A New Start - Holmesdale FC (Level 1)

[talisman]

For the New Year I had the bright (and probably idiotic) idea of starting a new team and chronicling it here, for the information and, more likely, amusement of all concerned.

It's going to be a warts-and-all record, there will be momentous triumphs and even more tragic failures, but it should amount to a detailed play-through of the minutiae of the Top Eleven experience.

There won't be bucket-loads of Tokens thrown at the team, but what tokens can be accumulated, will be, and a Monthly Card costing £3.99 in the UK [Euro 4.50, US$ 5.41, 0.000335 Bitcoin] will be purchased and will provide a steady token income. With limited Tokens, this team could not be reliant on Scout or AM Recommended players, so the Management needs to be prepared to train up Youth players and lower-Quality players from the normal Transfer Market.

First thing this morning, the prospective Management got onto their Android device and created a brand new GMail account, and started up Top Eleven - after going through creating a Play Account, the team was created and named (after one of the ends of the Crystal Palace football ground), and the Tutorial immediately started.

After the Tutorial, the Management then went to his laptop and created a new FB account and linked the new team to it, gaining the 5T for doing so. This enabled the creating of all sorts of screen shots and records much easier than through the Android device.

If anyone is interested in following the team on FaceBook the account link is https://www.facebook.com/jalan.eastmond.75

The Team - Home Screen

[This screen is a 'now' screenshot, not one from the original creation of the team - one of the 'warts' - I thought I'd done one then, if I did, I can't find it now...]



Here's our first match, later on this evening (GMT - UK time) - and we are exhorted to make this season even better than the last - pretty difficult as there wasn't a 'last' season...

Holmesdale FC started out with 80T; 25 Red, 25 Blue and 75 Green packs; and about $5M in cash.

During the Tutorial, they gained 1T and $600k from the Match and Shirt Sponsor contracts, and spent $397k on a player (see below).

Add the 5T for FB linking; 10T for the initial payment for the Monthly Card; 1 of each type of coloured pack (Happy New Year from Nordeus); and the 20T, and 15 Red, 15 Blue and 15 Green packs from a Starter Pack (reduced by 90% to £0.75), before things really got serious the coffers were up to 115T, ~$5.6M, 41 Red, 41 Blue and 91 Green packs (some of these were used during the Tutorial).

The Team - Playing Squad

The starting playing squad consisted of the players listed below. They were origianlly all jumbled up and numbered from 0 to 17. The squad was set up to play 4-3N-2W-1 as default, so after finding and implementing the best team, the Management renumbered all the players to the numbers they now carry.



During the Tutorial, Mou got the Management to bid on a player and the Auction was successful ($397k spent, but no Token(?)) and the player given the number 19 shirt.



More detailed analysis of the team showed it had the potential to play one of the Management's favoured formations, 3-2-2-2-1 Butterfly, and 4-4-2, but to play 4-5-1V a DMC would be needed.

The starting formation for the first match is therefore



More soon...

[talisman]

The Stadium

One of the changes put in to the game recently concerned the development of the stadium complex, the times of construction and costs being altered from those that we have been used to since the start of the game.

The Youth players will be part of the development of the team, and they are the improvements with the longest lead times (28 days from the Level 0 Youth facility) the Management decided to start the Stadium development with the initial Youth facility. Costing $500 (the same as previously), but taking only 4 hours (instead of 3 days) to construct, the Target Shot was quickly available.

Another big need for player development is rest packs (green), and the initial Training facility was to be built next. Costing $7k (down from $10k) and taking 6 hours (instead of 3 days), the Gym was another build completed on the first day.

For the final bit of construction on the first day, a 200-seat expansion to the Stadium was chosen, to start bringing in more money to the club. Taking only 3 hours (instead of 5 days) and costing $120k (down from $180k), the Management hopes to get this finished and the Medical Centre started before he has to retire for the night.



Training

At the start of the game, Training is very limited. Starting with six basic Training drills, and being able to use only three at a time, the Management realised it was going to take a while to get the Match Bonuses up to 10% each, and get a meaningful training regime up for each of the different types of player.

The Training drills available are all at Level 1 (1 whistle) and are:

Attack: Pass, Go and Shoot (Easy) and Fast Counter-Attacks (Hard)
Defence: Press the Play (Hard) and Piggy-in-the-Middle (Easy)
Physical/Mental: Warm Up (Very Easy) and Stretch (Easy)

During the Tutorial, the initial training session got the team to Level 2 Training and the Attacking drill Skill Drill (Very Easy) was unlocked.

To start with, the Management decided to go with their usual 6% Bonus accumulation regimes. These apply to the whole squad and are designed to be quick sessions to get the required Match Bonus boost, and give a general training to the players. Given the number of recovery sessions until the next match, the same number of training sessions are given so at least the starting XI will be at peak condition at kick-off without having to resort to use of green packs or free videos in lieu.

With the drills available, the following two regimes are used:




The team were trained as required and will be fit and ready for the match this evening. The training got the team into Level 3 and the Defence drill Goalkeeper Training (Hard) was unlocked.

More soon...

[nikolgiorgos]

Wish you good luck.
You 're gonna need it cause there the new managers are bidding like crazy and this is happening all the season, not only the first days.
Some of them, gonna spend their last tokens before leave the game.
All of them gonna have a big surprise, seeing their players loosing a star in next season

[talisman]

New players

The Management tried their luck in the Transfer Market and, after a couple of false starts, picked up a couple of players for the squad. Seeing that two of the five MCs in the team are retiring at the end of this season, a new MC was purchased, that he had a Free-kick SA made him more desirable, but only cost 5T/$72.5k



One of the retiring players was then sacked, gaining the team the relevant Achievement (as the Management knew it would)



The other player was the missing DMC required to be able to play 4-5-1V if required. Again a cheap purchase in the current market, 2T/$448k



Idan Vasilichi was immediately included in the starting XI for tonight's match, and Agustin Cervera on the bench, just in case...

Next installment after tonight's match...

[smk fc]

Good luck. I look forward to see how this progresses

[talisman]

The team gets to play

The Friendly

Details of the friendly played during the Tutorial reveal that there was a hint that some expenditure on defence would be needed, and in light of subsequent events, that is something that the Management will deal with tomorrow...



The First Match

Holmesdale FC played their first competitive in the Cup at home. Their Seating upgrade finished just before the stadium opened for business, and a full house of 400 saw them take on their evenly-matched opponents. Laurens Bloemen opened the scoring in the 31st minute, and continued making history, being the first player injured in the 68th minute, and the first Man-of-the-Match for Holmesdale. The visitors got the last word in, however, equalising in the last minute as the match ended in a 1-1 draw.





The 2nd Leg takes place at 08:52 tomorrow so a quick opportunity to put the tie to bed.

More Building

Final act of the day was to get the Medical facilities at the Holmesdale ground started, the Level 1 First Aid facility costing $4k (down from $6k) and taking 6 hours to build.

Finances

At the end of the first day, quite a lot has been going on, finance-wise - the balance sheet shows a net expenditure of $196k, but there are three new players on the books, and four separate building phases at the Stadium have been paid for.



More tomorrow...

[talisman]

Day 2

Overnight, the Management managed to pick up a relatively cheap low-5* DC to shore up the defence and try to prevent the last minute failure in yesterday's match.



3T, $546k

The First Aid stand completed so on to the pitch improvement to try and reduce the potential for in-match injuries. The Sprinkler upgrade now costs $5k (instead of $8k) and takes only 5 minutes (was 3 days) to do.

When that finished, a new seats upgrade was started, costing $27k and taking 2 hours ($40k and 4 days).

The team was then trained to get the training requirement done and improve to the Match Bonuses. The Bonuses are now up to 6% each, except Defence, which for some reason is still down at 2%. The Management need to get another defender into the squad to get the numbers of players required to get the Defence Bonus moving.

As the starting XI was still in recovery from the late match yesterday, only the subs and reserves were trained. Free video green packs were then used to get the starting XI up to full condition.

More after the match at 08:52 GMT...

[talisman]

First Win!

The Management got stuck in a traffic jam so couldn't attend the Cup 2nd Leg match this morning, but he needn't have worried as the team produced a superb performance to qualify for the next Round. The defensive woes that befell them yesterday were not apparent as debutant Allan Lunan helped keep a clean sheet, and left-winger Akim Todd and right-back and MoM Jack Lamb scored to seal a 2-0 win and tie aggregate of 3-1.



Build, build, build

Later on in the morning, the Seating Upgrade finished, giving the Holmesdale Stadium a 600 capacity. Next to be built was a much-needed Utility facility, Portable Toilets. These cost $3k (down from $4k) and will take 4 hours (instead of 3 days) to build.

More Transfer Activity.

The Management visited the Transfer Market, and seeing a useful tri-role defender, joined the list of bidders, and also put a bid in on another, lower-Quality, two-role defender in the same market, as a backup in case of losing the first auction. In the event, both auctions were won, and both players have joined the squad. As a result, the final two retiring players, defender Vitaly Frank and midfielder Andy Gratton, were sacked in order to reduce player wage costs.

Behnam Hajeb: 1T, $121k



Adrian Maidana: 6T, $127k



The Management is looking at his training options and will report back soon...

[talisman]

Targeted Training.

Having analysed the player requirements and the available Drills, the Management have created some split regimes which will target training at the skills required for each group of players.

Yesterday's General Training got the team to training Level 4 and this unlocked this unlocked a further Drill slot, and the Physical/Mental drill Sprint (Hard), and a first run through with the Targetted Training yesterday afternoon achieved Level 5 and this unlocked the Attacking drill Shooting Technique (Medium), making 10 drills available. As a by-product, Level 4 also unlocked Associations, but Holmesdale will not be participating in that, yet...


General training



Targetted training

Defenders



Midfield



Strikers



Goalkeeper



The Training will be the general training for all to gain Match Bonus at the start of the day, then if time after the match(es) then some targetted training will be undertaken.

Stadium Construction

After the Portable Toilets were completed, the Management then updated the Parking facility to Gravel Parking, at a cost of $3k, and these were completed in 4 hours ($5k and 3 days previously), before leaving the last seating upgrade to build overnight. A 3 hour (was 4 days) construction, the upgrade to 800 seats cost $26k (down from $40k).

[talisman]

Day 3

The League constitution and Fixtures were released overnight, and the Management made his usual first glance over the opposition.



All teams are managed and all but three of them are new teams for this season, the other three teams were started last season and failed to promote.

Stadium construction.

With the final Seating upgrade complete, Holmesdale now have an 800-capacity stadium, the maximum for this Level. Next to be built were the Floodlights, costing 10K and taking only 15 minutes to build ($15k and 3 days), then the Scoreboard - $1k and 5 minutes construction time ($2k / 3 days) - was completed before the first League match was due.

First League Match

Heading away to one of the returning teams in the League, Holmesdale had a slight advantage in Quality, and they used it to record a 2-1 win, both strikers getting on the scoresheet. Midfielder Daley Forrester became the first player to record a caution during a match, his foul resulting in the free-kick from which the hosts equalised, late on in the match.



Stadium construction redux...

With each of the stadium complex facilities having been upgraded once, the next logical step would be to upgrade the stadium itself, but this would be pointless at this time because the 1000-capacity of the next level stadium would not be fully utilised. It should be noted that under the new Construction arrangements, it has taken Holmesdale a total of 32 hours 25 minutes ($145.5k) over three days to get to the same point that would have taken 37 days (ie 1 season and 9 days) ($190.5k) under the old regime. While it could be argued that you don't need to do all the construction as quickly as has been done here, the faster things get built and upgraded, the better it is for the team, in reaping the benefits of the upgraded pitch reducing injuries, and the accumulation of more of the red and green packs, faster, from the Medical and Training facilities.

With that in mind, there are facilities that can be upgraded without upgrading the stadium, so a start will be made on those. The Youth faciity can be upgraded to Level 3 in 2 days (was 3 days) now, and as two new players were to be available in 26 days from the Level 0 facility and will be available in 24 days from the upgraded facility, the Management would lose nothing by upgrading this now, so a decision was taken to pay the $23k (was $32k) to get the upgrade going.

[A spreadsheet is being compiled with all the new upgrade costs/times and this will be made available in due course for all concerned]

Finances

Despite all the Squad and Stadium expenditure and only one home match so far, Holmesdale still have $4M in the bank: