The FM20 Youth Academy Challenge

[Makoto Nakamura]

7 minutes ago, syemo said:

How many leagues have you got loaded 😂

I've only got England loaded but I want a lower rep team, so far these are the 3 lowest teams I've had come through:

Coalville Town - 1800

Leiston - 1800

Stratford Town - 1750

[syemo]

I have a save with kings Langley saved somewhere. What team you waiting for?

[Makoto Nakamura]

Just now, syemo said:

I have a save with kings Langley saved somewhere. What team you waiting for?

I also have a save with Kings Langley, as well as Ashton Utd, Barwell, Needham Market & Royston.

No team in particular just seeing how low of a rep team can get promoted. Bowers & Pitsea or Blackfield are the holy grail, but that isn't going to happen. 

[syemo]

I'll have a look in my saves as I did see bowers come up 

[SoulStealer]

im doing 1 in sweden actually interested if someone ever tried here ... because its madness 4 leagues and a bunch of leagues with low probability of going up

[darren1983]

8 hours ago, SoulStealer said:

@darren1983 do i need to update yearly to participate or can i do like 5 or 10 yearly update or better just send u the save at the end and some screens?

Part of the challenge is yearly updates but they don't have to be in great detail if you don't want to. Can just post your league, transfers and youth intake (with tagged players) if you want. Everyone plays in their own way but I think we all like to see and follow along with what everyone else is doing.

[darren1983]

7 minutes ago, SoulStealer said:

im doing 1 in sweden actually interested if someone ever tried here ... because its madness 4 leagues and a bunch of leagues with low probability of going up

@Braumiller did a great one in Sweden a few years back. Am sure others have as well. 

[SoulStealer]

@darren1983 thx then will post a few things about wat i did the past 4 years i already did since i start

[Novafluff]

36 minutes ago, SoulStealer said:

im doing 1 in sweden actually interested if someone ever tried here ... because its madness 4 leagues and a bunch of leagues with low probability of going up

i have played sweden in both this and last years edition had an easier time this time around already in Superettan(tier 2) after 5 seasons took perhaps 9 seasons last time. 

[SoulStealer]

So, after thinking it with alot of tought i decided i wanted a place that wasnt that knowed in europe so i would do this and a rise to glory.
I picked sweden because they have 4 divisions and bad rate of going up so because easy to stack up before actualy going up without wanting like happened to me last year.

So i have done already 4 years of this save, because sweden is actually a small league with a big winter break and since we cant do transfers it goes pretty quickly. I picked Hanvikens SK out of the other more 13 options.

Started with imediate problems with the board, 1st they insiste from start to finish that i buy u23 (when we all know i cant do it) in the club vision. And i had another problem before my 1st season started board sold my best player for 1.1k saying it was money indespensable and then blamed on me that was a bad buisness. And to make matters worse they wanted top half which made matters even worse. We ended up having a board meeting  mid way into the season and they asked for 8 points in 5 games which i manged barely ending up 8th in the league.

After that 1st season been hard moment and more hard moments in the league always barely making it. But that and the intakes will show in screenshots because 1 image better than 1000 words
 

PS: im sorry but do to sharing so late into i have no info on the 1st to intake i promise that will save it so that wont get to this again. Also, i didnt put the other 3 dates because nothing happened just released players from the 1st intakes but since i cant show them no point imo. To end, i know there is 1 guy in the transfers in the 1st season but the date says 2/12 and the swedish league reloads in 15/12 , not my fault it starts the transfer window before the league i assume.

 

If u guys want to see anyone 1 in specific from the intakes do tell i am here most of my time in the great game called fm. Next 1 in the 5th year update will showcase my eleven and who been in great display from the intakes(wont here to not put all in this 1 post )

 

 

Edited December 4, 2019 by SoulStealer
extras

[Braumiller]

27 minutes ago, darren1983 said:

@Braumiller did a great one in Sweden a few years back. Am sure others have as well. 

lol, @darren1983 you just caused me to waste 30 minutes at work reminiscing looking back through the old threads - FM14 & 15 I did it with Vastra Frolunda.  Damn I love that club....  I'll eventually go with them again, if not this year, then definitely next year!

And I still shed a tear for Excelsior Veldwezelt (RIP) from Belgium as well, loved them in FM13....

 

Side note - this is my best ever youth from this challenge, from FM14.

 

I so much prefer the newgen look from 6 years ago 

[SoulStealer]

4 minutos atrás, Novafluff disse:

i have played sweden in both this and last years edition had an easier time this time around already in Superettan(tier 2) after 5 seasons took perhaps 9 seasons last time. 

well im having major issues in mine do to the massive problems i had with the 1st two intakes didnt have left backs or wingers

[Fastbasher]

Thank you chairman for selling off our most promising youth player for peanuts.

I protested and they said I could use some of the fund to replace him. A whole 70 pounds.

[Fastbasher]

2022/23 Annecy FC season review - French National

The League

We spent most of the season around midtable, talied off towards the end with a run of 6 games without a win, and managed to hold on to survival by the tiebreak of results between teams.

 

The Players

Mehdi Kadi was our player of the season and top scorer with 16 goals.

Morgan Kamin scored the French National goal of the season.

Nicolas Poulain is one of our own youth players from a previous generation and has the quirk of playing for Annecy in all four regional divisions of the French National 2.

Jean-Francois Bonnard YP23a is the most talented youth player to come through our academy so far. Unfortunately our chairman has just sold him for 475 pounds.

 

Transfers

 

[thomas_e]

NK Zadar is having a firesale!! The board just sold two of my biggest talents on deadline day for next to nothing!! 

[Fastbasher]

1 minute ago, thomas_e said:

NK Zadar is having a firesale!! The board just sold two of my biggest talents on deadline day for next to nothing!! 

I think I got lucky in Hungary with a very supportive chairman. Starting to feel the same frustration now.

[darren1983]

1 hour ago, Braumiller said:

lol, @darren1983 you just caused me to waste 30 minutes at work reminiscing looking back through the old threads - FM14 & 15 I did it with Vastra Frolunda.  Damn I love that club....  I'll eventually go with them again, if not this year, then definitely next year!

And I still shed a tear for Excelsior Veldwezelt (RIP) from Belgium as well, loved them in FM13....

 

Side note - this is my best ever youth from this challenge, from FM14.

 

I so much prefer the newgen look from 6 years ago 

My bad  I just remember it as it was reading about it that got me interest in this challenge  

Those newgens looked so much better - I think I even had a custom hair pack too which gave loads of different styles  

[Sn00gle]

21 hours ago, SarcasticBart said:

Decided to give this a go to spice up my FM life. Also, since historically, my biggest achievement in FM is with a Polish club, I've decided to go with Poland again.

I've holiday'ed until June 29th as it says in the opening post, but the actual reset date on my save was June 19th btw. 

I've decided to go with Pogon Siedlice mainly because I liked their kits

Having the philosophy of signing under 23 players might prove problematic but we shall see what happens.

Time to assess the team and crack on with some sweaty tactics.

Good luck m8 I have wonderful journey with GKS Jastrzębie 2 years ago fun times but Polish league is hard to keep players in team and dominate it! Waiting for updates 

[uroszila]

TSV Havelse | Table | Squad| Transfers | Season 2021/22 (2nd Season)

Board Expectations & Season Review:

The board expectation was similar as in the previous week – to fight bravely against relegation. We started the season really strong with the tactic 4-1-4-1 which was successfully implemented in the previous season. But after the first month we started struggling with the goal scoring. I wanted to continue to use this same tactic but the results were bad and in the mid of season, we couldn't win the game anymore. At this time we were collecting only some points from the draws and although we were in the middle of the table I was getting worried about our future. That's why I decided to change the tactic a little bit and thus we switched to 5-1-2-2. With new tactic, we scraped some additional wins and at the end of the season, we finished in a respectful 9th position. The cup run was really short as we already finished in the first round. We played at home with Bayern Munich and we didn't have any chance against them. The only positive thing from this match was the additional money received from TV rights.

The team we used was the same as the previous season, additionally, we introduced also three youth players and gave them a little playing time in order to give them some development push. Our top scorer was again Utku Kani, but this year he wasn't in such good form as the previous season. In this campaign, he scored 14 goals. Besides his inconsistency, we have issues also with his contract as he doesn't want to extend it. Hopefully, we can convince him until the beginning of the next season to put his signature on a paper for the following seasons. Our second best striker Chris Hellmann also doesn't want to extend his contract and due to the fact, that he's nearly 30 and he's not getting any younger probably we won't push him to do it. With the rest of the team, I didn't have any issues as they are all willing to stay at the club.

Finances:

The finances are again the burning topic in the club's offices as we are accumulating debt. Currently, we have already a debt of nearly -750k € in our books and in next season we will need to find a way to stop this and decrease the debt.

Youth Intake:

The youth intake this season wasn't anything special and we offered a contract to only three youngsters:

• Jakob Bauer, RW with some crossing and okay physical stats
• Christoph Barth, ST with good heading and with some marking he has the potential to be retrained to MF position
• Sascha Mayer, GK with some potential

Aim for next Season:

Because of our finances, we didn't have the required financial power to improve our youth and training facilities in this season, therefore, our main goal for the next one will be to get some financial stability. For sure we don't have a team good enough to step one level higher so we will again aim to avoid a relegation battle. I also want to give playing time to some additional youngsters and try to develop them as much as we can.

[LeoFM]

Gonna start this challenge in the Greek 3rd tier. I found that the reset day in Greece is 19 of June. 

I'll try to update my progress along the way!

[Kazushi80]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb SoulStealer:

im doing 1 in sweden actually interested if someone ever tried here ... because its madness 4 leagues and a bunch of leagues with low probability of going up

Did the challenge in Sweden on FM16. After getting out of Division 2, i had a steady progress. league champion after a total of 16 years, but didn't win the champions league. finances where a nightmare and because i was semi-professional for a very long time, i lost my best players sometimes very fast (had a wonderkid striker who was gone weeks after the intake and played for the big teams). Still have the screenshots from the end of the season i won the title , because it's still my favourite time doing this challenge.

[Fastbasher]

Interesting feature. Was this in previous versions?

[DazRTaylor]

3 minutes ago, Fastbasher said:

Interesting feature. Was this in previous versions?

Yes but only on newgens and rarely.

[SoulStealer]

40 minutos atrás, Kazushi80 disse:

Did the challenge in Sweden on FM16. After getting out of Division 2, i had a steady progress. league champion after a total of 16 years, but didn't win the champions league. finances where a nightmare and because i was semi-professional for a very long time, i lost my best players sometimes very fast (had a wonderkid striker who was gone weeks after the intake and played for the big teams). Still have the screenshots from the end of the season i won the title , because it's still my favourite time doing this challenge.

never got that far on this challenge but lets hope its better now on 20

 

Ps: 5th season still in 4th tier im gonna take more than 16 years probably

[darren1983]

Urgh, seem to have encountered a really annoying bug. I can't play any playoff games in Itay. If I click on continue game from the fixtures page it just generates the same page over and over again  

[SoulStealer]

22 minutos atrás, darren1983 disse:

Urgh, seem to have encountered a really annoying bug. I can't play any playoff games in Itay. If I click on continue game from the fixtures page it just generates the same page over and over again  

oh been there in the sweden 4th division relagation playoff group matches had to sim both, lucky i won the group anyway

[darren1983]

1 hour ago, SoulStealer said:

oh been there in the sweden 4th division relagation playoff group matches had to sim both, lucky i won the group anyway

It's really annoying, we're not good enough to win the playoffs but I'd rather it be because of me and my selection than just be down to me having to sim it  

Have reported it as a bug so we'll see what happens.

[Fastbasher]

2023/24 Annecy FC season review - French National division

The League

We started the season with 17 straight losses, picked it up in the second half of the season, but still finished dead last by quite some margin.

I've no idea why the chairman didn't sack me. But since he sold the star of our youth academy for a handful of magic beans, I've no idea what he's thinking.

 

The Players

Mehdi Kadi was again our player of the season and top scorer with 8 goals. I needed to give him 1.1k pounds per week to extend his contract, but his goals are vital. Many times when we were outplayed, he just needed one chance the got a goal.

Robert GrangerYP22b was the first of our youth players since I took over to become a first team regular. Unfortunately our chairman has just sold him for 18.5k

 

Transfers

 

Our chairman wants me to develop youth players. But any time one looks decent, he sells him.

Back to National 2-D, but there we make around 700k in a season. In the National league we lose around 400k per season. It's crazy.

 

[SoulStealer]

ouch can only go better from here i guess @Fastbasher

[Fastbasher]

My reserve team manager has a somewhat lazy approach to scheduling friendlies.

[SoulStealer]

So 5th season done.

We started better than any season before which is important considering we only have 26 games, we have a bit of a bad moment in the middle but we managed to keep on track of top half which was my personal goal for this season, but with 5 games remaining we actualy were close to the top so we started a big push only to 1 game before season end we were 4 points off top 2 and thats how we ended up at the end.

Our player of the season was again (been him since the start) our local town legend Avernas that had help us stay up the last 4 seasons. This season he was exceptional since he got 20 in 26 therefore being top goal scorer in the league.

TOP PERFORMANCES IN SQUAD

GK

Spoiler

http://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/444162990_BestGKS5.png.e9de41cc51c0beaa4422e8486fa7e4db.png

CB

Spoiler

http://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/7146896_BestCBS5.png.e57efb01c7c1be6217f04c26f72eeb57.png

WB

Spoiler

http://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/1904513659_BestWBS5.png.27f97e9b0051317c04efce3c1e4ae32d.png

Cm

Spoiler

http://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/1861527662_BestCMS5.png.f33dc03da5680525e3d21738841d3e1a.png

Winger

Spoiler

http://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/1259081750_BestWingerS5.png.b4264117f5d58ecf714fff1b8d840c1b.png

Striker

Spoiler

https://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/972691569_BestStrikerS5.png.e451de869cb818290d8137f24555d368.png

Best suprise of the year

Spoiler

https://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/127408967_BestSupriseoftheYearS5.png.2f6312390231ad5b0907d7d4273aa4b6.png

Manager Performance

 

intake and league

Spoiler

https://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/1258804105_intake5.png.f448ddf1fbd06de0acc4d9e45012e989.png

https://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/1221095790_league5.png.b0e1e9fa96f6a7f159707b91e62ad084.png

Tatic + Most Used Players

Spoiler

https://content.invisioncic.com/Msigames/monthly_2019_12/1153564996_S5TaticandMostUsedPlayers.png.5e99783431a464eda7377eeafc330754.png

Season Review and Goals

So after managing to get my goal for this season and improving alot from last season's record which ended in disaster (droping from 3rd to 11th last 3 games of the season) the board actually been sensable removing the sign players under 23 and added high press football which is what we been playing last few years, also asked only top half. But then again i want promotion this year because we are on a freefall in the finances since 1st season (13k in the red currently) and we been stuck here for 5 seasons, 6 counting the next 1 so about time me move on and i feel we do have the team for it.

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by SoulStealer

[Fastbasher]

2024/25 Annecy FC season review - French National 2-D division

The League

The board expectations were only to avoid relegation. We far exceeded this by finishing in 7th. Since 4th place got promoted, we were actually only 4pts from promotion.
I don't actually think promotion would have been good for us. National 2 allows a more positive cashflow that National. A few seasons here will help enable upgrades.

 

The Players

Mehdi Kadi was the player of the season and top scorer for a third season in a row.

Mathias Perez, Jerome Blanchard, Bruno Lacroix and Abdelhadi Amara all made the step up from the youth team to the first team. Several of the older players left the club or retired.

 

Transfers

One issue in the National 2 divisions is that you have zero staff members allowed in any role. You can keep the staff that you came down with, but it is important to extend their contracts. If they leave or are poached by another team, you can't replace them. You can't even change the contract of an older player from 'player' to 'coach/player'.

[SoulStealer]

@Fastbasher better to stay there 1 or 2 seasons and use it to improve youth

 

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's Palermo 2024/25 Youth Intake Report

 

2 quick notes. This is one of these intakes that bears no relation to the December preview, or at least only in passing.

Secondly, Palermo’s facilities do seem to mean that we will get a lot of good players. Our problem is that we haven’t been able to improve the training facilities yet. This means that I can sell players, and still have backups left, although this intake means that I’m once again thin on the ground for strikers. I could really have done with a good central defender. I might have to give more starts to one of my existing semi-promising kids.

Giovanni Pierpaoli YP5a – Not good enough to go straight into the first team, but if he can improve, he stands a chance long term.

Roberto Pastore YP5b – We already have 3 good young goalkeepers, but he’ll be useful for the U18 team for a season or two, and hopefully I’ll get some money for one of them.

Anyway, it’s always more interesting to see what the verdict is on an intake 3 years after they arrive.

Federico Becchi YP2a- Was stuck behind a YP1 star who I eventually sold for big bucks. Embarrassingly, he was then swiftly overtaken by my YP3f right back. Goes to show how little the initial assessments can be trusted. Becchi is a solid backup, and actually starts about a third of games because the first choice guy picks up a lot of yellow cards.

Tomas Disarò YP2b – I said I was thin on strikers but I forgot about this guy currently on loan at a Serie C club. He was actually a first XI striker for his first year, but as with Becchi, was overtaken. Another solid backup, although he doesn’t actually score a lot of goals, even at his loan club. Also has a bad, temperamental personality which I’ve not been able to rid him of.

Davide Reda YP2c – At last a success story. Won the goalkeeping competition between 3 excellent youths. Could be our starter for years to come, unless he’s sold, which he will be if a team offers a lot of money. Is good at free kicks, and I’m giving him extra individual training in case he can feature in the GK scoring thread. Thus far though, he doesn’t take many kicks, and hasn’t scored.

Mohamed Rizzi YP2d – A striker who never developed, and has never played a minute for the first team.

Santo Calagna YP2h – A good player and first choice midfielder. I haven’t had many promising central midfielders prior to this YP5 intake, so Calagna got opportunities, and has developed. Just as importantly, has a Model Citizen personality, which means that at the moment I’m holding him out of mentoring groups until he completes a leadership course. He’s never going to be great, but may very well be a key player for a while. 1^st choice free kick player, and the one that’s stopping Reda from being a goal scoring keeper.

[schnauzer]

Have newgen faces had an update? I haven't had an intake yet but the generated face for my personal assistant looks a lot better?!

 

[Fastbasher]

32 minutes ago, schnauzer said:

Have newgen faces had an update? I haven't had an intake yet but the generated face for my personal assistant looks a lot better?!

 

That looks pretty decent. I just have a black shadow for mine. Do you have any facepacks downloaded, or is that just the standard game?

[Fastbasher]

What character traits does everyone find best for a HOYD?

 

Not sure if it's coincidence or not, but when I had an 'unambitious' HOYD, I never got a single decent youth intake.

[Braumiller]

9 minutes ago, Fastbasher said:

What character traits does everyone find best for a HOYD?

 

Not sure if it's coincidence or not, but when I had an 'unambitious' HOYD, I never got a single decent youth intake.

Oh boy, I wouldn't touch a poor personality HYOD with a ten foot pole

I ALWAYS go for someone with something positive in the personality department.

1. Top tier are your very rare Model Citizen, Model Professional
2. Next is a wide band and where I generally end up - Professional, Fairly Professional, Determined, Fairly Determined, Driven, Resolute etc...
3. Last chance (often only in the first few seasons when pickings are slim) I will settle for a Balanced, as long as they have good Determination stats (double digits)

You want to make sure that you are perfectly ok with their personality rubbing off on your future wonderkid.

 

[Fastbasher]

Thanks @Braumiller. Most of the applicants I have are Balanced. Some are Fairly Professional and I had been wondering which was better.

[OlivierL]

40 minutes ago, Braumiller said:

Oh boy, I wouldn't touch a poor personality HYOD with a ten foot pole

I ALWAYS go for someone with something positive in the personality department.

1. Top tier are your very rare Model Citizen, Model Professional
2. Next is a wide band and where I generally end up - Professional, Fairly Professional, Determined, Fairly Determined, Driven, Resolute etc...
3. Last chance (often only in the first few seasons when pickings are slim) I will settle for a Balanced, as long as they have good Determination stats (double digits)

You want to make sure that you are perfectly ok with their personality rubbing off on your future wonderkid.

 

I have a spirited one, and thats fine , model citizen or model prof would be crazy at lower level . I would sign one with all his attributes on'1'!

Their formation and style are also important . I'm getting a lot of wingers because my hoyd loves a 4-4-2 .. i don't (anymore)

More information about all the personalities here

[DazRTaylor]

So Scotland is still off limits due to the bug which wasn’t fixed in 20.2, though SI are aware so hoping it will be fixed in due course.

With Wales now having two tiers in the retail game, I am going to start a save there tomorrow.

[Fastbasher]

2025/26 Annecy FC season review - French National 2-D Division

The League

4th place and reluctant promotion. The good news is that we can rehire lost staff members and Kadi will sign a new contract. He was refusing while we were in the 4th tier.

The highlight of the season was the 9th round of the Cup against Ligue 1 team Montpellier. It was 0-0 after 90mins and we finally conceded in the 103rd min to lose 0-1.

 

The Players

Mehdi Kadi was the top scorer for the 4th season in a row and is now the club's top league scorer.

Yanis Bensaber was the player of the season.

Jerome Blanchard was the best of our youth that have been playing in the first team.

 

Transfers

The chairman was interfering again, completing his annual ritual of selling off our most promising youth player. I had just made Melvin Tissot the youngest player to play in the league at 16yrs, 2days.

 

Off field, things went well. We have a youth facility upgrade, a youth recruitment upgrade (now considered 'good'), two data facility upgrades and the board have also agreed to upgrade training at the end of the season.

 

[schnauzer]

1 hour ago, Fastbasher said:

That looks pretty decent. I just have a black shadow for mine. Do you have any facepacks downloaded, or is that just the standard game?

Nope not downloaded any facepacks, so I was a bit baffled! I'm wondering if it has something to do with the .2 update from a day or two ago?

[darren1983]

Palermo Season 2020/21 Review Serie C

League - Cup - Transfers - Squad - Finances

 

So first season is never great fun, what made it tougher was just the size of the squad, it was tiny but that meant focusing on a core 13 or 14 players (with some retraining going on) with the odd youth player (that came through in the holiday season) breaking onto the bench as the season wore on. The best way to describe us would be inconsistent. Opening 10 games saw 4 wins, a draw and 5 defeats before we won 6 in a row giving me hope we had settled, but then the issue of scoring goals popped up. In my 433 (451 with wide players as the game calls it) my striker never really gets many despite getting lots of chances (been this way for several versions now) but can usually be relied upon to be in the top 5 for goals in the league with goals from the wide men and the most attacking of my midfield 3, our top scorer (who has now retired) had 6 goals with his 2 back ups getting 1 each. Our top scorer was a wide man with 9 and others chipped in but without a consistent scorer we started to struggle. We did secure a playoff place with about 6 games to go and then promptly switched off for the rest of the season only getting 2 points which saw us slip from 5th to 9th. That meant playoffs from the first round, with the bug I have of not being able to play playoff games I had to holiday these and thus we beat Avellino 1-0 away then beat Salernitana 1-0 away too (maybe I should do this more often? ) before finding Spezia too much as they beat us home and away to end our season - they won the payoffs and got promoted so maybe it's not as bad as it looked.

In the cup we didn't really do much, beat one side and lost the next meaning we ended 2nd in our group and that was that. We did lose our most promising young player that came through last season as Nicola Cassandro went to Parma for compensation.

Youth Intake

A pretty decent one as you'd hope for the first season with some good looking players

Federico Cesari YP01A - promosing young CB that will likely be thrust into the first team soon as our best CB Accardi has 1 year left in his deal and I can't get him to sign yet
Simone Stella YP01B - our 2nd best forward already, will likely be also be in first team this season if we can keep hold of him with Parma and Verona sniffing around he won't sign a professional deal so could go the way of Cassandro
Diego Corsetti YP01C - solid looking CM could cover a couple of roles I use
Santo Filosa YP01D - always nice to get a keeper

Career Overview

Year		League		Position	Youth Coaching		Youth Recruitment 	Notes
2020/21		Serie C		9th 		Adequate		Adequate		Manager of the season and 1 coaching badge

 

[Chossel]

Eendracht Aalst (2020-2021)

Club info   Team   Facilities

Decided to give this challenge a go this year. After simming the first season 4 newly promoted teams popped up. Eendracht Aalst had my attention because of their history (played in the first tier of Belgium football some time around the year 2000). And because of their fairly good facilities/finances. The lowest playable league in Belgium is the third tier. The bottom 4 teams get relegated out of this league with 16 teams in it. So the first challenge is not to get relegated.

League

We finished comfortably in 11th place. After a rough start of the season (Didn't win the first 7 games), we managed to get our tactics together. We conceded too many goals at the start of the season. There were some periods in the season where i thought that we could push for a play-off spot. But we came short when we met the 'big' teams.  Cedric Mittu was the second highest goalscorer of the season.  While Gianne de Neve even became POTY !

Team

Had a balanced squad at the start of the season. Lacked some midfield power, but nothing to worrying. Best players of this team were Gianni de Neve , Steve Ryckaert  and Cedric Mittu . Talented striker Hugo Adam made his debut this season. Maybe he will become our main forward in a couple of years.

Youth Intake 

The intake was very dissapointing this year. Only usable player at the moment is Stephane Durand 1A.  Other players that might become useful are Michael Miller 1B and  Geert Lippens 1C. The board has refused to invest in any of the facilities. So i'm affraid i will have to get used to this kind of intakes untill i miraculously get promoted.  According to the board the finances aren't good enough for further investments. This could become a problem in the upcomming seasons.

 

Next year we will aim for a safe mid-table position!

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Chossel

[Kazushi80]

vor 23 Stunden schrieb darren1983:

Urgh, seem to have encountered a really annoying bug. I can't play any playoff games in Itay. If I click on continue game from the fixtures page it just generates the same page over and over again  

Damn, looks like i've the same problem. But wasn't a bug the season before, so i think it's because of the last update...

[darren1983]

2 minutes ago, Kazushi80 said:

Damn, looks like i've the same problem. But wasn't a bug the season before, so i think it's because of the last update...

Ah really? I never had much time in playoffs before this one so have nothing to compare it to. I've reported it and they're looking into it, if it is a result of the update then hopefully it's a fix that is save game compatible.

[Kazushi80]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb darren1983:

Ah really? I never had much time in playoffs before this one so have nothing to compare it to. I've reported it and they're looking into it, if it is a result of the update then hopefully it's a fix that is save game compatible.

Yes, have seen your bug report and commented on it. Must be because of the update, because i was in the playoffs two times and had no problem at all. Hope it will be save game compatible and i hope they will fix it soon, because at the moment I can't continuing to play (except for holidaying which i don't want to do)

[darren1983]

3 minutes ago, Kazushi80 said:

Yes, have seen your bug report and commented on it. Must be because of the update, because i was in the playoffs two times and had no problem at all. Hope it will be save game compatible and i hope they will fix it soon, because at the moment I can't continuing to play (except for holidaying which i don't want to do)

Yeah know what you mean as I didn't want to holiday either and only did so as felt confident we wouldn't win the playoffs, but it has meant I've not yet started season 2 though as don't want to get too invested in case I have to start over, which is annoying as I'm enjoying my time in Italy and have already grown to like a couple of the players  

[Braumiller]

5 hours ago, Braumiller said:

Oh boy, I wouldn't touch a poor personality HYOD with a ten foot pole

I ALWAYS go for someone with something positive in the personality department.

1. Top tier are your very rare Model Citizen, Model Professional
2. Next is a wide band and where I generally end up - Professional, Fairly Professional, Determined, Fairly Determined, Driven, Resolute etc...
3. Last chance (often only in the first few seasons when pickings are slim) I will settle for a Balanced, as long as they have good Determination stats (double digits)

You want to make sure that you are perfectly ok with their personality rubbing off on your future wonderkid.

 

Been a long day, so finally getting on FM tonight....

This is my HoYD currently

Ticks the boxes for attributes (although JP could absolutely be higher!) and in theory (and in my head, where it counts even if not true ) several of my kids each year will be a little more professional because of him.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Braumiller
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