Oh Football Manager 2024, will your time never end? In light of yesterday's unsurprising cancellation of Football Manager 2025, we'll have had two years (if not more) of the FM24 cycle if/when Football Manager 2026 is upon us. However, rather than crying into our cereal that some blokes didn't release a computer game, let's look at some positives and explore some options to pretend we're playing FM25 on FM24.
Big Sam Allardyce enjoyed a much stronger Season 2 of his Bottom At Christmas challenge, leading Cádiz CF safely away from the LaLiga dropzone. But he swiftly stood down and holidayed ahead ready for a new challenge in Season 3. Looking back at his former clubs, Nottingham Forest gained promotion at the first tome of... Continue Reading →
In the last couple of seasons I've covered off my plans for Football Manager in the coming 12 months. And this season also requires one as my plans will be changing a little.
At the halfway mark of the Serie A 2025/26 season, Roberto di Lazaró had led his Sampdoria side to the top of the league and enjoyed a six-point lead over Inter Milan. That meant a first Scudetto since 1991 was within sight with 21 games remaining.
The impressive rise of Sampdoria saw them finish second in Serie A for a second successive season. They remained some way behind a dominant Inter but, with the full Football Manager 2022 now live, manager Roberto di Lazaró was keen to take a title fight to Nerazzurri in potentially a final season in Italy.
Despite going unbeaten through the first half of the 2024/25 campaign, Sampdoria went into the winter break somehow trailing Inter by five points - as the leaders had only failed to win twice and only conceded four goals in 17 games.
Sampdoria bid farewell to not one but two legends as the outrageously impressive Antonio Candreva and 46-year-old Gianluigi Buffon retired from football in the summer of 2024.
Roberto di Lazaró's Sampdoria side was once again defying expectations as they sat third in Serie A and were the competition's top scorers heading into 2024.
Sampdoria had massively exceeded all expectations by finishing in third in Serie A in 2022/23. However, season three was likely to be much more of a struggle as the club looked to balance competing in the Champions League with the league on a shoestring budget.
Sampdoria were performing well above expectations despite a massive overhaul of the playing squad in the summer of 2022. Moving into 2023, Blucerchiati sat second in Serie A as the league resumed following the silly Winter World Cup in Qatar.
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