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Career Scratch Tries: A China 1KC [Packing it in]


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1 minute ago, Kanegan said:

Ah the pain of playing in China. I remember pretty clearly. Yes, holding on to Pedro will be real tough and Shilong is definitely the best Chinese striker you can get in the game. He went to Bournemouth in my pensioner's save and he is lighting up the premier league with his performances. Great tally from Pedro in the 1st season. 

Thanks mate! Have read through all your China seasons, but haven't started on the Newcastle ones yet. I'll be finished by the FMM20 release at this point! 😂

I did really wonder if I should switch to Shilong as maybe he will stick around longer? Actually when I found Pavon would come, I almost switched to him instead! That would have been interesting. But anyway I made my choice and I stuck to it.

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Just now, Scratch said:

Thanks mate! Have read through all your China seasons, but haven't started on the Newcastle ones yet. I'll be finished by the FMM20 release at this point! 😂

I did really wonder if I should switch to Shilong as maybe he will stick around longer? Actually when I found Pavon would come, I almost switched to him instead! That would have been interesting. But anyway I made my choice and I stuck to it.

You would have been better placed with Shilong but as they say, you live by your choices, die by your choices so good luck.

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1 minute ago, Kanegan said:

You would have been better placed with Shilong but as they say, you live by your choices, die by your choices so good luck.

Yeah, I'm thinking you might have been right! I think he'd be my recommendation for anyone else considering a China 1KC. I'll probably fail spectacularly with Pedro leaving in a few season... But it's done now... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Update - Season 2

 

We ended season 1 with our player (Pedro) showing a lot of promise, but our manager (me) being uncertain whether this (a China 1KC) was a job he could see through. We head into season 2 with a lot on the line.

 

Building Up China

Many of the problems of playing in China (hard to attract and keep players, getting players to develop, my reputation slipping, Chinese players not very good) are things that will only improve if the Chinese Super League improves.

The main way to do that is to get Chinese teams to dominate the Asian Champions League. We're going to try to win that every year. That shouldn't be too hard given the quality of the opposition, but at the same time means that winning the Asian Champions League may not actually boost your league much.

The other approach may be to build up the quality of the Chinese national team. That might result in better players, which may help the CSL. Who knows, winning the World Cup might help the reputation of the CSL or it may not.

 

Let's Start With The National Team

Last season, the China job became vacant, but they chose not to give it to me. It became vacant again in the offseason, so I applied and:

china1kc-season02-07.jpg.263a849cd991f19953d6588fd9226e8f.jpg

I took it obviously. If the Brazil job becomes available, I'll apply for that right away, but in the mean time, lets see what we can do with China.

I'd already bought up all the best young Chinese players I could find. They only get a little game time at club level, but they all went into the national team and hopefully they can develop there:

china1kc-season02-17.jpg.5af11de0a244e2d4f1a7d6029fae1b35.jpg

It may be a risk to play so many youngsters rather than the mediocre yet more experienced players, but it's not like our competition is very strong:

china1kc-season02-19.jpg.270041d937f7d2075cc4bf9245286ade.jpg

 

Player Development

As mentioned last season, this is a major frustration. Most of my team, including Pedro, are stuck on "Needs to play at a higher level to improve". There seemed to be no way to improve them.

I suspected that ITN games would help them develop, which turned out to be true, but the bonus is that they also develop when playing in the Asian Champions League. That means there is a chance for my players to (very slowly) continue their development here.

The good news is that Pedro got a step up this season (just one, but still, better than none). He now looks like this:

china1kc-season02-70.jpg.dcfe0f0b43c5e78801890325c93e830a.jpg

His Pace and Stamina are both up 2 points, while is Strength is up 3 points. His Shooting and Movement both improved 1 point. He now looks decent. I was focusing on Pace, but have switched to Arial now. If I can get one of those magical jumps to 20 next season, he'll be good enough.

Interestingly, I noticed that both his Stamina and Strength have been improving very slowly by themselves (outside of the steps). I noticed at least one step happened just after he renewed a contract:

china1kc-season02-26.jpg.662e97c2794bc866c3992cea7a9afce5.jpg

 

Hands Off My Boy!

I'm not going to show all the screenshots, but at least once a month a bid comes in. I'm his favoured person now, but that doesn't stop him from getting upset when I reject them. Going to be tough to hang on to him, but at least for now he has happy to sign a new contract and that keeps him happy for around 6 more months of rejections.

The same thing has happened a couple of times for Pavon and even a couple of the other players, but Pedro is the one they really want...

 

Transfers

Not too many transfers this year, which is quite surprising for one of my careers! I guess shows it's hard to bring in top notch players in China.

Spoiler

china1kc-season02-57.jpg.1d69d468ef12a0e405c49b12998cb7e3.jpg

china1kc-season02-58.jpg.9b64916d399c09d71d04c8b2fe527f1e.jpg

china1kc-season02-59.jpg.c57a3c9492fe3a5137cf56870c81e926.jpg

We sold a lot of players who were getting older or not going to make it (only one of whom wasn't Chinese).

We brought in:

  • Ajer, one of my favourite players early in a 1KC, but one who generally is superceded after 3 or 4 seasons. He might last longer here.

  • Fabra, who will likely be our first choice left back, although we do have a very good young Chinese player coming through there.

  • A few promising young Chinese players.

Interestingly, the values in China are way out of whack. Check out this player for example:

china1kc-season02-01.jpg.c3671d286d5699e3a2881824faa31e53.jpg

He has a value of £4K and yet if I offer him out for a high amount, working my way downwards, I can get an instant bid of £3.5M:

china1kc-season02-02.jpg.c724dc9b61be9522d1fdbae19ea4d870.jpg

Very strange...

 

Competitions

We won everything! Normally takes a while to work up to that, although we seem to be better than all our competition. Here's how we did:

  • Won the Chinese Super Cup 2-0 over Shanggang.

  • Won the Chinese Super League, though not as convincingly as last time (only 67 goals), probably because I was playing the Chinese youngsters more often.

  • Won the Asian Champions League, beating Al-Gharaf 8-1 in the final (over two legs).

  • Won the CFA Cup, beating Shenhua 4-0 in the final (over two legs).

  • Won the Club World Championship, beating Man Utd 2-1 in the semis in a game that could have gone either way, followed by 4-3 win over Cruz Azul in the final (with 10 men for most of the game).

Spoiler

 

china1kc-season02-11.jpg.41d1cdd098b733cfb16b40c70e6d550c.jpg
china1kc-season02-48.jpg.05efe5af4ae00ba350da7c50844b68cb.jpg
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china1kc-season02-68.jpg.afaa3ce705f4e3fec168d0dc279c228c.jpg

 

And did winning all that stuff change our club's reputation? Not one little bit... We're still 3 star and as for the CSL league, it's reputation is still 3.5 stars, but it slipped from 23rd to 25th... I probably have to face the reality that it's going to be impossible to improve this league.

 

Assists

Let's see who is providing the most assists:

china1kc-season02-69.jpg.190bd3818757a8303c7dd0a9e6f01d28.jpg

Yes, it's Pavon again, but this time he has decent support from Viera in a CM/AP role and Luan on the LW.

 

Injuries

Pedro missed two 2 weeks:

china1kc-season02-43.jpg.ef65261aa0d2bc9612290a12b2e865dc.jpg

Happy enough with that, footballers will get injured from time to time. At least he didn't suffer Neymar's fate (11 months out!).

 

Goal Highlights

Pedro scored 4 goals four times this season:

Spoiler

 

china1kc-season02-16.jpg.80eef35f87b995aefad738a9da819b2e.jpg
china1kc-season02-21.jpg.7264ad82fee7ac9740d58aa71cfe9d2f.jpg
china1kc-season02-23.jpg.191bc4033e248d730cadacd511b0d059.jpg
china1kc-season02-27.jpg.5ec91b52481af629864cf39f1ce6fb7a.jpg

 

 

Goal Totals

Pedro scored 84 goals in 53 games this year:

china1kc-season02-71.jpg.2b05ec346015e17807edaaea08d9c152.jpg

The ration has probably dropped a little, when I was looking to increase it, but I'm happy enough with that. Although... unless he can improve that ratio as he gets older, he's never going to make it to 100 goals a season.

 

Progress

22 (EOY) Season Total
Club Goals 84 134

 

The Future

So... more of the same next season.

Continue to develop young Chinese talent, while at the same time trying to attract a higher level of foreign player. Continue to wait for the Brazil job to become available. Continue to try to develop the players as much as possible given the low quality league. And...

Continue to watch Pedro bang in the goals...

 

Edited by Scratch
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I love this one due to all the complexities of keep players happy, attracting them, building reputations. I can see you buying a lot from the South American region and hopefully keeping them. 

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Holy smokes I feel like I’m walking a tightrope just reading it! God only knows how you must feel playing it 😂 All things considered, 84 goals is a great return. Those sharks will be circling even more now though 😛 KIU Scratch, great work so far

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@Rob2017 @Nucleus @fRESH @Yung.Gabe @Kanegan @Cockers2505 - Sorry all for not answering your posts - have been away on a family holiday all week and didn't have proper internet access... I really appreciate you all taking the time to comment! 

 

Got a little quiz for you (if you're interested). Pedro started off the season with a run of perfect 10s:

image.png.ea761f1f5b27843513f36aec938dc05f.png

How many games do you think he went before he had a match rating lower than 10? Hint: It was quite a bit more than the 9 shown. 

 

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13 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Higher... :D

Higher than 15!! 😳😳 holy crap he must be on for over a 100 Goals then?!

my guess is 22 😛

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2 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Higher than 15!! 😳😳 holy crap he must be on for over a 100 Goals then?!

my guess is 22 😛

WTF? You got spyware installed on my phone? 

image.png.ad4649ce4aef61ca0d9c35e5d4733591.png

Next game was an 8 with only one goal... Got about 10 games to go, not at 100 yet... Going to have to wait until the next update to see if he made it or not!

One things for sure, he's come on strong this year (20 Arial now) and is way too good for this league (and so is most of my team). LOTs of goals to be had in China. The issue is whether I can hold on to him...

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8 minutes ago, Scratch said:

WTF? You got spyware installed on my phone? 

image.png.ad4649ce4aef61ca0d9c35e5d4733591.png

Next game was an 8 with only one goal... Got about 10 games to go, not at 100 yet... Going to have to wait until the next update to see if he made it or not!

One things for sure, he's come on strong this year (20 Arial now) and is way too good for this league (and so is most of my team). LOTs of goals to be had in China. The issue is whether I can hold on to him...

Stunning guess that 😛

That is amazing form though I must say! 😳 just gotta keep those sharks from circling now 😂😂

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1 minute ago, Nucleus said:

Stunning guess that 😛

Guess... right... I'm doing a factory reset as we speak! 😂

Yeah, he's pretty much guaranteed to score 2 goals every game. That's his minimum level. Never had anything like it. 

As for hanging on to him, I think the transfer requests have slowed down! I'm his favoured person and he also has the "wants to help you do well" message in the training screen. Also, I got Beijing's reputation up to 3.5 stars now (from 3 stars before). Anyway, it will still be a struggle to keep him - but if I can, we're looking at 1.5K, even though he was a little older starting than normal...

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8 hours ago, Scratch said:

Guess... right... I'm doing a factory reset as we speak! 😂

Yeah, he's pretty much guaranteed to score 2 goals every game. That's his minimum level. Never had anything like it. 

As for hanging on to him, I think the transfer requests have slowed down! I'm his favoured person and he also has the "wants to help you do well" message in the training screen. Also, I got Beijing's reputation up to 3.5 stars now (from 3 stars before). Anyway, it will still be a struggle to keep him - but if I can, we're looking at 1.5K, even though he was a little older starting than normal...

That's quite good as if you were to ever change clubs bringing Pedro to your new club could be easier.

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6 hours ago, Yung.Gabe said:

That's quite good as if you were to ever change clubs bringing Pedro to your new club could be easier.

Yeah - although I'm not going to change clubs. I have the EPL loaded, but only to provide extra staff and extra players etc. I'm not going to move there. If he leaves... it's over... It will be gutting, but this career is a China 1KC rather than a Pedro 1KC. So fingers crossed I can get him to stay!

As the seasons have gone on, it seems I can attract better and better players, so I may have a chance of keeping him. But so far the board won't offer the highest salary available, so he might reach the ceiling at some point... 

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Update - Season 3

Pedro finished season 2 with 84 goals. Not bad for a 22 year old. We want to at least equal that this season. Hang on... Let's not beat around the bush. With this team in this league, a player with Pedro's attributes should able to score 100. That's our target!

At a club level, we should be able to win everything easily at this point. The only question mark is the Club World Championship which throws up one European giant each year. That game will be the true test of this team.

 

Club Development

As mentioned in previous updates, we need to improve the reputation of both the club and the league in order to attract / keep players and to allow them develop to their full potential (most need to play at a higher level to improve any further).

We started the year stuck on a 3 star reputation, despite winning the Asian Champions League and the Club World Championship last year. In March however, I noticed that we'd moved to 3.5 stars:

china1kc-season03-07.jpg.0acfdb952a19b522645f8d3f64f83134.jpg

Yay! That said, we won a lot more this season, but are still on 3.5 stars. Going to be tough to increase it from here given that the reputation of the CSL is only 3.5 stars.

By the end of the season we'd increased stadium capacity to 70,000, which may help, but we can't improve the training facilities - the board just will not improve them past Superb. I guess we'll have to wait until they owe me one.

 

League Development

The CSL still has a 3.5 star reputation, but their rank is slipping backwards (from 23rd to 25th, now to 26th).

Doesn't matter that we're winning everything. Doesn't matter that the Asian Champions League Final featured two Chinese clubs. Oh well, nothing we can do but keep at it...

In other news, I've been keeping an eye on the other clubs to see whether they keep close to the foreign player quotas that exist in real life, but not in the game. Some teams are still mostly Chinese players, but there are a few that are starting to look like this:

china1kc-season03-43.jpg.b81b03aba302e6cda71eef34f3667ab8.jpg

That's actually one of my sources for new players: If another CSL team bids for a player, then if they are any good, I'll go ahead and beat them to the signature (I have buckets of money at this point). The ones are this club are not good enough for us (sorry Aaron, still love you).

 

Player Development

With most players stuck on "Needs to play at a higher level to improve", it's down to the Asian Champions League, the Club World Championship and ITN games for them to edge towards levelling up.

Pedro got one only update this year, but it was a good one:

china1kc-season03-58.jpg.77bc575e175e13acc03170470934098b.jpg

He got the mega Arial update (5 points) as well as adding 1 point to Shooting, Movement, Decisions and Dribbling. I'd like him to be better still, but let's face it, he's a monster in this league.

While I'm not focusing on awards this save, probably worth mentioning he made the World Best XI:

china1kc-season03-30.jpg.4a21e4ce7b693542d7a6cb741b53fb16.jpg

 

Transfers

The increase in club reputation opened a few doors for us. We still get rejected by the vast majority of players, but we did manage to entice a few class players to the club. That meant there were quite a few transfers this year, as we overhauled the team.

Spoiler

china1kc-season03-53.jpg.f0fd26feafbacea36a0945dc81153d2a.jpg

china1kc-season03-54.jpg.8617801fe4f23ed0e94929cd94f7281c.jpg

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china1kc-season03-56.jpg.60ffdc04f2e00a30ea90ffa5612bb743.jpg

Leaving us were a bunch of players who were starting to decline or were a step behind the incoming players. This included both Viera and Luan who were second and third assist providers last season.

Coming in were a bunch of class players, including Ryan Sessegnon, Jonathan Tah and Charly Musonda.

We're starting to be a pretty great team, way better than anyone we face - apart from maybe that one European giant in the Club World Championship and even then, we're at least equal with them.

It takes a lot more effort to do in China, but it's still possible to put together a team that wins everything. And this will help somewhat:

china1kc-season03-01.jpg.ccd5fd4f10142e546118187746d318b7.jpg

Although really, the main problem is finding good players who want to come in the first place, not getting them work permits (most good players willing to come are ITN players already).

 

Competitions

We won everything again pretty easily:

china1kc-season03-62.jpg.4c0f7f67e52dd25b5cade1dd83179312.jpg

I'm not going to list them out, but the screenshots are below:

Spoiler

 

china1kc-season03-02.jpg.775593ac4092d42420096db1fd5cc26e.jpg
china1kc-season03-41.jpg.f1c42c107ea1ac3a48a4cdac17d0a497.jpg
china1kc-season03-46.jpg.938e775754a52b1d4ff5dab611370f33.jpg
china1kc-season03-48.jpg.771cb05d04d667924ea0dd7c8760476d.jpg
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china1kc-season03-50.jpg.e19c5ac05d7daf2c4f83089215c6ad80.jpg

 

The two notable results in there are:

  • The fact that we beat Shanggang in the Final of the Asian Champions League. Surely a good sign for the strength of the CSL that two Chinese teams contested the final.

  • The 3-1 Semi Final win over Inter in the Club World Championship. The one game this year where we faced worthy opponents and we came up trumps, though the result maybe flattered us slightly.

I think it's going to be lot of winning from here on in.

 

Assists

Let's see who is providing the most assists:

china1kc-season03-57.jpg.695e2f7d1701e0ba963ecba0a1a2c6ed.jpg

Pavon again, supported by Dudu and Kampl. If I can hold onto Pavon, he's going to be setting a pretty high assist total - something I had a lot of trouble with in FMM18...

 

ITN Results

There has been no sniff of Tite losing the The Brazil job. Brazil are flying along in all competitions and are 2nd in the World. I guess I won't have a chance until the 2022 World Cup and only then if they mess it up.

In the meantime, things are going along nicely with China. We easily won the first qualifying group:

china1kc-season03-08.jpg.06ccabbb8319e45eda31c4e1b760ee64.jpg

Which then put us into another qualifying group against bigger teams like Japan and Australia. Should be tougher, but so far so good, eg:

china1kc-season03-33.jpg.b95595e76483a1029cd158a19e0fb672.jpg

 

Injuries

Only one injury this season, with Pedro missing 10 days:

china1kc-season03-29.jpg.98b544aa3a52b040465a5d10faf37315.jpg

Can't complain!

 

Goal Highlights

I've stopped counting 4 goal hauls. He got 7 once and 5 once this season:

Spoiler

 

china1kc-season03-10.jpg.e341ab46f0a95a0ff3eab2e602223f96.jpg
china1kc-season03-28.jpg.e34b503710ab78e5327c65d58dd0f6fb.jpg

 

But really his season can be summarised by: almost always scores at least 2 goals. This was his form early on:

china1kc-season03-16.jpg.6a20c5bc2a2b36538033c73befd20ab0.jpg

As mentioned in the comments above, he had a rating of 10 in his first 22 games of the season! He slowed down near the end, but he scored in almost every single match and there would have only been a handful when he didn't get two.

 

Goal Totals

Pedro scored 115 goals in 50 games this year:

china1kc-season03-60.jpg.45bdd90f946c5d6f9f0ed78b4c699c12.jpg

More than 2 goals every game! Just amazing and way better than any 1KC I've ever done before.

I'm assuming it's because he's a strong striker in a strong team in a weak league, but maybe FMM19 is easier than last year as well? My tactics aren't anything special (4 3 2 1 with Pedro as an AF and with changing instructions). 

Also worth noting that he got 62 in the league which is pretty special:

china1kc-season03-42.jpg.9e6cd5df8f5f28f1ce6bbb021763cef3.jpg

 

Progress

23 (EOY) Season Total
Club Goals 115 249

 

The Future

We're only getting better, so I'm tempted to set a target of 120 for next season, but there's part of me that thinks that would be presumptuous and tempting fate. So, we'll just wait and see how it turns out...

 

Edited by Scratch
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3 minutes ago, Kanegan said:

That's brilliant mate. Pedro would soon be pumping 150 if he stays this way.

Thanks mate! There's a chance it might go that way, but also a chance that the other CSL teams will level up too and we won't get that high. Not sure how it will turn out, but there's a chance he may go crazy. But there's always that risk of losing him. So far he is content to stay.

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3 minutes ago, Nucleus said:

Simply incredible Scratch. Massive achievement that. Can’t see that gpg being beaten legitimately anytime soon! KIU

💪💪💪

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