Welcome to my new save - The Malaysia Experiment. For those who aren't familiar with Football Manager 2018, basically, it's a sports simulation game where gamers get to manage a team of their choice. I've been playing 'management games' since Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 (which I discovered they even provide free downloads nowadays) and the current franchise 'Football Manager' since 2003. More on the game and my passion for it in future posts.
Today I just wanted to share about an idea that I had; I love football, I love Malaysia, so why not trying managing Malaysia? I did a 'Sabah' save on FM18 (Football Manager 2018) but it had its limitations. I also recently managed Wales on my last save and realized the struggles a country faces when clubs don't have good academies so I wanted to tweak things a bit with Malaysia in the database. Malaysia's a football fanatic country, but we just hadn't been doing too well with football. We are currently languishing in number 171 out of 211 on the FIFA rankings and the last four doesn't even appear on the list! But with this experiment, I did some tweaks, in hope for Malaysia to do better, sooner.
Since I'm too cheap to spend RM18.90 on the in-game editor, and I don't really see the need to tweak things halfway through, I turned to the Football Editor 2018 - something that always came with the game but I've barely touched this.
So I did some tweaks. I searched the database and pulled out all the clubs in Malaysia. Yes, these are legit clubs - all 137 of them. I tweaked 4 categories and changed them to the highest attribute possible in the game - 20. The categories are youth coaching, youth facilities, youth recruitment and youth importance.
Alright, I'm going to quickly go through each category and explain how they will eventually and hopefully help me succeed and the next Malaysia coach.
Youth Facilities - This would be the training ground or gym that the young players would be using. The better the facilities, the better it'll assist them in improving their football growth.
Youth Coaching - This will influence the regen's (new players added to the game each season) current ability, also known as CA. Usually, regens are around 16 years old but they would have spent a year or two at the club. Good youth coaching will produce good products.
Youth Recruitment - This influences the regen's potential ability, also known as PA. High attributes in this category also mean an extensive recruitment network.
Youth Importance - This attribute is new to FM18. I'm assuming is how high of an importance the clubs place on youth academies.
There are a few attributes that I choose not to tweak was the current player's attributes. That would feel like I'm playing God. Same goes for coaches and staff as it's just too much of a hassle. Now I'm just playing sugar daddies for all the clubs, or perhaps the government decided to blow the whole national budget on football academies. I've also kept every competition format as it is, meaning currently a Malaysian team will be in the AFC Champions League group stage.
Oh well. Fingers crossed. I'm beginning to think like the manager of Malaysia!
Here's what technology can do nowadays. My wife was shocked to see that I appeared on the home screen of the game. HAHAHA!
If you couldn't see clearly, aside from adding the leagues from Malaysia (Super League and Premier League), I've also added leagues from our neighboring nations - Indonesia (League One and League Two) and Singapore. In total 5 leagues from 3 nations plus a 15,540 approximate player count and my estimated game speed is still at 5 stars. Awesome!
I've decided to start the game all the way back in early 2017 pre-season (19/12/2016). That's close to 2 years back! Let's see if I can ever so slightly change the course of our national team - Harimau Malaya (Malayan Tigers)!