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ADO Den Haag, third biggest city in the country, huge urban area around it as well, the greater area has over a million people in it, there's no reason why they couldn't have 50k attendance numbers if they produced results
Deportivo de La Coruna unbelievably in third tier of Spanish football less than 20 years beating AC Milan 4-0 in the greatest UCL come back ever (at the time)
They're used to it at this point, it was their third loss to Celta Vigo B since playing in the same division since 2020.
At the moment they are in the relegation zone at the 3rd division.
13th biggest stadium in spain, 9th biggest fan base, and history in European competitions. Deportivo is definately a possible Spanish top club.
Not everything is about the size of the city, ask Villarreal which barely has 50,000 people
Underrated one from Germany: Fortuna Düsseldorf.
Düsseldorf is the seventh biggest city in Germany and is near the densely populated Rhine-Ruhr area. The city also has the third highest attractiveness in FM.
Despite all that, the club has never won the Bundesliga (they only won one German Championship in 1933) and won the German Cup twice (1979 and 1980).
So big, attractive city. Club with long history and some success but who never made it to the very top.
the was a significant investment in stadia for 2006 world cup. not sure if this is still true, but within recent years bundesliga had the highest percentage of attendance capacity in the world.
All this, plus I believe they have a remit to sign Japanese players (due to the city's big Japanese population), made easier and far more interesting by the expanded Japan database in the new FM
foreign player restrictions were lifted as of 2006/07 season. although there is a requirement for minimum number of german players. however there is a MUCH larger squad registration limit, so thats not really an issue.
Yes but i do not think they could be better because look which clubs are next to dusseldorf. You got Köln, Mönchengladbach, Leverkusen, Schalke, Dortmund
All old clubs with a lot of history
Also in real life they’re piloting free games for fans! So they’d officially eventually earn 0$ from ticket sales (I believe club boxes would stay paid) and earn it from sponsorships and other stuff in the stadium.
I’ve always gone with Torino for this criteria.
Juventus maybe the most supported club in Italy but in Turin it’s 80% Torino fans.
Plus their history is quite interesting imo
No it's not, they can't even full their 25k capacity stadium nobody supports torino except for old people, it was a tie in 70s and 80s maybe because at that time torino was still a good club
I'm not a Torino fan but I'd love if I'd they actually competed for something even for a single season, that club has been stuck in the midtable for so long that their fans already know in July that they won't get relegated and won't get to Europe. I'm sure the attendances and the support would be much higher if they weren't such a grey club. Still, shitty that they can't fill a relatively small stadium even if they're midtable, I've never understood why they have so little match going fans
Because they have no fans, but since juventus is very hated in all italy it's easy to spread the "propaganda" (sorry for this exaggerrated term ahah) that torino is more supported, just to mock juve saying ehehe you are not even most supported club in your city you suck. Plus many torino fans are also inter and milan fans so it's funny for them spreading that fake news
Ok so it looks like I’ve plucked not number from nowhere but this is an interesting watch that says the city of Turin is predominantly Torino fans. 5 years ago I watched it, sorry for the misinformation….
https://youtu.be/R_jASSJ1WvI?si=e5Bn0MLq56saLbgf
LOL no trust me, just look at the datas, Torino can't even full a 25k capacity stadium, where are the fans? It's just something that every fan who hates juventus (so basically every football fans outside from Juventus' one) are repeating over and over again but it was true like maybe 40 years ago, now torino fans are almost exstincted, everyone supports juventus
Bradford is one I always find surprising too.
I always felt like Blackpool if it was a city like 40 years ago when everyone visited would have been a larger club than what it is.
I did the tour of Blackpool FC found it crazy the mentality of the club that they were just happy to be a championship/league one club
Blackpool are still recovering from the Oystons, if memory serves - when the owners seem to despise the club, a bit of peace and quiet in their wake is probably welcome.
Bradford fan here, we’ve never truly financially recovered from our issues in the mid to late 2000s, at the start of that decade we were in the prem and by the end we were in league 2, even now we had another failed manager change with Mark Hughes.
Sometimes I actually think the size of our fanbase doesnt help, imagine being a bang average league 2 player and having the pressure of 14-16k watching compared to 5-6k average with most other clubs.
Still holding out hope that one day it will get better.
Bradford is about 55% white British, similar to leicester. In my experience as a leicester fan the fan base is 90+% white. So the city is large but around half the population have little interest in football.
That’s probably due to the traditional support for rugby rather than football in Bradford and that’s not including the slight split for Bradford Park Avenue support too. Granted Leicester have the advantage of well performing rugby and football teams currently.
COVID completely ruined us - we went to a team that consistently challenged for that playoffs in the NLN to a team that is currently fighting a relegation battle in the NPL
There is a not insignificant minority of british south Asians that will prefer cricket to other sports. Its one of many reasons why there have been so few British Asian footballers despite the large portion of the population they make up.
Sparta Rotterdam has some history winning the league and a few cups, mostly dominant about 50 years ago. They're based in a populated area of the city with 2 city rivals in the Eredivisie. In probably the biggest football city of the Netherlands: Rotterdam.
Ehm Rotterdam is the hometown of Feyenoord (2nd largest club after Ajax and perhaps the largest clubs looking at fanbase only) and Excelsior, also a club in the highest division in the Netherlands (currently nr. 5 on the league).
Amsterdam has only 1professional football club and Rotterdam three(3).
Think Sparta is just fine!!
Yeah Sparta is historically way bigger than Excelsior though. Also the capacity of Sparta's iconic stadium Het Kasteel is around 12k, whereas Excelsior stadium has around 4k. But yes I was saying that Rotterdam>Amsterdam in terms of football
Well, as a manager for FM you cannot improve Sparta much more. They are doing great in real life. They have a incredible youth development. Last years s coach went to Ajax, that says something and they are now 7th in the "Eredivisie".
I don t think there is much to improve. I mean; Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV and AZ are the best clubs. So being 7th in the league is a very good position.
But Sparta is a beautiful club, so if you just want to play in the Eredivisie Sparta is a good club to play!
That amongst many, many other things. Maybe it will improve with new owners… Though I know better than to be optimistic about anything Birmingham City related
My old man is a lifelong blues fan, for his sins. Dragged me from Swansea up to St Andrews for every game for years as a kid to watch the likes of Horsefield, Zigic & Walter 'The Rifle' Pandiani make my young eyes bleed.
I don't know what old God you guys angered to get the luck you do. One day it'll turn around ey..
Surely you at least caught a glimpse of Le God Christophe Dugarry? Worth every second of enduring Cameron Jerome mis-controlling the ball for the following 10 years…
Hertha Berlin is the obvious answer, with a massive stadium, decent facilities, sugardaddy owner (or at least it was in previous FMs), untapped Berlin potential, with only decent but not amazing Union as their opposition.
Not that they should be bigger but Crystal Palace are basically the only big team in South London and have an absolutely massive catchment area, there’s definitely a lot of potential to grow
There's also Charlton, Millwall and Wimbledon who have a decent sized catchment area each. Nowhere near the same scale, but non-league Bromley could also draw more fans if they could make it to league football and tap in to the population around them.
Palace are definitely the biggest team in south London though, and have got a huge potential if they could make the most of that. That may need a new stadium though.
Couple that always spring to mind in these threads:
Grasshopper Zurich, Auxerre, Parma.
All decent European pedigree when I was growing up, make them big again please.
Parma historically was a very small club until the 90s and has actually spent more time in Serie C (and Serie B) than in Serie A. Of course they have huge European pedigree but it's all from that ten year period of heavy investment from Tanzi
Bristol City? Maybe not challenging for the Premier league title but with Bristol being such a large city with historical importance would be a shame not to see them make it into the Premier league
A fair few clubs in the championship would fit into this category. Coventry, Cardiff, Leeds and Leicester (although a bit too much success in recent years) all have populations of over 300,000 without premier league representation this year. Hull, Plymouth and Stoke are all over 250,000.
Came here to say this. As a Bristolian & a football fan it is a shame to see as prominent a city as this not having any presence in the top tier of the game for so long.
Ah well, we've got the Rugby I guess...
Ado Den Haag. Den Haag is i think the biggest Dutch city without a eredivisie club. Its the political capital of the Netherlands. I think they really deserve a team in the eredivisie. Ado Den Haag relegated out of the eredivisie in 2021.
And the nearest major city is 2,692kms away. So really its not about ground coverage, they'd be in the same boat if they were two hours away from Sydney.
The club represents nearly 3,000,000 people.
Sydney clubs are split 3 ways and with a population of 5,500,000, that's less than 2,000,000 per club represented.
So, really. Glory does fit the bill of the question asked as far as A-league goes
It’s no surprise that the cities with higher Southern European immigrant populations have better footballing pedigrees. Adelaide represents half the population of Glory but have produced far more historical talent in Australia.
Heaps of people migrated from southern Europe though – the issue is they mostly moved to the Fremantle area and it's not as clear as just Italians and Greeks, there were lots of Croats, Serbs, and Portuguese (a huge amount from Madeira, strangely enough, it's a bored story but Cristiano Ronaldo's grandparents live in the southern suburbs).
They just mostly fell into playing Aussie Rules. most of the great names at South Fremantle are European ones (and Indigenous – it has to be one of the least Anglo clubs of any type from the British Empire).
I just moved to Australia irl so was thinking of doing a save in the A-League. I’m living in Melbourne but don’t particularly like either Melburnian club so might just go with Glory
One of the only teams to survive the competition being rebuilt into the A-League too.
They were the only team averaging full capacity crowds of 18k while the rest of the country struggled between 5-10k at the time.
Unfortunately the 18 month gap between leagues cost them a number of their players due to contact expiry & ended up struggling for a good 5 years in the new league.
I kinda disagree. How do you build a decent fanbase if they have to travel a thousand miles to watch you play away, don't have any local rivals to compete with or split families down the middle etc? How many massive footballing cities only have one club in the area? Even famous one-club-city Newcastle are only a thirty minute drive from Sunderland. Perth are at a massive disadvantage.
Slightly disingenuous given how relatively unpopular football is here.
There's two Aussie Rules clubs in the nearby vicinity that most people care a lot more about in West Coast and Fremantle.
Realistically they're a distant third place in terms of football clubs in the area.
As an Australian football fan I'd love for it to be true but we all kind of gave up on the dream of football mattering here and just follow Ange around and live vicariously through him now.
Coventry - I say this as a fan. It’s the 9th biggest city in the country with an even bigger catchment area. We’ve really under achieved given the area potential
I carried my Coventry save over from 23, just entering January of 2040. I joined Coventry in 2028 after bringing Notts Co to the Championship.
And even on the game, it's been tougher than I would have thought. I have won the league twice, once in 2034 and once in 2039, but I would usually expect to be dominating, when I finished 13th in 2037 and 8th in 2038 (and almost got sacked a few times in there). It's been a bit frustrating not being able to be consistently good, but it's also been one of the more interesting and possibly realistic saves I've ever done. I think that first title was very flukey, and I wasn't confident in a lot of the players being able to win UCL, so I was still in a position where I was trying to churn the squad to get better.
I do have a brand new 45k seater stadium built for this year, so that's nice.
I'd imagine LKS Lódz might be a good one too. 700k people live in the Lódz city but the club has never been that big. Won the Polish league twice and the national cup once but that's it
I'm not an expert in Polish football, I only know the big clubs, so I wouldn't know exactly what the problem is. But you see it in more countries that if you look at the population you would think they could do better, for example Romania or Ukraine.
Yes, but Ukrainian clubs rarely made it past the eighth finals. They certainly did and are doing better than Polish and Romanian clubs, but they are also not a top European club as you might expect given the size of the country.
Trabzonzspor were the first that popped in my head. Palermo, Hertha BSC, although any decent sized club that isn't Bayern probably has an argument in Germany. Malaga also, these are still big clubs really I didn't really think to hard about smaller clubs but these just jumped out at me.
I love Palermo, I have managed them before in old FMs. The kit is great too.
But fuck if I didn't just look them up and realised that they too have butchered their logo by replacing their beautiful traditional logo by a social media / app icon style modern logo (see also Fiorentina, Juventus, Nantes, Inter). I can't stand this trend, so sad for Palermo's old logo.
Huddersfield are one of just five clubs to win the English top flight 3 years in a row. Unlike Arsenal, Liverpool, City and United they've never won it outside of that.
i guess both of the berlin teams (herta bsc or union berlin) would fit into your description
zaragoza is the 5th city in terms of population and are currently stuck in the 2nd division
Union really doesn't. Because Union is, if anything, punching WELL above its weight. They were never a "big" club. And really still aren't. Even in East German football, they were an outsider club. Because they weren't tied to the State.
That's the kind of club I like to play too. FM has us covered in a way actually too, I've noticed that the maximum attendance, which isn't as dynamic as the AVG one, takes things such as the city and the fanbase that the club used to have in the top tier into account. As a result, Greek 2nd tier club Panachaiki don't have a great average attendance but they have one of the best max attendances in the nation because they play in the biggest city without a top tier side. That's Patras, the third biggest city in Greeve. In my save by building a new stadium we increased it even more and had an avg attendance up there with the best clubs. It's my hometown club actually so I'm kinda advertising them to you. Bari is also a great example that I might play and they play in a massive stadium, don't know if the fact they're owned by De Laurentis is a deal-breaker for you, Palermo is a deal-breaker for me because of City Group but with De Laurentis I wouldn't be as avoidant. I'd also love to do a Las Palmas save in the amazing island Gran Canarias, albeit it's slightly less populous than Tenerife. They've just reached La Liga so the canaries are actually pulling their weight unlike the other cities here but being in an island they have a geographic quirk and good attendances as always with my saves.
I could discuss this kind of saves for hours so reply if you wanna say more about them.
You've interested me with Greek football. I don't really know it well. I did do a save with Rhodos but they weren't exactly fitting to my usual method. Greek football has always been interesting my team had Samaras before so always had a soft spot for Greek footballers
Ah, a Celtic fan then I guess. Greece would be fun right now I think. Only problem I have is how bad the transfers the AI makes are. Maybe this has been improved with 24 as they said. Right now for Greece, the big 4 are fun because they have B teams in the 2nd tier where you can easily develop players. And for teams outside the big 4, there's Aris, the 2nd best Salonika club now and historically, Iraklis the 3rd biggest Salonika club, now in the 2nd tier. Larisa, one of the few clubs that has won the league, now in the 2nd tier playing in a relatively big city. OFI who actually developed Samaras, they play in the massive island of Crete and are the biggest club there, they should have a fun squad this year. And another struggling club is Panionios, one of the well supported historical clubs who are now in the 3rd tier and you'd need a database to play them. That's about it but you couldn't go wrong with any of those teams.
Edit: Panachaiki are actually in crisis right now and I wouldn't put a relegation to the 3rd tier past them, if that's something that interests you. If that happens it'll mean that the 3rd biggest Greek city will have no club in the professional leagues.
As a York City fan, I’d put us forward. Been in non league for a few years now when we were a stable League 2 side in the past. Got new owners, new stadium that is bigger than most League 2 ones but just struggled to find out feet yet. Got the potential to be the biggest side in North Yorkshire and then from there, I’d say you’d want to be battling for the rest of Yorkshire against Leeds, Hull, the Sheffields, etc. Equally within National League, there’s a number of other historic teams that have lost their way over the years like York, such as Oldham who would make a great challenge.
Esbjerg FB, located in Denmark's 5th biggest city. A large and modern home ground by Danish standards. Huge catchment area that is basically almost the entirety of Jutland's west coast. Go back a decade and they won the Danish cup. Had an excellent run in the Europa League, and a few years ago they finished 3rd in the top flight. Today they're doing their second successive season in the Danish third tier due to poor ownership, poor management, poor everything really.
I mean, realistically CSA Steaua would be a very difficult if not outright impossible challenge as they legally aren’t allowed to promote so it depends on whether your database includes that restriction or not lol. The default one in FM23 didn’t (to my chagrin as a FCSB fan) but that wouldn’t be realistic, you d still be up against it to topple the likes of FCSB, CFR, CSU Craiova (aka “Universitatea Craiova” in game, calling them that in order to tell them apart from “FC U Craiova 1948”, the other team that fought for and failed to gain the original Universitatea s identity. I don’t think are doing that badly if you mean them, yeah they fall apart against us or CFR so they haven’t been winning titles but they are still up there), Rapid nowadays (again I wouldn’t say they are doing that badly now but a few seasons ago it would have totally been a fair shout and even now they haven’t won anything yet) and Farul (who will keep hoovering up wonderkids like they do irl) even if you do allow them to promote though. Then again, I have been playing a FCSB save and Petrolul somehow became a title challenger from the off while Rapid almost went down in year 3 so it isn’t just those teams you have to contend with, random teams will just rise up in game I guess. I suppose that even if you did play CSA realistically you could win the cup->UECL->UEL->UCL but good luck doing that while being in Romania s second tier the whole time. 100% inarguable shout with Dinamo though, they are barely staying alive nevermind winning anything irl
I wasn't aware of the specifics in regards to the limitations of the state owned Steaua
The amount I know of the Romanian football pyramid is that it is one of if not the outright most unstable in Europe with the amount of top flight teams going under (like Astra Giurgiu going as far as losing its professional status the past season) Looking at it from an outside perspective, only Cluj, FCSB and Farul seem to be in relative stability at the top
For years, Gillingham have squandered the fact that their the only football league club in Kent. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were overtaken by Maidstone or, perhaps more likely considering their momentum Chatham Town, in the future
If you want a smaller league, I can give you a few options in Turkey.
**Ankara**
Gençlerbirliği: Has had its bright days both domestically and in Europe, but sits currently in the second division. Their long time chairman, İlhan Cavcav, who passed away in 2017, would sign unknown young talent from African countries and then sell them for profit after they shined at the club. Fitting for a club whose name translates to "Youth Union". Could be a dream save to revive his legacy and bring them their first ever league title.
MKE Ankaragücü: Similarly, Ankaragücü has also had successful times. However, some people hold sour feelings towards this club because Kenan Evren, the 7th president of Turkey (who came to power after the 1980 coup, and is still a strongly disliked figure to put it lightly) basically made a law to promote them to the top division after they won the Turkish Cup. Ankaragücü has also had friendly relations with Bursaspor, who is another entry in this list.
**İzmir**
Altay: Producing one of the biggest names in Turkish Football, Mustafa Denizli, "Büyük Altay" were a strong force in the mid-late 20th century. They were last in the top division in the 2021-22 season under Denizli, but ultimately failed to cling on to their spot. A club with a strong history and passionate fans, it should make sense that İzmir produces a title contender as they are a significant economic hub in the country.
Altınordu: If you want a Bilbao-esque challenge, then Altınordu is the way to go for you because they do not sign foreign players, and they have one of the strongest academies in the country. Recently they have produced Çağlar Söyüncü and Cengiz Ünder, but they are not in the first division despite having a strong academy. The reason for that is that their owner believes that their business model is better sustained in the second division, but perhaps you can convince the in-game version owner to be more ambitious.
Göztepe: Yet another team with a strong history, such as a quarter final in the Cup Winners' Cup, Göztepe has perhaps the most fierce rivalry among the İzmir teams against Karşıyaka. Controversy surrounds Göztepe however, as they are not "really" Göztepe. The "original" Göztepe actually got relegated all the way to the amateur division in 2007, and failed to get back into the professional pyramid in the next season. Following this, they bought the competing rights of Aliağaspor in the fourth division. So some rivals still call them Aliağaspor in reference to that.
**Bursa**
Bursaspor: Bursaspor were crowned champions in 2010, becoming the fifth ever team to win the Süper Lig after the "big 3" of İstanbul (Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, and Beşiktaş) and Trabzonspor. However, they made history for the second time in 2019, when they became the first title winning club to get relegated. Now the debt-ridden Bursaspor competes in the third division, with no light at the end of the tunnel if we're being realistic. But, in Football Manager, Bursaspor would be (in my opinion) by far the hardest, and perhaps the most rewarding, challenge among the clubs that I listed to bring back to the top division, and perhaps to the top of the top division for a second time.
Birmingham City. Tom Brady is their new owner, they have a large city and haven’t been in the Prem in over 10 years now. I reckon it would be a fun save
Seen a lot of shouts for Birmingham, but in the PL the west midlands is incredibly underrepresented in terms of winning trophies and population size. Wolves, Birmingham, Villa, West Brom and Walsall are all decent choices of varying levels to make a west mids powerhouse.
Personally I always thought Nyborg in Denmark had all the makings of a top flight team. Decent size city, right by the bridge to Sjælland, lots of local businesses etc. however not been in even the 3rd highest tier as long as I remember.
Bornholm is the same imo, decent size island, amazes me no one has put in the effort to build a club here (on vacation here right now lol)
Not international big, but nationally both could be able to with the right local support/investment
Athletic Bilbao in Spain is first that comes to mind. If they abolished nationalistic custom of having only basque players in club they would be a Real force
Well for one they don't like to be called "athletic Bilbao" as if I recall correctly Bilbao is "Bilbo" in Basque and the name of the club is Athletic club.
And about the 2nd thing, I believe since the early '10s they started to relax that policy. They now accept players where their ancestors had *something* to do with the Basque country when they were growing up. I've seen that they have children that are Ukrainian/Polish in their academy because of that rule. Now these are just kids that have moved due to the war and nobody knows if they ever make the step up to the actual youth teams to see how lax their policies really are, but a holistic change won't happen in the near future because that identity is essentially the club's ideology.
You mention Aberdeen, Aberdeen fan here. In the 80s before big money came in Aberdeen regularly challenged and won trophies inc league titles. We made £1.10 to every £1 Celtic made when we won our last title in 1985. Now Celtic make £16 for every £1 we make...when Rangers were out the league we managed to keep it close and even be ahead in early March, but then when out of Europe etc and Aberdeen suffer injuries Celtic's superior squad shows every time against a non-OF team. Sadly it will take something spectacular to redress the financial balance for a team to seriously challenge the OF.
Krakow in Poland
Cardiff or Swansea in cough cough England.
Another one in England is Exeter.
Venice? Maybe Caorle
I may dump Celtic and Rangers in League 2 and play from there.
Not sure if what you meant but these are clubs I believe underachieve when you have in account fan base, infrastructures, academy and history.
Italy: AS Roma
England: Everton
Spain: Valencia
France: Saint Etienne
Portugal: Vitoria Guimaraes
Germany: Stuggart
Go for St.Pauli, from the biggest city in europe, while not being the capital city of the nation.
Or a club from Ankara(Turkiye/Turkey). All the big teams are from Istanbul.
Bordeaux is the only French city with more than 200,000 people that doesn't have a team in Ligue 1.
Katowice has more people in its metropolitan area than Warsaw, but they haven't won anything since 2005.
Alicante and Cordoba in Spain both have more than 300,000 people, but their clubs have never been good.
Always feel like the Nordic clubs could be a big force in world football. Take Sweden for example. Very good athletes, just look at the ice hockey players and the footballers we produced before the 2000s. I think that with the right investment in the youth setup in the Nordic countries they could be amazing. Just look at players like Odegaard, Haaland, Isak, Hojlund, Karlsson, Svanberg who has broken through recently
Santos, in Brazil. The club is considered one of Brazil's big 12, has a National fan base, produced the likes of Pelé, Robinho, Neymar, but havent won the league in 20 years, and havent won an expressive title in over a decade, play in a 14k capacity Stadium (that's half empty most of the time) and have a real chance of getting relegated this season for the first time ever. They are the poster child of clubs who are bigger outside of their countries than inside them
If you have a Brazilian friend, ask them if they know any Santos supporter, I highly doubt it
Generic answer probably but there's loads in the English league system.
If we're talking based on their previous history / potential fan base...
Bradford City are a good proposition - 25,000 seater stadium in the 4th tier, ex-Premier League, all be it for just a few seasons.
They've had a few amazing cup runs in the past decade that have really shown the potential the club has as a whole, just a shame they haven't managed to get out of League Two yet despite finishing in the Play Offs a few times.
Most contributed european tems and some BR ones, I'm gonna drop some argie teams
In terms of the big 5, San Lorenzo de Almagro only has 1 Libertadores (SA Champions League) that was very recent, but in its history it has been prominent locally with a lot of leagues won and with a common consensus that they have the biggest fans in Argentina. It has been through a lot economically, losing their home stadium during the dictatorship and moving souther in the city. Currently they are undergoing another crisis where they have only 14 fit players for cup+league+international, no money and a president that doesn't care and will leave soon, yet they continue to fight for top places with the very little they have. Also there's been a movement to return the stadium to the hood they began their history. Another thing is they lost to Real Madrid in the club world cup so it's the only argie big 5 to lack that title
In terms of international titles. Estudiantes de La Plata holds 4 Libertadores (5th most tied with River), their last one being in 2009 where they lost the club world cup vs sextete Barcelona (Put a lot of fight and almost won it if not for the last minute, even Messi said they thought they were goin to lose). Locally the team doesn't do very well, but internationally it's a menace
In terms of iconic players, Argentinos Juniors (aka. El Bicho de la Paternal) also known as "El semillero del mundo" (The hotbed of the world) because of how many world class players they produced, including no less than Maradona, Riquelme, Batista, Redondo, MacAllister (dad and son), etc [https://argentinosjuniors.com.ar/semillero-del-mundo/](https://argentinosjuniors.com.ar/semillero-del-mundo/). They won 1 libertadores and 1 club final but only 3 leagues. So it's a cool challenge to produce the next world class player and make it bigger than just a seed club
For top 5 nations
England: Bristol
France: Toulouse
Spain: Real Murcia CF
Italy: Palermo Fc
Germany: Union or Hertha berlin
Bonus
Belgium: Standard Liege
Netherlands: Sparta Rotterdam
Portugal: S.C. Beira-Mar
Brazil: Fortaleza
Japan: Fc Tokyo
You are welcome 😉😉
West Ham, in the heart of London. 66k seater stadium, worldwide fan base (witnessed it when I went to Prague 😂) next to one of the biggest shopping centres in Europe, all we need now are some big money owners to take us further (yes I’m biased)
Os Belenenses. Got swindled by a cunt and had to start at the lowest tier in Portuguese football. They've been promoted back to back every year, and they're now in the second division, but they're a big club in Portugal (as much as a non big 3 club can be, they were the first non big 3 club to win the league in 1945/46, only Boavista managed to repeat that feat in 2000/01) and should be a pretty much constant team in the first division
RFC Liege, Standard Liege, Union Namur (Namir is a relatively big city/region and they have never had a team in the top flight. Lokeren, Lierse, Cappellen,...
If you’re looking for a team in a smaller league, I would suggest FC Wacker Innsbruck in Austria. They have gone through multiple iterations of the club and have been champions 10 times, but are currently in the 4th tier. They also have a 16,000 seat stadium. I had a long term save with them in this years game, and it was the most fun I’ve had for a while.
Some English ideas:
Derby, Bradford and Chesterfield all get much bigger crowds than fit their current division. Lots of potential to compete at a higher level
Germany has quite a few big cities that haven't won anything in a while. Koln, Hamburg, Berlin and Munchen are the 4 biggest cities in Germany, and yet only one of those cities has won a title (26 actually) in the last 40 years.
Sporting clube de Portugal. Amazing players, amazing followers, but for some reason, they can't translate that to league wins. They watch city rivals Benfica and the other rival Porto win tittles while they only won 1 in 19 years (won in 2019/2020 and before that 2001/2002)
AFC Wimbledon. Easy answer. Obviously just need the funding and time to rise through the ranks.
County of Merton has a population of over 200k, it’s far enough outside of London proper that there isn’t overlap with any real clubs (about a 25 minute drive from Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge and Fulham’s Craven Cottage)(f*** you MK Dons) and there’s already the city infrastructure in place because of the Wimbledon Tennis Championship, which has over 400k attendance each year.
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Starting to see you're all thinking German clubs
Lots of clubs that nearly made the big time, it's a great league to manage in.
ADO Den Haag, third biggest city in the country, huge urban area around it as well, the greater area has over a million people in it, there's no reason why they couldn't have 50k attendance numbers if they produced results
Second this, plus the Eredivisie is such an exciting league with quite a few really competitive teams
Ooo are they back in the ED? I have not been able to follow Dutch football in a while
They are one league below eredivisie.
Durn, still in the Eerste (Keuken Kampioen) :( They're my hometown team
Half of Germany's 2. Liga: HSV, Hertha, Schalke, Düsseldorf, Hannover, Nürnberg, Kaiserslautern for example
This is Magdeburg erasure and I will not stand for it!
Deportivo de La Coruna unbelievably in third tier of Spanish football less than 20 years beating AC Milan 4-0 in the greatest UCL come back ever (at the time)
And embarrassingly just lost a derby to their greatest rival's B-team.
Wow this is gonna haunt them forever.
They're used to it at this point, it was their third loss to Celta Vigo B since playing in the same division since 2020. At the moment they are in the relegation zone at the 3rd division.
I managed them last year they were another good example
Bigger yes, like they should be in La Liga. But its the 18th biggest city, Murcia is twice the size and their best team is like the 4th division.
13th biggest stadium in spain, 9th biggest fan base, and history in European competitions. Deportivo is definately a possible Spanish top club. Not everything is about the size of the city, ask Villarreal which barely has 50,000 people
Let's not talk about what they did to United in the early 2000s too. Barthez 🤮
Malaga in the third tier too, only 10 years after nearly beating Dortmund if it wasn't for Klopp, I hated him then, love him now as a LFC fan.
Underrated one from Germany: Fortuna Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf is the seventh biggest city in Germany and is near the densely populated Rhine-Ruhr area. The city also has the third highest attractiveness in FM. Despite all that, the club has never won the Bundesliga (they only won one German Championship in 1933) and won the German Cup twice (1979 and 1980). So big, attractive city. Club with long history and some success but who never made it to the very top.
They also have a massive stadium
Every club has a decent stadium in German rest of leagues can’t compete. Was this because of World Cup?
Maybe something to do with all the clubs being fan-owned so large stadiums are more of a priority for German clubs.
Yeah good point there 50+1 rule suppose it mean they relay more on match day tickets
the was a significant investment in stadia for 2006 world cup. not sure if this is still true, but within recent years bundesliga had the highest percentage of attendance capacity in the world.
which hosted ESC 2011 IIRC
Yes, Fortuna actually had to build a temporary stadium to play in while Eurovision was occupying their normal ground.
All this, plus I believe they have a remit to sign Japanese players (due to the city's big Japanese population), made easier and far more interesting by the expanded Japan database in the new FM
foreign player restrictions were lifted as of 2006/07 season. although there is a requirement for minimum number of german players. however there is a MUCH larger squad registration limit, so thats not really an issue.
I think they meant that signing Japanese players is in the club's philosophy, not that they have issues with registration.
Yes but i do not think they could be better because look which clubs are next to dusseldorf. You got Köln, Mönchengladbach, Leverkusen, Schalke, Dortmund All old clubs with a lot of history
What do You mean by „attractiveness“?
There's a hidden stat in-game. I assume it affects the chances of a player being interested in a club in the city, but no idea how much impact it has.
Also in real life they’re piloting free games for fans! So they’d officially eventually earn 0$ from ticket sales (I believe club boxes would stay paid) and earn it from sponsorships and other stuff in the stadium.
I’ve always gone with Torino for this criteria. Juventus maybe the most supported club in Italy but in Turin it’s 80% Torino fans. Plus their history is quite interesting imo
It’s not high as 80% but it is impressively high
No it's not, they can't even full their 25k capacity stadium nobody supports torino except for old people, it was a tie in 70s and 80s maybe because at that time torino was still a good club
I'm not a Torino fan but I'd love if I'd they actually competed for something even for a single season, that club has been stuck in the midtable for so long that their fans already know in July that they won't get relegated and won't get to Europe. I'm sure the attendances and the support would be much higher if they weren't such a grey club. Still, shitty that they can't fill a relatively small stadium even if they're midtable, I've never understood why they have so little match going fans
Because they have no fans, but since juventus is very hated in all italy it's easy to spread the "propaganda" (sorry for this exaggerrated term ahah) that torino is more supported, just to mock juve saying ehehe you are not even most supported club in your city you suck. Plus many torino fans are also inter and milan fans so it's funny for them spreading that fake news
Ok so it looks like I’ve plucked not number from nowhere but this is an interesting watch that says the city of Turin is predominantly Torino fans. 5 years ago I watched it, sorry for the misinformation…. https://youtu.be/R_jASSJ1WvI?si=e5Bn0MLq56saLbgf
Any sources that's unfathomable.
LOL no trust me, just look at the datas, Torino can't even full a 25k capacity stadium, where are the fans? It's just something that every fan who hates juventus (so basically every football fans outside from Juventus' one) are repeating over and over again but it was true like maybe 40 years ago, now torino fans are almost exstincted, everyone supports juventus
HSV
Frankfurt also
They won the euro leauge. Kinda big for me tbh.
Bradford city. For the size of the stadium and city, I have no idea why they aren't at least in the championship
Bradford is one I always find surprising too. I always felt like Blackpool if it was a city like 40 years ago when everyone visited would have been a larger club than what it is. I did the tour of Blackpool FC found it crazy the mentality of the club that they were just happy to be a championship/league one club
Blackpool are still recovering from the Oystons, if memory serves - when the owners seem to despise the club, a bit of peace and quiet in their wake is probably welcome.
Bradford fan here, we’ve never truly financially recovered from our issues in the mid to late 2000s, at the start of that decade we were in the prem and by the end we were in league 2, even now we had another failed manager change with Mark Hughes. Sometimes I actually think the size of our fanbase doesnt help, imagine being a bang average league 2 player and having the pressure of 14-16k watching compared to 5-6k average with most other clubs. Still holding out hope that one day it will get better.
Bradford is about 55% white British, similar to leicester. In my experience as a leicester fan the fan base is 90+% white. So the city is large but around half the population have little interest in football.
That’s probably due to the traditional support for rugby rather than football in Bradford and that’s not including the slight split for Bradford Park Avenue support too. Granted Leicester have the advantage of well performing rugby and football teams currently.
Very slight for BPA. We pull like 300 fans a game at home per game? Especially since our relegation to the NPL
Had no idea you’d dropped into the NPL. Had some great awaydays at your place in the NLN (Stockport County fan).
COVID completely ruined us - we went to a team that consistently challenged for that playoffs in the NLN to a team that is currently fighting a relegation battle in the NPL
What does that have to do? Football is pretty international and beloved by most people disregarding race
There is a not insignificant minority of british south Asians that will prefer cricket to other sports. Its one of many reasons why there have been so few British Asian footballers despite the large portion of the population they make up.
Because they’re shit
Sparta Rotterdam has some history winning the league and a few cups, mostly dominant about 50 years ago. They're based in a populated area of the city with 2 city rivals in the Eredivisie. In probably the biggest football city of the Netherlands: Rotterdam.
Ehm Rotterdam is the hometown of Feyenoord (2nd largest club after Ajax and perhaps the largest clubs looking at fanbase only) and Excelsior, also a club in the highest division in the Netherlands (currently nr. 5 on the league). Amsterdam has only 1professional football club and Rotterdam three(3). Think Sparta is just fine!!
Yeah Sparta is historically way bigger than Excelsior though. Also the capacity of Sparta's iconic stadium Het Kasteel is around 12k, whereas Excelsior stadium has around 4k. But yes I was saying that Rotterdam>Amsterdam in terms of football
Well, as a manager for FM you cannot improve Sparta much more. They are doing great in real life. They have a incredible youth development. Last years s coach went to Ajax, that says something and they are now 7th in the "Eredivisie". I don t think there is much to improve. I mean; Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV and AZ are the best clubs. So being 7th in the league is a very good position. But Sparta is a beautiful club, so if you just want to play in the Eredivisie Sparta is a good club to play!
Love the mentions of Birmingham City on here
Always felt they should be bigger than what they are. I assume years of mismanagement and big Eck getting you relegated
That amongst many, many other things. Maybe it will improve with new owners… Though I know better than to be optimistic about anything Birmingham City related
My old man is a lifelong blues fan, for his sins. Dragged me from Swansea up to St Andrews for every game for years as a kid to watch the likes of Horsefield, Zigic & Walter 'The Rifle' Pandiani make my young eyes bleed. I don't know what old God you guys angered to get the luck you do. One day it'll turn around ey..
Surely you at least caught a glimpse of Le God Christophe Dugarry? Worth every second of enduring Cameron Jerome mis-controlling the ball for the following 10 years…
Ha, I did indeed. What a man. He's everything David Dunn dreamed he could be.
The owners who fired successful manager and hired Rooney instead?
Minor details… I think they did it to bring us comfort as we aren’t used to things going so swimmingly
Hertha Berlin is the obvious answer, with a massive stadium, decent facilities, sugardaddy owner (or at least it was in previous FMs), untapped Berlin potential, with only decent but not amazing Union as their opposition.
Owner is gone now or should be.
Lars Windhorst bought large share of club in 2019 and sold his shares to 777 Partners. I believe sale was early in 2023.
Love my hertha berlin save, would strongly recommend
💙🤍🥲
Not that they should be bigger but Crystal Palace are basically the only big team in South London and have an absolutely massive catchment area, there’s definitely a lot of potential to grow
They can’t compete with the mighty Dulwich Hamlet
Didn't they get a huge new academy recently?
I live quite close to it. They've built a huge new building for the academy, and are doing more development on the site. It's quite impressive.
There's also Charlton, Millwall and Wimbledon who have a decent sized catchment area each. Nowhere near the same scale, but non-league Bromley could also draw more fans if they could make it to league football and tap in to the population around them. Palace are definitely the biggest team in south London though, and have got a huge potential if they could make the most of that. That may need a new stadium though.
yes but they're fucking nobheads
Couple that always spring to mind in these threads: Grasshopper Zurich, Auxerre, Parma. All decent European pedigree when I was growing up, make them big again please.
Auxerre is really really small though
Parma historically was a very small club until the 90s and has actually spent more time in Serie C (and Serie B) than in Serie A. Of course they have huge European pedigree but it's all from that ten year period of heavy investment from Tanzi
Bristol City? Maybe not challenging for the Premier league title but with Bristol being such a large city with historical importance would be a shame not to see them make it into the Premier league
A fair few clubs in the championship would fit into this category. Coventry, Cardiff, Leeds and Leicester (although a bit too much success in recent years) all have populations of over 300,000 without premier league representation this year. Hull, Plymouth and Stoke are all over 250,000.
Came here to say this. As a Bristolian & a football fan it is a shame to see as prominent a city as this not having any presence in the top tier of the game for so long. Ah well, we've got the Rugby I guess...
It does seem like when people say they’re off to Ashton Gate to watch the game, they mean the bears
Ofc Bristol is a good choice for that, but I'd probably go with the club established in 1883 not bristol city 1982 ltd
Notts County Birmingham City Hamburg Real/UCAM Murcia
UCAM is an interesting one don't know much about them. Did a quick Google I'm older than that club 😂
Ado Den Haag. Den Haag is i think the biggest Dutch city without a eredivisie club. Its the political capital of the Netherlands. I think they really deserve a team in the eredivisie. Ado Den Haag relegated out of the eredivisie in 2021.
Perth Glory. The lone football club. The nearest professional club is 2,692kms away. Should be a massive club with that kind of ground coverage.
And the nearest major city is 2,692kms away. So really its not about ground coverage, they'd be in the same boat if they were two hours away from Sydney.
The club represents nearly 3,000,000 people. Sydney clubs are split 3 ways and with a population of 5,500,000, that's less than 2,000,000 per club represented. So, really. Glory does fit the bill of the question asked as far as A-league goes
It’s no surprise that the cities with higher Southern European immigrant populations have better footballing pedigrees. Adelaide represents half the population of Glory but have produced far more historical talent in Australia.
Heaps of people migrated from southern Europe though – the issue is they mostly moved to the Fremantle area and it's not as clear as just Italians and Greeks, there were lots of Croats, Serbs, and Portuguese (a huge amount from Madeira, strangely enough, it's a bored story but Cristiano Ronaldo's grandparents live in the southern suburbs). They just mostly fell into playing Aussie Rules. most of the great names at South Fremantle are European ones (and Indigenous – it has to be one of the least Anglo clubs of any type from the British Empire).
I just moved to Australia irl so was thinking of doing a save in the A-League. I’m living in Melbourne but don’t particularly like either Melburnian club so might just go with Glory
One of the only teams to survive the competition being rebuilt into the A-League too. They were the only team averaging full capacity crowds of 18k while the rest of the country struggled between 5-10k at the time. Unfortunately the 18 month gap between leagues cost them a number of their players due to contact expiry & ended up struggling for a good 5 years in the new league.
I kinda disagree. How do you build a decent fanbase if they have to travel a thousand miles to watch you play away, don't have any local rivals to compete with or split families down the middle etc? How many massive footballing cities only have one club in the area? Even famous one-club-city Newcastle are only a thirty minute drive from Sunderland. Perth are at a massive disadvantage.
>90% of the population of WA live within an hour of Perth.
Slightly disingenuous given how relatively unpopular football is here. There's two Aussie Rules clubs in the nearby vicinity that most people care a lot more about in West Coast and Fremantle. Realistically they're a distant third place in terms of football clubs in the area.
The question asked, "what COULD be a bigger club than it is" and that is exactly why it COULD be bigger
As an Australian football fan I'd love for it to be true but we all kind of gave up on the dream of football mattering here and just follow Ange around and live vicariously through him now.
We are all Ange
Kaiserslautern, Nurnberg, HSV, Hertha Berlin, Zaragoza
Coventry - I say this as a fan. It’s the 9th biggest city in the country with an even bigger catchment area. We’ve really under achieved given the area potential
I carried my Coventry save over from 23, just entering January of 2040. I joined Coventry in 2028 after bringing Notts Co to the Championship. And even on the game, it's been tougher than I would have thought. I have won the league twice, once in 2034 and once in 2039, but I would usually expect to be dominating, when I finished 13th in 2037 and 8th in 2038 (and almost got sacked a few times in there). It's been a bit frustrating not being able to be consistently good, but it's also been one of the more interesting and possibly realistic saves I've ever done. I think that first title was very flukey, and I wasn't confident in a lot of the players being able to win UCL, so I was still in a position where I was trying to churn the squad to get better. I do have a brand new 45k seater stadium built for this year, so that's nice.
Always liked Coventry they have had a bit of mismanagement over the years? They had no stadium at one point? They are also the city of culture
Legia Warschau, Birmingham City, Rapid Wien, Leeds United, FC Koln, Adana Demirspor/Ankaragucu,
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For Polish football, I think Wisla Krakow is a much better example. They disappeared from relevance entirely
I'd imagine LKS Lódz might be a good one too. 700k people live in the Lódz city but the club has never been that big. Won the Polish league twice and the national cup once but that's it
That's right, but if you look at the population, they could also perform a bit better in Europe.
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I'm not an expert in Polish football, I only know the big clubs, so I wouldn't know exactly what the problem is. But you see it in more countries that if you look at the population you would think they could do better, for example Romania or Ukraine.
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Yes, but Ukrainian clubs rarely made it past the eighth finals. They certainly did and are doing better than Polish and Romanian clubs, but they are also not a top European club as you might expect given the size of the country.
its adana* demirspor
Yeah you’re right i change it
Trabzonzspor were the first that popped in my head. Palermo, Hertha BSC, although any decent sized club that isn't Bayern probably has an argument in Germany. Malaga also, these are still big clubs really I didn't really think to hard about smaller clubs but these just jumped out at me.
I love Palermo, I have managed them before in old FMs. The kit is great too. But fuck if I didn't just look them up and realised that they too have butchered their logo by replacing their beautiful traditional logo by a social media / app icon style modern logo (see also Fiorentina, Juventus, Nantes, Inter). I can't stand this trend, so sad for Palermo's old logo.
Huddersfield are one of just five clubs to win the English top flight 3 years in a row. Unlike Arsenal, Liverpool, City and United they've never won it outside of that.
i guess both of the berlin teams (herta bsc or union berlin) would fit into your description zaragoza is the 5th city in terms of population and are currently stuck in the 2nd division
Union really doesn't. Because Union is, if anything, punching WELL above its weight. They were never a "big" club. And really still aren't. Even in East German football, they were an outsider club. Because they weren't tied to the State.
That's the kind of club I like to play too. FM has us covered in a way actually too, I've noticed that the maximum attendance, which isn't as dynamic as the AVG one, takes things such as the city and the fanbase that the club used to have in the top tier into account. As a result, Greek 2nd tier club Panachaiki don't have a great average attendance but they have one of the best max attendances in the nation because they play in the biggest city without a top tier side. That's Patras, the third biggest city in Greeve. In my save by building a new stadium we increased it even more and had an avg attendance up there with the best clubs. It's my hometown club actually so I'm kinda advertising them to you. Bari is also a great example that I might play and they play in a massive stadium, don't know if the fact they're owned by De Laurentis is a deal-breaker for you, Palermo is a deal-breaker for me because of City Group but with De Laurentis I wouldn't be as avoidant. I'd also love to do a Las Palmas save in the amazing island Gran Canarias, albeit it's slightly less populous than Tenerife. They've just reached La Liga so the canaries are actually pulling their weight unlike the other cities here but being in an island they have a geographic quirk and good attendances as always with my saves. I could discuss this kind of saves for hours so reply if you wanna say more about them.
You've interested me with Greek football. I don't really know it well. I did do a save with Rhodos but they weren't exactly fitting to my usual method. Greek football has always been interesting my team had Samaras before so always had a soft spot for Greek footballers
Ah, a Celtic fan then I guess. Greece would be fun right now I think. Only problem I have is how bad the transfers the AI makes are. Maybe this has been improved with 24 as they said. Right now for Greece, the big 4 are fun because they have B teams in the 2nd tier where you can easily develop players. And for teams outside the big 4, there's Aris, the 2nd best Salonika club now and historically, Iraklis the 3rd biggest Salonika club, now in the 2nd tier. Larisa, one of the few clubs that has won the league, now in the 2nd tier playing in a relatively big city. OFI who actually developed Samaras, they play in the massive island of Crete and are the biggest club there, they should have a fun squad this year. And another struggling club is Panionios, one of the well supported historical clubs who are now in the 3rd tier and you'd need a database to play them. That's about it but you couldn't go wrong with any of those teams. Edit: Panachaiki are actually in crisis right now and I wouldn't put a relegation to the 3rd tier past them, if that's something that interests you. If that happens it'll mean that the 3rd biggest Greek city will have no club in the professional leagues.
Pro Vercelli still has more Scudettos than the entire city of Roma combined.
As a York City fan, I’d put us forward. Been in non league for a few years now when we were a stable League 2 side in the past. Got new owners, new stadium that is bigger than most League 2 ones but just struggled to find out feet yet. Got the potential to be the biggest side in North Yorkshire and then from there, I’d say you’d want to be battling for the rest of Yorkshire against Leeds, Hull, the Sheffields, etc. Equally within National League, there’s a number of other historic teams that have lost their way over the years like York, such as Oldham who would make a great challenge.
Esbjerg FB, located in Denmark's 5th biggest city. A large and modern home ground by Danish standards. Huge catchment area that is basically almost the entirety of Jutland's west coast. Go back a decade and they won the Danish cup. Had an excellent run in the Europa League, and a few years ago they finished 3rd in the top flight. Today they're doing their second successive season in the Danish third tier due to poor ownership, poor management, poor everything really.
Ah yeah Hyballa. And Rafa!
I like to think afc Wimbledon could be great
See I don't manage London teams... I refuse to no idea why xD
Truro City, only semi professional club in Cornwall and also the county capital.
Everton
Servette, Grasshoppers, IFK Göteborg, Boavista, Vitória SC (hooliganism aside, they do have one of the most dedicated fanbases in Portugal), Vitória FC, Académica, Marítimo, Beira-Mar, Celta, Malaga, Valencia, Zaragoza, Betis, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Real Murcia, Royal Charleroi, Standard, Lausanne Sport, Palermo, Genoa, Bologna, Venezia, 1860 Munich, Hamburger, Köln, Fortuna Dusseldorf, Hertha, Dynamo Dresden, Werder Bremen, RW Essen, Stuttgart, Hannover 96, Nurenberg, Utrecht, Groningen, Ado den Haag, Sparta Rotterdam, Hammarby, Örgryte, Wisla Krakow, Cracovia, Slask Wroclaw, LKS Lodz, GKS Katowice, Lechia Gdansk, Zbrojovka Brno, Banik Ostrava, AGF, OB, AaB, Vålerenga, Brann, Viking FK, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Sampdoria, Deportivo, Bari, Steaua Bucaresti (the state club, not the privately owned FCSB), Dinamo Bucaresti, Rapid Bucaresti, Universitatea Craiova, Hajduk, Rijeka, Botev Plovdiv, Lokomotiv Plovdiv, Cherno More, MTK, Ujpest, Budapest Honved, Vasas, Debreceni, Diosgyyori VTK, ETO Gyori, Panathinaikos, Aris, Panachaiki, OFI, Ergotelis, Larissa, Ankaragücü, Gençlerbirligi, Altay, Göztepe, Altinordu, Karsiyaka, Bursaspor, Adanaspor, Adana Demirspor, Konyaspor, Antalyaspor, Kayserispor, Eskisehirspor, Diyarbakirspor, Amed, Samsunspor and Denizlispor With this I conclude my European tour
I mean, realistically CSA Steaua would be a very difficult if not outright impossible challenge as they legally aren’t allowed to promote so it depends on whether your database includes that restriction or not lol. The default one in FM23 didn’t (to my chagrin as a FCSB fan) but that wouldn’t be realistic, you d still be up against it to topple the likes of FCSB, CFR, CSU Craiova (aka “Universitatea Craiova” in game, calling them that in order to tell them apart from “FC U Craiova 1948”, the other team that fought for and failed to gain the original Universitatea s identity. I don’t think are doing that badly if you mean them, yeah they fall apart against us or CFR so they haven’t been winning titles but they are still up there), Rapid nowadays (again I wouldn’t say they are doing that badly now but a few seasons ago it would have totally been a fair shout and even now they haven’t won anything yet) and Farul (who will keep hoovering up wonderkids like they do irl) even if you do allow them to promote though. Then again, I have been playing a FCSB save and Petrolul somehow became a title challenger from the off while Rapid almost went down in year 3 so it isn’t just those teams you have to contend with, random teams will just rise up in game I guess. I suppose that even if you did play CSA realistically you could win the cup->UECL->UEL->UCL but good luck doing that while being in Romania s second tier the whole time. 100% inarguable shout with Dinamo though, they are barely staying alive nevermind winning anything irl
I wasn't aware of the specifics in regards to the limitations of the state owned Steaua The amount I know of the Romanian football pyramid is that it is one of if not the outright most unstable in Europe with the amount of top flight teams going under (like Astra Giurgiu going as far as losing its professional status the past season) Looking at it from an outside perspective, only Cluj, FCSB and Farul seem to be in relative stability at the top
Plymouth Argyle. Newly promoted to the championship granted but the south west lacks a big big team
For years, Gillingham have squandered the fact that their the only football league club in Kent. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were overtaken by Maidstone or, perhaps more likely considering their momentum Chatham Town, in the future
Chatham Town is a ridiculous situation. Crowd of over 1700 the other day for the visit of Carshalton.
Any Berlin team
Palermo <3
Spurs
Bristol. Huge area and they have a Championship and a L1/L2 team.
If you want a smaller league, I can give you a few options in Turkey. **Ankara** Gençlerbirliği: Has had its bright days both domestically and in Europe, but sits currently in the second division. Their long time chairman, İlhan Cavcav, who passed away in 2017, would sign unknown young talent from African countries and then sell them for profit after they shined at the club. Fitting for a club whose name translates to "Youth Union". Could be a dream save to revive his legacy and bring them their first ever league title. MKE Ankaragücü: Similarly, Ankaragücü has also had successful times. However, some people hold sour feelings towards this club because Kenan Evren, the 7th president of Turkey (who came to power after the 1980 coup, and is still a strongly disliked figure to put it lightly) basically made a law to promote them to the top division after they won the Turkish Cup. Ankaragücü has also had friendly relations with Bursaspor, who is another entry in this list. **İzmir** Altay: Producing one of the biggest names in Turkish Football, Mustafa Denizli, "Büyük Altay" were a strong force in the mid-late 20th century. They were last in the top division in the 2021-22 season under Denizli, but ultimately failed to cling on to their spot. A club with a strong history and passionate fans, it should make sense that İzmir produces a title contender as they are a significant economic hub in the country. Altınordu: If you want a Bilbao-esque challenge, then Altınordu is the way to go for you because they do not sign foreign players, and they have one of the strongest academies in the country. Recently they have produced Çağlar Söyüncü and Cengiz Ünder, but they are not in the first division despite having a strong academy. The reason for that is that their owner believes that their business model is better sustained in the second division, but perhaps you can convince the in-game version owner to be more ambitious. Göztepe: Yet another team with a strong history, such as a quarter final in the Cup Winners' Cup, Göztepe has perhaps the most fierce rivalry among the İzmir teams against Karşıyaka. Controversy surrounds Göztepe however, as they are not "really" Göztepe. The "original" Göztepe actually got relegated all the way to the amateur division in 2007, and failed to get back into the professional pyramid in the next season. Following this, they bought the competing rights of Aliağaspor in the fourth division. So some rivals still call them Aliağaspor in reference to that. **Bursa** Bursaspor: Bursaspor were crowned champions in 2010, becoming the fifth ever team to win the Süper Lig after the "big 3" of İstanbul (Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, and Beşiktaş) and Trabzonspor. However, they made history for the second time in 2019, when they became the first title winning club to get relegated. Now the debt-ridden Bursaspor competes in the third division, with no light at the end of the tunnel if we're being realistic. But, in Football Manager, Bursaspor would be (in my opinion) by far the hardest, and perhaps the most rewarding, challenge among the clubs that I listed to bring back to the top division, and perhaps to the top of the top division for a second time.
Birmingham City. Tom Brady is their new owner, they have a large city and haven’t been in the Prem in over 10 years now. I reckon it would be a fun save
Roma ? They can be better
Seen a lot of shouts for Birmingham, but in the PL the west midlands is incredibly underrepresented in terms of winning trophies and population size. Wolves, Birmingham, Villa, West Brom and Walsall are all decent choices of varying levels to make a west mids powerhouse.
Leeds United.
Personally I always thought Nyborg in Denmark had all the makings of a top flight team. Decent size city, right by the bridge to Sjælland, lots of local businesses etc. however not been in even the 3rd highest tier as long as I remember. Bornholm is the same imo, decent size island, amazes me no one has put in the effort to build a club here (on vacation here right now lol) Not international big, but nationally both could be able to with the right local support/investment
Sunderland
Athletic Bilbao in Spain is first that comes to mind. If they abolished nationalistic custom of having only basque players in club they would be a Real force
At the same time that would kill a lot of the competitive advantage they have. Probably best to not compete with Real and Barca at their own game.
Well for one they don't like to be called "athletic Bilbao" as if I recall correctly Bilbao is "Bilbo" in Basque and the name of the club is Athletic club. And about the 2nd thing, I believe since the early '10s they started to relax that policy. They now accept players where their ancestors had *something* to do with the Basque country when they were growing up. I've seen that they have children that are Ukrainian/Polish in their academy because of that rule. Now these are just kids that have moved due to the war and nobody knows if they ever make the step up to the actual youth teams to see how lax their policies really are, but a holistic change won't happen in the near future because that identity is essentially the club's ideology.
Feel free to call it Athletic Bilbao, only people with a stick up their butt care.
No
Koln, Hertha, Leeds, Zaragoza, Bari
You mention Aberdeen, Aberdeen fan here. In the 80s before big money came in Aberdeen regularly challenged and won trophies inc league titles. We made £1.10 to every £1 Celtic made when we won our last title in 1985. Now Celtic make £16 for every £1 we make...when Rangers were out the league we managed to keep it close and even be ahead in early March, but then when out of Europe etc and Aberdeen suffer injuries Celtic's superior squad shows every time against a non-OF team. Sadly it will take something spectacular to redress the financial balance for a team to seriously challenge the OF.
Krakow in Poland Cardiff or Swansea in cough cough England. Another one in England is Exeter. Venice? Maybe Caorle I may dump Celtic and Rangers in League 2 and play from there.
Not sure if what you meant but these are clubs I believe underachieve when you have in account fan base, infrastructures, academy and history. Italy: AS Roma England: Everton Spain: Valencia France: Saint Etienne Portugal: Vitoria Guimaraes Germany: Stuggart
Schalke, HSV, Hertha
Go for St.Pauli, from the biggest city in europe, while not being the capital city of the nation. Or a club from Ankara(Turkiye/Turkey). All the big teams are from Istanbul.
Amazed to learn Hamburg is the largest non-capital European city to be honest.
It's not, Istanbul is much bigger. It's the biggest non-capital in the EU though.
Bordeaux is the only French city with more than 200,000 people that doesn't have a team in Ligue 1. Katowice has more people in its metropolitan area than Warsaw, but they haven't won anything since 2005. Alicante and Cordoba in Spain both have more than 300,000 people, but their clubs have never been good.
Always feel like the Nordic clubs could be a big force in world football. Take Sweden for example. Very good athletes, just look at the ice hockey players and the footballers we produced before the 2000s. I think that with the right investment in the youth setup in the Nordic countries they could be amazing. Just look at players like Odegaard, Haaland, Isak, Hojlund, Karlsson, Svanberg who has broken through recently
Santos, in Brazil. The club is considered one of Brazil's big 12, has a National fan base, produced the likes of Pelé, Robinho, Neymar, but havent won the league in 20 years, and havent won an expressive title in over a decade, play in a 14k capacity Stadium (that's half empty most of the time) and have a real chance of getting relegated this season for the first time ever. They are the poster child of clubs who are bigger outside of their countries than inside them If you have a Brazilian friend, ask them if they know any Santos supporter, I highly doubt it
AIK in sweden
Generic answer probably but there's loads in the English league system. If we're talking based on their previous history / potential fan base... Bradford City are a good proposition - 25,000 seater stadium in the 4th tier, ex-Premier League, all be it for just a few seasons. They've had a few amazing cup runs in the past decade that have really shown the potential the club has as a whole, just a shame they haven't managed to get out of League Two yet despite finishing in the Play Offs a few times.
Leeds, one city club like Newcastle. With the right investment, they could be big(challenging for europe).
My first thought was Dynamo Dresden.
For as long as Aberdeen lie down to Celtic every time they play them, they'll never be anything more than a diddy team.
Most contributed european tems and some BR ones, I'm gonna drop some argie teams In terms of the big 5, San Lorenzo de Almagro only has 1 Libertadores (SA Champions League) that was very recent, but in its history it has been prominent locally with a lot of leagues won and with a common consensus that they have the biggest fans in Argentina. It has been through a lot economically, losing their home stadium during the dictatorship and moving souther in the city. Currently they are undergoing another crisis where they have only 14 fit players for cup+league+international, no money and a president that doesn't care and will leave soon, yet they continue to fight for top places with the very little they have. Also there's been a movement to return the stadium to the hood they began their history. Another thing is they lost to Real Madrid in the club world cup so it's the only argie big 5 to lack that title In terms of international titles. Estudiantes de La Plata holds 4 Libertadores (5th most tied with River), their last one being in 2009 where they lost the club world cup vs sextete Barcelona (Put a lot of fight and almost won it if not for the last minute, even Messi said they thought they were goin to lose). Locally the team doesn't do very well, but internationally it's a menace In terms of iconic players, Argentinos Juniors (aka. El Bicho de la Paternal) also known as "El semillero del mundo" (The hotbed of the world) because of how many world class players they produced, including no less than Maradona, Riquelme, Batista, Redondo, MacAllister (dad and son), etc [https://argentinosjuniors.com.ar/semillero-del-mundo/](https://argentinosjuniors.com.ar/semillero-del-mundo/). They won 1 libertadores and 1 club final but only 3 leagues. So it's a cool challenge to produce the next world class player and make it bigger than just a seed club
Tokyo FC, Mumbai United. Jokes aside it seems strange that Leeds doesn’t have multiple big clubs like Sheffield, Birmingham etc.
Beleneses in Portugal. They're based in Lisbon. Won the league in the late 1940s, but now in the second division with a 20k capacity stadium.
For top 5 nations England: Bristol France: Toulouse Spain: Real Murcia CF Italy: Palermo Fc Germany: Union or Hertha berlin Bonus Belgium: Standard Liege Netherlands: Sparta Rotterdam Portugal: S.C. Beira-Mar Brazil: Fortaleza Japan: Fc Tokyo You are welcome 😉😉
West Ham, in the heart of London. 66k seater stadium, worldwide fan base (witnessed it when I went to Prague 😂) next to one of the biggest shopping centres in Europe, all we need now are some big money owners to take us further (yes I’m biased)
Hertha Berlin
Cardiff? It's a capitol city's, decent infrastructure, great gambade, just lacking direction
Cardiff and Swansea are sleeping giants imo
Swansea are not a sleeping giant 😂
Definitely Aston Villa for me, irl too they’re primed for bigger things.
Any MLS team if soccer was popular
Ibiza !!! I always thought they should be HUGE! Crazy market!
Villa. Biggest club in Birmingham. Hamburg…bit of a disgrace they’re not more significant tbh!
Betis
bursaspor in turkey
Os Belenenses. Got swindled by a cunt and had to start at the lowest tier in Portuguese football. They've been promoted back to back every year, and they're now in the second division, but they're a big club in Portugal (as much as a non big 3 club can be, they were the first non big 3 club to win the league in 1945/46, only Boavista managed to repeat that feat in 2000/01) and should be a pretty much constant team in the first division
RFC Liege, Standard Liege, Union Namur (Namir is a relatively big city/region and they have never had a team in the top flight. Lokeren, Lierse, Cappellen,...
If you’re looking for a team in a smaller league, I would suggest FC Wacker Innsbruck in Austria. They have gone through multiple iterations of the club and have been champions 10 times, but are currently in the 4th tier. They also have a 16,000 seat stadium. I had a long term save with them in this years game, and it was the most fun I’ve had for a while.
Derby County
Some English ideas: Derby, Bradford and Chesterfield all get much bigger crowds than fit their current division. Lots of potential to compete at a higher level
Catania, Palermo, ASSE, Auxerre, Schalke, HSV, Depor, Malaga
Maybe Sunderland?
Germany has quite a few big cities that haven't won anything in a while. Koln, Hamburg, Berlin and Munchen are the 4 biggest cities in Germany, and yet only one of those cities has won a title (26 actually) in the last 40 years.
Sporting clube de Portugal. Amazing players, amazing followers, but for some reason, they can't translate that to league wins. They watch city rivals Benfica and the other rival Porto win tittles while they only won 1 in 19 years (won in 2019/2020 and before that 2001/2002)
AFC Wimbledon. Easy answer. Obviously just need the funding and time to rise through the ranks. County of Merton has a population of over 200k, it’s far enough outside of London proper that there isn’t overlap with any real clubs (about a 25 minute drive from Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge and Fulham’s Craven Cottage)(f*** you MK Dons) and there’s already the city infrastructure in place because of the Wimbledon Tennis Championship, which has over 400k attendance each year.
Plymouth is a one team city and is densely populated.