Football Manager 2026

[Dan]

On 21/03/2026 at 10:08, Tommy Fresh said:

Vozdovac doing shit is a surprise as they're probably the biggest club, also got a pretty nice stadium although its on top of a shopping centre 

Quite mad that because of their league restructure where 4 went down - both TSC and Cukaricki got relegated. Even madder is that 6 go down from 16 in the 2nd tier and if either have a poor season they could end up dropping to the third tier  

 

Vozdovac got out of it. We won the league but my god did we fall over the line. Lost our last three games.

 

 

The top tier is going to be very tricky - they're gradually knocking the league down from 16 teams to 12, but in two stages, and this year there are 14 teams - with 4 of the 14 going down. As a surprise league winner of the second tier, this makes it a very tough year to survive. It's like 15th in the Premier League getting relegated. But the wage bill isn't totally out of kilter with the bottom half sides and I've brought in a legion of Serbian free agents. The rules are restrictive, but I kinda like having an almost entirely domestic side (there is one Bosnian).

Edited 24 March by Dan

[Tommy Fresh]

16 hours ago, Dan said:

Quite mad that because of their league restructure where 4 went down - both TSC and Cukaricki got relegated. Even madder is that 6 go down from 16 in the 2nd tier and if either have a poor season they could end up dropping to the third tier  

 

Vozdovac got out of it. We won the league but my god did we fall over the line. Lost our last three games.

 

 

The top tier is going to be very tricky - they're gradually knocking the league down from 16 teams to 12, but in two stages, and this year there are 14 teams - with 4 of the 14 going down. As a surprise league winner of the second tier, this makes it a very tough year to survive. It's like 15th in the Premier League getting relegated. But the wage bill isn't totally out of kilter with the bottom half sides and I've brought in a legion of Serbian free agents. The rules are restrictive, but I kinda like having an almost entirely domestic side (there is one Bosnian).

Oh man if that Cukaricki job came up I'd be taking it, the rebuild and youth players would be class

[Dan]

In came 11 signings for the top tier. Where I think I'm quite good is ability to find undervalued players, both in fees and wages, but in Serbia this is genuinely tricky to gain an upper hand because virtually nobody has any money and yet, pound for pound, the players aren't actually that terrible. It's a weak league, but the equivalent you would get in England for what you pay in Serbia is a fraction of the player. The good news is we had an OK wage budget, well, relatively. It wasn't the smallest in the league which did surprise me.

 

We start the season with quite a hard set of fixtures being sent to cup winners and European chasing Spartak Subotica on the opening day before home games with Vojvodina and Radnicki 1923, all expected to finish in the top 5. We lose all three games 2-0. Not quite what you want ahead of the first trip to Zvezda, but remarkably we do pull a 2-2 draw out of the bag and contain them quite well despite giving away a dumb penalty. We get our first ever win at this level, beating Zeleznicar Pancevo 2-0 at home.

 

This is followed with losses at Radnicki Nis (them and Radnicki 1923 are surely linked in some way, but I can't see it) and 3-0 at Napredak Krusevac, leaving us bottom but one, failing to score in 5 of our 7 games. This is on top of losing our last 3 games in the 2nd tier, and while I consider myself pretty decent at the game, this really seemed like the time I'd probably go down, considering we need to finish 10th out of 14 to avoid it.

 

We follow it up with a last second win over IMT and a surprisingly comfortable win away at surprise package Radnik Sudurlica, but the scurge of the save, Macva Sabac, steal a point from 2-0 and a man down to blow things right up again before another two losses, the first in the last second to Javor-Matis and the other to Partizan at home from 2-0 up. The good news is plenty of other teams look pretty bad as well so we're not out of it.

 

Pick of the signings is striker Milan Mirosavljev. Took a punt on him after winning the golden boot in the second tier with FAP and he's getting plenty.

[Dan]

We continue to have pretty hit and miss form, beating OFK Beograd late but losing to Radnicki again in a poor performance. We beat IMT in the cup on penalties before the greatest robbery against Subotica at home, losing with the last kick after totally dominating them all game. Not ideal prep going into Zvezda, again, but again, we stunt them and we go one better by beating them 2-0. November was 10 points from 4 games with the seemingly unbeatable Macva Sabac being the only dropped points. December is another mixed bag, a largely changed side pathetically lost to third tier Dinamo Jug in injury time (the number of injury time goals this season seems to have gone from 0 to every other game), we lost at IMT but then completed the double over Radnik. I still can't really decide if we'll go down or not.

 

We have a ridiculously long winter break - 7 weeks and return looking utterly woeful, a hattrick of losses to Partizan, Vojvodina and Javor-Matis. At this point I'd err on the side of us going down and I'm forced to change my tactics. We're low blocking and countering this. It's supposedly more effective and I do have a bit of a tendency to just sign functional, physical players when I'm at a small club. Just feels right I guess and it generally works to some level.

 

We return from another stupidly long mid season break in April to beat Radnicki Nis and OFK Beograd comfortably and somehow leave ourselves 7th going into the split, where we'll face another 6 games against the rest of the bottom 8. It's very tight though and I wouldn't consider us safe yet.

 

That being said, I hadn't accounted for Milan Mirosavljev turning into Falcao. We thump Napredak 0-4 with Miro getting all 4 of them, draw 2-2 with Macva (what do we have to do!!!), get revenge on Subotica with a 0-4 there too (another 3 for Miro), beat Radnicki Nis 2-0, somehow make it a hattrick of 0-4 wins and send OFK Beograd down. We end up finish 7th by quite a distance in the end, though do flounder in our final two games by drawing at home to comfortably relegated Zeleznicar and losing at home to IMT which keeps them in the division. 

 

 

It's mission accomplished and in some style in the end. Mirosavljev scores a remarkable 27 league goals including a ridiculous 14 in the final 8 games. This mad him the highest scorer in this league since Ricardo Gomes in 2021/22 and in-fact the second highest in a season behind Gomes since 80s. The way we've finished is seriously encouraging and I think we can get into Europe next season, but I don't expect Mirosavljev to produce anything quite on that level again. Zvezda unsurprisingly got the league title back after a shock one year hiatus (Partizan). Subotica and OFK were both quite surprising relegations and even more surprising was TSC's failure to bounce back up. Cukaricki are back though and so are Mladost Lucani. 12 teams next year. Quite enjoying this now.

[Tommy Fresh]

Godoy Cruz in the Argentine second tier if you start in 2026 is calling me, not properly done Argentina since about 19 or 20 as nothing would come close to the Velez save I had back then

Edited 30 March by Tommy Fresh

[shen]

Don't get to play much lately with Diegem, but the second season (and turning pro) proved a bit challenging. 

I received a wage budget of 42k per week, but I obviously wasn't able to sign players on amateur contracts anymore - and the wages are actually quite high. 

 

So I ended up keeping as many amateurs that I could (some got poached), tying the most promising ones up on professional contracts in the hope they would develop or result in profit.

 

I ended up winning the league by a point (55pts from 28 games) drawing my closest rival Patro Eisden in the final game. 

 

In past editions, I could vastly overperform with inferior players with an aggressive and very offensive tactic, but I quickly realised that wasn't going to work here. Instead it was a cautious and defense first approach that got me the required consistent results.

 

Off the pitch, the finances were in a mess. I was renting USGs stadium but only filling up a quarter to a third of the seats - and with there being 0 income other than weak ticket sales and a cup run to the QF (eliminated by Club Brugge), which netted me just £14k, which was paid out to players as a bonus anyway 😄, I was in trouble.

I then hadn't considered the wage increases to all my pro players, who promptly inflated by wages by 35% - massive oversight on my part! 

 

1,3mil in the red in the lead up to my first Jupiter Pro season...

Takeover rumours came and went when suddenly one actually happened! The club took a 1,6 mil loan, but now requested that I somehow generate 400k in transfers - which is just impossible. Add to that they only increased my wages budget to 52k, which was basically eaten up by the promotion clauses already. I'm basically f*****.

 

None of my players are worth more than a few hundred grand and none of them are generating any interest. I do have a few excellent YT prospects, one of whom Genk keep bidding for (max of 160k though), but he will easily be worth tenfold in a year if I keep him.

 

I fully expected I could strengthen with some free signings, but my reputation is so low that genuine improvements are choosing to go to the division below or to obscure Leagues instead.

 

I've only managed two signings that improve the team, but given I've also lost a couple and cannot get rid of dead wood or extend the contracts of my actually good players, my team feels effectively weaker as I'm still carrying amateurs but in a much, much harder league.

 

The only solace is that there are a few teams that have a wage budget below £100k as well, so I hope I can squeeze above them over the course of the season.

[Dan]

17 hours ago, shen said:

Don't get to play much lately with Diegem, but the second season (and turning pro) proved a bit challenging. 

I received a wage budget of 42k per week, but I obviously wasn't able to sign players on amateur contracts anymore - and the wages are actually quite high. 

 

So I ended up keeping as many amateurs that I could (some got poached), tying the most promising ones up on professional contracts in the hope they would develop or result in profit.

 

I ended up winning the league by a point (55pts from 28 games) drawing my closest rival Patro Eisden in the final game. 

 

In past editions, I could vastly overperform with inferior players with an aggressive and very offensive tactic, but I quickly realised that wasn't going to work here. Instead it was a cautious and defense first approach that got me the required consistent results.

 

Off the pitch, the finances were in a mess. I was renting USGs stadium but only filling up a quarter to a third of the seats - and with there being 0 income other than weak ticket sales and a cup run to the QF (eliminated by Club Brugge), which netted me just £14k, which was paid out to players as a bonus anyway 😄, I was in trouble.

I then hadn't considered the wage increases to all my pro players, who promptly inflated by wages by 35% - massive oversight on my part! 

 

1,3mil in the red in the lead up to my first Jupiter Pro season...

Takeover rumours came and went when suddenly one actually happened! The club took a 1,6 mil loan, but now requested that I somehow generate 400k in transfers - which is just impossible. Add to that they only increased my wages budget to 52k, which was basically eaten up by the promotion clauses already. I'm basically f*****.

 

None of my players are worth more than a few hundred grand and none of them are generating any interest. I do have a few excellent YT prospects, one of whom Genk keep bidding for (max of 160k though), but he will easily be worth tenfold in a year if I keep him.

 

I fully expected I could strengthen with some free signings, but my reputation is so low that genuine improvements are choosing to go to the division below or to obscure Leagues instead.

 

I've only managed two signings that improve the team, but given I've also lost a couple and cannot get rid of dead wood or extend the contracts of my actually good players, my team feels effectively weaker as I'm still carrying amateurs but in a much, much harder league.

 

The only solace is that there are a few teams that have a wage budget below £100k as well, so I hope I can squeeze above them over the course of the season.

A good job. I'd say based on the fact you were able to win the 2nd tier in surprising fashion that you could probably survive this as well as you can always bank on some of the weaker teams being a bit rubbish, and particularly given you did it with a defence first style as well.

 

I'm having a hell of a lot of joy playing a low block 4-4-2 / 4-4-1-1 here. I didn't think it would be as effective but it really is and honestly, it's kind of refreshing to do it a different, and more realistic way than being able to just slightly tone down a gegenpress and be able to not really get punished for it by substantially better sides.

 

What you need is to make Serbia active as you'll actually get some genuine value from there even if it's just squad players. The wages here are embarrassingly low. I can remember a situation in Greece where I had two options at centre back, a similar level, one English and one Italian, very similar level but the Italian wanted about £1.5k a week and the English wanted about £5.5k a week. The wages in Greece didn't feel big when I was there but it's dawned on me how tinpot Serbia is in comparison. I think the equivalent player to what I was describing in Serbia would literally be after about £750 a week.

 

Even in your situation I think you just have to put yourself in a position where you aren't completely screwed if you get relegated. Providing whoever comes in is better than what you had before then any deal is really worth it.

[shen]

3 hours ago, Dan said:

A good job. I'd say based on the fact you were able to win the 2nd tier in surprising fashion that you could probably survive this as well as you can always bank on some of the weaker teams being a bit rubbish, and particularly given you did it with a defence first style as well.

 

I'm having a hell of a lot of joy playing a low block 4-4-2 / 4-4-1-1 here. I didn't think it would be as effective but it really is and honestly, it's kind of refreshing to do it a different, and more realistic way than being able to just slightly tone down a gegenpress and be able to not really get punished for it by substantially better sides.

 

What you need is to make Serbia active as you'll actually get some genuine value from there even if it's just squad players. The wages here are embarrassingly low. I can remember a situation in Greece where I had two options at centre back, a similar level, one English and one Italian, very similar level but the Italian wanted about £1.5k a week and the English wanted about £5.5k a week. The wages in Greece didn't feel big when I was there but it's dawned on me how tinpot Serbia is in comparison. I think the equivalent player to what I was describing in Serbia would literally be after about £750 a week.

 

Even in your situation I think you just have to put yourself in a position where you aren't completely screwed if you get relegated. Providing whoever comes in is better than what you had before then any deal is really worth it.

Thanks - I've already taken 6 points from 9, only losing to 95th minute winner at Standard. Probably have to make the most out of my start as my squad is threadbare in all areas but central midfield.

 

I was probably too generous in my second season, signing anything that would improve my squad - most of them on two year deals. Even though they're only on 1,5-2k a week, no-one is touching them. 

Having 0 scouting range outside of Belgium makes scouting for players tedious as well and loans are really tough to get for free (maybe that's my club reputation being a factor).

The two players I signed were incidentally from using the good ol' International Caps filter trick - got a solid Syrian and Iraqi in like this. 

 

I will try to add Serbia, thanks for the tip!

[Dan]

I've played on quite a bit but I'll drip feed it because.

 

I had pretty high hopes for 2027/28 because of how well we finished the second year - after a tactic switch we really blew away most of the competition in the post split, but I did have a bit of a fear about the season on the opening day when we stole a draw at IMT despite being rank second best throughout. I needn't have worried though as this, a 2-1 loss at Zvezda and a 1-1 draw with Napredak were our only dropped points in the first ten games.

 

 

Even Macva Sabac couldn't stop us like they usually did, courtesy of a late winner after absolutely hammering them and missing a penalty.

 

We did lose 1-0 at Partizan which was disappointing, but then won the following three inlcuding a cup game before taking on Zvezda at home in a surprise 2nd v 1st encounter. The biggest reality check of the lot as after a decent first half, we somehow collapsed in the second and lost it 0-5.

 

The response was impressive though with another two wins, then two draws, then another three wins, before losing at home to Cukaricki who had been pretty poor for the most part truth be told.

 

There was no real story or narrative to the season beyond it being a very impressive overperformance. Zvezda won the league pretty comfortably, but we finished 3rd in the table behind Vojvodina and ahead of Partizan, meaning we had secured Conference League football. We also made the cup final but, surprise surprise, lost to Zvezda.

 

It was an absolutely brilliant season though. 18 clean sheets from our 33 games and the best defence in the division.

 

 

Odds are totally stacked against us for Europe which is a shame as the money from that would completely change the game. We will get some money for being in the play-offs, but the odds of us winning three rounds of qualifying are really quite low despite everything. We won't be spending any money of interest until we do make it to a league phase, but making it that one time will change everything.

[shen]

Diegem update:

 

January window just closed and I am sitting in a lofty 6th place, just three(!) points off Brugge in second. After a stop-start opening ten games (W4 D1 L5), I went on a run of 11 games unbeaten and notably beat Brugge away 0-1. It's all down to the tactics, trying to pay special attention on how to counter my opponents. I'm surprised I'm getting as many goals as I am (the quality of my players is quite shocking), but I'm also surprised at how terrible my goalies are who keep letting in long shots which I largely restrict opponents to.

 

There is a real chance I could make Europe, although the transfer window was a major blow. I'm bleeding money, even with my modest wage budget of 50k per week and the board took control of player sales with a week to go, selling my most promising prospect for a measly 250k to Standard and another prospect for 85k to Gent, while letting a 16 year old go on loan for free (wtf?). Then they have the gall to be disappointed and blame ME for those transfers, while my captain and half my squad became furious that the hot prospect was sold (he was my backup leftback). Disastrous week which led to a hurried emergency loan left back to appease the squad. I had even freed up 6k in wages and 80k in transfer income as well.

 

The good news is I will likely finish midtable at worst, hopefully top half. The prize money is oddly staggered finishing 8th would net me 800k more than 11th so every single place counts.

 

I missed a golden opportunity to reach the cup semis, but after penalty wins over non-league opposition and Gent away in the 1/8 finals, I blew it against OH Leuven at home in the QF, despite dominating. That would have been a little extra income and some rep boost, but alas.

 

[Dan]

You're suffering from similar issues to me - I just cannot crack the goalkeeping on this and have genuinely no idea what to even look for at this point when trying to buy one. It's the one position I'm sort of happy if I get a 6.8 average rating in because I seem to be prone to goalkeepers completely sabotaging my season.

 

This isn't a new thing either. It's been the case since about FM22. It's just so hard to know who can be relied on and I'm thinking it must be tactical.

[Dan]

Season four. I have a strange situation this season where the main objectives will be in August - if we can somehow creep into the league phase of the conference league. This is a very tall order for us as a small Serbian club, but I'm willing to essentially throw the first 6 weeks of the league campaign to focus on this despite the risk. Just making it to the league phase would net us around £3mil which for a club that have had a bank balance that somewhere sits between -£100k and £200k, would be a genuine gamechanger.

 

But they weren't kind to us. Maccabi Haifa to kick things off in a round where you would expect some dross from Lithuania or whatnot. Just to make things that bit harder they threw an away game with Zvezda between the two ties and then gave Zvezda preference on the fixtures due to their own European tie meaning I was going to send my reserves to Zvezda. We're actually very good at home to Haifa and lead the game until the 87th minute but as feared, one slip from us and they equalised, showing their superior quality. I didn't fancy us to go and win away there so we needed to just bombard them in the last few minutes, and I got even more than I bargained for by scoring from a corner in the 90th minute and then running up and hitting a 25 yarder with the last kick of the game to win 3-1. 

 

Hilariously my reserves went and got a 1-1 draw at Zvezda as well (they beat someone really rubbish in their qualifier and did not need the advantage). We travelled to Haifa intending to spoil, and what panned out was pretty hilarious. Very little actually happened in the game, Haifa dominating possession and getting another breakaway goal, but we managed to score from 3 consecutive corners in the first half and then saw the game out with relative ease. Haifa enslaved. 6-2 on aggregate which was a seriously impressive scalp. Next up - CSKA Sofia. 

 

This was a trickier tie. We won a really drab game in Bulgaria 0-1 and ended up withstanding the late barrage at home to draw 1-1 and advance to the play-off round where we would face the losers of Kobenhavn or Spartak Trnava. If we can beat Haifa and CSKA Sofia, I think we can beat Trnava.

 

Well we will never know. Kobenhavn went down in a shock aggregate defeat and it is them we would face to my horror. I mean I suppose if they're capable of losing to Trnava over two legs, are they all that? But looking through their team... it was ominous. These are better on paper than Zvezda are and we just had to hope that the fact I've not made the Danish league active is going to weaken them in the way the game seems to like doing, which has long been a bugbear of mine.

 

We go behind early at home and I fear that's probably it. Blood rushes to my head and I think **** it, lets die by the sword. We're attacking them throughout this home tie with an aim to infuriate them in Denmark (given they had bafflingly drawn 0-0 at home to inferior teams on both of their previous ties). We get an equaliser but concede immediately afterwards. But we put in the performance of the save and end up winning the home leg 3-2. It'll mean a very tense game in Denmark but what an effort either way. We're an avoided defeat away from a real gamechanger for the save in general.

 

What happens in Denmark was.... actually quite hilarious. I can only conclude that it's what I said beforehand in that if a league is not made active (this was also true of the Haifa and Sofia games) that it does maybe knock the level of the opposition down. Though I have had numerous instances where I've thought otherwise, losing to teams like Qarabag and APOEL. Anyway, we win fairly comfortably in Denmark, 1-3 on the night, 6-3 on aggregate. We have done it with relative comfort. We're in the league phase. The bank balance multiplied numerous times over. We're now probably the 5th richest club in the country and possibly even 3rd. I don't expect to go far in Europe, but there is some real, real dross in the league phase, including our first opponents in Dila Gori of Georgia, and given each win will reward us with another £300k, we can rack up a bit more yet.

 

The two quirks are the board rejecting my request to increase the transfer budget due to "only just giving you the seasons budget" - as if that wasn't based on a bank balance of about £100k rather than £3mil. Hopefully they'll open their eyes in January. The other quirk is that we actually went unbeaten in the league throughout this whole period, albeit just drawing with basically everyone. We were in the bottom 3 but we had games in hand. It felt weird after coming 3rd last season to see newly promoted TSC's manager talking about us as a relegation candidate, but we will see about that.

 

And just to prove I'm not automatically opposed to board members in both real life and FM, I will give them credit for improving both the training ground and youth facilities. Given the wages are so tiny in this league, there's really no excuse to not make these a relatively decent team - the only threat to that is splurging and wasting our newfound money. But what a boost this is. I really didn't think we would make it that far and the game is changed.

 

Hopefully they can sort our stadium out. In Serbia as a newly promoted team with a ground of under 3k (ours holds 5k but we can only use 1,200) you get two seasons of using your own ground before you have to move into one of a sufficient size, and this means this season we play an hour away in Pancevo, which is crap and I want rectifying.

[Tommy Fresh]

Started one with Bursaspor in the Turkish third tier, currently played 25 league games, won 24 and drawn 1 as they're way too good for the level, add in there's numerous teams with basically no players because of financial issues or embargos and it's been very easy so far 

[shen]

Diegem update:

This is the table with 5-6 games to go -

 

 

Ridiculously tight between 3rd and 8th. My form started to stutter as I was playing against the better teams. But with 5 games to go, I only had one very tough match (Brugge H) and the others against Cercle, STVV, Zulte and Kortrijk.
The first half against Brugge mirrored the away game where I had won 0-1. I was completely dominated but restricted them to a penalty (which was saved) and I scored my only shot on target. Hopes were up, but unfortunately they weren't to be denied and I lost 1-3 and fell down to 7th.
Then came the killer - dropped two points against Cercle after having been 2-0 up which I thought would be the curtain closer, especially as Antwerp, Charleroi and Gent were in great form.

Table with one game to go: 

 

Going into the last game against Kortrijk I was 6th due to the tie breaker being number of wins before goal difference.
Getting 4th - and Euro Conference league quali - would be tough as Charleroi were guaranteed 4th at worst, so realistically Gent had to lose and Standard had to draw at best.
Gent were away at Brugge, but as USG had sealed the title the week before and Brugge having nothing to play for, this was not a given. 
Standard were at home against Antwerp, who also had an outside chance of getting 4th.

Gent dropped the ball and went down 2-0. We did the job with a 0-1 in Kortrijk with a depleted squad, despite some nervy final 15 minutes. I'd looked at the live score and Antwerp were drawing 0-0 at Standard!! .... But then I saw this:

 

Utter heartbreak. To lose out on Euro football by virtue of won games (my +/- was far superior) by a goal scored in the 94th minute. Urgh. And by Standard, who had beaten me away by virtue of a 96th minute winner in the opening game of the season too. Sickening...

But then...



Fifth place gave access anyway!!! I hadn't been paying attention that depending on if the Cup winner (Brugge beat Anderlecht) finished top 4, then fifth place would receive the Euro Conference League spot! Happy days!! Incredible rollercoaster and a massive overperformance this season. My top scorer Djenairo Daniels didn't score a goal until December I believe and he ended up one goal shy of being the league's outright top scorer. An injury in the penultimate game meant he missed the chance to win it. 

Crazy first season which netted me £3,3 mil in prize money which was welcome (I was £1,3 mil in the red by the end of the season).
Surely this will mean a decent transfer coffer and wage & scouting budget increase!!... 

 

 

 

[Dan]

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.

[AKCJ]

How is this game getting on? I've still got FM24 but didn't get this one because initial reviews were awful.

 

Have updates improved the game? Would quite like to give it a go if it's worthwhile.

[moore_94]

11 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

How is this game getting on? I've still got FM24 but didn't get this one because initial reviews were awful.

 

Have updates improved the game? Would quite like to give it a go if it's worthwhile.

I am really enjoying the save I am doing at the moment

 

There are still a few things that annoy me:

- loan player screen is really poorly done

- available jobs screen cannot be filtered at all

- Some of the information emails you used to get like commercial income for clubs in the league, odds on best players etc.

- weird positions and stat allocations for newgens (so many 5ft10 centre backs with like 8 jumping reach)

 

But other than that I don’t think there is anything else I am missing from FM24

Edited 20 April by moore_94

[Tommy Fresh]

Might bin off the Bursa save, it's been far too easy. Was looking at Egypt but it seems odd, every team has at least like 200k free wage budget whilst Al Ahly have like 2 million spare. 

[Finnegan]

On 13/03/2026 at 14:35, Tommy Fresh said:

Having said all this, I'm also quite tempted by doing an updated summer league in Europe.

 

Pick some shit, fallen giant that's floating around in League One and get them back to the Champions League.

 

[Tommy Fresh]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

Pick some shit, fallen giant that's floating around in League One and get them back to the Champions League.

 

This was essentially Bursapor, third tier I played 34 won 33 and drew 1, scoring like 140 goals or something daft, can tell it'll be too easy overtaking the big clubs 

[Beliall]

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

[Dan]

4 hours ago, AKCJ said:

How is this game getting on? I've still got FM24 but didn't get this one because initial reviews were awful.

 

Have updates improved the game? Would quite like to give it a go if it's worthwhile.

I do think they've polished it a bit but there are still plenty of stupid bugs on the game. I do play it because I'm a bit FM obsessed and even a bad version will hook me. But this definitely ought to be a bit better given they've had two years.

 

27 by all accounts is going to be a fully polished 26 rather than much of an improvement as well.

 

The bug that pisses me off is the sub announcements - it's so basic and I can't believe they haven't fixed it.

[AKCJ]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

I do think they've polished it a bit but there are still plenty of stupid bugs on the game. I do play it because I'm a bit FM obsessed and even a bad version will hook me. But this definitely ought to be a bit better given they've had two years.

 

27 by all accounts is going to be a fully polished 26 rather than much of an improvement as well.

 

The bug that pisses me off is the sub announcements - it's so basic and I can't believe they haven't fixed it.

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

[shen]

10 hours ago, 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.

That's a wild downturn in form. Maybe teams in Serbia have wisened up to you and the increased reputation is making them sit back more and hit on the counter?

[Dan]

1 hour ago, shen said:

That's a wild downturn in form. Maybe teams in Serbia have wisened up to you and the increased reputation is making them sit back more and hit on the counter?

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.