Your Greatest Team of any FM Game?

So...what is the greatest side you ever built in any FM Game down the years?

Which game was it?

Who were the players?

What was the the formation?

What was the team?

What in your opinion made them so great?

looking forward to answers!

Which game was it? - CM 00-01

What was the the formation?

GK - Jonathan Gould

DL - Stephen Crainey

DC - Joos Valgaeren, Frazer Richardson

DR - Kyle Lavery(regen with 200 PA)

ML - Alan Thompson

MC - Stilian Petrov, Gareth Williams(from Nottingham F)

MR - Owen Hargreaves

ST - Alan Shearer, Mark Burchill

What was the team? - Celtic

What in your opinion made them so great?

I won everything in 3 years. Burchill scored 92 goals and Shearer scored 114 for this 3 seasons.

Oooh...

That's a tough a one!

It's a close call between my FM 2008 Derby side and my FM 2009 Derby side.

My Derby side somewhere between 2014-17, can't remember which year it was exactly on FM 2008 was just a side that demolished all in it's path.

.....................Andy Carroll....Jose Baxter

.............................Van der Vaart

Matias Fernandez...Veloso......Mascherano...McShane (regen)

....................Rajkovic....Vidal....Davies

..................................Ochoa

I find it hard to really put it down to just one side really, because over the course of 5-6 years some dominant players came through the ranks. I'd have to have a proper look back to decide. The reason why I'd put this one though is just the number of players who I remember just destroying sides, especially Andy Carroll, who I still maintain is the best player I've ever had in Football Manager. He still holds my scoring record, 360 goals for that side.

Last years side had some serious quality. It was a side made mostly of regens though. Apart from Igor Akinfeev, who played until he was 42 ammasing some 1000 straight appearances for the club. Some quality regens in that side.

Which game was it?

FM07

Who were the players?

Most were regens but I had WBA's Gianni Zuiverloom at right back, was immense. Along with an outstanding Boznian AMC regen named Denni Advic.

What was the the formation?

4-4-2 Diamond

What was the team?

Northampton Town, into Champs League by 2011 I think

What in your opinion made them so great?

It was and still is the most enjoyable game I've played on any of the games, and never have I made a diamond formation work so well, and the fact doing so well in Champs league!

My most succesful team was on FM09. I played a 4-2-2-2 as Hull and the team was:

          Asenjo
Santon Regen Regen Guilherme
       Sissoko Bolzoni
Marquinhos           McGeady
    Keirrison Lewandowski

Which game was it?

CM2 95/96 Dutch, Belgian and Spanish Leagues version

Who were the players?

Can't remember exactly, but they included:

Lasa, Fernando Hierro, Fernando Redondo, Manuel Sanchis, Michel, Buyo, Chendo, Luis Enrique, Ivan Zamorano, Alkorta, Amavisca, Raul, Guti, Michael Laudrop, Suker, and Zinedine Zidane. The last 2 I bought myself.

What was the the formation?

I think it was called the Christmas Tree formation.

What was the team?

Real Madrid

What in your opinion made them so great?

I had a sequence of 3 seasons in which I only lost 2 games. Pretty ridiculous when you think about it.

Although that was probably my best team ever, I was the most proud of myself in FM09 when I became second with Aston Villa already in my first season.

I remember on CM01/02 I had Van Nisteroy, Elber and Raul up front with Julius Agahawa as a very attacking attacking midfielder just behind. Can't remmber the rest of the team but they used to murder everyone. I think I had Edgar Davids in the holding role.

My Newcastle team in CM 01-02.

I had the same team that cleared up everything for like 10 seasons, from memory...

Given

A.Cole, Ferdinand, Hargreaves (RB)- can't remember the 4th defender.

<-----J.Cole Gerrard Dyer------>

Ronaldinho

Georlcelin (sp?) Van Nistelrooy

CM01-02, cleaned up absolutely everything for years with Leeds.

Played 3-4-1-2

GK Robinson

DC Ferdinand

DC Radoi / Nesta

DC Woodgate

ML Kewell

MR Bowyer

MC Aimar

MC Riquelme

AMC Keane

ST Smith

ST Torres

And the bench included...

Robben / N'Daiye / Dacourt

Yeah I had a leeds memory as well. Dimaond formation with Keane AMC. I remember I had Lee Hendre and Poablo Almier.

Which game was it?

CM 03/04

Who were the players?

What was the the formation?

GK: Gianluigi Buffon

DR: Gianluca Zambrotta

DL: Michele Ferri

DC: Lilian Thuram

DC: Paolo Montero

MR: Toledo

ML: Pavel Nedved

MC: Kim Kallstrom

MC: Vincenzo Italiano

ST: Georgi Kakalov

ST: Daniel Braaten

What was the team?

Juventus

What in your opinion made them so great?

They were just amazing, an awesome combination of experiance (Thuram, Montero, Nedved) and youthful flair (Toledo, Kakalov and Braaten) they would score loads of goals and hardly let in any its a great shame that i lost that save file

FM09

Empoli won the Champions League in 2013. 2-1 against Bayern Munich

GK Ochoa

DL Marek Jankulovski

DR Massimo Oddo

DC Mahmadou Sakho

DC Matteo Darmian

DM Andrea Pirlo

DM Massimo Ambrosini

MC Diego

AMR Marquinhos

AML Regen

ST Alberto 'Big Al' Paloschi

FM 2009 - Wolves ( Since FCB doesn't count for me as it's easier to assemble a legendary squad although they already had a legendary one. )

GK: Asenjo

DR: Srna

DC: Geromel

DC: Sakho

DL: Baines

DM: Regen

MC: Skjelbred

MC: Vukojevic

AMR: Marquinhos

AML: Di Maria

ST: Albert Bunjaku - Albanian regen

FM 09 - AC Milan 2012/2013

60 Games played - 58 Wins, 2 Draws, 0 Losses 165 goals for, 20 against. All comps won.

4-4-2

     
          Pato    Aguero

Vargas   Barazite   Flamini   Ninis

Sahko   Coloccini   Fazio   Corluka

              Adler

Just a professional squad - no complainers, no griping to the media, etc. And just dominant. They simply did not let in any goals. I usually rotate my squads quite a bit, but I didn't really do it with this squad - keeping the likes of Benzema, Vela and Gourcuff on the bench for most of the season.

I also had a Bayern squad in CM 01-02 - I can't remember much of it but I remember Elber and Deisler were amazing for me - undefeated for a couple years.

FM 09

Started my career at Gillingham but had spells at Inter, Arsenal and Madrid before retiring my best team was:

GK - Oscar Ustari

RB - Sergio Ramos

CB - Micah Richards

CB - Mamadou Sakho

LB - Gael Clichy

DM - Younousse Sankahare

CM - Jeremy Toulalan

CM- Wesley Sneijder

AMR - Cristiano Ronaldo

AML - Sebastian Giovinco

ST - Roberto Soldado

Won everything 5 years in a row, not much a achievement because i'm Madrid but meh....great bunch of lads eh?

The first team that comes to mind here is my athletico Madrid team in fm 08.

Playing a modified "kimz tactic" with :

GK - Akinfeev

RB - Micah Richards

LB - cant remember

CB - Ramos ( had like 30 goals a season for 3-4 cons. season due to the "corner-bug")

CB - Sakho

MC - gerrard

MC - Xavi

AMC - Messi

AMC - Aguero

AMC - C.Ronaldo

ST - Bojan(remember a game in CL, away to inter. He scored 8 goals. Think it was around 2013)

Were unbeaten in the league for something like 130 games, with a goal average of approx. 4 goals a game and 0.3-0.4 against.

Needless to say I resigned and took charge of Fiorentina in serie B after a few years of total world domination

Game: CM Italia (by far and away the most addictive game ever)

Team: Pescara

Players: Morgan de sanctis, can't remember the rest (it was 12-13 years ago, oh dear I am getting old)

Formation: 4-3-3 (not sure how it ever worked as I remember having three big strikers up front)

honours: 3 Serie A titles, 1 Serie B title, couple of copa italia I think and the European Cup!!

After this game, which lasted about 10 season I could not help but love Pescara, never got close to replicating this with them again dispite a number of attempts. Probably not my most successful but def the most enjoyable and rewarding, they were no hopers and success was a challenge.

I can't remember the team exactly, but it was FM2008 - The season was 21/22 I think.

I built a full regen youth squad with Nottingham Forest, then took the job at a winless liverpool and used my 50m budget to basically take my whole squad with me.

The stars of the squad iirc were Chris Randle - English international keeper, Chris Jones - English starting right/central midfielder (25m value), Ian Black (Not the current english league player), 20m rated Scottish left winger, Joe Dunne - English DM/MC, stats were basically Gerrard without the influence, and a Northern Irish striker called Kyle Mouncy who averaged 1 goal a game in all competitions, including a phenomenal 17 goals in the Champions league. Full physical 20's, nearly full technical 20's! Got him from Chelsea for 4m - nearly my entire budget at forest, and he'd put away something long the lines of 44 in one Premiership season for me. Only had 2 non-english in the starting 11/sub5. Was quite proud of the team to be honest!

Altho I must say, the 2 best buys I made for that team for impact were Peter Crouch, cost me 2.3m when I was still in the championship, and Mirko Vucinic, who cost me 1 entire seasons budget at 9m and put away nearly 50goals in all competitions. Got 34m for him off United, and the board accepted over my head

This one from my FM09 game i'm still playing:

Just an amazing team. I have 2 players for every position and i can honestly say that either starting 11 would walk the league.

I took over the team 10 years previously and they'd not won anything since the start of the game and were in a poor financial postion. I stuck with them and to date have won 6 prem titles, 4 cl titles 2 fa cups, 3 carling cups, 3 club world cups, 3 uefa super cups and 6 community sheilds. I'm hanging on with then in the hope of getting a new stadium and them naming it after me!

My strongest side was undoubtedly my Leicester team on FM2006. I won 6 league titles in a row, and 3 Champions League titles, playing until 2018. I also won the World Cup twice with Colombia in 2014 and Italy in 2018, so it was an incredibly successful save at international level too.

Most of the players in the end were regens, but I had a few real players like Libis Arenas, Marvin Elliott, Daniel Agger, Michael Jakobsen, Arouca and Augusto Recife. The most legendary regen was a player called Robert Dawson who was a left winger. His best moment was one of our Champions League wins where we were 2-0 down at half time to Barcelona and had 10 men. I moved Dawson up front by himself (He couldn't play there, although after then I retrained him), and we won 3-2 with Dawson scoring twice if I remember correctly.

I'll also give a mention to Brazilian striker Fernandao who was a legend in the early part of that save. I remember that season when I was playing FM2006 his real life team, Internacional won the Copa Libertadores, and he was their captain. I used to watch all the highlights on Channel 4 cheering them on purely because of his presence, and he lifted the trophy, and was tournament top scorer.

The team was so good because they were just so much better than anyone else. Whilst most AI teams ruined themselves by employing Mick McCarthy at some point, my team grew and grew. I've never had such a dominant side before or since on FM.

They still aren't my most fondly remembered team though. That goes to my FM2007 Hammerfest side, but this Leicester side was undoutbedly much stronger.

on fm 09 my liverpool side:

GK: Asenjo/Curci

RB: Rafinha/Arbeloa

CB: Thiago Silva/Kjaer

CB: Romulo (newgen)/Carragher

LB: Srna/Kolodziejczak

CM: Mascherano/Moussa Sissoko

CM: Xabi Alonso/Ramsey

AMR: Young/Kuyt

AMC: Gerrard/Pepper/Wilshere

AML: Zhirkov/Marin

ST: Torres (three time world player of the year)/Hulk/Saivet

Not the most talent packed side but they performed really well in my system and definently the most fun i've had with any team.

Things could be better on FM10 so glad to be able to reminisce about the 09 glory days. long period of success of leagues (13) and CL's (7) galore between 2015 and 2032 (the next season was going to be the last anyway but a poor start meant after all this time I got the boot), the high point has to be the 6 in a row between 2017-2022, the last 3 being doubles with the CL as well and the way in all but the 1st of the 6 titles the league was swept away with ease. despite there being many great players over the years there is what could mostly be considered a clear 'golden 11' even if in a few cases players careers barely overlapped and DC's being a troublesome position. Just booting up 09 for the stats.

GK: Steve Mandanda (only non-regen, 429 games, 1 goal, 7.02)

RB: Joan Arenas (Spanish, 316 games, 25 goals, 7.25)

LB: Sami Mubarak (UAE, 450 games, 14 goals, 7.09)

CB: Eugeny Khapov (Russian, 448 games, 17 goals, 7.07)

CB: Abel Peiro (Spanish, 308 games, 16 goals, 7.10)

DM: Telmo Pereira (Portugese, 446 games, 26 goals, 7.14)

CM: Georgi Mustafi (Macedonian, 344 games, 140 goals, 7.31)

AMR: Anders Andersen (Norwegian, 444 games, 140 goals, 7.29, captain, hired as coach after retirement)

AML: Slobodan Manic (Serbian, 481 games, 96 goals, 7.16)

FW: Abranches (Brazilian, 459 games, 255 goals 4.21)

FW: Antonis Koutroumanos (Greek, 478 games, 340 goals, 7.27)

Due to Mandanda's retirement, this team technically only played together for 2 seasons, the last of the 6 in a row (where I was only 1 FA cup final defeat from a quintuple) and the one after, so they were more the best team from a great era rather then a long-term great 11, though a majority of them were together for years. As it happens this is almost the same as the game's overall best 11 (with the exception of an LB who wasn't there for quite as long pushing mubarak to his 'natural' RB position and Arenas to CB in place of Peiro). As for why they were so great, the haul of trophies speaks for itself, especially as Mubarak, Andersen, Mandanda and Pereira were there for the 1st title in 2015 and Khapov and Koutromanos for the last in 2032 (Mubarak having only retired 2 years previously after regaining the title after 2 years for his 11th in his 16 years with me), however for me the main period of success, which was when most of the team were playing, was 2017-2027, and the below speaks for itself (runner up years in brackets)

League: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, (3rd in 2023), 2024, 2025, (2026), 2027

CL: 2017, (2019), 2020, 2021, 2022, (2023), 2025, (2026), 2027

I'll probably never see a CL with Ipswich (or any lesser-regarded side) again, and unless things improve on 10, the league isn't something I expect to see every game. I knew at the time this was a one-off save. And with the high quality of regens which I managed to get young, this was a one-off collection of players. For me they're immortal and i can state with certainty this is the best team I'll ever have and I cherish the memory. Plus with 09 not needing the disk I can access that save and look over the stats any time I wish, though until tonight I haven't.