So guys, the inaugural Football Manager Streamer Showdown is upon us and I for one am excited for it. We have eight of your favourite creators coming together to provide you with, what we hope, will be brilliant live stream action taking place on Twitch on Saturday & Sunday evening from 7pm.
The draft was carried out on Wednesday evening with all eight creators live at the same time, all battling out to secure their player picks and build a 23 man squad for under £500m.
So who are the creators and what do we know about their teams?
FoxInTheBoxFM - The reigning Football Manager Creators Cup Champion comes in to this showdown as the favourite. His meticulous planning arguably won him the Creators Cup and it was obvious by yesterday’s draft that he had been planning again. The standout signing for Foxy was Roberto Firmino who he splashed £73m & will likely partner exciting Argentine, Lautaro Martinez, who we’ve marked out as great value at just £46m. Foxy could have been bluffing on yesterday’s stream, he lined up in a 3-4-1-2 system but his recent streams with Reading suggest this may slip in to a 4-3-1-2.
DoctorBenjyFM - He’s the doctor they told you to go see, so listen up closely, he’s firing on all cylinders with his first eleven which includes a number of familiar players from his time with Inter Milan… but we don’t see Danny Graham. Ben has a lot to prove in the showdown, defeats to lesser opposition suggest that complacency may be in this manager’s arsenal, yesterday’s stream however, proved that he’d been planning and his draft spreadsheet gave us a peek behind the curtain at his preparation. Ben’s high value player was Uruguayan hitman, Luis Suarez with our value for money markers being placed on Joao Felix and Wissam Ben-Yedder both of whom were picked up for £15m each. We’re expecting Ben to start with a 4-2-3-1 system moving to his now-famed 3 ball-winning midfielder system when he’s looking to hold on to a lead… we suspect that’s why he has Dendoncker & Gueye sitting on his bench.
Lollujo - No respect was given to Kev as the guys started this draft but his starting lineup is one not to be messed with, in fact, it’s up there as a contender for best XI of the draft! His backup players, not so good, in typical Lollujo fashion ex-players or Posh legends were selected as the fodder for his bench with the exception of Jamie Vardy & Wilfried Ndidi… I told you, he’s been a sneaky one here! We’ve marked Marcus Rashford and Varane as his great value players at £36m & £27m respectively with his star player and joint highest signing of the draft, Kylian Mbappe leading the line. We expect Lollujo to start in a 4-2-3-1 system with inevitable tinkering when he let’s his chat take over the decision making.
Zealand - Billy big balls! Zealand has the highest valued first XI in the draft, a £140m front pair of Robert Lewandowski & Antoine Griezmann are supported by the likes of Koulibaly (£58m), Rakitic (£49.5m) & de Ligt, who we highlighted as his great value signing, at £36m. His star players are undoubtedly the aces in his pack and as we’re suggesting that he’ll start with a 4-4-2 we only hope that nobody gets injured as there are slim pickings in reserve. It’s a ballsy move, but it could be risk that serves him well.
SecondYellowCard - I really don’t know what to think about SYC’s draft, on one hand there’s not a player I don’t like, but on the other hand there’s only one that really stands out which is Sadio Mane at £83m who is obviously his star player & with his regular moves to Real Madrid in FM20 he’s highly rated there as well so there’s an argument that he represents great value in the draft as well. The other player we’ve marked as great value is Alain Saint Maximin at £21m. Really?, I hear you ask, well there is a reason for that. SYC has a sneaky weapon up his sleeve and that’s his impressive 4-2-3-1 tactic that he’s been using with Uniao Da Madeira… and it’s very attacking suggesting that Saint Maximin’s pace could exploit those tired defenders.
UnarmingPine - No Paqueta, no Partey, except he has both and there will be! In what had the potential to be Milan 2.0 in Pine’s draft he has selected well and we’d expect his Milan tactic to be the base of his attack come the weekend. His star buy was Eden Hazard at £90m with his great value players being marked as Neves and Paqueta who both cost less than £20m. Pine has a lot of game changers in his side and I’m expecting an upset or two to come from FM Wonderkid Erling Haaland.. yes, he signed him.
Curty - I spoke to Curty earlier about his squad and he told me he had a plan, I’m sure he has, but it felt more like the plan a chef would come up with on Ready, Steady, Cook when he’s been revealed the items in the secret bag. I really want to Curty to succeed in this competition but I don’t share his confidence in that squad. We couldn’t pick a star player as I don’t think there is one, but there was some value, Adama Traore at £12m can cause havoc, whilst Barella & Vinicius Junior, who we think might be on the bench came in at good prices. Curty’s a WeStreamFM boy so I want him to do well, but I fear the Champ might become the Chump after the weekend’s results are in.
HerbTheNerd - The Creators Cup Runner Up wants to go one step further this time round by winning the competition and to do so…. he signed mainly Premier League players. Alas, all is not lost as he’s signed some brilliant players, we’ve marked Callum Wilson as his star player, not because of his value, but how highly he’s rated in Football Manager, I know he’s scored bucket loads against me! His great value players came in the form of Manchester United players, Maguire, Shaw & Martial, all three’s values in comparison to other Premier League players was staggeringly low so let’s hope The Homeless One becomes The Special Brew One when it’s all said and done on Sunday evening.
Predictions - So how do we think they’ll do? Well we’ll let the image do the talking as it’s not looking good for our WeStreamFM’ers but we’re confident that they’ll want to prove us wrong! Who do you think will be victorious?
#WeStreamFM Predictions
You can catch all of the events happening live on Twitch from 7pm Saturday & Sunday (BST). We’ve created a multilink for you to enjoy all 8 streamers at the same time https://bit.ly/FMStreamerShowdown (note. Mute all streamers and then unmute who you want to listen to or it’ll echo all over the show!)