BML

Are you still getting 11m a year TV money? I guess PSV got it at least once as well, now they are appearing in CL Finals.

I seem to remember reading another thread earlier in the game cycle (may have been the YAC) whereby custom created leagues receive huge amounts of TV money after season 20 due to a bug. Everybody in the league should be receiving these funds, which should give your goals of improving Gambian football a shot in the arm

Good Luck Jimbo, can't remember seeing a long-term Kosovan save on here before. I'm guessing after the slog that squad management at Cueta turned into, this save'll be Youth Only with no B Team?

That's not true! With your dual Cueta/Senegal hat on, you'd never call him up again so you'd have a keeper for AFCON months!

Maybe I was referring to his vital statistics of height and weight... Nah, blame it on me trying to get a message posted before knocking off for the day and using the wrong term. Duly noted!

Not a chance, seeing those stats.

I know for the most part star ratings aren't worth a whole lot, but are you not tempted to chuck in Pedro (L.Heart) over Paradas for AFCON? PA looks the same and a handful of games in January for the first team could really kick start his development, even at 16/17 y/o. I'm also guessing that no 'real' French cap on the horizon for Faty if he is off out on loan again?

From your monthly images it looks like Camera2's morale issues have cleared up. Did you remove the captaincy from him in the end like you were planning? Give him the new contract he was after? Or both? I'd have reservations if Pedro (15y/o GK) came through one of my intakes too - from memory I've never had much luck with players who are Light Hearted, plus he is very small for a 'keeper. On the other hand, he is only 15 and his PA would mean I'd give him at least a couple of years in my youth setups, plus with the amount of money you have sitting around it's a minimal risk for a non-African Nations 'keeper IMO.

Thank you, once again, for such an in-depth answer. I'll be interested to see how you fare with a non-playing/barely playing captain. Whenever I have attempted something similar in the past their rise through the hierarchy was too slow to be worthwhile, not to mention to initial squad happiness hit of moving the captaincy from a Team Leader to a new signing making things harder (squad morale wise, and everything connected to that) in the immediate short term. The main positive I can see for you though is that you'll finally be able to utilise @Sonic Youth's advice and bring in a keeper for those AFCON months. You would have thought that being older, this new player would be an established international or old enough that the possibility of switching is non existent. Although I suspect that the players at the centre of that particular Venn Diagram will be few and far between!

Camara2 always seems to be unhappy about something. I don't recall him having a bad personality, and he's obviously playing (and scoring) regularly, so are you pissing in his cornflakes every morning or what?

Knew ASEC would be a huge roadblock in CIV, but didn't realise just how big! Absolutely dominant this season.

Once again, thank you for a far more in-depth answer than I was expecting/deserve. I too scour through the NxGn list every year, but my focus is mostly on players playing a lesser country/team that I can poach for a decent fee. Like you though, I have noticed a few on this list that shouldn't really be there. I'm not sure how the game calculates this, but I can only assume it puts a very high weighting on Appearances, regardless of competition level (as you've seen with the Malian above). I also trawl through international squads every few months, but mainly because I'm a sucker for 'fun' nationalities. My B Team usually has a few players from more obscure nations that aren't terrible with a neutral or above personality, just because I like to see notifications from their international games and I like the feeling of 'saving' them from deletion and preventing a weak nation becoming weaker.

Apologies if you have covered this previously, but I was curious as to how you have set up your scouting/recruitment focus'. Based on some of the transfer punts you have highlighted in this thread, I would assume you have ongoing 'jobs' in the major regions of the continent (North, West, South), for no fixed position, with quite a large range on the acceptable minimum and maximum star ratings to be returned in the results - it's certainly how I do/would do it. However, I do know that some people swear by scouting individual countries (if not competitions - although that's difficult for Africa), not regions, while limiting search terms to 6/12 months only instead of the rolling 'ongoing' option. I know you pick up some of your players from the annual award lists, but I'd be interested on your take on scouting a mostly unplayable continent such as Africa.

Thanks for looking into that so thoroughly. A quick Google shows that I was right (I knew I'd definitely seen/read/heard about this format previously) and the African Nations Championship (African Championship of Nations in your game) is designed to be players from domestic leagues only: Source I'm interested whether this ruling not being followed through in your game is a beta thing or not, so I'll be checking this as soon as I'm in-game again as my save was started on release day.

My understanding is that this 'secondary' B Team AFCON is made up of local based players only (maybe African based only) so Egypt can only call up players playing in Egypt, Mali only players playing in Mali, Kenya players in Kenya etc. so it would surprise me if this is affecting you in the way you describe.

Love stories like this with different 'DNA' to the norm. Reminds me of that guy who ran a career with Millwall, making them a team of aggressive bastards with emphasis on cards over goals.

I'd always assumed that 'current contract' meant the contact he was on at Liverpool (in your example of O-C). So they will pay him 48k p/w until whatever date his contract with them was due to expire - June 25/26/etc. From memory (I'm not near the game right now) the Transfer Clauses section should outline exactly when these payments stop (I'm sure they do when selling players). Really enjoying reading your rationale behind your transfer dealings (not enough to go back to do an MLS save, but still). Statistical analysis on incoming players is definitely something lacking in my own saves, so I love reading threads such as yours, Ben's (and others) who play in such an in-depth way.

I raised this as an issue here - And the SI response suggested that this was a bug.

Thank you for the explanation, I figured it would be something weird with the extra drafts that pop up when playing MLS that, for whatever reason, the game chooses not to display any more.

Am I missing something or does this image show Philly and Montreal giving you an International Slot and draft pick for nothing in return?

I do like Anton and Carlos for that role, but then I'm a sucker for a striker with a high Finishing stat (typically ignoring any other flaws that may exist).

Sounds like an idea for a future experiment...

That club badge sure is something... Flying through the countries now, where's next (assuming you win the Champ Group)?

I read somewhere that if you get extra players it's because you poached from smaller clubs (similar to when you lose youth players, but there's no news item for it). I think if you check each player's history it should show which club they came from, but I'm not in front of the game now to confirm.