Career Alfred attempts the Messi & Ronaldo challenge [Completed]

[alfredykyk]

Hello everyone, this is my first serious attempt at a challenge, and the Messi and Ronaldo One Last Dance Challenge by @Rob seems to be a short and fun challenge for me to try (and micromanage).

If there's anything missing please kindly remind me since this is my first post here.

So, the challenge: sign Ronaldo for Barcelona and play two seasons. Sum of goals and assists for Messi and Ronaldo, along with Manager Profile Goal Difference gives the score.

(I forgot to screenshot the new game setup but no unlockables and no IGE used)

 

Summer transfers

As you can see I did a major overhaul of the squad, just because I couldn't stand the bunch of old players at Barcelona with super high wages.

Another reason was that I was planning on a fast tempo and high line defending, so slow players at the back like Pique and Busquets had to go.

 

Winter transfers

Dembele got injured for 3 separate occasions in the first half of the season, so when a big bid from Man Utd came, why not?

I also sold Jordi Alba as he was underperforming and leaking goals on the left side, so in came Gaya as replacement.

Sterling came in when he was transfer listed, along with Allan as I didn't have a more defensive midfielder. 

 

Tactics

At the beginning of the season I mostly used a 41221.

Somewhere after October I started to alternate between these 2 tactics, depending on the opponent formation.

The 4222 worked quite well against teams who sit back a lot with 2 DMs.

The 4231 worked incredibly well against teams without a DM.

I retrained all of my CBs at DM, and I would push up one of them to DM if the opponent has a 3-man midfield and 1 central ST (mostly 41221), or has 1 AMF and 1 ST (notably 4231).

Near the end of the season, I mostly used the 4231, because of 1 particular match.

 

Injuries

I was pretty lucky with injuries, with only Messi getting a 3 week injury near the start of the season.

Ronaldo was injury-free, except for 2 injury scares which happen only inside the matches.

 

League Results

Here are some notable matches.

Spoiler

Van Dijk got an early red card ...

... then proceeded to get it lifted.

This was the match that convinced me that 4231 was the way to go.

We totally dominated the league.

I found the Spanish league very easy to beat, compared to my long term save where I was playing with Man Utd.

Perhaps it's my luck, but I found tweaking tactics to beat different opponent formations to be much easier than in PL.

 

Champions League results

Ronaldo was absolutely on fire in the Champions League in the knockout rounds.

The knockout matches:

Spoiler

Ronaldo hattrick

Ronaldo hattrick again

Crazy scoring show from Ronaldo ...

... , where Messi got 5 assists!

Yet another hattrick for Ronaldo

A bug where the players get switched when I went back to take this screenshot near the end of the season.

Ronaldo got 2 goals, and Messi the other.

Nonetheless, thrashing Juventus by 9-1 in the semi-finals of the Champions League is quite an achievement.

Finals

I had no idea how Porto got to the Champions League final.

 

Super Cup results

Spoiler

This was a close match against Atletico Madrid.

We couldn't score except for a penalty won by Messi, but we still won the trophy.

 

Spanish Cup

Another bug where everything except the team names and team colours got switched.

The point is, we easily won the Spanish Cup.

 

Messi

Messi's stats dropped slightly, but he was still world class.

Messi had a massive return, mostly in terms in assists, since I put him on corners and free kicks.

 

Ronaldo

Ronaldo's attributes dropped more than Messi, which is understandable given his age.

Ronaldo had a massive season, with 71 goals, of which 25 come from Champions League and 29 from Spanish League.

I imagine this would be extremely hard to replicate, given that he's going to be 36 next season.

 

Manager profile

20 for discipline is all thanks to the tips on this forum teaching me to give warnings or fine players with match ratings of 6 or below.

 

Overall squad performance

Zaha performed surprisingly well, while Sterling could have had more goals and assists if I had signed him in the summer.

 

Full results

Spoiler

Awards

Spoiler

 

Season 1 score

Score of Ronaldo = 71 + 11 = 82

Score of Messi = 34 + 47 = 81

Goal difference = 211 - 28 = 183

Season 1 total = 82 + 81 + 183 = 346

Edited September 13, 2020 by alfredykyk

[alfredykyk]

Should I be using more spoilers?

this seemed a really long post

[Rich]

Great first season there mate, impressive, I’m sure now that you’ve found the right tactic, second season could be even better 👍

[alfredykyk]

9 minutes ago, RichDave32 said:

Great first season there mate, impressive, I’m sure now that you’ve found the right tactic, second season could be even better 👍

Thx!

[Lautaro Bianchi]

2 hours ago, alfredykyk said:

Should I be using more spoilers?

this seemed a really long post

I think it goes down to preference I tend to like post without that much spoilers since it makes the reading feel more natural so to speak but then again it depends on you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and also good luck with the challenge

Edited September 9, 2020 by Lautaro Bianchi

[smoggy90]

That’s an unbelievable start, well done!

[alfredykyk]

Season 2

 

Transfers

Spoiler

I brought in a few big names.

and cleared a bunch of dead wood who came back from loan or were unneeded because of the players who came in.

Euro Super Cup

an easy match where Messi & Ronaldo shined

In September, a funny thing that happened the first time to me in FMM20 was an old player asking to be retrained.

I didn't dare refuse Messi in case he got upset or something.

October then came, which was a dreadful month. 

First came a run of games where Ronaldo missed a bunch of penalties & sitters, and didn't score 1 single goal.

Then got injured for two months.

October also saw our undefeated streak end at the hands of Bayern in the Champions League group stage.

Right after Ronaldo recovered, he played 1 game, missed a penalty, then got injured yet again.

The good thing in December, though, was the Club World Championship, which massively helped me rack up the goal difference.

Messi, on the other hand, was injury-free the whole season.

 

Results

With a world-class team, we won everything.

 

Messi

With no injury this year, his attributes were pretty much the same.

However, his fitness (is there a hidden attribute for natural fitness?) dropped a bit this year, so I had to sub him off more often in games.

This resulted in a higher number of games played (no injuries) but a slightly worse output than last season.

 

Ronaldo

Ronaldo, on the other hand, has taken quite a toll from the 2 injuries at this age.

His output was therefore significantly worse than last season.

 

Team results

We scored 16 more goals, and conceded 5 less this season, but the portion of goals contributed by Messi & Ronaldo decreased.

Spoiler

Awards

Surprise! I didn't win manager of the year.

Spoiler

 

Final score

Final score of Ronaldo = 71 + 11 + 49 + 8 = 139

Final score of Messi = 34 + 47 + 37 + 41 = 159

Final goal difference = 438 - 51 = 387

Total score = 139 + 159 + 387 = 685

 

Thank you for reading!  This was a fun experience.

Edited September 13, 2020 by alfredykyk