FM19: Retrospective
Thoughts on my time with Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C.
The club I spent the vast majority of my time with was the Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C., one Israel’s most successful teams throughout it’s 113 year history. I’m happy to say I added to that success, winning 7 straight league titles (the 18–19 season through 24/25 season), as well as adding a few cups to to the trophy cabinet along the way. All in all it was a highly enjoyable run, if lacking challenge by the end.
Why I Chose Maccabi Tel Aviv
The choice of what club to play as your main save is the single biggest decision made by an FM player each year. The fanfare that surrounds “save reveals” makes it clear how important it is to choose wisely.
My decision to take a relatively unknown club in a small league was based on a few factors:
- I wanted to manage a team that had a shot at a title right away, but that wasn’t necessarily dominant domestically. As mentioned Maccabi Tel Aviv is Israel’s most successful club, but prior the 18/19 season they had not won the league since the 14/15 season.
- I wanted a team with some money to build a squad, but not unlimited resources. I didn’t want to scrape by on free transfers and loans, but I also didn’t want to be able to spend recklessly without cost. With a wage budget around ~$10–15 million per year Maccabi Tel Aviv fit the bill. That number is not nothing, but obviously it can’t compete with the major European clubs.
- Simple registration rules. As an MLS fan, I know how much of a headache complex registration rules in game can be. Israel’s rule of 6 foreigners (5 in the match day squad) was simple while also offering a challenge.
Immediate Domestic Success
It quickly became apparent that I had taken over the best team in Israel. I easily won the league in the first season, and relatively easily maintained the title throughout the next six season. Hapoel Be’er Sheva F.C. were consistently my toughest rival and pushed my teams throughout, but they never could match our quality nor our financial muscle.
In real life, Maccabi Tel Aviv had an invincible 18/19 season (of course I couldn’t know this when I began the save) and they’ve begun the 19/20 season without conceding a goal through 10 games. If anything, my virtual results are more “realistic” than the incredible run the real team is on.
European Challenge / European Ca$h
One of the fun parts of managing in a small league is that even if you end up dominating domestically, continental competition remains challenging. I managed to do relatively well in Europe, with my best run being knocked out of the Europa League quarter finals by Hertha Berlin in my final season.
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Winning a European trophy was never really a possibility, but what these runs did get me was an unassailable financial advantage over my domestic opponents. Even scraping a draw or two in the Champions League group stage could pay for a significant chunk of my wages, or a new transfer. It also allowed me to upgrade my (already superior) facilities. And being a small league, the champion was the only team that even had a shot at making the group stage. This led to a virtuous (from my perspective) cycle where I was able to buy all the good newgens from the other Israeli team, which then allowed my domestic dominance to continue, which then allowed me to compete in Europe, and so on. You can see this dynamic at work in real life in several smaller European leagues (e.g., BATE Borisov in Belarus or Astana in Kazakhstan).
Youth Development
One of best parts of every Football Manager save is seeing your youth prospects blossom into stars. That was no different with Maccabi Tel Aviv, who start out with Israel’s best youth setup. I let my staff handle training to save time, but I made sure to build a competent youth staff with Luiz Fernando Moraes as my HOYD. I especially had success developing attacking midfielders/wingers, with Eyal Akafi and Maimon Barazani becoming first teamers. Real-life younster also Eden Kartsev became a contributing attacking/central midfielder following a successful loan spell at Maccabi Netanya.
Transfer Strategy — Domestic
With such a strict foreigner limit, the value of local Israeli player is heavily inflated. Combined with the mediocre country rating, finding and keeping talented Israeli players became the most important recipe for success. Luckily, Maccabi Tel Aviv start with some of the best Israeli players; national team players Omer Atzilli and Dor Peretz, especially, became the heart of my attack and midfield, respectively. However, I attribute my sustained success to two moves.
The first move was bringing in Joel Abu Hanna, a German-Israeli D(L) and CD, who I primarily played as my left wing back. His Bundesliga team in game got relegated, and he became available for less than $500K. I jumped at the chance and he quickly blossomed and by the end of the save I was turning down offers of over $5 million from teams in the EPL, Serie A, and La Liga.
The second move was purchasing a newgen named Aviad Zahavi from cross-town rivals Bnei Yehuda. Through the first years of the save I struggled finding a striker who could consistently score, especially after Itay Schecter (31 at the start of the save) retired. I noticed when playing Bnei Yehuda (normally a relatively weak team in the league) that their striker kept torching my defense. When I checked his profile, I knew I had to have him. Bnei Yehuda resisted, but several million in incentives on top of a (relatively) massive transfer was too much for the small club to say no to. Almost immediately Zahavi started smashing in goals, and led the league in scoring multiple times. I had to pay out the full incentive bonuses, but I was happy to do so.
Transfer Strategy — Foreign
With domestic transfers artificially inflated, I aimed to look for value in my foreign signings. My hope was that with a low (or free) initial fee, I could easily move the player out without taking a loss if it didn’t work out. If it did work out, I stood to either have a quality player that wanted to stay or gain a lot of money. Quickly, here are four examples of what I mean:
- Gennaro Tutino — Acquired on loan from Napoli, then on a free after his contract ran out. Was an ironman for the club and was a consistent if not prolific goalscorer from the left wing.
- Fabricio Bruno and Eder — Young Brazilian center backs acquired for a few hundred thousand and free, respectively. Not necessarily great on their own, but paired together they became an incredible defensive and set-piece partnership. Fabricio Bruno went on to win several “Foreigner of the Year” awards.
- Danielzinho — An incredible playmaker that was the creative spark for my midfield. He had some holes in his game, but placed in the right position to succeed. I think the elite-level players in Brazil are often overrated value-wise, but the next level down is often underrated just because there are so many A-/B+ level Brazilians that probably can’t get work permits to play in the UK or aren’t quite good enough to take up a non-EU spot in the other big leagues, but are good enough to dominate smaller leagues. Shakhtar Donetsk in real-life is a good example of this strategy.
- Kouassi Eboue — A real-life youngster at Celtic via Krasnodar, I picked up Eboue on a free after Dan Glazer went down with a long-term knee injury. He ended up doing a solid job as my defensive central midfielder, after which I sold him to Valencia for several million once Glazer came back. This is an example of the buy low sell high approach I took with foreign signings.
Top 5 Stars of the Save
- Dor Peretz
- Gennaro Tutino
- Fabricio Bruno
- Joel Abu Hanna
- Omer Atzilli
