Football Manager 2026

[moore_94]

On 28/05/2026 at 20:54, moore_94 said:

I NEED to sign this guy... 17 years old, just played a full season for Koln as their number 1 in the Bundesliga and has a release clause of just £4.1m...

 

But he doesn't want to join 

 

You love to see it. He had absolutely no interest in joining us until I signed that centre back haha

 

Originally he would join us when he turns 18 in January but I have decided to leave him on loan at Koln until the summer. He is again going to be their first choice keeper in the Bundesliga for the season so it will only benefit us. What a bargain for £4.1m.

 

[Beliall]

a story in 3 parts

[Beliall]

we're at the halfway point in the season and we're in title winning form, unfortunately, Magesi have turned into prime barcelona and are looking unstoppable. my only hope is they lose soon (hopefully to us) and then fall off a cliff. our two losses came at the hands of Magesi (1-0) and we got dismantled 3-0 by highbury, so we are still unable to beat our main rivals so far which is always my barometer for a good title wining season. had a few offers for seman in the window, hes not happy and wants to elave but i told him no, he will play more second half of the season hopefully he comes around. we brought no new signings in january. 

[Tommy Fresh]

Did a Vitesse save briefly when I first got 26, but decided to give them a proper go. Half hoping to not actually get promoted with starting on -12, but you can bag a playoff spot by getting the most points during one the stages of the season.

[moore_94]

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

 

[Beliall]

i might have to sack my scout, he is clearly blind 

[Beliall]

Regular season over, we did well, might have won it any other year but Magesi were unstoppable. they won the league the week before we played them and we had to give them a guard of honour  the match went our way though, beating them 1-0 and ending their unbeaten season, they lost the next game too before recovering their form. 



i thought (assumed) the playoffs would be a game home and away between us and highbury, its a 4 game mini league with the second worse prem team in there too. we played durban in the cup and lost 4-2, and us and highbury each have a win against each other this season 





fingers crossed, as far as youth goes, they are coming along but didnt play much as they werent good enough when they did, chasing the title i preferred to use the dependable team as much as possible. Seman is asking to elave and im going ot let him, bad attitude demanding more starts and playing poorly when he got them affected his development, Mayo is coming along fine made a couple of starts and subs and did ok but not enough to start a lot. the real surprise is o'malley, coming through the youth team out of nowhere, attracting the attention of half the SA premier league, i tied him down to a new deal. played him in the last game of the season, he put in a 7.2 before i took him off for mayo in the 77th min 




see you after the play offs

[shen]

O'Malley has great physical, which explains the high interest. A bit of work on his crossing and positioning and he could be a decent fullback or even wingback. Mayo is developing very nicely - I'm liking the stronger arrow on his acceleration 
Seman may be challenged by his personality and low adaptability. Probably best you sold him and reinvested in South African (continentally) talent, so adaptability becomes less of an issue.

 

FYI, playing youngsters for anything less than 45 minutes will NOT improve their stats. The best effect comes when starting them and playing them at least 45-60 minutes or subbing them on at HT. It seems counterintuitive that giving them 15-20 minutes doesn't work, as that's how clubs blood in youngsters IRL, but that's how FM is built.

 

Best of luck in the playoffs!

Edited Monday at 10:11 by shen

[Beliall]

5 minutes ago, shen said:

O'Malley has great physical, which explains the high interest. A bit of work on his crossing and positioning and he could be a decent fullback or even wingback. Mayo is developing very nicely - I'm liking the stronger arrow on his acceleration 
Seman may be challenged by his personality and low adaptability. Probably best you sold him and reinvested in South African (continentally) talent, so adaptability becomes less of an issue.

 

FYI, playing youngsters for anything less than 45 minutes will NOT improve their stats. The best effect comes when starting them and playing them at least 45-60 minutes or subbing them on at HT. It seems counterintuitive that giving them 15-20 minutes doesn't work, as that's how clubs blood in youngsters IRL, but that's how FM is built.

 

Best of luck in the playoffs!

thanks for the tip about minutes, ill remember that but ill still keep giving them cameos because its realistic. if only i could sell players, my max contract length allowed is one year, i lose most for free unless i can get them to agree and club held extension, trigger it and then try and sell them, but if they're crap i wont do it in case im stuck with them, i need the wage budget each year to improve

[shen]

 

Who's bought the jury?? Insane stuff. The title holders being beaten to the title by relegation candidates and still gets voted manager of the season 

[Beliall]

Finally! we're up! 

a win against highbury and a win and draw against Durban city puts us top with a game to spare in the playoff league. it was fun, like playing 3 finals back to back, though if we lost im sure i would be saying it sucks. happy to never do that again



EDIT
oh and suddenly we have money? 2.5m transfer budget for the premier? we got like 50k in the bank

Edited Monday at 12:17 by Beliall

[Tommy Fresh]

On 31/05/2026 at 09:15, Tommy Fresh said:

Did a Vitesse save briefly when I first got 26, but decided to give them a proper go. Half hoping to not actually get promoted with starting on -12, but you can bag a playoff spot by getting the most points during one the stages of the season.

Went to start this and changed my mind to being either Cambuur or Groningen

Edited Monday at 18:46 by Tommy Fresh

[moore_94]

2040 and after 5 seasons in the Prem we pick up our first league title! Arsenal were close competition for a while but they ended up falling off a little bit towards the end

 

 

We also managed to pick up our first ever FA Cup, and we also retained the Carabao Cup to secure ourselves the domestic treble! The Champions League was a disappointment as if we had beaten Lyon we would've got Benfica in the final which definitely would be quite winnable... shame we couldn't manage the quadruple but cannot complain too much about our performances after just 5 seasons in the Prem!

 

 

The biggest conundrum I kept having over the season was whether to start Salisbury or Jones - Jones is 5* but just look at the goals and assists and rating from Salisbury... nice problem to have I suppose haha

 

Edited Monday at 12:56 by moore_94

[moore_94]

Never really used it before because it had never been an issue, but for the past 2 seasons or so the board would always reject my request to improve the youth facilities

 

Finally remembered about being able to leak it to the press

 

Gave it a go and next message I got was they were going to do it 

[shen]

40 minutes ago, moore_94 said:

2040 and after 5 seasons in the Prem we pick up our first league title! Arsenal were close competition for a while but they ended up falling off a little bit towards the end

 

 

We also managed to pick up our first ever FA Cup, and we also retained the Carabao Cup to secure ourselves the domestic treble! The Champions League was a disappointment as if we had beaten Lyon we would've got Benfica in the final which definitely would be quite winnable... shame we couldn't manage the quadruple but cannot complain too much about our performances after just 5 seasons in the Prem!

 

 

The biggest conundrum I kept having over the season was whether to start Salisbury or Jones - Jones is 5* but just look at the goals and assists and rating from Salisbury... nice problem to have I suppose haha

 

You've basically completed the game   The CL will be a procession soon enough with that squad!

[moore_94]

20 minutes ago, shen said:

You've basically completed the game   The CL will be a procession soon enough with that squad!

I will probably keep this save going until about 2050, go for complete domination, unbeaten seasons etc.

[Beliall]

I KNEW IT! 

[shen]

19 hours ago, Beliall said:

Finally! we're up! 

a win against highbury and a win and draw against Durban city puts us top with a game to spare in the playoff league. it was fun, like playing 3 finals back to back, though if we lost im sure i would be saying it sucks. happy to never do that again



EDIT
oh and suddenly we have money? 2.5m transfer budget for the premier? we got like 50k in the bank

Surprised at that kind of money being available in SA! That's quite similar wages to Diegem when I got them promoted to the Pro League. But that's a serious transfer kitty/extra wage budget. Best of luck staying up and pushing on! Maybe you will soon be able to offer two- or three-year contracts?

[Finnegan]

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

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

 

 

Congratulations, you're Chelsea.

 

[Beliall]

1 hour ago, shen said:

Surprised at that kind of money being available in SA! That's quite similar wages to Diegem when I got them promoted to the Pro League. But that's a serious transfer kitty/extra wage budget. Best of luck staying up and pushing on! Maybe you will soon be able to offer two- or three-year contracts?

we just got 5m for Tv rights this year, so that explains it, but 5m for a new club, theres a lot of money apparantley in the SA prem. and yeah, as soon as the new season rolled over all my players wanted improved deals on 3 year contracts, i obliged some of them, others i sold, still working through pre season ill show some of the comings and goings later

[Beliall]

just a heads up for players, if you go to the squad tab, then more, and squad numbers, and click it, the game crashes. i promised a shirt number ot a new signing and wanted to do it before i forgot, found that out. fortunately my weekly autosave has saved me once again

[Finnegan]

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

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

 

 

Wait, wtf, Spiderman!?

 

[shen]

2 minutes ago, Beliall said:

just a heads up for players, if you go to the squad tab, then more, and squad numbers, and click it, the game crashes. i promised a shirt number ot a new signing and wanted to do it before i forgot, found that out. fortunately my weekly autosave has saved me once again

I save so often manually, it's almost a compulsive reflex to do every time I press continue 

[Finnegan]

43 minutes ago, shen said:

I save so often manually, it's almost a compulsive reflex to do every time I press continue 

 

Savescumming coward.

[shen]

8 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

Savescumming coward.

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