Today we bring you the first set of teams who will be competing in the inaugural (some say only ever) Blizzard Football Manager League. If you haven’t read our opening blog post, 13 bulging football brains, and a team made up by us poor schmucks behind the controls at Blizzard HQ, were each given £200m to bid against each other to construct a squad of 18 players to compete in the BFML.
Our friends at Sports Interactive are putting the finishing touches to our bespoke league, which will be kicking off shortly, but in the meantime the Blizzard office elves have been speaking to some of the managers, after the dust had settled on the bidding wars, to get their views on how things panned out.
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Lilleton OSC (Manager: Ben Lyttleton)
Full squad: Thibaut Courtois, Vincent Kompany, Alvaro Arbeloa, Pepe, Nacho Monreal, Younes Kaboul, Paul Pogba, Gökhan İnler, Ramires, Julian Draxler, André Schürrle, Jack Wilshere, Isco, Gareth Bale, Roberto Soldado, Willian, Silvestre Varela, Falcão.
Five most expensive signings: Falcão £46m, Bale £29m, Kompany £28m, Arbeloa £18m, Willian and Ramires £15m each
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The Blizzard – The minute you walked in the joint we could see you were a man of distinction…
Ben – Ok, I spent almost half my budget on three players, but what a trio: Radamel Falcao, Vincent Kompany and Gareth Bale. I could have picked anyone after that and still had a winning team (apart from Stewart Downing, perhaps; a rare non-Spaniard snapped up by Sid).
The Blizzard - Are you not worried about being a little bit light in the middle of the park, though?
Ben - Yes, my problem was in midfield: my main target was Arturo Vidal and after an edge-of-deadline back-and-forth with Mr Zonal Whatever, I was convinced Arturo was mine for £15m. But no! The final ruling on the bids declared Vidal to Zonal, and I was stunned. I have not spoken to Zonal or Vidal since.
That sent me into a spiral of failed bids: Sivertsen was psychotic in his desire for both Xavi and Philipp Lahm, but I soon pulled off a masterstroke and signed Thibault Courtois for £6m – my best bargain, I feel – and after annoying Wilson by beating him to Willian, boosted my midfield with a raft of young talents destined to fall short of expectations: Draxler, Pogba, and Wilshere.
The Blizzard – So you’re fairly content, then?
Ben – Yes, I like my team: it has experience at the back, dynamism in midfield, and in Bale and Falcao, two of the best attacking players in the world. All together now, ‘Arturo Who?’
The Blizzard - That’s the spirit. Cheers, Ben.
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Estella Damn (Manager: Sid Lowe)
Full squad: Pepe Reina, Sergio Ramos, Gerard Piqué, Rafael, Daniel Agger, John Arne Riise, Martin Montoya, Lucas Leiva, Stewart Downing, Sergio Canales, Danny Murphy, Joaquin Sanchez, Ander Herrera, Andres Iniesta, Luka Modrić, Adrian, Alvaro Negredo, Fernando Torres
Five most expensive signings: Iniesta £62m, Ramos £30m, Piqué £27m, Modric £24m, Torres £9m
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Torpedo Sivertsen (Manager: Lars Sivertsen)
Full squad: Manuel Neuer, Filipe Luís, Holger Badstuber, Benedikt Höwedes, Nicolás Otamendi, Philipp Lahm, Darijo Srna, Radja Nainggolan, Lars Bender, Tom Huddlestone, Xavi, Marek Hamšík, Mario Götze, Shinji Kagawa, Jefferson Farfán, Papiss Cissé, Leandro Damião, Lukas Podolski
Five most expensive signings: Xavi £27m, Götze £26m, Lahm £18m, Damião £16m, Neuer £15m
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The Blizzard – You’ve got to be fairly happy with how that turned out, Lars. Did the auction all go according to plan?
Lars – Whatever strategy I might have had, it was badly undermined by my tendency to be a bit ‘tired and emotional’ at crucial times during the auction. This led to some eccentric bidding on my part, or indeed sometimes no bidding at all. For instance, I bought Julian Draxler for £7m entirely to spite Lyttleton – but later discovered that he wasn’t very good in the game. So I gave him away for free, and he subsequently got snapped up by Lyttleton.
In that same auction round I got into a bidding war with him over Xavi and Kompany – we ended up getting one each, but at quite an inflated price.
The Blizzard - We can empathise with being a bit ‘tired and emotional’ when we should be working, just don’t tell Mr Wilson. Who were the ones that got away, then?
Lars – I was gutted to miss out on Papadopoulos and Dede, who I think would have made a fine defensive partnership. But I’d been foolishly distracted by the bright lights of London that night, and Steinberg got them both pretty cheaply.
The Blizzard – Still, all’s fair in love and auctions, though.
Lars - Yes. Needless to say, I’m keen on beating Lyttleton after the Xavi/Kompany debacle, though. Also, Michael Cox made fun of me for signing Huddlestone, so obviously I’d like big Tom to take him down. As far as Torpedo Sivertsen goes, I think spending a combined £53m on Xavi and Götze was perhaps a bit excessive. Both came as a result of fierce bidding wars with Lyttleton and Okwonga, respectively. Getting Hamsik for £8m and Papiss Cissé for £1m wasn’t bad business, however.
The Blizzard - It sounds like quite the struggle. Do you think you came out on top? And if not, who do you fancy for the title?
Lars - Generally you’d fancy Macintosh for the title in this kind of thing, but his squad doesn’t look all that good [more on that in tomorrow's update]. On the other hand he’s probably played Football Manager more than the rest of us combined, which should work to his advantage. On paper Cox and Marcotti look very strong, with Wilson as a bit of a dark horse. Lyttleton’s team looks handy as well. Damn him.
My squad though? The defense looks a bit poor, I’ve got no backup goalkeeper, while Podolski and Huddlestone both look like fairly pointless acquisitions. So even though I’ve spent a lot of money and the league hasn’t started yet, I’m going to channel Harry Redknapp and say that I’m already down to the bare bones.
The Blizzard - Spoken like a true wheeler-dealer. Thanks, Lars, and all the best.
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VfL Honeystone 07 (Manager: Rafael Honigstein)
Full squad: Bernd Leno, René Adler, Rafinha, Mathieu Debuchy, Philipp Wollscheid, Daley Blind, Diego Contento, Leonardo Bonucci, Emre Can, David Alaba, Roman Neustädter, Rômulo Borges Monteiro, Andrea Pirlo, Marco Reus, Franck Ribéry, Marco van Ginkel, Robert Lewandowski, Lionel Messi
Five most expensive signings: Messi £90m, Ríbery £25m, Reus £25m, Pirlo £15m, Lewandowski £10m
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Zonal Marking (Manager: Michael Cox)
Full squad: Hugo Lloris, Morgan de Sanctis, Lukasz Piszczek, Jordi Alba, Éric Abidal, Mats Hummels, Martin Škrtel, Yuto Nagatomo, Arturo Vidal, Jérémy Toulalan, Daniele de Rossi, Hernanes, Stevan Jovetić, Samir Nasri, Antonio Valencia, Arjen Robben, Antonio di Natale, Didier Drogba
Five most expensive signings: Robben £26m, Hummels £22m, De Rossi £21m, Drogba £18m, Alba £16m
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The Blizzard – Ever the pragmatist, your squad seems like it’s full of players who can do a decent job without necessarily being overburdened with superstars…
Cox - I basically wanted options throughout the side, so made sure I had certain types of players at the back: a full-back who can play centre-back (Eric Abidal), a defensive midfielder who can play at the back (Jeremy Toulalan), a full-back who can play on either side (Yuto Nagatomo)…
Going forward, all my attackers are in some way different – Arjen Robben and Antonio Valencia might both be right-wingers, but one goes down the line while another cuts inside. Didier Drogba is a target man, Antonio Di Natale drifts along the line, Stevan Jovetic plays much deeper.
The Blizzard – It sounds to us like you’ve got this all sorted. A title charge surely awaits?
Cox – I’ve probably over-thought this a little, and I’m not very confident. I only hope to finish above Lars, purely because he uttered the sentence, “I needed a back-up for Xavi, so I bought Tom Huddlestone.”
The Blizzard - Yes, we spotted that too. Thanks, Michael, and good luck.
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Well so far I fancy Lilleton OSC for the title. Sid Lowes squad is crazy. Torres, Downing, Danny Murphy?!!! He’s only 5 years too late. Can’t wait for the next update and for Kick off.
Zonal Marking looking quite strong! Some real FM beasts in that side — no reason they won’t have a shot at the title.
Lilleton OSC has my vote as well. They look very strong
The lack of movement for Clint Dempsey is disappointing. VFL Honeystone 07′s squad seems a little top-heavy – perhaps Hognistein should have bid for Neven Subotić.
Or Titus Bramble, just to really put the shits up the competition.