dothestrand

Didn't Sancet and Serrano start at Osasuna's academy? I'm probably pausing until FM 23 but will start at Athletic Club save first up.

Trieste is a beautiful city so that's a good call.

Great stuff @ernemann What are your youth players like? Looks like a few in the first team.

In my Athletic Club saves they remain competitive for a couple of seasons but drop out of the top four very quickly.

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.

Athletic Club always pulls me back in after a while away from the game. Just finished the 2028-29 season and a nice domestic double to settle back in with. Only made it to the QF of the CL before Chelsea steamrolled me at the Bridge. This was one of the better seasons I've had as the whole squad contributed. 19 players with an over 7.0 average rating. Nico Williams was the star - he may well win Player of the Season. Simon, Vivian, Sancet, Vencedor, Serrano, and Nico Williams are still at the heart of the side. Nunez and Zubeldia are nearly at the end of their time here - maybe one season apiece with fewer starts. Otherwise, it's all regens from the cantera or other Basque kids brought in from elsewhere.

Aviron Bayonnais is one of the club's Athletic Club are affiliated with, I think. It's where Aymeric Laporte started. You tend to get a number of French Basque regens each season, often at Spanish clubs. I also have a French Basque LB who came from Nice, I think, so not a French Basque club. Real Madrid and Barcelona get their share of Basque regens. In last year's game Gijon had a Basque born wonderkid who I couldn't sign for some reason which was really annoying!

You've got Martine, Yeray and Nunez, plus Vivian and Paredes at CB. Your full backs can play as wing backs. Muniain or Garcia can play the AMC role, but you're right, you'd have a lot of wide players you can't do much with. But in the first posts, based on @bowieinspaceoriginal tactical suggestions, you can make 3-5-2 work.

Ivan Martin is definitely one of the useful signings for the first couple of seasons whilst you wait for regens to develop. His versatility is a strength as you say.

Finished the 22-23 season with Atalanta and guess what, we finished as Serie A Champions! We had a healthy lead going into the final few games, but in typical FM style, whenever you're at the point of closing a title out, your players threaten to choke under the pressure. A couple of rogue results didn't throw us off course fortunately. Milan finished 2nd, Lazio third (mainly thanks to Immobile's 47 goals - my top scorer was Lorenzo Lucca with 16!) As mentioned before, we did a huge, radical squad overhaul, shipping out over 220m worth of players and spending 200m - good news for the agents out there! So, we now have an Italian-only squad, and that's how I'll keep it (second nationality is fine though). Squad at the moment is: GK: Alex Meret (4.8m from Napoli), Salvatore Sirigu (300k) - Gollini is out on loan and may not stick around to be second choice. DF: Andrea Papetti (5.5m from Brescia), Davide Calabria (30m from Milan), Matteo Gabbia (12.5m from Milan), Mattia Viti (7m from Napoli), Wisdom Amey (3.5m from Bologna) - then Scalvini, Zappacosta, Ruggeri, Lovato and Pezzella (who was already incoming). MF: Tomasso Pobega (p/ex with Milan for Marten de Roon), Cher Ndour (17.5m from Benfica), Nicolo Rovella (25m from Juventus). Samuele Ricci (40m from Empoli), Nicolo Fagioli (loan, 15m permanent move from Juventus), Vasco Walz (1m from Dortmund) - then Pessina was already here. CF: Lorenzo Lucca (15m from Pisa), Sebastiano Esposito (15m from Inter) - then Roberto Piccoli was already here. The plan going into 23-24 is to keep that squad together. It's unlikely many first team options will be available, so picking up some younger players with the budget we have might be the likely option. I'm sure we'll have bigger clubs looking to pick some of our guys up - let's see. Can we retain our title? That's the hope, but CL football is bare minimum.

Well done @ernemann for taking your save so far. I haven't played my save for a while but maybe I'll need to play a few more seasons. I always like it more once the original squad have all totally moved on.

I've started a save with Atalanta one season in. They've been threatening the established order in Serie A for a few years, so now's the time to make that push. They finished 7th without me, but did win the UEFA Cup at least. I'm doing my usual thing of radically reshaping the squad to make it completely homegrown and young. This meant over 200m in player sales and the same amount coming in. That'll keep the accountants busy! The big sales were Zapata, Romero, Pasalic, Muriel, Freuler, etc. Incoming were Ricci, Calabria, Rovella, Ndour (young Italian at Benfica), Esposito, Lucca, Gabbia, Pobega, Papetti - guys you might know from your saves. Getting a completely new squad together is a risk, so the next season could be an erratic one whilst we wait for the squad to gel, but the next few years could be quite tasty!

On the staff search you can search for realistic appointments for the B, C and u19s. It's one of the filters on the search results, I think.

Join the Athletic Club thread! First season is the toughest financially. But once you start getting regular European football, and that's definitely achievable, the financial situation massively improves.

Agree, he's not a like for like replacement. His best attributes are as a striker not a wide player.