Jimbo's Thread (aka [FM20] Nordicland - The Northener Diaries.)

[Jimbokav1971]

Jan, Feb, Mar & Apr 2031.

Premier Division. The loss against BK Häcken was a poor one in that it's the only thing that is keeping them out of the relegation zone. 

Swedish Cup. We got as far as the Semi's which is a record since my arrival..... (oh no it's not. We got to the Final 2 seasons ago. I don't remember that!)

Confidence. 

Finances.

[Jimbokav1971]

May 2031.

Premier Division. A ropey start to the month, but we got back on track as we found our goal-scoring form late on.

Confidence. 

Finances. We can't wait for the Champions League money now. We are leaking money like a sieve and we really need to be finishing top 2 each season now just to keep the Champions League money rolling in. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake Preview. Jun 2031. 

At least 2 centre-backs. 
At least 2 wide midfielders. 
At least 1 GK. 

How good they are is the question. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Leading Development clubs for Swedish Premier Division. Jun 2031.

[Deisler26]

Fingers crossed on the intake!

[SRL88]

Tough start to May, but finished things off nicely with a couple of good wins 

[Jimbokav1971]

7 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

Fingers crossed on the intake!

I'm starting to get hopeful again. After a period of pretty poor players, this at least suggests that it might be decent. 

[Jimbokav1971]

4 hours ago, SRL88 said:

Tough start to May, but finished things off nicely with a couple of good wins 

I'm not 100% sure what happened if I'm honest. We went 4 games and only scored 1 goal which is ridiculous. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jun & Jul 2031. 

Premier Division. After a rubbish May, we bounced back and 16 points from a possible 18. 

Edited December 19, 2019 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Aug 2031.

Premier Division. The loss against Hammarby IF hurt us, but we are only 3 points off the top, although they do also have 3 games in hand. At this stage I'm really just looking at finishing 2nd to secure Champions League football and the financial windfall that comes with it. 

Swedish Cup. We're into the next round. While my priority is the League and then Europe and then the domestic Cup, we are well capable of winning it and will be trying to do so. 

Finances. The Champions League money has obviously had a HUGE impact. Fellow Swedes Malmö FF and Hammarby IF are also in the Group Stages, as well as HJK (FIN), Vålerenga (NOR) and København (DEN). 

Confidence. 

[Jimbokav1971]

On 16/12/2019 at 02:29, Jimbokav1971 said:

Youth Intake Preview. Jun 2031. 

At least 2 centre-backs. 
At least 2 wide midfielders. 
At least 1 GK. 

How good they are is the question. 

Youth Intake. Sep 2031.

Well this wasn't quite as good as I was hoping for. 

(31a) Adolfsson (2031).

He's the only player worth signing, even if the DoF has signed a couple of others without me noticing. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Facilities. Sep 2031.

I feel like I've upgraded the facilities an awful lot already, but we just aren't seeing the results in the youth intakes. I think that's because despite me knowing that the visible facilities are not accurate, I'm still thinking of them in those terms. (It's hard not to). As a result of that and the Champions League money, I have requested a number of upgrades. 

Junior coaching to Exceptional? I don't think so. 

Youth Recruitment to Well Established? No, certainly not. 

Youth Facilities.

Facilities. 

Real Facilities. Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment are coming along nicely, but both the Training and Youth Facilities are lagging behind and these are expensive and can also be time-consuming to build. We've just spent £2M upgrading our Youth Facilities to level 11, so you can imagine that it will not be cheat to get them up to the level 18, 19 & 20.

[Jimbokav1971]

Sep 2031. 

Premier Division. What a rubbish month. We've completely imploded at a key time in the season. 

Champions League. If we can't beat HJK, how can we hope to compete with the likes of Inter and Sevilla?

Finances. 

Confidence. 

Transfers. I'm posting this because the picture above shows that the board are particularly pleased with the financial aspect of 3 signings. All 3 are actually free signings from clubs at a lower level, and if I'm honest I would prefer that they were excited about some of the players we have paid a fee for. 

Sörensen (SWE).

Jeppsson (SWE).

Berggren (SWE).

Really nothing special at the moment, but the player we have paid a fee for are the following ages. 

Johansson (SWE) 17 years old. 

Abelsson (SWE) * 17 years old. 

Hermansso (SWE) 17 years old. 

Ahokas (FIN) * 18 years old. 

Stensson (SWE) 17 years old. 

Florén (SWE) 17 years old. 

Nordin (SWE) * 17 years old. 

You also might notice that 6 of the 7 are Swedish. 

[LeoFM]

Just caught up with this thread and I must say that it was a fantastic read! 

I love the Swedish LLM saves, especially since I had a great save with my local team Hudiksvalls FF (4th tier) last year on FM19. Managed to win the Champions League in 2031, also went unbeaten in the league with a 29-1-0 record. 

I think it's really annoying that a nation can't really increase the level of youth, I used to purchase all the best players from each youth intake in Sweden and didn't notice any improvement. But I did see real improvement in my own youth players, at the end of my save I had maxed out all the facilities and I did get the best youth players from Sweden. I didn't notice any of the bugs you have experienced on FM19. 

Edited December 22, 2019 by LeoFM

[LeoFM]

Also, here is a collection of my best youth players. Nothing special of course, but that is what I got with all of the facilities maxed out. 

And here are all my facilities. I'm pretty sure it's all maxed out since I have not been able to ask for improvements for a couple of years now.

Edited December 22, 2019 by LeoFM

[Jimbokav1971]

Oct & Nov 2031.

We've finished 3rd in the league, but doesn't that mean we qualify for the last qualifying stage of the Champions League now? 

Apparently not. Apparently we only qualify for the EURO Cup II. 

Hang on a minute. Now it says we have qualified for the EURO Cup, (but still not the Champions League). 

What do the Premier Division rules say? 

I was sure that 3rd got us into the Playoff game for the Champions league because we had 3 different Swedish teams in the Champions League Group stage last season. 

I wonder what the Qualification Table looks like?

Ok. So it would seem that we have dropped 1 place in the ranking tables without me realising and this has meant that not only 2 we only get 1 spot in the Group Stage of the Champions League and 1 in the Best Place qualifying 3rd Round, (not an easy route), but the EURO Cup entrant, (that's us this season), goes into the Playoff rather than the Group Stage. 

[Jimbokav1971]

On 22/12/2019 at 20:12, LeoFM said:

Just caught up with this thread and I must say that it was a fantastic read! 

I love the Swedish LLM saves, especially since I had a great save with my local team Hudiksvalls FF (4th tier) last year on FM19. Managed to win the Champions League in 2031, also went unbeaten in the league with a 29-1-0 record. 

I think it's really annoying that a nation can't really increase the level of youth, I used to purchase all the best players from each youth intake in Sweden and didn't notice any improvement. But I did see real improvement in my own youth players, at the end of my save I had maxed out all the facilities and I did get the best youth players from Sweden. I didn't notice any of the bugs you have experienced on FM19. 

Thanks very much. 

Maybe I've just been unlucky, but I also don't think that many people who experience this bug would notice. 

Apologies for not responding sooner. I don't get much time off over Christmas so while everyone else plays more FM, I've actually hardly played in a week.

[Jimbokav1971]

On 22/12/2019 at 20:24, LeoFM said:

Also, here is a collection of my best youth players. Nothing special of course, but that is what I got with all of the facilities maxed out. 

And here are all my facilities. I'm pretty sure it's all maxed out since I have not been able to ask for improvements for a couple of years now.

You've done well because this is what the club are showing in my game right now. 

Nordh looks good. It's a shame you lost him so early despite his lack of finishing ability. What happened there? 

I love Gunnarsson's physical ability. 

I like the look of Samuelsson, (but I'm not overly keen on many of your forwards), I guess you your PF's? 

I don't think those youth prospects are amazing considered you are the top of the pile in Sweden. I wonder if you are top of the pile in terms of performances, but still lagging behind a little in terms of reputation? When all things are equal, club reputation is a significant decider on where the bet newgens appear remember. 

This is what mine is like at the moment, so still some way to go. 

[LeoFM]

26 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Nordh looks good. It's a shame you lost him so early despite his lack of finishing ability. What happened there? 

I love Gunnarsson's physical ability. 

I like the look of Samuelsson, (but I'm not overly keen on many of your forwards), I guess you your PF's? 

They are just not good enough for my first team unfortunately. I never had a youth player break into my starting XI at any point in this save. Yes, there is the quota of home-grown players in Allsvenskan, but I developed players from other clubs in my youth system. Some developed into really good players, like Simo Tomcic, Dylan Versluis and Nenad, all of them are home-grown. I use a single forward system so it was hard for the forwards to break into my squad. I also want to sell my players to other Swedish teams, to kinda build the nation up. 

 

35 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I don't think those youth prospects are amazing considered you are the top of the pile in Sweden. I wonder if you are top of the pile in terms of performances, but still lagging behind a little in terms of reputation? When all things are equal, club reputation is a significant decider on where the bet newgens appear remember. 

 

Not at all, I have worldwide reputation and I am a bit surprised no other Swedish clubs has increased their reputation. In context to all other clubs in the world, I am up there with the best.  

[Jimbokav1971]

Oct & Nov 2031.

Premier Division. We left ourselves with too much to do and in the end had to settle for 3rd rather than the 2nd place we were aiming for. It says that we have qualified for the EURO Cup 2, but I think it's actually the EURO Cup, (but time will tell).

Champions League. The last game left is away to Inter and it's unlikely that we will get the win that we need to give us a snuff of qualifying. If we get a point against Inter and finish 3rd, (and above HJK), then that at least means that we will drop into the Knockout Stages of the EURO Cup. 

Finances. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Facilities. Dec 2031. 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Finances. Dec 2031. 

This seems a tad on the high side. 

That's ridiculous! 

[Jimbokav1971]

Affiliates. Dec 2031.

[rodesire]

Jeez, that free money

[Jimbokav1971]

47 minutes ago, rodesire said:

Jeez, that free money

That's got to be a bug right? 

The amount I have seen previously is tiny. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Feb & Mar 2032.

Swedish Cup. We should be romping through the league stage of the Swedish Cup no matter what team I pick. As it is I picked a strong side against Varbergs BoIS and still didn't win. I don't know if things have changed in a recent patch or if I'm just out of touch a little after not playing much recently, but either way that result seems a little off. Maybe it's just one of those things and I need to suck it up. 

Confidence. 

Finances. I have a self-imposed rule in this save where I will only be signing "Nordic" players, but because of financial restraints, (and largely just down to personal preference), I have also been restricting myself to only signing teenagers too. With the ridiculous injection of cash, (I'm assuming it's a bug), I now have cash to burn and as a result I'm going to broaden my horizons as far as transfer targets go and look to sign older more experienced players, (if I can), but while sticking to the "Nordic" only rule. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Apr 2032.

New record. The 1st league game of the season was a thumping victory and I hope is an indication of things to come this season as our young squad has started to develop it's PA into CA and has been strengthened by a number of significant signings. 

Premier Division. As pleased as I was with the opening day demolition of AIK, (which is their only defeat of the season so far and they have only conceded 2 goals in their 8 other games), I was really annoyed and frustrated with the loss at home to Helsinborgs. As usual, when you lose a game, there is obviously a morale hit and that contributed to us only drawing against Djurgårdens IF. 

Confidence. 

Finances. I think I'm going to stop including the finances in the updates. We have so much money now it doesn't matter. 

Transfers. With the injection of cash from UEFA's back pocket, (please someone comment if you think it's realistic or a bug), I decided to splash the cash a little. 

Lövgren (SWE) *. He was a slightly different signing in that I signed him specifically to give us a different option up front. 6'4" at 17 years old, he's going to be a giant of a man and will hopefully offer us something different as a forward option. 

Hammar (SWE) *. He was signed to provide some quality PA in the GK position so that I don't have to worry about getting a decent GK through the Youth Intake, (which seems unlikely if I'm honest). 

Lindqvist (SWE). I thought we needed strengthening at right back and was happy to splash the cash to get this bloke in. 

Norén (SWE). Where as most of my signings are made with at least 1 eye on the future, this player was signed very much for the hear and now. We conceded far too many goals last season and with a new starting right back and centre-half, I'm hoping that we will be better at the back.

Alp (SWE) *. He cost a LOT of money for one so young, but he looks tyo have a LOT of potential. I'm hoping that he might prove to be a bargain in the long-run.

Jørgensen (DEN) *. He has already scored on his debut and will strengthen the side if not quite be a top end styarter quite yet. 

Lundgren (SWE) *. He's not quite ready to start on a regular basis yet, but I expect to see huge improvements in him over the next 12 months. 

The best youth product. 

(27b) Rinne *. He is by far the best player our Academy has produced so far. I'm hopeful that he will continue to improve, but the fact that nobody has been sniffing about him despite his goals, suggests to me that his PA might not be that great. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Facilities. Apr 2042.

[Toffle]

Il y a 1 heure, Jimbokav1971 a dit :

Transfers. With the injection of cash from UEFA's back pocket, (please someone comment if you think it's realistic or a bug), I decided to splash the cash a little. 

I think that you received a realistic amount of money. At the beginning of the save, a total of 2 billions € should be shared between the clubs who have been part of the Champions League 19/20. I believe this total increases every year on FM, like it does in real life. You can calculate an estimation of how much you should have received thanks to the following article.

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=2616268.html

If I remember well, teams like CSKA Moscow and Maribor received around 20m€ last year after they reached the group stage.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Toffle

[Jimbokav1971]

Facilities. Apr 2042.

[Bigshow1]

Are you holidaying through the games or do you watch highlights? I watch each one but am giving the game a rest due to awful ME defending. Apparently it’s a known issue so hopefully we’ll see something soon. 
 

I've gone on holiday for a few games when I was in the lower leagues but noticed the game literally doesn’t count that as being under your management anymore.

[Jimbokav1971]

3 hours ago, Bigshow1 said:

Are you holidaying through the games or do you watch highlights? I watch each one but am giving the game a rest due to awful ME defending. Apparently it’s a known issue so hopefully we’ll see something soon. 
 

I've gone on holiday for a few games when I was in the lower leagues but noticed the game literally doesn’t count that as being under your management anymore.

I'm not holidaying. I use an IR skin and then watch the goals afterwards. 

[Jimbokav1971]

May 2032.

Premier Division. An unbeaten month with 4 wins and a draw from 5 games is pretty decent, especially when many others are reporting issues with being unable to convert chances with the most recent update. 

Confidence. They are unhappy about the only league loss of the season, (well so am i to be fair), and they are also concerned with the finances involved in 2 of our incoming transfers. The reason they are concerned is because we paid cash up front for both players, (I wanted to pay cash rather than any add-ons), and because the players are very much PA rather than CA based. I am very happy with our recent transfer deals but acknowledge that it might take a number of years for the verdict to me made about the relative success or failure. 

Finances. 

Goal-scoring GK watch. 

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Youth Intake Preview. Jun 2032. 

Not good. Not good at all. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Rankings. Jun 2032.

It's interesting looking at the coefficiant table below, but perhaps it isn't all good news for us. The 27/28 and 28/29 seasons were good for Swedish clubs with 13.500 & 15.900 respectively, where as the last 3 seasons have seen only 5.000, 6.917 and 6.667 respectively. Unless we and the other Swede clubs improve, we are going to drop the next 2 seasons. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Jul 2032.

Premier Division. A brilliant month in terms of points gained and wins, but we aren't quite "clicking" and it's hard to put my finger on it. It could be that this is what others are complaining of with regards to the current match engine, but it seems a little churlish to complain about a match engine when you have lost 1 league game all season.

Confidence. 

Finances.

[Jimbokav1971]

Bugged? Aug 2032. 

We finished 3rd last season. 

So that should mean that we Qualify for the EURO Cup Playoff?

Except that we don't. 

Except that there isn't a ranking that gives any of it's teams entry to the 4th Qualifying Round of the EURO Cup 2. 

I'm starting to think that this save is seriously bugged. 

This just shouldn't be possible. Meh! 

[Jimbokav1971]

Big Bid. Aug 2032.

The highest fee we have ever received for a player is the £4,000,000 we have received for (27a) Sjöberg (2027) * in 2029. 

(27b) Rinne * is contracted until Nov 2036 and I am obviously keen to keep him, (as the best product of our Academy still at the club). With our finances much improves, it will take a BIG offer to make us part company with him in the near future. 

 

[Bobsled]

I am assuming the Cup Winner got the ticket for the Euro Cup 1, right? 

[Jimbokav1971]

2 hours ago, JonasAjax said:

I am assuming the Cup Winner got the ticket for the Euro Cup 1, right? 

I don't know to be honest. 

I will have a look when I get home, see which Swedish sides are competing in What Continental competition and see if I can work out how and why. 

[wesl]

You should check the Sweden season summary, if that's still a feature in FM20.

Edited January 2, 2020 by wesl

[Jimbokav1971]

On 02/01/2020 at 17:07, wesl said:

You should check the Sweden season summary, if that's still a feature in FM20.

I'm not sure, but I know we all have screens that we use that others don't so I'm going to go looking now. 

Sweden Overview Profile. We're not really having an impact on the Swedish National Team at all at the moment. The only player in the National Team is (16) Andersson who is a real player and who left the club before I joined.

Sweden Overview General. I never knew there was an International Team legends section. 

Ok. This is what @weslwas talking about I think and no I never look at this screen ever. 

Sweden Overview Season Summary. By the way, I have noticed that the Sweden U20 Managers job is available, but while I'm interested I think I need to concentrate on the club at this stage. 

Oh hang on. This is AMAZING! I've just found what @weslwas talking about and I'm pretty sure I have never seen it before, ever!

While this is amazing, does 4th placed IK Sirius qualifying for the EURO Cup Group Stage look like a bug when Orebro SK finished 3rd and have only qualified for the EURO Cup II Third Qualifying Round? Especially when IFK Norrkoping finished 5th and qualified for the EURO Cup II Playoff. 

1 of these might be in a better competition/position than us because they won or came Runners Up in the domestic Cup. (They didn't).  It looks like this is another bug. It's getting to the stage where I'm seriously considering binning this save off and either starting again or doing something else.  There is just too much in this particular save that's bugged and I don't know why. Certainly far more than seems to be the case in your average save. I'm considering following @Makoto Nakamuraand loading up a custom database and playing somewhere obscure. The worst aspect of all these bugs is that some of them haven't even warranted a response in the bugs forum. Really basic bugs such as the "penatlies saved ratio" still haven't been fixed and there is no good reason why. A previous bug was that the penalties taken faced and penalties saved values had been swapped by accident. Now that this has been resolved, the formulae for calculating the penalties saved ratio is wrong because the values are no longer in the same location, (because the old location was wrong). So now the penalties faced and penalties saved values are correct, but the penalties saved ratio works on the basis that the figures are the other way around. [sigh] This is something that should be an immediate quick fix and has absolutely no impact on anything else. There is no reason for this not to have been done long long long before now. 

On a more positive note, the direction from @weslhas drawn me to this amazing time-saving titbit. 

Swedish clubs in Europe. 

2031.

2030.

2029.

2028.

2027.

2026.

2025.

[Makoto Nakamura]

I agree with you @Jimbokav1971 I'm getting some annoying small bugs still such as when I go to instant result or even play a match I can't because someone is injured or banned, the player isn't even on the team sheet but I still can't continue.

Also there's the more well known bugs with it being random New Zealand teams qualifying for the Champions League.

It might just be best to go back to an older version of FM, I'll be sure to follow your save regardless of what you choose to do!

[henryzz]

I would have thought it a challenge to win despite all these bugs.

[Jimbokav1971]

4 minutes ago, henryzz said:

I would have thought it a challenge to win despite all these bugs.

That is indeed a very good point. And of course there is no guarantee that the same things wont happen again. 

I think the biggest problem is that I'm really busy at the moment and was over Christmas too, so have hardly played and despite the fact that I'm in 2032 and should feel really invested in the save, I actually don't at the moment. I think the answer might actually be to bang out a couple of season and get back into it again. 

[Jimbokav1971]

1 hour ago, Makoto Nakamura said:

I agree with you @Jimbokav1971 I'm getting some annoying small bugs still such as when I go to instant result or even play a match I can't because someone is injured or banned, the player isn't even on the team sheet but I still can't continue.

Also there's the more well known bugs with it being random New Zealand teams qualifying for the Champions League.

It might just be best to go back to an older version of FM, I'll be sure to follow your save regardless of what you choose to do!

I've had to holiday a day a few times now because there was a transfer offer that required a response that had already been responded to. That only started happening after the latest update. It hasn't coincided with a matchday yet but it's only a matter of time. 

I've never seen a Kiwi team qualify for the Champions League, but that's more likely limited to the edited database isn't it? 

I'm not going back to FM19. Not yet anyway. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Aug 2032.

The fact that we lost our 1st game in 15 between 2 big games against Ruzomberok shows that our second-string still aren't good enough. They are young and still developing and probably should have beaten Helsingborgs anyway, but the run is over. 

Premier Division. We're 2 points behind with 2 games in hand, so things are looking pretty decent at the moment. 

EURO Cup II. We have qualified for the Group Stages which was a minimum expectation for me as we shouldn't even have been in this competition, (but I'm trying to be positive here). I'd like to think that we should be able to qualify from this group and be competitive in the Knockout stages, but who knows what will come to pass. 

Confidence. 

[Jimbokav1971]

On 29/12/2019 at 22:19, Jimbokav1971 said:

Youth Intake Preview. Jun 2032. 

Not good. Not good at all. 

Youth Intake. Sep 2032. 

[Jimbokav1971]

Facilities. Sep 2032.

The Youth Intake was pretty poor again, so it's time to improve the facilities again. 

We are maxed out on Junior Coaching, which in old money would have significantly influenced the CA of the youth players coming through. You can see by the recent intake that the CA levels are not good, and that's because there are now other things having a significant impact, notably Youth Facilities, (which are only at level 12). 

We will keep plugging away because there is still a LONG way to go with this club. I know we have won the Swedish Premier League title..... actually, no we haven't!  We finished 3rd last season and 2nd the season before, but that's as good as it gets. I've been away from this save so long I can't even remember what we have won. 

In terms of how good. (or how bad), the current Youth Intake is, we have just 1 single International player at the club right now. 24 year old Sillanpää (FIN) has 14 Caps for Finland. 

25 year old Karlsson (FIN) has 3 Senior Finish Caps, but isn't currently in the squad. 

The fact that the best players at the club are NOT senior Internationals suggest that we still have some way to go before becoming what I would call the dominant force in Sweden with the strongest squad. 

Hammarby IF for example have 7 players with Senior International experience in the squad. 

Malmö FF have 9 players with Senior International experience. 

Djurgårdens IF have 4 players with Senior International experience. 

That surprises me. I thought there would be more International players plying their trade in Sweden. 

[Edit]

Delving a little deeper.......

23 year old Jónsson (ISL) * is a right winger who has 30 U21 Caps for Iceland without being called up by the senior side. 

22 year old Þorsteinsson (ISL) is a central midfielder who has 20 U21 Caps for Iceland without being called up by the senior side. 

23 year old Lindqvist (SWE) is a right back who has 12 U21 Caps for Sweden without being called up by the senior side. 

24 year old Friberg (SWE) is a right back who has 12 U21 Caps for Sweden without being called up by the senior side. 

24 year old Hermannsson (ISL) is a left winger who has 10 U21 Caps for Iceland without being called up by the senior side. 

Obviously none of the above are products of our Academy and the only Academy product who has been capped at U21 level is (27b) Rinne * who has made just 1 single appearance for Sweden U21's. 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Jimbokav1971

[Jimbokav1971]

Sept 2032.

Premier Division. Despite the loss to IFK Norrköping, we have gone from 2 points behind to 1 point ahead while still having 2 games in hand. Hammarby IF are in a Champions league group rather than EURO League or even EURO League II and tough games against Spurs and Besiktas have seen them drop points in league games at that time. 

EURO Cup II. 11 goals for and 0 against mean that we are smashing it. 

Swedish Cup. We're through to the next round. 

Confidence.