Ok here we go... The aim for this was "Unemployed to Glory". Similar to a Journeyman save I started without any coaching badges or experience and of course unemployed. Only difference is that I don't want to explore the world while managing, but rather have a successful managing career and ultimately be considered one of the best of all time.
Halifax Town (December 2019 - October 2021)After almost half a year I got the job at Halifax Town in the Vanarama National League. They have been a classic midtable team neither involved in promotion nor relegation battle. I managed to make an immediate impact and we qualified for the playoffs, but ultimately failed to gain promotion. Until the second season where we amazingly managed to win the league as huge underdogs. The team was nowhere near League Two level. So understandably we had a terrible start next season. I then decided to jump ship before I got sacked and left the club in October 2021.
Where it all started: FC Halifax Town
Kilmarnock FC (December 2021 - July 2023)I admit it wasn't the most honourable thing to do but it turned out as the right decision as I was able to get the job at Kilmarnock FC in the Scottish Premiership. After joining them midway through the season we achieved 7th place. I picked up an amazing young player from Borussia M'Gladbach called Luiz Skraback (real player). In his first full season he contributed 16 goals and 21 assists in just 44 games. All that for the price of just €350K! The whole team massively over-performed and we did the unthinkable: We won the league! They always say life writes the best stories and it's probably true. We were second (or worse) the whole season until we played leading team Celtic on the final league day. We needed a win to win the league and my guys delivered. A 2:0 win sealed the title and honestly it was the best moment in my whole FM life.
Interrupting Celtic's dominance
The first top level league title: Kilmarnock FC
Celtic FC (July 2023 - July 2026)Well you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Instead of continuing building the team I accept the offer from Celtic. It would be really interesting to see how real fans would react if that happened. On the one hand I have won them the league, on the other hand I immediately joined big evil Celtic. I guess they would probably hate me. Anyway, the first thing I did at my new job was to make sure Luiz Skraback was following me. He had a release clause of €13M and I was more than happy to pay that. He had two season with Celtic scoring 43 times while also getting 46 assists in all competitions before our paths parted and he joined AC Milan for €25M. Unfortunately he never reached this level of form again and his career kinda went downhill. I brought him back for one season at Juventus though. He started as a backup but my main player for this position was just on loan and I didn't want to get him in permanently, so Skraback got a lot more playtime in the second half of the season. He is now at Red Star Belgrad where he actually had a decent season. I am curious how the rest of his career will turn out.
Luiz Skraback: Look at those numbers 2022 - 2024
Back to Celtic. Well what should I say... We started to dominate again. Three seasons, three league titles, three cup wins, three league cup wins. One undefeated season, just 2 losses and 5 draws on national level, multiple records smashed, one Europa League win and another appearance in the final and a CL semi final run. In the first season we had 37/38 wins and only one loss. So close to the perfect season I am still disappointed. Our records broken in that season: most wins, most points, most goals scored and most goals by a player. Luis Suarez (not the one from Barca but still a real player) scored amazing 49 league goals that season and even more impressing 66 in 62 games in all competitions. The best goalscorer I ever had in FM.
A 2-3 loss to Motherwell destroyed the perfect season
Luis Suarez: World class at Celtic, average everywhere else
BTW at this point I maybe should point out that indeed I am neither save-scumming nor using the in-game editor. It could maybe seem like I cheat because of my quick (and huge) success but where would be the fun in that? Anyway, the season after we manged to go undefeated which was a bit of a redemption after missing out on the perfect season. In my last season with the club we managed to only lose and draw once. But performance wise nothing could top the first season.
Invincible season with Celtic
Let's talk about some notable players. The first one is Calum Montgomery (regen), my favourite player in this save. Coming through the Celtic youth ranks I converted him from a striker to a right back. His technical stats are far from being good and most FM players probably wouldn't waste their time on him. But I saw something in him and his performances were amazing. At the end of my first season at Celtic my main right back got injured and I decided to give Calum a chance in the first team. He did very good and I then decided to sell my main right back and make Montgomery a starter next season. Well ... It was the right decision. In 28 league games he had an average rating of 7.61 and twelve assists. At this point I was 100% sure that I would bring this kid with me wherever I go next. My real life comparison for him would be Thomas Müller (although he plays a different position). What he misses in technical ability he makes up with being extremely smart and great mental stats. He simply has a great understanding how the football game works and where you have to be at what time. I am currently working on a story post about his career because he is so special to me.
Calum Montgomery: No average rating under 7.00!
Another amazing player is Juan Castro (regen). Brought in as a replacement for Luis Suarez, who left the club in 2025, he simply picked up where Suarez left. In his first and only full season for the club he scored 56 goals in 54 games. Another important player was Todor Valchev (regen). I got him from Cruzeiro (Brasil) where he started his career although he is Bulgarian. After a loan at Mainz 05 he played as a backup at first, but he got very good performances and earned a starting spot. I will talk about him later again as he had his best time elsewhere and only enjoyed one season at Celtic.
Juan Castro: Goals, Goals, Goals
Honourble mentions: Ryan Christie (real), Evander (real) and Nestor Broggi (regen). This is already getting way too long so I won't talk about them.
Years of Domination: Celtic FC
Real Madrid (July 2026 - July 2029)After three years at Celtic big teams started to get interested in me. And when Real Madrid put an offer on the table I simply couldn't resist. The Spanish giant was massively under-performing with both Barcelona and Atletico being ahead of them. They finished 4th the season before I joined them and they couldn't even advance into CL knockout stages. They won the EL though, which is good but a club like Madrid should never be in the Europa League. A rebuild was needed and I am the perfect man for that job. Spending €1064M while selling players worth €1313M in the span of three years. When I left for Juventus, only one player was left who was already there when I joined. I know this is unrealistic but I like to play like this and the team really needed a rebuild. And it was a successful one: We won 2 league titles and 3 Spanish cups in 3 years. Unfortunately we couldn't win the Champions League, coming extremely close in my third season only losing to Man City in the final. But I managed to build an excellent team with lots of world class players.
Back to the Top with a Bang: Invincible in 2027/28
One of them was the previously mentioned Todor Valchev. He was one of my first signings at the new club and also one of the best. He never was the most talked about player but always delivered when he was needed. He evolved from a good young talent at Celtic to a real world class player.
Todor Valchev: Consistent
Another one is Eric Onyekachi (regen). A Real Madrid youth academy graduate who is currently the best Spanish player around. I converted him from striker to an advanced playmaker in midfield as his finishing was quite low compared to his passing skills. He was one of the most important at the club and Manchester United tried to poach him multiple times. But after improving his salary he always agreed to stay. I think nowadays he doesn't even want to leave anymore as Madrid is one of the best clubs in the world again. Performance wise he was able to constantly get double figures for both goals and assists. He even managed to continue this form after I left, which is very unusual for my players as I usually make them over-perform.
Eric Onyekachi: Real Madrid legend
Remember what I said about Calum Montgomery? Well I couldn't get him in in my first season, but my backup right back went to China before the second season. So I brought him in. And although he was only backup, he was able to start 39 games in his first season due to injuries. He not only played at the right side of defence, but also in midfield, attack or as a centre back when needed. I discovered that I can play him anywhere and he would perform decent. Man I really love this kid.
The last one that really stood out is Titouan Leclerc (regen). A striker bought from Watford after he won the top goalscorer award in 2027. And man he loved scoring goals! In the two years I had him at Madrid he banged in 97 goals in 97 games. In the first season he had an average rating of 8.02! He probably is even better than Luis Suarez considering he did this in La Liga and Luis played for Celtic in Scotland. He is still at Madrid scoring as he likes although Man United seem to be interested this summer.
Titouan Leclerc: Goal machine
Honourable mentions: Jorge Choque (regen), Joshua Lasso (regen), Mikel Pena (regen).
Playing like Galácticos again: Real Madrid CF
Juventus Turin (July 2029 - ?)Again after three years I felt ready for a new challenge. I felt I achieved everything at the Spanish capital and a Champions League win was only a matter of team. So in 2029 I started to look for a new club and quickly picked out Juventus Turin as my favourite destination. Again the club is in a horrible state and nowhere near where it should be. After finishing first the last time in 2023 they went on to decline quite a lot. They couldn't even qualify for CL football three years in a row from 2027 to 2029. 2028 was especially bad when they finished 9th in the league. Meanwhile Inter Milan turned into the best team in Italy winning the league six times since the start of the save. Lazio also managed to win it twice and probably have to be considered the second best team although they struggled since I arrived. Milan, Napoli and Atalanta are the other teams regularly fighting for CL.
So rebuild mode activated again. For the first time in this save I wanted to try a different tactic. Instead of my preferred 4-1-4-1 (Wide) which I have developed over the years of my FM experience, I decided to go for a three CB formation. A risky move since I haven't used such a formation in a while. There have been many old players at Juve earning more money than many of my players at Madrid. They all had to go since the financial situation wasn't very good either. I had three players in my mind that I wanted to bring with me from Madrid: Calum Montgomery (of course), Mikel Pena and Samuele Mantovani (regen). Calum because he is amazing and I wanted him to translate him into a box2box midfielder. Pena is a young spanish centre back who would struggle for game time at Real because their president just signed two new CBs for €200M as an election promise. I hated that guy so much for this and was glad that I was already on my out. We already had three very good centre backs and there was no need for that. Mantovani was an Italian striker I picked up from USA. He didn't have amazing attributes but was a very good backup at Madrid. So since he is Italian and was certainly good enough to compete for a striker spot here I decided to pick him up too.
At the end I spent €438M while selling €362M in my first transfer window. The squad was far from where I would have liked but I did everything I could within the financial limits. We had a rather successful campaign finishing second in the league behind Inter. We also lost the cup final against them and Tottenham beat us in the Europa League knockout stages. Considering the struggle in the years before this was a good season.
Another transfer summer was ahead of us and again we had ambitious targets. We filled our biggest need by signing young Italian striker Salah El Maach (regen), who scored 20 league goals for Bologna in Serie B the year before. He was a major success and went on to win the Serie A top goalscorer award the following two years. I also tried to get Todor Valchev in, but we simply didn't have enough money. We had a rather bad start in the league including a hefty 0-3 loss at home against rival Inter. But then we started to rarely drop points while Inter started to draw a lot (a thing which would become a common thing for them). After losing in the CL semi final against Chelsea we almost bottled our lead in the league and in the end there was only one point between us and second place Inter. Still the first title for us in years and I was very happy about it. In the cup we lost to Atalanta in the semi final. I liked the direction we were going and made sure to boost the squad with transfers to defend our precious league title.
Salah El Maach: Best Salah ever?
My main target for this season was again Valchev. I needed his creativity as a number 10. And for the hefty fee of up to €148M I was able to secure our top priority player. I also tried to sign the best Italian striker in the game right now Dario Ruocco (regen). Not only did he not join us, no he went to our fierce rival Inter Milan instead! I was gutted. I remember playing with Celtic against him and since then he was on my radar. It was one thing not being able to get him, but now I have to watch him score goals for Inter. Luckily El Maach is a scoring machine too, but I can't imagine how many goals these two would get playing together! Annoyingly the Italian manager Allegri plays both of them on the wing, which suits neither of them in my opinion.
Dario Ruocco: Maybe in another life
Ok so we got our new biggest star Valchev. Would this be enough to not only defend our league title but also challenge for the first Champions League win of my career? Well yes and no. Although Inter went unbeaten in the league having the same record as Arsenal's Invincibles, they still couldn't beat our squad. Twelve draws over the season simply were too much and we outscored them by six points. It didn't matter we lost twice compared to their 0 losses. I still think this is a cool achievement for Inter since I have never seen an invincible season by an AI managed team before. No the sad news: We failed again in the CL after losing to Manchester City by one goal. But at least we could gain our first cup win in 7 years.
League win against invincible Inter
So that's where I am right now. The year is 2032, I have went to five different clubs and won a league title with each of them. Pretty cool achievement in my opinion. This is definitely the narrative for my manager character right now: winning league titles wherever I go. Sadly you could also say this about not winning the Champions League... Well that's why I am far from finished with this save as I still haven't won the biggest competition of them all. I am going to stay in Turin for now as I am still very happy. But who knows what the future holds?
Current team and tactics
Back to the top: Juventus Turin
This was my first attempt at writing a story about FM and it got a lot longer than I thought... I am not a native English speaker so please excuse any mistakes or strange sounding sentences. I would be happy to receive advice to get better at writing. Anyway, hope you liked it and would appreciate an upvote. Feel free to ask any question in the comments! If you want any more pictures (tactics, players, teams ,...) just ask!
Edit: Since people are asking about my 4-1-4-1 tactic: Here it is! The BBM can be an AP(Su) as well depending on the players you have.
![The man that won the league wherever he went [STORY]](https://a.thumbs.redditmedia.com/jj6Ftj1cEB8xDruXodnq5qmPMUde0JcGZVluBtgPti4.jpg "The man that won the league wherever he went [STORY]")
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