It was supposed to be a blog about the next two seasons I played in Football Manager 26 with Lokeren. Yes, it was supposed to be. I finished the 2028/29 season, and at the same time, I was writing this blog with the vision of continuing to play and write. And I will publish the blog after the end of the 2029/30 season. But I will not finish this season. And probably not any other season in Football Manager 26 either. I am deliberately leaving the blog as I wrote it continuously until I finally ran out of patience...
Season 2028/29
Arguably, the biggest question ahead of the 2028/29 season was whether I would be able to keep Said Okoce in the squad for at least another season. As I wrote in the previous post, he was wanted by Barcelona after he was named 2nd in the NXGN 2028 award + he made his debut forthe Belgian national team.
They made their move and placed a bid. Okoce had €18M release clause at that time. I decided to negotiate the bid a little bit; I also added the loan back option. But they withdrew. I expected Okoce would be angry, but he was alright with it. Bayern came for him too during the summer, but they also refused to meet the release clause. Two days before the end of the summer transfer window, Arsenal came with their bid, but it was too low, and I rejected it.
I was not able to find the replacement (I’m not sure if I will ever be able to) & their bid was too low. Okoce was in great form at that time, and I was very happy I was able to keep him in the club.
We went into the new season with the negative transfer budget again. This time, it was around -€1,7M. I didn’t want to sell too many players, but I decided to take some useful bids, and I sold a couple of players, mainly youngsters. The only exception was central defender Christopher Mamengi, who was a key player, but he wanted a new contract with around €40k p/m, and that was not worth it. So I took the bid from FC Lorient and sold him for €700k as it was his release clause.
The rest of the players were mainly youngsters, whom I sold for a couple of hundreds euro and some % from next transfers. Unfortunately, despite earning €1.8M, the transfer budget improved only to -€1.38M. Unfortunately, #2, although I decided to sell some clauses, the money from these clauses didn’t go to the transfer budget. If I think about it backwards, I don’t think I would sell these youngsters if I didn’t need the money, if it were “a normal” save without the money issues.
I signed eight players during the summer of 2028. The standout players were René Mitongo (free), Liam van Nistelrooij (free), Kryštof Čížek (loan), Harvey Owen (loan) and Adam Hrdina (loan).
Twenty years. That’s the average age of the squad at the beginning of September 2028, when the summer transfer window was closed. Eighteen from 31 players in the first team squad were under the age of 20. Only central defender Visar Musliu was over 30. Most of these youngsters were available to play for reserves during the season, but we had a great start to the season, and I knew I would need them.
Especially as we beat Astana 3:1 on aggregate in the Europa League play-off, and we made it to the main stage of the European competition #2. No money for transfers. No money for better loans. I will play with my own players no matter the results. I like to do it this way even if I have enough money to spend, so it’s nothing new.
Europa League: I will be clear - the only motivation to reach the main stage of the European competition was money. We earned €3.4M for reaching the main stage, and it improved our bank balance a lot. Everything else would be a bonus for us. We beat FC Nordsjælland in the first game. We also host Chelsea in the home match - lost only 0:1. The stadium capacity is over 12k, but only 8k seating, so we couldn’t earn money for the full capacity. The overall Europa League income was around €6M. I would like to tell you the exact number, but there’s no option to divide the prize money by competitions in FM26, like it was possible in the past.
We finished 25th in the League phase. We won one match, drew 5 and lost twice. With 8 points and a -3 goal difference, we didn’t make it to the knockout stage because FC Zürich had a better goal difference by one goal.
Hoffenheim won the competition after beating Brighton on penalties. We tied with Hoffenheim 0:0 at home during the League Phase.
It was a good experience.
At the end of the 2028 calendar year, Said Okoce was voted the best young Belgian player of the year, the same as the European Golden Boy. He was wanted by 18 clubs at that time. But something was different. Instead of big clubs like Barcelona or Bayern, there were some Belgian clubs interested, plus clubs from Poland, Czechia or Germany. But not the top European clubs. Some of these clubs also thought it would be a good idea to take Okoce just for a loan…
But it was only a matter of time. The bids from bigger clubs started flying around again during the winter transfer window, and he started to be unhappy after I rejected a couple of these bids. For example, from Napoli or Eintracht Frankfurt. In the end, four players placed €18M bid, and he was sold to RB Leipzig. Unfortunately, without some percentage from the potential next transfer.
He made 102 competitive appearances since appearing in the 2025 youth intake. He scored 51 goals and made 27 assists.
The worst thing about this transfer was that the board didn’t add something from €18M to the transfer budget. That means, despite earning €18M on a single transfer, we still had the negative transfer budget of -€1.32M…
I’m not sure if it’s a bug. I don’t understand it.
The biggest irony of all changes during this 2028/2029 season was when I asked the board about improving the youth facilities (after the club balance went up to over €26M), they rejected it because “they would rather sign players for the first team”. Alright, I like the irony and sarcasm too.
The irony number 2? The board took control of the transfers, “As a result of the club’s failure to generate sufficient funds…”
The pathetic result of this negative transfer budget saga was that, without a mailbox message or any other mention, one match before the end of the league campaign (when I had already secured a top 4 finish), the transfer budget was somehow €0M instead of -€1.32M. The club board was “very pleased” with the negative transfer budget business model…
Life after Okoce
When Said Okoce left the club, I had two main strikers in Mitongo and Liam van Nistelrooij. I decided to rotate them continuously within the Channel Forward and Target Forward roles. And we did pretty well. Nistelrooij scored six goals and made two assists as a Target Forward in the first three matches after Okoce’s departure.
Both Mitongo and Nistelrooij had some minor injuries during the second part of the season, but they did great, and we were very lucky their injuries were not serious, and they didn’t miss too much. I promoted two youngsters from the U18 team, and they were backup players for the last ten minutes, usually.
The closer we got to the end of the season, the closer I got to deciding how I would proceed in the coming seasons in terms of team composition/strategy. More on that below...
Croky Cup: We were lucky to face two lower league sides in the 6th and 7th rounds, and we won 3:1 and 4:1. The eighth round meant we faced OH Leuven, our close rival in terms of league position, but we beat them 4:0. We scored 4 goals in the quarter final too as we beat RFC Liege 4:1. We faced the strongest opponents in the semi final and final. The semi final is still played on two legs in Belgium, and we beat Anderlecht 1:0 at home, and we beat them on penalties after Anderlecht won the second leg 3:2 after extra time. It was our second Croky Cup final of this save. We lost to KRC Genk in the 2025/26 season. We faced the league title holders, Club Brugge, this time. They were better in the 1st half, we dominated in the 2nd half, and it ended 1:1. They scored a winner in the 104th minute and won a double.
Jupiler Pro League: Our league campaign started really well as we beat Eupen 4:1 away from home, and Anderlecht 6:4 at home. The club board wanted us to play entertaining and attacking football, so we delivered. I was afraid we would struggle a lot in combination with the Europa League and fatigue, but it was not that bad. We had a small crisis in November 2028 when we didn’t win five matches in a row. The same happened in January. We scored 13 goals in three matches during February, and we supported it with two wins in March. Despite losing to Genk and Brugge in April, we were in the top four. We earned 7 points in the last three matches, and we finished 3rd in the league, one place better than last season. That means higher prize money for the final position in the league. And also the Europa League place again.
Season 2029/30
As it was not fixed since the previous blog post, I went to the 2029/30 season with the fact that we had only 20 days-long pre-season because of the holiday bug. We are used to it already. The club board was very generous, and our transfer budget for the new season was set to -€2.23M. But the wage budget was increased to €922k p/m from €399k p/m.
These budgets were set when I had already decided how I would care about the first team squad in the upcoming years of the save. At least until the moment when there won’t be the policy of the negative transfer budget.
During the second part of the season, I decided not to renew the contract of a couple of players, including the eldest and the most experienced player of the squad, 34-year-old defender Visar Musliu. He had €25k p/m. Mainly to save money, but he probably wouldn't play much anymore anyway. Plus several other players with lower salaries. A refresh, a little bit.
The board wanted a mid-table finish, and I had no issue with it. I don’t have to finish in the top four/five every season. And I decided about this:
I will try to sign a permanent goalkeeper #1 - our first-choice keepers in the previous two seasons were loans, and I would like to have my own.
I will try to find four loan players at maximum. They all have to be important or key players. Ideally, one player per line. Including the goalkeeper, if I can't find a good enough permanent goalkeeper on decent terms.
The rest of the squad will be our own players - from our academy, or players who are already in the squad. I expected at least three or four outgoing transfers for decent money.
The only exception will be a free transfer with a view to selling this player, and it will be an advantageous transfer for all parties.
I decided to delegate scouting assignments/recruitments to my DoF and Chief Scout, just to see how it would work. I was just interested. The player recommendations were filled with 100 players very quickly. Two-thirds of these players’ estimated wage was between €70k-€100k p/m, or their transfer value was €5M or higher. No problem, I will buy the whole starting XI with the negative transfer budget. And with the board that keeps all the money out of the transfer budget :)
That was the moment (again) when I knew I would have to do everything by myself (again).
Edit of the negative transfer budget vision and others…
…the part about the scouting was written at the beginning of the last week of February 2026 in real time. The part below was written on February 27th, 2026, when I had a couple of hours of free time to play again after a couple of days.
…as I was slowly progressing to the 2029/30 season, it was July 9th when I realised something was wrong. Or different. A month ago, in-game time, I got a message that our transfer budget is -€2.23M. No more messages since. A month later, the transfer budget is €46.8K, as the original was €47K...
And the bonus - the negative transfer business model club vision was not within the actionable objectives/club vision, despite I confirmed it two in-game weeks ago during the meeting with the board.
This was probably the moment I lost every last ounce of trust in this game...
It does absolutely whatever it wants.
I progressed a little bit more. I was close to the start of the new season, and I wanted to beat Club Brugge in the Belgian Super Cup. I didn’t have a better squad, but it’s always possible. But only with a playable game.
Ten days ahead of this Super Cup match, I was asked to make a squad registration, as always. When I got a crash dump for the fourth time because I unregistered a young player who went for a loan, I was angry because I had to progress everything in the last three weeks of the in-game time again.
When I finally made it through the registration without a crash dump. Yes, I already saved it. I was asked to assign the squad numbers. Yes, you guessed right - every time I removed the assigned number to a player who is not in the squad already, I got a crash dump. No matter if I removed that number manually or via the “clear all” button.
At that time, I despite signing no player and pay nothing related to transfers and signing players. Only receiving a small percentage from a transfer of one former player, the transfer budget went from the mentioned €46.8K to €10K without any messages. My planned free signing was cancelled because I didn’t have €21K in the transfer budget to pay the agent fee - that agent fee that was set to €0 in the contract offer. And before someone asks, I was not able to adjust the transfer budget, despite I had almost €600K p/m available in the wage budget…
I’ve had enough of this game. I had more crash dumps during one Friday afternoon than in FM23 and FM24 together.
I should rather buy another running gear for €46.73 I spent on the game last year. I should rather go for another slow run rather than creating my own faces for the game and all the narratives to feel the game is alive.
Take care, everyone.
Hopefully, we’ll meet again in a better FM future. Or maybe I'll learn to play Minecraft, so I know what my son talks about every day from morning to night.
👋🏻