Football Manager 2014

[JasonM]

After the horrible last place finish I decided that I had reached my peak in Canamerica, especially since I had won the North American Champions League.

Then I got an offer I can't refuse, from the toughest team in Spain. The little basque train that could, Athletic Bilbao who had just fired their manager for sitting in 10th spot in late november.

The squad is talented, but has some depth issues in the back and up front, naturally compounded by the basque-only rules in place...

So I stepped in, quickly secured a 2nd round spot in the Europa League. I knew I needed a better striker though, and to my eternal shock the myth himself was available for purchase.

Naturally I mean Fernando Llorente, who was being a beast at Juventus but for some reason they had no problem in selling him back to me for only 4M euros. I really don't get why they wanted him gone for so cheaply, since he had already scored 7 in 17 this season and hasn't had a bad year for Juventus... But eh, my gain their loss

Granted he will soon be 33 years old, but his skills look absolutely tasty as hell at his ''advanced age'', and with his high natural fitness I'm sure he will still have 2-3 good years left in the tank, where he can help lead the team to strong positions and at the same time mentor the people that will replace him.

He is such a beast, he scored a hat-trick in his second game back (his first was against Barcelona)

Hopefully Athletic will be a longer lasting challenge, I like the idea of only being able to sign basque players, it will really strain my wheeling and dealing and makes every youth player to come into the team important.

[Millsybeast]

Llorente is a beast, I had him at Reading once and he was the leagues second top scorer, with something like 23 goals in his debut season.

In my latest attempt at playing as Liverpool, I let the first season sim and they finished 8th ¬_¬, but then when I joined they gave me 52m to get a Europa League spot. I sold Kelly to Stoke for 5m, Henderson went to arsenal for 10m, Lucas left for PSG for 30m, Aspas to CSKA for 5m, Jose Enrique went for 10m back to Newcastle and Suarez left for Barca for 30m.

With the massive WARCHEST I had, I signed a fair few players and racked up a total spend of 101m . Will Hughes came from Derby for 12m, Ryan Gauld came from Dundee for 7m, Mattia Destro for 14m from Roma, Santon replaced Enrique for 20m, Diame and his 3.5m release clause joined from West Ham, Tiago & Gareth Barry were siggned from the free agents list to add experience and backup, Emmanuel Emenike 15m from Fernebache, Granit Xhaka 12m from Gladbach, John Guidetti was listed at City and got for 400k o.o and finally Ravel Morrison was my last buy from West Ham for 18m.

So yeah my team:

GK: Brad Jones, Jose Reina & Simon Mignolet

DL: Davide Santon & Jack Robinson

DR: Glen Johnson & John Flanagan

DC: Daniel Agged, Martin Skrtel & Mamadou Sakho

MC: Gareth Barry, Mohamed Diame, Granit Xhaka, Steven Gerrard, Tiago & Joe Allen

AM: Ravel Morrison, Will Hughes, Sergi Canos & Coutinho

FC: Daniel Sturridge, Jerome Sinclair, Mattia Destro, Emanuel Eminike & John Guidetti

I also have a few players in the U21's who have either **** or ****1/2 Potential, plus players like Andre Wisdom, Ryan Gauld, Jordan Ibe & Suso who are on loan in England who will probably try get a spot for next season.

If I don't get at least a Champions League place with this squad, I would deem it as a failure.

[Jimmy]

I got offered a 36 year old Scotty Parker. I really, really wanna sign him despite the fact he's terrible

[Hobo]

Moved to Guangzhou Evergrande.

Which is a fantastic name for a team and their crest says "BE THE BEST FOREVER" on it.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

That team crest makes it sound like Bo Dallas is the sponsor.

[RoyWill Rumble]

Figured I might as well post the 2D kits I've made for my MLS game so far—I've decided to get rid of the Adidas exclusivity. I'm gonna try to get some more finished tonight. I might end up leaving a few as they are, because I really like them/figure the design is solid and unique (Colorado and Red Bulls, mostly). I also need to make these in 3D, which is in and of itself another boatload of work. I also am not sold on Columbus yet. I really like some of Kappa's designs, but dunno if this works. I also don't like their old logo, but am not sold on this one either.

[Hobo]

That team crest makes it sound like Bo Dallas is the sponsor.

[JasonM]

That Columbus home kit looks like one of those ''watch the dot'' eye tests.

Those DC United kits are really really cool.

Then again, I tend to be drawn by stuff like big ass stars on kits.

See the best kit ever...

Edited August 3, 2014 by Jasonmufc

[Berober]

I believe a few years ago we found the best kit ever:

[RoyWill Rumble]

Also, Shaun Saiko of FC Edmonton is god-damned awesome. He really impressed me when I played them in the Canadian Championships, and I'd been trying to get him ever since. Finally was able to sign him, and he'd just been doing solidly, then out of nowhere, in the second leg of the North American Champions League quarters against Houston, he scores a hat trick and bags an assist. And all three of his goals were brilliant, too. The second was an amazing half-volley that legit made me go "Holy shit!"

Dude's awesome, and if you're in the MLS/a lower league, I'd suggest giving him a look.

[Meacon Keaton]

That Columbus home kit looks like one of those ''watch the dot'' eye tests.

Those DC United kits are really really cool.

Then again, I tend to be drawn by stuff like big ass stars on kits.

See the best kit ever...

Kind of makes me want some bubble gum.

[Baddar]

Finished my first season in 4th place - the final four games of City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal crippled me. I beat City 3-0 (3rd win over them this season), but lost to Chelsea and Liverpool, and drew with Arsenal.

I did win the Europa League though, following my CL failure. So that was nice. Beat Fiorentina in the semi's, and Napoli in the final.

Not a great season, but I did do better than Moyes.

Edged out Sporting in a nervy CL qualifying tie, and my group will be Milan, Olympiakos and Wolfsburg - slightly better than the first season anyway. Man City and Liverpool have tough groups though. City are in with Barca and PSG, and Liverpool have to play Real and Juventus.

I lost on Pens in the Super Cup to Dortmund. Led 2-0 too.

They're interested in Januzaj, but he scored 15 goals and won Young Player of the Year in season 1, so they can piss off.

Giggs, Rio and Rafael went out - Vertonghen, Vermaelen and Lodeiro (a Uruguayan AM) all in.

5-0 and 2-0 wins over Cardiff and Southampton to start. That'll do. I've been drawn against Spurs in the CoC.

[DavidMarrio]

I really hope they can attempt to sort out the match engine for FM2015. Since FM2012 its been getting worse and some of the stuff that happens is so frustrating

[JasonM]

I really hope they can attempt to sort out the match engine for FM2015. Since FM2012 its been getting worse and some of the stuff that happens is so frustrating

I know the feeling man. The way you concede most goals is borderline infuriating. Only a small fraction are goals you go ''yes, that's all on their offense and not because my defense are playing like used condoms''.

Anyways, I finished the season with Athletic in true heartbreak fashion. I was up against 8th placed Rayo, with 3 points between each other. So a win would give me the 8th place and the last (copa del rey) EL spot.

Two minutes into the game Llorente scores a magnificient goal, and for 91 minutes we where leading 1-0, the EL so so close... Then 90+3 came along and they score from an indirect free kick and tie up the game.

Blam, 11th place instead of 8th. Rayo is going to the Europa League and i'm sitting here on the wrong side of the standings. So So heartbreaking, especially after we trounced #5 and arch-rival Real Sociedad 7-2 the game before.

On the plus side, Llorente was a complete and utter beast and in 21 league games he scored 16 goals, getting him the #3 spot in the (Spaniard) top goal scorer list, leapfrogging Diego Costa. If his goal tally for Juventus earlier this season had counted along, he'd be tied #2 with Lionel Messi.

33 year old, and just a complete goal scoring machine.

Now if I can just shore up the defense, I could get this team back to the top 5 in no time... It's just a shame that all the good basque defenders are at bigger clubs than Athletic, and there aren't many talented youngsters out there.

Which returns me at another (big) gripe. The youth intakes have redonkulous amounts of talented forwards, and even talented goalies... But I hardly, if ever get highly talented defenders. I'm quite literally drowning in talented AMC/ST/AMR's, but I possibly have only 1 defender where you can go ''Yeah, he might make it''.

Not just that, there are also way too many right fielders in the intakes and not enough left fielders. In my first 2 seasons at Feyenoord I had 5(!) talented right backs from my own youth system and the best left back prospect was 2nd division material at best.

/rant.

[JasonM]

So I'm 7 games into my first full season with Athletic, and the start has been very promising indeed.

4 wins, 2 draws (Getafe/Rayo) and 1 loss (Barcelona), and we're sitting quite snugly on the 4th spot of the standings. Scoring has been a high point with 16 goals, but defensively we have been leaky as usual, it's very hard to find top-class Basque defenders. I know, because I literally scouted every single basque in the game world...

Ander Herrera has been top notch behind Llorente, notching 5 goals and 2 assists in all 7 games. But Llorente himself is right behind with 4 goals and 3 assists, as he just pulls apart defenses with his mere presence. Then I have winger Markel Sussaeta who had a hat-trick against Celta. So all in all I cannot complain about the start of this season, it's much much better than last season for sure.

I also signed a lot of free/cheap talent to my team, a lot of players who have been dropped by the big teams as ''failed'' youth players. They're old-ish around 20-24, but I decided to get them and loan them out to good leagues in the hope that maybe they're late bloomers. I got a whopping 33 players out on loan right now, most if not all at good teams in good leagues. I had 1 winger who wanted to leave, but he's 22 and a 4.5* prospect. Good enough for any BBVA team, but I have Sussaeta locked into that spot. So I actually managed to loan him out to Celta (as a valuable player role), who are playing CL football at that.

Also loaned a kid out to L1 Charlton who is tearing up the league. I got Charlton as a feeder in the off-season, so I decided to start feeding them to get them into the championship where they can be a very effective asset in player loaning.

Finally, in the youth intake I have gotten perhaps the best Basque player in years if not ever. I gave him his debut coming off the bench in a 2-0 win against Valencia, short stint but made no mistakes.

As you can see he has phenomenal physical attributes and aside from shit Bravery and finishing he's quite well versed everywhere else. Right now he looks like a poor man's Messi with aerial ability, as long as he keeps developing and improving his skills, he'll be my future star striker for certain. I'm also retraining him to AMC, because I feel he will excell there too... Naturally once Llorente is finished with his current mentee, he will have to mentor Garcia in everything possible, because I think if he gets a good tutoring from Llorente and/or Ibai Gómez, he will become a top top notch player for years to come.

So yeah, that is my current update. Hopefully I will continue on my winning ways in the league, I'm not expecting to beat the likes of Real and Barcelona any time soon, but I feel I can really make a bid for the 4th CL place or the top EL place. The talent is there, they just need to come together and start fucking shit up...

Finally I will leave you the image of my redonkulous loanee list.

PS: And Leo Messi has complete batshit fucking insane as a 31 year old footie god. Scoring 13 goals and making 3 assists in only 7 freaking games. That OP Argentinian sunuvabitch. =)

Edited August 6, 2014 by Jasonmufc

[Jimmy]

Auxerre file went pretty well. Managed a 6th place finish in my first season in Ligue 1, which I was really happy with. Also made the final of one of the cups, but lost 1-0 to PSG. Wasn't given a lot of money to really build on what I had, but that's okay with some of the youth I'm bringing through. I'm about to sell Tom Ince for 11 million, and I've got another 5 in the bank from selling players, but I don't really know what I'm going to do with it. I already have too many players.

Seem to have started to sort out my striker problem. Yaya Sanogo's come in on a free, and although he hasn't been great for other clubs, I'm hoping he'll do alright for me. Also got a Brazillian regen for like 200K who has fantastic stats. His contract was running out so got him cheap, and he's scored 4 goals in 2 games, which is great. Started the season off with 3 wins out of 3 and I'm about to play a Europa League playoff match. I do have the players to manage both Europa and League if I get in.

I have no idea if I'll be able to build on a 6th place finish, can't compete financially with PSG or Monaco, but we'll see!

Also, that cup final was well annoying, I lost 4 first team players because they were off with France's under 19's squad. Horrible.

[Gazz]

I really hope they can attempt to sort out the match engine for FM2015. Since FM2012 its been getting worse and some of the stuff that happens is so frustrating

It's your tactics.

I really hope they can attempt to sort out the match engine for FM2015. Since FM2012 its been getting worse and some of the stuff that happens is so frustrating

I know the feeling man. The way you concede most goals is borderline infuriating. Only a small fraction are goals you go ''yes, that's all on their offense and not because my defense are playing like used condoms''.

Yours too.

[Gazz]

Ospina, Micah Richards, Subotic, Shawcross, Ricardo Rodriguez, Yaya Toure, Will Hughes, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, David Silva, Jovetic, Aguero.

Top 4 PL team?

Nope.

That's Man City reserves 2020/21.

All transfer and loan listed.

All for the bargain price of £1.45m per week combined wages and £225.5m in transfer fees.

[The Lusophone]

Daaaamn.

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Constant winning with Real Madrid is starting to get boring, going to try and emulate my original FM14 success and take Fleetwood to the top.