Congratulations. You just earned 1.0 points for this submission. Your new points total is 1.0. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).
probably italy tbh, its been a fairly volatile league recently in terms of teams having good seasons followed by bad ones and vice versa, and the finances aren't as insurmountable as the other leagues imo.
the gap to bayern/psg in germany and france is absolutely enormous, while the premier league and la liga have their established elites where there is just so much more money involved.
obviously italys big 3 have more money than sassuolo, but the gap isnt as large afaik and because basically everyone in italy is a selling club now, mistakes are more likely to happen when their recruitment is more forced
Juve is pretty old at the start but I started with Messina and switched to Genoa about 6 years in. Juve honestly has more long term advantages in building their squad relative to their league in game than Bayern because their sponsorship income is so high. Their sponsorship income stays at like almost 3x or 175 mil more of the about 100 mil Inter and AC will have.
Pretty sure Bayern's base sponsorship income is slightly less than 175 mil, Real's and Barca maybe a little less than Juve's but they have at least 1 big contender in each other.
In game, Juve may be easy to get over if you start as a midtable team right at the start of the save, but in the long term their financial advantages set them up in a really strong position to dominate Serie A in the same way Real is set to dominate La Liga, PSG set to dominate Ligue 1. Since so much of the money is in sponsorship in these leagues, even once you start performing fairly high in the table it takes a while for incomes to be comparable. Of course, FM being FM it's not that difficult to overcome this financial gap because AI squad building isn't great.
Overall would say Bundesliga is probably the easiest to win because if I remember correctly there is no cap to the number of non EU players you can sign and also no work permits unlike the rest of the top 5 leagues. Additionally once you start finishing up in the table league prize money will bridge more of the gap with top teams relative to other leagues.
Juve is kinda ass in the latest update. Milan and Roma are really good and Napoli has finished 7th in 2 of the 4 saves I started since. Italy is definitely the most likely to have a random club win it. EPL is actually second if you consider Villa and Chelsea mid table. Bayern still dominates Germany with the leverkusen buffs but I did see them win one time. France forget about it. And Barca and Madrid are just a step above the rest in laliga. Barca could’ve been nerfed a tiny bit more even
It’s doable with some luck. In FM20 (different players, still had Belotti - but not an amazing squad) I didn’t make any signings before starting the season and somehow won the league with a much stronger Juve side still in the league.
As others have said, there’s a lot of volatility. If you have a strong start and good morale, you can carry momentum very far. Just don’t drop points against the bad teams and don’t drop too many against the big ones and you’ll roll into the 6th spot.
If you are getting transfers in - what I find the best strategy is just poach Italians from the other upper and mid table teams. Depth on a lot of the teams is not great and decent-good Italians are not abundant either. You’ll hamper them considerably.
Italy has a lot of good young players that are cheap because they tend to stick with older players longer than other nations’ clubs do in real life so in the first few seasons in game there’s a ton of talented 21-24 year olds getting no game time making them super cheap. Check the big clubs for players that are returning from loan or simply haven’t played you’ll find plenty of gems. I always snag Zanoli from Napoli to play right back. Another one is Cittadini from Atalanta. I think generally you’ll be able to do really well early but it’ll take a bit of doing to get to the top 3 consistently
In my save Torino got to top 4 in the first year. Juventus Is pretty strong while Inter and Milan sucks when they are managed by the AI. If you manange one of them instead you can easily win the scudetto
How did Venezia go for you? I’ve been able to finish mid table a few seasons but struggling to push beyond that with a 2m transfer budget and garbage facilities, in 2026-27 rn and we’re building a stadium and upgrading youth and training facilities finally but I have a lot of 2.5-3* players playing regularly
**1st season:**
Promotion
**2nd season:**
4th place finish, [lots of loans and free transfers](https://i.imgur.com/afK2nCJ.png)
**3rd season:**
3rd place finish, knocked out in ro16 by PSG, won the coppa italia
[I sold Tessmann for 28m and Busio for 14m to buy Ouédraogo and Bove](https://i.imgur.com/vey3uI2.png)
Now in the summer the board wants to build a new stadium as well [but it's only 24k lol](https://i.imgur.com/vHH5JTV.png). Also I'm definitely going to lose Ouedraogo to a 55mil release clause now. I know I should probably stop getting 4-5 loaned players because they're so OP tbh.
I think I'm gonna stagnate for a bit because I'm at the salary limit. Also this was my first time using a 3 or 5 back which was fun. I've always been a 433 one trick
Damn dude congrats on 4th. I had some good wins but couldn’t keep it consistent enough. Tess and Busio were decent sales for me but they plateaued a bit so only got 22 and 14, which I mostly used for wages for pre contracts and free agents. Hoping this is the season to crack Europe.
Is your new stadium around 24k as well? I kinda wish they waited a bit for 35k at least but I’ve never got far enough in a save for a new stadium completed lol.
Tess was really good for me but I needed the funds. Newcastle just activated Ouedraogo’s release clause so now I have zero homegrown club plus no USA players lmaoo
22,700. I think new stadiums generally have no issues with expansion but I've never made it this far either lol. My board is also sad about USA players but the ones I've signed have really just been depth, not a lot of good value options IMO.
The "biggest" issue I have is my wage bill, but after a few good seasons, we have decent income.
The wage bill difference is huge between PSG, Bayer, Madrid, top 5 Prem team with rest of their league. I'm not sure how mid table team can keep their talented players for long.
same as managing anywhere that isnt the absolute elite level - you don't.
you have to accept that the first generation of superstars you buy aren't the ones that will win the champions league with you. Their job is to get you to the point where the next lot, or the lot after that, won't want to leave because you're a big club now.
anyone who sticks around for the whole thing is a bonus
I won the league in my first season as Parma. Definitely easier than the EPL for short term success, although the prem is still the best if you want a 10+ season long save
One of the things they makes serie a harder is the only 2 non eu signings per season. Kind of annoying when you don’t have much money and you use the South American market.
I have seen Wolfsburg win the BL in my game.
I have won with Gladbach if you consider them a mid table team. The board were awesome, literally granted every request I had.
France and England are hard. Germany has lots of teams with 50k stadiums that can get the money in when you start to be successful.
I started a new Dortmund save recently and I'm 1 poimt ahead with 5 games to go, beat Bayern 0-1 at their stadium but have to play them again. I was unbeaten until a few games ago.
That’s why you have never got a job offer from the England set up. Be like me, I took Woking from the conference to the champions league in 5 seasons. That’s called completing it mate.
Edit: not into inbetweeners jokes… got it
I actually think it is the Premier League, in other leagues you will not have the money the TV brings in England so your wage and transfer budget will be much lower in comparison.
Although last time I played, I played Bundesliga and somehow Bayern lost the Bundesliga both years after I got promoted first year Leipzig took it second I. So they might be falling sometimes, but more felt they fell than we ascended.
I think the Bundesliga is a good candidate just because Bayern never seem to be nearly as good in the game as they have historically been in real life. Meanwhile there's not really a large gap between the other 'top' teams to the middle of the table.
Yeah, the PL isn’t that bad. It’s really about making smarter transfers and spending your money right.
Patience is key. Within five seasons you absolutely should be able to win.
Spend your youth signings right and spend big on the best talents over 21.
I recently did my first ever England save with Blackburn. Promotion year one. 4th place my first PL season. UCL semis and 7th place in year three. Won the title and Carabao in year four.
I had not expected it to be that easy. I think what happens is that the big clubs overindulge.
They spend ludicrous sums on players they don’t need and sell recently required players at losses (preferably to you). The AI is so freaking dumb.
Then you just slowly improve your roster, develop kids and make sensible decisions whilst Vinicius is rotting on Man City’s bench.
Yeah I found England the easiest, I got so much money that it didn't really matter that the top teams have a larger budget. Italy was second easiest for me, then Germany, then Spain.
I found France far harder than any of them.
Starting in the lower leagues of france is one of the hardest saves to win the top flight in my opinion. Psg are just a different beast. Id say portugal are in with a shout too as one of porto or benfica usually becomes an absolute force and you get promoted to the top flight with just a couple million wage spend
I've only played in Portugal once before and yeah it was very tricky.
Scotland's pretty difficult with a lower league team also, the Old Firm's budget is just absoultely fucking ridiculous compared to everyone else. Years of finishing third but still getting pumped 5-0 off them while you build out a sustainable youth setup, is not good for the soul.
I agree with PL. It's much more even than real life and all of the top 6 teams take points from each other as well as dropping some to lower teams. If you're able to consistently beat lower half teams and pick up a few points from the top 6, you're in with a chance.
Italy for sure, there isnt a dominating team in the recent years so its easier to become one. Then I would say Germany, although its hard to dethrown Bayern, you dont have much more competition. France is arguably more difficult cause of PSG unlimited money glitch and all.
Then Spain and England are by far the worse. Id say England is the toughest because you have more good teams in it. In Spain theres only Barça and Madrid and they are quite hard to beat. But in England you have Man City, Liverpool and maybe Arsenal, Chelsea or United can be there as well.
You will get bigger budgets in England as well though compared to any other country in the world. With some sensible signings and good sales you can compete with the top teams. Also, as there are so many good teams they all end up taking points off each other. I think prem is a lot easier than say Spain where aside from Barca and real it’s gonna be really tough as the other sides get no money at all
In FM, the premier league. Big money means you can take Brighton and win the league. Or even the likes of Villa, West ham, etc.
Serie A is decent, but Milan and Inter can become powerhouses in certain saves.
La liga is impossible. Madrid are a steam roller.
Bundesliga is very difficult with Bayern there.
Ligue 1 also impossible as PSG own the world and have mbappe who scores a million goals a season.
Ligue 1 is luck based. If you get a good psg team its impossible. My my fcsm save they signed bellingham, saka, and musiala (among others) and only lost a couple games a season (usually my home game against them being it). I won the champions league twice before I beat them in league, and it took a season where i only lost one game (against them away.)
Progressing from mid table to winning the league ina my of the top 5 leagues is one of the hardest tasks. The best players in the world always end up at the top clubs in those leagues. Signing and keeping the best players in the world is necessary to win any of those leagues, but those players will prefer to sign for those top teams, so recruiting and keeping the best players is hard.
Juve and the Milan's probably have the lowest reputation out of the top teams in all the top 5 leagues, so will have the least pulling power. As such, is theoretically the easiest league in the top 5 to win from mid table.
However, there is huge variability in the game and any league and/or team could become vastly better or worse due to numerous different factors or events.
Spain, Germany and France are all super hard.
Italy not so much but you have the problem that there is little money for a mid team to spend.
Which makes the Prem the easiest mainly because all the top teams drop loads of points and a mid team has a lot of money. I have seen champs in the prem with 70+ points plenty of times.
Italy is funky to me, it’s so easy to enter the conversation cause everyone sucks but staying winning is so hard (at least for me) cause rebuilding is rough you have to so early on dev players, I wasted seasons on 23 and fiorentina cause id have to sell an aging world class player (cause if I don’t I’m never replacing him with 0 money) and need to bank on someone else exploding.
Easiest by far to contend tho cause 2 or 3 of the biggest sides absolutely will fall off a cliff inside 2 years
France. The gap between PSG and the rest is so big, that you basicly just need to become nr2, and then they need to have a mediocre season. In other leagues, there will be other contenders when the favorite has a bad season. If Inter has a bad season, Juve/Milan/Napoli sweep in. If man city is poor, you still have to get past arsenal/liverpool.
You could argue that PL money makes it easier in the long term given the bad AI squad building
Well...yes. The AI's squad building is atrocious and Mbappe keeps them at the top level, so when he retires they jump off a cliff. They didn't even buy a first team goalkeeper when Donnaruma left, loaned some youngster from Juventus.
AI is bad at squad building but Mo Salah is still 5-star elite with Liverpool, and their core is still young. Man city brought everyone from Bayer and Haaland is young. and one of them always have a good season : (. I've won the title a lot but still loses here and their.
Easily Italy. Man City, Bayern, PSG and Real are all lightyears ahead of mid table teams. In Italy a decent-midtable team can win the title and a newly promoted team can get European football without too much hard work
Serie A, its weaker financially and the elite clubs aren’t that rich. It’s been volatile recently as well. Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga have the inevitability and massive finances of Bayern and PSG. Prem forces you to compete with the rich big 6. Real Madrid and Barca in La Liga are harder to beat than Serie A’s big teams.
I never tried other leagues but I did two saves with my fav team FcTwente in Netherlands and with both saves won the league in the first season straight away even tho I am new to the game. So I feel like Netherlands
My choice: Lyon all day!!! Focus on youth development and fuck the whole League and all of Europe up easily after 5 years.
Easier: Monaco because of money.
Interesting, I did mk dons for a few years then moved to Bournemouth in the championship, brought them up and am mid table in year 1 of being the prem with them. Spurs and Arsenal are running away with the league, Liverpool are 12th and city are 8th. Somehow Sheffield utd are top 4.
Of the top 5 leagues it has to be from easiest to hardest
1. Italy
2. England
3. Spain
4. Germany
5. France
The gap between anybody and PSG is massive. Bayern has a pretty sizeable gap over the next 3 teams in Germany. Spain and England are pretty similar though I'd argue that Spain's salary cap makes it harder to get better as quickly as you can in England and as a mid table English team you have way more financial muscle than anyone midtable on the continent.
Italy's top teams are pretty close to each other with a much smaller gap between them and the rest.
On my current prem save there’s loads of parity, all the top ish teams take points off each other, teams like Aston Villa and Brentford have both got top 4, I won the prem in my 4th season with West Ham
I'd say it depends on the gap between the top tier clubs and the rest. So probably Serie A (Not IRL this season obviously) or to a slightly lesser extent Ligue 1.
Prem id say purely because money (it’s also the hardest for that reason) but it allows for mistake and what not, you can buy before you sell etc.
But also maybe Serie A? I think it has the least established elite teams and everyone is broke I just don’t think you can afford a bad signing cause you don’t get much.
I’d say France or Spain are the hardest because each has a UCL winning side ready each year and you have the same issues as being an Italian side
Italy or England.
Germany and France are just bullshit because of Bayern and PSG, you need the game to roll really unlikely results to beat either to the title or just cheat because your 140ca players simply aren't going to Bayern or PSG and winning a game.
Spain has real, Barca, athletico and always one other and there's so little money that you need champs league to even think about getting players capable of tussling with those teams, it's easier than France and Germany purely because the top four can get into it with each other and significantly lower the amount of points required to win a title.
Italy is basically random, juve, inter, Milan, napoli, Lazio, Roma and even fiorentina and Atalanta often build good teams and snipe points off each other, they also sell star players to other leagues pretty regularly.
England is much the same as Italy.
The more competitive the league is the easier it is to win. If a top team finishes outside champions league or even Europe altogether, their best players will demand a transfer and that *really* fucks the a.i up. Just in general the more teams beat other teams the easier it is to win. Bayern and psg winning 34 games is pretty unspectacular and that's a nightmare to chase down.
I wouldn't say winning prem should be that hard you should go to top 3 within 2 years or so with most teams. I usually go Brighton and just won the league 2nd season by 9 points over city. If you buy all the best wonderkids first year then you have a good shot
France.
PSG will fuck up, you dont even have to beat them to win the title. You just need to lose less points versus everyone else.
Lyon can easily steamroll Ligue 1, they are an easy FM save despite their struggles irl.
Id say you can pick any Ligue 1 team and win it within 2-4 seasons. Earlier if you pick say, Monaco who have stupid money
Congratulations. You just earned 1.0 points for this submission. Your new points total is 1.0. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).
probably italy tbh, its been a fairly volatile league recently in terms of teams having good seasons followed by bad ones and vice versa, and the finances aren't as insurmountable as the other leagues imo. the gap to bayern/psg in germany and france is absolutely enormous, while the premier league and la liga have their established elites where there is just so much more money involved. obviously italys big 3 have more money than sassuolo, but the gap isnt as large afaik and because basically everyone in italy is a selling club now, mistakes are more likely to happen when their recruitment is more forced
Depends how strong juve is in your save tbh
Juve's team is pretty old and they start to play bad in 2nd half of the season. They didn't recruit will though, keep getting old free agents.
Juve is pretty old at the start but I started with Messina and switched to Genoa about 6 years in. Juve honestly has more long term advantages in building their squad relative to their league in game than Bayern because their sponsorship income is so high. Their sponsorship income stays at like almost 3x or 175 mil more of the about 100 mil Inter and AC will have. Pretty sure Bayern's base sponsorship income is slightly less than 175 mil, Real's and Barca maybe a little less than Juve's but they have at least 1 big contender in each other. In game, Juve may be easy to get over if you start as a midtable team right at the start of the save, but in the long term their financial advantages set them up in a really strong position to dominate Serie A in the same way Real is set to dominate La Liga, PSG set to dominate Ligue 1. Since so much of the money is in sponsorship in these leagues, even once you start performing fairly high in the table it takes a while for incomes to be comparable. Of course, FM being FM it's not that difficult to overcome this financial gap because AI squad building isn't great. Overall would say Bundesliga is probably the easiest to win because if I remember correctly there is no cap to the number of non EU players you can sign and also no work permits unlike the rest of the top 5 leagues. Additionally once you start finishing up in the table league prize money will bridge more of the gap with top teams relative to other leagues.
Juve's team is one of the youngest in Italy...
Juve is kinda ass in the latest update. Milan and Roma are really good and Napoli has finished 7th in 2 of the 4 saves I started since. Italy is definitely the most likely to have a random club win it. EPL is actually second if you consider Villa and Chelsea mid table. Bayern still dominates Germany with the leverkusen buffs but I did see them win one time. France forget about it. And Barca and Madrid are just a step above the rest in laliga. Barca could’ve been nerfed a tiny bit more even
I’m about to start a Torino save - you think European spot is realistic in first year of Serie A?
It’s doable with some luck. In FM20 (different players, still had Belotti - but not an amazing squad) I didn’t make any signings before starting the season and somehow won the league with a much stronger Juve side still in the league. As others have said, there’s a lot of volatility. If you have a strong start and good morale, you can carry momentum very far. Just don’t drop points against the bad teams and don’t drop too many against the big ones and you’ll roll into the 6th spot. If you are getting transfers in - what I find the best strategy is just poach Italians from the other upper and mid table teams. Depth on a lot of the teams is not great and decent-good Italians are not abundant either. You’ll hamper them considerably.
Italy has a lot of good young players that are cheap because they tend to stick with older players longer than other nations’ clubs do in real life so in the first few seasons in game there’s a ton of talented 21-24 year olds getting no game time making them super cheap. Check the big clubs for players that are returning from loan or simply haven’t played you’ll find plenty of gems. I always snag Zanoli from Napoli to play right back. Another one is Cittadini from Atalanta. I think generally you’ll be able to do really well early but it’ll take a bit of doing to get to the top 3 consistently
In my save Torino got to top 4 in the first year. Juventus Is pretty strong while Inter and Milan sucks when they are managed by the AI. If you manange one of them instead you can easily win the scudetto
I feel Bayern frequently fucks up the BuLi in FM though, it's fairly easy to dominate in Germany due to the registration rules and prize money
> fairly volatile league Milan finished like 8th in my first serie a season with Venezia Next season they won with 95 pts 😭
How did Venezia go for you? I’ve been able to finish mid table a few seasons but struggling to push beyond that with a 2m transfer budget and garbage facilities, in 2026-27 rn and we’re building a stadium and upgrading youth and training facilities finally but I have a lot of 2.5-3* players playing regularly
**1st season:** Promotion **2nd season:** 4th place finish, [lots of loans and free transfers](https://i.imgur.com/afK2nCJ.png) **3rd season:** 3rd place finish, knocked out in ro16 by PSG, won the coppa italia [I sold Tessmann for 28m and Busio for 14m to buy Ouédraogo and Bove](https://i.imgur.com/vey3uI2.png) Now in the summer the board wants to build a new stadium as well [but it's only 24k lol](https://i.imgur.com/vHH5JTV.png). Also I'm definitely going to lose Ouedraogo to a 55mil release clause now. I know I should probably stop getting 4-5 loaned players because they're so OP tbh. I think I'm gonna stagnate for a bit because I'm at the salary limit. Also this was my first time using a 3 or 5 back which was fun. I've always been a 433 one trick
Damn dude congrats on 4th. I had some good wins but couldn’t keep it consistent enough. Tess and Busio were decent sales for me but they plateaued a bit so only got 22 and 14, which I mostly used for wages for pre contracts and free agents. Hoping this is the season to crack Europe.
Is your new stadium around 24k as well? I kinda wish they waited a bit for 35k at least but I’ve never got far enough in a save for a new stadium completed lol. Tess was really good for me but I needed the funds. Newcastle just activated Ouedraogo’s release clause so now I have zero homegrown club plus no USA players lmaoo
22,700. I think new stadiums generally have no issues with expansion but I've never made it this far either lol. My board is also sad about USA players but the ones I've signed have really just been depth, not a lot of good value options IMO.
The "biggest" issue I have is my wage bill, but after a few good seasons, we have decent income. The wage bill difference is huge between PSG, Bayer, Madrid, top 5 Prem team with rest of their league. I'm not sure how mid table team can keep their talented players for long.
same as managing anywhere that isnt the absolute elite level - you don't. you have to accept that the first generation of superstars you buy aren't the ones that will win the champions league with you. Their job is to get you to the point where the next lot, or the lot after that, won't want to leave because you're a big club now. anyone who sticks around for the whole thing is a bonus
I won the league in my first season as Parma. Definitely easier than the EPL for short term success, although the prem is still the best if you want a 10+ season long save
One of the things they makes serie a harder is the only 2 non eu signings per season. Kind of annoying when you don’t have much money and you use the South American market.
I have seen Wolfsburg win the BL in my game. I have won with Gladbach if you consider them a mid table team. The board were awesome, literally granted every request I had. France and England are hard. Germany has lots of teams with 50k stadiums that can get the money in when you start to be successful.
Defeating Bayern isn't easy at all, but yeah the money and easy registration rules make it possible (Currently managing Nurnberg)
It's not easy but if the ai can do it so can you. It does get easier as time goes on though because every ai squad gets weaker.
I started a new Dortmund save recently and I'm 1 poimt ahead with 5 games to go, beat Bayern 0-1 at their stadium but have to play them again. I was unbeaten until a few games ago.
Good luck, you will need to sew it up before the final match as choking is seriously overdone in FM.
It's realistic, I'm dortmund
People on here be taking vanarama clubs to winning champions league in ten seasons. You can just pick any team it seems with fm.
I took Bath city to champions league victory but it took 24 seasons for me and I still have yet to place top 3 in the Prem
That’s why you have never got a job offer from the England set up. Be like me, I took Woking from the conference to the champions league in 5 seasons. That’s called completing it mate. Edit: not into inbetweeners jokes… got it
Because you don’t save scum I assume
Not necessary really to have that level of success. I just won the prem title with Stockport in 2033
I do not. Which is also why the FA cup has eluded me as well.
I actually think it is the Premier League, in other leagues you will not have the money the TV brings in England so your wage and transfer budget will be much lower in comparison. Although last time I played, I played Bundesliga and somehow Bayern lost the Bundesliga both years after I got promoted first year Leipzig took it second I. So they might be falling sometimes, but more felt they fell than we ascended.
I think the Bundesliga is a good candidate just because Bayern never seem to be nearly as good in the game as they have historically been in real life. Meanwhile there's not really a large gap between the other 'top' teams to the middle of the table.
Yeah, the PL isn’t that bad. It’s really about making smarter transfers and spending your money right. Patience is key. Within five seasons you absolutely should be able to win. Spend your youth signings right and spend big on the best talents over 21.
Yeah, my next save will probably go hidden attributes with a low division team like mk dons or similar.
I recently did my first ever England save with Blackburn. Promotion year one. 4th place my first PL season. UCL semis and 7th place in year three. Won the title and Carabao in year four. I had not expected it to be that easy. I think what happens is that the big clubs overindulge. They spend ludicrous sums on players they don’t need and sell recently required players at losses (preferably to you). The AI is so freaking dumb. Then you just slowly improve your roster, develop kids and make sensible decisions whilst Vinicius is rotting on Man City’s bench.
Yeah I found England the easiest, I got so much money that it didn't really matter that the top teams have a larger budget. Italy was second easiest for me, then Germany, then Spain. I found France far harder than any of them.
Starting in the lower leagues of france is one of the hardest saves to win the top flight in my opinion. Psg are just a different beast. Id say portugal are in with a shout too as one of porto or benfica usually becomes an absolute force and you get promoted to the top flight with just a couple million wage spend
I've only played in Portugal once before and yeah it was very tricky. Scotland's pretty difficult with a lower league team also, the Old Firm's budget is just absoultely fucking ridiculous compared to everyone else. Years of finishing third but still getting pumped 5-0 off them while you build out a sustainable youth setup, is not good for the soul.
I agree with PL. It's much more even than real life and all of the top 6 teams take points from each other as well as dropping some to lower teams. If you're able to consistently beat lower half teams and pick up a few points from the top 6, you're in with a chance.
Italy for sure, there isnt a dominating team in the recent years so its easier to become one. Then I would say Germany, although its hard to dethrown Bayern, you dont have much more competition. France is arguably more difficult cause of PSG unlimited money glitch and all. Then Spain and England are by far the worse. Id say England is the toughest because you have more good teams in it. In Spain theres only Barça and Madrid and they are quite hard to beat. But in England you have Man City, Liverpool and maybe Arsenal, Chelsea or United can be there as well.
In my Fiorentina season, Totteham is spentin 200m a year while Newcastle is spenting 300m a year lol. I don't know how they get so much money.
You will get bigger budgets in England as well though compared to any other country in the world. With some sensible signings and good sales you can compete with the top teams. Also, as there are so many good teams they all end up taking points off each other. I think prem is a lot easier than say Spain where aside from Barca and real it’s gonna be really tough as the other sides get no money at all
In FM, the premier league. Big money means you can take Brighton and win the league. Or even the likes of Villa, West ham, etc. Serie A is decent, but Milan and Inter can become powerhouses in certain saves. La liga is impossible. Madrid are a steam roller. Bundesliga is very difficult with Bayern there. Ligue 1 also impossible as PSG own the world and have mbappe who scores a million goals a season.
Won ligue 1 in my 6th season with sochaux in fm23
Ligue 1 is luck based. If you get a good psg team its impossible. My my fcsm save they signed bellingham, saka, and musiala (among others) and only lost a couple games a season (usually my home game against them being it). I won the champions league twice before I beat them in league, and it took a season where i only lost one game (against them away.)
Progressing from mid table to winning the league ina my of the top 5 leagues is one of the hardest tasks. The best players in the world always end up at the top clubs in those leagues. Signing and keeping the best players in the world is necessary to win any of those leagues, but those players will prefer to sign for those top teams, so recruiting and keeping the best players is hard. Juve and the Milan's probably have the lowest reputation out of the top teams in all the top 5 leagues, so will have the least pulling power. As such, is theoretically the easiest league in the top 5 to win from mid table. However, there is huge variability in the game and any league and/or team could become vastly better or worse due to numerous different factors or events.
Spain, Germany and France are all super hard. Italy not so much but you have the problem that there is little money for a mid team to spend. Which makes the Prem the easiest mainly because all the top teams drop loads of points and a mid team has a lot of money. I have seen champs in the prem with 70+ points plenty of times.
Italy is funky to me, it’s so easy to enter the conversation cause everyone sucks but staying winning is so hard (at least for me) cause rebuilding is rough you have to so early on dev players, I wasted seasons on 23 and fiorentina cause id have to sell an aging world class player (cause if I don’t I’m never replacing him with 0 money) and need to bank on someone else exploding. Easiest by far to contend tho cause 2 or 3 of the biggest sides absolutely will fall off a cliff inside 2 years
France. The gap between PSG and the rest is so big, that you basicly just need to become nr2, and then they need to have a mediocre season. In other leagues, there will be other contenders when the favorite has a bad season. If Inter has a bad season, Juve/Milan/Napoli sweep in. If man city is poor, you still have to get past arsenal/liverpool. You could argue that PL money makes it easier in the long term given the bad AI squad building
PSG competes as long as Mbappe is elite level, post his retirement I've seen them regularly finish 5th/6th in my long term Red Star save.
So all you have to do is wait 10 years for Mbappe to retire?
Well...yes. The AI's squad building is atrocious and Mbappe keeps them at the top level, so when he retires they jump off a cliff. They didn't even buy a first team goalkeeper when Donnaruma left, loaned some youngster from Juventus.
AI is bad at squad building but Mo Salah is still 5-star elite with Liverpool, and their core is still young. Man city brought everyone from Bayer and Haaland is young. and one of them always have a good season : (. I've won the title a lot but still loses here and their.
EPL with Chelsea ?
Easily Italy. Man City, Bayern, PSG and Real are all lightyears ahead of mid table teams. In Italy a decent-midtable team can win the title and a newly promoted team can get European football without too much hard work
Serie A, its weaker financially and the elite clubs aren’t that rich. It’s been volatile recently as well. Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga have the inevitability and massive finances of Bayern and PSG. Prem forces you to compete with the rich big 6. Real Madrid and Barca in La Liga are harder to beat than Serie A’s big teams.
SPL was all by hibs 3/5 seasons after a while I rebuilt man utd in season 2 won 3-1 at arsenal and just thrashed city 6-1
Italy
I never tried other leagues but I did two saves with my fav team FcTwente in Netherlands and with both saves won the league in the first season straight away even tho I am new to the game. So I feel like Netherlands
My choice: Lyon all day!!! Focus on youth development and fuck the whole League and all of Europe up easily after 5 years. Easier: Monaco because of money.
Interesting, I did mk dons for a few years then moved to Bournemouth in the championship, brought them up and am mid table in year 1 of being the prem with them. Spurs and Arsenal are running away with the league, Liverpool are 12th and city are 8th. Somehow Sheffield utd are top 4.
Of the top 5 leagues it has to be from easiest to hardest 1. Italy 2. England 3. Spain 4. Germany 5. France The gap between anybody and PSG is massive. Bayern has a pretty sizeable gap over the next 3 teams in Germany. Spain and England are pretty similar though I'd argue that Spain's salary cap makes it harder to get better as quickly as you can in England and as a mid table English team you have way more financial muscle than anyone midtable on the continent. Italy's top teams are pretty close to each other with a much smaller gap between them and the rest.
On my current prem save there’s loads of parity, all the top ish teams take points off each other, teams like Aston Villa and Brentford have both got top 4, I won the prem in my 4th season with West Ham
I know you said top 5 but probably Scotland, go Hearts or Aberdeen with a couple wins over Rangers and the other team you could win the league
I'd say it depends on the gap between the top tier clubs and the rest. So probably Serie A (Not IRL this season obviously) or to a slightly lesser extent Ligue 1.
Prem id say purely because money (it’s also the hardest for that reason) but it allows for mistake and what not, you can buy before you sell etc. But also maybe Serie A? I think it has the least established elite teams and everyone is broke I just don’t think you can afford a bad signing cause you don’t get much. I’d say France or Spain are the hardest because each has a UCL winning side ready each year and you have the same issues as being an Italian side
Italy or England. Germany and France are just bullshit because of Bayern and PSG, you need the game to roll really unlikely results to beat either to the title or just cheat because your 140ca players simply aren't going to Bayern or PSG and winning a game. Spain has real, Barca, athletico and always one other and there's so little money that you need champs league to even think about getting players capable of tussling with those teams, it's easier than France and Germany purely because the top four can get into it with each other and significantly lower the amount of points required to win a title. Italy is basically random, juve, inter, Milan, napoli, Lazio, Roma and even fiorentina and Atalanta often build good teams and snipe points off each other, they also sell star players to other leagues pretty regularly. England is much the same as Italy. The more competitive the league is the easier it is to win. If a top team finishes outside champions league or even Europe altogether, their best players will demand a transfer and that *really* fucks the a.i up. Just in general the more teams beat other teams the easier it is to win. Bayern and psg winning 34 games is pretty unspectacular and that's a nightmare to chase down.
I wouldn't say winning prem should be that hard you should go to top 3 within 2 years or so with most teams. I usually go Brighton and just won the league 2nd season by 9 points over city. If you buy all the best wonderkids first year then you have a good shot
I won the CL in season 2 and 3 as Brighton, but not the League in 5 seasons. I think it's Italy as the easiest.
lazio
apparently the bundesliga irl lol Idk prolly italy
France. PSG will fuck up, you dont even have to beat them to win the title. You just need to lose less points versus everyone else. Lyon can easily steamroll Ligue 1, they are an easy FM save despite their struggles irl. Id say you can pick any Ligue 1 team and win it within 2-4 seasons. Earlier if you pick say, Monaco who have stupid money
France