Football Manager 2026

[moore_94]

7 minutes ago, shen said:

There's been so many crashes in FM26 and I'm such a slow player already, that I'm terrified of having to do things over 

A few weeks ago my game crashed just as I had gone into July…

 

I had last saved at the end of the season in May ffs

[Dan]

On 31/05/2026 at 13:48, moore_94 said:

Reached the point where a lot of the youth I have been buying and loaning out are really starting to develop very well and will be near a point where I make a decision whether to bring into the first team or sell

 

I'd be doing this myself but the whole club grown player in Europe thing stops me loaning too many players out as if you loan them to another club they lose the three year thing which has always been annoying.

[Dan]

On 28/05/2026 at 18:51, Dan said:

2032/33 - possibly the final one.

 

It started by being hit with the classic FM situation where you've stuck a clause in a players contract thinking over time you'll get rid of it before the vultures find it, only for them to grow a bit too quickly and have no interest in signing a new deal by the time you realise. This is what led to Igor Jovanovic departing for Saudi for just £2.9mil. But money isn't a huge issue for us, we're in a good place. He's replaced by TSC's Muhidin Vehabovic for £1.1mil.

 

Also joining are experienced Aleksa Terzic who Zvezda have let go, a new first choice goalkeeper in Slovenian Lan Jovanovic after I controversially let my existing first choice Mateja Premovic go on a free. The pick of the signings though was Ukrainian Roman Fedorchuk who had just averaged 8.00+ in the Ukrainian 2nd tier. Another winger, which admittedly we have probably too many of already, but he was too good to leave.

 

This season we're straight into the Champions League play-off thanks to Serbia's improved position and we're given a very generous tie of either Beitar Jerusalem or KI Klaksvik of Faroe Islands. I'm fully expecting the former only to my amazement find Klaksvik had pulled off the upset. So between us and the Champions League, we had a Faroese side. We'd dispatched the next best 14-2 on aggregate last season so I wasn't too concerned although I did think these can't be 'that' bad if they've knocked out Beitar. I was wrong. What on earth Beitar were doing I've no idea. 1-6 in Faroe Islands and a fully changed XI won the 2nd leg 3-0. The Champions League is coming to Vrsac Belgrade.

 

 

We are finally beaten in the league courtesy of two late goals at Zvezda. 43 games. Not quite matching the 57 Zvezda themselves managed from October 2017 to April 2019, but some effort.

 

We make our Champions League debut away to Club Brugge. It was meant to be wasn't it?

 

 

It couldn't have been much better. Both teams miss chances but we take one and get on the board immediately becoming the first Serbian side to win an away game in the CL proper since 2025 (I'll be honest, when looking this up I was disappointed it was this recently), before being thrown straight into Lucy Bronze's Monaco - who deems Vrsac "an easy opponent". It was pinned in the dressing room. To be absolutely fair, we lost the game, but it definitely couldn't be described as 'easy' for them.

 

 

I'm definitely keeping mental notes of who is and isn't disrespectful to us during this run, and she is to be joined by three time Premier League and two time Champions League winning Mikel Arteta in the next game. An 'easy opponent' for his Arsenal side. Once again, we go down to defeat, but once again, we absolutely leave it out there. It's a genuinely great effort managing a 3-4 loss to them, joining the illustrious Luton Town side of Rob Edwards in 2023.

 

 

But then came the real test for us. No not Real Madrid, not Barcelona, but Dinamo Jug in the first round of the Kup Srbije. I've stressed to death the cup situation, but this is a team we did go out to in 2026 in disgrace. I did rotate, thinking that if we were to fumble it that I would regret it, but no issues, a 1-5 win. The league campaign is going very well, too. News filters through from Smederevo that Zvezda have fallen at the first hurdle, which is brilliant news.

 

 

Then the lambs are sent to the slaughter. Our first trip to one of the real iconic grounds of world football. Inter and their newly appointed Pep Guardiola. Do I play a relatively aggressive game to try and unsettle them, or do I park the bus somewhat. I feel both leave us very open to a battering. I opt for the aggressive game and am nearly punished early doors. By the 25th minute I concede we're not really making any threat to them and we're just waiting to concede, so I revert to the defensive 4-4-1-1 tactic. By hook, by crook. Honestly. **** knows how, but...

 

 

I feel I've cracked the game somewhat and the wins particularly in the league are very much normal service. But not very often do I get a result where I'm actually cheering it at full time. This was mammoth and up there with my best ever result. Extraordinary. Guardiola was even respectful of us before and after the game and this is always a concern with him as he does tend to have a thing for praising absolutely rubbish teams who bend over for him. But this was a man of class. Be less like Lucy Bronze and Mikel Arteta, and be more like Pep Guardiola. Admittedly Guardiola the only one of the three who did lose to us, so that may impact things.

 

With that result we've conjured out a genuine Qarabag-style chance of a play-off round, with home games to Feyenoord, Marseille and Leverkusen all to come.

 

Zvezda become the first team to avoid defeat at the inventively named "OFK Vrsac Stadium" with a nervy 0-0 draw. Zvezda, to their credit (I guess?) are actually pushing us this year and a genuine title race has made me think with the upgrade in facilities, extra money, and no guarantee that I win the cup that I might actually stick this out a little longer yet.

 

Feyenoord repeat their trick of last season with a 1-3 victory at our place, and admittance from me that we're probably not going to go through. I think 10 points is about the baseline to qualify and we're on 6 points with 3 games left.

 

The second round of the all important Kup Srbije pits us at home to Novi Pazar, recently relegated and like most relegated teams in Serbia, struggling in the 2nd tier. This should be a cakewalk. But I'm not naïve to this anymore. No problems. It's a 4-0 win and progression to the quarter finals with only Partizan, OFK Beograd and Radnicki Nis of the top tier making it this far with us. This simply has to be it.

 

Then it's Marseille, who've hit a shocking bit of form losing 6 games on the bounce in all competitions and an inquest following a 1-0 loss at Auxerre. This is a real opportunity, one that we look set to blow as they get an early lead. We do peg them back quickly but Emegha puts them back in front after half an hour. N'Tamon equalises with the last kick (header) of the half.

 

The second half is a pretty rubbish game. I reluctantly think a point is probably going to be enough but it'll mean beating Leverkusen, who aren't doing too well themselves. Bayern are another kettle of fish to Inter and I think we'll be slaughtered there. But then...

 

 

An extremely efficient display from us and the last 15 minutes locked down with relative ease. 3 wins from 6 in the Champions League. This is an absolutely great effort no matter how this ends.

 

We end December by pummelling Partizan at their place, seeing their manager sacked. Quite how he lasted this long is beyond me - they're absolutely atrocious.

 

 

 

When I said Zvezda had created a title race. Well they sort of did, but they've completely fallen off again with two surprise home losses giving us a huge cushion.

 

As for the Champions League. I think we still need a result off Leverkusen personally.

 

 

Especially given they're one of the teams chasing us. I think if we avoid defeat to them we might just do it.

 

But it's been another very good season. The league and cup have gone to plan but the Champions League has been superb and genuinely miles above expectation. I'm sort of expecting them to top my budget up in January. The signings have been decent, especially Fedorchuk who has been terrific. The new striker has been a bit disappointing and neither him or Bubanj have been as good as last season, so I will probably get another in January. Things are great now though. It's a well oiled machine and I'm actually more likely to stick out another year than I was before, but we'll see how it goes.

2032/33 part two...

 

We were hauled straight back into Champions League action away at Bayern. We had won at Inter, but this was another level and it showed. Despite a pretty steady start Bayern did eventually get the lead and never looked back, winning the game 5-1 - the heaviest loss I've had at Vrsac. This meant as expected, the Bayer Leverkusen game was critical. There were way too many permutations to work out going into the game but I made a pretty good guess that a win was certain qualification, a loss was almost certain elimination (as Leverkusen themselves would jump above us and only one other would need to) and a draw would give us probably a near 50:50 chance of going through.

 

We put in, in my opinion, possibly the best performance of the entire save. We're on top of them early, get the lead and then another almost immediately after. Their 3-4-1-2 seems to match up terribly against us as we expose them down the flanks over and over again, with the usual suspects in Biliboc and Fedorchuk doing a lot of the damage.

 

And yet...

 

 

I partly want to blame myself for sitting on the lead, but I really don't think that was the issue as despite their possession, we caught them out over and over again and even at 2-1 we looked the likelier to score. In-fact it was from our own corner that they equalised with possibly the most infuriating, yet uncharacteristic cockup from my team. Kjaergaard carries the ball a good 50 yards, 5 players all within 10 yards of him throughout and nobody thinks to just slam him down. Something we're actually very good / bad (delete as appropriate) for.

 

I pause the game and then spend a minute trying to actually find a reliable live table that tells me the teams goal differences. I work out that we are out with a draw due to results elsewhere so go all out, but in all honesty we offer nothing in the 4 mins of injury time.

 

 

It's a genuinely gutting outcome. You can point to being battered at Bayern making the difference but there really isn't a lot you can do when they get going. Galatasaray's win over Milan put them above us, and Monaco's 3-2 loss at Arsenal courtesy of two injury time goals made the difference. It's a great effort, but out we go.

 

Our one January signing is Slovenian striker Svit Hocevar for £875k - only 2 goals in the league this season which seems mad on the face of it, but I am very much drawn to scout reports and attributes over performance and he looked a good fit. The league, as expected, continues to be a bit of a breeze. Although we do suffer a surprise loss at Spartak Subotica. We also get the bad, and totally predictable news that we're away at Partizan in the quarters of the cup. Now Partizan have had a shocking season, but they've changed manager and do look a different beast since it, so it's by a distance the trickiest tie we can get. If we do knock them out, we are heavy favourites to win the cup.

 

Boy is it close. It's nervy. But we do it.

 

 

The last four are ourselves, OFK Beograd, Radnicki Nis and Macva Sabac, our old foes, who are now a midtable 2nd tier team. There was no doubt in my mind we would draw Macva Sabac. We did.

 

 

OFK Beograd getting their first ever win over us was a bit ominous given they were our likely opponents in the final if we made it. But then again how on earth we managed to lose was beyond me. There's no doubt that we have slowed down a touch though.

 

Maybe all it needed was an international break. We return to thump Zvezda 0-3 away. Despite another surprising draw at home, we secure the title away at Javor-Matis by absolutely slaughtering them 1-6. OFK Beograd then go down 7-0 at our place in the same week. A totally changed XI draw 2-2 at home to TSC. I'm taking no chances. The league is in the bag and the cup has eluded us for too long.

 

 

The quality showed. We had secured a third final, and a third final against a different Belgrade team after OFK Beograd themselves won the other semi.

 

I slightly rotate in games against Vojvodina and Partizan before the cup final and draw both of them 1-1. We're still yet to lose a single game at our new stadium but Partizan ran us very close. Onto the final we go.

 

When PSG won the Champions League for the first time, it probably felt a bit strange how easy the final itself actually was.

 

We had a similar sensation.

 

 

We scored before they even touched the ball and never looked back. As simple as a victory in a final as you'll see. And at last, Serbia is fully conquered. We wrap the season up with a 1-4 victory at Cukaricki, and end up winning the league by the same 19 point margin of last year - albeit picking up 11 fewer points.

 

 

At this point we're totally dominant in Serbia. We've averaged 3 goals a game for over two seasons now. In-fact, we've won 58 of our last 72 games. There is no contest here. It's our era. With a £17mil budget and £10mil a year wage budget for next season, we now expect titles.

 

However...

 

I am pissed off about that Leverkusen game. I want another crack at it. I think if the instant result button didn't exist, I would simply move on and start a new game because there's just nothing rewarding about sitting through 15 minutes to batter Subotica for a 7th time anymore. I'm enjoying the development of my players with the ever improving facilities. So I'm doing another season. We will enter the Champions League in the 2nd play-off round this time due to Serbia's drop down the coefficient table, but I think we have enough to get there again. I doubt we'll be as lucky as to draw Klaksvik again. But I fancy another go at Europe.

 

Cup isn't a priority at all next season. League win and a good run in Europe is. So we'll go once more.

[shen]

Gutting, that result against Leverkusen  Congrats on finally winning the cup though! 

[Beliall]

i cant go into the squad numbers screen at all. each new signing has the option as you know, but every time i click it the game crashes. hoping when the official email comes in asking to submit my numbers it works. would one of you mind saving your game and trying to give a shirt number to youth kid or something ,see if its just me please, i dont run any mods apart from logos and kits though so i cant see it being that

[shen]

1 hour ago, Beliall said:

i cant go into the squad numbers screen at all. each new signing has the option as you know, but every time i click it the game crashes. hoping when the official email comes in asking to submit my numbers it works. would one of you mind saving your game and trying to give a shirt number to youth kid or something ,see if its just me please, i dont run any mods apart from logos and kits though so i cant see it being that

I've seen it reported on the Reddit forums, i.e. like here. Will try it this evening.

 

 

 

[Beliall]

yeah just been reading the bug tracker myself, looks like my save is dead until they fix it. ill  remove the graphics folder and try again but im not hopeful
 

didnt work, ticket submitted, i guess the save is on hold for now. luckily jurassic world evo 3 just dropped on the pass so , window and doors

Edited Wednesday at 07:52 by Beliall

[shen]

25 minutes ago, Beliall said:

yeah just been reading the bug tracker myself, looks like my save is dead until they fix it. ill  remove the graphics folder and try again but im not hopeful
 

didnt work, ticket submitted, i guess the save is on hold for now. luckily jurassic world evo 3 just dropped on the pass so , window and doors

Wait, so your save is dead even when you reload before the crash happened?

[Beliall]

2 minutes ago, shen said:

Wait, so your save is dead even when you reload before the crash happened?

i cant progress past the squad number email. i could holiday for a day but i promised shirt numbers to players who didnt want to come and i dont want to upset them. tried their suggested step to stop it but it failed. ill wait and see what happens

[shen]

Just now, Beliall said:

i cant progress past the squad number email. i could holiday for a day but i promised shirt numbers to players who didnt want to come and i dont want to upset them. tried their suggested step to stop it but it failed. ill wait and see what happens

You could holiday and see if those players got the right number?

[moore_94]

Just now, Beliall said:

i cant progress past the squad number email. i could holiday for a day but i promised shirt numbers to players who didnt want to come and i dont want to upset them. tried their suggested step to stop it but it failed. ill wait and see what happens

If you holiday do they possibly get given those numbers anyway?

[Beliall]

Just now, shen said:

You could holiday and see if those players got the right number?

 

Just now, moore_94 said:

If you holiday do they possibly get given those numbers anyway?

damn now i feel stupid. ill try it now

[moore_94]

1 minute ago, Beliall said:

 

damn now i feel stupid. ill try it now

Honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t, even if the numbers are available as well

[Beliall]

He's a DM that wants number 7. he got given 6 and made me promise to give him 7 before final squad registration. the auto bot gave the lowest squad numbers to the players in the current lineup so in theory i could put him at right wing before holidaying to make it work  ill try it later on

[Beliall]

tried the plan ,didnt work, probably because my RW has 7 already, he complained but this time i told him to grow up and he accepted it   hopefully by the end of the season the bug will be fixed

[Beliall]

Time to update you on the squad going in to the first game of the season in the SA prem

we sold Seman and Albert after poor seasons and some other bit players, but now for the fun part, the incomings

i had a lot of fun triggering buyout clauses with my new found fortune and ended up putting together a team of my greatest hits, players i have had on loan before that did well but lost to higher clubs or didnt want to extend their stays after a loan. biggest catch of which was Emmanual Ncube, you may remember him from my last post as the guy wanting #7 

he was on loan with us last season and he had a release of £120k which i met, and he refused to negotiate with us, we went public about our desire to sign him, he stil lwasnt interested but demanded he be put on the transfer list at his club, for just 40k. so we kept going back, kept talking to the press, eventually we got him 


Sandil Manganyi, Full back we had on loan in my first season, picked him up from black leopards for 83k release, hes never really lit the league up but hes a solid performer   

Sibusiso Phiri , solid looking young left back, i had to bring in someone who looked like they can do a job while i keep O'malley as the understudy

Rocco Rocha , had him on loan a couple of years back, glad to have him back in the squad he was very good for me








thats the main ones and its all i can upload in one go. i got 2 strikers on loan and a new Goalkeeper who looks as good as Diarra, i brought him in case we lost our first choice. also had the added benefit of making a rival weaker

my first month of football looks pretty tough but im hoping for  good start

[shen]

@Beliall Looks solid! Some very good bargains!

It's a shame Manganyi is left-footed - it could stunt his contributions on the right. Or maybe not Him and Phiri look like they could shine for you at either wingback position and Rocha will be solid. Great that he's natural on both wings - I'd personally use him at AML cutting inside on his right foot, but it depends on your tactics really. Imperative to focus all on quickness though, it'll make them that much more effective.

[Beliall]

36 minutes ago, shen said:

@Beliall Looks solid! Some very good bargains!

It's a shame Manganyi is left-footed - it could stunt his contributions on the right. Or maybe not Him and Phiri look like they could shine for you at either wingback position and Rocha will be solid. Great that he's natural on both wings - I'd personally use him at AML cutting inside on his right foot, but it depends on your tactics really. Imperative to focus all on quickness though, it'll make them that much more effective.

thats exactly how i play, either an inside forward or a winger with the cut inside instruction on both flanks. we just smashed TS Galaxy 5-1 on opening day, hope its not a false dawn because thats a very promising start. O'malley got an 8.8 and an assist, he started because Phiri is injured, as are a few of my new guys, i might have a team here

[Dan]

4 hours ago, Beliall said:

tried the plan ,didnt work, probably because my RW has 7 already, he complained but this time i told him to grow up and he accepted it   hopefully by the end of the season the bug will be fixed

Don't overpromise them things. These players are pathetic for this sort of thing at times. I've genuinely had a player hand in a transfer request based on the wrong number before  

 

Numbers was a problem on FM24. You never used to reliably be able to assign them to players, only every now and then. I signed a load of young players once and gave them all numbers 50+ and by the time I had them in my team they were still wearing these silly numbers.

 

It's a trivial thing but annoying nontheless.

[Dan]

After 7.5 years Vrsac have hit a wall. Sort of.

 

The Champions League play-offs were... a bit of a disaster. We knocked out HJK Helsinki in the 2nd play-off round but suffered a surprise loss to Universitatia Cluj in the next, 1-3 up late on, totally bottled it and then got FM'd 0-1 in the second leg. We beat Zurich 6-3 on aggregate in the Europa League play-off so went into that.

 

The league.. we're definitely not quite as dominant but if I was to see it through I think we would still win it as I'm really half arsing it a bit with instant resulting and over-rotation.

 

In truth though the only thing keeping me interested in this season was Europe and we're defending really badly this time out. We won't win it and that for me is time to move it onto a new save. I've been saying Japan, and I will do this, but got a bit of a random hankering to do a save with Bochum. Serbia's been a blast but I am too adapted to the heavy restriction involved and I just fancy a bit of a luxury save, which relative to this, I would consider Germany to be.

[shen]

12 minutes ago, Dan said:

After 7.5 years Vrsac have hit a wall. Sort of.

 

The Champions League play-offs were... a bit of a disaster. We knocked out HJK Helsinki in the 2nd play-off round but suffered a surprise loss to Universitatia Cluj in the next, 1-3 up late on, totally bottled it and then got FM'd 0-1 in the second leg. We beat Zurich 6-3 on aggregate in the Europa League play-off so went into that.

 

The league.. we're definitely not quite as dominant but if I was to see it through I think we would still win it as I'm really half arsing it a bit with instant resulting and over-rotation.

 

In truth though the only thing keeping me interested in this season was Europe and we're defending really badly this time out. We won't win it and that for me is time to move it onto a new save. I've been saying Japan, and I will do this, but got a bit of a random hankering to do a save with Bochum. Serbia's been a blast but I am too adapted to the heavy restriction involved and I just fancy a bit of a luxury save, which relative to this, I would consider Germany to be.

Yeah, 7,5 years is pretty good going.

Germany is fun, but Japan sounds more intriguing. 

[Dan]

4 minutes ago, shen said:

Yeah, 7,5 years is pretty good going.

Germany is fun, but Japan sounds more intriguing. 

Germany's just a bit of a luxury and an actual chance of major honours. After what must be about 15 seasons on this in pretty weak leagues I'll give something a bit better a go. Japan absolutely still on the bucket list. There's a chance this is a fairly quick one.

[shen]

6 minutes ago, Dan said:

Germany's just a bit of a luxury and an actual chance of major honours. After what must be about 15 seasons on this in pretty weak leagues I'll give something a bit better a go. Japan absolutely still on the bucket list. There's a chance this is a fairly quick one.

I don't think I've ever played in Spain, but I imagine it's actually the top league with the biggest long-term challenge because of the way the economy is skewed in Real Madrid and Barcelona's favour. 

I enjoyed Italy as well in FM21, but it wasn't that hard. Germany, without it's restrictions and massive fan bases, means you can catch up to the big boys quicker IMO.

[Stadt]

9 minutes ago, Dan said:

Germany's just a bit of a luxury and an actual chance of major honours. After what must be about 15 seasons on this in pretty weak leagues I'll give something a bit better a go. Japan absolutely still on the bucket list. There's a chance this is a fairly quick one.

I had a great Bochum save on maybe, FM20? I enjoyed it because I got the the CL pretty quickly but in the 5 seasons or so I played finishing first was too difficult. Way more fun than just winning a title in 3 seasons as it doesn't feel realistic at all.