The FM22 Youth Academy Challenge

[OlivierL]

 

Njarðvik FC - Review Season 1 - 2022

1.Deild: What a great season! We gained not only promotion but also became champion. This is a huge revenge from FM21 when I finished only 7th in my first year with a better squad at Njarðvík.

Bikarkeppni: We beated first tier teams FH and KA before winning in the quarterfinals against the favourite to become champions at the highest tier , Valur. There was only one top division team left in the semi-final draw and that was Fram. We had to fight them in Laugardalsvöllur, Iceland's national stadium. In front of 3031 fans (of which 1031 were ours), we were able to beat Fram . I had to handle this match with two key players on minor injury and without our experienced DMC suspended. But we won and we reached our first final. We won the final with 0-6 against Afturelding!

Lengjubikarinn: Finished 3rd in the league cup group.

U19: Finished 3rd in U19b - Won the Reykjavik Unglingabikar again.

Squad

We had to do it with a very small squad, but luckily I rarely had injuries or suspensions. All the players are staying and I have been able to give the better ones a longer contract with an option to extend.

    

Five Key players this season with McAusland as a rock in the defence. Hogg (First division player of the year) and Diouck were a great combination up front scoring 22 and 20 goals.  Assist king Matthíasson played very good at the left back. Hermannsson was really good in the midfield.

Transfers: We lost Hákonarson and Ágústsson in the pre-season on a free transfer. The first one is playing in the first tier so could have been useful, the second one could have been a good sub up frunt.

Youth Intake 2022: Great intake with 5 candidates for the senior squad.

Finances & Upgrades

Finances: Balance is ok but we could use some Europa Conference league money so i can start requesting some upgrades.

Searching for site: planned capacity is 5584 seats.

So we'll play in the stadium from Keflavik for 19k per year.

Club & Season Facts

 

Next Season
It should be possible to reach the mid-table with this squad, especially if you look at our cup campaign. A lot will depend on how many players from the first intake can already play, so that I have more options

Edited June 28, 2022 by OlivierL

[glennuk]

Worthing FC - Season 20 - English Premier League - Mid Year Review & Youth Intake Preview

League - 14th

The position flatters us slightly, with those around us playing less games and with us being on our best run of form of the season. Back to back wins is a new one for our Premier League campaign and I really think we have a good chance of staying up. Even some of the losses this year have been very very close

New Stadium + Expansion

We moved into our new Worthing Stadium and immediately asked to expand the stadium, which was approved (with over 120 mil in the bank why not). It will take just over a year, but will take us from 16,600 to just over 22,000.

Affiliates

We got a new partnership with Shandong in China (below were my other choices), which is a commercial partnership and we renegotiated our partnerships with Mladost (Serbia) and Sundsvall (Sweden) to bring in youth players from both clubs.

New HOYD

I perhaps changed HOYD too quick, but I wanted a change, so bought in this guy. He is young, has good attributes and as he has no licences, so I can train him up. I did have my eyes on someone else, but he rejected me and resigned with his existing club. I know knowledge of England and Reputation matters, but I hope he can build it up....either that or I have shot myself in the foot....only time will tell.

Youth Intake Preview

A very good preview. I know the new HOYD is not really part of this intake, but hoping this preview comes to fruition. I could do with another good striker, but goalkeeper and full backs are the least needed for the club.

In other news

Wales offered me the job and with the world cup coming up in 6 months, I wish I could have taken it. Also Jean-Claude Kitoko (YP06A) was third in the African Striker of the Year awards.

 

[ANGL]

League is going very well after a strong start, and after a 3rd place last year, I'm starting to think this year maybe we can't make it... The problem is, european clubs are here to bid for every player, so at the time I have 5 unsettled players and morale is getting crashed... any tips on this? Do you bench your players when morale is down? Is it better that I sell them at the end of the season so I can have them on full morale or do I try to retain them at all costs? Those damned europeans are gonna crush my options...

[Winski]

Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur

Youth intake 2023

 

The preview was okay, with 4 A's:

Let's see what the actual intake was:

Look at this! No less then 10 Elite talents And some really nice prospects here. Some nice looking strikers, a midfielder who looks like a great talent, a central defender and a leftback: very happy with them. Let's hope they will develop into good players for us.

Spoiler

 

[Daddy]

2026/27 Midseason Review:

Well I was hoping to be in that 9-12 range, so this is much better. Now I'd love to stay in that top 5 and get a European spot. Our Goal Difference is misleading as we've already face Shakhtar twice and they're just way better than us (-9 between the two games), and a bizarre match against Chornomorets where we went from up 2-1 at the 60th minute to losing 7-2. With how we've played the other teams I think it's feasible.

I said last Training Upgrade it was the final one, but I was wrong. Upgrading from "Superb"

Intake Preview:

Was hoping for fullback here, but always love any strong intakes up the middle.

[glennuk]

@Daddy nice progress there. I think State of the Art is the final training upgrade, so you should be at that soon.

 

@Winski that youth intake is Superb. What does your HOYD look like?

 

@skillsI am looking forward to seeing South Shields Premier League season 1. Hope it is not too demoralizing, mine was a slog to say the least.

[Vlach]

Season 2 Review - 2023/24

What a season this was! Up in the top 5 of the league most of the year, but before the last round  behind Palermo and Viterbese on place 3.
And so we secured the title in the last game, in minute 88:

  
    They even want to build a statue for me ..
  
  

 What were the reasons for our success? First i usually played more defensiv then last year, which helped us secure quite some points. Second the opposition was again weak, and third the older ones of our players are starting to decline, but had one more real great year in them - and it was this year. 

For the future that means that it will become soon very hard for us. I doubt that we will be able to survive in Serie B, especially since three or four players are rapidly declining now and the youth is not yet ready (if they will be someday at all). Second we got financial trouble, i doubt that the money out of the Serie B will be enough to solve that. And that means no real improvement on Recruitment or facilities. But we shall see, for now I am happy to have made the jump upwards, even if we fail. And I will start to work on a even more defensive counter-variant of the 4-3-3 we used most of the season, i guess we gonna need it

 

Competitions:
  
Lineup
  
Accolades
  
Transfers 
      

  

 

[Winski]

4 minutes ago, glennuk said:

@Daddy nice progress there. I think State of the Art is the final training upgrade, so you should be at that soon.

 

@Winski that youth intake is Superb. What does your HOYD look like?

 

@skillsI am looking forward to seeing South Shields Premier League season 1. Hope it is not too demoralizing, mine was a slog to say the least.

Thanks! This is my HoYD:

[Winski]

Wow, that's great, @Vlach! Congrats with the promotion!!

[Rossi087]

Hi, I read the YAC threads since three years and I love this challenge. Few days ago I thought that it could bring me to the next level, if I look more on the media handling, especially for my HOYD. I´ve seen many overviews with different impact notes and not one describes the “new role” plays mind games. Can you help me, or post a link. Thank you very much.

[Daddy]

1 hour ago, Rossi087 said:

Hi, I read the YAC threads since three years and I love this challenge. Few days ago I thought that it could bring me to the next level, if I look more on the media handling, especially for my HOYD. I´ve seen many overviews with different impact notes and not one describes the “new role” plays mind games. Can you help me, or post a link. Thank you very much.

 

I never look at media handling for HYOD. I look at personality and formations. 

[_JHTB_]

Enfield Town Season 5

Vanarama National League – 24^th – Relegated

Transfers – Fixtures (1) – Fixtures (2) – Squad – Table – Key Player – Hot Prospect 

League

We actually got off to a great start in the league with 2 wins and a draw from our opening 4 games. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got as we had a miserable time of it the rest of the seasons  not being able to score or pick up points very easily at all. In truth we aren’t really good enough for this level, but it wasn’t helped by us massively underscoring our expected goals and massively overscoring our expected conceded. We did have brief glimmers and weren’t actually on the bottom of the league for large portions, however, it was far from undeserved for us to go down.

Cups

Considering the poor morale in the squad due to our woeful league form we gave an ok account of ourselves in the cups. The FA Cup saw us reach the first round before losing heavily to League One Salford. The FA Trophy saw us lose out narrowly to one of the strongest teams in the competition in the shape of Gillingham.

Youth Intake

Our best intake so far with at least one player looking like he may go straight into the first team.

Brian Ibe 5 – Not the best personality, plus lacking a little in pace but I’m happy with Ibe, he looks like he could be a very good player for us. He got a couple of games at the end of the season for us and I can see him being at the very least first backup on the left wing next season.

Rob Ridson 5– Similar to Ibe but a little worse currently and right sided rather than left. He may get blooded in a little next year but right side is pretty covered presently.

Ben Barrett 5 – His one on ones are very poor, but he doesn’t look terrible overall. I’m contemplating sticking in one of my youth keepers next season as my long term goalkeeper isn’t getting any younger and hasn’t really performed that well recently.

Past Intakes

Kieran Preece 1 – Considering our generally awful season, Preece didn’t do too bad in goal return netting 7 for us equalling his tally from last season. Unfortunately the rest of his performances were not fantastic. Hopefully next season back at a lower level he can shine.

Byron Cathline 3 -   Breaking up our long established central midfield partnership Cathline didn’t pull up any trees for us but I’m hoping it will aid his long term development having played a full season for us.

Andrew Yates 3 – I decided to play Yates this season as the sooner I can establish him as a first team player and develop him the more likely he is to become influential and I can take advantage of his personality.

Key Players

Muhammadu Faal – Somehow managed to average over a 7 for us this season but underscored his xG by 11 goals managing just 14 goals for us this time round.

Rian Bray – Again a bit of a surprise Bray averaged over 7 considering he was part of the leakiest defense in the league.

Infrastructure/Looking Ahead

The biggest positive of being in the National League is that the board finally agreed to improve both the Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment for the first time. I also managed to get another coaching course completed so am working towards the continental A license.

This season a lot of our players were frequently becoming tired and in need of rest so I think I may need to re-evaluate my training. The training hasn’t really changed from last season, but I think I messed up pre-season a little. Next season I guess we’ve got to aim to replicate as well as we did last time at the level and aim for the playoffs, but I suppose it will depend if we can avoid bringing the malaise of this season into next season which will be easier said than done as our 6 best players are all wanting to leave as a result of relegation and of course all take up the upper echelons on the hierarchy. 

 

 

[JAwtunes]

@Rossi087Welcome to the challenge.  Once you're in you can't leave!

Spoiler

I cant really help that much wrt Plays Mind Games.  I have a database I look at with thousands of newgen staff but I don't look at media handling or personality in isolation so am not too sure exactly what each one does.  Below are some examples of what different combos give.  I'm really not sure what the description is related to. It seems like it can nudge up Ambition a bit at times.  I thought it might cap professionalism, but then checked and see I have had Model Pros with this description, so who knows.

Examples:

 

 

 

Model Pros - low count.  And even had a few model citizens

 

[XaW]

XaW - Knattspyrnufélagið Afríkuliðið - Youth intake 2024

I've gotten some improvements to the youth setup, and it seems to be giving dividends already.

An excellent striker for this level.

[JAwtunes]

I'm fighting the urge to follow the crowd to Iceland - I'm getting a bit bored in Andorra.  However, XaW's map of hieroglyphics reminds me that I can't pronounce any of the place or player names.

[OlivierL]

40 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

I'm fighting the urge to follow the crowd to Iceland - I'm getting a bit bored in Andorra.  However, XaW's map of hieroglyphics reminds me that I can't pronounce any of the place or player names.

Malta or Gibraltar not something for you?

[WhiteCat33]

@Rossi087 I'm pretty sure Plays Mind Games is a Staff-Only attribute that has to do with how they handle press conferences / make rivalries with other coaches. I trust if @JAwtunes can't see its effect in his database of personalities than it probably isn't swaying your HOYDs to any serious extreme. The logical thought for me is that it would increase his controversy somewhat.

Edited June 28, 2022 by WhiteCat33

[Diego D10S]

                                      Season 2022 / 2023 Update

A dream start after a marathon promotion qualifier with alot of luck and final win on penalties  

 

GL ALL !!   

 

[JAwtunes]

8 hours ago, OlivierL said:

Malta or Gibraltar not something for you?

I have considered Malta actually. The dB is excellent.

[SkiIIs]

15 hours ago, glennuk said:

@Daddy nice progress there. I think State of the Art is the final training upgrade, so you should be at that soon.

 

@Winski that youth intake is Superb. What does your HOYD look like?

 

@skillsI am looking forward to seeing South Shields Premier League season 1. Hope it is not too demoralizing, mine was a slog to say the least.

I'm just ticking over into March at the moment, im hoping for a good intake as that could be the only highlight in my next update haha

[Winski]

Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur (ÍR)
Season 2023 (season 2)

Pepsi Max deildin (2nd)
League table | Competitions overview| Finances | Facilities | Transfers |Youth intake| Club overview | Manager profile

 

Our first season at the highest level. And what a season it was! We fought for the title for a long time, but in the end it was not enough. We finished 2nd, while IBV won the title. But I'm over the moon with this second place, because I never thought it would be possible with my current squad. And we qualified for the Conference League!! So hopefully we will earn some money.
In the Cup we reached the Fourth Round, where we lost against ÍA, the later winner of the Cup. And in the League Cup we lost in the Semi-final against Breiðablik.

Best players this season were good old midfielder Eyjólfur Héðinsson, defender Hrafn Hallgrímsson, striker Pétur Hrafn Friðriksson and second striker Marteinn Helgason 22b. I promoted Helgason 22b to the first team, together with 4 others. Helgason 22b is the only Academy player who became a reguler starter this season.

Our U-19 team has won their league and promoted to the highest youth league on Iceland. And last but not least: we were able to upgrade our junior coaching and youth recruitment once more, so both are now Excellent.

 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Winski

[OlivierL]

1 hour ago, Winski said:

Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur (ÍR)
Season 2023 (season 2)

Pepsi Max deildin (2nd)
League table | Competitions overview| Finances | Facilities | Transfers |Youth intake| Club overview | Manager profile

 

Our first season at the highest level. And what a season it was! We fought for the title for a long time, but in the end it was not enough. We finished 2nd, while IBV won the title. But I'm over the moon with this second place, because I never thought it would be possible with my current squad. And we qualified for the Conference League!! So hopefully we will earn some money.
In the Cup we reached the Fourth Round, where we lost against ÍA, the later winner of the Cup. And in the League Cup we lost in the Semi-final against Breiðablik.

Best players this season were good old midfielder Eyjólfur Héðinsson, defender Hrafn Hallgrímsson, striker Pétur Hrafn Friðriksson and second striker Marteinn Helgason 22b. I promoted Helgason 22b to the first team, together with 4 others. Helgason 22b is the only Academy player who became a reguler starter this season.

Our U-19 team has won their league and promoted to the highest youth league on Iceland. And last but not least: we were able to upgrade our junior coaching and youth recruitment once more, so both are now Excellent.

 

Good job, finishing second in the first season is great. that 38 year old is a real good player

Did you qualify for the group stage or qualifying round in the ECL ?

[Winski]

10 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Good job, finishing second in the first season is great. that 38 year old is a real good player

Did you qualify for the group stage or qualifying round in the ECL ?

Thanks!

The Qualifying Round, unfortunately. But still: we are playing European football!

[XaW]

16 hours ago, JAwtunes said:

I'm fighting the urge to follow the crowd to Iceland - I'm getting a bit bored in Andorra.  However, XaW's map of hieroglyphics reminds me that I can't pronounce any of the place or player names.

It's not that bad. The accents over the vowels are just there to be hardly pronounced. The æ is a mixture of ae sort of the vowel sound in the English for sad. The "ð/Ð" is known as the "Eth" and is pronounced as sort of a "dh" sound or a "d" with lots of breath. Finally the "Þ/þ" is called the "Thorn" and is pronounced as a "th" like in the word "the". It was often written as "Y" in old English, so when you see signs like "Ye olde tavern" or something it should be pronounced as "The ", not "Yee". There we go, the lesson of the day!

[Daddy]

2026/27 Season Review:

My hope was a lower mid table finish so this is obviously much better. Shakhtar is the only team we lost twice to. Every other team we beat or drew at least once. Finishing 4th puts us in the Third Qualifying Round of the Conference League.

We have our first wonderkid and of course it's a striker. I was expecting to get a ton of offers for him, but instead it was a different player.

I hate release clauses. Especially when the agent requires them. Losing him really hurts. This transfer happened after the preseason, but it fit the story telling I was doing so I showed it here.

The big transfer of note here was an attacking midfielder that I didn't really want to lose, but at least have some depth. They came in low, I negotiated what I thought was too high to be accepted with the player, and Napoli proved me wrong.

Youth Intake:

Not as deep as the last few, but still a very good intake. Very happy to get two fullbacks with some potential.

2027/28 Season Preview:

The season starts a full month before the Conference League qualifying is resolved and since it's not a forgone conclusion I'll make it to group stage I wanted to do it now (and probably more import I have to start working in 5 minutes and wanted to have time to send this). I have no clue what to expect so I'm really looking forward to finding out. As for in league, I'm thinking maybe a little bit of regression with the increase in schedule for Europe and losing a top player (plus a few preseason injuries causing us to dip more into the depth than I'd like). I'm thinking if we make it to Europe again this season it'll come more down to the wire than last season.

[XaW]

XaW - Knattspyrnufélagið Afríkuliðið - Season 2024 - 3. deild

Squad | Transfers | Finances

A good first season at this level, and we were not far off promotion. A few too many draws, and if we had turned a few of those into wins, we'd probably gone up again. Still, another season here isn't too bad.

Bikarkeppni karla: We beat lost to Þór in the 2nd round.
League Cup B: We are out of the C cup and into the B cup. In the group stage we drew Viðir, Ægir, Kári, Vængir Júpiters, and Víkingur Ó. We won the group and progressed to the playoff. Then we beat ÍH before we lost to Elliði in the final.

Trophy cabinet

4. deild - Group A - 1 (2023)

[glennuk]

@Daddy what a player you have there. Hope you can keep him.

[toshimitzou1]

Going to wrap up two Seasons in one hit. As I have shown we are the dominant force in Iceland and the only professional club. As @XaWand @Winski have also shown, it is not too difficult to reach the top division and become successful domestically in a relatively short space of time. However, as I am going to continue to show, it is very difficult to produce top quality youth intakes from a nation with such a low reputation and it can take a very long time to raise the reputation of said nation. As such, winning the Champions league is a tough prospect but as with any other challenge, more than achievable with time.

Iceland Youth Academy Challenge: Haukur.

Seasons 2028/2029

and 2029/2030.

2028/2029

Won every fixture. Enough said.

All four domestic trophies in the bag again.

We are regular visitors to the CL group stages now, the three CL qualifying rounds often proving no real threat. Done very well to get two decent results against Shakhtar to qualify for the latter stages of the EURO Cup.

We did well before losing to a talented Valencia outfit in a tight two - legged affair:

These runs are really allowing us to become an establisher force in the lower echelons of European football, reflected in our continuing climb up the coefficient table:

Alas, this only yields an incremental climb for the league's reputation:

The reputation will start to increase at a greater speed (I hope) as other Icelandic clubs start to 'find their feet' in Europe.

Transfer History:

 

2029/2030

Same again, although slightly less emphatic!

A real solid performance in the CL group stages, where we are building to become a potential third seed in future draws, finishing third in our group three years in a row - this year with consummate ease and a far more respectable goal difference:

We followed this up with a an unlucky defeat in the Euro Cup Semi-Final against a top tier Milan side:

As can be seen, we are punching far above our weight, recognised each year by the Global media:

Our coefficient ranking is looking more than credible now; sitting pretty with some of Europe's big hitters:

It seems at last our fellow Icelandic teams are picking up the odd result in Euro Cup II qualifying:

Allowing the climb up the reputation table to become a little easier perhaps - Six places this time:

Transfer History:

 

Summary Information:

There has not been an option to upgrade our youth facilities since the last upgrade circa five years ago- as such these are our current facilities and finances:

Facilities: cannot complain. 

It is very low maintenance in the Icelandic league. As can be seen from my player sales' history, this profit is almost entirely derived from European prize money.

Youth Intake expectations:

Pretty much every year we have had a 'golden generation' of youth intakes with at least two 'Elite (A rated)' prospects. This year is no exception:

This again is all relative to the current ability of your actual squad where this is my best player (current ability by my own rough estimate):  

Decent enough but not elite level by any means. This was an 'elite talent' from a youth intake a few years back. We actually went through about four years without producing any center backs and as such, here is my top prospect from an intake two years ago whom I chose to retrain as a center back due to desperation:

Despite his clear preference for attacking, I deploy him as a Center Back - Defend as he would get ruthlessly exposed as a Libero against opposition of any real quality in Europe.

Head of Youth development: This guy has only been in the post for a year so I am keen to see what the previously outlined intake yields.

 

Final thoughts:

My apologies for the long post but I thought as a few others were taking up the challenge in Iceland it would be useful to offer a bit more depth to the pro's and con's of the challenge.

Pro's:

- Domestic dominance easy to achieve.

- Extremely low financial maintenance required. Outgoings are tiny and the rewards of European football dwarf any costs.

- Short seasons with an annual haul of four potential domestic trophies.

- Weak domestic opposition, with no real European powerhouse to supplant.

 

Con's:

- Semi - Professional status as a starting point for all clubs continuing well into the top division.

- Season duration out of synchronisation with the European football calendar.

- Extremely low league reputation - yielding poor youth intakes and making it difficult to hold onto budding talents.

- Lack of domestic strength can make the seasons a little boring.

 

Player Personality Experiment/Thoughts/Advice.

This is something I have developed and learned after my previous experience of completing a youth challenge in Greece with Aigaleo and is something which seems to be paying real dividends in this save. As others may or may not know, there are three 'key personality traits' that have a large effect on player development: Professionalism, Ambition and Determination. Now in a standard save I want all my player to have these in abundance and as such I will look out for personality types with these in abundance ( Driven, Professional, Model Citizen, Ambitious etc.). However, after constantly losing my best players before I could even get close to tying them down to long term contracts in my Greece playthrough on FM 21, I have taken a slightly different approach. 

By making use of an excellent guide available online : Player Personalities | Page 3 of 3 | Football Manager 2021 Guide I have been identifying personalities that have high Ambition and/or low Loyalty and mentoring them to reduce their Ambition and increase their Loyalty. As such I will prefer a player whom is Determined over one that is Driven or Fairly Determined rather than Fairly Ambitious. Of course, this reduction in Ambition may result in slower development for some, but I have found that with adequate game time and sufficient Determination and Professionalism, this does not become a hinderance.

Is this working? I would say yes - I am in year 2031 and have only had 2 players whom I would consider actual 'elite level' talents poached and am receiving frequent mentoring updates advising me that my player ' has grown in loyalty' or is 'less ambitious than before'. Furthermore, over the last four season since then mentoring has really taken effect there has been a sharp shift in contractual demands. Since the loss of my last talent a season ago, I have renewed the contracts of my entire First XI without any 'minimum fee release clauses'.  This for me is a real bonus and should allow faster completion of the challenge.

 

Wow, did not expect such a large post. Sorry again and good luck all.

Edited June 29, 2022 by toshimitzou1
Sic

[Daddy]

17 minutes ago, glennuk said:

@Daddy what a player you have there. Hope you can keep him.

The top premier league teams seem to be scouting me now as they're circling in on him and he's got another low foreign club release clause.

[Daddy]

11 minutes ago, toshimitzou1 said:

Player Personality Experiment/Thoughts/Advise/

This is something I have developed and learned after my previous experience of completing a youth challenge in Greece with Aigaleo and is something which seems to be paying real dividends in this save. As others may or may not know, there are three 'key personality traits' that have a large effect on player development: Professionalism, Ambition and Determination. Now in a standard save I want all my player to have these in abundance and as such I will look out for personality types with these in abundance ( Driven, Professional, Model Citizen, Ambitious etc.). However, after constantly losing my best players before I could even get close to tying them down to long term contracts in my Greece playthrough on FM 21, I have taken a slightly different approach. 

By making use of an excellent guide available online : Player Personalities | Page 3 of 3 | Football Manager 2021 Guide I have been identifying personalities that have high Ambition and/or low Loyalty and mentoring them to reduce their Ambition and increase their Loyalty. As such I will prefer a player whom is Determined over one that is Driven or Fairly Determined rather than Fairly Ambitious. Of course, this reduction in Ambition may result in slower development for some, but I have found that with adequate game time and sufficient Determination and Professionalism, this does not become a hinderance.

Is this working? I would say yes - I am in year 2031 and have only had 2 players whom I would consider actual 'elite level' talents poached and am receiving frequent mentoring updates advising me that my player ' has grown in loyalty' or is 'less ambitious than before'. Furthermore, over the last four season since then mentoring has really taken effect there has been a sharp shift in contractual demands. Since the loss of my last talent a season ago, I have renewed the contracts of my entire First XI without any 'minimum fee release clauses'.  This for me is a real bonus and should allow faster completion of the challenge.

 

Wow, did not expect such a large post. Sorry again and good luck all.

For the reasons you outlined before I don't look for Ambitious staff and if deciding between a player I'll avoid promoting the player if they're listed as Ambitious. Though Unambitious is a killer and I avoid them unless they're literally the best option and it's not close.

[toshimitzou1]

5 minutes ago, Daddy said:

Though Unambitious is a killer

Totally - that is one personality to avoid like the plague! I do the same with staff as well. Glad to hear other's thoughts.

[glennuk]

51 minutes ago, toshimitzou1 said:

Totally - that is one personality to avoid like the plague! I do the same with staff as well. Glad to hear other's thoughts.

I enjoyed the long post and the thoughts on preferred personalities. I have very much been learning, being my first real attempt at the Youth Challenge, so all of this knowledge is appreciated.

[toshimitzou1]

5 minutes ago, glennuk said:

I enjoyed the long post and the thoughts on preferred personalities

Sweet. Glad it was enjoyable. In the Youth Challenge the 'little things' are far more important than a regular playthrough.

[WhiteCat33]

1 hour ago, toshimitzou1 said:

Sweet. Glad it was enjoyable. In the Youth Challenge the 'little things' are far more important than a regular playthrough.

I forget who posted this link ( https://fmstats.com/2022-03-14-ambition-determination-professionalism/ ) recently but this stats analysis really helped me focus towards professional staff exclusively. Tldr: you just need 10 determination and Ambition with high professionalism to get more or less best developmemt progress for your youngsters. 

[toshimitzou1]

5 minutes ago, WhiteCat33 said:

I forget who posted this link ( https://fmstats.com/2022-03-14-ambition-determination-professionalism/ ) recently but this stats analysis really helped me focus towards professional staff exclusively. Tldr: you just need 10 determination and Ambition with high professionalism to get more or less best developmemt progress for your youngsters. 

Great read and makes me confident in what I have been experimenting with. Thanks.

[WhiteCat33]

Toni Store Jugglers FC – St Vincent & The Grenadines
Season 24 2045/2046 SVG Championship
 

Performance

League Champion

Cup Champion

NACL: Semi-Final ET Loss

I already spoiled this performance a few days ago, but taking Monterrey into ET during the Semi-Final was a great performance. Actually getting close!

Group Stage

Knockouts

As you can see our Star AML Theon Jeffers 12a was on the top of his game making the difference in 3 of the 4 games of the knockouts. Against Chivas he got us the draw at home, but even more impressively secured us the win away in Mexico in the Second Leg.

CCC: Champion

This year was back to a very dominant performance. So dominant that Emerald Lee 11c set the shutout record with 11 clean sheets out of 12 matches.

Squad

Transfers

Youth Academy

YI Preview

Youth intake

I can get behind Tevin James as a striker. He’s slow, but has finishing and a decent personality that could mentor better. 

More CAMs and I don’t use them any more, he’s too slow to move wide but could add to my very large number of CMs

Club Improvements

We got a takeover and it actually was great for the club as the new businessman dropped 1.2M into the club!

And they already are letting us do the YF upgrade 

Board have decided to keep the 8625 seat small stadium with it costing $313 per seat, and did pretty well securing a 1.1M sponsorship for it with a 525k govt grant. And the big news, it is named after my head coach! Its both an upgrade and a downgrade with it being smaller for our 3 Group Stage NACL games, but over 2x for all other matches.

Excel & Thoughts

We actually got close this year, but the clock is ticking. Both of my FBs have just started their decline as they are now 33. This next campaign will be the last peak team and then I'll have 1 or maybe 2 more opportunities with a declining defense. We are in desperate need of FBs or another BWM who I can retrain to FB like I did earlier. Hopefully our bump up in YFs will start to generate Elite Talents again. As there is no Consolation match for NACL I took the liberty of adding it to the Third Place* category. 

[SkiIIs]

Season 2038/39 - Premiership

A rude awakening and a really brutal season only managing 3 wins and scoring a lame 24 goals for the whole season.  The only consolation was taking 4 points against Arsenal. In reality, we were never really good enough to compete with some of the starters still at VNN or League 1 current ability.  

Off the field we're set up for the long term with all improvements complete and 60m in the bank so there's no need to accept any transfer offers for my best players for a while. We also got our first affiliate, our options werent the greatest but went with Jena from Germany:

We're also expanding our capacity to almost the max we can go.  We'll be playing at Middlesbrough's 32k capacity stadium in the meantime

Youth preview

Youth intake. Quite excited by Shotton in defence which is much needed

Next year the Board are happy to fight bravely against back to back relegation but id be surprised if we werent in the top half albeit the demoralising season we've just had. It's an end of an era for some club legends (although the club have no favoured personnel which is really annoying me) as they're getting to an age where they wont be in the next fight to keep us in the prem.  So will look to transition to some of the youngsters next season which might take a hit towards our league standings in the short term, but set us up for a better performance in the EPL once we get there.

Edited June 30, 2022 by SkiIIs

[dcayton9]

Full update coming as soon as this season is over, but strange things happening in Natal, where my top two prospects of the intake have the same name...

[Vlach]

  
Youth Intake Season 3 - 2025 

Quite a nice intake - some of the players will probably already contributing a bit next season.  The personalities are as well becoming a bit better. I will sign those most talented and with high determination - and two or three more in order to be covered at all positions

  
   

 
    

Especially my hopes for d'Amato 25A are quite high:
  

Quite a nice intake - some of the players will probably already contributing a bit next season.  The personalities are as well becoming a bit better. I will sign those most talented and with high determination - and two or three more in order to be covered at all positions. Since we might get relegated I fear i will then loose many older players, and need some cover.

[ANGL]

hace 7 horas, dcayton9 dijo:

Full update coming as soon as this season is over, but strange things happening in Natal, where my top two prospects of the intake have the same name...

Not on the same intake, but I also have a lot of repeated names, one of them 3 times. It may be something with the names in Brazil

[dcayton9]

In the first part of the season, the cups, we had mixed bag of performances. We had an incredible run in the Copa Nordeste, finishing Runner-Up, and a blown second leg away from winning. This brought a massive amount of income to the team, allowing us to get a needed youth recruitment upgrade. However, a poor performance in the Potiguar State Championship final against our tough-as-ever rival ABC FC meant we would not even qualify for the next year's Copa Nordeste, which is disappointing, as it is our real chance for big prize money each season. We made a groundbreaking advancement in the Copa Brazil, with this season marking our first time out of the first round.

However, the first season in Serie B was a complete nightmare. I went in fully confident I could maintain a 16th place finish or higher. Alas, I was too ignorant of the fact that only two of my players were considered Serie B quality, and the rest were considered Serie D quality or worse. We got absolutely blasted and finished last in both the true table and xG table. Our Serie C rivals from last season Botafogo (PB) were also relegated, so there was solace in that. Unfortunately, our fellow Natal club ABC has made a sneaky climb gaining promotion from Serie D to Serie C to Serie B in the course of two seasons. It will be a sad moment as they'll play in a higher division than us for the first time ever.

We'll hopefully make our return to Serie B next year, and this year in Serie C will be one of development and success. But likely one without our best current players as their mandatory relegation release clauses are now active and they all are wanted by 2-3 higher level clubs. Still, they will be replaced in time, as this youth intake was very solid. Two of the "elite talents" are keepers meaning that the imminent departure of our top talent Jarlesson will hurt less, as hopefully one of the two can develop.

Finally, as mentioned in the prior small post, my top two talents have the same name, so I'll show them too.

MMA has some work to do on physicals but has a strange and exciting attribute spread. A lot of really high level stuff already mixed with some outrageously low complements. Not sure what I'll do with him in the long run but open to any suggestions. On the other hand, MMB immediately jumps out as a winger that has the natural pace to ultimately develop a very high mark. He has a bad personality, but hopefully we can fix that in time and he'll be a dangerous future weapon for us.

Edit: I almost forgot to include the season update table. We were actually able to get two upgrades to youth recruitment so maybe we'll make meaningful progress towards landing the top prospects of this elite youth production country. Furthermore, we got a needed coaching badge upgrade, but aside from these, even with fairly large profit, the board wouldn't budge on facilities. Hopefully that changes with time.

Edited June 30, 2022 by dcayton9

[libbyshuss]

Argentina

Premier League

Season 359 (it feels like)

Season Summary

Well, our finances were an absolute disaster at the end of last season so I was forced to move a few of the higher waged players on. It meant a few youth teamers being promoted and I strapped myself in for a transitional season. And so it proved for the first half of the season but we really hit ur stride in the second half of the season and a strong finish meant we finished second behind River Plate

But the real question......

Did we win the Copa Libertadores?

Well, no. Eventual winners Palmeiras absolutely battered us over two legs in the quarter final winning 6-2.

Will we ever win it?

Players

so here's the real exciting news of the season. I finally got a real wonderkid!!!! the first for over 50 seasons (spread over 2 saves!) I can't believe it!

Check him out

 

Obviously he will only sign a new contract if it has a measly 6.5m release clause but what can you do? enjoy it while i have it!!!! The lad's gonna be a star!

 

Finances and Upgrades and that

 

Career

I'm still ploughing on!!

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by libbyshuss

[Vlach]

Season 3 Review

The season was as difficult as expected. Most teams in the Serie B are simply two levels above us (at least). But we managed to achieve 16th place in the league (after many changes in tactics trying to salvage anything from this season), which meant we had to play two relegation  playoff games against Bari. The winner will stay in the Serie B. After the home game it was 3:3, but in bari we somehow managed to beat them 4:0, which means one more year Serie B for us!
A year which probably will be even harder than this was - our youth is imho still not ready for this. And our finances still look bad ... ah well ...
Sadly my HOYD retires already in Summer - will be hard to find someone similar i guess. Other notable retirements are three players of my main squad - - we owe them being in the Serie B, they will be remembered. Especially the reliable Facundo Coria - many of his goals and assists were just at the right time. Our youth has now to start to pick up the baton.
 

  

  

Lineup
  

Accolades
  

Transfers
  

Summary
  

 

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Vlach

[glennuk]

Worthing FC - Season 20 - English Premier League - Youth Intake

A decent looking intake, without any clear standouts. The best players being Goalkeepers is starting to get annoying. I now have 5 Keepers with 5 star potential, 3 of which could start for me right now.

Not great personalities (which I forgot to screenshot, but my top 6 prospects had the following; 3xBalanced, low determination, unambitious and fickle). I hope this is not a sign of things to come with the new HOYD (who it is probably too early to judge/take affect) and just an unlucky intake.

Top 3 - Youth Intake 20

Adam Knowles (YP20A) - Comes in with good CA and PA. He has the ability to get up and down the field with decent physicals and his starting dribbling and crossing isn't too bad either. Needs quite a bit of improvement all around on the technicals and the balanced personality isn't great, but he has a decent chance to at least be my back up RB in a couple of years.

Ryan Stewart (YP20B) - Almost didn't make the top 3 as I have no idea where to play him. I don't play with an AMC, his tackling is too poor to play in any of my CM positions, his finishing is too poor to convert to a striker and crossing too poor to turn into a winger. What do I do? Current plan is keep him as an AMC as occasionally I do change my DM to AMC if I am losing.

Mohamed Lakin (YP20C) - Could be a decent prospect up top, as long as I can improve that personality. He is already in a mentoring unit and I hope it has some impact on him soon as his starting stats are actually quite impressive.

New Affiliate

We also have a new affiliate in Southend. As affiliates are the only thing I can really improve right now (waiting on stadium expansion), I ask for a new one every time it is available.

1000 Games

I also reached 1000 games for Worthing, I do like the plethora of awards listed and now need to be the Premier League Manager of the Year to round it off.

New Chairman

There was talk of a Tycoon taking over, but with the money we have in the bank 120mil+ that would not have been exciting. Instead our new chairman came in without adding much to the club. Although he has some expectations which I will never meet:

1. Spend all of the Transfer Budget given.

2. Make the most of Set Pieces.

3. Play Possession Football (we play more of a direct counter attack style). Our possession has never been high, even in winning the Championship last year.

[Daddy]

Over the summer we lost our best overall player due to a [poopy] foreign release clause. Lost for $625K his current value with Man City is $36-$47M. Shortly after the season started this happened

Fullback is always so thin and losing him really hurt across the depth chart because I had to move a Centerback to take his spot. So I'm running three players in new positions, a rash of injuries, and our first European competition. How'd it all go?

2027/28 European Update:

Lechia out of Poland didn't put up too much fight, but Fiorentina could say the same of us.  While disappointing to not make the group stage and see where we lined up against more teams, when I saw we got matched up with an Italian club I knew we were in trouble.

2027/28 Midseason Update:

We were pretty hard done here with some unfortunate scheduling. Any halfway decent team we got on 2 days rest with a team hurting for fitness and injuries. Once the schedule calmed down we got back to where I was expecting us. Assuming we don't lose more players in January and can stay healthy I think we'll steal a top 5 like I was hoping coming into season.

Intake Preview:

That looks ridiculous!

Edited July 1, 2022 by Daddy
salty language

[Daddy]

Well that didn't take long

The next day he wants to leave. Make a promise for a dollar amount (he's 16 months out of contract so I can't just sit on it and hope in a couple years he's happy to stay).

Shakhtar comes in right away at the exact amount. This all happened in three days.

 

[dcayton9]

There we go... Only 3 weeks into the transfer window and I've already lost 3 of my 4 best players to relegation release clauses. To those who have gone far or completed this challenge have you been through this?

Though I anticipated this in my prior post, I can't help but feel as though I'm back to square one having lost the best of players that I have developed and now have, arguably, a worse team than when I started because of this. Along with that, I suffered a training facility downgrade from bettering technology and my board refuses to even reinvest this transfer profit into new facilities.

I am thinking about starting over and seeing if I can make it work with another club in Brazil or elsewhere, but maybe this is just part of the process on the way to succeeding. 

[JLAB]

OFK Beograd - Season 5 - Winter Break

Heading into the winter break, I found myself having to take a break from the save because of just how badly we were playing, and if it wasn't got a last gasp equaliser from Gogic, we would have lost 7 games in a row in all competitions. Not idea to say the least.

Given that the bottom 4 teams all get relegated, the fact we are currently in 12th place as a recently relegated side is very concerning to me, and is something we need to address in the very near future if we not only want to survive in the league, but if I want to keep my job as the manager of OFK Beograd. 

The youth intake preview is honestly disappointing. Mostly because I wanted to have good centre-backs coming through, and it looks like we will not be getting that at all. We need better players to come through, and soon.

[Daddy]

47 minutes ago, dcayton9 said:

There we go... Only 3 weeks into the transfer window and I've already lost 3 of my 4 best players to relegation release clauses. To those who have gone far or completed this challenge have you been through this?

Though I anticipated this in my prior post, I can't help but feel as though I'm back to square one having lost the best of players that I have developed and now have, arguably, a worse team than when I started because of this. Along with that, I suffered a training facility downgrade from bettering technology and my board refuses to even reinvest this transfer profit into new facilities.

I am thinking about starting over and seeing if I can make it work with another club in Brazil or elsewhere, but maybe this is just part of the process on the way to succeeding. 

When it happens to me I revamp the team with the crop of young players to get them more playing time and experience. I just went through it in my save and immediately bounced back up with players that developed enough to qualify for Europa Conference League. I quickly went from losing players over being relegated to losing players because top clubs want them. Both are frustrating.

[OlivierL]

On 29/06/2022 at 22:01, toshimitzou1 said:

Going to wrap up two Seasons in one hit. As I have shown we are the dominant force in Iceland and the only professional club. As @XaWand @Winski have also shown, it is not too difficult to reach the top division and become successful domestically in a relatively short space of time. However, as I am going to continue to show, it is very difficult to produce top quality youth intakes from a nation with such a low reputation and it can take a very long time to raise the reputation of said nation. As such, winning the Champions league is a tough prospect but as with any other challenge, more than achievable with time.

Iceland Youth Academy Challenge: Haukur.

Seasons 2028/2029

and 2029/2030.

2028/2029

Won every fixture. Enough said.

All four domestic trophies in the bag again.

We are regular visitors to the CL group stages now, the three CL qualifying rounds often proving no real threat. Done very well to get two decent results against Shakhtar to qualify for the latter stages of the EURO Cup.

We did well before losing to a talented Valencia outfit in a tight two - legged affair:

These runs are really allowing us to become an establisher force in the lower echelons of European football, reflected in our continuing climb up the coefficient table:

Alas, this only yields an incremental climb for the league's reputation:

The reputation will start to increase at a greater speed (I hope) as other Icelandic clubs start to 'find their feet' in Europe.

Transfer History:

 

2029/2030

Same again, although slightly less emphatic!

A real solid performance in the CL group stages, where we are building to become a potential third seed in future draws, finishing third in our group three years in a row - this year with consummate ease and a far more respectable goal difference:

We followed this up with a an unlucky defeat in the Euro Cup Semi-Final against a top tier Milan side:

As can be seen, we are punching far above our weight, recognised each year by the Global media:

Our coefficient ranking is looking more than credible now; sitting pretty with some of Europe's big hitters:

It seems at last our fellow Icelandic teams are picking up the odd result in Euro Cup II qualifying:

Allowing the climb up the reputation table to become a little easier perhaps - Six places this time:

Transfer History:

 

Summary Information:

There has not been an option to upgrade our youth facilities since the last upgrade circa five years ago- as such these are our current facilities and finances:

Facilities: cannot complain. 

It is very low maintenance in the Icelandic league. As can be seen from my player sales' history, this profit is almost entirely derived from European prize money.

Youth Intake expectations:

Pretty much every year we have had a 'golden generation' of youth intakes with at least two 'Elite (A rated)' prospects. This year is no exception:

This again is all relative to the current ability of your actual squad where this is my best player (current ability by my own rough estimate):  

Decent enough but not elite level by any means. This was an 'elite talent' from a youth intake a few years back. We actually went through about four years without producing any center backs and as such, here is my top prospect from an intake two years ago whom I chose to retrain as a center back due to desperation:

Despite his clear preference for attacking, I deploy him as a Center Back - Defend as he would get ruthlessly exposed as a Libero against opposition of any real quality in Europe.

Head of Youth development: This guy has only been in the post for a year so I am keen to see what the previously outlined intake yields.

 

Final thoughts:

My apologies for the long post but I thought as a few others were taking up the challenge in Iceland it would be useful to offer a bit more depth to the pro's and con's of the challenge.

Pro's:

- Domestic dominance easy to achieve.

- Extremely low financial maintenance required. Outgoings are tiny and the rewards of European football dwarf any costs.

- Short seasons with an annual haul of four potential domestic trophies.

- Weak domestic opposition, with no real European powerhouse to supplant.

 

Con's:

- Semi - Professional status as a starting point for all clubs continuing well into the top division.

- Season duration out of synchronisation with the European football calendar.

- Extremely low league reputation - yielding poor youth intakes and making it difficult to hold onto budding talents.

- Lack of domestic strength can make the seasons a little boring.

 

Player Personality Experiment/Thoughts/Advice.

This is something I have developed and learned after my previous experience of completing a youth challenge in Greece with Aigaleo and is something which seems to be paying real dividends in this save. As others may or may not know, there are three 'key personality traits' that have a large effect on player development: Professionalism, Ambition and Determination. Now in a standard save I want all my player to have these in abundance and as such I will look out for personality types with these in abundance ( Driven, Professional, Model Citizen, Ambitious etc.). However, after constantly losing my best players before I could even get close to tying them down to long term contracts in my Greece playthrough on FM 21, I have taken a slightly different approach. 

By making use of an excellent guide available online : Player Personalities | Page 3 of 3 | Football Manager 2021 Guide I have been identifying personalities that have high Ambition and/or low Loyalty and mentoring them to reduce their Ambition and increase their Loyalty. As such I will prefer a player whom is Determined over one that is Driven or Fairly Determined rather than Fairly Ambitious. Of course, this reduction in Ambition may result in slower development for some, but I have found that with adequate game time and sufficient Determination and Professionalism, this does not become a hinderance.

Is this working? I would say yes - I am in year 2031 and have only had 2 players whom I would consider actual 'elite level' talents poached and am receiving frequent mentoring updates advising me that my player ' has grown in loyalty' or is 'less ambitious than before'. Furthermore, over the last four season since then mentoring has really taken effect there has been a sharp shift in contractual demands. Since the loss of my last talent a season ago, I have renewed the contracts of my entire First XI without any 'minimum fee release clauses'.  This for me is a real bonus and should allow faster completion of the challenge.

 

Wow, did not expect such a large post. Sorry again and good luck all.

Nice post about iceland and personalities, this motivates me even more to continue with Njardvik