Football Manager

[mack]

I was just on facebook and this is the first thing in my feed lol

[Kizza]

On 7/17/2017 at 11:55 AM, mack said:

That's interesting. So youth players only or free transfers as well?

 

Youth only, placed the embargo on all teams in the top 5 leagues as well as the big Portuguese teams and a couple of rich championship sides.

[mack]

Season 2026/27

I succeeded in the goal of qualifying for the Champions League!

But we choked worse than Gerrard's Liverpool in the Premier League. After a 17 game unbeaten run to start the season, we eventually fell apart with injuries and an inability to close out the season by beating our top 4 rivals, City, United & Arsenal. We only scored 1 win against those three clubs, the worst results being a 2-1 loss to United in the 4th last game that would have put us on the brink of the title, followed by an awful 2-2 draw against Arsenal in the 2nd last game of the season. We lead 2-0 until they scored in the 74th & 82nd minutes to level the game. This put us & United level on points but United had a vastly superior goal difference.

United promptly destroyed Derby 3-0 to give us no hope of winning the league. They followed that up by winning the Champions League against Porto in an all-time worst game, with an early goal followed by 85 minutes of neither team managing to get shots on target. David De Gea is still their goalkeeper at the age of 36 with stats so good he could probably play until he's 40 if he wanted.

Bobby Kirk had the worst season since he first joined the club as a teenager, scoring just 9 goals and only playing half the season due to a torn calf muscle. ILlyas Yilmaz stepped up to score 14 from 31 in the league but it wasn't enough to give us the title. Sam Johnstone my long serving ex-Manchester United goalkeeper retired. Our Youth Team won the league which is nice.

Our cup runs weren't great, losing in the Quarter Final of the league cup to West Brom, then going out in the 2nd match of the FA Cup, against League Two Oxford United 1-0 despite throwing 22 shots to 3 at them.

The club ownership changed hands to another board member, no extra investment, no real change there.

We received £49.5 million in transfer fees, the biggest being a left winger to Dortmund for £11.25m and 2nd choice GK to Sunderland for £7.75m.

I spent £33.5 million, half of which was taken by signing Walter Poli, a 17 year old left fullback from AC Milan for £15m. He has incredibly high potential and he's already performing extremely well. The other 10 players were all young players with high potential that I could sign automatically without having to negotiate with the parent club, at around ~£2.0m compensation each. This coming season I have a new 3rd choice GK on a free transfer, and a few deadweight players to move on. Don't see me signing more than a few players.

The stadium was expanded to 25,000 seats, and will grow by another 2100. I'm not sure it'll get much bigger. Still have another 10 years before we can build a new stadium. Training & Youth Facilities were upgraded to top & good, but are being improved again to what should be world class levels. Scouting network expanded to 21 scouts and I can sign a few more if I want. I've also got 4.5 star training level coaches in every category but technical coaching.

We have £21 million in the bank, made a total £4 million profit last season, and should demolish that again because of Champions League revenue. Goal is to stay in the top 3, and see if we can make it out of our CL group stage depending on who we draw. The club is now at the point of entering the top echelon of clubs, but winning a Champions League is an even bigger step up over winning the Premier League.

I also took over Brazil after England rejected me again. Quit after 3 games, was annoying me too much.

[mack]

Season 2027/28

Arsenal demolished the league. They won with 88 points, the 2nd highest since the game started. They were in front from Round 18 to the finish. Unfortunately for me, I had a pretty bad run of injuries that hurt our scoring ability and we slowly dropped from 2nd place down. Huddersfield who made the League Cup & Europa League finals (and lost both lol) had a huge backlog of games and eventually overtook us. We finished 4th. We again had trouble beating other Top 4 sides.

League Cup was nothing, won 1st game vs Barnsely, then lost 2-1 to Southampton. FA Cup we lost 2-1 in the 3rd round to Blackburn.

The Champions League was great however. It started not great, as we lost 1-0 to Marseille 1-0 at home, then drew 1-1 with Inter away. But we grew into the competition, drawing 1-1 with Bayern, before beating them 1-0 in the return fixture, then beating Marseille 2-1. It came down to the last match. It was crazy, with just about 10 minutes to go, the standings were OM, Inter, Us, Bayern as we were losing & Bayern were in a 0-0 draw.

Then we scored an equaliser, and Bayern put 3 past OM. End result FC United 1st, Bayern 2nd, OM & Inter knocked out.

We marched onward to the 1st Knockout Round, facing Benfica. 8-1 aggregate win. Dortmund? 8-2 Aggregate win. We then faced AC Milan in the Semi-Final, earned a 1-1 draw at home, but lost the return leg 2-1, we made a late comeback but couldn't score an equaliser to put us through on away goals.

Kirk had another poor season, he suffered a torn hamstring and was out for 4 months, then came back only to get a knock and have to be taken off, twice. Pinga my gun AMC suffered a broken leg in the last game of the season (ffs, had to play him because we needed to ensure a win to finish 4th), which will put him out until the opening quarter of next season. Kirk in particular has taken a big hit to his stats. He used to be in the 19+ range for his shooting stats, but he's back to down to 17/16 level. I'm hoping he springs back next year.

I sold £35 million of players. None of the players were particularly notable, although I did manage to pick up £6.75 million for a goalkeeper I'd just signed on a free transfer and another £775k on a 31 year old GK I'd signed specifically to be a backup. They both got pissy about it, requested transfers. I sold a pair of poorly performing left wingers for £7m each. I've getting rid of a german defensive midfielder who hasn't developed at a small loss, and then my current backup AMC/MR for £5 million as his contract runs out in a couple of years and I've got a couple of young players who are already doing better than he is.

Incoming transfers for the season, I bought an 18yo English striker (Moses) from Sunderland for £4.1m, a 17yo Portugese attacking midfielder (Ricardo) from Porto for £5m, a 17 year old Italian goalkeeper (Moscardini) with "best in the world" potential ability for £1.9m from Milan and a 17yo French striker from Lyon that I'll probably rebuild into an inside forward/winger for £2.1. Incoming this season are a 16yo fullback who I think will develop well, and a 15yo French striker who has good potential. 

Our youth system is bringing up a lot of potentially good players. None of them have made the first team as yet, but I've got two fullbacks & a defensive midfielder who came through this year, a right winger from last year, and a striker, all at 3.5 star potential. They will need work to develop but if they can stick around (the defensive mid I'm hoping will develop well as those are hard to find) they will really improve our squad depth.

Our stadium is at expansion capacity, but it will have undersoil heating installed, which I hope will stop having to play on snow. Training & Youth facilities are near max now.

We have £70 million in the bank. We've made £50 million this season.

Major goal next season is make sure we don't lose the Champions League group stage qualifying play-off.

edit - Bastard shareholders stole £15 million 

edit 2 - I've bought a 17 year old striker from Real Madrid for £15 million.

[mack]

Season 2028/29

Arsenal retained the title again. We started quite poorly and only got back into the top 4 in the last quarter of the season. Last two games of the season were Manchester City & Arsenal, but we won both games to overtake Huddersfield who could only manage a 2-2 draw despite playing United with a man advantage from the 5th minute. As such we finished 3rd place with our major goal difference advantage. No Champions League qualification playoffs for us.

The domestic cup competitions were bad. After we beat City in the first round of the League Cup I thought we might go on a run, but failed in the 2nd game by losing 1-0 to Blackburn. In the FA Cup run we beat Tottenham 2-1 then lost 1-0 to Nottingham Forest through an own goal. 

Champions League we made our way into the Group Stage with a 4-1 aggregate win vs Hearts of Scotland. After defeating Inter 1-0 at home in the first match I thought we were on track for qualification out of the group but we managed a dismal 1-1 draw with Shamrock Rovers from Ireland, lost 2-1 then 3-1 against Bayern, and just when it looked like we might still make it through, our 1-0 lead against Inter was wiped out in the last minute of the game when down to 10 men by injury (Inter down to 10 by a red card), as I hadn't swapped to my ultra-defensive tactic yet, my team played a full corner routine sending everyone up and we got caught on the counter with 1 defender. Infuriating. A 3-0 win in the last game vs Shamrock was meaningless.

Ricardo Arsenio the attacking midfield I bought from Porto for £5 has been outstanding, with 3 goals & 18 assists. I'm training up his shooting so he can contribute more goals. He's replaced Pinga the Brazilian AMC to the point I'm half tempted to see if I can get some money for Pinga. Kirk had a better season, scoring 28 goals in 35 league games. Erogdan Aslan my left winger who cuts inside smashed in 13 goals & 10 assists and Revel my right winger did 11 & 7. Gomez the £15m signing from Madrid had a good first season, still only 18 years old, scored 4 goals & 3 assists from 29 mostly sub appearances. His training as a left winger is going well (he will follow the same cut inside template as Aslan). He should improve even further. He may 

I mentioned the pre-season transfer in the last thread. Didn't bring anyone in to the club in January. Total cost £27.5 million. I sold 5 players through the season for £16.25m.

This coming season I have one big exit, one of my central defenders, despite filling his 4 star potential just hasn't really performed at the high level I want. 4 seasons and never managed an average rating over 7. He's leaving for Genoa in Serie A for £15 million. Several years ago I signed a young right winger from Dinamo for £500k but his potential dropped quickly and he was never going to play for the first team. For some reason United & Arsenal both wanted him badly so he's leaving for Arsenal and I'm getting £4.9m. I'm taking a loss on a young striker I bought from Arsenal two seasons ago, but better to get rid of him and make something back, and lastly I have a couple of lower league level players going out for about £500k in total.

I had one player off contract, a 2nd choice central midfielder who was good for a while but has been overtaken. Released him.

Coming into the club are a 16yo right fullback from PSG for free, a free 21 central midfielder to replace the guy I sold, 2 young central defenders for £4.5 total, a 15 year old DM from Juve for £2.2m and a 16yo striker from Inter for £2.3m. My youth product regens found high potential defensive midfielder, the rest were trash (including 6 central defenders in a crop of about 10 players lol).

I have £56 million in the bank, will get to about £70 with the transfers. Our Training & Youth setup facilities are one step away from the absolute best, and the youth setup is being upgraded to reach this. Training facility not yet as the board refused.

So we go again, hopefully with enough player development to push for a trophy.

[DinoPresinger]

It annoys me that boards refuse facility upgrades with  $50m in the bank. 

[mack]

It's linked to reputation basically. So unless the club is preset to have top facilities you just have to wait until you become more "well known" before the board will allow the upgrades. Until you're Continental or worldwide you can't do the final upgrade for the youth recruitment, or having the maximum 26 scouts and 7 physio.

My board just approved what should be the last of the training facility upgrades.

[mack]

Season 2029/30

Spoiler

I call that a successful season.

The signs were good when we beat City, United, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Bury and two very low level teams in the pre-season and only conceded 1 goal in total. The Premier League had a very good early draw, we played Blackpool, Birmingham, Swansea & Derby and won all 4 games with 19 to 1 goal ratio. We lost the 5th game to Manchester City but we stayed in the top 3 early, then into the top 2, and finally after Christmas pulled ahead of the competition and remained in first for the rest of the season, winning the Premiership with 2 games to spare after defeating Chelsea 2-0 at home.

We only lost 4 games (before the last two where I played the youth team) in total, against Arsenal, City, Watford & United. As you can see with the table Chelsea struggled to secure wins, but City eventually fell apart and lost enough to not only fail to win the title, but finished 3rd with a last day loss to Derby.

Spoiler

Our chance at a Quadreble fell in the first game of the League Cup, I played a full strength side, we scored the first goal, but fell apart in the second half. Our poor shooting was punished when Huddersfield scored in the 50th minute. Looking to get back into the fight I made my last 2 subs (having used one on an injury at half-time) in the 74th minute. 2 minutes later one of the substitutes, Juan Gomez, was heading back up the tunnel after being red carded for a bad tackle. And then another couple minutes later Bobby Kirk went off with a serious injury. Down to 9 men we were stoic enough to at least make extra time, but Huddersfield scored in the 97th minute and our tired battered 9 man team were beaten.

The FA Cup run, we only went behind once. In the final against Chelsea. We defeated Norwich 4-0, Stoke 1-0 (it was cold, but not a Wednesday night or in Stoke), Coventry 4-1, Fulham 2-1, a back & forth semi-final against Arsenal we held on for a 2-1 win. In the final, Chelsea were ahead 2-1 at half-time, we equalised with an own goal in the 74th minute before Ricardo Arsenio scored the winner in the 85th. We'd only put 4 shots on target but scored 3 goals, while Chelsea had 11 shots on target but only 2 goals. We had beat them two games in a row to lift a trophy. 

Champions League run was outstanding. Our Group was Barcelona, Palermo & BATE (Belarus) but we made short work of them, we beat Barca 4-0, Palermo 2-0 & 5-0, Bate 4-2 & 3-0 and the only loss was the away tie vs Barca which we lost 2-0. The first knockout stage was a breeze, beating Porto 2-0 in both legs for a 4-0 aggregate win. The Quarter Final was Stuttgart who we defeated comfortably 3-1 & 2-1 (5-2 agg). Our group state opponents Barca we were semi-final opponent also. The first leg we scored an early goal, then another just after half-time to take a 2-0 win. The second leg was different, Barca scored straight from the kickoff. We secured a vital away goal 3 minutes later from a corner with my titan of a centre back Bram Hoogendoorn thundering home a header. Just before half-time Barca pulled the aggregate score back to 3-2, and right after they drew level on aggregate with a 3 goal on the night. Despite onslaught neither side could add to the scoreline, as both sides shooting was a bit off, we held onto the 3-3 scoreline & went through on away goals.

The final we faced Die Bayern, a highly experienced squad filled with a veritable melting pot of nations, a Czech keeper, fullbacks from Cameroon & Chile, Italian & Portugese central defenders, the 4 midfielders from Poland, Mexico, Italy & Turkey, and up front an Argentine striker worth £18 million alongside a German AMC/ST. They also have an Australian in their first team, a 34 year old regen striker.

I'd suffered an astonishing injury run up front, Bobby Kirk had gone down with another severe injury, my backup Yilmaz got hurt short after, and then my 3rd choice on-loan striker was wiped out. With my other strikers on loan in Germany, I turned to my 19 year old Spanish striker Juan Gomez, the guy I'd bought for £15 million from Real Madrid at the start of last season. In the 14 games since I'd put him up front, as we headed into the pointy end of the season, he'd scored 11 goals. These included four games scoring a brace, against Stuttgart, United, Stuttgart again, Arsenal.

Could he do it in the Champions League final? He was quiet in in the FA Cup final.

Spoiler

Could he what. After scoring the opener with Aslan piercing the defence with a through ball, Arsenio my AMC was sent off after half an hour. I pulled back to a flat 4-4-1 to play on the counter & Gomez tore them apart in the second half, getting on a through ball & rounding the keeper for the 2nd goal, then sealed the game with a tap-in when Aslan dribbled past two Bayern before crossing inside.

14 goals in 15 games means I simply cannot drop him from the striker position next season, and as such I may need to look into finding a replacement for his intented position, which was left wing (as a backup to Aslan).

Squad:

Spoiler

Transfer wise I have a couple of young players that will slot into the u18's (one is a 14yo from AC Milan). I may do some spring cleaning from the reserves & youth players. I am looking for a backup AMC (I do have a target in mind as he just signed a contract with a relegation clause and his team just got relegated) as my old stager Pinga just isn't cutting it at the top level now, and the guy I was using as my 2nd choice (Phillipe Pouliquen) was a loan signing that cost £2m and I probably couldn't get him back next season.

Bobby Kirk had another season cut short by injury, this time a torn calf muscle to put him out for 3/4 months. He'll play from the bench next season to start with at least. It feels bad but his contract is running out next year and as much as I'd like to keep a player through their whole career, if he doesn't perform he might not be worth his £5m a season wages & bonuses. The 4 players I sent on loan to Leverkusen helped them win promotion to the Bundesliga which is nice.

The club now has £106 million in the bank, the board have automatically given me maximum amount of scouts, physio & staff, and we now have top-level State of the Art youth facilities and will be completing the upgrade to top level World Class (iirc) training facilities next year.

I want to play through this save still and look to build the club up until at least we build a new stadium so I can see how that goes, and then look to dominate World Football for a long time. The World Cup is coming up this off-season, maybe I'll head back into international management and see what I can do there.

[mack]

England rejected me again, apparently winning the treble means nothing compared to some random regen coach who has never had a job in his career before

Also, the target AMC I had in mind, I'd been scouting him for ages, and he was consistently rated as a 3.5 or 4 star potential (ie, an incredibly good player). When I went to sign him (for his 4.5m relegation release clause), I kept scouting, but suddenly his reports dropped down to 2 star levels (which is awful). I cancelled our deal, and spent 18m on an 3.5 star potential AMC from Arsenal who is still going to be a good signing. But after that, Arsenal came in scooped up my target, and I re-scouted him and he's back up to 4 stars. WTF scouts.

I probably should have just signed him anyway considering the low cost. 

[mack]

Season 2030/31

I missed out on a Heptuple

Won the Community Shield, European Super Cup, Club World Cup, League Cup, Premier League & Champions League, but lost 2-0 in the FA Cup Final to Arsenal

EPL was easy. We were in first by round 5, and apart from round 18 where we dropped to 2nd because of catch-up games piling up we stayed there. Arsenal 2nd, Chelsea 3rd, United 4th.

Community Shield 3-2 vs Chelsea. Euro Super Cup was 3-0 vs Lyon. League Cup final 1-1 on Pens vs Aston Villa. FA Cup like I said we lost 2-0 to Arsenal, played utter crap. Club World Cup we thrashed Fluminense 6-0.

Champions League qualified first in a group with Inter, Besiktas & Dinamo Moscow, 3-0 agg vs Roma in KO Rd 1, 4-2 vs Porto in Quarters, 6-5 vs Valencia in the Semi then a drubbing of Atletico 3-0 in the final, they went down to 10 before half-time then 3-0 down finishing with 9 with a late additional red card.

I lost a 36 game all competition unbeaten run to Derby, the team who were in 20th at the time.

I spent £26 million on a guy named Hector Porra from Fiorentina and he was brilliant, could play anywhere across our front 3, 14 goals & 24 assists in 40 games. Juan Gomez my Spanish striker scored 35 goals & 16 assists in 58 competitive games. Aslan scored 29 goals & 14 assists in 48 games. 

I'm buying a new right back from United as he had a stupidly low release clause. Might sell one of my current RB's.

Got £61m in the bank, all my facilities are top of the line world class.

Not much more to do except keep winning, finding youth players and wait another 5 or so years until we can build a new stadium.

[mack]

Lmao. I arranged the usual pre-season friendlies, including one against Arsenal. There were European Championship qualifiers & the U21 & U19 Euro's in the off season, so the majority of my squad came back tired. So I gave most of them several weeks off. I do away games often because you just get a fixed appearance.

I let my assistant run friendlies, and he only picked 11 players. No subs. I don't know if he decided to just not pick any other youth player, but we had a couple of first team players, and the rest were 15 & 16 year olds, with a couple of the really awful players the game generates if you don't have anyone available.

We got beaten 15-0, Arsenal had 40 shots to our 0.

60,000 people showed up to the Emirates for that, and we got a fee of £350k.

[mack]

Haven't updated this in a while. I'm now in Season 2034/35.

We've now won:
* Last 5 Premier Leagues in a row (and will probably win it again this year to make it 6).
* Last 5 Community Shield in a row.
* 4 of the last 5 Euro Super Cup (missed 2033 by not qualifying)
* Last 5 League Cups in a row (including this season)
* 4 of the last 5 FA Cups (missed 2031 losing to Arsenal). We're into the semi-finals this year.
* 4 of the last 5 Champions Leagues (Lost 2033 to Barca)
* 4 of the last 5 Club World Cups (didn't qualify in 2033).

As a club we now have 36 trophies, 19 being top flight EPL, FA Cup, League Cup or Champions League trophies.

We're now the 3rd highest reputation club in the world, behind Barca & AC Milan. We're only the 7th most valuable club in the world though. Barca, Madrid, Milan, Bayern, Arsenal & Lyon are ahead of us. We're still a year or two away from being able to start a new stadium.

Our squad has several of the best players in the world. Our striker, Juan Manuel Gomez is only 23 years old, has scored 185 goals in 293 competitive matches. Erodogan Aslan my left wing forward has 148 from 380 games.

Currently a few of our players are retiring. My giant dutch central defender Bram Hoogendoorn is in his mid 30's and is retiring this season, having scored 127 goals from 505 games. His replacment is Robbert van Dijk, a giant dutch central defender who is 22 years old. Like for like that one.

Bobby Kirk our legendary striker, who helped get the club into the promised land is also (probably) going to retire, his contract runs out anyway, 6 years ago he suffered back to back to back injuries which destroyed his ability and he was replaced by Gomez. He's scored 331 goals from 593 competitive games for us.

I did just lose an invincible run though, so now I feel like Graham Arnold Lost to Watford 1-0 in a Premier League game, they scored in about 12 seconds and our team couldn't hit the damn target to equalise in 90 minutes.

[mack]

I just got Holgered by Spain.

After easily qualifying for the European Championship, I selected a youth based team to get some experiences in a couple friendlies. I let my assistant run friendlies. We lost to Slovenia 4-1.

And I get sacked.

France have an open spot. Might apply for them.

[mack]

Finally we're getting our new stadium. Will have 60,000 capacity (from 27k), is named after me and has undersoil heating. No roof, which makes me believe it might have a decent expansion capacity. Will be ready in 2 years.

[JackDoff]

31 minutes ago, mack said:

Finally we're getting our new stadium. Will have 60,000 capacity (from 27k), is named after me and has undersoil heating. No roof, which makes me believe it might have a decent expansion capacity. Will be ready in 2 years.

Cool!  "Mack Stadium" 

 

[mack]

Park actually. I believe the first stadium a club buys in-game always gets named after the team, like mine being FC United Stadium, then the next one gets named after someone from the Legends section of the Club information page. Blackpool bought a new stadium in my game early on, if they build another it might get called Stanley Matthews Park.

[JackDoff]

28 minutes ago, mack said:

Park actually. I believe the first stadium a club buys in-game always gets named after the team, like mine being FC United Stadium, then the next one gets named after someone from the Legends section of the Club information page. Blackpool bought a new stadium in my game early on, if they build another it might get called Stanley Matthews Park.

"JackDoff Park"  

[mack]

I've since played to the end of 2038/39.

I did end up going to the 2038 World Cup with France after a very slow start to the qualifiers, we got into gear and finished first in the group. I took what I thought was a strong squad, which included my two central defenders, my goalkeeper, right winger & striker. We finished 1st in the group with Bulgaria then Costa Rica & Ivory Coast, but Germany who were the best team in the world going into it, only finished 2nd in their group and of course we drew them. And got demolished 4-0. So there goes that.

The new stadium opened, and after this season it will get another 5k seats to push it up to a 65,000 capacity. Very helpful.

But I finally did it. I managed a full invincible season in the league, domestic cups and the Champions League to win another Quadreble. We only drew two games all season, both of which were in the Champions League during the knockout rounds. The first in the 2nd leg against PSG after winning the first leg 5-0, and the second in the first leg against Arsenal after we went down to 10 men. Obviously I still won the tie so I'm counting that as a perfect season.

My previous gun striker Juan Gomez took a backseat to my French striker Yoan James, who I had been using off the bench but this season Gomez tore his hamstring a couple weeks into the campaign and James stepped up scoring 49 goals across all competitions. Erogdan Aslan my Ronaldoesque left winger top scored with 26 league goals & 39 all up with the best season of his career at age 31. He's now won the Ballon D'or 6 times.

The club has now won 57 trophies in total, with 34 being the EPL (10), League Cup (9), FA Cup (8) or Champions League (7).

Fixture List:

Spoiler

League Table. Compared to current EPL records that is 8 more wins than the record, 19 points more than the record, 19 more goals, +30 goal difference on the record.

[mack]

I've been playing a new save in Scotland for a while now, aiming to take Montrose from the bottom of the Scottish Pyramid (4th tier) up to the Scottish Premier League. So far so good, we're in 2nd division and have finished 3rd the last 3 years in a row, but this time and we might be getting promoted this year to the big boy league. I've also won my first cup for the club, winning the Scottish League Challenge Cup (knock out cup with the 2nd, 3rd & 4th division teams) with a 2-1 win over Partick Thistle! 

[mack]

7 hours ago, mack said:

but this time and we might be getting promoted this year to the big boy league

And done.

 

[mack]

Last game of the league season, throw in your second team and kids so you don't lose any more first team players to injury before the cup final (lost my two attacking midfielders and a bench left winger ffs) and this happens.

The 12 game goalfest broke the highest scoring game in the league (beating a 5-4 game we played 3 years previously), our club record most combined goals in a game (beating a 5-5 cup draw).

Only a few months ago my starting striker broke the goals in a game record by being the first Montrose player to score four in a match, and in mere months that has been broken by Bryant, who is on the transfer list and rotting in the reserves because he sooked about not having enough game-time. 

First ever 10.0 match rating in this game as well. Probably could have got 6 if he'd taken the penalty in the 60th.

Now have a Scottish Cup final vs Rangers without my starting attacking midfield. 

edit - Rangers score in the first minute from a corner. Lol. And again in the 7th minute. And a 3rd in the 14th. Sigh. And a 4th in 37th. Probably should have had our central defender sent off for the tackle that gave away the foul they scored the free kick of. Grf. Game over. We got a goal back but they scored 2 more. It's 6-1 after 70. And 7-1 in the 72nd. They are trying to break our record.

7-1. We qualify for the Europa League though 

[mack]

Finished 5th in the second year. No more trophies. 

in pre-season now, played Liverpool in a friendly. Here's their manager.

Sounds familiar.

[StringerBellend]

Anyone tried for a derby against your biggest rival

- play your current International right back at right wing

- leave your best left back on the bench

- leave your top scorer on the bench and start a kid that hasn’t played all season 

- play one defensive midfielder make sure he’s a teenager who is making his debut

......

how did it go? 

[mack]

Well my rival team are in the 3rd tier and we've just qualified for the Champions League so it'll probably go well.

[mack]

Europa League 2nd knockout round.

[mack]

And now 10 years later I finally won the Champions League.

[Prydzopolis]

 

[andypk]

I can't believe I've never found this thread before!

I've been playing FM since Championship Manager and it would be my favourite pc game.

Keep the updates coming Mack. Good work.

[mack]

After completing that challenge and taking some time off I've started a new game as Oviedo in the Spanish 3rd tier. Halfway through the 3rd season after two midtable seasons. Put together a decent squad. We should have a crack at promotion.

I drew Real Madrid in the 5th round of the Spanish Cup. Which is a two legged tie. The first leg away finished 3-2 to Madrid, although we had chances. The 2nd leg was ridiculous, we pumped them 4-0.  Scored early to give us the lead on away goals from a nicely worked throw-in & cross, and then setup to counter and they couldn't get past us, and the second half we hammered them on the break twice times with the fourth from a corner. Ole Jose wasn't happy about that. And since there appears to be a revenue share deal on the matches, we made £2 million just on the gate receipts which doubled our bank balance.

[mack]

Well I've finished the 3rd season.

I won the league (Spain's 3rd tier is setup into 4 regional divisions), and then won both of the play-offs. The 2nd one was a crazy comeback, we were 4-0 down in the 70th minute, but pulled two goals back in the last 10 minutes to finish 4-2, and pumped the opposition (Elche) 5-1 in the home leg, winning 7-5 on aggregate.

The players have gone on holiday, and I still don't know if I've actually been promoted. There's no news item, no messages, no "P" on the league table. Nothing.

Edit - Yay. Finally confirmed. Looks like the game was bugged to not give you the promoted message.