The FM24 Youth Academy Challenge

WhiteCat33 · August 2

You could say we're having a good season, but this will be a true miracle story if we pull this off in Mexico. 3rd time is . . .

To make things even more interesting here is our bonkers April schedule leading up to the championship bout:

I'll be bringing up all the youngsters for rotation.

Edited August 2 by WhiteCat33

WhiteCat33 · August 2

37 minutes ago, dkouv said:

Quick question for everyone: I got a model citizen U18 manager and a fairly professional HOYD, so I put the U18 manager in charge of the intakes, but the personalities keep being poor. Do you think putting the HOYD in charge of the intakes can improve the personalities because somehow he'd have a bigger influence on them than the U18 manager (even though his personality is not as good in general)?

Post screenshots of both. If the U18 Manager has bad WwY that could be affecting things as well as possibly if he's bad at being a HOYD as I think that still impacts how well he finds players for your intakes. Also remember you won't see any of the players the U18 manager finds for at least 3 years, though the personality spread should be impacted by the switch. Just if you're going off quality of players not just personalities you can only really judge that from seasons 4 - 8 after the switch. Hidden Ability Comment in Spoiler:

Spoiler

Something to keep in mind is that Model Citizen & Fairly Professional have the same range for Professionalism. Thus, you shouldn't expect a better ratio of professional players in your intake. What you gain from the model citizen is better in the ancillary Hidden Abilities. With information of what your HOYD & U18 Managers Media Handlings are you can narrow down what gains you're actually getting in the other options.

Edited August 2 by WhiteCat33

Scraborn · August 2

Im still in VNN in 2032 and we still have to fight for survival year to year but maybe my new intake can help to archieve a promotion to League 2 or atleast some seasons with less stress and drama. I just dont want every cross to be an thread. Those guys are my future and it looks kind of golden...

Does it make sense to ask the board for a B-Team or should I skip this until I'm in a higher league?

Edited August 2 by Scraborn

dkouv · August 2

@WhiteCat33 Thanks, that's really helpful! Here they are

Based on what you said I may indeed go for the HOYD given his higher working with youngsters attribute. Especially since my U18 manager is refusing to sign a new contract (he wants to manage to U21 squad apparently) U18 manager media handling is "evasive, unflappable", and HOYD is level-headed. So it looks like the U18 manager personality is better overall.

I didn't know about the 3+ year timing, very interesting - so for personality there should be an immediate effect, and for quality a delayed one? I haven't seen a personality improvement but could also be just bad luck.

Neo_Geo · August 2

Pushing on my save tonight and…..

I can’t put my finger on it but I need to spend my Saturday finding a new save, I haven’t got near to completing this challenge in FM 24 and I’m not pleased about that.

WhiteCat33 · August 2

32 minutes ago, dkouv said:

@WhiteCat33 Thanks, that's really helpful! Here they are

Based on what you said I may indeed go for the HOYD given his higher working with youngsters attribute. Especially since my U18 manager is refusing to sign a new contract (he wants to manage to U21 squad apparently) U18 manager media handling is "evasive, unflappable", and HOYD is level-headed. So it looks like the U18 manager personality is better overall.

I didn't know about the 3+ year timing, very interesting - so for personality there should be an immediate effect, and for quality a delayed one? I haven't seen a personality improvement but could also be just bad luck.

I would absolutely use your HOYD he's totally fine. 18 WwY, & 15 for both JPA & JPP. He's still studying coaching badges so he easily could go higher reputation considering he's so young. Awesome to find a reasonably CAP international, even if its a lower-ranked country! Not sure if this still works, but it used to be possible to boost your HOYDs reputation if you put him in charge of Reserve / U18 matches. If they won the league he would get the credit and it would slowly build his rep as well as possibly his attributes.

Your U18 guy is actually a coach and not a Manager so I'm not surprised he's not doing as well. Something you could consider though is using this opportunity to search for actual HOYDs who are Professional / Model Professional. If you can get a coach like that with that level of reputation there's a chance your HOYD hiring options could get you an upgrade.

I'll be doing an update shortly, so I can go into detail of the differences I saw when i made the switch from Fairly Professional to Model Citizen with my HOYDs in this save.

Edited August 2 by WhiteCat33

jrobertgordon13 · August 3

Spoiler

For my St Lawrence save I just had a great intake so I’ll probably try and play at least 1 or 2 more seasons, but honestly it’s getting annoying constantly being a mid table Maltese PL team. I think I may cut my losses and do another save idea before the end of FM24.

WhiteCat33 · August 3

FM23 Barbados YAC: Road View FC

2067 Season 45 Part I – NACL Performance

Spoiler

Youth Academy Challenge FM23 Thread:

Youth Academy Challenge FM24 Thread:

Statistics Posts:

Since I teased the NACL Final I'm going to post our continental performance in this half update with Current Team Current Ability analysis. Part II will happen when I finish the season & have the youth intake in July (3 in game months, so will be a bit). But first I want to do an overview of just how strong / weak our team is so the feat of our performance this season is evident.

Road View Team Current Ability:

Philosophy

The day after the NACL Final I exported the CA of my squad as well as all the knockout opponents. To be clear, I waited till after the games were over to export the data so I had to rely on the in-game level of analysis to set up my tactics for these games. The logic I hold is over the summer Road View, like all top teams in North America, are subscribed to the data service that sends out these spreadsheets of retroactive ratings and performances. This provides benchmarks to analyze season performances and make plans for future seasons. Trying to play it realistic as much as possible.

Full First Team

With the crazy congestion during the NACL I brought up the entire reserve squad into my first team to play the league and domestic cup matches. I also activated the U18s for selection, but haven't included them in this export as they remained in the youth squad and were only a couple were used.

Table Terms:

Couple clarifications on the spreadsheet as its been a minute:

CA This is the a CA calculation with WF=1 to evaluate the actual ability-level of the player. I find this useful when wf isn't important, as well as tracking the actual skill of the intakes.

CA-WF This is the calculation that includes the boost for the weak footedness of the player.

Attribute Category Ratings: These are separate calculations for each of the4 columns of Attributes that a player has. (Field players have GK values). This shows the average value a player has for all attributes in that column standardized to 100. Thus, a value of 50 denotes an average Attribute value of 10 in that column. You'll see my star players tend to have values in the low 60's denoting an average of between 12-13 for Attributes in that column.

Average Position Ratings (Flat Values): For each position and each role I do the same standardized average only selecting Attributes that are highlighted for that. As you can imagine there are a ton of these. For each position type, I then average the scores of all possible roles available to create this value. The reason it's called "Flat Values" is I have the ability to do weighted sums based on the color of highlighted attribute, but I never implemented it.

Ideal Role (Flat Values): This finds the highest Position + Role sum generated for the player and displays it. Where this is useful is for youth intakes when I am considering retraining a player. It doesn't take into account what positions the player can actually play.

High Position & Best Role: What it sounds like: what was the position where that max value occurred & what exact role was selected. This includes the D/S/A element as well as these are all calculated individually.

Table Analysis

You'll notice on the entire team there are only 5 players that I rate over 100 CA-WF. Luckily, they are all in unique positions that are key for establishing a strong team. I have star: GK, RB, LB, DLP (DM/CM) & ST (AMC/STC).

Like all YAC squads these guys aren't "Perfect" players and have some big flaws that I have to take into consideration when building the team. Quickly list them in the spoiler screenshots:

Spoiler

126.4 CA-WF: Fitzgerald Atkins (GK) - It's not in the tight screenshot, but Atkins started with the dreaded dark-red "Hates big Matches". It's slowly improved to just orange at disliking big matches. This puts a massive RNG role on how well our defense will hold in any big game, which is nerve-wracking. Because when he's on, he's fantastic. One part of his game he struggles at is Penalties. Don't think I've ever seen him save a penalty against competent opposition.

103.3 CA-WF Renaldo Holder (DR) - Not a bad wingback but is extremely aerially challenged. This becomes a big problem against the top-level Mexican teams as they tend to have big, fast strong wingers who easily out-jump and body him cutting in on the diaganal. That coupled with his poor tackling means he really is a more offensive FB for us.

129.6 CA-WF Arantes Lloyd (LB) - Lloyd is the real deal. He is better in every way compared to Holder. Fantastic Mental characterstics with acceptable FB height and speed. His one weakness going forward is horrendous dribbling, but his good crossing passing and first touch mean in practice he's actually a dangerous crossing threat.

100.1 CA-WF Ricardo Hoyte (DM/CM) - Hoyte is well into his decline, but still has the characteristics to be a great playmaker...if he doesn't get bodied off the ball. This has meant for last season and this season he is the second half sub playmaker because its only with superior conditioning that he stands a chance of not getting swallowed by physically superior oponents.

126 CA-WF Rhys Jackson (AMC/STC) - The lone hope for the future. You'll notice everyone else on this list is at the end of their career. My academy went through a serious drought of talent until this striker showed up. Pretty consistently throughout this save we have generated a star striker every 10ish seasons, and the hope is more stars will show up in the next few seasons to be his supporting cast. His big drawbacks are Balance & dribbling. This means he does not do well on the run and gets bodied off the ball easier than he should. After that though he's got a lot of fantastic Attributes for a striker.

Team Ability Table:

Using the above CA calculations, and the minutes played in the season I'm able to create conditional averages of players ability in each position based on both any position they can play (repeat players) as well as the Recommended position (Unique Players). The minute thresholds I generally use are 1M (played at all) 500M (Rotation & Starters) & 1200M (Starters). As this is a partial season we have to rely on the 500M. You'll notice the Best XI is blank in red. Again this is another part of the spreadsheet I haven't completed, but plan to. It's a lot harder to set up than you'd expect...

To show how big of a drag the squad players are, I did a secondary reduced export only including the players selected for the final game in Mexico:

This is our baseline to compare how strong my team is vs the opponents faced in the NACL. You can see that our starting squad players are in the 80-90 Range and then the star players are the 5 over 100s to bring averages up. The team is very clearly weakest in the midfield, and that is why I'm focusing on narrow formations with an overload of CMs to makeup for the lower skill-value there.

Road View Formations:

Original Formation: 3 - 5 -2

In the previous play of this save I was exclusively using variants of 3-5-2 formations. This formation relies on having great WBs to dominate the flanks (check) and a rock-solid back 3 to hold off opposition (not-so-check). This formation is countered heavily by a classic 4-3-3 as the wide attackers match up on CD instead of the WBs, who they can easily out-pace and beat 1v1. Looking back at last year's performance against Monterrey this is clearly what happened when they beat us 3-3 at home.

2067 Continental Formation: 4-4-2 Dimond

In what is actually a more conservative version of the same philosophy of play I essentially dropped back the starting position of the WBs and pushed up a stopper. Then the DLP sits on the side with the better and more offensive FB, while the Mezzala is on the side I had to be more careful on due to weaker FB options. What this allows then is for me to play 3 Strikers, 5 Defenders and just 2 Midfield players in an effort to field to my strength & depth.

North American Champions League:

Caribbean Zone:

We absolutely dominated our group. Very happy to see BDFSP got to experience some NACL action in what turned out to be a very hotly contested group with all strong teams.

Caribbean Playoff: vs Arcahie [Haiti]

Playoff wasn't too difficult. I got lax managing the team and we let in 2 late goals when we were in Haiti.

NACL 2nd Round: vs St Louis City [MLS]

By far our easiest opponent of the knockouts, STLC was a good warmup for what was to come. While they are better in most positions, their squad actually has a few weaknesses. They played a 4-3-3 (like basically all the teams we faced) so those strong AM wide roles were utilized to great effect. Due to it being an average, their decent 117 CA GK is brought down by bad backups. Their star player is a very good 140 CA striker, who they actually liked playing as a wide attacker. Strong CD at 131 & 2 in the 120s give them a manageable number of stars to deal with.

Spoiler

Due to the way I am able to export full player attributes, only the top "All" row for "Repeat Players" currently works in the spreadsheet. This is fixable (again on the upgrade list) but requires an alternate method of determining position than Assistant Manager Opinion, which is what I'm using in the spreadsheets.

1st Leg - Away St. Louis

We did enough on a rainy day in St Louis to come away with a 1-1 draw. We had more of the chances and gifted them the goal with a major error in the buildup. Since I played my Moneyball save at STLC I really want to get the win when we bring them down to the island.

Spoiler

Second Leg - Home Bridgeview

Not even 3 minutes in and Rhys Jackson finds the back of the net! Let’s Go Boys! Hardings has a couple offsides call back some great moves, but it doesn’t take long for him to stay on and feed Jackson a perfect ball to make it 2-0 in the first 15min. We dominated the rest of the game, but couldn’t extend the lead. 3-1 Agg is plenty.

Spoiler

Forgot to screenshot the inbox, man I'm rusty

NACL Quarter Final: vs Austin FC [MLS]

Austin have a more balanced squad then STLC and one that has more speed (which isn't evident in these screenshots). Still key point is that our star players are at the same level or slightly better than their average player. Their star player is a CD at 134. They then have a 123 Winger, with the remainder of the players involved in any given game between 100-110.

1st Leg - Home Bridgeview

I tried a change of formation to a 4-4-2 Diamond and it seems to have paid off handsomely defensively. Pushing the wb back into a back 4 shored up the defense. Changing between CWB, WB-A & FB-S/A allows to vary the aggressiveness of the wingers better as well as set their starting positions. Utilizing 3 strikers became very difficult for their back line to deal with. Dropping Jackson deeper into the AMC-SS slot also makes him harder to get marked out by the CD as he is running forward into attack to recieve lay-offs from the strikers or balls over the top form midfield. Formation worked so much better (had a late injury so dropped to strikerless to see out the game)

Spoiler

2nd Leg - Away Austin

When we went to Austin we didn’t take any risks and played as boring of a possession game as possible. I liked keeping 3 strikers for the majority of the game to keep them honest up top, to see out the game I pulled a striker for a BWM to clog up the middle and it worked. Good defensive ratings with my GK actually not succumbing to his bad big match tendencies!

Spoiler

NACL Semi-Final: vs America [Liga Mx]

Mexican teams have massive squads compared to MLS teams and their depth is staggering. This is a 40 man roster and its averaging close to our best player across all that can play in each position. If America can start their best XI you are looking at a mostly 125 - 135 CA squad with a couple outliers above and below. I believe this is comparable to a lower-level Premier League squad, vs the MLS teams that are at best mid-table Championship teams.

1st Leg - Home Bridgeview

We started off on fire with an unbelievable 23 second goal. Welcome to Barbados! 20’ in we got lucky that their chip over the keeper bounced off the crossbar and out. Things got golden when in the 23’ Jackson, whose loving life in the deep 3^rd striker turns his opponent on the edge of the box and slots it home for a 2-0 lead. Dreamland! Their lethal striker Fernandez brings one back quickly in the 31’ beating both our cbs to a cross. They repeat the process in the 43’ to level us going into halftime. Story of the season: 2 defensive lapses lead to 2 goals. Even with the FBs back further and marking up on the wide players we don't have the skill, speed or size to match-up properly 1v1.

Second half in the 57’ we get gifted an own goal when a clearance rickochets off a defender and into the back of the net. Then we held on during a brutal second half. I had to move a CB into RB because that’s where their two goals came from and 18-year-old Marquez shut them down completely! Might have to play him there in Mexico to try in vain to defend a 1 goal lead. We will additionally be down our best CM Vickers, who picks up a yellow card suspension sadly. Will mean using old tiny Hoyte who is 34, 5'3" with 1 jumping reach and 4 strength. At least he's skilled smart and Professional!

Spoiler

2nd Leg - Away Mexico City

Now we go to the biggest stadium in North America, which is notoriously hard to play at. We basically have to shut them out or win on Aggregate as their 2 away goals give them a serious edge. Tweaked to a more defensive version of the formation to try and accomplish the herculean feat. Good start sees us holding possession well enough and keeping them from having true chances. My worry is getting hit on the counter or due to a mistake in the buildup (due to our low skill) so I try to keep more men back with instructions and tactics. We end the first half keeping them to a single SOT with only .2 xG and we held 56% possession which is fantastic. I expect them to up the pressure in the second half.
49’ I thought we were done for as their main man Fernandez got behind, but Atkins came up with a big stop. 67’ I change to a 4-1-3-2 and begin packing in more. 82’ we are still ahead and I bring on my smaller FB hoping his speed will be in our advantage. They have two new wingers so its badly needed. I also switch to a 4-1-3-1-1 or 4-5-1 narrow. We still haven’t recorded a single shot this game but have held 55% possession. OMFG we did it!! Literally 0 xG for us but it doesn’t matter, we advance!!

Spoiler

NACL Final: Away @ Monterrey

While Monterrey squad is much smaller than America, the talent level is pretty nuts and there is a reason they are dominating North America. Their average ability per-position is at the level of our best player on the whole team. For most positions we are looking at a 40-50 CA gap, which is extreme. There is no weakness in this team, period. This is the final hurdle for Road View to overcome, our boogeyman team. Could we do it in 2067??

Sadly, it didn't take them long to show us their skill; 15 min and they are in the back of the net. What has become a trend for the team, a breakdown in our buildup caught us flat footed and their left winger beats my injured FBR 1v1 to open the scoring. I end up doing two defensive changes in the first half for a complacent CB and then the injured RB as we are in shambles after they score a 2nd in the 29', again due to bad marking and coordination on the back line. At that point it looks like this will be a blow out but somehow manage to find a goal right before halftime to bring it back to 2-1. Was completely against the run of play and was down to the heroics of our star striker. We go into the locker room in high spirits dreaming: Perhaps there's a chance!?!

Goal 1 Rhys Jackson

Team comes out pumped for the Second half and it’s a beautiful start with our old man Clark feeding the young star Jackson in the 47’ to find us an equalizer! He's flying with the best middle performance of his career. I'm cheering: We’re back in it baby!!

Goal 2 Rhys Jackson

Unfortunately, at the 55’ they bring us back down to reality pulling us every which way and getting a 3^rd goal. We pushed but by this point in the game our legs were giving out and we couldn’t make lightning strike a third time. My Goalkeeper really let us down today with a 6.1 rating. ****ing hates big matches, I swear it's the worst!! While we were lucky to do as well as we did, weren't quite lucky enough to bring it home yet again. 3 Finals and 3 defeats. Also, the 3rd time in the past 4 years the NACL champions Monterrey forced our exit.

Spoiler

NACL Tournament Tree:

Road View NACL Competition History:

While we initially entered the NACL in 2031, we weren't able to exit the Caribbean group stage till 2041. Our next milestone was our first Quarter Final in 2048, which we reached a couple of times before in 2056 we had heartbreak to be eliminated in our first Semi-Final on away goals. That era ended in 2059 with the absurd Extra Time added time gifted goal to the opposition just missing out on a penalty shoutout. I still consider this campaign the one we should have completed the challenge. It took a few years, but right now we are in what is our best sustained continental performance just falling short to two Liga Mx sides: Toluca & Monterrey, who have both beat us in a Final and Second Round matchups.

Summary

Man, that final was a rollercoaster. FM showing its true ups and downs from numbers on a spreadsheet. It will probably be a few days till I finish out the season and start planning the final few years of this Golden Era for Road View. I wager we have 3 good campaigns left in all but Richard Hoyte, who is pretty much done after this year and urgently needs replacement. Craig Mighty has given me a promise to fill this gap in our star lineup this Summer, stay tuned to see if he delivers:

Edited August 3 by WhiteCat33

djsterry · August 3

On 30/07/2024 at 18:25, dgghrt said:

wow. Can I see your HOYD? Any tips as I've been a top half premier league team for like five years but the quality of intakes isn't of the level to break into top 4 contention.

HOYD

I know this goes against what most do but I went for the one with the best stats, I didnt just go for personality. I think building up your teams reputation helps. I have had better intakes since I got a worldwide rep

But I still think its mostly luck to be honest, I would say I'm very ruthless with players and not many players make it past 28 in my team. Once I see a player I think has potential i play him straight away

dkouv · August 3

@WhiteCat33 thanks a ton! So many years playing this challenge and still so much to learn I'll switch to the HOYD and put him in charge of the reserve teams, maybe once my rep goes up in the Championship I can get an upgrade on him too.

Neo_Geo · August 3

I know, I know....another save attempt and back to Europe once more but I still can't understand how Croatia hasn't been completed. I am determined that if I do well enough to keep them up I will stick at this because with a good youth rating it feels like this is achievable.

Pretty solid facilities and finances start off ok as well but the real differentiator for Kustosija Zagreb is their squad. Even after a few players have left I have 30 players (plus another in the u19s)! I don't recall seeing a team have quite as large a squad for taking on this challenge and there are some really good players in the mix.

Daddy · August 3

Congrats to @naterr! Between vacation and other games stealing my interest, I missed your completing the challenge.

Season 19 - 2041/42 - Czechia - First Division:

Three in a row, but this one came down to the wire. It was a challenging season with injuries and schedule congestion.

2041/42 - Champions League:

We had a much tougher go of things last season, but we also had tougher draws. No shame getting knocked out by Real Madrid, but I wish we had at least scored a goal.

Youth Intake:

Another deep intake. Not sure there's a superstar in this class, but a lot of players that have First Division ceilings.

Misc Updates:

Loan factory opening up and did some roster trimming of players not good enough for first team that wanted to move on.

I just found that funny.

I don't understand how I failed this.

I was hoping this wouldn't happen until I was a club legend to have a shot at a named stadium. Oh well. Since it mentioned the cost I figured I'd also capture my balance.

2041/42 Season Preview:

I can't really win the league three years in a row and settle at hoping to challenge for the championship. The goal is to win it again, and this time more comfortably.

This is a brutal draw. If we finish top 8 then I better win the whole thing lol.

XaW · August 3

New season is going great here! :seagull:

Sigguson · August 4

Season 4 was finally finished. Like the seasons before the odds before the start of the season put my squad at 600-1 and my squad on paper is supposed to be the weakest squad in the league.

https://i.postimg.cc/15FxPH7b/Season-preview.jpg

My team was for the first time competing in a european competition and when I was drawn against Ajax I was expecting to be demoted to the conference league right away. Lucikly for me Ajax wielded an out of shape back up team against me in the first leg and 4-1 victory away from home was a pleasant suprise. The second leg was much tougher and I was facing a completely different Ajax side but in the end I lost it 4-2 but went through 6-5 over the two matches. In the next round I went easily through against Hapoel Tel-Aviv and PAOK from Greece awaited me in the playoff round. I managed to draw 3-3 away from home and finished the job 4-3 at my home ground after scoring the winner in extra time. My team did okay in the league phase and managed to win against Quarabag and Ferencváros and then I got draws against A.Bilbao and Reims but a loss against polish side Legia at my home ground was a game I needed to win to advance to the next round but I my team was outclassed by Legia and the main issue I faced was a lack of depth but injuries to my defence line made things way to difficult.

https://i.postimg.cc/R0p9q07Y/europa-league-finish.jpg

My team had a really good season in the league and managed to end up second in the league but very far away from RB Salzburg. Several big teams are also coming for my high potential player Savic but both Fc Bayern and PSG have been closely monitoring him. I also got a very promising intake with a lot of usable players for the future. Hermann Albert, Tim Marx and Urh Koren really standing out to me. For the future uploads I think I will just post screenshots because I expect it to be a though grind for the next seasons and even if I managed to get second in the league my squad is nowhere near strong enough to compete for any trophies soon.

https://i.postimg.cc/3Yz76yfP/fixtures.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/vZQdznXj/youth-intake-preview.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/WsPpzFm0/youth-intake-very-good.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/TPsMf4GM/best-eleven.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/GmqnSp5p/youth-intake-very-good.jpg

resurectedja · August 4

FM 23*

Catania Season 7 -2029/2030

The bookies didn’t really trust us to stay up after our majestic last season. We were projected to finish 16^th. Given that the Juventus B team was predicted to finish last without any odds, we might as well be one of the 3 or 4 worst teams in their eyes. The tradition is over, Curci didn’t get an offer from Chievo. But Esposito really wants to leave the club. We settled on a 5 million price. This preseason we have sold our first player. It wasn’t anyone who played a lot of minutes, but one of our young talents, Cocuzza. He went to SPAL for 200K plus 50% of the next profit. He was the start of our intake 2 years ago. We went out of our way to give him first team minutes ever since, but he hasn’t improved. He even got worse. Given that Tortelli is close to the first team, is younger, with better CA and personality I decided to sell Cocuzza and prioritize the development of Tortelli. The season started very painfully. Bologna demolished us 5 0, with very unfortunate xG. But it was a good season. We never feared relegation, apart from the first round. There were ups and downs, bad and good streaks, and 4 separate postponements against Venezia. But we survived in the Serie B our first season. In the end we finished 13th. Mostly thanks to the 7 game winless streak towards the end of the season which saw us slide from 9^th spot. Very happy with our first season. With a bit more luck, especially with injuries maybe we could have finished higher.

The youth preview looked as amazing as it always does. It promised a total of 6 A level prospects, including a much-needed goalkeeper and two midfielders. The actual intake was worse and a lot different in terms of the positions, probably the most different we had so far in this save. I got 4 elite talents, all 4 with 1.5 star CA and 5 star PA; right and left fullback, center defender and central midfielder. I really like the look of Marco Cali our future ball winning midfielder. Spawned with absolutely brilliant mentals for that role as well as quite good physicals. The 13 passing is a nice touch. Wish the 9 tackling was higher and really hoping that the balance personality is on the higher end of ambition and professionalism, unlike the 5star balanced prospects of the past. Nobile is an unathletic CD with brilliant technique and tackling. If I didn’t get Cali in the same intake I would turn him into a BWM. Finally a player with high ambition, first 5 star ambitious player since Vicedomini in the first season. Hoping he makes the same impact. Marini is a left back who can also play higher up the pitch and also the golden boy of this generation. Wish he was taller and could jump higher, but once again very impressive mentally that are hard to develop, except for work rate and his technique is an incredible 15. Fine with the Mercenary personality, had success developing players with that type, especially in Merthyr Town. Left the worst for last. De Carlo looks like a very raw full back with a bad personality, Low Determination. How low is that determination? 2. Yeah. But on the bright side 3 out of the 4 might have good chances to develop into. Time will tell.

Esposito was once again our leading goal scorer this season with 14 goals, which is nearly double his xG of 7.8. Our leader in terms of average rating was once again our DLPD Vicedomini with 7.11. The 6 assists that Lubishtani had this season were the most by any player this season.

Fausto Savoia won the u19 Player of the Month for October and November, and January. Esposito won the same award in February, March and May. Esposito overtook Sarao as our all time league goalscorer. The previous record was 62 goals. He also won the best u19 player of the Serie B, popularly called “Scopigno”.

This season as many as 6 players were called up to their respective national teams, with Lubishtani becoming our first regular senior team national with Kosovo.

Players selected in the Team of the Month were Luongo and Mora. Both once.

nasus_elyob · August 4

Just started my YA save at Ingolstadt!

https://prnt.sc/ho4wUrToxj_j

XaW · August 4

16 hours ago, XaW said:

New season is going great here!

I have no idea what is happening to my team, but I'm struggling hard, and now the supporters are calling for my head... I can feel the board meeting approach!

Honestly, the crashing is simply stunning, we are losing a lot just about every match, and I don't understand why. Still using the same tactic I always use, and the players are better, but we are just poor. I hope I can turn it around, but no hints of it going better yet...

av3ry · August 4

I can see your problem. You ain't scoring enough :brock:

XaW · August 4

4 minutes ago, av3ry said:

I can see your problem. You ain't scoring enough

Oh, I know!

However we aren't creating chances anymore. 13 games into the season and we have 7 goals... xG? 9...! So yeah, we should score more, but not that much more. Just horrible. And when we are leaking goals too, it's not looking good! No clue why we play so poor all of a sudden...

XaW · August 4

Well, I decided it was fun to Czech out that league, but I think I'll go somewhere I feel more at home...

Neo_Geo · August 4

3 hours ago, XaW said:

Well, I decided it was fun to Czech out that league, but I think I'll go somewhere I feel more at home...

Follo?

Neo_Geo · August 4

I think I understand why Croatia hasn’t been completed yet and I’m very thankful for my large squad.

Players must be 17 or older to play (except for the first league which allows 16 year olds to play if they have significant potential so I’ve no idea who determines that).

I made the mistake of irritating a few of the senior players who are now leaving so if I had a much smaller squad to start with I’d be in real bother.

XaW · August 4

9 minutes ago, Neo_Geo said:

Follo?

Ding ding ding!

Perre8 · August 4

1 hour ago, Neo_Geo said:

I think I understand why Croatia hasn’t been completed yet and I’m very thankful for my large squad.

Players must be 17 or older to play (except for the first league which allows 16 year olds to play if they have significant potential so I’ve no idea who determines that).

I made the mistake of irritating a few of the senior players who are now leaving so if I had a much smaller squad to start with I’d be in real bother.

Correct haha, very annoying rule!

I am currently on vacation, so not in the possibility to post screenshots but playing FM during the holiday.

I am on my 4th consecutive title in the league, in the CL nothing much to say, qualified for the next round but always got eliminated pretty soon after. I selected trough my seniors and let a lot of talent make the promotion to the first team, that is going very good with a firm lead in november. I will try to keep some updates live.

libbyshuss · August 4

Austria - 2047/48 - Premier League

Wels Show it's not how you start a season, but how you finish it!

League: We really struggled this season. It didn't help that during pre-season we picked up injuries to our best two players and kept on picking up; injuries. We couldn't play the same team twice and struggled to get into any sort of rhythm. We even managed to lose to Grazer, for their only victory of the season, as well as losing twice to FAC Wien. It was really frustrating!

But when you get to the championship group stage everyone gets their points totalled halved, and with ten games still to play, it means everyone still has a chance. And we were finally getting a fully fit first choice XI, so I was optimistic we could make a good go of it. And we did! In the entire Championship group stage we didn't lose once to clinch an unlikely but in the end deserved title!

Champions League: Drew a lot of the league stage but got through with two wins, beat Galatassary in the first knockout round only to get hammered by Newcastle in the next round. 7-1 over the two legs!

Youth

First time in the last three FMs that i've managed to max out youth facilities at a club so I was excited to see what the third best youth recruitment in the world would throw up. Except.....the preview was one of the worst I've ever got!

So even before the intake I'd written this year off completely. So I was actually pleasantly surprised that I got three top talents - probably not future superstars but possibly good squad players and always worth signing up. What kind of intake would a preview full of A grades get me??

Gergo Kiss comes from my Romanian affiliate club! I love affiliate clubs that give me random youths now and then

Career

Edited August 4 by libbyshuss

naterr · August 4

Terry Hamilton in Africa

I have decided to try and tackle Africa once more - but after announcing my team last time - and then being fired within 24 hours! (IRL time, not in game!) I have made sure that I lasted a few seasons before adding here. I will do the updates when I get back but I wanted to announce the team.

I avoided Morocco this time because of the last spectacular fail, and loaded up Egypt, Algeria, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Cameroon. Egpyt was my first choice, but after simming until the 25/26 season there were no promoted teams as the league re-organised itself, so I decided to ditch them too.

DR Congo and Ivory Coast were my next choice but Ghana looked too tempting.

WAFA SC or West African Football Academy SC were just promoted, and they had amazing starting facilities for the challenge!

Those facilities were just too good to turn down...or so I thought!

Another team caught my eye! mainly because of the badge!

Ashanti Gold is a name I have heard of in the past, they won Ghana's top division in 2015, so very recent! Their facilities are pretty decent too.

There is the small matter of why they were relegated...and that is because they were found guilty of match fixing! Hopefuly the match fixing will work in our favour!

But look at the badge!

I have been asked by the board to stop telling everyone about the match fixing, it was all a miss understanding. I know he means that as he gave me a bonus at the same time!

mpm2342 · August 5

Crewe United 2024 Season Update

I am finally posting the update - season has been done for a few days, but I have been messing around with the data collection for all the charts and spreadsheets dancing around in my brain (I blame you WhiteCat).

Season Update:

The season was fairly uneventful. We started off hot and ended off cold, but built enough cushion at the beginning that we were never in danger.

We didn't get any improvements on facilities, but we did get a number of coaching courses for myself and the other coaches, so that should help a bit.

Transfers:

Spoiler

Youth Candidates:

Whisper it quietly .... GOLDEN GENERATION !!!

First season with the worst youth recruitment and facilities and we get an indication of a bumper crop. :hammer:

Now context matters for everything and when your team sucks as bad as this one, getting A ratings is not that hard, but still, a clean sweep. 15 of 16 Elite Talents and one Top talent as well.

Thank you to @WhiteCat33 for the inspiration and basis for the next charts:

We picked up some awesome personalities with a couple standing out:
Brady - professional with 17 Det and decent ambition
McCullough - resolute with 17 Det and good ambition

5 of these players were immediately better than the existing players so got put on the 1st team: Brady, Neill, Josh Moore, Stitt and Quinn. The best part is that they all play primarily on the back end where we are severely lacking in talent as evidenced by our minus 14 GD for the season even though we had higher xG in most games,

Oh ya - They were all Northern Irish with 4 having a secondary Nation of Ireland.

Squad Update:

Here is how the squad is rated heading into next season:

I sure hope the two new fullbacks and one centre back will develop nicely this season. The one player who developed well last season was our GK - Williamson:

Overall we are still well short of the Intermediate target, but the new guys helped us move up a bit. Likely not good enough yet to win the league, but should be able to finish top half.

Drilling a bit deeper and the weakness in the back end definitely shows. My history tells me that you can see up to 15 rating points improvement from higher potential recruits, so the current crop can get us into the NI premier league if they develop decently.

Bingo

I created a bingo for Northern Ireland and got one square green:

Spoiler

Edited August 5 by mpm2342

XaW · August 5

Oh, how I have missed you, my old friend Håvard Dalseth!

Needless to say, we are doing rather well!

XaW · August 5

"Wait, why are you shooting there, you imbicile.... oh, ok then, nice shot lad!"

Thebaker · August 5

3033

Table | Squad | Transfers

Had a pretty good season where the team was looking up rather than down and with 8 games to go got to within 3 points of the playoff spot but then endured a poor finish to finish quite a way off the top.

Finances remain constant.

This season was set up by the midfield pairing of Athanasiou whose personality declined and Tahiri. One of the first original players Sjoqvist had his best season and Keymer finished as league top scorer.

The youth preview promised a needed striker but was a disappointing intake as the strikers didn't look that good. Nyman has reasonable attributes, Said will be be converted to a striker.

Spoiler

Youth nationalities:

Continent			Europe			Africa			South America			Asia			North America			Oceania
Overall	144	100%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%	Country	#	%
Europe	137.66	95.60%	Sweden	129.33	89.81%	Eritrea	1.5	1.04%	Uruguay	0.5	0.35%	Iraq	0.5	0.35%	Jamaica	0.83	0.58%
Africa	3.5	2.43%	Bosnia	1.5	1.04%	Somalia	0.5	0.35%				Palestine	0.5	0.35%	USA	0.5	0.35%
South America	0.5	0.35%	Greece	1.5	1.04%	Niger	0.5	0.35%
Asia	1	0.69%	Albania	1	0.69%	Nigeria	0.5	0.35%
North America	1.33	0.92%	Turkey	1	0.69%	Gambia	0.5	0.35%
Oceania	0	0	Italy	1	0.69%
			Serbia	1	0.69%
			England	0.83	0.58%
			Kosovo	0.5	0.35%

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

Spoiler

Youth Name	All time apps	Youth Name	All time Goals	Youth Name	All time Assists
Ted Keymer (25c)	188	Ted Keymer (25c)	98	Manolis Athanasiou (26p)	23
Roger Gustafsson (25e)	187	Manolis Athanasiou (26p)	21	Ted Keymer (25c)	19
Mathias Sandin (25d)	172	Milton Strom (27j)	20	Marcus Noren (28k)	15
Manolis Athanasiou (26p)	163	Marcus Noren (28k)	14	Martin Tahiri (30i)	11
Gustav Pettersson (25g)	101	Roger Gustafsson (25e)	12	Mathias Sandin (25d)	9

Edited August 5 by Thebaker

FootieLu · August 5

my best player has been poached this stings

Neo_Geo · August 5

STUNNING FIRST SESAON FROM KUSTOSIJA ZAGREB

I alluded to this in an earlier post that the squad here was big, 31 players in total when the initial players out of contract left and it made a HUGE difference. We also were not involved in the Croatian Cup meaning it was league business only with 33 games played and a fairly lengthy winter break so keeping the players fresh (not fit because injuries are always round the corner in FM!). We won the league quite comfortably in the end......but there was no trophy presentation :confused:

I opted for a 4-3-3 DM wide and had plenty of flexibility in the winger positions meaning I could go with wingers or inside forwards both before the match and during the match. I feel that I've never had such a well balanced squad in my first season in this challenge. The U21 player rule (3 in the starting lineup) appeared like it was going to be an issue but in the end my settled eleven had 2 central midfielders at 19 and 20 and a striker at 19. The interesting part will be waiting for the first intake to become eligible to play (they need to be at least 17 or 16 but with a lot of potential - according to whom I have no idea!)

25 goals conceded in 33 games is the best season defensively I've had in a long, long time. Coupled with 72 goals we really were quite comfortable in the end. The season stats and the team of the year back this up:

As far as the running of the club is concerned we are losing money and were at about £50k in the red before the sponsorship money came in at the start of the new season and propped us back into the black. There was zero TV revenue this year and I'm not sure if the top division will be the same but it highlights just how important European qualification will be if/when it eventually happens.

EDIT: This popped up just after posting this, so happy days!

Our facilities were also downgraded this year which wasn't fantastic either:

With only 10 teams in the top division it will be super important to get the results against the teams expected to finish in the bottom half. We are predicted to finish bottom of course with 12th place getting 22 points last year and 34 points for 11th place, so that's the target. The goal is to attempt to avoid relegation so if we do go down I might keep my job depending on how bad the results and performances are.

Youth Intake

The first intake was decent though given the minimum age restrictions for the league it was a bit like bullseye with the "Here's what you could have won" by showing me the players then taking them away from me for 2 years :lol: Joking aside I'll have to get used to this pattern as I quite often blood the youngsters in the first season. Coupled with the fact the U19s didn't have a single match other than against the youth candidates getting the players to develop might be an issue (I'm sure I saw someone else have a save in Croatia with this same issue).

Anyway back to the intake. The preview was nothing special with one A rating and 3 Cs but the intake turned out alright in the end with a couple of decent looking prospects:

As always here are the details of the Elite talents:

Sven Zrinščak Y1-A
Blazenko Voštinić Y1-A
Ernad Petanjek Y1-A
Dorjan Štefančić Y1-A
Mislav Janko Tomšić Y1-A
Matěj Valković Y1-A

Pick of the bunch for me is the right back Sven Zrinščak Y1-A who is perhaps a little more defensive minded than my current RB options but there is a lot to work with there and a fairly professional personality thrown in as well is also a bonus. Pity he can't make his competitive debut until the end of this coming season. I also like the other fairly professional player Ernad Petanjek who looks like he has the makings of a pretty decent poacher.

Nationalities dominated by homegrown as you'd expect.

Club News

Very early on it became apparent that financially things were not great here. Monthly losses and media items always referring to us as being insecure and players possibly having to leave as they were high earners. Also very early on were the rumours of a takeover which rumbled on a number of times throughout the season without going any further than being rumours.

Before the finances took a tumble towards the red I was able to get 2 coaching badge courses approved (the third was turned down when we were at about £20k in the bank)

Coaching Course 1
Coaching Course 2

The board provided funds one time and then we also got this lovely piece of news regarding a former player making a make to Galatasaray meaning we got a consolidation fee of £168k.

Squad News

The squad for next season has not changed a great deal however here is the best eleven from this season:

Here is one of my most improved youngsters over the course of the season, Roko Peros. He's been excellent for me this year and has a great engine on him, he's intelligent and he's scored some pretty decent efforts from outside the box as well. Luckily he is 19 just now meaning I get at least one more season of him counting as an U21 player!

For the player records there were no appearances for the regens due to the age restrictions:

Here are the profiles for player of the year Davor Lovren and young player of the year Luka Vracar.

Bingo Card

A decent first season as far as the old bingo card is concerned, with 5 targets met (Davor Lovren also won the player of the year but as he isn't a youth player it doesn't count for obvious reasons):

Edited August 5 by Neo_Geo

The7Striker · August 5

My save in Peru has come to an end. For some reason the second-round matches aren't being generated.

I don't know if the problem is DB's or my game's, but even using an older savefile doesn't solve it. :seagull:

Neo_Geo · August 5

1 hour ago, The7Striker said:

My save in Peru has come to an end. For some reason the second-round matches aren't being generated.

I don't know if the problem is DB's or my game's, but even using an older savefile doesn't solve it.

That sucks.

One of the reasons why I tend to stick to vanilla leagues as I had something similar in Puerto Rico before

Neo_Geo · August 5

Turn 17 already!

Sitting in the U19s, no match time other than the friendly appearance (when I finally realised I was able to play them there)

Turns out the Croatian First League doesn't have the 3 U21 starter rule though the 17 or over rule is still a thing

Daddy · August 5

This is one of the most unique combination of nationalities and name of an intake player.

XaW · August 5

2 minutes ago, Daddy said:

This is one of the most unique combination of nationalities and name of an intake player.

Love the name, but I've heard there is a big diaspora of Vietnamese people in Czechia, thought I can't remember why...

WhiteCat33 · August 5

FM23 Barbados YAC: Road View FC

2067 Season 45 Part II – 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:

See Previous Post for Breakdown. Here are some awards my players won in our fantastic (but not victorious) campaign:

Spoiler

Shocked my 18 year old CD Marquez made the NACL Dream Team

Matches:

We were the NACL title away from an undefeated season in all competitions, shame I lost that friendly against Antwerp or I could say friendlies as well! With the weird schedule in Barbados we play a ton of games each year with almost half being friendlies to keep the team fresh (and get some hard games under our belt).

Spoiler

Reserve & U18s:

Both won their leagues again.

Squad:

CA Player List:

Spoiler

Excel Graphs:

CA Average Tables:

Spoiler

Player Highlights:

Transfers:

Spoiler

Head Coach:

Club Improvements:

Road view has hit what seems to be the reputation ceiling for North America. It is us and the best Mexico Clubs. Then Alajuelense of Costa Rica with the top MLS clubs.

Spoiler

A month before the season we completed the stadium upgrade so we got to host our opening game of the season in our expanded stadium! People flocked to the game with us netting our first greater than $1M league gate receipts. NACL games earned us a little more around 1.3M. We sold out a bunch of our games and averaged 37,580 Attendances so we are getting plenty of fans into the games. Like everyone, there hasn't been an option to upgrade youth facilities and I highly doubt it will ever return.

Spoiler

Youth Academy:

HOYD:

Craig Mighty was generated at the start of the save as a newgen in LL-Jamaica and played a full career till 2045. We hired him right then and by 2047 he was our HOYD making this his 20th season running our academy!

Spoiler

Youth Intake Preview:

Youth Intake:

Our HOYD delivered, but not at all how I expected.

Top 3 Players:

Spoiler

This isn’t an Attacking Midfielder but wowzer! He’s the worst best player I’ve ever seen. When you compute his combination of Light-Hearted + Unflappable + 5 Determination you get:

This means we don't really know what his Professionalism or Ambition is, but he's good on the other hidden attributes. What makes this situation doubly bad is he has awful determination at just 5. With this terrible 3 combination I'm just assuming he won't develop at all and I've got what I'm going to get. Thankfully that's still a huge win for the club. He will be perfect as the sub LB/RB to give us fresh legs in the second half to counter the nasty attackers from Mexico for the 3 years left of our 30 year old star LB & RB. If I can get any development out of him I hope its marking to make him defensively solid. This will be a perfect test to see how mentoring can "fix" a player. My two-star Fullbacks are Professional w/ 18 Det & high ambition (upgraded from Driven) & Resolute, so if anyone can turn this guy around its those two.

Azarel Weekes has to be the AMC my HOYD was talking about. If he had more potential I'd be ecstatic. Hopefully, with mentoring we can get every ounce out of what potential he has and develop a fine attacker here.

We got yet another GK to add to the stable. I’m building a number of middling GKs, even though this guy has some good starting attributes (Reflex & Handling specifically) I'm not convinced he'll come out on top.

Our American Christian Amaya suffers from again low determination which seems to be a theme this intake. He'll need a monster mental improvement to made a difference at the continental level.

Finally, we have Jason Cornish who gives us another midfielder for the intake. He actually has an exciting mix in my view and could become an AP.

Excel Tables:

Standard Graphs:

Spoiler

The mentality sacrifice for Current ability is evident even with my missing last years intake.

You can see how big of an anomaly that RB is. Literally 2nd best player ever to come through Barbados. What makes the intake so good though is that the rest of the top 5 actually are above the recent down-trend. Optimistic me is hoping this is year 1 of an actual golden generation as we are well due for one.

Some major moves for the Top 10 CA intake players as not just #2 Goodridge, but we have added #5 Chandler (GK) & #7 Weeks (AMC)! While I may be bemoaning the personalities, we did actually get some massive talent influx this year.

Same-ole Pie Chart

Barbados National Team:

2066 - I already covered the World Cup smashing. BRB returned to a very difficult Nations League A group with #5 WR Mexico & Haiti. Barbdos got crushed by Mexico, but put the pain on Haiti to record a 2/3 finish to remain in the top Nations League, which is all you can ask for.

Spoiler

2067 - This year it was Gold Cup that messed with the Domestic Cup Final and sadly yet again Barbados got blanked on the big stage. Looking ahead there is some hope with the Nations League group as Barbados already beat Guatemala 1-0 this year. Unless things go sideways a repeat 2/3 finish seems likely.

Spoiler

Road View Internationals:

Main: 24 Barbados ; 1 Guyana

Spoiler

Youth: 12 Barbados

Spoiler

Barbadian’s Around the World:

English Academy Players:

Chelsea & WEst Ham just generated Barbadian players. Of these UK based players only Curtis Croney at the very bottom has declared for Barbados and been in the national team since the World Cup.

MLS Academy Players:

Basically no one in the US or Canada, which is odd.

Spoiler

Caribbean Academy Players:

Jamaica generates a lot of Barbados players, but rarely are they impactful for the national side.

Spoiler

Other Nations:

No other nations generated Barbadians.

Caribbean International Performance:

Gold Cup:

Jamaica and Haiti advanced out of the Group Stage, but unsurprisingly it's still a USA vs Mexico Final. Have to say Haiti almost did it though, makes me wonder what's changed between their Gold Cup and Nations League squads.

Spoiler

Summary

After the NACL it was just a matter of playing out the season to reach the inevitable victories. The amazing intake has me revitalized for the next 3 years of the challenge. I can say this intake solves our CM depth issues. With 4 CM/CAM options at least 1 should develop. That RB sets us up fantastic to keep our defense strong with now 3 of 5 players being young (U-23). We will see about GK, I have been getting good development out of a 20-year-old and have an adequate 25 year old backup so our 33 Yr Atkins physical decline isn't mission critical.

Going into 2068 we bring back the entire starting XI at the same or better ability now with a bench carrying full defensive cover. I have a couple young strikers who will be taking over for rotation squad players, so if they can perform there's no reason we can't repeat this year's campaign. Only hiccup is I got the dumb 'old men want to leave because they accomplished everything' for 3 of my star players. Hopefully they'll get over themselves and get back at another stab at greatness!

XaW · August 5

XaW - Follo Fotballklubb - Season 2024 (Season 1) - PostNord-ligaen Avdeling 2

Squad | Transfers | Finances

I think this might be the best season I've ever had in Football Manager ever, and I love it's with my home club in what is most likely the last chance I get at using them for this challenge for a while. Of course, I know the club quite well, and I know my favourite tactic is very suited to the club, but this was still something I didn't expect. Going invincible in my first season at the club is a bit overdoing it, but I'll of course take it. Unsurprisingly, we got promoted as champions and are up into the 2nd tier next season, and I really hope we can stay up next season.

I'm going to give a big shout out to my hero Håvard Dalseth who scored an amazing 36 goals in 27 matches for us this season!

Norgesmesterskapet: We beat Tromsdalen, Florø, and Ullern before we lost to Sandefjord in the 4th round.

Best players from the academy:

Sander Damm 24a - Got a few cameos this season, and even popped up with a couple of goals in a cup match.
Jacob Blixt Arvesen 24f - Not a long term player, but got some game time due to injuries.
Glenn Arne Karlsøen 24c - The final youth players with a few sub apps.

New club records:

Most goals in a season - Håvard Dalseth - 36 goals
Most league goals in a season - Håvard Dalseth - 33 goals
Most goals in a match - Håvard Dalseth - 4 goals
Most goals in a league match - Håvard Dalseth - 4 goals
Most assists in a season - Elias Lenoci - 21 assists
Most player of the match awards - Håvard Dalseth - 10 awards
Worst discipline - Jabes Maturire - 8 yellow cards, 0 red cards
Most league goals for the club - Håvard Dalseth - 101 goals
Youngest player - Sander Damm 24a - 15 years, 258 days
Fastest goal - Håvard Dalseth - 23 seconds
Oldest goalscorer - Håvard Dalseth - 28 years, 44 days

Got a one request for improvement accepted this season.

But due to league requirements we are also fitting in under-soil heating.

2nd team

They only played friendlies this season.

U19s

They finished 2nd in the Oslo Kretsserie G19 this season.

NM G19: They beat Strindheim, Lørenskog, and Kjelsås before they lost to Viking in the 4th round.

Around the world

Youth intake:

Trophy cabinet

PostNord-ligaen Avdeling 2 - 2024

Player statistics:

Most apps for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Time at club	Apps
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sander Damm 24a		Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	13
Jacob Blixt Arvesen 24f	Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	4
Glenn Arne Karlsøen 24c	Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	2

Most goals for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Time at club	Goals
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sander Damm 24a		Norway		<N/A>		2024-Present	2

Most assists for the club

Name			Nation		2nd Nation	Time at club	Assists
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
None yet

Supporters:

YAC Bingo:

Summary:

XaW · August 5

Well butter me up and call me a biscuit, I actually convinced a player to not explore his options! And the result is that he fired his agent! I did not know this was possible... And now he signed a new contract!

Neo_Geo · August 5

That’s definitely the first time I’ve seen that too @XaW

Ive had players consider their options and then when no one else comes in for them I can offer a new contract but that’s about it, never had them fire their agent…..loving it.

dkouv · August 5

Poole Town – Season 12 (2035/36)

Championship. We started the season with a gentle slide towards the relegation zone, but then our luck changed completely in December, when we faced most of our fellow relegation strugglers and managed to win 5 in 7. The turning point was a 3-1 win against bottom-of-the-table West Brom, who managed to miss 2 penalties in that game, and after that we just went on a roll and finished the season nowhere near relegation, comfortably 10th with 70 points and +16GD.

Players I wasn't sure if Sean Young 02b (AMC) could handle the Championship, but he had his best season for us to date with an average rating of 7.46. A couple of youngsters are excelling too, the best of them Jamie Owen 09a (AMRL) who put many Championship fullbacks on toast with his dribbles this year, and the midfielder Ronan Richardson 10a (DMC) who is developing fast but unfortunately already set his mind on leaving us (here's where having ambition as your personality traits really doesn't help).

Youth intake (preview): An intake full of potential, and switching things to my HOYD seems to have paid off in terms of better personalities, though maybe it's just luck. The only issue is that none of them are first-team ready yet, most of the top prospects seem to play in that center midfield strata, and my tactic has no "pure" central midfielders, but I'm sure I'll figure this out eventually.

Facilities Spending £310k/month on the youth set-up but the higher Championship TV money is keeping us afloat; we did a small stadium expansion and now maxed out our capacity at 6377.

EDIT 1: And this unexpectedly arrived come end of the season

So going up to level 3 but it seems this doesn't require any extra investment.

EDIT 2: A £4.2m parachute payment at the end of the season allowed us to upgrade both youth and training facilities, things are definitely looking up!

Transfers managed to sell a couple of ageing squad players for decent money to make room for the youngsters.


Season    |  League        | Pos. |     Europe     |   Best player                    |  Notes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2024/25   | Vanarama South |  10  |     n/a        |  William Butler (GK)             |
2025/26   | Vanarama South |  3   |     n/a        |  Filbert Owusu-Antwi (ST)        | Lost in playoff final
2026/27   | Vanarama South |  15  |     n/a        |  Filbert Owusu-Antwi (ST)        | FA cup 3rd round
2027/28   | Vanarama South |  1   |     n/a        |  Sean Young 02b (AMC)            | Promoted
2028/29   | Vanarama Nat.  |  23  |     n/a        |  Filbert Owusu-Antwi (ST)        | Relegated
2029/30   | Vanarama South |  4   |     n/a        |  Sean Young 02b (AMC)            | Promoted via playoffs
2030/31   | Vanarama Nat.  |  5   |     n/a        |  Danilo Russo 04a (AMR)          | Lost in playoff semi-final
2031/32   | Vanarama Nat.  |  5   |     n/a        |  Danilo Russo 04a (AMR)          | Lost in playoff 1st round
2032/33   | Vanarama Nat.  |  1   |     n/a        |  Danilo Russo 04a (AMR)          | Promoted
2033/34   | League 2       |  2   |     n/a        |  Tom Grant 05a (ST)              | Promoted
2034/35   | League 1       |  1   |     n/a        |  Tom Grant 05a (ST)              | Promoted
2035/36   | Championship   |  10  |     n/a        |  Sean Young 02b (AMC)            |


Facilities
----------
Season    |  Coaching     |  Recruitment      | Training Fac.  | Youth Fac.      |  Stadium
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2024      |  Fairly basic |  Basic            | Poor           |  Poor           |  2500
2024/25   |  Average      |  Fairly basic     | Poor           |  Poor           |  2500
2025/26   |  Average      |  Fairly basic     | Poor           |  Poor           |  2500
2026/27   |  Average      |  Average          | Poor           |  Poor           |  3000
2027/28   |  Adequate     |  Above average    | Basic          |  Poor           |  3000
2028/29   |  Adequate     |  Above average    | Below average  |  Basic          |  3000
2029/30   |  Adequate     |  Above average    | Below average  |  Basic          |  3000
2030/31   |  Good         |  Good             | Below average  |  Basic          |  4000
2031/32   |  Excellent    |  Excellent        | Below average  |  Basic          |  4000
2032/33   |  Exceptional  |  Exceptional      | Below average  |  Basic          |  4000
2033/34   |  Exceptional  |  Exceptional      | Adequate       |  Below average  |  5500
2034/35   |  Exceptional  |  Exceptional      | Adequate       |  Below average  |  5500
2035/36   |  Exceptional  |  Exceptional      | Adequate       |  Adequate       |  6377

Edited August 5 by dkouv
youth level & facility update

XaW · August 6

Ah, the new chairman after the election is hands on... thanks for that.... Of course you can sell one of my best players for peanuts, why wouldn't I be annoyed by it! :seagull:

jrobertgordon13 · August 6

7 hours ago, XaW said:

Ah, the new chairman after the election is hands on... thanks for that.... Of course you can sell one of my best players for peanuts, why wouldn't I be annoyed by it!

I’ve never had my owner sell a player without my permission on FM. I know it’s a thing that can happen, but it’s never happened to me for whatever reason.

naterr · August 6

Going for Gold!

Terry Hamilton - Ashanti Gold - Season 1 (I wanted to type this in this gold colour but it makes it hard to read so...black it is!)

The League

So the league format in the Ghana Division one is a bit complex. There are three divisions, 1a, 1b, 2 and 3. If you win 2 or 3 you get promoted, but if you win 1a and 1b you have a playoff to see who gets promoted (3 in total).

Luckily we find ourselves in division , zone 2, so we just need to win the league. With our team being rated as one of the best in the league ( I assume because of the recent league success and not the match fixing...) a promotion straight away looked possible, but that wasn't the case.

4th place is an amazing start - but the board weren't too impressed. Hopefully their expectations level out as they were a bit unrealistic. We had 11 players when I took over - and none of them were CM's

Ghana FA Cup

Our first taste of the cup - it looks like there is only the one cup competition here. We won our first match but were then knocked out in the second round.

Youth Intake

Ah yes - the main point of the challenge!

We have very good facilities to start and we were promised an excellent intake - with 11 players registered it had to be decent!

It delivered! I have never seen so many gold stars!

I assume this is just because the rest of our team is trash but it is still nice to see!

Welbeck

I could have picked a number of players - but this speedy winger is sure to stand out.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 6

Hello everyone. I aint done this challenge in a while but I will be doing it again for FM24. Hoping to complete this before FM25 comes out.

I have decided to go back to France and probably look to manage SC Toulon again as I had many fond memories of managing them on FM22 when I last did this challenge.

@darren1983 Any idea what day to save the game to get different teams in France please?

XaW · August 6

3 minutes ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Any idea what day to save the game to get different teams in France please?

For France, the 4th tier is visible, but not managble, so you can save scum whatever team you want in the 4th tier into 3rd tier and take over then. Or just holiday a season and take whatever happens as the season rolls over.

Ronaldo Beckham · August 6

3 minutes ago, XaW said:

For France, the 4th tier is visible, but not managble, so you can save scum whatever team you want in the 4th tier into 3rd tier and take over then. Or just holiday a season and take whatever happens as the season rolls over.

Yeah I had the 4th division greyed out and what I did was save it on 1st May and then holiday to June 19th but I kept getting the same teams.

So I only had the leagues down to the French National league, saved it on April 1st and then holiday to June 19th and same thing happened.

I aint got a clue what I am doing wrong.

I never done this before.

I don't mind not being SC Toulon this time but I would like a half decent team. AS Cannes and Istres were teams that come up but I didn't fancy managing them much.

The only way I am getting different teams is literally starting fresh every time and holidaying to June 19th. Luckily it doesn't take much time to process through a season on my new laptop.

Just annoying :lol:

Thank you for your help.

darren1983 · August 6

27 minutes ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Hello everyone. I aint done this challenge in a while but I will be doing it again for FM24. Hoping to complete this before FM25 comes out.

I have decided to go back to France and probably look to manage SC Toulon again as I had many fond memories of managing them on FM22 when I last did this challenge.

@darren1983 Any idea what day to save the game to get different teams in France please?

Yeah like XaW said, load the 4th division even though it's unplayable (though I think if you get relegated from the 3rd the 4th becomes active but don't quote me on that) and pick what team you like and just save scum their results. Obviously the worse team you pick the longer/harder it'll be to save scum their results.

XaW · August 6

18 minutes ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Yeah I had the 4th division greyed out and what I did was save it on 1st May and then holiday to June 19th but I kept getting the same teams.

So I only had the leagues down to the French National league, saved it on April 1st and then holiday to June 19th and same thing happened.

I aint got a clue what I am doing wrong.

I never done this before.

I don't mind not being SC Toulon this time but I would like a half decent team. AS Cannes and Istres were teams that come up but I didn't fancy managing them much.

The only way I am getting different teams is literally starting fresh every time and holidaying to June 19th. Luckily it doesn't take much time to process through a season on my new laptop.

Just annoying

Thank you for your help.

Load up a new save with all 4 tiers. Find a team in the 4th tier you want to manage. Holiday until they play a match, save, holiday a single day and if they win, holiday to the next match and repeat. Otherwise reload until they win. Do that until they have enough points to get promoted, then holiday until the season rollover and take over the team you scummed up into the 3rd tier and play as normal from there.

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