Still early days yet, but I'm having a solid season with Plymouth Argyle.

Backstory - They start the game in debt, have suffered two successive relegations and are now in League Two, 11 of their 22 first team players are 19 or younger, they don't field a reserve team anymore and the average sqaud morale is abysmal.

Board expectations - They believe you should be able to finish mid-table and that you should just show face in the various cups (1st Round in the League Cup, 2nd Round in the FA Cup and 2nd Round in the Paint Trophy).

Season so far - At the start I fired my regen assistant manager and replaced him with John Moring, a respectable and experienced assistant. I also restructured the deals of club legend Romain Larrieu and club icon/coach Carl Fletcher. Between the two I saved 4,650 pounds. The only squad additions were free agent rightback Trent McClenahan (he has recent experience in the Scottish SPL) for 1,800 p/w, veteran free agent forward Pablo Counago for 1,900 p/w, promising free agent GK Dean Bouzanis and promising right/centreback Steve Cook on loan for 3 months from Brighton & Hove. To further save money I do not start legendary 'keeper Romain Larrieu, instead playing Jake Cole, who earns 200 pounds less per week, 160 pounds less per appearance and 120 pounds less per clean sheet. As it is Romain Larrieu is only fractionally better, so I can live with the minimal decrease in ability in favour of the significant savings in money. In League Two you play as many as 3 league games per week so I can save as little as 1,080 pounds to as much as 1,440 pounds per week by playing Cole over Larrieu all the while seeing no noticeable difference in performance.

Soon after starting the season the club was sold. The debts were restructured so instead of being listed as "in debt" I am now just "insecure", but still having to pay off 16,5 million pounds of debt. As a bit of interest the clubs is only worth 2,5 million pounds.

After 19 league games I am sitting 5th on 35 points and firmly in playoff contention. After a slowish start - mostly due to poor away form - I am now one of the strongest teams having scored more goals than any other team and having only just suffered my first home league defeat in 10 games. Even more impressive have been my cup runs. I defeated League One Colchester United away in the 1st round of the League Cup before losing 1-0 away to Championship side Hull City after a 114th minute winner. I am now in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup (where I will be at home to Charlton Athletic) after defeating League Two Cheltenham in Round 1 and then proceeding to beat my fierce rivals Exeter City 2-1 away in the 2nd round. Exeter are also a League One team. As for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy, I have made the South Area final where I will face Charlton Athletic over two legs for a chance to go to Wembley.

The cup runs have been worth 95,000 pounds in prize money for the team, which has been invaluabe considering the financial state of the club.

Pablo Counago is also in fine form, having smashed home 18 goals in 23 appearances, including 14 goals in 15 league games. Another player doinh well is CB Curtis Nelson. He is 18 and played so well that he was called up to the England U19 national team and is now a regular. The sad downside is that his 600 pound p/w deal expires in 2012 and when I tried to renew it he now wants 3,100 pounds p/w, something the club cannot afford. On the whole almost all of my youngsters are playing well. 17-year old right winger Jed Harper-Penman leads the league in dribbles per match and has been providing Counago with lethal service from the right flank.
 
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Turning a 2-1 half-time deficit into a 5-2 victory to win my Champions League group that included Liverpool and Inter
 
Beating Man Utd on penalties in the Carling Cup final with Dagenham & Redbridge
 
Turning a 2-1 half-time deficit into a 5-2 victory to win my Champions League group that included Liverpool and Inter

**** what an awesome skin you got there, does it change between CL, EL, and League etc?
 
Managing Tottenham... Won 11 consecutive League Cups and Premier League titles. No player in my team has a basic wage above £110,000.00 p/w and players from my team have won every major world/European-wide individual award for the past 5 years. My net transfer spend over my whole tenure as manager is in minus figures. Just finished my best ever season (26/27) with 35 wins, 3 draw and no losses. Gareth Bale just retired age after scoring his last goal for the club in the penultimate league game of the season. Current available transfer budget is £465m.
 
Managing Beerschot AC, a Belgian Pro League side. They were a mid-table team in real life but were relegated and bankrupted in the 12/13 season. They were the first team I managed on the very first FM game I bought (FM12, obviously). The challenge was to get them out of financial trouble and make CL-winners out of them.

In my first season, most of our best players were sold and I only brought in a few promising youngsters. After struggling to find the right tactics, we started winning most of our games and ended up finishing 5th. We also had a good Belgian Cup campaign. We kept playing well, I remained cautious with the finances, buying mainly talented youngsters, and after a few Cup victories and 3rd and 2nd places we were finally able to claim the Pro League title in 16/17.

We then went on to be a frustrated close second in 17/18. But after that we've won 5 consecutive Pro League titles and some more Belgian Cups. In total we've played 11 Belgian Cup Finals out of a possible 12 and won 7 of them. We've won 6 Pro League titles out of a possible 12, all in the last 7 seasons. The only thing missing was European success. In the first few seasons we were in the EURO Cup but we only ever made it to the First Knock-out Round. And then we started qualifying for the Champions Cup, again only ever making it to the First Knock-out Round.

But this season, things went differently (and dramatically so). We were unbeaten in the league for the first 36 games (out of 40 in total), which saw us claiming the title 4 games before the end of the season. This was a blessing because it allowed us to concentrate on the Champions Cup, and a curse because the players started slacking off a bit which made us lose 2 of the last 4 games. I was disappointed at that because I wanted to have a season without even a single defeat. But my disappointment was soon replaced by excitement.

Our Champions League run was magical. First we qualified as undefeated Group winners after some amazing results against Man City, PSG and Sparta Prague. Then we were drawn against French Champions Olympique Lyonnais, who we beat 7-1 on aggregate. The Quarter Final was a real stunner, seeing us through with a 4-2 aggregate win over the Spanish team of wonders, Barcelona. In the Semi Final we found the Red Lions from Manchester on our path, but they too were unable to stop us. We beat them 1-0 at home and then masterminded a 2-4 away win at Old Trafford to secure our place in the Final. There we were expecting to meet AC Milan, but they were surprisingly beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk, who had also gotten past Roma and Olympique de Marseille. In a game we dominated, a wonderful 70th minute through ball gave our talented young attacking midfielder Razvan Dicu the opportunity to score the winning goal. I went absolutely bananas.

So this has been my best season so far, taking the Treble. And now I'm wondering whether I should leave. I've reached my goal. But at the same time, I would like to help Beerschot reach their absolute maximum. The facilities are not yet top quality and especially the Youth Recruitment is poor for a CL team. Moreover, I don't want my successor to destroy anything I've built here. I'm a bit of a Beerschot supporter in real life (though that's hard to do now they're bankrupt) so I really want to make an epic team of them. And to be honest, we don't really have CL level players in all ranks. We have one topclass DC, a 21-year-old beast of a LB, a talented young AM and a talented young ST. The rest of them are good players for the EURO Cup, but only decent for the Champions Cup.

So I want to make them even bigger. But at the same time, I've sort of had it there and I need a new challenge. I'll make this into a question, why not. What do you think I should do? Stay at Beerschot and make gods out of them? Or go somewhere else? If so, where? Another mid-table team or relegation candidate? In Belgium or somewhere else? Or a top team in Europe?
 
Dortmund 2014-2015

4x Champion in the bundesliga+ 4x cupwinner of germany and 4x supercup, Semi-final champions league (have won against Barca in the quarterfinals with 8-2, certainly not expected) in this season and best player of germany 2x (james rodrigeuz)

And that with a team with average age of 22, max wage of 50.000€/week.
 
2021-2022 with Manchester United. P38 W33 D5 L0 F112 A16 GD +96 Pts104. Youngest squad in the league.
 
Currently unbeaten in the league with Universidad De Chile, only lost to Boca Juniors in Copa Libertadores
 
Started the FC United challenge.

Won every league back to back. I'm currently in my first Premier season. Just taken my team of highly determined youngsters all the way to Wembley, League Cup Final, only to be slayed by Manchester United on pens! Not many games to go and Manchester United are three points ahead of me in the league in first place, but I have a game in hand and better goal difference.

I have never played a single save for so many hours.

Best challenge ever!
 
All of you guys sound fantastic. I recently tried to recreate the Brazil 1970 tactic. I am no Zagallo but the basic idea was to get the team on FM 2012 to attack at will most of the time. I studied all the players in extended match mode. I set the team as FBS, BPDX, LDC, FBD at the back. I set a BBMS and DLPS in midfield. I set WS, AMCR-A, WA in attacking midfield and CFS up front. So far, I am unbeaten in La Liga in season 1. I noted that players with 12+ ratings in Teamwork and Work Rate are best. Finding players to suit the roles is key I think. My ideal team would be: Casillas, Ramos, Jones, Varane, Jose Angel, Javi Martinez, Hamsik, Navas, Canales, Coentrao and Higuain. I am working on this now. Will this be a successful system?
 
Turned Gladbach into European heavy weights after 6 seasons. Not bad coming from Div2.
 
My greatest moment ever and my run to get to that point
 
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Won the league? Signed Messi? etc. this is the place to post it.

My late-game run of six Prem titles with Liverpool, accompanied by five consecutive Champions League victories, though I lost in my sixth Champions League Final and thus did not set a new record in that :(
 
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