The Football (or Worldwide Soccer) Manager thread

Bout time we got one of these started.

I currently manage Newcastle United, with the following squad:

Starters (4-1-3-2 attacking): Steve Harper, Jose Enrique, Dorin Goian, David Edgar, Habib Beye, Nicky Butt, Emre, Alan Smith (who is awesome at FM even if he sucks IRL), Nihat, Michael Owen, Oba Martins.

Subs: Shay Given, Steven Taylor, Joey Barton, Harry Kewell, James Troisi.

Bench players: Abdoulaye Faye, Anthony Grant (Chelsea reserve signee), Damien Duff, Steven Carr, Cacapa, Mark Viduka, Peter Ramage, Shola Ameobi, David Rozehnal, Celestine Babayaro, Geremi, Matty Pattison.

Current transfer targets: DM, LWB, RWB. Had Bradley signed three times and couldn't get a work permit, lost out on Rafinha to Porto.

Will arrive next transfer window: Jozy Altidore.
Will leave next transfer window: Matty Pattison.

We'll have this thread to talk tactics, different approaches, and sharing stuff, I guess. Discuss away!

My current squads:

I have 2, first team for CL and tougher league games and a second squad for the domestic cups and weaker league games

First team:
GK: Oscar Ustari
Def: Taiwo-Micah Richards-Arne Friedrich-Anthony Vanden Boore
Mid: Nani-Arouca-Montolivo-N'Zog
Strikers: Kevin Doyle-Edison Cavani

Second team:
GK: Shay Given
Def: Enrique-Steven Taylor-David Edgar-Beye
Mid: Milner-Makoun-Sebestian Giovinco-Sergio Mota
Strikers: Oscar Trejo-Andy Carroll

I have Krul, Freddy Adu, Geremi, Mark Bresciano, and Fraizer Campbell as my bench for all comps.

Won the League Cup and came in 3rd in league first season. Made a massive clearout and made money on owen and martins to fund moves for Montolivo, Arouca, Cavani, and Doyle. Spent big in second summer and brought in Trejo, Makoun, Vanden Boore, Ustari, Taiwo, Bresciano, and Mota. Made semi finals of CL, won League Cup again, finished second in league and made FA final in second season. Brought in Giovinco, nani, adu, and Richards this summer and am currently in october of my 3rd year.

You haven't won the CL yet, what the hell's wrong with you?!?!

Don't lose to Sunderland. Ashley has an itchy trigger finger.

Already? I made it five and a half whole months!

And now I'm managing in the desolate wilderness that is second-tier Russian football.

I've never really looked into this game. I play Hattrick.

Where do you find it?

You buy it off of Amazon.com, at least that's what I did.

Be careful it's addictive.

I had signed Juan Manuel Vargas from Catania, but I think he's way expensive, they want at the very least 8.25 from him. You could try and unsettle him before making a bid Real Madrid style to see if it goes down. Otherwise I had Darijo Srna signed but he couldn't get a permit. Jonathan Bornstein is another you might consider, as he's developed pretty well in my game even though I'm still basically 2/3 of a season in.

So now I've signed about 13 players to join Dinamo Bryansk in the hopes of getting promoted to the Russian Premier League, then keeping the team up and getting the hell out of Russia.

Makoun from Lille, Renato Augusto from somewhere in Brazil,are good mids, Sergio Mota is pretty reasonable mid as well. Vanden Boore from Fiorentina, Sonko from Reading is really good in the game and can be had for about that.

So I topped the hall of fame after about 15 years of managing. Started out with Ajax and won four straight leagues, then moved to Arsenal. I've won the treble at least twice, the league around 5 times, FA cup about 3 and CL about 3 in roughly 8-10 years. I forget and its on my laptop so I will have to go back and check. When I finish that I'll take up a Newcastle challenge. Have you guys updated the game since you bought it?

I haven't played FM since the 2005 version so I bought the newest version at the weekend and started as Newcastle. I feel I'm enjoying a highly realistic game as I'm currently 6th with the most goals scored and 2nd most conceeded

After a ridiculously ill-fated venture into Russian football, I'm presently without a club (again).

So my game kept freezing on the same date at the same time. I just started over and hopefully it doesn't happen again.

At any rate, I've started as manager of Valencia. Currently targeting Martins, Alves, Agger and Huntelaar as my offseason acquisitions, hoping to run a 4-1-2-3 of sorts. We shall see.

Has anyone patched the game to 8.02 because Martins turns into a miserable pile of crap in the second season. Only 5 goals in 17 games and Frei from Dortmund has 19 in 23.

I haven't updated yet myself. I might when I get back and start a new season. Although I am tempted to continue my Arsenal career to see if I can reach new heights.

Signed Martins, Gomez, van der Vaart and Micah Richards. Thrashed Kobenhavn in the Champions Cup qualifiers, first competitive game of the season amid three friendlies (damn, Spain starts La Liga so late!).

My 4-1-3-2, with wing backs and 3 attacking middies: Canizares; Moretti, Marchena, Richards, Miguel; Fernandes; Mata/Arizmendi, van der Vaart, Silva; Villa/Martins, Gomez.

I think I'm going to start a new game. Updating to the 8.02 patch now and then I think I'll start with Newcastle.

For those that are American, do you start your games as an American manager? I always do, but I find it more difficult to get job openings if you don't do tremendously well.