Ceching You Out

I'm not quite sure what I'm doing, but this feels like it couldn't hurt? EDIT: Turns out I was too ambitious in selecting a Belgian club and now I have to wait to ask again.

We slowly drifted out of contention towards the back end of the "regular" season, and continued that way in the Relegation Stage. Things weren't quite clicking and that was okay. Relegation was off the table and so were European spots. Until we found a bit of form in our last few games after a tactical tweak. So we entered the last two match weeks knowing that we'd jump into a playoff spot if Blau-Weiss or Altach dropped points and we won out. No luck in the first set of matches, so Altach was essentially through with a GD we couldn't touch in even one (lopsided) game. We play at home versus an already-relegated Tirol; Blau-Weiss play Poelten. I'm expecting Ws on both sides. But no score updates from Blau-Weiss. We can't score before half, hitting the post twice and creating solid xG. But in silver linings, still no updates from the other match. Minute 55 Tirol floats a cross into the box. Our normally reliable GK runs from his line to catch it. He does not find himself even in the same postage code when it's headed into the empty net behind him. It's the worst team in the league. The league! We're not out of this yet. Minute 69 our hotshot wide forward (30b) Wagner, an overperformer for most of the season, chops down a Blau-Weiss player from behind. Penalty. They convert. Now I'm beginning to get a little worried. A lot worried. We huff and we puff and we... get nothing. (27g) Emmerling has quite possibly the worst game in his career, spurning easy chances and finishing with a 6.2 rating. Poelten beat Blau-Weiss on a late PK. Joy. That sequence of events does sum up our season nicely. We played well in spurts, but never really put it all together. And even when things broke our way, we weren't shy about shooting ourselves in the foot. Time to do some serious thinking about who we sign to new deals versus who we try to cash in on. This last batch of youth make me think that upgrading our youth facilities could be important - that's going to take a shovel-full of money from a pile that's already dwindled back to $600k before season end. Open Questions How will our loan experiment play out when it comes to selling this summer? Is it worth trying to "flip" players for cash given where we're at? There are a couple of Vaduz players finishing their contracts that are good not great and fairly close to their potential Can we generate enough cash to fund next year and safely upgrade Youth Facilities? How high are we willing to adjust our wage structure to resign, say, Otto? He's not the only one.

Our worst "regular" season in the top flight so far, finishing 9th and heading to the Relegation Stage. We did not fair well in the second half of the season, partly because of Backhaus' departure and partly because of a plethora of new contract requests that make little sense (from a club perspective).

Not very good. Not very good at all. Okay maybe that's an exaggeration, but it definitely feels like a step backward.

Let's see how this plays out. Five out of five stars, would order again. EDIT: This might derail it? Out of my hands then. I think he turns it down unless they back up a dump truck of money... which they might. EDIT x2: It did not. More than a little annoyed he stayed in our league after all that interest from elsewhere. At least that solves our current financial crisis, taking us from $2.4M in the red to $2.7 in the positive.

year Strangely enough, the games align this year despite 5 sides playing in League Phases (1 CL, 3 EL, 1 EC). I think that's part of the struggles for Rapid and Vienna. Surprise leader at this point with Wolfsberger; I have a hard time believing they're for real. We're in the mix yet again and it would not be surprising to see things yet again hinge on a point here or there, or even GD.

We are now in the middle of a very interesting transfer window since (1) we don't have any obvious players I want to sell for significant money, but (2) we need to sell at least one player for significant money or risk bad behavior by our Board. Many clubs from the middle- and bottom- of top leagues are nosing around Backhaus, with a few of the same taking a look at (27g) Emmerling plus Altach and LASK domestically. Thankfully neither has any interest in those actually inquiring so I've been able to highball and not fret the rejections. I am a little unsure if I should be selling one of these two, either now or in January. We'd be undeniably worse for it but if we need to sell it may be better to do it on our terms. Another wrinkle - Backhaus has a $5.25M release clause. He's just about it worth it. Would it be better to sell him for just under it and bolster it with clauses? For the moment I'm sitting tight on both until the end of the summer transfer window to see what plays out. (26h) Bertl does end up getting sold by PSV in the very next transfer window. I briefly had the chance to cash in the sell-on here for <$30K so I did not. Looks like we'll receive nothing additional there (although that was expected from the beginning), but the solidarity fee is a nice cherry. I also briefly had a chance to cash in (26f) Voigt's 50% sell-on clause for $514K and passed. We only sold for for $400K so that means the breakeven is $1.4M-ish. I have a hard time believing he's sold for that; however the option to sell went away. Wait! A month later it's back! Now for $570K. Decent chance it reappears later for another few thousand higher? Nah, I think we'll take it. Gets us back to essentially zero with the fee above. I've also sent 6 players on loan to the First Division for the first time. (28f) Altwicker is the only one with high enough potential to have a shot at the first team, but in a perfect world the other 5 raise their value for sales.

Fell behind on updates here, but that had a lot to do with there being very little noteworthy happening in our Championship Stage. We briefly had a shot to catch Sturm Graz or Vienna but never truly were in it. No excuse of injuries this time either. Fascinating! He has 6 caps for Liechtenstein already so must feel like he's still eligible to switch and good enough.

Started poking around because Altach has once again fallen behind on matches and this is very interesting. Vaduz had previously won promotion to the top Swiss League and have turned into a great side with a great deal of money (judging by the contracts their players on). Which is of course great for Liechtenstein, but bad for me poaching any players.

Heading into the last two matches we controlled our own destiny - we're 6th on 26 points, LASK a point behind us. We play bottom of the table, recently promoted Poelten and then 2nd Rapid. LASK has Altach (5th) and Blau-Weiss Linz (11th). After all the points thrown away, an expected win for us and a loss for LASK clinches a return to the Championship Stage. We do this: Missed penalty, early goal, domination... then concede a goal in stoppage time. Against the worst team in the league with a spot in the Championship Stage nearly in our grasp. LASK then draws against Altach. We're still a point ahead heading into the last match week, but you'd expect LASK to walk away with all three points against an opponent that's been struggling all season. For some reason the final round of matches don't all start at the same time, and the expected happens. Now we've got to beat Rapid away. In the 73' (30b) Wagner, the 16 year old, smashes a shot from the edge of the box that evades the keeper but not the crossbar, deflecting up and all the way to the far wing. Otto scoops up the ball, finds (26b) Michaud standing on the six yard box for a tap-in. We've got a lead. Can we hold it for once? Barely. So very barely. Stoppage time sees (23*) Dankert deflects wide Rapid's own chance from inside our six yard box. Relegation is now firmly off the table. Any chance at European competitions are an unlikely bonus.

Not quite the top end of last year, but 6 players 125+ PA is a very, very good floor (if that's indeed what this is). Most of those CAs are high enough that their PA is still possible. Pretty happy about their position spread too. Interestingly enough, we've got our first non-Liechtenstein player come through in (31b) Geylani. I've always loved that in previous saves, but since bolstering the national team is one of my end goals it's a little bittersweet here. I may sign everyone with 90+ PA just to fill out my U18s, even though 100ish PA is already becoming a long-shot to get much developmental time with our first team.

In lieu of an actual retrospective after we'd gone through our first part of home-and-away, let's check in on the 2/3ish point. Games played still haven't aligned; I'm assuming that has something to with European ties. Yup, that's it - leagues phases for Rapid and Sturm Graz in the EL and Altach in the EC. Strangely RB in the CL league phase is unaffected. Overall those are great results, to be honest. Especially since I do have other major leagues loaded. Mixed messages in this table. We started off poorly (negative) but really didn't fall behind (positive) in the table. We dropped points after the 88th minute 4(!) times, 2 wins becoming losses and 2 draws becoming losses (negative). Anti-clutch is not a trait I'm trying to cultivate, although I suppose I can't complain about our very young team falling apart a bit as legs tire. If we'd held on to those 6 points we're easily in the top half...

Next international break, check. Both kinds at that. Another 3 appearances and we'll get another $300k too, which would take the total to $4.9M. If we could sell that sell-on clause now... EDIT: Not until April but the check still clears Note: we never did find a spot near the halfway mark of the "regular season" where teams had played close to the same amount of games. Bizarre. So we're just plowing right ahead. To the youth preview, for the moment. These have been very low information value so far, so I'm not going to get overly excited. But wide midfielders and centerbacks would have topped my list of requests. And the letter grades certainly have improved? Five out of five stars, as always.

(28j) Ahrent is 76 CA / 107 PA @ 18 is not one I'd planned on selling. He's in line for spot game time at most. Given our sales for similar players, I think the ceiling if we held off a year is ~$500k anyway. He probably won't hit that with these clauses, but is close enough to give our bank account a boost now. I hemmed and hawed on this one. Selling (26h) Bertl leaves us incredibly thin on the wings. $4.3M covers our deficit for almost two years though, and I think both the clauses here are reasonable. I'd also love if our Board negotiates a cash-in on the % profit since there's little chance that's will pay anything. He's a handsomely paid fringe player. (25b) Draxler replaces him in our starting line-up and now we'll be leaning even heavier on our bright young 16 year olds for rotation. I don't love that, but the deciding question in my mind was - are we more at risk of the Board selling one of our great players over my head this season if we keep (26h) Bertl or getting relegated if we sell? Our bank balance would be headed for ~$3M in the hole by the end of the season. Since I'm not in love with the player, especially his vertical challenges, he heads to the Netherlands and this turns into more of a "hang on" than "push on" season for us. The last of our departures, which unfortunately stretched into early September. I'd hoped to have moved him long ago for about 2x this amount, but (25a) Klinger had no interest in leaving until the window had closed for most leagues on September 1st. I contemplated keeping him until January to bring in additional money. In the end, we've got solid money from the transactions above so my greater concern is an influential player destabilizing the dressing room while he waits for a move. So at the end of all that, our finances look a bit better. We'll almost certainly finish the year in the black even without further sales, although I wouldn't bank on a balance greater than $1M at that point.

First time we've had a player show up on this list. Moving on up in the world, I guess.

Left money on the table here though. I'd checked with his agent on interest in mid-June and he'd suggested $1.7M was possible, but that had dried up by the time we hit July. Should've just pulled the trigger earlier - lesson learned.

Someone's going to feel very foolish when they realize they didn't double check their Excel formulas. This is very much not true.

In the midst of all that analysis, Sturm Graz launched this offer: It would solve our money problems... but if he's not interested I'm actually happy to wait. We're very reliant on his goals for now; I'd strongly prefer selling other players. Similar story for (26e) Blumenstock, except the money is worse and we have even less options for replacing him. An even easier pass, but I'm beginning to think we might get A LOT of transfer interest this summer.

State of FC Liechtenstein - 2030 (continued) Strikers Last but not least, our strikers. (27g) Emmerling is the undisputed man. (30b) Wagner is a great addition from this last intake and will immediately become backup; (27j) Doering served that role last year and was out of his depth (although did grow 10 points). (28i) Ahrent and (29c) Adamczyk are potentially worth some game time to see if they're worth selling next summer. Thoughts: (27g) Emmerling looks set to lead the line for us for a couple years. I think (30b) Wagner may train as an AML or AMR to give us a better dev option to sink minutes into, plus make sure he gets enough time. I'll likely test the market on (27j) Doering to open up the 3rd spot on the depth chart for the others. Overall Some observations, in no particular order: We're okay in defense, strong in the center of the park, light on the outside forwards, and solid up front I'd like for us to move towards being a more physical side - taller, faster, stronger. This clashes with some of the potential we've got, especially (26h) Bertl and (30f) Ainoeder Potential sell list: (27d) Sirch, (25a) Hasan, (27j) Doering. That's probably not enough. (26h) Bertl is actually tempting to add to the list if needed, but that only exacerbates our challenges I'll need to keep an eye on our 100-110 PA players since they're starting to stack up but likely depth at best. Ideally they become sales fodder but not sure if we'll provide enough dev time for it to work in practice Trying to put a bow on all this, I think the next goals for this save are: Create a stable financial model and build our bank account (i.e., figure out who/how to sell just the right amount). Maybe even be a little conservative on the remaining facility upgrades to maintain control of transfers Qualify for Europe - not that far out of reach. Within a few years I think we'll be decent value for qualifying for group stages Challenge for the domestic title - going to take a lot to beat Red Bull Salzburg

State of FC Liechtenstein - 2030 (continued) Outside Forwards/Wingers In stark contrast, here's the least interesting (and worst) group we've got. Otto is our captain, starting for us for the second year. Previously he'd been paired with a loaned-back (26a) Behm, but that's over after returning to Vienna (and drawing light interest from Ligue 1). (26h) Bertl likely steps into the starting line-up now but the 5'4" sparkplug has been most effective as an impact sub to date. Slim pickings beyond that - (29a) Feidel saw some action towards the end of last season but hardly developed. The rest are places we might be able to dev and sell but there's likely no future with us. (27c) Huber is a failure story for us, unable to change his awful personality and so he's stagnated. Thoughts: Otto and (26h) Bertl, I guess. Shop window for (29a) Feidel, (29g) Oswald, (28a) Daudin with an eye to selling next summer. Maybe throw (28h) Eberle and (30d) Allmannsberger on that list. Does (25b) Draxler move back here? Should I revisit potential transfer targets knowing how weak we are here? Do I have a better prospect I want to retrain here? No, no, and maybe, I think.

State of FC Liechtenstein - 2030 (continued) Midfielders (CM & AMC) Here's probably the most fascinating area of our team. Last season we started with (25b) Draxler as a Mezzala and (27h) Disler as a DLP with (26b) Michaud at AMC. The former has been a consistent gap-filler in whatever role is needed, even previously playing on the wings for us. The latter two played out of their skins, which was not a surprise for (26b) Michaud given he's been one of our top players for at least two seasons. (27h) Disler stepped in to the starting line up to replace (24b) Nickel (who we'd banished to Sweden). (27e) Stenzel covered either CM role and (27h) Disler pushed into AMC when needed, but frankly there was little rotation. (28f) Altwicker was mostly a garbage time sub but has a decent personality and upside. (29b) Doepke is deeper in our pipeline but is probably worth enough game time to put him in the shop window. And then you have our three brand new additions - (30a) Schmadtke at AMC, (30c) Eckmeyer as a more defensive CM, and Amelia as a more attacking CM or AMC. For the former two it will be a question of when and how much they see the field, not if. Thoughts: (26b) Michaud remains the starter at AMC. I think we may begin the year with (25b) Draxler and (27h) Disler in central midfield, but with the expectation that they'll become rotation players once the two young hot shots grow into the team just a little more. (27e) Stenzel could still see time here but I think he's going to be more needed in defense depending on sales. (27f) Altwicker and (29b) Doepke will need a few spot appearances to see how develop for the playmaker/a more attacking role. If I'm going to sell anyone here, it's probably (25b) Draxler and I'm not sure he's going to garner enough interest to make it worth it between the contract he signed last year and being so close to his relatively low PA ceiling; I'll probably at least dangle him though.

Any time. Not flattery to say I needed a refresher on the parts of the game I love the most - youth and development - and I found it aplenty in your threads. I also greatly appreciate seeing your methods and stealing elements that align with how I like to play the game. There's a lot to be said for finding the parts of FM that bring you joy and focusing on that. Glad you're enjoying the ride. We've definitely accelerated faster than I expected from the "bottoming out" season, but youth development has the potential to do that once you've got the foundation in place. I'm curious myself how we'll strike the balance between generating --> developing --> reaping the benefits of the high caliber players we're starting to produce in the top division. The national team really ought to see a huge lift either way, but club level is TBD. All the major leagues are loaded so I'm not quite sure how aggressive their transfer behavior will get and how much say control I'll be able to exert. Good reminder that it'd be interesting to recap our contributions to the national team and how they're faring!

State of FC Liechtenstein - 2030 (continued) Outside Backs (25a) Klinger is a retrained DM playing as a right-sided IWB(s); (26c) Uhlig is our left-sided WB(s). Outside of those two I've got a universal concern - all our DR/DL are tiny. Seriously, like Jumping Reach 4-6. Not what I'm looking for so. (28c) Vanni has been our backup this last year and developed well with a solid personality. (30f) Ainoeder has an even better upside and personality. (29d) Schmied is retraining here (as mentioned in the section above). The two new 2030 intake players are sale opportunities since I'm hoping the high CA leads them to overrate how much room they have for growth. Thoughts: (25a) Klinger doesn't have the best personality and is influential, wants a new contract, and isn't that far off his ceiling. Plus we've got a lot of potential in the pipeline behind him. It's likely time to sell and see if some combination of players can step up. Should/could (30f) Ainoeder be retrained as a more defensive CM? (26c) Uhlig holds down the other side as our vice-captain. I love that we have quality here but not that it doesn't fit our style. I don't see the mid- to long-term answer here that I'd fight to hang on to. This looks more like a list of players we want to develop and sell in succession - (25a) Klinger this summer, (28c) Vanni as soon as we have (30f) Ainoeder ready behind him (likely next summer). (30g) Kasper and (30e) Hunziker are candidates for spot minutes to cash in on in the next 1-2 years.

State of FC Liechtenstein - 2030 (continued) The Squad - bottom up Let's take a quick spin through position by position to see where we are and what the immediate future looks like. I want to do this before I sell anyone in the summer transfer window. Goalies Incredibly easy place to start. (26e) Blumenstock is the clear starter while (23*) Broemer is the backup since he never kicked on. I'd be open to letting the latter go, except he's not worth anything and we do need some kind of backup. Thoughts: no changes needed. If we did lose one of these two, I think there's a Vaduz keeper who might be worth evaluating. No dev pipeline considerations, Central Defenders Backhaus is our best here, with (23*) Dankert our longest serving; those two paired last season to decent effect. (27d) Sirch started in our promotion season after retraining from DM (before Backhaus joined). (27e) Stenzel is a bit of a wildcard and likely someone worth discussing at the end given his positional flux. (27k) Hartmann tore his ACL last season, but otherwise was on the fringes of the first team. (29d) Schmied is/could be a solid development opportunity but his personality has only just started to turn around. He's also 5'10" with a Jumping Reach of 6 so he's retraining to play as an outside back since further training apparently can't improve it. The rest are deep youth players. Thoughts: (27d) Sirch just about pips (23*) Dankert as the 2nd starter but the upside isn't all that extensive. Personalities are a wash and (23*) Dankert has the ability to mentor the edge off some of the worst personalities we receive. Beyond that we're light, but since we're looking for someone to sell I could see whoever is third choice being on the trade block. It might be (27d) Sirch if his transfer value is really that high; maybe the AI sees his growth curve and thinks there's a lot more there in terms of PPA. (27k) Hartmann would step in as the 3rd DC, a bit more than he's ready for. But he's got a solid personality and is close enough that I think he'd quickly get into the 90s CA range (and no longer be a liability if called into action). Of the rest, maybe (29h) Walser is worth keeping an eye on for a rare appearance. (28g) Pavoni, (28m) Adler, and (29l) Andreas seem unlikely to grow into the range where they'd be worth developing to sell (much less actually play for us) based on current CA, personality, and PA ceiling.

State of FC Liechtenstein - 2030 (continued) The Tactic This will be brief, since I'm far less in the tactical weeds than I have been in past saves. I'm not doing anything revolutionary, although I am finding joy in a more general tactic that requires less specialization. That's not to say each player will take on a role the exact same way (in fact I'd expect there's a ton of variation depending on who slots in where), but the heavy use of generic, supporting roles minimizes points of failure. The whole thing doesn't fall apart just because we don't have an Enganche or False 9 or what-have-you. Most of this tactic will likely remain the same for those reasons, plus I don't think it's currently holding us back. However, the two CM roles do change somewhat often to fit our best, available partnership. Usually it's a DLP plus a slightly more covering role like Mezzala or BWM. I'll probably revisit the CM roles for next season after looking at the squad. The Squad - top down I don't often spend the time to thoroughly hash out a development plan for the next season. You'll find much better inspiration on that topic from @Jimbokav1971 and @_Ben_! But I usually have a good feel for my top 2-3 players in a position and just run with it, adjusting as needed along the way. We're, however, entering territory where I need an improved, holistic view because selling decisions over the next few years will likely dwarf everything else in terms of importance. Do we have someone to step in to the hole if we sell? Should we be thinking early about retraining someone? Is there a reasonable pathway to more development/exposure or is it time to sell? As you move through that list (and ask other challenging questions), you need an increasingly better understanding of the squad today. By true PA (not PPA): By CA (not PCA): For reference, predicted-2nd Rapid has CAs from 95 to 137 with the bulk of their players in the 120s. Vienna, predicted 3rd is about the same. Sturm Graz predicted 4th is similar to the previous two just shifted down by ~10 points. In a nutshell, we're overmatched there for now and that's excluding the big dog RB. But once you get into the next tranche of clubs Altach, LASK, Wolfsberger, etc. we're competitive. If we want to win a title we'll need more players at 125+ CA. In fact I'd hazard a guess that we'll have a pretty good idea how we'll stack up in the league just by how many of those players we can field.