Career No One Left Behind - A Koita 1KC [ABANDONED]

[Ian]

Nice start, I agree with the others and personally find that strikers in particular are just not right until they get to around 22-25. Regardless of stamina they seem to get jaded very quickly and suffer from inconsistency, well in my experience anyway but it’s probably a lot less noticeable in a weaker league. Anyway, great start and the only way is up.

[Woody]

A very solid start mate and he is looking pretty good even after 1 season.

More to come I suspect. 👍

[Scratch]

5 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Great start mate! I think that’s why we see quite a few unfinished careers because people see the numbers you can hit from season 4/5 onwards but often don’t realise the struggle in the first few seasons to get there. Ie. Building your squad, waiting for your players to mature and develop etc. It’s a game of patience at the start.

Thanks mate. I'm actually the other way around - I'm more likely to quit after 4 or 5 seasons because it got too easy! 🙂

But yeah, you are totally right. Of course depends somewhat on the club and the league. That's why I'm always banging on about Celtic being perfect for a 1KC. It will take longer to compete in the CL, but you can dominate the league right away. Even then though, it takes a while to level up, it doesn't just happen magically!  

added 0 minutes later

3 hours ago, Rob said:

Excellent start

Thanks mate! Been a lot of fun... Decisions actually make a lot of difference at this stage.

[billy2shots]

I love a good ‘unfinished business ‘ career. Sometimes you just have to get the job done before you can move on. 

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, Ian said:

Nice start, I agree with the others and personally find that strikers in particular are just not right until they get to around 22-25. Regardless of stamina they seem to get jaded very quickly and suffer from inconsistency, well in my experience anyway but it’s probably a lot less noticeable in a weaker league. Anyway, great start and the only way is up.

Oh yeah, the jadedness of young players is a real thing. Have to rest them quite a bit until their early 20s and it sticks around longer than that. And they score better as they get older, even if their attributes have finished increasing. I'd never use a player under 24 or so for a 100 in a season challenge (I tried that a few years back, one season only challenge, too easy to do that 5 years into a save). But yeah, if you have a strong team in a weaker league, they can still score a fair bit.

added 0 minutes later

2 hours ago, Woody said:

A very solid start mate and he is looking pretty good even after 1 season.

More to come I suspect. 👍

Thanks mate. Definitely more to come. Sorry we didn't win anything this season. Will try to win something next year!

[Scratch]

2 minutes ago, billy2shots said:

I love a good ‘unfinished business ‘ career. Sometimes you just have to get the job done before you can move on. 

Haha yeah. I thought about it a while back, but discarded it at the time, but then when the career was over and I couldn't work out what to do, it came back in my mind and there was no way I could do anything else... I should have called it "Unfinished Business". 🙂

[Woody]

1 hour ago, Scratch said:

Oh yeah, the jadedness of young players is a real thing. Have to rest them quite a bit until their early 20s and it sticks around longer than that. And they score better as they get older, even if their attributes have finished increasing. I'd never use a player under 24 or so for a 100 in a season challenge (I tried that a few years back, one season only challenge, too easy to do that 5 years into a save). But yeah, if you have a strong team in a weaker league, they can still score a fair bit.

added 0 minutes later

Thanks mate. Definitely more to come. Sorry we didn't win anything this season. Will try to win something next year!

Just keeping it real bud 🤣

[Scratch]

On 29/03/2020 at 02:35, Woody said:

Just keeping it real bud 🤣

Let's not hope too real mate... I mean, 12 points clear at the turn of the year...

Edited April 1, 2020 by Scratch

[Woody]

10 hours ago, Scratch said:

Let's not hope too real mate... I mean, 12 points clear at the turn of the year...

Oh don't you dare do a 96 collapse 😂

[Scratch]

21 minutes ago, Woody said:

Oh don't you dare do a 96 collapse 😂

I should have lost some games before we got that far ahead. It makes me far too nervous to be that far out in front. Once bitten... 😰

[Scratch]

Um, @Woody ... We hadn't lost a game in that last screenshot, but now this:

Our lead is down to 7... 😰

[Woody]

11 hours ago, Scratch said:

Um, @Woody ... We hadn't lost a game in that last screenshot, but now this:

Our lead is down to 7... 😰

oh no!!! i'm sure you'll turn that form over and plough through to the end mate.....i hope 

[BatiGoal]

16 hours ago, Woody said:

oh no!!! i'm sure you'll turn that form over and plough through to the end mate.....i hope 

The exact opposite of 👆 pls 😁 

[Scratch]

@Woody @BatiGoal - we lost to Chelsea too. Now:

Too scared to play on...

[Scratch]

Haven't lost any more games, but now we're 6 points behind with 4 games in hand. 

No pressure, right?

[Scratch]

Update - Season 2

I finished season two a while back, but haven't had a chance to write it up until now.

Things are moving a little slowly because I've started developing my app again. Now that I have a new phone, I can play on that and use my old phone for testing (I don't want to install the app on the phone I use for playing). So some of my playing time is now going towards that.

Anyway, we left off with Koita scoring 27 goals in his first season and Newcastle making finals and semi finals etc, without actually winning anything.

This season we're looking for Koita to step up a bit and get maybe 50 goals. We also want to win something to make @Woody happy! 🙂

 

Transfers

Our squad was much stronger by the end of season 1, but we kept on overhauling it.

Spoiler

Some of the original squad hit their used by date and were sold: Dubravka didn't develop as well as in previous saves (and wanted to leave anyway), Ritchie was great but was getting old and the youngsters were ready to take over, Almiron just never fit into our system, Yedlin had done well but we had better options.

Some of our previous signings didn't pan out, either because they just didn't develop well (Maroni, Henry) or because other players came through and pushed them to the fringes (McKenna, Marega).

Coming in were a mix of seasoned professionals (Pickford, Zouma and a strangely underpowered Theo Hernandez who I hope will develop) and hot youngsters (most of the rest) who may or may not pan out. We brought in Embolo as Koita's main backup, but I almost went for Pinamonti (who got 1.5K at Newcastle in FMM18).

 

Results

Where to start? I guess the League. As in the posts above this (screenshots up there), we were 12 points clear by the turn of the year. We were far from dominant though - we'd won a lot of games, but they were the 'grind it out' sort, not the smooth sailing slaughter that we'll dish out in a season or two.

As any Newcastle supporter knows, you don't want to be 12 points clear with that much time remaining. And sure enough, we couldn't maintain the momentum of the first half of the season. We lost some key games and started getting the odd draw, while Man City went on a perfect run. With the season drawing to a close, we were 6 points behind, with 4 games in hand (we had 6 to play, they had 2):

 

I didn't like being that far behind, but surely with that many games in hand we'd be able to win the League right? Right?

Spoiler

Only Just!!

Meanwhile, we tried to win a cup or two. We picked up the League Cup, with a 1-0 victory over Liverpool.

We fell short in the FA Cup, beating Tottenham in the Semi Final via a penalty shootout, before going on to lose to Arsenal in the Final after they scored an extra time winner (having played almost the entire game with 10 men):

And in the Euro Cup, we beat Napoli in the Semi Final with an extra time winner, before going on to beat Liverpool 1-0 in the Final, with Lascelles scoring the winner in the 119th minute.

Spoiler

 

 

So not quite perfect yet - everything seems to be an epic struggle at this point - but when you add it up, it turns out that we won a treble this year! I'll take that.

 

Development

Koita continued to develop nicely, ending the season looking like this:

I'm very happy he maxed out Aerial as I truly wasn't expecting that and it means I can keep using my tactic (which is dependent on Aerial for maximum effect).

Apart from that, he had +3 for Stamina, +2 for Pace and +1 for Movement, Shooting and Dribbling. He's looking good! And he's still increasing slowly after each game, so he's not done yet.

 

Injuries and Availability

He had a 3 week injury early in the season:

It was also an African Cup of Nations year, so we lost him for several weeks in the new year.

 

Goals

He definitely stepped it up this year, scoring 56 goals in 51 games:

I'm happy with that. He crossed the goal a game line and also managed 51 games despite a) the injury, b) the African Cup of Nations and c) the fact that he still gets tired a lot.

 

Progress

Season	Goals
01	27
02	56
Total	83 / 1000

Not a huge number compared to what some people can get (or what I can get in Scotland), but I'm happy with it given the circumstances.

 

Looking Forward

The team is continuing to strengthen, which will unlock more goals. Koita will also score more as he matures, so it's all systems go here! I think we can probably expect 70 or 80 goals next year. Onwards and upwards baby!

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Scratch

[Woody]

Well with how things are ramping up at Newcastle this last few days this is some welcome news Scratch my boy.

Well done on the silverware and Koita is looking good, those goals will come mate.

[Scratch]

40 minutes ago, Woody said:

Well with how things are ramping up at Newcastle this last few days this is some welcome news Scratch my boy.

Well done on the silverware and Koita is looking good, those goals will come mate.

Thanks mate, just been reading the latest on the takeover and it sounds good, but not gonna believe it until it's 100% done and Ashley has definitely gone... But who knows, maybe we'll win something in real life in the not too distant future...

[Woody]

27 minutes ago, Scratch said:

Thanks mate, just been reading the latest on the takeover and it sounds good, but not gonna believe it until it's 100% done and Ashley has definitely gone... But who knows, maybe we'll win something in real life in the not too distant future...

I hope so as long as it's done right.

Heard from one media outlet that fans are demanding we sign Kane, really! I've not heard from any fans forums of us demanding to sign anyone.

I just want to see good football and the rest will follow. I've heard KK might be given a position at the club and Shearer will get his bar back.

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, Woody said:

I hope so as long as it's done right.

Heard from one media outlet that fans are demanding we sign Kane, really! I've not heard from any fans forums of us demanding to sign anyone.

I just want to see good football and the rest will follow. I've heard KK might be given a position at the club and Shearer will get his bar back.

LOL, I just googled the Kane thing and I can see the news articles. I can tell you, he won't sign for me! But then again, he wouldn't get a game with Koita in the team. I just hope the new owners are on Vibe and have seen what I'd do with the team! 🤣

Yeah, I just want good football and sensible investment in the team. Everything else will be icing. 

[smoggy90]

Great season 2 there mate! Good to see you can still max out that aerial as well. Keep up the good work. 

[Scratch]

9 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Great season 2 there mate! Good to see you can still max out that aerial as well. Keep up the good work. 

Thanks mate - yeah I was mildly shocked by the Aerial thing. Was trivial to get players to 20 in the first version of FMM20, but after the first update I couldn't get them to develop Aerial at all. In the current version though it seems possible, though still not as straightforward as it used to be.

In my current team I have 4 strikers. Two are happily upgrading their Aerial (Koita is at 20, another younger striker is up to 17), two aren't moving at all. For those that do update, they might not have any movement on Aerial for a couple of jumps, then get an improvement of 3 or 4. Though sometimes they just get +1. So it's a bit all over the place - quite similar to the old days, but not for all players and not quite as quick.

Worth pointing out that I specifically gave Koita a mentor who would help him with "heading the ball". My other young striker who's developing Aerial didn't have that, but I'd probably recommend that if you're trying specifically to improve Aerial. 

[Scratch]

1 hour ago, Scratch said:

Thanks mate - yeah I was mildly shocked by the Aerial thing. Was trivial to get players to 20 in the first version of FMM20, but after the first update I couldn't get them to develop Aerial at all. In the current version though it seems possible, though still not as straightforward as it used to be.

In my current team I have 4 strikers. Two are happily upgrading their Aerial (Koita is at 20, another younger striker is up to 17), two aren't moving at all. For those that do update, they might not have any movement on Aerial for a couple of jumps, then get an improvement of 3 or 4. Though sometimes they just get +1. So it's a bit all over the place - quite similar to the old days, but not for all players and not quite as quick.

Worth pointing out that I specifically gave Koita a mentor who would help him with "heading the ball". My other young striker who's developing Aerial didn't have that, but I'd probably recommend that if you're trying specifically to improve Aerial. 

@smoggy90 - LOL, just after writing that I played a few games and one of the 2 strikers that hadn't improved Aerial jumped 3 points! Even though I had him down to train Pace as I'd given up on training him in Aerial. He was still training as a Target Man though..

[broodje kip]

Season 2 are impressive especially playing in the PL

[Kanegan]

Great second season mate. Koita is developing well now.

[Scratch]

4 hours ago, Lord Danish said:

Season 2 are impressive especially playing in the PL

Thanks mate - had to micro manage a lot of the games at this stage, so it's a long way from the auto-cruise I was on in the last one by the end. But the team is getting stronger all the time and it will be easier soon. 🙂

added 0 minutes later

2 hours ago, Kanegan said:

Great second season mate. Koita is developing well now.

Thanks Kane! Yeah, he looks pretty good and I'm confident he'll get to 1K even if he doesn't get better than this. 

[smoggy90]

8 hours ago, Scratch said:

@smoggy90 - LOL, just after writing that I played a few games and one of the 2 strikers that hadn't improved Aerial jumped 3 points! Even though I had him down to train Pace as I'd given up on training him in Aerial. He was still training as a Target Man though..

Haha that’s a random one but training as target man explains this to some extent I guess. On my personal Middlesbrough saves the only reason I keep Rudy Gestede is to mentor my younger players to improve their aerial/heading. About the only thing he’s good for!

[Scratch]

2 hours ago, smoggy90 said:

Haha that’s a random one but training as target man explains this to some extent I guess. On my personal Middlesbrough saves the only reason I keep Rudy Gestede is to mentor my younger players to improve their aerial/heading. About the only thing he’s good for!

Gestede! I remember when he was a decent young player in the game. 😄 

[BatiGoal]

Been so long I thought you'd left Koita behind.

[Scratch]

5 hours ago, BatiGoal said:

Been so long I thought you'd left Koita behind.

No he's been with me the whole time. Right in my pocket. Probably goes against social distancing rules but I literally can't leave him behind...