Introduction
Recent 2026 May Data Update to CM 01/02 came as a surprise to me as the previous release (finally December 2025) got a bit belated due to lack of human resources and was the only one in 2025. Is that 25th anniversary effect?
CM 01/02 is an absolute phenomenon when it comes to community support. I’m not going to elaborate more on that part here, but you can read the preceeding articles on leriohub:
- Guide to install and update CM + Barcelona career in 2024 Update |Championship Manager 01/02 In 2025; Installation, Data Updates & Barcelona Guide
- CM Databases and Blackbox effect (How to play with Messi and CR7?) | Championship Manager 01/02 In 2026; December 2025 Data Update, Lüssenhoff & Blackbox Effect
- FC Barcelona Career in 2025 December Update | Championship Manager 01/02 – FC Barcelona Career In December 2025 Data Update
May Update General Impressions
In the 2026 May Data Update I’ve tried so far the two most impressive teams of 2025/2026 season: PSG and FC Bayern Munich. The latter was especially interesting and the main part of this article would be FC Bayern career.
The update was released before 2025/2026 UCL final and PSG back-to-back victory. Based on a couple of benchmark seasons I played when optimizing FC Bayern build, I can say that PSG is also the strongest team in the world in the game by an inch, followed by Arsenal, Man City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, sometimes Inter Milan can make a surprise. FC Bayern is also very strong, especially dominant in Bundesliga, but even with optimized tactics my UCL scores were mixed in holiday mode.
UCL campaign in the playoff phase felt more fair than league, which is kinda expected with teams like PSG and Bayern, but the difference is too high in my opinion – I’m pretty sure I’d be able to win these leagues with a bit weaker teams too. Many AI tactics are standing out in a negative way, most of 5-3-2 family, Sweeper, some 4-4-2 are atrocious (also proven in benchmarks) and in my opinion should be improved in the default pack coming with Data Updates. If you got a 4+ goal difference game, most likely it was against one of these.
I believe Premier League should be harder than other leagues in this regard due to more love in managerial/tactical aspect, at least that’s how it used to be in previous Data Updates in my experience, still need to try it though.
I played May 2026 Data Update (with AI tactics included there) + Nik’s Patcher update to 2025 patches pack + Uncap20s misc patch.
Bayern Munich Squad Guide
Goalkeepers | Manuel Neuer is a world-class goalkeeper and natural captain of the team for the 2025/2026 season. For 2026/2027 its uncertain – a big transfer may be needed, but not suitable now. Nubel can’t be recalled as loaned to another Bundesliga team, therefore young and talented Urbig is the 2nd keeper. It is considerable to transfer or loan in more experienced keeper as 2nd keeper for the next season if only opportunity arises. In game I bought outcast Andre Onana from Man Utd for £4.8M.
Defenders Central | Upamecano is world-class, followed by Tah and Kim Min-Jae. It is also considerable to play Joshua Kimmich as defender, but quite risky. DC can be improved only with top-class defender transfer like Saliba, Dias or Bastoni. Otherwise one extra decent DC on the bench may be useful. In game I bought Jan Paul van Hecke for £5M.
Wingbacks | Davies on the left and Laimer/Stanisic on the right are very good; also Kimmich can play DMR if necessary or Sacha Boey can be recalled. It means that the formation of choice should be wide and run wingbacks. Guerreiro is not good enough as a sub, but lies quite deep in the hierarchy, below Laimer/Stanisic at wrong foot. A transfer in of support player for DL or more offensive wingback for DR is considerable.
Defensive Midfielders (DMC)| With Kimmich and Goretzka this formation is really strong; also talented Pavlovic should improve to first team level very soon. Palhinha can be recalled if another decent sub is needed.
Offensive Midfields (MC/AMC) | Here the team is a bit lacking. There is world-class Jamal Musiala as the main player (injured for 1 month at the start), but his only subs are very talented, but only 17yo Lennart Karl or Serge Gnabry out of natural position. A solid sub should preferably be transfered in. In game I bought Osame Sahraoui for £8M
Wingers (AMR/L) | Michael Olise evolved in Bayern into arguably the best player at AMR position in the world compared with December 2025 update. At AML flamboyant Luis Diaz is a worth match for Olise. The question then are worthy backup players. Gnabry in my short tests was quite mediocre. It is possible to recall Bryan Zaragoza, who is a decent sub. In May 2026 update it is often possible to transfer in quality players from teams like Man City, Chelsea or Arsenal due to too much competition. In game I managed to buy for half price not only Gabriel Martinelli (£9.25M), but later even Bukayo Saka (£24M) with just Rotation role and reduced salary. Maybe he preferred to watch Bayern from bench rather than take part in Arsenal’s haramball 😉
Strikers | Harry Kane in May 2026 update is arguably the best striker in the game with outstanding Off the Ball skills and great aerial abilities. Nicolas Jackson meant as a sub has different characteristics and is a much weaker player overall. Transfer in of a backup striker with good OtB and aerial abilities is a plausible idea. In game after Martinelli and Saka transfers I gave up on this because they or Luis Diaz likely play better FC than any reachable classic 9. In the reserves there is Jonah Kusi-Asare loaned out to Fulham, whom I overlooked in my save till he refused any contract offer and got signed out for £0. At 18yo he may already be of similar or better quality than Jackson, good aerial abilities and considerable as a sub if you like to spice up the things a bit.
Tactics
The tactic shape comes directly from squad analysis: wide formation with space for players like Olise, Diaz or Davies. Two active DMs who are ready to support the attack rather than two offensive MCs supported by anchor DM.
To design this tactic I’ve tested different setups in a single season in holiday mode, with one league selected and minimal database. I started more or less with Barcelona tactic from the Dec 2025 update article and tried various modifications which looked sensible. There is no With/Without Ball instructions involved and all changes done in such basic tests must be substantial or otherwise the sample is far too low. So testing different arrows and positions can be conclusive, but some players instructions not really. The main parameter I followed was players stats rather than overall team performance. My main observations:
- AML / AMR position without arrows works best for Diaz and Olise. Setups like AML/R=>FL/R, AML/R => FC or AMC=>FC had visibly lower average rating. Never had such a situation before in other tests. Partially positional penalty may matter here, but rather not exclusively. Especially Luis Diaz performance suffers; as AML/R=>FC Diaz 7.11 / Olise 7.64; at AML/R in one of tests: 8.06/8.06. I’m surprised and looking forward to learn more about the real cause. For the roleplay arguments let’s say they are real ballers and should be available for easy pass rather than break the offside line along with Kane.
- MC => AMC works best for Musiala
- For Wingbacks my results are not that clear, feel free to play around with arrows. WBL=>AML arrow is specifically for Davies; if you for example play Stanisic in this position, probably no arrow works better.
The tactic is tuned for Bayern and may fail in other teams, especially ones with weaker players on the wings. In Tactics Benchmark League it would reach ~20 goal difference, compared with ~39 for the leading NWW tactic of mine. Wide tactics tend to underperform in this benchmark. But that’s not the only cause; I simulated one season in Real Madrid with the picked squad and the result was also underwhelming.
In general tactics are either good or bad and the top of TBL NWWs (Non Wib-Wobs) is the most reliable for new updates with improved AI tactics in my experience. Still for some teams there are surprises and unexpected tactics do pretty well, or copy-pasted tactics don’t work well enough. Take a look at demo table made by agevak with his Tactics Benchmarker tool to see what I mean.
For set pieces takers feel free to experiment on your own. I left this part blank because I trust AI choices more than my own – there are probably more factors involved in picking best taker than just Set Pieces value. Good example is the choice of Captain which depends on more than just Influence parameter: time spent in the club, reputation etc. also matters and AI does pretty good job at picking the best candidate.
That being said I can see AI for example not including the fact that the set piece taker wouldn’t be available as the targetman; e.g. Jan Koller gets the best set piece taker rating, but there is no Jan Koller in the box to receive a cross from him 😉
Other Tips
- Contrary to some opinions, training really matters in CM 01/02, which can even be visible in tactics benchmark. I don’t want to dive into more details here though to not spoil everything yet, experiment by yourself and see what happens 😉
- Friendly matches which result in big wins can improve team morale. Sometimes you can even include some during main season if you have enough patience to swap the squad.
- During the game make subs only if the chance of sub improving on the main squad player performance is really high: low condition, distinctively low stats with high enough sampling. For fastly conceded goals and low keeper rating consider immediate sub.
- Goal / Assist bonuses may help to improve players performance. In game I gave max goal bonus to Harry Kane and max clean sheet bonus to Manuel Neuer. I believe these two should have small positive impact according to my undersampled tests. On the other hand very high assist bonus to Olise, Diaz and Musiala was counterproductive in the only test I’ve made.
Results
(very few matches got shamelessly repeated ;-))
There was no real competitor, therefore the league was already won at 25th round.
But for Guirassy, whole team would have been on the top of players ratings. Harry Kane got 9+ average rating in league!
60 goals from Harry Kane, almost 3x the number of runner-up Martin Terrier (another master of off-the-ball play by the way).
League stats generally don’t show Olise impact as much as in-game match commentary. Many games he had multiple key passess and initiated dangerous actions.
Champions League 2025/26 was smooth sailing for the most part till the semifinals against Barcelona. 1-1 against in the first leg at Camp Nou. Big troubles to intercept the ball in the 2nd leg, 0:2 at home at 85th minute with Lewandowski taking revenge on his former team. Equalizing seems impossible and still gives nothing due to away goals rule. And then…
4 goals in 5 minutes! I love this team as much as one can love digital entities. The final against Man City in Stockholm ended in a safe 2:0 and Bayern won 2025/26 UCL. Harry Kane was the top goalscorer in UCL as well with 22 hits, but Erling Haaland kept up pretty well with 16 goals.
Closure
One season with Bayern Munich in the May 2026 Data Update was a really pleasant experience. The Diaz/Olise performance at AML/AMR positions was the best I’ve ever witnessed in CM 01/02. So far in my experience this position (also with arrow into FC) was unstable even when supplied with the best players in the game. Here it was a huge contribution, relatively stable from match to match especially in the case of Olise.
I also enjoyed the dry test process (benchmark) and I hope that tuning tactics to team in such a way can lead to more discoveries for everyone. Changes from match to match are too low sample, while mass benchmark tools so far do not optimize player ratings, but use team points / goal difference as the score. Hopefully a tool for ultimate analysis would emerge one day with all the heartful people still involved in the community. I’m looking forward to test this approach in the Premier League next.
Happy managing,
lerio2