Danny Roberts Challenge

[vikeologist]

Resurrecting this old challenge to see if it gathers any traction.

In essence this challenge is to have a player score 1,000 goals for you.

It's called the Danny Roberts challenge after a player that Dafuge did it with, maybe as much as 15 or even 20 years ago. there may be one other person who achieved it years ago. I'm not sure.

The rule for the challenge are

-Competitive club matches only

-Player must score all his goals for you as his manager

-International goals can be included, including friendlies, even if you're not the national manager.

-Can be done in tandem with any other challenge, or just as a challenge in its own right. Frankly though, I imagine it's more fun as part of another challenge.

Edited August 17, 2023 by vikeologist

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 0 - 15 years old

I am indeed having a go at this challenge. it's something I've always wanted to try, but it's hard to make the pieces fall into place.

I've temporarily abandoned my Ultimate challenge to have a go at it. Not sure how long my interest will keep up.

This is my candidate at the end of the season after he came through the intake.

The second screenshot was taken about a month after the first, just to show some extra info, such as his star rating and description.

Background. I'd just led Celtic to a domestic treble, and the semifinals of the Champions League. 

Honestly, our finances and facilities aren't great, so hopefully i can develop them before Adam hits his peak.

Obviously this challenge is kind of tricky to do, and my entire save from his emergence has been based around getting 1,000 goals from Adam.

I started him in most matches from the start, even though at this point he's not really very good, and I was using him in place of a genuine world class striker. 

His extra training is penalties, and I have him as my main taker. I'm basically gaming the challenge is almost every possible way .Also using downloaded tactics, albeit with a slight added variation. I'll admit, it sort of feels like gaming the situation. The goals aren't coming organically, but the goals are the objective.

It will take a few years for him to reach his peak. In 4 or 5 season's time, I really need him to be consistently scoring in excess of 50 goals a season. Obviously, he probably won't score that many for the next few years, although I'm halfway through his first full season, and he's not that far off.

There's also a lot of things which could destroy the challenge; injuries and the player forcing an exit. And of course, in the end, retirement.

I'm not sure this will be fun for the 20 odd seasons it might take.

But I'll make a start, and hopefully beat my own personal record, which is really low, (about 300 goals, I think).

I might at some point want to take the Scotland job, but no point applying even if it comes up, until Adam is at his peak, and frankly I'd like to do it just with club goals anyway.

Season		Season Appearances 	Cumalative League Appearances   	League Goals This Season		League Cumalative goals	
2049/50			12			12					7					7

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by vikeologist

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 1 - 16 years old

 

So, here’s the problem with the challenge that I didn’t anticipate. It’s going to be too easy.

48 goals in 39 starts and 2 sub appearances. A goal every 61 minutes.

 

At the moment, Maitland is 16, and still not very good. I only started him in the league matches, usually not the cups or Champions League. (We did win all 3 domestic trophies, but we went out in the group stage of the Champions League). The team is not very good. I’m slowly rebuilding it with young players because we don’t have much money due to building a new stadium.

With all that, Maitland still scored 48 goals, and would probably have hit the half century if this hasn’t happened with 3 matches to go.

 

 

This is just going to come down to him not getting injured or leaving.

As I start playing Maitland in more cup and CL matches, and the team improves, his appearances and presumably goals will go up. At the moment, I plan to start Maitland in all the cup matches next season, but not Champions League.

His ‘backup’ Moussa Ndayishimiye, a top level striker admittedly, scored 37 goals in his 16 starts, plus of course the 32 times my Assistant brought him on as a sub. However, his goals to minutes ratio was almost identical (60 minutes).

An interesting side challenge will be to see how close Maitland gets to 100 goals in a season.

Maitland obviously picked up some awards this season, including top spot in the NxGn and European Golden Boy.

He also collected 4 U21 caps and 4 goals.

Season		Season Appearances 	Cumulative League Appearances   	League Goals This Season		League Cumulative goals	
2049/50			12			12					7					7
2050/51			41			53					48					55

 

[XaW]

Ah, I remember that challenge from way back in the day. Can't say I've ever completed it, but I think I might pay a bit more attention in my long term saves and see if anyone comes close and add them here if so.

[aldojags]

not sure if people can retrospectively join it, but @libbyshusshas a guy about to hit 1k goals in his youth challenge 

[vikeologist]

14 hours ago, aldojags said:

not sure if people can retrospectively join it, but @libbyshusshas a guy about to hit 1k goals in his youth challenge 

I'd love for people to retrospectively join. Frankly if he hasn't been basing his whole team around him since the age of 15 it will be a considerably greater achievement than mine.

 

I'm a bit worried about Adam. His personality has changed from F pro to F Sporting, which probably means his professionalism has dropped below 15. he is being mentored by a M Citizen, but there were a lot of others in his mentoring group, so hopefully now I've moved whoever it was messing up his professionalism.

There was a perfectionist, so maybe he only had 14 professionalism. Anyway, the perfectionist has his own group now.

No other problems with Adam though. current ability going up. I've sold the world class striker and Adam has 8 goals in 5.

[dafuge]

I had another one in my FM21 save:

Although I counted international goals not under my management (as I did for the original Pele challenge with Danny Roberts).

I've got a contender on the go in my current game, he's on 852 (including international goals) at the age of 30, so he's probably going to fall just short.

[vikeologist]

21 minutes ago, dafuge said:

I had another one in my FM21 save:

Although I counted international goals not under my management (as I did for the original Pele challenge with Danny Roberts).

I've got a contender on the go in my current game, he's on 852 (including international goals) at the age of 30, so he's probably going to fall just short.

I thought I was old, but I didn't know it was ever called the Pele challenge.

As I've alluded to, I'm not doing this organically, so it will be a lot less impressive than yours or Libbyshuss's and anyone else who's done it as part of challenges.  My guy's something like the 6th best penalty taker, although he only misses penalties in important cup matches #GoodNewsBadNews

[dafuge]

11 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

I thought I was old, but I didn't know it was ever called the Pele challenge.

As I've alluded to, I'm not doing this organically, so it will be a lot less impressive than yours or Libbyshuss's and anyone else who's done it as part of challenges.  My guy's something like the 6th best penalty taker, although he only misses penalties in important cup matches #GoodNewsBadNews

It would have been FM06, as I did it in the very first year of my challenge. No idea who actually started it, but it got quite a bump when I completed it!

I feel your pain with the penalties, my player isn't the best either so you just have to accept the misses.

They key is getting someone really good when they are young, which is really limited in England as you can't sign U18s from abroad. 

[vikeologist]

20 minutes ago, dafuge said:

It would have been FM06, as I did it in the very first year of my challenge. No idea who actually started it, but it got quite a bump when I completed it!

I feel your pain with the penalties, my player isn't the best either so you just have to accept the misses.

They key is getting someone really good when they are young, which is really limited in England as you can't sign U18s from abroad. 

Which international goals can be counted? Friendlies? U21 etc?

[dafuge]

Just now, vikeologist said:

Which international goals can be counted? Friendlies? U21 etc?

It was full internationals, not U21s. Basically, what you see on the player's profile page.

I guess it could be manipulated by choosing easy friendlies, but I never managed at international level. I always saw it a sign of a great player that they would score loads under AI management too.

[Wavelberry]

Andrew Smylie was another absolute monster just after then as well wasn't he?

[dafuge]

1 minute ago, Wavelberry said:

Andrew Smylie was another absolute monster just after then as well wasn't he?

Was that Nep's one in NI?

NI leagues were great for it, so many easy matches once you get into it.

[Wavelberry]

6 minutes ago, dafuge said:

Was that Nep's one in NI?

NI leagues were great for it, so many easy matches once you get into it.

Yep, that's the one. God we're old.

[libbyshuss]

9 hours ago, vikeologist said:

Frankly if he hasn't been basing his whole team around him since the age of 15 it will be a considerably greater achievement than mine.

i have! he's 34 now and just hit his 966th goal for me. He's got 1000 if you count international games but I wasn't manager for them.

He's gonna stay in the team until he hits 1000, I'll let you know!

[vikeologist]

Adam picked up his first international cap shortly after his 17th birthday.

Let's see how he did. Oh!

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 2 - 17 years old

 

64 goals in Adam’s first full season as a starter, (I sold my World Class striker at the start of the season).

He’s still only 17 and still improving.

The dangers remain injury or leaving the club. He’s not injury prone at all. I gave him a 5 year contract during the season, but now he wants another one, so I’ve offered him everything he wants, and the one thing I want (3 years plus a option for an extra 3 years) which will have him tied up for 6 seasons. The trouble is that he’ll probably want yet another contract before I can activate the extension.

He won the NxGn award again and lots of other stuff.

He picked up his first couple of international caps, although for the first one as posted above he came on in extra time and didn’t touch the ball.

He’s in the squad for the Euros this summer, but I doubt he’ll get on the pitch unless the other strikers pick up injuries or suspensions.

As for Celtic, we won the league and Scottish cup. We were knocked out (comprehensively) in the last 16 of the Champions League. I’m slowly building up the team with young players and the facilities. Now we’ve moved into a huge new stadium though, things look better financially.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative League Appearances   League Goals This Season	League Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12				7				7
50/51		41			53				48				55
51/52		53			106				64				119				2			0		119

 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 3 - 18 years old

 

58 goals this season, (running total 177), which to be honest I was a bit disappointed with at this stage, given that he started 52 matches. Still, I suppose there are going to be blips. Hopefully next season will be a bounce back one.

The Scotland job became available after the Euros, but in line with Dafuge’s info, I’m going to include the international goals but let the dice fall where they will. This time anyway. Maybe if it becomes available when Adam’s actually good enough to start, I’ll reconsider. He now has 5 caps, of which 1 is a start. No goals yet.

We won everything domestically. Rangers, with a new manager, were keeping up with us until Christmas. We went out at the round of 16 in the Champions League.

Adam’s already been unsettled by a bid from Arsenal. He has more than 5 years left on his contract, once I can extend it, with no release clause, but it looks like this challenge will come to an end then. Mind you, five and a half years is a long time. I do sort of hope that we’ll win the Champions League at some point. I am working on improving the team, both by developing youth players, facilities and brining in much better players. I’m not sure this necessarily results in more goals for Adam, but I suppose it results in more matches.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177

 

[libbyshuss]

My lad did it today:-

1000 club goals, all for me. He also scored 96 international gaols for Germany so it's 1096 career goals!

[aldojags]

Loving the look of Maitland, especially as a Scotsman!

 

Yes think your biggest threat will be keeping him at Celtic if a big premiership club come sniffing...hopefully not!

[vikeologist]

14 minutes ago, aldojags said:

Loving the look of Maitland, especially as a Scotsman!

 

Yes think your biggest threat will be keeping him at Celtic if a big premiership club come sniffing...hopefully not!

Definitely, but I have him locked up for another 8 seasons now.

It is going to be hard to keep him for the 15-20 years necessary though.

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 4 - 19 years old

 

 

74 goals this season, which is a lot better, although that was at least in part down to the number of matches we played.

We reached the final of the Champions league, and frankly were the better side, but lost 2-1.

Reaching the finals of both domestic cups and the champions league meant that we played 62 matches, which is nearly the maximum possible. (We missed out 2 matches by finishing top 8 in the CL group stage).

However, we have qualified for the next Club World Cup in 3 years, so I suppose even 64 wouldn’t be the maximum.

Despite missing out on the Champions League, we did win the domestic treble yet again.

My team is now long in the tooth though. This was probably our best chance for a while to win the Champions League. 8 of our first team are 31 or over. However, they should be good for one more go.

The problem is though that actually winning the Champions League might not actually be that great an idea if the next few seasons I have to rejuvenate the squad.

As mentioned above, I tied Adam up for another 8 seasons. 5 year contract plus 3 year extension.

I’ve always thought that there were 2 main dangers to completing this challenge; Adam leaving or Adam being injury prone. There is however a third danger, which is being sacked. It’s not as though I’m likely to fail to win the league, but if we did something crazy like win the Champions league, the board’s expectations may then become unrealistic.

Adam did actually get injured early on in the Champions League final, and will thus miss the first World Cup match this summer with Scotland.

It took until his 9^th cap for him to score his first 2 international goals. Even though it was the last match of the season for Celtic, I still hope he’ll add to his international tally during the summer once he's recovered. I'm quite happy for him to get a bit of a rest for a few weeks while injured.

He won the NxGn for the 4th year in a row, and I think he'll be too old to win it anymore.

A quarter of the way to the thousand after just 4 seasons. Hopefully we can keep close to the 75 mark from now on, but at some point I'm going to need to replace the older players. Our youth intakes for the last 3 years have been pretty bad, but i am still trying to develop homegrown players for Champions league registration purposes.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253

 

[dafuge]

837 goals for Pompey and 164 goals for Wales, Andy Jones has made it to 1000!

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 5 - 20 years old

 

Adam scored 69 goals and 10 for Scotland. 6 of his international goals came in one match, so he’s not really set the world alight for Scotland, but he’s making reasonable progress towards the thousand.

The grand total stands at 332.

At the end of last season my first team was very old, (8 of my starters were 31 or over) but still good enough for another shot at the Champions League. However 2 of my best players demanded to leave, and I had to start a gradual rebuild with younger players at some point.

We only reached the QF of the champions league, although we were a bit unlucky. We were undefeated in the league, which is the first time that’s happened to me in ages; probably 2 or 3 iterations of FM. We achieved the domestic treble again. We won the league by 31 points.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332

 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 6 - 21 years old

78 club goals for Adam this season, (a season record) which is good because he was injured for the first 3 weeks of the season. Only 3 international goals though, so I’m not getting much help there.

The grand total is now 413 goals.

He’s very unhappy at not being able to leave, but still has 7 years left on his contract. I do need to be careful not to completely alienate him though.

Once again we won the domestic treble. We also reached the champions league final for the second time. We had nearly all our players available for the final, and it was against Barcelona who we’d thrashed in the groups stage. But we lost 2-1 thanks to conceding on set pieces. I was more disappointed this time than the first. It would be nice to win at some point.

6 of my starters for the CL final were 33 or over, but the development of younger players is going ok. There were a couple of veterans I gave the nod to in the final because of their experience. Still, there is a possibility we take a small step back next season because nearly all of those old players are sticking around.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413

 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 7 - 22 years old

 

Maitland scored 82 goals. It’s a new record, but he was on course to score even more before his now customary comparative drought at the end of the season.

He might add to this tally as I think we’re in the Club World Championship which will straddle the league reset date.

Only 1 international goal. I’m not going to get much help from that avenue it seems. He doesn’t even play every match, even though he is by far the best striker, and indeed one of the best strikers in the world.

We’re still almost half way to the thousand though, (496 goals) and Maitland’s only 22.

Despite being in something of a rebuilding phase, we won the league, Scottish cup and reached the semis of the Champions League. Our league tally was the worst for years, but I’ve had to gradually bring in younger players. I did hope for the team to peak for the Club World Championship, but this isn’t my best Celtic team ever. We still stand a chance though.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				34			16		496

 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 8 - 23 years old

 

Going to finish off this challenge. Shouldn’t take anywhere near the whole of Maitland’s career.

The most important thing was snatching the opportunity to renew his contract during a brief window when he didn’t want to leave.

I have him locked up for 7 more seasons, and needing 422 more goals, that should be enough. The worry was that I’d get close, but Maitland would leave on a free transfer.

Adam scored 78 goals from 58 league appearances.

A couple of disappointing things challenge wise.

First we were knocked out of the Champions League in the first knockout round. We had a really good team for the league stage, but clubs picked off our best players in the winter window. Our early exit meant less matches for Maitland.

The other frustration was that he played only 1 international match during the regular season, though he's making more appearances in the World Cup and runup. Scotland does have another good striker, although not as good as Maitland according to my scouts. I’m hoping that the Scotland manager is sacked after the World Cup, but at the moment he seems to be overperforming. Maitland could score a lot more goals if there was another international manager, especially if that was me, but the tradition of this challenge is to let the international side take its course.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581		

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by vikeologist

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 9 - 24 years old

 

68 domestic and 2 international goals this season. A bit of a dip, probably due to a few short-term injuries meaning that he played slightly less matches than normal.

We won the league for the 10^th time in a row, and reached the Champions League S/F, which was ok considering that we’re in a bit of a soft rebuild.

Obviously, there’s lots more I could write about the season, but challenge-wise it’s just another steady season towards the goal.

6 years left on his contract, and at 70 goals a season, it will take 5 seasons.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581
58/59		54			503			68			626				46			25		651

 

[vikeologist]

The downside of using instant result on this challenge.

Maitland scored 8 goals, and then was subbed off at halftime.

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 10 - 25 years old

 

82 club goals and from international, (from only 3 caps), tying his seasonal record. Actually, he’ll probably beat it by the season reload because of the euro championship.

He signed a new contract, for another 7 seasons, and hopefully he’s happy to stay, (because I offered him pretty much everything I could in order to get him to sign it).

We reached the semifinal of the champions league for the second season in a row. I know it’s not the point of the challenge, but it would be nice to win it. It’s just tricky as I keep losing all my best players, apart from Maitland of course. Frankly I’ve let some of them go to minimise the squad discontent at not letting Maitland go.

Anyway, not far to go now, but I’m going to take a break for a season or two because it’s a bit repetitive.

I need 263 goals to reach the thousand. Of course Maitland will only be about 28 when that happens, and could have another ten years left in him. It would be interesting to see how many he could score, but I have to summon up the interest to get to the thousand first.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581
58/59		54			503			68			626				48			26		652
59/60		56			559			82			708				51			29		737

 

[corinthiano]

Impressive how quickly he is getting to the number, what are your plans before you resume this?

[vikeologist]

9 hours ago, corinthiano said:

Impressive how quickly he is getting to the number, what are your plans before you resume this?

Going to try the level 10 challenge. Just for a change. Maybe only for a season.

[jrobertgordon13]

SEASON 0 - SAM DASS

 

Stats:

3 Apperances

1 Goal

1 Assist

 

The reason I call this "Season 0" is that he only signed before the last 3 games of the season, after that he'll do better.

[leyrtj]

I think I have a striker who has a chance of this. This is from my Maldives Build a Nation challenge. Aboubacar Kouakou is 22 and has scored 239 goals so far. He's averaging about 65 a season so he'd need another 12 seasons at that rate. We've now got him on a 5 + 2 contract, and he's in a sweet spot - way too good for the league, but not world class so wanting a move away.

 

 

[leyrtj]

Kouakou update. He's now hit 624 goals at age 25, so pretty sure he's going to make it. He's now scoring 80 - 90 a season as he enters his prime, including a ridiculous 113 two seasons ago. 

 

Edited January 9 by leyrtj

[vikeologist]

I've always hoped my guy would hit 100+ goals for a season, but he's now at his peak, and it doesn't look likely. He probably would if I didn't instant result matches allowing my AM to sub him every match, but I'm not sure making him play 60+ full matches a season would be a great idea.

[leyrtj]

8 hours ago, vikeologist said:

I've always hoped my guy would hit 100+ goals for a season, but he's now at his peak, and it doesn't look likely. He probably would if I didn't instant result matches allowing my AM to sub him every match, but I'm not sure making him play 60+ full matches a season would be a great idea.

How many is he up to now? Or have you put that save on hold?

[vikeologist]

5 minutes ago, leyrtj said:

How many is he up to now? Or have you put that save on hold?

I've come back to it to finish it off and am midway through a season. He's on about 780, so about 3 1/2 seasons to go.

[leyrtj]

1 minute ago, vikeologist said:

I've come back to it to finish it off and am midway through a season. He's on about 780, so about 3 1/2 seasons to go.

Good luck with  it. I'm putting Maldives on hold for a bit, so Kouakou will have to wait. 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 11 - 26 years old

Probably my best Celtic side yet. We won the league for the 12th time in a row with a record 109 points. 

And yet, we didn’t win the Champions league, going out in the semifinal. Unjustly.

Worse, for this challenge, Maitland’s tally was down to 68 plus 2 international goals.

I wasn’t even sure we’d be in this summer’s Club World Championship, despite being #1 in the coefficients for the last 5 seasons, but we are. I’ll probably have to include any Maitland stats for that next year. It will probably be my last attempt at it, because Maitland will almost certainly hit the thousand before the next one, and I doubt I’ll have the interest to see just how many he can notch before retiring.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581
58/59		54			503			68			626				48			26		652
59/60		56			559			82			708				54			29		737
60/61		56			615			68			776				59			31		807

 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 12 - 27 years old

2 more semifinals, the Club World Cup and the Champions League. Frustrating, but at least I’m not doing this save as part of a challenge.

I have however promised Maitland that we’d win the CL this season or next, so I might have a problem in a year’s time. We’re definitely good enough to win. We probably should win it.

Maitland keeps making steady progress towards the thousand, albeit at a slightly disappointing pace. 69 + 4 international goals this season, leaving us with 117 to go.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581
58/59		54			503			68			626				48			26		652
59/60		56			559			82			708				54			29		737
60/61		58			617			68			776				60			34		810
61/62		58			675			69			845				65			38		883

 

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 13 - 28 years old

 

We did it. We finally won the Champions League, which was lucky because I’d promised Maitland that we would either this season or last, so I was in danger of him sulking the entire last year of this challenge.

It was our first appearance in the final for 7 seasons. I know it’s not the point of this challenge, but it’s the only excitement I can derive.

Adam only made 1 single international appearance all season, and didn’t score, but with 968 cumulative goals, I just need another 32 next season, or 76 if I want to reach the mark of 1,000 club goals.

(I write these updates at the end of the domestic season, and Maitland usually picks up an international appearance or goal or two before the season reset).

I don’t know if I’ll just stop this save once I get to the ton, or finish at the end of next season. Now that I have won the Champions league, there’s not much else to prove with the Club World Championship 2 years away.

Of course, Maitland might get injured, but a big part of achieving this challenge will be that Maitland has a below average injury susceptibility.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581
58/59		54			503			68			626				48			26		652
59/60		56			559			82			708				54			29		737
60/61		58			617			68			776				60			34		810
61/62		58			675			69			845				69			44		889
62/63		55			720			69			924				70			44		968

 

Edited February 2 by vikeologist

[corinthiano]

Impressive that he is going to get to the 1000 before he reaches 30! Winning the CL is also a nice touch to the achievement  

[vikeologist]

Adam Maitland - Season 14 - 29 years old

 

 

Challenge completed. Completed the challenge by January 2064, and just stopped dead on the 1000.

Perhaps it’s best to leave Maitland at his peak, and not watch him slowly decline. As @Corinthiano points out, he has achieved it before 30.

Admittedly the way I achieved the challenge wasn’t completely organic. I was doing the Ultimate Football Manager Challenge, and at the end of my time with Celtic, Maitland came through, so I came back to the save specifically to try to meet the target.

Maitland was thrust into the first team from the age of 15, and has started every match he’s been fully fit for ever since. Luckily he isn’t injury prone.

I also trained him to be able to take penalties and free kicks.

I’ve waited many iterations for a Maitland to come through, but it was also a feature of FM23. I continued on FM 23 because I suspected he wouldn’t score as many on FM24.

I wonder how many goals he could score if I continued with this save, but to be honest, although it’s nice and relaxing due to its low stakes, other than worrying that Maitland will pick up a bad injury, it’s also a bit boring.

The one exciting thing was trying to win the Champions League, which I finally achieved last season after 2 previous final defeats in 2054 and 2056.

The challenge has dramatically improved Scottish football. The Euro big 5 is now the Big 6. The national team is just outside the top 10, despite almost never using Maitland. The tradition of the challenge is to not manage the national team, and let the goalscoring chips fall where they may. If I hadn’t kept him at Celtic, he would doubtless have picked up a lot more caps from being at higher reputation teams.

Anyway, Adam and I picked up the odd trophy and award along the way.

I suppose it’s possible I come back to this save if trying to do something more challenging is stressing me out.

Season	Season Appearances 	Cumulative Appearances   Goals This Season	Cumulative goals	 International Appearances	International Goals	Total
49/50		12			12			7			7			(cumalative)		   (cumalative)
50/51		41			53			48			55
51/52		53			106			64			119				2			0		119
52/53		52			158			58			177				5			0		177
53/54		61			219			74			251				9			2		253
54/55		58			277			69			320				18			12		332
55/56		56			333			78			398				26			15		413
56/57		58			391			82			480				36			18		498
57/58		58			449			78			558				41			23		581
58/59		54			503			68			626				48			26		652
59/60		56			559			82			708				54			29		737
60/61		58			617			68			776				60			34		810
61/62		58			675			69			845				69			44		889
62/63		55			730			69			914				72			44		958
63/64		32			762			39			953				76			47		1000