Advice for competing at the top

Hi, I’m returning to the game after a while off so thought I’d try something a bit different. I’m looking to be able to compete at the top while still trading in youths, as the new youth team feature should allow this.

The problem is, my stadium only seats 20k so I’m not sure I have the right stadium to do this. Has anyone got any advice? I currently have 300 mil to spend, how should I best distribute it and what age of top players should I be looking at? Thanks

So I've taken the plunge and upgraded my stadium to 52k capacity. This leaves me with around 250mil. I'm thinking I'll spend around 120mil on senior players leaving about 100mil for youth players. I would be looking at players 30+, does anyone know if I will realistically be able to keep replacing the players that retire using gate receipts/ sponsorships?

Hi,

This is a risky time to do this, but may also be an opportunity. Since the youth squads release there is a greater demand for U23 (mostly 15 and 22/23yo) and a surplus of players over 24yo.
This will drive prices down for 24-25 yo with medium-high potentials. Only the highest potentials will maintain or increase their price. So people may prefer to focus more on buying cheaper 24-25yo and train them to 27-28yo when player values start to decline instead of investing in 30+yo. But if you want to compete at the top you need 27-28 yo players at least and plan to sell them by 32-33yo to lower the risk of them retiring.
since you plan start with 30 yo by the time your players get in 1st division they'll be 31 and you would have lost a lot of their value and with the transfer market low you risk selling them at half price on auction.
It's good you upgraded the stadium, but it's a bit overkill to go directly to 52k
I would have recommended to go to 30k as a first step, build your team and upgrade when you reach 1st division. 30K is good enough for top of div2 at 7C or 8C in 1st division. To be profitable, a stadium upgrade from 30k at 8C in 1st division would be equivalent to 7x35k as you'd get close to the same income. Meanwhile investing in 11 70-80 rated players and training them for a month would give you players close to the same level as the ones you plan to buy at 30yo with the added benefit of having them at 28-29 yo instead of 31, and their level is good enough to allow you to promote to 1st even hang on for a while and allow you to trade in for better player when an opportunity arises.

I wish I had that kind of cash laying around, unfortunately I spent 100M for WCTF upgrade and am left with less then 8M and an aging team. Was planning to upgrade the stadium myself, but I risk loosing 2 key players for which I have just one replacement at lower level coming from youth academy.

For now I just need to wait for the youth I train to reach their potential at 27yo and will join you in the competition at the top, hopefully by then I would have sold some and upgraded stadium to 40+k.

FC Viitorul Constanta wrote:

Hi,

This is a risky time to do this, but may also be an opportunity. Since the youth squads release there is a greater demand for U23 (mostly 15 and 22/23yo) and a surplus of players over 24yo.
This will drive prices down for 24-25 yo with medium-high potentials. Only the highest potentials will maintain or increase their price. So people may prefer to focus more on buying cheaper 24-25yo and train them to 27-28yo when player values start to decline instead of investing in 30+yo. But if you want to compete at the top you need 27-28 yo players at least and plan to sell them by 32-33yo to lower the risk of them retiring.
since you plan start with 30 yo by the time your players get in 1st division they'll be 31 and you would have lost a lot of their value and with the transfer market low you risk selling them at half price on auction.
It's good you upgraded the stadium, but it's a bit overkill to go directly to 52k
I would have recommended to go to 30k as a first step, build your team and upgrade when you reach 1st division. 30K is good enough for top of div2 at 7C or 8C in 1st division. To be profitable, a stadium upgrade from 30k at 8C in 1st division would be equivalent to 7x35k as you'd get close to the same income. Meanwhile investing in 11 70-80 rated players and training them for a month would give you players close to the same level as the ones you plan to buy at 30yo with the added benefit of having them at 28-29 yo instead of 31, and their level is good enough to allow you to promote to 1st even hang on for a while and allow you to trade in for better player when an opportunity arises.

I wish I had that kind of cash laying around, unfortunately I spent 100M for WCTF upgrade and am left with less then 8M and an aging team. Was planning to upgrade the stadium myself, but I risk loosing 2 key players for which I have just one replacement at lower level coming from youth academy.

For now I just need to wait for the youth I train to reach their potential at 27yo and will join you in the competition at the top, hopefully by then I would have sold some and upgraded stadium to 40+k.

Thanks for the reply, I was wondering how the youth teams had affected everything. If that's the case, I might try and buy some 24/25 year olds and climb through the divisions while training them up in order to be top division standard.

I agree with not buying 30 year olds immediately - you'll waste a month and possibly get unlucky with a retirement or two getting up to the top flight. I'd buy cheap placeholders, at least to get you into Div2 and then start adding to them. You can get to Div 2 with a squad assembled for a few mill I would think.

My stadium is 82k and I get approx 500k per game in gate receipts. That is enough to pay for stadium repairs and contracts, and still leave me with a few mill of profit each season. If I had hit my sponsorship and finished 3rd instead of 4th then I would have made 5mill in sponsorship this week (Had that bonus a few times in the last month but narrowly missed 3rd each time).

The Dark Carnival wrote:

I agree with not buying 30 year olds immediately - you'll waste a month and possibly get unlucky with a retirement or two getting up to the top flight. I'd buy cheap placeholders, at least to get you into Div2 and then start adding to them. You can get to Div 2 with a squad assembled for a few mill I would think.

My stadium is 82k and I get approx 500k per game in gate receipts. That is enough to pay for stadium repairs and contracts, and still leave me with a few mill of profit each season. If I had hit my sponsorship and finished 3rd instead of 4th then I would have made 5mill in sponsorship this week (Had that bonus a few times in the last month but narrowly missed 3rd each time).

Thanks, yeah I should’ve said, I was planning on just using place holder until div 2/3 so I’m not wasting money on contracts.

so I was keeping a little eye on this seems the top didnt happen

I was hoping this would carry on and I could watch and see how you did

Braziliance wrote:

so I was keeping a little eye on this seems the top didnt happen

I was hoping this would carry on and I could watch and see how you did

Would’ve been physically impossible to be at the top by now considering there’s only been one full season since I posted this.

A Tribe Called Quest wrote:

Braziliance wrote:

so I was keeping a little eye on this seems the top didnt happen

I was hoping this would carry on and I could watch and see how you did

Would’ve been physically impossible to be at the top by now considering there’s only been one full season since I posted this.

I was pointing out to no signings when you got promoted and not being on for 4 days not the fact your not in the prem yet.

A Tribe Called Quest wrote:

FC Viitorul Constanta wrote:

Hi,

This is a risky time to do this, but may also be an opportunity. Since the youth squads release there is a greater demand for U23 (mostly 15 and 22/23yo) and a surplus of players over 24yo.
This will drive prices down for 24-25 yo with medium-high potentials. Only the highest potentials will maintain or increase their price. So people may prefer to focus more on buying cheaper 24-25yo and train them to 27-28yo when player values start to decline instead of investing in 30+yo. But if you want to compete at the top you need 27-28 yo players at least and plan to sell them by 32-33yo to lower the risk of them retiring.
since you plan start with 30 yo by the time your players get in 1st division they'll be 31 and you would have lost a lot of their value and with the transfer market low you risk selling them at half price on auction.
It's good you upgraded the stadium, but it's a bit overkill to go directly to 52k
I would have recommended to go to 30k as a first step, build your team and upgrade when you reach 1st division. 30K is good enough for top of div2 at 7C or 8C in 1st division. To be profitable, a stadium upgrade from 30k at 8C in 1st division would be equivalent to 7x35k as you'd get close to the same income. Meanwhile investing in 11 70-80 rated players and training them for a month would give you players close to the same level as the ones you plan to buy at 30yo with the added benefit of having them at 28-29 yo instead of 31, and their level is good enough to allow you to promote to 1st even hang on for a while and allow you to trade in for better player when an opportunity arises.

I wish I had that kind of cash laying around, unfortunately I spent 100M for WCTF upgrade and am left with less then 8M and an aging team. Was planning to upgrade the stadium myself, but I risk loosing 2 key players for which I have just one replacement at lower level coming from youth academy.

For now I just need to wait for the youth I train to reach their potential at 27yo and will join you in the competition at the top, hopefully by then I would have sold some and upgraded stadium to 40+k.

Thanks for the reply, I was wondering how the youth teams had affected everything. If that's the case, I might try and buy some 24/25 year olds and climb through the divisions while training them up in order to be top division standard.

I'd estimate you'll need a bit more time for the market saturation to happen and players prices to fall for the 24-25yo range.
I am thinking of the same but just to fill the empty spots for when the youth age and promote to seniors. Have a few at 22yo so this will not be far in the future.
Market might not be saturated by then but surely some deals will be possible with cheap players on auction.
Anyhow this is a slow way to advance in the game but a proven one if you don't have the time or interest to meddle in the whole cheap auction players TL'ed for more cash.