The release of FM26 has reignited my passion for playing Football Manager so I decided to start a new save in FM24. I will skip FM26 and maybe buy FM27 when they iron out all the issues.
For the new save in FM 24 I downloaded some editor files which add playable leagues in some European countries surrounding Croatia and started a game with top tier leagues from 18 countries plus Croatia down to 5th league.
You can join the game if you'd like but I did not set the game to continue automatically so you won't be able to progress if I'm not behind my PC to play and I don't know how often will that be. You can join and browse the game data if you'd like, I think I'll keep the PC running and online most of the time. Game name is "Balkan and others open server"
The team I have chosen is NK Tomislav-Radnik (Sveti Ivan Žabno). It's nearby IRL and it feels great playing a local team.
By the time I'm writing this I've already finished 2 seasons so I'm writing about the first 2 seasons in retrospective.
In the first 2 seasons we've had 32 new signings and I'll explain why:
1. We're an amateur team and it costs me nothing to sign a new player 2. Players like to join teams with strong squads so every signing that is above my squad average ability increases the number of players that are interested in joining us creating a snowball effect. 3. I'm roleplaying as a scumbag and I don't care if players complain about not playing enough
Te tactic I'm using is PERFECT STRANGERS 42112 WIWBA P107 EF which produced amazing results in the first season leading us to league win and a promotion to 4th league. You can find it here: Perfect Strangers
I'm also using AzureV3 set pieces which can be found here: AzureV3
FM Arena attribute testing section also helped a lot, I've been filtering all known players by pace and acceleration attributes and only signing the fastest ones. Generally wide players and strikers have around 2 attribute points higher pace and acceleration so it's good to also filter by position and lower the expectations for central defensive and midfield players.
After the promotion the board was asking me do I want the club to become semi-professional. I said yes of course and now in the second season we have to pay our players, not weekly wage but only per match appearance or per goal (bonuses).
Bookies are rating us as the 9th team despite just being promoted. They are giving us 34.0 coefficient to win the league (I don't do fractional odds but I guess this is 1:34)
In the new season we had only 28 signings because I've reached my "wage budget" even though I don't pay wages, only bonuses.
The players that don't play enough complain all the time but I always "decline" to talk to them.
I also don't do media talks. I consider it a waste of time. I don't want a season to last longer than the real world season.
In the January of 2025 I got an offer from Turkish top tier team but of course I declined. I'm more loyal to the club than I am to the players in this save.
I won't be signing so many players and treating them like they're disposable once I get to the top league, it's just a means to an end.
The second season went well with only 2 draws and 3 defeats. The players relaxed after we were crowned champions and we lost 3 of the last 7 games.
The board and the fans are only giving me a B- rating on my performance as a manager despite leading the team to an unexpected promotion.
Good news after the end of season 24/25, we are going to start charging for tickets. Finally some income. The club overall balance is red and it keeps going down ever since we became semi-professional and started paying bonuses to players.
That's it for now and I'll keep taking screenshots of interesting things in the game and posting here. We're going into a new season full of expectation. Next thing to do is sign some fast players with better "Current Ability".
After another 5 matches things are looking better. We are in 4th place but if we take a look at the league xG table we should be first. I expect to keep getting good results.
And looking at the table I noticed that Bjelovar who took our best player on a free transfer is actually in the second league, not in top tier like I said earlier. I think the names of the leagues are weird because I used one editor file for "Real league names" and another that adds 3rd, 4th and 5th league to Croatia.
Here are the league names in Croatia in my save:
The 4th league is divided into 5 subleagues and the 5th league into 21 subleagues (21 is the number of counties in Croatia if county is a good translation for "Županija"
There are playoffs for promotion into a higher league but I won't go into too much detail now.
We're in January 2026, 21 out of 30 league matches played.
In October last year the board and the fans have finally decided that it is no longer too early to judge my impact on club vision.
Players complain all the time but I never talk to them, I always click "Decline" to have a conversation and most of the time they let it go after a while. I didn't notice any negative impact of ignoring them all the time. We're getting good results on the pitch and that is what matters in football.
I also don't talk to media at all. There is nothing to gain by all those press conferences and repetitive questions and answers. Correct me if I'm wrong, if there is some benefit to it.
So I mentioned good results; most of the time we are at the top of the table except for two short dips to second place.
Both times we lost the "6 point match" against the 2nd place team and swapped positions with them.
Here is the current league table:
This is also our first year participating in the Cup and we're in the semi-final. We knocked out two teams from the top division. Slaven Belupo in the First round and Šibenik in the quarter-final.
Our squad consists of 72 players, most of them are not receiving weekly salary but in the current transfer window some players that I have signed have asked for a weekly wage. We're progressing.
Here is what is going on in the leagues that are simulated:
WARNING: I'm playing through team viewer on a potato laptop with my game running on my home PC so screenshots are bad.
Some bad results near the end of the season led us to drop to 3rd position but we managed to get back to 2nd and gain promotion through playoffs. We beat "Hrvace" 5-0 at home in the first leg of the promotion/relegation playoffs and lost 2-6 away in the second leg for a total result of 7-6 result for us.
We lost 5-2 in the semi-final of the cup against Rijeka, arguably one of the top 3-4 teams in Croatian top-tier.
And on to the next season 26/27. I wasn't paying attention to match selection rules which say that the team must have no more than 3 non-EU players in the first 11 and must have at least 3 U21 players in the first 11. I signed a bunch of over 21 non-EU players and spent my wage budget, even went over wage budget and as a result I couldn't select all of my good players in the first 11 and even had to select some youth players from our terrible youth academy every match.
Despite all that we managed to avoid relegation, finished 7th out of 12.
According to xPTS we should have done better but it is what it is. We need to start converting our chances in front of goal.
We managed to break a few records in Prva Hrvatska Liga:
1. Worst discipline 102 yellow cards and 5 red cards 2. Most goals scored: 74 in 33 matches 3. Highest scoring match: 7-3 win against Dugopolje away.
In the cup we got trough the preliminary round but in the first round we were drawn against the best club in Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb. We managed not to embarrass ourselves and only lost 2-0 against Dinamo.
There have been rumors of a takeover since the first season and this season it finally happened. Fans trust collected 22K euro and bought the club which was 170K in debt.
They didn't remove me from my position as manager. I am a club Icon already because of three promotions.
The new chairman already announced plans to build a new stadium and is looking for investors.
When I took over the club was playing at a 500 people capacity stadium (non-seated) and the Prva Hrvatska Liga rules demand a stadium with at least 1000 seats so the previous chairman rented a stadium in Bjelovar which is 20Km away from the club hometown Sveti Ivan Žabno.
Now we prepare for a new season(27/28). We need to sign some good U21 players for the first team and avoid non-EU players. Our wage budget got increased from 6.5K Euro to 9K Euro and I released some players who were not good enough on a free transfer to free up some wage budget.
We signed some good U21 EU national players and some older EU national players and we're doing great, top of the table after the first match after the winter break.
During the winter transfer window we recieved a lot of free transer offers for our players but I rejected most of them, only accepting offers for those I really don't need. Playrers are protesting and handing in transfer request but I also reject the transfer requests. They signed a contract and now they want me to just cancel the contract immediately without compensation. I don't think so! After rejecting a lot of free transfer offers we recived 2 paying offers which the board accepted on my behalf because we are in a bad position financially. The clubs offered to loan back the players until the end of the season for free, no salary at all. That is a win-win. Some of my wage budget got freed up and I get to use the players until the end of the season.
We are training Team bonding every week to help player happiness and team cohesion and squad dynamics look ok.
If we gain promotion our wage budget will be increased and we will sign better players anyway.
The board and the fans are giving me an A+ performance review which confirms that if I get good results on the pitch I can get away with anything.
A dip in form after the winter break, 2 draws and 2 defeats, lead us to drop to 3rd but we switched to a different tactic called "Speed King" and our performances improved significantly getting us back to the top. You can find this tactic here: Speed King
We're about to play the final match of the league. We need a win to guarantee the title. 2nd placed team is 3 points behind so a draw would be enough to make sure they are not first. The 3rd placed team is 5 points behind but they have two matches to play so if we draw they could have the same number of points as us if they win both of their matches. The problem is that we lost 2 matches against them this season and won only one (teams play each other 3 times during a season in this league, 12 teams and 33 matches). So if we draw the 3rd placed team can overtake us in the title race, that's why a draw is not enough.
We've also done brilliantly in the cup (with the help of a good draw) and we are in the final. Each stage is a single game all the way until the final which is a 2 match (home and away) tie. We lost the first match away against Dinamo Zagreb 3:2. Dinamo are the strongest team in Croatia so it's an amazing result for a second league team. With two away goals scored and only one goal the difference between us I think with some luck we can win the cup.
In the first match of the final we went back to "Perfect Strangers" tactic and we will also play that tactic in the last match of the league and then try to suprise Dinamo in the second match of the final with the "Speed King" tactic.
Well we didn't manage to suprise Dinamo in the cup match. We lost 3:1 but it was a great run and I'm proud of my team. I gave them a day off as a reward
We set the gate receipts record in that match.
We won the final league match so the results of other teams were irrelevant to us. I forgot to mention in the previous post that only the top team gets promoted and the second team gets nothing, no promotion playoff, not even a consolation award. I feel sorry for Sesvete and Rudeš, they gave us a good fight.
Plans for the stadium are complete. It will be a 12778 capacity all-seater and cost us close to 3 Million Euro.
Meanwhile we'll play in a rented stadium in Koprivnica.
Chairman found a sponsor for 350K, and managed to secure grants for 750K. The club took a 2.4M for the rest of the stadium cost and to cover the expenses we accumulated during this season. We'll get all that back if we only focus on good results on the pitch. I'll be looking for undervalued players who don't expect too high wages and cheap high potential youngsters who are good enough to play a role in the first team in less important matches. There will be a lot of transfers both in and out once we establish ourselves in the SuperSport HNL.
Before we get into the new season I have to say I couldn't help noticing this:
Spurs won the Champions League! This reminds me that after all this is only a game and unrealistic things can happen here.
I browsed a little and found out that I'm the most active manager in the world when it comes to number of transfers.
So a new season is approaching and there are some new rules which we have to adhere to. 10 (ten) players in the match squad must be trained by a club in Croatia! Only 3 (three) non-EU players on the pitch in our team at the same time! And 3 U-21 players have to be in our team on the pitch in the first half of the game.
I feel restricted by this but sometimes restrictions can make the game more interesting. The U21 player rule doesn't bother me because, like I said, I plan to sign youngsters and develop them and sell them once I receive a good offer.
During the transfer window I signed a number of players trained by a club in Croatia, some U21 and some older, and a non-EU goalkeeper. Some players in my squad finally have some transfer value. So far they all had 0 value.
Season preview gave us 701.0 coefficient to win the league.
The season did not get off to a good start; we lost the first three matches. I was expecting at least a draw in the first match against Šibenik because they are one of the weaker teams in the league but we lost. After that we had a match against Hajduk (expected to finish 2nd) and Dinamo (expected to finish 1st) and we lost both which was not suprising. But then we had three easier matches and we won all three and now we find ourselves in the fifth place.
I look forward to our first season in the top Croatian league.
I added a password on the online game because some guy logged in and kept reseting the coutdown timer so the game couldn't continue. If anyone wants to join send me a message here and I'll send you the password. I can't play according to a fixed schedule because I have different real life schedule every day.
We have broken a record unexpectedly. Worst discipline record in October! What other teams haven't done in a whole season we did in a couple of months!
We are in great form at the moment, 4 wins in the last 4 matches. Since the beginning of the season we have won every single match against bottom four teams in the table, not a single slip, home or away, and we managed to cause an upset against Dinamo at home (3-3) and against Osijek at home (won 3:2) I hope the good form continues! Who knows, with some luck we could finish fourth and qualify for European Conference League.
The highlight of the season so far is the 8:1 victory against Lokomotiva.
We finished the season in 6th place with some points between us and the 7th place team. Not bad considering our budget and the fact that this is our first season in top Croatian top flight. Rijeka beat us to 5th place but it was a close fight most of the season.
At the end of the season the table looks divided in three parts:
1. European places teams (1-4) 2. Mid table (5 and 6) 3. Relegation candidates (7-10)
We are a mid table team and I hope we'll fight for European places next season.
Our wage budget got increased and we got some transfer budget but I'll just put it all into wage budget and keep signing free agents or players with less than 6 months on their contracts. This is what our budget looks like before and after adjustment:
And here are the signings for the next season:
I've been away for a while but I'll keep this game going when I can.
Just to give you an insight into the strength of our squad I took a screenshot of our best player according to assistant report star rating.
In global terms we are still very weak but our wage budget is increasing every year a little. We might have to reduce the number of players in our squad, offload some that are not playing in the first team, and focus on getting fewer but better players.
This season started as a total opposite of the last season. Last season we were winning matches we were expected to win and losing those we were expected to lose. Now we are getting bad results against weaker teams and winning against Dinamo and Hajduk. We knocked both of those teams down from the top spot when we defeated them and gave Varaždin the chance to claim it at least for now.
We had a team meeting which went well, with positive reaction from almost all of the players and I hope our form improves.
We finished the season 6th again which is not bad considering we were predicted to finish last in the season preview.
This is how we lined up
We are still struggling with finances.
Our wage budget only got very slightly increased so I had to release some players with 2 star and below ability and potential in order to bring some new players in.
Some countries for which I have leagues running in the background have joined the EU in the game and this helps us find players who comply with the league match rules. Only three non-EU players are allowed in the first 11.
This is our squad for the new season. I'm hoping to get some good transfer offer(s) in order to improve our finances and invest towards wage budget.
Our new stadium construction is completed and it's great. We broke our record for attendance and gate receipts income.
The new season is off and we've had a great start. Three wins and 2 draws in the first 5 matches. If we keep this up we might finally book a place in one of the European competitions. Even 4th place for Conference League would be nice.
It's February 2031. and we are going above all expectations. We held the first place for a long time but a defeat against Osijek led us to drop to 3rd. Then we managed to win against Hajduk and Rijeka and got up to 2nd. 13 More matches to go and anything is possible.
Our centre backs have been the weakest link in our squad throughout the season. No matter which 2 I select out of our 3 best CBs they all have bad partnerships between them.
So I signed a 30 year old Patrick Stanić who seems like a great addition to our squad and he's even home grown in Croatia. I have high hopes for him to bring stability in defence. In his debut against Rijeka he had a 6.60 rating but we only conceded one goal in an away match against a tough opponent.
In previous saves I mostly played English league but now I'm starting to like my home league with 10 clubs because it helps build relationships and competitive rivalries between clubs. With 4 matches against every club in the League there are a lot of those so called "six-pointers" which we all love.
We are three points behind Dinamo and there are 5 matches to go. We still have a chance for the title but our last match is an away match against Dinamo so it's going to be tough. We could also very easily drop to 4th. Our next match at home against Rijeka is crucial.
We are in the cup final and the great news is that Lokomotiva managed to knock out Dinamo in the semi-final. I think we have a much better chance to win it against them. The final is a 2 match, home and away tie.
So there are two trophies up for grabs. It's gonna be an exciting season end.
After all that excitement we ended up without any silverware.
Our key defensive player, Stanić, got injured at a key moment in the season and just when he recovered before the final match of the cup he quickly got repeated the same injury.
We had some luck with the results of other teams in the final match. We lost to Dinamo 5-1 but Hajduk didn't win against Rijeka. That was a result which got us a 2nd place in the league and an Europa League qualification.
In the cup both matches of the final ended 3-3 and we lost on penalties.
I made a mistake in my last post. We didn't get an Europa League place because the cup winner (Lokomotiva) got it. Even though 2nd place in the League usually qualifies a team for Europa League, Cup winner has priority. 2nd and 3rd place qualified for conference League this season, 4th got nothing and Lokomotiva got an Europa League Place as the 9th placed team in the league because they won the cup. I believe that's good overall because it gives the cup more importance.
Croatian league also dropped in European rankings
I'll refrain from posting so often in the future, I just wanted to correct a mistake.
The new season started. We signed some Croatian players because of the league rules but we also managed to snatch one good danish youngster.
In the league we are getting draw after draw. After 10 matches we got 7 draws. I don't know what's the cause of this.
In conference league we're doing great and that got us out of our debt because we got 2.9M Euro for getting to the group stage. We had luck with the draw as we didn't get any really tough opponent in the qualifying stages. League stage started with a home match against Gyirmot from Hungary and we won 4-0.
I just hope we manage to qualify again for a european competition and in the conference league we'll take it one match at a time and see where that gets us.
We got knocked out of Croatian cup early, in the second round, by Osijek. In the league we are sitting in the 3rd place with 6 points between us and 4th place Osijek.
Conference league was excellent, we were 10th in the league phase table. Almost got through directly, without playoffs. We just needed better goal difference or one more point.
But anyway, we went to playoffs, got drawn against Sarajevo and knocked them out. Once I saw who was our next opponent I had a feeling that the fairytale was over. And it was. Napoli knocked us out. But it was a terrific run for us.
Now we are focusing solely on the league.
During the winter transfer window we sold our star youngster for a record transfer income for us. We need to boost our wage budget because sponsorship money is low and there is no reward for league position at the end of the season. European conference league did wonders for our finances this season through both reward money and gate receipts.
Hello everyone!
The release of FM26 has reignited my passion for playing Football Manager so I decided to start a new save in FM24. I will skip FM26 and maybe buy FM27 when they iron out all the issues.
For the new save in FM 24 I downloaded some editor files which add playable leagues in some European countries surrounding Croatia and started a game with top tier leagues from 18 countries plus Croatia down to 5th league.
You can join the game if you'd like but I did not set the game to continue automatically so you won't be able to progress if I'm not behind my PC to play and I don't know how often will that be. You can join and browse the game data if you'd like, I think I'll keep the PC running and online most of the time. Game name is "Balkan and others open server"
The team I have chosen is NK Tomislav-Radnik (Sveti Ivan Žabno). It's nearby IRL and it feels great playing a local team.
By the time I'm writing this I've already finished 2 seasons so I'm writing about the first 2 seasons in retrospective.
In the first 2 seasons we've had 32 new signings and I'll explain why:
1. We're an amateur team and it costs me nothing to sign a new player
2. Players like to join teams with strong squads so every signing that is above my squad average ability increases the number of players that are interested in joining us creating a snowball effect.
3. I'm roleplaying as a scumbag and I don't care if players complain about not playing enough
Te tactic I'm using is PERFECT STRANGERS 42112 WIWBA P107 EF which produced amazing results in the first season leading us to league win and a promotion to 4th league. You can find it here: Perfect Strangers
I'm also using AzureV3 set pieces which can be found here: AzureV3
FM Arena attribute testing section also helped a lot, I've been filtering all known players by pace and acceleration attributes and only signing the fastest ones.
Generally wide players and strikers have around 2 attribute points higher pace and acceleration so it's good to also filter by position and lower the expectations for central defensive and midfield players.
After the promotion the board was asking me do I want the club to become semi-professional. I said yes of course and now in the second season we have to pay our players, not weekly wage but only per match appearance or per goal (bonuses).
Bookies are rating us as the 9th team despite just being promoted. They are giving us 34.0 coefficient to win the league (I don't do fractional odds but I guess this is 1:34)
In the new season we had only 28 signings because I've reached my "wage budget" even though I don't pay wages, only bonuses.
The players that don't play enough complain all the time but I always "decline" to talk to them.
I also don't do media talks. I consider it a waste of time. I don't want a season to last longer than the real world season.
In the January of 2025 I got an offer from Turkish top tier team but of course I declined.
I'm more loyal to the club than I am to the players in this save.
I won't be signing so many players and treating them like they're disposable once I get to the top league, it's just a means to an end.
The second season went well with only 2 draws and 3 defeats. The players relaxed after we were crowned champions and we lost 3 of the last 7 games.
The board and the fans are only giving me a B- rating on my performance as a manager despite leading the team to an unexpected promotion.
Good news after the end of season 24/25, we are going to start charging for tickets. Finally some income. The club overall balance is red and it keeps going down ever since we became semi-professional and started paying bonuses to players.
That's it for now and I'll keep taking screenshots of interesting things in the game and posting here. We're going into a new season full of expectation. Next thing to do is sign some fast players with better "Current Ability".
Season preview placed us in 13th place with coefficient 101.0 to win the legaue. I think we'll do better than 13th place.
Our best player left for Bjelovar who are newly promoted to top tier.
But there are some good news, the league signed a new TV deal! Oh what will I do with all the money?
This is how we lined up for the first match. I know you don't know any of the players, it's Croatian third league.
We played well, had higher xG but lost anyway.
Enough for today, we'll learn from this and come back stronger.
After another 5 matches things are looking better. We are in 4th place but if we take a look at the league xG table we should be first. I expect to keep getting good results.
And looking at the table I noticed that Bjelovar who took our best player on a free transfer is actually in the second league, not in top tier like I said earlier. I think the names of the leagues are weird because I used one editor file for "Real league names" and another that adds 3rd, 4th and 5th league to Croatia.
Here are the league names in Croatia in my save:
The 4th league is divided into 5 subleagues and the 5th league into 21 subleagues (21 is the number of counties in Croatia if county is a good translation for "Županija"
There are playoffs for promotion into a higher league but I won't go into too much detail now.
We're in January 2026, 21 out of 30 league matches played.
In October last year the board and the fans have finally decided that it is no longer too early to judge my impact on club vision.
Players complain all the time but I never talk to them, I always click "Decline" to have a conversation and most of the time they let it go after a while. I didn't notice any negative impact of ignoring them all the time. We're getting good results on the pitch and that is what matters in football.
I also don't talk to media at all. There is nothing to gain by all those press conferences and repetitive questions and answers. Correct me if I'm wrong, if there is some benefit to it.
So I mentioned good results; most of the time we are at the top of the table except for two short dips to second place.
Both times we lost the "6 point match" against the 2nd place team and swapped positions with them.
Here is the current league table:
This is also our first year participating in the Cup and we're in the semi-final. We knocked out two teams from the top division. Slaven Belupo in the First round and Šibenik in the quarter-final.
Our squad consists of 72 players, most of them are not receiving weekly salary but in the current transfer window some players that I have signed have asked for a weekly wage. We're progressing.
Here is what is going on in the leagues that are simulated:
BTW is there a limit on uploads here?
WARNING: I'm playing through team viewer on a potato laptop with my game running on my home PC so screenshots are bad.
Some bad results near the end of the season led us to drop to 3rd position but we managed to get back to 2nd and gain promotion through playoffs.
We beat "Hrvace" 5-0 at home in the first leg of the promotion/relegation playoffs and lost 2-6 away in the second leg for a total result of 7-6 result for us.
We lost 5-2 in the semi-final of the cup against Rijeka, arguably one of the top 3-4 teams in Croatian top-tier.
And on to the next season 26/27. I wasn't paying attention to match selection rules which say that the team must have no more than 3 non-EU players in the first 11 and must have at least 3 U21 players in the first 11. I signed a bunch of over 21 non-EU players and spent my wage budget, even went over wage budget and as a result I couldn't select all of my good players in the first 11 and even had to select some youth players from our terrible youth academy every match.
Despite all that we managed to avoid relegation, finished 7th out of 12.
According to xPTS we should have done better but it is what it is. We need to start converting our chances in front of goal.
We managed to break a few records in Prva Hrvatska Liga:
1. Worst discipline 102 yellow cards and 5 red cards
2. Most goals scored: 74 in 33 matches
3. Highest scoring match: 7-3 win against Dugopolje away.
In the cup we got trough the preliminary round but in the first round we were drawn against the best club in Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb. We managed not to embarrass ourselves and only lost 2-0 against Dinamo.
There have been rumors of a takeover since the first season and this season it finally happened. Fans trust collected 22K euro and bought the club which was 170K in debt.
They didn't remove me from my position as manager. I am a club Icon already because of three promotions.
The new chairman already announced plans to build a new stadium and is looking for investors.
When I took over the club was playing at a 500 people capacity stadium (non-seated) and the Prva Hrvatska Liga rules demand a stadium with at least 1000 seats so the previous chairman rented a stadium in Bjelovar which is 20Km away from the club hometown Sveti Ivan Žabno.
Now we prepare for a new season(27/28). We need to sign some good U21 players for the first team and avoid non-EU players. Our wage budget got increased from 6.5K Euro to 9K Euro and I released some players who were not good enough on a free transfer to free up some wage budget.
We signed some good U21 EU national players and some older EU national players and we're doing great, top of the table after the first match after the winter break.
During the winter transfer window we recieved a lot of free transer offers for our players but I rejected most of them, only accepting offers for those I really don't need.
Playrers are protesting and handing in transfer request but I also reject the transfer requests.
They signed a contract and now they want me to just cancel the contract immediately without compensation. I don't think so!
After rejecting a lot of free transfer offers we recived 2 paying offers which the board accepted on my behalf because we are in a bad position financially.
The clubs offered to loan back the players until the end of the season for free, no salary at all. That is a win-win. Some of my wage budget got freed up and I get to use the players until the end of the season.
We are training Team bonding every week to help player happiness and team cohesion and squad dynamics look ok.
If we gain promotion our wage budget will be increased and we will sign better players anyway.
The board and the fans are giving me an A+ performance review which confirms that if I get good results on the pitch I can get away with anything.
A dip in form after the winter break, 2 draws and 2 defeats, lead us to drop to 3rd but we switched to a different tactic called "Speed King" and our performances improved significantly getting us back to the top.
You can find this tactic here: Speed King
We're about to play the final match of the league. We need a win to guarantee the title. 2nd placed team is 3 points behind so a draw would be enough to make sure they are not first. The 3rd placed team is 5 points behind but they have two matches to play so if we draw they could have the same number of points as us if they win both of their matches. The problem is that we lost 2 matches against them this season and won only one (teams play each other 3 times during a season in this league, 12 teams and 33 matches). So if we draw the 3rd placed team can overtake us in the title race, that's why a draw is not enough.
We've also done brilliantly in the cup (with the help of a good draw) and we are in the final. Each stage is a single game all the way until the final which is a 2 match (home and away) tie.
We lost the first match away against Dinamo Zagreb 3:2. Dinamo are the strongest team in Croatia so it's an amazing result for a second league team. With two away goals scored and only one goal the difference between us I think with some luck we can win the cup.
In the first match of the final we went back to "Perfect Strangers" tactic and we will also play that tactic in the last match of the league and then try to suprise Dinamo in the second match of the final with the "Speed King" tactic.
Well we didn't manage to suprise Dinamo in the cup match. We lost 3:1 but it was a great run and I'm proud of my team. I gave them a day off as a reward
We set the gate receipts record in that match.
We won the final league match so the results of other teams were irrelevant to us. I forgot to mention in the previous post that only the top team gets promoted and the second team gets nothing, no promotion playoff, not even a consolation award. I feel sorry for Sesvete and Rudeš, they gave us a good fight.
Plans for the stadium are complete. It will be a 12778 capacity all-seater and cost us close to 3 Million Euro.
Meanwhile we'll play in a rented stadium in Koprivnica.
Chairman found a sponsor for 350K, and managed to secure grants for 750K. The club took a 2.4M for the rest of the stadium cost and to cover the expenses we accumulated during this season. We'll get all that back if we only focus on good results on the pitch.
I'll be looking for undervalued players who don't expect too high wages and cheap high potential youngsters who are good enough to play a role in the first team in less important matches.
There will be a lot of transfers both in and out once we establish ourselves in the SuperSport HNL.
Before we get into the new season I have to say I couldn't help noticing this:
Spurs won the Champions League! This reminds me that after all this is only a game and unrealistic things can happen here.
I browsed a little and found out that I'm the most active manager in the world when it comes to number of transfers.
So a new season is approaching and there are some new rules which we have to adhere to.
10 (ten) players in the match squad must be trained by a club in Croatia!
Only 3 (three) non-EU players on the pitch in our team at the same time!
And 3 U-21 players have to be in our team on the pitch in the first half of the game.
I feel restricted by this but sometimes restrictions can make the game more interesting. The U21 player rule doesn't bother me because, like I said, I plan to sign youngsters and develop them and sell them once I receive a good offer.
During the transfer window I signed a number of players trained by a club in Croatia, some U21 and some older, and a non-EU goalkeeper.
Some players in my squad finally have some transfer value. So far they all had 0 value.
Season preview gave us 701.0 coefficient to win the league.
The season did not get off to a good start; we lost the first three matches.
I was expecting at least a draw in the first match against Šibenik because they are one of the weaker teams in the league but we lost.
After that we had a match against Hajduk (expected to finish 2nd) and Dinamo (expected to finish 1st) and we lost both which was not suprising.
But then we had three easier matches and we won all three and now we find ourselves in the fifth place.
I look forward to our first season in the top Croatian league.
I added a password on the online game because some guy logged in and kept reseting the coutdown timer so the game couldn't continue.
If anyone wants to join send me a message here and I'll send you the password.
I can't play according to a fixed schedule because I have different real life schedule every day.
We have broken a record unexpectedly. Worst discipline record in October!
What other teams haven't done in a whole season we did in a couple of months!
We are in great form at the moment, 4 wins in the last 4 matches.
Since the beginning of the season we have won every single match against bottom four teams in the table, not a single slip, home or away, and we managed to cause an upset against Dinamo at home (3-3) and against Osijek at home (won 3:2) I hope the good form continues! Who knows, with some luck we could finish fourth and qualify for European Conference League.
The highlight of the season so far is the 8:1 victory against Lokomotiva.
We finished the season in 6th place with some points between us and the 7th place team. Not bad considering our budget and the fact that this is our first season in top Croatian top flight.
Rijeka beat us to 5th place but it was a close fight most of the season.
At the end of the season the table looks divided in three parts:
1. European places teams (1-4)
2. Mid table (5 and 6)
3. Relegation candidates (7-10)
We are a mid table team and I hope we'll fight for European places next season.
Our wage budget got increased and we got some transfer budget but I'll just put it all into wage budget and keep signing free agents or players with less than 6 months on their contracts.
This is what our budget looks like before and after adjustment:
And here are the signings for the next season:
I've been away for a while but I'll keep this game going when I can.
Just to give you an insight into the strength of our squad I took a screenshot of our best player according to assistant report star rating.
In global terms we are still very weak but our wage budget is increasing every year a little. We might have to reduce the number of players in our squad, offload some that are not playing in the first team, and focus on getting fewer but better players.
This season started as a total opposite of the last season. Last season we were winning matches we were expected to win and losing those we were expected to lose. Now we are getting bad results against weaker teams and winning against Dinamo and Hajduk. We knocked both of those teams down from the top spot when we defeated them and gave Varaždin the chance to claim it at least for now.
We had a team meeting which went well, with positive reaction from almost all of the players and I hope our form improves.
We finished the season 6th again which is not bad considering we were predicted to finish last in the season preview.
This is how we lined up
We are still struggling with finances.
Our wage budget only got very slightly increased so I had to release some players with 2 star and below ability and potential in order to bring some new players in.
Some countries for which I have leagues running in the background have joined the EU in the game and this helps us find players who comply with the league match rules.
Only three non-EU players are allowed in the first 11.
This is our squad for the new season. I'm hoping to get some good transfer offer(s) in order to improve our finances and invest towards wage budget.
Our new stadium construction is completed and it's great. We broke our record for attendance and gate receipts income.
The new season is off and we've had a great start. Three wins and 2 draws in the first 5 matches. If we keep this up we might finally book a place in one of the European competitions. Even 4th place for Conference League would be nice.
It's February 2031. and we are going above all expectations. We held the first place for a long time but a defeat against Osijek led us to drop to 3rd. Then we managed to win against Hajduk and Rijeka and got up to 2nd. 13 More matches to go and anything is possible.
Our centre backs have been the weakest link in our squad throughout the season.
No matter which 2 I select out of our 3 best CBs they all have bad partnerships between them.
So I signed a 30 year old Patrick Stanić who seems like a great addition to our squad and he's even home grown in Croatia. I have high hopes for him to bring stability in defence. In his debut against Rijeka he had a 6.60 rating but we only conceded one goal in an away match against a tough opponent.
In previous saves I mostly played English league but now I'm starting to like my home league with 10 clubs because it helps build relationships and competitive rivalries between clubs. With 4 matches against every club in the League there are a lot of those so called "six-pointers" which we all love.
We are three points behind Dinamo and there are 5 matches to go.
We still have a chance for the title but our last match is an away match against Dinamo so it's going to be tough.
We could also very easily drop to 4th.
Our next match at home against Rijeka is crucial.
We are in the cup final and the great news is that Lokomotiva managed to knock out Dinamo in the semi-final. I think we have a much better chance to win it against them. The final is a 2 match, home and away tie.
So there are two trophies up for grabs. It's gonna be an exciting season end.
After all that excitement we ended up without any silverware.
Our key defensive player, Stanić, got injured at a key moment in the season and just when he recovered before the final match of the cup he quickly got repeated the same injury.
We had some luck with the results of other teams in the final match. We lost to Dinamo 5-1 but Hajduk didn't win against Rijeka. That was a result which got us a 2nd place in the league and an Europa League qualification.
In the cup both matches of the final ended 3-3 and we lost on penalties.
It seems our chairman is looking to step aside.
I made a mistake in my last post. We didn't get an Europa League place because the cup winner (Lokomotiva) got it. Even though 2nd place in the League usually qualifies a team for Europa League, Cup winner has priority. 2nd and 3rd place qualified for conference League this season, 4th got nothing and Lokomotiva got an Europa League Place as the 9th placed team in the league because they won the cup.
I believe that's good overall because it gives the cup more importance.
Croatian league also dropped in European rankings
I'll refrain from posting so often in the future, I just wanted to correct a mistake.
The new season started. We signed some Croatian players because of the league rules but we also managed to snatch one good danish youngster.
In the league we are getting draw after draw. After 10 matches we got 7 draws. I don't know what's the cause of this.
In conference league we're doing great and that got us out of our debt because we got 2.9M Euro for getting to the group stage. We had luck with the draw as we didn't get any really tough opponent in the qualifying stages.
League stage started with a home match against Gyirmot from Hungary and we won 4-0.
I just hope we manage to qualify again for a european competition and in the conference league we'll take it one match at a time and see where that gets us.
We got knocked out of Croatian cup early, in the second round, by Osijek.
In the league we are sitting in the 3rd place with 6 points between us and 4th place Osijek.
Conference league was excellent, we were 10th in the league phase table. Almost got through directly, without playoffs. We just needed better goal difference or one more point.
But anyway, we went to playoffs, got drawn against Sarajevo and knocked them out.
Once I saw who was our next opponent I had a feeling that the fairytale was over.
And it was. Napoli knocked us out. But it was a terrific run for us.
Now we are focusing solely on the league.
During the winter transfer window we sold our star youngster for a record transfer income for us. We need to boost our wage budget because sponsorship money is low and there is no reward for league position at the end of the season. European conference league did wonders for our finances this season through both reward money and gate receipts.