I’ll be honest, I haven’t really had much motivation to get this save started, or to play Football Manager in general. The desire has hit me now, though, so let’s get to work. 

Early Movement

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times already, Chivas have a ludicrous amount of contracted players – 132 in total. A lot of these are young players on minimal wages, who in truth will probably just see out their contracts and leave the club, but there is definitely early work to do on getting the squads at least organised, as the save starts with a 63 man first-team squad. 

The first cut was fairly simple; I’ve removed every player who is currently out on loan or due to leave the club before the start of the season, and just dropped them into the Tapatío squad. There were a couple here that really stung, as they’re players I’d love to have at my disposal. Mateo Chávez (moving to PSV) and Fernando Beltrán (Club León) are both full Mexican internationals and would definitely have been key players, while Fidel Barajas (Atlético de San Luis) and Gael García (Club León) are both fantastic young talents who could definitely have had some first-team football if they weren’t going out on loan.

From there, I had to drop somewhere in the region of twenty-five players who were 1.5* or 2* Current Ability players and had no business being in the first-team squad. Depending on age and potential, they’ve been spread between the U21s, U19s and Tapatío. 

That leaves me with a far more manageable twenty-six player squad – twenty-four who are at the club one day one, plus Richard Ledezma (PSV) and Bryan González (Pachuca) who will be first-team additions once they join throughout pre-season. 

Squad Make-Up

Inspired by @SteinkelssonFM, some early tactical musings for Chivas! 🧵

🔓4231 -> 226 in build-up
🧱Hybrid 433/442 press OOP
🎆Free Role given the freedom to unlock defences

This is all just theoretical for now, but enough to get my juices flowing before the save starts! #FM26 pic.twitter.com/OAItJBN5Da

— Adam 🤟🏼 (@adam_otbfm) November 3, 2025

Although tactical flexibility and pragmatism is a key focus for the save, I’ve already had a little think about how a potential system could look based on the starting squad, and so I feel fairly confident putting together a squad depth chart based on a 4-2-3-1 In Possession shape. As the Squad Planner screen is sadly still a little broken, I’ve drawn up my own.

^{** I’ve left Richard Ledezma off of the graphic, oops! 🙈}

There are a couple of caveats which I’ll talk about in a second, but immediately there are some real problems. For starters, I’ve only listed each player once, in the role I expect to use them in most often. There is obviously extra flexibility that comes from players covering multiple areas, but even so full-back is a major area of concern.

José Castillo is our only true option at left-back, and even then he’s really a right back being asked to do a job. Miguel Tapias would become the secondary option courtesy of being our only left-footed centre-half, but again, it’s not an ideal situation. I can’t deny that a move to PSV is a huge step up for Mateo Chávez, but losing him is a major blow to us this season. 

The right hand side is slightly better, as Alan Mozo is a very talented player, but behind him Isaac Brizuela is really a right-winger who will have to fill in at times. 

At the other end of the scale, and pitch, we have an abundance of strikers to deal with. Admittedly, Chicharito and Alan Pulido are 37 and 34 respectively, and so they aren’t exactly long-term options, but as of right now they’re our two best strikers. Teun Wilke Braams and Armando González are both talented young strikers, but both need work on their games and will find game time tough to come by. then there’s Vladimir Moragrega, who I sense will fall through the cracks – he isn’t young enough to be a project, but also not talented enough to threaten the starters. 

The rest of the squad has enough cover to be starting off with. Luis Romo is the only player I’d consider comfortably able to do the progressive pivot role, but Érick Gutiérrez and Omar Govea could fill in if needed, and we could always adjust the system if we needed both pivot players to hold their position. Other than that we have two players for every position, with a nice level of versatility across the frontline that allows tactical fluidity. 

The Players

GOALKEEPERS

DEFENDERS

PIVOT PLAYERS

ATTACKING MIDFIELDERS

STRIKERS

I’m not going to dive too deep into individual players right now, as I’m only now meeting them and performances will always trump attributes on a card. However, I do think, on paper, we have a very talented squad with a nice mix of profiles.

We have a great blend of experience, players reaching their peak, and exciting young talents, and crucially that blend also spreads across key positions. Early picks for players I’ll look to lean on are Raúl Rangel, Luis Romo and Efraín Álvarez. I also have a lot of hope that Diego Campillo and Gilberto Sepúlveda can form a solid partnership at the heart of the defence as they seem to compliment each other well. 

So I guess all that’s left now is to actually play the game! I’m not completely set on a format for posts yet but matches will probably be covered in bigger batches, possibly even a post per Apertura and Clausura. Once we get into some competitive action I’ll also do a full tactical post covering any changes to the early blueprint and common pragmatic tweaks. 

Thanks for reading!