MattyC78
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Posts posted by MattyC78
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22 hours ago, Zengoroth said:
Just wondring whether anyone here has ever found any Basque regens from outside of Spain/France nationality? In real life there are Basque players with Romanian, Dutch, Mexican and Andorran nationality to name a few, but I have personally never found any regens that are not Spanish or French.
I don't have so many leagues added due to my tired laptop but I have never found anyone outside of Spain and the odd player from France.
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We have just finished our second season and we managed to overcome Real finishing ten points clear of them. Unfortunately Barcelona had a monster season and pipped us to the title. It went to the last day of the season where we beat Real 3-0 but Barcelona put seven past Cadiz to finish first.
Inaki Williams continued to be a key player for us with a 7.57 average in the league with 30 goals but unfortunately he was eclipsed by Robert Lewandowski managing a hefty 48 goals in the league. We lost to Real in the super cup semi-final and then tumbled out to Tenerife on penalties in the fourth round of the Cupa Del Rey. We had a great run in the Champions League albeit with a kind draw pitting us against Inter, Tottenham and Athletico before we got beaten by Barcelona at Wembley. Lewandowski scored his 67th goal of the season for them to win 3-2 - utterly filthy. Our wait for our first trophy goes on.
Our transfers last season were light. Mikel Rico came in to mentor the B team (although that's not quite what I told him). Alvaro Fernandez joined as a back-up goalkeeper and we signed a young Basque midfilelder (Aitor Arteaga) from Eibar which I hope you will see again in the future.
The squad needs a little refresh. We go into the transfer window with £19 million but the options are limited. We have got to the point where we need to bring through a few youngsters for regular games. Raul Garcia is retiring and Asier Villalibre wants to leave due to a lack of games so we need to trawl our B and youth teams for an able back-up.
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On 18/11/2022 at 14:33, dothestrand said:
Midway during season three. It can't be as good as the description, surely?
Wow! I'm a little jealous. I'd love an intake like that. I only seem to get a winger or two a year with no obvious technical abilities.
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20 minutes ago, bruffell06 said:
How are you setting up now @bowieinspace? Still similar to your initial post?
I'm tempted to load up a Bilbao save and give it a go.
Give it a go. It's a fun save with challenges you don't get elsewhere.
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Interesting signing. I have never been able to get him in any save. He has never been available for less than £72million this year.
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5 hours ago, dothestrand said:
No idea what Inaki was so undervalued in my game. I did well to get 9m to be honest based on his value but I'd have expected somewhere around 40m for him really. Not that he's flourished at PSG tbh.
It is odd how values change between saves but also fluctuate wildly within a couple of months. I suppose ultimately it comes down to how much both clubs value a player. On that note, I have against my better judgement turned down the offer for Inaki. I also turned down £8.5 million for Lekue earlier in the summer. In any other world I would have sold both like a shot but I decided that they were both irreplaceable. I rely very much on his pace. Karrikaburu looks like a considerable downgrade currently and I feared we would be a worse team for about three years if we sold him. Whilst money is tight there is not much available to spend it on and if we qualify for the Champions League for a couple of years then money will not be an issue. I will probably regret it in a few months but Inaki remains an Athletic star.
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Congratulations. It is always good to see Athletic win trophies. It seems harder this year but it will make it more rewarding when it happens.
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On 08/11/2022 at 14:55, dothestrand said:
Oh Lord, the Summer 2023 transfer window slams shut. Next day, PSG try to low-ball me for Inaki Williams, but I talk them up to 9m (his value was around 6m). His wages are killing us and he certainly isn't worth the best part of 200k per week, particularly when I think he's starting to decline. Now we're relying on a combo of Nico Williams, Oroz, Muniain, Serrano, Dani Rodriguez and Aimar Vicandi (who's developing nicely but coming into the first team squad a season sooner than expected) to cover the three attacking positions until January (but realistically there's no-one to sign anyway!)
Crikey. I am now in a similar position. Summer 2023 and various teams are after Inaki. No proper offers until the day after the Spanish transfer window closes and Man City have tabled a £79 million offer. It seems like an amazing price for a 29 year old who is currently earning considerably more than twice as much as any other player. The problem is he scored 25 goals last season and has scored 3 in 2 games so far this season. I do not have Karrikaburu and I'm not sure I can rely on a 37 year old Garcia or Villalibre.
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I'm struggling to compete with Real as well. They were far too good in my first season winning with 97 points. We managed to hold off Barcelona to take second place so overall no complaints. We did well in the cup until we met Real in the semi-final where our run came to a rather abrupt end.
I expect next season to be harder when we have Europe to compete in as well. I would love to strengthen the squad but I have struggled to find and secure targets in the market. In terms of transfers, Jon Julen Guerrero was the only purchase and we moved on a few of the back-up players. The most noticeable being Dani Garcia who we sold in January after he agreed to join Ajax in the summer. We also terminated the loan of Herrera purely because of the wage costs. I hope to bring him back again in future but on better terms.
Rather than transfers we secured the key players on new contracts with longer terms and higher release clauses. There were a couple of promising youngsters in our intake so we may have to wait for these players to develop before we make any significant improvements. We moved through a few formations depending on availability of players but we generally favoured a 4-3-3
The Williams brothers contributed 44 goals between them. Berenguer was moved to left back when we sold Balenziaga and was a good offensive outlet on this flank. Jon Morcillo has performed much better than his rating and never lets me down. Iker Munian is his usual challenge floating between amazing and ineffectual with not much in between. I got improved performances when I moved him into the centre of the pitch.
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On 08/11/2022 at 14:55, dothestrand said:
Oh Lord, the Summer 2023 transfer window slams shut. Next day, PSG try to low-ball me for Inaki Williams, but I talk them up to 9m (his value was around 6m). His wages are killing us and he certainly isn't worth the best part of 200k per week, particularly when I think he's starting to decline. Now we're relying on a combo of Nico Williams, Oroz, Muniain, Serrano, Dani Rodriguez and Aimar Vicandi (who's developing nicely but coming into the first team squad a season sooner than expected) to cover the three attacking positions until January (but realistically there's no-one to sign anyway!)
That seems very cheap. Very early days but he has been exceptional upfront. His wages are an issue which I haven't worked out what to do with yet. He is valued at £56 million and I have PSG, Liverpool and Man City circling. I would be very tempted at that price if they bid. I guess I would then have to go all-in on Karrikaburu.
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1 hour ago, jippo45 said:
No they are not. This is the club I mean, they have no affiliation with Osasuna. No affiliated clubs at all in fact and their own under 19's side.
I found a couple of players from this club a few years ago. I'll keep an eye on them for further gems. Atletico Pamplona are Osasuna under another name and also often a good source of players.
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I'm really enjoying hearing how other people's saves are going. I am just starting my save and I have been trying to increase the reality levels this year. I have been trying to ignore other people's purchases and only exploring those that appear as recommendations through my staff. I'm also not using the player search function. So during the first transfer window, I have only made one purchase, Julen Jon Guerrero for the fairly hefty price price of £12 million. I tried to buy Jon Karrikaburu but whilst in negotiations with the agent his price leapt from £11 million to £23 million so he was unaffordable. I have got rid of a few back-up players and most noticeably I cancelled the Herrera loan due to his wages.
Like many others, we have been going with a 4-3-3
After six games, we are unbeaten with the highlight being a 4-1 victory away at the Camp Nou. We'll see how the rest of the season goes.
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Thank you again as always for the into. This is a great place for those that love Athletic in Football Manager. I've been off on other saves but I'm back in Athletic mode finishing off a last couple of seasons before the new games comes. I usually wait for Christmas but I don't think that is going to happen this year as I'm itching to get going but I'll wait for the full game to launch. It's been interesting viewing other people starting saves and I'm looking forward to starting next week and I'll be back to provide a few updates shortly.
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On 26/07/2022 at 19:43, Sabine said:
Is anyone else getting insane youth intakes every year? I still have Diego Gil De Gomez as my HOYD because the players he's brought in have been immense.
For example:
Eric Merino and Asier Simón from the first youth intake
Txetxu Vélez and Urko Galán from the second youth intake
and David Galán from this year's intake.
Maybe not as insane and not every year but I have had a steady flow of good players which I have managed to top up with the odd Basque purchase. I am in 2030 and some of them are making their way through into the team and the original group of players are moving towards the end of their careers, As is often the case, it comes down to balance. I have loads of high potential strikers but I am very short of defenders. I am having to rely on a creaking defence currently and I'm not sure what is going to happen when they retire in the imminent future.
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Having returned to the game after a break, I had to remind myself where the team was. It was November 2028 and we appeared to be in a battle with Barcelona to retain our title.
In the summer the only signing in was Kepa Arrizabalaga who was brought back to Athletic from the Premiership for £8 million. This allowed me to sell my back-up keeper Ivan Galan for £7.5 million to Wolfsburg.
For some reason that I cannot remember now, Iker Muniain was allowed to leave the club for £750,000. He was 36 years old but I wish he was still around the team.
Back-up players, Iniago Uriarte (£6.25 million), Inigo Romero (£11 million), Lucas Sangalli (£6 million) and Pablo Lasa (£12.75 million) also departed in the summer
I had already arranged for Jon Morcillo to rejoin the club for £8.5 million in January.
With a strong group of young strikers, a shortage of midfielders Nico Serrano and Nico Williams, we made a few small tweaks to the 4-4-2/4-2-4 formation and set off back to the fun of an Athletic save. The tactics were designed to be a fun attacking system that made the best of the players that we have available. In November we were failing to meet the objective of making the most of set pieces so on my return we made a few tweaks to the corner and free-kick routines to try to boost our performance in this area.
We completed the season with a success in the league, the Spanish Super Cup and the Champions Cup. WE missed out on a clean sweep falling to Barca in the semi-final of the Copa del Rey.
We managed to pull comfortably clear of Barcelona by the end of the season ands in Aritz San Martin and Gaizka Perez we had the two top goal scorers in the league.
The best eleven shows that with the exception of the young strikers how much we rely on real players eight seasons in. There are some youngsters in the squad that get reasonable game time but at some point they are going to have to break into the core team.
The only other main news is that are after a couple of failed attempts to purchase St Mames we are now looking to build our own stadium.
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After a break managing other teams I am returning for a final push with my Athletic team. I've just been back over the messages as I always enjoy reading about what other people do with their saves. I'm particularly impressed with the longevity of Ernemann and their save. I'm in the winter break in 2028-29 in a battle with Barcelona for the title. I'll hopefully report back on progress soon.
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We continued our domestic stronghold with victories in the Super Cup, the Copa Del Rey and La Liga.
We finally made some progress in Europe and supplemented our domestic treble with the Champions League after overcoming both Manchester clubs and PSG in the knock-out rounds before overcoming Liverpool in the final at Old Trafford thanks to as goal from Oihan Sancet. After years of failing to get past the first knock-out round this was a significant improvement and one I’m keen to try to repeat.
We have a collection of players lining up requesting new contracts again. Asking for crazy money (£200,000 to £400,000 per week). There are also key players in the squad who are ageing a little and we have already started to transition in some of our regens into the first team squad and I expect this to pick up pace over the next couple of years.
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After five years at Athletic, we have had a fairly static team but we are starting to bring through some youngsters into the first team. Inevitably, as they come in some players have to make way and move on. The finances are starting to stabilise but money was very tight for the first few seasons and a couple of players needed to be moved on for financial reasons. I thought I would take a moment to celebrate their contributions.
Dani Garcia left the club after two successful seasons where he was a key player the first season but we couldn’t justify his wage demands so he moved on to Shaktar on a free.
Alex Berenguer was a steady but unspectacular contributor for a couple of seasons before we decided to cash in, selling him to Borussia Munchengladbach for £24 million. His departure cleared some space in the squad to allow a couple of the younger players to come through and get more playing time.
Whilst it always felt like we never got the best from Inigo Martinez, he gave us three years of service where he played 89 games and averaged over 7 in each season. He was a key part in the first three title victories and started the transition from Europe hopefuls to champions. When Dani Vivian came through, we could no longer justify the huge £150,000 per week wages and the £12.5 million fee from Real eased our financial concerns considerably.
I was not actively looking to move on Mikel Vesga. After three good seasons for us, he became very greedy and we couldn’t (wouldn’t) offer him the contract that he wanted so we sold him on to Valencia for £16.5 milllion before he left on a free transfer at the end of the following season. He was a steady workhorse in midfield. His contributions were limited going forwards but he was always worth a place in the side. His departure was softened when Jon Moncayola was brought in to replace him.
Yuri has been a very handy player. In the first two seasons he was a critical part of the side before dropping in performance and importance until he was finally replaced by Imanol.
Other notable mentions go to Asier Villalibre, Inigo Lekue and Mikel Balenziaga for their respective 13, 16 and 20 appearances in the first title winning season largely before the return to fitness of Yuri and Ander Capa. Peru Nolaskoain managed 10 games in the first season before a further two in the second season evidencing that he was no longer required.
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2025-26 brought our fifth league title in a row. It wasn’t the finest year and Barcelona were our closest challengers but we pulled away over the final stretch to finish with an eight-point lead. Real were a distant third a further 26 points behind.
We again completed the domestic treble with victories over Real and Barca in the Super Cup and comfortable route in the Copa Del Rey with victories over Real Sociedad and Athletico Madrid in the final.
It was another strong year from Inaki Williams as he scored another 30 goals as an Advanced Forward. He swept up all the honours in front of him including the Ballon D’Or, world player of the years and all the Spanish awards. He is now 31 and I fear the point that he loses his explosive pace. This is the first year that I have had true success with him at Athletic and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his peak years.
Iker Muniain continued to pull the strings from centre midfield with a strong average performance and as captain he has lifted quite a sizeable trophy haul. We dominate domestically but we still cannot master Europe. We tumbled out this year to Bayern in the first knock-out round. We consistently navigate the group stages but we have only once managed to past the first knock out round. European success will be our target for the next couple of seasons.
Muniain and Williams were joined in the team of the season by Unai Simon, Alvaro Odriozola, Unai Nunez, Dani Vivian, Oihan Sancet and Nico Williams.
I think this is the first season that that I have a team of players that have achieved average ratings greater than 7. We have started to transition from our lopsided 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2 narrow diamond. Inaki Williams and Nico Williams have done well up front, Nico Serrano can play across the front, it allows Iker Muniain to get further forwards and we have a couple of promising young strikers and do not have any young wingers coming through. We made the change half way through the season to some success and we will consider a few tweaks in the summer to finalise the transition.
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3 hours ago, ernemann said:
So into a few seasons here (2024-25) and we finally beat the so called big teams Barca and Real, but it was crazy tight and I havent seen a top 3 like this before
This is our first real major titel after we have won the Supercopa and Copa del Rey the first few seasons. We still fight in the Champions League against Man City and oil club PSG, but I know we will get them sometime 
We have said goodbye to Jon Morcillo who went to PSV and Inigo Martinez went to Besiktas as he didnt have the quality anymore, and didnt want to give him a new contract. We have got alot of great young talents, but now we need to win the league again
Goodness. That is very tight at the top. You must have done well against Real and Barca. Congratulations
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On 26/02/2022 at 15:53, ernemann said:
So first season ended in fantastic way, as we finished in second place which is very good, as we were expected to finish at eight place this season. I think Nico Williams got a great boost in the update as he is very good now and my regular penalty taker. We won the Spanish Supercup against Barca and Copa del Rey against Real, so we have started very good.
We have also said goodbye to quite alot as I want to make the team much younger. Ander Capa left for Al-Sadd, Inigo Lekue left for Dynamo Kyiv, Mikel Vesga left for Arsenal (wanted a new challenge), Raul Garcia left for Shahktar, Mikel Balenziaga went to Club America, Asier Villalibre left for Copenhagen, Oier Zarraga went to Alaves, Unai Lopez went to Rayo, Oscar De Marcos left on a free as he didnt have the quality anymore, Alex Berenguer went to Olympiakos, Inigo Cordoba went to Montpellier and Inigo Vicente went to Anderlecht which gave us about 36 mio Euro
As always I wont buy any players, but we have some real good youngsters but this season will be testing with Champions League football and a squad not very good, but it will be fun
Congratulations on your success in the first season. If you are not purchasing players, what do you do with the money? Do you reinvest in player wages to ensure that they stay at the club?
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In the build up to the start of the 2025-26 season I decided to sell Jon Karrikaburu. I know for some people he has been successful but for me he has only ever disappointed. We got him for a bargain price of £1.1 million but he has never got more than 6 goals in a season and he has not really developed in any notable manner.
Unfortunately, nobody would take him so he went on loan to Alaves in the second division for the season.
The only other departure from my first team squad was Yuri who departed to Galatasaray after a collapse in the level of performance and being usurped by Imanol. To boost the squad, I finally brought in a 35 year old Ander Herrera from Shaktar. Well past his best but should provide depth for a year or two.
I also brought in a couple of youngsters to reinforce the depths of those coming through the academy. After the departure of Yuri, I felt we were a little light at left back so we decided to stump up the ridiculous sum of £25 million on Aihen Munoz. He is not worth that sum of money to anyone other than Athletic where our young left backs are not ready and he will help bridge that gap and might help us seal a trophy or two until then.
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We have just completed the 2024-25 season where we reigned completely domestically and again failed to make a major impact on Europe. In the league we won our fourth league title in a row despite a predicted third placed finish.
We completed the domestic treble with both cups. We reached the final of the Super Cup with an enjoyable 4-2 victory over Real Sociedad. Jon Karrikaburu played one of his better games for Athletic scoring a brace. In the final we moved to a more cautious mentality to counter the threat from Barcelona to beat them in the final. After a relatively easy route in the Copa Del Rey we repeated the trick against Barcelona in the final.
In the Champions League we sailed through the groups stages before being halted by PSG in the first knock out round. We lost one nil in Paris and then despite a xG of 2.31 we failed to breach their defence an crashed out in disappointment.
Iker Muniain showed the first signs of dropping performance levels at the age of 32. Inaki Williams had another great season with 34 goals in all competitions. He finished only behind Kevin De Bruyne and Robert Lewandowski in Golden Boot, World Footballer of the Year and World Player of the Year. He did however scoop the domestic awards of top goalscorer and best La Liga player. Alvaro Odriozola had a fine first season and pushed Ander Capa from the first team.
We are starting to tweak tactics more frequently but we largely kept the same shape through the season in our lopsided 4-3-3. We developed a second formation of three up front to counter three at the back formations.
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39 minutes ago, nampuk said:
I'm using a right-footed person on the right and left-footed on the left so Nico is critical on the left-wing. Nico Serrano, on the other hand, I'm training as a forward to replace long term Asier Villalibre. Aimar Oroz is already in the club but his stats are not so great for the wing. His quickness is not so good and crossing only 11. I'm training him as winger with additional focus on crossing, as well as Juan Artola. Artola's quickness is nowhere comparable to Iñaki Williams' but I'm considering him if I stick to that formation, yes. Barrenetxea 's asking price is 71mil which I don't really plan on paying.
Part of the charm with Athletic is the limited player selection and the requirement to adapt a formation that gets the best out the available players. In the absence of a strong right wing option I have gone with a lopsided formation and I'm now working on a narrow diamond formation.
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This is our first real major titel after we have won the Supercopa and Copa del Rey the first few seasons. We still fight in the Champions League against Man City and oil club PSG, but I know we will get them sometime 
[FM23] Athletic Club (Bilbao) - Aupa Athletic!
in Good Player & Team Guide
Posted
After a couple of years of making limited transfers, for 2024/25 we had a bit of a mini squad rebuild. We had some transfer budget and we have borrowed some from future budgets. It was initiated by three players being on the transfer list but we ended up having to pay a little more due to our rivalry with Real Madrid and Real Sociedad. I would never put up with that nonsense normally but with Athletic it ultimately comes down to do you want the player and can you afford them.
Ander Herrera returned on a free to replace the retiring Raul Garcia. Aihen Munoz was next in, resulting in Yuri being moved on. Asier Villalibre wanted out for first team football which I could not provide so when I got a fair offer from Levante we decided to let him go. Unai Nunez would not sign a new contract and he seems to be not as good as previous years so as he was planning to leave on a free we decided to cash in (also Levante) and he was replaced as our fourth choice centre back by the returning Unai Bilbao. At this stage I thought I was done.
Then Jon Karrikaburu and Alvaro Odriozola were transfer listed and we couldn’t resist the opportunities. An unhappy Imanol was sold in January to help balance the books a little.
In January we tumbled out of the super cup to a flying Barcelona in the semi-final. At this stage they were leading the league and beating everyone. I think they got distracted by their progress towards the Champions League final whereas we were comprehensively beaten by Napoli (Parthenope) in the quarter finals. We got our revenge on Barcelona by beating them in Copa Del Rey final to seal our first trophy in our three seasons.
We went on to just about pip Barcelona to the title as they appeared to struggle with their fixture pile up.
The arrival of Jon Karrikaburu was very timely as Mr Reliable (Inaki Williams) after years of not missing a game was out for chunks of the season with various injuries and the African Cup of Nations. Karrikaburu was much better than I hoped with 27 goals in 19 league starts. It makes me think should I have taken the big money for Inaki last year. Barring injures we have had a fairly stable team. I still struggle to get the best from Inigo Martinez (We have not got on in previous versions of FM) but there are no real options to replace him. He has stayed because we have repeatedly been able to bring his wages down to a reasonable level but I am just waiting for a decent youth player to oust him.