[FM19] I got 1860 problems, but youth intake ain't one

[OlivierL]

love this story! started ( and got inspired by u) with 1860 and doing a youth only save with 5 loans allowed each season. Loving it but... what do u think about the München 2 squad ? I can't sign staff, can't control their training so I want to use the b team for transfer listed players and loan everybody else out..  but it is a wasted squad/option. 

[turnip]

41 minutes ago, Olivierlandman said:

love this story! started ( and got inspired by u) with 1860 and doing a youth only save with 5 loans allowed each season. Loving it but... what do u think about the München 2 squad ? I can't sign staff, can't control their training so I want to use the b team for transfer listed players and loan everybody else out..  but it is a wasted squad/option. 

I think the idea is that it's an option for young players who need game time to improve. 

But my B team has never been promoted up to the 3rd Division, and the manager only arranges 5-6 friendly matches per year, so it kinda fails on that front. Much like you, I've used it for players who've outlived their usefulness.

[OlivierL]

3 minutes ago, turnip said:

I think the idea is that it's an option for young players who need game time to improve. 

But my B team has never been promoted up to the 3rd Division, and the manager only arranges 5-6 friendly matches per year, so it kinda fails on that front. Much like you, I've used it for players who've outlived their usefulness.

So it's annoying but not a game 'breaker' for u ? I'm only in october but i'm always thinking about the future of this save   I can't even find a manager for the B team and when i set my DOF to find one.. he's doing nothing.

It's like a lot of B teams in spain or iceland.

[turnip]

It's up to you, really. SI have confirmed that most players get more benefit from training than game time until they're 18, at which point they get more benefit from game time.

Realistically, by the time they're 18, you'll probably have an idea about which players are likely to be good enough to play for your team (now, or in the future). At that point, they can still play for your U-19s, so you can wait for a space to appear for them or loan them out. 

You probably just need to be selective about which players you keep on once their initial contract has expired and ditch the ones who'll never make it.

But who knows, SI might 'fix' the II team not getting any fixtures.

[turnip]

Season 8, Part 7: End of the Season
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

League
Our form wasn't brilliant in the last 3 months of the season. Of our 9 league games, we won 4, drew 4 and lost the other. But, as with previous seasons, our opponents didn't really manage to put a convincing run together either. That meant that we sealed the title with an impressively-incompetent defensive performance against Mainz - their AML scored twice after being slipped in unmarked, while Doumbia - 18 yards out - passed the ball straight to an opponent for their third goal. Prokos in goal also made 4/5 great saves as I alternated between fist-pumping our (very good) goals and screeching with rage at the drunken iceskating-elephant defending on display. A horrible, entertaining game. 
    

Cup
We squeaked a 2-1 over Dortmund but dominated the Final in a fairly dull 1-0; Alvarez getting the only goal. 

Europe
Danso bagged both goals in our routine 2-0 win over Inter. That set us up with a tricky Quarter-Final against Leverkusen, which we won courtesy of three more goals from Danso. 
Against Arsenal, losing 1-2 at the Emirates was a fair result; as was stomping all over their faces in the return leg.
Meanwhile, Benfica beat Barcelona in the other Semi-Final, which set up an interesting Final at Old Trafford...

Edited January 7, 2019 by turnip

[turnip]

Champions League Final - live!

So, it's us versus Benfica. They beat Porto, Schalke and Barcelona to get here, so they're clearly no mugs.

 

5 minutes

An aimless ball forward is missed by the defender and Carstens is just about able to keep it in. His cross reaches Duarte, but the angle is tight and it's over for a goal kick.

 

27 minutes

My players knock it around in midfield for what seems like 5 minutes before a cross comes in, but Carstens can only head straight at the keeper from about 10 yards.

 

33 minutes

We win the ball back just outside our box and the ball forward gets to Phillip, who charges down the left wing and crosses. The keeper comes, then doesn't and Danso has an easy header that he doesn't miss. 1-0 to 1860 München!

 

35 minutes

Some good work down the left sees Benfica get their first shot of the game. It's deflected, then blocked and although it falls to another Benfica player, there's a defender there to clear.

 

40 minutes

From a throw-in, Wagener hoofs a ball over towards the corner flag. Phillip chases it down and puts in a decent cross, but Carstens - again - can only head at the keeper.

 

45+1 minutes

Our GK, Feldmeier, takes a Free Kick from just outside the Benfica box. It hits the wall and Benfica break, but their 60-yard shot hits the post and goes wide (and I immediately take him off DFK duty for this game)

 

Half-Time

We've had most of the chances, but only have the one goal to show for it so far. 

Edited January 6, 2019 by turnip

[turnip]

Champions League Final - Live: second half

No changes for the start of the second half, although with 12 substitutes on the bench, we've got plenty of options.

 

49 minutes

An 1860 corner from the right is cleared, but when Ebbers swings the return back into the box, the Benfica keeper can only parry Phillips' first-time header and the rebound is easily slotted away. 2-0 to 1860 München!

 

57 minutes

Benfica attack down the right, but the ball is cleared to Phillip, who gallops down the left and swings in a cross. A couple of 1860 players have their shots blocked and the ball is hacked clear

 

68 minutes

A Benfica corner is cleared, but the corner-taker crosses to the back post where his unmarked teammate can only slam a header against the crossbar, after which it is hoofed into touch.

 

71 minutes

A Benfica free kick just inside 1860's half is worked to just outside the box and the player has a shot, but it's straight at Feldmeier, who easily makes his first save of the match

 

78 minutes

Duarte gets on the end of a clearance from an indirect free kick he just took, gets into the box and shoots, but it's a comfortable save for the Benfica keeper

 

85 minutes

1860 take off Danso, bring on central defender Suljic and change to a 4-1-4-1 formation

 

87 minutes

Benfica get it out wide and put in a cross to the far post. It looks like there's a push on the DR, but nothing is given and Feldmeier has to make a double-save to prevent Benfica from scoring

 

92 minutes

Benfica are now playing with 4 up top and some quick passing sees them get the ball to one of their 4 strikers, unmarked, in the box, but he smashes it a few feet over the bar

 

    

Edited January 6, 2019 by turnip

[turnip]

Season 8, Summary
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Some good performances across the season. Danso showed that he's got an eye for goals in the big games, with 15 goals in 13 appearances in the Champions League, although his league form was somewhat less impressive. One of the newcomers to our Second XI - Bari - was inconsistent but basically unplayable on his day. The same goes for Mascaroni, who slotted in at MR due to an injury to Grasser and resembled what I imagine happens if you breed a Terminator with a Roadrunner. 
In terms of the youngsters, Kovacevic had a good first season at DC and Doumbia had another decent season without really blowing me away. I didn't see much development from Filipovic, but Füger had a run of games due to Phillip fracturing his skull in January and did alright - 13(5) appearances and not embarrassing himself. 
I do think we've reached the end of the road with Dismer, Tomic and Eschwaltrup. Tomic lost his place to Rodriguez, while Eschwaltrup spent most of the season on the bench. Dismer did play regularly, but that's more a failing of my scouts and youth intake than a factor of good performances. 

For next season, I'm prepared to have a bit of a clear-out. I've signed too many players (particularly up front, jeez) and we've got five potential 5-star players who will be eligible for the first team next season. And bear in mind that Duarte is now considered a World-Class player, at 4.5 stars; so those kids could be phenomenal. The two I'm immediately earmarking for game time are Pieri and Egermann. 
    

[turnip]

Youth Intake retrospective(s)
Youth Intake #2
Then:

- Gullenbeck(2a) has barely developed. We released him last summer and Bayern picked him up on a free, but there's nothing there.
- Ivan(2b) did okay in terms of development, but was always just not good enough. He had a couple of mediocre loan spells, then we flogged him for £10k in the January window
- Ahmetovic(2c) made a bit of improvement, but not nearly enough to warrant game time. We released him last year and now he's playing in Australia, albeit for a decent team
- Prokos(2d) then:  Prokos(2d) now:
- San(2e) has, again, done okay. He's made just enough development that I gave him a new deal last summer, but I think second tier is his level
Summary: a bit of a rubbish intake if we exclude Prokos. 

Youth Intake #3
Then:
- Moller(3a) has developed okay, but we're looking to move him on. He should still have a good professional career, mind you
- Kovacevic(3b) then:  Kovacevic(3b) now:
- Gerlspeck(3c) hasn't really had any game time with us, but my coaching team still rate him. Somewhat injury prone, mind you
- Auer(3d) got a new deal last summer, but will probably never play for us
- Doumbia(3e) - I didn't get a screengrab of him when he came through, but he's a solid member of the squad now:

- Filipovic(3f) has done okay in his two seasons as a regular starter, but I'm not sure he's got enough improvement in him, given how good Egermann is
- Tuting(3g) looked like a decent GK when he came through, but didn't really develop, so we sold him a couple of years back
Summary: a good intake, with three players being good enough to get Bundesliga Winners medals

[turnip]

 

Have I mentioned that Duarte is a bro? Because Duarte is a total bro

[turnip]

Season 9, Summer Transfer EXTRAVAGANZA!!!
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

I said that I'd probably have a bit of a clear-out and that's what happened. Buoyed by our Champions League win, the players got sizeable bumps to their values, which made selling some of them pretty easy. So, in no particular order, other than chronologically, we sold [deep breath]:
Sebastian Grasser: £10m to Austria Vienna -               Sebastian lost his place to Mascaroni last season and was never going to get it back, so toodle-oo
Matt Bennett 5c: £31m (£45.5m) to Southampton -   a bit out of the blue, this, for a player with only two starts under his belt. But, for that much money, I was never going to refuse (I would have accepted a lot less, but that was their first bid)
Pascal Eschwaltrup 1b: £8.5m to PAOK -                     didn't really play last season, wasn't going to play this season. Byeee
Jassim Al-Thani: £10m to Watford -                               too inconsistent and would have blocked a youth player from getting a place in match squads
Stanislav Tomic: £10m to FC Augsburg -                      I agreed this sale with a heavy heart, given how good he's been, but we've got two DLs who are a lot better and a young player who'll pick up the scraps, so Tomic was no longer required
Hans Ebbers: £39.5m (£58m) to Schalke -                   not a sale I was expecting to make, but it was good money and although he'd been good, I didn't think he was irreplaceable (although, as Albert Einstein said "Time vill tell; sooner or later, time vill tell")
Marvin Feldmeier: £20m to Shakhtar -                        with our new GK incoming, it was time to say goodbye to Marvin and his steadily-increasing desire for a new contract
Ignacio Silva: £15m to Mainz -                                       an injury in pre-season last year lost him his place in the side and he never got it back
Nestor Suarez: £25m to Porto -                                    started agitating for a new contract, annoying me in the process. We didn't make much money here, due to contract/transfer clauses, but we didn't lose out
Jorn Dismer 1f: £2.4m to Augsburg -                           had some really crap performances last season, so it was time for him to shuffle along
Nedzad Suljic 1c: £5m to PSV -                                     probably would have kept him for another season, but his contract was due to expire next summer, he was never going to get a new one and I agreed terms with someone better

If you've got your calculators out, don't worry. It's £176m

Players In
There wasn't quite the strength-in-depth to promote entirely from the U-19s, so some signings were required. Key incoming players were a Peruvian DC - an absolute bargain at £650k - a Brazilian GK for £750k plus extras, a Colombian MC for £1.5m and finally, on deadline day, a French DC for what will probably end up being around £35m (with a Transfer Budget of over £200m, I was seriously mulling this decision over. I'm such an idiot. )
My DoF also earned his corn by picking up a Nigerian ST from FC Midtjylland whose Work Permit had expired, for a deal that I brought forward for less than £9k; he's not first-team ready, but looks like he could be a very good player in time.
    

    

Barboza will partner Wagener in the Weekday XI, while Lefranc-Crepin will play alongside Kovacevic in the Weekend XI. 

[turnip]

Season 9, Part 2: August - September
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Cup
We lost in the Super Cup to Schalke on penalties.
In the German Cup, the Second XI put 9 past our unfortunate opponents and also hit the woodwork 6 times. Bischofswerda didn't manage a shot in the game.

Europe
The first Super Cup for the club was a game of two halves. In the first half, Tottenham were about as good as us and got the opening goal. Then in the second half, we brought Raguso on for Füger and he scored 3 goals as we kinda pummelled Spurs into the ground. 

In the Champions League, we were drawn in a group with Benfica, Antwerp and AEK. We won our opening game against Antwerp at Home: 1-0 but it should have been more. Then we went to Portugal and managed 25 minutes and one goal against before I changed formation; Duarte scored in both halves and set up second-half substitute Mascaroni for our 3rd as we smashed-and-grabbed our way to a 1-3 win. 

League
A somewhat tricky start to the season sees us 3-3-0 after the first 6 games. We've drawn our 3 Away games - to Bayern, Bayer and Hannover - and won our 3 Home games against Nurnberg, Stuttgart and Hamburger.

[turnip]

Season 9, Part 3: October - November
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

I forgot to mention that we finally moved into our new stadium - 15 months late. Our first game was the 2-0 win over Hamburger. We've played 6 games there so far and sold out 5 - Hoffenheim not managing to sell their allocation for their visit.
We are still playing our European 'home' games at Bayern's place, though.

Cup
We went 0-1 down and ended the game with 10 men after an injury to our DR Vazquez, but beat Hertha 3-1, with a 92nd minute penalty.

Europe
Three games in this period; three Attack vs Defense scenarios. AEK played with a back five + 2 DMs; while Antwerp went with a back four and 2 DMs. Three wins, though, so let's focus on that.

League
We've had some tricky games, despite the results. I'm not sure we've yet got the quality in midfield to break teams down easily, so if our opposition defend well, it becomes hard. The game against Mainz was probably the hardest, although a seriously biased referee and some apoplexy-inducing defensive ambivalence from our players meant we left it late to get the three points against trapdoor-bound St. Pauli. 

[turnip]

Season 9, Part 4: December - January
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Transfers

Nothing drastic this window. Robson Luis is a Brazilian DC we picked up on a free a few seasons back and probably would have played for us if we hadn't shot up through the leagues as we did. Of the loanees, Tchomou is a decent MR who should end up being a great MR but needs game time, as do Adekoya, Rato and Fuger. 

Incoming, there's Kone (a DL whose transfer we agreed years ago), a pair of youth players in Pugliese and Delic that my DoF went in for (pretty good picks, too, I dare say), an Iraqi MR because who doesn't love signing players from small nations and another DC from Ayacucho who can hang out with his old pal John Marquez, who popped his ACL while on loan at Frankfurt earlier in the season.
And then, on deadline day, I picked up a 17-year old MR who was unhappy at not getting enough game time with Made-From-Bull-**** FC and a defensivery Serbian.
    

Europe & Beyond
We beat Benfica... not easily, but we beat them. That's set us up against Man City while Benfica have Real Madrid. I think I'd rather have Real Madrid, but whatever.
In the World Club Cup, we won both games without really breaking a sweat. We went 2-0 up against Sundowns within 10 minutes and then coasted the rest of the game. Boca came out in a 4-2-2-2 and offered basically nothing all game - their 5 shots were all from outside the box and none were on target. 

League
The match against BMG aside - Pieri got 5 goals and their defending was utterly shambolic all game - we've continued to struggle to play well. The game against Augsburg was another for the "turnip accesses the parts of his lexicon he can't use at work" scrapbook, as they scored with their only two shots on target, both from set-pieces and then camped inside their own penalty area for the rest of the game. 
For a team that's set up to close opponents down, we do a remarkably poor job of it at times. 

[turnip]

Season 9, Part 5: February - March
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Youth Intake

(I ended up signing Altemeier as well as the ones above.)
Not an inspiring intake. Auer looks like he could be a decent False Nine in the future, while Bock is yet another Goalkeeper my HOYD thinks is going to be a world-beater (although Bock at least has decent attributes).
    

    

Cup
Our 0-1 win over Hoffenheim was yawn-worthy, as was most of our game against Schalke, until we scored in the 89th, 91st and 94th minute to seal the win.

Europe
We deservedly lost at the Etihad, but we went with a different formation in the return leg and ran rampant. 

League
Some tough games in February, but even with some (now familiar) poor performances, we came away unbeaten from the two months. The game against Bayern was a high point - it's always nice to beat them.
We're 8 points clear of Dortmund with 7 games to go, although there are some potential banana skins there [gives Mainz and Hertha an evil glare].

Edited January 26, 2019 by turnip

[turnip]

Season 9, Part 6: April - May
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Cup
If we left it late to make the game interesting in our Quarter-Final against Schalke, we left it late to even make it a game against Dortmund in the Semi-Final, scoring in the 81st and 82nd minute before Dortmund got a consolation in the 93rd.
In the Final, Duarte got a hat-trick and missed a penalty as we rather harshly beat Stuttgart 4-0.

League
A generally pretty okay end to the season. Aside from the draw against Hertha, where we went 2-0 up - completely against the run of play - and then were lucky to get a draw, we deserved the wins against Mainz, St Pauli and Koln that sealed the title for us.

Europe
We stormed to a 5-0 lead after the first leg to Spurs and the kept it straight-forward in the return-leg.
Although we lost to Liverpool at Anfield, Duarte had his Weetabix for breakfast and scored 4 when we brought them back to ours.
That set us up with a PSG team that had been all but fellating Duarte for the whole season, with three separate players telling him to "come to Paris, man". So it was with no little satisfaction that Duarte scored both goals as we beat them at the Stade de France. The Match Stats initially look fairly even, but we did also hit the post 3 times, so **** those oil-funded assholes.

Summary

Duarte edged over the threshold to hit more than one goal every 90 minutes, while Bari, Mascaroni and Danso also had pretty lucrative seasons in terms of their Goal Bonuses. Alvarez still comes across as our best MC (although I'm unconvinced), and Egermann had a pretty good first season in the team. Pieri didn't get as much gametime, mostly due to us using a 1-striker formation for a decent number of games, but he still looks like he could be a phenomenal player (although there isn't really a massive strength there aside from 'good at everything except Passing').
    

Youth Promotions
For next season, we've got a few interesting players who'll be available.
We've got a DR, an MR, a DC, and an MC.
As for outgoing players, I'm ready to sell Prokos, whose development has stalled. Vazquez - our DR - goes missing far too often in defense and doesn't offer enough going forward. We've also got some other players whose contracts are due to expire next season - Healy probably chief among those. We've got replacements if we sell him.
Most first team players are now asking for £150k - £250k p/w for new deals, which is a little steep for my liking for anyone not called Fernando Duarte. I'll probably have to budge on that for a couple of others, but we'll see.

[turnip]

Also, despite not really wanting to talk about it for a while, Duarte asked for a new contract and - because he's a good lad and basically utterly indispensible - he got one.

£240k p/w for 5 years. All other clubs: kiss my arse.

[turnip]

Youth Intake #3 - Then and Now

Then: 

Kenan Anil (4a):   

Adem Aksoy (4b):   

Jannis Feistle (4c):   

Dzemal Music (4d):   

 

This turned out to be a fairly poor intake. Anıl is about to spend his 3rd consecutive season on loan in the Bundesliga 2 - probably his level - while I flogged Aksoy this summer as he just wasn't making progress. Music just didn't make enough progress, much as I suspected when the Intake came in.

Feistle has turned out okay, though. I sold Prokos in the summer, so Feistle will get a slot in the Weekend XI; I'm still not 100% convinced and his progress does seem to have stalled recently, so hopefully the game time will be the catalyst for another burst of development.

As for the rest of the intake, there's only one other player who's still on the books: Umit Kaya, 5th from top on the original list. He's done okay and is also off to the second tier to get some game time, but I'm not expecting to give him a new contract once his runs out in a couple of seasons. Everyone else is either at a non-league team, retired or on £350 a week at a second-tier team (i.e. not destined for much)

[turnip]

Season 10, Part 1: August - September
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Transfers

Leaving were Stefanos Prokos for £10m to AEK and Adem Aksoy for £4.6m to Fenerbahçe - both moving to clubs of their second nationality. Belarmino was given the first half of last season to impress and mostly just earned shrugs, so off he went, while £15m for Vazquez was probably a bit too little (I'm glad to be rid of him, mind you). I spent most of the window trying to get rid of Craig Healey; Juventus finally came in with a £22m offer... for him to leave in January... when clubs could approach to sign him on a Bosman. Useful to have a handy 3rd choice DL hanging around until then, I guess. 
Omar Bari fits in that category as well - Bayern met his £84m release clause but he rejected them, while continuing to be annoyed at me for not giving him a new contract. Hopefully half a season on the subs bench will make him reconsider his position within the squad.

The players we signed make for a motley bunch. El Esawy the most exciting of the bunch; an Egpyptian ST who's taken Bari's spot in the Weekend XI. Stevanovic also looks like he could be a very good player, which he'd better be given the contract my DoF agreed. El Khatib was a cheapo signing of a DC my scouts reckon has 5-star potential, while Kowalski is another youth player my DoF picked up who looks very promising.
The rest are mostly me just messing around. Which explains the DL from Guinea-Bissau, the Estonian (also a DL, as it happens) and - right at the bottom - a 16-year old Model Citizen from a Spanish D2B club I spotted while idly browsing the Player Search for youngsters out of contract. (He's potentially got 3-star PA, mind you). 

Fixtures
We beat Dortmund in the Super Cup and then beat Dortmund in the Euro Super Cup. We also beat Dortmund in the league in a good September where we got our Goal Difference up to +10 in the Champions League (Slavia Prague are the other sacrif- uh, team, in our group) and road-tested our new formation in the league after some experiments of questionable utility during pre-season. 

Also, one of our players is out for a few weeks after being savagely mauled by a wild animal while our for a run. His Bravery has now dropped to 1. Moron.

Formation
As mentioned, I've introduced a new formation - specifically one for dealing with bus-parkers. One of the downsides of being the best club in the world being that a bunch of teams aren't keen on getting pasted (well, other than Red Bull Salzburg, anyway). So, after a bit of thinking, I've gone back to something I used in FM17: 4-3-3 strikerless. 

The idea is basically to get lots of players in and around the box. I haven't yet seen the sort of running-from-deep that strikerless formations seemed to thrive off in FM17, but early signs are promising: it dominates possession, the chances we create are good ones and we don't seem to give away many chances. The main downside is it does ask: "what about my excellent wingers" - a question I haven't really got a good answer for, although Phillip plays pretty well as a Shadow Striker and Carstens can play as an AP. Still, it's early days, but I'm encouraged by what I've seen so far.

[turnip]

From our Second round game against the team unofficially known as 1860 Rejects (Erzgebirge Aue)

[turnip]

Season 10, Part 1: October - November
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Competitions
A very good couple of months. We only dropped points against RB Leipzig, but it was a Home-heavy period. The win against Bayern was as sweet as always and given that they're second at the moment, means we've got a very healthy points cushion for this early in the season. 
Duarte has been ripping it up for us in midweek while the weekend goals have been spread around. 

We actually managed to get 47 shots in the game against Aue (15 on target), helped by their suicidally aggressive tackling that saw them to down to 10 men before half-time and finish the match with only 8 players on the pitch. Their first red card was shown to Nikita Kuznetsov, who started for us at DL in my first full season at 1860 Munchen. His sliding tackle was both magnificently-poorly timed and almost defied the laws of physics, so far did he travel across the turf. 

[turnip]

Season 11, Part 3: December - January
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

Transfers

Healy was the only notable departure, going to Juve as previously agreed. He'd only made the 4 appearances for us (two in the cup), so he won't be missed. Elsewhere, Bayern decided to sign former youth loser Christian Möller for their B team for no apparent reason.

The arrivals were also fairly muted. Chavos is a very promising Greek MR; Valenta a more-than-useful DC and Perini a DM my DoF picked up who is highly rated by my scouts and coaches (albeit not me, yet). We also signed a Mongolian DC (for a laugh) among our cheapo purchases. 

World Club Championship
We thrashed Al-Shabab in the Semi-Final, although the scoreline doesn't reflect the number of chances they had.
And then the opposite was the case in the Final, where we had chance after chance against Chivas, only to see them score from their only shot on target (from a corner) and frustrate us until fairly late on.

Other competitions
We had some tricky games - we often find it difficult against Mainz and Werder Bremen - but are still unbeaten in the league, while we strolled to a win against Salzburg in our final CL group game. That sets us up against Real Madrid in the First Knockout Round. Lovely.

In slightly irritating news, Egermann tore his hamstring in our game against Leverkusen, while Doumbia has wandered around the pitch for the first half of the season, collecting an average rating of 6.79 for his "efforts". What this means is that Roger Brummer (5b) is coming into the team to replace Doumbia while Haruna Diallo (5e) will pick up Egermann's slot for the time being. I'll look to sell Doumbia in the summer. 

[turnip]

Dear FM19 - injuring both of my first-choice strikers before the first leg of a Champions League knockout round is what we call 'round these parts a ****ing dick move.

Particularly when they only play once a week, so the usual "ooh, wear and tear" excuses don't apply.

'Duck cough', etc.

Edited February 22, 2019 by turnip

[turnip]

Season 11, Part 4: February - May
TSV 1860 München, German Bundesliga 1

German Cup
We lost in the Quarter-Final, going down on Penalties to Hertha in Berlin after a pretty even 2-2 draw.

League
We drew 1-1 twice in Away games during February (6 out of our 7 games were Away in that month) but managed to stay unbeaten. Meanwhile, Bayern lost to Dortmund and Nurnberg.
Which meant that we won the title on Matchday 29, Pieri getting both goals for our Weekend XI in the strolliest of strolls imaginable against Freiburg.

In the remaining games, we prevented Hamburg from getting a single shot but were otherwise pretty dire as we scraped a 1-0 win thanks to a penalty, Omar Bari scored in the 80th, 88th and 95th minutes to seal a 2-4 win at Schalke (amusingly, that turned out to be Hans Ebbers' 50th game for them, so they also had to pay us £12.5m straight afterwards), reverted to "pretty dire" to edge a 1-0 over Mainz and then swaggered to a 0-3 win against Wolfsburg on the final day to finish unbeaten in the league.

Champions League
We kept a clean sheet in Madrid but although they scored in the return leg, we were 2-0 up at the time and kept it tight in the second half before Duarte converted a pretty soft penalty to give the win a bit of gloss.
A pair of 2-1 wins over Dortmund were enough to see us through against them, although leaving it until the last 10 minutes in the second leg to get our goals would have left me feeling twitchy (if I hadn't IR'd the game). 
Against Barcelona, we dominated the first (Home) leg, only to draw 1-1. Luiz Phillip was out for that game, and then Sebastian Alvarez, Daniel Mascaroni and Malte Egermann all got injured before the second leg, and then we trashed them 1-5 (while also missing a penalty).

Which meant that we faced Man City in the Final. While I went to take a dump and get some beers, a reasonably entertaining 0-0 was played out over 90 minutes, then each side scored in Extra Time to take it to penalties. Oliveira went the right way for all of their penalties, saving the first, while we inexplicably managed to score all 5 of ours; even Pieri - usually utterly hopeless from the penalty spot - put his away. 

Summary
As the long gap between posts may indicate, I've mostly lost interest in this save. It's nice to put this on hiatus with the team where they are - and I've arranged the signings of a few potentially brilliant youngsters for the summer in case I do return to this save - but it's time for something different.
I'm not going to switch clubs within the save, as I set it up with the intention of this being mostly a one-club effort.

[turnip]

Having lost my other save to Auto-Save shenanigans, I popped back to this one, only to find that I hadn't ticked the 'Disable Use of the In-game editor' option when I started... because I didn't have the editor when I started.

So now I know which of my players are objectively the best ones  (these players may not actually be the best ones). Not something I wanted to know, to be honest.

Still, there's value to be had in many things, if you can be bothered looking for it. I've gone through my Youth Intakes, looked at the PA of the players who came through each year and compared the PA to how highly the players were ranked by my staff at the time. Just a little observational study of the competence of my staff.

Anyway, here is the list - by year of intake and then with the player identifiers, so 1a would be the most highly-rated player in the first year's intake, 1b the second-highest rated player, and so on. Next to that is their PA and how their PA ranks in that intake. (The "AN Other" listings represent a player I didn't give an identifier to at the time of the intake).

I've put it in a spoiler, as I know there are some people who don't want to know about the inner workings.

Spoiler

Discussion:

From 9 seasons, there are only 2 where my staff rated the best player (by PA) as the best one in the intake. There's a fair amount of variety in where that 'Best PA' player ends up in the staff rankings, including one season where they weren't highly-rated by my staff. That said, and remember I haven't used the editor in this save until now, the 'Best PA' player from each intake (except Intake 8) has had at least one season as a member of one of my XIs.

In 6 of the intakes, there's at least one player who wasn't highly-rated by my staff who ended up being better than a player who was. 

It's not quite the 'anyone could be the best player from your intake' lesson that some go by (my staff were rarely completely wrong), but it shows there's a reasonable amount of variation in how staff rank players. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Just posting something here to give it a blue dot to remind me to come back and read it in full.