***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[rsnomar05]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Ugh. I drew Bayern Munich in the round of 16:

[The GIGGAS]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

My USASA game with Club Lents is going swimmingly. I pretty much exceeded expectations of a mid-table finish by getting myself into the USASA Northwest Championship game (which I lost to the Vancouver Thunderbirds, grr) and got promoted into the single A league (don't know what it's called off the top of my head).

I've been playing well there too. I don't know how many games I've played in season 2, but I'm at the top of the table to get promoted again, which is another exceeding of expectations. I'm wondering when the brick wall will hit.

I've also been mentioned a lot for other openings, but I've been playing it cool in the little media the lower levels get, and not applying for jobs.

[NoDakHusker]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Started my managerial career at Grindavik in Iceland's second tier. Basically everyone on my team have long names and the last names all end in -sson. Time to give these guys some nicknames.

I just finished up an interesting cup match against league foe, Prottur Reykjavik. I rested a few key players for this one, as the league is a priority to the board over cup success. I don't really have the luxury of depth at each position, though I did raid the youth team for a few guys to see what they could do in an early round of cup action.

First half was negligible, 0-0. Then, I suffer two injuries in a period between the 53rd and 56th minutes that need subs. 74th minute, I use my last sub to put some fresh legs on the attack. We have hope, I think to myself.
Not even 2 minutes pass and my keeper gets injured with a twisted knee. He's down to playing at 50%. I have no more subs, so he has to play. FM'ed.

Match was scoreless, I was thinking this is going to extra time. Not good, until the 87th minute when we finally get a breakthrough! My 18 year old AM Olaf Olafsson fires a screamer from 25 yards out. I put my team on defensive immediately. I had the win. It was glorious...until FM decides I can't have nice things. 88th minute equalizer by my opponent. My poor, gimpy keeper never had a chance. FM'ed again.

Extra time. My team is wasted. My keeper is injured. Defenders: might as well be dead.
96th minute, it happens. A free kick just outside the box hits the cross bar and lands at the feet of one of my strikers. He puts it away without a problem. 2-1 to Grindavik. Faith in FM: restored.

Holding on to the lead, withstanding corners and quite an onslaught by PR, my defense stands tall and somehow my keeper manages a few saves. We got this. This is match is ours.
In the 110th minute, a beautiful through ball finds our third goal scorer of the day. 3-1. Relief.

We hold on for a 3-2 victory, they'd score one back in the 115th. My keeper is out for 4-5 weeks now. He did well considering he was playing on a bad knee for ~50 minutes. Though I certainly didn't want to go to penalties with my keeper in that shape. It never came to penalties, thankfully.
All that for a third round cup win, but a weak start to the league season has me happy the team pulled out the win - especially with several 18-19 year-olds performing surprisingly well. We got a nice morale boost from this win. I'm hoping to carry that into better league performances.

This probably is a rather insignificant match in the grand scheme of things, but I don't care. My keeper was a trooper.

[rsnomar05]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I beat Cesena to advance past the 1st round of the Tim Cup with my B squad:

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

for the first time, i complained to the press about my budgets, and the atalanta board succumbed to my request. i was able to sign a few transfer-listed folks as a part of the second team, which will help since I qualified for Europe.

[Joshua1207]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

for the first time, i complained to the press about my budgets, and the atalanta board succumbed to my request. i was able to sign a few transfer-listed folks as a part of the second team, which will help since I qualified for Europe.

Consider yourself lucky, anytime I complain about the board it has always resulted in getting sacked!

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Consider yourself lucky, anytime I complain about the board it has always resulted in getting sacked!

I literally just signed a huge contract extension that made my "Job Status" bar full, so I went with the ballsy route to get transfer funds.

[rsnomar05]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Crushed Sampdoria in the Tim Cup Quarterfinals. I face the winner of Fiorentina/Napoli on the road, so not an easy match up.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Home form's been OK lately.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Lost Mario for the last two months and flubbed an away match at Hull in the prior match to leave it to the last day, but we're champions! 17-2-0, 72-17 +55 at home. (Chelsea had same record and 53-8 +45 at home, but we were one of those 2 (1-1).



Squad performance



Kind of disappointing CL run, will push for a better run next year.



Would have really loved to have Mario in the FA Cup semi...



Not much activity in the transfer market this year. All these deals have future considerations other than Skrtel. (Not pictured, Kolo Toure out on a free to QPR. Saved about $70K/week in wages after having to pay him to move there)





Summer transfer targets:

New starting GK. Sell Mignolet. Brad Jones out on a free. Target Bernd Leno
New starting and backup RB. Glen Johnson out on a free. Targets are Mattia di Sciglio or Callum Chambers.
Go hard after Kevin Strootman

Likely sales - Mignolet and Lucas. Possibly Joe Allen.
Already coming in on free transfers - Sergio Romero (backup/Cup GK) Sebastian Giovinco (versatile, quality attacking depth)

Awards:
Mario Balotelli - PFA Player of the Year
Phillippe Coutinho - PFA Young Player of the Year
#3 Goal of the Season (Joe Allen vs. West Brom) YouTube upload not cooperating...
Me - Manager of the Year

Team of the Year:


Reserves:


And always fun - manager movement:



Mancini came back and saved Citeh's ***

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I just bought Jon Flanagan for 5m in my save from Pool.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Calum Chambers has agreed to a deal with us, and I've unsettled the hell out of Leno's situation at Leverkusen after the club's outrageous price demands. Bwahahaha

[NoDakHusker]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Couldn't quite get promotion to the Premier League of Iceland. Lost a match and drew 2 matches I shouldn't have in the last month and that killed it.



The board gave me another year on my contract and I have some added room on my wage bill, so I'll be doing some shopping around.
It was a fun season, though.

[The GIGGAS]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Just got promoted for the 2nd time in three seasons, first from USASA (bottom tier) to A, then this year from A to AA. Probably should have gotten promoted last year, as we made the promotion playoffs after leading most of the year, but collapsed. Went down 2-0 in the first leg of the promotion playoff final this year, then stormed back in the second leg to win 5-2.

Apparently the board thought it was "miraculous" so I've got that going for me.

And my game crashed, so we'll see if it saved after I won (I've got to save after every game I think).

EDIT:

Went from winning the promotion playoffs, then crash, then back with 2 games before the end of the season. Man, I gotta save more often.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Summer 2015 transfers. A bit more action this time around.