By David Marsden · Hamburger SV

Fourteen of this season’s fifteen bottom-three decisions were straightforward. Atlético Madrid was not, and it’s my decision, so I owe everyone a full explanation.

Gav has not been reappointed. I take no pleasure in it. For a long time Gav was the life and soul of Top 100. He ran the World Club Cup, designed the old blog header, and was one of the most active managers we had. That is exactly why this season and last have been so disappointing.

What the rules say

The standard is the one we set out after Season 25 and wrote into section 3.1 this season: reappoint unless reappointing would be a clear and obvious error. The manager gets the benefit of the doubt.

Gav’s review found one clear and obvious error. His review score was 37.6 out of 100, below the line of 45 for Divisions 1 and 2:

With one error, the rules leave a second chance to the admin team, and a second chance needs a majority of the admin team’s votes. There wasn’t one, so under the rules Gav is not reappointed. I’ll be open about why I voted the way I did, though, because I’d have voted the same whatever the score.

On the pitch

Gav has managed Atlético Madrid for 17 seasons, since Season 12. He took over from Top 100 club building legend Doug Earle; Atlético was a team that had just finished 5th in Division 1 with the 10th strongest squad in Top 100. Gav spent his first 12 seasons in Division 1 and finished in the top half only three times. They went down in Season 23, and after five seasons in Division 2 they’ve now been relegated again, to Division 3.

The squad is very much Gav’s own: he’s had 17 seasons to build it. By last season it was only the 34th strongest in Top 100, down from 10th when he took over. This season Atlético finished eight places below where their squad’s strength said they should.

Off the pitch

The score only tells part of the story, and this is the part that decided it for me.

February: the second chance

In February, another manager accidentally turned down one of Gav’s friendly requests for the World Club Cup. Several managers messaged him, and he replied, happy to arrange the games. All Gav had to do was send the request again.

He refused. Several managers asked him to resend it or send a message, and he refused each time. He called the other manager a waster and gave him an offensive nickname. Then he announced he was going on strike: he would log in twice a week and stop playing the World Club Cup and the Youth Cup. The World Club Cup is mandatory. His price for playing the second leg was a 3-0 walkover in the first leg and a public apology.

I told him then that I’d had enough and he was out. In the end I didn’t follow through. He apologised, and I said the simplest thing was to arrange the games and move on. That was his second chance.

Since then

He did what he said he’d do. For the rest of last season and this, Gav has been deliberately inactive. Activity and contribution used to be his strongest part of the review. This season he entered none of the optional Top 100 competitions and helped with nothing.

That includes the Youth Cup. Atlético have one of the best youth teams in Top 100, twice Youth Shield winners in recent seasons, and Gav didn’t enter it. Like João at Sporting, he had a great youth team and chose not to play it.

When he did post on the newsfeed, it was usually to criticise Top 100 and how it’s run. He has posted negative comments about other managers and has repeatedly accused other managers of cheating without foundation. At times he has been abusive.

He hasn’t asked for his job back, or spoken to me about it at all. Instead he posted that he had decided to stay, again ignoring the rules. It isn’t a manager’s decision whether they’re reappointed.

Why it matters

We’ve been here before. After Season 25, João wasn’t reappointed at Sporting. João had taken Sporting from Division 3 obscurity to Division 1. He wasn’t reappointed because he didn’t meet the standards we expect of every manager: playing the mandatory competitions, responding to the admins, taking part in the community and setting his teams. We said then that those standards apply equally to everyone, with higher expectations for the managers of Division 1 and 2 clubs.

Gav’s case is very similar, and arguably worse. João built something at Sporting, and he talked to me about what was going on for him and responded graciously to the decision. Gav took a top Division 1 side down to Division 3, and he hasn’t spoken to me at all. Reappointing Gav after not reappointing João would mean the standards weren’t applied to everyone.

I’ve been here before with other managers who stopped playing by the rules. Reappointing a manager who has failed this badly, and who has made it clear more than once that he won’t follow the rules everyone else follows, sends the wrong message about what’s acceptable here.

I know Gav has friends in Top 100 and is popular. But we set out to stop appointing managers on popularity. It’s unfair on managers who are better, who are making an effort, and who deserve a chance more.

What happens now

Atlético Madrid is now vacant and will be filled through the vacancy round. Applications close on 10 November.

I hope Gav takes a break from a game world he hasn’t enjoyed this year, and I’d be glad to see the Gav of a few seasons ago again one day.

David Marsden, Top 100 game world owner

By David Marsden · Hamburger SV

Yesterday’s Youth Shield round exposed two separate problems, and it is worth being clear about both of them.

First, the new Tournament Centre was harder for some managers to navigate than it should have been. I accept responsibility for that. Based on the feedback, the tournament site has already been changed to make the schedule much easier to find, and My Matches now gives managers a simple personalised view of who they are playing and whether they should send the friendly request or expect one.

Second, one part of the published Youth Cup rules had become out of date. The old wording told an away manager who had not received a friendly request to contact the home manager 24 hours before kick-off. That was written when Soccer Manager allowed friendlies to be arranged much later. Changes to the game now mean that Wednesday can be the last opportunity to arrange a Saturday friendly.

The rules have therefore been clarified for future rounds.

Fixtures will normally be published by Sunday evening. The home manager should send the Soccer Manager friendly request promptly and no later than Wednesday. The away manager must also check the fixture and, if no request has arrived, contact the home manager before Wednesday’s arranging window closes. If either manager encounters a problem, they should tell the organiser while there is still time to resolve it.

The responsibility remains shared, but that does not mean the two jobs are identical. The home manager initiates the fixture; the away manager checks that it has happened and chases if it has not. Where there is a dispute, evidence of a timely request, message or attempt to resolve the problem can distinguish the manager who made a reasonable effort from the manager who did not. If neither manager makes a reasonable effort, both can forfeit.

Tournament reminders and newsfeed posts are useful back-ups, but they do not replace managers’ responsibility to find their fixture and arrange it in time.

This clarification takes effect from 13 September 2026. It does not retrospectively reopen the S28 Youth Shield Round of 32 decisions from 12 September. Those decisions were made under the rules and circumstances applying to that round.

The change is recorded in the Top 100 rulebook and in the full Youth Cup rules rather than silently replacing the old position. That matters: when the platform changes, our procedures sometimes have to change with it, but we should always be able to establish which rule applied at the time.

The practical version for managers is very simple: check My Matches on Sunday, send or chase the request, and don’t leave it until the end of the week.

If you would like to support the ongoing maintenance costs, and all the new development of the Top 100 website and app ecosystem, please consider donating.

You can give anything from a one-off £1 donation or set up a regular amount via Stripe.

If you don't want to, or can't afford to, that's also fine.

Want to go down in History? Consider yourself a master scouter? Can you build a strong youth XI alongside your first XI? Can your name be uttered in the same breath as multiple Youth Cup winners Dan Payne, Frank Hirst, Alex McLean, Salvatore Zerbo, Doug Earle and Glen Mullan?!

[googleapps domain="docs" dir="forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdyX6VIjxs6016LKxvnqbAVfNZcyFXu6qPtV55hg6t3jnbzBQ/viewform" query="embedded=true" width="640" height="1521" /]

The Top 100 Season 26 Youth Cup brings together 64 academies across world football in a seeded group stage.

Teams are split into 8 groups of 8, each playing 7 matches.

The top 4 from each group advance to the knockout rounds, where 32 teams battle it out in a single-elimination format until we crown the champion.

All fixtures are scheduled weekly in advance so please send out and accept your friendly requests asap. First matches scheduled for Saturday 20 September.

Youth Cup WhatsApp.

🔗 View Live Tournament Bracket

🔧 Tournament Settings (Top 100 S26 Youth Cup)

Format: Round Robin (Groups of 8) → Top 4 qualify → Single Elimination Knockout

Entrants: 64 (seeded by ratings)

Rounds per group: 7 (one match per week, no home/away duplicates)

Knockout stage: 32-team single elimination (5 rounds to champion)

Schedule: Weekly fixtures every Saturday starting 20 September.