Football Manager - 2019/20

I've just finished season 2019/20 in my Football Manager game.

Unlike my previous post regarding Football Manager, this season has been an unprecedented success. Not only did my Liverpool side win the Premiership (again) but I also managed to win the Champions League as well (I also won the Carling Cup but, does anyone care about that?). So what made 2019/20 such an "unprecedented success"?

Well for starters, the current win means that I have now won the Champions League for 3 seasons in a row. This is a new record for me as, despite all my years of playing this game in its many incarnations, I have never ever managed this before. In fact, in the past, I generally had trouble winning the Champions League at all - never mind winning it 3 times in a row!

A lot of the credit for my recent success goes to 1 player - Emiliano Rossi. At the end of 2015, one of my star strikers (Fernando Genro) decided that he would prefer to be a prima donna rather than a Liverpool player. So I sacked him. After he left, I had to rely on my other Brazilian superstar (Julio Cesar) to get most of my teams goals.

However, in 2017, I signed another prima donna (what can I say - I like taking risks!) - Emiliano Rossi. Rossi was an Italian whose contract was running out and I managed to sign him on a free transfer (gotta luv that guy Bosman!). Despite being a prima donna (early in his first season, he complained about the lack of games despite playing more games than any other striker!), he managed to settle down halfway through the first season - and when I say settle down, I mean he stopped complaining!

In terms of scoring goals, the guy scored on his debut and never stopped scoring. In his first season with us, he scored over 30 goals (Julio Cesar, my 30 year old Brazilian superstar scored more though!) and helped us win both the league and the Champions League. He followed up this magnificent debut season by scoring over 40 goals in his second season. By now, he was outscoring Julio Cesar and once again, my Liverpool side took top honors in both the league and the Champions League. Could he repeat in 2019/20?

In itself, the start of season 2019/20 was a new landmark for Liverpool. By now, Iker Casillas, my (very) old and reliable goalkeeper was 37 years old and too old to star in the first team every game. In fact, in 2018/19, he only played in half of the games and I had to rely on my backup goalkeeper a lot in order to keep Casillas in good shape that year. Luckily, my backup goalie was an English wonderkid (regen by the name of Dave Roberts) who I signed for megabucks and was now starting to show his worth.

I paid GBP30m for Casillas and considering how well he has played, he has proven to be worth every penny. However, he was now old and it was time for Dave Roberts to make the stepup to full time no. 1!

At the start of 2019/20, Dave didn't do very well. He made some silly mistakes which meant we got a couple of defeats and draws in the early part of the season. In fact, the only reason we didn't lose more matches was due to my superb strikeforce of Rossi and Cesar who continued to bang in the goals. After a couple of games, I started to put Casillas back in more often - things were that bad!

And then - 2 crucial injuries which helped to shape my season. Casillas picked up a long term injury! By now, the transfer window had closed and I had no choice but to put Dave into goal again. Luckily, this time, he was able to make the stepup to no.1 goalie. Although still prone to the occasional bad game, he managed to lift his performance and play like the goalie I knew he could be!

The second crucial long term injury was to Julio Cesar. My brazilian superstar was out for 3 months! The real killer blow about this injury though was the fact that even after Cesar returned to the first team, he just wasn't the same player anymore. He still scored goals - but nowhere near as many as he used to.
:(

It was now down to Rossi to pick up the slack. And he did this magnificently. In the current year, he managed to score 54 goals, 16 of which were in the Champions Cup. Fifty Four Goals!! And yes - this is a new record for me as well!

And the best part of winning the Champions League this year? Beating Betis in the final.

The last time my Liverpool team faced Betis was in the 2014/15 season where they beat me 1-0 in the Champions League final. At first, it looked like they were going to beat me again and repeat history. They scored an early goal against me and then their goalkeeper produced a marvelous display of drug induced goalkeeping to deny my strikers. However, in the end, Rossi was too much for him. Constant pressure from Rossi eventually paid dividends in the form of a late hat trick (all scored in the last 20 minutes) which gave us the game.

2019/20 was not a year for history to repeat itself. Too many records were being broken for that to happen!