smp20 Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Doing The Locomotive: Getting China On Track Ok here I am with another youth challenge, but rather than starting in a minnow nation such as San Marino I have decided to give China a go. Why China? They have got 1.35 billion people yet they have never really impacted on an international scale. There are some extremely wealthy clubs and there are some big names knocking about, so it will also be interesting to see what happens in the nation long term. My aim is to turn them into the greatest footballing nation using the youth academy of a domestic team. I started in February 2016, holidayed a year then took on one of the promoted sides. The team I have chosen for this is Tianjin Locomotive. Locomotive were formed in 1950 and were one of the founders of the Chinese football league. The team have a decent starting point for a youth challenge with reasonable facilities all round. Despite the clubs history, they are a small club and have attendances of just a few hundred. This will make it difficult to compete with the Sugar Daddy's. The Manager - Li Weifeng I have decided to use an alias, just to make things a little more interesting. I am using Li Weifeng, former national team captain with over 100 caps, who started out his career with Locomotive's youth team. He retired in 2015 after a career mostly in China, but also with Everton (2 appearances) and Suwon Bluewings in South Korea. The Squad We have just 14 players to start with and unless I cannot field an 11, I will not be using the greyed out players. Let's hope we don't have an injury crisis! I don't have any staff members to judge the team yet, but it is lacking quality as well as the obvious lack of depth. I just about have the players to play my favoured 4-4-2 DM / 4-4-1-1 DM formation. Li Jianyu is a prospect to get excited about and is one of the reasons I chose to start with Locomotive. Li Wenxin is the standout player out of the rest of the squad. He will be our captain and stalwart in defensive midfield. We are not expected to stand a chance in this league....it could be a very tough first season! Roll on youth intake day. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Gato_In_Goal Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 Should be interesting to watch this, but knowing you, it won't take for for you to succeed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriole01 Posted July 28, 2016 Share Posted July 28, 2016 You should extend the challenge to winning a league title with every team named "Lokomotiv" or "Locomotive" in FM. Would probably require some editor files but that would be really fun to see. Anyways, good luck in China! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 On 7/28/2016 at 22:09, The_Gato_In_Goal said: Should be interesting to watch this, but knowing you, it won't take for for you to succeed. Thanks TGIG and nice to see you around again I think it's going to be a tough challenge, I've never really ventured out of Europe! On 7/28/2016 at 22:14, oriole01 said: You should extend the challenge to winning a league title with every team named "Lokomotiv" or "Locomotive" in FM. Would probably require some editor files but that would be really fun to see. Anyways, good luck in China! Thanks oriole, and that could be a neat alternative if I fancied a change. Plenty of ''Loco'' clubs in playable leagues or in one division below to make it viable...there are a lot of them ranging from Lokomotiv Moscow to Inverurie Loco Works. I have just completed my first season, update to follow soon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Youth Intake 2017 After a tough season struggling on with just 14 players, it was a relief to get our intake. There are a few decent players in here who will be called straight into action. Liu Feng will be leading the line next season after the sale of Li Jianyu (more to come on this news). Not so keen on his preferred move as a striker. He is better than our 2nd choice keeper Song Ning and our 1st choice seems to have some injury problems so is likely to feature from the off. Zhao Yingxu is a big, strong centre back who will add depth to our defence. A very decent winger, possibly my favourite from the intake but he will be 2nd choice for a while yet. Some decent attributes for a poacher type forward. We lack depth at left back and our current one only has 2 for tackling so Wang Yuanlu is a welcome addition. Will be re-trained to AMC, weird attribute profile! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Breaking News: Star Striker Leaves for Guangzhou Part way through the season while Li Jianyu was on fire for us Guangzhou came in for him. In the end we got a very good deal and managed to keep him until the end of the season. We have been leaking money so this will be very useful. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Gato_In_Goal Posted July 30, 2016 Share Posted July 30, 2016 I guess a million or so helps finances, how badly are you leaking money? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 2017 Season Given our lack of depth and quality I am very happy with this first season. Many times we had to play fixtures with just 1 sub and a couple of times we had to play our 2nd choice keeper up front! We started pretty well and were never in threat of relegation and finishing in the top half is a great performance. It was unfortunate that we faced Quanjian, city 'rivals', in the 3rd round of the cup. They ended up winning the competition and finishing 2nd in the Super League behind Beijing who have won it twice in a row now. Our top performer was a low rated defensive mid Qui Ningyang who did very well as a roaming playmaker despite not really fitting the role. Both wingers did well and chipped in 8 goals each, while Li Jianyu was our top scorer with 22 goals, coming 3rd in the league scoring charts. Fredy Montero was the top goalscorer...We had an average amount of injuries but it was difficult to deal with. I'm looking forward to having depth next season with the new youngsters. We managed to increase our junior coaching to Good which is a great start. We were slowly leaking money all season but we took a big hit recently with £300k worth of bonuses! We need the money from Li Jianyu fast. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 17 minutes ago, The_Gato_In_Goal said: I guess a million or so helps finances, how badly are you leaking money? Pretty badly, we make no money from gate receipts at all! Here is the star: It is a real shame to lose him, but the money is needed and it will be good to follow his progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Whoa and again already Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Somewhat better odds than last years 2,000-1 but we are still expected to struggle. However the teams that came down, Hangzhou & Yanbian, are not amazing sides so I think the division could be pretty open. Clearly nobody watches the Chinese 2nd Tier Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Oh dear he was on a youth contract and was picked up for compensation. I will have to make sure I offer contracts to all my youngsters that are likely to get first team action. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 Wow Li Jianyu! Hadn't even realised he was called up to the squad. He comes on in the 74th minute, scores 2 goals and gets MOTM in his China debut. Another £250k for us. Well done lad! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Gato_In_Goal Posted July 30, 2016 Share Posted July 30, 2016 I found this Chinese player in my save, you have something to beat now Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 30, 2016 Author Share Posted July 30, 2016 3 minutes ago, The_Gato_In_Goal said: I found this Chinese player in my save, you have something to beat now Woooooow!!! best left back I've seen!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyler16 Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 Didn't see this thread pop up, definitely following if it's just 10% as good as your Fiorentino story. Solid start in all respects although already losing two key players is a pain. I'm interested in how much financial power we see in the Super League and how long it takes for you to eventually challenge teams with foreign superstars. A much different scenario than San Marino. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 4 hours ago, tyler16 said: Didn't see this thread pop up, definitely following if it's just 10% as good as your Fiorentino story. Solid start in all respects although already losing two key players is a pain. I'm interested in how much financial power we see in the Super League and how long it takes for you to eventually challenge teams with foreign superstars. A much different scenario than San Marino. Thanks Tyler I've been keeping an eye on the players coming in and out of the Super League, a couple of decent players in but no stars and Jadson and Lavezzi have already left. I hope that eventually it builds up and big players come over. We have really missed Li Jianyu this season, our striker options are poor. But the money has really helped and I'm hoping he gets sold on for big money. Average Chinese players are going for £3m plus. I think that we will be a selling club for quite a while - we need to really build the club up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 Youth Intake 2018 Lots of players with potential but there's certainly one that stands out. Woohoo! A fantastic striker and he was really needed. He might be small, but he's quick and can finish. I tagged Fan Bin as the 2nd because I think he has some very nice attributes to become a useful centre back and we can also lump him up top. One star current ability so gets a screenshot. Not quite so sure why he is rated so highly. It is a shame I don't use MCs as he looks useful. Another one who will be re-trained to AMC. I tagged all the other players with 4/5* potential as well but these are the ones I've decided to show Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 2018 Season Review We started off pretty well again but ultimately we struggled in comparison to last season. Despite have more depth in the squad, we lacked a real goalscorer. Out of our 3 striker options, they scored 4, 4 and 2 - we really missed Li jianyu. We did manage to beat a Super League side in the cup, albeit on penalties. Thanks to the money from Li Jianyu we are in a much healthier financial position. No changes, although we did upgrade our junior coaching so it is a little bit more 'Good'. However: We are upgrading Top Performers Hu Mingtian was our best player and top scorer this season, scoring a goal every other game in the league for us. Without his goals, we would have been in a relegation scrap. He doesn't look impressive but Cui Ningyang is still bossing it as a RPM. We missed Xian Ting a lot this season through injury, but he did well when available. Or best player on paper, but he has a few disciplinary issues. Nevertheless, a good captain and a key player. Ever-present at left back, Li Zhi has developed nicely into an attacking full back. Li Xiaoyu wasn't previously tagged, but he has done really well at right back for us. Liu Feng was our best prospect from our 2017 intake and he had a good first full season. I decided that he fits much better as an AMC that a striker. The above players were the only ones to get above a 7.0 average rating this season, showing the gulf in performances. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 Another upgrade to our junior coaching and we are heading in the right direction I also successfully managed to stop my chairman from selling a player without my agreement. I reckon we could get £1.5m upfront for him, any less and I want to keep him. Trying to tie him down to a long contract as we speak. Edit: Success!! 4 year contract plus optional 3 year extension. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 This has happened a lot earlier than I thought it would. The NT is in turmoil. They came nowhere near to qualifying for WC 2018 and came bottom of their group in the Asian Cup, even losing to Hong Kong. Lets see where we can take them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 Wow this one came out the blue Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Gato_In_Goal Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 Raking in the cash now smp20, you should be able to really upgrade some stuff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 Yeah we should definitely be able to upgrade our facilities right after our current upgrade. £8million for a 19 year-old with just a handful of caps and just 1 SuperLeague start is madness, but the money men pay big money for reasonable home grown talent. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 China National Team 2019 Preview We've been drawn into a group we can certainly qualify from, although Iraq and Syria will not make it easy for us. A busy year ahead for the national team including the East Asian Cup where we should come 3rd. Played my first couple of friendlies and we played well, beating Oman comfortably but we couldn't find the net despite our dominance against Taipei. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
EvilDave Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 It's absolutely mad that China are that far down the rankings, I'm sure you won't let that last long... Great work with Loco too, all that cash will go to good use I'm sure Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriole01 Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 Wow smp, when I first posted I didn't realize this was your thead! The new avatars must have thrown me off. Either way this looks really exciting. Good luck with the national team, it's always been a dream of mine to manage somewhere far away. By the way, if you're using the TCM logo pack, the Huanghai logo can be fixed pretty easily. The logo is in the China folder, but it's assigned to the wrong club and you just have to rename it and fix it in the config file for large and small. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makoto Nakamura Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 Best of luck with this mate good to see you getting some money in already! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted July 31, 2016 Author Share Posted July 31, 2016 1 hour ago, oriole01 said: Wow smp, when I first posted I didn't realize this was your thead! The new avatars must have thrown me off. Either way this looks really exciting. Good luck with the national team, it's always been a dream of mine to manage somewhere far away. By the way, if you're using the TCM logo pack, the Huanghai logo can be fixed pretty easily. The logo is in the China folder, but it's assigned to the wrong cluband you just have to rename it and fix it in the config file for large and small. Ah yes, my avatar is now my manager - Li Weifeng - in battle . I'm pretty sure my logo pack is from about FM14, probs just needs updating to the latest one. I will have a check though, thanks. 1 hour ago, EvilDave said: It's absolutely mad that China are that far down the rankings, I'm sure you won't let that last long... Great work with Loco too, all that cash will go to good use I'm sure Yeah they're really dropping like a stone. I hope to turn them around, but it's not going to be easy. The players available are all very average. I reckon with one or two stars we could do well, but it will be hard to compete with the big boys until then. Any cash we get will be pumped into facilities of course Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sherwinriga Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 You're getting good in which that Locomotive is almost like a powerhouse to me. I'm interested to follow your journey and good luck in your national management. By the way, what happen in China's Road to 2018 World Cup, prior you got hired? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 1, 2016 Author Share Posted August 1, 2016 11 hours ago, sherwinriga said: You're getting good in which that Locomotive is almost like a powerhouse to me. I'm interested to follow your journey and good luck in your national management. By the way, what happen in China's Road to 2018 World Cup, prior you got hired? Hi Sherwinriga I'm not sure we're a powerhouse yet, though updates to come. This is how the NT did: As you can see, they didn't do very well! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Gato_In_Goal Posted August 1, 2016 Share Posted August 1, 2016 I wish they were that bad on my Maldives save Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DodgeeD Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 An interesting change of location for a youth only career! Great that you got to see some financial benefits from Li Jianyu early on and that you are at the helm of the national side. What's with the bizarre PPMs for some of your players though? (e.g. strikers who look to pass or play their way out of trouble ) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 17 hours ago, The_Gato_In_Goal said: I wish they were that bad on my Maldives save Just finished my first year as China manager and we're doing pretty well. Would be great if a star popped up from somewhere... 8 hours ago, DodgeeD said: An interesting change of location for a youth only career! Great that you got to see some financial benefits from Li Jianyu early on and that you are at the helm of the national side. What's with the bizarre PPMs for some of your players though? (e.g. strikers who look to pass or play their way out of trouble ) Cheers @DodgeeD - I am reaping the benefits financially from him and he's been excellent for the national team. I agree, weird PPMs, oh well! Update will follow tonight. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 Tianjin Locomotive 2019 An excellent season where everything seemed to just click into place. At one point we won 10 straight league games and we were storming it, a couple of blips but we did still end up comfortably winning the league. It is amazing what a year of development and the introduction of a decent striker can do for a teams form. Alongside the promotion to the Super League, we also manage to defy the odds and reach the FA Cup Final. We beat Quanjian in the semi-final which was a great feeling considering they'd knocked us out the previous two years. In the end, Jiangsu were just a bit too classy for us, the likes of Ramires, Alex Teixeira and Jo were able to unravel our defence with relative ease. This shows that the 'big' teams in the Super League are a cut above the rest. Here you can see just how well the team performed as a whole, our midfield in particular. Hu Mingtian was outstanding and Shao Shuang got the goals that we needed. We now have adequate facilities, which are soon to be upgraded even further. Our excellent junior coaching is the best in the country, I'm hoping we will be able to improve our youth recruitment soon but the Super League has dropped to 2* and 8th in the Asian League rankings which is worrying. This screenshot was taken just before the money was splashed on facilities, still healthy though Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 Youth Intake 2019 A superb intake - lots of potential and three players that will be ready for first team action straight away. Ma Yongjie is a real favourite of mine. He is a perfect inside forward, which is how I prefer my WM(A) to behave like. In his first two league games he got 4 goals and 2 assists. Jia Tong is an instant first choice keeper. The lad is a giant! Chen Yiteng is a no nonsense defensive mid, the kind of player we really needed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriole01 Posted August 2, 2016 Share Posted August 2, 2016 How do you always get the best intakes? ffs mate they're always class. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 China National Team 2019 My tenure as NT manager has starting very, very well. I wouldn't have expected us to have finished 2019 unbeaten (not including the Asian Cup before I arrived) but here we are! Li Jianyu has been an outstanding goalscorer for us. In bizarre fashion, we won the East Asian cup! Our and Japan's result were completely identical, meaning we won it by alphabetical order I believe. If South Korea had beaten North Korea 3-0 rather than 2-0 it would have been a three way tie!! We are sitting comfortably atop the group, however we will be facing Iraq and Syria in March. A draw against Iraq will see us through, but lose both and we could end up 2nd and at the mercy of the 2nd placed teams table. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 3 minutes ago, oriole01 said: How do you always get the best intakes? ffs mate they're always class. I wouldn't say class, but these three guys are decent that's for sure Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 Recent News It was a hard decision, but Xiangtao kept on coming back with better offers and Xian Ting was not a £1m+ class player. With the recent addition of Ma Yongjie I feel that this money would be welcomed and he wouldn't be missed too much. I wasn't ready to lose my star striker though. It was a great offer, but we need a striker to give us a chance this season and I managed to convince the board to reject the bid. We did lose our first choice left back though swings and roundabouts! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 2, 2016 Author Share Posted August 2, 2016 China were hosting the U23 championships and I decided that I would manage it. With mostly teenagers, we did much better than I anticipated and this now means we will get to play in the Olympics in August Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 4, 2016 Author Share Posted August 4, 2016 Just completed my first season in the Super League, will hopefully update soon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManUtd1 Posted August 5, 2016 Share Posted August 5, 2016 Back and following along, brother. Enjoy the Olympics! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
smp20 Posted August 9, 2016 Author Share Posted August 9, 2016 Sorry to those who were following this, but I've decided I'm not going to continue in China. I ended up winning the league first season, the big clubs just aren't getting in good foreigners so it's not as exciting as I'd hoped. I'm going to head back to Europe, journeyman style Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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