FM Guide: 26 Teams To Manage On Football Manager 26

It’s been a long time coming, but Football Manager 26 will finally be available from 4 November. So now’s the time to put our thinking caps on to consider who we want to manage in our first FM26 saves and some interesting challenges for the remainder of the game cycle.

This version of Football Manager represents one of the game’s biggest step changes, with Sports Interactive integrating the Unity match engine, a new user interface, and the addition of women’s football, we covered the women’s game in greater detail in our standalone Guide to Women’s Football in FM26 earlier this week, which offered a host of recommendations for teams to manage.

Top 8 European Leagues
Other European Clubs
Rest of the World

Teams in the Top 8 European Leagues

As is traditional with our save suggestion guides, we’ll kick off with one club from each of the top eight European leagues.

Brentford Football Club (England)

Crystal Palace’s FA Cup success last season means two current Premier League sides have yet to win a major trophy: Fulham and Brentford. The latter is arguably the biggest challenge in England’s top tier as, despite their decent start in real life, they lost their best two players and their captain, and replaced them with… Jordan Henderson and Dango Ouattara for a club record fee. Your task is to continue Brentford’s previous smart business – including Mbuemo (signed for £6m, sold for £70m) and Wissa (signed for £8m, sold for £50m) – to snap up relatively unknown talent, potentially using a data-based approach if possible. Use that approach to, first of all, guide Brentford into Europe for the first time, win the club’s first major silverware and, eventually, lead them to their maiden Premier League title.

Football Club de Nantes (France)

Taking on PSG is arguably a bigger challenge than ever before on FM26. The perennial French champions, who’ve won 11 of the last 13 Ligue 1 titles and four on the bounce, also became Champions of Europe last season and have racked up some of the best young talent in France. Mounting a challenge to that is going to be tough, but not impossible if you fancy a French revolution. One of the most interesting prospects for that task is FC Nantes, the eight-time French champions who haven’t won the title since 2001. Last season, they only avoided relegation by 3 points and only scored 39 goals, the fourth-lowest tally in Ligue 1. So your challenge is to arrest Nantes’ fortunes and begin hoovering up French talent to work your way up the table and, eventually, topple the might of PSG.

Sport-Club Freiburg (Germany)

Since Bundesliga was founded in 1963, FC Bayern has won more titles (33) than the rest of its competitors combined (29). In fact, only half of the teams currently in Bundesliga have ever won it. That gives you plenty of scope to select a team and, using the considerable prize money on offer in Germany, build a side capable of taking on the mighty Bayern. Our pick would be Freiburg, whose 26 seasons in Bundesliga is the most without winning the title, six more than nearest contenders Mainz.

Freiburg, founded in 1904, only played in the second tier of German football for the first time in 1978. They reached Bundesliga for the first time in 1993 and achieved a record high finish of 3rd in their second season in the top flight, just 3 points behind winners Borussia Dortmund and earning the nickname Breisgau-Brasilianer (Breisgau-Brazilians) with their attractive style of play. The club’s been on the rise in recent years, narrowly missing out on the Champions League in the last three seasons, but its only major honour remains the 2. Bundesliga title in 1993. So your task is to harness the Brazilian reference, building an exciting team with an exciting style to usurp Bayern and win Freiburg’s first Bundesliga.

Parma Calcio 1913 (Italy)

Parma was the team to manage on various Championship Manager iterations, with world-class talents like Lilian Thuram, Gianluigi Buffon, Hernán Crespo, Fabio Cannavaro and Juan Sebastián Verón. However, despite those great teams, Parma have, perhaps surprisingly, never been crowned champions of Italy. And they’re nowhere near putting that right anytime soon. This summer, they’ve brought in around £70m for talents like Leoni, Bonny and Sohm and signed some interesting replacements in Vélez midfielder Christian Ordonez and Troyes defender Abdoulaye Ndiaye. Your task is to continue building a young team that can climb Serie A and win Parma’s first-ever Scudetto.

Go Ahead Eagles (Netherlands)

Go Ahead Eagles’ glory years came before the professional era of football in the Netherlands, winning four Dutch championships between 1917 and 1933. But things may well be on the up for the Eagles as, not only do they have a superb name, they were the surprise package of Dutch football last season. An impressive 7th place in Eredivisie, which remained way off the pace of the big three, secured group stage European football for the first time in the club’s history. Therefore, your challenge is to use the funds that their Europa League campaign should yield to slowly build a Go Ahead side that can bridge the gap to the big three and, ultimately, win the club’s first Eredivisie title.

Grupo Desportivo Estoril Praia (Portugal)

It’s common knowledge that only five clubs have ever been champions of Portugal, with only Belenenses (1946) and Boavista (2001) rising above the big three of Benfica, Porto and Sporting. That gives you a broad scope of clubs to challenge Portugal’s big boys and install as first-time champions. But one of the most intriguing may be Estoril, who recorded their record-high position of 4th back in 2014 to ensure their second and most recent season in European competition. They’ve also never won a major trophy, coming runner-up in both Portuguese cups on one occasion. So your mission is to change that by building an Estoril side that wins that elusive cup competition en route to becoming the sixth club to become champions of Portugal.

St Mirren Football Club (Scotland)

Speaking of dominance, no club other than the Glasgow pair of Celtic and Rangers has won the Scottish title for 40 years. In FM, that dominance usually continues for at least 30 years, so your job is to prevent that from happening. Of the 12 teams in the cinch Premiership this season, only St Mirren and promoted sides Falkirk and Livingston haven’t been champions of Scotland. My pick would be St Mirren, a club founded in 1877 and the league’s surprise package last season, finishing in 6th place. Your challenge is to build on that by leading St Mirren into Europe and targeting cup successes while building a team capable of usurping the Old Firm.

Sevilla Fútbol Club (Spain)

I recently read a fascinating article about Sevilla partnering with IBM to create their own generative AI-driven scouting tool, Scout Advisor. The club uses the tool to assess scouting reports and boost talent identification – and, based on how they performed last season, it seems Sevilla needs that talent identification more than ever. Indeed, the club only avoided relegation by one point, finishing 17th in LaLiga on 41 points and only scoring 42 goals. And, apparently, their solution was to sign old man Alexis Sanchez!

This got me thinking that, if FM26’s data analysis is better in FM26 than it was on FM24 (which won’t be difficult), then Sevilla would be a fun challenge to use data to rebuild the squad. Therefore, your mission would be to rely on data to lead Spain’s oldest sporting club devoted to football to its second LaLiga title, 80 years on from its sole success.

Other Clubs to Manage in Europe

If you fancy a bit more of a challenge, then you might want to consider taking on a role further down the pyramid or in one of Europe’s “smaller” leagues. Here are a few interesting challenges across the rest of Europe:

Cercle Brugge Koninklijke Sportvereniging (Belgium)

Three-time Belgian champions Cercle Brugge only avoided the ignominy of relegation from the top tier via a playoff last season. Furthermore, the club hasn’t been Belgian champion since 1930, white watching city rivals Club Brugge win 18 since the early 1970s. So your challenge is to reverse the club’s fortunes, restore Cercle as the pride of Brugge, and win their first title in approaching a century. And, hopefully, the negative transfer nonsense that ruined Belgium in FM24 won’t still be in FM26.

Aalborg Boldspilklub af 1885 (Denmark)

AaB is one of the oldest clubs in Denmark, having been founded in May 1885. It has historically been a Superliga mainstay, but only won its first national title in 1995, winning three more in 1999, 2008 and 2014. However, 11 years on from that latest success, the club was relegated from the top tier last season. After finishing 9th in the regular season, AaB only picked up 3 points from 10 games in the relegation group to drop into the second tier. Therefore, your mission is to lead AaB back into Superliga and build a side capable of winning a fifth title.

Eastbourne Borough Football Club (England)

A total of 24 clubs have been champions of England since the Football League was founded in 1888. Of those, Portsmouth (in 1949 and 1950) are the only team south of London to have won the English title. So this challenge is to take a club based south of Portsmouth from the lowest playable league to become the southernmost champion of England. And the only options to do that are Torquay United and Eastbourne Borough. We’ll lean towards Eastbourne, given the club has never previously competed in the Football League.

Eastbourne was founded in 1965 and played in regional leagues until reaching the newly formed Conference South in 2004. They reached the Conference National for the first time in 2008, but suffered relegation after three seasons in tier five, and have remained in tier six ever since. Last season, they finished 3rd and missed out on promotion in the playoffs, so your task is to go one better and be the catalyst for The Sports’ rise through the leagues.

OFI Crete FC (Greece)

No team other than the big four of Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, AEK Athens and PAOK has won the Greek title since 1988. Furthermore, Olympiacos have only failed to win it six times since 1996, and only two other clubs, Larissa and Aris, have won the league since it was founded in 1927. As a result, eight of the 14 Super League clubs have never been Greek champions. So if you’re after a fun FM26 challenge, then how about leading one of these clubs to becoming Greek’s seventh champion? Our recommendation is a club that’s not based on the Greek mainland, by taking control of OFI from the island of Crete, who recently signed former FM wonderkid striker Eddie Salcedo.

Siracusa Calcio 1924 (Italy)

Italy’s Scudetto has never been won by a club south of Naples on the mainland and Cagliari on the southern coast of Sardinia. To put that right, we’ve got a doozy of a challenge for you to take control of the southernmost Italian side playable in FM and attempt to lead them to the top of Serie A. However, if that sounds too simple, then how about taking control of Serie C/C side Siracusa, based in the town of Syracuse in the southeast corner of Sicily, and only using players born on Sicily to lead the club through the leagues and surpass Italy’s elite. This task, commonly known as the Regionnaire, will force you to search for players born in towns across Sicily, which, incidentally, has a sizeable player base given 4.8 million people live on the island.

Edinburgh City Football Club (Scotland)

Speaking of tough challenges on FM26, semi-professional Edinburgh City go into this season on -15 points. The club only reached the SFL for the first time in 2016, then gained promotion to League One in 2022, only to be relegated after two seasons. However, after finishing 3rd in League Two and losing out in the playoffs last season, the club was handed a 15-point deduction due to insolvency issues. The debt was soon paid off, but their appeal was rejected and the points penalty was upheld along with an additional 5-point deduction for next season. Your challenge is to overcome that to, initially, avoid dropping out of the playable leagues, then push on and usurp the likes of Hearts and Hibs to become the biggest club in Edinburgh.

Football Club Tatran Prešov (Slovakia)

FC Tatran Prešov is the oldest club in Slovakia, having been founded in May 1898. The club was part of the original Czechoslovakian league in 1920, and was twice runner-up in 1965 and 1973. However, Slovakia’s oldest club has never won the league title, either in Czechoslovakia or Slovakia, with its biggest achievement being a single Slovak Cup success in 1992. The club was relegated out of the top tier for the first time in its history in 2002, which led to a gradual decline that almost ended in bankruptcy, but was rescued in 2005 and gained promotion three years later. However, it was relegated in 2013 and again in 2019, before gaining another promotion by winning the second tier last season. So your task is to lead the Green-white horses to survival in the first season, then build a team capable of winning their first title in their near 130-year history.

Unió Esportiva Sant Andreu (Spain)

If the big bucks of FC Barcelona aren’t to your liking, how about staying in the city with an up-and-coming club whose tickets are more in demand than their big-name rivals? Sant Andreu has a fascinating history, including being rescued by Catalan artist Salvador Dalí, who rescued the club from financial turmoil by, at the request of the club’s president, painting Gol and selling it for €4m. The club also wears historic yellow and red stripes on a kit created by Catalan manufacturer Meyba, which was previously the official Barcelona manufacturer. 

As locals become increasingly alienated by the wealth and tourism surrounding Barcelona and focus more on lower-league football, Sant Andreu – and, indeed, fellow local rivals Europa – have benefited from sold-out crowds week after week. Indeed, in 2019, it only had 700 season ticket holders; now it has around 6,000. Last season, Sant Andreu lost 2-1 in the playoffs to miss out on promotion and stay in Spain’s fourth tier, so your challenge is to put that disappointment behind them and lead Sant Andreu’s rise. And the fairly lofty long-term ambition is to take down the mighty FC Barcelona.

Clubs to Manage Around the Rest of the World

Europe doesn’t appeal to you on FM26? No worries! Here are some intriguing options to kick off your career with clubs based in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Quilmes Atlético Club (Argentina)

The Argentinian league tends to be pretty chaotic, not least because the format of the league seems to change every year. But we’re recommending starting off in Argentina’s second tier with a “sleeping giant” save. Buenos Aires side Quilmes was founded in November 1887, making it the oldest active club competing in Argentinian football. It also won the maiden Primera División title back in 1912, only adding one more in 1979. However, El Cervecero (The Brewers), named after the Cerveza Quilmes brewery based in the city, which is also the club’s main sponsor, in true South American style, suffered relegation the year after winning their second title. It became somewhat of a yo-yo club, but has found itself stuck in Argentina’s second-tier Primera Nacional since 2017. So your mission is to lead the club back into the top flight and claim Argentina’s oldest club’s long-overdue third title.

Fortaleza Esporte Clube (Brazil)

Brazil’s Serie A has a funny knack for supposed big clubs suffering a poor season, as evidenced by the likes of Fluminense and Santos suffering relegations in recent times. The next club on that list could well be Ceará-based Fortaleza, who finished 4th in Série A last season but, at the time of writing, were next to bottom of the league and 5 points from safety with 12 games remaining. The club, whose nicknames include O Rei Leão do Brasil (Lion King of Brazil), has won 46 Campeonato Cearense state championship titles without winning Brazil’s Série A or any other major competition. Your mission is to rebuild a club also referred to as Clube da Garotada (Club of the Youth) by developing the best youth system in Brazil and leading it to its first domestic and continental glory.

Retrô Futebol Clube Brasil (Brazil)

I don’t think we’ve ever recommended a team in Brazil’s third-tier Série C, and I’ve certainly never managed in it. However, Retrô, from the city of Camaragibe in Greater Recife in northeast Brazil, offers an intriguing opportunity to do just that. The club was only founded in 2016 and gained promotion from the fourth-tier Série D last season. Not only does it have a cool name, but also really cool kits that play on that name with a retro design topped off by drawstring collars. And, given it’s only been in existence for under a decade, you have an opportunity to write the club’s history from scratch by continuing its climb through the leagues to challenge Brazil’s elite.

Club de Deportes Santiago Morning (Chile)

Chile is gaining a reputation for unlikely winners, with Huachipato’s 2023 success about to be followed up by Coquimbo Unido lifting their first-ever title this season. Since it was founded in 1933, 16 clubs have won the Chilean title, including the Santiago big three of Colo Colo, Universidad de Chile and Universidad Católica winning 68 of the 108 titles. However, only four of those were won before Santiago Morning’s sole title in 1942.

The club, based in Recoleta in the north of the capital, was formed in 1903 by students at Santiago College under the name Santiago Football Club and was a founding member of the Chilean Primera División in 1933. The club has largely competed in the top tier in recent seasons but suffered relegation to Primera B last year. So your mission is to gain promotion, then overhaul their Santiago rivals to add the club’s second title.

Llaneros Fútbol Club (Colombia)

Arguably, the most brutal nation in FM is Colombia, where the schedule becomes virtually impossible if you’re lucky enough to compete on all fronts. Only 16 clubs have been champions of Colombia since Primera A was founded in 1948, with the big seven sides (Atlético Nacional, Millonarios, América de Cali, Deportivo Cali, Junior, Santa Fe and Independiente Medellín) winning 85 of the 99 seasons to date. As a result, six of the 20 teams currently in Colombia’s top tier have never won the national title (including our beloved Envigado) and five of the first-time winners have achieved that feat in the last 20 years.

That includes one of Colombia’s newest football clubs, Llaneros, who were only founded in March 2012 after purchasing the rights to Bogotá club Academia. The club, based in Villavicencio in the southeast of Bogotá, found itself on the wrong end of a matchfixing allegation in December 2021, when video footage appeared to show their players allowing Unión Magdalena to score a promotion-sealing goal – which resulted in those players being fined and suspended. Llaneros put that behind them to reach two playoff finals, before eventually gaining promotion to Colombia’s for the first time in last season’s grand final. So your mission is to continue that good work by leading Llaneros to survival, then building a team capable of becoming Colombia’s 17th national champion. 

FC Machida Zelvia (Japan)

Machida Zelvia were the surprise tale of J1 League in 2024. The club came close to winning the Japanese league in their first season in the top tier, leading the way through to the end of September. However, just 8 points from their final 8 games saw them tail off to finish 3rd – and 15 would have been enough to win it. But it’s relatively remarkable – the club was only founded in 1984 and was in non-league as recently as 2009. This is the final Japanese season played in the current format as it reverts to the same timeline as European leagues, so it’ll be interesting to see how that shift is reflected in FM.

Club Puebla (Mexico)

If you like the Apertura and Clausura style of leagues in many South American nations, you can also get a taste of it in Mexico, which has recently attracted the likes of Sergio Ramos, James Rodríguez and Aaron Ramsey. One Mexican club that’s not having a good time of late is Club Puebla, intriguingly nicknamed Los Camoteros (The Sweet Potatoers), who won the Mexican title in 1983 and 1990 but have struggled since. Indeed, Puebla have only amassed seven wins and 32 points in 62 games over the last four Apertura and Clausura campaign, which probably isn’t helped by 15 of their 26 first-team players being loanees and sacking managers every three to six months. Your task is to steady the ship, bring some stability to Puebla and use their strong youth recruitment to take on Mexico’s best and claim the club’s third league title.

Club Cienciano (Peru)

Since Peru’s Liga 1 was founded in 1913, 21 clubs have won the national title and 73 of the 108 titles have been won by Lima’s big three of Alianza Lima, Sporting Cristal and Universitario. Furthermore, nine clubs in the 19-team top tier have never been Peruvian champions. Of those, Cienciano have spent the most time in the top tier without winning the title, currently competing in Liga 1 for the 42nd time. The Cusco club’s biggest claim to fame to date was beating Argentinian giant River Plate to lift Copa Sudamericana in 2003. But your challenge is to end El Papá de América’s 124-year wait for domestic success.

Sekhuhkhune United F.C. (South Africa)

South Africa may be one of the most challenging nations to overcome the dominant forces in FM26, as Mamelodi Sundowns have won the last 8 titles and will undoubtedly have a financial advantage given their recent Club World Cup involvement. However, one club on the rise is Sekhukhune United, which was only founded in 2020 but won the second tier in its inaugural season in 2021. The Burgersfort club, which plays 100 miles away at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, built for the 2010 World Cup, finished 4th in the last two seasons of the South African Premiership and is currently 2nd after 9 games, trailing Sundowns by 1 point with a game in hand. So your task is to continue the rise of Babina Noko and win the club’s maiden South African title. Also, the club has a really cool badge that, for some unbeknown reason, features a hedgehog pushing a football.

Rampla Juniors Football Club (Uruguay)

The Uruguayan title has been totally dominated by the Montevideo big two of Peñarol (52) and Nacional (49), who’ve won 101 of the 121 championships to date. One of those titles was won by Rampla Juniors way back in 1927, along with five runner-up finishes, of which the most recent was in 1964. The Montevideo club’s stadium, intriguingly named Estadio Olímpico and sitting on the banks of the River Plate, has a claim for being the world’s most picturesque and was built by the club’s fans in the 1960s. In its early days, Rampla was commonly referred to as Uruguay’s “third big club,” but political and financial difficulties have seen it fall well behind its city rivals, and it now lingers in the second-tier Segunda División. Finances may be a challenge, but your mission is to build a squad that restores Rampla’s historic reputation and takes down Montevideo’s big two.

Those are our top 26 teams to manage when FM26 launches. But who are you planning to manage in FM26? Let us know by leaving a comment!

You can also watch our guide to 26 Teams to Manage on Football Manager 26 on YouTube for the first time!

Looking for more Football Manager club recommendations? Check out our previous guides:

25 More Teams To Manage On FM24 (While Still Pretending It’s FM25)
25 Teams To Manage For The Rest Of FM24 (Pretending It’s FM25)
10 Challenges for FM24
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