Soccer Gaming

28 Comments »

Yaron Silvas said:
hey,
I’m playing Manager series since 93/4 when I was 11 years old, so many great expiriences i’ve had… I think i’ll tell you about my first amazing one.
it was CM93/4, great game, so virgin one.
Me and my dad discovered this game by coincidence as we bought 4 games pack, one of them was cm.
we took Man U together, as it was my dad’s favourite team. I remember we had giggs as a young talent, bruce and pallister was the central defenders, robson and mcclair, ince and cantona, truely a legend squad.
we bought some young players as well, like redknapp, mark robins and chirs sutton. chris bart-williams was another great signing. our first season went very smooth, and we won championship, but european cup was tough, it was so hard to win that trophy back in cm.
after 3 seasons we managed to get to the final (european cup back then was 2 groups and the first in each group qualify to finals so we had some rough time getting there).
in the final of season 95/6 we met FC Barcelona, 76,000 attendence in olimpico of rome… we gone up with classic 4-4-2 direct ball style, the line-up I still remember was: schmeichel-rob jones-sutton-pallister-irwin-giggs-redknapp-ince-kanchelskis-cantona and robins. the game begun not good for us at all after 21 minutes it was 2-0 for Barcelona.
we paused the game and changed to passing style, but the half time result stayed 2-0.
in half time we decided (well my dad decided) that we go more attacking. we moved to 3-4-3 and sent sutton to be striker.
after 63 minutes, sutton made 2-1. the minutes passed, we didn’t want to blew it, but although we got chances we didn’t score.
than in the 82 minutes or so… I remember it was around 80 minutes, we got penalty.
Cantona was the kicker, but he missed. I was so down, can’t believe we lose this final.
close to the final, 88 or 89 or 90 can’t recall, Mark Robins found himself against the keeper… I so loved to see this sentence “he rounds the keeper” I could actually imagine it, “and it’s in!”!!!
2-2 close to the final whistle!! I was so happy but my dad told me it wasn’t over yet. and he was right.
we managed to get extra time, but 3 minutes in extra time Barca got the 3-2… I was so bummed.
but still in the first part of extra time, we managed to make the 3-3, cantona pay us back after he missed the penalty.
3-3 in the final, amazing final!
we went to penalties, my dad told me we did our best, and now it’s pure luck.
lucky us we won those penalty 4-3, after schmeichel saved the last kick. I still remember it like it was yesterday.
my first European Cup as manager. pure happiness. pure innocence that will never come back…
- 2 December 2008 at 10:36 am
Tom Wolfgang said:
I was but a young lad with an adoration for football when I was introduced to my first football management simulator; FM 2005. I played the game as AFC Bournemouth (my local team) and quickly decided that I could do a much better job than the actual manager of the team (at the time, it was Sean O’Driscoll but Kevin Bond soon took over).
Through luck and good fortune I managed to get through to the quarter finals of the League Cup - fortune because in my entire run I did not have a Premiership side; luck because I thrased Leeds 3-0 in the third round. At any rate, my team were drawn against the might of Chelsea who, at the time, were being managed by Jose ‘Omelettes’ Mourinho.
My team struggled hard, but ultimately ended the first half 1-0 down. Chelsea continued to attack and we remained without a single shot on target, only two shots on goal up until the 92nd minute of 3 minutes added time. Chelsea had a goal kick, Cech easily hoofed it into my half and Steven Fletcher (my only forward) headed the ball.
And it kept going. His header looped all the way over Chelsea’s defensive four… and into the top corner. The commentary said he’d headed it and i’d set my team to shoot from distance… but I didn’t realise he’d shoot from that far away! Fletcher scored the most amazing goal i’ve ever seen scored on Football Manager; a header from his own half. More than that though; the full time whistle went just after Chelsea’s kickoff. The match was to go into extra time.
The dullest extra time in the history of football. Dull up until the last five minutes of the second half where Chelsea must have had 8 shots on target, all of which Neil Moss saved. So we went into the penalty shootout with my goalkeeper playing a 10. I was happy. The penalties came and went with both teams failing to score. I kept celebrating whenever Moss pulled off a save (or Lampard skied it) but cursed whenever my players missed. Chelsea didn’t score a single penalty out of their five.. and it was time for our fifth. Surely not Steve Fletcher? A man with an ‘8′ for penalties? He buried it in the top corner, playing a 10 and getting man of the match as we won the quarter finals against Chelsea.
Manchester United hammered us 5-0 in the semi finals.
- 2 December 2008 at 10:45 am
Pablo Gutierrez said:
I’ve been playing football managers ever since i was a kid, back in 1994. The first one i played was CM93/94. From that moment, i’ve been obsessed with the magic that comes around this football management paradigm.
As a latinamerican guy, it wasn’t easy to get my hands on every fresh new versions of this sort of games, but my fanatism for them made it all possible. I’ve played almost all versions of Championship Manager, Football Manager, PC Fútbol (spanish versions), and even got my hands over some console versions of Winning Eleven Tactics. I even played almost every online versions of a football manager: Managerzone, Hattrick, and many other famous football management MMOGs.
I’ve studied programming all my life. So when i graduated, i decided to start what i consider the biggest challenge of my -professional- life: To make my own football manager, and let the world share my vision of a great football management experience.
And so i did…
At the very beggining of this year (2008), and after years of hard extra off-time work, i’ve managed to launch (in partnership with some people) the first latin-american online football manager conceived in my country.
So far, we’ve formed a decent online manager community (about 10,000 managers) all around the world (about 90 countries so far), and they’ve helped us translate the website to 11 languages!
My fanatism for football manager games, combined with my vocation for programming, has made all of this possible!
I won’t tell the game’s URL to avoid spam. If anyone wants to check out my work, feel free to contact me, or just search for it on google. It won’t be hard to look for, since i’ve chosen its name for what i am: a manager maniac
- 2 December 2008 at 12:18 pm
Thomas Bolstad said:
It’s hard to single out an experience from FM as the greatest, but the best memory I have from the series, was one I had when I was managing my local club SK Brann in CM 04 through almost 20 seasons. There were a lot that happened through that time. And I grew very much as a manager through my time.
First a little backstory: I started out getting appointed, apparantly coming from nowhere, and the fans were understandably sceptical about me. But eventually when I started winning games, they started to trust me more and more. M first season was far from my best as a managed. I was still learning, and I wasn’t able to see what was right infront of my eyes. But eventually, i was able to skim what happened and at the end of my run I could see things more clearly than anyone else I would argue.
My initial attitude when I first joined the club, was that I needed to keep the best players who were less than 30 years of age, and supplement them with local talent as well as young talent from around the country, and perhaps from abroad. I wasn’t given the greatest budget from the board, but I had more than enough to make do with that goal. And after scouting for talent far and wide plus starting to stabilize with a starting eleven through training games, I felt ready for the season that was about to come.
I wasn’t ready. The season came, and I was struggling, and the fans weren’t appreciating me too much. However, some of the players who I deemed useless started to nag for a starting spot in the team. And even though I was set to create a new young team filled with local talent, I saw that those players actually had potential, so I decided to give them a run for their money, and they proved to be more than usefull. So I settled by allowing them in the starting squad, and they won games for me. There was especially one player, who was a center midfielder, Alonso Solis, who was a jewel. I kept him out of the team, not understanding what was there, but once he got in, he was playing every game he could as the playmaker who made a world of difference, and also ended up saving my ass that season.
I learned very much through the seasons, but some things you just can’t recreate, so when my team got hammered by a supposedly worse team in the national cup, because of one amazing finished, Ville Vaisanen, I had no choice than to buy him as some of my strikers were getting old and slow, and he proved to be a success in my team.
Within a few years the team was a regular in champions league, and while struggling the first few years, going out in the group play, we eventually improved and the talent matured as well as the players settled in with eachother.
This is where the proudest moment I had occoured in FM. After winning the Norwegian Domestic league, we were due for champions league play again. And I was fearing we would get hammered by the opposing teams. We weren’t, and eventually we managed a good 2nd place in the group after a nerve finish. And we were playing quarter final versus Juventus. After 1-1 away, we ere set for an incredibly though match against them home, at Brann Stadion. The team was pressuring us hard, and the defence had a hard time keeping up, and Edgar Davids was a constant troublemaker hitting the woodwork twice after outplaying our defence. This is when, after a long pass from the defence, that attacker, and local talent, Thomas Stien, got the ball after an amazing run, ending up alone with the keeper, and curled the ball past the keeper who had no chance at all taking the shot. At that moment, I knew we were gonna win, and I was so proud words cannot describe how I felt.
We won the game, and we went on the the semi finals. But we lost them, and after that season Brann was robbed of the profiles that had made it possible to come as far as we had. And I never managed to get SK Brann past the quarter finals in Champions League after that, though I had many other very proud moments with them. But i will never forget the moment that sent shivers down my spine, and made me feel more powerfull than god himself. That was the moment, we brought the italian glory, Juventus down on their knees, and booted them out of the Champions League!
- 2 December 2008 at 12:39 pm
Mihnea Avramescu said:
If you ask me that, I won’t think too much. It was Football Manager 2008. I started a game with my favorite team, Steaua Bucharest. Because we were the holders of Romanian Championship, we got our chance at UEFA Champions League. I managed easily to get into the Group Phase. There, a horrible group: Real Madrid, Inter, Steaua (me) and Dinamo Kiev. My first fixture was against Inter. Hard one… Inter, playing home, scored me 2 goals in the first half. No problem, I said, cause I didn’t even expect a win. Half time, Inter 2-0 Steaua. In the second half, my boys got another 3 goals. Final score: Inter 5-0 Steaua. The next UCL match: Steaua-Dinamo Kiev. I was afraid that I’ll lose this one, and I did with 0-3. Disastrous start… Chairman wasn’t so pleased about the scores. Third match: Steaua-Real. I had no hope at this one. But, I scored quickly, and half time was 1-1. I was delighted! Second half, nothing could stand against my team: 2-1!!! I don’t have words to say how glad I were. My first win! Fourth match: Real-Steaua. I somehow managed to get a 1-1. Again, delighted. The second leg with Inter: Steaua-Inter 2-0!!! No words! I was so close to qualify in 2nd Round!!! I saved my game, though I save it only when I quit. The last match with Dinamo Kiev. Easy one: I won with 3-1. I was qualified!!!! No way!!! Was it a bug in the game? What happened? Couldn’t believe my eyes! But my elation suddenly turned to resemblement when I found out that I was going to play against Chelsea. Before the first match, many of my boys had that “PR” sign, and were saying that they are nervous about the match… First leg, home. I dominated the game, but I couldn’t score. I was so disappointed!!! I wasted a great chance! My boys… In the Romanian Championship, I hadn’t any problem, I was first. I started to think at the next UCL season. Second leg: I was thinking what would it be if I win? Nah… Don’t think so… We’ll get it next year… Half time: 0-0. My hopes started to get real. Come on… Come on boys… (I was alone at home, and I was talking to the PC… crazy…) You can do it! But then I see that blinking commentary in blue and white: GOAL FOR CHELSEA !!! Noooooo!!! Please!!! 90th minute, an important phase (I play with “Key moments”): I had the ball: GOAL FOR STEAUA!!! Yay, yay, yay!!! I am qualified!!!! That’s not possible!!! I’m in the quarter finals!!!
And, I don’t know how, I managed to get past quarter-finals with 2-0 on aggregate against Lyon. Semi-finals await! Bayern 1-0 Steaua. Second leg: Steaua 0-1 Bayern. Noooo! How could it be… I’m out… That’s the life. Few teams make it to the UCL semis. I’m good! Yeah, I’m good! Thank you boys, for some wonderful moments.
This were my first 11 boys: Zapata - Golanski, Nesu, Goian, Filipenko - Nicolita, Aaritalo, Ov. Petre - Dica, Grax. I haven’t forgot the team, as you see (this happened in last winter). This truly was the best FM experience of my life.
- 2 December 2008 at 1:49 pm
Jamie Murphy said:
well… back in the good old days of CM01 I took over my local team Wigan way down in D2 I think it was. I slogged away for 12 seasons raising my team from the doldrums of league football to the highs of champions league success and world domination! My local grown hero came in the form of Lance Tanaka who was with me from D1 upwards and quickly became my clubs leading goalscorer and all time legend!
Little did I dream that just a few years later my dream would come true for real and my local club Wigan have reached the big time for real and are making us proud by holding their own in a tough league! Im still waiting for Lance to break through the ranks though!
- 2 December 2008 at 2:04 pm
Stephen E. said:
My greatest achievement in FM has to be actually lasting an entire season in FM08 with Nottingham Forest without getting the sack!
- 2 December 2008 at 2:09 pm
Arron said:
Getting Leeds into premiership consective winning leagues. Won the prem and fa cup in first season of prem, then next season (4th) won league again and just losing out to real madrid in champions league semi final 1-0, next season after some quality signings, won league 3rd time in row, about 10 points ahead of 2nd, and won champions league, beat chelsea 3-0 in final!!
In mid 5th season was about 3rd in league, and next time try to load the game, and I get message saying “cannot load saved game” was well annoyed, but had best experience and quality in the first four seasons, if only i could of gone on…
- 2 December 2008 at 3:26 pm
Veleo said:
after 4 seasons (FM08) i’ve won THE CL with RED STAR Belgrade!!!
CM manager 2003/04 i won CL 4 times in a row with AC Milan (funniest thing was that in the last season i bought Ronaldo, and sold Sheva to Chelsea :P)
- 2 December 2008 at 5:09 pm
Lum Soon Keong said:
I’m just an ordinary kid, doing what ordinary kid would do everytime, from the day i was born to the year of 2003, i was then a small little kid, 8yrs old, i have nothing in common just watching TV cartoons and more and doing my homework, 9 years old was the day, when my classmate ( all the boys ) started playing soccer, the first time, andit was the first time in my whole life, i tried to kick the soccer ball, it was amazing, i didnt have the difficulties to kick the ball, and it was the first time, so i played as a team with my friends, my team is always winning, so thats when i started become addicted to soccer stuff, anything to do with soccer, because i was not any computer freak out there, i didnt noe there was excatly pro evolution soccer or any football manager game, all i want to do is kick the ball whole day long. i was 10 yrs old when i gone to my friend house to play his playstation 1, i saw there was one winning eleven game , same as pro evolution soccer, if i remember clearly , it was winning eleven 5 or 6, i started playing it, and indeed i was thinking of it everytime time, so i try to surf the internet to find more soccer games , while i was surfing i saw football manager 2005 , because i really like tactics game, so i told my dad if he would buy for me, indeed my father bought me the game. so i started playing , deploying the tacics and there , i started loving it , from then on a newer version would come , i would buy , but snice ther is this free copies of football manager 2009, why wouldnt i give it a go, if im not lucky, its no big deal, i would just buy from any retailer stall… HEY, any football manager fan would also do that right…
- 2 December 2008 at 9:17 pm
Kunal said:
Hi , i started playing this amazingly addictive game from 08 i.e fm08 . I knew about this game previously but never took the chance of trying it. But since i played it for the 1st time , God how grateful i am that i took the initiative to play it once . I was completely hooked . By the way , i have my degree exams tomorrow and i just played fm for 2 hours .
Its really difficult to single out a great moment .There are so many !
So i have been playing as Arsenal right since the beginning . Avoided the sack quite a few times . But there have been certain great moments as well . I won the champions league in my 1st season itself. The level of detail put into this game is just unbelievable . Hats off to the makers SI.
Okay so , it was my 2nd season in charge . It was Arsenal and Liverpool fighting it out for the tile . ManUtd and Chelsea were way behind . Liverpool and we were neck-to-neck till the end . Last week of the season . 2 points seperated us . It was Liverpool on top , Their goal difference was +6 better. So they had to lose and we had to win by a margin of +7 . My last game was against Birmingham(who had already been relegated).
So i went all out attack .. formation was 4-3-3.
fabianski
clichy toure luisao sagna
Nasri fabregas Walcott
Adebayor Eduardo R.V.Persie
Unbelievably , we won 8-0 . I was so anxious to see what Liverpool were doing and for most of the game they were leading 1-0 against tottenham . Then right at the final whistle when i had already accepted the fact that i was gonna finish 2nd , i checked the scores and it was 1-1!!!!!!!!
I literally started screaming and shouting . That was one of the most nerve-racking moments i have ever faced . It was the only time ive given Tottenham any sort of praise .
That was 1 moment i will never forget . I wouldnt mind something even close to that happening again . I’ll keep them stress-busters ready
- 3 December 2008 at 7:45 am
Sagun said:
My very first experience with football manager dates back to 2003/04 (I think). I took the game after seeing in one of the gaming shows and became completely mad about it. Being an avid football lover added to the fact the addictiveness of the game really left me spell bounded.
Everytime I was thinking about the game the players that I should buy and the players that should be sold. Be it during my classes or on the way back home. I had made a diary also noting down the players scouted so that I can manage them properly. One thing I remember most is that I used to play till early in the morning and go to bed sometimes around 4 or 5 in the morning. Sometimes I could hardly take 2 hours sleep as I had to head for my college.
Wow it was such a hectic experience and mind you that I was enjoying it so much that the bad results in my college mattered less in comparing to the ones that I had in my virtual football manager career. I played the game till all the well known players retired from the game I guess it may upto the season 2025 or so( I forget). I can only say WOW how I manage to play for so long enough. The pressure and the love of the game was too much to handle and enjoyed every bit of it.
Assembling the best players around and making a dream team was the best I could manage and in one season I got treble winning all the major trophy that was a remarkable achievement.
- 3 December 2008 at 12:02 pm
Joe said:
First off i wanna thank the creators of this game for actually making this game its sooooooooo addicting, i love it. Alright heres my moment of glory
It was only a couple of years ago when i was playing fm 06.
At this time Napoli were in serie B. I made it into the coppa italia finals with them. My opponents were one of Napolis biggests rivals Juve. i think it was like 20 mins in and one of my forwards scored, i was going crazy. Only like 10 mins later Del Piero scored. It stayed like that until the 50th minwhen i scored again with Calaio. Then again in the 75th min Juve scored on a corner. For the rest of the game Juve were pushing forwards a lot, then in the 80-85th min i caught them on the break and Calaio scored again.
- 3 December 2008 at 4:28 pm
Sergej said:
I’ve been playing SI games since CM 03/04, had many memorable weekends spent with a friend over where we just played that (and later FM 05, FM 06) for over eight hours a day - but my greatest FM experience of all was but a week ago, not because my Atlético beat Barcelona for the championship with equal points, but because my girlfriend, who previously had no clue whatsoever of football, finished her first FM 2007 season as #3 in La Liga, ahead of Real Madrid, Valencia and the like - with a significantly worse (and at times quite rebellious!) squad.
Near the end of the season, she tinkered with player setting sliders multiple times a match, and I’m just really proud of what she accomplished.
After a few more seasons in this game, I’d love to introduce her to ‘09 - a copy of the game would go a long way towards that.
- 3 December 2008 at 5:32 pm
ds said:
The website looks decent but there is a huge design flaw. The black text on the white background lacks visibility.
- 4 December 2008 at 2:19 am
Francisco said:
My best experience was with FM2007. I’m a fan of Independiente but I started the game without a team and there was a vacancy at Instituto (Cba) wich I took. So I started managing them. In the First season we achieve promotion (from Second Division to First Division). After some seasons, the team improved and we classified to Copa Libertadores, which we ended up winning. The same thing happened to Copa Sudamericana and, of course, also we won the First Division. Even River Plate made me an offer, but I rejected it and continued to manage Instituto (Cba) until the release of FM2008.
To this day, I watch Instituto’s matches.
Excuse me for my English. I’m using a translator.
Cheers!
- 4 December 2008 at 11:51 am
Jacob Hoo said:
I love to manage the teams myself, and FM,CM and so on, create such a good opportunity for me to have fun with those players. I can’t play my dream in reality, but FM allows me to do whatever i like.
Get the players i like, and get rid the players i hate, lol.
My first management game was cm 00/01, where i played in window form. I could played the game and surf the espn website to find more potential players at the same time. It was really really fun.
Thanks for making this game so fun.
- 4 December 2008 at 3:53 pm
algauts said:
Going into my first year of university, i didnt know what to expect. luckily for me i had a housemate that played the FM series. i always made fun of him for playing a football game that you never even got to play in-game. there was no fun in it — according to me at that point. so i decide, what the hell is the big deal about this game? i unassumingly install it and find out. three months later, 4am, on the eve of my final midterm, i sit in front of my computer. cheering on these little red circles moving around on the soccer field. lesson to be learned? dont make fun of seemingly stupid games which u have never played. you never know when you will be wasting precious study time playing FM instead of what you should be doing.
if you’re going to say soccer/football is your passion, then everything footy should be part of your life, including videogames, and managing games. riiiiiight?
- 6 December 2008 at 7:24 pm
Ariel Podberezski said:
OK, let’s start from the beginning:
It was the year 1992. I was at high school and my dad brought a new PC, it had a VGA color monitor.
It was the first football manager I played on a PC, and the second overall, considering Gary Lineker’s Super Star Soccer on a Commodore 64 as the first one.
This game made me spend several days late night watching as status bars moved through the match…
I chose Aston Villa to play. I don’t know why, maybe it was a more difficult choice comparing to Man Utd (yes, that was how it was spelled in the game).
I remember playing international competitions against “no name” teams, such as Italy 01, Spain 02 or something like that. Also it’s players were named from the shirt number (No. 01, No. 10 and so on).
This game stayed 2 years on my hard disk, and I completed 10 seasons…. No recognizable players were available after that time.
- 7 December 2008 at 1:19 pm
Matt said:
Winners will be contacted shortly. Apologies for the delay. Comp closed.
- 28 December 2008 at 5:44 pm
YS said:
hey,
have the winners already contacted??
or there’s still chance for me?
cheers,
Yaron.
- 5 January 2009 at 5:42 am
bronco92 (author) said:
Yes, 5 winners have been contacted. If you entered, check your email
- 5 January 2009 at 7:34 am
joker said:
To
fifa
- 5 January 2009 at 11:01 pm
Lum Soon Keong said:
Hey Matt, how do you send the game to the winners?
- 7 January 2009 at 6:05 am
YS said:
I think SEGA sending the game to the winners…
I can’t wait to get it already… :))
- 7 January 2009 at 1:12 pm
Mustafa Nader said:
ilov eyoun play soccer
- 18 January 2009 at 8:43 pm
Yaron said:
thanks!! I got the game!!
thank you very much!
- 21 January 2009 at 4:48 am
Barry @ Search for car seats said:
What are the rankings for the best soccer/football league in the world?
- 3 August 2010 at 7:09 am

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