Fave moments FM09 and older

In a similar vain as the regen's thread, what is your favourite moment from FM 09 or games before?

I'm not talking about leading some obscure team to CL glory more like a random match incident or news article.

Mine would have to be as follows:

In my season opener as Barcelona in CM00/01, Rivaldo pushed over the ref and instantly incurred a Red Card and a subsequent 3 month ban. Never seen anything like this since. Anyone had any similar experiences or random drugs bans?

In CM93/94 taking a generated Watford side from what is now League 2 into the Premier League and winning the title, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup all in the same season.

Hmmm, isn't that exactly what he said he didn't mean?

my scoutings telling me robbie fowler would be a useless signing (as i was playing liverpool couldnt help it) he then came up in the 89th minute of the european super cup to score the winner against inter. game ended 2-1 liverpool.

A few moments spring to mind.

Still the greatest player I've had on Football manager, back in 2008, Andy Carroll scoring his 360th goal for the club to win the Champions League final in extra time.

Stefan Fredriksson, his replacement (though an entirely different kind of player) scoring his first goal for the club to down Arsenal away from home to put my Derby side in the drivers seat with 8 matches remaining.

15 year old Lorenzo Guignard's (regen) scoring his first champions league goal to send my Derby side through (FM 2009).

Coming from 3-0 down against Barcelona after 30 minutes to win 4-3 in normal time, and 7-3 agg. in the Champions League semi-final.

My favourite moment has come in the 20th season of my Fafe game in Portugal, in the Liga Sagres I had been defeated 3-0 by Sporting CP just 8 days earlier, they then came travelling to us for the Semi-Final of the Portuguese Cup. I sent out my team with words of winning it for the fans and barely 2 mins in a perfect cross from my Bosnian Winger Matic was smashed home on the volley by Diego Maradona (My young Argentine Regen), the game ebbed and flowed back and forward from here until injury time in the first half when one of my defenders was caught moving the wrong way and they equalised. HT: 1-1 In the locker room I told the boys that the fans wanted this more than I did and they should show them results. As they headed back onto the park, they showed complete domination as my boys ran the opposition ragged for the entire of the second half, I was tense for a couple of moments as Sporting appeared close to scoring, but then the whistle blew and I knew we had extra time. I looked around at the boys and whispered "Its ours for the taking" that seemed to do it as barely 23s into extra time the ball was passed through the midfield from Bagaric to Fernando, and Fernando plugged it home to give us the lead once more. I was on my feet and chanting his name as the crowd went wild. The rest of Extra time was a blur of tense moments as Sporting pushed forward to try and get the goal, but in the end our defensive effort was clear to see and we took the victory 2-1.

Off to the Final.

Back in CM 01/02, I managed to sign a free-agent Christian Vieri to my Championship-level York City side by offering him a huge signing-on-fee, a low salary, and a minimum-fee-release-clause equal to the signing-on-fee.

I was shocked to see that he accepted - it had been a crazy moment of inspiration to offer him the contract and I had no real hope of him accepting. Then, just as I was thinking, "Oh, maybe that wasn't realistic..."

... the game acknowledged what a huge deal it was: there was an e-mail in my Inbox describing how the fans had queued up at the airport for their first glimpse of our new signing, and another describing how thousands had showed up to watch us train his first day on the training ground. There was a visible attendance boost, as well - all of which convinced me that the game knew how huge this was for us!

I slotted him into a Playmaker role and he immediately brought my offense alive as it had never been before .. we had a darling F.A. Cup run under him, and went from relegation-battlers to playoff contenders.

A year later to the day, a couple big clubs swooped in and offered the minimum-fee, and Vieri was gone ...

... but when I did the math, including the release-fee, the increased merchandise sales, the prize monies, and the increased gate receipts (vs his signing-on fee and annual salary) .. we'd turned a profit.

FM09 made me laugh couple of times, by fantastically simulating the ridiculous Hungarian Football League. (For the record I'm from Hungary.)

At a time IRL a whole round was postponed by the FA due to the expected snowing (eventually that February weekend there was fine weather and 20 degrees) my Hungarian Cup quarter-final match in FM was also postponed because of the weather conditions.

A transfer speculation in FM also made smile on my face, when Debrecen-side Leandro expressed his desire to leave Debrecen (a 200k populated city) because he would like to move to a more metropolitan area. (I guess only Budapest guys will find this funny )

The best player I have ever had was on an old version of CM and he was called Sol Bibbo or Sal Bibbo.... he was a generated left back well into the game, with the best stats I have ever seen. He was free kick taker, and penalty taker and would score in every other game, if not every game and would get around 30-35 goals a season - as a left back!!!!!