FM17 Youth Academy Challenge

[Sn00gle]

Well new tactic works great so far in 10 matches we lost only 4 goals  we have 20 points and we are leader of the league, team spirit is great too! Can we keep that to the end?:D Im only mad for first match with Olimpia  it was 21-4 in shots and we still lost grr....

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2023/22 Chita Season Report

League We were challenging for continental qualification all season. There were 6 clubs chasing the 5 European spots, and I was worried that our habitual late-seaso0n collapses were actually a habit as we lost a couple of key games against our rivals near the end of the season.

However, with 2 matches to go we were assured of Europe and my gaze turned to the possibility of finishing 3^rd, which would get us into the Europa League group stage. This would probably be important because we have absolutely no European coefficient yet, so a playoff would probably bring a very difficult tie.

In theory we could still finish second and qualify for the Champions league, but as there was a 5 point gap between 2^nd and 4^th (us), I paid the possibility no heed.

With 1 match to go we were 3 points behind, and still in 4^th. I checked out whether it was possible, and it was. The team in 2^nd had just 1 more win than us, so we could finish with the same number of wins, when it would go to record between the teams, where we would have the advantage. So we needed second place Rubin to lose, third place Zenit not to win, and of course we had to win. I was delighted that Rubin’s last match was against the league champions.

And lo, it all came to pass. We won (very comfortably) and the other 2 teams lost. We moved into a top 2 place for the first time in the season, just when it counted, and are in the Champions League next season, albeit probably not for very long.

In the end Rubin failed to qualify for Europe anyway, for financial reasons. This means that in retrospect the whole end of season was a lot less meaningful, but we didn’t know that. We need to do well in Europe, (to improve the national coefficient), because nobody else from Russia is.

 

Youth Intake

Really only one player who was likely to be very useful, and indeed he already has been. 3 players tagged this year, although there’s been players who’ve transcended their lack of a tag over the years.

Igor Sokolov (YP7a) – Instantly one of our best strikers. At first he mostly just sat on the bench while he became familiar with the tactics, but he started the last 5 games of the season, and grabbed 7 goals in those 5 games. Again, trying not to get too attached, but including my optional extension of 2 years, I have him tied up for the next 5 seasons with no release clause.

Alexandr Pakhomov (YP7b) Will probably be a very good player, but he’s a winger, so not much use to me. I’m retraining him as a striker, just in case.

Azamat Babushkin (YP7c) Defensive midfielder who I’ll have a go at retraining as a central defender, although my U19 manager keeps playing him in central midfield.

 

Squad

 

Top Goalscorer –  Razborov - 22

Razborov’s days as a starter are probably numbered, and that number may even be a negative number given the quality of young strikers coming through. By the end of the season he was usually on the sub’s bench. His 120 minute strike rate was decent enough, but then again, we are one of the top teams now.

Best Average Rating  Igor Sokolov (YP7a) 7.49. Players have to play a minimum of 10 matches to qualify for these end of season awards, and Igor The Sock Puppet played in exactly 10 matches including sub appearances, including those last 5 matches with the 7 goals.

Man of Match – Igor Sokolov (YP7a) – 4 Now that’s just embarrassing for everybody else that started more than Igor’s 5 matches.

MVP – Igor Sokolov (YP7a) I guess he really made a difference at the end of the season, even though it may just have been a purple patch of form at the right time.

 

Transfers

Just the one. Maxim Fomin (YP1d)  (our main striker) only had a year left on his contract, and he clearly wasn’t going to resign before clubs could offer him contracts, so I sold him for basically £7 million plus a potential chunk of future profit.

I also received a really good offer (about £7 million) for my backup attacking midfielder, Sergey Prokopenko (YP4a). Instead I gave him a shot in the first team, even though he was replacing maybe the best player in the team. He promptly got himself injured for the remainder of the season, which solved that dilemma, but only until next season. He’s good and he knows he is.

So I used the money for Fomin to improve my training facilities. I think my Training and Youth Training are almost maxed out now. Just one more upgrade each, though I don’t have enough money at the moment. Junior Coaching is exceptional, which is the best you can have.

In the meantime, my youth recruitment is still stuck at Basic. I’ve posted a save game asking if it’s a bug, but SI haven’t replied. Maybe I’ve upset them with my thread in GD, but I am actually trying to help them by posting possible bugs. We’ll see if my YR can be improved after (hopefully) a reputation bump from qualifying for Europe. (Nope, our rep is still only at 2.5 stars. Looks like we’ve actually got to compete in Europe to see a significant bump.

Anyway, hopefully we stand a good chance of winning the league next season, and do well enough in Europe for the finishing line to be in sight, This is the first time I've got into Europe in this challenge.

Season	Division				Position	Notes										
17/18	National League				7th		Missed out on playoffs with 2 points from our last 5 matches.
18/19	National League				14th		Flirted with relegation all season, but it never got to see us naked.
19/20	National League				2nd		Automatic promotion.
20/21	Championship				14th		Avoided relegation in playoff.	
21/22	Championship				12th		Pushed for Europe until the final strait where we became a pushover.
22/23	Championship				7th		Hopefully this was the boring season before the glory days start.
23/24	Championship				2nd		Qualified for Champions League (and Europe) for first time.	

 

[vikeologist]

@Matty Hope you can dig yourself out of the hole. I (abortively and briefly) tried the challenge a couple of times with Folkestone and Dulwich, and with Folkestone I stood no chance financially. After 10 games we were doing well in the league, but already 300k in the red. Don't mean to be discouraging. if you can turn the form around and sell some players, it could still turn out ok.

@The Art of Drowning Do you mean you have no good players in terms of current ability, or not even with the potential? Be interesting to see if you can bring any strikers through, or if you'll even use strikers anymore. Other clubs do seem to really love strikers. I sense that even though I have 5 ok strikers, most of whom may soon be more than ok, one does need to have a lot of strikers coming through to compensate for losses. The striker we lost last season, Fomin, wouldn't have even got any first team action if we hadn't been forced to sell the even better strikers that cam into the club at about the same time.

@Sn00gle Like your calling them traitors. that's how I feel as well, with a side dish of 'stupid because you're not even getting first team football anymore'. I must admit I think this challenge should consider the 'Dulwich hamlet Challenge' rule where you can buy back youth prospects that you've sold, although it seems that often they don't want to come back even when they're a free agent. I've lost some good coaches that are now sitting on their arse doing nothing because the quality of my (freshly Champion league) players isn't of a high enough quality to tear them away from their life streams of Big Survivor Siberia.

@GottaBeatThemAll Wow, those fees are tiny. Most of the time I've had my players sold over my head, the fees have been in the millions, and have financed our now very good facilities. I wish I could believe that we won't lose more players now we're in Europe, but increasingly their agents are insisting on release clauses. It will be frustrating if I start losing people and have no more facilities to spend the money on. Unfortunately I think we're never going to outgrow our 10k capacity stadium. Let's hope we at least get our first ever sold out game in the Champions League.

@XaW (and @Sn00gle) Did you manage to get a new HoYD? Personality (and preferred formation) is very important to me, especially once you have enough coaches that their coaching stats don't matter. I find that HoYD judging stats tend to be quite good as a rule. Really though, I'm not sure what we need for this challenge. I mean I'd expect him to bring people through in his preferred position, and my guy like 442 which could mean lots of obsolete wingers for me, but in fact I tend to end up with more AML/Rs than ML/Rs. My gut feeling (because honestly that's all it is) is that personality is the single most important thing, because it just improves the odds of getting good personalities that little bit more. Of course, the way I play the game should be retitled Personality manager.

@darren1983 How close are you to being maxxed out on facilities? Hope you find the tactic to take you to the next level.

[Sn00gle]

Since season 2 I belive I used this HOYD for HOYD (cheers for by buddies in Iceland challenge  Im scouting that region) with more working with youngstars (best I can get for my team...) I didn't watch for prefer formation though and style (I was mad that im geting allways the winger's I've never get a decent striker or DL or DR ). Intake I've got just right now from him. As you can see again im geting winger... but this guy have bigest determination of all player's I've got so far also decent DC joining team. It's to early to get any conclusions but as you said tactic prefering by hoyd might have something with intake. Anyway Bjarki is cheep and will have another chance to get intake before we find someone new.

 

PS. I just canceled contract for my DC  making screenshots.... Its still ok if he get contract from me coz he will be in transfers list in to the club?

[The Art of Drowning]

@vikeologist  It's more that there are no real standout players in the side, we have some good players for our league but the last 2 who were poached were a class above and could win us games with a bit of magic. Update coming soon from the next season.

[The Art of Drowning]

So for the 3rd year running the title went down to the final day, we went in 1 point ahead of KR and yet again our lads bottled it   Lost 2-0 to one of the mid-table teams.  Luckily KR also bottled it and handed us the title for the first time.  

We were knocked out of the europa league at the same stage, beating MTK Budapest and surprisingly beating Polish side Cracovia before losing to Vitesse, they had an incredible striker who is wanted by Valencia so no shame there.

We got over our lack of decent strikers by attempting to retrain a bunch of our attacking midfielders and wingers, one of them being Leifsson.  Another is Vilhjalmsson, although he played mainly on the right.  Siguroarson on the other wing was another one of our key performers.

As mentioned earlier, our only sale this year was Arnar for a fee that could reach £900k.  We had quite a good youth intake this year, really like the look of Gunnarson who has slotted straight into our starting lineup.

[Sn00gle]

Im done with this game and I dont wana play it anymore ****ing stupid  every game I have 20-5 shots and round 60% posesion and im losing with everything my strikers scored 4 goals in 30 matches this is joke delate tilted ffs

[darren1983]

@vikeologist well done on making the Champions League, hope you get a decent draw and can get a group stage spot and all the money that comes with it 

As for me, not maxed out my facilities yet as my board seem to only allow me 1 upgrade a season (tight gits) so have room to go still. 

[XaW]

Ok, it's been some days since I've posted here and it's simply because I'm a bit tired of playing in Iceland. Mostly due to the spring-fall season. Since Iceland are now getting better they are qualifying for most tournaments, both at senior and youth level. Icelandic football aren't made to teams going far in Europe either, so both of this thing causes a lot of issues with scheduling and a lot of players unavailable simultaneously with a lot of matches in a short span towards the end of the season.

I think I'm going to try to play somewhere else, but I'm keeping Iceland on hold, so if I suddenly get the urge I can go right back to it. I'll consider where to go next, but I'll post it as soon as I know.

[Muttley84]

1 minute ago, XaW said:

I think I'm going to try to play somewhere else, but I'm keeping Iceland on hold, so if I suddenly get the urge I can go right back to it. I'll consider where to go next, but I'll post it as soon as I know.

Are there still any European nations left where you hadn't started this?  If so, I would suggest Turkey or Denmark. And good luck wherever you end up.

[XaW]

39 minutes ago, Muttley84 said:

Are there still any European nations left where you hadn't started this?  If so, I would suggest Turkey or Denmark. And good luck wherever you end up.

Heh, well, I've played quite a lot around, but there are still countries I haven't tried. So far I think I've narrowed it down to 3 possible countries. Holland, Turkey or Switzerland. Holland, because I haven't played there since FM05 or something, and they have a history of a good youth focus. Turkey, because I've never played there before and Switzerland because I've never played there either. I'll mull on it some more before deciding.

[Virtual Male]

Okay so after a little while away to get my Dissertation and my last exams done at university.. I'm back playing in Hungary, just got past February so I should have a proper update sometime over the next day or two (It's shaping up to be a good one).

I've been keeping up with what everyone is doing and It's good to see that everyone is making progress (in one way or another) and it's nice to see a few new players and the return of a couple more.  

[XaW]

Following @Muttley84's advise I've decided to head to a country I haven't played in before. I'm going to Turkey! My profile. I'm the new manager of Kartal Spor Kulübü. The club is located in Istanbul, the capital of Turkey. They have pretty good facilities for this level, something I should have use for in this challenge.

[Winski]

5 hours ago, XaW said:

Ok, it's been some days since I've posted here and it's simply because I'm a bit tired of playing in Iceland. Mostly due to the spring-fall season. Since Iceland are now getting better they are qualifying for most tournaments, both at senior and youth level. Icelandic football aren't made to teams going far in Europe either, so both of this thing causes a lot of issues with scheduling and a lot of players unavailable simultaneously with a lot of matches in a short span towards the end of the season.

I think I'm going to try to play somewhere else, but I'm keeping Iceland on hold, so if I suddenly get the urge I can go right back to it. I'll consider where to go next, but I'll post it as soon as I know.

I do agree with you that it's a bit difficult to handle that situation. For that reason, I've got a very large squad in my IR-save. My strongest team will play in Europe, and in the most important matches in the competition. My B- and sometimes C-team will play all the other matches, including both cups. 

Sad to read that you stopped, hopefully you will find more enjoyment in your next save. Good luck!

[darren1983]

Dulwich Hamlet - Season 2041/42 - Championship

 

Just a quick one here as not much to say about this season. Usual lower half finish, at no stage were we above 12th in the table. Was a season of annoyance with no reason for our runs of form, we'll win 3 or 4 in a row then not win for 6 or 7, beat sides at the top before losing to sides at the bottom, just a season that left me more annoyed than anything else. We went out at the first hurdle of both cups. The squad is looking OK, we finally have a few players capable of playing at this level, namely Boateng, Kyriacou and Alexander, however a decision has to be made on Alexander this summer, only a year left on his deal and he won't sign a new one. Finances are OK so may keep him and gamble on having a good season rather than sell. We made no money from transfers this season.

To round off the poor season we had a pretty poor intake this year, think I'm gonna change my HoYD this summer. We only tagged 1 player Hunt (25A) but am not even sure if he'll make it

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 
2039/40		Champ		18th 
2040/41		Champ		19th 	
2041/42		Champ		16th 

 

[The Art of Drowning]

Title went down to the final day for the 4th year running, this year it was a bit clearer as we were 3 points ahead with a far superior goal difference.  Drew the final game to clinch our 2nd title.

Europe was a failure as we got beaten easily at the first hurdle by danish side fc midtjylland.  

No major sales this season but we do have a player who is being monitored by Chelsea, Real, PSG, Barcelona, Juventus etc.. In fact pretty much every top side in the world wants him.  Didn't get a screenshot of him last year but here he is now.  We have him tied down until 2026 and he isn't kicking up a fuss when we reject bids either.

Quantity wise it wasn't our best intake, however I think 2 or 3 of them can come into our first team fairly quickly. Johannsson and Ingvarsson.

[Mushtaq]

After several months away from FM I am looking to start a new game and of course the youth challenge is drawing me back in, despite failing terribly in previous attempts.

Just trying to settle on a team now - thinking about Merthyr Town to build a Welsh dynasty in England (assuming most regens would be Welsh?) or starting a 'police academy' with Met Police. Or possibly a country not as daunting to take on. Any ideas?

[Muttley84]

4 hours ago, Mushtaq said:

Or possibly a country not as daunting to take on. Any ideas?

Well, England is pretty challenging for youth only. The long seasons, poor facilities to start with, all the climbing up the ladder could easily make one lose interest. On the other hand, there are other British leagues to chose from  Best of luck.

[XaW]

I'm 10 league games into my first season in Turkey and I thought I'd post a small update. Pre-season was good, but as soon as the league started we lost the 4 first matches. I tried to make a 4-3-3 formation to suit all the 7 decent strikers I have in my squad, as well as the lack of wide players, but it was probably too attacking for the skill of the players. So I went with a more modest 4-5-1, and retraining of a couple of strikers to wide players. This seems to be working as the last 6 matches have resulted in 3 wins, 2 draws and only a single loss. I'm currently 12th placed (of 18), but only 3 points ahead of the relegation spots. Hopefully our recent good form will continue, and we will climb away to safety this season. I really need some talents in, seeing as I only have a very poor 16 year old as my 2nd choice goalkeeper and hardly any players capable as wide midfielders or winger. Full backs are also something we need. Anyway, onwards to glory!

[vikeologist]

Random early season thoughts

A young goalie Vladimir Dmitriev (YP5d) has now drawn level with the starter on current ability. I put him in the team and he’s conceded 12 goals in 4 matches. Here’s the thing. He’s only 178 cm tall. He’s only grown 4 cm in the more than 2 years since coming to the club, so I think we have to accept that he’s going to be a short-arse forever. He really doesn’t look as good as Revyakin the established goalie he’s replaced. Revyakin might not get any better, but at 189 cm, least I don’t have to worry about treading on him if I’m not looking where I’m going.

I have another promising goalie, Andrey Smertin (YP3f), whose potential ability seems to have gone down a lot in recent years. I’ve had him out on loan for the last season and a bit. The question is, does he still have that potential? Do I recall him from loan and give him a chance? I think I have to. Dmitriev’s height is always going to be  problem isn’t it, even if he realises his potential. Done. Smertin back, Dmitriev going out on loan.

I think I might change his name to Vladimir Diminutev (YP5d) to help y’all out with all the Russian names. Just be warned that my key defender, Alexey Bedretdinov (YP3c), is a little bit touchy when it comes to nicknames. For some reason he didn’t react well once he looked up 'bedwetter' in his Russian / English dictionary.

We’re doing ok in Europe. Managed to get past Sporting of Portugal, and even though we then came up against Tottenham who outclassed us, we’re in the Europa League group stage, so we should have enough money to max up our facilities. We have lost 4 of our first 5 games in the league though, so we need to turn that around quickly.

Our rep has gone from 2.5 stars to 3, but still no option to un-basic our youth recruitment, (which surely must be a bug). In reality though, this doesn’t seem a huge problem. Clearly my players can at least potentially be good enough to be the best team in Russia. I'm just worried that we'll never get players good enough to take us to the next level. We’ve never had a non-Russian youth come through. I hoped that having scouts roaming around the world would help us to recruit foreign (and better) staff, but apart from Fiona The Scottish manager, there’s just one other non-Russian. There are foreigners prepared to join our club, but apart from an Argentinian goalie coming to the end of his career, none of them are viable staff.

I now just have 3 original players left; not just in the squad, at the club, and they’re all hanging on to their places by a thread. Razborov is still getting some appearances as a striker and Yarmolitskiy is still holding on in central defence. Oh, and technically 21-year old Yury Dubrovskiy (YP0b) is an original player having come through as a youth in the season I holidayed before taking over. I’m holding on to him as a potential F Pro (D=7) tutor, but I imagine his squad status will be too low to be able to tutor anyone anyway. He could have been a decent striker, but I had to retrain him as an attacking midfielder to fill that gap in the early seasons, and he never recovered. I love tutoring, but the squad is already professional. It’s the diminishing determinations that are the problem.

We can't even sell out our 10,200 capacity ground for home matches against Tottenham and Fiorentina (both of which we won, thank you very much), so once we have top facilities, there won't be much point spending money on expanding our capacity. Chita has 325,000 people, so it's not as though I'm asking the entire citizenry to come to our games.

[Virtual Male]

Oroshaza

2025/26

Manager Profile - Finances - Transfers 

OTP Bank Liga - League Table - Past Positions - Fixtures

I can't really complain with the season ending in the clubs second league title but it should have been so much easier. At the half way point of the season we had 14 wins from 14 games and were sat 12 points clear at the top and I though the league was all but wrapped up.. My team had other ideas and promptly forgot how to win games, picking up only 7 of a possible 27 in the next 9 games which left us sitting in 3rd place but luckily a late surge dropping just 5 points from the last 7 games which was enough for us to climb back to the top of the table and win the league on the last day by 1 point.

 

Cups - 

• LigaKupa - We managed to top our group but drew Gyor in the 2nd round and lost 3-0 over two legs in a disappointing display.
• Magyar Kupa - We got an easy draw all the way to the Quarter-Finals where we came up against Puskas Akademia.. We won 2-0 in the first leg before collapsing in the 2nd, losing 4-1 and getting knocked out.
• Europa League - A fairly straight forwards run into the group stage, although we were a little lucky to get the better of KRC Genk. In the group we held our own picking up a win against Inter but ultimately finished 3rd, just off 2nd place.. This really annoyed me as we conceded a 94th minute goal against Dinamo Moscow and another late one against Ludogorets which threw away 2 wins and 4 points that would have seen us through.

 

Transfers

There was nothing to talk about this year with just a few players going out on loan to pick u some game time and a couple going for nominal fees to get them off the wage bill. There's been a number of bids for some of my players and I think about half of my squad are wanted by teams around Europe at this point but no-one is kicking up a fuss, so we'll see what happens.

 

Squad

A really good season from almost everyone who made a first team appearance with a huge amount of development throughout the squad, some of the standout players were;

• Csaba Juhasz - At 20 he's now the club captain and put in another fantastic season with a 7.76 average in the league. He's been attracting interest from Saudi Arabia but doesn't seem interested in a move that could mean he earns a huge amount more than he currently does and has signed a new contract fairly recently, it still has a fairly low release clause though which is somewhat annoying. 
• Tamas Szalai - Just 19 and continuing to prove he's the league's best player by a country mile setting a new record in the league for average rating with 7.88 and winning both Player and Young Player of the year for the 2nd year running. Some big clubs around Europe are now looking at this guy, including Lazio, but they'll have to spend big to get him since I've got him tied down till 2030 with another year added if he plays 10 games in the final season and there's no minimum release clause.
• Tamas Pajko - I don't know how he's doing it but I'm not going to question it.. Another season of goals for our main striker and even though he spent 9 games out injured he still finished the season with 24 league goals, winning the top scorer award, and bagging 40 in all competitions. clubs in Saudi Arabia have made bids of up to £2.5m for him but he's one of only 3 strikers at the club (and the only one who is actually scoring goals regularly) so I need to keep him around. 

 

The Youth  - Intake

In terms of quantity it's probably one of the more disappointing intakes I've had since starting the save but that is more than made up for by the best prospect that came through.

• Bence Toth - Another Full-Back (We seem really good at bringing them though) but at 15 he's my best Right-back and has the potential to be a star player in my league.. But due to his 16 determination and Resolute personality It wouldn't surprise me to see this guy go on to become one of Hungary's best players of all time.

 

Summary

In all a good season.. Hopefully our consistency will come together over the next few years as players mature a little more. We made a loss of a about £3.5m this season but that was mainly due to the board upgrading facilities, hopefully we can make it to the group stage of the Champions League which will provide a big cash boost for the club, and help boost the nations coefficient so less rounds to go through to get there. I want to challenge for the title again next season and make it into the Champions League again, but i'll see how we start off before getting my hopes up.

Oh, and the board have decided to build a new stadium with a little over double our current capacity... I'm not sure why because we aren't selling out our current one but it won't cost too much so that's nice

[GottaBeatThemAll]

 

Season 4

A fast update i know but the short seasons really do suit me theirs never a point where the season drags. So we survived just by having Tubize being worse than us we actually started off very strong going on 6 game unbeaten run in all competitions but after that went away we struggled and so have i as the better defences have shut off any attacking potential as our top goal scorer was 5 goals and he was a centre midfielder i think the problem with my attack is its been too far from each other so they either lose the ball or close themselves off from the game so i'm trying new instructions and have stopped our famous possession based ways. This year was very good for our youths as many got good game time as i find myself getting rid of more and more originals.

Changing my format again so i will post my top 3 highest rating players out of everyone and then for each intake (except the new one ) I will post the best rating the honourable mention and potential for next season.

Table Playoff

Top 3

Jannick Weeghmans- A driving force yet again wasn't as good as last year but is in my opinion our best performing player and will hopefully continue in this same form next season.

Amardeep Singh- Ah our English Giant has played for the Tienen his entire career and he certainly stepped this height is vital for our team thanks to our small cb , he's getting on now and we're struggling to find a partner for him never mind a replacement! 

Artur Hannes- Questionable choice but he did have a good year and is a good keeper although i do think each season he's declining as his mistakes continue to increase hopefully one of my youth keepers makes massive improvements.

18" Intake Still performing well but i want most to kick on as generally the 18's have kept the same progression. 

Highest rating- Stef Aerts 186 - Has improved massively and was a key player yet again has pro league b potential had trouble with discipline this year with 10 yellows but still a very good year for in my opinion the best youth we've got. 

Honourable mention- Geoffrey de Greef 185 - Fantastic name and has played well mostly but still has very poor games i would say a 1 in 5 ratio hoping he has more of a challenge from other youths as he doesn't benefit from the competition that right backs have.

One to watch- Gunther Devos 187- I love his stats but i need him to step up asap as we struggle for goals and he was my top scoring striker with 4 in 22 games! 

19" I still want more from this intake as generally at best they're all squad rotation players

Highest rating- JLS/ Jean Louis Stevens 192- His stats are impressive as he's good fast player for Aerts but he's got better mental stats he played decent in a higher level and was generally my attacking central option of the bench.

Honourable mention Bram Verburggen - The untaggable strikes again  not as impressive but 16 games is still a good tally for a tougher division his versatility meant he always had a place on my bench.

One to watch- Jef de Greef 194- unfortunately not related to 183 our highest rated youth but unfortunately he kept getting long injuries and i think this disrupted him as he had 18 games but only a pitiful 2 goals his finishing must improve as he waste many chances his speed gets him!

20" no impact whatsoever from this intake a few of this got games but highest appearances was 9 and that was because he's my back up left back.

Highest rating- Ourdy Kinsombi 204- 4 games yet he played very well in those 4 bagging an assist and his first goal hope he improves next season.

Honourable mention None for this intake as nobody else came close to performing to a good standard.

One to watch Thomas De Cock (nobody giggle!) 203- played better than his rating states has pro league potential i look forward to seeing him improve his challenge for starting 11 next season.

21" Poor intake for potential, in this i was desperate for strikers and centre backs at least i got the strikers both decent prospects the only negative is their personality i had 7 out of 16 players with in my opinion poor personalities my hoyd will get another chance though as most are high potentials players

Nationalities

211- certainly made an impression scoring 2 games in 5 games at the end of the season shows promise and will get opportunities poor determination.  Has the exact same name as a youth from 18" i think belgium doesn't have a diverse last name base.

212-  part spanish looks like a good playmaker from deep hopes he makes improvements but for now he'll be in the reserve  squad

213-a nice tall striker good stats finally a target man who looks like a target man!

Seasons Aim

Continue giving more game time to youths- this is without a doubt

Improve facilities and become professional- facilities didn't come to tuition but becoming professional immediately

Survive- YES YES YES

Next season aims

Survive again and hopefully improve on the position

Improve how potent the attack is 

Aim to improve facilities again!

Keep our youths !

[XaW]

XaW - Kartal Spor Kulübü - 2017/18

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

So here I am in sunny Turkey. Far away from the cold dark nights of Iceland I'm used to. I took over Kartal SK, a club from the Kartal district of Istanbul. Located in the southeast part of Istanbul. I've looked up the stadium on Google maps, and quite frankly it doesn't quite look like a tempting place to be. But at least there's a Dominos Pizza across the street, so it's something, I guess. Earlier in Iceland I didn't get to travel much, but Turkey is a far bigger country, so we are got some plane rides this year. From Erzurum close to the Armenian border in the easy to Trabzon up north by the Black Sea to Manisa, close to Izmir by the Aegean Sea in the west, to Kahramanmaraş down south towards the Syrian border and finally to Ankara in the center of the country. Anyway, enough geography lessons, it's time for football. I had not much idea regarding the level of skill my team had compared to the opponents, but we were ranked quite low by the press. As I wrote earlier we had a bad start, but a change in tactics turned out be a success. After the bad start we slowly climbed up the table, but we did have some bad runs throughout the season. That was the major problem this season, our inconsistency. We could win several matches in a row, before losing 4 on a row. In the end we did do much better than expected as we ended in 6th place, very close to the playoffs. We ended on the same points as the team above and even had better goal difference. Unfortunately, the sorting rules are "results between teams" before goal difference.

In the cup we beat Pazarspor and Bucaspor to get to the group stage. Here we faced Aydınspor 1923, Trabzonspor and Adanaspor. We won the two games against Adanaspor, but lost the remaining four games to end 3rd in the group and didn't qualify for the next round.

The youth:

We had a great youth intake this season. A really amazing player in Mehmet Barut (YP18a). I don't believe I'll be able to keep him for long, but hopefully he'll stay for some years. He would have gone straight into the main team, but I can't register new players until next season starts.

[Sn00gle]

@XaW Are you seriously with this Barut in first season xD?

[XaW]

4 hours ago, Sn00gle said:

@XaW Are you seriously with this Barut in first season xD?

Yeah, he is amazing, but the top clubs are already bidding for him, and he won't sign a proper contract. I'm trying to get as much money as I can for him, and maybe a couple of games before he is lost to us. I'll keep track of his career, to see how far he can go.

Well, there he goes. I didn't even get to play him in a single competitive match, only a few friendlies. I only got compensation, since he wouldn't sign a full contract.

[XaW]

I'm having a poor run of form at the moment.

[Sn00gle]

@XaW 53k and 15% is more than sad ;(

[XaW]

3 hours ago, Sn00gle said:

@XaW 53k and 15% is more than sad ;(

Yeah, since he was only on a youth contract I only got compensation. I tried to get him to sign a full time contract as soon as possible, but he refused. Hopefully they will sell him for a lot of millions one day.

[vossmaj]

Table    ---     Player stats

We tried to survive our first season in Liga II in Romania but the league relegating 6 teams were too much. We finished 19th out of 22 - 4 points behind safety. Season was clearly split into three subsets:

• Phase 1: 9 points in 8 matches – bumpy but ok start
• Phase 2: 6 points in 13 matches – not winning a single game, we never recovered from this
• Phase 3: 32 points in 21 matches – after we were too deep in trouble to care anymore my tactics got less cautious and I dared to use players out of their natural position. It paid off. With this point average of 1.5 per match we would have secured a good midfield rank.

I got sacked of course and will look for another appalling exciting challenge in due course.

 

[XaW]

XaW - Kartal Spor Kulübü - 2018/19

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

I'm finally able to give the youngsters some matches, and they got their fair share and then some! Before the season started we lost our best youth prospect due to him not wanting to sign a full contract, and then leaving giving us only a compensation. We then lost our two best defenders since they had release clauses in their contract and didn't want to sign new ones. I also got rid of some horrible dead weight to free up some finances. Of course this left us with few players, but the other youngster were better than the dead weight anyway. The season started quite good as we picked up some early win and we were comfortable. Then we hit a horrible form and went 18 matches with only two wins. Towards the end of the season we picked ourselves up again and got a bit up the table. We were never in a real danger of relegation and neither in any chance for playoff or promotion. All in all a solid season, but nothing more.

In the cup we beat Tuzlaspor and Altınordu to get to the group stage. Here we drew a very tough group with all Süper Lig (top tier) teams in Konyaspor, Galatasaray and Alanyaspor. We managed a draw at home to Konyaspor, and the high point of the season, a draw away to Galatasaray! We ended last in the group though, and didn't progress further.

The youth:

We had another great youth intake. Another amazing player I hope to keep in Okan Özcan (YP19a), but some other good ones as well.

[Matty]

So, the story so far.....

Half way through the season and we sit a lowly bottom with only 2 wins. In some parts of the season it seemed as though we were beginning to gel and work hard as a team to create chances and limit the opposition to long range efforts. Late goals however have been a downfall for us so far, you can almost guarantee that what seems like a well fought out contest, one in which you can feel the confidence building inevitably ends with us conceding a late goal out of nowhere (sometimes with the help of a dodgy penalty decision).

Our most proud moment to date is dumping Barrow (who were first in the national league at the time) out of the FA trophy first round, unfortunately this did not trigger a revival and our league form continued to falter. It didn't help however when my entire front 5 decided to all get injured one after another and I am still currently waiting to get them all back.

Thanks to Dave Hopkins, our chairman for keeping the club going financially, the predicted £400k shortfall by the end of the season will be somewhat alleviated by his injection into the club and with the bit of prize money from our FA Trophy run it currently stands at a projected £312k shortfall, so still a lot of work to do in this department,

I'm reluctant to say we have the necessary skill to stay up this year and I may well be looking for a new club in the summer.

[Mushtaq]

Edit: had a rethink on my career in Belgium. Watch this space.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2024/25 Chita Season Report

League

We started the season winning our first silverware, the Russian Supercup.

After winning the first league match, we then lost the next 4. We actually only lost 1 more match all season, but there were far too many draws, and we could only manage 5^th place. I had to rely on Zenit winning the Cup Final and hope that the losing finalists couldn’t qualify for Europe, but luckily that happened.

We were knocked out of the Champions League by Tottenham, (no shame in that as they reached the semi-finals), and then qualified easily through the Europa League group stage, before being knocked out in the first knockout round which happens after the winter break, so now I know to have the players match fit earlier.

We reached the cup semi-final, before losing badly to Zenit.

So, we seem to have taken a step backwards this season, but we actually picked up only 3 points less. Like I say, too many draws plus the bad start to the season.

Team

Top Goalscorer –  Igor Sokolov (YP7a) - 22

In his first full year he did well. Unfortunately he only has 2 years left on his contract and shows no sign of being willing to stick around, so I may have to sell him in a year if he doesn’t change his mind. His strike partner, Sergey Masaev (YP4e) didn’t do anywhere near as well with just 15 goals, but I have to remember that they’re all still young and still improving. I have quite a few other youngsters snapping at their heels though.

 

Best Average Rating  Nikita Ivanov (YP2d) - 7.15 My left back. He’s 22 now. They grow up so quickly.

Man of Match – Yarmolitskiy - 6. My veteran (30 year old) central defender and captain. Also the only tutor I have still, though it would help if I remembered to take his tutees off the development list so they don’t go out on loan shortly after Yarmo starts tutoring them. This next season will see the first of the youngsters to hit 24, though his status will probably turn out to be too ,low to tutor anybody.

MVP – Igor Sokolov (YP7a) again I guess.

Even though we made a lot of money this season from Europe, the board cancelled the training facilities upgrade, but we’ll have the youth training maxxed out in a few months. Still no response to the youth recruitment bug from SI, despite posing again, and the work-around mentioned previously in this thread of going for interviews with other clubs and then being able to get the board to agree to improving recruitment doesn’t work.

The big money transfer out for £2.5 million plus, Petrov, wasn’t really significant because he was a winger who had never and would never play for us.

Youth Intake

Basic Youth Recruitment doesn’t seem to be crippling our chances yet. To be honest, I wonder if it is actually improving under the hood, because we’re still getting some good players in the intakes. I only tagged 2, but they both had the media description of ‘promising’ which is a rarity for my intakes.

 

Yury Goncharov (YP8a) A goalkeeper, and I need to make the most of him because of the problem I’ve mentioned before where my best goalie Vladimir Diminutev Dmitriev (YP5d) is very short and has terrible aerial and jumping reach. I’m sticking with my original gaolie, Revyakin, for the moment, because even if his handling is worse, his ability to block shots with his significantly bigger body does the trick. The fact is that Goncharov is basically the future, and I need to make sure he develops.

I honestly don’t know who to start in goal at the moment, but Diminutev looks terrible despite the coaches reports.

Advice would be welcome.

If I started Diminutev, I might get somebody to buy him. He does still have 5 star potential. He’d be an excellent goalie if they changed the rules so the goalposts were (much) lower.
 Vladimir Vasiljev (YP8b) A defensive / central midfielder. He appeared a couple of times until he got himself sent off early in an important match. The battle for Europe was too tight to give him more chances, but I use 3 central midfielders, and he’s the third with top potential, so I either need to give him more chances next season or drop him to the youth team where he’ll probably improve quicker because they have more coaches.

Season	Division				Position	Notes										
17/18	National League				7th		Missed out on playoffs with 2 points from our last 5 matches.
18/19	National League				14th		Flirted with relegation all season, but it never got to see us naked.
19/20	National League				2nd		Automatic promotion.
20/21	Championship				14th		Avoided relegation in playoff.	
21/22	Championship				12th		Pushed for Europe until the final strait where we became a pushover.
22/23	Championship				7th		Hopefully this was the boring season before the glory days start.
23/24	Championship				2nd		Qualified for Champions League (and Europe) for first time.	
24/25	Championship				5th		Reached Europa League 1st K/O Round

 

[vikeologist]

@Mushtaq Either your players are already good, or that intake is a bit ropy. I guess I've been spoilt. In the early years I got about 6 or 7 5star potential players, but that was probably because the existing players were so bad. Anyway, what are your facilities like? It looks like you're using a very strange formation.

@Matty Hope things turn around for you. England looks like a tough place to do this challenge with any but the bigger available teams.

@XaW Hope you manage to keep Okan, but I've learned not to get too attached.

@vossmaj You going to do this challenge again? Hope you find a challenge and team that you can sink your teeth into.

@GottaBeatThemAll Congrats on survival and turning professional. Are you still in the division you started in?

@Virtual Male Bad luck in the Europa League. Interesting that you're getting a new stadium. Do you ever sell out your matches. I've not had a sell out yet. Maybe my stadium is just too awful for any but the most desperate to go to. Be interesting to see if my board ever decide to build a new stadium for the hell of it (no option to expand it) if in the future we have money to waste.

[vossmaj]

@vikeologist I am not sure yet. Thinking about either going back to Hunan on my Ultimate Challenge (FMT) save or (currently preferred) start a new full fat save, wait one season and take over one of the Clubs that got promoted to the Bundesliga.

As I don't have the time to spend hours on a regular Basis my Problem is that I either stay on the surface (more or less instant resulting through an FMT save just tweaking tactics a bit) or crawling along in full fat mode being so slow that I spend weeks irl to get throguh pre-season... Let's see.

[XaW]

11 hours ago, vikeologist said:

@XaW Hope you manage to keep Okan, but I've learned not to get too attached.

He left for compensation. He was way too good for us anyway... I just hoped I could get him to play a single game for us...

I just got an amazing assistant manager though. Some of you might remember him from the real world of football as well. I really rate his personality. Hopefully he can transfer some of that to some youth players.

[XaW]

XaW - Kartal Spor Kulübü - 2019/20

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

A new season, and a new youth prospect ripped away from my hands by a big club. Just like last year without even playing a game, and that's the part I'm really annoyed by. Anyway, I'm trying not to cry about spoiled youths, so on to the season itself. This season we started with 2 wins, and I hoped we could do well from the get go this season, but then we only won one of the next 7 matches. Luckily, we found the form again and climbed up the table and settled around the playoff spots. As the season went into the latter part we soon found ourselves at the top spot, but the rest of the teams were close at our heels. With only a few matches left we did our best to throw the league title, but I'm thankful Denizlispor and Altay did the same. When we won the final game of the season the title was ours. Promotion was quite a surprise this season, and I think it will be very hard to survive in the second tier next season. We'll still try as best we can though.

In the cup we beat Adliyespor and Adana Demirspor to go to the group stage. Here we drew Şanlıurfaspor, Kasımpaşa and Akhisar Belediyespor. We won twice, drew one game and lost 3. That wasn't enough to progress through, but close.

The youth:

The youth intake this season was good, but not any amazing players like the last few. The best one is probably Harun Saglam (YP20a).

[XaW]

I just got offered the Trabzonspor job. They finished 7th in the top tier this season. Declined of course, but it's nice to get noticed.

A blast from the past. Staff wise at least.

[GottaBeatThemAll]

Season 5 

Despite our efforts we have been relegated back to the belgian amateur division simply put we were not good enough for this level our defence from last year crumbled majority of players disappointed and we actually went on a massive  winless run where nothing would work i think this year all the teams improved and there was nobody who performed worse than us as we lost big games to my frustrations as we always had some silly mistake in us i'm actually looking forward to the amateur division again it will allow for some wins and confidence boosting!

There's 0 chance of me doing a top 3 of players as i don't think anyone didn't deserve relegation

Table Playoff

This seasons aim

Survive again and hopefully improve on the position- Massive Fail

Improve how potent the attack is - Yes but didn't improve enough

Aim to improve facilities again! we're massively in debt so another fail

Keep our youths ! Yes but 2 youths are unhappy at relegation so hopefully this stays green!!

18" -Disappointing most of the taggers are performing poorly some are struggling for even a look in for the first team 

Highest Rating- Geoffrey De Greef 185 a good year from the full back got his first goal for the club but will struggle next year as the competition is increasing and improving.

Honourable Mention- Chancel Matumona Poor average rating but i felt i had to mention him as he 32 league games and got capped by Congo U20s looking forward to him next year as he's a a future captain in my eyes i just need to find a partner for him

One to Watch Bart Hendrickx- he's been on my radar for some time now as he showed massive improvements originally he was a 2 star blue start with 2 star potential  its been a journey for him but he's earned his first team role very proud of him making a impact in the team expecting big things next season.

19"- much better from this year all are in the first team picture looking forward to this years progress as they're definitely our best intake to date.

Highest Rating Ewen Walraevens 191 finally started to perform and is now rated my best player 

Honourable Mention Jean Louis Stevens 192 spent majority of the season as our top goalscorer thanks to a hatrick in the cup at the start of the season he performed decent and helped improve or form at the end of the season it's shame he wants to leave but it will take a good offer to prise him away.

One to Watch Jef De Greef 194 frustrates at times but finished with his best total yet at 8 league goals i really hope he continues his latter form into next year as he's without a doubt my main striker 

20"improvement as more and more stake a first team claim

Highest Rating Ourdy Kinsombi 204- starting to get more games and interest hopefully the former continues and the latter stops!

Honourable Mention Wesley De Keyser 207 good year from him  and i felt overall he shows more consistency to his game and is definitely a prospect

One to Watch Andy De Smet 205 came into the team and did well as my original keeper has continued to make mistakes

21" no impact from this intake so won't link anybody expecting better for next year

22"Looks good and with good personalities most are at 1 gold star already.

221 nearly put him in the first team but resisted temptation i love his stats if he had better dribbling he could be a good deep lying forward his determination is through the roof i hope he can actually make an impact.

222 another winger hopefully he can break through 

223 some nice stats will be interesting to see how he progresses 

224 i'm getting sick of right backs i've got 4 right backs currently ready for more football!

 

Next Season Aims

Do well in league ( interestingly 2 previous team who won the amateur and then got relegated back have been relegated below the amateur division)

Improve youth ratings

Try to remove massive debt

keep youth players

Stay Professional if i can

 

 

[XaW]

XaW - Kartal Spor Kulübü - 2020/21

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

So, the Turkish second tier. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I've played a couple of the teams in the cups and did quite well, but also lost horribly, so anything could happen. This summer I didn't lose any players due to missing contracts. If that is down to us improving or the lack of quality of the youngster will be unsaid, but at least I didn't lose anyone I wanted to keep. We lost the first match, but then won a couple, so things were still uncertain after a few games. Then we lost to Adanaspor, horribly. I guessed then I would have a tough season, and shifted my tactic to a bit more defensively, but still counterattacking. It seemed to work as we started to pick up some more points. We still had some very big losses, and only snatches 1-0 and 2-1 victories. The league was pretty even and a win could boost us up 7-8 places while a loss could send us down the same number of spots. We continued to pick up points and we suddenly found ourselves fighting for the top spots. While we fought up there we still had a negative goal difference! Winning some and losing some with a few games left we could finish anything from 1st to 6th. Adanaspor was our closest opponent, but they had a horrible finish to the season and finished outside the automatic promotion spots. It went down to the final match, and with a 2-1 win at home against Pendikspor we were crowned champions. I don't think we are ready for the top tier, and this might be too soon for us. I hope I can avoid relegation next season, but I'm not sure. Anyway, we'll give it our best.

In the cup we beat Sancaktepe and Boluspor to progress to the group stage. Here we got Bursaspor, Trabzonspor and Yeni Malatyaspor. We won our two matches against Yeni Malatyaspor, but lost the rest and finished 3rd to get knocked out.

The youth:

This season we had our worst youth intake so far. One a single player worth noting in goalkeeper İlhan Köse (YP21a).

[GottaBeatThemAll]

@vikeologist i was in the belgian first amateur to start then promoted to pro league B but as of my last update we're now back in our first division 

[XaW]

Holy cow, how much money one get in the Turkish top tier!?! I get about £1,5M per month as a TV deal, and £700k for every win, and £350k for every draw!

Thanks to this I've gotten youth recruitment improved as well as accepted improved training and youth facilities. 

[XaW]

XaW - Kartal Spor Kulübü - 2021/22

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

So, our first season in the top flight of Turkish football and I expected a very tough battle to avoid relegation. It got even harder when we lost two of our best players in the summer due to their reluctance to sign new contracts. They stayed until it ended and then left. Very tough for us as a newly promoted team. When the season started we won our first game, but we soon found out just how tough it would be. Losing 1-6 in the two next matches showed us we had our work cut out. We continued to lose a lot, but picked up a point here and there, and even a couple of wins along the way, but we were firmly in the relegation battle. It was clear from early on that the fight to avoid relegation was between Kardemir Karabükspor, Sivasspor, Alanyaspor, Samsunspor and of course ourselves. The five teams followed each other and everyone could survive and everyone could go down. With 3 games left we were below the line, but had games against Kardemir Karabükspor and Sivasspor left. We managed to win against Sivasspor, then lost at away to Fenerbahçe before winning away at Kardemir Karabükspor. We would even had survived without the last win due to Sivasspor's loss on the final day. A very good effort from the lads, and hopefully we can do it again next season.

Financially, we are coasting. We are making a lot of money due to the TV deal, and prize money. Facilities are improving and will be finished after the summer. Hopefully this will help our youths even further. In the cup we beat Altay and Gaziantep BB to get to the group stage. Here we drew Karşıyaka, Manisaspor and Trabzonspor. We managed to finish 2nd to progress through, for the first time. In the 4th round we lost to Kayserispor.

The youth:

I lost the screenshot from the youth intake, but here is one of the youth team at the moment. The best talent is probably Uğur Aydin (YP22a).

[XaW]

I wish I still had him! He is a wonderkid at the moment and a fantastic player!

[Muttley84]

@XaW - Great progress so far. Guess Turkey is suiting you so far, just hope you won't lose interest as presumably it's gonna take a while to overcome the "big three".

[XaW]

Yeah, I really hope to finish the challenge for once. The big three isn't quite the same now. Last season Galatasaray ended on 10th place and the league was won by Kayserispor. So things have changed quite a bit here. This season though the big three are in the top four spots at the moment (around Christmas), so they might just had a small glimpse last season. I'm doing much better though, and it seems unlikely that I'm relegated this season. We are actually over performing quite a bit, and are in contention for a top half finish. Hopefully, I'm not jinxing myself now...

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2025/26 Chita Season Report
 

 

League

By far our best points tally in the league, though not our best final position. For the first half of the season we looked really good; just not quite as good as the almost invincible Zenit. Then near the end of the season we lost the key games against all the other top clubs which cost us 2^nd place, and a Champions League spot.

We nabbed our first proper trophy though, finally making it back to the Russian Cup final and winning 1-0 in extra time against mid-table Krasnodar in what may well have been one of the most boring matches of all time. They played ultra-defensive until we scored, and then we returned the favour.

However the highlight of the season for me was when our squad personality went from professional to highly professional, which should stop young players’ determination going down.

Squad

This season was significant since in almost every match I was starting 11 regens. It’s sad to see my 3 legacy players go. Revyakin my goalie is leaving at the end of the season. Record goal scorer Razborov will leave on a free at the same time, and club captain central defender Yarmolitskiy wants to leave because he’s no longer starting, and indeed will no longer be first choice sub at that position anymore. All 3 are still decent choices, but they’re 3 of the highest paid players at the club because of what I needed to pay them to make them stay in the early years.

Top Goalscorer –  Igor Sokolov (YP7a) 36

Best Average Rating  Igor Sokolov (YP7a) 7.51

Man of Match – Igor Sokolov (YP7a) -8

MVP – Go on, take a guess. Igor wants out, but with the optional extension, he has 2 years left on his contract, so I’ll obviously do everything I can to hold on to him. He is simply head and shoulders above everybody else in the team.

Transfers – Nobody significant left, although Smertin(3f) had the potential to be a good goalie, and indeed even played a match for us at the start of the season.

In the end I put my ‘Diminutev’ Dmitriev in goal, and he actually seemed to do quite well, and is clearly our best goalie in star terms, meaning Revyakin who’s been with me from the start is leaving at the end of the season to go to Spartak.

I’m not sure Dmitriev is our best option long-term though. He’s clearly not going to get any taller than 178cm, and his aerial reach attribute has actually gone down in recent months from 9.6 to 9.2. You can’t train that attribute, and jumping reach which I was training, and was going up slightly, is also going down now.

The last 2 youth intakes have each brought in high potential goalies, who aren’t midgets, and I need to give one of them a shot so that his potential doesn’t go wasted like Smertin (3f)’s did.

On that topic

Youth Intake

Anton Lipin (YP9a) I think maybe one of the best players to ever come through as a youth, (apart from Solokhov obviously). He’s a central defender, and I love his Resolute personality. He’s spent his whole career so far in the youth team, because with my Junior Training and Coaching, that seems to be a good place for youngsters to develop until they’re ready to actually start matches. However, his apprenticeship is probably over now and will probably be a starter to kick off next season.

Yan Saleev (YP9b)  Probably my future goalie. He actually got one start when Dmitriev was injured. My best judging potential coach has both of them as 4-5 star potential and lists Yan higher, but Dmitriev is still clearly the best option at the moment. Yan’s hardly a giant himself, and in fact is much lighter than Dmitriev. Yury Goncharov (YP8a) from last year’s intake may still be an option, though he seems to be falling through the cracks. Yury got 3 starts, which I now realise means that I started 5 different goalies this season. Good Lord!

Vladislav Kleimenov (YP9c) A right winger, so even though I was training him as a central midfielder, I’m going to revert to winger training to maximise sell-on value.

Mikhail Zubkov (YP9d) My 4^th best striker, he got a few sub appearances, but as discussed above, I’m nurturing him in the U19s for the moment. At least he’s right footed, unlike the top 3 who are lefties.

Season	Division				Position	Notes										
17/18	National League				7th		Missed out on playoffs with 2 points from our last 5 matches.
18/19	National League				14th		Flirted with relegation all season, but it never got to see us naked.
19/20	National League				2nd		Automatic promotion.
20/21	Championship				14th		Avoided relegation in playoff.	
21/22	Championship				12th		Pushed for Europe until the final strait where we became a pushover.
22/23	Championship				7th		Hopefully this was the boring season before the glory days start.
23/24	Championship				2nd		Qualified for Champions League (and Europe) for first time.	
24/25	Championship				5th		Reached Europa League 1st K/O Round
25/26	Championship				3rd		Russian Cup Winners

 

[vikeologist]

I've finally been given the option to improve our youth recruitment. Given that we have had 3 star rep for a while and are ensconced in European competition, I though the lack of an option to improve on 'Basic' (the 2nd lowest and I think a value of 3-5 out of 20) must be a bug, albeit one that doesn't seem to have stopped the emergence of youths good enough to take us this far. Anyway, finally, after the season roll-over, I finally had the option, and thankfully the board agreed. It is ridiculous given that all our other facilities are at the 16-17 level (and could have been improved if we'd had more money) and Junior Coaching is at 20/20 (exceptional).

So now we'll have F Basic recruitment. Yippee flaming doo-dah.

I presume it's to do with Chita's location. For friendlies we only have the option of 1 local team to play friendlies against (another Chita team). We have no derbies, and just one rival, Irtysh Omsk, who we've never played because it's too far to travel for a friendly. It is 2637 kilometres  mind you. A new dynamic rivalry would be nice. п-о-ч-е-т, Find out what it means to us, Zenit.

[XaW]

XaW - Kartal Spor Kulübü - 2022/23

Table | Past positions | Squad | Transfers | Finances

Another season where we didn't lose any players I wanted to keep. Since we managed to survive last season, I had hopes to keep going and do the same this season. Little did I know that the players had other plans. They started amazing and in the first 5 matches we won 4 and drew 1. Granted it was against the poorest teams in the division, but still a very good start for us. I think it gave us a great moral since we kept on picking up points, and only a small dip where we lost a couple in a row happened. I don't know if this was our breakthrough season, or if it's only a glimpse, but I'll take it. As the season went we continued to win some and lose some, but our great start enabled us to stay just around the final European spot. After the final match we finished in 5th place, just below the European spot. A very good season. But wait! There's more! The cup final was played and it was won by Konyaspor, so the final European spot went to us! We are heading into Europe next season! Just amazing. I have no illusions that we can do this again next season, but it's still a morale boost for us.

In the cup we beat Tarsus İdman Yurdu and Hacettepe to go to the group stage. Here we got Fenerbahçe, Giresunspor and Adanaspor. We managed to finish 2nd behind Fenerbahçe to progress further. In the 4th round we managed to beat Trabzonspor to go to the quarter final. We played a two legged tie against Fenerbahçe again, but they edged us out. This season we have played Fenerbahçe 6 times! It ended with 3 losses, 2 draws and a single win.

The youth:

The youth team this season was probably the best I've ever had. Amazing youngsters and the best is probably Vedat Canlı (YP23a).

[XaW]

We had a very poor run, but followed it up with a great run.

I don't quite know what turned it around, but I'm not complaining.