All Activity

Dortmund’s AI clearly cheated against PSG too. I know it’s a cheap shot, but I do wonder what some of the conspiracy theorists here would make of a two-legged tie where they had 44 shots, hit the woodwork 6 times, scored 0 from 5.36 xG and lost 0-2 including a header from a corner.

Congratulations on the league title

Great work identifying weakness in the system this early on using the numbers to make clear concise decisions. I’ve always found pure counter attacking systems hard to create myself so am keen to see how you go about it.

Phenomenal

Often when I discuss my tactics I'm talking about attacking patterns, oberloads, 1v1's rotations and passing shapes. I suppose when trying to implement a positional playing style, these are the things that are the most interesting. This past season there has of course been huge positives in this area, but something that Coloccini has been implementing has been eye-catching and at times more effective, his defensive planning. The last line of defence is of course the goalkeeper, Los Azules recruited well in the summer to replace Chilean number one Campos with the young upcoming Yerko Ovalle. He had 15 clean sheets and only conceded 18, quite the first season. His excellent jumping reach, aerial reach, commanding of area, determination and the fact he is 6ft5 makes cross balls a real strong point. Another side story is he can take a penalty having scored his first one at the end of last season, something Coloccini has been known to do before. Coloccini has been quoted as saying he believes that the only way to succeed defensively is to have everyone collectively working together with the same principles, this started with an aggressive pressing striker leading from the front. A well executed high press will bring turnover in dangerous areas, this is not rocket science but a badly executed one will cause so much damage. The Argentine has its defensive line sitting the highest in all the league, and they rank second for possession won, which is impressive considering they rank joint top in the league for average possession. Interceptions are slightly above average which could be an area to work on, as with a good high press they should force poor passes or a lack of options and clear passing lanes. Thus said La U allow the least final third passes against, but more interestingly they rank 13th for OPPDA, so while the press is aggressive they do allow the defenders to have the ball. The first example we have here is the Clásico Universitario derbies, up against the pacey Carlos Escobar, who's been in form. The early stages of more focus on defending properly, the focus was to drop off more and invite crosses, try to nullify the pace in behind. This was the case in both games and twice they failed to register a shot on targets, with Escobar ranking 6.3 and 6.5. This seemed to be the turning point for Los Azules defensive structures. The Chilean Superclásico's were played three times this season with the extra cup tie. In the first league game up against the league top scorer Ethan Magnasco who also has pace to burn, the system was used again. Here in the overview can now see the plan has been further tweaked to trap outside as well as invite crosses and standing off. The game finished 0-0, but the fact the home side were reduced to 2 shots on target and 0.30 XG and a 6.3 from the striker meant that Coloccini's game plan was vindicated. He would take it a step further in the second league game of the season, destroying the away side 6-2 in the process. Lowering the defensive line, dropping off more to limit space in behind. Then forcing play wide by setting pressing traps, then inviting crosses to a aerially superior defence and now the wingers would be shown onto the flank side foot, full backs marked to ensure the play was forced centrally to begin with so that the CM's could be pressed again aiding the plan to force the opponent wide proved to be instrumental in stopping the pacey strikers. now of course Colo-Colo scored twice but from an XG of 0.40 and one goal being when the game was dead and buried. The other side of the coin, is against tall strikers who like to win crosses in the box, is to of course step up, trap inside and stop crosses and force play inside unfortunately i never captured any screenshots for example of this but im sure ill be able to cover it in detail at some point. Fluminense There is no show without punch and I can't do a small tactical update without sharing some more detail of Coloccini's excellent ability to spot weakness in an opponent's systems and exploit it with fantastics positional plays and attacking flair. The Brazilian side had been on a poor run of form leading into the first leg and a solid 1-0 win put Los Azules in the driving seat, it also allowed them to size up their opponent. They opted to stick with their 4-4-2 system which was heavily reliant on the legendary winger Neymar on the left, at 36 he lacks pace these days but as you would expect he still has a trick or two up his sleeve. To combat the 4-4-2 and the flamboyant Neymar, Hernandez would shift out to RWB from RCB to man mark Neymar and it was evident that Coloccini told his team to force play down the right side and make Neymar defend. He also switched to a halfback to make a 3v2 in the back line, but the masterstroke was inverting his LWB, Ryena. This allowed him to overload the midfield two, this also forced Fluminese to attack down their right rather than left keeping the ball away from Neymar, this stopped much of their link up play. The opening goal came from some wonderful positional play, the right hand side overload has drawn the home team over, the IWB Reyna has moved inside and is now forcing confusion between the CM & CB of who will pick him up. Diaz then drops off the front to take the ball on the half turn. He slips the ball into Reyna who then threads in through for Ordenes who's been left 1v1 the Chilean wonderkid slots it home and leaves the Brazilian side a mountain to climb. The second goal is almost a carbon copy on Ordenes part, breaking in behind the full back again to link onto Sierra's perfectly weighted through ball. The build up play is similar in the sense that Reyna comes centrally and links play with Diaz, before Sierra unleashes the killer ball. Notice how Loyola has dropped in to make the back three while Reyna makes the double pivot when the attacking phase is formed, this draws the opponent narrow and allows the wide men to get 1v1.

August 2032 Fixtures and Results Four games in August. We start with the Johan Cruijff Schaal against our arch-rivals Feyenoord, but the Eredivisie season kicks off with a fairly easy schedule for us - home games against Almere City and Excelsior look like must wins and should give us good morale and confidence going forward. We had home advantage for the Johan Cruijff Schaal final and we used it to full effect - controlled possession in the first half and in right before half-time Taylor’s defence-splitting pass found Peter Misidjan who placed his attempt next to the post. Feyenoord got inspired at half-time and they looked much more threatening right after the break and ex-Ajax player David Kalokoh equalised in 47’. I sent out Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson who had an instant impact by scoring a goal and assisting another - Prince Aning scored the best one of the game by sending a fierce shot into the top corner. The final score 3:1 was a very good win for us and gave a lot of confidence for the coming season. The first Eredivisie game against Almere City (at home) was probably the easiest match of the season (at least on paper). Almere finished 7th in Keuken Kampioen Divisie, but somehow got promoted through play-offs and now find themselves well out of their depth. Three players from Jong Ajax bolster their ranks, but nobody predicts them higher than 18th. I rotated the squad and pretty much sent out our second eleven against them, so despite our possession we couldn’t create good chances in the first half and always seemed to miss the final pass or breakthrough in their box. Penalty helped us in the second half - van Axel Dongen was brought down in the box and Taylor slotted in from the spot. Ten minutes later the Almere goalkeeper was unable to save Muringen’s strong attempt. It remained 2:0 - not the most impressive result, but we had no problems in defence, so it was a fairly one-sided fixture anyway. sc Heerenveen away seemed like a tricky fixture and indeed they were. They had a good start and in the first 10-15 minutes it looked like momentum was theirs. Heerenveen had a number of corners in that period and one of them led to a close range header from their centre-back that should have been a goal, but Sinaga was in the right position and catched it comfortably. We then started to get better control over the midfield and John Meeuwis sent a beautiful volley into the bottom corner to make it 1:0 in the first half. The second half was much more under our control and van Axel Dongen’s tap-in made it 2:0. In the end we enjoyed 70% possession, so Heerenveen’s game plan probably didn’t work as well as they hoped and we came away with a good win. We wrapped up August with a confident win over Excelsior - Kenneth Taylor opened things up with a beautiful free kick, John Meeuwis scored a brace (both goals were really easy tap-ins from just two metres out. Hlynsson added our fourth at the start of the second half and then Excelsior’s Apostolis Konstantopoulos was sent off for his two-footed lunge on Meeuwis - no contest from there on. The final score was 4:0, but we also hit the woodwork three times in this game, so it could have been worse for Excelsior. In summary - a really strong start to our season and good results in August. Tactics and Players No news tactically - our positive 4-2-3-1 wide seems to work fine. I’ve added some individual instructions for specific players in certain positions (mainly whether to take more risks with passing or not). Also, playing with Ognjen Rajkovic in centre-back has allowed us to add variety to our corner routines, so both centre-backs are involved in attacking set pieces (Can Tas was useless in those situations because of his short height). Player performances have been good in general, but Kenneth Taylor has stood out with his skillful passing and creativity - he’s been our best performer in August by far and the team has relied heavily on him in those games. Key assist in the derby, beautiful free kick and a number of key passes. He’s been above 8.00 rating in all of his games so far. We have no injury problems so far and in August we’ve had plenty of time to prepare for fixtures, so it’s been a relatively easy period for us, with good pre-season training. Player of the Month: Kenneth Taylor - just outstanding; two goals, three assists and 8.6 rating in August Goal of the Month: John Meeuwis vs. sc Heerenveen - Taylor scored a beautiful free kick against Excelsior, but Meeuwis’ goal was really important to break the deadlock in away match at Heerenveen - a technically skillful volley from outside of the area that landed in the bottom corner - classy goal. Eredivisie Both PSV Eindhoven and Feyenoord have dropped a lot of points in their first match days. PSV is rebuilding - they let go a number of veteran players in Summer and also sold their key striker Jason van Duiven. Feyenoord have struggles of their own, so both giants seem struggling. That allowed FC Utrecht to emerge as the main challenger for the title - they had an excellent August, starting with successful Champions League play-offs where they secured their place in the group stage and also started their Eredivisie campaign with three straight wins. They’ve finished third two seasons in a row now and there’s no reason to believe they want to win the title now. At the bottom of the table we find Almere City (as predicted). Another newly-promoted team RKC Waalwijk seems to be weaker than their competitors, too. Champions League Groups were drawn and we landed in Group G with AS Monaco, AC Milan and Sturm Graz. AC Milan looks like the strongest team in the group. AS Monaco should be on a similar level with us and Austrians are clear outsiders. We have a chance to go through if we perform well against AC Milan at home and manage to beat AS Monaco over two games. FC Utrecht is in group A with Manchester City, Atalanta and Atletico Madrid - I can’t see them higher than 4th against those clubs. PSV Eindhoven are in group C with PSG, Inter and Panathinaikos. While they should be able to beat Greeks, the other two opponents are European giants and so third place and Europa League knockout stages is a realistic target for PSV.

Squad Update 2032 The core of the team has remained the same and except Stanis Idumbo Muzambo we didn’t have any departures this Summer. Few of the talented youngsters (Calvin Francis, Loet van Fessem, Joel van de Sande) are out on loan, but we have a good squad size (22 players) to start the season with, knowing that one or two youngsters from U-18 can climb their way up towards Spring. Our oldest player is Kenneth Taylor who turned 30 in Spring, but the average age is between 22-23, so we’re still extremely young even at Eredivisie level and that inexperience is expected to show in more difficult Champions League games. We have less international players than earlier - some of them have grown out of U-21 level, but haven’t been able to get the call-up to the main squad. Kenneth Taylor, Prince Aning and Peter Misidjan are on the verge of the national team at the moment. Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson is a regular for Iceland and Ja-Ryong Kim has collected more than 50 caps for South Korea. Estonia relies heavily on youngsters who come up from our youth system. Goalkeepers Riswan Sinaga has improved a lot in the last season, but because Calvin Francis is away on loan, we’re rather thin in the goalkeeping department. If something would happen to Sinaga, our next best option is young Bulgarian Metodi Borisov from Jong Ajax. Defenders My preferred four would be Jermoumi-Aertssen-Rajkovic-Aning. Compared to the last season we have a lot more depth, because we have Rik Vos back in the team and four centre-backs should allow us to distribute game time between players. Can Tas is our second best centre-back on paper, but his short height and inability to deal with headers has caused us problems in the past and I have found that I prefer Rajkovic over him in the second part of the last season. It’s possible that I need to retrain Can Tas as a midfielder to keep him happy at Ajax (or allow him to move on). There is experience in this defensive line - a lot of players between 25-30 years of age. Young full-backs Richard Svec and Giorgio Jongebloet have improved nicely, but their technical ability is still a lot behind Aning and Jermoumi, so that’s the main focus in training for them from now on. Midfielders Not a lot of changes here. In controlling midfield I rely on the trio Taylor-Muringen-Tahiri. Both Claidel Muringen and Mohamed Tahiri have developed really well in training. I lack good cover for Taylor, but if necessary Kristian Nökkvi Hlynsson can drop deeper to the DLPd role. The AMCa position is usually shared between Hlynsson and Peter Misidjan, who can expect much more game time this season after Stanis Idumbo Muzambo’s departure. Wingers Here we had to change things a little bit because Nikita Tamm left in the last Winter and Ja-Ryong Kim had to carry the main load on the left. Kim and van Axel Dongen are in my first eleven at the start of this season, with Quenten Hose as the third option. If I need to replace Kim, my preferred solution is to switch van Axel Dongen to the left as IWs and send Hose to the right as IWa. The new face in the team is Anass Sarpong - a young and talented lad who played for Jong Ajax last Autumn and spent six months on loan at Almere City. He did fairly well in KeukenKampioen Divisie and now tries to get minutes here in Ajax. He’s capable of playing on both wings, but his agility and speed suit better for the AMR IWa position. Strikers No changes here. I expect John Meeuwis to produce more goals and better performances than last season (20 goals should be a reasonable expectation for him) and Koen Verlijsdonk provides cover and minutes from the bench. Both play as PFa usually, but Meeuwis looks fairly versatile and even able to play as CFa. We have talented youngsters coming up from U-18, but it takes a couple of seasons for them to get on the brink of the first team.

Well done!

The idea with the winger roles and duties was that we need width. The wide defenders are both inverted fullbacks, and there isn't a role in central midfield that naturally pulls wide. So where is our width going to come from? We have to use wingers or else this will be way too narrowly focused. I instruct them to cut inside because I want to encourage them to take on their man and be a threat in that way, too. I play on extended highlights once I've got a good handle on how the particular tactic works. But when I need to investigate something further, I will absolutely go to comprehensive, and sometimes even the full match.

Based on the Real Madrid pass map vs City and vs Bayern: What I've been doing is looking pretty wild on the tactic screen, trying to create the Rodrygo and Vini overload on the left side. I think it's better for me to create a separate thread about it soon! It needs more than a quickfire answer. Thanks for the help. @Cloud9 @Poison

I'd ask in the Editors' Hideaway forum.

Thanks! Belgium definitely seems like the beast to follow here.

Yes

Kicking off with some bad news. I have never, in my 12+ years of playing FM have I EVER seen this message before. I have really screwed the finances, I never should've said yes to that B team haha. Damn. Damn. Damn, So, the Summer upheaval wasn't as severe as I was expecting. Let's get into it. We have a new #1 on loan from Rayo Vallecano. He is an upgrade on who we've had between the sticks in the last couple of seasons, I wonder if he'll make an impact and show that he's better! We have a brand new CB and a new LB who is a current international..ooo! Javier Bordalas has joined us from a fellow Tier Three team in Alcoyano on a free. His mentals are alright, but excellent tackling with some good physicals make him a good rock at the back. Our starting LB last year only averaged 6.80 over 36 starts, not good enough! So, I went out and get an international player...from Andorra...but still. Marti Villa is a solid all round guy who is in his peak, I'm looking forward to a good showing from his this year. I decided that I needed a core of this team, so I went out and got 3 shiny new DMs as I normally run a tactic with at least 1 or commonly 2. Also got a new/cover at AMR. Starting with the least impressive DM in Wesley Dual. On a free from Barcelona, He will be DM 3 for the team, but I like his physicals and he'll be a good bruiser to bring on in the second half against tired players. Jon Garro is on a free from Real Sociedad and is much better on the ball and more attacking and that's why he'll be starting, but he's not that much better. Then the final new DM on a free from Caen is Ivan Pavlic, His mentals, physicals and technicals are all solid, he should be an important player for us! I needed cover for Emili Montolio who was our highest rated player last season, so in came Ismael Collado on loan from FC Andorra. He will mainly see time coming off the bench. The other new attacker is Paco Esteban on a free from Atletico Madrid, We didn't really have a third striker last season and he becomes our third striker but will see a lot of action. Very nice technicals mixed with nice physicals, he'll be a good addition! So, despite saying he was going to explore his options, we were able to keep our top scorer from last year, our AML Bazoumana Toure! Though, there were two paid departures. Now, Leo Saca went for £250k which I'm annoyed about, we could've got more but due to the financial mess, the board didn't want to try and get more as they just wanted the money asap. He joins Palermo. Also got a 50% of the profit on his next move, so I need him to have a killer season in Serie B. Also 2 installments of £57k. And then for £500k and 30% of the next transfer fee Alvaro Gonzalez who was only bit part player last year to Tallares in Argentina's top division These sales on top of our season ticket sales. Has our finances looking like this. Still **** poor. Both the board and the fans expect this from us this season. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath on this one. This COULD be the final year of the save. The media don't think we'll reach the playoffs and I agree with them. And finally, the rivals tracker with some new information on there. Again, let me know if there's something you think should be added/would look good on there! Until next time.

Poole Town 2026/27 Update Kristoffer Jorgensen - ST (USA) 2025/26 - 37 Caps - 5 Goals 2026/27 - 48 Caps - 11 Goals A better season. Steve Tomlinson - GK (ENG) 2026/27 - 7 Caps - 3 Shutouts Didn’t play all too much Matthew Morgan - AMC (WAL) I don’t use a CAM so probably won’t be playing much.

it works? or is like the last time that second season gets all mixed uup

you're going to wait a longggggg time bud. just play any prev version you have so time can pass by...

Yea, this is very hard to predict. They opted for realism here, where it can be difficult for a team to get invited to a league when it is created. Same thing, if it is in a league that isnt playable sometimes they will only play friendlies. If you are going to do a save that relies on a B team, I would suggest either picking a team with a B team, or using the editor to create a B team and add it to a playable league before you start the save.

'Complains about play time' 'Would've preferred to stay on the bench'

That is exactly it. He was a player from when my team was in the third tier of germany. When I got promoted all my players wanted me to double their wages. I wasnt able to find a replacement in time for him so I had to give to an unrelastic wage to get him to renew, or have a hole in my team. Now I am stuck with a deadbeat player who I would literally accept a free transfer for just to get him off my books. let alone 80% of his market price

Even if it is a 20% discount on his value, that value is very low compared to his wage, speaking of which, the board is 'devastated' over my control over wages. So either they need to accept selling a payer for 10k less than he is worth, or they should shut up about my wage budget lol.

I've picked my 1st & 2nd XI. Unfortunately, Neymar and four of the subs won't be around for very long. We will be strengthening with 3 new attackers in the next month-or-so. But Beraldo won't join until January and we will get a few other defenders back from injury across the course of the season too.

Excellent first season in the top league and the talent seems to be coming in thick and fast too!

2026/27 Poole Town