Just a rant / story.
Struggled to find saves that really grabbed me at times on FM26, which is typical for me for any FM. Enjoyed a save with a 2.Bundesliga club but the fun bleeds away a bit once promoted and stable in the Bundesliga due to the big clubs - same dynamic that happens getting an English club promoted into the Prem, just with a bit less money. After toiling in places like Brazil, I decided to emulate Second Yellow Card and try Poland. Few registration restrictions, decently domestic talent, and more money than I expected. I grabbed Zaglebie Lubin because I like orange but after a couple of short "test saves" with them, I decided to go with Motor Lublin. Not a strong squad but not a notably weak one. Good stadium and decent facilities. Figured it would be a touch more challenging than Zaglebie but not quite trying to build up a minnow. No intent to emulate SYC's "Build a Nation" approach but I did use his scouting methods and filters.
Won the league 3 years on the trot using a semi-meta downloaded tactic (I was lazy) and had two solid Champions League runs, meaning money poured in. Didn't have much wage budget at first, so I targeted young talent with potential in the 1m range who wouldn't demand much for wages. When the transfer budget and wage budget went way up, I could go after players in the 5m range. Lots of player turnover - those young players were targeted pretty quickly, both by European elite clubs and by bigger clubs in slightly bigger nations. Some of the players required low-ish release clauses, in the 3-4m range, which wasn't too big of a deal when buying a guy for 500k-1m. But more problematic when spending 4-5m on them. I expected it to be a save with a lot of squad churn so while it sucked getting 4m for guys I could sell for 10-15m in another league, kinda had to shrug if off.
Really fun part of the save has been having players from so many different nations. Some start at the club but a lot were brought in. A quick list from the start of season 3 - Armenia. Azerbaijan. Burkino Faso. Cape Verde. Columbia. Croatia. Cypress. Denmark. Ecuador. Faroe Islands. Finland. Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro. Moldova. Peru. Senegal. Slovakia. Slovenia. Sweden. Uzbekistan. And obviously Poland. As we head into season 4, there is even more diversity.
But things have also kinda gone off the rails. At the end of season 3, we had 14 players on my 25 man squad were Wanted. And some by 20+ clubs of varying sizes. It got worse. Not sure any players in the first team who weren't coveted at some point and got offers. Lowball offers. I took a screencap to show a buddy - one continue flooded my inbox with 10 emails - 4 transfer offers and 6 stories about a club targeting a player. Those stories tend to generate media follow-up questions. Normal process, but after six or seven questions about whether I expect a bid from Hertha or Genk for my backup GK, it gets to feel like a bit much.
The offers eventually had me pulling my hair out - figuratively. I had Tottenham bidding 1.1m for a CB who was valued at 2.5-5.5m at same time as City and Chelsea were publicly bidding 3m. And when City and PSG finally went up to the 10m mark but other clubs weren't going up much. On the same continue, I got a 3.3m offer (2.4m up front and 40% sell-on) from Genk and PSG offered 10.25m (7.5m up front, 20% sell-on). I don't expect clubs to offer exactly the same, but that's a pretty massive variance. One club REALLY wanted my Serbian LB. Made about 15 bids, going up like 120K at a time. I bought him a year ago for 4m. Their offers started at like 550K, when his value at the time was 1.5 to 6m.
The logic disconnect with AI bids has existed for a long time. Not sure they will ever fix it. Its normally a bit annoying and a bit amusing. But when there is a constant flood of offers, that disconnect feels huge. Its not, but it feels that way. Somehow, I was lucky enough that almost none of the players got unsettled, even when the bids came in from big clubs.
The save was intended to be one of selling and replacing. Its been pretty fun having more money than I need and no real restrictions on where I can recruit players from except for their interest. In the summer where I got all these offers, I sold my starting GK, 3 center backs, my RB, 2 central mids, and 2 wingers. Think I managed to get better.
End rant. Fun save, but holy fuck did those inbox floods get annoying.