Football Manager 2026

[Dan]

3 hours ago, AKCJ said:

Do you know if 27 is set to release at a 'normal' time? 

Not a clue in all honesty.

[Tommy Fresh]

11 hours ago, Beliall said:

theres a team in turkey with like a 20 or 30 point deduction and a transfer embargo. theres a challenge for you

Yeni Malatyaspor are on like minus 42, they don't have a squad like at all though, I beat them 8-0 home and away witb Bursaspor

[Beliall]

1 hour ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Yeni Malatyaspor are on like minus 42, they don't have a squad like at all though, I beat them 8-0 home and away witb Bursaspor

yeah thats them ,was my first ever save in 26  failed miserably. you need to win like all but 3 or 4 games to stay up

[Tommy Fresh]

30 minutes ago, Beliall said:

yeah thats them ,was my first ever save in 26  failed miserably. you need to win like all but 3 or 4 games to stay up

There's a few others that are under embargos and have minus points that aren't quite as helpless 

[Beliall]

10 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

There's a few others that are under embargos and have minus points that aren't quite as helpless 

i just started a new save this week after some time off the ame. the recent update has given new options for the unemployed start, im at casric stars in the SA prem so i guess its yet another pentagon attempt

[Tommy Fresh]

Just now, Beliall said:

i just started a new save this week after some time off the ame. the recent update has given new options for the unemployed start, im at casric stars in the SA prem so i guess its yet another pentagon attempt

South Africa is good fun isn't it, the big clubs are always selling off squad players who are decent, shortish league as well. Try and pick up Emile Whitboi from Cape Town City.

 

I'm half waiting to see if there's another update soon, hate starting a new and then they release an update that requires a new save to then be implemented

[shen]

8 hours ago, Dan said:

I can't really explain how we're this much worse. It wasn't even like we were cheating xg or anything last season - we've just become a soft touch in both boxes. I'm wondering if the totally inevitable drop off of Mirosavljev (now 33) is a difference but even still I can't explain my goalkeeper going from totally passable to letting in basically everything.

 

What's doubly bizarre is the European form is decent. How are we putting Hibs, Copenhagen, Haifa etc... away but losing to dross like Napredak?

 

I'm not convinced it's all tactical. Our reputation has grown but I think it's a long run of bad variance.

It does seem bizarre. However, the reputation thing (and therefore the opponent's approach) might make sense as your rep in Europe is still very low, so teams like FCK et al will be a bit more careless, whereas teams at home are adapting. Obviously if the quality of your team isn't improving, then you're going to stagnate. You cannot do much else than try something different tactically to turn it around.
What kind of goals are you conceding? I really noticed big differences between my two goalies. I rotated so the one with better aerial command, handling and anticipation played against the bigger clubs, where I was expecting lots of crosses and long shots while being pinned back, then I switched to the other with better speed, one on ones and reflexes when I was expecting counterattacking teams. I could absolutely feel the difference when I had forgotten to switch them.

Edited 21 April by shen

[Beliall]

6 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

South Africa is good fun isn't it, the big clubs are always selling off squad players who are decent, shortish league as well. Try and pick up Emile Whitboi from Cape Town City.

 

I'm half waiting to see if there's another update soon, hate starting a new and then they release an update that requires a new save to then be implemented

thanks for the tip. we have no midfielders except youth and reserves and no scouts right now. tried to take the easy route for my first friendly and picked the wing play pre made and lost 3-0 to a lower team so im gonna sit and make my own one around whatever players i can find

[shen]

Have any of you tried striker-less formations after the recent updates? 
I can't get myself to try them. But I have tried to play three central strikers at times when needs met with decent success. 

I feel it's tough to get good consistent performances from wingers (regardless of role), defensive midfielders and single strikers.
On the other hand, even rubbish fullbacks can get excellent ratings. Maybe this is just down to the tactics I employ.

[Beliall]

ok cool. thanks

[Stadt]

I got 4/5 on a pentagon save on 22 or 23 wish I stuck at it - it was only Europe I hadn't done. South Africa was the most fun 

[Beliall]

9 minutes ago, Stadt said:

I got 4/5 on a pentagon save on 22 or 23 wish I stuck at it - it was only Europe I hadn't done. South Africa was the most fun 

more than i managed ,well done. i got 1 cup before giving up, i got sacked from somewhere, ended up in mexico and won that in 2 seasons, was crazy. thats another fun league

[Stadt]

1 minute ago, Beliall said:

more than i managed ,well done. i got 1 cup before giving up, i got sacked from somewhere, ended up in mexico and won that in 2 seasons, was crazy. thats another fun league

Mexico was great, did it with Toluca which was ab it harder than doing with say Monterrey. Took a great Argentine winger/ST with me to Guangzhou who carried me through that leg, in hindsight backpost crossed were a bit OP, he scored like 10 unmarked headers a season 

[shen]

 

The bugs still left in this game... 

[Dan]

17 hours ago, shen said:

It does seem bizarre. However, the reputation thing (and therefore the opponent's approach) might make sense as your rep in Europe is still very low, so teams like FCK et al will be a bit more careless, whereas teams at home are adapting. Obviously if the quality of your team isn't improving, then you're going to stagnate. You cannot do much else than try something different tactically to turn it around.
What kind of goals are you conceding? I really noticed big differences between my two goalies. I rotated so the one with better aerial command, handling and anticipation played against the bigger clubs, where I was expecting lots of crosses and long shots while being pinned back, then I switched to the other with better speed, one on ones and reflexes when I was expecting counterattacking teams. I could absolutely feel the difference when I had forgotten to switch them.

I completely get your point and maybe there is an element of this. But I still think the biggest issue has been nosediving form of my goalkeeper and everything else just seems to have followed.

 

We're bad for getting done down the flanks and teams scoring cutbacks against us. But this seems to happen regardless of system. I play both an aggressive high line system, and a deeper low block. The same issues seem to arise.

 

We were never 3rd in the league for ability but we're underperforming this time around. There is no doubt about it.

 

I think we need to simply get through that season without dropping, which Napredak's dreadful form gives us a decent chance of doing, and then rebuild massively in the summer. We will have the 3rd biggest budget in Serbia - even if we go down.

[Finnegan]

11 hours ago, shen said:

 

The bugs still left in this game... 

 

wtf has happened there

[shen]

4 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

wtf has happened there

I couldn't offer them a playing role, only a staff role, so my guess is that he has retired and the numbers are actually his new staff stats - but they've somehow been put in his player profile. 

 

I was browsing released players and noticed several after Icardi, also older players, with the same bug.

[shen]

8 hours ago, Dan said:

I completely get your point and maybe there is an element of this. But I still think the biggest issue has been nosediving form of my goalkeeper and everything else just seems to have followed.

 

We're bad for getting done down the flanks and teams scoring cutbacks against us. But this seems to happen regardless of system. I play both an aggressive high line system, and a deeper low block. The same issues seem to arise.

 

We were never 3rd in the league for ability but we're underperforming this time around. There is no doubt about it.

 

I think we need to simply get through that season without dropping, which Napredak's dreadful form gives us a decent chance of doing, and then rebuild massively in the summer. We will have the 3rd biggest budget in Serbia - even if we go down.

Good luck escaping relegation. Would be wild if you did a Leicester here  Not even virtual football giving a reprieve!

[Beliall]

im starting to remember why i stopped playing this ****ing game. cant buy a win. cant fix it. cant keep a lead. always the same in every save. went in 2-0 up, now at 60 mins its 2-2 i just know im losing this 4-2

[Beliall]

nevermind, forgot i was a tactical genius   #neverindoubt

[Dan]

On 20/04/2026 at 11:25, Dan said:

We backed up the Copenhagen win with another two wins in the league and were sat around 3rd in the table after the games in hand had been caught up. We also won our first conference league phase game away at Georgian Dila Gori, a professional 0-2 win.

 

It wasn't until the second game against Ajax, where we lost 1-3 but got outplayed in a way we haven't really been at any point, where it all started to turn a bit sour.

 

Even in the midst of our unbeaten run we were drawing most games and these were gradually turning into a mix of draws and losses, including another cup exit to a 2nd tier team in Smederevo from 1-0 up. What was most alarming to me was how badly we were defending this season compared to last. We kept 18 clean sheets in 33 games last season and this year we were hardly keeping any at all. The goalkeeper had dropped off substantially and we'd just seemingly lost all resilience in games. Last season if we were 1-0 up late I'd have little doubt we'd see it through yet this year, the complete opposite, you were just waiting to concede.

 

I'd gone on a bit of a late transfer window loan flurry but it hadn't really paid off at all with not many of them making much of an impact - with the majority of them unable to play in Europe due to the window closing after the registration for Europe (it's mid September for some reason). Interesting though how our European form seemed to be better than our league. We drew with Slovan Bratislava at home in a game we should've won before a really impressive 3-1 win over Hibernian. We thumped Larne 1-5 but lost narrowly at Union Saint-Gilloise to finish an impressive 13th in the league phase. The 3 wins and draw netted us another £1mil or so in prize money, and we were handed a bitter tie with Albanian FC Tirana - which was winnable as well.

 

The league form had become a real problem though and by the time of the Tirana tie I had accepted there was a chance we could be relegated. I switched formation for a trip to league leading Partizan and put in what I thought was our best performance in the league of the season, only to concede two late goals to lose it, before 'another' 0-1 loss to Macva Sabac in a game we had dominated. There was something a bit Leicester about what was happening here. We play well and we'll at best draw, we play anything other than that and we lose. We had still only kept 1 clean sheet all season and were now on a very long winless run.

 

Bottom of the league goes down but 11th does at least get a play-off, and luckily Napredak Krusevac looked abysmal and nailed on to finish 12th so we did have that safety net, but I wouldn't have trusted us in a play-off if we made it. And when we handed Napredak only their 2nd win of the season, away here in the middle of the Tirana tie, I was getting convinced we would actually go down.

 

We did knock Tirana out though which was a positive, with the whole of Serbia backing us. I was in this real dilemma on Europe because it was netting us so much money compared to the rest of the league, but to be in the second tier would be a massive blow. I would very likely go back up at a canter but you obviously can't want a relegation.

 

Just to add in more Leicester parallels, around 8 players told me they were exploring options at the end of their contracts on the same day towards the end of the January window. I don't want half arsed players, so in came a couple more loanees with the intention of pushing every one of those players down the pecking order. Regardless of division, we'd have a mammoth overhaul next season.

We had Jagiellonia Bialystok in the round of 16 but went out 4-2 on aggregate which is not a horrid effort again. It feels underwhelming given some of the teams we've beaten, but they're not a bad team to be honest, better than you would think. In an era where even then the Belgrade clubs offer little in Europe, let alone anyone else, this was some effort.

 

It would've been nice to have thrown everything at them but the league situation was becoming a bit critical. I did think even if we dropped we wouldn't be in a terrible place, but it's such a massive step back to take which should never happen. I thought we finally had that win and clean sheet away at Radnicki Nis, but in stoppage time, the dreaded equaliser arrived. This team just feels immune to winning.

 

Following this were narrow defeats to TSC and IMT. What was really bizarre was we just never seemed to get hammered. Bar one collapse at Cukaricki, we hadn't lost a game by more than a goal all season. We had a goal difference that was around 0 due to a couple of big wins early doors, we'd drawn loads and lost 1-0 or 2-1 so many times it was beyond belief. These losses were a huge worry for me going into back to back games against Vojdovina and Partizan.

 

But finally, finally it arrived. Vojvodina seemed to be our saviour this season and we finally held on for a 1-0 win. Our first win in a miserable 16 games and our first clean sheet in 19 games - absolutely horrific stuff. For a team which rose on its defensive solidity, this was a massive kick in the balls. But at least we had something.

 

Obviously we'd lose 0-1 to Partizan. But they're walking the league and the performance wasn't horrid.

 

April was where we finally showed something as we made it 4 wins in 7 games, crucially beating Radnik Sudurlica 0-4 (who were also right down there) and Napredak 1-3 with two injury time goals. In May we kept 3/3 clean sheets with the most dreadful 0-0 draw at Macva Sabac on the penultimate weekend mathematically securing survival.

 

 

 

 

A tough and largely miserable season. Seriously special how you can win 8 games out of 33 and finish the season with a positive goal difference. Plenty were out of contract and plenty were on loan. We were given a, by Serbian standards, enormous budget of £3mil for the new season. We've earned this. Lets get a good team together.

[shen]

Well done turning it around @Dan!

Did you make any meaningful changes to the team/tactics? Has the squad dynamics improved?

[Beliall]

this sort of thing happens way to often for my liking, every team i manage in every save, does this at least once

[shen]

55 minutes ago, Beliall said:

this sort of thing happens way to often for my liking, every team i manage in every save, does this at least once

Brilliant feeling when it's you making the comeback though 

[Dan]

6 hours ago, shen said:

Well done turning it around @Dan!

Did you make any meaningful changes to the team/tactics? Has the squad dynamics improved?

I flick between two tactics mainly anyway and think I probably need another. I think a bit of a key was fooling the AI into thinking I would play one when I was going to play the other and that is particularly what caught out Radnik Sudurlica for example.

 

The performances were never as bad as the results. I think we finished 3rd or 4th in the xg table. I put the majority of it down to a total collapse in form of my goalkeeper (with the backup coming in and doing even worse, very Stolarczyk/Begovic) and something I should've addressed but Mirosavljev just simply dropping off. He's retired in the summer. Spotted another bug regarding him - his 'staff' page actually makes him a good scout and I wanted to retain him but the board never let me, and as soon as he's actually retired and left the club, his attributes are now pretty crap and isn't someone I would bother hiring. Why have his attributes changed?

 

We ended up being a bit too mish mash of a team. A combination of assuming I was going to get money to spend, not getting it for another year, bringing in a load of loanees and about 8 players who couldn't play in Europe, drop off in form anyway, a fairly key sale that I'd overlooked as a big issue in the summer, loads of players at once deciding they were exploring the possibility of leaving. I did do a lot of things wrong but ultimately haven't paid the price and think I'd been a bit unlucky anyway in a lot of games. It shouldn't have ever gotten as close as it did, but we got through it and keeping three relatively comfortable clean sheets at the end is a sign of a return to the old.

 

£3mil in Serbia is huge money. Forgot to mention as well the wage budget going from £13k a week to £36k a week as well - the fact Serbian players demand so little money means wages are basically not going to be a problem for us for domestic players, it's just convincing them to actually come. What I'm a little worried about though is it seems to be hard for us to buy younger prospects and sell them on for good money - virtually everyone demands a release clause and the wages are so bad here that there aren't many options for signing these wonderkids. Forget raiding South America over here. I'm still only scouting Eastern Europe because it seems pointless at the minute to go any further.

 

The good news is they've announced a new stadium is coming as well. I don't know if this is really factored into the game but we were never very good at 'home' (Pancevo, not our actual home). It would be quite cool in a way if they had factored that in as an obstacle. Maybe it was. No announcement on date but get us back into Vrsac. Our average crowd was about 800 last season.