La Roja

Yeah that's it man.

Just a little bit more consistency, less injuries and some luck and we'll end the wait.

My second FA Cup triumph in six seasons at Manchester United and it feels fantastic to have beaten the Premier League champions so convincingly. We should have won by more, but I'll settle for the 1-0 victory over Jose Mourinho. We got off to the best possible start as Juan Mata put us ahead inside the opening three minutes, the Spaniard rewarding me for placing my faith in him ahead of Martin Odegaard. I guess this season wasn't to bad as we picked up the Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, the FA Cup and qualified for the Champions League.

I did a lot of thinking during the summer and decided that the Old Trafford careers of a few players were over. I made the brave decision of letting Rafael go to Arsenal so academy graduate Adrian Lee could get more first team action. Mario Gotze had a horrid run of injuries and made just two Premier League appearances for us last year so when Southampton offered £21 million I couldn't accept it quick enough considering he was on £250,000 a week. The trio of Ilkay Gundogan, Angel Di Maria and Asier Illarramendi were all on sizeable wages and were without doubt past their best so it made sense to let them leave. Letting them leave was as much about slashing the wages being paid as it was about freshening up the squad. In came Terry Overland, Ross Barkley, Nahuel Leiva and Daniel Jardler. I'd been keeping tabs on these players for the last 12-18 months and was delighted we managed to sign them all.

Wow, how the hell Southampton could afford to sign Gotze and Gundogan? Massive spending in the summer, Overland looks the real deal

They won the Europa League last season which means Champions League football so I think the money they've got from that basically went towards signing Gotze and Gundogan. Big changes during the summer for us really, some big players leaving, but I'm quite happy with what I've brought in for the now and the future as well. Yeah I think Overland will be a big player in a few years, been tracking him for about two years now and delighted we've got him.

Järdler is the first time I've ever seen a top class Swedish newgen. What club did he start his career at?

Yeah I don't think I've had a top Swedish newgen before in all the years I've been playing FM.

He started at Helsingborg Franck

Interesting transfers, but definitely agree with your logic! Fantastic to see you giving Adrian Lee a chance, nice to see your regens starting to break ground in the first team.

Adrian Lee will probably be a first team player for the next decade so I thought it was time for him to be playing.

If I'm brutally honest Gotze and Gundogan under performed for us given their transfer fees and wages, so letting them go wasn't that hard a decision. Those two players combined were pocketing £400,000 a week.

Apologies fellas as this will be a long update as I basically played through an entire season.

Right until the end we were leading the race for the Premier League, but then a horrible run of form in our final ten games cost us dearly as arch rivals Liverpool ended their long drought for England's biggest prize. Five defeats in our final ten games says it all really, a horrible run of form, not helped by injuries, but either way not really acceptable.

We suffered two season changing injuries in my opinion when Phil Jones and Adnan Januzaj were both ruled out for up to three months, goals dried up and we began conceding goals, a very embarrassing 5-0 thumping away to Huddersfield one of my worst days in the dugout. We crashed out of the Capital One Cup in the third round as QPR beat us 1-0 at Loftus Road and we suffered a disappointing defeat at Old Trafford in the fifth round of the FA Cup at the hands of our old foes Liverpool. We coasted through our Champions League group that contained Roma, Viktoria Plzen and Anderlecht. We won all our group games scoring 16 times and conceding just once.

We drew Real Madrid in the next round and advanced 6-4 on aggregate after winning 5-1 in the return leg at Old Trafford to overturn a 3-1 defeat in the first leg at the Bernabeu. We got Juventus in the quarter final and after beating them 1-0 in Manchester I was confident we could advance, however a 4-2 defeat knocked us out, a goal from Spanish international Munir with one minute remaining denying us a famous victory.




The biggest change has seen Ed Woodward and the Glazers depart after a crazy six month takeover mess. I've no doubt it had a negative effect on the squad as the season came to an end and there seemed to be one last kick in the teeth when new chairman Antonio Hernandez said he was considering my role during the summer. In the end I kept my job, but I feel let down and I'm seriously debating about moving abroad to test myself in another league.

Unless season again matey!

Promised so much and in the end left with nothing.

As I said I felt really let down that the new board at Old Trafford even thought about replacing me so I decided to look elsewhere and when I did I found that the Spanish FA were extremely eager to secure my services.

The basics are that Spain are a giant on the international stage and won Euro 2016 and the World Cup in Russia in 2018. They crashed out in the second round of Euro 2020 after suffering a 2-1 defeat to Ukraine, but apart from that little blip they've certainly dominated international football since their maiden World Cup triumph in 2010.



I take over during qualification for the 2022 World Cup and it really should be a straightforward task to guide La Roja to Qatar. Two wins from the opening two games have us in a very good position, a 5-0 demolition of Cyprus in Sevilla in our opening game followed by an emphatic 3-0 victory in Stockholm against Sweden.

Did you resign as Manchester United manager? If so, it's a shame you couldn't win the PL w/ them.

I sure did pal.

Marched right into the chairmans office, jumped up on his desk and shat on it.

Disappointing not to have won it, but I guess the two FA Cups and Champions League win makes up for it.

So I've taken charge of my first game as Spain boss and it finished in a 1-1 draw with Switzerland. To be honest we were quite unlucky not to have secured all three points and I'm sure it's the type of game we'd win once the side is used to my tactics. We put the disappointment of sharing the spoils with the Swiss behind us quickly though as we comfortably beat Albania in Tirana. Our next two qualifiers are next month away to Cyprus and at home to Sweden.

Surprised to see you resigned from Man Utd.

Even more surprised to hear he took a dump on the chairman's desk!

I'd be thinking of a change recently, but the board doubting my ability really only accelerated that decision to leave.



Cunt deserved it.

How dare he contemplate replacing me.

An undefeated qualifying campaign and our place in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is secured. In truth it was quite easy, as you'd expect I suppose and we probably could have won all our qualifiers. As you can see Munir is scoring a few goals, he's bagged six in the six games I've been in charge, so it's safe to say he's my first choice up front.

So our group at the World Cup next year in Qatar should be quite easy to navigate. We've been drawn alongside Australia, Chile and Romania. The sides are ranked 27th, 24th and 22nd respectively in the FIFA rankings. We face Chile in our opening group match followed by Australia and we finish up against Romania. Honestly we should be topping this group and winning all three games, but we'll have to guard against complacency. Before the tournament we'll play friendlies at home against Ecuador, North Korea and Republic of Ireland before heading out to Qatar.

Should be a straight forward run through to the next round at the World Cup - I wonder how the temperatures of Qatar might affect your players (if at all)?

Good luck for the tournament, and looking forward to seeing the new season. Particularly how Adrian Lee plays when you throw him in the first team!

I think getting off to a good start in games will be crucial, bossing possession and maybe an early goal.

Well, I quit as United boss so I won't be in charge of his development anymore.

Preparation for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is done. In March we entertained South Sudan and the result was never in doubt. We played controlled football and comfortably despatched the lowest ranked team in world football.

Next up was Ecuador and somehow they got a draw out of this game, but it was a good test that is somewhat comparable to Chile. We hammered North Korea and the Republic of Ireland in our next games before departing for the Middle East with our focus solely on winning the World Cup for the third time in 12 years.

I totally missed that, my apologies buddy! Sorry to see you leave Old Trafford too. In my FM14 save I fell foul to a couple of takeovers which forced me out of the job, so appreciate you feel unloved by the new board.

Wish you even more luck with Spain now!!

All good man

I just couldn't stick around, had that feeling they'd sack me after one or two bad results anyway so when the Spain job became available I jumped at the chance to take it. Something refreshing, a new challenge.

I finally got around to playing some Football Manager in the last week so here's quite a long update.

We coasted through our 2022 World Cup warm up games against South Sudan, Ecuador, North Korea and Ireland, scoring plenty of goals and conceding just twice in the four games. The bonus to come out of these games was no injuries to any members of the World Cup squad which was fantastic preparation leading in the tournament.



Just to recap we were drawn in Group C alongside Australia, Chile and Romania which realistically shouldn't pose to much trouble once we got off to a good start against Chile. We did just that as we beat the South American side 3-0 thanks to an Iker Muniain hat-trick, our cause certainly helped after Valber Huerta's early red card.



Up next in Group C was Australia who had been beaten 1-0 by Romania in their opener, so we knew they'd be out to at least grab a point given a defeat would almost certainly send them out of the competition. Things didn't get off to a good start as David De Gea dropped a straightforward cross at the feet of Bill Burke who tapped home. In the end we won comfortably, the big talking point a knee injury that will see key midfielder Koke miss the tournament.



We made sure of our place in the next round with a convincing 2-0 win over Romania in our final Group C fixture. In truth it should have been a lot more than 2-0 as we created chance after chance. According to the match statistics we had 5 clear cut chances, hit the woodwork 3 times and had 22 shots of which 10 were on target.



We'll face Croatia in the second round with a potential quarter final clash against rivals Portugal almost a certainly should we progress as our Iberian neighbours have been handed the not so tough task of beating Canada in the second round. Croatia finished second in Group D that contained Iraq, Russia and South Africa. They won their opening game against South Africa 2-1 and beat Iraq 2-0. A 3-1 defeat however in their final group game against Russia means they finished as runners up in Group D and must play us instead of Chile in the second round.

Bring on the all Iberian quarter final thanks very much. What? Wait, no you're joking. We won't be playing Portugal in the quarter final after Canada managed to beat them 1-0. That could possibly be the biggest shock ever in World Cup history and should, with no disrespect to Canada intended, mean our place in the semi finals is all but secured.

England await in the semi finals of the 2022 World Cup after we thrashed Canada in the quarter final. I don't think there's much to say about this, we were comfortable favourites and expected to win, which we did and in comfortable fashion. England in the semi final could be potentially a tricky fixture, but I'm confident in this group of players. I predict we'll beat the Three Lions and book a date with either Brazil or Argentina in the World Cup final.

A second consecutive World Cup final awaits and we'll face Brazil in the showpiece event after they hammered Argentina by the same scoreline that we beat England by. I expect a really tough final and it'll possibly go all the way to the lottery of penalties given the strength of both sides. We've scored 19 goals in our 6 games conceding just once and Brazil have scored 17, although there is a way past them apparently as they've conceded 4 goals.

We've been fantastic during this entire tournament and it'd be such a pity if we were to fall at the final hurdle. There's no point in changing tactics or the starting lineup really, why fix something that's not broken? We'll go into the final against Brazil and we'll give them a game, we'll play football and hopefully on the day that's enough to secure our third World Cup in 12 years and second in a row, a feat only achieved by Italy and Brazil in the past.