JusttJD

Yeah, I think that if you are stuck in the lower leagues for too long, you have to get really lucky with an FA-Cup draw to keep your head above the water. Either a big away match against a premier league club, or just a very long run against bad opponents. My finances are... well, I have to pay off a €150,- loan... with €2,- a month...

After two failed attempts in Belgium, I just couldn't get into my third try. Even though we promoted in the first year, I just didn't have any fun anymore. So, I'm finally going to do what I should have done from the start. Start a save where it all began... In England. But, not just in England... I'm going to start all the way down in Tier 10. Going to be a very long save (hopefully). First, two screenshots to show my settings and the database that I used (The Tier 10 one from the steam workshop) And, I have chosen the following team. I thought that London doesn't have enough teams already in the premier league, so. In de Spoiler underneath will be an image that proof that they finished last in the previous season. This is going to be a very long save, but that is just the way I like them. . My facilities are what you expect from this level, worthless. Just as my profile. Hopefully, I can slowly make both of them better in the coming years. But, I don't expect to be in the premier league before 2050. This is allowed for the challenge, right? @XaW

This team is just like the "Jong" teams in The Netherlands. "Jong Ajax" "Jong PSV" The second teams are teams on their own and not reserve teams that most other teams have in the game. That's why you can't control them, they are different teams with their own staff and usually even own stadium and facilities.

That is just taking charge of 2 teams making sure that all your talents grow at the best rate. That is obviously not how it works. (And, can't imagine it being allowed.) Your talents not playing enough when you send them away is just a risk that you have to accept. You can minimize those risks by making sure the coach of that team likes to work with youngsters or have a option in the contract that says he should play. But, apart from that... you are at the mercy of the coaches. Just like in real life where plenty of talents are send out to other clubs and barely play. (I also responded to your message on another thread that should explain your situation a bit better, that your reserve team is a team on it's own, and not a second team for you... Very much like the Jong clubs in The Netherlands.)

Pretty sure that isn't allowed.

I've read through this entire thread in the past couple of weeks, and I'm fairly sure that isn't allowed. But, I'm sure someone that is in charge or knows it for certain can give you a definitive answer. Maybe you can still cancel the transfer or cancel the loan before you play him?

Alright, this is going to be my final try for this challenge for the time being. And, because I'm persistent (or stupid), I'm going to give it another go in Belgium. And, after a lot of reloading to pick a unique team, I have chosen the following team. They are not the favorites, but I think we can still be fairly competitive. Images to shown that I started out as a nobody and that there hasn't been any transfers. My facilities are... well, they are there. My squad though, they might not be the best (although there are a couple good individuals.) There are plenty of players, so I should not run into the issue of my previous game. (Running out of players and having to depend on grey players.) I'm not sure where this season is going to take though. First priority is to renew a lot of contracts and hire a decent staff

Well, that was a very short one... 15 matches in, and I'm fired. 16 players in my squad, of which 8 attacking players. 1 Goalkeeper, 2 midfielders and 6 defenders, of which 4 backs... Before the first real match even started, my 2 midfielders, my best centre-back, and my best striker were out for fairly long injury (Shortest one was 7 weeks.) Add exhaustion because of multiple patches in the week during the first couple of weeks in the competition. And, you end up with a squad that are mostly grey players... (for three matches, I even had to play 7 of them from the start...) So, I kept losing games and there was not a lot that I could do about it either. Even the grey players that I got were not in the correct positions, so I had to use a different tactic every couple of matches. 15 Matches, 12 losses, 2 draws, 1 win... and, fired. I really wish that the "Add players to team" option in the start would work for promoted teams as well. With the time pressure of the financial bug combined with such a small squad, I would say that I didn't had a chance. Not sure where I'm going to try next. Gonna be my last try though in a while, because I do want to play the actual game sometime, for a while. :P Probably either in England, Scotland, Germany or custom database in The Netherlands that enables relegation. (I know that one isn't allowed here, but it would be a challenge for myself.) (Gonna think about it for a bit though.)

Alright, I'm just going to try it one more time in Belgium. Despite the bug, I did have a lot of fun so hopefully this time around, with another team... things will go better. I have chosen the team Bocholter. or better said... I thought that their Emblem was pretty badass, so it choose me. Here is my profile to proof that I'm a nobody and to show that their hasn't been any transfers. My squad is pretty decent, much better than my Union Namur squad. Downside? Well, as you can see... I don't have a lot of players. 5 Players are above the 30, so not a lot of future with them either. So, my first youth intake is going to be a very important one, that is for sure. My facilities are what you can expect on this level. Not that great, but it could be worse. I am confident about my first season, but everything will depend on how many injuries I will get along the way.

Have I just been so unlucky with my chairman deciding to make my Belgium team Semi-pro, after 1.5 seasons? Seeing that you are already in 2026, and not even in the top league yet. It kinda makes me want to give it another go.

I unfortunately had to abandon my Belgium Save. Due to the financial bug, my chairman decided to change our clubstatus to Semi-Pro. We were already struggling as is, and not contending for play offs, so there is no chance that I could continue with that save. Quite a shame, because I was really starting to enjoy my team. Now, I'm trying to find a new team for a new attempt (In a different country.) England : Maybe try my luck on a Tier 10 Youth Academy Only challenge? (If that is allowed.) The only thing that holds me back at this moment is that once you get a good draw for the cup, or get promoted... you are there. Financially, you won't ever have issues again and it's just grinding out the youth intakes. But, maybe that starting in the Tier 10 will add more challenge to it. I don't want to start in Tier 6, because I've done that plenty of times already in the past 15 years. But, it would be fun to bring success to the tiniest club and defeat the giants that spend hundreds of millions each transfer window. Germany : If I can't play in my southern neighbors country, then maybe in my east neighbors country with a Youth Academy Only challenge The closest thing that comes to the Eredivisie in my opinion. There is always real competition there with Bayern and Leipzig, however two things that I don't really like 1. All teams that promote have a lot of history already. I want to have basically a clean slate in terms of prizes and favorite personal. 2. Bundesliga is already a very big competition with a lot of European succes over the years, so I won't be unique like it would be in Belgium But, trying to break Bayerns 34 title record would be a lot of fun and obviously take a lot of time as well. Netherlands : Not allowed in this challenge, but I'll just make my own. Just pick the worst team in The Netherlands and make my own challenge out of it. Downside? Well, I want to officially complete this real challenge, at least once. (officially). Italy : Lazio & AS are not Rome biggest teams. Try and make Rome City in the biggest team of Rome and the world using youth only. The only downside, the couple save games that I had in the past in Italy, I lost my motivation very quickly because I'm not really that into the Italian competition. Spain, France, Portugal are also competitions that I'm not really that into. And, starting in a smaller country, such a Sweden or Denmark sounds very interesting, it gets boring rather fast. Sure, in Europa there is a real challenge of winning the champions league, but winning every domestic league game with 8-0 is not something that interests me. Basically, I am looking for competition/team where I can stay another 100+ years like I did with FC United. (Why is it always so hard to pick a team? :P )

So, I assume that using the England Tier 10 database is also allowed?

Just finished my first season in Belgium with Union Namur. And, to say that it has been a challenging season would be an understatement. Let start with the competition result first. We managed to promote to the second league, but only because our competition was even worse than we were. And only because we had 1 very good month after the break. As you can see, January went quite okay. Every single game was still very close and we didn't manage to be the better team in any single of those games. In our 2-1 win against URSL Vise, we only had 22% possession. February was by far my best month of the season. Most of the games were still pretty close, but I felt like my team was growing and after the match against Winkel Sport we were even on top of the table. But, then March happened... My DR got injured, yellow card suspensions were piling up and I don't have the roster to replace any of them. In the final 3 games, I had to play with a DM as DR and striker as DL. And, it's pretty clear that Mike Ebui had a very big part in this succes. 29 goals in 34 games, I would have never expected that. His stats are mediocre at best and pick nr.5 on this position. But, he has been rewarded with a new and better contract (Not that I have any choice, everyone gets a new contract. :P ) The finances though. They are really starting to worry me. I only hope that I manage to promote one more time before the board decided to pull the plug. And, these are the new games that should make that happen. I have no idea if this is good or not, because this is my first youth intake in 7/8 years. :P My only issue is that there are NO players for the right side of the field, a position that is already so thin! So, I'll likely have to re-train one of the talents for that. And, this is supposed to be the best one of them all. His stats are pretty on par with Mike Ebui, so Esposito is definitely going to be a regular substitute. But, I am not looking forward to next season. This season was already tough and I had to depend on so much luck during matches. But, we are going to give it our all! Most likely with an even more defensive tactic.

I don't know if this is alright, and I'll delete my message if it's not. (And, I won't do it regularly... Just normal end of season summary's after this one.) But, I wanted to show my first 3 months of the challenge in Belgium Most friendlies were against smaller teams, so the results are not that important. Dessel was the only opponent of status (Same league as me.) And, the first 2 cup matches were against were small teams as well. (Almost knocked out against KFC, but a late goal of Detienne saved me.) I am projected to end 16th in the division, and my selection clearly represents that. (And, will give a more detailed summary about my selection once I'm done with this season.) I decided to go with a simple 4-4-2 with a balanced mentality, and try to keep it simple for them. Strikers, I have enough. Midfielders, should be alright with that as well. But, with only one DR and one goalkeeper in my selection, I'm praying that they stay safe from injury's. I almost had a heart attack because I was 3-0 up against RC Harelbeke, but almost gave it away. (and, it would have been justified to lose that game... because we had 3 shots on goal, and they had 14...) Against OHL I got saved by a very late (undeserving) equalizer. Against Winkel Sport, it was pretty much the same story as the first game. We started of incredibly, but gave it all away in the second half and it would have been fair if we lost the game because they missed a penalty in the 92th minute.) Rupel, once again I was the worse team... but through some very clean counters, I managed to win the game. Against STVV for the cup, now that was just insane. They play a league above me and have players like Shinji Kagawa in their squad. I expected a heavy loss, but to my surprise we actually played a very good game. We kept each other even till 3-3, but after that we actually managed to win the match. 6th round will be against KV Mechelen, and I'm expecting a heavy loss there. And, I'm expecting that my luck will run out sooner or later in the competition as well. But, the points that we get now, I happily take them as my goal from the board is not to relegate. I hope that I'm able to promote through some magic, because that will surely help with the finances. They are already going into the red and it's expected to keep going down because of the financial bug. I'm just hoping that before it gets too bad, I can either make a transfer and earn some money or earn my place in the higher divisions. I'll end with an image of my player Mike Ebui. Stat wise, he is not even close to a star player in the competition and even one of the worst strikers in the entire competition. But, he seems to be on fire and I happily keep fueling it if that's possible.

After starting with the wrong team first, I started this challenge as well. I started in Belgium and see how it will go with all the financial issues in there. It will be a steep learning curve after not playing it for years, but looking forward to it! (And, hopefully those screenshots are correct.)

One more question though, and this is also to the people that maintain this thread and enforce the rules. If it's allowed to choose the lowest finishing team in Tier 10 of Scotland, then why can't we do the same thing for Holland? I know that it's not the rule, but 10 years ago the rule was to allow this challenge only in England, and look where we are now. I think that an exception should be made for Holland, simply because it's a rather big but more importantly a popular competition. There won't be any official relegation for the next 5-10 years, and it wouldn't surprise me if it never happens. (The teams below don't want to get promoted because of the financial risks.) The lowest rated teams in the "Keuken Kampioen Divisie" are worse than the higher rated amateur teams. The lower rated teams that will most likely finish last (Top Oss, Telstar, Helmond.) have worse accommodations than the average Vanarama South Teams. (So, it's not like you will get a headstart.) You could even make a couple of unique rules for people that want to take this challenge on in The Netherlands. - Go on Holiday for a year and pick the team that finished in last place. (Or, 19th in case a "Jong" team finished 20th.) - If you finish 20th yourself in the "Keuken Kampioen Divisie" , it will be considered to be a relegation and a game over. - You have to provide an extra screenshot of the table with the team that finished last. Holland is such a fun country to coach in, and people have successfully completed this challenge in the past versions. So, it would be such a shame to exclude it from this challenge, most likely forever. So, why not look for a way to include it, instead of throwing it away.

Thanks for all your advice. I actually decided on a competition and am now busy getting it all in order. Scotland was broken as well it seems, but the database that extends the league to Level 10 seems to fix the problem for lower teams. So, I think I'm going to try that out. (And, I assume that that is allowed for the challenge? Or, not? )

I do like to stay either in West-Europe or Scandinavia. Denmark was another one of my choices, but I've read a lot of stories here that it's almost impossible to do because all your players keep being poached because you are not able to get a Pro status soon enough. Germany would be fun as well, and is one of my 2 choices left now. (Managing the U-19 stuff wouldn't really be an issue because with a Youth Only challenge you are supposed to manage everything anyway.) I'm also starting to think about England. I know that I could spend another 100+ years in there, however I don't want to think halfway "This is not like my FC United save, so let's stop." I'm not just looking to do a Youth Only Challenge, but also a "break all records possible" save (So, like become the team that has won the premier league the most times, the cups, the champions league, etc.) I'm going think about it for a couple more days and in the meantime keep reading this topic for inspiration.

Last time I undertook (And completed) this challenge was about 6 or 7 years ago. (Haven't played a FM game ever since then because I was quite burned out after 150+ years at FC United.) Finally bought 2023 again because I started having that itch again, and of course I want to throw myself into the deep right away with another Youth Only challenge. (Fueled by all the amazing stories here.) I was planning to start in The Netherlands, however it seems that isn't possible anymore, which kinda sucks. (And, I guess that using a Database from steam to enable that isn't allowed either.) So, I thought "Why not start in Belgium then? Kinda the same." However, I've been reading here that there is a big financial bug there. (even though there are a couple of people that managed to fight through that.) Would you advice against anyone starting a Youth Only game in Belgium, or would it only add to the challenge. I don't want to play in a country where the national league becomes a joke after a while (like Wales or Luxemburg.) (Even though the CL challenge in incredible in countries like that.) I still want to have a somewhat challenge in the normal competitions as well. Does anyone have some great recommendations for countries if The Netherlands is not allowed and Belgium not advised.)