Litmanen 10

Because negotiating transfer deals successfully is really easy at the moment and with the current transfer it is not possible recreate real-life type of transfer sagas (Mbappe, Hazard and Courtois to Real Madrid for example) I would suggest a couple of changes. A) Ability for the AI to either reject negotiating a deal by simply saying that we are not willing to negotiate a deal at this time. B) Ability for the AI to stall for weeks or even months. If there are more than one interested parties, the AI could just tell you that they are looking to get the best possible deal and thereby not willing to give you an answer at the moment. C) Bigger likeliness for the AI to launch bid for players when the player does and also the AI to offer a new contract to the player who you make a transfer bid for. In older versions of FM the AI practically always launched a bid when you made one for a player that they are interested in. I have no idea why this active approach isn't in the game anymore.

The mods are not SI employees.

Superb! Would be interesting also to see some of these goals and buildups in gifs. Love those times when you actually had to use some time setting up and editing your tactics. And also, no 3D ME.

I think this is my single favorite football match. The Mourinho mind game and the tactical approach with quick counters destroyed Barcelona in the beginning of the game before them coming back to the game. This is what I always used to aim for in FM too and maybe these kind of tactical battles that are currently missing a bit.

Brilliant thread! Those were the times both in terms of football and FM. Really interesting to see in-depth analysis of how well you can implement a desired style of play and how it pans out in the old match engine.

Interesting update once again. As it late in the evening and I'm going to sleep soon, was only able to think about the first one. What I would do with them is that I would keep both and split the game-time with them maybe 70-30 in favor of the more experienced. If you have easier games in the league and in Europe, I would go with the young backup. And if course in all cup games. When playing with Betis, all the youngsters started developing very rapidly when I just kept them match fit and gave them game time whenever I could. For example Assane Diao and Dani Perez had training rating close to 10 for about four months in a row. With the second one, I would probably let Molinas go. At the age of 29 it is probably the last moment to really cash out on him and I don't see that big difference in terms of quality between the two. I'm quite certain that Martínez would be up to the task. And the last one: I would keep both but would try to make Aguirre lead the line as number nine. Even though it would cost me a bit in terms of results. I personally tend to keep the squad quite small so that it is fairly easy to keep all the players happy. And with Lopez being able to play in all the positions, it should be fairly easy to give the regular starter game time.

Serie B season preview Parma are considered the biggest favorites to go to the Serie A for the first time since their relegation in 2021. The club is managed by Fabio Pecchia who has been in charge of the club since 2022. Last season the team finished 4th on the table with only 60 points but with a fairly strong end to their campaign. Palermo are quite surprisingly ranked second in the season preview after finishing 9th last year. The duo is followed by three relegated teams and the interesting Como who has both Césc Fabregas and Thierry Henry involved in the ownership. Sampdoria are also an interesting case as we have been used to seeing the traditional club in Serie A during the last decade or so. The team will start the season from behind as 2 points were deducted from them due to financial mismanagement. The club is led by Andrea Pirlo who has been in charge of the club since the end of June. Another interesting managerial name is the former AS Roma wonderkid Alberto Aquilani who is in charge of Pisa Calcio who are predicted to finish in the mid-table. Newly promoted AC Reggiana on the other hand are looking to avoid relegation under the guidance of legendary centre-back Alessandro Nesta. No less than 5 of the dream team players consist of Parma players. The former Manchester City midfielder Adrián Bernabé is widely considered the best player in the league this season and he is also the favorite to finish the season as the best player of the league. Two Palermo players make the cut here. Mirko Pigliacelli is considered to be the best goalkeeper in the league while Matteo Brunori was chosen as the starting forward ahead of Finnish international Joel Pohjanpalo who is considered as the front-runner for the Golden Boot this season. Ternana's Inter-loanee Franco Carboni is the highest-valued player in Serie B Followed by Spezia striker Francesco Pio Esposito and Bernabé. The experienced Roberto Insigne is our highest-valued player and placed eighth in the league. Our schedule We will start the season on the 19th of August with an away game against Lecco who are considered as one of the most likely teams to be relegated this season. They are a familiar opponent to us as we already beat them 4-1 in the pre-season. It will also be an interesting test for us to see how well the pre-season games compare to the real games and whether we will be as dominant as we were in the pre-season opener. The first big test of the season will be on the 16th of September when we will travel to meet Parma on match day 6. The next update will also include an away game against Venezia and a home encounter versus Cittadella. The final game of the next update will be on the 28th of October when we will host Pirlo's Sampdoria at Stadio Renzo Barbera.

Otherwise great topic but the new tactic.

Well, duh. History is history and I also once had the desire to do this but not anymore. I just wanted to point out to those still actively doing the same thing that it might be wise to just leave and get back to it when the bug reporters are treated with a little bit more respect. Even some of the mods, have been criticising SI for the lack of communication, so it is definitely an issue at the moment.

I'm totally on your side here but also have to ask: why are you guys so willing to do free work for someone that doesn't even bother to give a reply for all the hard work that you have done for them? I certainly wouldn't, no matter how much I like the game itself.

Remove: The horrible looking faces that the game generates for newgens and staff members created by the game. These should be replaced with some kind of AI that creates real-looking human faces. Player and staff search. These two tools are too powerful with all the filters available. Interface: Bring back the light version if the skin. Tactics/ME: Passing lane blocking. In real life the coaches are usually looking to cut the supply for certain opposition players instead of placing specific instructions to take them out of the game. Formations. As asymmetrical formations often turn out to be quite powerful, the human players should only have access to the same formations as the AI has. Closing down starting before the ball is received by the attacking player. This, was most evident problem with FM 2017 match engine where the defensive sides shifted to close down the ball carrier too late which usually opened a huge space for someone else in the middle which was unmanned. This would create the chaos factory that the game is missing. Interface of the 2D match engine. It's quite ugly at the moment with no stadiums. Lot of us still and probably always will use only the 2D match engine, so it should still be improved back to the level where it once was. Transfers The AI needs to be more competitive in the transfer market in general. The whole transfer system needs an overhaul where long transfer sagas like MBappe & Real Madrid could happen. Currently it is too easy to just pick the players that you want and get the deals done with just a couple of clicks and in days of time.

Good point. Come to think about, decided to make a couple of changes: dropped the Trequartista to the number 10 positions, changed the wingbacks to IWBs and kept the Mezzalas. This should make it way more balanced, increase positional play and also force lot of the play happen in the central areas. Thank you for noticing!

These are the three tactics that I have in my mind and which I used during the pre-season. As my aim is to build around the Trequartista, I would say that the two striker formation will be my number one. I would have also built one around 4-3-4-3 as it is a fairly Italian formation but as that is something that I have used so much in the past, I opted to try something totally new. Playing attacking football is also something that I have basically never done and as you can probably notice in the formations and team instructions, we are fairly attacking side. The match against Genoa was encouragin as we were clearly the better team and also defensively fairly solid despite conceding two. Next up will be the Serie B season preview.

Pre-season 2024 When starting with a new club that is fairly unfamiliar to you, the first days of pre-season are vital for me. What I usually do first is I will check the squad hierarchy page where I can learn more about the team leaders, the general hierarchy of the club as well as different social groups. These work as the source of a good general picture as well as a platform for setting up the mentoring groups that I am a big fan of. I like to build my mentoring groups always in the same way. I have usually one suitable mentor for one group and 2-3 young players who work as understudies. Who do I consider a suitable mentor? A senior player that is high in the hierarchy and his personality is at least 'fairly professional'. Plays in the same position as the understudies or at least has some traits that I would like to pass on to the younger players. There are exceptions though: for example, with the goalkeepers I don't have one of the desired personalities at the moment which means that the two younger goalkeepers have one of our defenders working as their mentor. Here is an example of one of my mentoring groups. Pre-season friendlies Didn't see any reason to touch them as they were setup by our staff. Even though these matches really don't tell you much, I was really encouraged with our performances, especially going forward. It was also encouraging to see that we beat two other Serie B teams here. Lecco was our first friendly of the summer and Venezia who are considered one of the favorites to go up and who have possibly the best goalscorer, Finnish international Joel Pohjanpalo, in their team. Other things to mention are the fact that we continued to rebuild our coaching staff throughout the summer and it currently looks like this. As you can see, our new assistant manager is from France and he is quite famous one as David Bettoni is the former right hand of Zinedine Zidane. We also had quite a few injuries during the pre-season which will make our start of the season a challenge. The managerial debut The Coppa Italia first round was a great test for us as we visited Genoa at Luigi Ferraris Stadium. No one had given us any chances, especially when we were missing a long list of important players which meant that we were only able to name a limited amount of substitutes. We took an early lead through good link-up play between our striking duo Mancuso and Brunoni but conceded from the following kick-off as one of the opposition players just decided to pick the ball up from the restart before running through the entire length of the pitch and setting up Ékuban for a free chance inside our six-yard box. A big worry about our defensive quality! The first half was even but we had bad luck in the end when Thorsby's long-range shot took a deflection and beat Pigliacelli in his goal. I saw nothing wrong with the performance in the first half: we had 8 shots against their 7 and 1.63 xG against their 0.76. We had been the better side! It took us a long to get level but we did it deservedly in the 78th minute when substitute Soleri was released again by Brunoni who was selected as the player of the match thanks to his two assists. We had saved our substitutions until the last 15 minutes of the game and this showed in the overtime where we were the better team. We also had plenty of luck inside the penalty area as two of our three goals came through lucky deflections giving us open goals for the finishes. It was a great start for our managerial career. The next challenge is also going to be big as we will visit Sassuolo in the second round. *** Thank you so much for the comments @SteinkelssonFM, @Muttley84 & @_Ben_. Very much appreciated!

Fully understand. Even with just a wife and recently arrived rescue dog, time is worth gold. Especially now as the ice hockey playoffs start. My content comes out of my head and is written during my lunch breaks, where I multitask by eating and writing at the same time. For playing the game itself, I usually have 1-2 hours maximum per day and a bit more during the weekends. This is also probably why my content isn't anywhere near as comprehensive as yours and some other writers'. I salute you!