Those gambles that actually pay off

Has anyone else took a gamble and risked loosing or unsettling somebody just to get the dream final outcome?

To me this is one of the thrills of football manager

Recently on my PSG save I was in the quarter finals of the champions league against the all conquering Barcelona and they had beaten us at our own ground by 1 goal to 0 and we were totally outclassed by their passing movement and constant closing down pretty much like real life

Second leg comes around and we are at the camp nou battling against the odds nobody believed we'd progress any further including myself , i decided to just risk it and play 2 centre backs and wingbacks and flood the midfield with 5 attacking players just focusing on attacking , it wasnt until the second half that this risk paid off when a combination of pastore and gameiro got me a goal back and it was game on , then Barcelona hit me on the counter attack and Messi broke free with the ball and put one in my net

Could feel the walls coming crashing down it started to look like nothing would work , it got to the 78th minute and I decided to make a few more changes , wing backs got pushed further up the field and I threw on my 6 foot 5 19 year old regen centre back on due to samba being shattered and also threw on my pacey 17 year old regen striker sidambe ballo , 82nd minute I get a free kick near the corner flag and pastore delivers a peach of a ball in and it just needed a touch from my regen centre back diallo and it went in which brought us to 2-2 and we were goin through on away goals

86th minute disaster strikes and diallo bundles Down villa to give Barcelona a penalty and Messi steps up to the plate and as Messi does he puts it right in the corner and the dream is over

Deep in stoppage time and Barcelona are toying with me and passing the ball around until....... Misplaced pass from abidal puts ballo through on goal and with his pace it's a guaranteed one on one situation with Valdes , ballo goes clean through and although he kicked it and it hit Valdes it trickled over the line and in epic fashion we had done it

Just little gambles like that make football manager an absolute joy to play

I took over a Swansea team, 6-7 seasons in, 11 points from safety, with 8 games left. The first team was talented, but their morale and spirit was simply non existent. they lost their first game under me. I then decided I would make a wild decision, play the youth instead. They had morale and spirit, and I ended up winning my last 7 games. Including against Liverpool and Chelsea. Helps that somehow they did have fairly talented youth, but for that sort of outcome to happen, I've never been happier with this game. We actually finished about 4 points clear of relegation. Ended up sticking with the youth,selling off most of my senior players, investing in youth(we had no money at the club, so spend about half of the money gained on youth, kept the others), and we're going ok this season! Some good wins and some heavy losses, but we're improving due to my gamble!