FM Streamer Showdown

The First FM Streamer Showdown

 
 

This weekend saw the first FM Streamer Showdown take place over two nights on Twitch. The premise was simple, 8 players draft a 500 million pound team, they all play against each other in a single game league format which decided the seeding for Sunday’s knockout competition where the first winner would be crowned.

If you didn’t read last week’s blog about how the draft went down and our predictions, you can find it here.

We rolled in to the weekend with many of the streamers predicting SecondYellowCard to be the tournament favourite whilst at the same time hoping that their draft picks and prepared tactics would see them come out on top. As we reached 7pm on Saturday, every streamer was live on Twitch and the first round of games kicked off.

All four of the first games ended in a draw which nobody would have predicted before the start but it showed that the teams were balanced and it would be a battle of the best tactician that would be successful. As we progressed to the second round of matches we started to see the impact of the tactical tweaks. HerbTheNerd vs UnarmingPine was the shock result of GW2 which saw Herb run out 5-1 winners, a result that saw the emergence of Tammy Abraham as a potential for draft of the tournament.

GW3 picked up where GW2 finished, with some amazing results. FoxInTheBoxFM beat DoctorBenjy in his sole victory of the league format but the round of the tie had to go to Curty vs UnarmingPine. Curty’s side were 3-0 up within 15 minutes, only for Pine’s side to salvage 2 goals in 10 minutes to make the tie tasty in the second half and just two minutes in to the second half Football Manager Wonderkid, Erling Haaland, bagged a goal to bring the tie level. Curty then took the lead again with a goal from Timo Werner only for Kasper Dolberg to tie the game in what would finish as a 4-4 draw.

GW4 brought us a match-up between Lollujo & DoctorBenjy, Ben had referenced the tie as a bye, but the 1-0 victory showed that it was probably tighter than he had expected. Herb & Zealand played out a tremendous 3-3 draw but it was UnarmingPine that took the spoils in GW4 with a 5-0 victory over out tournament favourite, FoxInTheBoxFM. £90m signing Eden Hazard came up with the goods scoring a 24 minute hat-trick piling the misery on to a devastated Foxy.

GW5 ended with four teams tied on 8 points meaning it would be all to play for, Lollujo had beaten Curty 2-0, HerbTheNerd dispatched SecondYellowCard with another Abraham brace & Zealand pilled more heartache on to Foxy with a 3-0 victory. The penultimate games of the league saw WeStreamFM nemesis’ Curty & Herb face off against each other with Herb winning the game 2-0 with a brace from Bruno Fernandes, once again proving that he is the superior Football Manager (note. he paid for this sentence.). DoctorBenjy & his tip for victory, SecondYellowCard, played out a 0-0 draw. Lollujo kicked Foxy while he was down handing him a 5-1 thumping but there were calls for set-piece hackz throughout… FMBase or Zealand as we’ve come to know him took advantage of Joel Matip’s red card in his game against Pine, Julian Brandt scoring the winner in the 60th minute securing 3 points for the American.

We went in to the final round of games with Herb & Lollujo joint top of the league on 11 points, it was all to play for. Lollujo won his game against UnarmingPine 2-0 and had wrapped his tie up faster than the game between Herb & Ben which saw Herb leading Ben 2-0. Ben, seeing that Lollujo had won and already 2-0 down, decided to go all out attack, some say it was to try and get himself back in the game, others would tell you that putting Luis Suarez in goal and playing defenders was probably a ploy to help Herb finish top of the league and destroy Kev’s morale but we’ll let you make your own minds up on that.

 
 

So with all 7 games played HerbTheNerd was crowned league champion and the seeding was set for Sunday’s knockout tournament.

 
 

Player Stats:

Goals - Tammy Abraham 10, Sadio Mane 5, Robert Lewondowski 5

Assists - Ben Chilwell 6, Son Heung-Min 4, Antony Martial 3

Average Rating - Tammy Abraham 8.37, Hector Bellerin 7.72, Fabinho 7.65

Clean Sheets - Lucas Hradecky 4, David de Gea 3, Samir Handanovic 2

Player of the Match - Sadio Mane 3, Fabinho 2, Renan Lodi 2

Sunday & Knock Out Football Manager

We rolled in to Sunday with Saturday’s league standings dictating the draw for the first round of the Streamer Showdown Knock Out. A lot of noise had been made overnight, some had been testing tactics until 2am, some were calling for a match fixing investigation and then there was Herb, the league winner, just turning up with no prep to face Foxy who was fresh from licking his wounds and desperate to change his fortunes.

It wasn’t a great start from the WeStreamFM boys, Herb lost to Foxy with a last minute winner and Curty, well when your centre half does this you know the game is out to get you:

In the other games, UnarmingPine clearly done some work overnight and destroyed SecondYellowCard 7-1 over two legs and DoctorBenjy progressed with a 3-1 victory over Zealand.

The semi-final matched UnarmingPine with DoctorBenjy in the top half of the draw with FoxInTheBoxFM playing Lollujo in the bottom half. It’s fair to say that Lollujo made it very clear that the person he didn’t want to play was Foxy, even after Saturday’s performance, yet his performances over 2 legs saw him run out a 6-2 winner with set pieces proving to be a powerful weapon in his arsenal. In the other semi-final we had a tight first leg with Pine taking a single Erling Haaland goal through in to the second leg. Ben wasn’t worried before the game and his players sensed his confidence and started the game on fire scoring after 2 minutes with a Sergej Milinkovic-Savic wondergoal, picking up the ball in his own half running through the spine of Pine’s team finishing with a powerful effort. Game on. Ben continued to dominate the game and in the 34th minute David Brooks popped up with a left footed curling effort from just inside the box. Milinkovic-Savic completed the scoring with a screamer from the edge of the box seeing DoctorBenjy progress to the final where he would meet Lollujo.

The two legged final couldn’t have been tighter, we had seen Lollujo score big against everyone, other than DoctorBenjy and these two games continued in the same fashion. Lollujo took the lead from a set-piece, but it was actually DoctorBenjy’s Trent Alexander Arnold that put the ball in to his own net. As we approached halftime, Ben-Yedder found his shooting boots and popped up with a goal to bring the tie level. The second half was tight and a draw was probably deserved. The second leg started like the first, Lollujo’s Varane scored from set-piece after 19 minutes. DoctorBenjy clawed one back when Nacho picked the ball up on the edge of the box and rifled one in to the top corner. The game was end to end in the second half but neither side could take the advantage and the game went to extra time. With both sides tired Luis Suarez had a brilliant chance to win the game for DoctorBenjy but he fired it straight at David de Gea. The game went to penalties.

Lollujo - Vardy ❌, Fabinho ✔, Mbappe ✔, Barkley ✔, Chilwell ✔

DoctorBenjy - Felix ✔, Suarez ❌, Depay ❌, De Jong ✔

Lollujo is crowned the winner of the inaugural #FMStreamerShowdown 🏆

 
 

What a fantastic weekend of Football Manager action, there were twists and turns everywhere you looked and we can’t wait for Season 2.

The event was organised & implemented brilliantly by everyone involved, thanks to Ben & Foxy for putting it together, the streamers for taking part, Steve, TheFMEditor85, for building the database & Dave Azzopardi for hosting a 9 man network save… that didn’t crash! Most importantly, thank you to everyone that watched the streams over the two days, we hope you enjoyed them.

Dave is compiling a highlights package of the tournament so keep your eyes out for that.

Until next time… get your nuts out.

#FMStreamerShowdown

 
 

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!)

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