resurectedja

the club must have been stacked with high potential players. IRL its financed by Andy Bara, a top Croatian agent. They already sold a few players to big clubs for a lot of cash, including Mika Faye to Barcelona last season.

FM23 Catania - Season 2 – 2023/24 The off season was rough. Two of my starting central defenders said they weren’t interested in resigning with us. This season will be their last for the club, most likely. Our star starting goalkeeper was making noise about leaving. I finally settled on letting him leave if someone played 1,5 million for him. I thought I was safe, but it turned out I was not. After rejecting like 15 offers that didn’t even reach a million euros, Paderborn swooped in with a 1,8 million euro offer which the board accepted in a heartbeat. So a few weeks before the start of the season, we were downgraded from a 4,5 star to a 1,5 star goalkeeper. Players weren’t the only ones who looked for greener pasture elsewhere. My DoF left for Venezia. My head scout went to Citadella to become their HoYD. This lead the media to drop us in their preview, from fifth to eight. I wasn’t expecting much. My only hope was that the improvement of some players would improve our offensive output which would mitigate our worse defense. We started the season brilliantly. 8 game streak with 6 wins and 2 draws. After 17 rounds we were first, with only a single defeat. Late November and early December we broke our consecutive wins record, winning 6 straight. The highlight of said streak was an absolute demolition of Savoia. But Catanzaro and Pescara were always breathing down our necks. Both teams built incredible defenses, neither slipped above 0,5 conceded goals all season. As the new year came, so did our fortunes shift, we were less surgical on both ends. Round by round we started to fall behind the two teams I mentioned earlier. The worst moment was the match against Turris, a 2 2 draw where they had a whopping 0,11 xG. We didn’t start losing, but there were more draws than wins and that ultimately cost us the promotion. We finished 4th with a record 73 points. In the playoffs we skipped the first round, demolished a team from the C/B league and lost on penalties after that. The Youth Preview was a mixed bag in terms of letters, but it still promised 4 elite talents, a fullback, a CM, a striker and AMC. When the youth intake came it was a bit different. There were 3 elite talents, striker, MC and left winger. Cervoni is very impressive mentally and physically. I am training him as a Pressing F on Attack with special focus on shooting. I also moved him to the senior squad right away so I can mentor him with Giovinco, who is fairly ambitious. I usually don’t mind unambitious, but in the case of Cervoni, the determination is low as well. Bruschi is an nonathletic CM on attack, very technically gifted but not much else. Fabbri is fast and has a bit of technique. He is also the only elite with a good personality. Given the improvements it is a bit of a letdown. But maybe a season or two is needed for the upgrades to take full effect. Zadi the Ivorian Newgen from the holiday season is our first youth international, starting to feature in the Ivorian U20 team regularly since September this season. Based on our good form, and the money we got from Salah’s transfer, we managed to get quite a few improvements. We improved the youth recruitment three times, going from average to excellent . Our junior coaching was improved once, going from average to adequate. All these boosts started to catch attention of neighboring clubs, so our academy player Alessandro Masiero was poached by Palermo. Plan for next season is simple, give as many games as possible to our 4,5 and 5 star kids.

The way one sets up the save is also important. My laptop isn't all that great, but I always load the nation i play in as the only league. I load a lot of players, similar to how Second Yellow Card sets his build a nation saves. Takes a minute or two to go through a week and the match I have on max speed and key highlights in 2D unless its an important game. The match takes around 3-5 minutes. So in a hour i can easily go through a month and a half or two. The less clubs in the playable leagues the faster the progress as well. Argentina and Croatia are excellent parallels. In the first and second division in Argentina there are over 60 clubs in total. So in a given day you can be simulation 30 games at worst. In Croatia, there are 22 clubs in total in the top two leagues and on a week to week basis there are less matches that need processing, which leads to much faster progress.

FM23* Catania - Season 1 – 2022/23 Like Kevin Durant in 2016, I have chosen the hardest path. He joined the Warriors, and I joined Catania for my new YAC save. There are numerous reasons why I picked them. They are just a boat away from my last unsuccessful save with Jadran Luka Ploče in Croatia. Catania was once a good first division team in Italy. But then came 2022 and bankruptcy, which sent them all the way down to the fourth tier. They have great training facilities, good youth ones and their junior coaching, as well as youth recruitment are average. They also never won a major trophy, which we will hopefully change. The squad itself looks pretty good. There is a core of 11 starters and a 3 or 4 talented pieces of the bench which could improve. Our two best players were Salah, a goalkeeper, and Sarao a veteran target forward. Salah looks impressive given his age and our level. Hoping he stays our No1 for at least the first five or six years. This made me very optimistic about our first season. We were also predicted to finish quite high -seventh. The team had absolutely no staff. So, I roll up the sleeves and started hiring. Like in the previous two saves, I opted for a high professionalism only staff. I can’t believe how easy it was to find staff who had the right level of professionalism but also the level of quality needed. From day one, or two, we had average or better coaching for every category, with 17/20 training facilities. Never been more pumped and enthusiastic for a save! I was even reunited with my DoF from my Deportivo Armenio save and signed former French international William Gallas for 20K a year. Must have fallen on hard times, the poor bloke. We played brilliant for most of the season. We had multiple streaks of 5+ unbeaten. Always around the top, but never on it. There were hopes and opportunities to claim the throne, but we simply couldn’t snatch it. The worst one of all was this game against Trapani. After that horrible Fmed result it kind of sent us in a downwards spiral, losing most of our last 10 games. In the end we finished seventh in the league. In the meaningless playoffs we passed the first round, but lost in the second The youth intake preview was, to quote Larry David, pretty pretty good. It promised at least six elite prospects, none of them playing the same position. Ideal for this type of save. The actual intake gaves us 4 elite talents, with 5 top talents. Like the American educational system ill only focus on the elite kids. Alberto Mora can play striker and AMR. He is a very dribbly boy with good off ball movement. Will train him as a Inverted winger on attack in the MR role so he gives us more options. Stefano Curci is an unathletic but very mentally savvy defender who can cover both DC and DR. Going to train him as a Central defender since we lack depth there. Vicedomini is a very raw prospect with a bit of technique passing and decisions. Squillante is both slow and weak but has a very impressive technical and mental make up for a deeplaying forward. Hope the 3 fickle of them have a good level of professionalism. Manuel Sarao was out best goalscorer, getting 18 in 36. Michele Somma was our best rated player with 7,24, which lead him to the Team of the Year and Defender of the Year Giovinco was our best creator with 10 assists in 41 games. My plans for next season are to repeat the success of the current one. Keep developing the newgens that are close to 2 stars and hopefully keep our squad, especially the goalkeeper. Using the avatar of my legendary Welsh goalkeeper from my Merthyr Town save, the same one I used for the Jadran Luka Ploče save.

Got sacked in the fifth season in Croatia after finishing last in the league. The board wanted us to finish in the relegation playoffs, I failed by five points. Most frustrating season I can remember. Had 3 starter caliber players in my u19 the whole season, but couldnt play them due to the u17 rule. Still havent figured out what my next save will be.

FM23 Jadran Luka Ploče - Season 4 – 2025/26 It was a record-breaking season, but for all the wrong reasons. We managed to survive, but by a record low number of points. Rudeš, the team who got relegated this season was absolutely awful, and apart from a short burst of form were never close to jumping us. We finished the season 9th. We were around 7th or 8th during the first part of the season, but we really fell apart in February, going on a 8 game losing streak. We bounced back late to secure 9th. We were in the relegation playoffs against Varaždin. It was a breeze, idk why but they hardly had any players with good sharpness. We drew away and won resoundingly at home. If we were lucky in the first part of the season and the second part was how things really could be, I really think our fifth season could be our last in the league. We were a 1000-1 to win the league and our form showed why. The big 4 of Croatian football demolished us multiple times. We have conceded 8 and 7 goals once and 5 goals multiple times this season. We made some money thanks to the 1,2 million euro per year tv deal. Not enough for upgrades, but its nice to have a financially stable club. We rented another stadium this year. The one in Zmijavci wasn’t up to standard so we moved to Imotski this season. I was offered a job by Gorica and Lokomotiva this season. To ward of suitors my board offered me a new 2 year deal. Due to no real upgrade options at HoYD I added an DoF to my staff. He is much better than everyone else at judging ability and potential. He is also a true Professional personality, similar to everyone else on our staff. Its high professional or bust if you want to join this club. He produced an astounding preview, promising 8 talented players. He not only delivered, but we got 11!!! Elite talents. It would be too much to post all of them, so I will only focus on the two best. Antonini Šiljić is a naturally fit, brave and precise tackling defensive mid. He also has a fairly professional personality. With 2 stars now, I expect him to be 3 stars by the time he is 17. Second starlet of this year’s intake is Vencel Spajić. A very talented deep lying forward with impressive bravery, flair and determination. Only plan for next season is once again, not get sacked. Our best mid Žderić left on free and joined a second division team. Things are looking bleak.

FM23 Jadran Luka Ploče - Season 3 – 2024/25 This season, I decided to switch things up tactically, and go to a very direct tactic, something I call “Ah, **** it” tactic. I haven’t played with 3 strikers upfront since like fm12. The biggest reason for the switch is that I have 3 good strikers and 3 good midfielders, with no real threats on either wing spots, now that I shifted Karlogan to starting right FB. It has been a wonderful season for Karoglan. He developed better than I expected a player could at this club. he went from a 2.5 star winger to a 4 star Complete WB/winger and Croatian youth national. Hope we can keep him, but as you know, once players hit 4,5 stars its really hard to keep them at a club. We had two hiccups at the beginning of the season, losing one, drawing the second. The loss against Dubrava was the worst last 10 minutes I ever had in 15+ years of playing this game. . The goals started to match the expected goals, and after 15 matches we found ourselves first with a point ahead of Dragovoljac. One 7 games and one 8 games streak of no defeats led us to a shocking promotion. The success of this season led to my new one-year deal. The league win made me one of the top Welsh managers which is really sad. The youth intake preview was once again amazing. We were supposed to get five talented players, including two forwards, a position increasingly important in this new system. The intake gave us 5 elite talents. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of CA. One 2 star and four 1,5 star talents is a lot better that I hoped for. This shows that our reputation keeps improving. Hopefully the promotion will be an added boost and we see a intake with a 2,5 or more CA player soon. On to the most talented players from this year’s intake. Dante Jovanovic is a resolute goalkeeper who would be starting for me if it wasn’t for that dumb rule. Great handling and reflexes, will need to improve on his athleticism. Boženko Kolega seems like a well rounded playmaker who will have to improve his dribbling. Michele Oremuš is explosive and technical on the left wing, but will be turned into an Advanced Forward. Domislić shares the name of my corrupt uncle, and that is where the comparison ends. He looks like our future number 9, a targetman who can finish equally well from a ground and from the air. Ratko Juras is a smart and technical holding midfielder. If he develops he will be another asset to my possession heavy playstyle. Our best goalscorer was once again Raguž with 18 in 26. He was also our best rated player Romić lead the creators with 8 assists My only hope for next season is that we don’t get absolutely smoked and I don’t get the sack.

FM23 Jadran Luka Ploče - Season 2 – 2023/24 To start the season, I randomly lost the locker-room !?!? I have no idea why or what, but a few senior members came to me and said so. But a promise seemed to solve it, in addition to a couple of weeks of praising training religiously. In terms of season preview, we were once again 1-50 to win the league and predicted to finish last out of the ten clubs in the reduced second division. It was a decent season, we took care of business against the worst teams, sometimes surprising better, promotion candidates. But in the end we ended up seventh out of 10 clubs. Our best player Paponja decided to leave us on free, going to Bosnia, signing for Tuzla City. He got rich in the process, going from 45k to 200k+ per year. I also signed a new one year contract. There were plenty of takeover rumours, but it never happened. It never does, does it? The attendances in this league are a tragedy. Our facilities were downgraded, but the the reputation continues to increase, so I think it wont make too much difference for the intake. The intake preview was absolutely spectacular. It promised seven talented player, with a bunch of As. Surprisingly, the intake was equally brilliant. We got 7 elite talents and 2 top talents. Krševan Jerolimov is a versatile wide attacker, solid athlete with no real strength. Juan Carlos Rubio, popurarly nicknamed Rubi is a son of a Spanish mother and now estranged Senegalese father. He moved to Ploče 3 years ago when his mother got a job opportunity locally. A smart, determined player, he has the ability to become our starting FB, and potentially one of the leaders of the team. Tonći Krištić is an athletic and aggressive winger with a bad personality. Krševan Nižetić, distant cousin of popular singer Luka, is a technically gifted wide attacker with a lot of flair. Viktor Matijašević is a tall, hardworking either footed central defender who might also turn into a very good BWM in central midfield. Krunoslav Sivrić will turn into a threat from both winger positions, similar to Mario Benko. Our best prospect from last year Karoglan improved well, going from 1.5 to 2.5 stars. As soon as he turned 17 he started playing, scoring on his debut. Our leading goalscorer was Antonio Raguž with 13 Ivano Čepo was our best rated player with 7.19 Ivan Paponja leads the assist chart with 11. Next season I hope we win more than we did this year. It will be tough without Paponja tho. I plan on giving Karoglan as many starts as possible as well.

What is SI basing this no players under 17 rule in Croatia? There have been plenty of u17 players throughout the history of the first and second league. The top 15 youngest players in the history of the first division are all under 17. Luka Vušković played for Hajduk as a 16 year old last season. And this season Leon Jakirević and Patrik Marić both played as 16 year olds.

FM23 Jadran Luka Ploče - Season 1 – 2022/23 Finally, a save in Croatia, in the harbor town of Ploče. I dont think i will ever manage a team closer to my hometown, just 20 miles away. In this ave i have decided to use Lee Ingram, the legendary goalkeeper from my Merthyr Town save. He played close to or around 600 apps for the club, captaining it for most of the latter period of the save. The facilities aren’t as good as they were in Bulgaria or Argentina, but they are way better than what they were in Wales. I doubt we will get any major upgrades until further in the save, maybe even Europe. It is a solid team, with 16 players in total. Most of them are balanced in personality. Two of our best players are Ivan Paponja, a 4,5 star Mezzala, and Ivan Raič a 4,5 star FBS. We are lacking a good goalkeeper and depth in central defense, sadly a team carried over from my Deportivo Armenio save. I have started training every wide defender and defensive mid as a central defender to cover that weakness, which could end up even worse in case Raič decides to bounce after his contract expires this season. I hired David Mance as my HoYD. Attributes aren’t that impressive, apart from working with youngsters. The club had no staff at all, so I signed everyone I could, prioritizing personality over skill. In terms of tactics, I switched between a 433, using the same tactic I had on my Chernomorets save, and a 4132, it all depended on the availability of certain players, since I did have 3 first team players who all were 21 and under. There are two very annoying rules in the second division in Croatia. First is that nobody under the age of 17 can play competitive matches. And the second one is that you have to have 3 u21 players to start the match. You can substitute the u21 players at half time and believe me I often did. We were predicted to finish last, 12th in the league. Three clubs are getting relegated directly, while, an additional one is in the relegation playoffs. It will be thought. We did start extremely well, winning the first two and only matches in August, earning me a Manager of the Month award. It was a season of many ups and downs. We would go on a six-game streak without defeat, and then a 8 game streak without winning. In the end we finished seventh. It was enough to convince the board to give me another one-year contract. Raič decided to move, he crossed to boarder to Posušje who play in the BH Premier Division, doubling his salary. The youth intake preview was very promising, stating that we would get at least 5 talented players, including 2 central defenders. But, the intake itself was radically different. We only had 1 elite talent, flanked by 3 top talents – none of them a central defender. Miroslav Karoglan is a hometown kid, maybe a cousin of the former Hajduk manager Mislav. He can play all long the right side. Given our current situation I am developing him as a RB Wingback on Attack. Our best scorer was Nikola Marić with 11 Ivan Paponja was both our best rated played with 7.12 and most creative player with 6 assists. Hoping to survive in the second division next season as well. It will be harder without our best defender. Hoping Karoglan improves in the youth team, and we can give him a few games once he turn 17 in April.

FM23* Deportivo Armenio Season 5 – 2027 – First Division - Challenge Completed! We were defeated in the Supercup by River, bad way to start the year. But that doesn’t matter anymore. We drew the worst possible opponent in the group, Flamengo, including Barcelona and Tachira who we played last year. The group was a breeze, winning every game, beating Flamengo at home 2 0. We finished first in our group. It was relatively easy in the knockouts. We drew Palmeiras in the first round. The first game was a wild 3 3, where I experimented with Barone as a Terquatrista up front for the first time because Bonacci was injured. He absolutely crushed it with a goal and 2 assists. In the return leg it was a breeze, 3 0 win. And then we got Flamengo for the second time this season. But there was an important distinction, Gabigol was injured, our chances were much better. 2 2 away and 2 1 at home. We were never a goal down in either leg. In the semifinals we face River. The first game away was a relatively easy 2 1 win. But we got ourselves in all kinds of trouble in the return leg. We controlled most of the match, but conceded two late goals and penalties decided who will go on to face Corinthians in the finals. They missed 3 out of 5 and we went to our first ever Copa Libertadores finals. Corinthians beat the crap out of us, but we prevailed against their 21 fouls and 1.6 xG. Rios to Bonacci for the only goal of the game. It was the two of them, with Olmedo, who formed the backbone of this team, and it is only right that I finished the challenge with the two of them giving us our most important win of the save. Challenge completed! @darren1983 The most important players for this save were the legacy ones. Balduzzi, Olmedo, Rios, Bonacci, the four of them were our best players in most seasons. But this season they did get a lot of help by our newgens. Barone developed really well, turning into a 4 star winger, who can also play pretty well as a Terq in attack, Dahan was our best player in a bunch of matches and is now a 3,5 star in like 10 different roles across 4 positions. Correa and Gordillo are both 3 star in their respective roles. It was a short save but one that is equally fun and frustrating. Its really hard to make money in Argentina. Dahan and Vitiello have joined Gordillo as Argentina youth nationals. We made our first proper sale this season. Matias Irala, one of the three elite talents from our first intake was sold for 320K. He is 19 going on 20 now, just a 1,5 star CA with a bad personality. He had a 20% future transfer clause which we sold for close to 100K. So in total 420K for a player who might peak as an ok second division playmaker. Our intake was fine, two elite players, including a 2 star CA advance forward. But I won’t see them grow up. We had two upgrades, finally! Improving recruitment to above average and junior coaching to good. Not that it matters anymore haha. We are around 3rd and 4th place in the league now that we have caught up with our games behind. Boca is once again a machine, and they will most likely win the league with a record number of points. My part of the town was without internet for 5 days, and without electricity for most of one last week. As you can guess and see I spent most of that time reading Kant and Jane Austen. My next save is a patriotic one. Nobody has done a save in Croatia and I will try to survive the frustrating first few seasons due to that dumb minimal age rule.

FM23* Deportivo Armenio Season 4 – 2026 – First Division League Based on the season preview we were supposed to finish 19th, with 250-1 odds of winning the title, another massive improvement compared to last year, but not nearly as much as we deserved considering where we finished last season. We had a slower start to the season, with Libertadores being the focus, but once we started rolling, we were steamrolling teams, finding ourselves around the first place for most of the season. But we simply couldn’t keep it up and this unlucky defeat against River away ruined our big dream of winning the league title . Or so I thought. River bottled it losing their last game of the season, Boca weren’t as good as they were in the previous season. Both of them were 2 points ahead of us, if we won our game, we would win it all. We played our final game against 11th place Union SF, and we won. We won the title, playing really poorly in our last game. But I guess its luck smiling back at us after taking it almost all away in that River match earlier in the season. Fourth season and a title won. Cant believe it and by a single point. Once again, I used the league cup as a means of raising fitness and happiness, rotating every player before the Libertadores games. Plenty of young players got plenty of minutes and we still finished a very good 6th, a single point behind River Plate, the last team qualified for the league cup playoffs. Four out of our five defeats were by a single goal. If we took the tournament more serious we could have won the throphy, but the Liberatdores is the only way to make money, with the group stage giving us 3 and the first knockout round an additional million. Winner gets 16 million. They really need to scale these prizes better… We started the Libertadores game in style, winning 4 0 away, good form continued as we won the next two games as well. We suffered in the second part, winning only one point from 3 games, but still somehow finished first in our group. In all fairness it was a easy group, with no Brazilian teams. The club we played in the first knockout round was Gremio. Won the first game away, but lost 2 1 at home, which meant penalties, 10 rounds of penalties until we finally went through to the quarter finals where we faced off with Flamengo. They are the best team in south America, winning the Libertadores 3 out of the last 4 times. Played them well at home 2 2, but they demolished us 4 1 away. In total made 5,5 mil from Libertadores, and are a couple of hundred thousand in the green, for now. Flamengo went on and won the whole thing. Fourth title in 5 years. They are the team to beat in this save Our nest was robbed once again this year. Pablo Fernandez went off to Huracan. Our youth intake promised 3 talented players, a striker, a DMC and at least one full back, with maybe a ok goalkeeper as well. Intake was something every single FM player, but especially us YAC challenge addicts love to see – no elite talents. Instead I got 4 top talents. Three of them were in expected positions, with an surprisingly talented CD. Ochoa is a well rounded DMC who can also play MC, looking forward to his growth, he does have a bit of jumping reach, so I might teach him to play CD in the future as well. Even if a natural striker, Robles is better as a right wing, also a good athlete and passer. Blanco is a natural central defender, but I am developing him as a BWMD. I have doubts that he will reach his potential since he is unambitious with low determination. Players with a similar combination of personality and determination failed to develop for me so far in this save. I am most excited by Michelena. He will be taught how to play the other fullback position, but he a professional individual, and I hope his improvement will lead to higher potential ratings down the road, since he entered the save with such low CA. Hoping for more luck next intake, especially for a 5 star defender… Franco Gordillo made club history this season by becoming the first youth national after being called up to the u19 Argentina squad. First of many I am sure. Once again, Pio Bonacci was our leading scorer with 24 goals Gonzalo Rios was the most creative player Luis Olmedo was our best rated player with 7.39 Next season I plan on giving it my all in the Libertadores once again. I really hope we avoid Flamengo, at least until the finals if we make it there. The title will give us plenty of reputation boost, so I expect a better intake, especially in terms of starting CA. I also plan to give a lot of playing time to a couple of youth prospects from the reserves. Dahan was one of the two elite talents from the second intake. He is 2,5 star in a bunch of roles across 4 different positions. Barone is a very talented winger who will get plenty chances as our backup right winger next season. Gordillo, our first youth national, will be the second option for both fullback spots. Finally, Vitiello is most likely our new number 1. Its close between him and Cuesta, but I am sure, given his improvement so far, that he will be better than Cuesta by the halfway point of the year at least.

My Chernomerets save also hasnt been added

Oh wow thats absolutely brutal. Two top prospects and both casual.

FM23* Deportivo Armenio Season 3 – 2025 – First Division Our first continental competition started perfectly! Three wins out of three, even beating the group favorites AMG away. Only one team goes through the next round, nothing was safe. And we lost our home game against AMG, followed by a very unlucky draw with Guabira. On the last day I hoped Guabira could bring some of their luck against AMG but they lost without a whimper, while absolutely demolished O’Higgins of Chile in our best and most ruthless game of the season. We finished second in the group, 2 points off AMG. We were a lot worse in the League Cup this year. This is mostly due to the fact that I completely rotated the starting 11 before every single game in the Copa Sudamericana. Still, we managed to finish 8th, with 4 out of the 5 losses coming in games with rotated squad. All that was good enough for another new two-year contract. The bookmakers had a much better opinion of us this season! They predicted us to finish 25th with 700-1 odds of winning the title. League season didn’t start particularly well against this frustration fest of a game against Talleres. But we turned it around in the next round by absolutely wrecking Lanus. Bonacci really carried us in the first part of the season, even won player of the month for July. Good form carried us to our very first league lead towards the end of August! We were there, around first place for most of the season. This is mostly due to Boca having 4 games in hand. They were an unstoppable machine and after our unlucky loss to Platense, we had to kiss our title chances goodbye. We ended up second, eight points behind Boca and one in front of River. Absolutely magnificent season can’t believe how well it went. Off to Libertadores next year, to finally earn so much needed money and maybe even get out of the red! Oh, and I finally won my first award! Never won a single Manager of the Month but got Manager of the Year. One of the keys for our improvement this season I think is my new assistant manager. He has better judgement attributes than the previous person giving the reports. His tactical knowledge far exceeds what we currently have at the club. Since he is on the younger side, I hope he keeps improve and we stick with him throughout the save. I will remember this season as the free for all season when it comes to my youth products. We had so many of them poached. Clubs were poaching them like they were eggs! Gaston Morales and Gabriel Ranzato went to Ferro, Franco Orellana went to Estudiantes (LP), Claudio Godoy went to Gimnasia (LP), Eric Coceres went to Sarmiento I changed my HOYD this year, finally found someone who is better than my DoF in terms of both personality and attributes. His JPA isn’t great, but the other two attributes and personality are absolute class. I was blown away by my youth intake preview. I know you have to take these things with a grain of salt, but it said that I might get not 1 or 2, but 6 extremely talented players in this year’s intake. None of them was a central defender, but the goalkeeper is much needed, and I hope the full backs were taller and stronger than usual, so I could retrain them to central defenders. Sadly, the intake was a different story. We got just two elites out of the promised 6, along with 3 top talents,7 good talents and 4 decent talents. The pick of the litter are Mario Barrios and Martin Rojas, both natural AMCs. In Barrios we finally have a 5 star potential with a terrific personality! Adore high flair players and I hope he turns into a 20/20 flair by the end of his development. Looking forward to him becoming a true creative and scoring force for us in the future. Rojas looks like a tall Chad version of young Messi. I doubt he has the potential. More of a pure playmaker than all round attacking threat like Barrios. Personality isn’t great. Rojas is also by far the tallest player I got so far with 193cm. Apart from 3 decent talents, everyone got a youth contract, with the hopes that a few of them surprise me and turn out half a star or star better than what is currently projected. Marchesin and Estevez, the two promoted players, both got around 30 games, mostly of the bench this season. Marchesin improved a bit, but Estevez really didn’t. Both have seen their potential drop to 4 stars. Hopefully one of them hits it, would be bumped if both of them have reached their PA but my staff doesn’t know it yet. A bit pessimistic about the next years intake, especially the CA part since our facilities were downgraded. Pio Bonacci was once again our leading scorer with 25 goals Gonzalo Rios won player of the month for September, was included in the Team of the Year (with Salomoni) and was our best rated player with 7,34. Absolutely monster season scoring and creating at will. Olmedo was our most creative player with 22 assists and just 0,01 shy of Rios in terms of average rating. Patricio Correa, a player from our first intake, was on loan this season and keeps improving. I am promoting him to the first team. Due to his versatility and me letting Sica leave to cut expenses, he will be our 3rd option in the center of the midfield next season. Hopefully he improves more than Estevez and Marchesin did this year. The plan is to focus on the Libertadores in the first part of the season, during the League Cup part of the calendar. Just by qualifying we get 3 million, which erases most of our current debt. If we manage to go further, we could actually have some money for upgrades. In the league I hope for another top 4 finish and more Libertadores cash.

Fantastic stuff @libbyshuss!! Fun save to follow, some of the guys you developed are really world class.

FM23* Deportivo Armenio Season 2 – 2024 – First Division Surprisingly good and surprisingly unlucky second season. Let’s dive in The season preview said that we would finish dead last with 1000-1 odds of winning the title. As a dumb man once said, so you are saying there is a chance. The season started with the league cup. Going into it I thought we would struggle with relegation in the league, so I decided to keep rotating in the league cup, making sure everyone is as fit and as happy as possible. And then we started winning games, ten in total out of the 14 we played, beating even the great River . Got my hopes up, thought that we would get a legit trophy in our first season as topflight club. And you can guess what happened. We lost on penalties in the first playoff round after having like 2 xG. Good performance in the League Cup led to a new contract! And I also rejected Argentinos Jrs. Our start was brilliant, with a win against Boca . They really screwed up their preseason, playing with low sharpness against us. Throughout the league season, especially in the ringer that was August we kept performing well. We stayed up in the league without any issues, finishing 11th. I should be happy with that, especially since that guarantees continental football (money+rep boost), but we could have finished higher. The xG gods were not on our side. We conceded 36 goals while our xG against was 26. This was really apparent towards the end of the season, the last 5 or 6 games when every time a team had a highlight it was a goal. With more luck next year and internal growth, I could see us crack 50 points and potentially sneak into Libertadores. Hopefully games like this won’t happen that often next season As is tradition in the Argentine calendar, the first bit of big news we get is the Youth Preview. Similar to last year we were promised a total of 3 really talented players. While its always great to get really talented strikers and wingers, since their usually fetch the biggest sale values, I was really looking forward to a young and talented GK, since my two first team GKs are both 2,5 stars. But four months later, it was a bit of a different story. From the intake we got, there are 4 players that are really (based on the PA projections) worth talking about. Two elite talents were Lucas Barone and Roberto Dahan . Barone is most likely the promised elite winger, eventho is natural position is a striker. My Staff also see him as a winger on attack and its easy to see ways, technically and physically gifted with poor finishing, he is much more suited to beating his man and crossing it. Will need to improve his anticipation so he doesn’t stray offside all the time. Half Argentine and Half Israeli, Dahan is a versatile prospect with a lot of upside. He can already play three positions and has the broad attribute spread to contribute to all three of them once he develops. Currently being trained as a AMC on Attack. Fairy determined personality is ok, but the training scores are in the 9s and I’m optimistic he can fulfill his potential. We also got two top talents in Luciano Vitiello and Leonardo Suarez. Our half Italian goalkeeper looks like your run of the mill sticks to the line goalkeeper. I prefer a sweeper with good distribution, but he is really turns out to be a 4 star or better player I would be very happy to make the switch. Suarez is such a weird player. Given his professional nature, I’m sure he will fulfill his potential. But most of the attributes look really poor. Twenty-one of them are 5 or below! But he will be an absolutely amazing dribbler. Hopefully he turns into a rotation option inverted winger who just dribbles a lot, gets fouled around or inside the box and makes the easy pass to the open man. If not, he can switch to futsal. The leading scorer was once again Pio Bonacci with 16 goals. Most creative player was Luis Olmedo my starting MR, who had 9 assists, one assist more than last year’s leader Rios. My starting Mezzala Nicholas Sanchez was the best rated player with 7.19 I have two big focuses for the next, my third season with the club. The first is to give all my attention and focus to the Copa Sudamericana. I want to try and win it because the winner gets a total of 8 million euros, with the majority of that being the reward for the winner (5 mil). I know it’s a long shot, but it’s the best option I currently have to get out of the red financially. The first division has helped, and the board keep injecting cash, but we are still around 2 million in the red. This means that no upgrades are available. The second focus are Gustavo Marchesin and Martin Estevez. The latter was at the club when I joined. I didn’t pay too much attention since he was a 3,5 star potential. But he really improved. Currently a 2,5 CA in multiple roles both as MR and MC, with a 5 star PA which he could realistically hit if he keeps improving like he has so far. A very technical, talented passer with great natural fitness and aggression, fine mentals and average at best physicals, he could be the starting Mezalla for a few years to come. Marchesin replaces Nakache as my backup right winger. The most talented player of our first intake is already a 2,5 CA winger and youngest player to ever make an appearance for the club. He featured in the first team last season making 9 appearances for us, mostly in the League Cup. I plan to give them 20-30 minutes every time we have a favorable result and start them whenever the regulars aren’t available. Given their personalities and our improved coaching staff, I am very hopeful that they will become starter caliber players by the end of the season.

So sad it ended like that, experienced something similar in Turkey when I was booted in season 8. Brutal and heartbreaking. Wishing you the best of luck in Italy.

FM23* Deportivo Armenio Season 1 – 2023 – Second Division First FM23 season after two successful (and a bunch of unsuccessful secret FM21 youth academy saves). Decided to go to Argentina, never managed there in any capacity and it seemed like a fun idea to try and usurp the Boca/River dynamic and create a third club that is both world class in player production and performance. I picked my co-captain and leader in appearances from my Bulgaria YAC save as my avatar. The first screen shot might suggest that he is the invisible man himself, but I have managed to switch his profile picture. Must be daunting and awkward, being an almost 2-meter-tall Bulgarian in a country where the average person is 25 cm shorter. Talk about sticking out as a sore thumb. The club had almost no staff, and especially no assistant who can filter out the staff that won’t sign for us. Took a long time before I signed my HOYD , who as you can see doesn’t offer much in terms of quality. I did pay attention to the personalities of every single person I brought in, never settling for a personality that didn’t guarantee high professionalism . I even managed to nab a famous former Premier League player . While my HOYD is poor, my director of football is quite good, for the level at least, and he is tasked with bringing in the Newgens. Based on my last two saves, I decided to prioritize defensive solidity. That is why I picked this tactic as my starter, with an offensive variation for when I needed to turn things around and defensive one for when I have a lead and want to kill off a match. I was very optimistic about my first season, with a few hiccups. The season previews had as at 21 and 17. And when I looked through the squad, there were plenty of players who looked similar in quality to what I had on my bench in Bulgaria. But I was not prepared just how good the season would go. The first inkling of potential success came in the second round of the cup (sixth in total) where we faced off against Newells Old Boys. They were around 10th in the league when we played them. I thought they would dispatch us with an easy 2 or 3 nil. But we controlled the game and ended up 1 0 victors. We kept keeping clean sheets and winning games by a goal most of the game. With 15 games to go we were the best defensive team in the league and in second place, 4 points behind Alte. Brown. This is where I took a tiny tactical gamble. I decided to add a bit more penetration. The left wingback was changed from defend to support. The Central Mid on Support became a Mezzala on Support. The traditional GK a Sweeper Keeper on Attack. After these changes, we never failed to score and created a good run of form which led to our title. We weren’t as solid as before, but the balance between attack and defense was better and we won a lot more frequently. We also suffered our only two defeats in the season. Boca scored 6 against us in the QF of the cup and another team scored 4 out of an xG of around 1. In the end we won the league 2 points ahead of Alte Brown, who lost in the playoffs, with Ferro getting promoted along with us. Our undefeated streak lasted for 30 games. But it wasnt smooth sailing and I really thought I might get sacked. Due to my manager not having enough reputation, the squad really wanted me out, even with all the wins, it took close to 6 months until Seca, the leader of the dressing room saw me as worthy of the team. We also had a club election and the new chairman said he wanted to see if I keep the job. Finances are rough we are 1,5 mil in the red, but the board injected cash and I hope the fact that we got promoted will increase sponsors and gate revenues. Towards the end of January, we got our first youth intake, excellent in name and promising at least 3 players with high potential, a winger, a central mid and an attacking midfielder . Four months later, in mid-May we got our first batch of Argentine Newgens . Two out of our 3 Elite Talents were players who were predicted. Gustavo Marchesin is a talented winger with great personality. Very athletic, explosive, with surprising amount of aggression and finishing. He added a half of start potential by the end of the season and is already 2 stars in a bunch of roles. Have high hopes for him and I think he will get a couple of minutes next season. While the game things he is best as an AML, Matias Irala is the promised AMC with lots of talent. He came in very raw and with a bad personality. I am trying my best to squeeze every ounce of talent out of him. He is very creative but lacks in a lot of areas, especially pace, determination and intelligence. The third elite talent was a CB who can play both FB positions as well, named Marcos Espinoza . While he looks like the guy she told you not to worry about, he is still far away from the first team. Decent all round attribute spread, nothing great or awful. We are lacking in the heart of our defense, and I really hope he can reach at least 3 star out of his 4,5 current potential, given he also has a bad personality.I would also add Patricio Correa to this list. He wasn’t an elite talent when the announcement came, but by the time the end of the season came, he was also a 4,5 star potential. I have a hunch his balanced personality is on the higher end of professionalism and ambition because he keeps getting high training scores. A natural MC, he is probably the talented MC my preview predicted. In terms of player performances: Pio Bonacci is the leading scorer with 16 goals in all competitions. Juan Pablo Salomoni is the player with the highest average rating. Gonzalo Rios is our lead creator with 11 assists. Would have probably had more if he wasn’t pissed at my lack of reputation for half a season. Onto the next season! Where we can hopefully get more than 1.11 point per game and survive in the league.

Keep it up @Padders!! If there is one person I desperately want to complete this challenge its you mate! Anxiously awaiting every update.

FM21* Challenge Completed! Chernomorets Burgas Season 21! I started a save in Bulgaria with Chermomorets Burgas while I was still playing my other FM 21 YAC save with Merthyr Town. Can’t really believe I managed to clear it in my 21st season, but defensive solidity and heavy rotations really did the trick this year and I finally won the champions league after winning my seventh consecutive league title. I was helped with the other big teams in Bulgaria, mostly due to the fact that they were a mess, dropping points left and right. This led to the best ever finish for Lokomotiv Plovdiv who finished second! The last 5 or 6 intakes I had, ignoring the one from last season, I kept getting good defenders and goalkeepers. I haven’t had a good striker, a striker who is above 2 star for my team in 3 seasons since I sold a converted AMC to Chelsea for 20 mil. He had like a 45 goals plus assists season. After he was sold (thanks board you greedy bunch of SOBs) I tried a false nine who was a 2 star but switched to the 433 you will see below with an AMC between two wingers. Didn’t score loads, but we were incredibly solid, around 0,35 expected goals per 90 against on average for most of the last 3 seasons. I was mildly optimistic about the season since we won the Europa League last season and Arsenal barely scraped through a 1 0 win against us in the Super Cup thanks to an own goal by our starting AMC at the time who left to join Liverpool shortly after. Speaking of Liverpool, this save had four cycles. The first one was when we were forming ourselves as a team that that has elite facilities and coaching. The second phase was a team that challenges for Europe who’s every single star was bought by Porto. Third phase was a title challenger who failed short mostly due to the way the league is structured and schedules, especially the cluster F in May, and most of our stars were bought by Inter. The fourth phase, the last seven years we were the dominant team in the league, winning seven straight, including a few cups, the Conference league and Europa league. This is also the phase were Liverpool swooped up every single youth starlet we had except for Rumen Mirchev (the most handsome striker Bulgaria ever had-not a high bar), my last and probably only really good striker who went to Man Utd as well as Stoichkov and Nafiz Bingol (first foreign Newgen worth a damn) who went to Chelsea. Two Young Supernovas Vasil Dimitrov – First season as a started and he won the treble, pretty good. The first newgan with the wonderkid description, and by far the biggest reason why we came this far, had a few amazing games in the Champions League, and saved a penalty in the shootout in the final against Bayern. Anatoli Georgiev – Judging by the CA and the consistent improvement since the age of 15 probably the most talented player I had on the save. Another cornerstone of our defensive juggernaut, supreme mentals and a very all rounded player. Wish I could have seen his at his peak in 3,4 years. Veterans Asparuh Sokolov – oh captain my captain. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for his leadership. This is mostly due to him being able to convince youngsters to stick with the club when big clubs (especially Liverpool) would make a 8 figure bid on them. He was also our playmaker, one of the lead creative forces for close to 10 seasons, mostly in open play, but in a few seasons, he was also our set piece taker. Georgi Velkov - best dribbler of the save. He won us so many penalties throughout the years. Started a left winger who could cross nor finish. Ended up a Inverted right winger with much improved finishing and usually our leading scorer in our last 3 strikerless seasons. Will remember his mazy runs, and that chipped goal after dribbling past 2 defenders that put us 4 1 up against Ludogorets to secure our first title. Aleksandar Yankov – my gentle blonde giant. I will be naming my next manager in my next YAC save after him. Over 300 league appearances for us, never really wanted to leave, not even when Feyernoord and Olympiacos came knocking. Wish he was an cm taller so he could have rounded it up to 2 meters in height but still our tallest outfielder by quite some margin (40 cm difference between him and my left wing back). Had a weirdly xenophobic board that didn’t allow me to get any foreign affiliates for most of the save. Only in the last 4 seasons I got a few, with Trencin delivering the goods with two 5 star players. One of them is currently a 3,5 Left back starter, other our 2 star advanced forward. Just one more season and we could have had an actual super talented pure goalscorer. But it was not to be. This save marks and end of an mini era for me. I stopped playing fm with fm 14. Started playing again in 21 with this version to find a sense of normalcy after the cascade of deaths that surrounded me during the pandemic. The Bulgaria YAC is my last fm21 save, moving over to 23 and I think in Argetina with a very tall blonde Bulgarian as my avatar.

Liverpool turned my assistant into their manager. Hes now making 20 times more than me. Fuming.

This post will be more interesting to lurkers, like I once was. I went back and looked at every single newgen that I got in my completed Merthyr Town save. I tracked every apperance by every player to figure out just how good every single generation was. A pleasant surprise all in all. I only had 3 seasons in close to 30 that didn't produce players who actually made first team appearances. Ignoring the first season, I had 4 generations that made over 1000 appearances for the club, with two being under 20 games shy of that mark.

FM 21* Challenge completed! I have been lurking and reading everything everyone posts about this challenge for 3 years now adn i have finally completed one of my own. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this challenge, you have reinvigorated my love for this game, switching me to do these types of saves exclusively. I stopped laying FM a long time ago, like fm13, but during the pandemic, with nothing to do, but attend funeral after funeral, i started playing again, just to try and find some sense of normalcy during those trying times. I really struggled with the save for the first 10 years of it. Only one promotion, trying various ways to figure out just how to play and how. I was very rusty, and it showed. I think my first season I conceded over 100 goals, trying to play tiki taka with a team with barely any players haha. I stopped playing for a while. But then I discovered Cultured Left Foot on YouTube and his Guisley save really made me go back and try my best to complete the save. To quote the game, an off field event caused me to drastically increase in determination. I also learned to go with the flow, trust the game, get the best staff I can, and do my best week by week to max out my chances for every single game. It made me a much better player. The only regret I have is not changing my head of youth development more often. Had a very barren 10 years in the Prem because I didn’t sack my great personality but poor attributes HoYD. ( I also regret sending my best loanees to Almeria, who dumped me after I helped them go from 3rd Tier to mid table La Liga side). Now lets talk about the ones who deserve the most praise the squad. I am so happy that I managed to complete the challenge while Lee Ingram was still my goalkeeper. He has ben my number one for close to half the save. In total he has played 585 matches and kept 218 clean sheets. Over 100 of those came in the Premier League. Not bad for a Championship level goalkeeper. (Consistency really matters). His penalty saving ability are the biggest reason why we won the Champions league in the first place. In the finals we missed two, but he saved 3 against Man City in the previous season. The core and spine of the team was my 42/43 golden generation. That youth intake gave me five starters, our backup striker (who started before Ryan Graham came of age) and our set piece specialist and rotational option for the Mezzala/ADVPA spots in the team. A Welsh team has conquered the English pyramid, but also Europe as a whole. But that doesn’t mean that I only did it with Welsh players. A lot of affiliates chipped in, providing me with talented intake players. Almeria, our former affiliate, and Slaven Belupo most of all. Vejle gave me a 4 star Faroe islander as well. I still plan on checking with the save from time to time. My starting left back has world class potential and I just got a potential golden generation which could rival that of 42/43. My next save will be in Bulgaria with Chernomorets Burgas and i dont think i have to tell you what type of save it will be.

Just got sacked in my seventh season in Turkey. I immediately got a job offer from a team that got promoted to the lowest playable division, can i join that team and continue the challenge or do i have to start from the very beginning?