Football Manager 2012 Malaga story: Season 4 report, just getting ridiculous

Hey guys and welcome back to my Football Manager 2012 Malaga story. I have breezed through 3 seasons so far, winning the La Liga title twice, Copa del Ray once and Champions League once. After such great success I decided to try and share in some of my glory by creating a Football Manager 2012 guide to win with Malaga. For anyone who missed that post just click the link, but for those who are fully up-to-date, lets get cracking with season number four. I have a lot to share today so we’ll make this more about the images so you don’t have to spend an age reading through text that is already explained by my screenshots. So settle in and prepare yourself for the most bizarre season I have ever played in FM.

We’ll begin with my transfers out, 5 players were sold this season and for excellent cash I am happy to report. While Paloschi, Lodeiro, Scheletto and Monreal were all great players they were not first choice and I wanted to make room to develop my youth. A total of £53 million was raised, not bad considering all the departures struggled to get in the first team.

With some cash raised I went into the transfer market confident and looking for youth. I found 5 top quality regens and two of which will get their chance this season. After signing all those under 19’s I brought in Nangis purely on reputation and then the big, big transfer…Eden Hazard, this kid will be immense from the left wing and I was happy to pay £42 million. My overall spend was £56 million but balanced nicely by the £53 million we recouped by selling players.

FIFA Club World Cup

After winning the Champions League in style I earned the novelty of playing in the Club World Cup, a tournament every European team would expect to win. All went to plan in the semi as Seongnam were trashed 3-0 thanks to Daniel Sturridge, but the final was against tougher opposition in Sao Paulo. The Brazilian champions made a real game of it with Moura, Baptista and Teixeira but Malaga proved too strong as my second string XI won 2-1.

La Liga results — first half of the season

What do all managers want after a treble winning season? A whirlwind start to the new campaign and that is what I got. During the first 20 games Malaga won 17 and drew just three to Valencia, Real Madrid and Getafe all of which are respectable opponents.

The wonderful run had left me top of the table without much company. Barcelona lay 4 points adrift in second and I still had two games in hand that could stretch our lead to 10 points.

La Liga results — second half of the season

With the league looking all but over, I decided to keep things as they were to build up some unstoppable form for Europe and the Copa del Ray…at this stage I’d usually start developing my youth into the first team but wanted to try things differently for a change. The change of heart paid dividence as Malaga won 16 and drew just two of their last 18 matches. We finished the season unbeaten and scored 33 goals from our last 8 games, that’s an average of more than 4 goals per game.

Mathematics don’t lye so I won’t offer any suspense on where the title went. I finished the season without any defeats and was held just 5 times. We managed 118 goals and a record 104 points leaving Barcelona 20 points adrift. This was by far my easiest title victory to date and it feels like the team are replicating Barcelona’s dominance.

I thought it would be nice to share the players that made Malaga tick domestically. Hazard won award after award and Niang was the Golden boot winning not to mention the top five average ratings were dominated by four Malaga stars.

Copa del Ray results

So with that emphatic title victory out of the way, we move onto the Copa del Ray. Malaga won this competition last season after avoiding Real Madrid and Barcelona in the draw. Unfortunately the draw wasn’t so kind this season, after beating Barcelona in the quarter-final we drew Real Madrid in the semi-final. To be honest Malaga dominated both matches and deserved victory as we booked our place in the final against Valencia.

Copa del Ray final vs Valencia

Venue: Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid

Attendance: 80,354

Team formations:

With Niang and Danny Wilson out on International duty (which really pissed me off) I was left to field a slightly weakened XI. I also needed to rest my starlets Javi Martinez, Vrsaljko and Hazard but this didn’t worry me as the Valencia side seemed to have depleted over my 4 year FM reign. As always I won’t bore you by rambling on but I’d seriously recommend watching the match highlights below.

Match highlights: Click here to watch highlights of the Copa del Ray final

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Match stats:

Well what can be said about that, my side were just running riot and every attack felt like it could lead to a goal, my La Liga form in the build up to this match had hinted at a thrashing but you never know with this game. I am just delighted to have been able to sit back, enjoy the game and make substitutes for fatigue purposes as opposed to solving issues.

Champions League results

Two down and just one to go, so lets see what happened in Europe after last seasons major success. The group stage draw was quite kind to me as AC Milan, Schalke and Dinamo Bucharest came out of the hat. All three sides were beaten both at home and away, my most pleasing result was the 6-2 demolition of German side Schalke.

We obviously qualified from our group but to do it with six victories, scoring 20 goals and conceding less than a goal per game was excellent. AC Milan joined us in the next round as the other two sides disgraced themselves somewhat.

The draw for the first knockout round was just as kind as the group draw, FC Porto were my opponents and beaten with utter ease 5-0 on aggregate. I then drew Real Madrid in the quarter-final for two matches that would shake the Footballing World, Malaga won 4-1 at home and then 4-0 away equalling a staggering 8-1 aggregate victory and before you ask Real Madrid had a full strength XI for both matches. Through to the semi-final where London based Arsenal await, both matches were dominated by the La Liga champions as we won 5-1 on aggregate. Through to the final against FC Bayern who had scored 20 goals in the knockout stages alone compared to Malaga’s 18.

Champions League final vs FC Bayern

Venue: Estadio da Luz, Lisbon

Attendance: 65,647

Team formations:

So another Champions League final, but this year was against worthy opposition. In fact Bayern were the pre-match favourites having won all their knockout round matches in emphatic style. But we all know what my Malaga side are capable of and bar the absence of Niang my star striker I felt confident. FC Bayern had a full squad to select from and their forward thinking 4 look very, very dangerous. However, take a sharp glance at their back line, two central midfielders and I see a piss poor defensive unit. All out attack was my plan and please watch the highlights below to see how that panned out….this was the most bizarre Champions League final you’ll ever watch!!!

Match highlights: Click here to see the Champions League final match highlights.

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Match stats:

Absolutely ludicrous, I honestly can’t think of another way to explain the final and my season in general. While I love winning and doing so in style this is a little too far and kind of put a dampener on the match. When the scoreline reached 3-0 after 27 minutes I remember thinking, ‘wow, I can’t wait to share this’. But then the scoring continued and it made the whole achievement so unrealistic that it didn’t give me the same feeling as it usually would. I mean Bayern were excellent this season so to thrash them 9-0 on the World’s biggest club stage is too far. Had my team hit such a high level of form and confidence that any chance was bound to be a goal, were Bayern rubbish on the night, does the game have a glitch or should I take this as an achievement? I honestly don’t know the answer but I don’t exactly feel proud of the victory and that just isn’t right. Anyway, lets look at which players lit up Europe.

Squad stats and finances

After such a successful season we were bound to have massive ratings all round so let me just talk about the best of them. Hazard had a storming first season with 21 goals and 24 assists while his backup, Kagawa, scored 11 and assisted 17. Niang topped the scoring with 32 while my other main striker, Fierro, did his part with 22 goals. Defensively Boyata, Kara and Reich all got ratings of 7.6 and above chipping in with 21 goals between them from centre back. While Weiss continues his rise with 16 goals and 21 assists.

Off the pitch we were not so prolific but still managed to make a profit and finished the season with £6.4 million in the bank. This will certainly increase come pre-season as I don’t know how to improve the squad bar bringing in further youth.

Well that is it for today’s update, sorry it was a lengthy one but I hope you enjoyed it. Next season will feature a lot of youngsters as I try and raise the new generation of players, meaning I don’t expect a repeat of this years dominance where I focussed on playing my most in form players every match. Thanks for reading guys, please feel free to comment below and I look forward to reading your comments as always.