The FM24 Youth Academy Challenge

Ronaldo Beckham · August 9

2 hours ago, Muttley84 said:

Nope. They never won a national throphy. Good luck with them anyways!

Wikipedia lied to me or I have misread what they put.

It's probably the later lol.

WhiteCat33 · August 10

FM23 Barbados YAC: Road View FC

2068 Season 46 – BFA Digicel Premier League

Spoiler

Youth Academy Challenge FM23 Thread:

Youth Academy Challenge FM24 Thread:

Statistics Posts:

League Performance:

Cup Performance:

North American Champions League:

League & Cup were a breeze this year because we significantly underwhelmed in the NACL. I was right to be worried about the grumbling players at the end of last season. Unhappy stars resulted in us underscoring in the NACL 2nd round. Shame too as we had a great draw.

Caribbean Zone:

Caribbean Playoff:

NACL 2nd Round

1st Leg: Missing 2 clear cut chances with 6 offsides that easily could have led to a goal was brutal to watch.

Spoiler

2nd Leg: Pushing at home didn't help as they got one on us to have the away goal advantage. As you can see my strikers were abysmal at hitting the target.

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NACL Tournament Tree:

NACL Leaderboard:

Spoiler

Reserve & U18s:

Won their leagues

Squad:

Inspired by @mpm2342 I've added more tracking of "Role Ability" in my spreadsheet. While maxing CA feels good, I see the value in tracking how well your players are mastering the exact roles they are playing on the pitch. While mpm has their useful European baselines I may have to do a large data-dump this summer to build out levels for North America. (MLS, Liga MX, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Barbados).

CA Player List:

On the main screen I have added "Playable Position Best Role" to show how they could be maximized. We have a number of starters in the Mid to upper 60's and then there is Rhys Jackson almost to 70.

Excel Graphs:

Spoiler

Last season I forgot to add in Reserve & U18 players so that's the crazy dip. Will take a couple years to see how its tracking.

Will take a few years to see how the personalities dip with the switch over to youngsters. We will be losing most of our Professional players in the next 3 seasons.

I'm currently in a transition period aging out old stars, so the fact my CA is holding while I'm bringing in multiple 17–19-year-old players is a good sign.

Finally the new graphs! I duplicated the CA Graphs for the Role Ability and set up reduced ranges as all relevant data is between 40 - 70. All Players must be bugged with trash reserve defenders, so that will be something to look into. It's surprising the Role ability is so low for the defender average even with high minutes considering 3 of my best players are all defenders. Edit: I figured out the reason Defense is so low, the blank slots were defaulting to CD so a bunch of 0 RA players got added into the average. I'll fix this for next season.

CA Average Tables:

Spoiler

Role Average Tables:

New to this season I created a duplicate of the CA Tables for the Role Ability

Spoiler

This shows that my starting level defenders are becoming very good. 67 Average for my 3 main fullbacks is excellent. Best development has been in the midfield with my squad regulars really developing to give us 63 average role ability. DM is still a weakness, and probably will always be with the way intakes have been, but I'm able to switch between a fast (16s) bwm with no skill, and an all around 10-11 CA DM. GK is still holding up even at an aging 34. I'll be playing him till he retires. STC is low because I'm developing all young strikers now. Starters are 23, and the second string are 18/19 with potential.

Player Highlights:

Transfers:

Most of the activity appears on the end of last seasons transfer page. You can see all the loans and us unloading 1) Old players 2) middling middle-aged players & 3) useless youngsters. Then this year I was more aggressive loaning out players around Barbados. Will evaluate how it helped/hurt development to see if I continue. Everyone except BDFSP have trash facilities so its questionable if loans are beneficial.

Spoiler

Best XI:

Excel Tables:

Still haven't built the Best XI spreadsheet. I really like what @mpm2342 has to show his formation and calculate based on best players there. I want to set one that automatically cancels out duplicates. This will be my project for next season (maybe).

Spoiler

Head Coach:

No updates

Club Improvements:

WE HAVE AFFILIATES!! I couldn't hold back my excitement and had to post our first in November. 5 months later the option returned, and we now have 2 South American youth-focused affiliates: Danubio of Uruguay and Deportes La Serena of Chile. Board won't negotiate loan deals sadly (would be great leagues to play in), but we got the important bit. Now to find our South American wonderkid!

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Youth Academy:

HOYD:

Sometime this year Craig Mighty moved up to 3* Reputation, which is awesome! Hopefully I have another 10 years before he wants to retire as he’s getting up there in age now.

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Youth Intake Preview:

Youth Intake:

No foreigners, but this is a fantastic intake for Barbados. I like seeing the high potential even if the personalities could be better.

Top 3 Players:

Spoiler

Since we don’t play with wingers I’ll be moving him into the AMC role, which he’s decent for. Bad composure & decisions is a drag, but that can be focus trained.

Fix Sheran Maloney’s personality and we have the makings of a star striker here. He won’t be laser fast, but I should get him to top level mentality and he’s got the AF technical attributes on lock. I have hope as one of our current strikers started Unambitious and I was able to turn him around.

DLP candidate for sure. We have a full roster of midfielders now so even with a great winger appearing we look solid to keep our 4-4-2 Dimond.

Excel Tables:

Data!

Spoiler

Personalities are slightly better this year but still not fantastic. Trade-off of ability for mentality right now. Shame we are slowly bleeding off our old-men mentors...

Take away the stand-out star from last year (who was an aberration) and this is a similarly strong intake. Determination is still in the toilet, but intake top-line and depth is there.

Realized after doing all the exports that I broke the formulas pulling "Name" for the Top CA each intake. Adding it to the bugfix list You'll notice our striker this intake Sheran Maloney is our #8 highest CA player. That makes 4 of our top 10 highest ability players have arrived in the past 2 intakes. It's an official Golden Generation!

Two New Graphs: The Role Ability Graph suffers from the Defense bug so that isn't displayed. I'll fix it for next season. I find the Goalkeeper golden generation pretty interesting. During those 3 years we also had 2 GKs poached to England with 1 currently the alternate GK for England. Is it common to get positional golden generations? I feel our current one is focused on the attack with the AM/STC positions more overweight with that shocker RB.

Sheran Goodridge:

After a year of mentoring Sheran has gained +1.5 Determination (intake showed 5 but joined with 6) without any mentions of gaining Ambition or Professionalism. My guess is he has over 10+ for both and is closer to 15. If that is the case, Goodridge would be a Model Citizen if his determination wasn't terrible. His mentors have 15-18 for Ambition & Professionalism (Driven -> Professional), so worth the risk to keep them as mentors.

So how has he developed? Fantastic! He's improving consistently and is our first player in a long while who has a hope of being on the NxGn list. Learned two moves and has added LB as fully competent so he is in a 3-man rotation at FB for us. Best part is he doesn't have English 2nd Nationality so is already playing for Barbados. Chance he could be a 200 CAP international. Our 34-year-old GK is close at 185.

I didn't wait till 18 to sign him on another deal so he's on a 3+3 right now w/o a release clause. I have faint hope at 18 I'll be able to trigger and sign him on a 5+3, but if he keeps developing like this it could become impossible to keep off the release clause.

Spoiler

This is exactly 1 year of being at the club.

Barbados National Team:

Nations League ended in heartbreak of a narrow relegation down to B. This Fall WCQ begin with an easy first opponent of the British Virgin Islands.

Spoiler

Road View Internationals:

Barbados Main:

Barbados Youth:

Caribbean International Performance:

Haiti almost pulled off an upset in the Gold Cup to advance to a first final, but USA proved too much in extra time:

Spoiler

Summary

I'd like to claim that this year was a purposeful rebuilding year, but we did under perform in Continental competitions. I'm not worried with the two great intakes and the two affiliates I'm optimistic that a measurable increase in academy product quality is beginning. From my understanding of what goes into the formula we have multiple positive improvements right now: Team Reputation ; HOYD Reputation ; Affiliate Clubs from nations with high Youth Ratings & Club Youth Recruitments ; League Reputation.

As the seasons tick on I'm going to have an older and older defense, but thus far we are holding ability and speed at acceptable levels. The Wishlist right now is for any of the 4 defender positions, especially with an either-footed "wonderkid" developing splendidly.

Scraborn · August 10

Right now im in season 35/36 and with maccelsfield im still stuck in the VNN - I stagnate for years even with some usefull players i cant come up with a tactic. The Defence is ashitshow and our goalscorring output getsd worse from year to year. Is there anything im missing? right now play a simple 4-4-2 but nothing works and im running out of ideas how to progress. Our alltime high was rank 14. Is there any suitable tactic that might work at this level? I tried 4-3-3, 4-5-1 etc but nothing worked out

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

Got sacked from Schweinfurt after losing 15 games in a row despite my best efforts in trying to change tactics etc.

I have never struggled this bad with this challenge before.

Is there a magic preset tactic everyone is using at the start of the challenge while you build up your squad with better players?

Padders · August 10

Season 153 - 2175/76 - SBC

Loads better season and we sat in 4th place with 4 games to go

I made the stupid mistake of shutting down last night. reloaded this morning and didn't win a single game

Unbeaten in 12, shut down, 2 draws and 3 loses

We got to the Semi Final of the FA Cup

Losing to Cardiff (3rd in the PL) 2-3 in a close game

Neo_Geo · August 10

I think I've found a bug, wondering if anyone else has ever seen this issue.

So in Croatia there is the rule around the minimum age

In the Europa Conference I should be able to play 16 year olds and even 15 year olds right?

Both of my keepers are out injured and I'm looking to play Tomisic Y1-A but as you can see where I have highlighted "Ine" you will see he's "below the minimum age requirement for this competition"

Are the league rules somehow bleeding into European competition as well?

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

Did a couple of reloads in England, France, Germany and Italy and I managed to get Aachen in my first reload so I am going to start the challenge again with them.

It is a bit like cheating as they have good training and youth facilities but I need all the help I can get lol.

Nickname(s)	Kartoffelkäfer (Potato beetles) Die Alemannen (The Alemanni)

For such a bigish club in Germany they have only been in the top German league 4 times. Last time being 2006.

Hopefully I can change that.

Noticable former players are Lewis Holtby, Kai Havertz, Torsten Frings and David Odonkor.

Keep your fingers crossed for me this one works out guys lol.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

My Manager Set Up

Ignore the colors in this photo as I will change it soon enough.

Aachen FM2024 Overview

We should definitely have an easy run of it compared to others as they are probably the easiest club to do this challenge with. Especially when you have a nearly 33,000 stadium and also have good training and youth facilities.

Only I could balls this up lol.

I am going with a basic Route One 4-4-2 tactic. Trying to keep it as simple as possible to start off with.

My starting squad looks pretty good with one player valued at potentially £1m.

@XaW @darren1983 I have a player coming in next season according to my transfers.

I would cancel the transfer but I can't.

Some very good youngsters as well. I am happy I have a big squad because the other saves I done in this challenge the squads were so small.

I will keep you posted how I get on.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

Here is me with my new sexy Aachen tracksuit.

mpm2342 · August 10

12 hours ago, WhiteCat33 said:

Inspired by @mpm2342 I've added more tracking of "Role Ability" in my spreadsheet. While maxing CA feels good, I see the value in tracking how well your players are mastering the exact roles they are playing on the pitch. While mpm has their useful European baselines I may have to do a large data-dump this summer to build out levels for North America. (MLS, Liga MX, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Barbados).

Looks great WhiteCat! I love tracking the team and individual progress against the targets. Playing around with the spreadsheets is as much fun as playing the game.

mpm2342 · August 10

10 hours ago, Scraborn said:

Right now im in season 35/36 and with maccelsfield im still stuck in the VNN - I stagnate for years even with some usefull players i cant come up with a tactic. The Defence is ashitshow and our goalscorring output getsd worse from year to year. Is there anything im missing? right now play a simple 4-4-2 but nothing works and im running out of ideas how to progress. Our alltime high was rank 14. Is there any suitable tactic that might work at this level? I tried 4-3-3, 4-5-1 etc but nothing worked out

Not an expert by any measure, but a few thoughts for you to consider.

I tend to stick with a simple tactic and build around it. It is important that your HOYD brings in the right kind of player for your tactic, so aligning his formation and style is helpful.

I also tend to focus a lot on player ratings for roles - not the star ratings in the game, but in a spreadsheet. Take a look at https://theffm.co.uk/football-manager-spreadsheet/ This is what I used as a basis for my system and it taught me a lot about what is important for player success.

Your best players should be in the key roles - AM or playmaking forward and your playmaking midfielder. Fast wingers and fullbacks for the 4-4-2. Strength + jumping reach for central defenders.

At the VNN and VNS level, physicals tend to dominate.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

Aachen Season 1 Youth Intake

In my first season youth intake with Aachen I managed to get 5 x Top Talents. 2 Germans, A Turkish player, A Canadian and the most random of them all I got a decent player from Mozembique.

Hopefully some of these will do well and maybe become first team regulars.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

I forgot to promise the board that I would play more of my youngsters so they will improve my junior coaching and I now have to play my youth prospects for most of the rest of the season now or I get sacked :mad:

Ronaldo Beckham · August 10

Despite me playing my youth prospects for the last 7-8 games of the season it still wasn't enough and the board sacked me.

This has got to be a bug that needs to get sorted.

This would never happen in real life.

So frustrating.

A day of gaming wasted.

I will start the Aachen save again.

Sorry for the confusion guys. Sorry if it is annoying anyone. It is annoying me lol.

libbyshuss · August 10

52 minutes ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

I forgot to promise the board that I would play more of my youngsters so they will improve my junior coaching and I now have to play my youth prospects for most of the rest of the season now or I get sacked

I got sacked the day before a play-off final because of that bug. I'm still fuming about it now.

10 seasons wasted for that!

libbyshuss · August 10

16 hours ago, Scraborn said:

Right now im in season 35/36 and with maccelsfield im still stuck in the VNN - I stagnate for years even with some usefull players i cant come up with a tactic. The Defence is ashitshow and our goalscorring output getsd worse from year to year. Is there anything im missing? right now play a simple 4-4-2 but nothing works and im running out of ideas how to progress. Our alltime high was rank 14. Is there any suitable tactic that might work at this level? I tried 4-3-3, 4-5-1 etc but nothing worked out

England is just a slog!

I've managed to complete it twice in England but both times by far the most difficult league to get out of was VNN and VNS. At least ten seasons bumping around before something clicked. Once you do get out the rest of it seems like a cakewalk!

Sometimes it's just a lucky cup run that gets you money to upgrade the youth facilities. One level of youth recruitment can make a huge difference to your intakes down there. 2 or 3 levels can get you an entire intake better than your first team!

It might also help prioritising pace/acceleration over other attributes as down there the match engine seems to favour that over anything else.

djsterry · August 10

Challenge Completed !!

Champions League winners 2062

First time completing the challenge and will look to try it outside of Europe now, I've never really played the game outside of Europe so any recommendations welcome.

League won in 58

My Manager

brilliant performances from the front men

Buzzing to finally do it, will move straight onto a new challenge. will keep this save I might fancy playing it again at some point

naterr · August 10

6 minutes ago, djsterry said:

Challenge Completed !!

Champions League winners 2062

First time completing the challenge and will look to try it outside of Europe now, I've never really played the game outside of Europe so any recommendations welcome.

League won in 58

My Manager

brilliant performances from the front men

Buzzing to finally do it, will move straight onto a new challenge. will keep this save I might fancy playing it again at some point

Amazing well done!

djsterry · August 10

1 minute ago, naterr said:

Amazing well done!

Thanks at one point I felt like it was impossible, not sure I will bother with england again

Scraborn · August 10

So in year 2035 still in VNL I got sacked after 23 winless games - it was getting worse the team failed more and more... so many errors in defence, red cards for bad tackels left right and center and suddently we couldnt even create chances or score open goals its horrible... maybe i restart it or look for a new save idea it was a frustrating journey in the last 3 seasons

Neo_Geo · August 11

We’ll done @djsterry :applause:

Thebaker · August 11

2035

Table | Squad | Transfers

Started the season in great form with only 1 defeat in the first 11 games to go into the promotion place behind Jonsereds. The good form continued allowing the team to go top with 7 games to go. 1 win the next 6 meant that top spot was relinquished and 2 other teams had nearly caught up. A nervy win against the 13th place team in the last game of the season was enough to take the team to the title as none of the other 3 team won.

Finances dropped slightly due to paying for injuries,

Long time players Nadin and Melin left as did Lai. Keymer would have finished as league top scorer if he hadn't got injured for 14 months. Noren set a club record for assists.

The youth preview was the best yet but the intake didn't match up with it. Nakatani is probably the best.

Its been 10 seasons since the first intake and many of the players form my team. Keymer has made over 200 apps with 117 goals and is a club icon. Gustafsson has also made over 200 apps and is the best player at the club. Sandin is another with 200 apps although many as sub. Abdirahman is my first choice GK with 130 apps but needs upgrading on as he hasn't really improved since he came through. Lonn has only played 65 games having been backup LB for much of his time although he played most of the season as starting CB due to the other poor choices. Pettersson played 100 games before being let go, he retired after 37 games at another club. The other players made only a handful of apps before being released and then retiring.

Spoiler

Youth Nationalities:

Continent			Europe			Africa			South America			Asia			North America			Oceania
Overall	176	100%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%
Europe	166.66	94.69%	Sweden	157.33	89.39%	Eritrea	1.5	0.85%	Uruguay	1	0.57%	Iraq	1	0.57%	Jamaica	0.83	0.47%
Africa	4.5	2.56%	Greece	2	1.14%	Gambia	1	0.57%	Chile	0.5	0.28%	Palestine	0.5	0.28%	USA	0.5	0.28%
Asia	2	1.14%	Bosnia	1.5	0.85%	Somalia	0.5	0.28%				Japan	0.5	0.28%
South America	1.5	0.85%	Albania	1	0.57%	Niger	0.5	0.28%
North America	1.33	0.76%	Turkey	1	0.57%	Nigeria	0.5	0.28%
Oceania	0	0	Italy	1	0.57%	Egypt	0.5	0.28%
			Serbia	1	0.57%
			Kosovo	1	0.57%
			England	0.83	0.47%

Spoiler

Season

League

Position

Swedish Cup

Europe

Top Scorer

Top Assists

Attendance

Training

Youth

Junior

Youth Rec

Notes

2025

D2 WG

5th

Not entered

N/A

Arvidsson,Messaoudi (8)

Jensen(6)

261

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2026

D2 WG

5th

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (11)

Warmlov(6)

251

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2027

D2 WG

6th

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (10)

Lai(9)

261

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2028

D2 WG

10th

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (15)

Messaoudi (7)

241

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2029

D2 WG

7th

Not entered

N/A

Strom - 27j (11)

Athanasiou -26p (7)

250

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2030

D2 WG

9th

Not entered

N/A

Lai(12)

Noren -28k (5)

267

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2031

D2 WG

8th

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (14)

Lai(5)

277

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2032

D2 WG

8th

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (15)

Babatunde- 29h (6)

275

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2033

D2 WG

5th

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (19)

Sjoqvist(8)

289

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2034

D2 WG

6th

Not entered

N/A

Strom - 27j (12)

Sjoqvist(7)

287

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

2035

D2 WG

1st

Not entered

N/A

Keymer-25c (16)

Noren -28k (10)

321

Basic

Fairly Basic

Limited

Promoted

Youth Name	All time apps	Youth Name	All time Goals	Youth Name	All time Assists
Roger Gustafsson (25e)	236	Ted Keymer (25c)	117	Manolis Athanasiou (26p)	32
Ted Keymer (25c)	226	Milton Strom (27j)	34	Marcus Noren (28k)	28
Mathias Sandin (25d)	217	Manolis Athanasiou (26p)	27	Ted Keymer (25c)	20
Manolis Athanasiou (26p)	203	Marcus Noren (28k)	22	Martin Tahiri (30i)	20
Marcus Noren (28k)	133	Martin Tahiri (30i)	18	Mathias Sandin (25d)	12

Edited August 11 by Thebaker

Ronaldo Beckham · August 11

I think I have everything right now with this Aachen save. I aint been sacked and I remembered not to promise the board anything.

Just had my first youth intake.

3 x Elite Talents & 3 x Top Talents.

Hoxha looks really good.

Edited August 11 by Ronaldo Beckham

darren1983 · August 11

Congrats @djsterry doing it in England is a massive slog. Have added to the HoF :applause:

libbyshuss · August 11

Austria - 2050/51 - Premier League

Wels finish second in league, win the cup!

Losing our second best player Fatih Heco 38A to a broken leg in pre-season really affected us in the league stage as we could not get a run going at all. By the time he came back for the championship group stage Sturm Gratz were just too far ahead for us to catch

we did manage to beat them in the cup though! ha!

Champions League: We're stuck in the cycle of scraping through the league stage and going out early doors in the knokcout rounds. It was Napoli that did for us this time around. we're just lacking the requisite quality throughout the team really.

Youth

A really encouraging preview followed by a slightly discouraging intake

I think i'm at that stage where an elite intake is as rare as rocking horse poo

Career

djsterry · August 11

Thinking of trying Colombia, any bugs I need to know of ect. Absolutely no knowledge of south american football or how it works etc. Any help appreciated

djsterry · August 11

1 hour ago, darren1983 said:

Congrats @djsterry doing it in England is a massive slog. Have added to the HoF

:hammer:

djsterry · August 11

19 minutes ago, djsterry said:

Thinking of trying Colombia, any bugs I need to know of ect. Absolutely no knowledge of south american football or how it works etc. Any help appreciated

never mind, no relegations in the 2nd division

XaW · August 11

Congrats @djsterry! Well done! :applause:

djsterry · August 11

we go again- Indonesia :lol: No idea about the league etc.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 11

Aachen FC First Season Review

I managed to get a nice mid-table finish for Aachen in my first season of the reboot.

I think next season we will be good enough to get into the play offs.

I can't show you who was my best players were because I forgot to do this and started the next season.

We did sell a lot of players last season because a lot of them wanted to leave to play for bigger club so I got rid of them.

I will do a better season review next season. I just didn't want to waste your time in case I got sacked again lol.

Season Competition League Position Trophies Won

1 3. Liga 10th

WhiteCat33 · August 11

Congrats @djsterry! Fun choice for your next ride. If it doesn't pan out I can highly recommend V50's modpack for the Caribbean if you want an experience completely off the normal path.

mschafer13 · August 11

Is it normal to have to start with so few players? I only have 11 players, the rest are all grayed out. Nobody on the U19s.

I did check Add Players to Playable Teams, but it seems that didn't do much...?

WhiteCat33 · August 11

4 minutes ago, mschafer13 said:

Is it normal to have to start with so few players? I only have 11 players, the rest are all grayed out. Nobody on the U19s.

I did check Add Players to Playable Teams, but it seems that didn't do much...?

For some nations it helps to use advance options to directly select adding players to the league(s) below you that send up promotion teams. With that said, having just a starting 11 isn't unheard of. A reason why there are a lot of first season failures, especially in highly congested leagues.

mpm2342 · August 11

Crewe United 2026 Season Update

Season 3 Update:

Top of the league and promotion to the Championship !!! The season went down to the wire, but we closed it out strong and Belfast Celtic lost it's last two to give us the title. The team played very well this past season with a lot of squad rotation. I had two lineups for most of the season, shrinking to the top lineup for the last 5 in an attempt to close out the title.

We managed to convince the board to spend some money on improving youth recruitment instead of giving me a new contract, so we got a slight boost there. Hopefully the Championship level will bring in a bit more money, but I am doubtful. We do have reserves squad now that has a league to play in which is a nice surprise and improvement over just an U!* without a league.

I now have all the coaching badges except Continental Pro which they won't let me take because now they are worried I might leave. I am shocked and happy that they let me take all the previous ones.

Transfers:

I made a mistake on a free transfer agreement with Boyd where I accepted a loan back and he was on loan to us to the end of the season - I couldn't cancel for 28 days, but he won't play and the loan will get cancelled as soon as possible - I will move him to the reserves and post his career stats to show no appearances once he is sent packing. (update - history posted)

Spoiler

Here is a screen shot of Boyd that shows no appearances in the brief time he was on a loan back.

Spoiler

Youth Candidates:

No whispering this time as once again we could have the makings of a potential 'golden generation' That's three in a row! I have a feeling I am being spoiled and set up for a major future letdown, but am still celebrating anyways

A nice sprinkling of Fairly Professional players in this intake again which gives us 10 in the first 3 intakes. Will cull the other players who need to go for squad numbers and personality, but should have a decent population of professionalism in the U18 to help development. Breslin is a day one starter for the senior squad and is the best of the intake.

Another interesting note from this intake is that we got a few foreign players in from as far away as Bosnia and Italy!

Squad Update:

Here is how the squad is rated heading into next season. As you can see there are only 3 original players still in starting roles. They will be there for as long as I can hold on to them as well as they are still quite a bit better than the youth. I am going to move Sharvin to ST for this season to allow fo Black to play DLP and Stitt to play AM as that is our strongest combo. I am going to look deeper into going back to a 2 forward setup as well since the majority of the youth coming in are poachers and not that well suited for the AF role.

The starting squad improved by 0.9 rating points last season... unfortunately (or fortunately ) the target just move up as well and the starting squad is 7.4 rating points below the NI Championship target. Could be a tough couple of seasons trying to avoid relegation (or getting fired).

Bingo

Two more turned green.

Edited August 14 by mpm2342

V50 · August 11

3 hours ago, WhiteCat33 said:

Congrats @djsterry! Fun choice for your next ride. If it doesn't pan out I can highly recommend V50's modpack for the Caribbean if you want an experience completely off the normal path.

It's funny you raised me now - I'm literally updating it for the final patch as we speak. I got massively disheartened that I couldn't seem to fix a bug in Trinidad, but I think (fingers crossed) I fixed it.

TomFM just used my database (without credit :() in a recent video, which made me want to tidy it up!

Edited August 11 by V50

Perre8 · August 11

On 10/08/2024 at 11:57, Neo_Geo said:

I think I've found a bug, wondering if anyone else has ever seen this issue.

So in Croatia there is the rule around the minimum age

In the Europa Conference I should be able to play 16 year olds and even 15 year olds right?

Both of my keepers are out injured and I'm looking to play Tomisic Y1-A but as you can see where I have highlighted "Ine" you will see he's "below the minimum age requirement for this competition"

Are the league rules somehow bleeding into European competition as well?

Yes i encoutered that also. Very annoying!!

I noticed you also got a Mislav Janko, that is a very popular name i guess in Croatia, i already got three or four

WhiteCat33 · August 11

@V50 shame he didn't credit your awesome work!

Before I picked Road View back up, I was looking at finally starting a FM24 save with Martinique utilizing that patch for the French Cup and finally getting to play the Caribbean Shield & Cup. My thought is Martinique should be a lot easier to boost the domestic league with trialing French free agents assuming all French Nationals count for domestic players. Also, lots of cups to win for club rep.

I've probably only got another 2-3 seasons in me for Road View, so tag me when you post the update and I'll be happy to christen v3!

Barbados' Other 3 Top Clubs

The 6 foreign player limit + 5 year naturalization in Barbados has meant slow domestic league strengthening in this save. Finally, it is at the point now that the domestic competition is actually difficult due to heavy congestion & required rotation. The top 3 have built solid squads with older naturalized foreigners, new foreigners, retiring British-Barbadians & my rejects for strong starting XIs.

Currently I've developed 89 players in the top-flight. Since my first team has 27 players that's 62 of my rejects playing in Barbados T1. With 11 other teams with ~20 players per team I've produced 28% of the opposing players in my domestic league.

Spoiler

Going off @mpm2342 conveniently placed graph above I can say the domestic league is roughly up to League 2 level strength. And while my clubs CA average for Regular Starters is higher (102), judging by Role ability we are actually on fairly equal footing (61.5)

Weymouth Wales: CA Avg: 84 | RA Avg: 59

Always in the mix Weymouth, have just finished rebuilding the squad and have secured a solid Mexican striker to lead the line with 98 goals in 119 games coming directly from the MLS.

Spoiler

Even as the historic 2nd best club they've hardly improved the infrastructure over the decades.

Spoiler

Waterford Compton: CA Avg: 87 | RA Avg: 60

Having recently poached my Reserve Head Coach, Compton have been built into a great relatively young team that threatens to become more dominant than BDFSP as my main competition. Their strength is in the midfield with Padilla & 70 RA playmaker Velasquez. The latter is a successfully naturalized Mexican player who is crucial to the national teams current form. Of their first team all but 1 are foreign or came out of my academy. Even though he has a lower CA American Ortiz is a dangerous attacker with 15/16 speeds & dribbling

Spoiler

Very meh level of club infrastructure development with still a tiny 5k stadium.

Spoiler

BDFSP: CA Avg: 96 | RA Avg: 63

The OG team has become the old-man retirement destination for the English generated Barbadians and my old men. Team is extremely skilled, but lacks pace compared to Compton. Will be interesting to see how they rebuild the team and if their money can keep them above Compton. Paraguan Gavilan has lost his speed but is still one of the best players in Barbados. Guy is a legend at BDFSP having played 270 matches over 12 seasons. There lone two young talents are a Dominican DM and American CAM. They also have the lone quality Barbadian talent to emerge from a lower league club Kemar Yarde, who they poached immediately and he's become a solid poacher.

Spoiler

This is the only club that has developed its infrastructure passed basic levels with a good sized 13.8k stadium and Adequate Training & Youth Facilities.

Spoiler

Edited August 12 by WhiteCat33

Daddy · August 12

On 10/08/2024 at 17:38, djsterry said:

Challenge Completed !!

Champions League winners 2062

First time completing the challenge and will look to try it outside of Europe now, I've never really played the game outside of Europe so any recommendations welcome.

League won in 58

My Manager

brilliant performances from the front men

Buzzing to finally do it, will move straight onto a new challenge. will keep this save I might fancy playing it again at some point

Congrats!

resurectedja · August 12

Congratulations @djsterry. I would recommend you try Argentina. I had a lot of fun doing Argetina. Finished in a record time. You get good teams with good facilities and dont really need to improve anything due to the high youth rating. Once you get into the Libertadores, which is easier than making it into the Champions League, you can improve stuff.

Padders · August 12

Season 154 - 2176/77 - SBC

Another consistently inconsistent season and finished 9th

We just lose games we shouldn't, very frustrating

My very good keeper won't sign a new contract so he's going in one more season

Edited August 12 by Padders

WhiteCat33 · August 12

FM23 Barbados YAC: Road View FC

2069 Season 47 – BFA Digicel Premier League

Spoiler

Youth Academy Challenge FM23 Thread:

Youth Academy Challenge FM24 Thread:

Statistics Posts:

League Performance:

Cup Performance:

We flopped the final

North American Champions League:

Caribbean Zone:

Was a tough group this time around and got to face-off against both of our Caribbean affiliates! We were carried ahead of Cibao due to our strong defensive performances.

Caribbean Playoff:

Defense didn't show up against Mount Pleasant, but our strikers woke up and were able to keep us just ahead on aggregate to advance (even if we had a disappointing loss at home in the second leg).

NACL 2nd Round: Cincinnati MLS

1st Leg:

Spoiler

Striker is kicking up a fuss again to leave and is full on angry so I have low hopes for this campaign. 1^st game draw was easier than normal against mid-table Cincinati of the MLS. Of course, Rhys Jackson underscored away there and we gave away a dumb penalty to lose 2-1 and give them most of their xG in the process.

2nd Leg:

Spoiler

Our offense finally turned on when they came to Barbados and we won 4-2. Defense we looked very shaky. I’m noticing missing one of my starting CMs as my backups are not nearly as good defensively.

NACL Quarter Final: Monterrey Liga MX

1st Leg:

Spoiler

I couldn’t have had a worse start with my RB getting a straight red 20 min into the game. Now we have to somehow go up a goal with 10 men against the best team on the continent… But of course they got a goal quickly off a free kick we couldn’t clear in the 35’. I took off my star striker in the 70’ as he was disenchanted and not doing anything, not even a shot on target. Then we had 2 real chances to close out the game one for each striker but they couldn’t finish and we lose 1-0.

2nd Leg:

Spoiler

I had low hopes going into this game considering how we’d played domestically with our reserves, but our strikers combined in the 14’ to get us an early goal! We are now back in it shockingly. 22’ we almost get a second but it is saved off the line by a sprinting back defender. They put on the pressure and Atkins actually shows up and makes two big stops. In what was a fairly even first half we surprisingly come out ahead!

Second half they had more chances but couldn’t put any into the back of the net so it ends 1-1 Aggregate. Because our away goals are tied apparently it goes right to a shootout. Since both strikers had a good game I will choose them. My captain Lloyd is also included. Then My CB Marquez. The final choice is a risk with B. Keete as he just missed a penalty in the league, but he is our best penalty taker.

Well wasn’t even close as 3 of my first 4 hit post and they easily won the shootout. Yet again no glory even after a magnificent showing to come back in Mexico.

NACL Tournament Tree:

With their 5th trophy in 6 years the dynasty of Monterrey is real in North America

Comp History

Spoiler

Squad:

CA Player List:

Excel Graphs:

Spoiler

I know I didn't fix the issue in the spreadsheet and re-export the longitudinal data.

CA & RA Average Tables:

Spoiler

Player Highlights:

Transfers:

Spoiler

Best XI:

Excel Tables:

Spoiler

Head Coach:

Club Improvements:

It was teased in the NACL results, but we got our 4th affiliate in Jamaica this year! Pretty sure this will be the end of affiliates and that's fine.

Spoiler

Youth Academy:

HOYD:

No Change

Youth Intake Preview:

Youth Intake:

Two Elite Talents is great to finally be getting the potential in our intakes. Again more attacking minded players with an overload of wingers unfortunately this year. Means we might switch to a more standard 4-3-3 in the coming seasons. Interesting our first affiliate players actually are coming from our 4th affiliate picked up just 6 months before the intake. They of course are awful, but I didn’t expect good ones right away.

Top 3 Players:

Spoiler

Honestly not the greatest attributes, but we will see if he amounts to anything.

I like the look of this AMC. It’s neat he’s half Irish, so there is a decent chance he will switch over.

Excel Tables:

Spoiler

Mentality is still sub-par, but at least it's not declining? Mentors are getting fewer and fewer in the squad sadly to fix this.

Good movements here: Determination rebounded; Top-line CA held; CA Depth held. And this doesn't even show off the high potential my coaches are observing.

Yes I know I haven't fixed the names...

The RA makes clear the attacking Golden Generation we are currently experiencing. Only 60/61 had RA this high and that is when our star striker Rhys Jackson and his mate Keon Harding came through the academy. By 18 both of them were mostly developed, so I'm hoping that can be the case with our current youngsters.

Barbados National Team:

It is the time of the officially best ever Barbadian National Team ranked #81 in the world! I know its still super low, but considering this is a 150+ nation at the start this is massive. Right now Barbados has not only qualified for the Gold Cup proper, but is doing fantastic in their World Cup Qualifying group. Barbados got very lucky in the draw avoiding all of the highest difficulty opponents. A second world cup should be incoming.

Spoiler

Road View Internationals:

Barbados Main:

Barbados Youth:

Summary

With @V50 final update for the FM24 version of the Caribbean the countdown clock has started on this save. It is fitting as well considering we have 3 star defensive players that are 31 (LB), 31 (RB) & 35 (GK). I see 3 years left for the save to take our final shot at glory. With that in mind next year is the rebuild year where I will be bringing up all of the high potential youngsters and shipping off the middling 20-year-olds. Focus will be the cup to secure qualification for 2072. Then seasons 2 & 3 will be only about NACL.

Our young talents:

A seriously offensive bunch we get 1 natural striker, 3 CM/AMC, Both an AML & AMR and then 2 CDs one of whom has been given a broader training. What is perfect is the top 3 potential fit perfectly as the attackers around our star striker for the top of a 4-2-3-1. Go for broke eh?

XaW · August 12

XaW - Follo Fotballklubb - Season 2027 (Season 4) - Eliteserien

Squad | Transfers | Finances

Ever had a season where everything works almost perfect? This was it for me, and it ended with a title! With a massive gap even! Honestly, we are not at all this good, but we had so many close wins it's crazy. Based on the xG we should have finished 3rd, so still a good season, but we over-performed by a margin. Overall, this was more of a team over-achieving rather than individual players, so quite a strange season, but one I will take with both hands and appreciate a lot. We also did well in Europe, but more about that later on. This was just a very fun season, and I'm having so much fun in this save at the moment, so I hope I can finally finish this challenge with my home team!

Norgesmesterskapet: We beat Sprint-Jeløy before we lost to Strømsgodset in the 2nd round.

Europa League: We beat Rijeka of Croatia, TSC of Serbia, and Levski Sofia of Bulgaria before we lost to Sporting CP of Portugal in the playoff.
Europa Conference League: Losing the playoff meant we went into the Europa Conference group stage. Here we drew Utrecht of the Netherlands, Juventus of Italy, Maccabi Tel Aviv of Israel, Zrinjski Mostar of Bosnia Herzegovina, FC Nordsjælland of Denmark, and AEK of Greece. We won 2, drew 1, and lost the remaining 3 matches. This turned out to be enough for 20th place and a place in the knockout round! That happens into next season, so further update will be in a small update soon.

Best players from the academy:

Martin Kjærbu 26h - Was initially mostly a rotation option, but did really well when he got his chances, so got more and more game time as the season progressed. The surprise of the season.
Markus Klepp Jacobsen 25b - Probably the best player at the club now and our main man. Still scores to few goals though.
Egil Johannessen 27a - A strange one, as he gets low match ratings, but seems to do really well in all highlights. An excellent player and does his job really good, but seems the match engine doesn't rate him.

New club records:

Most goals in a match - Martin Kjærbu 26h - 5 goals
Most league goals for the club - Håvard Dalseth - 135 goals
Youngest player - Pål Stian Larsen 27b - 15 years, 249 days
Oldest goalscorer - Håvard Dalseth - 30 years, 330 days

Got a few new requests for improvement accepted this season.

2nd team

They only played friendlies this season.

U19s

They won the Oslo Kretsserie G19 this season. Then they beat Tromsdalen in the semi final of the playoff before they lost to HamKam in the final to narrowly miss promotion.

NM G19: They beat Stjørdals-Blink, FC Oslo, Sogndal, and Stabæk before they lost to Brann in the quarter final.

Around the world

Youth intake:

Trophy cabinet

Eliteserien - 2027

PostNord-ligaen Avdeling 2 - 2024

Norgesmesterskapet - 2026

(U19s) Oslo Kretsserie G19 - 2025, 2027

Player statistics:

Most apps for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Time at club	Apps
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Markus Klepp Jacobsen 25b Norway	<N/A>		2025-Present	93
Sander Damm 24a		Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	81
Elias Dagfinrud 25c	Norway		<N/A>		2025-Present	60
Glenn Arne Karlsøen 24c	Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	49
Pål Stian Larsen 27b	Norway		<N/A>		2027-Present	45

Most goals for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Time at club	Goals
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Markus Klepp Jacobsen 25b Norway	<N/A>		2025-Present	30
Elias Dagfinrud 25c	Norway		<N/A>		2025-Present	15
Martin Kjærbu 26h	Norway		<N/A>		2026-Present	11
Sander Damm 24a		Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	9
Pål Stian Larsen 27b	Norway		<N/A>		2027-Present	6

Most assists for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Time at club	Assists
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Markus Klepp Jacobsen 25b Norway	<N/A>		2025-Present	10
Glenn Arne Karlsøen 24c	Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	8
Martin Kjærbu 26h	Norway		<N/A>		2026-Present	7
Sander Damm 24a		Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	5
Eirik Melchior 25a	Norway		<N/A>		2025-Present	4

Supporters:

YAC Bingo:

Summary:

kaivolax · August 12

Decided to give my first go at this challenge in England with Gloucester City. Won the Vanarama North first year playing the base 4-2-3-1 gegenpressing.

https://imgur.com/eqVUUrO

Next season will probably be rough though. My starting striker has been unwilling to sign a new contract all year and now wants to move to a club with stronger squad. His backup and one of the starting centerbacks are retiring. The club captain is already unhappy about our left back depth and the starting left back wants to be a player-ass man which is not going to get.

https://imgur.com/TazVNE1

Club statistics

https://imgur.com/TazVNE1

Competitions

https://imgur.com/P979NSx

Player statistics

https://imgur.com/ret5Y3n

This dude from the 2024 intake was already one of my key players in the first year and Championship clubs have been sniffing around all year. He’ll soon start his senior contract and if he doesn’t want to sign a new one immediately I’ll probably have to sell him this summer for that 50% clause.

https://imgur.com/xnz8CME

Daddy · August 12

Season 21 - 2043/44 - Champions League:

Since I've won the league a few times in a row, the headline story will be Champions League, so let's lead with that. It was not an easy draw, but to not qualify for the knockouts is a disaster. By xG we left enough points on the table to be why we got grouped. Unfortunately, I didn't take it well and started going crazy with the tinkering and that definitely cost us.

Season 21 - 2043/44 - Czechia - First Division:

We tried our hardest to blow this, and fortunately, Sparta didn't want to win either. As stated above I went too crazy with tactic changes and just confused the team.

Youth Intake:

Getting overloaded with strikers now, but it's not a bad problem to have.

Misc stuff:

Not much to the misc section for this update.

2044/45 Season Preview:

I'm going back to a more basic tactic and hopefully, we get back on track to win the league comfortably and be able to focus on pushing in the Champions League

This is a rough draw. Five of the teams I have a losing record against. However, most of those matches were close and I'm really deluding myself into thinking we're going to shock a few of these teams and make a deep run.

I was wondering where Birmingham came from in this draw. I assumed they won a cup or something, but no they methodically built up into a decent Premier League club. I figured it might pique someone else's interest as well so I shared

Ronaldo Beckham · August 13

Aachen Season 2 Youth Intake

Some Elite talents and Top talents. Kazim Karsum seems to be the best one of the lot and with his Fairly Determined personality hopefully he will go on to become a good player for the club.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 13

Aachen FC Season 2 Review

Competitions

A better season then last season with us finishing 7th after finishing 10th last season.

Only 5 points away from getting into the play offs. We would of probably got there but we lost 2 out of 3 of the last games of the season to kill my chances.

I have managed to convince the board to improve facilities, coaching and youth recruitment.

Best Players

Dustin Williams was our top goalscorer with 17 goals for the season. Unfortunately he doesn't want to sign a new contract so he will be leaving in the summer.

Overall our best player was Lars Orebwein with the left back getting the best average rating of 7.15 and 12 assists for the season.

I am hoping to get Aachen to the play offs next season.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 13

Dustin Williams changed his mind and signed a new contract.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 13

After all of that fuss I end up having to sell Dustin Williams before the season even starts because he kicked off about not being played in his favourite role.

Another issue FM needs to sort out as this wouldn't happen much in real life.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 13

Aachen FC Season 3 Youth Intake

5 x Elite Talents and 8 x Top Talents will do very nicely thank you.

Piotr Basta looking like the best prospect we have had so far since I started the save with a high sale value of up to £1.5m. With good Technique and Acceleration and a Fairly Ambitious personality I think he will do well for us.

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