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

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, MarcxD said:

 

We could even have gotten a play-off ticket.... but FC Oss was randomly chosen over us! 

What's that about?

Form over the last 9 games in the league decided Playoff spots?

[MarcxD]

7 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

What's that about?

Form over the last 9 games in the league decided Playoff spots?

The season is divided into 4 periods, the winner of each period gets a play-off spot and the best 4 teams at the end of the season that haven't got a play-off spot yet also get one. It's mental. Theoretically you could finish 18th and still get promoted.

 

[Jimbokav1971]

4 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

The season is divided into 4 periods, the winner of each period gets a play-off spot and the best 4 teams at the end of the season that haven't got a play-off spot yet also get one. It's mental. Theoretically you could finish 18th and still get promoted.

 

Ooh I like that.

[MarcxD]

April & May 2021

Superb end to the season, 10 points from 4 games and no goals conceded! Fans keep on moaning on the social feed about these games being boring but who cares!

15th and we say goodbye to MVV for at least one season!

Another upgrade approved.

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2020-2021

A pleasing season with way more points than I expected beforehand, the playes were capable of some football as well, although the creation of chances is still very hard it seems, the defense is very strong though and apart from a couple of matches we usually conceded very few goals. 

Best Elevens:

Loan players were some of the key players this year, and while Benninga has agreed to join us permanently, the others will need to be replaced.

 

[Rikulec]

Progress. Keep going, I really like the idea.

[MarcxD]

2 hours ago, Rikulec said:

Progress. Keep going, I really like the idea.

Thanks man, I will! 

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2021

A few incoming players but with the limitation of only Amsterdam-born players I've set myself it's not that easy to find improvements. I actually like the challenge of it though.

Outgoing quite a few contracts ended, but in fm18 I don't think they show up on this screen.

The friendlies were pretty much a disaster, although somehow we did beat Sion, a much bigger club than AFC. It has to be said that I let my assman take control of the friendlies, perhaps to my detriment..

For the first time we're not predicted to finish last, mostly thanks to the fact that another formerly amateur club has been promoted: Rijnsburgse Boys!

My goal is a little bit more ambitious though, I want to finish higher than last year, so at least 14th. 

 

[MarcxD]

August 2021

Right away we played Rijnsburgse Boys and they were tougher than I expected, they were honestly better than us and I was relieved with a draw. Three good results followed that match and a slight loss against Heracles finished what can only really be described as a very good month.

9th looks lovely, 8 points does so as well.

This is the dynamics screen after August, for the first time ever the majority of players support me. I guess because the squad is relatively young we don't have a lot of highly influential players but most are influential.

 

[Deisler26]

Dude, Ezra Walian was IMMENSE for my RKC side on 17. He scored twice against Barcelona 

[MarcxD]

17 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

Dude, Ezra Walian was IMMENSE for my RKC side on 17. He scored twice against Barcelona 

Haha yeah I remember. He won't be quite up to that here but surely a decent striker for this level.

 

[MarcxD]

September 2021

A bit of a shock loss against Utrecht reserves, but after that a lot of great results. After the Utrecht match the game went a bit mad since apparently one of the highly influential players, Esajas, was upset?

I told the players that they were acting like little children. And Esajas was let go.

Two weeks later this was the result. I don't really like that the dressing room atmosphere can shift so rapidly and so dramatically.

Anyway, we're in fourth now ?! (and Rijnsburgse Boys 7th..) 

Bizarre season so far.

[MarcxD]

October 2021

Pretty strong start to the month but things have taken a downturn with 3 defeats in a row, granted a defeat against ADO Den Haag in the cup was to be expected (and against Jong Ajax as well) but this form can be worrisome.

Down to 10th. 

[Deisler26]

Doing much better this season! Keep it up.

[MarcxD]

16 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

Doing much better this season! Keep it up.

Thank you, need to get back to winning ways again.

[MarcxD]

November 2021

Annoying month, should've gotten some better results here. Could've been worse I guess, but no wins in 8 league matches now.

Down to 12th.

Another upgrade approved and the youth facilities have been upgraded.

First milestone as a manager, which prompted the fans to give their opinions.

Stability? I wish!

 

 

[MarcxD]

December 2021

Back to winning ways, all in all a good month here. Would like to concede not quite so much goals but it is what it is.

Up to 9th and back in the play-off spots for now (since obviously the reserve sides can't qualify for the play offs)

[MarcxD]

January 2022

Two draws against tough opposition and a small win makes for a good month.

I hope we can keep it up and make the play-offs, at least finish midtable.

Two transfers since the summer, GK Bayazit rejoined us after having been on loan last season, he joined a little bit later since he wanted 130K p/a first, after a while he relented on his demands and agreed to a much smaller salary. This month I got a new left back in Oosterlen.

A lot of shifts in the team hierarchy, only one team leader but a lot of highly influential players now.

 

[MarcxD]

February 2022

Another good month.

Looking very good, 8th place and since all non-reserves teams above us in the league (bar one) have qualified for the play-offs already, we're looking very good to qualify for the play-offs.

Facilities upgrades.

[DavidBeckham]

Decent month and promising upgrades on both the training and youth facilities. Positives all round. Keep up the good work mate! 

[MarcxD]

14 minutes ago, DavidBeckham said:

Decent month and promising upgrades on both the training and youth facilities. Positives all round. Keep up the good work mate! 

Thanks man, I will try.

[MarcxD]

Youth Intake

Woo! A Golden Generation.

Not the best of personalities but this looks awesome otherwise.

Very poor determination which needs to be fixed of course, but a lot of other things to be pleased with right here. Does need a lot of work.

Same determination problem, awesome teamwork, work rate and positioning though. 

A bit of a bizarre distribution of attributes here but GK's have more time to develop. 

Not pleased with his passing and jumping reach attributes, but otherwise good stuff.

As far as CA is concerned the best of the bunch. Resolute personality, determination, teamwork, work rate all strong. Needs a lot of work on his technical abilities though... technique, passing, finishing.. not to mention vision and flair. At least he's fast.

The other players have been signed as well.

[MarcxD]

March 2022

Great results! 

Play-offs. Imagine...

This looks awesome. Interestingly it looks like Rijnsburgse Boys will stay up. 

[Deisler26]

Excellent work! Good luck!

[MarcxD]

1 hour ago, Deisler26 said:

Excellent work! Good luck!

Cheers!

[MarcxD]

April 2022

Slightly disappointing end to the season because we couldn't get the best kind of form going into the play-offs, but a 4-4 is a nice way end a weird season.

17 draws... just held on to 8th place - which is just enough to skip the first round of the play-offs and go straight to the second round! Rijnsburgse boys stayed up. When I look at the teams we can face (excluding the 16th and 17th placed teams in the Eredivisie who also are in the play-offs) only Roda JC and Cambuur scare me, the other teams we could/should beat. With a lucky draw we could actually get promoted..

And we play FC Oss in the second round of the play-offs. They ended third, yes, but in past meetings we have beaten them most of the time. It should be interesting.

[MarcxD]

Play-off Second Round, AFC v. FC Oss

Like I said, we usually beat them and this time we did so as well! Not easily, but that pretty much never happens so far in this career.

Through to the third round!!

One major issue is Iallouchen's injury, we won't be able to play him during the most important matches of the season... first choice right back Kusi is also injured and striker Walian as well... he should be able to play but he did miss the return in the second round.

As for the third round, we'll be facing.... FC Den Bosch!! They were relegated a few seasons ago from the Jupiler League, they finished below us in the league (9th) and we have never lost to them in 4 meetings, 3 wins and 1 draw. Oh my. It could really happen. Let's just hope I'm not jinxing it.

[Deisler26]

Woo! Fingers crossed!

[MarcxD]

Playoffs Third Round, AFC v. FC Den Bosch

!!!

Halfway There.

Damiano Schet, remember the name.

 

[MarcxD]

Playoffs Third Round, FC Den Bosch v. AFC

Promoted!

Eredivisie!

Crazy.

 

[Deisler26]

YASSS!! Well done, squire!

[Rikulec]

[Toffle]

Well done!

[MarcxD]

23 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

YASSS!! Well done, squire!

 

21 hours ago, Rikulec said:

 

19 hours ago, Toffle said:

Well done!

Thank you all!! 

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2021-2022

8th place was pleasant in and of itself, but to get promoted... wow! Next season will be really hard but that's a worry for another day.

Best Elevens:

Vitesse recalled Iallouchen after his injury but otherwise these are the guys with most minutes played. Most if not all of these will stick around next year, I hope some more players will be interested to join my team after the promotion but the budgets won't be huge and I'm sticking to my Amsterdam-only plan so perhaps it won't be easy to get in huge improvements. We will see.

Players from my own youth intakes have not had a lot of gametime yet, they aren't near the required level plus they play for the reserves. The reserves play a lot of friendlies plus games in an inactive lower league. Not sure if games in unactive leagues really help with the development or not tbh, so I might look to loan them out next season since the guys from the first intake will be 18 or 19. If no jupiler league teams want to loan them though perhaps they will stay... otherwise they would just move from one inactive league to the other but with less input on their training and development.

 

 

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2022

Somewhat of an increase in budgets but not much.

Expected to finish last although we have the same odds as Sparta and NAC. It will be a very tough season. The 18th is relegated automatically, while 16h and 17th placed teams go to the play-offs. The goal will be to finish not 18th, but honestly the squad is mid-table jupiler league level at best so 18th would not surprise me at all.

Very tough to get in better players. In the end I decided to spend some money to improve one of the most important spots on the pitch, the midfield.

Just overall a much better player than we've got before... but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be enough.

Okay pre-season, most of the opposition was poor though and we still didn't win all our games.

Did at least get some more improvements in, and whatever happens this season we will get a financial boost which should help things out for the long term.

 

[MarcxD]

August 2022

Not unexpected but 4 losses is an awful way to start the season. 1 goal scored.... I really wonder where we can get any points this season!

At least we're not the only ones who are really poor... Let's hope Sparta, NAC and Twente keep having a hard time of things as well.

We sold out our stadium for the first time in the first match against AZ, which made for two records:

After three matches the players complained about the dressing room atmosphere.

Why I have no clue, I didn't **** off anyone, and did they expect to win the games at the start of the season?

Sigh. 

I have no opposing players though, so at least there's that. It's telling that the only plus I have is that I've been with the club for a few seasons.

These dynamics things are not very promising, I hope I'm not getting into trouble if we keep losing, which seems likely.

 

 

[MarcxD]

September 2022

To start the month off with, I signed another played just after the transfer window ended.

We welcome back Iallouchen, now on a free transfer with him being injury free and with some less demanding salary demands. Should be a decent AMR/SC rotational option at least.

In various ways a promising month. We scored every game and 9 goals in total for one. Second, we gained our first points, 4 in total. Third, we went through in the cup. Fourth, we've shown that we can win a game in the Eredivisie.

But perhaps even more promising and fifth, two clubs below us have not gained any points at all! Granted, Sparta and Twente have played 1 game less than us and will probably get some points soon, but getting only 4 points from the first 8 and having a 4 points lead to 18th was not something I expected. NAC and perhaps even VVV and Groningen are still in reach. 

One big downside to the month and especially the last game was a huge injury.

Really disappointing news, we will be missing our best player during the important month of october and a part of november at least.

[MarcxD]

October 2022

Another month with a lot of goals - another 9 goal month actually. Through to the 3rd round of the cup for the first time, with a bit of luck since we faced 3rd tier Achilles. Next up is Ajax though... We won the super important match against Twente but did lose against the other relegation rivals we faced this month, Sparta. 

Sparta is now 1 point behind us with a game in hand, while Twente has already gone past us. They beat Ajax for some reason. At least NAC is on a terrible run so we're still not the worst team in the league! They've only scored 7 goals so far while we have 15 goals to our name, and both have conceded 30. Might be a good sign, might mean nothing. 

[MarcxD]

November 2022

3 away games, only one loss, can't be too mad at that really.

In sixteenth, Twente and Sparta got their games in hand but did not do a lot with them. The bottom 4 are going to have to battle it out for safety since the rest is doing much better already.

[MarcxD]

December 2022

Happy enough with these results, a good performance against ADO and we were lucky against AZ, while we just weren't in the game against Willem II.

Sparta has got some wins in, so it seems for now the bottom 3 will have to fight it out.

 

[MarcxD]

January 2023

Because of the winter break there were only 2 games to be played... where we weren't able to score a goal. A point against Vitesse is quite good though.

NAC has won a game which we haven't been able to do since October. Not yet 18th but a win soon would be nice.

One new player in.

Some more ridiculousness with dynamics.

[MarcxD]

February 2023

Ouch! Terrible stuff really. The opposition is just much better than AFC.

And we're down to eighteenth, it's pretty amazing that we still have a realistic chance of making the play-offs and surviving for another season, will need at least some points soon though.

 

[MarcxD]

Youth Intake

Another promising batch. Whatever happens this season, from next season on I will be giving my youth players much more playing time.

A lot of work needs to be done here, right now really the only that he's got going for himself is his speed and decent determination.

This guy looks very very decent, fairly professional, some strong standout attributes from the start. 

Driven personality, some speed, good technique and flair... Could become a decent player.

Determination and personality needs to be worked on but very high teamwork and work rate are always lovely to see. 

(No regen faces yet since I screenshotted these before the full release, just now got around to posting them.)

[MarcxD]

March 2023

An astonishing good month with the bad times we've had recently, a draw against Ajax, and 4 points against relegation rivals Twente and NAC!

Back to 17th with 5 more games to be played. 

[DazRTaylor]

You can survive!

[MarcxD]

56 minutes ago, DazRTaylor said:

You can survive!

With a bit of luck!

Cheers.

[MarcxD]

April 2023

Another good month, with a spectacular away draw against Feyenoord and a 9 goal game to finish the month off with.

With 2 games left we're looking good to not get relegated automatically but any NAC win can be lethal for us still, luckily we do have a better goal difference. 

[DazRTaylor]

Just a point to avoid automatic relegation I would think.

[MarcxD]

May 2023

Two home games were I hoped we could get some points, but it wasn't to be.

Because NAC only got 1 point in though, it was enough to survive, for now. Two rounds of play-offs stil to get through now.