Macclesfield Challenge: First Transfers

After checking out the Macclesfield Town squad I decided to sell most of them due to poor quality and sign as many better players as possible - probably something any manager would do. I thought I stroke lucky when Notts Co, a team in the same division as The Silkmen, offered me an amazing deal of 100,000 Euros plus almost 250,000 more in two years for Paul Morgan, one player I wasn't even sure I was going to keep! An amazing deal and it was simple luck or a bug in the system because after selling this player, I didn't manage to sell any other.

So with a transfer budget of ZERO and just a couple thousand Euros to spare per week for new signings, I can say that I find myself in a bit of trouble. However, I did manage to sign a few good players (at least good for the level I'm playing at and the level of my team) and I'm listing them below:

As you can see, all of them were Free Signings and a few are real gems. Here are the player profile pictures of the best new Macclesfield Town players in my Football Manager 2010 challenge:

1. Fabio Ferreira - Attacking midfielder Right/Left

For some reason, Ferreira became the most valued player in my squad, even though I can't say I'm completely blown away by his skills. The scout highly recommended him to me and I signed him especially because he can play on two different positions, a must for low league clubs. Except for that, he's fast and... that's about it!

2. Ivan Balasko - Midfielder/Attacking midfielder Centre

I really liked this Hungarian attacking midfielder who became the best midfielder in my squad. His physical stats are not great, but I hope that while he plays, he does a great job for the team.

3. Ibrahima Thiam - Striker, Centre

Now this is a real gem, I am really happy he accepted to sign with Macclesfield. This Senegalese striker (with 12 caps at the national team) is really tall, making him a great Target Man and a real danger from corners. He is also a decent shooter and I certainly hope he'll become a legend for my little club.


4. Cosmin Marginean - Defensive Midfielder, Centre

A ripe Romanian midfielder, Marginean will hopefully become the ball winning midfielder I need and he will stop most of the attacks from the opposition. He won't count too much on the offensive end, but if he does a great job in defense, I sure hope for a great season!

So, with 10 new players in and six out (with several more on the transfer list), it's clearly going to be "revolurion" at Macclesfield during my Football Manager 2010 challenge. I am expecting a really difficult season - after checking out a few other squads in the divisions I noticed that my players are amongst the poorest, but I do hope that I will manage to add some extra reputation to my club and hopefully some money, too so that next year I'll make a few really big signings... but until then, we have a really difficult season ahead. Wish me luck!

Football Manager 2010 Challenge: Macclesfield Town

As I was telling you yesterday, I have started my first Football Manager 2010 challenge with Macclesfield Town, a Coca Cola League 2 team heavily dubbed for relegation: pre-season reports from the media say that the team will finish at 23, while according to the promotion odds, we have 40-1 chances, which mean that "relegation is a real possibility". Well, that's why it's called a challenge, right?

What does this Football Manager 2010 challenge consist in, then? Well, it's pretty simple: I am starting to manage Macclesfield Town and my goal is to promote to the Barclays Premier League as soon as possible (hopefully around six seasons), stay there and become a main football force in Europe with the goal of winning the Champions League. Pretty cool plans, right? I'm sure it's going to be a bumpy road and a very difficult team for myself and the Macclesfield players, but I'm surely going to do my best to succeed in style:

I knew very little of Macclesfield before starting to manage it, but after reading a few information about the Silkmen on Wikipedia and checking out the team's official website, I managed to become quite attached to it and I will surely do my best to succeed. And who knows, maybe I will bring them good luck, as it happened with Burton Albion - the team I managed to get them promoted in my quick FM2008 challenge, and they also gained promotion in real life! Now here's a few background information about the team which exists from all the way back in 1874!

And here are the promotion odd from Macclesfield aka The Silkmen, proving you that it will indeed be a fun Football Manager 2010 challenge - both for me, as well as you. Hopefully we'll have a lot of fun and lots to learn!

Talking about Football Manager 2010

Tough economic times meant that it took me a while to get the spare cash to purchase Football Manager 2010, but I eventually managed and played one full season of testing, as I always do before starting the "real" game. I felt sad that I only managed to purchase the game about one month after it got released, but it made me value the importance of enjoying a product to its complete value: I kept playing FM2009 even though I did not update this blog anymore and I managed to end my Andria challenge pretty well, in the Italian First Division, battling for a spot in the European Cups.

I first started Football Manager 2010 with Newcastle United, one of my all time favorite teams - the same I started to manage back in 1996 when I played the first game in the series (named Championship Manager back then) and I realized that it's always better to manage a lower-league, low profile club - I never liked to grab a top club like Manchester United, like Real Madrid or AC Milan, but instead I love to grab a low division club, strive to find the best players for that level and slowly make my way to the top spot, with the plan of challenging European glory...

With Newcastle United was a bit different - being new with Football Manager 2010 I didn't do all the things right, especially tactics-wise I was a complete failure (and only after a few months into the season I fount the "Advanced" button on the team instructions, to set up the Corners...) I failed miserably to go up to the Barclay's Premier League and I almost got myslef fired after a poor finish at number 9.

What I didn't like about the game was the fact that each time I managed to score, just seconds afterwards most of the teams would score back and tie the game - that drove me mad and I couldn't find any solution to this problem, even though I tried changing tactics immediately after a goal, substituting players and whatnot. I don't really like the new tactics menu because I was used with the previous one, but I do understand that a change was needed and, even though in theory the game got a lot easier with the highlighting of the most important stats for the players on specific positions, I do realize that it gets even harder to create the perfect tactic for Football Manager 2010.

And that will be the quest with my new challenge, alongside many others, like promoting to the first division (this time I will start in England with a low profile English club, most likely in the Blue Square) and becoming a glorious manager. I consider myself a newcomer to Football Manager 2010 since I have only played it for several hours, I have no shortlists of players, no tactics - nothing. I will be a real manager this time and I hope you'll enjoy the ride.

Also, I will focus more on "story telling" aka my challenge rather than tons of posts with tactics, lists of players and so on. I doubt that I could provide much value with my sub par scouts, anyways :)

I will set up the game right away and start playing my new Football Manager challenge - remember to check back soon to find out everything about it and I hope you'll find the stay as enjoyable as you did in the past with Andria.

Everything Football Manager Is Back!

Hello, friends! After a pretty long period of time in which I've left this blog rot and get piles of dust over its shoulders, I am back to update it as regularly as possible - if such a word is possible.

I have made the leap from Football Manager 2009 to Football Manager 2010 and I have already started a new challenge there - but more about it in the future posts.

The most important thing is that now, as you can see, Everything Football Manager has become Football Manager Fanatic and I am planning to turn this site into one of the best Football Manager 2010 fansites out there. See you soon and stay tuned as I will be tweaking this theme and give you something really unique and useful!

Change of name

Starting today, the blog will be named "Everything Football Manager" and not only "Everything Football Manager 2009" since I am planning to turn it into a little bit more than just a website for the challenges, especially since creating a post about the challenges is a quite time consuming task :P

Therefore, this website will not die when Football Manager 2010 gets launched and I will make a strong comeback then with tons of tactics, players and advice, while I will also continue offering tips and advice on Football Manager 2009. However, it was a quite slow start with that and now I'm seeing the results: my Andria challenge is way down the line and bigger clubs are waiting. So let's play Football Manager!