FM 16

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Can't make my mind up about the Greek league. Very poor quality wise but there isn't a big difference in the quality between the top and bottom teams, unless Olympiakos had a freakishly bad season as it sometimes happens with the big teams.

5 games remaining,
Myself, AEK Athens on 52 points,
PAOK on 48 points
Panithakos on 47
Olympiakos on 47

Thinking the MLS will be my next destination.

Final Standings;
AEK 62 points
Olympiakos 58 points
PAOK 55 points
Panithaikos 50 points.

Added the Greek Superleague to my huge trophy cabinet which still contains the English Premier, Irish Premier and Eridivisie titles.

I'm feeling 1 more challenge before FM17 so I'm off to America :cool:
 


Decided to start a new challenge on this - going to try and take Chorley from the Vanarama North as high as I can.

Tipped for relegation in first season, managed to finish 7th just missing out on a play off place in the last game.

Just starting second season and haven't been able to bring in any frees due to a transfer embargo as there's a potential takeover happening. My squad is looking paper thin at the minute so likely to struggle this year.
 
Decided to start a new challenge on this - going to try and take Chorley from the Vanarama North as high as I can.

Tipped for relegation in first season, managed to finish 7th just missing out on a play off place in the last game.

Just starting second season and haven't been able to bring in any frees due to a transfer embargo as there's a potential takeover happening. My squad is looking paper thin at the minute so likely to struggle this year.

Love managing at that sort of level me, you get players who look absolute crap performing class
 
I signed some random midfielder from the England Trial Day called Jamie Hinchcliffe - play him in the number 10 role and he's been brilliant. His stats are pretty dire though

What is the worst level on the game not including data files? Think I've managed in the Northern Irish third tier before, Scottish 4th tier was shocking as well. Had 2 centre forwards for Berwick whose finishing added up to about 7
 
Enjoying reading your updates like. Just picked up FM16 so about to settle into it.

Cheers mate, appreciate that. Although there are far better updates on better games in this thread (including my Parma one) if you're looking for inspiration.

3rd season complete and a 3rd title for my Basel team. Won the league with ease but failed in Europe as standard. Out in the Champions League group stages as expected, so I went into Europa League and drew Barcelona. Despite beating them 3-1 at home, I lost 4-1 away and went out. Dembele was sensational again in the league scoring 24 in 27. Managed to hold on to him this summer as well so he'll lead the line for his 3rd season. Coric and Aranguiz had cracking debut seasons but my star player was without a doubt Delgadillo. 19 goals and 15 assists got him my player of the season award. It also got him a transfer as PSG again came and stole my best player by paying the £30m release fee. I've replaced him with a guy from Braga (Rafa Silva) and brought in some cover in Lavezzi on a free. My other big signings are Will Hughes on a bosman, Jorge Mere from Sporting for £8m and Oliver from Atletico for £4.8m. I picked up a great regen from Chile to back up Dembele as well so my team is looking strong but I've got another impossible Champions League draw in season 4 - Arsenal and Barcelona. I need to progress further into the Europa League this season though, QF's as a minimum.


So season 4 is complete and here are the highlights:

League Position: Champions (87 points from 36 games, my best return yet)

The league was a breeze again. 27 wins from 36 games. The top 2 scorers in the league were both mine. Dembele scored 16 goals in just 13 starts. He was beaten though by my Chilean regen wonder kid Nelson Molina who scored 17 in 18 starts. I mention my star left wingers who seem to get stolen by PSG every summer but one player I've not mentioned is my consistent right winger, Neftali Manzambi. He's already a teenager at Basel at the start of the game so he needed a bit of nurturing but he's getting more and more consistent each season. Top assister in the league with 17 and 8 goals to add to that, has led to interest from Bayern. But he's going nowhere.

Swiss Cup: Quarter Finalists. Lost 1-0 to Young Boys. Their loan star Hicham Mastour was a thorn in my side this season being motm 3 times in our 5 meetings. I only won 1, lost 2 and drew 2.

Champions League: Quarter Finalists. Finally out of the group stages. My draw was as tough as it gets with Barcelona and Arsenal being the top 2 seeds in my group. Sparta Prague were there to make up the numbers. It started badly when I lost the home game to Sparta Prague but an unexpected 1-0 at the Emirates and a 2-1 win in the return game left me just needing to beat Sparta Prague to qualify which I managed comfortably. So my first time out of the group stage and the draw was about as kind as it could be -Leverkusen. A 1-1 home draw left me with a tough task but a heroic 2-2 at the BayArena led me through to a QF against reigning Champions Man City. I thought the dream was on when I won the home leg 1-0 and took the lead in the away game. But their quality told, and I ended up losing 5-2, (5-3 on agg).

Transfers:

My star winger from last season Delgadillo had his £30m release clause met. So I was after my 4th left winger in 4 seasons. Step forward Rafa Silva, an £11m buy from Braga. He's 26 so a little older than my usual signings but 11 goals and 12 assists was a solid return from season one.
Will Hughes was my star midfielder last season. Brought in on a bosman from Derby, he orchestrated the game from deep. He's 24 and now has a dozen England caps so he won't be staying for long. I signed 2 centre backs this summer, both for £8m. Jorge Mere from Sporting Gijon is an established player at 21 and was bought to partner Lucas. Luciano Perez was a 19 year old wonderkid from Boca to provide cover and eventually replace Lucas. In the end, Mere ended up spending half of the season on the bench as Perez stole the show. He ended up playing 31 league games and also got 7 caps for Argentina. This summer there's already big interest from Bayern and Milan. I signed 5 otter young regens, all will be in my team in the next couple of years, but the stand out one is my Brazilian left wing wonderkid Senna. For some reason he ended up out of contract in Brazil. I picked him up for free and he was good enough to move Lavezzi on to Celtic.

This next season is going to be tricky. The Swiss League has lost its automatic Champions League spot so I have to go through the qualifiers. This seems to have led to my players values dropping and interest in them increasing. I have a number of younger players who are now to old for the under 21 rule and need squad numbers. Time to play them or sell them. The final issue to deal with is the lack of quality, reachable Swiss players. Any good players get stolen by the big clubs and citizenship takes 10 years. So filling out those homegrown spots is tough. I've currently got the board working on our training facilities to develop our young players better.
 
Cheers mate, appreciate that. Although there are far better updates on better games in this thread (including my Parma one) if you're looking for inspiration.




So season 4 is complete and here are the highlights:

League Position: Champions (87 points from 36 games, my best return yet)

The league was a breeze again. 27 wins from 36 games. The top 2 scorers in the league were both mine. Dembele scored 16 goals in just 13 starts. He was beaten though by my Chilean regen wonder kid Nelson Molina who scored 17 in 18 starts. I mention my star left wingers who seem to get stolen by PSG every summer but one player I've not mentioned is my consistent right winger, Neftali Manzambi. He's already a teenager at Basel at the start of the game so he needed a bit of nurturing but he's getting more and more consistent each season. Top assister in the league with 17 and 8 goals to add to that, has led to interest from Bayern. But he's going nowhere.

Swiss Cup: Quarter Finalists. Lost 1-0 to Young Boys. Their loan star Hicham Mastour was a thorn in my side this season being motm 3 times in our 5 meetings. I only won 1, lost 2 and drew 2.

Champions League: Quarter Finalists. Finally out of the group stages. My draw was as tough as it gets with Barcelona and Arsenal being the top 2 seeds in my group. Sparta Prague were there to make up the numbers. It started badly when I lost the home game to Sparta Prague but an unexpected 1-0 at the Emirates and a 2-1 win in the return game left me just needing to beat Sparta Prague to qualify which I managed comfortably. So my first time out of the group stage and the draw was about as kind as it could be -Leverkusen. A 1-1 home draw left me with a tough task but a heroic 2-2 at the BayArena led me through to a QF against reigning Champions Man City. I thought the dream was on when I won the home leg 1-0 and took the lead in the away game. But their quality told, and I ended up losing 5-2, (5-3 on agg).

Transfers:

My star winger from last season Delgadillo had his £30m release clause met. So I was after my 4th left winger in 4 seasons. Step forward Rafa Silva, an £11m buy from Braga. He's 26 so a little older than my usual signings but 11 goals and 12 assists was a solid return from season one.
Will Hughes was my star midfielder last season. Brought in on a bosman from Derby, he orchestrated the game from deep. He's 24 and now has a dozen England caps so he won't be staying for long. I signed 2 centre backs this summer, both for £8m. Jorge Mere from Sporting Gijon is an established player at 21 and was bought to partner Lucas. Luciano Perez was a 19 year old wonderkid from Boca to provide cover and eventually replace Lucas. In the end, Mere ended up spending half of the season on the bench as Perez stole the show. He ended up playing 31 league games and also got 7 caps for Argentina. This summer there's already big interest from Bayern and Milan. I signed 5 otter young regens, all will be in my team in the next couple of years, but the stand out one is my Brazilian left wing wonderkid Senna. For some reason he ended up out of contract in Brazil. I picked him up for free and he was good enough to move Lavezzi on to Celtic.

This next season is going to be tricky. The Swiss League has lost its automatic Champions League spot so I have to go through the qualifiers. This seems to have led to my players values dropping and interest in them increasing. I have a number of younger players who are now to old for the under 21 rule and need squad numbers. Time to play them or sell them. The final issue to deal with is the lack of quality, reachable Swiss players. Any good players get stolen by the big clubs and citizenship takes 10 years. So filling out those homegrown spots is tough. I've currently got the board working on our training facilities to develop our young players better.

Sounds like it's starting to get tricky. Will be interesting to know how long you can keep dominating the league.

I'll traverse back through the thread for your Parma story, interested to read it. Gonna start in earnest on a game tonight. Thinking of starting unemployed and seeing where I can go. Stuck at work until 10pm like which is a killer.
 
Season 5 at Basel complete. I'm using my time off work very productively :lol:

I'm at an awkward stage in my career now. The league is too easy but the European competitions are too hard and my players get stolen before I can build a competitive team.

So, as usual the Transfer Market was tough for me. As I wasn't automatically in the Champions League, the big clubs were like vultures around my players and I couldn't keep them all. There were 3 big casualties. First Will Hughes demanded to leave and the offers came flooding in. I ended up getting £15m plus 40% of his next sell on. Not bad for a player who was free the season before. Then Lucas wanted to leave and with only 2 years on his contract, he wouldn't sign another. But I couldn't get back the money I paid. Juventus game me £16.5m up front plus another £5m if he plays 50 games for them. Still, I had 3 decent seasons out of him and got good money. The final one was a regen centre back in January. Andrew Walker was an American International who had been with me for 3 season but out on loan. I started to play him after Lucas left this season but Dortmund came and took him for £12m. I only bought 1 player in, a regen striker for £5m as a future Dembele replacement. I promoted from within to replace the rest of my losses.

I won the league again - 96 points from 36 games. 31 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. 100 goals scored, 29 conceded. My nearest rival finished on 55 points :lol: My top scorer was Dembele again. 22 goals in 20 games. He would be a great buy for anyone. Get him 1st season before he goes to a big club. My left winger Rafa Silva backed up Dembele with 17 goals in 23 games. These goals were provided by my phenomenal right winger Manzambi. In 29 games he managed 10 goals himself, as well as 29 assists!

The Swiss Cup remains to be a strange competition for me. Despite winning the League on 5 occasions, I've only won the cup twice. This year I was beaten in the QF's by my bogey team Young Boys.

Europe was tough again this year. I got through the Champions League Qualifiers beating the Serbian Champions and Kazakh champions 3-0 and 9-1 on aggregate to get through to the groups. But this years group was my toughest yet - Bayern, Napoli and Fenerbahce. Usually there's 1 weak side so with 2 wins in the bag, I just need to try and get an upset at home to get through. This time, all 3 teams were better than me on paper. I was competitive, only losing 2 games, but with 1 win and 3 draws I finished 3rd and ended up in the Europa League again. An early exit from that competition seemed inevitable after going down to 10 men and losing the 1st leg 3-1 to Monaco. But a 3-1 win in the return leg meant that it went to extra time and eventually penalties and I prevailed. Galatasaray were up next and disposed of 2-1 on aggregate in 2 tight games. That got me through to the QF but the competition was getting tough and I got Chelsea. In the home leg, I came from 1-0 behind to beat them 2-1 but I lost 2-0 at Stamford Bridge and my exit was assured.

It seems that the vultures are not just circulating for Basel's star players anymore, the big clubs have started to notice their exceptional manager as well. I was invited for 4 interviews this year - Napoli, Milan and Inter twice (they appointed Ronny Deila and sacked him in 3 months) all wanted my leadership at their clubs. I turned them down but I am beginning to consider my options as I might have reached my limits with this Basel side.

My current 2 favourite regens that have replaced Lucas and Hughes are below. I've had a £30m pound bid for Perez and turned it down. His release is £40m and he's not leaving until it's matched. Kristofferson is in his first full season but is running games from midfield.

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Decided to start a new challenge on this - going to try and take Chorley from the Vanarama North as high as I can.

Tipped for relegation in first season, managed to finish 7th just missing out on a play off place in the last game.

Just starting second season and haven't been able to bring in any frees due to a transfer embargo as there's a potential takeover happening. My squad is looking paper thin at the minute so likely to struggle this year.

I had a go at LLM with Nuneaton on FM15. Highest I got them to was League 2 but I gave up after a few seasons. I just don't have the patience for LLM. I'd imagine taking a club from non league all the way up to the Premier League and Champions League would be one of the most rewarding things you can do on FM though.
 
The problem with this game is managing non-English small teams and taking them upto Champions League level.

The domestic prize pools and TV money you receive aren't enough to kick you upto Champions League, you're solely dependant on the £15 million you receive for winning the Qualifying Playoff round and the £15 million also goes into your wage bill so the club simply stagnates from there. The club can progress if you get into the Knockout round of the competition but you need a non-English team who will financially fuck you over and a weak Seed #2 team to stand a chance.

I've done 7 seasons with Dundalk and 2 seasons with AEK Athens and the closest I came to was finishing 3rd with 6 points and even then when getting demoted into the Europa League you still get slapped by the big sides in there too.

Your save just becomes a stagnating thing for about 10-15 seasons until everyone retires and regens where myself, alot of posters from the start of the thread and Flash Gordon is in where you win the league with 100+ points but the season's effectively over in December when the Group Stages of the CL are over.
 
Are injurys ridiculous on anyone elses game? Its proper spoiling it for me, Ive got 24 senior players and 8 of them are injured, least that have been injured are 6 and im in December.
 
After a shaky start with Durham I stopped playing silly buggers and reverted to a solid 4-4-1-1 system with Ryan Noble as an out and out poacher...

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Worked wonders, 26 goals before the turn of the year :eek:

Problem is I don't really own anyone, we have about 11 players on loan from Darlington 1883 and a couple of other clubs and the rest are from fuck knows where.

As long as Noble stays fit (part time contracts so they don't really get training) all should be good, but it seems you have to change your whole squad every season for now.
 
Season 5 at Basel complete. I'm using my time off work very productively :lol:

I'm at an awkward stage in my career now. The league is too easy but the European competitions are too hard and my players get stolen before I can build a competitive team.

So, as usual the Transfer Market was tough for me. As I wasn't automatically in the Champions League, the big clubs were like vultures around my players and I couldn't keep them all. There were 3 big casualties. First Will Hughes demanded to leave and the offers came flooding in. I ended up getting £15m plus 40% of his next sell on. Not bad for a player who was free the season before. Then Lucas wanted to leave and with only 2 years on his contract, he wouldn't sign another. But I couldn't get back the money I paid. Juventus game me £16.5m up front plus another £5m if he plays 50 games for them. Still, I had 3 decent seasons out of him and got good money. The final one was a regen centre back in January. Andrew Walker was an American International who had been with me for 3 season but out on loan. I started to play him after Lucas left this season but Dortmund came and took him for £12m. I only bought 1 player in, a regen striker for £5m as a future Dembele replacement. I promoted from within to replace the rest of my losses.

I won the league again - 96 points from 36 games. 31 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. 100 goals scored, 29 conceded. My nearest rival finished on 55 points :lol: My top scorer was Dembele again. 22 goals in 20 games. He would be a great buy for anyone. Get him 1st season before he goes to a big club. My left winger Rafa Silva backed up Dembele with 17 goals in 23 games. These goals were provided by my phenomenal right winger Manzambi. In 29 games he managed 10 goals himself, as well as 29 assists!

The Swiss Cup remains to be a strange competition for me. Despite winning the League on 5 occasions, I've only won the cup twice. This year I was beaten in the QF's by my bogey team Young Boys.

Europe was tough again this year. I got through the Champions League Qualifiers beating the Serbian Champions and Kazakh champions 3-0 and 9-1 on aggregate to get through to the groups. But this years group was my toughest yet - Bayern, Napoli and Fenerbahce. Usually there's 1 weak side so with 2 wins in the bag, I just need to try and get an upset at home to get through. This time, all 3 teams were better than me on paper. I was competitive, only losing 2 games, but with 1 win and 3 draws I finished 3rd and ended up in the Europa League again. An early exit from that competition seemed inevitable after going down to 10 men and losing the 1st leg 3-1 to Monaco. But a 3-1 win in the return leg meant that it went to extra time and eventually penalties and I prevailed. Galatasaray were up next and disposed of 2-1 on aggregate in 2 tight games. That got me through to the QF but the competition was getting tough and I got Chelsea. In the home leg, I came from 1-0 behind to beat them 2-1 but I lost 2-0 at Stamford Bridge and my exit was assured.

It seems that the vultures are not just circulating for Basel's star players anymore, the big clubs have started to notice their exceptional manager as well. I was invited for 4 interviews this year - Napoli, Milan and Inter twice (they appointed Ronny Deila and sacked him in 3 months) all wanted my leadership at their clubs. I turned them down but I am beginning to consider my options as I might have reached my limits with this Basel side.

My current 2 favourite regens that have replaced Lucas and Hughes are below. I've had a £30m pound bid for Perez and turned it down. His release is £40m and he's not leaving until it's matched. Kristofferson is in his first full season but is running games from midfield.

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Season 6 at Basel didn't start. I was bored of the same thing and fancied a change so after a few clubs approaching me, I decided to join Bayern. They have some world class players but a very unbalanced squad, surprisingly very little money and a mammoth wage bill. I had a crappy season. Finished 2nd and got knocked out of the Champions League in the QF's by Barcelona. Didn't enjoy my time there and don't fancy the rebuild job with stupid wage bills so I resigned. I'm now unemployed and will wait for the right new job even if it takes a couple of seasons.
 
Season 6 at Basel didn't start. I was bored of the same thing and fancied a change so after a few clubs approaching me, I decided to join Bayern. They have some world class players but a very unbalanced squad, surprisingly very little money and a mammoth wage bill. I had a crappy season. Finished 2nd and got knocked out of the Champions League in the QF's by Barcelona. Didn't enjoy my time there and don't fancy the rebuild job with stupid wage bills so I resigned. I'm now unemployed and will wait for the right new job even if it takes a couple of seasons.
"Do you fancy some half time punditry Mr Curbishley?"
 
"Do you fancy some half time punditry Mr Curbishley?"

I passed on the opportunity to become the best pundit the world has ever seen, to take up the first job that was offered to me - AS Monaco. They had just finished 4th in the French League (3rd/4th is par for them), and had an ageing squad with 35 year old Falcao and 33 year old Diego Costa as their main strikers and 33 year old Willian still a key player in the squad. They gave me a significant budget of around £40m and my objective was to qualify for the Champions League (top 2 for automatic, 3rd for playoff). One thing the board insisted on was that I sign young players for the 1st team. So I started the overhaul of the squad. The 3 old legends all left on free transfers. My 36 year old keeper, 5 year old Lucas Leiva and 33 year old Kevin Strootman all went for small fees. So the old guard was gone, but the team was threadbare. I sold 2 solid wingers for a total of £40m, giving me a big budget to transform this team.

I signed 8 players and with the exception of a 27 year old French international right back, the rest were under 23 and regens. First came the 23 year old Argentine keeper for £3.5m. He's now an International. Then came one of my favourite named Brazilians Pelezinho. He's a 21 year old Brazilian international and can either Anchor my midfield or play centre back. He's already worth more than double the £15m I paid for him and he will be a world class player. Alongside him at the back is 22 year old Andrew Walker. He was initially discovered by me at Basel, before Dortmund signed him for big money. Somehow he was transfer listed there and I brought him to Monaco for £13.5m. My midfield has been strengthened with 3 signings. a 21 year old Argentinian from River to play in the holding role, a 22 year old Chilean from Real Madrid to be a playmaker and Jan Slama, a 19 year old Czech international to play box to box. Slama was another of my discoveries at Basel, but I had to pay £20m to get him from Man City. Finally, my team needed a talisman striker after losing 2 ageing legends. My number one choice decided to go to Chelsea over me so I had to spend big money to land my number 2. I paid £23.5m for 22 year old German international Rovsan Mammadov. He was from my Bayern squad but I loaned him out due to Lewandowski being a legend.

So I'd spent big money, completely transformed the team and now it was time to deliver. But this is a tough league. PSG have dominated for 7 years, but Marseille are now right up their rivalling them on 90+ points a season. Lyon were Monaco's usual competition for 3rd and 4th. Despite competing with Lyon for a while for 3rd, I slipped badly towards the end of the season and finished 8th. I ended up 10 points behind 3rd having lost the last 4 games of the season. The League Cup didn't go too well either. Valenciennes knocked me out in the QF. The FA Cup was much better though and I got to the final beating Marseille and Bordeaux along the way in epic matches. Unfortunately Lyon beat me 3-1 in the final. The season showed promise but was fading badly. It would take a patient owner not to sack me. So my Uefa Cup performance was vital.

After beating Hapoel Tel Aviv (4-2 on agg) and AA Gent (2-0), I managed to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League. My group was relatively easy and I won it, beating Braga, Palermo and Qarabag in the process. First Knockout stage comes around and Young Boys are dispatched easily with 3-0 wins in each game. A 2nd knockout game against Rijeka seems like a favourable draw. But the home leg proved tricky. After my keeper saved a penalty, we managed a 0-0 draw. No problem though, we went to Rijeka and won the game 1-0. Into the QF's. The big teams were at this stage of the draw so I was reasonably content with facing Athletic Bilbao. Tough but not insurmountable. As it turned out, it wasn't even tough. We went to San Mames and scored 4 goals in the last 20 minutes of the game. 4-0 winners and a 0-0 home draw saw us through to the semi final. Here we got the toughest draw though - PSG. They had won the league 6 out of 7 seasons and beaten me home and away already this season so I wasn't expecting much. I was surprised though, my plucky little Monaco team went 2-0 in the first half, away from home. I was already dreaming of the final when PSG struck back. 2 goals from their Dutch hot shot and a 90th minute winner from Veratti left me behind going into the 2nd game. Not a bad result though, 2 away goals. The second leg was tough though. PSG scored early and despite an equaliser from me, we were being destroyed. We scored our only attempt on goal, whilst PSG has 66% position and about 20 shots. 88 minutes gone and the game is reaching it's inevitable conclusion when a PSG corner is cleared by my centre back. My attacking midfielder picks it up and launches it down the flank. Mammadov races from the half way line, picks up the lose ball and heads into the box. He's 1 on 1 with the keeper (a position he misses from way too often). This time he dribbles around the keeper and slots it into the empty net. Monaco 2-1 PSG (4-4 on aggregate), Monaco win on away goals. We're in the Final!!

The final was a war of attrition. Wolfsburg dominated possession much like PSG, but chances were more even and we finished the game at 1-1. Into extra time it went but I had to do so with 10 men after my full back got sent off in the 90th minute. Just on the brink of half time in extra time and my other full back picks up a second yellow. I'm down to 9 men for the last 15 minutes. I make substitutes, go defensive and waste time. I need either 1 counter opportunity or to survive for penalties. The counter never came but we didn't concede either. 10 shots from 12 yards was going to decide which club won the first European trophy in their history. I only missed 1 of my first 4 penalties. The 5th wasn't needed. My keeper had saved 3 Wolfsburg pens and Monaco were UEFA Cup Champions!

A sensational end to a tough season. The Champions League spot from winning the competition probably saved my job. Next season though, I'll need to finish top 3. This club could be excellent though. The players I've signed could all be here for 10 years and could be world class. This summer, I need to strengthen the gaps, attacking full backs is my top priority.
 
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