Britain and India Challenge

[cletus]

I won the league for the first time in 2012/2013, but past time winners

I can see you are at Chelsea. Looking forward to hear about your england-career. Starting with Southend, as I've just checked in your earlier posts...

I'm still with Everton and in my 2nd season there. Played 5 of the 6 groupmatches in Champ. League. Was drawn in group with CSKA Moscow, Valencia and Red Star.

Lost the first game away against CSKA - 2-1.

Lost the 2nd home against Valencia - 2-3

Won the next 3 games:

Away ag. Red Star - 1-2

Home ag. Red Star - 3-0

Home ag. CSKA - 2-0

Last game is away ag. Valencia. Table

I think I has to win, since CSKA is playing home ag. Red Star and I don't think CSKA kan loose that game.

But we'll see. Today's match is home ag. Liverpool, out fiercest rivals, and at an expanded Goodison Park (now 50000 seats) it will be a very good rehearsal to wednesday's decisive Champ. League match.

Currently 6th in Prem. League:Table

[cletus]

49976 people witnessed a draw ag. Liverpool, 1-1.

Next days later, the team travelled to Valencia to prepare for wednesday match. My topscorer was out injured and also my first-choice left winger got injured during the Liverpol-match, so hopes were not that high.

Fantastic start though. After 39 seconds we were ahead. Dorrans, who replaced my left wing, scored a great goal. The lead lasted 38 minutes, when Val. scored and again in th 45th min. Lost the match 4-1. Dorrans missed a penalty in the 82. min, but probably didn't matter. We're behind 4-1 at that time.

But we're through to the Euro Cup 1/16-finals and has drawn Rosenborg BK. Draw. Playing them in about 2 months time...

A few good teams left in the tournament, but with a little luck, who knows.....?

[cletus]

Just beat Rosenborg away by 4-1.

Hattrick by Madine...

Lost the FA Cup 5th round away to Chelsea, 2-3.

Lost the League Cup Semi Final to Arsenal, 4-6 agg.

Currently 5th in the League after 26 matches, 4 points behind Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham (all with 48 point)

Date: 14th February 2021.

[Bristol CityFC1981]

Right started this last night, am Air India...

Will post when first season complete.

[Prank Emperor]

Great Challenge....and this had made people play in I-League my home league

I will be starting this one soon...

[cletus]

Nice to see that there are still something going on here.

My own season 2020/2021 has just ended and we finished 8th in the Prem. League. Not as good as I could have wished for.

After Rosenborg was defeated we took on Roma, Porto and Newcastle and we were in the Euro Cup Final against Sevilla.

Ordinary time ended 4-4! 1-1 in extra time and then it was time for penalties.

Sadly we lost: http://img34.picoodle.com/img/img34/4/7/15/f_eurofinalm_03f0afb.jpg

Qualified for the Euro Vase Cup and expect to advance to the Euro Cup through this.

[crouchaldinho]

I'm still reading this thread regularly although I'm afraid I haven't returned to my Mumbai FC save for some time.

Good to see you're still going for it Cletus & Nightowl! Keep up the good work!

And good luck to the new posters who are going to start up the challenge!

I'll keep checking in here and I hope someone eventually manages to complete the challenge!

C.

[Earendil]

I saw this challenge a little while ago and decided to give it a try. The teams that were promoted were New Delhi Heroes and United Sports Club. Since I've read that people were having trouble with NDH I decided to go with USC. I just finished my first season and managed to easily avoid regulation and were placed sixth after a successful second half of the season.

Is anyone still doing this challenge? If so I can make more detailed posts and share my success and failures. If not, I'll still be doing this but not posting much.

[DodgeeD]

I've just read this article about Man Utd's plans to enter the Indian market. It has a couple of paragraphs at the end about the domestic game and the national side too, which may be of interest to those who are participating in this thread.

I'm still interested in this challenge though my save on Gundo's is taking up most of my FM time atm. I hope this will be run agin for FM 09 as I'll definitely be joining then if it is.

[cletus]

Is anyone still doing this challenge? If so I can make more detailed posts and share my success and failures. If not, I'll still be doing this but not posting much.

I'm still playing my Mohammedan/Everton, though I've not played so much recently. But I still plan to play from time to time.

Just started my 3. season as Everton-manager and won the first leg in the Euro VASE 3rd round. 2-0 away against Lokeren.

Manager info

Squad

Finances

Here's my indian-player: Ahmed Hossain

and he's Career

Still manager for India. Thinking about resigning this as I've completed the India-task: Getting past groupstage in the Asian Cup (losing the Quarterfinal though).

The England job seem difficult to get for now. Rafa Benitez is doing quite well: World Cup Qual

[PluckaDuck]

Nice job Cleutus, i'm still keenly following although I'm to short on time to participate

[crouchaldinho]

Yes, I'm following progress despite the fact that I am not playing too much FM08 at the moment due to study commitments.

I'm always interested in hearing updates about this challenge though - the bigger the better!

C.

[Earendil]

I have a question. The rules say that I must honour the first contract at my first club. After season one where I placed 6th with USC, I was offered a new two-year contract which I accepted. Now, the manager of Mohun Bagan has been sacked and I'm wondering whether I'm allowed to apply for this job or not? I am on my second contract for USC, but I haven't finished the 2 seasons that my initial contract was on.

Also, how do you guys handle finances? I average about 500 people on my games except for the ones against my rivals where I get 17k and 25k and that's not enough to provide a profit for me. Although my chairman accepted a 110k bid on my extremely promising right winger (one of the biggest stars in the league at the age of 18), so I guess I'm safe for a while. The funny thing is that he was estimated at 2k.

At half-time of my second season I'm placed 2nd in the league but I fear this might be the peak of my success with USC. I get enquiries on my players every three days and I'm having troubles keeping them in my club and no players of the same skill wants to join my club.

[cletus]

Since you are on your second contract, I would say that you are allowed to apply for other jobs.

About finances: In my time at Mohammedan, I could not complain about the average attendance as you see: Mohammedan avg. attendance

Can't remember how much income it resulted in, but I had no financial problems.

I was manager until 2019.

[crouchaldinho]

Since you are on your second contract, I would say that you are allowed to apply for other jobs.

Cletus is spot on.

[Earendil]

Ah, cool. Since there weren't many games left of the season (and I was awaiting your reply) I made two saves and finished the league with both Mohun Bagan and USC. With USC I managed to get 4th place but with Mohun Bagan I finished second after winning 4 out of the 5 games that were left. I will now continue as Mohun Bagan, although I had some mixed feelings about leaving USC, especially since the first game with Mohun was against my old team.

Mohun Bagan is on a totally different level with a transfer budget of several millions compared to USC who didn't have any transfer funds at all. The average attendence has been 33k for Mohun Bagan so we're pretty much swimming in cash. After the first season they liked me enough to offer me a 2-year contract and I think I'm gonna stick with this team.

[Earendil]

It's official; I hate East Bengal and Pardal.

2010/2011 Season

It started with the Super cup, my first challenge in Mohun Bagan (well, except for the 5 games left of the Indian League that was left when I took charge). I score early and have the upper end in the match until the 80th minute. Pardal scores. The match remains 1-1 and we're going to have a penalty shoot-out. I lose 4-2.

Next challenge: Federation Cup. In the premilinary round I was drawn against.. guess what, East Bengal. The match is even until the 77th minute, Pardal scores. I try my best to score an equalizer, but fail to do so. The board is not very happy with me out of the tournament so early.

Durand Cup:

After 5-1 against SC Goa, 6-0 against Salgaocar, 5-0 against Mahindra United, I'm in the final. I think you can all guess who I was facing.. East.., eh, you get it.

This time I'm up 2-0 in half-time and I have a good feeling about this one. My team's been thrashing all opposition in the cup so far and this might be the first time I beat East Bengal. If only..

Babu scores in the 58th minute, and yes, Pardal scores in the 80th minute. The match goes to penalties and I lose 4-1.

East Bengal seems to be the only team in India with a quality Goalkeeper and since they're our rivals, they won't sell him to us unless I pay 1 million quid, which is quite a bit more than what he's worth.

In the NFL, things are going better. There are 4 games left of the season and I'm in the lead, 1 point ahead of East Bengal. However, one of those games is against East Bengal and I get this feeling that East Bengal will steal another title from me.

What's good though is that St. Mirren is interested in buying Pardal so hopefully I'll never run into him again.

[cletus]

In my days in India (with Mohammdan), East Bengals took the title 5 times in a row (2008-2012) before it was my turn. As I recall, that season I managed to attract some good players from East Bengal. I believe thats the key to succes in NFL: Become so good at team that the best players are willing to join you. And also to spot the youngster.

Good luck with the last 4 games. Hope you succeed.

Are East Bengal playing in the Asian Champions League or the Asian Conf. Cup?

Have my beloved Mohammedan reached the NFL?

[Earendil]

I think Mohun Bagan has enough reputation to attract pretty much any player in the league. Pretty much all my starting players would be star players in any team in the league except for in East Bengal and my team. The ones I would want to buy are pretty much only East Bengal players, but since they're my rivals they are always asking for ridiculously high prizes when I approach one of their players.

I'm also in doubt on how to proceed now. I've upgraded my youth and training facilities and I've got lots of quality youth players. I reckon that the newgens have a lot higher potential than the already established players, but I can't play them all and none of the other teams in the league seem to want to loan them, only sign them. I fear that if I don't play these players they will move on to other teams and in a couple of years they have become class players. I guess I can just buy them back once they've become good since my finances are really good.

How did you guys handle your young players?

Ok, now to the exciting part:

NFL 2010/2011

I was one point ahead of East Bengal with 4 games to go. My first game was against newly promoted ONGC while East bengal was facing Mahindra United. I won 3-0 while East Bengal surprisingly lost 1-3 against Mahindra United. I was up 4 points and 8 goals with 3 games remaining; things were looking good.

Next round: I was facing Salgaocar, while East Bengal was facing New Delhi Heroes. After having a 2-0 lead in half-time, my team had a really bad second half and the game ended 2-2, with Salgaocar scoring in the 87th minute. East Bengal won 3-0.

Second last round: I was up 2 points and 5 goals. This time it was me vs East Bengal. They scored the first goal of the game in the 36 th minute, but I equalized only 3 minutes later. I was the dominating team but their goalkeeper kept saving them. The game ended 1-1.

Last round: I was up 2 points and 5 goals. I was facing New Delhi Heroes away and they were facing ONGC. The game was surprisingly even and it took until the 59th minute before I could score the first goal. Meanwhile East Bengal was destroying ONGC with a 6-0 lead. The time was running up but NDH were pushing for an equalizer. They threw all they had against me and even had a header in the crossbar. If I would concede one now, the title would go to East Bengal, my nemesis. Luckily, my striker Wisdom Abbey saved the day in the 90th minute with his 15th goal in the league that season and we had won the title!

About the Asian cups, I can't figure out how they work. For the first 3 seasons, India had 2 teams in the Conf. cup, until Mohun Bagan (before I took over) won the competition. From that on India's got one team in the Champions League. Does that mean that I can't play in the Conf. Cup?

About Mohammedan, I'm afraid they haven't been promoted yet. The ones that have been are NDH, USC, ONGC, Mumbai FC and Oil India. Some forth and back.

[crouchaldinho]

Earendil - just wondering how you managed to land the Mohun Bagan job after only a couple of seasons? What reputation did you start with?

I only ask because I couldn't get the top jobs in the division after a long spell with Mumbai FC. This might be down to their poor rep though.

C.

[Earendil]

I started with Sunday League footballer. That's what I was supposed to do, right?

[crouchaldinho]

Is Sunday League Footballer the same as Automatic? That was the manager reputation that was suggested in the first post.

They might even be the same thing anyway? Not sure. :confused:

[cletus]

I selected Automatic Experience and it gave me National reputation http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/4/5/6/f_profilem_affa881.jpg

Congratulation with the title. Nice name for your saviour, Wisdom Abbey

Since the NFL-winner have qualified for the ACL, they will not be playing the ACC.

[Earendil]

Sorry, I must've missed that suggestion. Perhaps you should've put it in the first post. Although my profile looked the same as cletus'.

So do I have to win the ACL to complete the challenge?

[Truegunner]

http://www.punefc.com/

according to this the kit is red in the game it's blue and they have no year of formation can I use the modifier to put there kit and year in?

EDIT: It dosen't matter I've went for Mumbai Instead

[Earendil]

crouchaldinho, what nationality did you set your manager to? I set mine to Indian with Swedish as 2nd (I'm swedish), I think that's why I might've had more luck with getting the Mohun Bagan job.

[crouchaldinho]

Yes, that could be Earendil - I had mine set to English.

Could have been down to a bit of luck too. I believe that Sunday League Footballer is the lowest level, i.e. the same as picking automatic when unemployed. As long as you started out as 'national' then that's fine.

[Earendil]

A few more interesting things:

Mohun Bagan has faced East Bengal in the preliminary round of the Federation Cup 4 times in a row. Coincidence? And yeah, I lost to them again this year.

When I was facing East Bengal in the league I had 8 players away for India's game against Oman. East Bengal had 6. At least both my strikers were non-indians and their reserve keeper was rubbish so I won 4-1.

India's starting eleven consists of only Mohun Bagan and East Bengal players. Despite that, they lost in the first round of the WCQ again, so hopefully their manager gets sacked soon.

[varun↕§☺☻♫]

Woah, can't believe I didn't see this earlier. I'm certainly going to do this challenge due to the fact that I'm Indian

[GaAsBaN]

I just started this challenge last night. Brutal and frustrating so far. I'm with Oil India and they really stink. I've played through the first 6 games of the season with 2 draws and 4 losses. I'm currently in last place.

My training and youth facilities are at the lowest level. I seem to average two injuries per game.

My oldest player when I took over was 17. Basically my first team is a second U18 squad.

I did manage to sign a few decent players during the transfer window, including a good MC from Africa - my only foreign player so far.

I'm hoping my team will gel and become more cohesive soon. It's going to be a difficult struggle staving off relegation!

[varun↕§☺☻♫]

Ok, so I took control of Mohammedan. The team really needed improvement, so I signed around 11 players (though around 8 of them will be arriving in October). We didn't have a senior goalkeeper so that was my priority. But first I got 2 scouts, a coach and a physio. I have to play till October with one of my youth team keepers. Here is my preseason and Federation cup report:

Pre-season friendlies - Part 1

Here are the results of the games I played before the Federation Cup

(H) v Shastri - 1:1

(H) v Vasco - 4:4

(H) v Mumbai FC - 5:2

(H) v Mahindra Utd - 5:3

(H) v FC Kochin - 1:1

(A) v SC Goa - 4:1

(A) v Assam SEB - 3:1

(A) v Punjab Police - 1:1

Overall, I think the team did really well. The best part is that we beat Mahindra Utd who finished 2nd in the NFL last year. So that shows that we can match the best but its only preseason. Things may change later though. I was disappointed as we conceded atleast one goal per game. That might change when my new goalkeepers come in. Now onto the Federation Cup

Federation Cup

Preliminary Round

v Salgaocar - 4:1

Quarter-final

v Vasco - 5:5 (we beat them 3-1 on penalties)

Semi-final

v Pune FC - 1:2

Third-place playoff

v JCT - 2:1

The first game was really easy. We coasted through it but conceded the goal because of a penalty. In the quarterfinal, Vasco took the lead twice before we pegged them back. At halftime, the game was deadlocked at 2:2. Straight after kick-off, we scored and two minutes later they equalised. This stayed the same until the 88th minute when we scored through a freekick but Vasco replied with a fantastic counter-attack after a corner. At 4:4 we headed into extra time. We scored early on - in the 93th minute and I thought we had won but right at the end Vasco equalised. We beat them on penalties anyway but still it made me wonder how come our games are always so high-scoring. In the semis, we were totally dominating Pune but right at the end we conceded two goals which overturned the deficit and won them the game. Pune eventually lost 4:0 to East Bengal in the final. In the third-place playoff, I sent out a very young team as the others were tired. We won comfortably but one of their strikers scored a late consolation which made sure we haven't had a single clean-sheet yet.

One question: do we get prize money for coming third in the Federation Cup? I didn't get any.

Pre-season friendlies - Part 2

After the Cup, I thought of increasing our bank balance by playing high-profile friendlies at home. So I scheduled home games against Adelaide Utd, Queensland Roar and Central Coast Mariners. Adelaide Utd inflicted my first friendly defeat and Queensland Roar and the Mariners beat me too.

(H) v Adelaide Utd - 3:4

(H) v Queensland Roar - 0:2

(H) v Central Coast Mariners - 0:1

The season starts in 6 days and I'm really optimistic about a top half finish. I'll post a screenshot of my league table halfway through the season along with another update.

[crouchaldinho]

Keep up the good work - great update

[greenwhitearmy]

just started this challenege as something to do until i ge my fm 09 for christmas. I started out wit Mohammedan and im in 6th place with 3 games gone

[greenwhitearmy]

3 games left to go sitting just above relegation zone in 8th place 5 pts clear of the relegation zone with -13 GD . this game is very enjoyable

[Nightowl]

Well, between a lack of time and the forum changing over to SEGA, I haven't been on these forums in a long time. Finally re-registered. Just wanted to let people know that I did finish this challenge a while ago, sadly I've now moved on to FM09 so I no longer have the save. Wish I could have kept going with the updates, it was an interesting ride...

More importantly, I'm curious if crouchaldinho will be running this one again for FM09. Any info? Until then, I think I'll try the Asian challenge...

[crouchaldinho]

Nightowl, if there were enough people interested in the challenge then I would certainly run it again for 09.

The 08 challenge seemed to get going quite quickly but very few people kept playing beyond the initial few seasons.

I wonder if it was perhaps a bit too long and overambitious/complicated?

Maybe the challenge needs to be toned down or perhaps it should just focus on Indian football (i.e. club and national team).

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

C.

[DodgeeD]

I think the original format was good - maybe the timing meant people were unwilling to start new long term games at the time. If you started an FM09 version I'd certainly give it a go as I'd like to see more challenges based around moving clubs but without very strict rules on very specific teams.

[Nightowl]

Well, I liked the format, but I was in the mood for something difficult. This was a tough challenge to get started in, especially if you took a smaller club to start (looking back, I think I was very lucky to get some of the regens I did). The Indian teams are poor, even compared to the rest of Asia, so it was tough to achieve success in continental competitions, and tough to attract any decent players. This might have lead to the number of dropouts.

If you run it again, definitely keep the Indian football focus. To me, however, moving on to the European stage and bringing some Indian players with you was a big part of the fun. It also made the challenge different than many others. If you want to make it a little shorter either drop the local/Indian player only requirement on your European team (not preferred), or drop the international management requirement for the home nation you choose (after all, if your squad of (example) English players could win the Champions League, they are probably good enough to win the World Cup... and international management is still somewhat boring in this game). Just some thoughts.

If you run it again, I'll give it a try, and I'm sure others will too. Not every challenge needs 10s of pages of replies, in some ways its easier to follow if a smaller number are trying it. That's one thing I liked about this one as opposed to say, dafuge's challenge, where each persons story gets lost in the shear volume of posts. As long as a decent number are trying it, I'd say it was a success.

[crouchaldinho]

Some good points there Nightowl. Thanks for the reply.

I'm playing my St. Albans City save at the moment and getting quite into it but I will definitely think about running this challenge again. I will have another think about the rules and perhaps post something up over the next week.

C.

[greenwhitearmy]

You gonna start this for 09 crouch?

[taifun]

Now there's a reminder of past good times. This was one of the most interesting games I had on FM08 and I'm really interested in making another go at it.

[greenwhitearmy]

Same here.

[crouchaldinho]

I'm not going to restart it for 09 but you guys are welcome to start it with the same rules and update here.

Few changes to the Indian leagues this year in FM that should be make it even more challenging.

Anyway, I'll be reading any updates that come up. Good luck guys.

C.

[taifun]

Well, there's an easier route to success this year, as Salgaocar start the game out of the league and usually get promoted. I'm running a test game with them right now, will see how it goues and maybe make some small updates here. It seems like it could be as fun as last time.

Oh, and once again, direct and slow seems to work very well

[greenwhitearmy]

I'll be playing with Salgaocar and i'll make a thread for 09 since crouch doesnt want to

[taifun]

greenwhites new thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=127029

Posted a quick summary from my first season.