Moneyballing My Way To A Champions League Title in Every European Nation Part X: The FM23 Experiment

[shaunvamos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

League and cup double secured  

 

 

 

Best XI

 

 

 

Lukáš Šulc  -  Andrea Marcato  -  Milan Málek

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Record Breakers

 

 

 

 

 

Award Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progress

 

 

[shaunvamos]

Austria's 2032 Euro Campaign

 

 

 

Squad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A slightly better starting XI than the World Cup, and also a year older on average.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've avoided all the big teams, but it's still a really tough group. Anyone can beat anyone on their day here. Poor Slovakia are going to get smashed though  

[shaunvamos]

Austria's 2032 Euro Campaign

 

Friendly

 

 

 

A massive win ahead of the Euro as we defeat 7th ranked Germany.

 

 

 

Group Stages

 

 

 

Well, this was unexpected! We won and won comfortably each game, not really giving the other sides a chance.

 

 

 

 

 

Holland are the only major casualty to depart in the Group Stage, a tragedy for one half of the host countries. Co-hosts Belgium narrowly avoided being eliminated as well!

 

 

 

 

 

We get a winnable tie against Bosnia, but two of Germany/England and Belgium/France will be leaving sooner than expected.

 

 

 

Second Round

 

 

 

We concede two 2nd half goals, but we're safely through to the quarter finals.

 

 

 

 

Belgium keep the hosts interested as they knock out France, and apart from Greece beating Poland there weren't too many weird results.

 

 

 

 

 

We'll probably exit at this stage, but Belgium have a great opportunity to make the semis.

 

 

 

Quarter Finals

 

 

 

Italy didn't even get a shot on target  We are through to the final 4!

 

 

 

 

 

Portugal knocked out England which is huge, Spain ruined any chances of a Greek 2004 repeat, and Belgium see Serbia away.

 

 

 

 

 

One of these teams doesn't belong. But hey, we were only expected to make the Second Round so who cares what happens?

 

 

 

Semi Finals

 

 

 

Holy crap, we're in the final!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Belgium required penalties to get past Spain, so they're arguably going to more tired than we are, and with one less day of recovery. This is going to be a nailbiter....

 

 

 

Final

 

 

 

Belgium just proved too good on the day, the hosts are champions! I'm really pleasantly surprised we made the final though, winning matches we had no business winning. What a tournament!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shaunvamos]

2032 Preseason

 

Transfers (Out)

 

 

 

Two huge sales, as Mainz meets Ozyurt's release clause and Benedetti heads for the riches of the Premier League. One major problem is that we've lost both our starting and backup DM in the same window for free. Brenner because he was waiting on a promise I made to him (give youth a chance up front to replace Sedlacek from last season), and was still waiting come January when I tried to renew  But overall we still made a profit of 9.65 so that's nice.

 

 

 

Transfers (In)

 

 

 

I waited until we received the transfer money from the big sales before recruiting, and as such we still have one more player to sign. Plenty of bargains here, and Kiedl, Drose and Peters will start until at least the winter break. Returning Wolfe player Hutka, Koschina and Chi Zhenhua will start from the bench.

 

 

 

Goalkeepers

 

 

 

 

 

Central Defenders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wing Backs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defensive Midfielder

 

 

 

 

 

Central Midfielders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strikers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salzburg weren't even in the Championship Group last season yet they're still predicted first. Cool.

[shaunvamos]

August 2032

 

Transfers (Out)

 

 

 

Just like that, our starting wingbacks have departed after just over a season for huge money and a 21m profit. Their loss will be felt, but that's why we have depth as I've mentioned before.

 

 

 

Transfers (In)

 

 

 

Our last player and second striker joins us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slow start, but the flogging of Salzburg was satisfying.

 

 

 

 

 

The FM gods are out to get me I swear, what a terrible group.

[RoguPL]

Took me good few days to catch up with this thread ! It's absolutely amazing great work !

I will try to partially introduce your calculations if you don't mind as I am wondering where my team is at. The only issue I see is what you have already mentioned prevoliously, where your calcs don't take into account potential of the player. Maybe adding a row where you calculate potential score by adding couple of points to each role attribute if the player is below 20? I know that there is loads of other factors that affect growth of the player but its an idea.

Since we have FM23 coming out in only few months now, are you going to continue this in FM23 ? Or do a different save ?  As someone mentioned before the lower you go, the harder it gets to win CL

An idea could be to do this then other way around, from worst league's to best ones 🤔.

[shaunvamos]

September 2032

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've gone top of the league, and we've had a goal packed start to the Champions League.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

We go from making the Euro final, beating teams like Portugal and Italy, to losing to Hungary. Hungary.

[shaunvamos]

October 2032

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty standard month, just me raging at the FM gods over this ridiculous group.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

Solid performances, but Hungary have really kicked on. 

[shaunvamos]

November 2032

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A win against Villarreal will put us into 3rd, but we had better hope Monaco don't beat Napoli.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

Hungary choked against Kosovo, so we're back into the Euro League A  

[shaunvamos]

1 hour ago, RoguPL said:

Took me good few days to catch up with this thread ! It's absolutely amazing great work !

I will try to partially introduce your calculations if you don't mind as I am wondering where my team is at. The only issue I see is what you have already mentioned prevoliously, where your calcs don't take into account potential of the player. Maybe adding a row where you calculate potential score by adding couple of points to each role attribute if the player is below 20? I know that there is loads of other factors that affect growth of the player but its an idea.

Since we have FM23 coming out in only few months now, are you going to continue this in FM23 ? Or do a different save ?  As someone mentioned before the lower you go, the harder it gets to win CL

An idea could be to do this then other way around, from worst league's to best ones 🤔.

 

Thanks for the kind words!

 

Absolutely, ever since I realised that stars are not a very good indicator of ability I found that using analytics has helped gauge how good players are at what they're supposed to do, so feel free to do something similar! Just if you do publicise it on your Polish save (which I'm a massive fan of) I'd ask you credit my work, had a couple of issues with that sort of thing in the past where people made slight changes to the spreadsheet and essentially tried to promote it as their own creation with only the smallest mention of me.

 

Yeah potential is kinda tough to predict, just like in real life I guess (how many wonderkids fulfilled their potential after all!), the best I've done is filtered personality down into the ones that are considered more positive. But, if they're good enough and they perform well they don't have to develop much to make you some good money whether for your team or when you sell them on for profit.

 

I think I will keep doing this for FM23, but recruit as a combination of form and ability according to the formula. I have this grand idea to run a whole bunch of data and code to guess which statistics contribute to the best average rating for each position and then go from there. But that'll be done during the FM23 beta I think.

 

The harder then challenge is the better I think, once I got to the top divisions early on success was pretty much guaranteed, but I like playing the smaller countries and seeing them get better over time  

[RoguPL]

8 hours ago, shaunvamos said:

 

Thanks for the kind words!

 

Absolutely, ever since I realised that stars are not a very good indicator of ability I found that using analytics has helped gauge how good players are at what they're supposed to do, so feel free to do something similar! Just if you do publicise it on your Polish save (which I'm a massive fan of) I'd ask you credit my work, had a couple of issues with that sort of thing in the past where people made slight changes to the spreadsheet and essentially tried to promote it as their own creation with only the smallest mention of me.

 

Yeah potential is kinda tough to predict, just like in real life I guess (how many wonderkids fulfilled their potential after all!), the best I've done is filtered personality down into the ones that are considered more positive. But, if they're good enough and they perform well they don't have to develop much to make you some good money whether for your team or when you sell them on for profit.

 

I think I will keep doing this for FM23, but recruit as a combination of form and ability according to the formula. I have this grand idea to run a whole bunch of data and code to guess which statistics contribute to the best average rating for each position and then go from there. But that'll be done during the FM23 beta I think.

 

The harder then challenge is the better I think, once I got to the top divisions early on success was pretty much guaranteed, but I like playing the smaller countries and seeing them get better over time  

Thanks ! 

Don't worry :-) I will not be stealing it and promoting as my creation :-) i just wanted to use it in the background for my indication :-) 

But if i ever do I will make sure that you are fully credited. :-) Also if I find something that might be of use to you I will PM you :-) 

All the best !

[zaro]

Really good!

[shaunvamos]

December 2032

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We somehow come out of this group with a spot in the Europa League knockouts!

 

 

 

 

 

Only to draw the most successful club in Europa League history  

 

 

 

 

[shaunvamos]

Winter Break/February 2033

 

Transfers (Out)

 

 

Rapid have definitely overpaid for Ferreira, but we'll pocket the 1.5m in profit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An unbeaten return to the league, but Salzburg loom as the competition prepares to halve the points.

 

 

 

 

 

After an excellent performance against Sevilla, we get Mainz, currently 13th in the Bundesliga. 

[shaunvamos]

2033 Youth Intake

 

 

 

Kevin Franz 12A  -  Leon Funk 12B  -  Max Hartmann 12C

 

 

Four guys look like they can make a solid difference down the line, but we'll see how they develop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shaunvamos]

March 2033

 

 

 

 

 

Off to a winning start in the league split, and we see off Mainz to reach the Europa League quarter finals yet again.

 

 

 

 

 

I think Roma will beat us, but they haven't finished higher than 6th in the Serie A for 4 seasons, so there's a chance. Nice of Rapid to join us at this stage too!

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

Two strong wins in a group where only Italy are better than us. Licking my lips at the prospect of San Marino too, wonder how many goals we can score against them?

[shaunvamos]

April 2033

 

 

 

 

 

We have one hand on the league trophy, and one foot in an unprecedented Europa League final. Can we do both?

[shaunvamos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty comfortable league win, and we got all the way to the Europa League final where Dortmund proved far too strong, we never looked like having a chance. Still, a final is a final!

 

 

 

Best XI

 

 

 

Lukáš Šulc  -  Andreas Oswald  -  Andrea Marcato

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Record Breakers

 

 

 

 

 

Award Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progress

 

 

[shaunvamos]

2033 Preseason

 

Transfers (In)

 

 

 

Believe it or not, we've managed to hold onto everyone at this stage, but that will change. The only transfer out is Kosa, who is loaned back to the club we bought him from. We also bring back familiar face Michael Grahl, who returns after two full seasons in the Bundesliga for less than we sold him for. 

 

 

 

Goalkeeper

 

 

 

 

 

Central Defenders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wing Backs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defensive Midfielder

 

 

 

 

Central Midfielders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strikers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still not predicted 1st despite being the most reputable Austrian club.

[shaunvamos]

August 2033

 

Transfers (Out)

 

 

 

A few big money moves here, As we lose starting CBs, and our keeper. An overall profit of 11.85m, but we've been weakened as a result. We'll see by how much as the season progresses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A great start to the season, but Ried, LASK, Sturm Graz and Salzburg also get off to good starts.

 

 

 

 

This is just getting ridiculous now. I do think we can get out of this group, but to draw Ajax as a 4th seed team is just silly.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

We only put 8 past San Marino and they scored  

[shaunvamos]

September 2033

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good start continues in the league, but Milan remind us we're not quite there amongst Europe's elite yet.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

San Marino beat Azerbaijan!!!!

[shaunvamos]

October 2033

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One draw, and Salzburg are breathing down our neck, and then in the Champions League we've beaten Ajax! Is this the year we progress?

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

We draw with Slovenia at home, but then we go on to smash Italy 3-0! If we win our final two games against Finland and San Marino we'll qualify.

[shaunvamos]

November 2033

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're pulling away from Salzburg slowly, and we've finally qualified for the Champions League knockouts! Milan were still far too good, but they've consistently been in the semi finals the last few seasons and were runners up in 2030.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

We qualify for the World Cup, and Italy fail to qualify despite finishing 3rd in 2030!

[Koetzer]

13 minutes ago, shaunvamos said:

We qualify for the World Cup, and Italy fail to qualify despite finishing 3rd in 2030!

Sounds like real Italy  

[shaunvamos]

7 minutes ago, Koetzer said:

Sounds like real Italy  

European qualifying is just so tough, so many teams that should be there fail to qualify by the slimmest of margins. Makes things like this fun to point out though!

[shaunvamos]

December 2033

 

 

 

 

 

We finish our Champions League group on a high, and it's on to the knockouts.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, this is a rude welcome to the knockouts  

 

 

 

 

 

Do I dare to dream?

[shaunvamos]

Winter Break/February 2034

 

Transfers (Out)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We fall to City in the first leg, but let's see how we go in England.

[shaunvamos]

2034 Youth Intake

 

 

 

Adnan Vrhovac 13A*  -  Luca Alhammer 13B  -  Antun Ivičić 13C

 

 

My HOYD lied to me. It might be time to move him on...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shaunvamos]

March 2034

 

 

 

 

 

The league has split, and now we're out of the Champions League it's our full focus.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

Disappointed to lose to the Czechs, but it is only a friendly.

[shaunvamos]

April 2034

 

 

 

 

 

The Threepeat is all but ours at this point  

[shaunvamos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first ever invincible league season in FM22  

 

 

 

Best XI

 

 

 

Lukáš Šulc  -  Julius Peters  -  Zhenhua Chi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Record Breakers

 

 

 

 

 

Award Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progress

 

 

[shaunvamos]

Austria's 2034 World Cup Campaign

 

 

 

Squad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A starting XI that is slightly better than 2 years ago with the exact same average age, a positive sign. St. Pölten also has a healthy representation with 5 current players selected as well as one from our academy, 3 of which are in the starting XI. RB Salzburg still dominate the development side of things, but Admira Wacker and Wacker Innsbruck also contributed more than one player. Apart from Thomas Tauer, who is proof that quality players exist in lower divisions (the Austrian 3rd tier I believe), everyone is playing in one of the top 15 European leagues, an impressive feat for a team ranked 17th in the world.

 

 

 

Groups

 

 

 

 

I fully expect to win our group against debutants Dominican Republic and deceptively dangerous DR Congo. I wouldn't want to be anyone in Group H either.

 

 

 

Notable Omissions (Top 32)

 

Italy (8th): Finished behind us in their WCQ group, and 7th out of the Second Placed teams. 6 qualify.

Turkey (21st): Finished behind Portugal in their WCQ group, and 9th out of the Second Placed teams.

Tunisia (27th): Finished behind Ivory Coast in their WCQ group, and 5th out of the Second Placed teams. 3 qualify.

Switzerland (29th): Finished behind Germany in their WCQ group, and 8th out the Second Placed teams.

Mali (30th): Finished behind Ivory Coast and Tunisia in their WCQ group.

   

 

 

[zethani]

Planning on moving on from your current GK? It seems the weak link of the chain.

The Austrian media must have had a field day with a squad list including a player from the regional leagues ahahah

[shaunvamos]

Austria's 2034 World Cup Campaign

 

Friendlies

 

 

 

We make a successful trip to Africa, defeating both Morocco and Cameroon before heading to Japan.

 

 

 

Group Stages

 

 

 

Absolutely flawless in the group stages, and we head into the knockouts as 1st seed.

 

 

 

 

 

It's been a pretty bland World Cup so far in terms of upsets, but that's what the knockout games are for.

 

 

 

 

Wasn't early enough to capture the draw, but USA are already through. I think we have enough to handle the Koreans but they're always going to be dangerous.

 

 

 

Second Round

 

 

 

What a statement in the opening knockout round  

 

 

 

 

 

And here come the upsets   Belgium, Brazil and Argentina depart earlier than expected, and Germany needed extra time to beat Wales.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not super confident against Uruguay, but we've achieved the minimum expectations so I'm keeping my job. England and Germany is definitely the game of the round though.

 

 

 

Third Round

 

 

 

We had the chance to win it, but not to be.

 

 

 

 

 

Holland, Colombia and Germany are among the bug names that join us on the plane home.

 

 

 

Quarter Finals

 

 

 

England look set to make it 3 World Cup wins in a row as they smash France, the Czech's dream run falls to America who are having their own dream run, Uruguay also reach the last 4 as Portugal knock the Spanish out.

 

 

 

Semi Finals

 

 

 

USA pushed England, but couldn't get it over the line, and Portugal smash Uruguay to make their first ever final.

 

 

 

Final

 

 

 

It's come home for the 3rd straight time  USA finish 3rd after an ET win over Uruguay.

[shaunvamos]

On 02/09/2022 at 17:53, zethani said:

Planning on moving on from your current GK? It seems the weak link of the chain.

The Austrian media must have had a field day with a squad list including a player from the regional leagues ahahah

Yeah keeper is definitely the weak point, not too many options available that are stronger, but I'll see what I can do.

 

They'd be pleased to know he didn't play any games in the World Cup  

[shaunvamos]

2034 Preseason

 

Transfers Out

 

 

 

Pretty quiet window so far, as we cash in on some academy players. Overall we've made a profit of only 765k.

 

 

 

Transfers In

 

 

 

We're at the point now where we should be concentrating our resources on improving the team immediately and hoping the academy players develop underneath as depth. Despite that we've still spent wisely transfer-wise, but had to pay huge wages. Hopefully they justify them. We also bring back Alessio Bamonte for what we sold him for, but we collect money back due to a sell-on fee  

 

 

 

Goalkeeper

 

 

 

 

 

Right Wing Back

 

 

 

 

 

Central Midfielder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A disappointing preseason as B team fixtures made players ineligible, and despite our invincible season we're still predicted 2nd.

[shaunvamos]

August 2034

 

Transfers Out

 

 

 

This window hurt. A few backups leave, but the big blow is the departure of Andreas Oswald. 167 games, 103 goals, and every one of his 43 caps were achieved when he was here. What eases the pain is that we only bought him for 1.3m, so at least we made a solid profit, which ended up being 16.5m when including everyone.

 

 

 

Transfers In

 

 

 

The departure of Oswald meant finding a replacement at short notice, and former backup De Pascalis is brought back to the club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We send RB Salzburg a very early message that they'd better step up if they want to regain the title.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, an excellent group  I feel very confident we can make the knockouts this season, but the same can't be said for Salzburg. Tough group there.

[shaunvamos]

September 2034

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have won every one of our competitive games so far this season, including a win at Camp Nou over Barcelona  Are we finally challenging the bigger sides?

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

We surprisingly score 3 against England, but this is a group we can compete in.

[RoguPL]

Wow Iceland in Nations League group A. 

[shaunvamos]

October 2034

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've finally drawn a game this season, but we have 3 wins from 3 in the Champions League so far.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just glad we kept England close.

[shaunvamos]

35 minutes ago, RoguPL said:

Wow Iceland in Nations League group A. 

Yeah they managed to beat out Sweden to promotion on goal difference, but still ranked 63rd in the world  

[shaunvamos]

November 2034

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salzburg refuse to go away, and our first loss of the season comes at the hands of Hungarian champions Ferencvaros surprisingly.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

Safe in the Euro League for another season  

Edited September 4, 2022 by shaunvamos

[shaunvamos]

December 2034

 

 

 

 

 

We won our Champions League group!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Even though Sociedad aren't a traditionally excellent team, they've been a force in this save, finishing in the top 3 of La Liga 8 out of the last 10 seasons. Kudos for Young Boys for qualifying as well above Dortmund and Ajax. RB Salzburg drop down to the Europa League, finishing above Roma on goal difference.

 

 

 

 

 

This is not excellent.

[Emozil]

absolutely loving the series!

[shaunvamos]

Winter Break/February 2035

 

Transfers Out

 

 

 

We make a profit of 1.3m on transfers, which is nice for a January. A couple of big moves out scheduled for the end of the season too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's been a weird month for results, but are still unbeaten domestically. We also head to Austria with a home advantage over Sociedad in the second leg.

[shaunvamos]

2035 Youth Intake

 

 

 

Oliver Tschofen 14A  - Dieter Kulovits 14B*  -  Franz Schneider 14C

 

It wasn't as excellent as my HOYD suggested, but it may also not be as bad. We'll see. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shaunvamos]

March 2035

 

 

 

 

 

A poor month domestically, as we lose our first domestic games in nearly two seasons.

 

 

 

 

 

On the continental front we're doing much better, and based on our performance against Leipzig two seasons ago in the Europa League semis (we won) we have every reason to believe we can reach the last 4.

[shaunvamos]

April 2035

 

 

 

 

 

Out of the Champions League, and once again it's a battle between us and RB Salzburg for the title.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

We have 3 difficult opponents in this group, and we've already lost to one. It'll be a tough one.

[shaunvamos]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four titles in a row  But we still aren't dominating which I'm kinda glad about.

 

 

 

Best XI

 

 

 

Lukáš Šulc  -  Zhenhua Chi  -  Alessio Bamonte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Record Breakers

 

 

 

 

 

Award Winners

 

 

 

 

 

 

Progress

 

 

[shaunvamos]

2035 Preseason

 

Outs

 

 

 

A big cleanout here, some of it involuntary as backups refused to sign new contracts. Overall, we've lost one of our starting strikers and one of the starting CBs, a backup CB, both our backup STs, backup LWB, 3rd RWB, 5th ST, and a whole bunch of youth products, as well as 4th CM Radojicic who was released. Focus will now turn to our youth products in the hope they can make the jump with more game time. The good thing that's come from this is that we made a profit of 21.7m.

 

 

 

Ins

 

 

 

We couldn't find a replacement for Kovacec, so it's just Chi Zhenhua that's replaced by German wonderkid Felix Weber for 17m upfront plus instalments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the only 4* club in the nation and the four time defending champions, we are still not predicted first. We did lose a bunch of players, but this is ridiculous.

 

 

 

National Team

 

 

 

 

 

Another loss, and now I'm seriously concerned that we won't qualify.

Edited September 6, 2022 by shaunvamos