Great news! It’s Football Manager 25 release day!!! Wait… what?
Seeing as we’re stuck with Football Manager 2024 until March, I’m going to fill the void with a new save. I have taken over Nacka FC, who play in the fourth tier of Swedish football after a rapid ascent through the leagues. I also hope this save can rekindle my love for FM, after my frustrating experiences with Millwall and Wieczysta Kraków.
Usually when I start a new FM save, I impose some challenges (perhaps with time limits) that almost always end in burn-out and spectacular failure. Not this time. I won’t put unnecessary pressure on myself by demanding an Allsvenskan title within 10 years or whatever. I just want to have fun and see how far this save takes me until FM25 is released.
And unlike my previous Fuller FM stories, things are going to be pretty snappy – one season, one post. Today’s opening chapter will take us through the 2024 season – my first at “Nacka’s Yard”.
VÄLKOMNA (WELCOME)
Firstly, let me explain how I’ve set up the save. I’m playing FM24 with the Winter Update on the Original database. I’m NOT using any user-made 2024/2025 season updates (free or otherwise), but I AM using sortitoutsi’s Licensing and Real Name fixes as well as Daveincid’s Increase Realism megapack.
I’ve loaded 40 leagues in 15 nations (with each nation having at least the top two divisions loaded). This includes every league in Sweden from the Allsvenskan to Division 2. There are around 94,000 players in the database.
To simulate through the 2023 season, I have started the save in July 2023, and then holidayed all the way up to New Year’s Day 2024. I then retired my holiday manager and added myself as Nacka’s manager – after checking that they were still in Division 2, of course. It would have been so awkward if they’d accidentally been relegated to a non-playable league!
INTRODUCTION
Nacka FC was formed in 2015, and is one of the youngest clubs in Sweden’s national leagues. In their first eight seasons, Nacka rose through the Swedish pyramid – securing five promotions from the local Stockholm league at Division 7 (tier 9) and eventually reaching Division 2 (tier 4).
The 2023 season was Nacka’s first in Division 2 Södra Svealand, and they finished a respectable 6th out of 14 teams. Only the league champions are automatically promoted to the Ettan (tier 3), with the 2nd-placed team going into promotion play-offs alongside the other Division 2 runners-up.
Nacka are projected to finish 4th in the 2024 season. After my last save, I’m honestly relieved that we’re not 91-1 on for promotion!
The board are expecting to record another top-half finish in my first season as manager, and that’s what I’ll be aiming for. As great as it would be to get promoted at the first attempt, this campaign is realistically about consolidation.
The league will also be our sole focus this season, because we won’t be in the Svenska Cupen. Only teams from the top three tiers qualify automatically for the Cupen, and the regional qualifiers are randomly chosen from teams in Division 2 and the non-playable leagues. We weren’t one of the lucky teams.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that our stadium is one of the smallest in our division. Fisksätra IP has a capacity of only 1,000 spectators, and average attendances last season barely hit 100. Our training facilities are also pretty basic… and if you’re expecting the next Alexander Isak to come through our youth set-up any time soon, prepare to be disappointed.
Financially, we have around £200,000 in the bank, though that money comes almost exclusively through sponsorship. My playing wage budget is a modest £389 per week, so I’ll be keeping a very tight wage structure, and I won’t pay anyone more than £25 per week. This restriction has cost us a few potential major signings, but again – consolidation is the aim for this season.
The club was founded by members of the ethnic Albanian community in Stockholm, and the squad still has a large number of players of Muslim descent, but other cultures are also represented. I’ll look to continue this tradition by recruiting players from diverse backgrounds where possible, though obviously I’ll only sign Swedish-based players at first. I doubt many foreigners would move to Sweden just to play part-time football anyway.
SQUAD REPORT
So, here’s a first look at the Nacka squad I’m taking into the 2024 season. We have a very young defensive line (with one notable exception), but we do also have a fair bit of quality in midfield and on the flanks.
Perhaps the best of our midfielders is Tim Hauzenberger – an attack-minded player with plenty of stamina. He was the Nacka fans’ Player of the Year for 2023 after making eight league assists.
Just behind Tim is a hard-working ball-winner from Nigeria called Success Nwosu. Let’s hope he does live up to his name…
Pace is king in the lower leagues, and Bilal Mohammed has a fair bit of it. The left-sided inside-forward is not just a pace merchant, though, as he scored four goals in pre-season. He’ll face plenty of competition from the similarly nippy Yusupha Jammeh and Amadou Junior Tandia.
I’ve also brought in six signings of my own. These include midfielders Alekh Singh (on loan from our divisional rivals Enskede) and Simon Dimitrijević, but let’s focus on the other four newbies…
Another loanee is the young Hammarby right-back Gustav Johanströmmer Hedin. Technically, he’s not great, but his mentals and physicals are solid enough for this level.
I’m much more excited about left-back Elias Ziani, whom we signed on a free transfer after his release by AIK. With great natural fitness and a high work rate, he has the potential to grow into a very solid professional. The fear is that Elias might become too good for us if we don’t get promoted quickly.
And just to show that I’m not managing a kindergarten, here are a couple of more experienced lads. We were lacking a leader, so I brought in centre-back Andreas Hadenius (once of Dundee) to be our new captain. He’s brave and consistent, but my only worry is that he can’t tackle. Or man-mark. Or run.
I’m sure he’ll be fine… and I’m sure Aziz Essaisi can lead our attack effectively. I mean, his attributes look good, right?
[Sigh] Okay, so I might have got desperate on deadline day. I trialled several other strikers who looked so much better, but they all wanted too much money. I was probably most excited about 20-year-old Eric Lilius, until he got poached by Degerfors in the Superettan.
Here’s my first version of the 4-3-3 tactic I’m using. The plan is simple – defend with discipline, get the ball up quickly, and counter-attack with pace. It’s not quite Mike Bassett-ball, but it’s served us pretty well in pre-season. We even won a friendly 10-0… even if it was against an amateur team named Kilimanjaro.
Could we now translate that form into winning promotion from Division 2, or would that be too much of a mountain to climb?
FIRST HALF, GOOD…
For the first two months or so, our form was pretty solid if not spectacular. While we could consistently grind out wins at home to keep ourselves in or around the top three, our away record was very patchy.
We weren’t too bad defensively, though goalkeeper Simon Röse made a couple of costly errors early on, and his young understudy Kevin Blennestrand wasn’t much more convincing. As strong a leader as Hadenius was, his limited tackling ability made him another obvious weak link.
My biggest concern, however, was that we weren’t creating enough high-quality chances for our forwards – and even when they did, Essaisi was useless at converting them. To underline that point, Aziz scored precisely ONE goal from open play (plus two penalties) before I gave up and dropped him. 20-year-old Ilias Alaoui did net a hat-trick at Smedby early on, but he lacked the composure to lead our line consistently.
Our struggles came to a head at early front-runners Gute, where we failed to build on a 1-0 lead and eventually conceded two late goals. The xG table after nine games told you all you needed to know.
It could have got even worse when we fell 1-0 behind at home to 12th-placed Sylvia (who, incidentally, share their name with my late grandmother). At half-time, I lost my temper with the team for the first time – and they responded by smashing in FOUR goals in the second half.
And then we couldn’t STOP scoring! We finished the first half of the season with four straight wins – including a one-man fightback from Bilal Mohammed at Ljungsbro – to leave the table looking like this:
Somehow, we had snuck into top spot on goal difference, with Nyköping and Gute hot on our heels. Staying there and securing automatic promotion would be a big ask, but with two or three more quality additions, I believed we could give it a good shot. Time for some summer-break scouting…
Ooh, er… can anyone spare a few kronor?
We might not have had a scouting budget, but after a few more trials (and errors), I made three summer signings. Former Halmstad stopper Alexander Berntsson is a 6ft 4in giant who looks more well-rounded than Hadenis. For one thing, at least he knows how to man-mark.
Ismael Lindqvist is a talented box-to-box player, and the last piece of our midfield triangle with Hauzenberger and Nwosu. And just before the transfer window closed, I brought in big Eric Lilius, who rejoined us on loan from Degerfors after struggling to break into their first-team.
How would our new signings fare as the league campaign resumed?
SECOND HALF…
…not so good. (RIP Sven-Göran Eriksson.)
Our perfect home record went up in smoke in two different ways. Against Rågsved, we created hardly any good chances for our attackers, and lost 1-0 to a second-half penalty. By contrast, our creators were more productive against Smedby, but we couldn’t finish our chances and eventually conceded a late equaliser.
Still, that was nothing compared to our next game at Haninge. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing THE most frustrating match I’ve played on FM24!
After that monstrosity, I made some big decisions:
- Röse was an absolute liability in goal. Blennestrand would replace him for the rest of the season.
- We switched to playing with a high press instead of a mid block, and our Advanced Forward – who was often isolated from play – would become a Pressing Forward instead.
- We needed a PROPER striker to be that Pressing Forward, instead of having to always rely on the young and inconsistent Alaoui. That was when I loaned in Lilius… who scored a debut HAT-TRICK as we destroyed IFK Eskilstuna 6-1!
We also destroyed 4th-placed Enskede, but disaster struck when Blennestrand – our only semi-decent goalkeeper – broke his wrist. Kevin’s injury would have a devastating impact when we played the top two teams at home.
Things were looking good when Mohammed put us 1-0 up on Nyköping at half-time… and then Ziani conceded a penalty, scored an own goal, and Röse had another stinker for the visitors’ third goal. Though Blennestrand was barely fit enough to play against Gute a fortnight later, he also struggled in a truly insane second half.
2-0 down after 78 minutes, then 3-2 UP after 83 minutes… and then Kevin Flappy-Wrists conceded a soft long-range strike.
Despite dropping five big points against our rivals, we were still barely in the play-off race – and we even leapfrogged Gute into 2nd place on goal difference with two games remaining. But after our paper-thin defence blew another lead to lose at Örebro Syrianska, Gute went back ahead of us, and our fate was out of our hands on the final day.
To sneak into the promotion play-offs, we needed to beat a Ljungsbro team who were themselves fighting to avoid a relegation play-off. We also had to pray that Enskede could beat Gute the following afternoon. (That’s right; we played our final match before everybody else!)
Alaoui, who had returned to form late in the season, opened the scoring early on with his 11th goal this year. Hauzenberger then missed a penalty that could’ve put us 2-0 up, before Kevin SAVED a penalty that would’ve pulled Ljungsbro level. We barely clung onto our 1-0 lead in a tense second half, but was it enough?
No, it wasn’t. Gute scored a 91st-minute equaliser at Enskede…
…which meant they kept hold of 2nd place by just one point. Gute-d.
SEASON REVIEW
There’s no shame in finishing 3rd, but this felt like a missed opportunity.
Despite having the highest xG in our division (by 4), as well as the lowest xGA (by 8!) AND the most expected points (by 7!!), we missed out on promotion because we couldn’t hold our nerve against our rivals. We held the lead in three of our four meetings with Nyköping and Gute, yet only came away with a single point.
Still, there’s plenty of encouragement to take into next year. Attacking with pace and passing into space has produced some good football, and pressing high up the pitch has often pressured the opposition defence into mistakes. If we can do that more often in 2025, the results could be spectacular.
As frustrating as his finishing could be, Yusupha Jammeh was our standout player on the right wing. Utilising his pace and his (for this level) decent crossing skills, Jammeh got 11 assists and was particularly hot during the summer months.
The future also looks bright for Alaoui, who scored 11 goals – a club tally equalled only by Hauzenberger. While he probably won’t reach the level of his idol Cristiano Ronaldo, Ilias has shown he can be dangerous in or around the six-yard box… with his feet anyway. The less said about his aerial ability, the better.
I’ll be looking for a bigger centre-forward to rival Alaoui next year, but there’s no doubt where my priorities lie in the next transfer record.
Blennestrand has the potential to be a fine shotstopper – he was named ‘Player of the Match’ in our final-day win against Ljungsbro – but he’s perhaps not ready to start every week yet. A more experienced goalkeeper with better decision-making (NOT YOU, Simon!) would go a long way to making our defence more stable.
We’re also going to need a couple of big centre-halves – ideally ones that AREN’T glacially slow like Hadenius, who has unsurprisingly decided to retire. And yes, that means the Nacka captaincy is up for grabs again!
The good news is that our bank balance is still pretty healthy, so the board have increased my wage budget to around £500 per week… and there’s more to come. Though I have a transfer budget of £30,000, most of that will be diverted to increase our wage and scouting budgets.
If my first season at Nacka was about stability, the second will be about progression. It’s time to loosen the purse strings a bit more, and build a team that can get us promoted from Division 2.
Thanks for reading, folks. If you’ve enjoyed this recap of my first season at Nacka FC, I hope you will stick around for more.
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