Football Manager 2026

[Tommy Fresh]

Lokomotiva went down in Croatia, so I left ND Slovan and joined them. Lost a handful of lads I'd of kept had they not had relegation clauses, and managed to shift a load of big earning older guys. Got a very good squad for the league, and I reckon if I didn't pick up any injuries I could win 30 out of 30 

[Beliall]

club that persistantly stifles my development despite me over achieving wants to extend my contract now we are safe in the SA prem. honestly i feel its time to move on. trouble is, i could end up back in england or waiting a year for a good SA job to come up. genuinely dont know if i should stick or twist at this point. as far as pentagon goes, not really bothered, if it happens so be it im mainly in the save for the journey, i like starting small and ending up at a big club somewhere

[Beliall]

I resigned my post at the end of the season, tried to find work demanding coaching courses as i go, its now early october and QPR have offered me a job in the premier league. they are rock bottom with no points after 7 games, they refused to pay for a course too but still came back with the job offer. i got to take it right?

[shen]

35 minutes ago, Beliall said:

I resigned my post at the end of the season, tried to find work demanding coaching courses as i go, its now early october and QPR have offered me a job in the premier league. they are rock bottom with no points after 7 games, they refused to pay for a course too but still came back with the job offer. i got to take it right?

Well you can do no worse than Dyche! Bit weird that you would be offered a PL job with no qualifications and no reputation in the English game.

 

But the question is more whether you would like the Premier League FM experience? It's a far cry from South Africa 

[Beliall]

5 minutes ago, shen said:

Well you can do no worse than Dyche! Bit weird that you would be offered a PL job with no qualifications and no reputation in the English game.

 

But the question is more whether you would like the Premier League FM experience? It's a far cry from South Africa 

i took it, at the very least i get some rep, and at most i become a legend that keeps this dogshit team in the league   plus it will be nice to spend some time in a save looking at the fancy graphics and non generic match balls. team is ok, but they're 45m in debt and have league 1 centerbacks. dont even have enough of those to play 3 so im going to try and score more goals than the other team strategy

Edited Thursday at 10:55 by Beliall

[Dan]

That budget FFS.

 

I'm a bit of a sicko though I kind of like taking financially broken teams because I'll fix it. Not for everyone though  

[Beliall]

Just now, Dan said:

That budget FFS.

 

I'm a bit of a sicko though I kind of like taking financially broken teams because I'll fix it. Not for everyone though  

same here tbh. leicesterford had nothing until i got them promoted, i left them safe in the league with 3.5m in the bank. QPR was a terrible idea i have no clue why i did this to myself

[Dan]

Flew through my first season with Bochum. Here's how it went...

 

Straight in there with the same formation I played at Vrsac and Kallithea. I'm not actually having all that much joy with much different this year which is a bit concerning and probably gets found out in a better league, but Bochum had on paper a decent team for this level, predicted to finish 7th.

 

It couldn't have started any better with a 1-5 win at Darmstadt. We then battered Elversberg at home for a half before loanee Callum Marshall picked up a straight red card and my whole 'keep it tight' lasted a whole 5 minutes of the second half. It ends 1-1. We beat a fifth tier team 1-5 in the cup as well.

 

Our first derby game, and the first I've played in any form for god knows how long came away at Schalke and it was a catastrophe. 3-0 down at half time and a 4th added late on. But we bounced back with four wins in a row over the rest of August and September. Kwadwo Baah joined on loan from Watford at the end of August.

 

 

October was pretty brutal. The Hertha win was really impressive as we picked up yet another red card on the stroke of half time but actually managed to hold out this time. The other three performances were awful and if we'd lost all games by three goals I wouldn't have deemed it unfair.

 

November was a slight improvement with two good home wins, but the disparity between our home and away performances were mental and this is something I haven't really suffered from a great deal. We were beneficiaries of opposition red cards in both the Magdeburg and Braunschweig games but ended up going behind to 10 men in both of them. December was more of the same, a disappointing albeit slightly unlucky draw with Bielefeld and then frankly a miracle we didn't lose at Hannover, topping the year off with our first home loss. This isn't a team getting promoted for me.

 

 

I was extremely busy in January, seeing 6 players depart and 7 arrive. I really didn't trust this squad after all. Two centre halves who were out of contract and not really playing in Masovic and Loosli were sold to Saudi clubs for a combined £1.5mil which was great business. They were replaced with Georgian Saba Sazonov and Spaniard Manu Hernando on loan and for £450k respectively. The big deal this month though was our best youngster joining Porto for £9mil, Cajetan Lenz. He'd actually been very disappointing although I'd sooner have held onto him due to the home grown thing. We got him back on loan which meant no replacement was needed, and this meant we could make a few amendments elsewhere, although not after Oliver Olsen (£475k), Marcel Sobottka (£275k) and Mortiz-Broni Kwarteng (£1.3mil) had all left too. 

 

 

We returned to smash Darmstadt again, hilariously going 5-0 up after 15 minutes, but I could never escape this idea that we were a pretty bad team running a bit hot. Even in that we ended up outshot and conceding a couple. We drew with Elversberg again before picking up a potentially huge 1-0 win over Schalke, who were top at the time.

 

We started February by putting away an abject Munster 1-2 (our first away win in four months) but floundered throughout the rest of February.

 

 

What I have to give us credit for is we seem to deliver in most big games. We very rarely lose them and we beat nearly all of them at home. I must mention the form of loanee Francis Onyeka, who by this point frankly was carrying us. The defensive overhaul was paying dividends as we managed four clean sheets on the bounce, including away at Hertha who were clearly going to win the league by this point.

 

We clicked just in time and ended up only losing one more game for the rest of the season which was essentially a dead rubber on the final day, having finished 2nd.

 

 

We never felt overly convincing, and I do wonder if I'm a mix of too used to being in a bad league that I've lost all appreciation of a better standard and just being a bit harsh because of how used I got to winning about 85% of my games, but we did get over the line. We still have quite a bit of money left over from the Lenz sale and they've doubled our wage budget, although I did make a late discovery, after spending quite a bit of it that pretty much my entire squad have good promotion wage rises which eats into it. January was a precursor for the summer. I will be overhauling this squad because I really don't trust it much.

 

[Lineker's Lugs]

3 hours ago, Beliall said:

same here tbh. leicesterford had nothing until i got them promoted, i left them safe in the league with 3.5m in the bank. QPR was a terrible idea i have no clue why i did this to myself

It might be a year of pain, but the expectation is only to try and avoid relegation so you'll get a shot at promotion with parachute payments.

 

I always work within budgets but the finances still often go south because I don't sell players at the right time.  I don't tend to care about that because I move around a lot.  I'm trying to address that a bit in my new save by self-imposed rules that I can't resign from a club and I have to stay in a job for 1,000 days before applying for another one so I need to think a bit longer term.

 

 

[Beliall]

9 minutes ago, Lineker's Lugs said:

It might be a year of pain, but the expectation is only to try and avoid relegation so you'll get a shot at promotion with parachute payments.

 

I always work within budgets but the finances still often go south because I don't sell players at the right time.  I don't tend to care about that because I move around a lot.  I'm trying to address that a bit in my new save by self-imposed rules that I can't resign from a club and I have to stay in a job for 1,000 days before applying for another one so I need to think a bit longer term.

 

 

already regretting it tbh, but i was so bored in SA. hard to believe i took over a team from Dyche and it has no decent CB's at all. i need to free up some budget for the window if i make it that far. i already sold Kone to Al ali for 12mil, still need another 33m to break even 

Edited Thursday at 17:10 by Beliall

[Lineker's Lugs]

13 minutes ago, Beliall said:

already regretting it tbh, but i was so bored in SA. hard to believe i took over a team from Dyche and it has no decent CB's at all. i need to free up some budget for the window if i make it that far. i already sold Kone to Al ali for 12mil, still need another 33m to break even 

How's the league table looking now, and do you have any free wage budget?  I think I'd focus on the money and not worry about signings, accept the relegation and clear the decks for next season.  But at the same time staying up after starting with no points from seven and with those finances would be seriously impressive so it would be tempting to give it a go.

 

 

[Beliall]

1 minute ago, Lineker's Lugs said:

How's the league table looking now, and do you have any free wage budget?  I think I'd focus on the money and not worry about signings, accept the relegation and clear the decks for next season.  But at the same time staying up after starting with no points from seven and with those finances would be seriously impressive so it would be tempting to give it a go.

 

 

yeah, we're doing great. honestly should have looked closer at the squad but i never would have expected league 1 quality in the team. its terrible its like Dyche actively ****ed it 

[Ian W LCFC]

15 losses in a row is an achievement in itself! 

 

Anyone else done tried the world cup mode? I did an England attempt last week but got thumped by Belgium in either the semis or the quarters. The previous round we beat Spain 5-0 with Bellingham getting 4 goals, so I played the exact same team and lost.

[Beliall]

2 minutes ago, Ian W LCFC said:

15 losses in a row is an achievement in itself! 

 

Anyone else done tried the world cup mode? I did an England attempt last week but got thumped by Belgium in either the semis or the quarters. The previous round we beat Spain 5-0 with Bellingham getting 4 goals, so I played the exact same team and lost.

as cool as it is to have, i cant be arsed

[Lineker's Lugs]

18 minutes ago, Beliall said:

yeah, we're doing great. honestly should have looked closer at the squad but i never would have expected league 1 quality in the team. its terrible its like Dyche actively ****ed it 

 

Only four wins from safety!  I think I need to upgrade staying up from being seriously impressive to it being a miracle.

 

    

[Beliall]

im going to be the vincibles, 38 games defeated season

[Beliall]

we just FM'd spurs

[Lineker's Lugs]

After three years in Bulgaria I've moved on to the second club of my save and it's tight at the top in Romania.

 

 

I was trying to find challenges in this save but I've been drawn in under false pretences by a club that was 14th when I applied but is actually much better than that.  As they are one of the few Romanian clubs I've heard of I assumed they had fallen on hard times but no, they were just temporarily underperforming.  They were already up to 10th when I was appointed.  The squad is pretty decent and I have what looks like a lot of money for this league to spend in the imminent window.  In order of priority I need a starting striker and extra bodies in DM/MC and the fullback positions.  There is no spare wage budget but I have a squad that's about 10-12 players too big so moving a few out will free up some cash and I can always switch some transfer budget over.  

 

[Tommy Fresh]

13 hours ago, Dan said:

Flew through my first season with Bochum. Here's how it went...

 

Straight in there with the same formation I played at Vrsac and Kallithea. I'm not actually having all that much joy with much different this year which is a bit concerning and probably gets found out in a better league, but Bochum had on paper a decent team for this level, predicted to finish 7th.

 

It couldn't have started any better with a 1-5 win at Darmstadt. We then battered Elversberg at home for a half before loanee Callum Marshall picked up a straight red card and my whole 'keep it tight' lasted a whole 5 minutes of the second half. It ends 1-1. We beat a fifth tier team 1-5 in the cup as well.

 

Our first derby game, and the first I've played in any form for god knows how long came away at Schalke and it was a catastrophe. 3-0 down at half time and a 4th added late on. But we bounced back with four wins in a row over the rest of August and September. Kwadwo Baah joined on loan from Watford at the end of August.

 

 

October was pretty brutal. The Hertha win was really impressive as we picked up yet another red card on the stroke of half time but actually managed to hold out this time. The other three performances were awful and if we'd lost all games by three goals I wouldn't have deemed it unfair.

 

November was a slight improvement with two good home wins, but the disparity between our home and away performances were mental and this is something I haven't really suffered from a great deal. We were beneficiaries of opposition red cards in both the Magdeburg and Braunschweig games but ended up going behind to 10 men in both of them. December was more of the same, a disappointing albeit slightly unlucky draw with Bielefeld and then frankly a miracle we didn't lose at Hannover, topping the year off with our first home loss. This isn't a team getting promoted for me.

 

 

I was extremely busy in January, seeing 6 players depart and 7 arrive. I really didn't trust this squad after all. Two centre halves who were out of contract and not really playing in Masovic and Loosli were sold to Saudi clubs for a combined £1.5mil which was great business. They were replaced with Georgian Saba Sazonov and Spaniard Manu Hernando on loan and for £450k respectively. The big deal this month though was our best youngster joining Porto for £9mil, Cajetan Lenz. He'd actually been very disappointing although I'd sooner have held onto him due to the home grown thing. We got him back on loan which meant no replacement was needed, and this meant we could make a few amendments elsewhere, although not after Oliver Olsen (£475k), Marcel Sobottka (£275k) and Mortiz-Broni Kwarteng (£1.3mil) had all left too. 

 

 

We returned to smash Darmstadt again, hilariously going 5-0 up after 15 minutes, but I could never escape this idea that we were a pretty bad team running a bit hot. Even in that we ended up outshot and conceding a couple. We drew with Elversberg again before picking up a potentially huge 1-0 win over Schalke, who were top at the time.

 

We started February by putting away an abject Munster 1-2 (our first away win in four months) but floundered throughout the rest of February.

 

 

What I have to give us credit for is we seem to deliver in most big games. We very rarely lose them and we beat nearly all of them at home. I must mention the form of loanee Francis Onyeka, who by this point frankly was carrying us. The defensive overhaul was paying dividends as we managed four clean sheets on the bounce, including away at Hertha who were clearly going to win the league by this point.

 

We clicked just in time and ended up only losing one more game for the rest of the season which was essentially a dead rubber on the final day, having finished 2nd.

 

 

We never felt overly convincing, and I do wonder if I'm a mix of too used to being in a bad league that I've lost all appreciation of a better standard and just being a bit harsh because of how used I got to winning about 85% of my games, but we did get over the line. We still have quite a bit of money left over from the Lenz sale and they've doubled our wage budget, although I did make a late discovery, after spending quite a bit of it that pretty much my entire squad have good promotion wage rises which eats into it. January was a precursor for the summer. I will be overhauling this squad because I really don't trust it much.

 

Is Kennet Eichhorn still at Hertha?

[Dan]

3 hours ago, Tommy Fresh said:

Is Kennet Eichhorn still at Hertha?

He was during the season. It had completely slipped me how good he was. I think they may have lost him over the summer but could be wrong.

[Beliall]

We're not down yet. After that spurs result we went on a bit of an upturn, now we're sitting on 12 points, 4 from safety and anyone could go down. im fully invested now. hopefully that 8-1 thumping from man city doesnt ruin it all 

[moore_94]

Decided to start a new save and after giving it a go a few years ago but stopping after about 5 seasons I have decided to jump back into a Dual Andorra save with International Management now being back on the game, and there is a custom database adding the Andorran leagues onto the game.

 

The club side are currently in the 2nd tier of Spain, but are expected to be fighting against relegation - not really any money to spend and some actually quite strict rules from the club regarding squad status and wages that I can offer - I was able to pick up a few new free signings thankfully after selling my backup keeper for £500k.

 

As Andorra are in the 2nd tier it means that there isn't a proper international break, meaning I will still be jumping between the two teams playing until we get promoted. It has been an alright start to the season on the club side, and hopefully we can just hang around these playoff positions.

 

 

With the National Team they are currently ranked 172nd in the World, making us the 4th worst team in Europe. Like the others we are pretty much expected to lose the majority of games we play.

 

 

So far we have lost our first game in charge against Lithuania (143rd) in a friendly and drawn with Latvia (137th) in a World Cup qualifier match! The games and the results weren't actually too bad as even though we did probably deserve to lose both games, I was happy with us even just scoring haha. Still working on convincing a couple of players to declare for us as well to try and improve our squad. England and Albania in the next International Break so I am sure those will be great fun...

 

 

[moore_94]

With regards to Andorran players on the game, there is only really 1 player that I definitely want to sign that will be good enough to have around for La Liga and that is this keeper who I imagine I wont be able to sign for at least a few seasons

 

 

I actually have this left back at the club as well and although it says he is Andorran he hasn't actually declared for us yet and is waiting to see if he gets a Spanish call up

 

But he is currently on loan at Villareal (starts there on loan and cannot be recalled) who have an option to buy for about £400k... hopefully they don't take it up as he could be a very handy player in La Liga if he develops well

 

[moore_94]

Heavy defeat as expected against England...

 

 

But scenes against Albania who are ranked 66th in the World! Gabriel Leighton who had only come on the pitch in the 88th minute gets us a very very very undeserved draw! That is genuinely one of the most disgusting FM results I have ever got 

 

[Muzzy_no7]

Anyone got the hang of a consistently low scoring OPPDA yet?

 

Seems to be a bit broken.