england domination

[vitorkessler]

all long term game in England, i have this:

 

 

england domination in UCL.

I don't think  we will have this IRL.

am i wrong?

[FrazT]

Notwithstanding how FIFA and UEFA rank the leagues, there is little doubt that the EPL is thought to be the top league in the world at the moment and there is not a lot to suggest that with the crazy amounts of money around, this will not get even stronger in the future.  This domination is showing the strength of the league with all the  foreign imports and not specifically England as a nation, but nobody can tell what will happen in the future.

[rinso]

I think it will also be reflected in the leagues the OP has selected, or am i wrong? ie Select England only, then it will end up dominating... 

[oblongata21]

41 minutes ago, rinso said:

I think it will also be reflected in the leagues the OP has selected, or am i wrong? ie Select England only, then it will end up dominating... 

I think it more reflects the league youre playing in that the ones you've selected. For example, if you play in England, then that league tends to dominate the european competitions. It kind of sucks, but as FrazT said, its not overly unrealistic due to the stature of the EPL

[rinso]

what leagues did you choose?

[ParanoidBuddha]

1 ora fa, FrazT ha scritto:

Notwithstanding how FIFA and UEFA rank the leagues, there is little doubt that the EPL is thought to be the top league in the world at the moment and there is not a lot to suggest that with the crazy amounts of money around, this will not get even stronger in the future.  This domination is showing the strength of the league with all the  foreign imports and not specifically England as a nation, but nobody can tell what will happen in the future.

Last 10 years Spanish teams won 7 CL and 6 EL but the same every year you (general) keep saying the same things about EPL

[JeffDogg]

Portugal doesn't dominate in my save and I'm there, but yeah maybe the league you're in tend to dominate if there are huge clubs in it.

[Lanko]

1 hour ago, ParanoidBuddha said:

Last 10 years Spanish teams won 7 CL and 6 EL but the same every year you (general) keep saying the same things about EPL

Every year there is this "EPL money" talk, even when Spain was winning everything for almost a whole decade and England teams barely made to the quarter finals most of the time, yet in FM always dominated anyway.

See real life and it doesn't seem to be doing anything about Arsenal and Newcastle budgets as well. Let's also not pretend that Manchester City and Chelsea massive expenses happen because of the EPL money. Tottenham has an owner too. United have massive deals, but as we can see, this doesn't translate to anything on the pitch (though since FM is mostly a numbers game thanks to attribute, I guess it can be understandable).

Is not exactly a problem with English teams rising like this, but how the game seems to dwarf the other giants (on purpose or by accident). In my save in 18 near 2040, I go check Real Madrid: 3 stars facilities. Same thing for Barcelona. And for Juventus. Of course almost all EPL have state of the art by then. And it's not like these clubs and some others are lacking money, they probably have as much or even more, yet they failed on things as simple as to upgrade their facilities.

Let's not even enter how the AI handles squad building. The reputation thing is too volatile, and doesn't take into account "tradition" with EPL clubs simple going for the players with the biggest numbers and signing them with ease, so even poor squad building doesn't affect them too much. But Real, Barça and others only seem to get players that the EPL doesn't bid/want. Young players also seem to snowball much faster in England since the league's reputation affect match experience gained.

Again, it's not that clubs can't fall/rise, as Liverpool, United and Milan/Inter Milan, and even Real is recently showing. It's just that in FM the other clubs seem to alternate, fall and rise (Bayern in mine is over 10 years without winning and barely making to EL), but EPL teams simply come to dominate no matter what. There's no fall/rise, no bad phase, other nations rarely challenge them. And they will stay dominant for the whole century if you play that far with no problems.

It may be the tactics and behaviour of the AI, who tends to exaggerate reputation. If those non-EPL clubs have great players but the reputation makes them play for the 0-0 and penalties, yeah, they'll more often than not will just lose and keep the vicious cycle as well.

 

[vitorkessler]

5 hours ago, rinso said:

I think it will also be reflected in the leagues the OP has selected, or am i wrong? ie Select England only, then it will end up dominating... 

It's not the case. I am with german, italy, spain and france leagues in this save.

[vitorkessler]

4 hours ago, rinso said:

what leagues did you choose?

ENG, GER, ITA, FRA and SPA

[JeffDogg]

Yeah but you manage in England

[vitorkessler]

3 minutes ago, JeffDogg said:

Yeah but you manage in England

yes, this explains, but does not justify as it is unreal...

[vitorkessler]

it's funny we don't have dominantion in EL:

 

[BMNJohn]

Same topic, different day.  Yes, England dominates in a much easier fashion in FM than they have been IRL.

 

[JeffDogg]

Let's face it too: england has money, and in FM money = high chances of winning, when it's much more complicated IRL

[CFuller]

English dominance? What English dominance?

That is from a holiday save I ran for 21 seasons. The PL did have four consecutive Champions League victories between 2022 and 2025, but now it's clubs from Ligue 1 (specifically PSG, but tycoon-owned Montpellier won the last one) who are dominating. Only one of the last 10 Finals didn't involve a French team.

 

But what about the Champions League winners in my main careers?

SAVE 1 (managing in Italy)

2019: Man City beat Monaco

2020: Barcelona beat Man City

2021: Real Madrid beat Man City

2022: Tottenham beat Man Utd

SAVE 2 (managing in England)

2019: Liverpool beat Juventus

2020: PSG beat Bayern Munich

2021: Juventus beat Barcelona

SAVE 3 (managing in Norway)

2019: Juventus beat Inter

2020: Real Madrid beat Juventus

2021: Juventus beat Man Utd

2022: Real Madrid beat Juventus

2023: Real Madrid beat Man Utd

 

So Italian clubs didn't dominate when I managed in Italy, and English clubs didn't dominate when I managed in England. Also, from those three saves, only three out of 12 Champions League winners came from the PL. Go figure.

I am seeing English clubs snap up most of the Europa League titles across several saves. This is understandable when you consider how much money is in the Premier League nowadays, and how strong those major PL teams who just miss out on the CL would be compared to other EL teams (probably with the exception of Sevilla and other Spanish clubs).

[Hovis Dexter]

I'm currently managing in England in 2027_28 and these are the previous winners of the Champions League with 7 out of 9 winners being English teams

[Tom8983]

My current save. There's certainly no early English domination here...

[Hovis Dexter]

It's really interesting in that it seems to be fairly random across different people's saves.

[BMNJohn]

6 hours ago, JeffDogg said:

Let's face it too: england has money, and in FM money = high chances of winning, when it's much more complicated IRL

I think it's Reputation on top of that, if not mainly that. The Reputation of the league seems to attract a lot of players; even if the clubs within that league don't necessarily do better in European competitions IRL. It combines with money and you end up in such situations where most European-tier clubs in England can buy almost whoever they want, anywhere. The snake is biting its tail.

[Federico]

I'm just thinking... I can't believe that in each iteration of FM, since 2008 (the year I signed up this forum, certainly well before the outrageous amount of money covered the EPL) until today, at a certain point of the year threads like this (english teams OP) pop up like mushrooms.

I never read a thread about spanish teams OP, or italian teams OP, or French national team OP. Always about english teams and/or England national team.

Hey, I hope you don't want me to suspect there's an issue here! And also, please: don't use this season's CL final and EL final to justify this dominance. It would make things worse.

[santy001]

The Premier League has been ahead in money terms since the early 2000's and maybe even earlier than that but not as excessively making use of it. 

I've brought this up in other threads, but the most frequent thing happening in FM for me over the last 10 years has been Stoke buy a player from somewhere and the next thing I have to do as a researcher is cut him down. Ramadan Sobhi joined Stoke from Egypt with attributes that had a CA around 140. Mame Biram Diouf rocked up at nearly 150. Arnautovic and Shaqiri, over 150. Players like Diego Arismendi came in from South America above 130. 

These players exist in the game with their CA's set by their relevant leagues researcher and then in both real life and in FM as soon as you press continue they start finding their way to the Premier League.

- - -

Ultimately there are so many factors in the running that its impossible to know what exactly leads to it but it does funnel higher CA players to English teams over time. This applies to managers as well as players, and while not definitive it stacks the deck a little more.

Once players are of a certain awareness of their own abilities (and have high wage demands) are a slew of English teams the only one's who can afford it? If there's a 140-150CA player who isn't top tier but still good wanting close to 100k a week which teams can pay it? 

If a club wants 30, 40, 50m+ for a player, which teams can afford to pay it?

These are two barriers that will likely filter out a lot of other nations sides from the start. Scouting, proclivity/reservations to join clubs, playing time concerns. These are areas being iterated on year by year. This will still be the case in FM20, and FM30, and through time with the FM series. 

- - -

Anecdotally, since I switched to more varied game set-ups with a more ideal filtering up system (low tier, medium tier and top tier leagues), which use higher detail it's been a pretty much non-existent issue in my saves. It took 30 or so years but I've seen Belgium rise to the forefront of European football and while it only yielded a couple of CL wins there were finalists and semi-finalists with consistency during this period of over a decade.

In Network games, where there are 2 of us in England dominating domestically but not using home-grown talent the England national team tends to fair dreadfully.

[Federico]

6 ore fa, santy001 ha scritto:

I've brought this up in other threads, but the most frequent thing happening in FM for me over the last 10 years has been Stoke buy a player from somewhere and the next thing I have to do as a researcher is cut him down. Ramadan Sobhi joined Stoke from Egypt with attributes that had a CA around 140. Mame Biram Diouf rocked up at nearly 150. Arnautovic and Shaqiri, over 150. Players like Diego Arismendi came in from South America above 130.

That's why we never seen Stoke being overperforming over the years!

Jokes apart, I don't know how research works so I can't say. You lower a player's CA and that's ok, but how attributes are impacting a player's performance? Once a player joins the EPL, do you adjust his attributes or let them as they are? Are other researchers doing as you do, lowering a player's CA when they join the EPL? Do you think english reasearchers are maybe a little bit too generous on assessing player qualities?

From your point of view, what could be done to improve the realism of this area of the game?

If people finds that english teams are too dominant now, I'm afraid the next FM20 could be even worse considering the extraordinary results of this season's continental competitions..

[herne79]

6 hours ago, Federico said:

I'm just thinking... I can't believe that in each iteration of FM, since 2008 (the year I signed up this forum, certainly well before the outrageous amount of money covered the EPL) until today, at a certain point of the year threads like this (english teams OP) pop up like mushrooms.

I never read a thread about spanish teams OP, or italian teams OP, or French national team OP. Always about english teams and/or England national team.

Hey, I hope you don't want me to suspect there's an issue here! And also, please: don't use this season's CL final and EL final to justify this dominance. It would make things worse.

And every time one of these threads pop up we also see people showing how English teams are not dominating in their saves.  See above.  (Which also demonstrates how there is no hard coding hidden in the game to make English teams dominate, otherwise we'd all see it all of the time).

So lots of anecdotal evidence of English teams dominating, but also lots of anecdotal evidence of them not dominating.  Where does that leave us?  It'd be interesting to see the results of SI's own soak tests in this regard as unless someone is prepared to run literally hundreds of such tests themselves we'll probably never get any actual hard facts.  Personally I just see it as nothing more than over the millions of saves us players create each year, somebody somewhere will see these wildly different results.

I also think this is a key point:

6 hours ago, santy001 said:

Once players are of a certain awareness of their own abilities (and have high wage demands) are a slew of English teams the only one's who can afford it? If there's a 140-150CA player who isn't top tier but still good wanting close to 100k a week which teams can pay it? 

If a club wants 30, 40, 50m+ for a player, which teams can afford to pay it?

But of course in terms of the Champions League elite teams, the likes of Juve, Real, Barca, Bayern and so on can't be ignored as they'll have that spending power.  Which perhaps brings us back to the issue of better AI squad management.

[Federico]

In my opinion the point of users having saves where english teams aren't that overachieving is weak:

1) because if a user feels the need to report this on a forum, and if this experience is shared by many other users along many years, we can't say that it's just moaning but we probably have an issue

2) why this does not replicate with other nations? In my save I can have english teams overachieving (example above). Why no one is mentioning german teams overachieving? or spanish (and spanish were the most damaged teams here, as in real life they were dominating for real)? Why this seems to apply exclusively to english teams?

From my point of view, this has been discussed so many times that there isn't really much to say. One side says that teams are not OP. Another says it's money. Another says everything is lowered down. Another says that for 1 user having english teams overachieving, there's at least 1 user having them not.

All I know is that probably the next year we'll meet here again, and for the same reason.

[CFuller]

I think a lot of this talk about English teams being overpowered comes down to confirmation bias - or, at worst, prejudice.

Sports Interactive are based in England, so it's easy for some users to say that they make English teams stronger than they actually are - unintentionally or otherwise.

Looking through this thread and others, I find that most of those users complaining about overpowered Premier League teams are from countries outside of England. Many users who say that Man Utd are overpowered just so happen to support one of their rivals. The same goes for Liverpool, Arsenal, you name it. But they won't bat an eyelid when their own teams overachieve.

[s1111]

Why shouldn't English teams be dominant? Did no one notice the four English teams in the finals of the European competitions last season? Or the fact that the top 3 managers in the world are in England and other big clubs have absolute mediocrities like Kovac and Valverde? 

There's only 5 other teams in Europe that can compete financially with the English top 6, two of them are carried by the two best players of all time who are 32 and 34 and in FM start declining quite quickly, PSG and Bayern are increasingly struggling to attract and retain the top players (see this summer, their signings are uninspiring and Neymar wants out) because their leagues are noncompetitive and have no global appeal. 

It's irrelevant that the Spanish teams dominated IRL in previous years, FM is trying to predict the future not the past and the future is English domination until other countries can bring their leagues up to standard.

[Lord Rowell]

English teams largely on top but also very strong Spanish performance.

I think its already been said, when FM19 built, English and Spanish leagues were strongest and inevitably that is going to extrapolate into future simulations.

[respo21]

in game money have huge impact 

as we know biggest prices is in england thats why england is more or less dominant in game

[Federico]

5 ore fa, s1111 ha scritto:

Why shouldn't English teams be dominant? Did no one notice the four English teams in the finals of the European competitions last season? Or the fact that the top 3 managers in the world are in England and other big clubs have absolute mediocrities like Kovac and Valverde? 

There's only 5 other teams in Europe that can compete financially with the English top 6, two of them are carried by the two best players of all time who are 32 and 34 and in FM start declining quite quickly, PSG and Bayern are increasingly struggling to attract and retain the top players (see this summer, their signings are uninspiring and Neymar wants out) because their leagues are noncompetitive and have no global appeal. 

It's irrelevant that the Spanish teams dominated IRL in previous years, FM is trying to predict the future not the past and the future is English domination until other countries can bring their leagues up to standard.

Ahm... your whole post is completely... wrong?

You say it's realistic because english teams placed 4 teams in both CL & EL finals, then you state it's irrilevant that spanish teams dominated IRL? I'm confused.

And no, FM is not predicting the future, no crystal balls here. Or we'll all ask for Bingo numbers

4 ore fa, respo21 ha scritto:

in game money have huge impact 

as we know biggest prices is in england thats why england is more or less dominant in game

It's not that money should have such a massive impact on the game. PSG has a lot of money as well, and Real Madrid, and Barcelona. I don't think it depends on that solely.

[Federico]

5 ore fa, CFuller ha scritto:

I think a lot of this talk about English teams being overpowered comes down to confirmation bias - or, at worst, prejudice.

Sports Interactive are based in England, so it's easy for some users to say that they make English teams stronger than they actually are - unintentionally or otherwise.

Looking through this thread and others, I find that most of those users complaining about overpowered Premier League teams are from countries outside of England. Many users who say that Man Utd are overpowered just so happen to support one of their rivals. The same goes for Liverpool, Arsenal, you name it. But they won't bat an eyelid when their own teams overachieve.

I disagree. If you see somehow some bias from foreigner users, I could see somehow some bias from british users. We don't go anywhere with this kind of prejudice, so let's drop it down.

I think you would read the same kind of threads if instead of english teams we were complaining about german/italian/french teams.

It's not a personal crusade against english teams guys, but we'd like to see things more balanced. Many top clubs are from England so it's not that we're talking about things that should never happen. But in some (many) circumstances english clubs, and only english clubs, run tremendous streaks on continental competions that don't mirror reality, that's all. Denying it is just hiding the problem under the mat.

[enigmatic]

On 03/08/2019 at 08:21, BMNJohn said:

Same topic, different day.  Yes, England dominates in a much easier fashion in FM than they have been IRL.

 

Always good to be reminded of the sheer number of people in that thread confidently insisting that a lean period for English clubs wasn't the exception, it was the rule that English clubs were miles behind the best in Europe and anyone believing otherwise was a Sky worshipping idiot.

Now of course they're busy arguing that England providing half the European finalists and half the European winners the last three seasons means absolutely nothing. 

 

-

Also have to chuckle when I see FC United in the list of Champions League winners in 2026 and someone complaining about the other winners being the unrealistic part of the simulation.  

[ajt]

current save

previous save

older save

[respo21]

46 minutes ago, Federico said:

 

It's not that money should have such a massive impact on the game. PSG has a lot of money as well, and Real Madrid, and Barcelona. I don't think it depends on that solely.

i speak about league not about clubs

all around english league clubs get larger prizes than others as in real lifes

[santy001]

8 hours ago, Federico said:

Jokes apart, I don't know how research works so I can't say. You lower a player's CA and that's ok, but how attributes are impacting a player's performance? Once a player joins the EPL, do you adjust his attributes or let them as they are? Are other researchers doing as you do, lowering a player's CA when they join the EPL? Do you think english reasearchers are maybe a little bit too generous on assessing player qualities?

The first window in which a player joins a new club, they are relatively untouched by the researcher of the new club. Maybe injuries, or statistical information but its generally not the case that we would look to change any attributes.

Players are adjusted over time, with Marko Arnautovic I made him more professional and more consistent over time, while his CA had been lowered a bit. That was what I felt was the reality with the player. I can't speak for other researchers of course, but there hasn't been much deviancy away from the norms and while the anecdotal threads rise up about English teams, its very rare the same happens with England based players. 

You have to remember though, SI don't set the information for the clubs in the game. Researchers set the data for the clubs and their owners proclivities, researchers set the managers and how they act (easily the toughest part to get right imo), and players and how they behave. 

For the first 5 years of a save especially you're playing very much in a non-SI created environment on one hand, they set the framework and the AI logic and then you get our collective input on it. Researchers are free to do as they please within reason and as long as it can be justified. 

- - -

A lot of people make the broad strokes argument "English teams are too strong" but never go any way to showing why. I mean those who go for the lazy CA argument can be debunked within 10 seconds by a researcher, since we can access the averages of clubs and leagues. We can see information on the top 20, top 40, top 100 teams in each nation and so on, in addition to player specifics we can see. 

Fair enough players can't see this, and nor do players need to. It genuinely ruins the game in a lot of ways having access to this information. Considering its not an MMO or an eSport game where there is a meta to learn, or competitive advantage to be gained for monetary rewards there is no reason to seek this out. But this topic was well established and well investigated long, long ago. There's nothing inherently skewed towards English teams in the game, its just reflecting the reality as best as the game can and then it falls down to a law of averages. 

Bookmakers will often give odds favouring English teams in match-ups in Europe that many have gone on to lose. Considering they're solely in the business of getting this kind of thing right what then is the excuse for it being wrong? It comes down to averages, out of a 100 match-ups between X and Y you might expect X to comfortably win more. FM will likely be the same, if you keep saving and reloading fixtures as some of our favourite posters like to do when proving FM is scripted against them you'll probably notice that shocks do happen but more often than not the bigger/better team wins in an AI vs AI situation.

The only way to actually counter this approach for the game is the introduction of blind RNG. Actually put a facility into the game which will inject randomness you cannot overcome. So FM would have to code in a "script" against English teams in the CL that means arbitrarily you will be knocked out in the group stage no matter what you do. Or when coming up against an underdog in the 2 leg tie you just woefully under perform. What a time to be alive that would be. It would be great to see someone from SI coming on and explaining to a new user that sometimes they will have to be knocked out to prevent the perception English teams are too strong. 

[Federico]

Thank you @santy001 

[RBKalle]

14 ore fa, santy001 ha scritto:

The first window in which a player joins a new club, they are relatively untouched by the researcher of the new club. Maybe injuries, or statistical information but its generally not the case that we would look to change any attributes.

 I can't speak for other researchers of course, but there hasn't been much deviancy away from the norms and while the anecdotal threads rise up about English teams, its very rare the same happens with England based players.

This however leads to another issue: overrating of "big fishes in small ponds".

Having managed in Norway for ages, I've seem all the "hot prospects" and "top players" there getting optimistically high CA/PA by the local researchers, thus creating an abundance of mid-level EPL signings with PA around 140-150. Apparently unremarkable at a Top Club, but in the game still more than good enough to "harm" the gameworld balance.
IRL most of those Norwegian prospect have turned down as competent 2nd tier players, likely not better than CA130-135 tops. Which'd have nullified their chances to move to EPL, La Liga etc.

So, the problem is that EPL researchers are overrating their teams, but more that apparently every new signing from abroad is top-notch based on the PREVIOUS performances... And of course you can't really go "oh, John Doe did well in Belgium, but Belgian league is meh, so I'll chop 20CA points off him to balance things" and it's gonna take the winter update for an eventual revision of his ability.

 

14 ore fa, santy001 ha scritto:

A lot of people make the broad strokes argument "English teams are too strong" but never go any way to showing why. I mean those who go for the lazy CA argument can be debunked within 10 seconds by a researcher, since we can access the averages of clubs and leagues. We can see information on the top 20, top 40, top 100 teams in each nation and so on, in addition to player specifics we can see.

Again, it's not just about CA...

I maintain Reputation is the biggest culprit here. ESPECIALLY in AI v AI situations, the club with the higher Rep will win 99 times out of 100, unless some freak tactical mishap happens and/or FM FM'ed itself with one of those "Underdog park the bus and win with 1 lucky goal while Top Club couldn't hit a barn door from 1 yard away" games.

EPL club have high Rep, a lot of money and play in the most reputable in-game league. SO it's not surprising they tend to win a lot, and without human input it's even "easier" for the Rep factor to run wild.

14 ore fa, santy001 ha scritto:

The only way to actually counter this approach for the game is the introduction of blind RNG. Actually put a facility into the game which will inject randomness you cannot overcome. So FM would have to code in a "script" against English teams in the CL that means arbitrarily you will be knocked out in the group stage no matter what you do. Or when coming up against an underdog in the 2 leg tie you just woefully under perform. What a time to be alive that would be. It would be great to see someone from SI coming on and explaining to a new user that sometimes they will have to be knocked out to prevent the perception English teams are too strong. 

It doesn't need to be RNG!

Important Matches hidden stat does exist for a reason, doesn't it? Also, CLUBS themselves should have a hidden attribute (or a set of traits) that can sort of replicate the tendency to choke or to make poor decisions when it matters the most.
The Team Dynamics system is a step in the right direction but it's waaaaaay too green and rudimentary to work as intended.

Basically a group of overconfident and/or unprofessional and/or "inexperienced" players, likely at a club with no winning pedigree (or with sparse runs as luxury filler/darkhorse), should perform WORSE than their actual ability suggest because of those mental weaknesses.
Whereas a highly motivated side could mount a decent challenge even as underdogs.

But yes, it's a pipe-dream with the current technology, so maybe a blunt "Winning Mentality" (dynamic) attribute for a club could work while we wait for the complex picture to become a possibility.

[enigmatic]

29 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

It doesn't need to be RNG!

Important Matches hidden stat does exist for a reason, doesn't it? Also, CLUBS themselves should have a hidden attribute (or a set of traits) that can sort of replicate the tendency to choke or to make poor decisions when it matters the most.
The Team Dynamics system is a step in the right direction but it's waaaaaay too green and rudimentary to work as intended.

Basically a group of overconfident and/or unprofessional and/or "inexperienced" players, likely at a club with no winning pedigree (or with sparse runs as luxury filler/darkhorse), should perform WORSE than their actual ability suggest because of those mental weaknesses.
Whereas a highly motivated side could mount a decent challenge even as underdogs.

But yes, it's a pipe-dream with the current technology, so maybe a blunt "Winning Mentality" (dynamic) attribute for a club could work while we wait for the complex picture to become a possibility.

The Important Matches stat only lasts as long as the squads might do...

And some might say that artificially reducing the stats of English squads that have actually performed quite well in important matches relative to many of their European counterparts (PSG!!! ) or creating a new autofail attribute for the clubs isn't the most scientific approach to countering the Premier League's structural financial advantages and larger number of 'big' clubs anyway. Even its most infamous bottlers who haven't won anything in years made the final last season, and even our most hilariously fragile defence breezed past a Napoli side that like every other Italian side in Europe's second tier competition for the past two decades, completely failed to turn up (if ever there was a case for an attribute to make clubs automatically go out in the quarter finals even against inferior opponents, it'd be Italian sides in the Europa League but funnily enough, nobody whinges about SI bias when they win the thing in FM.). Plus we have Important Matches in domestic competitions too...

What FM doesn't necessarily capture particularly well is tactical nuance, lethargy and some sides travelling much better than others, but not sure there's an easy answer there either.

[Federico]

1 ora fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

[...]it'd be Italian sides in the Europa League but funnily enough, nobody whinges about SI bias when they win the thing in FM.).

 

Probably because this doesn't happen? Surely because nobody sees Italian teams winning the EL 10 years in a row?

[Federico]

17 ore fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

Also have to chuckle when I see FC United in the list of Champions League winners in 2026 and someone complaining about the other winners being the unrealistic part of the simulation.  

And FC United is from?

[enigmatic]

7 minutes ago, Federico said:

Probably because this doesn't happen? Surely because nobody sees Italian teams winning the EL 10 years in a row?

Sure, but they frequently do win a competition they last reached the final of 20 years ago. So it's a lot less anomalous than English clubs making up most of the finalists in European football like they have done over the last three seasons and for a sustained period a few years back.

It's just that people recognise that it's not entirely surprising that Italian teams generally find it easier than in real life because attract better players than the clubs from Scotland, Russia, Belgium, Ukraine and the Netherlands and English clubs now playing in the second tier that have all been more competitive in Europa football in recent years, rather than screaming about developer bias and how Italian clubs are sooo overrated for the Italian market...

 

2 minutes ago, Federico said:

And FC United is from?

FC United is a seventh tier team obviously with a human manager providing loads of assistance.

I think seven consecutive promotions is a tad more unrealistic than Liverpool and Man City being three of the next five Champions League winners...

[Federico]

1 ora fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

Sure, but they frequently do win a competition they last reached the final of 20 years ago.

Oh, really?

Frequently? Because I never seen screenshots, in this thread either, reporting italian teams dominating the EL. But if you say so...

 

1 ora fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

It's just that people recognise that it's not entirely surprising that Italian teams generally find it easier than in real life because attract better players than the clubs from Scotland, Russia, Belgium, Ukraine and the Netherlands and English clubs now playing in the second tier that have all been more competitive in Europa football in recent years

Just a reminder: in this thread nobody's complaining about italian teams underperforming.

 

1 ora fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

rather than screaming about developer bias and how Italian clubs are sooo overrated for the Italian market...

Nobody's screaming at developers for their bias towards England. People is complaining about english teams overperforming. This happens since... pfft, I have no memory of. This could apply to german or french or croatians teams if that happened to them. But it happens to be english teams. Sorry.

I'm not really sure why you keep shooting at italian clubs, or probably I just misunderstood your post.

[enigmatic]

51 minutes ago, Federico said:

Oh, really?

Frequently? Because I never seen screenshots, in this thread either, reporting italian teams dominating the EL. But if you say so..

I mean, there's a screenshot in this thread showing them winning it four times in six seasons, with six different Italian teams making the final in 10 years. A competition no Italian club has reached the final of for 20 years, which is a bit of a more dramatic turnaround in fortunes than England having a Champions League finalist every year (like the last two seasons, and 7 out of 8 years between 2005 and 2011)

And funnily enough for the same reasons (Italian clubs which qualify for the Europa league can sign better players than most Europa teams, and if so if you look at a few saves they're going to do very well in some of them)

For some reason when the teams overperforming their recent European history are Italian, people don't get so triggered by it though....

 

51 minutes ago, Federico said:

Nobody's screaming at developers for their bias towards England. People is complaining about english teams overperforming. This happens since... pfft, I have no memory of. This could apply to german or french or croatians teams if that happened to them. But it happens to be english teams. Sorry.

I'm not really sure why you keep shooting at italian clubs, or probably I just misunderstood your post.

You might not be screaming at developers, but plenty of other people have been. If you want a good laugh you can see the thread from 2018 above, where people are not only advancing the conspiracy theory that SI inflates the abilities English teams for marketing or national pride reasons, but also feel the need to explain that English teams are miles behind other European sides and that signings like van Dijk show they're not getting any benefit from all that money 

I'm pointing out the obvious: Italian clubs and PSG also overperform in many saves in FM compared with their recent performances in Europe, with the main difference being people only complain about it when it's the English teams. Going by the same backward-looking logic people use(d) to argue that English teams shouldn't be regularly winning European titles, PSG and the Italians shouldn't win at all. Of course, going by the logic that the sides just below the top of Serie A have a big advantage in reputation and financial resources over most of the Europa sides, Italian Europa domination some saves makes a lot more sense, regardless of whether actually they haven't done anything in it since the 90s. Same goes for PSG winning the Champions League. For some reason people singling out the English clubs to complain about believe they can buy success but Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs can't...

 

[Federico]

Again, we're not complaining about english teams winning trophies. They're top clubs, everybody expects a win by City (even when they have won nothing so far but domestic trophies!), United or Liverpool. What is concerning us is the consistency of a nation to place regularly their teams on the top of the continental competitions.

I don't care if PSG wins a couple of CLs, or Napoli winning the Europa League. But I see an issue when PSG wins the CL, and another one the following year. Then Monaco wins. Then it's the turn of Lyon. Then PSG again (just as example).

I hope you see the point in this.

[Tom8983]

5 minutes ago, Federico said:

But I see an issue when PSG wins the CL, and another one the following year. Then Monaco wins. Then it's the turn of Lyon. Then PSG again (just as example).

Why? Spain had 7 winners from the ten years 08/09 - 07/08 including 3 in a row for Real Madrid, and England had 7 out of 10 between 76/77 - 85/86, so why shouldn't another nation, or Spain or England again, have a period of domination?

[CFuller]

And let's not forget when Italian clubs dominated in the 1990s. If I've counted this correctly, 13 of the 30 European competitions played in that decade were won by six Serie A clubs - Milan, Inter, Juventus, Parma, Sampdoria and Lazio. There was an Italian club in every European Cup/Champions League Final between 1992 and 1998.

But when the Premier League's current top six threaten to dominate the Champions and Europa Leagues in FM, suddenly that's a problem?

[herne79]

3 hours ago, Federico said:

Because I never seen screenshots, in this thread either, reporting italian teams dominating the EL. But if you say so...

 

2 hours ago, enigmatic said:

there's a screenshot in this thread showing them winning it four times in six seasons, with six different Italian teams making the final in 10 years

 

3 hours ago, Federico said:

People is complaining about english teams overperforming.

 

26 minutes ago, Federico said:

Again, we're not complaining about english teams winning trophies.

I'm a little confused by those 4 points...

Anyway:

27 minutes ago, Federico said:

What is concerning us is the consistency of a nation to place regularly their teams on the top of the continental competitions.

There are also examples (screenshots) in this thread which do not show this which are being ignored.

TL;DR - if you are concerned at all with this consistency of nations at the top of continental competitions, the best thing anyone can do is upload their saves for SI to take a look at.  But then with many other people demonstrating the exact opposite of these concerns, is there really an overall issue?

[enigmatic]

Simple maths means that when England has more big, rich teams they're likely to produce more finalists, same as when Serie A was the richest league in Europe. Especially when it's a simulation game where having the best players helps a lot, and a forward looking one that takes into account Arsenal get a lot more money from TV to fix the holes in their squad than they did five years ago and Sevilla don't more than the history.

England has six teams that can afford to keep their best players and buy any other non-elite club's best players, France has one, Spain has two (plus Atletico whose advantage is their manager, not their money), Italy and Germany have one (plus others with historic reputations but less money - even a club as successful as Dortmund sells its best players every season). If Man City have a bad run, the other three or four English clubs in the competition are all in with a decent chance of winning it. If PSG don't have a good run in the Champions League, it's pretty unlikely to see a French finalist.  

Pretty much the only argument against this was English clubs not making the CL final for 5 years in a row and only winning the Europa League a couple of times over that period (which still made it arguably the second most successful league over that time), but I think we can see that's an anomaly and not a sign the structural advantages of English football were in decline. 

 

[santy001]

8 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Basically a group of overconfident and/or unprofessional and/or "inexperienced" players, likely at a club with no winning pedigree (or with sparse runs as luxury filler/darkhorse), should perform WORSE than their actual ability suggest because of those mental weaknesses.

Wouldn't this then just massively penalise those from other nations who fit the same criteria but have ended up in Europe? Wouldn't English teams just utilise their funds to sign the players who still perform well in these situations and just further exacerbate the issue?

While I appreciate the point about reputation is a bit hyperbole in the bigger rep wins 99/100 you're essentially making the same point as the one I referenced with bookmakers. That were these teams to play exactly the same, at the same point in time out of 100 you would expect the favourite to win a certain amount (based on their odds, which would in FM terms be based on the gulf in their reputation).

Winning mentality would only serve to do 2 things in my mind, massively skew things even further in the human players favour and still just serve to crush weaker AI teams. If these kinds of systems don't work in that very first round of Champions League games then they're just going to lead to the snowball effect even more.

- - -

I only engage this debate because of two reasons, one to try and help people refine their point since SI can't ever really act on anything vague (same goes for all data/research stuff so it serves my own interests a little) and secondly just to have the topic discussed further because while I could just do a screenshot dump of several of my last saves I don't think it helps the discussion much. 

An awful lot of this discussion centres on the fact English football had a bit of a void, Ferguson had retired, and the "big 4" was expanding to become the "big 6" coupled with turnover in club management, Pochettino was getting established at Spurs. Klopp was just coming in to Liverpool. Guardiola was new to Man City. Mourinho had come back to Chelsea, but after the first season it was clear there were issues and then went to Man Utd during this time. Arsenal were just Arsenal. During this time Southampton made it into the top 6 which led to a certain forum poster getting very excitable, and it culminated in Leicester winning the league.

There was a few year period in which the teams were transitioning from their 4-2-3-1 style set-ups that had been dominant during the 2000-2010 period under new managers to new set-ups, it just coincided with the fact that all the teams were doing this at the same time. 

Real Madrid had a point haul in their league last season that would've seen them finish 6th in the Premier League had they earned the same amount of points, yet it was comfortably in the CL spots in Spain. They're having that period of transition that the English clubs had a few years ago and yet still comfortably able to ensure CL football. That doesn't happen in England and so when all Real had last year was the CL to play for as they wouldn't drop out of the top 4, had they been in England the CL would have been either they need to win it to qualify or they need to focus all their efforts on the league to qualify. 

[Tom8983]

I see some people moaning that English teams have barely got past the quarter finals in the past ten years or so (when we've had 10 semi finalists in that time), and using this to say that they couldn't possibly have a period of domination. But look at the info below. Also note that no other country has had seven different teams in the quarter finals in the last 10 years. Only England, which says we have strength in depth.

In the 08/09 season, Barcelona knocked Chelsea out in the semi final. The other semi final was all English (Man Utd and Arsenal). Barcelona beat Man Utd in the final. Without Barcelona, an English team would have won.

In the 09/10 season, Barcelona knocked Arsenal out in the quarter finals. Bayern knocked Man U out also in the quarter finals, and the eventual winners, Inter, knocked Chelsea out in the last 16.

In the 10/11 season, Barcelona knocked out Arsenal in the last 16. Real Madrid knocked out Tottenham in the quarter final. Man Utd knocked out Chelsea in the quarter final. Barcelona beat Man U in the final.

In the 11/12 season, Milan knocked out Arsenal in the last 16. Chelsea won the competition.

In the 12/13 season, Real Madrid knock out Man Utd in the last 16. Bayern, the eventual winners, knock out Arsenal in the last 16.

In the 13/14 season, Bayern knock out Arsenal in the last 16. Barcelona knock out Man City in the last 16. Bayern knock out Man Utd in the quarter final. Atletico knock out Chelsea in the semi final.

In the 14/15 season, Monaco knock out Arsenal in the last 16. Barcelona, the eventual winners, knock out Man City in the last 16. 

In the 15/16 season, PSG knock out Chelsea in the last 16. Barcelona knock out Arsenal in the last 16. Real Madrid, the eventual winners, knock out Man City in the semi final.

In the 16/17 season, Monaco knock out Man City in the last 16. Bayern knock out Arsenal in the last 16. Atletico knock out Leicester in the quarter final.

In the 17/18 season, Sevilla knock out Man Utd in the last 16. Juventus knock out Tottenham in the last 16. Barcelona knock out Chelsea in the last 16. Liverpool knock out Man City in the quarter final. Real Madrid beat Liverpool in the final. 

I think it's fair to say that if it weren't for Barcelona and Real Madrid, that English teams could have/would have fared a lot better. So what happens in FM if either or both of those teams has a dip in form/quality, as does happen? Who's able to capitalise? Well, we can see from the screenshots many people have provided, it's the clubs with the most spending power, which is basically PSG and the top English teams, occasionally broken up by a good year for Atletico, or Bayern, or Juventus in my save. It's just common sense that the clubs who can afford to pay the most talented players will win the most things more often than not, and that can't always be Real/Barcelona. Next in line with the money are the English.