To say that I've enjoyed this save and FM19 must be the greatest understatement of the year. It's been absolutely brilliant! In this update I'll be highlighting some of my successes from the save and offering my thoughts on the game itself as attention starts to turn towards FM20 in the coming weeks.
If you've missed any of the previous updates, you can read a quick summary on how it went here. For more regular updates and other FM chat, why not join the FM Slack group and follow my #fm_athlete channel? It's free to join and you'll be warmly welcomed by other FMers too!
Expectation vs Reality
Way back in the Summer of 2018, F.M. Athlete began his fledgling career in football management as an unemployed beginner with Sunday League experience. The goal of this save was to get offered the chance to manage one of the Premier League's big 6 clubs, a feat that would be a long time coming as he plyed his trade in the lower leagues before hopefully progressing one day in the future.
F.M. Athlete's starting profile.
Crucially, I interpreted this long-term goal as requiring the "Big 6" club in question to effectively headhunt for the job, rather than F.M. Athlete applying for it directly.
While i clearly failed to achieve what I set out to, the 6 clubs I did manage were all so enjoyable, and I did at least get offered two interviews from "Big 6" clubs in the end, as first Manchester City and then Manchester United both came knocking. On both occasions I was unsuccessful but I can't say I'm disappointed, after all this save has been anything but dull. In addition to those, I was also offered the England job twice, as well as the Scotland job and the Finland job too. I politely declined them all.
F.M. Athlete's ending profile
Highs and Lows
It's hard to pick one specific highlight, particularly as from the 6 clubs I managed, there were three promotions (Nosaby IF twice and FC Emmen), a League title (Hibernian), a League Cup (KuPS) and two MOTY awards (Nosaby IF and Wolves) during the save.
F.M. Athlete's Career Landmarks
I think though, that the part I enjoyed the most was securing European football with Wolves. In fact, less about the achievement and more about how satisfying it is to see the team you've built over 5 years come together and deliver in exactly the way you wanted.
In terms of low points, there were plenty of those too. Getting sacked by Wolves was particularly crushing, but there were also some unjust Semi-Final and Final results peppered throughout the save as well.
Overall though, I think my biggest disappointment was KuPS. In hindsight I should probably have stayed with them another 1 or 2 seasons as the team were still young with lots of potential. I left out of frustration at not being able to challenge for the title, but KuPS went on to secure 4 consecutive league titles in the years that immediately followed my departure.
Some Love for the FM Community
I appreciate my thoughts on the game are unlikely to turn any heads, but I wanted to take a minute to offer some praise for FM19 since this version has given me so much enjoyment. According to the game status, I've played it plenty this year...
The revamp of Training seemed to be the biggest headline of this edition, and it really didn't disappoint. I loved the detail applied to this part of the game, and particularly enjoyed building my Training Planner tool in Excel which is free to download here if you're interested.
I know the game has come under criticism for the match engine and player animations but I have to say that these weren't an issue for me. I've no doubt improvements could be made, but the aspects of the game that I really love, like scouting, squad building and assigning shirt numbers, aren't affected at all so no complaints from me.
At the start of 2019, I also took the plunge into blogging and have enjoyed being able to share some of my career updates throughout the year. While I started just writing for me, it was really great to build up some followers across Wordpress, FM Twitter and of course Slack, and I'm really greatful for anyone who's taken the time to read an update, share a tweet or favourite a blog post.
The Slack community in particular has been brilliant and I can't recommend it enough. If you're not already in there, make sure you click the link below and join. It's free and full of fellow FMers so don't be shy!
Away from social media and FM forums, I also love a good podcast. This year I enjoyed some excellent podding from One More Game, Grass 'n' Gear, North American Soccer Manager, FM Notebook, 5* Potential and more recently Gaffer Graemo's new podcast: The Technical Area. Thanks to all of you for keeping me entertained!
The Best Version of Football Manager?
Like so many others, I've been playing FM for 20 years now, and so having a "best" or "favorite" version is a hard thing to quantify given that it depends where you are in life. FM05 and FM07 hold significant memories for me, being at Sixth Form and University and having no responsibilities was a wonderful feeling.
In FM12 I had one of my greatest saves of all time, starting in the National League South and eventually taking the Coventry job, steering them into the Europa League, before managing Napoli and winning Serie A three times. That save abruptly ended on 27th June when my eldest son was born.
I still played the game each year, even after my second son was born in 2016, but it took until FM17 to really find the time to play again. Here I began unemployed before managing Dartford and eventually Fiorentina where multiple Champions League titles were claimed.
So how does FM19 compare to those great versions of the game? Well, my third (and final) child was born last year so logic would suggest I shouldn't have time to play as much as I do. In fact, I think I've enjoyed FM19 more than any of the others, and that's down to the game itself and the brilliant online community that it feels like have been with me all the way.
The Future (an FM20 Teaser)
Congratulations for reading this far. As a special prize you get to enjoy a little FM20 teaser before anyone else does! In addition to what's below, I have prepared an FM20 save reveal video which will be released later this month. Keep an eye on my Twitter and Slack channels for more details.
The more attentive readers out there will have noticed I've started to refer to F.M. Athlete as a separate character to myself. That's because as I start planning my FM20 save and subsequent blog posts, I'm keen to write about him as a different person with his own background and experiences.
With that in mind for FM20, you should know that Frank M. Athlete's journey continues from where he left off, in the small Spanish coastal town of Villarreal...
Over the course of his 16 year long FM19 career, Frank had amassed a staggering £12M in career earnings. While of course plenty of that was spent on accommodation, food and several craft beer subscriptions, he still had a small fortune left in the bank should he choose to spend it.
As he sat on the stony beach at Camí del Palaciet and pondered his next move, he looked out to sea and watched as several small boats sailed up and down the coast. Frank had never taken to sailing before, he'd never had the time, but he'd always wanted to, imagining it to be a serene and peaceful past time.
He'd had very few opportunities to be on the water in his lifetime, it's not something his family had ever been interested in when he was young, despite them living so close to the river. And for the first time in a long time, he thought about the family he had left behind. His grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins he presumed still lived there, or some of them at least. He stood up abruptly, lost in his thoughts as he walked back towards the car.
In that moment, he had decided what he would do next. He smiled as he thought of seeing some familiar faces again, and who knows, maybe he'd make a point of venturing out on to the river as well?
Thanks for reading the blog, i hope you enjoyed this update and the others from across this save. You can follow me on Twitter @fm_athlete and in my FM Slack channel #fm_athlete for more updates in the future.