[FM23] #CANTPICKTHE26 - Qatar 2022 Challenge

[albertluque]

Premise:

Start the game as International manager of one of the 32 teams in the World Cup.

Rules:

1: Do not select any of the 26 players the nation you are managing have selected for Qatar 2022

2: Players who were ruled out due to injury are eligible for selection

3: Post your selected squad

4: Post the lineup you used in the World Cup final and the score.

Challenge:

How many teams can you win the World Cup with?

Tip:

Consider using the editor to add suspensions or injuries to the selected players to keep the media off your back.

 

An example of the challenge can be found here.

[albertluque]

Leaderboard:

Winners:

Runners-up: @albertluque (England)

Third-place:

Fourth-place:

Quarter Finalists:

Last 16: @RussoTuristo (Germany)

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by albertluque

[albertluque]

[SimplySherwood]

On 14/11/2022 at 21:22, albertluque said:

Interesting idea for a challenge. Might have to give this a go. Unlucky to lose on penalties, that England back 4 is arguably better than the back 5 we will end up playing with the squad we have taken

Did you get much flack from the media for your selection or did you edit injuries? Probably not much of a problem since you can start the save right before the squad selection anyway

[albertluque]

1 hour ago, SimplySherwood said:

Interesting idea for a challenge. Might have to give this a go. Unlucky to lose on penalties, that England back 4 is arguably better than the back 5 we will end up playing with the squad we have taken

Did you get much flack from the media for your selection or did you edit injuries? Probably not much of a problem since you can start the save right before the squad selection anyway

I gave a suspension from International football until Dec 31st for the 26 players but at one point they suggested I had left out some of the 26 I couldn't pick.

[RussoTuristo]

OK Germany Here we go!

Squad for WC

Spoiler

Demirbay got injured so I called Lars Stindl instead

Forgot to make a screenshot of my final lineup before the match - thought i will easily beat Morocco up but got beaten myself in Last 16

Spoiler

Final lineup after the match - thanks to Stindl we had to play 120 mins instead of 90

Spoiler

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by RussoTuristo

[albertluque]

14 hours ago, RussoTuristo said:

OK Germany Here we go!

Squad for WC

  Reveal hidden contents

Demirbay got injured so I called Lars Stindl instead

Forgot to make a screenshot of my final lineup before the match - thought i will easily beat Morocco up but got beaten myself in Last 16

  Reveal hidden contents

Final lineup after the match - thanks to Stindl we had to play 120 mins instead of 90

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Hard luck! 

[Shadaza]

I love international management, I'm going to try a few teams. First up, Spain.

A promising start ended in heartbreak, won all 3 group games, the only team to do so. However lost 3-1 to Canada. We had xG of 2.5 vs Canada's xg of 0.8. But it do be like that sometimes.

Played a 4-3-3 to make use of pacey wingbacks and great creative midfielders. Ramos made an incredible captain whilst Aspas was great upfront. Paco Alacer broke his back as soon as the WC started. My best surprising player was Dani Parejo of Villareal who quickly earned a starting spot on the team. 





https://gyazo.com/0de8c56be3549d8366be1072c5aa778e

[Shadaza]

 

Portugal next. A real fun team to play with some great creative and hard working players and again excellent wing backs. Unlike Spain though, the Centre backs are all terrible, I was playing a back 5 to cover the weakness here and it lead to a fairly decent if exploitable defence.

Lopes played every game including the September internationals, such a great keeper probably deserved to go to the tournament for real. Florentino Luis, at 22, was easily the best midfield player, the other highly rated highly caped players such as Sanches and Moutinho just did not work for me. Diogo Jota injured for the real tournament was a blessing to have, top scorer and hard working player that contributed at every stage of play. Pedro Goncalves too was also excellent and will be a player I keep an eye out for in future games. Also note, the Vintinha in the squad is not the same one as at the real Qatar WC, this is a Portuguese league striker instead.

As for the tournament itself: First game was South Korea, a cagey 2:1 win. Second game was Ghana and we shockingly lost 1-0.  The Uruguay game though was a convincing 3-0 victory and got us through the group stage to play a very strong Brazil.
 

The Brazil game we lead 2-0 after 20 minutes but couldn't keep them out the game and eventually had to go to penalties with an exhausted squad and several injuires. The team was thus spent before we could even play Spain. We kept it 0-0 for 60 minutes but then Spain broke the dam.

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Shadaza