Football Manager 2021

[FLiam]

Anybody got any ideas for a decent youth development type save? 

I'm thinking of expanding beyond the "Big Five" European leagues but still looking at Europe. Was thinking a Dutch side or maybe even somebody from Eastern Europe. 

[Lineker]

14 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

Anybody got any ideas for a decent youth development type save? 

I'm thinking of expanding beyond the "Big Five" European leagues but still looking at Europe. Was thinking a Dutch side or maybe even somebody from Eastern Europe. 

Red Star.

[JasonM]

16 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

Anybody got any ideas for a decent youth development type save? 

I'm thinking of expanding beyond the "Big Five" European leagues but still looking at Europe. Was thinking a Dutch side or maybe even somebody from Eastern Europe. 

Dutch leagues are a good choice. Serbia, Croatia (although most teams don't have a reserve squad), Turkey, Sweden/Norway(except for condition troubles in Europe), Denmark are all good choices.

For a really left field choice the Romanian league system is very big and there's some interesting caveats in the rules that you'll either love or hate. (a minimum amount of u21 players on the pitch for example).

It also gets pretty crazy with a 16 team top league that play each other twice, before getting split into a 10 game playoffs or a 9 game playout. Not just that, but halving all the points previously accrued and wiping goal differences.

It's quite a volatile league system with a lot of former glory clubs, up and coming sides, and regional rivals.

IIRC prize money is also very high compared to other '3rd rate' leagues. So you can go pretty wild with building up a young squad and compete in the europa and conference leagues quite well.

[METALMAN]

I always liked the Turkish league. There's enough money there that you can go quite far and have a bash at European glory without too much of a slog, but it's still good enough fun to get there. Also there aren't any weird rules, which is something that has put me off a lot of other leagues that I thought would have been fun.

[Lineker]

 

[The Lusophone]

It's so cool to see the eyes this has been getting.

[Bobfoc]

This is coming to Game Pass tomorrow, both for PC and Xbox.

[Meacon Keaton]

Has anyone tried playing this on Xbox yet? I’m American and didn’t grow up on the game but that just seems incredibly weird to me.

also @Liam Mk2, you haven’t updated us on your save lately.

[FLiam]

39 minutes ago, Meacon Keaton said:

Has anyone tried playing this on Xbox yet? I’m American and didn’t grow up on the game but that just seems incredibly weird to me.

also @Liam Mk2, you haven’t updated us on your save lately.

Oddly enough I was about to rage-post as I'm on the eve of the last game of the season, level on points with Bayern and ahead on goal difference. 

However, Haaland is out as he got injured before the last game, Emre Can just got injured, Locatelli is suspended, then I got notification that Reus, Sancho and Zagadou all got injured and will miss the final game. Fuck. 

[FLiam]

I have three other ideas at the moment for another save, but I can't decide on one. 

Sassuolo - They look to have a semi-decent squad with Beradi and Boga in particular and have not really won anything before, so could be a decent challenge in Italy. 

Crystal Palace - They always get relegated in my saves which suggests they're shit. Their squad is old and in desperate need of freshening up. 

Sevilla - Fancied doing a DoF challenge where I leave all transfers to Monchi. Although I'm not sure on the AI's squad building. 

[METALMAN]

3 hours ago, Meacon Keaton said:

Has anyone tried playing this on Xbox yet? I’m American and didn’t grow up on the game but that just seems incredibly weird to me.

also @Liam Mk2, you haven’t updated us on your save lately.

If it's anything like CM 01/02* (the only one I've played on console ... almost 20 years ago ... God) it will be awkward as hell. That game was basically a straight port of the PC version with the mouse cursor replaced by the left stick and the green button.

LMA Manager was the only manager game I played that was particularly well optimised for console. You could scoot about the menus pretty quickly with L1, L2, R1, R2.

 

*Although tbf you might expect some progress in that time...

3 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

I have three other ideas at the moment for another save, but I can't decide on one. 

Sassuolo - They look to have a semi-decent squad with Beradi and Boga in particular and have not really won anything before, so could be a decent challenge in Italy. 

Just imagine being able to play this banger before every match

 

[FLiam]

8 minutes ago, metalman said:

If it's anything like CM 01/02* (the only one I've played on console ... almost 20 years ago ... God) it will be awkward as hell. That game was basically a straight port of the PC version with the mouse cursor replaced by the left stick and the green button.

LMA Manager was the only manager game I played that was particularly well optimised for console. You could scoot about the menus pretty quickly with L1, L2, R1, R2.

 

*Although tbf you might expect some progress in that time...

Just imagine being able to play this banger before every match

 

I will take this into consideration.

[Lineker]

Is this the newest version now out? Or is it the same one that was released in the 23rd?

[FLiam]

2 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Is this the newest version now out? Or is it the same one that was released in the 23rd?

Same version. I believe there’s another data update to come - mainly for China/Russia. Whether or not there’s anymore gameplay patches remains to be seen.

On the note of improved attributes, James Ward-Prowse now has 20 corners and free-kicks. Woof.

[FLiam]

Think I decided on Sassuolo for my next save. They've only ever won two trophies in their history and with plenty of teams ahead of them - seem like a decent enough challenge. Upon first viewing, I don't understand why they have so many affiliated clubs in the same division. Italian football can be weird. 

Will post update on my Dortmund save later.

[Liam]

1 hour ago, Liam Mk2 said:

Think I decided on Sassuolo for my next save. They've only ever won two trophies in their history and with plenty of teams ahead of them - seem like a decent enough challenge. Upon first viewing, I don't understand why they have so many affiliated clubs in the same division. Italian football can be weird. 

Will post update on my Dortmund save later.

How much money do Sassuolo start with?

[FLiam]

Ok, Dortmund season two update.

Bundesliga:
You may or may not have heard that this season's title-race went right down to the wire. Final day of the season dramatics albeit it was totally in ours hands so was ours to lose. The season got off to a fairly bright start, with plenty of goals being scored  - Haaland being an absolute monster again. Highlights of the early season were the opening day 6-0 drubbing of FC Koln, and other big wins at home to Stuttgart and Arminia Bielefeld. Admittedly I would have been expecting to win these games anyway but it was nice to see the goals flowing. The first real test for us came in late-September / early-October as we faced a run of games against Bayern, Leipzig and Leverkusen. The Bayern game was a drab affair as we looked primarily to frustrate and break at pace when the opportunity arose, we ended up succumbing to a 1-0 defeat thanks to a late and scrappy Leon Goretzka goal. We dispatched of Leipzig away from home thanks to a last-minute winner from new boy Nicolas Pepe (more on him later). Leverkusen gave us a tough game but we ended up 3-2 winners thanks again to a Nicolas Pepe brace this time. We followed these games up with some more victories before hitting a mid-season slump in December and January - only managing to win two of our six games - one being a crazy 5-3 win at Koln. We came out the other side though and went unbeaten for the remainder of the season after the shock 1-0 loss at home to Wolfsburg in early February only conceding eight goals in that time as well. 

So on the final day, we were tied on points with Bayern with an identical record bar goal difference, which we led by just a few. Bayern were hosting Stuttgart whilst we hosted Schalke, winning the title was in our hands - all we had to do really was win. As per my previous post - we were without a host of first team players and eventually I gambled on starting Erling Haaland such was the importance of the fixture although he hadn't trained in a week. The gamble paid off and we came out 4-0 winners on the day with Haaland getting himself on the scoresheet in the process. Bayern ran out 5-0 winners as well but didn't get enough goals to cement themselves as league winners so we were crowned champions on the final day. Mission accomplished, I did not expect to grab a league win this early. I think that our squad depth definitely paid off this season.

Results:

Spoiler

Final Table:

Spoiler

Champion's League:
Another season with a fairly kind draw. Juventus, Athletic and Olympiacos would be our group for this season and we managed to qualify in second place without much of a fuss - remaining undefeated and getting two respectable draws out of Juventus. Highlight of the group was a high-scoring 4-3 win away at Athletic Club. They had levelled the game at 3-3 on the 87th minute but that man Erling Haaland popped up with a winner in the 94th minute. 

This season, our prize for coming second was a two-legged knockout tie against ex-Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool. Magical - and boy did these games not disappoint. The first leg at home was comprised of both teams going for the kill, we took an early lead through Erling Haaland but Liverpool managed to grab a goal back just before half-time through new signing Lautaro Martinez. Full-back Noussair Mazrouri scored for us on 70 minutes and we looked to be comfortable for the 2-1 win before Martinez scored again with five-minutes to play to give Liverpool an all-important second away goal. Onto the second-leg at Anfield and can someone say hum-dinger? Because this one was - mainly because Liverpool absolutely battered us from the first minute but we managed to sneak an early lead thanks to a Zagadou header from a corner inside the first ten minutes. After that it was more of a Liverpool onslaught, although it took until the 54th minute for them to get past the superb Roman Burki through Sadio Mane. A minute later and Gio Reyna bends one into the top corner from 25 yards to square the game up at two a piece. Now we're talking, we matched their away goals - we got this! The referee blows the whistle for full-time with the teams still drawing over the two legs. Both sides have almost given everything already by this point, the first-half of extra-time starts slowly, it takes us seven minutes to take the lead though, a long ball from Nicolas Pepe over the top and Erling Haaland raced onto it to leave himself one-on-one with Dragowski and he chips it over him delightfully. Now we have to hold onto this, we have that extra away goal, Liverpool need to score twice. Four minutes from time, Liverpool get a free-kick just outside the penalty area on the left-flank and Sadio Mane manages to get a toe on the end of the delivery to level the game at 3-3 but we have that all important extra away goal. We hold on for the final few minutes and go through on away goals. They finished the game with a massive 37 shots on goal to our 8 but it's all about being clinical - their xG was 3.74, ours? 0.74.

Now onto the quarter-finals, onwards and upwards. Barcelona are next. Yikes. The first leg was almost a mirror of that game at Anfield, we completely outplayed Barcelona at home, beating them in all the stats, more shots, more possession, better xG but we ended up losing 3-2. Mbappe and Messi put them 2-0 ahead before the break and it took us 67 minutes to get off the mark through Jadon Sancho before Coutinho put what I thought was the nail in our coffin on 86 minutes making it 3-1. But I remembered we had monster Erling Haaland still on the pitch and he rose to meet an early cross into the box to head into the near corner to give us a glimmer of hope for the second leg. 3-2 on the night, we have it all to do at Camp Nou. Long story short, we got beat 5-2. Scoreline somewhat flattered them as their final two goals both came in stoppage time. All-in-all, I was proud of our European campaign this season, we didn't get beaten by Juventus or Liverpool, two big teams and we managed to give Barcelona a game of it at least in one leg and we still scored four against them. There's always next season to go that extra step. 

Results:

Spoiler

Final group table:

Spoiler

CL KO Results:

Spoiler

DFB-Pokal:
Now onto domestic cup matters. We started the competition off well with a 6-0 hammering of lower league minnows Todesfelde. The second round drew us against the same team at this stage as last season - Vfl Bochum. Although this time around we didn't need extra-time and blew them away with a 3-0 win. The third round tie was another generous one with us playing 2nd tier Dynamo Dresden and we knocked them out with another emphatic display winning 4-1. Hamburg away were next in our sights having recently knocked Bayern out, but we went through 3-1 winners. the semi-final drew us away at Wolfsburg who were sitting mid-table. Got off to a decent start through Haaland's opener before Fabio Silva equalised in the 69th minute. We then went down to ten-men after Reyna was sent-off for a two-footed lunge, our backs were against the wall but Pepe scored a tremendous free-kick to send us to the final.

Cup final day saw us up against Frankfurt who just registered a 14th place finish in the league. The game itself was a very scrappy affair, after 90 minutes it ended up 1-1 with goals coming from Foyth for them and Pepe for us. We needed penalties to decide the cup final. We scored all five of ours with Frankfurt missing one meaning we ended up the season as domestic double winners. Not too shabby!

DFB-Pokal results:

Spoiler

Notable Players:
Thought I would add some comments about player performances this season. Starting with the one and only Erling Braut Haaland. The man is an absolute beast, startign 41 games in all competitions and scoring a whopping 38 goals, one of the highlights of the season, again. 
Other standouts were Marco Reus who had a fairly quiet first season followed it up with a storming second season, rolling back the years. He spent some time out injured as per norm but still managed 33 starts for us and chipping in with 7 goals and 16 assists (12 of which came in the league).
We had the luxury of two excellent players vying for the right-wing position in Jadon Sancho and Nicolas Pepe - whilst the former managed a return of 11 goals and 9 assists from 29 starts, the latter was a revelation for us and had a big part in our title win. Pepe started 24 games and scored 16 goals and gave us 6 assists. Excellent.
Further back, Jude Bellingham really stepped up this season and made one of the midfield slots his own, starting 34 games and scoring a respectable 3 goals as well as assisting 4 goals but it was his all-round play that really helped him standout, excellent passing and tackling all season long and he ran a marathon every game.
Goalkeeper Roman Burki also had one of his best season with the club, he started every game in the league and Europe and kept 21 clean sheets in the process. 

January Transfer Window:
We signed a couple of players in January, not many real notable inclusions. Kaio Jorge was signed from Santos for 12m with the idea of him being an eventual replacement for Erling when he inevitably leaves. Joshua Zirkzee was signed from FC Bayern for 4.5m, a tall and physical striker who will provide competition in the coming seasons, he was loaned to Osasuna in La Liga for the remainder of the season but only managed 2 starts scoring once. We went to FC Bayern again to sign 25 year old goalkeeper Alexander Nubel for 7.5m as we needed backup for Burki as we had sold Marwin Hitz to Lokomotiv Moscow. Finally toward the end of the window, I decided that the squad needed an extra left-footed centre-back to deputise for Zagdou, we found one in Karim Rekik of Sevilla for 2.3m, a worthwhile emergency option with prior Bundesliga experience with Hertha BSC. 

I have only just started the post-season and we have already lost Jadon Sancho to FC Barcelona for 145m and Erling Haaland looks to be on his way to Chelsea for a staggering 185m. So far I have brought in Serge Gnabry from FC Bayern for 60m but not a lot else has happened. Not sure if I will continue or not as at this point, bringing in so much money for Sancho and Haaland makes it seem too easy to bring in whoever to replace them.

And to answer your question @Liam, not sure as I started with transfer budgets off. Looking online it looks to be about 10m. 

[Twist]

Started a game in BK Hacken in Sweden. Highest theyve finished is 3rd in their last season and they’ve won a couple of Swedish cups as well.

Five years in and I’ve run the title every year and two cups. I’ve also gradually chipped away at the Champions League and finally reached the knock out stages at the 4th time of ask. Lost to Real Madrid 2-1 on aggregate.

Fun game.

[Meacon Keaton]

Are there any weird rules in Sweden? I love playing leagues with bonkers rules. And now that this is on GamePass, I may jump in a game this afternoon.

[Malenko]

17 minutes ago, Meacon Keaton said:

Are there any weird rules in Sweden? I love playing leagues with bonkers rules. And now that this is on GamePass, I may jump in a game this afternoon.

South American leagues are best for that. Sweden is just home and away games like most european leagues.