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Chernomorets Balchik - Bulgaria - Build a Nation Challenge Season 16 - 21 Update CHALLENGE COMPLETED! So we completed the challenge in Season 21, after reaching the quarter finals of the Euros. It's been such a fun save. The building a club part has been as fun as always, but this is the save where I've enjoyed international management the most. Domestic Update Domestically, we obviously continued to win the league, and mostly the cup. As at the last update, we'd only won the Champions League once back in in Season 10 when a favourable draw gave us a path to victory. After being an established knock out stages team for 7 years, we finally won it again in Season 17 against Liverpool, then won another two in a row. This finally propelled us up into the top 5 of the European club reputation rankings, eventually being number 1. It wasn't until around season 16 that we had a team who should challenge to win it, and then we hit a golden period where many of our best players were in their prime. We then reached the final in Season 20 and 21, but lost both times. Juan Pachebo was arguably our best player during this time period. I almost sold him at one point, but he just continued banging in goals and he never lost his place. Ballon d'Or winner 6 times in a row. Other notable player mentions include Roma, Ahmed Mostafa, Geffinho, Nicolaj Bernburg, Leandro Neri, Eisuke Tomaru, Dilmuradjon Abdurakhmanov, Duje Seric and the centre back partnership of Thierry and Michael Smet. Other Teams in Bulgaria The Bulgarian top flight had sat at 6th in the reputation rankings for 5 season, just one of the target. The Bulgarian clubs had been holding their own in Europe, a lot of them progressing through to the knock out stages in Europe. It took our 3 champions league wins to finally push the league reputation into the top 5. It was a relief when we did that. We'd set up a large loan farm, and it was slowly becomming harder and harder to manage. In later season, we had a wage cost of around 6m per week, so our wages and bonuses were costing us around 400m per year. Revenue wise, we were making around 100m from the Champions League and around 70m elsewhere. This meant we were having to sell around 200m worth of players each season to keep it all going. Generally we achieved this by selling 2 big players each year, plus a few other players. Only 3 or 4 were not for sale and if a crazy bid came in, then we sold them. In some windows were were selling multiple first teamers - the benefits of the loan farm was we had players to come into the first team, but this then weakened the club they were loaned to. Once the league reputation went to 4th, we then sold of most of the loan farm, only keeping young future first team talent and those players we wanted to keep in Bulgaria to try to get them to represent Bulgaria. We sold around 450m worth of players which we reinvested in the first team. Ironically, we haven't won the Champions League since doing this. Season 2042 was probably our best window, with a net 250m gain. Internationally Never had so much fun managing a national team as this save - the process and building up youth players, targetting players to gain Bulgarian citizenship. As at the last update, we'd just made the quarter finals of the World Cup and I thought we could tick off the Euro quarter final challenge quite quickly. However, we failed to qualify for the 2040 Euros, so I knew we had another 4 years to go. We were still a long way off a regen scoring 75 international goals anyway. In the qualifying, we started poorly losing and drawing with Austria, who were our competitors for 2nd in the group. We then won 7 out of the last 8 group games, but a loss away to Denmark meant we finished 3rd on goal difference. I didn't know that the Euros had an additional qualification stage, but we went into a play off semi finals, where we beat Greece. However, the final saw us play away in Ukraine and we lost out on penalties. The World Cup in 2042 went more smoothly. We breezed through qualifying, winning all 8 games in an easy group. A decent group stage saw us draw against Argentina and batter Angola, then getting our revenge against Austria in the 2nd round. Germany beat us in the round of 16, but this was good progress. Qualfying for Euro 2044 did not go smoothly at all. We lost our first game at home to Czech Republic 3 - 0, before regaining form. We were all set to finish comfortably in second in the group, and amongst the best placed second teams, when we lost 1 - 0 at home to Israel. In the last group stage match day we were not playing and had to hope that other teams messed us. Somehow Portgual draw away to Cyprus and we qualfied as the 7th best second place team, with Portugal not qualifying. At Euro 2044, we were drawn against hosts Ukraine, England and Austria (of course). Given we were seeded in pot 4 (after the poor qualification), this was a nice group. We beat Ukraine, lost to England and beat Austria. However, on the last day Ukraine managed to beat England, and our goal difference took us top of the group. Our reward? Croatia, ranked 15th in the world. We had to win this to finish the challenge, or face another 4 seasons. Luckily we did win it, but it was a nerve-wracking affair. We were 3 - 0 up with Croatia down to 10 men. Then they came back to 3 - 3 and it took 2 extra time goals to see us threw. We lost in the quarter finals - FMed by Denmark - but it didn't matter. For the 75 regen goals, we managed this in the friendlies before Euro 2044. Previously Petar Mihaylov had retired on 74 international goals in Season 14. Despite being only 29 and in his prime at Man Utd, we couldn't persuade him out of retirement. So we chose a young striker, Mario Nikolov, and stuck to playing him in every international game we could. We played a lot of friendlies against teams low in the rankings, and I can't see any other way this would have been achieved. It's worth talking a bit about the Bulgarian squad, as this is where I learned the most. The first XI that made it to the quarter finals of the Euros featured 6 naturalized Brazilians, and we couldn't have done it without naturalizing these and a number of players from other nations. During the save, there were some good Bulgarian players generated but not enough quality and quantity to make it this far (in my opinion). During the whole save, my youth team didn't produce one player that got a cap for Bulgaria, despite top facilities etc. The only world class talent my academy produced was/is English with Bulgarian 2nd nationality. In terms of persuading players to represent Bulgaria, I'm still not sure I understand the rules. Obviously, they need the 5 years in Bulgaria, but otherwise there seemed no logic to who was eligible. In some cases a player would gain Bulgarian citizenship, and there was the option to "Ask to represent nation". In other case the option was never there. Whether they had U21 caps or not didn't seem to influence this. My guess at this point is that the option only becomes available when there is a realistic chance that player might accept. In 2 cases a player gained citizenship, but it wasn't until a few seasons later I got an email saying they were thinking about representing Bulgaria. These emails came after the national team ranking had increased. So I think the likelihood of a player representing you is related to firstly the difference in national team rankings and secondly the player's PA. So as you move up the rankings more players will consider you. This would make sense as well. Please let me know if you have more info on this. Probably our best naturalized Brazilian. The best Bulgarian produced in this save. Challenge Progress - (10/10) - COMPLETE! Already tempted to start again in another continent - Bolivia and Surinam are top of my list at the moment. But I will take a break as this has taken a lot of my time. Any FM now will be on the Youth Academy challenge I think.

Thanks for organizing it darren. Still the best challenge out there.

@darren1983 Also I completed in Vietnam a while back. Link above. Congrats to the completioners! Very impressive.

Chernomorets Balchik - Bulgaria - Build a Nation Challenge Season 11 - 15 Update It's been a really good 5 seasons in the challenge and much progress has been made. Domestically we continued to dominate, but that's expected. In the Champions League we have continued to reach the latter stages, and have beeen in the semis 3 times in the past 5 seasons. It's solid stuff, but not spectacular as we've not managed to win it again since Season 10. We have a pretty decent team, and we're gradually strengthening it. Part of the issue is we keep on having to sell 100m of players each year to subsidize our loan farm. There's very little money domestically, so it's only Champions League money that brings in money. In Season 13 we sold our star keeper for 120m as it just seemed too good to turn down. But then our 5 star potential replacement keeper ended up only being a 3.5 star keeper. But, all in all, it's good progress. The only achievement we have left at club level is getting our reputation into the top 5 in Europe. So far, we haven't got past 13th but I think this is limited by the reputation of the league, so we'll need to be a bit patient there. Possibly our star player. Not sure I've had a better player at 18. Other Teams in Bulgaria The other teams in the league have also been doing well. Many of them are regulary reaching in the knock out stages in Europe and Slavia Sofia won the Conference League. All this meant the Bulgarian league currently sits 4th in the coefficients meaning that objective has been ticked off. The league has been steadily rising and now sits 6th in reputation, one off the target. The other teams' reputation is also slowly rising so hopefully we'll go above the French league soon. This should in turn help our own reputation. The loan farm is going well, and we're loaning out 40 - 50 players to the domestic teams in Europe. The good part is that better and better players are willing to go there on loan, which then helps performance in Europe, which leads to a better reputation etc. Just need patience here and to keep doing what we're doing. Internationally Internationally is where we've made the most progress. As at the last update, we'd just taken over the national team and been promoted to Division B of the Nations League. We then failed to make the World Cup, that loss at home to Scotland costing us. However, we then got promoted again in the Nationas League, and things started snowballing. We qualified for the Euros, partly because our Nations League performance gave us a first seed, which led to a much easier group. In Euro 2036, we drew a relatively easy group of Denmark, Turkey and Serbia. A 1 - 0 win in the final game against Serbia saw us squeeze through as best 3rd placed team. Unfortunately, Italy knocked us out in the round of 16. We need to reach the quarter finals to reach the goal, so we'll have to wait 4 seasons. Then things got a bit silly. We beat France and Germany to win our Nations League division, then qualified for the World Cup, topping our easy group. We then beat Nigeria and Japan in the World Cup group stage, which was enough to meet that criteria. I was happy and knew we'd lose soon. But then we beat China. Then we beat Germany in the round of 16, making it to the quarter finals. Only an extra time goal by Argentina saw us knocked out. All that saw our ranking hit a high of 23rd, up 52 places from our ranking at the beginning. Much of this was down to fresh blood in the squad. A number of decent players were coming through. There are no world beaters, but a lot more strength and depth than previous. We also managed to persuade 5 players to represent us, having been on our club team for 5 years. Again, no world beaters, but each was a small increase in quality. The one downside. Our top regen scorer, Petar Mihaylov, retired on 74 goals, one short of the requirements. Not even qualifying for the World Cup could persuade him out of retirement. Hopefully we'll persuade him with the higher ranking, but if not we have a number of seasons ahead. We have 21 year old striker on 15 goals, but at, say 7 - 8 goals a year, we're looking at 8 seasons or so. The one difficulty here is you can't organize many friendlies due to the nations league fixture, so you can play too many games againsty San Marino and the US Virgin islands. Still we wait. The first player we persuaded to represent Bulgaria. Challenge Progress (6/10) Goals for the next 5 seasons: - Keep going domestically. It'll come - Qualify for the Euros - Reach the quarter finals of the Euros - Persuade Mihaylov out of retirement to score one more goal

Chernomorets Balchik - Bulgaria - Build a Nation Challenge Seasons 6 - 10 Update Seasons 6 to 10 in challenge have been excellent, totally surpassing my expectations, and we only went and won the Champions League in Season 10. I'm loving this save. As at the Season 5 update above, we'd established ourselves as a top 4 Bulgarian team and were generally quialifying for the Europa League group stages. We finally picked up silverware in Season 6 with a cup win, and then won the Bulgarian efbet Liga title in Season 7. We managed to retain the leagues in seasons 7, 8 and 9, but each time was a battle, and it wasn't until season 10 that we were able to dominate the league. Being able to dominate the league was key as we were able to play a second XI in league games, meaning our first XI was well rested for the Champions League games. Also, it meant our morale was high throughout the squad. We made it out of the Champions League group stage for the first time in Season 7, and generally were a Round of 32 or Quarter Final team from then on. Until Season 10 that is. Selling some players for huge money meant we were able to reinvest in weak areas and we put together a good squad. However, the squad is not good enough to win the champions, but we had an unbeliveable run to the finals - playing Ajax, Porto, Sevilla and Athletico Madrid along the way. Not sure I've ever had an easier path to win the Champions League. Transfers The key to progress was dealing in the transfer market and it's one of the favourite parts of the game for me. Finding cheap wonderkids in random parts of the world - not sure there's much better. We managed to unearth wonderkids from Mali, Kosovo, Japan and two from Bosnia. We looked to turn over players to build a bank and then repeat the process. Thos players that were Champions League potential we held on to unless a ridiculous bid came in. We made good money, but then in Season 8 we sold Mustafa Ibrahimovic for 35m. This enabled us to go after a higher class of player, which then meant more profit. Selling Gaston Padovano for 85m in Season 9 was another catalyst. The squad is now a lot more stable and we don't need to sell as much. I'm starting to focus on bringing in U18s with 5 star potential to then go out of loan in the league or to sell them to domestic clubs. Some wonderkids: Other teams in the league The other teams in Bulgaria have been doing well, beyond what I was hoping for. They're investing in their facilties and have been regualrly making the knock out stages in Europe. I've not created a loan farm as such, but I'm been loaning out around 20 players per season. The league reputation is now up to 8th and our coefficients in up to 6th. We're only a few places from meeting the challenge criteria there but I suspect it'll take a few seasons to break the top 5 Internationally Internationally is the only part of the challenge that hasn't gone well. We took over the national team at the beginning of Season 9. We managed to gain promotion from Division 3 to Division 2 of the Nations League which was good progress. We're now halfway through World Cup qualification and it was going well after 5 games. We'd only lost to France and were sitting in 2nd. However, a home loss to Scotland has meant it'll be difficult to qualify unless they slip up or we beat France at home. One area of concern has been the poor quality of youth intakes in Bulgaria. I've been scouting all the youth intake players and in the past 5 seasons there's only been one player with really good potential. There's a fair few okay players but nothing of quality that will make us a better team. There are, however, a few good players aged 27 - 31 so we need to produce some soon before they retire. I've also been learning more about how get players to represent your nation. I have an Argentinian on our team who's been with us for 5 years and just took up Bulgarian second nationality. He's really good but not good enough for the Argentinian national team. Once he got second nationality I was going to ask him to represent us, but there wasn't the option. After looking around online I believe that a player has to have the second nationality before they have any youth caps otherwise they can never represent the new country. I believe this is how it works but if anyone knows more let me know. I have a number of other players who'll reach the 5 years in the next Season or two so I can learn more. Nationalizing players was always part of the strategy. If this rule is the case then I'll need to focus on players over 21 who don't have any youth caps. Challenge Progress (3/10 achieved) Goals for the next 5 seasons: - Continue going far in the Champions League to build our's and Bulgaria's ranking - Bring in lots of top potential players to them loan out to the other teams and then sell on later - Become financially independent - Get up to 12 foreign affiliates - Nationalize 3 good players who improve the national team - Bring in some players who are over 21 with no youth caps. They should be good enough to improve us but not good enough for their country's national team (if only to test the system)

Chernomorets Balchik - Bulgaria - Build a Nation Challenge Seasons 1 - 5 Update It's been an excellent start to the save. Our goal was to get promoted and get into Europe and that's exactly where we are. Getting promoted out of the Tier 2 Vtora League was more challenging than expected. With a total lack of money and player quality, we scrambled around for a half decent team to start the season with. Then we gradually populated the team with loan players, which gave us enough quality. We couldn't make the play offs in the first season, but went up automatically in the second season. I was expecting the first season in the top flight to be more difficult than it was but, again, loans were the key alongside some decent signings and we finished 3rd. Seasons 4 and 5 saw 2nd place finishes, which put us into the qualifying for the Champions League group stages, but didn't get through qualifying. Levski Sofia are by far the best team still, so the next 5 years will be to topple them. They have been signing lots of wonderkids with their champions league money so this will be tough. We had two good seasons in the Europa League, making it out of the group stage both times. Levski has also been doing well in Europe meaning the coefficients and rankings have been boosted. Transfers Quite possibly my favourite part of FM is wonderkid hunting on the cheap. The focus has been to generate as much money as possible through buying and selling. This has hurt us a bit in the short term in the league, but this is obviously a long term save. The process has gone really well, much better than expected. Yordanov going for 10m in Season 3 was a big help and sped up the process. Take the money, reinvest, sell etc. I started offering him out, hoping to get a 40% clause on him, then saw the media message that teams were going to bid 9m for him. I actually almost didn't sign him initially, but he was on a free and cheap wages so thought why not. There are two clauses ready to sell but they're not worth much. International Not much to talk off. Bulgaria are still in much the same ranking position, and only have one elite player. I'll look to take the international job in 5 to 10 years. Challenge Progress Goals for the next 5 years: - Win the league and cup - Reach the group stage of the Champions League - Continue to make money through transfers. Aim to have a settled squad by Season 10 - 3 upgrades to Training and Youth Facilities - New stadium - 5 foreign affiliates

Chernomorets Balchik - Bulgaria For my second go at this challenge, I'm heading to Bulgaria. Bulgaria's youth rating is mostly okay at 72 and their game importance is Very Important which is what attracted me to them. Bulgaria are sitting at 75th in the world so we need to take them up to 35th. I holidayed 5 years into the future this time, as I mostly like to play with regens. Bulgaria's top flight only allows 3 non-EU players which is definitely going to be one of the challenges here. But players can get Bulgarian nationality after 5 years. The league is already at 22nd in the ranking, and Bulgaria sit 21st in the UEFA coefficients. We chose Chernomorets Balchik as they're on the coast of the Black Sea and have some okay facilities. The Plan - the 5 year plan is to get promoted and get into Europe.

So I've rethought the rules for completion. The initial criteria I set out, whilst possible, would have taken too long. And I'd like this challenge to be able to be completed in 20 - 40 seasons. It makes the challenge easier but it's still hard enough anyway. Ultimately, Build a Nation to me means makes the nation better, but not necessarily the best. With this I've also changed the country criteria to be any country outside the top 50 of the current FIFA rankings. Changes are detailed below (changes in red) and will be updated in the first thread. Not sure this will tempt anyone to try the challenge (I see many are doing it anyway in the Careers thread). But I'm going to have another go. I won't count the Maldives attempt for the challenge. New Country criteria - Any team outside the top 50 of the FIFA rankings (so 51st and upwards) New Challenge completion criteria Club Honours - Win the top domestic league - Win the domestic main cup competition - Win the champions league of the continent your club is based in - Have the club's reputation be in the top 5 of all clubs in the continent Division Honours - Have your domestic league's reputation be in the top 5 of all leagues in the continent - Have your country's coefficient be in the top 5 of all nations in the continent Country Honours - Have your country reach the knock out stages of the World Cup - Have your country reach the Quarter Finals of the continental championships - Have your country move up 40 places in the World Rankings - Have a regen national team player score 75 international goal Thinking behind the changes - For the club honours I canged it from 1st ot top 5. In the Maldives save I won the Champions League 5 times in a row but was still 2nd. - For the division honours I changed it to top 5. This means the challenge can be completed in the 20 - 40 year timeframe as it takes ages for the AI to catch up. - For the International side I made it easier. The requirements are now much more achieveable for the competitions. Also you have a trade off. If you take a team just outside the top 50 of the FIFA rankings (e.g. Slovenia), reaching the kcock out stages of the World Cup is achieveable. However, you then have to get Slovenia up to 17th in the rankings which is much tougher. Or if you take a team low down in the rankings, it's easier to move up 40 places but harder to get the competition objecives.

@vikeologist Congrats on Maitland. Very impressive to complete before 30. And we have another one to add to the list. I went back to my Maldives save to see whether Kouakou could get there and he did. It helped, like Maitland, Kouakou wasn't injury prone. As we were by far the best team in the league and there are 38 games in the league season he was ideally placed. It also helped that his international career kicked off as well. Also, we started playing him at 18. I wasn't thinking about this challenge when I did that.

Kelaa Sports - Maldives - Build a Nation Challenge Season 21 - 25 Review I took a break from this save after 22 seasons, but I always wanted to come back and finish 25 seasons for completion. Also I wanted to give Kouakou a chance to get to a 1,000 goals. On the club side, we won another 2 AFC Champions Leagues in Seasons 21 and 22, making it 5 in a row. When we came back to finish the save, we weren't as focused so didn't manage another one in Seasons 23, 24, or 25. We continued winning league and cup doubles. However, we didn't quite manage to become the highest reputation team in the continent, despite the 5 Champions Leagues in a row, with Al-Ahli somehow managing to hold on to that. Kouakou hit a career 1,000 goals in the final season On the league side, the highest the Maldivian Dhivehi league went to in the rankings was 4th, and 2nd in the coefficients. The Saudi league is number 1 and doesn't look like being surpassed any time soon. The other teams in the league havne't made much progress in the last 5 years, though they are slowly upgrading their facilities as the TV money continues to come in. None of them has gone beyond the group stage of the Champions League. Internationally, it's been a very good 5 years. In the previous update we'd managed to get out of the World Cup first qualifying group, knocking out Saudi Arabia in the process. In the Final Grouo stage won only managed a 5th place finish but qualified for the playoffs. We beat Vietnam across 2 legs and I thought we were through the the world cup. But, no, we had another game. We beat Vanuatu in the next game, but there was another game. This time we face Uruguay and I thought the World Cup dream was over. However, we beat them 4 - 0 and the Maldives reached their first World Cup. We drew Croatia and Chile in the World Cup group stage, which didn't seem too bad a group for our seeding, but couldn't manage a point. The qualification for the World Cup apparantly meant we didn't need to qualify for the Asian Cup in 2043. 3 key players had retired after the World Cup, so the team was weakened. However, out good seeding meant we had a relatively easy group with Myanmar, Oman and Lebanon. We finished second in the group and qualified for our first ever Asian Cup knockout game. Unfortunately, it was against Saudi Arabia and our dreams were over quickly. So, great progress on the international side. However, with some key retirements the future doesn't look so good. In the past 5 seasons, there's only been one quality player coming through the youth intake. Overall Challenge Progress - Domestically, it's been good and the only downside is not hitting number one in reputation - not sure why with those 5 Champions Leagues in a row - Division wise, we did well, but it would need another 25 years for the other clubs in our league to catch up - Internationally, again it's been good progress, but I can't see us hitting those goals in the near future with the retirement of key players - With more focus, I think two of the other objectives could be achieved in the next 5 years - Highest reputation and 75 international goals Final Thoughts It's been a really fun save, possibly my favourite ever. I'm definitely going to start another one of these in the near future - I'm going to look at tweaking some of the rules of this challenge. No one else has started it yet so that shouldn't be an issue. I'd like to make it more achieveable. In theory I could complete this challenge with the Maldives but you could be looking at 50 - 75 years before the domestic teams catch up. So I'd like to make the challenge achievable in 25 years or so.

This is painful. In the last four season, I've lost in the Copa Libertadores on penalties twice, on away goals and in the final. We lost in the final this year, but had our three best players out injured. Time for a break.

Luversense - Brazil - 2038 - Season 12 - Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (Tier 1) - 1st (Champions) Urghhh. Not happy. Dominated Corinthians in the second leg of the Quarter FInals of the Copa Libertadores. Just couldn't score, and lost in penalties. Somewhat my fault as well. I thought it would go to extra time, but it didn't so I could have pushed for a winner in normal time. Not sure I can bear another year of this. After the loss I just simmed through the rest of the season and won the league and cup for what it's worth. I won't update again until I win it. Barbosa won U21 footballer of the year is the only other relevant news.

Luversense - Brazil - 2036 - Season 11 - Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (Tier 1) - 1st (Champions) Knocked out in the QF of the Cope Libertadores. It was a tight game against Internacional. We lost the first leg 4 - 2 as they hit us on the break no less than 4 times. We managed to win the second leg 2 - 0 away, even hitting the bar in injury time, but we lost on away goals. On to next year. We won the league agin on the last day for what it's worth. Barbosa top score in the league again with 26. We have a 5 star potential striker coming through so Barbosa might move to right wing next season. Nothing in the youth intake. Nothing else important to mention.

Luversense - Brazil - 2036 - Season 10 - Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (Tier 1) - 1st (Champions) And that's the league won! We took a slightly different strategy in pre-season this year. In Brazil, the "pre-season" lasts from January to April as you play in the state championships. In previous seasons I'd played my first team here, but this hurt later in the seasons with fixture congestion and injuries. This year, we played the second Xi from January until March, and then put the first team in from the beginning of April to get them ready for the league season. We also played the second XI in the cup and Copa Sudamericana hoping to get knocked out as theose competitions don't matter. It all went to plan. We won our first 7 matches in the league, had a bit of a blip but then went on a run of 12 victories in a row (including five 1 - 0 wins), which put us 13 points clear. We had a few bad performances but made it over the line. Ironically, as we were playing the last few games, we were reading about Botofogo losing a 13 point lead in the league in 2023. We were in the same position with five games to go and then took 1 point from 3 games. In the penultimate game we went 1 - 0 down, and I was thinking about the irony of losing the league whilst reading that article. But we came back to win 2 - 1 and that was the title. Squad wise, it's mostly a finished squad. We have good quality in every position, and some okay quality as back up. I've never produced such quality from my youth team in all my years in FM. It's wonderkid after wonderkid and explosive green arrows in training - it's the joy of managing in Brazil. Jader Barbosa progressed well and was the top scorer in the league with 23 goals from 38 games. He still not natural as a striker and he's a better winger, but you can't argue with the stats. I feel confident going into the next season winning the Copa Libertadores, but you just never know with cup comeptitions Current Squad Past wonderkids - Jean Carlo (DC), Jean Carlo (DL), Current wonderkids - Eduardo Henrique( AMC), Jader Barbosa (AMR/SC), Eloilson (DR) Jader Barbosa was labelled as the player of his generation in the youth intake. He's made excellent progress in one year (he came through at 18), though not sure he'll become world class. A pretty good intake. We finaly got our striker, but we most likely won't ever see him in the first team. Some decent players coming through as back up as well.

Luversense - Brazil - 2035 - Season 9 - Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (Tier 1) - 10th Almost the Copa Libertadores. We had a really poor start to the season. At one point we were playing 4 games a week - Brazilian Serie A, State Championship, Cope Libatadores Group Stage and Briazilian Cup. Despite rotation and resting, the players were tired and we were near relegation after 10 games. After the group stage ended, our form came back and we slowly moved up the table. We finished mid table but that doesn't qualify us for the Copa Libertadores next season. In the Copa Libatadores we made unspectacular progress. We were losing our away leg but then managed to win the tie at home in the quarters and semis against good Brazilian teams. We then faced Vasco de Gama in the final who were only one place above us in the league. It was an opportunity we couldn't take and they shaded a close game. So we have two more seasons at least. At least 4 of our players are refusing to sign contracts but they are on long contracts at least. I think 2 more seasons and we can challenge. I will need to rotate more at the beginning of the season. A very poor youth intake. Barbosa is making slow progress but still score 17 in the top flight this season. More to come I'm sure. The whole of Europe is after this guy. I rejected a bid from Real Madrid and he wasn't happy.

Luversense - Brazil - 2034 - Season 8 - Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (Tier 1) - 6th A good season. Gosh, Brazil is fun. Intersting names, explosive growth and wonderkids galore. Not so fun is having all teams in the world circling around your players. We finished 6th and qualified for the Copa Libertadores on the final day of the season. We were flirting with the top 4 around the mid way point of the season but fixture congestion meant we slipped down. This team is still very young and we just need to hang on to our players. I feel we're around 3 seasons away from completing Brazil if we can. Crazy TV money came in this year so finances are very good. Our youth intake brought us one superb talent. We wanted a striker and a right winger and we got both in one player. Barbosa is better as a winger but we really need a striker so I'm going to retrain him as a striker. That leaves us weaker on the right wing but I feel it's worth it. Wonderkid 1 Wonderkid 2 Dubbed the next Ronaldinho, he'll be a wonderkid soon Only one talent through the intake but Barbosa is a beauty. I can only recall seeing "player of his generation" once before from an intake. Shame he's 18, but hoping for more explosive growth next season. Also, we now have 3 left backs called Jean Carlo (and a centre back).

Luverdense - Brazil - 2033 - Season 7 - Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (Tier 1) - 11th A very satisfactory first season in the top flight, finishing mid table. We had a slow start but then pulled clear of relegation and stayed lower mid table the whole season. This qualifies us for the Copa Sudamericana. Nothing much else happened. The youth take was disappointing. A good right back came through but we have plenty of talent in defence. We still need a striker and a right winger and a bit of patience and we'd have a good team. Another mid table season next season will be most welcome. Best player A disappointing intake. One elite talent but we have plenty of talent in defence.

Luverdense - Brazil - 2032 - Season 6 - Campeonato Brasileiro Seri B (Tier 2) - 1st (promoted) So I picked up the save after a few months mid season and we were sitting top of the league after a good start to the season. I'd looked back at my previous post and said I needed patience. We ended up winning the league by quite a gap. I started remebering the players. In particular Eduardo Henrique came through our youth intake last season and is already a starter at 16. The growth in his stats in one year (see below) is unlike anything I've seen before. Some of his stats have increased by 3 in one season. Unfortunately he won't sign a new contract as he wants to move to Santos. Hopefully the promotion will tempt him to stay. He looks like a really good player. We haven't had a good striker come through an intake yet. However, Lourenco scored 45 this season, but surely he isn't good enough for the top flight. The board want us to fight bravely against relegation in the top flight next year. We're predicted to finished 19th out of 20. As usual, staying up is the goal. I didn't get a screenshot of the youth intake, but it was decent. This guy came through.

So after a break from FM for a number of months, I'm to progress this challenge. I'd completed Vanuatu and then moved to Brazil where we'd done 5 seasons. I'm going to pick up from this save. I'm a long way behind XaW so we've got some catching up to do. @XaW 4 down, 2 to go. Very impressive. Am I right and you left Germany after a few seasons despite being in the Bundesliga?

Luverdense - Brazil - 2031 - Season 5 - Campeonato Brasileiro Seri B (Tier 2) - 9th Another season of mid-table. We're slowly improving as the old squad get replaced by the youth intake. We had improvements approved in Youth and Training Facilities and Junior Coaching so we should see the effects there. We managed to sell a player for 5m. We were trying to sell off one of our prospects to FC Porto with a sell-on but they wouldn't bite. Then there was a news article where apparantly one of the Serie A teams were going to buy our right back for 5m. I didn't believe it but I offered him out and Flamengo bid 5m. Lovely. His loss did weaken the team, but it's not too bad. One area which I like about Brazil is how quickly the players improve. We don't have amazing facilities but there's green arrows everywhere. We managed to get a lot of the prospects on long contracts so I think we just need to be patient. Green arrows everywhere. Another disappointing youth intake. Henrique comes straight into midfield, but not much else. We need a striker and a right winger and the first XI looks good.

Wow that was quick! Congrats. Think I've got another 7 - 8 seasons before (if) I finish South America.

Luverdense - Brazil - 2030 - Season 4 - Campeonato Braileiro Serie B (Tier 2) - 7th After our promotion last season, this was a nice boring season in Serie B. We were hanging around the top 4 and automatic promotion for a while, but eventually we slipped back and finished high mid table. We look well set up for promotion in the next season or two. This is assuming we don't lose a load of players, but being in the higher league this season has made it easier to hang on to players. FC Porto are interested in 3 of our players. I'd sell one for a sell-on fee but they don't seem interested in that. That sell-on would probably allow us to max Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment. We did, finally, get one upgrade there this season. Money-wise, we're doing much better, with a cup run and the Serie B TV money. Only 2 players remaining from the original squad. We desperately need a striker to come through a youth intake. Jean Carlo is looking like our best player. Not quite a wonderkid, but might possibly be if he joins Porto at aged 20. Pretty disappointing intake. No-one who can get into the first team, and the 2 elite talents are in places where we already have players.

I think it's theoretically possible to do the Pentagon Youth on the vanilla. I'm still using FM20, so you'd need to check with someone using your version. On mine, Europe (many vanilla nations), Africa (SA - you've almost completed), Asia (China), South American (Brazil, Argentina) would be fine (other choices available as well, those are examples of the ones should work on mine). The only one that might not work is North America. Mexico works on FM20 (one team gets promoted to the second tier). But I've heard it might not work like that on future versions. Perhaps add the Mexican leagues now, and hopefully you'll see if it's working as you finish in South Africa. Oceania you wouldn't be able to do, but I don't think it's technically part of the Pentagon. Good luck!

It was the same in Vanuatu. I worked it out as the top 2 teams in the league as at January 2nd went into the OFC Champions League.

Luverdense - Brazil - 2029 - Season 3 - Campeonato Braileiro Serie C (Tier 3) - 2nd (promoted via the plaoffs) Last season's last gasp relegation escape might be the most important season in this save. This season, with the addition of 3 of last season's youth intake, and a year's first team football for the youth intake from two seasons ago, we managed to secure promotion. We finished second in the league, then only needed to win the play off quarter finals to gain promotion to Serie B. Given the financial troubles the club is heading towards, the promotion is much needed. Luverdense History Mauriki History The squad is now mostly youth players coming through. We have a really good core of players at GK, Def and Mid, but not much coming through on the wings and up front. We will need a good striker at some point. A number of the original squad will retire this year, giving an opportunity for youth to step up. I hope we can stay up, but I have the feeling we wouldn't be sacked if we get relegated. The AI teams contiune to hunt our players. Last season, after we got out youth intake, by the time the players accepted their youth contract, there were already teams interested and they wouldn't sign proper contracts. I somehow managed to keep hold of all of them and got them to sign a contract in small windows when teams weren't interested. Hopefully promotion will make this easier. Out best player, who came through the youth intake last year. He's improved so quickly, I'm guessing his PA is pretty high. We already can't afford a contract renewal, so either we get promoted soon or we'll lose him. One more year and I'd then be happy to sell with a sell-on. An okay youth intake. No one special came through and the talents were in positions where we already had players.