(Returning player to FM Series) Has anyone managed to seriously improve a league standing in European club competitions?

[Freeman21]

Just came back to the series after a ~5 year break. Just curios if the game has improved in this regard. Assuming great success for your club and a long save game (10-20+ years), can you actually "push up" a rather low/average league in Europe to the top of the continent?

 

IIRC, in previous games, even if I had success with a club in a low league (let's say the Czech or the Romanian league), it would still be pretty much impossible to compete with top leagues (Spain, England, Italia, etc) simply because of the financial side of the game: way less income for clubs in lower nations + players in lower nations are way undervalued compared to similar players in big nations (for example, a player worth 2 mil in Romania would be worth ~15 mil in Spain).

 

Also, the natural lower Potential Ability of players being static in lower nations didn't help.

[turnip]

Yes, you can improve the standing of the league. 

You can also improve the Youth Rating but it's really slow. I coached Poland to win the Nations League and the Youth Rating didn't improve at all. 

[dalenichol]

I'm currently trying to do it with Luxembourg but it's definitely a long term project depending on the nation you choose. 

It's been fairly straightfoward with the club, 7 titles in 8 seasons. Regularly in the group stages (well, league stage now) of European competitions and we have some really good players and good facilities coming along, but it's trying to get the rest of the league up that requires a lot of work and is what holds up back. 

As a general rule I don't stand in the way of middling players from my club going to league rivals and when we've got a bit more money I'll start buying players from rivals (not their best players) to try and fund them a bit more and drag the league up. League is currently ranked 52nd in Europe, but that's up from 80th or so at the start 

[Maviarab]

Yeah it's called a 'Building a Nation' save.

[DarJ]

10 hours ago, Maviarab said:

Yeah it's called a 'Building a Nation' save.

To add to that, it doesn't only depend on you winning and doing well. Other teams in your league have to do well in Europe too so you have a better chance 

[jens_dewit]

I've done it in Belgium. After about 15 years we were up to 5th place, with 2 group stage tickets and one final qualifying round for Champ League. Takes time, but soon clubs start paying big fees for players and that helps.