Boosting League reputation

[cbass91]

So I am the manager of Linfield in Northern Ireland. I decided to manage this team as they were by far the biggest and best equipped team in this league, with a big stadium, and relatively good team and facilities when compared with others in the league. You may ask "Where is the challenge in that?", well domestically, there isn't one; I won the double in my first season and did a domestic clean sweep (they have 5 trophies in NI) in my second season, and I am on course to do the same in March in the 3rd season. The opposition are so weak I can field 1 1/2 star youngsters/backup players and win against my main rivals.

The challenge however is with the Dynamic league reputation system which has been in the FM series for a couple of years now. The aim in this save was to dominate domestically, as this is the bread and butter of any save, and to then try and put up a fight in European competition. First season, I managed to hold Anderlecht to 0-0 home and away in the Champions league play off match, only to be beaten on Penalties, I was heartbroken until I realised I was paid £1.8m for losing, and a further £2.0m for competing in the Europa league groups; game-changing money for a club with turnover at that stage of around £500,000 (by far the largest in NI, also). I repeated this feat second season as well, getting destroyed 7-2 on aggregate by Celtic in the same game, and actually coming 2nd in the group which had Lyon, BATE and Dinamo in it, only to be beaten in the first knockout round.

All the while we went Pro after the first season, and I have been upgrading my training facilities, youth facilities, junior coaching, staff, and of course playing staff (total spend so far roughly £1.5m on transfer fees, and wage bill up from a meagre £8k a week to nearly £38k a week).

This season, with investment in players such as Aaron Hughes, Martin Patterson, Scott Wagstaff, Tom Carroll, Paul Digby, Colin Coates, Mesca, Jake Kean amongst many others (I only have roughly 5-6 of my original squad left; the rest is vastly improved), We managed to beat BATE Borisov in the Champions League playoff and were paid a full £9m for competing in the group stages, game-changing money which allows me to continue our progress.

But for all Linfields' success as an individual club, the Danske bank Premier League in itself has only slightly increased in reputation, and is in fact still only 1 1/2 star, still lower than NPower league 2 in rep. This is in spite of the wonders I have done, and continue to do, for Northern Irelands UEFA coefficient. We should be in the top 25 next season, and If I can continue to get Europa league group stages for the next 2-3 seasons, we should hit the top 15 for this.

But here is my Dilemma, Whilst Linfield are single handedly dragging NI up the UEFA rankings, the other teams in our league continue as semi-pro, on the same wage bills, with the same sponsorship, the same mediocre players and most importantly the same attendances (I somehow lost a game 4-0 to Coleraine away, their attendance was 196!!!!). The other teams who are getting Europa league places keep on getting knocked out at the first hurdle as they are so weak, and if just one of them could make the group stage, the £2.0m would hopefully be spent on players from other NI teams and so would trickle down to grassroots level and help build the league from the ground up.

You may ask: "Why haven't you bought from other Northern Irish teams then?", and the answer is because very few/no players in the league are better than 2 star for me, and so I am better served buying from England or Bosman deals. However, buying domestically at vastly inflated prices may be the only answer as I seek to improve the reputation, sponsorship and attendances in our league.

This is probably the most interesting save I've had, as unlike every other game I've played, my focus is firmly on the medium to long term rather than short term success.

Please share your experiences and opinions on this challenge, I'm eager to see what you think of it and what I can do to help bring our league higher reputation. Also another thing that bites me, does league sponsorship/TV revenue ever change?

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[noah08]

Saw an idea in another thread a few days ago that you might want to consider, if you haven't already. Try selling your players to other teams in the league at a marked down price if needed. It seemed backwards to me at first, but the more I thought about, it made more sense. Those teams get stronger, and it sounds like you far and above the other teams anyway.

Having the Northern Ireland national team do well would also improve the rep I believe.

Just a few ideas for you. They aren't great, but you wrote a lengthy post and deserve a response

[cbass91]

I will certainly try that with fringe players, either loaning or selling them in time to rivals for their Europa league qualifiers, as so far, I have simply let fringe players walk out on a free and they tend to choose Scottish or English lower league clubs rather than our rivals, which is disappointing as I would prefer they stayed in NI and added to our leagues quality.

I have a few players in the national side now, but 80% of the senior, U21 and U19 sides still play in England or Scotland.

If we could get that to 50% (hopefully the better NI players as well), I would consider what I'm doing a success, and definitely consider managing the seniors!

Thanks for the response!

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[forameuss]

There was one career I read about on this forum (at least I think it was...might have been over on SUSIE actually) where his only aim was to build up the reputation of the Swedish top flight. He did this by taking one club from the bottom to the top, competing in Europe before moving onto another top flight club and repeating. The AI did throw a spanner in the works a lot of the time by turning the sides he had managed a lot worse, but it did make a difference.

Of course, doing that, you run the risk of getting beaten every time by your old club if they are absolutely dominant, but there's your challenge

[cbass91]

Thats dedication! In hindsight I would have chosen Crusaders instead (the 3rd/4th best NI team) but I was lazy and went for the glory boys! None the less, its still a huge challenge and I suspect being Crusaders would have only set me back 2-3 seasons (or as long as it took to reach the Europa group stages)

[hursty2]

I'd say do what you've been doing for 10+ years, then judge the change.

Things just don't happen instantly for the AI.

[Master420]

Upgrade your Youth Intake Network and Junior Coaching Funds. If you do not sign the two star(or Lesser) prospects which you feel will never reach their potential they will be their five star prospect and good junior Coaching will insure they are good for joining their First Team ASAP. You might even consider not signing the best stars (Keep the non-Irish ones, they will return to their own country if they do not join you).

Another 'trick' is to sign free agents with good reputation and selling them to our 'Rivals' as individual player rep. count towards the team rep which in turn count towards League rep.

If you want to develop your league instead of the team, your best bet would be to join other teams as you will always do better than AI.

Hope it helps