PC Football Manager 2020

[Dav]

Just reached 20 seasons at a club for the first time playing FM, Adelaide United in FM15. As mentioned in above post, all players born in South Australia since about 2016 or so. The last real players I had were Josh Barresi and Jordan O'Doherty so now I am 100% home grown, with only one player not come through my own youth intake (he came from Adelaide City).

In my 20 seasons I have won the following silverware for the club:

- 3x Asian Champions League
- 11x A-League Champions
- 11x A-League Premiers
- 5x FFA Cup

Had some amazing careers come and go. One of the players from my very first youth intake is getting close to retiring at age 35 although he is a goalkeeper so probably has a couple more years in him yet. Has a phenomenal 613 appearances for the club. Genuinely love some of these players, I won't forget their names in a while.

 

[Dav]

Some of the more impressive careers I've witnessed:

James Troisi:

Still probably the greatest ever AUFC player. Won 4 Johnny Warren Medals (League B&F) and was my Fans Player of the Year six times plus even won Asian Footballer of the Year, my only player to do so. Played predominantly as a left midfielder and was quite clearly the best player in the league for a good 7 or 8 seasons as you can see. Put up insane numbers.

John Hoffman:

The aforementioned goalkeeper, has over 400 league appearances and 600 in total for the club over 17 years, all records. With Galekovic canned for being a Victorian, I thrust him into action at a young age but he eventually hit his straps and was even Mat Ryan's successor for the Socceroos. Has won the A-League Goalkeeper of the Year an astonishing 12 times.

Ben Deeley:


This kid was an instant classic as you can see from his debut season. He's been a consistently brilliant performer for so many years and has developed the versatility to fill in all over the pitch although his preferred position is up top. He's also our all-time top goalscorer with 223 in 448 games. Had what I consider the best individual season of any player in this save in 2029/30 when he won the League B&F, the Golden Boot and by far and away had the most assists in the league too. Absolute creative force. Also been captain since the age of 23 and is by far the longest serving.

Brad Inman:

Inman, along with Troisi and Craig Goodwin, carried this club for so many years while I built my youth facilities up enough for me to replace them. An incredibly reliable central midfielder who could pinch hit on either wing, a great creative force and just a linchpin. Won 3 League B&Fs, there was a stretch where him and Troisi won 7 out of the 8 available.

 

[palmomagpie]

Started playing FM again (2019 though) to have on my second screen whilst wfh. Tried creating Luke Hodge to manage for me. This is the stuff of nightmares:

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

Started playing FM again (2019 though) to have on my second screen whilst wfh. Tried creating Luke Hodge to manage for me. This is the stuff of nightmares:

View attachment 857453

Is that the manager, or the guy who sold one of your second team players a second hand Vauxhall Shite with dodgy brakes?

 

[nobbyiscool]

I'm considering taking the plunge on FM 2020 to help pass the shut down.

I haven't played a game on my computer since getting my first console 20 years ago, so that's quite different for me. WTF is Steam? Why can't I just download the game and play it?

Is the process that I sign up to Steam for free, I buy FM through Steam, and then that's how I access the game?

What's the supposed benefit to this?

 

[Cruyff14]

Yes, Steam is free, you buy FM through Steam and download it.

 

[drd23]

What's the supposed benefit to this?

Makes using mods a hell of a lot easier for one. Another is that you buy the game to your account and can save to their cloud servers, so it is easier to have and play the game over multiple computers

In the case of FM you can download tactics, shortlists, search filters etc much easier than you used to

 

[kangle4]

This game is now on Gamepass on PC.

 

[Dav]

Probably my best comeback on any Football Manager game ever, have no clue how I pulled it off.

 

[LeverPuller]

Win League 2 as Port Vale in my first year, 100pts and a GD in the 50s.

My reward is all my staff retiring and takeover bid at the immediate start of the summer transfer window and one of the potential new owners already publicly offering to sack me.

 

[Cruyff14]

On FM19 have just hit 29/30.

Went a bit berserk in the transfer window. Spent 316m - all on regens as that's who the best players are now - and sold only 50m worth. Moved Kimpembe on to City at 33 for 45m who was great in his 9 years for me, and Torreira off to Atletico for 35m - also 33 but it was time for him to go. Bellerin retired.

Imaz was the most expensive of this bunch - 102m with 20m in add ons. Bought him from Blackburn who finished third.



Rajnoch was 82m from Valencia. Going to be a mainstay in my team at DM for a very long time given he's only 20.



Gemelli joined from Southampton for 67m


Rasmussen from Midjytland for 20m, but I've loaned him to Blackburn because I have too many players



and Chan from Newcastle for 42m.



Vonk has been outstanding and is probably the best defender in the game.



Huismann does well in midfield.



Waller is now the highest goal scorer at Arsenal and should break all EPL records if I continue. His record is insane.



Roos is more than adequate backup and at 22 he will be with me for a long time.


Sousa is always wanted by PSG and his stats show why.


And lastly, Casemiro, the 92m pound winger I bought from Milan and is now capable of playing on either wing. 16 goals and 17 assists in 39 games last season.

 

[Dav]

I'm doing a 'dafuge challenge' with Merthyr Town, which is where you holiday a year into the future and then take one of the teams promoted into the Vanarama North/South to Champions League glory. Merthyr are one of the five Welsh clubs playing in the English system so I've decided to go Welsh-only too.

Been a super challenging save as you're not allowed to turn off player attribute masking in this challenge so I've offered hundreds of trials over the years. Currently in my 4th season, we're yet to get promoted out of the Vanarama North as we've been massive chokers. Last season we led for most of the run in but faltered on the final day to finish 2nd and then got bundled out of the playoffs. This season we have a properly talented side for this level and are favourites to win the title so it's pretty much now or never, especially considering we're now £130k in the red.

I've built a pretty fun team despite being so low in the league system, primarily poaching Swansea and Cardiff rejects although there's been a couple that've made the leap across from Welsh clubs like The New Saints or Airbus UK Broughton.



This guy is by far my favourite player at the club, I've pretty much built my tactics around him. 203cm target man with 17 jumping reach and 16 heading, he's an absolute monster in the air and has won back-to-back Fan's Player of the Season and is a club icon and captain at age 19. Got him from Welsh club Airbus UK Broughton on a free.



I signed this guy after he was released by Liverpool and he's the perfect LLM poacher. Extremely fast, great off the ball and finishing, and a perfect partner to Rowlands. Was the second top scorer in the league last season.



Was a massive coup for me to sign Williams as he's the first Welsh international to play for us. He's probably not in the national team conversation anymore but he's definitely my best winger and one of the best you'll find at this level.



This guy's attributes are a little underwhelming but he's an absolute assassin from deadball situations and has bailed me out of more than a few sticky situations. He has 59 assists in 3 seasons, having a 203cm target to aim at helps though.

 

[palmomagpie]

I'm doing a 'dafuge challenge' with Merthyr Town, which is where you holiday a year into the future and then take one of the teams promoted into the Vanarama North/South to Champions League glory. Merthyr are one of the five Welsh clubs playing in the English system so I've decided to go Welsh-only too.

Been a super challenging save as you're not allowed to turn off player attribute masking in this challenge so I've offered hundreds of trials over the years. Currently in my 4th season, we're yet to get promoted out of the Vanarama North as we've been massive chokers. Last season we led for most of the run in but faltered on the final day to finish 2nd and then got bundled out of the playoffs. This season we have a properly talented side for this level and are favourites to win the title so it's pretty much now or never, especially considering we're now £130k in the red.

I've built a pretty fun team despite being so low in the league system, primarily poaching Swansea and Cardiff rejects although there's been a couple that've made the leap across from Welsh clubs like The New Saints or Airbus UK Broughton.

View attachment 889708

This guy is by far my favourite player at the club, I've pretty much built my tactics around him. 203cm target man with 17 jumping reach and 16 heading, he's an absolute monster in the air and has won back-to-back Fan's Player of the Season and is a club icon and captain at age 19. Got him from Welsh club Airbus UK Broughton on a free.

View attachment 889709

I signed this guy after he was released by Liverpool and he's the perfect LLM poacher. Extremely fast, great off the ball and finishing, and a perfect partner to Rowlands. Was the second top scorer in the league last season.

View attachment 889710

Was a massive coup for me to sign Williams as he's the first Welsh international to play for us. He's probably not in the national team conversation anymore but he's definitely my best winger and one of the best you'll find at this level.

View attachment 889711

This guy's attributes are a little underwhelming but he's an absolute assassin from deadball situations and has bailed me out of more than a few sticky situations. He has 59 assists in 3 seasons, having a 203cm target to aim at helps though.

What skin is that one mate?

 

[Dav]

What skin is that one mate?

TCS from FM Scout, best skin I've ever used haha

 

[Dav]

Sometimes my promotions just come about because I was able to sign all of the best players or had a fairly strong club, it feels so good when you have to grind your way to a promotion or a league win over several seasons.



After 3 fruitless seasons, all of which we led the league at one point, everything came together for my all-Welsh Merthyr Town team and we absolutely romped home to win the title with 7 games to spare. We only had the 9th biggest payroll in the league too so we didn't buy the title by any means.

 

[nobbyiscool]

I finally had a go at the FM demo over the last few days. I don't know why I thought I'd get a full season out of the demo, but that's what I was expecting. So I was fairly raging when I got to the week before Christmas in the game and I got the end of demo message.

I ended up rage buying the full version straight away (using money I don't really have.)

What was I going to do? The demo only offers you select EPL and Bundesliga teams. So I went with Spurs, as they're the team I semi-follow and know the best. At the end of the demo, I was 2nd on the table, I had 2 guys on loan turning into genuine superstars, and I'd promoted an 18yo from my own youth squad who was also turning into a gem.

Of course I was going to buy the full game!

Fast forward another couple of days of having this game on all day - not necessarily playing it, but leaving it on so you can sit there, do a few things, then go do something else - and I got to the end of that first season. During the 2nd half of the season I got into an argument with the board about money, I had an enormous spate of injuries, to the point I had to essentially play my U23s in the FA Cup semi because I was also juggling the League and UCL, I went on an enormous losing streak, and we dropped to 4th, needing an 89th minute goal on the final day to steal the Champion's League place.

And then? Emergency board meeting where, long story short, they sacked me.

It's like the demo was there to entice me, and then once they had my money the game is like "lol, * you."

----

I got offered the job at Everton, but left that save and started a new one playing as Melbourne Victory. I made a few mistakes in setting up that save, and I thought playing as the team I know best in the world would be a good opportunity to explore some of the deeper tactical elements of the game. I have 2 takeaways to this:

- I can't imagine what a nerd you'd have to be to become an "e-star" at FM. I also can't imagine where you'd find the time. You can spend an hour and only play one game. It's extraordinarily time consuming, especially for lower level teams where there's so many challenges to attracting players.

- Playing in the A-League is really dull. A heinously long pre-season beating up Brunswick Zebras 15-0, an annoying salary cap to deal with, a designated player tag that isn't clear in terms of who has it or whether you can upgrade current players, and a sheer impossibility of recruiting players because of the salary cap, absence of budget and lack of prestige. As I said above I thought there'd be benefit to playing as a team you know really well; I thought it'd also be interesting to go the "Kevin Muscat route" of building a resume before moving to Europe. But I don't even see myself finishing this first Victory season.

The game's fun. It's a good way to pass the time. And I like that you can just leave it on and come back to it for 5-10 minutes an hour. But I don't think I'm the level of football nerd that this game is made for, and as I said it was money I didn't really have. If I'd bought a hard copy from EB Games and had the benefit of the 7-day return policy, I'd probably consider returning it if I'm honest.

 

[nobbyiscool]

This game is ridiculously brutal in sacking managers.

That last update in my Victory save was December 2019. I think part of the reason I wasn't enjoying it is cos I didn't really enjoy that Victory squad.

Come the transfer window I was able to turnover a few players and pull together a team I was much more invested in. Sadly, I couldn't quite get the Asian player in for the ACL in time.

Anyway, despite not going that well in the league at the time, we managed to get through both rounds of ACL qualifiers into the group. Then we somehow took 6 points from Guangzhou Evergrande and 4 points from the Korean team (forget who) and made the next round... which we also won!

In the meantime I'd made the A-League finals, but lost in the grand final qualifier. After that though? It was all magic.

The next transfer season (Jul-Aug 2020) was incredible, I managed to get in a young Thai kid who is awesome, and who was an Asian rep for ACL numbers. We kept rolling the murderers row of Chinese teams (including beating Evergrande again), we won the FFA Cup... and then we somehow managed to beat Beijing in the final. After building the title on defence, winning 2-leg matches 1-0, 3-1 etc, the final was 6-5. (I scored the winner in the 92nd minute, although I think I would've won on away goals. Not 100% sure though, I never had a tied match to confirm that away goals were a thing in the ACL.)

So in December 2020 I hold the Asian Champions League, the FFA Cup, and I'm undefeated the A-League. In fact I'm undefeated for something like 24 games. The game that broke the streak? After winning our first game of the Club World Championship, we faced Barcelona. And we only lost 3-2! (Dembele scored the winner in the 86th minute.)

After Christmas everything went to s**t. My Thai jet got a 4 month injury. Mile Jedinak, who I'd signed as a cut price centre back, and who was player of the tournament in the CWC (despite us also losing the 3rd place playoff to Cruz Azul), just absolutely fell off a cliff, averaging ratings of 6.2. Toivenen went 11 games without scoring.

I ended up recovering, making the finals, and winning the first final... and then they sacked me after I lost the 2nd final.

So I was ACL champ, FFA Cup champ, I'd finished in the top 4 of the A-League, I finished top 4 in the CWC taking Barcelona to 3-2, and I was meeting all the other club goals except winning the A-League. And they sacked me. Ridiculous.

I was the 7th A-League manager to be sacked that season.

Even more ridiculous was that the only jobs I was being offered were other A-League jobs. I couldn't even get a job in League 1. I didn't want to manage another A-League team, and I didn't seem to have enough playable teams in the save to find another job that I wanted.

I've now started a new save as Bradford City, starting from league 2. I think it's going to be the case that all saves are pretty dull until you get to the first transfer window, right?

-------------

Question I've been meaning to asks - are there any skins or downloads or roster edits that I should be using for FM? I tried googling, but googling anything FM related is intimidating as hell, it's crazy how deep people get into this game.

 

[drd23]

Question I've been meaning to asks - are there any skins or downloads or roster edits that I should be using for FM? I tried googling, but googling anything FM related is intimidating as hell, it's crazy how deep people get into this game.

FM 2020 Download Area | FM Scout

Your premier source of quality Football Manager 2020 downloads, including exclusive scouting and editing tools, best tactics, top graphic packs and database add-ons.

www.fmscout.com

Is pretty nicely laid out and easy to understand imo. Can get a number of different skins, logos, kits and even database updates (i.e roster changes) from there

 

[Juddy88]

Question I've been meaning to asks - are there any skins or downloads or roster edits that I should be using for FM? I tried googling, but googling anything FM related is intimidating as hell, it's crazy how deep people get into this game.

FM20 Essentials - Essential Add Ons for Football Manager 2020

Check out our Essential Content for Football Manager 2020. It includes everything from FM20 Facepacks, FM20 Logopacks, FM20 Kitpacks, FM20 Backgrounds, FM20 Skins, FM20 Wonderkids, FM20 Tactics, FM20 Save Ideas and more.

sortitoutsi.net

 

[AngryRanga]

I wish the game better understood context sometimes.

I'm in Season 1 with Exeter City in League 2. We start the season well, then go on a horrific run in which I won a single league game for 2 months. During this time, I'm getting media speculation about my sacking but the board isn't that upset and the players are fine.

I switch to a 4-4-2 because my single striker formations were faltering. From here we pick up 2 draws and 2 wins in the league, the board are happier and we are climbing the table.

Side bar, I talked to a veteran centre back about a transfer offer that came in, and basically explained that I was happy to give him up if they paid the value. Which they didn't, so he's now "unhappy" at the club despite agreeing with me in the conversation.

In my next league game, he goes out and gets two yellow cards in 15 minutes. My captain gets two yellow cards in 30 minutes. We play with 9 men for 60 minutes and get trounced 7-1, away from home against a team far better than us. The team was also heavily rotated because we had 3 games in a week.

Suddenly, the world is falling down around us. The board calls a crisis meeting in which I beg to have one more month to prove myself. The squad wants a meeting about my mismanagement, despite the fact that they have been ******* terrible. Conveniently, this lands a day after I spend the entire wage budget on a new LB, so I can't use the "I'll bring in some talent" speech option, despite the fact that's exactly what I've done.

We then go out and win the next league game away from home 2-1, continuing our great run of form with the 4-4-2. So now the squad is pissed off, the board is close to sacking me, but we've taken 11 points from our last 7 league fixures and we are 6 points from the play-offs with 22 games in hand.

This is personal for me because I'm enjoying the game but there is no way I can slog through the start of another save.

 

[nobbyiscool]

I wish the game better understood context sometimes.

I'm in Season 1 with Exeter City in League 2. We start the season well, then go on a horrific run in which I won a single league game for 2 months. During this time, I'm getting media speculation about my sacking but the board isn't that upset and the players are fine.

I switch to a 4-4-2 because my single striker formations were faltering. From here we pick up 2 draws and 2 wins in the league, the board are happier and we are climbing the table.

Side bar, I talked to a veteran centre back about a transfer offer that came in, and basically explained that I was happy to give him up if they paid the value. Which they didn't, so he's now "unhappy" at the club despite agreeing with me in the conversation.

In my next league game, he goes out and gets two yellow cards in 15 minutes. My captain gets two yellow cards in 30 minutes. We play with 9 men for 60 minutes and get trounced 7-1, away from home against a team far better than us. The team was also heavily rotated because we had 3 games in a week.

Suddenly, the world is falling down around us. The board calls a crisis meeting in which I beg to have one more month to prove myself. The squad wants a meeting about my mismanagement, despite the fact that they have been ******* terrible. Conveniently, this lands a day after I spend the entire wage budget on a new LB, so I can't use the "I'll bring in some talent" speech option, despite the fact that's exactly what I've done.

We then go out and win the next league game away from home 2-1, continuing our great run of form with the 4-4-2. So now the squad is pissed off, the board is close to sacking me, but we've taken 11 points from our last 7 league fixures and we are 6 points from the play-offs with 22 games in hand.

This is personal for me because I'm enjoying the game but there is no way I can slog through the start of another save.

After getting sacked in my last save at Victory, I started a new save as Bradford City in League 2.

I feel like I could've personally written most of your post. Not the specifics of results and formations, but in terms of the stupidity and the suddenness of the world falling down. We had a really shitty run in October/November, but come December we got much better. Come January the players want reinforcements - despite the fact my squad is already too big and they're bitching about not getting enough playing time. We get eliminated from the FA Cup in round 3, and after losing the next 2 league games it's crisis talks. That's despite taking 7 points from the 3 games before the FA Cup loss, exceeding FA Cup expectations (which were only round 2), and getting to the last 8 of that mickey mouse leasing.com trophy (still ongoing).


Whatever my next save is, I'll do a bit more research into good teams to start as. Bradford City sucked. No transfer budget. They'd already signed shitty players on contracts and on loan. A squad that, positionally, isn't really aligned, nor does it align with the formations you'd realistically play at League 2 level. I wish there was an option to start before your team has signed anyone from the 2019/20 season, because there wasn't a single signing from the 19/20 at Bradford City that I would've chosen. And they didn't even have an Under 23 team at the start, so you spend a s**t ton of time putting together an under 23 team just so the stupidly enormous Bradford City squad have somewhere to play.

 

[Juddy88]

Started a Stuggart save. Very slow start but won 10 in a row or so to sit 6 points on top just over halfway. Spending a lot on wages but most of the team will be fine after promotion too.

Signed Damarai Gray on a loan and he's been beasting it on at RW. Also grabbed Jamie Shackleton from Leeds and he's pretty good too for a 20 year old.

Been playing 3-1-2-3-1
3 at the back, 1 CDM, 1 Mez and 1 AP.
Up front have a SS, IW, and W, with a poacher or pressing forward on attack.

High press, short passing, run at defence, be more expressive, high line, etc.

Really need a new laptop or PC, take forever to sim. Have far too many leagues loaded.

 

[RickSanchez]

Sorry if I missed it, but does anyone have FM mobile?
I got a random google play gift card from a relative so I grabbed FM20 mobile.
Pretty fun, went Dortmund and smashed it the first season.
Signed De Vrij in the first window, played decently.
Reus absolutely smashed it with 18 goals and 25 assists in 33 games.
Haaland started a bit meh but raped it hard and won the golden boot.

In January I sold Sancho for 120m to Madrid, he was playing very poo - 26 games 2 goals 5 assists.
Signed Coman who managed 6 goals in 20 and a much higher rating.
Signed Rabiot who was pretty hit and miss for me considering the high fee I paid.
Won CL and Bundesliga pretty easily, beat Lollerpoo 3-0.
Next window I got Florenzi, Fabian and then got Jokic on loan.

Team looking pretty dang good atm but feel a bit cbf as I hate winning everything right away.
Might go for Leeds season next.

 

[nobbyiscool]

Crazy how fast the collective form of your team can go up and down. I had a Victory unbeaten streak go for something like 23 games. I had a Bradford winless streak of something like 9 games. Then in the very same season I had a Bradford unbeaten streak of 16 matches.

I went from begging for my job 6 months into my first season after losing in the FA Cup in the first week of January, to bringing in a couple of loan signings for 19/20 and free agents for 20/21, to winning the Leasing.com trophy (beating Arsenal U23s in the final)... to winning on the final matchday to clinch a L2 playoff spot.

I smashed both opponents to promote, and come Christmas in the 2020/21 season I'm sitting in 5th spot in League 1, I'm still in the Leasing.com trophy, and I have Liverpool in the FA Cup in the first week of January. (Without a park the bus line up )

As a new FM player, there are a couple of things that I find bizarre/annoying:

- for something that is so intricate in it's player ratings and scouting, it's so dumb in other ways. In the list of things pissing the board off, they're currently most pissed off by a loss to Doncaster in the Leasing.com trophy. 1) It's the leasing.com trophy, literally, no one gives a *; 2) the reason we got beat, albeit only 2-0, is cos we'd already qualified, so we played a mix of fringe players and under 23s! Come on FM/Board, you've gotta be better and more intuitive than that.

- the gossip just seems random. You get news articles and journalists asking you to comment on potential transfer targets that, not only are you not even scouting, but that you've literally never looked at. And the coaching rumours! I've been playing a straight bat to rumours about Championship teams - why would I start again and take on a team at risk of relegation to League One when I'm currently managing a team challenging for double promotion to the Championship? But when West Brom came calling, I publicly said I was interested, I leaked that Bradford City wouldn't extend my contract, the news articles and social media suggested I was the overwhelming favourite for the job... and then I heard literally nothing about it. WTF?

Fair to say I'm hardcore addicted to the game. Usually if you're watching footy or something I have BF or something on the laptop anyway - this has replaced that, it's just so easy to make a lot of progress in the game without having to give it a heap of focus. (It may be that I have waaay too many leagues in the save, so load times are astronomical.)

 

[melbournemartin]

I'm curious. I've loved FM for a while. Do you guys prefer the on field or off field action? I know some people who sim through all the games and only care about signing and developing players, but then I also know folks who get super into each match.