FM22: The Dutch Football League

[JahRastafari]

No FM 22 threads yet on Dutch clubs or Dutch football leagues, so here we go with a short introduction on why this could be your next fun save. 

The Dutch football league system in Football Manager consists of two playable professional leagues: Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie. In real life another eight levels of amateur football leagues complete the Dutch football pyramid. 

 

The Eredivisie league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. The origin of the Eredivisie goes way back in time. The forerunner of the Eredivisie was the 'kampioenscompetitie'. There has been unofficial competition for the Dutch championship since 1888. The Eredivisie is considered as one of the best European leagues outside the major 5. All around the world, the Netherlands is known for their training programs and youth development of international top players as well as coaches. The success of Dutch football clubs is directly related to their player development and the opportunity they're able to give young talents to better themselves and make a name for them selves on a bigger stage. Thanks to the focus and devotion to youth talent, many Dutch players throughout history have been able to play at the top of the international stage. 

These players include but are not limited to Johan Cruijff, Johan Neeskens, Willem van Hanegem, Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard, Ronald Koeman, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Kluivert, Edgar Davids, Philip Cocu, Frank de Boer, Jaap Stam, Edwin van der Sar, Clarence Seedorf, Mark van Bommel, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Rafael van der Vaart, Dirk Kuijt, Robin van Persie, Frenkie de Jong, Donny van de Beek, Memphis Depay, Hakim Ziyech, and Matthijs de Ligt. As mentioned before there have also been many successful coaches to come out of the Eredivisie, like, Rinus Michels, Johan Cruijff, Louis van Gaal, Frank Rijkaard, Guus Hiddink and Bert van Marwijk.

Dutch internationals are not the only players to come out of the Eredivisie and realize their potential on the world's biggest stages. Players like Romario, Ronaldo, Nwanko Kanu, Jon Dahl Tomasson, Henrik Larsson, Jari Litmanen, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Maxwell, Alex, Luis Suarez, Christian Eriksen and Arek Milik where all attracted to the Eredivisie, and used the League as a stepping stone to become the players they ended up being.

As of the 2020–21 season, the Eredivise is ranked the 7th best league in Europe by UEFA. One exciting goal on many Dutch minds is the prospect of reaching the top 6 football associations coefficient spot. That would offer a second fixed slot to the Champions League and one additional slot to the qualification rounds. Not such an unrealistic dream, since the European disaster year of 2017/2018 will disappear after next season, making the Netherlands a contender for becoming sixth in the ranking for the distribution of tickets in the 2023/2024 season. Just two seasons away in the game!  

The Eerste Divisie (Keuken Kampioen Divisie) offers more flavour to the long-term save enthusiasts who aim to challenge the traditional top teams in the Netherlands. Four of these teams even have their youth reserve teams playing in the league offering valuable game time and an edge to their youth development strategies: Jong Ajax, Jong AZ, Jong PSV, Jong Utrecht. In real life, Feyenoord is working on promoting its reserves to the league which unfortunately can't be done with the current FM22 playable league set-up. Perhaps an editor file will open up the Dutch football pyramid and promotion-relegation to the Eerste Divisie unlocking long-journey save possibilities? For now, you could make major clubs recently relegated such as ADO Den Haag, FC Emmen, NAC Breda or Roda JC challenge for the Eredivisie championship from the Eerste Divisie.

On top of that, The Netherlands holds former Europa Cup 1 / Champions League winners in the likes of Ajax Amsterdam, Feyenoord Rotterdam, and PSV Eindhoven. Can you make international silverware return to the Netherlands? 

When Christmas holiday arrives, I am starting my save with Ajax to aim for that 5th CL title with talents and former players nurtured through the youth academy. But for now, I am eager to see how the rest of you are doing with your Dutch league saves! 

Edited November 26, 2021 by JahRastafari

[KailTheMagic]

This year Ajax have tons of offensive talents. Just to name few:

Van Axel Dongen

Sontje Hansen

Kudus 

Fitz-Kim

Decent league, nice for talent development

[dothestrand]

I liked playing with AZ to see if you could disrupt the top three. Losing Koopmeiners, Stengs and Boadu makes that much tougher in this save. Still, they always have loads of young players to bring through, so it's still very much a possibility. 

[luka_zg]

13 hours ago, KailTheMagic said:

This year Ajax have tons of offensive talents. Just to name few:

Van Axel Dongen

Sontje Hansen

Kudus 

Fitz-Kim

Decent league, nice for talent development

none of them managed to do anything in my ajax save. Kudus played for a season and after was demoted to the bench before being sold in the 3rd season. Others had 0 senior apearances in 4 seasons for my team.

Ajax is very rich club with budgets around 70-80 mil and can go up if you sell players too, so you can afford much better players than those.

Edited November 26, 2021 by luka_zg

[JahRastafari]

8 hours ago, luka_zg said:

none of them managed to do anything in my ajax save. Kudus played for a season and after was demoted to the bench before being sold in the 3rd season. Others had 0 senior apearances in 4 seasons for my team.

Ajax is very rich club with budgets around 70-80 mil and can go up if you sell players too, so you can afford much better players than those.

Which Ajax talents made it to your first squad? Any success with Unuvar, Misehouy, Aertssen, Kalokoh, Vos, Muzambo, Boerhout, and/or Setford?

[JahRastafari]

22 hours ago, dothestrand said:

I liked playing with AZ to see if you could disrupt the top three. Losing Koopmeiners, Stengs and Boadu makes that much tougher in this save. Still, they always have loads of young players to bring through, so it's still very much a possibility. 

Did you win some trophies with AZ upsetting the top three along the way? Louis van Gaal accomplished something special in the 2008-2009 season. Cool to replicate that success! 

[luka_zg]

19 hours ago, JahRastafari said:

Which Ajax talents made it to your first squad? Any success with Unuvar, Misehouy, Aertssen, Kalokoh, Vos, Muzambo, Boerhout, and/or Setford?

I quit the save in the 4th season , Vos,Aertssen and Misehouy were part of my first team squad but really only in the end of the picking order. Like 3rd or 4th options for their positions.

[kazm]

My take on Slots Feyenoord:

Some notes:

- Pedersen has 'cut inside' ppm, have to remove that in training.

- Aursnes is your only midfielder who can mark and tackle. Need a backup or you have to play a 7 tackling mf or Lennart Hartjes who is just a talent at the start

- Lots of talent at Feyenoord in pretty much every position. In my non-Feyenoord save Milambo was in the top 50 of talents they show each year

 

The tactic:

DISCLAIMER: this is based of a succesfull 41221 tactic I used, I am not far in the season yet (5 conference games 1 league game, won 5, drew 1 CL game. ) This tactic might fail hard but I think it's closest to how we play irl.

- Irl Feyenoord don't play more narrow and don't really focus on short passing. Though in this tactic players will still play longer, direct passes over the top.

- Player instructions:

1 Malacia irl plays more narrow so Sini has more space on the left. I gave him 'more narrow' pi.

2 On the right you have the opposite, Jahanbakhsh more narrow, Pedersen stay wider. If using the Toornstra variant I'd put Toornstra in the AMRC spots as an AMC support, he doesn't fit any of the AMR roles. 

3 Toornstra and Senesi have play more direct pi.

4 Dessers doesn't score every 92nd minute

 

 

Edited November 28, 2021 by kazm

[SteinkelssonFM]

I have recently started a new save in the Netherlands with PSV and would appreciate if anyone who has an interest in Dutch football could give it a follow.

 

[Kingbill]

@kazm how's it going with your Feyenoord save? (if your still doing it) I started with them last week and really enjoying it, I am currently in January (first season)  On the pitch we are doing fine. Currently 2nd in the League and through to the 2nd knockout round of the Europa conference league. Off the pitch is were I'm finding it difficult (but fun).  we have no money in the bank for transfers or wages to give out new contracts or loan players in, and the loan repayments are at around £650k a month. Brighton have just tabled a 12m bid for Senesi  and Villa have just offered 14.5m for Kokcu.  Senesi has one year left on his contract and wont resign so i may accept the 12m for him. If i do sell him that leaves a massive hole in defence with only Trauner as the only CB that i feel is good enough to start week in week out. I see you have Geertruida playing at CB. I have him as DM. How is he performing for you at CB? My scouts have told me that Kana from Anderlecht is available on loan so i may move Geertruida to CB and get Kana in to fill the DM role. 

As for the rest of the squad i am happy we have enough depth to get us through the remainder of the season. I tried to send Nelson back to arsenal as he hasn't really performed for me but it wouldn't let me. That would have been ideal as it would have freed up some much needed wages, Desser is my top scorer with 12 in all competitions. He managed to get alot of game time in the first half of the season because we lost Linssen for a good 4 months due to injury.  Sinisterra has been great for me, he is a real talent in the team. 

 

[JawZy]

I also recently started a save with Feyenoord, Getting Colido in on loan from Inter with a 650K option to buy in first season was a great deal

[Kingbill]

i sold Sensi for 12m, he didn't want to re sign so i cashed in on him, I managed to get Timothy Fosu-Mensah from Leverkusen for 1.6m.  Signed Kana, Bogarde and Braaf in on loan. Managed to send Nelson back to arsenal. Turns out he could only go back during a transfer window,  Finished the league in second place behind an Ajax team who went the season undefeated in the league. I was also knocked out in both  the semis of the Dutch cup and the Europa conference league,  in games that be be honest I should have won. Managed to tie down Bijlow and Sinisteera to long term deals  as they had interest from spurs and Everton respectively. Just about to start pre season in season 2, Toornstra has just become unhappy due to the size of the squad. He has interest from Russia as well as Portugal so i may end up selling him. Looking at my squad i need a CB, 2 CMs as well as a AMR, an AML and a centre forward. The club are now debt free so i am hoping an improvement in the transfer budget.  I will post my squad up when i reach the end of the transfer window. Hopefully will be in the group stages of the champions league then and have  managed to sign some decent players. 

[Urke17]

I just started my save with Feyenoord.

It's really tough, only 500k to spent, coaching staff not great, lack of backups for RB and LB, also one more CB is good to have...

But on the other side, what makes it so interesting is to manage with all this issues and give a try and battle for championship.

That is my goal, will rotate in Europenian competiton, all focus on Eredivisie.

For now, plan is to bring backup for Malacia and Holmgren, also backup for Trauner, and backup for Linsen since i don't really beleive in Dessers.

Hear you back in January.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Urke17

[Urke17]

Feyenord 2021/22 Season

So far we are in February now, and season is going really good for now as we managed to get 17 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat(PSV away) with 43 GF and 7 AG , 36 GD.
We finished 2nd in Europa Conference league in group with Antwerp, Hammarby and St. Johnstone.
Also managed to reach 1/4 in Domestic cup. 
Best goalscorer is Linssen with 13 league goals, and 20 goals in total, in 29 games played.
Basically, I don't have some significant weak in my team, everyone is playing well  and everything functions good so far. 
In the middle of January, board sold Senesi for 40m + 20% from Newcastle  , I could not stop them even money was amazing. Before that, i accepted 30m +20% from Totenhem and loan back until end of the season, because I did not want to change anything, esepecially in heart of the defence. Anyway, it was good job,and one of the best out transfers I ever had. 
As a replacement I brought Kaiky from Santos, on loan with 500k + 7m opttional if he prove himself till the end of the season. 
Will post some pictures bellow, that is it for now, hear you back at the end of the season, hopefully with trophey in our hands! 


 

[Urke17]

Feyenord 2021/22 End of season 

Yes, we did it! 

We have secured first place before last game of the season!

Also, we managed to get another trophey, winning game against Ajax in Cup final. 

In Europa Conference league, we managed to reach 1/2. in two games with Spurs, first finished 3:1 , but in London, we suffered defeat 5:2 in extra time.

In total, this was amazing season for us! 

I lost Linssen in January for 3 months, as well as Dimata(january signing) for 7 months, so I needed to make a couple of changes. Put Till as lone PF striker, and he did beautifull job for me! 

Now I have 10m and more to spent, will for sure upgrade current squad, will try to keep Till even Spartak ask 10m for him. 
Will keep most players like Holmgren, Trauner, Bijlow, Kaiky, Malacia, Toornstra, Aursnes, Kokcu, Sinistera.
Probably will sell: Gertruida, Alireza J and most of loan players to make more space in budget. 
When it comes to incoming transfers, already signed Schouten from Bologna for 5m, Bazoer comming on free and couple talented youngsters( Karim Konate, Fatawu, Bjorn Hardley).

See you guys , will post some new pictures when I finish summer transfer window! 

Cheers! 






 

[Kingbill]

@Urke17 congratulations on such a great season, I see Sparta Rotterdam got relegated, have a look at Emanuel Emegha, i signed him in the 2nd season and he has performed wonders for me. You got an amazing price for selling Senesi. How are the board with you? The chairman is trying to sell the club so rejecting all my requests. I have had 2 failed tycoon takeovers and a failed takeover from a local business man. i will do a season 2 update at a later date.

[Urke17]

1 hour ago, Kingbill said:

@Urke17 congratulations on such a great season, I see Sparta Rotterdam got relegated, have a look at Emanuel Emegha, i signed him in the 2nd season and he has performed wonders for me. You got an amazing price for selling Senesi. How are the board with you? The chairman is trying to sell the club so rejecting all my requests. I have had 2 failed tycoon takeovers and a failed takeover from a local business man. i will do a season 2 update at a later date.

Thanks mate,

Emanuel Emegha is at Antwerp since last update I use. Will take a look at him for sure.

Yup, they are trying to sell club im my save as well, for now one failed takover.

They are rejecting all my requests, but I had luck with Senesi, so i have enough to invest.

For now I brought: Savio(6m+2), Danjuma(free loan + 12m optional), Tommy St. Jago 8m+5m bonus, Pieters free, Schouten for 4.5 + 2.5 bonus.

Looking for new striker and replacement for Kokcu since Till asked for unrealistic wage 50-60k per week.

[Kingbill]

Ah didn't know Emegha had moved, That's probably the reason they got relegated. You have made some good signings there, Tommy St. Jago was the one that got away for me, I had a bid accepted, offered him a contract only for him to go to Lazio. I didn't keep Till on for that reason, I want to keep 15k per week as my limit for players wages. I have managed to tie down Bijlow, Malacia and Sinistera to long contracts with high release clauses so if top teams do come sniffing they will have to splash the cash. How's Milambo getting on for you? i gave him a few cup and conference games and he seems to be developing nicely. he is deffo one i will be keeping an eye on

[Urke17]

On 16/02/2022 at 16:36, Kingbill said:

Ah didn't know Emegha had moved, That's probably the reason they got relegated. You have made some good signings there, Tommy St. Jago was the one that got away for me, I had a bid accepted, offered him a contract only for him to go to Lazio. I didn't keep Till on for that reason, I want to keep 15k per week as my limit for players wages. I have managed to tie down Bijlow, Malacia and Sinistera to long contracts with high release clauses so if top teams do come sniffing they will have to splash the cash. How's Milambo getting on for you? i gave him a few cup and conference games and he seems to be developing nicely. he is deffo one i will be keeping an eye on

St. Jago has amazing attributes, but in all important games his rating was like 6.3 or bellow. Maybe he needs more time playing with Trauner to create certain partnership.

Milambo, not great, not bad. Did not give him enough playing time, but he is progressing fine. Will post picture later.

Summer transfer window:

In: Savio, Danjuma, St Jago, Pieters, Kongolo, Van Roijen, Bazoer, Valakari,Chery, Makhlambi, Lammers,Bounedjah, extended loan with Hendrix, Schouten, Levi Smans( free, real hidden gem), and couple of talented youngsters such as guy from Thailand, Mueanta and kept him on loan in Thailand  till the end of the season.

Out: Jahanbach(8m), Diemers(1m), Sandler(1.8m) Felicia (1.5m), Linsen out from January(2.5m), Pieters(300k), Bozenik(1m) and couple of B team low potential youngsters.

New season started well, won Supercup against Ajax, started very well in Eredivisie but lost game against Ajax and got draw against Herenven. Now, I am almost in November. 

In Champions league, in group with Eintracht Frankfurt, Atletico Madrid and Clubb Brugge, after 5 games , I have 4 defeats and one win (Clubb Brugge Home). In last fixture, playing against Eintracht, they have 4 points, so I need win in order to reach knockout phase of Europa League. 

So far, as first season was amazing, this second season is not at all. A lot of ups and downs, late wins. I am not pleased how we did it in CL. In my last played game, it was 0:0 with Atletico for 65 minutes, sudddenly Hermoso got red card, I changed mentality , and tried to get win, but off course Lemar scored free kick from 30m. What to say.

Top signing is Bagdhad Bounedjah, for only 3m you will get serious goalscorer.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Urke17

[Kingbill]

Season 2 Review

As we know our finances arent the best so we had a very small transfer budget. i managed to get a few great free transfers, some good loan deals and couple of bargain players. We face rangers in Europe trying to make the group stages of the champions league. By this time my team is complete and we are ready to take on the very busy and hectic 2nd season

Gk: Bijlow, Marciano, as we know Bijlow is amazing and Marciano is happy to be number 2

RB: Pedersen, Hall. 

CB Trauner, Bettella. Bettella is a loan signing with a 2million optional fee

CB Mensah, Bogarde

LB Malacia, Candelaria 

DM Geertrudia, Aursnes

MC Diemers, Antonucci

MC Doyle, Anderson. Doyle is a loan signing from city with a 40m optional fee that i wont be using, Anderson is from Lazio i believe, Good stats and room to grow and very cheap

RW Jannbakhsh, Nunnely. Picked up nunnely i think from Twente for 1m, has great speed and it Dutch

LW Sinisterra, Bale. We all know how good sinisterra is but i could turn down a free Gareth Bale. Signed him for 17k pw. Broke my 15k rule here but i couldnt turn it down

FWD Linssen, Welbeck. Picked up welbeck for 800k with Brighton paying alot of his wages. I have him on 8k a week.

Season Highlights

Champions League:  We beat rangers in our first qualify for the next round where Shakhtar was waiting for us, We draw 4-4 over both legs but got knocked out on away goals, So the Europa league it is for us! 

Europa League.  Straight into the group stage after our defeat to Shakhtar. FC Midtjylland Fenerbache and Genk proved to be no problem as we won 6 out of 6 to set up a tricky tie with Celtic. We managed to get past them to set up a trip to germany to play Leverkusen. Thats where our adventure ended as we was knocked out 3 - 1. 

KNVB Cup. Manged to do one better then last year and win the competition, Beat Ajax in the final to lift my first trophy as manager. Pleased to win this and to beat a very powerful Ajax squad.

League.

Finished 2nd again behind Ajax, Finished the league on 72pts, less then last year, also scored less and conceded more, i put it down to the fact the world cup was on and the fixtures just piled up. 

Transfer News.

Transfers Out: As January came our top stars were attracting interest from some of Europe's best. Managed to keep all of them bar Sinisterra who went to spurs for a 35m fee. Trauner got upset over Sinisterra leaving and wanted a transfer. Sold him for 8m. 

Transfers In. With Sinisterra gone i needed someone to take his role as bale was getting injured alot so couldnt rely on him. Step up Steven Bergwijn. A 15m fee from spurs was enough to get him to join us, Spurs paying 67k of his wages helped us out alot with this deal. Schuurs and Piere came in from Ajax to replace the departing Trauner.  With money to spend i decided to sign emegha for 9m.looking forward to see how he delevlops as he was top scorer in the leauge when we signed him in january

Overall was disappointed with this season for not making the group stage of the champions league and not making any improvements on our league standings. The only highlight was winning my first trophy in the KNVB cup. 

On a plus note Bijlow was named goalkeeper of the world cup as Netherlands beat Wales to become 2022 world champions

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Kingbill

[Urke17]

Season 2022/23 

Well, that was not season we expected to be, Ajax won league tittle beating us just two fixtures before end of the season. 
It was long battle, but we had two unexpected faults against NAC Breda(0:0), and Vitesse away (2:00), basically that cost us a lot. 

We won domestic cup, beating PSV in final, and that is only trophey this year. 

In CL, we took 3rd place, got to knockout system of EL, there we won game against Copenhagen, but in next stage we have lost against Lyonnais. 

I need to mention Bagdad Bounedjah, he is a monster really, 31/31. In total he scored 37 goals in 39 games. 
He broke previous club record which was 35 goals,  forgott player's name, but it was back in 60's.

When it comes to transfers, I got few nice signings in January. Brought Zirkzee(7.5m) , Boniface(2.5m), Tahith Chong(4m), Sepp van der Berg(1m), Dijks(1m), Hugo Felix(2m).  But, the most important signing is Sven Botman, I did not bring him in January, but somewhere in March, cost me 12m+5 aditional bonus, I don't know how that chance came to me, but for sure I had to take it. Now, I have future in heart of defence, just need some older guy with him, because Trauner is not good enough for our set goals. 

Maybe I did mistake, I signed couple of youngsters instead of already proven players, and now I have to change it in this transfer window. 

I need to agree with @Kingbill, second season was way harder than first one, and with less success. 

Also, board is ridiculous, did not grant me a single request, I have only 7 coaches, how am I suppose to go forward with that? I hope current owner will leave soon. 

@Kingbill Milambo picture is here, he had injury(2 months), which slowed his progress down. My favorite youngster is Slory by the way, will give him more chance next season, as well as to Milambo. 

Also, there are some other pictures of this tough year. 
 

Cheers guys, see you after the end of  summer transfer window 

[Draakon]

In my Ajax save I've reached to December 2023 (you can read more about in here: 

It's my third season with Ajax, but Feyenoord have been just unstoppable in the first half of the season. They made an overhaul in Summer 2023, sold several of their star players and spent half of the money on incoming transfers, which is OK. The players they brought in are not something special - I'd say that their general strength is the same, some personalities are questionable, but 4* quality and decent depth.

The problem is that nobody can beat them. In the first 16 games they've collected 15 wins and 1 draw (and that was against us, at Johan Cruijff Arena). We've done really well, too, but two draws and one defeat put us already 5 points behind them. I've never seen AI team win virtually all games. In five months I've been waiting for them to slip up, but so far they haven't had any problems, scoring more than 3 goals per game on average.

In previous FM saves in Eredivisie all big teams have dropped points somewhere along the season. In my long term save in FM the general rule was that 80 points was enough to win the league. Now it looks like Feyenoord is going for 90+ points and honestly, we have no answers for that.

 

[mellman]

Has anyone had any fun saves in The Netherlands with a team outside of Ajax, PSV or Feyenoord this year?

 

Considering something with a team like Gronigen but wondering if I should look at some other 'lower' teams too

[karaouzinho2]

AZ is an interesting option with lots of youngsters and a well established youth system

[Ronaldo Beckham]

I will probably do a Dutch league save with FC Utrecht cos like AZ they have a good youth system or I might do a save with RKC, Volendam or Go Ahead Eagles just because I like their kits.

 

[dothestrand]

AZ usually have a good squad and excellent youth setup. They've lost Boadu, Stengs and Koopmeiners in the last couple of seasons but still have strong players. Within a couple of seasons you could certainly be the best of the rest. 

[Ewan0404]

Can anyone tell me if they have the correct Playoff system implemented on the game for the second tier?