SuperClub Diaries (Vol.3) - Old Lady dancing to the rhythm #FM24

Previously on SuperClub Diaries, Juventus became the third club of this save.

 
 

Intro

My interest in a save usually takes a dip as Newgens enter the game universe. I see some odd attribute combinations, like the near-perfect 201cm Target Forward who cannot head the ball or the midfield general who has all the fibra…except for 9 Aggression. Their faces too are often a reason to wince at the screen, why are they covered in mud? But…you reach a point in a save where the Newgens take over and you accept the new generation for what they are. It is then when my interest creeps back up again. I get attached to the odd few Newgens, their attributes begin to correlate, their faces begin to…nah they’re still shit.

It’s at this point where I now find myself in FM24. I’m over my Newgen mountain, and I can now see the plateau of sexiness that they bring. Welcome to Turin, the year is 2030…

2030 Champions League

Save updates in SuperClub Diaries are intentionally brief, only the UEFA Champions League matters in this save. Right from the off in season 2029/30, things looked bleak after two opening home defeats in the League Phase. I therefore never expected to come back from that and grab 5 wins from the remaining six games to secure a top eight position! Avoiding the Play-Off place is essential in my opinion, I just hate how it’s sandwiched so close to the Last 16 ties and really disrupts the domestic flow. To draw my previous SuperClub Diaries club Liverpool in the Last 16 was a really good test for my fledgling Juve side. We answered the test, 3-2 away at Anfield…boom. De Zerbi’s Bayern were next up in the QFs, and beating him in two legs meant the Bayern Board ditched him at the end of the season 😎

I felt I had the right side of the draw for the Semi, avoiding the riches of English sides Chelsea and Man City. A nice 2-0 home win against Lens meant I had one foot in the 2030 UCL Final…but then a disastrous opening 12 mins away in France undid all of that good work. My side regrouped in the 2nd half, Dušan Vlahovic had a couple of good chances and he really should have done better. But FM is a cruel game. Up came Kevin Danso in the 88 minute to slap his meat head on the end of a corner delivery. My Juve side were ‘nearly finalists’ in 2030.

80 in-game days ago I really fucked up

My Rebuild (aka manage a team, sell some players, buy some others)

Despite the UCL heartache, I once again secured Champions League football for next season. A 4th place finish shows that I am still some way off domestic honours, where we once again saw AC Milan romp to the title. Yet, I’m optimistic. I’m saying goodbye to the old guard: Angeliño, Federico Chiesa, Federico Gatti, Moise Kean, Nordi Mukiele and Benji Pavard all leave on Free Transfers. This frees up a sizeable chunk of salary to secure some youngsters on long term deals and also go and get a couple of exciting talents.

I’m not going to screencap every Newgen I am signing in this save, because my name is not Dan Gear. However, generational talents will be shared…and I believe Kağan Köksal is a good example of a generational talent. Just look at him ffs. At 18 years of age, he’s a mentally strong defender with attributes nearing an elite standard of Inverted Full Back already. He was my No.1 target in this Transfer Window, and the €24m release clause in his Galatasaray made it all the sweeter. Europe couldn’t bid either, something Dan and I have discussed before in private Q&A together…AI clubs are unwilling to make offers when the window is closed. Bully for me, but a bit of a Human Manager hackz.

 
 

Europe unwilling

Kağan Köksal slots into the side as the right sided Inverted Full-Back, and I’m sure he is going to be great. The IFB role just seems to allow everything else to flourish through Positional Play. Our starting shape is a 4231, but in possession we are a back three with good numbers in attack. The below tactic has Juventus playing at a good rhythm, and I think a full season with this 4231 could see us win trophies next season…

England

English superclubs had to once again see Arsenal win a third straight league title. There was some success in Manchester though: Man City made a Champions League final before being beaten 2-1 by surprise package Lens and Manchester United beat Fiorentina 4-0 in the Europa League final. Luckily for Chelsea, a 5th placed finish is enough for them to get Champions League football…but Liverpool are the English superclub to miss out on European football entirely with a 7th placed finish. Their infatuation of Italian Managers shows no signs of stopping either, with Alessio Dionisi sacked…Liverpool now appoint Simone Inzaghi for the 2030/31 season. Inzaghi will be their 4th Italian Manager appointment in a row!

France

PSG’s Pep Guardiola consulted the TimeHop App and signed a 35-year-old Raheem Sterling from Chelsea for €20m. However, it was Chelsea who were their undoing in the Quarter Finals of the Champions League. The Parisians make do with a domestic double once again, but there is now a growing sense of acceptance with how things are going. This is best demonstrated with the Qatari owners scaling back funding for the second year in a row.

Germany

in Germany, Bayern Munich continue to be ambitious…the Bundesliga win of 2030 is not enough to keep Roberto De Zerbi in the job. The Bavarians made a Quarter Final exit in the Champions League against Juventus, so their response is to re-appoint Thomas Tuchel. The man responsible for their 2023/24 in-game Champions League triumph.

Italy

30-year-old Dušan Vlahovic retires from International football after scoring 50 goals for the Serbian National Team. When the Serbian press asked him why, he simply stated: “So I can solely focus on wining something for the handsome guy in the Juve dugout”. That may take some doing for Juventus, who once again finish 4th and 19 points behind league winners AC Milan. Stefano Pioli has now officially reached ‘Legend’ status at I Rossoneri with a club record breaking fourth title in a row. Cross-city rivals, Inter, make do with a 3rd place finish.

Spain

Just like last year, Barcelona splash €260m cash in a bid to rival Real Madrid. Youssoufa Moukoko is the big January signing for €100m, who failed to live up the hype and who still has not scored a goal for the second placed Catalan side. Real Madrid win La Liga, with cross-city rivals Atlético de Madrid in 3rd. None of the Spanish superclubs make waves in the Champions League.

The longest run at a club so far in this save is with PSG (three seasons). But, I think Juventus and me may break that as I enter my second full season at the club. The UCL remains the target, but I am looking forward to seeing if I can topple this Milan juggernaut off from the summit of Serie A. If Vlahovic is true to his word and Köksal can settle well, we may just do it 🤞🏻

Thanks for reading/sharing and caring.

Tony / FM Grasshopper

Progress did not stop in #FM24

Football Manager 2024 was touted as ‘the most complete edition of the series’ by the game developer, Sports Interactive. With the much requested upgrade to set pieces, major match engine tweaks and cross-edition save compatibility…you can certainly see why.  But is it?  With 400 hours ploughed into the game, and with FM25 potentially 4-5 months away, I am using my blog today to share my thoughts on FM24.

Match Engine

Well, well, well.  I’ve said in previous reviews of earlier FMs…I place huge emphasis on how good the match engine is when rating a Football Manager title.  FM24 simply has to be judged highly, on the basis that the match engine got a lot of attention this time round.

The introduction of Positional Play elements has continued to grip me well into June 2024.  There are still combinations of roles and shapes I am yet to try, mainly because Positional Play influences so much of the pitch.  From CB to AM, and the lines in between, there are a lot of rotations you can now create.

 
 

Historically, I have felt that new roles added into FM have felt in isolation.  Roles introduced then just felt like alternatives that you used in place of others (Pressing Forward instead of an Advanced Forward for example).  Yet, in FM24, the introduction of the Inverted Full Back, or major reworkings to Half-Backs and Liberos, now have major knock-on effects elsewhere in your tactic.  There is no need to have fancy starting shapes, a simple back four can morph into some exotic shapes, as explained in this cracker of a Byline piece from my podcast co-host.

I must also mention the animations.  I could have forgiven Sports Interactive for delivering zero progress here whatsoever, seeing as FM25 brings about the new Unity match engine. Yet, here we are.  A whole host of new player animations were added this year, and they’ve had a bigger impact on my match day experience than I originally expected.

It is therefore hard to give the FM match engine anything less than a 9/10 this time round.  It’s more than a solid base for the match engine team to roll out into the Unity engine, where I am hopeful that fluidity and animations can once again combine to give another solid score in FM25.

Set Pieces

Prior to FM24, a common pain point for a lot of FMers was that set pieces were previously set by position, not a general priority of the best for the job.  This meant that in previous editions, a change in tactic could wreak havoc with your set piece routines. But that is no longer the case.  In FM24 you can make tactical or team changes without having to change your set pieces.  Our routines will always use the best players from the match day squad.

The new routines also have an effectiveness behind them too.  Like tactics they link to the training modules you place into your weekly cycle.  I like how thought has been taken in linking some of the good bits about FM together, in order to make a more seamless game.

I think on first glance, or through pre-release screenshots, some players could have been expecting a reskin of the set piece creator (and I still saw some comments in the early days that this was true)...but what Sports Interactive did here was overhaul set pieces in the best possible way.  However, there are still set piece routines that cannot be done.  It’s perhaps not as fluid as it possibly can be, but like the ME we have is a solid base to build from.

Overall I like this feature.  It was much needed and it’s vastly better than what we had previously in FM23: 7/10.

Save Compatibility

I did not use this feature.  But I know some people who did, and I never once heard any problems with their integration or adaptation to the process of loading an FM23 save into FM24.  My guess is that this feature was heavily tested for years before its addition, which you have to once again praise the painless rollout.

Like a Tripadvisor review, you’re more likely to report a bad experience than a positive one.  Perhaps this feature is less memorable than other headline features as a result.  But the real strength is that this feature is here to stay, and I think it encourages players to embark on longer saves well into the cycle of the current edition, knowing that they could conceivably carry it on into the next edition.  I felt so passionate about this last point, that I decided to write a Byline article on longer challenges.

I’m giving it a 7/10, but part of that is because I think at some point it will be taken for granted.  This post will perhaps be a nice reminder of how revolutionary it once was.

Quality of Life

The UI is still clunky.  Whilst some shortcuts have been made through Agents & Intermediaries, the game can sometimes feel laborious in places. This is hopefully to be corrected in FM25, but an overhaul is needed after many years of onion layer-type features being added to the game.

However, lovely additions like ‘Real World’ and ‘Your World’ game modes alongside the usual ‘Original’ mode add a nice juxtaposition to the way you play.  Real World sees the FM player take the realism route: players join at their real-life transfer date meaning that they could arrive after the first fixtures of the season and need to catch up on fitness and bed into the team culture.  Your World will wipe clean those future transfers and give you the budget back to take on a new alternate timeline with your new club.  Kudos to the developers here for not forcing either of the game modes down us, we simply choose the one that suits us best.  What did you go for in FM24?

Overall, the Quality of Life is a ‘misc’ within the article.  I’m scoring it 6/10, on the basis that FM25 can ride in like a White Knight and ‘cull the clicks’ and get us to 9/10!

Licenses

 
 

The recent announcement of the Premier League license coming to FM25 has blown the J League(s) acquisition in FM24 out of the water.  Yet, getting Japan into the game (and selling it in the country of SEGA) was a big deal for a lot of people.  I did not undertake a Japanese save, but it is something that I will definitely experience within the multi-year lifespan of the contract.

But if I was being critical, it took a long while to get Japan ‘right’.  Some players were not present right away, and it felt work-in-progress for a little while after launch.  However, I’m sure these issues will not exist in a league that’s already researched like the Premier League.

Despite the integration hiccups with Japan, FM24’s repertoire of licenses is probably the biggest I can remember in any era of Football Manager (and I’ve not even detailed anything about the Netflix licence either).

Miles and co. at SI HQ have already bettered themselves for FM25, and they show no sign of stopping.  KUTGW guys.

8/10.

Final thoughts

On final reflection, I feel FM24 hit the levels to be classed as ‘the most complete edition of the series’.  Whilst I do not think I have had my most memorable, or ‘complete’ save, there is something that keeps bringing me back to the game itself.  Seasons are quick to get through and I have often had to stop myself in order to pause and blog…that’s a sure sign that the game is gripping me.

If we aggregate my crude category scores, the title gets a solid 8/10.  This leaves obvious room for the new FM25 title to come in and reign supreme, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.  After all, progress never stops.

What do you think about FM24?

Thanks for reading,

Tony / FM Grasshopper

SuperClub Diaries (Vol.3) - 100 Club #FM24

Previously on SuperClub Diaries, we did it™.

 
 

Intro

I spent an excessive amount of time as to whether this post belonged in the ‘Volume 2’ or ‘Volume 3’ collection of posts. Alas, I’ve positioned it with my new club but referenced the title (100 Club) to my previous employers: Liverpool.

In total, I managed 100 games for Liverpool. Winners of the Champions League against PSG in 2028 and a Supercup triumph the following season in a local-ish derby against Leeds United. Even though the two 2nd placed league finishes had me wanting more, overall I think my time at Liverpool has been a success. However I’m holding myself to high standards this year in FM24 SuperClub Diaries. The start of the third season had not really hit the heights previously, and with a 10 point gap already established in December 2028 between myself and league leaders Arsenal (and a 3-0 drubbing against the vengeful PSG in the Champions League)…it was time to resign.

High standards from me as the player of the video game, I might add. The virtual Board still deemed my status as ‘secure’, despite my 100th game ending in defeat away at Chelsea. It was time to leave for pastures new.

Where did it go [a bit] wrong?

Before anybody cyber bullies me online, I want to be clear that I managed 69 Liverpool games more than Roy Hodgson did at Liverpool. That’s got to count for something. But if I had to place the reasons for my struggles in season 3 with Liverpool, I would say it was the finances. This is pretty laughable considering I am in one of the richest leagues in the world, but for the first time in this save I had to be more transfer fee conscious. Instead of BIG signings like the Alexander Isak and João Neves deals that came before this season, I had to ‘make do’ with a combined €42m spend for Target Forward Toluwalase Arokodare and Centre-Back Willian Pacho. They’re decent players, but perhaps not the elite I am used to in this save. The results between August and October were mixed, but it was November where my mind was made up. I left Liverpool in 7th in the league, still with a decent shot at a top 8 placing in the revised Champions League league phase, but desperately adrift of mounting a serious title challenge.

Honestly, cancel the save if you lose 0-3 to Tottenham tbqfh 🤮


Old Lady Calling

Damn, perhaps that would have been a better title than ‘100 Club’. Anyway, it’s the Old Lady’s open and vacant position that was the most attractive place for me to thrust myself back into football management. Juventus had not won a Serie A for ages, and financially have to be a bit prudent now the AI has mismanaged their finances into near ruin. This is a different challenge to what’s come before it in SuperClub Diaries, but I feel ready. I was Juventus’ Christmas present, arriving a week or so before the festivities and also the revised Italian Supercup (which now has four teams…showing me it’s a long time since I’ve been in FM Italy).

Here is a list of all major honours Juventus have won in the previous five seasons within this FM24 Universe:

 

Nothing. They’ve won nothing.

 

From the onset, my tactical identity for Juventus is calcio-based. I want to use a Libero, mainly because the role got such an overhaul in FM24’s development cycle, and also wanted to make good use of some good press-hungry attacking left wing backs (Defensive Winger). I have solid workhorses in central midfield (Defensive Midfielder and Segundo Volante), who look like ‘jacks of all trade’ and I have some nice flair in the No.10 slots (Attacking Midfielder). I am therefore going to set up in a lop-sided 433. The sole striker, with a No.10 and attacking Inside Forward running in behind him, drops which suits the style of 29-year-old Dušan Vlahović who remains at the club. In possession is becomes a 3-2-4-1 / 3-2-5.

Through the process of trial-and-error, the below tactic is the one that I ended up using for the remainder of the 2028/29 season. My impact on results is not as drastic as some rebuild jobs elsewhere in the FM Community. I arrived with Juventus in 5th position in the league…and we ‘only’ secured 4th (and thus UCL qualification) on the final day of the season. I also decided to not use the January Transfer Window too, instead opting to see what the squad could do. Give everybody a chance and I may be surprised, I thought. That mindset was tested with Bayern’s €80m bid for Matías Soulé, but the decision was vindicated with the Inside Forward’s end of season form (3 goals and 3 assists in those final four wins to secure 4th). At the age of 26-years-old, the Argentine is definitely somebody to build around…

2029 Champions League

The AI had already humiliated Juventus in the 2029 edition of the UCL, with no win in the first three rounds of fixtures in the league phase. This also included a 7-1 defeat against Barcelona. But the ship was eventually steadied, and I can take the credit for a credible draw Vs Manchester United at home before four points from matches against Ajax and Leeds.

An 18th placed finish meant a nervy Play Off draw, but I luckily avoided the likes of Arsenal, Dortmund and Real Madrid and instead bested Leverkusen 5-3 on aggregate. Barcelona were a step up from that though, we should have beaten them at home…but there was only one side deserving of going through after that second leg and it wasn’t Juventus. If I could go back and do things differently, I’d have chosen to try and mark Lamine Yamal out of the game…perhaps dropping my Defensive Winger to Wing Back and doubling up on him with my Wide Centre-Back. Hat-trick man Yamal was simply in too much space, and a constant thorn in our side throughout the 90 minutes.

The UCL Challenge

Selling to buy is going to be a necessity here at Juventus. The club’s finances remain in the red (€-55m) after the conclusion of the 2028/29 season, so any SuperClub Diaries success in the UCL may take a little longer that it did with PSG and Liverpool. But luckily, now that I am 5-6 years into FM24, it’s officially Newgen season. I will aim to adopt a transfer policy where I favour the recruitment of sub-25 year olds. But before I do that, let me have a little fun with Benjamin Pavard on a Bosman; who returns to Italian football after a season away in Manchester.

New Libero, quite a famous player.

England

Liverpool drop out of next year’s Champions League with a disappointing 5th place finish. New Italian Manager Alessio Dionisi has a lot of work to do to convince Liverpool fans he is the man, after €40m January signing Arsen Zakharyan failed to live up to the hype with just 1 starting appearance. Antonio Conte’s Manchester City win the FA Cup and finish in a credible 3rd placed league finish, after missing out on Champions League football last season. City almost qualified outright by winning the Europa League, but painfully lost on penalties to fellow SuperClub Atlético de Madrid. Chelsea finish in 4th, but continue to splash the cash with a €101m fee paid to Benfica for João Veloso. It’s perhaps Manchester United that have the most interesting season: a disappointing 7th placed league finish means they scrape into the Europa League. But Eddie Howe’s side have a magical Champions League run to the final beating Real Madrid, Tottenham and Barcelona before facing Premier League winners Arsenal. The match in the drizzly Stade de France was a bit of a damp squib, 0-0 AET before Aaron Ramsdale saved Valentín Barco sudden death penalty to see Arsenal win their first ever UCL title (and to do it on the pitch they lost the 2006 final on is extra special too).

France

PSG’s Kylian Mbappé won his 12th Ligue 1 title, as he entered his 30s as the top scorer in France once again. Pep Guardiola is shown up in the Champions League for another season, losing to eventual winner Arsenal in the Last 16 stage. Will the Qatari owners continue to patient with the Spaniard’s lack of pedigree in the UCL with the Paris club?

Germany

The Harry Kane era is over in Munich. The English striker leaves Bayern for Al-Nassr Football Club, who I am led to believe play in Saudi Arabia. It doesn’t stop the sexy Fußball flowing tough, Bayern romp once again to the Bundesliga title and seem to have Roberto De Zerbi getting the best out of Jamal Musiala; who is winning a lot of personal accolades this season.

Italy

Juventus have to wait until the final day of the season to secure Champions League football with.a 4th place finish. The two Milanese Super Clubs finish higher in Serie A: Inter in 3rd, who juggled the budget well to make credible loan signings in Brahim Díaz from Real Madrid and Ismaël Bennacer from cross-city rivals AC Milan. I Rossoneri will not mind too much though, a third Serie A title in a row matching the iconic Milan side of the early 90s.

Spain

The 2028/29 season ends with Barcelona in 1st and Real Madrid in 2nd, the same outcome as the two previous seasons too. Xavi is still rocking the 433 with good effect in Catalonia, and new signings Gabriel (€69 from Arsenal), Matteo Ruggeri (€52 from Man City) and Warren Zaïre-Emery (€59m from PSG) slot right into the 1st team nicely. There is some improvement for Real Madrid’s Jürgen Klopp though, instead of the 21 point gap between their arch rivals last year…it was only 3 points this time around. Will this be enough to keep the German in post? Kudos to the often forgotten Super Club in Spain: Atlético de Madrid. The Colchoneros surprised everybody in the Europa League this year and beat Manchester City on penalties. After a three year absence from the Champions League, Atléti will once again mix with the big boys in the 2029/30 edition.

Season 6 was a whirlwind. From Liverpool to Turin, there now appears to be a newly found purpose to the save: use Juventus’ resources strategically and get them back alongside the European elite and competing for Champions League honours. Whilst La Liga or the Bundesliga could have been an attractive onward move from Liverpool, the challenge within a competitive Serie A, and all the nostalgia ‘Calcio’ brings, is what I think I needed to breathe new life into the save.

Thanks for reading/sharing and caring.

Tony / FM Grasshopper

SuperClub Diaries (Vol.2) - Isak Success #FM24

 
 

Intro

I had previously decided that consecutive trophyless seasons could not be tolerated in this SuperClub Diaries save. If it were to happen, I’d have to walk out of any contract I was currently on. With 2026/27 ending up my first season without silverware, the pressure was therefore amplified at Liverpool. I needed to win something, and being outclassed in Europe so convincingly last time out by Barcelona meant that I did not have much hope for Liverpool’s 7th European Cup. Despite a clear style to our play (as discussed last time out), we seemed a long way from ever being considered ‘the best team in Europe’.

Or so I thought…

SuperSignings

Similar to last year, the big signings at Liverpool came in a three: Aaron Hickey became the heir to Andrew Robertson’s left back position for a cool €69m. It may seem pricey, but consider his natural positioning at right back too…I have a great full back here who will get plenty of minutes. Next up is the big one: Alexander Isak for a monstrous €120m fee, with Caoimhin Kelleher going the other way to Tyneside too. The fee could also increase by €15m, with performance add-ons. Liverpool’s new iconic No.7 is there to excite at the peak of his powers. It is the most I have ever spent on a player in a Football Manager save, but the decision to hit ‘Confirm’ is a throwback to my motivations for this save. As mentioned in the introduction of this series…

But maybe there is an FM save here by behaving like a super club? It’s something I never really do, usually players in my FM saves are carefully recruited with the aim to get as much out of the budget as possible. A super club would, and absolutely should, be in the moment of building an elite XI each year, with the aim to win it all.
Vol1. SuperClub Diaries Announcement

Sorry if this signing makes you uneasy, but perhaps the signing of Edoardo Bove for a minimum fee release clause of €22.5m helps calm you down? Bove is a solid Segundo Volante (great engine), proven professional (Model Citizen) and has his best years ahead (26-years-old).

2028 Champions League

The new signings slotted into a revised 424 counter style tactic, and the UCL performances were a lot better. Keen to avoid the play-off match like last year, we grabbed enough wins to qualify for the Round of 16. The only worry was the heavy defeat to Jürgen Klopp’s Real Madrid, but on reflection they totally deserved to batter us. Into UCL knockout football and it must be noted how solid we were. Both Endrick and Isak came alive, with the latter scoring in both Barcelona ties to finish on 6 UCL goals for the season.

Sadly Endrick missed the final, breaking a rib in the final few minutes away in the Nou Camp. But the final was all about MOTM Ibrahima Konaté heading in two Dominik Szoboszlai out-swinging corners. It’s hard to know what contributed more to the big day Vs PSG, the extra sessions on set pieces OR the fact that pretty much everybody in the starting XI had ‘Relishes Big Matches’ or ‘Enjoys Big Matches’ in their coach reports. Liverpool 2028 looked to be one for the big game, and so it proved…keeping Pep Guardiola’s PSG quiet; despite my former side having the lion’s share of possession (64%).

Liverpool’s 7th UCL trophy (and my second in the save) was a welcome high point in an almost-trophyless-season. Once again, my side finished 2nd in the league (this time to Arsenal with 3 points between the teams). The big failing was not how we performed against the big boys, but rather anybody playing in claret and blue. We lost to Aston Villa (home and away), Burnley and West Ham. This is a sure sign that in order to win the league I perhaps need to move away from a 424 counter tactic in those games and have something more active in the opponents’ halves.

There was also pain the in the domestic cups too. Penalty exits in both the League Cup (against Tottenham in the Quarter Finals) and then in the FA Cup Final (against Manchester City). It was so nearly a treble or quadruple season 😬

England

Twenty four years is how long Arsenal had to wait for a league title, and once again it’s a Frenchman at the helm: Zinedine Zidane. Liverpool come second, but have a Champions League trophy to placate the disappointment of narrowly missing out on both league and FA Cup success. Manchester City were the FA Cup winners this time round, but disappointingly spent the second successive season outside of the Champions League places with a 6th placed finish. As a result, Mauricio Pochettino’s 322 days in charge are over. Other SuperClubs in England, Chelsea and Manchester United, go trophyless.

France

There is no surprise as to who won the Ligue 1 trophy for a 7th time: Paris Saint-Germain. The Parisians went big on 22-year-old Luka Vrbančić (a €104m signing from Dinamo Zagreb), who is arguably one of the most attractive redheads since Isla Fisher and Ted Redwood. Their season would end in relative failure though: the aforementioned 3-1 defeat to Liverpool in Austria.

Germany

The irresistible midfield combination of Jamal Musiala and Xavi Simons (34 goals between them in 2027/28) was enough to see Bayern Munich retain the Bundesliga again with 86 points (the same total points as last year). The Bavarians topped the League Phase of the UCL too, but fell to Liverpool 0-1 on aggregate at the Quarter Final stage. Roberto de Zerbi’s cup agony continued with a 0-1 defeat to Wolfsburg in the DFB-Pokal.

Italy

AC Milan retained Serie A, but did so without having a player score more than 11 goals in the league. I Rossoneri had the luxury of 18 different goalscorers in the league over 2027/28, Stefano Pioli’s side clearly showing they were not reliant on just one, two or three men. Other Italian SuperClubs, Juventus and Inter Milan, finish 2nd and 5th respectively. With all three Italian sides once again failing to impress on the continental stage, with the Old Lady’s Quarter Final exit being the furthest anybody went in Europe.

Spain

102 points meant Barcelona were crowned champions once again in Spain, and doubled the domestic success with a 4-1 Copa del Rey win Vs Atlético de Madrid. The Madrid team became the first SuperClub side to fall out of Europe competition last season, and they only just redeemed themselves this season with a 6th place finish to qualify for the Europa League. City rivals Real Madrid went trophyless, meaning that the pressure is back on Manager Jürgen Klopp (despite a previous UCL win in 2027)…a 21 point difference between arch-rivals Barcelona in La Liga cannot be accepted!

Save On Hold 📴

I have enjoyed these five seasons of SuperClub Diaries on FM24. However, I’m going to pause playing (and therefore creating content around the game) for an extended period of time. There’s a lot going on in my personal life right now and, more importantly, I need to properly say goodbye to somebody (and spend time with them) who isn’t going to get better in 2024…and I can tell from the length of time I got this post out, that I’m just not ‘in the zone’ to be FM’ing and writing about it right now in March 2024.

The good thing about this save is that it’s there for me to come back to: another season with Liverpool to see if I can retain the UCL, with a close eye on another SuperClub opportunity opening up elsewhere? It sounds exciting, and certainly enough to lure me back, when the time is right. Maybe it’s something for later this Summer, or as a save loaded into FM25. So, this isn’t a big goodbye/”I am leaving the community” etc, I will write about FM again…just not for a little while.

Thanks again for taking the time to read, previous sharing and caring. Look after yourselves.

Tony / FM Grasshopper

SuperClub Diaries (Vol.2) - Counterpool #FM24

Previously on SuperClub Diaries, a Champions League win in 2026 was the perfect goodbye to Paris.

 
 

Intro

Last time out on the blog I teased a move to the English Premier League, with Manchester United a potential employer after my Champions League win with PSG. But in July 2026 there was another Northern Powerhouse seeking my appointment…

 
 
 
 

Everything about the Liverpool offer is better, and they are already qualified in the Champions League…exactly what this save is all about. Sorry Manchester United fans, I was headed to Liverpool with the task of returning them to the heights of the Klopp-era.

Welcome to Volume 2 of SuperClub Diaries.

Liverpool in FM24, the story so far…

The only consistent in FM24 is that Liverpool have qualified for the Champions League each season, but elsewhere a lot has changed around the club:

  • Season 1 - Winners of the 2024 Europa League and FA Cup runners up in 2024, before Jürgen Klopp left for Real Madrid.

  • Season 2 - Italian Maurizio Sarri was his replacement, who rode on Klopp’s success a bit with wins in the UEFA Super Cup and newly formed UEFA/CONMEBOL Club Challenge.

  • Season 3 - Liverpool were losing Champions League finalists to Barcelona in 2026. 3 days after the final John W. Henry rage sold the club to a consortium headed up by an unknown Englishman called Jacques Thomas.

  • Season 4 [PRESENT VIRTUAL DAY] - Mere days into pre-season, Maurizio Sarri decides it’s time to retire. Jacques Thomas’ first manager appointment is to hire one of FM Blogging’s most sought after heartthrobs: me.

Much of the squad is still there, and 34-year old Mohamed Salah and 35-year-old Virgil van Dijk are still the club MVPs. However, it was my intention to limit their involvement in 2026/27 and I was willing to sell them to Saudi Arabia (if they came in).

Me in Liverpool, a little bit more of the story so far…

A SuperClub must have super ambitions. So, I was determined to rebuild the club by selling their best player (Mo Salah) and freeze out their club captain and hope Saudi Arabia came knocking for both. They did for Salah, €87m for a 34-year-old! Sadly van Dijk never got the right bid, so I dropped him before he agreed a deal with Barcelona for the end of his contract.

With a lot of money now laying around, I did the sensible thing and splashed the cash on some marquee players. Meet the Portuguese speakers who will hopefully usher in a new period of glory for the club: Éder Militão (€65m), Endrick (€10.5m) and João Neves (€60m). That’s not a naught missing on Endrick’s price by the way, he actually signed for €10.5m due to a release clause being present on his Madrid contract. In a week of FM transfer hackz, where any Wonderkid can be signed for €19.5m, I just want to put on record that I find that figure a bit too expensive and €10.5m is far better. Thank you.

Counterpool

Whenever I see a Byline post released from the official Football Manager X account, there is often multiple replies telling Sports Interactive to ‘fix the game’. Usually I pay them no real attention, other than a cursory glance, however the below reply from @seloro17 stood out as something I could look to test with Liverpool.

I remember my first solero 🍦

Now, there are a few disclaimers I need to make prior to introducing my counter attack tactic. Firstly, there may be varying levels of how somebody defines a ‘win’ in the ME. Is it winning all the trophies? Is it being effective? Or is it simply just being able to see the style in the first place? Secondly, there are many forms of a Counter Attack style but I am assuming @seloro17’s interpretation to be similar to my own: allowing the opposing team to build up before winning it back and countering with quick football. Fewer touches/less overall possession… progressing the ball forward in a more direct and urgent style.

Between the two types of football mentioned in the tweet (Possession and Counter Attack), one has to be more effective than the other…right? Possibly, but the point is blurred because you could have varying degrees of passiveness/activeness in how they press between those two styles. If you took an IRL Premier League view in 2024, and looked at PPDA (passes per defensive action), we would expect to see the likes of Arsenal, Brighton, Liverpool and Tottenham leading the way in terms of low PPDA scores. They like to press hard, right in the opposition’s faces and reduce the amount of passes an oppoistion can make. The likes of Nottingham Forest and West Ham are likely scoring high in PPDA, they sit back a bit and will look to hurt you on quick turnovers. As a side note, David Moyes’ West Ham are an anomaly to the general trend of high PPDA correlating with league finish (and winning European trophies). The Hammers actually do quite well at it, although it only takes a few bad results for the mood to turn at that club…something I am certain will be Moyes undoing soon enough.

What I am getting at here is that gegenpressing a team [those pressing high in their opponent’s half] is currently ‘in vogue’ in Premier League football. Most of the ‘successful’ teams are doing it and fans are generally happy to see it. Maybe not always in the future, but in 2024 they are. As an extension, it’s the same in Football Manager 2024 (and its community of meta tactic lovers) and I think that’s probably what @seloro17 is probably alluding to. However, with counter attacking not being popular (perhaps not as readily effective like FM24 meta hackz), it does not mean it is absent from Football Manager 2024 as a style. This is why I wanted to try a more reserved/counter attack style of football with Liverpool. Something that I am yet to do in SuperClub Diaries, as with PSG I was heavily dominant…sometimes not allowing the AI a sniff at goal.

This has been a long way of saying that I hope to show @seloro17 that the counter attack can still win games in FM24, if he ever stumbled on this particular blog post. But to be clear, my interpretation of ‘counter attack’ for Liverpool will be:

  • Low Block, allowing for a high Opposition Passes Per Defensive Action (OPPDA).

  • Low % possession in games.

  • Quick attacks, lots of shots and sprints forward.

  • Variety of goals, and hopefully a lot of them.

I am aware it’s a departure of what has come before in Klopp and Sarri, and I still need to tick that box with the Board for ‘Play attacking football’. But let’s try it, the board just want shots and goals-to-game ratios to be high…primed for a counter attack then!

The tactic

Initially I tried variations of 343 and 532, to limited success. In the first month of Premier League football I had won twice (against Leicester and Tottenham Hotspurs), but also lost twice (to Man City and Fulham). In all four games I gave over 1.0 in xG to the opponent, and a fair amount of shots to AI. Perhaps it’s a by-product of our counter attacking style, but I wasn’t seeing the risk and reward in terms of our own attack either. I needed to adapt.

Adapt I did. Eventually to a 424 (via 433 briefly), and did not have to tweak too much in Teams Instructions:

424 Counterpool as of May 2027.

Despite being a Low Block on Balanced, it’s actually quite attacking with the four forwards and four attacking mentalities in the side. The only Player Instruction is asking the DLP to Take More Risks. I saw a vast improvement in the performances from here on out. I was also getting results in the style of football (league stats incoming):

  • Ranked 19th in Opposition Passes Per Defensive Action (OPPDA) with second highest in league (4.98 - although this does seem out of kilter with real-world, but could be how FM calculates it differently to IRL).

  • Ranked 11th in Average Possession (50%). (I’m sure it would be lower if teams didn’t also sit back against us due to our reputation).

  • Ranked 1st in High Intensity Sprints, 1st for Non-Penalty Goals Per 90 (1.77) and 1st for Shots On Target.

  • Joint highest goalscorers in the league (75 goals), equal with title winners Manchester United (eurgh).

But would @seloro17 be happy? I guess they would if they are happy to see the style (as I’ve shown above in the stats and the ME highlights). However, we remained trophyless (so they may not be happy)…which you could probably argue is a failure for a club like Liverpool. A disastrous March with four league defeats saw us hand the 1st place position to Manchester United, who rarely slipped up after that. If it was not for that little wobble and my erratic start, I reckon I could have claimed the Premier League title.

2027 Champions League

But this save is not about the poxy English Premier League. It’s the Champions League baby…aaaannnndddd we fucked that up too. A few blog posts ago, I previously raved about the Swiss Model. I still love it, but I sadly experienced how damaging that extra playoff game can be for fitness. The 6-1 aggregate win Vs Napoli was satisfying (a 2-0 win in the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona with just 38% possession), but injuries and fatigue mounted for us and it kick-started that bad run I mentioned on the domestic front.

When I reached the Barcelona game, it had the air of FM inevitably about it. Pedri’s 90+4 winner in the home tie confirmed that, as it meant we had it all to do away from home. Annoyingly, PSG loanee Karim Konaté (who I signed for the Parisians) came back to haunt me as he put two past me in the now newer Nou Camp post-renovation. Awful scenes really. Out at the Last 16, when the Board wanted more from their new Manager with a Champions League title on his CV.

My favourite goal of the season is probably one of the simplest, and it came in the UCL. It’s from the Napoli game, which sees Dominik Szoboszlai in the DLP role put a nice central through ball into Ben Doak. The young Scot has had a breakthrough year with me, largely as an Advanced Forward…

 

Hungarian playmakers mate, different type of goulash!

 

Actually, wait, I’ve changed my mind…THIS is probably my favourite goal of the season. Wonderboy Box-to-Box midfielder João Neves winning it for me against Tottenham (below). Just look at the ground he covers to finish Counterpool’s move. Please @seloro17, be happy with what I’ve done here…

 

Counterpool - João Neves.

 

England

The big shock in England is Pep Guardiola’s decision to leave for the vacant Paris Saint Germain job leaving Manchester City with a disappointing 5th place finish. Unai Emery’s one and only season in charge with the Citizens ends trophyless, despite breaking the World Transfer Record on Jude Bellingham for €289m. Chelsea once again finish in the UCL places with a 4th place finish, whilst Diego Simeone’s Arsenal win the FA Cup and finish 2nd. He leaves after 3 years in charge to return to former Italian SuperClub Inter Milan from his playing days. The top two is made up of rivals Liverpool (2nd) and 2026/27 Premier League Winners Manchester United. Thomas Tuchel boosting his glowing virtual reputation with a debut league title back in England, after being sacked from Bayern previously.

France

Pep Guardiola’s Paris Saint Germain were once again crowned French champions with a 22 point cushion and won a Coupe de France. However, a Quarter Final defeat to eventual champions Real Madrid will hurt in the Champions League.

Germany

Roberto De Zerbi strolled into German super club Bayern Munich and won the Bundesliga with ease. The Bavarian side’s UCL performance almost made it a dream start for the Italian, as his side reached the Final (losing 4-1 to Madrid). New €91m signing Xavi Simons scoring the opener in that game to put the German ahead.

Italy

Stefano Pioli won his third Serie A title and AC Milan’s 21st, and they also had a Coppa Italia win to celebrate too. Cross-city rivals Inter Milan finish 2nd. However both Milanese clubs disappoint in the Champions League with Last 16 exits. Juventus finish Serie A in 3rd and took their UEFA Conference League duties seriously by unforgiveably losing to Tottenham in the Final.

Spain

Teenager Lamine Yamal announced himself as Barcelona’s undisputed MVP this season with 21 league goals, as he led his club to the La Liga trophy. However, a Semi Final Champions League exit will hurt Xavi’s men even more seeing that rivals Real Madrid went on to win the 2027 edition, who finished La Liga in 2nd. City rivals Atlético de Madrid become the first SuperClub of the save to drop out of European competition completely. They have Antonio Conte to thank for their 12th place finish, as his two year tenure ends with a 49% win rate.

That’s my brief update of a fourth season in SuperClub Diaries. Hopefully it’s clear I have enjoyed playing a more counter attacking style of football; and if you read this far: thank you very much. See you next time for Season 5.

YNWA.

Tony / FM Grasshopper