santy001

Summer Window - Season 2: At Barcelona I had a rather paltry £25m budget to play with, the ongoing financial struggles really imposing restraints whereas Real Madrid had a more generous £80m available. As a result I spent the summer looking to free up more wages and get players out with low-budget or academy replacements. Brandon Williams, Toni Kroos and Gaius Makouta on frees at the end of their contract. The money on youngsters I hope will come good in Joao Veloso and Nelson Weiper. I had tried to sign Weiper the season before only for a lack of budget to ruin those chances. Letting Ilkay Gundogan, Oriol Romeu, Sergi Roberto and Frenkie de Jong go (de Jong went in June so is just missing from the first screenshot). With around £140m raised from those sales. I had tried to structure a deal to bring Joao Cancelo back with a very low upfront fee but overall package skewed a bit too high and I couldn't afford it in the end. Real Madrid had a much busier summer, an early signing of Joao Neves followed by Scalvini, Silva, Barco, Restes and Rego with the pre-arranged transfer of Endrick. Some high value sales to Saudi Arabia freeing up additional funds for this spending spree. @oliscott did pull out of a deadline day deal to sign Musiala - perhaps something he will regret in the future but looking at the rest of his squad it's likely not to be the case.

End of Season 1: An incredibly tight title race, a slip up by @oliscott in the second to last game and drawing 2-2 meant everything was to play for on the final day of the season. Both sides were level on 98 points but Real Madrid were top on the head to head record. While my Barcelona side overcame an early set-back going 1-0 down to bottom of the table Almeira to win 4-1 it was redundant as Real Madrid ran out 6-0 winners. A high bar set for both sides as we finished level on 101 points with Real Madrid having a +108 goal difference while Barcelona had a +107. Real Madrid went on to win the Champions League against AC Milan with a comfortable 3-0 win, my own Barcelona side crashing out to Inter Milan in the quarter finals just not converting dominance to a result. My consolation trophy this year being the Spanish cup. Real Madrid Trophies: 3 Barcelona Trophies: 1 Best XI's from this season:

January Business - Season 1: While Real Madrid were blessed with a £120m budget coming into January over at Barcelona there were no extra funds. As a result I sold Raphina to Man City in a deal worth up to £70m to raise some funds. With players returning from loan in the summer there is going to be an abundance of players across the AM positions. That being said, the board only freed up £8m out of the sale so it limited my options. Real Madrid: Luciano Rodriguez Michael Kayode - £22m: Viktor Gyokeres - £35m: Barcelona: Yannick Eduardo - £2.5m: Scott McTominay - £5.75m:

First blood goes to Real Madrid and @oliscott with a win in the Super Cup held in Saudi Arabia. It was overall a very easy game, both squads somewhat depleted with injuries I felt I had it wrapped up when Joao Felix scored but a careless backpass from Ter Stegen gave Joselu a relatively straight forward finish. While there were a couple of strong chances late in extra time for my Barcelona side and Noah Darvich having a goal disallowed it wasn't meant to be as the game went to penalties and ended with a Real Madrid win.

Season 1 - Midseason Break: A phenomenal start from Real Madrid saw an unbeaten run until mid-November when an unexpected loss to Granada who were in the relegation zone at the time put an end to @oliscott plan for an unbeaten season. At Barcelona things have begun to settle in and while the players in the midfield positions all feel very similar, results have been strong. Entering the midseason break my Barcelona side lead Real Madrid by 2 points: Both of us are wanting to make some considerable changes to teams to build them in our preferred style but there have been good performances across both teams as would be expected. The Real Madrid squad having two players leading the charge with strong goalscoring in Bellingham and Vinicius Jr: Meanwhile over at Barcelona Umar Sadiq has been the single figurehead for goals. 18 Goals in 23 games means he is already looking to be an excellent acquisition on much lower wages than Lewandowski and for half the fee. Elsewhere in the team there are a lot of spread goals, some players like Ferran Torres, Joao Felix and Raphinha have performed better than I expected. Fermin has been surprisingly effective and even at 16 Lamine Yamal is proving dangerous:

Notable Signings - Barcelona: Umar Sadiq has started with 5 goals in 4 games, hopefully one to lead the line for the next few years while I build up funds and identify some top tier talent to sign. Kofi Amoako at £200k is a player with potential I am hoping can kick on. Cheap and looks to have a positive attribute spread this was definitely a bargain signing I feel: Then the third one to review for Barcelona is Candelari, an entirely speculative cheap purchase. The player is good physically and so I felt like taking a risk and seeing what happens over the next 18-24 months with his development was low risk. Notable Signing - Real Madrid: Ouédrago is well known in FM I expect, and while I rivalled @oliscott for the signing he picked Madrid over Barcelona.

First Transfer Window Activity: Real Madrid have begun the season unbeaten with 4 wins in 4, while after losing the first match my Barcelona side bounced back and won the next three. Transfer business has been limited with Real Madrid picking up Ouédrago from Schalke. I was a little busier at Barcelona after letting Lewandowski go for £40m bringing in a handful of players. Barcelona's recent business: Real Madrid's business: The League Table as it stands:

The First Meeting - Real Madrid Dominance: A comfortable win in the end for @oliscott. I have let Lewandowski go following a £40m bid from a Saudi side and my replacement Umar Sadiq really didn't trouble his side. Gavi scoring from a defensive mix-up and Ter Stegen putting in a heroic performance is the only reason the score remained respectable. Bellingham was predictably brilliant, but Valverde was a surprising driving force for the Real Madrid team. Practically unstoppable against my side. Not exactly the best of starts for my Barca side...

From time to time myself and @oliscott like to partake in a head to head on the FM series. It may be a challenge to build up a nation, or get teams to rise up through the leagues. There is one we often pick up though every few years which is a Real vs Barca save where we got to teams where the shackles are off and in more recent years, levers have been pulled. These saves are aimed at creating the ultimate teams with no holds barred, trophies are the only measure of success. @oliscott has taken Real Madrid and I have taken FC Barcelona. So we go into it once more and the 23/24 season begins with the first match of the season being Real Madrid at home to Barcelona.

The column width issue has had a number of fixes attempted over the years from SI. Unfortunately the issue has persisted. Closing the UI section to further bug reports will be indicative of the fact SI don't want players to waste time sharing bugs when there is no longer a need to do so.

The main menu shows what version of the game you're playing, as 24.4 and the Game Status within a save also shows the version you're playing: The game distinguishes between the database version and the actual game version, and even the ME version too. Hopefully this helps so there are reference points for those who may be confused by this moving forward.

Hey @Hairy I've moved this across to career updates. If you wish you can keep this story going and perhaps showing how things pan out moving forward going back to such a well established players earlier days in FM.

My point was just highlighting why I don't think SI are asking us collectively as a research team to be doing full updates all the time. There isn't a lack of capacity on SI's side to handle that based on my experience, rather they are very respectful of our time and other commitments in life. From time to time you see people suggest the EA equivalent of weekly updates, and sure SI could ask that of us. Many people would likely find that isn't suitable with their other commitments in life. But I've always been happy with the fact SI have respected our day-to-day lives to never even ask that.

You can choose what competitions you subscribe to. Without being in control of a team in the competition though I don't think the game will stop before each round of fixtures. I know there is another way to add/remove things but I do it so rarely I only usually do it through the end of season message. Hopefully someone else can clarify where that option is as having a quick poke around I couldn't find it myself.

Turns out my information might be a little out of date. Looking at the latest I could see referencing it there are now over 1500. Football Manager Research: What’s Involved? | Football Manager 2024