Just finished the best season I have ever had on FM

Background info: Year is 202X Cant remember exactly. Liverpool were relegation candidates 4 years ago. I came in, brought in an entire squad of 16/17 year olds and over the next 4 years sold off the older players and moulded the youths into premier league challengers.

Roll on to the present year, my expectations are a very comfortable top 4. Got lucky the season before and managed to scrape a 2nd spot so with nearly the same team, just minor alterations and players matured by a year top 4 should be a breeze.

Team explodes into form dominating teams 5 and 6-0. My young striker popping goals in like a mini machine gun.Come Christmas we top of the league by 12 points and in the knockout stages of champions league having come 2nd in the group. It wasnt a tough group by any means but Fiorentina demolished me at Anfield.

Manage to knock Man United, Tottenham and Man City out of the League Cup to earn a place in the finals against Chelsea which we subsequently lost by 2 goals.

FA Cup had alot of easy draws and lost in the Semi Final to Aston Villa.

During the January Transfer window I offloaded alot of players I felt were just sitting in the reserves doing nothing. Naturally as soon as the window closed and my squad was trimmed to the bare minimum injuries set in. There were games I was playing with 4 substitutes. My star striker was injured got 3 minor injuries keeping him out for a total of 8 weeks. League performance dropped and we found ourself in 2nd place, 3 points behind Arsenal and 2 points ahead of Manchester United.

Lyon was my first challenge in the Champions League. Brushed them aside relatively easily. Then disaster struck and I was drawn against Real Madrid. Sadly I had been hoping my team would over perform and win the cup with a bit of luck but now I had given up hope on that. So we head to the Bernebau expecting to be dominated. In a strange twist of fate my Liverpool side comes out 3-1. I have never celebrated each goal with such enthusiasm before. At Anfield we managed a 1-1 draw. My hopes were still alive!

Sadly next came Barcelona. The opening game was at Anfield. I dared to hope that we could get a comfortable lead at home and hold it away. Barcelona had other ideas and going into half time the score was 0-4 to Barcelona. So I gave a team talk, everyone was motivated and sent them back out. For the next 25 minutes I didnt even approach the Barcelona box. So I decided all or nothing, went to my bench and stuck on my star striker. His condition was low, at about 60-70%. Within about 5 minutes of putting him on he got 1 goal back. Then he went quiet until the 87th minute where he got the ball from the half way line and ran the pitch to beat the keeper. I was bouncing around like a lunatic. 3 goals away seemed all too easy with my striker back. Then in the 93rd minute the inevitable happened and he got injured. Praying the injury was just a few days I rushed to see the physio report. He was due back the day after we played Barcelona away.

Not much changed in the league at this point, we had our away game against Barcelona and a few days after a home game against Arsenal that would put the title race back in my favour. So if we went to the Nou Camp for what would be the most nerve wrecking game I would ever experience.

The game opened with me on the edge of my seat. Having spent an hour looking through tactics and possibilities of how to overcome this mountain. I really wanted my young team that I hand picked to lift the cup the first time any of them have ever even been in the competition. 4 minutes into the game Barcelona scored... I sank back into my seat in defeat until I saw the offside ruling. Boom! Game back on. After that it was a goalless first half with my team causing serious pressure on the Barcelona defence.

After the whistle we scored one near instantly. I think I leapt out of my chair in celebration. Every time Barcelona approached on my goal I damn near panicked that they would score. 10 minutes later we scored again. I paused the game. Sat back and pondered my situation. One more goal would put us through. No goals or conceding would end it. There was just over 30 minutes on the clock and we were looking comfortable. So I pushed into Overload. 5 Minutes later we scored again and in sheer disbelief I cheered and jumped out of my chair. When I was done celebrating the game had resumed and by goal had been disallowed. Back to 2-0. Nothing happened then for the rest of the game. Lots of misses but very few shots on target. Frustrated I made various changes but nothing seemed to work. Then in the 94th minute a penalty was awarded and then scored. Success! Won a place in the Final. Thankfully the final was an anti climax. I was against Porto with my striker back in the squad and easily beat them 3-0.

We beat Arsenal at home and ended up winning the League by 1 point with Arsenal finishing 3rd. The messages were my favourite part of the whole thing. Normally I got the "oh we always expected you to win this" and the "oh you brought success to the club again" nonsense. This time it was old players like Robbie Fowler and Steven Gerrard and of course the Board basically going "Holy ****! This is absolutely amazing! Cant believe it!". I have gotten similar messages when I brought success to low league clubs but this was special since I literally built this team in just 4 years and they were all still so very young.

So thats my story of how my love for this game once again has been reignited just when it was started to get stale on me. Next season should be an interesting one.

Good story, and it does feel much more rewarding building from ground up!

I have yet to win Premier League with Bradford now in season 2018-2019, and City was already 8 points in front after only 10 matches or something, and then they lost at home vs Wigan while I won, and suddenly I'm back in again. Lost the CL final the previous season - so all the good things are still in front of me even though the game is in its 8th season. Despite its flaws, FM12 is certainly a step forward compared to FM11. Too bad that it seems like the sugar daddy clubs are the only ones that actually improve their squads from the original database. By the looks of it I may have to take over Arsenal in a season or two and sign them a new squad...

Cool story, bro