Championship Manager 2001/02

[4LEX]

Always rated FM05. They had the pitch sim spot on and the game wasn't too complex.

It had some glitches though. I once got England to a WC final and it was 1-1 after extra time but the penalties never came. The game simply carried on for another few hours until Holland scored against the run of play

 

[Dan2501]

I had a great glitch on FM05 where I had a South African winger called Junior Khanye who would get 10.0 every single game without fail. He just became absolutely insanely good and would score and set up at least 2 goals a game, was mad.

 

[Orikoru]

Always rated FM05. They had the pitch sim spot on and the game wasn't too complex.

It had some glitches though. I once got England to a WC final and it was 1-1 after extra time but the penalties never came. The game simply carried on for another few hours until Holland scored against the run of play

Ah yes, 05 was my favourite version of FM. I've located my old disk for that as well for when I get bored of CM! I remember I was Everton on that game because they had just sold Rooney in real life so they had a good budget. Ended up winning the Champions League, my strike force of Podolski and Pazzini were unstoppable. James McFadden who I didn't even have to buy became an absolute world class left winger somehow. And of course the man, the myth, the legend, Lebohang Mokoena.

 

[Dan2501]

Lebohang Mokoena, Anthony Vanden Borre, a little known Belgian called Vincent Kompany, Diego, Fredy Guarin. FM05 had some incredible wonderkids.

 

[Cake]

It's amazing I can still recall this but I used to use the most bizarre formation on that game. It was three at the back, but comprised of one centre and back and two full backs, then a CDM had an arrow going backwards to become a 2nd CB. Three CMs, AMR & AML and one ST, but the two wide CMs had arrows going all the way forward into the box! Must have worked somehow.

I’m pretty sure it was CM 97 where I used to play with an EXTREMELY unrealistic 0-5-5 formation (no defenders at all)... handed out thumping after thumping with that. No idea where the thinking for that approach came from, but it was crazy successful for me.

 

[4LEX]

Ah yes, 05 was my favourite version of FM. I've located my old disk for that as well for when I get bored of CM! I remember I was Everton on that game because they had just sold Rooney in real life so they had a good budget. Ended up winning the Champions League, my strike force of Podolski and Pazzini were unstoppable. James McFadden who I didn't even have to buy became an absolute world class left winger somehow. And of course the man, the myth, the legend, Lebohang Mokoena.

Tevez, Cavanaghi, Mascherano, Kompany, VDB and the Dutch midfield of De Jong, Sneijder, Robben and VDV.

Lebohang Mokoena, Anthony Vanden Borre, a little known Belgian called Vincent Kompany, Diego, Fredy Guarin. FM05 had some incredible wonderkids.

Mohamed Zidan and Mauro Espisito.......£5m the pair and they'd get 20 goals and 20 assists for 8 years.

 

[Orikoru]

Lebohang Mokoena, Anthony Vanden Borre, a little known Belgian called Vincent Kompany, Diego, Fredy Guarin. FM05 had some incredible wonderkids.

Yeah I had a Guarin and Hitzlsperger midfield, guaranteed a screamer from one or the other per game with 'take long shots' on.

My current champ game with Wigan has gone amazingly well. Played the first leg on my league cup semi-final last night against Liverpool and bloody won it 2-0! We're in cloud cuckoo land. And I've signed Zola Moukoko on a free for next season as his contact expired (140k tribunal though or something.. peanuts).

 

[Orikoru]

My current champ game with Wigan has gone amazingly well. Played the first leg on my league cup semi-final last night against Liverpool and bloody won it 2-0! We're in cloud cuckoo land. And I've signed Zola Moukoko on a free for next season as his contact expired (140k tribunal though or something.. peanuts).

I shouldn't have said anything - we lost the second leg 3-0 to go out, haha. Oh well, it was a great cup run. And we've secured the division two title now anyway. Over 100 points and well over 100 goals scored. Double centurions. And we have the LDV Vans Final against Luton to look forward to.

 

[Dan2501]

Right. I'm getting CM01/02 installed tonight. Won the league and CL as Everton on FM19, now to do it on CM01/02.

 

[Dan2501]

Well I'm regretting picking Everton already. Squad is bare bones and what we've got is terrible - Gazza is a starter for instance. The finances are so bad we sold Niclas Alexandersson for £5m and I got £0 added to the transfer kitty and we're now in receivership meaning any offers I get for players HAVE to be accepted, so I've already lost promising youngster Stephen Schumacher. I have managed to sign Taribo West on a free and have just about got enough to afford To Madeira but whether he'll accept me or not who knows. Can't afford to buy anyone else and have already missed out on Kerr who has gone to Chelsea. This is going to be a proper grind, just going to have to try and survive the first season I think.

 

[Orikoru]

Well I'm regretting picking Everton already. Squad is bare bones and what we've got is terrible - Gazza is a starter for instance. The finances are so bad we sold Niclas Alexandersson for £5m and I got £0 added to the transfer kitty and we're now in receivership meaning any offers I get for players HAVE to be accepted, so I've already lost promising youngster Stephen Schumacher. I have managed to sign Taribo West on a free and have just about got enough to afford To Madeira but whether he'll accept me or not who knows. Can't afford to buy anyone else and have already missed out on Kerr who has gone to Chelsea. This is going to be a proper grind, just going to have to try and survive the first season I think.

Tough times! I actually scouted Wayne Rooney on my game as I noticed he's there as a 16-year-old, but my scouts didn't rate him. That game must have been out before he really emerged.

Finished season 1 last night with a record of W37 D5 L4, GF129 GA46, 116 points. Division two was just holding us back. Unfortunately we lost the Vans final to Luton, stupidly, but that's just a mickey mouse cup anyway. Started trying to strengthen for the next season. Liverpool bought my 2nd choice keeper for some reason so I just replaced him with CM legend Chiotis. Man Utd bought my centre back De Vos for £3m, so I'm trying to bring in a worldy centre back to replace him, but I'm struggling there. Clint Hill, who looks like a beast, joined Port Vale instead which was really annoying, as they just finished 2nd in D2 behind us! Clarke Carlisle looks good but QPR are playing hard ball. I've found another guy at Colchester called Ross Johnson who looks to have really good stats and will be a lot cheaper so I might take a punt on him. Once I've got that sorted I really want to find a good versatile squad player, a proper D/M/F R/L/C or as near as possible, that I can stick on the bench and cover lots of positions, since working with a bench of only 5 players is surprisingly hard.

 

[Dan2501]

Game crashed on me last night, which was annoying, as I'd just had a board takeover, had been given £5.25m to spend and had signed some decent players (Madeira, Duff, Chiotis, Farnerud). Was playing miserably though, bottom of the league and without a point after 5 games so losing my save isn't the worst thing Gonna try and find a more stable Mac-Windows emulator tonight and get it set-up and have another go.

The starting Everton squad is absolutely dreadful though. Gascoigne on £20k a week, only 1 decent winger in Alexandersson who I sold, no decent goal scorer (best striker Radzinski starts the game injured), wing-backs are awful (Tony Hibbert's got potential though), central midfielders are even worse. The only remotely decent players are Gravesen, Weir, Stubbs and Radzinski, the rest are awful and will all end up sold. First season is going to be incredibly difficult and then hopefully I can start building my own squad, but yeah, have to survive the sack first season before that can happen.

 

[Slime]

Fans of football management games may remember this one as possibly the best they ever made. I was reading a series of articles online where the writer was playing this game and writing about how it went, and it made me want to dig it out again. As luck would have it the disk was still at my parents - but as it turns out (and some of you may hate me for this), you can actually download it for free now at ChampMan0102.co.uk.

Fired it up last night, just as addictive as ever! I've started as Wigan because they're in Division 2 (League One as it's known these days) but with a solid budget of over £6mil. I've brought in a couple of the old legends - Taribo West, Tó Madeira, Mike Duff - and a few players that my scouts have recommended. Been trying to sign the classic Swedish legend midfielders like Bakircioglu, Selakovic, Kallstrom, but they all refuse to leave their clubs! So my midfield is still a bit pony at the moment. Luckily Madeira has struck up a good partnership with Lee McCulloch and fired us top of the league. They have another forward called Andy Liddell who's playing very well for me in the number 10 role as well. Strategy is a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 at the minute.

If that's Mike Duff from Cheltenham, you also need to look at Cheltenham's Jamie Victory and play him and Duff as wing-backs in a 5-3-2.
They did me proud, back in the day.

 

[Dan2501]

Was looking at Jamie Victory last night as a possible replacement for Pistone/Unsworth but Cheltenham wouldn't sell him :'(

Have managed to get CM installed using Wine and seems to be running okay, will give it a proper test tonight! Failing that I'll just use the Crossover free trial.

 

[Orikoru]

Game crashed on me last night, which was annoying, as I'd just had a board takeover, had been given £5.25m to spend and had signed some decent players (Madeira, Duff, Chiotis, Farnerud). Was playing miserably though, bottom of the league and without a point after 5 games so losing my save isn't the worst thing Gonna try and find a more stable Mac-Windows emulator tonight and get it set-up and have another go.

The starting Everton squad is absolutely dreadful though. Gascoigne on £20k a week, only 1 decent winger in Alexandersson who I sold, no decent goal scorer (best striker Radzinski starts the game injured), wing-backs are awful (Tony Hibbert's got potential though), central midfielders are even worse. The only remotely decent players are Gravesen, Weir, Stubbs and Radzinski, the rest are awful and will all end up sold. First season is going to be incredibly difficult and then hopefully I can start building my own squad, but yeah, have to survive the sack first season before that can happen.

Don't you have the legend that is David Ginola as well?? I played against Ginola on my game - he was on loan at Millwall, lol. You should have a young Leon Osman too, I scouted him because I thought he had good stats for a 20-year-old, but my scouts only said he was 'fairly good'. Were your board expectations just to stay up, or are they expecting more than that?

If that's Mike Duff from Cheltenham, you also need to look at Cheltenham's Jamie Victory and play him and Duff as wing-backs in a 5-3-2.
They did me proud, back in the day.

It's certainly that Mike Duff, the one and only. He was a well know CM legend, cost less than 100k and could basically play at any level. He was one of the first players I bought because the right backs in my starting squad were both poor.

 

[Dan2501]

Nah, Ginola's not in the game at Everton by default, you must have an updated DB. Osman's there though, and yeah, he's been promoted to the senior squad 'cause he looks decent. Him and Hibbert both seem to hae decent potential. Yeah, Board "expect a tough season", so basically, should survive so long as we stay in the PL. Bloody tough though, the team are rubbish.

 

[Orikoru]

Nah, Ginola's not in the game at Everton by default, you must have an updated DB. Osman's there though, and yeah, he's been promoted to the senior squad 'cause he looks decent. Him and Hibbert both seem to hae decent potential. Yeah, Board "expect a tough season", so basically, should survive so long as we stay in the PL. Bloody tough though, the team are rubbish.

I couldn't remember if he was on loan from Everton or someone else, I don't have updated DB because I installed it straight from the original disc. I just looked up Everton's 01/02 on Wikipedia and saw you had him then, probably signed after the game came out.

Looks like you'll be raiding Sweden for some bargain quality players then, ha. For some reason that doesn't work on my game, 95% of the Swedish guys just refuse to leave their clubs, it's weird. I've failed with Bakircioglu, Selakovic (who later went to Newcastle, git), Lunden, Kallstrom, Risp. All of them just flatly refused. Managed to get Isaksson, the keeper, and a defender called Jonas Stark who turned out to be not very good.

 

[Dan2501]

I couldn't remember if he was on loan from Everton or someone else, I don't have updated DB because I installed it straight from the original disc. I just looked up Everton's 01/02 on Wikipedia and saw you had him then, probably signed after the game came out.

Looks like you'll be raiding Sweden for some bargain quality players then, ha. For some reason that doesn't work on my game, 95% of the Swedish guys just refuse to leave their clubs, it's weird. I've failed with Bakircioglu, Selakovic (who later went to Newcastle, git), Lunden, Kallstrom, Risp. All of them just flatly refused. Managed to get Isaksson, the keeper, and a defender called Jonas Stark who turned out to be not very good.

Yeah, he was at Everton in '02, but he joined in Jan/Feb so guessing he was on loan at Millwall from Villa on your game. I'm glad he was, the fewer overpaid old boys in my squad the better.

Oh I definitely will. Just need to hope when I restart tonight I get the takeover quickly so I don't miss out on Kerr, could really do with a decent midfielder to join Gravesen. Really struggled last night to find a tactic that worked either defensively or offensively, no matter what I did we got hammered by everyone we played. Fingers crossed I can figure it out today.

Bakircioglu was one I tried to sign last night but they wouldn't sell up, Selakovic moved right at the start and then couldn't get deals for Lunden, Risp or Kallstrom despite trying. I tried really hard to pick up Assane N'Diaye as well but Shakhtar would not sell for any price I offered, he's basically the perfect DM and exactly what I needed given our defensive frailties, but nope couldn't get him. No matter what DM I went for I couldn't get them - tried N'Diaye, Battaglia, Kehl, Said, Milevskiy, Sable, Medina and none of them were for sale. So annoying!

 

[Orikoru]

In terms of tactics I usually stick by a few basic rules. One is that narrow ones work best - no wingers needed, just pack the middle. Another is always use a DMC. Just seems to make you vastly better defensively. In my game I use a narrow 4-1-2-1-2 (like a diamond), occasionally pushing the AMC up front so I have three strikers instead. Very occasionally drop him back to MC so it's a 4-1-3-2, if I'm protecting a lead against an onslaught, or something. As a bonus it helps keep the squad size down slightly since I don't need to buy any wingers.

You've probably missed him already but Guardiola is on a free at the start! I tried to bring him to Wigan, but strangely he opted for Lille instead.

 

[Dan2501]

Okay, I'll give a 4-1-2-1-2 a go. Everton's wingers are crap anyway, so not a big loss playing without width. What do you go for team instruction wise? Do you mess with the on-the-ball/off-the-ball stuff? I can design a tactic happily on FM19 but really struggled with the lack of options and instructions on CM01/02 last night. Will have another bash tonight.

Guardiola picked Ligue 1 over Division 2 with Wigan? Is he mad? I've not started my save again yet, so will keep Pep in mind when I start again after work tonight