FM22 | Ten years with Warta Poznan

September 30, 2022

My Football Manager saves usually have something common - I just want to enjoy it. Sometimes, the game itself makes it harder to maintain this feeling and the Football Manager 2022 edition was this case. I don’t say it was a bad edition but I 100% didn’t enjoy it as much as some previous editions. But still, my main save (I didn’t play almost anything other than this one) was a good one. It’s always about how I will make the save enjoyable for myself in terms of micro-managing all the things connected with the club, squad, tactics or player development.

STEP BY STEP

The same as in the past, I decided to not start with a club that is not a top club in the particular nation. I would not enjoy it to be the top team immediately at the beginning as I like to build the club continuously. That was one of the main reasons ahead of selecting Warta Poznan. Poland itself was one of my main top three nations to play in before the FM22 edition and I will never regret this decision.

I don’t want to say I’m addicted to the Polish leagues now or I’m the biggest Warta fan around the world but this save is another example of how a game like Football Manager can affect what you enjoy following in real life. Without this save, I don’t think I would follow all the highlights and best moments of the Ekstraklasa in real life. I even subscribed to the league’s official YouTube channel and I enjoy following my favourite players from the game of how they perform in real life. Some of them moved to other clubs in real life so it’s a little bit weird to see them play against Warta when I played the game a couple of minutes before. A great example is my in-game central defender stalwart Aleks Lawniczak who was with me for the entire save but he moved to Zaglebie Lubin in real life and he played against Warta in the Ekstraklasa 9th round the weekend before I started writing this post. The same example is Szymon Czyż who moved to Raków and he is playing alongside Sebastian Musiolik who is my FM22 hero, God and myth. Watching them both play against Warta in real life was weird. But that’s life.

Domestic competitions

I still remember watching Warta Poznan in real life during the 2021/2022 season and how I wish them all the best in every game, so they will stay in the Ekstraklasa. I started the save and the predicted finish was 17th place among 18 teams. We finished 4th, fifteen points behind the third Wisla Kraków.

If I loved something about this save and the Ekstraklasa competition, it was how tight the league title race was.

2021/2022: Legia won the title thanks to better results in matches against Lech Poznan while both had 74 points and Wisla ended third with 72 points.
2022/2023: Legia won the title with 70 points after we lost points in the last round against Gornik Zabrze.
2023/2024: Legia won the title with 72 points ahead of Lechia and Warta (both with 71 points) as Lechia drew 3:3 in the last round.
2024/2025: We won our first league title just by one point as we had 75 points and Wisla 74 after Wisla lost all three points in the penultimate league round and we moved to the top.
2025/2026: We won the league over Górnik Zabrze just thanks to better results in common matches.
2026/2027: We won the league with 81 points, just four points ahead of Lechia Gdansk.

The last four seasons were our domination already. And I think it was also one of the main moments when I fell out of love a little bit with the save and stopped playing for some time before I returned to playing it. We set a new record for Most matches without losing as we didn’t lose a single league match between 30th April 2027 to 14th March 2031. Almost four years. The save ends with seven league titles in a row.

Our performances in the domestic cup were not so dominant but we were able to add three trophies to the collection in the end. Interesting thing is that Gornik Zabrze was the team we lost to twice in the last season, both 0:1 in the cup and the league and they ended our long-term winning streak in both competitions.

European competitions

Our European adventures started in the third season - 2023/2024 - when we entered the Europa Conference League qualifying phase and we made it to the group stage and the semi-final of this competition before we lost to Stade Rennais, our senior affiliate club, ironically. We were also in this competition next season but knocked out in the 2nd round already by Real Sociedad.

The next season, 2025/2026, meant our Champions League debut. Just the qualification to be precise because we beat Hammarby and APOEL but we lost 1:2 on aggregate to RB Salzburg in the last qualifying phase. It gave us the option to make it to the Europa League quarter-final where we lost to Valencia. We were in the same phase next two years but we lost to Tottenham and Marseille respectively.

The season 2028/2029 was the only one when we finished bottom of the Champions League group and we didn’t play in Europe during the second part of the season. In the last two seasons of this save, we made it to the Champions League quarter-final. We lost to Bayern (1:3 on aggregate) and Real Madrid (2:3 on aggregate). As I wrote in the Slack channel when talked about it, it was the highest level we were able to reach with this club, this squad and my long-term squad and transfer policy.

European places & coefficient

I named this part of the post step by step mainly because the summary of our European journey reflects the continuous summary of the club in a perfect way. We were able to reach the knockout stages in all three European competitions and we were able to reach the highest level in all of them including that Champions League quarter-final place. I’m sure I would be able to win the Champions League if I would buy all the wonderkids from around the world but that’s not a style of my play.

Another big part of this save was to improve the coefficient of Polish clubs to be able to gain better places in all European competitions and make it easier to reach the main stage of these competitions. The nation’s coefficient improved significantly during these ten seasons, especially after we started playing the cups regularly as we were able to reach later stages.

At the beginning of the save, Poland was 30th in the nation club coefficient table. There was only one place in the Champions League 1st qualifying phase. So, the league champion has to make it through four phases to reach the group stage. Plus three qualifying places in the Europa Conference League, all of them also in the first round. That’s too tricky for any club. No wonder Polish clubs are horrible at reaching the main stages in real life.

The best position we reached was 8th place in the 2028/2029 season. At the end of the save, Poland sits 10th in the coefficient table. And we have two Champions League places, one Europa League place and two places in the Europa Conference League. And that’s before the between-seasons update. Good job, Ondrej!

HEROES OF THE SAVE

I like to have my heroes of the save. Some of them are players from the original squad at the beginning of the save. Some of them are in the squad from the beginning, and some of them join my team throughout the save. When I played against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-final in the last season of the save, we had 7 real players in the starting XI.

4 of these players were from the original squad including originally unwanted/transfer-listed goalkeeper Jedrzej Grobelny, central defender Aleks Lawniczak, left defender Konrad Matuszewski and central midfielder Szymon Czyz.
+ Sebastian Musiolik who I signed for free ahead of the 2nd season of the save
+ Hubert Turski who I signed ahead of the 5th season so in the middle of the save
+ Iwo Kaczmarski - a CM player, one of my first signings of the save when I loaned him from Raków in the middle of the first season. He went to Gladbach in 2023 for €1.6M and I bought him for €1.2M in 2028.

I will start with goalkeeper Jedrzej Grobelny. The funny thing was this keeper was transfer listed and loan listed and he was with Skra Czestochowa on loan at the beginning of the save. I have no clue why he was transfer listed as he joined Warta in the same summer (also in real life) but I have no clue about many things in this game. Adrian Lis was our number in the first season, the same as he is in real life, but he wanted a lot of money within a new contract so I decided to sell him for €60k (a lot of money at that time of the save) to Cracovia and I made Grobelny our number 1. Grobelny conceded 39 league goals in the 2022/2023 season. The same as the whole team improved and our tactics improved, the main aim was not to “survive” but to concede as less as possible. It resulted in the new clean sheet record as he managed to keep 27 clean sheets in 34 league matches in the last season of the save. We conceded just seven league goals and I am very happy he made it.
The second player I want to mention is Aleks Lawniczak. Our most consistent central defender of this save is probably the best example of my favourite kind of player - he was born in Poznan, he spent most of his youth career with Warta Poznan and he made it to the senior squad (he moved to Zaglebie Lubin in real life in January 2022 for €800k [based on the Transfermarkt] - that’s a lot of money and I am sure I would not reject it in the same time of the in-game save too). Aleks spent the whole time of the save with my Warta side and he beat the record with the most league appearances in the club history. It’s 333 matches at the end of the 10th season.
Konrad Matuszewski, developed through the Legia youth categories went to Warta before the 2021/2022 season in real life. I made him our first choice left-sided wing-back and he spent the whole save as LB or LWB. Statistically, his best season was the second one when he had 12 assists in 33 league matches. When I thought about this save backwards, it’s safe to say Konrad is a real victim of my tactical experiments, mainly in terms of changing wing-back roles. There was a time when I wanted to have a complete wing-back on support or attack duty but he was one of three or four players who struggled to perform in this demanding role. But when I switched it back to a simple wing-back with support duty, he was back at it again and he was very good. The average rating of 7.6 in the last season speaks for itself.
Another player who is not a Warta member in real life, Szymon Czyz, spent the whole save with me. He came to Warta before the save started from Lazio. Ironically, he is a Lech Poznan academy graduate. He can be considered a victim of the roles’ changes, the same as Matuszewski. He played as CM(S), CM(A), RPM, and also as BBM when it was needed, he also played as AM(S) for a while but he probably was at his best as AP(S) in the central midfield. He recently made one fantastic assist in real life for Raków and I think I watched it at least fifty times. Sometime later he made something very similar in my save.
Central midfielder Iwo Kaczmarski was a perfect example of a young player I could not buy at the beginning of the save, I signed him for a loan, and his club Raków gave him a chance in the first team and earned big money for his transfer to Gladbach. He was one of a few Polish Polish players abroad I kept on the shortlist and it was very easy to sign him in 2028 when he was older, even better and I had no problem putting €1.2M on the table as it was his transfer fee. He played mainly as BBM in these last three seasons and it was a good decision. I’m sure I would be able to sell him for at least €15M right now if I would continue the save as he is still only 27 years old and a relatively universal central player who can play as DM/CM/AM and I’m sure he would be able to play as a central defender too.
My FM22 favourite player is Sebastian Musiolik. Without any doubt. I signed him for free ahead of the second season when his contract ended with Raków. I remember I found out about his contract expiration in February or March of the first season and I was afraid some different club will sing him because they will have more money than us. But no, he signed for us almost immediately, maybe the good league standing at that point helped us. He was 26 years old and he was the best player I could get for a target forward role. It was incredible I was able to sign him with a wage just of €4.7k per month. It raised to €11k after the first season with us. He had an instant impact and he was our best player. I even had to write a single post about him because he was my chosen player in this edition. He scored once and made one assist in the last match of the save in his 35 years. It was symbolic. I’m really happy I discovered and I was able to watch him live recently when Raków played with Slavia Prague in the Europa Conference League (shh, he was better in my save).
Originally, I searched for a backup player to have another option if Sebastian Musiolik would be injured or fatigued. But I found another start of this edition - Hubert Turski. Pogon Szczecin academy graduate who spent a lot of time on lower leagues or playing for Pogon’s second team in the first half of my save. I bought him for €1.1M ahead of the 2025/2026 season. It was already the time when I had enough money to spend and other Polish clubs knew it so they negotiated transfer fees a lot. I wanted to write that he has a slow start in our club but I realised he scored 20 goals in 24 appearances in the first season despite he was a backup player for a TF(S) role. It changed a lot when I decided to use him as our main Advanced Forward. And it ended with the fact that he scored 40 league goals in the 2029/2030 season and that’s a new league record. He scored 45 goals overall that season. He was wanted by various clubs from the rest of Europe, I think I rejected around €30M once but he was not angry or disappointed. Sebastian Musiolik has 156 league goals at the end of the season and that’s the most in the club's history. Turski has 147, I’m sure he would need five or six matches of another season to break this record. He made 284 appearances for the club and scored 210 goals in six seasons.

I’m glad I discovered a lot of very good and talented players in this FM edition and I’m sure that if I would play in Poland again in the next edition, they would be the first ones I would like to buy or sign again. As I already mentioned Michal Kopczynski who played the Half Back at the beginning of the save, would also deserve a special mention but I will just leave the link to the post about how tactics worked with that role - HERE.

BONUS PLAYER

Time to say goodbye, Radomir 👋🏻

Signed for €950k, sold for €95M. Two and a half of the season - 118 matches, 44 goals & 73 assists as AM(S). #FM22 pic.twitter.com/OnUS8aBIDJ
— FM Rensie (@FMRensie) September 16, 2022

I decided to add one more player to this part despite it being a newgen player. His name is Radomir Cvijan and he is one of many fantastic Serbian newgens this game can create in almost every save around the world.

I signed him for €950k in the 2028/2029 season when I activated the transfer release clause he had in his contract with Spartak Subotica.

He became our main attacking midfielder, he became our main set piece taker and it didn’t last long when clubs like Juventus, Real & Atlético Madrid, Manchester City & United etc. were interested in buying him. I had a transfer offer of about €90M in winter 2030, just one and a half years after I signed him. I rejected it. He accepted he will stay with us until someone will offer €96M.

When Liverpool made a €95M bid in winter 2031, I decided to sell him. It was my last season and I didn’t need to keep him because I just wanted to make this big transfer and I wanted to see if the club board will use the money for building the new stadium, for example. But nothing happened. Radomir played 118 matches, he scored 44 goals & and made 73 assists mainly as AM(S).

As I already said above, if I would have a different transfer/squad policy and I would buy newgens like Radomir, the save would turn into total domination both domestically and in Europe too.

Thanks to a database I set up at the beginning, concentrating on central and south/eastern Europe, there are too many great Croatian/Serbian/Romanian etc. newgens which would be able to conquer all competitions.

Finances of Warta Poznan in 2021 vs. 2031

THE BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE SAVE

I think it surely is the situation with the stadium. We started this save with the stadium capacity of 4000 seats. The stadium capacity was possible to increase up to 16k. The capacity was increased up to 6k in the middle of the save. We already played our European matches at the INEA Stadion which is the stadium of our biggest rival - Lech Poznan. This stadium has a capacity of over 40k but we didn’t sell out the stadium, even if we played against clubs like Real Madrid or Bayern.

We didn’t sell out domestic league matches only once in the last three and a half seasons. I had the option on the club screen to ask about building the new stadium. But it always ended in the same way. I asked they responded that they will let me know and the option about the new stadium disappeared for the next three or four in-game months before it appeared here again. But there was no response from the board.

I was not able to increase the stadium capacity despite the allowed max capacity wasn’t reached. And the board ignored my requests, or better worded, they never get back to me. So, maybe a bug. Maybe something in the FM matrix.

THE BIGGEST POSITIVES OF THE SAVE

It’s related to the already mentioned rivalry with Lech Poznan. They had more money at the beginning, they had better players, more coaches, better facilities, a bigger stadium, and better results. But the only thing they still have better/bigger is that stadium. One of my main aims of the save was to be better than Lech domestically but also in Europe.

And it worked out. In Europe, they did nothing in comparison with us in these ten seasons. Their best Champions League result was reaching the third qualifying phase in the last season of the save. They were 3rd in the Europa League group this last season.

The fact they didn’t win the Ekstraklasa title within this save speaks for itself. And they won the domestic cup once.

Results between Warta and Lech during this Football Manager 2022 save.

The second thing I probably liked the most within the whole save was how my tactical plans and thoughts worked. I still remember the end of the FM21 cycle when I decided to use just two central defenders in combination with the Half Back role to create some kind of false central defender in combination with the wingbacks. I was lucky I had a good enough player for the Half Back role straight at the beginning of the save and I didn’t have to search for one.

But I also like the seasons when I moved back to three central defenders without a defensive midfielder as I wanted to take advantage of good set pieces routines to score more goals thanks to big central defenders.

The last three seasons were also fun to watch because I made some last tweaks, moved both wing-backs down to create a defensive line with five players, and one central midfielder was moved up to AM position. In combination with the perfect forward duo in Musiolik and Turski, it was a joy to watch and we created some new defensive and attacking records for our club and the league too. This formation can be found in this post.

The only thing I will regret is that I didn’t have enough time to write a single post about how my central defenders worked with “Stay Wider” instructions while using the flat five defenders during the last three seasons. But, maybe in the future, who knows?

I’m already looking forward to playing with just one central defender in FM23… 👀

CONCLUSION OF THE SAVE AND FM22

The choice of the club and the nation to play with and in, within the Football Manager 2022, was perfect without a doubt. Warta will remain that club that I will try to follow every week and many players will be on my radar whenever I will follow some Polish football.

But if you expect some “but”, you’re right. The Football Manager 2022 was not the best edition I’ve ever played. 100% not. I was not addicted to this version of the game as I was addicted to some previous versions. Maybe it’s not a mistake of the game itself. Maybe I’m just only older and everything is changing around me.

When I look back, the last 10th season was the weirdest and most boring of all. Not because of players, or results… but I just wanted to finish it and don’t play it anymore. Maybe if I would be able to write about the game without playing it, I would enjoy it more because whenever I had time to write, or at least think about writing something, I was in a good mood and I was looking forward to putting words together. But when I had to search for something in the game and I found all the old bugs, it put me off and I didn’t want to spend my time with the game.

If someone would care about my FM22 review, it would be this: “I enjoyed writing about FM22 more than actually playing the game itself.”

I just hope there is a small chance it will be better in the future.

Thanks to everyone who spent some time with this save or with any other blog posts around this great website.

Don’t forget to support Latte Quarterly magazine, it’s the best one 😉

Take care.

FM22 | Squad selection management + tactics + set-pieces strategy [2029/30]

August 24, 2022

Do you remember that moment when you spent your entire free time with the Football Manager sorting everything within the tactics, line-up, set-pieces and more? And do you also remember that moment when you just rotated a couple of players and all your set pieces were fu*cked? I know that feeling. If your answer was “no, I don’t care about set-pieces”, you can skip this post if you’re not interested in how the 2029/2030 season ended. If you’re interested in a simple trick/tip to make it easier for yourself, maybe the following lines will help you. This is what and how I’m doing within my save to save some time for more important things…

SAVE & MANAGE TEAM SELECTION(S)

I know I already mentioned this simple option during this save but it was not detailed, just a short mention. Firstly, I know that I will be playing three competitions during the first part of the 2029/2030 season - domestic league & cup and also the Champions League group stage as we have qualified automatically thanks to the league title.

I like to have most of the things prepared and planned ahead. I usually know which players will stay in the first team, who will leave the club on loan and who permanently or who will be promoted from the youth squad. I like to have it prepared even before the end of the season. At least in my head. That means I can concentrate on different things and just react to some unexpected offers.

My usual approach is that I just open the tactics screen and I set up the starting XI to see it visually. I add the subs (main backup players for each position/role) and I save it as ‘MAIN 2029/2030’. The second step is that I open the set-pieces part of the tactics and I set up all the roles exactly how I want based on the players’ qualities and how I think they should work. The last step is when I go back to the tactics screen and I save the tactic. It’s a “5-3-2 2029 MAIN squad” in our example.

What next? I remain within the tactics screen, I load the same tactic for the 2nd or 3rd slot, clear the squad selection and I start from scratch. But this time it’s about to put the “B”ackup squad selection together. When I have all the roles in the line-up and all subs filled, I save the team selection again - this time as a “B” SQUAD 2029/2030. And yes, the step to make the set-pieces correct is the next one before I go back to the tactics screen and save the tactics as a “5-3-2 2029 B squad”.

If you ask yourself why I include the year within the name of tactic, it’s mainly from a practical point to be able to identify tactical changes I made during the save in each season.

Jaroszewski = exception

I made one thing a little bit differently already during the 2028/2029 season as I decided to play two 17/18 years old newgens as my main/backup right defenders within the CWB(A) role. One of them is Maciej Jaroszewski (click to see his profile). He is a little bit different complete wing-back. He is a physically very well-prepared player in terms of pace. But he is also 193 cm tall with a very good off-the-ball movement and a jumping reach of 20! Some of you probably already knew where this is heading to…

…yes, I decided to add the main tactic as our 2nd tactic option but I added Jaroszewski as our main target for all set-piece routines. Just to test it. The reason why I saved the tactic just because of this player is that they rotate quite a lot with the other one so I can always just switch between tactics (also during the matches) and the main targets will be different players again. The second right defender option is the shortest player within the squad so I really don’t want to have him as the one who attacks the near post or who is set to fight with the goalkeeper…

The first picture shows where you can save/load/manage the squad selection. It also shows the tactic and the squad after the opening match of the 2029/2030 season and the fact that I now have the main tactic selected because Jaroszewski is injured and I will have to use another player. The second picture is an example of the “B”ackup squad selected together with the B squad tactic. Feel free to ignore the injured players at the time when the pictures were taken. You can also see how the squad selection of the main & backup squads are simply divided by the shirt numbers 👀

WHAT? SET PIECES ARE RIGHT…

One of the biggest advantages of what I mentioned above is linked to set-pieces. Why? Example from my save: while my main strikers Hubert Turski and Sebastian Musiolik are both absolutely perfect for set pieces, both my backup strikers are absolutely different players and their physical and off-the-ball skills are not enough compatible with the set-pieces. That applies also to the set-piece takers, not only to target players.

The set pieces and saved tactics are not working properly together in the current (and in the previous editions too) and you have to be very careful what you’re doing. If you don’t care about set pieces, it’s up to you 100% but you can’t fault the game something doesn’t work properly when you didn’t care about it. When you create some tactic with some routines and you save this tactic, the routines will be saved together with the tactic when you will load it again.

That means a very simple thing together with the squad selection management I wrote about above. The main tactic is saved with the routines including the right players in the right roles. The “B”ackup squad selection is saved within the “B squad” tactic with the right players in the right roles. Including the takers of corners, free kicks, throw-ins or penalties. I always knew there will be the right player within the selection.

It gives me:

The security I have everything prepared every time I have time to play the game
It really saves my time while playing the game because I don’t have to rearrange players within all routines before every game because I am able to just load the squad selection I need and piece it together with the saved tactic & set pieces
I also can switch between the main tactic and the main tactic with Jaroszewski (before he will leave) to mix the set-pieces during the match as the tactic is the same, only players within the routines are different.

A simple example of how my three corner kick routines are changing while changing tactics and the squad selection for each match or during the match. You can easily see the changes in the players positioning and roles.

I still check the set pieces and if everything is alright but I don’t have to make big changes and spend my whole available time playing the game by changing everything.

There is a very nice example from the opening match of the 2029/2030 Ekstraklasa campaign. We started with the main squad & the main tactic with Jaroszewski set as the main target man for set pieces. But the first corners and free kicks didn’t look alright and he was out of the right position so I changed the tactic to the main v1 where central defenders and both strikers are set as the main targets. It resulted in the goal from a wide free kick as the only summer signing Robert Kreso scored with the back post header. Jaroszewski got also a slight knock and he was replaced by Cichos. The smallest defender of our squad is also set as the second corner taker when Cvijan is not on the pitch. And as you can see, Cvijan left the pitch in the 78th minute and Cichos made an assist from a corner in the stoppage time. The ideal example of everything that I wrote about together in one match :)

THE 2029/2030 SEASON’S SQUAD

As I already mentioned above, we signed just only one player during the summer of 2029 ahead of the new season and it was 20 years old Croatian central defender Robert Kreso (click to see his profile). I bought him for €2.6M from Hajduk Split and he was one of our main three central defenders.

There were two major outgoing transfers during this summer as I sold Sergey Lyakh (the Belarusian newgen) for €6.25M to Hertha who I signed for €210K six years ago. And central defender Bartlomiej Kozlowski to Dinamo Moscow for €8.75M (bought him in 2028 for €3.2M from Wisla). The rest were loans to some of our affiliate clubs or small transfers.

When the new Ekstraklasa campaign started at the end of July 2029, we had 27 players in the squad. Three goalkeepers and 24 outfield players. These players were divided into the main squad, the backup squad and the remaining young players were set as available to play for our U18s team. Nothing complicated.

The average age of our main squad (without subs) was 25,1, the average age of our backup squad was 19,6 and the overall average of our squad was 21,3.

THE 2029/2030 SEASON SUMMARY

The previous season was exceptional with 34 wins in 34 league matches. We didn’t make the same in this season. Thank God. We won 27 league matches and drew 7 games in the 2029/2030 season with 94 goals scored and 16 conceded. That’s about 5 more goals conceded than in the previous season. Our unbeaten run continues in Ekstraklasa for more than one hundred matches but I’m sure it will end in the upcoming season that will be the last one of the save.

The biggest change in our success was that we were competitive in the Champions League. Due to our poor results in the previous season and the lack of other competitive Polish clubs in Europe, we lost the place in the Champions League group stage so we had the last chance to make it straight to the group thanks to the league title. I also knew it was probably the last chance to make something in this competition.

We finished bottom in the group last season. We got Bayern, Atlético and Ferencvarosi in this season. And we did great with 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat. Bayern won the group only thanks to better goal differences in head-to-head matches. But the progress to the knockout stage was already fantastic. We beat RB Leipzig 6:4 on aggregate in the first knockout stage and made it to the Quarter-Final where we lost to Bayern 0:1 and 1:2 and it was the end of our journey. But to make it so far in the Champions League is and will be one of the main highlights of the save.

TURSKI, YOU’RE GOD!

“I think one of the three will beat Henryk Reyman’s 1927/28 record,” wrote Tony/FM_Grasshopper when I published a post about the previous seasons and where I wrote about Hubert Turski scored 34 goals in Ekstraklasa and he was very close to beat the hundred years old competitions record. And Tony was right. Hubert did it in the 2029/2030 season.

If I remember it right, Hubert had 20 league goals when the first part of the season ended, which means opening 19 matches from 34. He needed 17 more goals to level the record at least. The same as in the previous seasons, he had not the best start to the spring but the finish was perfect.

He had 31 goals after the 30th league round and he needed 6 goals to level or 7 goals to beat the record in the last four matches. I think he already saw himself in some beach bar so he scored five goals during our 7:2 win away from home against bottom Bruk-Bet Nieciecza. We all knew he was very close. We drew with LKS Lódz and Legia and beat Arka Gdynia and Hubert scored four from our five goals in the last three matches to make it to 40 goals in the 2029/2030 season! And there we have a new Ekstraklasa hero. I can’t see someone will beat it.

I usually ask myself what next? at the end of each season. This time, the answer is very simple. Just one more season. The end of the FM22 cycle is already here. Many people stopped playing or writing about it. I will try my best to finish one more season to have another 10 seasons long save. I’m not afraid I will lose my best players (Thurski, Cvijan and Jaroszewski), I will play the last season with my own newgens or buy some domestic talents. Just to enjoy the time when I will have time to play.

I will divide the team again, I will create my selections for each competition in line with the tactics and set pieces. And maybe, maybe there will be some news about the new game…

Take care.

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | Notes from Poznan: The life between 2025 - 2029

July 25, 2022

The fact that I wrote the last post about my Football Manager 2022 save with Warta in the middle of March 2022 says enough about the enjoyment I had and I have with this edition. I only made an exception and wrote about my corner kick strategy a couple of weeks ago.

I like the save I chose last year, that’s not an issue. Poland is absolutely fantastic destination for long-term or semi-long-term saves and it’s challenging in terms of improving the club/nation coefficient to boost your chances to progress in European competitions. But the game itself made it really hard for me in combination with all the real-life shits around us. No wonder I was not interested to play the game and concentrate on what I was doing when I played it.

I have to say a big thank you to everyone who was connected and involved in the La Copa Club World Cup tournament recently as it was the main reason why I decided to play the game again and it allowed me to get back to the mood for playing the game.

2025 - 2028 SUMMARY

When I wrote about this save for the last time, it was at the end of the 2024/2025 season. A lot of things happened during the next three years but we all can probably agree that it’s not necessary to write about everything. I/We did the most important things within the save like this when I/We try to develop the club as much as possible. Both training & youth facilities were improved to the state of the art level. The youth recruitment & junior coaching are at an exceptional level and our Nowy Ogródek stadium capacity was increased to 6k - that’s not enough for the matches in Europe and we still have to play Champions League/European League at Inea Stadium which is home of our biggest rival Lech Poznan. That’s something I wanted to change throughout the save but I was not able to do it yet.

The 2024/2025 season was the first one within this save when we won the Polish Ekstraklasa title. We won it also in the next three seasons, which means we had four league titles in a row before the 2028/2029 season. The last four seasons also offered us the option to fight for the Champions League group stage ticket. We lost to Red Bull Salzburg in the play-off on aggregate in 2025/26 and we also lost to Ferencvárosi in the same round a year later. But we played the group stage in 2028/28 and 2028/29 because we improved the nation’s coefficient and earned the place in the group stage for the Polish league title holder.

The nation’s coefficient improved happened mainly thanks to our very successful three seasons in the Europa League. We made it to the Quarter-Final of this competition three seasons in a row (2025 - 2028) as we lost to Valencia, Tottenham and Olympique Marseille respectively. For me, personally, reaching three this late stage three times in a row with this club was like winning the competition.

Poland sits at 8th place during the 2028/2029 season within the qualification places table. The improvement is obvious throughout the save. When I loaded the save file back from 2021 when the save started, Poland was 30th in this table with just 1 place in the first Champions League qualifying phase and three places in the first qualifying phase of the Europa Conference League. The main improvement is not about the number of clubs but the stage when they enter the competitions/qualifications. We have one club in the Europa League play-off phase = security of the Europa Conference League group stage if they fail to beat their opponent in the EL. The same with the one who is entering the Champions League play-off phase.

Financially, we are in an absolutely different world right now in comparison with the beginning of the save. We had around €150k in the bank in August 2021. We will finish the 2028/2029 season above €60M in the bank. The main income consists of the prize money from the Europa League and Champions League. The Champions League earned us around €35M in the last two seasons. That’s phenomenal. The fact we are almost €2M per month under the wage budget says it all. The same as the fact that I failed to pass the board objective to spend the original transfer budget. I don’t remember in which save I was able to spend €35M per season… but that’s a different story.

Total Transfer Income & Spending 2021 - 2029

The total income from the transfers throughout the save so far between 2021 and 2029. It started with the income of €200k during the first season. The third season was just about €4,500 income from transfers - the lowest from all seasons. We sold players for €16,5M in the last season. The same as our players improve, the more we are receiving. But my policy is still the same - buy as cheap as possible (MONEYBALLLLLLL). We spent €5M during the 2027/2028 season and that was our maximum so far.

Tactically, I remained faithful to variations of 3-5-2 with wing-backs/complete wing-backs until summer 2028.

2025/2026: Three at the back + WB(S) & WB(A), three central midfielders of CM(S) + DLP(S) + CM(S) and TF(S) & AF upfront. No special out-of-possession instructions. The main focus is to build our play from the back by distributing the ball to centre-backs with a view to taking advantage of individual player traits of our central midfielders like comes deep to get ball or stay wider.
2026/2027: The same as the season before but both WB players were changed to CWB(S) and the DLP(S) was changed to RPM. I also removed the play out of defence instruction and I used only take short kicks.
2027/2028: The right WB player role was changed to CWB(A) and the MCL player was changed to BBM from CM(S). I also added a higher defensive line/more often trigger press and prevent short GK distribution instructions to make our team more aggressive in terms of winning the ball back. This was mainly after the already mentioned La Copa tournament after I saw most of the teams were much more active than our team.

2025/2026

2026/2027

2027/2028

THE LAST SEASON SO FAR - 2028/2029 - TACTICAL TWEAKS AND OUR ATTACKING GODS

The last season of the save - 2028/29 - brought more tactical tweaks. The main change was that I moved both wing-backs down and I created the flat 5 at the back. The initial idea about this was to use CWB(A) or CWB(S) on both sides of the pitch. But it didn’t work. All players that played as the left defender with CWB(S/A) had the worse average rating no matter the opponent we played against and no matter the final result. These players were also the first ones the most fatigued and they were unable to finish even the friendly match against lower league opposition. It led to a change from CWB(S/A) to just simple WB(S). It resulted in the fact that our main man Konrad Matuszewski was able to perform at his best again and he ended as our third-best player in terms of assists per season.

The record-breaking tactic from the 2028/2029 season

The second most important change within the player’s roles was that I changed one striker role back to TF(S) from PF(A) as I used the pressing forward role in the previous two seasons. But as I didn’t want to lose Sebastian Musiolik or place him on the bench, I decided to switch the PF(A) role back to TF(S) which is the best suited for him.

He turned 32 years prior to this season and it was obvious he will not be able to perform as effective in the more aggressive and more physically demanding role. It was one of the best decisions I made within this save and it’s great how it was reflected at the end of the season. I knew it was a great decision almost immediately after the beginning of the season when he had 8 goals and 6 assists in the first 6 league matches.

The last major change I would like to mention is that I stopped using three central midfielders and I moved one of them to the AM slot by using the simple AM(S) role without any individual instruction. Most of my players that played in this position/role have some player traits and that means they all acted a little bit differently so it was not as predictable whenever we rotated the squad or when I made substitutions. The main AM player was one of our third-best players of the season so I would say it worked very well and it was a good idea to try it.

There were also some small changes within team instructions as I decided to try the higher tempo in combination with shorter passing and pass into space. Mainly because I knew I have good enough creators in the squad with very useful decisions attribute who know when and where to pass the ball to both flanks. It worked very well not just based on results, and goals scored/conceded but I also liked what I was watching throughout the season.

I like to check the pass map after most of our matches, especially after games against teams which are at the same or lower level as our team. Not sure if it’s also your own experience but the pass map is very bad and very inconsistent when I play against a weaker opponent. I know there are other screens and other places where to check the average positions of my players during the match but these pass maps after the game are some kind of bonus source where my players were during the game (maybe I’m selecting the wrong words but I’m sure most of you understand what I mean).

It’s also great when I am able to use the same players in more matches in a row as it really helps to get some proper pass map as the team & individual tactical familiarity is higher and better. It can result in something like in the picture after the league match against Korona Kielce from the end of the season.

Champions League 2028/2029:
The one and only bonus of participating in the Champions League group stage with teams like Real Madrid, AS Roma and Wolfsburg, are the prize money. We had Real Madrid in the group stage also in the previous season together with Chelsea and Hertha but we were able to finish third in the group and moved to the Europa League. We didn’t have the same luck in this 28/29 season despite we won 3:2 against Roma away from home in the opening group match. We also added one point thanks to a home 0:0 draw with the German side but that was all from our side in this year’s campaign.
We lost all four remaining matches and finished bottom in the table with just four points. So, as I said, the best thing about the Champions League participation for the Polish club is money. The combination of prize money and TV revenue earned us over €30M this season.
Puchar Polski and Ekstraklasa 2028/29:

Domestically, it was absolutely different story this season. We won the domestic cup (Puchar Polski) after two years again. We scored 22 goals in 6 matches including four goals in the final against Jagiellonia Bialystok.

This league title was our fifth in a row. But this time, I have no doubts about winning the league from the beginning of the season. The beauty of this save was how the league was tight until the end of the first six seasons. We won the league by 26 points already in the 2027/28 season and that was for the first when the league title was not decided during the last two or three rounds. The 2028/29 season was even more extreme from our side. We won all 34 league matches with 100 goals scored and just 11 goals conceded (three more goals conceded than in the previous 27/28 season).

The pictures below show that we didn’t lose or draw a single domestic match within this 2028/29 season. It was the most dominant season of the save so far. The main advantage to making the season like this one, surely was that we didn’t play in some European competition during the second part of the season. All our key players were available almost every match as we played once per week and there were no fatigue or big injuries.

Unstoppable attacking trio:

As I already mentioned, we had all key players available most of the season. That includes our main three attacking players: Radomir Cvijan as AM(S), Sebastian Musiolik as TF(S) and Hubert Turski as Advanced Forward. Any of these three players used some special individual instructions within our tactics. The young Serbian midfielder was one of our summer 2028 signings as I activated his transfer release clause and bought him for €950k from Spartak Subotica. As you can see in the picture below, his value is between €9.6M - €12.5M after one season.

He scored 20 goals in 40(5) appearances and he also made 24 assists while being voted player of the match eleven times.

I already mentioned Musiolik and the change of his role. He made 44(1) appearances during the season, scored 35 goals (13 from penalties) and he made 14 assists. The third player, Hubert Turski, scored 44 goals in 41(4) appearances and he added 6 assists. Musiolik was the best goalscorer of the league for almost entire season but Turski scored a lot of goals during the the 2nd part of the season and he ended the league campaign with 34 goals. The record (37 goals) from the 1927/1928 season by Henryk Reyman remains the same, Turski would need two more matches I would say…

Cvijan made 18 assists during his first Ekstraklasa campaign and that means a new league record as he beat record by Milosz Szczepanski from the 2026/2027 season by two assists. These three were unstoppable this season and the fact that two central defenders were best goalscorers of the team, without counting these three players, speaks for itself.

Both Turski and Musiolik were wanted in previous seasons but both remained loyal to our club and they turned some offers down by themselves. I’m sure Cvijan will leave very soon to some bigger nation/league/club because is becoming a complete attacking player and he will be wanted a lot abroad. Luckily, he doesn’t have some transfer release claus in his contract. I’m sure he will that player who will set the new and also the last transfer income record of this save within our club.

I’m not sure if I will play one or two more seasons but I would like to make it to ten seasons, the same as in FM20 and FM21. I won’t have time to play more and with the squad I have now, I don’t think I would enjoy it for a longer time. There is still one dream and that’s a new stadium with bigger capacity than current 6k. We had 15 sellouts in 17 home matches during this last season in the league. I already asked twice or three times about the new stadium but the club board never responded to it and that option just appeared within the board requests again after some time.

But we will see. Everything is possible.

Thanks for reading.

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | Notes from Poznan - (not a boring) season 2024/2025

March 18, 2022

If you read the last post about using the Half Back role during the first three seasons of the save, and you remember something from it, maybe it’s the fact I decided to return to the 3-5-2/5-3-2 WB formation with three central defenders again instead of two CDs + Half Back. I tried a couple of things during the fourth season within this save but it resulted in an absolutely simple tactic in the end. As always. Open this link if you want to view the tactic.

Maybe I will write about this formation in the future but this post is mainly about the finished 2024/2025 season. It was not a boring season and I enjoyed playing it. The Ekstraklasa campaign was decided in the last round again, the same as in the previous three seasons. And we were involved in it again. Feel free to read more about…

TRANSFERS 2024/2025

When I’m looking back at this season and the transfer history page, I would say it was one of the most typical windows within my Football Manager squad/transfer management. A lot of outgoing loans + two big outgoing transfers + one decent outgoing transfer with over five million in the bank.

On the other side, I knew I need to be active in the transfer market and to add more faces to our squad because I wanted to progress to the Europa Conference League again. And I wanted to be competitive in this competition, the same as in the Ekstraklasa. The outgoing transfer of our second-best central defender Ariél Mosór to Gladbach for €2.8M (up to €4M) and €2M for last season's best league goalscorer Kacper Chelmecki gave us enough money to cover our incoming transfers.

The case of Kacper Chelmecki is interesting mainly because of how the season ended. I signed him for free two years ago. He was wanted by Legia and he also wanted to go there. It was only a matter of time before it will happen during summer 2024. I decided to buy Wiktor Kaminski from Legia for €1.1M as a replacement for Chelmecki. And I’m sure this exchange was really good in the end. Let’s see the comparison of these two from the end of the season including the basic stats.

One of my favourite incoming transfers was the central defender Pawel Koncewicz-Zylka from Piast and also Kacper Masiak from Jagiellonia Bialystok. This young winger came for €1M and I decided to make him our WB(A) number one within the 5-3-2/3-5-2 formation.

Successful loans

As I mentioned at the beginning, there were some outgoing loans and some of them were to our affiliate clubs again. For example, our own newgen Kacper Grabowski (19 years old) spent the first part of the season with SK Lisen in the Czech top tier and he made 12 appearances in the starting XI. If nothing more, his value increased enormously to €1.2M - €2M. I took him back to the club in winter and he was our DLP(S) backup for the second part of the season. He is currently wanted by Legia at the end of the season and that usually means only one thing - they will get him if they will decide they really want him.

I also sent striker Szczepan Mucha to Hapoel Ra’anana to play some competitive football in Israel. The fact he made 40+ appearances during the season and scored ten goals was a pleasing bonus and I’m considering it as a very successful loan. I’m sure he will be a great cover/alternative option to Wiktor Kaminski next season. His biggest weakness is his work rate, that’s something that I would like to improve but the future will decide as always.

I also decided to make the second incoming loan from one of our senior affiliate clubs (Rennes) within this save. This time, it was a young French midfielder Joshua Jehanno who came in winter. My initial idea was to play him as DLP(S) before I find out he develop gets into opposition area trait. He played mostly as CM(S) or CM(A) but his playing time was limited and my expectations were probably too high based on his attributes. I know I will never be able to sign him permanently and I will not extend his loan with us to rather gave playing time to my own Polish youngsters.

For example, to Wlodzimierz Wawrzyniak, I bought for €50k from the third tier.

EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE

DOMESTIC CUP

The Europa Conference League was very successful again this season despite we were knocked out earlier this time in comparison with the last season. We made it to the group stage after beating Ararat Yerevan, Slovan Liberec and FC Basel in the qualifying rounds. We faced Braga, Sheriff Tiraspol and Dinamo Batumi in the group and we finished second in the table. That meant we got Lyon in the first knockout round. We beat them 3:2 on aggregate and I told myself that this is already good enough. Real Sociedad was too good for us and we went out of the competition after a 2:4 defeat on aggregate. But we earned a lot of points to coefficient and a lot of money too.

Despite I’m usually a big fan of the domestic cup competitions and I don’t like to ignore it, I was not angry we were knocked out in the first round by Gornik Zabrze. It was during a hectic schedule and our youngsters and our backup players were not able to perform better than the Gornik first team. We were defeated after penalties but it was only because Gornik didn’t convert their chances properly. The club board was unhappy with being knocked out of the Cup so early as the aim was to reach the third round at least. But I think they will be alright with the season in the end…

EKSTRAKLASA

The first three seasons saw us finishing fourth, second and third. I didn’t have big expectations for the fourth season of the save and I would be happy to finish third again to reach the European slot. We started well with a 1:0 win over Wisla Krakow as the new Advanced Forward Wiktor Kaminski scored a penalty kick. The first month of the new season ended with an absolutely fabulous 5:0 away win against Legia as our own newgen Karol Leopold scored three goals. And also Kaminski scored against his former club while Kacper Chelmecki was sitting on the bench.

We finished the autumn part of the season top of the league. We reached first place after a 1:0 win over Lechia in the 9th round and we were no worse than second until the end of the season…

First, second, second, first…up & down

…if I like some screen within the league I play in, it has to be the past positions screen with the option to tick all or just a few clubs and take a look back at how their league standing developed through the season. The 2024/2025 season is a perfect example of how competitive and tight Polish Ekstraklasa can be. I really like that the league was decided in the last round of the campaign in all four seasons of the save so far.

2021/2022: Legia won the title thanks to better results in matches against Lech Poznan while both had 74 points and Wisla ended third with 72 points.
2022/2023: Legia won the title with 70 points after we lost points in the last round against Gornik Zabrze.
2023/2024: Legia won the title with 72 points ahead of Lechia and Warta (both with 71 points) as Lechia drew 3:3 in the last round.

This season (2024/2025) we fought with Legia about first place in the table in the middle of the campaign and we were changing two top places regularly between rounds 12 - 18. But Legia didn’t win in the next 7 matches and they fell down to the third place. And that’s the moment when our battle with Wisla started. We were top of the league, then we were second for two rounds to make it back to the top.

Legia played against Wisla in the penultimate 33rd league round and Legia won 2:1 at home. We played against Górnik Zabrze. They were 12th in the table but they also won the domestic cup already. To be honest, I didn’t expect to have some issues with them as we already concentrated just on the league. But. They were 2:0 up after 16 minutes of the match and it looked like we didn’t even touch the ball during the opening first minutes.

Another but. We have Sebastian Musiolik. Our saviour at the right time. He scored twice within nine minutes to make it 2:2 before half-time. And when I already thought it will end with a draw, Sebastian had some luck in the penalty area, he got the ball back after a sloppy defence and scored a winner with a perfect strike. And that was the moment when we made it back to the top spot before the last round of the league.

The last round drama

Legia was already out of the title race, for the first time in this save. The last round was just between us and Wisla. They had Zaglebie Lubin at home. Lubin was 15th in the table, just two points ahead of Piast Gliwice and they needed points to survive in the top tier. Wisla needed to win because we had better results in matches with them (1:0 & 1:0 wins). And we had Slask Wroclaw away from home. They were 7th in the table before the last round without a chance to move to third place to play in Europe next season. They would be able to move up to 5th if they would beat us.

The last round started absolutely fantastic for us. Kacper Masiak got the ball on the right side of the pitch in the second minute and his cross found the head of Wiktor Kaminski who opened the score. The same thing happened not even two minutes later, Sebastian Musiolik scored our second goal after Masiak’s cross. And we were 2:0 up after four minutes. A great start and our dominant performance continued but we were unable to convert more chances. Wisla scored two quick goals in the 22nd and 25th minute of the match against Zaglebie and they were back just one point behind us.

Patryk Plewka scored Slask’s first goal of the match in the second minute of the first-half stoppage time as hit the direct free kick just from the outside of the penalty area straight to the net. A lovely goal if it would be my team :)

Wisla went to 3:0 straight after the second half started. I was a little bit nervous as our own result was just by one goal but our central defender Michal Koj scored our third of the match after an hour of play after a deep free-kick and his lovely volley. Dorin Rotariu made it 2:3 from the hosts’ point of view in the stoppage time but we were able to keep it until the final whistle and won 3:2. The Running From FM favourite Yaw Yeboah scored four goals for Wisla in the last round as they beat Zaglebie 5:1 in the end. But it was not enough for them.

Warta Poznan won the league title for the first time since 1947.

Sebastian Musiolik - back to the right slot hackz!

Sebastian Musiolik and his form in the last 6 matches of the season.

I don’t even know why or when it happened but I changed the positions of our strikers during the previous season. Sebastian Musiolik as TF(S) was in the left ST slot instead of the right slot as in the season before when he was the league's best goalscorer.

I really don’t know why I did it but it was probably one small thing that might cause his inconsistent form. Maybe. I’m not sure.

He scored two goals between February 23 and April 12. I changed the positioning back before the last 6 league rounds. And our hero scored 9 goals in these last matches of the season with one assist as a bonus. He ended this season with 16 league goals in 27(3) appearances and became the third best goalscorer of Ekstraklasa.

He was in very good form in the Europa Conference League too as his 6 goals and 5 assists in 15 appearances are very good. He was wanted by some other Polish clubs during the season and he was already unsettled by the interest in him but I’m sure he will be happy to stay in the club after winning the league title as the club reputation will improve and we won’t be considered as just average club. But his contract is until June 2026 so it’s time to give him a new one during summer.

PROS & CONS OF THE 2024/2025 SEASON

The squad at the end of 2024/2025 season

The league title ➕
The successful return to the formation with 3 central defenders ➕
The transfer of Wiktor Kaminski who scored 21 league goals and 12 goals in the Europa Conference League ➕
The development of a couple of young players including Belarusian midfielder Sergey Lyakh who recently turned 20 years old and he earned his first Belarusian senior national team call-up during spring 2025 ➕
Karol Leopold, our own newgen from the first youth intake renewed his contract and the release clause for foreign clubs changed from €1.7M to €2.4M. And the interest from PSG, Milan and some other big clubs disappeared for now ➕
Domestic cup early exit ➖
Performances of some more experienced players led to the fact they will leave the club for free at the end of the season as their wage demands were not in line with their abilities and performances ➖
Chief scout performances/AI logic with setting the scouting assignments and recommending players with the unenforceable wage demands ➖

What next? The next season, our fifth in Poznan, will bring some new challenges again and it’s perfect the save won’t be stale or boring already. I know that our stadium capacity will get a boost of 2,000 new seats and it will make our stadium up to 6k after nine months of work. We will play at the Lech Poznan stadium until that moment. We will face a new challenge in the Champions League qualifying rounds as our journey will start in the first round. I also have to find a new Head of Youth Development as our current one will retire soon. I also have to set up our scouting assignments from scratch as the experiment with letting it to our chief scout failed massively during this season. What happened? It’s simply a typical FM thing when 9 from 10 players recommended by our chief scout via his assignments were unrealistic and all these players want/wanted monthly wage around €40k-€50k per month. That’s almost like one-third of our squad together. And many more things to do…

Thanks for reading, take care.

💙💛✊🏻

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | Three seasons with the false central defender

March 10, 2022

“The third season was also the last while using the so-called 2-3-3-2 formation with two central defenders and a “false” central defender in terms of using the Half Back.” This was the end of the previous blog post about the third season in Poland within FM22. I used the same formation and the style of play during the opening three seasons and I wanted to put together a couple of my thoughts about it.

THE INITIAL IDEA

When I think about the moment when I thought about using this type of formation, it was already during the previous version of the game when I played in Sweden with GAIS and I used a more common 3-5-2/5-3-2 with two wing-backs and three central defenders.

The same as I’m fun of three players within the flat central midfield, I’m also a fan of three central defenders at the back. But I thought about how it would look & work with just two central defenders and the half-back. The role I enjoyed using in the past already but in a different system.

And I decided to try it.

I’m not the type of FM player who would use many teams or individual instructions within my tactical setups. It’s connected to my own real-life experience with the game. As a player or as a fan of the game overall for more than three decades already. I always hated some complicated systems in real life but the older I am, the more I know it’s all based on what you have available to work with.

Mainly in terms of players in your squad. Their intelligence, their physical abilities, their age and more. And I also know it’s connected with the Football Manager as the heavy pressing system won’t work 100% with the squad full of veterans on wheelchairs. I like simple systems and I always will.

I put together a formation with 2 central defenders, 1 defensive midfielder, two wing-backs, three central midfielders and two strikers.

The base version of the formation. There always were some changes like TF(S) & DLF(S), the right CM(S) with the Run Wide With Ball instruction when some players were available or not. There were also many experiments with the higher line of engagement and higher defensive line or with more aggressive pressing. I also tried the sweeper-keeper role while using the higher defensive line but it didn’t work as I would expect. But there is always the option to try it and make it even better in the future.

The main point or idea to use two central defenders with the Half Back role is also based on the description of the role and how that role works within the game.

The Half Back drops deeper and he acts like another central defender in the defensive phase of play. The Half Back offer protection against the counterattack. The third stand out thing from the description is that this player offers an outlet for quickly recycling possession.

My aim was to have a player who will act as a third central defender but he will also support the midfielders ahead of him and will always be there to be able to receive the ball. This all without the need to use three central defenders and to be able to take advantage of the Half Back role as this player is used to doing everything.

“The Half Back looks to serve a role somewhere between that of an aggressive sweeper and a defensive midfielder. The Half Back drops deeper than a standard defensive midfielder in possession and looks to offer an outlet for quickly recycling possession and to offer protection against the counter attack.”

THE HALF BACK AT ITS BEST

My initial idea and a plan to use this kind of formation were supported thanks to the fact that I found an absolutely ideal player for the Half Back role in the Warta Poznan squad. His name is Michal Kopczynski and he was 29 years old when the save started.

I remember I shared his profile screen on Twitter back in December 2021 and @cb asked his first touch attribute. The answer from FMG is the best explanation:

“In leagues like Poland you have to compensate, there will always be one or two areas of weakness in a player's game. I place importance on his Mental side. Michal has top Anticipation, Concentration, Positioning, Teamwork & Work Rate. Plus his Composure will help him on the ball. Decisions and Positioning are v.strong too. So critical for a Half-Back to sweep up and protect the CBs who will push a bit wider as a result. I love him 😍😀.”

I remember my first friendly match within this save was against Hannover 96, our senior affiliate club from the Bundesliga 2 and we beat them 2:1 at home. It was good to see some positives. We lost to another partner club - Stade Rennais - in the second friendly. It ended at 2:5 from our point of view this time. It was good to see so many negatives against a much stronger team.

It was the first time I started thinking about using wing-backs with defending duty to cover wide areas more. Especially when I saw both wing-backs were still able to go forward enough despite the defend duty.

But I was able to see the main point of using the Half Back straight from the first match thanks to passing maps and average positions. Michal Kopczynski has number 6 and you can see him as the biggest dot, which means he was, as the game would say: “was at the heart of everything in the middle”. In this specific example, he had the most passes with the goalkeeper [28] (more below) and with the left central defender [23]. It was followed by the second central defender and MCR & MCL.

The passing combination from one of the opening friendly matches together with the ***overall average positions (green & blue dots)***.

There are three examples from the third/latest season in the gallery above. I wanted to include more but 1) the game was against me while I tried to load matches properly and 2) maybe it’s better to not have too many pictures here.

DISTRIBUTE THE BALL TO A SPECIFIC TEAMMATE

As I already said slightly above, Kopczynski had the highest passes with our goalkeeper in the example we showed. It’s also because of one specific instruction I decided to try in this game. It’s nothing new and nothing groundbreaking but I didn’t see too many people using it. Maybe it’s also because of the fact that many people don’t know it’s even in the game - thanks, James!

So, it’s simple. Instead of using distribute to area/player like distribute to full-backs/centre-backs or to flanks and other options, I just used the Distribute To Position option and I selected the defensive midfielder, number 6 in our example. I used it for three seasons, alternately with the Take Short Kicks instruction or Roll It Out, usually depending on the opponent and their pressing style.

This is the kind of instruction I would use even for other DM roles, mainly if I would use playmaker type of player as he is able to decide where to distribute the ball properly. I enjoyed using it also with the Play Out Of Defence instruction as both central defenders were in their own penalty area and the halfback had a lot of options where to pass the ball in all directions.

BLOCKER AND PASSER

If you remember what I wrote at the beginning of the post, you will remember the main principles of the Half Back role.

Drops deeper & Offer protection against the counter-attack & Offers an outlet for quickly recycling possession.

I can safely say this specific player was able to fulfil everything. Michal Kopczynski acted as our third central defender in the defensive phase and he was able to distribute the ball as good as possible. The gallery contains data from all three seasons.

2021/2022

2022/2023

2023/2024

THE BIGGEST WEAKNESS

The biggest weakness of this formation surely is in the defensive line and the positioning of the defenders. It works great but it also can be absolutely vulnerable against some specific formations. I was able to resolve issues against 4-4-2 with the man-marking of one of the strikers. I was able to resolve issues with formations with three attacking midfielders (Hi Diego Mendoza) but there will always be some formations/positions/roles that will cause problems to this formation with two central defenders in combination with WBR/WBL positions.

One of my favourite examples is matches against Stal Mielec within this save. Not only because I beat them at the sixth attempt. But also because they are using my FM21 and FM22 nightmare-formation - 5-2-3 WB. Simply, it’s 3 central defenders, two wing-backs, two central midfielders, AMR/AML and a lone striker.

The wide players are so dangerous that I always have to man-mark both wide offensive players and I also have to pay a big attention to both wing-backs. Both AMR/AML players also had the highest amount of key passes in all matches when I look back.

The Football Manager is a game of positioning. And this is a very good example. Both may central defenders were too wide, the same as both my wing-backs who also were too high up the pitch (if they were not set to man-mark AMR/L). The opponent’s wide players had enough space in the channels - it was like a new role, something like Mezzala in the AMR/L slot. These inside wingers/forwards had too much space and if there was at least an average playmaker in the middle, he was able to find them with the right pass.

But overall, the formations with Inside Forwards were the most dangerous against us if I ignored the option to man-mark these players. And it was dangerous even before the latest update/patch before the game developers announced that inside forwards/wingers were fixed in terms of how often these players/roles cut inside.

CONCLUSION

I wrote this is the formation I want to use for most of the time of the FM22 save. But I was wrong. I don’t want to use it in the upcoming season(s). Not because I would not like it or it would not be successful. Just because I want to use three central defenders again and also because of the fact that I am currently not able to find the better option/backup/replacement for Michal Kopczynski and the development of some newgen can last longer than the whole save.

The tactical change also doesn’t mean the end for Michal Kopczynski because we won’t use the HB role. I think he can be a good central defender with the cover duty. Especially with his calm head while playing from the back…

We finished 4th, 2nd and 3rd in the Ekstraklasa and we made it to the Europa Conference League Semifinal in the third season. I think it was a successful trial with this formation…

In loving memory of Oleksiy S., my friend with whom I played FM during almost every class while we were at university. And one of many heroes from Kharkiv and other Ukrainian towns. 🕯️💔

💙💛

FM22 | Notes from Poznan - season 2023/2024

February 28, 2022

The third season of my FM22 save with Warta Poznan offered me a lot of matches thanks to our surprising European journey. We were also able to fight about the league title until the last round despite the squad lacking the same quality as our opponents. And the 2023/2024 season also showed my biggest FM weakness. If you are interested in reading how the season went, feel free to continue…

THE SUMMER, part 1

We were in a great position before the 2023/2024 season in terms of the expectations from the save (by me) and of the expectations by the club board within the game. Mainly thanks to the final second place in the league table in the previous campaign. The second place gave us an opportunity to try our luck in the demanding qualifying phase of the Europa Conference League - the third European competition in the UEFA hierarchy.

I said demanding the qualifying phase mainly because we started our European journey in the second qualifying round. And we were an unseeded team of course. The draw decided that our first opponent was Spartak Moscow. The big club in comparison with us. If nothing more, one of their player has the same monthly wage as we have the wage budget in total.

If you are not following Polish football in real life, maybe you are surprised by the fact we started in the 2nd qualifying round despite we finished 2nd in the league.
But the coefficient is a big issue for all the Polish clubs. Legia made it to the Europa League group stage in the 2021/2022 real-life season and it was their first group stage appearance since the 2016/2017 season (maybe you will remember the match against BVB with a 4-8 result in Dortmund). But they were also able to lose to Dudelange in the Europa League 3rd qualifying round or to lost with Omonia and Qarabag within one summer of 2020.
In the combination with other clubs struggling to gain some important points to the national/club coefficient, it’s a big problem. Especially also when you, for example, are not able to have the best possible squad available straight from the opening qualifying round.
I didn’t have some specific aims for this save before it started. But I decided that I will try to improve the coefficient as much as possible to give a better starting position not only to myself but also to other clubs.
Before the 2023/2024 season in my save: One place in the Champions League 1st qualifying round and three places (also depending on the domestic cup winner) in the Europa Conference League in the 2nd qualifying round. That’s awful for such a great football nation as Poland is.
And 28th place in the national club coefficients ranking.

TRANSFERS, part 1

I will be 100% clear - I wasn’t well prepared for the third season when I look back. I build the squad for two domestic competitions. I knew I want to improve the CM(A) position/role and I found one of the best possible players. I used mainly my CM(A) filter/method with some adjustments before I signed him. And the best thing was that I signed Michal Nalepa for free from Jagiellonia Bialystok. That meant I didn’t have a problem giving him €7.75k per month to make him one of the best-paid players of the club (before the contract renewals during the season took place).

Another aim was to strengthen the WBL position. I signed Marcel Blachewicz from relegated Wisla Plock for €350k to give some squad competition to our main player for this position. But it ended with a fiasco. Every time he played, he made some big mistake, his training morale was so tragic that I would give him a punch if it would be real life. It resulted in the fact that I rather let play 17 years old not good enough newgen and I sent Blachewicz to our affiliate club SK Lisen in winter.

Another prepared signing was the transfer of the young Belarusian midfielder Sergey Lyakh. I signed him for just €200k from Ruch Brest without some transfer release clause in his contract and he signed until 2027 which is promising. He is in the Belarusian U21s national team already. His 5 goals and 5 assists in 19(7) appearances during his first season with us just in the league is a promising statistic.

THIS was one of his goals and I really liked it.

THE SUMMER, part 2

As I mentioned at the beginning, our first opponent in the Europa Conference League was Sparta Moscow. When I said “first”, yes, it means we beat them. The newly signed Michael Nalepa scored two goals in the home leg in his competitive debut as our new CM(A) and we beat them at 2:0 in the second leg too.

That was the moment when setting up the several line-ups took the place. The Starting XI was based on all key/important players. The Backup XI was a group of youngsters together with some experienced players. The Mixed XI was a mix of both together. At least one key player in every line together with the best youngsters. As you probably guess, the first XI played mainly the qualifying matches, the backup XI played in the domestic league. The mixed XI was used more during the later stage of the season.

We got Bodo/Glimt in the third round and we won 5:2 on aggregate and made it to the last qualifying phase. Sadly, we faced another Russian team. Krasnodar this time.

We played the first leg away from home for the first time but both matches were intense and crazy. We were 2:0 up in Krasnodar in the 72nd minute but the home side levelled the score within ten minutes before we scored the winning goal in 90+6 from the last set piece of the game.

Home tie. Our captain and the main halfback Michal Kopczynski was sent off in the 14th minute. Krasnodar was 2:0 up after the first half and one goal ahead on aggregate. Szymon Czyz made it 1:2 five minutes after a break, three minutes later it was 3:1 for Krasnodar. But we scored our second in the 74th minute and the match went to the extra-time as it was 5:5 on aggregate.

We also lost Filip Dymerski who was sent off after the second yellow in the 90th minute. With diminishing energy and two men down, we played with four defenders, a flat midfield trio and Chelmecki as a lone striker. We conceded in the 105+2 and Krasnodar was one goal ahead again. But Sergey Lyakh, our young Belarusian uncut diamond scored two minutes prior to the final whistle after a counter-attack. And the match went to penalties.

Jesper Grobelny, our keeper, saved two penalties (Claesson and Wanderson) and we scored all four. It was very a very satisfying win - 6:6 on aggregate and a 4:3 after penalties.

The opening months of the season including matches in the league and qualifying phase

TRANSFERS, part 2

The same as our progress to the Europa Conference League was surprising for others, it was surprising for me. And I realised I am very surprised by this achievement almost immediately after the home second leg with Krasnodar when I did the ordinary press conference and I went to the squad screen to give key players some rest days. It was the moment when I realised I need some fresh legs to be competitive in all three competitions. Some panic buys? Maybe.

I had around 48 hours to make the whole signing process. I decided to sign two players from my shortlist who I know about they are free agents. The Czech striker Tomas Cvancara is a panic signing 100% because he is not good enough in comparison with our own players but it was also some kind of nostalgic signing as I know Tomas from his childhood and his first football steps. And in combination with his real-life transfer from Jablonec to Sparta Prague. The worst thing about him in the game is that he has “Comes Deep To Get Ball” somehow developed. It’s not too good in combination that he should play as Poacher or Advanced Forward. I tried to unlearn him this trait but it was unsuccessful so far.

The second free signing was Kamil Dankowski. The wing-back who is able to play on both sides of the pitch - versatile, that can be useful. I signed him just for one year. He didn’t last that long. He played four matches and he was injured in all of them. Our partnership ended in winter when I released him.

Finally, the third signing within the deadline day - Rafal Wolski from Cracovia for €700k. He was one of the best-rated players in the Ekstraklasa at the end of the previous but also at the beginning of the current season after its first month. I knew he will be able to play as a midfielder but also as a striker. I liked the options he offered and signed him with a clear mind because I already earned a lot of money thanks to the Europa Conference League.

He made 36(5) appearances, scored 13 goals and made 11 assists. I would say that this transfer was worth it. His contract is up to 2026 and I’m sure I have still a great player in him despite him being 31 years old.

Rafal played mostly as CM(A) or CM(S) depending on the squad rotation.

THE REST OF THE SEASON

Ekstraklasa:

We were around the second and third places during this campaign. It was very tight until the end as Legia won the league for the third time in a row in this save with 72 points just one point ahead of Lechia Gdansk and Warta. Legia was changing the first and second place in the late stage of the season every round but Legia won it in the end. We were top of the league for 6 minutes in the last decisive round before Legia scored four goals at home against Radomiak who was relegated thanks to this defeat. It means we earned the Europa Conference League spot again.

The idea of tabbed menu with the Season Overview, Past Positions or other bookmarks courtesy of @Wozzie.

Totolek Puchar Polski:

We made it to the Semifinal this season. We needed penalties or at least the extra time in all first, second and third rounds as we beat Pogon Szczecin, Gornik Zabrze and Olimpia Elblag. The Quarterfinal 3:1 win over Legia at home thanks to a hattrick by Sebastian Musiolik was really sweet. But our biggest rival and also the cup winner, in the end, Lech Poznan, beat us in the Semifinal after penalties as the match ended 3:3 after an extra time. I would really like to win the domestic cup at least once during this save…

UEFA Europa Conference League:

We went to the Group F during the draw with FC Viktoria Plzen, Apollon Limassol and Sutjeska Niksic. I was sure we will make it through this group after beating teams like Spartak Moscow, Bodo and Krasnodar in the qualifying rounds. We lost only once in the group, it was with the Czech side away from home. But we won the other five matches and won the group F with 15 points, 16 goals scored and only 4 conceded.
We went straight to the 2nd knockout round thanks to winning the group and we got AC Sparta Prague. What a coincidence! But we beat them 4:3 on aggregate and went to the Quarterfinal against Wolverhampton. After an incredible home 3:0 win, we parked the bus at the Molineux stadium and drew 0:0. Semifinal here we go. We met Stade Rennais FC, our senior affiliate club here. We lost 1:3 away from home in the 1st leg but we beat them 2:1 at home and we said goodbye to Europe this season with our heads held high.
It was symbolic somehow. Michal Nalepa scored two goals against Spartak Moscow in the first match in this competition back in July 2023 and he scored two last goals in the Semifinal in May 2024. A great journey.

CONCLUSION OF THE 2023/2024 SEASON

The European journey gave us a couple of things. Firstly, we earned €10,239,779 via prize money. I know it’s not even the same as when you reach the Champions League group stage but as we like to say in our country it never rains, but it pours. This sum of money is incredible for our club and I was already able to convince the club board to upgrade the youth facilities from adequate to good. Even if it was after giving them an ultimatum.

Secondly, it also showed me (again) one of my biggest weaknesses within playing the Football Manager - buying and strengthening the squad instead of playing with my own players or youngsters only.

Is there any lesson? Yes, there is. I will have almost all new players in the club-ready before the pre-season or during the first week of the pre-season.

As I said, the European journey gave us a lot of money. We have almost 10x more than at the beginning of this season. The club board was generous and they gave us a €512,993 p/m wage budget and a €7,9M transfer budget. I will use some money for transfers but the wage budget will be under the limit a lot as always.

This third season was also the last while using the so-called 2-3-3-2 formation with two central defenders and a “false” central defender in terms of using the Half Back. It’s not because I would not like it anymore but I’m not able to find the good enough replacement or cover for the Half Back role and I want to try a different role in the DM slot while using the two or three central defenders.

The Polish coefficient received a very much needed boost this season as we reached the Semifinal and Legia won their group and made it to the 2nd Knockout Round.

Thanks for reading, take care.

💙💛✊🏻

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | Should I stay or should I run wide with ball

February 17, 2022

Sorry for the title of the post but I think I listened to this classic song about fifty times while writing this post. If something is 100% clear description in terms of me & my tactical thinking within the Football Manager and a real-life football, it’s the fact that I’m quite conservative when it comes to the moment when I select the player roles.

This is just a short post with examples of how I’m using the simple individual instruction for the Central Midfielder role with the support duty within my FM22 save with Warta Poznan.

The individual player instructions screen for my MCR position with the CM(S) role.

“Run Wide With Ball encourages players to move into wider areas of the pitch when in possession in a bid to stretch the opposition and disrupt their shape. ”

— Run Wide With Ball instruction description

🤝 WB(D)

My starting formation was with two wing-backs and both had the support duty. But that was before I decided to use the run wide with ball instruction for my right CM(S) player. Before you will ask, yes, I tried it both together but I decided to turn my right wing-back’s duty to defend.

Some of you will think that it’s a shame to sacrifice one wide/wing option, especially as the FM22 can be nicknamed Crossing Manager 2022 but it works very well together for several reasons.

When the wing-back has the support duty with the gets further forward instruction, they are together in the same area very often.
If the wing-back has the defend duty, he is instructed to hold position and that allows my CM(S) to run wide with ball.
+ the CM(S) has the option to cross but he also has the option to pause his run(s) and pass the ball back to the WB who is almost every time available to receive the ball due to his deeper position.
Importantly, the fact I’m using a wing-back with the defend duty doesn’t mean he 1) can’t cross or 2) he can’t move forward. It can be very effective against high pressing teams as my defensive-minded wing-back has more space ahead of him.

One of my favourite examples of the cooperation between CM(S) and WB(D) while using the Run Wide With Ball instruction

“If I go there will be trouble... 🎶 ”

— The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Stay Wider instruction ❌ and Why not Mezzala?

At the beginning of using the run wide with ball instruction, I thought it will be useful to combine it with stay wider instruction too. But it was not a good idea. The stay wider instruction tells the player “to stretch the game over the full width of the playing surface rather than staying central”.

I realised quite fast that it’s illogical to use both of these. It’s simple. If you are already wide, you can’t run wide with the ball. You would end up on the bench every time if I will take it to the extreme example.

And yes, that’s also one of the main reasons why I’m not using the Mezzala role as it has the stay wider instruction set by default and I can’t remove it. The other reason why I’m not using Mezzala (or Carrilero) role is that I will probably always rather customise the CM(S) role with the individual instructions and develop my player(s) with the specific play traits.

My main player for this role is Szymon Czyz. He developed three traits during the two and a half-season of this save: Moves Into Channels, Comes Deep To Get Ball and Looks For Pass Rather Than Attempting To Score. His Dribbling attribute value is 12 while I’m writing this post. I’m sure this instruction can be even more effective if I would have (or try) some player with an even higher Dribbling attribute value.

But my main player is Szymon and I will use him there until he will be in the club. I saved some screens from the analysis and his dribbles from various matches.

On the other side of the pitch, we have also CM(S) but this player is used with the Hold Position instruction and the wing-back is with the support duty. It’s a nice mix of both sides and not be so stereotypic at both wings. The left wing-back has more assists (usually the double amount of what the right wing-back has) but that’s probably somehow expected. The left wing-back and both CM(S) has the highest amount of assists during the third season and that’s a perfect combination.

But it’s not only about assists straight from the specific player who is playing in this role with this instruction. Many goals were scored after a cross deflection or this player would have the second assist if it would be an ice-hockey.

The testing and playing the game can continue…

Thanks for reading.

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | The opening two seasons with Warta

February 2, 2022

The first two opening seasons leading Warta Poznan in Poland were funny. And if I will ignore the fact that I finished both seasons among top clubs instead of being relegated in the opening season, it also met my expectations.

There are many talented players but I am far from being able to sign them because of my own personal financial strictness. My favourite part of the save so far 100% was clearing the squad from players who were not good enough and overpaid. I like the club is now more stable after two seasons despite no big outgoing transfers in comparison with other clubs.

Another thing is that I like the fact my pre-save tactical plans are working almost exactly as I wanted. My plan, no matter where the FM22 save will be held, was to play with two central defenders, half back and two wing backs. The idea also included using the option to distribute the ball to a specific teammate aimed to half back. I think the fact we finished 4th and 2nd in the Ekstraklasa speaks for itself. But this is not a tactical post. Maybe later in the future if I will have enough time to put something together.

Until that moment, feel free to read about the first two seasons in Poland…

The main aim - make it stable

When I opened the squad screen for the first time, I found out the senior squad contained 46 players. Twenty four of these 46 mentioned players were 19 years old or younger. Our U18s team contained other 19 players with 7 of them were already loaned out. Thank God for it. If I remember it right I narrowed it down to 30 players in the senior squad before the end of August 2021 when the opening season was already underway. At the end of the second season 27 active players in the senior squad before changes. It’s still a lot but it won’t be less if I will want to give 16 years old newgens some playing time and the first team development.

If the headline above stands “make it stable”, the main point of this was also to narrow down the wage budget in terms of how much we spend. The three highest-paid players at the beginning of the save were three foreign players (France, Belgium and Spain) with all of them having more than €10k per month. But the most important thing was that either of these players would even play in the starting XI.

I was able to send them on-loan for the first season to cover their wages partially. And they left the club permanently before the 2nd season and I saved a lot of money. When the save started, the wage budget was €168,080 p/m and we were spending €159,638 p/m. So, only €8.5K p/m was available. Both for new players and renewing contracts. I have to say that the €6.5k p/m available was painful sometimes during the first season and I had to be very patient to wait for improving the budget to be able to offer more money. But it didn’t mean I would change how I like to work within the FM in terms of wages and I would be wasting money. All players with a wage higher than €10k per month left the club during the two opening seasons and their squad status/importance didn’t matter.

I think the very basic Finances & Salary comparison is a perfect example of how I like to work. The wage budget was increased by around €18k in total to make it €186,068 per month at the end of the second season. But the main difference is that we spend €127,308 p/m and the available budget is €62k. And that’s even after the fact that key players like Musiolik, Czyz, Sopocko or Chelmecki signed new improved deals. Plus, that’s another thing to consider, our coaching & recruitment teams were improved and their wages went up in comparison with the start of the save. But we still are able to be down under the wage budget with a big reserve.

Most of the outgoing transfers were loans or free transfers to mainly save money within wages. Only a couple of players moved away for some money. No wonder the transfer of Adam Zrelak to Legia Warszawa for €240k is a new in-game record fee received.

The average of the senior squad is different too. We started with the average age of 24 and at the end of the second season, it was 22 while the Ekstraklasa average age remained the same at 26. And I’m sure it will be under 22 for the third season as one 34-year-old player will retire and the most experienced Lukasz Tralka will move elsewhere in his 39 years old or he will retire too.

Finances in August 2021 vs. Finances in June 2023

Gerard Williams development

I mentioned staff improvement in the previous part in combination with wages. I would like to mention one new staff member. His name is Gerard Williams and I signed him before the second season as my new assistant manager. You can see his profile just before he signed for us in May 2022 and what his attributes looked like.

It was also in a similar time when @Fuller_FM wrote his post about how to improve your own coaches. The way it’s very simple as he followed how his coaches improved thanks to gaining coaching badges. I know I always tried to do it but the truth is that I probably never paid too much attention to it and I didn’t follow the development too closely. But I decided Gerard will be some kind of my own experiment.

He came to our club with the National A Licence. He gained two badges during the season - Continental C and Continental B Licenses. His attributes, mainly coaching, were improved rapidly in my eyes. When the information about him completing the Continental B Licence appeared in the inbox at the end of the second season, I was really impressed. In combination with a limited number of coaches allowed in the club, his coaching attributes will be really helpful. And yes, I sent him immediately to another course.

May 2022 before he joined Warta

December 2022 after he gained Continental C Licence

June 2023 after he gained Continental B Licence

It’s easy to just find someone new and replace the current staff member. But this way is also very interesting. I’m doing the same with other coaches, also with these in the U18s team so will take a look when their courses will be over to check if they also improved and how much.

I, for example, hired Marek Matejovsky as our new U18s team manager in summer 2022. He also had just the National A Licence. The same as Williams, Matejovsky earned the Continental C and Continental B Licenses and his attributes got a really big boost. For example defending went from 4 to 8, mental from 6 to 10, motivating from 11 to 13 or people management from 10 to 14. All in a year. Perfect. Just take a look if you want.

August 2022

June 2023

2021/2022 Summary

Predicted media finish: 17th (from 18)
How does it end? 4th position.

The beauty of the first season was that I just wanted to see if the formation with two central defenders & half back & WBR/WBL will work. And how it will work. We were between 2nd and 5th place during the first ten rounds before we spent eleven rounds at third place in the table. The last part of the league was affected by several injuries and I also gave quite a lot of playing time to some young players. That meant we dropped down to fifth but finished 4th after two wins in the last two rounds.

We overachieved a lot. We beat Górnik Zabrze 4:1 away from home in the last league round. It was some kind of revenge to Górnik as they won the domestic cup and they earned the Europa Conference League spot despite they finished 10th in the league table. Btw. we lost to GKS Belchatow in the semi final - they finished 17th in the 3rd tier and were relegated (insert rolling eyes emoji).

While Adam Zrelak ended the season with 14 league goals in 29(1) appearances, that meant tied 3rd place in the goalscorers table, the best-rated player of our team and also the league was our central defender Aleks Lawniczak with 7.42.

2022/2023 Summary

Predicted media finish: 11th
How does it end? 2nd position.

The second season was even better in terms of the final league position as we finished 2nd behind Legia Warszawa. We were first in the league between the 23rd and 31st round but we lost the top spot in the finish of the league campaign. It was mainly between us and our biggest rival Lech Poznan as we were swapping first place between each other. In the end, we finished 2nd and they finished 3rd. Legia won the title despite they made it to the top spot in the 32nd round for the first time in the season. A great comeback by them.

If I didn’t like something during the second season, it has to be the number of goals we conceded. Our goal difference was just +20 as we scored 67 goals and conceded 47. It’s stupid we conceded 6 goals in two matches from Arka Gdynia as they were fighting about survival in the league for most of the campaign or three goals from the bottom Odra Opole. It’s something that I would like to improve in the third season.

The second season was also affected by great performances by Sebastian Musiolik, the striker we signed for free from Rakow Czestochowa as he scored 33 league goals in 34 matches. I wrote more about him here.

Important thing is that we earned the Europa Conference League spot thanks to the 2nd place in the table - we will start in the 2nd qualifying round and we got Sparta Moscow. That means I think I won’t please the club board with the early end in this competition as they want to reach the third qualifying round.

Twin cities update

The main point of setting the affiliate clubs was to have the option to send players on loan or take some players on loan. And also to have some newgens from these countries/clubs thanks to affiliations.

We had 2 incoming loans so far. Young Bosnian striker from Hannover for the second part of the first season (8 league appearances - 2 goals) and Togolese right defender as a backup for the WBR position as he came from Rennes. He made 15 league appearances without scoring or assisting. Disappointing
In the first season, 4 players went on loan to SK Lisen to play in the Czech 2nd tier including Finnish central defender Robert Ivanov. I didn’t send him to Lisen by myself as it would mean no wage saving but they were interested in him and they paid 100% of his €6k p/m for the whole season.
1. The important thing also is that SK Lisen won the Czech 2nd tier in the 2021/2022 season and they moved to the top tier. And they finished 12th in the 2022/2023 season, which means they will remain in the top tier. Two players went here for this season but they played mainly for their B team in the 3rd tier.
Three players went on loan to JJK Jyväskylä for 2022 but I’m not sure if this Finnish club will ever enter the playable league. That means these players made only non-competitive appearances.
The young keeper Kacper Geier also spent the year 2022 with Torpedo Kutaisi and got some league chances here.
Polonia Poznan, our only domestic affiliate club is starting to produce some decent newgens. I already decided to sign one of them - Bartlomiej Falinski - just to try to develop him as possible. It’s under a youth contract so there is no risk.
Our own youth intakes didn’t produce some foreign player connected to our affiliates so far.

Youth Intakes

As I already mentioned, our two youth intakes didn’t include some foreign player so far with the connection to one of our affiliate clubs. I already promoted a couple of newgens to the first team squad and they also got some playing time already. It’s not an exception doing this and I think it would be much more strange if I wouldn’t do it. The board is not willing to upgrade the training/youth facilities (both average) or junior coaching budget (adequate) or youth recruitment (average). But I’m used to it and it’s probably realistic in some way.

(I can’t believe I’m using something related to the word realistic in a combination with the video game).

The club is overachieving in terms of results and final league positions. “We believe the club’s youth recruitment is already good enough for a club our size.” And yes, I agree this time. We have to (read = I have to) be more patient. Maybe we will win the league title in the future and our stature will be higher and our club board will decide to invest in the future. Maybe.

Two examples from our intakes. Kacper Grabowski appeared in the youth intake with the value of 1 for both Jumping Reach and Strength attributes. It was obvious to try to work on his physical attributes and in some limited way, it works well as he already gained something but he probably won’t have issues with his head later in his life due to heading the ball too much. The second one, Karol Leopold, will probably cause me some trauma because I want to continue using TF(S) role but he is probably going to be a great DLF player. I’m currently torn if using him as a striker or as CM(A) or to use some playmaker role within the flat midfield trio. The time will tell.

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | When you find THAT player

January 28, 2022

Alfredo (we are still waiting for the post about him, Ed!), Gonzalo Higuain (feel free to select your favourite GIF here), Tomas Chory in 99% of the saves by FMStag since he discovered him, all the Norwegians (Hi, Samo) with longer names than the width of the regular laptop screens, Adam Armstrong (Hi, Samo II), Serbian or Croatian XY newgen for €37k because AI forgot to give him a professional contract…

We all have or had some player we can talk about as THAT player. The one who is ideal for us. It doesn’t matter if it’s a global star, someone unknown or some virtual variation. The Football Manager is still only a video game and we all play it differently. But I think I can say that we all love when you have your favourite player or you discover someone who becomes your favourite player.

I’m not an exception. There were many players I would be able to add to this group. Some of them were real ones, some were newgens. Loader, Aga…

And now Sebastian Musiolik in the Football Manager 2022. I played only two seasons with Warta Poznan but I know that this 25 year old (in a real-life) player will be my best incoming transfer through the whole save.

“I wouldn’t swap him for anyone, not even Erling Haaland.”

— Various press conferences' answers during the 2022/2023 season.

Spring 2022

It was during the first season of the save when I was searching for some new potential players for the next season(s). Mainly with the expiring contract due to limited finances available. I’m not sure if you remember it but the first-team squad had almost 50 players when the save started. The main aim was to cut the number of players and also the wage bill.

Sebastian Musiolik was a regular starter within the Raków Czestochowa squad and he also spent the 2020/2021 season with Pordenone in Italy. His contract would expire in June 2022 and I decided to try to sign him during spring 2022 for free.

My main idea was very simple. My main DLF(A) or TF(S) option was Adam Zrelák during the first season. The Slovak striker or offensive midfielder was not bad. He was our main striker and influential player in the squad. But he was also our highest earner and his contract was until June 2023. He didn’t want to renew his contract. The only option would be to give him even more money. He had €9k per month and I didn’t want to go over €10k so early in the save.

I also thought he doesn’t deserve it. I was happy when I saw someone like Legia was interested in him because they have enough money to offer and he will go here. And that’s something that happened in the end. Zrelák moved to Legia for €240k, he got €13.75k per month until 2025 and everyone was happy.

Especially with the combination of signing Sebastian Musiolik for free with the wage of €5.75k per month.

The initial comparison

There are two comparison screens. The first one (on the left if you read this on PC/laptop) is the general comparison. It’s the screen from the end of August 2022 after the first part of the league. Musiolik had already 9 goals and 4 assists in 8 league matches. Zrelák was happy for just three appearances and one assist. The second picture is the comparison of their attributes for the Target Forward role with the support duty.

Without sharing how both players ended the 2022/2023 season in terms of statistics, even this initial comparison already suggests that I did a good thing. I signed a new player for free who is not worse than the previous key player, he earns less so we spend less and he is doing much better statistically. At least he did at the beginning. But if you are expecting Sebastian did well in comparison with Zrelák, you are right.

End of 2022/2023 season comparison and a new contract

Sebastian played in all 34 Ekstraklasa appearances. He scored 33 goals in these matches and he also added 10 assists. On the other hand, Adam Zrelák made only 7(7) appearances in the Legia shirt within the Ekstraklasa, scored three goals and made two assists. Yes, there is a thing about the squad competition and Zrelák is considered only as a squad player instead of a star player so his playing time was limited before the season started.

Sebastian came with a simple request about improving his current contract during spring 2023 when it was clear he is a big star now. Not only of our team but also of the Ekstraklasa. I think we can agree that €5.75k per month was not enough. He received a new offer with €11.25K per month until 2026. I will take more than three years with him with all my fingers. It’s still less monthly than Zrelák has in Legia in the original contract when he moved to Warszawa.

He became our highest earner thanks to a new contract. The second highest one has €7k p/m. I was interested in the wage comparison and I went to check some other teams. Legia is the strongest team financially so they were the obvious option. They have 24 players in the senior squad at the end of the 2022/2023 season. Musiolik would be the 21st highest earner with €11,25k p/m.

In Raków Czestochowa, his previous club, he would be at the end of the top 10 best-paid players. Jagiellonia Bialystok, the 12th team of the 2022/2023 season - 13th highest-paid player. The last comparison is with Lech Poznan, our biggest rival and the 3rd team of the second season - very similar to Legia, he would be the 21st highest earner of the squad.

It can be a coincidence but I’m glad I found the perfect combination of free & better options & successful & cheaper signing. And I hope he will continue with it.

End of the 2022/2023 Ekstraklasa season statistical comparison of Sebastian Musiolik and Adam Zrelák.

Close to a historical record

Sebastian Musiolik had 26 league goals after a win over Lech Poznan in the 27th league round. The league record is 37 by Henryk Reyman from 1927/1928... 11 goals in 7 matches? That was too much.

But 26 goals were already the best effort since 2016 (Nemanja Nikolić scored 28). Marek Koniarek scored 29 in 1996 and that's all back to 1948 when Józef Kohut scored 31 goals according to the list of the top goalscorers.

FM BlackCrow boss suggested letting him take all free kicks and penalties. Sebastian was already set as our penalty taker, the same as he was the main target of most of set piece routines due to his perfect attributes for it. I don’t have detailed stats and FM doesn’t offer the option of how many goals a specific player scored from corners, throws, free kicks or through balls etc. It’s only within the whole squad, unfortunately. But I would say he scored at least one-third of his goals from set pieces. Five of them were from penalties.

As I wrote already, Sebastian ended the league campaign with 33 goals. The second best was Tomas Zajic from Lechia Gdansk with 26 goals and third one was Kacper Chelmecki, our main Advanced Forward, with 16 goals.

Can he improve it?

Scoring 33 league goals in 34 matches are fantastic. Do you think he can do it better in the upcoming season? I’m thinking about it while writing this post and I’m not 100% sure. What can help him to score four more goals to at least equal the goalscoring record of the league?

Better players around? Maybe. Better set piece takers? 100% yes. That could be one way how to give him even better service and create better chances.

Maybe he can make it outside of the scatter graph…

Some playmaker role? Maybe. I played without a playmaker role during the first two seasons. My flat midfield trio was CM(S) - CM(A) - CM(S) while one CM(S) was more holding position and the second one has take more risks instruction. But it’s still a central midfielder role and players are coded to act in the particular role. One of the most possible options is to change one CM(S) player to the Roaming Playmaker role. There already is enough static players in our formation so I’m sure it won’t affect it too much.

Overall tactic change? 100% no. I like my weird version of 2-3-3-2 formation with two central defenders and halfback despite it’s not perfect. But what’s perfect these days?

Sebastian Musiolik’s stats from the 2022/2023 season.

One of my most favourite part of this story is that when Sebastian scored his first competitive goal for Warta Poznan in July 2022 in the opening Ekstraklasa round, it was his first competitive goal after 22 matches.

And the rest is history as it’s modern to say…

BONUS POLL

Thanks for reading, take care.

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | Searching for my ideal CM(A) player

January 10, 2022

The central midfielder with the attacking duty is usually the natural part of my formations within the Football Manager saves. The FM22 edition is not an exception and this role has its place in my 2-3-3-2 formation (as I named it). I remember I always had one of the biggest expectations from this role but I’m not sure if any player filled them when I’m looking back on a couple of my last saves.

This post is some kind of summary of my own thoughts about this role mainly in terms of what I want from it, how I feel about this role and how I’m continuously trying to find my most ideal player for this role.

Preferable attributes for CM(A) highlighted by the game:

· Long Shots, Tackling, Technique, Anticipation, Composure, Teamwork, Vision, Work Rate, Acceleration, Stamina.

Key attributes for CM(A) highlighted by the game:

· First Touch, Passing, Decisions, Off The Ball.

My key attributes & the searching filter

I always liked the way how James talked about the player positions/roles/key attributes and it’s always great to follow or read when he talks about it. I can safely say that he was the one who influenced my thinking the most in terms of the fact that a certain player doesn’t have to have a specific role 100% natural to play. For example, using the natural winger as a wing-back and retraining him and many more.

This also applies to my thinking behind the CM(A) role. The fact I have one player with 100% ability to play as CM(A) doesn’t mean he will be the best possible choice for this role. My FM21 save with GAIS was a perfect example of this. I had Nuha Jatta for the entire duration of the save and he was natural in the CM(A) role and he was a best-rated role for 8 from 10 seasons I spent in Sweden. But was he the best? I don’t think so. It could be based on the formation overall but I think it was very similar even in previous editions.

If there would be an option to edit the key/preferable attributes for the roles, I would do it to reflect it straight in the game but this is something that I can see even when I just check a profile of a specific player. I’m sure many of you who play the game regularly have the same. One short look and you know the specific attributes for a specific role. I have them mainly within central defenders as I have them connected with the key attributes for set pieces. But also with other roles.

The combination of box-to-box and free role

Maybe my idea of the CM(A) role is a little bit different than yours but I usually have some different thoughts. The player in this role should not be a playmaker but it’s great when he knows how and where to pass the ball. In my eyes, this ‘XY’ player should be some kind of unstoppable-moving and free-minded player. Something between box-to-box midfielder and number 10 free role. Not the main engine of the team, not the main brain of the squad. Something between this. Maybe that’s the main reason why I always considered using the striker here (more below).

The off the ball movement and decisions are in line with the stamina to ensure he will be able to do all the stuff. Especially if the FM22 includes that factor of fatigue vs. impact to the decisions or quality of passing. I’m at the beginning of the save and I’m not in a position to be able to choose from the best possible players. That means I have to make compromises and I have to think about every player twice or three times.

MY secondary attributes for CM(A):

First Touch, Technique, Teamwork, Work Rate, Vision.

MY key attributes for CM(A):

Off The Ball, Decisions, Stamina, Anticipation, Composure, Passing.

That means the key attributes were added to the new search filter, all of them with the starting value of 13. The reason why 13 is very simple - I decreased the excellent attribute threshold to 13 in preferences to reflect the quality of the league I play in and players I have available.

The secondary attributes were added to the search filter as well but I don’t have them ticked/active at the beginning and I only tick them to just find out who has this and this. And also the starting value is set to 10.

In my current save with Warta Poznan, I was sure at the beginning that I will have to lower my demands because there will be no players interested in transfer/loan (or you can always hit the settings icon near the Transfer/Loan interested in and adjust how much/less interested players will be shown). But I didn’t have to adjust so much when I made the first try. I found three very decent players after decreasing the starting value just by one.

Bartosz Nowak went straight to the shortlist and all scouts went in…

My own options

I always like to check my own options in the first place before I will turn my head to the player search screen. It looks we are in a very similar position as with Nuha Jatta in FM21 as I mentioned earlier. My most natural CM(A) player is/was Mateusz Czyzycki. The 23 years old Polish midfielder looks solid in many areas but the overall result is that he is an average player and his key attributes for this role are not as good as I would like. But three goals and 1 assist in 7 friendly matches don’t sound too bad.

Mateusz was sent off in the 2nd league round and he got a ban for the next two matches. I let 20 years old Szymon Czyz plays in CM(A) role in these two matches despite his attributes are not too good. But something told me just to try it. And no, the fact their surnames has the same base was not the reason.

The fact I have the first transfer window closed gave me enough time to 1) try to develop/improve my current players a little bit during the first season and decide if I will stick with them or 2) search for better players.

In the end, I edited the search filter and added my own players to it. It resulted in the fact that I had to adjust the values down to 10 to meet my own criteria. I think that three from five players are defenders speaks for themselves.

But one of them was also a forward. I created a custom view within the tactics selection popup window (when you click on the name of the player within the tactics screen) so I can see the key attributes of all possible central midfielders here. *it’s only a small shame that I can’t see all players here instead of only central midfielders or players who are natural/partly natural in the CM role.

Forward? Why not

But instead of just moaning about something, I created the custom view for my squad and added all my key and my secondary attributes to this screen in combination with some more basic things including the overall stats of the season. I didn’t add forward to the headline by a coincidence. The FM22 version is the third or fourth version when I thought about playing some forward in the CM(A) role. The first idea was to use there some good finishers as this player offers big support around and in the penalty area so good composure will be useful same as for forwards.

The same as the composure is very important, the first attribute I look at is the Off the Ball movement. This attribute is crucial for most of the field players and I pay a big attention to it. Not only when I look on my strikers but also for this CM(A) role. I’m enjoying the combination of CM(A) and DLF(A) at the beginning of the save as the Deep Lying Forward (mostly Adam Zrelak) moves deeper to receive the ball and the CM(A) player is able to move up to the space to receive the ball and shoot.

This goal against Lech Poznan in the home derby match is absolutely perfect example and I can imagine this can work perfectly with the striker who would have even better combination of the Off The Ball and Composure attributes.

I highlighted some players on the screen below. Two of them are strikers. Adam Zrelak is my main Deep Lying Forward or Pressing Forward. Mateusz Kuzimski is a completely neutral forward who is not too good Advanced Forward but he is not too good as DLF too. Simply, that kind of player you don’t know what to do with. But his attributes for CM(A) role are not that bad if you compare it with others. I gave him twenty minutes in this role in the Ekstraklasa 4th round and he scored our second goal from a penalty kick in a win against Gornik Leczna.

The more I think about it, the more I’m sure I will try more and more players in this role to just test what works, what doesn’t work and what can be improved. I think it’s also important to mention that I’m using the CM(A) role in the middle of flat midfield trio and I’m not using any additional individual instructions for this role except the Get Further Forward (default for the role).

The funny thing is that when I decided to write about this topic and I made that custom view, one player appeared surprisingly. It’s the club captain - 37 years old Lukasz Tralka. I wanted to use him as a backup of our Half Back or one of the static CM(S) players with Hold Position instruction. But I think I will try him in this role if it will be needed. The only downside is the off the ball attribute below the value of 10.

If I would turn back to the search filter I shared above and untick the interest in transfer/loan, the best possible players within the game database will appear. And if I will increase the value of key attributes, the great players including forwards (Kane, Salah) will appear here.

Half Back & CM(A) combination

I’m also using the Half Back role within my tactics and despite I didn’t play for too long, I found the combination with the CM(A) is really nice. Mainly if 1) the HB is able to make the pass at the right time and 2) if the CM(A) player has a good off the ball attribute and he can take it as his advantage. For example like this goal in the friendly against Rennes.

Simple description - the Half Back always offers support to other midfielders and he is always available to receive the ball from other midfielders or strikers and distribute the ball further.

In this example, we won the second ball and CM(S) player passed it to the DLF(A) who didn’t have a different option than to pass it to the HB - Kopczynski made a great pass to Czyzycki and he scored.

Hopefully, more to come with these two roles. I think there is a potential to make it very successful with some useful players with good off the ball movement and decisions mainly.

When one swap changes everything…

I wanted to end this post originally after the previous part about the cooperation with the half back. But the game/save decided to write one more part. The reason is very simple. As the first season continued, I decided to swap two players in the flat midfield. I moved already mentioned Mateusz Czyzycki from CM(A) role to CM(S). He wasn’t bad in the CM(A) role but I think his Dictates Tempo trait slowed him down. And I moved Mateusz Sopocko to the CM(A).

I knew I won’t be able to sign some better player, at least during the first season, so I told myself it’s probably the last option before I will move the main striker Adam Zrelak here.

If you consider the highlighted key attributes in the picture above, you can say “he is not good enough” or “nothing special in comparison with Czyz or Czyzycki”. And you would be right. For example, his Decisions attribute is worse in comparison with the other two players. *You can easily compare it in the picture with the team selection I shared slightly above*

But.

I decided to make this change in the league match against Raków in the second part of November 2021. This match was just a test of how it will work. I was satisfied with his movement and I let him play here. He made one assist in the next match when we won 1:0 against Piast Gliwice and he scored Górnik so I decided to continue with it and test it even more.

The winter pre-season started in the middle of January. We played some quality matches, we tested the tactic more and more. And Sopocko scored 5 goals in 6 friendlies and he scored also one goal in each of the first three league matches against Zaglebie, Górnik Leczna and Stal Mielec at the beginning of the spring part of the season. If he would score goals just in friendlies, I would say, alright, it was maybe a coincidence. But when he continued scoring also in the league, I activated the automatic extension clause in his contract and will try to play him here more. At least until I will find a better player for CM(A) role.

The goal below is a fantastic example of the cooperation between the half back, CM(A) and DLF(A). The simple passes and the perfect movement. Perfect.

Btw. Mateusz Czyzycki left the club in winter and moved to Sparta Prague for just €200k because he wanted over €10k per month wage when I tried to extend his deal. Sopocko is better statisticaly and he earns only €2.4k p/m until 2024. Win win? Maybe…

Thanks for reading, take care.

Follow @FMRensie

FM22 | Notes from Poznan and Twin Cities idea

December 14, 2021

It wasn’t easy to decide where I will spend my main time with the Football Manager 2022. But, in the end, I decided to play in one of the nearby nations of my own nation. I will play in Poland. It’s a nation where I was not as many times as I would expect but I was there and it can be counted as another one where I was in real life and I will play here within my FM save.

If I will go back in time a little bit, my first choice for FM22 was Spain. But I decided against it due to a couple of reasons in the end. Another option was to go home and play with one very good custom database down to the Czech 7th tier, just one tier above the competition where I play in real life. The main reason why I turned this option down was that I would probably spend a couple of weeks of real-time just building the squad for the first season.

There were some other options like PEC Zwolle, FK Sarajevo, CF Vaslui, FC Thun… there was always some reason because I told myself that’s a no, think more about it. But I always (except the Czech 7th tier, that would not be possible) had one thing in my mind. The one thing I wanted to try and apply within my save. The Twin towns - Sister cities.

I had two teams/towns in my mind when I decided it will be Poland. The first one was LKS Lodz from the 2nd tier. It was mainly because I spent some time in Lodz when I was around 14 years old and I thought it would be good. But the fact that the board except for the immediate promotion to the Ekstraklasa put me off. I like to start my saves in the 2nd tier or lower but I decided it will be better to select my second choice - Warta Poznan from the top tier/Ekstraklasa. It’s the smaller club (right now) from Poznan as you probably know Lech Poznan more.

Warta Poznan - three promotions in the last five years after two relegations within three years.

Warta is two times Polish top tier champions but these league titles are from 1929 and 1947 = really old. Warta Poznan as a club has worse facilities in comparison with Lech, less money available, worse players in both senior and youth teams and problems with the stadium. Same as last year with GAIS in Sweden (they share the big stadium in Göteborg with other teams), I decided to edit the stadium before the save with Warta started.

Warta is unable to play Ekstraklasa matches at their ground (Stadion Warty Poznań (Warta Poznań Stadium),[2] also known as Stadion przy Drodze Dębińskiej (Dębińska Road Stadium) and nicknamed Ogródek (Little Garden) - thanks Wiki) because of licensing issues.

The stadium and the complex of training pitches and facilities overall are under reconstruction in real life and I didn’t find the info when it should be finished and when the club should play either top or 2nd tier at their own stadium.

That was the reason why I renamed the stadium “Nowy Ogródek”, set the capacity to 4,000 with the possibility to expand up to 16,000 and that’s it. Nothing groundbreaking. And I really like the stadium I created, small and comfy.

Warta is in the relegation battle in real life and we are expected to finish in 17th from 18 teams in Ekstraklasa. For me, it’s another nice challenge because of a couple of things including the club culture:

Make the most of set pieces - it’s always nice to challenge me to create something new
Sign Polish players - it’s nothing weird if I play mainly with domestic players, I’m sure it will work out
Develop players using the club’s youth system - always a pleasure to do it

Twin towns - Sister cities idea

I don’t know when I got this idea but it’s not so long time ago. It’s probably connected to one of my travel “shows” on Czech TV as I think it was mentioned here briefly when there was something about one town and as it’s connected in multiple ways with a different town. The connection between towns is various. Some are based only on one thing like culture. Some are based on many more things like sports, travelling, culture, study programs, exchanges.

London is connected with New York, Bogotá or Tokyo. Glasgow is connected with Turin, Rostov-on-Don or Havana. Madrid is connected to Lisbon, Seoul, Sarajevo or Abu Dhabí. And I would be able to continue like this forever.

And Poznan has some interesting towns connected too from around the world. For example Hannover, Rennes or Kharkiv. An ideal combination for this side project.

How it will work in my FM save? It’s easy. I selected 13 towns from the list of sister cities and I selected and added one football club from this city as an affiliated club of Warta Poznan in the pre-game editor. The system is easy - clubs with a higher reputation (based on the default FM database) are the senior affiliate clubs of Warta. The clubs with less reputation are under Warta.

There are not only European cities but also teams from China, the United States and Brazil. A nice touch is that I found Brno (the 2nd largest Czech city) is among the twin cities of Poznan. There are currently two clubs playing in the 2nd Czech tier - Zbrojovka Brno and SK Lisen. The first one is more reputable and more famous but I decided on Lisen.

I set some rules in my head and in the pre-game editor:

Senior Affiliate clubs - Hannover, Metalist Kharkiv and Rennes are able to send players on loan to Warta.
Warta players can go for a loan to affiliate clubs in other countries (I will aim to send players on loan to Gyirmot and Lisen probably).
Players can’t go on loan to China, the USA and Brazil. And vice-versa.
The connection/affiliation with non-European clubs was set to help both parties in marketing relations
All clubs share scouting knowledge with each other.
The European clubs can play friendlies against each other - one of the aims/dreams should be to arrange a friendly tournament between these clubs (note * FM2039 on of the 1000+1 new features requests: the possibility to arrange a friendly tournament for more than only 4 teams).

The idea behind this is not to break the game or exploit the game in some way. If it would be a couple of years ago I know I would be able to play the save for 25 or 30 years. That would mean I would be able to fill the screen with affiliated clubs on my own. But these times are over and I just want to play a couple of seasons within FM22.

As I already mentioned above, I usually play mainly with domestic players. It won’t be too different this time. But if nothing has changed for FM22, the sharing scouting knowledge and the affiliate clubs in foreign countries can cause the fact some of your newgens will be from countries where your affiliate clubs are. Or where your scouts/coaches are from etc.

I don’t want to have a golden generation from around Europe with top Chinese talents in every youth intake within the save. I think I’m too old for trying to exploit the game in some way like this just thanks to some edits in the editor. I just like the real-life idea of a connection between nations/cities and I think it’s an ideal combination for FM save. And if 1) I will be sacked by Warta, I can join some of these affilities, 2) if it won’t affect youth intakes, it doesn’t matter, we will have some interesting friendlies every six months at least.

Affiliate Clubs:

ACV, Assen, Netherlands; Gyirmot FC, Gyor, Hungary; Hapoel Ra’anana, Raman Gan, Israel; JJK Jyväskylän, Finland; SK Lisen, Brno, Czech Republic; Polonia Poznan, Poland (they share our training and youth facilities); Torpedo Kutaisi, Georgia.

Senior Affiliates:

Metalist Kharkiv, Ukraine; Stade Rennais, France; Hannover 96, Germany.

Non-European Affiliated Clubs:

Independente Futebol Sao-joseense, Brazil; Shenzhen FC, China; Toledo Villa FC, USA.

Notes from the save

The beginning:

The first day in the office was on Sunday, June 6, 2021. There were not too much to do except the fact I added two new friendly matches and I decided to mutually terminate contracts of six staff members. “Yes, you have it written on your forehead: Physio with the Physiotherapy attribute of 3 = not good enough.” Should I find the replacements by myself? Should I place the job advert? The second option was tempting but it usually takes too much time. I will try on my own.
I opened the staff search screen and wanted to find the new physio. The €925 per month available for physio was a great budget to start with. I had to completely rule out the possibility to sign some foreign physio and I decided to limit the search filter to just physios with Polish nationality.
It was a good decision to concentrate on domestic staff as I was able to hire former Szczecin patriot Stanislaw Mazuro (click to see his profile) and he wanted only €700 per month. The improvement from the Physiotherapy attribute of 3 to 15 is quite big. I went through all other vacant positions and tried to fill everything with better domestic staff than what was here when I started but I knew that if I want to sign some better staff members, I need to make space in our wage budget. And that meant to offload players…
But in the end, I’m really proud of what scouts, for example, I was able to hire…

The squad:

When I opened the squad screen for the first time, I also opened my mouth. “Forty-six players? Just in the senior squad? What will I do with all of them?” The eldest one was Lukasz Tralka with 37 years and a €7,5k per month wage. The youngest one was Mateusz Wojciechowski - 17 years old Polish defensive midfielder.
Of these 46 mentioned players were 19 years old or younger. I decided to check every single player and decided if 1) to keep him in the senior squad, 2) move him to the U18 squad, 3) send him on loan.
Our U18s team contained other 19 players with 7 of them were already loaned out. Thank God for it.
The two highest earners of the squad were foreign players. Jayson Papeau (France) with €17,250 per month and Milan Corryn (Belgium) with €10,750 per month. Both of them had contracts until summer 2023. The first one had a transfer value between €300k to €600k. That would be a lot of money - insert :thinking: emoji. I knew I had to sell them if I want to keep everything within the budget and if I want to improve coaching/recruitment/medical team. It was a no brainer in the end when I considered too many talented young players in the club.
The first transfer window is disabled so I have enough time to find them new home and save some money. How did it end? We will see in the next post…

The opening 2 weeks:

It was all mainly about setting the individual training for all the players. There are some really exciting young players I’m looking forward to following their development if they won’t be signed by some bigger club.
It was also mainly about setting and arranging the training schedules, set pieces, individual training, mentoring... all the typical FM admin and it was quite good.
The second week of the save ended with the first friendly match. We played against Hannover, our senior affiliate, at home. We won 2-1 after goals by our CM(S) and CM(A) players. You can see we used the formation with 2 central defenders, 1 defensive midfielder, two wing-backs, three central midfielders and two strikers. It’s the formation I want to use for most of the time of the FM22 save.

The journey to find the joy from the game can continue…

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