Crusaders F.C. - The European Crusade

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Deadline day scramble for Henry + League Cup success!

It's all going off! While I have Spooner and Keenan as prospects and Hughes as the main striker, I'd still rather not sell this guy since he's wanted by almost every major Premier League club.

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Back to on-the-pitch matters and we dominated Dungannon to win the League Cup. 22 shots to 0, just what we like to see!

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Next update will be on the Youth Intake for the season, and the end-of-season review! Please leave a comment and let me know what you think(6)
 
Haha, I can just imagine that reaction lol hopefully there was nothing in the mug when it fell
 
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Amanado said:
Haha, I can just imagine that reaction lol hopefully there was nothing in the mug when it fell
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Luckily not. Nothing like stealing a game undeservedly with no time for the opponent to respond!
 
Season Review + Youth Intake 17/18

Youth Intake

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Another good batch of Northern Irish talent, with Donal *** the stand-out player. I love a good midfielder and he even has the PPMs "Get forward whenever possible" and "Looks for pass rather than shot". Assuming he has alot of development in him, I might have to look at a 4-2-3-1 option for next season so I can use him in his favoured attacking midfield position!

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With no Europe in the second half of the season, we could just focus on domestic domination, and we wrapped up the league with a record points tally. 5 in a row for Crusaders! (6)

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We beat Portadown to complete the Quadrouple but in the All-Ireland cup, we came up against old foes Dundalk, the Irish division team who have matched us in Europe with a few CL group stage appearances of their on. They boast some good players too, Javier Garrido among several high profile names bolstering the Irish division, so there is quite a bit of competition between the NI and Irish leagues and in particular Crusaders and Dundalk who drive them forward. We haven't see the last of them after probably hitting double figures for matches against them!

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In demand Paul Henry won Player of the Year to highlight why I'll fight tooth and nail to keep him, and I won Manager of the Year once more (credit goes to coolmcool for my award yet again!)


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So a decent end to the season, where we played some good stuff and youngsters grew more and more. Hopefully we can continue our progress in the next 2/3 seasons and develop into a side which can make an impact in Europe in the big games!
 
Off-season update - massive progress for ourselves and the division!

Ranking changes + Rivals stepping up!

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Our League has continued to climb the rankings and is now amazingly 2 1/2 star in reputation! The prize money and sponsorship still isn't anything special, but it is definitely improving and that can only bring better players to the league.



After a Champions League AND Europa League group stage appearance for Crusaders and Linfield respectively, we have climbed to 20th in the Nation Rankings meaning we now have more 2nd round qualifiers for the Europa League. It still doesn't give us any guaranteed pay-days, but it's another step in the right direction!

The top 6 is where we want to be. I don't know how realistic that is even in the very long term, but if Russia can do it, it gives me hope. Let me know in the comments if you think it is achievable.

More rankings, and we've broken into the top 100 clubs! It could help our seeding in future European competition.

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Rivals stepping up

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Great news because Linfield have gone professional and made upgrades to their infrastructure! Hopefully they can get a better team together and start to make the Europa league groups on a more regular basis.

A funny appointment, probably due to our rising reputation as a league:

Onto matters concerning Crusaders and we will upgrade our facilities for a 4th consecutive season. We're probably at nearly Premier League level with facilities after this, but they are getting expensive as this one cleared my balance down to 1 million!

We sold a young striker to the Premier League, but it was Keenan rather than Henry. Both have 5 star potential but I want to keep Henry at all costs given how highly United, Liverpool and Tottenham rate him. The 2 million for Keenan bolsters what was a very small budget (probably because the facility upgrades depleted our bank balance).

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We signed Ball on a fairly cheap free transfer, and he gives us some Creativity to go with our possession-focused midfielders.

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Next is a really exciting striker in Khouma Babacar. He cost me 4.2k-a-week but he could be prolific in NI, and give us that real threat in Europe we maybe lacked before. He will also tutor Paul Henry with his Resilient/Evasive/Reserved personality and 15 determination a very desirable personality!

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Tactically, we will keep the 4-5-1 Control and 4-5-1 Standard, whilst getting rid of the 4-5-1 Defensive for an experimental 4-2-3-1 Control:

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Bring on the qualifiers!
 
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rocco russo said:
Paul Henry looks to be a good one for the next several years
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He's different gravy mate, he really is. All the attributes are in the right places, he's learning from a player with 15 determination + Resilient/Evasive/Reserved. Plus he's 17-years old, Northern Irish and the fact the biggest teams in England want him tells me he must have unbelievable potential. I'll try to keep him here at any cost!

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Just read the whole story on my lunch at work, superb stuff mate! Hope you keep it going
 
TheBallBoy said:
Just read the whole story on my lunch at work, superb stuff mate! Hope you keep it going
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Cheers, I appreciate it! I might take a little break from FM as I have some matters IRL that need attending to, but believe me as soon as I come back (inevitably), the only save I will want to play is this one and I'll update it as before!
 
Cool

Just wondering, the instant result button, are you using this on the made mode? You're not playing classic mode, are you?

Where do I get the button from?
 
TheBallBoy said:
Cool

Just wondering, the instant result button, are you using this on the made mode? You're not playing classic mode, are you?

Where do I get the button from?
Click to expand...
you download a skin that has a instant result button
 
Just checked back in and great to see the progress. Looks like you're finally getting some support in Europe from the other teams in your league! Have you been selling players to other teams in your league to try and strengthen them a bit more or not yet?

Keep it up man! Hope you sort your RL stuff out and get back to FM :)
 
Crazay said:
Just checked back in and great to see the progress. Looks like you're finally getting some support in Europe from the other teams in your league! Have you been selling players to other teams in your league to try and strengthen them a bit more or not yet?

Keep it up man! Hope you sort your RL stuff out and get back to FM :)
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I'll be back, I've got exams at uni so can't spend time on FM atm but I can see me playing solely this save through until FM15 and beyond!

And yeah I sort of have, if you look at the first 2 seasons' transfer business, I spent way over the odds on players from my division to help the other teams financially (thanks to my Europa League success). More recently, guys that I've released have gone on to rivals to bolster them (Linfield have quite a few like our former GK and captain).

With such good junior coaching, professional status and training facilities/staff, almost every player to come through the academy is "leading/star" potential. By keeping them until 18/19, our rejects can supply rivals with good players!

Now that Linfield are Professional, and are upgrading facilities, they should really kick on and help us develop the league. I don't know what determines the league standard but I definitely think we can make it 3 star in the near future. If we can build a team capable of competing into the knockout stages in Europe which I think we can, who knows what we could do to our ranking.

I've never managed an international team on FM but I really want to start with the NI side and try to get us into the WC or Euros with my Crusaders players along with the experience of Jonny Evans etc.
 
Good news!

I have returned from my temporary haitus following RL commitments. It was sad to see this slide off the first page of stories for the first time since its creation! :'(

I've played into September and will be doing a European Qualification update very shortly, along with a round-up of transfers and any other happenings! (6)
 
spireross said:
Just read through this, loving it so far!
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Thanks mate, I'll be updating it in a minute but I can't tear myself away from the game to write it up! It's such a good save, the successive European qualifications have just snowballed progress!
 
2018/19 - Qualifying and early season update!

Pre-season started very early so that I could fit as many games in before the qualifiers in mid-July to get everyone in the squad up to speed - and it is a big squad - results aren't important but we won all 8 of our friendlies including 3-1 away to Stade Brestois 29. Onto the Champions League Qualifiers, and we coasted past the Latvian champions 7-0 on aggregate, completely dominating them:

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Inevitably, we were drawn against Irish side Dundalk in what must be our 100th meeting in Cup competition. The side that beat us 1-0 in the All-Ireland Cup final last season were swept aside 5-1 on aggregate this time as we looked the better side. New signing Khouma Babacar took his Champions League tally to 4!

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The play-off draw had me wondering about the randomness of draw mechanics, as we were drawn against Celtic again at the same stage for the 2nd season running (something like a 1/10 chance). The away leg was first this time, and we lost it 2-1 in a match that was far more even than last season. The away goal was a plus, but we still had to win the home match which we did 2-0!! A cross which went in and a deflection saw them off, and I'll take that all day long!

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The Champions League riches topped up our coffers, and we splashed out on a deadline day record transfer:

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Scott Laird can play anywhere down the left, and is a great capture despite his 30 years of age and 900k fee. He loves to get forward and his qualities will improve us.

Our group was drawn and we will play City like last year, plus PSG and Olympiacos


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More good news, because Linfield beat Icelandic side FH in the Europa league qualifiers to reach the group stages for a second consecutive season. It may appear a shock but below are their transfers; they have signed so many new players, all on full-time contracts and their facilities are now Average/Average with Extensive Youth Recruitment. They are certainly making strides forward, while still in our shadow! (6)

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So that's the first update, I've played a few more games so will write another very shortly with some tactical breakdown also! Thanks for reading, please leave a comment! :D
 
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