FM09!

There was a 19 year old from Brazil called Eduardo who played D/DM/AM LC, had virtually all stats above 14 and was available for £7.5m.

He played at centre-back for me at City for over 10 years but when I reached my first Champions League final I had an injury crisis and had to play him AML. Ilsinho who had played RB all season also had to be moved to AMR. They both scored to beat Barca 2-1.

I got to 2021 in that game and then accidentally uninstalled it when I thought I was deleting FM2010.

I never even saw that Radek Sirl, where did he play?

Remember Guily in the old CM series? I think it was 00-01 or something? He used to play pretty much every position.

Lb, he was croatian. Such a class player

My team was awesome. Was athletico Madrid and my starting XI was (no cheating as well)

Aguero - Balotelli
Mata-Raul Garcia-Pastore-
Bale-Chielleni- Kompany (I think)- Santon
Ochoa

On the bench I had, GDS, Torres, Camacho, N'Koulou, Welbeck and a couple of comp gen guys.

My team was so good that I won every game by at least 3-0

@comment by Edinspur (U1109)

Given that you were only fielding 10 players, I'm truly impressed

That Man City game I ended up getting Pato on a free. I was pretty much unbeatable by 12/13.

Hard to remember who my team was now though, I had a lot of turnover but always brought through amazing regens to replace them. By 2021 my aim had become to make City the richest club in the world (ironically enough) but Arsenal where ridiculously rich.

I had a rule where I would sell any player regardless of ability at age 29 so I could get the maximum amount of transfer revenue for them (for some reason their price dropped massively at 30), it was hard with Pato though, he'd just won me the World Cup as Brazil manager but he wanted £115,000 a week and I had a regen who looked amazing who I wanted to play.

I shipped him off to Arsenal for £40m but it was the right thing to do. My top-earners were only on £85,000 a week by the end, I'm so gutted I deleted that game.

I don't know if I'm the only one who does this but by the end I had a squad of 20 outfield players that I used to rotate for every single game and then my 7 subs were made up of youth players I wanted to blood into the first team. It was a pain as my results did suffer but the end goal was worth the potentially odd missed trophy.

My God, I sound like Wenger!

I cant for the life of me remember who was on that right wing, might have been Nani for all I know.

Also completely agree with the Wenger bit, I used to search throughout the world and buy the best prospects under 18 all the time and blood them through. Some of the regen players became ridiculously good, in my Spurs career I got a Keeper who would end up with a rating of 9. something every game.

I tried to write my team down, and realised I'd completely forgotten 80% of it

When I was in the early stages my best midfielders kept getting poached, first Elano, then Matias Fernandez, then Javi Martinez, then Diarra and even Michael Johnson! He went to Pompey for £30m.

I was chuffed by the end though, my total transfer outlay was less than my income. Given I'd turned City into an unbeatable powerhouse, having a net spend of -£1.5m was awesome. Rafa would've been so proud

It's annoying when you try and talk about regen players as you realise you can't do just how good some of them were. My best was an AML player called Silva (again, funnily enough) but this one was Brazilian and he was amazing. Pace, Acc, Crossing, Dribbling, Creativity, Finishing were all 20.

I found one guy once on Champ 97/98 who 2/3 of his stats were 20. He was from Congo or something and was just sat in their National side, cost something like 100k. Never finished playing that one though, my mate refused to play on after I bought him as he reckoned it was unfair

I hated the start of my Athletico Madrid career. Spent hours trying to keep hold of Forlan, Simao and Reyes in the Summer transfer window, only for them to sulk and leave in the January transfer window. Damn foreigners

Oh, and Jimenez as well! I'd sign them as a replacement, then Arsenal or Barca would come in and make me offers Shinawatra couldn't refuse

You managed to keep Aguero though, was that because he was homegrown (sort of)?

Ever managed to sign Messi before? To be honest I've never tried, there's usually players nearly as good for much, much cheaper.

Aguero had a ridiculous buy out clause of 100m or something in the game (thank god).

The best thing about Balotelli is he went from Inter where he wasnt happy about not getting picked, to A.Villa where he wasnt happy because they were a small team to come to me on the cheap (about 8m) and win the player of the year award in his first season!

I tried signing Ronaldo after the season when I won my first treble and he could have come for 60m but I didnt really need him tbh. However my club these days (at least back when I played it) are so big that I can get anyone and Messi and Ronaldo arent worth it.

Back when I was trying to make a name for myself, a bit of wheeling and dealing (and pleading to the board) and I signed Chielleni for 60m!!!!! I only did this because my defence was poor and he is un-really good in the game!

Was Bojan worth more than anyone else in the game for you as well?

97/98 the greatest player ever was Tommy Svindal Larsson, cost like 170k and ALWAYS rated over 8 for a season. I always bought him and Erik Nevland, although if I was a smaller club Nevland always insisted on a release clause and I would lose him after one season. Great game, never played any new ones.