The Kids Are Alright -Season 6

I am not too worried about this…yet…

One of the thoughts lingering in the back of my mind since the start of the save is “What if we become to successful to soon?” In many saves this isn’t something to worry about, but in a Youth Save (for many teams anyways), it is because if you are at a smaller club, when you get good Youth players who perform very well early in their careers, teams with more, be it reputation, money, and the like, will come calling for them. And they will leave, because despite the fact you are a brilliant Head Coach, the clubs has good facilities, good finances, and a growing reputation, you do not have the name, brand, continental or worldwide recognition and reputation to keep those players local. Case in point: Darius Niculcea. Perhaps the best player from the ’25 Youth Intake, he was forced into the starting XI for a variety of reasons, and he performed very well. So well that Napoli came and offered us €500K. And since he’s left, he sat on the bench for a year, and then went on loan for half a season to Bari, where he was OK. Would he have been better of staying here for another year or two? Maybe.

But my point, and I swear I am getting to it, is that really good young players who leave early hurt the club more than they help. We need to be winning, we need Continental competition games not for the money, financially we are on very solid ground:

but we need the to increase our stature in the game. This leads to a cycle of good youth players coming in, helping the team to succeed, then leaving while their replacements may not be as good as they are. As a result, a short, rapid rise to small success becomes a long, slow gradual increase to modest success, and then glacial progress to great success.

This is going to be a long save I think, unless the FM Gods smile upon us and gift us not only with great Intakes, but great success as well. I don’t believe we have had a ‘Great” Intake yet (I don’t care what the game says) but we have had some good ones, and some good, solid players have started to shine. Like Marin Neagu, Class of ’28.

The one thing that has worked in our favor is that our success has allowed us to recruit better domestic based coaches, and our success, and lack of player related expenditures, has left us with healthy finances and a board willing to spend some of that money on things we need. Like a new stadium, which we should be moving into the summer of ’30. And Facilities Improvements:

My goal this season was to finish around 8th. There are a couple of reasons for this:

It avoids a Relegation Fight.
It outs us near the top of the Relegation Group.

Why is this important? Because in Liga I 7th thru 16th go into the Relegation Group. In that 10 team group, 9th and 10th are automatically relegated. 7th and 8th go to a Liga I/Liga II Playoff.

And 1st and 2nd Play for European Football:

The winner qualifies for the Final:

And because of the whole “Half Points, then Full Points, etc rules, you end up with tables like this:

It’s possible to finish 1st in ‘Overall’ points, but now ‘Win’ the League.

Yes, it makes my head hurt too…But the goal is “Mid Table”, in that we finish high enough in the relegation group to challenge for European Football. I Can just hear my first talk of the locker room.

“OK, we want to be good, but not too good, and by that I also mean we can’t be too bad either. OK? Sparkling Mediocrity, that’s what we are aiming for this season, got it?”

I think they listened a little bit too well.

I don’t know that I could get those results again if I tried. And it’s not like we were playing for the draw either, a few of those games we had to come back from a deficit. Răzvan Matiş is turning into quite a good AM(C) in the Asymmetrical formation we are playing, despite the fact he hates big games.

The two biggest surprises so far are Dumitru Hlinca (Class of ’27) and Răzvan Teodorescu.

Hlinca’s Attacking Attributes have all improved to at least 13+, as has his First Touch. And I suspect that those attributes that haven’t changed were most likely on the low end when he arrived, and are now at least a point higher. World Class? No. World of ‘Good for this level of Football’? Yes.

Răzvan Teodorescu was part of the Class of ’24, right before I took over. Attribute wise, for this level of football, he’s Bril. But…

That UNAMBITIOUS personality just….gah…The thing is, he had had close to double digit goals and assists the last couple of seasons (9/4, 9/9, and 8/7), and I bet if he were to be, I don’t know a little more DRIVEN, he’d be 12+ in each category. As it is, a lof of his passes are either the 1st or 2nd in the route to the goal.

So, we weren’t exactly flying high, but slow and steady. Ahead of us lay the dread days of October, and did we let them get to us.

82nd Minute goal for Botosani and their win. 83rd minute goal by Rapid Bucharesti for their win. Arad, 3 goals up after 25 minutes played. With our earlier result, there was a 3 way tie for our Cupa României Betano Group Stage:

This was not the midtable finish I was looking for….

The year ended, and then began again, about the way I expected. Unexpected was beating Farul, expected was Arad scoring in the 1st minute then parking the bus. The Loss at Bucharesti ensured we would not make top 6, and it was a big sigh of relief when we thumped Sepsi to finish in 7th place.

Meet the New Youth, almost the same as the Old…

Only six player from this years Intake Worth Talking about I think. And their personalities were all over the place again as well…

Mercenary isn’t a bad personality to have. It’s not a good one, either, but if we show our loyalty to and provide Costi Popescu with opportunities, we increase the changes he will stay with us long term. His lack of Fitness and Strength is glaring, but he is Quick, Agile, his Attacking Skills are pretty solid, as is his Technique. I don’t think he will be a Striker for us though.

Being Unambitious on the other hand, almost certainly guarantees Andrei Laszlo will never be as good as his PA. The same can be said for Răzvan Teodorescu, who despite his already good attributes could be even better if he were just Balanced. Andrei will be given opportunities though. How long and how many are up to him though.

Branimir Feti continues our streak of players with Low Determination. And that’s a shame, because he’s a very solid player even with a DET that is <7, and could be a very good DLP/Carrilero type of player. For the time being he’s merely “Meh”…I hope he can see what Răzvan Teodorescu is doing and act accordingly, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Vasile Ion has the best opportunity to be the best player out of this group. Not because he has the highest PA, or because he has a ‘Fairly Professional’ personality, but because he can play 3 positions we have a need at. He will probably be the first to get a decent amount of playing time out of this group.

I think whatever hopes I put in Alex Tănase, he will fall short of them. I am pretty sure that all of his attributes are on the lower end of the scale and he lost a star from when he came in to when we signed him. His versatility might save him, his injury proneness and horrible Possession attributes probably won’t.

Doru Vancea actually gained a star from the Intake to when we signed him. He’s probably got the best CA of all the Youth players from this year, but that could mean his ceiling is not the much higher (comes in at 80, tops out at 100 sort of thing). He has DLP written all over him, whether he wants to believe it or not. I think he has the best long term potential at the club, maybe not as a full time starter, but definitely as a back up/ squad player off the bench.

Our relegation Group battle went almost exactly to plan.

We beat up the teams at the bottom, beat most of the teams we were supposed to beat, and didn’t have a lot of “unexpected results”. The game at Csíkszereda was a draw until the 89th minute (blast and damn), and I knew we were in for a long day at Rapid Bucharesti when the first goal was an own goal by Ilie Formagiu…that loss hurt us, but beating Sepsi put us at the top of the group, meaning we got to play Universitatea Cluj in the first Playoff Game.

While the Shot’s and On Target are similar, we were clearly the better team. It was frustrating not to get more than the one goal we had, although the 2nd goal looked like a winner until the woodwork jumped up and saved it. Four days later we played against Farul Constanţa at their house for the right to go the Conference League.

The bossed us, as much as any team can in a 1-0 Extra time goal victory. All of our Attackers were sub 6.7, and it was Vasiliu (Class of ’28) in goal that stopped it from being a route. How he ended up on a 7.1 is a bit mind boggling, seeing what he faced and stopped I think it should have been higher. But if we are being honest, Farul Constanţa is simply a better team. I have mentioned it before, but if this wasn’t a Youth Only save, we would be the New Farul, bringing in Youth Players from across the region, training them up at our impressive facilities, and moving them on for profit. Heck, they are loaning players in From places like West Ham to fill positions, we can’t do that. We made them earn it, and as trite as that sounds now, I’ll take it.

The League Table ended up thusly:

FCSB won the Cupa României, which is why they are going to the Europa League. But I will take a 9th place finish, now and for the next couple of seasons.

We had some very good performances this seasons as well, quite a few players I was hoping would take it up to the next level did, some more than just one.

Matiş getting 23 goals as an AP on Attack is quite good, but it’s Teodorescu’s 12 goals and 18 assists that stand out for me.

There were several good performances from the rest of the squad:

Hlinca is becoming the player we thought he could be, in fact he was a big reason Matiş was able to score as much as he did, Dumitru was constantly getting doubled teamed and drawing defenders away from Matiş. Voicu had a good season off the bench, Vago had 2 goals and 10 assists from the M(C) position, Purcea was solid at D(R). The only position I had real concerns about was at Keeper. We let Rareş Murariu go at the beginning of the season and he retired. Our best options for replacing him were Nicolae Rotariu (Class of ’23, before I arrived), Tiberiu Alexandru (Class of ’25), Ciprian “Low Self Belief” Şandru, (Class of ’27) and Adrian Vasiliu, Class of ’28.

For some reason, Rotariu has never grown above two stars. There could be reasons for that, the best is that as the club has gotten better, so has he, but as star rating are based on the players at your club, he’s grown with the rest of the squad but not gotten better. He started 15 games for us, and ended up with a 7.21 rating. The good news is we didn’t hear a lot about him doing bad things. The Bad news is we heard nothing about him doing good things. Alexandru went on loan to a Liga II Club, started 18 games and allowed 18 goals, and the club he went to was relegated…Sandru and Vasiliu are the same age, and while on paper Sandru is the better keeper now, I think Vasiliu will be the better overall keeper, which is why I gave him starts this season. Next season the job is his to lose.

I just hope my faith isn’t misplaced.

All in all, a good season. I think the days of relegation worries are behind us, and there are very few players from the original squad left. The question now is can we fend of those teams coming after a Matis or Dumitru, can our youth players develop accordingly, and can we possibly, maybe just do enough to get European Football?

The Kids Are Alright -Season 3

The Glasses Just Make Me Look Smart…

I’m going to be 100% honest here: In game, I am about 10 seasons ahead of what I am posting. There are a couple reasons for this:

I started this during the Winter break
Youth saves are very fast to play thru, especially when the time sink you enjoy, Scouting, isn’t a factor
I am having fun with it, and sitting down in the AM and logging off in the PM on a weekend realizing you just went thru four full seasons and aren’t exhausted is a good thing. Isn’t it?

That said, I still have no fricking clue how the Promotion/Relegation Groups in Liga I work, so lets see if we can figure this out now:

1st thru 6th Qualify for the Playoff Group.

7th thru 16th go to the Relegation Group.

Half points plus point plus carry the 1 and…..my head hurts. Seriously.

What I have learned is not only can you finish 1st in total points and not win the Liga, you can also finish last in points and not be relegated. For the teams at the very top and very bottom in a year where the points difference between them and their nearest competitor isn’t all that close, it doesn’t matter. 6 teams in the Championship group separated by 10 points? It matters…

This season was going to be brutal. The pundits picked us to finish 15th, and that was optimistic I think. I am pretty sure they are taking into account possible transfers, but without any of those coming in, were stuck with who we have, and who we have is a bunch of mediocre (for this level of football) players, and some potential. What we lack is a Striker, or three. Sburlea started for us last season, and was the very definition of ‘Meh’, and the available options I have aren’t any better. Brădău has the potential, but his personality is really holding back his development, and I think throwing a young, unproven striker into the fray in an effort to tray and stave off relegation is not a good recipe for success.

So I went back to a 4-3-3-0 Strikerless.

The results were about what I expected.

My philosophy in situations like this is as follows:

Do not play to ‘Not Lose’
Draws are much better than losses
If you lose, try to make it close

The first half of the season, we were mostly successful in following that:

In a nutshell, we were losing to the teams who were most likely going to bet us, drawing the teams we had a chance with, and beating the teams we were supposed to beat, with few surprises really.

The draw and win at Craiova was nice, they have a very good squad. UTA Arad, Voluntari. Sepsi OSK are also strong, but the league is Farul Constanţa’s to lose. They are the club we aspire to be in a few years, Excellent Youth Facilities, Excellent Training Facilities, Exceptional Youth Recruitment, and Good Academy Coaching, and because FCSB lost so many players, including their best youth prospect, they aren’t running away with anything like they did the year before. The other good news was that our goal differential was not that bad either, and at the end of the year, we were in 9th place, with 19 points from 4 wins, 7 draws and 4 losses, with a -2 goal differential.

Our biggest issue was lack of offense. Sburlea had definitely fallen off, but young Răzvan Teodorescu, who I believe was in the Youth Intake the year before I joined, was having a solid season despite his Unambitious personality. Darius Niculcea had made the D(R) slot his to lose, and had also improved by quite a bit as well. We went into the break fairly confident we weren’t going to be in a relegation fight.

I am not sure it’s coincidental, but when the League splits in MArch into the two groups, that’s right around the time the Youth Intake happens.

I thought going itno the New Year we may have had a chance to stay midtable, but 6 of our first 8 games were against teams at the top of the table, and it showed. I thought we would eke the draw out against Sepsi OSK, but they got two late goals quick. Winning two games and drawing FCSB was also nice, but we ended up in the Relegation Group, and that wasn’t a surprise.

A Decent Intake?

5 Elite Talents and 5 Good talents are nice, but what I am looking at are positions, and I am very satisfied with this intake. Another potential future keeper, two young choices at Striker, winger options, Midfielder options, this is a solid intake for us. We’re going to look at just the top 10.

The Best

Ciprian Şandru is the 3rd Youth Intake Keeper that has come across as 5 star Potential, and with Nicolae Rotariu (Another good young 5 Star Potential Keeper), that gives us 4 with talent. The question is which one develops first, and while my gut says Alexandru is going to be the best one of the bunch, I am going to rotate the others in as best I can and see how they do. Ciprian is already a solid young keeper, his attributes are a great foundation to build upon, and if his Keeper attributes increase accordingly, he can be a solid keeper at this level.

Radu Chirilă has a lot going for him. Already having good Endurance attributes, his Bravery and Balance are also good, and I suspect that most of his attributes that are in Orange would turn blue, if not for the fact he is Unambitious. Yes, he’s 4 1/2 star potential, but he has to want it, and his personality ensures that getting there is not going to be easy. At All.

Ionuţ Oltean is what I call a ‘Feast and Famine’ Youth. Where he is good, he’s actually pretty good. Where he’s bad, he’s very bad, and there’s not a whole lot in between. Unless his Attacking Attributes improve dramatically the next couple of years thru training and playing time, he’s not going to be a winger, but his lack of height and weight makes him an iffy midfield prospect IMO.

Of this years Intake, I am most happy with Dumitru Hlinca. Already having Excellent fitness, Good Flair and Technique, and with most of his other Passing Attributes already solid, he would be a great Targetman if he could jump and head, but as he can do neither of those, he’s going to be a DLF. His potentail may not be as high as the others, but he will be on the pitch before anyone else, because I need a decent striker up top.

Already 180 pounds and 6′ 6″ at 16, Eduard Nanu is a man among boys. Here’s hoping he’s not one of those player’s who is a “Look Like Tarzan, Play Like Jane!” sort of player. Physically he is already solid, and his Defending Attributes are solid as well, but I can’t help thinking as solid as he is now, he’s not going to get that much better.

The Better(ish)

Eduard Sevaciuc’s PA is based on a world where everything goes perfect. The fact his Physically lacking is something his Attacking and Possession Attributes might help cover up, but his lack of good defending attributes at this point means he would need to work hard to become a serviceable M(C)/DM. His casual personality all but ensures that will never happen.

From and Attribute standpoint, Dafin Ilie (II) and Remi Şurpanu are similar, and where one is lacking the other is good. Ilie has the best potential to be a full time starter IMO, rather he has the best chance because his lack of height, Injury proneness, and Unsporting Personality means he will most likely not get much better than he already is. Physically speaking, Remi is the better of the two, and he’s also better at all three center field positions…but his Personality is also dragging him down as well. I’d feel beetter about these 5 players if the personalities were anything in the middle of the pack, but this Casual/Unambitious/ stuff is just…awful…

Dan Dascălu has a solid foundation to build on. The question is what is he building? I think he could be a winger with about a 110-120 PA, which for this level of football is very good, but his Attacking Attributes would have to improve by leaps and bounds for that to happen. It’s it possible? Yes. Is it probable? I doubt it…

Last but not least, well mostly least, is Cristian Dumitrescu. He is definitely the first instance of “He looked so good from the stands, but on the pitch he’s mid.” I’ve seen. He came in at 3 1/2 stars potential, and now he’s 2-2 1/2. That tells me where he is now, he’s not going to get that much better without some help, and as yet another player with an Unambitious personality, he’s not going to utilize that help.

All told, not the best Intake really. This whole personality range is frustrating, as my current HOYD has a Balanced one, but the past 3 Intakes I’ve had ~15 Unambitious, ~4 Unsporting, a Low Self Belief, a Temperamental, and a Casual…yikes…

We were headed towards the Relegation playoff’s, then we thumped Petrolul 6-3, and drew our next to games to secure 12th place overall. We did just enough in the Relegation group to finish 5th, which put us above FC U Craiova, and they ended up being relegated because they lost in the Playoffs. But in the overall standings, they finished a place higher than us.

A reminder to not take the ‘post season’ lightly.

Although, it could be worse, they could be UTA Arad, who finished 2nd overall but last in the Championship group, meaning they missed out on European football.

Performance wise, as one would expect from our finish, the team was average. No scorers in double digits, not assists in double digits, two of our best young players already out the door, and already some older players I am ready to move on as well.

I coached my 100th game, the board still hasn’t let me go on a coaching course, and while our finances are solid, we have to rent a new stadium to play in because the current one we are renting does not meet league requirements:

Next Season? I expect more of the same. This is that point where the older players I had when I took over the squad are going to start moving, some of them even if they don’t want too. The question is do I have capable replacements for them, and in many cases the answer is “We Shall Find Out.” As long as we don’t stumble, we should be fine.

Should.

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!