We asked our resident American Football Manager superfan Brian Cook aka @SoccerwithBrian to bring us his Player of the Year from Football Manager 2020 - and what a player it is 🔥🔥.
In my nine years of playing the world’s best football/soccer management game (we’ll allow it), I’ve rarely found myself drawn towards specific individual players. You have some “favoured” players or players who have magical moments (like Jay Dasilva driving the length of the pitch to send my Philly Union side into extra time of the MLS Cup on FM18) but I rarely, until FM20, found myself emotionally attached to a player…that is until a scout suggested a player from Japan who would change the very existence of my 1860 Munich save.
I play Football Manager on an 8 year old laptop. It still runs the game, sure, but it does show it’s age. Normally it’s age is shown when I do silly things like a maximum player database which is what I chose to do for my “career” save bringing 1860 back from 3. Liga to Bundesliga glory. We didn’t win any continental trophies but I had a blast building a culture and mindset with a club who simply were looking for a strong leader.
As I rode in on my horse waving my American flag, my goal in the beginning of the save was to, as much as possible, save my youth players for as long as I could. If you haven’t looked into them, 1860 have a stupidly strong youth set-up for their level and easily produce some quality youth players who could be both financiers for your promotion push or keys for silverware winning sides when they come of age.
I produced a few here and there, and I attempted to hold onto as many as I could while selling those who wouldn’t fit into my tactical plans long term and investing into facilities, new players etc…the stuff you should when you are trying to do the casual “starting from the bottom to world class club” type of stuff.
After securing promotion in our first season, we spent a season in Bundesliga 2. I had begun to remove the responsibilities of certain things from staff to have more control over the directions we were headed
Screens like this became common sights for the club and as we hit the beginning of our second season I knew that I wanted more and wanted to find the coveted “hidden gem” that we all dig deep for in each save we play.
Enter, Kang Chung-Guk - The greatest player to come out of Japan:
There were two reasons this signing excited me. One - this was not a player that I found myself. With a large database, I went out and threw my scouts at any and all hot prospects out there. Guk came to Germany for 625K USD flat from an amateur side in Tokyo (Tokyo Metro Feliz). That money likely kept that club afloat for years and in exchange, we got what would turn out to be the key to a promotion.
Physically, Guk lacked what I would want from him in terms of attributes. Rarely have I found success with a striker that can outpace everyone but weighs a fraction of any other players even if they are soaking wet with two bricks in their pockets…however Guk was different. Despite being a natural False Nine, we threw him up top as a pressing forward and let him stress defenders out. The shocking aspect of his abilities were the fact that he was a set piece specialist… specifically with throw ins.
Guk was a mystery. I didn’t understand how the smallest player in size and height could be such a goal scoring machine but he was Mister 1860, taking the team on his back as we rode into promotion into the Bundesliga. The problem? As he got better… the teams that wanted him got better…
I don’t have any kids yet. But as the save progressed, I kept watching this young man grow confident in his new team and take such a massive step from the amateur depths of Japan to the massive waters of Germany. It was amazing to watch as I’ve rarely had this level of development but as time grew on, I got the feeling that I wouldn’t have him for his entire career. Despite hitting our goals and starting stupidly strong in the Bundesliga - Guk wanted more. He wanted things we weren’t ready to provide… yet. We had some solid players around him, we were building something special, but as he hit his 20s, he was hungry for Champions League football, which was, unfortunately, something we could hit yet.
We fought off most of the suitors for a season but it was painfully clear, I couldn’t stand in the way of a player’s desire to what is best for his career. By the time he was 21, Guk had hit “elite” status in game. Hertha Berlin had came in around 150 million and I stupidly called their bluff to see if I could get more from them. I couldn’t. Guk got upset as he was ready to go and was tired of me trying to squeeze value you out of him. I fought off many in-league buyers, namely Bayern Munich who were our fierce rivals. After much consideration, I realize the best decision was to ship him off to a “small” team in Spain called “Real Madrid.” Maybe Madrid had finally found their new Ronaldo, who knows, but it hurt to watch him leave. He was Mr. Reliable, the promotion hero, and the man responsibility for sending 1860 back to the top flight of German football but, all good things had to come to an end, and that included us not standing in the way of a player destined for greatness. With his funds and the profits from it, Guk’s sale actually pushed us to a point of challenging for the Bundesliga title as well as finally returning 1860 to their own stadium.
The post Guk era saw us come within a point of the Bundesliga title and challenge in Europe quite frequently but, as we reach the end of the FM20 life cycle, I will always look back at this save and this player and wonder what would have happened had we kept Kang and whether he would have led me to my first European title in my (going on) 10 years of playing Football Manager.
Thanks for reading!
Brian.
If somehow you haven’t been entertained by Brian’s consistently epic FM community support as well as his equally epic in-car hype videos, be sure to drop him a follow on Twitter - you won’t regret it.
Interested in writing a Guest Author piece for WeStreamFM? Drop us a DM or else feel free to reach out to @MaddFM directly.
