[FM18] AFC, A Chainsaw Massacre (2019-2036) // Basque Bonanza (2037-2040)

[MarcxD]

Luckily not too much of a crisis in the match even though they did get the lead pretty early on. 2 goals from Sam Vos in a return first XI performance!

Europa League final!!

We'll play Athletic, who defeated Spurs in the semi-finals. It will be hard but well, how go all the cliches... 11 versus 11, anything can happen, etc.

[MarcxD]

You know what this dance means!

A hattrick from Vos to seal the title. What a way to end the season.

[Rikulec]

Congratulations.

[MarcxD]

22 minutes ago, Rikulec said:

Congratulations.

Thanks!

[MarcxD]

It just wasn't to be. A tight game but some awful defending made it impossible for us to win. Also Vos missed a few chances. 

[oriole01]

Another brilliant title win, and an impressive result against Arsenal. You're really going places!

Too bad about the EL final though. What have Bilbao been like on this save?

[andychar]

Another great season in the bag. The next challenge will be to finally break that Champions League Group Stage. Luckily a Europa League Final wouldn't have done anything to harm your coefficient. Fingers crossed a bit more luck with the draw.

[MarcxD]

12 hours ago, oriole01 said:

Another brilliant title win, and an impressive result against Arsenal. You're really going places!

Too bad about the EL final though. What have Bilbao been like on this save?

Thank you!

Since I haven't loaded the Spanish league I can't see how they did domestically (apart from them not winning anything but that is hardly surprising), but in Europe this has been their second EL final and their first win.

They're always in the knock-out rounds and were actually beaten by PSV last year.

The match showed they sure weren't unbeatable but some of my players just weren't at their best.

2 hours ago, andychar said:

Another great season in the bag. The next challenge will be to finally break that Champions League Group Stage. Luckily a Europa League Final wouldn't have done anything to harm your coefficient. Fingers crossed a bit more luck with the draw.

As champions the group should be easier at least, although you never know of course. Talking about coefficents....

And with another good season the Dutch can overtake Italy as well....

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2029-2030

Perhaps those the "match of the season" and the "moment to forget" are the best way to signify what kind of season this was, we scored a lot of goals, Vos & Torres up front was great and whether it was them or the wingers making a step up, they were also very good. Defense not so much, that needs work.

Best Elevens:

You can see how important the forwards were, all contributing in goals and assists, but Vos was the outstanding performer of course. For the first time in a long while, maybe ever, we had a youth prospect playing the most games as GK during the season. Bayazit will remain at the club for at least one more year as a back-up but Nijhuis is the future.

Slowly but surely I want to move towards a complete youth only set-up. Mees de Wit and Ozkul's contracts are up this summer and will leave the club, which make Aras, Fosu-Mensah and Bayazit the last to not have come through the youth intakes. They will probably not leave, although I might sell if I get a good offer, will not solicit them though.

The beautiful thing is that so many of these players are still young, and whether they develop a lot more or not they should get at least a little bit better and have many more years ahead of them. The future is looking bright.

Will showcase a couple of new faces:

Roeleveld has become a starter this year and has shown a lot of promise and development.

Simanjuntak is the AML and has performed amazingly well this year, some of the key attributes are very good although there are some very noticeable flaws, especially mentally. That he only has determination 7 shows how lazy I am with tutoring..

This guy is perhaps the most exciting of all the new faces, huge midfield talent, has become first-choice and has chosen the Dutch team after all, he will be going with me to the World Cup.

And of course there's Torres, had to show his progress. 

 

 

 

 

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2029-2030 Part 2 - Records & Awards

There were just so many records and awards this year that I thought they deserved their own post.

Let's start with Vos, because why not.

Just an incredible season all around, it will be hard to do better but he will get the chance next year as he has agreed to rejoin AFC permanently!

Torres:

(and second in footballer of the year as seen above)

Simanjuntak, apart from being second in talent of the year and third in footballer of the year:

And of course, the manager.

Finally a legend, top 10 Dutch hall of Fame and another manager of the year title.

That should about do it.

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2030 - Pre-Tournament

Since the squad has barely changed since Euro 2028 I have not screenshotted the players this time. 

First of the friendlies was a game against Ghana, a decent dominant performance.

Another friendly against Australia, where we should've scored more goals.

Decent way to go into the tournament but of course we will face tougher opposition. First up will be Mexico.

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2030 - Groups

Very decent start to win against Mexico, although by no means was it an easy win.

A good result against England, even if we did have the lead for most of the match.

A very comfortable win against Morocco finally - with 2 goals from Vos means we go through to the second Round!

Perhaps surprising to see USA go through here, otherwise probably as expected.

Strong Swedes! But not perhaps the hardest group. Cool to at least see one African nation go through in South Africa.

Mexico beat England but Morocco beat Mexico... and England beat Morocco. So they accompany us to the second round. 

We will be facing Belgium. Tasty..

[MarcxD]

World Cup 2030 - Knockouts

Huge result against Belgium, in the very end! Poor match though, but we're through to the quarter finals!

Brazil needed penalties to beat South Africa and remarkably Sweden beat Argentina!

Sadly, Brazil was just too strong for us. Just a reality that we aren't an international top team.

These other results though, wow! Sweden beat hosts Spain and USA beat France! 

Haha. Sweden won the damn tournament. What?

[After]

Wow ! Who are the main players of Sweden ?

[MarcxD]

1 hour ago, After said:

Wow ! Who are the main players of Sweden ?

In the tournament first XI only good old Lindelof and regen Thelin are named, remarkably. (Also note Vos is on the bench) 

Here is Thelin:

Pretty good!

They have a few other good players, although by large their squad really is not up to the level of say a Brazil.

[kidthekid]

Great season indeed. Unlucky in the Europa and the world cup, but you are definitely making progress. Your cb with jumping of  6 is really proving that short cbs shouldn't be hastily discarded,

[MarcxD]

3 hours ago, kidthekid said:

Great season indeed. Unlucky in the Europa and the world cup, but you are definitely making progress. Your cb with jumping of  6 is really proving that short cbs shouldn't be hastily discarded,

Thank you.

Obviously his jumping reach is far from ideal... with this save where I'm now only focussed on my own youth though, sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2030

Huge budgets, won't be using them though although of course the wages are rising each year, slowly. 

Predicted to finish 5th, surely we can do better.

Vos is definitely back, for the cheap price of 7.5M which was agreed with AC Milan on his loan deal. I've let Aras go on the midfield, sure we're weakened somewhat but I want to move towards a full youth only team, plus he's 28 years old and 20m+ for a player of that age seems a pretty good deal to me.

The CL groups have been drawn, and we face Arsenal, OL and Rapid Wien. Should be doable, although it not as easy as it could've been perhaps. Could've been harder as well, look at group B and E for instance.

Pre-Season went very well, good wins in the friendlies and another supercup win, albeit on penalties.

[MarcxD]

August 2030

Absolutely fantastic start to the season wow, can't ask for anything more. Zero goals conceded, good wins all around.

All rivals dropped points. 

[MarcxD]

September 2030

Disappointing to lose in the Champions League, but another round of good results domestically.

Looking lovely so far.

Poor play and results from the national team. 

 

[MarcxD]

October 2030

Strong results all around, very happy with this. Not losing to Arsenal especially!

Just amazing so far, only 1 goal conceded in the league. We have had a pretty easy run of games to start the season off with though.

A lot of luck in the game against England, very good result though in the nations league.

A more comfortable and deserved win against Romania means we're looking great to qualify for the nation league semi-final again.

Youth facilities are done, one more training facilities upgrade which has been approved already. The data analysis facilities are still poor because I've only just started to upgrade them, not that I need them with not really scouting or buying anyone but I guess it doesn't hurt either. The youth recruitment is still extensive but for some reason I could ask for another upgrade. Bug perhaps? (I hadn't gotten any messages that it got dropped down, and I took a glance at the IGE stats and it still said 20 so...)

A bit of a downer to end the month on though, with Vos getting injured in the game against ADO den Haag. Back-up striker Meijers is also injured, but of course luckily there's still Torres who can play as striker.

[MarcxD]

November 2030

Well, things have taken a bit of a bizarre turn. Went from conceding once in 9 Eredivisie games to 8 times in 3 matches. Also lost points for the first time. Not really sure how this happened except for bad luck (after having good luck before) and some defensive mistakes. 4 Points in the CL is an amazing return though, and we have already qualified with one more game to go, together with Arsenal.

PSV has gotten closer and next month we will face the classic top 3: PSV, Ajax & Feyenoord. 

A decent enough performance against Venezuela but absolutely powerless against a much better England.

No nations league in 2031 then. 

I've noticed AFC being up there for the first time really, 25 is a good number although most of them will be at AFC still. 

[Sheriff7]

Great progress mate!!Unlucky in EL final...National team looks very good too...

[MarcxD]

1 hour ago, Sheriff7 said:

Great progress mate!!Unlucky in EL final...National team looks very good too...

Thanks, not too sure about the national team myself tbh.

[MarcxD]

December 2030

Perfect, insane, especially when you look at the teams we played.

Huge lead, incredible first half of the season.

Second in the CL group, which means a tough opponent next.

Not just tough it turned out, but almost impossible. Oh dear.

Easy draw with the national team though, should qualify very comfortably.

Wow, This came as kind of a shock. He has been performing amazingly well, really astonishingly, but golden boy... he might be the worst golden boy when you look at his attributes but performance definitely counts I Guess.

 

[Sheriff7]

20 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

Thanks, not too sure about the national team myself tbh.

I will make a prediction:In next European Championship you are going to be in final..Keep that post until then...

[MarcxD]

2 hours ago, Sheriff7 said:

I will make a prediction:In next European Championship you are going to be in final..Keep that post until then...

Haha I hope you prove me wrong!

[MarcxD]

January 2031

Another good month even if we did drop some points we shouldn't have. Also through to the semi-final in the cup. A double is still possible.

Still the same 9 points lead over psv and a whopping 18 points on #3 Heerenveen.

As far as January transfers are concerned, nothing much happened except some outgoings, mostly loans.

[MarcxD]

February 2031

Ouch, not a good month outside of a great win against Ajax. To be fair though, Ajax isn't what Ajax used to be. A 0-0 against PSG normally would be a great result, but we needed more in the knockout rounds.

Lead to psv dropped to 4 points with 10 games to go.... and the tension is back. Ajax in 14th with only 2 points separating them from the relegation play-offs...

[Rikulec]

Great job holding PSG to a 0:0 draw at home. Now just sneak an away goal and anything becomes possible.

[MarcxD]

 

15 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Great job holding PSG to a 0:0 draw at home. Now just sneak an away goal and anything becomes possible.

Thanks. That's one way of looking at it, sure...

[MarcxD]

Youth Intake 2031

A couple of good prospects - yet another striker.. I might have to think about a tactic with multiple strikers! Very happy with an AML and a DR though. You might notice a Korean player, that's from one of the international affiliate clubs. I also think it's interesting to see a Dutch-Turkmeni player, have never seen that before. Also we've got a Paul Verhoeven, thought about nicknaming him Robocop or something.

A lot of good stuff, some attributes like passing need a lot of work though and sadly one of those prospects who can't jump. 

I really like the look of him when you just look at his winger attributes, although being 1.60M and having a jumping reach of 1 is hardly ideal on any part of the pitch.

I also want to show the Korean kid, since he has a lot of interesting attributes that make me think he might very well be better than this first opinion from the assistant and coaches. With some luck he might turn out to be a decent AMC.

 

 

[MarcxD]

March 2031

A lot of goals but that one goal against PSG sadly just wasn't enough @Rikulec ... Some points dropped at the end of the month in the league as well, but we are through to the final of the Cup.

Only 2 points left to separate us from PSV with 6 games to go, and we still face PSV! Can't there be a single season where we just win the title comfortably?

While we've had a easy ride up to the final, we'll have to face the title defenders there, in their own stadium.

Decent enough start to the qualifiers with all goals coming from AFC players.

A bit of a rough game but the result was good enough with another Vos goal.

[MarcxD]

April 2031

Yes! Fantastic month, back to form just when it mattered.

Woo! 3 titles in 4 years is fantastic obviously. It's getting time to get some European success as well though!

Like PSV for instance, who've made the CL semi final, and AZ has had another strong European season as well. 

 

[ThaChamp]

Wow Ajax have really fallen. Any idea why?

Unlucky on the Champions League, I'm betting on you winning the CL within the next 3 seasons! Congrats on the double!

[ajcardall]

Utterly amazing season, well done! 

[MarcxD]

3 minutes ago, ThaChamp said:

Wow Ajax have really fallen. Any idea why?

Unlucky on the Champions League, I'm betting on you winning the CL within the next 3 seasons! Congrats on the double!

It's hard to say! They have the biggest stadium in Holland, 40K season ticket holders and have a bunch of decent to good players, certainly good enough to at  least be top 5.. their wages are 18M p/a compared to PSV's ridiculous 46M p/a, (but I only pay 10M p/a so....) A lot of manager changes, a few takeovers but no financial troubles I don' t think and their facilities are still the best possible. So essentially I have no idea.

Thank you for the faith, we just need to improve and bolster our squad a bit more which might just take those 3 seasons of added development. A bit of luck in the draws along the way and perhaps we can do it.

Just now, ajcardall said:

Utterly amazing season, well done! 

Thank you!

[MarcxD]

May 2031

The Double!!! And a perfect end to finish a great season.

In the end it wasn't that close after all, 11 point lead since PSV screwed up a bit at the end. Ajax finished 13th. It will be interesting to see how the Dutch clubs will do in the CL next year now that 4 clubs have qualified automatically (and with the current amazing season in Europe we're headed for a 3rd place in the coefficients behind only England and Spain)

Talking about Europe, PSV made it to the final of the CL!

They were beaten there though, so no European cup yet for a Dutch club. AFC can still be the first at least

 

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2030-2031

Outside of the CL a very strong season all-round.

Best Elevens:

(Annoyed with the subs again but oh well) - some noticeable things, the front 4 all once again contributing lots, with Vos scoring not quite as much as last year but he's also gotten less game time, back-up striker Meijer has done very well for himself (but not here as a sub for some reason).

A couple of new names, and you can see Meijers at the bottom getting a 7.50 average - 14 goals scored. All the player values have risen hugely as well.

Nijhuis, the goalkeeper. Pretty good and hopefully with a lot of room to develop. One of those rare regen keepers that can pass..

Here's the great star on the midfield. A lot of things to appreciate here, and his value of 27m is really interesting. Really high for an eredivisie player.

Awards

Interesting to see eredivisie goals count as 2.0 instead of 1.5 for the golden shoe.

[MarcxD]

Some club issues happened:

An expansion, although it might've been a little bit bigger. We can afford the 26M easily enough.

It will be intesting to see how many tickets we'll sell in the Amsterdam Arena.

For the first time a club takeover.

It only took a week or two, but nothing much changed here. 

Well, except for this. 

 

[MarcxD]

June 2031

Two very convincing wins in the qualifiers.

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2031

Huge budgets, and we're expected to finish in the top 4 and semi-final of the cup now. 

No incoming of course, but I let go a couple of players that I did not need (anymore). There were some big offers for players in my first XI but no offers came near me taking them seriously. There were multi-million offers for Karaoglan (around the 30M mark) on the midfield, Torres (25m or so) and Meijers (9m I think), the back-up striker, but I rejected them all or asked for much more.

These three players all have minimum release fees in their contracts of a little bit more than 50M so if clubs want them they know what to do.

3rd in the Coefficients now, 5th reputation. Going up and up and up. 

Still only predicted to finish 4th but the top 4 are close when you look at the odds.

It was a strong pre-season although to start with a goalless draw was a bit of a disappointment. We were a bit lucky against PSV in the super cup but the win means another trophy.

The CL groups were drawn, and we are not getting an easy time with Tottenham and Inter in our group but hopefully we can get through it relatively securely, PSV should be able to get through their group but Feyenoord and Groningen will have a very hard time. Group H is not a laughing stock either.

[MarcxD]

August 2031

Perfect start to the league with 4 wins from 4, although they weren't all as comfortable wins as I would've liked. Still though, the maximum points. We only sold 35K seats against Heerenveen, bit of a shame.

We're the only ones who got the maximum amount of points, also noteworthy that last year's top 4 is already top 4 again and Ajax have started with 2 losses, it really seems like they're turning into a mid table side?! (they lost 4-0 to AZ).

[noikeee]

Getting better and better, surely just knocking on the doors of being a real top force in Europe. That was a very unlucky draw though, Tottenham and Inter... ouch.

[MarcxD]

7 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Getting better and better, surely just knocking on the doors of being a real top force in Europe. That was a very unlucky draw though, Tottenham and Inter... ouch.

Thanks man, I hope so. The draws in Europe have not been kind so far but if I want to win in the CL I'll just have to go through it!

[MarcxD]

September 2031

Disappointing to lose the first match of the CL although it does seem to be the hardest match of the group. Strong league wins though!

Remarkable to see PSV dropping lots of points! We've already got a 11 point lead on them... Feyenoord the closest for now.

2 more strong qualifying wins, lots of AFC players' goals. 4 from Vos - more than he has scored for AFC this season!

[MarcxD]

October 2031

A perfect month but we aren't scoring as much as I would like, some of these wins could've been way more comfortable.

Part of the problem is Vos, he just doesn't have it this season it seems like. Meijers is actually doing better and might be turning into first-choice striker.

Vos' attributes are still a little bit better and obviously gets paid way more but is just not performing right now. I'm giving them both playing time no matter what, but the pecking order might change.

This is Meijers right now. One advantage is his much higher passing attribute and a possibility to grow, while Vos seems to have peaked more or less.

Anyway, we're still going incredibly well in the Eredivisie with a huge 9 points lead on everybody else already.

A very important win against our only rival really in the qualifying group, we'll surely finish as first in the group now.

Got a lovely milestone that match as well.

Another big win followed - and once again Vos is scoring goals for the Dutch national team. Can't really make out why he can't do it at AFC right now.

[noikeee]

Decent league form. 

I don't think you've had an unbeaten season? This could be it.

[MarcxD]

3 hours ago, noikeee said:

Decent league form. 

I don't think you've had an unbeaten season? This could be it.

Thanks  Definitely have not had an unbeaten season, and I'm not about to jinx it by saying this will be the year..

[MarcxD]

November 2031

Wow 5-0 against Spurs!! Pretty good results elsewhere as well. 

Going strong. 

Another milestone.

I had gotten a message after the new board took over that the upgrade wasn't going through? But now this. Okay... Happy it's done anyway.

Two decent victories, although it took until the very end of the Albanian game to get the 3 points.

Comfortable as I would've hoped beforehand. We'll be going to Euro 2032, which is hosted by England.