[FM22] Athletic Club: Cantera-attacking our way to glory

[MattyC78]

7 minutes ago, Trevomac said:

Finished season 2 and it was quiet disappointing. We lacked the consistency in season 1 and never hit the same heights.

Finished 4th in the league but only after some tweaks saw us win 7 on the bounce.

Finished runners up in Copa del Rey. The final against Sevilla came at the worst possible time in the midst of a terrible run f form.

Knocked out in CL group stage and then disappointingly in 1st knockout round of Europa League (I didn't realise it was a single leg game)

Having still not spent any money on transfers since I started, I got a whopping €2M budget, not that it matters really.

Raul Garcia retires so I'm going to promote Youssouf Diarra who has performed well for B side the past 2 years.

B side retained their place in 2nd division and Bosconia won the 4th tier meaning promotion to third tier. I now have a perfect development pathway for players.U19s topped the division lsing only 1 game all season.

Had another golden generation youth intake but we probably have too many wide players in general.

I often find the second season the hardest.  Whilst the initial squad can cope with just the league, I always find a shortage of depth when we have additional European games until the youngsters start coming through.  Getting back into the Champions League is actually a respectable finish.   

[MattyC78]

In reaching the mid-season break I am sat second to Real.

I can't see us catching them and at this stage I'll still be happy to make fourth. 

I think we have been lucky so far.  Things aren't quite clicking for us.  We have controlled possession in many of the games but we are not creating and converting chances.  I have tweaked a few of the instructions to try and make us more incisive for marginal improvements from mid-November but I'm going to review the tactics again to see if we can make us more of a threat.

In terms of personnel, we have our youth intake prediction and whilst it is not the greatest crop, I am pleased to see a couple of strikers and full backs to ease the pressure in a couple of areas.  Hopefully they will have plenty of potential.

Oscar de Marcos is moving on as he was unhappy with his game time and wanted a new challenge.  Dani Vivian is not getting enough games so is going to go on loan.  Inigo Martinez has been okay but has spent just about the whole time moaning about something or the other.  He is not exactly the example I want as vice captain.  Liverpool and Real are both interested and if either comes in with an offer I'd seriously consider letting him go.  

My biggest issue right now is Iker Muniain.  He has spent some time out with a broken ankle but he has been largely ineffectual.  He has managed only one goal and one assist so far.  I am playing him as an inverted winger on the left and I am clearly not getting the best out of him.  This is likely to be the focus of my tactical reshuffle.  Has anyone managed to get him to excel for their Athletic team?  If so, how have you used him?   

[Jambo98]

Season 3 in the books for me

 

Incremental, yet small improvement. Our first top 3 finish, and improved our total points by 11pts ,which is quite a jump AND we manage to finish ahead of Barca, Real and Atleti..... but Villareal and Valencia continue to be incredible.  Our CL adventure did not go well. In a group with Roma, Shakhtar and PSG, we contrived to lose our first  3 games, before wining the next 2 meaning we had to go to France and beat PSG. We led 1 - 0 after 82mins in that game, but in truth got battered and bowed out finishing bottom of the group, so not even any consolation. We go again next year, i guess....

In terms of player performance, one man stood out for us - Karrika was the star

Great goal return, even if his attributes do not exactly blow me away still. At 21 he can still grow, and the physicals are of course top notch. 

Elsewhere, a mixed bag. Sancet and Nico were excellent, the later bagging 17 goals from the wing. Vencedor was also good, but we continue to wrestle with having 2 "pivote" types and my preffered tactics always being to utilise just one.  Yeray and Dani Vivian were solid at the back again, and the returning Yuri probably forced my hand into giving him another years contract, he was consistently excellent and has not started to decline much. 

In terms of mid season transfer business, a fear of the January slump / lack of depth led me into 2 regretable moves in hindsight. We had changed to 433, and were lacking in attacking style CMs.  As a result, i spent £10m on bringing back Unai Lopez - a lad who i really liked IRL and on FM in years gone by, but he never really performed and has now kicked off about not being played as a DLP (Dumb game feature). I was also short at RB, with our former B team lad leaving for Getafe (and he was rubbish anyway), we over spent on a very below average squad player - Jesus Areso. Made all of 4 appearances, will do as an emergency backup RB again, but £2m was a panic.

This summer will see Griezou hit the free agent market as things stand - has shown no interest in us yet, but once released.....who knows. I actually have no real place or need for him, but i would be tempted. Iker is also now back on the transfer list following his move to Utd, and i could get him back for less than i paid. Tempting, but i know how bad he is. On the other side of things, Inaki had a poor season and at 29yrs old, his value is dropping. Potential decsion to be made.

Our youth continues to stockpile, Julen Jon got a fair few games in the second half of the season,  but it might defo time to focus more on developing. 

Oh yeah, on the topic of youth development, soon to be 38 yr old Raul Garcia is back for another year. He is gone at the game, but that personality means he is essential as a mentor, and only wanted 10k per week to play out a final season, before hopefully joining the coaching staff.

Elsewhere, Bilbao finished top  6 in Liga Smartbank and Basconia appear now to be in a playable league (Segunda Division RFEF Grupo II) which i guess can only be a good thing

[Bradz FM]

8 hours ago, MattyC78 said:

I often find the second season the hardest.  Whilst the initial squad can cope with just the league, I always find a shortage of depth when we have additional European games until the youngsters start coming through.  Getting back into the Champions League is actually a respectable finish.   

Thanks. That makes me feel better. Felt like a let down after season one's overachievement

8 hours ago, MattyC78 said:

In reaching the mid-season break I am sat second to Real.

I can't see us catching them and at this stage I'll still be happy to make fourth. 

I think we have been lucky so far.  Things aren't quite clicking for us.  We have controlled possession in many of the games but we are not creating and converting chances.  I have tweaked a few of the instructions to try and make us more incisive for marginal improvements from mid-November but I'm going to review the tactics again to see if we can make us more of a threat.

In terms of personnel, we have our youth intake prediction and whilst it is not the greatest crop, I am pleased to see a couple of strikers and full backs to ease the pressure in a couple of areas.  Hopefully they will have plenty of potential.

Oscar de Marcos is moving on as he was unhappy with his game time and wanted a new challenge.  Dani Vivian is not getting enough games so is going to go on loan.  Inigo Martinez has been okay but has spent just about the whole time moaning about something or the other.  He is not exactly the example I want as vice captain.  Liverpool and Real are both interested and if either comes in with an offer I'd seriously consider letting him go.  

My biggest issue right now is Iker Muniain.  He has spent some time out with a broken ankle but he has been largely ineffectual.  He has managed only one goal and one assist so far.  I am playing him as an inverted winger on the left and I am clearly not getting the best out of him.  This is likely to be the focus of my tactical reshuffle.  Has anyone managed to get him to excel for their Athletic team?  If so, how have you used him?   

I've played him as shadow striker or mezzala. Performed decent.

 

[Bradz FM]

Well this is ridiculous. Doesn't want to be a coach!

[MattyC78]

15 hours ago, Trevomac said:

Well this is ridiculous. Doesn't want to be a coach!

That's crazy.  

[BlueMikeyP]

On 31/12/2021 at 12:29, MattyC78 said:

My biggest issue right now is Iker Muniain.  He has spent some time out with a broken ankle but he has been largely ineffectual.  He has managed only one goal and one assist so far.  I am playing him as an inverted winger on the left and I am clearly not getting the best out of him. 

He’s done pretty well for me, first season in the league he finished with 16 goal involvements and a 7.11 season average. His league form has dropped off a tad in the second season but he’s been immense in the Champions League. Season stats so far averaging 7.03 with 16 goal involvements after 30 starts.

I play him from the left as a inverted winger attack. We play a 433 with a DM. I have a pressing forward attack upfront and a Carrilero LCM. Pretty much gives him the whole left half space to himself.

I have been playing a quick transition counter attacking style so far. Worked great first season pushing Real all the way. Second season not so well. We are top four but well off the pace for the title. I think I need to transition to a bit more ball possession as the players are knackered playing twice a week. Will see if that hinders Muniain and the rest of the team.

Edited January 2, 2022 by BlueMikeyP

[Undy]

I never really got the best out of Muniain but six seasons in and he's still a regular for me. Not first choice in any position now, but his ability to play the AM role and both wide midfield positions means even if he's not starting he comes on as a sub. He'll see out his career with us. 

[MattyC78]

I had been playing him on the left as an inverted winger for the first half of the season and he wasn't great.  In the New Year I switched the tactics a little resulting in some improved performances.  I went a fraction more direct and changed the formation to the following:

Muniain has largely been used centrally and he initially did much better justifying a new contract and then his form has completely collapsed.  The formation has been much improved but mainly due to the threat from Williams and Morcillo.  They have carried Muniain up to now.  We may need to tweak again. 

[Jambo98]

Big moment in my save.........

He is 30 and his performances have never really blown me away, his technical attributes being so low always a red flag to me. Could not turn down £33m, even if i have no real way to spend it. 

Elsewhere, Munian returns from his gap year trip to Manchester, and will rotate in at CM (Mez) in my team i think. 

Also Greiz is on a free, with no one else interested, but he wants £525k per week............

[ernemann]

Season 3 ended and we could not beat Real who won the league thanks to Mbappes amazing 34 league goals ! But a second place not bad at all and a very tight titelbattle with La Real and Atleti, but our young guns are improving once again.

We will say goodbye to Yuri who will go to Shakhtar on a free and goalkeeper Ezkieta will leave very soon to Parma, as he want a new challenge and we have a good young keeper on the way,  We won the Supercup against Real Madrid, while we lost 2-1 against Qatar FC in the Champions League, but again it was a decent season where Inaki banged no less than 27 goals across all competions Now lets see if we can get that La Liga title back

[MattyC78]

We have now reached the end of our first season.  In January we tweaked the tactics and went a little more direct and passed into space.  The tweak was designed to get more from Muniain and accidentally opened up the threat of a couple of our other players (particularly Williams and Morcillo).  I covered it earlier but I still don’t think we have seen the best from Muniain yet.  He was much improved in January but overall, his form was sporadic at best.  He managed 4 goals and 3 assists with an average of 6.91.

After saying I didn’t think we could close the gap to Real to win the league, by April we were giving it a good go.  With seven games to go we had taken a three point league.

The change of tactics was working and we were purring with only one loss to Sevilla in this period.

The tactics involved us moving Muniain into the middle and Williams up front.  It was partially caused by an injury to Garcia but I hoped to get the best from those two and make the most of the abundance of players who can play left wing.  There were a couple of other variants with the attacking midfielder pushed up front as a deep lying forward or out wide as a winger depending on personnel available.

As we moved to the business end of the season our form nose-dived which allowed Real to take the lead and although we picked up a couple of wins they went into the final day level on points but ahead on our head to head record.

We were away at Granada and Real were away to Valencia.  We needed to focus on our game and hope to get a favour from Valencia.  We took the lead from a near post corner delivered by Jon Morcillo onto the head of Inigo Martinez.  Granada pegged us back almost straight away through a belter from Machis before Luis Suarez (the other one) had a goal ruled out from a tight offside call.

We attacked with style and threat but were nervy in defence.  Iker Muniain had been moved to central midfield for this game in the role of Mezzala on attack.  Unai Vencedor put through an inciteful through ball for him to calmly round the goalkeeper and slot home to give us the lead.  We were not in the lead long before Martinez gave away a needless penalty which was dispatched by Monchu.  So, we went in at halftime with work to do but we found out that Valencia scored early in the first half and led at the break. 

Our two leaders who had failed to meet expectations all season had turned up when they were most needed.  We were then are now in the position of wanting to push for a winner but we cannot concede and give the title away.  Throughout the second half we pushed on for a winner but to no avail.  All the time knowing, that one goal from Real would mean they were champions.  We are unable to get the break through at Granada and have to settle for a point.

We then get the news we had been hoping for.  The full-time whistle goes and Valencia have beaten Real and done us a huge favour.  To everyone’s surprise and a couple of years ahead of my plan Athletic are 20-1 champions in 2021-22.

We were denied the lifting of the trophy on the pitch which had led me to believe that Real had got a last-minute equaliser.  It is likely that the trophy was in Valencia as nobody including the La Liga organisers had anticipated Real throwing it away.

This brought to an end a fine season.  We also put in respectable performance in the cups.  We beat Barcelona on penalties in the semi-final before being dispatched by Real in the final of the Super Cup.  I made the mistake in heaping up the expectations for the final and going in too hard on the players.  They collapsed under the pressure.

In the Spanish Cup we made the final without playing anyone too good where we met the ultra-defensive Athletico.  We went with our asymmetric tactic without Garcia and the ask of the players to prove themselves.  Athletico went ahead through (the) Luis Suarez.  Learning the lesson from the Super Cup I told the players that they were unlucky that things had not gone their way and was rewarded with a resounding improvement in performance.  Inaki Williams and Oihan Sancet provided the goals to give us our first trophy.  At that stage we were not even dreaming of the double.  

Seven players made it in to the La Liga team of the year with an amazing performance from Inaki Williams with 25 goals across all competitions.

Finances are tight.  Without bringing a player in our original £22 million budget has been reduced to £11 million for the second season.  We may need to sell some players to ease the pressure.  I may need to look at the returns on the high wage earners like Williams and Martinez.  At some point if a good offer comes in, we may need to let them move on.  We achieved more this year than I was expecting.  The regression with European football aligned with trimming the squad may stretch us but I will be looking to qualify for the Champions League again.

[MattyC78]

21 hours ago, ernemann said:

Season 3 ended and we could not beat Real who won the league thanks to Mbappes amazing 34 league goals ! But a second place not bad at all and a very tight titelbattle with La Real and Atleti, but our young guns are improving once again.

We will say goodbye to Yuri who will go to Shakhtar on a free and goalkeeper Ezkieta will leave very soon to Parma, as he want a new challenge and we have a good young keeper on the way,  We won the Supercup against Real Madrid, while we lost 2-1 against Qatar FC in the Champions League, but again it was a decent season where Inaki banged no less than 27 goals across all competions Now lets see if we can get that La Liga title back

Good luck for getting the title back from Real.

[MattyC78]

23 hours ago, Jambo98 said:

Big moment in my save.........

He is 30 and his performances have never really blown me away, his technical attributes being so low always a red flag to me. Could not turn down £33m, even if i have no real way to spend it. 

Elsewhere, Munian returns from his gap year trip to Manchester, and will rotate in at CM (Mez) in my team i think. 

Also Greiz is on a free, with no one else interested, but he wants £525k per week............

That is a big move.  At the moment he has been great for me and I would hate to sell him but his wages are huge.  Do you have a ready made replacement in the squad?  Serrano is still too raw to make the step up at the moment.

I'm starting to think that Mezzala may be Muniain's best role in my team.

[bowieinspace]

I'm back!

After splintering my save, leaving Athletic and going off on a European tour I am back to where I left off. In my other universe I left Athletic for Roma, Man United, Leipzig and Aston Villa (fallen giant rebuild). Winning a lot of trophies with different narrow systems and had a great time. I had planned to take over a French team to complete all the top European leagues but only one French club job came up in 5 years which was ridiculous. Athletic always calls me back though. I would have taken over back at Athletic in my other universe in 2034 but the save is getting much slower/processor heavy so I decided to go back to where I had left off in 2024. Obviously I saw a few Athletic players develop so I have a bit of inside info, but I also watched Jose Mourinho take over from me and destroy a lot of my hard work, so I have a job to do!

I'm into the start of the 2024/24 season now and bagged an early Super Cup win against Liverpool. We also ended up with a few transfer moves, shipping out Juan Artola for an outrageous fee, and Yeray also who had kicked up a fuss about not being allowed to join Real Madrid. To cover for this I used the money to bring in Robin le Normand (someone I've never had at Athletic before so decided to give him a go), and I promoted a young player to cover Juan Artola's role in the side. 

Back to my 3-4-3 variant (see page 2) and playing very well. More updates to follow when I finish this season  

 

[Jambo98]

3 hours ago, MattyC78 said:

That is a big move.  At the moment he has been great for me and I would hate to sell him but his wages are huge.  Do you have a ready made replacement in the squad?  Serrano is still too raw to make the step up at the moment.

I'm starting to think that Mezzala may be Muniain's best role in my team.

No specific replacement in mind yet - Inaki was 30 now though and really, his attributes are pretty poor all round so took the cash. I have artola and Serrano both somewhat first team ready, but neither look top class. But i also have a bevy of youth talent and i think it might be time to throw some in. 

Munian is back and playing Mezzala now - lets see how that goes.

Also had a brief chance at Greizou. He was sat on a free for months, no other teams interested, i had him on trial for about 6 weeks, no one else interested, his demands finally dropped to an "almost" ok level of 200k per week, i offer him it and from no where in come Real and Man U....... he goes to Real for 350k per week ffs

 

[bowieinspace]

2024/25 Season Review

League - 2nd to Barcelona
Copa Del Rey - Winners
Supercopa - Lost in semi final on penalties
Champions League - Round of 16

A mixed season for us really - a solid La Liga performance saw us finish second to Barcelona, we amassed 85 points so pretty good, but Barca were just really good this year and we had too many draws in games we should have won. Similarly in the Champions League, we were superb until we got to the round of 16 where again we didn't take our chances. We did get a great win in the Copa Del Rey though!

I've decided this will lead to something of a transition - our 3-4-3 formation was leading to a lot of chances created, but against good teams playing aggressive wingers we struggled. I've decided to switch to a 4-3-3 - we finally have some capable full backs coming through, and I bolstered this area in the transfer market to assist with this transition by bringing in Alvaro Odriozola and Aihen Munoz. We had a young lad come through our intake who is already 2.5 stars at 15 years old - he's left footed and has all the attributes to be a great full back (or CD or DM, he's really superb). I've decided to bring him up as an IWB as he has all the skills to play centrally in attack, and with Nico Williams and another regen ahead of him at left wing, we can have them stay wide to provide width anyway. 

Our goal for this upcoming season will be to keep challenging for trophies, tune our new 4-3-3 and bring some talented young players through into the first 11. If we can get a good handle on the tactic in preseason then great, but we may need a bit of a transitional year to figure things out.

This summer has also meant the end of legend Iker Muniain's time at the club. He is 32 on 71k per week, one year left on his deal and he was unhappy I wouldn't improve his contract. We were able to get 20million for him which contributed towards the full back signings so it made sense to move on. We also signed Alvaro Fernandez to provide better back up to Simon, with Ezkieta leaving on a free.

Squad:

GK - Simon, Alvaro Fernandez
RB - Odriozola, Inaki Williams (I know this sounds ridiculous, but the role is going to be a very attacking one with plenty of defensive support on that side of midfield so just gonna give it a whirl - Inaki has a few years left on his deal and I have better depth further up the pitch, with little depth at RB. This gives me a short term project while a few young options I have develop).
LB - Munoz, Ramos (16 year old regen!!)
CB - Le Normand, Vivian, Nunez, Paredes
DM - Vencedor, Guillamon 
CM (DLP) - Moncayola, Turrientes
CM (MEZ) - Sancet, Jon Julen Guerrero
RW (IW) - Serrano, Oroz
LW (W) - N. Williams, Roberto Leon (regen)
CF (AF) - Karrikaburu, Morcillo

We have regens very close to first team level at CF, RB, DLP, CB with some top prospects who are a few more years away, so getting our DLP prospect through this year replacing Turrientes will be important, as well as phasing out Morcillo who is basically back up this year. Phasing out Inaki Williams is a 1-2 year project.

I can't wait to let you know how my Inaki Williams wing back project goes 

[joshbrady]

It's crazy that after all these years, I've only now found this FM writing forum! Instead I've been blogging my FM saves over on WordPress and updating via Twitter for a couple of years. I will be starting my most recent WordPress blog later this month, and as you can probably guess.... It'll be with Athletic Club.

If these forum's are reasonably active I'll likely post updates in here too, if anyone's interested? 

 

[Undy]

After six seasons, I'm going to save a break point and move away from Athletic Club for a while. My intention is to move to a "destroy a club" save for a few seasons, see if I can take a giant and hold on to my job while underperforming for long enough to maybe even get them relegated. Something I've never done before, but I'm feeling a bit sadistic. 

As far as Athletic Club goes, we were nowhere near defending the La Liga title we won in 2025/26 - an awful start to the season led to press rumours about me getting sacked, but form gradually improved as the season went on. We spent most of the season just outside the top four, but eventually finished a distant third, 17 points behind Real Madrid in second and 19 behind champions Barcelona. Age has caught up with Muniain and Inaki, with both registering average ratings of below 7 for the season (all the while Inaki is asking for a big pay rise...), and Nico Williams wasn't able to reproduce the previous season's form ever. I feel like this was the first season of a transitional period for the club as the old guard fade away and the newgens take over. I do plan on coming back to see out that transition at some point. 

[bowieinspace]

2 hours ago, joshbrady said:

It's crazy that after all these years, I've only now found this FM writing forum! Instead I've been blogging my FM saves over on WordPress and updating via Twitter for a couple of years. I will be starting my most recent WordPress blog later this month, and as you can probably guess.... It'll be with Athletic Club.

If these forum's are reasonably active I'll likely post updates in here too, if anyone's interested? 

 

Always welcome here

[bowieinspace]

2 hours ago, Undy said:

After six seasons, I'm going to save a break point and move away from Athletic Club for a while. My intention is to move to a "destroy a club" save for a few seasons, see if I can take a giant and hold on to my job while underperforming for long enough to maybe even get them relegated. Something I've never done before, but I'm feeling a bit sadistic. 

As far as Athletic Club goes, we were nowhere near defending the La Liga title we won in 2025/26 - an awful start to the season led to press rumours about me getting sacked, but form gradually improved as the season went on. We spent most of the season just outside the top four, but eventually finished a distant third, 17 points behind Real Madrid in second and 19 behind champions Barcelona. Age has caught up with Muniain and Inaki, with both registering average ratings of below 7 for the season (all the while Inaki is asking for a big pay rise...), and Nico Williams wasn't able to reproduce the previous season's form ever. I feel like this was the first season of a transitional period for the club as the old guard fade away and the newgens take over. I do plan on coming back to see out that transition at some point. 

Who are you gonna destroy?? It’s good to take a break sometimes especially if you’re an avid Athletic player, because it’s a very different game with Athletic. I had a lot of fun splintering my save to do a trophy hunter style journeyman adventure. It was nice to rock up at a club and rebuild the team based on the tactical concept I wanted to play. Always get pulled back in after a while though.

[BlueMikeyP]

Just finished our second season, having accrued 91 points in the first I knew getting close to that with the addition of European football was going to be difficult and so it proved. Disappointingly we finished 21 points worse off than season one but this was still enough to secure Champions League football with a game to spare. We made the Champions League last 16 getting through a tough group including Bayern and Inter. Lost in the semi final of the Cup and also the Super Cup.

Looking to improve on this seasons showing here is the 23/24 season preview.

Tactics

We have played a fairly intense low possession transition game since I took over, this worked great season one but playing twice a week it really took it out of the players. During preseason I am looking to tweak things to keep a little more of the ball in the hope that the tanks aren't running empty quite so often. We also had to many draws against weaker opposition so a slightly more adventurous set up is in order. Playing around with this set up during preseason.

Squad

GK Simon - What can I say, superstar. He wanted to leave last season but I managed to scare teams off with a £75m asking price, he's since signed a new deal.

GK Ezkeita - Solid back up, not let me down when called upon.

RB Odriozola - Signed last summer and had an underwhelming first season, caught out of position to often and not enough output going forward. On huge wages so expecting a lot more from him.

RB Aguirregabaria - Surprise of the season, also signed last summer. I nearly didn't bother even though it was only £2m. Proved great business as he managed 6 MOM's on 20 starts.

CB Vivian - Clear number one centre back, also nearly lost him last season. Rejected a bid which upset him but he dropped it when the transfer window closed.

CB Nunez - Solid partner for Vivian.

CB Guillamon - Had him on loan for the first two season. First one he barely got a look in so I dropped him to the B team for season two so as not to stagnate his development. His value dropped and we managed to sign him for £8m this summer. Will make sure he gets enough games to continue his development now that he is our player permanently.

CB Yeray - Okay, gets caught out aerially a bit, decent cover at RB. I would look to sell but only worth £8m so no point.

LB Yuri - Still our best LB, reliable player, legs starting to go a bit.

LB Munoz - New £3.5m signing, will compete with Yuri for minutes. We have a great LB prospect coming through so long term back up to him.

CM Merino - Star man. sold Martinez for £24m in the first summer so that I could afford his release clause. Worth every penny as he dominates midfields and has the engine to get up and down and play game after game.

CM Vencedor - Developed nicely, solid midfielder, long term player for us.

CM Moncayola - Signed last summer for £8.5m, he's really pushed on, not much between him and Vencedor so very healthy competition between those two.

CM Sangali - Free transfer last season, didn't get a look in as Herrera was transfer listed by PSG on deadline day and I couldn't resist a loan for half his wages. Given Herrera's age I'll be bumping Sangalli up the pecking order this season.

CM Sancet - Great player, massive goal threat from midfield, 21 goals and 16 assists across the two league campaigns combined.

CM Herrera - Couldn't not sign him last season on a two year loan but he in truth he didn't really justify his £64k p/w wages. I got him on a two year loan with no termination option so stuck with that wage again this season annoyingly.

RW N. Williams - Developed into the clear first choice on the right wing. Started season one competing with Serrano and Morcillo. Serrano never improved at the same rate as Nico and Morcillo is solid if unspectacular.

RW Morcillo - See above.

LW Muniain - Big game player for us, always delivers when it matters, 15 goals and 17 assists across the two season combined.

LW Berenguer - Good back up to Muniain, always give solid performances when called upon.

ST I. Williams - Love him, 40 goals in 68 league games for me so far.

ST A. Morcillo (Regen) - Came through at Eibar in season one and was their first choice striker by the turn of the year. Signed this year for £7.25m, finishing needs some work but he only 17 so loads of room to improve.

I play with a restriction of one u17 signing per season. I enjoy the transfers side of the game and I feel this keeps things interesting further into the save as you can't afford all of the prospects once they've signed their professional deals. Also means you have to be very picky with the one that you choose. I had to turn down Morcillo last summer to sign a LB as with Yuri getting on and the youngster at Sociedad I couldn't risk missing my opportunity. He's the pick of the bunch of our youngsters that aren't quite first team squad ready, hoping he'll be ready to replace Yuri next season.

Other than that we have had a couple of decent prospects come through our own academy, a CM the standout. Not a great second season intake so hoping for better this year.

Overall I'm really happy with the first team squad depth this season, no one I wouldn't be happy to play. Hoping for an improvement on last season, I want us to close the gap and get close to challenging for the league again. And our first trophy would be nice...

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by BlueMikeyP

[Undy]

13 hours ago, bowieinspace said:

Who are you gonna destroy?? It’s good to take a break sometimes especially if you’re an avid Athletic player, because it’s a very different game with Athletic. I had a lot of fun splintering my save to do a trophy hunter style journeyman adventure. It was nice to rock up at a club and rebuild the team based on the tactical concept I wanted to play. Always get pulled back in after a while though.

I've taken over at Celtic. They continue to dominate the Scottish premiership and while Rangers have been finishing second, a few other teams aren't too far behind them. I reckon if I can pay inflated fees to the other clubs in the league I can boost their competitiveness so that if Celtic do get "destroyed", it won't just be Rangers running away with it every season. I'll just need to do well enough in the cups that the board don't sack me as we slip down the league. 

My "destruction" of Celtic has started with an 8-0 away win over Tobol Kostanay in the conference league - our biggest ever win! I'm playing a modified version of my Athletic Club tactic with a 3-1-2-3-1. DM is an anchor, two wide midfielders, then a narrow three behind the striker - an AP with two treq's either side of him. I'm curious to see how the tactic works with a heavy attacking focus... Hopefully not too well! 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Undy

[ernemann]

Im currently with Nottingham Forest but as soon as the winter transfer Update Arrives Im back at Athletic for a huge save that Will last to we see FM23 😀😀😀😀 

[MattyC78]

In the Summer of 2022, we cleared a few players that were fully developed and not going to impact on the first team.  Unai Lopez left for Vallecano in his planned pre-arranged transfer for £4.7 million.  A couple of other players were going out of contract in 2023 and we could not justify significantly increased contracts for Oier Zarraga who left for Las Palmas for £2.4 million, Asier Villalibre went to Leganes for £3.8 million, Inigo Vicente went to Vallecano for £1 million and Inigo Lekue went to Malaga for £2.2 million.

Realistically these players were not going to get many minutes in 2022-23 and even less in future years so we boosted the finances with what we could for each of them.  Dani Vivian and Peru Nolaskoain will get more game time this year and Nico Serrano, Imanol and Alvaro Nunez were moved from the B team to add competition

The surprise signing of the summer was Jon Karrikaburu who I know has proved successful for others on here.  I had scouted him many times and I hadn’t been convinced that his potential was sufficient to justify his release clause.  I had therefore decided to focus on my own youngsters (Serrano, Vicandi and a couple of the newgens) then flashing into my inbox was notification that he had been put on the transfer list.  I was unable to turn down the opportunity to sign him at a bargain price of £1.1 million which may rise to £1.3 million.

Our only other signings were a couple of Basque youngsters for a grand total of £871,000 that are very much for the future.  Alberto Simon had 5 star potential according to my scouts but we’ll have to see how develops but I should at least be able to turn a profit on him.

Inigo Uriarte looks like he could have the required potential and he will join the Newgens which are being prepared for future stardom.

The remaining income was put into the wage budget and facilitated new contracts for a few first teamers.  Yuri was given an additional year.  Unai Vencedor desperately needed a new contract to stave off interest from PSG and Liverpool.  Liverpool put in a bid which was only £3 million beneath his minimum release value.  It will now cost them £120 million if they really want him.  Oihan Sancet and Nico Serrano also got new deals with higher release clauses to protect their futures.  Nico Williams got a new deal before being sent out on loan to Almeria on loan.

[Lewis007]

Sergio Ramos 

[BlueMikeyP]

14 hours ago, MattyC78 said:

The surprise signing of the summer was Jon Karrikaburu who I know has proved successful for others on here.  I had scouted him many times and I hadn’t been convinced that his potential was sufficient to justify his release clause.  I had therefore decided to focus on my own youngsters (Serrano, Vicandi and a couple of the newgens) then flashing into my inbox was notification that he had been put on the transfer list.  I was unable to turn down the opportunity to sign him at a bargain price of £1.1 million which may rise to £1.3 million.

Wow what a bargain!

I really want him but it's his £28.5m release clause or nothing. I don't have anywhere near that to spend and given how raw he is I wouldn't even if I did. He's really paying the price for staying at Sociedad for the past two seasons and not playing on my save, a total of 2 substitute appearances for the first team and matches for the C team. He's pretty much the same player he was at the start of my save. I'd snap him up if I could get him for under £10m, I think a run of games at a decent level and he could really kick on. Another season with limited football and I don't think he'll be able to reach his potential.

Edited January 10, 2022 by BlueMikeyP

[MattyC78]

15 hours ago, Lewis007 said:

Sergio Ramos 

That is quite a price for a 15 year old.  He looks pretty special though and quite a big name to follow.

[MattyC78]

6 hours ago, BlueMikeyP said:

Wow what a bargain!

I really want him but it's his £28.5m release clause or nothing. I don't have anywhere near that to spend and given how raw he is I wouldn't even if I did. He's really paying the price for staying at Sociedad for the past two seasons and not playing on my save, a total of 2 substitute appearances for the first team and matches for the C team. He's pretty much the same player he was at the start of my save. I'd snap him up if I could get him for under £10m, I think a run of games at a decent level and he could really kick on. Another season with limited football and I don't think he'll be able to reach his potential.

I wasn't sure but it was just too good to turn down.  It was even sweeter knowing that I was robbing Sociedad as well.  

Sounds like he is being harmed in your world and it may just never happen for him.  I don't think he is worth that amount.  Have you had any decent newgens to focus on instead?

[MattyC78]

We reached the 7th November 2022 and my squad went on holiday and I then realised we were getting a break for the World Cup.  So much for forward planning.

We are ticking over okay in the league and appear to be in a battle with Barca, Real and Villareal. 

Asier Villalibre has tops the goalscoring charts making it look like a bad decision to sell him but he managed two goals all of last season and was no threat what so ever.  He could do a bit at everything but didn’t excel in passing, finishing, heading or speed and I couldn’t find a way to get the best out of him.

Thankfully there has not been too much second season regression.  We have lost against Real and Barca but have won all of our other games.

The Champions’ League has been a breeze so far.  Despite an expectation from the board to only be competitive in the group and facing Juventus, Dinamo and Dynamo Kiev we won all our games with a goal difference of 13.  Hopefully the progress will help with our financial position.

In terms of tactics we have focussed on one our back up tactics from last year and moving to two up front rather than using an attacking midfielder.

It has generally been successful, with Iker Muniain enjoying the freedom of the attacking mezzala role on the right and weighing in with 3 goals, 9 assists and an average of 7.58 in a much-improved season.  Inaki Williams continues to score regularly (11 goals in 14 with an average of 7.75) with all the strikers getting goals when they play.  We have been defensively solid and only look at risk when we play teams with an attacking left back and winger when that is too much for our right flank.  Though Ander Capa has enjoyed the freedom of the right side before he damaged his Achilles tendons.   

Hopefully we can continue in the same way for the remainder of the season.

[BlueMikeyP]

4 hours ago, MattyC78 said:

I wasn't sure but it was just too good to turn down.  It was even sweeter knowing that I was robbing Sociedad as well.  

Sounds like he is being harmed in your world and it may just never happen for him.  I don't think he is worth that amount.  Have you had any decent newgens to focus on instead?

Yes signed a striker named Morcillo from Eibar for £7.25m, see him a few posts up. He’s as good a Karrikaburu on my save already so hopefully he can be my star man in a couple of seasons time.

[bowieinspace]

2025/26 Season Review - Champions League Heartbreak

After a fantastic season we finished with semi final heartbreak in the Champions League - while a 99 point league winning haul saw us end the season with silverware. 

League - 1st, 99 points
A comfortable win here by around 20 points, we were always in control and tied up the title with about 7 games to spare.

Champions League
After coming 2nd in a group with Man City and Juventus (beating Juventus but proving very much second best to City), we proceeded to face Arsenal in the first knockout round. A narrow 5-4 aggregate win saw us squeeze through there somewhat deservedly, and gave us a quarter final tie with domestic rivals Barcelona. We lost 2-1 at Camp Nou but dominated them at San Mames, winning 2-0 to go through to the semi final, where we would face Liverpool. I knew Liverpool was going to be an exceptionally tough game, and to be honest mentally I'd already acknowledged we'd probably lose but a semi final appearance was a good step for us - this is after all a Liverpool team featuring Alisso, Gvardiol, Trent, Van Dijk, Pavard, Demiral, Fabinho, Bellingham, Salah, Mane, Vlahovic and Joao Felix amongst others! Quite simply they are much better than us. The first leg was played at San Mames, and a 13th minute red card for Fabinho have us a great opportunity - we took advantage and finished the game with a 2-0 lead, it could have been more and we would live to regret it. The second leg was a fairly tight affair in the first half, they did have a goal disallowed for offside, but otherwise we defended well and had a few half chances ourselves. They turned up the heat in the second half but we kept them at bay, I made all the changes you would expect to slow the pace of the game down in the final 10 as they applied pressure and we were looking good as the 90th minute ticked over. Then all of a sudden things turned, a screamer in 90+1 added some nerves, and our hearts broke on 90+3 where a quality cross from Trent was met at the back post by Mane to make it 2-2. They dominated extra time and went through to the final 4-2 on aggregate. Liverpool were simply better than us, but to come so close was tough to take.

Sadly we didn't have any success in the Copa Del Rey or Supercopa this year, so the league was our sole success.

Tactical Approach
As noted in my previous update, this season saw a switch from our 3-4-3 variant to a 4-3-3. We kept the same general playing philosophy despite the change in formation, with one out and out wide player on each side and midfielders who would block the middle and make us hard to breakdown. When we win the ball we want to look to quickly exploit space by playing on a higher tempo, countering and passing into space, this works well with the combination of forward roles. The front 3 are supplemented by an attacking mezzala in midfield, who fills the gap between the winger and striker, and an attacking wingback on the right who overlaps the IW. The goal is to have the IW and mezzala overloading the half spaces, with wide support outside them and a centre forward looking for space as the centre backs get pulled around to cover the players in the half spaces.

Defensively, an IWB on the left sits narrow to help build out from the back, and generally supports the anchorman in managing any threat on the counter, with the occasional movement forwards to support the attack. The DLP holds in the middle of the park and helps recycle possession, giving us passing options to reset and rebuild attacks if things slow down. When our attacks break down, with effectively a 5 man front line we are ideally placed to counter press and score a lot of goals by winning it back high up the pitch and catching the opposition out. We are defiinitely a team focused on those transitions, so when we are losing possession a lot against a decent team who play through our press the games can get a little bit like a tennis match. I think we need to manage this better, especially at the end of big games. My goal for pre season is to craft a system we can switch to to kill off games effectively. 

 

Transfers/Players

This season has seen the end of Jon Morcillo's time at the club - an excellent player for us but with good youngsters reaching first team level it was time for him to move on. We have a host of fantastic youngsters coming through and it's very exciting. The pick of the bunch are these two:
 

Eduardo Agirrezabala - I've picked this guy up from Osasuna after this years youth intakes. My god when I saw him I couldn't believe it - look at the state of him for a 15 year old!!

Mikel Ramos - I mentioned this fella in my last update, he was first team ready at 15. Now at 16 with a year in the first team under his belt (I managed his minutes very carefully) he's made some small attribute improvements and is starting to pick up steam. For a 16 year old to play in a Champions League semi final marking Salah is a remarkable achievement. Unsure if he's gonna be one of those guys who just hit his potential early or not, but wow what a player.

[Jambo98]

Reached the end of Jan  2025 in my save, and its an interesting time in the Basque Country...... for the first time in the save, i feel like we might be genuine title challengers.  

We are having a great season, but unfortunately pesky Barca are pretty much matching us stride for stride. The rest of the chasing pack already look a long way back, but can we fight off the might Catalan's?  It is going to be tough.

Jan was also an interesting time. We went into the season again wth only one senior RB, in Ander Capa. He is 32 but was still doing a sterling job for us - Unai Nunez moving out to cover him when needed with Yeray and Dani Vivian on hand as the CBs. It was a little more short handed than i would like, but none of our youth defenders are ready yet for the top end football.  In Jan however, with 6 months left on his contract, Capa decided he was determined to leave us for the far east when bids came in, I had little choice other than to let him go, with squad morale starting to be impacted. 

Initially, i had to make an urgent move to get a RB, and options are slim. Odriozola is a non starter, Real wanting 80m for him (and he is 29), so short term i went for Martin Aguirregabiria - Not great, not ideal for first choice in a team trying to win the league but at "only" £7.5m, he was the only available option, and given my desire to have more depth in general, i figured signing him did not mean i could not also splash big later in the window.  That left me with only one option - Andoni Gorosabel from our arch rivals. They would not budge on his release clause of £27m, and given he is 28yrs old, and is only marginally better than Capa, its a huge outlay. But, as the window wound down, and i had no where else to spend the cash (which is still the profits from selling Inaki prior to the season), i took the plunge. Spending £34m on right backs is an odd window, but needs must - we have a chance at this title and i did not want to let a lack of an RB stop me. I might still get some sell on value, given our best RB prospects are probably 2 years away. 

We also had a late window scare. Ohien Sancet has developed into a key man for us, and this happened - 

Potentially a big issue - we have some CM prospects who look close to ready - well one looks close, another one or two who are maybe a year or two away (Julen Jon is a bust it seems....another story) but losing Sancet would potentially be a fatal blow for our title hopes. So i pulled out all the stops, offering him a relative kings ransom to stay and to my surprise.......

 

 

Its big wages, but since Inaki left, we are in a decent position wage budget wise and he is worth it.  We also brought back a familiar face to add depth - with the Sancet deal going down to the last day of the window, i needed a contingency if he chose Arsenal. Ander Herrera was in the last 6 months of his contract at PSG and transfer listed. At age 35 he still has something left, so for a £2m transfer fee, PSG paying half his wage for the next 6 months, he wanted only £15k per week to sign for me. It means its only a 6 month deal which suits me - short term depth (We are also still in the CL and Copa, so games will pile up) with no long term financial commitment if we are more ready to promote youth next year. 

The revelation of the season has undoutably been Iker Muniain on his return from his 1 season in England. After a frustrating and inconsistent time at AML / CAM in his "first" spell with us, this time round he is playing CM as an attacking Mezzala and is loving life

The other exciting development was getting probably the best young regen i have seen in this save - sadly not my own, poached from Las Palmas for £5m, but he does have Basque Nationality which is nice

Stats look crazy already for 16, and the coaches think he can grow into one of our best players - he will need careful management, but out crop of attacking youth is looking crazy exciting already. 

Lets see how the last 4 months of the season play out

[ben carter]

End of my second season and I've ballsed up a bit of my defence. I offered Vivian a contract to start at the end of the season, he accepted so I thought that was all good only for Chelsea to trigger his £40 million release fee and he's gone.

I thought him agreeing the provisional contract would block any bids. None of my regens are near 1st team level yet either so I'm probably going to try Robin Le Normand's release fee. 

[Jean0987654321]

Gonna give the Basque challenge another go. I hope to bring attacking soccer to San Mames. With the new roles in the game, playing 3-at-the-back is gonna be a bit easy

[Bradz FM]

8 hours ago, Jean0987654321 said:

Gonna give the Basque challenge another go. I hope to bring attacking soccer to San Mames. With the new roles in the game, playing 3-at-the-back is gonna be a bit easy

haha good luck.

 

You would think that but the ME causes them to behave erratically when marking

[MattyC78]

 

One of the exciting things about an Athletic save is the commitment to youth development that you are forced into.  I’ve always enjoyed developing young players but with other teams it is all too easy to get distracted by the next big thing.  It is all too easy to harvest talented young players.  If things don’t work out you just move on to the next in the list of young players and jettison the original players.  This is rarely an option at Athletic.  All talented players are critical and I need to find a way of getting the best out of all of them.

I inherited a couple of players that are worthy of close attention.  Obviously Oihan Sancet and Unai Vencedor are key first team players now we are into our second season and they are ticking over nicely.  Nico Williams struggled for game time in 2021-22 so he was sent out on loan to Almeira for 2022-23 where he has been getting good experience ready to come back into the first-team squad next year. 

Nico Serrano has been in the first team with tutoring from Raul Garcia.  Given the volume of wingers and shortage of forwards, I have been training him as an advanced forward. 

He is starting to get some game-time and deliver results which mean that I imagine him replacing Garcia before the end of his contract in 2024. 

Jon Karrikaburu was brought in because it was too good an opportunity to turn down.  He is getting the same mentoring, training and game-time as Serrano but he is not having the same influence on the pitch. 

He has struggled to settle in and looks really off the pace in games.  He is unhappy with his game-time and then underperforms when he does get games.  It feels at this stage that it may just not work out for him.  He has asked to leave and if I get a good offer in the summer that gives me a significant profit, I may let him go.  Until then we will keep persevering and hope he comes good.

Junior Bita and Ibon Badiola are training with the first-team squad but available for the B-team whilst they are being mentored by Dani Garcia. 

There has been some progress with the youngsters so far, most notably those in the first-team, Serrano, Vencedor and Sancet.  I suspect that I have not got the youth training and mentoring with the others quite right as the progress has been very slow, if any.

Mentoring has had some benefits but there have been no real personality changes.  The professional players in the squad are coming toward the end of their careers and I’d hoped to pass some of this onto the rest of the squad.

It is also not too late to eke out some development from the existing youngsters in the squad We also had a good crop of youngsters in our first youth intake which was supplemented by Inigo Uriarte

and I am going to focus on the training to really help these players come through.

Aritz San Martin is a young striker with five-star potential.  He is a very exciting prospect.

He is with Serrano and Karrikaburu in the first team being tutored by Raul Garcia.  He has already made his debut and when he came off the bench against Celta Vigo he set up Inaki Williams for the winner and then scored to put the game to bed and at the age of 16 years and 166 days take Iker Muniain’s record of the youngest goalscorer.  He also recently named at 15 in the NxGn 2023 list.

Javier Alonso, a young left back

and Mikel Ruiz, another forward

were the other notable players from the 2022 intake and the prediction for the 2023 suggests I may have a couple of promising fullbacks, a goalkeeper and a centre back.

Of course, there are all the other youngsters that you can never write-off at Athletic because you need everyone to develop into the best possible version of themselves that they can.  It's time for me to get a proper handle on youth development or I will really struggle in a year or two when the current first-teamers start dropping away. 

[Jambo98]

End of Season 24/25 for me and it was a bit of a heartbreaker. 

We had a great season, including a crazy spell from mid December to early March where we won litterally every game we played. Something like 15 straight wins in all competitions. Barca though.......they  were relentless. In early march we were 1pt clear of them despite our insane run. We had them to come to San Mames and it was a majestic game

Absolutely smashed them. This FINALLY gave us a 4pt gap............and from there, we collapsed a bit. The very next game, we lost to Villareal and that wiped out all the hard work, but no matter, at least we still had a 1pt cushion.......except we then lost again the next week to lowly Real Sporting, and that was that . Barca took over at the top and despite mostly reviving our form (we had 2 further draws against Zaragoza and Sociedad) we could not catch them. 

 

 

Kinda gutting, an insane season really. Any other season, 93pts wins the league comfortable. Our goal difference is also crazy good, but in the end, just a random dip in form has cost us. Frustratingly, in the form dip we also lost the Copa final to Athletico, after a great run using nothing but backups and prospects.  Even in the CL, we smashed through a group including Man City and RBL, then got the nightmare draw against mighty Liverpool but we bested them over 2 epic games. Then got Man U in the quarters and after a wild 3 - 3 draw at Old Trafford, we let it slip with a 0 - 1 loss at home. Very much a season of what might have been.

The squad overall seemed to perform very well

Sancet the undoubted star of the show, keeping him out of the clutches of Arsenal was key. Muniain also with a brilliant return (Although he then got unhappy, because despite an insane season, i didnt play him at CAM where i promised - dumb game). Nico also stepped up big time and some surprising contributions from Ivan Martin, a utilty backup who spent time at AML and CM across the year and never let us down. 

As we go into next year, we have a decision to make at CDM between Vencedor and Moncayola in reality. Only one can fit my system at a time, and this season we rotated but both want new contracts. Unlikely i keep both on the money they will want and we have a bevvy of CDM prospects to graduate as well. We also need to make a decision at AML - Nico has AMR nailed down but we cycled through Serrano, Artola and 2 regens at AML across the season. All did "ok" but none grabed it. We have 2 further insane good prospects whoare AMCL/ST types, and given we dont use a CAM, they might well get promoted to get a shot. Likely one of Serrano or Artola will be moved on to make room. Artola is 25 now so probably not going to improve hugely so probably he will move on.  

Elsewhere, the squad is reasonably well set. Ander Herrera will move on after his 6 month cameo return, and we will no doubt be fending off bids for our CBs again as both are wanted. Inwards, Laporte and Greizou both remain out of reach / uninterested as does Oyarzabal. The only potential non regen signing would be Barrenetxea but his release clause is £74m and so probably not. Maybe Le Normand if we lost one of our starting CBs but otherwise, it will be about which prospects we decide to promote to our first team. 

Our B team actually finished 2nd in Liga Smartbank, which is pretty crazy. Under 19s won the league at a canter and Basconia finished 2nd in the lowest playable division and have playoffs still to play as i speak. So plenty of good things going on, we just need that final push and to avoid the form dips which hit us every year at different times.

 

[Jean0987654321]

On 01/01/2022 at 23:26, BlueMikeyP said:

He’s done pretty well for me, first season in the league he finished with 16 goal involvements and a 7.11 season average. His league form has dropped off a tad in the second season but he’s been immense in the Champions League. Season stats so far averaging 7.03 with 16 goal involvements after 30 starts.

I play him from the left as a inverted winger attack. We play a 433 with a DM. I have a pressing forward attack upfront and a Carrilero LCM. Pretty much gives him the whole left half space to himself.

I have been playing a quick transition counter attacking style so far. Worked great first season pushing Real all the way. Second season not so well. We are top four but well off the pace for the title. I think I need to transition to a bit more ball possession as the players are knackered playing twice a week. Will see if that hinders Muniain and the rest of the team.

I used him in the middle as a MEZ on support. Had to take off those negative PPMs he had ("Plays No Through Balls"? Who researched this guy? ) but hes got double digits in assists. I got enough options on the wing but not many in midfield so it works out

Edited January 17, 2022 by Jean0987654321

[bowieinspace]

2026/27 Season Review - Domestic Treble!

La Liga - 1st, 96 points
Supercopa - Winners
Copa Del Rey - Winners
Champions League - Lost in sem final to PSG

Overall an excellent season, dominating domestically and securing our first domestic treble in the process. A semi final exit at the hands of PSG in the Champions League was dissapointing but ultimately a deserved loss.

Transfers

We said goodbye to Aihen Munoz, choosing to promote one of our young players to fill the back up left back spot. We also said goodbye to Athletic legend Inaki Williams - this actually happened at the start of the season but this is my first chance to mention it. He still had 2 years left on his massive contract and was showing signs of decline - when we received an offer for him from PSG it made sense to let him go and bring up one of our younger prospects. We have good options coming through generally speaking but I am worried about our strength in depth at CB and how this will develop as Le Normand and Nunez age - both are over 30 now, but we should be ok for a few years still. 

Having reached the Champions League semi final now 2 years in a row I know we're getting close to getting that trophy, we just lack a bit of star quality in certain positions - probably 1-2 players away from having enough. We will be stronger again this year for sure! 

I've not done this yet, so I've included screenshots of all my newgens below on the links - if you just want to see the best just look at , Ramos, Bengoetxea, Lagarde and Agirrezabala in particular, although there's a few other good ones). In terms of my real players, I seem to have an excellent Jon Julen Guerrero, although his personality needed some work he seems to be coming good, I also have a good Karikkaburu, a good Serrano and a very very good Nico Williams. Others not mentioned were obviously not good versions so are no longer with the club.

Squad

GK - Simon, A. Fernandez
Rb - Odriozola, Casado (Newgen)
CB - Le Normand, Vivian, Nunez, Barrera (newgen)
LB - Ramos (newgen), M. Palacios (newgen)
DM - Vencedor, Guillamon
CM - Sancet, Moncayola
CM - J. Guerrero, Bengoetxea (newgen)
LW - Serrano, Leon (newgen)
RW - N. Williams, Aimar Oroz
CF - Karrikaburu, Zubizarreta (newgen)

Prospects

GK - Lorono, Agirrezabala
RB/CB - Lagarde
LB - Javi Moreno
CB/DM - David Luke
CM - Ander Bilbao
RW - Txomin Lekunberri
LW - Juan Carlos Beitia
CF - Urko Zabala


Other interesting tid bits from the save:

 - Royal Antwerp have a Chinese tycoon running them, they bid outrageous money for players and go hard in the transfer market, they've spent about 300million GBP in the last couple of years.
 - Liverpool have dominated the English league, winning 4 out of the last 5 league titles - managed by Pep Guardiola. Klopp left Liverpool to manage City haha. 
 - The two Milan clubs are the powerhouse teams in Italy now. Inter just won the league with 99 points
 - Bayern and PSG predicatably dominant!

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by bowieinspace

[MattyC78]

We started 2023 as we ended 2022.  Inaki Williams was named in World Team of Year as our only representative.

Despite still being without Ander Capa and a hip injury in the World Cup depriving us of Iker Muniain, the strong league form continued with a four-nil demolition of Vallecano before we headed to Saudi Arabia for the Spanish Super Cup.  We beat Athletico 2-1 in the semi-final to set up another final with Real.  This was an opportunity to avenge the defeat of last year.

Marco Asensio gave them the lead after 15 minutes and we offered very little for the rest of the half.  I lied and told them that they had been unlucky which led to a much improved second half performance.  From two beautiful assists from Unai Vencedor (not for the first time this season) their defence was twice cut open from deep.  Inaki Williams finished superbly on each occasion to give us the lead.

I made substitutions to replace the terrible Unai Nunez, the tiring Unai Sancet and the disappointing Raul Garcia, pushed my fullbacks to defend and encouraged timewasting to get us over the line for a victory.

The transfer window was quiet as we have virtually zero transfer budget.  An offer came in for Peru Nolaskoain of £3.3 million.  He was barely playing and with just over a year left on his contract I decided to cash in. 

Dani Garcia wanted to double his wages in a three-year contract which I wouldn’t sanction.  I was hoping that his demands would reduce later in the year.  Shaktar approached him directly so sadly he is leaving at the end of the season.  This is a massive blow for us but I wasn’t prepared to give such a large contract to a player turning 33 before the end of the season.  Shaktar also purchased Ander Herrara from PSG for £9.5 million in a deal that I couldn’t match so the Ukrainians have a fine Basque midfield for next year.  I expect I shall be drawn against them in Europe next year.

By early April we are sat top of the table with a clear three-way battle lined up with Barcelona and Real for the title.

We will sadly be able to give it our complete attention as we were knocked out of the Champions League by Manchester City.  After a nil-nil draw in Manchester we were well placed.  Cue my three most influential players (Iker Munian, Inigo Martinez and Inaki Williams) coming to complain two days before the second leg about the contract for C team player.  They were most upset when I would not give the player a new contract and their morale plummeted (if only they knew that I would take out my frustrations by sacking the out of contract player 48 hours later).

I’m sure this did not help but realistically the quality in the Manchester City side supplemented by Erling Haland, Dusan Vlahovic and Kylian Mbappe was always likely to be too much.  So this proved as we lost two-one.

[ben carter]

On 15/01/2022 at 23:00, ben carter said:

End of my second season and I've ballsed up a bit of my defence. I offered Vivian a contract to start at the end of the season, he accepted so I thought that was all good only for Chelsea to trigger his £40 million release fee and he's gone.

I thought him agreeing the provisional contract would block any bids. None of my regens are near 1st team level yet either so I'm probably going to try Robin Le Normand's release fee. 

Update: Bought Le Normand, broke his leg lol 

[bowieinspace]

2027/28 Season Review - Are we in transition??

La Liga - 2nd, 94 points (Real Madrid won with 102 points!)
Copa Del Rey - Winners
Supercopa - Winners
Champions League - Lost 3-2 AET to Bayern Munich (defending champions)

Overall a good if not spectacular year. We were beaten by Bayern in the quarters of the Champions League narrowly, but we gave a very good account of ourselves and there was no major concerns over losing in extra time to the reigning champions, who have a superb team and deserved the win. In the La Liga, Real really came to play this season - ultimately statistically we were on their level in every category and we only conceded 12 goals all season. Unfortunately we had one of those years where we had too many 0-0 draws where we massively underperformed our xG, but then we'd go and spank some poor team 6-0 and overperform massively the next week. Meanwhile Real overperformed their xG by 25 odd goals, so they simply were more clinical and took their chances. Well done to them winning the league with a huge points total, while we set a record points total for a team not winning the league - can't complain in that scenario and just have to say well done to Real.

Tactically we've not made significant changes to the way we play, just little tweaks and of course in game adjustments. Player wise, Mikel Bengoetxea (see screenshot on last seasons update) has improved significantly and is now our star player - he scored a hat trick from central midfield in the Copa Del Rey final against Real. Mikel Ramos who was our ludicrous 15 year old regen has made decent strides but doesn't look like he would be the insane player we had hoped, albeit he will certainly be an important player for us for many years. Still a lot of years of potential development for him but the coaches think his ceiling isn't that high. I'm starting to see a little bit of narrowing down within potential first team players - we had a wealth of 3* plus potential players a year ago, but now some have dropped off in the opinion of our coaches and a few have retained the higher potential, which is pretty normal. Expecting Ander Bilbao, Txomin Lekunberri and Urko Zabala to come through within the next year into the first team, but others such as Beitia and Javi Moreno don't look like they'll be quite so good. On the goalkeeper front into the 28/29 season, we have Lorono on loan in Serie A, and Agirrezabala in for the B team in Liga 2. I would expect next season one of them will back up Simon and get rotated in for a solid number of games while the other will go on loan for first team minutes. I'd expect they will be my 2 first team keepers in the next few years, but Simon should be around for a while yet. 

Transfers wise we said goodbye to Jon Moncayola - a very solid player who looked better in our 3-4-3 than in our 4-3-3. He wanted a bit too much within his contract and I couldn't agree a deal with him, he left to Real for a fairly small fee for his ability as I was going to lose him on a free. A bit disappointing but he did well for us, I was struggling to keep him happy as he wasn't getting regular player minutes and I wanted to make room in the squad for David Luke who is coming along pretty well. We have also let Odriozola go as Loann Lagarde is coming along very nicely, as well as Unai Nunez. It was sad to say goodbye to Nunez, but I couldn't keep everyone happy and at 31 (soon to be 32) I felt he made most sense to move on. Le Normand is a similar age but has an attribute balance that I feel is a better fit for us at the moment, largely because Vivian and Nunez are remarkably similar. I think we're currently in a bit of a transition with the remaining senior pros of the older era having departed in the last year or so, with a batch of newgens having entered the team with others coming to supplement them. We've got quality but we are a few players away from having a top, top team. We are certainly one of the top 5-10 teams in Europe but we are simply a level below those very top European teams, and it shows in the latter Champions League stages. The quality of newgens in this save is really excellent within the game world. Hopefully we get those 1-2 key players come through, particularly a world class CB/DM would be ideal, as that could propel us to a Champions League win.

First Team Squad:

GK - Simon, Fernandes 
RB - Lagarde, Casado
LB - Ramos, Palacios
CB - Barrera, Le Normand, Vivian, Luke
DM - Vencedor, Guillamon
CM - Bengoetxea, JJ Guerrero, Sancet, Ander Bilbao
RW - Williams, Aimar Oroz
LW - Serrano, Leon
CF - Karrikaburu, Zubizarreta

[BlueMikeyP]

Does anyone do anything special when facing Real Madrid?

I have played them 8 times on my save so far and only managed to draw twice, losing the rest. It's really killing my title challenge as they have reached mid-90's points three seasons in a row.

Our games are always even on chances and xg but they always create one sitter and finish it whereas we waste ours.

Just wondering if anyone makes any tactical changes when facing Real?

I had a real "what could have been" moment in my third season, on a 12 game winning streak and with 10 games to go we were 3 points clear of Real and had them at home. We lost 0-2 despite a 1.73-1.02 xg and then we dropped points in 3 of our next 6 games allowing Real to pull clear. I know to eventually get our hands on the trophy we have to take points off of our biggest rival!

Edited January 21, 2022 by BlueMikeyP

[MattyC78]

It is not the finest crop of youngsters I have ever received but it’s time to introduce my 2023 youth intake.  I have one clear potential star and a couple of others to keep an eye on.

Ruben Munoz is apparently confused about his best position.  On the summary screen he is shown as a left back and then described by the media as a centre-back.  I like an attacking full-back so realistically I think with his initial attributes and towering height of 6’4’’ I will be developing him as a centre back. 

I’m always relieved to get a promising goalkeeper to bring through to replace Simon in time.  Step forward Ivan Galan. 

Egoitz Mateo is a four-star potential winger, who looks like he may be able to do something for us.

and Galder Zarraga is a three and half star midfielder.  He has terrible physical attributes which will need to be improved if he is going to make it.

[bowieinspace]

8 hours ago, BlueMikeyP said:

Does anyone do anything special when facing Real Madrid?

I have played them 8 times on my save so far and only managed to draw twice, losing the rest. It's really killing my title challenge as they have reached mid-90's points three seasons in a row.

Our games are always even on chances and xg but they always create one sitter and finish it whereas we waste ours.

Just wondering if anyone makes any tactical changes when facing Real?

I had a real "what could have been" moment in my third season, on a 12 game winning streak and with 10 games to go we were 3 points clear of Real and had them at home. We lost 0-2 despite a 1.73-1.02 xg and then we dropped points in 3 of our next 6 games allowing Real to pull clear. I know to eventually get our hands on the trophy we have to take points off of our biggest rival!

Honestly I mean you can always make tweaks to better manage their system, but a team like Real has exceptional players who will often out perform their xG, so it’s just the way it works until your own player quality can reach that level.

[bowieinspace]

19 minutes ago, MattyC78 said:

It is not the finest crop of youngsters I have ever received but it’s time to introduce my 2023 youth intake.  I have one clear potential star and a couple of others to keep an eye on.

Ruben Munoz is apparently confused about his best position.  On the summary screen he is shown as a left back and then described by the media as a centre-back.  I like an attacking full-back so realistically I think with his initial attributes and towering height of 6’4’’ I will be developing him as a centre back. 

I’m always relieved to get a promising goalkeeper to bring through to replace Simon in time.  Step forward Ivan Galan. 

Egoitz Mateo is a four-star potential winger, who looks like he may be able to do something for us.

and Galder Zarraga is a three and half star midfielder.  He has terrible physical attributes which will need to be improved if he is going to make it.

Munoz definitely a CB without a doubt - left sided too which is always handy. FM loves creating CB/FB hybrids for some reason! I usually end up retraining wingers as full backs (actually what I am doing in my own save currently)

[MattyC78]

We have completed the final ten games of the 2022-23 season and we retained our title, just.  We were run mightily close by Real and our lack of European football probably helped.  Our win against Real in mid-April was critical in turning the tide and then we were relentless at the end of the season to squeeze past them.

Inaki Williams was phenomenal over the season and topped the goalscoring charts with 26 goals in the league and swept up plenty of awards.  Interestingly Asier Villalibre weighed in with 21 goals.  There was no hint of this form for me.

In the Spanish Cup Final we lost 3-1 to Real Madrid.  Barcelona have not been a real challenger so far.  Our battles always appear to be with Real. 

We continued with our lopsided formation.  This brought out the best in many players including Williams and Iker Muniain.

Inigo Martinez underperformed, again.  Ander Capa was missing for a significant chunk of the season.  There were a couple of cameos from the youngsters as they continue to push towards regular first-team football.  Nico Serrano is pushing for Raul Garcia’s spot a year early.  Garcia is our record oldest goal scorer now at 36 years and 310 days in the year we also had our youngest goal scorer as well.

Our finances remain tight.  Despite a second season of Champions League football being secured, our transfer and wage budgets remained fixed.  There are not many players to buy but I like the freedom to trade when opportunities arrive and we are starting to get pressure from some of the players for improved terms.  We still have high wages for Inaki Williams (£190,000 per week) and Inigo Martinez (£150,000 p/w) but otherwise the wages remain reasonable.  I am thinking I need to start looking at ways of bringing the finances under control.  Is everyone else in the same position and does it ease in future years?

[MattyC78]

9 hours ago, BlueMikeyP said:

Does anyone do anything special when facing Real Madrid?

I have played them 8 times on my save so far and only managed to draw twice, losing the rest. It's really killing my title challenge as they have reached mid-90's points three seasons in a row.

Our games are always even on chances and xg but they always create one sitter and finish it whereas we waste ours.

Just wondering if anyone makes any tactical changes when facing Real?

I had a real "what could have been" moment in my third season, on a 12 game winning streak and with 10 games to go we were 3 points clear of Real and had them at home. We lost 0-2 despite a 1.73-1.02 xg and then we dropped points in 3 of our next 6 games allowing Real to pull clear. I know to eventually get our hands on the trophy we have to take points off of our biggest rival!

Real have been my main rivals and have taught us a lesson on a couple of occasions.  I tend to maintain the same approach but have dropped one of my strikers to an attacking midfielder once or twice to give us more to compete in midfield. 

The thing that I have adapted most is my approach to team talks.  On paper they are so much better than me that I have learned to play down expectations (to the point that I am telling them lies).  See last season in the cup final, where I told them they were unlucky at halftime after being played off the park in the first half.

[MattyC78]

1 hour ago, bowieinspace said:

Munoz definitely a CB without a doubt - left sided too which is always handy. FM loves creating CB/FB hybrids for some reason! I usually end up retraining wingers as full backs (actually what I am doing in my own save currently)

Being able to play multiple positions is always a benefit in Athletic saves.  I suspect in his early career he'll get games in both positions but long-term I suspect you are right.

I also often retrain wingers to full backs.  Bereneguer has been doing a job at right back in Capa's absence and the ability to attack the flank offers more than either Nunez.