The Ultimate Football Manager Challenge - Silver Age Archive

[yugular]

Just now, vikeologist said:

@yugular Congrats on the ACON. Always good to get that one under your belt. I think I'm on something like 9 successive losses in the competition, maybe stretching over my last 3 attempts at the challenge.

Are you going to quit Ivory Coast now? Might help you get a better club job, although of course an entry ticket to the confederations cup is always good. We've never had someone who couldn't win the confederations cup, but I feel there's always that danger because of how rarely the opportunity even comes up.

I already resigned from the Ivory Coast job. No way I can win confederations cup with that nation. I have been extremely lucky with my national sides in competitions:

1 European Championship = 1st place

3 World Cups = 1st & Top4 with Spain, group phase with Ivory Coast

1 ACON = 1st place 

[shirajzl]

5 hours ago, vikeologist said:

As for me, I'm mulling over where to start the challenge when the full game comes out on Friday. My attempts at the new game so far have been pretty disastrous, so might try to find a tactic that works before starting. 

 

That's my biggest concern and aim in preparation for this. If you don't have a "working" tactic ready, this challenge becomes even more of a grind.

5 hours ago, vikeologist said:

Anyway, I could be really boring and start in S Africa, or do something novel, like starting in a lower division of a big euro nation.

I was thinking exactly the same. South Africa is the easiest and most boring option, but lower division of a big nation adds more seasons to the ordeal, albeit more fun and fresh.

[blackdevil]

@vikeologist I'm not completely sure where they were but it was around lower mid table.  So probably about 12ish.

On a bad note the game crashed midway through my first game so had to re-load the save from just after I'd accepted the job.   I've not had any further crashes so far though so fingers crossed it doesn't happen again.

My target with Wuhan from the board was mid-table and I've changed it to say top half.  I've started off ok with two wins, one draw and defeat in the first four games and I'm now if I remember correctly sitting in 7th or 8th.

[TheEarl]

4 minutes ago, shirajzl said:

That's my biggest concern and aim in preparation for this. If you don't have a "working" tactic ready, this challenge becomes even more of a grind.

I was thinking exactly the same. South Africa is the easiest and most boring option, but lower division of a big nation adds more seasons to the ordeal, albeit more fun and fresh.

Would love to see someone starting this at lower league in France/Italy/Spain

To be honest I felt it was quite easy to start lower league in England, but that might be another story with Brexit....

[blackdevil]

It's why I started in Greece, and before that USA.  I enjoyed my last jaunt when I started in Greece.  It led me to Newcastle and then Marseille before I stopped playing FM for a while.  Getting out of the comfort zone brings a new lease of life to it.

It's also why I've started in China with the Americas all loaded up.  Want to build up before hitting Europe. 

Edited November 8, 2017 by blackdevil

[yugular]

1 hour ago, TheEarl said:

Would love to see someone starting this at lower league in France/Italy/Spain

To be honest I felt it was quite easy to start lower league in England, but that might be another story with Brexit....

Italian LL start would have been ideal for me as I have played those leagues for dozens if not hundreads of seasons during my FM career. But I started my journey in Carlisle (FM17). I bet the challenge is lot easier if you can start in a country with only two league tiers.

[TheEarl]

3 minutes ago, yugular said:

Italian LL start would have been ideal for me as I have played those leagues for dozens if not hundreads of seasons during my FM career. But I started my journey in Carlisle (FM17). I bet the challenge is lot easier if you can start in a country with only two league tiers.

It can be faster and thus easier, but you can aquire a much better reputation in high profile nations. When I completed this on FM15 I started with Bristol Rovers in Vanarama National, after 2 promotions, I went to Brighton H&A winning promotion to PL. After that I could basically get any team in the world. If not remembering wrong my next teams where something like: Wolfsburg, Internacional (BRA), Roma, Manchester City, Paris SG....

And besides, promotions can be equally fun as winning titles all the time.

[yugular]

@TheEarl I agree. Thus far I have won 3 promotions (Carlisle, Middlesbrough, Real Betis)

[blackdevil]

@vikeologist to correct my earlier post now I'm back in the dugout so to speak.  Wuhan were 9th (out of 16 in the division) when I took them over.

The screenshot below shows the first 6 fixtures results that puts me currently in 6th.

So it's been a up and down start, thankfully I've been able to score goals so just need to try and tighten up at the back and should be in a good place.  Unfortunately I think the league leaders are a bit too far to be able to catch for a surprise promotion push.

Edited November 8, 2017 by blackdevil

[blackdevil]

I know it's early days with FM18 and playing in China, but I'm enjoying it and it's throwing up some dramatic games.

Just glad the one below went in my favour despite it being one of our poorer performances.  If it'd gone the other way I'd have raged at the players like demented loon and I'm not talking about the post match team talk 

Edited November 8, 2017 by blackdevil

[blackdevil]

Wuhan Zhuo'er
Chinese National First Division

 

My first season in Chinese football and my first finished season in FM18 has been on the whole an enjoyable experience.  When I was offered a contract renewal with two games of the season left I accepted immediately without hesitation.
I joined Wuhan on the 12th June 2017 (game start date was 19th Dec 2016) with them in 9th place after 13 matches and out of the cup.  I started off with a 1-1 draw against the then league leaders Shenzhen who ended up promoted in 2nd place.  Then followed it up with two wins and then two defeats.  It set the tone of us being something of an entertainers side as with us scoring goals in every game.  In fact just looking at it now the team only failed to score in one game and that was under the previous manager.
Given we were never going to contend promotion with the way the top two ran away with it we did well to maintain a steady level for most of the season and missed out on 4th place by 3 points due to loosing the penultimate game of the season against Shenzhen.  As you can see from the results and league table we scored a healthy number of goals but that was tempered by our inability to keep clean sheets of which under my management we did just three times.

Of some concern is the players not supporting me due to non existing reputation which I think would be a major issue if the dressing room atmosphere wasn't so good.
Hopefully next season things will improve on that front and we can push for promotion which I think is a good possibility if we can address the defensive issues.

As things are I can see myself staying here for a few seasons unless I get approached by a more attractive club in the top division but I can't see that happening so quickly.
I've just noticed we're playing in a 60,000 capacity stadium and our average attendance is 4,560.  That seems overly large for a team in the 2nd tier.  And it's owned by the council and I can't see any major expenses relating to it so not a concern from what I can see at present.  And does give us some growth room if I'm here long enough that is.

 

 

Challenge Progress:

Club
0/10 top domestic leagues ()
0/10 domestic cups ()
0/5 club continental championships ()
0/1 club world championship ()

International
0/5 continental tournaments ()
0/2 world tournaments ()

Seasons:

CLUB CAREER
							Leagues		Cups
Season	NAT	Club			Division	1st	2nd	1st	2nd		Cont.		CWC	Other & Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2017	CHI	Wuhan			CNFD		5th								Joined in 9th place after 13 games and out of cups


INTERNATIONAL CAREER
			Rank		Cups
Year	Nation		FIFA	NL	World	Cont.	Conf.	Other & Notes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[vikeologist]

@blackdevil Congrats on a solid first part-season.

Do you mean the stadium seems overly large. That's just the nature of Chinese football. Most division 1 (and probably 2) teams tend to play in huge stadiums that are at least 90% empty. It must make the atmosphere terrible, although I confess I've never been to a match in China. It looks daft when you watch matches on TV though.

[blackdevil]

Exactly, to me it seems like it'd be like an English 3rd division/non-league side playing at Old Trafford.  I looked up the stadium on Google maps and it reminds me of the Olympico in Rome and that looks empty at times when Lazio are playing.

[vikeologist]

The stadiums aren't primarily used for football. They're there for things like pop concerts. My city has at least 1 state of the art stadium and 5 million people just in the main part of the city, but no non-amateur football team. I'd love to manage a Ningbo team in Football manager, but it's just not possible. I was hoping that one of the sides would get promoted (to league 2) this year, but it's 4-6 (in 2017) amateur league sides from 44 amateur leagues. (They got to the last 50). Now that would be a small club to big club challenge if someone could design an accurate add-on for the Chinese amateur league.

[blackdevil]

Yea, I noticed it had a running track in the stadium and it seems there's other sporting facilities around it too so I guessed it was a designed more for multi-purpose (community) use and not one team/entity's use.  I some ways it's better way to go as the facilities are more available that say Man Utd's facilities for example.

Back to the management side of things, omg!  such a long close season, it's about 4 months without football.     I'm getting bored trying to get through it.

On the plus side my manager has now learned basic Chinese, hopefully that will with building support with my players.

Edited November 9, 2017 by blackdevil

[yugular]

 

So 2026/2027 was a good season for me. I managed to win the ACON with Ivory Coast which was my main goal. I also managed to keep Real Betis up and in the end I was 13th. I resigned from Ivory Coast job right after the ACON and also resigned from Real Betis in the summer. My second goal for the season was to build up reputation which I did. My Rep was 60% at the beginning of the season, but winning ACON, keeping Real Betis up and completing Continental Pro Licence lifted it up to 70%.

At the beginning of season 2027/2028 I was offered multiple jobs including: FC Metz, Crystal Palace, Granada and Ireland, but I turned them all down I wanted to make a big move to a club where I can win something, I dont feel like I want to build up reputation anymore. Come December and multiple teams will sack managers and oh boy they delivered. I was attending 4 interviews: Villareal, HSV, Liverpool and Juventus. HSV and Villareal were both succesfull but I decided to delay my decision for a week and Liverpool also accepted. They happen to have a squad composition which suits my playstyle well so there we go! Juventus hasn't decided yet, but I feel like Liverpool is quite the perfect place for me at this point. We are sitting in 16th place in the Premier League and Champions League slot is not possible anymore, but now I must build up the team so that I can win something next season!

edit. OH! I also sold one of my most promising Real Betis youngsters to Liverpool last summer  This is interesting  

 

Season       Team             Position         Champs League       Notes and Achievements     
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

16/17	Carlisle              7th Sky Bet League 2	           Lost in playoffs rnd 1
17/18   Carlisle              1st Sky Bet League 2                 Promotion 
18/19   Middlesbrough         2nd Championship                     Promotion
19/20   Middlesbrough         5th Premier League                   EC slot
21/22   New England Revolution MLS                                 resigned
22/23   Orlando Pirates       1st ABSA Premiership                 runner-up in CAF Confederations Cup
23/24   Orlando Pirates       1st ASBA Premiership Won CAF CL      Won MTN8Cup
24/25   Orlando Pirates       resigned in January                  Won Telkom Knockout
25/26   Real Betis            1st Liga Adelante                    Won promotion
26/27   Real Betis            13th Liga BBVA
27/28   Liverpool             december


International:
Season      Team             Notes and Achievements:
---------------------------------------------------------
2020        Croatia          Won European Championship
2022        Spain            Won World Cup
2024        Spain            Top4 in European Championship, got sacked
2026        Ivory Coast      Group stage 3rd in World Cup
2027        Ivory Coast      Won Africa Cup of Nations

Challenge Progress 6/33

Club
 1/10 top domestic leagues (ABSA Premiership 22/23/Orlando Pirates)
 1/10 domestic cups (Telkom Knockout 24/25/Orlando Pirates)
 1/5 club continental championships (CAF CL 23/24/Orlando Pirates 
 0/1 club world championship 

International
 2/5 continental tournaments (European Championship 2020/Croatia, Africa Cup of Nations 2027/Ivory Coast)
 1/2 world tournaments (World Cup 2022/Spain)

Edited November 10, 2017 by yugular

[TheEarl]

9 hours ago, vikeologist said:

The stadiums aren't primarily used for football. They're there for things like pop concerts. My city has at least 1 state of the art stadium and 5 million people just in the main part of the city, but no non-amateur football team. I'd love to manage a Ningbo team in Football manager, but it's just not possible. I was hoping that one of the sides would get promoted (to league 2) this year, but it's 4-6 (in 2017) amateur league sides from 44 amateur leagues. (They got to the last 50). Now that would be a small club to big club challenge if someone could design an accurate add-on for the Chinese amateur league.

Should request this from @claassen once he is done with his ordinary work. Tried to read about it a bit in Wikipedia, but dont know how accurate that is, and seems a bit complicated. And the actual amateur leagues dont have their "own page"

[shirajzl]

Has anyone tested what kind of jobs you can get in the beginning?

I've been playing around with it on FMT (shouldn't be any different than full FM in that respect), wanting to start in Germany/Italy/France/Spain, but it doesn't seem to be possible. 3rd tier teams in those countries reject me easily, but what's more concerning is that I couldn't get a job at South African 2nd div, which is one of the classic routes for this challenge!

The only two jobs I could get, after waiting quite a while, were rock bottom Chinese 2nd tier team and by far the worst Brazilian 3rd tier team. I haven't tried, but I reckon you could get a job at English conference, but I don't feel like it.

Edit: after waiting some more, I got offered a relegation threatened Port Vale job in L2, even though similar profile clubs had been ignoring me. Strange.

 

Edited November 10, 2017 by shirajzl

[TheEarl]

1 hour ago, shirajzl said:

Has anyone tested what kind of jobs you can get in the beginning?

I've been playing around with it on FMT (shouldn't be any different than full FM in that respect), wanting to start in Germany/Italy/France/Spain, but it doesn't seem to be possible. 3rd tier teams in those countries reject me easily, but what's more concerning is that I couldn't get a job at South African 2nd div, which is one of the classic routes for this challenge!

The only two jobs I could get, after waiting quite a while, were rock bottom Chinese 2nd tier team and by far the worst Brazilian 3rd tier team. I haven't tried, but I reckon you could get a job at English conference, but I don't feel like it.

Edit: after waiting some more, I got offered a relegation threatened Port Vale job in L2, even though similar profile clubs had been ignoring me. Strange.

 

@blackdevil started in Chinese 2nd Tier I recon...

[blackdevil]

Aye, it is the 2ND tier in China.  I expect on average you'll need to let game progress 6 months before teams start considering your applications seriously.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd applied for some MLS vacancies but was rejected out of hand for those due to the quality of the other candidates.

I think I also applied for some other top division jobs in Uruguay and another South American country that I can't remember at present, and was turned down for the same reason.  Basically I was a nobody so anyone with any sort of reputation was always going to be ahead of me in the pecking order.

I think the "Managerial Support" level below is quite telling.  The screenshot below is from a few day before pre-season starts and when you compare it to what it was when we finished the previous season it's jumped up based solely on my reputation increase after the season/reputation update.  I think reputation is going to be a limiter at the very start of the game until clubs start thinking of taking a gamble on a complete unknown on top of how your players react to you.

Edited November 10, 2017 by blackdevil

[vikeologist]

I managed to get a first job in Spain. Was actually offered 3 jobs. First club only had 1 central defender, and I could have fitted the rest of the team into a mid-range minibus. 2nd team were already dead in the water with 10 matches to go, so I have ended up at a team that stood a chance of survival; at least until I took over. About 7 matches in, and I haven't won one yet, although I have drawn quite a few, including a cup round which I've progressed from by dint of away goals.

I'm still trying to find a tactic that works, so I wouldn't even say this is my proper attempt at the challenge. I'm still trying to figure out if I can stand playing this version, although winning some matches might help.

I think the trend of first jobs being gradually harder to get each version is continuing. You just have to be very patient, and it's not as though every club with the same reputation will offer you a job, so you might get rejected a few times, or in my case in Spain, a lot.

We've never been able to get a first job in S America. Actually that's not true. I was once offered a job with a really tiny club in Peru that was promoted after the first season, but I think that was a one-off.

Edited November 11, 2017 by vikeologist

[vikeologist]

Vikeologist's 2017/18 Villanovense Start of Challenge Report 

Oh dear, this might be a long post.

Challenge Thoughts

On the surface, the challenge hasn’t changed much for FM18, but I think in reality the early stages have become much harder because of both the dynamics of players freaking the fork out about a 20 year old with no qualifications or experience being in charge, and the cost of scouting.

There has always been 2 types of clubs to start off with. On the one hand you can get a job in as high a division as possible. That usually means taking charge of a small club deep in relegation and many other problems. If you survive it can really help your challenge, but it can be a hell of an induction.

On the other hand you can take over a club in the equivalent of the next division down and work your way up.

First Job

Because I wanted to start in Spain, the jobs I was offered were all pretty rough.  The first 2 jobs came with a chance of avoiding relegation of about 2% and 0.2%, so when the third job offer came up, and I felt that I stood at least a fighting chance, I took it. Villacovense were 3 points from safety with almost half the season left to play.

But there were problems. The club were massively over budget on wages, without much in the way of backroom staff to show for it, and though I had some decent players, most of them were over-paid, their contracts were expiring, and they didn’t want to stay anyway. It didn’t matter. If I could find a system that worked, and keep them up, I figured I’d probably leave as well once I’d kept my promise to the board to stay for 6 months.

The Heat of the Meat

With 4 matches to go there were 11 teams (out of the 20 in the division) in danger of the 4 remaining relegation spots. Really though. there were 6 in serious danger including us, and our last 4 matches were going to be against 4 of those 5. Nail-biting stuff.

Frankly we should have been safe from relegation already. After a shaky start to my managerial reign, with no wins in my first 7 matches, I found a tactic that matched my meagre player resources and picked up 19 points from the following 10 games, and nearly all of those matches were against the best teams in the division. That brought us to our reward, a 4 match run in against the worst teams. I felt pretty confident.

We won 3 of the 4, and were safe with a match to go, so in the end it wasn’t really all that exciting.

So everything's cool now, right?

I have a decent little team here, but basically, they’re all going to leave because I’ve lost the dressing room. Also the wage bill is so high that the only contracts I can offer them are half their current ones. At one point the entire squad was one big social group, but that just made it easier for them all to realise how much they all hated me. Every single influential player is opposed to me.

So, I will probably have to bring in an entire new squad over the summer. It looks like I will need to replace 14 of the 18 in my matchday squad. 

We are 13^th for both average attendance and salary in our division, so I'm not sure why we're losing money so fast. Part of the reason that the players are unhappy is because we have so few backroom staff, and the ones we have are pretty crap at training, including non-qualified me of course. I haven't spent any money on scouting anybody, so that's not the reason, and might make finding a whole new squad tough.

Just to have a laugh

Top Goalscorer – Pedro Beda – 13 He agreed to join another club at the end of his contract pretty much as soon as I joined.

 

Top Average Rating – Elías 7.09 The central midfielder who sits on the sub’s bench most the time, but the only player with a plus 7 rating.

 

Man of the Match – 2 players - 3

 

MVP MVM – Me!

Domestic
Season	Team					Position	Notes										Challenge Landmarks
2017/18	Villanovense				12th		Took over half way through season and rescued club from relegation mire.


International
Year	Team					Achievements


Challenge Progress

Club
 0/10 top domestic leagues 			
 0/10 domestic cups 							
 0/5 club continental championships 	
 0/1 club world championship

International
 0/5 continental tournaments 		
 0/2 world tournaments 

 

Edited November 11, 2017 by vikeologist

[blackdevil]

@vikeologist Congrats on avoiding relegation and staying in the job  I was expecting to hear you'd been sacked with you seeming to struggle with this years version.

@yugular Should have mentioned this yesterday, congrats on your season with Betis and a "nice" appointment with Liverpool.  As a Man Utd fan I hope you're not too successful 

[vikeologist]

9 minutes ago, blackdevil said:

@vikeologist Congrats on avoiding relegation and staying in the job  I was expecting to hear you'd been sacked with you seeming to struggle with this years version.

 

I would have been sacked if I'd stuck with my original tactic, or even the slightly revamped version, that worked so well on FM17, and just doesn't on FM18. Maybe I didn't give it enough time, but you know what they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I moved to a 4-2-3-1 wide (for the first time in more than 20 years playing the game). I found out today that it's the most popular formation. Funnily enough, it's pretty much the diametric opposite of the 4312 Narrow I used for FM17. 

@yugular I also haven't congratulated you. it's not as though I can use the excuse of there being so many people doing the challenge at the moment.

Oh I did congratulate you on the ACON. How could I forget? After my run of failure in the tournament, I pretty much have a retching attack every time I have to congratulate someone for winning it.

Hopefully you can get Liverpool ready so you can start winning stuff the following season, and start making quick headway. Anyway, your challenge should be on track now, if indeed you feel it ever went off-piste.

 

[vikeologist]

Nobody has ever started this challenge in S America, and I did think that it was impossible to get a first job there, but it seems that dafuge was able to, even with lowest qualifications and experience

I don't usually post spoilers like this, but I have said in the past that it wasn't possible to start here, and clearly I was wrong.

So, if anybody's interested, looks like Uruguay is the nation to load.

I'd have started here myself if I'd known, (and especially if I'd known what a nightmare that last season was going to be), although I confess I have gone back to my FM17 dafuge save. Unfinished business.

 

[Minarin]

Giving this a shot along with two other challenges. I'm going to start at Clyde and see how I do. 

 

[streety]

Just a query, Attribute masking? On or off?, 

[vikeologist]

@streety

Quote

No disabling attribute masking in the full version of the game  

 

If you're playing on touch, I'm not sure. Probably a reason I said full version. Is there attribute masking in Touch, anybody?

@Minarin Welcome to the challenge. As a Scot, I wondered at what level it would be possible to get a first job? Did you apply to many league 1 clubs?

[shirajzl]

12 hours ago, vikeologist said:

@streety

If you're playing on touch, I'm not sure. Probably a reason I said full version. Is there attribute masking in Touch, anybody?

@Minarin Welcome to the challenge. As a Scot, I wondered at what level it would be possible to get a first job? Did you apply to many league 1 clubs?

You need to unlock/buy attribute masking in FMT, the same as international management.

In my opinion you should just play as default FMT, with attribute masking off since the leaderboards clearly state whether you finished the game on full FM or FMT(C). It's fair.

[TheEarl]

19 hours ago, Minarin said:

Giving this a shot along with two other challenges. I'm going to start at Clyde and see how I do. 

 

Hope you will get the job at Clyde, would love to see someone start the challenge with them 

[Minarin]

@vikeologist Honestly I don't know as I didn't try League 1. I was going to wait but Clyde approached me so thought I'd give it a go as I used to play scotland leagues in CM 01/02 and FM08.

@TheEarl I took the screenshot when I accepted the offer.

My progress will be slow as I'm very busy but I'm looking forward to it.

[Crowy]

This was my longest save last year only getting 8 seasons, let's see if we can improve on that this year. It's took me until almost October to get my first job and it comes in COLOMBIA!

I've never managed in South America before on this sort of save, so I'm excited to start here. Some screenshots:

 

 

 

 

[TheEarl]

Will be interesting to see a start from Colombia @Crowy good luck!

[Crowy]

@TheEarl; It certainly will be interesting everyone's contract seems to be up in December and not many are willing to renew I may be sacked very soon on this, I'm going to try and make a go of this though!

[vikeologist]

@Crowy Sorry to have to mention this, but your profile says that you are / he is 29 years old. Managers have to start at 20 (or 19). Also the attributes seem a bit high. Did you start with a qualification, or was that because of the age?

[Crowy]

4 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

@Crowy Sorry to have to mention this, but your profile says that you are / he is 29 years old. Managers have to start at 20 (or 19). Also the attributes seem a bit high. Did you start with a qualification, or was that because of the age?

I set all attributes to lowest possible and no qualifications, should be a way to show that? I'll restart if the age is such an issue

It even says Sunday League Footballer on the right, should be a way to show I have no qualifications? Not sure if it is changed on FM18 but my attributes have actually gone up from the start, not sure if it's from interviews etc, anyone else noticed this before getting a job?

Edited November 14, 2017 by Crowy

[vikeologist]

I'm afraid I do think the age is an issue, because I think it affects the dynamics of how your players see you, although it sounds like you're having a rough go of it anyway.

I'll ask about age in GD and see what people say.

[Crowy]

I'll just restart. My fault for forgetting to adjust age on my profile.

Edit: My stats were already set to the lowest possible and no coaching qualification in the first game, they had already gone up that far 3 months in to the save.

NEW PROFILE

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Crowy

[vikeologist]

36 minutes ago, Crowy said:

I'll just restart. My fault for forgetting to adjust age on my profile.

Edit: My stats were already set to the lowest possible and no coaching qualification in the first game, they had already gone up that far 3 months in to the save.

NEW PROFILE

 

Thanks. Sorry to have to insist, but does age impact your starting attributes, and probably other things as well. (Do they increase while you're unemployed and looking for your first job?)

Edited November 14, 2017 by vikeologist

[Crowy]

@vikeologist; To show age didn't affect my attributes, this is on my new save already:

 

Edit:

 

 

 

So this save takes me to China, only 7 games left in the league, will probably use them to get tactics right and give it a real good go next season.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Crowy

[threelions1goal]

Re-visited this thread for the first time in literally ages - even though I've been playing this challenge non-stop on FM17

For one reason or another I didn't post my start/progress of this challenge and by the time I was back on t'internet it would have been such a mammoth update of my progress that it'd have taken me ages!! (on FM17 I'm in year 2046, I've won a few leagues and cups (none of the main five though) and done well in international football)

Anyway....glad to see some familiar names, made up that @vikeologist is still "bossing" this thread - I'm sure he can remember when this challenge almost died a death when the originator gave up on it before @vikeologist, myself and a couple of others resurrected it!!

So, personally I'll probably wait until the first patch is released, but this year, I'll be posting progress (hopefully progress!!) and updates on a regular basis.

I've said from day one that this challenge is literally the ultimate football manager challenge......and by far the best!!

[blackdevil]

On 05/11/2017 at 20:25, blackdevil said:

You can see my stats increased whilst unemployed, here are my starting stats and then the stats by the time I get appointed.  So they do seem to increase over time but I don't know what affects the changes.

On 05/11/2017 at 22:42, blackdevil said:

 

 

[vikeologist]

26 minutes ago, threelions1goal said:

Re-visited this thread for the first time in literally ages - even though I've been playing this challenge non-stop on FM17

For one reason or another I didn't post my start/progress of this challenge and by the time I was back on t'internet it would have been such a mammoth update of my progress that it'd have taken me ages!! (on FM17 I'm in year 2046, I've won a few leagues and cups (none of the main five though) and done well in international football)

Anyway....glad to see some familiar names, made up that @vikeologist is still "bossing" this thread - I'm sure he can remember when this challenge almost died a death when the originator gave up on it before @vikeologist, myself and a couple of others resurrected it!!

So, personally I'll probably wait until the first patch is released, but this year, I'll be posting progress (hopefully progress!!) and updates on a regular basis.

I've said from day one that this challenge is literally the ultimate football manager challenge......and by far the best!!

I kind of miss the days before the @ option when I just called everyone by their 'boyband' acronyms; 3L1G, N1G, NW.  People don't have to update all the time to be on the leaderboard / HoF. (Though I wouldn't put someone in the HoF if they just posted one update at the end). 

The reason the leader board is live and only people currently doing the challenge is because I lost / overwrote it (in the same way that I just lost almost all of this paragraph and have had to rewrite it) and didn't want to go through over 100 pages trying to locate everybody again. I have the hall of fame saved.   I don't know what up with this site doing that. Probably my laptop rather than the site.  So, looking forward to your update and adding you.
Incidentally, and I'm sure this will be of no interest to anybody really, I think we'll need to start a new thread next year / for FM19. When threads get too big it becomes impossible to link to them properly, and we'll be at least close to 100 pages by then. The links are still working here for the moment though. Alternatively, we could close the challenge thread when we get to 100 pages, or even the challenge itself. No more challenge. Find something else to do with your lives.

[yugular]

5 hours ago, vikeologist said:

No more challenge. Find something else to do with your lives.

Noooo. I need my Ultimate Challenge with my beer.

[TheEarl]

6 hours ago, vikeologist said:

I kind of miss the days before the @ option when I just called everyone by their 'boyband' acronyms; 3L1G, N1G, NW.  People don't have to update all the time to be on the leaderboard / HoF. (Though I wouldn't put someone in the HoF if they just posted one update at the end). 

The reason the leader board is live and only people currently doing the challenge is because I lost / overwrote it (in the same way that I just lost almost all of this paragraph and have had to rewrite it) and didn't want to go through over 100 pages trying to locate everybody again. I have the hall of fame saved.   I don't know what up with this site doing that. Probably my laptop rather than the site.  So, looking forward to your update and adding you.
Incidentally, and I'm sure this will be of no interest to anybody really, I think we'll need to start a new thread next year / for FM19. When threads get too big it becomes impossible to link to them properly, and we'll be at least close to 100 pages by then. The links are still working here for the moment though. Alternatively, we could close the challenge thread when we get to 100 pages, or even the challenge itself. No more challenge. Find something else to do with your lives.

I remember the time I wanted a new thread, and you and some others didn't @vikeologist

But NO, you can never close this thread with my name at the TOP of the leaderboards as the first finisher lol

[vikeologist]

4 minutes ago, TheEarl said:

I remember the time I wanted a new thread, and you and some others didn't @vikeologist

But NO, you can never close this thread with my name at the TOP of the leaderboards as the first finisher lol

You'd still be at the top of any new thread. It's a links problem. Incidentally, your hall of fame end of challenge link doesn't work anymore, so maybe the problem isn't the length of threads. I don't know what it is though, so I can't fix it. All the links to this thread seem to work though, so maybe we actually need to never, ever start a new thread. I will report the bug at some point.

[TheEarl]

2 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

You'd still be at the top of any new thread. It's a links problem. Incidentally, your hall of fame end of challenge link doesn't work anymore, so maybe the problem isn't the length of threads. I don't know what it is though, so I can't fix it. All the links to this thread seem to work though, so maybe we actually need to never, ever start a new thread. I will report the bug at some point.

When we have reached this point I would love to keep all history in this thread. And yes I think linking to end of career that is in the old thread might be a problem. Just as long as I am in the leaderboard, the link is not so important for me. If people ask, I will guide them to the right place. I would love to see this thread become the biggest in the forum section in the future though...

[vikeologist]

For most of the year, this is essentially tied with the  dafuge threads for the biggest (most pages since the release of FM16) thread in the forum; just not in the months following the release of new editions when dafuge temporarily overtakes / pulls away from us.

 

Edited November 15, 2017 by vikeologist

[TheEarl]

4 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

For most of the year, this is essentially tied with the  dafuge threads for the biggest (most pages since the release of FM16) thread in the forum; just not in the months following the release of new editions when dafuge temporarily overtakes / pulls away from us.

 

Yes, but Dafuges changes every year to a new thread, so in the end this challenge will be the biggest thread.

But up to the "old times" like Dafuge09 it needs to run maybe 10 seasons more to catch that number lol

[yugular]

 

WHAT A SEASON!!!

In December Liverpool was 16th and the morale was low, well I took over and continued to play through the season accumulating only two losses! Unfortunately the other of those losses was in the FA Cup against Blackburn and I didn't win any trophies this year. But I gotta say this team has potential and I wouldn't be surprised if I win a trophy or two next season. Finances are problematic though...

 

Season       Team             Position         Champs League       Notes and Achievements     
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

16/17	Carlisle              7th Sky Bet League 2	           Lost in playoffs rnd 1
17/18   Carlisle              1st Sky Bet League 2                 Promotion 
18/19   Middlesbrough         2nd Championship                     Promotion
19/20   Middlesbrough         5th Premier League                   EC slot
21/22   New England Revolution MLS                                 resigned
22/23   Orlando Pirates       1st ABSA Premiership                 runner-up in CAF Confederations Cup
23/24   Orlando Pirates       1st ASBA Premiership Won CAF CL      Won MTN8Cup
24/25   Orlando Pirates       resigned in January                  Won Telkom Knockout
25/26   Real Betis            1st Liga Adelante                    Won promotion
26/27   Real Betis            13th Liga BBVA
27/28   Liverpool             6th Premier League                   EC slot


International:
Season      Team             Notes and Achievements:
---------------------------------------------------------
2020        Croatia          Won European Championship
2022        Spain            Won World Cup
2024        Spain            Top4 in European Championship, got sacked
2026        Ivory Coast      Group stage 3rd in World Cup
2027        Ivory Coast      Won Africa Cup of Nations

Challenge Progress 6/33

Club
 1/10 top domestic leagues (ABSA Premiership 22/23/Orlando Pirates)
 1/10 domestic cups (Telkom Knockout 24/25/Orlando Pirates)
 1/5 club continental championships (CAF CL 23/24/Orlando Pirates)
 0/1 club world championship 

International
 2/5 continental tournaments (European Championship 2020/Croatia, Africa Cup of Nations 2027/Ivory Coast)
 1/2 world tournaments (World Cup 2022/Spain)