Chantu9Y Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 I decided to create this save after dabbling in the Dafuge, Gundo, and Youth Challenges; they all were fun but I wasn't able to fully commit. I have thought about doing my own save combining some of the elements of Gundo and Youth challenges: I enjoyed managing in the lower levels of obscure leagues and would like to build my club from the ground up, focusing on bringing in youth through my system as my core team. After much thought, I settled on Denmark, as their league seemed really interesting and there are plenty of great youth prospects within Scandinavia. I imagine creating a Barcelona or Ajax within Denmark over time and will be relying entirely upon my scouts for recruits. I can only purchase players within Scandinavia and they must all be 21 years old or below. I can only purchase youth Scandinavian players as recommended by my scout team. This will make the challenge more authentic while giving it the youth only feel. I have hollidayed a year in order to get a team from the amateur league and was able to find Vanløse IF, a club with a rich history with former players like Preben Elkjær and Michael Laudrup coming through the youth and have won the Danish Cup in 1974. This seems promising, and I'm thrilled to jump in. Vanløse IF Season Review 17/18: Preseason The save begins with Vanløse IF hiring their new American manager, a seemingly run-of-the-mill former Sunday League player with ambitious aspirations of transforming this tiny club into a European giant. With the board having minimal expectations, they only wish to not embarrass themselves. Our finances are decent for a club at this level and we seem to have a respectable history behind us. Our facilities are straight rubbish so hopefully we can start earning some money for upgrades. The squad is fairly robust in size for just being promoted from amateur. I will update our squad and transfers following the preseason. Until the next update... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chantu9Y Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 Vanløse IF Season Review 17/18: Autumn Let me start by saying how interesting it is to have the league set up as it is in Denmark. There are essentially 2 seasons, Autumn and the Promotion/Relegation phase. Both phases are 14 games apiece. In Autumn, the league is split into 3 groups, and the top 4 out of each group progresses into the promotion phase, while the bottom four of each are sent to the relegation. The top two of the promotion will move onto the league one of Danish football while the bottom four of the relegations will be send down into the amateur underworld. Not gonna lie, this is very cool in the strangest way :). The season began with me hiring my entire backroom staff, which is among the best at this level. I also used only my scouts recommendations to purchase Scandinavian youth talent. My transfers were made mainly during this time and one or two while in season, all of whom came on a free. My tactics changed quite a bit during the preseason and in my early games before settling into an attacking 4-1-2-3. This is my weakest point when it comes to FM as I start off well and have difficulty changing it up once the AI catches on. As you can see by our team facts, with an average age of 23, this team is young and will need a few seasons under their belt before challenging for anything. This aspect will make this save that much more fun as I really need to try to develop these kids into winners. Luckily, my squad1 squad2 is a determined, close knit group. My hopes during this first phase were to simply hold on and not embarrass ourselves, and maybe sneak into the promotion group... After a few weeks I laughed at this notion. This first year was about survival. We hung around the promotion spots later in the year but with only 14 games, every match is crucial. Our boys would crumble under the weight of the bigger matches and ultimately we crashed out of the 2nd round of the Danish Cup and just missed out of the Promotion phase. The difficulty of playing at this level with youth was that many of the older players, who thought themselves too good for the bench as rotational players, would openly voice their displeasure of not being first teamers and miss practices/bring down squad morale. I ultimately had to let go of 5 players in order to get our harmony back. I have no regrets though, as I refuse to have poor locker room leadership and dissent. If I build this super team, it will be done the right way with the right people. The Autumn phase ended with us in 6th, Henrik Madsen our top scorer and Zakaria El-Quaz our main assist man. These two are our main stars and I hope I can hang on to them for now. Our finances are a little worrying as we've lost a little over half our budget and there's no money in this league or the cup :(. For now, my main objective is to survive the dreaded Relegation stage and ensure some league 2 football for next year! Until the next update... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chantu9Y Posted December 5, 2016 Author Share Posted December 5, 2016 Quick update: We are about to have a board takeover on the horizon. Not too pleased as some of the potential candidates clearly do not have our best interests in mind. Not only is Moller 29, he was scouted and reported back as a definite no buy due to his lack of talent and poor locker room qualities. I hope he doesn't get elected as there's no chance I'm giving in to this guys stupid promise, especially as I'm developing a Wenger-esque reputation. Cheap, young talent my friends. That is what we wish to cultivate at VIF. Another brutal hit has been finances. We're officially in the red, and despite me being under the wage budget, there's just no money in this league :(. I hope whoever takes over can help. Until the next update... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chantu9Y Posted December 5, 2016 Author Share Posted December 5, 2016 Vanløse IF Season Review 17/18: Relegation Stage So it all came down to this, the Relegation stage, to determine our fate in Division 2. After our first half performance, I was relatively confident that we could escape the drop. Within this stage, there were 3 major items to note. The first was our reputation. As a lower league side, we had escaped the amateur division, but are still a semi-pro team in an obscure league. We attempted a fan day, where we gave out free tickets in an attempt to boost our fan base and show the people of Copenhagen that they had a new up and coming powerhouse on the horizon!....yeah, about that. Despite winning 1-0, we played a disappointingly boring game and fan day was basically a wash. I brushed this minor setback off, as we had an upcoming election to look forward to! Rasmussen seemed to be the front runner due to his ludicrously high ambitions, which I was fine with, as long as he made sure to supply us with the means to accomplish them. Election Day finally arrived and our new chairman pulled it off. I was thrilled, as I couldn't wait to sit down and discuss my vision with him of creating this new youth superpower...that is until I was hit with this. Seriously??? Pretty sure I was hitting above expectations thus far and he was considering canning me before we even met? I was obviously livid. But that's not all. So this jerk isn't willing to put in any investments and cuts off our affiliate club?! And still expects promotion?! Oh it gets better. This guy has the nerve to still talk with coaches to replace me as I'm still apparently fighting for my job. I want to punch him in the face. But as I'm trying to build a team of youngsters, that's probably not an adult thing to do and I'm trying to be a good role model :). Instead my team rallies behind me and absolutely destroys this stage. We finish 1st and absolutely dominated with Madsen, El-Quaz, and Svendsen leading the way! That's how you stick it to the man! Here are the main stars: The Great Danes of the Year Goalkeeper: Sakharoff - he was a mid year pick up, and boy did he deliver. He easily claimed a first team place and was clutch between the posts, conceding 10 out of 15 games. Defense: Gydesen- our main central defender. He is slow as molasses but steady in the back, keeping us from conceding too many. Should develop nicely. Midfield: Svendsen- he was quietly our highest rated player all year. Mr. Consistent and always gave a reliable performance week in and week out. Forward: Madsen- "Mad Dog" was our main goal scoring threat all year. Didn't blow me away with goals galore but got them pretty consistently. A fan favorite. Ones to Watch For El-Quaz- he's so much better than the rest. Our main assist man, but doesn't want to resign at the moment. I'm praying he caves in because he is an absolute difference maker. Akkermann- a mid year pick up as well, and he definitely paid off, scoring in key moments. He will push Mad Dog for playing time next season. So I survived my first year, with promotion pressure for next year already on us. I'm hoping to survive the new board and continue to grow this club. We need help financially and need new facilities. Hopefully we can progress next year and shock Division 2. Until next update... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chantu9Y Posted December 7, 2016 Author Share Posted December 7, 2016 Vanløse IF Season Review 18/19: Preseason & Autumn A new year, a new board, and new ambitions! After a productive first campaign, I was excited to see what the new year would bring us! We had three new youth players emerge from our academy, although I'll be honest, they're nothing to write home about. Our best player from the bunch is a 16 year old by the name of Mads Clausen. He could be a promising winger but let's be real, there's only room for one "Mad Dog" on this squad ;). I will try to get him involved during the year an help guide his development, as he could be one to watch. I was also pleased to see that the board is willing to improve our youth system, although "basic" isn't going to cut it in this save. In world news, Brexit happened with its main impact on us being that the Bowman rule is scrapped. I'm only going after Scandinavian youth talent, so I'm in my own little bubble in regards to needing work permits. We did get good news with TV money....except we're still in the red so don't get excited. In fact we didn't even get hit with taxes because we actually announced a loss of money for the fiscal year. The only positive is that it's not coming from the payroll. We of course have no money so our transfers were both free 99. My hope was to use these two as backup and avoid that terrible mid season slump, as every game counts with only 14 in the Autumn stage. To my surprise we didn't jump out the gates, we blew those things down! We started with 7 wins and 1 loss to begin with and I was feeling like promotion would be a cakewalk! Then came the hammer. Four straight defeats in a row and a third round loss in the Danish Cup. Morale dropped and we fell from 1st to out of the top four quickly. The papers weren't pleased with my tactics and I needed a team talk to right the ship, as many wrote us off as pretenders and the locker room seemed crushed. I'm not sure why we performed so poorly; I suppose the AI figured me out at this point. However, some of the results were simply inexcusable. There was a match where we had 15+ attempts at goal, one in which my forward passed everyone (including the goalkeeper) and proceeded to run towards the open goal...and blast it wide! The game ended when the ref decided to allow the AI to continue to play despite being a minute over the 3+ added time and they hit a wondergoal! What the heck?! Needless to say, we felt cheated, and I'm convinced the AI has it out for me. The next game, I pulled out my 4-4-2 attacking formation, and poof, the comeback was on. We managed to claw out some draws and wins until the last game of the year, when we needed a draw to secure the our spot. We did one better and finished 4th in our group...which means Promotion stage, here we come!!! I'm thrilled that we were able to grind it out, and maybe if we complete our goals, we can stop the financial hemorrhaging :(. Until the next update... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chantu9Y Posted December 7, 2016 Author Share Posted December 7, 2016 Side note: I am currently sitting 9th in the Promotion group with 7 points, having played no games. Aarhus Fremad is in 1st with 14 points. How the heck does this stage work with determining how many points you start with??? If anyone knows, feel free to reply. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willigenburg Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 14 hours ago, Chantu9Y said: Side note: I am currently sitting 9th in the Promotion group with 7 points, having played no games. Aarhus Fremad is in 1st with 14 points. How the heck does this stage work with determining how many points you start with??? If anyone knows, feel free to reply. You take your points from the last six games with you into the promotion/relegation phase according to this: https://www.dbu.dk/Nyheder/2014/Juni/ny_2division . I know it's in Danish - I'll translate the picture below. This basically tells that in the autumn you're playing 14 games in three groups of 8 teams. Then in spring you're playing 16 games in two groups of 12 teams, where the points and goals from the autumn groups are taken with you. I love the new structure in the Danish leagues. Makes for a lot of interesting games and generally a more interesting league to watch. I'll definably be following this thread! Always looking for careers in Denmark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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