Here's the non-Pole who will be joining next month:
He's so fucking good and I couldn't say no.
Here's the non-Pole who will be joining next month:
He's so fucking good and I couldn't say no.
3 years and I can play him. Assuming he takes a passport.
Blimey, some proper drubbings in the league there @Sir Andy Mahowry. Is it a tactic thing or are you just way better than most of the league at this point?
@Serj What's the though process behind asymmetrical formations? Mine always look standard but it seems like asymmetrical ones have always been pretty popular & successful. Does it just help get players in the right areas of the field?
We're just so much better than the league.
Even teams like Warta & Legia (fuck knows how they keep fucking the league up) it's hard to find players there that would get into my first team.
Fiorentina 2025/26 Season:
Another season down & having started slowly we made it tougher than necessary to secure a Champions league spot, let alone make a push for the title, but with the talent we have on our team we just needed to have our key players hit some better form & we'd be able to compete with anyone.
Transfers:
As expected, it was a quiet one, with most of the incoming players immediately being sent out on loan to develop, and the only two players who left were depth players that can be upgraded on with newgens.
Italian Cup:
We had a decent run here, making it all the way to the final, only to lose to Inter.
Champions League:
Having finally been given a tough group stage draw, we proceeded to lol our way to top spot, getting revenge on Man City for our CL final defeat in the process. A knockout tie against PSG looked like a brutal reward for our performance, but we stunned them in the first leg and scored a 95th minute equaliser in the second leg to pull off a huge upset. Sadly we couldn't continue to upset the odds as we were swiftly eliminated by Bayern in the next round.
Serie A:
We hit midseason well off the pace & with our stars in questionable form, but things improved in the second half of the year, and we slowly reeled in the teams above us. With a few games to go it was down to Juve, Napoli & us, but our tough final three games, including a defeat to Juve, were enough of a hurdle to stop us being able to finish the job.
Awards:
We weren't in contention for many big award this season, with Juve dominating most of the categories, however Cristiano Biraghi continued his run as the best defender in the league, and we also had wins for Marco Carnesecchi in goal, and Giorgio Scalvini, who is coming on strong as a utility CB/ball winning midfielder for us.
We broke one more record, with our game against Venezia breaking the record for most goals in a league game.
-
The other main new item of note, was that apparently the board have decided to start planning a new stadium. We only had a capacity of about 42k at the moment, so it's definitely needed, but it sounds like we might still be waiting a while before anything even gets started.
We have one or two bigger name players who might get moved on over the summer as we continue to bring through some of the prospects I've been snatching up over the last few seasons, but FM still seems awful at sending respectable transfer offers so we'll see if anyone actually gives us a fair price for any of them.
Mostly that, plus a result of trial and error. With this one I started out with a 4-2-3-1 shape. Since my workhorse midfielder and the centre-backs with better technique/passing/vision were left-footed, I put them in the position and role that they have now (left-central BBM / BPD, respectively). Then it turned out that the build-up from the back was best if there's space between them and the second central midfielder is pulled back into defensive midfield.Originally Posted by Dan
I have a symmetrical 'away' version of it with two DMs as well which I sometimes use in big matches. Got a bit bored of that though, which is one reason why I now have three tactics with three different formations, the other reason being injuries. I'm fiddling around with asymmetrical versions of those other tactics too, so it might just be compulsive at this point.
Getting done twice by Rangers.
Ah I’m a page behind.
I'm a twit
Porto
Fourth time out of five seasons in the CL we've been paired with them in the groups.
Haven't had much chance to get into my first Wolves season this week, but I'm halfway through the season now.
We've already passed the vision of developing the 'best youth system in the country', and whilst I might need to sign some high profile and/or Portuguese players at some point, it's been pretty straightforward otherwise. I want to up our possession levels as we're middle of the road at the moment, but I'm not going to risk results at the moment.
Not even happy with Anderlecht as this is what happened when we last faced them:
IIRC we only needed a point to secure third...
reminds me of the old regen days
Aggression 5
I'm a twit
He needs to go up against a Haaland regen to unlock his full aggression.
Is there a page where i can see who has played the most games for me, even sold players?
Another season down, and we said goodbye to a lot of our big name veterans as the roster starts to finally make the jump to the newgen era.
Transfers:
Absolutely nobody of any note arrived, just a couple of arranged transfers & then some loans to fill out the squad when I cleaned house in January. Samuele Ricci was our record signing a couple of years ago but he wanted a big pay rise & hadn't been playing well enough to deserve it, then he threw a wobbly & submitted a transfer request, so we moved him on for a small profit. Sottil got shown the door as part of the newgen revolution having been a solid rotational winger from the start, Rafia was the same but he played less than Sottil, and Chris Richards was sold for a big profit so I could fully unleash the kid behind him.
The biggest losses, though, are club captain, icon & consistent stud Cristiano Biraghi & stalwart CB Lucas Martinez Quarta. Both got upset when I broke a promise to win the Italian Cup last season by losing in the final, so LMQ handed in a transfer request three days before the summer window close & Biraghi said he'd leave on a Bosman at the end of the year. I was looking to phase them both out anyway, so when we got bids for them in the new year they were allowed to leave.
Serie A:
We started fairly slowly again this season, with Napoli & Milan being the shock early frontrunners. Like last season we struggled for goals a bit, which cost us some games, and at the midway point I think Arthur Cabral was our top scorer with 8. Once we cleaned house, however, we took off, and managed to capitalise on some stumbles from the teams ahead of us to storm to our second Serie A title. The huge surprise here was Juventus, who had a horrific start, losing 4 of their first 8 games & never really getting into title contention despite also improving as the season went on.
Italian Cup:
We seem to do pretty well here despite me not caring about the competition, as we once again reached the final, although we did have a relatively easy path this year, and once again faced Juventus. We were the better team for 90mins, but couldn't find the net, so we went to extra time. We were spared the dreaded shootout, however, as Cabral stepped up with a couple in extra time to ensure we completed a domestic double.
Champions League:
After being reunited with our one true CL love Porto in the groups, we actually flubbed our lines relative to our normal performance, coming second in our group behind Real Santander, which led to us being drawn against Barcelona in the first knockout round. We competed through both legs, but came up just short away from home & bowed out.
Awards:
We had seven players in the Serie A Team of the Year, but as you might expect, our main man was, once again, Arthur Cabral, who had a sluggish start to the season before exploding in the new year & running away with the top scorer award, both in Serie A & across Europe. He also won the Serie A Player of the Year award, and is now our vice captain following the departure of Cristiano Biraghi.
Some of the other key players in the side include new club captain Nikola Milenkovic, who won the Serie A Defender of the Year award, and goalkeeper Marco Carnesecchi, who has proven to be a fantastic upgrade between the sticks, winning one of the two GK of the Year awards & attracting the attention of Bayern, who have been throwing out £75m bids for him over the summer.
We also had award wins for our new stud at RB, Joao Pedro, who won the Best Young Player award, and our second backup RB, Nico Loi, who won the u19 Defender of the Season despite barely doing anything.
Lastly, we managed to break a couple of records in a fixture that has proven to be the most must watch matchup in Serie A history. Following out 6-3 win against Venezia last season, we went one better & beat them 7-3 this year, with six of those coming from Cabral.
Players:
We've overhauled most of the team now, so here are some of the notable newgens that are going to make up the new core of the team. Replacing Cristiano Biraghi is Carlos Salinas, who should give us a nice due of young fullbacks, and in front of them we have another Brazil/Argentina combo in Renan Silveira & Cesar Adamo, who both rotate at the moment but could become a fantastic CM pairing in the future.
We have plenty of talent at AMC, but Lucas Eduardo looks to be a fantastic prospect who can also play out on the wings when needed. Out wide we have even more options, and I'm still swapping them all around & sending guys out on loan to try to develop them all, but this season we had Daan De Boer & Marvin Wattiau in the squad, and they both showed they can play at a high level when called upon.
--
We'll be looking to continue to develop our young players in the upcoming season, with plenty of spots still up for grabs depending on how players develop. It seems unlikely that Juventus will be bad again this season, so no doubt the usual three horse race between us, Juve & Inter will resume, but as long as we can continue to make a title challenge whilst reaching the knockout rounds of the CL we should be able to keep the board happy.
Can't be arsed to do a big recap of this season, but we managed to retain the Serie A title, which essentially came down to the fact that we beat Juventus home & away. We started off the season with a 3-0, a 7-0 & a 5-0, which pretty much summed up the first half of the year, as we ran through basically everyone, but Juve kept pace with us all year & only really lost ground through the head to head games.
We qualified second from a CL group of Man Utd, CFR Cluj & Dynamo Kyiv (we narrowly missed Porto again), but then lost 1-0 on aggregate against PSG. We lost the Super Cup to Juve, and lost to Milan in the semi finals of the Italian Cup.
-
I'm having a big clearout this summer, moving on from some of the newgens that have gained value but aren't likely to be impact players for us, but unlikely many players will arrive. We'd signed a talented kid from Torino last summer who I'm hoping will be the long term replacement for Arthur Cabral, but we should have enough talent on the books to be able to just promote from within over the next year or two.
We've got our new stadium underway, but won't move in for three seasons, and we've also had a change of owner, which looks to have changed basically nothing. Only other points of note are that Milenkovic is now the club record holder for appearances, and Cabral is the record goalscorer.
Does the new stadium capacity take you beyond Napoli?
Keep the updates coming btw. Between you and Serj I've been inspired to manage in Italy for the first time since possibly 2018. Tuscany here I come.
Pogon Siedlce 2031/32 Season Update:
Transfers In:
My board are SEETHING as they think £3.4m is too much for him but I disagree. I really like him and if he progresses in the right areas he could be brilliant.
The first player that I decided to slightly tweak the rules for. He's not Polish in any way but I couldn't say no to him for just £725k. I instantly put him into the second team where he's run riot in the Polish third division. I also tried to loan him out for nothing in the February window but no one came in, then a week later Legia came in with a huge loan offer. He's also been donning the Ekstraklasa for them, 11 starts with 1 sub appearance, 1 goal, 1.18 tackles per 90, 98% pass completion and a 7.33 rating. He's going to be fucking glorious for us in 768 days.
£300k which I think is a steal. I've barely used him in the first team this season but he's blasted the shit out of the third division with the second team. 24 goals and 8 assists from 33 starts.
I had been chasing this guy since January of last season but he was never interested. I kept trying and finally he decided to talk to us. The wages are a little excessive (our next highest earner is on 27k a week) but he's been seriously good and I think he could end up becoming world class.
Like Jurica he is NOT Polish. I wasn't planning on doing this again so soon but I decided to go for it as he was only £2.1m and the lack of good Polish keepers on this save is really annoying. He seems to be 4th or 5th choice for Slovenia as he's been called up to the senior squad a couple of times so hopefully he doesn't choose them when the time comes.
Transfers Out:
No one of note leaving, I did try to get a few more youth players that haven't progressed much to leave but I was unable to. I also had an offer from Chelsea for one of my starters who is 19. They came in with a £5m bid plus some instalments and a percentage of profit. I then negotiated the starting fee to £30m thinking they'd walk away but they instantly said it was fine. I then got cold feet as I felt they'd be willing to go a lot higher so I rejected it and signed him to a new contract.
Here he is btw:
He mainly plays for me at CB but he's listed as our best CB, RB and CM. Not bad for a freebie from our feeder club.
League:
No idea where this Legia performance came from as the last 3 years they've been completely irrelevant. They had a 12 point lead over us at one stage and we were clawing them back hard. We ended up taking the lead when we beat them and I thought that was it but we ended up drawing 2-2 against Wisla Plock having been 2-0 up.
I can't even blame my reserves for losing matches between European games as we dropped a lot of points when playing the starters.
Cups:
Meh.
Champions League:
When we battered Anderlecht 4-0 I thought it would near enough guarantee us third as I thought we'd both get pumped by Bayern and Barca and there was no way they'd beat us by 5 goals. Strangely in the game after they drew 1-1 with Barca (who needed an 86th minute equaliser) which made the second game a bit nervy as any victory for them would see them go in as third. Thankfully we did the job and took third.
Europa League:
I thought we were going to lose against Betis as we missed so many chances in the first leg but we looked even better in the second leg and beat them easily. Draw was kind all along the way until the Semi-Final where Arsenal were too much for us. However, they were lucky to win so comfortably especially in the first leg considering their xG was only 1.54. We took the game to them in the first leg and despite going 1-0 down we fought back to 2-1 and we were piling on the pressure but they hit us on the counter in injury time to ensure we didn't find the goals we needed.
Sadly our run wasn't enough to lift Poland into 10th in the coefficients as the other Polish teams had shit years and the Dutch teams had a brilliant year finishing with a whopping 12.7 points. For 33/34 though we look strong as we'll have a shocking year removed.
About 20,000 seats more than the old stadium, so it's a decent upgrade. Napoli are at 54,726 so it'll be slightly bigger than theirs is now.
Not quite as impressive as Dan's.
Over £1k a seat too. Must be solid gold thrones.
Whoever does the eyebrow code for regens should be sacked
At least you can get yours done in a few months, rather than three years.
Not quite as impressive as Dan's.
They are only adding 934 seats to the current stadium rather than building a completely new one.
I know, i was trying to make you feel better
For some reason, when I try to save documents like I have been doing for years, it's saying I need permission from the administrator.
Any ideas?
Yeah, ask the administrator.
I think that's me.
That's about as useful as PMing Bam.
Absolutely seething (and I have rage quit the game for the night), we're out of Europe completely because we've failed to beat Benfica in the last Champions League game.
This season has been horrendous thus far. I'm blaming it on the new update.
Just be glad your family is not Russian.
I'm a twit
I've finally had Karel Poborsky step aside and the new chairman is Bernard Laporte-Fray who comes from Pau FC. Googling the managing director brings up a French lugist (luger?) so I assuming that's not him. Either way the new owner has also agreed to look into building a new stadium and then not saying another word about it, so the new boss is a refreshing lack of difference.
In the Serie A, this season was a bit of a step back. Had a massive wobble mid-season and in general conceded far too many, so we came out of it outside of the Champions League spots, in fifth.
Speaking of which, this year we finally made it out of the group stages there, only to be knocked out of the First Knockout Round by a frankly much better Arsenal.
The board were still "very pleased" since I was still spending much less than all the teams around me and qualified for the Champions League relatively regularly (the Glazers would love it), but I felt that we were stagnating a bit. Plus, no silverware this season, so I resigned.
PSG and Real Madrid offered me jobs pretty much immediately, but I saw that another job was available and declined.
Should be both a step-up (an early look at the squad's quality tells me that's definitely the case) as well as a challenge, as the last time they won the league was 13 years back. The main aim is to achieve that within 3 seasons.
On the national team front, the World Cup was upon U.S. (ha!). I was a bit torn regarding what to expect. On the one hand, the US had reached the final of the 2026 World Cup, where they lost on penalties to England, of all teams. On the other hand, not much quality had come through the ranks since, which meant that some of the best players in the current squad were still players who had played in that World Cup 12 years earlier, now aged 34-36 and at their last tournament. They'd been knocked out of the 2034 cup with zero points in the Group Stage when I took over. I'd managed to win one Gold Cup and gotten to the final of another one since then, plus I qualified for the World Cup with ease, building a 4-3-3 that was much more conservative than my wonky and higher-risk club tactics; naturally, with my Torino star Sam Percival as the focal point, attacking as a Mezzala from central midfield.
I still had my doubts though, since qualifying for the World Cup out of CONCACAF when you're the US is not really an achievement. Pre-World Cup friendlies went exceedingly well, however. We dominated against Nigeria in a 3-1 win and efficiently dispatched France and the Czechs 1-0 each. Not exactly glorious attacking football, but I'd take it for the World Cup.
The main focus was improving on the previous World Cup, which meant getting out of the group stage. In the current horrible three-team group format, we were drawn against Cameroon and a rejuvenated Greece that had qualified without a defeat. The first game against Cameroon seemed to confirm the good form we'd shown in the friendlies: 2-0 by half-time and hardly gave them a sniff. 3-0 by the end with only one shot on target conceded. I knew that Greece would offer a tougher contest, but I was happy with the defensive stability nonetheless, plus one win in this format meant we had basically already qualified anyways.
The Greeks turned out to be a really tough opponent. They employed the same 4-2-3-1 that the Cameroonians had, but just had much better attacking players, and it showed. We managed to take the lead twice, but both times that resulted in an attacking barrage we couldn’t withstand, and runs in behind my defence that pulled it out of shape. 2-2 at the end meant that we only came second in the group, as that Greek side thrashed Cameroon 5-0.
With that reality check out of the way I was less optimistic for the Second Round, where we faced Russia, who had topped their group against Ivory Coast and Syria. I tried to shore up the defence a bit, dropping a bit deeper, playing a more experienced defensive midfielder and encouraging slightly more direct passing (as getting caught on the counter seemed one of the main vulnerabilities of the team). I’m not sure if those changes were responsible, but we were completely overwhelmed in the first half. 0-2 down after 45 minutes, with a third coming in injury time of the first half. I went all out attack after that but apart from a lot of yellow cards on their side, that did not seem to make much of an impression.
So, having achieved the bare minimum and frankly being quite bored of the North American internationals, I decided to resign from that post as well.
Liverpool should provide a nice fresh start with either completely new tactics or a variation on the lesser-used recent 4-3-1-2.
Last edited by Serj; 28-03-2022 at 07:10 PM.
That's a pretty decent upgrade in job. Is the Prem still mostly the usual suspects battling it out or have some new teams managed to bridge the gap? Also, lol at Roma getting relegated.
Chelsea appointed Allegri in the summer of 2023, which seems to have set off a golden age for them; he also won two Champions Leagues with them. He left in 2031, and after that season it's been an all-Manchester affair.
Just finished the 28/29 season, and boy, things got ugly.
Transfers:
We had a huge clearout of some of the newgens I'd been developing, with a handful leaving for nice chunks of cash (some without ever even playing for us), and being replaced by a new bunch of newgens to get worked through the system.
Serie A:
I think we lost more games this season than any other season in the save, and only game less than we had in the last three seasons combined. Somehow, we still ended up in contention for the title on the last game day, but we could only draw with Inter & even if we'd won it wouldn't have mattered as Juve were 2pts ahead of us & beat Spezia to reclaim the title.
We lost three times in the first eight games of the season, but got back in to it by going on a long winning run, only to then lose three games in a row & throw it all away.
Champions League:
We had our toughest group so far, being matched with Atletico, Chelsea & Young Boys, and started slowly, picking up only 2pts from the first three games, however we stepped up in the return games, and a big win against Chelsea was enough for us to pip them to second place.
I was sad to have avoided any of our usual CL buddies in the groups, but that was resolved in the knockout rounds when we were reunited with PSG, who did exactly what they did last year & swept us aside with ease.
Domestic Cups:
We managed to salvage some respectability in the cups, beating Milan in the last seconds of the Super Cup & then making it to the final of the Italian Cup, where we once again beat Milan to secure the crappiest double possible.
Awards:
As usual, Arthur Cabral was the top scorer in Serie A, and Marco Carnesecchi won the Pulici Award. We also had our academy RB win the u17 Defender of the Year, as he stepped in & played when we were a bit short handed at RB, and one of our wingers won the Best Young Player award.
Pleasingly, the young striker I splashed out on last season as the long term replacement for Cabral had a great season out on loan at Benfica, and ended up winning both the World u21 Footballer of the Year award & the European Golden Boy.
--
I want to get rid of some more of the veterans on the team this summer, and I'll probably move a few more newgens on too. All the outgoing transfers this season caused our transfer budget to explode to £328m, which is more money than we actually have, so I might consider splashing out on one or two players if I can find room for them. I'm still struggling to get a group of young CBs that can step in when Milenkovic starts dropping off, so that should really be the main focus, but I'm not sure whether I'll be able to find someone that ticks all the boxes I'm looking for.
Mine's depressingly similar:
Chelsea appointed Allegri in the summer of 2023, which seems to have set off a golden age for them; he also won two Champions Leagues with them. He left in 2031, and after that season it's been an all-Manchester affair.
It does seem like the big clubs stay at the top unless you're the one to break up the monopoly.
Definitely. Serie A is the most varied of the big leagues with five different champions during my save (Juventus/the Milans/Napoli/Roma). For Spain it's Real/Barcelona exclusively and the Bundesliga has seen 26 consecutive titles for Bayern since 12/13.
Surprisingly I've had Real Santander win La Liga twice (23/24 & 25/26), with Villarreal & Betis making appearances in the top three. It's been Real Madrid every other year though, and Barcelona are usually second.
Bundesliga is all Bayern here too, although Hertha Berlin did finish second this season, which is about as close as we're going to get I think.
I remember once seeing one of those "I simulated 500 years in FM" videos in FM21 and PSG literally won every Ligue 1 title for 500 years on the run.
I'm too lazy to have done regular updates on this Kaiserslautern save, but I just felt the need to declare that Martin Satriano is a fucking legend.
My players are annoying me.
I've had 4 players come to me about wanting moves in January because they want to play in the Champions League. I guarantee them that we'll be playing at the end of the season and they say we don't have a chance.
We've qualified FIVE seasons running and look good for a 6th...
Christ on a bike.
I've made an offer for him (despite not being Polish) but Juventus, Man City, United, Lazio and Napoli have also come in for him.
He chose Lazio who paid double the transfer fee we offered but they're paying him £10k a week less than we offered.
Five matches into my Liverpool stint. This seems oddly familiar.
Pogon Siedlce & Poland 2032/33 Season Update:
Transfers Out:
Some big transfers out this year and we've made a huge amount of cash.
I decided he could go this season as I think Skopek is slightly better and I wanted to get Kalinowski into the midfield. Plus I wanted to give Kasperowicz more games. Three offers came in which the board accepted, the lowest of which was £20.5m from Ajax where Pakula wanted to go. Thankfully I managed to talk him out of going there so we could get more money.
£26m is a bit on the low side and I think I should have protested the transfer and kept hold of him.
I had been thinking of selling Bobek for years now as he can have some mental moments but I always struggled to find someone better. I kept getting low offers this Summer but on deadline day Besiktas went all in and the board accepted before I could.
Transfers In:
I think this is Polish RB #829 that I've signed now. One day one of them will be great, it might even be Nowak who I do like.
I really like Duraj and I might end up selling Walczak this Summer so Kacper can become the starter. I think he could be special.
£9m is a bit hefty but I like him a lot and I didn't want Legia to ruin him.
Scrambled to replace Bobek and I think I've done pretty well. They compare fairly evenly (with Bobek being slightly better) but I think he's great for the price and he'll be my keeper for two years until Pahor gets a Polish passport.
I had been trying to bring him in since he was produced at Fiorentina but he wasn't interested. Thankfully near the end of the mid-season window he relented.
League:
We started like shit and had a few wobbles along the way but as soon as we got dumped out of Europe we went on a long winning run and the title was always going to come back to us.
Europe:
A hard start to qualify for the groups and then we had arguably our easiest group. I thought third was guaranteed with a decent chance at second, especially when we beat Lyon. Sadly we just couldn't get the goals we needed against Benfica despite leading them in xG by quite some bit in both games, SEETHING didn't cover it.
Cup:
I was a little worried that this, coupled with our shakiness in the league was going to lead to me being sacked. I was at a C+ and "Stable" for a while, I really hope the board realise this is meaningless soon.
Squad:
I'm happy with the squad right now. Players who might be moving on are both Jasinski's (I've been trying to sell Jan for 2 seasons and Matty for on), Smolarczyk and Walczak. Other than that I would accept a big offer from Skopek (£40m+) but sadly I think the board would step in and accept before it got that high even though we have £40m in the bank with more coming in.
Poland:
Forgot to do a Euro update as I was too angry at how it went. Nations League is meh and we've had a crap start to World Cup Qualification.
Also, we hit 9th in the coefficients list.
No more qualifying for us/league champs \0/.
How many titles on the trot is that now?
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