Your Game Discussion Thread

[hokster]

Let's use this for general posts and updates about games that aren't being given their own thread.

There seem to be too many bugs in various leagues to make a journeyman worth it, so until at least the first patch I've decided to stick to a standard save. I haven't managed in Uruguay in ages, so I'm managing Liverpool F.C. de Montevideo.

[dalenichol]

Let's hope you don't discover any new bugs whilst in Uruguay!

It's a shame (in context) that these bugs are in smaller leagues that don't see as much play, or else there'd be a bit more of an uproar and SI might actually be more inclined to fix it.


As for myself, I've just finished season one in Serbia with FK Vojvodina. We finished third, a significant distance behind Partizan and Red Star, but this is to be expected.
Vojvodina are an interesting side, based in Novi Sad, Serbia's 2nd largest city, Vojvodina is actually an automonous/semi autonomous province within Serbia. That's not why I picked them, I've just learned that tonight and figured it was pretty cool.

Unrelated to any of this, but there's going to be a new country 'Bougainville' from no later than 2027, so I'll be managing there at some point in FM27 I'm sure.

[Dirk Nowitzki]

Vestri

Went of to a good start in Iceland:



We turned professional after this, but the finances are steadily in the red. Facilities are pretty bad and it seems that players develop much less compared to FM21 when your facilities are poor.
The staff is also of a low standard of course (apart from Arjen Robben, my new assistent manager), so I hope to qualify for Europe in the next 2 seasons to get some money in.

I strengthened a bit with some free players, but after turning professional players ask for much higher wages. Last season I had a French guy in my team without a contract, but at the end of the season I found out he was being paid 6k per game, which was half my wage budget! That could have been used to strengthen before the spike in wages, although anyone I signed back then would have been on a part time deal.

We play in a scenic little stadium in the absolute middle of nowhere. This looks like a place ready for European football right?!

[dalenichol]

Not sure about ready for European football, but it looks ready for me to move there right now. Looks lovely!


Meanwhile, in Serbia:




It's been many, many years since I got a tycoon takeover in a save and I'm not convinced it'll happen, but this could be interesting. 

[chaodck]

Bought the game yesterday, I'm still downloading images and graphics and the sort. I wanted to play a Chile C&C, with the addition of dynamic youth rating and both La U being again in danger of relegation and Chile being on the fence regarding the World Cup qualification (actually we've made leaps and bounds in the last games and now we're 4th in the table, but still everything is super tight) seems like a good start point (I'd lower the abilities of La U players as they're high reputed and thus good in FM while they are shit in real life). But the points deduction bug is game breaking and would probably mean starting over when the patch arrives.

So I settled for another C&C to start off the year, something as long-term maybe despite having the world's most exciting player. Norway and Erling Braut Haaland.
For the club side, I saw a fantastic stat the other day on instagram, Haaland's cousin 17 year-old Albert Braut Tjaaland seems to be a prodigy himself, scoring on his club debut, from the bench with Molde FK. So yeah, I went with Molde for the club and see how I develop this bright gem of a player.

Haven't done kits for Norway yet, but here are the ones I did for Molde. I'll start posting here, and if the first season sticks, I'll do a proper thread.

[chaodck]

Sorry for the double post, just finalized the Norway kits. I wasn't in a mood to do anything complicated (well, with the Molde kits I also kept it simple), but they look nice in my opinion haha. I'll start the save proper tonight, as I already downloaded all my graphics stuff. Should have an initial post somewhere around tomorrow or maybe Monday.

[dalenichol]

Love those kits, chaodck !

A shocking second half of the season in Serbia would see us finish 6th and miss out on Europe, which was a massive financial boost for us in the last two seasons, so we're definitely going to struggle financially next season. I seem to have kept my job for now, which is good, but it's going to need quite the rebuild. Not sure what means I'll have to do that with, but we'll see.

The takeover, tycoon or otherwise, never materialised in the end, which is a bit of a shame, but oh well.


(EDIT)

Narrator: He did not keep his job

[chaodck]

Nov 14, 2021 12:45:01 GMT dalenichol said:

Love those kits, chaodck !

A shocking second half of the season in Serbia would see us finish 6th and miss out on Europe, which was a massive financial boost for us in the last two seasons, so we're definitely going to struggle financially next season. I seem to have kept my job for now, which is good, but it's going to need quite the rebuild. Not sure what means I'll have to do that with, but we'll see.

The takeover, tycoon or otherwise, never materialised in the end, which is a bit of a shame, but oh well.


(EDIT)

Narrator: He did not keep his job

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!! Any future ideas now, Dale? I only managed to get around 3-4 hours of playtime yesterday, so obviously I only got to do the initial shit, tactics, training, see what positions I need to strengthen, set the staff and responsibilities, and sort the national pool for the NT (the NT only plays in September and I started the save on April). So far the team is decent, but nothing great really, it's a bit bloated on the wings and there's some interesting prospects with 4-5 star PA which is always fantastic. Regarding the NT there are a lot (10-15) of good prospects sitting in big teams youth/reserves squads, which is amazing. But hopefully they develop nicely. I'll try to bring a few of them in as loans down the road and also I'll be watching them in case one gets released or not renewed.

[dalenichol]

chaodck it's me, of course I have plans


I almost immediately started a new save, this time in Cyprus with AE Limassol. It's going well, in fact it's going too well. We're one game away from the Championship split, 5 points ahead at the top of the table. 
Our top scorer, Andres Chavez has 33 goals in  21 games, 28 of which have come in 17 league games...which is just insane. 

Our top scorer, Andres Chavez also signalled his intention to leave the club on a bosman and only went and signed a pre-contract deal with fucking APOEL in the same league, because he's a fucking snake. They're 4 places below us and 14 points behind his. I want to hate him, but he's also the reason we're doing so well...so I'm kinda torn

[chaodck]

Feel for you bro. My top striker at Molde was programmed to leave the club after the first season, at least not to a direct rival. I wanted not to play him, but he's our top choice.

[dalenichol]

Nov 16, 2021 2:07:21 GMT chaodck said:

Feel for you bro. My top striker at Molde was programmed to leave the club after the first season, at least not to a direct rival. I wanted not to play him, but he's our top choice.

Yeah, he had a bunch of clubs interested in him, all from bigger and better leagues but APOEL were the only ones interested. So I hope he does absolutely awful for them   He's 31 now, so maybe he'll start declining quickly. 

It's just annoying as there's little to no money in this league, so finding an adequate replacement is going to be tricky but we'll see what we can do.  Think I'm gonna focus on trying to find cheap gems in the likes of Africa, Asia and Central America so that will at least be interesting. 
'

[hokster]

So just as a heads up, if you start in Uruguay (which has a January intake date) ahead of the 2022 season, there is no 2022 intake.

[jawzy]

Hopefully get a 2023 intake?

[chaodck]

Just played my first game with Norway, a friendly against Albania. Haaland took 15 seconds to score his first goal for me.

[jawzy]

This weeks who will jawzy play for abit ideas for teams is looking to be
Vasco in serie b in brazil

As couldnt get into cruzerio in fm21. And botafogo do not interest me as the 3 fallen biggish brazilian sides. Vasco is the one that attracts me

[dalenichol]

Who needs Andres Chavez when we have Han Kwang-Song? Lad has just bagged a hatrick in a 4-0 win over Slovan Bratislava, as long as we don't capitulate in the second leg, we should qualify for the Europa League group stage, and the money that comes with it would be absolutely huge for us.  We went out of the Champions League on penalties to Dinamo Zagreb and we're currently 500k in the red, so this could be a game changer. 


It's early days, but Han looks like he's going to be a great replacement. 4 goals in 4 games, including the hatrick and 1 against Dinamo, I reckon he's going to light up this league. Free transfer and a contract until 2026 makes Dale a very happy boy. 

[dalenichol]

FUCK YOU CHAVEZ, AND FUCK YOU APOEL. 

Also, we qualified for the EL group stages, so that's nice. 

[hokster]

I'll post an update at the end of the season, but so far (early September 2022, about a third of the way into the Clausura), it's been going well:

[chaodck]

Molde FK August 2021 Report

So, seasons run strangely in Norway, or maybe only 2021, I dunno. But we started off the save in April, the League started in May and by August we had already played the first half of the league games. The European qualifying rounds have also started and the league ends in December, with November and December super stretched out with only 2 league games per month. Don't know if it'll change by next season or not, fortunately I'm a bit used to the calendar-year setup as it's what all leagues run down here in South America.

I inherited a talented squad, despite having some holes (and no window until August to bring in new faces), and a lot of young talent. I decided I'd play a classic 4-2-3-1, alternating between high press and no press setups as I heard the game punished teams for going all-out with the pressure. The top players are: Andreas Linde, Magnus Wolff Ekrem, and Ohi Omoijuanfo (who's leaving us on a free, for Red Star at the end of the season), meanwhile our top prospects are: Mathias Fjørtoft Løvik, Sivert Mannsverk, and "the cousin" Albert Braut Tjaaland.

We did ok in the league, in fact pretty good, but unfortunately Vålerenga are in the form of their lives, winning 13 out of their first 14 games, only losing against us. At the break, we stand 2nd in the table, with 32 points (10W-2D-3L), 7 points behind Valerenga (and they have a game in hand), and 3 points above current champions Bodø/Glimt (who also have a game in hand).



We rode hot off the great start from Omoijuanfo, who scored 5 in the first month. Couple of tough losses in June, but then a great run in July/August including wins over Vålerenga and Lillestrøm.

In the Cup we've been pretty good as well, beating Frigg, Florø, Egersund, Viking and Lillestrøm to reach the semifinals where we'll face Bodø/Glimt, a tough challenge. The Board wants us in the Final, so it's a crucial game to win them over in the first season.



We also entered the UEFA Europa Conference League, in the Second Qualifying Round, via the League Path. We beat Sumqayıt from Azerbaijan in the Second Round comfortably, even playing the return leg with a reserves/youth team (The Cousin debuted on this game, and scored his first goal). We then proceeded to beat CSKA Sofia from Bulgaria in the Third Round, also comfortably. The Fourth and last Round will see us play Anorthosis Famagusta from Cyprus, a pretty mild draw, considering we could've faced a tougher side like Roma, Union Berlin, Feyenoord, Rennes or Tottenham in this round. The games will be played soon and I'll update with a post if we manage to get into the groups.



Financially the Club was great, fortunately but we're losing money on a monthly basis (around €1M). I'm trying to solve the issue by cutting some fat off the team, but things don't look good, specially considering prize money isn't great, european money won't be good (even if we make it to the groups) and sponsorship isn't great as well (we're arguably one of the big teams in the country, yet place 15th out of 16 teams in the Eliteserien on sponsorship income, with €675k per year). This is the only place in the save that has me a bit worried. We currently have around €8M in the bank.
The club boasts great facilities, an 11k stadium (10k seating capacity), Great training and youth facilities, and Good Academy Coaching and Exceptional Recruitment. With the financial situation being worrysome and this facilities I don't expect really any upgrades soon.


Omoijuanfo has been our top player, and I'm super sad he's leaving us. He got injured and has missed the last month or so, and Sigurðarson took the starting spot, and we've given some minutes to Tjaaland, who has shown a lot of promise despite being far far off his potential, with 3 goals in 5 games.

Regarding the Norway side of things only a small update here, as we managed to win two easy peasy friendlies back in June, a 4-0 win over Albania with goals from Haaland, Elyounoussi, Ødegaard and Sørloth, then a fantastic 6-0 win over Liechtenstein with 4 goals from Haaland, and a brace from Elyounoussi.
In September we'll play a key three game date, facing Turkey (A), Gibraltar (H) and Netherlands (H) for the World Cup Quals. We currently stand in 2nd place of our group, with 7 points beating Gibraltar and Latvia, while drawing with Montenegro. Getting at least 5 points on those three games will do us great. Hopefully we can stave off Turkey and manage to get into the Playoffs.

That's it dudes, if anyone wants a screenie, just ask for it. I'll delve deeper into the NT at the end of 2021, where we'll have played the remaining 7 games of our qualifying group and hopefully the Playoffs as well. I'll have small reports on each international date, as well.

[dalenichol]

We completed our second straight title win this season. We were pretty much unstoppable for large parts of the season, although we had a few too many draws for my liking. We ended up losing 6 games, 4 of those came during the league split at the end, where our form went to shit. The other two losses were both in January, so yeah our form was pretty good. 

We were knocked out of the Champions League in the early qualifiers, but we did make it into the Europa League group stages, where we were hammered by Lokomiv Moscow, Monaco and Ludogorets but ah well. 

Han Kwang-Song scored 36 goals in all competitions, with other new signing Brijan Ibrahimi contributing with 17. And all the fans were screaming "who the fuck is Andres Chavez?" Who only managed 13 goals for an APOEL side that once again won nothing, because they're bottle merchants. 


Also, after two good seasons I really should have been properly posting about this save, but I didn't expect it to last more than 5 minutes

[hokster]

Here's our 2023 intake preview: 

[dalenichol]

That looks great Hok. We've had two very poor intakes so far, which is hardly surprising. We'd need to somehow make it into the CL group stages to get the sort of money needed to improve the youth facilities though, I reckon. That's the long term plan though

[hokster]

Nov 19, 2021 1:22:45 GMT dalenichol said:

That looks great Hok. We've had two very poor intakes so far, which is hardly surprising. We'd need to somehow make it into the CL group stages to get the sort of money needed to improve the youth facilities though, I reckon. That's the long term plan though

Yeah, here's hoping it's accurate. We started off with a decent setup in terms of youth facilities and coaching, and I got the board to fund upgrades to all of the youth-relevant stuff after some player sales during the summer. We basically sold our top 3 players after they demanded to leave for 2-3M each, which seems like massive money in Uruguay.

[dalenichol]

Nov 19, 2021 1:24:14 GMT hokster said:

Nov 19, 2021 1:22:45 GMT dalenichol said:

That looks great Hok. We've had two very poor intakes so far, which is hardly surprising. We'd need to somehow make it into the CL group stages to get the sort of money needed to improve the youth facilities though, I reckon. That's the long term plan though

Yeah, here's hoping it's accurate. We started off with a decent setup in terms of youth facilities and coaching, and I got the board to fund upgrades to all of the youth-relevant stuff after some player sales during the summer. We basically sold our top 3 players after they demanded to leave for 2-3M each, which seems like massive money in Uruguay.

Yeah, I think that would be a pretty considerable amount, all things considered.  I'd be happy selling a few players for that much, anyway. We're spending about 60k p/w on wages, which still only puts us somewhere around the middle of the pack, but even at that we basically rely on either selling players (which I haven't done yet) or some money from Europe, which isn't an easy route. 

1 season in the CL group stages would probably fund us for maybe 2 seasons and some facility upgrades. 

[hokster]

Nov 19, 2021 1:30:32 GMT dalenichol said:

Nov 19, 2021 1:24:14 GMT hokster said:

Yeah, here's hoping it's accurate. We started off with a decent setup in terms of youth facilities and coaching, and I got the board to fund upgrades to all of the youth-relevant stuff after some player sales during the summer. We basically sold our top 3 players after they demanded to leave for 2-3M each, which seems like massive money in Uruguay.

Yeah, I think that would be a pretty considerable amount, all things considered.  I'd be happy selling a few players for that much, anyway. We're spending about 60k p/w on wages, which still only puts us somewhere around the middle of the pack, but even at that we basically rely on either selling players (which I haven't done yet) or some money from Europe, which isn't an easy route. 

1 season in the CL group stages would probably fund us for maybe 2 seasons and some facility upgrades. 

Yeah, meanwhile we're only spending 12k p/w in wages, so we're basically swimming in it. The board wants us to build a new stadium sooner rather than later, so we're saving for that. I only have around 700k to spend on transfers, but again, that's massive money, especially with our emphasis on bringing through youth.

CL money is so insane in the smaller European leagues. It's basically game breaking domestically (just like it usually is in real life). I'm surprised that's all you'd get out of it, but I guess the TV and prize money is basically nonexistent?

[dalenichol]

Yeah, so I'm maybe underestimating how much money you get in the CL, I was guessing 8m, but I think it's closer to 12/13m so that would make a big difference.

Last season our income was £10m, our expenses were £8m. However, £3.8m of that income was from the Europa League, making the group stage and winning one match (which is 500k just for one win).

We have a £2m per season TV deal and 400k in sponsorships, meanwhile we're spending £2.5m or so on player wages each year.

I could definitely be doing better with the wages, my 2nd highest earner is on 3.9k p/w and he's only a rotation player that I signed and didn't pay enough attention to his contract demands

[chaodck]

dalenichol fantasticccc second season there mate!!! Hope you can build upon what you've started and evade your classic tricky third seasons. Counting on you!

hokster that's a great intake there mate. I haven't even received that news item yet and I'm in August in a calendar year season. I'm starting to get scared.

I've just finished the first three-game international date, I'll do a quick Norway update right now.

[chaodck]

Norway September 2021 WCQ Update

Well the first 3 real games commanding the NT have arrived. And we're riding the Haaland wave. WHAT A LAD mates, WHAT A LAAAAD!!!
Our World Cup Qualifiers group was tight, with Netherlands leading the group winning all 3 games and we stood 2nd after a draw at home against Montenegro and wins over Gibraltar and Latvia (game simulation before the start of the save), and Turkey close behind in 3rd, after beating Montenegro and Latvia, while losing to the Netherlands. That meant the second pack of 3 games would be key for the development of the group.

We first went to Turkey, and in a tight match we managed to win 1-0 with a pen goal by Erling Braut Haaland. We dominated the game, but easily coud've been a draw. Second game was against minnows Gibraltar. I decided to rest a few players and ensure the debuts of two prospects (one of whom held Italian nationality as well so we locked him in). We beat Gibraltar 6-0 with a brace from Haaland and Alexander Sørloth, plus goals from Elyounoussi and a debut goal from Andreas Schjelderup who became our youngest goalscorer ever at 17 years, 95 days. He's a brilliant gem of a player, and he'll surely be a fixture for our squad from now on.

So, we came onto the third and final game of the date. We faced Netherlands at home, and after beating Turkey I was surely aiming for at least a draw to try and solidify our playoffs position. But we managed to turn the tables and smash the Clockwork Orange, beating them 3-1 with goals from Morten Thorsby, Joshua King and whoelse, Erling Braut Haaland.



9/9 points, and the lead of the group with 16 points, one above Netherlands and 4 points over Turkey. With that said, I think we're still not in the World Cup, not even on the Playoffs. Next date in October is Latvia and Montenegro, both away games, and getting at least 4 points is key as our last date in November will see us host Turkey and travel to the Netherlands, in what will make-or-break this campaign.

Molde FK September Update

Just a small update. We managed to qualify for the UEFA Europa Conference League Group Phase, after beating Anorthosis Famagusta in the Fourth Qualifying Round. We earned around €2.5M for participation and surely more will come via games money. We drew a decent group, with AA Gent (Belgium), Santa Clara (Portugal) and Randers FC (Denmark), all teams somewhat around our stature, anything can happen.
Vålerenga relented a bit from their beastly first half of the season and we're surely now in a championship battle with them and current champions Bodø/Glimt. Playing in Europe, week-in and week-out will hurt us a bit in the league I expect, but at least hopefully we can manage to give a fight for the title.

Also, we sold one of our starters as Torino came knocking for Ola Brynhildsen and offered what I had envisioned to accept for him, taking him for €3M up front and 30% of his next fee. To replace him, we brought in former wonderkid Zakaria Labyad from Ajax for €500k (plus €100k in clauses). The best thing is we managed to convince Ajax to pay a big part of Labyad's wages, so he's a fantastic cost cutting transfer.

To end this short post, I'll put up a song, which sounds in my head everytime Haaland scores. In fact, I go and play it, each time he scores in game.

[dalenichol]

That's a decent wee update there chaodck I'm always pleasantly reminded by just how much talent there is in that Norwegian team right now. 


Meanwhile in Cyprus I'll never get tired of this:



I have such a strong hatred for APOEL now, for no other reason than they took my best striker, even though I've since replaced him with two even better forwards, but whatever. 

[jawzy]

So i tried vasco de gama, but wasnt really feeling it at all.
even tried Newcastle, but i dont think my mind is ready for that yet.
dabbled with Modena in italy, they have incrediable facilities in serie c, but i dont feel italy.

guess im stuck with finding something that sticks within england or scotland, i dont hold hope for anything really sticking though.

Trying blackburn out and accepted this bid from Arsenal

gonna guess i should of tried to get more?