Career The Impossible Challenge *Completed* (S30) •Bonus round•

[StuartM]

That's looking like a pretty good trophy cabinet now and finally Roy gets the global recognition he deserves.

What a turnaround at Leverkusen 👏

[spiklas]

Wooow 😮

How do you do this?? 

Such evolution. 

I started a save with Concarneau in France 3rd Ligue and was sacked in November 🤣

[DoneHisCruciate]

6 hours ago, spiklas said:

Wooow 😮

How do you do this?? 

Such evolution. 

I started a save with Concarneau in France 3rd Ligue and was sacked in November 🤣

Thanks. I guess it comes down to just playing the game a lot! I don’t want to think about how many hours I’ve spent playing different championship manager->football manager versions 🙈

I can still remember when I first started playing FMM years ago and thinking it was ridiculously hard. You just have to keep trying different things and it will all start clicking at some point. 🙂

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 14 (2035/36)

We left off last season with England due to meet Italy in the European International League semi-final.

I was a bit nervous for the knockout stages as we had a few injuries—but, it all turned out ok as we pushed on to the final and won a cagey affair against Spain:

Bayer 04 Leverkusen

I did my usual overhaul of the squad and brought in some of the promising Southend youngsters. I’m trying to give them some more match experience to help with future England duty.

We started the season slowly as a lot of the new players were probably distracted by trying to learn German. 😆

We got the German Supercup out of way before we started to gain some momentum in the league and Champions League:

My favourite game came in the round of 16 against Liverpool (mainly due to the opposing scorer’s name and the thought that they were probably calling us that in their dressing room after the game…😂)

 

We fell short in the Champions League final but took out the league in style:

The DFB-Pokal cup gave me an early scare in the second round when we had our centre-back (our captain no less!🤦‍♂️) sent off in the 8th minute. With this being the last cup I needed in Germany I thought our season was going to be over in October(!) We still dominated the game but had to get it done with penalties:

The rest of the rounds went well and I probably had my least stressful final in a cup: 

 

Germany is done and Roy celebrated by resigning:🙂

He’s well over 500 wins now! Rumour has it that he’s trying to get the Inter Milan manager the sack..

England

Back to England and the Euros. We have just qualified from the group stage with a thumping win over Germany. It probably wasn’t very gracious as they’re the host nation: 😬 

Four penalties! Fingers crossed for the knock out stages 🤞

Manager

Spoiler

15th, 16th and 17th Trophies

Won the European International League, the German Supercup and the DFB-Pokal cup.

Edited January 4, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[DoneHisCruciate]

Euro Championship Update

Pretty excited about this one as it ticks off the international portion of this challenge.

England win the Euros:

We got a little bit lucky as we met Belgium in the final (instead of Spain). Belgium had a dream run with a couple of extra time wins to get to the final.

Still, we had to do it the hard way as we had our playmaker sent off just before halftime 🤦‍♂️

I probably didn’t endear myself to the Inter Milan fans as we thumped Italy 4-0 in the semi-final right after I took the job 😂

 

And, with our international mission completed Roy decided to leave England:

Leaving them sitting in 2nd place in the rankings:

Interestingly there are rumours that Roy might be talking to the Argentinian FA..

18th Trophy

Won the European Championship

Edited January 4, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[StuartM]

Yes, nicely done! Back to the San Siro to finally seal the Scudetto for our Roy, if only you could take Paul Ince with you too!!

[DoneHisCruciate]

Yes! Heady times for Roy in the sunglasses department too.

Quote

As pointed out Sam Wallace of the Independent in 2012, Hodgson was “given the Inter job before he was put in charge of a club of equivalent standing in England.” In fact, Hodgson’s name had been made on the back of his fledgeling career in international management with Switzerland and a stellar career in the Swedish league during the 1970s and 1980s. He was a left-field selection, certainly, but Inter weren’t in a position to be choosy: when Hodgson was hired, they were rooted firmly in the relegation zone.

From a cool article about Hodgson’s Inter days.

[Kanegan]

What a great career this has been. Congrats on making it this far.

[DoneHisCruciate]

Thanks @Kanegan

Season 15 (2036/37)

Ok, midway point for the career! Only another 15 seasons to go 🤪

With the Euros out of the way it was time to concentrate on Italy.

After a couple of losses at the beginning we then went unbeaten for the rest of the season (41 games).

So, a nice league and cup double:

I got to take advantage of Juventus having a heavier fixture schedule than us. The only tricky game was the cup final when for once they were well rested—about the only bit of real team management needed this season as they kept equalising!

Annoyingly the Italian Super Cup is held mid-season so I’ll have to stick with Inter for a bit longer. I better not muck up that one game next season 😂

(After season Edit: It occurred to me at the start of next season that as the board requirements are only Champions League qualification that I might try and steer Inter into a Europa League spot. Might make things more interesting and hopefully won’t get me the sack…😬)

Manager

Spoiler

19th and 20th Trophies

Won Serie A and the Italian cup.

Edited January 7, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[StuartM]

That is a proper Italian defensive record 👏.

As much as I love goals, 90s Serie A (on Channel 4) is one of my favourite eras with some classic defenders, thanks for the link!

[DoneHisCruciate]

It’s hard to beat James Richardson holding up Italian newspapers and translating them for us! 

If you fancy a bit of nostalgia he uploaded a few episodes his mum taped off the telly 😁

https://thesetpieces.com/latest-posts/james-richardson-the-inside-story-of-gazzetta-football-italia/

(there’s one of Gazza sporting a turtleneck and haircut that makes think he could have made a decent bad guy in The Professionals…)

Edited January 7, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 16 (2037/38)

This was a weird season because I was only interested in one match, the Italian Supercup, and that match doesn’t happen until mid-January.

So, I wondered about getting Inter into the Europa League. The board is only worried about getting Champion’s League football so if I balance out the poor league form with good cup form I should keep my job, right? 🤪

That was the plan anyway. I figured I’d have to play normally until the Supercup because if we stuff it up I’d need to win the league or Italian Cup to get another shot at it next season.

Luckily the first part of plan went well:

(The Italian part of the challenge is done!)

But we had a 12 point lead above 5th place and its promise of tickets to the Europa League. Oddly losing places turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Even my weaker guys were determined to win. 😂

Anyway I got Roy to employ some dark arts and we actually finished in 5th!:

 

To offset the bad league form and terrible run of matches I had to win the Italian cup:

and also make it to the semi-final in the Champions League. The board were a little grumpy but Roy got to keep his job. 

Ivory Coast

The job for the Ivory Coast appeared this season and I thought I might as well go for the African Cup of Nations. A bonus trophy!

The squad is particularly bad in defence but it does have the world’s best player. And you guessed it—he’s a Southend boy 😁

We did make it the World Cup and progressed to the second round when this happened:

 

My young left-back of the future did a two-footed challenge 14 seconds into the match! 🙈

And that was us done:

We are on track for African’s cup qualification though and that’s all that matters…..

😆14 SECONDS!!!!! 😆

Manager

Spoiler

 

21st Trophy

Won the Italian Supercup

Edited January 8, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 17 (2038/39)

Wow, what a season!

First off, Inter qualified for the Champions League! 🙈 I don’t understand how but Italy got 5 Champions League places without an Italian team winning the Champions League or Europa League. 🤷‍♂️ All of Roy’s dubious work to get Inter into 5th place was for nothing. 

Edit: It turns out that if a team gets a Europa League spot but has been a top performing club in recent seasons they can get one of two “historical” qualification spots. So, we were victims of our own success.

And yet, bizarrely for the first time in ten seasons (and yes, I have been looking 😂), a team that had qualified for the Europa League was insecure about their manager! So, I sent Roy to have a quiet word and we packed our bags for Valencia!

I don’t think it could have worked out better as Spain is the last league I needed to conquer. I suppose it’s also more in the spirit of the game as that Inter squad would have demolished the Europa League. Now I had to work for it again! 🤪

Anyway, we lost the Spanish Supercup to a superior Barcelona team. But we got our revenge with a league and cup double:

The Spanish Cup final felt like the best game I’ve managed so far. Barcelona have been dominating Spain for years, and most of our squad felt we didn’t have any chance of beating them. An extra time win was satisfying! 

I still need the Spanish Supercup (which is a mid-season fixture) so I’m staying with Valencia for a while. 

Europa League

Of course what I really wanted to win was the Europa League. And even though we had a few bumps along the way in this comp, we still ended up in the final and crushed Levski:

Ivory Coast

We made it to the African Nations and turned up with my best two players out with long-term injuries. We battled to the semi-final but got thrashed by Cameroon. My half-star keeper imploded which I guess was bound to happen at some point 😆

The FA had their heart set on us winning the whole thing so I pushed Roy out of the door before they gave him the boot.

And, seeing as it’s a good time to get an international gig we picked up a job with Algeria. They have a much better balanced squad.

Manager

Spoiler

22nd, 23rd and 24th Trophies

Won the Spanish League, the Spanish Cup and the Europa League.

Edited January 11, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[StuartM]

Gutted about your Champions League qualification! But that's a very decent consolation prize (or prizes!)

[DoneHisCruciate]

54 minutes ago, StuartM said:

Gutted about your Champions League qualification! But that's a very decent consolation prize (or prizes!)

I didn’t count on how paranoid the top European teams are and the introduction of this new “historical” qualification rule! 🙄😁

Edited January 9, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[Kanegan]

Well done on another glorious chapter of this career. Looking forward to your wrap up in Spain. This has been marvelous work

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 18 (2039/40)

I had unfinished business in Spain—namely the Spanish Supercup. It’s a mid-season mini-tournament of four teams and probably the trickiest Supercup because the two games are back-to-back.

But first we won the UEFA Supercup by beating PSG:

Before mucking around in the league and Champions League until we got to the important stuff.

First we had to squeak past the mighty Barcelona in the semi-final:

It was nice to get lucky with penalties. This Barcelona team is not easy to beat and the thought of having to do this season again wasn’t appealing!

The final was a more relaxing affair:

So, the Spanish leg of the challenge is complete!

And I still had half-a-season to play. I figured I had two choices:

1. Find an underperforming team and try to take them to a Europa Conference League spot
2. Find a VNL team still in the FA Trophy to try and grab another trophy.

Both seemed like long shots but I figured I could treat them as mini-challenges.

I thought the second option had a better chance of success so I got Roy to take the Grimsby job:

Of course to get the job it meant they were doing poorly in the league:

But the advantage I had was I didn’t have to work to a transfer window and I could abuse the loan system as much as possible. 😁

The only slight wrinkle is I had to play the fourth round of the FA Trophy on the day Roy was hired. The best I could do was to get the team organised and hard to beat:

So when we met Bath again for the replay we were a completely different side 😂:

So far so good. Next up came Dover who we dispatched with a nice 3-0 win. The team was really getting into a groove now and also moving up the league.

In the quarter-finals we met Weymouth and I thought we’d beat them easily. Unfortunately they did a tactic switcheroo on gameday. I could change my formation to beat them but the matchday squad just didn’t have the right players—we were only allowed 5 subs on the bench 😬:

So Grimsby out of the FA Trophy and Roy quickly packed his bags. We left them in a good state though (they ending up finishing 8th by the end of the season!):

I thought I might as well give option 1 a go and settled on Roma:

who were sitting 11th:

They had ten games to go and we needed to make up 7 points. 

The reason they were underperforming soon became apparent—6 first team players aged 33 or over 🙈

Of course, this time I didn’t have a transfer window to help so I brought in some free players to fill out their tiny squad.

We did ok. Won 3, drew 4 and lost 2. We took the lead in most of games but just couldn’t hold on to it. And so finished 11th:

Yep, we made no difference at all 😂

At least the second half of this season was entertaining to play. And, we got lucky in the end.
 

For some reason Atalanta were feeling a bit insecure about their manager who had only secured them a spot in the Europa Conference League. 

The Europa Conference League you say? Let me send Roy over to help your manager pack his bags:

Manager

Spoiler

25th Trophy

Won the Spanish Supercup.

Edited January 11, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[StuartM]

Man, I think I'm dizzy!

Valencia -> Grimsby -> Roma... that alone is something that only our Roy could do I think and now Atalanta!!

Good luck, this is going really well

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 19 (2040/41)

With West Ham making it to the Europa Conference League final in the real world it seemed a good time to see if Roy could tick off the same trophy with Atalanta.

African Nations

But first came a chance to win the African Nations with Algeria after we breezed through qualifying.

Of course, FMM had other thoughts. We cruised the group but kept picking up long-term injuries. We had already lost one of our best players pre-tournament and by the time we got to the quarter-final we’d lost 6 more.

So inevitably we went into the game with a tired team and left the tournament with a whimper.

Which led to Roy being sacked.

The African Nations isn’t on the trophy list but I’d still like to tick it off at some point!

Atalanta

There wasn’t much pressure from the board about the league—we just needed to get a Champions League spot. And the second string players took care of that and even pushed Juventus close for the title:

As the league wasn’t the focus, it did mean the Italian cup saw the best of the squad—who delivered:

Which left the Europa Conference League and winning that was never in doubt. As you’d expect we could over power any team in the competition:

It was nice a season and all the more fun as I was able to reunite with a couple of old Southend boys. They might now be firmly on the wrong side of thirty but they are still getting it done for me 😁

Manager

Spoiler

26th Trophy

Won the Europa Conference League

..

Anyway, it was great to see Real Roy jumping back in the saddle at Crystal Palace and making it look easy. 👏

And, I’m hoping West Ham also make the Conference League final look easy.  😬🤪

Oh, and just two more trophies to go—the Championship and the FA Trophy!!

Edited June 12, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 20 (2041/42)

After the Europa Conference League Final Roy left Italy with his sights set on winning the Championship in England.

The best team available seemed to be Birmingham so I took the job at the end of last season.
 

The board gave me a paltry sum of 15m and demanded promotion! So, I was back to my old ways of abusing the loan system as much as possible.

After a mammoth round of wheeling and dealing Birmingham actually had a decent squad to take on the Championship.

And, even though Fulham battled us the whole way, we took the title with 3 games to go:

Final table:

The cups we pretty much ignored this year.

Manager

Roy went past 800 wins this season. I’m looking forward to breaking that 1000 mark..

Spoiler

 

27th Trophy

Won the Championship

..

Now there’s one trophy left! The FA Trophy.

[DanEnglish]

This is epic. I just read this for the 1st time. Truly impressive 🔥 

Edited June 3, 2023 by DanEnglish

[DoneHisCruciate]

22 hours ago, DanEnglish said:

This is epic. I just read this for the 1st time. Truly impressive 🔥 

Thanks! Much appreciated.

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 21 (2042/43)

In pursuit of the FA Trophy I joined Notts Co in the VNL. They just had an awful season so the board helpfully were only interested in a mid-table finish. 
 

With the pressure off the league I figured I could get a couple of goes at the cup with Notts Co if need be.

As it turned out we crushed the league:

which put a lot of pressure on the FA Trophy final because either way I was leaving Notts Co at the end of the season.

The semi-final gave me a heart-attack. The first leg finished goalless and then in the second leg Salisbury scored in the 82nd minute 😬. Luckily everything about the National League has been a Hollywood story this season and so we equalised in the 90+2 minute. And so, penalties:

The final was much more straightforward:

🎉🎉And so, after winning the last trophy the original challenge is complete!🎉🎉

Manager

Spoiler

28th Trophy

Won the FA Trophy!

..

With 9 seasons left in this save I figure it makes sense to head to France to try and complete the 5th league.

[StuartM]

Truly brilliant, great progress 👏

[DoneHisCruciate]

11 hours ago, StuartM said:

Truly brilliant, great progress 👏

Thanks, mate.

Congrats on the great escape this season. Hats off to Warnock—not sure how he did that!

[StuartM]

9 hours ago, DoneHisCruciate said:

Thanks, mate.

Congrats on the great escape this season. Hats off to Warnock—not sure how he did that!

Yep, we were gone! Some of the performances were so bad in Dec. and Jan., where the team spirit seemed totally broken... then by April we were looking like a top ten team 🤷‍♂️🙂

I think he set the team up to play to the players strengths and then his man management was superb, he built trust up with the players where the last guy had destroyed it. The thing that marks him out is how quickly he did it.

[DoneHisCruciate]

1 hour ago, StuartM said:

Yep, we were gone! Some of the performances were so bad in Dec. and Jan., where the team spirit seemed totally broken... then by April we were looking like a top ten team 🤷‍♂️🙂

I think he set the team up to play to the players strengths and then his man management was superb, he built trust up with the players where the last guy had destroyed it. The thing that marks him out is how quickly he did it.

It was a superb effort.

It’s funny, it always surprises me that I find him likeable. 🤪

What a mad season. Warnock and Hodgson rock up to show how it’s done. Allardyce thinks he’ll have some of that and compares himself to Pep. Everyone laughs. Then Pep’s team score a goal in the FA cup final that I swear comes straight from the Allardyce Bolton playbook a la Kevin Davies. Everyone applauds Pep for employing the long ball tactic.. 😂  

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 22 (2043/44)

After the FA Trophy final last season the only job open to me in Ligue 1 was with Monaco. Unfortunately they had already been relegated to Ligue 2. But, rather than wait for something better I decided to send Roy to Monaco to take it. Of course, this means he gets a relegation on his CV (even though all the fixtures have been completed and Monaco were relegated long before he got there…🙄)
 

It’s a good job we did go to Monaco as the Ligue 1 manager turnover was really low this season and no good opportunities came up at all. Anyway,  I was unexpectedly fighting for the Ligue 2 trophy.

And, it was probably the least competitive campaign I’ve had in this save. Nobody challenged us and we won the league easily:

 

One of the best things this season was persuading one of my old Southend Academy graduates to join the team.
 

I’d previously won League 1, the Prem, the FA Cup, the Community Shield, the Carabao Cup, the Club World Championship, the Uefa Super Cup, and the Champions League with this guy. Oh, and also the World Cup, the Euros and that funky International League thing.

So, getting him at 35 and at the end of his career to bang in 20 goals and get 15 assists for this team was a real highlight.

Ivory Coast

I also went back to managing the Ivory Coast to see if I can get some luck in winning the African Nations.  

Manager

Winning the Ligue 2 Manager of the Year award (which weirdly seems to be a calendar year award rather than seasonal) pushed Roy up to the 50 award mark.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 23 (2044/45)

At the start of the season I decided to leave the glitz of Monaco and head to Reims. Their manager was in an insecure position so I got Roy to do his thing and get the guy sacked.

There isn’t much between the two clubs but the problem I have is tackling PSG. PSG have won the league 22 times in the past 23 seasons and their squad is still ridiculously good for this league. I figured Reims had a better starting squad and also they have a much better reputation than Monaco.

Still, I figured I wouldn’t get close to PSG in the league this season so I decided to prioritise the French Cup in the hopes that PSG stuffed up or we managed to beat them in a one-off game.

So, in the league we finished a decent 3rd place (miles behind PSG) and qualified for the Champions League:

 

The cup plan almost worked. We made it to the final and played well. But PSG’s quality proved too much:

PSG also scooped up the Champions League title so we have some work to do to get these French trophies.

Ivory Coast

This was the African Nations where it all fell into place. We had a tournament where we weren’t beset with injuries. And, we finally beat Egypt in the semis to reach the final against a beatable Algeria. Yet, despite playing reasonably well we couldn’t get it done. Heartbreaking:

I guess I’ll stick with these guys for now and have another go.

Manager

Spoiler

 

[DoneHisCruciate]

Season 24 (2045/46)

Ok, time to tackle PSG. We did some great business in the transfer window, and when we beat PSG in our third league fixture the signs were good.

It was a good battle at the top of the table for quite a while but we eventually pulled away to win Ligue 1:

 

The French Cup went well and we got a crucial away win against PSG in the semi-final:

 

The final almost went completely wrong but we battled back to win in extra time:

It was nice to be back in the Champions League after so many seasons away. I didn’t take it that seriously but the squad players did and took us to the final.

Unfortunately it was one step too far despite being marginally the better side:

Ivory Coast

I thought Roy was up for another sacking after we failed to qualify for the World Cup. I guess getting to the African Nations final saved him. It looks like we’re staying with them for now.

Manager

Spoiler

The only thing left for me to win with Reims is the Trophee des Champions at the start of next season.

Edited June 9, 2023 by DoneHisCruciate