So after playing FM19 for a total of around 25 seasons over a few saves, I encountered game breaking bugs in 2 of them! The first was a hall of fame save I did, and right before a Europa League game in the 7th season the game kept giving me crash dumps. I reported it to the SI forums only to be told the bug wouldn’t be fixed and that game was lost. The most recent was season 6 in my previous blog, found here, right at the start of season 6 (I had played 5 season’s, but only blogged 3) the game wouldn’t generate any new fixtures for Northern Ireland clubs. This wouldn’t have been an issue if I had cleared the Northern Ireland part of the challenge, but I hadn’t, rendering that save obsolete. When I get game breaking bugs it puts me off restarting, that’s why I’m going back to FM17.
In FM17, I had my most favourite save in any FM game, and I’ve been playing since CM 99/00 so 20 years worth. Not only have I had my best saves in 17, but the game had never crashed on me, and with the additional leagues from Claasens mega pack the game was always stable. In my favourite save, I managed a number of clubs, the ones I can remember managing were York City where I started, Wellington Phoenix, New York Fc, Portland Timber, Gangwon, Pohang Steelers, Amkar Perm, CSKA Moscow, Lokomotiv Moscow and Zenit Saint Petersburg. Those are the ones I remember but there will have been more, and because of that I am going to attempt the Pentagon Challenge in FM17. I never liked FM18 for various reasons and hardly played it, that’s why I’m sticking with 17.
Not only that, but 1 of the best FM blogs you’ll find, Franjo’s blog, found here, is played in FM17, as are Journeyman’s Journey found here, and DNZY’s Climbing Jacobs Ladder found here all played in FM17.
The Pentagon Challenge consists of winning the Champions Leagues from each of the 5 continents in the base game which are:
• UEFA Champions League (Europe)
• CONCACAF Champions League (North America)
• COPA Libertadores (South America)
• AFC Champions League (Asia)
• CAF Champions League (Africa)
The aim of the challenge is to win each of the above listed competitions in any order. I’m not going down the ‘traditional’ route of starting unemployed, but I am going to be starting at a 1 star rep team with no coaching badges and Sunday League rep. As an added target for this challenge, I am going to aim to win each of the 5 Champions Leagues at least twice! As well as this I have seen other people putting international competitions such as the Euros, Copa America, World cup and so on so I am going to add the World cup in the aims for this save, as well as the Europa League & Copa Sudamericana.
The full list of achievements I am aiming for are:
- Win each of the 5 continents Champions League at least twice
- Win the World Cup more than once
- Win the World Cup with at least 2 different nations
- Win the Euopean Championships & COPA America at least once
- Win the Europa League & Copa Sudamericana at least once each
- Become favoured personnel at 3 clubs
- Become club icon at 2 clubs
- Become club legend at 2 clubs
As for leagues loaded, I have added 2 additional databases, those being the leagues for United Arab Emirates & Qatar. The reasoning behind this is that unless you get to manage either Guangzhou Evergrande, Pohang Steelers or Jeonbuk (and those are the teams you see on just about every Pentagon Challenge) then you don’t have any chance of winning the Asian Champions League, from experience South Korean teams seem overpowered to me, and Chinese teams overload with foreign players and dominate. I have seen on previous FM17 saves teams from Qatar & UAE getting to the final of the Champions league, and I myself have done so on previous saves too. At the start I also have Australia, USA, Mexico, Portugal, Russia & Spain loaded. As the game progresses I will be removing leagues and adding, namely South Africa after a couple of seasons and then either Brazil or Argentina.
So welcome to my journey, man!
Episode 1 – The journey begins
An Aussie's Journey, man. 