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[FM18] - F.C. Jeunesse Canach - Youth Only Challenge in Luxembourg


Conndre3000

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Welcome!

This is my first ever career update where I will be doing a youth-only challenge with F.C. Jeunesse Canach of the Luxembourg Promotion Division (2nd tier). Eventually if I start to produce some elite players I may attempt to take control of the Luxembourg national team but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The Goal: 

To win the CL with F.C. Jeunesse Canach, an amateur side in the Luxembourg Promotion Division. 

The Plan: 

To build up the club's youth system into one of the best in the world and to use that youth system to dominate domestically and compete abroad. 

The Rules: 

No transfers in whether they be free or not. Youth intakes only. 

I can continue to re-sign the current members of the squad regardless of nationality.

The Manager:

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Meet Francois Joubert. A Luxembourger born in Ettelbruck, he has his National C License and only reached the dizzying heights of Sunday League Football during his playing career. 

The Facilities:

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Not too good. First order of business will be to try to upgrade our youth facilities and recruitment. At least we own our stadium though.

The Stadium:

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Literally just a field with fence posts around it so not much to "own" per se. We have a capacity of 1500, standing room only. It would be nice to upgrade the stadium or build a new one, but that will be a few seasons down the line when we're hopefully a secure first division side. 

The Squad: 

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Some fine looking chaps right here. Time to whip them into shape and win promotion to the first division.

Key Players:

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Nana K

By far our best player. Probably won't even be able to sign him again after his contract expires. Great stats, great name, great hair. What's not to like?

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Olivier Mukendi

Tall, fast, decent finishing, and off the ball stats. This guy should bang in goals for us. He actually came up through Anderlecht's youth system funnily enough. 

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Cadabra

A Cape Verdean keeper with pretty decent stats. Has 7 free kick taking so maybe we'll have him try to bag some goals as a free kick taker. Hopefully he pulls of some "magical" saves in goal :lol:.

The Elderly Brazilian Contingent: :kriss:

For some reason we have 3 elderly Brazilians old enough to collect pension checks in our squad. Let's do a quick run-through.

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Oseias

A 45(!!!) year old target man. His technical stats are honestly really good for this level and his physical stats aren't as bad as I expected them to be. As of now he's Mukendi's backup because we'll be starting off with a 4-2-3-1. 

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Rodrigo

A 39 year old central defender who isn't even that good by the league's standards. Slow and not even that strong. 

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Marcao

Next we have his partner in crime Marcao who's even older at the ripe old age of 41! He's as slow as a barge as well with 3 pace. Him and Rodrigo are the only 2 senior centerbacks at the club so it looks like we might have to play a pretty deep line this season because if not we're gonna get beat by pace pretty easily.

The Youth:

Because there were barely enough real players to make a full starting XI I decided to have the game add user generated players to fill in the extra roster spots and the reserve teams.

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Marc Turpel

16 years old and has good pace and work rate, plus good teamwork and free kick taking as well. He's allergic to the weight room though with a solid 2 for strength. He'll probably have to start a few games for us this season so hopefully he can make the step up to the senior team.

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Davide Heinz

Second best youth player and he's really nothing special at all. The next youth intake can't come soon enough. I believe that the Luxembourg youth intakes are in February so we have to make it through half the season at least with what we already have.

Progress:

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So that's it for the introduction to my save. I'm almost done with the first half of the season so I'll try to give a midseason update either later tonight or tomorrow. I have a month's vacation coming up so hopefully I can try to make a few posts a week. This is my first ever career update so if you guys have any constructive criticism along the way feel free to let me know. I'll appreciate the advice :D

 

Wish me luck!

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1 minute ago, andychar said:

Good luck with this. I...I just can’t imagine how painful this will be. 

Especially since our best 3 players will probably want to leave after this year because they feel they're above the club. :seagull:

 

There might be a few seasons of toiling around in the second division before promotion.

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Midseason Update:

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We've honestly played very well, losing only one game the first half of the season. But we have 3 more draws than each of the top 3 so that is what's holding us back. We haven't won any of our games against the top 3 with 2 draws and 1 loss. We drew the season opener vs Ettelbruck 2-2 and since then they've won all 12 of their league games while only conceding 1 goal. They're starting to pull away from the rest of the pack.

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Like I said before it was gonna be really hard to keep Nana K and Mukendi after this season. I tried to offer both of them contracts but they wouldn't even negotiate with me. Both of them were just too good for the Luxembourg second division. Nana K will be taking his talents to Academica in the Portuguese second division while Mukendi is joining RM Hamm Benfica in the Luxembourg first divison. This will be a massive blow to the team as Nana K is by far our best player and Mukendi is our top scorer.

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1 minute ago, Sheriff7 said:

Good luck mate,good to have a Luxembourgian save here too...:thup:

Thanks mate! I've been keeping an eye on your Vaduz save lately. Bringing glory to small European countries that start with L! :lol:

 

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9 minutes ago, Conndre3000 said:

Thanks mate! I've been keeping an eye on your Vaduz save lately. Bringing glory to small European countries that start with L! :lol:

 

That's my target too!!Let's destroy  "big guys"...:lol:

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Youth Intake:

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Yikes. Not even a 3 star potential player in the whole intake. I think this is in part because of Nana K and Mukendi being so much better than any other player in the squad. I think without them bringing up the average level of the team we could maybe have some 3 and 4 star potential players. Anyways here are the best 5. 

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Patrick Skenderovic

Has some a few decent ratings for his mental stats but everything else is uninspiring.

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Ante Peters

We get some more depth for our midfield which was sorely needed.

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Youn Borner

Decent finishing, determination, and aggression. Poor in almost everything else. 

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Samuel Hess

13 marking, 16 determination, and 11 tackling are standout stats for Samuel. 5 Strength and all those 1's in his technicals are pretty disappointing though. 

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Kim Steinmetz

Another defense prospect. Sorely needed as we have been scraping by with 2 centerbacks all season. 10 marking and tackling is decent but once again a whole lot of 1's in those technicals.

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End of Regular Season Update:

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So we finished 3rd in the league despite only having 2 losses on the season. As you can see our defense was definitely our downfall. We scored the most goals in the league but conceded 20 more goals on the season than Ettelbruck and Rumelange who finished above us. 

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And now you can see why losing Mukendi and Nana K is gonna be tough. Mukendi scored 28 goals in 26 matches and Nana had the second highest average rating in the league and chipped in with 6 goals of his own from defensive midfield. 

 

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:applause:

We dominated them. What a final performance from the departing players. I wonder if Mukendi realized after his brace that he relegated his future team? :lol: 

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Now onto the National Division. Gonna be a tough task to stay up. 

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That's a much more interesting squad than I expected to see in the Luxembourg second tier. Although Wikipedia suggests even more of a Brazilian flavour....

And your amazing-for-the-level 45 year old Oseias? He was the manager in 2016; I have a feeling he's probably retired by now IRL... 

 

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44 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

That's a much more interesting squad than I expected to see in the Luxembourg second tier. Although Wikipedia suggests even more of a Brazilian flavour....

And your amazing-for-the-level 45 year old Oseias? He was the manager in 2016; I have a feeling he's probably retired by now IRL... 

 


Transfer Market says he retired in 2015 to be their coach, then manager in 2016, if I had to guess, he was probably registered player/manager to fill in during emergencies.

 

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Progress:

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Here's the spreadsheet I made for the club's progress. Finances looking healthy and we were able to update our junior coaching. The board cancelling the youth facilities upgrade and stonewalling any attempt of mine to upgrade our youth recruitment really hurts though. The national team dropped by a few spots but we'll be looking to remedy quickly hopefully. 

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We've managed to retain our 2 best players after Nana K and Mukendi. Texeira was part of the midfield duo with Nana and Negi was a fine defensive right back. This is huge for us. We needed them to re-sign if we were going to stay up.

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2018/19 Midseason Update:

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Against all odds we are somehow sitting 7th in the table, though we are only 4 points above the relegation playoff spot. The 4 draws to start the season against some good opposition really have helped in terms of us being midtable at the halfway point in the season. We are really struggling to score goals without Mukendi up top and we suffered 3 ugly losses in a row in which we gave up 4 goals in each, probably due to losing Nana K. 

Etzella Ettelbruck, the team that dominated last season and were champions of the second division are essentially guaranteed to go back down again with only 2 points all season. Crazy seeing as they only lost 2 games during their promotion campaign. I did some research as to how this could happen when I came across their transfer page. Basically every single member of Ettelbruck's starting XI got poached by other first division sides. They essentially lost their whole team. And I thought I had it bad when I lost my 2 best players. Other promotion team Rumelange is sitting in 6th place and they are looking pretty strong. 

The title race is basically a two horse race between Dudelange and Fola Esch so it should be interesting to see how it unfolds in the second half.

In interviews reporters have mentioned to me how in this league 30 points is considered automatic safety so if we can keep our form it looks like we might stay up this season. We have a very thin squad in terms of first team quality players so I feel like the outcome of our season depends on our injuries.

 

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On 9/12/2017 at 00:41, enigmatic said:

That's a much more interesting squad than I expected to see in the Luxembourg second tier. Although Wikipedia suggests even more of a Brazilian flavour....

And your amazing-for-the-level 45 year old Oseias? He was the manager in 2016; I have a feeling he's probably retired by now IRL... 

 

Luxembourg made huge progress all these years both in club and in international level..They have very good(Brazilian,French and other foreign) players  there..Their clubs are very good in Europe too..Dudenlang lost very difficult from Apoel,Progress eliminate Rangers and Folla esh pass 2 quilifying rounds in Europa league...

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2019 Youth Intake:

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Everyone's favorite time of year. Youth intake day. And after a very lackluster one last season we bagged ourselves a wonderkid it looks like. Besides Damien Minelli we have one decent CB and the rest are below average. But Minelli more than makes up for it. He's 15 and ready to start in the league. And has just as good, if not better stats in most categories compared to our current 5 star current ability keeper Cadabra. But Cadabra is 34, and Minelli is the perfect replacement. Take a look at his stats.

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Damien Minelli

15 reflexes at 15 years old. 6'3 with hopefully some room to grow. Low determination but hopefully we can tutor that out of him. My only concern is how long we're gonna be able to hold onto him. 

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Claude Steinmetz

The only other really decent prospect out of the bunch. Good tackling, heading, and teamwork along with a tasty determination of 16 is nice. For some reason though all my youth players always have such terrible stamina. shouldn't be too bad for a CB but still.

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2018/19 Season Review:

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We had a pretty putrid run to end the season winning only 1 our our last 7 games and drawing none. Luckily our first half form kept us up along with the other clubs battling relegation performing just as bad.

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After being tipped by oddsmakers to finish last we finish a respectable 8th, firmly in midtable, 8 points clear of relegation. We really need to try to do something about our defense because even while playing a 4-1-4-1 with a low block we're just leaking goals. I'm gonna try out a 4-4-2 tactic next year to see if we can try to not defend so deeply. I feel that we're inviting too much pressure currently, but on the other hand our backline is so slow that I feel that playing higher will leave us vulnerable. Food for thought...

Progress:

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The cancelled youth facilities upgrade from the first season is still annoying me but it is what it is. Our club ranking has gone from .5* to 1* so that's nice. The league ranking dropped a bit due to the better teams not doing well in European competitions. We got knocked out in the first round of the cup but it was a close game vs another midtable team and I was glad that we could focus on the league instead. Our finances are looking very healthy since everyone is still on very small contracts but that could change soon. I was hoping our season ticket and average attendance numbers would jump a bit more due to us playing in the National Division though. The National team ranking jumped up to 133 but that isn't really my doing at all. I was pretty surprised as to how much the TV money was for a midtable team in the Luxembourg National Division but I'm not complaining!

Onto next season!!

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Not good. Our best player at the moment and our only creative midfielder has officially refused to sign a new contract. Looks like we're gonna be losing him on a Bosman as well. Looks like next season is gonna be a struggle to stay up as well. :seagull:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry guys I've barely been able to play FM at all lately. Very busy with work. But I have this next month off so hopefully I can fly through some seasons in the next few weeks.

2020 Youth Intake

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Pretty decent intake with 2 players ready to make some first team appearances right off the bat. Claude Thill is a midfielder which we need badly but Kerschen is gonna be blocked by our 16 year old 5 star CA keeper Minelli from last year's intake. We have some Portuguese 2nd nationalities which is to be expected but we also have a Bosnian one which is kind of random. 

We still have limited youth recruitment so I'm very happy with how these last two intakes have gone since the first one was so meh. I have a feeling next year's one is gonna be a dud though :lol:

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Claude Thill

10 first touch and passing at only 16 is very good for this level. Good determination, work rate, and team work which is always nice. Okay physicals besides stamina and strength. I'm not sure what they're putting in the water here in Canach but all of my youth intake players have TERRIBLE strength. I don't think I've gotten a single one above 6 or 7. 

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Yannick Kerschen

Will most likely be an understudy for Minelli for the foreseeable future. He has 14 rushing out so I might try to train him as a sweeper keeper. We'll see. 

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4 minutes ago, Sheriff7 said:

Thill is a very famous name in Luxembourg and the name of Luxembourg's biggest talent (I think he plays for Mets)...Happy to see you again here..:brock:

Yeah I think he does play for Metz. And thanks! Gonna be posting a lot more in the next few weeks so stay tuned. :brock:

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2019/20 Season Review

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We started the season off pretty terribly but then ended the first half of the season strong. After the winter break we were winless in our first 6 games back, but then went undefeated in our last 6. 

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A very solid upper-midtable finish in which we vaulted from 6th to 4th on the last day. We went from conceding the 3rd most goals last season to the second least which really helped us eek out some undeserved draws and wins. Dudelange win their 4th straight title very easily going undefeated in the process. After Dudelange there's a big gap and then Progres and Fola Esch make up the "2nd tier of teams." Then there's another big gap before the "3rd tier" of clubs which includes us, Differdange, and Jeunesse Esch. A very successful season but our work for the future is cut out for us. It's looking like Dudelange are going to be harder to topple than I originally thought.

Progress:

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Still no facilities upgrades in 3 seasons though I just got the board to agree to upgrade the training facilities. The league ranking took another drop which is not good but hopefully once we get into Europe we can help to rectify that. Our finances took a very small hit but that was due to our TV money decreasing by 60k out of nowhere. I haven't found an explanation for why it dropped so precipitously. The national team ranking takes a bit of a tumble but that's not too important. I actually got offered the job to manage the national team but turned it down. Too early in the save to take them over in my opinion. 

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