Od Skromnih Početaka - A Youth Only Challenge in Serbia

[Marazola]

Hello everyone, this is a new save I am starting. After completing the youth only in Lesotho and Rwanda a few years ago, I decided to try my luck in Europe. I decided to use nearly all the rules from the SI forum official Y/O challenge. I have to take over a newly promoted team, I must use a domestic manager as the nationality, I can only use my youth academy to feed the team, etc. The only rules I am altering are:

- I can have the masking off.

- I can only sign players if they spawned at the club. This is a rule I am setting now in case I change my mind and don't cheat later on if I want a rule change. Regardless, I will do my best to not use this rule at all.

- I can manage national teams. I have never won the World Cup in FM, and I don't mind trying to do so with Serbia.

I am doing the sim now and will update shortly on which teams I get.

[Marazola]

Here we go.

I plan on using my former Pentagon Challenge counter attacking system, which requires fast wingers and a fast Advanced Forward. So I'm gonna analyze the choice thoroughly. I don't really care if it's a weaker team or not, but I need to know that I have the right material to work with.

I've decided to go for Jedinstvo, who are 50-1 to go up.

So we're 50-1 to win the league as I mentioned, predicted to finish 3rd from last. I expect us to survive comfortably with what I have, but I also expect us to not even come close to going up.

This is our best player. I am not sure on what the average pace and acceleration is, but for my tactic pace is more important than acceleration itself. I will have to analyze whether 11 pace is enough to make the opposing full backs struggle.

Next up, our forward

My type of striker, and he fits in well in my system. Probably my quickest player too, but his dribbling isn't good enough to be converted into a winger I don't think. So he's gonna stick around in that "9" spot.

And finally

Not a key player to the system but a key player in terms of quality. Very well rounded, and he's gonna be important no matter the formation I use.

Our squad is pretty big and that was a big reason I decided to choose these over the other 3. Only Buducnost (P) was able to compete with a decent squad.

This is the system. I used this as Cape Town and it's pretty effective, but I will need pace on the sides and this save really relies on luck when it comes to attributes. So I'll likely have to make a lot of tweaks over time, and it might start now if I find dthe players aren't fast enough. The idea is to kill the opposition on the break.

[Marazola]

We've played into October so far, and we've had a decent start.

Before that, let's highlight the most important thing that's happened since we started.

I sadly couldn't get my Junior Coaching up as well, but managed to convince them with the Youth Recruitment. We're at Average now which is a relatively high level if I recall correctly. We still haven't had our youth intake preview yet, so this is a good start really.

As for our results...

We don't score very many but we don't concede a lot either. It's kind of going as I expected. A lot of draws . Marinkovic who I presented above has been a tad disappointing to be honest. I expected more than 3 goals with his attribute spread and how it fits this system. Otherwise I'd say my best player was Aleksandr Jankovic, who is a strange player. He clearly has a Balkans name, or just Serbian if I'm being ignorant, yet he's from Cape Verde. I do wonder about his backstory considering he is a real player. He has 3 assists so far.

Lukovic who I also presented above has been doing well. He's been playing in BWM instead of right back because I'm a bit short on that position. Don't really have anyone outside of him there.

As for the table...

8th and above get into the promotion group and below that into the relegation group. There is clearly a split as I've studied within the rules, and I think 8th is possible. More realistically we'll probably hit 10th at most, but I'm curious to see if we can deny the odds. We've dropped in the season preview into 2nd bottom, understandably because the other teams have been signing players while I cannot.

 

[Marazola]

We've hit the winter break.

I hate to admit it, but Marinkovic isn't working. I've had to play Mihailo Dordevic on the right and in striker instead and with his non-existent speed he's been way more useful. This game never fails to surprise me. Marinkovic in theory should be way better thanks to his decent speed but he's just not working hard enough. The rest has been pretty similar, and that discovery with Dordevic has improved my form a lot. It's been kind of close, but we should survive relegation here.

[Marazola]

Season isn't completely finished yet, but we did manage this:

[Marazola]

Great end to the season. April was kind of rough but we came back from winter break even better than before. Overall the season had a few revelations. Dordevic was superb, and I initially had no faith in him. Jankovic also ended pretty well. The only one who lived up to pre-season expectation was Lukic. He was about as good and important as I expected!

Vesic did improve near the end mind you, he had a weak season overall but he showed up a lot more after the winter break. 3 goals and 7 assists this season for him.

As for the intake, it was a disappointing first intake to be honest. We got a keeper with potential to play in the Serbian 2nd tier, same with the midfielder we got with no physicals essentially.

I signed up the other prospects just to fill up the numbers, but they are so bad it isn't even worth showing them at the moment.

[Marazola]

Some good news before the new season:

[Dan1884]

Decent read this. Best of luck!