Football Manager 2019

[Jimmy Floyd]

On OOTP (baseball) you can start a game from any season going back to 1890 or whatever, and have the real players generate at the right time as you go through the future. Admittedly football is more complicated to do because it isn't a self-contained league, but I'm surprised there hasn't been more of it.

[bruhnaldo]

I'll be getting rid of at least one player in January so it's not an emergency, and we're top of the league at the moment so they're not going to bin me over a quid a week.

Well you say that but it's a string of 0's and 1's deciding your fate not necessarily common sense so BE CAREFUL :P

[Dark Soldier]

I've tried it, its decent but gets a bit dull quickly.

[Pepe]

On OOTP (baseball) you can start a game from any season going back to 1890 or whatever, and have the real players generate at the right time as you go through the future. Admittedly football is more complicated to do because it isn't a self-contained league, but I'm surprised there hasn't been more of it.

I've been saying for years that a version of FM that would do that would sell like pancakes. They don't even have to go that far, start in the 90s or something so that we can relieve our youth.

[igor_balis]

gonna do dafuge challenge in an attempt to resurrect some interest in this stupid game

[Boydy]

The what challenge?

Has no one done an olden times database? I remember people updating CM01-02 for years afterwards so surely that sort of thing would be possible?

[igor_balis]

The what challenge?

Has no one done an olden times database? I remember people updating CM01-02 for years afterwards so surely that sort of thing would be possible?

holiday first season and take over one of the teams newly promoted to conf north/south, with a few extra rules thrown in (mostly no cheating and your manager has to have shit attributes)

[randomlegend]

Decided to give this a go as it's <£20 on cdkeys.

Loaded up the usual Utd game first. The FUCK am I meant to do with Alexis Sanchez?

[Baz]

Retrain as a wingback.

[Gray Fox]

Fine him 2 weeks wages for pretending to be a footballer.

[Browning]

I’ve also got it recently but on the switch as I can’t be bothered sitting at a PC all the time. Still as addictive but infuriating as ever.

[Spikey M]

What's the best tactic this year? Not normally a fan of using pre-made ones, but my Southend team over-achieved and got promoted last season and we're getting pummeled at the moment.

[Pepe]

Spikey out.

[Boydy]

3-3-2-2

[igor_balis]

rediscovered my fm 2015 hibs games. it's 2029 and i've just won my 10th SPL in a row, but still yet to win the champions league (twice lost in finals). i've been treating it like a sandbox kinda game since i found it last month, and have been doing some low-key cheating (not given myself any money, but i've liberally extended my transfer and wage budget on the in-game editor etc).

was getting annoyed by how shit the rest of the league is, so the start of this season i've used the editor to give hearts and celtic front end sugar daddies and 200m. managed to fail ffp last season too, and got kicked out of the champs league, lol.

[randomlegend]

Pellegrini from Roma is wild on this. Scores free-kicks and bangers like they're going out of fashion. Got him for £27m too which is pretty cheap nowadays.

[Spikey M]

I ended up using a tactic by some spactard called 'Dorksoljur' or something. Comfortable in mid table. :drool:

[Mike]

He sounds rubbish

[Yevrah]

How is this now? Haven't bothered with it for the last couple of versions, does it take longer than ever to get through a season?

[Mike]

I've been playing it way less this year, not sure why. My slow moving Blackburn game is fun though.
With two games left in the season....
https://i.imgur.com/IAFpu80.png
Media had said we'd come 18th.

[randomlegend]

How is this now? Haven't bothered with it for the last couple of versions, does it take longer than ever to get through a season?

To be perfectly honest they're all much of a muchness. This year's I've felt like I can get the players to actually do what I want on the pitch more than previous ones though, which does make it more satisfying.

[Giggles]

How is this now? Haven't bothered with it for the last couple of versions, does it take longer than ever to get through a season?

It's as bloated as it ever was and the same things (like all the media, player interactions, etc) are as broken as they ever were.

[Yevrah]

Cheers, think I'll stay out then.

[Giggles]

Cheers, think I'll stay out then.

If physical copies were still a thing and I could give you mine I would as I'll never reinstall it again.

[Ian]

I genuinely can't envision me buying an FM game ever again. Sometimes I read things or watch things that briefly give me the itch but nah.

[Disco]

I occasionally get the urge but it's sated by firing up FM15 for a couple of seasons ten getting bored again.

[Ian]

Yeah if I really wanted to play it I'd go back to my FM15 2030s Newcastle save.

[Browning]

I don't think I could handle the full fat version these days, but Touch on the Switch seems brilliant.

Been managing Alfreton Town (started with no experience and saw who offered me a job) and after saving them from the drop at the end of season 1 I got back to back promotions in Season 2 and 3 and was then fighting for a Play Off spot in League 2, only for a new chairman to come in, give us no funds and say he's not judging me on past successes. Of course right as he says that our form takes a nose dive. This is going to be fun.

[Dark Soldier]

I ended up using a tactic by some spactard called 'Dorksoljur' or something. Comfortable in mid table. :drool:

am a don innit

[Bam]

I ended up using a tactic by some spactard called 'Dorksoljur' or something. Comfortable in mid table. :drool:


am a don innit

Either of you going to link a brother?

[Clunge]

Touch 17 remains the pinnacle. If it had an editor and support for data updates, it would be perfection.

[Dark Soldier]

Either of you going to link a brother?

If I had to guess it'd be this:

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/share-download-fm19-tactics/378847-4411-overload.html

[Spikey M]

Either of you going to link a brother?



If I had to guess it'd be this:

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/share-download-fm19-tactics/378847-4411-overload.html

Nah, this one:

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/share-download-fm19-tactics/373606-5131-counter-press.html

[Dark Soldier]

Nah, this one:

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/share-download-fm19-tactics/373606-5131-counter-press.html

Does that still work? That was on an old, old patch.

[Spikey M]

Does that still work? That was on an old, old patch.

Relegation threatened at Christmas, play off places in May. U da man cuz. Shit new name though. Be true unto yourself blud.

[Mike]

With James McCarthy agreeing terms, and a tight budget, one of these has to be sold....but which?

https://i.imgur.com/i7PwQvB.png
https://i.imgur.com/mNdRaxU.png

[Gray Fox]

Sell Evans. He's on more, is worth more, is older and is injury prone.

[Mike]

Nobody wanted either and now the deadline has gone. I'll just have extra options in the middle until Jan.

[Spikey M]

Sell James McCarthy.

[Smjffy]

So despite saying I was going balls deep in October, I didn't get as far as buying. Laptop arrives in the morning so anyone care to help me with the usual shit so I can start straight away.

Deletable files, national squads, logo packs etc. I don't even recall playing 2018?

[Mike]

Sortitoutsi.net has it all.

[Smjffy]

That took far longer than expected.

Now I need to located where Vauxhall Motors are these days.

[Pharad]

So much hate on still a great game... uhh guys, you don't value the heart put into making this gorgeous piece like at all. If you want realism, go play football outside! xD Like, I've bought a bunch of FIFA Points and I'm having a total blast in-game. Whenever the day seems to be a bit depressing, or I'm feeling overwhelmed, I just turn on my boosted up acc and destroy everyone who dares to step on my pitch!

[Spikey M]

Oh right.

[Disco]

I'm leaning further towards bot now phonics

[Dark Soldier]

Neil Warnock manages Barcelona. Some fantastic writing in here:

https://www.joe.co.uk/football/neil-warnock-barcelona-football-manager-231381

[phonics]

I'm leaning further towards bot now @phonics (https://www.thethirdhalf.co.uk/member.php?u=1)

It's really fucking good though right? I'm almost keen on keeping it to see if it can eventually pass the Turing test.

[Shindig]

Neil Warnock manages Barcelona. Some fantastic writing in here:

https://www.joe.co.uk/football/neil-warnock-barcelona-football-manager-231381

That's genuinely great. Shame we'll never live to see something like that.

[Smjffy]

Vauxhall Motors
2018-2019

Over sixty trialists walked on to the clubs training ground during the summer in hope of securing a deal. Eventually, we signed twenty-four of them. One of each position. Four years ago The Motormen had to resign from the Conference North, now it was time to return. The media anticipated us doing so by naming our favorites for the title. As it turned out, the players brought much more than that.

Cammell Laird was our sole challengers and led for much of the campaign until we finally took over in April as our involvement in multiple cups left plenty of games in hand, the only real surprise is that they pretty much matched us the whole way. The final game of the season saw them needing us to lose and a twenty-two goal swing. Clearly, that wasn't going to happen and nor did it as we claimed the North West Counties League Division One South! at Brantingham Road, against Maine Road. 4-1. Champions.

https://i.imgur.com/JiRGQow.png

Perhaps promotion wasn't much of a surprise but a clean sweep was. The FA Vase obviously the pick of the bunch given how many games it took to get there.

https://i.imgur.com/MSakEds.png



https://i.imgur.com/qqX5nHt.png

https://i.imgur.com/425J2Qa.png

https://i.imgur.com/krte8aZ.png



We offered the majority of the squad a further year as I expect them to be enough to secure another promotion. As for the game, much easier than expected but still as enjoyable as ever. It's a shame the laptop I chose runs it at a snail's pace.

[Spikey M]

It's really fucking good though right? I'm almost keen on keeping it to see if it can eventually pass the Turing test.

Let it live.

[Smjffy]

Bill Poole. FA Cup 1st round away to League One club Blackpool. 90th minute strike after Kyle Bailey hammered the crossbar.

Reward? League One, Mansfield.

We've put out Sporting Khalsa, Chalfont St Peter, Whitley Bay after a replay, Leiston and Burgess Hill before a 4th round qualifying replay against Havant & Waterlooville sealed our day at Bloomfield. This game isn't half bad, really. :Cool:

[SvN]

Sporting Khalsa :cool:

I used to go and watch them every now and then with my dad.

[Smjffy]

Noose Lane sounded intimidating.

[randomlegend]

Man City just bought Alex Iwobi for £93m in my second season. Which then saw Hazard going to Arsenal for £81m, and Douglas Costa to Chelsea for £61m.

[Smjffy]

Mansfield became our second League One scalp as we marched into the FA Cup 3rd round, the lowest level club to do so. Luke Armstrong had given them a 2"minute lead before second half goals from Bailey, Harrison and legend in the making Bill Poole sealed our passage.

League Two club Cheltenham were drawn which was disappointing given the potential to face a big boy, a 1-1 draw at the LCI Rail Stadium extended our stay in the competition before a 3-2 win in the replay at The Riveracre meant our journey continued. North West Counties Premier Division club into the 4th round....

As we awaited the draw we saw for the first time in the 'proper rounds' we would be playing at home. We drew Scunthorpe. Another League Two side awaiting to be put to the sword perhaps. 2-1 down after Adam Hammills strike 20"minutes from time, a strike that came just minutes after Bill Poole found himself dismissed until......three minutes to to, The Motormen attack, the ball gets looped into the box.....PENALTY!!

But wait. Bill Poole was sent off. His strike partner was subbed off as we looked to keep the draw...we had no recognisable striker on....."fuck this" shouted someone. It was young Ryan Quinn, a failed Coventry midfielder snapped up from Evo-Stik League One side Rugby last summer. Boom. He stepped up, two strides back and smashed it.

Replay achieved. :drool:

Edit: With Scunthorpe's first minute strike enough to seal a 1-0 win and an away tie against City. :cry:

[Smjffy]

Just looking around the league's.... Liverpool drew on the final game of the season which allowed Man City to leapfrog them and take the title.

FA Cup final saw a defeat to Arsenal then the Champions League final saw Chelsea take the honours. A treble in ruins. Sad times.

[Smjffy]

The Mighty Motormen Megapost.

Season 2018/2019.

As stated in my first post, our debut season in the North West Counties League Division One South ended with a league title and three domestic cup wins as we added the NWCL Challenge Cup, the NW Division One Cup and surprisingly, or so I thought at the time, the FA Vase. A trip to Wembley to cap a fantastic season. Upfront we had Kyle Riley and Lewis Codling banging them in on a regular basis, the pair netting sixty-two times between them, midfielders Ryan Quinn and Ryan Meadows themselves grabbing seventeen each throughout the season. Top stuff.

https://i.imgur.com/vEvOMGB.png

https://i.imgur.com/7Ea8syA.png

https://i.imgur.com/QyBEwg3.png

https://i.imgur.com/eMhA7OA.png

----------------------------------------------

Season 2019/2020.

After last seasons exploits, we opted for a more conservative approach in the transfer market. Former Newcastle defender Chris Carr joined the club at the very end of the season which I considered something of a coup. He'd be our new right back/Head of Youth Development but the biggest catch was brought in during the summer in Bill Poole, a £1.8K capture from Hereford Lads Club. 19 league goals in 24 appearances, 7 in 13 in the FA Cup alone ending the season with a fine tally of 30 in 49 but it was the manner of the goals. The equalizer at the start of our FA Cup run as we robbed Sporting Khalsa.

https://i.imgur.com/DwVrLCl.png

Or his equalizer against Havant & Waterlooville in an almost mirror repeat.

https://i.imgur.com/RE6YZcu.png

Or perhaps his 90th-minute winner against League One, Blackpool. Our first giant-killing.

https://i.imgur.com/62tNNd7.png

Our FA Cup journey took us to as far as the fourth round which was disappointing as an away tie at the Etihad lay in wait. We would return to Wembley however for a second successive season as we retained the FA Vase. The shitty little Challenge Cup also retained but it barely registered.

We romped to the league title which wasn't too much of a surprise but Cammell Laird once again being our 'challengers' was. The pesky bastards wouldn't fuck off due to our cup involvements.

https://i.imgur.com/QSXuQYq.png

https://i.imgur.com/ACHjqko.png

https://i.imgur.com/Yk2ssA9.png

----------------------------------------------
Season 2020/2021

The decision was made to overhaul the squad somewhat in the summer. There was no need to be sentimental at this stage, not for the club at least. It was an in/out policy because a fast return to the Conference North was the target. The Motormen still reeling from having to resign in 2014 due to financial concerns and yet here we were splashing over £10,000 in a revamp. Nearly half of which went on Sean Whelan. What an absolutely pathetic cunt he turned out to be and he quickly became an afterthought.

Another league title was wrapped up in dominant fashion but much of that was probably owed to our lack of cup involvement as quite frankly we were shit.
Bill Poole ended the season as the clubs top goalscorer once again with 29 in 38 but refused to discuss a new deal before sticking two fingers up to the club. It wasn't supposed to end like that. Ryan Meadows however continued to prove his worth striking 17 times this year to take his tally to 55 in his three seasons at the club.

https://i.imgur.com/YGmHItd.png

https://i.imgur.com/HwIfUme.png

https://i.imgur.com/ihfJQrE.png

----------------------------------------------
Season 2021/2022

Our rapid rise through the divisions meant we were now one step away from returning from whence we came as a promotion from the Evo-Stik Northern Premier would ensure our return to the Conference North after eight years. Another overhaul of the squad was conducted, another £10,000 splashed out but the clubs financial situation was the envy of the division anyway. No concerns for The Motormen now.

Tyrone Ofori and Ben Whitehead ensured Poole wasn't missed, Ofori hitting 25 in his debut season. Whitehead linked beautifully with Meadows in midfield and the pair helped themselves to 30 between them.

The season itself got off to a solid start with a fourteen match unbeaten run before Radcliffe brought it to an end. We responded by winning 10 out of the next 11 to sit top and comfortable. Or so we thought. A shock defeat to Warrington in February was thought of as nothing more than just that, a shock. Forgotten even after we won our following game against Morpeth. Top. Twelve clear. Easy. Then a 2-2 draw against Leek made it ten. A defeat to Hyde made it seven. Gainsborough's smash and grab at The Riveracre made it four. Were we bottling it? Marine 3-2 Vauxhall. One point clear. Question answered. Yes, we were.

Eventually, we grabbed some breathing space winning 3-0 at home against Stalybridge and Bamber Bridge, a 1-1 draw sandwiched between meant away to Lancaster meant we were still in control of our fate but with a tricky trio of games arriving as Radcliffe, Nantwich and Farsley lay in wait. Win them then we were up. Anything else wasn't worth thinking about which is why I struggled to come to terms with us being 3-0 down at half-time to Radcliffe in the first of them. We eventually lost and shit went down. Thankfully we learned from it and four of our remaining six but what a rocky ride. Champions. Our final game of the season was the Northern Premier League Challenge Cup, at The Riveracre of all places. A nice way to end the season. Until a disallowed goal in the 90th minute took the goal to penalties and the bastards took it.

https://i.imgur.com/y7YFQUw.png

https://i.gifer.com/D9tJ.gif

[Baz]

You're bossing it. :thbup:

[SvN]

I can't believe there's a team called Quorn FC :D

[Smjffy]

Vauxhall Motors - Season 2022/2023

The Motormens return to the Vanarama North after an eight year absense was a success story in itself but that was the Vauxhall of old, the new Vauxhall had greater plans. Far from waving goodbye to the division due to financial issues, the new Vauxhall wanted to wave goodbye by going up and that's what the summer was geared towards as once again changes were made to the playing staff. It was the only way to keep progressing.

It also had a habit of paying off and the clubs return to the 6th level of English football was no different. Kareem Richardson, Jasper Dowse, Shaun Baker and Sam Latham were just some of the names snapped up after Premier League clubs deemed them surplus. I intend to do a Where Are They Now post next so I won't go too much into detail with players.

https://i.imgur.com/zmKDeHQ.png

Another league title. Another promotion.

The FA Cup was once again kind to us as we qualified for the 1st round proper after defeating Chipstead (2-0), Lancaster (3-0) and Farnborough (1-0). The reward was an away tie to MK Dons, a tie that ended 2-1 to the visitors. Harrogate followed, a 0-0 saw a replay at The Riveracre, this time an eas 4-1 occured. 3rd round saw Barnsley arrive and dispatched in exactly the same manner as Harrogate. 4-1. Fourth round. A big team. A Man City. A Man United. A Tottenham. No. We drew fucking Hartlepool. Mixed feelings at that stage. You know if you go out then it's a wasted run but win then the odds of getting a pay day go up. Thankfully we won, 3-1 again at The Riveracre, our fortress.

It was clear by this point that we were no Vanarama North team. We had the results to prove it. Man United were drawn in the 5th round. At Old Trafford as well. Jahmal Hector-Ingram gave us the lead, Rashford restored parity before Isco put United in control. Ben Whitehead was having none of it and swiftly made it 2-2 after the restart. We just weren't good enough though. Rashford blitzed past the backline and Lingard made it four in stoppage time.

We did make it to Wembley though as our performances in the FA Trophy. Twelve games to get there though after replays were required all the way through.

Vauxhall Motors - Season 2023/2024

https://i.imgur.com/dHgXrRK.png

It was no different to the North in reality. We also retained the FA Trophy. Impressively that was our fourth Wembley appearance in six years. Bolton knocked us out of the FA Cup 2nd round. Unexpected but probably helped in the long run not to have to play catch up wit

Vauxhall Motors - Season 2024/2025

With records being posted left, right and centre at the club over the last couple of seasons and the general atmosphere at the club being a positive one, we went into our League Two campaign under no illusions that we were one of the better teams, one of the more stable clubs and one of the most ambitious. We weren't about to wait around and our long term goals were on a different planet to most in our division. As it was though, we had to compete and in doing so we ensured another league title, another promotion and as with every season prior, a new record for most points. We were rampant.

https://i.imgur.com/gES7Q0B.png

We got to play in the EFL Cup for the first time but reached only as far as the 3rd round. Swansea knocking us out on penalties whilst the FA Cup saw a 2-0 defeat away to Leicester. It was nice to not have to start in the qualifying rounds. Probably not so nice for Gateshead, Aldershot and Portsmouth who we had knocked out on our way to the 4th round.

Vauxhall Motors - Season 2025/2026

It was a all a bit deja vu. Another league title. Another record breaking season, in fact. It was also the season a number of youngsters came of age. (More to come) First team football last season had clearly been a huge factor and it bode very well for the future.

We were now forming a solid squad, a stable squad and the ease in which strutted our stuff on a weekly basis was impressive.

https://i.imgur.com/ZBNjDHq.png

The EFL Cup lasted less than a match as Leeds United ended our involvement before it had really begun and another FA Cup run ensured our healthy financial state continued to improve as Dorchester, Mansfield and Bromley were eliminated en route to the fourth round. A 1-1 draw at home to Sheffield Wednesday meant the winner of the replay would face Liverpool in the 5th. That winner was us as we went on to win 3-0.

The beginning of March saw Liverpool arrive for an evening kick off. By time the match kicked off at 7.45pm the ground was jumping. 7.46pm and we were 1-0 to the good and in dreamland. 7.47pm. 2-0. Joe Elliott-Webster's very early brace took the non-existant roof of the place. Diogo Jota pulled one back on the 15"minute mark but it took until the 78th for Liverpool to pull level, the Egyptian King doing his bit. It sucked all the more as it arrived just three minutes after Webster missed a penalty, a chance for his hattrick. Radic grabbed Liverpool's third with ten minutes to go and our hopes had been vanquished.

Vauxhall Motors - Season 2026/2027

After eight successive league titles, we went into the Championship season spending money that once upon a time woiuld have safeguarded our future for decades as nearly £10M was spent strengthening the side. It worked. As expected. Number 9 was wrapped up solidly. The EFL Cup saw a run to the semi finals, Tottenham's 2-0 first leg win being enough to ensure our 3-2 win in the 2nd wasn't enough. We did however stick Man United out on penalties in the previous round. We also owed a lot to them as loanee Julio Cesar Ochoa proved to be our start of the season. The FA Cup proved a disappointment despite getting to the quarter finals for the first time. Everton knocking us out in the shittest manner possible.

https://i.imgur.com/ccN9xSE.png

And that's where we're at.

https://i.imgur.com/5huA0oC.png

https://i.imgur.com/E1ysZxe.png




The Premier League is up and coming, we've got about 6/7 spaces in the squad to fill but now it's time to slow the game right down and build. Absolutely enjoying it though even it's piss easy and now I've removed all the lower leagues the speed has picked up.

[Baz]

How the heck have you won every league consecutively?

Must have some game breaking über tactic going on. Nice one!

[Smjffy]

Some home and away one DS posted early doors, it was in that thread but I don't even use the away one now. Just the home. You want it? Overpowered for sure but it's enjoyable all the same.

[Ian]

Given that, if you stick with one team, it tends to become an endless parade of trophies anyway why would you intentionally easy-mode the actual good bit of the game?

Not having a dig, if you're enjoying it then who gives a shit. Just wondering.

[Smjffy]

Just to say I completed it with Vauxhall Motors, really. It's been an endless love affair on FM.

[Dark Soldier]

Some home and away one DS posted early doors, it was in that thread but I don't even use the away one now. Just the home. You want it? Overpowered for sure but it's enjoyable all the same.

Either my 4122, 4411 or the Too Sweets 442 I'm guessing.

442 is this year's tactic by far. Easy to win with anyone as long as you have the broken throw in/free kick exploits.

[Smjffy]

Too Sweet is the one. It's a doddle. I don't know if it has the exploits though, probably if it's this overpowered already.

[Bam]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TWYcQ8tAKg

[randomlegend]

Mbappe for £320m, yes or no?

[Giggles]

Mbappe for £320m, yes or no?

For what he'd make, yes.

EDIT: Shit, I though this was the transfer thread.

[bruhnaldo]

Mbappe for £320m, yes or no?

Why not it's fake money

[Ian]

Even in FM where I'm at the point where I have all the money I'm ever gonna need I invariably baulk at anything about about £50m.

Though I did spend £150m on a teenage striker who in the years since has got himself to something like 108 goals in 102 games for England. Such a realistic simulation.

[Spikey M]

Even in FM where I'm at the point where I have all the money I'm ever gonna need I invariably baulk at anything about about £50m.

Ian Levy :drool:

[Ian]

At this point in my FM15 save when I occasionally dip back in Newcastle probably have enough money to just buy an island somewhere and start our own country.

[Raoul Duke]

FM20 is going to be available on Google Stadia: https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/1137308/Football-Manager-2020-Google-Stadia

I think this means you can technically play any league configuration on some frickin super computer via Chrome :| (with a subscription)

[SvN]

FM is the perfect sort of game for that.

[SvN]

Imagine how many people are going to be playing at work :D

[Ian]

I bet there are already people who leave their home PC on so they can stream FM from work computers.

Though for people who work in places that have a proper IT set up stopping that sort of shit yeah, this would make it a piece of piss.

[randomlegend]

I bet there are already people who leave their home PC on so they can stream FM from work computers.

Though for people who work in places that have a proper IT set up stopping that sort of shit yeah, this would make it a piece of piss.

My brother used to do that.

[Smjffy]

Licence's might be an issue on browsers. No edit files init so fake Germany etc?

[Raoul Duke]

Licence's might be an issue on browsers. No edit files init so fake Germany etc?

Germany is licensed now, isn't it?

[Spikey M]

Nope.

Well, the teams don't have proper names without downloading a pack, anyway.

[Mike]

1137820935082401793

[Ian]

I just got my post-season string of "Where are they now?" and "Team of the [whatever]" news items on my endless FM15 save.

I don't think he was ever a first-choice in my team and yet the fans' Best Ever XI thing still has Aarons in it from way back at the start of the save. Cristiano Rolando. :cool:

If FM19 is on the GamePass thing I may actually do the first-month-for-a-quid thing for some FM19, if only to serve as a reminder to myself of why I don't want to spend money on a new one.

[SvN]

Those things always seem so random. In one of my games where I took FC United to the Champions League, the starting keeper 15 years on was still the guy who played a single season in the conference.

[Ian]

I mean all the others in mine make sense, and Aarons is on the club legends list and was a bit of a Solskjaer-esque figure for much of that time. Not a striker but he often came on and did game-changing things back when I wasn't just obliterating everybody.

[Ian]

Also forgot to see when it was doing the big end of season save and showing me the leaderboards and stuff Disco was top of the "My Friends" bit for.... Everton? I think? Or Southampton, but I think Southampton was Cord.

The only problem was I couldn't see what my points were so I've no idea if it was comparatively pitiful. Either way, well done, Disco, mate. You are the king of my Steam friends at FM15.

[Baz]

Was anyone else (me) on there?

[Ian]

I'll have a look when I'm home tonight. There were about 8 people on there in total I think so I'd say there's a good chance you were on there.

[Baz]

So long as I’m not bottom.

I fear FM15 was before I realised fixing the likes of Porto (FCP) meant you didn’t rank on the steam leaderboard though.

[Disco]

Also forgot to see when it was doing the big end of season save and showing me the leaderboards and stuff Disco was top of the "My Friends" bit for.... Everton? I think? Or Southampton, but I think Southampton was Cord.

The only problem was I couldn't see what my points were so I've no idea if it was comparatively pitiful. Either way, well done, Disco, mate. You are the king of my Steam friends at FM15.

Steam reckons I've played that game for over 5000 hours (in reality I just used to leave it running 24/7) so I should be ok at it. Odd that it picks a save in which I won nothing at all.

[Ian]

Baz You're not on there, but I took a load of people off my Steam list if I also had them on Discord chats so that'll be why.
Disco I dunno how it choses what save if I do "All Time" but if I choose single game you're still top but with Exeter, which accounts for about two thirds of your points.

[Disco]

The Mighty Grecians :cool:

[SincereTheRebel]

Is there any website where I can view old football manager player profiles from past FM/CM games? For example, I want to see David Silva first ever profile in FM/CM. He was still at Valencia at the time.

[Gray Fox]

You're probably better off going to your local CeX store and buying a physical copy. All of the first FM versions are 50p each in there.

The only other way I could see is if someone on one of the FM fan sites still has the old games and is willing to look for you.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Down to £12.91 on Steam.

Tempting.

[Smjffy]

2010

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/attachments/football-manager-2010-fm-stories/15459d1258062512-valencia-los-che-rise-depths-21.-david-silva-2.png

2012

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S1qGUm7Apsw/U_NqPgqD6yI/AAAAAAAAVH8/gybmUQSvjiA/s1600/Football%2BManager_David%2BSilva_%2BOverview%2BPro file.jpg

2013

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/attachments/football-manager-2013-discussion/310158d1360599062-guide-citizens-manchester-city-guide-david-silva_-overview-profile.png

2014

http://fmscreenshots1.weebly.com/uploads/8/0/0/0/800049/1996111_orig.png

2007?

http://lh4.ggpht.com/raydenvm/SGanF7UqwJI/AAAAAAAABwE/MqDkw-gdCpI/image7.png?imgmax=800

[Baz]

Did you grab them Smiffy, or is there an online resource?

[Smjffy]

I used my Google skills.

David Silva Football Manager Championship Manager > Images > Date 2000-2008. You probably can find them all if you had time but hard to know if they are using updates etc.

[SincereTheRebel]

I used my Google skills.

David Silva Football Manager Championship Manager > Images > Date 2000-2008. You probably can find them all if you had time but hard to know if they are using updates etc.

I tried to search for it, but couldnt find actual screenshots consistently. Surely, there is some revenue to me made from soneone running a historic FM/CM database of player stats

[SincereTheRebel]

I want 33%

[Smjffy]

I read only a few days ago about a YouTuber who created the World Cup and played it X amount of times, invited X amount of others to do the same and made some money on it. I believe France won, England finished 4th and Kane was top goalscorer.

I don't see what you would be able to do using past databases though nor would Si allow it given they rent the database out anyway, right?

[Smjffy]

https://youtu.be/WMcBng_dKzc?t=1689

[Baz]

I tried to search for it, but couldnt find actual screenshots consistently. Surely, there is some revenue to me made from soneone running a historic FM/CM database of player statsI wish I could do that, even if no money was to be made.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/8BlJ1OU.png

Easy one to start with.

Big 5 leagues, Poland and Cyprus all with the lowest league possible thanks to Classen.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Just got rejected by Stowmarket Town :(

That was my chance to manage the GREAT Titus Bramble.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/vGyixw1.png

:moop:

I got loads of messages that I was the favourite too and I had the fan support.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/AE3U5fS.png

https://i.imgur.com/bGYBqYZ.png

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

I wanted to win every game in the league.

[Smjffy]

That defense though....:drool:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/lZM1aVR.png

That one bastard slip up :moop:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/MGXfxIC.png

I didn't know this was a thing.

Why is it a thing? What's the point?

[Gray Fox]

Does the game give you an option to praise him or comment on it in a press conference?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

A local supporters group demanded that I terminate his contract.

[Shindig]

Hold firm. Being sacked for the outrage would be a great way to go out.

[Smjffy]

I'd rather they include stuff like that as opposed to when Harchester made an appearance.

[Baz]

https://i.imgur.com/MGXfxIC.png

I didn't know this was a thing.

Why is it a thing? What's the point?Realism.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/GaNc19f.png

https://i.imgur.com/m1jZct0.png

The fuck? In the first half it felt like every time we had the ball we were going to score.

They had only conceded 27 in their previous 33 games.

Think I'm going to stay on and have a crack at the Ekstraklasa but we're losing our top goalscorer (he was on loan from Lyon and I didn't realise his contract was expiring until he signed for someone in the top league :moop:). Also have my two full backs and best two MC's leaving as they were on loan.

[Baz]

What tactic you using? :eyemouth:

[Spikey M]

Second :eyemouth:

[Gray Fox]

I've been tempted to do one of those smaller country saves trying to win the Champions League.

However I don't know how I'd cope when it got to the point of the league being won without question but still only scraping out of group stages or barely into the quarter finals. I reckon that could be a good 4-5 seasons worth right there.

[Yevrah]

It's a pain in the arse, or at least it used to be, as your entire first 11 constantly wants to leave.

[Gray Fox]

It's a pain in the arse, or at least it used to be, as your entire first 11 constantly wants to leave.

I imagine if you'd have to get a league where you'd have a proper rival or two. Portugal whilst not being one of the big 3 seems like a good bet, but it's not exactly a smaller country.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I did it with Anorthorsis Famagusta.

The Cypriot league was piss easy within 2/3 seasons but it took a good 8 seasons I think to win the Champions League.

I was winning every match easily even with youth prospects.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/WO9WanZ.png

Thought we were going to fuck them again when the 4th went in.

Was away though tbf.

[Clunge]

I did it with Steaua recreating '86. Was a massive slog but I got there in the end.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/AS65jzg.png

https://i.imgur.com/tlHmQre.png

From champions to, potentially, relegation.

[Baz]

What tactic you using? :eyemouth:
Sir Andy Mahowry

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Oh, I just downloaded the 4-3-3 Goalmachine on Steam.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/ldwdRkB.png

Fun times.

[Pleb]

Europa League confirmed then.

[Gray Fox]

Not if the Character One is still at Celtic. It'll be death by football.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Two games in and the group is lol.

I lost 3-2 in Scotland but nudged past Madrid in Poland 2-1.

We're top of the group as Madrid beat Juventus in the first game and they beat Celtic in their second game.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/NEzpS34.png

Fuck you pay me.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/4p47pbM.png

https://i.imgur.com/yw7MShv.png

:drool:

We almost didn't even make it to the group stage because we almost fucked up to AEK in the second round of qualification. They scored an early goal in the first leg and we had a CB sent off after 10 minutes (they didn't check VAR and his suspension was overturned so fuck the ref). Youngster sent a penalty massively wide in the 70th minute but we got a goal back not long after. They then got a penalty which 35 year old Jamie Vardy put away who grabbed another in the 94th minute. Thankfully we humped them 5-1 in the second leg.

[Pleb]

Doing the double over Juve?

Jesus :drool:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/XVTec7I.png

Ugly.

Edit: We've had Takeover is on/Takeover is done messages for 5 fucking months and we're now days away from the pissing transfer window.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/FWQMKa2.png

Annoyingly Napoli's first goal (second leg) saw my goalkeeper dropkick the ball right into an attacker's chest which bounced right into the net.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/c71hOSr.png

Close competition.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Accepted some bids for a Niclas Fullkrug (I'm now Hannover manager) and he rejected them all and now the squad have taken me to a meeting telling me I need to let him go...

[John Arne]

I took over at Chelsea after 1 season (so now) and decided to get rid of all the absolute dross hanging around... recouped 315m.....

https://gyazo.com/563fc32a84dfefa966f586c1d99498f8.png

https://gyazo.com/02b64cb2b729943b0a29a60eccf922cb.png

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/Od7W3BL.png

:harold:

Allegri was instantly sacked.

Also, that Demir is their player who I took on loan this year which is fun.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/S7AQZFS.png

SUPER FINAL TITLE CHALLENGE MEGATHON SATURDAY is going to be huge.

Gladbach have 11th placed RB Leipzig at home, Schalke have 9th placed Wolfsburg away and we have Bayern away which should be fun.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/BIuBF4X.png

Donned by Bayern :( Although the Munchers won so wouldn't have made any difference.

Did like finishing above Bayer Leverkusen though. They rejected me, were predicted to finish third compared to us at ninth so me > them.

[Gray Fox]

How many saves do you have on the go?


Looking to start my European journey with a smaller country as FIFA dies off. Though I'll be doing it on FM16 as I'm a cheap bastard.

I'll be looking for a league that isn't a full on slog, so not too long a league season and preferably not 2/3 domestic cups either. A league low down in the coefficient rankings is ideal too. I was looking at the Scandinavian countries but their league season seems to run at an off time to the European competition. For example Norways starts in April and ends in November. This essentially means your R16 Champions League fixture would be right in the middle of their off-season.

There'd be a few aims in the save.

1. Dominate domestically - Aiming inside 2-3 years to get the point of doing so. Upgrading facilities should be a key point to get done ASAP.

2. Improve the League coefficient. This is probably the hardest part of the save as this is reliant on other clubs in the league playing ball too. There's a few key milestones which should help the league towards improvement. 15th improves the rounds at which you enter qualifying across the league. 12th place guarantees a team in the CL and UL group stages. 6th adds an extra CL group stage spot and anything 3rd or better is the promised land.

This one is a tough one to put a time on. It'll be at least 6 seasons due to the rolling coefficient number. However I may never get into a CL group stage which would slow the progress down. Or the rest of the league could end up useless and make it impossible to go beyond a certain point

3. Win a European competition. 1 + 2 should equal 3. Time taken depends entirely on point 2. It's probably going to take a good 10 years to get to the point of mixing it up in the knockouts of the CL at least. However the Europa could prove a little easier.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Just the one.

Here is my history:

https://i.imgur.com/Pz1gLsV.png

[Limoutsonik]

How many saves do you have on the go?


Looking to start my European journey with a smaller country as FIFA dies off. Though I'll be doing it on FM16 as I'm a cheap bastard.

I'll be looking for a league that isn't a full on slog, so not too long a league season and preferably not 2/3 domestic cups either. A league low down in the coefficient rankings is ideal too. I was looking at the Scandinavian countries but their league season seems to run at an off time to the European competition. For example Norways starts in April and ends in November. This essentially means your R16 Champions League fixture would be right in the middle of their off-season.

There'd be a few aims in the save.

1. Dominate domestically - Aiming inside 2-3 years to get the point of doing so. Upgrading facilities should be a key point to get done ASAP.

2. Improve the League coefficient. This is probably the hardest part of the save as this is reliant on other clubs in the league playing ball too. There's a few key milestones which should help the league towards improvement. 15th improves the rounds at which you enter qualifying across the league. 12th place guarantees a team in the CL and UL group stages. 6th adds an extra CL group stage spot and anything 3rd or better is the promised land.

This one is a tough one to put a time on. It'll be at least 6 seasons due to the rolling coefficient number. However I may never get into a CL group stage which would slow the progress down. Or the rest of the league could end up useless and make it impossible to go beyond a certain point

3. Win a European competition. 1 + 2 should equal 3. Time taken depends entirely on point 2. It's probably going to take a good 10 years to get to the point of mixing it up in the knockouts of the CL at least. However the Europa could prove a little easier.

Greece?Olympiakos is your best bet but you can always try to bring Panathinaikos back to their glory days of title wins and decent European placements.PAOK or AEK don't have the roster quality like their 2019 equivalents so these 2 are another worthy mentions.

[Gray Fox]

Greece?Olympiakos is your best bet but you can always try to bring Panathinaikos back to their glory days of title wins and decent European placements.PAOK or AEK don't have the roster quality like their 2019 equivalents so these 2 are another worthy mentions.

I like the look of AEK if I were to go Greek. Although they are due to move into a 32k seater stadium about 3 years into the save. Downsizing from a 70k stadium seems a bit of a bummer. What's happened there?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Not being able to register u17s (pre January 1st of the coming year) or loan out anyone under 18 is really fucking annoying in Germany.

https://i.imgur.com/5I6S2Zu.png

Can't wait until he starts moaning after signing him as a Key Player from Real Madrid for £20m.

Also have a few 17 year olds in the squad that I bought last year who can now be registered for me but can't be loaned out.

[Gray Fox]

Looking through at the structure of some leagues and came across this gem for Finland:

https://i.gyazo.com/2356d67802c5da90e740b3481eebe069.png

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Wouldn't it have just been easier to list which nations aren't treated as EU?

[Limoutsonik]

I like the look of AEK if I were to go Greek. Although they are due to move into a 32k seater stadium about 3 years into the save. Downsizing from a 70k stadium seems a bit of a bummer. What's happened there?

At that point in time,they have their home matches in OAKA(National Football stadium) via lease so that's why.In 2019 in real life,this stadium is being built as we speak. And they won the championship 2 years ago.So there,bit of a history lesson.

[Gray Fox]

After narrowing it down to Croatia, Austria or Greece I thought I'd check CD keys for the price of the newer versions just on the off chance of avoiding the above mentioned gap in time.

FM18 is only £4 and 19 is £13.

I'll probably pick on of those versions up and carry on with it instead, assuming both will run more efficiently as each version seems to.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/jwhCF1O.png

We've got a good chance here.

We play Porto away with Madrid hosting Chelsea.

[Raoul Duke]

Why haven't you got the real names/badges, you degenerate?

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

There aren't any proper packs on the workshop.

[bruhnaldo]

I got FM19 mobile version and tbh i'm kinda annoyed with it at the moment.

Just seems harder to do literally anything, which makes sense but, also might be down to the fact out of 5 games in charge I only scored 1 goal.

[wullie]

I'm still on the original save I started on the first day, might be my longest game ever. Won everything as Cov in 2034 and I've got one season until we move into a 60000-seater named after me. An official club legend icon god, yet I still have to threaten to quit in order to get the physios a pay rise.

[Mazuuurk]

I don't understand why they don't adress these things.

They don't really need to change much each year (and they don't, right), but what they really, really, really should be focusing on is sitting down and thinking about all the different scenarios that they have created that just are not nuanced at all.

It's the same as agents basing their salary demands on talents off of the PA or whatever it is, rather than how well known they actually are, if other clubs are currently interested, etc, or one of your star players wanting to leave to a "bigger club" in the same league after you've won said league 4 years in a row or something, all that stuff.

[Ian]

They need to tear the whole thing to bits, take a few years off and start from scratch but why the hell would they when they've got willing idiots who will hand over a load of money for a lick of paint every single year?

If I had the OS to do that Game Pass for PC thing I was gonna give it a go but when Cord tells me the latest bullshit* going on in his save I'm glad it didn't work and I can just play my FM15 save when I get the itch.

* Of course by this I mean "a lot of the same bullshit that's been in the game for a decade."

[Spikey M]

I don't understand why they don't adress these things.

They don't really need to change much each year (and they don't, right), but what they really, really, really should be focusing on is sitting down and thinking about all the different scenarios that they have created that just are not nuanced at all.

It's the same as agents basing their salary demands on talents off of the PA or whatever it is, rather than how well known they actually are, if other clubs are currently interested, etc, or one of your star players wanting to leave to a "bigger club" in the same league after you've won said league 4 years in a row or something, all that stuff.

That fucks me off every time I play this game. I'll have a Southend United team with back to back League and cup doubles, CL wins, the works, but Arsenal or Chelsea pop up for one of my rotation players, despite winning nothing for 8 years, and the whole team is in uproar for standing in the way of the prick taking a 'step up'.

It can't even be that hard to fix.

[Mazuuurk]

Yeah they just need to introduce a "reasonability" score for everything that happens.

Is this a reasonable reaction of Player / Agent / whatever? NO. It's not fucking reasonable.

[wullie]

Having to make promises to improve parts of the team really shouldn't apply when you're champions of Europe and winning titles at a canter too.

[John Arne]

Only 9 for finishing... but 19 and 6' 7"

https://gyazo.com/800ed5dfd6532c8a8f020c4f3b2fdc32.jpeg

[Gray Fox]

Make that lad a false 9.

The above issues are to do with the reputation system. It just can't keep up with you improving quickly. That and them never really adding massive new features stops me buying this every year. I did from 05-12, but these days I think I tend to buy every 3 years.

I'll probably pick 19 up later for £13 and be good for a few more years.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Interviews need an overhaul/removing too.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They've needed to completely overhaul it (focusing on gameplay/recruitment) for about five years. It's almost unplayable for an employed person. Everyone wss perfectly happy when your players were compliant goat-men.

[Spikey M]

As an aside, I hate the way scouting and training works now. Possibly the only area they didn't need to play with and they fucked it.

[Clunge]

FM Touch 17 remains the best compromise for me. It's pretty much flawless, if a bit basic in places, runs superbly and is reasonably up-to-date.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/X4rpiWJ.png

3 of my back 4 suspended, brilliant.

Annoyingly/stupidly, I only have one other CB that isn't complete horseshit.

Lost our first league game in 15 with the shithead CB being at fault for 2 of the 3 goals.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/p4AuJZA.png

https://i.imgur.com/9mb9Grw.png

What a man.

Into the Semi-Final of the Champions League.

Also, the 'papers' went for Classy Coco. I was half expecting the game to go with Colourful Coco.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/BHUb67w.png

Barcelona completely turned us over. The 4-2 first leg was going to be much worse as were losing 4-0 until injury time.

https://i.imgur.com/ZorBLxr.png

Took the league though which is nice.

[Gray Fox]

After some looking around I've ended up falling on Randers FC.

The Blue Horses play in the Danish Superliga, home to the more well known names of Kobenhavn, Aalborg, Brondby and Midtjylland.

The league currently stands at 17th in the coefficient table, below Greece and Croatia. This means there are currently 4 European spots(1 CL, 3 EL) however all teams have to go through the qualifying phase. 12th spot in the table is needed to guarantee a team into the Europa League group stage, whilst 10th gets one in each.
In the early part of the save, we'll need the other Danish teams to win as many games as possible.

The Superliga itself starts with a 26 game season, each team playing each other twice. The league then breaks off into two. The Championship group, which is the top 6 teams and then the Relegation group of the bottom 8 teams.

The club has been slowly sliding towards the bottom of the table over recent years. There isn't a rich history here either. The club has won 4 Danish Cups since formation in 1898. However only 1 of those has come since 1973. This was the best season the club has had, with the cup run combining with a 2nd place league finish. The last success was 2006. Other than that there's only a single other 2nd place finish in the clubs history back in 1918.

I've joined the club having disabled first window budgets. There's a modest £228k in the clubs account and there are average facilities. The stadium is a 11k seater on loan from the council. It will do for now, but it costs £204k per year to rent and the prize money for a 6th place finish is only £860k.

The squad is pretty thread bare and half of it is up for renewal in the coming season or 2. I'll need to figure out who is worth extending and quickly. There's a £55k per week wage budget but we're pretty maxed out on that.

Player wise there is a few decent players here but we're simply outclassed by the big teams in the league. As an example, our highest earner is on £3.6k per week, whilst the likes of Kobenhavn have every player in their first team on more than that. There's a gap to be bridged.

https://i.gyazo.com/c598122a2cb91da1984af82ee706fb8e.png

This is our best player by some distance. Getting the best out of him will be key.

https://i.gyazo.com/bb6c2cb8cfd0186eb13c4f7f4318ebee.png

This is the best youth prospect at the club and he does look good, but maybe not quite yet ready to come straight in.


After that, there's some getting used to things to do. The training and scouting side of things has changed since FM16 so I'll need to adjust. Hopefully this is the start of a long save.

[Baz]

Is that FM18?

[Gray Fox]

Nah it's 19.

[Gray Fox]

End of August and we're sitting pretty top of the Superliga. Though we have played all of the big boys at home so far.

As for Danish teams in Europe. Brondby and Nordsjælland both lost quite early in the qualifying stages. Whilst Midtjylland got to the last stage of the CL qualifying stages, they lost out right at the death as they threw away a 2-0 away win to lose 3-0 at home to Young Boys. They drop into the Europa League but have got a group of Chelsea, Braga and Spartak Moscow.
Kobenhavn were also going well in the qualifiers for this, but drew RB Leipzig in the last round and are out too.

[Smjffy]

I've gone CM0102 with the March update and Tapani's patch. If only FM was like this. :drool:

[Gray Fox]

After playing everyone once we're in good shape:

https://i.gyazo.com/e39c9840127c593659a6330c08ee3d00.png

Us and Kobenhavn have has opposite seasons so far. They started slow and then have gone on a run including beating us at their place, which is the difference. We got revenge in the Cup knocking them out in the same fixture after they had an early red card.

The Danish Cup seems to separate all of the Superliga teams out until the 4th round so really you could win a cup in 4 reasonably hard games.

Annoyingly though the club is now £750k in the red. At this rate any prize money gained will be wiped out between that and the stadium costs.

EDIT:

https://i.gyazo.com/53610c87d7ec62a4c1fc3c6558ddc666.png

Top lads. Unfortunately they've been drawn against Arsenal so that's the end of that.

[Gray Fox]

https://i.gyazo.com/e913d9acb1efeeec3ba0a6d92b28aee4.png

Just about stumbled over the line there and into the championship group. Top 2 go into Europe qualifying phases automatically, whilst 3rd goes into what they call a European play-off final, with the rest into the full play-offs.
We've scored only 1 goal less than Kobenhavn which tells me the defence is what's holding us back. I currently only have 2 proper CBs though and one is refusing to sign a new deal and will leave at seasons end.

Into the cup semi-final too. Local derby against AGF awaits.

We got about £2m in for the original league finish, which sent the books back to 0 but we're losing money again. High profile friendlies are needed as well as European money ASAP.

[Gray Fox]

https://i.gyazo.com/c95b7ea8a26f4fb8e23a426df6bb420f.png

Not a bad first season by any stretch.

However in the off season it became clear that money was going to be a bit tight. So much so that when a bid came in of £3.6m for our star player previously pictured, the chairman stepped in and accepted it on my behalf.
However my % of transfer revenue was quite low on account of the club seemingly leaking money last season.

So I arranged for 3 defenders to come in on free transfers, so the club now has 4 actual and capable centre backs. I also demanded a training ground upgrade. This left us a little wiggle room, so I've brought in Curtis Jones on loan from Liverpool and signed Lewis Wing from 'Boro. He comes in for £1.3m and is instantly the best midfielder at the club. We also have him on a big wage for us, but a 3 year extension clause means I'm not giving him a new deal.

With a much improved defence and new star midfielder the idea is to push on into 2nd place in the table. Kobenhavn are lol amounts better than the rest of the league so we're hoping they can make European progress. Speaking of, this is a crucial year. As the coefficients are a rolling 6 years, we have an awful 2.900 season coming off this time around.
We could really do with someone making the group stage. The draw for the CL sees Kobenhavn up against Maccabi Tel Aviv, however in the EL we have drawn Bate/Kesla. OB have Sporting and Aalborg have Montpellier. There's another round to navigate after that for everyone as well so it's going to be tricky.
But current projections have us up to 12th place which would give us a guaranteed team in the EL group stage. That could easily start us snowballing into the top 10.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Just had a player, who is signing for Liverpool in 12 days, get injured for 4-5 weeks :harold:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/Zq7PReC.png

:harold:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

https://i.imgur.com/OHDYiQl.png

lol.

[bruhnaldo]

lollll

[P_3]

My biggest achievement. Managing the guy to 205 caps. I couldn't get him to reconsider. :(

https://i.gyazo.com/bad594afaf6953a9ff19e1b452f11796.png

[wullie]

Started a side game as Motherwell and was middling around 6th, at the start of November Charlton sacked Lee Bowyer while 23rd in League One so I made the jump there. They weren't losing lots of games but had instead drawn 10 out of 16 which made them look a lot worse than they are.

https://i.imgur.com/sKm3660.jpg?1

Fixed them right up nice, now I'm going to try and use my miracle powers to fuck off into a primo job somewhere else

[Gray Fox]

Got back after some time back home and am back into it.

We've made a flying start in the league winning 6 of 6, though we did this least season. The additions of Wing and Curtis Jones seem to have knocked us up a gear now. They're quite noticeably better than those they have replaced. We also enter the Danish Cup at the 3rd round this year and are playing someone from the 3rd tier of Danish football.

In Europe is the big story though. We were looking at what was going to be a 3 way battle for 12th spot on the coefficient list. We're set to be on the back of Austria and Belgium.
However crucially, after getting to the final qualifying round of the CL, Kobenhavn lost on pens to go out to Basel. This does at least put them into the group stages of the Europa League though.
OB are the starts here though. They beat Sporting 1-0 away after a 0-0 home draw and followed that up by beating Sociedad 4-1 away after a 2-0 home loss.

We got by BATE and Viktoria Plzen with relative ease. That gives us 3 teams in the groups which is fantastic for us. However Austria managed to sneak both RB Salzburg and Sturm Graz into the CL groups. They also have Austria Vienna and Rapid in the Europa League.
The Belgians have Anderlecht in the CL groups but then have Genk, Gent, Brugge and STVV. Sticking with them may be a challenge, but we go on to the group draw:

https://i.gyazo.com/9bd3496d02bb5a03bd67d228f8abc10f.png

https://i.gyazo.com/3553f2c3c333a361d31512c607306b9e.png

https://i.gyazo.com/526230bcd0a9d59cbe6a65436a18264e.png

As you can see both us and OB have a job on our hands with the coefficient in mind, however all 3 of us have groups we could very well get out of. But this the clubs first crack at Europe, so I'm just out to enjoy the ride.

It's also been financially profitable. We got £2.6m just for getting this far and it's another £500k for every win. That's given the club a lot of breathing room. I'm going to look at upgrades to see what I can get.
Lastly, the option for the club to buy the stadium now exists. Does anyone know about how much this would cost? I wouldn't mind the club cutting off one of its biggest costs, but don't want to set us back a few years doing it.

[Gray Fox]

We've just hit the winter break in season 2 so it's another time to take stock.

https://i.gyazo.com/eee6a1ca238275271bf71228c1856384.png

We started off flying. 11 wins of the first 13 games. There has been a bit of a stumble since then. We were at one point 9 points clear going into a game against Kobenhavn. They beat us and have closed right up. We really did start to run out of steam massively in December. The Europa League games taking it out of us. Still there's definite improvement on last season.

And speaking of Europe.

https://i.gyazo.com/c61e91f32583094266dfc1d71f33da32.png

Both us and Kobenhavn made it through to the first knockout round. However, they have drawn Leverkusen and we have got Valencia. That'll likely be that. But in coefficient news all of the Austrian teams are out of Europe so we're moving above them to 12th in the list. This means a guaranteed EL group spot for someone, and 2 teams into the CL qualification stages too.
Essentially the champions next season will only need to win 1 tie to get into the CL group stages.

The revenue from even the EL is helping massively. I've had the youth facilities upgraded and even with that sit on £6.4m in the bank. I'm hoping for a bumper transfer kitty come the summer. I want to go regen shopping.

[Gray Fox]

https://i.gyazo.com/b937dfe5743eea64c64fa3e688f04d55.png

Went out of Europe as expected, though Kobenhavn held on for another round. Because of this we're going above the Austrians next year and also by the finest of margins, the Belgians. We'll also be breathing right down the neck of the Turks and Ukrainians.

I'd like to finish the good league form off, but we now play the others in the championship group home and away. We really need to not lose to our 2 biggest rivals.

[Gray Fox]

https://i.gyazo.com/ee5e671b496f1c275eaa01133d3f4bea.png

Final day decider it is. We've had 2 games to get a win to seal it and bottled both. We're away at Midtjylland and they have AGF away. A point gives us the title, as does them failing to win.

EDIT: 2-0 win for them, but 3-1 win for us take it home. :rave:

[Gray Fox]

It's been a quiet old summer really. The board gave me a generous £2.4m to spend. However as I've found. Aside from loaning either young, or out of favour players on low wages, it's been tricky to add.
I've only just been able to afford proper scouts and by this time, most of the regens are all being tracked by the big boys. I nearly had a steal of a young goalkeeper for about £1m but Porto turned up and got him at the last minute.
Add in that no one really fancies us yet. Makes it tricky.

Still there's 2 pieces of big news. Firstly:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/531585674701438977/607210935827955752/e869dedfd987aa0a4b0a2c5f1e58b7ad.png

I don't know if this is permanent, or just because of who went down last year. Either way it cuts 4 games off the season.

But the bigger news is we've knocked Celtic out and gone into the group stages of the Champions League. That win was worth £13m which is more than double we had in our bank. The bad news is we've drawn Atletico, Shakthar and Benfica. We'll get a pasting, but it'll be worth it for the money. However it's £800k for a draw and £2.4m for any win.
Trying to pick on some complacency could land us some valuable cash.

Coming in, we loaned Van der Heide from United and Max Olivera(left back) from Fiorentina, for the cost of their wages. We also extended Curtis Jones for the season and got Matt Smith from City for free, no wage or fee. However Smith right after the CL draw has broken his leg and is all but useless to us now.
Then we got our steal of the window. Goalkeeper Andre Ferreira joins for a low £325k and will be our new keeper. Lastly we arranged one for the future in this guy:

https://i.gyazo.com/2c62d045440188b287635557799cc860.png

He'll cost us £1m, but he does come with a problem I've noted a lot. All of the agents are sticking in low release clauses.

This guy has a £3m one and I hope to negotiate that away as soon as I can.

[Raoul Duke]

That CB looks potentially mega. Enjoying the updates, GF :thbup:

[Gray Fox]

Cheers. It's actually proving the challenge I wanted. It's not easy just to get all the great regens in and I've got the thorn in my side I wanted in Kobenhavn. They started this season with 6 wins from 6, whilst I've already dropped points having rested to get through the CL qualifiers.

Disappointingly though we are the only Danish team left in Europe at the group stage. We are currently 11th in the co-efficient list. This means that this season, the league winners will be going into the final champions play off round, runners up will get into the best place play off R2. Meanwhile we get 3 Europa League places including 1 guaranteed into the group stage.
I also believe if the team who wins the league loses in their play off, they go into the Europe League groups too.

We were set to go into 9th, which would give us a guaranteed team in either competitions groups, as well as 4 other spots split between. But it's all on us. If we can do it, the next target is 6th on the list. That's about as far as we can realistically go without help from the rest of the league.

That CB looks quality, but because of that bloody clause we're going to either only have him for a year, or we're going to be upping his wages quickly. It's been the same for every negotiation with agents putting that clause in. But the good thing about this league as it is, is that any of these promising 17/18 year olds can come in and play straight away.
The added bonus as raising the leagues rep is the value of players goes up naturally. As an example, when I came in, the winger I showed was the only player worth £1m in the club. We now have 10(2 loanees), with Lewis Wing being valued at £3.7m. Until we start getting budgets of £20m+ the idea is to bring in as many players for £1-2m and sell them for profit. It all goes back into the club and the cycle starts over. As such we've brought in this guy for £725k too:

https://i.gyazo.com/28e2a41b79eb646c6f3e3ff5935857c3.png

[Gray Fox]

We reach the winter break in Denmark at what I feel is a bit of an odd time. We've played 19 games, which thanks to the news earlier about losing 2 teams, means the first stage of the league only has 3 games left. Still it's going okay:

https://i.gyazo.com/091b4fc31eef112daeb5a242fce34c28.png

The early European games knocked us a little and at one point Kobenhavn had 8 wins from 8. I was wondering how we'd catch them. But we have plugged away at it and find ourselves right there. Of the 3 league games left before the Championship phase, we still have to play them at home as well as the bottom 2 away.
The good news is because of us rising up the coefficient list, 4 of the 6 teams in the Championship group will qualify for Europe, with 1 further place earned in a play off. I'm just hoping it doesn't start to create a divide in the league.

As for the Danish cup, I'm not sure if I mentioned it but we went out last year in the Quarter finals to Aalborg in extra time. We're up to that stage again and this time play Hobro. They are local rivals, though not our derby, but are in the league below after relegation last season and struggling there.

Now onto Europe and a pleasant surprise.

https://i.gyazo.com/a24fefb200abbbf2145224d46d8af839.png

We beat Shakhtar home and away(6-0), who were bloody awful throughout. We also beat Benfica at home in a very narrow and lucky 1-0 win, thanks to Phil Jones(yes) giving us a penalty. We then went away to Benfica and were 3-1 up and loving it. Then our loanee LB decided to two-foot someone. Then came the onslaught. They hit the bar and post late on and we just about scampered away with a 3-3 draw. This proved crucial as we lost again to Atletico on the final day. Things could have been very different.

This means we will gain another £8m just for appearing in the first knockout rounds. Though we did draw Man Utd so we wont be going any further.

This money has been great now. The training facilities were upped to excellent with the latest completion. It gave me the option to upgrade again straight away, so I demanded it and the board said no. A leak to the press later and then a little whinge and they put £3.7m into it and it's in development. Shows me the board will pretty much give me what I want. With that in mind I did the same for the youth facilities. After those 2 have been paid out, we still have £27m in the bank and that will go up further with CL TV money, reward for the round we reached and the Danish league prize money. With a bit of luck we could be on about £40m by the end of the season.
With that being the case I may explore buying the stadium to make the club completely self sufficient.

In other news from around. I missed that Bournemouth finished 4th last year and got themselves into the CL groups. They got Sevilla, Dortmund and Besiktas and went and won that group.

Lastly I'm looking to push on tactically. I've been working to make us more dominant in the league after spending 2 years playing a 4-4-2 very often. I'm looking to a counter pressing 4-2-3-1 and it has worked well. Though I really now need that next level of player to come in. The coming summer is going to be huge.

2 of our 3 best players are on loans, whilst we have 4-5 members of the rotating squad with contracts set to expire and most of them seem to want to double their money to stay.

[Yevrah]

Yeah, good read this Fox.

[Danny]

https://qz.com/1636057/football-manager-2019-has-a-racism-problem/?utm_source=reddit.com

:rosebud:

Agree with Yev, it’s an entertaining read. I always read these stories, think about playing it and realize I just cannot be arsed.

[phonics]

When’s the new one out for me to buy and never play?

[Giggles]

Normally November or so isn't it?

[Gray Fox]

Appreciate the feedback lads. Really enjoying it so far.

Back into the game for the winter window to open and a £3.1m bid has come in for one of our rotational players that the squad wants me to keep. Board has transfer revenue % really low so I doubt I'll be able to reinvest.

[Jimmy Floyd]

https://qz.com/1636057/football-manager-2019-has-a-racism-problem/?utm_source=reddit.com

:rosebud:

Agree with Yev, it’s an entertaining read. I always read these stories, think about playing it and realize I just cannot be arsed.

lol, Miles will have kicked the cat up the chimney once that hit his inbox.

[Gray Fox]

The window has SLAMMED SHUT and I managed to go without losing anyone, though our top scorer from seasons 1 and 2 has agreed a deal to leave at the end of the season for free.

As for the incoming, we did some tidy, if unspectacular work. I've managed to extend Curtis Jones for yet another season, though I think that one will be his last. Then come 2 additions, that aren't wow, but I think will work out long term. First, Paulo Estrela has been arranged to come in on a free at the end of the season. He screams average at everything, but with a decent amount of growing room. He'll get way more game time here and he's still young enough to develop. I wouldn't mind selling him on in a year or two, but a good squad guy to have.

https://i.gyazo.com/df61b2f61cbabb6b6d2a11df70c4ede9.png


And the other bit of business comes in another CM. Scott Guest. He comes from Aberdeen for the tiny fee of £140k. As before he's more of a buy to sell job as he is better than the fee we got him for.
He's also tiny, which may affect him playing in the team regularly. The will hopefully be a fair few of these kinds of signings. The training facilities to the first team should be the one above excellent(state-of-the-art?) when finished. So I want players to come in, flourish and then move on for a higher fee. More importantly these 2 both have no release clause and no sell on fee % owed to anyone.

https://i.gyazo.com/842f856754d9727e289d23554f954910.png


After that our first game back was Antonio Contes' United in the Champions League. We ended up losing both legs 2-0. Joao Felix and Leon Bailey getting shut of us handily. I don't even remember us having a real shot on goal.

We did however progress in the Superliga and finished the prelim phase top. Only 10 games to go now outside of the Cup.

One final note is we got our youth intake and got a decent prospect, though the assistant values him higher than I think he'll be.

https://i.gyazo.com/4d079c5e969ca61faadfa17e1b1e71b7.png


EDIT: Matt Smith has now returned from a broken leg and is out of contract with City at the end of this season. He wants about 6k per week but the injury has knocked his star rating down a fair bit. I'm not sure what to do with him.

[bruhnaldo]

i'm seriously about to just buy a laptop to play this after reading these lol

[Gray Fox]

Season 3 has come to a close and I'm reasonably happy.

https://i.gyazo.com/2601ec266e4b756115468b7fe2305f7c.png

We weren't quite as good as I'd perhaps hoped, but bedding the new tactic in after the winter break probably cost us a little. I do feel like we stagnated at times, but I think the table flatters us in some ways.
For example, we've played Kobenhavn 5 times this year, once in the cup, and won every game. That says to me that they are actually better against the rest of the league. This is something I'd like to fix moving into the next year.

Moving on to the Danish cup, we flew through into the final where we met the defending champions:

https://i.gyazo.com/953b8b3c7eab752ab6c4b8a3238d44f8.png

Ferreira our bargain goalkeeper, who has been fantastic all season long, picked his worst possible moment to have a 5 rating. He spooned 2 shots directly into the net and the 3rd hit the post and hit him. From 3-0 down we did put on a fight back, but could only claw it back to a 3-2 defeat. Quite gutting as we had the best of the match. This could and should have been a very good double.

Elsewhere around the continent there weren't many surprises. Though we got a mega clash in the CL final. Liverpool v Man City. Liverpool did end up winning it 1-0, funnily enough with a goal from Everton.

That takes us to the coefficient table and the great news is despite going it alone, we move into 9th spot for the coming season. This is huge as what it means is now, whoever wins the league next season goes straight into the CL group stage. 2nd place will go into the last Best Place Play off round. Then 3rd place will go straight into the Europa League groups as well. The next target is to consolidate our position in the top 10 and aim for 6th, as there is no difference between 10th and 7th.

Another thing to note is the attendance at our games. When we started we were tending to get around 40% of the 11k seater stadium filled.

https://i.gyazo.com/6c84d684f19d39ca0378e03c82a337cf.png

This year sees another steady increase and we're now pushing towards capacity. The club however does not own the ground and I'm interested to see what happens should we start to pack it out.

After all the prize money hit this season we were left with £44m in the bank. I've asked for everything I can to be upgraded, with me maybe looking at specialised coaching staff either this season or next. The board has also given me initial budgets.

https://i.gyazo.com/38b5cd9fc1144639de97b1252177a0b5.png

To put this into perspective, last season was £95k p/w and £2.4m. If I cut their wage package in half I can get about £25m of spends, which is massive. The wage I can offer has increased drastically too. Up to £45k p/w for a key player(was £9.5k p/w). And so those 2 seasons of saving whilst being in Europe have paid off massively. The only thing stopping me bringing in some top drawer players will be our reputation. If we're going head to head with Europes elite, we wont win. However if we can find a gem here or there, we could get something good going.

[Gray Fox]

It's been a busy summer at Randers. Armed with all of the riches previously mentioned I went shopping. At first I was frustrated. Some of the regens I had waiting on my shopping list were taken away from us as bigger clubs circled. However as the summer has gone on, I've got happier with my business.

We must first consider the clubs position before looking into it. We're now up to 64th in the club coefficient list. This is vast improvement, however we're not at the point of going out and signing the finished article and wont be any time soon. Thus a scatter-gun approach is almost what is needed. Youth should be targeted and developed.

It should also be pointed out that the club has now used the money in the bank to become debt free. Besides the stadium, we're pretty much self sufficient.

Now onto the juicy stuff. I'll only link the regen players for the sake of space as this will be a long one already.

https://i.gyazo.com/6a88dacd7c02f247a312686834777b38.png

As you can see there has been some good movement in. What's also not listed there is an extension to Van der Heides loan deal. Lettieri finally joins after we agreed that deal way at the start of last season. The loans are mainly to cover positions we lack depth in. Almost all of the deals were pulled off by activating a release clause to foreign clubs. The good news is, besides Moreira, there are no sell on fees or release clauses.

https://i.gyazo.com/ad23dc702f95a783a06691d0323a9f05.png

I was toying with a permanent move for Rissardo, but he came in late when funds were getting low. I was also unsure how a 5"4 full back would do.

https://i.gyazo.com/3027f6442aea28830795cc355766044c.png

Moreria unfortunately wouldn't join without a non-negotiable £3.9m release clause. I'd hate to lose him for that, but it'd still be profit I guess.

https://i.gyazo.com/d622788567dfcec7450cb91f9bd89319.png

Cardozo is one that interests me. He wasn't my first choice in a new striker, but said 1st choice did later become available. His technical and physical stats are very good, but his mentals aren't there. He should still bang them in, in a league like ours but it may put a ceiling on him.


https://i.gyazo.com/81fc56af327193e7382bfe8c0776a010.png


Ristovic was my first choice but has been out with a hip injury. He's not yet back, but other clubs were interested so I thought I had to strike when I did. He's much more well rounded than Cardozo. Since the move though he's been labelled as a wonderkid. I'm hoping between these 2 and Pedersen, we have our strikeforce locked down for years to come.


https://i.gyazo.com/04e2f7db778f23669874fa66d33f19cc.png

Quintana looks tasty. He's good for an 18 year old but I want to see how he copes as almost the focal point of the attack.


https://i.gyazo.com/89898ae028c42a0c7d13233abbc58737.png

Last but not least we have Marinkovic. A tad small, but looks like he could lock down the DM position for a long time. We need players like him for all the dirty work. I found him when we played Partizan in the qualy rounds of the CL last year. We got back to him just in time.


From there we move into the CL groups. Despite me being sure we'd have to, we didn't need to qualify and went straight into the group stage. I'm still not sure how. But we're in it and we've been given our group:

https://i.gyazo.com/a4902cc8f87b9d1bda824ad6c9e0703a.png

Those who have been reading along will notice the group is almost identical to last years. Just swap out Benfica for Olympiakos. I'd like to get out of the group again, but it doesn't escape me that we've had a large turnover of playing staff. This season will be about getting everyone to gel together.

As for our Danish counterparts. Kobenhavn lost in extra time to Braga to fall at the final hurdle and drop into the group stage of the Europa League. Nordsjælland also made it there, so we should have some decent back up in our quest to build the league.
The former have just lost their star man in Fischer to Man City(who also bought Mbappe for ~£180m) and haven't replaced him well. You'll also notice I haven't signed anyone from other Danish teams. I feel it should probably be an imposed rule from here on out in order to improve the rest of the league and avoid a Bayern Munich situation.

[John Arne]

Trying to find the relatively simple stat of 'average rating by position' (I have a fullback that I rotate between LB and RB) and I stumbled upon the analysis page, where I was able to highlight fouls against my full back, on the right hand side of the pitch, during the first 45 minutes, in the 2nd game of the season, whilst attacking. Does anybody actually use this rubbish?

https://gyazo.com/7e0b681e5724916a7264c7bacc5e854f.jpeg

[Baz]

Mantralux.

[Clunge]

Started up a GF-esque challenge with Hajduk Split in Croatia on FMT17. Not sure if FMT though is sophisticated enough for a deep dive into dynamic rep, coefficients, etc. Still, my initial aim is to close the vast gulf to Dinamo. Then look at Europe.

[Gray Fox]

It's great if you're looking for a long term save. I've lost track of the amount of saves where I've got myself to season 5 to find my team is now great and can't be all that bothered to go on with it.
I was also looking at Hajduk as one of my options. You need a big rival in a save like that, or else winning the league will become a cakewalk inside a few years. You also want some help once you break into the group stages of Europe.
I've seen someone do a save in Poland and they're 17 years in. They started at the bottom of Polish football and are now has won the CL in 2 of the past 4 seasons. However the rest of the league are useless so he wins that at a canter and they also make no progress in Europe. He is stuck in 6th in the coefficient table and isn't really near 5th. Dinamo should help you out there.



As for me I've hit the winter break in season 4(2021) and before I get into how things have gone there's a little bit of news to go through.

Firstly, there was a takeover of the club. However it was one where someone from the board took over from the Chairman. I don't believe this actually does anything, however the new guy was very easy to sweet talk into upgrading our facilities again. We are at Superb and Good for those, and another ~£7m now goes into upgrading again.
The stadium will soon become a concern too. We have actually sold out 3 league games so far and have a 97% attendance rate. There's the option to buy, expand or build a new one in the board options. I've no idea which is best so I'm not touching that.

We also had a news item telling me the UK will not be having Brexit after all. Onto the pitch side of things:

https://i.gyazo.com/fcbe88d375b1acb8856f20548a61b514.png

The difference between us and Kobenhavn is the game we won over them. We've been scoring a lot more, but the team isn't quite in sync in some games. I put that down to a lot of foreign players coming in. Still we're attacking well in spells and Cardozo has been great. He has 12 goals in 13(3) games and has the highest average rating in the league.
He actually has 28 in 20(3) games in all competitions too. He's loving it here.

Things did not go so well in the Danish cup however. Our 5th round game was scheduled right in the middle of an international break for u21s and we were missing half of our team away at Aalborg. I cobbled together what I could but it was a 6-2 defeat.

Onto the Champions League though:

https://i.gyazo.com/dd4390f78e6ee31105c34ef2d9953643.png

A similar story to last season. We won all 3 home games, although the last one with Atletico was meaningless and they rested. You can probably tell by the goal difference what happened with Shakhtar but they again were truly awful. My away match with them lead to this:

https://i.gyazo.com/c7eab0bd986fbd224735327a0d9ca1f7.png

That's the biggest win I've had on any FM ever.

Our reward for this form is a tie with AC Milan. They have 11 players on over £100k p/w including Donnarumma, who earns more by himself than our entire club. Our home form is very good though so I hope we can give them a good game.
As for other Danish teams in Europe, FC Nordsjælland went out by finishing bottom of their group. But better things for Kobenhavn. They came 2nd in their group and will face Watford in the first knockout round. They're a middling EPL team so I'm going to use that as a barometer for how we're looking so far.

[John Arne]

Hmmm... I suspect a couple of names will be added to the FM2020 'do not use these name' list.

https://gyazo.com/c22bb68cbd834a5e3a87d574cfa61ca6.jpeg


https://gyazo.com/7112b91d56ca408efa0363320a148f41.jpeg
https://gyazo.com/45498e916d2f98eafa0d20a58e3f4174.jpeg
https://gyazo.com/0eb19f3ec715ea8c166741690c4c1028.jpeg

[Clunge]

Season one with Hajduk was an absolute painfest. I struggled my way to fifth lacking any discernible firepower whatsoever against a media prediction of third. Somehow kept my job. Saving grace was agreeing new deals with all my key players with at least £7.5m release clauses, mainly £10m. Arsenal came in for Nikola Vlasic for £7.5m and he was off in January which dented our already pisspoor forward line even further. The upside was that come the summer, we had £15m+ in the bank which resulted in a bumper transfer budget (£6.5m) and wage budget so I've absolutely rinsed the freebies and transfer list plus a few youth prospects and we're currently P5 W3 D2 L0 in season two. Of course, coming fifth means I'm not in Europe after making it through to the last 32 of the Europa last year which is a real bummer. Aim this year is for 2nd or 3rd and mix it with Dinamo and Rijeka.

[Gray Fox]

First couple of seasons are the hardest. Try to use it to build the club up if you can. I'm on the 3rd consecutive year of upgrading all the facilities. You want to get the best out of any gems you may find.
Getting into even the Europa League is key. I believe we got somewhere around £5m just for getting to the first knockout rounds and going out. That could well earn you a player or two.

Not wasting money helps. You might see a decent player there, but unless they can improve your team or earn you money down the line, there's no point.

[Clunge]

Yerr, I went a bit too nuts in the summer and overstocked in certain areas. Handily, a few players I picked up on one year contracts and/or wages less than £2k a week so the dent isn’t too bad. I’ve let a couple of the younger ones go out on loan too. £13.5m in the bank still, which is mega for a club of our stature. Our stadium is huge too (35k), bigger than Dinamo’s. Facilities are ‘Good’ across the board too.

[Spikey M]

I'm in Season 3 as Leyton Orient and Back to Back promotions see us in League 1. I too am focusing on updating/upgrading our shit at the moment. Upgrading the Stadium is proving particularly tiresome. I'm on my 2nd upgrade and it 's still only to 14000. Plus, I keep having to threaten to leave to get them to even bother. I've been operating on a shoestring, using our youth prospects and we have a MASSIVE £3 million in the bank you cunts.

[Byron]

I've actually started a game, with Rotherham after about 4 years of pissing about doing nothing. Early doors but we don't seem to be in a relegation fight, which is the aim really. In the 3rd Round of the League Cup as well after securing a SHOCK CUPSET away to Fulham. Fuck all money to spend, and my best Keeper and CB are loanees, so this is going to be a bit of a MONEYBALL game.

[Byron]

https://gyazo.com/004a967fcdeb23b6e35ccc76a1f346d2.png

Not bad for a first season but going into the final game we still had an outside chance of a Playoff spot so a tad disappointing, our form in the final 5 (3 draws and 2 losses) really killed us, as well as the fact that we were playing 4 of the top 8.

It's going to be a bit of a rebuild job for us, since we lose our best goalkeeper (Rodak), right back (Vyner) and midfielder (Towell) who all go back to their parent clubs. In addition there will be interest around Vaulks, Newell and Vassell and given that we are 1.5m in the red I'll likely have to sell two of them to balance the books. Wood and Potter both want to leave and are old so they can fuck off.

So I'll likely need a new spine and with not a lot of money. Sheffield Wednesday, Hull and Bolton were relegated so I'll take a look at them but we have the smallest age bill in the division by far so I'll have to scrounge the free market.

[Spikey M]

at the moment. Upgrading the Stadium is proving particularly tiresome. I'm on my 2nd upgrade and it 's still only to 14000. .

The season just ended (another promotion :cool: ) and the board has decided to expand the stadium again. 2 months before the building work on the last one was due to finish. So now we have another 18 months of building work, to expand to 18000. Why has the game decided that the previous 12 months of building didn't actually happen all of a sudden? Spastics.

I'm also under a transfer embargo due to a takeover bid, just as clubs have released players. FUCK OFF.

[Yevrah]

Anyone know of a good free tool that I can download without filling my PC full of shit and that will allow me to mount CM 01/02 to a virtual CD drive?

If that makes sense.

[igor_balis]

Daemon was the one I used back in the day yev but I'm not sure if it's full of spyware or not as I was pretty reckless with my computer when I was younger. Probably got it off limewire.

[Shindig]

I used WinCDEmu the other week for GP Legends and erm... I think it's kosher?

[Yevrah]

WinCDEmu gives me an error message when trying to install.

I'll try Deamon with my fingers crossed.

[Yevrah]

AVG found a threat during the installation process of Daemon so keep em coming.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I've only ever used Daemon but I'd imagine that anti-viruses will always flag any of those programs.

[Shindig]

Yeah, anything that needs to spoof a fake drive will get flagged.

[Yevrah]

Against my better judgement I figured if I had a hankering to play an football management game I may as well go for the latest one.

My first FM in two years is purchased.

How do I get rid of the random Brexit shit?

[Yevrah]

And is there anything I should be aware of having not played it for 3 years?

[Gray Fox]

Training and scouting has changed.

Also I believe Brexit outcome is hard coded when you first create the save. Once started there's no way to alter the decision.

[Yevrah]

DS mentioned something about being able to fully disable it? I assume using an .edt file or whatever passes for one of those now.

No problem playing with it if it ever actually comes into force, but in previous versions you'd get an rng outcome and I can't be arsed with that.

[Yevrah]

Ah, think there's one in the Steam workshop.

[Danny]

Another vote for Daemon tools, never seen it flash as a virus either.

[Yevrah]

Oh and sorry for the noob questions, what's the difference between these two versions bar six quid?

https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/football-manager-2019-pc-steam-cd-key

https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/football-manager-2019-steam-pc-ww

[Yevrah]

Going through my old FM folders while waiting for the FM17 graphics to delete (all 600,000+ of the fuckers) I found this:

https://i.postimg.cc/4y3TW0bg/Untitled.jpg (https://postimages.org/)

I forget which version that was on, but if I still had the save file I'd crack straight back into it. Best game of FM I ever had that and was absolute gutting when I realised EA hadn't made the TV money in Spain dynamic, or in typical fashion had lied about having done so.

[Yevrah]

I guess the clue would be in the starting season that it was FM15. :cab:

[Gray Fox]

Oh and sorry for the noob questions, what's the difference between these two versions bar six quid?

https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/football-manager-2019-pc-steam-cd-key

https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/football-manager-2019-steam-pc-ww

The cheaper of those can only be activated in Europe. The other is worldwide.

Yeah if you're going to be effected the the Brexit outcome there'll be a database with it disabled completely. In my Randers save they didn't end up leaving the EU.

[Yevrah]

We're on, downloading now. £11.99 is a bargain and if it's any good and I get back into it it should see me through to when FM20 has been released long enough to be patched multiple times.

Now to sort the licenses, player faces, logos, font size in the default skin etc. Yawn.

I still don't understand how SI get away with not having proper licenses but including all the player names anyway.

[Yevrah]

The fucking state of these skins and interfaces.

Why is everything highlighted in about 3 different ways when just the fucking number or text would do? It's genuinely giving me a headache trying to focus on the salient information.

That they've added even more box ticking team talk media wank is also disappointing.

[Yevrah]

Found a skin I liked on Susie so we were all set to go, but running it (and the fact FM17 was still installed) made me realise that a good old system restore is long overdue, so I'll be partaking in that joy this morning before settling in for a game this afternoon.

[thommo]

All this revitalising of the thread (starting with GF's cracking write ups) is making me want to get back into the game. I'm only in the 2nd season of a Slough Town save so will see how quickly I can motor along with that.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It started with my shit write ups/updates you prick. No one had posted in a week before I came in.

[thommo]

Put some more detail in and I might read it next time.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Eat a dick.

[thommo]

You've slacked since your GKS days. That was a good read.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I cannot disagree there.

[Gray Fox]

Mahow ON THE ROPES.

I'm going to get back into mine. Haven't touched it since my last update as I've had to work back some hours. I needed all the sleep I could get.

[Yevrah]

The Susie facepack takes over three hours to unzip in Winrar. Is there a quicker way?

[Spikey M]

I never bothered. That was quicker.

[Giggles]

Yeah I could never play without names, kits, and (to a lesser extent) logos being correct, but couldn't be arsed with how long face packs took.

[Vercetti]

I bought this on a whim the other night.

Currently doing a save with Inter to get myself used to it all. I was still playing '17 until a couple of weeks ago.

[Mike]

The Susie facepack takes over three hours to unzip in Winrar. Is there a quicker way?

Just start it and play the game as it’s unzipping.

[Byron]

So second season done;

https://gyazo.com/872e641528ddd4322147c51dfa201243.png

My transfers over the summer were about trying to replace departing loanees but on a budget, so Christy Pym came in from Exeter to take the main keeper spot. Mark Beevers and Jack Hobbs came in to central defence. Jason Naismith and Joe Rafferty both came in to shore up the right back area (and allow me to flog Billy Jones) and Bruno Andrade came in as a winger while Viktor Gyokeres came in as a very young striker.

The player sold were all backup filth except Semi Ajayi who wanted to go and warm Sheffield United's bench, so I got £1.5m for him.

However for a large portion of the season we were struggling, only barely hovering above the relegation zone. It was only in the last few games where we switched to a 4-1-4-1 that I managed to make a charge up the table. The result being that we were only five points off last season's tally but it wasn't anywhere near as comfortable.

I did get 3 decent looking youth prospects though;

Anderson Brown
https://gyazo.com/c6b047628c55b472b97825e824b85cec.png

Matthew Madge
https://gyazo.com/acdf9b8518623c8b9fbe7d0b9bee5481.png

Gareth Battersby
https://gyazo.com/b2bed5ea845f686478512aae78db3d99.png

None of them are world class but all of them apparently can play to a Championship level so I'll see what I can do with them.

We went out in the 2nd Round of the League Cup to Fulham, after beating Burton.

The FA Cup was far better as we beat Brentford and Sunderland to get to the 5th Round. We put in a fight, but ultimately Watford were too good and we lost 2-0.

Likely to be another summer of change. A number of contracts come up and while most of the players are not irreplaceable, star midfielder Will Vaulks is one of them so he'll likely be off. I reckon I can get £3.5-4m for him so I'll want to use that to get 3-4 quality players who improve the first team. Still not sold on Pym as a goalie so if a better one comes up that'll be the priority.

[Yevrah]

All sorted so it's time to play a game.

As is customary and due to them having a phenomenal team when I first started playing CM back in 1993 and absolutely creaming myself when CM Italia was released so I could actually manage them, the team will be Milan.

We're expected by the board to qualify for the Europa League, bin off the Super Cup, reach the semi's of the Italian Cup and the Europa League. I'd like to win something other than the Super Cup and get into the Champions League.

First window transfers are off.

[Yevrah]

This is a horribly presented and bloated mess that runs like a sack of shit on my (not too shabby as it happens) laptop.

I'm going back to an older version.

[John Arne]

This is a horribly presented and bloated mess that runs like a sack of shit on my (not too shabby as it happens) laptop.

I'm going back to an older version.

It seems hit and miss on laptops. I have a pretty decent laptop, that it runs shite on, and a run-of-the-mill laptop that it runs decent on.