Originally Posted by Yevrah
Is that the one where a CAM scored 120 goals a season?That's the one.The DIABLO tactic
I prefer to create my own tactics on this version so staying away from the Diablo tactic. I'm not averse to signing the likes of Oskarsson and Braathen and other greats from this version but I do like to sign different players on each save.
Melilla Season 5 - 2024/25 - La Liga 2 Mid Season Update
To get the save up to date we've reached the halfway point in season 5 and it's mostly panned out as I feared. Got the dressing room back under control which is a bonus, but results have been far too bitty and that thing keeps happening that let's you know something is fundamentally wrong, strikers and forwards keep missing like mother fuckers apart from when they're offside when they hammer them home with consummate ease. I think in this case the fundamental problem is the squad is full of kids, which I might be able to get away with if they were World beaters, but they're not. So with that in mind David Oliver (a newgen on loan from Fulham who was using up £3,200 of the wage cap) has been sent to the under 19s and this chap has been brought in for £70k from Villarreal B.
I've also let a midfielder go so that's £1,300 more I have to get another one in so I'll be going for someone with experience. This season's a write off, but if we can build for next and make a push to go up then it wouldn't be a total disaster.
I've just seen that my scout has found the Israeli Messi.
Salary caps are tied to revenue, so you need to increase that as much a possible. Ask the board for a senior affiliate to generate income, and summer tours etc., It's a ball ache and something a manager shouldn't be doing, but every little helps.
Last edited by John Arne; 02-09-2022 at 12:22 PM.
Completely get that, but the game should be telling me what revenue is included, what isn't and what period the calculation relates to. It's one thing to have it handled in a piss poor way in the MLS (which is still inexcusable), but this is one of the major leagues it's now in and the information available to you with which to influence it is non-existent.
Deep into season five and we've hit a rich vein of form to put us in a great position to achieve a playoff spot this season, which I really didn't think was possible.
The Arana signing has worked wonderfully and even though he hasn't scored in the last five games he's been assisting and Gonzalez has stepped up massively.
Ten games to go.
I'm glad to get through the first season with Atletico so I can start implementing things properly. I always forget that these transitional seasons where you take over around November/December time can be very frustrating.
I was shocked that we managed to put up a title challenge considering how far behind we already were in October. Turns out my league record was won 24, drew 2, lost 0 which I genuinely had no idea about until I checked at the end.
Some positive results here, and we also beat Barcelona on a couple of occasions.
And the squad:
I'll need to have a close look at who I might want to offload. However, everything above suggests we should challenge for the title next season and I really want those 30+ player like Koke, Oblak, Saul, De Paul, Lemar, Gimenez, Llorente etc. to be a part of it. Most of them are still top class players, many of them are Atletico legends and I don't really want to be the person that breaks them all up, especially if we can win the league. Some of the wages are extortionate, but they're a great influence on the younger players and their development seems a lot better than at Norwich (plus they're much better in the first place).
I need a striker, possibly a left footed left back and we'll be more or less set I reckon.
I'd try to win the league with the likes of Koke, Saul, Lemar etc. and if you win the league, move them on and have a clear out.
Two games to go and we have a chance of automatic promotion. Real Sporting are in terrible form, Albacete and Rayo Vallecano not so much. We have two favourable games at home to finish the season but as well as the points gap our record against the teams around us is not good. I'll need to check exactly how not good if we're still in the hunt for the second spot in the final game.
It would be Really Sporting of them to throw it and let you get promoted.
Ill get my coat.
We won our penultimate game but they weren't Sporting, winning 3-0 in theirs to leave a 3 point gap, which we can't bridge due to the head to head. Playoff time again.
It's on! Two legs for everything.
Kaiserslautern - 2021/22
The expectation was clear. Push for the title, and failing that achieve promotion to the second division. The top two spots would go up automatically, whilst the third place team would enter into a two legged playoff with the third worst 2. Liga side. Adding to the realism factor, I turned off the summer window and blissfully ignored the free market. The squad inherited was flexible, but it was clear our strength lay in the middle of the park and thus the 5-2-2-1 was born. A conventional back five screened by a double pivot combined with a front three containing a goalscorer, a runner and pure creator. Think early years Pochettino.
Onto the campaign itself and after showing absolutely nothing in our first two league games, the season was ignited as we upset the odds in the Pokal and eliminated Felix Magath's Hertha Berlin side on penalties. Our run in the Cup was short lived as we fell to Wolfsburg in the second round, but both games showed me we could mix it with teams of a much higher quality. Heading through autumn, the wins all too often became draws and we arrived at the winter break in the clinches of a title race. Osnabruck (me either) were leading the way on 40 points, Eintracht Braunschweig sat in second with 39 points and Kaiserslautern in third on 38. With the likes of Mannheim & Duisburg not far behind it had all the potential to get very messy.
To reinforce our title bid, the board boosted the coffers with £175,000. In an ideal world I would have recruited a new goalkeeper and a battle hardened centre back. Unfortunately the market was lacking quality and I didn't want to disrupt the Feng Shui of the group (this definitely wouldn't come back to haunt me). Initially staggering our of the blocks come the restart, we soon warmed up and began to hit a nice flow. Daniel Hanslik couldn't stop scoring (he would finish the season with 21) and my concerns regarding the defence were a long distant memory. We weren't the only team hitting our stride as the season wore on. Duisburg had begun to pile the pressure at the top of the table, whilst 1860 had flown up the league into playoff contention. Four points from Osnabruck and Duisburg and promotion was looking comfortable. Our run in was kind and many in the media had begun to tip us for the title.
The beginning of the end. The start of the "comfortable" run in began with an away trip to Wurzburger Kickers and we tasted defeat for the first time since January (fuck you Mike). A 1-1 home draw with Saarbrücken was quickly followed by a 0-0 in Wiesbaden. The rot was temporarily stopped as we tore through Dortmund II 3-0, but then drew for the fourteenth occasion in Koln. With one game to spare we were sat in the playoff spot. Osnabruck had wrapped up the title in the previous week and so it came down to four with three of us tied on 68 points. A high scoring victory and we would likely pip Duisburg to automatic promotion. Three points would guarantee us top three, whilst a draw would need other results to go our way. We of course bottled it (as did 1860) and a 0-0 draw saw Braunschweig grab third. Gutted.
One win from the final six games was hard to stomach and I feared the chop however, the board backed me and we go again.
Last edited by Manc; 02-09-2022 at 02:15 PM.
We're in the final. The last four minutes of that semi-final were hell, the game made me watch all of them.
Our first full house as well!
post image
Come on, Yev. Post the final.
That was absolutely exhausting to watch.
The highlights went on forever and having punched the air when Musialowski gave us a 3-1 lead, I've rarely felt more deflated than when they went straight down the other end and pulled one back. The thought of losing this on away goals was too much.
But we held on and now to see what fuckwittery happens with the salary cap.
Great achievement. But you’re gonna get bummed in La Liga without massive investment, surely?
From what I remember, the big challenge now is minimum wage.
I think that's smaller than what I had to work with at Eibar all those years ago and isn't even confirmed until I see the salary cap for the new season. It still says £57k, but I'm guessing that'll be updated when we hit July.
I'm alright on that I think, well bar the Egyptian who is joining us at 18 who I now can't play until he renews. My biggest concern is the salary cap.
I would certainly expect so. There is however a parachute payment of £11.5m which is more than we've ever earnt in a year before, so even if we go down it should still allow us to continue building.
It goes up to 3.5k per week. I took Zaragoza up and found it a nightmare.
£2,500 per week. I have a lot of first team squad players below that, but I'll just renew them or get loans in on frees. The horrific experience at the beginning of this season in LaLiga 2 at least meant I was properly prepared for it.
But as on the last page, even if my cap is £120k p/w having to spend £2.5k of that per player as a minimum is a joke for a club of this stature.
The other thing I remember from the Eibar game was that despite SI claiming otherwise TV deals in La Liga were not dynamic, so I was stuck with the same shit deal even when I was winning the CL with them. I really hope they've fixed that.
The Eibar save.
Messi to Melilla?
I'm not going to be at Atletico long term so I'd really like to try and win it with the oldies. As soon as I win La Liga and the Copa Del Rey I'll be moving on, and in my head I'm hoping that will be a couple of full seasons.
Melilla Season 6 - 2025/26 - La Liga Pre Season Update
Finances
Just finished the hardest yet somehow most enjoyable transfer window I can remember on CM/FM. Barely anyone of repute was interested in joining us and if any club in any of the top leagues came in for a player I was after, that was it, we weren't getting them. Despite this we've made six signings and kept to the £6m or so I had to spend after moving some into the wage budget, which is now £186k. Finances update to the end of last season below:
Try as I might I can't tie 70% of the income in that (the supposed wage cap for La Liga according to sources on the internets) to the wage cap below that we now have:
But as long as it stays at a figure we couldn't possibly hope to spend I'm ok with that.
TV rights landed which was very pleasing, but the board are being seriously prudent - only allowing us to spend less than £10m on wages this season when we're getting £34m in TV money alone, but I guess if we do somehow stay up they'll release the purse strings a bit.
We also have an issue with the stadium:
But two year's grace means that's a potential problem for future me, as this year is all about staying up.
Transfers
Shipped out a load of loans, but no major moves out yet, leaving these magnificent six as those joining to keep the fenced city in Spain's top flight:
£1.6m from Lommel, his estimated value shot up when the fixture list was announced and we were officially confirmed as a La Liga team. I entered the transfer window without a right back I could play due to the minimum wage nonsense, so this guy will probably be first choice.
Released by Man Utd and became our highest earner and at the time he signed, by a country mile. I feel I need to train that knocks ball past opponent trait out of him, but Sergio Aguero disagrees.
Released by SPAL, will be back up to the Belgian.
Another released player from Italy snapped up by us, will probably be first choice eventually.
Fresh legs to come on and run around a lot when we're knackered, which I suspect we will be by 65/70 minutes of almost every game.
I thought long and hard about this guy becoming our record signing but in the end I pushed the button. Rationale being that until I did we had absolutely nothing in this squad that every single other side in La Liga couldn't equal or best. Now though, the only side in La Liga that can boast a 20 jumping and 18 heading Latvian beast is Melilla.
That leaves £141k in the transfer budget and a few grand on the wages to spend, but unless I get an agent offer that fits that allowance and is too good to turn down on deadline day, that's it, business for this window done.
We start the league with a game against also newly promoted Real Sporting Gijon. A win would be lovely.
The size of the task is clear...
Melilla Season 6 - 2025/26 - La Liga Mid Season Update
So with the squad assembled we stepped into the unknown and on the whole it's gone incredibly well:
The start of the season scared the hell out of me as while we were playing very well we just weren't taking our chances and we went into the horrible run of games against Barca, Real and Sevilla without a win and with me fully expecting us to be rock bottom at the end of it. Barca was close but we lost fairly, Real we managed to hang on having scored and Sevilla was a magnificent performance to give us our first win. We then went on an incredible run winning five in a row to put some serious daylight in between us and the bottom three.
The new signings have all bedded in well (although I now have a fair few issues with playing time unhappiness which is annoying and I need to sort) and Uldrikis and Alves are amazing. The former is an utter menace and the perfect antidote to when you're having one of those games where you can't score and Alves looks genuinely class as he bombs it up and down the right side.
The cup loss was annoying as I rotated heavily and ill discipline led to us only having nine players on the pitch by the end of it, but on the plus side that's only the league to focus on now and at the 17 game mark we're in contention for Europe.
Beyond my wildest dreams stuff, but even at this point first target is now getting the couple more wins or so we need to keep us up and then we'll see where we are. The revenue is flowing and we're in rude financial health with nearly £20m in the bank and making a healthy profit each month - I'm pretty sure if we do stay up the board will release the purse strings a bit and we'll get a decent budget next season. All in all, I love these players and I love this club.
Making light work of the league. How are you setting up tactically?
Like so:
Variant one is the same but on Positive mentality, which I'll use a lot more when we have the players good enough to be favourites. Problem will come when tactic 1 and 2 get sussed out and I have to temporarily move to tactic 3, which is far too attacking for me at this level currently. Hopefully that's next season's problem though.
Melilla Season 6 - 2025/26 - La Liga End of Season Update
A fantastic 8th place finish in the end, perhaps should have been higher though as we had a shocking April:
Some really great performances in there, particularly from the massive Latvian, who finished with 20 goals in the league.
In other news the board have released the purse strings.
Might not look like it from first glance due to the transfer budget being the same, but the wage budget increase is monstrous, at about two and a half times what we had for our first top flight season.
Although there is some bad news, we're not in Africa anymore...
But the board do plan to rectify that:
I imagine you're getting plenty of crosses in?
I'm managing Livorno in the 5th tier of Italy. I had a load of massively overpaid gimps that I've had transfer listed and on the unwanted list since the summer, and a couple of them have stopped talking to me because I failed my promise of selling them, despite them both having had about 20 offers each accepted for them that they then turned down the contract for. Love FM.
Am indeed, a shit load of the massive Latvian's goals were headers.
How are you getting through these seasons so quickly? Commentary only / instant result?
Key highlights only.
Melilla Season 7 - 2026/27 - La Liga Mid Season Update
Finances
P&L update below.
A 40 fold revenue increase from the first season to the last.
Having reached January and now having £36m in the bank (which makes us the 32nd richest club in the World), but only having a remaining transfer budget of £2.5m it was time to update the horrific facilities we're working with. Starting with training, we'll have a £400k investment completed by the start of next season, but this is the current state of play:
Peppered with stuff relating to the stadium we're using while our new one gets built (still no actual news on that yet), but either way, we have awful facilities and that won't do.
Transfers
With a £475k wage budget a lot of players wanted new contracts and while I reviewed a few I've managed to fend a lot of without upsetting club harmony. These players joined:
Very excited about this one. £3.1m minimum fee release clause from Maccabi Tel-Aviv, big things are expected from the kosher Messi. Sadly he appears to be a bit injury prone so far - he was injured when he joined us and has since spent another two months out.
Another minimum fee release, £900k from Kano Pillars.
St. Pauli youth product snapped up on a free transfer.
With Tripaldelli leaving for Watford for his £4m release clause I needed a left back and this chap was the best I could get.
Needed a left winger and when this FIFA22 legend became available from Brest for £1.4m it was a no brainer.
Results
An amazing start to the season with five wins had me dreaming of a title challenge, but it's been much tougher since. Clear evidence of tactics cracking meant I had to move to the alternative one which is far more attacking with two strikers and wins have been hard to come by. We nearly got a very undeserved win against Madrid to finish off the year but they equalised in the 95th minute, leaving the table like so.
Europe is the target as we need to get that club rep up quite badly.
Melilla Season 7 - 2026/27 - La Liga RUN IN Update
Heading into April and we're in a good run of form, but first we broke our transfer record in January:
£7m from FC Midtjylland, looks like he could be absolute mustard, although I fucked up by putting him in a mentoring group with Cisse who has 18 Determination vs. what was Samson's 20.
Some tough games remaining so closing the gap on Sociedad may be too much to ask but if we don't get some form of Europe at this point it'll be a real shame.
Last edited by Yevrah; 05-09-2022 at 05:58 PM.
Some annoying draws have undermined the push for a Champions League spot somewhat and if ever we needed our first win against RealBarca, it's now.
Jasper Samson has started so well mind.
Madrid absolutely humped us, but in yet another episode of it's the hope that kills you Sociedad dropped points at home to Villarreal so it will go to the final day for a spot in the Champions League.
Due to the head to head we have to win and Sociedad have to lose and I think it's worth a minimum of £20m to either team for whoever makes it.
Shame atletico won’t go down. Might have been nice to shop at!
Pogon Siedlce 2041/42 Season:
Transfers In:
£475k from Legia. He had more stars showing when I first scouted him and he hasn't been amazing in the third division. Seems like a bust.
£975k from Sassuolo, his value has shot up and he did really well for the second team in the first division. He's played almost all his games at RB despite being a natural AMR.
£5m from Lechia, he's done really well in the second team and he looks brilliant. He could be a Worldie.
Transfers Out:
Constantly moaning and we had better options now.
Fuck knows how we got so much money for him as he's barely progressed since I first signed him.
I regret selling him, he was never more than a squad option for us but he always played well when called upon. Sadly we had too many options in his position and I thought I'd do the right thing and let him go to a club who would play him as a starter.
Always fucking moaning and never being good enough to take a starting spot I gladly took Bournemouth's money.
League:
I believe that's my first ever perfect season. We scored 152 conceding just 9 goals (most of which came in the final 2 months).
The 16 goal win after the winter break was a real highlight. We're currently on a 52 game winning streak and we haven't lost in 131 matches.
Also, winning all the games allowed me another first. I won every single Manager of the Months:
Cups:
No problems.
Club World Cup:
We also won our two other group games (which are listed as last season), it was nice to avenge the CL final defeat against Man City a couple of seasons ago.
Europe:
Our easiest group thus far and we walked it.
First Knockout Round:
Absolutely destroyed them and they were lucky to only be 3 down heading into the second leg.
They were lucky that this match was so close but we really relaxed when Kucharski scored our 4th.
Quarter Final:
Nervy first leg and I thought when they equalised we'd end up losing the tie.
That feeling went into overdrive when they took the lead but we dug deep and managed to get the goals we needed to go through. Awaiting us our save game nemesis United.
Semi Final:
We played well but a 2-0 lead flattered us. This was only the third time we had beaten them, the other two times happened two seasons ago at this stage of the competition where we fucked the final with minutes to go.
I thought we'd smash them when Kern scored early and then we earned a penalty but Blazic smashed it wide. After that it was all them and we couldn't do anything, thankfully our keeper kept us in it and we got a set piece goal late to seal it and to keep our unbeaten season alive.
I thought we were going to see a repeat of two seasons ago as Man City won their first leg 2-0 but Leipzig had other ideas:
Strangely we've never met in the save so I had no idea what to expect.
Final:
Toggle Spoiler
Squad:
Mani Alderman with the boosted stats from playing a lot of league games although he did well in Europe playing 5(6) matches scoring 2 (both in the knockouts) and grabbing 3 assists. This team is special, we went unbeaten this season with us winning every single match other than drawing the first leg against Chelsea and the second against Man United.
The Future:
Well firstly I've decided to take the Belgian job (having been rejected by Poland) for the upcoming World Cup in what will hopefully be a great ending. The reason I chose Belgium? This lad:
Bonkers.
As for Pogon Siedlce I think I'm done. I think what I will do is resign and holiday for 1/2 seasons and see what the AI does with argubaly the best team in the world plus they'll have a £300m WARCHEST to piss about with and then I'll go and resume the England pyramid challenge I started when I became angry with The Chairman and needed some time away.
I have left the new manager with some parting gifts too:
Seems I forgot to scout him but when I saw him whilst looking through youth teams after intake day I knew I needed to grab him. I don't think he'll be amazing but I like hoarding youth, £165k.
£26.5m and he'll be the highest transfer we've spent (assuming the new manager doesn't break it instantly), my scouts think he'll be special.
£3.8m and I've had this lad signed on a pre-contract for 2 seasons. He looks nutty.
Speaking of nutty. Fulham had a price range of £57m-80m on him but I signed him via a contract and they're only getting a maximum compensation of £2.8m with 30% profit (IIRC). He looks insane.
Kaiserslautern - 2022/23
Recruitment
There are several routes when it comes to recruitment you can take through FM when lower down the leagues. One is to abuse the loan system and bring in the stars of the future albeit briefly. A second option is to pluck for experienced names and hope for an Indian summer. Whilst the third option involves scouring the market in great detail and wasting hours of your life. I of course went the latter route.
The board once again backed our title bid with a reasonable £1.75m. The first and probably best bit of business came in Dortmund as we plucked Richmond Tachie & Immanuel Pherai from the Borussia scrap pile. Despite his ability to miss open goals, Tachie (23) became crucial to our campaign and netted an impressive 23 times. Pherai (21) equally produced with 14 assists and 5 goals of his own. Elsewhere in attack 6'8" Aaron Seydel (26) joined from Darmstadt as a solid plan b option from the bench, along with Marc Stendera (26) from Ingolstadt who'll most likely be remembered for missing three consecutive penalties (he netted the fourth). The most important signing however arrived in central defence as we picked up Schlotterbeck (not that one) from Freiburg. His performances provided the team with stability and he would go on to become club captain. When the window closed our wage budget was a whopping £40k over budget. Not good.
March Madness
On to the football and we flew out of the blocks. The new additions had hit the ground running and the Fritz-Walter was rocking. By the time Qatar rolled around we had a nine point lead, a lead which then extended to ten points come the winter break. The lead became even wider after play resumed reaching it's peak at a whopping fifteen. The title was coming to Kaiserslautern, but then March arrived. A rare 1-0 defeat in Hallescher brought an end to our winning streak and was compounded a week later as we fell to Zwickau 3-2 in a ding dong battle. Then arrived back to back 1-0 defeats to Erzgebirge Aue & Dynamo Dresden, both of whom had closed the gap at the top significantly. With morale low and a few star names hitting horrid patches of form, I switched up the eleven and sure enough the title push was back on track as we won our next four fixtures. Crucial.
Losing only one of our final eight games, the 3. Liga was ours and more importantly Kaiserslautern were back in the second tier of German football after a five year absence. Looking ahead to the 2. Liga, it may not be as challenging as previous renditions as Werder Bremen, HSV & Schalke all now ply their trade in the Bundesliga. We shall see.
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Cracking save Mahow. What next?
Resuming this save is next.
The club were founded in 1883 and, according to Wiki, are the Northernmost team to play in the Football League. This is down to them being founder members of the Football League Third Division North. The town is 15 miles north of Newcastle and they have some footballing history as the Charlton brothers were born here. The club currently plays in the ninth tier
I was planning to stay south, ideally in Hertfordshire or one of the surrounding counties but they came in and offered me a whopping £1,350 wage budget, although the club are currently spending almost all of it.
Here is the squad:
Which is surprisingly thin considering how much we're spending in wages however there is some quality there. Including these two:
Yannick looks too good for this tier of football and he's going to be solid at the back. Coach report reckons he's got the potential to be a Vanarama North/South player which is 3 tiers higher than this division. He's wanted by others and obviously on a non-contract so I doubt he's staying here for long.
He looks very well rounded and the coaches think he can play in any role at CM which is handy.
Here is our hot prospect:
Might have to target him at set pieces to knick a few goals.
Not sure what tactic I'm going to play, I'd like a 4-4-2 but I'd need to bring players in for that as we have nothing on the wings so it will probably be a narrow diamond for now.
Media is currently predicting us to finish 4th so in the playoff spots. Previous manager has played a game and we won 3-1 against Crook Town who are predicted to finish bottom. The manager played a 4-4-2 with the assistant manager, a 39 year old CDM, playing at LM. Probably not something that I will be looking to copy.
Plan is to try and get to the Prem before FM23.
That is sickening.
Wanna make the scroll bar on this page any smaller Mahow?
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