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The FM22 Youth Academy Challenge


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OFK Beograd - Season 5 - Youth Intake

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Since we have come back from the winter break, our form has finally taking a turn for the better. The concern about being dragged into a relegation zone is not as bad, but it is still there.

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We are closer to the top half of the table than we are the relegation zone, but we can still go down if things go wrong between now and the next 10 matches. 

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We did just got our youth intake, and finally my prayers have been answered. We have gotten a CB that could be rather good, and we also got another good left winger and good DM (again).

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Zoran Jovovic is an exciting young talent that I feel could be a good player on the left, even if he is unambitious. I just hope he's not inconsistent.

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Nemanja Culum is arguably the best player to come through this intake, with the best personality. It's just unfortunate for his sake that we've already got an incredible DM in the team, so Culum will be his backup for the time being.

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The most exciting thing about this intake is the fact that we've finally gotten a CB with great potential. The only downside is the fact that he's so short. I hope that he can grow and develop over time. He might be the first CB that we've produced that could become good enough for the 2nd tier, let alone the 1st tier. He's exactly what I had been hoping for.

Edited by JLAB
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@glennukthat HoYD looks worth the wait. My wonderkid at Katwijk had driven and he really flourished when he became a regular, if your HoYD can get you more with that personality then that can only be good…….hopefully he doesn’t have an eye for goalkeepers(!)

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Season 1 2022/23

Competitions

Overview  

Vanarama North - League Table

A decent first season in this league as we managed to grab 10th Place. We had some really strong spells of form and were sitting in the play off positions at one point. Overall a solid first season and a brilliant base to work from.

FA Cup - Lost in the 4th Qualifying Round to Boston United.

FA Trophy - Lost in the 4th Round to Solihull Moors.

Playing Squad

Squad    Transfers

I am very happy with the strength of our squad and believe we have some good players who can definitely improve over time. Key men for me this season were:

Curtis Jones

Luke Griffiths

Youth Production

Intake

A decent enough intake with one player who can have an instant impact. 

Henrik Goth 23a

Finances and Facilities

Finances    Facilities

One of the key reasons I gave up with Cray was financially I just couldn't make any improvements. Here seems to be the opposite as we have managed to already get upgrades to our Youth FacilitiesJunior Coaching Budget and our Youth Recruitment Network which is more than I managed in 6 seasons at Cray. We are still turning over a profit each month and I am hopeful for the future.

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Season 5 Youth Intake

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Sadly the most talented player is unambitious. The two areas i need most right now, strikers and goalkeepers, are also not that great. Ah well, it is maybe too early to write that year off, but im really not excited about it.

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3 hours ago, libbyshuss said:

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2049

Argentina

Premier League

Season Summary

League - So I've made a complete U-turn in terms of strategy. With only the Copa Libertadores to go to complete the challenge I'd been holding on to my best players as long as I could in an attempt to win it, pushing my total wage budget well into the unsustainable and our bank balance well into the red. It hasn't worked yet and this season was a bridge too far so I shipped out around £30m worth of players, nearly all the top wage earners as well, and put my faith into youth. And, to be fair, it paid off pretty well with a strong seconnd place and some cracking performances from the youngsters. I should have done it years ago!

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Copa Libertadores - so, does it matter? well.......

group stage!

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What a result against Flamengo at home! But that draw against Cristal meant a second place finish and a secod round against Santos...

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Out on penalties. So the quest continues!

Players

Here's the young team!

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Look how young they are! Esteban Benitez is a real bonus. He was only a 3 star prospect so I shunted him out on loan for 4 seasons. After the fourth loan spell he came back a 4 star genuine talent - he's a textbook case as to why you should send those fringe players out on loan at 18/19, you never know what will happen!

Federico Villacorta 48A looks an amazing prospect up front. looking forward to seeing how he develops!

 

Wonderkids

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you wait years for one to turn up.....

I managed to keep hold of Facundo Garcia 45B until the end of the season but with him refusing to sign a new contract and having a release fee of only 6.5m I took the plunge and offered him out for 5m + 50% future fee. 4 European clubs made the offer and i accepted. I couldn't risk losing him for just 6.5m and not getting that extra cash. And just look at how much I'm gonna get once he does move on....

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At the start of the season I sold my best defender for 9m and a 50% sell on. Looks like a good deal as well because once he went.....

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He was my second wonderkid all along! he just hid it until I sold the bugger!

Hopefully those two will pay off in a few years. The diffference in player values once they leave South America for Europe is insane, the only way to make money is to sell yougn with that 50% sell on clause

 

Career

I'm gonna keep going! sorry for boring you all! but I'm changing my focus slightly and trying to get those facilities maxed out. the players i'm getting at this stage are pretty amazing so who knows what they'll be like once they're all maxed!

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have really enjoyed your updates and following your progress, nearly there mate!

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Season 2040/41 - Premiership

Was bracing myself for another demoralising stint in the prem however was pleasingly surprised by the start. We managed to win every second game for August and September and by round 12 after beating Palace 2 - 1 we were sitting really pretty in 13th spot, smashing Man Utd 5 - 1 along the way!  We only won 1 more game after that in what can only be described as shambolic and devastating. Last place finished after what had promised so much earlier is a tough pill to swallow but overall finish was kind of expected. 

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Gilbey has improved to top 10 now from 25th last year

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Youth preview gave me hope in areas definitely needed, CB and MC:

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Second bad intake in a row, my intakes seem to have been better with category 2 youth rating so far. Where the hell did the CB's go?

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and with that (along with seeing @glennuk new HOYD), i have gone and signed Steve Haslam.  Might get more CB's coming through based on his formation:

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Next year will be another year of transition as per two seasons ago when we were relegated, plan on getting rid of some of the older players and blood in some really young talent.  Hopefully i get a few more Gilbey's coming through

 

Edited by SkiIIs
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13 hours ago, glennuk said:

Was tired of my HOYD and poor intakes and been trying to get this guy for a while, had to pay 850k BUT..... Finally have my man in Jorge Broto

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Had to pay my max salary for a HOYD to get him, but hope he will be worth it.

Wow

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Season 5 Review - 2026/27


Our main striker for the last 4 years, Catalin Tira, left us after the relegation. He was never really good, but always much better then anyone else we got. Goalscoring was therefor supposed to become a problem this season.
Originally i planned selling some of the original  players, in order to ease our financial burden (and they wanted to leave after the relegation anyway)  - problem was: no one was wanting them! Luckily the board didnt care much, one time even injected 4 million - just enough to give us a clean balance for some months, not enough to invest.


Besides that our season went really much better then expected. I expected us to land in the relegation playoffs, but we reached the other side of the table, the promotion playoffs (Lost in second round there against a superior Virtus Francavilla side). It seems some of our youngsters are quite ready for the Serie C. I still dont think we got good strikers, but somehow they scored.
Next season will show if this was just a fluke. Because we cant afford to renew the contract of some of the original players the team will become youth-dominated.  I consider it as good sign for the future that our U18 won their U18 division quite convincingly.


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Lineup

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Accolades

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Shirts

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The three most important players this season:
    Pivetti 25C - Not sure how this guy managed to score 21 times in the league.
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    Alessio Tuttisanti - Main creative force in the midfield.
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 Alessio Martorel (GK)
    Well he is declining, maybe because we dont have good gooalkeeping coaches. But no one of the youth is anywhere close to his capabilities.
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 Summary Screen-Shot-2022-07-06-08-00-44.35.png

#SharedFromTwos ✌️

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OFK Beograd - Season 6 - Season Preview

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Over the last month and a half we have gone from looking like a team that could go from mid-table to top-half back to mid-table. It would be great if we can perform better this season.

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I ended up selling four players who were causing problems and poisoning the club's atmosphere. Two of them because they had been looking to leave since last season as a result of our relegation the year before, the other two because they either wanted a new challenge or more game time. I made £240K, but sold my two best CMs, our backup RW and backup DM. We did at least make good money, which is better than letting our best two CMs leave on a free.

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2029/30 Midseason Review:

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As the schedule picked up and had to rotate a bit more some winnable games fell to be draws, so that's what's kept us out of first at this point. I was aiming for fourth or better, so it's really good to see the team continuing to move forward like this.

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In my Israeli run Ajax kicked our asses every time. Seeing an Israeli team I now know, and a good Greek team in the group, I figured I'd really get a handle on where the team is and how far it can go. Losing pretty convincingly to Ajax that first match was fairly demoralizing. However, following that up with a big win against HBS gave me some optimism. The final score was 4-3 against Olympiacos, but what's not shown there is we were down 3-1 nearing half. Scored an extra time goal and then came out in second half to win. Two more convincing road wins set us up for the rematch with Ajax. A win to claim the group and give a lot of hope going forward. Beating them handily was a huge boost for me personally in feeling more optimistic about the long term success of the save. 

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The joy was short lived as I received these email items. Fortunately the offers were terrible and I kept him happy rejecting, but I feared a long transfer window. With Ukraine having a winter break through the transfer window I decided to go forward before posting. I managed to keep all my players here and happy. I have been able to boost some of the release clauses into the low double digits, so the rich teams can still swoop in but are they going to spend 10-15M on a youth player? It's a harder decision compared to when the release clauses were under 5 million, let along those initial 650K ones.

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With advancing forward so far I was able to get the second round draw. This is interesting as these guys handles us easy three seasons ago in the Conference League playoffs. Yet another measuring stick.

Intake Preview:

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Another banger of a preview. Loving the strong full-back. 

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VV Katwijk 2032/33 (Season 9) Review

Competitions

Spoiler

Dutch Super Cup

The season kicked off with Katwijk's first ever appearance in the Dutch Super Cup against the Dutch Cup winners Feyenoord. After a fiercely contested match the two teams were inseparable and went to penalties

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The Eredivisie trophy now has a friend!

 

Eredivisie

After having to sell Jonckheere and Comvalius I wasn't expecting much this season however once again the replacement players have stepped up and been counted after a fairly slow start.

Once more the league went down to the wire with Katwijk and Ajax battling it out

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Another sensational season!

Dutch Cup

So very close to a treble in the end with a narrow loss to Ajax in the final

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Europe

Our first appearance in the Champions League was one to be proud of as we managed to get a third place finish and qualify for the Europa League knock-outs. Lyon and Hertha just proved to be that bit too good for us.

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Youth Intake

Spoiler

It was the first intake under the new HoYD and he managed to deliver Sezer's replacement ready made!

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None of the others are likely to make the first team (subject to players leaving - see Players for details) however for the first intake I am pleased with the new Sezer.

 

Players

Spoiler

What a season it was for Tijs Bosma (Y07EliteD), he joined the club as a right winger but has now managed to become a lethal striker scoring an incredible 31 goals in 38 games. He has stepped in when Comvalius moved on and now has a contract for the next 3 seasons however I've had to set a minimum fee release clause of £24,5m (minimum fees have to potential to destroy this save!)

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Bosma's form led to him winning the NxGn 2033 (so thats two years in a row where our player finished top) and it wasn't too shabby for Breinburg (his striking partner and the Pressing Forward that replaced Comvalius) who picked up 3rd spot (he scored 23 in 39 which for a 16 year old who only turned 17 in March of this season is fantastic)

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Bosma also picked up the European Golden Boy just as Comvalius did last year

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In goal Cengic continued to improve and fill the shoes of Strikwerda, when he turned pro he really shot up in terms of his attributes and 13 clean sheets and 7.31 average is outstanding given he's only 17

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He's still got some way to go (pretty sure he must have started at really low CA).

This years best elven:

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The real worry for me is Burger (Y06EliteD) is out of contract next summer and no intention to sign a new deal, so we are going to have to look to sell him. Depay (Y05EliteG) is also requesting a move to a bigger club, though I have him being ok to wait for his minimum fee being met whilst Burger is not (no one is paying £52m in his last year of his contract!)

My left back has complained about his contract and his agent locked in a £4m foreign club minimum fee, so he could easily be off but his average rating isn't that high at the moment so I might be ok.
 

 

Club

Spoiler

We moved to the new stadium and its at 96% capacity so I've requested a stadium expansion which the board granted to expand to 21,354.

Training facilities are now state of the art and excellent youth facilities, so I'm getting closer to maxing it all out.

The finances are incredibly healthy thanks to the sales of 3 key players this season as well as Champions League money coming in and increased gate receipts.

Botermans got his testimonial this year and just like Botermans throughout this save he stole the show

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Manager

Spoiler

Nothing really to report on the manager front.

Won the managers' manager of the year for the 3rd year running and was offered the Feyenoord interview and now I am a Katwijk Legend following back to back Eredivisie title wins and a Dutch Super Cup.

 

Stats

Spoiler

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Next Season

Spoiler

Sounds very similar to last year, I know I need to sell one of our best players who is out of contract next season which may mean we are a bit thin in midfield (which was our strongest area for a few years). I will look to bring through some of the young central mids from the last 2 intakes next season as I look to replace Burger in the long run.

At some point the club and league reputation will get high enough (I hope) to keep some of the more promising players before they demand a move to a bigger club but its going to be a bit choppy the next few years.

The treble would be lovely but with Burger leaving after losing Jonckheere last season our quality will be dropping considerably, so I'd be happy remaining in the top 3 and doing relatively well in Europe.

 

 

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Worthing FC - Season 22 - Sky Bet Championship - Worst Youth Intake EVER! + mini update

League

Things are going well at the half way point. I spent a LONG time going over tactics, data and my youth team to try and figure out how I can build a better tactic (more pressing, better tempo, slight change in positional duties) and system that would impact any future stints in the Premier League. We are scoring a lot more than we used to (even in our championship winning season) and not conceding too many more. We are on pace to concede 7 more goals over the course of the season but score 34 more.

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Youth Preview

This is the worst I have ever had. I am unsure if this is due to poor timing of my HOYD change, or if my past HOYD was really going to deliver me this anyway. I am sure it is not Brotos (my new HOYD) fault

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Youth Intake

This youth intake is the worst. Like probably the worst on this thread (maybe). No Elites, only one 'top'.

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Then looking at the personalities it doesn't get much better. Only signed the tagged ones (I wasn't going to sign that many, but just want depth for my U18 squad).

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Top 3 - Youth Intake 22

Barry Armstrong (YP22A) - The only top talent, probably would not have made top 3 on most intakes, let alone be my A player. Probably will train as an AMR or AML (Inverted Winger), as his physicals are okay. Had a lot of work to do to ever have a hope of being a squad rotation player.

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John Lynch (YP22B) - Was hard to choose who was second best. Partly this choice is down to positional need, as we do need CMs and he is either footed which is always nice to have. Has a spattering of decent stats, but is unlikely to make anything of himself.

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Michael Dickson (YP22C) - Has a bit of a look of the Myles Miller about him, not great statistically, but has enough attributes in some key areas that he could find himself doing okay, if he ever gets a chance.

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U18 Cup

One positive thing has been seeing my U18s do well against the Premier League elite. Strange really as I put most of my better youth in the U23s or loan them out. They beat Man City and then lost to Man U in the finals.

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Njarðvik FC - Youth intake Season 3 - 2024

Youth intake preview

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Not a great intake but we needed options up front and we received them. Average attributes and determination wise, this is the worst class that graduated.

Spoiler

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Three new option up front, we really needed that ! With Gissurarson 24D we got a new winger and we received two strikers with Þórðarson 24G and Sigursveinsson 24J

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5 hours ago, DazRTaylor said:

I am missing this challenge.  Time to try again.  Any ideas as to where?  Two or three tiers max is what I'm looking for and in Europe.

Switzerland was a place I had fun. I plan to try again one day. I feel I'm better at the game from when I last tried

Austria too. I got fired after a couple seasons, and again I feel I'm better at the game and the challenge so I'd like to go back.

 

Both feel to me like possibilities of completing the challenge.

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I think I need a break from England, it was  such a slog last year that I feel the need to try somewhere else now. I keep looking at the amount of games it takes to even get to the top flight and lose my enthusiasm for it :D 

So I'm taking a holiday to Spain. Well Marbella to be more precise. Not the biggest squad to start with either :D  

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11 hours ago, darren1983 said:

I think I need a break from England, it was  such a slog last year that I feel the need to try somewhere else now. I keep looking at the amount of games it takes to even get to the top flight and lose my enthusiasm for it :D 

So I'm taking a holiday to Spain. Well Marbella to be more precise. Not the biggest squad to start with either :D  

Ditto. I am looking for a me save and really fancy England but the number of games is just so off putting.  I'm think perhaps somewhere in Scandanavia now, but Malta, Wales, N.Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Ecuador, Venezuela, and somewhere in the Caribbean are all on the list.  Too many options for my tiny mind to sort through!

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12 hours ago, Daddy said:

Switzerland was a place I had fun. I plan to try again one day. I feel I'm better at the game from when I last tried

Austria too. I got fired after a couple seasons, and again I feel I'm better at the game and the challenge so I'd like to go back.

 

Both feel to me like possibilities of completing the challenge.

Perhaps Switzerland... but with a Liechtenstein club.  That should keep someone busy for a few years!

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42 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

Ditto. I am looking for a me save and really fancy England but the number of games is just so off putting.  I'm think perhaps somewhere in Scandanavia now, but Malta, Wales, N.Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Ecuador, Venezuela, and somewhere in the Caribbean are all on the list.  Too many options for my tiny mind to sort through!

I do usually manage in England but I just need a break from it, it's a proper slog (not that any league in this challenge isn't) and require time and effort I probably don't have right now.

For me it was either Spain or Denmark and I liked the idea of Spain in the end. There really is too many options though isn't there? I might have to go back to some kind of restrictions for next years challenge :D 

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3 hours ago, darren1983 said:

I do usually manage in England but I just need a break from it, it's a proper slog (not that any league in this challenge isn't) and require time and effort I probably don't have right now.

For me it was either Spain or Denmark and I liked the idea of Spain in the end. There really is too many options though isn't there? I might have to go back to some kind of restrictions for next years challenge :D 

Now you've put Spain and Denmark in my head too :)

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6 hours ago, glennuk said:

@BigJack that intake looks great! A few exciting prospects in there. Black being either footed is very nice at that level.

It is really good. Its taken me a while to figure out the best roles for them but 6 months into the new season and Black and Ekman are proving key men whilst Garrity, Hird and Green are all proving solid squad players. Im hopeful we can push for the play offs this season if they can keep it up. 

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1 hour ago, JAwtunes said:

Now you've put Spain and Denmark in my head too :)

I thought about Finland before I opted for Holland but I had a really enjoyable save with Tromso in Norway. Always find winning European competitions is harder there though with the seasons not aligning with European competition.

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2 hours ago, JAwtunes said:

Now you've put Spain and Denmark in my head too :)

Just a thing about Denmark...

This is why I abandoned my save in Denmark. Quite annoying to have players under contract just be poached without compensation.

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@Neo_Geo Bloody Tromso!  I've only played in Norway once and that was with Tromso. I managed to p**s off my captain and the whole first team turned on me - I was sacked within a couple of months and never returned to the country.  Bad times

@XaW That's Denmark off the list then, that would ruin the save for me too. I see the bug has been acknowledged by SI, so I guess they may have fixed it.

I think ive decided to go 100% vanilla and the Norway db looks amazing so I think its time for me to get my revenge on Tromso.  I am going to hunt for a club, but if you have any suggestions (I think that's where you live, right?) then free to throw some at me.  I have done a quick search but immediately got distracted by the image below.  Sadly it seems there is no team that actually plays here.

image.png.2898df6bbcce3625a29b4a059842f054.png

Sorry for the spam everyone.  I am clearly getting bored without an FM save to occupy my time

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OFK Beograd - Season 6 - Winter Break

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So it turns out that selling players who don't want to be at the club is good for the club's form and morale. I honestly should have seen this coming, but there we go. This has been our best start to a league season in the save so far, and that's even with one promotion under our belt so far.

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Heading into the winter break we are currently in 2nd place, only GD ahead of OFK Vršac who did get promoted with us in our first season at the club. We are currently 15 points clear of the relegation group and 22 points clear of the relegation zone. We are however, 9 points ahead from runaway leaders Železničar (P), who have beaten us home and away in the league. Though only being 6 points clear of 5th place Sloga (P) isn't ideal either.

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I look at this intake preview and wonder if I should be happy with it. I'd love another good CB and I wouldn't say not to a good GK, but I'd like to have more positions being covered and more depth overall. Still, despite the preview, I'm not terribly upset.

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Still, our best player Ivan Stošić is attracting interest from Fiorentina, and I know it's going to be just a matter of time before we lose him to another club. He is willing to talk about a new deal so far, but wants to put a Non-Promotion and a Minimum Release Clause for domestic clubs in the top flight, so I'm waiting until our transfer window is over before I give him a new deal. It's a risky strategy, but I feel it might work.

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Enfield Town Season 9

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Vanarama National League South – 1st – Champions!

TransfersFixtures (1)Fixtures (2)SquadTableKey PlayerHot Prospect

We moved leagues, competing in the National League South instead of the North. This season we had one player wanting to leave and he wasn’t looking like developing all too much so we sold him for nothing.

League

We started the season fantastically winning 7 of our opening 10 games, though we did have a heavy defeat in those games with a 5-2 loss to Barnet. Throughout the season we did more or less maintain our strong form winning the majority of our matches. In spite of this, we didn’t actually spend much of the season atop the league table only reaching the summit (aside from early season) after game 39. Whilst we did win most of our games from that point on, I could sense our performances becoming a bit more of a struggle, but thankfully the teams we were playing were not fantastic, 2 of our last 4 having being relegated.

A loss in the penultimate match of the season however meant that the title fight would go to the last day between 3 teams with us in pole position but really still needing to win our final match to be sure the title would be ours. We scored early doors to put ourselves in a good position but couldn’t double our advantage before we were reduced to 10 men in the 70th minute. Despite our number disadvantage we did manage to score a second to put the game to bed late on, though ultimately it wouldn’t have mattered if we lost in the end as both Bath and Dartford failed to win on the final day and the title was ours.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the National League South is an easier division than the Northern equivalent.

Cups

This season the FA Cup was a carbon copy to last season, win the first two games against lower league opposition and lose in the last qualifier against a higher level team. Our FA Trophy adventure was better this time out as we finally reached the 5th round again, though probably could have gone further as we lost to Tonbridge in the 5th round who were in our division; incidentally Tonbridge are in the final against one of our title rivals in Dartford.

Youth Intake

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Another good youth intake with players for areas of the team we are low on depth.

Richard Chase 9  A very good goalkeeper, at least in terms of his technical ability. I’m not hugely a fan of eccentricity but other areas are very good for the level we’re at.

Glenn Lawal 9 One main thing to say about Lawal, he is very good on his physicals. His dribbling first touch and Work rate will need to improve a bit but he could be a very good player for us in the coming seasons.

Jack Jones 9  A decent base for him to be an option for us in defense in the coming years, but does certainly need to improve somewhat.

Key Players

Muhammadu FaalFaal had his best ever season for us, 41 goals and 15 assists in the league is an incredible return. Thankfully too, despite him soon turning 34 he is yet to decline much at all physically so can hopefully keep firing them in next season too.

Jason Clarke 2  Clarke is a very good defender for us, almost always putting in a good performance when he plays. The issue being he’s a walking suspension, he’s not had any injuries yet still missed 10 league games this season. His first 16 games resulting in 15 yellows, though thankfully he did slow his accumulation somewhat after that.

Marcus Giles 8He was straight into the first team after the intake last season but failed to score in his 8 matches and started this season off much the same – no goals after 10 games. Thankfully, my faith was then rewarded as he started registering goals and assists to help our promotion charge eventually ending up with 19 goals and 14 assists in the league and also became the first player without the surname of Faal to surpass 20 goals in all competitions in a season for us.

Infrastructure/Looking Ahead

We managed both an increase in youth recruitment and junior coaching this season and despite lack of a big cup run we made a decent profit this year. I actually think that is partially down to us being in the southern league as we are actually a southern based team really so less travel expenses I guess will have occurred.

In the off season I need to make some decisions about quite a few players on whether they will remain first choice or replaced with the youth. Maybe it is harsh to do so after our best ever season, but I feel some are at the top of their ability and perhaps we can leverage game time at a higher level to set us up better in the long haul. I may make another post here later on in places where I’ve a dilemma on who to play.

Next season, the aim has got to be to stay up, last time in the division we were woeful, this time I’m going to stay with my current formation which doesn’t really focus much on the defense and just aims for us to score as many as we can which I think will bode well for the players that we do have.

Notable Landmarks

Decided to add a new section for notable landmarks for the youth players, this update will have a few to catch up for the 9 seasons so far. There are a few who are in the middle of two landmarks that haven't been mentioned but these are the main ones.

Kieran Preece 1Became the first of the youth intake players to surpass 100 all time goals for the club with him netting his 101st goal this season. He also surpassed 400 appearances for the club and now has 407 in total. He also passed the 50 mark for assists last season and now sits at 58 in total.

Stephen O'Brien 1Surpassed 300 appearances for the club, now sits at 332 appearances.

Andrew Yates 3Passed the 200 appearance mark, now at 217.

Brandon Ibe 5Also reached the 200 appearances mark and this season passed the 50 mark for assists too.

Reiss Bolarinwa 6Passed the 100 appearance mark now at 143.

Oliver Morgan 7Passed the 100 appearance mark now at 104.

 

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Edited by _JHTB_
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49 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

@Neo_Geo Bloody Tromso!  I've only played in Norway once and that was with Tromso. I managed to p**s off my captain and the whole first team turned on me - I was sacked within a couple of months and never returned to the country.  Bad times

@XaW That's Denmark off the list then, that would ruin the save for me too. I see the bug has been acknowledged by SI, so I guess they may have fixed it.

I think ive decided to go 100% vanilla and the Norway db looks amazing so I think its time for me to get my revenge on Tromso.  I am going to hunt for a club, but if you have any suggestions (I think that's where you live, right?) then free to throw some at me.  I have done a quick search but immediately got distracted by the image below.  Sadly it seems there is no team that actually plays here.

image.png.2898df6bbcce3625a29b4a059842f054.png

Sorry for the spam everyone.  I am clearly getting bored without an FM save to occupy my time

I had a quick look and that's Henningsvær Stadium, and the only club that plays there are Henningsvær IL. Unfortunately for you they only have youth teams, so they are not even in my 10 tier database...

The closest team to me that eligible for this challenge is Follo FK. If you go deeper into the league structure then there are a few teams a bit closer, but only by a few minutes. According to Google Maps, I live 10 minutes by car from the home stadium of Follo FK, and that makes sense for me. I've watched a few matches with them before, but since covid hit everything stopped. And I haven't been to a match since...

I had a look at other clubs available in the vanilla database, and the first that came to mind was Lyn. The name means lightning, and they are also a fallen giant. They have won the top flight two times, and the cup 8 times. They were also the club that sold John Obi Mikel to Man Utd, err Chelsea in 2007. They folded in 2010 due to financial reason and was recreated later on. A more difficult one is NTNUI. This is basically a technical university's football team. And they are set top "always amateur", meaning you can never go semi-pro or pro... You also have Finnsnes, a team located quite far north. The same goes for Skjervøy. Other than that I don't see anyone I think I know any particular things about. There are a few funny names that allows for puns, like Ready, Frigg, Express, etc.

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9 minutes ago, XaW said:

I had a quick look and that's Henningsvær Stadium, and the only club that plays there are Henningsvær IL. Unfortunately for you they only have youth teams, so they are not even in my 10 tier database...

The closest team to me that eligible for this challenge is Follo FK. If you go deeper into the league structure then there are a few teams a bit closer, but only by a few minutes. According to Google Maps, I live 10 minutes by car from the home stadium of Follo FK, and that makes sense for me. I've watched a few matches with them before, but since covid hit everything stopped. And I haven't been to a match since...

I had a look at other clubs available in the vanilla database, and the first that came to mind was Lyn. The name means lightning, and they are also a fallen giant. They have won the top flight two times, and the cup 8 times. They were also the club that sold John Obi Mikel to Man Utd, err Chelsea in 2007. They folded in 2010 due to financial reason and was recreated later on. A more difficult one is NTNUI. This is basically a technical university's football team. And they are set top "always amateur", meaning you can never go semi-pro or pro... You also have Finnsnes, a team located quite far north. The same goes for Skjervøy. Other than that I don't see anyone I think I know any particular things about. There are a few funny names that allows for puns, like Ready, Frigg, Express, etc.

Thanks mate. I remember your Follo save. Might choose them and show you how it's done properly 😉.

I chose Tromso in my only previous Norway save because of their location in the Arctic circle. I think I'll check out the two northern ones you mentioned and see if there are any other northern ones. Will probably just go for the furthest north one to keep it simple, otherwise I'll procrastinate for days and days.

The always amateur option sounds brutal and might turn me off Norway for good, so probably best avoided for now!

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3 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

Thanks mate. I remember your Follo save. Might choose them and show you how it's done properly 😉.

Haha! Feel free! I'm still tempted to do one more try there, and I might do it if I get tired of Iceland!

3 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

I chose Tromso in my only previous Norway save because of their location in the Arctic circle. I think I'll check out the two northern ones you mentioned and see if there are any other northern ones. Will probably just go for the furthest north one to keep it simple, otherwise I'll procrastinate for days and days.

I think the two I highlighted are the most northern ones, but I might have missed some. The 6th sub division should contain most of the clubs from the north (and Oslo since it's easier to fly from Oslo to the north than other places).

6 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

The always amateur option sounds brutal and might turn me off Norway for good, so probably best avoided for now!

Yeah, that would be brutal, but thought I'd mention it, since it's a bit on the special side!

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@darren1983 @XaW

Can I holiday a couple of seasons to get a team?  They don't appear to be stronger than the options available at the end of the first season (lower rep and facilities etc.).  Fine if not, just want to check before trying to get back-to-back promotions for them.

XaW - I was going to go for Skjervoy as they're furthest north but then spotted that their u19s aren't in the u19 league.  Finnsnes u19 are in a league so would be my choice if I have to go for a 4th tier team.  I holidayed to 13 Jan 22 (haven't managed to get Finnsnes promoted yet) but have seen Skarp Tromso get promoted to the fourth tier, and now I'm wondering if I can do a double holiday and play as them.  Thanks for your suggestions by the way - I would still be fumbling around otherwise!

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3 minutes ago, JAwtunes said:

@darren1983 @XaW

Can I holiday a couple of seasons to get a team?  They don't appear to be stronger than the options available at the end of the first season (lower rep and facilities etc.).  Fine if not, just want to check before trying to get back-to-back promotions for them.

XaW - I was going to go for Skjervoy as they're furthest north but then spotted that their u19s aren't in the u19 league.  Finnsnes u19 are in a league so would be my choice if I have to go for a 4th tier team.  I holidayed to 13 Jan 22 (haven't managed to get Finnsnes promoted yet) but have seen Skarp Tromso get promoted to the fourth tier, and now I'm wondering if I can do a double holiday and play as them.  Thanks for your suggestions by the way - I would still be fumbling around otherwise!

Yeah, I think we have said you can holiday for long, as long as the team you select haven't been up into a playable tier in the mean time. So no team that has gone down while holidaying and popped back up. You have to correct me if I'm wrong @darren1983.

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Youth Intake Season 6

I had high hopes after the preview - exactly what we needed, a good goalkeeper and strikers.


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Final result


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And at least i got a decent GK talent in Gosciola 28A

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The striker Savio 28B is sadly slow and unambitious


   Screen-Shot-2022-07-08-12-20-46.64.png

 

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56 minutes ago, XaW said:

Yeah, I think we have said you can holiday for long, as long as the team you select haven't been up into a playable tier in the mean time. So no team that has gone down while holidaying and popped back up. You have to correct me if I'm wrong @darren1983.

Yeah holidaying is fine @JAwtunesas long as, as XaW says here, they have not been playable at any stage. 

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