The FM21 Youth Academy Challenge

[toshimitzou1]

What a start to the season! Predicted to finish bottom, we have surged into title contention early doors:

Running a simple 451 DM utilising the only decent attributes in the squad: Workrate and Aggression.

Sadly, upon ascension to the management post I found we only have a single youth player in our Under 19's. A useless GK who has no potential. However, I have immediately employed the best Head of Youth Development available,

Our facilities are dirge though:

I desperately require a full intake of youth of any quality though. My squad is small (19 first team players) containing only one recognised striker and one or two long term injuries would derail the whole season. Pumped up for the youth intake preview.

[TerminalPortugal]

22 minutes ago, toshimitzou1 said:

What a start to the season! Predicted to finish bottom, we have surged into title contention early doors:

Running a simple 451 DM utilising the only decent attributes in the squad: Workrate and Aggression.

Sadly, upon ascension to the management post I found we only have a single youth player in our Under 19's. A useless GK who has no potential. However, I have immediately employed the best Head of Youth Development available,

Our facilities are dirge though:

I desperately require a full intake of youth of any quality though. My squad is small (19 first team players) containing only one recognised striker and one or two long term injuries would derail the whole season. Pumped up for the youth intake preview.

Still haven't totally worked out Head of Youth Development as a role, but that personality is a bad one, I tend to look at personality and then look at the stats otherwise the bring in a lot of players in the youth intake that are wasters. Having said that not too sure that Unambitious is necessarily a bad personality, he still might have decent professionalism which is the key one for development of a player in my experience.

Still good start to the season, nice one!

[vikeologist]

14 minutes ago, TerminalPortugal said:

Still haven't totally worked out Head of Youth Development as a role, but that personality is a bad one, I tend to look at personality and then look at the stats otherwise the bring in a lot of players in the youth intake that are wasters. Having said that not too sure that Unambitious is necessarily a bad personality, he still might have decent professionalism which is the key one for development of a player in my experience.

Still good start to the season, nice one!

Unambitious is not a terrible personality for this challenge. Ambition does help players develop, (but it's not the main thing) and ambitious players might not want to leave so quickly.

I think the HoYD personality that I avoid at all costs is Balanced. I'm sure there are some worse ones, like Slack, but having a Balanced HoYD is like playing Russian Roulette with all but one chamber loaded.

@toshimitzou1That said, I'm not sure how that guy could be the best available HoYD. Low determination (which obviously you can easily correct in players, but why create that rod for your back), low JA/JP and the coaching stats aren't great. For this challenge, I'd say coaching ability is just about the least important element in chooisng a HoYD

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by vikeologist

[TerminalPortugal]

1 minute ago, vikeologist said:

Unambitious is not a terrible personality for this challenge. Ambition does help players develop, (but it's not the main thing) and ambitious players might not want to leave so quickly.

I think the HoYD personality that I avoid at all costs is Balanced. I'm sure there are some worse ones, like Slack, but having a Balanced HoYD is like playing Russian Roulette with all but one chamber loaded.

Agreed, but professionalism is what you want for a player to develop, and I need to read the personalities guide again but Unambitious presumably can be anything for professional from awful to decent. HoYD is a very over-rated position anyway, facilities and youth recruitment and coaching are the key things, but they cost money to maintain as I have found out.

Agree on Balanced as a personality, that one is not a good one to have.

[vikeologist]

7 minutes ago, TerminalPortugal said:

Agreed, but professionalism is what you want for a player to develop, and I need to read the personalities guide again but Unambitious presumably can be anything for professional from awful to decent. HoYD is a very over-rated position anyway, facilities and youth recruitment and coaching are the key things, but they cost money to maintain as I have found out.

Agree on Balanced as a personality, that one is not a good one to have.

Yeah, you're preaching to the choir. I doubt I'd even entertain a HoYD with anything less than Resolute, but then for me personality is THE criteria. I might be wrong though. It's not like myModel Citizen drops endless other little MCs.

[Cheez3y]

Chalkanoras Idaliou - Youth Intake 2023

We got the much needed DLP!

Also a decent striker and a winger.

This time we got an all Cypriot intake.

 

Intake Map - 2023

Spoiler

 

Intake Map - All

Spoiler

 

 

[Cheez3y]

Our superstar Christos will leave us on a free... 

 

But I call bullsh*t, since he got this clause

We avoided the relegation....

[TerminalPortugal]

PORTALEGRENSE (2033/34)

Well, well, well. Last season upon achieving promotion to Liga 2, I thought that we would struggle. It took us almost a decade to be promoted from the Terceira as we first struggled and then stabilised ourselves in the division before we finally pushed for promotion, once unsuccessfully and the second time very successfully. So imagine my surprise when we more or less walked Liga 2. The opening games, gave me plenty to think about as we conceded a lot of goals, but we also scored a lot. I could tell that we were already very much a threat in this division. Long ago I abandoned ideas of defending, and now we play attacking football. As the games rolled by we started to convert more games into wins and some of them were big blowouts usch as 5-2 against Vitoria de Setubal, 6-2 against Pacos de Ferreira and 6-1 against Penafiel. All teams that at one point called the Liga NOS home. The cup perhaps provided the biggest point of concern as we travelled to Torrense, a team we know well from our time in the Terceira and we got completely taken apart losing 7-0, and I was fearful that would spell disaster, but we recovered pretty quickly and we never really looked back again. Porto B and Sporting B were doing well in the league and since they can't be promoted, the gap kept growing to the final promotion spot. In the end we got there at a canter, an amazing season for us and one that is very much unexpected.

Player wise, we should start with Pedro Almeida who seemingly shows no signs of stopping. He has now scored in the 4th, 3rd and 2nd Divisions, and will have the chance to score in the Liga NOS. He has now amassed 212 goals in 397 league appearances. He is a true Portalegrense great, and at this point even at some point in the future if he is no longer of the level required for the team. I think it would only be right to keep him around and hopefully get him into the backroom staff. He has actually turned into a very professional player, it seems a long while ago when he missed training and missed games because he wanted to move away and he has developed both in terms of on the pitch but also off it. Elsewhere, Celio who looks like a great player suffered a double occurance of shin splits, which hurt his season, not sure whether he has a particular problem with this injury, but hopefully the specialist has sorted him out. Gilson Cesar continues to impress, he could not quite catch Pedro Almeida this season but he looks set to partner Almeida or even young starlet Daniel who has been ripping up the Under 19's and has already broken into the first team once or twice at the age of 16, again another player up front who can add a lot of firepower. He is more in the Pedro Almeida mould, not a particularly great finisher but has good ability on the ball and can play in people, so I expect he could be the natural heir of the Almeida throne. Diogo Pereira is a superstar for us, operating either from the right or in central midfield, he is already a Portugal U19 international and is not firmly one of the main men in the team. Bakari Kihwelo at right back, is now Tanzanian international, and is arguably the best player we have at the club, he has improved massively. Danrlei and Joao Ganhao have improved a lot in defence and they look like a good partnership, although Ganhao can operate at full back and often does. Finally Romario Monteiro again looks like a stalwart in central midfield.

In terms of the youth side, Gil Rodrigues has been up with the first team and getting the odd game and is improving. Daniel has already been mentioned but he is ready to play regularly next season from the striker position. Omar Al-Dharat, the young Libyan who has been with the Under 19's has got plenty of game time this season. He is a very good player and will be challenging for the starting central midfield spots. David Castela has been up for a while with the first team, not started a game yet fort he first team but played for the Under 19's, he looks to me to be a better keeper now than Alvaro Montenegro, but I am a bit loathe to have him sit on the bench when we seems to have plenty of potential so ideally a loan away would not be a bad idea. In the Under 19 team proper, Diogo Barros is ready to step up to the first team after a very good season with the Under 19's and Emamuel Djalo is not far behind him. The new prospects provided plenty of potential and we will monitor them closely but at the moment I do not see anyone who is super ready to be in the first team at this time.

Financially, we have continued with the friendlies and managed to make a small profit. We could not attract the likes of Benfica, Sporting and Porto, but were able to get more Spanish teams from the 2nd Division for friendlies which helped marginally. Not sure what the financial picture looks like in the top division but we will likely still look to employ the friendlies strategy. The next steps for the club are to improve both the training and youth facilities which have not been improved for a long time but we need a fair bit of cash on hand to do that. The stadium did get reduced in attendance this season to comply with an all seating arrangement and it cost us £160K which has come from a bank loan, not a big deal, but the slightly reduced attendance is not ideal but we have never sold out anyway so it probably does not matter too much in all honesty.

Youth Intake Briefing | Top Prospects | Other Prospects | League Table | First Half of Fixtures | Second Half of Fixtures | Squad | Transfers

Top Players

Bakari Kihwelo | Miguel Gandum | Celio | Joao Ganhao | Danrlei

Summary

 

[HbG93]

2022 - John Carew returns too Lørenskog IF!

Squad - Transfers 

With the team being Semi-professional and the clear favorite to be relegated. While also having poor facilities this could turnout to be a very difficult task. We can quickly find ourselves in a situation where we lose our best players. While not getting players available to help from our intakes. And obviously down in the 3rd tier of Norway there isn't much money floating about. Worth too note there will be 4 transfer in this season due too them already being arranged before I joined the club. But to be honest of these players only 1 of them have quality enough to actually see game time. But let's get right into the most exciting part of the year the intake!



Obviously stars are relative to my own team and this might not reveal much. However I can quickly assure you all there isn't much or anything at all too be excited about here. The guy that stands out is Admilson Monteiro from Cape  Verde! But his nationality is probably more exciting than his talent. I will be fair and admit he is someone that is good enough to play for the first team. I have however not initially planned for a CAM player, but I might have to reconsider that with this addition. Outside of Monteiro my best hope is that Gard Ranger manages on his own to unlock his potential to aid us in the future. With a resolute personality and some coverage playtime.. and the stars align with the moon... Last of "note" is Fredrik Sandal Lien who's attribute spread is actually rather good, but there is also an obvious lack of amount of attributes. I also signed Nicklas Østby just in case I ever want to sub someone on with the sole purpose of taking out a danger man.

As I have mentioned before I didn't plan to use this formation but let's get this Monteiro22B going! I hope that with trying to play the ball a bit with a presser. I can simply keep our opposition away from creating danger. I also dropped the defensive line 1 row to help prevent to much getting in behind. I hope to mainly use this first year to build the team cohesion, and dynamics up in hopes of having a outside shot of promotion the following season. Hopefully we can get better aid from the academy next season. 



Getting into the games I quickly noticed we are better than assumed. I was happy with our ability to not be drowned as our defense proved to hold up quite nicely. My tactical plan of trying to hold onto the ball proved effective as we had 3rd best possession in the league with 58%. We did however find a bit of a block in the scoring department. Jake Petur Martin was the man who most often found the goal with 13 across the season. Luckily our midfield all contributed quite well whether wide or narrow unless your name was Monteiro 22B. Who didn't have a good season but hopefully this can hardened him into next year. Attribute wise there wasn't really any growth to speak of. Ole Marius Forsberg had a great year! Leading our defense and ended up as the highest and most consistent performer. 



Let's end this first seasonal update with the next year's intake preview. Sadly it doesn't look promising. My current goalie is rather solid for this level so unless this Goldap goalie is better than Admilson Monteiro from this season it won't help me. My fingers are crossed for one of the wingers being good enough to help out. But I fear until we can promote and get professional status with some facilities upgrades. And well an actual coaching staff we won't really get better players to help promotion or long term goals. I did get the green lights for constant coaching badges upgrades which is nice. And I was able to get an upgrade in both youth recruitment and junior coaching. 

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by HbG93

[Cheez3y]

Chalkanoras Idaliou - Season 2022/23

Media Prediction // Transfers + Released

 

Upgrades/Downgrades/Misc

Coaching Badge: None -> Nat. C Licence

Job Interview: THOI + ASIL + Alki

We got 3 interviews from teams in our league.

 

Kypello Kyprou

Games

Knocked out again against a tier 1 side in the 2nd round.

 

Defteri Kategoria

Results I + Results II

Almost the same result as last year, just with 3 pts less.

 

Pretty much the same as last season.

 

The next season will be tough without Christos.

Idk who can score goals...

 

Top 3 Regens

Edited July 19, 2021 by Cheez3y

[XaW]

 

Follo Fotballklubb - Season 2034 (Season 13) Review

Table | Squad | Transfers | Finances

After we surprisingly went past the group stage, our Champions League run went short as we lost big to Bayern München in the 1st knockout round.

In the Mesterfinalen we lost to Molde on pens.

This season the league was much closer than I would have liked. We looked to pull away early on, but as the teams fell away we never managed to shake of Rosenborg. And they really followed us to the door! In the end we only won it on goal difference, both teams with a massive 76 points! I think this is the highest points total for a non-winning side in Norwegian history. Amazingly close, and the fight was fun.

In Norgesmesterskapet we beat Lyngdal and Djerv 1919 before we lost to Strømsgodset after extra time in the 3rd round.

In the Champions League we went straight into the group stage again, and here we drew Barcelona of Spain, Roma of Italy, and PSV of the Netherlands, another hard group. We managed to beat PSV at home and, surprisingly, Barcelona at home. We drew away to PSV as well as both matches against Roma, and finally lost in Spain. This group ended so close as the top 3 ended on 9 points, unfortunately, we finished 3rd and got knocked down to the Europa League knockout rounds. I'll update this in the next season update.

Youth

The quality of the intakes are dropping, but I'm working on the facilities and affiliates, so I hope to get them improved again.

I wanted to highlight Patrick Barmen 34b because I need a better left back, but his (lack of!) progress this season does leave me to think I made the wrong choice...

Statistics:

Spoiler

Nothing new to the list this time either.

2nd team:

They only played friendlies

U19 team:

In the Norwegian U19 Championship Oslo they retained the title again and qualified for the promotion playoff. They lost to Fredrikstad in the semi final and stays down.

In the Norwegian U19 Cup they beat Nybergsund and Sagene before losing to Odd in the 3rd round.

In the UEFA Youth League they are still playing, and have a chance at progressing from the group stage, but they need to beat Barcelona to do so...

Records broken;

Most goals in a season: Pætur Johansen 27d - 44
Most league goals in a season: Pætur Johansen 27d - 35
Most goals in a match: Pætur Johansen 27d - 4
Most goals in a league match: Pætur Johansen 27d - 4
Most player of the match awards: Pætur Johansen 27d - 13
Most league apps overall: Erik Arnesen 25h - 261
Most league goals overall: Erik Arnesen 25h - 151
Fastest goal: Pætur Johansen 27d - 12 seconds

Trophy cabinet:

Eliteserien - 2032, 2033, 2034
Mesterfinalen - 2033
PostNord-ligaen Avdeling 2 - 2022

Norwegian U19 Championship Oslo - 2024, 2026, 2027, 2032, 2033, 2034
Norwegian U19 Cup - 2032

[XaW]

Oh, and we are building a new stadium some time in the future...

[toshimitzou1]

5 hours ago, vikeologist said:

Unambitious is not a terrible personality for this challenge. Ambition does help players develop, (but it's not the main thing) and ambitious players might not want to leave so quickly.

I think the HoYD personality that I avoid at all costs is Balanced. I'm sure there are some worse ones, like Slack, but having a Balanced HoYD is like playing Russian Roulette with all but one chamber loaded.

@toshimitzou1That said, I'm not sure how that guy could be the best available HoYD. Low determination (which obviously you can easily correct in players, but why create that rod for your back), low JA/JP and the coaching stats aren't great. For this challenge, I'd say coaching ability is just about the least important element in chooisng a HoYD

 

Best available at the moment considering I can only offer wages up to 375 pounds per week. I will indeed be looking for a more preferable personality if finances improve, but at the moment unambitious is the best of a bad bunch. 

[toshimitzou1]

5 hours ago, TerminalPortugal said:

Still haven't totally worked out Head of Youth Development as a role, but that personality is a bad one, I tend to look at personality and then look at the stats otherwise the bring in a lot of players in the youth intake that are wasters. Having said that not too sure that Unambitious is necessarily a bad personality, he still might have decent professionalism which is the key one for development of a player in my experience.

Still good start to the season, nice one!

Hi, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, good start atm. In my experience, the HOYD is only a minor part in the greater machine. What I really need to do at the earliest opportunity is upgrade all aspects of youth development. I have already had my first upgrade requests rejected due to finances so it will definitely be a long slog.

[toshimitzou1]

37 minutes ago, XaW said:

I wanted to highlight Patrick Barmen 34b because I need a better left back, but his (lack of!) progress this season does leave me to think I made the wrong choice...

I would give him some time. Fairly sporting is a pretty poor personality for early development. Get that lad tutored.

Stunning work overall though. I love the challenge of winning in Europe with a low reputation league.

Also, this may apply to others, within the rest section of the training section relevant to each squad, you can set training intensity based on condition. For optimal youth development I always set peak condition to Double intensity and this will then apply to all players across the board in the relevant team. Useful little function and also helps to identify those that are excessively injury prone early in their careers.

[XaW]

19 minutes ago, toshimitzou1 said:

I would give him some time. Fairly sporting is a pretty poor personality for early development. Get that lad tutored.

Stunning work overall though. I love the challenge of winning in Europe with a low reputation league.

Yeah, I'm not tossing him aside, but the coaches have also changed their opinion, so I'm not as keen as I was when he came through.

Thanks! I think I can finally make it this time, but it will take some time...

[toshimitzou1]

7 minutes ago, XaW said:

but the coaches have also changed their opinion, so I'm not as keen as I was when he came through.

 

Yuk, I hate that declining potential. At worst he will make a profit at some point.

[Brentmeister]

I haven't bought a player in 12 years! What a strange question.

[HbG93]

4 minutes ago, Brentmeister said:

I haven't bought a player in 12 years! What a strange question.

 

Only see realistic media on display from SI here! 

[HbG93]

1 hour ago, XaW said:

Oh, and we are building a new stadium some time in the future...

Surely there is a chance it will be named after your manager?

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, HbG93 said:

Surely there is a chance it will be named after your manager?

I hope so, but no info yet!

[Proffa]

1 hour ago, Brentmeister said:

I haven't bought a player in 12 years! What a strange question.

I got that as well.

Also, quite often it says something like this in the dynamics: "the club has seen high turnover in staff" even though there has not been many (if any) changes.

[HbG93]

A little teaser from my second season. Didn't except to beat John Carew sale record this fast.
 

Which flat out have me laughing at the idiocy of my board members. Because 1 of them did this before I got onto the negotiation tables. 


I actually was thinking 50K was a good fee to get for this player. And initially all the teams denied it until a few bit. I then managed to get a 100K, 150K, 250K before lastly the finial top offer from Vålerenga at 400K! Which means I made about 516 times Mr chairman 



Granted this player was good for me. This sale allowed me to finally get a training facility upgrade trough! 

Edited July 19, 2021 by HbG93

[lewis999]

Clube Operário Desportivo - Season 2 - 2022/23 Review

The second season was better than the first in terms of consistency, level of performances and final position but we did fall short of our main goal - to get promoted.

We came so close to qualifying for the play offs and taking that number 1 spot but Juventude Evora pipped us and went into the play offs. 

The intake preview was shocking as was the intake itself. I have been live streaming the save on twitch and in the moment I forgot to take a picture of the intake, but seriously it wasn't worth looking at. We got one player who was 4.5* and it turns out he's actually closer to 3* PA instead. I did sack my HOYD after the preview but before the intake so he would be able to allow us to produce better newgens quicker giving him time to stamp his mark on the academy. 

We did get both our junior coaching and our youth recruitment upgraded which was nice, we got a new president via the elections and I think he wanted to please the fans so we will take it!

We also got our new stadium development back underway after the council pitched in the remaining 2.2m that we needed to start the project. We are only paying 8k per year for the stadium and keeping all the receipts so it's a bargain.

Next year will be our year! 

Edited July 19, 2021 by lewis999

[Winski]

We drew against Kobenhavn, while Levski won their match. So we finished 3rd with 10 points... Our European season is over, players are on holiday now. Better luck next year!

[libbyshuss]

2025/26 - season 5

National League North - 20th

Season Summary

Almost snatching defeat from the jaws of victory! We ran the gamut of emotions from chuffed to gutted throughout this season

league - we started pretty poorly. We won the first game of the season, then went on a run of 9 without a win. But after losing on September 2nd we didn't lsoe again until December. We were brilliant, surging up the table to mid-table respectability. I was feeling happy - finally, we turned it round! But then came January, and February, and March. In the end, we drew 2 and lost 8 of our final 10 games and got sucked into a relegation battle we should have been well clear of. The final game of the season saw us 1 point ahead of Chorley - we drew, they lost, they went down and we somehow stayed up. These relegation battles are doing me no good!

FA Cup - another brilliant run during OCtober and November. We got through to the first round proper after beating Ashton 8-0. The first round proper sent us away to league 2 Carlisle. I didn't think we had a chance but we were brilliant, rode our luck a bit, and came away with a 2-1 victory. The second round was at home against fellow NLN team South Shields. At the time they were only 3 places above us in the league so it was a great chance to make it to round 3 again. We drew 1-1. Before the replay, the 3rd round draw was made. The winners would be at home against Arsenal! So obviously South Shields won. A 5-3 thriller as well. 

Players

Well, they're the main problem. I'm at that stage where the originals are all slowly being replaced by intake players, but the intake players are still only 19. So although on our day we can be very good, we're also very young and inexperienced. Surely they can only get better though? Their determination and work rate is through the roof, I'm such a disciplinarian!

We stuck to 4-3-3 for the season, here's the first XI

It's never a good sign when your keeper is your best player! Another 40 gaols for Max Ryan and he couldn't get over a 7 rating. When he was bad, he really stunk the place out.

Youth

Wow! My improvements are paying off! Lots of green lines in the preview but no golden generation so I wasn't expecting too much

So this was a huge surprise! With intakes like this surely it won't be long before I can get out of this league?

Some nice countries to add to the map as well.

The problem I have now is I only have one youth squad. The bosrd keep refusing a reserve or U23 squad and my U18 squad looks like this now:-

Finance and Improvements

To be honest, this is the only reason I'm sticking with this save. I might not be making any progress on the pitch yet but I'm making really good progress off it. It should only be a matter of time that things on the pitch catch up. The unbeatend run in autumn and the nice cup run made the board amenable to another upgrade. woohoo! 

And we finished the season with 200k in the bank as well. It all looks brilliant off the pitch!

Career

[toshimitzou1]

First Intake preview:  

With such a weak squad the preview was bound to look decent. This preview has defied my expectations. In this order  I needed ST >FB>AM. I hope this translates to immediate first teamers at intake day in April.

[HbG93]

Lørenskog IF - Postnord-Ligaen Avdeling 1 - 2023 
Squad - Transfer

Our journey continuous and we will start where we dropped of in the previous update with the youth intake of 2023. Sadly this is a year to forget as none of the players have quality enough to claim first team football. On top of that with the foreseeable future unlikely hood of us having enough quality to train them. I doubt these guys can ever do more than fill out the ranks. 2023 will go down as a year to forget Academy wise. Despite that my rather scrappy HoYD assured me that Oddvar Opsahl 23A is a gifted player I have my doubts. Maybe if we can bring the club forward in terms of facilities and coaching we could get something out of him down the line. Ståle Ødeskaug 23B is a defender that according to his positioning attribute is rarely in the right place.  I actually only signed 3 from this bunch and the last in line is Jakob Solstad 23C who simply can run a bit. Not going to lie I was hoping for someone here to add something for the first team considering the level isn't all that. 

Tactically I kept it very similar to last year. I decided to put my wingers on attacking duties and change Martin to an advanced forward. Combined with ticking the tempo up 1 in a bid to increase our lack of goals. As our defense was excellent last year I hope I won't regret allowing the guys a bit more attacking play. And as he still is the only decent academy product Admilson Monteiro 22B will, despite his lack of performances last year be granted a starting role. 

Turns out this adjustment worked a treat! Jake Petur Martin proved capable of putting the team on his back. The defense still held their ground led like last year by the excellent performing Ole Marus Forsberg. Thanks to both players hitting good form at the same time we managed to hit the ground running, and rarely lose points in the first half of the season. Half way in we had a record of 10-2-1 with that loss of course coming to one of the weaker and newly promoted sides SK Træff. Luckily this didn't stop us from still leading the way. At the end of august we had the transfer deadline sale of Haakon Olausen for €400K with no real replacement. This turned to become a rather obvious obstacle. As when we completed a September that had 5 matches with an abysmal record of 1-2-2 allowing Eidsvold Turn to re enter a title race. Things didn't look great when we started October with losing yet again to previously mentioned SK Træff putting the chasing team just 1 point away from us. But the following match was our home game versus exactly title race challenger Eidsvold Turn. With a match that quickly could be the title decider in our own hands. There surely wouldn't be a better occasion for top scorer Jake Petur Martin to end his drought? We of course didn't take advantage of the situation, and had to settle for a 1-1 draw thanks to a rare goal from Admilson Monteiro. The following match Jake Petur Martin drought continued with him completing his 8th match without a goal. But we still got the win and so did Eidsvold Turn. Meaning it was down to the final match of the season! Versus already relegated Lyn TF and with Jake Petur Martin finally netting again what could go wrong? Now at one point we were up 2-1 while Eidsvold Turn was down 2-0. I was happy. Hell even carefree. Then 59th minute Eidsvold Turn scores. 62nd minute their opponents gets a red card. 63rd minute Lyn equalizes. Alright we are still fine... remain calm. 67th minute the same man scored again making it 3-2 Lyn TF. At this point I am a wreck. If Eidsvold Turn scores another versus their now 10 man opponent. We would lose the league after leading it since game week 7! After what felt like an eternity. We never came back to win the title on our own versus Lyn TF. But neither did Eidsvold Turn. Making us CHAMPIONS ON THE FINAL DAY BABY!

Let's end it with a tease of next season intake. First off I simply hope to get a good intake! We are now a Obos-ligaen team meaning 2nd tier of Norway. While I think the current lads under my supervision and strategy are capable of taking the survival fight. We need to start getting players that can help build up the quality. A goalkeeper prospect would be most welcome as we pretty much have 1 who is worthy of even taking gloves on. Not going to lie however I am most excited at this potential forward. Regardless of what joins us here. The main focus is taking on the task of surviving OBOS-ligaen, and I don't really expect anyone from next year intake to prove pivotal in that task. But hopefully like the first season we can get at least one to bring some excitement and joy. Speaking of that this is Admilson Monteiro 22B now 2 year progress with the club. As you can see the improvement is minimal. I hope to get some better and bigger staff for next season to help aid development along, our to be completed adequate training facilities. I also suspect the more interesting intake will be the one after we potentially survive relegation.

Edited July 19, 2021 by HbG93

[TerminalPortugal]

PORTALEGRENSE (2034/35)

Our first season in the big leagues and I have to say I am overwhelmingly delighted with how we have performed. We ended up finishing in 6th place which qualifies us for the Europa Conference League, so we get European football for the first time in the clubs history after our maiden season in Liga NOS. We started off very well not losing until our fourth fixtures which was against Benfica. Again we carried plenty of goal scoring threat season which meant that even though we struggled defensively all season we were able to blow some teams away. That did also mean that sometimes we found ourselves getting embarrassed like in the penultimate game of the league season when we travelled to bottom of the table Estoril Praia and ended up losing 7-2, and of course we got our fair share of beatings from the big boys, but we did get a 2-0 win on the final day of the season against FC Porto to break our duck against the big three. We actually could have completely spoiled Porto's day as they were 2nd going in and could have been overtaken by Sporting, but Sporting cocked up also so they finished in 2nd place. In the Allianz Cup, essentially the League Cup of Portugal we only got as far as the group stage ending up behind Vitoria de Guimaraes, but we did finish in 2nd place so that was pretty good going for us. In the Portuguese Cup we got further than we had been before reaching the 6th Round, where we lost at home to Pacos de Ferreira on penalties to send us tumbling out. All in all it has been a magnificent season all told and I am very much looking forward to next season.

On the player front it has been equally brilliant. Gilson Cesar was our top scorer and he started attracting a lot of attention, at one point being pursued potentially by Inter Milan and Liverpool which was a little surprising since I suspect that his PA is likely to be around the 110-120 mark, and I am pretty sure he has reached his potential cap. But it was probably for good reason that they were having a look as he walked away with the European Golden Boy award, which I found pretty staggering. He has been good, but not sure he is that good, still I guess everyone think he is going to be the next big thing, I guess at 18 and playing brilliantly why wouldn't he be attracting attention. His strike partner, Daniel started the season at just 16, and wow is he a player or what, he was absolutely brilliant. Him and Cesar were at time unplayable and his value has skyrocketed for us to just over £3m, by far our most expensive player in terms of valuation. Elsewhere Romario Monteiro came second in the NxGen award which again is a little surprising but it goes to show how good he has looked at this level. Diogo Pereira was a creative genius for us this season with 23 assists in all competitions, operating ostensibly from the right, he again has been one that has really risen to the challenge of the new league standard. Diogo Barros has cemented a place in the defence now, generally with Joao Ganhao and they have been good. We play attacking football so they get exposed a lot but overall they have done well enough this season from I could see. Emanuel Djalo has also started to break into the a very competitive central midfield, getting 23 appearances over the season, again he looks an exciting prospect for us. Omar Al-Dharrat, our Libyan midfielder played less this season but he is still a valuable player to have over a long season, he still played 17 times this season in all competitions. Really no one in the first team performed particularly badly. We were expected to go down and we ended up finishing in Europe so that tells me everything I need to know.

The youth intake this year has perhaps been one of the most exciting in a long while. There are some particular players that look like they may be ready to catapult us to the next level. Nelson Assuncao arrived almost ready to play for the first team, considering our ability level now that tells me he could still have a lot more room to go. I have brought him up to the first team to make sure that he gets some mentoring. Other players that moved up also include Mauro Jacinto and Francisco Gelton, as they showed me the most potential with room for improvement in their attitudes shall we say.

On the transfers side which is rarely mentioned because we never make any and mostly just release players or sell them for free from the B team, we did let go of a player that I actually think had a fair bit of potential in Bernado Pamol to Tondela for a fee that could rise of £54K and 50% of future profits. We did not keep him because he was a bit of nightmare, terrible trainer, improved slowly, did not perform too well in matches and generally was an annoyance so he's Tondela's problem now, hopefully he becomes brilliant and they sell him on for £100m. Incidentally, mentioning the B team, we now also have an Under 23 team which came out the blue, presumably because there is  Portuguese Under 23 competition for the Liga NOS teams. That means we now have 4 different teams, which is Overkill! 

Financially the Liga NOS money makes us extremely stable financially, easily making a profit, with our very low wage budget. We still took advantage of the friendly tournaments before the season but we did not continue them in the middle of the season favouring concentrating on training instead, which is for anyone who is wondering on of the problems of playing a lot of friendlies for money, the training goes out the window, not to mention the fatigue levels go up through the roof. In terms of investments, we were able to get the board to expand our youth recruitment to the maximum so we should be in for all the players possible and and we improved both the training facilities and the youth facilities, although the training facilities were downgraded in the summer months so, we actually gained no benefit there, but the goal will be to continue to improve there. A final point about money related matters is that we got very close to selling out most games. The board may well do something about it now, but I would actually rather wait, getting the training installations completed to where I want them and then take on the expensive investment on a stadium.

Youth Intake Briefing | Top Prospects | Other Prospects | League Table | First Half of Fixtures | Second Half of Fixtures | Squad | Transfers

Top Players

Diogo Barros | Daniel | Celio | Diogo Pereira | Joao Ganhao

Summary

Edited July 19, 2021 by TerminalPortugal

[toshimitzou1]

Early hard work is being recognised!

[toshimitzou1]

Wow could not be happier. First intake and pretty much all players will go straight into the first team squad. YP1 could be sensational at this level.

 

[toshimitzou1]

Promotion in the bag. Lost the title by one point but turned over Ionikos over two legs. opposition scouting did the trick as they showed the Ionikos team to have a very low work rate. I just dropped the tempo, increased my own pressing and let the victory unfold. Really psyched up to see if my new batch of youngsters can help me survive my first season. Still got no monies though.

[TerminalPortugal]

PORTALEGRENSE (2035/36)

This season we had a very tough start, despite winning our first game we faced off against Braga, Benfica and Sporting very early in the season and this did not help us much at all as we started the season down the bottom. I was fearing for the worst at the time, but as time went on we did improve and it looked like we may be able to sneak into the European places again but alas it was not to be and we had to settle for 8th place. Still very happy with the season, considering the stature of our club and pre-season predictions, but it was not as good as last season. Part of the reason why it was so difficult was that literally every club in the world seemingly wanted to steal away our players, from first team starters to the kids in the Under 19's and it caused a few issues along the way. Daniel, Diogo Pereira (whom I rejected a bid from Inter Milan for), and some of the youngsters were vying for a move away. Eventually it all subsided, but Daniel took the longest and he got injured as well, which in some ways was a blessing because the interest filtered away and I was able to sign him to a new contract. The second issue we are facing is the fact that many of the players agents have wised up and are insisting on very small minimum fee release clauses, this has caused an issue in the case of Daniel who is almost certain to move away in the summer, because his value has skyrocketed to £7.5m but his release clause is around the £2m mark and there is already interest from the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea. He is not the only one, our young keeper Jose Sona who is looking like the heir to Miguel Gandum our long time keeper again insisted on a very low clause and we are now in a tough situation although in his case no interest at the moment, but there will be I am sure of it. I was caught in between a rock and hard place really they are young players with 3 year max contract just on their first professional contract so they are always pretty near the end of the contract so I felt at least this way I can get them to sign on for longer and at least there will be some money in it and you never know they may be passed up.

In the League Cup we were awful primarily because we were in a rut at the start of the season and to be honest I was not at all bothered about the competition with my survival in the league at stake so it was low priority. Anyway we went out in the group stages. In the Portuguese Cup however we did very well getting to semi final beating FC Porto on the way in extra time. But it left a sour taste in my mouth as after the first leg at Familicao we were 3-1 up and then we threw it all away at home, losing 1-0 going into the final minute they scored to make it 2-0 and then scored again in the final minutes to knock us out. A bitter pill to swallow for us.

I had mentioned in the last report that we qualified for the Europa Conference League but in fact it ended up being the Europa League due to the Portuguese Cup winner. We were drawn in a reasonably tough group together with Sevilla, Steaua Bucharest and Young Boys. We started off awfully losing 6-2 to Sevilla but we recovered well and managed to get through the group in 2nd place. The key match being a 5-0 demolition of Young Boys in Switzerland having drawn the home game against them. In the First Knockout Round I was pretty confident as we drew FC Copenhagen. The first leg was in Denmark and it was mad as the game finished 5-5 and all we had to do back home was draw to go through but we crumbled to a 3-1 loss and that was us out of Europe. A decent first foray but again it could have been more. All in progress on the field even it might look like a mis-step.

On the player front, the last class of youth players coming through have been great, I could not hold them out of the first team. The likes of Luciano Santos, Nelson Assuncao and to a lesser degree Mauro Jacinto have forced their way into the team at just 16 years old. They look great prospects who are still improving despite being some of the best players at the club already. This years crop does not look as strong and they will likely remain in the Under 19s until they make the grade. I am pretty torn on what is best, bringing the players up for mentoring, but not having youth coaches that can work with youngsters. Gilson Cesar was the top scorer this season, and he picked up the top goal scorer in the league as well as he continues his rise to fame. His ratio of goals to game is looking healthy, with 86 goals in 133 games, he is a player who could catch Pedro Almeida's record given enough time and games. Speaking of Pedro he is still about and now pretty much a impact sub, he still picked up 10 goals in all competitions off the bench which is not bad going considering he is 30. He also got a new contract this year, which will keep him with the club until 34. His pay is a bit high in comparison to his ability but at he does a lot work talking to players for me, so he is probably worth it.

Financially this season was a boon for us with Europa League football, but also the board credit to them are really doing good stuff commercially, getting us our own TV deal as it common for the big three in Portugal it is meagre at a few million pound but to us that is a lot of money. As expected the board did announce that they were looking at building a new stadium but at this time, not much information on it. We did a few pre-season friendlies and got Sporting to appear at all of them which netted us around £3-4m in income which is great going and a nice little addition to the funds. The training and youth facilities were upgraded and they are due to be upgraded again at the end of the season, so we are making good time on getting the training facilities up to where I want them.

The final piece of significant news is that some of the old faces that got us here, have left the club. The likes of Ricardo Manteiga and Sergio Guimaraes have left for pastures new as they were just not up to the standard anymore.

Stadium Announcement | Youth Intake Briefing | Top Prospects | Other Prospects | League Table | Europa League Group | First Half of Fixtures | Second Half of Fixtures | Squad | Transfers

Top Players

Diogo Barros | Daniel | Nelson Assuncao | Luciano Santos | Gustavo Martins

Summary

[Cheez3y]

 

Its a struggle at the moment.

Zero progress or even negative progress.

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 33rd Folkestone Intake Report and 29th Intake Review 

After taking a short break out of frustration, I’m back.

For the first time ever  I think in this save, I have a youth come In with amazing current ability.

Everybody else looks mamahuhu, but I’d rather have just 1 really promising kid than my usual intakes of lots of good but not great.

Gareth Kelleher 33i is interesting. Normally wouldn’t even offer him a contract with that assessment of his CA/PA, but he scores quite highly on the general attributes I look for in players. 3^rd highest of the intake in fact, behind only Kargbo and Ari Thorleifsson 33c.

Mohamed Kargbo 33a – Straight away his agent insisted on a release clause, but it’s £22.5 million, so hopefully he won’t be snapped up too quickly. That amount would shatter our record for a transfer received, (which currently stands at £10.5 million). Clause aside, I have Kargbo sown up for 6 years. Decent F Pro personality as well.

 

Kargo is an attacking left winger, which I don’t use, (the danger of having a HoYD who favours a different formation), so he’ll play as a left winger. That’s not exactly a weakness in our team, but Kargo will go straight into the first team. I’ll start off by putting him on the bench till he’s comfortable with the tactics, but he’s already as good as our starter according to the coaches. That starter, Ciaran McGlynn 22d, has never really picked up good match ratings. He’s very skilful. I just don’t think he’s ever really been a perfect fit for my tactics.

YP29 Review

At the time, my excitement was all on getting a son, but I reckoned there was just one really good player in the intake, namely

Dominic Riley 29a- Riley is one of my starting strikers, although there is a bit of competition for that 2nd spot. He’s shown steady improvement over the last couple of seasons. He’s not a star yet, but he’s on the right track.

Ahmed Chukwuma 29b – Sold pretty quickly for £150k to a league 1 side, which looks like good business for us so far because I scout all my ex-players and he’s not reckoned to have much potential.

Joseph Lane 29c – Striker who’s scoring for fun at the U18 level. He’s scored 17 goals in his last 3 appearances and still managed to fit in a sending off. He’s still only about my 6^th best striker, but I’m going to promote him to the first team squad, because he does actually look a bit promising. I am a bit stacked at the striker position though.

Then further down the alphabet a few pleasant surprises.

Andrew Akinade 29g- One of my starting central midfielders. Now, that position is a bit of a weak spot. All my best central midfielders are actually even better in other positions. I might switch the above mentioned and soon to be displaced Ciaran McGlynn 22d to the centre.

Nonetheless, Akinade is a decent player, and will keep his place even I switch Ciaran over.

Jack Gibson 29h – This guy has recently become my starting goalie. My more senior goalies weren’t developing so I’ve thrown Jack in to see if he can improve. At 2.5 stars he’s my joint best goalie according to that metric.

Graham Reekie 29l – Plays alongside Akinade in midfield. It’s getting ridiculous now. Not as good as Akinade, but has more potential.

So, for those not keeping count, from an intake where I thought there was only 1 player who stood a chance of making it, 4 of my starting 11 are from this intake alone, and 3 of them were way, way down in the expectations.

Unfortunately my son was not one of them, but you’ll have to wait for the end of season report for him.

So, for these 3 surprises, obviously one factor in their development was opportunity. My other central midfielders and goalkeepers weren’t commanding their starting spots so I gave the kids a chance, but was personality also a factor? Because of fines, most of my players have determined personalities regardless of professionalism, so I have to look at their initial personalities.

Name                    Intake Personality                   Current Personality

Riley                     Resilient                                   Driven

Akinade                F Pro                                         F Det

Gibson                  Balanced                                  F Det

Reekie                  F Pro                                         Professional        

So predictably, personality sometimes trumps everything, although I would also mention that my b and d players from that intake were also F Pro, and they didn’t amount to a hill of beans. A bit disappointing that despite my focus on mentoring and personalities, i've seemingly managed to make Akinade less professional.

[HbG93]

Don't know how familiar people here are with Norwegian footballers, but I suspect someone like XaW could appreciate my new head of youth development. Personally I am most excited because while he's a bit of a legend. I like his personality and his preferred formation. Also his mix of tactical style and playing style. Just fits well with how we are already setup. On top of that he's for the level we operate at actually a good coach, and he even works for free!

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by HbG93

[Cheez3y]

Well the time in Cyprus is over...

We survived this season, but after this half season 

They just just let my contract expire.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Cheez3y

[toshimitzou1]

4 minutes ago, Cheez3y said:

They just just let my contract expire.

Rough ride. You going to give it another go?

[HbG93]

5 minutes ago, Cheez3y said:

They just just let my contract expire.

Don't you just continue on a month-to-month deal in this situation?

[Cheez3y]

12 minutes ago, HbG93 said:

Don't you just continue on a month-to-month deal in this situation?

Yes, but I dont really have the motivation for it.

I could gettin replaced every minute and I cant see how I can turn it around.

Nobody can score goals.

13 minutes ago, toshimitzou1 said:

Rough ride. You going to give it another go?

Yes, but not in Cyprus.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Cheez3y

[libbyshuss]

25 minutes ago, Cheez3y said:

They just just let my contract expire.

man, that's cold.

This challenge is really rough at times!

[XaW]

I'm getting a bit bored in Norway, so I might have another save going for a while... Found an excellent database with lower league Chile that I'm looking at currently. Think that could be a fun attempt. My only previous try in South America crashed before the final update, so perhaps now it is time for a another try...

[libbyshuss]

2 hours ago, vikeologist said:

So predictably, personality sometimes trumps everything,

that's interesting, because anecdotally I've found  opportunity and personality are by far the two biggest facotrs in whether or not my players make it

[HbG93]

14 minutes ago, Cheez3y said:

Yes, but I dont really have the motivation for it.

I could gettin replaced every minute and I cant see how I can turn it around.

Nobody can score goals.

Yes, but not in Cyprus.

True but it's not over until they sack you!

5 minutes ago, XaW said:

I'm getting a bit bored in Norway, so I might have another save going for a while... Found an excellent database with lower league Chile that I'm looking at currently. Think that could be a fun attempt. My only previous try in South America crashed before the final update, so perhaps now it is time for a another try...

I mean Chile is basically the South American Norway by shape. 

[toshimitzou1]

Sorry start to the season, almost entirely my fault. I DID NOT READ the Superleague rules correctly and my youngsters cannot play until they are 16 years old. In pre - season i shipped out 7 older player (reduce club debt was obligatory) to be replaced by 6 players from my youth intake who performed well in friendlies and had established some good chemistry. However, none of them can play until they hit 16 years old! Taking the good from the bad, all 6 players turn 16 before the half way stage, but I have been completely undermined by my own folly as I stand: I've only got 12 eligible players at the moment!

[darren1983]

Well done @scarpdoing it in Scotland is no mean feat. Have added you to the HoF

[toshimitzou1]

First Point of the season!!!

[Luqx28]

hi all,

apologies in advance, stupid question .... whats previously umplayable team? ive chosen to do this challenge in south Africa, my homw country, how do i check which are the teams i can choose? ie holidayed first season to 14th july as reset in SA is 15th.

thanks in advance and apologies if stupid question.

regards

[HbG93]

6 minutes ago, Luqx28 said:

hi all,

apologies in advance, stupid question .... whats previously umplayable team? ive chosen to do this challenge in south Africa, my homw country, how do i check which are the teams i can choose? ie holidayed first season to 14th july as reset in SA is 15th.

thanks in advance and apologies if stupid question.

regards

If you check the season preview of the lowest division you should see a P for Promoted next to the team name.

[darren1983]

South Shields season 2042/43 review - Premier League

 

League - As said previously this is a real slog, we're not a bad side but we're also not really a good one. On paper 8th for this squad is great, and it is punching way above, but it's just so frustrating. We're so inconsistent it's maddening. I have no idea from game to game what team will turn up. With 6 games to go we drew 1-1 with Man City (their goal coming in the 93rd min) then beat Arsenal 2-1 away from home to sit a point behind them. Our final 4 games were all against teams in the bottom 6. We lost 3 and drew 1 scoring just once. I just don't know what to do to kick us on to the next level, our players are just not good enough I fear. Maybe a change in tactic is needed? Have been playing the same one (with tweaks to player roles) for over 20 seasons now so maybe a change there will help. Part of me wishes there was a game breaking tactic like the old days I could plug in and use  

FA Cup - Norwich are one of the best sides in the league these days and was a comfortable win for them

League Cup - beat one lower side lost to Arsenal. meh

Transfers - trying to ship out players that have helped us get here but are no longer good enough. Also loads of loans obviously.

Squad - Trying to give more minutes to potential players after safety was secured but no one is really developing as I'd like so maybe I need to look at training in even more detail. We do though say goodbye to the legend that is  Riccardo Bortolotti 23B This was the first season where he didn't play a game for us (I should have started him on the final day really) after making his debut in the National league back in 2025 he went on to play 552 league games for us, was a great captain that I used to talk other players out of leaving for years. Will try and use him as a coach if I can

Finances - Not gonna have to worry about money ever again. All facilities are now maxed out

Youth Intake - Pretty average really, starting to think it might be time for a change here as well

Lucas Sole 43A - Spanish attacking midfielder, looks decent
Jai Whieldon 43B - ball winning midfielder, could do a job as DM if I keep one that is

Career Overview

Season		League		Position	Youth Recruitment	Youth Coaching		Notes & Achievements 

2021/22		VNLN		5th 		Adequate		Adequate		First coaching badge
2022/23		VNLN		2nd 		Adequate		Good			Promoted via playoffs, FA Trophy runners up
2023/24		VNL		16th 		Average			Excellent 		2nd coaching badge
2024/25		VNL		12th 		Average			Excellent		3rd coaching badge
2025/26		VNL		6th 		Average			Excellent		Promotion via playoffs
2026/27		League Two	1st 		Good			Exceptional		Promotion as champions
2027/28		League One	11th 		Good			Exceptional
2028/29		League One	14th 		Good			Exceptional
2029/30		League One	7th 		Good			Exceptional
2030/31		League One	1st 		Good 			Exceptional		Promoted as champions. Completed all coaching badges
2031/32		Championship	18th 		Excellent		Exceptional
2032/33		Championship	8th 		Excellent		Exceptional
2033/34		Championship	7th 		Excellent		Exceptional		Training ground upgrade, Academy up level 3, new ground announced
2034/35		Championship	6th 		Excellent		Exceptional		Lost in playoff semi finals
2035/36		Championship	9th 		Excellent		Exceptional 
2036/37		Championship	11th 		Excellent		Exceptional		Moved into new stadium
2037/38		Championship	3rd 		Excellent		Exceptional		Promotion via playoffs
2038/39		Premier League	16th 		Excellent		Exceptional		Youth Academy rating from level 3 to level 2
2039/40		Premier League	7th		Excellent		Exceptional 
2040/41		Premier League	5th 		Excellent		Exceptional		Youth Academy now Cat 1
2041/42		Premier League	14th 		Excellent		Exceptional
2042/43		Premier League	8th 		Excellent		Exceptional