The FM24 Youth Academy Challenge

[Mahzun_Savas]

7 games into the season I have won 6 games and lost 1. The amazing thing is I have scored 26 goals in those 7 games with my striker David Nates scoring 13 goals in those 7 games. It is not only my team which is scoring goals, my opponents have managed 14 goals, 2 per game, against me. Games are feeling like a real shootout, lots of attacking and very little defending happening. 

[libbyshuss]

10 minutes ago, Mahzun_Savas said:

Games are feeling like a real shootout, lots of attacking and very little defending happening. 

yeah, same here. 5-5 draws, narrow 5-4 defeats - definitely more fun than 0-0 and 0-1 i guess

[Potat]

Is there a way to influence the nationality of players in the intakes? Currently struggling in Japan with how short my defenders are with every conceded corner being as good as a penalty.

[Mahzun_Savas]

9 minutes ago, Potat said:

Is there a way to influence the nationality of players in the intakes? Currently struggling in Japan with how short my defenders are with every conceded corner being as good as a penalty.

I believe staff nationality, especially manager nationality, can effect the nationality of players in the intake such that you get a player or two of that nationality.

[the_hdk]

15 minutes ago, Potat said:

Is there a way to influence the nationality of players in the intakes? Currently struggling in Japan with how short my defenders are with every conceded corner being as good as a penalty.

What mahzun said...plus later you can get links to other clubs and if you have youth intake one...sometimes you get youths from that country.

[Potat]

11 minutes ago, Mahzun_Savas said:

I believe staff nationality, especially manager nationality, can effect the nationality of players in the intake such that you get a player or two of that nationality.

ah thanks, time to go staff hunting then

[thomas_e]

Injuries really are turned up this year. First serious goalkeeper injury I can really remember, already in the first season! But more realistic than before, even though it seems injuries in general needs to be turned down a little bit! 

Edit: Another GK injury. Crazy

Edited October 23, 2023 by thomas_e

[Neo_Geo]

I feel absolutely zero connection with Vihar Slavyonovo and the Bulgarian league, thought getting the first intake might help out a bit but it really didn't.

I think it's because I really want to take on England and commit to something long-term, so I go again.....

Lewes FC, also known as the Rooks (insert chess puns here), will hopefully be where I find my home in FM 24.

Changing my avatar from one legendary video game character to another, this time Astarion is taking a break from witty quips and deadly kills in Faerûn to take over the East Sussex club Lewes FC.

Manager Profile

Lewes play their games at The Dripping Pan (3000 capacity) and I love the look of this unique stadium:

I'm also quite partial to the red and black striped strip.

Finances are decent with £159k in the bank, no debts or loans and currently £1.8k under the weekly wage budget so I have a little room to manoeuvre and get the current squad's contracts sorted.

14 players at the club but no goalkeeper so it'll be a grey keeper for a season but I've been used to playing with grey keepers in FM 24 so far given the injuries so it should be straightforward.

EDIT: Spoke too soon, two players have retired a further two who aren't under contract are listed and I can't get them to negotiate, so very quickly I'll be down to 10 players

Edited October 23, 2023 by Neo_Geo

[Mahzun_Savas]

10 players will be tough, hope it works out for you.

[Neo_Geo]

8 hours ago, Mahzun_Savas said:

10 players will be tough, hope it works out for you.

Thanks

Ironically one of the players who retired applied to be Assistant Manager, and he's one of the better candidates (would have been nice if he had done one more year as a player assistant manager )

One of the listed players has left so its now 11

[Ranga846]

Think i might be the luckiest person ever, decided to try one in Turkey and ended up at a team that has 21 players, some of which seem way too good for the division I'm in

[the_hdk]

14 minutes ago, Ranga846 said:

Think i might be the luckiest person ever, decided to try one in Turkey and ended up at a team that has 21 players, some of which seem way too good for the division I'm in

turkiye is fun to play this challange in...many good clubs and youth intake is amazing.

[libbyshuss]

1 hour ago, Neo_Geo said:

Lewes play their games at The Dripping Pan (3000 capacity) and I love the look of this unique stadium:

I've been there many times, it's a cracking little ground. Really proper old school where you can change ends at half time. It's great!

[Atrux]

This is the first time since my FM22 Northern Ireland try, that I'm on the first place in a youth academy save. Obviously only temporary, because Dunkerque will still play and it's only match day 6 .

 

Edit: They actually lost. So top of the table for now!

Edited October 23, 2023 by Atrux

[DazRTaylor]

So I have tried my old trick of holidaying for three seasons in the hope of getting someone different or exciting.  I got both.  Welcome to the reborn...

Club Introduction

Bury

The Manager

This is me.

Personal Contract

Season     Contract Start Date     Contract Expiry Date     Pre Tax Wage     Post Tax Wage
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At start          25 June 2026             30 June 2027         £750 p/w          £600 p/w

Personal Coaching Data

Season     Reputation            Qualifications     Att  Def  Fit  GkD  GkH  GkS  Tac  Tec  Men  SeP  WWY  Ada  Det  PlK  YoK  LoD  PeM  Mot
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At start   Minimal   (0.50*)     None                 1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    1    5    1    1    1    5    1    1    1

Club Facilities

Season     Training Facilities  Youth Facilities  Youth Level  Corporate Facilities  Junior Coaching  Youth Recruitment  Club Reputation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At Start   Great                Great                  2       Basic                 Adequate         Average            Local   (1.00*)

Season Record

Season     Played     Won     Drawn     Lost     Goals For     Goals Against     Goal Difference     Win Percentage
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overall Career Record

After Season   Played     Won     Drawn     Lost     Goals For     Goals Against     Goal Difference     Win Percentage     Time At Club
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transfer Sale Record

Date               Player                    Position               Club Sold To                 Country                   Transfer Fee
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trophy Haul

Season     Competition Won
--------------------------

Trophy Cabinet

League Titles
-------------

Cup Competition Victories
-------------------------

Career Overview

Season     Champions League    Europa League    Europa Conference League             League                             Position     F.A. Cup                    League Cup        Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Record Number of Appearances (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                    Cumulative Number of Appearances
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Record Goal Scorer (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                          Cumulative Number of Goals
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Record Number of Assists (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                        Cumulative Number of Assists
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Record Number of Clean Sheets (Players From The Academy Only)

Season     Player                    Cumulative Number of Clean Sheets
----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by DazRTaylor

[fries]

Big things are happening in the small club. My best player and biggest talent Wightwick got his first international call-up!

Unfortunately, it looks like he is lost for the club. His contract is expiring after the season and he is currently unhappy I rejected a bid from a Championship side.

[HanziZoloman]

vor einer Stunde schrieb fries:

Big things are happening in the small club. My best player and biggest talent Wightwick got his first international call-up!

Unfortunately, it looks like he is lost for the club. His contract is expiring after the season and he is currently unhappy I rejected a bid from a Championship side.

What a terrific player wow 

[libbyshuss]

Japan - Machida Corriente (Honda FC)

2025 (season 2) - J3 League

Objectives: Stay in the J3, sign up the better legacy players to new contracts, improve facilities

Season Review

I'm loving Japan! It's ideal for youth saves as the money means you can actually get facility upgrades! I'm not used to that in the first 2 seasons of one of these saves.

We were great in the league, I got so carried away with our bashing of rubbish teams in friendlies I didn't even notice the last three teams we bashed were in the J3! We didn't lose until the 10th game of the season. We couldn't quite keep that pace up but we were very close to automatic promotion, instead qualifying for the play offs, which was better than I expected/hoped for. Fukushima went through in the play off semi-final as they finished higher than us in the league. Bah.

,  

 

Players

We managed to sign most of the better legacy players up to new contracts so should be nicely set for the next few seasons. Even better, we had a bit of an injury crisis towards the end of the season and I had to bring in some of last seasons youngsters before I'd have like to. Kensuke Ando 24A, at only 16, came off the bench to make his debut, assisted the winner and got PotM. So he started the next game and scored the winner. Finished with stats of 11 games, 6 goals and 5 assists, all from midfield!

Youth

So how much difference did those youth intake improvements make? well....

a five star preview is nice, as is an A grade for attacking midfielders. So what did it produce?

Very happy with that! I think it's safe to say the 0.5 star poor intake is a bug!

The best youngster looked like this fella:-

Personality not the best, and it looks like he's made out of paper, but hopefully we'll make a man out of him yet. One thing I'm noticing is just how versatile a lot of my youth intake are, which really, really helps in a save like this. They're often accomplished in at least 3 positions.

Career

Is it too soon to push for promotion? Probably, but not to start bringing some of these young players through. And with another couple of upgrades going through I'm very excited by next seasons intake!

 

[PequenoGenio]

Em 22/10/2023 em 10:29, Potat disse:

Green Green Grass of Honda

End of Season 1

An overall good season but a very worrying future.

Summary

With the board expecting a mid-table finish it wasn't going to be easy, however, with a win against 7th-place Fukushima on the final day, we finished 6th and got a spot in the promotion playoffs.

After a strong start of the season winning 4 of the first 5, we were always around the playoff race but after a turn in form saw us drop down to 10th before managing to climb back into the playoffs on the final day after a change in tactics. But it wasn't all that comfortable as we had less of the ball for the majority of games and finishing 18th in the xG Table meant we were never really favourites going into any game and every game being decided by 1-2 goals we never had any big comfortable wins.

With a 23-man squad with an average age of 27 this team should be able to put together a few seasons while the academy improves and players start getting promoted up through the ranks.

  Ocultar conteúdo

With a very solid defense picking up the second-most clean sheets in the league, when we played well we played very well, but when it went bad... well it went horrible with multiple 4/5 goals conceded a game.

Facilities and Upgrades

This is where the save becomes worrying, my aim was to get the youth setup going to at least get an intake, after many attempts the board finally allowed me to upgrade the Junior Coaching and the save could really kick on, however, that was all they gave me. A single Junior Coaching upgrade and the worst youth setup possible, after 6 requests to improve the Youth Recruitment the board refused to do so despite the overachieving of the team, leaving me with a lot of money and without the option to request for Youth Facility improvements or the ability to request further Junior Coaching upgrades on top of that.

  Ocultar conteúdo

Youth Intake

Unsurprisingly it was horrible, from preview to personalities it was very underwhelming even with the worst possible youth setup.

  Ocultar conteúdo

Next Season

After a good season on the pitch and a bad season off it, the board have relaxed their expectations and now aims to avoid relegation, with no noteworthy players in the academy it will be entirely the same team.

This save is now in the hands of the board, whose reluctance to give me any improvements is an issue with them denying multiple coaching courses on top of the other requests.

 

edit: a full season review for anyone who may be interested

 

  Ocultar conteúdo

 

Hi. Sorry for the off topic but what skin is that?

[Potat]

6 minutes ago, PequenoGenio said:

Hi. Sorry for the off topic but what skin is that?

It is the Sas24 skin. The favorite one I've used for a while now.

[HanziZoloman]

Hee guys what kind of upgrades/ improvements are you after and how do you prioritise?

For example I didn’t care about youth level it was upgraded by the chairman.

Edited October 23, 2023 by HanziZoloman

[Winski]

7 minutes ago, HanziZoloman said:

Hee guys what kind of upgrades/ improvements are you after and how do you prioritise?

For example I didn’t care about youth level it was upgraded by the chairman.

I always try to upgrade Junior Coaching as soon as possible, as well as Youth Recruitment. Junior Coaching is very important for youth intakes, and the board is normally willing to upgrade it quite often.
The Youth Facilities and Training Facilities are quite expensive, so I'll try to wait with those upgrades until I've got more money. But I always prefer Youth Facilities over Training Facilities.

[the_hdk]

Pre-Transfers / Transfer History

Veertien Mie. Club named after the number of Johan Cruijff. So as a Halve-Dutchie this had to be the club I have to bring to glory.
Our first season went really really well and we secured quite easily promotion to J2. Due to the nature of the club I created a 4-3-3 tactic that uses the Dutch School Principles of Johan Cruijff as described by Pieter Zwart in his book. It also fits that we will be using alot of youth players.

We have some decent players. Three Koreans, One form teh south and two from teh north. The North Koreans are 4 stars ability and had a great season (KIM & RYANG). Star player was UENO who become league topscorer with 28 goals. The promotion scares me as teh team is average at best, Let's hope we can stay in J2 next season.

Cups went also ok. We got knocked out by Sanfrecce Hiroshima (J1) in R2 of J-League cup and R3 by Kashiwa Reysol (J1) in Emperors Cup. So quite well done.
As you can see we had one transfer that I could not cancel as it was already agreed upon when I joined the club (see screens pre-transfer and transfer history).
Thankfully we could improve Youth Coaching and recruitment twice otherwise we would not get any intake.

Tried recreating the real kits they use as much as possible and updated them a bit. Will be using them for now.

The Coach

The persona...As the club is named after Cruijff, I kept the pseudonim.

Promotion!

Consortium takeover

We had a consortium takeover. They wanted t sign two Brazilians but thankfully I could cancel the transfers.

Move to new stadium for J2

We have to move to play in Nagoya for J2. Only 38km thankfully.

I had difficulty finding a decent HOYD with a great personality so for now YASUDA will do. Former Japanese national with 7 caps and one goal. Works well with kids. Still very young so let's hope he can improve.

HOYD

Intake 2024

YASUDA24 Intake

For some reason the candidates do not show in the Youth Canidates window, so the intake is above. Bad. Only 1 4,5 star---ish. We nee dto invest ASP in youth so hopefully we can get better intake next year.

KANDA, best of the intake. Resilient so that is good. Love the determination. Strenght is a worry. Work rate is bad. Let's hope he can improve.

[Winski]

16 minutes ago, the_hdk said:

Veertien Mie. Club named after the number of Johan Cruijff. So as a Halve-Dutchie this had to be the club I have to bring to glory.
Our first season went really really well and we secured quite easily promotion to J2. Due to the nature of the club I created a 4-3-3 tactic that uses the Dutch School Principles of Johan Cruijff as described by Pieter Zwart in his book. It also fits that we will be using alot of youth players.

 

What a great story! As a fellow Dutchman I really like this background story. Nice to see an orange shirt too. And I also like that you are using a 4-3-3 formation, although a 3-4-3 would be better as Cruijff mainly played in this formation.

Great first season! Good luck in J2!

[Braumiller]

So it is my fault for even checking in on the new thread, but it is also all of your faults for making it look so tempting for the 10th or 11th season in a row?

I haven't been able to dedicate myself to a long term save for far too long, and I don't even have the new version of the game yet, but I have an inkling that may change soon...

KUTGW all!

[XaW]

4 minutes ago, Braumiller said:

So it is my fault for even checking in on the new thread, but it is also all of your faults for making it look so tempting for the 10th or 11th season in a row?

I haven't been able to dedicate myself to a long term save for far too long, and I don't even have the new version of the game yet, but I have an inkling that may change soon...

KUTGW all!

[Potat]

(The Not So) Green Green Grass of Honda

Season 2 - 2025

The game reminds me that I'm probably not good enough for this challenge.

Summary

I've never been happier to end a truly horrible season, struggled out the gates and had to wait 5 league games before my first win, and the tactics of last season produced nothing this time around we were back to square one with a squad that hated my guts for dropping our striker and vice-captain (he had 0 G/A after 15 games). We were never really at risk of relegation as we stole wins we had no right winning but had 0 standout games where I thought we played well.

Spoiler

Facility Upgrades

We started the season with the board giving me an upgrade to both Youth Recruitment and Junior coaching early on, I thought the board was maybe starting to like me but nope that was all I was given throughout the entire season as I wasn't given the option to ask for further upgrades.

Spoiler

Youth Intake

With our recently upgraded recruitment and coaching the preview had also improved slightly, with the actual intake of players improving greatly in terms of potential, however, it was ruined by what might be the worst set of personalities imaginable which saw me fire the HoYD.

Spoiler

The only player who may make the first team squad is Bin Kusumi, and well that's more of a statement for the quality of my team instead of how good he is.

Spoiler

Next Season

Well, it can't really get any worse after this season, got to figure out what system to stick with after switching through about 10 this season and hopefully push back up the table.

[Neo_Geo]

So I lost my Kitbasher files from my old PC, tried to download the kit templates and for whatever reason it won't download.

What other kit designers are people using right now, keen to get better looking kits for my Lewes team.

[XaW]

Just now, Neo_Geo said:

So I lost my Kitbasher files from my old PC, tried to download the kit templates and for whatever reason it won't download.

What other kit designers are people using right now, keen to get better looking kits for my Lewes team.

I've used the free version of FM Kit Creator for all my kits. These are the ones I made for Folkestone last year that I just reused.

[Neo_Geo]

Nice one @XaW, cheers 

[Winski]

7 minutes ago, XaW said:

I've used the free version of FM Kit Creator for all my kits. These are the ones I made for Folkestone last year that I just reused.

Yeah, I can also highly recommend FM Kit Creator. I'm using their FC'12 style kits, and also the paid version of the website. But even with the free version you can make beautiful kits.

[darren1983]

40 minutes ago, Braumiller said:

So it is my fault for even checking in on the new thread, but it is also all of your faults for making it look so tempting for the 10th or 11th season in a row?

I haven't been able to dedicate myself to a long term save for far too long, and I don't even have the new version of the game yet, but I have an inkling that may change soon...

KUTGW all!

Haha, good. You're the reason I even attempted this challenge years ago with your strikerless team in Sweden (I think?) so it's good it's come full circle  

Know what you mean though, I've been playing around a little as wanted to hold off starting the challenge till the full game is out but I can't get into anything as I know it's only a 2 week save at most so I'm thinking I'll be starting here properly sometime soon.

[Neo_Geo]

That'll do me (Kitbasher was a little more user friendly at first but without the templates there isn't much that I can do with it so I'll have to learn to make nice kits with this one)

[Potat]

I may have just made a fatal error agreeing to this.. is this a new feature?

[Winski]

23 hours ago, Shankly84 said:

 

Hopefully have a better year than last years FM on this challenge. Sweden is the destination for the first attempt.

I just played my first league game of the season against Rinkeby United. Hopefully you will perform better with them!

[Neo_Geo]

8 hours ago, Potat said:

I may have just made a fatal error agreeing to this.. is this a new feature?

Certainly seems like a new feature and it makes sense if you ask me, there's little point on the club putting money into youth if you don't show there is a pathway to the first team, though clearly one of the references bugs with the person#1 text

[the_hdk]

2 hours ago, Winski said:

What a great story! As a fellow Dutchman I really like this background story. Nice to see an orange shirt too. And I also like that you are using a 4-3-3 formation, although a 3-4-3 would be better as Cruijff mainly played in this formation.

Great first season! Good luck in J2!

Thanks!   Yeah love the orange, and I know but 3-4-3 is a bit suicidal hehe.  I'm thinking to make some extra 2nd kits in same style as Cruijjfs old clubs...so one for Ajax...Barca and Feyenoord. 

 

btw if anyone is lookign for some Fc'12 kits and they are not too critical you can always contact me and I can make some for you   i'm not great but not too shabby either. 

[the_hdk]

1 hour ago, Potat said:

I may have just made a fatal error agreeing to this.. is this a new feature?

oof  need to pay attention!  few FMs ago I did a save with Fiorentina and I remember I agreed to same without paying attaention to it until after the season end I got fired...took me a while to figure it out why. guess they improved the feauture. 

[WhiteCat33]

For anyone looking to start in England @G_D_K set up a bunch of saves in the Dafugue post.

 

[dondagz]

We go again, this time canvey island.....7th time lucky?

 

[Neo_Geo]

1 hour ago, WhiteCat33 said:

For anyone looking to start in England @G_D_K set up a bunch of saves in the Dafugue post.

 

I love that Lewes FC are not on the list, I had to do 6 reloads from May 24th to get them (and only didn’t stop earlier with Dulwich Hamlet because Fries has that save). Nice to be unique even if England has been completed multiple times.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Neo_Geo

[Mahzun_Savas]

My intake preview says I am going to have an excellent intake. The list of positions is not so promising and I would rather get almost any other position coming through as an A rather than wingers. I really need central and defensive midfielders but that does not seem to be happening.

Spoiler

 

Overall the season started off brilliantly and we were even first in the early stages however things have turned around and I have lost 5 games in a row and have slipped out of the playoff positions. Expectations are only midtable finish so I am still doing well but need to find a win quickly otherwise I will fall down the table and be under pressure.

[hubwub]

6 hours ago, Neo_Geo said:

So I lost my Kitbasher files from my old PC, tried to download the kit templates and for whatever reason it won't download.

What other kit designers are people using right now, keen to get better looking kits for my Lewes team.

I make my own from the SS kits PSDs with like a jersey style I like from a brand.

[thomas_e]

Energie Cottbus

Season Summary 2024 - 2025

First season promotion

 

I decided to return to Energie Cottbus, a team I have completed the challenge with on FM20 and FM23. Some of the players are still there from last year and I really enjoy doing the challenge in Germany. 

I really like this new ME and I had some great success with a traditional 4-4-2 flank play-oriented tactic. Quick counters and two really good strikers built a really good foundation for a very successful campaign. We won the league, and even though the fight for the title came down to the last game we at least secured promotion a couple of rounds before the end of the season. 

I got improvements to our training facilities as well as completing two coaching badges and starting my third before the season was over. 

I signed a great HOYD, but we had a bad intake. Unfortunately I didn't take a screenshot of it, but it was very few highlights. 

I am a little scared of how we will do in the 2nd Bundesliga, I just hope we somehow can avoid relegation. 

 

Season Summary

          

 

Key Players

          

 

Key Talents

          

 

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by thomas_e

[Winski]

Always happy to get a youth intake preview like this

[XaW]

48 minutes ago, thomas_e said:

You were in the 3. liga, no?

A very good season! Hope you complete it with them, after all no West German outside of Berlin have ever won the Bundesliga! It's one of the reasons why I've tried the challenge with them so many times, but never succeeded.

[HanziZoloman]

Ok now it’s on. The club will go Professional, what does it exactly mean? Any experiences?

- what about all the Semi Pro contracts?

- what about the players behaviour?

- what a about staff?

- any stupid mistakes the Earl should avoid?

[XaW]

1 minute ago, HanziZoloman said:

Ok now it’s on. The club will go Professional, what does it exactly mean? Any experiences?

- what about all the Semi Pro contracts?

- what about the players behaviour?

- what a about staff?

- any stupid mistakes the Earl should avoid?

- Players on semi-pro contacts will stay on their current deal, but many are likely to ask for a new one which have to be a professional one, and thus pay more.

- There won't be much, but they will train every day instead of just every other, so more development.

- They will stay on the same deal, but if you don't offer a professional deal to them, they will not have as much impact as they could if they got a professional deal. I recommend offering new deals to the staff you want to keep.

- Watch your finances, the increased costs can sky rocket, but the gains are also high due to players more likely to stay at the club and develop more.

[HanziZoloman]

vor einer Stunde schrieb XaW:

- Players on semi-pro contacts will stay on their current deal, but many are likely to ask for a new one which have to be a professional one, and thus pay more.

- There won't be much, but they will train every day instead of just every other, so more development.

- They will stay on the same deal, but if you don't offer a professional deal to them, they will not have as much impact as they could if they got a professional deal. I recommend offering new deals to the staff you want to keep.

- Watch your finances, the increased costs can sky rocket, but the gains are also high due to players more likely to stay at the club and develop more.

Can't extent any contract: My players demand 1k contracts but wage budget allows only 300 contracts 

Any suggestions?

 

[XaW]

1 minute ago, HanziZoloman said:

Can't extent any contract: My players demand 1k contracts but wage budget allows only 300 contracts 

Any suggestions?

Seems like your board is not willing to spend. Not much you can do, some times it just pays to wait a bit and try again. Other than that? Make more money!