Hi everybody, a lot of people want a Football Manager hard mode. Whilst I can’t give you that myself, I can at least write about a little side save that my friend (FM Adventure) and I did recently alongside the real-life Euro 2024 tournament. The save parameters used have been a great test of our managerial abilities and we look forward to sharing it with you briefly (both here on my blog and his coffeehouse variant).

So, what’s it all about? 🧑‍💻

The save premise: pick a National Team squad of 26 players. Each player can only play a maximum of three games from Group Stage through to Semi Final. Even substitute appearances would count as a game played. Can you win the spiced up Euros?

I took the reins at England FC 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (I was born in London) and FM Adventure chose to manage Real Spain 🇪🇸 (due to him claiming citizenship from a recent holiday).

The squad selection was made easier (or harder depending on your opinion), by replicating the current Euro 2024 squads of England and Spain. The only deviation to that was Phil Foden’s 5 month injury meaning he was ruled out from the selection. Up stepped former Irishman Jack Graelish as the Fake Foden.

Managing rotations: in order to keep track of who needed an early flight back to England or Spain, FM Adventure and I managed it via a Google Sheet.  I set up a traffic light system to alert us when a player is 1-2 games away from leaving the squad. You may think this is overkill, but it is absolutely necessary in order to utilise the full squad and plan our routes into the knockouts strategically.

The Group Stage 🚀

Initially I went in thinking I could have both a 433 and 343 tactic to sap the most juice out of the squad, with players like Anthony Gordon really only suitable for an advanced wide role.  However, a complicated opening game Vs Denmark saw me ditch the 433 in favour of the 343 with about 30 mins to go and my England side never looked back.  Coming back late on in that Denmark game to win 2-1, the English won the remaining games against Slovenia and Serbia with ease (both 3-1) and topped Group C.

I suppose it mirrors reality, England’s Gareth Southgate realising that his team is better off utilising two 10s centrally (Bellingham and Foden); as opposed to shifting one out wide.  I came to the same conclusion.  Anybody playing in the Shadow Striker role in particular seemed to do exceptionally well: Bowen, Eze and Palmer lit up the tournament with goals and assists and each had a MOTM winning performance.

The Knockouts 💥

My strategy was to field a strong XI and get a first win in the groups. Once on 3 points, I would rotate through to the QFs in the hope we would meet a lower ranked team in Last 16. With no disrespect to Czechia, that’s exactly what happened…facing them in the Last 16 (and winning 3-1) before realising I was in the ‘worse’ half of the draw with the likes of hosts Germany, favourites France and traditional dark horses Italy. FM Adventure on the other hand was stroking his hands together and eating paella by avoiding all of us on the other side. His hardest potential game was probably Portugal, who failed to progress from the Last 16, meaning Austria-Hungary or Serbia were his most difficult foe (go read the adjacent story over on coffeehousefm.com/fmadventure once done here).

The Quarter Final was a nervy affair. The big named defenders of John Stones and Kyle Walker were back in the side, as were attackers Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. Yet, it was Jarrod Bowen making his third appearance of the tournament that made the difference, as he calmly slotted in Jude Bellingham’s neat cross to see England beat 20th Century colonial rivals Germany 1-0. The jellied eel enthusiast had averaged a respectable 8.0 Average Rating over his three Euro 2024 performances…he would be sorely missed in the Semi Finals.

Perhaps the biggest game of Euro 2024 came in the Semi Finals, which saw England drawn against Eurovision 2024 Top 4 side France. It was perhaps the game of the tournament, which saw a 1st half full of Gallic swagger and panache. France were all over the English, it was like a Hundred Years' War packed into 45 minutes. But the seeds of French defeat were sown by one of their own in the last minute of additional time. Adrien Rabiot, perhaps worried about what his mum might think when he returned to court, decided to assassinate England’s top longbowman Sir Harold Kane in cold blood. England were buoyed at HT. Both Wing Backs were now on attack duty and English found very little resistance in the 2nd half, coming back to level the tie on 54 minutes. Extra time was surprisingly straight forward, with substitute Graelish taking a dive to win England the penalty that Kane dispatched with cold hard English grit. One for the late goal, Ollie Watkins savoured the moment and ended Catholicism for good with a 111th minute thunderbastard to send England through 4-2 AET to the Euro 2024 where Spa…Serbia (?!) would await in the final.

The Final 🏆

Prior to starting the network save, FM Adventure and I had agreed that the previous appearances would be wiped cleared for any Final. This was welcome news, seeing that I now only had six players who were yet to make their 3rd appearance. In-form Jarrod Bowen returned to the starting line up supporting Harry Kane in the Shadow Striker role. It was only fitting that the two combined to see England win 1-0 against Serbia…

It was a much closer game than the previous Group C top spot decider, but crucially “it came home”. I lucked out with the 343 formation, it was perfect for England and saw them play some really nice football. Huge thanks to FM Adventure who filled the empty nights between the various IRL knockout rounds over a beer, it was a really fun challenge and required us to fully delve into those 26-man squads.

Thanks for reading/sharing and caring.

Tony / FM Grasshopper 🏆🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿