BillHoudini24

The thing is, besides the separate discussions about weight, international management, create-a-club, etc, FM25 has already been a disaster from a project development perspective. Part of my job is to develop products/tools for clients. If at this point of development, I had nothing to show for (please don't mention those screenshots published a few months ago) and all my updates to the client were about removing parts of the product that existed when we made the initial deal, I am 100% sure that the client would take their business elsewhere, because there are hundreds, if not thousands of other companies that can do a similar job to mine. That's the problem with monopolies and I am saying this as someone who has been buying the game almost every year since 2006, I suppose I qualify as a "loyal" customer. It's September and we have no concrete news about AI behavior, player interactions, graphics, newgen faces, things that the majority of the client base is truly concerned about. It is sad to realise, but it has become quite difficult to justify supporting the company this year. It's not a financial justification, but more of a matter of principle.

What a hustle, and it couldn't have come at a better time! I'm sure the club has the right foundations to comfortably survive in Serie A. Looking forward to seeing your elite talents develop

Being on the Netherlands' 4th flight meant that we would finally have some proper and consistent income, in the form of TV money. 70k for a newly semi-professional club is no joke! Having never played this high up the Dutch pyramid before, or being anything more serious than amateurs also meant that the odds were stacked against us. This, along with our total financial failure in our youth development had me worried, not only about our survival in the Derde Divisie, but for the club's longevity as well. To not bore you too much with finances, this means that we're relegation favourites while paying 500k/year on a youth setup that hasn't produced a single player who could even be a squad option. To continue progressing without running the club into the ground and back to literal Sunday League, we would need to: 1) Finally get a couple of youth players good enough to play for the first team and subsequently sell them to finance our youth-related costs or, 2) Speedrun our way into the Eredivisie, to become self-sustainable by TV money, competition prize money and slowly establish a vfm farm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've done everything I can and I am risking more than I should for (1), so let's see how (2) could work in parallel. And here comes my first "problem" with the database: Not having enough people playing it in this forum means that I have no idea about how realistic it is and what is the real life differences in level between divisions. I am starting with that, because this time, we not only got promoted (again), but we also did it without playing promotion playoffs. Having the 2nd best attack and defence definitely helped, along with some free transfers I did during the season: Milan Engelander (PF): A very tall midfielder turned striker, Milan was instrumental with his 16 goals in 31 games. It's his best season ever, considering that his previous best was just 1 goal. Mees Adrichem (CM): An ex-Alkmaar academy graduate, Mees is an incredible athlete who has been instrumental in our high-press and possession-based game. His 7 goals and 7 assists underplay his significance for us. Willem Siahaya (LW): Remember the underwhelming winger I mentioned last season? That is no more, since Willem settled in, he became an absolute monster. He was arguably our best player, with 12 goals and 11 assists, most of them in crucial moments. But enough with the positivity, it's time for some more Dutch complaining. I mentioned already that we spend an ungodly amount of money on our youth setup. Here is this year's harvest: Bruce and Raphael look like they could become useful for a tier 2 team, but that is with proper facilities and full-time training, tools that we currently don't have. Should I cut my losses and scale down all youth-related elements? Next season should be the make or break point. At least they're pretty good for their current level

Most players who would significantly upgrade your roster ask for a million things. As long as they're not locked in (which can also be negotiated btw), you can always remove them in the "pre-offer" screen. If that way of handling agents feels unrealistic to you, that's another topic, but the demands of the player above are completely nuts and no player of that level would have the nerve to come up with something like this, salary excluded.

I like the lengths you go to keep things realistic, both in terms of tactics, but also navigating our board-related events and hidden attributes. Expanding your affiliation network could be a long-term positive push.

I realised I had stopped on a cliffhanger, but life happened. Luckily, we can now have a look at the end of the 2026-27 season and the beauty of the Dutch league system until the Eredivisie. So, as you probably know, the Dutch lower leagues have a "period" system for establishing the promotion playoff participants. This means that the team that gets the most points in the first period for example, also gets a playoff ticket, irrespective of how they perform for the rest of the year. Major note here: I didn't know that. I thought that the objective was to be as close to the top as possible by the end of each period. Anyway. In the first period of 2026, we started quite inconsistently, ending up not only missing the first playoff ticket but also being close to the relegation playoffs. In the second period, we were focused on surviving comfortably, consolidating and maybe finding some better players to upgrade the squad, in addition to our huge Youth Intake Gamble. I always try to sign as many players before the summer, so that I can get more time for team cohesion. Luckily, these players didn't need a lot of time to adjust to our values and the way we play, resulting in one of the craziest runs I ever had on FM. We basically went undefeated in the 10 games of the third period, ending up first in this mini table and getting to the promotion playoffs! Back-to-back-to-back promotions were at stake. This is where things became even more weird. Remember the intake striker I talked about in my latest post, Peter Stam? Thinking that my season was basically over, I started using him in those last games of the season and he shocked everyone, including me, by scoring a debut 4 goals in the playoff-deciding game. Thanks to his 4 goals, we now have all to play! But he didn't stop there. He scored the first goal in our huge victory against Hercules in the playoff semi-final and then scored again in the playoff final against ARC. And finally, he also scored in the second leg of the final in a crazy 4-4 draw, getting us promoted to the fourth tier of Dutch football! Overall, he had 7 goals and 1 assist in 5 games, absolutely phenomenal. Here is our crazy run to get to the playoffs: And the greatest news of this post is that we became a semi-professional club! Exciting, but also dangerous, as this is the type of club structure that makes it easy to get lost financially, I have to be very conscious of my contract and bonus decisions, otherwise we'll be living in the red, which is already an everpresent danger, as I keep on gambling with our Youth Setup. Going back to Peter Stam, after his crazy "Jeremy Lin" (for the NBA fans) moment, he quickly became obsolete due to the reinforcements we had to sign for the next division. In the year that followed, he scored 47 goals in 44 games with our U19s, but the speed of our progression through the leagues will not allow him to have a career with us. Nonetheless, Pete will be remembered as a cult hero here and will be inducted into our DWS Hall of Fame.

Barely scraping by is the definition of what we've been trying to do for these first 3 seasons, we are talking about literal amateur football. To put things in perspective, in real life, these teams get most of their income from memberships, meaning that most (if not all) of the players are actually paying to play. That also means that with the worst possible facilities you can have in the game, anything would be an upgrade. I remembered from an older version that part of my deal with a club (I was the senior affiliate back then) was that they could use our facilities, so I had a lightbulb moment and luckily, it worked. Even going from 1 to 5 on the scale helps, as I see some minor and very slow improvements in the players. I could be even more patient/realistic and work 100% with what I have, except for a couple of marquee signings every year, but ideally, I would like to get to the Eredivisie before all real players have retired. It would add an extra level of interest to sign old Ajax players for mentoring roles for example, or try to revive the career of an underachieving ingame wonderkid. With the urgency that we improve the squad every year, I don't see this intake being relevant for more than 2 seasons, but with 14 in Junior Coaching and 9 in Youth Recruitment, we might be able to get a couple of youngsters with enough Current Ability to help us almost immediately. I wouldn't hold my breath though, I expect this to start happening once we are financially more secure, which would be around tier 3.

The only substantial problem I see is the board's demands. On one hand, it makes sense considering their investment, on the other hand, it might force you to spend a bit more and subsequently play differently compared to what you're used to. It could be worse: Imagine if they wanted you to sign players from Hong Kong without being able to load the country Ultimately, I understand where you're coming from, usually, I don't particularly appreciate managing with that sort of expectations.

Season 3 was the wildest I can remember having on Football Manager in quite some time. To keep things easier to read, I'll divide season 3 into two parts. First, we are going to have a look at the events that took place around the club and then we'll have a separate post about the crazy end of the season. Spoiler alert: Read the league rules more carefully Training Facilities Upgrade (Kind of): Having 1 in Training Facilities and 1 in Youth Facilities basically means that our players will never develop. At the same time, there is absolutely no money for upgrades of that size, so I asked for an affiliation, in order to share facilities with a club in Amsterdam that is a bit more fortunate than us. Luckily, the board came through and found us DCG. They train in Ookmeer, a small neighbourhood at the South-Western border of Amsterdam, near the famous for its (lack of) beauty, Lelylaan. During the same period, our highest (and oldest) ever goalscorer, Rydell Poepon, retired and was good enough to become my Assistant straight away. His experience will be very useful moving forward. But the show must go on and if we want to make DWS successful in an organic way, we need to look inward. Our Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment investments seem to take us in that direction slowly: Nothing to be very excited about in terms of immediate impact, but I like two of our "elite" talents: Pete seems to be ready Mentally to play with the big boys, but he needs to improve his Technicals and Physicals before challenging for a spot in the main squad. If he develops nicely, and that's a big "if", then we might have ourselves a leading figure in the dressing room for the most challenging part of this save. Peter looks more ready, but his low Composure and Stamina might be low enough to stop him from making it into the first team for now. On the other hand, he's very quick, brave, determined and technical for our level, so I decided to give him some minutes towards the end of the season. But more on that later And finally, on more personal news, I had the biggest offer of my Dutch career. NAC Breda came knocking, which is huge considering they are currently an Eredivisie club, but I hope we can meet them there soon with my local club:

Suffering at the hands of RKC would mean that we made it to the Eredivisie, I'll take it!

Thanks! At first, it seemed like a breeze, but now in season 3 things are starting to look like a proper lower league challenge! The only difference is that teams actually try to play football, no low block and Route One shenanigans, which I despised during my time in England. The Dutch Football Federation's plan irl is to abolish this rule and allow teams to get promoted into the 2nd tier. The reason there was no relegation for all these years was that teams from tier 3 and below could simply not afford to participate in a fully professional league. Now teams will be allowed to choose, which is reflected in this custom database, probably by forcing the newly promoted teams to become Professional. The first major step is to become semi-pro, increase our training days and hopefully find a better training ground through an affiliation. Otherwise, player development is just impossible.

Turns out that going from tier 7 to tier 6 would not be a huge difference in terms of the overall level. So, keeping most of the team intact while adding a few quality signings meant we were bound to dominate and get back-to-back promotions, something I haven't done in FM since my dafuge challenge in 2017. This time it was closer, we even lost a couple of games during the winter transfer window, as I tried to integrate too many new players too soon. Our sporting project seems to be working at all levels, since our U19s won their league for the second time in a row as well. Unfortunately, due to our horrendous facilities, none of them are even close to the main squad's level, but more on that later. The most interesting part of the season was the regional cup. We reached the final for the first time in the club's history, which meant: Next season we are playing the proper Dutch Cup! Great experience and hopefully a small financial help as well, since at those levels there are no financial prizes. But again, more on that later. To stay on topic, unfortunately, we lost the cup final. Being 2-0 until the 88th minute made it one of the most painful losses I remember. How can a regional cup final between two amateur teams bother me more than Champions League losses? That's FM for you! Outside of the pitch, things have been quite busy for the club, with a new board coming in and plenty of youth-related improvements taking place. The problem is that I probably got over-excited with having my requests accepted and I think I went too far with the junior coaching budget. At the stage we are at, our only income comes from fundraising organised by the supporters, some very small sponsorships and the very rare Dutch Cup participation fee. Getting anxious about our financial survival, I went ahead and requested a senior affiliated club, to get some direct cash, plus the yearly friendly. For season 3, we got 8.3k plus 11k from the tickets for our friendly match. 20k is a huge amount of money for a team in the 5th tier, where there are not even semi-professional clubs. Now that I am 2+ seasons in and the core of the team seems somewhat stable, it's the right time to introduce our most important players. The oldest player of the club and the only one still here from the start, Poepon will probably end his lucrative career with us. His Attributes are absolutely bonkers for this level of football, which translated into 47 goals and 4 assists in 60 games. In our third season, he's not playing as much anymore, but he still managed to score twice so far, showing that no matter how old you get, the art of goalscoring never leaves you. Mike Mulder was electric in his first two seasons with us. His 23 goals and 36 assists were one of the major reasons for our back-to-back promotions. In season 3, the level has increased quite a bit, so he's demoted to a squad option, luckily without any complaints. An early club icon in my book for sure. To kick things off with the newer guys, van der Lee is basically Mulder's replacement, mostly because of his vastly better Off the Ball, Work Rate and Pace. His Strenght of 1 lets him down occasionally, but hasn't stopped him from registering 15 goals and 9 assists in 43 games for us. Another new guy is Joep Offermars. How can you not sign a guy with this name? But besides his promising name, he's a versatile player for all 3 positions we use upfront, while having a great personality. His 6 goals and 5 assists in 20 games might seem low, but he joined when we started playing at a way higher level than before. The most recent addition is the best player at the club according to my staff. Willem seems to have all the right ingredients to succeed in our system, but so far he's been underwhelming. Injuries, frustration and only 1 assist in 8 games, but I will be patient with him as he's by far our best option on the left. Spoiler for the next post: After two borderline boring promotions, we finally found our level.

The save has spiralled a bit out of control because of my choice to try this new formation, so I've paused it for now, while I'm scratching an FM itch I had for Dutch lower leagues since FM2021. What is happening is a combination of 4 elements: Didn't have enough Natural or Accomplished WBLs for the Alonso-inspired 3-4-3. Players complained about the lack of depth in this position, even though I have at least 3 players with the right attributes for the role, they are just not "Green" there yet. Since I cannot sign anyone, I promised to use players from the youth academy at WBL, to appease them. I started using a clearly not ready 16 year old, who's obviously not performing at this level, leading to an underperforming team overall. All this, combined with tactical unfamiliarity and low morale because of the complaints and the bad results have led to a season and an environment I don't particularly enjoy at this point. With the board's expectations being sky high, I am left with two options: Insist with the 3-4-3, accept a season that would take us back a couple of steps and hope that my "Legend" status will help me keep the job. Go back to my narrow 4-2-3-1 and fix everything by winning more and playing "Morale Manager". Not wanting to deal with all this for the moment led me to a new save in the country I immigrated to in 2021.

In this early part of the save, the main objectives are to get used to the realities of amateur football (lack of training, horrible facilities and having my players approached by other clubs on a daily basis) and establish a consistent way of playing. Luckily, after the end of the transfer windows, teams stop approaching players in general, so I was allowed to start working on our tactic, knowing more or less which players we will have for this year. It would be unrealistic and frankly, immersion-breaking if I asked too much from my players. It was basically a loss-loss situation for me: Either they wouldn't do what I asked successfully and thus, fail to progress. Either they would excel in my super demanding tiki-taka, making everything seem unrealistic. With that in mind, I tried to stick to the overarching principles of this save, while simplifying where possible, to reflect our current level. Moving forward, depending on our level and the players available, I would change certain roles for more technical or specialised ones, or add individual instructions, but for now, this should do. And because I don't like teasing, it definitely did! We went to the top of the league on matchday 4 and never left. Achieving promotion unbeaten was definitely unexpected but not particularly notable at this stage, as most teams are as mismanaged as it gets. But besides winning, what I enjoyed in this first year in the Dutch lower leagues is that we were able to play according to my preference, principles and ultimately, tactical instructions. Having 63% average possession with 89% pass completion and 7.3 shots on target is a step in the right direction. We kept the ball and were patient enough to find opportunities for chance creation, mostly through our pacey wingers. Another element that reinforces my belief in this project is that our U19s won their league as well. Turns out you can play with this tactical setup in all levels of football. Our youth intake was nothing of note, which makes sense if you look at our youth setup: But at least we are balanced financially and the board was eager to help me further develop my managerial skills Let's see how we can improve our squad in the 6th tier of Dutch football.