Football Manager 2012 Malaga story season 8 report

Hey guys and welcome to my Football Manager 2012 Malaga story season 8 report. Let me start by saying happy new year, I hope you all had a great holiday and have a wonderful 2012. Now back to the story, last time out Malaga won everything available and I also won the World Cup with England. Shortly after that I swapped England for Brazil and started preparations for my eighth and final season with Malaga. That is right, after this update I will be finishing up this save. There is the Copa America to report on but that will be my last, I then plan to take a break before deciding who my next save will be with. But we still have this season to look forward too and we’ll begin with my transfers.

I brought in a few new first team players. The first is Chamberlain who will rotate on the right wing with Sterling. After Ian Pepper impressed for England I purchased him to fill in at center back. Ricardinho was just irresistible and by clicking his name you’ll see why, the Brazilian striker will be rotated upfront. I also purchased Haser as a young prospect for the left wing with Hazard ageing fast. With these new arrivals I had to offload some of my better stars that were growing too old, this helped me raise £100 million including the bizarre loan fee that Liverpool paid for Niang.

Club World Cup results

As always we will begin my results report far afield with the Club World Cup. After reaching the final Brazilian champions, Corinthians, made us work very hard for the result with Malaga finally wrapping it up in extra-time 2-1.

La Liga results — first 20 matches

With a lot of important first team players sold in the summer I was putting my faith in the Y2G system and some well raised youth. We won 18, drew one and lost one of our first 20 matches which is a superb start to the season. My favourite match came in the 10-0 victory over Valladolid.

The brilliant form translated well on paper as Malaga were top of the table, two points above Barcelona with 3 matches in hand.

La Liga results — last 18 matches

The first half of the season went extremely well, but I’m afraid my usual high standards took a hit during our last 18 matches. While Malaga still won 14 matches and drew the other 4 we performed well under par. I was very happy with some results but entered every game unsure of which Malaga side would enter the pitch, this inconsistency could only be put down to myself offloading so many key squad members during the summer.

Having said all that what really matters is silverware and we sealed the title with ease. Barcelona remained the nearest competition but finished the season 14 points behind us.

Copa del Ray results

The Copa del Ray provided an easy draw for Malaga. After waltzing past Guijuelo, Almeria and Granada we beat Getafe in the semi-final to setup a final match against some worthy opponents in Real Madrid. This was my easiest route to the final since taking charge at Malaga.

Copa del Ray final vs Real Madrid

Venue: Estadio de Madrid

Attendance: 73,000

Starting formations:

Real Madrid still have a good side but seem to be living in the past. Ramos, Ronaldo, Higuain, Ozil etc etc are all past their best in my opinion and the Real side is much in need of some fresh new blood. On the other hand my Malaga side is full of youth with the majority of my players been under the age of 25. This match was a real thriller and rather than try explain it I’ll just leave you to watch the highlights below…also look out for the worst piece of sporting fair play I’ve seen in FM!!

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

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Match stats:

Malaga dominated this match and bar one early scare deserved the result fully. It was also nice to see Ricardo, my Brazilian midfielder play so well leading up to the Copa America. :)

Champions League results

My Champions League group proved to be easy batting practice. Most matches featured my second XI but we still won 5 and lost just the final match.

Malaga finished top of their group followed closely by Lyon, I was a little disgruntled to lose our final match but very happy to still secure the so called easier route.

The First Knockout Round draw pitted my boys against Celtic and we won with relative ease 6-3 on aggregate. However, the quarter-final was much tougher as Real Madrid offered a bit of fight. We could only draw the first leg at home 1-1, I then feared elimination but my boys came through in the second leg winning 1-0 away from home. Then my semi-final opponents were a step too far for my young team as Man Utd won both legs, at home 1-0 and away 2-1. So after winning the Champions League over the last 5 consecutive seasons my stronghold on Europe has ended, but we were a cut below the rest if I’m honest.

Squad stats and finances

After a good if not spectacular season I was left to thank a few players. Almost all my defenders were amazing while Hazard was the best attacking minded player with 11 goals and 26 assists. Upfront new signing Ricardinho managed to match Fierro in the goal scoring department with 32 goals a piece.

As you may remember I see finances as a huge part of the game. Winning trophies is not enough in my opinion and when you look at RL clubs losing money left right and center I like to try make money to escape the grim reality of modern day football. Thankfully that has happened with Malaga and I finish my rein with £221 million in the bank, considering our success and squad that is an excellent amount which leaves us the third richest club in the World with Real Madrid and Barcelona the only two above us.

Now we move swiftly on to my International management and Brazil. After taking over I had some Friendlies in which to test the water before 2019. I decided to use Johnny’s Barcelona 4-3-3 tactic, generally assigning an attacking strategy at home and against easy opposition while going with a counter strategy away from home and against tougher opposition. The counter tactic worked wonders as we beat France away 4-0 and Italy away 2-0, but the attacking tactic left us open to shock results including a 1-1 draw at home to Australia and 2-1 loss at home to Greece.

I decided to give the attacking tactic one last try away from home to Cyprus and even though we dominated yet again Brazil just managed to win 4-3. With the Copa America approaching I decided to stick with the counter attacking version of Johnny’s Barcelona tactic only as the more attacking version was causing too many upsets. You can read up more on Johnny’s exceptional tactic here.

That is almost everything for today’s update so I’ll just leave you with the Copa America draw. Brazil are in the same group as Ecuador, Mexico and Paraguay. Not exactly easy but I’d certainly expect to qualify, Mexico have some amazing talent while the other two should hopefully just make up the numbers. For those who wanted to see the regens that made me choose Brazil over Argentina, I’ll introduce them during the next post which is on the Copa America.

Well that is all for today, my rein in Spain has come to an end but this save still has one more update left. I hope you will join me to see how Brazil perform in the Copa America. Until then thanks for reading and I can’t wait to see your comments as always.

P.S. Can someone explain to me how Japan made it into the Copa America? I have heard of some glitches on the latest patch but this is a little weird.