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Winning the world cup in FM has long been my dream. This thread is for those of you who share the world cup dream, post here anything related to your world cup journey in FM08 such as: what team you want to take to win the world cup, what team you are currently with and your current progress!
Let me start first: (Skip these text descriptions if you feel they are too long, screenshots at the end tell the story too )
I started the 8.0.1 game managing a club in China: Shandong Luneng. After winning the Chinese league and reaching the Asian Champions league final in 2007, in 2008 I got the Ivory Coast national job after their manager was sacked for failing to reach the quaterfinals of African Nations 2008. World Cup qualification was smooth - 10 wins guaranteed me a first place in the group and I qualified easily for the 2010 World Cup. Then African Nations 2010 took place before the world cup and I lost to Nigeria in the final.
The group stage draw for the world cup seemed tough for me. I was seeded 3rd and was drawn with Spain, Portugal and Saudi Arabia. Spain and Portugal were certainly the favourites in my group. The odds for winning the World Cup for my Ivory Coast team was 25-1 - one of the least favourites. My board expected me to 'be competitive in the world cup'.
The first game against Spain saw a massive 28 shots against me... I had only 18 shots against them but I won 1-0 thanks to Didier Drogba's header in the 79th minute and my GK Copa (who was rated only 2 stars by my assistant...). Portugal beat Saudi Arabia 2-1.
The second game I beat Saudi Arabia 3-1, no surprises here. At the same time Spain edged out Portugal 1-0.
I only needed a draw in the last game to have a guaranteed first spot in the group. I led half time 2-0, but Portugal's manager's team talk seemed to have 'worked wonders at 1/2 time' and they quickly leveled 2-2. They had another 8 shots againt me in the last 10 minutes but I was lucky that none of them went in. Spain beat SA 3-0 and qualified to the 2nd round also.
The 2nd round I was matched with Czech Republic, I had 26 shots with 10 on target yet the legendary GK Cech denied me 9 of them. The score remained 1-1 after extra time - match went to penalties. I scored all 3 penalties while Czech missed 3 out of 4. I went through to the quarter finals!
Holland beat Argentina to meet me in the quarter final. The game went surprisingly smooth as I scored 2 in the 2nd half and the result stayed at 2-0 at 90mins. Semifinal! Now this had really exceeded everyone's expectations, the fans were delighted, the boards happy and me excited and hoping to go further!
My semi final opponent was my African rival Nigeria!They beat Italy 1-0 to get here but I was sure this was the time for me to revenge my African Nations loss! The match was one of the most exciting I have ever seen - each team had 30 shots with exactly the same number of shots on target: 14. I had a fantastic start when Drogba scored in the 1st minute. However Martins dribbed past 3 of my defenders and scored for Nigeria in the 36th minute. The game went into extra time and things looked bad for me: Martins scored again in the 96th minute! My players were all on 70% fitness and I began to lose my hope as time went by. I was desparate to make things happen so I tried to swap some positions: I swapped Kader Keita from right winger to striker and it paid off, he scored a one on one in the 111th minute! Keita was my hero... well.. untill the penalty shootout when he blasted his penalty over the bar! Luckily Nigeria's Martins missed too and as their 6th penalty was also missed, I was through to the World Cup Final!
In the final it was time to meet Spain again, but this time they were a lot more confident after they beat France, England and Brazil to reach the final. The prematch odds were heavily in favour of Spain but I am sure my players thought otherwise. Drogba scored in the 10th minute to give me a surprising lead. However, Spain leveled in the 38th minute by Joaquin. I was kept on defensive for a long long time in the 2nd half - they had 13 shots on target against me and an Iniesta strike in the 79th minute gave me a heart-attack..."Damn we are so close!" "How could SI do this to me?" ....
I tried to do the same as last game and swapped Keita to the striker position, however in the 88th minute he missed a one on one...hope gone I thought...but Drogba thought otherwise and scored a powerful header in the 93rd minute! I was cheering with tears in my eyes and I almost made up a Didier Drogba song in my head! The team seemed to be motivated by their captain's great performance and kept Spain in their own half for the whole of the extra time. However, a number of world class saves by Iker Casillas kept the score at 2-2.
So it was Penalties again! After winning the last two penalty shootouts, my players went in there with full confidence: we scored 4 out of 4, Spain missed 2 out of 3! Ivory Coast won the 2010 World Cup! My dream came true!
Originally posted by Humber:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Originally posted by sthptngomad76:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Because I don't really want everyone to know my real life name...
Is it Wolfgang Wolf? </BLOCKQUOTE>
No, it's Ding. </BLOCKQUOTE>
good one. Now let's not turn this thread into a 'looking for clues of Wolfsong's real name' competition.
12-04-2007, 01:31 PM
The Unofficial "World Cup" Thread - Fm2008 Post #10
The Unofficial "World Cup" Thread - Fm2008 
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Anyone else had fun world cup experience who want to share it?
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