Football Manager 23

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Here's a little roundup of the season:

League:




We had a shaky start but after December we came into our own and were right up there with Doncaster and South Shields as the dominant forces in the league.

Cups:



Squad:



It's all down to one man really:



Ioan fucking Jenkins. He scored 54 league goals this season and 53 last year. What's even more impressive is that he only scored one in his his first four games this year and was looking a little lost. He's on such low wages because I knew early he'd be amazing so I gave him a contract with a lot of various extension triggers, sadly they are no more. He still wants to stay but he wants £3.1k-£3.7k a week so I'll probably have to sell him soon as I'm not going to be able to hand that out any time soon.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Only one relegated team and 4 promoted sides for next season. It could finally be our year.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

I want to live in this universe.

Ioan Jenkins who has been the top scorer three seasons running with 143 goals scored over those seasons isn't even in the top 6 bookies favourites.

TTH would be millionaires.

[Gray Fox]

TTH gave Mellin and Bazbot the money they would have put on that bet.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Daniel Wood, the Sammon replacement, with two goals and seven assists lol.

[Manc]

6.81 xG. Beautiful.

[Adramelch]

Loaded a host of European leagues of various levels and started a Journeyman save. First job I got was at the Finnish second tier with IFK Helsingfors, who found themselves underperforming. Turning the tide around was easier than expected and we made it to the promotion playoffs, but ended up going out in the dying minutes of extra time. That's where the real challenge began though: The entire squad had opted to leave at the end of the season (I'm guessing some bug with the option with realistic transfer dates or whatever), which would leave us with about 0 players of note. On top of that, a (real-life) transfer embargo was pending from the start of next season and lasting two years. Luckily there was a little bit of a wiggle-room time-wise, so I was able to assemble a decent squad, though not much better than the one we had, if at all. Me being at the club from the start of the season meant that promotion was an easy deal in the end:



The truth is that we weren't that good in head-to-head games against our competition, we just were a lot more consistent.

That said, I'm at a crossroads now. I want to stay here for the new season, but we'll still be under a transfer embargo so no squad improvement, which we especially need in terms of squad depth. Oh well, I guess I'll just take it one day at a time and see where that gets me.

[Baz]

Season two's going well:



4th November and Haaland's just scored his 25th goal of the season.

[Adramelch]

Halfway through, the new season has been very disheartening to play through so far. The above game being our default experience.

[Dan]

Quick update on Sandvikens. I've pushed the finances to the limit to try to overhaul the squad, with a mix of players signed from playing around with the data & others who were recommended by scouts. We started pretty well & were up in 4th at one point, but we've struggled for the last couple of months & now find ourselves in 11th place at the midpoint of the season.

We don't really have any room to make any more moves, so it might come down to morale management to keep us out of trouble.

[igor_balis]

I want to live in this universe.

Ioan Jenkins who has been the top scorer three seasons running with 143 goals scored over those seasons isn't even in the top 6 bookies favourites.

TTH would be millionaires.

Decimal odds

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It's the superior system, stop living in the past.

You just multiply your stake by the odds and the sum is your winnings and stake back. It's simple and effective.

On the other hand, £50 stake on at odds of 11/8, fuck off.

[John Arne]

Yeah, I used to be openly anti-decimal.... but now, you just gotta accept that it makes way more sense. Like communism.

[Adramelch]

Halfway through, the new season has been very disheartening to play through so far. The above game being our default experience.

In the end we did find our groove:



We ranged from solid to very good throughout the season, but what also did it was that everybody else was inconsistent. So even though results largely went against us early on, from the moment we signed a new keeper and a central defender, we (somewhat) stopped leaking goals and started climbing the table. We still finished the season with the third worst defensive record, but outscored everyone, with 12 more goals than the second best.

I am a bit tempted to stay for one more season just so I get to experience some European football (well two games in which we'll get battered pretty much), but with Finland having summer leagues, that means I'd have to wait for like 9 more months for that, which I'm not sure I fancy doing. But at the same time, I've applied to at least a dozen clubs with the same reputation as HIFK throughout the past season and got snubbed by all of them so it's not like I have anywhere better to go for the time being. Oh well, we'll see what happens during the off-season I guess.

[Dan]

Sandvikens IF 2025 End of Season Update

Quick update on Sandvikens. I've pushed the finances to the limit to try to overhaul the squad, with a mix of players signed from playing around with the data & others who were recommended by scouts. We started pretty well & were up in 4th at one point, but we've struggled for the last couple of months & now find ourselves in 11th place at the midpoint of the season.

We don't really have any room to make any more moves, so it might come down to morale management to keep us out of trouble.

My first year in Sweden is over, kind of. We have the Svenska Cupen which mostly runs between league seasons, but the league is done so that's as good of a time for an update as any.



Very inconsistent, as was the case in the first half of the year, but luckily that seems to be the general theme of the league as there was only 10pts separating 4th & 13th place.



We improved slightly on last season, both in terms of points total & league finish, but that's mostly because we turned losses into draws. We also had a huge disparity in our home & away results, with us third in the home table with only one loss, and joint worst in the away table without a single win to our name on the road. The xG table was a bit kinder, but it does show that we underperformed at both ends of the pitch, which fits with my general feelings.

We didn't have any huge standout players, but the main ones deserving a mention are Raymond N'Dour, who came in from Senegal & provided the majority of our goal threat; Falko Michel & Wilitty Younoussa, who both came in off the street & formed a solid DM parternship; Lucas Hedlund, who had some decent moments playing as our more attacking AM; and club captain Gustav Thörn, who was one of our better all around CBs.

-

We've had the wage budget increased by about £10k p/w for next season, and with £235k in the transfer budget we should be able to find one or two guys who can help improve us. I think the main areas of focus will be finding someone who can contribute more goals, either as an AM or possibly a big striker to go more direct to, and we'll also look to continue upgrading the back five, but unless we get promoted I might start thinking about looking for another job after next season.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Hitchin Town 2039/40 Season Update:

League:




We were flying and 5 points clear at the top come January but we wobbled hard in January/February and slipped down to 4th at one point 5 points behind the leaders Carlisle. It looked bleak heading into the final few games as we were 3 points behind Carlisle (we did go top on GD but the loss against Radcliffe put us back behind) and they were looking good. They drew 2-2 with King's Lynn having been 2-0 up which put us 1 behind with 2 games to go.

We both won our penultimate game which meant it was all down to the last day. They faced Oxford with us having a test against Macclesfield who also were hunting for the title. We won comfortably and they ended up losing 3-1:



We've finally been promoted although I almost had a heart attack. Fully deserved for us:



And Carlisle were lucky to be where they were.

Cups:





Some nice runs which really boosted our finances, the Charlton game alone netted us £100k or so.

Squad:



Ioan is an absolute king. 50+ league goals 3 seasons in a row is bonkers. I thought we might struggle this year with Sammon leaving but Daniel Wood (who was produced last year) was incredible.

16th times the charm it turned out. Can't wait to have a go in the VNL.

[Adramelch]

Last I left you was with us having had a very successful season back at the Finnish top tier. I had been applying for any reasonable job available (2-star clubs, same as Helsingfors, with my rep being the thing holding me back at 1 star), but most wouldn't even offer me an interview, so I thought it was inevitable that I would spend another season in Finland. It wasn't the worst deal mind you as we would eventually play some European football, courtesy of finishing second. The first half of the new season went by and things looked pretty much the same, with us in second place again and quite honestly playing the best football in the league, bar some defensive lapses that cost us points:



Things have been pretty much the same on the job search front. I reckon I've applied to about 25-ish similar reputation clubs in the past year and a half and I've been offered 10-ish interviews and rejected by all of them, often outright rather than them choosing a different manager. We're at the point where things are about to get good though with the Conference League qualifiers fast approaching. We were drawn against Dinamo Tbilisi in the 1st round and dispatched them with relative ease (two 2-1 wins) to set up what I reckon is an unwinnable tie against Banik Ostrava. But I never got to find out if it was as I finally got an offer:



That's Karpaty Lviv, who ply their trade in the Ukrainian Premier League. The club finished just outside the relegation zone last season, which is pretty much par for the course with them, yet they still decided to (amicably by the looks of it) part ways with their manager and that's where I come in. It's gonna be a massive change, it has to be said, as, despite the two clubs having the same reputation, there's substantial differences both in the quality of the players, as well as the finances. To paint a picture, I had no transfer budget and a wage budget of 12.5k p/w at Helsingfors and at my new post I have 11m for transfers and 145k p/w for wages, of which the club is only spending half currently. That said, I think I will be conservative with the money I spend on transfers and the number of players I signed, until I get a lay of the land.

[Dan]

We've had the wage budget increased by about £10k p/w for next season, and with £235k in the transfer budget we should be able to find one or two guys who can help improve us. I think the main areas of focus will be finding someone who can contribute more goals, either as an AM or possibly a big striker to go more direct to, and we'll also look to continue upgrading the back five, but unless we get promoted I might start thinking about looking for another job after next season.

We've reached the midway point of the 2026 season, so I'll give you an update on that in a minute, but first, the Svenska Cupen.

We'd made it to the group stage last season, and came back at the start of the year to play it out. We were drawn against another Superettan team, Östersunds FK, and two Allsvenskan teams - Örebro SK & BK Häcken. Encouragingly, we smashed Östersunds & also beat Örebro, but we couldn't finish the job against Häcken & went out after finishing second in the group.

In terms of transfers, we did our best to improve our goal threat, bringing in Mauritanian striker Hemeya Tanjy, who the data had flagged to me last season & he came up again this year so we took the plunge. We also upgraded behind him with Yusuf Ibrahim, who had also been a repeat name in my numbers, and Filip Olsson, who we signed after a trial. At the back we added a CB upgrade right after last season ended in the shape of Ghana u23 international Maxwell Woledzi, and then added options at wing back with Brazilians Jean & Gabriel Rodrigues on the left & Ali Suljić on the right.

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It's translated pretty well to the league this season, as we've been much better at both ends of the pitch & have managed to turn draws into wins, which has seen us climb the table & we're in with a shout of joining the promotion race if we can sustain it.

Unlike last year I didn't max us out before the season even started, so we have some money to play with if we find anyone worth signing. I'm not sure there's any particular area I'd be looking at, so it will probably either all go on one big move or I won't use any of it. I did get offered a new two year contract, but I've turned it down for now as I'm still considering moving on after this season. I have made sure to lock down our best players just in case though.

[Bam]

My press officer at Notts Co Sam Jones, must be a right bundle of fun. He is always expressionless and feels the press conference was just fine.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Crazy that we've made the playoffs in our first season but SEETHING that we should have won the league.

Fucking piece of shit keeper.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Got to the final:



Their first goal was an insane long range free kick and their penalty was absolute bullshit.

[Adramelch]

Breezed through the first season at Karpaty. As I said in my last update, I had a lot of money at my disposal for transfers, but it was my intention to not spend a lot and assess where we're at in my first season here. I (mostly) stuck to that, and while we did sign about a dozen of players, I ended up spending less than 4 out of the 11-ish million at my disposal. Most of it was to bring the following, sort of marquee for our level, players in:



Our first big transfer, since we didn't have a solid attacking midfielder at the club. Joined us from Salford for a relatively low 375k.



Didn't quite need a winger, but he was available for 1.1m so I just pulled the trigger.



Joined us on a free after leaving Partizan. A real bargain.



Our second big free transfer, but one that joined us in January (well technically in October, but we couldn't register him until January). Brought some real quality to our defence.



The final big signing of the season and our most expensive one of the season, but signing a very promising home-grown striker is not an opportunity I would ever let go.

The personnel at the club was at a quite decent level across the board and with the above players I felt like we had chances for a solid first season. And a solid first season it was:



We spent most of the season hovering between 3rd and 4th, but a late blip in form from Dinamo allowed us to beat them to the punch. In the end it didn't matter, as they were playing Dnipro in the Cup final so the Europa League spot would be allocated to the winner of that. But in the end it was still satisfying to finish second, as I did feel we were the second best team in the league.



I think that screenshot depicts our season pretty accurately. We were very strong offensively, finishing second in the relative chart with 78 goals in 30 games (just 6 behind Shakhtar), but our defence, while okay-ish, wasn't up to the same standard and that is reflected perfectly here.

So first season is done and it was a great one. I'll be playing the Conference League qualifiers for the second season in a row, but this time around with much better chances of at least beating a couple of teams. Transfer-wise, I still have money to spend, but I am relatively satisifed with the level of the squad and I will mostly be looking at signing good Ukrainian players, rather than going for the best players I can find.

[Dan]

Sandvikens IF 2026 Season Review

It's translated pretty well to the league this season, as we've been much better at both ends of the pitch & have managed to turn draws into wins, which has seen us climb the table & we're in with a shout of joining the promotion race if we can sustain it.

After seeing some improvements over the first half of the league season, I once again decided not to make any moves in the midseason window. I felt good about the squad, and didn't really see anywhere we needed to upgrade, but would my faith be rewarded?

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I'd say that's a yes. We played really well all season long, and as the season went on we moved from battling for the final automatic promotion spot to a full on title challenge, thanks largely to us beating the Landskrona BOIS just days after a win over GAIS which helped cut the top three clear of the rest. The results above took us to the final day, where all three teams were still in with a shot of winning the title. We squeaked in front of Landskrona by a point on the penultimate game week, with Västerås - who we smashed - only really still in the race on a technicality due to our 3pt lead on them & huge goal difference advantage. Could we get it done?

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Proper FM stuff, this one, although going by the stat you might say they were the ones who got FM'd, not us. Their dominance on the stat sheet wasn't reflected in the highlights though, so it was left to the ref to balance things out. Their penalty was one of those nonsense ones where the defender goes to make a tackle & it just hard cuts to the spot kick, the second yellow was probably even worse, and then we conceded a header from a corner with basically the last touch of the game. Anyway, that left the door open for Landskrona, who could steal it back from us with a win...

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When we conceded I thought we'd fucked it. I didn't catch the score in the other game, but I thought they were winning & when the final whistle blew there was no trophy lift & I got team talk options about blowing the title, so I was very surprised when I saw that Landskrona had also been FM'd & we actually had won the league after all.



I think we were deserving winners in the end, and in a way it was quite similar to Pompey's season in real life. We were hard to beat, solid all over the pitch & consistently stepped up in the big games, and we've ended the season on a 20 game unbeaten run whilst the teams around us started to falter as the pressure ramped up.

The Squad:
Just want to recap some of the standout players this season, as it was a very different story to our unremarkable first season.

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We'll start in goal, where Mathias Nilsson had a much better season, living up to his billing as one of the better GKs in the league & someone who should be able to play in the Allsvenskan. He made some big saves, including stopping 2 penalties, and even though the skin doesn't have a pizza chart for goalkeepers his per 90 numbers are all strong so it's good that we managed to get him to agree to a midseason contract extension after he'd had his head turned over the offseason.

We'd had some issues with our back three last year, but the unit took a big step forward this season with the addition of Maxwell Woledzi, who proved to be an excellent allrounder, hitting key numbers in tackle success rate & header win rate whilst also providing great passing & progression numbers. The other two guys were already here last season, but some changes to how they were deployed helped us get more out of them. Herman Magnusson was brought in as our highest earner last year & was very underwhelming as our right CB, but a move into the middle saw a much better season from him, with captain Gustav Thörn swapping over & continuing to play well. Our wing backs were solid, with Jean probably being the best of the bunch, but I just don't seem to be able to get monster seasons from my FB/WBs.

In midfield we once again got solid seasons from Wilitty Younoussa, Falko Michel & Simon Marklund, although all three had some injury problems as the season wore on, but I'd been looking for more goal threat from our AMs & we got a huge hit there in the shape of Filip Olsson, who hit double digit goals & has an argument to be our player of the season. It doesn't stop there though, as I was pleasantly surprised by the contributions we got from Kevin Holmén & Markus Björkqvist, a couple of guys who I'd signed as squad depth but who stepped in ably in multiple spots when injuries hit.

Up front Raymond N'Dour had another prolific season, but he was surpassed by the guy I almost signed instead of him last season, Hemeya Tanjy from the mighty Mauritania, who came out of the blocks hot with four goals in his first start & never really looked back.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do now, to be honest. My contract runs out in a few weeks & there are plenty of jobs going since the Swedish season ends in November, however I'm not sure I'll have the rep to be able to get a job that's a significant upgrade, and there aren't any intriguing vacancies out there at the moment anyway, so I might be better of staying for one more year & seeing what that does for my rep. I guess we'll have to wait & see how things play out...

[Adramelch]

How long have you been there Dan? Also what's yours/the club's reputation?

[Dan]

How long have you been there Dan? Also what's yours/the club's reputation?

This is the end of the season season. My rep was only 10%, but I don’t think I’ve moved on far enough for it to update from this season yet, so hopefully I’ll get another 5% when it ticks over.

Can’t check club rep at the minute as I’m at work, but the sort of jobs I’d be targeting are only marginal upgrades/lateral moves - Norwegian/Danish second tiers, Turkish second/third tier or maybe Belgian second tier if I can get it (my manager is Belgian so might have an extra boost there).

I think one more season is probably the right move, but I might put some feelers out & see how teams react before I commit.

[Adramelch]

Yeah I think I'd stay if I were you. Getting a chance to play with the big boys, even if it ends up being half a season or something is too good to pass.

Have you been trying to get coaching licenses? I know it's not the easiest thing in the smaller clubs with typically strict budgets (though it always seemed unrealistic that I'm being paid a couple thousand a month, yet I have to rely on my club to fork over the 450 euros or however much it costs), but it helps a ton with reputation.

[Adramelch]

Quickly finished my second season at Karpaty and it was a good one. Let's start from the (important) transfers:

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Goalkeeper was one of our weakest positions, so I immediately looked for a replacement when the summer transfer window opened. He's not the best you've seen around, but he was a big upgrade over our previous one and he joined on a free. Not too shabby.



A signing we didn't necessarily need, but one that was a minor improvement over what we had, on top of being home-grown. And we didn't have to pay anything for him either, as Shakhtar decided to not renew his contract.



A player who played regularly for Monaco in his teens but found himself out of favour both in France and later in Belgium at Genk. We had the opportunity to sign him for shy of 800k so we just went for it. On hindsight, a very impactful and consistent performer.



Again a player we didn't quite need, but a promising young Ukrainian for just 1.9m? Yes please. Dinamo were fools for letting him go for so little money.



Continuing on the theme of Dinamo letting promising youngsters go for little money, we only had to pay 1.1m for this guy. Granted Dinamo's squad is on a different level, so one man's trash is another man's treasure but still

With all these players in and without losing anyone relevant, I was quite confident of another successful season. It would start with the Conference League qualifiers and it honestly went much better than expected:



We got the worst possible draw we could have in that fourth round, yet we gave it a very good go. 5-3 on aggregate probably flatters West Ham a bit, but they were the better team over the two games so can't really complain. They went on to reach the final, so very satisfied with how we kept them on their toes. Our knockout performances wouldn't stop there as we made it all the way to the Cup final, where despite matching Shakhtar all the way through, they still got away with a narrow 2-1 win to claim the trophy. We did get our revenge in the league, however:



That was not only unexpected, but also surprisingly easy. We held an 8-point lead over them for most of the season and, while they did cut that down to 2 at some point, we persevered and managed to win the whole thing for the first time in the club's history. Good timing too, as 77 points wouldn't have been enough for the title last season, when Shakhtar gained 80 points, albeit that season was the anomaly, with 70-75 points being their standard yield.



The front four remained unchanged from last season and for good reason. 66 goals and 50 assists between them is quite the yield. That said, it was just more of the same for them as we scored just 4 goals more than last season (82 from 78). What really did it was our massive defensive improvement, going from 43 goals conceded to just 32. It isn't exactly evident in the stats, but watching the games I'd argue that's mostly down to Matazo. You know how people say that the best defensive midfielder is the one you forget about during the game? Matazo was the embodiment of that. No mistakes, solid passing and tackling numbers, what more could you want?

Normally, I'd already been planning for our maiden Champions League voyage, but this time things are different and that's because I've already agreed to join a new club at the end of the season:



Now, having won the league and with the reputation bump that brings, going to St. Pauli is at best a sideways move. Normally, I would have regrets about a pre-agreed move in a situation like that, but this time it's a bit different and that's why I agreed to join when we were 8 points ahead and things were looking good. Firstly, I rarely get to manage in lower divisions of big leagues in Journeyman saves, so it was an opportunity for something new. But more importantly, it's Sankt fucking Pauli, what else is there to say?

[John Arne]

That'll do.

After years of nothing, I got the two above last year, and this year I have these two little monsters.

[Baz]

Determination 20!

[John Arne]

Bing bing bing!

[Adramelch]

First one's mental attributes are also, well, mental for that age. Shame his determination is on the lower side, but you can't have everything I guess.

[Clunge]

Both 4 for natural fitness though, which isn't ideal. And determination means naff all for player development I learned recently. All about ambition and professionalism.

[Baz]

And your mums fat

[Gray Fox]

Both 4 for natural fitness though, which isn't ideal. And determination means naff all for player development I learned recently. All about ambition and professionalism.

When Baz did all of the work on Club TTH and made us all high potential players I tested out on development and you are correct. Determination has very little effect.

In fact it's almost all about game time. Ran the save over a few times and there wasn't really a correlation on players reaching potential and anything else. On one save CJay was Messi incarnate and on the next played in non-league for the most part.

Essentially they need to be generating a match rating at a decent level league from the ages of 19-21. 18 year olds going on loan/playing first team games helps too but it's if they're good enough. That time before they hit 21 is where you'll get by far the most growth. After that gains come a lot harder.

A pro tip here is that if you are sending a youth on to try and develop them, unless they score or assist, they wont gain a match rating if brought on after the 75th minute.

The games way of knowing they're playing is by looking at match ratings. And as you say, players with high ambition will not be happy being on the bench or a sub player and so will demand first team games with either you, or if not, someone else. The professionalism keeps them doing well in training which also aids in their growth.

[Clunge]

These more youth-focused saves – Crewe, Hitchin, etc – has inspired me to fire one up with Exeter and see how far I can push their youth set up.

[John Arne]

My pro tip would be to NOT send players out on loan too quickly. Once you have world class facilities, players progress way quicker in better facilities, so I would keep youngster at your club from 16-18, and then loan out for a couple of years 18-20 - ideally where they will play a lot, but also to a club that also has good facilities. I used to loan our young players as soon as they hit 17, but that certainly wasn't the best way.

Also, ignore the stars. 2 of my current best players were probably 3 stars potential when they came though, even if my AssMan was 20 JPA... stars are a massive red herring. Judge it on arrows... if a player is developing a lot... there's scope for big improvement.

[John Arne]

Somewhat mixed messages here.... Also, the council are cunts.

[Adramelch]

\

Yikes.

[Dan]

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do now, to be honest. My contract runs out in a few weeks & there are plenty of jobs going since the Swedish season ends in November, however I'm not sure I'll have the rep to be able to get a job that's a significant upgrade, and there aren't any intriguing vacancies out there at the moment anyway, so I might be better off staying for one more year & seeing what that does for my rep. I guess we'll have to wait & see how things play out...

Well, it's January 2027, preseason has just started & a decision has been made...

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Bit of a spicy one, as we're staying in the Allsvenskan & will therefore be facing Sandvikens this year, but there's just no way I could sensibly turn them down. The wage budget is £200k p/w rather than £45k, the transfer budget is £10m(!!) compared to £200k, their facilities are way better, their stadium is about 5 times bigger, they're in the Conference League & I was looking at loads of their reserve players as options to sign for our first team. They're just obviously massively better.

I had a few other opportunities - Beerschot offered me an interview unsolicited, and I did actually get a job offer from Sint-Triuden, so it's pretty clear I can go to Belgium whenever I want, but that seems like something I'll look at further down the line. Staying in Scandinavia, I had an offer of an interview with Tromso that I refused, and one with Rosenborg which I took but didn't get the job.

It seemed like I was going to end up staying put, particularly as I'd already agreed to a two year extension at Sandvikens by this point, but Djurgårdens finally decided to look through their job applications after Xmas, and so I'll be taking on a job with some pretty high expectations - they want me to make the knockout playoff in the Conference League & finish in the top three, but after that it's win or bust, so I might only stay here for a year or two before looking to move abroad.

The most annoying thing is that i'd already done all my data stuff for Sandvikens so I'm going to have to go & redo everything now At least that's my weekend plans sorted, I guess.

[Adramelch]

Good move that and with good timing. I am a fan of moving upwards within the same league in the early stages of such saves as it just makes more sense. Though usually I've only received such offers later through the season, where the club in question is just significantly lower in the league than my current one, so I typically don't go for it.

[Adramelch]

Maiden season at St. Pauli (2028/29 for anyone wondering) is done:



It's all just been very easy so far in this save and well this version of the game I guess. Granted it's all been relatively lower leagues where just going all out attacking tends to work very well. That said, we also had one giant killing with that approach in the cup and were very close to a second one:



We got fucked with that semi-final draw as we got the only remaining Bundesliga team in the competition, but we gave it our best shot and in the end we were just a penalty or two away from making it to the final. Props to Kaiserslautern for beating them in the final, while also demolishing Freiburg 4-0 in the quarters.



Very good performances all around really. Our only (sort of) sore point being the goalkeeper. I mean his average rating is solid but it felt like we condeded too many goals from non- and half-chances.

In terms of signings, the following are the 4 most important ones, with all of them being among our best players as well:

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And with that, we prepare for our first Bundesliga run in almost 20 seasons. Well I say we, but in reality it will be St. Pauli without me as an this club came knocking and I thought I might as well give it a go:

[Dan]

We definitely seem to have come into our saves with a similar approach.

As much as it’s sad to leave St Pauli to fend for themselves in the Bundesliga, Basel could be a pretty fun move for a few seasons. Have they fallen off a bit or are they still up near the top of the table? I feel like Young Boys tend to end up sticking as the dominant force in Switzerland & everyone else just fights for the leftovers.

[Adramelch]

They had mostly started falling into mid-table(-ish) obscurity, before winning it twice consecutively. Last season they again finished 4th, which is why the job became available. I wouldn't mind staying at St. Pauli, but I tend to avoid spending too many seasons in the same league in Journeyman saves and I'd rather go back to Germany at a bigger job. That was my thinking at least.

As an aside, it feels like they've messed up release clauses massively in this version. I don't mind players insisting on adding them on, that part is more than realistic, but I just signed a goalkeeper for 3.6m who insisted on a 5m release clause and he hasn't been the only one. Been a common occurence throughout this save.