Neo_Geo

It's set as a National Cup 1: I'll see what happens if I win it again

Good luck, I enjoyed managing them just got tired of the youth ruling. it’s a really strong starting squad, made a big difference on the field.

It was working fine, then I won the title when Hamrun drew their game in hand (last game of the season) and I won it, since then I’ve had no trophy presentation. Like I say it’s not a big deal unless it’s part of a bigger issue. Thanks anyway, looks like it’s just me

No crash takes place and nothing suggests it’s any different from previous times where I did see the presentation. The text commentary at full time says we won the title, then it just doesn’t load the presentation. The team talk then has the congratulatory options and when I exit the match the news is full of stories on it. I get the cup wins showing (super cup and national cup) but the league just seems to have stopped. I understand the year where I won it when I wasn’t playing but if my result leads to me winning the title at full time I would have expected it at that point. Its no big issue just wondering if anyone else had seen that happen (just worried it might be the custom DB by Timo for Malta causing issues and could be a sign of worse to come)

Has anyone else seen it where you stop getting the trophy presented when you win the title?

As a Rangers fan I am now content with my save

Got my wires crossed. After looking back I could see it was my Croatia save that was bothering me. I don’t think there was anything in Honduras in particular I just wasn’t feeling the connection I guess.

Congratulations @Shankly84 I’d carry on if you are enjoying it, also probably not that much time left to start a new save before FM25 (assuming you are buying it and assuming I haven’t just jinxed it for a 2025 release date now!)

I did a Honduras save a month or so go, there is a link to the custom DB I downloaded. The rules about playing youth players bothered me otherwise I’d have continued.

That's about as bad a goal to concede I have seen and in such an important game as well

2 MORE TITLES INCLUDING TREBLE AND 100% WIN RECORD SEASON Two seasons have now passed since my last update and season 7 and 8 resulted in 2 league titles and 2 trophies with a 100% win record treble in season 8 as we absolutely dominated the domestic scene. We're still not wiping the floor with Hamrun as I needed extra time to beat them in the super cup but we are now looking like the better side and against the rest of the league we are winning comfortably even with a spell of having 8-10 players injured. In Europe I had to include the moment I nearly qualified for the Champions League by beating Rangers at Ibrox 3-2 following a 1-2 loss at home 1 week earlier before losing on penalties. In both seasons we made the Europa league stage and the first year a solitary win over Puskas Akademia were the only points gained with a -20 goal difference. Season 8 was much better with 1 win and 2 draws with the win being a 1-0 home win over Besiktas! Here are the club and competition overviews for the last two seasons: YOUTH INTAKE I've changed my Head of Youth Development twice since the last update first brining in a Nigerian HoYD who was fairly professional and had decent attributes but I hadn't noticed he only had a National B licence and I couldn't get him on a course. I really thought I had messed up and he had the 1 intake that he oversaw (although it was likely Edward Bartolo who had the bigger impact on that intake as it always takes a few years to filter through). I then spotted at the end of season 8 we had moved up to be 2 star reputation and given at the end of season 7 I added Serie A and Serie B as view only in an attempt to get some more Italian staff appearing this chap was listed in my staff search: His working with youngsters is a little lower than I would have liked but he makes up for it in judging ability and potential as well as being a pretty solid coach, particularly compared to my current staff. Here are the two intakes from season 7 and 8: It's been an interesting couple of seasons as I am seeing previous "star players" now look far more average in comparison to those coming through. We still haven't reached the point where the intake are actually not better than the top quartile of players currently at the club. Players like Roderick Bartolo YP-3A have now fallen completely out of favour and even Steve Vella YP-4A who has been capped 15 times for Malta is falling behind those coming through. Top 5 Elite Talents from Each Intake As a result of the shifting ability some of the squad have become frustrated at the depth of the squad in defence and in particular its the fullbacks that aren't that great. The potential is there but the development is not. I've started tracking the average attribute changes year on year based on those that had been at the club for 1 year or more: I'm going to keep tracking this and see what the general trend is but if the lines in general stay in the positive then I'll be fairly happy. As the standard of coaches and training facilities improve I'd expect to see this improve as well. Spreadsheet Tables CLUB NEWS Since turning professional 2 seasons ago the club is going strong. Thanks to the European money I have still been able to upgrade the facilities whilst maintaining a healthy balance. The wages per week currently stands at £11,714 which given the European money it really makes little impact. The training facilities now sit at 12 with the youth facilities at 8 and both are currently in the process of being upgraded once more. The board have expanded my staff levels and this is now how the staff screen is looking: Kercem Ajax are really starting to dominate Maltese football. Transfers SQUAD NEWS The squad now contains no original players from the start of the save with only 1 survivor from the Year 1 Intake, Ishmael Falzon YP-1A who is a 2 star current ability and 2 star potential but is still able to contribute in this league with 13 goals and 2 assists from 10 starts and 17 sub appearances this season. He's one of those players who on paper shouldn't be playing for us still but he comes up with important goals so he stays on. The squad depth shows a distinct lack of quality at the fullback positions with the wingers also lacking depth. As I mentioned in the Youth Intake section I have good numbers in AMC so having a narrow formation might help out if the wingers become a problematic area going forward. You can see that Falzon YP-1A is the second best AML at the club still. I haven't moved everyone over to professional contracts as I suspect that a number of those who aren't on one will end up leaving in a year or two if the intakes continue at their current level. As the intakes come through each player that I decide to keep on gets a professional deal when they hit 17 so it will naturally resolve itself over time. I haven't had many successes with retraining positions but Alex Formosa YP-7A has managed to retrain to be an AML and is now accomplished in just under 2 years of training. I needed to get more cover at left wing and with a reasonable left foot he seemed a good bet. BUILD A NATION At a club level this is going quite well with the Maltese Premier League now ranked 51st which has risen over 6 years from 64th. The Nation Club Coefficient is 31st now which continues to rise and continues to improve the qualification places. Hamrun had a difficult season this year and in terms of Europe they were put out at the 3rd qualifying round of the Conference League 5-1 on aggregate to Cracovia. Balzan lost 3-1 on aggregate in the first round of qualifiers to Sloboda Tuzla of Bosnia and Herzegovina whilst Gzira United also lost in the first round on penalties to KF Teuta of Albania. As I haven't really been generating an abundance of talent that I can start to provide to the rest of the league via loans and sales I'm not expecting a lot just now however the one plus point is that Gzira are now also Professional meaning we have 3 professional clubs in the country. I really want to see Floriana improve and become the 4th professional team as I think that will help massively but they have been floundering in mid table with 7th and 8th place finishes over the last 2 seasons. At the national level the Euro Qualifiers didn't end that well for Malta finishing second bottom on 4 points in a group that contained Gibraltar (so not getting 6 points was disappointing). We now have the most players in the national squad with a similar story in the youth squads: National Squad: 10 / 22 U21: 10 / 23 U19: 8 / 23 U18: 1 / 12 In terms of caps Omar Spiteri YP-4A (GK) has 19 with Steven Vella YP-4A (MC) on 15. Still no international goal for any player coming through the youth ranks. BINGO CARD It's been quite a successful couple of season with 1/3 of all targets now met but we're definitely now entering the stage where only a handful will be realistically achievable: NEO_GEO'S FINAL THOUGHTS I think I preferred playing a couple of seasons and doing this update as it allowed me to just enjoy the game for a bit longer before writing the update (not that I don't enjoy it too it just takes a while to pull together). I'm having a blast with the save and enjoying seeing long term plans starting to take shape with improvements across the board from facilities to staff and seeing the results on the pitch improve to the point where we look very comfortable domestically and at least giving a good account of ourselves on the continent. I'm excited for seeing the new HoYD having an impact in a couple of seasons time and with the ever improving training facilities and staff I want to see more of the players start to bridge the gap between their current ability and potential. I've probably not utilised my spreadsheets as much as I thought I would, I tend to focus on the potential, the training focus and the attribute change ranking to see what players are pushing themselves and what players aren't. It is proving to be useful but I do feel it needs some tweaking (in particular the lower and upper drive weighting needs to be handled differently as a player that clearly doesn't have what it takes but has a personality that CAN have high professionalism/ambition scores highly in the upper drive meaning they appear higher in the potential ranking even though I know they won't make it so I do have to apply discretion to the rankings).

@mschafer13 no one has completed Northern Ireland yet, I’ve had two attempts at it but even though I had done well I stopped because of having to play so many games with all of the cups and having to play in the Scottish challenge cup every year. Best of luck

Yeah the Scottish league IRL needs a revamp, if you then draw a premiership team in the cup you can play them 6 times or 8 times if you get replays against them.

Little bit of a spoiler (as I am planning on doing 2 seasons before updating) but I was a breath away from qualifying for the Champions League proper after introducing myself to my fellow Bears at Ibrox with a 3-2 win only to lose on penalties

It's funny you should mention this. I was close to kicking my team, Rangers, down to the bottom tier of Scotland a la 2012, releasing all their players and doing a Scottish only save focussing on youth development where I could only sign Scottish players under the age of 20. It was going to be about building the squad in the right way and not the mismanaged way we have done it (particularly in the last 3 years). However I enjoy posting updates and reading those of others in this thread as its a great community and that's what made me ultimately go with a save I'm unlikely to finish just to see how much I can impact the fate of a nation just by developing youth players. If I had a place to post my progress I probably would have done my Rangers save (just purely because I am so disillusioned with the way the club is being run). I'll keep an eye out for your posts on the career thread if you do start......you might just make me want to start my own.....although now that I am talking about it I'm thinking a Scottish lowland league with a new team similar to FC United of Manchester or AFC Wimbledon as a rebirth of the club that still holds its traditional values..........