FM 2012 European Championships 2028: Spanish flair enough?

Hey guys and welcome to my FM 2012 European Championships 2028 with Spain. All the qualifiers and warm up Friendlies have been played, the stage is set and I don’t even have to travel abroad as my Spanish squad meet me in England where the tournament is been hosted.

Lets start today’s post with the media odds, this way you can get a feel for Spain’s chances. We are tipped as co-favorites for the tournament alongside Germany, England and Holland. I think that says a lot and while England hold home advantage I have to be confident.

While selecting my squad the general theme was a mix of experience and explosive pace. If I had to select three key players from the bunch they’d be my right winger Gutierrez who is one of the best wingers around and hit 66 caps. I also believe Fernandez who was capped 53 times will play a huge role as advanced playmaker and then my key center back Torres who notched up 48 caps.

Before we kick things off let me remind you of the group draw. Spain will play Holland, Israel and finish with Portugal. The top two nations in every group qualify, then the four best placed third positioned nations also go through.

Euro Championship group stage

We’ll breeze through this section just summing each match up in a few sentences. As mentioned I started my Euro campaign with a tough encounter against co-favorites Holland. The Dutch side are excellent going forward and posses incredible technical ability. But Spain’s technical ability was always going to be one step ahead as we dominated the match and won 4-2. Next up was Israel, a very weird game in which we went behind early on. It wasn’t until the 70th minute that our chances paid off and we scored three goals to win 3-1. Then the last match was a very simple affair, just a bit of keep ball against Portugal who were thrashed 3-0.

An easy looking and convincing qualification to the next round. Holland won two of their three matches and will join me as runners up. A very lucky Portugal will qualify in third place despite only winning one match.

Euro Championships 2nd round

Now we are down to the exciting part of any tournament, a time when the underdog can rise and no single match is a banker. My opponents for the 2nd round will be Turkey, a simple game if you don’t know my save, but Turkey have players to a similar standard of Cavus (my Turkish Messi who plays for Scarborough.) They are also ranked 9th in the world so certainly not opposition to take lightly.

As I prepared for this match, the team selection was at full strength and I opted to go for the attacking approach. This seemed to work as my side created plenty of chances in the first half and took three of them. The second half was rather dull, but we saw it out to win 3-0 and qualify for the quarter-finals.

Euro Championships quarter final vs Croatia

Apologies for not providing a screenshot of the quarter-final draw, I got carried away and was too late in taking it. Either way, I was pitted against Croatia, an easier opponent than Turkey on paper. And that is exactly how the game panned out, my boys managed 20 shots to Croatia’s two. While Croatia did convert one of those efforts, Spain managed to hit them for five thanks to a Marin hat trick and MOM performance. This 5-1 scoreline was the perfect battle cry for my next opponents who are….

Euro Championships semi-final

Now we’re down to the business end of the competition. Who you play here could determine whether your nations name is on the trophy, or you are out of a job. So guess who I was drawn against, it wasn’t Bulgaria, it certainly wasn’t France, no it was the hosts England! Ow dear, talk about a tall task, the England side is very, very strong and similar to the one that won World Cup 2026.

The most logical thing to do was use a counter strategy here, England have home advantage and are too strong to risk too many men forward. So with the stage set and my hands poised over my eyes I pressed play, but what followed was a masterclass. Spain were zipping the ball around like the home nation, dominating possession and every other stat out there. We went into the half-time break with a 3-1 lead, I was left speechless and praised my players.

The second half kicked off even better than the first as my center back, Maria, headed home from a corner….4-1 to SPAIN!! The clock ticked down and I could smell the final approaching, then England pulled one goal back on the 66th minute, no biggy, its a consolation at best. The referees watch then showed 80 minutes, almost there….but England pulled another one back to make it 4-3…surely they can’t screw me like this. But in Ana Garcia style, my boys conceded a forth on the 85th minute!!!! England had come back from 4-1 down to take the game into extra-time, I was speechless, distraught, beyond words. Neither side could commit anymore, the players were knackered and we saw the clock run down to penalties!

When you’re 4-1 up in any cup match, its safe to say you’ll lose the initiative if that lead is squandered, and that’s exactly what we did. The penalty shoot-out went close but England were victorious scoring 4 of their penalties while Spain could only manage 3.

I honestly nearly resigned from my post as manager of Spain there and then! I just couldn’t even bare the thought of enduring another competition like this and having to go through two years of wasteful boring matches just to get there. But I decided to keep my job for now and make a proper decision when the pain isn’t so thresh. I mean come on, who loses a 4-1 lead and concedes two of the goals in the last 10 minutes…SI gave me a right slap in the face on this one. Just to rub salt into the wound England couldn’t even beat France in the final!!

Here’s the tournament tree, not much to note in terms of upsets apart from Spain’s shock exit…I am just so disappointed with the way we lost (can you tell I’m not used to losing on this game lol.)

Due to the fact I can’t look at my squad without going red in the face, I resigned as manager of Spain. I just couldn’t bare the thought of waiting two more years for a major competition and playing all those pointless matches. I did wait until my mind was clear, but I still felt like my reign in Spain had to end.

Well that is the end of my International career with Spain, not the happiest of experiences but an experience all the same. Next time we’ll be back in Scarborough to see my home town take on season 18, I hope you’ll join me because there is a big surprise in store, to hear more about this just tune into the latest Podcast that will be available next week and a few hints will be revealed.