FM Guide: 10 Challenges For FM24

If you’re anything like us, you’re probably getting very excited now that the Football Manager 2024 Beta is live and mulling over save ideas to boost your enjoyment of the game. For me, that typically means taking on new challenges that maximise the life of a save and make it a little different and generally more fun.

Having attempted – and even created – a fair few adventures in our time, we got our thinking caps on for a few that we think make for an exciting FM24 save. So read on for 10 exciting FM24 challenges in alphabetical order.

A to Z Journeyman Challenge

We’ll kick off by diving into the deep end with an intriguing long-term challenge. The key objective here is to win a trophy with a club beginning with every letter of the alphabet, from A to Z – with any club in any country or league in the world.

I came up with this idea when I was thinking about ways to give a European Journeyman save an original twist, but didn’t go ahead with it on FM23. The rules are pretty loose but the plan should be to start at the bottom of the footballing world with no badges or experience, find yourself a job, and begin growing your reputation. From there, you can begin taking on higher-profile jobs and ticking letters off the alphabet with the aim of winning trophies. Obviously, big challenges here could be finding let alone managing teams beginning with the letters I, Q, X, Y and Z. But to help, Football Databases lists every club in the world alphabetically.

On the face of it, this doesn’t sound that difficult. But to actually manage for more than 26 years and get 26 jobs with clubs from every letter of the alphabet, then go on and achieve success is a pretty lofty challenge.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 9/10

Build A Nation Challenge

These saves are all the rage these days, with popular Build A Nation challenges luring in many Twitchers (is that a thing?) and YouTubers. The basic premise of the challenge is to manage a club in a lower-rated nation and aim to establish it as the number one nation in FM’s national coefficients. To do that, you’ll need to not only make your club the best in your country, but also prioritise enhancing the fortunes of your rivals. For example, you can use an approach termed “loan farming,” which involves buying a mass of players and loaning them out to your rivals to strengthen the country and the league as a whole. Clubs’ performances in European competitions will enhance the nation’s coefficient performance, so the better you and your rivals do in Europe, the quicker you’ll enhance its reputation.

Our 24 Teams to Manage On FM24 blog recommended Denmark and Norway as ideal countries for a Build A Nation challenge. But countries like Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia and Turkey could be good options. Also consider taking control of a club that isn’t one of the top-rated clubs in that country, with the extra mission of establishing your team as the number one.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 8/10

Director Of Football Challenge

If you can’t be bothered with the hassle of playing matches – which begs the question, why are you playing Football Manager? – then don’t worry, we have a challenge for you too. This challenge is inspired by arguably the best Director of Football in the world, Luis Campos, who’s built his reputation on signing exciting talents on the cheap, selling them for massive profit and bringing success to clubs like Lille – who won Ligue 1 in 2021 under his stewardship.

The aim, therefore, is to install yourself as the manager of a club but hire a good assistant manager to take control of the day-to-day activity, like matches, training etc… Your job is to build squads (and the non-playing staff) by managing the scouting team, snapping up young talent from around the world, making massive profits on those players, then replacing them with players for a minimal percentage of the received transfer fees. The club you choose to take control of is also a vital consideration as it needs to be an underdog that you lead to usurping the big boys – so consider the likes of Atalanta, Bayer Leverkusen, Brighton, Braga, Everton, Lazio, Lyon, Real Betis, Rennes, Tottenham, Valencia and Wolfsburg. Also, there’s no limitation on establishing a career with different clubs, just as Campos has in real life.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 3/10

East German Challenge

No club from the former East Germany has ever been champion of Germany. So the aim of this challenge is simple – become the first manager ever to lead an East German club to Bundesliga glory.

This challenge is possible in the vanilla database, with Dynamo Dresden, Erzgebirge Aue and Hallescher playable in 3. Liga, 1. FC Magdeburg and Hansa Rostock in 2. Bundesliga and RB Leipzig and Union Berlin in Bundesliga, and can either be a one-club adventure or a journeyman. But, for me, the most enjoyable way to play this is to find a modded database that unlocks the top six tiers of German football – as I did in my OstDeutscher Sieg adventure.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 4/10

Eastern European Journeyman Challenge

If you fancy avoiding the drudgery of managing in the top five/six European leagues, then how about heading to the east of the continent. This is the first challenge that I created, and the aim is to win every top-tier title in Eastern Europe. My version began before all the Russian stuff happened, and our protagonist Vladimir Latunov embarked on a Soviet Surge to win titles in Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine. FM24 will only have 12 of those 13 countries available, but you could bolster it with Latvia (which wasn’t playable on FM21) and the Nordic nations Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden.

This challenge isn’t hugely difficult, it’s more the length of time you’ll need to play and being able to get jobs in every country. So you need to be quite strategic about where you go and when.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 7/10

Head Coach Challenge

If all that business of buying players, dealing with agents and, in FM24, working with intermediaries sounds like too much hard work, then how about focusing on the nitty-gritty of being a proper Football Manager? The Head Coach challenge enables you to do exactly that.

The hard work of signing and selling players and hiring backroom staff is delegated to your Director of Football, while you focus on training, managing team morale, tactics and playing matches. The pending AI improvements for FM24 may well boost this challenge as, until now, the AI has been terrible at making transfers. Your aim as the Head Coach is to start at the bottom of the game with no coaching badges, work your way up and go on to win the national title or win a Champions League, in whichever continent you choose to manage.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 6/10

Local Heroes Challenge

If you’ve ever marvelled at the exploits of Athletic Bilbao, who are only allowed to sign players of Basque descent, then this is the challenge for you. This save can be taken on with any club anywhere in the world, as you inflict you’re own Bilbao-esque rules upon yourself. And the advantage of that is you can make the restriction as strict as you like.

For example, if you wanted to take on the challenge with Arsenal, you could choose to only sign players born in London. Or if you wanted to take charge of Rennes, you could choose to only sign players born in Rennes (very difficult) or in the region of Brittany (probably still pretty difficult). Likewise, if you took on Bolton, you could choose to only sign players born in Bolton, Greater Manchester, Lancashire or widen it out to the entire north-west of England.

These same restrictions can be installed wherever you decide to manage. Crucially, wherever you start the save, you have to make efforts to sell all players at the club who weren’t born in your defined region as quickly as possible. And soon enough, you’ll have your very own team of local heroes. The aim is to lead those local heroes to their national title and/or conquer their continent.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 8/10

Pentagon Challenge

A bit of a classic for FM lovers, the Pentagon Challenge involves winning every biggest continental trophy on every continent. In other words, you have to win Africa’s Confederation of African Football Championship (CAF), Asia’s Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Championship, Europe’s Champions League, North America’s Confederation of North, Central American & Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) Champions League, and South America’s CONMEBOL Copa Libertadores.

The rules are pretty simple, you have to start the save with no coaching badges or playing experience, and work your way up through the ranks to win all the trophies listed above. I plan to take this challenge on as my first main save of FM24, and I think it’s probably a little tougher than it initially sounds – with the biggest issue probably becoming champions of Africa from FM24’s only playable African league, South Africa.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 7/10

Wonderkid Factory Challenge

Youth is the name of the game in this challenge and, specifically, relying solely on your own homegrown players. Like my Wonderkid Factory adventure at Envigado, the aim is to only use players produced by your club’s youth team. That means no signing players, no scouting, no loan deals – you can only use players produced through your club’s youth intakes. Obviously, this will be difficult in the early years, so you can use players who begin the save at the club, but you have to gradually replace them by introducing players who come through your intakes. As a result, the club will, eventually, be fully homegrown.

Your chosen club – which can be any club anywhere in the world – will also be a vital factor. It’s up to you whether you take a club with a reputation for producing great youngsters, as I did with Envigado, or take one with poor facilities and aim to improve them. But the latter has to be one of the most difficult challenges to gain success from on FM. The ultimate aim of Wonderkid Factory is to lead your homegrown heroes to the national title and/or continental glory.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 8/10

Youth Only Challenge

Another youth-focused challenge, this one is great for anyone who likes to prove you can win things with kids. The aim of the challenge is to only sign players aged under 21 (or 18, if you want to make it really tough!) and sell any players as soon as they reach a certain age (for example, 25 or 28). The onus is, therefore, on having a great scouting network that unearths the next great wonderkids before anyone else, then use them immediately.

You’ll therefore be working with a squad that’s packed with potential and aim to win things with those kids. I tend to play most of my saves this way anyway, preferring to throw youngsters into the team as soon as possible and selling players off when they get past 26. And I’ll rarely have players over 30 in my squads.

Challenge Difficulty Rating: 4/10

So there you go, 10 challenges that are sure to give you a long-term adventure on FM24, most of which are youth-focused. Let us know what you think of these challenges, if any stand out to you as an exciting option on the game, or if you have a unique challenge of your own?

Looking for even more FM24 save inspiration? Check out our previous guides:

24 Teams to Manage on FM24
23 Teams to Manage on FM23
22 Teams to Manage on FM22
28 More Teams to Manage on FM22
21 Teams to Manage on FM21
18 More Teams to Manage on FM21
Teams to Manage on FM19