This is post ten of a wider series. A series for FM22.
“A hell of a lot of fun along the way will do for me.”
After a lot of consideration…
…I can tell you that the seven year itch is real.
Applicable to any relationship, research has shown that reaching seven years is a common milestone where two parties re-evaluate. Either there is a deep satisfaction and agreement to keep going, or there is a (in this case virtual) handshake and mutual parting of ways.
After seven seasons of Honvéd with Glenn Árnason at the helm, I’ve decided to call time on our Hungarian adventure.
Without a lengthy post-mortem, the key reasons are:
- We’ve just gone six seasons without losing a league game. 215 games in total, stretching back to the half-way point of the very first campaign. It’s safe to say we quickly learned how to dominate the OTP Bank Liga and continue unwavering dominance. This can only hold interest for so many years.
- The recently completed 2027-2028 season contained our seventh league title in a row, fifth domestic cup in a row and fifth year in a row managing to qualify for the UEFA Champions League group stage, but going no further. This year was especially tough, where we failed to pick up a point and therefore didn’t drop into the Europa League knockouts for the first time in a few years.
- Honvéd’s facilities are ‘maxed out’ and we are even purchasing our stadium, the Bozsik Aréna, from the Hungarian government.
- We have risen from 212th in the European club coefficient table to 41st. That makes Honvéd now a subjectively bigger side than Villarreal, RB Leipzig, Tottenham, Celtic, Marseille and Fiorentina, to call out a few names.
- Most notably, five to eight years tends to be the save length I enjoy the most. Long enough to really get your teeth into creating a significantly unique football universe I am immersed and engaged in with its own historic moments and iconic players, but not too far forward as to lose all sense of familiarity as many of the real life footballers we watch and enjoy vanish from the database to be replaced entirely with newgens. I know this is the moment where many, many FMers start to really enjoy their saves, and more power to them, but I know what I like; and five to eight years seems to be my sweet spot of realism x fictional fun.
In short, we have reached our ceiling. The reason for this blog post’s title is that May 2028 has led to a definite crossroad where the only further progress we could make would be through blind luck (like landing in a Champions League group with ‘weaker’ opponents) or grinding for another 10-15 years to change this series from a semi-realistic journey into the future into a full simulation towards the years in real life which will no doubt end up like some sort of dystopian Mad Max wasteland the way we are headed, especially in the UK.
Seven years in review
Glenn Árnason, now 48 years old, has come a long way since a friend’s sofa in Reykjavík when he received that fateful call that ultimately led to seven years in Budapest.
360 games in charge, only 34 losses (more or less all in Europe), 12 trophies, seven Manager of the Year awards and over 1,000 goals scored.
£75m income from transfers, £7.1m spent. The vast majority of the cash raised was from the sale of Oberdan Ramos Silva (£45m including add-ons).
Over 2,300 days without a league defeat.
Despite my odd decision to lay the above screenshots out with 41st looking like a lower position on the charts than 212th at first glance, we made huge reputational progress in seven years at the helm.
The end of season one versus the end of season seven displays our transformation above. Facilities-aside, the estimated value of the club is something to note. £4.4m to £317m is quite a leap.
It’s a tearful goodbye to some Honvéd legends. Tomáš Chorý, Ekanit Panya and captain and goalkeeper Aleksa Milojević more than most.
Summary
What started out as a save concept inspired by Jonathan Wilson’s excellent book The Names Heard Long Ago (which I reviewed for Latte Quarterly issue nine) turned into a fascinating exercise in patience, domestic dominance, incremental improvements and ultimately European brick walls.
I had never managed in Hungary before this FM22 adventure and I’d now recommend it wholeheartedly. Lenient foreign player registration rules (apart from in the domestic cup), plenty of quality players and real scope for developing a somewhat fallen giant of European football.
We may not have found the next Ferenc Puskás nor hit the heights of continental glory, but 12 trophies in seven years and a hell of a lot of fun along the way will do for me.
I’ve enjoyed pivoting from creative narrative (like the series opening) to statistical analysis and visualisations to simple save updates and article-style updates. I also loved making all the 1950s post-war optimism imagery for the featured images. It’s been a joy to play and almost as much fun to write up.
What’s next?
I’m far from finished with Football Manager 2022 and will no doubt be back at some point next year with a second series, but don’t ask me what about just yet. I’ve got a lot of wonderful football books still on the shelf that will no doubt inspire me to write again soon, but for now I’m off for a beer and a bit of a break.
Until then, thank you for following the series. Hope you all had a great Christmas and I wish you a happy new year when it comes.
End of 2027/2028 (season seven) review
Thanks for reading.
FM Stag