[FM23] C.D. Santa Clara - Taking Moneyball to the Mid-Atlantic [No Attributes]

[kdavva74]

C.D. Santa Clara - Taking Moneyball to the Mid-Atlantic

The statistical side of Football Manager has improved massively in recent years, with the introduction of recruitment and data analysts and the Data Hub. It's now much easier to play FM using the 'Moneyball' technique and that's what I will be attempting in this save. Moreover, I will be attempting the challenge without the use of any attributes, and it will all be based on statistics, scouting reports and my staff's opinions of a player's ability.

Moneyball is of course a well-known and arguably overused term nowadays in sport. The concept started in baseball, and largely involves using key statistics and performance indicators to sign players that may be undervalued due to traditional scouting methods, in order to compete with teams on a higher budget. The Oakland A's were the first notable proponents of the Moneyball system, before the Boston Red Sox won the World Series using a similar system. Now, clubs like Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion and Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium have become notorious for utilising advanced statistics to uncover 'hidden gems' from across Europe and the world and have profited both financially and competitively from the venture. Essentially all elite teams and the vast majority of professional clubs use advanced stats in some capacity to inform their transfer dealings.

When choosing my club, I was inspired by Union SG. They are owned by Tony Bloom, who also owns Brighton & Hove Albion, and the Belgian side almost won the Jupiler Pro League on a much smaller budget than their rivals thanks to their willingness to look further than just the top leagues in Europe, with some of their signings coming from places like the Sky Bet League Two, German 3.Liga, French Ligue 2 or even more far flung locations such as Israel or Japan. I decided to choose a club that didn't play in the top 5 leagues or their respective league systems, but rather one of the 'secondary' European football leagues, which basically boils down to Portugal, Netherlands and Belgium. Due to USG already being the 'Moneyball' team in Belgium, and the Netherlands only have two tiers, Portugal was the go. The team I ended up choosing was C.D. Santa Clara, based on the Azores Islands some 1,400km west of Lisbon in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

C.D. Santa Clara are the biggest club in the Azores. They have had two stints in the Portuguese first division, most recently getting promoted in 2017/18, and are the westernmost top-flight club in Europe. They also competed in the UEFA Conference League last season, making them the westernmost club to play in a continental competition as well. They play out of the Estádio de São Miguel, a 13,277 capacity stadium in Ponta Delgado, which is the biggest city in the Azores. Their main rivals are their Azorian neighbours CD Operario, and they also have derbies against Madeira's two major clubs, Nacional and Maritimo.

Aside from their interesting location, the board expectations at Santa Clara are pretty conducive to what I want to achieve. They want us to work within our means, which is a key component of the Moneyball strategy, as well as grow the club's reputation, which is something that we should be doing if all goes to plan. Offering long contracts to old players won't be a part of my philosophy anyway, so that's fine, and a minimum of two-year contracts for first team players is certainly something I would be able to adhere to.

In terms of the board culture, signing players from the lower levels of the domestic game will 100% be a key component of my transfer dealings, especially in the early parts of the save. Signing players under the age of 20 can be slightly more difficult, as many of the 'value' players will not be getting that much first team action and it will be a lot harder to gauge their ability without attributes and with them playing in junior leagues. Fortunately this is just a 'favoured' thing from the board, and it won't be the be-all and end-all of the save.

The supporter's culture wants us to play entertaining football, which I plan on doing, as well as signing players from Brazil. Signing players from South America is definitely going to be an aim of this save, as Portugal is a traditional gateway for talented players from South America to get to Europe, thanks to the lax registration laws.

I am by no means a gifted football student, nor am I a mathematical genius or statistical savant, but I have done a bit of research into Moneyball itself as well as how you can implement it into the game. My main sources of inspiration for this save, were The Cult of FM's new FM series on YouTube attempting the same challenge (Moneyball w/ no attributes) but with Paris FC, as well as FMStag's blog post What does “good” look like in FM23? Thanks to the advancements in statistics and data in the game recently, I'll be using the philosophies espoused by these two players as well as some of my own in order to implement a Moneyball system.

I have a fair few leagues loaded, but not too many that my laptop struggles. There's of course the four divisions of Portugal, along with the top two divisions in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. I've also loaded the top leagues of Belgium, Netherlands, Brazil and Argentina, which should give me an excellent scouting base to find players. Finally, I have included editor files for the Angolan, Cape Verdean and Mozambique leagues. Although South America will be a major focus, I'd also like to find some hidden gems from the Lusophone nations of Africa, as they have always had a big part to play in Portuguese football.

The Cult of FM and FMStag utilise similar scouting techniques, and I'll be drawing on both of them to find players for the first team. I'll be identifying the board expectations and my own expectations of where we should be finishing, and comparing the data points of key players from clubs that have finished in those positions to give me an idea of what level of player I should be aiming for. FMStag's analysis has also provided some 'baseline' statistics that I should be aiming for when I look for players, depending on what level I'm currently playing at.

I want to be identifying players who are achieving a number of key performance indicators for their position and role, and then finding the best value out of that potential shortlist of players. I will also have scouting reports and agent inquiries to help guide me, but the main port of call will always be the Data Hub and my recruitment analysts.

[kdavva74]

C.D. Santa Clara - Taking Moneyball to the Mid-Atlantic

Now that we're in place at Santa Clara, it's time to get the club set-up and ready to tackle our first season in the Portuguese top flight. For the first season, due to a lack of data, I won't be focusing too much on transfers and scouting, and instead I'll be looking at my own players' data to get the most out of what I have at my disposal right now.

Santa Clara have been challenging for European spots for the last couple of seasons, but due to the departure of a couple of key players, they're expected to finish mid-table and possibly even be threatened by relegation. I'd like to think we can outperform the newly promoted sides like Rio Ave and Casa Pia and push into the top half of the table though. With an average age of about 25, we're in the middle of the pack but I'd like to bring that down at some point. A Determined squad personality is great to see as well.

These will be the players I have at my disposal for the first season; as you can see there are a lot of Brazilian players including a few on loan. In future, I don't want to focus too heavily on loans, unless we can get a really top level player for a cheap wage. I'd rather stick with cheap transfers that I can then sell-on for a larger fee in the future, and build the club's balance that way.

Our best player is the club's big summer signing, Xavi Quintilla, from Villareal and originally a La Masia product. He's highly rated by the coaches, and according to them he's a fantastic technical player that lacks strength and height, so he'll be our starting left back for a while. Victor Bobsin was also signed in the summer, from Brazilian club Gremio, and he looks like our main playmaker at the moment. He's a dedicated and committed player and the coaches have noted his passing ability. Anderson Carvalho meanwhile has been at the club for a while, and is the current captain. He's less adventurous than Bobsin, but has a harder edge to him, and looks to be a good ball winning midfielder according to the coaches.

Throughout the season I'll be able to show you some more of the players, but considering there's no attributes to glean from, there's not too much to look into at the moment.

 

Tactics have never been my strong suit in this game but I'm going to try to build one from scratch to accentuate my best players. I've decided to try and stick to some football 'archetypes' that will make it easier for me to identify key stats and KPIs, and fortunately most of my players fit into these and it forms a relatively cohesive tactic. I'll go into the archetypes and their KPIs in more detail later on, but here's the quick list of archetypes covered by the tactic:

GK (D): Goalkeeper
FB (S): Full Back
CD (D): Stopper
WB (A): Wing Back
DLP (S): Creator
BWM (D): Destroyer
IF (A): Wide Striker
IW (S): Wide Provider
DLF (A): Forward Provider
AF (A): Goalscorer

It's a pretty well-rounded squad according to my coaches, but there'll be plenty of rotation early on as I try to find my best team.

The players were predictably apprehensive of my lack of experience, but were all on board with my expectations of a mid-table finish, so it's good to have the player, the fans and the board all on the same page. We also promised to improve the backroom staff, which I'll show below.

I left the coaching staff largely alone, aside from bringing in my own assistant manager and a couple of performance analysts, since it's pretty hard to gauge when there's no attributes. The scouting department in comparison was largely empty, so I brought in seven new staff members there to make up my scouting and recruiting teams. Again, with no attributes I mainly aimed for scouting knowledge across the world, and I have some good coverage now across Portugal, the rest of Europe, South America and Africa.

Finally, here's a look at our finances at the moment. The club sold a few players in the off-season but Xavi Quintilla was a sizeable outlay, so we have a balance of £1m at the moment. The projection is that we'll be about £4.7m in debt by the end of the season, so we'll need to be frugal and potentially sell some players if we can afford to lose them. We're spending within our means in regards to wages, and although there's a decent transfer budget to use I'm not going to touch it until we get some solid data points.

Edited January 15, 2023 by kdavva74

[canhsatgiaothong]

I'm really enjoying reading the moneyball series. Would it be possible for you to continue writing about it so I can see how you find the player you need?