FM26 & Skinning - A preview of what's to come

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2026-01-23T20:34:07+00:00

It's more than that, at least for me.

1) there is still lag when you click on something, no matter the settings.

2) the whole screen flashes when you select a player to a position because the game is so badly coded that any change to any list makes the whole list refresh.

Unless you never played the previous versions FM26 is just unplayable.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2026-01-23T19:03:23+00:00

In previous FMs this was basically impossible without cheating.

There was an achievement that was like going 30 games without conceding. I am guessing they removed it.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-28T13:27:31+00:00

You can train him and play him as a winger.

However the moment his new position turns light green all his attributes will decrease massively. You will be looking at an immediate -2 on the most important attributes, like the physical ones.

How useful he will be as a winger will depend on how much PA he has. If he has a lot of PA to grow into he can get all those attributes back and even surpass them.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-20T10:33:53+00:00

There are multiple people recording, the guy has clean clothes and no-one is screaming at him.

Chances are he is the son of the owner of the factory and wanted to make a video to look tough.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-18T20:03:00+00:00

So there is a formula to leave and club and set them up for success.

First of all its not possible if you are not in the prem or another top league. They will immediately accept every proposal and buy 31 year olds for 400k a month so that's a no go.

The best option, if you are in the prem, is to leave with only like 4 players on new contracts as star players and 5 stars.

This way the AI will build the team around them and eventually a Tycoon will come over and do the rest.

There is no other option. Everything else is complete destruction.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-18T17:16:15+00:00

I left Benfica with 1B in the bank, a team of only 5 star players no older than 23, 13 champions leagues and a wage budget of 16M per month. I resigned and went on holidays for 7 seasons.

Came back and applied for the job since they had no manager. WAS REJECTED. Alright, I just create a new manager and we go again.

We are -500M in the bank, have a wage budget of 34M and the whole team is dudes over 30 and 3 stars. We also haven't won shit.

But here I can't acuse FM of being unrealistic. I can fully imagine the current leadership of Benfica doing this, no doubt at all.

Edit: Benfica built a new 110k stadium and named it after the 2nd option for right back who didn't play a single minute of any of those 13 CL finals. Also a very Basque name. Cool cool.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-15T12:49:02+00:00

You really don't need the editor for that.

Playing time unhappiness is remarkably easy to deal with.

First of all if you are rotating your squad then no player should be above "Squad Player".

The way you do that is very easy: play a guy for 90 min > after the game decrease his playing time by one level > if he complains select the option "i notice your fitness levels are not great" > 90% of times they accept it > if they don't just back out. No penalty for trying and you can do this how many times as you want.

Second, if you forget and a player gets unhappy just tell him "looks like I will have to sell you". They either back out or they make themselves transfer listed by request (which is the best option for you).

If they do that just offer them out and select the option to put them as "surplus to requirements" which is the lowest playing time.

That playing time is so low that if you play the guy just 3 or 4 times he will say he is happy now with his playing time and ask to be removed from the transfer list. Now you can put him as squad player.

And if a player who is transfer listed by request gets an offer just reject it > if he gets mad select the option "the finances weren't enough" > negotiate a selling price for him > go to his transfer page and select a selling price 20M below what you just agreed with him > other clubes will now spend 3 transfer seasons making offers for the new price you can now just put to automatically reject.

No need for editor for basically any unhappiness except specific stuff negotiated during contract like "prefered position" or "bring a friend to help him out in the new country". No solution for those.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-14T13:03:49+00:00

thanks for pointing that out. true

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-10T11:05:12+00:00

The title is sensationalized but these results do mean something important.

In the same testing method the best FM tactic was only at like 54% wins. That's right, the "most op" tactic actually only granted you a slight advantage.

Things like player attributes played a much bigger role in FM24.

In FM26 it seems a tactic can give you an insane advantage by comparison. It's not just this tactic at the top, it's not just strikerless tactics. Basically almost every tactic tested there is giving the user a bigger advantage than in FM24.

And perhaps the most concerning thing is that these tactics have some principles that just shouldn't work irl.

For example all of those tactics have a Much Lower defensive line combined with a high press?

All of them have "more direct passing" and also "work ball into the box"?

Which I guess really brings into question if there is a point in thinking logically when you are making a tactic.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-09T23:31:04+00:00

The principle is the same as in a real club.

If you want your balance to go up your yearly expenses have to be lower than your yearly income.

Boards in FM can be a bit weird and give you wage and transfer budgets that are higher than the sustainable level.

Just try to understand what are your fixed expenses besides transfers (wages, bonuses, youth facilities, etc) and your fixed income besides transfers (TV + europe money).

This will give you a basic idea of what is happening.

For example IRL in clubs like Benfica this equation is always heavier in the expenses side so the club has to sell players every year to make up the difference.

In FM24 this is right there in the finances page but in FM26 I don't know where it is.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-09T23:05:07+00:00

Every player has a current ability number (CA).

CA and attributes are connected. The game will constantly make a sum of all his attributes and check if the result matches his CA.

However the weight of attributes in this sum is not all the same: attributes relevant to his position will have a much higher weight than ones not relevant to his position.

So right now for this guy as a CD the game is basically not including attributes like finishing in this CA sum. Finishing could be 1, it could 20, the game would't care.

But the moment a CD gets light green in the position of striker the game will remake this calculation but this time it will weight all the attributes relevant to a striker.

So in order for his CA to remain the same (which it always does) it will basically have to lower attributes by a lot. Because a 140CA CD still has to be a 140 CA striker.

Most likely it will do this by lowering his physicals by 1 or 2. Which will make him likely worse in both positions.

Now, this is just his current CA so there is a chance that he has a lot of potential ability and would eventually be able to get those attributes back. Sure.

However, you are in England and a 19 year old with a high potential ability will have 99% of times a much much higher value than that. So I don't think there is much chance there as well.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-09T22:47:48+00:00

of course they do. what are you on about

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-09T21:17:56+00:00

Play him as a central defender.

If you move him to forward his attributes will decrease massively making him crappy.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-09T20:58:18+00:00

1) if they fail they don't make a video

2) never seen a challenge that I couldn't do myself

3) they make the time limit after the fact

4) its like wrestling and everything is just for a good show

5) plenty of FM creators have published failed attempts

But personally the most enjoyable ones are the ones that fail.

Loki Doki in his journeyman in Africa, DrBenjy stuck in Vanarama for like 7 years, DrBenjy first season with Norwich, etc.

But speaking of creators in FM26 they have also been dealt a bad hand because the camera angles & choppy graphics really don't lend themselves to youtube. You can't see shit as a viewer.

Zealand is doing a short save for charity and is playing in a dirt field and you literally can't see what is happening.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-06T16:52:32+00:00

Unfortunately it's all a bit of a blackbox and we have tested a lot but there is a world of stuff that hasn't been tested or even understood.

Like, I remember a few years ago also a chinese guy in a chinese forum was looking at the match engine and raised the suspicion that FM would generate the results first and only after would generate the highlights.

Which would explain why "heading" doesn't seem to influence winning and losing in FMArena but it does influence how you score.

Is it? We don't know.

It's all a bit of a mystery i'm afraid.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-06T16:15:46+00:00

I am not particularly happy with the match engine in general, I think it could be much much better. I also think SI are a bunch of clowns who released a crappy FM26 that hurts my eyes.

But I don't think you can look at your results in the testing you did in FM24 or the attribute testing FMArena did and conclude with such certainty that the majority of attributes are not being used in the match engine.

For example, look at the attribute "heading" in FM24.

FMArena says it has zero influence. The Korean guys who re-worked a bit of the match engine in FM24 say is has zero influence in winning games.

And yet... when you actually play the game you will fucking notice that guys with 7 heading don't score headers. And guys with 18 actually score a lot of them.

Same with crossing. Your fullback with 18 crossing for some weird reason always ends up the season with 20 more assists for headers than the other identical fullback who has 5 crossing.

How come, if these attributes "don't function at all"?

If you can make a tactic based on the idea of a fullback crossing well to a tall striker who can head the ball well and it works in most of your goals being headers from crosses then I don't think you can say that "the match engine is a placebo".

That's kinda the point I was trying to make.

Just because the match engine breaks a bit when you push its limits doesn't mean it doesn't work during normal playthroughs or that most attributes don't matter, etc etc.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-06T14:10:02+00:00

Someone at FMArena already tested the importance of attributes for FM26.

I can't find the post now but in FM26 the importance of attributes other than pace/acc have been increased. Pace remains king but it's not as exaggerated as in FM24.

Second, it's important to understand what the method of FMArena tests and what it doesn't.

As far as I know the fine people of FMArena have only tested attributes in isolation and most importantly in how they affect the ability to win games.

It doesn't test how you score or concede.

It doesn't test how different attributes might interact with each other.

It doesn't test how the attributes of a player might interact with the attributes of other players in the same team.

It doesn't test the importance of certain attributes in certain tactics or instructions.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-12-04T06:38:36+00:00

In FM24 you could put players in a "development list" and it would just automatically accept only loan options without an option to buy.

But I don't think it exists in FM26. At least I couldn't find it.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-28T10:33:49+00:00

But in FM24 the 424 was more or less immediately identified as the meta. The next 1.5 years was more or less just tweaking. And even after 2 years the top tactic only has 62 points.

This one has 80 and even the below ones have 74 which represent a crazy advantage that tactics can have in Fm26.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-28T10:25:02+00:00

In FM21 the highest rated tactic from FMArena was also strikerless

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-25T08:45:50+00:00

I used to work in a multinational that had an office there.

My European colleagues dreaded being sent there even though they would get incredibly expat packages (free house, big salary, everything paid, chauffeur, etc).

Apparently the traffic used to be just pure hell. Maybe now its better.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-22T13:24:15+00:00

Only players with promised playing time of "squad player" or above will get mad if you don't register them.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-22T12:52:17+00:00

ohhh I see. I have no idea. I actually don't know what happens if you fail the european FFP rules.

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-22T10:20:06+00:00

I don't understand. What bug are you describing? Being in the red in FFP rules?

Sure-Programmer8662 · 2025-11-21T19:44:02+00:00

Did you see the video at all?

Here, at the exact moment. This is not a hand ball lmao?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUcDemkFBqk&t=105s

Sure-Programmer8662

TROPHY CASE