FM26 | Lokeren | 2026 - 2028

February 9, 2026

Everything is taking me much longer than it used to - both playing and writing about Football Manager. Yes, FM26 is not ideal in many ways; there are still more things in the game to fix than to use, but the fact that it takes me two months to write a blog is not the fault of the game itself. However, it is a bit, because it takes me much longer to finish a season. This blog is proof of that. Originally, it was supposed to be a blog about the 26/27 season. But combined with the Christmas holidays, the opportunity to run again (and do sports in general) and lots of new books to read, it ends up being a blog about two seasons at once.

"My" Lokeren is practically broke for the third year in a row, and I haven't bought a single player yet. Either it has to be free, and I have to talk him into it so that the player and the agent themselves don't want a signing bonus, or it has to be a loan. That saved my second season in the top flight. You can read about that too...

2026/2027

It was our first season back in the top tier after a promotion. I knew it would be crucial to strengthen the squad wisely to have the best possible chance of surviving in the top division. Our mission was highly successful, as we remained out of the relegation battle for the entire season. In the end, we almost won the European slot…

TransferRoom (In)

I wrote about the transfers ahead of the second season of this save, more detailed in my post about the TransferRoom (In) option. This option within the recruitment really helped me to find players which I didn’t even think about, but also I wouldn’t probably find them either.

As I mentioned in that post, all of these players were signed for free, and I didn’t pay a transfer fee. I only decided not to sign any new goalkeeper during this process because I was not able to find someone who would be better than the current backup or someone who would not want too high a wage.

It’s obvious that not all players became key players of the squad, but the central defenders’ trio Musliu, Doudaev and Mamengi were key to have the required stability at at the back. I can’t imagine I would play with the same defenders as in the first season while we were in the second tier.

The biggest surprise to me wasa striker Keano Vanrafelghem whom I signed for free after his time with KV Mechelen came to an end. He scored 14 league goals and he was our best goalscorer. He was more consistent than young Okoce and that was what we needed.

French midfielder Lilian Raillot also became our very important player as he made 29 league matches. The main thing is that all these signings went as I planned in terms of the promised/required playing time of each player. The one who I wanted as a backup fulfilled this role and the players who should be in the starting line-up also fulfilled what I wanted and expected.

Collapsed takeover and finances

The second season was a rollercoaster, not because of the results, but mainly in terms of the number of takeover rumours. We were under transfer embargo six times during the season, not that we would have money for any transfers.

All the takeover speculations were dismissed, or the takover colapsed. Everything escalated at the end of the season, when a few days after the last match, we found out that we didn't have a single euro in the budget for salaries before the new season. And the transfer budget is in the red.

The total balance at the end of the 2026/2027 competition year from the club's cash point of view was -€8.5M. The balance improved by about €2M after receiving prize money.

Tactical shift #1

We played the first season, in which we won the second tier, with the 3-5-2 formation, but not with the strikers, so it should rather be 3-5-1-1, as Radja Nainggolan played mainly in a free role. But I wanted to get back to the 3-5-2 with two strikers ahead of the second season. And I did that.

The main tweaks were in the middle of the pitch. I tried a lot of combinations for my central midfielders before I settled for this.

I kept it simple as always. The formation was not based on ticking all the instructions and using all the new (renamed) roles. Another change was that instead of using AWB on both sides, I kept this role only on the left side of the pitch, while the right wing-back is just…wing-back. Boring, I know.

But Jarno Vervarque, our key right wing-back, made 14 assists in 33 league matches = the second best in the league. I can live with it.

Avoid(ed) relegation

I mentioned it a couple of times already. The main aim of the 26/27 season was to avoid relegation back to the second tier. The prediction was 16th place. We finished 6th.

We fought about the Conference League slot until the last league round. But a 1:4 defeat in the last match of the 26/27 season against Anderlecht meant we dropped to the final 6th position. Club Brugge lost in Gent, but OH Leuven lost to Union SG = Club Brugge retained the title despite the first three teams having the same points. Interesting end for all. We exceeded the expectations 100%.

Goodbye, Radja!

The season 26/27 was the last one for my biggest star - at least by the name. Midfielder Radja Nainggolan retired from playing at the age of 39. He made 26 appearances, scoring 9 goals and making 6 assists in the first season when we won the promotion. He was able to participate in all 34 league matches in the top tier. He scored seven goals and made six assists.

He definitely was not within the list of my favourite players in real life; there are 100% other names, but it was nice to have a player like him for two seasons at least. I’m not sure if I will be able to sign someone like him in the near future of this save.

Still got it, Radja! 🥰🥐 #FM26 pic.twitter.com/FNa7lbS9yR
— FM Rensie | Ondrej (@FMRensie) December 11, 2025

One-touch football & Radja scoring in the wheelchair.

Everything's possible if 38-year-old Radja is the fastest here.

Hello, Lokeren-Ball! 😁🧇 #FM26 pic.twitter.com/rNZh3MPilN
— FM Rensie | Ondrej (@FMRensie) December 23, 2025

2027/2028

After mid-season weeks, I’m very happy we didn’t make it to Europe. The club has a new board after a successful takeover during June 2027, but the finances are so limited that I had to do everything a little bit differently this summer. Mainly, the incoming transfers are needed to be able to sign someone.

Long holidays thanks/due to annoying bug…

I already experienced this between the first and the second season. And it happened again. Players left for their holidays, but someone was very generous while coding the gam,e and their holiday lasted until July 5. The first competitive match of the new season is on July 24.

That means a very short time to prepare everything ahead of the new season. We can safely say that everything what was said about how the pre-season is important can go to the bin "thanks" to this bug. It was reported on the SI Forum, but I don’t expect it will be fixed before I will definitely lost the interest in playing FM26. Or it will be fixed, but it won’t be save compatible…

The negative transfer budget and (Unwanted) loan army

In June 2027, the takeover was completed. The club balance went from -€8M to €1.2M. But that was all.

The transfer budget remains the same: -€1.2M. The loans remained the same.

So, yes, we started improving the squad with the -€1.2M in the transfer budget. The new board didn’t boost the club financially. They kept the same strategy - sell before buy.

I had the first major outgoing transfer as Brighton bought our first-choice keeper for €1.3M (his transfer release clause). 15% was made available, which means it went up to -€1.01M

The fact that we have a negative transfer budget means I can't sign even free players because all players require a signing fee or agent fee = both of which are taken from the transfer budget.

All the free transfers were cancelled because of a lack of money for signing/agent fees. I sold six players for €3.4M, but it was not enough to make the transfer budget go from negative numbers. The only way I was able to sign someone was to find some loans. I’m not a big fan of loan signings, but I knew it was the only way to improve the squad without money, as our own youngsters are not good enough yet.

“A maximum of three domestic-based players allowed on loan in a season. A maximum of six foreign-based players over the age of 22 allowed on loan at a time.”

I signed one goalkeeper, one midfielder and two strikers. Babatz, Berenbruch and Fall became our key players. Meier should be an important player, but injuries limited him to being just a sub. And when he was not injured, Fall was in so good form that I couldn’t put him on the bench.

It showed me one main thing - I will sign at most three loan players in the future, or I will not be able to sign loan players for the same position.

Kindergarten Lokeren

@Oaky advised me to remove signing & agent fees while negotiating contracts to be able to sign free players, and it worked out when I signed midfielder Hugo de Llanos for free.

But it didn’t change the fact that my Lokeren squad already turned into a kindergarten. The average age of the squad during this season was slightly above 20 years old. I had 30 players in the squad during the first half of the season, and 15 players were 19 years old or younger.

During the winter transfer window, when I felt we were secured in terms of relegation, I decided to sell some players to improve the books. I sold striker Keano Vanrafelghem to Sampdoria for €1M. I signed him ahead of the previous season for free. He was the best goalscorer of the previous season, but it's a lot of money, and I had enough strikers.

Another winter transfer was Alessandro Giliberti, a 17-year-old midfielder - I signed him for free from a lower league club to have enough players for reserves and maybe develop him. It turns out he developed very well, and Genk bought him for €400k + €400k + 30% from the next sale. No big savings on wages, but €800k is great.

I managed to transfer the budget from negative numbers, but I’m sure the race against the negative transfer budget will begin again after this season…

Tactical shift #2

I did a couple of tactical changes before the 2027/2028 season compared to the previous one I shared above. I did some more tweaks during the first league rounds, as I didn’t like our hyperactive and chaotic approach, mainly because of the out-of-possession instructions hyped too much.

So, I went with a simpler approach and tweaked it. You can also see I changed the positioning of the central midfielders’ roles. It created some kind of roof with this approach. Thomas Brerenbruch scored some nice goals as our main attacking midfielder after a simple cutback pass. If I find a player with very good off-the-ball movement, it will work even better.

The biggest change, and the most effective one, was surely the change to the Target Forward role as Pape Moussa Fall scored 20 league goals in 24(2) appearances and ended the season as the best rated player from all with the 7.44 average rating.

I was very happy with how it worked. I will keep it like this for the next season. Maybe I'll write a separate blog about it if I have the time and the right mood.

Two places better

The second season in the Belgian top tier ended with a better final position in the table for Lokeren. We didn’t have a good start to the league campaign. It could be caused by the lack of time in the pre-season due to the bug mentioned above. But our form and results improved a lot after the loan signings. All Babatz, Berenbruch and Fall had a big impact on our play after I settled the tactic down and stopped tweaking every little thing.

I would like to show you the progress of our league standings, but I couldn’t find the screen with the standings development in FM26. “Past positions” screen - if it’s there somewhere, please let me know. It was one of my favourite screens in previous editions within competition panels, but I’m probably blind, and I couldn’t find it.

The league was very tight and dramatic until the last round. Club Brugge won the league title in the previous season because they won 20 matches. OH Leuven and Union SG also had 67 points, but only 19 wins. Club Brugge won the league title in the 27/28 season. And this time, it was thanks to a better goal difference; Anderlecht also ended with 69 points. But Brugge won 7:0 against Beerschot…

We improved our final league position by two places in comparison with the previous season. We won 3:2 away from home against Zulte in the last round and finished the season with 66 points. Just three points behind the top two.

It also means we qualified for Europe. We will start in the Europa League qualification - third round.

A combined Jupiler Pro League 2027/2028 table. Purple = home, green = away.

Said Okoce update

The first youth intake of this save delivered a couple of very good young players, including Said Okoce. The young winger or striker is 100% one of the best newgen I’ve ever had in the Football Manager. He has been our key striker since the start of the second season, and his development continued very well.

Playing mainly as a Channel Forward within our 3-5-2 formation, his reputation increased during the last two years, and a couple of weeks ahead of the end of the 2027/2028 season, he was named 2nd in the NXGN 2028. At that time, he was wanted by Barcelona.

His release clause was about €10M. I gave him a new contract, and the release clause was increased to up to €18M for foreign clubs. He was also called up to the Belgian senior national team by Ralf Rangnick at the age of 17…

…a couple of weeks later, he made his debut during the first match of the EURO 2028, and became the youngest Belgian player in the senior national team.

Thanks to the financial challenges, the save remains interesting to me, despite thefact that Football Manager 2026 itself is not as good as we all hoped. Maybe it will lose the last small magic when the finances are repaired, and I will stop playing. I don’t know.

What about next season? I can only confirm that any of the four loan players will continue with us. Richard Meier is out of contract, but he was injured too often, and it’s not worthy to risk. Babatz & Berenbruch will not be allowed to join us again; their clubs want to “test them somewhere else” and rejected our loan bids.

And Pape Moussa Fall? The best-rated player of the Jupiler Pro League 27/28 will probably earn his place in the FC Metz squad for the next season. They were relegated to the Ligue 2; they would be stupid not play him. But I will follow him surely.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to join us on FM Slack. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or Bluesky

What is FM Slack?

There are many Discord servers, and I’m sure they are good and useful. But I will probably always be a bigger fan of Slack. Or, better worded, the Football Manager Slack. Feel free to join us with this link.

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’, so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

FM26 | How the TransferRoom (In) saved me

December 16, 2025

Some footballers are slow, some footballers can’t read the game as well as others, some players can’t keep their mouths closed, and they pick a stupid yellow or red cards. Some players have different weaknesses. And the same applies to us, Football Manager players. We all play the game in a different way. We all ignore a different part of the game. Some of us don’t care about training, some of us don’t care about set pieces, press conferences and many more. My biggest weakness is that the older I am, the bigger issue and pain in the ass are TRANSFERS.

Yes, you read it right. Something so essential for the Football Manager, like transfers, became almost a nightmare for me in the previous years. It’s not a game issue or the fault of the developers. It’s just me being lazy, but it also reflects the fact that I'm very down-to-earth.

In recent years, nine times out of ten, I've decided to promote one of the youngsters to the first team and try to improve him as much as possible, rather than looking for other players on the transfer market.

The players database, how it's named in FM26, or just the player search screen in previous versions, became almost a no-go screen for me. I relied mostly on scouts or HoYD recommendations, or I just used a screen flow with some stats screens. Especially when the save was more than three or four seasons in.

In FM26, I didn’t care about transfers too much in the opening season because 1) the first transfer window was disabled and 2) I used the “Real World” database option. The latter means I have incoming and outgoing transfers set for the first season.

But my team needed improvement in various positions after a promotion to the top tier. And I decided to use one of the new features of the game - the TransferRoom (In).

Part 1: Squad planner

My system is not unique, and I’m sure many of you plan your squads in a very similar way. No matter if there was a squad planner screen in the game, or if you just wrote the names in your notebook.

I usually want to have 1) key/first choice player, 2) backup player and 3) future prospect. In my saves, it’s very common that the second and third players are the same. Or there are two youngsters as backup players.

The squad planner in FM26 works in a very similar way to the previous versions, but there are a couple of bugs, and it can be a little bit frustrating to go through due to general UI fuckups like reverting to a different screen after removing one player, etc.

The biggest con of the squad planner right now is that I can’t add the youth players. There are only the shortlist and the first team squad options in the drop-down menu. This was fixed before I finished this post.

But I told myself that I have to be patient, and I don’t want to write everything in the notebook. So I went through and aligned players as I wanted. The positive thing was that I didn’t have any position issues, and I have enough players. The other side is if they are good enough…

Step 2: Identifying what I need

…the answer for the unfinished sentence above is simple - they are not good enough. Watching just the squad page and potential ability star rating can be misleading. “Yes, I have enough central midfielders.” That’s exactly my words and my (wrong) approach from the past.

Putting the player’s list for the next season gave me a similar headache as waiting for the new contract ahead of the end of the first season. I already tweaked the tactics, including player roles I want to use next season, and it turned out I need some major improvement.

I was not able to put together at least three goalkeepers, so I need one backup or some prospect to have enough goalkeepers for reserves and U18 sides, too.

I realised that I was being somewhat blinded by the fact that Radja Nainggolan would continue in the team and thus overlooked the fact that, due to his age and declining physical attributes, he would no longer be able to play in physically demanding and running roles. That meant I needed at least one new channel midfielder and one new central midfielder. The fact that most of our midfielders want to play as DM is also not helpful.

In an effort to get rid of unnecessary players during the first season, to reduce the budget, I released or sold for a few pennies all the players who could play as LWB, so the replacement for Jordi Palacios is a physically pumped 19-year-old young man who occasionally gets the ball tangled between his legs so much that a physiotherapist has to untangle it.

And to make matters worse, when I put together all the pros and cons, eliminating all the available players, it turned out that our main Channel Forward is a fifteen-year-old with a youth contract. This is what I put together in my head and in the end also in the notebook:

GK: Backup or youngster with a low wage
WBL: Backup with a low wage, or promote two newgens from the Youth Intake 2026 and rotate them in the Reserves and U18 team.
CD: At least one first-choice player
DM: The new first-choice player was already signed; I only need to decide about covers.
MC: The first-choice Channel Midfielder & squad player for the CM role.
ST: The first-choice Channel Forward & squad player for the DLF role.

Easy, right?

Step 3: Setting the Requirements

I know we are able to set up the “classical” Recruitment Focusses straight from the Squad Planner, but I’m not a big fan of the recruitment focus, and I decided to keep only two focusses active - outgoing. One for the U18 and one for the U21 players within Belgium.

The main difference between the old Recruitment Focus and TransferRoom(In) focus is that the classic Recruitment Focus is continuously refreshed. The focus within the TransferRoom (In) will show you 15 players, for example, and you have to set the new one if you want to see different players. I’m a much bigger fan of the TransferRoom (In) option, although I would like to have it refreshed automatically, too.

As I already know what I need and what I want to find, it was time to set up the specific requirements. I started with the keeper, and I set two requirements. The first one with Backup as a playing time with no limit of age, and the second one with Emergency Backup and the age is limited to 15-20. It’s a little bit easier with outfield players, as you can set the youngster, future prospect or a breakthrough prospect's playing time.

Selecting the right playing time in combination with the age within setting the requirement is the most important in my eyes, and I enjoy experimenting with it more than searching players manually within the player database. I like how the advert system shows me some different players every time.

You can see in the picture above that there are various age ranges. I decided, for example, in the case of the DLF role, it can be someone who is already a little bit experienced; it doesn’t have to be always a youngster/wonderkid. The same applies to the ad with the backup keeper. I have plenty of them already. If the results are not good and I don’t like the “ads”, I change the requirements.

When I progressed to the next day of the save with these requirements, I got 96 responses. I would be able to select at least two or three players on the first try.

One thing I would like to tweak within the setting of the requirement is the option to add a nationality option.

After some days of scouting and comparing, I decided to make the age limits more specific or more restrictive, so the span was too big in some cases. I changed the age for the backup to 25-35, the age of the important centre defender to 19-25 and so on.

I also removed the 'Out of Possession' position from the requirements, as the responses offered better players. Some combinations, like Channel Forward & Tracking Centre Forward, were too demanding for the current level of my club/league.

Step 4: Results

I don’t want to comment and analyse each of these nine players I signed ahead of the second season with Lokeren, but I decided to share all of them here because it shows I was able to find almost every player I wanted/needed. There are new key central defenders (Doudaev, Musliu!! & Mamengi), Sem Audoor can be a solid LWB backup player - and he already proved it during the opening months of the second season.

Slovenian midfielder Aljaž Casar is a lovely versatile player who is able to play both as DM and CM. And the fact he can also be a Ball-Playing Defender is very welcomed.

I like the fact I was able to find and sing two young strikers for both Channel Forward and DLF roles, and there’s a chance they both will improve and I will sell them. French midfielder Lilian Raillot is also a great example of my favourite transfer policy. I like he can also play both as DM and CM, but also as CD if needed.

All of these players were signed for free, and I didn’t pay a transfer fee. I only decided not to sign any new goalkeeper during this process because I was not able to find someone who would be better than the current backup or someone who would not want too high a wage.

I also decided to sign a backup channel forward instead of the new first-choice player for this role because I want Said Okoce (the newgen from the first youth intake of the save I shared in the previous post) playing as much as possible.

I’m 100% sure I will use the same (or a little bit modified method again in the future of the save).

“The biggest difference in what was done before and what we are doing now is the proactivity of searching in the market. Not only looking for players who are good enough, but also who are suitable.”
Mark Coonen, Chief Scout, PEC Zwolle

I liked this thought in this interview with PEC Zwolle Chief Scout. It sums up my thinking of how I decided to use the TransferRoom in combination with the right requirements set. It’s not only about the immediate impact, but it is also, above all, an opportunity that you should not miss and take advantage of in the right setting.

The video by @Secondyellowcard would be my recommendation for anyone who would like to watch a video about the TransferRoom (In).

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone for supporting everyone else across social media or forum(s).

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

FM26 | Lokeren - season 2025/2026

December 7, 2025

If I would want to be a very cynical person, I would say the first season with Lokeren in Football Manager 26 was just a normal season. But when I look at the previous in-game months from a real-life perspective, most managers would need a long holiday without phone calls, emails and with a couple of beers every day.

I wrote about the “Real World” database option, the rivalry with SK Beveren, the domestic cup run or about how I was afraid the save would end sooner than I expected.

First Christmas, then sale

As I mentioned in the opening post about this save, my game set-up includes the “real world” option with real transfers, with real dates and the first transfer window disabled. That means there were a lot of players both arriving and departing during the summer and autumn of 2025.

I hoped it would keep me entertained in terms of the squad planning. It surely kept me very entertained, but mainly when I followed how the wage budget was exceeded more and more.

A simple summary:

Fourteen of 23 incoming players arrived at the club on July 1, 2025. Six players arrived during the summer, and three players arrived during September. The beauty of this real-world option is that you can have a new player for just days. That was an example of one midfielder who arrived at the beginning of July but left for a loan after a couple of days. And yes, I already had him in the squad planner :-)

There were 29 outgoing transfers during the summer, including free transfers or loans. Twenty-six players left the club on June 30 or July 1. That was easier in terms of planning the squad selection.

When all these players left, I had to check the future incoming transfers. I knew what the squad was missing and where our weaknesses were. When I found out there would be new central defenders and attacking midfielders, it was like opening late Christmas gifts. Yes, it’s not ideal not to have the squad together because of the tactics, but it doesn’t matter too much when I take a look back at how the season went.

But everything has two sides. The club’s finances are terrible. When all the transfers settled, I found out the wage budget (the original was €236K per month) was already exceeded by almost 10K.

Three weeks later, at the beginning of December 2025, I found out the board lowered the wage budget to €196K per month. I didn’t notice any message about it during the previous three weeks, even though I tried to find it. That meant we were significantly over the budget. I needed to cut out €45,865.

I decided to take advantage of a potential bug - I’m not sure if it’s intentional or a bug. There was always an option to cancel the loan when the player picked up a serious or long-term injury. But in FM26, it’s there even if it’s some minor injury.

And some of the players who arrived during the summer were players on loan. And we paid their full wage. When one of these players picked an injury for a week, the inbox message also contained the “Terminate Loan” button.

This player had €21K p/m. I will always rather play (=develop) my own youngster, even a worse player, than some loaned player. So, I terminated the loan.

When it happened again with a different player, I terminated his loan, too. I did it with all three loaned players. And it saved €38.5K p/m. The striker Daishawn Redan (loaned from U.S. Uvaellino 1912) scored 8 competitive goals in 13 appearances, and he was very good as a Channel Forward, but we paid 100% of his wage - €10,75K p/m, and it was too much.

I also decided to sell or release a couple of players in January, although at least two of them were very useful. But when you’re 4 million in debt, you can’t reject offers that earned over €300K for six players, and it will also save €20K p/m on wages.

It turned out that I put the wage budget under control (€7K p/m under the budget), despite signing two players on free at the end of January. But they got €1.1K and €1.2K per month, and they both are better than the sold players. Also, both of them have relatively high transfer value, so there’s a possibility to sell them and make some profit.

And to be absolutely clear, Tebili helped us and played a lot, Villorejo lacks physical attributes, and he was good mainly playing for reserves. My thinking is to renew his contract and try to sell him in the near future.

On one side, it was fun to have the first transfer window prepared on a plate from the real world. But it was also challenging in terms of keeping the money alright. I’m glad I will have it under my control since the second season.

Another important part of keeping the wage budget within its limits was to stop delegating the responsibility of signing staff members for my youth teams. I have Reserve, U21 and U18 squads. Only reserves and U18 play competitive matches. There are no players in the U21 team, and it’s a useless team right now, the last one in the hierarchy in my eyes. But my (already former) DoF signed staff members for this team. I know these coaches will help with the training within other teams, but releasing seven U21 staff members saved around €15K p/m.

[In the previous version(s), the staff wages were included in the general wage budget - in FM24 for sure. I can’t see it in the FM26. It shows only the players' wage budget in the Finances tab. There’s no staff wage budget mentioned if I was searching right]

We ended the season with more than 4 million euros in debt. The wage budget was increased by about €100K p/m to €297.379 p/m for the next season. But the club will have to start paying another loan, so the investment in the squad will have to be very careful. Especially as the club board has to invest another €2.3M for the undersoil heating to comply with the league requirements…

“Be competitive against SK Beveren”

The Waasland derby, also known as the Wase derby. That’s how matches between KSK Beveren and Sporting Lokeren were known in the past. Both clubs had their own existential issues, and fans of both teams - successors of the original clubs - had to find the right feeling again.

The history of these matches dates back to the 1970s as the rivalry between Lokeren and Beveren arose, also thanks to the successful times of both clubs in the domestic but also in European competitions. The last derby (the original one) match was played in February 2007. KSK Beveren had its issues, and the club has disbanded its men's team.

Between 2012 and 2020, Beveren played under the name of Waasland Beveren. Sporting Lokeren went bankrupt in 2020, and the club now exists thanks to merging with a nearby town. In real life, the season 2024/25 brought back the derby in the Belgian second tier despite clubs using different names. Lokeren won the first match 1:0 in Beveren. Beveren won the second match 1:0 in Lokeren.

In terms of my 2025/26 season with Lokeren in Football Manager 26, I was able to play this derby four times during the opening season of the save. And both the board and supporters gave me a simple aim: “Be competitive against SK Beveren”.

The clubs have a fierce rivalry in the game. The Beveren’s manager, Marink Reedijk, did a great job during the season, but he will not remember our matches with a positive smile.

“…I’ve been itching to put him back in his place for a while now and at full-time on Sunday he is going to be regretting making this personal.” - Marink Reedijk ahead of the Lokeren - Beveren in March 2026.

It was quite optimistic from someone whose team had conceded ten goals in the previous ten matches against us.

The first match was scheduled for November, and we won 2:1 away from home. We were 0:1 down early in the game, but Beveren scored an own goal a couple of minutes later, and Vervaque scored the winning goal twenty minutes before the final whistle.

We also faced Beveren in the Croky Cup semi-final (more about the domestic cup run later). The first leg in Beveren ended with a 1:1 draw, and the second leg at home was 100% the most entertaining match of the season as we won 7:4 - 3:0, 3:3, 4:3 HT - 6:3, 7:4 FT and a 8:5 win on aggregate. But the world is in the balance as the game decided the best match of the year was a 1:1 draw in the early round.

Some fans started calling these matches “Wasico” derby as a pun on Waasland and the Spanish El Clásico. The last one of the 2025/2026 season was played almost at the end of the Challenger Pro League season.

We faced Beveren at home, and a win would secure the league title for us. Our best goalscorer of the season, Mohamed Soumaré, scored two goals, and we won 3:2. That means we did quite well against Beveren during the whole season, right? Four matches, three wins and one draw.

This brings us to the fact that we won the second tier in the opening season of the save, and we won the promotion to the Belgian top tier. We were 12 points clear at the top of the table at some point in the season, but in the end, we won the league by three points ahead of Eupen. The third promoted club is KV Kortrijk, as they succeeded in the play-off.

SK Beveren ended sixth, and we will have to wait for another Waasland derby.

As I already mentioned, Mohamed Soumaré was our best goalscorer with 22 goals scored in 29 league appearances. I would like to keep him for another season, but he has already decided he doesn’t want to renew his contract.

Belgian Challenger Pro League 2025/2026 table

A domestic cup run

The Belgian domestic cup, named “Croky Cup”, was very generous to us in the opening season, as we were able to make it to the final. We beat RWDM Brussels 3:1 in the 6th round. We also beat Union SG 3:1 in the 7th Round - our first experience against some of the top-tier teams. We also hosted Club Brugge at home in the 8th round, and we beat them 3:2 after being 3:0 up already, but they almost equalised, and one of their goals was disallowed. Luckily.

We faced Dender EH, also from the top tier. We were 0:1 down after an early penalty kick, but Mohamed Soumaré scored twice, including a stoppage-time winner after a short free-kick routine, and we made it to the semi-final.

The semi-final against Beveren was already mentioned. We faced KRC Genk in the final. We were 1:0 up after a nice goal by David Tebili, but Genk scored four goals within 30 minutes and won 4:2 in the end after Soumaré scored our second before the end.

Unnecessary contract drama

As usual, at the beginning of the new save, the club gave me a one-year contract at the beginning of the season. I didn’t think or doubt that I would not receive an offer for the new one based on the results and based on exceeding expectations.

But when a reporter asked about the contract situation three months before the end of the season, I started panicking a little bit. The wage budget situation was under control again, and we were close to winning the promotion…

…nothing was happening. No offer. A month and a half before the end of the season, I gave up, went to the board and requested the new contract.

The response was something I didn’t expect. “We have considered your request for a new contract, but the club currently can’t afford to offer one.”

I adjusted budgets and tried it again, but the response was the same. The cup final was played, and players and staff left for a holiday, and I started planning the next season with a view to playing in the top tier. No matter how it will end with the contract. But partly, I almost started searching for the new club.

Maybe I was too impatient, maybe it’s connected to a bad club’s financial status, I don’t know. I don’t remember experiencing something like that. But I was offered a new contract on May 28. The offer was for 2 seasons with €13K p/m. I adjusted it to €4.1K p/m and 3 seasons. The Lokeren & FM Rensie will continue.

The bright future?

We had 7 “Elite Prospects” within the 2026 Youth Intake. It also includes Said Okoce, a 15-year-old Belgian striker or winger. I can say this player is the best newgen within my FM saves for a long time. Maybe the best.

I need to tie him down with a contract, and I have to hope he will not want some ridiculous release clause.

I already gave him the league and a cup debut at the end of the season; he also scored his first goal in his first appearance, and he became the youngest player and goalscorer of the league.

Other newgens need some “baking”, and they will get some minutes next season, but Okoce will be considered as one of the strikers, as I plan to change the tactics slightly. You can find my tactic from season one here.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone for supporting everyone else across social media or forum(s).

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

FM26 | My short corner kick routine

November 27, 2025

I didn’t plan to write about set pieces so early in my main Football Manager 26 save because I didn’t expect to be able to settle into a routine I enjoy using. I was sceptical because of unknown players and their abilities, and I didn’t know what to expect of set pieces within the new game in general.

But after half of the first season with Lokeren, I can say I’m enjoying the short corner kick routine, and I put some of my thoughts about it together.

What parts do I actually consider important while setting up the routine?

The Priority list was (probably) the main change in FM24. It remains the same in FM26. It is how the roles are divided into their categories: Aerial ThreatBox Threat, Recovery Defender and Creators.

This list “determines which roles you think are the most important at each type of set piece. If one of your players, based on their Attributes, is ranked number one in more than one role, they’ll be assigned to the one that’s positioned higher in the priority list.”

The same as in FM24, tweaking this priority list can be crucial to your success within set pieces.

I like to have Creators set as the 1st choice while using short corner kick delivery because I want to “create something” rather than just pump the ball to the box. It’s nice to have good players as Aerial Threats, but they will hit trees behind the stand if they are set to lurk outside the area, and they will be allowed to shoot.

Or you can score something like this if your main creator decides to pass the ball to the near post, where the aerial threat is, and you’re confused a couple of days later because you see a central defender in the scoresheet and you are not sure if you finally scored from a near post routine.

Uploading another short corner kick goal for the needs of a new blog... 👀😎 #FM26 pic.twitter.com/jdGzbagvgq
— FM Rensie | Ondrej (@FMRensie) November 20, 2025

There’s an ideal example from my main FM26 save with Lokeren. My team scored six corner kick goals in the opening ten league matches and one corner kick goal in one domestic cup. All of them were scored after a short corner kick routine. The main creator - Radja Nainggolan - was set to Come short, and he was able to create something.

But two different players picked up injuries, and Radja moved to another role within the routines, including a corner taker. And we didn’t score for five or six matches as everything has changed in the set-up. The overall form of the team was good, I went through matches quickly, and it took me some time to realise why we are not so dangerous (and effective) from corner kicks.

I realised the rearranged priority list during one match, changed it and we were more dangerous after a couple of minutes just because Radja was the main creator again.

The goal I shared on Twitter recently is a great example of how it can work when the right players are set correctly and in their best possible roles.

A short corner kick like from a textbook 👌🏻 #FM26 pic.twitter.com/S8P1PC4hE4
— FM Rensie | Ondrej (@FMRensie) November 19, 2025

Routine frequency can also be very useful and very important. If you use more than just one routine, of course.

The routine frequency is another change/improvement from FM24, and it decides which routine will be used more often, on average or less frequently. You can change the frequency manually whenever you want. Just hit the button with the routine name and click on the “Modify Routine Frequencies” option. [There’s a bug in FM26, as you can click on all the options within the pop-up and it behaves incorrectly - it wasn’t fixed while writing this post on Thursday, 20th November]

I mentioned the near post routine earlier in the post. I have two main corner kick routines in this save so far, but I didn’t score a single goal from the one with the near-post delivery. Maybe it’s because of not having good enough players in terms of the corners delivery, or the target players are not good enough to find the right place on the pitch. Or it’s a wrong setup overall.

But that’s why I found the routine frequency option very useful. I know my team is not good at taking the near-post corners right now, and I want to tweak the routine more. But I still want to stay dangerous thanks to the short corner kick routine. That’s why I (after a couple of clicks because of the mentioned bug) set to use the short routine more often and the near post average or less often.

Another fine short corner kick routine example, this time with more possession/touches and a lovely finish by the DLP.

I managed to record it in the end (not sure how many times I had to restart the game).

Probably my best set piece goal of #FM26 so far... https://t.co/9PAqTOdC5n pic.twitter.com/b5PW36MEKw
— FM Rensie | Ondrej (@FMRensie) November 15, 2025

Key attributes for creator roles. As Guido Merry mentioned in his post (and I’m sure he mentioned in the past too), the short routine is “…essentially a possession-based distribution choice. Instead of swinging a cross straight into a crowded box, you invite the defence to step forward and then exploit the spaces that appear. The goal isn’t always scored directly; instead, your aim is to create movement, disorganisation, and better angles for the next phase.”

I agree with him on this, and it leads me to another important part within my routines. We usually had five or six key attributes for a specific set piece player role in previous editions of the game. It has changed since FM24, and there are only three key attributes.

If I remember it right, these were for the come short role.

FM23 and older: Crossing, Dribbling, Passing, Technique, Anticipation and Decisions
Since FM24, it’s, unfortunately, more general. It’s not specifically to come short role, but there are key attributes for all creator roles overall. They are Long Shots, Technique, and Crossing.

I would surely rather use the Decision attribute here if you consider the Come Short role for all corner kick and free kick routines. If you’re using the short routines, the stay with taker role and come short role are crucial for your players will do straight after the routine is kicked off.

That means I ignore the Long Shots attribute in my head, and I try to select players who are good in Decision, Off The Ball and Anticipation. Good Composure and Flair attributes are a bonus. But that’s almost like searching for the perfect complete forward…

Sometimes, the possession/creative phase after a corner kick takes so long/many passes that the goal is not even counted as a corner kick goal in the end.

In the picture above, you can see Mohamed Soumaré and his “key” attributes. But his Off the Ball attribute is 12, and Anticipation is 11. Nothing spectacular, but good for the second tier. And it’s enough for him to read the game and space during the corner routine - exactly as in the video example above.

I try to have this in my head while creating short free-kick routines too. But that’s a different story, maybe for a different blog.

You can find the routine set up in the picture below.

[The set pieces design/layout was changed back for FM24, and there was one simple option to check attributes and selected players for each role within the pitch by clicking on the dot. Like a small preview. In FM26, this option doesn't work no matter what I try. I always have to click on the button to show the starting 11 in the upper right corner.

I'm not sure if it's a bug or an intentional thing. If it's how it should be, I would like to suggest taking the option of preview straight on the pitch back to the game.

Right now, you have to memorise who and where your players are selected, but it's really confusing, especially when you make changes in the line-up, and all your players move within the routines due to the priority lists.]

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone for supporting everyone else across social media or forum(s). You can follow me on Twitter or Bluesky. And you can find me in FM Slack, too.

What is FM Slack?

There were a lot of changes within many social media, including Twitter (now “X”), and it’s not the same as in the past. We can’t see many things due to the algorithm, weird preferences and many other reasons I don’t even want to know. There are many Discord servers, and I’m sure they are good and useful. But I will probably always be a bigger fan of Slack. Or, better worded, the Football Manager Slack. Feel free to join us with this link.

FM26 | My training regime

November 13, 2025

I won’t lie, creating your own training schedules in Football Manager 26 is painful. I’m afraid that I will have to buy a new mouse, or I will go bankrupt, because I will have to buy so many rechargeable batteries. There are so many clicks to set your own schedule. But if I want to enjoy the save, the training regime is one of the important parts I like to enjoy within the Football Manager. No matter if my schedules are overpowered or absolutely useless. I just don’t want to delegate everything; the invested time at the beginning is worth it. It really is, at least for me.

You can find a couple of my thoughts below, plus there are some useful tips on how to deal with some training bugs at the end of the post.

I start with K.S.C. Lokeren in the Belgian second tier. Most of the matchdays are scheduled for Sunday, which is why I created this schedule with Sunday as a matchday. If the matchday changes, it’s easy to customise.

Post-match Monday.
- This is the easiest day of the week for players who are fatigued from the match. This training day contains the Match Review session, Recovery session, but also either the Overall or Outfield session from the General tab. The reason I add one of these is that not all players have a match load, and I want them to put some effort instead of just watching the video and relaxing in the spa.
Warm-up Tuesday.
- This is the second day after a match. That means even the players who were involved in the match (full or partly) are already almost back to 100% shape again. The whole day consists of the sessions from the General tab. If Outfield is on Monday, the Overall session is on Tuesday as the first one. And vice versa. I like to switch between Attacking and Defending sessions every other week. I saw a couple of FM players use defending or attacking sessions in combination with a home and an away match, but I don’t think it’s necessary. There are also variations with the Tactical session included.
Never skip Wednesday.
- The first hard day of the week. All injury risk, condition and fatigue are in red. Two sessions of the day are from the Physical (Endurance, Resistance, Quickness switching between each other), tab before the Recovery at the end of the day. Players from my Lokeren squad were moaning already after two weeks of the pre-season :-)
A starting XI fight Thursday.
- Fight club time. “A full 11-a-side practice match with a focus on the next fixture.” It’s time to perform in the training match. The second session of the day is usually set pieces ahead of recovery. [There were rumours in the past that the match practice can exhaust your players. That’s probably true, but I never experienced, in previous editions, that it would have some major negative impact.]
Skills & Technical Friday.
- This is mainly about sessions from two tabs - Technical and Goalkeeping. The first one is logical; there are sessions dedicated to creating or converting chances, and these sessions can improve attributes like dribbling or finishing, etc. I like keeping it together - chance conversion and creation, ball distribution and play from the back and transition sessions together. And I combine it with goalkeeping sessions as they are dedicated to goalkeepers from two-thirds, but they are beneficial to players based on their units as well.
Pre-match Saturday.
- The pre-match is an easy day in comparison with previous days. Just match tactics session and set pieces. Plus match focus session that is automatically added by the game. This means if you add anything here, it will be replaced by the match focus.

A couple of created schedules. You can see they are more or less very similar. It’s only about small changes to switching between each session available.

[* I’m not sure if it’s a design bug or it’s intentional, but the specific sessions from specific tabs don’t match in terms of colours. I have three sessions from the General tab on Tuesday, but they all have a different colour. It's now harder to separate them from each other so that you can see at a glance which category it's from. It's quite confusing, and it’s also one of a couple of bugs within training I reported.]

The biggest downside of creating a custom schedule with Sunday as a matchday is that you are not able to select the “Match Review” session on Monday because the logic of the game doesn’t cooperate with the fact that you played the match on Sunday. You can select the “Match Review” session only a day after the match.

I just have to add it manually after loading the custom schedule to the calendar. That’s the only way the game considers that I can use that session.

What about a different matchday?

The style/system of the weekly schedule is not so much different if you had Saturday as a matchday. It will only move by day(s). That means I will have Post-match Sunday, Warm-up Monday, Never skip Tuesday, the match practice will be on Wednesday, etc.

That’s, for example, a case of my youth team in the second part of their U18 Elite competition.

On the other hand, my reserve squad is playing in the “Reserve National 1 VV”. And this competition has Monday as a matchday. That means it all shuffles in the same way.

What about a double matchday?

As I already mentioned, the U18 squad and their competition, their schedule contains matches on Wednesday and Saturday/Sunday during the first two months of the season.

That means I created schedules for this scenario. These are oriented mainly for the general sessions and match preparation, as there is not enough time between matches. Especially when it’s Wednesday/Saturday.

The words above were written with the foolish ignorance that I cannot control the training of my other teams. I hoped I would be able to edit the general training schedule as it was possible in the past.

But unfortunately, when I go to the Squad Overview, I select youth training in the tile, open the pop-up, their training tile is here, but when I open it, it always takes me to the first team calendar...

That means my reserves, U21 and U18 squads are reliant on the training schedule of the delegated staff. I can't do anything with their training right now, although I can take control of their general training within staff responsibilities.

Following the FM26 Update 3 (published on Thursday, 20th November 2025, via the beta track), we can now edit the youth teams’ general training. That means I can create the schedules with the matchday set to Saturday when my youth team plays, or to Monday when my reserve squad plays, take over the general training within the staff responsibilities and select these schedules within the general training.

(Thank you, FM Grasshopper, for clarifying it to me)

The result of this is that the general training of other squads within my club is set by some staff member, and I control only the individual training. But this doesn’t change the overall thinking behind it. I keep my created schedules - the only difference is that I can use them only for the first team training right now.

Training intensity

I kept the set-up of the Training Intensity the same as I had it in previous versions of the game. That means it’s all set to the Automatic Intensity - “Automatically set training intensity and rest based on player condition.”

But there are some exceptions. And it’s connected to the age of players. Players over the age of 32 (if I have some in the squad) are set to the normal intensity. I don’t want to kill them with double intensity. In the first season, I had only two players over the age of 32. I usually don’t have players over 35 in the squad, and it’s something I don’t need to (re)consider too much when the save progresses.

Individual training

The same as we have units in the game, the individual training can be divided into some units within the training regime. But there are more of them than just goalkeepers, defenders and attackers.

I'm playing with the 3-3-2-1-1 formation. Three central defenders, wing-backs, one DM, two CM, one AM and one striker. But the individual training would be very similar even if I were to use a four-defender formation. The main change in FM26 compared with previous versions is that we can also select the out of possession role to train.

We have individual training for goalkeepers, central defenders, wing-backs, defensive and central midfielders and strikers. There’s only one exception - Radja Nainggolan doesn’t have the in possession role selected as he is playing in a free role, and he is 37 years old, so he can do what he wants :) The same as he has a normal training intensity because of his age, as I already mentioned above.

I always had great results in developing central defenders. I write this post after two in-game months of the save, and I can already see some improvements in some of my defenders.

I like the opposite pole so far in terms of static vs. more aggressive roles in training. For example, DM & CM players have the Central Midfielder role in possession, but some of them have the Pressing Defensive Midfielder out of possession role, although I don’t use this role within our game plan. But it can be beneficial to press in overall.

The individual training focus is very…individual. Some players have a different one than the overall setup. The key was always to change the training focus continuously. For example, every two or three months. I don’t know if it’s the same in the new game, but I will do it again. I just need to remember it, as I don’t see the option to create a note with the reminder in the game.

You can see there are also a couple of players who are AMR/L, and they have their training set differently. That’s because they are not good enough (in my eyes) to be retrained to WBR/L, so I try to retrain them to AMC or a striker.

If it doesn’t work out, I will sell them in winter.

A couple of training tips

IF you are creating your own training schedules, don't forget that a "Match Focus" session is automatically added a day before the match. Just in case you were wondering where the Set Pieces session disappeared...

There’s also an issue with creating/saving/exporting/loading your sessions. I found a way to be a little bit less depressed by it.

I will ignore the fact that you can’t move to the right side of the upper part of the custom schedules, so if you give your schedules long names, you will be able to select only a couple of them. It’s a reported issue.

But sometimes, you create the schedule, you save and export it, but it uses a different name. Usually “Custom 1” or “Custom 242”, etc. The easiest way, from my experience, is this:

Be sure you entered the name of the schedule in all possible boxes when exporting it.
While you are still in the “Create new Schedule” pop-up screen, open the menu in the top left corner.
Navigate to “Delete Schedule” and delete the Custom one.
Navigate to “Custom Schedule” (the one above the Delete option) and hit the “Load” option.
Select the latest created schedule - in my example, “Thursday - Sunday”, and load it.
It will now appear under the right name.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t create these schedules to create some monsters or try to find some “cheat code”. It’s just one of a couple of parts of the game that I really enjoy tweaking and editing. It would not be a complete experience for me without it. No matter if my players will develop into world stars or if they will just stagnate as average players.

Feel free to let me know if you find out anything useful regarding the training in FM26, or anything else. You can follow me on Twitter or Bluesky. And you can find me in FM Slack, too.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone for supporting everyone else across social media or forum(s).

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

FM26 | Heading to Belgium

November 7, 2025

The same as I/we didn’t know if the FM 26 would be a thing after a previous year, I also didn’t know where I should spend most of the new edition in terms of the long-term save. In the end, I decided against all the experimental thoughts I had in the previous months, and I decided for, maybe boring, but a traditional type of save with the club from the European second division with a rich history, but also recent struggles and issues.

The new game is not finished, and there are a lot of issues. A lot of things I/we used in the past are not in the game anymore, which means the style of playing the game will be different.

But I hope I will enjoy my time with the new game and developing K.S.C. Lokeren in Belgium.

Searching the (Czech) “mafia”

My kids would say it’s like talking about the prehistoric times, but back in the 70s and 90s, Lokeren football club was a vital part of the Czech football history.

If we were to look for a place in the world where football has done the best advertising for the Czech Republic, Belgian side Lokeren would rank very high. The captain of the 1962 world champions, Ladislav Novák, trained there, the Slovak European champion from Belgrade, Karol Dobiáš, played there, and Jan Koller developed into a top striker there…

The story from the 90s: Roman Vonášek (midfielder) and Václav Budka (midfielder) were both on Lokeren’s radar, and Belgian club representatives came to Prague to finalise the deal. When the talks between clubs were ongoing, they also talked about the fact that they would need a striker too.

Jan Koller was a Sparta Prague player at this time, but his position in the team (and the club itself) was not very good. He was offered to Lokeren, but it wasn’t so easy. They didn’t trust in his abilities. And he really was not as good as you may remember him from the time with BVB or in the Czech national team shirt later. He lacked the technical skills; he was clumsy; he was not ready for a big football…

…but Josef Vacenovský, a former Czechoslovakia national team player and also a Lokeren player & coach in the 20th century, had his word, and he convinced the representatives of Lokeren to sign Koller too. That means Lokeren bought three players from Sparta Prague during the same transfer window. A year later, Martin Pěnička joined Lokeren from Slavia Prague. That meant Lokeren had four Czech players at the same time in the squad.

“If I hadn’t played for Lokeren, my career probably wouldn’t have been as successful. I was lucky with the coach, the people at the club, and I made the most progress there. Before leaving the Czech Republic, I had to look for Lokeren on the map; I didn’t know anything about it.”

— Jan Koller in 2020

They called them “Czech mafia”. Goalkeeper Jan Musil also spent a short period of time with the club in 1997.

Jan Koller left the club in 1999 as he joined Anderlecht, where he won the Belgian title with them before he moved to Dortmund and became one of their legends. Budka and Pěnička left after another year. A couple of more Czech players were in the club later for a short period of time, but not in a big group like these four „mafiosi“.

Václav Budka, Roman Vonášek, Martin Pěnička & Jan Koller. Picture @www.standaard.be

The aim is not to concentrate on the Czech players within the transfer market. The idea is to just have a group of players from the same nation.

“Will you sign another player from the country “XY” to help this player “XY” to settle in the new club?”

If you follow my saves in the past, you will know that I usually play mostly with the domestic players. My saves are focused on the youth development a lot. It’s not only about having three or four players from the same nation. It can be one player in the senior squad and three youngsters. Or vice versa. It depends on the situation.

And as I said, it’s not necessary to sign Czech players just because of this story. We can create a “mafia” from a different country.

I don’t know if it will be a thing in Football Manager 26, the same as in the previous versions, but the affiliate clubs can play a part in this scenario within this save.

Also, the players already mentioned were one central defender, two central midfielders, and one striker. So, some kind of team axis. But it’s not a restriction that I have to replicate this. It will be random. It can be the defensive line, as in FM25, when I had three Slovenian defenders in the starting XI, for example.

If I check the current 25/26 Lokeren squad, there are 19 players with Belgian nationality (including Radja Nainggolan, for example) and around 10 foreign players - two Spanish defenders, four strikers from African nations. I found it an ideal combination to start with - the base of the squad will always be domestic-based + a couple of foreign players who will offer something different.

And in this case, I will try my best to find the new “mafia” and these foreign players will be from the same nation. It can be four Spanish players for two seasons, or three Austrian players for five seasons. There’s a rich history of Icelandic players in the club; Alfreð Finnbogason was probably the most well-known, I would say.

It depends, but I’m sure I will play at least five seasons of this save, so it’s manageable.

The important thing to remind myself - this is not a must! It’s not something I have to do; it’s not some restriction. If it won’t happen, it’s not the end of the world. I just want to enjoy playing the game again, and this can be some kind of side story.

Lokeren and its struggles in the 21st century

I won’t pretend I’m an expert on Belgian football or the history of the Lokeren football club. The good old Wikipedia and a couple of online articles are my useful friends. The “original” Lokeren was founded in 1923, and they won the Belgian Cup twice. Their history is rich. I would say every club that has been on the map for too long has a rich history. No matter of highs and lows, trophies or defeats.

Lokeren almost made it to the 100th anniversary. But they were relegated from the top tier in 2018. Two years later, they were declared bankrupt, and in April 2020, they merged with the nearby town of Temse (KSV Temse), and the new club K.S.C. Lokeren-Temse was founded, starting in the fourth tier.

The club from Temse was formed in 1945, so that’s also a club with a long history, and it was a logical step to connect both clubs to avoid the complete extinction of Lokeren.

The new club started in the fourth tier, and they moved up in 2022/2023. A second successive promotion followed in the next season. The key thing was that the club got the professional license, and they are now back in the second tier for the second season. The seventh place was a success.

In 2025, the club decided to use the K.S.C. Lokeren name again.

Daknamstadion - capacity 12,136, not renovated, expanded or massively improved since 1974.

As I already mentioned, I’m not an expert on Belgian football. When I check the Lokeren current squad, I know only Radja Nainggolan. The rest of the players are unknown to me. I would be able to talk about Michel Preud’homme, Raymond Braine (he played for Sparta Prague, and I read a lot about him), and how I signed Antony Vanden Borre every time in the old FM editions or about my platonic love for Walter Baseggio and Bart Goor, when they played for both Anderlecht and Belgium in the 90s.

I, of course, know current or recent Belgian players, but I don’t remember playing in an FM save in Belgium for too long a time, and this can be a good thing to get to know some new players, too.

Challenger Pro League

The second Belgian tier has been continuously expanded in terms of the number of teams since 2016. There are 17 teams for the 2025/2026 season. The league changed its format a lot during recent years.

This season, two teams will be automatically promoted to the Belgian Pro League, and the promotion play-off winner will be matched against the last-placed top-tier team, with no direct relegation due to the top tier's expansion to 18 teams from 2026–27 onwards.

I like that there’s a promotion play-off; it will be even more challenging to get the club back to the top tier.

I made kits! Although I didn’t know if I would be able to use them in the game…

Tactical direction

With the new in and out-of-possession possibilities, there will probably be some experiments. I know I will keep it simple as always, but I would like to create another quality tactic with three central defenders and attacking wing-backs who will be, or should be, the main power.

Also, there’s no pressing forward role in FM26. I will continue experimenting with the Centre Forward role and player instructions to create a pressing monster in the attacking phase.

Save set-up

The game setup is simple - a real world with real transfers with real dates and the first transfer window disabled. That means there will be arriving and departing players during the opening weeks and months of the save. It will surely keep me entertained in terms of the squad planning.

Especially as there are four squads - the first team, reserves, U21 and U18, it will be fun. Hopefully.

Thanks for reading, take care and feel free to join FM Slack.

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

Featured

Nov 4, 2025

FM26 Touchline Shouts compensation

Nov 4, 2025

There are a couple of things missing in Football Manager 26. The touchline shouts feature is one of them. I found out I miss them more than I could’ve imagined, and I decided to create some kind of compensation. It works like a therapy. I keep this page open and hit the relevant button from time to time during the match.

Nov 4, 2025

FM26 Touchline Shouts compensation

November 4, 2025

Football Manager 26 serves as a perfect mirror (for me)

November 1, 2025

It would be best to cancel the FM25; I don’t want the unfinished game. These were my own words back in February this calendar year when the cancellation of the FM25 was announced. Well, I didn’t get what I hoped for so far. The FM26, based on the early access beta version, is an unfinished game. And probably will be unfinished in the early days and weeks after the full release. It’s a shame. It’s an own goal.

“You have to cancel your muscle memory and you have to relearn it and once you relearn it, it’s so much easier to use.”

— Miles Jacobson

There are many things I miss in the game. Mainly the functional things. Or maybe better worded, the useful things. The practical parts of the game. The possibility of using my middle mouse button as a shortcut and additional button to continue the game, for example. This is probably the main thing I've tried to get used to since day one.

Miles (and Sports Interactive/FM), I have no problem to learn new things. I have no problem cancelling my muscle memory and setting everything again. And adapt to it. But it would be nice if it were possible to learn it.

The possibility to set your own shortcuts is still in the game preferences. But it doesn’t work yet. I hope it will be fixed before or after the full release. The same as many other small useful things.

I recently wrote this in the FM Slack space:

“The first hour of playing on Thursday night was mental, and I rather went to bed. Friday morning and evening helped me a lot after searching through screens. Today morning was the best so far as I felt more familiar with most of the things already, I even get used to so many clicks already, but it's mental how many things are hidden somewhere.”

If, for example, the player pop-up profile is newly designed in comparison with the previous versions, I would like to see it designed precisely and newly. I don’t want to see the key and preferred attributes buttons with the possibility to click into them. Because it doesn’t belong here in the new design. Removed it completely and properly, or leave it as it was.

If shortcuts are designed anew, be sure they work as they should at first glance. Not because some players will report it as a bug. Or remove it completely until you find a way to make them work. If you wanted to find the new generation of FM players, things like this make it very hard for you. It’s not attractive not only for new players, but also for the old ones. It’s all about the first impression.

I saw posts on social media about people making posts about how many things were removed from the game. Some of them are in the game. They are only hidden so carefully hidden that it takes a lot of time to find them. I don’t remember spending so much time helping myself and others on social media to find something simple like a season preview page, youth fixtures, and many more.

On the one hand, it’s great how people help each other. At least I have this experience. On the other hand, I don’t think it should be so complicated, and it’s not about the muscle memory. As I said, I have no issue with learning something new. But I didn’t expect the main thing that I would have to learn is to find something that has been in the game for years.

“Players didn’t use it at all, so we removed it.”

— A paraphrase of Miles Jacobson and Sports Interactive

But there’s one thing that I found out while playing the early access beta and reading all the posts about missing features in the game. Do I really miss all of them? Did I really use all of them? Is it really that big a loss to not have cup draws? Or deadline day? Or anything else?

What I really miss:

The option to customise the colours of the attributes - I think it’s crazy that with the new game (and with the new era), the developers hope (and rely) that the community will find its way to make everything.
The chalkboard - I played about a half season in the early access, and I can’t count how many times I said to myself, something like this goal would look great if there were a ‘show linked events’ option.
- My playing time is limited in comparison with the past (before kids), but I would rather spend the entire hour analysing all the set pieces from one match than having new 3D textures of your moustache in the game. It’s great that you can select that your manager is a specialist in some area, but you can’t analyse "that area".
The heat map, the average positions maps, and the pass map.
The ability to show the Touchline Tablet during highlights, not just between them.
Selecting players on the pitch during the match to track their movement - for example, just central midfielders.
Shouts. I don’t know if they worked, but I always thought about it in the way that I’m involved in the match. Right now, I feel like I have to make some change during the match to not feel just like a spectator.

I spent a lot of time modifying the custom skin since FM16. It was the same every year. I have no issue with reporting bugs to the SI Forum. I have been doing it every year since I can’t remember. No matter if I had the option to play the alpha or beta versions, early access or when anyone cared about it already, because it was too late in the game cycle.

My biggest frustration was always when a bug was found and repaired in the game, and when the new game was released, it was there again. These moments led to the fact that they almost lost me as a player, as a customer and as someone who has been playing the game for three decades.

The short period with the early access told me one thing: I still love the game despite not playing it almost the entire calendar year. I have no problem with the bugs. They were, and they will always be in the game. I have no problem with removing features for whatever reason.

If I imagine my monitor as a mirror, look into it and ask what I miss most in the new FM release, I certainly won't say that I miss deadline day. I won't get mad that there are no cup tickets. I won't get mad that there is no challenge mode. Or anything else. I know that everyone misses something different in the new FM, because we all like something different about the game, and we all play it differently.

For me personally, the biggest loss of this new game is the absence of useful things that either don't work as they should (and hopefully will be fixed so that they work) or have disappeared from the game completely because it was easier to remove them so that there would be no more problems with it.

I’m glad I don’t have an option to test the game early anymore. I think I would not write this if I had seen the game in the early phase. Because I would be so disappointed. And I would not even think about writing this.

But I will adapt. I will cancel not only my muscle memory, but the entire memory of how I played FM in the past, if the things I liked to do will not work anymore. Because this is my game. Not the FM26. But the Football Manager itself. It’s my way to exit real life, my way to leave all the things somewhere else.

I wrote this mainly as some kind of self-therapy. I also had to write some parts in my native language first to summarise my thoughts properly. I don’t want to defend SI in any way. But. If they wanted to remove something specific from the game, it’s their choice. They are developers of the game.

“But they had two years!!!”

Yes, they had. Even more. I had almost fifteen years to become a pro footballer, but I didn’t make it. If this is the new era of the game, I will be there. Even if I don’t like many things. Although I miss many things.

On the other hand (or third or fourth), my personal opinion is that the game shouldn’t be released as early access publicly in this state. This game has huge potential, but releasing this version as a beta, or early access, was an own goal. The same as the amateurish level of communication.

Thanks for reading, take care and feel free to join FM Slack. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or Bluesky

What is FM Slack?

You will find a short channel summary in the ‘generalchat’ so it will be easier for you to navigate through the channels.

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