The year is 2004 and a 29 year old Del Piero is out of contract with Juventus. Almost out of jest, I offer him a 40,000 a week 1 year contract with Newcastle United.

He accepted. My lineup is thus....

Duke Oakley GK (Picked him up for 200k from Leeds.)

John Curtis (6.5 million from Celtic.)

Rio Ferdinand (Bosman transfer from West Ham.)

Marek Szmid (Nice transfer from S'hampton by my predecessor.)

Alessandro Del Piero (Free!!)

Sean Davis (Bosman from Fulham. BRILLIANT set pieces and 5 '20's.)

Brian Kerr (From my Reserves)

Jamie McClen (From my Reserves)

Kieron Dyer (Fiorentina offered 22.5 million for him....AND I TURNED IT DOWN.)

Kern Lyne (4.5 million mid season AMC/FC from Silkeborg.)

Trevor Benjamin (3 million from Aberdeen.)

Alex Notman (Bosman from Man Utd.)

Oktay (Turkish international striker from Las Palmas.)

Damien Duff (Irish midfielder. Waste of money.)

and....

33 year old Assistant Manager & Captain Alan Shearer. He was STILL my leading scorer. http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

I took over at Newcastle mid-season from Paris SG and took them from 17th to 9th. Won the FA Cup over L'pool 2-1.

Nice team, though the players I recognize I thought would have sucky careers. Oh, and get hustling on re-signing Del Piero for an additional 2 years. Then he will be past his peak and you might as well drop the crapbag.

How's Saviola's career doing? Hehe.

Nahhh.

I was planning on signing Del Piero for one year and then putting him on a month to month contract until I get a high enough bid for the 31 year old version.

As for Saviola....

He is 22 years old. Playing for Bayern Munich and worth over 30 million dollars. World Player of the Year. If I sold St. James I could STILL not afford him. Nor would he play for me.

Which players would you think would have crap careers?

So shearer, no place for armless 45 year old Siberians then?

http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

He might have to pay for them...Del Piero was free!

Using Liverpool in my current CM 99/00 season, signed an unhappy Figo away from Barcelona. Speaking of Figo, does anyone know when Barca-Real will be shown on American television?

-dsh

Players like Alex Natmon and Jon Curtes. You know, Man U youth team products who don't deserve the dignity to have their names spelled correctly.

How have you been doing in Europe? CL Quarters at least I hope, but if you get drawn in a group with Barca and Bayern, I can understand why you haven't gotten there yet.

And one more thing...

Why buy players at all, why can't you build up your reserves, who in general suck, and use them only. That is what they are there for. Run out of youth team players, simply play 11 players with their names in grey. And of course as Neutral said, the recruiting rule doesn't apply to 45 year old Serbians without arms.

Hey, who wrote that long, and funny, parody of a season with Acrinton Staley. That was hilarious!