Struggling with Zaragoza Save in Season 3. Any Advice?

[Peerez05]

Hi all,

 

I feel like I'm hitting a wall with my Real Zaragoza save. I'm in my third season, I won La Liga 2. in my first season, finished 6th in La Liga in my second and so far I'm in 10th in my third season, into the first knockout round of the Europa League and in the Semi Final of the Copa Del Rey versus Levante, so I fancy my chances.

 

My main issue is that the large majority of my squad is still made up of the same players I had in La Liga 2., I'm pretty devoid of quality and my squad is stretched pretty thin now I am fighting in 3 competitions. The board will not give me any money for transfers and I don't see any money coming in to the club that will change that, either from competitions or sponsorship deals, it's making it really hard to keep going as I cannot improve my squad and am having to rely on loans to inject any real quality into the side, but these are short term fixes. I am able to add maybe one or two players per season but it's not yet having any impact on my team as they are too few and far between, and they are on the cheap as I just don't have the money to spend, so I'm buying potential more than established quality.

I have Brenner up front and he is a man possessed, scoring 34 league goals in his first season and is on course for more than that in his second, with 31 in February. I managed to get him to sign a new deal in the summer with a £65mil release clause and would reluctantly let him go if that was met, but while he's now attracting bids from the big boys; Bayern, Real Madrid, Man U etc. they're making derisory bids of c.£25m (his value is £60-65m) and he's now unsettled, I managed to ride through the January window with him and while he's now unhappy he's still banging in the goals. I had Moukoko on loan last season and he was incredible, but he wouldn't come back and I didn't have any money to bring in a new striker to partner Brenner, so I'm now playing a distinctly average academy player and have no strikers as back up, to give you an idea as to how thin and destitute my squad is haha.

I know the only way out of this is to sell Brenner, but without him my team is very poor for a team in Europe, and let's be honest no one wants to spend years languishing in mid table. I know by selling him for a good fee I can reinvest some of that money into the squad and slowly build my way up, but I honestly worry about relegation without him carrying us, and if no one is going to pay his value, it isn't really going to help me.

 

Is it just a La Liga issue? I usually play with Plymouth Argyle as they are my local team, and by the time I am in the PL they money is flowing pretty regularly and I am able to consistently improve the team, but I know the PL is the exception is terms of financial rewards. I see teams around me like Real Sociedad or Espanyol spending £10-15m on a player but my transfer budget is £1.01m and with a projection of £3.5m for the summer, so I'll never be able to afford the type of quality and quantity to keep taking the team to the next level, I honestly feel pretty stuck with no way forward, and if I sell Brenner for £65m I have to absolutely nail the transfers with c.£40m I'll get from it, otherwise I've lost probably the best striker in the world and my team will be worse off.

 

Part of me is considering resigning and trying for another job, or even starting again as another team. I think I'll see out this season and see what I can do when I inevitably sell Brenner, part of me likes the challenge while the other part of me is very frustrated by the fact I can't do the 'fun bit' of FM in buying wonderkids and signing players to increase the quality and grow the club, I've just never had it before where consistently winning and achieving isn't yielding any financial returns and it's making it not very fun.

 

Any advice on what I should do? Sell Brenner of course, but anything else that can be done?

[KlaaZ]

Might be worth taking a look at the money spent vs received on transfers by Espanol. Could be that they're spending mostly from outgoings.

That said, patience is a virtue. Scouting is key, identifying key youngsters from smaller clubs when they're still affordable. Making big outgoing deals and reinvesting that money in potential youngsters is usually the way to go, until you get into the Champions League which will be a big revenue boost. But contrary to England, this generally takes time.

[kentonizking]

Scout colombia and Brazil, try and get a couple young wonderkids from them every season (if your scout scope isn't global then do the same with Eastern European nations like Hungary or serbia) - they either make your team better or you can sell them for a profit. Repeat this every year. 

Use your maximum amount of loan signings - negotiate cleverly at the end of a transfer window to get better wage deals.

Also check out Zealands content on YouTube. He's the master

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by kentonizking

[DarJ]

You can sign good young players for free if you offer them around 40-50% of profit from a next same. 
you need to go to the transfer list and look for players that are still reasonably young and transfer listed then offer £0 up front with around 40-50% of next sale. Teams will usually agree but the down side is if you seek those players you only get half of the money but in the situation you’re in it might still be useful for you to move all your transfer budget to the wage budget then do this