Football Manager 2026

[Tommy Fresh]

Might give Cape Town City another go, did them early doors but only did a year or so, fancy giving them another crack post winter update

[Lineker's Lugs]

After six months of unemployment a job opened up at Young Boys in Switzerland.  I wasn’t initially interested, but stubbornly it remained available for a few weeks.  Then I noticed a news story about a takeover being completed.  I checked the job centre and they were now rich and suddenly I was interested after all!  I got the job and being the only team in the league with money made it a straightforward task.

 

Two jobs I’d been waiting for followed.  Firstly Barcelona women – no longer as dominant as they are today with both Madrid clubs being very competitive, but they were still winning the league most seasons and I was able to add to that easily enough.  Next was Feyenoord who had won the Eredivisie six years running and, as with Young Boys, were easily the best resourced side in their league.  Given I’m only taking a short-term approach, the sole problem with the squad was that it had just one keeper.  I signed an upgrade as starter and a youngster as third choice insurance, but otherwise cracked on with the already dominant players.

 

Ligue 1 was the last remaining men’s league that had been ranked as either superb or excellent when I began the save.  I joined Lyon and yet again I had taken over a team that was already good and had pots of money.  Lyon was similar to the gig at Aris.  Exactly as I did there, I signed a new keeper and two midfielders and we were sorted.  Marseille, Lille and PSG were all competitive without being particularly strong.  Number 27 was done and dusted.

 

When I adopted my approach of building my reputation as quickly as possible rather than working up the leagues from weakest to strongest, I thought it would be the simplest, and therefore quickest, way to complete my objective but I’d underestimated just how much it would simplify things.  I keep 20 leagues loaded at all times which has meant that so far there has always been a good (i.e. rich and/or stacked and/or high reputation) option available whenever I was out of work, and with a global reputation I get any job I apply for.  As a result, the save has really turned into an endurance test rather than needing much skill at the game.  Not that I’m complaining!

 

[Dan]

On 20/07/2026 at 19:13, Dan said:

Played another season. I think I've become a bit obsessed with that Mustermann's ideas and he does series based on five seasons. I thought about calling it a day after this but I won't just yet.

 

It went very well on the whole. Not totally without fault. But it was good.

 

A repeat 2nd placed finish. I made an optimistic aim to win the Bundesliga in year five. That is partly contingent on Bayern not being an absolute machine, and unfortunately, they are. But the gap definitely closed.

 

 

They got 3 points less and we got 2 more. We also managed to finally avoid being fisted by them in a game, with a 2-2 draw at home. We also went out of the Champions League in the same round. Ourselves to Lyon in a genuinely awful collapse, the only real black mark of the whole season (well that and losing at Heidenheim). We beat 10 men 2-0 at home before collapsing 4-1 in France and were out. A shit way to end what had been a really good campaign, where we'd been unbeaten at home, the highlight being a 1-0 win over PSG.

 

Also added Bochum's first ever trophy, winning the DFB Pokal. We had a very kind run. The tournament opened up massively with nearly all of the usual suspects falling before the quarter finals somehow, leaving 12th placed finishing Werder Bremen the next highest ranked team left in the competition at that stage which was remarkable. That and being drawn at home in every round was a massive help. It was Bremen we beat in the final, 2-0 and total domination.

 

We still only have the 15th biggest wage bill in the division so it's going bloody well considering. Very much making incremental improvements to the team rather than any drastic overhauling, which is quite satisfying but at the same time I wonder if I am conning myself out of doing that bit better.

Maybe I should've called it a day. Maybe I shouldn't.

 

The summer starts with a key defender (Kambwala) leaving to Saudi Arabia. But we are a well-oiled machine. We'll cope with no problems. In comes Tim Drexler from Sturm Graz as a direct replacement.

 

On FM I find a bit of a thing for some players who defy logic in their performances. What I mean is somebody totally average on paper who just never lets you down. This is Ben Hawighorst, a left sided young CB who joined me last season from Leverkusen for £1mil as a backup / free hit sort of signing. He started last season in my team and barely put a foot wrong, his partnership with Kambwala was key. But I was tempted in by the wonderkid. I've played the game stricter on my squad roles, but bent my rule to make Mexican Fernando Biagio Patlan, a 19 year old LCB a star player, a bargain at £7mil on paper, a really good prospect albeit one of those hard ball-playing defenders who wasn't brilliant in the air. In also came Greek goalkeeper Christos Mandas - an upgrade surely on my previous 2.5 star rated, 'OK' goalkeeper Beau Reus, another who was alright but you would think plugging in better players for the on paper weaker ones should raise the level.

 

We actually win the super cup away at Bayern 1-3 from 1-0 down. I really do wonder if we can actually haul them in this season. Then the Bundesliga arrived.

 

We start slowly with just one win from our opening four games, including a loss at a likely struggling Kaiserslautern. We're not playing badly, but the frequency we're drawing games we're the better side in is getting ridiculous. What becomes really obvious throughout the season is the complete drop off of not far off everybody. Ondrejka, Duranville, Banzuzi, Yirenkyi, so many steady heads who have gone down a level. Was Kambwala the glue?

 

The ability to draw games seemed to have no bounds as we kept a rare clean sheet in a 0-0 draw away at Bayern. We'd turned wins into draws. I don't remember the exact record mid way through, but I think we'd drawn over half our games, won about 4 times and lost about 3.

 

I needed things to change in the January window. I've kept a lot of money spare. Partly because I've not really been spending loads of it. But it's time to get a bit more serious.

 

 

Drexler has been pretty rubbish and Patlan, while individually isn't performing terribly, hasn't improved us. Hawighorst was doing better than him. So Hawighorst did get the occasional game. Problem is, he was the same. He'd also dropped off. I broke my club record to bring in Kacper Potulski on deadline day - a 'complete' centre half.

 

We made it through the CL league phase by scraping past Brugge at home on the final day but were handed a tie against Villarreal, a team who'd beaten us pretty comfortably early in the league phase.

 

Potulski's debut was the performance of the season - we beat Leverkusen away in extra time of the DFP Pokal quarter finals. We largely were the better side. Things are fixed. We then somehow ended up beating Villarreal 4-1 at home in a case of kind variance as we seemed to score every time we managed an attack, and completed the double with a 1-2 win at their place.

 

We had a pretty strong February, but there were still red flags. We were still conceding goals. We were turning the games we'd have 25 shots to the oppositions 7 from 2-2 draws into 3-2 wins. It's still good, but I cannot have a team letting in 2 this often. It will always catch up with you.

 

Barcelona beat us in both legs 1-0, but this sandwiched what I'd say is my worst result probably on FM26 in a 3-0 loss at bottom of the table Dusseldorf. In a bizarre twist, from the start of March, we only managed to beat two sides - Mainz and Gladbach, both of them twice.

 

 

The league form was absolutely abject. But we seemed to save it for the Pokal which we retained to my almost amazement. Gladbach, a very similar level to the Bremen side we beat in the final last season, yet I went in with very little confidence. Team morale shattered. An "uplifting" team talk ending in everyone losing their shit with me. I was rewarded after the cup final win with a meeting with our new Chinese board, and quite honestly, I think it's fair enough.

 

 

I do think our performances probably deserved more than what we actually ended up on, but this was as hard a drop off as I've had that I can remember. Not many of the signings worked. Mandas was a disgrace and has already been sold. Potulski was 'OK'. Patlan is a good player but I think in the wrong team, and shouldn't be a star player. The aim for the season was the Europa League according to the board, and I did ultimately deliver it, but I've swayed dangerously close to a really surprise sacking in this season. I got it horribly wrong.

 

The team will be getting an overhaul in the summer. That's a promise.

[Tommy Fresh]

Just finished my first season with Stabæk, second tier of Norway, outrageously good young squad and I added a few more to it. Managed to go unbeaten, and my second team also smashed their fourth division group and got promoted.

 

Pretty pleased the second team did well as you can only loan out 8 players, so the second team improving means I can make sure the lads who don't go out on loan are still playing at a good level.

[Dan]

I've got Norway loaded and Hødd missed out on the title on the final day. No tycoon either.

[Dan]

I've seen some ridiculous player mispositions before, but this is just...

 

 

 

A centre half? He's basically a budget Vardy.

[Beliall]

8 hours ago, Dan said:

I've seen some ridiculous player mispositions before, but this is just...

 

 

 

A centre half? He's basically a budget Vardy.

retrain to CM/CAM be a banging box to box

[shen]

4 hours ago, Beliall said:

retrain to CM/CAM be a banging box to box

Surely just retrain as a striker... 

But looking at his physicals, I'd doubt he's got any leftover potential points to retrain 

[Tommy Fresh]

On 07/08/2026 at 12:01, Tommy Fresh said:

Just finished my first season with Stabæk, second tier of Norway, outrageously good young squad and I added a few more to it. Managed to go unbeaten, and my second team also smashed their fourth division group and got promoted.

 

Pretty pleased the second team did well as you can only loan out 8 players, so the second team improving means I can make sure the lads who don't go out on loan are still playing at a good level.

I have issues , enjoying this save a lot but I'm reading a book about the Libertadores and it doesn't half get me wanting to go back to South America 

[Dan]

I've bought him. He's a channel forward. Possibly second striker too but prefer the former.

Edited 8 August by Dan

[Beliall]

3 hours ago, shen said:

Surely just retrain as a striker... 

But looking at his physicals, I'd doubt he's got any leftover potential points to retrain 

im bias towards midfielders that arrive late but it is probably better to retrain him to striker

[shen]

Time for a Diegem update:
 

The key words for this half of the season are injuries, European challenges & inconsistency.

 

Firstly, I have to remind myself that many of the team's niggling problems so far (January window just closed) have come from bad injuries to key players -

Koba Koindredi (a star performer at the end of the previous season) tore his ACL before the season started and is yet to return;
his replacement Pierre Dorival, who was playing great, got a double hernia at the end of December and is out for 2 months;
my new star striker and top scorer Victor Orakpo, was first out for 7 weeks from start of September with a partially torn hamstring, and just picked up a calf strain which keeps him out for another 3-4 weeks;

Morsi Machmoum, my Tunisian wonderkid right back, got a lower back stress fracture in November which kept him out for 6 weeks. He's only getting sharp again now;
Machmoum's and my left back's cover, academy product Mamadou Dramé, got a hip injury end of October and he's only now come back again;
New right winger, Emil Rohd, strained his neck, strained his calf and twisted his ankle keeping him out for a combined 2 months;
New left winger, Richard Ndubuisi, got a moderate calf strain (6 weeks) and a sports hernia (5 weeks);
Douglas Borel, transfer-listed and my only other right back, got two separate two-week injuries too, which made the situation extremely hairy.

This, combined with the stupid Champions League registration rules which meant I couldn't register players later than September 3, a whole nine days before my first match, meant that I had some glaring holes in the team for arguably the most important games of the season.

But let's start there - the Champions League: 

 

-----------

I felt (and still feel) extremely hard done by with the draw we got - and I was proven right. 

Away to Crvena Zvezda, we had the upper hand using our counterattacking setup, but despite outshooting them and having superior xG, we only draw 2-2.

Following that, we travel to Bodø/Glimt and again we outplay, outshoot, out-xG them and again we let the lead slip and draw 2-2. This one would prove to be extra painful as you'll see later...
Then, finally we debut home to Spurs, whom we outshoot, out-xG and just generally match toe-to-toe, but still lose 0-3 to. 
A trip to Benfica followed and they were ruthless - 11 shots, 7 on target, 5 goals - my team had no answer. 5-0 loss and we leave with our tails between our legs.

Halfway point and it's looking extremely demoralizing. Two points from our two most winnable games and -8 GD going into arguably the four toughest final games.
The gulf in class was too big. That was it - or so I thought.

The next game we're up against Everton at home and we're getting cooked by Thierno Barry. 0-3 and we've barely passed the half hour mark. Miguel Carvalho, my transfer-listed Spanish attacking midfielder, who's frankly not good enough, gets chopped down by Mykolenko on 32 minutes, straight red, and Everton drop their AMC back to keep their defensive shape. I'm thinking "sod it, let's overload the middle and go gung ho". Carvalho turns into prime Messi and pissed-off Douglas Borel thinks he's the second coming of Ronaldo.
We pull back two goals before half-time and Borel equalizes shortly after, only for Everton to get their only highlight of the second half - a corner - which Barry duly buries for his hattrick. We keep pushing and probing until defensive midfielder Raoul Danzabe Sanda, the guy who consistently defies his 5 finishing, equalizes in the 83rd minute. 4-4 at FT. A crazy game, in which we were dead and buried only to get resurrected Jesus-style with Carvalho getting a goal and three assists... and still not win.

 

 

I look at the table and it's a long shot. We probably have to pick up two wins from our last three against Juventus (H), Man City (A) and Porto (H) to have a chance of qualification.

I took a bit of heart from the Everton game and pick much the same team against Juve, but I tweak things after the lessons from that last game - and boy does it work.
We play the perfect game. With just 32% possession we have 13 shots, 5 on target and score 4 goals with Orakpo getting a hattrick (and his only goals all tournament!), but maybe more impressively we restrict Juve to just three shots on target with a total xG of 0,38.

4-0 at FT and what a boost this is! Easily the performance of the season if not the entire save.

 

The away game at Man City, leading the league phase at that point, was cruel though. We actually played fine and contained them well on the whole, but Haaland is just a cheat code. He scored 4 goals and we get a late consolation. I can have no complaints about this one.

The last game, at home to Porto, is win or go home. We're already struggling with Orakpo and Koindredi/Dorival all out, which means we have very little edge or creativity in the team. And this Porto team is at least as strong as Benfica, but we did pull off the miracle against Juve ... 
Well lightning didn't strike twice. We put up a great fight and with some luck, we could maybe have won it, but it ended in a surprising 0-0 draw, considering the amount of goals we've shipped, which meant we are eliminated on 7 points.

The last team to make it through are... Bodø/Glimt on 8 points! That hurts. Annoyingly, they played Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Olympiacos, FCSB and ourselves - all teams that got knocked out, but ironically they were the only team to beat Man City (and who says FM is unrealistic?!), so I guess they deserve it, but still.... urgh.

 

-----

 

In the league, matters have been less spectacular, but we have been equally leaky it feels. At this stage we've already conceded more goals than last season's total - with 11 matches still to go. And I suppose that's been my main issue. We've gotten weaker at left back/wing back and missing Machmoum for close to 2 months has been bad for us. Despite considerably strengthening the central defense with Kelven Frees and Ukrainian international Maksym Talovierov, we've been let down badly by Milo Roekaerts in goal who has been pretty poor - to the point I dropped him for three straight games for my youth keeper because I got desperate.

"Form is temporary, class is permanent" bla bla ... a poor September (with those damaging first CL draws) and a disastrous October gave us our longest winless run of 5 games, which I feared would derail the season, but we're still top of the league and only Club Brugge look like they can keep up with Antwerp (6 points) and USG (9 points) well behind already.

With the CL being over and Club Brugge killing us 3-0 in the Croky Cup QF, we only have the league to focus on. So from having tons of injuries, constantly tired players and regular beatings, we're facing a very quiet second half of the season with just 11 games left from beginning of February until end of May. My squad should cope fine with this and I will not accept anything less than a title defense at this point.

-----

 

A quirky thing happened again though and this time I've reported it on the SI forums. Just like Morsi Machmoum, the club have somehow signed a player (Jack Diarra from Espérance Tunis) during the January window, which I had absolutely no prior knowledge of or input on. I just received a message that the transfer was complete. I would be severely annoyed with this if it wasn't because he actually looks really good - and the club got him on a bargain, very much like the Machmoum loan-to-buy deal. Although with Machmoum I thought it may possibly have been a pre-arranged transfer (even though he's got a regen avatar) from the start of the save as he arrived one day after his 18th birthday in the 2028 summer window, so I didn't think to report it. This time, Diarra is a 23 year old Burkinabé player, so that theory goes out the window. Still, he's been promised a star role and it will likely mess with my squad dynamics as I am already pretty well set in his position, so time will tell if this was a poisoned chalice... 

[Dan]

On 08/08/2026 at 12:34, shen said:

Surely just retrain as a striker... 

But looking at his physicals, I'd doubt he's got any leftover potential points to retrain 

He'll pick it up. May take a bit of time. I'm OK with his ability staying around what it is now tbh. He'd be a perfectly OK backup striker.

 

I've given him the odd game there. He's looked alright. It's quite hard to train this without playing him every game though and I simply can't.

[shen]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

He'll pick it up. May take a bit of time. I'm OK with his ability staying around what it is now tbh. He'd be a perfectly OK backup striker.

 

I've given him the odd game there. He's looked alright. It's quite hard to train this without playing him every game though and I simply can't.

You must have a stonking squad for him to just be a backup 

[Dan]

1 hour ago, shen said:

You must have a stonking squad for him to just be a backup 

I really don't get loads of joy out of pure pace types on this version and I think I've become too set in certain tactics. He's only rated 2 star but that is clearly nonsense and it's judging him as a centre half.

 

But yeah we're not a bad side now. Not far off finished another season.

[Beliall]

been a while since my last update, but you havent missed anything. just havent played as often recently. 

i just finished up 2029/30 season, my first with crystal palace women and we did ok. finishing 5th with a last day 2-0 win over man city. we were flying early on but arsenal ( who are stacked with rodman, mariona, kelly,wilson and loads of others wanted my first choice goalkeeper who was doing brilliantly. i refused to sell her to them but in the end i had to let her go to the USA after she kicked off. still, got around 650k for her and put that into the team bringing in Damm as a replacement for 3.9k  shes fine i guess. 








overall pretty happy but its hard to sign good players right now. even stars at the end of their careers want nothing to do with us currently. so im going to look for some youngsters to build on. plan is make it to europe or do so well i get a job at a bigger team

[shen]

15 minutes ago, Beliall said:

been a while since my last update, but you havent missed anything. just havent played as often recently. 

i just finished up 2029/30 season, my first with crystal palace women and we did ok. finishing 5th with a last day 2-0 win over man city. we were flying early on but arsenal ( who are stacked with rodman, mariona, kelly,wilson and loads of others wanted my first choice goalkeeper who was doing brilliantly. i refused to sell her to them but in the end i had to let her go to the USA after she kicked off. still, got around 650k for her and put that into the team bringing in Damm as a replacement for 3.9k  shes fine i guess. 








overall pretty happy but its hard to sign good players right now. even stars at the end of their careers want nothing to do with us currently. so im going to look for some youngsters to build on. plan is make it to europe or do so well i get a job at a bigger team

How is the youth player pool when managing a women's team? Are as many players generated as in the men's game?

[Beliall]

42 minutes ago, shen said:

How is the youth player pool when managing a women's team? Are as many players generated as in the men's game?

well i havent counted them but yeah it seems the same. this is my intake i think, i just clipped the ones with the newest contracts. i only have a senior squad and u21 squad. no youth team here

[shen]

Diegem update:

 

I reported the issue of ghost transfers to SI Games, but as I'd continued playing and couldn't produce a save just before the transfer happened, I decided to load a save from the summer and go on holiday until the date of the transfer (in January). But in my nervousness to not overwrite my ongoing save, which had reached end of March, I of course ended up overwriting it... 

By that point I was two points ahead of Club Brugge with five games to go and annoyingly I'd made a lot of scouting and training adjustments.

 

And it was all in vain as the bug/issue didn't get reproduced anyway.

Thankfully I had a backup which was from the end of January, but I still had to redo all the time consuming changes.

By the time I had reached March again, I had already sewn up the league as both Club Brugge and Antwerp imploded and let me run away with it. So this league win feels very much tainted and I feel robbed of an exciting finish, but I couldn't be arsed to redo it all again. 
Club Brugge, who had comfortably been the second-best side with a GD just below ours, even ended up dropping out of the top four completely on the last day and won't be in Europe, which may make subsequent seasons easier as well. Not sure I'll keep going until I win the CL with Diegem as that is probably too tedious and time consuming.

The biggest achievement of the season was actually my U-18 side which went on to win the UEFA Youth League. My academy has been producing "Elite" talent for three straight years now and one of them already has two full seasons of being a rotation player and is worth north of £25m already. I expect to blood in a centerback and a striker, maybe even a goalkeeper this next season. 
It's often been an ambition of mine to have home-grown players that can actually become good enough to play at the top level, but I rarely play more than 6-7 seasons, just when the academies usually come online and start producing worthwhile talent.

With Diegem however, the academy has been producing above it's level for a while which is a very pleasant surprise.

[Dan]

On 08/08/2026 at 23:43, shen said:

Time for a Diegem update:
 

The key words for this half of the season are injuries, European challenges & inconsistency.

 

Firstly, I have to remind myself that many of the team's niggling problems so far (January window just closed) have come from bad injuries to key players -

Koba Koindredi (a star performer at the end of the previous season) tore his ACL before the season started and is yet to return;
his replacement Pierre Dorival, who was playing great, got a double hernia at the end of December and is out for 2 months;
my new star striker and top scorer Victor Orakpo, was first out for 7 weeks from start of September with a partially torn hamstring, and just picked up a calf strain which keeps him out for another 3-4 weeks;

Morsi Machmoum, my Tunisian wonderkid right back, got a lower back stress fracture in November which kept him out for 6 weeks. He's only getting sharp again now;
Machmoum's and my left back's cover, academy product Mamadou Dramé, got a hip injury end of October and he's only now come back again;
New right winger, Emil Rohd, strained his neck, strained his calf and twisted his ankle keeping him out for a combined 2 months;
New left winger, Richard Ndubuisi, got a moderate calf strain (6 weeks) and a sports hernia (5 weeks);
Douglas Borel, transfer-listed and my only other right back, got two separate two-week injuries too, which made the situation extremely hairy.

This, combined with the stupid Champions League registration rules which meant I couldn't register players later than September 3, a whole nine days before my first match, meant that I had some glaring holes in the team for arguably the most important games of the season.

But let's start there - the Champions League: 

 

-----------

I felt (and still feel) extremely hard done by with the draw we got - and I was proven right. 

Away to Crvena Zvezda, we had the upper hand using our counterattacking setup, but despite outshooting them and having superior xG, we only draw 2-2.

Following that, we travel to Bodø/Glimt and again we outplay, outshoot, out-xG them and again we let the lead slip and draw 2-2. This one would prove to be extra painful as you'll see later...
Then, finally we debut home to Spurs, whom we outshoot, out-xG and just generally match toe-to-toe, but still lose 0-3 to. 
A trip to Benfica followed and they were ruthless - 11 shots, 7 on target, 5 goals - my team had no answer. 5-0 loss and we leave with our tails between our legs.

Halfway point and it's looking extremely demoralizing. Two points from our two most winnable games and -8 GD going into arguably the four toughest final games.
The gulf in class was too big. That was it - or so I thought.

The next game we're up against Everton at home and we're getting cooked by Thierno Barry. 0-3 and we've barely passed the half hour mark. Miguel Carvalho, my transfer-listed Spanish attacking midfielder, who's frankly not good enough, gets chopped down by Mykolenko on 32 minutes, straight red, and Everton drop their AMC back to keep their defensive shape. I'm thinking "sod it, let's overload the middle and go gung ho". Carvalho turns into prime Messi and pissed-off Douglas Borel thinks he's the second coming of Ronaldo.
We pull back two goals before half-time and Borel equalizes shortly after, only for Everton to get their only highlight of the second half - a corner - which Barry duly buries for his hattrick. We keep pushing and probing until defensive midfielder Raoul Danzabe Sanda, the guy who consistently defies his 5 finishing, equalizes in the 83rd minute. 4-4 at FT. A crazy game, in which we were dead and buried only to get resurrected Jesus-style with Carvalho getting a goal and three assists... and still not win.

 

 

I look at the table and it's a long shot. We probably have to pick up two wins from our last three against Juventus (H), Man City (A) and Porto (H) to have a chance of qualification.

I took a bit of heart from the Everton game and pick much the same team against Juve, but I tweak things after the lessons from that last game - and boy does it work.
We play the perfect game. With just 32% possession we have 13 shots, 5 on target and score 4 goals with Orakpo getting a hattrick (and his only goals all tournament!), but maybe more impressively we restrict Juve to just three shots on target with a total xG of 0,38.

4-0 at FT and what a boost this is! Easily the performance of the season if not the entire save.

 

The away game at Man City, leading the league phase at that point, was cruel though. We actually played fine and contained them well on the whole, but Haaland is just a cheat code. He scored 4 goals and we get a late consolation. I can have no complaints about this one.

The last game, at home to Porto, is win or go home. We're already struggling with Orakpo and Koindredi/Dorival all out, which means we have very little edge or creativity in the team. And this Porto team is at least as strong as Benfica, but we did pull off the miracle against Juve ... 
Well lightning didn't strike twice. We put up a great fight and with some luck, we could maybe have won it, but it ended in a surprising 0-0 draw, considering the amount of goals we've shipped, which meant we are eliminated on 7 points.

The last team to make it through are... Bodø/Glimt on 8 points! That hurts. Annoyingly, they played Maccabi Tel-Aviv, Olympiacos, FCSB and ourselves - all teams that got knocked out, but ironically they were the only team to beat Man City (and who says FM is unrealistic?!), so I guess they deserve it, but still.... urgh.

 

-----

 

In the league, matters have been less spectacular, but we have been equally leaky it feels. At this stage we've already conceded more goals than last season's total - with 11 matches still to go. And I suppose that's been my main issue. We've gotten weaker at left back/wing back and missing Machmoum for close to 2 months has been bad for us. Despite considerably strengthening the central defense with Kelven Frees and Ukrainian international Maksym Talovierov, we've been let down badly by Milo Roekaerts in goal who has been pretty poor - to the point I dropped him for three straight games for my youth keeper because I got desperate.

"Form is temporary, class is permanent" bla bla ... a poor September (with those damaging first CL draws) and a disastrous October gave us our longest winless run of 5 games, which I feared would derail the season, but we're still top of the league and only Club Brugge look like they can keep up with Antwerp (6 points) and USG (9 points) well behind already.

With the CL being over and Club Brugge killing us 3-0 in the Croky Cup QF, we only have the league to focus on. So from having tons of injuries, constantly tired players and regular beatings, we're facing a very quiet second half of the season with just 11 games left from beginning of February until end of May. My squad should cope fine with this and I will not accept anything less than a title defense at this point.

-----

 

A quirky thing happened again though and this time I've reported it on the SI forums. Just like Morsi Machmoum, the club have somehow signed a player (Jack Diarra from Espérance Tunis) during the January window, which I had absolutely no prior knowledge of or input on. I just received a message that the transfer was complete. I would be severely annoyed with this if it wasn't because he actually looks really good - and the club got him on a bargain, very much like the Machmoum loan-to-buy deal. Although with Machmoum I thought it may possibly have been a pre-arranged transfer (even though he's got a regen avatar) from the start of the save as he arrived one day after his 18th birthday in the 2028 summer window, so I didn't think to report it. This time, Diarra is a 23 year old Burkinabé player, so that theory goes out the window. Still, he's been promised a star role and it will likely mess with my squad dynamics as I am already pretty well set in his position, so time will tell if this was a poisoned chalice... 

Is this issue not potentially linked to staff responsibilities? I'd double check it and I feel like you already would've done, but that would annoy me as well - particularly giving them a role above what you're happy with. I've gotten really picky about this on the Bochum save where I wasn't before and I do think it helps.

[Dan]

Also you seem to be having the same issue with me on goalkeepers. I really don't know what is wrong with it this year - it's been bad for a while but it's gotten even worse. I just cannot get a consistent, steady goalkeeper no matter what I do. I know I play pretty front footed and usually outshoot my opposition, but I'd say the % of the time my goalkeeper outperforms the oppositions must be about 20.

[shen]

1 hour ago, Dan said:

Is this issue not potentially linked to staff responsibilities? I'd double check it and I feel like you already would've done, but that would annoy me as well - particularly giving them a role above what you're happy with. I've gotten really picky about this on the Bochum save where I wasn't before and I do think it helps.

The Ghost transfers? I've checked, but all staff settings look correct. As Jack Diarra was 23 when he signed, I don't think it's to do with any U21/U18 manager shenanigans.

 

I'm lucky Diarra is actually starting quality, so the club have made a bargain. Machmoum is now third in the NxGen top 50 (although I don't think he will improve much more - he's a solid PL level right back already though), so I can't complain 😅

 

1 hour ago, Dan said:

Also you seem to be having the same issue with me on goalkeepers. I really don't know what is wrong with it this year - it's been bad for a while but it's gotten even worse. I just cannot get a consistent, steady goalkeeper no matter what I do. I know I play pretty front footed and usually outshoot my opposition, but I'd say the % of the time my goalkeeper outperforms the oppositions must be about 20.

Roekaerts was never a great goalkeeper and I did get him to perform well last season where I det up more defensively in general. He must not be well suited for my current tactics which are more attacking, but I am indeed seeing more goals from range fly in, like you were experiencing.

GK is my weakest position, so I will be looking to strengthen here. The downside is Roekaerts is home grown with regards to registration in Europe/Jupiter league, so I didn't make it a priority to phase him out.

[Dan]

6 hours ago, shen said:

The Ghost transfers? I've checked, but all staff settings look correct. As Jack Diarra was 23 when he signed, I don't think it's to do with any U21/U18 manager shenanigans.

 

I'm lucky Diarra is actually starting quality, so the club have made a bargain. Machmoum is now third in the NxGen top 50 (although I don't think he will improve much more - he's a solid PL level right back already though), so I can't complain 😅

 

Roekaerts was never a great goalkeeper and I did get him to perform well last season where I det up more defensively in general. He must not be well suited for my current tactics which are more attacking, but I am indeed seeing more goals from range fly in, like you were experiencing.

GK is my weakest position, so I will be looking to strengthen here. The downside is Roekaerts is home grown with regards to registration in Europe/Jupiter league, so I didn't make it a priority to phase him out.

I used to have it turned on a while ago where I'd let a member of stuff (usually HOYR) make the odd signing but realised quite quickly it was pointless and that they would just waste money on players I have no use for at all.

 

Goalkeepers have been a chronic issue for me. The stats on the game about them now are just stupid as well - virtually every one of them saves less than they are expected to. I'd be happy seeing them introducing some sort of XG on target kind of stat for this game, surely at this point this is achievable.

[Dan]

On 05/08/2026 at 23:39, Dan said:

Maybe I should've called it a day. Maybe I shouldn't.

 

The summer starts with a key defender (Kambwala) leaving to Saudi Arabia. But we are a well-oiled machine. We'll cope with no problems. In comes Tim Drexler from Sturm Graz as a direct replacement.

 

On FM I find a bit of a thing for some players who defy logic in their performances. What I mean is somebody totally average on paper who just never lets you down. This is Ben Hawighorst, a left sided young CB who joined me last season from Leverkusen for £1mil as a backup / free hit sort of signing. He started last season in my team and barely put a foot wrong, his partnership with Kambwala was key. But I was tempted in by the wonderkid. I've played the game stricter on my squad roles, but bent my rule to make Mexican Fernando Biagio Patlan, a 19 year old LCB a star player, a bargain at £7mil on paper, a really good prospect albeit one of those hard ball-playing defenders who wasn't brilliant in the air. In also came Greek goalkeeper Christos Mandas - an upgrade surely on my previous 2.5 star rated, 'OK' goalkeeper Beau Reus, another who was alright but you would think plugging in better players for the on paper weaker ones should raise the level.

 

We actually win the super cup away at Bayern 1-3 from 1-0 down. I really do wonder if we can actually haul them in this season. Then the Bundesliga arrived.

 

We start slowly with just one win from our opening four games, including a loss at a likely struggling Kaiserslautern. We're not playing badly, but the frequency we're drawing games we're the better side in is getting ridiculous. What becomes really obvious throughout the season is the complete drop off of not far off everybody. Ondrejka, Duranville, Banzuzi, Yirenkyi, so many steady heads who have gone down a level. Was Kambwala the glue?

 

The ability to draw games seemed to have no bounds as we kept a rare clean sheet in a 0-0 draw away at Bayern. We'd turned wins into draws. I don't remember the exact record mid way through, but I think we'd drawn over half our games, won about 4 times and lost about 3.

 

I needed things to change in the January window. I've kept a lot of money spare. Partly because I've not really been spending loads of it. But it's time to get a bit more serious.

 

 

Drexler has been pretty rubbish and Patlan, while individually isn't performing terribly, hasn't improved us. Hawighorst was doing better than him. So Hawighorst did get the occasional game. Problem is, he was the same. He'd also dropped off. I broke my club record to bring in Kacper Potulski on deadline day - a 'complete' centre half.

 

We made it through the CL league phase by scraping past Brugge at home on the final day but were handed a tie against Villarreal, a team who'd beaten us pretty comfortably early in the league phase.

 

Potulski's debut was the performance of the season - we beat Leverkusen away in extra time of the DFP Pokal quarter finals. We largely were the better side. Things are fixed. We then somehow ended up beating Villarreal 4-1 at home in a case of kind variance as we seemed to score every time we managed an attack, and completed the double with a 1-2 win at their place.

 

We had a pretty strong February, but there were still red flags. We were still conceding goals. We were turning the games we'd have 25 shots to the oppositions 7 from 2-2 draws into 3-2 wins. It's still good, but I cannot have a team letting in 2 this often. It will always catch up with you.

 

Barcelona beat us in both legs 1-0, but this sandwiched what I'd say is my worst result probably on FM26 in a 3-0 loss at bottom of the table Dusseldorf. In a bizarre twist, from the start of March, we only managed to beat two sides - Mainz and Gladbach, both of them twice.

 

 

The league form was absolutely abject. But we seemed to save it for the Pokal which we retained to my almost amazement. Gladbach, a very similar level to the Bremen side we beat in the final last season, yet I went in with very little confidence. Team morale shattered. An "uplifting" team talk ending in everyone losing their shit with me. I was rewarded after the cup final win with a meeting with our new Chinese board, and quite honestly, I think it's fair enough.

 

 

I do think our performances probably deserved more than what we actually ended up on, but this was as hard a drop off as I've had that I can remember. Not many of the signings worked. Mandas was a disgrace and has already been sold. Potulski was 'OK'. Patlan is a good player but I think in the wrong team, and shouldn't be a star player. The aim for the season was the Europa League according to the board, and I did ultimately deliver it, but I've swayed dangerously close to a really surprise sacking in this season. I got it horribly wrong.

 

The team will be getting an overhaul in the summer. That's a promise.

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.

[Tommy Fresh]

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.