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A Monday release I guess makes a lot of sense in terms of having developers available to fix any immediate issues? I don't have the foggiest idea how these things work though.

Awesome thank you!

Yeah I guess a huge grey area here which is perhaps reflected in Athletic's policy also - there's a certain amount of subjectivity the game has to manage. I had a bug last year where a player at Sociedad's academy had no basque nationality which was a clear bug and I reported that one, but someone with a Basque place of birth at Gijon for example I'd perhaps in my own mind build a story there accounting for their lack of Basque nationality, e.g. born there but never lived there, no basque parents. There is a situation you can imagine there which would account for it... with Guillamon they only added the Basque nationality I think when Athletic came out and said they would sign him if they could - I may be wrong but I think he had no Basque nationality when the game first came out last year, then Athletic made the comments, we reported it in the data forum and it got updated for Jan update.

@southside_hitmen great work and thank you again for another excellent contribution - always good to have another person actively contributing towards improving the accuracy of the game. When the beta drops I will create a new Athletic thread - are you ok if I add these filters into the opening posts? I will create a specific post for these alongside the affiliate guide with credit of course to ensure they remain at the top of the thread with the rest of the guides and don't get lost further down.

@MattyC78 Karrikaburu's goal record is superb haha

Yeah the save cross over is interesting - for me I might even just use my existing save for the beta to check out some of the new stuff as a route in. Usually I'm just too excited to get into the new DB though haha

Yeah something felt broken with that this year

Moncayola and Aimar Oroz will be potential targets I think. yeah it always been the same with Athletic, sure the bigger rep youth players get well rated in the youth set up but the depth is always lacking given how many youth players make it to the first team in reality. Hell I remember not that long ago Nico Williams would be lucky to get to second division haha. Yeray was garbage until he broke into the first team also.

Who's excited for FM24? What are your expectations/points of interest for Athletic? Here's my 2 cents, expectations or things I am simply keen to see: 1) They're talking about improved AI squad building, transfers and team selections. Athletic being a long term save I've found has been plagued by poor AI squad building in recent years. I am hoping these changes provide more long term competition from the big teams in Spain. 2) Aitor Paredes, Inigo Ruis de Galarreta, Gorka Guruzeta, Unai Gomez to name a few have all stepped into the first team, but none of these guys were really capable in FM23... I wonder how they will look in FM24. 3) Vencedor has been largely discarded by Valverde but has had amazing potential in recent FMs... maybe a drop here 4) Vesga boost maybe? 5) Will it be possible to retain Nico Williams? This is a scary one! I'm going to be looking at that contract straight away when I load up my save. 6) Raul Garcia 37, Oscar De Marcos 34, Ander Herrera 34, Yuri 33, Dani Garcia 33, Muniain 30, De Galarreta 30, Lekue 30, Vesga 30, Inaki 29.... quite a lot of work to be done here in the first few seasons. I hope there's been decent bumps to some of the younger players to help with the transition! We've already seen this season there's a bit of a shift in terms of players... Guruzeta and Paredes have been ever present so far this season, Muniain has been in and out, Raul Garcia an impact sub at most. I'll be a a bit disappointed if Paredes is still super low CA given he's keeping Yeray out of the team, and Guruzeta needs a bump!

Having the B team in the second tier can be a curse sometimes - they are often battling relegation and it's better for players to be getting higher average ratings for their development. It's often better to find loan options for that higher level type of player than in a struggling B team to be honest, unless they are also in the first team squad getting some sub appearances etc. It's a tricky balance!

Thanks! MY DB recommendation is to go medium size, then have all of the top EUropean first divisions as playable (view only below) (improves transfer market but also strength of opponents in European competitions), then also Brazil/Argentina with the same to help with regens from SA.

Depends on the players level - you can check their coach report to see if they're considered a second or third division player. It's only worth sending them on loan to a second division club if: 1) The player is of that level 2) The club is going to do at least fairly well (average rating is important for development, so sending a central defender to a team so bad they will concede 100 goals during the season may not be that beneficial). 3) The clubs facilities are at least good

Just a guess but you may need to take control of the team

So I’ve actually progressed my save through into the following season now: La Liga - Winners Champions League - Winners Copa Del Rey - Winners! Very dominant domestically and two consecutive champions league titles! This time beating Man City in the final, 3-1. I’ve saved a copy of my game from October in charge of Athletic, but Barcelona are an utter shambles (like honestly it would probably be a super enjoyable rebuild, they have no value in their squad and half their team are 35+ and out of contract at the end of the season. They are expecting a mid table finish! I decided to keep my game world going and took a job near the bottom of the premier league, simply because of the lack of competition in Spain due to Barca being so poor and Real Madrid selling all their goalkeepers (seriously wtf). At least in the premier league the teams are pretty stacked and they spend their way through poor squad building. So for a change of pace I’ve taken over at 19th place Aston Villa where I’ll be playing a box 4-4-2 system which is my absolute favourite to do. Keeping my Athletic save file to one side for when I fancy revisiting. When the winter update drops in Feb I might do a save with one of the small basque clubs…Barakaldo maybe, we’ll see!

Sounds like my last couple transfer windows..same stuff

Yeah I think so too, completely unrealistic. I don’t want to pay for the editor to fix it for them so will prob just leave them to figure it out in Jan

Quick opinion poll… Would it be wrong for me to add a second manager next summer transfer window to overhaul Barca and make them more competitive? Haha

Some financial benefits longer term I think, honestly it’s made no difference really to my save

I bought him in very early on for somewhere around 15million I think and he was superb for me for about 6 years or so

For reasons I cannot fathom, Real Madrid have sold their only decent goalkeeper on deadline day to Chelsea, and haven't replaced him. Their other playable goalkeeper hasn't been registered for La Liga, so they are playing a greyed out 15 year old in goal now...

My save has been largely dominated by Real Madrid. Barcelona are a total farce on my save, their last 6 years have seen them finish 7th, 4th, 9th, 6th, 4th, 3rd. On the other hand we've seen Real Betis and Real Sociedad regularly finish in the top 4, we also saw Cadiz finish 4th last year. Spanish teams in my save have been awful in Europe though, despite Athletic's success, La Liga has dropped to the 5th best division in Europe this year and now only gets 3 Champions League spots. I feel like the domestic success ourselves and Real Madrid have had in terms of unbeaten records etc is largely because the rest of the division is hot garbage.

All good! As you go on and increase the clubs stature you will see the trend continue. Much like any big club, as they progress they pick up a lot of fair weather or casual fans often from outside the local area, whereas the core support numbers stay a touch more stable - while they will also increase, as a % the casual/fair weather numbers will go up a lot more

@sgevolker you won’t have ‘lost’ core fans, more that your overall fan base has increased a bit from a higher number of fair weather followers, this reduces the % that the core fans make up, but doesn’t reduce the total number necessarily

I’m in 2034 and purchased the stadium a.m few years back. In some past games you could expand San Mames up to 65k but you can’t this year. I’m trying with the board to build a new stadium but no luck yet, it’s been 20 years since San Mames was built so should be becoming doable

Thanks @Zachary Whyte - the save file is uploading at the moment under Geronimo Dalli - A.Bilbao - Albisu. The player in question here for the new file is Javier Albisu at Real Madrid. Also worth noting that Unai Urrutia was sold from Real Sociedad to Leverkusen, and when he was sold I was notified and given a small fee (solidarity contribution I think it's called?), suggesting he had been part of our club at some stage but it didn't show in his history. I can't remember an inbox notification to say he had been poached at an earlier date but it's possible I didn't see it and/or forgot about it if it was years before. Given this new one with Javier Albisu it could all be linked to players being poached from my academy and then subsequently losing/not gaining their Basque nationality.