Career Kylian instinct - a 1k challenge

[georges]

Hello and welcome to my first ever attempt at a 1k challenge, also my first ever attempt at sharing a career here on vibe.

Why the 1kc?

Recently I got a bit bored of the classic "get a small club to the top of the world" type of careers so I decided it was time to try something different. Inspired by some of the challenges posted here recently I decided to take on a 1kc.

The team

Most of my managing career is spent in England, I have however played a couple of seasons in each of Germany, Italy and Spain, leaving France the only major league I have never managed in. I wanted a team that starts in europe and has good facilities, narrowing it down to Olympique Lyonnais and AS Monaco. At first I didn't have a specific player in mind and was going to use a greyster, but then I remembered this guy (an overall amazing young team didn't hurt ):

The player

I hope you will forgive me for the terrible pun in the title, it is the best I could come up with.

Straight away we have a problem - he is only competent in the striker position. Naturally, we start retraining him immediately and it takes him only a month or two to get to accomplished. Soon his position became light green, but we are now in march and he still hasn't completed the training.

The plan

The plan is of course to try and score 1000 goals with young Kylian before he retires. As I already said, this is my first attempt at something like this so I have no idea how this is going to go. I also have to say I am playing on EME and prior to this challenge I have only played 1 full season on it, so overcoming that will be a kind of a mini-challenge for me.

My biggest worry in this challenge is whether or not I will be able to hold on to Mbappe long enough (i.e. his whole career most likely).

First season update is expected in the next couple of hours, as soon as I finish it.

[georges]

1 minute ago, Risheek said:

Good luck mate! I was looking to use him in a career soon, happy you got it covered  

Thanks! IMO he is almost perfect for the task, if we manage to keep him.

[xizzatx]

Goodluck!im also looking forward to do first career post on vibe.

[mcandrew003]

Welcome and best of luck! Seen a few 1KC's this year, nobody hasn't picked the wonderkid I'm suing yet though 

[Ashez]

Good luck! Personally I loved the title haha. 

I wouldn't think you'd struggle to keep him tbh, your a big enough club with loads of money, just need to be successful really. 

[georges]

Season 1:

So here we are, season one has been finished, time for the update. This was a season of 3 stages so that's the way I will post the update:

Stage 1: Not good enough?

Before I actually begin, just a couple of words on the way I begin my first season at a new club. I like to make most of what's already there, so I only get rid of players I am apsolutely sure I won't use. I also don't really have a formation I use all the time as I find it more interesting to try and adapt the playing style to the existing players. Other than that, I love using the team's own youth (grey) players so you might see some grey action here as well, but more on that later.

I wanted to try and play the way real Monaco did last year, my vision of it being something like this:

Spoiler

The team is very well covered in all positions except maybe central midfield, with just 4 players available: Bakayoko, Fabinho, Moutinho and Traore, the latter being only 20 and still a work in progress. Therefore my only transfer target was a midfielder, none other than the one Monaco went for IRL:

Spoiler

This screenshot was taken later in the season so you can already see the agreed Falcao transfer.

Back to the chosen formation... I wanted to see what I can do copying IRL Monaco, also I really wanted to use Falcao (one of my favorite strikers) so I went for the good old 442. I knew straight away goals for Mbappe aren't going to come easy, but I wanted to test anyway. I fiddled with the FB, MC roles, and tried to move Falcao from CF to DLF to AF, all these changes resulting in... a lot of draws and just 5 goals for Mbappe, 3 of those from penalties:

Spoiler

As you can see, we barely scraped past FCSB (Who are they anyway?) in the Champions Cup playoff after two very bizzare matches:

Spoiler

In the league, we just couldn't dominate teams, which resulted in a lot of draws. We were still in top 4, but warning signs were there.

After those 4 losses in a row at the end of October the fans started calling for my head. Granted, 2 of them were against Real, but surely there's no way to be optimistic about the future at that point. I too was thinking this challenge might have been a huge mistake. Naturally, changes were needed. Enter stage 2:

Stage 2: The BatiGoal experiment

In a desperate effor to keep the challenge alive, I resorted to the BatiGoal classic formation posted a few days ago:

Spoiler

Things started to improve and we actually stringed together a few victories:

Spoiler

Playing as a lone striker naturally benefited Mbappe's scoring record so everything was looking fine.

I wasn't very happy with Falcao stuck to the bench so a big club's bid of 40m (can't remember who it was, I think Man Utd) after which he was unhappy and requested a transfer was very welcome and made my life easier. In the end I sold him to Tottenham, but it was already Feb 1st so I got to keep him till the end of the season. And he was happy.

However, injuries started creeping in, and considering the team wasn't designed to play with 4 attacking midfielders to begin with, it was time for yet another change.

Stage 3: The final transformation?

As I was slowly running out of attacking midfielders, I needed to adapt the formation. I didn't really do much, just dropped an AMC to the MC spot:

Spoiler

This is the formation we end the season with:

Spoiler

Season summary:

We won the league!

Spoiler

It was a bit closer than it should have been since we only won 2 points from our last 3 games.

We were knocked out in the Coupe de la Ligue early:

Spoiler

Heartbreak in the French cup semifinal:

Spoiler

We do however win the Champions cup:

Some luck in the group stages as Real lose to Tottenham and draw Dinamo:

Spoiler

A straightforward win against Sporting:

Spoiler

A thriller against Atletico.

Spoiler

A surprisingly easy win against PSG. We had their number all season, we only lost in the CDLL but dominated in that match as well:

Spoiler

The final against a typical italian team:

Spoiler

Overall I would say the season was a success. What about Kylian?

He has improved his stats somewhat:

Spoiler

This is the regime I use only for him:

Spoiler

I started with intensive on Fit and Att, however he instantly got injured so I toned it down a bit and switched between those two as his corresponding stats dropped. He did however go uninjured for the rest of the season, plus I managed to upgrade the facilities to max so I am going to try double intensive again next season. I noticed he gets tired very soon so I have to be careful about that.

And finally, the moment we've all been waiting for. How many did he score?

Spoiler

28 goals... To be honest, I don't know how good that is, but considering the stages we went through this season I think there is a lot of room for progress. I noticed he can only play one match per week as he tires quickly. I didn't manage him properly in that respect, I need to choose his matches more carefully in the future. The good news is he just signed a new 5 year contract so he will be here for quite some time and become a lethal weapon.

 

There it is lads, sorry for the long update, it is my first one and the first season of this career so I wanted to make sure nothing is missed. You can expect the future updates to be much shorter than this one as I certainly won't be posting match-by-match results any more. Any suggestions are welcome (regarding both posting and playing style).

[anfieldsquirrel]

Best of luck with this.

I hear France is hard to manage in..

[Brenty92]

All goals before the age of 20 are essentially. 'Free' as once he hits 20 you will notice more consistency and ability to play 2 games a week without major problem so keep going, keep tweaking the tactic until you find the winning formula and you're set! Not a bad first year considering the three stages of season 1, KIU!

[Johnny C]

Are you ready to try to make Mbappe be able to do around 60 goals per season during 15 or 20 (seasons, of course) maybe? It's a good challenge man, but you have to pay attention to the tactics constantly, find the better one and buy (or train a lot the very good and young players you currently has like Bernardo Silva, Sidibe and Bakayoko putting an example) and make him play exclusively for Mbappe. I recommend you a formation who only use a one striker (Mbappe), two wings, etc. Agood example can be 4-1-2-2-1. Good luck, from Uruguay

[Scratch]

Hi nice start! 28 goals may seem like not much, but they are inconsistent at this age and generally take a while to grow into scoring a lot more. So keep it up! ?

[BatiGoal]

Great job on the re-training and a solid number to kick off the 1KC with.

[georges]

23 hours ago, Brenty92 said:

All goals before the age of 20 are essentially. 'Free' as once he hits 20 you will notice more consistency and ability to play 2 games a week without major problem so keep going, keep tweaking the tactic until you find the winning formula and you're set! Not a bad first year considering the three stages of season 1, KIU!

Thank you, that's really encouraging.

19 hours ago, Johnny C said:

Are you ready to try to make Mbappe be able to do around 60 goals per season during 15 or 20 (seasons, of course) maybe? It's a good challenge man, but you have to pay attention to the tactics constantly, find the better one and buy (or train a lot the very good and young players you currently has like Bernardo Silva, Sidibe and Bakayoko putting an example) and make him play exclusively for Mbappe. I recommend you a formation who only use a one striker (Mbappe), two wings, etc. Agood example can be 4-1-2-2-1. Good luck, from Uruguay

That's what I'm trying to do, to try and make the rest of the team set up goals for Mbappe. 2 wingers are a must (instead of inside forwards) and I also look to put as many APs in the team as I can.

2 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Great job on the re-training and a solid number to kick off the 1KC with.

Thank you and thank you for the formation, you kind of saved my day.

[georges]

Quick question guys - do NT goals count?

[BatiGoal]

5 hours ago, georges said:

Quick question guys - do NT goals count?

They only do if you're the France Manager and he scores under your management.

[georges]

13 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

They only do if you're the France Manager and he scores under your management.

Thought so, thanks.

[georges]

 

Season 2:

We start the new season by selling Falcao and getting rid of some rarely (if ever) used player such as De Sanctis and Carillo, our only aquisition being a backup GK for Subašić, namely Timo Horn. Not a world beater, but a solid Gk.

Spoiler

The team is very well covered in other positions so other than Horn I only promoted Saint-Maximin, Ronny Lopes (attacking midfield) and N'Doram (D/MC) from the second team as well as a midfielder whose name I can't remember.  I would have done it sooner, but they are already loaned out when the game starts so didn't have the chance. I reckon they can benefit the team, for rotation if nothing else. They are still very young so they should have some room for improvement.

On to the interesting stuff. How did we do one the competition front? How many has Mbappe managed to score this time around?

First up, Trophee des Champions. No screenshot as I forgot to take it and already loaded the new season, but we lost cinvincingly to PSG 2-0.

After that, the CWC. Again no screenshot 'cause I'm an idiot apparently. Anyway, we did manage to win there. BTW the season is really exhausting here with two national cups and possibly a CWC, I think I played two games every single week.

Coupe de la Ligue final:

Spoiler

We score 3 as St Etienne are swept away, but no goals from Mbappe.

A lot of luck in the quarter final vs Nice as we somehow survive:

Spoiler

We won the league in April, so I guess that's next.

Spoiler

Champions cup:

Spoiler

We top the group, no problem.

Spoiler

An excellent first leg and not so good return leg as we manage to scrape by United. Mbappe scored in both legs though, so there's that.

Spoiler

The quarter finals bring us Inter once again. We manage to survive the first leg and beat them by a single goal in the return leg. Our boy scores one in the first, but is exhausted for the second leg.

Spoiler

We meet the mighty Bayern in the semi final, who beat us in an even match at home (2 goals from Mendy!?). We return the favor by beating them at the Allianz Arena, however we are knocked out on away goals. A good run, I guess...

Finally, the French Cup final:

Spoiler

Lille somehow take the lead with their only attempt on goal, however they can't live with the pressure as Mbappe puts two past them, one at the end of each half. Nice timing, lad.

His stats are not bad:

Spoiler

As for the goals, he played a whopping 57 matches (being supstituted almost every match and being used as a supersub in a few - he scored 2 or 3 goals that way) and scored (only?) 35:

Spoiler

He does however have the exact same overall rating as the season before, so that's interesting.

Who won what:

Spoiler

Summary:

A very nice season once again across all competitions. We are however struggling to score goals (72 goals in 38 league matches doesn't sound like much), whether that is due to the league being defensive or the team simply isn't THAT good, we can only guess. I did use league games to rest some of my best players (specially after the league was won) so we could have scored more, the question being how it would affect other competitions though. The team is still very young overall so there's probably some consistency issues there, we should hit top form in the next couple of seasons.

I think I managed Mbappe better than last season, evidenced by 12 more matches he featured in (though I don't think it's that big a difference minute-wise), however the scoring rate is still a bit below par, or at least not as high as I would expect. Again, the players around him are as inexperienced as he is so I'll wait for a season or two rather than jump to conclusions.

Btw, Bernardo racked up a whopping 26 assists for the season! What a player.

As for the formation, I usually play the 4141 with attacking mentality and switch to 4231 balanced against some tougher oposition (with varying succes).

Next season we say goodbye to Dirar, Germain and Raggi who leave on a free, we get a potential 5* youth player with 14 passing and many blues. We have already bought Pulisic to increase the competition for the AM spots and Riedewald to be a universal sub. Not much else to do in the transfer window. Stay tuned.

[georges]

Wow it's been almost a month since my last post here...

I'm sorry guys but I just don't have the time at the moment. I do hope to continue this at some point, hopefully before the new version is released.

[AzmiG26]

Great season mate! Hope Mbappe will get better!

[BatiGoal]

I'm using Mbappe in my current career as a natural flank / att.midfield player and no surprise he's brutal. Keep those updates coming.

[georges]

Hello again my dear vibers, it's time for another Kylian update. It took me a lot of time to get back to it, as I said I just didn't have the time before (also I got married in the meantime ). I might just make it to 1k if I continue playing. To be honest though, seeing PriZe rock the Isak save isn't very motivating for me. 

So... The important part:

We kick off the season with a loss in TDC against PSG (who else)

Spoiler

Lyon kick us out of the cup in a bizarre match

Spoiler

Juve kick us out in the first round of the Champions cup in two bizarre matches

Spoiler

we were through on away goals until bloody Asamoah showed up.

we also lost the league to PSG (who else)

Spoiler

84 points isn't bad, but PSG were on another level. We conceded too many goals to compete for the title.

So that's it, we lost it all... No, wait a minute, we must have won something, right? Right?!

Sure we have, there's also the mickey mouse cup of France we played in, winning against PSG in the final (who else)

Spoiler

How did Kylian do? Well, not bad considering he played less games than before, but he hasn't yet gotten to the 50 mark.

Spoiler

All we can do now is hope to do better next season and post a new update before FMM18 is released.  Cheers guys! 

[salohcin]

Congratulations on your marriage!

Can seen that kylian is really picking up so good job! He just reached 20 so theres plenty of time. Im guessing he will beat the 70 mark in abt 2 seasons. KIU!

Edited October 24, 2017 by salohcin

[georges]

6 hours ago, salohcin said:

Congratulations on your marriage!

Can seen that kylian is really picking up so good job! He just reached 20 so theres plenty of time. Im guessing he will beat the 70 mark in abt 2 seasons. KIU!

Thank you! He must pick up the pace, otherwise it will take him more than 20 seasons to reach the 1k.

[Taff]

As I was told in mine, all the goals before he's 20 should be considered freebies, now is when he starts to shine

[Scratch]

Congrats on getting married! 

Looks like Kylian is doing really well. He's at almost a goal a game which is pretty good for a 20 year old. He will just get better and better (consistency wise, his attributes are already great) and soon he'll get 60, then 70, then 80. I'd say you're off to a great start.

I know there are a few careers where people have insane numbers, but they're the exception. Most follow the pattern Kylian is showing and generally they make it to 1K. Keep it up! 

[FuddledFox]

Congratulations on the wedding.

Looks like Mbappe is make good progression in terms of goals and stats wise he looks awesome. I'm sure BIG numbers are just round the corner. KIU

[georges]

First of all, thank you guys for the congratulations, hope I'm in for a long (and good) one.

On to the next update:

End of season 4... Still a lot to be desired from Mbappe.

Another frustrating CL exit

Spoiler

Domestically we were on the verge of a treble, however there's always Lyon (who el- wait what? no PSG!? yep, it happened) to spoil our plans.

Spoiler

Won the league comfortably

 

Lost to Lyon in CDLL final

Beat PSG 4-1 in extra time in the cup

The return: only 45 goals

Spoiler

I took the PSG screenshot at the end of regular time to turn your attention to my shot conversion. I seem to have a problem scoring goals (only 76 in 38 league games) and I can't figure out why. I have been experimenting with 4231, 4321 and 4141, but none of them score (many) goals. I seem to dominate teams and have a lot of shots, even some clear cut chances. I used to think (in)experience is the problem, however the team has grown now and I do have some world class players, they just don't perform at the level I would expect. For those interested, here are the players who are supposed to provide the assists (APs and Ws):

Spoiler

The only thing I can blame now is Mbappe's shooting stat (15). Maybe that's just not enough to consistently score at this level (he is still only 21, of course, but the goals do have to come at some point )

Some frustrating matches in the spoiler:

Spoiler

 

I mean I get there are supposed to be some of these matches in a season, I just have the feeling there are too many.

In the CL group stage I played two games against Jablonec and only scored 6 goals. Those are usually (on OME) matches i score like 5 goals with my first team.

I started the season with 4231, all of the 3 being APs, Mbappe scored 5 goals in the first two games and I thought I was on to something, but it didn't last. In the third game he was back to his usual 0-1 goals per game. After a lot of fiddling about I came back to that formation in March and once again he scored 5 goals in 2 matches, but once again that was it.

I usually play attacking+short passing+pressing and look to exploit weaknesses in opponents positioning, if there are any. Sometimes I fiddle with the offside trap and direct passing, as I said it depends on the opponent.

Is there anything I can do to score more? Is Ligue 1 just a defensive league and that's it

[Scratch]

Hmm, obviously you want more goals from him, but I would get too worried at this stage. Around that age they can be inconsistent and then slowly get better over the next few years. I've had strikers do that and then bounce back. In my current career, it looks like season 7 was the year when he really change gear upwards (starting as a 16 year old, so 22 turning 23). 

So maybe things are all good and you just need to be patient. That said, there are things you can look out for.

You've got a great supporting cast there, but how many goals are they getting? If they are getting too many vs number of assists, then do they have the "takes first time shots" thing in the Position's screen? Even if they don't have that and their teamwork is great, if they are getting too many goals, ship them out and get someone else in.

Take a look with Extended highlights on, maybe that will show something. I had one career where I found the central AMC was running around holding hands with my striker. Next, I noticed he was taking the corners instead of being on the end of them.

Check the personal details screen (or whatever the 2nd screen is called) regularly to see if he's Slightly Tired. I found my youngsters get tired really easily, even with decent stamina, and when that happens they couldn't tap in even if they were the only player in the half. Mbappe does have super stamina, so might not be happening too you, but worth checking.

I've also found that players need to be fresh. Play them too much and even if they don't get the Slightly Tired message their performances will drop after a while. Giving them a couple of weeks off can really help, even though it's counter-intuitive and really hard to make yourself do. Personally, when my striker is still that young, I rest him against big opposition and play him against the weaker teams.

That's all I can think of for now, and while I recommend trying all that, I really think he probably just needs a little more time to mature a bit.  

[georges]

2 hours ago, scratch99 said:

Hmm, obviously you want more goals from him, but I would get too worried at this stage. Around that age they can be inconsistent and then slowly get better over the next few years. I've had strikers do that and then bounce back. In my current career, it looks like season 7 was the year when he really change gear upwards (starting as a 16 year old, so 22 turning 23). 

So maybe things are all good and you just need to be patient. That said, there are things you can look out for.

You've got a great supporting cast there, but how many goals are they getting? If they are getting too many vs number of assists, then do they have the "takes first time shots" thing in the Position's screen? Even if they don't have that and their teamwork is great, if they are getting too many goals, ship them out and get someone else in.

Take a look with Extended highlights on, maybe that will show something. I had one career where I found the central AMC was running around holding hands with my striker. Next, I noticed he was taking the corners instead of being on the end of them.

Check the personal details screen (or whatever the 2nd screen is called) regularly to see if he's Slightly Tired. I found my youngsters get tired really easily, even with decent stamina, and when that happens they couldn't tap in even if they were the only player in the half. Mbappe does have super stamina, so might not be happening too you, but worth checking.

I've also found that players need to be fresh. Play them too much and even if they don't get the Slightly Tired message their performances will drop after a while. Giving them a couple of weeks off can really help, even though it's counter-intuitive and really hard to make yourself do. Personally, when my striker is still that young, I rest him against big opposition and play him against the weaker teams.

That's all I can think of for now, and while I recommend trying all that, I really think he probably just needs a little more time to mature a bit.  

I will look into the "first time shots" thing, not sure about that.

I am aware of the tiredness problem, I usually substitute him around the 70-80 minute mark to make sure he plays as many games as possible. I started this last season with 3×intensive training which seemed a bit too much for him as he started getting very tired very quickly around october-november so I reverted back to 2×intensive. I rarely give him more than 1 game off though, might start doing that.

Anyway, this is my first 1KC so I don't quite know what to expect. There's no reason to worry yet, but he's not getting any younger.

[georges]

A short update this time, guys.

We had a fantastic season winning everything except the CDLL

scored some more goals than lot season, which also showed on Mbappe as he finally managed to break the 50 goals barrier.

56 in 54, 214 goals in total, can't say I'm thrilled but could be worse I guess.

I played about half a season with the primary attacker setting off because it seemed to me that Mbappe spent most of the time isolated up front and didn't see much of the ball. It did produce some more goals for a while, but eventually I turned it back on and finished the season in spectacular fashion. He does tend to have 2 or 3 matches in a row without scoring, but if he keeps this form up there we might actually reach the 1k.

And finally, we have a special player from our own academy. I'm always happy to see those succeed. Got some playtime this season already, there's certainly more to come. We had a proper sale this season, getting rid of some players who aren't bad, but have no room in a team as stacked as this one.  Subašić, Glik, Diallo, N'Doram and Jean left last summer, followed by Riedewald in January and Lopes, Moutinho and Saint-Maximin this summer. Many of these were from the Monaco academy so it's nice to have at least one player likely to break through.

[salohcin]

Solid season there mate! Mbappe is really picking up fast, beating the goal per game ratio already! Personally, i always leave the primary attacker option on when doing individual challenges cos the ball will always end up with him. So nothing to lose i guess