Welcome to the first installment of a brand new mini-series here on Fuller FM.
In Breaking FM, I will be pushing Football Manager to its limits, seeing how well (or otherwise) the game handles extreme scenarios. I’m not sure if this will become a regular series on the blog, but if you enjoy reading this, then who knows?
For my first attempt at breaking FM, I will take over a team in the English leagues and manipulate their results, so that they play the maximum number of games in a season. Chelsea currently hold the record, playing 69 matches during the 2012/2013 season… but that’s not even close to the number I have in mind!
This first chapter explains how my experiment will work. I’ve worked out the maximum games a team can play, and how long it will take to get them into every available competition at the same time. Then it’s just a case of finding a club, assembling a team, and setting everything up for the longest season ever.
THE MATHS
Premier League teams will play a minimum of 40 games a season, though teams who do particularly well in European and domestic cup competitions can exceed 60. As for EFL clubs, they generally play around 50 to 55 matches, with the better teams again getting close to the 60 mark.
But what is the highest number of matches a team in the English league system can mathematically play in a season? I think I have an answer.
It’s the 2024/2025 season – the first season with the new, expanded Champions League format. The team we’ll be looking at will need to have qualified for the Champions League, after winning the Europa League in the previous season. They’ll also need to have won the FA Cup. Oh yes, and they’ll have to play in EFL League One OR League Two.
Granted, it’s not realistic for a team to be in the Champions League AND the EFL Trophy at the same time… but it’s necessary to produce the maximum number of games. Here’s the maths:
- LEAGUE ONE/TWO (49 matches): There are 46 games in a regular season. Qualifying for the play-offs will also get you a two-legged Semi Final and (if you win that) a one-off Final at Wembley.
- COMMUNITY SHIELD (1 match): The FA Cup holders will play the Premier League champions in their first game of the season.
- SUPER CUP (1 match): The Europa League holders will play the Champions League winners early in the season.
- CHAMPIONS LEAGUE (17 matches): The new CL format starts with 8 matches in the league phase. Finishing 9th-24th will get you into the Playoff Round, which is played over two legs. The Round of 16, Quarter Finals and Semi Finals are also over two legs, followed by a one-legged Final.
- FA CUP (12 matches): Teams in Leagues One and Two will enter at Round 1. In the first four rounds, all drawn ties will go to a replay, which means you can play a maximum of eight matches to reach Round 5 (the last 16). From that stage onwards, all matches are decided on the day.
- EFL CUP (6 matches): EFL teams usually enter in Round 1, but any teams involved in European competitions will instead go straight through to Round 3. From there, you need to negotiate four rounds to get to the Final. There are no replays, but the Semi Final is played over two legs.
- EFL TROPHY (8 games): The Pointless Trophy involves three group games, and then a potential four knockout games before the Final itself.
And there’s an added bonus at the end of the 2024/2025 season. If you get to the Final of the Champions League, you will be entered into that summer’s new-look Club World Cup:
- CLUB WORLD CUP (5 games): Teams will play two group matches. Winning your group gets you into the Quarter Finals – and a chance to reach the Semis and even the Final.
So, by my calculations, that is a maximum of… 99 matches in a season! By the way, that sound you just heard was Jürgen Klopp fainting.
One way of going about this would be to take charge of a Premier League giant and get them relegated to League One, while simultaneously winning back-to-back Champions Leagues and an FA Cup. This might be feasible if you’re Harchester United or Warbury Warriors. But getting a giant like Manchester City to tank in the league and somehow dominate Europe at the same time would take a lot of effort, as well as some incredibly liberal usage of the in-game editor.
Instead, I’m taking a different approach. I’m going to build up a club from the lower leagues. For this experiment to work, the team that we’ll be experimenting on will have to:
- Win the FA Cup in 2022/2023, so that they qualify for the following season’s Europa League.
- Win the FA Cup again in 2023/2024, so that they can play in the Community Shield in 2024/2025.
- Win the Europa League in 2023/2024. This will get them into the following season’s Champions League, as well as the Super Cup.
Winning the Europa League with a bunch of journeymen is rather… let’s say fanciful. We’ll need to help our chosen team out by giving them a bunch of top-division players who will be far too strong for the lower leagues.
But we can’t start the experiment in League One or Two, or we run the risk of our team being accidentally promoted to the Championship by the time we hit that third season. Not many people care about the EFL Trophy, but we care about all those extra games that we’ll miss out on if we’re too high up the pyramid.
And once I take over our chosen team in 2024/2025, we cannot just win every single game. The goal of this experiment isn’t to win every trophy – it’s to play as many matches as possible, including play-offs and FA Cup replays! That means we’ll have to deliberately draw or even LOSE some matches to maximise our schedule.
Inevitably, this will involve reloading the save if we don’t get the desired results – lots of reloading. I wouldn’t dream of doing this on a regular save, but rules go out the window when it comes to Breaking FM. To speed things up, I will be using Wannachup’s Instant Result skin, which adds an Instant Result button that allows you to simulate matches much quicker.
So with all that in mind, I’m going to pick a team that begins the 2022/2023 season in the National League. Ideally, a National League team with wealthy owners… wealthy North American owners…
Ah, yes… I know just the club!
Of course! Dagenham & Redbridge!
[DISCLAIMER: The fact that Dagenham & Redbridge is also the nearest professional football club to Fuller FM HQ is purely coincidental. Honest, guv.]
BUILDING THE DAGGERS
Now that we have our club, we need to build a team that can literally go the distance. The likes of Ángelo Balanta and Emmanuel Onariase might be pretty decent players for the National League, but they’re probably not going to take the Daggers to the 2025 Champions League Final.
Fortunately, Daggers owner Peter Freund has managed to dig out a few million quid from the back of his sofa in New York. With this extra cash (and some help from the pre-game editor), he’s persuaded 14 top players to make the move to Victoria Road.
These players include England’s starting XI from the World Cup knockout rounds – Harry Kane, Harry Maguire, Jude Bellingham, et al. They’re joined by three wildcards from overseas: Bayern München forward Serge Gnabry, PSG midfielder Marco Verratti… and one-time Portugal left-back Kévin Rodrigues. Don’t ask.
Our new recruits will each be earning £20,000 per week for the next three years. In order to keep them at Dagenham for the whole experiment, rather than having them jump ship at the first opportunity, I’ve had to arrange future transfers for them in the editor. This means they will all be moving to Newcastle as soon we’ve finished with them in July 2025.
Of course, the original Daggers players will all stick around, at least as backups. Some of them may well have been replaced by the time I take over in that third season… but honestly, who cares if Nikola Tavares is still here or not?
Lastly, Dagenham will start the game with £20million in the bank, plus a £15million-per-week sponsorship deal with an unspecified soft drinks brand. This will hope pay for our internationals’ wages, as well as staving off silly little things like administrators and ‘Financial Fair Play’.
Now that everything has been set up, it’s time to kick off this experiment by whizzing through the first two seasons. Remember: we need to win TWO FA Cups and a Europa League AND get at least one promotion, so that we can enter as many competitions as possible in that third season.
THE FIRST TWO SEASONS
Yeah, I think this team might have been just a little too strong for the National League! We stormed to the title undefeated, dropping just eight points along the way (in fact, only Chesterfield denied us a 100% home record). Gnabry and Phil Foden were top scorers with 30 goals apiece, while Kane only managed a paltry 26.
As for winning our first FA Cup, our first scare came as early as Round 2, when Northampton took us to a replay. Despite that, we breezed through the next few rounds before I eventually needed my first reload to defeat Aston Villa in the Quarter Finals.
Newcastle proved more of a struggle in the Semis, as it took us four attempts to silence the Saudis and set up a Final showdown with Chelsea. Kai Havertz gave the Blues a very early lead, but Gnabry equalised before Harry Maguire slabheaded in a Wembley winner to complete our first objective.
Oh, and we also beat Solihull Moors to win the FA Trophy. Good for us.
The second season didn’t start too well, as Jordan Pickford broke his leg in the Community Shield win over Chelsea. This meant Elliot Justham had to play in goal for the first few months of the season. To be fair, some people might say Justham is an upgrade from ol’ T-Rex Arms!
Nonetheless, we still made light work of League Two, wrapping up the title before Easter. The Daggers also stayed undefeated all the way up to late April, when we were finally beaten 1-0 at home by Newport County. Kane took the Golden Boot with 27 league goals, eventually finishing on 42 in all competitions.
Retaining the FA Cup was quite stress-free until Round 4, when we ran into Manchester City. Even though Erling Haaland was in the garage needing repairs, I had to reload the game 29 times (TWENTY-NINE!) before his team-mates finally backed down and let us through. The last few rounds – including a 2-0 Final win over Manchester United – thankfully didn’t take as long.
The Europa League also proved to be a tricky obstacle. A spate of draws meant that qualification for the knockout rounds wasn’t even secured until the last group game. We then had to battle past Sporting CP and Betis (two of my former clubs) to set up a Semi Final with… oh, great, Manchester City again!
Surprisingly, it only took us four reloads to vanquish City this time, leaving AC Milan as the last team standing in our way. Gnabry bagged the winner in the 6th minute, ensuring that Champions League football would be coming to Dagenham next term!
Annoyingly, the Daggers thought that the challenge started a season early and reached another TWO Finals, beating Chelsea (again) to win the EFL Cup, and then Portsmouth to lift the Pointless Trophy. That meant they played a total of 84 matches in the 2023/2024 season, with iron man John Stones starting 82 of them…
…but hey, those are rookie numbers! We are just getting started, ladies and gentlemen!
Please tune in again on Monday, when we’ll lead Dagenham & Redbridge through the 2024/2025 season, with the aim of playing a whopping 99 matches. Can our superstars handle all these games… and more importantly, can Football Manager handle it?
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