[FM18] AFC, A Chainsaw Massacre (2019-2036) // Basque Bonanza (2037-2040)

[MarcxD]

1 minute ago, MikeyJ said:

No idea how you have managed to do this well, but good on you

 

If I were to guess... A mixture of talented players, good form, a bit of luck and the opposition probably still underestimating us somewhat. To be honest I'm kind of shocked with a second place as well, I would've expected another European play-off spot or something thereabout this season. Something to take account of though is that Dutch football seems to have leveled somewhat, with a lot of teams being able to beat each other or at least get a draw. If you do get into a winning mood like we did a lot is possible.

[MikeyJ]

Just now, MarcxD said:

If I were to guess... A mixture of talented players, good form, a bit of luck and the opposition probably still underestimating us somewhat. To be honest I'm kind of shocked with a second place as well, I would've expected another European play-off spot or something thereabout this season. Something to take account of though is that Dutch football seems to have leveled somewhat, with a lot of teams being able to beat each other or at least get a draw. If you do get into a winning mood like we did a lot is possible.

I guess so, I wonder if actually having a lot of youth players can help with team cohesion/morale etc. 

Great achievement regardless!

 

[MarcxD]

Just now, MikeyJ said:

I guess so, I wonder if actually having a lot of youth players can help with team cohesion/morale etc. 

Great achievement regardless!

 

Definitely, the team cohesion is very tight, they fit in pretty much right away in the social groups and any discontent I've easily dealt with by using the team leaders/highly influential players talking. 

[MikeyJ]

2 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

Definitely, the team cohesion is very tight, they fit in pretty much right away in the social groups and any discontent I've easily dealt with by using the team leaders/highly influential players talking. 

See, I guess this must help with results a lot, especially in the games where you have really tough opponents. 

Cant wait to see next season!

[MarcxD]

Oh dear... the first foreign offer. Have rejected it for now (by negotiating a deal of 15M) but this might be a long summer window...

[Minuy600]

GG to you. Wonder who you get drawn against. How's the competition coefficient actually?

 

Also, what other amateur clubs got into the Eerste Divisie and what clubs got relegated out of it?

[MarcxD]

7 minutes ago, Minuy600 said:

GG to you. Wonder who you get drawn against. How's the competition coefficient actually?

 

Also, what other amateur clubs got into the Eerste Divisie and what clubs got relegated out of it?

Thank you! Will get to the draw next post. The Dutch league got 6th place a couple of seasons ago and they are still there.

A huge gap between the Dutch league and the top 5 (obviously) but for now it's looking relatively secure, since the Portuguese clubs are not doing great.

Rijnsburgse Boys (still in the Jupiler League) and Katwijk have been the only amateur teams that have made it to the Jupiler League, but this season Achilles '29 will be playing in the Jupiler League, although I don't think they started out as amateur after getting relegated irl.

Right now Fortuna, MVV, Telstar and Jong FC Utrecht have been relegated and are still below the Jupiler League (some of them have made it back up and have been relegated again). 

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2026

An increase in the budgets, but I will not be using any of it unless a player gets poached away. We have such wealth in youth players it would be silly to get any players in, that would only get in the way of the homegrown talent. Still not expected to achieve anything, so at least there's no pressure.

So I only got in a youth player that was released by AZ for some reason but still has a lot of room to grow, a GK as well, a spot where I don't have much great talents. I let go Ter Heide, a faithful servant but simply not good enough anymore, and I sold Roshanali to Achilles since he is a striker prospect who will simply not make the first team ever, and I got a 50% future fee deal. I hope Achilles can stay in the Jupiler League and help him develop big time. Some other loan deals, the loanees to De Dijk are mostly dead wood I got rid off.

Pre-season went very well, as far as the friendlies are concerned, although we had no chance against PSV in the Super Cup - the Johan Cruijff Schaal.

For the first time we are not predicted to finish 18th, although 15th obviously still isn't all that great - on the other hand, this means that pretty much anything I achieve this year will still be a huge improvement on what is expected of me.

We are obviously playing the CL this year after finishing second last season, but we won't be playing the home games in our own little stadium. I guess the Ajax stadium was a little bit too big, so we'll be playing those games in the FC Volendam stadium, which offers seats to 10K people (after an upgrade).

I think that's a little on the short side, perhaps the AZ stadium would've been ideal, but we'll have to make do.

As far as the group in which we were drawn is concerned.... well.....

Some very good news to finish this pre-season with though:

[MarcxD]

August 2026

Great start to the season with a win to AZ, but a couple of tough games followed in which we didn't perform to the level of last season, but that is a high bar to reach.

Sixth place to start out with, and remarkably Katwijk has also gotten 7 points from their first 4 Eredivisie games ever. Traditional top 3 on the top.

[oriole01]

Well, this has to be my favorite FM18 save so far. Great to see you achieving big targets in the league. I honestly didn't think you'd be able to stay up when you first got to the Eredivisie, but well done on surviving and then moving upwards! Vos looks class, as well as some of the other guys you've been bringing in through the academy. Good luck in the CL, and keep up the good work!

[MarcxD]

12 hours ago, oriole01 said:

Well, this has to be my favorite FM18 save so far. Great to see you achieving big targets in the league. I honestly didn't think you'd be able to stay up when you first got to the Eredivisie, but well done on surviving and then moving upwards! Vos looks class, as well as some of the other guys you've been bringing in through the academy. Good luck in the CL, and keep up the good work!

Thank you man, I'm having fun playing it - actually at first I thought this was going to be a short save until my main FM18 save but I have no intentions of stopping anytime soon now ! -  and it's great to read others are interested in reading about it. 

That first season in the Eredivisie was really tough, I just took another look at it and we were lucky enough that there were multiple teams that were really struggling that year. The prospects from the academy make me very excited as well, probably the most fun about this save. 

[MarcxD]

September 2026

A tough start to the month with a poor draw against Twente and the expected loss against Arsenal, the game against 18th placed Sparta wasn't much to write home about either. It helped that we were drawn with amateur side Lisse in the cup I think, a little bit of a confidence boost and we managed to keep it up against RKC and even managed to get our first point ever in Europe and of course in the Champions League by keeping Shakhtar to a 0-0 draw.

In third place which is very good of course, but we've had a relatively easy start to the season and perhaps should've gotten more points if we really want to finish in the CL spots again this season. To be fair, I'm not expecting that, I would definitely settle for Europa League. Development is more key than results, at this moment in time anyway. On the other hand, no team has had a particularly good start except for PSV (I'm not taking Heracles serious quite yet).

The usual CL money, a huge boost to the club. 

I also got this message, apparently the facilities upgrades only took 1 year instead of 2 in the end.. with the money from the CL and last year's league placing though, I could get in new upgrades approved right away.

Onwards and upwards.

[Minuy600]

Lisse is like 10 minutes from where I live, just like HFC. Oh okay. That's what makes Dutch saves fun.

[andychar]

That Champions League money is going to make a massive difference. You continue to prove everybody wrong with good consistent results. (Not proving us wrong we believe you'll do well!)

[MarcxD]

28 minutes ago, Minuy600 said:

Lisse is like 10 minutes from where I live, just like HFC. Oh okay. That's what makes Dutch saves fun.

Cool, definitely. In that time I can get to the AFC grounds which is why I love playing with them. Actually, when I was in high school my school sometimes went to the AFC grounds for PE haha. 

17 minutes ago, andychar said:

That Champions League money is going to make a massive difference. You continue to prove everybody wrong with good consistent results. (Not proving us wrong we believe you'll do well!)

Haha, thank you for the confidence!

[MarcxD]

October 2026

A tough month with a lot of difficult games and not the best of results. Some positives though, with us being able to finally get in a win again against Groningen, going through in the Cup and Sam Vos is back to scoring ways after having some trouble producing for a while.

In sixth now, but the league is really really tight, except for PSV and the bottom 3 perhaps.

[MarcxD]

No.... not good!

[MarcxD]

November 2026

Great month, back to winning ways in the league, especially pleasing was the win against Feyenoord. The CL is what it is, at least we managed to score twice against Atletico (also received 2 red cards... quite the match)

In third, and things are definitely looking up. Katwijk is doing remarkably well in their first Eredivisie season but RKC is having an awful season so far.

300 matches already..

[MarcxD]

December 2026

In many ways a fantastic month, we kept PSV to a draw in their own stadium (hugely expanded now) and then we absolutely dominated against Shakhtar and fully deserved the victory. Couldn't keep the form up though against AZ in the league, although we were able to beat them in the Cup. 

Since Shakhtar lost all of their games against Arsenal and Atletico, the win over them means we go through to the Europa League!

The draw hasn't been kind to us though.... at least some more international experience.

In the league we're third, but wow look at all those teams behind PSV, so close! A lot of things can happen. Weak form can be deadly now.

This month, for the first time, Sam Vos complained that he wanted to move to a bigger club

For now he has been persuaded to stay, but I wonder for how long. Look at the clubs that are interested:

....

[Deisler26]

 

20 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

 

The draw hasn't been kind to us though.... at least some more international experience

....

Like kicking in an open door 

[MarcxD]

9 minutes ago, Deisler26 said:

 

Like kicking in an open door 

Haha I almost sounded like a real manager there!

[MarcxD]

January 2027

Some transfer business, I got the board to approve a new affiliate club in Rijnsburgse Boys so I can send players to the Jupiler League with ease, I sold Van Leeuwen (6i) to Den Bosch since he is one of a number of talented left backs plus they have agreed to a big future percentage, and incoming is a new midfielder in Ilkay Aras. He has been on my radar for a while now, at first he cost 3M or so but his contract was ending in the next summer so I could get him for cheap. 

He is by far on the biggest wage right now, but we can definitely afford it plus he's very decent.

After a dominant victory in a friendly the 4 official matches we played in January were very poor, NAC has now beaten us twice this season and we needed penalties against ADO (which means we have now played them 9 times and never won), we are through to the semi final in the Cup though, next up is FC Groningen. None of the top teams are still in the competition so hopefully we can have a shot at winning the first trophy this career.

This was terrible news though. Luckily there are more talented AMR's at the club.

Down to fifth now, and finally pretty much all clubs are on the same amount of games now. Hopefully we can get some better form, we'll need that to qualify for Europe. It's pretty astonishing to see how poorly Ajax and Feyenoord are doing, while PSV are absolutely dominating again.

[MarcxD]

February 2027

We did not play well in the first two matches of the month, and got the expected loss against Inter. A decent win against RKC followed but then.... one of the craziest matches ever in Italy, where somehow we were able to counter our way to a 5-2 win and we're through to the next round!! 

Easy, I'm sure.

In fifth now, hopefully the last matches were a sign of good form and we can get to second place again.

[MikeyJ]

10 minutes ago, MarcxD said:

We did not play well in the first two matches of the month, and got the expected loss against Inter. A decent win against RKC followed but then.... one of the craziest matches ever in Italy, where somehow we were able to counter our way to a 5-2 win and we're through to the next round!! 

How in the holy hell did you beat Inter 5-2 away and not go absolutely mental about it!

Nice work

 

[MarcxD]

31 minutes ago, MikeyJ said:

How in the holy hell did you beat Inter 5-2 away and not go absolutely mental about it!

Nice work

 

It was more a state of shock tbh! 

[MarcxD]

Youth Intake 2027

OMG!!!!!

....

Yep, an Andorran 5* PA player through the intakes!!! My manager is of Andorran nationality, that was more of a call back to my FC Andorra Save for FM17 not even to try and get in any Andorran regens. But holy ****! If I'd gotten in an Andorran player that was awful I would've been happy enough, but this.....

Another note: I love the names of these players. Best of the lot, imo: Supri Lubis. Are you a Roman in disguise?

The only bad thing here is that I don't use any AMC's, but since he's already able to play as an AML I think that is the best way forward for this guy. 

Let's not forget that there are more players from the intake. Yet another striker! Some very good attributes here, and will you look at that, a regen that's able to jump. Too bad about the determination and the personality but that can get fixed hopefully. 

Pretty poor to start out with although of course he has some good attributes and a good personality. An example of a regen who is not able to jump. Combined with his 178 cm length that does not make for an ideal Centre back...

Anyway, an Andorran superstar in the making?!?!

[MarcxD]

March 2027

A bit of a strange month. First of all, we managed to go through to the final of the cup after extra time. In the final we'll face FC Twente. Not an easy opponent but surely a team we can handle. In the Europa League, we managed to keep Chelsea very contained for both matches. They actually needed extra time to win even though that doesn't show up here. In the league though, we had trouble getting goals, although the 1-0 derby win against Ajax was a very pleasing result.

Still in fifth, but the gap to second increased a bit. 6 games remaining.

[Rikulec]

Torres could become spectacular. I guess we all hope so now.

[MarcxD]

1 hour ago, Rikulec said:

Torres could become spectacular. I guess we all hope so now.

That would be amazing!

[MarcxD]

April 2027

A good month if only for the two 4-0 wins in a row, I don't think we've ever won an official match by such a good margin and then it happens twice in a row.... Too bad about the Feyenoord loss but you can't have everything I guess. 

In fourth with two games remaining, and only 1 point separates us from second place. Too bad about RKC, who've had a dreadful season and are relegated.

[Deisler26]

😢😢😢

[MarcxD]

KNVB Cup Final, AFC v. FC Twente

a chance to win my first trophy this FM! Finally!

We have a very strong record against them, but they have the better form and are favourites... They are managed by Maduro, an ex-pro who was a coach for me before going into management.

We did it! It was a terrible match, only a few chances. It took us until the very last seconds of the match to win! The KNVB Beker goes to AFC!!!

We were definitely lucky with the draw and a lot of the matches were tight! But the cup is ours!

[Deisler26]

Congratulations!! 

[MarcxD]

4 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

Congratulations!! 

Cheers!

[MarcxD]

May 2027

Apart from the cup win not the ideal end to the season, but these were two very tough games, we had to face the first two on the ranking and PSV are miles ahead of anyone else in the league. They made it to the semi finals of the Champions League ffs!

So we ended up as fifth, because of our cup win European football was already guaranteed so we go to the groups of the EL. Vitesse, Utrecht, Ajax and Feyenoord battle it out for the last spot through the play-offs. Katwijk has made it in their first season in the Eredivisie!

[MAMRICCA]

Wow! A 5 star potential regen from Andorra, you could make a NT watch to see how they improve with him, congrats on the cup!

[MarcxD]

Season Review 2026-2027

A decent season, although we never quite got the form of last season. We are getting to be a stable sub-top side at the moment, and it seems likely that for the next couple of season we'll have to keep battling for the spots behind PSV. Hopefully I can keep hold of players like Vos (who has wanted to leave but agreed to stay after some talks with team leaders twice already) to go into the future and at some point fight for the title.

Talking about Vos.... we are incredibly reliant on him and whenever he didn't score we were usually suffering.

With the added amount of games this year he has improved a lot on his goal scoring record.

Once again he won the topscorer award, but once again he also just missed out on the rookie of the year award. 

I think this was the first time Bayazit has made it to the top 3 of GK's of the year, while I won Manager of the year for the third time in a row.

Best Eleven's & Squad:

(Subs once again make no sense.... but the importance of Vos' goals is very clear here)

I hope to be able to get Vos to sign a new deal, otherwise I either have to sell him or let him go for free next summer.... Quite a few other regens have also played a huge role this year.

Some of the youth products have become influential players and pretty much the entire team supports me.

EDIT:

Our new stadium is approved!

Bit weird that we took out a loan since we are able to afford that from the money we've already got in the bank, but paying that 25.5M off slowly isn't all that bad of an idea I guess.

20K seats to start out with, will be interesting to see how many people will go see us when it's done (and how quickly we'll be needing an expansion, if at all).

[MarcxD]

11 minutes ago, MAMRICCA said:

Wow! A 5 star potential regen from Andorra, you could make a NT watch to see how they improve with him, congrats on the cup!

I will definitely keep track of his exploits with the Andorran national team, so far he's not been called up to his senior side though, only the u21s. Should make his debut next season definitely. 

Thanks!

[MarcxD]

Dutch Football / World Football Update 2027

On the 7th july of 2027, after the season update, I decided to take a look at the things that have happened in the 10 seasons since I started this career (the two first seasons were obviously holidayed). 

I will be taking a look at Dutch club football, the national team, and some international stuff like CL winners and the biggest transfers.

Personally I always like to see how the game world develops and I hope you guys will too.. (warning, quite a few screenshots here).

First of all, the Dutch clubs have done rather well for themselves in Europe. They haven't won a trophy (yet), but have gained quite a few coefficient points.

After a remarkably good 2026-2027, they are even getting closer to 5th place Germany. In 2026-2027, PSV got to the semi-final of the CL, Feyenoord and AFC got to the second knockout round of the EL and AZ got to the quarterfinals of the EL. As you can see, only England and Spain did better.

The CL and EL winners are clubs you would expect, I guess, but there are some interesting tidbits here. For one, Atletico has won the CL four times in 10 years, and Manchester United zero times, while they made it to the final 3 times... They did win a EL trophy though, Chelsea won that thing three times in the last 5 years..

These are Europe's biggest clubs now, with Atletico being seen as the biggest club of them all. PSV are only a few spots behind this screenshot, as they are now also a 4* reputation club. AFC on 3* quite a bit further behind.

Since I've not loaded other leagues I have not taken a look at the champions of other European nations, but if you want me to I could.

As far as Dutch club football is concerned, I've taken a look at the Club reputations and the changes the clubs have underwent. 

AFC is now on 3*, and has definitely made its standing amongst the Eredivisie clubs. Ajax and Feyenoord have definitely lost some of their standing, even though they still are among the richest and biggest clubs of the country.

Actually, Ajax still have the biggest stadium, their stadium is now 65K seats. Feyenoord no longer has the second biggest though, since the PSV stadium got expanded twice (!) and can now hold 54K people. AZ (30K), VVV (12K), NEC (15K), RKC (11K), Go Ahead (11K), De Graafschap (15K), Excelsior (7K), FC Dordrecht (6.5K), Helmond (7K), Volendam (10K) and FC Eindhoven (7K) have also expanded, while Katwijk is building an expansion right now, they will go to 9K seats. We're currently at 5K, but the new stadium got approved.

Some other clubs have also built new stadiums: we now have the imaginatively named PEC Zwolle Stadium (19K), SC Cambuur Stadium (17K), Willem II Stadium (19K), Sparta Stadium (20K), and Twente has actually built a stadium with a club legend attached to it.

That's a funny name. Also huge.

There have been loads of club takeovers but no tycoon yet.

As far as transfers are concerned, Dutch football still is obviously mostly a selling market. There have been two players who have been sold for over 40M euros since the game started. One is a name many people will recognize, Kasper Dolberg. In 2023 he moved from Ajax to Dortmund for 44M. Regen Fabio Pacheco has moved from PSV to Manchester City in 2024 for 46M euros and is the biggest transfer yet for a Dutch club. PSV had bought him for 625K, not too bad of a profit!

Internationally there have been 11 (or 10 if you only want to count the ones actually done by the AI) transfers over 100M euros. Obviously more than happened in FM17, but still a bit lagging behind the kind of inflation we've seen IRL if you ask me. Anyway, Some names you will recognize, and that pretty much all these deals were by either PSG or Man City was to be expected. Quite a few regens among these transfers though, and remarkably Brazilian left back Arthur Fabiano has made two of these 100M+ transfers. 

This is him. Pretty good...

He has made the 140M transfer, the biggest behind Mbappe so far.

The biggest player right now in the game, since C. Ronaldo and Messi have retired (Both are staff - C. Ronaldo as manager and Messi as assman but both have not found a job yet), is definitely Kylian Mbappe.

These are the Ballon d'Or winners (Messi won in 2017). PSG dominating, Mbappe won four times.

Just the value of 96M euros then, earning a base salary of 40.5M p/a... Not too bad.

I've also taken a quick look at the international stage, and while Dutch club football has done much better in-game than IRL, internationally things are quite a bit bleaker.

While the Dutch NT did qualify for Russia 2018 unlike IRL, they ended up as third in a (tough) group with Mexico 1st, France 2nd and Colombia 4th. The World Cup was won by Brazil after penalties after a crazy 3-3 match against Argentina.

At Euro 2020 the Dutch did much better, ending first in a group with Portugal, Poland and Slovenia. They also won the second round 3-1 against Sweden, but lost the quarter-final against England. England would make it to the final but lost to Italy 3-0.

World Cup 2022 was a sad affair for the Dutch because they simply did not make it to the tournament. They ended up as third in their qualifying group with France (again!) as first and Romania as second. England actually did manage to win this world cup, after beating Brazil 4-3 a.e.t. 

Euro 2024 did include the Dutch, although it was a miserable tournament for them. They ended 4th in a group with the Czechs, Sweden and France (AGAIN). The final was won by Portugal, they beat Belgium 1-0.

World Cup 2026 included the Dutch again, but once again the group was the for them since they ended third after Uruguay and Spain, but in front of Australia. That world cup was won by Germany, after penalties against Italy.

The rankings graph of the Dutch NT. Their worst was around 50th, their best around 9th. 

Hopefully with some more development from me and other clubs the Dutch NT might be something at some point. I don't think I will be taking over the team any time soon though, hopefully the AI can manage things.

[ajcardall]

Enjoyed the round up of the footballing world at large, good stuff.

 

Congrats on the cup win 

[MarcxD]

1 hour ago, ajcardall said:

Enjoyed the round up of the footballing world at large, good stuff.

 

Congrats on the cup win 

Thank you, appreciate it!

[MarcxD]

Oh dear... 

Sam Vos has one year remaining on his deal. Won't sign a new contract. AZ comes in with an offer of 11M (possibly rising to 14M, 40% future profits, non-negotiable)... I have accepted it for now but it hasn't been confirmed yet. I don't think he'll relent and sign a new contract later, and this seems like a good offer. But I don't have any strikers ready that are nearly as good as Vos, nor are there any good Amsterdam-born strikers available on the transfer market... 

Kind of stuck now since I'm really doubting what to do. It's not like I need the money. But on the other hand... anyway I'll stop rambling, typing this means I've put off the decision a little bit longer...

[The_Gato_In_Goal]

I'd take that. In a challenged focused more on youth, it's tough to lose some players since some aren't replaceable, but 11M is much better than losing him on a free.

[MarcxD]

15 hours ago, The_Gato_In_Goal said:

I'd take that. In a challenged focused more on youth, it's tough to lose some players since some aren't replaceable, but 11M is much better than losing him on a free.

You're totally right of course, more of a feeling of disappointment on my part since I really wanted to see how he would develop fully at the club. 

Instead of using one of the ready-made striker prospects at the club to replace Vos I'm thinking I might take a chance and retrain the Andorran Torres as striker, his heading attribute is very weak but otherwise his attributes are quite good for the position and role. 

[Sheriff7]

6th place in coefficients is amazing mate,congrats...

[MarcxD]

Pre-Season 2027

Huge budgets now, but I won't be using them! 

Still only predicted to finish 14th... at least this means I'll be secure whatever happened.

Good pre-season, another defeat in the Super Cup though....

I had been mistaken, it was only 9.5M for Vos, still possibly rising to 14M. I did take it. I bought back Roshanali after Achilles who had bought him last year were relegated from the Jupiler League.

... another harsh draw in Europe. 

[MarcxD]

1 minute ago, Sheriff7 said:

6th place in coefficients is amazing mate,congrats...

It was the AI that did that, not me! But thanks regardless

[MarcxD]

August 2027

A strong opening to the season, another loss against PSV but otherwise decent results - we played very well but it's clear the young strikers are not Vos quite yet. 

Torres has broken this great record though!

Good start in the league... 

[MarcxD]

?!?!?!

[MarcxD]

September 2027

What. A. Month! Two amazing EL victories... I couldn't and still can't believe what happened against Napoli... A strong cup win and two good away draws in difficult games elsewhere! Really happy with our performances so far, look at all those goals! 

Only got two points this month and played less game than the rest so of course we dropped a bit in the table.

Torres got another record!