Shortly after starting the project about the multi-team save, I realized this was not completely something for me. It was all fun, but mentally I struggled to focus on multiple clubs at the same time as I will always «the one favorite club» which I would invest much more time to improve it.

Clube Desportivo Nacional

During the five years (and 36 days) at CD Nacional I managed to turn Clube Desportivo Nacional into a top club in Portugal finishing 3rd, 4th, 3rd and 3rd in the years after the direct promotion in the first year. Despite that we got the Moneyball rolling and at the end of the career in Funchal I save over 100M on the bank, despite building a new stadium after the promotion.

After promotion and securing myself as a top 4 team alongside Benfica, Porto and Sporting with 70.5 average point of per season we just stayed a bit below the two clubs from Lisbon where Porto scored 82.5 points on average with two titles and respective 92 and 86 points (check the spider diagram on that above) a board takeover did happen on Funchal.

Paulo Leite, a Portuguese business owner took over the club and decided to break the wage budget and the transfer record with bringing in two Dutch Midfielders (second time in FM this has happened to me after the premiere in Racing Santander – where the owner spent even more on new players). Central midfielder Menno van 't Schip from AZ for 57M and Ayoub Zerhoumi for 8.5M from FC Utrecht.

Besides those two hefty transfer fees I mostly signed the players for free or low fees (below 1M). Being a top 4 club in Portugal makes your top players valued around 15M – 20M which allows you to do some great buy low – sell high strategy.

At the end of Cristiano Ronaldo’s virtual career in Funchal there were 92 competitive games and two trophies: the Liga II Ledman which secured the promotion and the UEFA Europa Conference League (Hi (OcasionalFM) win in overtime vs Benfica Lisbon in 2042.

Club Atlético Vélez Sarsfield

I stayed around 9 seasons in Argentina after moving there from Deportivo Guadalajara in Mexico. While managing the “main” club in this multi club save I have won eight of nine league titles in Argentina, which I think happened mainly because I sold too many influential players during the winter (well, actually it is a summer break in Argentina) transfer window. As a result of that the players were unhappy, and we finished just a few points short to River Plate in that year.

On the continental competitions we were doing amazingly good, winning the Copa Libertadores for 9 times. What surprised me over there that mostly it was argentine domination – as just a few Brazilian team made it to the latter stages. Maybe because I have not loaded the competition? One of the reasons I did chose to go to the Velez was that I was trying to finally get some decent youth intakes which would end up playing regularly in the first time. It did happen but mainly on one position: The Goalkeeper. On Twitter (here, I summarized all the goalkeepers I did see come through the intake and making it eventually to the Velez first team.

I tried many things to improve the intake, but strangely not much changed:

• Improve Youth Recruitment, Youth Coaching and Youth Facilities
• Sign different kinds of Head of Youth Development, different abilities, different personalities
• Add Affiliates to secure foreign youngsters

But in the end, nothing of all that helped in getting in the next Thiago Almada. Maybe it was lack of luck – or maybe the Buenos Aires region, where Velez Sarsfield is located, is just too much overpopulated by different clubs. On the other Hand, River Plate kept on having those amazing newgens we all dream about. Despite the Reputation of Velez has overtaken them by the amazing performances in league and continental cups Here a brief overview on the numbers for the Argentina spider web graphic above:

Club	Rank	Average	2035	2036	2037	2038	2039	2040	2041	2042	2043
Velez	1	89.5555556	95	89	89	96	89	81	87	83	97
Boca Juniors	2	76.6666667	80	74	81	79	79	70	85	78	64
River Plate	3	74.4444444	82	79	90	92	62	67	69	66	63
San Lorenzo	4	66.7777778	66	46	71	59	70	65	86	70	68
Racing	5	64.1111111	60	70	81	56	71	56	63	62	58
Belgrano	6	60.7777778	57	64	58	66	62	47	63	57	73
Independiente	7	60.6666667	72	68	36	71	58	62	73	48	58
Talleres	8	57.6666667	45	45	43	43	81	79	57	61	65

After so many years of domination and not getting the youth intakes I really wanted (and somehow expected) I wanted to pack my bags and go back to Europe. The Youth Development in France has taken my interest for some time now.

Un nouveau chapitre

Imagine a save in France where neither Paris nor Monaco have the resources, they have at the start of the save? «Incroyable» and sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it? We write the year 2044 in my save - Paris, with former Real Madrid academy graduate Juan Mata as their manager have lost their sugar daddy a few years back and cannot even afford double digit transfer fees anymore. Same goes for Monaco, who have an underwriter sugar daddy, but they barely pull any strings in the transfer window anymore. Meanwhile Lille have won 2 of the last 3 leagues in France.

In fact, with a sugar daddy at club Lille OSC have taken over Paris’ place on the financial throne of French football, paying over 160M in wages

In Summer 2044 – after the EURO, Paulo Fonseca decided to resign from his Portugal role after losing out to England (who went on winning the competition later on, with a 120th+1 minute winner vs Germany) in the semis to take over the Netherlands after the tournament. Meanwhile Portugal decided to replace the vacant role with Stade Rennais manager Bruno Lage.

Nestor Subiat, together with Dutch assistant manager Virgil van Dijk took over the club in the north of France:

Feel free to head over to the great Website of theresonlyoneball.com, if you are interested in more background information about the Club

The Club

In the 2040s Stade Rennais FC, are playing back again in League 1 after getting relegated three times over the last 20 years. The first one in 2026/2027 after finishing 20th with only 34 points and a goal difference of -26. Roberto Donadoni until December and former Stade Rennais player Jocelyn Gourvennec were the managers in that horrific season.

It took them three years and 2nd place in League 2 to get promoted again and another three struggling years with a 16th, 13th and a 19th finish in the top tier to get relegated again. Then – instant promotion and relegation again. Until 2037 when Rennais was promoted again and managed to stay of the relegation battle (besides one 16th finish) they mostly finish in the top half.

While the footballing aspect since the latest promotion looked great, they club had some immense struggles on the financial side. Going up to 80M into the debt in May 2042. Thanks, two transfer profits of around 60M in the coming month they managed to get around that quite fast. But when I took over the finances were not too great to be fair.

Stade Rennais FC is still playing at Roazhon Park, which was built in 1912 and has room for around 30K spectators. The other facilities look like the following:

• Training Facilities: Great
• Youth Facilities: Great
• Data Analysis: Adequate
• Junior Coaching: Exceptional
• Youth Recruitment: Exceptional

First Season

After taking over the club I realized that the finances were not too good as mentioned above. Thanks to two big sales to China. Ivan Sanchez moved to initially 56M (potentially rising to 70) to Guangzhou Evergrande and José María Moscuzza moved to Beijing Sinobo Guoan FC for 16M. With these transfers we allowed ourselves to make the squad a bit younger too.

On the tactical side, I decided to use my classic 3-4-1-2 which allowed me to have so great domination. Quick summary: With the three attacking players (DLF, Pressing Forward and the Attacking Midfielder) and the Central Midfielder who lurks around the Box in the attacking phases most of the times for some long shots we overload the middle quite a bit.

So, unless the AI/Opponents go to defend narrow, we have much more players in that Area to score some goal by combining there with a short passing idea. But obviously it is not that easy, and the AI mostly goes to defend arrow and sits deep to close all that space. That leads u to plan B: the two wingers are there to allow us to stretch the game. So when the Opponents the goes to defend narrow both of the wingers are not man marked at all and have all the time to put in some great crossing.

These explanations leaves ourselves with the DLP (not Ed) – As it comes naturally with the role he drops a bit deeper, mostly acting like a playing DM. On the defensive phase, he tries to close the gap between defense and attack and tries to avoid the counterattack from the opponents as early as possible. On the attacking phase he provides great assist to the wingers with can be seen on this example:

While the No. 14 playing as DLP passed to the winger on 7. Going in to the first season, we were expected to finish for a Europa Conference League Playoff or a 7th place.

It worked all a lot better than planned (but you guys already know what happens now) and thanks to an amazing turnaround in the game vs PSG in the last few games (being down 0-2, until the 71th minute after two corners) but still winning in the end allowed us to finish 1 point above Lyon in my debut season in France:

Shortly after the season-end break the Spanish chairmain Luis Javier Franguillo decided to resign in a few days. What a shock! My third big takeover in this save file

Luckily the new one seems to be having a bit of too much money and wants to turn Stade Rennais “one of the greatest forces in domestic and continental football”. Taking over Europe from the North of France. As a first step an amount of 65M have been added to the transfer budget

Youth Watch

One of the points I did back at Velez already (while reading this lovely thread over at the SI forums), was to create an Excel Spreadsheet to be able to asses the youth intake a bit better. Normally I would have given the potential star rating at the intake day a lot of importance, probably too much. As a result of that I wanted to have an overview which allowed me to assess the intake just based on personality, mental, physical and technical attribute.

So firstly, on the Youth Intake day I would add a nickname to every player coming through the ranks as a potential member of the U19s squad at Rennes. Then add every player to a new created shortlist «RennesIntake$YEAR» and then export the shortlist in the according view. The View contains some general information like Age, Nationality, Height, Weight, Preferred Foot, Personality and of course all the player attributes. After exporting the data I would load it up into my spreadsheet (which I have created for FM19 already, see here here for more). I have just added DNA (which is only determination for now) and the MAX-Calculations to determinate the best position attribute wise and of course the personality column

So, the main results of using the spreadsheet for the youth intake would be the following:

1. Is the player good enough for at least a rotational place in the first squad? (AAR-Rating of around 60 in the future)
2. Personalities of the Player
3. Which are players best

As a next step I would look through the intake and look if the players are good enough. Players below a rating of 50 would get a contract but normally would never make it to the first squad as their attributes would need to improve to drastically. The ones with a rating over 50 will be given a specific training (double intensity + working on their weaknesses) regimen based on suggested positions: Potential categories are Goalkeeper, Central Defender, Wide Midfielder, Central Midfielder, Strikers.

Note: As I do not have any wingbacks/fullbacks in my tactical system they will be re-trained as wingers. Attacking midfielders will rotate between central midfielders and Strikers

• Goalkeepers: Will be trained as Sweeper keepers
• Central defenders: Will be trained as Ballplaying Defenders
• Wide player (defensive and attacking): Will be trained as Wingers
• Central midfielders: Will be trained as Box-to-Box midfielders
• Strikers: Will be trained as Complete Forward$

Personalities: I have tried to categorize the personalities into three different kind of personalities: bad ones (Rating: 0, low determination/ambition), average personalities (Rating: 1) and good personalities (Rating 2: great ambition/determination).

Mentoring System: In order to keep a determined squad in the future every player coming through the intake without a great personality/determination will be moved to the first team immediately for mentoring, but still made available for playing U19s. There he will enter a mentoring group with one of most influential people with good personality of the first team squad.

The following personalities are regarded as the best in my rating system: Driven, Resolute Model Citizen and Model Professional. They all offer great (hidden) values on Ambition as well as on Determination While doing some squad planning in another spreadsheet the plan is not to sign players to stop the proper development of the Rennes academy graduates, so I keep track on which position I have some talent in the Rennes 2 or the U-19s teams:

The Goal is to two players per position in the first team (one starter + one rotation player) plus to have around 1-2 players in the academy for every position in the future. In the table above academy players in the first team are marked as red and players in the academy (who came through) the ranks are marked as Yellow. And blue is where I need to do some actions on the transfer market (sell or buy)

For now, these 5 players are rated as the most talented players in the system: Jordan Lucas, Elie Cisse, Ramiro Barbero, Eric Obiang and Francis Lepetre. Jordan Lucas and Elie Cisse have been at the club already when I joined – especially Elie Cisse looks like one of the better talents. He could not be registered for the first season as he was/is still 15y old. But the plan is to give him some first minutes in the League 1 this season (as DLF or AMC). Surely, he will be making it to the first team in the next few years:

Lyon has already tried to get him in, bidding almost 20M already:

Jordan Lucas is currently training as suggested as potential Pressing Forward in the future. His Finishing is a bit low atm, depending on that progress he might be moved down as a central midfield prospect. Ramiro Barbero, Eric Obiang and Lepetre all joined part of the 2044 Youth intake. Barbero is obviously the star of the intake (and there is already some interest from the FC Barcelona in the young Spaniard from Salamanca). Meanwhile Obiang will be retrained to CM working intensively on his Passing/Technique

I hope you enjoyed this newest Blog - I am here for you in #nestorFM on FMSlack or on Twitter

Nestor