Football Manager 2014: 5 Challenges Everyone Should Try

3. The Zero To Hero Challenge

This is perhaps the challenge most of us will have tried at one point or another with very much contrasting outcomes. The idea of this challenge is to start a new game as a manager with no previous experience and also unemployed. This means you will most likely be managing at an amateur club in the lowest division of your selected nation. It is important that you do not have any past experience on your manager profile and that you definitely do not put 'former international' as it will totally ruin the challenge. The general idea is that you and the club you take over will be most likely very low in terms of reputation and ability. You need to develop both yourself and your club in order to progress through your domestic divisions. It will be a long term save but also in incredibly rewarding one. Depending on how much you play FM or how difficult you find the game will dictate what sort of goals you target within this challenge. I think most players would set the initial targets of winning the top domestic league and also the continental competition that is associated with your domestic league. Once/if you manage to do this then you can start thinking about more in depth targets to try and aim for. Such as becoming the richest club in the world, going a season unbeaten, using only home grown players, never spending over '£X' on a player, whatever takes your fancy. If you want an even greater challenge, you could download a custom database and start off in your nation's lowest division. My biggest FM save on this years game to date involved me starting in the Northern League Division One with my home town team of Norton & Stockton Ancients F.C. This was one of my most enjoyable projects for a long time and after something like 8 promotions I was finally in the premier league. It took me another 4 or 5 years to transform my team into domestic champions whilst I suffered in Europe, losing three straight Champion's League finals. Eventually though I did manage to get a foothold on both domestic and continental competition. My save was well into the 2030's and it was hugely enjoyable. I'm sure a lot of you have tried this challenge and become a club icon maybe even had a new stadium named after you, please share some stories below.