Football Manager 2020: 10 Challenging Teams You Must Consider Managing

If there's one thing Football Manager does better than any other game, it's allowing players to challenge themselves in unique ways. Forget about the standard easy, medium and hard modes that developers usually give gamers. Sports Interactive provides you with an entire database filled with clubs who have a variety of different challenges every season.

While it's obviously easier to manage mega-rich teams like Manchester City, Real Madrid, Barcelona or Paris Saint Germain, there's something just a little bit too easy about that. Though it's fun to power through the opposition, it actually takes away from the real charm of the game, which is finding a team with a number of flaws and slowly eradicating those problems so you can turn them into one of the world's finest squads. It's not easy, but it's certainly the most satisfying way to play.

We've gone through the various leagues, done a number of test saves with some of the most limited squads and found which ones would provide the most exhilarating test. From former European giants who have underachieved to broke clubs where you'll need to find free agents to help get your squad out of an inevitable relegation battle, these teams are for the true FM veterans.

If you think you've put in the hours it takes to become an exceptional Football Manager boss, and really want to test your skills, try giving one of these teams a go.

On the surface, this might seem like strange choice for this list. After all, how hard could it actually be to manage a team with an abundance of world class players, such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Nicholas Pepe.

However, if you look beyond the potential of this frightening attacking trio, you'll see that the foundation of this squad is extremely weak and will leak a tremendous amount of goals. True to real life, Arsenal's defence is an absolute shambles at the beginning of the game, and the team dropped into mid-table mediocrity early on in each of our test saves. In fact, Unai Emery was let go before the end of each season too, such were the bad tactical decisions and poor performances from the players.

While trying to shore up the defence sounds like the obvious move, it won't be as easy as whipping out the cheque book. Sadly, there's only £10 million left in the transfer kitty following a splurge in the summer. You have a few months to get rid of the dead weight at the club, bring in the best defenders you can afford and make sure your tactics are on point. All while making sure your squad maintain the expectations of playing exciting football.

Trust us, this rebuild will be difficult for any solid FM player and will certainly take more than one season to complete.