There is plenty away from Europe to aspire to in Football Manager 2024.
Some of the most exciting teams to manage are those in an obscure league with a squad full of players the casual fan will not have heard of. There is also a joy to be found in taking over the best non-European clubs and enjoying a less stressful ride.
To make your choice easier, we have listed each team’s transfer budget, wage budget and difficulty rating, and also provided you with a top tip for each side to help you get the ball rolling.
Here is The Athletic’s selection of the best non-European teams to manage in FM24.
Inter Miami
Transfer budget: £2million
Wage budget: £19k/week
Difficulty rating: 1/5
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, it turns out that Lionel Messi’s new team might be a fun choice. Who knew?
Outside of the Argentina legend, they do not have a squad capable of challenging the league’s best at this point. There is work to be done, but if you can call upon a five-time Ballon d’Or winner, the challenge cannot be considered that difficult.
Top tip: Inter Miami could do with another midfielder but do not have a large transfer budget. The solution? Look to sign one of these players on loan: Luka Sucic, Assan Ouedraogo, Umut Tohumcu or Jamie Shackleton.
Boca Juniors
Transfer budget: £3.2million
Wage budget: £30k/week
Difficulty rating: 1/5
Boca have won the league twice in the last three seasons and are favoured to do so again in FM24.
But they have not won the Copa Libertadores since 2007 and their squad, which features Edinson Cavani and Sergio Romero, is not as strong as some of the Brazilian teams who you will have to face.
Top tip: Valentin Barco has a minimum release clause of just £8million. Offer him a new contract or risk losing the club’s highest-rated young talent on the cheap.
Flamengo (FLA)
Transfer budget: £6.4million
Wage budget: £73k/week
Difficulty rating: 1/5
Palmeiras are the favourites to win the title, but Flamengo are not far behind them. Given that they are one of Brazil’s biggest clubs, attracting talented Brazilian players while competing for every trophy on offer should not prove too difficult.
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Former Chelsea duo David Luiz and Filipe Luis are on their books, as well as Pedro, Ayrton Lucas and Giorgian de Arrascaeta, three players capable of starting for most Brazilian sides.
Top tip: Gabriel Barbosa is one of the more underrated players in Football Manager. He is often available for a modest price and almost always scores a ton of goals. He is, however, out of contract in December 2024. If you are not sold on the striker dubbed ‘Gabigoal’, then offload him before his value depreciates.
Kawasaki Frontale
Transfer budget: £16.3million
Wage budget: £0k/week
Difficulty rating: 1/5
The J1 League makes its debut in Football Manager, so if you are looking for a save in a brand new league that is not too stressful, consider taking charge of Kawasaki Frontale.
There’s a decent transfer budget to work with, they compete in the Asian Champions League and to top it off, they have Leandro Damiao, a former FM wonderkid who once seemed destined to join Tottenham.
Top tip: The Japanese league does not have a high reputation in FM24, which means signing top players will be harder. Kawasaki’s head of youth development and scouting department are not the strongest, so it would be wise to sign better personnel in those positions.
Tigres
Transfer budget: £9.6million
Wage budget: £0k/week
Difficulty rating: 2/5
The reigning champions in Mexico are led by French striker Andre-Pierre Gignac. Despite being 38 years old, he still managed 20 league goals last year and has at least one good season left in the tank.
Despite their title triumph in the season prior, they are only predicted to finish third this time round, but also have the league’s largest transfer budget, making this a relatively straightforward task.
Top tip: Watford winger Yaser Asprilla has good potential and can be signed at a reasonable cost (between £8million-£10million). He is worth spending the bulk of your starting transfer budget on.
Shandong
Transfer budget: £327k
Wage budget: £0k/week
Difficulty rating: 2/5
Most players signed for expensive fees by Chinese Super League clubs in the mid-to-late 2010s have now departed, but there is still one Premier League cult favourite earning a wage in China: Marouane Fellaini.
Beyond the Fellaini nostalgia, Shandong are one of China’s better teams, even if they do have a small transfer budget. The Chinese Super League’s rules state you cannot sign non-Chinese goalkeepers. Wang Dalei happens to be one of the better ‘keepers in the league, so that is one less thing to worry about.
Top tip: The club have no scouts and Dalei is 34 years old. Eventually, you will need to replace him, and it would be ideal if your next goalkeeper came from the club’s academy, so do not overlook the need to recruit more scouts.
Toronto
Transfer budget: £10.4million
Wage budget: £1k/week
Difficulty rating: 2/5
Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernadeschi are both earning at least £97k/week. Selling one of the two to generate more of a wage budget would be a good starting point.
If you want to keep both Italian wingers, Toronto still have the second-highest transfer budget in MLS, so you have options to make this team competitive, even if they did finish bottom in the Eastern Conference this past season.
Top tip: Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty is the best young player available at the club. In the event you choose to keep Bernadeschi, it would be worth setting up the Italian as Marshall-Rutty’s mentor in training.
Atletico Mineiro (ATM)
Transfer budget: £4million
Wage budget: £18.5k/week
Difficulty rating: 2/5
He is supposed to be in the twilight stage of his career, but Hulk’s stats on FM24 are among the best of any forward over the age of 35. The former Porto striker is capable of starting every match for a side that also competes in the Copa Libertadores.
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They also have FM favourite Cristian Pavon on their books. They are expected to finish in the top four, but their squad is not as strong as others in the Brazilian league.
Top tip: Mateus Iseppe and Alisson Santana are the club’s best young players but given that you will be looking to compete for trophies, it may be too soon to integrate them into the first team right away, so loan them out instead.
Gwangju
Transfer budget: £2million
Wage budget: £2.1k/week
Difficulty rating: 3/5
The K League occupies rare territory as they have two teams in FM24 that are expected to finish first in Gwangju and Jeonbuk.
To make matters more complicated, Ulsan, who have the largest transfer budget of any South Korean side, won the title last year and Jeonbuk compete in the Asian Champions League. In short, Gwangju have high expectations but do not have the same resources as their rivals to meet those lofty ambitions, which is where the fun comes in.
Top tip: K League teams are not allowed to sign goalkeepers from outside of South Korea, but Gwangju have a five-star prospect on their books in Kim Tae-jun. Give him as much game time as possible, as he has the potential to be significantly better than 31-year-old Kim Kyung-min, the club’s current starter.
Kerala
Transfer budget: £9.7k
Wage budget: £3.1k/week
Difficulty rating: 3/5
Kerala have the infrastructure of a footballing powerhouse, with a stadium with a capacity of 80,000. Outside of that, there is a lot of work to be done.
No Indian team has ever won the Asian Champions League before. Winning the league may be easy, but winning the continent’s biggest trophy, is where the challenge lies.
Top tip: You will quite literally be the only member of staff at the club when you arrive. There are no coaches, scouts or anyone working in the medical department. Building a backroom team is of paramount importance here.
Melbourne Victory
Transfer budget: £125k
Wage budget: £13k/week
Difficulty rating: 3/5
Melbourne Victory have had to watch their close rivals Melbourne City FC win the past three league titles in the A-League. Something has to give.
Once you have become the most dominant team in the city, the next quest is to become the second Australian team to ever win the Asian Champions League.
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Top tip: Twenty-seven-year-old Chris Ikonomidis is the best left-winger on the books but is one of the highest earners at £3.9k/week. Former Man City and Celtic winger, Daniel Arzani, is four years younger and has the potential to become slightly better than Ikonomidis, so look to sell the former player if you want to increase your transfer budget.
Austin
Transfer budget: £7.2million
Wage budget: £191k/week
Difficulty rating: 3/5
You might be wondering why Toronto are rated as an easier challenge than Austin when both teams did not perform that well this past season. Plus they have a larger transfer budget and two players who can help them generate even more income.
But in truth, both teams will face a challenge if they want to win the MLS Cup. Outside of Sebastian Druissi, Austin are in need of a few more playmakers to challenge for the title, which is where you come in.
Top tip: If you use a formation that features a central attacking midfielder, Thiago Almada and Hany Mukhtar are two players worth pursuing.
Boyaca Chico
Transfer budget: £0
Wage budget: £0k/week
Difficulty rating: 4/5
Boyaca Chico have never won the Categoria Primera A, Colombia’s first division, and have never gone further than the group stages in the Copa Libertadores.
On top of that, the board want you to sign players based in Venezuela, which puts a limitation on how quickly you can become South America’s best football club.
Top tip: Jacobo Pimentel is probably the club’s best player but is out of contract within six months, so offering him new terms should be top of your to-do list.
Toyama
Transfer budget: £206k
Wage budget: £1.6k/week
Difficulty rating: 4/5
There are not that many teams that will deliberately aim to adopt a route one style of play. But Toyama, a third-division Japanese side, very much want you to play a direct brand of football in FM24.
You will need to get promoted twice to reach the J1 League, all while lumping it up to a big man. Someone who prefers a glass-half-full approach would see this as an exciting challenge that is almost the antithesis of the stylistic demands of modern football.
Top tip: Given the need to be direct, prioritise signing players who have attributes rated 15/20 or higher in the following categories: heading, aerial reach, strength and positioning.
Halifax Wanderers
Transfer budget: £405k
Wage budget: -£550
Difficulty rating: 4/5
The Canadian Premier League, introduced in 2019, only features eight teams and Halifax are predicted to finish fifth.
Forge are the dominant team to beat, as they have won three of the past four titles. The division’s reputation is small, which means a lot of players will be unwilling to join, which will put your recruiting abilities to the test.
Top tip: The assistant manager already at the club is replaceable in FM24. Signing talented players will be tough, so you need to find good coaches to help the players you are able to sign develop instead of relying on signing high-profile wonderkids.
Ceara (CEA)
Transfer budget: £1.12million
Wage budget: £9.25k/week
Difficulty rating: 4/5
With a stadium that holds more than 60,000 people, Ceara are too big of a team to be competing in Brazil’s second division.
But after you secure promotion, that is where things get difficult. The last four winners of the Copa Libertadores have all come from Brazil, and this team is a long way off joining that list at the start of a save in FM24.
Top tip: The club do not want you to sign any players over the age of 30, so you will need to improve the scouting department in order to source good young players.
Santiago Wanderers (STGO Wanderers)
Transfer budget: £44k
Wage budget: £0k/week
Difficulty rating: 5/5
Working in your favour is the fact the club want you to pursue players under the age of 23. Working against you is everything else.
Some clubs require only modest renovations, while others need to be built from the ground up. This second-division Chilean side is falls into the latter category.
Top tip: There are three young players on the books with good potential who are a little far off being first-team ready. But seeing as the club have no money to work with, aim to use a formation with two forwards and make sure Bastian Pinnola and Lukas Fredes get some minutes where possible.
Hungry Lions
Transfer budget: £21k
Wage budget: £0k/week
Difficulty rating: 5/5
Competing in South Africa’s second division, Hungry Lions have one of the smallest stadiums in the division and are predicted to finish towards the bottom of the table.
Securing promotion is not as difficult as it is in real life in most cases in FM24, but in this instance, it will be tough. There will be no scouts at the club upon your arrival.
Top tip: Tuelo Motlhacwi and Thando Mthethwa are part of their under-21 squad and both have high potential, so look to integrate the duo into the first team.
Villa Dalmine
Transfer budget: £16k
Wage budget: £320
Difficulty rating: 5/5
The transfer policy dictates that you should sign young players, which makes signing older players, particularly those who are free agents, harder to do.
Villa Dalmine are also predicted to finish bottom of Argentina’s second division and have a very small starting transfer budget. If you are looking for a save to last you a minimum of five seasons, look no further.
Top tip: The saving grace here is that there are at least four players with five-star potential on the club’s books: Diego Vitale, Luciano Maidana, Juan Mattioli and Gianluca Gimenez. Aim to build your squad around this quartet of players.
Naga UKS
Transfer budget: £0
Wage budget: £481/week
Difficulty rating: 5/5
There is nothing about this save that will be easy. The club have poor training facilities, poor youth facilities, a small stadium and are predicted to finish last in the Malaysian second division.
If that was not enough, the rules of the division state that you cannot sign non-Malaysian players. Fortunately, the league re-introduced a promotion and a relegation system in 2023, meaning that the dream of securing promotion and winning the Asian Champions League is possible but it will be extremely difficult.
Top tip: Manimaran Nesmani Chettiar has five-star potential. Given the club’s lack of finances, it makes sense to integrate him into the first team early on.
(Top photo: Andy Lyons via Getty Images)