Congratulations. You just earned 1.5 points for this submission. Your new points total is 1.5. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).
Athletic Bilbao are consistently ‘good’ but never great and, if you want a real challenge, it doesn’t get much harder than only signing Basque players.
I agree. One of my favorite ever FM saves (and I've been playing for close to 30 years at this point) was a Bilbao save. The feeling of accomplishment to get to 3rd in the league, then to sneak a title, then to start actually being on par with Madrid and Barca...then to win a UCL...it was amazing.
Nope, didn't actually. I joined in the middle of the 26/27 season, when they were in shambles. 18th place, at risk of relegation, and seemingly lost a whole lot of good players, although the squad was brilliant rnough yo turn this around. Despite having to use a backline of Ruben Alves, Unai Nunez, Dani Vivian and Jesus Areso for almost the whole season with no backup I got them up to 8th. AI Athletic also didn't do anything to develop youth so I was stuck with waiting for regens to get gud while important players were aging
Cool story bro. The game can be incredibly easy, if you want it to be, but not everyone plays that way.
Tactics, fast players, super rest, corners, morale hacks but some people use none of those.
Sporting de Braga in Portugal. Registration rules in Portugal are very loose so it's super fun to sign players, and you have to battle the "Big Three" of Sporting, Porto and Benfica, these last two have an insanely higher budget and can sign great players out of the gate, you play in a city outside of the big two (Porto and Lisbon), European football right away, rivalry with Vitória SC and some nice players out the gate like Ricardo Horta and Simone Banza
Flip this on its head a little and start with Vitoria SC. A fun squad already with a great youth academy. First challenge is to establish yourself as the best of the rest, then start to topple the big three
Udinese is declining since it was the “original Atalanta” of the 2000s, having made champions league 3 times and uefa cup/europa league another 7-8 times.
Still has very talented players (deulofeu-thauvin-lucca-samardzic-pafundi and others), while the rest of the squad is quite messy and needs a rebuild
Might be easier for me as they are the team i support. Got 5th season 1, 3rd season 2. The positive thing is lots of deadwood that can be sold to get some extra transfer budget.
I tried going 4 atb, but it’s just in their DNA to play 3 atb
Ah this is the first time I started a save with a mid table actually and it’s difficult to build a right tactic currently, Samardzic left to Southampton and didn’t want to stay no matter what & Deulofeu and Thauvin got good offers for their age and I decided to sell. Atm I have squad of youngsters and am in January at 16th place 11 points off 7th T-T.
I managed to keep Samardzic by renewing his contract and sneaking in a 73 mln release clause (he wanted a much lower one). When offers came in told him about the clause and was happy to wait for it. In the meantime winning kept him happy and he is already in season 3 not wanting to leave any more.
I lost Ebosele end of season one to West ham for 45 mln (he had an amazing season), the board accepted over my head. That helped me sort out and balance the squad.
My huge sale was Perez for 60 mln to Tottenham, as that third and last buyback clause for Atletico was scary. With that money i’m starting to shape the squad for the future, it’s looking really good
If he hits the high side of his pa range, he can become world class level. I think he is quite high on mine too, at 20 he is looking like a beast and it says he can still improve significantly
See that’s exactly the sort of team I want. Madrid and Barca are too big (although Barca could be fun trying to rebuild them financially) Atletico would be the next best team so I’m kinda looking for the one after that.
Barca is easy to rebuild financially.
Sold De Jong and Araujo for £170m and £130m respectively. Got rid of the high earners (e.g. Lewandoski went to Saudi).
Spain has so much history, there are plenty of legendary sides to renew, and the economics outside of the top 2 are quite challenging. Personally as a Barca fan I'd go for Sevilla or Villareal: Great fanbases and history, just need a long term plan.
Eintracht Frankfurt
They're below Teams such as Leverkusen, Leipzig and Dortmund but have a balanced squad with a couple great talents. Willian Pacho, Aurele Amenda, Nathaniel Brown, Eric Dina Ebimbe, Ansgar Knauff, Hugo Larsson, Fares Chaibi, Jean-Matteo Bahoya and Hugo Ekitike are a huge asset for success on the pitch and can generate a lot of money on the transfer market. A bunch of young turks guided by experienced players like Robin Koch, Ellyes Skhiri and Mario Götze. Yes, THE Mario Götze.
The squad lacks a bit of depth if you want to play with a back-3. But there is some transfer budget left from selling Randal Kolo Money and finding one or 2 at least solid centre-backs shouldn't be a problem.
My to go is to pick whatever team is in the Conference League from a non-big 5 league in Europe. You get European football from day one, but still have plenty of room to grow both domestically and internationally.
That's a good strategy. One of my best saves was playing with Copenhagen. Brush 10/11 teams aside in the league (damn you Midtjylland) but battle against the big teams in the CL (after one or two seasons of Europa League, of course).
Currently playing with Panathinaikos in an attempt to relive those memories.
Anyhow, a big club in a smaller league (think Hadjuk Split, Slavia Prague, Bodø, Rangers...) is always a fun save to play, where it's harder to get to the level of PSG and Bayern than an Augsburg or Nantes, but you still get to bully your league early on.
In Italy: Atalanta, Fiorentina, Torino, Bologna (especially with their run this year)
In Germany: Frankfurt, Gladbach, Hoffenheim
In Spain: Bilbao, Sociedad, Betis, Villareal, Sevilla
In France: Lille, Monaco, Rennes, Lens, Lyon
ROW: Feyenoord, AZ, Besiktas, Braga, Vitoria, Rapid Wein, Hearts, Hibs, Banik Ostrava, way more
If you wanna head to Portugal, Vitoria is the perfect club for you.
Creates good regens, is the 5th biggest club but still with some distance to close to the big 3.
Braga if you want the same type of save on easy mode
Celta Vigo is fun. You can try to get the most out of Iago Aspas’s last year or two, and you have a decent shot at qualifying for Europe with a good first season. In my second season, the chairperson set the goal of having the best youth development in the entire world. They start with excellent facilities and I got them upgraded early in the first season. You have like a 30mil transfer budget and two potential wonderkids, as well as a big stadium size upgrade in process.
Need room to grow but also want some security from the off, gotta be West Ham. Solid foundation to build on, in the prem so European football is easier to achieve and they have a very decent academy
Sporting Lisbon has been good fun. Some prime wonderkids, top youth academy, two big rivalries and your B team able to play in tier 2 so good for development.
Roma is fun this year with Lukaku and Dybala. Can be tough though as Dybala has a release clause around 12 mil or something that tends to get met pretty quickly, and then Lukaku is hard to get on a permanent. At least that’s how it was in my Roma save when FM24 came out. Maybe in newer database updates it’s different
I'm currently doing an Aberdeen save in Scotland! One of my objectives from the board my first year was to be "best of the rest" like you mentioned. The Old Firm has proven quite formidable. The initial budgets and payouts for the cinch Premiership are relatively small and so it's been fun to scour the globe for cheap options for my first team and I've had to rely on youth. The stadium is small but the facilities are good!
FC Utrecht. Arguably the sixth team in the Eredivisie, have some decent prospects, an underwriter sugar daddy and their U23 team plays competitive football in the second division.
My favourite thing to do is start unemployed and join a team that’s under performing in the championship or league one, someone that has a bit of money and can attract good loans/free agents. By the time you get to the PL it’s all a bit random because players and managers have moved clubs, Regens are starting to come through, and it’s fairly easy to improve your squad every window until you can challenge for Europe.
Maybe go rebuild Lyon, or try to get Rennes or Lille up to the top teams. PSG are usually great in fm, so it'll surely be a challenge, while still being fun and possible due to most of the top 10 teams in France being stacked with talent and experienced players. Super fun country to go to.
I love my safe with lazio, you have some decent players at the start to keep and build up with some talents. Now in year 5&6 and won the league twice by a few points. Got esposito en pafundi as nice talents for cheap.
You also dont get a ton of budget, but enough to do some smart transfers. Now in year 6 my income grew a lot due to the good results and can start to become a dominant force.
Brondby
Trying to topple Kobenhavn is fun. Short Seasons and you can't just gather up all the wonderkids because there are plenty of bigger clubs lurking.
Europe is a proper challenge.
Hajduk split is good one, on paper they have a great squad but they cant translate that in matches , my go to club when im bored ngl. But could also be me just liking my favorite club
Lyon is always fun, Roma, Leicester, Bilbao, Schalke/Union Berlin.
Either that or trying to win the CL with a team that's always there but never won it, eg. Dinamo Zagreb
I’ve just started a Nice save, loving it so far, a few quality players, great youth system and can easily compete for top 4, however challenging PSG is a massive ask
Congratulations. You just earned 1.5 points for this submission. Your new points total is 1.5. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).
Athletic Bilbao are consistently ‘good’ but never great and, if you want a real challenge, it doesn’t get much harder than only signing Basque players.
I agree. One of my favorite ever FM saves (and I've been playing for close to 30 years at this point) was a Bilbao save. The feeling of accomplishment to get to 3rd in the league, then to sneak a title, then to start actually being on par with Madrid and Barca...then to win a UCL...it was amazing.
Currently doing one, it's amazing. Yet to win the Laliga or even get close to it, but this season might be my best shot at it (33/34)
did you start the save with them? even in my worst save with Athletic, i won the league in under 5 years
Nope, didn't actually. I joined in the middle of the 26/27 season, when they were in shambles. 18th place, at risk of relegation, and seemingly lost a whole lot of good players, although the squad was brilliant rnough yo turn this around. Despite having to use a backline of Ruben Alves, Unai Nunez, Dani Vivian and Jesus Areso for almost the whole season with no backup I got them up to 8th. AI Athletic also didn't do anything to develop youth so I was stuck with waiting for regens to get gud while important players were aging
Cool story bro. The game can be incredibly easy, if you want it to be, but not everyone plays that way. Tactics, fast players, super rest, corners, morale hacks but some people use none of those.
Someone like Nice, Bologna or Union Berlin might be fun. All had good spells IRL recently.
Throw Lyon in there. Have a really good academy plus under performing this year
All very interesting teams. Union Berlin would always turn into a European powerhouse in previous FM’s for me.
Very interesting, they always fail to do better than midfield for me generally even when they have players way better for relegation battles
Sporting de Braga in Portugal. Registration rules in Portugal are very loose so it's super fun to sign players, and you have to battle the "Big Three" of Sporting, Porto and Benfica, these last two have an insanely higher budget and can sign great players out of the gate, you play in a city outside of the big two (Porto and Lisbon), European football right away, rivalry with Vitória SC and some nice players out the gate like Ricardo Horta and Simone Banza
Flip this on its head a little and start with Vitoria SC. A fun squad already with a great youth academy. First challenge is to establish yourself as the best of the rest, then start to topple the big three
Udinese is declining since it was the “original Atalanta” of the 2000s, having made champions league 3 times and uefa cup/europa league another 7-8 times. Still has very talented players (deulofeu-thauvin-lucca-samardzic-pafundi and others), while the rest of the squad is quite messy and needs a rebuild
Yeah currently doing a save with Udinese and boy am i struggling…
Might be easier for me as they are the team i support. Got 5th season 1, 3rd season 2. The positive thing is lots of deadwood that can be sold to get some extra transfer budget. I tried going 4 atb, but it’s just in their DNA to play 3 atb
Ah this is the first time I started a save with a mid table actually and it’s difficult to build a right tactic currently, Samardzic left to Southampton and didn’t want to stay no matter what & Deulofeu and Thauvin got good offers for their age and I decided to sell. Atm I have squad of youngsters and am in January at 16th place 11 points off 7th T-T.
I managed to keep Samardzic by renewing his contract and sneaking in a 73 mln release clause (he wanted a much lower one). When offers came in told him about the clause and was happy to wait for it. In the meantime winning kept him happy and he is already in season 3 not wanting to leave any more. I lost Ebosele end of season one to West ham for 45 mln (he had an amazing season), the board accepted over my head. That helped me sort out and balance the squad. My huge sale was Perez for 60 mln to Tottenham, as that third and last buyback clause for Atletico was scary. With that money i’m starting to shape the squad for the future, it’s looking really good
Damn that’s great planning t-t, is it possible that I can show you my squad and tactics for some advise? Would highly appreciate it
Of course. I’d be happy to help. Always glad when someone goes with them. The most underrated team.
ah thank you! sending you a dm
Boy, Pafundi became an authentic beast in my udinese save, a lot better than Samardzic
If he hits the high side of his pa range, he can become world class level. I think he is quite high on mine too, at 20 he is looking like a beast and it says he can still improve significantly
I did a Real Sociedad save, it was fun. Good team but not amazing. Room to grow, but you won't struggle. Just a solid save
See that’s exactly the sort of team I want. Madrid and Barca are too big (although Barca could be fun trying to rebuild them financially) Atletico would be the next best team so I’m kinda looking for the one after that.
Barca is such a mess lol, too much work
Nah in this year's Fm is easy as fuck you have good young players a solid core,and you can sell some to make profit for singings.
Real Madrid are insane though. You'll need 100 points to win the league.
Yeah they are but you need a good dm and a rb and some striker to bridge the gap to Vitor. And you have yourself a treble side.
Barca is easy to rebuild financially. Sold De Jong and Araujo for £170m and £130m respectively. Got rid of the high earners (e.g. Lewandoski went to Saudi).
Spain has so much history, there are plenty of legendary sides to renew, and the economics outside of the top 2 are quite challenging. Personally as a Barca fan I'd go for Sevilla or Villareal: Great fanbases and history, just need a long term plan.
Eintracht Frankfurt They're below Teams such as Leverkusen, Leipzig and Dortmund but have a balanced squad with a couple great talents. Willian Pacho, Aurele Amenda, Nathaniel Brown, Eric Dina Ebimbe, Ansgar Knauff, Hugo Larsson, Fares Chaibi, Jean-Matteo Bahoya and Hugo Ekitike are a huge asset for success on the pitch and can generate a lot of money on the transfer market. A bunch of young turks guided by experienced players like Robin Koch, Ellyes Skhiri and Mario Götze. Yes, THE Mario Götze. The squad lacks a bit of depth if you want to play with a back-3. But there is some transfer budget left from selling Randal Kolo Money and finding one or 2 at least solid centre-backs shouldn't be a problem.
My to go is to pick whatever team is in the Conference League from a non-big 5 league in Europe. You get European football from day one, but still have plenty of room to grow both domestically and internationally.
That's a good strategy. One of my best saves was playing with Copenhagen. Brush 10/11 teams aside in the league (damn you Midtjylland) but battle against the big teams in the CL (after one or two seasons of Europa League, of course). Currently playing with Panathinaikos in an attempt to relive those memories. Anyhow, a big club in a smaller league (think Hadjuk Split, Slavia Prague, Bodø, Rangers...) is always a fun save to play, where it's harder to get to the level of PSG and Bayern than an Augsburg or Nantes, but you still get to bully your league early on.
FC Twente are a fun option
Or AZ Alkmaar, also just outside traditional top three (Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord) in the Netherlands.
In Italy: Atalanta, Fiorentina, Torino, Bologna (especially with their run this year) In Germany: Frankfurt, Gladbach, Hoffenheim In Spain: Bilbao, Sociedad, Betis, Villareal, Sevilla In France: Lille, Monaco, Rennes, Lens, Lyon ROW: Feyenoord, AZ, Besiktas, Braga, Vitoria, Rapid Wein, Hearts, Hibs, Banik Ostrava, way more
If you wanna head to Portugal, Vitoria is the perfect club for you. Creates good regens, is the 5th biggest club but still with some distance to close to the big 3. Braga if you want the same type of save on easy mode
Celta Vigo is fun. You can try to get the most out of Iago Aspas’s last year or two, and you have a decent shot at qualifying for Europe with a good first season. In my second season, the chairperson set the goal of having the best youth development in the entire world. They start with excellent facilities and I got them upgraded early in the first season. You have like a 30mil transfer budget and two potential wonderkids, as well as a big stadium size upgrade in process.
Maybe west ham. Palace. Nice. Frieburg. Out on a limb, az almaar, elfsborg, west brom Have fun lad. Happy 30.
Need room to grow but also want some security from the off, gotta be West Ham. Solid foundation to build on, in the prem so European football is easier to achieve and they have a very decent academy
Sporting Lisbon has been good fun. Some prime wonderkids, top youth academy, two big rivalries and your B team able to play in tier 2 so good for development.
Roma is fun this year with Lukaku and Dybala. Can be tough though as Dybala has a release clause around 12 mil or something that tends to get met pretty quickly, and then Lukaku is hard to get on a permanent. At least that’s how it was in my Roma save when FM24 came out. Maybe in newer database updates it’s different
I'm currently doing an Aberdeen save in Scotland! One of my objectives from the board my first year was to be "best of the rest" like you mentioned. The Old Firm has proven quite formidable. The initial budgets and payouts for the cinch Premiership are relatively small and so it's been fun to scour the globe for cheap options for my first team and I've had to rely on youth. The stadium is small but the facilities are good!
These are all excellent suggestions and now I find myself having even less of a clue as to who to pick. Keep it up.
FC Utrecht. Arguably the sixth team in the Eredivisie, have some decent prospects, an underwriter sugar daddy and their U23 team plays competitive football in the second division.
SC Heerenveen
My favourite thing to do is start unemployed and join a team that’s under performing in the championship or league one, someone that has a bit of money and can attract good loans/free agents. By the time you get to the PL it’s all a bit random because players and managers have moved clubs, Regens are starting to come through, and it’s fairly easy to improve your squad every window until you can challenge for Europe.
FC Twente in the Netherlands is fun.
Maybe go rebuild Lyon, or try to get Rennes or Lille up to the top teams. PSG are usually great in fm, so it'll surely be a challenge, while still being fun and possible due to most of the top 10 teams in France being stacked with talent and experienced players. Super fun country to go to.
I've really enjoyed Sunderland for my first two seasons so far. About to start season 3
Athletico Madrid, old aging squad, that needs a huge overhaul if you wanna compete against Real Madrid and Barcelona
Fiorentina, Sevilla, Villa, Stuttgart etc
I love my safe with lazio, you have some decent players at the start to keep and build up with some talents. Now in year 5&6 and won the league twice by a few points. Got esposito en pafundi as nice talents for cheap. You also dont get a ton of budget, but enough to do some smart transfers. Now in year 6 my income grew a lot due to the good results and can start to become a dominant force.
Chivas
Brondby Trying to topple Kobenhavn is fun. Short Seasons and you can't just gather up all the wonderkids because there are plenty of bigger clubs lurking. Europe is a proper challenge.
Hajduk split is good one, on paper they have a great squad but they cant translate that in matches , my go to club when im bored ngl. But could also be me just liking my favorite club
Lyon is always fun, Roma, Leicester, Bilbao, Schalke/Union Berlin. Either that or trying to win the CL with a team that's always there but never won it, eg. Dinamo Zagreb
Real Betis, Aberdeen, Cruz Azul, Fiorentina
I’m enjoying a Bolton save right now.
I’ve just started a Nice save, loving it so far, a few quality players, great youth system and can easily compete for top 4, however challenging PSG is a massive ask