It took me around one month to finish the opening season within my Football Manager 2024 save. The save I named “Honorary save” and the plan is to play with three different clubs with I played for in the previous 20 years of the Football Manager series. If you would like to read more about this save, feel free to open this post.

The opening three seasons will be (or should be) played in Italy with AC Perugia. I would like to try to play with the same formation/shape as when I played for each club in the past. And Perugia was the club where I started using the 3-5-2 formation the most.

Another different part of this save is that I’m playing with the blank database - no real players, no real staff members. Everything is fake and created by the game through the “add players to playable teams” option.

The 3-5-2 for the opening season

I didn’t want to limit myself with some rules about using the same team instructions as in the past. Firstly, I played with Perugia fifteen years ago and some of the team instructions don’t exist in the game anymore. Secondly, I played the game differently fifteen years ago (read = ”tick all the instructions and we will see what will happen”).

That means I kept the 3-5-2 formation, but I customised the instructions and intensity of the tactic within the players available.

As I mentioned already, I love to play simple football. Everyone who knows me a little bit thanks to previous posts and saves, is aware that my favourite central defender role is the one with the stopper duty. This blank database was generous to me and created almost all the central defenders with the key attributes for this role.

Almost like I would tick some button in the game set-up to create everyone as CD(St). I decided to make it to my advantage and I’m using both right & left central defender with the stopper duty. The middle one was changed from the BPD(Co) to CD(Co) and to CD(D) throughout the season.

As I already said, it’s a very simple and not so demanding and intense tactic in terms of pressing. The most important thing is that both CM(S) players have the hold position of individual instruction. But it doesn’t affect their movement up top and they still can reach the area around the opponent’s box to finish second balls or support the offensive phase overall.

The focus play down the left/right instructions worked very well as we were able to use both wing-backs properly. The amount of their assists during the season speaks for itself.

I don’t think I will change something major for the second season of this save. Maybe, but only maybe, I will be changing both wing-backs‘ duties from support to attack and back to have both of them with the same duty. I think it will be possible in combination with CM(S). But we will see.

Coppa Italia Serie C

The cup competition was a welcomed exit from the league competition. It was also good that we played mostly against teams from the other two Serie C groups so we were able to compare with other teams too. We needed an extra-time win straight in the first round against Carrarese as I rotated the squad and it was almost our end.

But the rest of the competition was great for us and after beating Catania, Ancona, Fermana and Cesena (semi-final), we made it to the final against Alessandria. It ended with a 6:3 win on aggregate after two wins and we were able to lift the first trophy of the save.

Serie C

Despite the relegation from the Serie B, the promotion back from the Serie C was not the main aim. Neither the club board nor myself. We started the season very well and we were top of the league between the fourth and the 12th round. But we moved down and we were mostly third or second in the rest of the season.

We were behind Pescara most of the time as they were great and top of the league for almost half of the season before Cesena moved over them and they won the straight promotion to the higher division.

We overcame Pescara in the end and we finished second in the table. Just one point behind Cesena with 90 points. We beat some records during the season including the most wins in the club's history or most points gained too. But the main one was the amount of goals we scored across the 38 matches – 118. The goal difference was 90 goals in the end. We beat the league record by Piacenza (78 goals) after 26 matches were played…

The second place in the table meant we reached the promotion play-off and we had to wait for two in-game weeks for the first opponent in the play-off quarter-final. It was Pescara, probably the hardest possible opponent. But we beat them 5:2 on aggregate. We also beat Potenza (2nd in the Serie C group C) mainly thanks to a perfect away performance in the second leg.

The play-off final was very tight against Pro Vercelli (5th in the Serie C group A). The first leg away from home ended with a 2:2 draw and I was positive ahead of the home second leg. But it the second leg was only about penalties in the end. Condellos scored from a pen in the 12th minute, we equalised from a penalty in the 29th minute. And that was all for the rest of the match. No more goals, no more big chances, mostly only ineffective set pieces. It went to the penalties in the end we were the luckiest team as our goalkeeper Eligio Spagnolo saved two of their attempts and we won the play-off and the promotion to Serie B as well.

Signings were key - most of them

When I created the save, the squad contained around 18 players. I promoted some youngsters from the youth teams but I was 100% sure I had to sign someone new (better) to be able to compete in the league for the whole season. Especially as some of the „key“ members of the original squad were not „key“ in my eyes after I checked their attributes.

As you can see in the picture above, the strike Francesco Riccio became the best Serie C goalscorer with 34 league goals. He scored 47 goals in 50(2) appearances in all competitions this season.

Another striker, Alessandro Casella, who played most of the season as the DLF(S) was another key member of the squad as he made 46 appearances, scored 37 goals and made 21 assists. Central midfielder Antonio Donnarumma would be among my most favourite signings (and players overall) during the first season. He gave us the needed experience and calm in the central midfield area and some of his assists were delicious.

Dario Iazzetta who played as our main left WB(A) scored 11 goals and made 21 assists. The right WB slot was the only position where I had to sign someone on loan because there were no available or interested transfer players in the summer. I went for Yannick Dan from Hellas Verona in the end and it was a good choice. He was very solid, mainly during the first two-thirds of the season before I started playing also our own youngsters to give them more playing time in this position/role as it was more clear that I wouldn’t be able to sign Dan permanently.  

The only not-so-good signing was a young central midfielder Gerard who I signed on loan from Mallorca for the second part of the season. But he didn’t get enough opportunities mainly because he injured himself during the training session a couple of days after his arrival. And I decided to use my own players in the end.

Gianluca Ciucci

One of the side things of this save I thought about was to take some player or players within all three clubs I will with. After one season with Perugia, my current hottest candidate for this role is 17-year-old central midfielder, Gianluca Ciucci.

I played him as the CM(S) and he was in the starting line-up in all last four play-off matches against Potenza and Pro Vercelli. His development so far is very good and I’m looking forward to if he improves further.

How did the other two (future) clubs do in the 2023/2024 season?

• Dijon had a great season in the French Championnat National (3rd tier) as they finished 2nd in the table and won the promotion to the Ligue 2. Nancy finished first with 78 points, Dijon second with 77 points, Sochaux third with 76 points and Chateauroux fourth with 75 points.

• Reading did very well in the Sky Bet League One in comparison with real life. Despite the points deduction, they managed to finish 6th and reached the play-off. But they lost to Lincoln on aggregate and didn’t win a promotion.

Note about the blank database

The major advantage of this blank database is that is not boring. I have no urge to buy the same players again and again, the same as I’m not searching for the same coaches and scouts because I know they are good and free. I had to scout more properly because I didn’t know the majority of players. And thanks to the fact that players were added to playable teams randomly, the leagues are not as predictable as in real life or in the traditional database.

Just an example: Sassuolo ended 2nd in the Serie A while Lecce was third and Frosinone fourth. The big clubs Milan, Juventus and Roma ended up outside of the European cups. Leicester didn’t even make it to the English Championship play-off, the same as Southampton. Lyon won the Ligue 1, Leverkusen and RB Leipzig ended in 15th and 16th places in the Bundesliga, AZ Alkmaar won the Eredivisie and Ceske Budějovice ending third in the Czech top tier despite their being a total mess in real life and bottom of the table.

And to be honest, it's probably exactly the best thing I could make because it’s a great refreshment after so many years. In combination with the faces from FMUGens pack and “ultrarealistischen NewGAN-Facepack” by FMRocknRolla & FM.Z Community it’s perfect.

FM Slack alert!

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.

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

Take care.