Steaua Challenge Mid-season Update

Things are looking promising for my Steaua Bucharest side at mid-season, although it's nothing to impressive happening. I am still searching for the best players in FM 2009 and still adjusting the tactics, but overall I am pleased by what I got.

So, here's the mid-season analysis. We'll start with the most important part, the Champions League. After I managed to defeat a stronger Galatasaray side, I got a hot group with Inter, Werder Bremen and Rapid Wien. Unfortunately, I was not able to provide any shockers and only coasted over the Rapid side, being defeated by both other teams, so I'm going to play in the UEFA cup next:
Interestingly, the title challengers CFR Cluj who got a much worse group (with Real Madrid, Juventus and Celtic) managed a surprising away draw with Real and won their home game with Celtic. However, they did not manage to qualify further.

The Romanian First League Standings provide no shockers either except for title favorites Rapid Bucharest being somewhere midtable and showing no signs of improvement. On the other hand, Dinamo Bucharest has an incredibly strong team with high quality players and they managed to defeat me while playing at home, but still I am one point ahead of them and my team Steaua Bucharest finishes the mid-season at number 1. Hopefully the things will remain the same for the future, too.Lastly, I should brag with two great signings I made and I'm quite proud of. First of all, I managed to snap Marvin Angulo from Herediano, a world class youngster with bags of potential and ability and, coming this January, Javi Garcia who strangely accepted my offer and will leave Real Madrid (indeed, he was transer listed there, but still). With these two players I hope I'll manage an even better performance next. I'll keep you updated.

Steaua Challenge Overview

Even though very early in the season, I am very proud with how my FM 09 Steaua Challenge has started: in six league games my team was never defeated and only one draw was snatched from us, which gives Steaua the top spot in the league! Here is the standing so early in the season.
Even though pretty unbalanced this Romanian League with teams generally having much weaker players than my own team, there are a few high fliers: CFR Cluj, last season's winner has a very good team and lots of money, while challenges can be made by other teams like Rapid, Dinamo Bucharest, Unirea Urziceni and FC Vaslui, as you can see.

However, as I said, I am really pleased with how things are going so far: I have defeated CFR Cluj and Unirea Urziceni in away matches, which is really good. Also, my team's defence seems really well placed, with just 2 goals scored against Steaua in the first six matches! However, the biggest feat was qualifying with Steaua in the Champions League group stage after defeating a stronger Galatasaray Istambul team. (1-1 draw at home and an incredible 2-1 win away). So far I am very pleased with my tactic (changed a 4-4-1-1 I used during pre-season because, well... it sucked :D) even though my forwards Stancu and Dayro Moreno still grab very low ratings. They will need more than that in the incredibly hard Champions League group stage:

Football Manager 2009: Steaua Bucharest Challenge!

I am really excited since I have finally purchased Foorball Manager 2009 and started playing! I have started my first Football Manager 2009 challenge: managing Romanian team Steaua Bucharest, I have to make them reach the final of the Champions League in four seasons. Of course, this means that the last Burton Albion challenge I started will be abandoned, even though it is unfinished.

It will definitely be a pretty hard job to do since the Romanian team does not have too much power up front and it generally holds pretty old players, but it will be a nice spell that will make me ready for further challenges.

Another problem will be the fact that I am still marking my debut with Football Manager 2009 so I don't know all the tactical tricks yet. However, you should stick with the blog since I will post all my progress, all the findings and all the best tactics I create along the way. The best thing? I will post lists with great Football Manager 2009 players for all of you to enjoy (and share!)

So visit again for more, including screenshots!