The calendar year 2028 in my Football Manager 2021 save in Sweden with GAIS came to an end. It was the ninth calendar year/season of this save and it’s very possible it was also the penultimate season. The calendar year 2029 will mark the jubilant tenth year of this main FM21 save and I will call the day most likely.

I wrote about the first half of this calendar year HERE where I talked also about the transfers, results but also about how I’m using the Manage selections option within the game.

I usually don’t make too many incoming transfers in the middle of the season as I like to have the main core of the squad prepared straight at the beginning of the season. And that’s winter in case of this save as we are playing within the calendar year. Summer 2028 was absolutely inactive from our side and we didn’t buy or sign someone new.

But the column of the outgoing transfers shows you 13 players left our club between July 13, 2028, and November 2028. Some of these transfers were loans within Sweden. The young Russian striker Mikhail Markov (I shared his picture in the previous post too) went to Odds as he was unhappy with his playing time.

Three of our young players also moved to Bayern München. This time Víctor Martínez, Robin Alexandersson and Edin Guzijan. The first one is a promising Danish wing back signed for free two years ago. Robin Alexandersson - Swedish 19 years old central defender - played just 5 league matches for us and went to Bayern for €1M. Edin Guzijan is our own newgen/19 years old central midfielder. I wanted to play him quite a lot after a successful loan but all these three players wanted to leave.

So I let them leave if they don’t want to be here and their choice is to play for U19s or II Bayern teams.

Bayern München bought 6 players from our club just in the 2028 calendar year. All of them are in the Bayern II squad playing the 3rd tier. Bayern bought 8 players from us between 2025 and 2028. All of them are together in the Bayern II.

The legendary Zinedine Zidane is the manager of Bayern München in my save since 2026. I have no option to ask about the Senior Affiliate club but maybe it would be easier to just have Bayern as the Senior Affiliate and they would be able to take any player they want… :)

It would be nice if at least one of these players will play for Bayern’s first team under the helm of Zinedine. Not because of money or some clauses but just to say to me I developed some player(s) for the top club.

The fact we didn’t sign some new players in summer and 7 players from the senior squad moved elsewhere, we had the smallest senior squad within the whole save for the 2nd part of the season/2028 calendar year.

The senior squad consisted of only 23 players - 2 goalkeepers and 21 outfield players. I can’t remember when I had such a small squad. Maybe when I played some lower league saves and I had to fill the complete squad. I’m not sure.

As most of the players which left the club were around 19 or 20 years old, our average age was 24,6 at the end of the calendar year. Goalkeeper Andreas Linde was the eldest player in his 35 years, the left wing-back Miroslav Tomovic the youngest in 16 years and 342 days.

This our own newgen became the youngest goalscorer of the club during autumn as he scored against IFK Värnamo in Allsvenskan.

The smallest squad meant all of these 23 players made at least one appearance. The experienced goalkeeper Andreas Linde made the most starts with 42(1) appearances. The Icelandic central defender Axel Óskar Andrésson made just about one appearance less.

Oscar Aga was the best goalscorer again despite he had the worst season with the club in terms of goals scored. Only 15 league goals in 25 appearances. In the end, only two goals behind the best goalscorer. He is the best club league goalscorer in history with 160 league goals in 207 matches.

If someone would ask me about the best player of the season, it would be Flamarion. He made 38(4) appearances, scored 11 goals and made 16 assists as he played mainly as DLF(S). An experienced forward missed the end of the season due to injury but I am more than happy to play him in the next season again if he will be able to.

He made most of his assists from set-pieces, that was the main reason why I signed him, and it paid off. More about it in the next post about the indirect free kick routine…

It’s a little bit different in this season in terms of the age of most-used players. If I select the 10 most used players within this calendar year, only one player with age under 20 is here. That’s absolutely not a typical way for my saves.

That one player is our own newgen - central midfielder Robin Ahlström. He is 18 years old right now and he is 100% the best newgen of my save. I mean the best newgen within my club’s youth intakes. His development within two years is absolutely fantastic.

I decided to train all my central midfielders as CM(S) players with a specific additional focus. I spent a lot of previous versions training central midfielders as Roaming Playmakers or Box to Box midfielders. The example of Robin Ahlström shows how effective something less complicated can be.

Some of his attributes are higher about 3 or 4 points during two years. His additional focus was Strength at the beginning, it was set to Endurance to boost his Stamina and Work Rate for some time and it’s back to Strength now. And he is still only 18 years old.

Unfortunately, he is currently wanted by… Bayern München. Fortunately, I gave an €8M minimum fee release clause to his contract. I hope I will be able to keep him for the last season.

…the "Next match only" thing proved the again as I removed the higher defensive line and counter. And Selmani played PF(S) instead of Flamarion as DLF(S).

It took us to the extra-time after 0:0, there was a praising team talk and we scored after twenty seconds into the extra-time. And we won 1:0! Despite the fact, our own newgen left wing-back Miroslav Tomovic played the last 20 minutes at the age of 16 years and 238 days...

A year ago we lost 0:5 to Manchester United in this super cup.

We started the 2nd part of the season well with a couple of wins in the league and we were among the top three teams after we caught up with the matches in hand. We lost to Malmö after the Super Cup win and that meant we were equal in points earned. But they were 6 points behind us because they have two matches in hand.

We lost to Kalmar and Djurgardens in the league in September. In combination with two wins and one match in hand in comparison with BK Häcken, it meant we were two points behind them five matches before the end of the campaign.

Two away wins but also two draws in October meant we were 1st in the table before the last round just one point ahead of Malmö and BK Häcken. We played BK Häcken at home, Malmö had IF Brommapojkarna.

The decisive last league round at home against BK Häcken started in the best possible way. Nuha Jatta opened the score after 21 seconds. Oscar Aga scored his first three league goals after two months and we were 4:1 up at the end of the first half. Flamarion and Mikael Nielsen scored two more goals, we won 6:1 and we became league champions in the last round. It was our fifth league in a row.

We got AC Milan, FC Sevilla and Shakhtar in the Group F of the 2028/2029 Champions League campaign. The opening match with Sevilla ended 1:1 at home and we lost to AC Milan in the second match after two late goals.

But we beat Shakhtar away thanks to a late goal by Oscar Aga and we earned also a point with the Ukrainian side at home. One point for an away 2:2 draw in Sevilla was a nice bonus and we had the chance to fight for second place in the group and reach the Champions League knockout stage for the first time.

But we had no chance at San Siro and we lost 0:3 to Milan while Sevilla won 4:2 against Shakhtar.

And we finished 3rd in the group again and moved across to the Europa League same as in the previous two years when we won the EL. We will play Rangers in the 1st knockout round…

Thanks for reading as always, hope you are still enjoying your own saves no matter what they are.