Football Manager - Your Career

[JaseTheVillain]

Ok, it's growing on me... Started unemployed, no coaching license, sunday league footballer. Somehow blagged the Grimsby job after being turned down by the likes of Hyde, Forest Green, etc... They were sat in 15th and wanted me to get playoffs and reach the quarter final of the FA Trophy. Didn't manage the latter at all, going on at the first time of asking to Cambridge City. Playoffs, however, were achieved, finishing 4th.

In the semi finals, we face 3rd placed Bristol Rovers, a nice comfortable 2-0 win, which should have been even more comfortable considering we missed 2 penalites!! This was followed up by visiting Bristol, and going 2-0 down within half hour. I made 3 changes on around the 60th minute mark, and they paid off as we fought back to draw 2-2. 4-2 on aggregate, all good.

Next up came Barnet in the final, having ran away with the league along with Gateshead, there is no doubt who deserved to go up, but I really couldn't give a shit who deserves to get promoted, as it is, it comes down to this final game of the season.

I'll definitely take that, after as you can see in the previous post about my two broken legs, they happened to hit two of my best players!

This man is a fucking legend, had 4 in 20 or something soft when I took over...

Got us promoted basically on his own, fucking legend!

Now to attempting to survive in League 2. I am doing a career game, but considering I don't even have my National C qualification yet, I think I'll be waiting a while for a good offer!

 

[Luke Imp]

68 unlucky - 67 without losing!

 

[Luke Imp]

ALL HAIL DOMENICO BERARDI!!!!! 450 up!

 

[Harrier94]

I started on FM14 as unemployed with all the leagues down to the regional leagues and went on holiday for 2 months to see what jobs would be available. After being turned down by a few awful teams I eventually got a job with Farsley who were sitting 17th in the Northern Premier Division 1 North. Their expectation were to get playoffs but they were already over their wage budget meaning I couldn't do much business, thankfully they had a good enough squad but I realised as I joined they had no wingers with plenty of CB's and CM's so I had to use a formation i've never really used the 5-3-2. So my first game was again Clitheroe on the 1st October which I won 3-0 then the following few games followed a repeating pattern win 2 lose 1.

So after those six games of a repeating pattern I went on a 5 game winning streak which pushed me up the table. Then a key result happened Iost 4-3 to Mossley, this then lead to me focusing on my defence and going 12 games without conceding with 9 wins and 3 draws

That was until my 1-0 loss to Radcliffe Boro, that run also put me in a 2 horse race with Darlington for the title. With both of us dropping points occasionally. And going into the final game we were both level on points I held the top spot because of superior goal difference. As you can see from the above picture I beat Northwich 1-0 meaning I won the title with Darlo losing their last game. But they deserved their promotion via the playoffs.

My star man for the season was Adam Priestley

Who scored 23 goals with 10 assists in 34 games (4 off the bench). He even got a couple of call ups to the Gibraltar squad.

These are my transfers from my first season; the only ones I could bring in were loans and they were just back ups for
injuries.

But i'm one game into my second season which happened to be against Darlo which I won 3-0 and this is the transfers and my pre season.

 

[mente captus]

kepp me/us posted

 

[smat]

What's the Northern Premier Premier?!

 

[Harrier94]

kepp me/us posted

Will do

What's the Northern Premier Premier?!

It's step 3 of the nonleague level and level 7 of the whole league system. So it's the same level as the Isthmian and the Southern Leagues meaning if get promotion I'll be in the Conference North/South level

 

[hodge]

ALL HAIL DOMENICO BERARDI!!!!! 450 up!

View attachment 1984

I'd signed him for Utd before I saw this, think he scored a couple for me against Liverpool

 

[hodge]

Done 2 seasons since last update (so entering 4th season now)

2nd season I was on the verge of being sacked, went out of champions league in the group stage and then knocked out in the first knockout round of the Europa, finished 2nd in the league. After signings Stones, Kane, Ward-Prowse etc I then managed to sign Marco Reus as well. Moving into the 3rd season I signed Gotze, Marquinhos and Alaba (Berardi in Jan) finished 3rd in the league, ran out of steam with 2-3 games to go when there was 1 point between the top 3. Knocked out in 1/4 finals of CL by Real Madrid. Harry Kane and Marco Reus claimed all the awards, Reus player of the year, Kane players player and top scorer, Reus with 21 goals and 14 assists and Kane with 24 goals and 19 assists.

Signings this summer have been Aymeric Laporte and Gareth Bale (I'm also Wales manager now) with money to spend on either a CM or ST as Rooney had a poor season and spent most of it on the bench.

Squad now now looks like this in 4231 with first choice listed first

GK: De Gea (constant requests to join Real) /Butland
RB: Darmian
CB: Stones/Marquinhos/Jones
CB: Hummels/Laporte
LB: Alaba/Shaw
CM: Schneiderlin
CM: Isco/Schweinsteiger/War-Prowse
LW: Reus/Memphis/Cheryshev
CAM: Gotze
RW: Bale/Berardi/Vela
ST: Kane/Rooney

 

[Luke Imp]

I'd signed him for Utd before I saw this, think he scored a couple for me against Liverpool

I tried to sign him at the beginning of the game but Sassuolo wanted £45m. Then he signed for Juventus for £2.5m or something daft (that's one of those things that annoys me on the game. You get a bid rejected then someone else signs them for a fraction of it). Ended up spending £25m on him only a year after he had signed for Juventus.

He's 33/34. His stats aren't anything like they used to be (finishing 16 now) but he's still banging them in. He was out of contract at the end of the current season but I've just given him another year. Also gives me time to train/find some younger strikers.

 

[hodge]

He signed for AC Milan on my file for £25m then I signed him 2 seasons later for £28m

 

[Harrier94]

Not got very far into my second season but just played this game.

Firstly Stafford set up in a what I think was a 3-4-2-1 formation with 3 centre backs, 2 wingbacks and defensive mids, 2 centre mids and a striker. Then they managed to collect 3 red cards. I've never played such an odd game before.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Anyone ever had a game abandoned due to red cards? Never happened to me, just wondering if it's possible.

 

[mente captus]

Anyone ever had a game abandoned due to red cards? Never happened to me, just wondering if it's possible.

i saw this a few FMs ago, game was not abandoned and they finished with 6 players on the pitch

 

[hodge]

Memphis just scored for me what I think is the first double hattrick I've had on a FM game.

 

[Techno Natch]

After leaving the Sheffield Wednesday job no interesting positions came up, then I was offered the Spain job which I accepted half hardheartedly. I didn't take it very seriously at first as I wasn't sure I could be bothered, Spain had just failed to get out the group stages in Euro 2020 and I didn't have the Spanish league loaded.

Half way through qualification I started to get to grips with the squad and other players that were out there. As this will be my last game I figured I might as well carry on with this rather than starting something from scratch. I dropped most of the older players that were hanging around the squad.

Got to the World cup with ease. We were given a world cup group of Angola, Brazil and South Korea, I had lost against Italy and England in friendlies and I wasn't sure my 4-1-2-1-2 with attacking wing backs would really work.

We started strongly against Angola, then beat a 10 man Brazil 1-0 and brushed aside Angola to finish the group with 9 points. We then knocked out Serbia comfortably 2-0 but still hadn't played anyone worthwhile.

We face Germany next and trounced them 4-0. We then faced off against my native England. We were 3-1 down with 20 minutes to go but late goals from Isco drew us level. We then knocked them out on penalties, some things never change for England and I'm not sure I can ever go back. We then had Croatia who had got to the Euro finals last year so were no push overs, we dominated the game but it went to extra time, I was waiting for a famous football manager sucker punch but then 33 year old sub Diego Costa popped up with late winner. Probably his last action in a Spain shirt and what a way to go out.

Pretty happy with that although I know winning a world cup with Spain isn't a huge achievement. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought, probably because it's so long since I played with decent players and when I took over I thought we'd do shit. Nice way to close FM 2014..

 

[yellow]

Good stuff, Natch. I feel like I could have had a similar sort of ending, although surprising if I won the World Cup too.

I left Swansea in 2029 after consecutive third place finishes, an FA Cup win (2028) and a Europa League runners up medal (2028). I joined Barcelona and was 3rd in January 2030, but miles off the front two of Madrid and Sevilla. I progressed to the knockout stages of the EL, where I had won comfortably in the first leg away at Gladbach. Unfortunately my game crashed after 5 wins in a row, and I lost motivation to redo them all. Annoying really as I had the 2030 World Cup on the horizon with England, where we had won 10/10 in qualifying.

Would have been a nice ending to one of my best careers I've had on FM..

2014/15 - Unemployed, take over Wrexham in November, lose two of my first three then go unbeaten from then, winning the league on the final day. Won Vanarama Conference
15/16 - midtable L2, lost to Chelsea away in the FA Cup.
16/17 - resigned after an 8-0 home defeat to Blackpool.
2017 - took over as Torquay boss in Conference and avoided relegation.
17/18 - mid table with Torquay. Left in the summer.
18/19 - Took over at Cheltenham, but left after 12 matches.
2019 - back to Wrexham for 6 months in League 2, missed out on the playoffs on the final day.
2019 - Joined Blackpool in the summer.
19/20 - Won League Two
20/21 - midtable in L1
21/22 - Won League One
22/23 - Left the club bottom of the Championship after 11 matches. Joined QPR in November, sat in mid table.
Summer 2023 - Sacked by QPR for applying for Swansea job.
December 2023/24 - Take over at Swansea, keep them in the PL.
24/25 - Finish around 15th in the PL.
25/26 - Finish 9th after a good year of progress, just missing the EL spots by a matter of points.
26/27 - Finish 6th in the League, ensuring European football.
27/28 - Finish 3rd in the League. FA Cup Winners. Reach Europa League final but succumb to Schalke 3-1. [Also had a crazy QF match against Ajax: won 4-0 at the Liberty Stadium, thought it was simple. Went 1-0 up at their place, before conceding 5. Safe to say the last few minutes were sketchy as hell!]. Also take England job.
28/29 - Finish 3rd again. Go out in CL knockout stages.
29/30 - Leave Swansea to join Barcelona.

All in all, a really enjoyable career. Feel a tad disappointed to have left it where it is, but I won't be able to reach the World Cup in time now as I don't get much time to play at the minute

 

[Techno Natch]

Nice career that! I found it really hard to push Sheffield Wednesday on in the Premiership, we finished 10th in our first season and then around that two years in a row and I lost interest a bit which is a shame. I was tempted to start a non league project but think I'll wait for the new one now.

 

[hodge]

Why is it I always have my best save of the year just as the new one comes out

4th season now with United and bossing the premier league with my United side atm, I started with 11 wins on the bounce then lost to City, slowed down a tad on 20 games atm and 49 points after losing to Watford and my first draw coming in the 20th game against Bournemouth. Been knocked out of the Champions League in the group stage again though, had Bayern and Porto in my group, lost and drew against Porto. Got Galatasary in the knockout round.

I also took over the Welsh manager role a while ago and finished 2nd in my group in the World Cup qualifying, 1 point behind Croatia who are 10th in the world. Then drew Portugal in the play off, easily the best team in there. Lost at home 4-2 at home, but then managing to win 4-1 away to put me through the world cup where I've drawn Brazil, Turkey and Qatar, confident of beating Turkey so should hopefully progress. Scored the 3rd most in qualifying.

 

[hodge]

Just noticed on my United file on 15 that Zidane is managing Charlton.....

 

[Luke Imp]

I think the end of this season will be it for Berradi. Stats dropping to 14/15 now.

 

[hodge]

I sold Berrardi, wasn't great for me, sold him for £20m plus so I lost about £5m on him. Brought in Fede Cartabia for £20m from Valencia, in his first 6 games he's scored 7 goals and got 1 assist from the wing, Bale could struggle to get back into the team at this rate

27 games in the league and I've won 22 (1 draw, 4 losses) and I have a 12 point league over 2nd and I've scored 88 goals, next highest is 57. I'd need to score 41 in 11 to break Villa's 80 year old record.

 

[hodge]

Oh Premier League and Europa League can do one, played away to Galatasaray Thursday then had the early kick off on Saturday against Man City.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Ok, it's growing on me... Started unemployed, no coaching license, sunday league footballer. Somehow blagged the Grimsby job after being turned down by the likes of Hyde, Forest Green, etc... They were sat in 15th and wanted me to get playoffs and reach the quarter final of the FA Trophy. Didn't manage the latter at all, going on at the first time of asking to Cambridge City. Playoffs, however, were achieved, finishing 4th.

In the semi finals, we face 3rd placed Bristol Rovers, a nice comfortable 2-0 win, which should have been even more comfortable considering we missed 2 penalites!! This was followed up by visiting Bristol, and going 2-0 down within half hour. I made 3 changes on around the 60th minute mark, and they paid off as we fought back to draw 2-2. 4-2 on aggregate, all good.

Next up came Barnet in the final, having ran away with the league along with Gateshead, there is no doubt who deserved to go up, but I really couldn't give a shit who deserves to get promoted, as it is, it comes down to this final game of the season.


View attachment 1967

I'll definitely take that, after as you can see in the previous post about my two broken legs, they happened to hit two of my best players!

This man is a fucking legend, had 4 in 20 or something soft when I took over...

View attachment 1968

Got us promoted basically on his own, fucking legend!

Now to attempting to survive in League 2. I am doing a career game, but considering I don't even have my National C qualification yet, I think I'll be waiting a while for a good offer!

To follow from this, we started in League 2 quite shite to be honest, W1 D8 L2, went out of the paint pot 5-2 to Notts County at home, after having a bye, went out of the League Cup to Birmingham 3-1 away after beating Blackpool on penalties following a 1-1 draw. Following this, I got offered to resign for applying for the Doncaster job (bottom of L1) and after this applying for the Stevenage job, I took this offer and then applied for the Crewe and Watford (was dreaming, but worth a go) jobs. Stevenage rejected me, but Crewe decided they wanted to take me on, so after being unemployed for a whole 12 days, I took over as Crewe manager, who, after relegation, were sitting in 16th in L2. So far I have only played one game, and won against bottom of the table Stevenage 1-0. In other news, since I've left, Grimsby have lost 2 and drawn 1, I was on a 7 game unbeaten run with them before I left, albeit 7 draws! (3 0-0 and 4 1-1)

My Crewe side is far superior to my Grimsby side, even though they're spending ~£10k per week less on players! Board expect playoffs, currently 13th, 7 points off third and only 13 off top, so I don't see why we can't get automatic, we don't tell the board that, mind you!

 

[hodge]

Ended up winning the league at a stroll with Utd, 11 point lead on 91 points with 115 goals scored.

World Cup with Wales, my group of Turkey, Qatar and Brazil. Won the first two comfortably meaning I was already through to the next round, however Brazil would determine whether I got Costa Rica or Belgium, well a second half penalty and pretty much a force field in front of my goal saw Wales sneak a 1-0 win meaning I got Costa Rica in the 2nd round. With 15 minutes to go and 2-0 up all looked comfortable, cue to the conceding of 2 goals in quick succession and extra time, luckily Bale grabbed another and won without needing penalties. Quarter Final, opponents South Korea (would have been Italy if I had finished 2nd in the group and beaten Belgium), however no need to worry and a 3-1 win... Onto the Semi Final, win and I face Colombia in the final, lose and a rematch against Brazil beckoned, in the way Germany. Germany rampant for the entire game while I try and have Wales play on the counter, however Germany score with 10 minutes to go to win 1-0. Brazil it is, no competition here, Brazil dominated and got revenge with a 3-0 win. James Chester in team of the tournament. Ashley Williams, Ben Davies and Gareth Bale named amongst the subs. And the fallout from the tournament saw Wales move from a word ranking of 29th to 9th, 1 place above England.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

To follow from this, we started in League 2 quite shite to be honest, W1 D8 L2, went out of the paint pot 5-2 to Notts County at home, after having a bye, went out of the League Cup to Birmingham 3-1 away after beating Blackpool on penalties following a 1-1 draw. Following this, I got offered to resign for applying for the Doncaster job (bottom of L1) and after this applying for the Stevenage job, I took this offer and then applied for the Crewe and Watford (was dreaming, but worth a go) jobs. Stevenage rejected me, but Crewe decided they wanted to take me on, so after being unemployed for a whole 12 days, I took over as Crewe manager, who, after relegation, were sitting in 16th in L2. So far I have only played one game, and won against bottom of the table Stevenage 1-0. In other news, since I've left, Grimsby have lost 2 and drawn 1, I was on a 7 game unbeaten run with them before I left, albeit 7 draws! (3 0-0 and 4 1-1)

My Crewe side is far superior to my Grimsby side, even though they're spending ~£10k per week less on players! Board expect playoffs, currently 13th, 7 points off third and only 13 off top, so I don't see why we can't get automatic, we don't tell the board that, mind you!

Promotion achieved! Was very nearly sacked in January (constant board meetings, media speculation etc) before I went on a ridiculous unbeaten run of 18 games W13 D5 resulting in us propelling ourselves from 13th to 2nd! Lost the last game of the season, not that it mattered though considering we were already promoted and 2nd was secured.

Onto League 1! For the record, Daggenham & Redbridge finished bottom.

League 1 is going to be fun though, as most of my players are refusing to sign new contracts due to relegation last season, I came in and they were all pissed off already which was fun. None of them seem to give a fuck that we're promoted, either way, fuck them, there's a lot of good players who's contracts are running out who I can snare anyway.

 

[Luke Imp]

I've just spent the summer transfer window buying a handful of 'wonderkids' so that I can have them as home-grown and then I realised there was no point because I'm going to move onto FM16!

Now at that stage where interest in the game is lost knowing the new one is only a couple of weeks away.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

See, I won't be purchasing 16 until the January update is out most likely and all of the bugs are ironed out. I'll have me some fun with this save I reckon. Thing is, I'm not that fussed about wrecking a club financially if I can get away with it, as I want to get myself to the top of the game, I'm trying to move up through my career as and when I can rather than building one club from the bottom.

 

[JJH]

Started my first save on FM16 a few days ago, as I got it on Friday. I usually start with City - just to learn the ropes and get used to all the new features, but I again fancied a challenge. I had a lot of joy on FM15 with my Barnet save, where I built them from the bottom and ended up at the top after a number of years, so I looked to start one with a near equivalent this year - and ended up with Tranmere. Admittedly - they weren't predicted to finish 1st and aren't doing as well as Barnet were in real life last season, but they're a side of similar calibre and have a big stature in that league.

As for the squad - when I first took over it was pretty bleak and average, couple of individuals that stand out, but apart from that mainly just cram-packed with youngsters to make up the numbers. I didn't offload anyone (barring one, I think) - but I adjusted the squads quite a bit. The majority of the youngsters in and around the first team I moved back down to the U21's, and I employed a new head of recruitment and new backroom staff for both the U21's and U18's, to make sure they don't just go stale down there. After this stage - my squad was looking pretty thin, and with the limited finances I was given and the un-stability at the club, I opted to go for loans rather than permanent signings. The spine of my side was where I targeted, particularly in central midfield as I was going to play 3 midfielders, and there were barely 3 midfielders at the club.

Couple of decent names there - Jorge Grant being my favourite player that is available to loan in this division, and at the third time of asking I convinced him to sign. Fewster was good up until injury, but is slowly making a return to fitness, and the centre half from Reading is superb, but has suffered a spell on the sidelines also to injury.

As for results - I'm top of the league without really playing that well. Nothing clicked until the last game in which I blew away Aldershot within 25 minutes, but that's the closest I've came to reaching this squads potential to date. I've been alternating between a 4-3-3 and a 4-1-2-3 depending on the opposition, and whether I'm home and away etc, as having that one infront of the back four has stabilized me.

Only lost once all season as you can see, but I'm pretty sure my luck will run out soon. Having said that - there are some truly terrible teams in this league.

I'll leave you with the league table:

 

[SaddlerJonny]

Did the "Savior Cometh" challenge with Orient, stayed up rather easily. Went onto the 2nd season and we bossed it and were top until November where we hit a 5 game winless streak, squad was far, far too good for the division so that was frustrating. Had an offer come in for me from Ipswich and went there in December. They were in 19th place, but still had a decent squad. I settled the squad and tactics and brought in Bertrand Traore on loan from Chelsea as the only addition. Ended up finishing 7th, losing out on play offs on goal difference. Would of gone up to the play offs but Huddersfield had a player called Booty that chipped Dean Gerken from the halfway life to make it 2-2.

Just started the 2nd season with Ipswich, during the summer I remodeled central midfield by bringing in a more industrious and younger midfield in Matty James who Leicester were flogging for cheap at £170k - selling Cole Skuse in the process for £1.2 who really underperformed for me. Brought in a top class goalie in Guillermo Sara for £175k as well as Louis Lang who left Aberdeen on a free and Matty Jarvis who was a free agent. Lots more strength in depth in that team, so I am hoping we can be firm play off favourites. Played 1 game so far where we beat newly relegated Leicester 2-0 - they still have Mahrez, Vardy, Okazaki, Inler and Vardy too!

Fucked up both new seasons though with Orient and Leicester though, I keep forgetting to organise friendlies because of the gamemode (touch?) that doing a challenge makes you do, which has it so you can't delegate responsibilities. So thus I started both seasons without a pre season, fucking great that...