[FM18] The Totally Not Official World Trophy Style Game

[forameuss]

 

In true Troy McClure fashion, you might remember me from threads such as...well, who am I kidding, you don't.  I believe I won Thread of the Year at the FMCU Awards a couple of years back for this career, and I'm yet to provide my acceptance speech.  You lucky people.

So I've spent quite a bit of time away from documenting career threads, and in fact quite a bit of time away from FM itself.  I started quite a few saves trying to get the interest, but it never quite materialised.  Stuff like trying to revive American soccer after their failure to qualify for the World Cup; a Scottish Journeyman save, an international journeyman.  I did end up running a thread that concentrated on Calcio Como in FM18, but it ran out of steam, and other things got in the way.  I carried it on a little further outwith the thread, but even that got a bit boring.

So why am I back?  Well, apparently there's a football tournament happening.  It was a shock to me too, as it is to anyone in Scotland every 2 years.  To commemorate, and maybe rekindle some love for the game, I've decided to set myself probably the most simple outline I've ever had for a thread.

Win the World Cup.

I know, I know.  I should really slow down.  How will you possibly get through at least 3 and upwards of 7 games?! That'll surely take far, far too long!  I'll level, I haven't really got the time or the interest in even starting one of my famous whirlwind international careers.  No, this is going to be all about one tournament, and hopefully 7 games.  I was listening to a miriad of football podcasts and there was an interesting (and very basic) point that you'd struggle to identify a "surprise winner" of the World Cup.  There haven't been too many editions of the tournament of course, but with the schedule only calling for 7 games, it's quite interesting that there haven't been too many shock runs like we get in other competitions.  I'm no World Cup historian by any stretch, so someone will likely correct me, but is the extent of "shock" at these tournaments something like Ghana coming close to the semis, or South Korea and Turkey actually getting there in 2002?  20 editions of the World Cup, and only 8 distinct Champions.  The last "new" winner was in 1998 with France, and the previous one was 1978 with Argentina.  Time for a change, I think.

To set things up, I've holidayed from the earliest start date I could find (MLS, starting January 2017) so that qualifying could take place.  Then, I've saved the game on 7th December, the day before the Group Stage draw takes place.  From that list of 32 qualifiers, I'll be (possibly randomly) assigning myself a nation to take through the tournament itself, under the following rules

• I can't take the easy way out and pick the biggest nation there
• I can't take a nation that has previously won the tournament
• I have to pick prior to the draw to try not to take the easiest option
• I can't pick Scotland (well, they didn't qualify anyway, but shh)

Three simple rules, basically put in place to make things a little more interesting than me picking Brazil and getting a boring, boring win.  But the beauty of only playing a handful of games is that I can restart this a few times, hopefully running through the tournament with a wide range of nations, at least one from each continent.  Will also experiment with the way I'm presenting things, try and find the most interesting way of talking about two AI teams playing off in a group that doesn't affect us.

And that's just about it.  A pretty simple premise that not even I can screw up.  First update - with team choice and plans for the tournament - to follow...

[forameuss]

 

The Qualifiers

After a gruelling qualification campaign, this is the line-up for the tournament.  Quite a bit different from real life thanks to the heavy reputation weighting.  Italy surprisingly romped to topping their group, beating out Spain in the process (who managed to sneak through the playoffs).  Holland also made it, similarly through the playoffs, after a 3-0 win at Hampden against Scotland.  Arseholes.  The Czech Republic were also a notable inclusion, just edging into 2nd place ahead of Northern Ireland, then beating Wales in a playoff.  Not a good one for the British Isles.

In North America, Costa Rica and Mexico managed to match their real-life exploits, but unfortunately for Panama, they didn't.  The United States put their awful real-life campaign behind them to qualify, with little Trinidad and Tobago making it through the intercontinental playoffs against Saudi Arabia.  Speaking of the playoffs, Chile were the 5th placed South American side, and the lucky recipients of the "batter-a-side-from-Oceania" award.  New Zealand dispatched 3-2 on aggregate.  Wasn't quite all Chile's way through, with the Kiwis leading 2-0 after the away leg.  3-0 in Auckland meant Alexis Sanchez and co take their place.

Asia is as real life, but with the aforementioned Saudi Arabia missing out.  

The Choice

I turned to the power of Excel to pick a random side from the above list, excluding all those previous champions.  And it came up with...

Serbia.  Drago mi je Serbia.

[forameuss]

 

The Manager

 

Each time I take another team on, I'll be creating a manager fit to lead that nation to glory.  Where possible, I'll be creating a good local boy, born in the capital, named by the most popular first and last names from that country.  I'm nothing if not original.  Unfortunately for African sides, I'll be creating a high profile European manager, because African FAs seem to have that as a law.  Each manager will have full coaching badges and a continental international player reputation.  Might make things a little easier, but having it at Global Level seemed a bit much.  I won't touch the attribute sliders either, mostly because I don't think it'll make much difference in a 7 match shoot-out.

So, meet David Jovanović...

Bog standard look for him, as it was the default.  Guess he looks kind of Serbian?  Maybe?  I don't know.  Anyway, David has been chosen to lead his nation to glory.  And he looks thrilled.

The Team

Once I'm into the final weeks before the tournament, I'll give a better rundown of key players, but this is how the squad looks on the 7th of December when David took over.  Basically, we have great strength in midfield, but elsewhere we're a wee bit lacking relatively.  Potential is irrelevant in this kind of save, so it's a bit worrying to only really have Mitrovic up front with any kind of immediate quality.  We shall see who pops up in the next few months.  Obviously, Matic, Savic, Fejsa and Zivkovic are key players.

The Draw

Obviously no draw as of yet so it didn't affect my choice of team, so here it is.

 

As is my usual post when it comes to these kind of draws, we'll do the nightmare and dream draws based on seedings.

I'd love to get Uruguay, USA and Trinidad and Tobago

I'd hate to get Brazil, Spain and Costa Rica

We got...

Well...this is going to be tough, isn't it?

The one saving grace is that we shouldn't finish bottom of the group, and if we do manage to sneak through, we maybe stand a chance against - presumably - either Colombia or Portugal.