As the world turns

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#36540 xXBlueXx : Wow amazing! But why didnt you start in the lower leagues of Spain and straight away go to Spain's top flight. Loved the story of yours on Newport being promoted from the lowliest of lows to the highs! Besides that, great story. Can't wait till you overthrow Barca and Real Madrid.

I went straight to La Liga this time around because the focus of this story will be to overtake Mourinho. I want to win the CL from more than 3 leagues, and that is finally reasonable now that we can add/drop leagues within the same save game.

As for overtaking Barca and Real, I'm almost thinking that I can win the CL before I win La Liga! In a 2 leg series, or a winner-take-all final, I like my chances against them. Over the course of a full league season, though, you can literally watch as Barca and Real just continually pull away from the competition.

Good to see your games are a sell out and with a 25k seater stadium you will be a in a great position to increase your stadium due to good attendances! This will in turn generate you an extra few euros!

Much better! We celebrated my birthday for the entire month and I kept getting wins as presents. We got the emphatic 3 wins that we were hoping for and we are now climbing the table as we go into the final month of the calendar year. We got things started off with a 4-0 demo job of Espanyol, featuring braces from Thiago and Bueno. Our offense kind of disappeared afterwards, but we managed scrappy 1-0 wins against Sporting and Valencia.

Our strong run saw us move up two spots to 5th place. We're still 2 points behind Valencia but have a game in hand against them. We are 1 point ahead of Betis. We've got a very congested schedule to close out the year and hopefully we can keep our momentum going. December's league games are against Almeria (16), Sevilla (8), Recreativo (18), Racing (10), and AT Madrid (11!). As strong as we've looked, I want to come away with at least 12 points and 18 is certainly not out of the question.



Our stunning form in the Champions League continues as we managed that unlikely sweep that I mentioned. We handled Ajax on the road 4-2 and then had a hard-fought 2-1 victory at home against Shakhtar. The win against Ajax guaranteed our passage into the knockout stage and I was happy to see us continue to play hard against Shakhtar. Not only have we qualified for the next stage, but with Inter flopping against Ajax as we beat Shakhtar we have won our group outright! Our final game is away against Inter and if we continue to play well, we should get out of the group stage without losing a single game!



We followed up our 3-1 battering of Murcia in the first leg ouf our matchup against them with another 3-1 victory in the second leg. Our fifth round opponent promises to bring much more competition as we face off against surprise package Betis. The fellow La Liga team has had a steady climb in the table over the past two seasons and they are looking to qualify for continental play this season.



That keeper controversy never materialized last month. Ribas got healthy just in time to watch Calatayud take up a spot on the trainers table. This month both keepers are healthy, however, and a healthy competition may finally be in the cards. Oh, and I'm not going to tip my hand just yet, but the transfer window is about to open next month and I have almost 70m at my disposal... Just saying... Maybe there's a signing or two in the works.

Could you post a screen of Bueno's stats.

I'm playing with Sociedad and although hes stats look quite decent he doesn't look like a player capable of averaging more than one goal per game. Kudos for getting the best of him.

Also, you gotta be a little worried should he pick up an injury as he accounts for about half your goal haul.

#36758 jeffc : Could you post a screen of Bueno's stats.

I'm playing with Sociedad and although hes stats look quite decent he doesn't look like a player capable of averaging more than one goal per game. Kudos for getting the best of him.

Also, you gotta be a little worried should he pick up an injury as he accounts for about half your goal haul.

There you go! From what I learned last season, the style of play that we have always gets a lot of production from the strikers, especially our poacher. I was accused of cheating last season with the goal hauls that my poachers would produce, lol.

As for worrying about a drop in production, of course it's always a concern. However, with the track record I've produced over the course of many seasons and many players, I feel very confident that as long as we have the type of player that fits our system, they can step in and do a passable job. That, and I like to have an up-and-coming poacher on the bench that can step in and play for short stretches.

We had our second straight undefeated month and we are right back toward the top of the table. We didn't blow anyone away like some were predicting, but a win is a win. In fact, all of our wins were by 1 goal except against Recreativo; who we beat 2-0. And while I would've loved to have seen better offensive play, I was very happy to see our defense only surrender two goals while keeping three clean sheets.

Our unbeaten run saw us move up the table two spots again; this time to 3rd place. We're losing on goal differential to surprise package Athletic and we are 1 point ahead of Barca. We have a slow but very challenging start to the new year, with January league games against Athletic (2!), Betis (9), and Barca (4). If we are to maintain our league standing, we should come away with at least 5 points.



I did my best to keep our side motivated going into an absolutely meaningless Champions League game against Inter, but I was unsuccessful. The 2-3 final score makes it seem close but it really wasn't. Inter was up 2-1 for most of the game and even after having one of their players get sent off we couldn't break through their defense. They had even stretched the lead to 3-1 before we scored a goal late in injury time. Moving on to the knockout round, our first opponent will be Roma. They finished second in their group but barely eeked past AT Madrid to do so. Locally, they have finished 3rd for the last two seasons in Serie A. If this dream run is to continue, we must produce a good result in February when we open playing the away leg.



Nothing new to report in regards to the Spanish Cup. We open the new year with both legs of the 5th round, however.



With both keepers at full health I've been rotating them pretty consistently. Ribas opened the month with a clean sheet against Almeria. Calatayud then got three starts, getting clean sheets against Sevilla and Recreativo before losing to Inter. Ribas then came on to beat Racing and AT Madrid, allowing one goal to each opponent. If I had to pick a starter, I would side with Ribas, but as you can see there isn't a whole lot separating the two.



Oh! That rumoured transfer news? We're making another strong statement with these two players coming to Granada. Jano was someone I admired last season but I didn't have an ambitious enough club for him. He went to Madrid and quickly had a falling out because he wants a starting role. When he was offered to me I looked at the roster and made a big decision. I'm moving away from my 442 to that 4231 that I was experimenting with earlier! Jano will rotate at the attacking center mid slot with Chris McCann and Thiago will move up and play AMC instead. For 8.25m, Jano should be a fantastic addition to the team and hopefully he will continue to develop.



If you're paying attention, you're probably asking yourself why I'm playing McCann at the attacking center mid spot when he was playing just fine at the defensive center mid spot. Well, when you get a chance to bring in Jack Rodwell you find a way to accomodate him! How did this come to fruition? My UK scout recommended him, of course. I followed up by talking to the media about how much I admire Rodwell. When Rodwell reacted very respectfully, I lodged a bid to Everton. Is 38m cheap? Of course not. Did I overpay for him? Yeah, probably. But the bottom line is - we have a team that attracted Rodwell and we have the finances to bring him over. Just like signing Thiago, this was a statement to the league and to Europe that we mean business.

Rodwell immediately takes the defensive center mid position and we will now look to loan out Lorenzo Crisetig so he can continue his development in someone else's starting eleven. Crisetig has shown flashes of what he can become and I'm hoping to keep both him and Rodwell as our defensive enforcers for years to come.

You are still doing wonderful things with each team you manage Joannes 3000. I have just bought FM12, and am looking forward to the challenges that await me, particularly as I can add leagues and take leagues out, it'll give far more flexibility. Do you, or anyone else know whether there has been a patch yet to counter the insane number of injuries in games yet?

Congrats on getting this far.....and poaching Rodwell!

Our undefeated run continued through January but it wasn't as fantastic as it could have been. The highlight has to be our 2-2 draw against Barca. We had them beat after taking a 2-1 lead into injury time, only for Bojan to score a goal 91 minutes in to tie things up. We beat Betis as expected and had a bit of a surprise finish against Athletic. We looked pretty terrible for most of the game and left it to Gabriel Torje to rescue a draw in the 81st minute.

We stayed in 3rd place for the second straight month, although Barca have now overtaken us and are ahead by 2 points. We are also barely ahead of Athletic by 1 point. In February we will face off against Osasuna (16), Malaga (7), Villarreal (8), and Deportivo (18). This is another month where we can really take advantage with a strong run. I want to secure at least 8 points out of 12.



No updates from the Champions League yet. We square off against Roma on the 25th and have the away leg first. If we can have a good showing there, I like my chances of pulling off an upset in front of our home fans.



We're back into the semifinals of the Spanish Cup for the third year in a row. We saw off a pesky Betis squad with consecutive 1-0 shutouts. Our opponent in the semifinals is Athletic and we got things started off very well against them, having notched a 2-0 victory in the home leg. If we can take care of business it looks like we'll face Real Madrid in the finals, who currently own a 2-0 lead of their own against Villarreal.



The 4231 is working pretty well so far. We need to get healthy, though! The walking wounded include a starting center back, a starting center mid, our starting AML, and our backup AMC.

#36898 Kiwi : You are still doing wonderful things with each team you manage Joannes 3000. I have just bought FM12, and am looking forward to the challenges that await me, particularly as I can add leagues and take leagues out, it'll give far more flexibility. Do you, or anyone else know whether there has been a patch yet to counter the insane number of injuries in games yet?

Congrats on getting this far.....and poaching Rodwell!

Thank you for your continued readership! I don't know that anything has been done yet in terms of injuries, as my last update will show.

We continue our torrid league run with another strong month. This time, we maxed out on points as we swept through February with 4 straight wins. We also kept three clean sheets with only Deportivo unlocking out defense. And ironically enough, Deportivo was the closest to beating us after being the worst ranked team going into the month!

Our continued winning streak has helped us surge into 2nd place. We are 3 points behind Real Madrid and 3 points ahead of Athletic. The games continue to pour in as we approach the home stretch of the season now, with only 14 games left to play. March's league games are against Celta (19), Mallorca (13), Real Madrid (1), Real Sociedad (10), Sevilla (9), and Espanyol (15). Once again, we can certainly capitalize on our opponents and hope to maintain our standing in the table. A shock upset over Madrid could see us climb up to 1st place, but a shock loss at any time can see us tumble down the table just as easily.



Our first leg against Roma went about as well as we could've expected. We head home after a 1-1 draw and as always, I like my chances with our home fans cheering us on. The first leg proved that we can certainly compete with Roma, and although we held a slight possession advantage, Roma largely shut us down offensively; allowing us only 3 shots overall with the 1 on target being Thiago's goal.



We FINALLY exorcised our semifinal demon in the Spanish Cup this year! After taking a 2-0 lead in the first leg, we settled for a 1-1 draw in the second leg to advance. Our prize for advancing to the finals? A date with juggernauts Real Madrid.



After what felt like another rash of injuries, we are finally approaching a clean bill of health. Starting winger Nathan Redmond is still out for another 2-3 months due to a torn calf muscle, but it has allowed Anass Achahbar to find his way onto the pitch more frequently.

Wow... 2 games with Real Madrid. The future El Clasico! Anyways, how'd you manage to keep your wage bill in control? I'm managing a club from the lower leagues of Italy and i bought 13 players therefore making my wage budget go into negative numbers.

#37112 xXBlueXx : Wow... 2 games with Real Madrid. The future El Clasico! Anyways, how'd you manage to keep your wage bill in control? I'm managing a club from the lower leagues of Italy and i bought 13 players therefore making my wage budget go into negative numbers.

I didn't do anything special, tbh. We just watch the wage bill and rarely dive into the transfer market until we have a steady source of income. Getting qualified for the Champions League always helps because that's a huge revenue stream and the board always tends to react positively in terms of p/w wages and transfer funds.

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The wins keep coming and we keep contending for one of the top spots in the league. We had a few more close calls this month like a narrow 1-0 win over Celta and a 3-2 win over Sevilla, but we also had an encouraging 4-1 thrashing of Mallorca. We also suffered our first league loss in five months; once again losing to Real Madrid.

With the final stretch of games on the horizon we continue to hold down 2nd place. We are 6 points behind Real Madrid with a game in hand. We are only 1 point ahead of Barca but also have a game in hand against them. With 9 games remaining, we play more than half of them in April. We face off against Sporting (13), Recreativo (20), Almeria (17), Racing (12), AT Madrid (8), and Valencia (5). With a lead and a game in hand against Barca, we have our destiny in our hands if we are to finish ahead of them. I realistically don't think we will catch Real Madrid so my goal is to finish in 2nd. If we can manage a clean sweep this month, we should have 2nd place and another trip to the Champions League wrapped up.



After a confidence building first leg, we welcomed Roma to our home stadium with a trip to the quarterfinals well within our sights. Our offense looked much better with the support of our home crowd but it was a nervy game until the end. Roma opened the scoring in the 21st minute with a goal from Mauro Boselli. We answered back with Lorenzo Crisetig in the 30th minute and we went into halftime all tied up. With extra time looming, I decided it was time to get aggressive. With the fans cheering us on, we went into attack mode for the last 10 minutes of the game but we were unsucessful. It wasn't until injury time that we finally broke through. Chris McCann banged home the game winning shot 2 minutes into extra time and propelled us into the quarterfinal round! Take a look at the replay here.

Our opponent in the quarters? Of course we had to be drawn against Real Madrid. Between league games, the Spanish Cup, and now the Champions League, we will have played Madrid 5 times before the season is over. I feel like Barca, only far less successful, lol.



Nothing new to report in regards to the Spanish Cup. We will have our date with Real Madrid at the end of this month to see who takes home the trophy.



Now that we've had some time playing the 4231 it looks like we can expect increased scoring from the AMC. Thiago has really come on in his new role. In 26 matches playing the 4231 we have scored 51 goals, the same number of goals scored when playing the 442 but in two more games. As the players get more comfortable, I'm hoping to improve on those figures.

Enjoying this! Love your story.

Doing really well. Where do you think you will go next?


I hope this season is a success.

I have only started reading lately so I missed what happened in season one..

HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU FINISH 3RD?

I'm gonna break format a bit here for the occassion. You know what that means! I want to talk about the Champions League before anything else! Last month we were gearing up for El Clasico Lite - our 3rd and 4th matchups against Real Madrid. They're 2-0 in league play so far and look like odds on favorites to life the trophy once again. The Champions League was something totally different, however, or at least that's what we hoped. Game 1 gave the fans an action packed first half. Thiago opened the scoring with a penalty on 24 minutes. Real answered back in the 38th minute with a Mats Hummels strike. Then 4 minutes later, DISASTER struck. For Madrid! Hummels scored an inexplicable own goal in the 42nd minute and we rolled into halftime with a 2-1 lead. With Madrid threatening thanks to their attacking pace, we retreated into counterattack mode for most of the second half and managed to engineer a 2-1 upset!

So we headed to the Santiago Bernabeu full of confidence. We would need it in the belly of the beast. 3 minutes in and we are absolutely gifted a goal. This time, it was a gift from Pepe. That gave us a commanding 3-1 aggregate lead. Then in the 42nd minute, Bueno popped up and scored another goal to stretch the aggregate to 4-1! Just before the whistle, however, Sergio Ramos pulled one back and we went into halftim with a very strong 4-2 aggregate lead. Then Real Madrid showed why they are so dangerous. It only took 2 minutes from the restart before Mesut Ozil slotted one home. All of a sudden we only led by 1 goal on aggregate. The pressure started to pile on and I could feel the team whithering. In the 59th minute, Ronaldo scored and we looked lost. We led on away goals, but we were in a tailspin. I had to go into defense mode and we held on for dear life. Somehow we weathered the storm of 26 shot attempts (10 on target) and walked out winners by that 1 away goal margin! Bring on AC Milan in the semifinals!

Once again we got the home leg first. Once again we opened the scoring thanks to a Pape Diakhate header from a corner inthe 16th minute. Once again, the attacking prowess of our opponent put us to the test all game long. We stood firm in the first half, but Pato broke through after one hour to even the scoring. With the backing of the home fans we managed to play our style of football and retain possession. The end result was a 1-1 draw. Not bad, but would it be enough? We entered the San Siro for easily the biggest game ever. One more game and we could advance to the finals of the Champions League. 90 minutes. Milan came out fired up in front of their home fans and once again we were put to the test defensively. We failed at 11 minutes with Asamoah Gyan banging one home. A 1-2 aggregate deficit wasn't bad. We simply couldn't mount much of an offensive, however. Then we failed again on defense, as Gyan notched a brace in the 68th minute. From there out, we looked over our heads. 20 minutes later, the dream had ended.



Our continued success in league play helps soften the blow from the Champions League a bit. We continued our fantastic form with another undefeated month. We kept clean sheets against Recreativo and Racing, had a weird 7 goal shootout against Almeria, and a 1-1 draw against AT Madrid that was sandwiched in between those tough games against AC Milan.

We have 4 games left and we only need 1 point to guarantee another trip to the Champions League. In fact, 2 points in the final 4 games will clinch 2nd place in the league and that's what we are gunning for. We are 8 points behind Real Madrid with a game in hand. We are 4 points ahead of Athletic but also have two games in hand against them. Our final games will be against Espanyol (14), Valencia (5), and Betis (10). As a test to the team's motivation, I want to take home all 12 points. And besides, a 12 point final run could see us overtake Real Madrid for 1st place if they somehow slip up.





Still nothing new to report in regards to the Spanish Cup. We will have our final date with Real Madrid this season in one week.



The 4231 looks to have been a successful gamble. In 35 matches we are averaging barely .2 of a goal less than from the 442. Thiago is really enjoying life at AMC. He's now up to 17 goals and 16 assists in 49 total games played. Bueno continues his fantastic play up front with 30 goals and 15 assists in 42 games.