FM20: Celaya FC - ten years of club development

Everything has to end and I decided to end the main FM20 save at the end of the 2028/2029 season. The choice to play in Mexico was perfect and I enjoyed my time here despite it was not as long save as in the previous years. If you are interested, come with me: Celaya FC - ten years of club development.

The overall club development

When the save started, Celaya was not too common club around North America thanks to the recent successes. I'm sure 99% of the football fans know this club just because of the fact Emilio Butragueno played here.

And the save was dedicated to him mainly including the searching filter and view made in terms of the strongest attributes I thought Butragueno was best in.

There were a lot of players on loan in the squad at the beginnning. Media prediction for the first season was 5th place and average age of the squad was almost 25,9 with one of the key players was Franz Torres with 38 years.

A lot of changed during ten years. From the squad personality through the average age or the composition of the squad to club facilities.

One of my favourite kits I've ever made.

Finances

It's great I have the save file from each season so I can go back to check all these things I decided to write about.

And I have one from the beginning as well so we can see the finances from July 2019. We had €366,019 in our bank balance and we were about €4k per month over our wage budget. Transfer budget didn't exist.

If we move five years to June 2024, our financial situation was very different. We had €10,6M in the bank, transfer budget over €6,5 and wage budget was rising to one milion per month. We were able to have better coaches and we were able to keep some players with better wages.

But it's still was nothing in comparison with the end of the 10th season with the balance of €86,6M, transfer budge over €100M and wage budget over €3M per month (spending only around 50% of it).

I'm sure the club is in a great position financially now.

Facilities

Training & Youth facilities are usually one of the main things what we all want to improve within our saves (if you don't play with the club which already has the best facilities of course).

We started with the adequate training facilities and below average youth facilities. Aims of the club were to work within wage budget or sign Colombian players for example.

The club philosophy within the club vision changed one thing during the first 5 seasons. 'Do not sign players over the age of 30' replaced the 'Sign Colombian Players'. And we moved to good training and average facilities.

I expected the club board will want to improve the youth facilities to have the best possible own players but the board ignored my requests for some time as they wanted to sign young players ready for the 1st team.

It lasted for some time and they rejected me four times during two years. But in the end, some threats helped me and we now have both training and youth facilities at the excellent level with undergoing works for another upgrade. It will be done in October 2029.

Average attendance and ticket holders

There are several rules how to increase the stadium capacity or to get the new stadium in FM. One of them is the number of sold out matches during the season. It's clear from the table below we had a no chance to reach this.

But I think it was not needed within this save. The Estadio Miguel Alemán Valdés stadium was enough for us with the 23 300 capacity.

We had 1k season ticked holders and 6779 average attendance in the first season when we were in the 2nd tier. It raised both masivelly for the 2nd season after the promotion to the top tier but the progress in next 9 years was slower.

In the end, we had slightly over 20k average attendance in the 10th season and over 6,3k season ticket holders.

I would say it was quite natural progress. The number of sellouts ended at 6 in the last season. In overal, all the matches with the full house were in the league or the Champions League play-off.

The only surprising thing was only one sellout in the first season in the top tier.

Maybe if I would buy more famous players, the numbers of both would be higher but I didn't want to make it just because of this. I didn't think the new or expanded stadium was needed.

Age and team composition

As I mentioned earlier, the average age of the squad was almost twenty six at the end of the first season. All the data in the graph below are from the end of each season, usually from the end of May or start of July.

We were able to make it down to 22,4 at the end of the second season and the lowest average age of the squad was at the end of the 4th season when we hit 20,4.

The last two seasons were very similar with 21 and 20,98 as we kept the main core of the squad and just replaced the sold players with the new ones in the same age. The same with youngsters - when 17/18 years old left for some loan, we promoted others from the youth team.

As I mentioned in the first post about this save, the clubs in the 2nd tier were too reliable on loan players. We had 8 players on loan at the beginning of the save. The record was 22 loan players from 34 in the 1st team by Club Atlético Zacatepec

It took me three seasons to get rid of all loaned players in terms I have good enough own players.

For example, my affiliate team Tlaxcala has 7 loan players now. But one or two teams still have around 10 players on loan. But it's much better than at the beginning when 10 was almost the minimum.

We were also able to have mainly Mexican based squad instead of a lot of foreign players. There were only 4 foreign players in the last season, the rest was from Mexico.

Transfers

The transfers history of these ten years are very easy. There were only free or laon transfers in the first season.

I decided to invest €875k before the second season, our first in the top flight. It was mainly between 20k - 220k but I bought players like Erick Vargas, José Manuel Dojaquez, Sebastián Osorio and more players who were in the club for many years. Or they still are here.

The forward Dojaquez was a great example as we bought him for €70k when he was 17 years old and we sold him for €13.25M after five years to Shakhtar.

We were able to get more and more money for outgoing transfers as the save progressed. We also paid €13M in the last season what is the club record. Same as €66M we received during the last season when I sold players to FC Porto, Sevilla, Leverkusen or Shanghai.

I'm sure it would be even more next season if I would continue.

The favourite real players

The first one is Emiliano Ozuna 100%. This Argentinian winger was already a key player when the save started and he keeps his role for the whole of the time.

Emiliano was 23 years old in 2019 when we started our journey. He was able to play as the winger in ML or AML position but he moved also to WBL position when I decided to switch to 3-5-2/3-4-1-2 formation. Ozuna was also able to play as a striker so his variability was great.

Emiliano Ozuna made 445 appearances in all competitions, scored 137 goals and made 100 assists.

Emiliano Ozuna and Sebastián Osorio were the only two real players in the squad at the end of the last season.

Osorio, born in Colombia, came to our club before the 2nd season of the save. That means he spent 9 seasons with us. He played mainly as IF(A) or IF(S). When we switched to the formation with three at the back, he lost his place as he was not enough already for the AM or striker role.

He made 386 appearances, scored 116 goals and made 55 assists.

I wanted to pick third real player but I was not able to select someone. No other player stood out.

Three favourite newgens

To select three best newgens of this save was really easy for me. I will start with the goalkeeper Erick Vargas.

I signed him for €40k in the 2020/2021 season after our promotion. He played mainly for the youth team during the first three seasons but he was our number 1 since 2023/2024. He made 'only' 17 clean sheets in this season. In the last season it was 38 what was a new club record.

The second player is the central defender Josué Infante. He is our own newgen from the 2021/2022 season and I wrote about him several times during the save. Mainly in combination with some set pieces as he was great for free kicks and corners. He scored 16 goals from the set pieces in the 2025/2026 season what was his best.

He is still only 24 years old in 2029 so he has everything ahead of him including the potential success with the national team.

The last one. And probably the most favourite of all. Midfielder Gilberto Erick Serrano. He was part of the same youth intake as Infante and developed into great midfielder.

Serrano played mainly as CM(A) or CM(S). He improved his attributes of Marking by 6, Decisions by 7 or Agility by 6 since he appeared in the club.

He made 318 appearances, scored 44 goals and made 100 assists. The only player who made it between legends of the club. Even the Emiliano Butragueno is only within icons.

My favourite number 8.

Conclusion

Despite I was not 100% sure about the save in Mexico at the beginning, it was a great choice. Mainly because it was something different again and the typical save in Europe with already know players.

As I wrote before my FM19 save in Chile and Argentina, I needed some fresh air and some new beginning. I'm glad it continued also within the FM20 cycle.

I found some very good players who I would buy for sure if I would manage some European club as they would fit great here. Not only my own players but many other players I played against when I reached the Mexican top tier.

Thank you, Mexico, it was great. I'm sure Emilio Butragueno would be happy.

FM20 | Utilising the Half Back role

The season 2024/2025 brought one important thing within my FM20 save in Mexico. My Celaya FC side started using the defensive midfielder role. After years with the flat 4-3-3, I decided I will try to create something including the Half Back role.

I started the 2024/2025 season with the latest version of my 4-3-3 with the flat midfield but I felt a big urge to change something during the Apertura.

The more I played, the more I wanted to change something. And I didn't want to use probably the most common role in defensive midfield slot - the deep lying playmaker.

I waited until October 2024 and the international break. It could be risky as there were only seven league matches before the play-off.

We secured our play-off spot despite the defeat against Santos Laguna as we finished 7th in the league. In the end, we won the play-off and the Apertura despite we finished 7th after the first 19 matches.

We have no "clear" Half Back in the squad right now, we have a lot of playmakers within central midfielders but you will see it can work.

Current players able to play as DM

The first thoughts

As the game description of the Half Back role says, the player in this role "drops deeper...and looks to offer an outlet for quickly recycling possession."

It was exactly what I wanted. I know it's something you can have also with the DLP (read THIS if you want more about the DLP within 4-1-4-1 @FMEadster & @FMPressure) but as I said, I wanted to use a different role.

Mainly because I used the DLP in the DM slot many times.

I'm using More Urgent pressing intensity within the team instructions but my Half Back has Close Down Less instruction. Why? Because I don't want to see him outside of his position.

My first thoughts were I have to select the right roles around the Half Back in terms of both CM roles.

I like to use CM(S) and CM(A) roles so it was almost 100% sure I will use one of these two.

The question was - how much static midfield I want?

Half Back + DLP(S)

The first version included two static players because despite I wrote I didn't want to use the DLP role in DM slot, this role is with the support duty is my favourite one within FM20.

I'm using the DLP(S) role within my 4-3-3 formation with the flat midfield and the right player could be a great addition to the whole set-up.

That's why I decided to try it also within this formation.

So, the central midfielders' roles against the Club León were Half Back, DLP(S) and CM(A). Lionel Laborda (10) played as CM(A), Salvador Garcia (24) as Half Back and Gilberto Erick Serrano (6) as DLP(S).

Garcia had 43 passes with CM(A), 31 passes with DLP(S), 31 & 26 passes with both central defenders.

Laborda as CM(A) had 34 passes with Serrano as DLP(S).

As both Half Back and DLP(S) roles have hold position instruction it was clear the players in these roles will be more reserved and more static.

In a combination with the CM(A) role, they remain much deeper and my team had less aggressivity around and in the penalty area after crosses.

When I played against Cruz Azul away, all these three players had the most passes between each other as I played Montano as Half Back, Serrano as DLP(S) and Pérez as CM(A).

The combination of HB and DLP(S) could be great for the matches against stronger sides. It can be useful even if you don't want to use shorter passing instruction.

The passing combinations will be more central-minded and you can also try to play through the middle option.

It can lead to some nice passes into space for Inside Forward.

Half Back + DLP(S) + CM(A)

Left or right-sided/footed, is it important?

I know many coaches and many managers in real-life pay attention to the fact if their players are left or right-footed and if they play on the left or the right side of the pitch.

It can be important within the central defenders when you try to build your play from the back.

Probably a lot of us is trying to have left-footed Inside Forward on the right side of the pitch.

But do you pay attention to it also within the central midfielders? Let me know in the comments if you want...

I didn't care about it too much in the past but since I had Venezuelan midfielder José Carlos Pinilla in the team last one and a half season, I started to think about it.

Pinilla has strong left foot and he was a great central midfielder but every time he played in the central or the right CM role, he was worse by 50%.

Every time I put him in the team as the central midfielder on the left side, he made assist or he scored. Just some food for thought...

Half Back + Roaming Playmaker

The picture below shows the last six games of the season when Emmanuel Cantú (click to the link open his profile) played once as Box To Box midfielder when I wanted to try it instead of CM(A).

But he played mainly as our Roaming Playmaker. His rating and performances were like from a different universe. Cantú was one of the reasons why we won the Clausura 2024/2025 play-off in the end.

This version including Half Back, Roaming Playmaker and CM(A) roles is much role versatile, more fluid and more interesting to watch. There is not as many short passes as with the DLP role.

The Roaming Playmaker is able to get the ball and he is able to make something by himself, not only to distribute the ball back to the Half Back or to the central defender.

But the football with the RPM is more straighforward in my eyes.

Distribute to central defenders + RPM + Advanced Forward

That was also the reason why I used RPM role more at the end of the 2024/2025 season.

Example? The last match of the season/play-off against Cruz Azul when we on 3-0 at home and I played three 18 years old newgens in the starting XI as the central defender, Half Back and CM(A).

Irvin Moreno (13) as the Half Back, Emmanuel Cantú (28) as RPM and David Escobedo (14) as CM(A).

There were 61 pasess between HB and RPM and 31 pasess between RPM and CM(A).

The biggest change between using DLP(S) and RPM in the CM role within this formation was that Half Back used both wide defenders much more when there was Roaming Playmaker.

In this last match, Irvin Moreno as the Half Back had 25 passes with the right defender (CWB) and 25 passes with the left defender as FB(A).

I like the fact we were not over 100 backward passes in the match against Cruz Azul. You can see it's the CWB with number 2 was heavily involved with the Half Back, RPM but also with Advanced Forward.

Half Back + FB(A) & CWB(S)

If I wrote I had to find the right roles around the Half Back, it didn't mean only the CM roles. It's also connected to defenders.

As the Half Back sits deep I settled to FB(A) and CWB(S) roles after some testing. And also after some frustrating and boring 1-0 wins after seeing too many wrong things.

There is also a perfect example of the passing difference between using two different roles on the sides.

I like to use Full Back with the attacking duty and I decided to use on the left side behind the Winger. There were a lot of short passes between Half Back and FB(A) player.

It usually happened after our defender won the ball in the tackle or after a long ball by the opponents. And it usually resulted in some build-up play between Half Back and DLP(S).

Half Back + FB(A)

On the other side, I'm using Complete Wing Back with the support duty. As you can see in the picture, it contains more long balls and more long passes to the right side of the pitch.

It's mainly because of the fact our CWB player offers more width than our full back who is not set to stay wider.

Half Back + CWB(S)

My Half Backs in the 2024/2025 season

Three players were used in the Half Back role during the time after we switched to this formation.

Diego Montano played 29(5) matches. Salvador Garcia 20(2) matches. And the youngest Irvin Moreno made 2(1) appearances.

The fun fact is that Moreno played in both play-off final matches in the starting XI because of Moreno and García were unavailable.

All of these players have their PROS & CONS. Montano played the most matches but he is on loan and it's not sure we will sign him.

Garcia needs to improve his Heading. Same as Montano. Moreno needs to work on more things but mainly on Marking, Tackling and Positioning.

But he played in both play-off finals and he had 206 passes completed from 209. His best advantage is he is our own newgen from the 2024 youth intake.

All three are set to train the Half Back role after we switched to this role. But the additional focus is different.

As I wrote, Moreno needs to improve his Marking or Positioning, that's why he has Defensive Positioning as the additional focus.

Garcia is quite poor in terms of overall passing so I gave him passing training for some time.

I think the midfielders are the best players for testing of training and the additional focus. (Training Intensity is missing among Garcia and Montano as they are currently on holiday at the end of the season but it's Double normally).

Decisions attribute

If you highlight the key and preferable attributes for the Half Back role, you can see the Decisions attribute is only among preferable.

I would change it but I can't. But it's the most important attribute at least in my head. For all midfielders who are reliable for the ball distribution.

And I like the fact all our Half Backs have 14 or higher value of this attribute. And they still have time to improve it.

Our squad is the best in terms of Decisions in comparison with the rest of midfielders in the league.

But there are, of course, areas we need to improve.

I have to say, Montano's goal was great to watch...

Tactics used vs tactics faced

We used this 4-3-3 with the defensive midfielder in 46 matches from the last 50.

And we kept 33 clean sheets in these matches. Incredible. I will share all the results and more info about the season itself in the next blog post.

We faced different formations during this time. The most common starting formation against us was the same as ours, 4-3-3 with DM or 4-1-4-1 DM Wide as it's named in the game.

You can also see the second most common formation was 4-1-4-1 DM (13%). It's also the main formation we struggle against in terms of created chances.

Do you know what I also like within this set-up?

The cooperation with the right selected Complete Wing Back and Central Midfielder with the attacking duty...

If you want to read something different including the Half Back role, head to the FMGrasshopper website and check his post about Gallardo's 4-1-3-2 tactics.

Do you know about some other recent blog posts about the Half Back role? Let me know, I will be happy to read them.

FM20 Far Post Corner | Tweaking the good old trick

The fifth season of my Football Manager 2020 save in Mexico is well underway and I failed again. I mean, I wanted to add make the most from set pieces to the club culture/vision. But there was not option to do it between the seasons. So, I decided I will just keep it in my head and will try to tweak/edit/improve set pieces through the season.

It led to the fact I decided to try to recreate the good old trick with the far post corner kick routine.

It's simple. When you want to use a short routine, you place someone to offer short option role.

If you want to use near post routine you concentrate the best options in terms of your best-suited players around the near post. It's logical.

But I made the opposite this time

My idea was to use far post corner delivery but don't place all players to attack far post, lurk at far post etc.

I decided to put most of my players to the near post. Two players are set as attack near post & lurk at near post, two players are set as go forward and one player lurk outside area.

That means at least two, but better three players stay back. And the last one is set to attack far post.

This is my initial set-up as it's available to see in the picture above. The idea was to convince the opponent's defending players to go and defend mainly the area around the near post.

And the main and the most important task you have is to select the best possible player with the best possible tor the attack far post role as he will be here alone. Sometimes against two or three defensive players.

But sometimes only against one...

63a7eafb22b4f5d356531a5febd3a6ec.gif

This is how it ended in the picture above.

In this case, our young central defender Infante was set to attack far post. This our own newgen was (almost) unstoppable in the previous season for our U20s team in terms of set pieces.

He scored 9 goals in 15 matches and seven from them were from corners.

I found out it's easier to score from set-pieces for my first-team players when they play in the Under 20 league. But this defender was still 17 years old so I thought: wow, that could be great if he will be able to score at least a half of these goals also for the first team.

And he scored the winning goal in the "Campeones Cup" against Salt Lake. But it was not that easy as I thought.

The young Josué Infante. Orange highlighted attributes are the most important to me, the red highlighted attributes are important as well but not necessary. On the other hand, it's obvious he is not the best header or finisher.

I can say, the young Josué scored only twice during the first part of the season. It was clear he is not that good in the top tier matches as against the young and not that good players in the youth league.

And I started to test different players in the attack far post role. But one thing became like a tradition - strikers or defenders were the best here.

The current striker #1 and the key attributes for the attack far post role

I also made one change to the whole set-up during the season as I decided to add offer short option role as it means another defensive player will be dragged out of penalty area position.

Do you know that feeling when you made some change and it worked in the first match after you made that change?

It happened when we played Chivas away. I decided to test Daniel Cisneros in attack far post role.

And, as I mentioned, I added one player to offer a short option. Well, Cisneros opened the score in the 20th minute after the corner kick.

As you can see, 6 players were concentrated to defend near post area, 1 player went close down the corner and 1 is outside the penalty area. Only 1 player defended the far post.

Cisneros was able to beat his only one defender and opened the score with the perfect header.

The main idea behind this routine was complete. See gif.

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Sometimes, it can also lead to an own goal or the player set to attack near post can score. If the players around the near post are able to avoid offside position. For example like this one...

c0a696bfe37b1684f1a7faf837c97da0.gif

As I already said, the main task is to select the best possible player for the attack far post role in terms of Off The Ball, Bravery, Decisions or Finishing attributes.

I was not able to sign some good players in terms of "SfS" strategy the same as last year as most players with the right attributes for set pieces are out of our financial possibilities.

But it's fun to test my current own players at least.

Dojaquez (ST), Infante (CD), Osorio (AMR), Cisneros (ST or AMR), Moreno (ST), Lecanda (CD).

The last gif shows two goals by Óscar Moreno, the 18 years old newgen striker, who scored twice in a single match for our U20s against Cruz Azul to seal 2-0 win.

f4f7d7e0c611fc74f8b959a47ede9fae.gif

Note: this is not intended to be routine what will assure you will score many many goals with it. This is mainly about the fact I had some idea what to do and how it ended with the limited options within the set pieces in Football Manager.

It's a different type of the FM20 Far Post Corner routine this time but I really enjoy it.

If the only thing what you want is the download link, read the post again 😉