Can find players like Hummels and similar, but there is no german national team - which could make it a wise move to sign german players..... no injuries from national matches or tired players because of national matches :)

About my Tottenham - Peacebreaker save, I must have done something right:

View attachment 1069928

Didn't apply for any job, it just arrived in the "news stream" o.o

The only job their is - and then full of germans :D
 
Could be a fun extra save - Barca and the original 4-3-3 Sublimity :D

I think I might release a final version of that soon - but for now I'm testing - if released their will be significant changes that takes out crosses and changes other stuff as well - so I really hope I can say so - SO yea save that Barca opportunity for another save is maybe a good idea - However Sublimity is for smaller teams too - look at Jeffers89's results posted them on the front page.

Cheers mate
 
Interresting, still as a 4-3-3 i hope, especially when it works for small teams, as a LLM manager don't always have a lot of options to get the players fitting a tactic with a lot of specialized roles and positions :)

Looking forward to see what you've come up with this time, assumeing that your tests is succesfull :)


and I can even get that Barca job if I want to :D
 
Tottenham, 2nd. season - small update

Got my second season started, without any huge transfers - bought Süle to add to my number CDs and to get a good talent more at that position - more promising youngster for the team in January 2017.
But with the OIs and players evolving, i'm better in PL than last season around november :)
Still using Peacebreaker.

Competitions:

View attachment 134656

A nice home match against Inter in the CL group:

View attachment 134655
 
Yea guys I found something and then it all went to *****, I need more consistancy than that - I am almost certain that it can't be done to eliminate crosses, even if some saids it can - I have played wb's and fb's narrow and it still doesn't stop the crosses, but in all fair and square it shouldn't - crosses are lovely, but overpowered - I wish something like dribbling was more visable in the engine - that would make the engine a bit more exciting to be able to see highly talented flair players do flair stuff - high technical damage.

Anyway just letting you know that I'm here still and I'm still trying things - Sublimity the original is for me still one of the strongest tactics you'll get in terms of points and consistancy in fm16 - with the right players - with the right micro management and then its an honest tactic that doesn't try to utilize any weaknesses in the match engine - I like that.

Cheers guys
 
Tempted to try the original Sublimity, with a English LLM save, just gotta find the right team - as in a team there once was a top 3 team in England, but faded over time, Teams like the 1888-1889 Football Leauge winners Preston N.E., for some odd reason I also have teams like Luton and Peterborough on my mind for such a save.... decisions, decisions xD
 
My club got promoted to the top tier in Portugal, and i was getting shat on by every club. I went through 3 different tactics, but none made a difference. Toward the middle of the season i had 3 points in 12 games...
Since i like to play with speedy wingers and wingbacks, i decided to try Peacebreaker 4-3-2-1.
Now my youthful main team is ******** on every club haha.

I just wanted to thank you for creating a simple yet efficient tactic. The only change i made was to change GK role to SK(Atk) because i been training my keepers to sweep balls to compensate for my useless overpaid and overrated defenders.
You can clearly see the immediate results where i started using the Peacebreaker (2019/12/08).

View attachment 134611

My team moto is based around massive signings of dirt cheap youth, and loan out most of them. Later on I sell them for cheap BUT slap a 50% of next transfer clause on them. Later on you can sell the clause for way more than the straight up transfer fee. I had 1 lad that sold for $750k and about 5 months later I sold his clause for a bit over $8m.
This is how cheap and young my GD Chaves team is:

View attachment 134610

The obvious downside of this is the constant team weakness of youth coming in and going out, so since i got promoted i signed more mature players with big wages to even the odds.
Peacebreaker helped me out a lot already and hopefully keep me afloat.

Thank you very much for a really nice tactic for **** LLM clubs.
 
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Dude, I tested this tactic with Middlesbrough and won CL in my 4th and 6th season.

But my best achievement was getting Nathaniel Clyne, a right back to win Ballon D'Or :D
 
My club got promoted to the top tier in Portugal, and i was getting shat on by every club. I went through 3 different tactics, but none made a difference. Toward the middle of the season i had 3 points in 12 games...
Since i like to play with speedy wingers and wingbacks, i decided to try Peacebreaker 4-3-2-1.
Now my youthful main team is ******** on every club haha.

I just wanted to thank you for creating a simple yet efficient tactic. The only change i made was to change GK role to SK(Atk) because i been training my keepers to sweep balls to compensate for my useless overpaid and overrated defenders.
You can clearly see the immediate results where i started using the Peacebreaker (2019/12/08).

View attachment 1070539

My team moto is based around massive signings of dirt cheap youth, and loan out most of them. Later on I sell them for cheap BUT slap a 50% of next transfer clause on them. Later on you can sell the clause for way more than the straight up transfer fee. I had 1 lad that sold for $750k and about 5 months later I sold his clause for a bit over $8m.
This is how cheap and young my GD Chaves team is:

View attachment 1070540

The obvious downside of this is the constant team weakness of youth coming in and going out, so since i got promoted i signed more mature players with big wages to even the odds.
Peacebreaker helped me out a lot already and hopefully keep me afloat.

Thank you very much for a really nice tactic for **** LLM clubs.

Thats a really interesting way you are doing transfers - if you wanna tell us more about it - step by step - what it is you - then feel free to teach people your method - I find it very interesting, but I'm not understanding your process completely myself :)

Also its good to see that people are trying Peacebreaker - I had insane average rates and over the top tendencies happening when I tried it with the Barca (winter update) team - I'm glad you can make it work for a low club I was unsure of that was possible.

Dude, I tested this tactic with Middlesbrough and won CL in my 4th and 6th season.

But my best achievement was getting Nathaniel Clyne, a right back to win Ballon D'Or :D

What tactic do you use mate?

Sounds like some amazing achievements their - Nathaniel Clyne wow - what did he do to deserve that lol? :)

Cheers to you both
 
Peacemaker Analysis:

At first glance at the peacemaker i thought that it was gonna another throw away tactic for my **** team, however i was thankfully wrong. The key for that tactic to work with **** players is speed and stamina, as the players will be burnt out by the end of the match. I raise all my laterals to either be WB or Wingers because i like to play blitzkrieg footy based around first touch passes/shooting. It is quite weird to play with both WB and Wingers as the overlap, so then i started using a competent inside forward on the left side and my attacking often surpassed stronger teams.
The beauty of playing with 2 IF's is that you pretty much have 3 strikers, but at the same time your wings are well covered. By using Speedy WB's you put a lot of freaking pressure on a consistent basis, and that's one of the better features of Peacebreaker. I usually play with very high tempo to increase the number of chances, but i don't have worldclass players so my players often screw up passing/crossing. Of course with lower tempo you give your guys more time to figure out what to do, and i think that's better than having 5-9% cross rating. Another thing that is really odd to me is playing with 3 CM's, but now i understand how powerful it makes you team in both attack and defense. At any give moment you can have 4 guys on the sides and 2-3 in the middle, this makes opposition defenders either open up or give your laterals time to wait to make clear cut chances. The 2 IF's put even more pressure on the defense, and if the other team manages to get the ball, both your sides (CWB) and middle CM's put up on **** of a wall. I never liked to play on the offside, but you put so much constant pressure on the opposition that they will hardly get a chance to break through.

No one plays with Sweeper Keepers, but holy **** do i love that role and especially with this tactic. I always train my keeper's to be SK's so that they have a wider range of skills, and compensate for my always leaky defense. Often i see 4-5 of my dumbass players near an attacker, while leaving 1-2 attackers fully uncovered, and that's where the SK comes in. The oddest thing about SK's and your tactic is the strength of my defense, with both my goalies rating 7.5-8+ per game! I don't think it's pure coincidence that they play so well, as a good 'Higuita' SK can make some crazy omwtfbbq tackles/saves. My favourite goalkeeper has always been 'El Loco', so i make my keepers play SK WITH attack instruction. In case you don't know him, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-flTPSSvCw . Now you may think i'm crazy but a motivated attacking SK can even make some ******* good clear cut chances. I am seeing some amazing breakthrough long kicks from my wild SK's, even from my 2 star current ability one. In half a dozen games, 3 goals have been SK assists! This could just be pure luck, but maybe there is something to it and the CF.

Lastly, i am finding that a combination of using no OI's and 'I have faith' team talks is the icing on the cake for this tactic. During a game I pep talk roughly every 15 minutes, and alternate between Assertive 'Create chances' and Calm(<45m)/Passionate(>45m) 'Encourage' talks, to make my team more motivated to win. I never really used pep talk's, but after reading about their importance i decided to give them a shot. I am finding that it's better to sweet talk the player, rather than simple staring at numbers and cursing at overpaid and useless *****, hoping that they will magically pull a win out of their ***.

Method to my youth kingdom madness:

I always liked to do LLM but i also want the club i manage to thrive, so I think outside the box when it comes to building a future world class team.
The first thing i do when i start a game is to hire good staff right away, and shoot for 3 1/2 - 4 stars coaches, but they also have to be cheap for the first few years. On the first year I start heavily scouting young guys (age<=19) with decent stats that will join my club on a free transfer, and sign all the ones with 4+ potential stars. Even though it is recommended that you don't shake up the club too much at once, you are in a low league so most players with a decent current ability will do as long as you use a good tactic. Youngsters with natural fitness/acceleration/pace will shine on low leagues, at least they did for me playing a counter 4(2WB)-2(AP/BBM)-2(Wg/IF)-2(Po/F9). However, it may take a bit of time for them to start playing ok, and that's why signing good coaches right away is so important to speed up their progress. My budget is about 60% players and 40% staff, which is quite odd, but it will come in hand in the future. I don't like having Key Players, instead i use a rotation system with lots of friendly games, to build up the team as a whole. I tell my board i want to play attacking football and sign/play a lot of young players. Finances are super important for LLM teams, and when your transfer budget is $0 for years, you will need to get creative. You can either get old lads on loans, or youth's with great potential whose contract expires soon. When i first started this year i forgot to slap some clause on the players, so i lost a couple wonderkids that would not renew their contract. EVERY youth you sign, you should max the contract years, AND slap them with max 'Optional club extension' clause. You will have to pay them a bit more, but they will ask for potatoes and beef as their salary so a little more initially will greatly pay off in the end.

**BIG HINT**
During contract negotiations for both staff and players, when they say 'We are nearly there' and their bar is NOT YELLOW, offer them the previous offer again as a lot of times they will accept it the 2nd time around (if it's yellow, ask yourself if you truly need them and if so pay what they want). On important contract offers for new coaches that will be 4 stars in a category, i always save the game before negotiations, in case **** goes south. Staff are truly ***** when it comes to negotiating contracts, but your **** LLM team has no money so don't feel bad for them. When you renew staff contracts they often ask for double what they are getting paid, but fear not! Start by offering them $2.5-5k more what they are getting paid (they always want a raise no matter what). If they say 'We are nearly there' even if they ask for 30% more of what you offered them, you can start cheering and nail them with the same offer as before. I wasn't aware of this, so i kept firing the ones that asked too much and hiring cheaper staff, but it's not good for my future plans of creating stars. Overtime I try to stick with the same staff, and send them on training courses as much as possible. Training your coaches is one of the best and cheapest things you can do to improve your club, and should do it as soon as your finances are stable enough that your board lets them go to school.

When signing a young player, it is very important to get rid of every thing that players want when you offer them a contract, asides from: 'Appearance fee', 'Unused Substitute', 'Bonus for goal/clean sheet', and 'Team of the year'. Young guys are cheap labor, but you should give them caviar once in awhile, hence leaving those bonuses untouched, and don't haggle with their loyalty and agents fee as this will let you pay them less over their whole contract. Remove and exclude EVERY single other request from them like: minimum release/promotion/relegation sell/Sell on percent. They will ask for a bit more, but you can afford it. My first season i signed 29 youth players, and to reduce my payroll i offered the ones i was not gonna use for loan for non-negotiable 'First team' squad status and 100% of their wages. Basicly i signed a **** ton of good prospects without having to pay them a **** thing until they got good enough to be on my team. On my second season i started using the ones who have good average rating. By then I had a rough idea of who was ready for the first team (7.2+ avg rating, or 2 stars current ability). I slowly get rid of as many high paid players as possible so that i can afford to bring in more youth. In FM 15 i tried to get rid of all the big wage winners right away and at mid season, but at the end of the year my team moved from top 5 to actually getting relegated to the 3rd division. It was the first time that i ever got fired from a club within 1 year, but from that I learned to slowly shed the caviar eating mofos.

When a club becomes interested in your youth players make sure to offer them at a really high price (600-750k), and then go lower until they accept. ALWAYS sell with 50% of next transfer clause as this will bring in quite a lot of money over the years. If your transfered youth plays well at his new club, his 50% clause can be worth many times what he was bought for. I sold a really good young striker for $750k because i was in debt, and a couple of months later i sold his 50% clause for around $8m. That is a lot of money for a LLM club, which over time will be what pays for the development of your youth. If a great young player wants to move to a bigger club try to keep him as long as you can, but if he starts playing like **** because he wants to leave then dump him for a premium price AND a 50% clause. Ambitious players with 5 star potential are likely to become stars, thus the 50% sell clause becomes a goldmine whether they are sold by their new club or you sell their clause. The first year youths will be mostly for developing and selling. I signed youths with 4+ stars even if they had injury problems or scout said they are inconsistent. You can think of it as a trial run to get you used to managing youth intake and development through loans.
You want to clear the debt as much as possible so that you can improve the number and quality of staff that you have. This is why signing so many youths is important in the first year, as some of them will make you some decent money by selling them, thus shortening the club's debt.

On your 2nd or 3rd season you should start getting more selective about what youth you sign, as these will be the players you will eventually want to play in your team. I ignore players with injury problems, inconsistent yellow/red circle no matter how good they are. I only pay max $15k/yr salary for players that don't have the consistency green circle in scout reports. When a player has a green consistency circle in the scout reports and they have avg rating of 7+ on their last season, I may pay up to 35-40k a year and loan them out right away for at least 1 season. If the youth has 2 gray stars on the report make sure all his stats for the role you would play him in are at least 8. The worst that could happen is you end up with a flop and you loan him out for 100% wage until his contract runs out.

My youth development cycle is simple: preferably sign youths whose contract is expiring, and look for 4.5 solid star prospects under 22 for $30k transfer max. The more players you get with good work rate and average rating the faster they are likely to develop. If your scout thinks your player has a yellow/orange circle in consistency, a good player with 12+ stats that doesn't do **** in training and has a <6.6 avg rating is likely a discard in my book, as you want them to work hard both in games and in training. When youths have 2 star current ability you should seriously think about putting them on during friendlies. I arrange a friendly if there is a 6 day gap between matches, and play it at home against smaller reputation foreign teams that ask for under $3K per match. If there is a wider gap you should consider doing a cup or a league. Keep in mind that the league will burn out your players so have replacements for every other match. The cup is great as it only takes 2 days and only 2 matches, which in my opinion is enough to rotate all your unused players in. I try to loan out all my youth with less than 2 current ability, but not all get offers for loan, so i rotate them in to keep their match competency at 80%. I send some players to my affiliate that no one else wants on loan, but i check on them every once in awhile to make sure that they are being used. NEVER send 2 players playing in the same position to your affiliate (maybe DC and MC ok, as long as they are being used). For the 6 day gap between matches i schedule a game 2 days after last match and 3 days before next one, and this should give your players enough time to recover for an official match. If there is a wider time gap try to give them a 2 day break between matches and 3 days before an official one.

When you loan out players it is important that you force a 'Can be Recalled' clause, as i've seen some asshat managers say that my player will be in the first team, while in fact they become a backup. Nothing is worse than not being able to do a ******* about your players leaking stats and sitting on the bench of **** teams with horrible training facilities. I always offer my loans out with: 'First team', 'Can be Recalled', 'Can play against own team', 'Can play in Cup' locked and non-negotiable, because i want them to be used as much as possible. It is generally recommended that you don't loan out players to clubs with bad training facilities and bad/non-existent training staff. I say don't worry about that, and focus on getting youths as much play time as possible in teams 1-2 tier below you (avoid regional leagues UNLESS a club has excellent youth facilities). Expect most of your youths to not become superstars, and don't worry about it at all. All you need is 1-2 out of 10 youths becoming good, to sustain your budget by selling them and later selling their 50% clause. For the rest of players that just aren't playing good or don't have 2 CA, just keep loaning them out. Most of the time i offer players for loan for 100% wage, but if they are under 18 and their salary is cheap, i will let them go for free to a club 1 tier below me. You don't want to foot the development bill so reject most offers under 100% salary, and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS only loan if the player will be either Key or first team player to the team, as rotation/backup will mean their potential is gonna go down the *******.

If you have any youths 20-22 yr old with 1+ stars current ability and had green circle consistency when you signed them, I would keep them on your team as a backup if you got space to register them. I like to have 1 AM RLC and 1 D RLC as a cover, for when the ******* game starts injuring all your key players at once. Don't be afraid to use a limited defender on a wingback role, or an Attacking Mid on midfield. They will likely not contribute that much to the match but they will generally play as well as their teammates. I use AMC's on midfield all the time, as i use them mostly for the attack phase and honestly they will have decent stats to play in other roles anyways (if you sign naturally fit/fast players to recover from their fuckups). If you only play a multi-role youth during contingencies, you will notice that his potential might decrease, thats why i recommend you make a lot of friendlies throughout the season. On just about every friendly I do, i start with the guys with least match competence until mid time, afterward i substitute the whole team throughout the second half. I aim to sub 2-3 guys every 5 minutes, and at minutes 75-80 i sub in the rest. This way you don't burn out any player, and give them the precious playtime. If a backup plays 45m in 10 matches in a season, his stats should slightly go up and his potential should not drop.

Training is something that i always leave to other coaches/*** man, however when a coach tells me a player is progressing well in role/general/individual training i praise them. This brings up their morale, which in turn may cause them to work even hard and have like 5-10 attributes improving at once. When the monthly training report comes out, if a players does well praise them, and if they do bad let them know they need to improve. If they give you some bullshit excuse about believing that they did well in training, let them know that 'Maybe they should listen to you as you pick the team' and don't play them for 2-3 games. They will lose morale but i think its beneficial over time to change their mentality, so that they will eventually do good in training and achieve their potential. I had one guy that had 1 star CA and 5 solid star potential (D LRC) that i brought in sub on most friendlies during 2 years, but his attributes just refused to go up. He was not one of those players who the coach says that they need to improve their work ethic or something along those lines. His potential is to be a good 1st League defender and one of the best guys at the club, but he was neither improving nor losing potential. Turns out that once i decided to loan him out to a tier below me, his current ability went up one star within 3 months ( i got him at 19 and played him until 21). Some players just won't progress as fast as others, and that doesn't mean they will be bad, just that you need to give them some loan time so that they can shine in lower leagues. Even then it may take some time but don't give up on them, as my guy went from a solid 7 avg rating on my club to 7.65 on a team a tier below me. The scouts opinion tells you at what level they should be playing, but I would first give the players with both 2 CA and >4PA a try at your team during friendlies to see how they do, before you loan them out.

The end goal for my plans is to make money every year by selling players and their absolute money maker 50% sell on clause, while having a constant intake of free signing youths with 4 solid PA or 3+2 gray star PA. I would wait 2-3 years in the lower league to give your youths time to develop and break into your team, along with making sure you got at least $5m in positive balance. If you don't then pick the lowest board expectations and let your players play well, and at the end of the season purposely not get promoted. You don't want to waste all your hard work in setting up a team with crazy potential, and lose your wonder kids if you become indebted and have to sell them for less than their yearly pay. When you do eventually get promoted you should have around 30 youths with bombastic potential and some consistent first team players. Just keep all the ones below 2 star CA on loans, bar 1 multi-role D RLC and 1 AM RLC. If you got a youth with 7.5 avg rating on a tier below you, it might be a signal that he done incubating, so give him a shot in 3-4 friendlies against teams similar to you. On long periods without match i like to setup 2 cups, the first is where i expect my team to get **** on by larger teams, while the second one is to see how well the players can pick themselves back up against teams smaller than you. If you are ******** on weaker teams, and your youth is not matching the team average, he is probably not ready for real matches.

I spend a lot of time looking for players and staff to improve my club, beginning with the staff. As soon as i join a club i look to cover all my ares with at least 3 star coach ratings for both youth and senior teams, and scouts with minimum 14 JP and hopefully 10 adaptability. Adaptability is not important at first, and you should focus on scouting national players, to build up a good base of HG players. Always haggle with staff as they always ask for a lot. Even if they are amazing coaches, don't pay out the *** if your team is $2-3M in debt. I recommend you don't sign any staff over $40k for your first 2 years, even if you have to let them go. I follow this guide for hiring my Staff Staff attributes on Football Manager – FM-Space – FM2016 Best Players, Tactics and Staff . For my youth search in the first year i carpet bomb scout all players under 19 that have decent stats or have good average rating, but recently i found the regen dates around several forums. I created a database with LibreOffice with sortable dates and put it on google drive where you can down if you want https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7X4wiCQs9__ai1xR01CczhNVEE. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you setup reminder notes for regen dates for the 'Recommended Note' date in my spreadsheet. When the date comes, you get a message and you go to World>Transfers and select 'Youth Intake' from dropdown menu, and you should scout all of them for that country. Clubs get a fortune if you sign those players as soon as they regen, so scout them and wait until the club gives them a contract. You can buy star youths for dirt cheap from some countries like peru and chile once they sign a youth contract. The important thing is to scout all the intakes to build up a nice database of kids to get in the future. Don't be afraid to overload your scout team with 100's of reports, they will get it done eventually and earn their keep. Scouts are quite important but it is really hard to get an amazing scout for cheap for an LLM team so do your best to find cheap ones with minimum 14 JP if you gonna do my youth madness method. Desirable attributes for end-game scouts are 15+ JP/JA, 13+ Mot, and 13+ Adaptability to scout foreigners. You should make a couple of scout assignments to look for youth(<=19yr ) with 3+stars potential, the most important being the national cup/league, under 19 league, and the leagues in your tier and the tier below you. I trust my Chief Scout so i let him setup most of the assignments, which are usually about scouting players for your first team. However, to prevent losing out on a wonderkid I keep my scouts busy scouting young guys that i think may be worth it.

If you want to base your team around massive youth intake and loaning them out, you should spend 70% of your time looking for youth players and cheap staff. This is a lot of work so if you don't have patience you are better off just loaning old lads from top teams like some LLM managers do. I spend a lot of time haggling both players and staff for cheap contracts to build an insane star making machine. I also spend a lot of time in the boardroom, asking them to increase everything asides staff salaries, such as: youth network/numbers of coaches and scouts allowed, along with asking them as often as i can to let me get a good affiliate, and to increase the transfer percent. I use the transfer percent to increase the budget for my players, as i seldom buy players for the first 2 years. 20% of you time should actually be spent looking at FM forums learning about the game and footy in general, and the last 10% for matchday stuff. Now i'm not smart by any means, but that's how i roll in LLM every year and i think building up a club's youth is getting more and more important. As transfer fees keep skyrocketing in the footy world, having an outstanding youth scouting and and intake system is mega important for financial stability. My club youth intake so far has yielded a single 2 star potential player, but that doesn't matter at all until you have great club facilities (5-10 years). You steal other teams youth and turn them into cheap labor and cash cows, what's not to like ;)


PS: I've always dedicated so much time to managing the club that i still don't have the full picture about all the elements that build up tactics. Peacebreaker is a simple yet elegant tactic that oddly enough works with my bottom of the table team. I had great success with a lightning fast wide counter 4-2-4 in the 2nd tier, it also had a lot of OI's, but the first tier footy breaks it wide open and leaves me with a sore ********. I think the combination of no OI's and telling your players you believe in them has a nice effect on their motivation and dedication. When i used to spend the time yelling at them and telling them to "git good", they eventually stopped giving a **** and left me with 3 points in 12 games...so be nice to your team and they may surprise you.
 
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Peacemaker Analysis:

At first glance at the peacemaker i thought that it was gonna another throw away tactic for my **** team, however i was thankfully wrong. The key for that tactic to work with **** players is speed and stamina, as the players will be burnt out by the end of the match. I raise all my laterals to either be WB or Wingers because i like to play blitzkrieg footy based around first touch passes/shooting. It is quite weird to play with both WB and Wingers as the overlap, so then i started using a competent inside forward on the left side and my attacking often surpassed stronger teams.
The beauty of playing with 2 IF's is that you pretty much have 3 strikers, but at the same time your wings are well covered. By using Speedy WB's you put a lot of freaking pressure on a consistent basis, and that's one of the better features of Peacebreaker. I usually play with very high tempo to increase the number of chances, but i don't worldclass players so my p[layers often screw up passing/crossing. Of course with lower tempo you give your guys more time to figure out what to do, and i think that's better than having 5-9% cross rating. Another thing that is really odd to me is playing with 3 CM's, but now i understand how powerful it makes you team in both attack and defense. At any give moment you can have 4 guys on the sides and 2-3 in the middle, this makes opposition defenders either open up or give your laterals time to wait to make clear cut chances. The 2 IF's put even more pressure on the defense, and if the other team manages to get the ball, both your wings (CWB) and middle CM's put up on **** of a wall. I never liked to play on the offside, but you put so much constant pressure on the opposition that will hardly get a chance to break through.

No one plays with Sweeper Keepers, but holy **** do i love that role and especially with this tactic. I always train my keeper's to be SK's so that they have a wider range of skills, and compensate for my always leaky defense. Often i see 4-5 of my dumbass players near an attacker, while leaving 1-2 attackers fully uncovered, and that's where the SK comes in. The oddest thing about SK's and your tactic is the strength of my defense, with both my goalies rating 7.5-8+ per game! I don't think it's pure coincidence that they play so well, as a good 'Higuita' SK can make some crazy omwtfbbq tackles/saves. My favourite goalkeeper has always been 'El Loco', so i make my keepers play SK WITH attack instruction. In case you don't know him, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-flTPSSvCw . Now you may think i'm crazy but a motivated attacking SK can even make some ******* good clear cut chances. I am seeing some amazing breakthrough long kicks from my wild SK's, even from my 2 star current ability one. In half a dozen games, 3 goals have been SK assists! This could just be pure luck, but maybe there is something to it and the CF.

Lastly, i am finding that a combination of using no OI's and 'I have faith' team talks is the icing on the cake for this tactic. During a game i pep talk roughly every 15 minutes, and alternate between Assertive 'Create chances' and Calm(<45m)/Passionate(>45m) 'Encourage' talks, to make my team more motivated to win. I never really used pep talk's, but after reading about their importance i decided to give them a shot. I am finding that it's better to sweet talk the player, rather than simple staring at numbers and cursing at overpaid and useless *****, hoping that they will magically pull a win out of their ***.

Method to my youth kingdom madness:

I always liked to do LLM, so i had to think outside the box when it came to strengthening your squad to progress.
The first thing i do when i start a game is to hire good staff right away, and shoot for 3 1/2 - 4 stars but they also have to be cheap for the first few years. On the first year I start heavily scouting young guys (age<=19) with decent stats that will join my club on a free transfer, and sign all the ones with 4+ potential stars. Even though it is recommended that you don't shake up the club too much at once, you are in a low league so any players with **** current ability will do as long as you use a good tactic. Youngsters with natural fitness/acceleration/pace will shine on low leagues, at least they did for me playing a counter 4(2WB)-2(AP/BBM)-2(Wg/IF)-2(Po/F9). It will take a bit of time for them to start playing ok, and that's why good coaches are so important to speed up their progress. My budget is about 60% players and 40% staff, which is quite odd but will come in hand in the future. I don't like having Key Players, instead i use a rotation system with lots of friendly games, to build up the team as a whole. I tell my board i want to play attacking football and sign/play a lot of young players, because that's what i do. Finances are super important for LLM teams, and when your transfer budget i $0 for years, you will need to get creative. You can either get old lads on loans, or youth's with great potential whose contract expires soon. When i first started this year i forgot to slap some clause on the players, so i lost a couple wonderkids that would not renew contract. EVERY youth you sign, you should max the contract years, AND slap them with max 'Optional club extension' clause. You will have to pay them a bit more, but they will ask for potatoes and beef as their salary so you should offer them a bit more.

**BIG HINT**
During contract negotiations for both staff and players, when they say 'We are nearly there' and their bar is NOT YELLOW, offer them the previous offer again as most times they will accept it the 2nd time around (if it's yellow, ask yourself if you truly need them and pay what they want). On important contract offers for new coaches that will be 4 stars in a category, i always save the game before negotiations, in case **** goes south. Staff are truly ***** when it comes to negotiating contracts, but your **** LLM team got no money so don't feel bad for them. When you renew staff contracts they often ask for double what they are getting paid, but fear not! Start by offering them $2.5-5k more what they are getting paid (they always want a raise no matter what). If they say 'We are nearly there' even if they ask for 30% more of what you offered them, you can start cheering and nail them with the same offer as before. I wasn't aware of this, so i kept firing the ones that asked too much and hiring cheaper staff, but it's not good for my future plans of creating stars.

it is also very important to get rid of every thing that players want when you offer them a contract, asides from: 'Appearance', 'Unused Substitute', 'Bonus for goal/clean sheet', and 'Team of the year'. Young guys are cheap labor, but you should give them caviar once in a while, hence leaving those bonuses untouched. Remove and exclude EVERY single other request from them like: minimum release/promotion/relegation sell/Sell on percent. They will ask for a bit more, but you can afford it. My first season i signed 29 youth players, and to reduce my payroll i offered the ones i was not gonna use for loan for non-negotiable 'First team' squad status and 100% of their wages. Basicly i sign a **** ton of good prospects without having to pay them a **** thing until they get a bit better. On my second season i start using the ones who have good average rating. On my second season i had a rough idea of who was ready for the first team (7.2+ avg rating, or 2 stars current ability). I get rid of as many high paid players as possible so that i can afford to bring in more youth, until i get promoted to the top tier.

When a club becomes interested in your youth players make sure to offer them at a really high price (600-750k), and then go lower until they accept. ALWAYS sell with 50% of next transfer clause as this will bring in quite a lot of money over the years. If your transfered youth plays well at a new club, your board will negotiate an offer for selling the 50% clause. I sold a really good young striker for $750k because i was in debt, and a couple of months later i sold his 50% clause for around $8m. That is a lot of money for a LLM club, which over time will be what pays for the development of your youth. If a great young player wants to move to a bigger club try to keep him as long as you can, but if he starts playing like **** because he wants to leave then dump him for a premium price AND a 50% clause. Ambitious players with 5 star potential are likely to become stars, thus the 50% sell clause becomes a goldmine whether they actually get transferred or you sell their clause. The first year youths will be mostly for developing and selling, not to keep long term. You want to clear the debt as much as possible so that you can improve the number and quality of staff that you have.

On your 2nd or 3rd season you should start getting more selective about what youth you sign, as these will be the players you want to play in your team. I ignore players with injury problems, inconsistent yellow/red circle no matter how good they are. I only pay max $15k/yr salary for players that don't have the consistency green circle in scout reports. When a player has a green consistency circle in the scout reports and they have avg rating of 7+ on their last season, i will pay up to 35-40k a year and loan them out for at least 1 season. If the youth has 2 gray stars on the report make sure all his stats for the role you would play him in are at least 8. The worst that could happen is you end up with a flop and loan him out for 100% wage until his contract runs out.

The cycle is simple: preferably sign youths whose contract is expiring, and look for 4.5 solid star prospects under 22 for $30k transfer max. The more players you get with good work rate and average rating the faster they will develop. A good player with 15+ stats that doesnt do **** in training is a discard in my book, as you want them to work hard on and off the pitch. When youths have 2 star current ability you should seriously think about putting them on during friendlies. I arrange a friendly if there is a 6 day gap between matches, and play it at home against smaller reputation foreign teams that ask for under $3K per match. If there is a wider gap you should consider doing a cup or a league. Keep in mind that the league will burn out your players so have replacements for every other match. The cup is great as it only takes 2 days and only 2 matches, which in my opinion is enough to rotate all your unused players in. I try to loan out all my youth with less than 2 current ability, but not all get offers for loan, so i rotate them in here and there to keep their match fitness at 80%. I send some players to my affiliate that no one else wants on loan, but i check every once in awhile that they are being used, and NEVER send 2 players for the same position to your affiliate (maybe DC and MC ok, as long as they are used).

When you loan out players it is important that you force a 'Can be Recalled' clause, as i've seen so asshat managers say that my player will be first team, while in face they become backup. Nothing is worse than not being able to do a ******* about your players leaking stats and potential by sitting on the bench of **** teams with horrible training facilities. I always offer with: 'Can be Recalled', 'Can play against own team', 'Can play in Cup' locked and not-negotiable, because i want them to be used as much as possible. It is generally recommended that you don't loan out players to clubs with bad training facilities and bad/non-existent training staff. I say don't worry about that, as focus on getting youths as much play time as possible in teams 1-2 tier below you (avoid regional leagues UNLESS a club has excellent youth facilities). Expect most of your youths to not become superstars, and don't worry about it at all. All you need is 1-2 out of 15-20 youths to become good to sustain your budget by selling them and later selling their 50% clause. For the rest of the non-star players just keep loaning them out. Most of the time i offer players for loan for 100% wage, but if they are under 18 and their salary is cheap, i will let them go for free to a club 1 tier below me. You don't want to foot the development bill so reject most offers under 100% salary, and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS only loan if the player will be either Key or first team player to the team, as rotation/backup will mean their potential is gonna go down the *******.

If you have any youths 20-22 yr old with 1+ stars current ability and had green circle consistency when you signed them, I would keep them on your team as a backup. I like to have 1 AM RLC and 1 D RCL as a cover, for when the ******* game starts injuring all your key players. Don't be afraid to use a limited defender on a wingback role, or an Attacking Mid on midfield. They will likely not contribute that much to the match but they will generally play as well as their teammates. I used AMC's on midfield all the time, as i use them mostly for the attack phase and honestly will have decent stats to play in other roles anyways (if you sign naturally fit/fast players). If you bring in that multi-role youth only during contingencies, you will notice that his potential might decrease, thats why i recommend you make a lot of friendlies throughout the season. On just about every friendly I do, i start with the guys with least match competence until mid time, afterward i substitute the whole team throughout the second half. I aim to sub 2-3 guys every 10 minutes, and at minutes 75-80 i sub in the rest. This way you don't burn out any player, and give them precious playtime. If a backup plays 45 for 10 game during a season, his stats should go up and his potential should not drop.

Training is something that i always leave to other coaches/*** man, however when a coach tells me a player is progressing well in roll/general/individual training i praise them. This brings up their morale, which in turn may cause them to work even hard and have like 5-10 attributes improving at once. When the monthly training report comes out, if a players does well praise them, if they do bad let them know they need to improve. If they give you any bullshit excuse about believing their did well in training let them know that 'Maybe they should listen to you as you pick the team' and bench their *** for 2-3 games. They will lose morale but i think its beneficial over time to change their mentality, so that they will eventually do good in training and achieve their potential. I had one guy that had 1 star current and 5 solid star potential (D LRC) that i brought in sub on a couple of games during 2 years, but his attributes just refused to go up. He was not one of those players who the coach says that they need to improve their work ethic or something along those lines. His potential is to be a good 1st tier defender and one of the best guys at the club, but he was neither improving nor losing potential. Turns out that once i decided to loan him out to a tier below me, his current ability went up one star within 3 months ( i got him at 19 and played him until 21). Some players just won't progress as fast as others, and that doesn't mean they will be bad, just that you need to give them some loan time so that they can shine in lower leagues. Even then it may take some time but don't give up on them, as my guy went from a solid 7 avg rating on my club to 7.65 on a team a tier below me. The scouts opinion tells you at what level they should be playing, but I would first give the players with 2 CA and 4+PA a try at your team and if they just not improving or playing bad and loan them out.

The end goal for my plans is to make money every year by selling players and their absolute money maker 50% sell on clause, while having a constant intake of free signing youths with 4 solid PA or 3+2 gray star PA. I would wait 2-3 years in the lower league to give your youths time to develop and break into your team, along with making sure you got at least $5m in positive balance. If you don't then pick the lowest expectations and let your players play well, and at the end of the season purposely not get promoted. You don't want to waste all your hard work in setting up a team with crazy potential, and lose your wonder kids if you become indebted and have to sell them for less than their yearly pay. When you do eventually get promoted you should have around 30 youths with bombastic potential and some consistent first team players. Just keep all the ones below 2 star current on loans, bar 1 multi-role D RLC and 1 AM RLC. If you got a youth with 7.5 avg rating on a tier below you, it might be a signal that he done incubating, so give him a shot in 3-4 friendlies against teams similar to you. On long periods without match i like to setup 2 cups, the first is where i expect my team to get **** on by larger teams, while the second one is to see how well they can pick themselves back up against teams smaller than you. If you are ******** on weaker teams, and your you is not matching team average, he is probably not ready for real matches.

I spend a lot of time looking for players and staff to improve my club, beginning with staff. As soon as i join a club i look to cover all my ares with at least 3 star coach ratings for both youth and senior teams, and scouts with minimum 14 JP and hopefully 10 adaptability. Adaptability is not important at first, and you should focus on scouting national players, to build up a good base of HG players. Always haggle with staff as they always ask for a lot, along with not paying out the *** for good coach when your team is $2-3M in debt. I recommend you don't sign any staff over $40k for your first 2 years, even if you have to let them go. I follow this guide for hiring my Staff Staff attributes on Football Manager – FM-Space – FM2016 Best Players, Tactics and Staff . For my youth search in the first year i carpet bomb all players under 19 that had decent stats or have good average rating, but recently i found the regen dates around several forums. I created a database with LibreOffice with sortable dates and put it on google drive where you can down if you want https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7X4wiCQs9__ai1xR01CczhNVEE. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you setup reminder notes for regen dates for the 'Recommended Note' in my spreadsheet. When the date comes, you get a message and you go to World>Transfers and select 'Youth Intake' from dropdown menu, and you should scout all of them. Clubs get a fortune if you sign those players as soon as they regen, so scout them and wait until the club gives them a contract. You can buy star youths for dirt cheap from some countries like peru and chile once they sign a youth contract. The important thing is to scout all the intakes to build up a nice database of kids you will bring in eventually. Don't be afraid to overload your scout team with 100's of reports, they will get it done eventually and earn their keep. Scouts are quite important but it is really hard to get an amazing scout for cheap for an LLM team so do your best to find cheap ones with minimum 14 JP if you gonna do my youth madness method. Desirable attributes for TOP scouts are 15+ JP/JA, 13+ Mot, and 13+ Adaptability to scout foreigners. You should make a couple of scout assignments to look for youth(<=19yr ) with 3+stars potential, the most important being the national cup/league, under 19 league, and the leagues in your tier and the tier below you.

If you want to base your team around massive youth intake and loaning them out, you should spend 70% of your time looking for youth players and cheap staff. This is a lot of work so if you don't have patience you are better off just loaning old lads from top teams like most LLM managers i know do. I spend a lot of time haggling both players and staff for cheap contracts to build an insane star making machine. I also spend a lot of time in the boardroom, asking them to increase everything asides salaries, such as: youth network/numbers of coaches and scouts allowed, asking them as often as i can to let me get a good affiliate, and to increase transfer percent. I used the transfer percent to increase the budget for my players, as i don't buy any players for the first 2 years, only free signings. 20% of you time should actually be spent looking at FM forums learning about the game and footy in general, and the last 10% for matchday stuff. Now i'm not smart by any means, but that's how i roll in LLM every year and i think building up a club's youth is getting more and more important. As transfer fees keep skyrocketing in the footy world, having an outstanding youth scouting and and intake system is mega important for financial stability. My club youth intake so far has yielded a single 2 star potential player, but that doesn't matter at all until you have great club facilities (5-10 years). You steal other teams youth and make them your cash cow, what's not to like ;)


PS: I always dedicated so much time to managing the club that i still don't have the full picture about all the elements that build up tactics. Peacebreaker is a simple yet elegant tactic that oddly enough works with my bottom of the table team. I had great success with a lightning fast wide counter 4-2-4 and had a lot of OI's, but the first tier footy breaks it wide open and leaves me with a sore ********. I think the combination of no OI's and telling your players you believe in them has a nice effect on their motivation. When i used to spend the time yelling at them and telling them to "git good", they stopped giving a **** and left me with 3 points in 12 games...so be nice to your team and they may surprise you.

4.136 Words & 21.779 Characters WOW!!!!!!!! - Sometimes I get speechless - that very thing is happening right now - even my longest opening post is smaller than this by half I believe - but so much content that you provide that I'm just plain speechless - so many details and a perfection to what it is that you do - its pardon my french ******* AMAZING!!!

I always love when people show passion, but this sort of passion I never expect - so the fact that you do that - taking your time patiently - giving your all for sure!! is mind blowing - I sincerely hope that your post above gets alot of likes becourse their is not a post in history in this forum or many other forums that deserves a like more than your post - that's how you write and that was perfection - thank you god - thank you mate - you are an amazing writer and you did it at the right time as well - while I'm going through a sensitive moment in my life with a family member being diagnosed with cancer - this was surely exactly what I personally needed and that's why I also say thank you god unfortunately without believing much in that dude for several of reasons, however I'm still in shock that you did what you just did - I need to figure out what to do with your post becourse it covers more than one fm I reckon - I can't let it rot in the middle of a thread - its to special for that - Need to think about it.

Thank you so much mate - Cheers
 
Im currently working on a tweak for this tactic but I'm not done testing it yet. Results are good, but I feel I'm missing something. This is the results so far, but Im going to tweak and see if I can make it even better.



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I am sorry to hear about your family and sincerely hope the treatment goes well.
Not long ago i went through a horrible patch with my mental health, because of massive amounts of stress. I always found FM games to be both very addictive and able to make me forget about real life problems. FM games give me the opportunity to experience what it is like to be in control, which is really nice when you go through a rough patch.

I just hope that most of what i wrote makes sense, and explains my findings about LLM management, along with the importance of youth management.
Thank you very much for the feedback.
 
Very interresting post rambo99Jose, i'll read it through when i'm a bit more concentrated on FM instead of some interior work at home :)

Very sorry to hear about your family member Jes - I really hope that the treatments works out well and that the cancer was discovered early. Sadly a situation like that really fcks with ones mind and mood, I know that for sure. A good advice, remember to talk with friends and family about whats on your mind, no matter what happens it will help you :)
Learned the previous the hard way, when my parents got cancer back in '97 and '03.
 
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