Is there a challenge for me?

[GreyedOutMan]

For FM18, I want to do something I haven't really done before, long term. I really like the create-a-club feature - I like the idea of building a club literally from scratch with no history already, and working from the bottom to the top in the country, and then trying to build that country up to be as good as possible (i.e. probably not doing it in England, Spain or Italy...although doing it with someone like Slovakia seems a bit too far fetched - I'm considering Belgium currently, partly because of their decent players coming through currently which suggests their regens might be quite good in general). I'd like to become the first great club from that nation and then eventually make the entire nation the best in the world - both in terms of the league and in terms of the national team.

Now, I'm notoriously not very good at this game, so I doubt I'll ever manage it but I like the idea of giving it a go - and if I'm posting on here then I'll get some advice which would help for sure!

Is there already a challenge I could do this in? Or should I create one?

[mark1985]

I would say maybe the Austrian or Swiss leagues. Decent top tier, 1 massive team (Basel/RB Salzburg) who win the league pretty much every season, but still the cup to fight over. initially it would prove a challenge to win the league but can qualify for Europe not too difficultly/win the cup. The vanilla version has 2 leagues in each country, but you can obviously go deeper. The 2 countries will have decent regens as well. They make great homegeown/local saves.

I would first create a team in a big city/region with little/no competition. This gives you a bigger pool of local players. Regions/cities I would choose would be

Austria - Graz/Linz/Carinthia

Switzerland - Zurich/Central Switzerland/Ticino/Graubünden/Liechtenstein

 

Then proceed to play it as a youth challenge. Imagine being a small village (or a tiny team in a big city) and winning the champions league with only local players? This would also bump up the countries co-efficient and the national team (by basing it around youth)

[GreyedOutMan]

Not sure about Austria or Switzerland - simply because they're not especially good in terms of their national teams and I want players coming through of high quality (which is why Belgium appeals). I also speak French and not German and I like being able to pronounce my regens' names!

However, that's a really good shout about choosing areas that have no competition. I hadn't thought of that and it will be relevant in any league. But surely Graz and Zurich already have big-ish teams? (Sturm Graz, Grasshopper)

Does this always hold true? If in future I want to do it in England, then presumably somewhere like Devon/Cornwall or perhaps Bristol would be good in terms of places without any massive teams nearby? As a Londoner that makes me a little sad but clearly London would be the worst possible place!

[GreyedOutMan]

Any other suggestions?

[streety]

Parma

[GreyedOutMan]

5 minutes ago, streety said:

Parma

....and now from someone who has read the OP?

[XaW]

Well, Belgium, as you say, are fitting for most of the things you are looking for. Other than that the Czech Republic often have some very good youth prospects, but are not the most successful in European games. Other than that you can always go to Scandinavia, but being Norwegian myself kind of makes me biased a bit there I guess.

I think you should create it as a challenge. Even though you might only be posting yourself at the start it might inspire others to try it out. It was the youth challenge in here that made me try it for the first time, and it's now one of my favorite ways to play.

[Haiku]

On 10/19/2017 at 23:41, GreyedOutMan said:

....and now from someone who has read the OP?

So you've made your mind up. There's not much other options with your criteria - "french speaking nation with quality national team" it's either France or Belgium. I'm playing with Paris FC every new FM release. Here's a challenge - play with Stade Bordelais, but you'll have to unlock lower french divisions first.

[GreyedOutMan]

1 hour ago, Haiku said:

So you've made your mind up. There's not much other options with your criteria - "french speaking nation with quality national team" it's either France or Belgium. I'm playing with Paris FC every new FM release. Here's a challenge - play with Stade Bordelais, but you'll have to unlock lower french divisions first.

I have not made my mind up. I'm looking for recommendations on leagues, that's all. France and Belgium do both appeal to me but I'm not necessarily totally sold on either. 

[Haiku]

7 hours ago, GreyedOutMan said:

I have not made my mind up. I'm looking for recommendations on leagues, that's all. France and Belgium do both appeal to me but I'm not necessarily totally sold on either. 

For a lower league long term challenge I always prefer big leagues like England, Spain etc. and here's why. In big leagues like Spain and England, because of the huge budgets at the top divisions you'll always have excellent competition. In smaller leagues, you can easily become the best club with the biggest budget and there the fun ends, because you can walk the league pretty much without a loss. 

[GreyedOutMan]

1 minute ago, Haiku said:

For a lower league long term challenge I always prefer big leagues like England, Spain etc. and here's why. In big leagues like Spain and England, because of the huge budgets at the top divisions you'll always have excellent competition. In smaller leagues, you can easily become the best club with the biggest budget and there the fun ends, because you can walk the league pretty much without a loss. 

Yes, but I like the idea of building up a league's reputation too...that's a big part of the challenge. Ideally you want to build it up so that you ARE being challenged again eventually.

[Haiku]

Just now, GreyedOutMan said:

Yes, but I like the idea of building up a league's reputation too...that's a big part of the challenge. Ideally you want to build it up so that you ARE being challenged again eventually.

Sure, but this is very slow process and other teams need to contribute as well. You'll find yourself in a situation of selling your surplus players to competitors for cheap, only to make them stronger. I did this myself playing in smaller competitions and got bored eventually. 

[GreyedOutMan]

20 hours ago, Haiku said:

Sure, but this is very slow process and other teams need to contribute as well. You'll find yourself in a situation of selling your surplus players to competitors for cheap, only to make them stronger. I did this myself playing in smaller competitions and got bored eventually. 

As long as I'm still signing better players than they are, I don't mind this. It's an extra aspect to the game which I find interesting. Otherwise, it's just same old, same old.

[Jakarooney]

I did this with Sparta Prague in Czech Republic (before it got corrupted). I'm not saying do this with a team for the Czech Republic although we were getting quality youth players through after the 5th year. Belgium sounds like it's for you tbh. Maybe Portugal? or Netherlands? You'll definitely get quality youth players in those nations too.

[Britrock]

You could do one of the challenges where you sim the first year then take over a promoted club in the bottom division and take them to the title and European glory? Usually those clubs have zero history for you to build from.

[wynter]

On 10/22/2017 at 03:44, GreyedOutMan said:

Yes, but I like the idea of building up a league's reputation too...that's a big part of the challenge. Ideally you want to build it up so that you ARE being challenged again eventually.

Bulgaria could be a good shout, high quality youth/Football history. Big Clubs in Ludogorets, CSKA, Levski etc; and the league has a fun format splitting in half towards the end. I'm heading straight back there once I pick up 18. 

[WilsonJuve]

On 01/10/2017 at 19:17, GreyedOutMan said:

For FM18, I want to do something I haven't really done before, long term. I really like the create-a-club feature - I like the idea of building a club literally from scratch with no history already, and working from the bottom to the top in the country, and then trying to build that country up to be as good as possible (i.e. probably not doing it in England, Spain or Italy...although doing it with someone like Slovakia seems a bit too far fetched - I'm considering Belgium currently, partly because of their decent players coming through currently which suggests their regens might be quite good in general). I'd like to become the first great club from that nation and then eventually make the entire nation the best in the world - both in terms of the league and in terms of the national team.

Now, I'm notoriously not very good at this game, so I doubt I'll ever manage it but I like the idea of giving it a go - and if I'm posting on here then I'll get some advice which would help for sure!

Is there already a challenge I could do this in? Or should I create one?

I know you dont really want a top league but an option anyway would be a team from BERLIN (Germany) the biggest city in the country by far Population 3,670,622.
Yet all these people and they have never really done it on the footballing front. There only major team Hertha Berlin only have 2 titles in there name 1930/1931.
And were in the second division as recently as 2012. Aim would be to dethrone Bayern munich and the rest of Germany and make the capital the most successful team
not only domestically but also on the european stage.

[GreyedOutMan]

Think I've come up with my team. It's going to be PAISLEY SPLANG. Why Splang? It's Scots Gaelic for flash, spark or sparkle. What do you think?

[mark1985]

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 21:55, GreyedOutMan said:

Not sure about Austria or Switzerland - simply because they're not especially good in terms of their national teams and I want players coming through of high quality (which is why Belgium appeals). I also speak French and not German and I like being able to pronounce my regens' names!

However, that's a really good shout about choosing areas that have no competition. I hadn't thought of that and it will be relevant in any league. But surely Graz and Zurich already have big-ish teams? (Sturm Graz, Grasshopper)

Does this always hold true? If in future I want to do it in England, then presumably somewhere like Devon/Cornwall or perhaps Bristol would be good in terms of places without any massive teams nearby? As a Londoner that makes me a little sad but clearly London would be the worst possible place!

There are some quality players in those countries (Alaba and Arnautovic in Austria or Shaqiri and Xhaka in Switzerland). True, there are some big teams Sturm Graz in Graz, Rapid/Austria in Vienna and GCZ/FCZ in Zurich, but they're large population centres so maybe some room for another? Plus if you want to be able to pronounce the players, how about French speaking Switzerland (I've been to Belgium and some of those Flemish names are tricky despite me speaking German!)

[kccircle]

Maybe set yourself a challenge of getting a Capital City operation going. Decide on a City and manage the lowest rated team, build them up to winning the league and then depart to the next lowest in that city and repeat hoping your legacy left behind at each club you depart from continues to allow the league to increase in rating over time

[Terryhall]

Returning to Switzerland, you could put a team in Geneva.  French speaking, only one local team (Servette) and whilst they were historically a big side, these days they're very much a 2nd tier team.  In Zürich there are already two massive, well followed, well established clubs (Grasshoppers and FCZ) as well as other big clubs nearby (Luzern, St Gallen, Aarau, Winterthur....)

Berne would also be French speaking, but YB would be some much more serious competition.

I would also add that over time, Swiss regens are generally of good quality (I live in Zurich so quite often do Swiss based FM saves.)

In fact the real cherry on top of this challenge would be creating a team in Nyon - that is 25km north of Geneva and happens to be the town in which UEFA is based.

 

EDIT - you could adopt the existing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Stade_Nyonnais if you chose to do so - currently in the 1st promotion league (this is the 3rd tier of the Swiss football pyramid and not normally playable on FM - winners of the 1st promotion league would step up to the Challenge League.)

 

[mark1985]

On 12/13/2017 at 11:33, Terryhall said:

Returning to Switzerland, you could put a team in Geneva.  French speaking, only one local team (Servette) and whilst they were historically a big side, these days they're very much a 2nd tier team.  In Zürich there are already two massive, well followed, well established clubs (Grasshoppers and FCZ) as well as other big clubs nearby (Luzern, St Gallen, Aarau, Winterthur....)

Berne would also be French speaking, but YB would be some much more serious competition.

I would also add that over time, Swiss regens are generally of good quality (I live in Zurich so quite often do Swiss based FM saves.)

In fact the real cherry on top of this challenge would be creating a team in Nyon - that is 25km north of Geneva and happens to be the town in which UEFA is based.

 

EDIT - you could adopt the existing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Stade_Nyonnais if you chose to do so - currently in the 1st promotion league (this is the 3rd tier of the Swiss football pyramid and not normally playable on FM - winners of the 1st promotion league would step up to the Challenge League.)

 

The city of Bern is German speaking and the canton is bilingual although majority German speaking, but it is right next to the French speaking cantons. There are packs in the editors download (at least there were for 17 and 16) where you can play Swiss lower leagues. There are teams in the 3rd, 4th and 5th tiers which are smaller teams in Basel, Bern, Zürich etc. Oh, and thanks for calling Luzern a big team! They are my Swiss team (used to live just outside there) and they're not that big but glad someone thinks so!

[yugular]

Sweden could for you