How do you pick yours? Strange reasons for picking a team to manage...

How do you pick a team to manage on FM?

Do you have any strange reasons for picking the club you manage?

Some of the teams I have played as on FM08, and the stupid reasons I picked them, are below:

St. Albans City (the club I support)

Hitchin Town (another local club that I tend to follow)

Real Marcianise (play in the same colours as Hitchin and have a great name, which I have no idea how to properly pronounce!)

Mumbai FC (I liked their club colours)

Derry City (they were a big club fallen on hard times when I took over in one of my career games)

Kaiserslauten (went here for career reasons in one career save game)

Leverkusen (this was a glory move in my career game, a move which made me lose interest in my save quite quickly I'm afraid!)

I'm currently contemplating starting a new save and I have found a team called FC Pau in France. They play in the same colours as St Albans City... but also, my name is Paul, and therefore (and despite how tenuous these two things might seem) I feel that I just have to manage FC Pau to glory!

So how about you?

Hayes & Yeading? Because I wanted to start LLM. Why them? Because they ... well, I liked their colors ... it was a bit of a random guess though, but I thought red was a nice change.

Vitesse? Because I used to work there. They started my love for the game and the stats.

I pick a country which tends to be england then I pick a number between 1 and 92 and a number between 1-6 then divide my first number by my second always round up and thats my team. (that number in alphabetical league order) so 15 divide by 3 is team 5 so if im not mistaken my team would be (on 08) Everton? but i tend to give it a few goes till i get a team i like.

The teams I played on FM08:

Toronto FC - I support them

PSV - big career move and very successful here (I have since rejected all jobs offers coming from Ajax:D)

AFC Wimbledon - SI is their shirt sponsor

Plymouth - never played on a team with a green kit

Carlisle - I like blue

Arsenal because they play football the right way

Schalke because I like the name

Leeds because everyone hates them

Rangers because they are normally crap in europe

On this game the two teams i've had the best games with are Swansea and Athletico Madrid. I have to be honest I have no idea whatever why i've chosen those teams lol. I

hmm i hadn't finished that thought, must have pressed enter by mistake. What I was gonna say is that I guess I sometimes get attached to a team for no reason, quite weird...

I managed SC Heerenveen once because I had just moved to Heerenveen, and it was the first time I actually lived in a place that had their own professional football team. ^^

For the rest, sometimes I'll pick a team from a region where I've been on vacation, sometimes I'll decide I like the name of a team.. might've seen them play on tv.. doesn't really take much for me to decide to give it a try.

Here are some of the teams I have managed on FM08

Man United (I support them)

AFC Wimbledon (Wanted to give LLM a go and see how far I could get with them)

Republic of Ireland national team (I wanted to try and lead my country to World Cup glory)

LA Galaxy (Wanted to try MLS management)

Bohemians (Wanted to manage in my domestic league)

I have also managed several other teams but this is mainly through career games and challenges.

I did manage Rugby Utd because I wanted Rugby to become a name that was synonomous with football.

It wasn't a success.

Usually I just manage whoever will hire me at the time.

Chelsea (support them, least likely to play)

Red Star Belgrade (No WP, Strong Squad, ECC Qualification)

Go Ahead Eagles (Name says it all)

Melbourne Victory (I guess its the local team)

Toronto FC (Non-American Team in MLS)

FC Porto - I support them

Werder Bremen - Same reason as above

Dinamo Zagreb - Same reason but its also really challenging to make them a good team.

I picked "Spartak (S) '94 (Plovdiv)" in FM2006, because it was the most awkward name I'd ever seen! And because I wanted to do some LLM, in Europe, and have a chance at the CL, which I eventually won. So I've played them every year since and have gotten to know the real club a bit too. Quite odd as I'm totally unfamiliar with Bulgaria otherwise.

Now I pick based on much more useful criteria, to get the kind of game I want. But that reflects well on FM08 as well. In FM06 you could start anywhere and become huge quite easily. Now its a little more difficult, especially signing players (and selling them, grrr), so picking a team properly to the kind of game you want is important.

Starting with:

AFC Hornchurch - don´t remember the reason - later in the game, i love their website

Sutton United - love their website

FC Brantwood - love their website

Stenhousemuir - love their website

Stalybridge - Franks Tip

With me its either,

Sunderland - Team i support

Rangers - took notice of football when they were on 9 in a row, so i always mean to give them the 10 in a row they wanted

Real Madrid - always had a thing for the galacticos

Shakhtar - team that gets used when me and 2 mates use to see who's best

Gateshead - my LLM side becuse of how close they are

Darlington - for if i want to start low but not too low that i get too attached to the team

I picked spurs as I support them.

I like shakhtar as it is a fun game

Hitchin is the closest town to where the missus used to live

Exeter is my local big team when I grew up (I now live in london).

Aston Villa - team I support

Sydney FC - team I support and local team

I also have a tendency to manage teams for one player.

In FM07 it was Fluminense for Marcelo

Now its Zenit for Arsharvin, Ajax for Huntelaar, CSKA Moscow for Akinfeev, Partizan for Jovetic, etc.

In FM08 I always start out at FC Bayern, I just picked them at the start of the game because they hadn't qualified for CL last season and have become a fan.

Liverpool - the team i support

St Albans - where i was born

I've only played one save on FM08 and that has been taking The Saints from the bottom to the top!...

I used to choose East Stirlingshire because they were famously rubbish and paid salaries of £10 per week. Then I'd look around for rubbish teams in even weaker leagues, like India. The zenith was managing Fiji in a database I found in the Editors' Forum.

Now I'm taking time out from LLaMa and I've gone down the road of creating my own teams in the official editor - sometimes LLM but at the moment my team has replaced Bolton to compete in the EPL. I find that creatiung a team with my family as Chairperson and Directors gives a more personal feel, and I get more immediately involved in MY squad.

i usually pick a competition where i want to play - and most of the time the club with the lowest rep in that division. (using editor)

but always big countrys like germany, holland, england, italy or spain

Liverpool - the team i support

St Albans - where i was born

I've only played one save on FM08 and that has been taking The Saints from the bottom to the top!...

Good lad!

I have managed different teams as given,

Crewe Alexandra -> they have a good Youth setup

Man Utd -> I support them

Viva Kerala -> This is my home town team

Limerick FC(FM 07)now called limerick 37) > home town club and were stuck in 1st division

Derby County > approached me while in League 1 to take over the reins(my passport to english footy)

Barcelona > one of the biggest clubs wanted me to manage them, how could i say no?

Blackburn Rovers > my favourite club, and once established as world class manager i took them over. I have been at the club for about 17 years now!!!

Rangers FC - Im a supporter normaly my first team i'll play as

Gretna - After mastering tactics with rangers i felt i should try an other scottish team. They had money and were relegation candidates

Hamilton Accies - More of a challenge than Gretna and less money

AFC Wimbledon - Because of Dafuges challenge and they came up plus it would b wrong not to play as a team that sponsers SI

and finaly...

Celtic - to prove to my dad he was a rubbish manager lol

It's all done by random generator using a scientific calculator.

First I pick my nationality (and retain all players from that country). For example I will type in 260*RANDOM and it'll cough up 130.23. That's M (the 13th letter of the alphabet), so I count how many countries begin with M then I multiply that number by ten and do the same again.

I do the same for the second nation.

I do the same for nation to manage in.

Picking Division, I multiply the amount of divisions by 10 and do the random feature again (in England 0.92 would give me Blue Square South because you can't get above 70 as that is the number ceiling).

Then I multiply the amount of teams by 10 and randomly generate a team given to me.

Simply eh? ;-)

No particularly startling reasons for my FM08 choices really:

Fiorentina - Far and away my favourite Italian club and one of my favourite European clubs

Sampdoria - Another Italian club I like a lot, although maybe less so after they sacked me after just 14 months

Werder Bremen - I honestly can't remember how I came to love Werder Bremen so much, starting with the real life team a few years back, but they were a team I always wanted to manage for the last few years and now I have they are a team I absolutely adore in FM as well as following in real life

Hibernian - The team I support in Scotland and have yet to (without cheating - something I did way back in CM00/01) win the SPL with them after numerous attempts in different versions of the game

Innstrandens IF - I wanted a small club in Norway second season and they were one without a manager so they were it

Scunthorpe - Wanted to manage in The Championship and with a team who are not one of my usuals so I just kept hitting the Random button on teams when I created my manager until one popped up that I thought I could enjoy managing - not least because they were predicted to finish bottom of the table.

FM08 Choices are

Newport County - The team who I support and my local club. (Got a career story going at the moment)

Manchester United - Team I watched as a kid, played as them on every CM/FM game.

Glasgow Celtic - Only because I can't stand Rangers

Aberwystwyth Town - Used to go on holiday there as a kid

AFC Wimbledon - Got a load of respect for what their fans have done

So are you doing a game with Pau then? Semi pro aren't they? I think they have a cameroonian midfielder called bikoyoi. He has fairly good stats and would bei deal for a championship or league 1 side but it is not possible to get a work permit for him.

So are you doing a game with Pau then? Semi pro aren't they? I think they have a cameroonian midfielder called bikoyoi. He has fairly good stats and would bei deal for a championship or league 1 side but it is not possible to get a work permit for him.

I haven't decided yet Jambodinho.

I was planning on starting a new game with someone and somewhere quite different for what will surely be my last save on FM08.

I'm a big fan of lower league management and struggling with no money and small attendances.

The trouble is, FC Pau have got an absolutely huge stadium for their level and plenty of money too, so I'm slightly put off.

I've been looking at Sweden but I can't seem to find a team that jumps out at me right now. I'm tempted to holiday in Sweden and see who comes up into the lowest playable division for a real challenge!

Italy is always very tempting. Back on an old CM, I had one of my best ever saves with Cremonese in the Serie C divisions. I'm now tempted to take over at their local rivals Pergocrema, who also play in Crema, and who play in yellow and blue (always a good thing as far as I'm concerned!) and are a fairly small club in serie C2.

I'm holidaying in Mexico later this year, so I fancied starting there but all the clubs have HUGE stadiums and finances!

I have also been considering FCN Sint-Niklass in Belgium just because of their yellow and blue kits (yet again)

I really like starting at the bottom of a pyramid with at least two or three tiers to try to climb, so I'm really looking at Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium etc. Not England though because I've had too many games there.

Decisions, decisions, decisions!

I'm rubbish at starting new games, which is why I always have a long-term save with St. Albans City normally.

I have to really get into the club I'm managing to get into the save game.

Burnley - I support them, my first football match in England was to watch The Clarets win at Wembley against Stockport and I have been hooked ever since!

Miami - Born there

Turkey - Turkish Family

Sydney FC - Spent 2 years living there