Neo_Geo

Really enjoyable first season and particularly pleasing to find a counter attacking formation that works really well with the players I have. It appears that the issue about not being able to play in the same league as my affiliate club, Lugano, was not an issue as the link was terminated upon the start of the new season, so FC Chiasso are a fully fledged Swiss Super League team! Trying a different format with the season review but will still provide some of the other details in spoiler sections below Supporter Profile Youth Players On a side note, how are others getting the real pictures for the regens? I had a look at the output of the NewGan filter and the resulting file is in a different format so I'm assuming its a case of wait until the FM 23 version is available or manually find the images you want to use for each regen and update the config file.

Good job I completed the challenge in Holland in FM 22 then if it’s 5 seasons then that’s a bit of a simulation before you can get going.

For me the scouting and transfer system is still sorely lacking. Appointing staff, using what you have in front of you to get a tactic that works, the continuous and single minded drive towards improving facilities then the potluck of the intake......you can't beat it in my opinion.

Sod it, signing players is so overrated I’m going to take my chances with FC Chiasso, I had bought into the Swiss league and this club so I’m going to give it a go and if for whatever reason they can’t be promoted (if I get that far) then so be it…… Fun fact, Chiasso actually played in the Italian league between 1914 and 1923 and were recently managed by gianluca zambrotta. Hoping with the position of Chiasso being right on the Swiss / Italian border that I might get a healthy number of Italian intakes. Now to just try and get enough time on the game!

Got to admit I’m not feeling England, maybe it’s just the sheer number of games and leagues to get up or just the fact I wanted to sort out the real world mess with Rangers (my team) as I have that save going just now. Also, struggling to find enough time to really get stuck into a save. I shall return with a new save once I can find one that will stick.

Went for the easiest of the 8 promoted teams with South Shields predicted to finish 7th in VNN as I know this challenge is particularly hard going in England Here's the supporter profile for day one Nice to see the fans are bought in to this challenge with the "Develop players using the club's youth system" expectation

That must pretty much render the Swiss league as being one you can't complete then, unless there are teams from the promotion league that don't have such a link. I have a feeling it would be terminated upon promotion, but as you say you don't want to put all that effort in to then have to hope that your affiliated team get relegated when you get promoted Oh well, time for my England save

I had Kriens and Chiasso. I've just seen I have the same setup with Lugano Might be with South Shields after all! I'm guessing it might be terminated automatically upon promotion since its not like its a B team or something

Starting FM 23 with a league I haven't attempted before (can't actually remember the last time I ever managed a team from this nation), Switzerland (I have a South Shields save sitting in wait if this one goes sour!) The Swiss league you want to holiday to 27th of May to then progress to 28th where the relegation play-off team is determined. The league then updates on 1st July (if the team from the Promotion League win the play-off of course) FM 23 sees my manager rock the Ichiban Kasuga look! Swiss league has 2 divisions with the Challenge league seeing 1 automatic promotion for the winners and 2nd place have a play-off with the team finishing second to last in the Super League Relegation Group. EDIT: I want to keep an eye on how (if) the Club Support Profile changes over time so here it is on day 1

Santa Venera Lightnings FC Season 8 (2029/30) Review Domestic Repeat of last season with an unbeaten treble and dropped points only to Bikirkara away after a European game where I had to rest several first team players. Hibernians still annoy me in that they too don't seem to drop points, it means you really have to beat them and not slip up against any of the other 12 teams. In the last game of the season it was Zebbug Rangers in the FA Trophy final and we strolled it 7-0, as long as I hold onto the players I have now and continue to develop the youth coming through I think domestically things are looking good. Kovalchuk broke another 3 records this season. He's looking like the divisions best at the moment. We also saw the first full international cap this year with Andre Zarb Cousin (27G) getting the nod, before Dimech getting his debut in the next match where he assisted Zarb Cousin for his first national goal (it was against Gibraltar but they all count) Best eleven saw a few less 7+ average ratings but the season was still a success regardless Europe Another great season in Europe, made the Conference this time following a defeat 1 round earlier in the Champions League qualifiers to Slavia Prague AGAIN! Narrowly missed out on the Europa League again with a 4-3 aggregate defeat to St Gallen. I was happy with the group draw and ultimately 5 wins and 1 loss is a fantastic outcome that got me into the 2nd knock out round where we beat Lech before being outclassed by Anderlecht. The good thing about dropping to the Conference is that you still get decent prize money but your chances are a little better (compare the group draw I had last season of Napoli, Feyenoord and Slavia Prague compared to Shamrock Rovers, Aris and Astana). Youth Another solid intake sees another couple of first team additions Only issue with Bonnici is a potential change of formation as Reay had a huge number of assists for his strike partner Kovalchuk. Youth Origins Youth Details Club Info Not sure if the Youth Facilities bug has struck again, the training facilities were improved twice in one season but the Youth Facilities had disappeared after the first one. Only issue is Youth Facilities are at 2 stars and not 4. Trophy Cabinet Next Season As with last year its all about making progress in Europe whilst maintaining domestic dominance, I may try to get Bonnici in as an AMC but no major changes to the formation just yet.

Santa Venera Lightnings FC Season 7 (2028/29) Review Domestic So this is the year it felt like it all clicked into place. An unbeaten domestic treble with the only blip being a 4-4 away draw with Floriana. We had Hibernians away on day 1 (second time in 3 seasons) yet we beat them 6-3! We broke the record for most points and most goals scored however 33 conceded is something I'd like to address. If we continue like this I think we will be the top rated Maltese side this time next season. I predicted Kovalchuk would break records..... The guy was simply on fire scoring 46 in 37 starts and 5 sub appearances in all competitions (including 8 in Europe) As far as the best eleven is concerned the average ratings over 7 are starting to show a lot more now Europe I was expecting to re-use my template of the details of the matches played as I didn't think we'd play that many but what a season it was in Europe as we finally made our mark! Narrowly missing out to Slavia Prague we qualified for the Europa League play-off meaning a loss there would see us enter the Conference League in the group stages so guaranteed European Group Stage football. The win over Astana at home was without a doubt the pivotal moment. So we beat Levski on penalties (they actually scored in the 122nd minute to take it to penalties) I opted to simply go for it in the league games, I wasn't expecting to get any points (other than maybe Slavia Prague as we only lost out narrowly to them in the CL qualifiers) so we had nothing to lose by going with our tried and tested 4-2-4 wide as we have a better attack than defence which proved the case with 12 goals scored although 23 conceded which was a new record Needless to say the main thing here was the prize money. Youth Another good intake this year with 3 players that would either be in the starting XI or pushing for it. There are also signs of us getting different nationalities with a Faroese, German and Montenegrin appearing this year. Azzopardi now has a central midfield partnership with Friggieri from last seasons intake pushing one of my earlier season standouts Martin Attard onto the bench, but thats how this save goes.....no room for sentiment! Youth Origins Youth Details I opted to replace my HoYD this season with a higher rating and has better judging player ability and working with youth. They also have fairly professional personality and have a closer fit to the formation (4-2-3-1 wide which I may go to at some point given Scicluna this year looks to have some promise in that position). Club Info The money from the European progress has been invested and we are now a professional club with the first contract offered to Kovalchuk of course! In addition to that I've managed to convince the board to a number of improvement which now shows us as having the best facilities in the country Trophy Cabinet Next Season Same again please! Going professional means we simply have to win the league which I think we can do again but Hibernians are very good at getting results against the rest of the league so it means we absolutely need to keep beating them and the rest. The change to professional should help kick on some of the development of the players and it may be the season where I find out who is capped and who really has 5 star potential.