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FM19 - Returning Everton to Glory


Joey Numbaz

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One more note ...  I am going to have to sell Sandro I think. We could use the cash, the bank balance is back at negative £16M again - they cut my % of transfer fees retained to 30%) and I really can't find time to play him. Pellegri, Richarlison and Dolberg are enough up front for me. Sandro is worth £19.75M ... need to cash in on him if someone will pay that. I might try the loan with future fee route.

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Hey hey, whaddya say? Everton has moved to the top of the table!

I am posting this now, because I think it's extremely unlikely we stay there for more than 3 days. As the Merseyside Derby is coming up in a midweek Wednesday match.

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It's been a pretty nice run. We've destroyed the Europa League group.

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There's a tricky group of matches coming up, on short rest. We aren't that deep. But ... Sandro Tonali has really starting coming into his own. He just makes some great passes. He's 19 years old, and has 15 vision, 15 technique, 16 passing, 16 composure, 14 decisions. He's tries killer balls often. He dictates tempo and tries long range passes too. He brings the ball out of defense. He can play Libero, DMd, DLPd, Carrilero or Mezzala. He's the guy to build the team around.

I think my master plan is to get this team into the Champions League, develop from within/build up the youth program. And sell a bunch of guys so I can save up £150M and buy Killian Mbappé in two years once we've had Champions League success. We'll see how it goes.

That being said ... we've had some luck. Against Cardiff, we needed a 90+3 miracle to win. Against Watford, we outshot them 24-6, but needed an 86th minute goal from Richarlison to pull the game out. So there is still work to do. We will probably lose at Liverpool.

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Quite the Merseyside Derby at Anfield.

I decided to go with the 433, as that's my best defensive formation. I think so anyway. Maybe it isn't. The tactical analysis says it's the Libero formation, but I'm not getting that feel.

Liverpool broke through first, Thomas Lemar scoring on the counter, there wasn't anything Pickford could do about it.

I thought we were playing OK, Dolberg actually had a point blank shot about 10 minutes into the game but shot it right into Alisson's chest.

Early second half, Lucas Digne lines up for our long throw routine (he's got a 15 for LT) ... and it worked! Richarlison scores!

The game was looking like it was headed for a draw, when disaster struck in the 88th minute. Roberto Firmino pressed HB Kristoffer Ajer (who was exhausted), stole the ball, and blasted a shot home from the top of the box to give Liverpool certain victory. Bummer.

However ... Late in stoppage time, we get a counter chance! Michael Keane hits a long ball to Dolberg ... and Virgil van Dijk heads it away.

But, AMR advanced playmaker André Gomes races down the right wing and beats Álex Grimaldo to the header ... he dribbles down the wing and sends in a beautiful cross to Dolberg running into the box and ... 

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Kasper banks it off the inside of the post with a beautiful placed shot (taught to him by our very own coach Dennis Bergkamp!) and it falls into the net. We have the equalizer!

I was very impressed with the squad. We were tired, away and played really well. Held our own with what might be the best team in the world. This team does not ever give up. Looks like Liverpool may be the capital city of European football for awhile.

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OK, so we've made it through the New Year holiday and the FA Cup 3rd round. Things are still going very well.

Transfer wise, I am planning to sell Sandro, Gana, and Mason Holgate. We have -£24M in the bank right now. There'll be money at the end of the year, but I've had my % of revenue retained dropped down to 30%. I still have a large transfer budget, £52.5M and a wage budget of £2.024M/week (spending £1.986M/week).

Sandro Tonali is coming into his own making Gueye irrelevant. He's not as good in the game as he is in real life. And he's a yellow card machine. He's 30 years old and worth £30M. Let's cash in.

Mason Holgate is fine as a backup DC, but I've got Kristoffer Ajer who can play DC/DM/MC and I want to start getting Pedro Justiniano more time in the first team. Remember I like smallish squads. Holgate is worth £12.5M so let's cash in.

Sandro the striker doesn't play enough and I've got Pellegri, Richarlison and Dolberg. I'd like to cash in here too. He's been fine as a back up, and his value is up to £22.5M. Let's see what we can get for him.

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I've got an offer for Sandro, £13M future fee after 5 games played, and £300K/month until then, and they are paying 30% of his salary as well. Hopefully he wants to go to Levante. It's not great, but I'll take it.

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Transfer business. I've added a Wonderkid striker for cheap!

Welcome to Merseyside, Juan Hernández! Cost me £5M.

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He's already had 2 caps for Columbia! I think he's better than Sandro right now. This is no brainer business.

Oh and ain't this a kick. I lose Hernández and Richarlison for two weeks due to CONMEBOL Olympic qualifying. Ick.

Good luck Gana, thanks for the memories. We wish you well. He's off to Preston.

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Team captain and leader Seamus Coleman was a little concerned, but when I asked him about it, he said the fact that I came and talked to him was good enough for him. He's a good dude.

Sando could not work out the deal with Levante.

Brighton have inquired and we negotiated £15M up front and £5M spread over 3 annual installments.

Looks like all I can get for Holgate is £6M now plus two £275K installments. I'm torn on that one. But leaning yes.

 

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52 minutes ago, Joey Numbaz said:

Sando could not work out the deal with Levante.

Brighton have inquired and we negotiated £15M up front and £5M spread over 3 annual installments.

And he rejects Brighton too. This is brutal.

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I guess I cannot go a whole window without at least one big signing. Welcome to Goodison, Houssem Aouar!

I have signed him at least 3 or 4 FMs in a row. But he's getting expensive.

I feel that if I am going to play the wide diamond more - and it's killing people right now - I need a great AMC. A guy with great work rate, technique, passing, vision, etc. He's a key player in this formation on both sides of the ball.

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It wasn't cheap, but this kid is a star. He is already working with coach Bergkamp on developing his weak left foot*.

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He's also training as a Libero! He seems perfect for the role. Rashidi uses him that way in his Lyon series as well. Must give credit where due.

Fingers crossed on getting rid of Sandro. Southampton came in with a £14M + £5.5M in installments. He'd better work a deal out with them.

EDIT: I should have waited to post - Sando took the deal from Southampton. Who we play tomorrow :-) Finances now have us with -£38M in the bank, and a little over £5M in the transfer budget (I only get to retain 30% right now).

I have decided to keep Holgate. Pedro Justiniano isn't ready yet and I like using Ajer as a DM or BWM/MC. Holgate is nice to have, especially if Keane or Mina gets hurt. If someone wanted to give me £27.5M for him - sure. But at £6.5M he's more valuable to me as a rotation DC.

 

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The other thing I could use is a #3 keeper. Pickford is solid of course, but he does get injured from time to time. Francesco Bardi is a capable backup, but I really need a 3rd stringer just in case. Darren Willets is my top prospect as a keeper, but he is a long way off. He's 16 and fluctuates between 2.5-3.5 and 3-4 star potential.

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Maybe I can find a prospect who is a little closer to being ready. Maybe deadline day will get a little more interesting here ...

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Yep, that was quick. Found a Polish 18 year old keeper, who could maybe be at least passable as a #3 keeper. I usually scout everyone to 100%, this guy only 55%. Here's the new table. I guess I picked well! He's 2.5-3.5 star potential, and a lot further along than my other keepers. Virginia is being held back by awful communication, first touch, and passing.

Also, this kid's name is Wozniak and I am a huge Apple guy. So this is a perfect fit. Only cost £900K and he's making £1.1K/week for four years. Boom!

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This was pretty funny though. Nope, honest Craig, we've been working on this for weeks. In no way did I just learn this guy's name 2 1/2 hours (in game time) ago.

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So here's the full transfer summary for the season. Net outlay was £28M. £171M paid, and £143M received. I like our trades overall.

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We have significantly added to the talent based and we are now much younger. Sky is the limit from here I think.

I only have 15 players to register. Because everyone else counts as a U21.

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Here's some more detail on Aouar ...

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He is 21, and already the best player on my team (by my ratings) as a DLPd, MEZa, AMa, AFa, APs, IFa, AMs, DLFs. He's perfect for the 433 as a AMR/APs. Second best to Digne on my "Cleon Libero" important attributes scale too.

And right now he's 3.5 stars, with 4-5 star potential. Hopefully he's going to get even better! This was a no brainer buy at this price.

I am super excited about this.

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I feel like I have done a good job keeping the players fit. And I feel like the young guys are still developing and the old guys are maintaining.

My secret? It's simple. First, I hire as many physios as allowed, and at this level after the first window, it's not to hard to make sure they are all 19 and 20 rated.

But, I think that's minor. The real thing is that I listen to them.

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Every morning, I make sure these columns are matched up. For the seniors, U23s and U18s.

It's a royal micromanagement PITA, as SI still doesn't allow for mass edit (highlight everyone you want to set to the same intensity, then just change one and they all change - that doesn't work). But I guess it's worth the effort. It's part of why it takes me a month or two to play a season too I suppose. Well mostly that's because simming each Saturday takes about half an hour since I have every possible league live and use the full engine for all games in the world, even youth matches :brock:. But having to set up the training intensity every day is a pain.

@Seb Wassell incredible guru of training, I know I've asked for it before, but just wanted to drop in a reminder as we've had several updates since my last ask regarding the highlight them all option. If that doesn't work, can't SI give us a "set to physio recommendation" choice on the Training > Rest > Training Intensity Scheduling section? It's awesome that we get the physio recommendation. A bummer that we can't use it easily.

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  • SI Staff
25 minutes ago, Joey Numbaz said:

 

@Seb Wassell incredible guru of training, I know I've asked for it before, but just wanted to drop in a reminder as we've had several updates since my last ask regarding the highlight them all option. If that doesn't work, can't SI give us a "set to physio recommendation" choice on the Training > Rest > Training Intensity Scheduling section? It's awesome that we get the physio recommendation. A bummer that we can't use it easily.

Unfortunately it's not something we can do at the moment, but we're aware of it and will look into it for future versions.

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I've appreciated reading this!  I'm attempting to start my own save using (a much less in depth version of) your spread sheet.  Definitely love the idea (even if all of the numbers are a bit overwhelming haha).

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 16/03/2019 at 23:22, coolestrock said:

If someone could talk me through the calculations

First read up on how Harmonic mean works, but the idea is to use the major attributes twice. For a mezzala on attack, dribbling is a major attribute, finishing is a minor, etc.  So the formula would work like: (15^-1 + 15^-1 + 16^-1 +...)^-1 / 24 (24 is the total number of attributes when a major attribute counts as 2).  It's going to be a pain to not use a spread sheet and do it by hand, but good luck! :)

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11 hours ago, coolestrock said:

i'm not sure its the best way to pick a starting 11 or buying players

I think that @Joey Numbaz has said in the post that the formula is just to be used as a guide - it helps you to see if a player is or isn't good in a particular role.  There was a discussion somewhere in this thread that mentioned at BWM with very low aggression and how he has a low harmonic mean.  I don't think that just picking your 11 best players based off their harmonic mean and sticking them in their best roles will work.  This is more of a method to aid your understanding of how your players fit in a system.

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On 16/03/2019 at 23:22, coolestrock said:

If someone could talk me through the calculations and how to do it i would be grateful , bearing in mind i am not using a spreadsheet , i would rather write it down 

I replied the same to your PM, but just in case others care ... also, sorry for the slow reply, I started a new job March 11, and haven't had much time to play, let alone post since then. I hadn't been on the site for a few weeks.

You don't 'add' the numbers , you just enter the numbers individually. So let's say you want to weigh the major attributes 2x and the minor attributes 1x. Majors are 15, 10, 14, 12, 18, 7, minors are 13, 17, 9. You'd enter the following numbers:

15, 15, 10, 10, 14, 14, 12, 12, 18, 18, 7, 7 13, 17, 9 - does that make sense?

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On 01/04/2019 at 17:43, leland gaunt said:

Really inspiring to read, how did you go on?

Thinking about also doing an Everton save...

So far so good! I got inspired by the latest Rashidi tactic, his "Liquid 2.0" and decided to tweak my 4-3-3 to match that. It plays on very attacking which is fun. I debating whether or not to play it in the biggest Merseyside Derby in decades for the next match:

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That's the table heading into today's game! Here is the way we ended up there.

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The system worked pretty well against Levante and Aston Villa. The first leg and first game we played it against Levante was pretty crazy. Mason Holgate went out with a straight red on 19' with us having a 1-0 lead. He was sent off the same minute during which we scored. Levante scored at 41, but we continued to push and Sandro Tonali blasted a 25-yard shot from above the box into the back of the net on 77'. A great win. We outshot them 16-11 despite being down a man most of the game.

I won't have time to play the Liverpool game tonight. Will have to think about it all day!

The team is really gelling. It's been a lot of fun, if we could somehow win the Premier League and the Europa League that'd be great. We've already clinched the Champions League berth for next year. I think we are on our way.

 

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I have three tactics to choose from, the very attacking 4-3-3, dafuges wide diamond 4-4-2 and the Libero 5-2-1-2 ... trying to figure out what would match up best against Liverpool's 4-3-3 playing at Goodison. The whole season is on the line. Win and we have a 4 point lead with 3 games left (Liverpool does have a game in hand). Draw and we remain 1 point ahead, but they have the game in hand. Lose and we fall 2 points behind and with their game in hand, it's over.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well, I've played out the season, and moved to the summer, the Champions League Final just completed, with me in attendance as a spectator, as Liverpool won their 2nd consecutive title, defeating PSG 2-1. They dominated, but the deciding goal came late, and PSG had some great chances to equalize too. It was a classic.

So how did things finish up for my Toffees? We beat Liverpool 2-0 to move into the driver's seat. It was closer than that, they outshot us, but we were fortunate and won behind two Pietro Pellegri goals. The kid just turned 19 and is a monster:

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£47M well spent. 15 goals in 29(5) league games, 5 more in 6(6) Europa League games.

Unfortunately, with the title in our sights, up 1-0 against Manchester City a couple of days after Liverpool, disaster struck, one misplaced pass at midfield and City hit us on the counter for the equalizer at 90+2. Heartbreak. From 4 points up with 2 to play (Liverpool had a game in hand though), to only 2 points up, essentially down a point with Liverpool's game in hand assumed a win.

Up next was the Europa League semi-final tie with Valencia. We were coasting 2-0 in the home leg when we gave up a penalty at 85'. So Valencia was heading home with an away goal.

In leg 2, they hit us immediately, scoring 2 minutes into the game. Yikes. But Dolberg got one back 7 minutes later. We are up 3-2 in the tie at this point, with away goals equal. We were leaky on this day though. I could feel it slipping way. They put up 20 shots, 12 on target. Shots went into our net at 27' and 46' - another goal at the start of the half. Ick. Now we are down 4-3. But off of a throw in young superstar Sandro Tonali blasted a shot from the top of the box the went in the upper left corner, to give us the lead on away goals, 4-4! But Valencia continued the pressure, and Michy Batshuayi completed his hat trick at 76'. Things were looking glum.

At 82' André Gomes delivered a corner to Pellegri in the box, his header went to Michael Keane who put it in the net, 5-5!! What a game. We were off to the final against Inter Milan.

Between that we kept the pressure on Liverpool with a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough.

Liverpool didn't lose. Or draw. So headed into the final day of the season we had a shot at the title.

Liverpool 89, Everton 88. Liverpool with goal differential advantage.

Wolves 15-13, 9 draws v. Everton 27-3, 7 draws
Liverpool 28-4, 5 draws  v. Manchester City 22-10, 5 draws

Come on City!!

Turns out it didn't matter. WE GAVE UP ANOTHER GOAL IN THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE FIRST HALF. What the heck is going on here? Three halves in a row where the opponent scored in the first 2 minutes.

And that was all she wrote. No more goals. We outshot them 11-5, but we only put 2 on target and lost 1-0. For my sanity's sake, it wouldn't have mattered. Liverpool won 3-1.

So yes, Liverpool won ALL OF THE THINGS. Their 2019-20 will go down in history. They won the League Cup, they won the League. The following weekend they beat Chelsea, 1-0 (on an 85' goal) to win the FA Cup. They beat PSG for their 2nd consecutive Champions League Final (they beat City 2-0 in the Final last year). That 2-0 win to keep the title hope alive looks pretty good in that respect.

We might very well have been the 2nd best team in the world this year (we are pretty clearly top 5-10 now). We are also the 2nd best team in our city. Ugh.

Oh yeah, the Europa League Final!

I decided to try something new since we'd been sort of struggling. Cleon is posting about a WM over on his Tea and Busquets blog, so with 2 days of practice I decided to run that out there for the Europa League Final! Why not? Dolberg got hurt and wasn't able to start to Pellegri did.

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It played super fun. Remember that 3-6-1 Spielverlagerung article people have been trying to emulate?

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It's pretty cool and fun. Also fun ... after a scoreless first half, we won 4-0, and outshot them 25-4. New signing young superstar Houssem Aouar led the way with 2 goals and covered 8.2 miles, more than anyone on the pitch. I think that's like 1000 kilometers or something.

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So there you have it. We won the Europa League and the Community Shield. Liverpool won everything else. Yay Merseyside!

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I think this is going to be the new main tactic. It fits my players really well. I have to decide if Yerry Mina is the one to be that main (only) central defender. I may go out and try to find a monster to play there and spend all of the money on it.

Teasing the next post or two, I'll go over financials, and then how I completely revamped my scouting. I did real research, like a day of data entry even, to figure out which countries to scout, how often small countries actually create players that might be worth looking for, etc.

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I guess when you do well they give your players awards. Here are some:

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Richarlison was 3rd for the Premier League Golden Boot with 17 goals (Kane 22, Firmino 18).

We also had 3 different players (Dolberg, Ajer, Pellegri) win the Young Player of the Month Award.

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People want Kristoffer Ajer. They can't have him! City and PSG have both come offering. United is interested too. I tried to renegotiate but he wouldn't have it.

Rejected City, no issue. These guys are offering in the neighborhood of £25M (could get to £35M) for him. I would not sell him for £75M. He is a huge part of everything I do.

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He's 6'5", he can play DC/DM/MC, even dabbles at DR. He's not that fast, but he's giant, has the mentals and he's only 22. He brings the ball out of defense, has 16 vision. He's on his way to being something like Sergej Millinokovic-Savic.

So after I rejected PSG, he complained. Turns out all he wants is a little more money. From £75K/wk to £94K/wk. I said how about £90K and he's fine with that. The lawyers are drawing up the paperwork as I type.

I thought about bringing in Luka Modric on a free. He'd be a cool rotation player. I love him, and he could mentor the young first teamers. He thinks he's a key player still. So no dice.

I thought about bringing in Keylor Navas on a free. He'd be a cool backup for Pickford. And he could mentor the young first teamers. He thinks he's a key player still. So no dice.

We've got some new young guys. I'm especially excited about Hewitt. He's English, professional, he cuts inside, which could be really interesting for a CWBa. He's got bravery, and starting from a solid base and I can develop the marking/tackling/positioning so I can stick him in the midfield. That versatility it really helpful for someone who plays like I do too, changing tactics all the time, etc.

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***

As far as senior team transfer strategy, I do not have one. I mean if I could get someone like de Ligt or Milinkovic-Savic I would do that of course. But they aren't available they are already with Arsenal and Barcelona.

If I could get a monster DC I would. But that's about all I can see.

I like my players. I've got the youth teams now with at least a 2.5-3.5 star starter at every position, except for my U23 keeper who is 2-3 star.

U18s

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U23s

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So I will continue to troll around for high potential youth ... more on the new scouting strategy soon. Need to find the time to write it up.

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I may as well throw the senior team up there too.

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I cannot get Onyekuru a work permit. We've got Brexit coming soon too. I wonder which one I'll get. I'd like to just sell him at this point. Not sure what I am going to do with Vlasic either.

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Ok, scouting!

First the process, then maybe some charts. What I was trying to figure out was, 'what matters in terms of countries producing great Potential Ability players'. Is it all youth rating? Does importance of soccer (Very Important, Important, Unimportant, No One Cares) matter? Does economic ability (1-20) matter? What about development level (1st, 2nd or 3rd world)? Is there a bonus for being from Europe and/or South America that doesn't show up in these ratings?

I've seen the websites that show the youth rating for each country. I have FMRTE18 and if you go in there, you can get the actual numeric youth rating from 1-200. So these numbers aren't too hard to find if you look.

So I took 99 countries, ranging from 1.5 stars (41) to 4.5 stars (163). Pretty much any country that might have something useful, all the way down to the likes of Armenia and Haiti.

My first thought was take the three highest value players on the national team for each of these 99 countries. Use the harmonic mean of these three (to reduce the rating of a country having one superstar but little else - like say Salah from Egypt or Pulisic from the US). Examples (in millions of £).

86-73-67=70.6
64-37-13.5=25.5
89-17.75-8=18.0
21.5-4-3.3=5.1

That's a country's 'score'.

Then I ran a multiple regression in excel to get an idea for what's important. It was tougher than I thought. Which means 1) it's complicated, good on SI, 2) maybe I wasn't coming up with the best way to 'rate' a country's talent. I was able to get R-squareds approaching .7 for you stat heads out there. But there wasn't clear delineation, like a 3 star very important is always better than a 3.5 star unimportant or anything like that.

Then I thought wait a minute. I have an FM2018 save that got to 2024. So that has like 6 seasons worth of newgens. And those player values are influenced by how much time players have on their contracts, and the players covered are old guys. I'm looking for youth.

Digression - I don't want to find the actual SI formula. I like the fog of war. But I wanted something objective to go on. Does India EVER develop a world class player? Does Haiti? China? Countries like them? I don't need to know exactly how the formulas work, but I also don't want to waste time scouting these areas if there is no hope. I was surprised as to the results.

Back to the methodology. I went to each of the 99 countries, and noted the following:

Youth rating (by number not stars 1-200 scale)
Development Level (1-3)
Economic Power (1-20)
Importance (VI-I-U-NOC)

For score, instead of the top 3 by value, I looked up each country, and took the 5 highest Potential Abilities of U20 (born 1-1-2003 or later) on any level of national team for the country. So these are all newgens. Then I made the score the Harmonic Mean of the 5. Why PA? Because it's generated when the player is "born" and cannot change. It isn't subject to any outside influence, like coaching, etc. - as far as I know of.

I could not find any correlation with economic power at all in terms of PA of these countries' newgens. Now maybe 1st/2nd/3rd world just does the same thing and works better for predicting. Maybe there is some combination of the two that works that I didn't stumble upon. So I dropped that out of the regression.

The best country had newgens of 185-178-177-176-174; the worst had 99-96-94-90-89. So yes there are some countries it's not worth bothering with to scout as a major team in England.

India - turns out they did generate a player with a PA or 153 and another at 129, next best were 90, 76, 70. They have an 86 youth rating, 2nd world country and soccer is unimportant to the country. Even there, they did generate one potentially pretty excellent player.

But ... there's a lot of random. Check out Bahrain - 85 rating, 2nd world, and no one cares about soccer. They had 5 players of 137, 136, 135, 133, 129. There's no reason India couldn't do the same.

So anyway, my formula turned out to be:

Rating * .4 + Dev *1.8 + Imp * 2.6 + 71.5

The R-squared is .69, so it explains about 2/3 of the observed ratings of newgens. The rest is luck/things I didn't think of or couldn't model.

Rating = Youth Rating
Dev = 1st world 10, 2nd world 6, 3rd world 1
Importance = Very important 10, important 7, unimportant 3, no one cares 1

I then took this score and weighed it 2/3 and took the actual harmonic mean of the top 5 players and weighed that 1/3. For a final country score.

Turned out 5 countries ended up way above everyone else, scoring 172-178 (France worst in group - Germany first in group).

Next pack was 8 countries between 159-167 (Colombia - Netherlands).

Then a big group, 43 counties between 138-152 (Slovakia - Japan).

The moral of the story is that great players can be found everywhere. The #38 and 39 countries came up with players with 178 and 181 PA. The #30 country never came up with a player higher than 137. Scores for these counties:

#30 - 91-1st-VImp-135 ... In theory that country should have 5 players whose harmonic mean is 152. That's bad luck.

#38 - 84-1st-Imp-150 ... That country should only score 141.

#39 - 76-1st-Imp-155 ... They should only score 138.

So that's why I weighed the observed score 1/3. Maybe there is something I missed. Maybe continent or region matters. The observed results would cover that. And I'm just lumping them into big groups anyway.

The 28 counties combined that were 72-99 - they only came up with 3 players total at 140 or higher. They are probably not worth the time to uncover that diamond in the rough, unless you have like 40 scouts or something.

So my general conclusions are:

1) Amongst the top 70 or so countries you can find good PA players. That's more than I realized.

2) There is a lot of randomness. This is good - forces you to scout more places, as highly rated countries can have bad luck and medium rated countries can have good luck.

Example - Country 1 - 138-2nd-VeryImp - that team should score super high - like 163. That's top 10 in the world. They had the output over 5 years that you would expect from Thailand (136-135-129-126-126).

Example - Country 2 - 94-2nd-Imp - that team should be middle of the pack exactly 50th - score would be predicted to be 138. They had newgens of 167-159-156-155-154. That's what we could expect from #13 Belgium!

Good players are everywhere. Well not really in places like Vietnam and Haiti. But there are dozens of countries worth scouting for good young newgens..

So I'm spreading out. More on how I'm going to implement this in the next post.
 

 

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I built a spreadsheet to track all of this. I have the countries, region, scout assigned and then a column for each month, with the date newgens arrive (that will have to be updated each year). Also included my scouts knowledge of each country. This took some time. Here's the current part of it:

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So you can see the color codes. That goes back to the groups I made before. blue for the top 5, teal for the next 8, green for 14-56. I will know every newgen worth knowing in those countries if possible. Each will have a dedicated scout, of my 21 scouts (including the chief scout).

The yellows are more 'as available'. The orange and pink I'm keeping track of just in case, but unlikely to send anyone there.

So on the start date (newgen arrival date) the scout will be sent with an assignment to scout players age 17 and under, until finished. In the early going, this will require scouts to build up knowledge where I don't have anyone with the knowledge. I'm estimating these will be 60 day assignments, but they may be longer or shorter, I am not sure yet. Obviously a scout cannot be in 2 places at once.

I am leaving 3 scouts unassigned. These are my best scouts. They will be available for scouting things like the Champions League, major youth tournaments, etc. They will also act as 'cross checkers' they'll validate the reports of other scouts by giving reports on top prospects discovered by the local scouts. And one of them will provide next opposition reports too.

It took awhile to set up, and I've only got the summer/fall scouting set up right now. So I'll see how that goes and then set up for the rest of the year. There are a bunch of newgens released in early January and then in late February/early March. So each scout will probably end up with 3 countries he or she is responsible for.

I am really hoping for the Brexit where I get to have 17 foreigners registered. I haven't had that before. If I get hard Brexit, a lot of this will be for nothing. I mean it will be good to start tracking these players from the time they are 15-16, but I'm not going to be able to sign them until they are good and expensive. I'll have to double down on the UK at that point.

My goal is to only sign players 18 and under once things are cranking. Once we leave the EU, it's going to be tough to sign non-UK players for the U18s since they can't sign until they are at least 17, at best I'll get them for half of a U18 season.

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Finance update.

The board has agreed to a stadium expansion, around 4,000 seats for £15M and it will be complete in about 15 months. August 29, 2021 to be exact. It's June 20, 2020 right now.

We have £2.9M in the bank. The transfer budget is £24.2M, but I could jack it up to £62.2M if I want to. I am only allowed to keep 45% of revenue, but I might sell someone anyway. I hate during the season how the cash balance drops so low. Like by last May we had -£51.67M in the bank. We'll have Champions League cash rolling in this year, so hopefully that graph stays above the bar more.

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Also, I didn't realize it, but we'll be playing Liverpool in the UEFA Super Cup! It's a dumb friendly 3 days before the season starts which kind of sucks, but we'll get paid £3.14M or £4.04M if we win. So that's pretty sweet.

The wage budget is £2.84M/wk; but our committed spending right now is £2.07M. So plenty of room to hand out some raises, we've got some underpaid players. Tonali is making £20.5K/wk for the next 3 seasons, obviously I can't keep him there, stuff like that.

 

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Wow. We are also playing Liverpool in the Community Shield, since they won all of the things last season. We got 2nd in the EPL, so we get that. And we don't even get money for it.

And they are our second fixture of the season. So check this out. We play Liverpool August 2, 12, September 5 (they moved Super Cup due to the League playing Wednesday August 12/19). Community Shield, EPL, Super Cup.

Somehow we play Saturday/Wednesday/Saturday/Wednesday/Saturday to start the EPL season (August 8-22), what is going on? Is their some major schedule shift coming in a few years?

 

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17 hours ago, Joey Numbaz said:

Wow. We are also playing Liverpool in the Community Shield, since they won all of the things last season. We got 2nd in the EPL, so we get that. And we don't even get money for it.

And they are our second fixture of the season. So check this out. We play Liverpool August 2, 12, September 5 (they moved Super Cup due to the League playing Wednesday August 12/19). Community Shield, EPL, Super Cup.

Somehow we play Saturday/Wednesday/Saturday/Wednesday/Saturday to start the EPL season (August 8-22), what is going on? Is their some major schedule shift coming in a few years?

 

Absolutely amazing information you've produced earlier for the scouting, a lot of the numbers and formulas go right over my head. But the detail is immense.

I know from doing network games that schedules for games can be sent to Wednesday/Saturday (obviously to speed up the game time) no idea if that is something you may have included when setting up... although would surely have noticed this previously?

Maybe something to do with the winter world cup?

Again, amazing to see the effort you put into your save, really enjoy reading this stuff!

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12 hours ago, WillHoward42 said:

I know from doing network games that schedules for games can be sent to Wednesday/Saturday (obviously to speed up the game time) no idea if that is something you may have included when setting up... although would surely have noticed this previously?

Thanks for the info. I don’t remember setting this up. Didn’t notice it before but I’ll check next time I have the game open.

The World Cup isn’t until 2022, and there are schedule changes there, weird this would start now, I’m only headed into the 2020-21 season. Maybe the moved the international breaks for qualifying too?

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I don't see anything like a major break in December (like if they also shifted World Cup qualifying). Just a really weird first few weeks. They compressed the schedule. We start August 8, end May 9, but the Champions League Final isn't until May 29. Usually there's a two week gap, this time there is a 3-week gap.

Ah wait ... I have a two week match gap, from January 30 to February 13. Half the league plays on the February 6, and half the league plays February 13.

Then the league has no matches scheduled between March 13 and April 3. The FA Cup 6th round is March 13, and the Semifinal is April 3, so there are no FA Cup games in there either.

Looks like FM19 is incorporating the new 'winter' breaks for Premier League clubs. Which is kind of cool, but the front loaded schedule is insane.

I would think they could extend the season to May 16, play the FA Cup Final May 22 with the Champions League Final May 29.

I like the extra gap since I am planning to play in the Champions League Final :brock: But 3 weeks is a long time between matches in terms of sharpness, if we don't also make the FA Cup Final. So we'll have to pull a Liverpool and just win everything in 2020-21 I guess.

 

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In case you want a preview of Euro 2020

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Rough draw for the Three Lions ... I attended the Germany/Portugal game in Munich - and saw Evertonian André Gomes score the winning goal!

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Ouch, Rúben Neves heads from Wolves to United. £67M. I really like him. United are going to start getting better again. They have also picked Milan Skriniar from Inter for £73M in this window.

Liverpool has added Alexandr Golovin from Monaco for £57M, and Arsenal paid the same for Ryan Sessegnon from Fulham.

I'm guessing the competition are going to be spending a lot this summer.

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We have reached June 29, 2020 - Players have reported to training camp!

First some sad news. We knew it was coming, but club icon, Leighton Baines has retired. I'm glad I was able to get him a couple of trophies before he did.

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This does bring one thing to my attention. We are pretty weak at DL after Digne. If he gets hurt, we are probably playing Almamy Touré on the wrong side over there. I could probably play André Gomes there in a pinch, especially in a situation where we need more scoring than defense.

Here are the potential candidates. I've included their ratings at other DL positions so you can see who can actually play defense back there too. The guys that don't have at least 13 at the other positions really aren't good enough if I expect any defending at all. Which means I'd need to have a monster at Anchor Man DMCL to carry a guy who can't get back to defend at DL. So fingers crossed Digne can stay healthy. I'll probably have to sign someone for cover.

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Here's the training plan. We need to learn the tactic. And get these guys into shape. We are going to a training camp in New York, NY from July 6-16. There will be another game on July 19, the final of the Mother Noblett's Cup. But other than adjusting for that, this is what I am planning to do.

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And here are the coaches:

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And the preseason expectations, that's a lot of competitions, wow! And you can see where I park my car too.

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Wow, Leicester (recently relegated) is going to give me £6.75M for Jonjoe Kenny! That's like free money. I would pretty much never play him. He hasn't developed at all in 2 years.

I can't get Henry Onyekuru a work permit. He's OK, but he'd have trouble cracking the lineup anyway. He also hasn't developed much while on loan the last two years. He's hopefully headed to either Valencia or Schalke, for £15M + 25% of the profit on a future sale. He'd better agree to terms with one of them.

Callum Connolly, another guy that would never play for us, and hasn't developed a lick will fetch £1.5M + 20% of future profit from Bristol City as they try to get out of the Championship.

I think the cash from these three, if they work out - £23.25M - should finally, combined with Champions League money keep us in the black for the foreseeable future, should I play it close to the vest and not go after a major senior transfer.

 

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All three are officially sold, woo hoo! We now have £23.7M in the bank, and a transfer budget between £34-£67M depending on how much I add to the payroll. They still won't give me any more scouts (I have 20), physios (9), or coaches (13). :seagull:

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So that was one helluva Euro 2020 wow! Croatia proving the World Cup was not a fluke. Devastating loss 1-1, 4-3 on penalties in the Final as Spain returns to the top. But still one heckuva run. Same for England. 

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Arsenal came calling for Pickford. Offered a lot of money (potentially £57M). He was angry when I wouldn't let him leave. He said that he wanted to leave to play with better players. Uh ... 88 points to 68 last year. We won the Europa League too. You are already with better players.

I mentioned the great dressing room atmosphere and camaraderie. He didn't really care. But some money did the trick. He got a raise from £100K/wk to £120K/wk and a nice signing bonus. And his jerk agent got £2.8M too. So he's staying. Whew.

Training camp in New York City when well. We even had a nice team bonding session at the end of the trip.

Now the friendlies begin. The Mother Noblett's Cup is today at Goodison Park! We are relatively healthy heading into it. Unfortunately Richarlison, Houssem Aouar, and Sandro Tonali are all off playing in the Olympics. If their teams make it to the final they won't be back until after the opening game, which is awful. Why are we starting August 8 FA?!

I am kind of bummed, we only sold 14,888 tickets, you'd think the fans would want to see the boys in action for the first time since the Europa League Final!

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Metz is coming off of a 3rd place finish in Ligue 2. Local 'rivals' Tranmere barely stayed in the league last year, finishing 18th in League Two. Beerschot-Wilrijk was selected because their name has beer in it, they finished 2nd in the Proximus League last year (Belgium's 2nd division).

I am going to put most of my best team out there against Metz and let the chips fall where they may with backups and kids in the final. I want to build the partnerships in the new tactic. Captain Coleman has a tight thigh, so I'll save him for the final and start Almamy Touré in the opener. He's should be kind of moving into the #1 DR spot anyway as the season progresses. Coleman has been getting hurt a lot and this year will be the final transition I think. Pickford picked up a knock in training camp, so we'll sit him out of the opener too.

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This did not go well to start. Metz had two clear cut chances in the first ten minutes. Yikes. Balls over the top are going to be an issue for me.

Davies grabbed us a goal on a long shot from about 20 yards out at 28'. We outshot them 16-5, 7-1 in the second half, but they scored on their one shot. Touré got beat by the left winger and he crossed it from the byline inside the box to the running striker. We definitely need to work some things out. 10 of our shots were long too.

So yeah, we went to penalties with a Ligue 2 team. Ouch. We did beat them 4-3 on the penalties, but ick. That was a rough showing.

I won't be able to play the final until tomorrow. Too tired. But there is much work to do.

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OK, I stayed up and played it. Beerschot-Wilrijk beat Tranmere 4-1, so we got them.

Things went a little better this time. We won 7-0.

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That shot chart is concerning though. The Beer guys did settle back and play 4-2DM-2WM-1-1 defensive formation. But man, that's a lot of long shots.

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Cruising right along, we just destroyed Vitória Sport Club. Guimarães finished 4th in Portugal last year, a Europa League side.

The final was 3-1, but we outshot them 23-3. Keane made a mistake when he was tired and we were up 3-0 at 71' for them to score. We outshot them 14-0 in the first half. And ... only 5 long shots.

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Keane needs experience at DM, but I'm starting to be encouraged.

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I am getting ready to dabble in the transfer market. I'm looking to bring in a better backup keeper Jasper Cillessen, a spirited player from Barcelona. He's going to cost me £4.5M in transfer fee and nearly as much in signing bonus. Another tough agent.

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And the big one - I'm bringing in Fernandinho. He's 35, but he's a model citizen, and he can still play. I'm thinking he, Keane and Mina will rotate as my DC/AM combo. Mina will always play DC, Fernandino will always play DML Anchor Man, Keane will play whichever the other isn't playing.

He doesn't cost much, just £4.3M fee and he wants £2.8M signing bonus and £115K/wk. He'll be great in mentoring groups for the young guys. He's still pretty dang useful at 35. He's nearly as good as Ajer is right now, outside of Ajer's dominance in the air. And it means City won't have him anymore.

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I'm still looking for a guy who could be a good enough left back should Digne get hurt.

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Next friendly went as well as could be expected against a low level Portuguese club, we won 5-0 and dominated. Just one more friendly before the Community Shield against Liverpool.

How about this ... look who is third on the list!

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Welcome aboard Fernandinho! He's going to fit in great with my midfield, really helps out with the depth. Everyone else has to do a little less now.

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Of course, there could be some physical deal breakers, he's old as dirt. Let's see:

Anchor Man: Strength 14
Half Back: Jumping 10, Stamina 13, Strength 14 - the jumping isn't great, but if he's playing halfback, either Ajer or Keane will likely be playing Anchor Man and giant Mina is back there too.
CM-Attack: Acceleration 10, Stamina 13 - that acceleration is a problem. But he's got 14 anticipation, 15 off the ball and 18 work rate to offset it some.

So my intuition was right (I didn't plug him into the spreadsheet until he arrived) - he's best as an anchor man.

And like I said, he's an unflappable model citizen, he'll be a great influence on my young squad.

Moving onto to Jasper Cillessen, he's a huge help to the goalkeeper ranks.

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He's actually better than Pickford at 1v1 situations, nearly as good at shot stopping and handling. Of course Pickford is way better at distribution and will start whenever healthy, but this is a massive upgrade over Francesco Bardi. And none of the kids are close to ready. I doubt any of them ever will be.

And I'm looking to bring another midfielder 18 year old Ryan Gravenberch. My scout rates him a 4-5 stars. He'd already be able to play in a rotation for us. He's also versatile, he can play Mezzala, Inside Forward or even as a Complete Forward (with some improved finishing). He's from Ajax, which, while I hate making them weaker, I love getting their players :-) The sky appears to be the limit for this kid. Looks like he'll cost £11.25M. There is some injury risk, he's got a recurring pulled abdominal muscle. But the kid appears to be a perfect fit for what I do.

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On 05/05/2019 at 09:40, WillHoward42 said:

Great updates as usual (Y)

Thanks, glad you are enjoying it!

So I decided to tinker some. This may all blow up in my face, who knows.

Gravenberch got interesting. Two days before the transfer window slammed shut, I got an email. Not that he signed. But that Arsenal made an offer. A much lower offer than mine. Come on Ajax, what are you doing? He's a monster talent, so I went back to his agent and drastically upped my offer. He signed instantly, so I may regret this. But I gave an 18-year old £35K/wk, a £2.5M loyalty bonus, promised to raise him to £50K/wk after 20 games and £70K/wk after 30 games. His agent pocketed £1.5M too. 

And there's more!

I loaned out 20 year old 1.5-2.5 star keeper João Virginia to ... just kidding. There's really more crazy stuff.

My scout pointed out that Lucas Tousart was available for something in the £19-27M range. He's awesome. A great fit. Would give me much more flexibility as he can play DC or DM. He's a perfect halfback. He would let me do more than just halfback with my future captain Ajer ... unless it turns out Tousart becomes the captain. He's a resolute leader. This was a no brainer.

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Now we may have too many midfielders. I will try to sort it out.

But wait ... there's more!

Remember when I paid £10M before last season to keep André Gomes after the Barcelona loan ran out?

He played great for us last year. 5 goals, 6 assists, 4 PoM, 7.12 rating in 14(10) league appearances.

I guess Tottenham have finally decided to fix their mess of a midfield. They signed Lewis Cook for £64M on deadline day.

And then with 2 1/2 hours to go, they came asking for André Gomes.

After a little negotiation, we settled on £45M right now today. £25M more over two 12-month installments. And another £10M if he plays in another 20 international games. He's 27, and has 51 caps for Portugal so far, so there's a decent shot I get that money too. And they gave him a huge raise, he's making £165K/wk now. I guess The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is bringing them in some moneys.

For perspective - Bayern got Naby Keïta for £74M.

Finally, I found a cheap Icelandic striker for the U18s. He's probably just an organizational player, but you never know. The U18s could use some depth, and he cost me £65K and a friendly. I'll have to give them 40% down the line if I sell, but hey who doesn't like Iceland? This new scouting setup seems to be paying dividends.

At 5' 10" he might be the shortest adult male Icelander too. He doesn't fit in half bad with my young forwards, especially considering he's 2-3 years younger than Mampala and Hornby. And he was basically free.

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All the business ...

In £45.5M

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Out £93M

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So we made the squad better (I think) and saved £47.5M

The André Gomes deal turned our bank balance from -£18.7M to +£26.3M. Our transfer budget went for 0.0 to £21.2M - that's right, I've got some money for U18s for next year come this spring.

The wage budget is £2.463M/wk, currently spending £2.321M/wk. I will probably have to pay some raises this fall too.

Fun day! Fulham to start the season in two days. Game on!

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Lost in all of the crazy transfer stuff (see post 200), I almost forgot about the Community Shield!

That's because it was incredibly forgettable. We have 5 matches in 15 days from August 8 - August 22. So I decided to play a rotated squad for this one.

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We lost 1-0. The squad hung tough and didn't get embarrassed by the best team in the world, playing their best, except for keeper.

Fernandinho picked up 90 more minutes to learn the system, as did Cillessen. I did sub in Digne, Pellegri, and Keane at 58' to try to snag an equalizer, but it wasn't to be. We get two more shots at these guys in the next month, we'll see how we do with our real players.

*******

One good thing happened - Ecuador pulled off a massive upset, defeating Brazil, 0-0, 7-6(!) on penalties in the Olympics quarterfinal. So we get Richarlison back for opening day! He had a solid Olympics, starting all four games, scoring 3 goals, 3 dribbles/game and a 7.80 average rating. I am bummed for him not getting a medal. But such is life.

Tonali, Tousart and Aouar will all be getting medals. Italy is playing France in the final for gold.

Italy beat Germany 1-1, 8-7(!!) on penalties in the semi final. Tonali made the 6th penalty, good on him.

Tousart has been amazing for France, also averaging a 7.80 rating, starting all 5 games. he's got a goal, two assists (and he's a defense guy!), 89% passing, 93% tackles won.

Aouar has been similarly good over in Japan. started 4 of the 5 games, 2 assists, 7.45 rating. Should be a final final. I may watch it.

 

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I haven't mentioned this before training wise, but here's something I do that I'm not sure everyone does.

Since I want my squad to be technically great, smart, and versatile as Club DNATM - everyone who isn't a keeper and isn't at least reasonable, every single player - trains to develop their weaker foot as soon as they join the club.

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