Well played Gabs. Good work gettign title in season1.
Makes no odds what patch you have really. I know one SESL'er who once played with a patch over his eye, for example!
Patch and size of database is at managers personal discretion.

I best go get some more FM played then. Gonna slow down a bit Gabs, or are you playing as fast as you can knowing the usual sacking is just around the corner! :-)

alas it seems everyone is starting in spain and playing catch up to gabarelli, will now re-start the game as a spanish team not sure who i will go...really do fancy being bilbao because of the extra -only basque- challenge however i think i will start as Betis.

Richard B

So where did you start Richard ?

Season 1 - mid season point

2nd in table, 5 points behind Real Madrid. Barca trailing in 5th and boss about to be booted.
Bolton and Wigan available, but none in Germany currently even insecure yet.

Four signings so far:-
Sol Campbell DC from Arsenal
Aythami DMC from Las Palmas
Stan Petrov AMC from celtic
Mauro Espositi AMRLC from Cagliari

Major sale was losing Galletti to Parma for 8M.

Title is achieveable if I can convert more draws in to wins.

Campbell a good signing, how much did he skin you?

I found Pablo and Perea a solid DC pairing, although Pablo was out for 5 months with a broken leg!

Started in Spain as Real Betis, only played 1 league game a 1-0 loss away at AT.Madrid. Won the spainish super cup after a 6-4 agg win again Barcelona and have got through the Champions League qualifing stages. Made a few signings so far:
Rivaldo AM/FC
Renato MCR
Frank Quendrue DL/WBL
Walter Baseggio MC
Senna DM MRC
Also signed a young argentinian left winger cant mind his name tho.

Think im going to struggle to win the title in my first season, will give it a bash tho!

I will give this FM challenge a bash too then.

La-*test*-('") News FLASH!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...utd/5187184.stm

Torres opts to stay at Atletico

Manchester United transfer target Fernando Torres has announced that he will stay at Atletico Madrid.
The 22-year-old striker had been linked with a £20m-plus move to Old Trafford as replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy.

But he held a press conference in Madrid today to say:
"SESL FM Challengers want me to stay!
If I had wanted to leave Atletico Madrid I would have done it years ago. "

"I feel fine here. There has been a lot of discussion about my possible exit but I am here for another year."

Torres' representative Antonio Sanz had earlier hinted he would stay when he said: "The player's intention is to remain at Atletico Madrid.

"Neither us, nor the club, has received an offer from SESL, Manchester United, or any other clubs for that matter."

Torres has been the top scorer in each of the last four seasons for Atletico and is a regular fixture in the Spanish national side.

Atletico were keen to keep their talisman who caught the eye with his impressive performances and three goals during the World Cup.

I have just got my 2nd season underway with Werder Bremen who are my new team in the German leg of this challenge.

They had some decent players to start with - GK Wiese, DC Naldo, AMC Micoud, aswell as two young South Americans, one an AM R, and the other an AM C.

Add to the lot German World Cup stars Borowski, Frings and Klose and you have a decent starting position!

Sold a few players, Klasnic for £13m, Jensen for £3m for example, total transfer fund was raised up to £25m+.

For the new season purchases were:

DR Trabelsi and AML Rubio from my old club A Madrid,
Monsoreau D LC from Lyon (was also purchased in the St Etienne challenge!),
AM R Marchionni from Parma,
AM RL Simao from Benfica,
D/DM L van Bronckhorst from Barca,
- and steal of the lot Drogba from Chelsea for only £3.5m!

They paid you i presume?

I just got started last night, only managed a couple of games but Athletico look to have a decent enough squad, just need to add a couple of players here and there and i'll be catching up with ya Gabs!

Update
Approaching January transfer market and sitting 6th in the league table.
Very up and down season so far. 5 wins in a row is best I've managed. Need to go on a run.

Did you plump for managing Atletico Madrid too, Hearts?

I am at mid-season break in Germany with Werder Bremen.

Drogba has been on fire, scoring 25 goals in the first half of the season.

Leading the Bundesliga by 3 pts from Schalke, with Hamburg and Bayern hovering around just behind them.

No extra signings in the transfer window, a decent chance of winning the title in S2 hopefully.

I should finish off my first season with Athletico Madrid tonight, am currently about 6 points clear with only 5-6 games to play so i should get my first title under my belt as well as the cup as it happens.

For my signings i have taken a rather scatter gun tactic of buying as many players as possible to put together a team capable of winning the league in one season, signings have been:-

Aurelio
Luis Figo
Jerome Rothen
Fabio Grosso
Didier Zokora
Walter Bassegio
Darijo Srna

and also Sabastian Larsson on loan

Sold loads of players to get the cash in for these buys and i will probably leave Madrid crippled in debt as all these are being paid for over 2 years!! Short termism at its very best!!!

Never thought of doing the long term payment option! Good plan.

DOH!! well thats let the cat out of the bag hasnt it?!?!?