FM17 Youth Academy Challenge

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2028/9 Chita Season Report
 

TL;DR - 2 seasons ago we won the league and reached the 1^st knockout round of the Champions League. Since then we’ve gone backwards.

Our youth intake was terrible. I was in 3^rd. 10 points behind with 6 matches to go. Facing another season not in the Champions League.

Then we won those last 6 matches and won the league by 1 point. Happy days are back.

 

 

Youth Intake

Almost every intake so far has yielded some good players, even though in early years, they didn’t stay very long, and cut off from my TLC, didn’t ever become good.

This year though, that run came to a screeching halt. This intake is not just bad. It’s rotten to its core.

I’ve tagged the top 3 players and they’re;

-crap now

-going to be crap forever

-play in positions I don’t use

-have terrible personalities and determination. One of them is fairly professional, but I have a highly professional squad. I currently have 24 fairly professional players, and that’s not including Yuri Ligivatoz(YP12c) (say it out loud), and the rest of this useless intake like Ivan Eityuroldusbetta (12b) and Yury Gotabykidyn (12a)

Of course, those initial ratings can be wildly wrong, and these players may surprise me, but even if one of the tagged players does turn out to be great, they’ll not be being great in my first team.

Anyway, the mixture of this intake, which is probably pretty much what I can expect from now on, and another post-winter break slump, almost made me give up the challenge.

We seem to have reached the plateau I mentioned a few posts above. Our one world class player has left. Our other internationals want to leave. A loss to Spartak Moscow (where we threw away a lead) put us 10 points behind them and dropped us down to third and a non-Champions League qualifying place.

A couple of seasons ago we won the league and then reached the Champions League knockout rounds, and I thought it would be steady progress from there, but now we were looking at 2 straight seasons not even in the Champions League.

Then we won our next 5 matches including against our rivals for that other CL spot, Zenit.

Spartak dropped a few points, and suddenly with 1 match to go we were assured of 2rd and only 2 points behind them. If we won and they drew or lost, we would be champs!

That didn’t seem very likely to happen, but Spartak were soon behind, and soon after that were losing heavily, eventually losing 4-0.

It took until the second half for us to get the go-ahead goal. For a while I just played defensive but with less than 20 minutes to go I parked the bus, and we then endured an absolute blitzkrieg of shots that hit the bar, were cleared on the goal line and generally scrambled away. They really threw everything at us, and we just couldn’t hold on to the ball.

We held on though, and were once again crowned champions after Spartak had the most ridiculous late-season collapse I’ve ever seen from a team, (and I’ve seen one or two from my own teams over the years). I suppose their 7 points from their last 6 matches is bad, but really it was our 6 straight victories that did it.

Absolutely amazing. I mean, we’ve won the league before, but I really can’t believe it, given that we were 5 points behind with 2 matches to go. What a turn around.

Squad

Top Goalscorer –  Sergey Masaev (YP4e) -29 A reasonable number of goals but Sergey is frankly a fairly mediocre player. My best player and wonderkid is Maxim Yudin (YP11a) from last year’s intake. He played most matches, and his attributes have risen steadily, but he only scored 13 goals, 3 of which were penalties. Hopefully his goal tally will improve next season.

Best Average Rating  Renat Borodin (YP6b) – 7.33. Maybe I haven’t mentioned Borodin since mentioning him in the youth intake 6 years ago. He’s my second best central defender, but the best one is unhappy and wants to leave.

Man of Match – Pridhodko (YP3b) - 7 My right back.

MVP – Nobody has really stood out this year.

Transfers 

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
26/27	Championship				1st		First League title and League / Cup Double
27/28	Championship				3rd		Reached Champions League 1st Knockout round. Lost in Cup final with 2 best players on international duty.
28/29	Championship				1st		Overtook a 10 point eficit over last 6 matches to win the league

 

 

[kenbelly83]

Morning lads, are we ok to use a additional league. I downloaded claassens pack full of all the additional leagues from around the world.

 

Thinking of Luxembourg. Or this against the rules so to speak?

[Mushtaq]

7 minutes ago, kenbelly83 said:

Morning lads, are we ok to use a additional league. I downloaded claassens pack full of all the additional leagues from around the world.

 

Thinking of Luxembourg. Or this against the rules so to speak?

Against the rules as far as I know. @Makoto Nakamura set up a thread last year for a youth challenge of add on leagues. Perhaps this could be done again? 

 

[nfac38]

Going to have a go at this, starting off in Portugal with S.C Beira Mar!

Team looks bonkers!

 

[fabreth]

@nfac38Good luck! I tried Beira-mar, but I couldn't stand every match-day the processing of all the matches of Portugal 3rd tier, with my cpu to 100% for 5/7 minutes

 

And now.. to start again.. but where?

 

Germany / Italy - potentially very good youths but climbing to Bundesliga/Serie A could be very difficult, and surviving there even more. I would go with Aachen/Jena or Triestina. There are some people who started in these countries but never continued, and that is worrying

Holland - would start with the poorest team by a great margin, but money would allow to improve, with only 1 relegation I can survive until then. I'm afraid of hitting the walls as Spakenburg attempt that i followed. Thinking about Katwijk

Belgium - is league structure bug free? Charleroi or Aalst would be my choices, only problem they start with a few players

Croatia - with Varazdin.. only two tiers, finances and the country's "developing state" worries me

Sweden - hoping that promotion to 2nd tier will automatically achieve professional status, to not incur again in the problem i had with Lyn in Norway. The advantage is that the seasons would go by faster

 

Truth is.. I would like to try all of these! But time is not my friend, so I must choose

 

[nfac38]

Cheers @fabreth - first difficulty will be tying down the core of the squad

[Bubbles_DK]

East Stirlingshire 

5. season

League table - Finances - Player stats - Awards - Facilities - Transfers - Manager profile

The League

What an amazing season. We started of really slow but a tactic change to 4-4-2 build some momentum and we managed to win the league after missing promotion in playoffs a couple of times. The main problem at the moment is that we are losing our best players to very low fees. Hopefully league 1 will help a little bit. 

There's nothing really to tell about in the cups, because I chose to play with the reserves, to stay competitive in the league.

The youth

This years intake was really nice again. Nicky Low looks like the biggest talent of the lot, so I will only highlight him for now. Others will be introduced when/if they make the first team.

Callum Marsh - He doesn't want to sign a new contract but hasn't left the club despite expiry. Hopefully I can convince him to stay but he seems like a lost cause.

Gordon Ferguson - Continues to be our main GK. His development has slowed down but still going forward.

John McLeod - Same story as the other seasons - slow but steady 

Greg McGrandles - Really good season from the talented player. Unfortunately his contact is expiring in the coming season and he's refusing to resign at the moment.

Expectations

Survival and try to keep our good young players or at least get some decent money for them.

[Sn00gle]

On 10.06.2017 at 10:26, kenbelly83 said:

Morning lads, are we ok to use a additional league. I downloaded claassens pack full of all the additional leagues from around the world.

 

Thinking of Luxembourg. Or this against the rules so to speak?

You can go onli if its official SI league like before they add Giblartar but since there is no relegation in lowest league we couldnt contest in that country

[nfac38]

Started again, as there was a f-up with the files on my PC. Have again gone for Beira-Mar

 

Squad - the way the players look, it seems ripe for 4-1-2-3 I think

[gb2003]

Maybe somebody asked this question already but which league has the lowest age restrictions?

regards gb2003

 

[vikeologist]

13 hours ago, gb2003 said:

Maybe somebody asked this question already but which league has the lowest age restrictions?

regards gb2003

 

Well, Russia has no age restrictions, so you can chuck your youngsters straight into the first team. Always nice to be able to play with your new toys.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2029/30 Chita Champions League Report
 

Since I only need to win the Champions League to complete this challenge, (only!), I’ll be giving stage by stage updates, which I’ll write as I go along, so you can share my joy when we eventually win, and in the meantime, wet yourself laughing at my misplaced optimism.

I’ll be starting from the group stage. Hopefully I’ll never need to start any earlier than this in the future, although I can’t take that for granted.

Group Stage

Spoiler

We are seeded top, but still landed in a group with Barcelona, Porto and København. I find it hard to believe that we can be competitive amongst this company, but we did reach the first knockout round 3 years ago when we were last in this competition, knocking Porto out along the way.

We finished bottom of the group with 4 points, thus not even qualifying for the knockout stages of the Europa League. Massively disappointing and disheartening.

 

1st Knockout Round

Spoiler

No, really. I'm out. Nothing to see here.

Quarter Final

Spoiler

 

Semi Final

Spoiler

 

Final

Spoiler

 

 

[nfac38]

47 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

Vikeologist's 2029/30 Chita Champions League Report
 

Since I only need to win the Champions League to complete this challenge, (only!), I’ll be giving stage by stage updates, which I’ll write as I go along, so you can share my joy when we eventually win, and in the meantime, wet yourself laughing at my misplaced optimism.

I’ll be starting from the group stage. Hopefully I’ll never need to start any earlier than this in the future, although I can’t take that for granted.

Group Stage

  Hide contents

We are seeded top, but still landed in a group with Barcelona, Porto and København. I find it hard to believe that we can be competitive amongst this company, but we did reach the first knockout round 3 years ago when we were last in this competition, knocking Porto out along the way.

We finished bottom of the group with 4 points, thus not even qualifying for the knockout stages of the Europa League. Massively disappointing and disheartening.

 

1st Knockout Round

  Hide contents

No, really. I'm out. Nothing to see here.

Quarter Final

  Hide contents

 

Semi Final

  Hide contents

 

Final

  Hide contents

 

 

[Muttley84]

@vikeologist - Brilliant. 

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2029/30 Chita End of Season Report
 

TL;DR Finished 2nd but still qualified for group stage of Champions League. 

 

 

Zenit were unstoppable in the league, with a W25, D4, L1 record. I wasn’t paying attention to them until at the midseason break I took a look at the league table to see how far ahead we were and realised that we were only in 2^nd. We actually gained more points than any previous season, 69 from 30 matches. In fact the top 5 teams all racked up at least 60 points, or more than 2 points per game.

Luckily this was the first season where Russian clubs have an extra European space, and 2^nd place is still enough for a group stage place next season.

Squad

Top Goalscorer –  Maxim Yudin (YP11a) – 20. Our wonderkid striker is developing steadily, but maybe he’s never going to be a prolific scorer. He’s only 17 though, so things should improve.

Best Average Rating  Pridhodko (YP3b) and Igor Lebedev – 7.29. They’re my 2 wingbacks. Even though they’re both good, both have probably lost their spot now to youngsters Gennady Konoplev (YP11b) and Ramiz Konstantinov (YP11c)  who are going to surpass them. Pridhodko has been my starter at right back for more than 10 seasons, and is one of my best players, but his backup will leave if I don’t let him loose.

Man of Match – Yudin / Renat Borodin (YP6b) – 4.

MVP – My 2 best players are central defender Anton Lipin (YP9a) and central midfielder Vy Barsukov (YP10a). They both have just 2 years left on their contracts and both have wanted to leave for a few years, so I’ll have to sell them in about 12 months time, which will be a bodyblow, although hopefully we’ll get £30 million for each of them. Lipin in particular is being chased by the best clubs in the world. That’s going to be the problem with this challenge. I have very good players, but the world class ones won’t stay. I need lots of players who are just below world class, so will stay.

 

Youth Intake

After last season’s terrible intake, I had a fee good players again this time.

Dmitry Nikolaev (YP13a) A very promising goalie. I threw him straight into the first team because my starter is ‘Diminutev’ Dmitriev, who has become a good, but not great, goalie, but is still 178cm tall. In the last few years I’ve had good goalies come through, but they haven’t surpassed Diminutev. I think my coaches are ok, and our facilities are the absolute top, so it must be for lack of first team experience. So I chucked Dmitry straight in, but after 7 matches I lost my nerve and put Diminutev back in because I needed to make sure that we didn’t fall to third. Then Nikolaev picked up an injury for the last few matches. Basically though, I’m all in on him; at least until he leaves us for a top club, but I have him tied down to about a 6 year contract including my optional 3 year extension.

Vladislav Yesin (YP13b) A midfielder. Has started 3 matches, but isn’t all that impressive so far.

 

Sergey Belousov (YP13c) I really needed a second striker to play alongside Yudin, and Sergey’s going to be my guy. Masaev, the top scorer from the last couple of years really isn’t all that. Belousov didn’t really do much in his 5 starts, but did finally score his first goal in the last match of the season. Hopefully he and Yudin will explode next season, because 43 combined goals from all my strikers isn’t really enough given that we play more than 40 matches a season usually, and should be winning most of those matches.

Dmitry Zyryanov (YP13d) A left back, so unless Konstantinov leaves for a bigger club, probably doesn’t have much of a future with us, and his good potential will go to waste.

Transfers – Nobody significant left, although we did say goodbye to a few players who maybe had the potential to be good, but never got enough chances because of injury, playing in a position we don’t use or who were kept out of the first team by little people.

Next season will be key as after that I will lose my best 2 players. I could keep them on for the last year of their contract if I think I stand a good chance of winning the Champions League, but it would be a huge gamble to pass up so much money.

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
26/27	Championship				1st		First League title and League / Cup Double
27/28	Championship				3rd		Reached Champions League 1st Knockout round. Lost in Cup final with 2 best players on international duty.
28/29	Championship				1st		Overtook a 10 point eficit over last 6 matches to win the league
29/30	Championship				2nd		Our best ever points tally in the top division. Finished bottom of CL group.

 

[nfac38]

SC Beira-Mar - Mid Season Report

 

Just finished the first stage of the Campeonato, thought I'd give an update

League

 Table | Place Graph | Results

Started off exceptionally well going 8 undefeated (5W 3D) before losing 2-3 away to ARC Oleiros after I stupidly changed formation after having found some success with a 4-2-2-2 DM wide formation. The second half of the 1st phase started well again but we faded away at the end to finish second in Group D. 

Have been drawn in Promo Group A with Academica Viseu, GD Braganca, Guimaraes B, Lusitano, Braga B, Salgueiros and Oliveirense. Will be tough.

As you can see in the table link, scoring goals is not an issue, just need to try and tighten things up on the defence.

Taça de Portugal

Lost in the Second Round to SC Olhanense

Did rather well to limit them to only three goals considering. I'm sure the two away fans that attended went away happy

Squad News

Stats | Tactics | Finances I | Finances II | Wages

Standout Players

Diego Testa | Vagner | Agostinho Ca

Hot Prospects

Pedro Lima

Probably my best prospect. Has to struggle hard to keep him at the team earlier in the season after interest from Segunda Liga teams. His injury, while unfortunate, allows me to keep him for a little while longer

Ricardo Santos | Marcio Lopes | Francisco Felix | Hugo Rato

 

[Sn00gle]

@nfac38 Gratz! Good season decent youth I think Ricardo Santos would even get in my Polonia around first squad  and mby Marcio Lopes if he work up with  phisical skills 

[jmonfu]

Quick question guys, I want to do this challenge, however I have no idea how I get to the reset date and the Season Review in FM 2017.  I want to manage in Croatia, and I got to somewhere around June 3, where all the leagues ended, and found a team Primorac which had no history in the Third Division (using Claessen's update).  So I decided to go with them.  However I would like to know how to get to the proper reset date and the Season Review screen, just for future reference.

Thanks

[Dokara]

Create a save with any league you want to play in. When is game created, go to Add/remove leagues, untick league you want to play and the date that is shown there is that reset date you want. 

[AliG]

Sportverein Grodig - Season 5 (2021/22) - Austrian Bundesliga

Manager Profile

Competitions - So the season followed a similar path to previous ones. We stayed close to Rapid for a while, then they pulled away and won the title at a canter. Then they beat us in the cup final, again. One thing to note, Austria Vienna and FC Redbull Salzburg continue to be middle of the pack teams but Sturm Graz were somewhat resurgent this year and really challenged us for second spot late into the season. I can only hope that trend doesn't continue.

Cup Fixtures - See Season 4. Won at a canter into the final. Lost to Rapid.

Champions League - A slightly earlier exit this time around with us losing the first tie against FC Porto. We came away with a 2-2 draw at home so had to attack in the second leg away from home. This backfired and Porto picked us apart winning the game 5-2 and the tie 7-4.

Europa League - The slightly earlier entry to the Europa League meant that we needed to win a playoff to make the group stages. A good 2-1 victory away to Lech set us up and while we limped to a 1-1 draw at home, we progressed to the group stages. The draw was kind to us with Leverkusen posing the biggest threat. The other teams, Braga and FC Nordsjaelland, were definitely up for the beating and we did just that. We took 13 points from the 6 games and qualified comfortably. The draw gave us Tottenham, again. We were slightly more competitive but lost the tie 5-1 on aggregate.

Transfers - Finances - Facilities - Squad 1Squad 2 Squad 3 Squad 4

End of Season Awards

Season Review

 

Youth Intake

Youth Intake - Another solid intake with a few players in different positions.

Stefan Janisch YP05A - A left back with great potential. Good news because we were really lacking high level prospects at full back.

Rico Dreier YP05B - A towering centre back with potential to replace the likes of Hafner and Struzer. Should see game time very soon!

Jonas Szabo YP05C - Another left back tagged due to the lack of prospects. Much further behind the development curve than Janisch but my staff like his potential.

Malte Lemke YP05D - A central midfielder with potential but we are really starting build up a backlog of youth in the middle of the park. His development will play a big part in whether he actually makes the step up.

Alexander Eder YP05E - An attacking midfielder who is developing for our number 10 shirt.

Roman Distler YP05F - Probably our best goalkeeping prospect in hindsight. Since I finished the season and wrote this, he has developed beyond the likes of Grimm and Bittner already!

Alexander Moritz YP05G

Tino Frangen YP05H - A defensive right midfielder that I'm retraining to play right back as he has a good mix of attacking and defensive attributes.

 

Other Developments

 

Season Objectives

Top 2 finish - Second. Yet. Again. Not even close this time either. With the European fixtures coming thick and fast, we really need help with the depth of our squad if we are going to challenge Rapid. I feel that we're getting closer, it just depends how quickly YP04 and YP05 can transition into the first team.

Champions League qualification - Not this time. We actually lost our first tie of the two wins needed to get us there. We just have to hope for either (a) a kinder draw, (b) some luck or (c) beating Rapid. I think (c) might just be the easier of the three.

Infrastructure - Continued improvement saw us improve mostly in junior coaching and youth development. This should increase the quality of our intakes. We continue to push for facilities to be improved and while the youth facilities are being worked on, I can't even ask for a training facilities improvement.

Build new stadium - The owners continue to push back on this one. They are "expanding" the stadium in the sense that they've changed our 10,000 capacity down to 9,515 but at least they all have seats now! I expect they will expand to a full 10,000 seater stadium which is the maximum possible size for DAS.GOLDBERG. We currently run at 97% attendance and have done so regularly. I'm going to start quoting Field of Dreams to the board soon!

Next Season

Challenge for the title - Our financial situation has been vastly improved by the few years of Europa League competition so if we can focus on the Bundesliga this season, we may be able to make the Champions League group stage and really boost our reputation.

Build New Stadium - See above, "if you build it, they will come!"

Overall Progress

Season    League     Position     Achievements
========================================================================================
17/18     AUT.1      1st          Promotion!
18/19	  AUT.P      2nd          Cup runners up, Champions League qualification!
19/20     AUT.P      2nd          Cup winners!
20/21     AUT.P      2nd          Cup runner up
21/22     AUT.P      2nd          Cup runner up

 

[nfac38]

SC Beira-Mar - End of Season 2017/18 

Campeonato de Portugal Prio

Manager Profile | Board is refusing to fund a coaching course for my National C Licence *shakes fist*

League Table & Results | As per the last update, I knew it was going to be difficult. Just couldn't get going and ended up finishing last in the Promotion Group. Oh well

Cup | No real update here. Sporting won it 1-0 against Benfica

Transfers | Finances | Finances II | Finances III | Facilities | Squad | Awards

Youth Intake | Some good prospects in this one, especially Vitor Silva and Carlos Pedro

Season 2018/19 Preview | Game has me struggling this season. The objective will be to integrate a lot of the youth into the side this season and move on some of the deadwood. Will be in Group D again this season

[nfac38]

Quick question for y'all

 

A lot of my last batch of youth had low determination. How do i change this? Through tutoring yes, but anything specifically?

[Sn00gle]

@nfac38 I had same problem and that changed when I hired better HOYD  and i think I got some staf in u18

[nfac38]

aaaand fired!

 

Time to start again

[Sn00gle]

Polonia Warszawa 2028/2029

League - Squad - Transfers - Finances

 

Mby too much Overwatch but... HEROES NEVER DIE! That was very long season where in the end we lost so much power but we manage to get 4th place again and we again will able to play in European League. Last time we got to the group stage. Some great things happen in this season first of all like I said we manage to play again in EL, second our training fields back to previous lvl. Next one our youth facilities will lvl up aswell in next season 1,8ml euro will make them on Good lvl at last I hope. At the end of the season our chairman changed and some new options in feeders club are open for us, I mainly wanted to open gate for foreign players so my choice was between slovakian FK Senica and Iceland Keflavik both had similar facilities much much better then ours but slovakian club had slighty better web to search youth plus they are playing in first league so I can loan my players to club with great facilities, I hope in next season Keflavik will be still open for us to get new contract with them aswell. Second time in row Ive got manager of the league tittle and what more GREAT SEASON! I hope i wont lost a lot of players but we will see... Im for next season is top 8 again.

 

Youth intake

Poor intake one player tagged I'm waiting for next intake with better facilities.

 

Sebastian Janik (YP29a)

 

 

• Season		League		Position		Achievments
  
  2017/18		PFD		11th			Survived
  2018/19		PFD		5th			
  2019/20		PFD		9th
  2020/21		PFD		2nd			Promotion
  2021/22		LE		8th		   	Survived
  2022/23		LE		15th			Relegated
  2023/24		PFD		13th			Survived
  2024/25		PFD		13th			Survived
  2025/26		PFD		8th			
  2026/27		PFD		2nd			Promotion
  2027/28		LE		4th		   	Survived/European League
  2028/29		LE		4th		   	European League

   

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2030/31 Chita Champions League Report
 

Group Stage

Spoiler

                    Pts

Chita            15

Man Utd       13

PSV              7

Salzburg       0

We won the group, but the table makes us look better than we were. We snatched late winners in both matches against PSV, and Man Utd had a man sent off early in that match. When the group finished and we went on our winter break, we were in 5^th place in the league, so I wasn’t feeling good about our chances of, well frankly, anything. Next up is Barcelona, who outclassed us last year in the group stage, and who are managed by our ex-U21 boss, Alexandr Cherevko.

1st Knockout Round

Spoiler

Barcelona 5 Chita 2

Chita 2 Barcelona 3

Agg. 4-8

Over the winter break, before this tie, we sold our best player and central defender Lipin (for a lorra money as Cilla used to say). His replacement for the first leg was 2.5 star Bedretdinov who had a terrible game. For the second leg I used a 15 year-old, who actually had a very good game and scored his first goal for the club.  We were completely outclassed in both matches. Our 4 goals were all pretty good though. That’s the thing. We’re capable of moments of class, and are therefore able to get the odd good result and get through the group stage sometimes, but we are nowhere near the top 10 or so teams in Europe. We are a long, long way from winning the Champions League, and if we were drawn against Man City, it would be a bloodbath.

Quarter Final

Spoiler

 

Semi Final

Spoiler

 

Final

Spoiler

 

 

[vikeologist]

Looks like I've fallen prey to one of the bugs that was discussed earlier in this thread (unbeknownst to me unfortunately). Most of my starlets have optional 3-year extensions that I can't activate for some reason or another. 

Not sure exactly what the problem is, but it seems to be important to give young players 2 year extensions, and not 3.

I am hoping that I will be able to activate the extensions in the last years of their contracts (but before the last 6 months). Otherwise I could lose all my best players to free transfers, which would pretty much kill off my challenge.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2030/31 Chita End of Season Report
 

I’d say there’s 2 reasons why we finished 2nd again.

Firstly Zenit were very, very good, only losing 1 league match all season, (to us).

Secondly we were very, very poor, especially in the first half of the season. There’s a reason for that though. I decided to blood some of my promising youngsters, even though they weren’t the best available players in those position at the start of the season.

At the winter break / midway point with 14 matches to go we were in 5^th place, 10 points behind Spartak Moscow and the second Champions League group stage spot. We slowly caught up but by the final match of the season we were a point behind them. Luckily we were playing one of the bottom sides and Spartak were away to Zenit. They lost and we won, both fairly easily, and the 2^nd spot was ours. That’s all that counts really, being in the group stage again, although winning the league and cup would probably boost our reputation, which in turn might enable us to improve youth recruitment.

Anyway, just like 2 years ago we overhauled a late deficit late in the season to overtake Spartak, so it’s no wonder that they hate us and they’re the one club to be added to our rivals in the club information via dynamic rivalry. (They were there after 2 seasons ago).

Our squad personality dropped from highly professional to just professional this season, and I don’t understand why. A model professional coach is retiring this summer after 40 years with the club as a player (376 appearances), (feeder team) manager and coach, apart from 4 years somewhere else before I brought him back, which is another blow to our squad personality, although he’s not a particularly good coach. It’s a pity that we can’t give him a testimonial, and even more of a pity that he can’t play as he started his career as a professional footballer at the age of 31, so it would be fun seeing a 71 year old player on the pitch. Maybe he’d actually be able to score some goals, unlike most of my players.

Squad

I promoted 5 young players to the starting eleven at the start of the season, and by the end of the season they had developed well. It was risky because of my poor results early doors, but if I’m going to develop a Champions League winning team, I need for these guys to realise their potential, which to an extent they did.

Top Goalscorer –  Maxim Yudin (YP11a) – 22. Our wonderkid striker only managed to score an extra 2 goals this season. 22 goals might sound ok, but quite a few of them were penalties. He continues to improve, and should be scoring a lot more goals than this. Very frustrating. He has a PPM of ‘looks for the pass instead of looking to score’ which might be ok if there was even one other player on the team capable of directing a shot anywhere near the goal on non blue-moon days. His strike partners were the solid but mediocre Masaev, and the promising 16 year old from last year’s intake Sergey Belousov (YP13c). They combined for 16 goals in 41 matches, but I’m going to have to go all-in on Belousov next season.

 

Best Average Rating  Vy Barsukov (YP10a). 7.34. Now that I’ve sold my star defender to Real Madrid (for what will eventually be a more than £50 million fee), Barsukov is my best player. He occasionally wants to leave, and eventually someone will take advantage of his £27.5 million release clause, but if they don’t he has 5 years left on his contract because the option to extend it thankfully became available. (I’m not sure why it wasn’t available before, or why that changed as SI don’t respond to bug reports of this kind anymore).

 

 

Man of Match – Vy Barsukov (YP10a) – 7.

MVP – Vy Barsukov (YP10a).

Youth Intake

Alexey Cherepanov (YP14a). A central defender. Came on at half time in his first available match away to Barcelona and has played every minute of every match since. Is developing nicely, which is good because I need him.

Vladimir Kotov (YP14b) Another central defender, who thanks to emerging at the same time as Cherepanov has only made 1 sub appearance, but will probably be in the first team (sub’s bench) next season. I prefer to let youth players develop in the youth team for half a season unless I’m going to throw them directly into the first XI.

Vladimir Maslov (YP14c) A left winger, so no use to me.

Sergey Mironov (YP14d) A central midfielder, and like Kotov, I plan to promote him to the first team (as a sub) next season.

Transfers

The only transfer was Lipin leaving, but my slapping myself on the back for selling Solokhov for 37.5 million a few years back has turned bitter now that PSG have offered Man City 93 million for him. A pity I didn't take an offer with a percentage of profit.

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
26/27	Championship				1st		First League title and League / Cup Double
27/28	Championship				3rd		Reached Champions League 1st Knockout round. Lost in Cup final with 2 best players on international duty.
28/29	Championship				1st		Overtook a 10 point eficit over last 6 matches to win the league
29/30	Championship				2nd		Our best ever points tally in the top division. Finished bottom of CL group.
30/31	Championship				2nd		Poor first half of season while I blooded youngsters. CL R1 K/O

 

[darren1983]

Dulwich Hamlet - Season 2043/44 - Championship

 

League - Well what can I say? This is a save I just can't stop coming back too, so here we go, after our standard slow start (no wins in our first 10) we finally found form and had some nice little runs (going 7/8 unbeaten 3 separate times) saw us well clear of any relegation trouble (which was a nice change) and even got as close to 6 points from the playoffs but too many draws meant we never seriously challenged. If we can avoid our customary slow start next season I really think we've got a shot at the playoffs.

League Cup - Our kids lost fairly comfortably to Charlton

FA Cup - Premier League Hull were too good for us

Transfers - Lost England U21 international Andy Alexander (22C) for just 700k (with 40% of next transfer) mainly as he was out of contract 6 weeks later so I took whatever I could get for him, rest were loans and deadwood.

Squad - Lots of rotation this season as I cycled through formations depending on who was fit and when.

Youth Intake - Pretty good one here with 4 players tagged

Jerry Hill (27A) - striker and able to play both wide roles 
Curtis Cooney (27B) - defender that can play across my back line but see him more as a full back
George Boateng (27C) - another promising GK to add 
Manoba Mokhele (27D) - wide player able to play both sides

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 
2039/40		Champ		18th 
2040/41		Champ		19th 	
2041/42		Champ		16th 
2042/43		Champ		16th 	
2043/44		Champ		11th 

We got a stadium expansion which will take us up to just over 20,000 

[AliG]

Just a quick one, what's the rules around buying your own players back? Or even, say they leave on a free transfer but then you can resign them, is that allowed?

[Muttley84]

37 minutes ago, AliG said:

Just a quick one, what's the rules around buying your own players back? Or even, say they leave on a free transfer but then you can resign them, is that allowed?

Nope, not allowed. You can't buy or sign any players, and that includes your former players.

[AliG]

1 minute ago, Muttley84 said:

Nope, not allowed. You can't buy or sign any players, and that includes your former players.

Thats understandable. Frustrating though because I sold two of my best youths to INTER and FC Porto only for both of them to resign in Austria a year later with rival teams.

[Deicide]

Just found this challenge and I'm very much enjoying reading everyone's progress.

Might give this a go when FM18 comes out.

Just a quick question, which English clubs would be the best to start the challenge with?

[Johnny-Trotter]

On 6/20/2017 at 05:51, vikeologist said:

Looks like I've fallen prey to one of the bugs that was discussed earlier in this thread (unbeknownst to me unfortunately). Most of my starlets have optional 3-year extensions that I can't activate for some reason or another. 

Not sure exactly what the problem is, but it seems to be important to give young players 2 year extensions, and not 3.

I am hoping that I will be able to activate the extensions in the last years of their contracts (but before the last 6 months). Otherwise I could lose all my best players to free transfers, which would pretty much kill off my challenge.

I had this in a youth-only game in FM16 and it frustrated me greatly. I read up on it, and got some info. It seems to vary based on the age at which your youth players come through the youth academy. I understand it that young players (perhaps 17 or younger, I don't remember fully) are not allowed to sign full professional contracts in some leagues. Giving them the first contract is fine, but then it seems that the game does fully recognize the optional extension part correctly and considers it as you offering an underage player 'too long' a contract and even though they agree to the contract, the game doesn't honour it.

 

I would suggest to try offering a 1 or 2 year optional extension to a player the next time that you have the possibility and then see later that you can activate the optional extension. It is not ideal, but can be a workaround rather than losing the player at the end of their first contract, without the club optional extension.

[Sn00gle]

Polonia Warszawa 2029/2030

League - Squad - Transfers - Finances

 

Good season we lost 1 point to play in European League again (normaly we would play but Polish league lost some team in europe so unlucky) and 3 points to be champions. Fun fact that Cracovia who won our league after some years of Lech and Legia domination is managed by my ex-assistant from Finland I guess I was good mentor for him xD. We had good run in LE but unlucky Villareal was to strong for us in Polish Cup like allways we drop in early stage... Hope next year will be better. Our new chairman canceled our training fields upgreat coz of our finances drop ... 2 days later we got on account over 2 ml....

 

Youth intake

Unlucky forgot take screenshot but 3 players were tagged.

 

Ryszard Strejlau (YP30a)

Pawel Jedrzejczyk (YP30b)

Kacper Bigajski (YP30c)

 

 

• Season		League		Position		Achievments
  
  2017/18		PFD		11th			Survived
  2018/19		PFD		5th			
  2019/20		PFD		9th
  2020/21		PFD		2nd			Promotion
  2021/22		LE		8th		   	Survived
  2022/23		LE		15th			Relegated
  2023/24		PFD		13th			Survived
  2024/25		PFD		13th			Survived
  2025/26		PFD		8th			
  2026/27		PFD		2nd			Promotion
  2027/28		LE		4th		   	Survived/European League
  2028/29		LE		4th		   	European League
  2029/30		LE		5th

   

[QSF25]

Jesus christ his challenge is hard!!

I failed several times with San marino on the serie C.

Any advice is greatly apreciated.

[Sn00gle]

@QSF25 Keep high motivation in team its giving a lot value in team results. Im offer contract to all youth intake at start even 3 stars players can turn in someting usefull. If you can this guys with 5 starts joing to first squad and let them play even if they dont turn into good players you will be able to sell them to improve your club. I would even say secret in this challenge is to treat your 5 starts like potential money and 4-3 like a potential first squad in the first stages. Im struggling in Poland its pretty boring (not enough money to improve team on high lvl compare to intake and transfers of other team) mby I will swap to England or Italy with San Marino team.

[Soviet]

Italy must be one of the hardest nation to do the challenge in due to incredibly high level of players stats in Serie C. Even Spain should be easier.

[Virtual Male]

After quite a while away getting some real life things sorted now that I'm done with uni, I'm back in Hungary with Orashaza. I'm maybe half way through the season so I'll get an update going in the next few days i'd imagine.

 

It's great reading through posts and seeing a number of new people, some coming back and the progress that many are making... Especially @Sn00gle, I'm glad you seem to have got over the hump and really started to establish yourself as a top half team in you league when not long ago I remember you thinking the save was a lost cause . 

[Sn00gle]

@Virtual Male Now im in trouble again  and Barcelona bought my DR xD

[kelevra]

This is the first challenge I've ever attempted after years of playing, hyped to get started. 

[benedu3095]

So I've been managing in Andorra for 25 seasons now, and for the last 15 seasons I've been facing this big problem which has made think I should just stop the challenge. This one agent really hates me (and so do I). After my tenth season our relationship drastically decreased, they went from very friendly to fierce dislike. I think one or two deals  were unsuccessful, but doesn't explain his sudden dislike. This is when the problem "emerges", he just asks for ridiculous fees and contracts for my youth players, and considering he feels hatred for me, I find it funny he always has 20+ players from club. Due to this I've lost several youth players and the funny thing is, he's a really bad agent and most of the high profile youth players that leave my club retire after one or two seasons. 

I'm fairly confident he's bugged. When he retired, I didn't get a notification or anything. An agent that looks exactly like him and has the same relationships with me other other managers showed up. Also my players (including good youth prospects) have left him many many times, but he still ends up being their agent. For instance, there are two players that have left him at least 6+ times yet he's still their agent. Also some really good prospects that left my club left him 3+ times, yet he was still their agent. If a players leaves his agent, he shouldn't hire him again, period. I don't know if this is problem in my save or FM in general.

[QSF25]

@darren1983 how the hell did you won the first season in VNS?

[Deicide]

Hey guys, does anyone in here know if there is a set cost for each level of improvement when it comes to upgrading training and youth facilities?

 

[darren1983]

14 hours ago, QSF25 said:

@darren1983 how the hell did you won the first season in VNS?

From memory it was luck and goals. Luck in that the AI had signed some good players during the holiday season and goals in that I had a striker in Daniel Carr that had the right attributes (Strong, quick, decent off the ball and composure) to rip it up at that level, also pretty sure I had a wide player play out of his skin and get 20+ goals in my first season too. 

[Sn00gle]

15 hours ago, Deicide said:

Hey guys, does anyone in here know if there is a set cost for each level of improvement when it comes to upgrading training and youth facilities?

 

Average cost me 1,8-2ml euro but problem is I have around 3ml at the start of season and at the end when they want build it I have -something on account so they refuse all the time

Just got call from National team unlucky I cant give a shot

[Soviet]

Leave the facilities for later, invest in junior coaching early on.

[Sn00gle]

I have 3 fedders club with option that they can send me a youth ofc in intake that dosent work in first season we will see the second but mby its becouse of youth recruitment? Any one know how to improve lvl of it or what you need to do to be able to do that?

[Sn00gle]

Polonia Warszawa 2030/2031

League - Squad - Transfers - Finances

 

Decent season we didn't reach the European League but mby next season. We lost Mazurek to Barcelona (in the last days I had better offer from Real Madrid but he want go to Barca so) but we get first youth player from my academy that reach National Team Level (I still dont think he should play there yet but whatever). I had offer from NT ulucky I can accept. Overall it was boring season with nothing special we got knockout early in Cup and thats all

 

Youth intake

2 players tagged nothing special would say 

 

Mateusz Bator (YP31a)

Pawel Szczepanski (YP31b)

 

 

 

• Season		League		Position		Achievments
  
  2017/18		PFD		11th			Survived
  2018/19		PFD		5th			
  2019/20		PFD		9th
  2020/21		PFD		2nd			Promotion
  2021/22		LE		8th		   	Survived
  2022/23		LE		15th			Relegated
  2023/24		PFD		13th			Survived
  2024/25		PFD		13th			Survived
  2025/26		PFD		8th			
  2026/27		PFD		2nd			Promotion
  2027/28		LE		4th		   	Survived/European League
  2028/29		LE		4th		   	European League
  2029/30		LE		5th
  2030/31		LE		6th

   

[Soviet]

On 15.07.2017 at 09:34, Sn00gle said:

I have 3 fedders club with option that they can send me a youth ofc in intake that dosent work in first season we will see the second but mby its becouse of youth recruitment? Any one know how to improve lvl of it or what you need to do to be able to do that?

Youth recruitment grows with reputation. The only way you control it directly is a rare case when the board will ask you if you think it's a good idea to e.g. rise the salary cap for physios. You can then say that the money will be better spend otherwise. But how? - the board will ask. One of the available options will be youth recruitment.