Siepe1990

6th season, 6th promotion, but also the first title in 3 years! For most of the season, Macclesfield was my biggest adversary, but in the end only Rochdale came close. We only lost twice however throughout the entire season (the 2nd and the 2nd to last match of the season), so that cemented our league win nicely. Cup-wise we managed to beat Rochdale and Burton Albion in the FA Cup before being knocked out in the 2nd round on penalties after a replay by Bolton Wanderers... FA Trophy was a lot worse, knocked out in the 4th round already by Bury. Our board made us professional straight after promotion, and also expanded the stadium for a whopping 1.7 million... Not that we had either the money or the attendance to do this, but we had league rules to comply to. Wage budget is now up to 16.2k / week, meaning I can hire some better players but especially sign my better talents on fixed contracts. It was too late already for my man-of-the-season Devlan Moses however, who choose to leave for free to Larne at the end of the season... Very curious to see if we manage to garner some money and not rack up too much debt and if we can compete at the professional Sky Bet League 2 Level!

5th season, 5th promotion! When will this end? I would have thought last season already, but even this season I was quite surprised by the performance we could achieve. Macclesfield was too good again, winning the league by a mile ; this meant I had to face the play-offs, where I first took care of Boston United (4-3 in extra time) before dispatching of Blyth Spartans on penalties. On top of this, I had my best cup run so far in the FA Cup. Just look at this incredible replay win over Peterborough: Diarmuid Carter - remember the name, you'll be reading more about him in my posts if I can keep hold of him. He extended until 2029 at least, so that would be great already. I managed to beat Doncaster Rovers next, before being bested by Derby County. All combined, this generated 227k TV-income and 154k prize money, as well as a fair increase in match day income (at least 100k). Now at least we have a positive balance of 500k, but the board is still refusing the professional status ; have any of you managed to get professional already? Very curious to see how we'll fare on the next level, on to the Vanarama National League!

Thanks! Bury surprised me really, expected them to challenge as well, but they came 8th (after a 6th place the year before). Just managed to beat Macclesfield in the 6th match of the season in the Vanarama North, curious to see if we keep up the good form (W W D W D W)...

A first for Brigg Town: next season we will be playing in the Vanarama National League North! 4th promotion in a row, but not the 4th title, even though we managed to score 100 points in the season... Macclesfield grabbed the title with a whopping 102 points, we lost to them 5 matches from the end (2-0), so a fair champion for me. The play-offs were harder than I would have thought ; we needed extra time against Warrington Town (after beating them 4-1 and 4-2 in the regular season), but the final was a lot easier (3-1 against Radcliffe). Cup runs were decent, however a bit disappointed with the early exit in the FA Cup against Blyth Spartans. Managed to get to the semi final of the FA Trophy, but failed to win the League Cup for the first time in 4 seasons. Attendance levels are still low ; new record of 484 on average however and a new record of 2.192 in the final against Radcliff which meant we almost sold out our 2.500. We do get an expansion of 500 standing capacity however due to regulations for the Vanarama (3.000 minimum). Financially we are doing okay, no negative balance since September 2024, but the projection is negative and the professional status too expensive. Let's hope the attendance picks up, we manage to gather some more sponsorships and get a few good cup runs! Best players: 'regen' Diarmuid Carter, former Newcastle United, who's and absolute beast as a Poacher, and left wing back Noah Adekoya, former Burnley, who has managed to achieve a 7.52 / 7.75 / 7.29 average over the last three seasons... which is insane, but it has to be said that anyone who I play in that role gets insanely high ratings somehow - must be my tactic I guess. Onwards to Level 6!

3rd season, 3rd title! Easier even than the previous seasons, which surprised me. Managed to hold on to most of my players for the biggest part of the season, which is a big help. Cup runs were good as well, generating some nice cash - and we managed to win the 'League Cup' for the third year in a row!

Merry Christmas to all! Perfect 2nd season, couldn't have wished for more. Almost managed an unbeaten season, but the boys slacked off once the league was won. We managed to retain the Northern Counties East League Cup and to win the FA Vase after a thriller against Tooting & Mitcham United. The most stunning achievement however was reaching the FA Cup proper - we sadly got kicked out immediately by Gateshead, but managed to get some nice scalps along the way (AFC Telford United, Curzon Ashton and South Shields), which gives me good hopes for next season!

Season 1 is done, can't complain as to how it went... Due to stellar performances from my strikers Bacon & Waud (already at the Zebra's when I joined) and outstanding performances by newcomers Whitham (ex Sheffield Wednesday), Turrell (ex Boston United) and Howe (ex Middlesbrough) we managed to win the Northern Counties East League Divison One and the Northern Counties East League Cup and reach the Quarter Final of the FA Vase. Hoping to hold on to the players (a lot of them are getting offers) and to strengthen where needed to keep the good times rolling!

Looks like a nice challenge to do, I always like to have some background behind the club I manage. After a little searching online, I found the 5th oldest team in England: Brigg Town F.C.

Quick question, hoping someone can shed a little light on the matter... When setting up a Recruitment Focus, you can select the Contract Status under 'Further Details'. I've used this to set up a Recruitment Focus on South America, only focusing on Contract Status 'Expiring (6 Months)'. So far, so good. Now I would like to combine this with a Recruitment Focus on South America looking at Contract Status 'Expired'. Here comes the question: can I just add the additional status to the same Recruitment Focus? I would like to think this is possible as it reflects what you could do in real life (tell your scout to look for out of contract players and players with less than 6 months on their contract), but my Recruitment Focus gets no results. I think this is because the game doesn't allow this, as you can't select 'Or' when picking the Contract Status, you can only select 'Is' or 'Is Not'. Therefore, combining the two would have the scout searching for a combination that doesn't exist (a player without a contract but also with a contract expiring in 6 months or less), thus automatically giving no results. This would mean I would have to set up an additional Recruitment Focus for the same Scout with all the same criteria (I have more than just the Contract Status)? This would mean a huge amount of extra work (to be repeated every time you switch clubs as you can't save Recruitment Focuses), whilst it sounds like something that should be easily possible, but isn't... Can someone give some more background / confirmation / experience?

Anyone got experience yet with the new Lenovo LOQ-laptops? It's their new secondary range besides Legion ; only reviews I've found are generally very positive. Going to buy a new laptop and basically this one has a ridicolous setup for the money: https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/lenovo-loq-15aph8-82xt009bmh-gaming-laptop-15-6-inch-144-hz/9300000151986331/?s2a=&bltgh=rRY0JoB-x3iROtkSGoJAhg.2_64_65.66.FeatureOptionButton#productTitle Lenovo LOQ 15APH8 82XT009BMH Ryzen 7 7840HS NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 16 GB RAM 8 GB VRAM 512 GB SSD Using my laptop for games (mainly FM, MTG Arena, F1 Manager, Pro Cycling Manager) and some light Photoshop from time to time ; I think the CPU is very good for the money and the GPU is more than I need, but that's OK. Looking at Legion or RoG-laptops - as they are the premium gaming brand - they are more expensive but have CPUs and GPUs which are not as good as this one. Any thoughts? Am I missing something, or is this really a good deal?

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The City Football Group Challenge This is what a completed challenge could look like Challenge Background Founded in 2013, City Football Group is the realization of a business vision by former Barcelona Economy Vice President Ferran Soriano. The first core philosophy of City Football Group since its inception has been the mutual supporting of clubs through combined scouting and player sharing. Possessing such a network then allows the local clubs to sign players early in their development, safe in the knowledge that the range of clubs CFG owns means that they can be placed at any of a number of sides as their development continues and the need for other challenges arises. The second of CFG's core philosophies regarding club collaboration is on- and off-pitch technical information sharing. Based around the tactics of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola all of City Football Group's clubs are given access to extensive databases of Manchester City's tactics and coaching methods, enabling them all to follow the group directive to use the same style of football, a style occasionally referred to as the City Way. Challenge Introduction Your challenge is to lead all current CFG-clubs (12 in total as of EC Bahia's introduction in May 2023) to the league title and the domestic cup win. Along the way, you need to at least obtain the 4 Continental Champions League trophies. Challenge Rules You have to start with on of the clubs currently playing on the 2nd tier of their country. This means you can start as: Sichuan Jiuniu (2nd tier China) Lommel SK (2nd tier Belgium) Palermo (2nd tier Italy) EC Bahia (2nd tier Brazil, but only if you start in 2022 as they have been already promoted in 2023) Your manager can have any licenses and experience you choose (if you want make it a little harder, opt for no licenses or experience) During the entire game, you are only allowed these transfers / loans (all aiming to emulate the first core philosophy of the Group explained in the introduction): All transfers and loans from any of the CFG-clubs are allowed From outside the Group, only free transfers are allowed, and only players of 23 or younger This also means the no loans from outside the Group are allowed (you don't have to terminate any existing loans upon starting the game) Aiming to emulate the second philosophy, you have to decide upon one tactic whilst at your first club, which you have to use throughout the entire game This means not only playing style, but also formation The only thing you can tweak are the player roles Challenge Requirements As you will be playing in Japan and India, you will need to add those leagues to the game (both can be found on this forum or any other FM-dedicated fan base website online. If you need help, just send me a message. Challenge Threads I've created a Excel-file (downloadable at the bottom of this post) with three sheets. On the first, you see all clubs and some information about where they play (FM23). The second sheet (Career Summary) allows you to track you career ; almost all cells use drop-down boxes so you can't go wrong when creating the third and most awesome sheet: the Trophy Cabinet. Right now, this look empty, but once you start ticking of competitions and cups on the Career Summary, this cabinet will fill with all the trophies you have won, creating a nice Trophy Cabinet for you to post here. A short example of how the Career Summary can be filled out (which results in the image shown at the top of this challenge): Hall of Fame I will track all progress made on this challenge and keep a regularly updated Hall of Fame in the second post of this sheet. City Football Group Challenge.xlsx

Final Challenge Update (Season 5 - Season 12) So, not really how I wanted to do this post, but I lost a lot of images due to a computer crash... luckily, my save game was nicely backed-up in the cloud, so I could take some snapshots by going back in time, but the narrative I wrote in Word is sadly gone... So here goes the slimmed down version! The Sky Bet League One Years (Seasons 5 & 6) My last post showed our promotion to the League One and I have to say: it was a struggle in the first season. If you look at the top goalscorer for the competition you'll see Edozie having scored 9 goals... That's 9, over a 46 matches... I just couldn't get them scoring, not matter what I tried. Due to a lot of draws and 1-0 wins, we did manage to finish a decent 9th, so that was of course non so bad, but something had to change for us to progress further. I changed my formation to a 4-2-3-1 and decided to throw my Tiki-Taka overboard and switch to a style based on Gegenpress, but with some Tiki-Taka elements included (short passing, high tempo). This worked wonders, because the next season we scored 89 goals, which was almost double the amount of the previous season. We ended up at 105 points, which was more than enough for the league title, my first actual trophy since the Vanarama League North in our first season! The Championship Year (Season 7) Apparently, my tactic was working so well we managed to get back-to-back promotions... Never expected this to happen, we were fighting for the title throughout the year and ended up missing it by just 3 points. As you can see, the goal scoring let up a little, which was not surprising due to the step-up in quality, but worrying me nonetheless. I was really curious to see how this would work out in the Premier League, because that's where the real challenge lies... The Premier League Years (Seasons 8 - 12) The first season (S8) was a real struggle as expected. Almost no players wanted to join, so improving my squad was futile - I had to give it a go with the players at my disposal. The meager 45 goals in 38 games was a reflection of how much we struggled. We managed 10 draws however which, combined with 12 wins, was enough to finish us in a decent 13th place - not bad for the first season up. The second season (S9) was more of the same, with one big difference: I managed to attract some decent defensive improvements, which brought our goals conceded down from 56 to 41, propelling us up the league to a very decent 6th place... We managed to win 20 games versus the 12 last year, so progress was really being made. We also suffered heartbreak in the FA Cup, where we reached the final only to be defeated in a slammer of a game ending in 3-4... Season number 3 (S10) on the top flight showed another improvement. This was of course mainly driven by the fact that we qualified for Europe the season before, which meant I could finally get some improvements for my squad. This really showed in the goal scoring department, where we managed to bang in 64 goals (vs the 49 in the previous season). This landed us on a very nice 4th place, qualifying for the Champions League next season. The Europa League campaign... Well, let's say this was one of the biggest surprises I've seen... Incredible run up to the final, where we managed to beat Valencia 1:2 to take home our third trophy! The fourth trip on the top flight (S11) brought on our first chance of completion... Insane season really, with Liverpool completely dominating the table and us finishing best of the rest. Biggest shocker was the fact that we managed to reach the Champions League Final... Only to lose against Chelsea in the 92nd minute... We didn't deserve to win, as we were dominated all match, but it still hurt like hell... And finally, the one we've all been waiting for, the season it all came together: the insane treble winning Season 12. Everything I built up culminated into this season... Insane players, insane goals, insane results... It was all there... We managed to win the league with only 3 points, managed to win the FA Cup quite easily and to top it all off... I couldn't have made this up myself, but beating Man Utd in the Champions League Final on penalties... It is the only fitting way to end this journey... FC United of Manchester are now truly the biggest club of Manchester!

The Sky Bet League Two Year (Season 4) Well, the header kind of gives it away already... This was an insane season, with promotion on the last day... but now I'm getting ahead of myself a little. At the beginning of the season, I once again faced the challenge of bringing the squad up to speed for this higher level. Main focus was finding a good right back, a top goal keeper and some playmakers (seeing as my main problem was getting enough balls through to my striker). The right back was the first to arrive in the form of Kwaku Oduroh (23), Man City graduate before playing for Derby the last couple of years before being released. Next in line were two playmakers: (A)MC Neil Owen (18), the first transfer fee for FCUM at 37k, coming from Airbus UK where he assisted 36 and scored 17 in the last 3 seasons, averaging at 7.21 overall, and C/DM/M/AM (C) Cian Coleman (21), Leeds Utd graduate who played a decent season on loan at Leonesa before being released on a free. Last but not least, I decided to tap into my spending power (generated after selling Italy U-21 starlet Ojinnaka to Pescara - sad to see him go, but his heart was set on it and the profit of 100k was very nice) and brought in GK Killian Cahill (22), IRL playing at Brighton U21, in game coming from Rochdale, for a whopping 245k. And just when I thought all was done, I signed released Man Utd (A)MC Ali Saeed Al-Mansoori (18) on deadline day after he finally dropped his demand of being a star player and earning top bucks. Who of these stood out you ask? Well, almost all of them. Oduroh did a decent 6.88 average, proving a decent defensive option on right back whilst also being nicely involved in build-up. Neil Owen didn't reach the figures he did at Airbus UK, but with 7 assists, 2 goals and a 6.93 average he was still a very decent signing. Biggest surprise for me were the performances of Cian Coleman, who I ended up playing as a Libero, resulting in a 7.13 average for the year. Even better though were the amazing goal keeping performances of Killian Cahill, which earned him the title of 'Signing-of-the-Season' with an amazing 7.20 average. We conceded only 31 goals in the entire season ; flip side of that is that we only scored 47... Of these 47 more than half (28) were made by Edozie, which earned him the title of Topscorer for the 2nd year in a row. But as I said earlier: promotion was a surprise which came only on the last day. Just look at the points in the image below: only 6 points separate us in 3rd place with Wrexham in 11th... It was insanely close for the entire season, as you can see in the small league positions graph as well. On the last day, we won 3-1 at home against Barrow (3 goals by Edozie), but more importantly Leyton (0-0 vs Morecambe), Exeter (0-3 vs Port Vale) and Cambridge (1-1 vs Crewe) didn't win their games, propelling us up to the 3rd place and a direct promotion - let the Sky Bet League One Years commence!

The Vanarama National Years (Season 2 & 3) Before Season 2 even started, I faced the challenge of bringing my squad up to the quality needed to at least survive the first season up. I signed four players before the season started, the most notable being attacking left flank player Francis Gyimah (who to my surprise is not a regen, but an actual player), who was released by Liverpool. Originally a left back turned to winger, he was a perfect fit for my attacking left wing back position. Other signings included George Ratcliffe on goal (free from Banbury) to improve on Lavercombe, Dave Stephens (free from Boston Utd) for some experience and quality in center back after my youth starlet Morgan Jones decided not to sign a new contract but leave for Preston U18 for free after only one full season in the first team and Sion Spence (7k from Gloucester, the first transfer fee paid). To top it all off, I managed to sign wily old Kyle Lafferty (free from Kilmarnock) for some improvement up front. The season started of decent with 4 wins and 2 draws in the first 9 games. Stephens proved to be the best signing so far (even went on to be signing of the season with a 7.17 average) and we managed to steer clear of relegation quite easily throughout the season. A good spell of form in March even pushed us to the Play-off spots, where we managed to just hang on in 7th place (even though we lost the last two matches - luckily York failed to benefit from that). We were no match for Southend in the first round however, so no promotion in this season. I wanted to improve on that season and so for Season 3 I decided to shuffle my tactic. We concede a lot more in Season 2 (58 in 46) and scored less (66 in 46), so things had to change. I decided to switch to a 5-3-1-1 I employed in another save at Watford. As you can see, I signed some more players, most notable being Mehmed Hodzic (CD released by Man City), Jason Sraha (CD released by Barnsley), Isaac Price (MC released by Everton) and signing of the season Thomas Edozie (ST released by Wolves). As you can see in the above image, we were 1st in the league by mid-November, with Edozie scoring 17 (of which 3 in the FA Cup, where we beat Welling in the 1st round), Hodzic & Sraha bossing the defense (look at those averages) and Sion Spence dominating the Shadow Striker position with both assists and goals (he ended up with 12 goals and 15 assists in the season and a 7.20 average!). In the FA Cup, we even managed to beat Peterborough in the 2nd round, before losing to Middlesbrough in the 3rd round. Somewhere along the way however, Edozie stopped scoring goals... Which saw us drop out of 1st place (by a dominating Notts Co) and even down to the lower play-off spots, before Edozie finally find his scoring run again. He propelled us back up to the 2nd place, which meant another round of playoffs! We managed to beat Solihull Moors in the semi final (two goals by Edozie in the 65th and 90th (!!!) minute for a 2-1 victory), after which Bromley awaited in the final. This one was actually easier than the semi final, we were in control throughout and won comfortably with 2-0. We were promoted to Sky Bet League Two!

Looking for a new challenge, let's give this one a go! Used one of the saves created by @G_D_K - thanks for that! - because I already had a team in mind I wanted to manage. I'm gonna do a Start & Season 1 Update in one post, so here we go! Let's see how long it takes until FC United is the biggest club in Manchester! Starting Profile & Team Decent first team from the looks of it, not quite sure how I'm going to play yet as that will also depend on what I can sign on free, but am thinking towards a Vertical Tiki-Taka 4-3-1-2 or some equivalent. The 15-year old Morgan Jones looks like a beast in CD, already this good at such a young age, let's hope I can hang on to him for the next few years at least. Season 1 (2023/2024) After a decent display in the pre-season friendlies, we started off nicely in August and September, winning 7 of our 10 league games. No real stand-out performers, just a good team effort with the big focus on not conceding any goals while looking good in possession. I settled on a Vertical Tiki-Taka 4-3-2-1 (with a midfield 3 made up out of a Carrilero, a DLP and a Mezzala and a Target Man up front supported by a Shadow Striker and a AM) which worked for me in the past whilst managing minnows Cibalia in the 2nd Tier of Croatian Soccer. Good vibes continued throughout the year - we did get knocked out of the FA Cup (Q3) by Hereford, but managed to make it to the 5th round of the FA Trophy before being knocked out by Maidstone. To my surprise, we managed to play well enough to become champions! We only scored 72 in 46 - which has to be one of my lowest goals / game in a long, long time - but we also only conceded 42, which meant we lost only a handful of games (8 to be precise). Let's see how the Vanarama National is going the treat us next year!

Not really a bug in FM, but more an issue with my Acer, so I think this is the best place for this question... My Acer has always had issues shutting down - often it doesn't complete the process and just keeps whirring away until I 'force shut down' it by holding the power button. Now I know this sometimes messes with the FM-saves, so I always double save (save, process one day on, save again) so the 'last save overwrite backup' is always valid even if the main save is corrupt. However: last night I double saved and now both the files are corrupt... Meaning I've just lost my save completely. After randomly smashing some things which were close to hand, I've tried to recover some old files, but no luck so far. I've tried: - Restore previous versions (right-click on save game -> restore...) - Recuva file restorer on both my recycle bin and my save game folder Does anyone have any other options they've tried and got to work / heard of others getting something like this fixed? Any thoughts / idea's are much appreciated... I'll go sit quietly in a corner for now

Same issue here, managing Cibalia in Croatian 2nd Tier in May 2024 and was just asked to vote.

Season 7 & 8 (2028/2029 & 2029/2030) - all images Season 7 (Bundesliga): after finishing well above the relegation zone in my 2nd season on the top flight and only 7 points short from Conference League Places, I was quite positive about the new season. Somehow I still managed to hold on to my biggest talents and best players, so I started the season with my trusted 4-1-2-2-1 Wide - Vertical TikiTaka. Actually can't remember much from this season, apart from the fact that I was really struggeling to make the tactic work. I think it simply has to do with my opponents being way stronger and them knowing how I'm going to play, because it wasn't great at all. I switched formations a dozen times during the season, but came back to my TikiTaka basis every time. Due to a very good run of form in February (3 wins / 1 draw) and April (4 wins / 1 loss), combined with the fact that all rivals were really close together and losing points to eachother, I somehow found myself in 7th place - enough to qualify for the Conference League next season! Honorable Mentions: after winning NxGn in 2028, my boy Lenz did it again in 2029 ; no surprise he also became U19 Player of the Year as well, with ultra-talented right back Lauberbach winning the U17 Player of the Year. Youth Intake: I don't know how, I don't know why... but I somehow signed NONE of my Youth Intake... I'm positive I told Marco van Basten (my DoF) to sign them all... but somehow, this didn't take... Season 8 (Bundesliga): this season started off badly, with my left wing back Kammlott (Youth Intake of 2023) being bought by Eintracht Frankfurt for only € 5.25M. His last season was his first season to really come in to his strength, scoring a 7.1 average over 29 matches (7 assists, 1 goal, 2 PotM), so really sad to see him go. Furthermore, this really left me with a challenge on left back. I had a new talent (Tino Hebestreit, Youth Intake 2028), but he still had to turn 17 when the season started and I was still re-training him as a Left Back, since he originally was a Winger. I had no choice however, and threw him in right away. In the early stages of the league, I was really struggeling with the busy schedule of the league, the DFB-Pokal and the Conference League, as well as still struggeling with my formation and tactic, as my 4-1-2-2-1 Wide - Vertical TikiTaka simply wasn't working anymore. After a lot of trial and error, I finally found something that worked: a 5-2-3 (with 3 Strikers) - Wing Play. With my man Hebestreit marauding on Left Back and my star player Jura (Youth Intake 2024) playing as a False Nine on the right flank. Besides 2-times NxGn-winner Lenz as a central striker, this allowed me to also play Bozan (Youth Intake 2027), labelled the next 'Burak Yilmaz', as a Trequartista on the left striker position. Armed with this amazing force up front and the added defensive certainty with an additional CB, results were coming my way fast. Most amazing month was February, where we managed to win 5 and draw 2, including the 3rd Round of the DFB-Pokal against Werder Bremen and the Conference League First KO-round against Legia (having finished 2nd in a group with FC Kobenhavn, Sivasspor and Hearts). In the Conference League, we faced (and defeated) FC Kobenhavn again in the 2nd round, only to be knocked out by Real San Sebastian on penalties in the Quarter Finals. The QF were also the final stage of the DFB-Pokal for us, but in the league we managed to get some decent points, ending us at an amazing 6th place, managing to qualify for the Europa League! Honorable Mentions: another year, another NxGn-win ; this time for Mehmet Bozan, who played 29 games in which he scored 13 and provided 8 assists, scoring a 7.15 average - amazing stuff for a 19-year old! Lenz however wasn't left without trophy's completely: he won the Golden Boy 2029 - only the second player to do so after Schubert. My new left back Hebestreit managed to win the U17 Player of the Year and my Carrilero Florian Krämer (Youth Intake 2027) managed to win the U19 Player of the Year. (Fun fact: I've won the U17 PotY 5 out of the last 6 times - starting with Kammlott in 24/25 - and I've won the U19 PotY the last 5 years running - first time by Baar in 25/26). Youth Intake: no mistakes this year - I triple checked - and some decent talents. Especially Varrelmann seems nice, already being chased by some bigger teams. Status of Facilities: insane really - Exceptional Academy Coaching ánd Youth Recruitment, State of the Art Training Facilities and Excellent Youth Facilities ; let the Wonderkids gather!

So after 3 weeks of holiday in which I played quite a lot actually but with limited access to internet, here's a triple year update from Season 4 - 6 (2025/2026, 2026/2027, 2027/2028) (all images) Season 4 (2. Liga): way back in season 3 we manage to finish a decent 5th place in the 2. Liga, which actually was a disappointment after finishing 3rd and missing out on the Bundesliga through the play-offs in the 2nd season. This year however, everything went according to plan. Half-way the season we were tied for first place with Fortuna Dusseldorf and I was quite encouraged by our overall play. We managed to keep up the good form throughout the remainder of the season, sadly missing out on the title on the last day but gaining straight promotion to the Bundesliga nonetheless. Our overall good form was underlined by winning both the German U17 Player of the Year (Yura is from my 2024 Youth Intake) and the German U19 Player of the Year (Baar from the 2023 Youth Intake, Schubert in 2nd place is from the 2022 Youth Intake). My Youth Intake from this year finally included a very promising striker as well as a promising GK, which will come in handy in the long term when my current GK starts declining. Honorable mention: my man Schubert, from the Class of '22, has won the European Golden Boy for his performances in this season! Season 5 (Bundesliga): my first season in the Bundesliga wasn't going to be an easy one. After a decent pre-season we only managed to win 1 in our first 6 matches, which had me dangling somewhere around the relegation zone. I remember I played around a lot with our tactic, since the one we used in the 3. & 2. Liga simply wouldn't cut it here - we played a Vertical Tiki Taka, which is all well and nice playing against lesser and slightly better teams, but we were now facing teams way beyond our capabilities. I did stick to the Vertical Tiki Taka, but switched back from using wingers (too offensive) to playing with a larger midfield and running backs. This turned out well over the course of the season and we found ourselves at a decent 14th place, a whopping 12 points clear of the relegation zone. I continued to play a lot of youngsters and received credit for my work once again: the German U17 Player of the Year (1st place Lenz (Class of '26), 2nd place Miller (Class of '25)) and the German U19 Player of the Year (Kammlott, Class of '23) were once again mine. Honorable mention: further proof of Lenz' quality came when he was voted NxGn # 1 - he's labelled the 'new Jürgen Klinsmann', so curious to see how he'll turn out. Season 6 (Bundesliga): I hoped to build on last year's decent finish and was strengthened in that belief by our perfect pre-season (6 friendlies, 2 draws and 4 wins). Our start however was identical to last year with only one win and I was starting to fidget with my tactics again. Wingers, no wingers? 3 man midfield, or 2 man with a AMC? 4 or 5 defenders? My players are so versatile that I can play any number of tactics, but what was the right one? My lack of goal-scoring really troubled me, but whatever I tried, I couldn't get them firing. But then of course, a Vertical Tiki Taka isn't meant to score tons of goals, only to wait patiently for a clear cut chance - and my conversion rates are with the top of the league. I finally decided to stick to one formation: a 4-1-3-2 DM Narrow, with a marauding wing back on the left (Kammlott, Class of '23, retrained from Winger to Wing Back), compensated with a Carrilero on the MCL, and a Mezzala on the RCM combined with a defensive back on the right. This formation seemed to work, as we started picking up narrow wins, a lot of draws and only a few losses (and we weren't completely destroyed by Bayern, Dortmund and the likes). We finished a very promising 10th, once again 12 points clear from the relegation zone but also only 7 points below the European Places. As a testimony to our continued Youth Development, we won the German U19 Player of the Year for a 3rd time in a row, this time with Yura, who had won the U17-version in Season 4. My Youth Intake keeps on flourishing and giving me talents, very curious to see who'll turn out to be a real star in years to come. Honorable mention: Tim Lenz, NxGn #1, the 'new Jürgen Klinsmann'... I'm starting to have my doubts if he's really all that. He's stats have not been going up as much as I'd hoped, but he did manage to score a whopping 18 goals this season in 33 matches which, for a 17/18 year old playing for a relegation candidate is very decent indeed. Facilities: these are become really insane... I've got Excellent Youth Facilities, Excellent Academy Coaching and Exceptional Youth Recruitment - which is on par with AFC AJAX and only slightly below Benfica (they have State of the Art Youth Facilities). Currently work is being done on our Training Facilities which should help us out as well. Our brand new stadium (built in 2024) is now being expanded already since we had a 99% sell-out ratio last year - no surprises there. Proof of no Transfer In

Season 3 (2024/2025) - 2. Bundesliga (all images) After just nearly missing out on promotion to the Bundesliga in the previous season by losing the play-offs on penalties, I was set on challenging again this year. However, I also wanted to implement at least a couple of talented youngsters into my First Eleven. Looking at the talents at my disposal, I picked three: Alexander Kammlott(re-trained to Inv. Winger AMR, Youth Intake 2023), Edgar Baar (Winger AML, Youth Intake 2023) and Ronald Schubert (BtB CM, Youth Intake 2021 - so a 'regen', but in the first season before I was in charge). (All images are end of season 2025). To accommodate them, I had to change my formation to implement the wingers, which also lead to me changing my playing style (since a Vertical Tiki-Taka is not really sensible with a winger). Thus, I changed from my proven 4-3-1-2 Narrow Vertical Tiki-Taka to a 4-3-3 Tiki-Taka. Through my practice campaign, I noticed that everything wasn't going as smooth as hoped. The tweaking to the playing style and the chosen players roles took up a large part of the first quarter of the season, meaning my results were not as good as I hoped. We picked up the pact during the remainder of the season however and managed to finish a very decent 5th after an undefeated streak of 12 games (5 W / 7 D). Player of the Season: Burim Halili (7.22 average after a 7.32 in the 2nd season and a 7.24 in the 1st season - rock of the defense) Talent of the Season: Ronald Schubert (7.16 average, coveted by several Bundesliga-teams, this might be the best talent I have - however, he's a regen from 2022, so the season before I took over) Honorable Mention: Alexander Kammlott - re-trained to Inv. Winger AMR and after a U19-season with a 7.51 rating as a Mezzala, he now won the German U17 Player of the Year Honorable Mention #2: Yannis Jura - behind my 2 go-to wing players he managed to play 19 games and earned a 3rd place in the German U17 Player of the Year No Transfer Proof Youth Intake 2025 I've managed to increase my facilities to 'Great Youth Facilities', 'Good Academy Coaching' and 'Excellent Youth Recruitment' and it's showing. The Preview was promising and the eventual Scholars were indeed very promising. Especially Nico Alburg was a welcome addition as a back-up CM BWM - I'll keep him in the U19's but he'll be given some playtime when my regular needs a rest of gets injured. Another very decent talent is Alexander Miller ; when one of my great CM's gets lured away (which will inevitably happen for at least one of them), this might be a good replacement. Still no Left Back - not even a half-decent one - so I'm still stuck with one (very good) DL and a very bad back-up - fingers crossed for the next intake!

Season 2 (2023/2024) - 2. Bundesliga (all images) After gaining surprise promotion through the play-offs in my first season I wasn't really sure what to expect from this season in the 2. Bundesliga. I was lucky enough to manage to keep hold of all my players and I had a good pre-season (winning from several 2. Bundesliga teams), so I had some good hopes. We started the season really good once again, winning 5 and losing 1 in my first 6 games. Half-way through the season we found ourselves in 6th place with 4 teams tied in 1st place and us trailing only 4 points behind. After a good January & February and a terrible March we had to put together a good run of form, which we managed to do for the most part of April & May. It finally came down to the last day to qualify for the play-offs and beating Ingolstadt 3-0 and with a little help from Schalke 04 (defeating Karlsruher) we managed to qualify for the play-offs. We faced SV Werder Bremen and they were actually much, much better. We managed however to drag a 0-0 out of the first match and even managed to draw with the same figures again in the 2nd match ; in the last 15 minutes of extra time we were up one man, but I didn't dare to push because Werder had been dominating the match. The penalty shoot-out was a real thriller. The first 9 penalties all went in before their goalkeeper missed the 10th. This left my worst penalty taker to score - and he failed. They had to start again (only 10 players left) and surprisingly, their # 1 penalty taker missed his 2nd penalty. This left it all to my goalkeeper to finish the off - but he failed :-( Their next taker scored, which meant we were back to my first (and best) penalty taker... who missed. My best player, my gem, my future... gutted to miss out on promotion this year, but motivated to go for the title next year! No Transfer Proof End of Season Summary Youth Intake 2023/2024 My preview showed I would get some good wingers - which would mean I would have to change tactics or convert them to Mezzala's, AMC's or Strikers. The eventual top scholars were a DM, a Winger and a Striker - I'm pretty pleased with the striker, as I'm really lacking in that department and my strikers are getting older. Sadly still no half decent Left Back - I only have one (really) good player for that position, but al my back-ups are lacking quality completely. Best Scholar: Michael Trocha (nice DM/MC/AMC with nice Vision and Teamwork) Previous Year's Top Scholar: Alexander Kammlott (looking better and better, had a very decent season with my U19 with a 7.51 average as a Mezzala with 11 goals and 13 assists) Best Talent When Joining: Ronald Backhaus (played 24 matches - starting 1 - in my First Team, improving noticeably - might be ready for more involvement next year) Best Player When Joining: Leon Burger (still my best player, only a 7.04 average though this year - had to promise him I'd sell him if someone bids 900k - let's hope no-one does...) Best Player This Season: Felix Drinkuth (best player again, scoring 24 in 30 in the 2. Bundesliga)