[FM 24] My Realistic Managerial Career

[gggfunk]

Hi,

First of all, I must admit it's not a first time when I start a topic here and leave it soon after. I've been pretty inconsistent with my saves lately but now I'm really motivated to start another long-term project. I had many ideas but eventually I settled on Zero To Hero/Journeyman type of save. Actually, I would call it simply as "my realistic managerial career".

 

Save Idea

When it comes to FM, my dream has always been to create a unique football world within my save, which means to focus not only on what my team does, but also on other players, clubs, nations, and competitions around the world. I've always wanted to know which country is the current World champion, who wins the Ballon d'Or, etc., but then I never really took my time to follow these type of things. This time I really want to give it a go. I'm going to play in a slow pace and make sure to be well informed about what's going on around me. I even prepared myself an excel sheet to keep such data. Obviously, I want you to be on the top of the things too, so I will be including information from around the world in my updates as well.

As I want this save to be realistic and immersive I decided to play as myself. I'm a 31 years old Polish guy with no coaching badges and Sunday league experience, and the game will reflect this. For role-playing purposes, I like to believe that I'm a former youth coach who got a chance to become a real manager, hence I added the available manager points to "working with youngsters" and "youngster knowledge" (see screenshot below).

The time will tell how much energy I have, but at the moment I hope to have around 35-40 seasons until I retire. My plan is to have a proper managerial career and climb the ladder of the football world so I will be moving to other clubs, but I don't want to rush things - the ideal scenario is to achieve something with my current team and only then, when the time is right, to move higher. I place a high value on loyalty so I'm not going to look for other jobs when I'm under contract elsewhere. Also, each of the decisions I make should be based on what I'd do in real life, for instance I will pay attention to wages, place to live, etc.

I will be using only my own tactics, but the training will be managed by my assistant as this is a part of the game that I don't really enjoy. Although the right thing to do would be to start unemployed, I decided to choose my first club as I don't like the idea to get a random job and I would like to avoid loading too many lower leagues from obscure countries. You will learn about my club in the next update.

The ultimate goal of the save is to get a chance to lead my favorite club Arsenal London and, hopefully, become the club's legend. Once done, to repeat it with my second favorite team - FC Barcelona. In the meantime, I also want to work with Poland National Team and achieve some success with them.

And to become the best manager in the world, of course.

 

Save Structure

I have selected 40 leagues from 23 nations, large database, original mode, no editor files. First transfer window is off for realism purposes.

Edited September 11 by gggfunk

[gggfunk]

July 2023 - First Club

The place where my managerial career begins is my local team Miedź Legnica.

It is a professional football club founded on September 14, 1971 in Legnica, Poland, as the successor to MZKS Legnica.

In 1992, the team won the Polish Cup and played in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, being eliminated by the French side AS Monaco. In 2018, Miedź was promoted to the Ekstraklasa for the first time in its history, but did not manage to stay there. In 2022, after a three-year break, the team was promoted to the highest division again, only to be relegated to the 1 Liga in its first season at this level.

The club boasts its cozy but nice-looking stadium which is located in the middle of the park.

----------------------------------------------

I signed a 1-year contract and I will be earning €2.9k per month.

The main target for this season is to reach the play-offs and be competitive in the domestic cup.

Let's see what we can do!

[gggfunk]

July 2023 - Miedź Legnica

Preseason

July was a month of hard work.

First of all, I met the players and explained them my expectations on how I want us to play football. We need to develop our own style that will be cultivated by the first team and the youth team as well. I don't like direct and defensive tactics which are used by most of the teams in our division - I want attractive football. My tactical approach can be described as Vertical Tiki Taka, which focuses on dominating possession, relentless pressing, and moving the ball vertically rather than side-to-side.

It is a basic Vertical Tiki-Taka with some minor tweaks.

 

Then, I had to do a lot of recruitment as the club lacked people in several departments. Finally, it was time to work more closely on our tactical setup and play some friendly games. We lost 3 out of 5 matches, but to be fair we played some much bigger opponents, so I'm not too worried, especially since we still scored a nice amount of goals.

 

The only thing that bothers me at the moment is the fact that the board doesn't let me start my coaching course yet, and their reasoning is a bit abstract...

[Carambau]

Good luck mate  

[gggfunk]

July & August 2023 - Miedź Legnica

 

My first game in management was supposed to be a tough encounter against Wisła Kraków who is predicted to win the competition. Surprisingly, we played magnificently and beat them 3-0. What a start!

 

The next game we should have won as well as we were leading 2-1 until the very end, but unfortunately the home team managed to score the equalizing goal in the stoppage time.

August was fantastic though as we completed four wins, thanks to which I was named the 1 Liga Manager of the Month. I wouldn't expect that my first honor will come that fast!

 

Edited September 12 by gggfunk

[gggfunk]

September 2023 - Miedź Legnica

 

In September we continued our good form as we earned 10 points out of 12 possible in the league, plus we progressed to the next round of the domestic cup.

We landed at the top of the table as GKS Tychy, who is also performing fantastic so far, finally lost some points.

We are already 11 points ahead of the 6th place which is the last one guarantying play-offs, so we definitely meet the board expectations so far!

[gggfunk]

October 2023 - Miedź Legnica

In October we had only three games ahead of us due to the international break. The first one was very important as we encountered the second best team in the table - GKS Tychy. We played really well and we took the lead in the first half, but the rivals managed to equalize. We could have scored 2nd goal but one of our most important players - Kamil Drygas - didn't score the penalty. What a shame!

Drygas redeemed himself in the next match when he scored a goal outside of the penalty area. Unfortunately, we also only draw this game.

Luckily, we ended our two winless run next week thanks to a home win against Lechia Gdańsk.

The table still looks very promising!

 

In the meantime, the board have finally agreed on funding my first coaching badge.

 

----------------------------

Around The World

Here is how the situation in top European leagues looks like at the moment.

[gggfunk]

November 2023 - Miedź Legnica

In November we kept the good work and the board didn't hesitate to offer me new 2-year contract. I tried to negotiate for bigger wages but all they accepted was a small increase from €2.9k per month to €3k per month. Still better than nothing!

 

Also, we are eighteen games unbeaten now which is the club's new record.

[gggfunk]

December 2023 - Miedź Legnica

Next month started poorly as we suffered our first defeat, even though we scored first. Next we had a difficult encounter in domestic cup against a higher division team Radomiak Radom, and they showed us that we still got a lot of work to do before we can contend on the higher level.

Still, the local sports journalists are impressed by the way how the things at Miedzianka go, and they compliment me in their articles.

 

Unfortunately, another league match was frustrating too as we had a comfortable lead 2-0 which we wasted in the last 10 minutes. I must admit I am responsible for this as I started to sub off our best players too early in the game.

The last game of the year, however, was much better as we beat Wisła Kraków again, who were on the top of the table at the time. Thanks to the win we got ahead of them and finished the year as leaders.

Now it is the time for mid-season break, we have two months for preparing for the key part of the season.

 

In the meantime, our Head of Youth Development shared with me an early assessment of our youth team intake for this year.

[DomD]

Great start. I'll be following to see where you end up.

[gggfunk]

January & February 2024 - Miedź Legnica

Mid-season break

Between December 18th and January 8th our players had a well-deserved winter break. Then, we started preparations to the second part of the season. We managed to organize some difficult friendlies against foreign teams as I think this is the right way to improve the skills, and I'm generally happy with the outcome.

 

As per above, we collected 4 points in the first two league games after the break. I'm satisfied.

Regarding transfers, I wasn't given any funds so I didn't aim to make any major squad improvements. We did, however, manage to loan a young prospect from Legia Warsaw named Filip Rejczyk. He's a player who I've been monitoring for some time now as he's pictured as one of the most talented Polish wonderkids, He's a creative midfielder who can play as an advanced playmaker and we lack quality players of this kind.

 

In the meantime, I completed my course for a National C License and already started working on the next badge.

[gggfunk]

17 hours ago, Carambau said:

Good luck mate  

 

16 minutes ago, DomD said:

Great start. I'll be following to see where you end up.

thanks guys, I appreciate!

[gggfunk]

March 2024 - Miedź Legnica

March was a fantastic month as we managed to win all our games! Play-offs are pretty much secured now, but I must admit that now I dream about winning the league!
 

 

AROUND THE WORLD

International Football

In the background, the March international break was the time when Euro 2024 Qualification Playoffs took place. As I'm Polish, I was very disappointed that our national team lost the semi-final on penalties to Iceland. Soon after this, the manager Michał Probierz decided to resign from his role. It's my dream to manage my country one day, but obviously I wouldn't have the slightest chance to get the job now so I didn't send my application.

A couple of days later a big name like Ernesto Valverde was named as the new coach. It seems to be a great appointment and I wish him best of luck.
 

 

Other European Leagues

There are no surprises so far as Man City, Real Madrid, PSG and Bayern are all on the way to win their leagues. On the other hand, in Italy the table looks very tight and there should be big emotions until the last game week.

 

Champions League

Here are the quarter-final pairs. Kudos to Feyenoord!

 

Players

The top 50 of the World Best Wonderkids has been announced, too bad we cannot afford to sign any of them...  

 

 

[gggfunk]

April 2024 - Miedź Legnica

Almost there!

Four games to go and we have almost secured promotion to Ekstraklasa. Actually, we should have already done it in Gdańsk as draw would be enough, but we conceded a goal in the stoppage time and lost that game. I guess the team prefers to celebrate the success at home rather than away, so no problem, we can wait!

I have to remind my players though that 2nd place is not enough as I want us to win the league.

 

Behind the scenes, our annual youth candidate intake has arrived for assessment. To be honest, I can see only one promising player in this group.

 

Besides that, we already started working on new signings. Firstly, we offered a permanent contract to our first choice goalkeeper this season - Jakub Mądrzyk, but unfortunately he decided to extend the agreement with his parent club Raków Częstochowa. It's a shame really as he did a solid job for us this year and he's got quite impressive skills for his age. Signing a goalkeeper is supposed to be our main target in the summer transfer window.

 

On a good note, we finalized a free transfer of 27 years old Brazilian centre back Marcel.

Edited Thursday at 15:57 by gggfunk

[gggfunk]

May 2024 - Miedź Legnica

End of the season

Yeah! We secured the promotion with three games in hand, and clinched the winning of the league with two games in hand.

 

As the situation was already cleared, in the last three games I gave a chance to some youngsters who really impressed me.

First of all, Paweł Łuczak who's been with us only for a month, made three appearances and scored a fantastic goal outside of the penalty area. Having scored at the age of 16 years and 141 days he became the club's youngest goalscorer. What a start!

 

 

The next young prospect who showed potential was an Ukrainian goalkeeper Vitalii Diachenko. I didn't plan to use him but in the last two games our first choice GK got injured and his backup asked to leave the club due to not playing enough, so it was fair to give a chance to somebody who actually wants to be a part of the team. The young lad made some good saves and let only one goal in.

 

Last but not least, Wiktor Bogacz. He's a 19 years old striker who also benefited from his colleagues' injuries and was given some minutes. He repaid scoring a goal.

(by the way - Bogacz is considered a great talent in real life, reportedly Juventus wanted to pay for him 2 millions a couple of weeks ago, and there was also high interest from MLS, but he decided to stay in Miedź to keep developing. He's not that good in FM24, but I believe he will be much improved in FM25).

 

After winning the league I received a lot of praises from the board, supporters, local journalists, club legends, and others. My reputation has also grown a bit and is one star now!

 

 

[gggfunk]

Season 2023-24 - Summary

My Team - Miedź Legnica

 

Poland Top Tier - Ekstraklasa

 

Top European Leagues

 

Champions League

 

Europa League

 

Conference League

[DomD]

Nice work on the promotion and good luck in the transfer window.

[Hootieleece]

Nice work on promotion! A good GK is key to being good defensively. Especially when you move up leagues.

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25)

Miedź Legnica

Preseason

The preparations for the upcoming season started on Monday 17th June at the training camp in Międzychód, Poland, where we spent 10 days working mostly on physical fitness. Then, we arranged some friendly games.

 

Summer Transfer Window

Meanwhile, we were also working hard on signings and outgoings to be sure that our squad is capable of meeting the target, which is to avoid relegation.

After some modifications, our budgets look like below. Although it seems like we have around 1 million euro to spend, I still believe we need to focus on finding free players or loans as the wage budget is quite limited.

Last season the players like Jakub Mądrzyk and Filip Rejczyk who were loaned from Raków Częstochowa and Legia Warsaw were a big help in securing our promotion. We tried to extend the agreements or sign them on permanent transfers, but it was not possible due to different reasons. So, we looked in their clubs' youth teams to see if we can find similar prospects who could help us this year.

The first signing is a young goalkeeper loaned from Raków - Kacper Trelowski. If he meets the expectations, he should become our regular GK .

 

Next, we finalized a loan of a promising centre back from Legia - Jan Ziółkowski.

 

Other players that will help us this year are wing backs Łukasz Gerstenstein from Śląsk Wrocław and Kaiki from Portuguese side Braga.

 

Obviously, we cannot base our squad only on loans so we also had to sign some players on permanent contracts. The most important one seems to be a 22 years old Ecuadorian Pedro Vite who can secure a couple of positions for us. We had him on trial and he really impressed so we instantly offered him contract. Having €25k/pm he will become the highest earner in our team, but we all hope he's worth it.

 

Another free transfer is 28 years old Damian Węglarz whose contract at Chrobry Głogów expired and he joined us as a backup goalkeeper.

 

Last but not least, Przemysław Wiśniewski. He's the only signing that costed us transfer fee (€185k), but I am really happy with him as he's got experience not only in Ekstraklasa, but essentially in Serie A where he made 14 appearances and even scored 1 goal. His first months in Italy looked very promising but then, unfortunately, he got a serious injury that ruined everything. We all want to help him to restore his career.

 

Aw, one more thing - we cannot forget that our Spanish playmaker Chuca came back to us from his loan, he seems to be a good player and I look forward to seeing him play.

 

Summary

The transfer window is still open for another month, but I feel comfortable with our squad depth and I don't think any major changes are necessary.

Edited Saturday at 19:54 by gggfunk

[gggfunk]

AROUND THE WORLD

Euro 2024

Netherlands defeated Germany in Euro 2024 final, after Frenkie De Jong's goal.

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - July & August

Miedź Legnica

New season begins

This is the squad for the upcoming season. Will this be enough for avoiding relegation? I hope so.

 

Please see our captain Nemanja Mijuskovic and best player Iban Salvador.

 

First league results

As you can see, we are in a magnificent form at the start of the campaign. Top of the league after seven games? Wow. Still, I don't get my hopes up as the aim is to avoid relegation.

The new signings already contribute as Przemysław Wiśniewski and Pedro Vite have already scored twice each, while the Ecuadorian even won the Ekstraklasa Young Player of the Month award.

I was named the Manager of the Month too.

 

The bad news is that one of our core midfielders Tarsi Aguado suffered a hip injury and will be out for 2-3 months.

 

On a good note, I completed the National B License course. The board refused to agree on me taking part in the next level at the moment, though.

 

AROUND THE WORLD

Transfers

Look who is going to play in our beloved Ekstraklasa - the one and only Mario Balotelli!

When I saw that Wisła Kraków is approaching him, I decided to offer him contract as well, he was slightly interested and his salary expectations were not too high (he wanted €29k/pm), but it was still too much for our budget and he rejected the proposal. It's a shame as his stats still look more than decent, plus he's a great penalty taker and we lack somebody like this in our team (last season we missed 4 of those).

 

Here you can see the most important transfers of the 2024.

Edited Saturday at 19:54 by gggfunk

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - September & October

Miedź Legnica

 

It's end of October and we are still on top, although the front-runner teams are staying close. We could have had more advantage, but a couple of days before the game against ŁKS Łódź our centre back Jan Ziółkowski was recalled from loan by his parent club due to not playing enough. Ironically, soon after that our two main defenders caught minor injuries and another one was suspended for yellow cards, meaning we had to play with completely different and inexperienced defensive unit which resulted in losing two silly goals (one in the stoppage time). The situation came back to normal for the next game versus Cracovia; however, it was not enough to avoid our first defeat.

The positive news is we progressed to the next round of the domestic cup.

 

In the meantime, the board offered me new contract worth €7k p/m, which means more than 100% increase from the previous one. Knowing I've been doing a great job I still tried to negotiate and ended with new agreement valid until 30/06/2026 and wage €8,250k p/m.

I've also started work on a coaching course for the National A License.

Edited Saturday at 19:54 by gggfunk

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - November & December

Miedź Legnica

First crisis

Unfortunately, the fact we didn't win our last two league games wasn't a coincidence, but a sign of bigger problems. In November we played three matches and collected only two points. Overall, we had a seven-match winless run that was ended only on the last game of the year against Lech Poznań. We showed a great mentality there as we came back from 0-2 to win 3-2. Also, we progressed to the next round of Puchar Polski.

To sum up, I've very happy with how the first part of the season went as we are no longer included in the relegation battle; however, the crisis we had proved that we need much more quality and squad depth to be able to contend on this level.

 

Here is how our players performed so far.

 

We also have assessment of our next youth team intake.

 

AROUND THE WORLD

I owe you some info about player awards and situation in other European leagues.

GOAL50 2024 - Top 10 places

 

FIFA Ballon d'OR

 

FIFA Best

 

Other European Legaues - December 2024

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - January & February

Miedź Legnica

Winter break

During the mid-season break we arranged friendlies against some strong teams, including Celtic, and we performed quite well.

The start of the league was even more impressive as we won all the three games.

We also had a solid performance in domestic cup against Pogoń Szczecin, losing only in the horror penalty shootout (6-7).

 

Transfers

Our only signing for here and now is a loan of Brazilian striker Joao Pedro (not the one from Brighton, unfortunately). We needed more depth in that area as our only quality striker is Marcel Mansfeld and cannot rely only on him.

Additionally, we have already finalized two free transfers for the next season. Firstly, we offered a permanent deal to goalkeeper Kacper Trelowski who's been with us on loan this season performing fantastically. Then, we approached winger Mateusz Młyński whose contract was also expiring on June 30th.

 

Meanwhile, I finished another part of my coaching course and now I have the National A License badge. I immediately asked the board for permission to start the next level and despite original refusal, I managed to get the final approval.

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - March & April

Miedź Legnica

We keep dreaming

Although March started with a home defeat to Arka Gdynia, we managed to win the next three games, including the severe ones versus Raków and Legia.

April was pretty good too as we collected solid 7 points out of 12 possible which means that after 30 games we are on the top of the table.

 

Coming soon in May...

 

Behind the scenes, it was time for our yearly youth intake. Nothing special I must say.

 

AROUND THE WORLD

NXGN 2025 have been announced, here is top 10.

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - May

Miedź Legnica

Title Decider

Can we really do it? The next game against Zagłębie Lubin will be crucial. It is our biggest local rival too so it couldn't be more interesting...

As they won the first game and results between teams will decide if we got same amount of points, we cannot really loose there.

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - May

Miedź Legnica

Sadly, it wasn't our day and we lost the crucial game in Lubin. Still, we have a chance to win the title on the final day, but we must count on some lucky results of other games.

 

Coming soon the final day...

[gggfunk]

Season 2 (2024/25) - May

Miedź Legnica

Final Day

We did our job this time and beat our opponent; however, it was not enough to become champions as Pogoń also won its game. We finished 2nd which is great anyway as we were the newly promoted team who was supposed to be included in the relegation battle. 

Thanks to our performance we will be participating in the next year's Europa Conference League qualifications.

 

Summary of the season

Here is how our players performed in the 2024-25 season.

Marcel Mansfeld had another great season where he proved that he's a quality striker not only for the lower division, but also for Ekstraklasa.

Besides him our best player was undeniably Pedro Vite (signed on a free transfer) who collected impressive number of 10 goals and 12 assists.

 

AROUND THE WORLD

Other competitions

Premier League

Liverpool, managed by Marco Rose, have been crowned champions this year ending 4-year dominance of Pep Guardiola's Man City.

 

Championship

Sunderland is finally promoted to the Premier League after so many years, while Southampton and Fulham are coming back only after short absences.

 

La Liga

Carlo Ancelotti and his Real Madrid keep winning the league, while Barcelona improves from 4th place in 2023-24 to 2nd place in 2024-25 under the reign of new manager Vincenzo Italiano.

Much respect for German manager Urs Fischer who finished 3rd with Athletic Bilbao thanks to which they will be playing Champions League football next year.

 

Serie A

Simone Inzaghi gives Inter their dream Scudetto. 

 

Bundesliga

Jurgen Klopp came to Bayern and it couldn't ended with anything else than a convincing win of the league.

Hamburg managed to stay up in their first Bundesliga season after so many years of struggle in the lower division, but only after winning the playoff against Nurnberg.

 

Ligue 1

Nothing unusual happened here, as always.

 

Champions League

Man City won the CL for the third time in a row, equaling Real Madrid's record.

 

Europa League

Just Tottenham keep doing Tottenham things.

 

Europa Conference League

Leverkusen managed by Arne Slot won the final in Wrocław.

[gggfunk]

Season 3 (2025/26) - July

Miedź Legnica

Preseason

This year's summer break was shorter than usual as we had to make sure to be ready for the Europa Conference League qualifications. We found time to play only four friendlies.

 

Transfer Window

I'm not impressed with our squad depth so new signings are necessary. Sadly, the budgets I was given are limited.

 

The whole transfer budget was used straight away for permanent transfer of Kaiki who had €375k optional buy clause in the loan agreement. He's been great on loan for us so I didn't hesitate to activate it.

 

As we had no more money to spend left, we had to look for opportunities. The first one was winger Makana Baku whose contract with Legia Warsaw expired. Great signing really as he can play on both sides of the wing.

 

The next two free transfers were experienced midfielders Paweł Sokołowski and Szymon Drewniak.

 

We also tried to sign permanently young Polish defender Bartłomiej Krysiak who was released by Gladbach, but he decided to accept Hansa Rostock's offer. Nevertheless, we managed to get him on loan soon after that.

 

Another young player who joined us on loan was Mateusz Żukowski who will give us more options on the right side.

 

In the meantime we were also looking for a striker who could put some pressure on Marcel Mansfeld but it was really hard to find a quality one. Luckily, just a couple of days before the end of the transfer window we finalized the loan of experienced Łukasz Zwoliński.

 

Transfer Summary

 

It is worth to add that I completed my first Continental badge - C license.

 

AROUND THE WORLD

The huge news is that Pep Guardiola has resigned from his position as Man City manager.

On July 19th Roberto De Zerbi has been chosen as his successor.

A week before that, The Citizens won the FIFA Club World Cup (being led by a temp manager).

[gggfunk]

Season 3 (2025/26) - July & August

Miedź Legnica

Start of the season

Before the first game we had to choose our new captain as Nemanja Mijuskovic left the club after his contract expired. We decided that the best candidate was Przemysław Wiśniewski and he was named as the new leader.

 

The first few weeks of the campaign were very demanding as we had to play every three days. The main target for this part of the season was to promote to the league stage of the Conference League and we made it. We are also at the forefront of the Ekstraklasa so I couldn't be happier.

 

UEFA Europa Conference League fixtures

 

I asked the board if the money we earned for the promotion to the league stage could be used to improve our facilities and they agreed.

[gggfunk]

Season 3 (2025/26) - September & October

Miedź Legnica

Mixed results.