[FM20] Voltaço

[_Ben_]

Player Sale

£5m is a considerable markup on the £600k we paid for Savio Flamengo and it was the importance of squad status elsewhere that allowed me to move him on. 

[_Ben_]

Player Sale

A really good deal for us as the raw 18 year old Vini will make us at least £7m but I'll be able to help him develop for this season in order to get him in the best possible position to break into the Man Utd first team.

[_Ben_]

Wonderkid

Leozao becomes the latest addition to this list!

[_Ben_]

2035 loan deals

The near completion of the 2035 Carioca Sate gives me a chance to evaluate the progress of my youth group who have been training with the first team group for the duration of the tournament. Here are all of those players who are under 19 years old:

Normally, I'd move all of those who 'aren't ready' for first team football back to the reserve squad but I want to try something different with these lot this year - and loan out as many as I can. Firstly - I need to see what level they are at to better gauge their loan deal, as seen below. Obviously Vini will not be loaned out as he is here on loan and Esdras will remain within the first team squad as his current ability is more than good enough.

• Fernando Luis - Serie C level
• Fabio Carioca - Brasiliero level
• Juninho - Serie D level
• Clovis - Serie C level
• Cleber - Serie B level
• Joao Francisco - Serie C level
• Luis Henrique - Serie B level
• Antonio Jose - Serie B level

I do not have the database that enables Serie D so I will not be sending Juninho out on loan as a player that poor, I believe, will not benefit from a club that low down with such poor facilities and will probably make better strides within my own youth setup. I also feel that Serie C players will fall in to that category too, but will loan them out and see who is interested. Lastly, if Carioca is suitable for this level - then he'll get minutes, particularly as left back is the weakest area of depth within the whole squad.

Fernando Luis
Fabio Carioca
Juninho
Clovis
Cleber
Joao Francisco
Luis Henrique
Antonio Jose

---

I have offered them out with no wage contribution as I don't need the money and would rather they get the playing time than make/recoup money from them. Here are the bids that have come back. I have rejected some ones immediately, including those that haven't specified that the player will be a regular starter, as you can see below:

Fernando Luis - Sao Bento (Serie B and predicted 19th) and Cuiaba (Serie B and predicted 15th)
Fabio Carioca
Juninho
Clovis - Gremio Esportivo (Serie C and predicted 2nd) and a variety of other Serie C clubs.
Cleber - Houston (MLS and predicted 4th)
Joao Francisco - Brusque (Serie C and predicted 19th)
Luis Henrique - Oeste (Serie C and predicted 3rd) and ECS (Serie C, newly promoted and predicted 12th)
Antonio Jose - Chapecoense (Serie B and predicted 6th) and Manaus (Serie C and predicted 3rd)

As there is no suitable offers for Luis Henrique, I'm happy enough to keep him here.

---

My next job is to look at the deals I have accepted and work out whether these loans would be suitable or not:

Fernando Luis

Sao Bento are newly promoted and have basic training facilities. They are managed by Fernando Henrique who has 5 for Working With Youngsters (WWY) and favours a 4-1-4-1 with vertical Tiki Taka. His managerial traits will not impact how Luis plays as a centre back. They have one regular starter at CB - Daniel, which means Luis may need to play on the left hand side, which he has no opinion about. Cuiaba are entering their sixth season in Serie B and are managed by Gilberto, who has 10 for WWY and likes a 4-2-3-1, playing vertical Tiki Taka. His regular partner will be Luis Henrique, and it might benefit it from playing next to a player with good Leadership. He does, however, like to play short simple passes which may but Luis' poor technique on show though.

VERDICT: I think Cuiaba are a more suitable club for him, so I'll reject the Sao Bento move.

Clovis

Gremio, with below average training facilities, just got relegated from Serie B so will be looking to bounce back. Gabriel Pelozoto Farias Da Rose has 14 for WWY and 20 for Motivating and plays with a Route on 4-2-3-1 AM, meaning that Clovis will get into his preferred position. They don't actually have an AMC who are listed as more than Breakthrough Players. 

VERDICT: Not my preferred playing style and I worry about AMCs with route one football - but he should be in a winning side, at least.

Cleber

Houston came 5th in the MLS last year (the first season I had it loaded) and have Good training facilities. Fernando Echevarria is their manager, with 8 for WWY and a Catenaccio 4-2-3-1 is his favoured style. The team personality is Determined, which may positively influence Cleber and his 11 rating for that attribute. Junior Chanlatte is an important player in the AMC slot for them but is unhappy.  

VERDICT: He may have to fight for his place, but moving to a league with a reputation as good as that of the MLS is a no-brainer for me.

Joao Francisco

Brusque are entering their fourth season in Serie C and are predicted 19th despite three 6th place finishes. Franklin Silva Martins manages then with 12 for WWY and a route one 4-2-3-1. Presuming they plan to play Francisco as an AMC, Brusque have no real depth here so he should be fine.

VERDICT: A little worried about the media prediction and the playing style of the manager but hopefully he'll get a lot of football.

Antonio Jose

Chapecoense are managed by my old coach Alan Ruschel (8 for WWY) and a Tiki Taka 4-2-3-1. They are on somewhat of a downward spiral, coming 11th last year but do have superb training facilities and a professional squad - which should not impact Jose's Model Citizen personality too much. They have a regular starter up front in Jose Marcos but he is wanted by some Chinese clubs.

VERDICT: Jose will have to play well to set himself as a first team player, but should really benefit if he does.

---

I hope that this deals go through and will monitor over the course of the season.

 

[_Ben_]

2035 Carioca State

We have completed our fourth title in the past five years and, when you look at the last ten years of history, you'll see just how far we have come as a football club. To head into the last game of the regular season without conceding a goal is absolutely immense and to stretch our unbeaten regular season run to nearly seven years shows just how much I really like State Championship football. It is not competitive, by any stretch of the imagination and I know how bad I felt in my second season at the club where we went completely winless over the eleven games, but what it does for morale, player development and exposure to first team football is absolutely fantastic.

We actually haven't been at our best this season - with our scoring at only just over 3 a game but there has been plenty of rotation and lots of good performers.

---

My loanees, including Luis Henrique as I pressed the wrong button (!!!) are out and have started their development year and I'll see what happens over the course of the next eight months.

[_Ben_]

2035 Copa Liberdatores Group Stage

A nice easy group stage again for us and, amazingly, I am still undefeated at the group stage across all of the years that we have entered this competition - a true marker of our quality against other South American opposition and, luck, as we've managed to miss out the big Brazilian sides every year.

We are rewarded with a tie against Colombian's Millionarios in the next round - a tie that we should win.

[_Ben_]

Big injury

The kind of injury that players do not ever come back from - and worryingly, not pacy wing backs like him. Here are his attributes for comparison at the end of his injury and I'm already noting he's lost 2 points on Bravery.

[_Ben_]

Youth Intake Preview

Just 'good' but I'll take that. No sign of those wing backs, centre backs and goalkeepers I need though!

[Tajerio]

20 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

Youth Intake Preview

Just 'good' but I'll take that. No sign of those wing backs, centre backs and goalkeepers I need though!

How much retraining do you tend to do? I find that central midfielders and wingers can often be trained into reasonable wing backs, especially since they tend to have much better technique than newgen wing backs.

Edited July 28, 2020 by Tajerio

[_Ben_]

13 hours ago, Tajerio said:

How much retraining do you tend to do? I find that central midfielders and wingers can often be trained into reasonable wing backs, especially since they tend to have much better technique than newgen wing backs.

Lots and lots, to be fair. I've always liked players to be accomplished in two positions so always try and find a second role for them. I'll post about it in a bit more detail when I get the intake.

[_Ben_]

Incoming Loan

He's back!

I think, in hindsight, moving to Barca this early was too much for him. He quickly went from Important Player to Breakthrough Prospect and had a lot of time on the bench. He played a fair bit in La Liga last year, as seen below, but my role here is to develop the best players I can. By bringing him back, I can give him some more game and he can hopefully return to Barca in a better position to get first team football there. If not, I can always try and get him for another season - particularly as I'm now not paying his wages!

[_Ben_]

Loan Termination

A bit miffed at this one, to be fair!

A clause in the transfer was that he'd be loaned back for the season and that was the reason that I agreed to the sale. Brendan Rodgers came to moan at me about his lack of playing time and then decided to recall him. Surely - that invalidates the deal that took him there in the first place?!

I'm, honestly, not actually fussed - it just seems a bit of a strange occurance.

[_Ben_]

Ill-discipline

First time I've had this for a while. Because he's on loan, I can't quite punish him as severely as I would if he was here. Clearly, this is what he has learnt in Spain...

[_Ben_]

Developing football in the local area

I'm about to have a play with something that isn't really the kind of thing I'd normally do but gives another dimension to this save. I am going to edit in an affiliation with another local club and this may grow to a whole network if this idea works. I'm not big on editing things in game as I really don't want to break it but this might work:

Introducing my new club - Barra Mansa:

At just 22km from the city of Volta Redonda - Barra Mansa is the ideal local hub for me to 'build' a separate entity of a team that will not only help me develop players but also develop their own and maybe, just maybe, grow to be another challenger in the Carioca State.

They are currently in the lower leagues and have never entered the top tier of the Carioca State but I'm hoping that this affiliation, as it did with the Perolas Negras one years before, will raise their reputation enough to see them reach the qualifying stages at least.

When you look at their training and youth facilities - it is because of this:

I have used the in-game editor to set up this affiliation and pay them some money as well as beat them each year. We have essentially 'brought them' as we share the same board.

The two key bits are that they have access to all of my facilities, and therefore may produce their own crop of top youngsters each year (I'll monitor this) and will also be able to send their players (of which they have none right now) to train at my facilities. Also - we will be able to send them players on loan. I haven't seen the bottom two before but they seemed like nice options in the editing screen.

---

I have no idea how this will work and it's a completely separate little side project that has potentially no interference with my own side - unless, of course, they become so good that they are winning Carioca State Champs and beating us!

 

[nie jem frytek]

1 hour ago, _Ben_ said:

Loan Termination

A bit miffed at this one, to be fair!

A clause in the transfer was that he'd be loaned back for the season and that was the reason that I agreed to the sale. Brendan Rodgers came to moan at me about his lack of playing time and then decided to recall him. Surely - that invalidates the deal that took him there in the first place?!

I'm, honestly, not actually fussed - it just seems a bit of a strange occurance.

Worth posting in bug section.

[_Ben_]

Youth competition

A victory in the youth version of the Carioca State is a really positive sign for things to come...

[_Ben_]

Record loss

Not a good day at the office...

[_Ben_]

2035 Brasiliero - Mid Season Update

A very strange season.

We are second, yet we aren't performing as well as we could, and should be, in a league whereby Corinthians and Flamengo are dropping points and it appears that other challengers Palmeiras are completely out of it - yet we are being bulled by Santos, who have come from below us over the past few years to reach a commanding slot at the top of the table. Then there is also Sao Paulo, doing a similar job of defying their initial prediction - but this time being much worse.

We've played some really good football at times, but then have also been utterly rubbish at others. Really inconsistent. That kind of form won't make us champions.

---

I've managed to get plenty of football for the lads on loan and, annoyingly for me given the time I spent researching it, the best player has been Luis Henrique - who I didn't want to send on loan. He his a Serie B level player though and, by playing in Serie C is performing well, yet, according to the progress line, is actually doing well. Cleber is looking likely to break into the first team, too, with some good showings in the MLS.

This needs more time - this year and maybe even the next few years to see how it properly runs.

---

I've also finally been allowed to start my A licence, which is probably the main reason why there has been no outside interest for me as a manager.

[_Ben_]

The conveyor belt

A big part of this save has been to not get too attached to the players, even after spending a long time working on developing them to be the best player that they can be, and then moving them on to other clubs. As I said in a previous update - I have three players who are currently 'un-sellable': Geilton - record appearances, Joao Fernando: record goals and Cabral - Ronaldo 'emulation' which I'd really like to keep at all costs as little side projects in my game - but everyone else is for sale at the right price.

Here are the players who I have currently sold on and now play outside of Brazil:

The list isn't massive and players like Beto aren't good enough but fill squads of grey players but this is quite a decent starting point. Out of these - Rocha, Valdinei and Andreson didn't come through my system but did spend a good portion of their career with me.

I have sold on less players within Brazil - as is my transfer preference - but a few have found their way back:

Joabson and Marcio Ricardo are now back in the country after spending time in Europe and this list is made up of players who are quite important at their club, which may lead to them eventually making it to Europe.

---

All in all, I have 83 ex-players on this shortlist and, even though if fluctuates with youth candidate retirees, it is growing into a decent list of talent that I've worked with.

[_Ben_]

Delegation

As I get further and further involved with the player development of this save, and any save, I like to delegate different jobs to my backroom team.

• As DoF, Neto is in charge of finding new players for the team. He can negotiate deals and offer contracts but I will always have the final say in them. There is a large likelihood that I will cut off the deal given the way I'm playing this save but he can find the players. He is also in charge of my Chief Scout and he sets up the assignments leaving the aforementioned Chief Scout free for me to use for any player checks.
• He is also in charge of contracts for all of my players in the First and Reserve team.

---

• I think most managers bring their own coaching team so I have left that for me but every other staff appointment and contract renewal is handled by this man. I've kept my finger on the pulse by appointing my own U20 coaching staff (as per my interest in personality handover) but everything else is done by him.

---

• As potentially the best HoYD in game, Radamel is in charge of bringing through youth candidates as well as identifying players to sign for the U20 team, although my DoF will deal with the contract. He is in charge of giving contracts to current youth team players, though.
• He also has an overview on the team selection advice for the U20 and Reserve squad but the respective managers take charge of the games.
• Radamel runs the general training for both of my youth squads and, again, the managers lead the individual training.

---

• Newly appointed loan manager Reginaldo Alves is in charge, from now on, of finding suitable clubs (although I may step in) for my young players and reporting back to me on their progress. If I can streamline what I want from a loan in my mind - I can quickly see whether or not he is making good deals for me.

---

• As my assistant, Marcelo runs the team training for the first team whilst I set the individual training. His playing style and formation mirrors mine and we work very well together. He is also the face of the media as he talks to the press for me.

---

Therefore it leaves me jobs as:

• Managing the individual player training for my first team squad.
• Having an overview on the individual training across the squads.
• Having an overview on loan dealings.
• Selecting the first team and managing the first team.

Here is a full run down of what I am in charge of.

Edited July 30, 2020 by _Ben_

[_Ben_]

Milestone

5000 days as Volta Redonda manager!

We have played 793 games which averages out at a game every 6.3 days for nearly fourteen years, which is absolutely crazy!

I have managed to keep it very tight financially, too:

[_Ben_]

Good appointment

The new technical director has had a great first move here, bringing back my old assistant Renan Oliveira - one of the few Model Citizen staff and a member of staff who has worked really well a lot of youngsters when they first came into my squad.

[_Ben_]

Coaching update

After delegating the backroom team building to my Technical Director, it made me realise that I hadn't looked at my own coaching team properly for a while. Previously - I'd just gone for personality and nothing else, but, with our State of the Art facilities, I thought it was best time that I actually had the best coaching team. Here is what the spread of coaches now looks like:

It's probably a larger unit that I'd normally deal with but, over time, I want to be developing more and more players at the club so went for trying to get at least two members of staff per coaching area to ease the workload.

In terms of playing style, we are all nearly matched - playing somewhere between 'standard' football and 'direct' football. We have less coaches who share the same Vertical Tiki Taki/Fluid Counter attack that we have - with a few quite defensive ones in Park the Bus and Catenaccio - however, the mix here is nice because, if we can emulate the defensive stability on Catenaccio, the offensive directness of route one, the off the ball movement of a fluid counter attack and the on the ball skills of Tiki-Taki, we'll be a much better team.

Their effectiveness looks like this:

A shot stopping upgrade will be necessary at some point but, everywhere else, we look really strong. We also have at least two members of staff on the group and each area is led by the 'specialist'

---

Let's see how this impacts the development...

[_Ben_]

2035 Youth Intake

Ronaldao. Vinicius. Antonio Biondo. Romario Orlandelli

---

Any youth intake that has someone called Ronaldao and someone called Romario in cannot be bad! It is interesting that Ronaldo Burti Alves has opted for Ronaldao (roughly translated to big Ronaldo) as he is just 5'7". A similar thing happened for the Brazil national team in the 1994 World Cup where Ronaldo Rodrigues de Jesus 'changed' from Ronaldo to Ronaldao to allow Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima to be Ronaldo. However, Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima had intended to be known as Ronaldinho, until Ronaldinho, Ronaldo de Assis Moreira came about. How confusing!

Any way, I like Ronaldao and, once he's become less reliant on his right foot could become a decent option. I actually like the Finishing to Dribbling ratio being in favour of the former as it'll help that kind of forward role I want to build from out wide.

Vinicius is a reasonably well rounded centre back at a time where I don't have many centre backs, therefore he has a decent chance of making progress.

Biondo is a weird mix of Uruguayan/Italian and Brazilian nationalities but has all the makings of a solid playmaker, once he learns to pass, anyway. Like literally all of my attacking mids - he lacks concentration but I'm hoping he can improve.

Orlandelli is my favourite player from this intake and is pretty well rounded. I worry about his lack of natural fitness and, as such, may convert him to a bit of a luxury centre back if I can get his heading to a decent level - as he's one of very few young defensive mids who is not like 5'5"!

---

Ideally, I'd like to sign all of these players and move loads on to Barra Mansa (see above) - but we'll see how that goes...

[_Ben_]

Copa Liberdatores update

Why do I feel like the 'curse':

Is about to continue?

We breezed past Millionairos (7-2 on agg) and Corinthians (5-1 on agg) yet we have once again come unstuck here. We need the game of our lives in 36 days at the Raulino de Oliveira to make our first ever final, if not, this'll be the sixth failure in a row. We're kind of becoming the Tottenham of the Liberdatores - applying the pressure but not quite ever making it! (sorry Spurs fans...)

[_Ben_]

Milestone

800 up!

For a comparison of intensity of the Brazilian season, my Guadalajara save consisted of 1105 games in 8398 days - a game every 7.6 days compared to this save of one game every 6.2 days. That works out at roughly 48 games a season at Guadalajara and 59 games a season here, on average (which, of course, includes our time in Serie C - whereby we had no more than 20 league games and 11 state games).

Madness!

[_Ben_]

Procrastination

Purely procrastinating (and thinking about a plan I may have for FM21...) and looking at different nationalities as I have been largely disappointed with those who have come through my academy - only Lebanon, Japan and Qatar have really stood out as 'cool' second nationalities for my youngsters. I know about the history behind things like South American dual nationalities in Spain and even things like colonies and Jewish settlements in Argentina, Palestinian settlements in Chile etc, so I've decided to have a little look, by increasing my scouting knowledge to 'World' to see what the strangest mixes I can find. I'd love to find out any reasons why they are these mixes - e.g. I read about a few towns in the south of Argentina with completely Welsh speaking families but the best I can find is a really strange Welsh/Mexican.

Jalal Khodabandehlou - Haitian/Iraqi

This is pretty much perfect! Two pretty obscure nations and I have no idea why you would share these nationalities (aside from obvious marriage of two citizens)

---

Here are some more that interested me...

Grigor Varanyan - Armenian/Colombian

Lucas Gumbo - Argentine/Zanzibari

Ignacio Lorono - Uruguayan/Basque (but not Spanish and born in Denia - Basque Country)

Mario Iguirre - Iceland/Colombia

Imad Atiobu - Morocco/Argentina

Celo (real name Marcel Smyth) - Brazil/Northern Ireland

 

 

[_Ben_]

Recall

After going on loan to promotion chasing Chapecoense, I expected more. However, they've gone through their second manager of the season and are struggling to avoid relegation to Serie C, and, as a loan striker, that doesn't reflect well on you. Therefore, he'll come back and spend the rest of the season with me.

[_Ben_]

Loans

I decided to sign all of the youth intake and ship them out to one of my two local feeders, Barra Mansa or Perolas Negras. Whilst neither are in playable leagues, they may compete in the Carioca State and some league football is recorded. I don't feel any of these will break into the first team, so whilst it does weaken my youth side, it may work in the favour of the players who are now getting first team football (and Barra Mansa share my training facilities anyway).

EDIT: Here are some comparative stats:

Edited July 30, 2020 by _Ben_

[wesl]

Japanese/Brazilian is more common than you'd think.

I've always thought that loaning out players to "grey" leagues is worse than having them in youth/reserve squads. Will be interesting to see how they develop.

[_Ben_]

New deal

Edited July 30, 2020 by _Ben_

[_Ben_]

1 minute ago, wesl said:

Japanese/Brazilian is more common than you'd think.

I've always thought that loaning out players to "grey" leagues is worse than having them in youth/reserve squads. Will be interesting to see how they develop.

Yeah - I've seen lots of Brazilian/Japanese players come through. To be fair - Brazil seems to be a place where there is a wide variety. There are some that appear pretty random - a Brazilian/South Sudanese, for example, but then again - I can kind o f see the history and maybe the reason.

As for the loaning - yep, I've not had great experience but this is different, I think. The high quality training facilities for these players under 18 could work really well and is what we've kind of established is the main thing for a player to develop. If they reach the first round of the Carioca State - they'll be playing 'active league' football, which is more than they'd get with me.

They will/should never get near my first team so I'm not going to be losing anything. In an ideal world, I'd have 30+ players in each of my Reserve and U20 team as well as groups out on loan to these clubs (and maybe more local clubs that we 'buy' should this work out) because, at the end of the day, the aim here is to process as many players through the academy as possible, and, therefore, I need as many places to train as possible.

[_Ben_]

The curse of the Liberdatores

Continues...

Six semi final defeats in a row.

[_Ben_]

Poached

Not cool, dude.

[_Ben_]

Strange game week...

This doesn't look too strange, until you see the impact that it has had on the league:

It is now highly unlikely we'll win the Brasiliero and the sequence of events made it even stranger. Ex-player Joabson scored early on for Santos before ex-academy player, poached by Fluminense, Carlos Augusto got Fluminense back into the game. Then, ex-player Savio Flamengo looked to take it out of our hands again before current player Leozao levelled for us.

I know it was only two games - but it's certainly a weird thing to see that all of the goals have been scored by players affiliated with this club!

[_Ben_]

Poached

Wonder if this lad can Pinga 60-yard ball out of defence?

[_Ben_]

2035 Round up

So close, yet so far and I can't help but feel a small amount of disappointment that we failed to capitalise on the poor seasons from Flamengo, Corinthians and Palmeiras, who, all being well, will be back next season. We have, however, recorded our best finish and record in this competition and have completed the board objective to be the best of the rest, with us now moving on to being title challengers over the next few years. At the other end of the table, it is another relegation for Sao Paulo and 2033 third place finishers Gremio narrowly escaped, too.

Whilst Santos are the first team from outside of the aforementioned big three to win the league whilst the gameworld has been active, there has been plenty of other twists and turns: Sao Paulo with two relegations, one promotion and a sixth place finish just six years back, Atletico Mineiro with a third place finish in 2025 yet relegated eight years after before being promoted again and, this season, qualifying for continental competition and Cruzeiro with a relegation, a runner up in amongst several seasons of inconsistent results. I can't think of another league in world football that has this level of twists and turns - can you imagine the third place in the Premier League in 2011/12, Arsenal, being relegated eight years later like Mineiro have done?

---

Player wise, we are doing well, again. Cabral and Joao Fernando have netted nearly seventy times between them but I do worry that we are struggling for enough rotation options to rest them when needed. Likewise, we are still very reliant on Pacato and now Leozao on the right wing. I'm happy to move Fernandez on this close season and use the improving Cleber as a replacement. I have also tied down Custodio Santos for another year of 'free' loan.

---

Joao is doing amazingly well and I think he'll eclipse Roberto Dinamite's record set at Vasco.

---

With £230m in the bank, I have to ask for something. This is now in place

---

[Jimbokav1971]

On 31/05/2020 at 20:24, _Ben_ said:

 

[FM19] Not all that glitters is gold was my starting save from FM19 and saw me take over Beira-Mar, a fallen giant(ish) of Portuguese football. As FM19 removed the graphical bars, I played this save with numbers but really got into the player development side of the save and this save also saw my hatred for attribute stars rise as key player and club legend Andre Folha was only rated at three times despite being the best scorer in Europe! A couple of issues arose, maybe as I started with the Beta game, so I ended after a couple of league victories.

---

[FM19] One night in Serravalle… saw me take a plunge into the depths of Sammarinese football – playing the save without attributes (back to bars) and without CA and PA stars. It took a while and I rose through the depths of Italian football, building a squad largely from youth players with a selection of ‘marquee’ signings – players who I brought in, with great personalities to be team leaders and standout stars. I brought in some additional data captures using Microsoft Excel to track the development of some of my younger players. This game, for me, was important as it was the first time I had developed brothers from the academy and also saw me sign Dario Samaniego, who went on to become the manager in my first FM20 save…

---

[FM20] Tequila and Mariachi? Was my first foray into FM20 and started with my using a skin that removed all sight of numbers from the game, relying on attribute ‘bands’ instead. I didn’t solely go youth only but towards the end of the save I spent the majority of my time developing players using a much more in-depth Excel system to track personalities. This save also saw an in-game son, Dario Samaniego, who spent a lot of time in the first team but sadly never reached the same heights as the squad. In this save, I developed the best first team that I think I have ever done before and was lucky enough to develop a lot of quality players from the intakes.

I think it makes sense to link to other threads because the search feature is so poor in here and if people like your style of posting and/or playing, it gives them a chance to easily go and reas the other threads. The other thing of course is that if you are anything like me, you also reference your old threads during this thread. I've done links to my old threads a few times. but equally I've also forgotten recently too. 

[Jimbokav1971]

On 31/05/2020 at 20:30, _Ben_ said:

 

Part 3: Personality vs Starting Rating

On the day that the intake is generated, I move all of the player data into an Excel document and take the mean of their attributes, as well as record their personality and a few other points about them.

The above chart shows the data that I have collected as a box and whisker plot. You can see from this data that there isn’t much difference between the average starting point for the ‘positive’ personalities – with Resolute, Model Citizen and Perfectionist personalities all ‘starting’ high. However, the variation with Model Citizen’s in interesting – as the median is the highest and the lowest player is still above a ‘7’ starting average, kind of suggesting that you don’t see many ‘poor starting players, with this personality.’

Looking elsewhere, ‘Balanced’ has to be considered a very poor starting personality, given the low mean and also the very small variation, particularly when looking at well developed players from the start. If I’m honest – I’d have liked to have seen some more personalities, but, in working hard to get the ‘best’ ones, I’ve managed to eliminate some of the ‘worst’ ones.

However, starting ability isn’t a marker for a) good development and b) high potential.

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Part 4: Personality vs Development

Once the players have entered the team, they either move to my B-squad – which, in hindsight, does not always provide accurate data for this because they are a playable team in the second tier, meaning that they are highly reputable and playing against good players, or stay in the U19 squad, which compete in a domestic league and the Youth Champions League.

Once the season is over, I take another data point of their attributes and use it to calculate an ‘end mean.’ Below, you can see the difference between the starting mean and ending mean, what I have called ‘growth’

This further backs up the importance of high levels of professionalism for early stage development – as Model Citizens, Professionals and Resolute players are all performing well and a couple of outlying Fairly Professional players also doing the same.

Looking at the other end, you can see that Low Determination players have made the worst progress on average, but, unfortunately, there has been no studies done my be directly into determination as a necessary attribute for growth.

Personalities such as Light-Hearted and Fairly Determined, very ‘average’ personalities, fluctuate highly, and, to me, are not good for consistently good results. 

I haven't seen this post before @_Ben_Brilliant. 

Would you mind explaining the graphics to me though please? 

The personalities on the right hand side I understand. the cross and the line are both at the same point because there has only been 1 player in the experiment with these personalities. 

 

Balanced makes sense because the highlighted bar will cover the min and max average figures of this personality type and the line in the bar and the x are seemingly the average point, to give you a single figure to work with rather than an upper and lower limit? Is that right? 

If we look at F.Pro though, the x is below the line within the bar. Is this you using 2 different averages? What's the thinking behind that? Doesn't that just cloud the issue and give you 2 figures to work with rather than 1, (which is the whole point of using averages in the 1st place)? What am I missing here? 

Now moving on to L.Hearted, I can see that the line extends far outside the highlighted bar. What's the line for? 

Sorry for the questions but I love this and it frustrates me that I don't completely understand it. 

[_Ben_]

5 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Would you mind explaining the graphics to me though please? 

Of course - let's use this graph as a point for me to explain from:

The y axis is the average growth that I calculated from taking an average of their attributes at the start of the season and an average at the end and then finding the difference. The x axis is not really ordered in any way other than when I first saw the personalities.

The top of the whisker shows the greatest value whereas the bottom of the whisker shows the smallest value, with the x in the middle showing the mean and the line in the middle showing the median. The purple box is the interquartile range. 

So what I took from this is that Light Hearted players have a huge range of growth but and, on average, they are only slightly better than F.Det players - so you really have to look into exactly what you're getting with them. As you can see, the one Light-Hearted player had the worst development out of everyone (including all those really negative personalities) but, with such a small data set, I can't really say that it was expected behaviour.

You can see that the average growth is best for M.Citizens but the best growth actually came from a Pro player. That one spirited player did really well but obviously there isn't enough data for him (nor with Jovial, Casual, Loyal and Mercenary) to really draw conclusions.

If we had an 'ideal personality' - we'd see:

• Very small interquartile range which would suggest that the development is always good
• Little to no whiskers, particularly at the lower end, suggesting that there are no poor development years
• The mean and median being the highest.

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Does that clear things up a bit @Jimbokav1971?

[_Ben_]

Player Sale

I didn't want to see him leave but this bid for Antonio Carlos is too big to turn down in the grand scheme of this save.

[_Ben_]

On 31/05/2020 at 20:30, _Ben_ said:

Part 5: Determination vs Growth

When I was conducting this save, I played with hidden attributes so was unable to look, directly at Determination of players. However, since completing the save, I have been able to go back and look at what was previously hidden to me - the exact Determination score. I have used data from the seven years of intake data that I had saved within my excel document for this.

I have banded the determination levels, as seen below, into 1-5, 6-10, 11-15 and 16-20 and have taken their starting mean, end mean and average growth into consideration.

Firstly - here is a look at Determination vs starting average:

I didn't expect there to be too much difference here, however, there is, on average nearly a whole point difference for the starting average of a player with low to high determination. For clarity, the Determination score itself doesn't have much impact on that average:

• Player with 20 for all attributes including Determination - mean = 20
• Player with 20 for all attributes excluding Determination, set at 10 = 19.7
• Player with 20 for all attributes excluding Determination, set at 1 = 19.5

To make that clearer - let's look at averages closer to what I am using:

• Player with 9 for all attributes and Determination, set at 20 - mean = 9.31
• Player with 9 for all attributes and Determination, set at 9 = 9
• Player with 9 for all attributes and Determination, set at 1 = 8.78

Therefore, this would tend to indicate that a better level of determination generally means that the player is better - however, I wouldn't use that as a steadfast starting point.

Next, I want to look and see how Determination, not looked at with personality, Below is the results:

The key metric here is the yellow bar, that doubles for average growth between low determined players (1-5) and high determined players (16-20). There are obviously some outliers but I can see, from this small data collection, that nobody with Determination of more than 10 has 'gone backwards' over the course of the season.

 

Just a quick FYI that I am updating a post I made earlier in this thread with some more information - I'll quote it here as I go on...

[_Ben_]

2036 Carioca Stage One

We don't enter here but it is great to see that my new feeder club Barra Mansa have made it to this far. If they finish in the top 2, the enter the second stage (otherwise they enter a relegation stage where they need to finish outside the bottom two) - but this now gives competitive football to those youngsters I loaned out. Add that in with the shared facilities (State of the Art) and this could be good for those players!

[john1]

1 hour ago, _Ben_ said:

Player Sale

I didn't want to see him leave but this bid for Antonio Carlos is too big to turn down in the grand scheme of this save.

Superb deal you got for him  What skin are you using? TCS?

[_Ben_]

4 hours ago, john1 said:

Superb deal you got for him  What skin are you using? TCS?

I agree! He was my best player in that position but, because the AMC and AMR roles are so similar - I essentially have a queue of players who can step up, as seen below. My plan is always to move players on and getting to Barca is pretty much the biggest jump you can make (even if Custodio Santos has had to return for a little bit of help...)

Cleber will be his immediate replacement but there are plenty of openings and that will be decided based on the form during the State champs.

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As for the skin - yes it is TCS but I have edited a lot of the panels myself and moved a few things round that I didn't like.

[_Ben_]

Youth players for Carioca State

As always, I'll be promoting several youth and reserve players to play and train with the first team squad for the four months that the Carioca state is running for. Here is that list:

 

As you can see, six four of these were part of this squad last year and four of them followed this up with a loan deal - something which I may pursue again this year. It also allows me to utilise the mentoring system, as seen below, for the likes of Roberto and Francisco:

My reasoning being mentoring Pro players is to give them the best chance of reaching 20 for Professionalism. If I had no tutors that are M.Pros - I'd happily leave this and, anyway, they may have 20 for Pro (as you don't turn M.Pro until 23) so this is just extra - a 'just in case' if you will.

 

[_Ben_]

Supercopa

A defeat always hurts a little more when the goalscorer came through your academy...

[john1]

Great to see you are developing  your players nicely along the way, just wish I have your patience   And never thought about doing the mentoring section myself as I tends to leave it to my assistant manager to do it.

[_Ben_]

2 minutes ago, john1 said:

Great to see you are developing  your players nicely along the way, just wish I have your patience   And never thought about doing the mentoring section myself as I tends to leave it to my assistant manager to do it.

I normally get far too attached to my own academy players so, when deciding to play in Brazil, figured this would be a great way to break that - managing in the country that exports more footballers than anywhere else!

Now that the ball is rolling - our facilities are great and I have the routines down for playtime and monitoring development, it's pretty quick and straightforward.

[_Ben_]

Personality change

Takes my M.Pro count to 10 and the number of Brazilian M.Pros that have come through the club to 16, out of a total 18 (89%) in the game and 87% (13 from 15) Brazilian based M.Pros of any nationality.