After a two-year wait, the ultimate football management experience is back with Football Manager 26, and with a new game engine, a UI design overhaul, and plenty of fresh features, it's hard not to be excited.
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The best career modes in sports games provide immersive experiences, letting players thrive as an athlete or manage a team to glory.
However, with so many additions and more teams than ever to choose from, thanks to the introduction of women's football, it is a tad overwhelming, and players might not know what kind of save to start with. Therefore, the following are some save ideas for FM 26.
Start Unemployed
One of the most realistic ways to play FM 26 is to start unemployed and wait for an opening in the job market. At the beginning of a season, most clubs already have a manager appointed, but it doesn't take long for promotion favorites to lose the opening 5 games, causing the manager to be sacked.
For players who are overwhelmed by the number of nations, leagues, and teams to choose from, this can also be a great way to end up at a club you'd never have thought about managing, but often you'll soon fall in love with it. Players will also need to find the funding for and complete coaching badges, and perhaps take jobs that don't immediately appeal to them, but help them get a foot in the door. Talking to the press is also part of being unemployed.
Journeyman Career
While it can be incredibly fun to stick with one team for an entire decade and develop every aspect of the club, it can also be fun to become a journeyman, managing multiple teams, sometimes in different countries or even continents. In journeyman saves, the focus is on the manager whose new tactics, for example, may catch the attention of progressively bigger leagues and clubs.
With less time at each club, players must try to manage what they already have and make quick changes for short-term success. One fun thing to do is also bring over a few players when joining a new side, as this happens in real life. A journeyman career is arguably more realistic, too, as in the modern game, managers rarely stick with one club for decades.
Manage A Women's Side Before Possibly Making A Historic Switch
For the first time in Football Manager, players are able to manage women's football teams across a number of leagues. This will be a fresh experience, and with unique animations and play styles for the women's game, tactics may have to be adjusted.
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Such a career can be combined with other save ideas for FM 26, such as a road to glory, focusing on youth, or a journeyman career. Players could rise to the top of the women's game either at a club or national level, challenging greats such as Emma Hayes and Sarina Wiegman. They could also manage in the women's leagues as part of a career that then sees them move on to manage men's teams. If they are playing as a female manager, this could represent a historic moment, as there are only a handful of examples, such as Hannah Dingley's stint as caretaker manager of Forest Green.
Focus On The Youth Academy
A popular save for previous Football Manager games and now FM 26 is to focus on youth players and the academy infrastructure that produces them. There are a few ways to approach this. For example, players could limit themselves to only signing and fielding players who have come through their academy, perhaps simulating a transfer embargo.
Alternatively, players could merely place an emphasis on youth talent, without going all in, such as trying to field academy players and mostly signing under-23s. There are many teams, such as Ajax, that produce great players, but they still field older players purchased, both to remain competitive and to act as mentors for the younger, developing players. In this save or a similar one, players might take charge of a team and only sign players from a certain region, similar to what Athletic Bilbao does with only recruiting from the Basque region.
Avoid Relegation With A Weaker Team
Many FM saves are often about winning everything or taking non-league clubs to the Premier League and Champions League final. However, these are often unrealistic, and the never-ending upwards trajectory can get a tad boring after a while.
For this reason, players could choose a team who are much weaker than the rest of the league, perhaps after scraping their way into a promotion via play-offs. With limited resources, they can then fight to keep this club up for a few seasons, perhaps gathering a reputation for battling relegation as Sam Allardyce did. Players could then try to build upon their success and slowly climb the league or become a journeyman who joins relegation teams halfway through the season to fight for survival.
Recreate The Tony Pulis Days At Stoke With Any Club
The phrase 'but can they do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke?' Is iconic in football, thanks to Tony Pulis' tenure at the Midlands club. The aim of his Stoke side was to make life miserable for their opponents, with long and churned-up grass, plenty of aggression, a lineup of giants, hoof-balls, and long throws into the box courtesy of Rory Delap.
Similarly, players could look at what Jose Bordalas is achieving with Getafe in Spain. Yellow cards are seen as badges of honor, the players are known as warriors, and the opponent gets frustrated by having to restart their attack every 5 seconds. With both managers, the aim is to get results no matter the cost and against all odds, with no desire to play attractive football. This mentality can be replicated in FM 26 with any team, but ideally by underdogs without the financial means to sign superstars.
Director Of Football
One way to play Football Manager is as a Director of Football, who focuses on transfers and overseeing aspects of the club, rather than managing on the pitch. This is one of the quickest ways to play the game, as many tasks are handed over to the assistant manager, whom you pretend is the real manager.
This assistant manager can even be sacked and replaced to bring in a new tactical vision, and the Director can try to sign players to suit these tactics. Players could also combine this with Moneyball, where you try to sign undervalued players who are performing well on certain metrics, despite not having the best goals or assists, for example. By adding more managers to other teams, players could even become the Director of Football for multiple teams that are part of the same group, such as the Red Bull teams or City Football Group.
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Road To Glory
It goes without saying that a popular way to play Football Manager is to start in the lowest tier of football available, which, in FM 26, is the 6th tier in England, and try to climb all the way to the top. They could do this with a team that gets taken over by wealthy owners, as was the case with Salford and Wrexham, or they could pick any old team.
The aim is, of course, to get to the Premier League one day and ideally win the Champions League. As this will likely take decades and prove incredibly challenging, players won't usually want to place further restrictions on their save, unless they are veterans of the franchise.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 71 /100 Critics Rec: 29%
- Released
- November 4, 2025
- ESRB
- E For Everyone / Mild Language, In-Game Purchases
- Developer(s)
- Sports Interactive
- Publisher(s)
- Sega
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Sports, Management
