Career Grow's Return for a Short Sprint (The Race To 100)- COMPLETE

[Growcanine]

I'm back!

After 4 years, I have returned with a relatively simple and straightforward challenge.
 

 

Simple yet challenging at the same time (for me anyway xd), it feels like the perfect challenge to (re)start my careers!

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Chosen Club: Bayern Munich *gasp*

Yes I know, a Dortmund fan playing Bayern, what a travesty.

But hear me out. I get to bench Lewa for a 17yo youngster that has never scored a career goal 🤣 It can't get better than this!

 

Chosen Player: Dane Scarlett

Not a terribly creative pick, arguably the second-best u18 striker behind Moukoko (who I would've picked in a heartbeat if he hadn't scored 3 goals in 20/21)

14 shooting and pace is more than enough for such a young player, with the only concern being his 9 stamina that I hope to improve on.

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Let the challenge begin!

Edited November 18, 2021 by Growcanine

[Rich]

Welcome back mate and good luck, good choice of player as well 😁

[Mikey]

Best of luck @Growcanine

[Growcanine]

Mid-Season Update!

As this challenge looks to be only 2-3 seasons long (hopefully 2), I'll be aiming to publish a career update twice a season. Now, let's start with the initial teambuilding.

Spoiler

  

The main man of the show, Dane Scarlett, came in at a pricey £36M (on top of a 30% sell-on clause). Stanišić wasn't looking good enough for a 3rd choice backup center-back, and was offloaded to make some extra bucks. I did not initially plan to sign anyone else (besides loans because they're op), but Atletico came knocking with a £65M offer for Gnabry, so I haggled a little and sold him for £71M. He was then promptly replaced by Leon Bailey (which I know is overpriced because he just signed for Aston but my inner FMM18 mind still remembers him as a wonderkid back in the day). ter Stegen used to be my go-to goalie in FMM18 for Dortmund, and with Neuer suffering a 3 month injury in pre-season, I decided to spend the remainder of my budget to sign him on board.
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Half a season in...

Spoiler

Not a huge improvement, but improvement nonetheless. Training him as a Trequartista so that I could work on his Aerial while having his Stamina be the focus attribute. With players like Sané and Bailey on the wings, a better Aerial attribute might let him score a few headers. 9 stamina meant that he had to be subbed off frequently, and even had to miss some games due to being high injury risk (I ignored it at first, but he then promptly got a 4 week injury, and I'd rather not risk having him miss that many games again). I debated between spending time working on his stamina so that he can play more games, or ignoring it outright and working his attacking attributes so that he can score more goals in a game, and I decided on the former - mostly because I have faith in my outrageously good midfield roster to pop in so many chances that he's bound to score a few.

Now, his current career stats:

Spoiler

Not incredibly impressive, but I'm more than satisfied with it. He might have scored more have he not gotten injured and missed 6 games, but I'm comfortable with starting a bit slower and finishing strong. At this rate, he should be getting his 100th goal in another 47 games, which is roughly in Feb 2023, provided I make the finals of both DFB-Pokal and the Champions League this season and that he only miss 1 game a month due to fitness. 

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Career highlight:

Spoiler

First career hat-trick, scored against rivals in a cup final - what a way to announce yourself to the world!

Edited November 17, 2021 by Growcanine
Formatting

[Titjes]

Welcome back. Good start of the challenge 😉

[Growcanine]

Sneak peek for the next update

Spoiler

Haaland please my heart cannot take this

 

[Growcanine]

Season 1 Update!

Was originally planning to do an update for July, but then CWC stuff kicked in so I decided to push it ahead to June.
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The star of the show:

Spoiler

The improvement in Stamina really felt good, from needing to sub him off after ~70 mins to being able to play a full game once in a while. End of season crunch meant that he missed more games as well, on top of another 2 week injury after scoring a brace against Leipzig. 12 Aerial and 13 Strength meant that he actually started to win and score headers, although it did not increase his goal-scoring accolades by a lot. 

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty darn good season. My old tactics from FMM18 still worked well with some minor tweaks (this new Roaming Playmaker position for Kimmich is insane), although it seems that world-class Full Backs have disappeared altogether.
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End of Season Review:

Competitions:

Spoiler

Dortmund seems really good in this version, with Haaland constantly scoring goals and winning games singlehandedly. Can't wait to hop onto a Dortmund save and see how far I can go!

 

Manager Profile:

Spoiler

Overall a pretty good first season for me, maybe could've gone unbeaten but Haaland is too good 😅 Conceded a little too many goals for my liking, and hopefully next season will look a bit cleaner.

[Rich]

Well done mate, awesome start, should be done very quickly 😁

[Growcanine]

18 minutes ago, Rich said:

Well done mate, awesome start, should be done very quickly 😁

Yea I'm in september and he already has 80 goals 🤣 CWC is so many extra goals that I'm thinking about doing another 100 goals with Rijkhoff (9 months younger) and seeing if I can get 100 goals in around the same number of games

[Growcanine]

Early Season 2 Update!

This is an unplanned update, but things have shifted far too quickly for me to just leave it until the middle of season 2, so here it goes!

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The star of the show:

Spoiler

Not many significant improvements, but a huge goal spree in both CWC and the first round of DFB-Pokal puts the star at 20 goals away after just October. Early league games also suggests a very good season ahead in terms of goals, and he might even be able to hit 100 goals before the turn of the year!

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Transfers:

Spoiler

With the challenge looking to end in this season, I focused solely on the immediate future for transfers. Dembélé came in as a free after his contract expired, and Draxler was signed as a backup, with Opoku being his backup. Wan-Bissaka was brought in as a direct upgrade to Pavard, who was promptly sold, and Itter came in as yet another backup. A bunch of returning loanees (Nianzou, Zirkzee, Adrian Fein) had improved enough that it was unlikely for me to find a better player willing to play backup (and Nianzou improved so much he was competing for first-team slots), so they stayed on for squad depth. A bunch of players who were not going to be good enough even for backups were quickly sold, with me intending to sign either Brozović or Kessié as a backup for Kimmich. That plan fell through however, when Tottenham outbid me and signed Kessié for £90M, and Brozović went to Chelsea for £83M, so now I just look like an idiot selling a bunch of players and not using any of that money to sign any replacements in time before the window closes 🤣 Here's hoping that this poor window doesn't come back and haunt me when it matters.

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[Titjes]

I tried signing Dembélé in 3 diffrent saves (with 3 different teams) on a bosman and he never wants to leave Barca 🤣

Doing fantastic work mate 😄

[Growcanine]

Mid-Season 2 Update!

Oh my oh my.

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The star of the show:

Spoiler

In scintillating form, absolutely exceeding even my wildest of expectations. A relatively easy Champions League group also meant extra goals meant that he now only has to score 2 more goals against AC Milan to hit his 100th career goal. WIth the World Cup coming up though, it means that if he fails to do so, he will need to wait for another 2(!) months before he gets a chance to play another club match. No pressure kid...

Spoiler

And here it is. A clean win, but not what I hoped for given his form. Now I'll have to wait for the World Cup to end for him to score his 100th 😢

 

oh...? 

Spoiler

Finally, my abilities have been recognised 🤣

 

Anyway, with the World Cup now over, time to get back into the league and get some goals!

Spoiler

Finally, the man has done it! It might not be the most elegant goal, and took an additional 2 months, but it's still about 2 months ahead of my prediction, so I'll take it.

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Final career stats:

Spoiler

Scoring his 100th career goal just before the turn of the year, Dane Scarlett has now broken all records by reaching that milestone at a stunning age of 18 years, 9 months, and 7 days!

[Titjes]

Great results mate, well done 😉

[Growcanine]

13 minutes ago, Titjes said:

Great results mate, well done 😉

Thank you! Was hoping for a short challenge to get me back into pushing myself instead of just signing wonderkids for Dortmund and winning every trophy 🤣 gonna go try to do this challenge in China with Rijkhoff now 

[samhardy]

Great effort. Will add you to the leaderboard!