Les Gones

[zlatanera]

Youth Intake 2020

Overall a very poor intake, and the only reason I'll sign half of these guys is to bring the squad personality of the under 19s up. That being said, we did get a guy with "potential to be amongst the best players of his generation" in Christian Pernot!

First Touch, Passing and Technique will need work as well as obviously all the core defensive attributes, but I'm intrigued at having a CB with high Vision and Free Kick Taking. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by zlatanera

[john1]

Pernot   However, I would be tempted to train him to play in DM position?

Edited July 27, 2019 by john1

[zlatanera]

@john1 I'll train him as a Libero until he's about 20, see where he ends up. Certainly there's a dearth of quality at DM / CM (other than converted AMs) in my youth ranks right now, so it may be that when he gets to be ready for the first team I have to move to a 4-3-3 to fit him in, as I'm deliberately limiting myself in who I can sign. I'm hoping either way that I actually stick with this long enough to see him reach his full potential, something I haven't done with a newgen since FM17.

[zlatanera]

February 2020

So I hadn’t saved my game when I first did those January updates, went off to work and came back later and my laptop had gone from 99% to 0%, so all the progress beyond 19th January had been lost. So I got a second chance at a couple of games and to get rid of Traoré, which is reflected in the updated posts.

Dijon FCO (H): Dembélé, Fekir and Aouar had it wrapped up in the first half, one step away from retaining a trophy!

Clermont (A): A rotated team just couldn’t find their way past Douglas in the Clermont net.

Inter (A): At 22’ when it had been mostly our way, Tousart decided to snap a guy from behind in a harmless position, so got sent off. I sacrificed our striker to try and gain some solidity, but they scored immediately from the move off the free kick Tousart and given away. We held on for the 1-0 loss though, Zagadou getting MOTM for a serious of heroic blocks and tackles at the back. Hopefully we can turn it around in March.

Bordeaux (A): Injuries and suspensions meant this was an even weaker ‘weak’ team than normal - Mathis Louiserre (Ligue 2 quality) partnering Solet at the back, Léo Dubois playing out of position at CM alongside Tousart, Thomas at AM and Terrier out of position at AMR. But you wouldn’t have known it from the performance - Gouiri scored all 4!!! goals, 2 assisted by Terrier.

Montpellier (H): It took us 75 minutes and one TI change (Higher Tempo) to breakthrough, but we did it! Fekir doing the honours. If we win our game in hand we’ll still be 7 points behind PSG, but stranger things have happened!

Dijon FCO (H): 31’ Okafor found Gouiri just inside the d, his shot had too much power for Runarsson. I hadn’t realised Okafor was a big guy (184cm), but I sure noticed when he headed in from a corner for 2-0, in only his 2nd start! Jesé got them back into it with a great finish at 60’, before equalising at 81’. Really lax defending, allowing them to throw it short for Rosier to make a deep cross to find Jesé in acres of space in our box. I laid into the team at full time, not happy.

Rennes (A): 37 minutes of backs-to-the-wall defending by the Rennais eventually led to an own goal putting us ahead. That was followed by another 53 minutes of backs-to-the-wall defending, then a bunch of highlights at our end as we nearly threw it away yet again. Luckily Anthony Lopes was on form and we saw it out.

FC Nantes (A): Another bore 0-0. My rotation policy has really hampered us in the league, but hopefully it’ll pay off short-term by allowing us to beat Inter next game, and long-term by developing players faster. Interestingly it was both my 100th game and Lucas Tousart’s 100th league game for Lyon!

[john1]

Not bad month  Good to see rotation players working for you  

[zlatanera]

I’m surprised how well it’s working given I normally only play like that as a much more dominant team (Ajax / whichever team I use in a Scandinavian league).

Im hating the upload limit for posts right now because my reserve lineup scored one of the best “Vertical Tiki-Taka” goals I’ve seen in a while on FM and I can’t make the file small enough as when you export it it’s 56 seconds long

[zlatanera]

March 2020

Inter (H): After Tousart’s idiocy cost us any chance of an away goal, I knew if we conceded early on this tie was lost. Our playing style does tend to lend itself to better performances against the bigger teams who try to press us than the smaller ones though, unless Kylian Mbappé has something to say about it, so we won’t change. I got them all fired up with my pre-match team talk…and Fekir went off injured after 6 minutes. I shifted Aouar out to the right and brought on Terrier. 20 minutes in Memphis counter-pressed, winning the ball and whipping it in for Aouar to put us level on aggregate! I got them fired up at half time but we spent the next 45 minutes spurning great chances. Another round of shouting at them on 90 minutes was followed by a double sub - Dubois and Martínez on at full back as I was surprised to learn the Champions League doesn’t allow the 4th sub!? - prioritising not conceding that crucial away goal above an added dose of Flair in attack. 103’ Memphis again was the creator, his free kick from the right being met by Dembélé at the near post for 2-1! I was interested to note in this match that a) Aouar took over the captain’s armband from Fekir as our 2nd and 3rd captains (Lopes and Tousart) weren’t playing and b) Memphis of all people responds best to being absolutely slated in team talks. Reaching the Quarter Finals meant Ndombele and Mandy no longer wanted to leave either!

AS Saint-Etienne (A): Before this match I extended my contract with the club until 2024, becoming the 8th highest earner in the process. 18 minutes in and Guilherme Arana, Tousart and Martínez played it about amongst themselves at the back until they suckered all of the Saint-Etienne press into their zone, then quick passes to Caqueret then Thomas saw space open up for the latter to play it over the top for Gouiri to finish first-time! I really wanted to upload a highlight of this but the files were just too big and I’m not yet at the stage of making a dedicated YouTube account for FM (especially when direct YouTube upload probably still doesn’t work on Mac).

Two minutes into the second half Louiserre gave away a free kick far too close to goal and Khazri equalised, but only a minute later Okafor contributed his first assist to set up Pintor’s 10th of the season! Saint-Etienne will probably feel good about themselves making it that difficult until they realise that was a reserve lineup featuring our 5th choice CB and a CM at the back, our 5th choice FB at CM and our 7th choice CM at AM.

AC Ajaccio (A): Ajaccio’s manager repeatedly broke promises to play Louiserre more during his loan, so I wanted to crush them. 6’ and Ndombele strolled forward from midfield to score yet another rocket! 21’ Memphis collected a throw inside the box, turned and made it 2-0. 44’ good interplay down the right set up Dembélé for 3. 60’ Aouar decided to clear it from near the corner flag into the centre of the box for their waiting striker, 3-1.

Brest (H): Continuing the theme from the previous edition of players scoring against their former clubs, 17’ Pintor received the ball in the left channel, cut in to the other side of the D and pinged it into the top corner! Late on in the second half Okafor strolled through the Brest defence and got our second from just inside the box.

Strasbourg (A): We had 3 players make their international debuts over the break - Ndombele, Dembélé and Martínez - so even if we end the season trophy-less at least I’m getting some development out of my players! The game itself was a bore - the only highlights were the two kick-offs and the final whistle.

[zlatanera]

April 2020

OM (A): It’s a final, sure, but its also the Coupe de la Ligue and we have a Champions League tie 3 days later, so a reserve team will play it for the second year in a row. Maxence Caqueret captains the team for the first time, so no pressure there then! 17’ and some awful defending where 3 men chased the ball carrier allowed them to scythe through our defence to score, 0-1. Our attacking midfielders were incredibly wasteful in possession, shooting when the pass was on so at 70’ I subbed all 3 of them for Fekir, Aouar and Memphis and upped the tempo. Sadly the only event of note that then happened was Guilherme Arana launching a throw backwards over his own player’s head causing a Marseille counter which led to Origi having a goal ruled out for a very tight offside. I noticed at full time the match had been played at Marseille’s stadium…so yeah, a nice neutral venue!

Juventus (H): The big one. Juventus lost both Mandzukic and Cancelo to Barcelona with their only ‘big-name’ signing being Liverpool’s Matip, so a very recognisable (and strong) squad. Probably the first save I’ve ever seen them keep Douglas Costa beyond the first year too. Conte will apparently set them up in a Defensive 3-4-3, so either we’ll be destroyed on the counter or we’ll just dominate them through the midfield. I’m not expecting a 1-0 either way. Rafael’s matchup with his former team-mate Ronaldo may be a key one. The game started weird - they fielded 34-year old DFB Lorenzo Del Prete (A Serie B veteran who played for their U23 team in 18/19) at RWB, and as this average positions chart at 20:50 shows, they didn’t turn up to play football - Ronaldo would be fuming at spending so much time in his own half!

29’ I thought we were done for - Ronaldo went through the back of Denayer in the Juve area following our corner (no foul because…reasons), sprinted all the way to our final third, a couple of passes and they were in…but only a corner luckily. It felt weird at half time to be shouting at our players for not having scored against Juventus. 59’ we finally broke through! Aouar switched it out to Rafael in acres of space, collected the cross clearance in the box and laid it off to Memphis to finish. 72’ a series of counter-counters led to Fekir, in the left side of the pitch despite playing AMR, feeding Memphis with an eye-of-the-needle pass for him to get his 2nd! 80’ another counter-counter saw Mendy set up Ndombele for a 25-yard screamer! An excellent win, but my god Conte is ruining this Juventus team. All that attacking talent to play like a National 2-A team against us, and coming 2nd in Serie A then presently sitting 4th. Beyond Mourinho-at-United in terms of wasting attacking talent.

Bordeaux (A): 3-0 doesn’t mean you’re through in the Champions League anymore, so it’ll be a reserve side. Marcelo Bielsa!! is Bordeaux manager now so I’m expecting more of a fight than Juventus put up. 1st half only had one highlight, Okafor going box-to-box via the left flank before a tame finish left it still at 0-0. At 76’ I was debating bringing on some of the big names to avoid extra time, when Gouiri countered and played a one-two with Rutter that spanned the distance between half-way and the box, finishing first time off the return for 1-0! That set up a manic finish as they upped their intensity, both teams playing through the other’s press only for the move to break down at the edge of the box and the ball go back the other way, but we held on to reach the semi-final. Giorginio Rutter got MOTM playing as our Trequartista, which was a nice surprise.

We drew PSG in the semi-final, which means in the space of a week we play Monaco (H) and PSG (H) & (A). Should be fun!

Juventus (A): I was torn about whether to somewhat temper my approach by going more direct for this match, but decided to stay the course and attempt to play them off the park at their own ground. At 45’ it appeared to be working, they’d only had 1 shot! 58’ a well-worked move let Alex Sandro scored a right-footed shot from the edge of the area though, and the match was back on. 64’ and Pjanic’s free kick was stopped by Onana, who was then taken out (apparently legally) by Rugani rushing in, which allowed Can to add their 2nd. 65’ and Bernardeschi made it 3! My players, despite their “motivated” body language just weren’t running for the ball. Extra time was uneventful, so penalties it was!

Ronaldo and Dembélé both saw theirs saved, but each team scored their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, until Lucas Tousart’s sudden death miss sent us out.

SM Caen (A): In order to set up our rotations so that the best players are fit for the French Cup game against PSG (that being the only trophy we’re in with a chance of winning now), a weakened team played here. 12’ and Max Aarons of all people stepped up for a free kick 30 yards out, curling it around the wall and and in! One hell of a way to score his first goal for the club! 17’ and Okafor beat about half their team on his way into the box, their keeper could only parry it and Caqueret made it 2. Samba in the Caen goal then produced an absolute masterclass for the next 70 minutes before Okafor added our 3rd on 90’. They had one late chance but Anthony Lopes was able to mark his 250th league appearance for the club with another clean sheet! It’s a good job we had a fun one there, I’d had the two cup losses then not played for a few days because of work - the sort of thing that can kill a save for me, the lost momentum and dwelling on a failure.

Reims (H): 22’ over a minute of possession culminated in Ndombele unloading from outside the box yet again, in off the post for his 15th of the season! 38’ Alaixys Romao proved the oldest heads are not always the wisest, picking up his 2nd yellow when Aouar wasn’t really in a dangerous position. 58’ a rare period of Reims possession allowed us to counter, Aouar making it 2 from distance.

AS Monaco (H): Monaco are doing a bit better this time, up to 7th. Still, we’re fielding a weak team so anything could happen. 11’ and a corner is flicked back across goal by Gouiri for Okafor to head down, 1-0! 32’ an a prolonged period of possession eventually led to a loose ball 6 yards out, Okafor dived in beating both Glik and Subasic to it, then finished whilst still on the floor for 2-0! 47’ Pintor, who had been causing the monegasques problems all day, cut in from the right and finished from distance for 3! 59’ they pulled one back through Carrasco, but 3 minutes later we added our fourth: Pintor’s free kick headed clear, Solet headed it back over the defence and Gouiri stole in to finish! Carrasco turned provider for Golovin to add their 2nd on 88’, and that was that!

Paris SG (H): All-out to try and make it to the final, a fully fit suspension-free starting XI facing PSG’s fully fit suspension-free lineup (before facing them again in the league in 3 days). 29’ Aouar crossed for Dembélé to give us the lead! 35’ Fekir’s corner was finished with a bit of improvisation by Memphis, using the back of his head from 6 yards! 53’ Navas could only parry Memphis’ free kick and Aouar made it 3! 57’ another PSG academy grad was in the spotlight, Zagadou flooring Cavani to give away a penalty, but Onana dived far to the bottom corner to save it! 3 minutes later Dembélé assisted Memphis. We’re into the final!

[zlatanera]

May 2020

Paris SG (H): With 3 games to go, PSG are 9 points ahead of us (95 compared to our 86). If we’re to have any chance of retaining the title we have to beat them. I gave the boys a rest day after the cup match so could name a completely unchanged XI, but I decided to rotate our full backs (2nd choice pairing Guilherme Arana and Max Aarons might actually be better, certainly Aarons > Rafael), and obviously Lopes came back in net. First half there was only one highlight, Mbappé burning Arana and crossing for Cavani to shoot straight at Lopes. 59’ Grimaldo crossed for Chiesa, whose header was somehow parried by Lopes straight back onto his head, 0-1. It ended that way, sealing the title for PSG. Unless Marseille beats them next game they’re most likely on for an unbeaten season too.

Nîmes (A): 3’ Mendy crossed for Gouiri to open the scoring. 45’ Solet’s long ball was only partially cleared and Gouiri got in for his 2nd. Marseille beat PSG 1-0 to prevent them getting an unbeaten season!

OGC Nice (A): Bruno Genesio’s side are mathematically relegated, but other than players who are on a yellow I’m still going full strength as we get a full week until the cup final. 7 minutes in and Caqueret imitated the player whose place he’d taken, Ndombele, by firing one home from 25 yards! 27’ they took one of those central indirect free kicks short to Saint-Maximin, who drifted out wide then beat a couple of men going into the box before finishing below Lopes. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d just seen and had to watch the reply twice before writing that description. Truly a unique goal for the first time in a while on FM. 29’ and A-SM undid all his hard work by giving away a penalty which Dembélé duly buried. Right at the death Guilherme Arana cut onto his right foot and floated one over the defence for Gouiri to finish first time, 3-1!

Nîmes (N): Youth international duty has robbed us of our top scorer (Gouiri), 6th top scorer (Pintor - more impressive than it sounds), 3rd best midfielder (Caqueret) and also Oumar Solet. So its obvious which side the French Football Federation are supporting! 24’ a hopeful effort from Fekir hit the crossbar and went in off their keeper! 38’ he added a 2nd from a free kick! 88’ their goalkeeper dawdled on the ball and Dembélé tackled him to make it 3. That was how it ended, so we’ve convincingly won the French Cup!

[zlatanera]

2019/20 Final League Table & Club Awards

 

It’s weird, because we surrendered our league title (at home), lost the Coupe de la Ligue final at Marseille threw away a 3-0 lead from the first leg in the Champions League against Juventus, so I feel really disappointed. Yet by every metric bar goals scored we’re better than last season - 2018/19 we didn’t even make it out of our group in the CL, we have 3 more points in the league than last season and the French Cup is a more prestigious competition than the Coupe de la Ligue. The only reason it seems bad is that PSG cracked 100 points which is insane - our points total has only been bettered 3 times in Ligue 1 history in real life - twice by PSG and once by Monaco (when they beat them to the title in 2016/17), confirming my suspicions near the start that even if this is a tougher league than the likes of Portugal or the Netherlands its still going to be the case that whoever wins our matchups wins the league. That we achieved this in spite of our best player, Nabil Fekir, missing 2 months of the season through separate injuries because younger players stepped up should put an even more positive spin on things.

That league position record tells its own story - we had the consistency, just not the star power. Any season when you win a derby 7-0 is a good one too - and given we beat Saint-Etienne 8-0 the previous year I could probably resign now and still be a cult hero to Lyon fans (with both Madrid clubs, and now Juventus looking for new managers in this off-season there are certainly opportunities).

The only part of that team of the season I'd disagree with is Terrier at AM as Aouar was more consistent and got more assists, although both of them came up with the goods at key moments. It's nice to see goal of the season involve a dribble as well as a shot from the edge of the area given how FM seems to value screamers much more highly than team moves.

Fekir being top scorer doesn't surprise me even though he missed two months, given his importance to the team as our Trequartista. Dembélé matching him certainly does, as he only got 5 league goals - but 5 in 5 in the cup and 7 in 9 in the Champions League shows he was just better in knockout football this year. Memphis tops the assists chart - partially this shows that our full backs were less important now they're on Au (Su) duties, but mostly it just shows that he was incredible this season, having a direct hand in 31 goals. Both of those red cards from Tousart were straight reds which is the only concerning thing. 

Some more player stats:

Tanguy Ndombele 15G 3 A

Nabil Fekir 17G 10A

Lenny Pintor 12G 6A

Noah Okafor 5G 2A

 Memphis 14G 17A

Amine Gouiri 16G 2A

Moussa Dembélé 17G 3A

Okafor's stats included as he only made 10 starts for us, getting a 7.74 average rating as he continued on from his excellent form with Basel (21apps 10 G 8 A). Ndombele was definitely the most surprising contributor from midfield, given he has 8 Finishing 9 Long Shots and only scored 5 in 2018/19 to go with the 2 career goals he had in real life. 

We're still doing great with our philosophies, my rotation no doubt helping with the Develop Players part. 

Edited August 5, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Ligue 1 Awards

We had the best defence in the league, and whilst that was most of the time down to our superiority pinning teams back into their own halves, whenever anyone did break through Lopes was up to the challenge. I like to imagine him winning the players' award was mostly down to the votes of frustrated attackers!

Don't ask me why there are these two different awards, but we had the same player in both (Lopes) with Caqueret getting a nod as well in the Stars' Team of the Season which is nice recognition for a younger player.

[zlatanera]

European Awards

That's two English winners in a row now, after Man City triumphed in the derby in the 2019 final! Its kinda neat that in the 2000s Liverpool beat Milan then two years later lost to them in a rematch final, now in the 2010s we have them losing to Madrid then two years later beating them in a rematch final! Its nice to see Porto-Feyenoord get the nod as best match rather than something like our 8-1 demolition of Olympiakos.

Fekir's club goal of the season comes 3rd in the competition's awards.

Dembélé was deservedly Forward of the Season, coming 2nd in the top scorers list with 7 which pre-Messi/Ronaldo rivalry would have seemed far more impressive. Memphis was probably our most influential player so glad to see him getting some recognition behind de Bruyne too.

Edited August 5, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

The Future

The above was the tactic we used for most of last season - it sometimes played like late-era Galacticos Madrid, a lot of patient passing whilst we waited for one of the start attackers to do something, whilst other times it was much more of a modern team effort. 

As part of my planned tactical progression, we increase our mentality to Attacking for the new season. Au duties are too offensive at this high mentality, so our MCR and DR/DL become Su duties. Frustratingly FM19 gives you even less information on mentality than previous versions - just a word description, so a lot of Su duties who were ‘Positive’ on Control Positive are still listed as ‘Positive’ on Attacking, I just have to assume that its still working like previous versions where their mentalities have actually increased, and the lack of an At duty has increased everyone’s mentality. We’re really aiming to overwhelm teams with our movement now so we use CWB rather than simple FB or WB.. As I’ve removed the playmaker role from the flank, I decided to use a DLP in the CM band. This may become a De duty if we become overexposed, but that lack of information I complained about means I’m just sticking with Su for now. I’ve also taken some inspiration from my 2016/17 Monaco recreation's variants for some PIs. So my AMC has the instructions of a Shadow Striker

whilst my AMR imitates a WP-At

and AML imitates a custom WM-At role I used 

 

In terms of the squad, I’m hoping to mostly keep the gang together again. If a bid came in for one of Terrier or Pintor I might negotiate as I can always promote Titouan Thomas or Hamza Rafia, who has reaped the benefits of a well-chosen loan move, playing in his two natural positions for a significant spell at the right level in a comfortably mid-table club (Valenciennes) where there's less pressure on him.

Otherwise the only planned change is at right back. Rafael is 29 and I want to offload him and get in a young prospect, and I’m prepared to spend a large sum on the right candidate. Right now I’m looking at either Josha Vagnoman, or perhaps retraining Claudio Gomes (A natural DM) if I can poach him from Man City.

Edited August 5, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Behind-the-scenes Changes

Gérard Houllier has decided to retire at 72, so just in his prime really.

I only use Director of Football to unsettle transfer targets by scouting them, but I do require decent JPA/JPP so I looked for someone ideally either with an association with the club, or a famous ex-pro. I came down to a shortlist of:

Roy Hodgson

Alain Caveglia (an OL academy graduate who had two different spells at the club)

Rivaldo

Roberto Carlos

Hodgson just had completely opposite ideas of how to play football than what I’m going for in this save - doesn’t like to spend on youth signings, plays direct, plays a 4-4-2. Despite the role being mostly ceremonial it seemed wrong to have him “above” me. Rivaldo and Roberto Carlos are both brilliant ex-pros, and would keep up the Brazilian connection at the club. However they’ve never even played in French football. So that only left Caveglia:

He had just signed a new contract with relegated SM Caen however, so we’ll go without for a few months. I have faith we’ll get our man eventually though!

 

Edited August 5, 2019 by zlatanera

[Jimbokav1971]

On 09/07/2019 at 00:02, zlatanera said:

Youth Intake

When I got the message it was a potential 'golden generation' I was hoping for a CB, DM, RB, LB or even a CM who could tackle...

...yeah, normally I'd be much more excited about having that many high potential newgens, but they're in the positions where the under 19s are already stacked! I suppose this does mean I shouldn't have to buy an attacker for the next 5 years or so haha

Where is Hadji from? Moroccan? Algerian? Somewhere in N.Africa I'm guessing. 

Is Deering English? 

[zlatanera]

24 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Where is Hadji from? Moroccan? Algerian? Somewhere in N.Africa I'm guessing. 

Is Deering English? 

Faoud Hadji is French-Algerian (born in Villeurbanne, which I believe is a suburb of Lyon). Lyon's best prospects these days seem to be - Nabil Fekir is also part-Algerian, as is Houssem Aouar.

Peter Deering is English yes, so I presume has appeared because I'm English (although he's gained French nationality, so the game is acting as if he's been there for years).

[Jimbokav1971]

8 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

Faoud Hadji is French-Algerian (born in Villeurbanne, which I believe is a suburb of Lyon). Lyon's best prospects these days seem to be - Nabil Fekir is also part-Algerian, as is Houssem Aouar.

Peter Deering is English yes, so I presume has appeared because I'm English (although he's gained French nationality, so the game is acting as if he's been there for years).

Interesting. I do love a 2nd Nationality. 

[zlatanera]

Pascal the Punt

Meet Pascal Lacroix. Looks pretty darn good for a 16-year old in Ligue 2 right? A high amount of interest from other Ligue 1 clubs including Monaco suggests he's going to be a somebody.

My scouts agree, they rate him as 2 star CA already. But they suggest he's only got 1 star of growth left in him, and given Steve Rowley has 20 JPA / 20 JPP I'm inclined to trust him, so normally I'd ignore this guy. However, his club AS Béziers have pretty poor facilities, is it possible that my scout could be underestimating him? Even if he isn't, do we have more of a chance of maximising his potential in my world class youth setup? I decided to find out, this was the deal that got it done:

He signed on 23rd June, and is currently training as a FB-At. More importantly, my HoYD rates him much more highly than my scout had done!

I'm going to give periodic updates on his progress to see how he develops through the youth ranks, and who out of Steve Rowley or Jean-François Vulliez turns out to be right about him.

[zlatanera]

Problems of a Young Club

That's 10 first-teamers, including my first choice AMC, DCL, MCL and probably ST, all potentially missing the first few games of the season. Not to mention my 2nd choice DCL too!

Edited August 9, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Summer Transfers 2020 (Outgoing)

One frustration of managing in France is the limit of 7 players out on loan per season. You can partially get around this by renewing loans from the previous season if a player is still at a suitable level, as I have done with Hamza Rafia for 2019/20, and Anthony Racioppi this summer. But you’re still left hoping for foreign interest, and when it arrives its mostly for relegation fodder in the Belgian Pro League, which won’t do my players any good. As reserve football isn’t good enough for most of my players beyond the age of 18, I’m left with no choice but to cash in early with a 10% profit clause or something similar and hope they make it with their next club. This is frustrating as in a league with more relaxed policies loan players can be a great source of income. Instead we’ll just have to rely on on-the-pitch success generating tv, prize, and sponsorship money and the occasional sale of a first teamer to fund us. Hence the large number of outgoings whom you’ll have never heard me mention in the thread for sub-£1m fees: they're youth teamers whom I'm cashing in one whilst I have the chance. Any free transfers out usually have a 10% sell-on too.

Once I'd signed my new RB, one of Rafael or Léo Dubois had to go. Normally I’d phase out the 30 year old Rafael and keep the younger Dubois as a backup, but Dubois appeared to be tiring of his low playing time, and Rafael’s Perfectionist personality is very valuable for mentoring, especially as I don’t really have other defenders with great personalities. When Shakhtar tried one of those dodgy deals where you pay most of the wages when I offered Dubois out, I agreed to let him go for his value of £18.25m as he’s served me well and realistically I wouldn’t expect to get double his value like I had with the likes of Cornet and Tete as it has been inflated by the level of performance under me that I don’t expect him to maintain elsewhere. I couldn’t even get that, however, but eventually managed to get Everton to stump up £17.75m in 3 annual instalments. Not bad for a free transfer from Nantes!

Rodrigo Rocha Santos is at Real Sociedad for two years, he should be their starting striker as they're light up top, hopefully he scores a hatful and gains Spanish citizenship! Martin Terrier was loaned out for a fee as his development has stalled, I'm hoping he just needs to be a nailed on starter rather than part of my rotation system. That was meant to open up room for Titouan Thomas but that didn't work out.

Edited August 9, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Summer Transfers 2020 (Incoming) - The Boys from Brazil

Going into this window my only real first team target was a right back. I really fancied retraining Claudio Gomes of Man City, but they're unsurprisingly not for selling, preferring to loan him out repeatedly until his potential is wasted in the mid-2020s. Next up was Josha Vagnoman. I decided to blow our record transfer fee out the water and pay his £53m release clause, but he chose to stay with Hamburg for double his wages instead of our heavily-incentivised offer. That left me with a choice between two Brazilians - Barcelona's Emerson, recently returned from a two year loan at Real Betis, and Shakhtar's Dodô. Emerson had EU nationality after two years in Spain, and offered some variation with the Possesses Long Flat Throw trait. Barcelona accepted our offer of a two year loan with mandatory £13m fee (his release clause) and negotiations went well, but he decided to join Basel on loan instead (presumably because this way he still remains a Barcelona player, rather than preferring Basel to Lyon). So Dodô it was! 

Obviously in my press conference I said "he's the man we wanted, targeted for over a year...dreaming signing...blah" but still not bad for a 4th choice signing, right? He'll train on his Defensive Positioning for the foreseeable future as he already offers enough going forward. That's a release clause, which is why we didn't stretch it out over instalments. He shares an agent with Emerson, Guilherme Arana and Rodrigo Rocha Santos so those negotiations with Emerson did pay off somewhat in easing these ones. He'll be part of my alternate defence with Guilherme Arana, as Max Aarons is better defensively and thus is part of the 'A' team.

We're well-sorted for LBs at the moment with Mendy and Guilherme Arana, as well a Melvin Bard in the academy. However Luis Rodríguez is an outstanding prospect and I figured if nothing else he has the personality to develop on loan and command a higher fee. We've sent him to Sevilla for two years to gain playing time and hopefully EU citizenship too. However they also brought in Théo Hernandez so we'll see how it turns out.

When looking at Titouan Thomas whilst considering permanently moving him to the first team, I realised that our 'B' lineup had no set piece takers or actual distance shooters (despite Pintor's penchant for the spectacular). That could turn a few of those draws into wins, so I looked through my shortlists and Evander stood out. He still has some potential to improve, but even if he doesn't we could profit on him one day and he's good enough already. If he hits a couple of free kicks and a few assists from corners this will be money well spent.

I then made two late moves for young French talent to fill out our u19s and hopefully challenge for a first team place in 2-3 years:

Sochaux are an unheralded but productive academy, and Hubert is their latest gem. He'll train as an Inverted Wing Back for now, then RPM later to increase his versatility and his chances of making the first team in the future.

Olivier Michaud is such a talent I was willing to overlook that woeful Natural Fitness attribute. He started all 3 of Toulouse's Ligue 1 games so far, but will go into our u19s. Between him and Christian Pernot we're hopefully sorted for CBs until 2030, and weirdly they're both a threat taking free kicks as well as heading them in. If I haven't gotten Michaud into the France setup by age 21 I've done something wrong. 

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August 2020

Paris SG (N): The Olympics meant that I could just about put together a decent starting XI (Titouan Thomas being the least experienced of them), but of my bench only two players (Giorginio Rutter and Max Aarons) had played for the club before, and 4/7 hadn’t even played a first team game anywhere. 4’ lax defending from a throw-in allowed Sergi Roberto to open the scoring. 9’ we allowed Mbappé to charge straight down the middle unchallenged and finish. Nothing much else happened for the rest of the game.

Angers SCO (A): A newly promoted team. Memphis scored after 4 minutes…and that’s all that happened.

Dijon FCO (H): Everyone’s back, although I sent Zagadou on holiday as he was tired after France won the Olympics. So I played the new ‘B’ lineup. 50’ Evander intercepted a throw, chesting it down, driving towards the edge of the box and placing it into the bottom corner! We haven’t convinced yet, I’m hoping its just because of the Olympics disruption and not that I haven’t got my tactics right.

Paris SG (A): The rematch. We go with our fully available strongest XI. PSG have actually made a profit at this point in the transfer window, and have signed almost exclusively defenders and defensive midfielders (also Carlos Soler who is a pretty defensive winger) which is concerning given how good their attack already was. As it was, despite losing Fekir to injury 25 minutes in we were the better team, but couldn’t finish our chances and on 79’ Neymar got a little bit of space and Denayer’s leg deflected his shot past Lopes. NIkola Milenkovic got MOTM narrowly ahead of Clement Lenglet, which I think says a lot.

Montpellier (H): I made two tweaks for this game. Firstly, I restored AMR to be a Trequartista (but still with the PIs to make it like WP-At) and MCR to CM-Su. Despite DLP being Ndombele’s natural role I think he’s better as a runner, and I’m happy for Caqueret to offer something more like a playmaker as his alternative purely through his traits and attributes. Secondly I lowered the tempo as despite Shorter Passing already having that effect, it felt like we were rushing, players were charging forward due to their mentality and leaving their team-mates behind. We dominated the match but couldn’t find a breakthrough until 75’ after they’d gone down to 10 men, Evander collecting his free kick’s ricochet, quickly playing to Pintor who set up Caqueret on the edge of the box! We’ve hit the woodwork about 10 times in 4 games so perhaps we do just need our luck to change?

We didn't qualify as champions this year so our CL group is a bit tougher. Hopefully we can dispatch Leipzig as easily as last season, but given how we struggle with Mbappé I'm worried how we'll deal with Salah, Son, Firmino, Asensio and Lozano at Liverpool. Dynamo Kyiv are stronger than at the start of the game so could cause us problems too.

Edited August 9, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

September 2020

I haven’t been using set piece routines so far in this save. Partially to save time during pre-seasons, and partially as Lyon initially had quite a short squad. I decided it might be time to do some corner and throw-in routines to see if I can get another edge in my pursuit of PSG. It’s a mix of routines from strikerless and my own ideas, tailored to my squad (who are still short - only 3/4 DCs and both Sts are above 180 cm). I haven’t touched free kicks though, I simply haven’t noticed a big enough difference when I painstakingly set all 16 different routines to when I just leave them all alone and don’t even choose takers.

OM (H): ‘A’ team. 16’ Strootman scored an OG under pressure from Zagadou off a corner! We dominated but nothing else came until 73’: Evander corner - Zagadou knockdown - Denayer goal. Less than a minute later they shredded us on the counter for Thauvin to pull one back. They then went ultra-attacking with a 343 with 3 STs for a manic final period, but we were even better then and should have added more.

Dynamo Kyiv (A): ‘B’ team. 30’ Besedin scored against the run of play. 36’ we equalised through a Pintor penalty, but we couldn’t break them down further and the game ended scoreless.

Rennes (A): ‘A’ team. 23’ Memphis headed us in front, 73’ Denayer added a second from a Fekir corner, before Memphis added a free kick from an unusual angle - pretty much level with the edge of the box but wide on the left, 30 yards from goal! Then 10 minutes later Fekir picked the ball up from Aouar just inside the opposition half, drove right through the heart of defence and made it 4! With almost the last kick of the game Zagadou added another off a Memphis corner

Nîmes (H): ‘B’ team. 2’ Pintor opened the scoring, confirmed by VAR. 22’ Dodô added a second! Caqueret unleashed a rocket from distance on 72’.

AS Monaco (A): ‘A’ team. 36’ a deflection allowed Aouar to score from distance, and we dominated from then on but couldn’t finish.

RB Leipzig (H): ‘B’ team. 10’ a wonderful pass from Pintor taking 3 defenders out of the game allowed Gouiri to finish just inside the area! Evander scored our 2nd from distance 6 minutes later, and on 33’ they cleared a corner only as far as Okafor, who sprinted into the box and made it 3! 53’ some one-touch football from a short throw allowed Evander to make it 4 from about 8 yards. 65’ Caqueret made it 5. 67’ Aarons cut in from the left and scored on the second try for 6!

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October 2020

Strasbourg (H): ‘A’ team. 6’ Dembélé got a header. 62’ Memphis got our 2nd, 68’ Aouar curled one in beautifully for 3. 79’ Dembélé penalty

LOSC (A): ‘A’ team (accidentally, was watching a documentary and just pressed the space bar without looking). 43’ Zagadou broke through following a corner. Gouiri added a 2nd to seal it on 88’

Liverpool (A): After my rotation mistake, I went with an only slightly rotated side here. We also tweaked tactically, to be more direct and sit a little deeper. If it all goes to pot we’ll take solace in our u19s demolishing theirs 4-0 away earlier in the day. It was all going well, but 52’ Robertson got some space and cut back for Son to make it 1-0. Awful defending allowed Keïta acres of space in the box to make it 2, so I went back to our default and we at least didn’t concede further.

Toulouse FC (H): 7’ they failed to clear a corner and Okafor scored. 82’ some good work from Aouar set up Pintor for our 2nd, then 85’ Max Gradel’s block on Aarons’ cross gave it enough spin to make it 3-0.

Bordeaux (A): ‘B’ team. All over them from start to finish but missed the finishing touch. Losing our set piece specialist midway through the 1st half didn’t help.

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November 2020

Both my Brazilian full backs had broken into the Seleção, with Guilherme Arana scoring on just his 2nd appearance. Given they’re up against the likes of Danilo, Alex Sandro and Éder Militão I think that’s pretty good!

Liverpool (H): ‘A’ team. We’re just going to attack them this time, see where we end up. 3’ we only cleared a corner as far as Gedson Fernandes 1-0. 10’ Zagadou headed in our corner to level it! 39’ Lozano out of nowhere got off a long shot for 2-1. 60’ an incredible goal by Moussa Dembélé! On a counter picked up the ball just inside our half, drove right down the middle past 4 men and finished! 86’ another rocket from Lozano straight off a turnover for 3-2. But it wasn’t over, 39’ Aouar inside the box for 3-3! We were marginally the better team but a draw was probably fair.

FC Nantes (H): ‘B’ team. Gouiri 13’ Pintor 36’ 56’

Reims (A): We scythed through them straight from the kick-off, Okafor scoring after 26 seconds!! We couldn’t make anything else out of our dominance however.

Dynamo Kyiv (H): ‘A’ team. Fekir put us ahead after 6 minutes. We then toiled for a full 80 minutes before Dembélé added a 2nd

Clermont (H): ‘B’ team. 2’ Gouiri scored an absolute rocket from Okafor’s cross. 28’ Pintor added a 2nd. Okafor added our 3rd on 41’ from a cross by Solet of all people. 68’ Pintor added our fourth.

[zlatanera]

December 2020

Amiens SC (A): ‘A’ team. 20’ Rutter’s cross deflected in by their defender. 47’ Dembélé got our 2nd, 51’ Denayer got the 3rd.

EA Guingamp (H): ‘B’ team. We had 14!!! Corners, Dodô’s season was ended by cruciate ligament damage and Guilherme Arana also will lose a month. All in all, a bad game for us.

RB Leipzig (A): Just awful from start to finish, Memphis grabbing a consolation being about the only good thing any of my players did. Luckily Dynamo Kyiv lost to Liverpool so we qualified as runners-up.

FC Lorient (H): ‘B’ team featuring Samassékou at centre back and Lisandro Martínez at left back so that Thomas could be the beneficiary of Guilherme Arana’s injury. Fouad Hadji also got his first league start after Gouiri picked up a knock on the day of the game (Rutter was too tired). Okafor got us under way on 21’, before his speculative shot was palmed out to Hadji to finish from a tight angle at 35’ for his first ever goal for the club! Lorient’s defenders had their revenge at the end, fracturing Hadji’s toe.

FC Metz (H): A very ‘B’ team: Michaud (debut), Deering (debut), Thomas and Rutter all starting.  It took us until 67’ to break through, a nice team move from a short throw creating space for Pintor in the box.

AS Saint-Etienne (A): ‘A’ team. In the first 20 minutes both Mendy and Ndombele went off as a result of their tackles, and to make it worse on 22’ Caqueret, the early sub, gave the ball away and they countered for Tammy Abraham to score. 40’ Memphis got us back in it with a free kick! 57’ Fekir went off injured as well, and nothing else much happened after that. Fekir is out for 2 months, torn hamstring. Another irritating thing about this game is that had we kept a clean sheet we would have beaten Bordeaux’ record of 13 in a row in 92/93.

Dijon FCO (A): ‘B’ team. Okafor scored the only game of the game, from an Evander free kick - that signing is really working out!

As it stands we're ahead of PSG on goal difference - they've scored 6 more but we've conceded a paltry 3!!! goals. Despite that - and I may regret this later on - I'm changing up the tactic to be more aggressive as we're top of the rankings of goals from corners and free kicks (both direct and indirect) whilst we're 16th for chances created and what I've watched backs this up - we're not actually that fun to watch. So look out for me losing all 5 games in January no doubt!

Looking at the league table more closely it's interesting to see Monaco up there in 3rd as in the first two seasons they've hovered around 17th until February then sacked their manager and risen to upper mid-table. FC Lorient are newly promoted yet are the top half, whilst Reims are clearly struggling with the extra demands of the Europa League (although they may be out of it by now), I can only hope that they play my two loanees (El Hadj Coly and Hamza Rafia) and they combine to lift them out of trouble, as I like having them in the league.

Also an interesting fact about our low conceded stat: it means that Jason Denayer has scored as many against us as any other player in the league (Florian Thauvin and Tammy Abraham are the two opposition players to score).

Edited August 11, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Awards Season

World Goalkeeper of the Year in FM appears to be like a Ballon d'Or for goalkeepers, and Anthony Lopes won it! That average rating drop shows that we've been giving up less chances this past 6 months as he averaged over 7.0 in the previous two seasons. I don't think I've ever had a player win this before, I tend to be too gung-ho in my tactics.

Obviously this team wouldn't make sense if he wasn't in it. Carrasco is the only one that anyone might be surprised by, he had a really good 2020.

Not bad for a guy who doesn't play league games to get into this XI! (Onana is upset about this - I'll either have to sell him or Lopes this summer and find a new backup).

Finally, Dan-Axel Zagadou has retained Ligue 1 Revelation of the Year...which seems counter to the award's name. Surely it should be for a breakout star?

[zlatanera]

January 2021

Blois Foot 41 (A): ‘A’ team. Blois Foot 41 are in the 4th tier, I want to smash them to boost morale at the start of the new year so will go almost full strength (Titouan Thomas has been promoted to the 1st team and ‘A’ lineup for the duration of Nabil Fekir’s injury). Gouiri (2), Aouar, Memphis and Thomas (2) got the job done with 5 of the goals coming in the first half.

Reims (H): ‘B’ team. Okafor (2), Hadji and Solet got the goals. Neither of our loanees were involved in Reims’ equaliser sadly.

Paris SG (H): ‘A’ team. Its only January but this game could decide the title. PSG have strengthened even further, bringing back Kinglsey Coman for £122m and triggering Éder Militão’s £45m release clause (the latter frustrating for me as a day later Max Aarons asked to leave but there’s no suitable replacement out there). 7’ Memphis’ deep indirect free kick was finished by Denayer! 17’ we countered and it was Memphis’ turn to score. 19’ our corner caused chaos in the box, Tousart tackled it back to Ndombele then finished the return pass for 3-0! 52’ Neymar pulled one back. 66’ Coman had their 2nd and I was getting concerned as both had come from moves following short throws. The 5 minutes of added time were played at a breakneck pace but we held on for the win!

Montpellier (A): ‘A’ team. Cozza (OG), Tousart, Dembélé.

OM (A): ‘B’ team. 2’ Onana instead of just dropping and catching Thauvin’s header, dived and diverted it onto the post and in off his back. 11’ Rutter equalised off Evander’s free kick. We were creating the better chances, but Marseille were having more shots. 78’ Origi put them ahead.

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February 2021

USBCO (H): ‘A’ team. 13’ Aarons unleashed a left-footed rocket from the edge of the box following a throw, 1-0! 20’ Okafor, Tousart and Aouar (3) did the rest.

Rennes (H): ‘B’ team. Rutter and Gouiri got the goals. But those absolute thugs managed to put Okafor, Gouiri and Aouar all out for a month after “tackling” them - Okafor and Aouar were 2nd half subs! We currently have a ridiculous 10 players injured, which poses a serious threat to our chances.

Nîmes (A): We’re so injured right now that Oumar Traoré (another part of the 1st season youth intake) makes his debut out of position at AML, with fellow academy grad Peter Deering at AMR. They both combined for Thomas’ 17th minute opener! Memphis scored a rocket free kick on 25’ and for once we didn’t lose anyone to injury!!

AS Monaco (H): “B” team (in this case meaning a ‘B’ team defence and the u19s attack). 4’ Golovin put them ahead, and 36’ Bakambu doubled their lead. We hit the woodwork 3 times but couldn’t score. That puts us behind PSG on goal difference.

Man City (H): ‘A’ team. City’s high line and press played into our hands perfectly, we missed two clear chances before Dembélé broke the offside trap and put us ahead after 29 minutes. 54’ Lewis Cook got his second yellow preventing Dembélé breaking away. We couldn’t make anything of our advantage however, and would have conceded an away goal if it weren’t for an outstanding save from Onana. Still, the 2nd leg is three weeks away by which point we should have some fit first-teamers (I hope).

Strasbourg (A): ‘B’ team. Rutter gave us the lead just before half-time, but early in the second half Oumar Solet threw an elbow and got sent off. Moments later we conceded from a corner. I was beginning to think it was all over and we’d truly handed PSG initiative in the title race, when at 93’ a short throw just inside their half was quickly switched out to Hadji who drove to the byline and cut it back for Rutter to restore the lead! They then went straight down the other end and equalised again in the 95th, my players clearly hadn’t listened to my shout of “Tighten Up”. Ultimately the blame for this result lies on one man’s shoulders: Oumar Solet. He may have reached his potential already, and if he’s going to keep doing idiotic things like that he’ll be out the door in summer.

OM (A): ‘A’ team. A non-event, other for Fekir re-injuring himself 20 minutes into his comeback (physios recommended 75 minutes).

LOSC (H): ‘B’ team. 25’ Ikone put them ahead from just outside the box, and shortly afterwards Pintor went off as yet another injury return went south. 49’ their keeper punched the ball clear of the area and Thomas volleyed it with his weak foot through the crowd of bodies into the opposite side of the goal! 56’ Hadji broke, belying his 10 Dribbling by carrying it about 40 yards before just over-hitting his pass behind the defence, but Thomas reached it at the byline and cut it back for Evander to finish from close range to complete the comeback! 

As things currently stand PSG are favourites to retain the title, whilst Monaco are breathing down our necks. We've already played both of them twice, so my only hope is to be perfect from here on out - highly unlikely given our luck with injuries - and hope that a) they still have to play each other and b) Monaco win.

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Youth Intake 2021

In terms of the number of quality players this intake is poor (and when I saw both Souleymane Diagné and Jean Sow came from our Senegalese affiliate I'd hoped we might have found a couple of gems) but we still have 3 guys with very high potential. Other than those 3 the ones I'll sign on are Ahmed Mezedjri and Sébastien Hervé as they both have some potential and decent personalities, and Yanis Bouchet as he has 12 Determination which is important for the squad's general character. Hervé looks interesting too as he's 185cm and 73 kg aged 14!

Calais-born Sow is a French-Senegalese dual national. He's now the 2nd best DR prospect in the academy behind Pascal Lacroix, but that rare Curls Ball trait means if he develops, he'll definitely get a chance. 

Andrade is a French-Portuguese dual national, from the Lyon suburb of Caluire-et-Cuire. Interestingly alongside Michaud he's the 2nd great CD prospect I have with low natural fitness, but the only one of the three CD prospects (Pernot is the other) that isn't a free kick taker. Also both French-Portuguese players I have one the books - Andrade and Lopes - are Resolute which is curious.

Leeds-born Newcastle-supporting Beale is the best prospect of the bunch, and that most unusual of things - a white Englishman with an abundance of Flair who is a natural #10! Interestingly both him and Peter Deering, our English intake from 2019, are high in both Flair and Leadership. For the foreigners to make it to youth intake they must really have something about them it seems. I'm really excited about this guy!

[zlatanera]

March 2021

Prior to this season I was offered the France job - I declined, I haven’t the interest in international management, and Antoine Koumbouaré (Dijon FCO manager) took it. Prior to the Man City match I was offered the Juventus job - despite beating Liverpool 3-1 in their 1st leg tie, they’re 7 points off the pace in Serie A having played a game more, which was enough for Mauricio Pochettino to be sacked - but I declined as I have no interest in abandoning this young team!

FC Metz (H): ‘A’ team. Memphis’ brace was enough to get the job done.

Toulouse FC (A): ‘B’ team. Hadji put us ahead on 48’, a vicious volley whilst running away from goal. They equalised at 56’, set up by a brilliant through ball between the DR and DCR which you never normally see, before Anthony Lopes’ took on an incorporeal form to allow their striker’s header to pass through his hands on 86’ to have my head in my hands. 89 Aouar’s penalty (won by Hadji) put us back on level terms, I went to a 442DM and 90+4 Caqueret won it!

Man City (A): ‘A’ team. A narrow first leg lead means if we score an away goal we’re in the driving seat, but I’m not optimistic after last season’s capitulation against Juventus given this time we have a bunch of guys struggling for fitness. Save MVP Memphis will be on his way out if we don’t make it to the next round too. 2 days before this game they sacked Guardiola as they’re 6th in the Premier League. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get offered the job in spite of my United affiliation once this tie is done. They lined up with 3 strikers - either this will play into our hands allowing us to control the midfield, or they’ll shred us on the counter. 20’ it had been all them, and De Bruyne lofted the ball over our defence from deep, Wilson beating the offside trap to finish. 34’ Ederson flapped at Fekir’s free kick and Dembélé put us ahead with an away goal! 54’ an absolutely absurd defensive throw - Aarons launching it at Denayer’s head despite the fact he was in our box and marked - led to Gabriel Jesus getting their 2nd. 63’ Tousart headed in on a corner to put us back ahead! 68’ we got our 3rd on a counter-attack, Fekir playing a long ball from deep over the top for Memphis who beat the keeper from the edge of the box. 94’ Memphis’ free kick was only parried by Emerson and Gouiri made it 4! Memphis got MOTM but in my book it should have gone to Onana, who made a number of incredible saves. In the other tie, Bournemouth!!! beat Real Madrid at their own ground 3-2 for a 5-3 aggregate win.

Bordeaux (H): ‘B’ team. 31’ we went right through them from our own short goal kick for PIntor to score. Martínez headed in from a corner on 39’, and 41’ Pintor got his 2nd.

FC Nantes (A): ‘A’ team. Scorers were Aouar, Dembélé (2) and Memphis (3G 2A - yet another free kick for one of the goals!).

A lot of the players start the game contracted until 2023, and the contracts I renewed at the start were of a similar length. We’re now about 26 months out, so I had to finally hand out a bunch of renewals to ensure we have our best players at the club. All-in-all, 9 first team players signed new contracts. The best piece of business was definitely managing to get Memphis to re-sign for the same basic wage of £100k/week (although now Fekir and Ndombele join him as our highest earners) and Anthony Lopes signing on for the same basic wage of £50k/week but with reduced Appearance / Clean Sheet / Unused Substitute fees and no competition bonuses.

[zlatanera]

Aesthetic

Fouad Hadji's opener against Toulouse got Goal of the Month for Ligue 1, so I thought I'd post it here - nothing special from at team perspective but the body positioning on the goal reminds me of Van Persie's first for United against Fulham 

[zlatanera]

April 2021

AS Monaco (H): ‘B’ team. 4’ from a short throw they worked it to Tielemans, unmarked on the edge of the area (as players always are on FM19) who smashed it home. 5’ a proper team move: Pintor made a covering tackle, gave it to Martínez who played a one-two with Guilherme Arana, then drove out of defence before laying it off to Caqueret, who quickly moved it onto Evander. Evander skipped past his man then played it out wide for Okafor who used his pace to get into the box and cross for Gouiri to make it 1-1! 9’ it was 2-1, Pintor turning provider for Okafor - Okafor had learned Cuts Inside From Both Wings prior to this game and you could already see a nice variation in his play. We were all over them from then on. One sequence for the duration of the 58th minute resembled Bartlomiej Dragowski vs. Atalanta - we hit the post twice, defenders 3 times and Rulli made 2 spectacular point-blank saves as well! 90’ following a throw just inside their half we quickly got the edge of their box, where Evander did a bit of an old-school #10 play - standing still whilst play moved around him, before quickly getting the ball, playing a one-two with Gouiri and finishing for 3-1!

Inter (H): ‘A’ team. We beat Inter at this stage last year, and they’ve lost Mauro Icardi to Man City, but they also gained Diego Simeone as manager in the summer which has led to them leading Serie A (1 point ahead of Fiorentina, 2 ahead of Napoli, 5 ahead of Milan - its a weird league) so I’m expecting a tough tie. First half we dominated, creating chances but without allowing them a sniff of goal but when we went into the tunnel at the break still on 0-0 I started to think that was more a deliberate choice by Inter not to attack, and was fearful of a Simeone classic over two legs. Luckily 52’ Aouar deliberately deflected Fekir’s shot at such close range Handanovic had no chance, 1-0! 83’ Lautaro Martinez knocked over Zagadou to win a hopeful punt over the top (the animation looked like Zagadou threw himself away from the ball), sprinted into the box and lobbed Onana, but it hit the post! Then on 91’ we hit them on the counter - Aouar heading their goal kick down to Caqueret, who played it forward for Okafor who beat his man and thrashed it in from just inside the box!

Reims (H): ‘B’ team. We toiled away for 80 minutes to no avail, until finally our press forced a mistake and Amine Gouiri put us ahead.

Inter (A): ‘A’ team. 15’ Andersen headed in from a corner. 18’ they took a short, deep throw and Vrsaljko switched it out to Perisic who made it 2-0. Fuming. 27’ Handanovic made an outstanding save from Aouar but Memphis buried the rebound! 52’ Fekir made it 2-2 on the night, 4-2 on aggregate. 55’ Palacios scored a screamer. 75’ Politano got their 4th. 83’ Fekir got another and thankfully, that was that. Great attacking, great goalkeeping from Handanovic and absolutely atrocious defending on both sides.

Clermont (A): ‘B’ team. Gouiri (3), Okafor, Evander (2).

Amiens SC (H): ‘B’ team. They took an early lead, and although Pintor got us level on 52’ and we hit the bar twice, we just couldn’t get another through their flat 5-4-1.

FC Bayern (A): ‘A’ team. Given our away record, I’m hoping to lose 10-9 to give us a chance at home :P 8’ and they overcommitted, we countered and Fekir laid it off for an easy tap in for Memphis! 44’ Mendy won the ball at LB, played it back to Onana who hit it hard and flat up the middle, Aouar knocked it down to Ndombele, who played it out wide to Fekir who paused then set off the overlapping Aarons…and Memphis had his 2nd, back post tap-in again! 75’ Aarons again was the provider, Aouar heading in from close range. 81’ another counter-attack saw Memphis turn provider for Fekir to make it 4! We couldn’t have it all our own way though, and 90’ Tolisso set up Raphinha to pull one back.

[zlatanera]

May 2021

Strasbourg (A): ‘B’ team. Rafael picked up a suspension, so Pascal Lacroix gets his debut. It took him only 7 minutes to make a mark, assisting our opener. Gouiri (2), Martínez, Okafor (3) and Solet got the goals.

FC Bayern (H): ‘A’ team. André Onana, despite play a bunch of games in the second half of the season, still wants to leave for first team football. On the eve of this game he missed training for the second time in 2 weeks, so I fined 1 week’s wages. I’ll persevere with him for this match, but I’m getting a big decision to make over who plays the Coupe de France final. 7’ a sustained period of pressure resulted in Memphis smashing one in at the back post! 12’ he got his free kick up, over the wall and back under the bar past Neuer for 2-0! 27’ Tousart’s throw was flicked on by Memphis to Aouar, who took a couple of steps inside and unloaded one in to the far corner from outside the box for 3! 28’ Memphis had his hat-trick! 46’ he went off with “potential foot injury”, and god I hope it’s not serious. 55’ Bergwijn announced himself as Arjen Robben’s replacement, cutting in off the left and curling one in the near post. The next 35 minutes were entertaining but saw no further goals, so we’re into the final!!!

In the other tie, Bournemouth’s 0-0 draw at PSG was for nothing as Mbappe and Cavani scored in England to put them through. So it’s an all-French clash in the final!

FC Lorient (A): ‘A’ team. PSG are 6 points ahead of us now, so we have to win every game and hope they screw up or it’ll be over before the derby. Fekir, Aouar (3) and Pintor get the job done in spite of Jimmy Cabot’s screamer.

EA Guingamp (A): ‘B’ team. Gouiri and Okafor scored. But even if PSG do lose their next two I think they’ve won the league as they hammered Toulouse 6-1 giving them 71 GD to our 63.

AS Saint-Etienne (H): ‘A’ team. 7’ Dembélé poked home in a goalmouth scramble. 19’ Pintor ran onto Ndombele’s through ball and made it 2! 77’ Tousart headed home from a Fekir corner. A comedown from our previous 8 and 7-0 home wins in the derby, but still a dominant win. More importantly though, PSG drew at Guingamp! That pulled us within 1 point of them, so we’re still in with a shot of the title. Effectively, we have 3 finals coming up - one in which we only indirectly play PSG (we’re at home to 18th placed Angers SCO whilst they’re at home to 16th place Nîmes) and then two where we play against them. I’m going to devote separate posts to them.

The league table going into the final round. So close!

[zlatanera]

Zlatanera’s The Three Finals - Episode I: The one where we all split our attention between our game and the concurrent match at Parc des Princes

 

Angers are in the relegation play-off and we’ve yet to concede a goal to them in this save, so we should win this. The long-term absence of Dodô notwithstanding we go into this with my first choice XI and a full complement on the bench (although Gouiri was normally part of the 2nd string he gets the nod here as I think his more finessed game will be better suited to a match where I expect the opposition to retreat to the edge of their box).

3’ Gouiri won a penalty! Fekir hit it straight at the keeper however. 5’ they failed to clear a corner and following Ndombele and Fekir’s blocked shots it fell to Aouar on the edge of the area to make it 1-0! At this point we are top of the league.

Over the next 10 minutes Memphis twice hit the bar with free kicks, whilst PSG’s game remained 0-0.

Half time was still 1-0, and still 0-0 in Paris. Yoan Cardinale was playing himself into contention as my future backup goalkeeper but I still absolutely roared at the team to do better in the 2nd half.

51’ Mbappe opened the scoring in Paris and we were back down to 2nd.

79’ Sergei Milinkovic-Savic got sent off! C’mon Nîmes, push for the equaliser!

85’ Okafor whipped on in and somehow despite being surrounded by their entire defence Gouiri chested it down, took a touch and placed it into the bottom corner for 2-0!

Sadly the scores remained the same from then on, so PSG retain the title for the first time since 2016.

What’s truly nuts is not just that we came 2nd with 96 point (setting a club record for points and wins, and equalling the previous season’s record low 2 losses) but that Monaco managed to come 3rd with 90! That’s a 20 point gap between 3rd and 4th.

Edited August 16, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Zlatanera’s The Three Finals - Episode 2&1/2: The one where the French invade Vienna

 

So here we are, the first all-French Champions League final! One on side we have a side wholly owned by a ruthless authoritarian regime aiming to establish a trend of French teams only being able to win the Champions League by splashing their money around in illicit ways. One the other, us: French-owned, with a focus on youth to such an extent that we have more of their academy products in our first team than they do to go along with 5 straight from our own local area (Lopes, Caqueret, Aouar, Fekir & Gouiri). The press would probably frame this as a battle for the soul of football, but I would never be as obvious as that!

 

Oddsmakers actually have us as the favourites for this one, 6-4 compared to PSG’s 13-8.

This is also a weird one for the modern format of the Champions League in that both teams are making their debut final appearances.

Moussa Dembélé returns to the starting lineup to get in behind their defence, whilst Maxence Caqueret will hopefully provide more of a controlling presence than Ndombele as DLP, and Lisandro Martínez gets the nod ahead of Zagadou as his Acceleration and Agility will be needed to keep out their pacy attack. André Onana keeps his spot as our cup goalkeeper, he has earned it in spite of his poor attitude.

Our lineup cost a total of around £77m, or less than half of one Mbappé. PSG’s whole starting XI cost £882m!!! A truly absurd amount of money, and that’s not even counting their stacked bench.

 

11’ from a throw near their own corner flag Lenglet held on to the ball long enough to sucker a couple of our players in before pinging it up to Neymar. He then switched it to Coman who drove forward then crossed reasonably deep to the edge of the box, Aarons missed his header and Neymar slotted home.

26’ we hadn’t had a shot on goal, and were even losing the possession battle but we won a corner. Fekir took an in-swinger and Denayer rose to head us level!

Half time it was still 1-1, and we’d still only had 1 shot. I removed Slightly Shorter Passing and Slightly Lower Tempo to embrace the lower possession numbers and hopefully cut through them.

58’ Onana took a defensive free kick short to Denayer, who played a one-two with Caqueret before moving it on to Aarons. He then drove forward before laying it off to Fekir who turned, stepped into their half and played it over the top for Dembélé! Milenkovic beat him to the ball but couldn’t cope under the pressure playing a weak backpass which Moussa blasted through Navas’ legs for 2-1! 2 shots, 2 goals!

71’ Tousart was tired so I brought on Ndombele to keep some physicality in our midfield, whilst they subbed off MIlenkovic for Willian Jose and went for a 4-2-3-1. We started to generate more chances after that…

82’ Mendy took a throw near our corner flag to Aouar, who returned it to him immediately. He then played it forward to Memphis, who played a one-two with Ndombele, ran forward a bit further and played it ahead of Dembélé in the left channel, who quickly moved it onto Aouar, who drove from about halfway between the centre circle and the D going past Lenglet like he wasn’t there before finishing under Navas to make it 3!

86’ I reinforced LB by bringing on Guilherme Arana’s fresh legs whilst they solidified their midfield with William Carvalho and Carlos Soler.

91’ Aarons lost the ball following an attacking throw, and they countered at pace with Mbappé playing a one-two with Coman during which he covered about 40 yards to volley home the “two”. It’s not over yet!

92’ another counter saw Mbappé burn Denayer down our right and cross, our clearance barely made it out of the box and Coman levelled it! It looked offside to me but there wasn’t even a VAR.

For extra time I subbed my other full back, Aarons making way for Rafael, whilst they brought on Federico Chiesa to run at him.

105’ I used my final substitute, dropping Aouar back to midfield and bringing on Gouiri at AM, and he nearly made a dream start, hitting the bar less than a minute later!

We nearly scored with the last kick of the game, Onana’s clearance allowing us to go from one end to the other in about 5 seconds, but Fekir could only hit it tamely at Navas so we went to penalties.

 

Dembélé…scored!

Mbappé…scored!

Gouiri…scored!

Willian José…scored!

Aouar…scored!

Éder Militão…scored!

Fekir…hit the post.

Sergi Roberto…scored!

Memphis…scored!

Grimaldo…scored! PSG won it.

 

A horrible way to lose it, especially when we’d been 2 ahead only to succumb to the fact that defenders can’t keep up with anyone who has 20 Acceleration and 20 Pace.

 

I hope we’ll be back, but given I’ll most likely have to sell the goalkeeper who helped get us here I’m not optimistic.

 

Memphis was joint top scorer and joint top assister, but in both cases doesn’t win the award due to having played more games.

Edited November 15, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Zlatanera’s The Three Finals - Episode III: The one where we get a rematch one week later, only this trophy seems inconsequential by comparison, and also each of us is missing half of our starting XI due to internationals

 

I’d like to retain the Coupe de France for the first time in the club’s history, but really more importantly I need to get one over PSG - even though in the head-to-head table the game generates we’re up by 3 points, one of those draws was, as I’ve just detailed, a loss.

 

Stupidly in moving this game for the CL final the FFF have ensured a ridiculous number of players will miss it; Jason Denayer, Nabil Fekir, Memphis, Houssem Aouar, Anthony Lopes, Tanguy Ndombele, Ferland Mendy, Max Aarons, Noah Okafor, Kylian Mbappé, Roman Zobnin, Federico Chiesa, Sergi Roberto, Georginio Wijnaldum, Álex Grimaldo, Carlos Soler, Nélson Semedo, Clément Lenglet, Nikola Milenkovic, William Carvalho, Kingsley Coman and Mykola Matvienko all on international duty. Furthermore of the u19s I’d like to promote to cover; Pascal Lacroix, Titouan Thomas, Fouad Hadji and Georginio Rutter all missing as well.

Along with that, each side misses a further two first team players through injury: André Onana and Dodô on our side, Willian José, Edinson Cavani and Sergei Milinkovic-Savic on theirs.

Looking at those lineups you might actually make us slight favourites for this. However, Neymar vs. Rafael is hilariously unequal given the latter’s lack of defensive abilities.

 

The first half was all our way, Gouiri missing a great chance, but at half time it was still 0-0 so I asked the players to go out for revenge.

The second half was pretty uneventful until 90’ when PSG sub Kays Ruiz scored…and it was offside!

We then went right up the other end, Evander crossing for Dembélé, but it was saved. The rebound came back to him, he outmanoeuvred his marker in the 6 yard box and put it just out of Areola’s reach for 1-0! With only 30 seconds left on the clock! Well its still no Champions League, but beating them with a goal from their own academy product is satisfying as hell!

 

[zlatanera]

A Ligue on the rise!

Marseille's Europa League win in 2018/19 and the all-French Champions League final in 2020/21 will be primary factors in this - Germany haven't had a Europa finalist since 2008/09 or a Champions League finalist since 2012/13. Hopefully the extra funds from the Champions League strengthens whoever gets in at fourth behind my human advantage and the mega bucks of PSG and Monaco, and helps them a) take points off the aforementioned megabucks and b) keep their best players in the league, improving the quality as a whole!

[zlatanera]

2020/21 Final League Table & Club Awards

This is the first season where the four biggest clubs are the ones taking the top four places. Angers lost the play-off to Lens, who will be a welcome addition to the league. Saint-Etienne will be cursing their luck as 7th place next season will probably get Europa League (although those qualifiers can be a curse)

The league positions show a very similar story to last year. Perhaps if I hadn't taken 6 months to figure out my tactic we would have won it? 

Our signing of the season was out for 6 months, and I think Evander was more crucial (and came 2nd in fans' player of the season) but can't disagree with the love for Memphis, he was by far our best player. 

Caqueret is really starting to push for inclusion over Ndombele, shiny new £100k/week contract be damned. We only had 1 red card all season, and it was that dumb one by Solet - I may sell him this summer as he seems to have peaked, I could re-train Tousart and sign another CM.  Of the 407 goals we've apparently scored so far in this save, Memphis had a direct hand in 89 - he's one of the best players in the world right now. Some more player stats:

Houssem Aouar 17G 4A

Moussa Dembélé 13G 2A

Evander 7G 10A

Nabil Fekir 6G 12A

Amine Gouiri 17G 8A

Noah Okafor 16G 11A

Lenny Pintor 13G 4A

Edited August 17, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Awards

Weirdly I, a manager, got invited to vote for Players' Goalkeeper of the Season. I also won Ligue 1 Manager of the Year, which I see as recognition that we might be the best ever 2nd placed team in Ligue 1 history.

Edited August 18, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Tactic Evolution

We finished last season playing like this, effectively my Jardim recreation but with Tempo and Passing lowered one notch. AML had Roam From Position whilst AMR had Cross Less Often, Cut Inside With Ball, Shoot Less Often and Sit Narrower. There's a temptation to just stick with this one, but I'm going to continue with my plan of increasing mentality every season - after all, if it backfires catastrophically I now have a setup I really like to revert to.

We'll go into 2021/22 looking like the above. As we've increased mentality I've put both of my CMs on De duties to provide a bit more cover in the centre...and that's it! The bonus for using no At duties doesn't seem to apply in FM19 - from what I've observed you just end up with a bunch of guys not making attacking runs - so I'm keeping my AMs on At. If we get completely overrun I'll have a rethink. In terms of TIs I've got passing at its shortest possible length to counter-act the increasing directness of the new mentality and Work Ball Into Box is to encourage a pass-first mentality further. The increased mentality increases closing down by default, so I've technically kept it about the same level by lowering the level a notch. 

Edited August 31, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Summer Transfers 2021 (Outgoing)

We brought in a total of £141m this transfer window. Hamza Rafia's departure was a rare occasion of me accepting a club's first non-negotiable offer, as I deemed it decent (double his value would be £8m and I expect him to meet the clauses in the deal). Terrier had fallen down the pecking order and not improved during a year in Gladbach. Solet didn't look likely to develop, or improve his personality, so I decided to retrain Tousart as a BPD and ship him out to free up space in the midfield. André Onana never piped down about wanting first team football - he was valued about £38m, to get £52m for a goalkeeper even in a post-Alison world is really good, especially as he'd been unsettled for a year and only cost us £12.75m. Finally Noah Okafor demanded to go to Liverpool, wasn't happy when I told him I valued him at £37m and initially Liverpool wouldn't negotiate. However one day later they acquisced to my terms - £37m (half up front, half over 3 instalments) and a 2 year loan back! So now we have more money, a happy player and a top class winger whose wages we don't have to pay for two years! He won an award too, that is weirdly given in August:

Despite those outgoings I felt this window was defined more by those who stayed. Three of our Brazilian contingent were unhappy. Guilherme Arana wanted a higher squad status at Chelsea, Dodô decided that after declining over the course of 7 months out with Damaged Cruciate Ligaments that he deserved a better deal as he'd "improved significantly as a player", and Evander had similar reasons (but had lasted a full season, yet hadn't really developed). Moussa Dembélé meanwhile wanted to go to Liverpool and agreed to my price of £77m (was valued at £42m). I had replacements lined up for all of them - Júnior Firpo at DL, Emerson at DR, Youri Tielemans for Evander (would move Thomas up to AMC) in a club record deal and the return of Mariano to replace Dembélé. However none of the interested clubs bid again! I even offered Dembélé and Guilherme Arana out, but Liverpool wouldn't go beyond £50m for the striker and Chelsea cooled their interest in our LB. Even when Benjamin Mendy did his cruciate Man City wouldn't offer either, so have Fabian Delph as their only senior LB. I meanwhile go into the season with four unhappy players as Dembélé wants to wait until the end of the January window, I'm not giving the other two new contracts and Guilherme Arana hasn't cooled his jets yet. 

Edited August 19, 2019 by zlatanera

[zlatanera]

Summer Transfers 2021 (Incoming) - ...maybe?

Samassékou completed his 18 month loan period and finally joined permanently, so not really a new signing. Okafor meanwhile is a loan back so again, not a new signing. So there was only one:

Highly rated Brazilian GK Paulo Renato, given the 13 year age gap, is a more natural replacement for Anthony Lopes than André Onana who would have wasted his peak (and will now instead waste it rotating with former Lyon goalkeeper Hugo Lloris). He's another release clause bargain GK, already a good one, and I fully expect him to turn into a great one. For now he'll start that out by being loaned to FC Köln, who lost Timo Horn this summer, as he's the 6th nEU player we have on our books (DL Luis Rodréguez and ST Rodrigo Rocha Santos are both at Real Sociedad for similar reasons, although they'll hope to gain Spanish citizenship whereas Paulo Renato is going purely for first team football). Hopefully he can keep them up and perhaps do a Courtois by staying on loan at the same place for 2-3 seasons!

[zlatanera]

July / August 2021

Paris SG (N): I’ve made clear in the press my disdain for this fixture as its needlessly played miles away from France and also forces us into having a mid-week game as our first league tie. So I’m playing a ‘B’ team. Anthony Racioppi, after two seasons on loan at US Orléans, mid-table in Ligue 2, gets the nod in goal. Lucas Tousart, currently with no positional familiarity, starts at CB and captains the side. Titouan Thomas has been made a part of the first team for real, but despite being a natural AMC who wears #11, he’ll be a DLP-De - he has two traits that encourage running with the ball so I'm hoping he can be a sort of low budget Frenkie de Jong. However, should we lose I fully expect the press to react like they did when Juve turned round that CL tie against us. New coach Luis Enrique (Tuchel left for Man City) went full strength.

1’ we had a goal disallowed, Dodô’s cross only making its way in due to Dembélé, in an offside position, obscuring Areola’s view. 8’ they countered, Neymar got his shot off an Racioppi could only parry it straight back to his feet. 1-0. 25’ we did some proper Sarriball: Tousart, Martínez and Guilherme Arana passing it around just out of reach of Jovic’s attempted press before Arana quickly moved it out to Pintor, who took a touch and launched it over the top for Dembélé to finish! Then they literally scored straight away, we didn’t get a touch of the ball from their kick-off until Neymar scored. 40’ our press forced Areola into a punt, Samassékou intercepted and played it to Thomas, knocked on to Evander who played it through the defence for Pintor who finished off the outside of his boot for 2-2! 46’ Dodô switched it to Guilherme Arana, whose first-time cross was headed towards goal by Dembélé - it must have been 75% over the line but Areola got a hand out - who finished at the 2nd time of asking for 3-2! 71’ we went from our goal kick to their net in about 20 seconds: Racioppi played it to Tousart, out to Dodô who sprinted the middle third of the pitch before playing it ahead of Dembélé, who took a touch and did the same for Evander who shot low and hard to make it 4! 92’ Guilherme Arana did one of those stupid FM19 things where a defender under no pressure heads it to an opponent, a couple of passes later and Maycon finished from outside the box to make it 4-3.

Rennes (A): ‘A’ team. Memphis (2), Aouar, Pintor & Gouiri the scorers.

SM Caen (H): ‘B’ team. 43’ Dodô is tripped in the box, penalty confirmed by VAR, Dembélé scores. 47’ Pintor is pushed off the pitch (from inside the box), penalty confirmed by VAR, Dembélé scores! 63’ Thomas and Dembélé won a couple of aerial duels, the ball fell for Evander who rounded his man and finished low and hard from just inside the box. 90’ Tousart headed in Evander’s corner.

LOSC (H): 2’ a series of counters and counter-counters ends with Aouar volleying it in from close range! 10’ Memphis add a 2nd. 42’ Ndombele played it out to Mendy at the edge of the box, who looked up and saw about 4 players lining up 18 yards out…he chose Fekir with his cross, who volleyed it in for 3! 59’ Caqueret got time on the edge of the area to pick his spot, curling it just inside the post for 4. 88’ they headed our corner out to the edge of the box and Aouar volleyed it straight back into the goal from 25 yards! Paul Scholes-esque!

FC Lorient (A): ‘B’ team. Okafor and Evander’s goals meant Ismaïla Sarr’s screamer was for nought.

RC Lens (H): ‘A’ team. They took the lead through Moussa Diaby, but Tanguy Ndombele’s first goal in 41 matches (assisted by Zagadou from a corner) got us level, before Aouar put us ahead from distance. Dembélé (pen) and Memphis rounded off the win.

PSG Watch

A new section, every month I'll update on the distance (or lack of it) between me and eternal rivals PSG!

Having lost 3-0 at home to Monaco and drew 0-0 to Rennes and Toulouse (both at home, they've only won away weirdly) PSG are already 7 points back! Monaco are looking like our closest challengers meanwhile having beaten both PSG and Marseille away from home, which makes it really odd that they were going to sell Youri Tielemans to me. 

[Jimbokav1971]

On 13/08/2019 at 01:41, zlatanera said:

Youth Intake 2021

In terms of the number of quality players this intake is poor (and when I saw both Souleymane Diagné and Jean Sow came from our Senegalese affiliate I'd hoped we might have found a couple of gems) but we still have 3 guys with very high potential. Other than those 3 the ones I'll sign on are Ahmed Mezedjri and Sébastien Hervé as they both have some potential and decent personalities, and Yanis Bouchet as he has 12 Determination which is important for the squad's general character. Hervé looks interesting too as he's 185cm and 73 kg aged 14!

I really can't stress how inaccurate these day 1 Coach Reports are, (even with good staff). 

[zlatanera]

3 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I really can't stress how inaccurate these day 1 Coach Reports are, (even with good staff). 

They get personality right, and with the new system and the level I’m at that’s a lot of it.

But yeah I notice revisions after the trial game, I tend to wait until then to make decisions. But it’s easier to do a screenshot at the point the intake appears. 

I may be a little less selective in 2022’s intake as nobody in France seems to have produced a decent natural CM since the start of the save. 

[dothestrand]

Good stuff. I usually have a Lyon save in most FM versions. In fact, the French young talent this season is so, so good that I reckon you could easily develop a young, French only squad. 

[zlatanera]

@dothestrand Yeah they're one of my go-tos. I skipped them on Fm17 only because the previous year's save had ran about 12 seasons.

I could easily produce a French-only squad consisting of only real players, but I'd have to throw a bit of cash around - I prefer to operate on a lower budget and mix up the squad a little. I've still only so far signed French, English (I'd buy UK because I'm from there), South American and French-speaking part-Africans. I'd probably sign someone from the Far East or Northern or Central America if the opportunity came up (Júnior Firpo and Mariano are both part-Dominican Spaniards and I planned on signing them), and might stretch to a non-African Swiss or Belgian player.

Edited August 20, 2019 by zlatanera

[Jimbokav1971]

9 hours ago, zlatanera said:

They get personality right, and with the new system and the level I’m at that’s a lot of it.

But yeah I notice revisions after the trial game, I tend to wait until then to make decisions. But it’s easier to do a screenshot at the point the intake appears. 

I may be a little less selective in 2022’s intake as nobody in France seems to have produced a decent natural CM since the start of the save. 

Yeah, the personality will always be correct, no matter how poor the staff member. 

[zlatanera]

3 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Yeah, the personality will always be correct, no matter how poor the staff member. 

And pretty hard to change by more than +3 (or less than -5) due to mentoring replacing tutoring.

Do you think of multiple staff think the same on the first day it’s more accurate? Or is it just a case of them being wowed by the Low Determination guy pulling off a rainbow flick?

A few of my coaches are also top scouts so I wonder if they all agree if that could be a way to hone in on the good ones