FM17 Youth Academy Challenge

[darren1983]

@Sn00gle Yeah we get a good mix of 2nd nationalities being in London, keeps it interesting  Another solid season there.

 

Sadly for us I'll never get to see what I can make of Ramer Gibson (20A) as on transfer deadline day my board accepted a bid for him from Newcastle and wouldn't listen to my protests. Got 2.5m rising to 5.25m but we already had over 20m in the bank so not like we needed the money  

[Sn00gle]

@darren1983 Thats suuuk badly I feel your pain  Olesinski(YP20a) is on TL 3 top clubs in Poland and probably he will fly for like 100k.... 

But think that if you finish this challenge you can continue save and be  NT of Barbados and get your YP and manage them to World Cup sounds fun

[XaW]

XaW - Slovan Duslo Šal'a - 2022/23

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Fun fact: The highest transfer fee ever are Kevin De Bruyne from Manchester City to PSG for £105M. PGS also have bought the 3 next highest  fees. Anthony Martial from Manchester United for £98M, Paulo Dybala from Juventus for £80M and Philipe Coutinho from Liverpool for £69M! 

We had another good season in the league. Only conceded 13 goals in the 33 matches, though we did score quite a few less than last year. We also had some issues winning matches and drew many more than we should have. Need to work a bit on the goalscoring in order to be sure that we will continue to keep the title. The cup was a fluke this season as we went out in the second round against a lower league team. The fact that we used fringe players are no excuse.

After 2 season in the EL group stage I hoped we could continue to improve in Europe and the boys delivered. In the 2nd qualifying round we got drawn against KF Kukësi of Albania. A solid 3-0 win away and a controlled 1-1 at home put us through to the 3rd qualifying round. Here we drew Dinamo Zagreb of Croatia as our opponent. An amazing 3-0 win at home gave us a great advantage. Away, we managed to draw 2-2 to progress to the playoff. The final hurdle before the group stage turned out to be Legia Warzawa of Poland. Lucky draw compared to what we could have drawn, but still a tough opponent. The first match was at home and after a tough match it ended in a goalless 0-0. In the away match we came out swinging and got an early lead. After that we retreated and let them came to us while counter attacking. A very exciting match ended with a 5-3 win for us to progress to the group stage. Finally we are going to get to try ourselves against the best. And we really got a tough draw! The teams in our group turned out to be Liverpool of England, Inter of Italy and Lyon of France. I had no hopes of getting any points, but it should give us some much needed experience. We managed to avoid any thumpings and even managed a draw away against Lyon! A good effort and it gave us loads of cash.

I managed to improve both the training and youth facilities this season and have also gotten another improvement approved. The new stadium should also be opened just before the start of the next season, so things are looking good.

The youth:

We had a good youth intake this season.

New players:

Jaroslav Ondrejka (YP23a) - Very promising midfielder. I think he might get matches already next season.
Milos Ferencik (YP23b) - Tall central defender. Need a bit of work, but could be good. Already got two matches due to injuries.

Fifth intake:

Martin Majtan (YP22a) - Rotated a bit into the team and did well.
Matej Lukac (YP22b) - Mostly a backup and poor progress this season.

Fourth intake:

Robert Jakubek (YP21a) - Got some matches, but plays poor when he gets chances. Was hoping for more from him. Still a talent though.
Roman Kozak (YP21b) - Became the first choice this season. Lots and lots of clean sheets.
Jan Nemeckay (YP21c) - Another good season in the defense. Regular for the U21s, but are getting targeted by big teams and are starting to make fuss about it.
Milan Mikulanin (YP21d) - Better than last season. In rotation in midfield.
Peter Janosik (YP21e) - Started mostly as a sub, but are working his way into the first 11.
Ivan Sudimak (YP21f) - In rotation on left back and does well. Capped for the U21s also.

Third intake:

Jozef Le Giang (YP20a) - 2nd choice, but I'm trying to keep giving him game time to continue improving.
Branislav Bartos (YP20b) - More matches than expected due to injuries, but does well. Good improvement this season.

Second intake:

Lubos Guba (YP19a) - Solid season on the left wing. Delivered enough assists, but want some more goals from him.
Stanislav Hamsik (YP19b) - Another good season, but his stats have stalled a bit. Hope he will get even better.
Jozef Adamec (YP19c) - Very good season on the right wing. Regular for the U21s. Broke his leg towards the end of the season, and will be out most of next season as well.

First intake:

Mario Molnar (YP18a) - Asked for more goals and he gave us quite some! Good season in midfield.
Robert Gajgos (YP18b) - Only a few matches again this season for Guingamp. Not muck luck in France for him.
Peter Novota (YP18c) - Still a backup, but does ok when he plays.

Season

League

Position

Slovenský pohár

Europa League

Champions League

Top scorer

Youth Coaching

Youth Recruitment

Training facilities

Youth Facilities

Average attendance

Season tickets

Achievements

2017/18

DOXXbet liga

1st

2nd round

N/A

N/A

Erik Malinak – 12

Average

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

619

355

Promoted as champions

2018/19

Fortuna liga

5th

3rd round

N/A

N/A

Francky Nguekam – 13

Good

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

1,421

885

Top half finish

2019/20

Fortuna liga

1st

Runner-up

N/A

N/A

Erik Malinak – 14

Good

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

1,603

1,030

League champions

2020/21

Fortuna liga

1st

Runner-up

Group Stage

Playoff

Peter Janso (YP19e) – 18

Exellent

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

3,149

1,514

League champions, EL Group stage

2021/22

Fortuna liga

1st

Winner!

Group Stage

Playoff

Peter Janso (YP19e) – 24

Exellent

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

2,889

1,804

Domestic double, EL Group stage

2022/23

Fortuna liga

1st

2nd round

N/A

Group Stage

Peter Janso (YP19e) – 14

Exeptional

Basic

Average

Adequate

4,158

1,894

League Champions, CL Group stage

[XaW]

And just got this message. I'd rather not have a takeover. The chairman have let me do my thing and improve stuff as I wanted it, so I'd rather keep hold of him. We have a lot of cash in the bank so I really don't need the investments either.

Edit: It happened, and we got some money. Hopefully the new chairman is as easy going as the last. Just let me do my job and he can skim the top of the revenue.

[XaW]

XaW - Slovan Duslo Šal'a - 2023/24

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Fun fact: Real Madrid haven't won La Liga since 2011/12! It's mostly won by Barcelona, but Atlético Madrid have also won it a few times.

Once again we steamrolled through the Slovakian league. I had a slight hope to go undefeated in the league this season, but some slight complacency around the winter break stopped that quite quickly. Even though with the small glimpse in concentration from the players the title was never in doubt. We once again only conceded 13 goals in 33 games, but we managed to score quite a bit more goals this season. Only 1 goals was conceded in the last 8 games, so this is looking good for next season. In the cup we had a solid run and topped it with a 2-1 in the final against Nitra. 

Playing in the Champions League group stage last season just made us want to do it again. Of course we had to qualify first and our first opponent, in the 2nd qualifying round, was FK Kairat of Kazakhstan. A 3-0 win and a 2-1 win put us through quite easily. Next up was Olimpija Ljubljana of Slovenia in the 3rd qualifying round. An amazing 4-0 away was followed by a crazy 5-3 win at home. In the playoff we drew FC København of Denmark. We managed a 1-0 at home and did our best to shut up shop in the away leg. It was successful and it ended 0-0 to put us through to the group stage again. And again we had a very though draw. Our opponents were Wolfsburg of Germany, Juventus of Italy and Real Madrid of Spain, a very tough draw indeed. We tried our best, but unsurprisingly we lost all 6 matches. Even a couple of big losses, like 0-6 and 0-4 against Real Madrid and 1-5 against Juventus. Hopefully we can get some lucky draws soon so we might pick up a point or two.

I managed to improve both the training and youth facilities again, and once again the new board approved another improvement. We are also expanding our new stadium since we keep packing the stands full.

The youth:

We had a pretty good youth intake this season, but I forgot to take a screenshot of it, sorry!

New players:

Peter Kovacs (YP24a) - Talented right midfielder. Great personality and high determination also.
Denis Somolani (YP24b) - Very good defensive midfielder. Got some weak points, but it can be worked on.
Peter Szabo (YP24c) - Well rounded winger with talent.

Sixth intake:

Jaroslav Ondrejka (YP23a) - A solid season as a sub and backup. Capped for U19s.
Milos Ferencik (YP23b) - Played a lot due to lack of talent in central defense and does well. Great improvement statwise.

Fifth intake:

Martin Majtan (YP22a) - Became first choice and did very good. Capped for the U21s.
Matej Lukac (YP22b) - A backup mostly, and not much improvement this season. Need to work harder.

Fourth intake:

Robert Jakubek (YP21a) - Doesn't play well and don't progress a lot either. A bit disappointed.
Roman Kozak (YP21b) - First choice and does great. Even got capped twice for Slovakia!
Jan Nemeckay (YP21c) - A great season in defense for us and the big clubs are looking at him. Regular for the U21s.
Milan Mikulanin (YP21d) - Started a lot of matches and does good. Capped for the U21s.
Peter Janosik (YP21e) - Just an amazing season. Scored goals galore and did great overall. Also got his first cap for Slovakia.
Ivan Sudimak (YP21f) - First choice for us and plays very good. Another one who got capped for Slovakia.

Third intake:

Jozef Le Giang (YP20a) - 2nd choice, but didn't want to sign a new contract, so he is leaving in the summer to another club in Slovakia.
Branislav Bartos (YP20b) - More matches than expected for another season, but we don't have many central defenders so he will have to do.

Second intake:

Lubos Guba (YP19a) - A bit injured this season, but often plays good if a bit uneventful.
Stanislav Hamsik (YP19b) - Forgot he had a release clause so he left for Spain in January. Haven't played for Gijon yet though.
Jozef Adamec (YP19c) - Out most of the season with a broken leg so his progress have been halted. Hopefully he can bounce back.

First intake:

Mario Molnar (YP18a) - A good season in midfield. Does quite well throughout the season.
Robert Gajgos (YP18b) - Once again only a few matches, I think he need to leave Guingamp to get his career back on track.
Peter Novota (YP18c) - Started making a real fuss about gametime I couldn't give him, so he got a year in Serbia. Plays very bad, so he might be sold when we returns.

Season

League

Position

Slovenský pohár

Europa League

Champions League

Top scorer

Youth Coaching

Youth Recruitment

Training facilities

Youth Facilities

Average attendance

Season tickets

Achievements

2017/18

DOXXbet liga

1st

2nd round

N/A

N/A

Erik Malinak – 12

Average

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

619

355

Promoted as champions

2018/19

Fortuna liga

5th

3rd round

N/A

N/A

Francky Nguekam – 13

Good

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

1,421

885

Top half finish

2019/20

Fortuna liga

1st

Runner-up

N/A

N/A

Erik Malinak – 14

Good

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

1,603

1,030

League champions

2020/21

Fortuna liga

1st

Runner-up

Group Stage

Playoff

Peter Janso (YP19e) – 18

Exellent

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

3,149

1,514

League champions, EL Group stage

2021/22

Fortuna liga

1st

Winner!

Group Stage

Playoff

Peter Janso (YP19e) – 24

Exellent

Basic

Adequate

Below Average

2,889

1,804

Domestic double, EL Group stage

2022/23

Fortuna liga

1st

2nd round

N/A

Group Stage

Peter Janso (YP19e) – 14

Exeptional

Basic

Average

Adequate

4,158

1,894

League Champions, CL Group stage

2023/24

Fortuna liga

1st

Winner!

N/A

Group Stage

Peter Janosik (YP21e) – 44(!)

Exeptional

Basic

Good

Average

5,715

2,115

Domestic double, CL Group stage

[Sn00gle]

@XaW Again good job XaW Janosik 44 goals are just amazing:P I checked at my save  Real won in my game last time in season 2011/12  only Barca and Atletico since then but Real got some second places

[Sn00gle]

Polonia Warszawa 2020/2021

League - Squad - Transfers - Finances

 

Finally we got promotion after really hard season... first half we were on the top with 6 points in the lead but after season break... almost only ties and even loses with bottom league teams. Last match we played with Gornik Zabrze so that was match to be or not to be promoted and SUPRISE we tied again ... 1-1 but we take that we got PROMOTION! This promotion taste better becouse our Polonia u18 also won the league in region. Olesinski (YP18a) our bigest talent from academy want to leave so badly but unlucky no one wants to pay me for him 1ml so I can upgrede our youth fields... so I will stay with unhappy player to end of the contract:P Finances are very bad but we got like 1ml tv money from Ekstraklasa and over 800k for new clubs there so we managed to get 100k on plus xD Well not good anyway but start is impressive ;P I want try aswell in this challenge work with foreign intakes in club so definitly my next steps will move to reach some informations from that direction.

Youth intake

I say good intake some boys with good potential.

 

Dawid Grzyb (YP21a) - Mby future partner for Radomski (YP18d).

Sebastian Kopcinski (YP21b) - Right Winger nice?

Tomasz Konaszewski (YP21c) - Double in this season I take it.

Marcin Nowicki (YP21d) - Finally a striker hope he will be good

 

•  

  Season		League		Position		Achievments
  
  2017/18		PFD		11th			Survived
  2018/19		PFD		5th			
  2019/20		PFD		9th
  2020/21		PFD		2nd			Promotion

   

[XaW]

I've lost a bit of joy in the save in Slovakia, but I still want to succeed with the youth aspect. I'm currently looking at the different leagues and trying to decide which one I want to play in. I'll post in here as soon as I have decided.

[XaW]

So I've decided to go for Belgium. Why? It seemed a funny place to manage. I haven't played there since I played there in 2013 or something, it should be fun. My club of choice ended up being Royal Cappellen. The club is located in Kappellen (surprise surprise), a municipality in Antwerpen, northern Belgium. It is actually the home town of Thomas Vermaelen (Barcelona, currently on loan at Roma). I hope I can take that as a token of our future talents. My profile.

[Padders]

Just been approached by Scotland job

I am still in the bottom division VNN after 10 years 

[XaW]

I'm guessing Scotland is ranked just above Fiji and Nauru in your game?

[Padders]

Ranked 36th!!

Absolutely bonkers to approach me for the job 

[XaW]

XaW - Royal Cappellen - 2017/18

Table | Playoff | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Ah Belgium, the rudest word in the universe and, coincidentally, the very place I'm managing in. Royal Cappellen is located in Kappellen in the north of the country. And yes, the C/K issue in the name of the club and team is correct, though I have no idea why it is so. Kappellen is a municipality in the region Antwerp. The team itself was rather good before the 1960s, but since then it have floated around in the lower divisions. My goal is to get the club back to former glory and even further.

My first season went rather well. We started very strongly and were in the lead for a lot of the season. When spring came along we had a bad patch and struggled for a while when we went 6 games with only 1 point. This lead to other teams catching up, but we still managed to keep in the fight for the playoff spots. My main problem throughout the season at this point was the fact that we can only have 4 subs and at least two players need to be under 21. My starting squad had only a single playing under 21, a horrible youth goalkeeper. This meant I had to play with one sub less every game, so a horrible youth goalkeeper and two others. So only two subs that mattered. When the youth intake came a long, the talented youngsters were put straight into the main squad to fill up the bench. As the main season drew to a close we ended in the playoff spots for promotion. In Belgium you keep half of your points from the main season and then play the 3 other playoff teams twice each to decide the winner. We did our best, but only finished second and just missed out on promotion. A very good season for us anyway, and I hope we can fight for it next season as well.

Financially we are losing money, a lot of money! Hopefully the board will push in some much needed cash, or we get a big cup run or something. We need a better cash flow!

The youth:

A good youth intake with 3 players who are talented. The best being Boubacar Rabo (YP18a).

Season

League

Position

Cofidis Cup

Europa League

Champions League

Top scorer

Youth Coaching

Youth Recruitment

Training facilities

Youth Facilities

Average attendance

Season tickets

Achievements

2017/18

Derde Klasse

2nd

7th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 19

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

818

277

Playoff

[Sn00gle]

Yeah Belgium with their wierd second nationality fun  GZ @XaW Goood LUCK!

[darren1983]

Trying to carry this save on while also trying to wrote a 10,000 word dissertation is proving a little difficult hence my slow progress but have finally completed my current season, bit of time over this weekend as am taking a break from writing so should be able to make some good progress. 

[darren1983]

Dulwich Hamlet - Season 2037/38 - Championship

 

League - up and down season, slow start, very good middle, poor end, you can see from the graph how the season went. Sometimes I feel I've taken the club as far as I can but I go on.

League Cup - Lost to league one side in 1st round

FA Cup - lost to fellow championship side in the 3rd round

Transfers - None, just the sale of Gibson 

Squad - Same as last season really, no one really breaking through or even looking like it right now

Finances - still looking healthy, am slowly upgrading facilities, we're now cat 2 youth academy, and getting youth and training facilities up slowly.

Youth Intake - pretty solid one, no real outstanding players but 3 did get tagged;

Tony Newton (21A) - can play all across back line

Dave Gill (21B) - CM/DM will by trained to be our starting DM I think

Nicholas Roeder (21C) - yet another CB

Career Overview

Season		League		Position	Achievements

2017/18		VNS		1st		Champions
2018/19		VNL		7th		
2019/20		VNL		14th 
2020/21		VNL		15th
2021/22		VNL		4th		Promotion via playoffs
2022/23		EFL2		22nd 
2023/24		EFL2		4th		Lost Playoff Semi Final	
2024/25		EFL2		22nd 	
2025/26		EFL2		19th 		
2026/27		EFL2		9th		
2027/28		EFL2		3rd 		Promotion!
2028/29		EFL1		3rd		Lost in Playoff Semi Final
2029/30		EFL1		13th		
2030/31		EFL1		8th		EFL trophy runner up
2031/32		EFL1		2nd		Promotion
2032/33		Champ		10th	
2033/34		Champ		16th 
2034/35		Champ		13th 
2035/36		Champ		11th 
2036/37		Champ		16th 
2037/38		Champ		11th

 

[Sn00gle]

SI trools with 580m donation ;(

[XaW]

5 hours ago, Sn00gle said:

SI trools with 580m donation ;(

Just had it myself. I can't remember when I first saw it. Must have been 4-5 years ago or something.

[XaW]

XaW - Royal Cappellen - 2018/19

Table | Playoff | Squad | Transfers | Finances

We were close last season, and I had hopes we could compete once again, this time without the horrible collapse towards the end. The season started great though as we won the first 4 matches and it seemed like we were flying. It soon changed though, and we got down to earth by losing a couple in a row before drawing another. Still, we were part of the top contenders for promotion for the most of the season. When the season went into the final part it was really close and a lot of teams were fighting for the playoff spots. With only a single game left a lot of teams could overtake eachother. We managed to hold on though and qualified for the promotion playoff. Here we struggled against the best teams and finished in a 3rd place. No promotion this year either, but hopefully another year will do us good.

Financially we are still losing a lot of money. This lead to the board selling one of our most promising youngsters in the January window. They also slashed by wage budget in half, so a lot of players will have to leave this summer. Luckily, we got a couple of decent youngster to hopefully fill in the spots.

The youth:

A decent youth intake with a couple of talents, the best of them are Niels Segers (YP19a)

Season

League

Position

Cofidis Cup

Europa League

Champions League

Top scorer

Youth Coaching

Youth Recruitment

Training facilities

Youth Facilities

Average attendance

Season tickets

Achievements

2017/18

Derde Klasse

2nd

7th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 19

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

818

277

Playoff

2018/19

Derde Klasse

3rd

6th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 16

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

956

311

Playoff

[XaW]

Yeah, "too good" my backside!

[Muttley84]

Getting back in the challenge. Meet the new Manager of Vityaz Podolsk!

Pretty balanced squad, though kinda small and to top it all, this will be the first time I manage in Russia. Already bummed as i found out there are 5 teams relegating from the second division.

[Sn00gle]

@XaW Quite depresing and its 1 aprill;(

[XaW]

XaW - Royal Cappellen - 2019/20

Table | Playoff | Squad | Transfers | Finances

With two playoffs I once again had hopes for this season. It started kind of bad though as the board sold one of the best youngster we had for pocket change. £650 to be more precise. Sure, that will help a lot with our debt of more than £1M! </sarcasm>. We actually had our worst start in the league since I started. We begun with 4 draws in a row, and we struggled to find the net. Last year we conceded too much while scoring freely, this season started with a lack of goals. Slowly we started picking up more and more points and kept creeping up the table. Going into the winter break we were back in the fight for promotion. After the break we continued our good form and picked up a lot of points. While this was going on we actually had our first cup run this season. We got as far as the quarter final, beating a couple of teams from higher tiers on the way. We lost out to Genk, but it still was a very good run, even if it didn't bring in much money. As the season closed we were in a very good 2nd place and once again qualified for the promotion playoff. Here we had a good run and actually managed to win the whole thing. The team leading going into the playoff, Lommel United, bombed completely and wasted their lead and finished 4th. We are ready for the 2nd tier of Belgian football, and I can't wait.

Financially we are still a mess, but the promotion could possibly help out with that. I'm not sure how the rules are in the second tier, but I'm just about to find out.

Edit: We just turned professional and we are expanding our stadium!

The youth:

A pretty good youth intake this season, but we got more quantity than quality. The best player are probably Loric Kiaku (YP20a).

Season

League

Position

Cofidis Cup

Europa League

Champions League

Top scorer

Youth Coaching

Youth Recruitment

Training facilities

Youth Facilities

Average attendance

Season tickets

Achievements

2017/18

Derde Klasse

2nd

7th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 19

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

818

277

Playoff

2018/19

Derde Klasse

3rd

6th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 16

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

956

311

Playoff

2019/20

Derde Klasse

2nd

Quarter final

N/A

N/A

Eugene Ansah – 25

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

1,039

319

Promoted

[XaW]

I'm childish I know, but still... I giggled.

[XaW]

XaW - Royal Cappellen - 2020/21

1st phase | 2nd phase | Overall table | Playoff | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Up in the second tier of Belgian football, and it took a while to understand exactly how this league works out. For some reason Belgian seems to love playoffs and phases and other qualifications. And, they apparently hate promotions and relegations. Now, bare with me while I try to explain how the Proximus League works. First you play 1st phase, 8 teams play each other twice and the top team qualify for the Champions playoff. Then it's time for the 2nd phase. It plays pretty much the same as 1st phase, where the top team qualify for the Champions playoff. Then the Champions playoff are played between the two teams and the winner are apparently promoted, while the loser are not. For the other teams, 4 of the lowest teams play a relegation playoff league where the lowest placed team are relegated. Some of the other teams that are not in the relegation playoff or the winner of the Champions playoff are qualified for the European Places playoff along with a bunch of teams from the top tier. I have no idea how or why or which teams go into this playoff, so bare with me while I keep on getting a hang of Belgium. Now that that is all cleared up (yeah right), let's get to how my season progressed.

We started much better than I expected winning our three first matches. During the fall we played very good and fought for the top spot for a long time. In the end, though, we fell just short as Waasland-Beveren finished in the top spot to qualify for the champions playoff. In the 2nd phase we started a bit slow, but soon found the same form as we had earlier in the season. This put us up top of the table and in the end we finished there to qualify for the Champions playoff. I'm guessing it's not that much of a difference of the two tiers I've played in so far. In the playoff we played Waasland-Beveren, and had a horrible match in the first leg as we lost 5-1. This extinguished just about all hope we had. In the second leg they shut up shop and it ended 0-0 since we didn't manage to threaten much. Close, but no surprise promotion for us. I was unsure what would happen next since we were still in early March, but suddenly we were qualified for the Euro playoff. I have no why, but why not. I was going to get to play against a couple of top tier teams. Of course we struggled, but we did as best we could. In the end we finished in 5th place of the 6 teams. The kicker here in Belgium is that I actually got the most points in the league and won the Overall table, still no promotion. Hopefully next season.

Financially we are no longer in the red. Firstly we had a takeover, a director took over and restructured the finances with a loan. Then in January the new board sold two of our best players, though we got a good amount of cash for them, so I can kind of understand why they did it. I managed to get the youth recruitment and youth coaching improved, so that helped out quite a lot with the youth intake.

The youth:

We had a fantastic youth intake this season! The best of the bunch seems to be Liam Peeters (YP21a).

Season

League

Position

Cofidis Cup

Europa League

Champions League

Top scorer

Youth Coaching

Youth Recruitment

Training facilities

Youth Facilities

Average attendance

Season tickets

Achievements

2017/18

Derde Klasse

2nd

7th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 19

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

818

277

Playoff

2018/19

Derde Klasse

3rd

6th round

N/A

N/A

Dirk Mathyssen – 16

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

956

311

Playoff

2019/20

Derde Klasse

2nd

Quarter final

N/A

N/A

Eugene Ansah – 25

Adequate

Basic

Below Average

Below Average

1,039

319

Promoted

2020/21

Proximus League

1st

7th round

N/A

N/A

Eugene Ansah – 23

Average

Fairly basic

Below Average

Below Average

2,641

723

Lost the playoff

[Gareth Winter]

2 hours ago, XaW said:

I'm childish I know, but still... I giggled.

Teeheehee

[darren1983]

Dulwich Hamlet - Season 2038/39 - Championship

 

League - our 7th season at this level followed a familiar path as we again finish mid table. This time though it's fully on me, with 11 games to go we hit the magical 50 point mark and I then started playing some of the higher potential youths in an effort to get them game time. Cost us a few league placings but not much difference between 10th and 15th in the grand scheme of things.

League Cup - not great as per usual

FA Cup - gave premier league stoke a couple of tough games before they beat us in extra time

Transfers - sold Evans (18C) good player but only 12 months left in his deal and wanted to go. Also sold Farley (20B) as he wanted to leave

Squad - some much needed game time to some young players but still really reliant on players from my league one days which says a lot 

Finances - still looking pretty, upgrade to a level 1 category now and even have youth recruitment at above average.

Youth Intake - pretty good one this time with 5 players tagged for what feels like first time in ages, some worryingly poor personalities though

Andrew Stewart (22A) - Hopefully the striker we've been waiting for

Paul Doran (22B) - if Stewart isn't then maybe Doran will be the striker

Andy Alexander (22C) - looks to be the supply line for the forwards 

Tyrone Cole (22D) - another potentially solid GK

Ben Burns (22E) - another decent looking CB

Career Overview

Season		League		Position	Achievements

2017/18		VNS		1st		Champions
2018/19		VNL		7th		
2019/20		VNL		14th 
2020/21		VNL		15th
2021/22		VNL		4th		Promotion via playoffs
2022/23		EFL2		22nd 
2023/24		EFL2		4th		Lost Playoff Semi Final	
2024/25		EFL2		22nd 	
2025/26		EFL2		19th 		
2026/27		EFL2		9th		
2027/28		EFL2		3rd 		Promotion!
2028/29		EFL1		3rd		Lost in Playoff Semi Final
2029/30		EFL1		13th		
2030/31		EFL1		8th		EFL trophy runner up
2031/32		EFL1		2nd		Promotion
2032/33		Champ		10th	
2033/34		Champ		16th 
2034/35		Champ		13th 
2035/36		Champ		11th 
2036/37		Champ		16th 
2037/38		Champ		11th 	
2038/39		Champ		15th 

 

[Sn00gle]

This is just impossible one unhappy player made whole team morale down and they intentionaly losing every game great

[Muttley84]

Well, managed a whole season in Russia with a single goalkeeper and still managed to finish in top 10. Come second season, he leaves (together with my best striker and goalscorer) and I get no replacement from the youth intake. Needless to say I quit, and won't be returning anytime soon

[AdamFitz]

Is Imgur the best way to host images? Just doing my first season update here and unsure.

[kenbelly83]

Well i've started a new game with Cove Rangers in Scotland, lets see how it goes...

A 12 man squad which includes two keepers. :s

Squad

 

I'll do a more detailed update once i've completed a season.

[Muttley84]

@AdamFitz - using fmshots myself, especially dedicated to fm captures, but imgur is pretty good also.

[AdamFitz]

18 hours ago, Muttley84 said:

@AdamFitz - using fmshots myself, especially dedicated to fm captures, but imgur is pretty good also.

Thanks I'll take a look at that!

[AdamFitz]

IF Gnistan 2017 Season

Media Prediction: 7th
Final Position: 2nd (promoted via promotion playoff)

Started strong, form dipped in the middle of the year but finished off strong, only 3 points behind champions TPS. Drew PS Kemi in the promotion playoff, we were heavy favourites so stuck with the tactic that had been serving us well in the previous few games for the first leg, turned out to be a huge mistake as we lost 6-4 in a crazy game. Changed things around in the second leg, playing a basic 4-4-2 to give my talented back-up striker a chance. Turned out to be a great decision as we won 3-0 after 120 minutes securing promotion at the first time of asking. A brilliant achievement but going to find it extremely difficult to stay up. If we are as lucky with injuries as we were this season we might have a chance.

Finnish Cup - 2nd Round (lost 2-0 to IFK Mariehamn)
Performed well in the group stage, including a great 0-0 draw away to eventual winners HJK. Mariehamn totally outclassed us in the next round and deservedly went through.

Best Players
3rd - Biran Jeng: Our best defender with a knack for scoring important goals.
2nd - Joonas Kauti: Chipped in with a good few assists and won the league's Player of the Year award for his efforts.
1st - Aleksander Akbar: Goal machine. Played him up front by himself but may change that after seeing the 4-4-2's success.

Youth Intake
No one who's going to come in and contribute straight away but definitely some potential. Risto Syväjärvi, Jarno Peltonen and Ville Järvinen are the pick of the bunch.

Finances
A shambles. Hopefully TV money from the top league and increased attendances will help us but currently we're leaking about £25,000 a month.

Transfers
Disappointed to lose both Zine and Hopsu, but both were unhappy at the lack of first-team football and was better to let them go than to have them bringing team morale down.

Aims for Next Season
Simple enough, do everything we can to stay up. I'm not very hopeful but at least our finances should improve next year due promotion.

 

Season		League				Position		Notes
2016/17		Finnish First Division		2nd			Promoted via playoffs

 

[Padders]

Was setting 6th/7th before this ridiculous run.

Happening season after season and really frustrating me

Making the game unplayable 

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's Start of Challenge Choosing a Team Report

This challenge is my great white whale, so let’s give it another try.

I was going to start this challenge in Norway, but 2 things stopped me.

Firstly, the club I’d most like to do this challenge with (Oslo City, because their regens would be from abroad) must have been relegated last season, because they’re in a ‘lower division’ in the game. Even if they were to someday make their way back up to the third and then get promoted again to become playable, without adding a lot of players at the start to all teams, they’d not have enough players.

The other problem is that at the end of the 2016 season, no teams were promoted to the bottom playable division, though there were lots of relegations. I holidayed an extra year, but as we’d have to manage a team non-playable at the start, it cuts down the options, since obviously most of the teams that are promoted were relegated the previous one.

The best option was a club called Traeff, and, as confident as I am about my chances, I couldn’t see them becoming a Champions League winner.

 

So I went for Russia. I actually thought I might try to manage Sakhalin, as they are the most eastern club available for this challenge (by a big margin) and are basically on China’s doorstep.

However there are just more viable clubs. I’m obviously looking for good facilities and a decent ground capacity, but also a professional, or at least fairly professional, squad personality, as other than with my staff, I can’t do anything if there are no professional tutors. Engineering personality is something I enjoy working on.

 

I was going to go with KamAZ, despite their one goalkeeper being just 15 years old which would either be a fantastic push to develop a star of the future, or a nightmare where I might have had no competent goalie for the first years of the challenge. Let’s be frank. It would have almost certainly been the latter. The kicker though was that they didn’t have that many players, and an inordinate number of them were wingers who I don’t use.

So the next best option was a team called Chita. Apart from average instead of good training, their facilities are as good as KamAZ’s, and the players will more or less fit into my system, although of course, until I take over the club, I won’t know whether they’re actually any good.

 

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's Start of Challenge Chita Report

·        My manager is a 19 year old Scottish woman with no experience or qualifications who doesn’t speak a word of Russian, which I’m sure is going to go down well. I was going to try to recruit female staff wherever possible, but that soon needed to go out of the window for reasons given below.

·        I was expecting a few players with professional personalities, given that the club profile said ‘Fairly Professional’ squad personality. It turns out that they’re not at all professional, but they’re even less everything else. I have just 1 player with a fairly professional personality, 1 who is slack and the rest are all balanced. In fact just 5 of the players have any kind of professionalism at all based on their reports. The other 21 do not possess the trait at all. Only 2 have a determination of 10 or higher. I’m just going to be able to do very much through tutoring, for about the next 7 seasons. An early (Resolute) member of staff I hired changed the squad personality, so I hired some with professionalism to reset it. It took me a very long time to recruit staff, and I still have a number of vacancies half way through the season, including Assistant Manager and managers for both the U21 and U19 squads. There really are very slim pickings for staff with even 1 thing going for them. I’m going to have to wait for / hope the squad personality eventually changes their personalities of the youngsters before they become tutors, but again half way through the season, nothing is happening yet.  

·        So 26 players, about 9 of whom are fairly decent. The other 17 though……

·        I had 5 players with potential of 4 stars or above, and luckily they were all good enough to be in my first eleven.

·        So far I’ve had vicious long-term injuries to 2 of my first team, including 1 which led my only attacking midfielder in the club to retire. He wasn’t any good anyway, but the players I’m retraining in that position are even worse.

·        I don’t use wingers, so quite a few of my better players are being retrained and played out of position. Of course I’ll be retraining youth intake wingers straight away in future, but ideally I’ll find staff that favour a narrow formation to minimise my winger intake.

·        5 clubs out of 20 are relegated, which meant that relegation was a big possibility. That looks a remote possibility now, but then again, when I look at @Padders screenshot above, I suppose one can never feel secure. 25% of teams are relegated, and about 100% of my teams in this challenge have been relegated; probably 90% in my first season.

·        However, promotion looks a far stronger possibility, (at midway point, 1 point off playoffs and 4 points behind the 2 teams in automatic promotion spots) and I’m really not sure it would be a good idea to get promoted straight away, though the playoffs would be nice.

 

Facilities

[Sn00gle]

@vikeologist im managing team from Warsaw  the bigest city in Poland and foreign staff and anything else dosent help so far to get them;P I just noticed in all clubs in Poland (mainly from Lotto Ekstraklasa highest league) there are like 2-3 foreign regens placed randomly in  every 2 seasons  and that players are mostly the same nationality ( 2 germans 2 slovakian 2 czech 2 latvia) in 5 seasons I belive there was max 10 regens from other countries in whole Poland

 

In fm15 for example in my regular game save I belive after 15 seasons or something around I managed to get such lvl of club that allows me get  1 foreign player every year but  most of them were like dual nationality and from random place on earth even Papau or some wierd Vanatu  But I guess youth reserch and repuration is most important for this stuff

[vikeologist]

@Sn00gle Oslo City is an exception. I expect they'd be hardcoded for all their regens to be non-Norweigan / from Arab nations. That's why I'd like to manage them in this challenge, but even when they were in the top unplayable division in FM16, they never became playable because of their low reputation, and I guess the chances are even closer to zero now.

[Sn00gle]

@vikeologist if you have time you can just role and role to make them playable

 

[vikeologist]

@Sn00gle If you mean reload, I reloaded about 100 times in FM16. Waste of time because of massive reputation differentials.

[vossmaj]

Preface

After feeling kind of stuck in China trying the Ultimate Challenge I will now take on THIS one. Loading only one country comes in handy given my notebook’s abilities and I like the idea of switching the work on the transfer market with developing the guys I already have. I am using FMT16 for this. The small intakes in Touch mode are not really helpful but @Muttley84 showed me that success is possible nevertheless. Not that I expect to reach anything like he did in Greece… Survival is the dish of the day.

Country & Club

I will start in Romania. I have lived and worked there for 3 months back in the old days (well, 1999 – yes, I’m old, skip that) so the country feels closer than most others. I lived in Craiova then and visited some matches of Universitatea. But for the challenge I found a team that meets the rules (starting unplayable) and gives me a kind of mission though its colourful (though short) history:

ASU Poli Timisoara.

Brief (still confusing) history:

FC Poli Timisoara (founded 1921) was the major club in Timisoara until 2012 when it was dissolved. The official successor is called ACS Poli Timisoara. The latter is co-owned by City and Country Council and is backed by Politehnica University. After the bankruptcy of FC Poli a team from a different town (ACS Recas) was moved to Timisoara under the name of ACS Poli. It took several years of legal quarrel to establish ACS Poli as the official successor of FC Poli. It can now claim its past succeses and use the official colours of purple and white.

However many hardcore fans didn’t identify with and accept ACS stating that “stating that ACS Poli Timișoara is a fraud and a political maneuver” (wiki). They decided to support the amateur club of Politehnica University in the fifth tier: ASU Poli. Wikipedia refers to it as a “fan-owned phoenix club”.

IRL (and FM17) they already reached Liga II but in FM16 it took some reloading to have them promoted.

Training facilities are impressive, youth facilities average which makes for a pretty good start. After the season 2015/ 16 was played with two Liga II parts and rules looked a bit like Belgium, season 2016/17 now comes as a bit of a shock with 22 teams and 6 being relegated in the end. So that’s going to be a real challenge from year 1.

So here are the details:

Club info

Manager profile

Team part 1 Team part 2

Oh dear, only two DC (no there no further in the Reserves) are a bit low depth...

Expectations

Looking forward to this!

[Muttley84]

Good luck, if you can hang in there the first couple of seasons the fans will surely carry you on towards the top. Timisoara is a wonderfull city for football, doing a nationalistic career there with Ripensia.  Will be following.

[leotavo]

On 02/04/2017 at 14:11, darren1983 said:

Dulwich Hamlet - Season 2038/39 - Championship

 

League - our 7th season at this level followed a familiar path as we again finish mid table. This time though it's fully on me, with 11 games to go we hit the magical 50 point mark and I then started playing some of the higher potential youths in an effort to get them game time. Cost us a few league placings but not much difference between 10th and 15th in the grand scheme of things.

League Cup - not great as per usual

FA Cup - gave premier league stoke a couple of tough games before they beat us in extra time

Transfers - sold Evans (18C) good player but only 12 months left in his deal and wanted to go. Also sold Farley (20B) as he wanted to leave

Squad - some much needed game time to some young players but still really reliant on players from my league one days which says a lot 

Finances - still looking pretty, upgrade to a level 1 category now and even have youth recruitment at above average.

Youth Intake - pretty good one this time with 5 players tagged for what feels like first time in ages, some worryingly poor personalities though

Andrew Stewart (22A) - Hopefully the striker we've been waiting for

Paul Doran (22B) - if Stewart isn't then maybe Doran will be the striker

Andy Alexander (22C) - looks to be the supply line for the forwards 

Tyrone Cole (22D) - another potentially solid GK

Ben Burns (22E) - another decent looking CB

Career Overview

Season		League		Position	Achievements

2017/18		VNS		1st		Champions
2018/19		VNL		7th		
2019/20		VNL		14th 
2020/21		VNL		15th
2021/22		VNL		4th		Promotion via playoffs
2022/23		EFL2		22nd 
2023/24		EFL2		4th		Lost Playoff Semi Final	
2024/25		EFL2		22nd 	
2025/26		EFL2		19th 		
2026/27		EFL2		9th		
2027/28		EFL2		3rd 		Promotion!
2028/29		EFL1		3rd		Lost in Playoff Semi Final
2029/30		EFL1		13th		
2030/31		EFL1		8th		EFL trophy runner up
2031/32		EFL1		2nd		Promotion
2032/33		Champ		10th	
2033/34		Champ		16th 
2034/35		Champ		13th 
2035/36		Champ		11th 
2036/37		Champ		16th 
2037/38		Champ		11th 	
2038/39		Champ		15th 

 

Championship Sux!!!

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's First Youth Intake Report

I was hoping for some good players in the intake, given the club's reasonable facilities compared to the rest of the promoted clubs, but I was pleasantly surprised. Only 2 of my top 6 players have any kind of professional attributes, ( I don't mean the actual personality. I mean whether the coach report says that they possess that character trait), but hopefully the squad personality will kick in eventually. At least the intake hasn't changed the squad personality, which is something.

Anyway, on the whole a lot of strikers. I needed a couple. I only had 2 good strikers, and 1 of them has scored just 6 goals in his 24 starts so far, which undermines the whole good description.

By far the best is Daniil Anisimov (YP1a ). He's immediately replacing Mr 6 goals. 15 year old better be allowed in this division, otherwise I'm going to be really annoyed.

Sergey Magamaev (YP1b) is a right winger, so I'll need to retrain him. If it wasn't for all the other strikers, I'd start him on that, but I guess it's going to have to be central midfield.

Dmitry Romanov (YP1c) is another striker, but I don't have any natural attacking midfielders, so that's going to be his destiny, and he may well start straight away, his 1.5 stars probably being worth displacing the 2 star guy I've been playing since my only original attacking midfielder had his career terminated with an injury.

Yet another striker   Maxim Fomin (YP1d ). Having 3 natural and 1 competent strikers in my top 4 is hardly spreading the wealth, but as I say, I did need a few. Just, next year, enough with the strikers.

Valery Nikitin (YP1e) Not a striker, but I don't use wingers. He's a competent wing back, so I guess he's going to have to be made into a left back wingback, which given his tackling (1), marking (2), and work rate (6), is going to be a long term project unlikely to bear fruit.

Sergey Bondarenko (YP1f) - a goalie. My starting goalie will hopefully improve, but hopefully Surgey can show the improvement that my starting hasn't yet.

I have a few other decent potential players as well, but the above 6 are the ones with 5 star potential.

[darren1983]

11 hours ago, leotavo said:

Championship Sux!!!

8 seasons in and I'm still pretty much at the same level  

No time to really play for a little while, got 10,000 word dissertation due in 18 days  

[vossmaj]

21 hours ago, Muttley84 said:

Good luck, if you can hang in there the first couple of seasons the fans will surely carry you on towards the top. Timisoara is a wonderfull city for football, doing a nationalistic career there with Ripensia.  Will be following.

Not only wonderful for Football

[fabreth]

On 9/4/2017 at 11:48, vikeologist said:

Vikeologist's Start of Challenge Choosing a Team Report

This challenge is my great white whale, so let’s give it another try.

I was going to start this challenge in Norway, but 2 things stopped me.

Firstly, the club I’d most like to do this challenge with (Oslo City, because their regens would be from abroad) must have been relegated last season, because they’re in a ‘lower division’ in the game. Even if they were to someday make their way back up to the third and then get promoted again to become playable, without adding a lot of players at the start to all teams, they’d not have enough players.

The other problem is that at the end of the 2016 season, no teams were promoted to the bottom playable division, though there were lots of relegations. I holidayed an extra year, but as we’d have to manage a team non-playable at the start, it cuts down the options, since obviously most of the teams that are promoted were relegated the previous one.

The best option was a club called Traeff, and, as confident as I am about my chances, I couldn’t see them becoming a Champions League winner.

 

 

 

In fact, Norway is a bit tricky. If you load making it start in 2017 then many teams are already relegated and technically they are unplayable at the start of your game. It's a workaround, I know, but maybe it is permitted... i saw many many pages ago an adventure with Forde, a team who, in 2016, starts in the second division, but if you load the game to start in 2017, it's unplayable.

Anyway, good luck in Russia.. hope your chairman isn't like mine in my russian adventures..

[XaW]

Well, I just came back from a little holiday and were planning on continuing my Belgian adventure, but the game was corrupted or somehow unable to be loaded. My last backup are over a year old. Gutted, but I think I'm going to give this challenge another go. Though, I think I will go to another country. The confusing Belgian playoffs isn't something I enjoyed a lot.

[XaW]

Ok, I've decided to go a little closer to home this time. I am a Scandinavian after all, so Iceland should be pretty homely for me. I'm now the new manager of Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur. Quite the mouthful in pronouncing that, even for someone who knows how to pronounce þ (it's kind of the 'th' sound in 'the'). Luckily, the team just goes by ÍR, so it's quite simple. I have a squad full of homegrown talent, and a single fellow from Senegal who seems to have gotten lost up here in the freezing cold. Should be interesting.