Need a special purpose behind who you manage on Football Manager 2024 to maintain interest with your save? Tired of non-league saves or hunt for glory saves without a unique objective? Embark on a build a nation saves on Football Manager 2024 to try to turn a smaller nation into one of the world’s best!
To continue our series of clubs to manage on Football Manager 2024, time has come to look at four unique FM24 build a nation saves you need to try! These scenarios give you the chance to kill two birds with one stone:
- Hunt for glory or revive a fallen giant in FM24
- As well as improving a nation’s reputation to better their standard
In this event, we have looked at a few smaller nations, or nations who have declined in recent years in terms of the playing level and performance within the country’s domestic competition or for their National team.
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What is a build a nation save on Football Manager?
A build a nation save on Football Manager aims to take a country outside the top 10 leagues and try to make them a dominant force in both the main club competition and within international competitions.
This means that you look to improve the reputation of the country you are managing in by increasing the Nations’ ranking and club coefficient.
When building a nation, you will focus on the development of both the club, the standard of the league and its National team. You wish your nation, or your club can attract better players, create better talents at the annual youth intake and overall increase the number of footballers within the nation that increases the chance to unearth the next world class player!
The development of the league will be aided by Dynamic youth rating, which was added for FM22. Each nation in Football Manager 2024 is given a score between 1 and 200, that describes the player’s average current ability level at the annual youth intake. A higher score, the higher chance of producing more players at the annual youth intake that can become world class players. The nation’s economy, game importance and reputation are equally important. Learn more about how clubs produce newgens and how to improve the annual youth intake in this guide.
However, the intention of dynamic youth rating is to increase the likeliness of one nation to develop better players as you advance far into the future. By growing the nations reputation, more players will find the country attractive to play in, something that may result in more and hopefully better players being created at the annual youth intake.
We can summarize the objective behind dynamic youth rating as when the nation grows, better players come through.
One of the tasks and objectives in Football Manager build a nation saves is to hunt for one of the major club competition trophies. It may be to win the Champions League for the first time for a club from the country, or manage both a minor club as well as the country’s national team to try to win the Euro’s, or the World Cup in the future.
In order to increase the country’s reputation and club coefficient, the challenge is to turn the club you’re going to manage, the league’s best clubs or the National team successful seasons after season. You need to qualify for the biggest tournaments and reach the finals, and hopefully win trophies to build the nation into of the best in the world. It will be a slow and long process but can be the challenge you need to find excitement for your Football Manager 2024 save.
Budapest Honvéd – Hungarian NB II
In the 1950s Budapest Honved was a powerhouse domestically in the Hungarian Championship NB I. Led by Ferenc Puskás Sr as the manager, his son Ferenc Puskás Jr, Sandor Kocsis, Jozsef Bozsik, Gyula Grosics, and Zoltan Czibor, Honvéd won five Hungarian league titles in 7 seasons.
With five players from Honvéd they made up the spine of the legendary Hungarian National team that dominated on the international scene.
The Mighty Magyars or the Magnificent Magyars entered the 1952 Summer Olympics unbeaten for two years and eventually won the Olympic Gold medal. Over the next years, until the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the Mighty Magyars won 58 games out of 69 and lost only one time in 6 years. The defeat would go into the history books as «The Miracle of Bern», as Hungary lost 3-2 to West-Germany in the 1954 FIFA World Cup final.
In those days, Hungary led by Ferenc Puskas, led the way both technically and tactically the football revolution in Europe – a style of play that later gave way for the Dutch Total Football we all cherish.
For Honvéd it would take decades to revive the past. Their second golden era happened between 1982 and 1994, when they won another seven Championships and two out of a total eight Magyar Kupa trophies.
Now, the situation is quite different.
For the second time in the club’s history, Budapest Honvéd were relegated from the Hungarian top-flight at the final day of 2022-23 season. The 2-1 loss against Puskas Academica puts the iconic club in great turmoil.
With a squad made up of mostly under-23 players Honved’s position in the shadow of Ferencvaros, MTK Budapest and Ujpest seems darker than ever.
The situation for the Hungarian National Team has been somehow similar. Besides a silver medal in the 1972 Olympic Games, the team has not won a trophy since the 1968 Olympics. So far, they have not managed to qualify for the World Cup since 1986 but things are looking more promising than ever as the team has successfully qualified for two European Championships in a row after 30 years of absent.
Now, Hungary has climbed to the 36th place on the FIFA ranking. They have recently promoted to the Nation League A where they finished on a second place, 1 point behind Italy, but ahead of Germany and England in group A3.
Hungary is a nation with great potential with Milos Kerkez and Dominik Szoboszlai as the rising stars. However, behind them there are very few wonderkids erupting – giving you the challenge to produce future wonderkids and talents that can turn the nation into one of the best in Europe.
Level of challenge: 4/5
Are you able to turn Hungary, and Honvéd, back into a European powerhouse and compete for the World Cup trophy they should have had? Bring back the Mighty Magyars in Football Manager 2024 with the ultimate Build a nation saves for FM 2024.
Litex Lovech – Bulgarian Vtora Liga
To break up the big three of Bulgarian football is an impossible feat. The latest dominance of Ludogorets Razgrad who have won the EfBet League 12 consecutive times, has put the most successful club in Bulgaria, CSKA Sofia, in the shadow. Prior to Ludogorets first Championship in 2011/12, it wasn’t Levski Sofia nor CSKA Sofia who claimed the Bulgarian title but Litex Lovech.
In that time, Litex Lovech won two consecutive titles which made the club into one of the most successful clubs in Bulgaria not located in Sofia.
Despite being founded already as far back as 1921, it wasn’t until oligarch Grisha Ganchev bought the club in 1996 and started to heavily invest in the squad with big signings Litex’s greatest era started.
In 1997/98, after a promotion from the second league, they won their first of four Bulgarian title and between 2000 and 2009 they had won four Bulgarian Cups.
However, after Ganchev pulled out of the club in 2015 and gave the ownership to his son, Litex’s decline started. First by being expelled from the A group over protest, then by forcing to rely on Academy players due to sales of players.
The current situation of Bulgarian football isn’t blooming either.
After Hristo Stoichkov led Bulgaria to an honourable fourth-place finish in 1994 World Cup, the team hadn’t been able to qualify for the WC group stage since 1998. Now positioned on the 77. Place on the FIFA ranking, behind minor nations like Oman, El Salvador, North Macedonia and Uzbekistan, time has come to restore the glory of Bulgarian football in FM24 with a build a nation saves.
Your main priorities are to lead Litex into the top three and eventually qualify for European tournaments. For the Bulgarian National team, your task is to improve the nation’s standing by promoting from the UEFA Nations League group C and hopefully qualify for the Euro’s or the World Cup.
FC Zbrojovka Brno – Czech Fortuna narodni liga
Zbrojovka Brno is among the ten most successful clubs in Czechia according to the all-time table. Brno was founded 110 years ago as SK Židenice. Based in South Moravia in the city of Brno – the second largest city in Czechia – the club was one of the best clubs in the country in the 1970s.
In 1978, Brno won their first and only Championship. It was followed by a third place in 1979 and a second place in 1980. A few years in the first division was followed by 19 consecutive seasons in the top flight between 1992 and 2011.
Since 2018, Brno has bounced back and forth between the first and second division. A third place in 2018/19 saw the club secure a play-off spot but lost. Then they ended at the second place in 2019/20 second division which saw them promote to the First Division. However, they relegated immediately in 2020/21 season. The same happened between 2022/23 season and 2023/24 season.
As a newly relegated club from the Fortuna:Liga, Brno should be one of the favorites to become Champions of Fortuna Narodni liga. At the moment they are 5 points behind the first place lying on a third place.
However, their trophy cabinet looks scrimmage compared to Sparta Prague who leads the way in both player development and participation in European tournaments.
The Czech National Team currently finds themselves on the 37th place on the FIFA ranking – behind Hungary, Algeria and Tunisia. They participated in the League A2 of UEFA Nations League 2022/23 but only managed to win against Switzerland resulting in relegation to League B for the next event.
Czechia has managed to qualify for every European Championships since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992. In their first Euro as Czech Republic, the team performed above expectations and finished as runner-ups in the Euro 96. Led by Pavel Nedved, Patrick Berger and Karel Poborsky the team won the semifinals in an epic penalty shootout against my favourites France, before losing a tight-fought battle against Germany in the finals. As ‘always’ the Germans managed to secure the win in the 95th minute as the match went to extra time after 1-1 in full time.
Between 2002 and 2003, the Czech Republic went on an unbeaten run – scoring 53 goals and conceding only 19 goals. They managed to qualify for the Euro 2000 by winning all their group matches. This was the golden era for Czechia. With legends like Petr Cech, Pavel Nedved, Jan Koller and Tomas Rosicky they qualified for their first but last World Cup participation in 2006.
Since then, the nation has struggled to create similar profiles. Some of you may argue with me in this matter as Tomas Soucek, Patrick Schick or Vladimir Coufal is playing for clubs within the top 5 leagues. However, their standard is a bit off Cech, Nedved, Rosicky or Milan Baros.
Apart from Adam Hlozek and Martin Vitik, there are few talents coming through with world class potential, at least to my knowledge.
The challenge is to make Czechia qualify for their second World Cup participation since 2006 and reach the latter stages of the tournament. Winning the Euros will also be a wonderful quest as you try to get revenge from that ‘nearly-did-it’ 1996 European Championship.
Íþróttabandalag Akraness / IA – Icelandic Lengjudeild karla
IA from Akranes relegated from the top flight before 2023 season. This is the fifth time the club plays on this level since being founded in 1946. Íþróttabandalag Akraness aka IA has probably a well-known club for most of you. Between 1975 and 2008, they participated regularly in one of the main UEFA tournaments due to their dominance in the Besta deildin karla.
However, they have never managed to reach further than second qualification round of the UEFA Cup, or first round of UEFA Champions League.
In the domestic league they have been more successful. 18 Championship, the first coming in 1951, 9 Cups and three League Cup titles, makes IA the joint third most successful club in Iceland. Now it’s actually 20 years since their last trophy won (Icelandic Cup 2003), and it will be a minimum of 24 years between their last Championship and the next time they can become Champions again.
When they have participated in the top flight in the last ten years, their best achievement has been a sixth place. Promoting from the Lengjudeild will probably be an easy challenge. It’s what’s coming next that will be challenging.
Their current team features a great mix of Under-23 players and more experienced players that reaches their peak. 35yo Arnór Smárason is probably a well-known name to you, especially for those following Dutch and Scandinavian football, as he has played for Heerenveen, Helsingborg, Esbjerg and Lillestrøm. His experience can be of great value if you decides to do a youth development save along with building the nation of Iceland.
For the national team, the situation is somehow similar, but not quite.
After a record-high FIFA ranking in 2016, Iceland has fallen from 21th place to a 67th. Behind North-Macedonia (66th) and Panama (45th), it’s time to get Iceland back to eat grapes with the big boys.
Between 2013 and 2018, Strákarnir okkar (aka Our Boys) managed to qualify for both the Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018. Their golden era started in the lead-up to the World Cup qualification 2014, when they lost to Croatia at the World Cup play-offs.
By qualifying for the World Cup 2018, they became the smallest nation compared to the number of residents to ever participate at the WC.
In this period, their fantastic team spirit, passion from their supporters and hard work on the pitch embraced our hearts. It has been David versus Goliath on several occassions due to natural causes of lacking the same profiles as other nations. However, they managed a number of upsets. A win against Netherlands, England and drawing against Portugal is probably some of their best achievements.
Most recently, the nation has struggled with results both in the Euro 2024 qualification and for the 2022 World Cup qualification – only managing to beat Lichtenstein and Bosnia-Herzegovina in both qualifications.
After the successful era with profiles like Eidur Gudjohnson, Alfreð Finnbogason and Gylfi Sigurðsson, the nation is in generationsl renewal. With a new coach, Åge Hareide and a new group of players, the team lacks the team cohesion and the tactics to perform at their best.
Read More | Iceland’s top performances reveal that talent development is about optimizing your resources
By managing the Icelandic National team you will be able to continue the development of huge talents; Isak Bergmann Jóhannesson (20), Kristian Hlynsson (19) and Hákon Arnar Haraldsson (20).
Despite of 380000 residents, Icrland manage to produce talents capable of playing in the top 10 leagues – something that makes the nation into a very interesting build a nation / youth development save for FM24!
Which nations are you considering managing on Football Manager 2024? Let us know your favourite team to manage and whether or not you are thinking of starting a build a nation save on Football Manager 2024?!
