scarp

November 2024 We continued in a slump against Pontenedra but since then we managed to turn it around with three wins against Livorno, Ternana and Ascoli. League seems to be very even.

October 2024 We lost to Luparense with rotating squad, which i did not mind and afterwards managed to beat Juventus Next Gen. After that we got on a loss-streak and our morale dipped, will be tough to come back from this.

September 2024 What a dream start! We are playing great football so far and all is clicking. Recino is the biggest surprise as he's currently providing both goals and assists. We are really missing a proper RB though - that will be my focus in next transfer window. Transfers I I usually do not do many transfers in the first season but the squad was severely lacking in all aspects, I only signed few players to hopefully be more competitive and manage to stay up this season, but none of them should be part of long-term project, perhaps Bertini. Matteo Pautassi Vincenzo Silvestro Lorenzo Bertini Mattia Iori

Piacenza Calcio 1919 Goalkeepers: Decent and young options in the goal. Defenders: Not much depth, looks like 3 at the back could be a viable option. Midfielders: A lot of players but quality is missing. Will probably have to get rid of at least few of those. Attackers: All attackers are equal, I will see who fits our tactic the best. Key players: Michele Somma Matteo Gerbaudo Jacopo Silva

Piacenza Calcio 1919 After holidaying for a season and refreshing the list of teams I knew straight away who to pick - I remember Piacenza from when I was tiny, them still playing in Serie A. I have soft spot for these teams.

Reserved

I love youth challenges, its competitiveness and focus on youth development. But I also love scouting for hidden gems and finding great talent. I was always intrigued by Athletic Bilbao's policy to sign only basque talent. I decided to merge all the above into my next adventure - The 1-Nation Challenge The rules I set for myself are rather simple: Holiday one season and take hold of previously unplayable team (I am gonna do this on Vanilla db + latest transfers) Signings are allowed only for players with first nationality same as the nation I am managing in If my player changes nationality after I acquired him, i can continue playing him Players from youth in-takes are available for me irrespective of their nationality as long as they never leave the club Challenge is finished when I win Champions League (or its equivalent on other continents) My plan is to try and finish the challenge in multiple countries - therefore the name Alfredo Bennett's Multiverse, as each time I will like to start again from the year 2024.

Thank you very much everyone! Always a pleasure to participate in this challenge. You know that feeling when you finish a great book and suddenly feel this emptiness in your life? That's how i felt yesterday I was thinking about restarting in different country, as I love the competitiveness and youth development aspect of the challenge, but at the same time I miss the scouting part dearly. I decided to create a challenge for myself, similar principles to youth challenge but you can sign/buy players from your country - of course it will be much easier and not the real challenge but should combine all the aspects I like about the game. I will be posting my progress over at the Career Updates forum, if anyone is interested - that is before I come back here for another round! (hopefully earlier than in 4 years this time)

NK Roltek Dob 2049/50 In the summer I decided to let Kompara leave for sunny La Coruna and decided to fully embrace Kavcic as our number one striker. We had few upcoming talents promoted to the first team but usually they were just cameos. At the same time I tried to go back to 4-3-3 but after few games decided to stick with the 3-4-3 that we've been using lately. Mateo Kompara had probably his best season yet, getting 28 assists and 9 goals for us. Matija Kavcic also produced more goals than last season and almost breached 30. In League we surprisingly lost to Mura in quarterfinals. Mura was not our favourite opponent, as they also beat us 7-0 in league few months before that Only Maribor to go.. We managed to advance from League Phase straight into RO16, as we beat all the teams with the exception of loss against Barcelona. We started RO16 with a loss on Nou Camp but we responded swiftly with 3-0 win at home, securing quarterfinals for third time in a row. Against PSG we were up 2-0 until late added time but a VAR penalty gave PSG necessary goal for a rematch. Thankfully in Paris we managed to bring the game to overtime, and then thanks to youngster Ilic's goal to penalties, where we somehow were the luckier one (crazy considering none of our players has penalty scoring attribute above 9). Real Madrid was next and I was sure this was the end of the journey when we only drew at home, but somehow Kavcic had best 2 minutes of his life on Santiago Bernabeu and booked us Champions League finals against AC Milan! I am not gonna spend much time delving into the details.. WE DID IT! WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! Key players: Mateo Kompara, Tadej Lazar & Matija Kavcic Youth in-take

@darren1983 Indeed, although from my experience it's very rare to win the final on the first try. But not to get ahead of myself, we never even made semifinals yet. We look better this season than the last one, but I reckon we are still 3-4 seasons off. If I got the same luck from in-takes as I had with Minaric, Kotnik & Segrt next to each other, I believe then it would be easy for us - but so far nothing close to suggesting that. A bit of fun alternative future

NK Roltek Dob 2048/49 We had a decent season, although we did not repeat the double as we surprisingly lost to Tolmin in semifinals. I believe our season could have been better if I kept playing Kompara up-front, but due to his age, i decided long-term better decision is to try to play Kavcic as much as possible, even though he did not score nearly as much as Kompara does. We also had to replace retired Horvat, but as he was already only on hte verge of starting lineup, it was not such a big issue. We have great pipeline of talent on the wings now, still sturggling in the defense department. Big achievement - we have NXGN 2049 winner We barely made it through this time. We managed to repeat quarterfinals as we beat Valencia and Benfica comfortably, before narrowly losing to Tottenham. Club World Championship, players were super tired, not a big fan of the competition. I guess we did alright to bring this guy to the football world... Key players: Tim Pavel, Mateo Kompara & Zan Stor Youth in-take: Iztok Radonjic & Dejan Horvat Youth in-take

NK Roltek Dob 2047/48 Not many changes versus last season, we continued with the same team more or less. Even though Roser should be our best player he's not performing very well. it might also soon be the end of the journey for Saso Horvat who's still playing for us at the age of 35. Kompara is 33 but still scoring plenty - his 5th season in a row scoring 30+. We have Kavcic to replace him - I might give it a go next season. Defense is still rather lack-luster. We beat Celje in League Cup final for back-to-back doubles. League Phase was harder than last year, we had to beat Feyenoord in the last game to secure advancement to KO round. Some crazy games here! We managed to beat Liverpool not only once, but twice, specifically destroying them on Anfield with 6 goals. Against Juventus it was goals galore and we also made it through, as Zivec caught penalty in 90+6 minute. Man Utd was the first team that played more defensively and they managed to beat us, even though we gave them a fair fight. Hats off to the absolute legend! Key players: Tim Pavel, Mateo Kompara & Tadej Lazar Youth in-take: Stojce Hristov & Dejan Morec Youth in-take

NK Roltek Dob 2046/47 We lost few games here and there but overall were comfortably on the top spot after all 36 rounds. We broke Slovenian League record of most points, as well as few others. David Kompara at the age of 32 had probably his best season yet, supported by his cousin Mateo Kompara. Zivec became our number one goalie and our CBs are showing some progress as well. In the end Segrt's farewell did not hurt as one bit, as we played better than last season. We can celebrate double once again as Mura was nowhere on our level in the final. We did really well in CL League phase. After initial loss to BvB we managed to beat Astana, Wolfsburg, Chelsea and Galatasaray in a row, before finishing with three draws against Feyenoord, PSG and AC Milan. Still it was not enough to go straight for RO16. We beat comfortably Brugge and then we faced best club in Spain. At home we managed to draw thanks to Kompara cousins, but on Nou Camp Barcelona showed us who's boss. Key players: David Kompara, Mateo Kompara & Zan Stor Youth in-take: Bojan Cifer & Jaka Klanjsek Youth in-take

Thank you! Yes, I think I just got too excited by the luck of having three world-class talents come through in between 2-3 years. Even though after Segrt's departure, my defenders CA/PA did not really change, only some of my best talents got elevated in CA. The issue with full-backs is not that they would not be coming through, it's their quality. In 20+ years I haven't had a full-back with more than 3* CA and two of those came through ~12-13 years ago and played 10 seasons for me, namely Ivanovic and Kastrevec. I admit I might have tried to do a better job of cultivating the 3* PA players that I had. My previous HOYD that gifted me the talents have currently 5-3-2 as preferred formation, but I believe it used to be 4-3-3 - is this possible? Maybe I misremember. Anyway I exchanged him for a new one for this season, so let's see if anything changes on that front. By the way, before our EL win I could not get any world-class HOYD, all the possible options were worse than my previous HOYD who I signed around 15 years ago.

NK Roltek Dob 2045/46 We saw significant issues at the back three without our star players and we still have noone in the pipeline, I feel like it will still be a long way to finish the challenge, if ever. Especially now with Segrt leaving for free. In Cup we lost to Celje in the finals. But finally we managed to improve youth facilities! We had some decent games in the league phase as we beat Dinamo, Braga and Bodo, but AC Milan absolutely destroyed us, so once more we are out in first KO round. One absolute legend retires and leaves a hole in our defense Key players: Ivan Segrt, Mateo Kompara & Zan Stor Youth in-take

@JD78 I always keep going and have the board figure it out, probably through take-over or eventual promotion.

NK Roltek Dob 2044/45 We are invincibles! Great season for us as we managed to clinch the title without losing a single game. Although it's bittersweet because both our star CBs Makaric and Kotnik will leave at the end of the season to Saudi and Inter. Kompara is still our best attacker but I started playing Roser there occasionally. Segrt will play one more season but he will leave after that, we had two youth in-takes in a row without even a 4* PA player so I am not sure how long can we keep up. Tadej Lazar (7+22) and Zan Stor (23+9) had break-out season in central midfield, being supported by Uros Vidovic as DM (2+10). I fully gave up on full-backs and we play with 3 in the back, which is already sub-optimal, but I do not see other options. In Slovenian Cup we beat Maribor 3-1 in the finals and secured a double. Teplice surprised us and we are out of Champions League very early. Thankfully no surprise in Europa League. We beat some good teams and only lost to the EL specialists - Sevilla. AEK was easy, PSV were rather hard but we got lucky on penalties. Rennes and AS Roma were both close opponents but we were better in both games and deserved to reach the final where we will face Newcastle. Newcastle started stronger and got ahead thanks to Young's shot from outside the box. We were quick to counter as Stor overtook Newcastle defense and scored. 7 minutes before half-time Segrt got fouled in the penalty box and Kompara scored from the penalty mark. We controlled the game going forward and deservedly won Europa League! We had takeover but still cannot progress with youth facilities. Key players: Ivan Segrt, Tadej Lazar & Zan Stor Youth in-take

NK Roltek Dob 2043/44 Absolutely awful season for us. I had to switch the tactic up to play with no full-backs or defensive wingers as we just do not have anyone better than 1.5* and the tactic is not working properly even though we currently have 3 wonderkids in the team. In Europe we were doing sort of okay, but in the league we got hammered by many teams and barely kept to second place. We are reaching 100M and no possible upgrade of yourh facilities. Kotnik, Segrt and Makaric will all have last season of their contracts in forn of them and I think there's very low chance any of them will sign with us again. I do not see point of selling them even though I could get around 100M+ for them but there's nothing I can do with the money. We at least managed to win Slovenian Cup by beating Maribor in overtime. Qualifying was easy this time around. We beat Celtic, Lazio, Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund, overall great results but we have been given super tough draw in KO round. Decent games, but we are not close to PSG yet. I keep rejecting all the sales but won't be able to hold onto my wonderkids for much longer. Wow, our amazing board agreed to use 2% of our balance to expand our stadium! Key players: Ivan Segrt, Mateo Kompara & Joze Kotnik Youth in-take: Erik Orazem & Aljaz Milinaric Youth in-take

NK Roltek Dob 2042/43 Started the season at last place after 3-0 loss with Celje but managed to bounce back quickly and we can celebrate fifth title in a row. In League Cup we lost in quarterfinals to Maribor. I find it super frustrating that we cannot progress with youth facilities even with 70M in the bank. One of the most infuriating things that happened to me in FM - youth in-take was very poor again. On the other hand we have the first wonderkid of the save - Ivan Segrt for whom I already declined 30M offer from Barcelona. We have now few top class players but I am not sure how long I can keep them - probably 1 to 2 years. And the quality of full-backs is non-existant. Due to rise on coefficients we only had to beat Brugge. We had much easier draw and also played way better this time and managed to get to play-offs! I thought we would have a chance vs Benfica and it was close games, but in the end we fell short. New record! First wonderkid of the save Key players: Ivan Segrt, Mile Makaric & Volker Roser Poor youth in-take

NK Roltek Dob 2041/42 We were by far the best team is Slovenia this seaosn, although we bombed out of League Cup in third round. Segrt and Roser are amazing wingers and I rejected offers up to 10M for them. Mile Makaric had his release clause triggered by Juventus and PSG, but he decided to re-sign with us instead of joining them. My concern are now our fullbacks, both Ivanovic and Kastrevec are our worst starting players and there's no talent in the pipeline. Turku was tougher than expected, but we managed to beat also Shkendija and Brugge to qualify for group stage. We beat Feyenoord and managed to draw vs Valencia and PSV. Should have done better against Celtic. Proud to see my plazers are finally getting senior national team caps! Interestingly enough, Kotnik only played one game for my senior team before making first appearance for Slovenia NT Key players: Ivan Segrt, Mile Makaric & Volker Roser Youth in-take: Uros Vidovic & Tadej Lazar Youth in-take

NK Roltek Dob 2040/41 This season was somewhat harder than the previous one, we were on second spot for a long time trying to overtake Maribor which we managed three games before the end of the season due to win against them. We also beat Radomlje in Cup final to secure back-to-back doubles. Mile Makaric became our best CB at the age of 18 and is now partner to Goran Filipovic, our first 5* youth in-take player, who just turned 30. The issue this season was our striker, as Kompara was not really hitting any shots and was not our topscorer after 6 consecutive years. On thye other hand I did some tactical tweaking to our central midfield and Oblak in his 26 years old became very important to us, as he managed to score 17 goals from CM position. We move up to 4th all-time most accomplished Slovenian club. Dinamo Minsk was harder than I expected and Shakhtar was just too hard of an opponent for us, we moved to EL. We did pretty well in the group stage, only losing to Young Boys and Wolfsburg and securing advancement in last round against APOEL. We beat Trabzonspor at home and I was sure Sporting will be too much, but luckily we managed to beat them on penalties. I did not give us big chances vs. Atletico but the team surprised in both games, when we were competitive against one of the better teams in football. Key players: Alen Oblak, Mile Makaric & Franci Novak Youth in-take: Vlado Zivec, Joze Kotnik & Zan Stor Youth in-take - that's more like it! GK, CB and CM, all positions we have been lacking in the youth in-takes lately!

NK Roltek Dob 2039/40 We were on top of the league table through out most of the season and also managed to win the League Cup again after one season pass, which makes me quite happy. On the other hand it's impossible to upgrade youth facilities and the in-take was poor once again, which is quite concerning, but perhaps we can get a take-over soon. Volker Roser rose this season and replaced last years shining star Matko in the starting lineup. Quiter year for Kompara this season. Riga was easy, Jablonec suprisingly tough and same goes for Torpedo Kutaisi. Tough draw - I am happy with draws against Lazio and Wolfsburg, but I feel like we should have played better vs. Brugge. Key players: Saso Horvat, Volker Roser & Franci Novak Poor youth in-take

Have anyone ever encountered a case when there's no option to improve youth facilities even though we have 30M in the bank? Is this a bug or is there a solution to this?

NK Roltek Dob 2038/39 As usually, start of the season was shaky due to low squad depth and many games. After mid-season break we managed to snatch the top spot and never let go, finishing the season comfortably five points ahead of Maribor. In League Cup we made the finals, where we lost to Maribor after over-time. Would be great to get a double, but it's not a big issue. As far as team goes Sprah's departure left us only with one quality CB and overall our defense is not looking that hot. On the other hand we keep getting one class winger after another. Kompara had his best season yet and we had a break-through with Matko, who became our starting left winger. This season we only played Conference League and we wanted to make the best of it. Qualification was harder than i expected, Kapaz was easy but somehow we only drew vs. IA at home and Groningen was a tough opponent. On the other hand the group stage was very easy for us, we beat all the opponents except Partizan and secured play-offs after only four games. Antalyaspor was our first opponent and I was confident, as we beat them in group stage comfortably. They surprised us at their stadium but we managed to destroy them home in Slovenia, which also triggered some talks about goal tally record. In quarterfinals we drew Aberdeen and we won both games before facing Girona in semifinals. We played great defensive game in Spain and secured amazing draw, but at home Girona put on another level of performance and showed us that we're still not ready to challenge for the title. Almost broke into top50! Baby steps.. Key players: Saso Horvat, David Kompara & Franci Novak Youth in-take: Ivan Segrt & Mile Makaric Youth in-take - we would really need a goalie and full-backs and we are not getting them..

NK Roltek Dob 2037/38 We started very well and kept the number one spot for a bit, but then Celje just ran away with the season. We were never really close and they deserved the win. We will come back even hungrier than before. We also did not get a silverware in League Cup as we lost to Celje there as well in quarterfinals. I don't think we got worse, just unlucky season. We also managed to get first sale and I wish i never jinxed it before! Amadej Sprah's release clause was triggered by AC Milan for 1.4m. I will add a table below to show the progress of the talents we sold. Annoying part is that we have 22M in the bank and board is very slow to grant any facilities requests. We started our CL campaign in Stockholm with a goal-less draw followed by destruction on our home soil. We met Pogon again and once more we won by one goal. I thought that Astana is a favorable draw for us but they were the better team and we move to Europa League as we did not even manage to score once. I did not really expect us to get through but we wanted to give it our best. At first we drew with LASK and Athletic (which was a lovely surprise) and afterwards we managed to get three wins against Braga, Qarabag and Basel. Draw with Charleroi already sent us through and we did not have anything to play for during our win vs. Servette and loss against Newcastle. Splendid! Key players: Saso Horvat, Marijan Mijatovic & Goran Filipovic Youth in-take: Klemen Curk & Volker Rozer Youth in-take