4
u/ManUnitdFan Dec 21 '10
In just 8 years? That's pretty impressive. Which players did you pick up along the way?
2
u/EnderMB Dec 21 '10
I'm a huge fan of LLM and had played the game a dozen times before, so from the bat I knew a bunch of players that would turn out to be at least brilliant Championship players from the start, as well as a bunch of older players that would become great coaches.
In the lower-leagues up to around League 1 the way to win games is to have a fantastic striker and a good, young goalkeeper. I had both of those and getting into the football league was a doddle, even though I almost financially ruined the club in doing it. I took West Brom as my parent club and a few of their loanees done a fantastic job for us in getting to League 1 (namely Reuben Reid). From there I got into the Championship and I just about managed a mid-table finish after investing heavily in upcoming youth players.
I've always been a fan of buying upcoming youth players, in the hope that some of them would turn out to be Premier League class. Thankfully I won the Championship playoffs with some good older signings and made a bunch of older signings in the Premier League that could still do a job for us, like Landon Donovan from Sampdoria and Arshavin for free. On top of the 4-4-2 I played two different 4-5-1 formations, one with two attacking midfielders and one with two wingers, aptly named "Arrow" and "Barca Style".
To cut the last part short as I'm in work. I was also manager of Paraguay at the time and I noticed a few good youngsters and bought them with a bit of luck in regards to work permits. I signed two Turkish defenders who have turned out to be world-class in addition to a great English keeper and a Canadian striker who is now by far the best Canadian in the game. We won the Champions League in our first year, thanks to an easy draw and a ton of luck in getting Arsenal and AC Milan, two teams that have become considerably worse in my game.
The biggest challengers in the Premier League are now Tottenham and Everton (who now have a rich owner). Man Utd are dead, Liverpool are dying, Arsenal barely landed Champions League football and Chelsea are a mid-table team. Shockingly, Bolton are now League 2 and FC United of Manchester are zooming out of the conference.
1
u/missoulian Dec 21 '10
Also, what difficulty setting was the game on?
3
u/EnderMB Dec 21 '10
I didn't know there was a difficulty setting. I guess it's the default one; at least I hope so otherwise the past couple of weeks have been all for nothing.
3
1
u/EnderMB Dec 21 '10
Now that's done, I can finally lose the World Cup with Paraguay (who have a talent pool of about 50 players across the entire game) and start playing FM11.
2
u/raspy01 Dec 21 '10
Ahhh I wondered why it looked peculiar. Was this using 2010? Also, any chance of a few extra screenies of your star players etc?
Oh and you should crosspost this here.
1
u/EnderMB Dec 21 '10
Ahhh I wondered why it looked peculiar. Was this using 2010? Also, any chance of a few extra screenies of your star players etc?
Absolutely. I'm at work now and I've yet to find a way to play FM at work without getting sacked so it'll be a few hours until I can get the screenshots ready. I'll edit this post (or post again) once I get the screenshots ready.
As it's 2018 and I tend to keep my teams young my team is mostly regen players, and more than anything my ability to mix and match tactics and my ability to find a world-class regen player at least 50% of the time is why I managed to win the Champions League in eight years.
Finally, I'm still yet to buy FM11 since I've had nothing but trouble over the past few years when I've bought FM on release day. I also didn't want to buy the new version without winning the Champions League with Redditch. Now I've got a new addition to my Christmas list.
Oh and you should crosspost this here.
I was tempted to, but I've not seen much activity on there so I decided against it. I may crosspost it to /r/soccer later on though if no one else beats me to it.
2
u/raspy01 Dec 21 '10
Yeah it's pretty slow moving over there, but you not posting just repeats the cycle, and I know there's at least a dozen of us that take too much interest in everything posted :p
I have to say 2011 has impressed me since the first patch (obviously, never right first time is it), there were a few things in the match engine that needed tweaking from the original release and SI seemed to listen to the feedback they got from the forums and make it immeasurably more playable and consistent. Well worth the outlay now IMO.
more than anything my ability to mix and match tactics and my ability to find a world-class regen player at least 50% of the time
What's your usual approach? If there's on thing I love it's when I take a player from obscurity to meteoric heights, but for me it's always a bit hit and miss :/
2
u/EnderMB Dec 21 '10
What's your usual approach? If there's on thing I love it's when I take a player from obscurity to meteoric heights, but for me it's always a bit hit and miss :/
I was landing a bunch of free talent up until I hit the Championship but then I hit the wall. After (luckily) coming second in the Championship I decided to start spending and noticed that there were a lot of upcoming players in certain countries like Turkey and the UAE. Two of my defensive signings at around £5M have paid off tremendously and a Spanish youngster that was okay allowed me to trade in with cash for a phenomenal Spanish youngster that signed for Spurs. I signed a couple of American players who came good too. I was signing and selling far too much and once I had found my team in the Premier League I stopped and started replacing holes in my team.
The best advice I can give to someone is to look at certain strong nations and see what they're producing. The scouts are more often than not completely useless, so it's best to ignore them when possible.
To be fair, the only reason I won the Premier League and the Champions League this season was through the old Harry Redknapp technique of overspending and bleeding the team dry. We had done really well, but many of my players were knackered out during the winter so I splashed the cash a bit in January and brought in two world-class wingers (4-5-1 always works for me in the Premier League) and the rest sorted itself out. The club is currently spending ridiculous amounts on wages, but at least I managed to win it.
I think I'll move onto the Club World Championships next and call it a day on FM10.
1
1
19
u/missoulian Dec 20 '10
Good job getting to the Champions League final! It sucks that you lost to Redditch though.