***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Suntan Superman]

Every now and then I attend games to watch players, or just for fun, it's always funny when the media reports fly out about it too. I just went to watch Denmark vs England in the 2028 UEFA Euros and apparently the media are at a loss as to why I was there.

Let's see here:
Second Nationality: Danish
Former Players in the Denmark Squad: 8
Current Players in the Denmark Squad: 2
Former Players in the England Squad: 2
Current Players in the England Squad: 5
New club record signings starting for England: 1

Definitely a total mystery as to why I showed up to the Camp Nou for that game.

Also, fun, Lukas Raeder, a player I signed when at Viborg in the 1. Division to take over as my starting GK is joining me as a player at Arsenal. He's not really good enough, but because I can only have 14 foreign players, I needed a cheap backup English goalkeeper that wouldn't mind starting sporadically, if ever. So welcome back Mr. Raeder!

[Suntan Superman]

My North American tour went well...

[jasontoddwhitt]

With the season wrapping up and with Rangers having ANOTHER manager...I'm feeling like finally shelving my Amiens save in FM17 and going full dive with Rangers in FM18.

Been working on a Klopp-like tactic, as Stevie G has said that he is looking to emulate Klopp's style while at Rangers.

[NoDakHusker]

So a few clubs have been after one of my best defenders and I have no intention of letting him go. After I rejected the latest offer from BMG, the player's agent demanded I offer him a new contract if I'm not going to sell to another club.



The agent was asking wayyy above what anyone at the club is currently making(he's already one of the best paid players as it is) and he shut me down on my highly reasonable counter-offer.

So I asked the player to sack his agent.



HAHAHAHAHAHA. 0 players on the books now, have fun with that.



u mad?

[Kobalt]

Would marry this heat map

[studbucket]

Last year's FIFA Champions League (Worldwide competition I downloaded to replace all continental competitions) was a disappointment, so I signed Fabian Castillo, Gedion Zelalem, Angelinho, Francisco Meza, Tyler Adams, and Chris Oikonomidis to help out. It has worked so far.

After defeating FH (Iceland) and Dinamo (Croatia) in the 3rd and 4th qualifying rounds of the FIFA Champions League, I drew into Group W and managed to escape with 2nd place, behind Arsenal:


My reward? Bayern Leverkusen. Ugh.

We don't play them for 3 months though, and I have some reinforcements coming:

• Kellyn Acosta - 23 year old swiss army knife from FC Dallas
• Farinha - 6'6" box-to-box CM/DM. Has 14 pace, 13 acceleration, 14 agility despite height and a bunch of decent technical attributes.
• Benjamin Rollheiser - 18 year old striker from River Plate who already has 14 finishing, 13 technique, 15 pace. Comes in and is already as good (or better) as my best striker (Jordan Morris).

Maybe I can sit back and get lucky on the counter, we'll see.

[gopher_guy]

Big changes on the horizon in my Journeyman save!

Finished my 6th full season at Platanias in Greece.





Finished 3rd... Again.... As you can see, I actually spent most of the 1st half of the season in the title hunt, but then Olympiacos did Oymipiacos things and brought in reinforcements. They basically didn't lose for the second half of the year.

My Europa League campaign was pretty good this year! Got out of the group and won our first knockout round against Zenit! This was the first time I've gotten out of the group stage, so I was thrilled to win our first knockout round.



This season kind of made me come to a realization. I was really feeling good about my chances in the league, but Olympiacos (and PAOK, to some extent) having so much more spending power than me was discouraging. I just didn't feel like I had the resources to topple that Goliath. Our stadium was 3,500 capacity, so not too much room for growth.

I decided to actively start looking around for new jobs.

While I was doing this, I made a few transfer moves that I think were pretty shrewd. It was actually a really tough decision to look elsewhere. I had bought a couple new players who I thought would really improve the team, but at the end of the day, I think I need to move on.

At this point, I was looking for a job in one of the major nations (other than England, I am staying out of England for this save), and there was a few openings in Germany, Italy, and France that I applied for.

After a few interviews, I ended up at....

U.C. Sampdoria!



Last season, Sampdoria finished 16th in Serie A, 5 points clear of relegation. There is clearly some work to do here, but the club has been in Serie A since 2012, and finished 8th just two seasons ago, so there is a solid foundation here. The training and youth facilities are also MUCH better than I had at Platanias.

I'm pretty proud of my time at Platanias, I took over in 2020, and feel like I have them established in the upper echelon of Greek teams. I was in the group stage of the Europa League 3 of the 5 (full) seasons I was there, which brought a lot of money into the club. And I feel like the roster I'm leaving is the best that I've ever had there. I really hope they're able to keep that success rolling.

Here is my career thus far:



Really looking forward to a new challenge in Italy. I've never managed there before, and it's a great opportunity to work my way up from nothing, to manage in one of the best leagues in the world!

[gopher_guy]

Ohhh, just discovered an interesting wrinkle in my move to Sampdoria.

I actually have rivals now, which is fun.



Sampdoria and Genoa share a stadium, and are fierce rivals. I completely forgot that Genoa is where I sold my best player from Platanias. He was like 8 goals away from being the all time leading scorer in Platanias history, and was/is a club icon.



He forced his way out; he was going into the last year of his deal and refused to sign a new one. Really left a sour taste in my mouth that I had to offload him for about half of what he was worth.

And now I get to play him in the Della Lanterna Derby. I'll be looking to shut him down out of spite.