Doyce7

If one of the teams won the Champions League or Europa League then a 5th slot gets handed to that country

I'm back after a prolonged break from this save. 2031-32 Season For the first time since 26/27, Bilbao have not won a single trophy. I'll get to the league in a second. In the Champions League, we had a fairly tough schedule for the league phase. Man United, Newcastle, Chelsea and Bayern Munich is a tough 4 and we only managed 4 points from these games. We did get through the league phase but would have to play in the first knockout round, which has not been kind in the past. Hoffenheim was not the hardest draw we could have gotten and didn't break a sweat getting past them. For the round of 16, PSG(defending champs) awaited, we went up 3-0 in the first leg but a late goal kept PSG in it going into the second leg. PSG would go up 2-0 in the first half but a Mario goal off the bench sealed the win. Bayern Munich is a team we have had no success against, they have won 2 Champions League titles in this save, once by beating us in the final, they also beat us at San Mames during league play. I was not looking forward to this, we managed to scrape a 1-0 win at home but we were no match in Germany. Another earlier than we wanted exit in Europe. There's always next year, I guess. We also exited the Copa Del Rey in the Quarters, we went away to Atletico Madrid and lost 1-0. In the league, a near unbeaten season was not enough. 100+ goals for the 5th straight year, was not enough. 99 points, was not enough. The only loss, annoyingly, was away to Sociedad 2 days before the Bayern Munich match. I bet they celebrated that like they won the title themselves. We even got 4 points from the Valencia games, it was not enough. In more fun news, Iker Hernandez became the 3rd Bilbao player to win the European Golden Boy award, following the lead of Unai Vallejo and Gorka Aizpurua. Hernandez also finished 3rd on the Nxgen list. The Youth intake had something a bit special this year, Gorka Etxaniz is a LB that is almost good enough already to be my backup LB. In fact, he broke a record held my Iker Muniain, youngest ever player for the club. Now I am not crazy, he will not be a permanent member of the first team at 16, but he will come up and make the occasional appearance. Here is the team of the year. Jose Angel Garai was a part of the class of 25, but left the club for Arsenal in 2028, he moved on to Wolfsburg in 2030 before coming back home this past summer to be the first option off the bench at CB. Roberto Alonso really emerged as a star this year. He came a regular started last season but exceeded all expectations this year and now has an argument to be the teams best overall player. Of these 18 players, 12 are under the age of 25 and that really makes me happy. Going forward, I expect no big moves either in or out over the summer, the team is pretty settled and I can see a few players coming into the team from the B team or that have been out on loan but for the most part, heading into 32/33, this is the squad I have planned for. White is the class of 23, red is 25, Blue is 27, magenta is 28, purple is 29 I went back and looked because I was curious. The class of 23 has 622 league appearances between 4 players, those 4 are still first teamers, there is a GK from that class that could take over for Simon one day but he gets a loan every year. 24 has had 1 player make 6 appearances and that player is in the B team now, all others are gone. 25 has 4 players still at the club, totaling 305 appearances. 26 has 5 players in the B team but nobody has made senior appearance. 27 has 2 first team players and 3 B teamers that total 120 appearances. 28 has 1 first teamer and 5 B teamers and 25 appearances. 29 has 2 first teamers and 4 B teamers(one has made a cameo off the bench) and already have 52 appearances(mostly Iker hernandez). 30 has 1 player that has made his debut and so has 32, nothing from 31 yet but this is to be expected, they are 17 after all. I may be the only person in the world who cares about this but I find it very interesting in a save such as this.

2030/31 Season Well well well, what a season this has been. The title race was tighter than any season of the save so far. 5 teams had a real shot of winning it going into April, at that point the top 5 were separated by about 5 points, if memory serves. Atletico Madrid were top with Real 2nd followed by Valencia, Barcelona and then us in 5th. We lost to Real Madrid 3-0 at the start of April and somehow that would be their final win of the season, Madrid would go on to draw 5 and lose 3 in their final 8 games of the season to finish a distant 5th. Bilbao on the other hand would go on a 6 match winning run from that point and place ourselves in position to win the league. Going into the final two league games just needing to keep winning, after beating Atletico to go top, the title is in our hands. To set the scene, with 2 games to go, we sit on 83, Atletico sit on 81, Valencia on 81 and Barcelona on 79, Valencia play Barcelona away from home in game 37. We draw away to Vallecano, Atletico beat Real at home, and Barcelona beats Valencia at home. That means that all 4 teams can win the title going into the final day but we sit top, thanks to beating Atletico head to head. On the final day, Atletico beats Betis at home, Barcelona beats Vallecano away, Valencia beats Las Palmas at home, and we draw away to Sociedad. With that, we finish 3rd. two 0-0 draws, all we needed was one goal from either game and we win the league for a forth year running. I have detailed our struggles in the cup competitions on previous posts and my last post I showed you that we had won the Copa Del Rey for the second time in this save. Now I present to you, the Champions League knockout run to the Semi Finals. It's the second deepest run we have had but still no UCL glory for us. Inter was able to score in the 93 minute of the second leg to push it to ET and when nobody scored I knew it was over, I have very few decent penalty kickers and it was never going to turn out in our favor. Much better showing though, after not getting past the R16 for 3 straight years, progress. Nobody new really forced themselves into the starting conversation this season, I will shout out Unai Martin, who played a key role, often off the bench, in midfield. He is developing nicely, if a bit slower than I would like. He should be ready to take over for Sancet in a couple seasons time. I am now at a point where only 7 real players remain in my team and 5 of which that start at the club, Simon, Vivian, Sancet, Vencedor and Nico Williams. Williams is still only 28 but Vencedor is 30, Vivian(and Guillamon) and Sancet are 31 and Simon is 33. The time of transition is coming and I do not know if we will be ready. Especially at the back, Aritz Losa has stopped developing and is just ok, Blanco still has some room to grow and Gil(the newgen from last year hasn't developed much yet) is still years away. There are a couple of Basque CBs in the world that I am keeping tabs on and if my players do not develop enough then I will dip into the transfer market for them. That's it for now, I plan to take a break from this save for a bit, maybe a week and play other saves.

The season is not over yet but I wanted to introduce you to someone. This is Iker Hernandez. Iker is very young. Iker has a bright future. Iker was called up to the squad due to a season ending injury. Iker, scored an 88th minute game winner in the Copa Del Rey Final, not a bad way to make your senior debut!

This January(2031) has been the most frustrating window I have had in years. First my starting RB Joseba Arberas gets a bid from Valencia and he is unsettled because they "have a stronger squad," bear in mind we have won LaLiga the last 3 and 4 of the last 5 years, are the highest rep team in Spain. Nobody else agrees with him and he has 4 more years on his deal after this one so not too big of a deal. My backup RB Inigo Bidaurrazaga also gets a bid from Valencia and gets unsettled for the same reason but half the squad ends up on his side, even though he had just signed a new 5 year deal in September, He ends up leaving to Nice on deadline day. Unai Vallejo gets upset wanting to join Arsenal because they "can win the Champions league" we just finished top of the league phase, and Arsenal are about the 5th best team in England, I had to promise getting to the latter stages this season to get him to shut up. 18 year old RB Kike Agirre wants to join Chelsea to "be a key part of the squad," he's not even ready for the Segunda division so why the hell he thinks he is going to be a key player for Chelsea I have no idea, he's on a 5 year deal and not a part of the first team so he can sulk. Bidaurrazaga leaving is a real proplem, I have no backup LB that is first team quality other than my true backup RB Alvaro Barandiaran, who is really backup LB and RB so I have had to either call up Agirre(who again, is not ready) to be 4th choice FB or call up Unai Jauregi who, at 5'5" and 20 years old, and has more CB skills than FB skills. In the end I made the more prudent choice of Jauregi who can at least defend and is currently better though not by much. There seems to be exactly 1 Basque, good, true LB in my save and he already starts for me. All others are CBs that can play FB and would cost me 20M while not being as good at CB as any of my current crop and not being much better than Jauregi at playing LB. I am seriously considering trying to find a midfielder somewhere with a left foot to convert to LB. I'm getting desperate. Rant over.

I brought him for 8.5M in the summer of 24 but he wasn't good and sold him two years later for the same price. I say give Villalibre a shot this year. He was great for me scoring 20+ goals a season until he started having injury problems and was surpassed by academy boys around 27/28.

Real Madrid and Barcelona have both finished outside the top 4 twice each in my save. Barcelona hasn't had a top 3 finish in 5 years now, 6th 4th 4th 6th and 4th. Bearing in mind, both Valencia and Atletico Madrid had tycoon takeovers in my save. Valencia in 23 and Atleti in 26. Valencia has actually been the second best team in Spain overall the last 5 or 6 years, they have finished top 3 for 6 straight years. Here's what the table looks like on Jan 1 2031, that top six has been the top six almost every season in some order, I'm usually around 3rd at this point in the season and then storm back in the new year but we are currently on like a 32 or 33 game unbeaten run in all comps. Another interesting thing in my save is that, Real Betis was relegated in 25/26, only 3 years after finishing second in the league, and spent 3 seasons in the Segunda before coming back up and narrowly avoiding relegation. Sevilla was relegated in 28/29 but bounced straight back up

Buying the stadium in my save as well, purchase is scheduled to complete in July of 2031

Pre Season 2030/31 This summer has been very tame, zero ins, and only a few outs. As talked about in my last post, Julen Jon Guerrero, Aymeric Laporte and Mikel Merino have left. Guerrero joins Shakhtar for 7.5M, Laporte goes to Roma for 3.6M and Merino to Al-Jazira for 6M They are replaced from within the squad by players who may or may not be ready but only way to find out is to throw them in. None will be regular starters and will not be expected to carry a massive weight, but they will play upwards of 20-30 games this season. This is how the team will look heading into the season, white is the class of 23, green is 24, red is 25, blue is 27. Three players are joining the big club full time this season. Martin is the pick of the bunch, I have big hopes for this guy and think he will be the long term Vencedor replacement, I got him into 4 games towards the end of last season and he performed well with a 7.1 rating. Badiola doesn't have huge potential but he can fill in at multiple positions in the midfield and up front if we have an injury crisis, he got into 7 games last season and was not great with a 6.71 rating but he was only 18. Blanco is not an academy product, he joined the club from las Palmas in the summer of 2027 for 425k, he had 1 sub appearance in the final game of the season but played well for the B team and will be a rotational option this season.

The World Cup is happening this summer and 9! Bilbao players will be going for Spain, including Beritia and Aizpurua

Because I opened your save file, I am now chasing you in the Spanish Hall of Fame lol

2029-30 season It's a three-peat We came into the season back to back winners and managed to complete the hattrick! It was however a slight step back in points from the previous two seasons, 97 and 92. For much of the season it seemed we were not destined to pull off the three-peat, we were in 4th on February 17th but then we went on a run that saw 10 wins 1 draw and 1 defeat in the final 12 matches to win it. Cups and Europe As great as it is to win the league again, and it is great, the other competitions did not go to plan. The Copa Del Rey saw us exit in the 4th round, in extra time, with a 1-0 defeat to Villarreal. Very very disappointing, after winning the cup back in 27/28 we have now gone out in the 3rd and 4th rounds these last two years. We will need to change up how we approach this competition next season and start a few more regulars in the early rounds. For the Champions League, this competition has been nothing but pain. We made a run to the final in 26/27, losing to Bayern Munich 3-1. Since then we have been knocked out at the first knockout round we played in, Monaco in the R16 in 27/28, PSG in the first knockout round in 28/29, both had an excuse in that we had a red card in the first leg of both matchups. This season we drew Newcastle in the R16, after finishing the league phase joint top with Bayern and Liverpool. A pair of 1-0 defeats sees us out of the competition, we were awful in the away leg and were lucky to only lose by the one goal, the second leg Newcastle punched us in the 18th with a goal and we had 2 goals disallowed in the game, Newcastle had a man sent off in the 65th but we just could not muster a goal, much less two. I am not sure what happens when we get on this stage but knockout football has been a terrible experience for the us the last 2 years. Team of the season Gorka Aizpurua became an absolute star this season, 36 total goals this season, leading LaLiga with 29. He won the Young Player of the Season, and was second in Player of the Season, behind Beitia. Roberto Alonso, in his return from Manchester, became the starting Mez this season with Sancet moving over to B2B, and was great. We did continue to move on from some of the older players this season. January saw the departures of Aihen Munoz and Alvaro Ordiozola, to Udinese for 1.9M and Salzburg for 15M respectively. We are now down to 10 players that are not newgens and 5 that start the game at the club. A couple of these players will be moving on in the summer. Aymeric Laporte was a mistake, he has been injured more than healthy and he still has some value. Mikel Merino will be 34 at the start of next season and has not been happy that his playing time is starting to decrease. He is still the best B2B at the club but I have a few up and coming players who need to be integrated. Julen Jon Guerrero has been a useful backup for the club the last 5 years but saw the field only 12 times this season, all off the bench, at 26, it's time to let him leave and try to find playing time at Segunda level or abroad. One thing I am very excited about is this years youth intake. This could be the best one yet. Luis Gil is the crown jewel, being a CB. Vivian and Guillamon are both 30 now so hopefully Gil will be ready to step up by the time they really fall off in 5 years or so. He obviously has some growing to do in the physicals but he's only 16 but being 6'3" with already 14 jumping reach and already a competent passer, I expect big things. ETA - I finally became a club legend! Asier Villalibre and Lander Beitia are considered icons. Nico, Inaki, Muniain, Sancet and Vivian are all favoured personnel. I wish the game was able to combine pre and post save. Muniain should absolutely be considered a legend and Inaki could be as well. Heck Villalibre scored 138 goals for the club over 266 appearances.

Now that is how you open a season

Summer 2029 Well the new season is here. It was a busy summer for sure. With tears in my eyes... Out: Inaki Williams to FC Kobenhavn for 325k, Asier Villalibre to Gijon for 6M, Jon Moncayola to Sevilla for 25M. Javi Lopez and Aimar Penalver(GK) also left the club this summer for free and 125k respectfully. While I hated to do it, Inaki and Asier wanted to go somewhere they could play more often and I can't hold them here. Moncayola became expendable last season when he got hurt and other players stepped up, Sevilla came in for 25M and that was too good to turn down. In: 21yo FB Alvaro Barandiaran from Osasuna for 17M, this guy is a beast physically. Been keeping an eye on him for years but now with Odriozola getting a bit older and Lopez leaving the club, it was time to bring him in. 22yo French striker Jorge Hernandez from Furth for 19M. As I said in my previous post, he is 6'6" with 17 jumping reach and 15 heading, physicals are not great but they aren't bad either. He also scored 21 goals in the Bundesliga, which led that league last season. He will not start most matches but he should be good for a few goals this season. Last one, for now at least, Roberto Alonso returns to the club after a year away in England playing for Manchester United and Watford. In the end he was sold for 10.5M after a sell on clause was sold in January and comes back for 20M. He is on a much higher wage than I would like because United jacked up his expectations but he has now come home. Don't sign 34/35 year olds folks. Man this sucks. He had never even had a majorish injury until now. Here's what the team looks like heading into the 29/30 season after the Laporte injury. Again white is class of 23, green is 24 and red is 25 There are a couple of guys that I think will spend most of the season in the B team but may get a look in with the main squad First up, Laportes replacement, at least registration wise. I was thinking for a while that the class of 24 may never have a player even make an appearance for the club. Arzalluz is one of only 2 players from that group still at the club, the other is a GK that likely won't make it. The other 2 players pictured below are from the class of 27 and look very promising. Both could play a role this season.

2028/29 Season Back to Back Champions 5 fewer points this time around but it is enough to get the job done. Another 100 goal season, this team has become a goal scoring juggernaut! Lander Beitia leads the way with 20, but Unai Vallejo got 17 of his own. We were very deadly from set pieces this year, Aritz Losa and Hugo Guillamon chipped in with 7 and 6 goals respectively from corners and free kicks. Great as the league campaign was, the cup competitions were, less than. To start off with the Champions League, this is the harshest draw I have gotten in any save I have had in FM23. Normally I would say I get 3 games I look at as almost sure wins, this year I had 2. The other winnable games were Porto away, not easy, and Monaco at home, they Endrick and a few other fm23 wonderkids fully formed, again not easy. We managed to scrap through to the knockouts though. In the knockouts, we drew PSG, just about the hardest draw we could have gotten. And then Hugo Guillamon decided to get himself sent off in the first half of the first leg, with us up 1-0. As you can imagine, things went poorly from there. This is now the second straight year that our UCL run comes to an end after a first leg sending off, last season we had 2 men sent off in the first leg of the round of 16, against Monaco. We haven't been able to recapture that form that took us to the final a few years ago. Maybe next year! I don't want to talk about it. Standouts and Future Plans As stated before, Lander Beitia truly became a star this season with 21 goals and 12 assists in all comps, Unai Vellejo became the full time starter at the front with 26 total goals. Aritz Losa stepped up even more and actually started more games than Dani Vivian. What I am most proud of this season is that I rotated more than I ever have. 24 players played at least 20 games in all comps this season, pretty sure that is a record for me. On the downwards of the curve however, Inaki Williams at 34, has really started to crater. It pains me because I absolutely love him, I would like to keep him for the last couple of years he has and play him some, until he retires. That just isn't realistic, he has started to complain that he doesn't play enough and he's ready to move on, I won't stand in his way. If anybody wants him I will just let him go, fee or no fee, he's earned that. The injury that he suffered, two years ago now, was just never truly recovered from. There are two other players who may be on their way out. Jon Moncayola at 31 now and he is still a very good player. I am not sure if I actually do want him to move on but he played far less this season than he has previously. He was my first signing when I arrived at the club 7 years ago and has made 189 league appearances while not really ever being first choice. We have younger guys that stepped up this season, Mario and Miguel Angel Losa this year, and a few more that are going to be ready in a year or 2. I think it is probably time to cash in on him The one that I think may actually hurt the most to type is, Asier Villalibre. My man has scored 129 goals in 187 games since I took over, he's finished top 3 in goals for LaLiga 4 times, player of the season for Bilbao 3 times. But, over the last 2 seasons he has played just 35 league games and this season only started 6. The last 2 years he has gotten injury after injury, never a bad one but it always felt like as soon as he got back to full fitness he would get something new crop up. His ave rating THIS SEASON was still 7.44, so it's not like he's falling off when he plays but he is now the back up and I don't think that will be enough for him. He'll also be 32 early next season and with how many injuries he has had, it's just a matter of time before he goes the way of Inaki. You know how I am talking about moving on from a few older players... um... Aymeric Laporte is here lol. He was going to be out of contract at the end of the season so I put in a pre-contract and he accepted. Liverpool had came in for Guillamon and he got really upset that I turned them down, so I agreed to accept 65M if they offered that. Just in case Liverpool did offer that I decided to buy Laporte early for 4.4M. He's uh, still really really good. As for any other potential incomings, there is a 6'6" French/Basque striker who scored 21 goals in the Bundesliga at Furth who could be had for around 14M, eyeing him as a Villalibre replacement. There's an either footed FB at Osasuna with unbelievable physicals with 17M release clause that I may trigger and lastly a GK French/Basque GK at Sociedad that looks better than any of my future Simon replacements, if I can convince him to come. This will be a busy summer, possibly the busiest I have had. Can we win 3 straight? Nobody has since Barcelona almost 20 in game years ago. Speaking of Barcelona, they finished 6th this year and have not finished top 3 in 4 years now, since they won the title in 24/25. Anyway, that's it for now

All loan offers for 16/17 year olds with fringe player playing time. I finally just listed every player in the club to unavailable for loan. The highest individual day was actually 23 but I didn't screenshot that

yep, it's January

I don't have a hard rule on it. I don't avoid signing them but I don't seek them out either. If one pops up on the scouting report then I roleplay in my head that they found a grandparent with Basque ties or something. I maybe sign 1 a season or every other season

Admittedly, this is basically just a toned down Gegenpress, but this is the setup I have ran with from day 1 and haven't really changed much of anything. I try to funnel teams inside toward Vencedor and I play him as DM(s) so that he can kind of roam around and help where ever on the pitch he is needed. I haven't had a ton of success with DLP's in any of my saves this year but that may just be me. I just went back and looked, I gave up 41 goals in season one and have an average of 36 GA per season in the first 6 years of my save. I do sometimes switch around the mentality of the WBs and IF/IW, if I feel like we can have more joy I'll make the IW(A) drop RB to WB(s) and the IF(s) with LB WB(a) but that doesn't really change what I want ot get out of the tactic, which is goals. I score a whopping 86 goals per season, 90 over the last 4 seasons, and 100 last year. I will say the one thing about your tactic that doesn't make a ton of sense to me, you have it set to focus play down each wing but you have an IF/FB on the left. I feel like the FB wouldn't be high enough nor the IF wide enough to do this, I could be wrong. I personally don't feel like focusing play down the wings without actual wingers is redundant but I have also never tried it. You may also just be getting stretched too much with the high press but standard line

What formation are you playing?

I got the best out of Muniain when he was playing as an attacking Mez. As for Martinez, I used him as a standard BPD but I always had Vencendor helping out the defense and Simon playing as a sweeper to clean up anything that gets past them.

Not dissimilar to what I have been doing. My B team went up and down a few times but each time the wage cap has gone up. The cap is now 110k and that is enough for me to actually use them as a farm for Segunda level players. I hope it keeps going up as that would be very helpful in the future I'm sure ETA: One major annoyance and I don't know if it is just me, probably not, is the incessant loan offers for 16yo youth players to be fringe players. I feel like this is something that should not happen but during a transfer window, especially January I get like 10 or 12 offers almost every day to loan a 16yo

On the eve of the 2028/29 season I wanted to give a quick update for the summer since not too much has gone on. First off, a couple of retiring players. Iker Muniain and Cesar Azpilicueta have decided to go out on top after a second La Liga title and become, not very good, coaches. We wish them well but neither will be becoming a part of the staff. On the ins, it is mostly guys to reenforce the B team as about half the team is gone, either moved up to the first team or released In: Inigo Bidaurrazga 21yo RB from Sevilla for 500k, Unai Jauregi 17yo LB from Subiza for 2.8M, Luca Sangalli 33yo CM from Las Palmas for 775k, Alvaro Gallardo 16yo GK from Real Betis for 575k, Andreu Perez 16yo LB/CB, who will be retrained as a DM, from Barcelona for 1.1M On the outs there are only 2. Roberto Alonso is an academy graduate from 2025 who has great potential but was upset that I didn't loan him out and decided he was going to run his contract down. I didn't loan him out for 2 reasons, he was almost good enough for the first team, he wouldn't have played at a much higher level than the B team and I was retraining hm to play midfield instead of winger. It pains me to sell someone so young and talented but I would lose him for nothing in 12 months, so he goes to Manchester United for 5.5M but, and this is a big but, I ended up being able to add in a buy back clause for 20M. I will check back in with him in a few seasons time and if he has developed well, I can bring him back at a reasonable rate. The other departure is a sad one in that he just never developed the way I had hoped, probably my fault really as I neither loaned him out nor played him enough. Aimar Vicandi has left the club to join Vigo for 5M. He only played 40 league games across the last 4 seasons and has been surpassed by at least 4 other, and younger, players out wide. I hope he can be a late bloomer. This is how the team shapes up heading into the season. Marks indicate players who came through a youth intake, white is the class of 23, red is the class of 25, I plan to keep updating this throughout the save as I find it fun to keep track of what players came through together. I think I forgot to mention it, but Unai Vencedor was promoted from vice captain to captain before last season in place of Iker Muniain and Nico Williams was named Vice Captain. These two will likely hold these positions for a number of years. Still no love from the media. Lets see if we can go back to back, or if we fall back again like we did in the last title defense

Curious how everyone else handles the B and C teams. 1. I do my best to make sure the B team has the players they need to stay in the Segunda Division, including purchasing players for the B team if I need to and have spare money. Has anybody found it worth paying attention to the B team or do you guys just loan players of Segunda standard out instead? 2. The C team I basically just place players who are over 19 but not good enough for B team and don't have much potential anyway to see out their contracts. The only exception is GK, only becuase only 1 can play for the B team. Does anybody else just not care about the C team? 3. Do you wait until a player turns 18 to move them out of the u19s and into B/C teams or do you move 17yos up if they are good enough to contribute?

Only ones you really NEED are Spain and France but after that it's personal preference and how much your pc can handle. I have a pretty decent pc so I run the top 6(Eng, Spa, Fra, Ger, Ita, Por) leagues in Europe, Brazil, Argentina and then I think I have Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey and Scotland loaded as well