Football Manager 2026

[Tommy Fresh]

18 hours ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Just finished my first season in Peru with Alianza Atlético, awful set up in terms of their academy and they'd never won anything worth reporting and never finished higher than 4th in the top flight.

 

Started with a crap budget, but managed to shift a load of reserves with zero potential, and built a fairly decent squad. Ended up finishing top of the overall table, having come 2nd in the opening stage and 1st in the closing and then went on to win the champions playoff to win the title.

 

Biggest positive though was somehow getting to the semi finals of the Sudamericana, where I lost to Atlético Mineiro. But the additional income meant the board agreed to improve junior coaching and youth recruitment 3 times over the season, and also improve the training and youth facilities twice.

Annoyed with this now, signed two lads I had on loan and now it's showing their 2026 season stats twice and it's the kind of glitch that'll make me bin this save as it's annoying to look at.

 

Might return to my Unión Española save in the second tier of Chile where I got towards the end of my first season and I was in the cup semi finals where 3 of the 4 teams are also second division sides.

[shen]

59 minutes ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Annoyed with this now, signed two lads I had on loan and now it's showing their 2026 season stats twice and it's the kind of glitch that'll make me bin this save as it's annoying to look at.

 

Might return to my Unión Española save in the second tier of Chile where I got towards the end of my first season and I was in the cup semi finals where 3 of the 4 teams are also second division sides.

Surely, that's just a minor inconvenience 

[shen]

On 19/08/2026 at 20:25, Dan said:

I came far too close to the sack last season to not make some pretty substantial changes this time around. Were things stale? Had we been tactically sussed? Were our players too comfortable?

 

Who knows. I've not really suffered a drop off like that on FM for a long time. I went for an overhaul. We already had a pretty generous budget, but it was to become even bigger.

 

Noah Darvich joins Leeds for £5.75mil and Noah Mbamba joins Nice for £6.5mil in what is a pretty steady start to the summer - two players who never properly broke into my team consistently so I wasn't upset to lose either. I managed to sell Christos Mandas, who had been awful for £9mil to Atletico Madrid. Tim Drexler to Villarreal for £6.5mil. Banzuzi I decided to cut my losses on and sell to Leverkusen for £5.75mil - he was not a bad player but something just never felt quite right, he was never quite as good as he seemed he ought to have been on paper. I got what I paid for Caleb Yirenkyi to Atalanta (£12.75mil). Completing the cull were Davor Starcevic (Al-Khaleej, £3.6mil), Lasse Isbruch (St Pauli, £1.3mil) and Kasper Davidsen (Napoli, £6mil). This left in total a budget of around £120mil, but with a huge number of positions to fill, particularly in midfield which had been totally decimated.

 

Working from back to front, to replace Mandas in goal I opted for a cheap option in Moritz Nicolas from Gladbach. Aged 32 he'd been consistently steady for them for numerous years in the Bundesliga. I don't demand miracles from a goalkeeper, but I do at least demand that they aren't substantially below average. He will do for now - as not a lot really seemed available elsewhere that I was particularly keen on. He was joined by Japanese regen Uwabright Matsuhisa to come in as his backup for £2.6mil.

 

The defence actually remained largely untouched, but the midfield was a bigger issue for me. In came Aljoscha Kemlein (Bremen, £3.3mil), Edoardo Biondini (Parma, £6.25mil) and Agustin Sancho (River Plate, £7mil) who were all pretty underpriced relative to their ability. Long time target Lamine Sadio came in from Nordsjaelland for £11mil as an attacking midfielder, with Rio Ngumoha (Liverpool) and Quentin Njdantou (PSG) arriving on loans with a view to permanent moves.

 

I was kind of hoping for a 'slightly' better summer, but I won't buy players for good money who I expect to discard quite quickly and I think we had a mix of a good age profile and potentially a couple of real gems.

 

We do unfortunately start slowly though. Defeat at Bayern in the super cup, and then just 4 points from our opening 5 games in the league - an admittedly very tricky set of fixtures, but losing at home to Wolfsburg despite absolutely battering them was unacceptable. With tricky games against Frankfurt and Bayern up next, I was really beginning to think I could be out the door.

 

Thankfully, we got a solid point at Frankfurt and then got my first league win over Bayern, 1-0 at home. The Bayern win was the first of what turned into a run of 8 straight wins in the league. Are we back? I would say so.

 

We put in an impressive Europa League showing as well, finishing 4th in the league phase and going unbeaten. The highlights being a 0-3 win at Betis and a 1-4 win at Feyenoord.

 

January saw a bit of a hammer blow though, as my best academy prospect of the save, centre back Gavin Derby was taken by Arsenal for £22mil - a club record. This was closely followed by selling Patlan at last to West Ham for £20mil on deadline day. Significant signings of January included Mexican midfielder Tostin Tabaoda (£11.75mil) and Argentine centre half Thiago Silvero (£11.25mil). We still had loads of money left for a rainy day. PSG also decided to sell Ndjantou to Benfica in this window, leaving us a striker short. But that's where Hideki Miwa came in above. I trusted Waehler and Moerstedt, and for the most part, they did OK.

 

The most significant thing that happened this season was a tactical switch, mid game against Mainz at home earlier in the season. I'd read somewhere that a 4-1-4-1 system with two attacking midfielders was effective on this version, and it wasn't a huge transition from what I was currently playing. At 0-1 to a struggling Mainz, I made the switch, we won 2-1 and we never really looked back. This isn't the first time this has happened in a game with Mainz on this save.

 

We finally lost our DFB Pokal dominance with yet another home loss to Wolfsburg, this time on penalties, before remarkably making it three defeats in a row to them in the away league fixture. February wasn't our greatest month, but it did prove to a blip rather than a meltdown. March saw us take Anderlecht out of the Europa League and onto a personal grudge match with PAOK in the quarters - who we beat 1-0 in both legs. 

 

I usually start with a balanced mentality in games but often turn it to positive when I need a goal. In one game, after conceding early, I went attacking - completely by accident and we scored immediately. I kept it on and we ended up winning the game comfortably 1-3. Interesting.

 

This new found all out attacking approach was naively put to the test in the Europa League semis against Manchester United, and despite an OK performance, we lost 2-4 needing a bit of a miracle. It never arrived - a 2-0 loss at Old Trafford after largely having the better of the game.

 

Very encouragingly though, we finished the Bundesliga with 9 wins and 2 losses from our final 11 games, and had scored in every single game since the 0-1 loss to Wolfsburg on the 5th matchday.

 

 

Bayern's dominance was finally ended, but not by the team I hoped for. Despite their ridiculous 104 goal haul, they finish 2nd to Gerardo Seoane's Dortmund.

 

But we were pretty comfortably 3rd by the end, rendering last season as a bit of a blip and things firmly back on track going into the final ever season at the Ruhrstadion. The finances are brilliant. The team is good. The tactics seem to be working. But I feel by now, having played the game this long, that I ought to really be able to push for the title next year.

 

I do wonder how many of the players I'd sold last year would've reacted in the new tactic and whether I could've just done that and kept some of them. But the new buys were for the most part impressive.

 

Nicolas, while not perfect, and not a long term solution was steady enough and better than Mandas. Silvero wasn't as good as Darby but was still OK. Biondini proved a real bargain and was quality, now worth north of £30mil. Kemlein started slowly but grew into a really steady allround player. Sancho was the opposite, starting well but really suffering post tactical switch. Ngumoha proved the pick of the signings, and out of contract in the summer I wasted no time in getting him signed permanently, on a free transfer - our new highest earning player on £86k a week.

 

We're good, but I definitely see room for improvement in the team still.

Well done turning it back around! Looks like you've done some major coups on the transfer market.

 

Tactics are obviously a massive factor, but it feels difficult to quantify how much is down to tactics, player attributes, squad cohesion & morale or team/club reputation.

I find it odd how in my Diegem save, my wing backs often end up with the highest ratings (and also seem to have high impact in games), but they're also often my worst players technically and mentally, i.e. I wouldn't expect them to make the right decisions/runs as often or be as technically efficient as they are. It suggests to me that attributes are less important than tactical roles, which could explain why Hawighorst played above expectation for you.

Obviously team cohesion is important, but it's still secondary to tactics*.

 

The way tactics work is more unclear though - I feel that tactical efficiency is more linked to club reputation. Primarily because of how teams try (or don't try) to counter you. If you improve the club's standing and the perceived quality (i.e. the cumulative CA/rep of players), then you likely have to adjust tactics to stay ahead of the curve. Maybe that's another explanation as to why your more attacking switch against Mainz paid off. The higher the relative reputation of the club/squad vs your opponent's, the more attacking the tactics should be*. 

*From my experience at least.

[Tommy Fresh]

1 hour ago, shen said:

Surely, that's just a minor inconvenience 

You'd think so wouldn't you, but no  add in I'd just gotten over the live table not working in Peru for some reason 

[Dan]

1 hour ago, shen said:

Well done turning it back around! Looks like you've done some major coups on the transfer market.

 

Tactics are obviously a massive factor, but it feels difficult to quantify how much is down to tactics, player attributes, squad cohesion & morale or team/club reputation.

I find it odd how in my Diegem save, my wing backs often end up with the highest ratings (and also seem to have high impact in games), but they're also often my worst players technically and mentally, i.e. I wouldn't expect them to make the right decisions/runs as often or be as technically efficient as they are. It suggests to me that attributes are less important than tactical roles, which could explain why Hawighorst played above expectation for you.

Obviously team cohesion is important, but it's still secondary to tactics*.

 

The way tactics work is more unclear though - I feel that tactical efficiency is more linked to club reputation. Primarily because of how teams try (or don't try) to counter you. If you improve the club's standing and the perceived quality (i.e. the cumulative CA/rep of players), then you likely have to adjust tactics to stay ahead of the curve. Maybe that's another explanation as to why your more attacking switch against Mainz paid off. The higher the relative reputation of the club/squad vs your opponent's, the more attacking the tactics should be*. 

*From my experience at least.

Honestly I think I'm pretty tactically limited for how long I've played the game for. I see some people can just come up with something on a whim and it works a treat. It's hard to gauge whether I am just limited at this or whether I'm pickier about it. I think back to the Athens Kallithea save where it took me three years to get out of the second tier - I think on 24 I had so many go to ideas that I could just have gotten them promoted immediately.

 

Morale had never been an issue for me until late last season - we hit a genuine blip of bad underperformance. I was really sure I'd lose the cup final but I think I threw them, ironically, contradictory - with a tactical switch.

 

I do think the ratings are often linked to your tactics. You can have players with fairly low average ratings where it doesn't really matter massively even though you think it is doing. In this system I'm playing now my left attacking midfielder, playmaker, gets decent numbers but the average rating game by game is pretty bad unless they assist or score. I changed the role to just an attacking midfielder, the average ratings got higher but I think the overall performance of the team dipped so I just decided to take the hit and change it back.

 

I think against Mainz I simply threw the game. The game had 'sussed' our 4-2-3-1, hadn't really accounted for us playing 4-1-4-1 attacking and gaps opened up.

 

I am just playing attacking against most teams now but I do feel it'll be penalised against the very best still. The United Europa League semi was a sign of this - they were good enough to pick us off.

[Lineker's Lugs]

This save is taking its toll...

 

 

 

[Lineker's Lugs]

My save is complete.  The final league was Hong Kong.  I was a bit disappointed by that, but because of the approach I took it was always going to finish in a backwater somewhere.

 

What I hadn’t expected was for the final title to be one of the best.  It was the ultimate two horse race with my side, C & W District, and Kitchee SC way ahead of everyone else.  We only lost twice all season, both to Kitchee, and the second defeat took them above us on head-to-head record with only three to play.  We drew our next game while they won, so we were two points behind.  They then lost their last two – the only defeats they had all season – and we won ours to take the title by a deceptively comfortable four points. 

 

 

In total the save took 19 days, 19 hours and 13 minutes.

 

It turns out managers age up to 100 years old, then stop get older.

 

My career earnings were in the region of £38.5m, which was nice.  It could have been more but I usually negotiated down to a 1 year contract and took a lower wage as a result.  For some reason I didn’t want to consistently break contracts, although the game still thought I resigned from every job of course.  By the end I was only being offered one year contracts (and just four months on one occasion, which turned out to be enough).  Whether it was the game learning what I would accept, or just the result of my manager being little more than a barely animated corpse by that point, I don't know.

 

I became heartily sick of messages that began with the words 'heads up' or 'potential issue'.

 

I strongly suspect that instant result = better results and that probably took a few years off my save.

 

I never had to spend more than two years in a job because I was nearly always able to join the strongest or richest club in a country.  There were plenty of easy pickings where I found myself at clubs where it was almost harder NOT to win the league.  I also managed to speed things up when I realised that switching between winter and summer leagues meant I could join a club midway through a season then have mid-season and between-season transfer windows to build the squad, and then be ready to win the league the following season.  Two leagues could be won in three years by doing that.

 

In the last twenty or so years of the save, I kept an eye on Leicester’s teams.  The women were always either relegated from the WSL or promoted from WSL2 whenever I looked.  The men were also a yo-yo team, but in their case it was between League One and League Two.  As the save ended they had just finished 22nd to be relegated from League One again, and had sacked their manager.  Jon Rudkin’s ghost remains on the payroll.  

 

I haven’t bothered posting all the details of every country, but I’ve been taking screenshots of each table and to save me typing any more, here’s a screenshot of the filenames showing each country and the club concerned.  Where there are multiple files for a club it's usually because there is a league stage and a playoff stage.  

 

 

 

[Beliall]

12 hours ago, Lineker's Lugs said:

My save is complete.  The final league was Hong Kong.  I was a bit disappointed by that, but because of the approach I took it was always going to finish in a backwater somewhere.

 

What I hadn’t expected was for the final title to be one of the best.  It was the ultimate two horse race with my side, C & W District, and Kitchee SC way ahead of everyone else.  We only lost twice all season, both to Kitchee, and the second defeat took them above us on head-to-head record with only three to play.  We drew our next game while they won, so we were two points behind.  They then lost their last two – the only defeats they had all season – and we won ours to take the title by a deceptively comfortable four points. 

 

 

In total the save took 19 days, 19 hours and 13 minutes.

 

It turns out managers age up to 100 years old, then stop get older.

 

My career earnings were in the region of £38.5m, which was nice.  It could have been more but I usually negotiated down to a 1 year contract and took a lower wage as a result.  For some reason I didn’t want to consistently break contracts, although the game still thought I resigned from every job of course.  By the end I was only being offered one year contracts (and just four months on one occasion, which turned out to be enough).  Whether it was the game learning what I would accept, or just the result of my manager being little more than a barely animated corpse by that point, I don't know.

 

I became heartily sick of messages that began with the words 'heads up' or 'potential issue'.

 

I strongly suspect that instant result = better results and that probably took a few years off my save.

 

I never had to spend more than two years in a job because I was nearly always able to join the strongest or richest club in a country.  There were plenty of easy pickings where I found myself at clubs where it was almost harder NOT to win the league.  I also managed to speed things up when I realised that switching between winter and summer leagues meant I could join a club midway through a season then have mid-season and between-season transfer windows to build the squad, and then be ready to win the league the following season.  Two leagues could be won in three years by doing that.

 

In the last twenty or so years of the save, I kept an eye on Leicester’s teams.  The women were always either relegated from the WSL or promoted from WSL2 whenever I looked.  The men were also a yo-yo team, but in their case it was between League One and League Two.  As the save ended they had just finished 22nd to be relegated from League One again, and had sacked their manager.  Jon Rudkin’s ghost remains on the payroll.  

 

I haven’t bothered posting all the details of every country, but I’ve been taking screenshots of each table and to save me typing any more, here’s a screenshot of the filenames showing each country and the club concerned.  Where there are multiple files for a club it's usually because there is a league stage and a playoff stage.  

 

 

 

well done you ****ing nutcase

[shen]

Diegem update:

Solid start to the new season with 18 points from seven games putting us top already which followed a 5-1 mauling of Club Brugge in the Super Cup.

A tweaked tactic now sees us play without a striker after we experimented a bit during the previous two seasons and early signs are it will take some doing to keep us from retaining the title. 

 

We've done some solid if unspectacular transfer business over the summer, with the highlights (pic links included) being outgoing transfers of

Douglas Borel for £700k (signed on a free two seasons ago to be first choice RWB. Was relegated to backup when ninja signing Machmoum joined) ;

Hadj Mahmoud for £4,2mil (free signing a year ago, meant to be rotation CDM. Never quite performed) ;

Koba Koindredi for £3,2mil (signed on a free 1,5 years ago. Carried us for 6 months, then picked up that horrible injury last season) ; 

and five fringe/youth players for a combined £2,5mil which have been surplus to requirements or on last year of contracts.

Incomings include:

Andrey Santos for free (in November last season). Yes, the one that's just gone to Man Utd for £48m IRL  Already a standout and a key player.
Jurgen Ekkelenkamp for free (in November last season). Released by Leeds, he's an excellent all-round midfielder.
Siphesihle September for £500k (in last January window). Classic speed merchant regen from Orlando Pirates who can play ST or AMR. Will become key I think.
Lúkas Petterson for £275k, Icelandic goalkeeper who is a similar BGK to Roekaerts, just an upgrade in all areas, particularly agility and anticipation.
Lucas Jetten for free. A decent LWB from released by Ajax. Knows the language and well-rounded with some potential.
Louis Patris for free. Former OHL star who will be an upgrade on Borel for about the same wage - and will count as homegrown!
Bop Gueye for £ 2,7mil. Excellent attacking midfielder with great versatility to boot. 
Harry Webber for free. 18-year old American centerback poached from the Galaxy academy - already valued at a whopping £28-45m (!)

Valentin Angelski for £3m. 20-year old Bulgarian DL with 10 caps, who has solid potential. Bit pricey, but expect his value to grow a lot.

William Osnes-Ringen for £4,3m. Very pricey and not my first choice, but we needed a well-rounded versatile midfielder with guaranteed value and who we could afford (wage demands are nuts!). Unfortunately he didn't sign in time for the CL registration (my frickin god, how stupid is it that the registration deadline is before the transfer deadline?)

 

We've now upgraded to Excellent training facilities, while we're awaiting a youth facilities upgrade and a stadium expansion in the coming months too. 
Our finances are pretty healthy and we were able to remove some dodgy minimum fee release clauses, which would mean we should get decent profit off of any player sales now.

The Champions League draw was once again quite rough for us.

We had Olympiacos (A) first game in the League Phase (I'm so happy I don't have to go through qualifying!) and we threw away a 2-goal lead to draw the game to my dismay.
Our next games are against Man City (H), Juventus (A), Marseille (H), Paris SG (A) and Napoli (H), before we get some winnable games against Slavia Prague (H) and RB Salzburg (A). 
I somehow need another miraculous performance like against Juve last season - and I HAVE to win the last two, just to reach 8-10 points. It will be another struggle.

Edited 2 September by shen

[Dan]

On 19/08/2026 at 19:25, Dan said:

I came far too close to the sack last season to not make some pretty substantial changes this time around. Were things stale? Had we been tactically sussed? Were our players too comfortable?

 

Who knows. I've not really suffered a drop off like that on FM for a long time. I went for an overhaul. We already had a pretty generous budget, but it was to become even bigger.

 

Noah Darvich joins Leeds for £5.75mil and Noah Mbamba joins Nice for £6.5mil in what is a pretty steady start to the summer - two players who never properly broke into my team consistently so I wasn't upset to lose either. I managed to sell Christos Mandas, who had been awful for £9mil to Atletico Madrid. Tim Drexler to Villarreal for £6.5mil. Banzuzi I decided to cut my losses on and sell to Leverkusen for £5.75mil - he was not a bad player but something just never felt quite right, he was never quite as good as he seemed he ought to have been on paper. I got what I paid for Caleb Yirenkyi to Atalanta (£12.75mil). Completing the cull were Davor Starcevic (Al-Khaleej, £3.6mil), Lasse Isbruch (St Pauli, £1.3mil) and Kasper Davidsen (Napoli, £6mil). This left in total a budget of around £120mil, but with a huge number of positions to fill, particularly in midfield which had been totally decimated.

 

Working from back to front, to replace Mandas in goal I opted for a cheap option in Moritz Nicolas from Gladbach. Aged 32 he'd been consistently steady for them for numerous years in the Bundesliga. I don't demand miracles from a goalkeeper, but I do at least demand that they aren't substantially below average. He will do for now - as not a lot really seemed available elsewhere that I was particularly keen on. He was joined by Japanese regen Uwabright Matsuhisa to come in as his backup for £2.6mil.

 

The defence actually remained largely untouched, but the midfield was a bigger issue for me. In came Aljoscha Kemlein (Bremen, £3.3mil), Edoardo Biondini (Parma, £6.25mil) and Agustin Sancho (River Plate, £7mil) who were all pretty underpriced relative to their ability. Long time target Lamine Sadio came in from Nordsjaelland for £11mil as an attacking midfielder, with Rio Ngumoha (Liverpool) and Quentin Njdantou (PSG) arriving on loans with a view to permanent moves.

 

I was kind of hoping for a 'slightly' better summer, but I won't buy players for good money who I expect to discard quite quickly and I think we had a mix of a good age profile and potentially a couple of real gems.

 

We do unfortunately start slowly though. Defeat at Bayern in the super cup, and then just 4 points from our opening 5 games in the league - an admittedly very tricky set of fixtures, but losing at home to Wolfsburg despite absolutely battering them was unacceptable. With tricky games against Frankfurt and Bayern up next, I was really beginning to think I could be out the door.

 

Thankfully, we got a solid point at Frankfurt and then got my first league win over Bayern, 1-0 at home. The Bayern win was the first of what turned into a run of 8 straight wins in the league. Are we back? I would say so.

 

We put in an impressive Europa League showing as well, finishing 4th in the league phase and going unbeaten. The highlights being a 0-3 win at Betis and a 1-4 win at Feyenoord.

 

January saw a bit of a hammer blow though, as my best academy prospect of the save, centre back Gavin Derby was taken by Arsenal for £22mil - a club record. This was closely followed by selling Patlan at last to West Ham for £20mil on deadline day. Significant signings of January included Mexican midfielder Tostin Tabaoda (£11.75mil) and Argentine centre half Thiago Silvero (£11.25mil). We still had loads of money left for a rainy day. PSG also decided to sell Ndjantou to Benfica in this window, leaving us a striker short. But that's where Hideki Miwa came in above. I trusted Waehler and Moerstedt, and for the most part, they did OK.

 

The most significant thing that happened this season was a tactical switch, mid game against Mainz at home earlier in the season. I'd read somewhere that a 4-1-4-1 system with two attacking midfielders was effective on this version, and it wasn't a huge transition from what I was currently playing. At 0-1 to a struggling Mainz, I made the switch, we won 2-1 and we never really looked back. This isn't the first time this has happened in a game with Mainz on this save.

 

We finally lost our DFB Pokal dominance with yet another home loss to Wolfsburg, this time on penalties, before remarkably making it three defeats in a row to them in the away league fixture. February wasn't our greatest month, but it did prove to a blip rather than a meltdown. March saw us take Anderlecht out of the Europa League and onto a personal grudge match with PAOK in the quarters - who we beat 1-0 in both legs. 

 

I usually start with a balanced mentality in games but often turn it to positive when I need a goal. In one game, after conceding early, I went attacking - completely by accident and we scored immediately. I kept it on and we ended up winning the game comfortably 1-3. Interesting.

 

This new found all out attacking approach was naively put to the test in the Europa League semis against Manchester United, and despite an OK performance, we lost 2-4 needing a bit of a miracle. It never arrived - a 2-0 loss at Old Trafford after largely having the better of the game.

 

Very encouragingly though, we finished the Bundesliga with 9 wins and 2 losses from our final 11 games, and had scored in every single game since the 0-1 loss to Wolfsburg on the 5th matchday.

 

 

Bayern's dominance was finally ended, but not by the team I hoped for. Despite their ridiculous 104 goal haul, they finish 2nd to Gerardo Seoane's Dortmund.

 

But we were pretty comfortably 3rd by the end, rendering last season as a bit of a blip and things firmly back on track going into the final ever season at the Ruhrstadion. The finances are brilliant. The team is good. The tactics seem to be working. But I feel by now, having played the game this long, that I ought to really be able to push for the title next year.

 

I do wonder how many of the players I'd sold last year would've reacted in the new tactic and whether I could've just done that and kept some of them. But the new buys were for the most part impressive.

 

Nicolas, while not perfect, and not a long term solution was steady enough and better than Mandas. Silvero wasn't as good as Darby but was still OK. Biondini proved a real bargain and was quality, now worth north of £30mil. Kemlein started slowly but grew into a really steady allround player. Sancho was the opposite, starting well but really suffering post tactical switch. Ngumoha proved the pick of the signings, and out of contract in the summer I wasted no time in getting him signed permanently, on a free transfer - our new highest earning player on £86k a week.

 

We're good, but I definitely see room for improvement in the team still.

The following season was about building on what I had rather than ripping it up and going again, which is better.

 

We made five big signings in the summer. Nguomha joined on a free transfer and became the highest earner on £83k a week. Two longer term targets arrived in Benjamin Andric from Copenhagen and Luis Padilla from Club America. Both just under £20mil each. Both extremely high potential players that I think could actually kick on to the very top. The other was a slightly controversial move, but the declining form of goalkeeper Nicolas made me go for it. On a one year deal for an enormous £155k a week came in Mike Maignan. He was old, but he was still performing well for AC Milan. Not my usual type of signing, but I am fed up of being plagued by goalkeepers. Despite his age I'm still hopeful he can be the solid, reliable goalkeeper I just cannot seem to bring in. The other was striker Mohamed Meite who had just been released from his Saudi club. A serious coup I thought, substantially better than our other striker options.

 

We make a very decent start this time around, winning 8 and drawing 1 of our first 9 games. Meite is banging the goals in. Padilla and Andric, while not ripping it up, aren't doing too badly.

 

The problem though is we are still letting goals in. Maignan hasn't really solved anything. The most egregious is a complete shocker of a performance in the CL at home to Roma, which prompts me to look for a new goalkeeper for January already. Maignan was a dud. Is it the tactic? Is he just finished? I'm glad I only signed up for a one year deal with him.

 

We're in proper title contention, but it all comes crashing down in January. Bayern inflict our first defeat of the season and we go and lose pathetically at Hannover the week after. As good as we've been, Bayern really are back this season and they just look too much for us to deal with.

 

January does see some interesting movement. Aljoscha Kemlein, a steady midfielder, is sold to Leipzig for a ridiculous £31.5mil. I liked him but I couldn't believe they bit on that, he's worth probably half of that. Shun Muto, my left back, again - good, but not amazing, makes a £38.5mil move to Wolves. They are replaced by Sebastian Olderheim (who is a better tactical fit) for £8.5mil and Jofre Torrents (who is better than Muto) for £18mil. Once again a post Saudi free agent rocks up here as goalkeeper Tommaso Martinelli joins for £44k per week. One of those classic, satisfying FM windows where you improve your team and make money in the process.

 

We are dumped out of Europe again by Manchester United, this time in the knock-out play-off round of the Champions League.

 

Our league form remains steady, but we suffer a couple more silly defeats, a totally undeserved 2-0 loss at Freiburg, and late on a 3-1 loss at Bayer Leverkusen to bury any small hopes of the title we had. Disappointingly, we ended up slipping to 3rd after all.

 

 

So it's the same as last season. But I felt we'd improved. We scored more goals and we're definitely playing at the highest level I can remember us playing at. Other than the 11th placed abberation we have ended up on 72-75 points each season. We're going to have to bump that up slightly to win the league. But Andric and Padilla were looking encouraging and definitely improved as the season went on. I don't think we are far off. But Bayern are just beyond annoying.

 

Our final ever game at the Ruhrstadion is a 5-1 win over Hoffenheim, which sends them down.

[shen]

8 hours ago, Dan said:

The following season was about building on what I had rather than ripping it up and going again, which is better.

 

We made five big signings in the summer. Nguomha joined on a free transfer and became the highest earner on £83k a week. Two longer term targets arrived in Benjamin Andric from Copenhagen and Luis Padilla from Club America. Both just under £20mil each. Both extremely high potential players that I think could actually kick on to the very top. The other was a slightly controversial move, but the declining form of goalkeeper Nicolas made me go for it. On a one year deal for an enormous £155k a week came in Mike Maignan. He was old, but he was still performing well for AC Milan. Not my usual type of signing, but I am fed up of being plagued by goalkeepers. Despite his age I'm still hopeful he can be the solid, reliable goalkeeper I just cannot seem to bring in. The other was striker Mohamed Meite who had just been released from his Saudi club. A serious coup I thought, substantially better than our other striker options.

 

We make a very decent start this time around, winning 8 and drawing 1 of our first 9 games. Meite is banging the goals in. Padilla and Andric, while not ripping it up, aren't doing too badly.

 

The problem though is we are still letting goals in. Maignan hasn't really solved anything. The most egregious is a complete shocker of a performance in the CL at home to Roma, which prompts me to look for a new goalkeeper for January already. Maignan was a dud. Is it the tactic? Is he just finished? I'm glad I only signed up for a one year deal with him.

 

We're in proper title contention, but it all comes crashing down in January. Bayern inflict our first defeat of the season and we go and lose pathetically at Hannover the week after. As good as we've been, Bayern really are back this season and they just look too much for us to deal with.

 

January does see some interesting movement. Aljoscha Kemlein, a steady midfielder, is sold to Leipzig for a ridiculous £31.5mil. I liked him but I couldn't believe they bit on that, he's worth probably half of that. Shun Muto, my left back, again - good, but not amazing, makes a £38.5mil move to Wolves. They are replaced by Sebastian Olderheim (who is a better tactical fit) for £8.5mil and Jofre Torrents (who is better than Muto) for £18mil. Once again a post Saudi free agent rocks up here as goalkeeper Tommaso Martinelli joins for £44k per week. One of those classic, satisfying FM windows where you improve your team and make money in the process.

 

We are dumped out of Europe again by Manchester United, this time in the knock-out play-off round of the Champions League.

 

Our league form remains steady, but we suffer a couple more silly defeats, a totally undeserved 2-0 loss at Freiburg, and late on a 3-1 loss at Bayer Leverkusen to bury any small hopes of the title we had. Disappointingly, we ended up slipping to 3rd after all.

 

 

So it's the same as last season. But I felt we'd improved. We scored more goals and we're definitely playing at the highest level I can remember us playing at. Other than the 11th placed abberation we have ended up on 72-75 points each season. We're going to have to bump that up slightly to win the league. But Andric and Padilla were looking encouraging and definitely improved as the season went on. I don't think we are far off. But Bayern are just beyond annoying.

 

Our final ever game at the Ruhrstadion is a 5-1 win over Hoffenheim, which sends them down.

Intriguing about the Maignan gamble not paying off. Maybe it's just a tactical/game engine thing.
I'm performing better defensively in my save, but I think it's 90% down to the tactical switch and maybe 5-10% down to the goalkeeper upgrade. I'm still seeing much of the same goals go in, but I'm giving up a lot fewer chances, so it's difficult to say if those goals are just inevitable or whether an elite goalie with superb anticipation, agility, jumping reach and reflexes can actually mitigate it.

Just looking at your transfer sums, it looks like you're going to catch up eventually with Bayern as you get top 3 finishes and knockout round progression in Europe giving you substantial rep boosts. If you're able to even offer wages of £100k+ wages, I think you will be able to really shift into a higher gear during this summer window. 
If you are still not getting closer, I'd look at tweaking the tactics to improve consistency in the league. Happy talent hunting! (also, show us your biggest stars!)

[shen]

I've been mulling over my next FM challenge a bit.
My Diegem save is going swimmingly, but I'm closing in on the point where winning the league will become a procession and winning the CL will be a question of time and RNG, which quickly becomes redious. 
I think I've done most of what I find interesting in CM/FM. After having a break between FM21 and FM26, this challenge felt fresh enough, but I've done the rags to riches story a few times now. I've taken my local/heritage clubs into orbit which is always a fun and personal narrative. I've done the wonderkids save. I've done the obligatory Leicester save on each version (though I ditched it after promotion on FM26). I've taken national teams to world cup glory etc.
Once training is optimized, scouting is set up properly and most importantly the tactics are cracked, then it's all a procession and more a question of when, not if.

So I think the only way is to do self-imposed restrictions (e.g. age limits to transfers/players, limit scope of player pool, only play a certain (non-meta) way) and/or actually role-play the game (i.e. leave scouting/transfer/contract negotiations to the DoF; training to the coaches; infrastructure improvements to the board etc) so that you just act as the head coach and nothing else. 

In a way, that evens the field a bit as the AI doesn't optimize well and would suffer from these imperfections that result from having delegated matters to staff. 

What will your challenges be for your next save (whether in CM99/00, FM26 or FM27 or whatever)?

I'm thinking about doing a "Dad's army" save where I force myself to only have 33+ year old players in the team and see how far I can go with this. It poses numerous challenges like
How to generate income;
Dealing with constant squad turnover due to player decline in order stay competitive;
Finding a tactic that works best for physically declining players;
High wages/big egos;
 

It would turn the whole game experience upside down somewhat.
Maybe combine it with role-playing, so I don't get to manually scour the market for optimal players either or dismantle youth facilities etc.

[Warks_Mackem]

I’ve given up with Sunderland and decided to have a crack with Leicester. Doubt I’ll bother getting FM27 till Xmas so got a few months to get into a save.

[Warks_Mackem]

Flogged Winks to Wolves for £12m and a young full back whose name escapes me to Man Utd for a similar amount. Brought in Piroe from Leeds, Drameh from Hull and a young midfielder called White from Stevenage. Despite the outgoings we are still falling foul of the spending rules, but if I’d brought no one in then there was no chance we would hit the board’s target of reaching the play offs.

 

Eased past Sheff Wed 5-1, before we disappointingly chucked away a 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 at Preston.

 

We got back on track with back to back wins over Charlton (another 5-1) and Birmingham (2-1).

[Tommy Fresh]

On 09/09/2026 at 15:25, shen said:

I've been mulling over my next FM challenge a bit.
My Diegem save is going swimmingly, but I'm closing in on the point where winning the league will become a procession and winning the CL will be a question of time and RNG, which quickly becomes redious. 
I think I've done most of what I find interesting in CM/FM. After having a break between FM21 and FM26, this challenge felt fresh enough, but I've done the rags to riches story a few times now. I've taken my local/heritage clubs into orbit which is always a fun and personal narrative. I've done the wonderkids save. I've done the obligatory Leicester save on each version (though I ditched it after promotion on FM26). I've taken national teams to world cup glory etc.
Once training is optimized, scouting is set up properly and most importantly the tactics are cracked, then it's all a procession and more a question of when, not if.

So I think the only way is to do self-imposed restrictions (e.g. age limits to transfers/players, limit scope of player pool, only play a certain (non-meta) way) and/or actually role-play the game (i.e. leave scouting/transfer/contract negotiations to the DoF; training to the coaches; infrastructure improvements to the board etc) so that you just act as the head coach and nothing else. 

In a way, that evens the field a bit as the AI doesn't optimize well and would suffer from these imperfections that result from having delegated matters to staff. 

What will your challenges be for your next save (whether in CM99/00, FM26 or FM27 or whatever)?

I'm thinking about doing a "Dad's army" save where I force myself to only have 33+ year old players in the team and see how far I can go with this. It poses numerous challenges like
How to generate income;
Dealing with constant squad turnover due to player decline in order stay competitive;
Finding a tactic that works best for physically declining players;
High wages/big egos;
 

It would turn the whole game experience upside down somewhat.
Maybe combine it with role-playing, so I don't get to manually scour the market for optimal players either or dismantle youth facilities etc.

Try one of the sides with restrictions like Bilbao or Altinordu

[shen]

1 hour ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Try one of the sides with restrictions like Bilbao or Altinordu

Yeah, as noted, that's one way to impose restrictions. I suppose it could be an OK challenge, but Athletic have a fantastic youth setup and it's hard coded that they get a steady stream of potential La Liga players, so it's not THAT difficult.

I haven't looked at Altinordu, but I assume it's a bit similar with Turkey producing lots of great talent already.

[Dan]

On 09/09/2026 at 15:25, shen said:

I've been mulling over my next FM challenge a bit.
My Diegem save is going swimmingly, but I'm closing in on the point where winning the league will become a procession and winning the CL will be a question of time and RNG, which quickly becomes redious. 
I think I've done most of what I find interesting in CM/FM. After having a break between FM21 and FM26, this challenge felt fresh enough, but I've done the rags to riches story a few times now. I've taken my local/heritage clubs into orbit which is always a fun and personal narrative. I've done the wonderkids save. I've done the obligatory Leicester save on each version (though I ditched it after promotion on FM26). I've taken national teams to world cup glory etc.
Once training is optimized, scouting is set up properly and most importantly the tactics are cracked, then it's all a procession and more a question of when, not if.

So I think the only way is to do self-imposed restrictions (e.g. age limits to transfers/players, limit scope of player pool, only play a certain (non-meta) way) and/or actually role-play the game (i.e. leave scouting/transfer/contract negotiations to the DoF; training to the coaches; infrastructure improvements to the board etc) so that you just act as the head coach and nothing else. 

In a way, that evens the field a bit as the AI doesn't optimize well and would suffer from these imperfections that result from having delegated matters to staff. 

What will your challenges be for your next save (whether in CM99/00, FM26 or FM27 or whatever)?

I'm thinking about doing a "Dad's army" save where I force myself to only have 33+ year old players in the team and see how far I can go with this. It poses numerous challenges like
How to generate income;
Dealing with constant squad turnover due to player decline in order stay competitive;
Finding a tactic that works best for physically declining players;
High wages/big egos;
 

It would turn the whole game experience upside down somewhat.
Maybe combine it with role-playing, so I don't get to manually scour the market for optimal players either or dismantle youth facilities etc.

For my next one, final FM26 save, I'm introducing pure HOOFBALL. To build a physically brutal, dirty team relying on long ball football. I play more direct than most play the game I think, but I've never quite built a club entirely around hoofball and I'm interested to see how far I take it.

[Dan]

On 09/09/2026 at 08:22, shen said:

Intriguing about the Maignan gamble not paying off. Maybe it's just a tactical/game engine thing.
I'm performing better defensively in my save, but I think it's 90% down to the tactical switch and maybe 5-10% down to the goalkeeper upgrade. I'm still seeing much of the same goals go in, but I'm giving up a lot fewer chances, so it's difficult to say if those goals are just inevitable or whether an elite goalie with superb anticipation, agility, jumping reach and reflexes can actually mitigate it.

Just looking at your transfer sums, it looks like you're going to catch up eventually with Bayern as you get top 3 finishes and knockout round progression in Europe giving you substantial rep boosts. If you're able to even offer wages of £100k+ wages, I think you will be able to really shift into a higher gear during this summer window. 
If you are still not getting closer, I'd look at tweaking the tactics to improve consistency in the league. Happy talent hunting! (also, show us your biggest stars!)

It is worth pointing out that Martinelli, the Italian goalkeeper I signed, has been completely reasonable and met expectations. Without being outstandingly good, and not without a couple of bad games, but generally he is just consistent and reliable. It's all I'm really hoping for.

 

The frequency that I have a goalkeeper averaging about 6.6 beggars belief. Maignan was probably the worst of the lot.

 

I have to say for the bigger fees I've paid, generally, I have done pretty well.

 

I have played another half a season and I'll do a full season run down when I'm done, but lets just say, Andric has caught fire, and Padilla has absolutely exploded. Both are huge hits. They're below.

 

 

 

 

[Tommy Fresh]

2 hours ago, shen said:

Yeah, as noted, that's one way to impose restrictions. I suppose it could be an OK challenge, but Athletic have a fantastic youth setup and it's hard coded that they get a steady stream of potential La Liga players, so it's not THAT difficult.

I haven't looked at Altinordu, but I assume it's a bit similar with Turkey producing lots of great talent already.

But at least with Altinordu you've got two promotions before you're in the top flight, so it drags the save out a bit longer

[shen]

2 hours ago, Dan said:

It is worth pointing out that Martinelli, the Italian goalkeeper I signed, has been completely reasonable and met expectations. Without being outstandingly good, and not without a couple of bad games, but generally he is just consistent and reliable. It's all I'm really hoping for.

 

The frequency that I have a goalkeeper averaging about 6.6 beggars belief. Maignan was probably the worst of the lot.

 

I have to say for the bigger fees I've paid, generally, I have done pretty well.

 

I have played another half a season and I'll do a full season run down when I'm done, but lets just say, Andric has caught fire, and Padilla has absolutely exploded. Both are huge hits. They're below.

 

 

 

 

Wow, yeah, they're end-game studs these guys! Luis Padilla, 21, Model Citizen, elite superstar. Love it! 

[shen]

1 hour ago, Tommy Fresh said:

But at least with Altinordu you've got two promotions before you're in the top flight, so it drags the save out a bit longer

I understand, but dragging a save out doesn't make it much more interesting or challenging. Ultimately, it's budgets and tactics that are the real constraints. Maybe setting a timer, i.e. win the Süperlig with Altinordu within 3/4 seasons.

[Warks_Mackem]

I think I’m done with this game. I want to like it but I can’t be bothered with it anymore.

 

You’re on a 5 game winning streak, turn it off then fire it back up again and all of a sudden you can’t buy a win. You’re absolutely battering a team but lose 1-0 to a goalkeeping error. I’ve just had enough of it. It makes absolutely no sense.

Edited 10 September by Warks_Mackem

[Dan]

1 hour ago, shen said:

Wow, yeah, they're end-game studs these guys! Luis Padilla, 21, Model Citizen, elite superstar. Love it! 

Chelsea offered us £88mil rising to £130mil in October out of the blue. Even more insane is I said no. He can go in the summer but not yet.

 

He's got no release clause. He wants to go but the game has weirdly created this promise where we sell him if we sign a replacement. So I simply won't sign a replacement until the summer.

 

His form during the second half of last season was superb and encouraging. This season he has been unbelievable. A genuinely world class player.

[shen]

18 hours ago, Dan said:

Chelsea offered us £88mil rising to £130mil in October out of the blue. Even more insane is I said no. He can go in the summer but not yet.

 

He's got no release clause. He wants to go but the game has weirdly created this promise where we sell him if we sign a replacement. So I simply won't sign a replacement until the summer.

 

His form during the second half of last season was superb and encouraging. This season he has been unbelievable. A genuinely world class player.

You did the right thing! No point selling a key player in your system, unless you really need the money.

Clever use of the promise! Have never seen it actually in action, but seems a good way to keep morale up while (at least) buying some time.

[shen]

On 01/09/2026 at 22:56, shen said:

Diegem update:

Solid start to the new season with 18 points from seven games putting us top already which followed a 5-1 mauling of Club Brugge in the Super Cup.

A tweaked tactic now sees us play without a striker after we experimented a bit during the previous two seasons and early signs are it will take some doing to keep us from retaining the title. 

 

We've done some solid if unspectacular transfer business over the summer, with the highlights (pic links included) being outgoing transfers of

Douglas Borel for £700k (signed on a free two seasons ago to be first choice RWB. Was relegated to backup when ninja signing Machmoum joined) ;

Hadj Mahmoud for £4,2mil (free signing a year ago, meant to be rotation CDM. Never quite performed) ;

Koba Koindredi for £3,2mil (signed on a free 1,5 years ago. Carried us for 6 months, then picked up that horrible injury last season) ; 

and five fringe/youth players for a combined £2,5mil which have been surplus to requirements or on last year of contracts.

Incomings include:

Andrey Santos for free (in November last season). Yes, the one that's just gone to Man Utd for £48m IRL  Already a standout and a key player.
Jurgen Ekkelenkamp for free (in November last season). Released by Leeds, he's an excellent all-round midfielder.
Siphesihle September for £500k (in last January window). Classic speed merchant regen from Orlando Pirates who can play ST or AMR. Will become key I think.
Lúkas Petterson for £275k, Icelandic goalkeeper who is a similar BGK to Roekaerts, just an upgrade in all areas, particularly agility and anticipation.
Lucas Jetten for free. A decent LWB from released by Ajax. Knows the language and well-rounded with some potential.
Louis Patris for free. Former OHL star who will be an upgrade on Borel for about the same wage - and will count as homegrown!
Bop Gueye for £ 2,7mil. Excellent attacking midfielder with great versatility to boot. 
Harry Webber for free. 18-year old American centerback poached from the Galaxy academy - already valued at a whopping £28-45m (!)

Valentin Angelski for £3m. 20-year old Bulgarian DL with 10 caps, who has solid potential. Bit pricey, but expect his value to grow a lot.

William Osnes-Ringen for £4,3m. Very pricey and not my first choice, but we needed a well-rounded versatile midfielder with guaranteed value and who we could afford (wage demands are nuts!). Unfortunately he didn't sign in time for the CL registration (my frickin god, how stupid is it that the registration deadline is before the transfer deadline?)

 

We've now upgraded to Excellent training facilities, while we're awaiting a youth facilities upgrade and a stadium expansion in the coming months too. 
Our finances are pretty healthy and we were able to remove some dodgy minimum fee release clauses, which would mean we should get decent profit off of any player sales now.

The Champions League draw was once again quite rough for us.

We had Olympiacos (A) first game in the League Phase (I'm so happy I don't have to go through qualifying!) and we threw away a 2-goal lead to draw the game to my dismay.
Our next games are against Man City (H), Juventus (A), Marseille (H), Paris SG (A) and Napoli (H), before we get some winnable games against Slavia Prague (H) and RB Salzburg (A). 
I somehow need another miraculous performance like against Juve last season - and I HAVE to win the last two, just to reach 8-10 points. It will be another struggle.

Diegem update:

 

January transfer window is over and the biggest news is that we made two big sales with PSV buying Marco Bizzarri, from our very first youth intake, for a whopping £5,75m and Kelven Frees, our captain, who went to Al-Hilal for £11,25m which was just too good to turn down. I'd had already brought in Chibuike Nwaiwu on a free, as I don't think we will extend Matteo Waem's or Ibrahim Cissé's contracts beyond this season. Both of them have been better and played more regularly than I had anticipated, so it'll be with a heavy heart.
We missed out on Boris Mamuzah Lum who was captain material, but we'll have to find someone else in the summer. 
We spent relative pennies on getting an excellent tutor and backup option/potential captain in Virgil Ghita and we got Helmut Coopman on the cheap at £1,6m from USG, who must have lost their marbles. The guy will develop into a top-tier Pro League player without doubt.

But the real story of course is the Champions League. 

Remember the draw I whinged about in the previous update? Well... I finished above all of them  
After the disappointing draw away to Olympiacos, I then outplayed, outshot and out-XGd Man City in a 1-1 draw, did the same at Juventus with the same result, before winning narrowly 1-0 against Marseille.
Then came the only game in which I didn't outshine the opponent when we lost 3-1 to PSG, where I was still in it until stoppage time.
We fell behind early against Napoli, but rallied to win 2-1 with a late goal from Bop Gueye, which put us on 9 points with our two easiest games to come. 

We duly dispatched Slavia Prague and RB Salzburg in convincing fashion 4-1 to finish on 15 points. 

However, by some insane stroke of luck, not only was this good enough to qualify - it was good enough to finish top 8 !!

 

Going into the last game, Man Utd were in the hot seat on 13 points and playing at home to Eintracht Frankfurt, but I still needed results involving them, Man City (!), Sporting, Chelsea and  even Feyenoord and PSG (!) to go my way if I was to make it. My chances were probably less than 5%, but miracles happened. Olympiacos and Juventus (!) both knocked out too. 
The knockout rounds haven't been played yet, so I'm not sure who I'll play in the round of 16, but it's already a massive achievement at this stage.

We're also into the final of the Croky Cup for the first time. 
We had a really easy run up until the semi final where we played Club Brugge, but we completely destroyed them 5-1 (again) and went 1-3 up in the away leg with what was half a U21 side (finished 8-4 on aggregate). We'll play Genk for the honours in May.

 

In the league, we're still cruising with 19 wins out of 23 putitng us six points ahead of USG and 9 ahead of Charleroi. 
We had a minor blip during an insane run where we played consecutive games against the top six sides, Brugge getting the better of us as Andrey Santos got a straight red, leading into the PSG loss and a draw against USG.

My most exciting prospect is Mathias Pieters, another academy products who's figured regularly from the very start when he appeared three seasons ago, and who's developed explosively this season. Nothing better than own academy products growing into top level players!