One month = one season? It looks like it right now. I play quite fast, but finding enough time to finish the season and write about it isn't easy. The end of this 2025/2026 season speaks for itself - it took me one real-life week to play the last league match of the campaign to find out how it will end. The third season within this FM24 save was also the last season with Perugia and the 3-5-2 formation. How the season did end? And how is the future resolved for itself? Let me tell you about it…
Transfers
Let’s start with the last transfer activity within my Perugia time. It’s nothing ridiculous, spectacular or game-breaking. I was active mainly during the summer of 2025 after a promotion from the Serie B as I knew I had to improve the squad a little bit to survive in the top tier. My main target was Alessio Signorelli from Parma who was the best goalscorer of Serie B in the previous season. I bought him for €3.4M in the end, and he became my first-choice DLF(S).
I also bought Nicolas Dimitri - my main central defender in the first season who went to Bari for €250k in January 2024 and played 1 and a half seasons in Serie B. I just bought him back for €400k to have some experience at the back.
Probably the last player I want to mention is André Chaves - a Portuguese midfielder who I bought for €375k from Virtus Entella, a transfer release clause for clubs in higher division strikes again (I mentioned it in the previous blog post).
It was for the first time within this save that we spent more on incoming transfers than we received. It was mainly because Dario Iazzetta left for free as he refused to sign a new contract last year and moved to AS Roma. That means only one major transfer was when Michele Cincillia left for Sampdoria for €550k at the beginning of January.
Stefano Scardino, who was our captain in the opening two seasons, decided to leave the club but the fee was laughable as he left for Benfica for just €83k. Well done, DoF…
You can see one more incoming player in the transfer history screen above, it’s Moreno Peretti. A goalkeeper who came in from Sparta Rotterdam in winter when I was not already in charge of scouting or transfers…
The narrative I needed…
…the reason why I was not involved in scouting, transfers, contracts etc. for the second half of this season was very simple. I found out that the manager Cedric Coste left Dijon FCO and became the new manager of Atalanta Bergamo. That meant the Dijon was without a manager. And Dijon was my next destination within this save. There was only one thing I feared about when I decided to play this save - I was afraid I would leave one club but I would have to wait for too much time before another club job would be available.
I wanted to prevent that situation and I decided to apply for a Dijon job. I went for the job interview and I was successful. I didn’t want to leave Perugia ahead of the end of this season so I was very happy that I was able to negotiate the start of my next chapter and signed a contract with Dijon with a start at the end of the 25/26 season.
Perugia board didn’t have any issues with my decision as I already rejected the contract extension three times and they were happy to let me go at the end of the season. I’m sure our great Serie A results helped it.
They only decided I couldn’t affect the transfers, contracts or scouting including the recruitment focus and they gave all the responsibilities to the Director of Football. I, btw., wanted to take the DoF with me to Dijon but he rejected it. I’m not used to changing clubs in FM so all these things are new to me but most of these things worked very well and were reasonable in my eyes.
As I said, I’m not used to moving between clubs in my save so the next screen is a very nice addition in my eyes. It’s nice you can take someone with you instead of just receiving the inbox message “other staff members left the club because of your departure” as in the past. You can see not so many Perugia staff members were willing to join Dijon.
I would probably change only one thing - the date of joining the new club. I played the last Serie A match on Sunday, May 24, 2026. A day later I should join Dijon. Maybe give the manager at least a week before switching the clubs? Maybe more than a week? I would expect at least to the date when the seasons end/start. Or from July 1? Dijon ended their season ten days before Perugia but I would still set this a little bit differently and gave the manager some more time before switching the clubs.
My decision to join Dijon from the next season also meant they would finish the season with the interim manager.
Coppa Italia & Serie A
We made it to the Coppa Italia third round this season. We beat Reggiana 5:3 and Cesena 3:0 in the opening two rounds but we lost to Salernitana 1:4 after an extra-time. I hope for a better cup outcome in the last season but I will have to accept winning the Coppa Italia Serie C in the opening season of the save will remain the only cup trophy with Perugia.
Our Serie A campaign started with four points from the first three matches as we drew with Cittadella, beat Cremonese and lost to Fiorentina. But we won all three matches in September and we moved up in the table.
On the other side, October was the complete opposite. We lost to Sampdoria (2:4), Lazio (2:3), Milan (2:3) and Torino (0:2). It was a combination of some small injuries, not-working tactical small tweaks and the fact all these four teams are/were stronger.
We made it back on track with four wins and four draws during November and December before we packed the calendar year of 2025 with a 2:4 defeat against Inter.
The beginning of the second part of the season included some very depressing matches like a 1:2 home defeat against Cittadella or a 0:2 defeat against Frosinone away from home. But we were also able to beat Lazio 2:1 away from home and we climbed through the table quite inconspicuously.
The last weeks were absolutely superb from all players and six wins in the last eight matches resulted in the top-four finish. The final 4th place also means the Champions League for the next season.
Alessandro Casella finished the 2025/2026 season as the best goalscorer of the Serie A with 20 goals. I signed him for €85k while we were in Serie C in the first season. He scored 34 league goals in Serie C, 10 in Serie B and 20 in Serie A. I think this is the best possible example of my FM saves in terms of signing players (despite this save is a little bit different because of the blank database and fake players and staff).
My favourite player within three seasons with Perugia.
Goodbye, Perugia
I’m leaving Perugia after 133 matches with a 62% win. We won 83 matches, drew 28 and lost 22. We scored 312 goals and conceded 146. We won promotions from Serie C and Serie B and Perugia will play the Champions League football in the fourth season of the save.
I played only with the 3-5-2 formation and I made only a couple of small tweaks during these three seasons. Nothing revolutionary despite moving to better competition.
How did the other two (future) clubs do in the 2025/2026 season?
Dijon finished 12th in the Ligue 1 despite they were 16th after the 25th round. The interim manager did a great job of keeping the club in the top tier.
Reading finished 10th in the English Championship in their first season back in the second tier. They finished just four points behind the 6th place (Tottenham btw.).
What next?
I will switch to Dijon soon after I hit the continue button, I will create a new save file and I will start creating and tweaking the 4-4-1-1 formation as it’s in the plan of the save for next three seasons…
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.