Failed in semi-pro: what could I have done?

Hi

I started a save with my local club, playing in 5th french division (semi-pro level, with some reserves from L1 clubs).

Because we didn't have any transfer budget and the wage budget wasn't great (28k a month, although it later got upgraded to 30k, and I was almost at 28k when I started, ), I only got 2 free players and a couple of staff members (like a physio, a scout and 2 coaches, something like that).

Everything went well. The board wanted us to finish 3rd, I was always 1st or 2nd. A bad run around february made us finish 2nd, which doesn't allow us to go up (only the 1st goes up). Bordeaux Reserve was just invincible, but everybody was happy.

Because we're semi-pro, every contract was ending (maybe a couple didn't). Because of our season, everybody wanted a raise (can't really blame that), not a big one, but like 0.3-0.5k/month. Problem is, I was at 27.5k out of the 30k wage budget, and even worse, the club got bought and the new owners, on top of giving us nothing, lowered the wage budget to 28k. So I wouldn't/couldn't allow raises.

As a result, everybody left. I had like 5 players on 1st of july (and 20k free on wage budget). But nobody wanted to come. Nobody. Free players were absolutely terrible, and the only players more terrible were the players on loan. And the couple of players I could've gotten on loan, their club told us we were too bad for them to accept.

So we went from 2nd with the goal to finish 2nd again, to being expected last, by far.

And we didn't disappoint. We sunk hard. Which wasn't surprising, since most of our players were at best 6th-division level.

What I don't understand is what could have I done differently?


I kinda want to start again, but right now, I don't know what I could have done.

I played multiple times in lower divisions in previous FM, never got issues. Went from 11th english tier to PL in like 13-14 seaons. What I find extremely complicated here is finding decent players. Players were way better in other FMs when I did those challenge. I think the research budget thing limited me a lot. Like, when it was basically over, I used the editor and enabled "show all players". And I found like 5-6 free players that were way better than what I had. But I couldn't find them because I couldn't pay to have a bigger database (club database, not save database, I had over 100k players in the DB)

At this level you won't hire anyone good or even average.Try to search among young players (<22 years). They usually have smaller requirements.

You could always sign the best of your greyed out players I find they actually play better once given a contract plus they don't tend to as for as much in wages. It's not perfect but at least you can set about improving them once you have them under contract.

The greyed players are really disgusting in the club. Like, not a single attribute over 8, most of it under 5.

I started over and spent absolutely 0, and got a smaller roster by selling a few players (got 10k off wage budget and sold for 87k).
Things went the same on the pitch, finished 2nd (at the last day, we just had to beat the last at home to be champion... but we didn't).

This time I kept almost all my roster. Re-signed them with a little raise. I added a few players, although the players interested are still very very poor.
One of the main issue is the reputation I think. What I don't understand is that I started the first season with one of the lowest reputation in the league, we did great and finished 2nd, yet I lost 75 in reputation (I looked with editor). That just doesn't make sense.
Now I hope that since Bordeaux Reserve has gone up (they were almost invincible), I'll be the new king in town and it will be enough to go up. Although I don't think going up will solve anything, since the rep boost won't be big at all.

That is strange that finessing second and good form having lowered your rep.

2020-01-30 18:59#266026 Buvver : That is strange that finessing second and good form having lowered your rep.

Yeah I don't get that either.

Anyway, I'm now way into the future. Season 8 (I think) I'm in second division. We're still over-performing. Reputation still is lower than a lot of tier-4/tier-5 teams, but we manage.