempted to keep sending them players who should be good enough to get them promoted until they do so. 

[BoxToBox]

11 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

There has been some research done by....Merry Guido on the Strikerless.com website that is really interesting.

Rather than shoe-horn the results to fit is expectations, he just lays it out for you and let's you draw your own conclusions. 

What drives player development. A few factors you never considered.

What drives Youth Development? A follow-up.

What drives Youth Development? Another attributes experiment.

Really worth a read. if the stuff in my thread interests you. I'm not saying that everything he says is right, (I certainly agree with most of it), but the way he sets out his explanations is absolutely excellent. 

Right, I read this today when I could pay it proper attention. I will say it's a slight shame that the entire test is flawed in that editing everyone to have all 10's for attributes, but then not having them with the correct CA to match this meant some were growing/changing to reflect their CA number(SI's in game editor would have given him a recommended CA to match the attributes, fwiw). Of course, while I say that, it doesn't actually matter as the test was successful regardless, lines up with what I expected, though had believed Ambition had more impact than it did.

Thanks!

 

9 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

It's actually a relatively simple decision, (but one I still don't like making because of my fondness for the player). Both players are similar but (20b) Jelic is worth more and is not performing as well. Additionally, he has a pretty rubbish pink hair-cut. That's it, he's outa here!

I'll not lie, I'd have kept pinky because of his hair. I like having more weird regens about the place, long as they can hold their own on the pitch.

[Jimbokav1971]

1 minute ago, nie jem frytek said:

Teleoptik should be your reserves team. I guess Serbia has some "Eastern European" reserves system. Few years ago I've played in Poland and their reserves weren't your typical reserves. They were playing in lower leagues and had "players may move freely between clubs" type of affiliation.

As I understand it they are by "B" Team and the link is hard-coded into the game. 

I have the following squads. 

Partizan

Partizan Reserves

Partizan U19's

Teleoptik

Teleoptik Reserves

Teleoptik U19's

From 2009 -2014 the Senior Team was in the Serban First League which is playable, but since then they have languished in the Serbian Second Division Belgrade. I have tried to send them players to get them promoted, but it just hasn't happened. I'm thinking of sending them some proper good 19 year olds to see if I can get them up once and for all. It would be good to have a whole squad of 19 year olds playing in the First League every season.

[Jimbokav1971]

I'm not sure how or why, but our U19's have just played a game in a tournament called Torneo di Viareggio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torneo_di_Viareggio

I have never seen a team entered into this before. Even my San Marino team which received a special invitation to the U20 Copa America, was never invited to play in this. Looking at the Wiki page, Partizan have won it before, so I will be doing my best to win it again. 

The other teams in the Quarter Final are as follows. 

There has already been a Group stage, (which me missed), and this consisted of teams from Argentina, Mali, UAE, Ukraine, Germany (2 teams), Mexico (2 teams), Switzerland, Ghana, France, Serbia, (Red Star didn't make it out of the group stage!), Guatemala, Korea, Chile, Brazil,  and just about every Italian club I have ever heard of, (apart from San Marino).

I'm starting to think this is a big deal. 

[BoxToBox]

I've had teams enter that before, completely randomly, I have no idea why or how.....

[setzel]

About Viareggio they used/are inviting balkans teams like Dinamo/Partizan in RL , was there once some great youth football .

 

About teleoptik they are a B team but they can play in the 2nd tier so you might need to send loanees to get them playable again.

[Ceching You Out]

I'm late to the party, but very interesting discussion on Ambition's role in youth development. The links were a good read -- simplistic as far as experiments go (ideally you want a much larger sample size) but it does give us something to ponder. I'm curious the other factors in the experiment he didn't mention -- training with the youth vs first team, respective facilities, coaching level, comparative playing time. Curious that Unambitious personalities come with a description of "doesn't look to further himself". Of course, if the trends in the article are correct, it wouldn't be the first time that an in-game description is a little misleading .

That's not to discard his results, just that my best guess at Ambition's effect is dependent on the additional factors I mention above. I'm envisioning professionalism, in short form, is the equivalent of "shows up, keeps his head down, and does his job". In a positive environment with good facilities, good coaches, and plenty of playing time that may be enough to see significant gains. But when the environment isn't quite as positive, a player could need a reason to go above and beyond -- in my mind, that may be where Ambition becomes important.

One other aspect of Ambition I appreciate (although it's beyond youth development) is that it makes players expect more. They don't want to simply meet the standards of the level your club is at, they want to outperform. Now I'm basing that off responses to setting team expectations and win bonuses, but I have a suspicion that it gets reflected on the pitch because their less content to lose when underdogs.

Rather than turn this into an even longer novel I'll ponder the rating discrepancy you point out separately, @Jimbokav1971. It's an interesting topic in its own right.

[Jimbokav1971]

3 minutes ago, Ceching You Out said:

One other aspect of Ambition I appreciate (although it's beyond youth development) is that it makes players expect more. They don't want to simply meet the standards of the level your club is at, they want to outperform. Now I'm basing that off responses to setting team expectations and win bonuses, but I have a suspicion that it gets reflected on the pitch because their less content to lose when underdogs.

I don't think that's true. I think that Determination obviously has an impact, (we know it does), and I also have seen evidence of Professionalism having an impact, (body language widget), but I have never seen a single indicator ever, (or seen anyone else say that they have seen evidence of such), that Ambition has even the slightest impact on the pitch. Nothing linked to important matches for example, (which is something I have thought might be realistic and looked for in the past).

[Ceching You Out]

11 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I don't think that's true. I think that Determination obviously has an impact, (we know it does), and I also have seen evidence of Professionalism having an impact, (body language widget), but I have never seen a single indicator ever, (or seen anyone else say that they have seen evidence of such), that Ambition has even the slightest impact on the pitch. Nothing linked to important matches for example, (which is something I have thought might be realistic and looked for in the past).

No argument on Determination. For Ambition, we can see a player's PR notification when a player is "Motivated by team win bonus". If that's not just window dressing, that should mean the player is more motivated than he might otherwise be; which in turn should be reflected in his performances (and visibly in the body language widget by the increased likelihood to be  "Motivated" (or similar).

In fact, I'd expect it to be noticeable to the user in similar ways as Determination -- very rarely explicit, but contributing to the frequency of player's positive body language.

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake Feb 2026.

It's really not a good intake, but it is certainly an interesting one. 

First of all we have a Uruguayan, (who is actually decent), but who has a shocking personality that I will have to address immediately. He does fit in the AMC playmaker slot that we are looking for more depth in though. 

Then we have not 1, not 2, but 3 players from mighty San Marino.

Because I don't really trust the reports that my Ass Man is giving me on Youth Intake day, (and by "don't really" I of course mean not even in the lightest, I have decided to look at things from a slightly different view-point. 

I think that the CA and PA ratings, (especially the PA ratings), are wrong, so what am I going to do to judge players on at this stage, (if I was managing a team where I was not signing each and every Youth Player, then what would I look at to try and get some more info so as to base my decision on?

Well money is a decent start, so let's have a look at that. As soon as these players sign a youth contract, (which is a very minimal investment), the players gain a "valuation". Let's look at the valuations of the above players when they sign their yth contracts.

Now assuming that the CA is correct, the value should run from the highest to the lowest in descending order, and any anomaly that stands out within this is likely to highlight an error in the PA.

1. (26a) £145,000
2. (26b) £39,000 
3. (26c) £110,000
4. (26d) £13,250
5. (26e) £18,250
6. (26f) £13,250
7. (26g) £30,500
8. (26h) £12,750
9. (26i) £13,750
10. (26j) £14,000
11. (26k) £14,750
12. (26l) £30,500
13. (26m) £115,000
14. (26n) £13,500
15. (26o) £42,000
16. (26p) £52,000

If we were to rearrange this in order of value, then this is what we are left with. 

1. (26a) £145,000
13. (26m) £115,000
3, (26c) £110,000
16. (26p) £52,000
15. (26o) £42,000
2, (26b) £39,000 
7. (26g) £30,500
12. (26l) £30,500

I wonder how many of you are surprised by that?

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Surely Red Star Manager 7 gets the sack now!.

Shush. Don't mention the pens.

[Ceching You Out]

20 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Something that I find quite interesting, (and this may be of interest to @CechingYouOut), is that (20b) Jelic, (who was obviously ranked 2nd in the 2020 intake), is rated at 2.0 for both CA & Pa, however (20g) Samardzic, who was ranked 7th in the same intake, is rated at 2.5 for both CA and PA. I know for a fact that (20b) Jelic will have played significantly more games than (20g) Samardzic, and I have just checked that (20b) Jelic hasn't had any seriously debilitating injuries, (and he hasn't), so the only conclusion I can draw is that the original PA evaluation was incorrect, (but not sure which one), and it was only found out quite recently after (20g) Samardzic returned from 2 season-long loans, where especially in the 2nd season, he played a lot of football. 

I've found this pic which shows squad depth at right back from Jan 2021 and it's interesting to look at the comparison between the 2 players mentioned above. 

(20b) Jelic had 5.0 PA at this stage, (although it's worth pointing out that it might have been as low as 4.0 PA).

(20g) Samardzic had 3.5 PA at this stage, (although it's worth pointing out that it might have been as low as 2.5 PA).

Just to add an extra comparison (18b) João (POR/SRB) Det was sold because both his CA and PA were both 2.0 and obviously we had better options. This suggests that the (20b) Jelic was relatively accurate and it was the report on  (20g) Samardzic that was significantly under-cooked. 

Looking back at this (and talking out loud):

• Jelic was first projected as 4+1 --> now projected as 2
• Samardzic was first projected as 2.5+1 --> now projected as 2.5
• João was first projected as 3+1 --> now projected as 2

A few ways we could interpret this information. With some assumptions includes, here's my logic:

• First, and likely least controversial, your "measuring stick" improved over this time period. We only have limited information, but it looks like it was a 2 star increase (more in a second).
• Second, Jelic and João finished the same place. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume your Assistant Manager was in the ballpark so that Jelic's 4+1 was really 4; then João's 3+1 was really 4. Thus the two star increase in your "measuring stick" knocks them back to 2.
• Third, a more accurate projection for Samardzic should've been 4.5 such that he's half a star better than his two teammates.
• Finally, the conclusion is then that your Assistant Manager was a full star off in his projection of Samardzic even given him the margin of error on the original 2.5+1

There are a few assumptions baked into it, but that could be useful information for us doing youth challenges. If true, that means our Assistant Manager could be as far off as a full star in his projections on top of the black star. We'd want to then sign as low as 3+1 PA if we wanted to err on the cautious side.

And that's not even getting into the discrepancy between the youth candidate projections versus once they're signed. If you're up for it, that would be an interesting comparison over a couple years @Jimbokav1971 since you sign all your youth.

[Jimbokav1971]

Unbeaten SuperLeague Season 2025/26.

It's not as impressive as it sounds actually, because it's only the 30 Preliminary Stage games that count. It will be far more impressive if we can go unbeaten throughout the SuperLeague Final Phase, where we often field weakened teams made of up a number of very young youngsters. 

The unbeaten SuperLeague run actually stands at 38 games at the moment, and dates back to the penultimate SuperLeague preliminary game of last season, (so we have just gone 1 calendar year unbeaten). 

[Edit]

Red Star are up next and they will be looking to put an end to our run. 

They were wallowing as low down as 12th place after 10 games, but have improved to finish the regular season in 2nd. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Ignoring players who came through the academy before I arrived, there are a few of our youngster who have come through the academy and moved on to pastures new.

It wasn't a case of making a mistake with Nikolic and simply one of me having better players in his position to such an extent that he wasn't going to get enough games to encourage his development. He is the player he has become because I sold him. I doubt he would have progressed as well had I kept him because he would have hardly featured. I'm actually really pleased with the way he has turned out, (assuming that at the age of 24 we won't see much more improvement). The fact that he only played 5 times for (SRB) U21's and never at all yet for the Senior NT speaks volumes when I have had 3 players who have been capped at SC for the senior NT, and I play just 1 up front. 

Kriss Macesic was in a similar situation as Nikolic. Despite having the added benefit of veing labelled "Kriss", he still wasn't going to be good enough to feature and as much as his CA wasn't good enough, it was the fact that I had players with better PA that needed game-time to aid their development. I like the look of him, but at 26 years old he should be fully developed now and needs a big season back in the German top flight to give his team a chance of staying up.

 

Beljin was an important player for us in his early years and he was the 1st of a string of really pacey wide players that I have been able to develop. His influence has waned in recent years, although his last season with us was still an an impressive one. 

[Jimbokav1971]

International recognition.

The 2026 World Cup has just finished and it was won, (again, for the 3rd time out of the last 4 tournaments), by Germany.

Serbia started brightly and qualified top of their group, but were unlucky to come up against Brazil in the 1st Knockout Round and lost on pens after drawing 2-2.

As you might expect, there are no Serbian players in the Dream Team, but we still did have one, (an Argentinian), who finished 3rd.

The more eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that the left back is also Serbian, (well German/Serbian), but not only did he not come through our ranks, but he came through at Bayern so is properly German. 

Oh. Wow!. I've just realised that he was voted Best Young Player at the World Cup. (I didn't even know there was an award for that). 

 

We, (as in Partizan), had a total of 8 players in the 22 man squad, (I think 1 retired after the tournament). 

4 of the squad came through the academy before my time.

4 of them came through the academy during my time at the club. 

There were an additional 2 players who although not products of our academy, arrived as youngsters and spent their formative years at the club, (including this next bloke who I have just sold). Had he been a product of our academy, then I would have just refused to sell him, but because of the nature of the save it made sense to let him go and let someone else try and fill the gap he leaves. 

I wasn't overly bothered how much I got for him in the end, but on a matter of principle, I ensured that there was a 50% of re-sale value clause inserted in the deal. 

I knew he was going to be good when I bought him, (although not that good), but it's still pretty decent to be able to get him to "World Class Striker" at the tender age of 22. I hope he goes on to have a huge career. 

[Jimbokav1971]

So our unbeaten league run of 49 games has just come to an end, (a little surprisingly). Yes we rested the 1st choice XI who are due to play in the Champions League in 4 days time, but we only have 1 player out injured and I thought the kids would be able to deal with this. I was wrong. 

As it happened though, 2 of their 5 goals were scored by our ex left winger and another 2 were scored by a Kriss! (If anything, I was actually quite pleased when I saw who had scored the goals). 

 

In fact, there were 6 members of their starting line-up that were our ex-players. 4 were products of our academy and 2 others just played for us. 

(19a) Kriss Djord (2019) Sell ended up with 2 goals, 1 assists and the MOM award. 

[Jimbokav1971]

I had a crash the other night and lost the last 5 SuperLeague games and 3 Champions League qualifying games. (The Serbian structure dropped 3 places in the coefficients last season which now means we have to qualify again rather than going straight into the Champions League Group stages). 

I don't mind playing the games again, (I should be able to qualify for the Champions League again), but my only real worry is that I am going to have to throw a SuperLeague game so that my unbeaten run doesn't continue. 

[Edit]

It wold seem that losing when you want to lose is not quite as easy as it sounds. 

[Jimbokav1971]

It's ok. I have worked out how to lose. 

Gung-Ho (aka Overload to the younger players), combined with a team consisting completely of kids = 3-0 loss. 

[Jimbokav1971]

I've been getting a few...... strange I suppose I would call it, bids in.

This bloke is currently valued at £275,000. 

He's 18 years old and in it's August in what will be his 3rd full season with us. 

He made 5(2) appearances last season in all competitions, scoring 2 goals and creating 3 assists in the AP(a) role in the AMC line. 

I'm giving him game-time because I'm quite reliant on the AP(a) role and we need to have depth there. While he is never going to be 1st choice, there could well come a time when he will have to fill in from time to time. As a result I'm keeping him for this season, (as I normally do), and then he will be available for loan from next season. 

Now he's nothing special in terms of either CA, (1.5) or PA, (2.5), so I'm a little bewildered as to this bid. 

Napoli bidding £2.5M rising to £5.5M is just silly. Isn't t? 

The other clubs interested are as follows. 

Major interest. AEK, Liverpool, Man City & Roma.

Minor interest. Barca, Inter, Mladost (SRB), & Sevilla. 

Now there are 2 very distinct groups here. Liverpool, Man City, Roma, Barca, Sevilla and of course the bidders Napoli are very big clubs. AEK Athens and Mladost on the other hand are relative minnows next to that lot. I don't usually see the likes of AEK and Mladost of Serbia in for the same players as Liverpool, Inter and Barca.

The only thing I can think of is that he might just have a higher PA than I have been told by my staff and the big boys are in for him based on his high PA, but the likes of AEK and Mladost are in for him based on his CA. 

I'm a little confused by this one but as I have him for 5 more years, (), I suppose I can afford to bide my time before selling. 

 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Tutoring problems.

So I do a fair bit of tutoring, (by which of course I mean loads), but for the life of me, I still can't work out what the problem is here. 

(19g) Vlad Pavic (Pro) Tutor is a player that came through the academy. I decided right from the off that although he wasn't going to be good enough to feature for the senior team, (he has only ever made 4 appearances for us and 3 of them were as part of a weakened team in Europe), his level of professionalism meant that he was going to be an asset to the club and we just had to wait until he was 24 years old and then use him as a Tutor. 

Well he's 24 years old now so let's get on with it...... Except that for some reason we can't. 

So this clearly states that there are no suitable tutees. He is at least a tutor. Someone he was tutoring would be the tutee. That means that now he is 24 years old he can tutor, we just don't have anyone that he can tutor. 

This next pic shows the following. 

1. He is 24 years old so is now old enough to tutor. 
2. He can play ML or AML so he should be able to tutor players in those positions if no other, (although we know that it doesn't quite work like that within game).
3. His CA is only 0.5*, (although he has PA of 1.5*).
4. He has a Professional personality and that's why I want to use him as a tutor. 

So he can tutor players, especially players who are ML and AML, but they have to be pretty rubbish because his CA is only 0.5 so they have to be lower than that.

I will come back to the CA, but let's just check everything else first. 

ML & AML Depth.

Next we have to find players who meet the following criteria. 

1. Under the age of 24.
2. Not already being tutored.
3. Not learning a PPM.
4. Not with a personality equal to or better than "Professional".
5. Despite being under 24yo, not already established themselves as a 1st team regular.
6. Have a CA of less than 0.5CA, (or a CA of 0.5CA that the game deems less than the tutors o.5 CA).
7. Have a squad status of less than "First Team", (I have falsely increased the tutors status just for this).
8. Have a World Reputation less than 1.5 (which is Vlad's as you can see on the depth chart).

Vlad's World Rep of 1.5 means that the bottom 9 players on the above list are suitable for tutoring. BY virtue of being on the list they are either ML's or AML's, (or both), In terms of CA, it seems obvious that he is a higher rating than them, but above when I mentioned CA it struck me when looking at the depth chart, that some of the players on the list are obviously rated against players in the Youth Squad and as such were given silver star ratings rather than gold star ratings. Now I'm assuming that any silver star rating, (even 5.0 silver stars), is a poorer standard than 0.5 gold stars, but has anyone actually stated that this is the case? It has never been stated that silver is worse or gold better. Simply that gold is a rating against players in the Senior squad and silver against players in the Youth Squad. I just assumed that the worst gold star is better than the best silver star.

I think I was wrong. 

It's the only thing on the above list that seems to suggest a reason as to why the tutor can't tutor the tutees I want.
 

 

 

[setzel]

If they've played enough games for the first team that eliminates them from being able to be a tutee + the reputation one , thats why the pure depth/tutoring guys are good for players that are in that category of u-19 and no or minimal contact with first squad , after that its a bit tricky because of the reputation

[Jimbokav1971]

Leading Producers of (SRB) NT Players.

 

26 seems decent, especially when you consider that OFK Begrad (7 players), and our rivals, (they wish!) Red Star (6 players), are joint 2nd in the rankings.

There are 37 the players that the game deems as HG at club who have received senior INT recognition and are still playing. Obviously quite a few of these came through the academy before my time, but we are becoming increasingly influential. Had the Argentianian and Italian both been Serbs, then I wonder what the Serbian NT might have been capable of now. 

Serbia. 23 players. 

San Marino. 4 players.

Bosnia & Herzagovina. 3 players.

Montenegro. 2 players. 

Italy. 1 player. 

Argentina. 1 player. 

Portugal. 1 player.

Austria. 1 player. 

Macedonia. 1 player.  

[Edit]

The Youth INT appearance record is currently held by 24yo right winger (19e) Mikic (SRB) (Res) who made 43 appearances for (SRB) U21's, (scoring 19 goals). He won the European U21 Championships in 2023 and was a Runner Up in the European U19 Championship in 2021. The reason he has never been called up to the Senior NT squad as yet, (other than because he is only 2nd choice AMR for us), is that Serbia have Zivkovic, Markovic and Drazic who are in their prime and are all well ahead of him in the pecking order. 

(18b) João (POR/SRB) (Det) of Portugal who would have surely passed 39 but was called up for the (POR) Senior NT to put an end to his Youth Cap accumulation.

(23b) Nicolás (ARG) (F.Pro) has 37, but despite being only 20 years old, is unlikely to add to that number as he also now has 11 Senior Caps to his name and doesn't seem likely to be dropped anytime soon.

 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Tactical Tinkering.

Although we are now very dominant domestically, I actually slightly under-performing. Yes we only lose when we field a hugely-weakened team, but when everyone is fit, I expect us to absolutely smash everyone and that we are not means that I think we are missing something. (I am missing something). 

It's actually really hard to adapt a tactic effectively when you are using the IR button because, (and I don't think you will understand this unless you have tried), you have so little info to go on. I watch all the goas in all competitive games, (for and against), but they are the only highlights I see now. I used to play the Red Star derbies and I also used to play the European games, but for whatever reason, both of these have fallen by the wayside and now it's simply a case of IR button all the way.

So I have been thinking about where I would like us to improve and the main thing here for me is possession, (but not possession for possession sake). I want to have more of the ball than the opposition, but I also want to use it when we have t I don't want to keep the ball for long periods like Swansea, Arsenal and Bournemouth, I want to continue to use the ball in exactly the same way we have already been doing, but when we lose possession I want us to make more of an effort to go and win it back again immediately. I suppose what I want to do is increase our possession simply by reducing the oppositions's possession. (this has been encouraged a little by Klopp and Liverpool's recent performances).

So the first thing I want to try and do is push up higher. I'm asking them to push up so that we can get closer to the opposition, compress the space and close them down more easily. What fits in well with that is obviously asking them to close down more, There is no point making it easier to do so but then not asking them to do it), and in order to counter this I need to adapt to a Sweeper Keeper and I probably need to look at reigning in my full-backs a little, (although I'm not convinced that is a price worth paying for what I want to do. 

 Getting away from domestic competition for a minute, I actually want to do quite the opposite. I want to drop deeper, and if anything I want to close down less and try and keep our shape a little. I think a lower tempo fits in well with that and I would also ask them to retain possession. It will be the same shape and the same overall thinking, but with just these little tweaks that hopefully allow us to improve in Europe. (I'm contemplating reverting from an attacking style to a counter style, but at the moment I'm going to hold off on that and see how the individual changes work themselves. When playing in IR, if you make too many changes at once, it's hard to see what has worked and what hasn't and the "control" over the tactic is lost. 

[Number seven]

On 28.8.2016 at 16:52, Jimbokav1971 said:

I don't think that's true. I think that Determination obviously has an impact, (we know it does), and I also have seen evidence of Professionalism having an impact, (body language widget), but I have never seen a single indicator ever, (or seen anyone else say that they have seen evidence of such), that Ambition has even the slightest impact on the pitch. Nothing linked to important matches for example, (which is something I have thought might be realistic and looked for in the past).

I checked this stuff with a mate of mine that has been a researcher. In the research guidelines it said at least at the time that ambition is how ambitious the player is (obviously) and that it can have an effect on players in matches, f.ex a very ambitious player can be triggered by an occasion f.ex a big match were winning will match his ambition.