I usually take a break for a couple of days when the season within my Football Manager save finished before I start writing about it. But it was different this time and I created this post almost immediately after the final whistle of the last league match. Not sure if it was caused by the excitement from the final league position or because of a very good performance in the last match or I just wanted to have it done to be able to again and move to the next season.
But it was our third season together. After a promotion in the opening season and 4th place in the first season in the Eredivisie, we improved again as we finished third and earned a place in the Europa League group stage for the upcoming season. The success is very fast and I didn’t expect it (or maybe I didn’t want it?) but I will take it :)
TRANSFERS 2024/2025 - don’t say the word Monneyball…
One of my favourite parts of this save so far is searching, finding and signing quality free players. Maybe it’s because I loaded more players from around Europe ahead of the save in comparison with the previous FM editions. Or I’m more active maybe. But it’s fun. I remember I wrote about the experienced players in the previous save update and I mentioned they will stay. For example midfielder James Jeggo helped us a lot in the first season in Eredivisie.
But when Red Bull Salzburg came for him and offered €2M, I packed his bag and bought him a ticket. The same happened in winter when Pelle van Amersfoort was bought by Stuttgart for €6.75M. I can’t ignore this money. There were also some more outgoing transfers, mainly at the end of the winter transfer window when I, for example, sold two young players to Willem II (currently in the 2nd tier) for about €500k together but both bids were accepted with 40% from their next transfer. It’s something I will do more frequently in the future of this save as I have a lot of young players who will not play for us but their sales for €100K - €500K will make a very solid sum of money together.
We had 19 players out on loan this season, most of them in our affiliate clubs of Dudelange and Austria Klagenfurt. That’s something connected to what I said above - most of them will be sold or their contracts will expire.
In terms of incoming transfers, we brought 13 new players to the club. But we need to divide it. As always, some of them were meant to play for the senior squad, and some of them were signed for the future. My current favourite sport is to search for young players with amateur status (there are a lot of players in the Netherlands), signing them for free and developing them. To sell them or use them, will see.
But I was very pleased to sign central defender Lubomir Šatka, midfielders Sven Mijnans, Samuel Grygar or a striker Sydney van Hooijdonk. All of them for free. We spent only €200K to sign left defender Quilindschy Hartman from Feyenoord and €250K for Lukáš Vorlický as I decided to buy him immediately instead of waiting for him until the summer. It was a great decision, more below.
One from the growing Czech colony
I already mentioned the signing of Lukáš Vorlický. This young Czech midfielder is a product of the Zbrojovka Brno academy but he left his boyhood club in the 2017/18 season already when he was just 15 years old. He moved to Atalanta Bergamo for ridiculously small table severance pay and he spent the next six years in Italy.
He never made it within this save to Atalanta’s senior squad, he has only two Serie A appearances as a sub for a couple of minutes. The weird item on his resume will be the season 2022/2023, the first of this save when he played just 1 game for Carrarese in the Serie C. The next season was better and he played most of the league matches in the Czech 2nd tier while being on loan with Hradec Králové.
His contract with Atalanta would expire at the end of the 2024/25 season and I decided to sign him for free. I had enough money available thanks to two big sales and we agreed very quickly. I saw him as a backup for IW/WM(S) role for Franciso di Franco. But I found the “Buy Vorlický immediately” button and he was ours for €250K.
Vorlický made 4 assists in the first three friendly matches in the winter break and I was very impressed with him. He was lucky Franciso di Franco spent most of the second part of the season injured in the stands. But Vorlický was a great signing. He made 15(1) appearances, scored two goals and made 7 assists as WM(S) without any specific instructions except Get Further Forward. Most importantly, he ended the season with the highest average rating of all players with 7.65.
Btw. - another midfielder Richard Sedláček is our vice-captain. Samuel Grygar made some improvement during this season and we have also a decent Czech newgen keeper in the youth squad and maybe I will sign some more Czech players.
Cut Inside From Left Wing and a perfect passing combination.
Tactical tweaks
This season brought also some more changes and tweaks in our tactic. We still play with just one central defender and the shape is the same but I changed some team instructions and I also changed three roles.
I changed the IW(S) to WM(S) on the left side of the pitch and I changed one striker from DLF(S) to PF(S) or PF(A). The rest of the changes happened during the autumn, at the end of November after a match against Cambuur. We were 0:2 down at the half time but I made some changes and we won 3:2. That was the biggest impulse to my tweaks and that’s the moment when I said to myself “Don’t be too shy, boring and patient.”
My go-to style is to be patient and wait for the right moment with precise defensive work. That’s not too easy with just one central defender and I already accepted this FM edition is more like a hockey game for my team and clean sheets are very rare.
The lone central defender formation v2024/25
The main change was within the out-of-possession instructions as I used low block, drop off more, and trap inside and the trigger press was set to standard. Sometimes, it was like a waiting game but the opponent was usually the one who scored. The last change was I decided to use CM(A) role instead of AP(S) in the MC slot again, the same as in my initial plan at the start of the save.
I just wanted to see my players be more active and more hungry to win the ball and be more dangerous. I was pleased when this happened in the first match after the changes as our CM(A) was one of the main pressing players.
One of my most favourite goals (after tactical tweaks) based on the cooperation between WM(S) - Vorlický, PF(A) - Hendrikx, CM(A) - Hajdaraj and AF - Venema.
Ertan Hajdaraj - the reason for a return to CM(A) role
One of the reasons why, maybe the main one, for using the CM(A) role again was a return of the Albanian midfielder/striker Ertan Hajdaraj. I mentioned this player in the opening post about this save and how I’m looking forward using him as CM(A). But I changed the MC role to AP(S) for the second season and I decided to send Ertan to Austria for a season-long loan in our afiliate - Austria Klagenfurt. He played almost thirty league matches and he returned back ahead of 2024/25 season.
It was during the moment when I decided to change the striker role to PF(S) and I decided to give Ertan a proper chance in this role. He had a great start to the season and he scored four goals in the opening five matches. But when I signed Sydney van Hooijdonk at the end of the summer transfer window, I knew it will be game over for Ertan as Sydney is more suitable for the PF role.
And I decided to go back to CM(A) and use Ertan here as our main man. His decisions and off the ball movement is perfect for this role, aggression is good enough too. He would only need to improve his physical attributes but maybe in the future. He ended the season with 13 goals and 6 assists and average rating of 7.2. He’s still only 22 years old, he signed a new contract with us until 2029 so I think I can have him for the whole save if some bigger club won’t come. A definitely one of the hidden very good young players and one of my most favourite players of this save so far. No more loans for sure :)
The 2024/25 season summary
If you would tell me I will fight for the 2nd place in the Eredivisie at the end of the third season of this save, I would tell you you have to take a cold shower. But it was exactly like that and we had a chance to finish 2nd and to be in the Champions League spot. But the same as we won the last home match, PSV Eindhoven won their last game of the season and they didn’t let us move over them.
So, we finished third in the league and we earned a place in the Europa League group stage for the next season. The biggest bonus will be the prize money 100% because I will be able (maybe) to convince our board to improve the facilities even more.
What next?
I realised I don’t have any incoming transfer(s) arranged for summer 2025 and I decided I will buy or sign new player/players only if I will lose someone within the main selection. If this won’t happen, the squad will be refreshed by the returning players from their loan spells and with the best newgens from our U19s team.
The board decided to increase the capacity of our stadium by almost 2,5k seats. The new capacity will be 12k seats in October 2025 when it will be finished. I also received the message that our training facilities were downgraded to average “due to technological advances” but I was able to negotiate to improve it back during summer. The board also rejected my requests about improving the youth facilities and youth recruitment. But I was able to convince them to improve the youth recruitment and it will be excellent now.
I will have to decide how seriously I will take the Europa League to stay competitive in the Eredivisie. But these decisions are pleasing. I will be back in a couple of weeks with another season.
Take care.