DomD

What's the best place to see the 4th tier clubs?

Love the concept of using the old European Cup formats. Good luck. I'll following to see how far you can take your career.

Good luck.

Finally felt I had to give one of the academy players a debut. Adam Kowalczyk (Y1e), a winger who I'm re-training as a WB got the start because of suspensions to senior players.

October - November 2023 The wheels are starting to come off. We had the worst possible cup draw, being pitted against one of the top Ekstraklasa sides and it showed as they hammered us. I thought we would continue to eek our results in the league, but after one win we went on a horrible run. We need to turn things around quickly or I'll be out of a job.

That's cool. Didn't even know an award like that existed.

The original squad that I took over had several young players who, according to my coaches, had high potential. One who has probably progressed the most is my starting GK, Szymon Lewandowski. Always top in training and obviously getting loads of game time. Went from 2 to 4 star CA.

@kdavva74 nice career so far. Really like the style of your updates, might steal some of that for my own

September 2023 An amazing month for us. We're not defensively solid at all, but we're scoring loads, so it doesn't matter! Also, somehow the transfer window went by without anyone making a bid for one of my players. The cash would have been nice, but while I wait for our youth to be ready it is nice to hold on to our original players for a bit longer. The finances are looking fairly healthy. Not good enough to improve our facilities yet (I've asked), but I did manage to convince the board to send me on another course.

Thanks for the excellent info! I saw in someone's career updates that they were using affiliate clubs. Does having an affiliate, especially one from a different country, give you any benefit for youth intakes?

I've been reading a bunch of this thread, but no way I can get through all 118 pages! Some really great careers on here. I've been curious about a youth only save for a while now. I skipped FM23, but just recently started a FM22 one just to see if I like it. Posting updates in the Career Forum. Should I post short updates on this thread, or is this only for FM23? I'm only just starting my second season, but here are some of my thoughts. Can't wait to get some of my academy players into the first team, but don't want to rush them in before they are ready. On the other hand I'm afraid of the transition from the legacy players and how much the quality will drop off. I also have a few questions. Does hiring staff for the recruitment team (DOF, scouts) make any difference to the youth intake? How much difference does it make having the club in a bigger city? Do you get better youth, or are they all taken by the larger clubs in that city?

July - August 2023 Unsurprisingly the Ekstraklasa is challenging for these players, but we've averaged a point a game. If we can do that throughout the season we should be alright.

@Sizeman21 thanks! Should be a "fun" ride...

Season 2 - 2023/24 - Chojniczanka Chojnice - Ekstraklasa (Poland) We were not able to keep any clean sheets in the pre-season, which is a bit of a worry considering the board now want us to play defensively solid football. We're predicted to finish dead last by everyone, so this should be fun.

Had to do some convincing, but they agreed to improve youth recruitment too.

It was a nice surprise to see this: Which means our finances our in the positive again: And the board actually agreed to increase the budged for academy coaching! Let's see if they approve anything else.

Just to finish off the season review, here is the transfer activity. The board are unhappy about the fee we received for Lukasz Wolsztynski. I guess I should have tried harder to get more. But he does have a 40% sell on clause Some final thoughts about the season and the youth challenge in general. I'm going to keep going with this team until I'm fired or FM24 comes out. But if/when starting a new save I would choose a team in a larger city and with the best facilities possible. At least for the first time doing this.

2022/23 Season Player Review Here is a closer look at how the current squad performed in the last season. Paweł Czajkowski was clearly the stand out player, with 11 goals and 9 assists, and I'm worried that other clubs will come in for him. Damian Brytek was very important for us in defence, but he's 32 years old. I wouldn't be surprised if he picks up a bad injury next season and decides to retire. Very early in the season Artur Pląskowski was scoring goals almost every game (9), but only managed 12 for the whole season. Thankfully Oskar Frygier stepped up with 8. Rafał Majtyka was chosen by the fans as the young player of the season.

An early effect of us getting promoted is a move to a different stadium, about 100km away. Our previous stadium condition was 'Average.' This new one is 'poor,' hopefully that doesn't cost us in terms of revenue.

April - May 2023 and end of season review It was close right to the end, but somehow we pulled it off and won the league and promotion. Is it a bit too early? Are we going straight back down next season? Only time will tell. All the records were new, hopefully some academy kids can get their names in the record books in the next few seasons.

2023 Youth Candidates Like I said, I had no U18 team, so I signed them all. Now that we've had a closer look it seems like a few of them have high potential, but many will probably never make the grade. The top candidates are also for positions where we have quite a bit of depth, especially in central midfield.

2023 Youth Intake Finally got a look at this year's youth intake. Since all my U18s are gray, I'll be offering all of them a contract.

December 2022 - March 2023 I used the very long winter break to offer new contracts to all the players that had contracts expiring at the end of the season, except for the one that wanted to leave. I let my staff schedule the friendlies, but I had to add myself because I didn't realize what a messed up job they did of it. I was worried by the 1-1 draw with Zagłębie Sosnowiec but we managed to win a wild game against Sandecja and remained undefeated since the winter break. A bit inconsistent, wining 7-1 against one of the better teams, but then drawing 2-2 against one of the worst. But we're still over preforming so I can't really complain. I'm a bit worried that if we get promotion will be too early for this squad. But we need money and hopefully there is more to be had in the Ekstraklasa (and the promotion wage raises don't eat it all).

I see you got the 11 points 👍

Just had my game of the season I'm sure. It may take a very long time before we score this many goals in one match again.