KickStarter Where's The Passion Lads? Let's Get a Job in Football Manager 2024

[wwsd]

So the other day, I was cleaning up my screenshots folder, and I accidentally got a bit too zealous and deleted some of the screenshots of December 2028/January 2029. No biggie, but information will be a bit scant for this period. Suffice it to say that after PEC Zwolle approached Hardman, we lost the home game against Watford 1-0, but then hit another fine run of form in January, winning all but one game, and eliminating Millwall and York City in the FA Cup third and fourth rounds. If memory serves, at this point we are 2nd in the league and have the title spot within breathing distance. To shore up our strike force, we bring in Valentin Carboni on loan from Inter:



He hits the ground running, providing competition for Aravena's striker spot, together with the Portuguese Gabriel Silva. We also bring in Swedish midfielder Lucas Bergvall for only £3M from Tottenham, in order to compete with and eventually replace Andreas Pereira.

But then, in February:

Quite how we lose this, I don't know. Or maybe I do. The fundamentals behind our success have been the position play, the passing game, the high possession, and a reliable defence, including ultra-consistent goalkeeping. All these fundamentals work fine here, except the defence: Baxter has been very consistent so far, but this time, he lets some pretty soft shots go under him, including one shot where he narrowed the gap between the near post and his body, but still let it in. Sazonov is the tallest central defender, but gets beaten in the air anyway by Daryl Dyke, the Baggies' target man.

At home against Preston, another extremely undeserved defeat:

Against promotion competitors Leeds, a sHoCkIng tWo-FoOteD LuNgE!!!!

In the FA Cup 5th round, we hold Premier League side Newcastle to 0-0 in the first 90 minutes, but in extra time, they get a penalty and then score from regular play in the 102nd minute, and our cup run ends.

As unfair as some of the defeats have been, we can't really have any complaints about this result against Middlesbrough. They fight fire with fire, also coming up with a 4-3-3 possession-based game, and they win the battle of the midfield. Eric Dier is back in the team after having been plagued by injury for most of the season, and he doesn't move the dial for us much either. Probably not what he had in mind for himself at the age of 35, either. Last season he was often our most reliable player in that half-back position, but his injury woes mean that he never really gets going in the season when we need an experienced force in the Championship title challenge.

The formation comes under criticism, but for now, Hardman doesn't want to abandon the 4-3-3 yet. Andreas Pereira and Sasa Lukic tend to function well in that two-man central midfield pairing, with Andreas surging forward. Andreas can't play in the defensive midfield position at all, so switching to e.g. 4-2-3-1 would mean benching one of our stars. 4-4-2 would be another option, but it's mostly the lower teams in the league that employ Brexit-ball. But more fundamentally, there is a lot of risk involved in switching formations mid-season, although we do keep training that 4-1-4-1 to grind out results when needed. That's the most experimentation we'll do for now. However, whether it is with this formation or another, the tactic is far from perfect yet, and it will need some more tweaking towards the end of the season and going into the next one.

Speaking of next season, we're already pre-empting the transfer window by approaching players with expiring contracts. This lad is surplus to requirements at Barcelona, but would be a fine fit for us next season, even in the Premier League:

In real life, he has just signed with Chelsea:

Our first-choice goalie gets injured too, so it's another chance for Kjell Scherpen after his poor start made him lose his spot to Baxter early on. At Blackburn Rovers, we're up 2-1 going into injury time when Blackburn get a penalty! But Kjell steps up and saves it!

We lost 4 games in a row at the worst possible time of the season, and Kjell may have just saved Joe Hardman's job here.

Bernd Leno does a bit of punditry about his former team-mates. Thanks mate! He's not wrong, unfortunately. Fosu has had a great start in the season, but his form has slumped together with the rest of the team's.

At Peterborough, we finally get CLINICAL. No wasteful shooting, no defensive errors. Even Aravena is incredibly efficient. We give our third goalie Max Weiß a chance, and he looks safe when called upon as well.

More gems coming in from the youth academy. Will they be good enough for the Premier League though? It's hard to say. But the board want us to give the youngsters a chance, as we've done for Bekoe and Fosu this season. Besides local lads, a coughing man in a trench coat also delivers us a supple 15-year-old Kosovar boy. When Joe asks how he ended up here, the man simply says "Oh, he fell off a lorry, don't ask questions mate".

Against Plymouth, we are the better side, but just as we go into the closing minutes...

Why you gotta be like this man?

We draw the game 1-1, but then, at Ipswich, we win both the 3 points and the admiration of Robbie Keane:

You tell me which one you value more! The game itself is another Jekyll and Hyde performance: a great first half, but then in the second half, complacency creeps in while the opposition goes for broke. This guy Ellertsson was on our shortlist, but we never ended up getting him. He runs the game for Ipswich here, and it's only thanks to an offside that we come away with 3 points here.

With 5 games left until the end of the season, we've done well to recover from that horrible slump in February. We are 3 points behind in the title race, but with the better goal difference. Second place will also lead to automatic promotion. However, Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds, Watford and Middlesbrough are also still in the race for promotion, and are likely all going to be in the playoffs in any case.

Some sage advice from our director of football:

"I know Harry Wilson wants to leave the club, but we can just press this button here and force him to stay!"

"Yes, that worked out so brilliantly with Wout Weghort last time. Are you out of your fucking mind?"

We do get in on the market for Brazilian boys. This lad costs us £6 million and is a pacey forward with good finishing. Although we already have 3 of those, we can easily loan him out and sell him for a greater amount of money.

Against Sunderland, Quilindschy Hartman gets his second red card of the season! But we eke out a win anyway.

Actually, here I want to talk about the dirtiness attribute. This is a hidden attribute that is described in coaching/scouting reports as "has a competitive streak which can occasionally lead to him bending the rules". OK, so bending the rules is fine, but hacking the rules down with studs up is not so conducive to keeping 11 men on the pitch. Hartman has this attribute, as does Sasa Lukic. Very annoying, because sometimes they will do something retarded like this.

Hull win their game, but Sheffield lose theirs. The Premier League beckons!

Our form and final 4 matches. We still have the opportunity to take the top spot from Hull City too! But with Hull and Watford in there, it's not an easy schedule by any means.

With both our full-backs suspended, it's Hull who go up and over instead. Although technically anything can still happen, we must accept the title dream is probably over at this point:

So let's not fuck this u--

While Hull secure the title, we produce a pretty grim display at Blackpool. We are good at everything except the final third.

Against Derby, we do what must be done, but Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough both win too. You can barely see it at the top of the screenshot, but Middlesbrough scored their 2-1 at Preston in the 94th minute!

This means that we haven't yet done enough to secure automatic promotion, and we once again go into a dramatic final match day. Worse, our opponents, Watford, can still secure a playoff spot, so they will not fold easily. The only good news: it's all in our hands.

The first half is a struggle to break Watford down. Worse yet, the news comes in that Sheffield have scored in their home game against Plymouth Argyle. As we go into the final ten minutes, Watford start coming out of their shell, and Ben Broggio flicks it on to Lucas Da Cunha...

Well, fuck. Middlesbrough win too, and they have the better goal difference, so we fall back from 2nd to 4th on the final day of the season. That's the reality check right there: we had the big money, we were favourites to win the league, but we simply didn't do enough over the course of 46 matches. There were many times when we were in that 2nd place, with an opening towards the title-winning spot, but failed to capitalise. On the other hand, the competition was stiff, with Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough also competing for promotion, and Leeds being right up there too until they hit their own terrible run of form, with zero wins in the whole month of April. For our part, those 4 defeats in a row in February made a huge difference, with at least two of them being completely against the run of play. But there were also other games where we were on top, but gave it away, or lacked incisiveness in front of goal. All that's left to do now is face the music, lick our wounds, and take that final chance in the playoffs.

The silver lining: Leeds, as mentioned, have had a poor run of form too. In the league campaign, we didn't have VAR, only goal-line technology. But in the play-offs, VAR is used, and he confirms a foul against us in the box! Lukic coolly converts the penalty. Leeds get back into the game and Jason van Duiven scores the equaliser on an assist from Ruben Mendoza, the left winger. Now Mendoza is not a real player, but a regen, or newgen. Newgens are youth players automatically generated by the game each year, and there are always some new wonderkids emerging all over the world. Newgens can easily be recognised because they don't have a real photograph (or a blank face, if you don't have a face pack), but a CGI face that tends to look like this:


Anyway, 1-1 in the away tie is not a terrible result, but it gets better!

Carboni does it again! Lurking outside of the box, he heads in a free kick from Hartman. Four defenders and even the goalie converge on him when they realise where the ball is going and that Carboni is coming in, but they're all too late. That's just a fucking excellent piece of positioning and movement.

In the second leg at home, we hold them to 0-0 until injury time, when Aravena finds a chance to break away. He plays the through ball to Iwobi and...

Middlesbrough have also dispatched Watford, so our last chance at promotion will be against them! Actually, Fulham haven't won a game against the Teesside club since December 2024! But statistics don't matter when the playoff final is at stake. This final does not have a home and away tier, but is played at Wembley!

As a young lad, Joe Hardman dreamed of setting foot on this sacred ground, where Bobby Moore lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy in 1966. Instead, the old Wembley, with its iconic twin towers, was demolished in 2000 and replaced by the new Wembley, finished in 2007:

It's still a stadium like no other. With a capacity of 90,000, it's unlikely that these two sets of fans will fill out the stands entirely. Instead of a cup final or England game, Joe Hardman walks onto this pitch under entirely different circumstances: to salvage a Championship season that should have been over already, considering the massive amount of money poured into the club by the new Korean owner, and the dominant performances on the pitch in most games.

It's once again the Inter loanee Carboni who opens the scoring after a visionary pass over the defence from Lukic. The game remains a very tight affair, similar to a cup final. Boro don't roll over easily, and actually have the most possession. In the 70th minute, they get a corner which finds Abel Ruiz in the box. He shoots it into the mass of Fulham defenders, but Baxter has already gone down. The ball bounces back to Ruiz, who heads it into an empty net.

Both exhausted teams are unable to produce much more in extra time, and this is going to end the only way it could have. Yes, the final opportunity for us to achieve promotion will be on penalties! Vanja Milinkovic-Savic, their Serbian goalie, is over 2 metres tall and has excellent reflexes. Our Nathan Baxter is no slouch either, although Kjell Scherpen would have probably been a bit better for this sort of thing. Still, he stops two penalties, while Vanja saves only one. Boro's second miss, by Leonidas Stergiou, looks like some kind of audacious Panenka attempt, but Baxter stays put and the ball bounces off his hands!

Our 6th penalty taker, Fosu, steps up. 21 years old, born in Ghana, he came up through the youth academy in 2024, and broke into Hardman's first team this season. On his shoulders rests not just the responsibility for the win, but the entire difference between success and failure of the season, tens of millions of pounds, and his manager's job, among several other high stakes.

Fosu cuts a slightly nervous figure, while Vanja touches the bar, showing his height. Fosu runs up, Vanja spreads his arms and dances on his line, moves forward, dives into the corner where Fosu aims, but it flies straight into the top corner!!!

The Fulham fans are in ecstacy! The poshest set of fans in the country invade the pitch like a bunch of yobs! Prawn sandwiches and charcuterie lies abandoned in the stands! Monocles fly!

Although Fulham have been here before, this has to be one of the most dramatic bounce-backs in recent history. And so, the final table looks like this:

Fulham will be joining champions Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday in the Premier League! Although we had the best defensive record, we missed a lot of chances. Middlesbrough, Leeds and Watford took it extremely close, while Sunderland and Swansea also got over 70 points, but they will have to languish in the Championship for another season. The mid-table remains the mid-table, with Norwich not making it back up. Luton Town fought bravely despite going into administration and being docked 12 points, but now they're slipping into even deeper despair, joining Bristol and Blackburn in League One.

In the Premier League, normality is restored after Chelsea's title last season. The richest seven clubs form the top seven, while all of last season's promoted teams go straight back down into the Championship, a damning indictment of the violence inherent in the system! We'll have our work cut out if we don't want to join them next season.

Joe Hardman returns to the Premier League with another sizeable transfer budget and players accustomed to his system. On the other hand, it falls on him to bring the squad up to Premier League level, and find a way to make the tactic more incisive up front, while keeping it tight against the Premier League's attacking players. While many of our Championship opponents parked the bus and had to be broken down, back in the Prem, we can expect them to try and attack us. This also has its positive sides, as our own forwards may get their chances. But we'll need to improve the supply to them and make sure we take our chances.

2027/28 was the season Joe Hardman briefly entered the Premier League with Fulham, but was relegated. 28/29 was the season he returned there. 29/30 will be make or break: is Joe Hardman the genuine article? Is he a Premier League manager?

 

[3 others]

Damn, the suspense of scrolling down sentence by sentence on that shootout report... nice to see the unlucky losses didn't do the season in.

How long was Joe's Fulham contract? Are you even planning to stay after it expires?

 

[Andnjord]

Pheeew, that was some stressful, edge of your seat stuff. I would guess Joe Hardman lost a couple of years of his life from the stress of that final match alone.

At a minimum I vote to stay at least one more season at Fulham, see if we can stay in the Premiership at least once and so Joe can’t be accused of being a complete mercenary.

 

[wwsd]

Damn, the suspense of scrolling down sentence by sentence on that shootout report... nice to see the unlucky losses didn't do the season in.

How long was Joe's Fulham contract? Are you even planning to stay after it expires?

Actually, it was ending after this season, but it will get extended now that we've won promotion. Definitely want to do one full season with them in the Prem at least, unless like literally top 7 Prem or top La Liga/Serie A/Bundesliga clubs come knocking.

 

[Andnjord]

unless like literally top 7 Prem or top La Liga/Serie A/Bundesliga clubs come knocking.

But….but….what about the French Ligue 1?

 

[wwsd]

June 2029... while the annual race riots and pandemic monkeypox rock Britain, only Fulham soldiers on! Well, let's hope it won't actually look like that, but should things continue to go south in Britain, you would sort of expect the residents of plush Fulham to make it out OK, considering the circumstances. Keep calm and keep those real estate prices up!

For Joe Hardman, the summer is marked by the preparations for yet another make-or-break season. After only just failing to save Fulham FC from relegation in his first season, and only barely making it back into the top flight in 2028-2029, the upcoming season presents both tremendous danger and opportunity. If we can nestle ourselves in the Premier League just once, it will be worth all the headaches. One mid-table finish or better, and it means that only an exceptionally bad season could dislodge the club from the Premier League. Not that Fulham have been strangers to that happening in the last decade, but still... On a more personal level, for Joe Hardman, it would add even more superlatives to an already meteoric career. To go from nothing, to the Welsh leagues, to the Scottish top flight, and then to borderline Premier League/Championship could be considered an incredible trajectory by itself. But if Joe becomes an established Premier League manager on top of that, he will finally cement himself as the absolute maddest of mad lads, and the sky will be the limit as far as job perspectives go. He would only have to show his face on a council estate again as part of the club's ambassadorial duties, which he would do with pleasure, but he'll never have to actually live there anymore.

Although it's not 'rich seven' money by any means (or rather 'rich eight', as FM-universe Everton were taken over by a Hong Kong tycoon in 2024, just in time for the Bramley-Moore Dock move, and currently have the 3rd-highest wage bill in the league - they finished 4th once as a result, but have remained mired in mid-table obscurity since then; I suggest they bring back David Moyes), our Korean overlords give us an ample transfer budget. All throughout last season, our scouts have been trawling both in South America and in our own EFL Championship. Now, it's time to raid those clubs that didn't quite make it up.

Mendoza made 22 assists for Leeds. Leeds did well all season, but a tremendous slump in April saw them drop down to playoff spots, and the rest is history. Although Mendoza contributed an assist against Fulham, he wasn't able to stop us from winning the away game 2-1. With Leeds remaining behind, their squad is ripe for the picking. Mendoza is our first transfer target. Although Louis Bekoe is our own home-grown left-winger, Joe already learned way back at Briton Ferry that it's not a good idea to be sentimental after winning promotion. We have to keep forging on to find players good enough for the Premier League level. Bekoe can be a back-up or be loaned out.

Before we can start reeling in the Spanish wonderkid however, there is the matter of our own contract to consider. With Joe's contract expiring at the end of the season, our K-Pop Tycoon was obviously waiting and seeing how the playoffs would end. Had we failed, he would have surely been happy to let it expire, for he has high ambitions for the club that he took over. In the upcoming season, we're only expected to fight bravely against relegation. But by 2032, he wants the club to look towards the top half of the league. And since he enjoyed seeing Fulham at Wembley so much, by 2034, he wants the team to go back there, not for a playoff game, but for an FA Cup semi-final or higher, or for the League Cup final! With a 3-year contract on offer, 2032 will be the halfway point to evaluate whether we broke into the top half or not.

Speaking of sentimentalism, there are going to be some redundancy notices handed out. I forgot to mention this in the previous post, probably due to having deleted the screenshot, but Andreas Pereira also started getting homesick halfway in the previous season.

"You want to go back to... Belgium? I thought you were Brazilian!"

"Actually, I'll have you know that I was born in Duffel. My dad's Brazilian, but he was playing in Belgium, so that's where I grew up before I signed with PSV. Just seeing a duffel bag or a duffel coat makes me tear up inside..."

"All right mate, I didn't ask for your life story. You're free to go to Belgium at the end of the season."

Eric Dier is also allowed to leave. He decides to sign with Portimonense in the sunny Algarve. Good choice!

Andreas is not the only person who wants out. Although Norwich will still be in the Championship next season, our assistant manager Craig Shakespeare wants to go back to working under Nick Montgomery, who was Fulham manager before Joe Hardman came along. Is it too soon to make a joke about how ungrateful he is, considering that we stuck with him despite being dead? You decide!

We replace Shakey with an assistant with a very similar profile. Mike Phelan spent a large part of his coaching career as Sir Alex Ferguson's assistant. He usually did the interviews with the BBC because Sir Alex was angry about the BBC's investigations into his son. Now at an advanced age, he brings a wealth of experience to Joe Hardman's backroom staff.

Another big-ticket signing: the goalie we already wanted in our first season, but failed to get at the time. Another purchase that's all about levelling up for the Premier League.

With most of our budget spent already, we can sit back and wait for any major offers to come in for our players, or look for some loanees or cheaper youth signings. Although our budget is ample, everyone is also getting 25%-35% wage increases because of our promotion.

These two Barcelona players come in on free transfers already arranged last season. Georgiev, the Bulgarian central defender, functioned well for us on loan last season, so it's good we can make the deal permanent. Let's see if he can make it to Premier League level.

Another free transfer, Harvey Vale will be our back-up in the left-back position, although he can also double as a winger or even striker in a hurry. Hey, he's only one typo removed from 'Bale', so that makes sense, right?

For a brief moment, we were hoping to sign an aged Fabián on a free transfer. Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Unfortunately, he rejected Fulham because of Al Taawoun's "stronger squad". The "stronger squad" in question:

"Yeah, I get it mate, I'm a massive fan of Georges Mikautadze too. "

Although we're just recently back in the Premier League, the bookies have high hopes for Fulham. While Sheffield Wednesday and Hull City are expected to go straight back down, we're not considered relegation candidates, what with the money being thrown around and the quality being brought in.

Another pure depth signing, this former Fiorentina man rounds out our defence nicely. At this rate, we may end up with some disgruntled players, and someone will probably have to be loaned out during the winter transfer window, but that's fine.

This lad could be our sleeper hit, signed on a free after extensive scouting. He's a central midfielder, but he's also 190cm tall. Physically strong and mentally balanced, he is like a bigger, better version of Andreas Pereira, and he will be replacing Andreas in that attacking central midfielder role. By having a big guy there, we can also win some aerial challenges if the opposing goalies make the mistake of playing high balls. He can also play in Lukic's role as a deep-lying playmaker. He's just an extremely versatile player, the only thing that lets him down a little bit is that he doesn't have a lot of flair.

Since we now have four experienced goalies, it's better to let one go. Scherpen didn't bring what we were hoping for, so he can now warm the bench at Ajax instead. We more or less break even on him.

Chelsea are always happy to contribute some unsettled players for loan signings. Madueke here was a decent squad player until 2024, but then fell into obscurity. When he does actually play, he seems to be very injury-prone, so it's a bit of a punt we're taking here. But there's no harm done when he's on loan and we still have Jack Harrison in that same position.

The interface gets a fresh coating of paint too with a new skin and stadium pictures added for flavour. I might still change the skin later, but this will do for now.

We check back in on Andreas to see if he's happy in Belgium now. Turns out he's filled his duffel bag with Putin's dirty roubles!

We start the Premier League campaign with an extremely dominant display against West Ham, but fail to capitalise. Thankfully, our next opponent is the also newly promoted Sheffield Wednesday.

Aravena is finally coming into his own this season, being more clinical in his finishing. All his attributes should point to this being the case, with Aravena having excellent dribbling, finishing, first-touch and technique skills. It just hasn't come out under Hardman yet. We can also improve the supply to him this season.

Off the pitch, we continue to tap into the loan market. Sebastiani is a talented defensive midfielder, but his transfer sum is estimated to be in the region of £50M-60M. We can't afford this, but we have wage budget to spare, so bringing him on loan is the smart thing to do. Although his technical, passing and vision ability is so good that playing him in a purely defensive role is a bit of a waste of his talent. He would do very well as a deep-lying playmaker starting from the DM position, but he may have to wait until next season (if we can retain him) in order to play in his favourite role.

We beat League One side Reading in the League Cup. The next game will be away at Liverpool!

Then we conclude our last bit of transfer business this window:

An Argentinian in Brazilian service, Fausto's contract with Corinthians expires in January 2030, so that's when he'll be joining our squad. We have a lot of quality in midfield already, but he is another potential replacement for Lukic, who has just turned 33.

We tweak our tactic a little bit: instead of playing with two full-backs, Van Ewijk will play in a more attacking wing-back role. With Madueke cutting inside, Van Ewijk can contribute more crosses into the box. This way, we are more threatening up front, and Aravena gets more supply to profit from his improved form. But at the same time, it's still defensively balanced. It would have been nice going with two wing-backs, as Hartman and Van Ewijk are both capable in that role, but it could be a bit too attacking in the Premier League. Besides, Mendoza is a classic winger, so he can provide that width on the left. So we attack in different ways on each flank. We keep the half-back role, so the defensive midfielder (Sebastiani in this screenshot) drops between the two central defenders. So in possession, the 4-3-3 becomes more of a 3-4-3.

It's going to take some time for this to work, and we lose the game against our neighbours, Brentford.

For the League Cup game against Liverpool, we try something new.

I've been wanting to try a deep-lying 4-4-2 (so, 4-4-2 but with defensive midfielders instead of CMs) for a while now, and this video gave me a good opportunity, as this variant is being touted as a great choice for underdog teams. I followed the advice from the video and switched my wingers to 'Defensive Wingers' instead of regular ones. This is a very underrated role by itself, since the wingers will do a lot to press the opposing full-backs. So any opponent that makes the mistake of trying to build up with their full-backs will be in for a nasty shock. With that deep-lying central midfield, it's like you're smothering the opposition. It's a very intense, high-pressing tactic, so you're not just sitting back. But what makes it very overpowered is where you press, and which players are involved. On more than a few occasions, I've had the pressing forward surprise an opposing defender from behind while he was trying to find passing options for his build-up play. I don't know if this is some kind of match engine-breaking thing, or if it's just that good. For now, we'll use this against the top teams and see how many upsets like this we can sneak in.

At Southampton, we start extremely well, with two early goals by Aravena, and we're up 4-0 in the 50th minute. After that, Southampton start to come back a little bit, and we end the game in the most defensive formation possible, but still walk away with the three points.

We deploy the deep 4-4-2 again in the Man United game, and it's really only thanks to their individual qualities that they escape with a draw at Craven Cottage.

With Liverpool seen off in the League Cup, and 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats from the first six games, it's an encouraging start to the Premier League campaign.

"Wait, it's a full month until our next game?"

"Oh yes, the calendar is a bit out of wack. There's international games in all these weeks."

"Well fuck me, that's one way to deal with fixture congestion. Better plan some friendlies for those of us who are not playing any international games."

In the international break, Ruben Mendoza gets his first cap for Spain under Unai Emery.

This headline has been around in FM for decades and it still cracks me up. Reminds me of this for some reason (minus the kill part):



He's a decent striker, but we've got a whole bunch of those, and if he's on the bench for Leeds in the Championship now, he's probably not what we're looking for. But we'll keep him in mind.

When league play resumes, we see off the former Championship champs.

If it weren't for games like this, we could have been competing for European spots already!

In the League Cup game against Sheffield United, we field a B team and have to bring Mendoza and co. back in when they score an early goal. They proceed to park the bus, and the fairy tale that went so well with the win against Liverpool comes to an end.

Roberto Mancini has wormed his way into another big-money club. Since 2025, Everton's Hong Kong-based owners have sacked Sean Dyche, Vincent Kompany and Alessio Dionisi before bringing in Mancini, and he starts mouthing off about how we're not all that great, everyone's just been understimating us. With the 3rd-biggest budget in the league, he's not going to make a mistake against us, right?

With the team in 7th place and the board delighted with Joe Hardman, it's time to take the final leap:

As if managing Fulham wasn't enough, Joe now embarks on a year of gruelling studies, at the end of which, he will be able to:

Four pillars of the UEFA Pro Diploma​

A UEFA Pro licence holder will have a clear understanding of player and team development and coaching at professional level, and must demonstrate competence in the following four areas:

The professional coach

- Working as the head coach of a professional club’s first team or, in some cases, as a member of the coaching staff at professional level
- Working closely with and leading the coaching and multidisciplinary staff
- Being involved in developing and applying a club’s technical policy and philosophy
- Ensuring the right balance between the players’ professional and private lives
- Working with professional players from different cultural backgrounds, of different ages and experience, e.g. young talented players, experienced players, star players
- Dealing with all factors affecting the team’s performance: media, players’ agents, fans, scouts, sports ethics, etc
- Being accountable to the club’s management: club owner, club board, technical director, etc
- Contributing to the club’s overall policy

Russia coach Stanislav Cherchesov addresses Pro Licence students at UEFA HQ in2019UEFA via Getty Images
The player and team

- Planning, executing and supporting individual player development, including players’ own objectives, and complying with the club’s technical policy
- Giving direction and supporting players, enabling them to take responsibility for their individual development and involving them in the process (stimulating self-regulation)
- Working on the team’s development in cooperation with all support staff, i.e. technical, medical and performance staff
- Managing all aspects of the team’s performance
- Creating a winning team and a high-performance culture in a positive environment at professional level

The training environment

- Preparing and conducting individual and team training sessions at professional level
- Working with individual players and the team and understanding how the training session design can affect performance at professional level
- Designing game-oriented (team tactical) training sessions in terms of opponents, pressure and intensity
- Planning, delivering and reviewing training sessions in accordance with the club’s coaching philosophy
- Designing a seasonal team-tactical and physical plan in accordance with the competition schedule and the club’s objectives
- Embracing and adopting an interdisciplinary approach to physical and mental preparation and development, wherever possible in cooperation with other members of the multi-disciplinary team, e.g. performance analysts, fitness coaches, sports scientists, medical and other performance staff

The match

- Preparing a team for and coaching them during matches at professional level
- Using the game to develop each player and the team, but also to create a winning team and a high-performance culture
- Preparing the match plan (with the staff) in accordance with the club’s playing philosophy, taking the opponent team into account
- Analysing matches (with the staff) as an evaluation and learning tool for individual players and the team as a whole.

https://www.uefa.com/news-media/new...b8-1000--course-details-the-uefa-pro-diploma/

Coaching a team during matches at professional level! Imagine that! Just one more year and we'll never have to think about this mechanic ever again.

That's 5 wins in 10!

After that Crystal Palace win, we struggle a bit, but recover against Wolves. Coming up towards the end of the calendar year are four games against traditional top teams, but there is one strange thing going on here. If you'll look at the screenshot above, Liverpool are in 18th place with 10 points from 14 games! They've just sacked Luis Enrique as their manager, and it's shaping up to be their worst season in living memory, and the question has to be asked: can Liverpool really get relegated?

We give them more than a little push. Although it's not quite 22-assist level like in the Championship, Mendoza is proving to be an excellent purchase so far. At the age of 20, he's already a top Premier League-level player. We follow this victory with a 0-0 against Chelsea.

We are also reaching Aravena much better, with his tally now standing at 10 goals out of 14 league games.

We push Manchester City very close to an upset, but they come back in the 88th and 95th minute.

We really deserved to get more out of the Arsenal game too, but still, getting 5 points against these four top opponents in one of the hardest series of fixtures of the season is some achievement.

On New Year's Day, Fausto Vera joins the squad, and we also sign another Argentinian for £5M. This is purely a long-term signing, and we might just loan him out later. Yes, Joe Hardman is already proving surprisingly adept at playing Monopoly with the club's money. Any young talents we sign for cheap can be trained by the club and loaned out or sold for far greater sums later. An unfortunate side effect is that it turns the first-team squad into a foreign legion. Out of our best XI, only Noni Madueke has English nationality. The other English lads in the team are all squad players or lower: Nathan Baxter, Jayden Bogle, Jack Harrison, Harvey Vale, Horace Harvey and Louis Bekoe are our native-born English lads.

But any mix of nationalities can be forged into a team, as we prove once again at Aston Villa. We beat them, despite the presence of the now 34-year-old Jack Grealish, who, after having escaped from Pep's clutches to Saudi Arabia, rejoined his old club on a free. Sadly, Aravena is beginning to hit a bit of a goal drought again, with his production not nearly as high as it was in the first half of the season.

The first murmurs of discontent are beginning to be heard from benched players. Bergvall was another candidate to replace Andreas Pereira, but he never really broke into the team even in the Championship season, let alone in the Prem.

Birmingham City are in the mid-table in the Championship, and in this FA Cup game, we show them exactly why we left the Championship behind.

At last, another British lad joins the team. The Scotsman's natural position is as a right-back, but he has recently apparently been converted into a winger. He is another back-up/investment.

It's a blast from the past as none other than SERGIO AGUEROOOOOOO draws us against Championship team Portsmouth, where Wayne Rooney has just been appointed to try and save them from their precarious 24th spot.

Here you can see our shape in possession, with Keita dropping into the defence to form a back three. Another bad day in the office for Sheffield Wednesday?

They actually get back into the game, and it takes a corner in the 90th minute, headed in by Georgiev, for us to get the 3 points here!

Bayern Munich make an offer for our 3rd goalie. Although it's not a great amount of money being offered, we also don't want to force him to stay here when he's only going to play for the reserves anyway, so we let him go. Bergvall is offloaded to Palermo on loan, although he's probably not going to get much playing time there either.

Our first heavy thrashing comes not against Manchester City or Arsenal, but away at West Ham. We are done in by some incredibly lethargic defending, allowing 19-year-old Belgian-Moroccan newgen Oudghiri to run onto the ball not once, but twice.

We substitute one 3rd goalie for another, bringing in a Cuban no less! The challenge for reserve goalies is always to find someone who is good enough to actually stop som fackin shots if needed, but not good enough that he'll actually want playing time. Judging from his career stats so far, this guy fits the bill as he is comfortable sitting in the stands and playing for the reserves at various Spanish clubs.

Wayne Rooney's Pompey actually take the lead against us, but we get two penalties and Aravena contributes two assists from the wings this time, as we give Josué a chance. In the Fifth Round, the opposition will be none other than... Arsenal! Time to break out that weird 4-4-2 DM tactic again!

Maybe we should have used it against Brentford too, as they prove troublesome again. We take an early 2-0 lead, but they gradually begin to control the game, and the collapse is disappointing. It's another game where our defence gets wrongfooted by a pinpoint through ball. And anyone who has paid attention to the Eredivisie IRL knows that you can trust Vangelis Pavlidis to score from all angles.

With 16 games left to play, we're just over the halfway mark. Next time, you'll find out if there are any shenanigans on transfer deadline day, if the FA Cup produces any magic, and where we'll end in the league!

The results so far:

With 33 points out of 22 games so far, we are smashing our target of avoiding relegation! The magical 40 points are not far away now, and it's pretty much impossible for us to go down at this stage. The real question is whether we'll already be able to achieve the top-half finish that is expected by 2032. Some of the teams below us still have games in hand, so it will be very hard to keep them all at bay. Our recent form has also been a bit too inconsistent and too weak at the back to suggest that we're really going to challenge for European spots, but never say never! Also, note the still so far invincible Chelsea, and Liverpool barely scraping out of the relegation zone with one game in hand. April and May brings another 4-week gauntlet against Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal, so it will be important to build as big a cushion as possible before that. But all in all, it's been a stylish return to the Premier League, with Joe Hardman's star rising accordingly just when he's working on his final coaching badge. Let's see if we can't crown this achievement with something like a 7th place, or a good showing in the FA Cup!

 

[3 others]

That's a very impressive post-promotion campaign. Looks like Joe Hardman does his best work as an underdog coach, and I imagine you're even higher in the xG table.

Being the manager of an established Premier League side is when you've pretty much 'made it' in FM terms, and it's hard to see where the journeyman career can continue from that. How many teams are there at this point that are a clear step up in prestige or compensation? 20 worldwide? A move to Lille or AS Roma would be lateral at best, unless you really want to push that mercenary aspect of the game and go for the biggest paycheck. Just from the quality of writing and drama standpoint I'm slightly disappointed there never was an intermediate step as the manager of Zwolle or Stade Reims or something after Livingston, but you can't argue with success. The madman Khan saw a buy-low high-reward asset in Hardman and his gamble is paying off.

 

[Andnjord]

Nah, Joe still has to win some serious silverware before we can say he’s ‘made it’. Lesser men might be content with what you’re suggesting, but Joe Hardman has the titanium balls to try and shoot for the stars.

 

[wwsd]

That's a very impressive post-promotion campaign. Looks like Joe Hardman does his best work as an underdog coach, and I imagine you're even higher in the xG table.

Being the manager of an established Premier League side is when you've pretty much 'made it' in FM terms, and it's hard to see where the journeyman career can continue from that. How many teams are there at this point that are a clear step up in prestige or compensation? 20 worldwide? A move to Lille or AS Roma would be lateral at best, unless you really want to push that mercenary aspect of the game and go for the biggest paycheck. Just from the quality of writing and drama standpoint I'm slightly disappointed there never was an intermediate step as the manager of Zwolle or Stade Reims or something after Livingston, but you can't argue with success. The madman Khan saw a buy-low high-reward asset in Hardman and his gamble is paying off.

Nah, Joe still has to win some serious silverware before we can say he’s ‘made it’. Lesser men might be content with what you’re suggesting, but Joe Hardman has the titanium balls to try and shoot for the stars.

Yeah, I think there are many things still to be done in this playthrough. Sure it's been a great upwards trajectory, but actually winning the big trophies is the one thing that's better than just becoming established in the top flight. And that moment is still far removed. On a more meta level, I'm also still learning how to develop tactics (without cheesing the game). When I see Liverpool struggling in this season, I almost feel sorry I didn't apply with them when they sacked Luis Enrique. Restoring them to Premier League-winning glory might be a good challenge in the next few seasons (if they don't actually get relegated). Then there are European top leagues, Champions League, international football, etc. After winning lots of successes, it would also be fun to try and win stuff with youth players, with mostly UK & Ireland players, playing 4-4-2 Brexit-ball, etc. Or maybe we'll eventually get sacked somewhere and have to do it all over again. Or maybe Joe lets the money get to his head, has several trophy wives and children in short succession, and he has to work in the Saudi league to pay for all the alimony and child support (OK, that doesn't sound like fun, but you get the idea).

At some point it will inevitably be a matter of thinking horizontally rather than vertically. But I would love to have some kind of long-term trajectory where Joe reaches a certain peak, and then starts going back down with crazy shit like managing in the Japanese or American leagues, or taking Malaysia or Jamaica to the World Cup, or something similarly exotic. Like how Dick Advocaat is doing Curaçao in real life now, I think that would be fun to do when it's like the year 2056 and Joe is like 70 years old and no longer has anything to prove as a manager. We can take the whole 'Journeyman' thing very literally. Of course this all depends on how much longer I want to keep playing this save without getting bored of it. At some point the pace will inevitably slow down, but we're not there yet!

 

[wwsd]

January 31rd, 2030. As the first month of the new decade draws to a close, Joe Hardman texts Susan Dublin, his devoted personal assistant, who has been by his side since the Briton Ferry days.

"I'm going to bed early tonight, love. No more transfer business for today."

It's been a quiet month, even by winter transfer window standards. Full-backs Iván Enrique and Alex Underwood were brought in with a view to the future, and some other players were loaned out. One third goalie was replaced by another. But no club ever approached Fulham for any of its top players. Despite the recent drop in form, the club is having a dream return in the Premier League. As Joe turns in for the night, the transfer deadline passes quietly.

So, did we continue to accumulate points in the second half of the season? Spoiler alert: not exactly.

The defeats against West Ham and Brentford you already saw last update. This is followed by three more games without a win, despite being better at home than Southampton and Spurs. Maybe a bit OTT to already start speculating about sacking though.

We also lose the FA Cup fifth round to Arsenal.

This rotten patch of form goes on for 8 games, all the way until mid-March, when we finally completely dominate Crystal Palace.

In the league standings, it doesn't matter that much, as we remain in an extremely respectable 9th place, and will likely end in the mid-table somewhere. But it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to go from 33 points out of 22, to 'only' 39 out of 29. Both attack and defence have become an issue, with Aravena no longer finding the goals as easily as before, while the defence is beginning to look a bit shakey and not necessarily up to scratch for the Premier League anymore. Probably some teams are also adapting to us better. Joan Gonzalez got 3 goals and 4 assists early in the season, but has barely been able to add to his tally since then.

Joe wins some battles on another front. Some of our best players still have minimum release clauses. We use the club's large coffers to either get rid of these clauses, or at least increase them in Mendoza's case. Mendoza thus becomes by far the best-paid player in the team, earning almost twice as much as the likes of Keita and Aravena, but they'll just have to deal with that for now.

Against Brighton, we take the lead in the 1st minute, and then Mendoza pays Joe for his confidence in the way that only the elite of the elite of football can do:

The half-week fine that he'll have to pay for that is probably more than most British people's yearly salary.

It was a bit "blink and you'll miss it", but João Gomes was on loan for us last season as one of several options in the defensive midfield. Back at Wolves, he sinks us in the 86th minute.

Long-suffering Liverpool have once again turned to a Spanish manager, Míchel, formerly of Girona (also IRL) and then Wolves and Valencia. Under his lead, they slowly crawl out of the abyss, and we don't push them around as easily anymore either. The deep-lying 4-4-2 is not exactly the giant-killing magic bullet Joe thought it might be. It does create a lot of chances, but it also creates openings that a good opponent will exploit. Although in any other universe, any manager would have signed for a 2-2 against Liverpool, now it almost feels like a disappointment.

The end of the season draws near, with three incredibly tough games against Chelsea, Man City and Arsenal before a home game against Aston Villa, who are still fighting relegation.

Nobody breaks down the 4-4-2 better than Chelsea though. The league leaders give us the biggest hiding of the season, and the squad resort to a bit of demagoguery to appease the fans:

Obviously Man City haven't been watching the footage of that game, because they run straight into our knives. It's one of the sweetest wins of the season, coming as it does just when the team's form has been poor, with the 6-1 against Chelsea fresh in everyone's memory from last week, and with some of our most important players not performing. This time however, Aravena scores two, Madueke provides two assists, and Mendoza is involved in two goals!

With so many points spilled since January, the season is effectively over for Fulham. Although we can still finish between 9th and 12th, it's really only a technical difference between the top and bottom half of the table at this point. Liverpool can look back at a wasted year, but at least they climbed out of the relegation zone. Manchester City have been poor all season, and their defeat at Craven Cottage places them below their neighbours United. Arsenal give away the top spot by conceding a penalty at Everton in the 95th minute! Arsenal will really come at us next week to keep their title challenge alive. At the bottom of the table, the curtain has already fallen for Sheffield Wednesday. Hull are likely to join them, but could still pull off a great escape. Wolves, Southampton and Aston Villa are all still fighting tooth and nail to stay up. Joe sympathises with them, remembering the desperate relegation battles at Livingston and the first season at Fulham, but Villa can't expect any favours when they come to the Cottage!

We give Arsenal a tough time at the Emirates, and we almost torpedo their title chances. But with this defeat, the season is well and truly over for us, as only a big change in goal difference could theoretically still put us below Liverpool. Southampton managed to snatch a point from Manchester United in the 93rd minute, so our last game, at home against Aston Villa, will actually become a relegation cracker! Just not for us.

Apparently we "failed" an objective. How this is measured or what the manager can do to influence it remains a mystery. But maybe we can ask the board to divert some more funding towards youth recruitment?

Obviously our youngsters are doing something right though, because they win the U21 Premier League!

Lukic must endure an even greater disappointment however, as he is left out of the Serbia squad for the World Cup in Spain. Even though he has been a consistent performer for us in the Premier League even when others faltered, he is now 33 and slowly declining physically, and apparently Serbia want some fresh blood in there. Seven others do get a chance to shine on the world stage:

We end the season with a decent, if unspectacular send-off against Aston Villa. For us, the game no longer matters, but for Villa, it's far more consequential:

Since Southampton have lost their game as well, Villa needed a draw to stay up on goal difference. Their defeat here sends them down into the Championship for the first time since 2019, after a decade of having been a solid Premier League side. Even the return of the aged Jack Grealish didn't save them.

In the Championship, Middlesbrough have once again fallen at the final hurdle. Nottingham Forest will be joining Leeds and Leicester in the Premier League instead, while Wayne Rooney's Portsmouth fall down into League One.

The final Premier League table with the European qualifications. Chelsea and Arsenal surprisingly both drew their final games, leaving Chelsea the league winners! Crystal Palace won the FA Cup, while Brighton won the League Cup. Newcastle won the Europa League, that's why they're in the CL next season. As for Fulham, the bookies predicted us to finish 12th, and they were not far from the mark. It stings that we didn't keep winning points at the same rate as before, but the mid-table finish is well above the board's expectations at least. Brentford were relegated in 2025, promoted back in 2026, then built up a succession of mid-table finishes, before finally finishing 5th this season. If we can emulate this trajectory with Fulham, we'll do very well. Brighton are also worth emulating, even if they didn't repeat their 4th-place finish of last season.

Although our underperformance wasn't as extreme as in the Championship last season, the xG table indicates that we could have already been in European qualifier places with a bit better finishing, less leaky defending, and a bit more sheer dumb luck. The second half of the season is where we mainly ended on the wrong side of this table:

We've got the brightest talent in England in our midst! If Mendoza does well in the World Cup, it may not last long.

The board are all ready to help us make the leap, too. Where can we improve?

Aravena ended up 4th in the top scorer's table, but we may still want a more consistent striker. Luizão has been a very consistent defender in the Championship, but one might wonder if he's really cut out to compete in the upper reaches of the Premier League. Some other positions could do with improvements as well.

We shore up the backline with Maxim Dekker, former AZ, but marginalised and transfer listed at Atletico Madrid. Not a bad player to pick up from the bargain bin.

Mendoza bursts onto the World Cup scene in his homeland. Although it's not against the strongest opposition, being involved in 5 out of 8 goals is an achievement to say the least.

Meanwhile, there is a struggle to find enough space for more stars on the EU flag, as all the remaining former Yugoslav countries and Albania finally settle their differences and join the EU collectively.

But Joe Hardman decides to sign a British lad instead! Haley is young and not quite up to Premier League level yet, but he'll be an important part of our set-up. The idea is to switch to a 4-2-3-1 and use a shadow striker next season.

We shell out on a complete forward, a man with size, strength and speed. It's a risky purchase, and the competition for the striker position will be stiff, but it'll hopefully be worth it in the end.

Madueke's loan becomes permanent.

Manchester City sacked Thomas Tuchel for only finishing 4th with them. Joe put his hat into the ring, but they picked this Brazilian guy instead.

Mendoza's fortunes at the World Cup begin to wane. Although Spain dominate the tournament in their own country, Mendoza's last major contribution is in the round of 16, where title holders Nigeria are smashed 4-0, and Mendoza contributes a goal and an assist. But in the quarter-finals against England (2-0 win for Spain), he starts on the bench, and only plays in the second half. In the 3-0 semi-final win against Belgium, he remains on the bench, but then starts again in the final against Italy.

On that day in July, Joe Hardman attends the World Cup final in person. Although he's been to the Camp Nou on a tour before, to see the World Cup final there is an experience in and of itself. Already in the first minute, Mendoza takes a corner that is cleared away, but Lamine Yamal gets it just outside the box and scores!!! Then in the 9th and 11th minute, Italy scores two clone goals: two free kicks by Federico Dimarco from almost the same spot on the right flank, both headed in by Lorenzo Pirola. Weird. Camp Nou falls silent. Mendoza gets subbed off during the break, having been invisible except for that corner that led to the first goal. In the second half, uncharacteristically, Italy try to attack and extend their lead, and finally get the 3-1 in the 73rd minute. Spain claw one back in the 86th minute, but it's clear that they have choked in front of their home crowd. Or maybe they should have held the final in Madrid instead...

Although he didn't dominate every match, Mendoza still gets a couple of awards for his performances in the tournament.

While Joe is sipping sangrias and commiserating with Mendoza, the ever hard-working Tony Khan puts pen to paper on another defensive signing.

We do some selling too though. Bergvall was signed for £3M, never really got going, but is sold for £20M to the Ay-rabs now.

To reduce the competition for the central defence spots, we allow Luizão to go home to Brazil on loan.

But could someone else be headed for Brazil? That's right, we've put out some applications again. Here I think the game is a bit weird. Although it's a toss-up whether you actually get a chance at any major clubs, the national teams start offering contracts very easily once you start to overachieve even a little bit at the top level. The full list of countries offering us contracts: Egypt, Ivory Coast, Morocco, South Korea, Denmark, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay. After these came in, I saw that England, Argentina, France, Germany and Portugal have vacant managerial jobs as well, and if the other offers are anything to go by, we could probably get offered jobs by some or all of them too.

At some point I do want to manage a national team, I'm just not entirely sure if now is the right time. Just for the sake of realism, I also don't want to manage both a (major) country and a club at the same time, so if I did take on a job like Brazil or the Netherlands, I would choose to resign from Fulham. I haven't played FM with a national team in ages, so not 100% sure if it's going to be a lot of fun. Let me know if you think we should take on a national team, and if so, which one!

There haven't been a lot of vacancies at clubs yet, other than the Manchester City one mentioned before. If we want to be mercenary, we can also simply stay at Fulham and see if anything comes up in the 'sacking season' in October or later.

 

[Andnjord]

My instinct would suggest to stick with the current team, but it wouldn’t fit the journeyman vibe if we didn’t go around the globe teaching the natives to SCORE SUM’ FACKIN’ GOALS! in the traditional British manner if given the chance.

 

[Azira]

Israel? Hah! Yes, head their team. That's hilarious. :D

 

[3 others]

The national team management side is notoriously barebones in FM (although I haven't played the last releases). You have to sort potential callups with clunky tools, and there's no training or physio recovery component in international tournaments so all the players get completely gassed by the twice-a-week schedule in Euro or World Cup.

Still, it's a semi-fun way to breeze through a couple of years faster. And you must be intrigued by that oranje offer, right?

I'd say that if any of the teams in the countries you've loaded leagues from can double your salary, just go for it.

 

[Luka-boy]

Keke Topp?

More like Top Kek, am I roight lads?

 

[wwsd]

The national team management side is notoriously barebones in FM (although I haven't played the last releases). You have to sort potential callups with clunky tools, and there's no training or physio recovery component in international tournaments so all the players get completely gassed by the twice-a-week schedule in Euro or World Cup.

Still, it's a semi-fun way to breeze through a couple of years faster. And you must be intrigued by that oranje offer, right?

I'd say that if any of the teams in the countries you've loaded leagues from can double your salary, just go for it.

I found the Netherlands intriguing, sure, but Brazil too. Since their atrocious IRL World Cup record has continued in-game. To wit:

2026: 3rd in the World Cup group stage with Germany, Ghana and the Dominican Republic. Lost 5-1 to Germany, won 4-1 against the DR, lost 2-1 to Ghaniggas. Didn't even qualify as the best 3rd-placed team. Shamefur dispray.
2030: eliminated in the quarter-finals on penalties by Belgium after drawing 1-1. Well, I guess that can happen, but suffice it to say the jogo wasn't very bonito.

Although they did win the Copa America in both 2024 and 2028 in-game, so there's that. But there's something intriguing about how shit they have been in the World Cup since 2002.

This is one thing I like about this kind of save in FM. When I just load with a favourite team of mine, the temptation to job-hop rarely arises. Like if I start with Ajax, then Real Madrid themselves could come knocking, but I still wouldn't make the change, because I'm invested into Ajax at this point, I'm invested in the challenge of overachieving in the CL with Ajax, not in playing Real Madrid and probably winning it once every few years anyway. The idea of the AI ruining my painstakingly built up squad would kill me. But with Journeyman, it's different. Of course you can feel some attachment to Fulham or Livingston or whatever club you're currently at, but it's not like you're ever going to make a CL-class player out of Justin Marvellous Osagie.

Anyway, long story short, I'll give it a couple nights' sleep and then decide. For me there are no bad options here, just different possibilities, even if it's a little immersion-breaking that you're suddenly guaranteed a job with the national team the moment you apply. The weird thing is the game doesn't show any bookies' favourites for national team managers, which just reinforces to me that there's not really a system involved in getting a job, like there is with clubs.

 

[3 others]

Yeah, I did a journeyman save with a self-imposed rule of never extending my contract and it was a fun one. Get in, sell your underachievers, drive them to the airport, and hear the lamentations of the Fair Weather fans. Repeat every two years like a BoozAllenHamilton consultant.

I was even completely eclipsed by a successor manager! I had a series of nondescript midtable finishes with HSV before departing, but Henk de Jong turned that squad into a perennial Europa League outfit after he got his hands on it.

 

[wwsd]

Yeah, I did a journeyman save with a self-imposed rule of never extending my contract and it was a fun one. Get in, sell your underachievers, drive them to the airport, and hear the lamentations of the Fair Weather fans. Repeat every two years like a BoozAllenHamilton consultant.

I was even completely eclipsed by a successor manager! I had a series of nondescript midtable finishes with HSV before departing, but Henk de Jong turned that squad into a perennial Europa League outfit after he got his hands on it.

We toil all day to push that rock up that hill called FM, but at the end of the day, the Frisian gym teachers steal all our glory. Verskrikkelijk!

I always remember when Henk made it to the BBC website (as "Henk de John of Cambuurg") in the early days of Covid, because he called it "a disgrace to football" that the whole 2019/20 season was struck off the record when his team was leading the second tier league, so they missed out on promotion (it had a happy ending, because they did it in 2020/21).

 

[wwsd]

You might think that it doesn't bode well when the summary of your new manager's honours suddenly ends mid-sentence, but the madmen have done it! For the first time since Ernst Happel in 1978, the KNVB (Royal Dutch Football Association) have appointed a foreign manager! And he's English too boot! With a few exceptions in the 1950s (George Hardwick) and 1940s (Jesse Carver), we have to go back to the genesis of Dutch football to find English managers at the head of the Dutch national team.

While the first Dutch team was managed by a Dutchman from 1905 until 1908, this was followed by a long succession of English (and Scottish) managers before WWII. Amateurism reigned supreme, and the only tournaments contested were the Olympics, until the Netherlands made it into the 1934 and 1938 World Cups, but were eliminated in the first round both times. Few names from that era are household names today, but the most well known would probably be Beb Bakhuys, whose trademark diving header is still sometimes called a 'Bakhuys' style goal. The longest-serving manager was Bob Glendenning, who led the Netherlands in one stint in 1923, and then again from 1925 until 1940. He won 36 games with Oranje, a record only broken by Dick Advocaat in 2017. Glendenning died in November 1940, when WWII had just made international football a difficult proposition.

As this article explains, in those days, the role of a national team manager was nothing like what it is today. There were no real training camps or long-term international breaks; the team simply met on match days. With the team selections and even in-game substitutions decided by an FA committee, the 'trainer' spent part of his time doing menial tasks like physiotherapy or the players' laundry.

Although I've joked about Brazil's record, the Netherlands' tournaments have not been great either since the elimination on penalties by Argentina in Qatar in 2022. In Euro 2024, Oranje eliminated Spain in the second round and Switzerland in the quarter-finals, but were sent home by France in the semis, probably the best result in the 2020s. After that, it was all downhill, with another World Cup quarter-final elimination by the eventual winners, Nigeria this time. Then Euro 2028, hosted by Italy, featured a 2nd-round victory over Ukraine, followed by a quarter-final elimination against Spain. Now, in Spain 2030, the Netherlands barely made it out of their group as one of the best 3rd-placed teams, with only 3 points against Syria and defeats against Cameroon and Ecuador. The second round against France saw young Bram Mulder (see below) sent off in the 29th minute, and Oranje never got a touch as France won 3-0.

Throughout all this, Ronald Koeman remained the national team's manager. With few Dutch managers making a name for themselves in the game, Koeman was probably considered the safest option. But after the latest debacle (although few can blame him for being eliminated by France), Koeman decided to hang his hat. At the age of 67, it's likely that he'll retire from management altogether. So the KNVB found themselves facing a difficult choice. But one application caught their eye: a young English manager who came from nothing. A man who has developed an attractive, possessive style of football. A disciplinarian hard man. A... Hardman. It is rumoured that the KNVB's director of football, Nigel de Jong, is the one who made an impassioned plea to the rest of the board to take the risk.

In the modern day, Joe Hardman doesn't have to do the players' laundry anymore. The Netherlands is considered the 11th-ranked team in the world. Frenkie de Jong, still a starting player for Barcelona at the age of 33, has accumulated an astonishing 136 caps, leaving the likes of Wesley Sneijder, Edwin van der Sar and Frank de Boer in the dust. National team captain Matthijs de Ligt, still at Bayern, has also joined the triple digits club, with 118 caps. However, nobody has yet broken Van Persie's record of 50 goals. The screenshot shows 5 beautiful trophies, but really, only one of them is at senior level. The others are all youth tournaments. In the year of our Lord, 2030, the Netherlands' only senior trophy remains the 1988 European Championship.

The Best XI proposed by the coaching team contains some familiar faces, but also some youngsters that have come up after our fictional timeline separated from the real-life one. The most noteworthy are Bram Mulder, a left-winger who rose from the ranks at AZ, and has just made his €62M dream transfer to Real Madrid at the age of 21; and Jesse Kelder, the 21-year-old Feyenoord centre-back who came up from their youth academy.

The new job means Fulham will have to find themselves a new manager.

KNVB Campus, Zeist. In a densely populated and congested country, this wooded area centrally located just outside of Utrecht is the location where the KNVB has run its affairs for decades. The "bobos" ("bondsbonzen", i.e. "association bigwigs") are not necessarily popular with the fans. Here, they can decide the fate of Dutch football away from prying eyes, while the multitude of senior and youth national teams can train on the pitches right next door. This is where an office is being prepared for Joe Hardman. To survive in this environment, results are needed, but the initial expectations are not high:

With the 2030 World Cup just over, Joe can ease into his new job with a series of Nations League fixtures. The Nations League offers national teams an extra form of competitive football in the off-tournament years, but nobody would consider this on the same level as a majour tournament. The Netherlands finished runners-up in the Nations League twice: 2019 (lost to Portugal) and 2027 (lost to Germany). The upcoming group games against Portugal, Turkey and Norway should offer good competition and show the faithful Orange Legion where the team stands, before the Euro 2032 qualifications can begin in earnest.

First order of business: to revamp the staff. Sipke Hulshoff and Erwin Koeman (Ronald's brother, and a manager in his own right, although he hasn't held a top job in years now) are remnants of the old regime. Patrick Lodewijks is about to retire. And although Joe Hardman is familiar with the big names of Dutch football, he doesn't watch the Eredivisie on a daily basis, let alone the youth leagues, so we need some scouts to recommend fresh blood.

A good first catch. After his playing career, Peter Bosz was a pretty shit Director of Football at Feyenoord, but then came into his own as a manager. Throughout his career, he has showed his commitment to the Dutch approach to football. Having just resigned from Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia at the age of 66, it seems he thinks it's time for him to take on a less hectic job, with less day-to-day involvement.

Shopping for staff continues. The most important appointment:



Yeah, I don't need to explain who this guy is. Besides his iconic decade in the Premier League, he's also a legend for Feyenoord, and the all-time top scorer for the Netherlands to this day. With his Premier League experience, he will be the link between the Dutch footballing culture, and Hardman's English upbringing. Also, look at all the other big names in this squad. Look at them! We're surrounded by legends here! Except the goalie coach, I couldn't really find a huge Dutch former goalkeeper. Jelle ten Rouwelaar was a serviceable goalie at NAC Breda. He looks like a big ginger Neanderthal, and he'll do just fine.

Ahead of the first Norway game, Joe announces his first squad. A 3-at-the-back, if only to have both Frenkie de Jong and Teun Koopmeiners together in roles that make sense for them, as well as all good central backs and wing-backs. No worries, we'll be changing this around plenty before settling on a shape. In other good news, Erling Haaland has already retired from international football at the age of 30, so we won't have him to contend with at least.

Gakpo opens the score in the 1st minute, but Norway draw level just before the break! We switch to the more typical 4-3-3 of the Fulham days, but to no avail.

Against Turkey and Portugal, we remain unbeaten at least, with a very good performance against Turkey especially

This is the 4-2-3-1 that Hardman was practising with Fulham in the pre-season, before the Dutch offer came. We will probably tweak this with one of either Frenkie de Jong or Koopmeiners as a deep-lying playmaker.

Disappointing away days against Turkey and Portugal mean that the Nations League season is pretty shit in the end, but thanks to Kiliçsoy scoring a hat-trick in the 6th, 8th and 9th minutes against Norway, we don't get relegated at least. Time to focus on the real tournament!

The Euro 2032 will be played in Turkey, and the qualification stage offers us a relatively easy draw. Ukraine seems to be the toughest opponent here. Luxembourg are not as useless as they used to be, but should still not pose major problems. Kosovo and Estonia should be very easy opponents.

For the first batch of games, we call up Marco Jansen from PSV. It's totally on account of his defensive qualities, and not his magnificent mohawk.

We start with two authoritative wins. Better yet, Zirkzee is beginning to find his goalscoring form again. Phillip Hulsken, who has just joined Sampdoria from FC Volendam for €9.75M, is given his Oranje debut and bags two goals in the demolition of Estonia. Maarten Reneerkens at left-back is another regen, who started at Roda JC, moved to Columbus Crew, and was then brought to Fulham by Joe Hardman's successor. Speaking of which, I wonder how they are do--

After Joe Hardman left, Fulham brought in Michael Skubala from Leeds. Skubala was the Leeds manager when our Fulham side beat him in the Championship play-offs. The next season, he handily won the Championship, and obviously Fulham have a nose for good managers! It would be nice to say that Skubala built on our foundations, but in any case, this 3rd-place finish and Champions League qualification is Fulham's best ever league finish! Better yet, he did it with a 4-4-2, with Marc Guiu and Top Kek Keke Topp forming a deadly duo. Why have a big guy/small guy pairing up top, when you can just have a big guy, and another, even bigger guy? It makes Joe wonder what could have been. Could he have become the head of a Champions League Fulham side instead? But there's no time to look back now. The "toughest" opponent of the draw awaits...

With a few tweaks to the 4-2-3-1, Ukraine pose no challenge either. Hulsken and Mulder continue to excel.

Another debutant. Job Bakker started at RKC Waalwijk, then moved to Palermo, and earned a €17M transfer to Real Madrid in August 2030. With the likes of Luts Geertruida and Jurrïen Timber already playing at right-back, he's had to wait for his opportunity for a while, but we'll be seeing more of him (unless I forget to call him up, and then his stats/rating start fading from the national pool again, my assistant forgets about him too, etc. - yeah, national team management in FM is still a steaming pile of shit, sorry not sorry).

How time flies! It's already a year since Hardman took over the Netherlands. As shit as national team management is, it feels like a bit of a time skip. More and more of the greats of 2024 will disappear from the game, talents from 2024 will enter their prime, and newgens will become the new big things as football continues to evolve. In many ways, Luxembourg is a tough opponent, if only because of complacency and bad luck. Although this should have been another 4-0 or more, especially after their red card, the final score is far less comfortable than it should have been.

Estonia are more willing to roll over again. Another right-winger scores his first goal on his debut!

Another bright young talent, Man United bought him from NAC, but still consigned him mostly to reserve-team action.

With another easy win against Kosovo, it has probably been one of the easiest tournament qualifications in some time, with a perfect record after 6 games.

This guy has become a fucking beast. At the age of 29, he's an absolutely brilliant goalie both for Brighton and his country. I wonder if he will break the caps record eventually.

Only the last two games end our perfect record. Ukraine make the equaliser in the 94th minute, and we fail to find the goal in the Luxembourg away game.

The qualifiers offer few surprises. Denmark, Greece and Wales will later qualify for the playoffs. Switzerland and Slovakia are probably the biggest two countries missing.

One of our brightest talents breaks his leg, and will miss the Euro.

Cyprus are seen off in an uneventful friendly.

Ronald Koeman comes back out of retirement to draw us against Portugal and Norway again, just like in the Nations League. Greece completes the group.

"I suggest we schedule friendlies against a slightly weaker, and an equal team. Also, some of the games in Turkey may be played at high altitude, so we should find an opponent playing there."

"OK, how about Switzerland or Austria or something?"

"They're not available. I got an offer from a Turkish club instead, Elazigspor, but they are..."

"Yeah yeah, all right. You're not a fucking secretary, you're Robin van Persie. Get someone to sort it out."

Fulham don't repeat their feat from last season, but it's still an excellent finish. They also finish in the top third of the Champions League group, but get eliminated by PSG in the round of 16.

"Well, that was a fucking waste of time. High altitude my foot."

"I did mean to tell you about Elazigspor, they're not actually very good."

Friday, 11th of June, 2032. Euro 2032 opens at Galatasaray's Ali Sami Yen Stadium. For the football-mad nation of Turkey, hosting their first major tournament almost feels like football has come home. Their creditable 3-3 draw against Spain gives the roaring crowd plenty of optimism for the tournament.

Since Joe took over the Dutch team, it has gone through a disappointing Nations League and an easy Euro qualification. The team taking to the field here today is one of the older ones in the tournament, despite some of the talents like Kelder, Mulder and Acheampong coming through. De Jong and Koopmeiners are supposed to form a double pivot, but will probably not be able to play all matches for 90 minutes all the time.

That's a fucking nailbiter. Norway take the lead, we draw level and then get a 3-1 lead, Norway come back to draw level, but we get the last laugh. A surprisingly open game thanks to Odegaard bossing the midfield.

Greece stun us, Rehhagel-style. They even play 4-4-2! Both of their goals come from crosses from the left, the first one headed in, the second cleared, but then rifled in from a distance. The kind of shot that Verbruggen normally stops, but we can't always have perfection. It comes at a rather inconvenient time though. We get a penalty in the 94th minute, but Koopmeiners misses it!

Portugal is a traditional Angstgegner for the Netherlands, but now it's our turn. This game marks the moment where set pieces become a true weapon for us. It's a simple recipe: Micky van de Ven throws it long to Kelder, who flicks it on into the box. Zirkzee gets his head to it the first time, Mulder the second. Although Portugal try to stage a comeback, they remain relatively ineffectual up front.

We finish the group 2nd, behind Greece, who have won all their games!

Few real surprises in the group stages, unless it's Greece winning our group, and Croatia and Denmark facing an early exit. It means that the Netherlands get a tough draw, facing Spain in the second round, after they eliminated the Netherlands in the quarter-finals in 2028.

Under Marcelino, Spain line up in a kind of counter-attacking 4-4-2. We make one slight tweak: we don't look to counter at every opportunity, to prevent turning the ball over and getting... counter-countered? The game is another triumph for out set pieces. First Kelder heads in a corner from Koopmeiners. Spain fight back, and they do make some dangerous breaks, but they get no less than three goals disallowed for (blatant) offsides. Then in the 96th minute, we settle it in the most satisfying way: Van de Ven throws it (short this time) to Taylor, who dribbles all the way to the edge of the area and curls it in.

Meanwhile, the hosts are eliminated by England, while France are surprisingly knocked out by Wales, 4-1 no less.

In this FM24 universe, there was actually a Netherlands vs Belgium game in Euro 2024, a 1-1 in the group stage. Before that, competitive lowland derbies have been few and far between. The most infamous one, for all the wrong reason, was the 0-0 with the Kluivert elbow at the 1998 World Cup. But that was a long time ago. Kluivert is a scout for us now, and it's time to give Belgium a proper knock-out spanking.

Well, fuck. Van de Ven gets the ball at left-back, but Matagne (Bayern Munich) steals his lunch. Not his finest moment. Matagne passes it to Willems (Chelsea), and Willems passes it to Muller (Spurs), and he places it past the reach of Verbruggen. But then, in the 73rd minute, Koopmeiners gets a free kick. Zirkzee flicks it on at the far post, and Timber stands right there in the box, a shot that even a blind man couldn't miss, and it's 1-1! The game goes to penalties.

Although Koopmeiners again misses a penalty, Verbruggen is the hero of the evening, stopping two, holding them both.

England eliminate Greece, ending their fairytale, while Germany eliminate Wales. For the quarter-finals, we're drawn against... Portugal! Not again...

And then:

Obviously he was embarrassed at his missed penalty and immediately retired in shame. Or maybe international management is still the red-headed stepchild of FM, considering that it's still the same pile of shit as in FM10, when it was the same pile of shit as in FM07. Almost zero development here. I never actually had a player retire on me mid-tournament before in any FM. Would have been nice to have some kind of trigger in place to make sure this doesn't happen, but I guess you can't have it all. Oh well, I'll just go and win the Euros without one of the best Dutch midfielders.

Against Portugal, we go down 1-0 as De Ligt gives the ball away while dribbling into the midfield and Rego scores. But then, De Ligt takes a long throw to Kelder in the penalty area. Kelder passes it back to De Ligt, then takes up position on the edge of the box. He gets it back from De Ligt again, catches Diogo Costa leaving the far corner of the goal open, and drives it on low!

Where he's celebrating is where he scored the goal from. Incredible piece of play. In the second half and extra time, we get the most opportunities, but don't make good on any of them. You know what that means...

This time, its a very tense penalty series. Everyone takes them perfectly, until Portugal's 4th man, PSG's Vitinha, blinks first. It's the only miss in the series, as all the Dutch shooters take their shots fine.

We're in the final, lads! Can we go all the way?

While the Netherlands are managed by an Englishman, England are managed by a Frenchman: Didier Deschamps. Has the world gone mad??? They eliminate Roger Schmidt's Germany with this goal by Phil Foden, so they'll be our opponents. Will it come home? And if so, will it come to an Englishman or a Frenchman?

Atatürk Olympic Stadium, Istanbul. N.B. No Olympics were actually held here.

What we need in this final is something different. How about... a tactical surprise?

Not gonna lie, I saw this video about playing pure hoofball in the modern game. I was getting a bit bored with the international game, and I wanted to play with this kind of tactic just once, fully intending on reloading if we inevitably lost. Not really as a save scum, but just to have some fun. Surely this can't really work, can it?

In the 55th minute, we get a counter. Emegha gets to the byline and lays it back to Kenneth Taylor, who then does this:

In the final quarter, we defend the lead with a tactic last used by Joe Hardman at... Briton Ferry! "Much more direct" indeed. England keep coming at us, but can't find a goal.

And it's official! The Netherlands win their first major trophy since 1988! From the millennial generation onwards, nobody has seen their country win anything, but now, it's a new legend for a new generation! And it was done in the most uncharacteristic way: two successful penalty series in the quarter-finals and semis, and pure old-fashioned hoofball against England, managed by a Frenchman no less.



The pandemonium can best be illustrated by watching the footage from 1988. Only this time, it's an English manager riding a boat in Amsterdam. A manager who has, let's not forget, just won his own first major tournament.

Kenneth Taylor's cup-winning goal becomes the goal of the tournament, and it's well-deserved! The goalkeeper and three defenders are in the tournament's best XI.

With this tremendous success, winning for an adoptive country, Joe Hardman goes on a well-deserved holiday. What's next? Will the Netherlands conquer the world after Europe? And with what kind of squad, considering Koopmeiners has retired, Frenkie de Jong has just signed for Al-Ahli, and other major players are also entering their 30s? Or will major clubs come knocking?

 

[Andnjord]

From Briton Ferry all the way to winning the Euro Cup with the Netherlands. Truly Joe Hardman is the incarnation of a modern fairy tale.
With this win in the bag Joe could probably aim for any club that would have him, wouldn't he?

 

[3 others]

Lol @ that mid-tournament retirement. Well done grinding those wins despite that. For all the things FM gets right in its complexity, it has these hilarious bugs to compensate.

What does Joe's personal details page look like? Has he mastered the language already? What's he known for?

 

[wwsd]

Oh yeah, I haven't shown these in a while now.

Not bad for a Sunday League footballer!

I don't actually remember getting the final loicence. But that must have been in November 2030, since the whole process takes a year.

Joe speaks fluent Dutch now! When you've never been forced to learn another language, you may not even realise you have a gift for it. I wanted to insert a storyline about Joe learning Dutch with the "Nuns of Vught" (the nickname of Regina Coeli, a famous Dutch language-learning institute that was originally based in a convent, often used by top diplomats, businessmen and, yes, football managers, who need to quickly acquire a language), but I figured that since even Dutch top clubs now often use English as a lingua franca, language is a bit of a niche topic. While you can send new players on crash language courses, you yourself just acquire languages as you play. Suffice it to say that, one way or another, Joe's 2nd language is now swamp German. Let's see if more languages can be added later. But part of me wants to try the 2034 World Cup first.

 

[Andnjord]

No adaptability, maximum discipline. Is Joe a German in disguise?

 

[3 others]

Btw. FM2024 is free in the Epic Store at the moment. This might be the most suitable topic on the Codex for such an announcement.

I downloaded it and tested a few matches. The match engine and simulation performance has really improved from 2020, but some of the cruft seems to be eternal in this franchise. The touchline shouts and press conferences are completely mechanical busywork year after year.

 

[wwsd]

Probably one last hurrah before FM25. I must say I'm having tons of fun with it. Would recommend it despite the clear and present danger it poses to friendships and relationships.

I do all the press conferences. It's completely stupid, because the mechanic hasn't changed since what, FM09? But I just can't bear to lose control over the process and have my assistant say something stupid.

I don't have a frame of reference for more recent years, but the match engine is definitely better than it was in the early days of the franchise going 3D. The movement on the pitch looks like actual people now, like how footballers would actually move. It's still pretty low-definition otherwise, but I guess nobody buys this shit for the graphics. Although I hear FM25 will move to the Unity Engine.

 

[wwsd]

So, big news came in about FM25: it will be delayed, and international management will not feature. Although apparently it will be completely overhauled and return in FM26. For me it's not a big deal, as I don't plan on getting 25, or at least not immediately. I'm enjoying the ongoing playthrough with 24, and you always have to wonder if the first edition with a new engine is going to be good right off the bat.

And since international management is still present in its current, kinda crappy form, let's enjoy it while it lasts! In 2030, Joe Hardman became the first foreign manager of the Netherlands in almost six decades, and in 2032, the Netherlands won the European Championship for the second time in their history! The English under Deschamps were no match for the sudden, surprising turn to good old fashioned long ball. Even when playing a more modern tactic, most of the goals came from Micky van de Ven's dangerous long throws. Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis must have been looking at us with a bit of pride in their hearts.

After all the euphoria, it's back to the grind, as the Nations League pits us against Austria, Italy and Czechia. But there is more going on: after Koopmeiners' mid-tournament retirement ( ), will others go as well? Or should they even be selected? Frenkie de Jong is now 35 and moving to Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia, while Joshua Zirkzee has just moved to Al-Nassr. Others entering their 30s, like Xavi Simons at PSG and Kenneth Taylor at Chelsea, are losing their first-team spots. Joe will not only have to determine who the best players are now, but also who will actually still be able to make a contribution in the 2034 World Cup in Japan, who apparently won the bidding war (the Saudi cunts fear the Samurai!).

In the first set of Nations League games, we prove we've mastered all three major aspects of professional football: drawing, losing, and winning! Italy, the reigning world champions, were always going to be the toughest match. On the other hand, the draw against Austria was unlucky, but against the Czechs, we take our goals, also thanks to an early penalty.

The remaining three games in November are all won with pretty tight margins, with an excellent counter-attack providing the first goal against Italy. This improvement in form is not enough to go ahead in the Nations League however, as Italy have won all their other games.

The World Cup qualifications present us with another group that should be manageable. Romania have fallen off quite a bit in recent years, and Scotland should be considered the most dangerous opponents.

The lack of first-team football for some of our stars is a concern. We need them to be match fit, preferably. In the Nations League, we dropped Taylor, the man who scored the European Championship cup-winning goal. He takes the message to heart, and secures himself a loan to Juventus. Maybe we should do the same with Xavi.

Totally unrelated to the Netherlands, but there seems to be some weird glitch going on. I keep getting a new message about the same guy being appointed to an English 6th-tier club. Weird.

For the qualification campaign, Joe wields the axe. Taking a leaf out of the real-life playbook, the old farts playing in the Saudi league are out! Botman and Xavi, who have lost their first-team places, are out for the foreseeable future too. Is there life after Frenkie and Xavi? Let's see the new line-up against Latvia:

The real faces that you see here will be bringing the experience from now on. With De Ligt as captain and Verbruggen as vice-captain, a backbone of experienced players remains in place. Van de Ven stays as left-back for now, although his position is increasingly being threatened by Reneerkens, the left-back who was brought to Fulham by Joe's successor (who has already been sacked because Fulham were "only" in 10th place in November - ahh, football!).

I don't know why the game created such an old regen. It can't be lack of players, because he started at PSV at age 23. Maybe he's just a late bloomer.

This guy from Feyenoord is one of our defensive midfielders for the future. He's more of the hard-working, strong-tackling type than a playmaker like Frenkie.

The weakest team in the group is dispensed with easily.

The days of Pjanic and Dzeko are long gone. Although in-game, Bosnia did qualify for Euro 2024 and 2028, they were eliminated in the group stages on both occasions, and have slipped back into obscurity since then. At least here, they create one big chance against us, but Verbruggen is on the case.

This lad has been at PSV for over 5 years and got himself a Dutch passport. We may or may not use him, but it's good to have a bit of depth on the right-winger position, especially as most of our right-wingers are right-footed too, so there are few who can really cut inside well. Tchaouna fills that gap.

With two emphatic wins in the bag, the players leave the team hotel to prepare themselves for the end of the season. For Bart Verbruggen and Jan-Paul van Hecke at Brighton, it's a season to remember:

With the most clean sheets, the Dutch core defence undoubtedly played a massive role in Brighton and Hove Albion's first ever Premier League title! Although it seems to have come out of nowhere, they have actually been building towards this for a while now:

Coincidentally, this prophetic video just dropped the other day:



So how far can Brighton go? Very far apparently, if FM is to be believed!

Now that's how to run a football club! They also have an FA Cup, a League Cup, a Conference League and a Europa League trophy in their cabinet.

For the next games, Quinten Timber is dropped too, as he has been mostly on the bench at Milan. At least his brother Justin is still playing regularly at Real Madrid. Tchaouna is brought in, if only to get him a cap and lock him in with the Netherlands for good.

Romania used to be not exactly feared, but at least taken seriously. But they haven't qualified for any tournaments since Euro 2024, and still no World Cup since 1998. Sad!

Italy win the UEFA Nations League final against France on penalties.

As the 2033/2034 season comes to a close, it's been exactly one decade since Joe Hardman first stepped into the post-industrial wasteland of Briton Ferry to start his managerial career, which has taken a hockey stick-shaped trajectory. What has happened in European football since then?

European top league results

The Premier League has been the most entertaining. With big money flowing into all top clubs, Manchester City have not held on to the dominance that they seemed to be getting in the early 2020s. The biggest change has been that Liverpool seem to have permanently disappeared from the top four after 2027, while Brighton and even Fulham have broken in at different points.

Barcelona have been second-best throughout the decade. It's certainly not for lack of trying, but there have been multiple seasons where Real earned over 100 points, as well as one invincible season where they stayed unbeaten all season. Can anyone stop the machine?

Bayern have held on to their Bundesliga domination for most of the decade, although a certain club from Leipzig, sponsored by the manufacturers of Austrian heart attack juice, have challenged them occasionally.

The Serie A has become more Milan-dominated than ever, with both AC Milan and Inter dividing the Scudetto between themselves ever since that one title win by Napoli.

The less said about French football, the better.

In the Netherlands, the most notable thing is that although Ajax won a few titles, they also fell out of the top 3 on two occasions, and it has now been 6 years since their last title.

Although Man United haven't been setting the Premier League in flames, they have been strong in Europe, winning the Champions League on three occasions. In 2028, PSG achieved their long-standing ambition for the first and only time, while the 2032 final featured a North London Derby at San Siro.

With no Real Madrid or PSG to compete with, English domination has been even more pronounced in the Europa League, with Brighton and Newcastle both winning it twice.

The relatively young Conference League has also been a mostly English affair, with even Tottenham no longer having to suffer the humiliation of an empty trophy cabinet.

The oligarchs' new toy, the new-form FIFA Club World Cup, has also predictably become the domain of the Manchester-Madrid Axis, although River Plate did at least put up a fight.

And how have Joe Hardman's former clubs been doing since his departure?

Briton Ferry, Livingston, Fulham results

Briton Ferry have established themselves in the Cymru Premier ever since that first promotion under Hardman. In 2030, they even repeated his feat of qualifying for Europe by finishing 6th and then winning the play-offs! In the 2030/2031 Conference League qualifications, it was once again an early exit after beating Pyunik from Armenia, but losing to Ruzomberok from Slovakia. The Welsh League Cup from 2026 under Hardman remains their only silverware.

Although Livingston seemed to be on their way up even after Joe jumped ship to Fulham mid-season in late 2027, the last four seasons have once again been a lengthy relegation struggle, with the boys from the Tony Macaroni Arena saving their bacon in the play-offs on two occasions. Joe's Scottish League Cup victory with them in 2027 is no longer the only occasion, as they repeated this success in 2033.

Fulham, of course, are the most recent success story. After the penalty shoot-out promotion and then the mid-table finish in the Premier League under Hardman, they shot straight up the table to a 3rd and 6th finish. In 2033, they've had a comparatively disappointing 10th-place finish again. Sacking Joe's successor didn't prevent this outcome. But so far, it seems they will last in the top flight this time.

(Let me know if you want me to post screenshots from any other teams, players, managers, leagues etc. to show how they've been faring in the past decade)

Jesse Kelder walks into the footsteps of Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt and Virgil van Dijk as he becomes the most expensive Dutch player of all time. It's good to see one of our brightest talents making that big next career move, competing against the best strikers in the world at the top of the Premier League, just a year before the World Cup starts.

Taking a step back at the right time can be a smart move as well. After winning the Premier League with Brighton, Van Hecke realises he isn't getting any younger, and cashes in his chips to make sure he will still be playing regular football in the Eredivisie. Meanwhile Botman, marginalised at Newcastle, moves to the mid-table Serie A. Fun fact: Sampdoria is now managed by Steven Gerrard.

Huitema is losing his spot at Atletico, so we give chances to two new strikers.

The hardest away game is against Scotland, but they make the mistake of tapping the ball around in their own box, and Koster, used as a pressing forward, pounces on it and blasts it into the back of the net on his debut.

Bosnia try to come at us with the ol' 5-2-3 thing, dropping deep. Big mistake as we ping the ball around in their area with ease.

Another rising star from the Ajax youth academy, it took a while for this guy to actually break into the first team, but now that he has done so, he's great for us too as an attacking midfielder, laying on assists and occasionally getting some tap-ins off the work of our forwards.

In Dutch football, a hat-trick is only considered a proper hat-trick if all three goals are scored in one half. Hulsken performs this feat, and then scores two more in the second half. Luckily he doesn't score a 6th, otherwise he'd have to be given two match balls to take home!

Romania are a bit harder to break down in their own home, but our finishing makes it look easy. With one more game to go, we're already almost guaranteed qualification, with a 3-point lead over Scotland and a goal difference of +30 to their +20.

Kenneth Taylor beats Scotland with a beautiful long-distance shot, and it's official!

A perfect record in the qualifiers, with not even one goal conceded!

Another important record: after just over 10 years of management, Joe Hardman has accumulated £10M in income! Quite a big step up for the man who spent most of his pre-managerial life switching between the dole queue and Greggs. Although Fulham paid well too, most of this money comes from the last few years, as the Dutch FA pay €200,000 per month. Even after the extortionate taxes, that's still a big pile of money! Joe's holiday destinations haven't changed much, but the accommodations and means of transportation have. No more EasyJet flights, as Joe can now jet off to Ibiza's most exclusive clubs with his mates! After a nice spring break to celebrate becoming a multi-millionaire, it's back to business.

Real and Chelsea pull three of our best players out of the friendly against Croatia, and the ones who still show up seem to do so in name only:

Although Scotland are pretty much equal to Croatia, it still feels like the Croats are the first real opposition since the Nations League.

Pep Guardiola has just been sacked by Arsenal after a 6th-place Premier League finish, so he gets some time away from his white board to do the World Cup draw. The Netherlands are in Pot 1 at least.

There is no true group of death, as everything is pretty balanced with the sheer number of teams involved in the modern-day World Cup. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Costa Rica should offer some competition, but nothing that we can't progress against.

After the Nations League, qualifiers and the Croatia friendly, we focus on non-European teams that are less familiar for the friendlies, before playing against the Japanese champions Yokohama in the host nation itself.

44 players report to the training camp at the KNVB Campus in Zeist. After two weeks of training, 26 of them are selected for the World Cup and the preceding friendlies.

The friendly matches themselves are very much a mixed bag. Although we can definitely push around the smaller sides, a team like Mexico give us more trouble than they reasonably should. Whether this squad can turn up and perform in the actual World Cup is still very much an open question.

Against the Saudis, at least, there are no doubts. They are seen off with relative ease, with two gorgeous long-distance shots being fired in, as well as a goal from a corner and De Ligt converting a penalty.

Against the Turks, Ünüvar forgets his own Turkish blood for a moment as he cheers wildly after rifling in this beautiful half volley from just inside the box. The Turkish fans whistle like madmen, but who can blame him after a goal like that?

Turkey are the better side in truth, and they stage a comeback in the second half, but we're able to hold them back. With this, progress into the next round is as good as guaranteed.

Costa Rica are disposed of too. Without playing brilliantly, the group stage brings another perfect record.

Morocco are a bit of an unknown factor for us, with several of their biggest stars being older players who used to be in La Liga, but have since semi-retired to the Saudi league. We have the better part of the game, but fail to make real quality chances, with a couple of shots going just wide of the post, and another typical Kenneth Taylor scorcher hitting the crossbar in extra time. As the 120th minute ends, we all know what that means... With nerves frayed and no real penalty specialists on the team, we head into the shoot-out...

A wall of Moroccan fans booing, whistling, throwing lighters and shining laser pointers seem to add another layer of defence to Mourid's goal. Taylor hits the post!

All is not lost, as Verbruggen stops Diop's effort next. But when Mourid stops both Ünüvar's and De Ligt's rather soft balls into the lower left corner, a lot of older Dutch fans realise they've seen this movie before. Although we won two penalty series against Belgium and Portugal at Euro 2032, this time, it's game over. The Moroccans score all their remaining penalties, so the 5th Dutch penalty doesn't even need to be taken. It's nothing less than a disaster, probably the worst penalty series since Jaap Stam put the ball into orbit at Euro 2000. The good mood from Euro 2032 and the qualifiers has been completely nullified here at Niigata. The tournament is now so large that the second round isn't even the round of 16 yet, and the exit comes far earlier than anyone had hoped for.

To win the Euro 2032, only to then go out like this, playing fine against Morocco, but forgetting to finish the job, is absolutely devastating. Normally it's the experienced players, the team leaders, who should be lifting everyone up at moments like this, but what can you do when it's 30-somethings Taylor, Ünüvar and captain De Ligt who all miss their penalties? Who can lead the team when the captain is the one lying on his back on the pitch, as if hoping to wake up from a bad dream, knowing that this is probably his last World Cup? It falls to the manager to pull them up and make them walk up to the fans and thank them for travelling halfway around the world. Joe himself knows that even if the KNVB don't sack him, this is his last game too for the country that gave him his best-paying and most successful job ever.

In the days afterwards, the team goes through the motions of asking themselves where it all went wrong. Some light training and recovery work continues, but other than that, it's mostly leisure time before the flight back to Amsterdam. All anyone can do is try not to look too cheerful while relaxing, or the media will have a field day. The rest of the tournament passes in a blur:

Morocco can't enjoy their success for long, but another upset happens in the round of 16, as South Africa send France packing.

South Africa becomes the feel-good story of the World Cup, far more so than their group stage elimination in their own country in 2010. It's either them or Scotland, as the Scots eliminate Spain in the second round, and then beat Venezuela and the USA to go all the way into the semi-finals.

In the semis, the dream is over, as England and Italy end up as the finalists.

South Africa take home the bronze medal in a 3rd-place game that for once actually has some meaning, as both sides have exceeded their expectations and earned their best ever World Cup performance by far.

In the final, it's not a big star that scores, but Alex Scott from Bournemouth, firmly in the mid-table, who finds himself unmarked and makes the tap-in beyond the reach of Donnarumma, not once, but twice!

How bitter it is that England should win the World Cup and end almost 7 decades of hurt, just when they are led by a Frenchman, Didier Deschamps, while a talented English manager is going home with the Netherlands after a second-round exist against Morocco. Joe watches the game together with the Dutch squad back in Zeist, away from the masses. The madness that engulfs England in the following weeks passes him by completely. He can't bring himself to celebrate England's second World Cup title in their history, not after four years of living and breathing Dutch football every day. Not as long as he still has to face the Dutch FA.

"I feel I need a holiday, a very long holiday, as I have told you before. Probably a permanent holiday: I don't expect I shall return. in fact, I don't mean to, and I have made all arrangements.... I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right. I need a change, or something."

Ibiza, 10th of August 2034, three weeks after the World Cup in Japan. The sun burns away a wicked hangover and even more wicked memories of the night before. This jet-set English footballer's lifestyle is still taking some getting used to. Who was that girl who explained to Joe that if you're a WAG, you can be one man's W, A another man's G? And more importantly, which World Cup-winning England player should Joe steer clear of for the next few months if he knows what's good for him? No, wait, it was all a dream. Yes, that's it, a dream. It never happened. Then, Joe's phone starts beeping. He feels his heart sink. Will he need bodyguards? Wait, no, it's just Susan, forwarding the latest news:

A bunch of dominos have started falling in top football while everyone else was fixated on the World Cup. Manchester City sacked De Zerbi and hired Marco Rose from PSG. PSG then hired Lionel Scaloni from Chelsea. Chelsea then approached Zinedine Zidane, back at Real Madrid since 2030 after spells at Porto and Man United. And now Real Madrid are without a manager. "r u thinkin wat im thinking?" asks Susan.

"I need to get the fuck out of here."

Meanwhile, the bookies already know more than we do:

*Insert tense Spanish guitar music*