by MaddFM.
Save ideas are the bread and butter of the Football Manager community. Journeyman, Build a Nation, Achievement Hunter, Unemployed, Bottom at Christmas, Glory Hunter - the list goes on however if you are like me then you are always looking for something new and unique, something challenging yet equally rewarding and a save that has long-term potential to ensure you don’t hit that wall which many of us face when starting a new save.
That all ends here as we introduce a relatively new concept on which you can base your next FM save adventure. Having started a North-East only save at pre-Saudi Newcastle wherein the mission was to transition the team to a regional/local transfer policy within 4 seasons, the idea has become increasingly popular with many FM creators and enthusiasts trying their hand in other regions in England and abroad. Inspired by this, today we bring you The Football Manager Regional Challenge, or if you would like an even quirkier FM name for it: The Regionnaire.
What is it?
The idea is simple - you take a club and implement a regional/local squad and transfer policy, meaning you can only sign players that were born/raised within a specific region in which your club is located. There are already real-life examples of this with the most notable being Athletic Club de Bilbao in Spain who have a policy of only allowing players who are native to or were raised/trained in the Basque region - this means that although the club is relatively limited in terms of flexibility and accessibility in the transfer market, the increased emphasis on academy/youth production and regional football development has led to a highly successful output of elite players from this region who have gone on to play for the first team or have highly successful careers overseas and at international level, not to mention bringing in substantial transfer revenue for the club such is their importance to the club as a rare natural resource as well as their quality overall (see Ander Herrera, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Aymeric Laporte and Javi Martinez to name a few).
In Football Manager terms - though the game is not entirely set up for such a save idea it is relatively straightforward to implement a similar squad/transfer policy at a club within a specific region, and in this article we will look at how to set yourself up for a Regionnaire save in FM as well as looking at England as an option for a save with 9 regions to choose from as you look to conquer at domestic and continental level.
How do I set it up?
The good news is it doesn’t take too much to start a Regionnaire save in Football Manager as it largely comes down you in terms of following your own rules/constraints and deciding at which point to implement a domestic/regional transfer policy. You can either choose to start right away from the beginning of the save and immediately begin offloading all non-regional players accordingly, or you can try a more gradual transition by setting yourself a deadline by which the club must be fully migrated to local-born/raised players only. In terms of the Football Manager Editor - this is not even essential however it may help should you wish to make any changes to your governance and/or financial constraints. In my own save at #NorthernBoys (more on this later), we used the Editor to install a new Owner/Chairman at Newcastle (removing all traces of the new Saudi ownership) with the idea that the new policy is driven by the new Club Owners themselves - in this instance and to ensure our rigid transfer policy does not clash with the overall Club Vision (no point having a domestic/regional transfer policy if a club has a vision to sign overseas/high-reputation players), it was helpful to set the Chairman’s own vision/preferences to align with our vision as well as select the option to prevent any takeovers so as to reflect a long-term strategy by the board.
From here it’s simply a case of choosing your club/region and starting a new save! It helps to also install leagues/nations that may also contain/produce potential players from that region - for example at #NorthernBoys, I included as many players as possible from all UK and Ireland leagues to try and maximise our potential player pool each season.
How do I search for players?
Now comes not so much the hardest part but arguably the most time consuming part of setting up your save. In order to create a Player Search filter for your region, you need to identify all of the potential cities, towns and places in which players within that region have been or could be born so that you can easily search for eligible players and continue to locate Newgens who are born in these places accordingly. You then need to enter each of these as a “Place of Birth” in the advanced search section - entering multiple places with the “or” option selected between each one, as well as finishing with the “and Nation of Birth is” condition to ensure you don’t accidentally include a player from another nation with the same city or town! In my Newcastle save I have 84 cities and towns plugged into my search filter which usually results in approx. 900 player results when searching - this takes a short while to set up but once it is complete, you can save the filter and avoid having to do it again (note: Player Search filter does not work on Staff Search screen so if you are signing local staff also you will need to do it twice 🤦♂️).
Custom Views
Custom views help a lot in this type of save - you always want to have eyes on the Place of Birth column to ensure that (1) players/staff etc are eligible and (2) ensure you become very familiar with these so you don’t have to keep checking! You can simply add columns in your own views to see Place of Birth, or if you prefer it - below are some links to my own Custom Views for the Squad, Player Search and Staff Search screens.
These files should be placed in Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2022 > Views (if you don’t have a Views folder, create one).
The Football Manager Regional Challenge (England)
As I have eluded to earlier - this concept is inspired by my FM22 save at Newcastle entitled “Northern Boys” wherein we set ourselves a 4 year mission to transition the club to a fully North-East only player and staff policy as well as elevate football production in the North-East of England. As I began to drop blog posts and started streaming the save, more and more FM enthusiasts became interested and so the concept of the Football Manager Regional Challenge was born - this could be a solo save in which you choose a region and a club of your preference, or alternatively convert to a tournament or network save format. Below we will take a look at potential Regionnaire save ideas across the 9 regions in England to get a feel for what each region has to offer, once you select a region then it’s up to you to decide on a club and a method by which you will implement your new regional policy, not to mention the best part which is unearthing some gems within a limited playing pool and leading your new Regionnaire side to glory.
1. North-East
Main Towns/Clubs: Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Darlington.
Notable Regional Players: Jordan Henderson, Jordan Pickford, Giovanni Reyna, Adam Armstrong.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
2. North-West
Main Towns/Clubs: Liverpool, Manchester (Utd & City), Everton, Blackburn, Burnley, Bolton, Wigan, Preston, Blackpool, Stockport.
Notable Regional Players: Marcus Rashford, Phil Foden, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ross Barkley, Curtis Jones.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
3. Yorkshire & Humber
Main Towns/Clubs: Leeds, Bradford, York, Sheffield (Wednesday & Utd), Huddersfield, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham.
Notable Regional Players: Erling Haaland, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Harry Maguire, Jamie Vardy, Kalvin Phillips, Domenic Calvert-Lewin.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
4. West Midlands
Main Towns/Clubs: Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Aston Villa, Coventry, WBA, Stoke, Solihull.
Notable Regional Players: James Maddison, Jude Bellingham, Jack Grealish, Callum Wilson, Aaron Ramsdale, Jack Harrison, Ben Brereton Diaz.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
5. East Midlands
Main Towns/Clubs: Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Lincoln, Northampton, Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Chesterfield.
Notable Regional Players: Ivan Toney, Jamaal Lascelles, Luke Thomas, Stephy Mavididi, Brennan Johnson, Tom Cairney, Che Adams.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
6. South West
Main Towns/Clubs: Bristol, Bournemouth, Exeter, Plymouth, Truro, Swindon, Cheltenham, Torquay, Yeovil, Bath.
Notable Regional Players: Tyrone Mings, Eric Dier, Ashley Barnes, Ethan Ampadu, Lloyd Kelly.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
7. East of England
Main Towns/Clubs: Norwich, Ipswich, Cambridge, Peterbrough, Colchester, Southend, Luton.
Notable Regional Players: Todd Cantwell, James Justin, Jamal Lewis, Angus Gunn, Jay Dasilva, Etienne Green.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
8. South-East
Main Towns/Clubs: Oxford, Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Stevenage, Reading, Wycombe, Milton Keynes
Notable Regional Players: Mason Mount, Lewis Dunk, Dele Alli, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Ward-Prowse, Jack Wilshere.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
9. Greater London
Main Towns/Clubs: Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Fulham, Brentford, QPR, West Ham, Charlton, Watford, Crystal Palace, Millwall, AFC Wimbledon.
Notable Regional Players: Harry Kane, Declan Rice, Jadon Sancho, Tammy Abraham, Bukayo Saka, Reece James, Emile Smith Rowe.
Sample Player Search Filter: Click Here
Regional Development
Why stop there? If you want to go one step further (as we have been doing at #NorthernBoys) - you can also focus on regional development and on elevating the level of football production within the region. Identifying smaller feeder clubs in the area and investing heavily in these through affiliations, transfers, loans and friendlies also helps to influence and improve the stature and youth development of the region which can only benefit the quality and longevity of your save. Remember - in order to have a long-term career you will need to ensure a quality cohort of Newgens are produced each season, and this can be driven both internally as well as externally across other clubs in the region.
There you have it! Of course, the Regionnaire save is not limited to England and can effectively be applied to almost any league or country of choice - all you need is some motivation, a touch of patience and a few minutes of geographical research to make the Regionnaire save idea a reality. The rest is up to you!
Best of luck and let us know how you get on either on Twitter or in the comments below!
Thanks for reading,
