Shifts in power

Just curious as to any new big clubs emerging in peoples games,

Im currently in 2025, with sunderland, seems man utd have kept up at the top, with arsenal not far behind for most of the seasons and liverpool and either man city or chelsea occupying most of the top 4 (not a great deal has changed at the top, other than sunderlands success)

But below that has changed quite often (last champions league/uefa cup spot), man city, liverpool, chelsea and tottenham have staltered and often gone backwards with teams like reading west brom and leicester (this game was started on original database so dont know if that affects their finances) doing quite well.

Teams below them (mid table prem teams) are often the likes of villa, west ham and stoke, with newcastle, middlesboro, fulham, bolton, blackburn yo-yoing,

Teams that have fallen from grace everton are in the championship, and keep getting promtoed and relegated heavily and now reside in mid table championship obscurity, while portsmouth would be the biggest team (i guess) in the lowest position becoming a lower table league one side

Europe wise, the usual suspects are there or there abouts, barcelona far from dominate although still a tough team last 3 champions league winners have been marseille, and lyon (much to my displeasure as it was lyon beating me twice to win it, altough i had won the previous few)

Palmero seem to be the biggest italian team (world wide rep) regularly signing the players i didnt see (why do they always seem to be amazing? )

Real madrid are a quater final team atm, as said before marseilles are doing well as are the dutch teams, psv in 2 finals and feynoord are difficult

anyway, was just intersted to see how the game shifts with each persons point of view, and ofc if the dynamic rep has made any lower teams stronger, i would say the french and dutch leagues "appear" to have benifited from this as psv and lyon both apprear to be biiger than when the game begun.

or in keeping with the world club overview of biggest teams id go with this order of how i view the top 10 biggest teams in 2025

Sunderland

Lyon

Barcelona

Man Utd

Real Madrid

Marseille

Palmero

Arsenal

PSV

Bayern

Not a massive difference i guess (taking sunderland out, but interesting that lyon have become so big along with palmero and psv)

interested to see other peoples experiences

Nothing massive but as far as season 2013/14 Wolves have made the Champions League, Tottenham won the title and CSKA Moscow hae won the Champions League.

Good for wolves loved don goodman as a safc fan! (lets not mention mic mac and our low points but i will always cheer him on with them) , tottenham never did win it on mine, came close then dropped for a while, but cska are a good team to "poach" players from on mine, an do reasnobly well along with shaktar and dinamo moskow are good atm for players and seem to hit the first round of the champions league regularly

At the turn of the next century Gillingham have started to become a decent top side on my game winning a few titles and finishing second quite a bit. Might not be the same thing but Bromley have been in the EPL finishing in the top half for over 50 years on my holiday save as well. Worth noting that Lyon have won the Champions League more than any other team ever have.

arrggh, does that mean i have more disapointment at the hands of Lyon ahead of me hehe. as far as lower teams becoming better, can only think of notts county doing quite well for a time, but have become a championship team now, guess leciesters european exploits are fairly note-worthy.

Guess another question could be, of those teams that have done well or were part of the previous "regime", have you ever tried to sabotage them, attempting to buy or unsettle their better players, having a slagging match with their manager?, or perhaps you aided a certain team?

I've often noticed palmero gaining some very good players, and have bought a few players off them through the years but never set out to try and de-rail them, but psv did buy an ageing Babacar, and they seemed to do well without being a threat and i sold them a few more players, and looked out for their results out of an affection to how well Babacar had done for me and how well PSV were doing.

And if a team catches my eye, (doing better than they should, i will often be a bit more leniant with my team selection especially in league cup games, and champions league games that have no meaning, already qualified etc) and will look more favourably on their bids for my players, maybe allowing them to pay slightly cheaper( although not tooo much i aint that sentimental) ! lol

also look out for teams my previous players and coaches manage, main one being Shawcross managing Blackburn, Babacars final few years at PSV and Wickhams last few years at Marseille

Leyton Orient became a big club in my FM2010 save. I haven't got far enough in FM2011 yet.

In my game 2010/2011 Premiership title went to Man United. In 2011/2012 I checked Premiership table after 9 games were played (I don't manage in UK) and league top 2 were Wolves and Blackpool. ManU was lying on 18th position. Now, couple of games later Wolves is still 1st, ManU has climbed to 12th spot and Blackpool is 4th, but Wolves and Blakcpool leading the table was still a surprise for a while.

And in 2010/11 season Monaco won Ligue 1, but Lorient clinched a place in Champions League group stage for second season.

I'm in 2017 and Derby and Portsmouth are both mid table League 2 sides. The prem is pretty much the same except with leeds taking a europa league spot. On a side note leyton orient managed sucessive promotions to the championship then succesive relegations back to league 2 which was a bit strange.

In my game 2018/19, nothing major in the shift of power still the typical top six. United winning the Premierleague 5 years in a row (2011-2015) Then finished top 3 the next seasons. With City, chelsea and Arsenal winning the last year seasons

Lyon and Palermo always seem to do well in my saves too.

In my current game, in the fifth season, Real Madrid finished 6th (first season they didn't have Ronaldo). In another game I did, Wigan quickly fell from the top flight, suffered financial trouble and got relegated again. Was quite amusing

I'm in 2024 and Wigan have been taken over by Arab sugar-daddies and have established themselves as a top six team. Newcastle have managed to build a really strong squad and are also challenging top six every season, and even won the EURO Cup last season.

Genoa have established themselves as a top Italian team and Getafe have done the same in Spain. Hoffenheim have overtaken Bayern Munich as the best team in Germany.

Sunderland have done well in my game, winning the Europa League and becoming a top 4 team. Man City are utterly dominant however.

Hull City are pretty good on mine (although it is FM10). A few top 3 finishes and CL quarter-finals. With an FA Cup and Carling Cup

It's November 2011 in my game and Spain have failed to qualify to Euro 2012.

Valencia got relegated in the second season in my Athletic save, but look like they'll bounce right back up. Still, very funny.

Palermo always does well because Pastore + Abel Hernandez make the best partnership ever, plus their wing backs are world-class attribute-wise.

Barca always becomes weaker after the current generation because they don't train young academy players like real life. Similarly with Chelsea, whose youth products are simply not good enough.

Real Madrid becomes the top team again because of their Galacticos policy and Mourinho, although they also become a little weaker after Higuain and C.Ronaldo retire, and sometimes lose out to Atleti.

The biggest surprise is Arsenal's dominating the EPL after Arsene Wenger retires. They completely scrap the youth policy and buy the best in-form players.

In 2022 west ham finish 5th and have a very strong english core. Chelsea have the best squad in the world and dominate. Barcarole gave the whole Spanish side but finished 5th a place above Elche. Shakthar, Roma and Lyon have done well in the CL shaktar especially.

In 2012, Dynamo Kyiv got relegated from the Ukrainian Premier League after finishing rock bottom winning only one game!! Only early in my save so not much has time to change.

Must be something in the data but I have also noticed that every save I have that goes past 2-3 seasons involves Sunderland and Wolves becoming established contenders for the top 4. In my second season Sunderland led the Premier League for most of the season before dropping away to finish 3rd. Most of the other big teams stay at roughly the same level.

On the other end of the stick I don't think I've ever had a save in any FM since they got all their money where Man City have ever established themselves as a title threat. They always squander their money and end up finishing in the lower reaches of the top ten with a different manager every year.

I'm in 2017/18 with Palermo and the top ten teams in Europe on my save are:

Palermo

Real Madrid

Arsenal

Manchester United

Manchester City

Chelsea

Fulham (courtesy of a sugar daddy)

Inter Milan

Leverkusen

Lyon

So not really very much change...

Currently playing in Portugal, in the 20/21 season, and while Porto and Benfica are still dominating, Sporting CP have been sucked back a little and now are on a par with most of the mid-table teams.

wolves won the league in my southampton game in 2013/14. chelsea won 3 straight euro cups, man city won league one so did utd, liverpool are mid table.. wigan are now league 1 as are blackpool. pretty much same in europe but palermo again won serie a last season.

how did Dortmund do in your save please