International Management... Success or Failure.

Just thought I would see how people fare with international management.

I'll start the ball rolling with my current save, where I successfully applied for the Nigeria job, shortly before the World Cup in the first season.

Please forgive me if the screenshots appear like I'm bragging, but understandably, I was delighted!

I had one game to prepare for the World Cup against Australia. Pretty even match, but I wasn't too impressed with the overall calibre of the players. Defensively decent, but lacking any great creativity at the offensive end. My tactics wasn't quite as effective is it is with the club side I'm managing in this save, Man Utd, so I had to make a few little tweaks here and there.

And so... the World Cup began!

Started against Holland, won 2-0. Pretty even game overall, but the difference was restricting the Dutch to only one shot on target.

Saudia Arabia, the only team I thought I might rout, put up stiffer resistance than expected. We came away with a scrappy 2-1 win.

Final group game against Denmark, we dominated and restricted the Danes to only one shot on goal, winning 3-0. Overall in the group games, it certainly looked like using Obi Mikel as an anchor man, was paying dividends.

First knockout stage and the fun really begins. I groaned when we were drawn to meet Argentina. They dominated the game, but my team actually took the lead twice, only to lose it twice. Extra time came around and Argentina went hell-for-leather to get the win. We scraped the lead once more, they bombarded our goal with chance after chance. For the second period of extra time, I decided to fight fire with fire and go more offensive. It paid off, keeping their chances to distance efforts, plus a lucky counter put one of my players clean through on the keeper with the time at 120+2 to get a 4-2 result. The scoreline certainly didn't reflect upon the game though.

Qtr Final against France was one of those games which could have gone either way, fortunately we shaded it 2-1.

Semi Finals... and England! Facing five of my own club players, all of whom had excelled all season was pretty daunting. The game itself was as even as you could ever wish to see, but we entered the last 10 minutes 2-1 up. Leighton Baines popped an equaliser in on 84 minutes and my heart sank. Not more extra time! Thankfully not, my substitute Oruma made and instant impact on 85 minutes and we'd done it! Into the final against Brazil!!

The screenshot of the final says it all really. Another even contest, 1-1 and into extra time. I decided to go for broke, be adventurous and go all out attack! Uche was brought on as sub and scored a hat-trick of goals, each time finding space between defenders. I couldn't believe my eyes. What I wanted to happen, did happen, but with far more success than I could have ever hoped.

4-1 extra time winners... with Nigeria... against Brazil!!

I can't hide my joy. This is one of my favourite and proudest achievements in FM

Nail-biting matches, the joy of hard fought victories against some of the best international teams, against some of the best players on the planet. What a ride!

Love to hear about others experiences with international management. The high or the low points, they all count!

Whos says you need Wayne rooney,

I've been England boss since 2022,( now in 2026,) after Psycho led the team to glory. Since then I've won the Euro, Confederations, and World Cup.

My stats are as follows

53 games played

49 Won

3 Drawn

1 Loss ( 2-0 loss to Israel in my second game in charge)

191 goals scored

27 goals conceded

I'm helped by the fact that I've got a sizeable amount of England players in my club team. In my typical 26 man squad, I'll have 10 Liverpool players, a fact that the press are stupidly having a go at me for, when it's quite clear that they're in on merit.

As for the players, Jack Rodwell is the all time most caps holder with 132, though he's very much on the fringes of the squad now since the world cup. Also a regen of mine has become the all time top goalscorer, currently on 56, beating Rooneys total of 50. He's still only 24, and has done it in 53 caps. Broke the record in the World Cup final.

I've a bit of a dilemma now though.

I had intended to just look after Nigeria for however far we managed to get in the World Cup, then resign from the job afterwards. Obviously having won the competition with them, I've developed a bit of an affinity for them. It was certainly a challenge. Given my current save is with Man Utd, one I always consider an "easy" save (especially having won the lot with them 1st season too), the international side of the game is the counter balance. I fancy seeing if I can repeat this feat with Nigeria for the next World Cup, but there's also that little twitch that prods me towards trying an even less fancied international side, should a vacancy come up. What to do indeed!

The Argentina and Italy jobs are also now available, which although tempting, I think they would be too easy given the quality of players available, tempting though they are.

Is it just me or is this version of FM international management harder than ever

im trying to get Wales to a major tournament especially as they have one of the youngest sqauds in international fooball

Is it just me or is this version of FM international management harder than ever

Depends who you're managing and the pool of players available I suppose.

Clearly it should be easier with nations like Brazil, Spain, Argentina, England, Italy, etc...

Saying that though, I look at some of the USA players available when doing scout searches, original DB and regens, then I think that with some decent tactics, most people could probably do well with them too.

I have just started an International game for the first time actually. I managed to get England to the 2nd round only to be knocked out of the World Cup by Italy on penalties, I resigned after this as i didn't want to get the sack hehe.

I must say though it was fun, I was abit biased ( Being a West Ham fan) by including Green and Cole in my starting Line-Up and Upson and Parker on the bench. I was playing a lone striker and Rooney just could not cut it, Cole ended up getting 6 goals in 11 games in all his internationals ( he starts off with 2 apps and 0 goals).

After I resigned Stuart Pearce took over my job, I struggled to find a Job in the following weeks and ended up applying for the U-21 job and Pearce was more than happy to let me take over his old job!

I've had many different club/international managements.

On my Villa save I managed Mexico, Ghana, USA and England twice in the space of 11 years.

None of these international management careers ever lasted more than about 9 months. At first I enjoy managing new and different varities of players along with giving 1st caps (gives me some sort of great feeling).

I will then get bored because I will always play a few international games but then it reaches pre-season and I can never be asked to play games then and just want to glide through it with my club...

What I do not understand is how you people never get bored of having to play so many games during pre season along with the fact that those who only manage an international side, how on earth do you not get bored of the giant spaces between games?

Im managing Brazil and have won the Copa Del..and Confed Cup but the notifications about brazilian players are now annoying me and the notification about going to watch players play annoy me so im considering retirement after this world cup