Football Manager 2021

[Malenko]

Both?

[Hobo]

8 hours ago, Malenko said:

Both?

Both.

[JasonM]

Definitely both.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Decided to have another go at Glory Hunter on FM20, and it's going too well.

Started with Man United, finished the season with an FA Cup, Premier League, and Europa League hat trick. Real Madrid had a stinker of a season and Zidane got sacked, so figured I'd apply, they went with Michel instead. Literally two weeks later, Michel got sacked, and guess who suddenly had an interview?

Took Madrid to La Liga, winning the title with four games to spare by beating Barcelona as just the perfect chef's kiss on the season. Followed that up losing 1-0 to Sevilla to blow an invincible league season, typically. Won the Copa Del Rey so after two seasons I'd ticked off the English and Spanish domestic doubles and had the lesser European Cup ticked too. What's that? Diego Simeone, manager of Bundesliga Champions Bayern Munich has left to take the Inter Milan job? Worth applying, right?

So yeah, two full seasons done, two countries finished, and I've jumped to the best team in Germany. Something's surely gonna go wrong, right?

If Thomas Tuchel leaves PSG this year for some other job then something has definitely rigged this game for me.

[Gorka]

I'm still playing the same Glory Hunter save that I started last year while on furlough, and I'm having a lovely time with Inter Milan. Inter were the Champions League holders when I joined but had not won a domestic trophy since Mourinho, even AS Roma had managed to win the league in the save.

First season, Romelu Lukaku was on fire (at 32 years old!) and scored as many goals as his age in the league. I won the Italian league by about seven points or so but the domestic cup was a disappointment with a quarter-finals exit and Real Madrid knocked us out on away goals in the Champions League final eight. Good season, could be better.

Oh, it got so much better in the second season. Quadruple! Went about thirty-odd matches undefeated in the league to break the record for most wins and the best-ever points total (104!), won the Italian Super Cup, beat Udinese in the domestic cup competition and lifted the Champions League after knocking out Kylian Mbappe's Chelsea, my former Manchester United team, Villareal in the semi-final and then Schalke (who knocked out Real Madrid and Barcelona in consecutive stages) in the final.

Lukaku didn't bag as many but that doesn't matter because my 21 year old winger, Giuseppe Mottarlini had a real breakout season after a few slow years by bagging about fifteen goals and just as many assists. Somehow, Italy didn't call him up for the 2026 season despite having the best average rating in the league and winning the player awards.

I'll stay here for one more season, just for the joy of it.

[Cymbols]

Retained the title with Genk, which is pretty decent. Only one annoying thing though - league season is 40 games long. Unbeaten through the first 37, then get drawn against Standard two days before the cup final against Anderlecht. Have to rotate for the league game, lose 1-0, and the unbeaten season run is over. Won the cup final 2-1, at least.
 

Still, a pretty positive season, was able to improve the wage budget as part of contract talks, which means I’ve been able to tie Samatta, Berge, Trossard and Maehle down which is massive. Spine of the team is sorted, just need to fine tune some fullback cover and a better second striker. Loan market and some good youth prospects will do the trick for the most part I reckon.

[Lineker]

 

[Hobo]

Coming in to rescue Dundalk's season.

[JasonM]

After 12 seasons, 7 titles, an ECL Semi-Final, an EL semi-final, a CL Semi final and a CL final in my last season, I decided that I had finally gotten bored of Feyenoord and wanted to try something completely new... I knew I could've stuck around and tried for another Champions League final and maybe win it, but at the same time I got lucky and my personal interest was waning.

So I resigned from the job, and decided to take a completely different challenge instead by moving down the ranks to HNK Cibalia in the Croatian first league. A team whose best result was a 5th place a few seasons back but generally just hangs around the lower end of the first league.

My goals, slash the wage bill and make the club financially capable. And I went overboard, managing to have the league's lowest wage budget at the end of the winter break. Whilst also bringing in 6.3M in transfer fees.

Second goal: Try something new tactically. After playing with any variation of the 451 for so long, I wanted to try something completely different. And I ended up settling on trying to find success with a 5-3-2 (3CB/WB+DM) instead. There's not many people trying that, so maybe I can become the next tactical genius.

Third goal: Maybe get lucky and find myself fighting for a 4th position (and ECL spot) during the first season. But with the cuts I made, and the generally unimpressive side, it'll be mighty tricky... Especially since signings would have to be done on a self-imposed strict budget of low-fees and lower wages.

Anyways, big challenge, right? Also my manager doesn't speak a lick of Croatian, so that'd be tricky to team-talk my way out of things as easily as I did at Feyenoord...

The truth sometimes is a whole lot less challenging than I expected...

For the people wondering what kind of monstrosity I put together for this success to happen in the very first season, here's a picture of the tactic. Only change is the BBM dribbling and shooting less.

Cengic was a loanee from Dinamo who impressed, Sambol came in for 100K and scored 22 goals (if he can score 1 goal in the final game, he'll have the league record in hand!) And Zuljevic was a signing for 200K from Hajduk who took three tries before I could agree on a deal.

Needless to say, I am genuinely surprised at our success. I had assumed the 532 wouldn't be as offensively potent due to the lack of wingers or AM's, but it couldn't have been farther from the truth with 67 goals in 35 games. Whilst also keeping it tidy at the back.

Now the real challenge is next season, when I get thrown into the Champions League First Qualifying Round and have to find a way to survive long enough to either get into the Europa League, or the Champions League proper...

And my quest to run a very tight budget shall not change either!

[Cymbols]

So both Hertha and Villarreal met the release clause for my RB, Maehle, and I couldn’t offer him a new deal to get him to stay. Ended up getting a good RB on loan from Monaco, and a rotation option from Leeds for £450k. Anyways, Maehle has now turned around and decided to stay which is great and that, but now I’ve got too many players for the same position. This game is frustrating at times.

[9 to 5]

Oh noes....

[Cymbols]

So both Hertha and Villarreal met the release clause for my RB, Maehle, and I couldn’t offer him a new deal to get him to stay. Ended up getting a good RB on loan from Monaco, and a rotation option from Leeds for £450k. Anyways, Maehle has now turned around and decided to stay which is great and that, but now I’ve got too many players for the same position. This game is frustrating at times.

[Gazz]

Well, that's why you don't confirm an incoming transfer before an outgoing one.

[FestiveJack]

Disagree. Buy all the players. Sell no one. Ever.

[Malenko]

11 minutes ago, MadJack said:

Disagree. Buy all the players. Sell no one. Ever.

Once I had a save where I was constantly buying/signing new players (most of them were free, but still) and never cared much about actively trying to sell anyone. Whenever someone had lost their spot I'd just leave them there unattended. I didn't loan anyone out either. It got to the point I had 90 something players and I used about 30 the whole year. I like to imagine this team's practice irl, with about 60 guys who would never ever be a choice but still were running around in training. I imagine the coach noticing them for the first time in weeks "ah, so you're still here. How have you been? - can't complain. New dog. Wife's good. Thanks"

[King Ellis]

Another round in the Alfreton adventure and, whilst it was very much objective fulfilled, it could have been so much more.

I'd actually earmarked the league cup as a potential route back into Europe and uncharacteristically upped the cup bonuses to high in hopes it might spur the lads on. That was disappointment number 1 though as we lost 3-0 to Man U in the final, it was fairly narrow at 1-0 until the end when they got two late goals after we were chasing the game. FA Cup didn't work out too well either as Spurs beat us 1-0 in the final, Semi Final had some drama though as we scored in like the 7th minute of injury time before getting the winner deep into the second half of extra time to beat Man City. That's like 3 cup finals lost in a row now, I'm beginning to feel cursed.

Biggest let down though was in the league, we'd been in and around the European places most of the season and had some great form in the latter half but for as much as we were winning, everyone else was too. We drew 1-1 at Spurs in the penultimate game which led to the final day where we were away at 4 in a row league winners Chelsea who needed to win to help wrap up their fifth, whilst Liverpool were trying to pip them to the league and had to go to Arsenal. One of my best players came down with the flu in the run up to the game so I had one of those agonising choices of let him heal at the club quicker but risk infecting the other guys, played it safe in the end. Arsenal ended up winning which made our efforts fairly moot and we ended up slipping to fifth after losing 3-1. Only, in my tunnel vision of keeping an eye on Arsenal, I'd forgotten that we should have being paying attention to Man City as well. They lost at West Brom on the last day but we ended up missing out on 4th by 2 goals. Makes me think I could have just gone to Stamford Bridge and just parked the bus or not gone chasing the game at the end but it's not my style. We'll get em next year.

Squad is actually looking pretty good so I'm not sure where to really look outside of a really top quality GK and full backs. I do have a very promising goalie that game through the youth setup who made his Wales debut only a couple of months after coming through the youth intake at 16, before even playing for us. He's just had a full season at Sheff Wednesday who have historically been towards the lower end of the Championship but helped them to the playoff final where they lost to Derby. Seems like the board are slowly coming around to the loftier expectations now as they're wanting a title challenge within 5 seasons, whereas they were moreso looking to establish and become best of the rest previously. They're looking to have the best youth setup in the country which is nice but I've not had the option of expanding the ground for a while and we're selling out constantly at 31k, dunno if we might have to build another new ground if this one is maxed out? Seems like they want me to ditch the sentimentality as well as they're after high profile singings, which we did kinda have this year as we had a real player at the club for the first time in years in the form of Lisandro Martinez. Sure he was 32 years old but he was free and a 4* CB, although he was fluctuating between 3 and 4 during the season. Did a solid job at LB for a time though. Some of the guys already here are coming good though, my striker who has struggled historically suddenly got 22 league goals, his backup who was new in the summer got 14 and our left winger (which has oddly been our most prolific position for goals in the Prem) got 15. That guy is pretty ridiculous. BTW, I think I've seen him score breakaway solo goals starting from the half way line or even our own half like 4-5 times during the season.

[Cymbols]

16 hours ago, Gazz said:

Well, that's why you don't confirm an incoming transfer before an outgoing one.

Learned that the hard way! Thought I was being dead clever, even delayed the transfers by a week to buy some more time.

 I think squad morale is so high, and neither backup RB is in a squad clique, that if one gets annoyed, we should probably be fine. My last backup RB had a moan, and literally only one teammate listened to him, before Huddersfield paid ridiculously over the odds for him. 

[Gazz]

'Jonjo Shelvey wants more playing time'

'No one supports this'

[Cymbols]

Champions League 1st knockout round first leg: Barcelona 2-3 KRC Genk 

Best result I think I’ve ever secured on an FM game. Quality stuff.

EDIT - Won the second leg 2-0 as well. Samatta and Trossard are just unstoppable. 

[Lineker]

Finally getting around to installing the facepack megapack but no matter what I do, I can't get them to appear in game, no matter what I try. Is the process different in this game?