My Football Manager saves usually have something common - I just want to enjoy it. Sometimes, the game itself makes it harder to maintain this feeling and the Football Manager 2022 edition was this case. I don’t say it was a bad edition but I 100% didn’t enjoy it as much as some previous editions. But still, my main save (I didn’t play almost anything other than this one) was a good one. It’s always about how I will make the save enjoyable for myself in terms of micro-managing all the things connected with the club, squad, tactics or player development.

STEP BY STEP

The same as in the past, I decided to not start with a club that is not a top club in the particular nation. I would not enjoy it to be the top team immediately at the beginning as I like to build the club continuously. That was one of the main reasons ahead of selecting Warta Poznan. Poland itself was one of my main top three nations to play in before the FM22 edition and I will never regret this decision.

I don’t want to say I’m addicted to the Polish leagues now or I’m the biggest Warta fan around the world but this save is another example of how a game like Football Manager can affect what you enjoy following in real life. Without this save, I don’t think I would follow all the highlights and best moments of the Ekstraklasa in real life. I even subscribed to the league’s official YouTube channel and I enjoy following my favourite players from the game of how they perform in real life. Some of them moved to other clubs in real life so it’s a little bit weird to see them play against Warta when I played the game a couple of minutes before. A great example is my in-game central defender stalwart Aleks Lawniczak who was with me for the entire save but he moved to Zaglebie Lubin in real life and he played against Warta in the Ekstraklasa 9th round the weekend before I started writing this post. The same example is Szymon Czyż who moved to Raków and he is playing alongside Sebastian Musiolik who is my FM22 hero, God and myth. Watching them both play against Warta in real life was weird. But that’s life.

Domestic competitions

I still remember watching Warta Poznan in real life during the 2021/2022 season and how I wish them all the best in every game, so they will stay in the Ekstraklasa. I started the save and the predicted finish was 17th place among 18 teams. We finished 4th, fifteen points behind the third Wisla Kraków.

If I loved something about this save and the Ekstraklasa competition, it was how tight the league title race was.

• 2021/2022: Legia won the title thanks to better results in matches against Lech Poznan while both had 74 points and Wisla ended third with 72 points.

• 2022/2023: Legia won the title with 70 points after we lost points in the last round against Gornik Zabrze.

• 2023/2024: Legia won the title with 72 points ahead of Lechia and Warta (both with 71 points) as Lechia drew 3:3 in the last round.

• 2024/2025: We won our first league title just by one point as we had 75 points and Wisla 74 after Wisla lost all three points in the penultimate league round and we moved to the top.

• 2025/2026: We won the league over Górnik Zabrze just thanks to better results in common matches.

• 2026/2027: We won the league with 81 points, just four points ahead of Lechia Gdansk.

The last four seasons were our domination already. And I think it was also one of the main moments when I fell out of love a little bit with the save and stopped playing for some time before I returned to playing it. We set a new record for Most matches without losing as we didn’t lose a single league match between 30th April 2027 to 14th March 2031. Almost four years. The save ends with seven league titles in a row.

Our performances in the domestic cup were not so dominant but we were able to add three trophies to the collection in the end. Interesting thing is that Gornik Zabrze was the team we lost to twice in the last season, both 0:1 in the cup and the league and they ended our long-term winning streak in both competitions.

European competitions

Our European adventures started in the third season - 2023/2024 - when we entered the Europa Conference League qualifying phase and we made it to the group stage and the semi-final of this competition before we lost to Stade Rennais, our senior affiliate club, ironically. We were also in this competition next season but knocked out in the 2nd round already by Real Sociedad.

The next season, 2025/2026, meant our Champions League debut. Just the qualification to be precise because we beat Hammarby and APOEL but we lost 1:2 on aggregate to RB Salzburg in the last qualifying phase. It gave us the option to make it to the Europa League quarter-final where we lost to Valencia. We were in the same phase next two years but we lost to Tottenham and Marseille respectively.

The season 2028/2029 was the only one when we finished bottom of the Champions League group and we didn’t play in Europe during the second part of the season. In the last two seasons of this save, we made it to the Champions League quarter-final. We lost to Bayern (1:3 on aggregate) and Real Madrid (2:3 on aggregate). As I wrote in the Slack channel when talked about it, it was the highest level we were able to reach with this club, this squad and my long-term squad and transfer policy.

European places & coefficient

I named this part of the post step by step mainly because the summary of our European journey reflects the continuous summary of the club in a perfect way. We were able to reach the knockout stages in all three European competitions and we were able to reach the highest level in all of them including that Champions League quarter-final place. I’m sure I would be able to win the Champions League if I would buy all the wonderkids from around the world but that’s not a style of my play.

Another big part of this save was to improve the coefficient of Polish clubs to be able to gain better places in all European competitions and make it easier to reach the main stage of these competitions. The nation’s coefficient improved significantly during these ten seasons, especially after we started playing the cups regularly as we were able to reach later stages.

At the beginning of the save, Poland was 30th in the nation club coefficient table. There was only one place in the Champions League 1st qualifying phase. So, the league champion has to make it through four phases to reach the group stage. Plus three qualifying places in the Europa Conference League, all of them also in the first round. That’s too tricky for any club. No wonder Polish clubs are horrible at reaching the main stages in real life.

The best position we reached was 8th place in the 2028/2029 season. At the end of the save, Poland sits 10th in the coefficient table. And we have two Champions League places, one Europa League place and two places in the Europa Conference League. And that’s before the between-seasons update. Good job, Ondrej!

HEROES OF THE SAVE

I like to have my heroes of the save. Some of them are players from the original squad at the beginning of the save. Some of them are in the squad from the beginning, and some of them join my team throughout the save. When I played against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final in the last season of the save, we had 7 real players in the starting XI.

• 4 of these players were from the original squad including originally unwanted/transfer-listed goalkeeper Jedrzej Grobelny, central defender Aleks Lawniczak, left defender Konrad Matuszewski and central midfielder Szymon Czyz.

• + Sebastian Musiolik who I signed for free ahead of the 2nd season of the save

• + Hubert Turski who I signed ahead of the 5th season so in the middle of the save

• + Iwo Kaczmarski - a CM player, one of my first signings of the save when I loaned him from Raków in the middle of the first season. He went to Gladbach in 2023 for €1.6M and I bought him for €1.2M in 2028.

• I will start with goalkeeper Jedrzej Grobelny. The funny thing was this keeper was transfer listed and loan listed and he was with Skra Czestochowa on loan at the beginning of the save. I have no clue why he was transfer listed as he joined Warta in the same summer (also in real life) but I have no clue about many things in this game. Adrian Lis was our number in the first season, the same as he is in real life, but he wanted a lot of money within a new contract so I decided to sell him for €60k (a lot of money at that time of the save) to Cracovia and I made Grobelny our number 1. Grobelny conceded 39 league goals in the 2022/2023 season. The same as the whole team improved and our tactics improved, the main aim was not to “survive” but to concede as less as possible. It resulted in the new clean sheet record as he managed to keep 27 clean sheets in 34 league matches in the last season of the save. We conceded just seven league goals and I am very happy he made it.

• The second player I want to mention is Aleks Lawniczak. Our most consistent central defender of this save is probably the best example of my favourite kind of player - he was born in Poznan, he spent most of his youth career with Warta Poznan and he made it to the senior squad (he moved to Zaglebie Lubin in real life in January 2022 for €800k [based on the Transfermarkt] - that’s a lot of money and I am sure I would not reject it in the same time of the in-game save too). Aleks spent the whole time of the save with my Warta side and he beat the record with the most league appearances in the club history. It’s 333 matches at the end of the 10th season.

• Konrad Matuszewski, developed through the Legia youth categories went to Warta before the 2021/2022 season in real life. I made him our first choice left-sided wing-back and he spent the whole save as LB or LWB. Statistically, his best season was the second one when he had 12 assists in 33 league matches. When I thought about this save backwards, it’s safe to say Konrad is a real victim of my tactical experiments, mainly in terms of changing wing-back roles. There was a time when I wanted to have a complete wing-back on support or attack duty but he was one of three or four players who struggled to perform in this demanding role. But when I switched it back to a simple wing-back with support duty, he was back at it again and he was very good. The average rating of 7.6 in the last season speaks for itself.

• Another player who is not a Warta member in real life, Szymon Czyz, spent the whole save with me. He came to Warta before the save started from Lazio. Ironically, he is a Lech Poznan academy graduate. He can be considered a victim of the roles’ changes, the same as Matuszewski. He played as CM(S), CM(A), RPM, and also as BBM when it was needed, he also played as AM(S) for a while but he probably was at his best as AP(S) in the central midfield. He recently made one fantastic assist in real life for Raków and I think I watched it at least fifty times. Sometime later he made something very similar in my save.

• Central midfielder Iwo Kaczmarski was a perfect example of a young player I could not buy at the beginning of the save, I signed him for a loan, and his club Raków gave him a chance in the first team and earned big money for his transfer to Gladbach. He was one of a few Polish Polish players abroad I kept on the shortlist and it was very easy to sign him in 2028 when he was older, even better and I had no problem putting €1.2M on the table as it was his transfer fee. He played mainly as BBM in these last three seasons and it was a good decision. I’m sure I would be able to sell him for at least €15M right now if I would continue the save as he is still only 27 years old and a relatively universal central player who can play as DM/CM/AM and I’m sure he would be able to play as a central defender too.

• My FM22 favourite player is Sebastian Musiolik. Without any doubt. I signed him for free ahead of the second season when his contract ended with Raków. I remember I found out about his contract expiration in February or March of the first season and I was afraid some different club will sing him because they will have more money than us. But no, he signed for us almost immediately, maybe the good league standing at that point helped us. He was 26 years old and he was the best player I could get for a target forward role. It was incredible I was able to sign him with a wage just of €4.7k per month. It raised to €11k after the first season with us. He had an instant impact and he was our best player. I even had to write a single post about him because he was my chosen player in this edition. He scored once and made one assist in the last match of the save in his 35 years. It was symbolic. I’m really happy I discovered and I was able to watch him live recently when Raków played with Slavia Prague in the Europa Conference League (shh, he was better in my save).

• Originally, I searched for a backup player to have another option if Sebastian Musiolik would be injured or fatigued. But I found another start of this edition - Hubert Turski. Pogon Szczecin academy graduate who spent a lot of time on lower leagues or playing for Pogon’s second team in the first half of my save. I bought him for €1.1M ahead of the 2025/2026 season. It was already the time when I had enough money to spend and other Polish clubs knew it so they negotiated transfer fees a lot. I wanted to write that he has a slow start in our club but I realised he scored 20 goals in 24 appearances in the first season despite he was a backup player for a TF(S) role. It changed a lot when I decided to use him as our main Advanced Forward. And it ended with the fact that he scored 40 league goals in the 2029/2030 season and that’s a new league record. He scored 45 goals overall that season. He was wanted by various clubs from the rest of Europe, I think I rejected around €30M once but he was not angry or disappointed. Sebastian Musiolik has 156 league goals at the end of the season and that’s the most in the club's history. Turski has 147, I’m sure he would need five or six matches of another season to break this record. He made 284 appearances for the club and scored 210 goals in six seasons.

I’m glad I discovered a lot of very good and talented players in this FM edition and I’m sure that if I would play in Poland again in the next edition, they would be the first ones I would like to buy or sign again. As I already mentioned Michal Kopczynski who played the Half Back at the beginning of the save, would also deserve a special mention but I will just leave the link to the post about how tactics worked with that role - HERE.

BONUS PLAYER

I decided to add one more player to this part despite it being a newgen player. His name is Radomir Cvijan and he is one of many fantastic Serbian newgens this game can create in almost every save around the world.

I signed him for €950k in the 2028/2029 season when I activated the transfer release clause he had in his contract with Spartak Subotica.

He became our main attacking midfielder, he became our main set piece taker and it didn’t last long when clubs like Juventus, Real & Atlético Madrid, Manchester City & United etc. were interested in buying him. I had a transfer offer of about €90M in winter 2030, just one and a half years after I signed him. I rejected it. He accepted he will stay with us until someone will offer €96M.

When Liverpool made a €95M bid in winter 2031, I decided to sell him. It was my last season and I didn’t need to keep him because I just wanted to make this big transfer and I wanted to see if the club board will use the money for building the new stadium, for example. But nothing happened. Radomir played 118 matches, he scored 44 goals & and made 73 assists mainly as AM(S).

As I already said above, if I would have a different transfer/squad policy and I would buy newgens like Radomir, the save would turn into total domination both domestically and in Europe too.

Thanks to a database I set up at the beginning, concentrating on central and south/eastern Europe, there are too many great Croatian/Serbian/Romanian etc. newgens which would be able to conquer all competitions.

THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE SAVE

I think it surely is the situation with the stadium. We started this save with the stadium capacity of 4000 seats. The stadium capacity was possible to increase up to 16k. The capacity was increased up to 6k in the middle of the save. We already played our European matches at the INEA Stadion which is the stadium of our biggest rival - Lech Poznan. This stadium has a capacity of over 40k but we didn’t sell out the stadium, even if we played against clubs like Real Madrid or Bayern.

We didn’t sell out domestic league matches only once in the last three and a half seasons. I had the option on the club screen to ask about building the new stadium. But it always ended in the same way. I asked they responded that they will let me know and the option about the new stadium disappeared for the next three or four in-game months before it appeared here again. But there was no response from the board.

I was not able to increase the stadium capacity despite the allowed max capacity wasn’t reached. And the board ignored my requests, or better worded, they never get back to me. So, maybe a bug. Maybe something in the FM matrix.

THE BIGGEST POSITIVES OF THE SAVE

• 1)

It’s related to the already mentioned rivalry with Lech Poznan. They had more money at the beginning, they had better players, more coaches, better facilities, a bigger stadium, and better results. But the only thing they still have better/bigger is that stadium. One of my main aims of the save was to be better than Lech domestically but also in Europe.

And it worked out. In Europe, they did nothing in comparison with us in these ten seasons. Their best Champions League result was reaching the third qualifying phase in the last season of the save. They were 3rd in the Europa League group this last season.

The fact they didn’t win the Ekstraklasa title within this save speaks for itself. And they won the domestic cup once.

• 2)

The second thing I probably liked the most within the whole save was how my tactical plans and thoughts worked. I still remember the end of the FM21 cycle when I decided to use just two central defenders in combination with the Half Back role to create some kind of false central defender in combination with the wingbacks. I was lucky I had a good enough player for the Half Back role straight at the beginning of the save and I didn’t have to search for one.

But I also like the seasons when I moved back to three central defenders without a defensive midfielder as I wanted to take advantage of good set pieces routines to score more goals thanks to big central defenders.

The last three seasons were also fun to watch because I made some last tweaks, moved both wing-backs down to create a defensive line with five players, and one central midfielder was moved up to AM position. In combination with the perfect forward duo in Musiolik and Turski, it was a joy to watch and we created some new defensive and attacking records for our club and the league too. This formation can be found in this post.

The only thing I will regret is that I didn’t have enough time to write a single post about how my central defenders worked with “Stay Wider” instructions while using the flat five defenders during the last three seasons. But, maybe in the future, who knows?

I’m already looking forward to playing with just one central defender in FM23… 👀

CONCLUSION OF THE SAVE AND FM22

The choice of the club and the nation to play with and in, within the Football Manager 2022, was perfect without a doubt. Warta will remain that club that I will try to follow every week and many players will be on my radar whenever I will follow some Polish football.

But if you expect some “but”, you’re right. The Football Manager 2022 was not the best edition I’ve ever played. 100% not. I was not addicted to this version of the game as I was addicted to some previous versions. Maybe it’s not a mistake of the game itself. Maybe I’m just only older and everything is changing around me.

When I look back, the last 10th season was the weirdest and most boring of all. Not because of players, or results… but I just wanted to finish it and don’t play it anymore. Maybe if I would be able to write about the game without playing it, I would enjoy it more because whenever I had time to write, or at least think about writing something, I was in a good mood and I was looking forward to putting words together. But when I had to search for something in the game and I found all the old bugs, it put me off and I didn’t want to spend my time with the game.

If someone would care about my FM22 review, it would be this: “I enjoyed writing about FM22 more than actually playing the game itself.”

I just hope there is a small chance it will be better in the future.

Thanks to everyone who spent some time with this save or with any other blog posts around this great website.

Don’t forget to support Latte Quarterly magazine, it’s the best one 😉

Take care.