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Congrats @libbyshuss!!

2034/35 Season Review: Back to Back League Champs. After seasons of falling short, where every loss felt like it cost the season...I decided not lose Six draws though. In the Champions League we first got matched up with the current dominate Italian team, Inter. A comfy 2-0 win at home, but the road leg was much more nervous. The scored at 12 Minutes in and I began to get nervous. Then at 36 we had a goal disallowed. They were swarming, with a 3.45 xG, but at the 85th minute we scored to go up two on aggregate and lock things up. I got the draw I wanted in Barcelona. First leg on the road and we immediately get a penalty, which we miss... Few minutes later we get a goal though. Go into half tied 1-1. At 65 minutes we had a goal disallowed on the weirdest corner play I've ever seen. Header hits the crossbar, bounces off an offsides player because the defenders moved forward for the ball and thus we had our second should have been goal taken away. at 90+3 & 90+5 they hammered two seemingly random goals, against the flow of the game. We lose 3-1. We were even more in control at home, but just couldn't score (well they were disallowed too). Upsetting but still feel good about how we did. How'd Barcelona do? Optimism for the future. Only one transfer and it was a big one. He's a former wonderkid and a club icon that scored just under a goal an appearance for us. However, he was being overtaken by other players and I couldn't stifle their development if they have more potential. He didn't want to be on the bench, and I don't blame him. I took the highest bid. Just sharing because it's random for an American managing in Ukraine to be offered Belgium national team. Youth Intake: Pretty solid intake. It's fun seeing the Chile and Uruguay affiliates bearing fruit. Have ones in Romania and South Africa that haven't given any, and just added a new one in China. 2035/36 Season Preview: I don't know how I missed Cobra Kai being an option before. The aim is to keep winning the league. Ukraine was dropped in coefficients so now just one group spot as a third seed. This is a tough group, though the one with PSG, Liverpool, and Ajax is much worse. We faced Real Madrid in the 2031-32 group stages and they destroyed us 13-0 between the two matches. I'm excited to see how much we've closed the gap. Dortmund we faced the season before that and won 6-1 between the two group matches. I'm expecting to come second in the group. From there we'll see. I'm feeling optimistic off battling the winner from the last season. Was it a fluke or a favorable match up or are we just getting close to winning it all now?

2034/35 Midseason Review: Going according to plan. The schedule has actually been favorable where the tough games aren't stacked between Champions League matches so I get a rested squad. The goal is to finish strong and hopefully wrap up back to back titles. I am particularly proud of that 3-3 draw as we had a man sent off 3 minutes in and fought back hard to get to a draw. The 1-3 loss is slightly misleading as that 3rd goal was very late. Regardless, I see clear progress as we battled Chelsea hard on the road. Our reward is an Inter team that has taken over as the dominate team from Italy having won the past 5 Serie A titles and 7 of the last 8. Disappointed to not see strong Centerback or Fullback. Winger is always good though. I'd also like to get a stud Keeper come through. Mine is fine a "Good UPL Player", but I'd really like a top tier keeper.

2033/34 Season Review: Finally our first league win to break the dominance of Shakhtar and Dynamo Kyiv. We were in first most of the season but Metalist was right on our tails the whole time. A repeat of the domestic cup! Brutal draw but the 4-0 loss away is a fair bit misleading. XG wise it was 2.5-1.5. Our keeper had a terrible game and their keeper had a great one. The draw at home the XG was actually flipped, we dominated but only got the one goal. There's no shame in losing to Man City, but I think we played them a lot better than the score indicates. nothing really to say here. Youth Intake: \ Some good prospects at the top of the intake. I think we're a strong enough club no where we're going to start getting these intakes where half just aren't worth signing. 2034/35 Season Preview: Going to look to repeat, but being in Champions League starting at the Group I want to give that my all too. Speaking of: I'm excited to see Chelsea again, we had them in group two season prior and lost 5-2 combined in the two matches, so I want to see if we've closed the gap. First time facing the other two teams. I'm hopeful to make knockouts.

2033/34 Midseason Review: Our one loss was a 2-1 loss to Dinpro-1 where they scored in the 93rd & 94th minutes. Real beauty of an FM match. Hopefully that doesn't cost us the league as I think we have a real shot this year. The 3-0 loss to Marseille was a real beauty of a match where the keeper had a 6.0 rating, our XG was over 3.0, and we get shutout. Still I lost twice all season and these things happen. Feeling good coming out of group hoping to win league and Europa. Welp. Somehow the team that has won the Premier League 13 seasons in a row and won a recent Champions League managed to get knocked out in the group stages by Barcelona and Karlsruhe! Hilariously after their first season in Bundesliga and they finish fourth and then knock out Man City in Group. Intake Preview: Looks like a strong intake. No complaints yet.

@libbyshussso close!

2032-33 Season Review: I was hoping to make a serious run at winning the league this season, but the second half saw the team underperform pretty majorly. Once again the league goes to a team with 2 or fewer losses, so it's like College Football in America where more than one loss and it feels like the season is over. My 424 system I implemented as an alternate tactic wound up faltering a lot, which I didn't notice until it was too late in the season. Arsenal won the whole competition so it's not like it was a major upset here, but I still wonder if I stuck with my 4231 would I have won. Hopefully I get that rematch. Not all was lost this season as we won our first domestic cup. We also rose up in the rankings too. Which makes things pretty disappointing that our attendance isn't really great. Lviv is a large city, but there's a few other teams in the area. I'm not too sure how they calculate attendance. Cleared out a bunch of guys that weren't going to cut it here. New wonderkid. I'm a big fan as he can play all three spots on D fairly effectively. Plus, resolute is a top tier personality. Youth Intake: Nice to see the Chilean affiliate paying off. The fullback, Y33B, is a backup for the first team and will see a fair amount of playing time. This was actually a stronger intake than it appears as a lot of the "Good Talents" show 3* potential and mostly had decent personalities or attributes well enough to sign on. 2033-34 Season Preview: Besides needing to win the league for the challenge sake, I really want to break the dominance Shakhtar and Dynamo Kyiv have had on the league. Since the creation of the league following the dissolution of the USSR those two teams have won every year except the very first. Sadly the team that won the first year was a Crimean team which due to it's forced annexation was switched to Russian league and has since stopped operations. This is a group I expect to at least finish top 2, and really think we should win. I won't risk the league title for the Europa League, but I'm feeling a bit motivated to win this again to prove it wasn't just a lucky fluke.

@Neo_Geo I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you. 1-0 win first leg at home. 2-1 loss on road. lost on penalties.

2032/33 Midseason Review: With things so tight it almost feels like we can't afford to lose. At least wins against Dynamo and Shahktar are musts to win the league. Tough group. I don't feel like we were totally overmatched. To help with all the rotation needed between both competitions I tweaked my formation away from just being standard 4-2-3-1 for me. I move the AMC to striker as a Trequarista and the existing striker is moved to Target Forward. I only use this when both players are at full fitness. When one is needing a rest I roll back to the 4231. It seems to have helped both competitions. Falling down to the Europa League. The first knockout round is before the league starts back up so I will focus on trying to win this round, which I'm not happy with the draw for, but after this I'm focused on trying to win league. Intake Preview: Really hoping for a full back to come through.

Well that's not great. Benfica has won their league every season in this save. Chelsea is the second seed here as Man City was won the Premier League every season in this save. Lorient is interesting, they've gone a few seasons up then down a few, then back up, and all the sudden finished 3rd and qualified for Champions League. I won't rule out doing well as I don't really know where Ukraine and Portugal match up at this point in the save. Ukraine is now 6th in qualification places having passed Portugal this last season.

2031/32 Season Review: Disappointed to have been in first most of the season but blow it at the end. Dynamo had a near perfect season and that's hard to compete with. I looked at the last few seasons and that's basically what it takes to win the league. Despite the high Goal Difference our scoring actually dried up a bit at the end and it turns wins into draws and draws into losses. A rotated squad was enough to win the group, but not enough to win in the knockouts. The goal was to win league, but at least with second place I get into champions league, so I'm not too worried about sacrificing the Conference League. Y26C was a starting player, but he had a 15M release clause and was getting so many offers I couldn't sign a new contract to bump it higher. Didn't want to lose him, but not much I could do. Our newest additional to the wonderkid list. Youth Intake: Top few players look decent, but meh personalities. Fewest players signed due to potential and personalities lacking. New HYOD incoming. 2032/33 Season Preview: Back in Champions League so the group draw will determine where I focus. If I wind up with a brutal group I may just focus on the league, but if it looks like a group I can finish top 2 in I'll put the focus there. I'll post the group draw whenever I get to it later.

2031/32 Midseason Review: As I said during my season preview, winning the league is the goal. I rotated the Conference League and Domestic Cup matches. On our way to our goal, but I did manage to jinx something. I said during a previous post that none of the players wanted to leave. Well, it seems Dynamo is pissed I'm beating them and have unsettled half my starters. They're all under contract through at least next season. We're ridiculously rich, so I'd rather win matches with good players and they walk then transfer out for money I can't spend. Even rotating a fair amount we still won group comfortably. We'll see how far the rotated squad can take us. Intake Preview: Nice to see some Wingers coming in highly rated. We'll see how this intake does. My HYOD is out of contact at end of year and if the intake sucks he's gone.

Woah, what a cool find! Definitely something to look for when starting new saves for a jump start

2030/31 Season Review: The increased focus on the Champions League cost us as chance to return there. Seems comical to advance to quarter finals, but finish sixth in Ukraine. Oh well. I was fairly confident of beating Atletico, but the draw against Real Madrid was a different story. Finally, the measuring stick I was looking for. The first match up was 0-0 until the 70th minute. Then Tonali scores. Always fun seeing ten years into the future where players end up. Then he scores again, and regen as well. 3-0 at the 76th minute. Doom is settling in. At the 92nd minute Moukoko scores. A prelude for the next match where he would score four times. Seven minutes in and Mbappe scores off a pass from Bellingham. I pause and see just how stacked they are. Maybe I was lucky to only lose 13-0 on aggregate. They won the Champions League. Another Youth Facilities Upgrade! Getting close to maxed out. Not much to go over. I'm a lot more selective about signing players off youth intake to keep roster size more manageable. We're a big enough club now that players aren't asking to go to bigger clubs all the time, so other than the occasional player getting a full diaper over playing time no one is asking to leave. Youth Intake: I'd guess this is the transitional intake between the old and new HYOD. It's not terrible, and I would expect as the team gets better the intakes to be less impressive. It feels like a big step down though. Another one like this and he'll be on thin ice. 2031/32 Season Preview: Immersion update: Finances said new kit sponsor, so here we are. Only 1 year deal though. Since I already won the Conference League before and I've already achieved the goal of making to the group stage, I will be focusing my efforts in league. I feel confident a rotated side won't embarrass us, so my best XI will be focused on winning the League and returning to the Champions League.

Not ready for my next update but I can confirm I did not win the Champions League. Fun little preview: I got demolished by a team with Moukoko, Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, Bellingham, and Tonali.

2030/31 Midseason Review: Having to rotate a ton with schedule congestion and as a result we're just not getting the league results I think we're capable of. Hopefully we can get back in the top 3 and get a return trip to Champions League. Maybe I wound up with an easier group than I realized. Maybe we're just better than I realized and the Ukrainian League is the real mountain to climb. I'll laugh if I win the Champions League, which I don't think I'm doing this season - though who knows at this point, before I win the league title. If I can beat Villarreal and Dortmund I expect to do well against Atletico. Disappointed to not see some strength at Full Back or Winger as that's where we're thinnest now.

Once again back with the statements around "seeing where we match up" as this is a tough looking group to me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 2029/30 Season Review: Shakhtar's reign has ended! It would have been nice for us to be the ones to topple them, but I can't complain about a second place finish. Our highest ever. If I was shocked to have won the Conference League last season I'm stunned to win Europa League this season. Each team we faced I figured would be too much for us, but each time we won. I guess if the pattern follows I win Champions League next? I was finally able to get another Youth Facility upgrade Nothing major here Really nice intake. No one pushing for first team minutes, but our U19 and 2nd team are getting very strong. 2030/31 Season Preview: We enter at group stage for Champions League, so whenever I get that far I'll post it. In league I want to keep pushing for the league title. The backups have been developing nicely due to the schedule congestion. I expect that will continue and if not this year, hopefully next we'll be winning league.

Switzerland was a place I had fun. I plan to try again one day. I feel I'm better at the game from when I last tried Austria too. I got fired after a couple seasons, and again I feel I'm better at the game and the challenge so I'd like to go back. Both feel to me like possibilities of completing the challenge.

2029/30 Midseason Review: As the schedule picked up and had to rotate a bit more some winnable games fell to be draws, so that's what's kept us out of first at this point. I was aiming for fourth or better, so it's really good to see the team continuing to move forward like this. In my Israeli run Ajax kicked our asses every time. Seeing an Israeli team I now know, and a good Greek team in the group, I figured I'd really get a handle on where the team is and how far it can go. Losing pretty convincingly to Ajax that first match was fairly demoralizing. However, following that up with a big win against HBS gave me some optimism. The final score was 4-3 against Olympiacos, but what's not shown there is we were down 3-1 nearing half. Scored an extra time goal and then came out in second half to win. Two more convincing road wins set us up for the rematch with Ajax. A win to claim the group and give a lot of hope going forward. Beating them handily was a huge boost for me personally in feeling more optimistic about the long term success of the save. The joy was short lived as I received these email items. Fortunately the offers were terrible and I kept him happy rejecting, but I feared a long transfer window. With Ukraine having a winter break through the transfer window I decided to go forward before posting. I managed to keep all my players here and happy. I have been able to boost some of the release clauses into the low double digits, so the rich teams can still swoop in but are they going to spend 10-15M on a youth player? It's a harder decision compared to when the release clauses were under 5 million, let along those initial 650K ones. With advancing forward so far I was able to get the second round draw. This is interesting as these guys handles us easy three seasons ago in the Conference League playoffs. Yet another measuring stick. Intake Preview: Another banger of a preview. Loving the strong full-back.

This will be a good test to see where we rate.

2028/29 Season Review: First things first the league results. Disappointing to finish outside of European places in league. We spent most of the season bouncing between 5th and 6th, and an abysmal final match bumped us to 6th. Fortunately for us it really didn't matter. In league was up and down, but the team way overperformed in the Conference League. Winning the group going undefeated, and then a string of favorable draws. When we were matched with Roma I thought we were in trouble, but they were in the middle of imploding. Facing our second Ukrainian team in the competition it wound up being a comfy win to secure us a place in the Europa League group stage. We were able to boost our own rep and Ukraine in general got a nice boost from all of the clubs doing fairly well in Europe. The Ukrainian Lukaku is the latest edition to the wonderkid list, and our former guy is sitting #1. Amazingly I wasn't hammered with transfer requests. I was able to get a new contract with a $9M Foreign Release. One of the higher I've been able to get. Easily affordable for the big clubs, but will help fend off a bit I hope. I did however lose something I wasn't planning on. His release was at $6M. I have tens of millions in the bank not being spent (currently $74M), but the appeal of getting Chelsea here for a friendly was the kicker. If I bumped it or waited enough they would meet that release, but my missing a potential million dollars I get a sell out and maybe drive up fan attendance over all it's worth it. New Main Jersey Sponsor, so for my own immersion I''ve picked a new sponsor in KitBasher. Youth Intake: No one ready for the first team, but continuing to fill out that pipeline. The new HYOD hadn't had a full season, so these guys are still from the old guy. Some bad personalities. If the Potential Ability isn't three gold stars, the player better have a good personality or some really good attributes in there. Unfortunately there were some bad one and they went unsigned. 2029/30 Season Preview: It'll be real interesting to see where we line up in a harder competition, but if we're quickly overmatched I'm going to move to focus on the league. We finished fourth a few seasons back and have regressed one place each season since. With the changes to qualifications, I'd like to see us get back to 4th at least. I love sushi. I saw a Sushi sponsor, so why not.