Who’s Your Champ/FM Valentine?

By: Daryl | February 14th, 2009

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. Kind of ironic to write those words on an FM blog since this game is possibly responsible for destroying more relationships than infidelity, washing dishes and taking out the garbage combined.

To mark this commercial behemoth of a day, I have just one question for you:

If you could send a Valentine’s card to just one player in the history of your Championship/Football Manager (any game from any year), who would it be?

And just to be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with showing a little love for your all time favourite player, especially if they’ve brought you season after season of happiness.

But if you feel a little weird about professing your love for the digital versoin of a real man who only ever lived inside your computer then we can remove the Valentine’s Day window dressing and just ask “Who’s your favourite ever CM/FM player?”

I’ll go first…

My favourite player in the history of this game is, was and probably always will be George O’Callaghan from Championship Manager 3 (circa 1998 I think).

This young Irish attacking mid played for Port Vale, and was always available for around 200-500k at the start of the game. And whoever you were, you could build your whole team around him.

I used to buy him for Wolves, and watch him dominate in what we now call the Championship, keep us up in our first Premier League season, and then mature into the heartbeat of my attacking 3-4-1-2 system that eventually did the Prem and Champions League double with Georgie contributing double figures in goals and assists.

Best of all, the guy knew the meaning of the world loyalty. Big money bids would come in from all over and he wouldn’t care. He never once complained about his paypacket either, even though I’d happily have paid him twice what he was earning (around 20k per week or so, if memory serves).

What makes him even more special (to me anyway) is that the real O’Callaghan never made it above the Championship and is currently with Tranmere Rovers. But in Championship Manager 3, he was always the first player I bought, and definitley the only player I’d never even think of selling or replacing.

How about you?

	Buy World Wide Soccer Manager 2009 (USA)		Buy Football Manager 2009 (PC/Mac) (UK)
			Buy Football Manager 2009 (PSP) (UK)

Category: FM09

Tags: Championship Manager, Championship Manager 3, FM09, Football Manager, Football Manager 2009, Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009

« Saviola Out. But Who’s Coming in? | Home | Poll: Foti or Diego? »

Subscribe   The Offside RSS Feeds

Print

Share

Comments  

• Hawk |  February 14th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

  
  
  

  Xavi.
  The best. Tons of assists, plenty of goals. Overall great player and super loyal.

  Posted from Armenia

  

• Rob |  February 14th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

  
  
  

  I remember when I played Championship Manager 2, and bought a young fella called Frank Lamaprd for lowly Bristol Rovers.

  It turned out rather well, as I got Rovers into the top flight.

  Cheers, Frank!

  Posted from United States

  

• Marco |  February 14th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

  
  
  

  Ivan Klasnic

  Signed him for Milan a couple of versions ago. Pure class up front and scored around 200 goals total for me after five or six seasons. Signed him last version for Palermo and was decent for the two seasons he spent with me. But he couldn’t replicate that raw power.

  Posted from United States

  

• Cerberus |  February 14th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

  
  
  

  Last year’s FM, I turned Pontus Wernbloom from a Swedish nobody into a powerhouse who not only catapulted my team into back-to-back Champion’s League wins but also Sweden into a World Cup winning battering ram.

  It’s breaking my heart that I didn’t have enough money in the new FM to buy him first season (I’m playing tiny FC Midtjylland in Denmark), but he’s first on my list for next season if no one else steals him.

  Posted from Denmark

  

• Weston |  February 14th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

  
  
  

  Balotelli; scores like its going out of style.

  Posted from United States

  

• Aaron |  February 14th, 2009 at 5:19 pm

  
  
  

  Vagner Love. Has scored 80 goals in my two seasons with Lyon. I got him for 11 million.

  Posted from United States

  

• Dave |  February 14th, 2009 at 6:10 pm

  
  
  

  Gotta go with Marquinhos from both this year’s and last year’s versions of the game. He’s young enough (even still) that you can mold him to play however/wherever you want, has bags of flair, always shows up for the big games, and has netted countless 40+ goal, 15+ assist seasons for me with teams ranging from Liverpool to Reading to Rennes.

  a couple other FM man-crushes of mine include Stevie G (i mean does the guy EVER get old in any of the games? i’ve played many times to 2018-2020ish, and he is the exact same if not better player, minus his pace and accel. unreal) and Angel Polombo (best DM ever imaginable in most of my games)…

  Posted from United States

  

• dp |  February 14th, 2009 at 6:15 pm

  
  
  

  Leandro Augusto on FM 07: I distinctly recall signing him for around $10 million for Liverpool, and he proceeded to skin defenders up and down England while scoring late goal after late goal to win big matches (including a free kick in extra time of the CL final after scoring a screamer against Barca in the 90th minute to equalize). He’s stuck on Sporting, and I’m playing as Forest, so it’ll be a while before we’re reunited, but I’m waiting for the day.

  Posted from United States

  

• Rob |  February 14th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

  
  
  

  Ooh on a more recent note, Ronaldinho. I made him Barca captain, and he ended up scoring goals for absolute fun.

  Posted from United States

  

• Sean |  February 15th, 2009 at 12:36 am

  
  
  

  Wow. Great, great thread.

  Playing in the Prem, I used to always snatch up Simon Davies first thing … I don’t remember which iteration it was. 00-01, I think. That season he started with a 20 passing and his mental stats would go through the roof with the slightest prompting. And at that point he was young and cheap.

  I haven’t updated since 07, so that’s the year I’m playing with. I love Juan Manuel Torres and Mauro Zarate as early buys in this season. Torres becomes an Argie version of Makalele, and Zarate is explosive, mercurial and pretty cheap from Lanus.

  Posted from United States

  

• James |  February 15th, 2009 at 7:10 am

  
  
  

  Marius Niculae on fm08 is the player I remember most from previous saves. Shame I cant remember what team I was.. but anyway. I was in league 1 at the start of things, managed to struggle into the championship via play offs, expecting to go back into league one after, but no! Signed Niculae and he scored over 30 goals in the first season, I made it into the play offs again and he scored every single one of my goals! So made him captain leading my team into the premiership, came about 12th and again, he scored 20+ goals. He was amazing, I would have made love to him if I could! The likes of Man Utd came in for him but he still wanted to be at my club, think I stopped playing that save after my 2nd season in the premiership, but he made it worth playing!

  In this save it has to be Pogrebnyak or Marquinhos for player I sign on every save, usually sign the Pog on the first day I start because for some reason he is a lot cheaper at the first day then the second! Also a player called Jose, centre back from Brazil. No Idea who he was, my scout told me to sign him so I got him for 500k, Coloccini got injured so he stepped in, his stats shot up like I’ve never seen before! Soon became a wonderkid and took Coloccini’s place at centre back. Shame that save got corrupted .

  So yea.. I’ve listed more than one player – but I loved em all

  Posted from United Kingdom

  

• vHF |  February 15th, 2009 at 5:43 pm

  
  
  

  Mark Kerr in cm01/02 (or maybe 00/01).

  Super-dynamic young Scottish midfielder and one of my first great discoveries. Pity he wasn’t as good in real life.

  Posted from United States

  

• michele |  February 16th, 2009 at 2:00 am

  
  
  

  Daniele Vantagiato from Rimini in fm 07 – a beastly striker

  Posted from Spain

  

• Paddy |  February 16th, 2009 at 7:40 am

  
  
  

  Glen Crowe from Bohemians in Championship Manager fun. He always scored over 50 goals a season in the league alone. I thought he was a glitch but then I bought Jason Byrne too and he was immense too, Both cost about 200K

  Posted from Ireland

  

• Shadi |  February 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

  
  
  

  Daniel Caravalho in 2008 version ,fatastic attacking midfielder

  Posted from United States

  

• James |  February 19th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

  
  
  

  Had to be Kennedy Bakircioglü back in CM02 or 03 when he was playing for Hammarby. In fact there were so many of those young Swedish players who were world beaters. Imagine how disappointed I was when saw him live for Twente a couple of years ago and he was a chubby, bald guy.

  Posted from Australia

  

• FConnolzz |  May 2nd, 2009 at 1:53 pm

  
  
  

  Jerome Thomas CM 01/02. A staggering 36(36!) assists in my first season and 18 goals. Won over 40 games in my first year just because of him. Back to back promotions got me to the Premiership by 2008 won it in 2011 with him as captain for 7 of those. I rejected every bid and he didnt flinch once. World player of the year 2010. WHAT A HERO!

  Posted from Ireland

  

Comments are closed