FM26 – In the Year 2325

Having looked a bit at the data base before posting, I will say that in a couple of countries, were are starting to see a “New Normal” Develop, in that while some teams have fallen, in many case other teams have stepped up and replaced them, and even in competitions such as the Champions League, there is rarely a surprise. I am not sure if this is “Something under the hood” that hasn’t changed, but I am still quit interested to see what this Universe of FM looks like down the road.
As always, we check Crystal Palace first:

They’ve been in the EFL Championship for awhile now, and were promoted to the Prem at the end of the 2297/98 season, but came right back down the next season…one of these days….

The English Premier League

The “Big Six” as we know it no longer exists by 2325, but this screenshot is also a look into how fast a team can rise, or fall. Crewe, Colchester, Bolton and Lincoln are not unexpected really, there’s always teams from the lower leagues that rise up and have success (Wrexham as an earlier example), but how long they can maintain iot has always been an issue. In previous versions of this sort of save, the English Prem has always had a lot of teams moving up and down the pyramid, but it’s rare for any of those teams to “stick” at the top for an extended amount of time. Could this version be different?

From the 2225/2226 to 2239/2240 season, in all but one year Tottenham won the League. Wrexham came back to win it in 2242/43, and the Bolton had a very good run, winning in five of the next seven years. But the “New Team on the Block” to make a splash was Crewe, who first won the league in the 45/46 season, then from 51/52 to 59/60 won every year save 52/53, when Bolton pipped them. Tottenham, Preston, Chelsea and Wolves all won again, but starting in 2270/71, Arsenal won 8 of then next 9 seasons. Bournemouth won three in a row starting in 2284, then Crewe again won 7 out of 10 seasons, with Presont and Bournemouth breaking their streak. Preston then went on a mini run, winning 7 of 8 seasons, the Chelsea and Wolves spent the next decade trading the spot at the top, the Bournemouth and Chelsea were fighting each other, and then to close this last 100 years out, Chelsea and Wolves.

But 20 years ago Preston was the class of the Prem, and now they are not exactly struggling in 10th place, but it’s still a bit off from where they used to be. Unless I missed something (not improbable) there has yet to be a team from this years (2025) Prem fall all the way to the National League. Leicester fell down to the National in the 2150’s, that’s the biggest drop I have seen thus far.

Ligue 1, France

Some things take a little while longer to change, if and when the do:

What I will say from past experience is that while Ligue 1 does have a decent amount of churn when it comes to teams moving up and down, it’s also not uncommon for PSG to stay is the top spot for a long time. The big takeaway for me on this is that France has really fallen off Internationally/Continentally in competitions, and holy heck:

22nd, behind Moldova?

Ligue winner wise, Marseille won nearly every year from 2225 to 2240, the exception being 2228/29 when Rennes beat them. From 2240 to 2266 It was Marseill or Lyon winning, with the occasional Rennes win, then in 2266/67 Lens, which the past decade had been on the outside looking in won the Ligue. And until the 2289/90 season the top 2 spots were either them or Marseilles. PSG came roaring back to the top in 2292 after a decade of trying, traded with Lens for a few years, then starting in 2298/99 won the next 12 seasons until knocked off by Monaco, who had a decent 5 year run until PSG retook the top spot.

The Bundesliga, Germany

This is another League where the top teams have changed somewhat, but until recently(ish), one team still dominated.

From 2230 to 2250 Bayern took the crown. Then from 2251 to 2257, Hertha and Bayern fought back and forth, until Hertha went on its own run from 2257 to 2265. Then it was Bayern until 2283, a streak marred by two BVB wins. Koln and BVB fought the nbext decade or so, the it was BVB and Bayern, with a 2303 Hannover win. Since then, with the exception of a lone Bayern and RB Leipzig win, BVB and Hannover have been trading off. If you want a variety of result, the Pokal is where it’s at, as teams like Kaiserslautern, Schalke and Armenia Bielfeld have all won recently. In past version of this type of save, Bayern has fallen off. I don’t think that’s going to happen here though.

Serie A, Italy

Another Ligue where change is gradual at the top, but there is a decent amount of movement at the bottom. I *think* I know why, I’ll have to do some investigating in previous versions of the save before coming to a conclusion though, which I will do at the end of this post.
Palermo started to fall of in 2232 after winning the league three times in a row and finishing Top 3 back to 2225. The Inter went on a run that saw them winning it all until 2249, excpet for the one year they fell of and Palermo reclaimed the top spot, 2241/42. Bologna, which was a top 6 team, finally won it all in the 2249/2250 season, then it was Inter, Juve and AC Milan all trading off Inter won the League in 2261/62, and kept winning until 2283/84, when Juve knocked them off and went on their own 5 year streak. Then it was Inter, Milan, Juve, and finally Lecce, which had been crawling up the League, made a huge leap. Having Finished 3rd in 2275, they remained in the top half until they put it all together, and won back to back Scudetto’s in 03 and 04 seasons. Then it was back to the Inter/Juve/Milan rotation, with Lecce interrupting another Inter decade run. Roma, after decades of top half finishes, and more than a few seasons where they finished 3rd, then 2nd, finally won a Scudetto in 2321, then Inter and Lecce finished this century out.

LaLiga, Spain

I think La Liga is a good example of what to expect from Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga, I am just not sure when (if) those leagues might see a similar change.

What you have is essentially a very established League, with established teams at the top. The Prem to an extent also follows this model, where you have 3 teams usually dominating the top spot, the next 7-10 teams are League regulars, and the remaining teams are fighting relegation, falling out eventually, and maybe making their way back in.
How do the top teams fall? They lose their rich tycoon, or if not tycoon owned start making bad business decisions, usually related to bad player moves, and while that’s happening, other teams are doing the opposite, spending money and making good player moves. In some leagues, IE Not the Bundesliga, money is a big factor, as several small bad decisions, or a few big ones, can mean a slow spiral into mediocrity, or a fast spiral into relegation. While the Bundesliga does have money, they team ownership structure makes it harder for bad decisions to have an immediate impact on them as teams in other leagues. Not that it doesn’t happen, it’s just not as common.

La Liga is a great example of this at the moment. Barcelona has continued to make good decisions for the most part, and speniond money wisely. Any bad decisions it has made have been few and far between. Athletico on the other hand, has made a series of smaller, bad decisions related to players that saw them go into administration more than once, the last time being 2138, then every once and awhile a tycoon comes in, spends a lot of money for a couple of years, fails to get the return they expected, and cuts funding. Girona on the other hand, started this save midtable, spent wisely, climbed the league until it won it all for the first time in 2050, and since then they’ve won La Liga over 100 times, the Champions League 26 times, and while they have spent big, they have also sold big. Other squads, such as Real Betis and Mallorca, are doing the same thing.
Do I expect Real or Barca to fall off? No, but then I wouldn’t be surprised if they do.

In La Liga, from 2225 to the current year, there weren’t any very long runs of 1st place finishes. Giron won the league 11 out of 12 years for a stretch starting in 2250, but more often than not, it’s been Barca winning it a few times, Real winning it a few times, with to occasional Villareal win. Levante has become a perennial top 5 team, I suspect we will see them win the La Liga in the short term as well.

The Liga, Portugal

Liga Portugal has fallen off a bit as well, down to 18th place, which is why only the top 3 teams are getting any sort of European Football. But they are also a great illustration of what I outlined above with Spain, some teams have kept making good decisions (Sporting) while others have fallen off as a result of them making bad decisions (Porto, Boavista, Benfica) while other teams have made better decisions and climbed the table (Gil Vicente, Braga, Alverca).
From 2225 to 2237, with one exception (the 33/34 season), Gil Vicente won the League. The from 2237 to 2260, with three exception when Benfica won, the last being in 2265, Porto won the league. Since then the highest Benfica has finished has been 3rd, in 2295 . But starting in 2266, more teams started finding their way to the top. Yes, Ports was still winning, but Alverca’s first win took place in 2270, Belenenses won a few times, then in 2282, Alverca started a run that saw them finish 1st or 2nd until 2298, and when they weren’t 1st or 2nd, Braga was. Since 2300, it’s been Alverca or Braga winning the League, with the Sporting breaking into the top spot twice, and Gil Vicente once.

BRAZIL & JAPAN

Teams have moved up, teams have fallen off. In Brazil, Fluminese, San Paolo, and Botafogo have given way to Palmerias, Avai and Guarani. In Japan, there has been a variety of teams winning the top spot, Hiroshima, Niigata, Yokohama until the 2100’s, when Shonan and Niigata were winning quite a bit, then you had some one off winners like Sendai and Fujieda. Then in 2187 Matsumoto Yamaga won, Omiya won a few times in the early 2200’s, Ryuku had a 5 year run, then starting in the 2254 season Matsumoto Yamaga started to dominate. Until the 2293 they won the league all but 4 times, then starting in 2297 it was either Matsumoto or Okayama winning the League, with the occasional Kagoshima win.
Japan looks like a fun place to play…I may have to do a save there once the game gets settled down, so probably FM27…

CONTINENTAL COMPETITIONS

EUROPE

The Conference League

The Competition where you see the most diversity in winners, and 2nd place teams if we’re being honest. I am not going to list them all, but will point out a few of the highlights:
Dundee beating Levadeiakos in Dublin, 2314.
Başakşehir F.K beating Man U in Istanbul, 2296.
FC Botoşani beating Universitatea Craiova in 2293
Universitatea Craiova beating Linfield in 2265
Breiðablik winning again in 2245 and 2248
Dinamo Minsk Back to Back wins in 2240 and 41

The Europa League

Here, at least as far as I am concerned, it’s not about the “Usual Big Six” teams winning, it, but teams from countries you don’t have loaded winning it.
ML from Belarus winning in 2245, Zalgiris from Lithuania winning it in 2265, Winterthur beating Korona in 2289, KR from Iceland in 2292, Liepaja from Latvia beating Koln in 2305. There haven’t been any teams who have won it in back to back years, but several teams (SJK, Crewe, Malmo) have won one year, goen to the Champions League and lost out, then won the Europa league again in the 3rd year…

European Football Championship

No new surprises here, Wales beating Spain in 2280, Slovakia beating Norway in 2256 and Finland beating Germany in 2252 are the only outliers of the Big Six I have loaded not winning

The Champions League

This is around the time when teams from nations you don’t have loaded start making more appearances. Maybe not regular, but more than expected.
KAA Gent beat Girona in 2261, then the next year Molde beat Galatasaray.
Sparta Praha beat Inter in 2267, the KAA Gent won again the next season, beating Villareal.
In 2271, KAA Gent beat Bayern, then the next year Sparha Praha beat Real Madrid, then Sparta won again, beating Inter. In 2296 Sparta won again, beating Barca. Then they won a fifth time in 2317, again beating Inter. They’ve also finished 2nd 3 times as well. Last but noit least, in 2321 Galatasaray beat Chelsea.
On a tangent, Sparta Praha is currently the 16th ranked team in the world, they have won the League 160 times, and while their finances are pretty opaque, they have the ability to buy this Striker from Alverca for €210M, and then sell him 5 years later for €166M:

Sparta Praha is definitely a case of the game doing things “Under the Hood” to help them, as these are their facilities:

And this is the 20 year old, greyed out Striker:

I’ve never had that sort of luck in any of my saves. Their Youth intakes have to be massively goo year after year…and looking out their greyed out players…they are. Although I will say Agg 3, Det 3 and Fit 3 seems to be the default for all of them…

The World Cup

Nothing again out of the ordinary, until 2262, when Uruguay beat Japan; then again in 2266 when Croatia beat Japan. Japan then beat Argentina in 2294, and Tunisia in 2306, but the biggest surprise so far is Israel beating France in 2318.

The Ballon d’Or Winner

There hasn’t been a standout players this last 100 years, in that only a couple have won the Ballon three times. Le, a Brazilian striker for BVB won it in 2281, 2283 and again in 2289; Roman Fabry won it 3 years in a row starting in 2254, Eduardo Pena won it 3 times in 4 years, but that is not who I am going to highlight.
In 2325, Hull was a Top 6 team in the Prem, re-entering the League in 2216, fighting relegation the next few seasons (17th, 16th, 17th) before starting a climb that saw them fight midtable for 15 years, before finishing 2nd in 2231. In 2232 they fell down to 6th, back to 2nd in 2333, then a series of 5th and 4th Place finishes until 2239, when they finished 10th. Two more 3rd Place finishes followed, then it was a midtable fight until 2255, when they were relegated to the Championship. They came up again a few years later, and were lower table until from 11th, to 4th, to finishing 2nd in 2272, then dropped off, quite fast, getting relegated again in 2278. They came back in the 2290’s, again as high as 6th, were relegated in 2394, had a brief stay in the Prem at the turn of the century, and since then, any promotion has seen them relegated the following year, the last being 2319.
In 2235/36, they made it to the Quarterfinals of the Champions League, beating Tottenham and Real Madrid on the way, before losing to Girona; lost to West Brom in the 5th Round of the FA Cup, and lost to Tottenham in the Semi Final of the Carabao.

Sohei Sata was a Japanese International who played Striker for Hull. After helping FC Machida get promoted to the J1 League, Hull paid €2.8M for him in 2221. In the 2230 season he had 30 goals, 6 assists, and a 7.42 rating, which saw him finish 2nd in the Ballon voting. In 2236, in an injury filled season that only saw him play 29 games for Hull, he had 24 goals, 4 assists, and 3 POM’s in the Prem, and 6 goals, 2 assists, and a PoM in Continental competition. Having looked at other players who were up for the award, Beaurain had more goals and a higher Average playing for Inter, the same is true for Matumona playing for Marseilles.

This is Saito in 2235, right before his award winning season:

And I for one, think it’s vbery cool that his peers thought highly enough of him to give him the best player in football award, despite his not playing on the best team or winning anything else of note.

And that is the third 100 years down!

If you have a specific question about a specific year, you can hit me up on twitter @fm_jellico
In the meantime, feel free to poke around at you leisure:

In the year 3145…

Luton Town won the Prem. Swindon, who have won 10 out of the last 12 years, has fallen to 10th, while Dani Salavert was fired after just 288 days in the job. The former Man United coach may regret leaving…

In the Bundesliga, TSG Hoffenheim continues it’s dominance. Since winning the league in 2982, Die Kraichgauer have won 127 times. There are several teams nipping at it’s heel though,

In Italy, Juventus is again top of the league, for the 15th consecutive year. This also makes the 13th year the scored 100+ points in winning the league. Indeed it has been the batle for 2nd and 3rd place that has been more exciting to watch recently.

In Ligue 1, it appears that PSG has indeed broken the QRM dominance of the 32nd century. Having won the Ligue from 3099 to 3137, has consecutive 3rd place finishes meant the beginning of the end for Les rouges et jaunes?

In La Liga, Barcelona won 35 games, drew 1 and lost 2, for 106 points. They came in 2nd, to a Real Madrid team that went Invincible, with just 2 draws and no losses in the 38 game season. To be honest, the big surprise is when Real doesn’t win La Liga, having won it 810 times since 2024. The still hold the record for most matches without losing, 249 (from 2263 to 2370), but Levante still holds the record for most wins in a row with 63.

In the J1 League, Veroskronos Tsuno is trying to defend it’s title, but long time rivals Shimizu and Urawa are currently ahead of them.

In Argentina, Arsenal (Sarandi) and River maintain their 110 year rivalry of winning the league.

World Cup fever is again gripping the world, as just over a year remains until it begins again. Will Italy be able to defend it’s title? Can Belarus step up to win again? Ireland again has a solid squad, as does Japan.

People are still talking about Knattspyrnufélag Akureyrar’s Champions League win in 3044. The Icelandic Semi-Pro’s team improbable run, including a penalty kick win against TSG Hoffenheim in the Quarters, are what legends are made of. That they lost to eventual winners Hoffenheim in this years Champions League, on penalty kicks even, was heartbreaking, and not just to the people of Iceland.

Manuel Esposito won his 2nd World Golden Ball, but Jonathan Webb was a close 2nd in voting. However, it seems that Gorka Prieto’s record of winning the award 9 times is not in Jeapordy.

And those are just the highlights. There’s plenty of lowlights as well, but the database is 1125 years in size, that’s to be expected.

Start a new game, load a few countries, top division playable, the rest view only, and go on vacation. Until the game crashes. When it does crash, load the last save and keep going.

Why?

Well, why not?

I’m not sure when 1000 year saves first started showing up on Youtube, I know Jack and Kev both did them, but those were 1 country saves, and the game always favors the countries you have loaded. A few years ago, I wanted to do something different, so I Fired up the laptop, added seven countries (The Big 6 and Brazil), simmed out 1000 years and put the results on Reddit. It was pretty popular, enough that Johnny did a video for it for FM Scout.

I kept doing it, for my own fun I guess, and the next time I did, Johnny reached out to Zealand, and we all participated in a video for it. Granted, we only got 847 years in, but there were some surprising results, and it was fun to do.

But, one of the takeaways from that video was that I did not have the ability to go back and look at some outstanding results and players. Mickey Higgenson fans will know what I am talking about.

So this year, I resolved to do things a bit differently. I loaded up the seven countries this time, and saved the game every year. Then every once and awhile, I’d go in and pull out all the 5 years saves, and move them to a different folder, and delete the saves in between. At one point in time, I planned on doing a video, but life and other reasons intervened, and the video never happened.

But it’s the doldrums of the FM cycle. FM25 was just announced, many players are a bit burned out on it, so why not give them the opportunity to poke around and possibly play in a time frame they find fun and interesting.

So, I give to you the following:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/ko491n2lg42gv/FM24_1000_Year_Save_on_Beta

To assuage any fears, the game is a small database, with at most ~60k players. Attribute masking is off.

The issue is going to be latter saves, as shown:

The file sizes increase because of data stored. And the game always crashes, at least for me, when it goes beyond 5GB in size. Larger saves will just take a few seconds to move, but nothing to egregious. However I say this as a gamer who started playing in the late 80’s, when a few minutes of waiting was fast…

So, poke around, have some fun, maybe see if you can score more points with Mansfield in the 2379/80 season than they did originally (which was 0 by the way), or go to 2500’s Italy and try to break Juve’s grip on winning.

Oh, and for those wondering:

Have fun poking around!

Jellico

The Kids Are Alright Season ∞

It’s the manager that has problems…

First of, I have to say I love the idea of this sort of save. It can be fun, and interesting, and a lot easier if you choose a country with really good youth recruitment and a bevy of decent teams to choose from. There are a couple of problems inherent in this sort of save though.

The game doesn’t know you are doing a Youth Only save, and the feedback and actions of the board and fans can be detrimental
If you aren’t playing in a big country, or a big team in a small country, the path to success is longer, and that where we are in Romania.

I last posted season 11. I have played up to season 22. And I can tell you right now what the next 30 years in the save are going to look like should we keep playing: More of the same.

There are a few problems we are dealing with, that with time and the application of a little application, can be overcome. But all of these problems are a series of interlocking, overlapping circles, some bigger than others, with less overlap, but they all have to be done at or near the same time for us to be going forward.

Case in Point:

We have more academy graduates playing than any other team in Europe. Are some of them Elite talents? Yes, Rocky Jivan (Class of ’34) had the potential to be one of the best M(C)’s in the game IMO. He went to PSG for €3.4M, never broke into the 1st Squad, had a season with PSG 2 where he had 3 goals and 16 assists, went on loan to Rapid Bucharesti, then left on a free to go to Ludogorets. Is he still a good M(C)? Yes, I would bet he’s in the 130 range as a player, but his potential was probably 150-160.

Nikolay Tuntev came thru as a 2 star PA Strike in the Class of ’35

Three years later, he left for PSG at €3.2M. Had 3 good seasons on the PSG 2 squad, had a season on the first team where he scored 8 goals in 7 appearances, but he’s their 4th option.

Radu Aldea (Class of ’35) went to Inter, so did Alin Munteneau and Dennis Mocanu (Class of ’35 as well), Andrei Voice (Class of ’36) went to Juve, Iulius Tarcea (Class of ’38) went to Milan, and that’s just internationally. I’ve had several player move within smaller clubs for decent money as well, although quite a few have ended up staying in Romania.

The reason for all these good young players moving are interlocked.

The minimum Fee clause is set by the agent, and they are very attainable for other clubs. I tried setting Jivan’s clause to €20M, and his agent countered with a locked offer for €3.2, which I had to accept or he could have left for a lot less. I could have taken it off and tried to get more money, but that’s a shake of the dice I am not willing to take.
We are one of the best clubs in Romania, Top 3 even, and while our reputation has grown, it’s still Regional. While we have been performing well in Continental Competitions, a Semi Final loss in the UECL, Europa League Knock out Round Losses, Europa League Group losses, and a couple of UECL Round of 16 losses, there have also been years we haven’t qualified.
The Country rating as a whole has improved, going from 65th to a high of 32nd before falling back recently to 40th, as the other clubs in Romania have not had the success that we have had.

This sets up a cycle that is particularly troublesome to deal with:

Good player comes thru Youth intake
Good player gets Senior Team starts Early, sometimes when 17 y/o, also gets International appearances on the Youth Squads
Good player develops, signs new contract with minimum release fee locked by agent.
Team plays in Europe really well, Player gets noticed
Team with Better Reputation makes offer to player, meeting release clause, Player leaves, often sits on 2nd team, and then leaves for another club.

To break this cycle, we need to

Grow our reputation, and countries reputation
By getting good, young players, and developing them
Holding onto them for more than 3-4 years to build up a quality squad that will get us the wins we need
While sending out other players to other teams in the country to get them inproved as well so the country rating can improve as well

Which we can’t do because teams with a better reputation currently get all of the good, Young Romanians.

Is it a cycle that can be broken? Yes, I believe so, but it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight, it’s a 30 year project, at least.

And I don’t have the interest in hitting the ‘Auto Resolve’ button for the next 30 seasons while playing the European games. That doesn’t hold any interest for me. I haven’t touched this save in almost a month, and when I loaded it back up again, I saw the familiar names, and just…eh. I knew this was going to be a challenge when I started it, I just wasn’t aware of how big a challenge it was going to be, and that’s my fault. It’s been fun, but near the end it was getting frustrating, and that’s just no way to play FM, so I am going to set this save aside.

I appreciate all of you who have followed along, and for the foreseeable future I will have some more content coming, mostly related to screenflow and scouting.

Thanks,

Jellico

Bonus content:

Teodor Drăgan, the best Romanian Player in the game. CFR Cluj, Class of ’30, to Porto for €5.25M in 2035, then PSG for €72M in 2038. First International Experience, Romanian U21 squad at age 17, where he won goal of the tournament. 2036/37 Champions League Young Player of the Season, FIFA Best U21 Men’s Player the same year. Blue is 13-16, Green is 17+, and I would bet most of those blues are 15 or 16