The FM anecdote thread

Just yesterday night I had one of those FM moments again when something happens which stands out for some reason and which made me think that it would be nice to have a collection of short little FM anecdotes, be it funny ones, lucky/unlucky, happy/sad or bordering the flawy. We may just try to enrich each other by telling short tales from our lifes as managers.

I'll start with the incident which inspried me.

In our network game I played my mate's team, at home. Dominated the game a lot, but was up only 1-0 at half time. In the second half nothing really happened anymore. I had hardly any shot, my mate a few but from far and all wide. Then, around the 70th minute, he had a free-kick which came in as a cross from deep, was connected via a header, to the fingertips of my keeper, to the post - and just into the goal.

In disgust, I hit the space bar immediately to throw things at my mate's team (and due to the lower responsiveness of FM without stopping the game) , went to overload mentality and moved one player further up. Pressed the space bar again and found out the goal was ruled out for an alleged foul. Guess I pressed the space bar a bit too soon there

Anyway, now I was in trouble. 1-0 up and my tactic was all out attack against a team that probably had the same instructions. So I pressed the space bar immediately again and reverted all the changes I made. But then it took 5 minutes to implement those changes and at the very end of these 5 minutes, my DMC who I would rather have seen anywhere else but so far up front (though obviously he was just playing to the inappropriate instructions I gave him), volleyed it in to make it 2-0 and put it beyond doubt.

Felt pretty lucky to be 2-0 when believing the score was 1-1 and screwing up my tactics.

Obviously, my mate was gutted.

Managing GB in the Olympics and reached the final after beating Brazil 3-0 in the semis, Daniel Sturridge being my star man. So I go into the final against Spain with a bit of confidence, but still not as favourites. After about 75 minutes we are 1-0 down but then Ashley Cole whips a ball into the box, Sturridge goes after it 6 yards out but is tackled cleanly by the defender and ends up lying down. But what's this? The defender's tackle has sent the ball past the 'keeper into his own net, we've equalised!! Or have we? No, because it seems that in getting tackled, Sturridge decided to dive and so instead of an own goal, Spain get a free-kick and Sturridge a yellow card. My Olympics Gold dream is shattered and that moment will haunt my managerial career forever. Sturridge is promptly given a new nickmane (unprintable) and I quit the job and go back to my Liverpool game.

A few months on and we are up against Arsenal. 1-1 at the Emirates late in the game and we have a chance to win it as the Arsenal defence are all on the edge of the box, keeper off his line and Luis Suarez stood behind him in an offside position. Maxi Rodriguez loops a header over them all, the ball is heading towards the goal, no defender will be able to reach it, Suarez just needs to stand still and let the ball follow it's..........NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! SUAREZ YOU IDIOT!!!!!! He decided to nick it from Maxi, and cost me 2 points in the process.

These are just 2 of my recent "What the hell were you thinking??" moments, of which there have been many and I'm sure there are many more to come.

Ouch

But nice stories Hopefully more people are happy sharing theirs