Career Idol Attempts the UK Challenge (Defunct)

[Idol]

Firstly, Hi! I've been lurking on these forums for a few weeks reading people's challenges and enjoying the stories, especially Adam Armstrong's Celtic 1k, Bazoer's free kick expertise (I'd like to see someone challenge Rogerio Ceni's 131 goals from GK!) and the various UK Challenges running around at the moment. 

As a Brit myself and someone's who's always played FM games by taking someone from the bottom league and seeing how far we can go I thought that sounded like my kind of challenge, although reading the threads made it clear failure was pretty likely I was pretty confident I'd enjoy the journey. 

Now all that's out of the way, let's get to the action! Apologies if this is badly formatted, I've tried to follow some other formats but my forum skills are a bit rusty. 

The team was Crusaders, I'd had a quick look at the NI league from another save game and they looked decent and had a good looking striker so I figured they'd be worth a bash. 

Jordan Owens! I do seem to recall reading someone else going with the same guy but he stopped his attempt so I don't feel too plagiarise-y.

He showed steady form despite deciding he wanted to move to a big club in September.

A memorable brace against West Ham in the Euro Cup Playoff was my highlight of the year, and filled me with confidence that he would be scoring for fun against inferior Dank League opposition.

The league was won fairly comfortably, and a couple of cups stashed away as well. I felt like cups would be important in NI since building up my reputation would be vital to getting a job in Scotland. [Edit- I appear to have accidentally made a Matryoshka Doll of Spoilers and can't unstack them. Oops!]

 

But anyway, that's enough Crusaders spiel, I can hear all none of you clamouring to hear how the scoring went! 

 

All in all, a decent season. Picked up a few too many Assists for my liking but he easily cleared the Challenge total so that's a bonus. I know I'll be in Ireland for a long time though so I'll definitely look to improve on that! His attributes had stayed very steady, picking up a point in Aerial and Shooting, which made him look quite impressive. 

 

Goals

Assists

 

Anyway, that's Season 1 done. I've actually already got through a few seasons before I decided I'd try posting on here and seeing if anyone was interested. Formatting tips or Footballing tips are entirely welcome! A small spoiler for next season, I decided I don't really like playing with the big lad up front and found someone with a bit of pace about them instead.

 

[Taff]

Looks like a promising first season in NI, how did Owens do for you??

Like you said the few of us doing this challenge will tell you that getting the move to Scotland will take a while, I had to do 5 full seasons with Cliftonville before I managed a move

Good luck with this dude, it's going to be one hell of a ride

[Irwan Hadi]

Good work on getting Jordan Owens to break the record!   I used him first season and he surpassed my expectations, really. I see you snapped up Rosenthal too heh you might want to hang on to him as he turns out to be a great Striker or APM, depending on how you train him. I put him on General training in first season then Attack training when I switched tactics in Season 2.

Well, I stopped my UK Challenge attempt as I believe I screwed it up by leaving Crusaders too early and hoping for too much too soon. I hope you don't embark on the same path!

Don't worry about plagiarism dude  I think if you use a different player you'd have to "restart" it and start counting the goals when your new player of choice begins his scoring run =)

All in all, I hope you succeed where I've failed 

[Idol]

Taff - He scored 37 in 58 apps, there is a screenshot in there buried in the bottom spoiler. I'm planning on waiting until I get National rep before I follow the tactic of retiring from Cru's and seeing where I end up, then my general plan is clear Scotland and Wales ASAP then get into England somewhere in the lower leagues and hopefully work up to the EPL to claim glory. At least that's the plan. 

Irwan - Hah, yeah, Rosenthal is excellent, I had him on a game with Fylde up to a decent level. (League 1 or Championship iirc, before he wouldn't sign a deal with me). 

[AndersJ]

Great though challenge! Expect it to take time 

hope you loaded England as prime league if you are heading to Do like i did it

best regards Anders

[BatiGoal]

Great start! And good to hear these challenges sparked your interested and that it made you decide to post your career and share it with us. Because the popularity of these goal record- breaking challenges I decided to make a 3rd and last one of its series and should be up by tomorrow. Hope there's some love for that one as well.

Hope you get to stage 2 in a few seasons. Goodluck!

[Idol]

Anders - Yeah I did load England as the main league, I figured it would be the best idea in terms of database. I was tempted to load Scotland as the main league and look to get a lower league job there quickly but couldn't imagine getting a job in the EPL from Wales. 

Bati - Looking forward to No.3, although I think the Euro one will be difficult for me because I hate spending money! Will be a good experience to try it if I manage to clear this task.

Anyway -

Season 2 Are you Darius in disguise?

Season 1 ended with me bringing in Kyle Vassell on a Bosman from Blackpool. Saving money where we can obviously he could drive himself across and hop on the ferry. He comes equipped with Pace and Shooting and average ratings in the rest of the normal poaching attributes. I was a bit worried about the Stamina but nobody's perfect! 

The season went very very well! There were some injuries and some interpersonal problems. [Edit] And apparently I suck at doing spoilers, another rabbit hole of spoilers to dive down! I think I may have worked out what I'm doing wrong so hopefully the next post will be better! 

 

A month out right in the meaty part of the season. Not a disaster but a major hit. 

I'm his favoured person, which is nice, but there are definitely issues, especially with Tom Rosenthal who had apparently fallen out with most of my team. 

And there were some seriously good matches for Kyle.

 

Apparently he's a first half specialist!

He definitely put the injury behind him, banging in 15 goals in 4 games! 

The team had a brilliant season too, winning the league comfortably and picking up all 4 domestic cups. A late goal conceded in the champions league qualifiers curtailed any European run but I can't complain! 

 

 

My Manager Profile was moving along, and I was sat with 350 Manager Points and a Regional rep. Definitely not enough to move to Scotland just yet. I'd made some big sales including moving Rosenthal along for the sake of squad harmony and getting £550k in return! Obviously that's probably more than Crusader's would make in a year so I was looking forward to spending some money until I actually tried to spend money, and found that nobody wants to play football in Northern Ireland... Oh well!

 

And now for the main show. Kyle Vassell. A quick look at his stats show a boost to his shooting up to an impressive 17 and Pace up to 15, which does make him look a more attractive player. He'd also gained a couple of points in Movement and Passing, and his Stamina had moved up into the Blues which was nice. He didn't really struggle for Condition in the year, I guess because he's lazy and doesn't run very much! 

And the moment of truth! His previous career spanned 124 appearances and 21 goals. In one season he played 40% of that number of games and scored 343% of the goals! A slight upturn in form I guess. (Obviously the quality of the league had nothing to do with it!)

In Summary, this has been a really good season! I'll keep trying to beat 72 until I get my rep up to National but I really won't be bothered if I don't beat it.

In terms of playing I'm actually up to season 7 now so I might post seasons 3 4 and 5 in one post tomorrow and bring the story somewhat up to date. They weren't very exciting I have to say, except for qualifying for some spectacularly difficult European groups. 

 

[Taff]

HOLY HELL DUDE 72 goals in one season, I'm kind of hoping you don't get too far in this or Your name will be sat firmly on top of that leaderboard

[Idol]

1 hour ago, Taff said:

HOLY HELL DUDE 72 goals in one season, I'm kind of hoping you don't get too far in this or Your name will be sat firmly on top of that leaderboard

Hah, thanks for the support! I think completing the challenge would be good enough for me, the score isn't really important. Having said that 72 was awesome. 

[AndersJ]

Thats Holy high!!!! Congrats! I he on his own at the top in your tactic ? And is it EME or OME?

[Idol]

EME, the only reason being I didn't really know there were two options! And I'm running 1 up front, fairly basic 4-2-3-1 wbs wingers an ap a poacher and then I tinker around with the roles in the middle. Attacking and short and mixed for most of the options.

[BatiGoal]

A flying start to the challenge! 72! Sweet! Now the side challenge begins tho.. the moving part.. 

[Idol]

Seasons 3-5

In the same fashion as everyone else doing this challenge, moving from Northern Ireland proved a challenge! My plan from the start was to wait until my Rep moved to National then resigning at the end of the season and hoping to get into a club. As such season 3-5 were fairly meaningless as I was just trying to beat 72 goals in a season. I'll just do some mini-updates and start catching up to the present.

Season 3

The season started with great excitement, beating Slovan Bratislava 5-5 on aggregate, with Kyle Vassell scoring 3 including a 93rd minute equaliser with the assist going to my GK! Classy football. This led to me being put in a nice easy Euro group. 

 

Spoiler

Still, taking 4 points off Braga and an away draw at Ajax felt a good result. The rest of the season was fairly average. Vassell picked up a couple of injuries and got annoyed when I rejected a bid from Fleetwood in the January (he's obviously pining for the Fylde coast!) and ended up with 45 goals, my reserve striker (Danny Morrisey) knocking in 28 which shows what might have been! 

 

Spoiler

Season 4

Season 4 descended into a funk. Kyle was clearly bored of the NI league, and so was his manager! He got the 'Slacking' red mood every other game and just didn't perform at all. Irritatingly he avoided injury all season and made 59 appearances, 9 more than when he got 72 goals! Still another easy League win and 3 cups in the bag would hopefully keep the rep going in the right direction although for the moment it was still sat stubbornly at Regional. 

 

Spoiler

Season 5

The season started with the board getting annoyed at me applying to other (scottish!) jobs, then me getting offered the Sunderland job which I suspect I'd bite someone's hand off for in a few years time! 

Kyle Vassel had had enough of the Dank league, so I took my money and tried to replace him. I basically failed so I went with Danny Morrisey who apparently I've not screenshotted. He had decent shooting and pace and not a lot else.

Season 5 was a very strange season. We walked the league in style, and had rubbish cup runs. It was getting towards the end of the season when I noticed that my Rep had moved to National so I knew I was resigning at the end of the season and hopefully moving to Scotland. 

The Irish Cup final was exciting, going 2-1 down in ET then coming back to 2-2, then being 3-2 down in penalties after I'd had 4 and they'd had 3 and coming back to win! 

 

Spoiler

So the Northern Ireland leg of my journey was over. Hopefully. 

The future looked bright, with lots of opportunities on the horizon!

And a little teaser to tell you how it went!

Spoiler

Phew. That was a long post! Slowly catching up to where I am though! 

 

[BatiGoal]

Great progress here. Congrats with getting thru perhaps the toughest part of the challenge, the waiting game. Waiting is over tho. Looking forward to seeing how stage 2 unfolds.

[Taff]

Good job dude, getting to Scotland is the biggest task, now you're there hopefully you can fly through this

[Idol]

Season 6 - Bonnie Scotland

Sadly work has got in the way of me doing important things like playing FMM so I've been a bit delayed! Scotland was much tougher than NI, especially with a brand new mid-rate team with no budget! 

The Striker

 

Spoiler

Obviously he's not the best guy in the world, but I figure with the right tactic and a few loan signings I'd made he should be alright! 

Season Highlight - INVERCALEYGOBALLISTICCELTICAREATROCIOUS

 

Spoiler

Season Results - We came 2nd in the league, losing the 2nd to last game against Kilmarnock then drawing against Celtic to throw it away. We then promptly went off and lost the cup Final too! An irritating end to the season from a managerial point of view, but who cares about that transient nonsense? 

 

Spoiler

End of Season Form

Kyle had been on hot form for most of the season, and needed well under a goal a game coming towards the end of the season. Then he totally dropped off the pace, which sucked. He had a little burst with 5 goals in 3 games towards the end of the season but only scored 6 in the last 15 even including that. Would it be enough?

Spoiler

The Important Bit

Spoiler

 

He might not have been the best striker in the world but he's definitely my hero! 

 

 

[BatiGoal]

Nice!! you completed stage 2, not by a lot but you got the job done. At least you don't have to worry about this stage and can move on to Wales. Or stay in Scotland to break your record for a higher total. Nice to have options, isn't it?

[Idol]

I've been on a bit of an FMM hiatus caused by stupid welsh people and their stupid welsh league and general irritation. I feel like I'm refreshed and ready to go again, whether on this save or otherwise. 

This is where I made a mistake. I decided speed was the main priority and that the welsh league would be easy! I was so utterly wrong. I went with a newly promoted team (Newtown) who had no players and no reputation. I would definitely recommend waiting until can get TNS or another of the 'big' teams. 

Season 6

The Player - Lee Gregory (On a frankly ridiculous £325 per week. Profligate I know!)

He's an older player, at 34, but he has great physicals and the massive attribute of being willing to sign for Newtown. He'd been surrounded by signed up Greys and terrible regens and Newtown were ready to take on the world.

Spoiler

He went on a run of scoring in 20 consecutive games! Sadly he didn't get many duplicates, 6 braces and a hat-trick but surely I felt we'd be able to make the 50 mark at least! 

Spoiler

 

I was wrong. Maybe a bit of end-of-season fatigue set in but still, a great result for a 34 yo but not good enough.

4 games left needing 2 goals a game.

Spoiler

End of Season - actually scored 2 goals in 4. 

Team News - We won the league and some mickey mouse cup. 

In summary, we did pretty well for a team of regens and an aged decrepit hero up front but not enough. Looking back at the results maybe I was too defensive, who knows.

Season 7 - James Vaughan cometh

I signed a man most famous for suffering injuries just when he looked like he could be quite good. I am an idiot. Oh well. 

Unsurprisingly then, he got injured. Several times. Eventually he was out for 2 months and then the TNS job came up so I jumped ship at the end of the season. TNS have a much bigger reputation so hopefully I could sign someone decent next year. Maybe... James ended up the season with a respectable 27 goals from the 33 games he was fit(ish) for. 

Newtown won the league and won both cups, I left days before the Welsh Cup final and the TNS squad seemed to have an average condition of about 60%. Newtown won 7-0 iirc. Good start! 

Season 8 - The New Saints

New Club, New Player - Cole Stockton, 30 yo with decent physicals and a shooting attribute of 15! Surely he'd rip this league to shreds.

Well. No is the easy answer. He picked up a 3 week injury but it only kept him out for a few games, he just didn't score. I don't know if it's because I was getting fed up at this point and not putting in enough care and attention or too much fiddling with the tactics. We won the league and the Welsh Cup yada yada. 27 Goals. The same as James Vaughan got the year before. A far cry from the 48 required goals!

Season 9 - In Darkest Days

Season 9 was an utter write off. I signed a new striker who deteriorated instantly. 

In the end my top scorer was a regen winger with a massive 16 goals. 

We won the league with a pathetic number of goals scored. I even qualified for the Champions' League group stages and beat Dynamo Kiev at home! 

Season 10 - Still in Wales (Just Call me Jonah)

Surely, surely, 15 pace and 10+ in the important attacking stats will guide me to victory. At this point I'm getting seriously concerned about getting to England and getting a Premiership side and doing the final part of the quest in time. He even picked up a couple of points in all his attacking stats when he started training. Shooting went to 12, Movement to 14! Technique to 11 Dribbling up to 12. 

Injuries...

 

Spoiler

2 Months out. He ended up playing 37 games out of around 50 total. 

So, how did he do?

38 goals. Better than the last few seasons but nowhere bloody near the target. 

Season 10 Summary 

 

Spoiler

A nice easy champions league group at least! A famous 2-2 draw against PSG and a 0-0 against Real Madrid kept me from getting totally embarrassed. 

Still I moved into Season 11 with some hope. I'd been offered a high League 1 job late in season 10 so I felt I could move to England fairly easily, and I had a man in place who I felt could score the goals. Surely it was just a matter of getting them this season then jumping over to England... .

[BatiGoal]

Enjoyable read, but I feel your pain. Still a very good run especially with Gregory. That goal record looks amazing but so unfortunate he came a few goals short. Scoring in 20 consecutive matches is an achievement in itself. Keep going, I want to see you bring this home.

[Idol]

Season 11 - Time is Not on My Side

Season 11 started with me sticking with Jordy Hiwula. We won the league. and both cups.

We got through to the Champions League group stages again, it didn't go very well, unsurprisingly. 

Interestingly, my reputation has bounced back after taking a dip when I moved to Wales, I even got an offer of a job from the team leading the Championship (albeit only in August). How I wish this stupid Wales goal was finished! 

And the main man himself. Well. He did alright in patches, then dropped off horrendously in November December, which is when I went on a month or so hiatus. When I came back I'd apparently signed a new guy who came in in January!

Again, Pace, Shooting, Movement, Decisions, what could possibly go wrong. And a mere stripling at 29! Hope stirred once again in my breast. I decided to blood him in the final half of the season, since I couldn't see Hiwula getting up to the 48 mark.   

5 goals in 1 game! I hadn't seen that since the Vassell days in Northern Ireland. 

Anyway, Hiwula ended up with 29 goals from 44 appearances. German picked up 16 goals 10 games, which sounds more like it. 

Looking around I can see that the youngest wunderkind are now about 28. If I get the Wales target next year and get a mid-season move to England I might get a couple of seasons with a 30-32 year old in the EPL. If I miss it next season then I'm going to really struggle and might take a break from this challenge and go try something where I can actually spend money! 

 

[Taff]

tough break dude, but maybe this new player can finally get it for you, I'm still struggling myself, this is the hardest part of any challenge I've done to date, I completed it first time out in Ver 2.0 but that must have been one hell of a fluke because this time i'm really struggling

 

[AndersJ]

I would say great run though and awesome making it to the CHL!!!

[BatiGoal]

R.German does look like a player who'd be able to hit that number for you next season. I'm rooting for ya!

[Idol]

Season 13

I'm pretty sure season 13 didn't happen... German sadly showed none of the late S12 form and scored 8 goals in 22 games and was sold for £775k in January. Ho hum. We won the league with my lowest points total in years, we won the Nathanial cup and lost in everything else quite comprehensively. Jordy Hiwula picked up 34 goals in 46 apps.

Season 14 - Last Chance Saloon

If I don't get it this time, I'm going to have to start again. With that in my mind I decided to get back to basics. I went back to the formation I'd used with success for Kyle Vassell, but swapped the lone striker to an AP having read something along those lines in the Ze 1k elsewhere on these forums, it seemed to work so I stuck with it and planned to not make any tactical changes. I tweaked my training and brought in a few players who were starting to look like actual footballers.

My man was once again Jordy Hiwula, at 33 he still looks strong. 

The season started brilliantly, Jordy knocked in an impressive 11 goals in the CL qualifiers. Even more impressively we conceded two goals in the last 2 minutes of the playoff to drop into the Europa League which will hopefully give me a bit more chance to score. 

First 20 Games

He'd certainly slowed down a bit after the initial flurry, but he'd still scored at over a goal a game. 

A small disaster occurred in January, when my star CM got poached by West Ham. That's what I get for signing people with big club release clauses... After that about 8 players were annoyed because of me selling a star player, which sent my Squad Harmony plummeting to the lowest I've ever seen one of those bars. My players then decided to take a few games rest apparently! I managed to replace him with a full Uruguay international for £30k but apparently that wasn't the replacement they were looking for. I was genuinely tempted to sign someone crap for £2-3m just to see if it perked them up but it was so close to the end of the window it would have been tough to even to that.

Spoiler

 

 

So, the season still went very very well. 

Initially I thought this was going to be an easy group, then I popped into BMG's team and saw all the German names and remembered it was Munchengladbach. However we managed a good home win against them, sadly poor finishing against Vorskla (Bulgarian iirc) cost me any chance of progression.

Invincibles! For I think the first time in my FM Career. 100 Goals in a season in Wales feels impressive, and 86 points is a lot more than I've managed up to this point. Surely, surely, there's enough goals there to give Hiwula his target. 

At the end of the season he was seriously close. with 5 games left he needed 3 goals to beat the target. 2 goalless games followed, which made it look a lot harder! 

3rd to last game, Hiwula scores! 2 goals to go. A few minutes later, a penalty! Hiwula steps up and... blazes it over. The rest of the game passed without much happening. 

2nd to last game, Hiwula failed to score, a quiet 1-0 victory against Bangor City.

Last game. The Welsh Cup final also against Bangor City. In the first minute my left winger scored, in the 6th minute my dlp scored. In the 20th minute Jordy scored! He'd equalled the record and had 70 minutes to nick one more. A few minutes later, a ball comes in from deep and Hiwula gets on the end of it and nods in! GONO... disallowed... .... We won 4-0 with my right winger tucking one in stoppage time. Gutted. 

Jordi Hiwula, 34 years old, 47 Goals in 53 Games. 15 Assists. 148 Goals for TNS having joined at the age of 30. I can't have any complaints with the lad. 

Honorouble mention hast to go to my AMC, Sam Moore, who smacked in 38 goals himself! Part of me was tempted to drop him because he seemed to scoring too many goals. However you can't really complain at 22 assists. Looking at the match stats occasionally he dominated my chances but most of the time Hiwula had his fair share of shots. I guess it was just when Sam had a good game and Jordy had a bad game Sam made the most of it?

And there ends this story. There's no way I can get from Wales to the PL in time to even have one season at the final stage at this time, so I think it's going to be best if I start again or try a different challenge. 

Just a shame he couldn't bag one more goal to give me a chance! 

Thanks for commenting and reading! I've definitely enjoyed my first try at this sort of thing, frustrating as it got in Wales. I think I learned a fair bit and will come back stronger. Next time I'm going to spend a couple of years in Scotland I think for one.

Rich G Final Stats

Spoiler

 

[Taff]

OH dude, thats heart breaking, 1 goal shy after all your hard work, I hate the big club release clause, it causes no end of headaches (especially in this challenge with Ireland and Wales, as getting players to sign needs that clause or they won't sign, but the minute you're doing well BANG, West Ham come in and steal him (probably to rot on their reserves) so not fair)

So whats the plan from here, start over or move on to something else and try this one at another time?

[Idol]

4 minutes ago, Taff said:

OH dude, thats heart breaking, 1 goal shy after all your hard work, I hate the big club release clause, it causes no end of headaches (especially in this challenge with Ireland and Wales, as getting players to sign needs that clause or they won't sign, but the minute you're doing well BANG, West Ham come in and steal him (probably to rot on their reserves) so not fair)

So whats the plan from here, start over or move on to something else and try this one at another time?

In fairness he played a few games for them before the end of the season, and his value shot up to over £7m so they clearly rated him! 

I think I'm just going to jump straight back in to this, although by the time I do get to England I'll have forgotten how to manage teams with money! 

[Taff]

Good luck dude, as you've seen I'm on attempt #3 of this challenge I think a few others had to do multiple attempts to get it right

You'll crack it, now you have a better understanding of how to play in the arse end leagues 

[BatiGoal]

I'm speechless...

<pouring myself a drink allowing my senses to pop back online one by one>

That's a tough one to take. We can't have too many of these.

<deep sigh>

This challenge has caused a lot of headaches around Vibe.. I haven't played this one yet on FMM17 so I think it's only fair if I go thru the same pain all of you have gone thru.

<emptying glass and pouring a second one>

Was a great journey to follow and hoping luck's on your side on the next one.

<cheers>

[Idol]

@Taff I happened to have taken an SS of his time at West Ham, 2 goals 3 assists and a 7.46 average in 13 games having jumped up from the WPL to the EPL is pretty decent! 

@BatiGoal There's no point making a challenge with no challenge! It'll just feel that much better when (if) I succeed. I'm already 1 season into take 2 (Alex Nimely @ Linfield as a little teaser) , although I won't get to post it until after the weekend I suspect.

[Taff]

I take my rant back (although the clause still miffs me), good luck on Version 2.0, I'm sure you'll crack it this time dude

look forward to following it