I was enjoying Russia, but reading some save updates from others, I realized I've never had a proper save in South America. I also recently read the Angels with Dirty Faces book by Jonathan Wilson, a history of football in Argentina. On the SI forum, dafuge had a really cool save where he managed across South America at several clubs, ending up at Boca Juniors. Ended up with some immensely talented, world class players, turning down offers of over 100m for one of them from clubs like Man United and PSG. I also happened to notice how some South American clubs consistently generated some great regens in some test saves I ran, and how some of those clubs even managed to hang onto some of those players longer than you might expect. Despite the interest in Argentina, I kinda preferred to make my foray into Argentina. And one club had my eye - FC Envigado. The club that produced Fredy Guarin, Juan Fernando Quintero, and James Rodriguez. They have one of the best youth setups in South America. I remember buying Guarin from them way back on about FM05 or FM06. They were one of the first clubs I had seen that used a bright orange as their primary color.
I love bright orange.
South America also always seemed a bit exotic and esoteric to me. The overall instability of the football their - constantly selling players abroad, never having strong finances - contrasted by the immense passion by the fans. The weird league structures always made it seem a bit impossible to understand. Almost all of the leagues use a split season - apertura and closura. Some use playoffs. Relegation is based on performance over several seasons in some leagues. The Copa Libertadores feels more complicated and convoluted than the Champions League. Some leagues even use a group stage for their national cup competitions. But I've done some reading, listened to some podcasts, and have even started watching some of the Copa Libertadores matches.
So I decided to embark on an adventure with Envigado FC. They are in Colombia's Liga Águila Primera A. I started in June of 2016, so the Apertura had already been generated. Envigado finished 3rd bottom. They have a significantly younger squad that typical for the league. Like average age is 21 and most teams are around 26 or 27. There are about 3 players in the entire squad over the age of 25. Its not a strong squad by league standards. But the club focus is one developing youth. They have a great youth set up and strong youth facilities. The main training facilities are less impressive. The staff isn't great. There isn't much money. The stadium is a bit odd - it seats 11K, but the stand is only on one side. So watching a match, you have a car park on the opposite side of the field and it looks like there are no stands at all.
The Colombia Liga Águila uses a split season format - Apertura and Finalización. There isn't all that much of an off season. There are 20 clubs and 20 rounds in each of the 2 stages (instead of 19 rounds, weird). I think there is playoff of the top 8 sides after each stage.
The goal is to develop some superstar players so I can dominate Colombia and do well in the Copa Libertadores. Many of those players will be sold on, hopefully for significant amounts of money. I can't really create a South America wide assembly line as the league has a 4 foreign player limit. Not sure if I can buy them and loan them - have a feeling the rules will simply prevent me from signing a 5th foreign player, no matter what my intent is. Brazil and Argentina obviously produce constant gems, but almost all of the other nations in South America will produce some as well. I'll have to pick and choose what I bring in, though.
So I added some league files so that all leagues in South America are active except for Bolivia. Have all the common European nations, plus China. I checked off Add Players to Active Leagues which creates first day regens. Envigado got 4 regens of 4 stars or better. I gave in to the urge and looked at the PA. They range from 158 or 181. Biggest haul I've ever had in a single class. Three of them are AMCs, which is awesome - I don't use an AMC in my tactic. The other is a winger. So 2 of the AMCs are gonna be MCs and one is gonna be a winger. Would love to make one a DM, but they are small and attacking. Several of them have great personalities which is great because I don't have much for mentors. I stole a pretty good Colombian DC from another club.
The board expectations were just to avoid relegation. Did the complete opposite and won the Finalización, the second half of the season. Which put me into a playoff, which we won as well. The team over-performed and I'm entirely sure how, but it seems like the big clubs were just quite inconsistent. My biggest wins were against the biggest sides - like dropping Atletico National 4-0 away. Tactically, I'm using the same 4-1-4-1 Very Fluid high press system I used with Lokomotiv. My two forwards aren't great or it would be scoring more. It still does pretty well with possession, but isn't as defensively sound as I would like. Better defenders and a better DM would help with that I think. There isn't much money so its going to be more about developing them. My 4 regens played regularly - two of them became starters, and the others rotated.
Winning the Finalización put me in the Copa Libertadores which is exciting but also scary because my squad is thin and developing. My strongest player in the Finalización was my rightback. My leftback wasn't far behind. I don't have cover for either position so was praying neither got injured. I picked up a lot of yellow cards so both missed matches suspended, but it got worse when New York City FC bid for the rightback at the start of 2017. I tried to scare them away with outrageous demands, but they ended up offer $1m Euros and my board accepted. I found another Colombian rightback with decent potential, plus ended up with money to buy some other high potential Colombians - another DC and a GK. The youth intake day is in early January, which is nice. Class brought me.... a high potential AMC. ****. This one is big rather than little but still attacking. Just develop into a great roaming playmaker. I got a scare just after that when Sporting CP made a laughable offer for one of my high potential AMCs and I was worried my board might accept it. Or the player would throw a tantrum. Thankfully neither happened, but until the finances are stronger, its gonna be a constant scare. The club reputation and therefore player reputations and values are still quite low, meaning European clubs think a 50K offer is legit for the next James Rodriguez. Right then, **** off with that.
Start of the 2017 Apertura has gone well. I jumped into the Group Stage of the Copa Libertadores. My group includes an Uruguayan club (can't remember which), Santos, and an Argentinean club (San Lorenzo, I think). Drew away to the Argentinian club and at home to Santos, so not doing too bad so far. It looks like the fixtures are going to be pretty constant - the Copa Libertadores will run thru into November, obviously depending on how deep we make it. Plus the Copa has more matches than a typical cup because it has group stages. I think both the Apertura and Finalización have playoffs for the top 8 sides, so the fixtures could pile up. I will need great squad depth if the club is successful.
This has been fun so far, and more successful than I expected. All the way around. I'm just hopeful that I can keep some of the great youngsters until they have enough value to bring in money to really develop the club infrastructure. The potential here is immense.
