Career Aaron attempts the Messi and Ronaldo Challenge.

[Aaron Thornton]

Challenge listed below:

Intro:

As you are all aware, Messi and Ronaldo are the best players of this generation and arguably the best of all time, certainly up there with the greats, Messi is often branded as being the more naturally gifted footballer, whereas Ronaldo worked his socks off for his talent, wherever you stand on this argument, one thing is for sure, they are both fantastic and this challenge is a great idea.

From my memory (which isnt great at the best of times) I don't think I've ever had Messi and Ronaldo on the same team in FMM. So I'm looking forward to seeing how these two superstars do for 2 years, I hope we can do them justice and have 2 cracking seasons for one last time.

 

Lionel Messi:

 

Cristiano Ronaldo:

We all know how good their attributes are, but with them both being the wrong side of 30, they will need some protecting in throughout the challenge, as one bad injury can turn even these two into a Bendter or Carroll. 

 

The Formation and Positions:

First used in my Goaltopia attempt, it has served me well, but Barca's squad does not fit this tactic in the slightest so a pretty big overhaul is required. Messi will be first choice on Pens, Free Kicks and Corners, as I think Ronaldo will score the majority of the goals from open play with his Aerial ability being much higher. 

 

Than concludes my intro, I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth into this challenge, thank you for reading. 

[Rich]

Good luck mate, liking the way the tactic looks, plenty of goals to come im sure, this is a good challenge, may give this a go myself soon. Looking forward to seeing who you sign and sell 😁

[Ian]

Good luck Aaron!

[Rob]

Good luck and enjoy! 

[Woody]

Best of luck but using poor Carroll as you're analogy is a bit harsh 😂😂

[Cockers2505]

Good Luck @Aaron Thornton this is a good challenge to try, and there are already some good numbers out there to be beaten to get on the Scoreboard.

[Aaron Thornton]

Thanks @RichDave32 @Rob @Ian @Woody @Cockers2505 Season 1 was full of goals, I'll leave the rest to the full Season 1 write-up which is coming up now. 

 

[Aaron Thornton]

Year 1 of 2:

With Ronaldo and Messi on the pitch, we expected to score buckets and seeing the totals others have put up on this challenge we quite frankly had to hit high numbers, here's how we got on:

Competitions:

Spoiler

Just one trophy unfortunately but the board didn't seem to mind as I still have my job.

• We ran rampant in the league, scoring 137 goals
• Atleti made light work of my B team in the Supercopa beating us 4-1. Ouch! (we played 120 minutes vs Real Madrid in the Semi) 
• Real Sociedad fought from 5-2 down to 5-5, eventually taking it 4-3 on Penalties
• (Forgot to screenshot CL, sorry) but we lost 3-0 at the Etihad, then won 3-2 at the Camp Nou, losing 5-3 on aggregate. 

Fixtures:

Spoiler

I felt these games were worth showing, a 6-0 demolition job of feirce El Clasico rivals Real Madrid, with Ronaldo bagging a hat trick and Messi a brace. Ten days earlier we had a stormer of a game vs Real Valladolid, 10-4, Messi scoring 5 and Ronaldo this time getting a brace, havent had a match with this many goals in years, a joy to watch. 

 

Transfers:

In:

Spoiler

Out:

Spoiler

An overhaul was required and an overhaul was delivered. Pellegrini, Brozovic and Bentancur come in to play BBM alongside De Jong. Bernardeschi, Pavon and Williams are signed to add quality in depth to the wings. Buendia and Demirbay brought in to play AP. We bought Tah as a solid B team option, Lenglet played in the A team and Bicakcic was a decent bargain buy. Andrej Kramaric came in alongside Griezmann as our backup to M&R. Lastly Capa and Castagne came in to support Alba, Firpo and Semedo already at the club. 

The Players leaving didn't fit the system or never going to be good enough in the short space of time this challenge runs, Moriba, Fati and Cucurella become fantastic but just 2 years to complete this challenge made them pretty useless to me. 

 

Managers Performance:

An entertaining season for the neutral, a nightmare for me, 68 goals conceded was frustrating, luckily our attack was able to help them out most of the time, 7 losses is slightly too high for my liking. But the tactic largely done what I wanted from it, score plenty. 

Injuries:

Just one injury this season to Messi. For one month. 

 Players Performance:

Messi:

Ronaldo:

Age is starting to catch up with them now but they still look good enough. 

Goals And Assists:

Spoiler

• 40 goals and 4 assists for Ronaldo=44
• 33 goals and 24 assists for Messi=57

Despite scoring plenty as a team, Messi and Ronaldo could only contribute to 101 of the 181 goals, scoring 73 and assisting 28 between them.

Season 2 will need to be out of this world to hit close to what others have done, but regardless of my final score, I've had fun doing this challenge. I'm optimistic for Season 2, we'll just have to see how we get on, to have just one injury in the first season was lucky I'd say, so hopefully next season will be similar, seeyas at end of Season 2. (This is a very long write up) so if you read any or all of it, I thank you. 😊

 

44+57+181-68=214

 

Season 1 Total=214

[Aaron Thornton]

7 hours ago, Woody said:

Best of luck but using poor Carroll as you're analogy is a bit harsh 😂😂

Yeah maybe 😂 he's an easy target for put downs.

[Rich]

Great season for the team mate, loads of goals, but as you said shame more of the goals didn’t go to them, I have had that trouble in the past, hopefully you can find a way of getting them to score more 😁

[Ian]

Nice season with plenty of goals and some great signings too. I do like Bentancur this year, I’m using him in my current save and I can see I’m going to have a little trouble replacing him when declines.

Good luck for season two.

[Aaron Thornton]

Thanks @RichDave32 your exactly right, we need to finish strongly this season. Fingers crossed. 

Cheers @Ian yep Bentancur is top drawer, he's something of a Vibe favourite I've noticed, personally used him very little but hes been a good investment for this. As a suggestion of sorts, Romario Baro should be unreal right about now in your save. 

[Woody]

Well done mate. Thats a solid start.

[Aaron Thornton]

Thanks @Woody

Year 2 of 2:

With Season 1 seeing a lot of goals scored, we needed to find a way to shift more of them to M&R. Here's how we got on. 

 

Competitions:

Spoiler

• We win the league again (14 less points and 15 less goals scored
• We won the Copa Del Rey, beating Alaves 5-2
• We won the Supercopa, beating Real Sociedad 5-3
• We dominated the CWC final couldnt convert the chances we created, eventually winning on penalties
• Lastly a very entertaining CL final, played in the cold conditions of Russia, we swept aside Shalke, 8-3

A clean sweep this season was nice to see, I tampered with the tactics a lot trying to find the best formula for M&R. 

 

Transfers:

In:

Out:

Spoiler

A change of system early in the season, required centre midfield reinforcements, Guilavogui and Coquelin were brought in as backup, they didn't expect much game time, so they didn't moan. Rabiot on the other hand was signed as a starter. Douglas Costa and Gelston Martins come in for more competition on the wings and Trincao, I didn't have a choice on this signing, but he played a handful of games when required. 

With Todibo and Wague returning from loan spells, Bicakcic and Capa were now surplus to requirements, Ousmane Dembele, I wanted to keep but he didn't share that idea, so he jetted off to London, Coutinho I also wanted to keep around but he had other ideas also, so he returned to where he was once loved, Anfield. The rest were players we couldn't shift in Season 1. 

 

Managers Peformance:

This season kept up the trend of scoring plenty and conceding too much for my liking, we scored 219 goals this year (38 more than last year) and conceded 78 (10 more than last season) 

 

Injuries:

Again just one injury this season, Messi missing for ten days (Ronaldo must be made of Titanium)

 

Fixtures:

Spoiler

 

Players Performance:

Messi:

Spoiler

Ronaldo:

Spoiler

They're physical attributes are taking a beating at this point. 

Totals:

Spoiler

• 48 goals and 7 assists for Ronaldo=55. 
• 37 goals and 31 assists for Messi=68. 

Of the 219 goals scored this season, M&R contributed to 123 of them, (85 goals and 38 assists) a nice total but I can't help but think it could've been a lot better. I tampered a lot this season to only end up going back to the original tactic I started with. Regardless I had a lot of fun with this and maybe in the future I'll retry this challenge with a bit more success. 

 

219+55+68-78=264

Season 1=214

Season 2=264

S1+S2=478

 

It was great fun attempting this, thank you @Rob could you put me at 3rd of 3 please 😂😔

 

 

[Rich]

Nice season mate and looks like you had a lot of fun with it. Loads of goals scored all round. Still a good score though, I need to try this one 😁

[Aaron Thornton]

Thank you @RichDave32, I did. Had a lot of fun with it and to score exactly 400 goals makes me happy, if that was 399 or 401, my OCD would be going nuts 😂. 

You would have a great time with this challenge mate, considering the amount of goals your teams score. 

 

[Rich]

27 minutes ago, Aaron Thornton said:

Thank you @RichDave32, I did. Had a lot of fun with it and to score exactly 400 goals makes me happy, if that was 399 or 401, my OCD would be going nuts 😂. 

You would have a great time with this challenge mate, considering the amount of goals your teams score. 

 

🤣Ohh the 399 would especially drive me crazy! 
 

I’m already thinking of changes in my tactic, whether they work we shall see! As it’s a short challenge you can try again 😁

[Ian]

Nice attempt Aaron. 55 for Ronaldo and 68 for Messi is very good going when you think about and the two combined well to help the team dominate.

[Aaron Thornton]

6 minutes ago, Ian said:

Nice attempt Aaron. 55 for Ronaldo and 68 for Messi is very good going when you think about and the two combined well to help the team dominate.

Thanks very much mate, i suppose they done well, I played them both as poachers. I could never get my brain around how two poachers in one tactic will work, but FMM surprises me the more I play. 

Ronaldo was on Pens, Messi on FKs and CKs. Messi was the obvious creator, assisting a lot more where Ronaldo had more goals, I really enjoyed it and its another challenge added to my 'try again list' somewhere down the line. 

I'm going to spend some time creating an assymetrical tactic, I did manage to make a shell of one, now it's just about testing and tweaking till I'm happy with it. 

[smoggy90]

Great attempt there mate. 

[Kanegan]

Great score there mate. 

[Scratch]

Yeah great job mate. Making me really keen to try this one!