The Kids Are Alright: Season 2

Don’t Rock the Boat

As I mentioned previously, this is my second attempt at a ‘Youth Only’ save, the first was with a club in Croatia. In that save, we did not make it out of the 2nd Division, and as a result, the club went semi-professional. 2nd year we got promoted, the owners would not let us go pro, so the 3rd year we barely avoided relegation. 4th year we were still semi pro, and the Youth Intakes had not been good enough yet to produce any wonderkids that could help us, some solid talent but no ‘Good/Great’ Talents, and halfway thru the season, on a losing streak, the owners demanded 9 points from 6 games that included Dinamo Zagreb, Hadkuk Split, Rijeka, Rudes, and Slavan Belupo, and 4 games later I was shown the door. The kicker to all of this was that the club was secure in it’s finances, the decisions to go Semi Pro was made under the hood, and so were the following decisions to not go pro again. Did not being professional hurt us? Not as much as I wanted it to in hindsight, the one thing it really affected was training, as two sessions a week is not and never will be as good as seven sessions a week. And it could be some internal biases at play, but the Romanian Lower Leagues just seem to be more ‘solid’ than the Croatian ones. Then again, with as many lower leagues division as Romania has, maybe they should be.

The goal for this season was to improve on last season. Having finished 5th last season and losing in the Promotion Playoffs, improvement could mean a couple of things:

Finishing higher than 5th and get promoted
Finishing higher than 5th and NOT getting promoted
Finishing 6th and getting promoted.
Finishing 6th and NOT getting promoted.

Seeing how this save is going to take at least a couple of decades, I am OK with any of those results, as long as we finish top 6. What I am looking for this early in the save are continuing solid gameplay by my veteran players, improvement in the youth players, and improving the staff as we go along. Including me, as I currently have no coaching qualifications whatsoever.

CHANGES

We played a 4-3-3 Strikerless season because we had to, I felt that at the time we did not have any good options up top, and while it did the job for us, in that we made the playoffs and weren’t relegated, it lacked offensive punch.

I had a couple of options to play up top, and if we are being honest it was really a choice between “The Evil of Two Lesser’s”. At least that’s what I thought at the time. However, the transfer window hit, and that when things got very interesting.

Eventually losing Coperu and Duma is not a bad thing, as I think I have Youth Replacements for them. Aurel Vlaciu though, is a 19 y/o with 4 star CA and 4 1/2 star PA, and with playing time he will see that last 1/2 star. And for some reason when Gloria Buzău made their offer he not only went for it, when I declined it initially so did the locker room. In a case of “FM being FM” I am pretty sure I will see the full 180K I moved him for, but of course the moment he showed up at Gloria Buzău his value went to €425K – €1.4M. His leaving means one of the current youth players will get their chance.

Also, in looking to see who could replace him, I noticed something in the Romanian Squad rules: As long as a player is under contract, they can play. Yes, the League has a rule that “Only Players Registered for the Competition may play” but right above that? “Domestic Under-22 Players are eligible to play in ALL Matches.” And whats the vast majority of my squad going to be going forward? Domestic Under-22’s.

Competition Registration Problems: Solved.

My Striker Problem: Also Solved, but not really. I am calling it a push.

This is Sabrin Sburlea. 5′ 8″ of UNAMBITIOUS 141 pounds who has potential. Will he ever see it. To quote him “Eh, maybe…”

Red: 1-7 Orange: 8-12 Blue: 13-16 Green: 17-120

His Attacking attributes are very good, and I suspect the ones in Orange are in double digits. His Decision making is also very good, and his Ball Control Attributes are average. Physically, for this level of football, I would say he’s above average except of course in jumping and strength. So why is he UNAMBITIOUS? If there’s one thing holding him back, that is it.

We needed a good start to the season, and we got it:

Sburlea scored in each of the first three games, and our first Liga II loss came against Gloria Buzău, although admittedly it could have been against Viitorul Cluj in the Cupa României Playoff.What stands out to me in all of these games is that with the exception of the Buzău and CSM Reşiţa matches, all of our losses were by 1 goal. Now, Liga II may not be a world class League, but with a couple of exceptions everyone is on a pretty level playing field I think, and that our team of mostly Younger players is doing well is a good sign. Of course, having a solid keeper like Rareş Murariu between the sticks also counts for a lot.

Sometimes ‘Solid but Unspectacular’ is what you need.

To be honest I forget what was happening in January and February, European Cup maybe (?), but we did not have a lot of Liga II games.

The only real heartbreak in this was the Quarter Final Loss to FC Argeş in the Cupa României. We had played them close all game, only to run out of gas in extra time.

Iannis Malama, their young winger, was all over the field, and not only had the two goals, but both assists on the other goals, and a ton of dribbles and progressive passes. He’s the first positional player I have seen ever get a 10.0 in quite a while.

The Youth Intake

One thing I have to constantly remind myself is:

The Level of Football we play at is at best Mid. That is not neccesarily a bad thing.
The quality of person we have at HOYD and coaching is at best, above average at this point in time
While we have better than average facilities, if by some miracle we do get a ‘Copil Minune’, the odds of us holding onto him long term are nil.
The players we have coming in are being judged against who they are joining. 5 star potential is all well and good until you realize the best player on your team, the 5 sta one, may at best be 110 CA…our of 200.

That said, there were no surprises in this years Youth Intake, in fact I thought it was about middle of the road, until I saw the Personalities of the kids we recruited:

Of 16 Recruits, the Personality Breakdown is as follows:

7 Unambitious, including our “Best” Recruit
1 Each of the following:
- Fickle
- Low Determination
- Low Self Belief (It’s been awhile since I have seen this one)
- Fairly Sporting
- Resilient
- Fairly Professional
3 Balanced

That’s…horrible. Now, being Youth Players on a Club that’s in a Youth Only save, they are going to see a lot of game time, and hopefully (and you know what they say about hope) may develop to get close to if not meet their projected PA. But Unambitious, Fickle, Low Determination and Self Belief is not the way to get there…

The Best

If it weren’t for his Personality, Vasile Mihăescu might be very good. As it stands, he may merely be good, but that’s OK. Physically he is already quite solid, like wise Defending where the only area he is lacking is Aggression. His Attacking Attributes are probably what you would expect for this level of football, average at best, although he has good Technique. His Passing, Crossing and First Touch are what will probably convince me to retrain him at DM, although I suspect his role Versatility may come in handy at some point.

If Florin Ilie can overcome his personality traits, I think he can be quite good for this level of Football. Physically speaking, he is quite solid, yes his strength is low but that will come up as he gets older (hopefully). And while 5′ 11″ is by no means short, for a D(C) it is on the small end, which is probably why his Aggression and Bravery are both high. He’s lacking where you would expect all young D(C)’s to lack, Possession attributes, and Finishing Attributes. He will most likely be a started in a few seasons.

Călin Rus looks to be one of those players who will be 16(16) at the end of the season, with a 6.7 rating, a couple of goals and assists, and maybe a player of the match. He can play a number of positions, which makes him valuable in that regard, but we will have to track his progression the next couple of years to see how he grows.

William Brădău is supposed to be a striker. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that all his red attributes are closer to 3 than they are to 7. He has ‘Advanced Forward’ written all over him, expect for you know, the positioning, Stamina, Work Rate, Determination, and his personality. Part of me says that if I were confident his passing, vision and positioning would come anything close to a 10 or better, I could retrain him as an AM(C), maybe an En Ganche, and use him that way, but I rarely play with an AM(C), and I don’t think William will have a lot of double digit attributes when all is said and done.

THE REST

I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but Ilie Brădău bothers me. It’s not that he’s already pretty decent Physically speaking, or that the rest of his attributes really aren’t all that bad considering his a 15 y/o kid at a club with better than decent facilities but only OK coaching, in a country that’s also just OK at producing ‘Good to Great’ talent. He has the potential, heck they all do, but something tell me that in every Youth Intake there’s one player who will look like Tarzan, and play like Jane, and I think he may be the one, I don’t know why though

Of the others, Stanislav Sporin has a good Physical foundation to build on, but his Attacking and Possession have to increase for him to even be a starter.

Andrei Codrea could also be a contributor at some point down the road as well if his Attacking and Possession attributes improve, but I suspect many of them are going to stay in the red, or that the ones I need him to improve won’t.

Eusebiu Voicu is probably the one from this group that is worth really keeping an eye on. 6′ 4″, 163 pounds at 15 (!) what sets him apart from the others is that in many of the areas where they are bad, he is merely average, which means his floor is higher than theirs, and he will be able to contribute sooner rather than later. Add in that he can play any of the attacking midfield positions and he becomes even more valuable to the squad. In this years intake, I bet he will see the field more than others initially, the rest depends on development.

As Youth Keepers go, nothing really stands out about Denis Sbenghea other than his reflexes and Handling. He is going to need a lot of playing time, but to be honest I am not sure if he can get it here, which means going out on loan. And if he disappoints there…

If Teofil Stoian had any sort of ‘Average” or better Personality, I think he could be one of the better players in this Intake. especially as he can player either side of the defensive backlines. That said, I think what we see of him now is what we will have in a couple of years as well.

So, the Liga II Playoff are the top 6 teams, and they play every other team twice. The teop 2 teams are automatically promoted to Liga I, 3rd and 4th Place go to the Liga I/ Liga II playoffs. Interestingly, because of how the rules work, you can finish 1st in the Playoffs, but not with the League Overall.

We did OK until the Unrea Dej game, when a late penalty gave them the win, against Petrolul Ploesti the whole team did their best to lose, the average as like 6.4; we had 3 shots to their 10, we should have lost. We also should have lost to FC Argeş, but thanks to a 90th minute goal by Avrămescu we didn’t, we merely drew, which was enough for us to finish 4th in the Playoff group.

Our opponents were Politehnica Iași, who finished 12th in the league overall, but 7th in the Relegation Group. A Decent squad, with a couple of good players, they beat us at home 1-0. We needed some help to get by, and we did, in the form of Rareş Murariu

A Matiş goal answered their first goal, then Avrămescu scored to equalize the aggregate, and it was off to extra time. He scored again in the 98th minute, but Anghel equalized for Iași in the 105th minute, and it was off to PK’s. Turcoveanu kicked it right to a waiting Murariu, and then with their last chance Ilie kicked it wide and Murariu blocked it.

We are going to Liga I…

The squad as a whole was solid, there really weren’t any standouts:

Matiş’s 10 goals led the way, Sburlea also had 10, and Vlaicu had 5, butt he oddity to me anyways is Bassong’s 10 assists from the D(L) side. The Candian International was solid, but he’s also been making noise about moving on. There were a couple of surprises in the best XI:

Two of last years Intake, Niculcea and Simedru, became full time starters frankly because they were better than the other options I had at those positions, and both had very good seasons to improve on.

On the business side of things, we improved a little:

And financially we are doing very well:

The nice thing about a lot of players on Youth Contracts or First contracts is that the payroll will most likely never exceed 60% of whats available, likewise as we aren’t spending any transfer money, there’s not a lot to worry about there.

Our chances next season? Not good. We will definitely be in the Relegation Group. What we need to do is finish high enough that we aren’t part of the the automatic drop of the playoffs, and I don’t how possible that is. Another decent Youth Intake certainly wont hurt either.

And the fun keeps coming. Thanks for Reading!

The Kids Are Alright -Season 1

Laying the foundation, one brick at a time…

There are a couple of different ways to start a save in my opinion, but choosing which route to take when it’s your first day is dependent on one thing. That one thing however, is comprised of multiple parts, because why wouldn’t it be? And what is that one thing?

Finances.

You could be the biggest team in the world, yet your financial situation might so so bad that making wholesale changes might not be possible. And what goes into that financial equation? Club Reputation, Where you are, salary limits…Now, I understand the urge is great to come in, clear house, and hire the best talent you can, but what if the best talent you can hire is no better than, or possible even worse than, the people you just let go. So, my advice, in a long terms save, don’t make wholesale changes across the board right away. Pick and choose, because your immediate priority isn’t assembling the best coaching and back room staff you can, it’s avoiding relegation, or staying up, or getting promoted. Once you’ve achieved that goal, then you can start making bigger changes.

Lucky for me all I have do do is worry about the coaching staff. Unlucky for me, the ones I have are not good, but the spot’s I have to fill I think we can get some good suggestion for. An Assistant Coach, 2 Coaches and a Set Piece Coach later, our coaching staff it…well, bad, but not the worst:

Attributes: Red is 1-7, Orange is 8-12, Blue is 13-16, Green is 17-20

AS HOYD’s go, Daniel Mahu Moisii is pretty decent for this level of Football:

I tend to be agnostic when it comes to formations, I know what I prefer, but I also know I am not going to try and fit a square peg into a round hole and play a high tempo high line gegenpressing when I don’t have the squad for it. But the squad is actually, and I am not sure why I am typing this, pretty decent, except in one position, Striker:

This is the senior squad, at the end of the season, because like a numpty I didn’t take one at the beginning of the season, but it’s a good mix of solid older players and youngsters with potential.

Transfers I am a bit conflicted on this first season. The rules on the forum are that if your board brings in a player you have to sell him, but the game had already signed Răzvan Matiş, and try as I might, he didn’t want to be sold, and the board wouldn’t let me release him. I’ll try again next season. Emil Pancu was sold to FCSB, but they offered a loan back, and I took it. My logic on this is that he was already part of the squad, and wasn’t someone I actively went looking for, and he’s going to be leaving in six months, so I treated it like a pending transfer.

The Pundits picked us to finish 16th. I think we can finish top half, with an outside chance of finishing top 6. That will get us to the Playoff, and after that who knows what could happen?

As you can see, we got off to a quick start, with 13 points out of our first seven league games. And we did it by using a concept I rarely play with: Strikerless. This was necessary, because we have no good options up top, and I am loathe to experiment to much the first season, especially with youngsters. So I ended up using this formation almost all season:

It was a pretty solid formation for us. We gave up 2 or more goals only three times the first half of the season, and won two of those games, one a 5-3 victory and the other a 3-2 victory. In fact, in my opinion the only let down the first half of the season was our performance in the Cupa României Betano. I attribute most of our struggle there to depth, because you can see in September in October, we had a lot of games, and as I am more concerned with staying up than winning the cup, for many of those games I played a fairly rotated side, but that gave the youngsters some playing time, and that’s not a bad thing either. I think we did a respectable job, even if we finished 5th in the Group:

After a winter break, the season started up again, and we finished strong, finding our way into 6th place, grabbing the last spot in the promotion group.

Before that kicks off though, we had the Youth Intake:

I’ll be honest, this intake is a bit confusing. My ‘Best’ candidate is Goran Simedru, a 3 star current 5 star Potential player who is UNAMBITIOUS? I can’t make sense of that.

The Best

In Addition to being Unambitious, Simedru is 5′ 9”, can’t pass, and is injury prone. Something tells me he’s not going to get much better than this…

Darius Niculcea is quick and pacy, with a good work rate as well. Skills wise he’s Average at passing and crossing, but I think with his personality he will have the ability to meet his potential.

Octavian Ciobanu is probably good enough to start for us now. Physically not the best (but the stamina helps) he has good marking and tackling skills, is a good decision maker, and his technique isn’t too bad either. The fact he is also 5’9″ and has no bravery means he will most likely be the person crossing the ball, not jumping up in the scrum for it.

The Potentials

Tiberiu Alexandru may end up being the best player of the bunch. He will probably be the first too see a lot of playing time, because I have no idea how or if I can hold onto my current keeper. The only thing about Alexandru is his potential ability, but I think with a decent amount of game time he will improve quickly.

As a Defensive Mid, Milan Precupanu is already pretty decent, average defending attributes, Decision Making, Good Technique and Fitness. The injury proneness is a concern, but him being Fairly Professional should help his development.

From a Physical Point of View, Bogdan Stancu is already a pretty good Wingback for this level of competition. But the Unambitious personality is giving me chest pains, hopefully sticking him in a good mentoring group will help him grow out of that.

At first glance Ciprian Bălan doesn’t look like much. But look down, and you will see a 5’6″ Temperamental teenager who has good (13+ already) Technique, Passing and Flair, is very Brave (In a Fight in the Dog sort of way), and will most likely get good enough Physically to be a first teamer by the time he’s 18. If he can last that long.

Horea Ursan a bit…well, to be honest, if he does meet his 5 Star PA we won’t be able to keep him, and that’s fine, but something just seems…off. I can’t explain it, why would a 6’3″ 165 pound 16 year old who is Physically Solid, solid defensively and with OK Composure, Decision Making with an OK Personality send the negative waves? I don’t know, but I think the 5 star PA for him is a chimera…

Outside Looking In

Of the two ‘fringe’ players, Marius Marinescu has the best chance of being decent, and I say that not only because he is a Realist whose Flair, Off the Ball, Technique and First Touch are already decent, but when adding in the good Finishing and Determination, but because when you look at Robert Păunescu, while he is physically more gifted, Skills wise he is very, very lacking. I think he will not get much better than where his physicals are now, but by the time he’s ready for first team ball we need to see some improvement.

All things considered, not a bad youth intake. There are a couple of kids there with some potential to be full time first teamers for sure.

We did a very good job in the Playoffs:

What helped us was that everyone else was beating up on everyone else as well, and when it was all said and done we finished in 4th place, good enough to meet Universitatea Cluj in the Liga I/Liga II playoffs:

We did Well enough to hold them to a 1-1 draw the first game, but in the away game, their quality showed, and they beat us 4-2 on aggregate.

It was a very good season, one in which the team can be very proud in how they did. We stayed financially solid, we have a ton of payroll to work with, now is the time to jettison some of the backroom deadweight we have, and when I tell the boys (and they are mostly boys) I’m aiming for a midtable finish they all pitch a fit, I am placing too much on their shoulders.

Well, the good news is the offseason is only about 3 weeks long, and I see a lot of windsprints, burpees, and running up hills until they agree with me in our future.

But it is a good start.

Thanks for Reading!

The Kids Are Alright -Season 0

“Copiii sunt în regulă”

I like scouting. I like developing youth players, I like taking a clubs from the lower levels to the highest possible, and having fun on the way.

But what if we took away Scouting? What if we went youth only? In a country with a rich football history, with some interesting teams to compete against? And could we make it slightly harder on ourselves?

Why yes, yes we can!

First and foremost, these are the rules we are using for this save:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/578526-the-fm24-youth-academy-challenge/

As you can see, from one of the posts further down a user has kindly generated a spreadsheet about what countries these saves have been done in, and which were successful, and which weren’t.

What I did was load up the Random Spinning Wheel of Doom with all the countries that have been played but haven’t won, and spun.

I got Croatia. The save lasted four years before I was sacked. NK Karlovac 1919 didn’t get promoted the first year, the club went semi professional the next year, and when we did get promoted, the still refused to go semi pro, all the good players left, leaving me a roster full of potential to face the likes of Dinamo, Hajduk Split, Rijeka…It’s four years of FM I will never get back, and frankly I don’t want to. It was horrible. Very Horrible. My Therapists says it will be OK. Someday…

After a short break, I went back to the Random Spinning Wheel of Doom, deleted Croatia, and rolled again. This time it was Romania. I created a manager, vacationed a year, and thought, this will be fun, there are some pretty interesting teams down in Liga III that will make for a fun save and…Liga III isn’t playable?

PBKAC error? Bug? Feature? I am not sure. So I went up to the second Tier or Romanian Football, the Liga 2 Casa Pariurilor, to see what teams had been promoted, and lo and behold:

SSU Politehnica Timişoara, which is short for Societatea Sportivă Universitară Politehnica Timişoara.

Now, Eastern European Football has been…interesting since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the trials and tribulations of the teams in the Liga Profesionistă de Fotbal make for some good reading. The club itself has had a bunch of different names, but its affiliation with one of Romania’s best Technical Schools has never changed, and the Institute remains the teams majority owner. You can read about the history of the club here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSU_Politehnica_Timi%C8%99oara

But the club has a few things going it it’s favor. The coach is not one of them. Meet Marius Țepeș, no direct relation to Vlad:

No Coaching badges, no skills to speak of, but a well worn and highly notated copy of ‘Inverting the Pyramid’ in his messenger bag. In his favor though, the club is pretty well set up for this sort of challenge:

I am pretty sure the Youth Facilities and Recruitment are a byproduct of being affiliated with the school, IE “Valentin, I see you kick ball very well and are top student in Organic Chemistry. Have you thought about your future? Do you like the color purple?”

Now, with regards to the ‘Can we make it slightly harder on ourselves’ part I mentioned earlier, I use the Mustermann Skin. It’s Brilliant, I love it even if it doesn’t have numbers. But, taking a page from GIMN’s book, I’ve disabled the ‘Player Search’ and ‘Staff Search’ buttons on the Staff Page:

Because I am not scouting at all this save (happy thoughts, safe happy thoughts….) that’s not as big a deal as disabling the staff search button. This means I cannot go out and find the best coaches all over the world and bring them to the club, I have to reply on those who arerecommended during the course of the save.

The other thing I have done is change the attribute ranges. This is Milan Precupanu, you’ll meet him in full later:

Not too bad for a 15 year old DM, but when you consider the following attribute spread

1-7 is Bad, in RED.
8-12 is Average, in ORANGE.
13-16 is Good, in BLUE.
17-20 is Excellent, in GREEN.

It makes a bit more interesting to work with. This method also means I have to pay a little closer attention to how the improve over the course of the save via the Development -> Attributes section, as opposed to the spreadsheet method I have used in the past.

This is going to be a long save, and the first few seasons are going to go by quickly. I am positive we can get promoted and stay up no problem, the issue is going to be the quality of our intakes, and what we can do to influence that.

Romania itself is interesting IMO, it’s got a very good game reputation, but it’s Youth Rating isn’t the highest:

And there are 26 other teams with a Facilities Rating at least as good as ours and better:

The club we are trying to emulate is FCV Farul Constanţa, the result of a merger between Gheoghe Hagi’s club Viitorul Constanţa and Ciprian Maricas Farul Constanţa, whose youth development is one of the best in Southeastern Europe. Not only have they been winning Liga 1 titles, they have been developing and selling some very good players, Louis Munteneau and Adrian Mazilu to name a couple. They’ve got money and European appearances to help, and if that wasn’t enough we also have the traditional Romanian powerhouses to face of with as well, FCBS, Craiova, Cluj…

We’ve out work cut out for us, but I feel confident about this one. More confident than I did about the Croatia save, that’s for sure.

Up next, a look at the first seasons, as we try and build the foundation for future success.

Thanks for reading!