Hello again! Would you believe it, another blog post. I’ve finally managed to complete the seventh season with Toulouse, and it will be the final season I blog for this edition of FM. An entire season without Ted…will that be good, or bad?
Once again, I’ll be cramming an entire season into one post, as I say farewell to FM21.
Pre-Season:
I was hoping for a quiet transfer window tbqfh. Unfortunately, our disgruntled central midfielders had something to say about that. Particularly annoying, as I had decided to give a narrow 41212 a go this year.
Carioca had had a couple of absolute blinders for us, but more often than not, he had been merely OK. I had expected greater things in his two seasons so far. That said, I’d have liked to give him another shot. Alas, he was desperate to go there, but the hefty profit from when we signed him for €14.25m, combined with the fact that it’s another non-EU player off of the books, means I’m not too annoyed.
Colin Prent’s departure on the other hand was a sickener. As last season had gone on, he had begun to impress me more and more, and I was planning on having him in the starting eleven, next to Ugarte in the centre of the park. But he was furious that I hadn’t offered him a contract. I tried, but I couldn’t get through his agent (don’t get me started on player/agent interactions/promises, the system is pure shite). To make matters worse, he’s even gone for a slight loss.
Mubenga was one of two wide attackers to permanently depart as a result of our planned formation change. I didn’t particularly want him to stay in Ligue 1, but Monaco were his only suitors. Rabie Aribi also left earlier in the summer, for a meagre €11.5m (plus 20% profit) to Rangers. Melvin Camara’s gone out on loan, while both Mazek and Mazouch will be playing in different positions this year.
If not for those CM leavers, I wouldn’t be talking incoming transfers at all. Hurtado and Krasylnykov are Ted’s final signings (for the future), and Maurin and N’Goran are a pair of very promising French youngsters I brought in (back when I thought I might play for longer).
I don’t know if Ted would’ve had a couple of players in mind ready to sort out our midfield, but I really struggled to get any deals over the line. After losing out on more than a dozen players to other clubs or renewed contracts, I eventually managed to sign a pair of likely lads, though had to resort to a loan deal for the second.
Darijan Cvitkovic fulfils my need to have players “Dubbed the new…” in the squad, as apparently he’s the new Zvonimir Boban. Tedderz had had his eye on Kennedy Waziri for a few years, and I’ve achieved what he couldn’t, and brought him to Toulouse, albeit on loan.
The “new” players I really wanted to highlight however, are once again those that had previously been away from the club on loan.
José Gutiérrez has been on the books for three full years, since Ted picked him up on a free transfer from Peruvian amateur football. Three year-long loan spells, firstly at Paços de Ferreira, then Rennes, and finally Hertha Berlin, have seen him develop marvellously, adding three or four points to most of his central defender attributes.
I was in the market for a CB this summer, but the choices were limited to players that would only go for €100m+, players inferior to José, and Josko Gvardiol, who wanted staggering wages, so I’ve stuck with what we’ve got instead. It does mean I’ve got a non-EU problem again, as Gutiérrez can’t be registered until Ugarte’s paperwork to become a French national comes through.
Jarne Vandendriessche’s year in Germany went very well. He top scored for Mainz with 16 goals as they finished in an impressive fourth place. He’ll be vying with Hwan Solo and Nestorovic for a starting role this season.
After signing in Ted’s very last window, Wesley performed superbly for Juventus, winning the Coppa Italia, and breaking into the Brazilian national side, which finished third at the 2026 World Cup. It’s fair to say I rate him a lot.
Initially, I had planned to give Mazouch a go up top, with Cvitkovic in the centre of the park, meaning my first team squad numbers would’ve been 1-11. It didn’t take long to make a change though, with Mazouch a pale imitation of himself up front, and Cvitkovic looking like he needed more time to settle. So the first XI for most of the first half of the season was the below:
August to December ‘26:
We lost the stupid charity shield equivalent thing 2-1 to PSG. Fourth time in a row ffs.
Then, ridiculously, it took until our 17th Ligue match to concede a goal. Yet somehow, despite only conceding two goals, and only dropping two points, it looked like we were part of a three horse race for the title.
Actual madness.
The big story, for me at least, was that I finally beat PSG, at the seventeenth time of asking. We faced them in the second game of the season, and two goals from Nestorovic were enough to see us to a surprisingly comfortable 2-0 win. Our dropped points came two games later, in a 0-0 bore draw with Lyon.
All three of our strikers were in double digits for goals, and Wesley had been pulling the strings very nicely as the AP. The defensive unit was obviously immense, and though Ugarte’s paperwork took bloody ages, Gutiérrez was finally able to make his league debut on October 31st.
In the Champions League, we got a pretty favourable draw. I do so love to see Leverkusen come out of the hat. We’ve played them six times now, and have maintained our 100% record over them.
The highlight of the round was a smash and grab 2-0 win over Man Utd at Old Trafford. A Hwan Solo double separated the sides, but Arnau Tenas was the PotM, with an 8.5 rating, and a saved penalty to boot. He really does his best work against the big guns in Europe.
January Transfer Window:
More bloody midfield nonsense. You give a guy a chance, and he kicks you in the nadgers. Pierre Dufour, nothing special, but I gave him a shot at being our back-up BWM. Half a dozen starts later, in which he was merely fine, and he was demanding first team football and throwing his toys out of the pram. Begone.
Mazek had actually turned a bit of a corner since a fairly poor season last year. However he was constantly unhappy as I consistently refused to give him a €120k+ p/w pay rise. When RB Leipzig came calling, I let him go for the sake of the dressing room. He started precisely 100 games for Toulouse, which yielded us 44 goals and 32 assists from his three and a half year stay.
I’m very disappointed to lose Hugo García, but when Liverpool make a deadline day bid, there’s not a whole lot you can do (other than add a 30% next sale clause). FM didn’t give Hugo a lot of love in terms of average rating, but he really was an excellent BWM, and the number of times he broke up attacks and turned them into opportunities for us was really vital, he’ll be a big, big loss.
Fortunately, I’d started the search for a new BWM when Dufour left, so we did manage to replace García before the window closed.
Boubacar Kamara signing is a sure fire signal that Ted’s gone. No way he’d be signing a non-newgen at this stage of a save! It’s a lot of money, but he’s a very fine player, in his prime, and versatile. He’s also HG in France, which with our recent outgoings, is actually vital.
After four and a half seasons on loan, Arnau Tenas has finally become a Toulouse player proper. €15m is good value, and if he’d signed another new deal at Barcelona instead, I may have shouted at my computer like a total loon.
Alfaro and Santos came in as future prospects/non-EU headaches. Ryad Talbi arrived as an extremely short term fix. With a couple of injuries, and the Asian Cup in January, we were pretty short-handed up front.
Coupe de France:
We got a really ugly draw in the 9th round. No semi-pro opponents for us, instead, Marseille away.
We came through fairly comfortably in the end, and then very comfortably in the next couple of rounds.
But then PSG. The absolute bastards. We actually went to their place and were ever so slightly the better side. But we had a ‘mare in the first 45. Their first four shots on target all went in, as Arnau Tenas may as well have been a cardboard cut-out. A spirited second half performance wasn’t enough, and we’ve once again failed to retain the Coupe.
Ligue 1:
Following our early season draw with Lyon, we had been on a fifteen match winning tear. Our first Ligue game in January was PSG away. Once again we played alright against them, but they nicked it in the 86th minute to win 2-1.
Two games later we went to Lyon. The sides cancelled each other out in a poor match, but Lyon scored from their only shot on target to win 1-0. Suddenly, after the most comfortable half to a season I can recall, things were out of our hands.
We bounced back to win our next twelve, conceding only a solitary goal in an otherwise mundane 4-1 drubbing of Marseille. And yet, PSG continued to win too, and Lyon’s form wasn’t bad either.
We needed Lyon to beat PSG. They did. If we had won our remaining fixtures, the title would have been retained. But we’d drawn 3-3 with Monaco. For once, I couldn’t complain, they had tonked us. We were highly fortunate to escape with a point. We needed PSG to slip up again…
…they didn’t.
Nine goals conceded in an entire Ligue season. NINE. And it wasn’t good enough.
No f***ing kidding.
We played some lovely stuff this season, and our defending was superb, unaffected by the huge amount of squad rotating I did. Even the second goalkeeper started fourteen games. I’ve never seen three teams finish over 100 points before, and I need a sit down…
Champions League:
…but there’s one more competition to cover before I can rest.
After winning our group, I was hopeful we might get a fairly easy task in the first knockout round. Instead we got Blue Liverpool. This season, we went to the bridge first, and rather than capitulating, were an even match. Nestorovic came off of the bench to grab us a deserved 88th minute equaliser. Not our usual classy goal, as he got on the end of a Dieng big lump forward, but the way he coolly rounded the keeper was nice. In more “not our usual” news, the second leg happened.
We destroyed them, it was fantastic. The two boys up front combined for the goals, but the whole team played well, limiting Chelsea to a single attempt on target in the second leg. Special mention to Boubacar Kamara who assisted the first two goals.
The quarter final is never kind to us. As you might expect, by this stage most of the teams are quite decent. Next up was regular Liverpool. I once again traipsed to Anfield, fully expecting more of the same (see FMs 19, 20 and earlier in this save for all my pain on the subject). This year the team competed, in a fairly even contest. The only real difference in the stats was our far superior xG, as our chances had been the better. Though with 6 minutes to go, we were 2-1 down. That’s when Jarne Vandendriessche got his second of the game, to get us another 2-2 away result.
Couple of things.
That was in the 42nd minute of the second leg, still 0-0, we had been ever so slightly the better side, then they got the penalty decision. You know the one. Opposition going left to right, their player gets into the box at the top of the screen, your player sticks out a leg. It’s a total FM21 classic.
Thank goodness for Tenas and his Champions League penalty heroics! Time ticked slowly down in the second half. Much like the first leg, we were creating better openings, but there was no end product. As the minutes dragged by, the fear that Liverpool would Liverpool me once again grew and grew. Could we hold on, and just for once, win on away goals?
No, there would be no away goals win for us.
Champions League Best Goal Award winner, 2026/27.
A semi-final! An actual huge semi for Toulouse. Out of the hat came Juventus, a refreshing change to play a non-English side. This time, the first leg was at home. Our 41212 seemed to match up well against Juve’s 541, and we created some good chances. It took a scrappy goal from a corner in the 78th minute to make a breakthrough though, with the big Belgian, Jarne Vandendriessche knocking the ball home. A 1-0 lead to take to Turin and all their Zebras. Would it be enough?
The second leg was a very different affair, despite both teams fielding unchanged sides. Their 541 seemed to match up well against our 41212 this time, and they tore us to shreds early on down the right flank. Federico Chiesa was the danger man, and after a mere 20 minutes, he had played a part in three goals. We were 3-1 down (3-2 on aggregate), our goal from a Hwan Solo penalty. I made an uncharacteristic first half substitution, sacrificing our numerical advantage in central midfield, for more bodies on the flanks in a 424. It did its job defensively, but we still needed a goal.
Half time came and went, and the second half was an even contest. As it went on, my hopes for a reprieve fell, at the same time as my tactic became gradually more desperately gung ho. Juve brought on a fourth CB to play in midfield to see out the game, and before I knew it, it was injury time.
Champions League Best Goal, 3rd place, 2026/27.
Another wondergoal, this time to get us out of jail at the very last. We’re going to a Champions League final!
There we would face last seasons runners up, Bayern, who had triumphed over Man City in their semi. I was relieved. They are a good side, but City with Haaland would’ve scared me a lot more. The game would be played at the Stade de France, practically a home game! Although a quick scout showed they’d likely start with a Frenchman more in their team than us. The quick scout also increased my belief that we could win. Both sides were to be at full strength, each only missing a back-up full back for the big day.
My only question mark going in was, Busquets or Mazouch? I’d been going with the former in big games, as he’s far more solid, but Mazouch’s end of season form had been excellent, and I wasn’t afraid of the Germans. Mazouch got us here, and he got the nod.
The first real highlight, in the fifth minute, was a goal…
1-0, nerves settled. The first half was…easy. They had one, pretty unthreatening highlight, and Tenas wasn’t tested. In the 44th minute, Jarne Vandendriessche latched on to a poor back pass, and it was two. Half time in the Champions League final against Bayern, two nil up, piece of cake.
Immediately after this banger, it finally happened…Bayern had their first shot on target in the 60th minute. Tenas saved.
The 71st minute brought a fourth. Yes a fourth. Wonderfully, it was team captain Manuel Ugarte, getting on the end of a Wesley free kick to nod in at the back post. The final ten minutes, Bayern finally came out to play, hitting the woodwork twice, and forcing Tenas into a second save, but it was a lot too little, much too late.
Those two saves were weirdly enough to secure our goalkeeper the player of the match award. The truth is it could’ve gone to anyone on our side. From front to back, the team excelled and dominated for 80-85 minutes out of the 90.
Criminally underrating our midfield smh
A mad season all around. Hwan Solo won the race to be our top scorer, finishing the season with 29 goals. 11 of them came in the Champions League, which was enough for him to win the Golden Boot. Vandendriessche was just behind him on 27, while Nestorovic continues to be more of an early season threat, his second half not as good, meaning the three way battle to be our top striker never materialised. 18 goals for a third choice forward isn’t bad though.
It was Wesley who won the hearts of the fans though, getting the Fans’ Player of the Year award, equalling Ugarte’s assist record (with 17), and setting a record for most PotM awards in a season, with 9.
There’s no doubt we’ve put a great team together, and much of the credit should go to Ted for that. Some of his youthful acquisitions really came good, Gutiérrez and Hwan Solo standing out in particular. We didn’t have as much success with our own youth players, with only Dieng being a first team regular. Perhaps with a season more, promising forward Gökhan Soyudoğru may have joined him.
This season I saw some of the best football since the beta, and my best defence since Milan in FM19. Sure, we didn’t win the league, but it was a crazy year. A Champions League trophy though? I didn’t expect that.
I’m not going to do any sort of review of FM21, but it’s fair to say it hasn’t been my favourite edition. There are some things which need fixing, and I hope that’s a priority for FM22, rather than any more half-baked new features.
Still, I’ll inevitably return to blogging in the next edition. I think I’ll be leaving Europe for the first time, as some of UEFA’s upcoming competition changes make me want to vom. I’ve not got much further in my thinking than that.
Until then, you can still find me in my channel (#from_eleven_one) on FM Slack, where I’ll probably play with Toulouse for just a little bit longer…
You know it. Thanks for reading, stay safe x
