Career Resurrected: Farm to Treble (now with more analytics)

[veerus]

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

I did remember till you took off for a month

Touché! Point well taken. But, uh, I've been, um, hesitant to start a new season with the loan bug present in the current version and my squad desperately needing some good loan spells for my youngsters. Yeah, let's go with that.  

[BatiGoal]

On 3/28/2017 at 04:02, veerus said:

Touché! Point well taken. But, uh, I've been, um, hesitant to start a new season with the loan bug present in the current version and my squad desperately needing some good loan spells for my youngsters. Yeah, let's go with that.  

The current bugs are especially hard on small teams. I love bringing small teams to the top. A nice long 30-career building a worldclass squad from scratch basically. Cruising thru all the division in Spain or Italy. Very enjoyable but seeing these types of bugs still in the game 6 months after release is discouraging to say the least.

Now go El Ejido !

[veerus]

On March 29, 2017 at 00:59, Eogtuc0910 said:

Really enjoy the detail here

Glad you're enjoying my journey!

So it looks like my current pace of play is slightly faster than a snail. I hope you guys don't mind (too much). Anyway...

This update is about the beginning of my second season in Spain's Second Division. I entered the summer with a few particular needs. I desperately needed a striker, a couple wingbacks, and maybe a defender/midfielder if I could get a good deal. 

Well, mission accomplished!

Spoiler

Realistically this isn't a huge upgrade over our current striker, but an upgrade nonetheless. He came into camp a bit "overweight" and didn't become match-ready until 3 weeks into the season! (same situation happened with my star goalkeeper but, as you'll see below, that didn't make much of a difference in the results.

Despite being our best midfielder in paper, this guy has been indispensable as a left back! He also provides a ton of tactical flexibility allowing me to move him into the midfield and radically altering formations, if needed. Best part? He was FREE!

I also picked up a starting defender and left back. Their stats are below but I'm having problems with their training satisfaction so stats are a bit lower than at the start of the season. I am hopeful they will recover.

Picking up basically everything on my summer shopping list was a huge success but our transfer window did not end there...

Spoiler

The Legend Of Javi Llor

You all will remember Javi Llor from my past posts. I picked him up as a promising 20-year-old kid on loan and he was instrumental in much of the team's success in our first season.

When he came back to his old team, he was unhappy (missing his teammates, I'm sure) so I signed him for 250k because I knew his potential. He rewarded my faith by blossoming into a superstar.

So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when teams that are much richer than us came calling.

In hindsight, I'm glad his release clause got triggered because I never would've considered selling him. Instead, I made a 2400% profit in a year!! What's more, the $6 million from the sale allowed our max wage to jump from 4,300/wk to 14,000/wk!!! That's the upper limit of demands for many of the players I was looking at, wishing I could sign them. Well, now I could! This is a game changer and will surely be the springboard that takes us to the La Liga!!!

With transfer business out of the way, I told my board that I expect us to achieve a mid-table position. Should be easy - we did it last season and we're better this year! Right?...

Spoiler

But first, I took a fresh look at my tactics. Last season I had way too many negative comments about the midfield so I decided to change to a 4231 formation by pulling back the striker in my old 4222 into a #10 role. Also, since we lost Javi Llor, we didn't have another pure attacking or box-to-box midfielder. Instead, I played our two midfielders as DLP/BWM in front of the defense.

The season started out well. Opening match featured a home victory over Tenerife - a team which featured aging stars like Andres Iniesta, Roberto Soldado, and Luka Modric in its starting line-up.

Next match featured a win which saw 3 goals in the last 5 minutes including a goal by our newest youth team graduate - Daniel Nadal (more on him later).

The results continued to amass as we became the only undefeated team in the division after 9 matches!  The streak included two back-to-back heart-stopping roller coasters.

Then came our first league defeat followed by a relative comfortable win to land is in 3rd after 11 matches.

We still have the fewest losses in the division, 4th in goals scored and conceded. Pretty good run! (but will it last....?)

You'll note that Cadiz also knocked us out of the Spanish Cup. I was ok with this - we are running a very thin squad this season and can't afford additional matches in a competition we can't win.

I also wanted to update you all on our youths. We have an exciting new youth graduate and one graduate from last year who is making appearances on the first team!

Spoiler

First, let's meet Daniel Nadal. He is a promising young striker who scored on his debut to help secure a win in the second match of the season!

Second, here's Paco Rami. This kid looked amazing last season and had a productive loan spell in Second Division B. He is versatile and his stats are already comparable to the other APs on the team!

Everyone but Rami is back out on loan in Second Division B and they all appear to have good potential. If this keeps going, soon we'll have "Veerus' babes" making headlines!

I enjoy looking at the underlying stats behind our performances and this update is no exception. So what do the numbers have to say about our results and what they could mean for the future?

Spoiler

Just like in my last season's update, our conversion rates could have great implications for the future. Last season, our Shots Conversion and SOT Conversion had two distinct trends for goals scored. 15%/33% had us flying high in the playoff spots. That then cooled off to 11%/23% and we finished 11th.

Well, so far, through 11 matches, those ratios are 20.39%/52.50%!!!!!!.....!!!1!1!1!!!1!1!1!1!

Similarly, for goals conceded, those ratios were 17%/33% last season and we finished in the bottom half for goals allowed.  This season so far, we're running at 11.65%/24.49%!!!

So what does this all mean? Well, I'm expecting this run of results to end brutally as it's fairly clear we've been pretty lucky. However - on the other hand, our striker is better than last year (he has 6 goals and 4 assists in only 8 matches!) and our defense is also improved. Continued success would not be unexpected but it would be slightly surprising!

Lastly, I'd like to acknowledge a fallen hero - Pedro Merida. He almost single-handedly secured promotion for us to the Second Division in the first season. He became unhappy with the training regime and would not budge. He finally requested a transfer and I, begrudgingly, granted it.

P.S. Tried to do more spoiler tags to reduce loading time for future replies. Let me know if you prefer it the other way. 

[mcandrew003]

Got to say mate,  this is a really good career! Enjoying the in depth analysis and update style, KIU!

[BatiGoal]

Legaz looks like he's going to be a valuable addition to the squad. Nice numbers on his page and at 22yo he's got a bright future.

Toribio looks fantastic. He's an experienced player and that's sometimes what a team is lacking. You may only get 2-3 seasons out of him but he could be crucial to bringing balance to the team.

Good progress, mate, and the writing style and update look great as it is.

[veerus]

Welcome back to my adventures in Spain. I bet you all can't wait to find out if our hot streak continued. Well, it ...

Hold on. First, pop quiz, hot shots:

Spoiler

Would you do this deal?

I thought for a long time about this. Now that the team is rich thanks to the Javi Llor memorial fund, maybe I could splurge a little on a promising kid?...

I decided that no, I could not. So I decide to move on, start taking screenshots and then, .. Wait a minute! Bosman???? Hahaha silly AI managers.

I don't need him now, but a freebie for 1k/wk with a huge upside?.. That's a win!

This update falls in the middle of the January transfer. I currently have one pain point - the team needs a really good midfielder. I found one but, the big question was - how much?

Spoiler

11k/wk. That's how much! No thanks, buddy! You're not that good!

We only have one player making over 4k/wk, so I'm not quite ready for that wage bill (even though we can easily afford it).

And let's be real - if we get promoted, better players will likely want to join the team. If we don't, then I'll have the entire summer with a massive budget to work with instead of going after a single target in January.

So we didn't buy anyone in January. Our only transaction was the sale of our hero, Pedro Merida.

Still a record holder 1.5 seasons after that first promotion. It's likely Legaz will pass him this season or next but Merida deserves to be recognized.

Anyway, in my last update, I predicted our results would probably take a dive. Well, the answer is...

Spoiler

Yeah - they kinda did.

Our points per game dropped from 2.0 in the first update to 1.5 here. Not great but enough to keep us in the race for a playoff spot! Note that Barcelona B is doing well which pushes playoff spots down to 7th which is good for us!

Statistically, we're still doing well. Only 5 losses, tied for 4th in goals scored and 3rd for goals conceded.

Advanced stats for conversion rates I've been tracking show a drop - but not as bad as last season.

Isolating this update, goals scored dropped to 17.14%/36.0% (from 20.39%/52.5%). We are scoring much less, sadly.

Defensively, the story isn't as harsh. Opponent conversion rates were 11.21%/30.77% (from 11.65%/24.49%). So our defense has been pretty consistent with allowing shots, but we are letting in more goals from shots on target. Luckily our GK responds well to praise.

Our goals recently have been coming from primarily two players. One of them is Marcos Legaz, of course. The other has been a pleasant surprise.

Spoiler

Paco Rami has been maturing quickly and has basically become un-droppable. Statistically, he's now the best AP in the club (slightly edging my favorite boy wonder, Fran Oller).

And just like Oller, Rami now has the "mercurial talent" description. Which, as far as I'm concerned, means a really really good player! 

These guys have accounted for 5 POMs and 10 goals in our last 5 non-losses. That's pretty amazing if you ask me!

The uphill road continues. We're still underdogs in every match so even the losses don't hurt that much. 

Spoiler

And the board LOVES me!

See you at the end of the season!

[mcandrew003]

Good update mate, it's going well so far! You can definitely push on and, with a bit of luck, get promoted!

Also, like the update style and the in-depth analysis, good job!

[Brenty92]

Only just stumbled upon this and I have to say I'm sorry for neglecting such a wonderful (albeit tense) journey! Keep up the good work mate, you're on the right path, onwards and upwards ??

[BatiGoal]

Hope your form picks up. Only 7 pts between the top 8 so a couple wins brings you to much sunnier places. But then again, you're taking it step by step and making sure greed or impatience doesn't become the clubs downfall, so another year in this league could perhaps turn out to be better in the end.

[veerus]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

7 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Hope your form picks up. Only 7 pts between the top 8 so a couple wins brings you to much sunnier places. But then again, you're taking it step by step and making sure greed or impatience doesn't become the clubs downfall, so another year in this league could perhaps turn out to be better in the end.

This is more or less what my thinking is.  If you were to ask me if I want the team to get promoted this season, I would probably say no.  That's because the underlying stats, despite our record, are not great.  Consider this:

• We have very little control over the midfield in most games - our average possession in the 23 league matches is 47.2% (only 48.1% in wins)
• In fact, we've only had 50% or more possession in 7 matches (~30% of total matches played)
• Based on my xG metric, we've only generated 34.25 expected goals - that's slightly less than 1.5 goals per game.

So, as you can see, we're not even dominating games against Second Division opposition.  If we get promoted, we risk becoming the Derby County (circa 2007) of La Liga.  I'm not sure I want that reputation...  

On the other hand - it may be fun to say that I got into the First Division in three seasons with a team which was just promoted to Second Division B... (but I'm pretty sure it'll be just as fun to say I did it in four or five years and didn't get relegated immediately after).  

[veerus]

Welcome back to another installment of my adventures in sunny El Ejido. We begin with a quick update on coaches. 

Spoiler

Our mixed results gave me an opportunity to shake up the back room. (In reality, I just forgot that I could hire a bronze coach and have him pass a coaching exam for silver!) We had 3 general coaches. Two of them got replaced with a youth natural to deal with our growing roster of kids (see below), and a defensive natural - a little-known ex-defender by the name of Phil Neville!!

So that's pretty exciting. For the record, my specialty is attacking.

What would you guys do if two of your stars increased in value by an eye-watering 1350%!?

Spoiler

You'll recall I bought Legaz for 850k and Rami was a youth academy prodigy. Rami is ranked #4 on the local (Spain) wonder kid list. And some clubs have already been asking about him at around $6+ million evaluation. He was worth $2.5 million in my last update from January! They grow up so fast... 

I'm thinking I will sell when I get promoted to La Liga since $6-11 million could buy me some real superstars. But until then, I must hold on to them!

Anyway. The rest of our season played out in two very distinct parts. Let's start with part 1:

Spoiler

The first part was very up and down, but mostly down as far as I'm concerned.

This run included our 2nd missed PK of the season - both by Legaz (both resulted in a loss instead of draw) who was promptly removed from his duties to be replaced by Rami, who is an expert in dead balls.

This run of games also included a win without a shot on target.

And this garbage! 

The results caused me to switch our system to a 41212 after the Barcelona B match which improved the results a bit.

We also lost our midfield rock, Toribio, for 3 long weeks, and he never fully recovered all of his attributes even by the time the season ended...

All in all, we somehow did well enough to still be in the playoff race. In fact, with 12 games to go, there were 2 points separating the playoff contenders. So you're saying there's a chance!?

Napoleon supposedly said once, "one must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority." Change that to ten games and you basically have the theme of this career. Also, of part 2.

Spoiler

The xG we generated in the 41212 was pretty poor but somehow we would manage squeeze out positive results. Knowing that it would not last, I went back to the basics - 4411 with two conventional wingers - a formation I refused to try because my players were better suited to push up as IFs and APs. Well, sometimes you just gotta keep it simple!

The results kept coming in! In fact, we didn't lose another game since that fateful game where Toribio went down.

Yeah! That's right! We clinched a playoff spot and, somehow, we are only 4 points away from automatic promotion! Will Valladolid trip up?...

Bonus part 3 - the exciting conclusion! Will our dreams come true?...

Spoiler

...no. They will not. Valladolid didn't need to trip up because we did, in the very next match.

Oh well. 

I don't want to get too excited but the playoffs appear to be favorable. We have winning records against all the other teams (6pts vs Vallecano and 4pts vs the other two).

Could we repeat our miracle playoff runs from the recent past to make it 3 promotions in 4 years? Despite my previous reply to BatiGoal, I now kind of hope so!

So more to come on that. But first, let's review some player stats for the season. 

Spoiler

Legaz ended up having a monster season. Last season the game seemed to bug out and didn't award a player of the year. Hopefully this year, I'll get to see Legaz win it. Unless the Second Division doesn't do that? Anyone know?

How's THAT for a summer signing???

Lastly, let's look at our transfer dealings. 

Spoiler

I've been stockpiling kids. I picked up a young 17yo midfielder at the end of January who filled in admirably at the end of the season with a couple sub appearances. Kid has 4* PA but fans for some reason dislike him.

Or, to be more precise, they want more experienced players.

Not when I don't need them, people!!!

Anyway, I also picked up several promising youngsters on a free transfer. The AI seems to be really bad at managing these kids' contracts. Check this out.

Super cheap salaries too! Goto is 20 and the others are all 17.

Anyway, stay tuned for more! I may make a post with some analysis in a bit from my computer. This update is made on my phone due to the volume of screenshots and I'd rather not mess around with excel on this tiny screen.

[veerus]

A few words about tactics.  I don't know if the EME is particularly optimized for 442-ish type formations or if my team is very suited for it but looking over our results in the past two seasons reveals a huge difference between 442 types (4222 or 4411) and other funky formations I tried (41212, 4231) in xG generated.

Spoiler

 Check out the 7-game moving average of our xG in the past two seasons.

• 2017-18 - 442 played in 26 of 42 matches (the two dips are when I experimented with other formations).
• 2018-19 - most of the year spent in a 4231 (only 6 matches at the end in a 4411).

Our offense, while worse than last season, was serviceable.  The end results were comparable - 65 goals scored in 17-18 and 69 goals scored in 18-19.

The real difference, I believe, is in our defense.  Regardless of the formation, we spent the entire season playing 2x DLP in the midfield (or DLP/BWM, but mostly 2x DLP).  (slightly better players helped too - if you recall, we picked up an upgrade to our CM and CD in the summer)

Here's another stat I've been looking at -- % of shots (%SOT) that are on target.  Last season, the opposing teams had 50.5% SOT, scoring on 33% of the shots.  This season, the opposing teams %SOT dropped to 40.6% and they scored on only 24.7% of those shots.  Clearly, the 2 DLPs are helping in keeping opponents out of the box and limiting them to long-range shots which are mostly ineffective.  One more thing that supports this - opposing team CCC (clear cut chances) generated dropped from 1.4/G to 1.05/G.  That's pretty huge.  Here's the 7-game moving average of xG allowed by our defense in the past two seasons.

We went from allowing a league average-ish 63 goals in 17-18 to being TIED for first with 44 goals with the two auto-promoted teams!  And check out that dip at the end when we went to our 4411.  Right in time for the playoffs!

Or it could be a matter of versatility - lower league players just aren't versatile enough so the 442 structure fits them well.  But if you have top players, you can create formations with 2 defenders and 8 attackers and somehow still win titles. 

[BatiGoal]

Great update. Legaz is turning out to be some player. And you're looking all set for the play-offs so congrats on that.

Re stats.. keep it coming. I really enjoy looking at all those numbers.

Re tactics.. I have a lot more experimenting to do. I see a lot of working formations with for example 2xBPD, 2xAP/DLP, 2xBBM etc.. Not the usual set up and tbh I rarely place to identical player roles (apart from CBs) next to one another but the EME seems particularly kind to these combinations.

El Ejido's future looks very good. KIU!

[mcandrew003]

A great update mate, this career is reaching exciting times! Love looking at the stats, good to see you putting a lot of effort into it. KIU! 

[veerus]

It's a surreal feeling to be back in the playoffs. As I said in my reply to BatiGoal above, I didn't want us to be promoted this season. We're just not ready. I think I said that in our first season when we reached the playoffs as well and that seems to have worked out alright. And just like that time, we seem to have found the winning formation in the last weeks of the season. So now I will accept nothing less than another promotion from our dots. Let's repeat history!

Spoiler

As I was getting ready for the playoffs, I learned that there are no penalties in Spanish playoffs. The higher seed wins if the score is tied after extra time. Since we're the highest seed, that made me happy!

In my preparations for Vallecano, I realized we faced them 4 games ago during the height of the new 4411 we're using and we cruised to a comfortable 3-0 win at home. This gave us confidence going into this matchup.

And that confidence was rewarded in spades!

They snuck in a late goal but it was nothing to worry about.

Oller was slacking after this message ran but still performed at a high level. The kid is a star!

For the reverse leg, Vallecano threw up a formation I had not seen them use before (41212) while I fielded a slightly weakened lineup due to player condition (two games in 4 days isn't easy!)  However a 32nd minute injury forced Vallecano into their standard 442. The end result was never in much doubt!

My young star, Paco Rami was "feeling pressure of first team football". I benched him for the second leg to give him a break. I also noticed that a positive interaction removed this pressure and made his morale Superb! He was ready to go! TIL...

Spoiler

Final round. The Final Boss! Tarragona is a team I won 4 points from in the regular season but it was never convincing. It also has my old friend, Javi Llor, patrolling the midfield. This was going to be tough.

I resisted the temptation to play early season formations that brought us regular season success against this team. We were going to live or die by our 4411!...

...until a very boring first half inspired me to change to a 41221. However that didn't change much and the result was a boring stalemate.

It's not the best result but another 0-0 would see us promoted so we're feeling good.

In the return leg, the AI once again surprised me by coming out with a defensive mentality (in a must score game?). 

And they paid for it immediately when club legend, Fran Oller, scored in the second minute! Tarragona went into attack mode right away but it was too late as Legaz added a second just 22 minutes later!

We kept absorbing wave after wave so I eventually decided to put my trust in our defense and shut it down.

At the 65th minute, we went full Mourinho circa 5 years ago.

And as if that wasn't enough, on the 83rd minute, I went full Mourinho from this year!

Laugh all you want but it worked! Our defense held!

This was as dominant as could be hoped for! In the four playoff matches, we allowed *1* goal!

Our defense limited their combined offenses to only 2 CCCs and 14 SOT (36.8% SOT, which was better than our season average!) That's the type of defense that gives me hope for survival in the First Division!

So now what?

Spoiler

Check out these stats! Sure, they're inflated by the playoff games but still. Legaz broke club records set by Pedro Merida and then, Fran Oller one-upped him in the assist category!

Legaz better win MVP or we riot!

Anyway... Welcome to the La Liga circa 2019-2020. It's a league still dominated by the same teams and guys we know in our own timeline.

One guy is missing from that top list - CR7. He suffered a horrendous injury in the first season of my game knocking him out for 6+ months. Looks like he never recovered. 

Maybe I'll try to sign him next season! Then again, his stats are worse than my current players so probably not.

The end! See you next season!

[BatiGoal]

Dude, you lifted El Ejido from the bottom of the ocean all the way up to the surface of the Meditteranean and into La Liga. Some feat, mate. And using not regular but full Mourinho style too

Surely El Ejido with players like Oller and Legaz are going to smash it and give the Spanish giants a good run for their money. I smell an 'invincible season' in the making!

[veerus]

20 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Dude, you lifted El Ejido from the bottom of the ocean all the way up to the surface of the Meditteranean and into La Liga. Some feat, mate. And using not regular but full Mourinho style too

Surely El Ejido with players like Oller and Legaz are going to smash it and give the Spanish giants a good run for their money. I smell an 'invincible season' in the making!

It's actually a tactical decision I've been thinking about during the offseason.  I know I'm going to get overrun in the midfield so the desire to go full Mourinho is strong.  But our one outing against a La Liga side during a cup run in our 2nd season showed that going very defensive will lead to narrow losses where we barely get a shot.  That didn't work out very well for Middlesbrough in the PL and I don't think it would work well enough for us.  So I'm currently leaning toward running my standard 4411 and letting the chips lay where they fall.  I just really need to get a couple strong midfielders and defenders in the summer. 

One thing is for certain - our current streak of being underdogs for over 2 seasons in league will continue for the foreseeable future.  Kind of considering keeping track of it for shits and giggles.  What are the odds for an anti-'invincible season'?

Thank you for your support. 

[BatiGoal]

11 hours ago, veerus said:

So I'm currently leaning toward running my standard 4411 and letting the chips lay where they fall.

Right. Agree with your earlier statement that going full defensive will likely result in small losses anyway. You wouldn't want to offer that brand of football to your loyal fans -play along and pretend stadiums are filled with a football-loving audience. Exception to the odd game to preserve the advantage over aggregate for example but approaching things in a more positive manner generally brings much betters results.

[mcandrew003]

Quality season pal! Well done on the promotion, Legaz looks like a quality player amongst all the others. Looking forward to your first outing in La Liga. Good luck mate!

[veerus]

*peeks in* *removes cobwebs* is this thing still on? 

I am here with a contractually obligated update within a month to make sure BG does not forget the name of my team. 

So here we are in the La Liga aka the First Division. We are going to be hosting players whose salaries are double of my entire wage bill! To survive in these shark infested waters, our team would need a shake up.

Spoiler

And a shake up is what we did. Unlike in past seasons when I was frugal with player salaries, here I did not haggle much. If I could afford a salary, I paid it! The board was generous enough with the budget to actually enable me to pick up several upgrades.

A few stars of note:

I also picked up these two gems on a free before the season rolled over so they're not listed above.

Of the 11 players who started the playoffs last season, only 3 remained in the starting lineup at the start of this season. Of the 8 new players, the 5 shown above formed the backbone of this year's team. I also upgraded between the sticks.

All in all, this transfer window exceeded all of my expectations. We even started out as favorites (!!!) in the first two matches of the season!

Oh, and by the way, most of the players tripled (or more) in value since signing new contacts. If I play my cards right, I can build up quite a war chest in a very short time!

On the out side of the equation, many of Second Division heroes made their exit, and it's quite likely that the rest of the old team will soon follow them out the door (even my boy, Fran Oller, who's been relegated to the bench this season).

Morten Nilsen sold for 2.9mil after I bought him as a promising youth for 30k!

With all this new blood, my personal expectation for us is 12th place. Can we pull it off??? Do any of you doubt the mighty El Ejido engine that could?!?!

So anyway, just a few posts above, I said I would stick with my 4411 tactic since that seemed to work last season... But did I?...

Spoiler

...pfft! Of course not! But in my defense, I tried! However it became evident early on that, while that formation seemed to work at home, we would get shredded on the road.

First two away matches saw us concede 5 goals so I made the switch to 3 at the back and changed wingers for midfielders.

This "star fighter" formation saw us give up 4 goals in the next three matches and helped us get our first away point (in our fifth(!) try).

Offensively, we have been generating just over 1 xG per game. Conversion rates are down as well. Which is not great...

Watch this space...more to come. 

So how did we start the season?

Spoiler

Ehhh not too terribly!

Our home is our fortress!! All hail the 4411!

Except for that Real Madrid hammering.

We also suffered a major injury blow to our young superstar winger! Our back-up is considerably worse so this hurt... Come back Paco!

This will be a long two months. I hope we can continue to separate ourselves from relegation places while he's gone.

All but one loss are to teams above us in the table. And all but one win are against teams below us in the table. Seems like that 12th place finish will be realistic after all!

I'd like to finish this update with a few tidbits that didn't fit anywhere else in the narrative.

Spoiler

• My young player pipeline is drying up. All the worthwhile players my scout is finding now are worth 2+mil and that's too much to gamble on given my first team needs at the moment.
• And all my previous youth investments are now 2-4 stars - understandably so since they're being compared to legit superstars.
• As mentioned elsewhere on these boards, I can confirm that setting all training to LIGHT clears out training unhappiness. I used one of the many fall international breaks to do just that to about half a dozen players who were suffering from this ridiculous affliction. 
• I also had my first job offer from Ipswich who made their way into the Premier League. I turned it down, obviously!  

 

[BatiGoal]

That's a really good update, mate. Perfect on the detail. Liking your fighter jet formation and the team is starting look solid. Are your Defs still not good enough to get an upgrade from LD to CD? KIU with El Ejido!

[veerus]

11 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Are your Defs still not good enough to get an upgrade from LD to CD?  

It's funny that you bring this up again. Unlike in the past, the reason here is much more transparent - LD has more green role traits. Check out my best defender:

Spoiler

Others have similar traits. 

How could you justify playing them as a CD? (Unless you're playing with offside trap on - which I'm not)

[BatiGoal]

19 minutes ago, veerus said:

It's funny that you bring this up again.

Wondering if they had turned into CDs in the meantime.

Also, just caught my eye, you're playing one of my Nigerian friends Mikel as a DM. In my career he did well as a CB (as an LD I believe due to lack of better defs) and CM. Didn't try him as a DM.

1. How are Mikel's performances as a Defensive Midfielder for you or any DM in general in FMM17?
2. I remember my DMs (playing as DLP specifically) being quite dependent on good support from the back, CDs generally feeding my DLP better than LDs. Have you noticed any difference this year?

The DM has been underused in my formations this year so not entirely sure if these have been tweaked or behave differently.

[veerus]

I have considered playing him as a BPD but my top two defenders are MUCH better than he is at CD and I am still tinkering with 3 CD formations where he could be the BPD and help out in the midfield. 

However, please note that he often plays in the CM position in my home 4411 (see below) and in some 3CD formations. In my experience, there's almost no difference in CM or DM and any such positioning is due to my desire not to overcrowd any one area on the field. (An important point to make here - if you watch the matches, you may notice that players without the ball often move up and down the field in straight lines so putting two players on top of one another is inefficient, except maybe on defense when you actually want to crowd the area with defenders.) The key in my formations so far is that I've found 2x DLP to be highly effective in preventing SOTs and goals.

In the "star fighter", I didn't want him in CM because that stacked 4 players in the midfield on top of each other. Plus it's a defensive formation by design and he's the less stat-gifted DLP I play so I put him back to help form a wall in front of the box. To specifically answer your second point however, I don't keep track of DLP actions on the ball so it's hard for me to determine a DLP's effectiveness in possession. Especially on this career where I've been the underdog in about 90% of my matches. Match ratings are decent though so they're doing something right. 

Spoiler

Note the positioning of my attacking players. I moved the AP to the young winger's side to provide an outlet because he often gets backed into the corner in highlights. And I'm ok with the AP and DLP being on top of one another, since they're naturally spaced out due to their player roles.

He gets hooked a lot because he's older & is my only player who still gets called up for international duty so fall is a busy time for him.

Any thoughts on the 4 greens for LDs vs 2 greens for CDs?

[BatiGoal]

5 hours ago, veerus said:

The key in my formations so far is that I've found 2x DLP to be highly effective in preventing SOTs and goals.

The "double" player roles seem too effective imo. It strikes me as odd. Two CMs work well together in my formation as do two APs. Honestly, I'm not used to doubling up like that and I hoped it wouldn't work as the midfield duties aren't exactly distributed equally that way. But the formation remains balanced as a whole so it works and effective too.

 

5 hours ago, veerus said:

Any thoughts on the 4 greens for LDs vs 2 greens for CDs?

I would pick a much better "passing" CD over an LD despite any role traits. Say 4-5 (passing) attr. pts higher at least. If the diffirence is insignificant (less than 3pts) I do look at the role traits like you.

[veerus]

1 hour ago, BatiGoal said:

I would pick a much better "passing" CD over an LD despite any role traits. Say 4-5 (passing) attr. pts higher at least. If the diffirence is insignificant (less than 3pts) I do look at the role traits like you.

Ah, well then. I would be inclined to agree with that distinction. Since I'm still in the bargain shopping phase of this career, none of my defenders have a passing attribute higher than 10 so I'm guessing we're probably in agreement about me using LDs here.  

[BatiGoal]

9 minutes ago, veerus said:

Ah, well then. I would be inclined to agree with that distinction. Since I'm still in the bargain shopping phase of this career, none of my defenders have a passing attribute higher than 10 so I'm guessing we're probably in agreement about me using LDs here.  

Definitely. Ideally a green in passing but I'm even OK with giving a 13-14 'passing' guy a good few games to prove himself worthy of CD role. Anything less is LD.

[veerus]

So... Uh... Kind of sad I wasted that "cob webs" comment on my previous update. Sorry for the delay. It's the summer, no games on tv, etc etc. Anyway... Let's quickly review where we last left off:

• we got promoted thanks to Marcos Legaz breaking club records leading BatiGoal to exclaim "Legaz is turning out to be some player"! But could he continue his run in the First Division?
• we had a good summer transfer window and picked up major updates almost everywhere (only 3 players from last season were in the starting lineup to start the season)
• the board's expectations for us are low but I expect us to finish at least 12th
• results haven't been great but still good enough to keep us mid-table. I continued to tinker with our tactics and switched to a back 3 to stop leaking goals. The switch worked but left me unsatisfied with the offensive output so I obviously left it alone. NOT. 

Spoiler

The star fighter formation had the drawback of being narrow which eliminated two of my wingers who also happen to be two of my best players. The back 7 had to stay the same but I had some options with the attackers. The resulting formation is nicknamed "The Snowman" (primarily because "figure eight" sounds boring).*

* I'm open to suggestions for a different name. Maybe Space Invaders?

This formation meant that last season's superstar Legaz got relegated to the bench as he just wasn't contributing enough.

After a timid 0-0 away draw against a fellow newly promoted team, something magical happened.

YEAH! That's right! Two 4-0 wins against 2nd and 3rd place teams! I thought that I broke the game. But then we lost 0-1 to a team below us in the table and all was right with the world again. 

Still, these performances earned my defenders POTM honors for the month. (But somehow the striker with two hat-tricks got ignored?)

I wanted to mention a couple other matches that had me on the edge of my seat. 

Spoiler

First up - Barcelona.

We jumped out to a lead after halftime!

And tried to hold it, successfully, until 80th minute when I decided to make a defensive switch to give my tiring defense some support to close out The Miracle at Camp Nou in front of a crowd 12x the size of our home stadium.

Coup de grace. Hearbreaker........  

Shortly after this, we were gutted again in similar fashion.

Except it wasn't quite as dramatic...

These games are often decided by the smallest of margins. It was bound to go our way at some point - and it did!

Revenge is sweet! These guys hammered us earlier in the season on their home turf!

So where are we at this point in the season?

Spoiler

In 9th place!!

For those keeping score, we've beaten 2nd, 3rd, 4th placed teams and were at one point winning against 1st and 5th place teams!

I've talked a lot in this career thread about the defensive benefits of 2x DLPs. Looking over some of the stats, I can't stop checking this table.

Sure - playing 3 defenders helps but come on! We've been between Barca and Sevilla in goals conceded all season! After just being promoted. 

Playing Mourinho ball may not be flashy but it is effective! 

A few tidbits of note, as usual.

Spoiler

• Motta came on strong with the switch to the Snowman. He even led the league in goals for a few weeks. He's currently in the middle of a scoreless streak but I am optimistic his form will return. 
•  
• John Obi Mikel is having a great season and the coaches can't stop raving about him! (Shout out to BatiGoal) 
•  
• I didn't do anything in the January transfer window. This means I have banked 8+ million for next summer. At this point, I only need to strengthen a few positions so I expect my focus will soon turn to depth so I can compete for the Cups.
• At this point, a 7th place finish and a chance of Europa qualification is a possibility and that's pretty exciting!

Now that I'm playing more, I hope to play out this season very soon! Thanks for reading.

Spoiler

Not sure why this showed up twice and I couldn't delete it so I'm hiding it... @Putzy

 

 

 

 

[BatiGoal]

For a debut season in La Liga you're doing great. Finishing in a European spot is probably too soon for this Ejido side but the foundations for next season are there. A solid top 10 finish is a great start. 

I'm using Berghuis as well in my 'hidden' 1KC and he's fantastic down the flanks. Keep pushing those Ejido boys!

[veerus]

Berghuis has been the steal of the season for sure. I got him for free somehow. And recently I switched him from AP to IF during Motta's dry spell that I mentioned in the previous update and he has definitely picked up the scoring slack. 

Spoiler