Hey-ho, folks. It’s time for my annual Fuller FM blog update – my ‘state of the union’ address, if you will.
Another year of FMing has been and gone, and it’s been the weirdest one yet. With Football Manager 25 turning out to be just a few dodgy Photoshop mockups, we’ve had to carry on with Football Manager 2024 for another season.
I will now look back on everything I wrote on Fuller FM this year, including my 15-season career at Nacka FC. I will also discuss my content creation plans for Football Manager 26, which is absolutely definitely probably maybe being released in the next few months.
But first, I need to draw myself away from Civilization VI for long enough so I can actually write this damn blog update. Just one more turn, and then I’m done…
A VERY DIFFERENT SEASON
I’ve now been living in Telford for a little over a year. It’s not quite as much of a s***hole as Romford, and the fact I now live within 15 minutes of a half-decent football stadium is another plus. I’d give it a 7 out of 10 (Miles Jacobson is probably upset it’s not a 9).
I am also – ironically for an FM player – reaching my physical peak after my 35th birthday. Since having a couple of health scares in late 2023, I have lost quite a bit of weight – dropping from 17 stone at the start of 2024, to a little over 14 stone now. It is the first time in my adult life I have ever been at a “healthy” weight.
I would be happy to show you the results of all this weight loss, but… er… I’m autistic, and very camera-shy. I also don’t think there’s much of an audience for OnlyFans-style content within the FM community.
Meanwhile, I permanently quit the site once known as ‘Twitter’ and escaped to Bluesky – the one place on the internet that hasn’t yet been corrupted by capitalism, generative AI or far-right politics. I am also on Threads, though I really only use that whenever I upload a new post.
As far as FM was concerned, 12 months ago, I would’ve been content to banish Football Manager 2024 to the history books and get ready for Football Manager 25. Of course, that was before FM25 was delayed until March… and then eventually cancelled outright.
Seeing as I wasn’t yet ready to rebrand Fuller FM as a Civilization VI blog, I decided to reinstall FM24 and give it another chance. I started a new save in the Swedish lower leagues with Nacka FC, which I’ll touch on later.
As much as I liked FM24’s improved positional play and improved dynamics, I wasn’t impressed with the match engine overall, nor the fact that many long-standing bugs remained unfixed in “the most complete Football Manager ever”. I also despaired at the AI’s incompetence when it came to developing young players – often leaving them to rust in the Under-23s because they wouldn’t loan them out for less than 370% of their wages.
Since I initially reviewed FM24 back when it was still a new game, my negative stance has softened a little. Watching matches in 2D has reduced some of my frustrations at the ridiculous 3D player animations. And even if the game isn’t as polished as it could have been, it can still draw me into playing a long-term save for months on end.
Yet as I progressed through the seasons, I started agreeing with certain FMers who believe you HAVE to play a certain way to be successful – especially when it comes to man-management. I almost had to mollycoddle my Nacka players, because getting angry with them or even slightly raising my expectations would turn them into quivering wrecks.
I also discovered so many stupid UI bugs and so much general weirdness that I posted a lengthy thread on Bluesky, showing off my favourites.
And don’t even get me started on the goalkeepers…
THIS SEASON ON FULLER FM
I intended to begin a new career with Nacka FC at the start of 2024, after my Early Access save with Millwall ended. Then I got distracted by another save idea, one thing led to another and… ahem, I burnt out after half a season. Let us never speak of Wieczysta Kraków again.
When autumn came around, and it became clear that FM25 would never be a functional game, I finally pressed ahead with my original plan. And so began “Nacka’s Yard” – quite possibly the greatest career story I have ever written about on Fuller FM.
Starting out in the 4th tier of Swedish football, I built up a tiny club from the Stockholm suburbs and gradually led them into the Allsvenskan. This story would include a diverse cast of players, breed some new cult icons, produce a fresh batch of terrible Simpsons memes, and deliver more high-stakes drama than a typical ‘Nordic noir’ crime series on BBC Four.
Having started off by only writing one post per year, I increased this to two annual posts once we hit the big time and things got more serious. Summing up a dramatic top-flight season on Football Manager in barely 2,000 words doesn’t really do it justice for me.
Without spoiling too much, I was delighted with how this story ended… but having grown so attached to my team, I’m not yet ready to say goodbye to them forever. If there is an option to import old FM24 saves over into FM26, I would love to continue this adventure on the new game.
Even in an unusual game cycle with no new Football Manager, FM24 still gave me plenty to write about. First off, I discussed an infamous ‘regen bug’ where newly-generated players would take the IDs of recently-retired players – leading to unforeseen consequences.
My Nacka adventures inspired me to write a guide on how to turn your club professional. If you’re managing a small part-time club in an obscure league and want to plan for a future step up into full-time football, it might be worth a read.
I also began a new mini-series – FM Logic, where I discussed the weird and wonderful world of FM’s AI. I looked at FM’s often-bizarre approach to player transfers and development, the baffling media and press interactions, and some wacky managerial movements.
I looked into FM’s hidden “Instant Result” button, to find out whether it was an easy way to win matches or just a useful time-saver. Most recently, I threatened to alienate the entire FM community by writing about some of my biggest content creator pet peeves.
Oh yes, and I also took a few detours from FM to review other football management games from years gone by. While Global Soccer 2018 and Sven-Göran Eriksson’s World Manager were both dismal failures, Simsoc 6 was an obscure 90s shareware gem, Premier Manager: Ninety Nine still held up pretty well… and Lords of Football was truly and utterly surreal.
Without doubt my most popular review of this year was FIFA Manager 25 – a brilliant, comprehensive fan-made mod for FIFA Manager 13 and 14 that updates EA’s now-defunct series to the present day. If you want to see a genuine modern competitor to Football Manager, this is pretty much as close as it gets.
MY PLANS FOR FM26
Back on FM25, I had planned to manage VfB Stuttgart on the beta (or whatever SI want to call it nowadays). That obviously didn’t happen. As far as FM26 is concerned, however, I will not be doing a beta save at all.
I still cannot forgive Sports Interactive for taking pre-orders on FM25, especially as they basically knew within days that they could never deliver the game as expected. Although SI did refund all pre-orders when they finally cancelled FM25 in February, it was still pretty scummy of them to try and take customers’ money like that in the first place.
Pre-ordering any video game is a risk for any gamer. Given what’s happened over the past year, I don’t think we should be rewarding SI’s misdemeanours by buying FM26 until we know that the game is actually playable – and enjoyable.
As such, I will not pre-order FM26 before the beta drops – and I’ll most likely wait for the demo, which usually goes live a few days prior to official release. Once I feel that FM26 is in a good place, only then will I buy the game and dive into my first long-term career… and Fuller FM regulars will know exactly what that is going to be.
With women’s football making its long-awaited debut on FM26, I will at last be able to manage the Arsenal women’s team. The Gunners lifted the Women’s Champions League in May – becoming the first English side ever to win the competition – though domestic success in the Women’s Super League has sadly eluded them in recent seasons.
The plan for this save is similar to “Hale End Heroes” – my FM22 series with the Arsenal men’s side. My goal is to win the WSL and the Champions League in the same season, with a core of homegrown players from the Arsenal academy. England’s European champions Leah Williamson and the returning Chloe Kelly will be the spearheads of my Hale End heroines.
Beyond that, I have a few plans for future saves. One of these is – as I mentioned earlier – to import my Nacka save and take that team to even greater heights.
I would also like to venture outside of Europe for the first time. This could be as part of an epic ‘pentagon challenge’, where the aim is to win the top continental championship on all five major continents (Oceania doesn’t count; sorry to any readers from New Zealand). That would obviously be a very long-term challenge – perhaps even spanning across several FMs.
ANYTHING ELSE?
I’ve been blogging on Fuller FM for seven years. I still enjoy writing guides and discussions about Football Manager, so that will definitely continue into the new era. Sadly, it’s very unlikely I will write any new FM stories on the same scale as my previous works – mainly because they don’t get enough readers to be worth the effort anymore.
Instead, I will branch out into other forms of content creation. Of course, being autistic and camera-shy, it’s perhaps unrealistic for me to stream my FM saves live on Twitch. However, I want to put more effort into YouTube – and turning my channel into something that’s actually watchable, rather than a depository for low-quality meme videos.
And there’s this other video-sharing platform a lot of FM creators are using nowadays. I think the kids call it TikTok, or something like that. Maybe I’ll give that a go someday.
Lastly, some of you will know about my ‘Team Competition Histories’ editor files, which add extensive competition histories to 200+ national teams and 1,500+ club teams. TCH will return bigger than ever for FM26 – covering dozens of international and continental club tournaments from all over the world, including women’s competitions for the first time.
I would also like to start creating custom competition files again, though that depends on FM26 having an advanced pre-game editor that actually works properly. It would be cool to recreate my FIFA World Championship file from Football Manager 2016, which replaced the World Cup with a year-long knockout tournament involving every national team.
Another idea I’ve had would be to create a fantasy world where London has declared its independence from the UK, forming its own league and national team. For one thing, Arsenal might actually get to win a league title again.
So as you can tell, I have big plans for the forthcoming game cycle. I probably won’t become a millionaire content creator overnight (heck, it’s more likely that this blog still makes a net loss), but these are exciting times at Fuller FM. I’d be honoured if you could join me for the ride.
Thank you for reading this blog update. After all the hype and all the waiting, let’s hope that FM26 can meet our expectations.
If not, then… well… I guess I’ll have to write about Civilization VI instead. Eh… could be worse.
Fuller FM 