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Who sets themselves leftfield LLaMa challenges? If you don't mind I'd like to share my latest madness and I'd appreciate your comments.
I've taken over The Shire and ditched the entire squad (i.e. put them in the reserves where they're up for any offers, to be released at the end of the season if unclaimed) and sent my scouts out to find kids. My criteria was to only accept triallists aged 16-17. They've got me 20 such whipper-snappers from Scotland and England so far and they only want pocket money so I can't spend more than a third of my wage budget (I'm assuming they're all staying in a dorm the board provided).
It's a bit of a thread-bare squad; these kids are mostly short-arses (do players grow in this version of FM? It's somewhat crucial in my game) and weigh as much as a sack of scotch mist; however they're nippy little buggers hence our club motto, "You gotta catch me to foul me".
Halfway through the first season we're doing surprisingly well so far although I'm expecting fatigue to set in (fortunately we make rapid cup exits). To be honest I think these tots are better then they should be but then I've created a simple but effective tactic to take into account their severe limitations.
It remains to be seen whether I'll be able to hang onto them or whether I can develop them as part-timers but I'm having fun for now. What do you reckon, will I hit a glass ceiling or will I defy Smarmy Scot TV Personality's wizened saying about winning things with kids?
Giving trials to 16-17 year olds might be realistic for your youth squad, when you're already in the top league or something. But trying 20 16-17 year olds seems really awkward to me for a struggling lower league club.
I think only signing 16-17 year olds would actually work quite well for a developing long-term Llama game. You lose the high earning older players as early on as possible in the save. Then you develop the youngsters. Hey - It's east Stirling afterall, so you can afford to be bottom of the league for 2 seasons. Then you have a two pronged approach to promotion - you give your players experiance of playing in the first team, and toughen them up, added with good training and you should move forwards. Plus you can improve the club no end by running the club under budget and accepting all reasonable offers for the players, you see the club moving into the black. Investment can be made in training facilites and coach wages and after 5 seasons, you may find the club has sufficient resources at hand for a few promotions and with your squad of very experianced 21-22 year olds!
LLM's about playing the game as realistically as the game allows, and this doesn't include playing boys against men in League or Cup games.
No senior team in Scotland would deliberately play a Team of 16 and 17 year olds against normal sides, and the Scottish League and SFA would have something to say about it.
That's what realism's about, LLM's not about deliberately making the game harder, the two are not compatible.
It's an interesting enough idea in my opinion, if not really in keeping with some notion of realism or LLM. Maybe if you had a club policy of x number of youth triallists per season or something.
Then again, re: realism, if you can take the leap of imagination that you would get a job as a manager of a football club, then...
It's your game. Have fun with it. Just brace yourself for the 'we don't need to read about it in this forum' comments.
East Stirling Juniors 
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