When I started thinking about what kind of save I would like to do in the Football Manager 2024, it wasn’t an easy decision. Especially as some of the new edition’s features, including the option to transfer the FM23 save to the new edition, were announced. One part of me decided to continue within the save with VVV-Venlo. But when I won the top tier three times in a row and the club board was refusing to improve the club in terms of the new stadium, I lost the motivation to continue with this save.

The second option I thought about was to just open one of my favourite books “The Football Shirts Book” by Neal Heard and just select some club with some quality shirt(s).

Another way I thought about was to start a save with Reading FC. Many of you who have followed me for some time will know that it’s a club that I have been following for many years despite not living here. But who doesn’t support/follow some foreign club, hm? I had one of the best saves in my CM/FM history back in FM17, they are in a total mess right now in real life and it’s depressing following all the things around the club.

But in the end, I decided to do something I didn’t do for a long time. Journeyman save. In some way…

Honorary save with a lot of memories

Do you remember what was your first-ever CM/FM club? I don’t remember it. I know I always was that type of young FM player who was interested in similar youngsters/wonderkids and I wanted to bring them to my current club no matter how hard it was. It’s still the same in some ways after many years. I saved almost all my money during my FM23 save with Venlo to just buy one player for €25M to play just a couple of in-game months before I ended the save.

I decided to make some kind of honorary save in the Football Manager 2024 because the FM24 edition will be the last of its kind. The same as I decided there will be the FM24 Rensie skin, the last of its kind.

The decision to make the honorary save came to my mind also thanks to following all the circumstances around the Reading FC as I wrote above. The other reason was that I had some fantastic saves in the last 20 years about I didn’t write about. Or maybe better worded - I didn’t write about them in English and they are not saved/archived somewhere because most of my writing in English is on one hard drive as my old WordPress blog after I moved here to CoffeehouseFM.

I wrote about a lot of my saves in my native language at the old forum-based website I led for some time. I learned a lot about FM but also about writing during this time and I think it was one of the main basics before I started writing for a living. Good old days.

The save summaries from the Football Manager 2015 until the Football Manager 2023 are still available to read here on the CoffeehouseFM website as you can see in the posts’ summary below. The newer = the more detailed. But that’s only nine editions of twenty. What happened before?

Keep calm and head down

…there were a lot of great saves before I started my first blog(site) in a language called CzEnglish. I have some screens and some pictures from old games saved at several places but it’s not too much detailed archive. But I remember most of these saves by the Football Manager in the last twenty years.

As always, when I got this idea, I was 100% sure it was the right thing. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure it was a perfect idea. And as always, I was so excited and ambitious, that I was sure I could play with all the clubs I managed in the last 20 years…

…luckily, I woke up at the right time and told myself it was time to think a little bit rationally and not be an idiot. I have two small kids, I have a time-consuming job and I love being outdoors a lot. Playing & coaching my local town team, riding and running etc. And the Football Manager is not even around my top 5 priorities right now. It’s just something I love but I don’t want to spend all my time with it.

Dijon, AS Roma, FK Zarkovo (3rd Serbian tier), RCD Mallorca, uncountable amount of saves with Sparta Prague, Tranmere Rovers, York City FC, Derby County… There were a lot of English saves when I was around my twenties as I loved playing here. I initially planned to select five clubs I would switch between during FM24.

But I have to be realistic. I decided to select three clubs. Two of them are from the time before I started to write in English. One of them is from a more recent past.

Tactics - then & now

The good thing about my Football Manager saves from the past is that I, for unknown reasons, remember the tactics I used with each club. When I played with the BFC Siofok, my main tactic was the 4-3-3 with a flat midfield. When I played with York City FC, it was all about a proper 4-4-2 formation aka all the balls had to go to the top and players like David McGurk, Martyn Woolford or Manny Panther were on my shortlist for a long time within a game but also within a real life when I was searching results and line-ups.

I also remember when I tried my favourite tactics with three central defenders for the first time. I still remember how I used four playmakers within a 4-1-4-1 formation while playing with AB Copenhagen in FM16 and many people didn’t understand how is it possible it works together.

The simple aim is to use the same tactic as in the past with the same club. And try to make it better than in the past. It won’t be easy to show exactly what instructions were in some tactics because it was changed in the game recently. Some instructions don’t exist anymore. Some were renamed or moved elsewhere.

But the main common thing of all my saves is clear (probably) for all - make the most of set pieces. With some new features and designs of set pieces, it can add a new dimension to the save I will try to create new routines for each club and I will try to manage the stats of set pieces for all clubs separately.

Three selected clubs + bonus

Before I made the final decision on the three clubs I would try to play with in FM24, I had a long list of clubs and tactics. Naturally, many of these clubs were from the saves from the recent years but as I said, I narrowed it down to two clubs from the non-English-blogging era and one from the more recent time.

• AC Perugia Calcio - this will be my first club and the starting point of my virtual manager. I remember I didn’t play with Perugia for a long time like 15 or 20 seasons but I remember I liked that save. It was that save when I tried the 3-5-2 formation for the first time after reading a lot about it. I also remember it was one of the first saves when I just didn’t pick some big club and destroyed everyone because of money. I remember I was proud I selected some club with a rich history, with some amazing former players and I was able to read a lot about it. So that’s the first one.

• Dijon FCO - I will try to move a little further north within Europe as my second club should be Dijon. I remember I liked playing with their club badge when I was creating some simple graphics for the save like headers etc. But I remember this save mainly because of Raphaël Cacérès. Raphaël is only one and a half years younger than me in real life. I played most of this save with the 4-4-1-1 formation and Raphaël played as a lone striker and as the AM player when he was older within the save. Cacérès was Dijon’s player during 2010-2013 with a short loan spell with Troyes. I don’t remember the exact number of goals and assists he made during this save but it was a lot. He was my typical FM player/hero - unwanted and not good enough at the start of the save, hidden somewhere in the reserves, I promoted him to the first team, found him the right role and I remember him since that moment.

• Reading FC - I already mentioned I had quite a lot of English-based saves in the past. I was a big fan of lower leagues and I enjoyed starting from the bottom of the playable competitions. I remember I downloaded some custom database with the 10th tier activated and there were too many clubs to choose from that I didn’t even start that save. As I enjoyed most of these saves including some short saves in Northern Ireland or Scotland, all of them were beaten by my FM17 save with Reading. The same as many people follow me just because I decided to release my custom skin, many people still remember the days when I managed Danny Loader, Liam Kelly and more of these young players. This save was a mix of 4-1-3-2 and 4-3-1-2, which means I will try to adapt to this narrow formation.

  • It’s probably not only about the save itself and how much I enjoyed it (24 years of the save) but it was also a great time in terms of my FM website where many great people also shared their FM articles - Oliver Jensen aka @fmFutbolManager, Mike @BrazierFM, Chris Johnson @randomfilming/@FM_BlackCrow for example. It was great to follow all of them in the next years as they developed into great FM authors and they have/had their websites with great posts.

• Bonus club - I already mentioned the fact I had a quite long list of possible clubs. The same as I had a lot of favourite clubs/saves within the last 20 years of Football Manager, I also had a lot of favourite players. It’s not only that great regen Loader, but there were many others. If I have enough time, and some of my previous clubs connected with some favourite players would be available within the job centre in the game, I can move here too.

It’s somehow interesting and sad too that all these teams are in the third tier at the start of the save…

The set-up of the save?

I can’t play with one club forever. That means I will play 3 seasons with each of these three clubs. I put them as my favourite clubs so I will also see news about them within the game. And I can spot if they will be without a manager.

I will use the same formation/tactic for all 3 seasons within each club but mostly as the core shape, I can change roles, instructions etc. Just make the tactic better than before.

I also decided to try one new thing. I say new but some of you probably know it. I didn’t want to use the “fake players/staff” option within the game because you can very easily find out what player is it as he has only a different name. But thanks to @Jord, who notified me about the “blank database”, it all clicked on.

The game set-up is straightforward - England, Italy and France are not the only loaded nations but I loaded some more to have more players in the game. With “Add players to playable teams”, there are more than 16.5k players at the start of the save, that’s more than enough.

I started the save with the “Your World” game mode just for the narrative because it is my world now with the blank database. After many years, I also didn’t disable the first window transfer activity because I thought it didn’t matter with the blank database and because I didn’t know the players.

To improve the newgens, I decided to download the “ultrarealistischen NewGAN-Facepack” by FMRocknRolla & FM.Z Community. I’m using the pack with shirts as it reminds me of the old times.

You can find me in the Football Manager Slack or on Twitter.

Take care.