[FM18] Re-writing the DNA

[JohanCruyff#14]

My days of getting lost in a good FM save are not what they used to be, or at least don’t happen as often as they used too. Several reasons for that, two young kids, a demanding job, life in general. I’ve been playing Football Manager for over 20 years now, but still admit to struggling from time to time, particularly on the tactical side, as the game has gotten more in depth. Up until relatively recently, my playing patterns were predictable. I’d fire up a game and start a save as one of my three favorite teams, Aston Villa, D.C. United, or A.C. Milan. Over the last few years that pattern hasn’t been as enjoyable, partly because despite their real-world struggles, these teams were relatively easy to resurrect and make successful. I wanted a different type of challenge. Shortly after the release of FM16, I started a save with Italian Serie C side, A.C. Pavia, and got them promoted to Serie B at the first attempt. It was the most enjoyment I got out of a save in years, then not long into my second season, my laptop died, and that was that.

One of the facets that interests me most is club building, not building a team, building a club, for me this means shaping a club from top to bottom. This takes time of course. I finally got around to replacing that laptop and here I am with FM18, suffering from the same predictability pattern. So, I’m giving Spain a try. I have two aims here:

1. Find a team that has never enjoyed success at the highest level
2. Make them my club

The first aim easy to achieve, there are an abundance of such teams in any nation. The second aim, well that’s a little more obscure. But here’s what I want to do, build the club along a predetermined set of philosophies that are not necessarily outlined or guided by the board. Essentially, I want to shape the DNA of a club, or perhaps reshape it, like Arsene Wenger did with Arsenal in the first decade of his reign. And I see this being defined in 3 ways:

• Youth Development
• Tactical Philosophy
• Recruitment Policy

How do I hope to achieve these defining features of the club’s DNA? I have some basic ideas which I expect to evolve over time but here it is

Youth Development

Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Athletic Bilbao, each provide an excellent blueprint for strong youth development programs. I see this as having two main facets,

• strong youth recruitment network, which would include scouting and youth intake
• development program that will hopefully include both feeder and parent clubs, but also internal mentoring

If my aim is to choose a club on the lower end of economic scale implementing these plans is not going to be immediate, but that is the long-term goal.

Tactical Philosophy

The part I expect to struggle with most, mostly because I am not as tactically proficient as I should be. I favor an attacking approach and that will be the approach I take from the onset, for better or worse.

Recruitment Policy

Someone once said, ‘You can’t win anything with kids’, although he was proved wrong, the youth focus does need to be tempered with experience to aid their development. But I want the players at the club to have certain traits in common. With that in mind strong ratings in the following will be a must.

• Determination
• Work rate
• Teamwork
• Composure
• Concentration

All essential mental stats, that will become the backbone of the club’s DNA. Regardless of the other talents that a player may have, if they are lacking in these they are not going to fit, as a result my player search will use these as filters.

The rest, well we’ll figure out as we go. But, not in such a haphazard way, I will refer to some of the best the forums has to offer on all subjects as well as some of the best in Football writing, Inverting the Pyramid, Soccernomics, etc., I have a healthy book budget so if there are any other recommendations feel free to share. I don’t have all the answers, but the game would be pretty boring if I did.

Lastly, I don’t know for sure how long this experiment will continue, but my intention is to run it until the release of the next edition, presumably FM 19, but I will see how far I get and commit to that at least. In the next post I will share the club I chose to be the subject of this journey.

As always, any feedback is welcome.

[JohanCruyff#14]

 

Choosing the Club

Full disclosure before we go any further, I began a similar post about a week ago in the Good Player and Team Guide for a save I was running with Venezia, the save got corrupted so this is an effort to start over with the same approach and goal in mind.

Following that save I was hesitant to begin a new save in Italy, looking for a fresh approach. A brief discussion with zlatanera led me to Spain, at first looking at clubs in the Basque region that were not Athletic Bilbao. After briefly considering Real Sociedad, I decided to look for something lower down the divisions for something less established.

I will admit my knowledge of Spanish football outside of the top half of La Primera is not what it should be, however I did read Phil Ball’s Morbo about the game in Spain and recalled a chapter on Spain’s oldest club, a little bit of research refreshed the memory that the club was Recreativo Huelva, and despite a long history they had not really achieved anything of note outside of being the losing finalist in the Copa Del Rey in the early 2000s.

Now they are languishing in the basement of the Spanish professional game. In other words, they were perfect. I will have to fish out Phil Balls book and review the chapter on Recreativo here, as I feel it will be of more value than recycling a wiki post.

 

[noikeee]

Good luck with this, looks like a perfectly good place to start.

[john1]

Good luck  

[kidthekid]

interesting idea for a save. I hope it plays out nicely

[allezdae]

Antonio Nunez, once of Liverpool and Real Madrid, is still probably the star man at 37 or however old he is these days. Good luck!