Football Manager Challenges – FM19

Football manager challenges are challenges set by other people or by yourself for yourself. If you’re a FM fanatic like we are you’ve probably tried to challenge yourself in the past. When looking into football manager challenges available on the internet we’ve found ourselves a bit disappointed.

Somehow, we felt they were all easily achievable and we at the FMBrotherhood don’t like things that come to us easily.

You’d see challenges like “Win the first champions league with PSG or Manchester City, avoid relegation with this or that club”…

So, we bring you a list of our own unique football manager challenges.

Football Manager Challenges – Our Way

Our 1st Challenge – Gloucester to win the Premier League (Long and Hard)

If you’re not familiar with Gloucester, we don’t blame you. Most of us at the FMBrotherhood team weren’t either. But our team member Andrew has a passion for this club and he’s the one who told us about this challenge.

Founded in 1889, Gloucester City is a semi-professional English club playing in the Vanarama National League. That is the 6^th division which is divided into North and South. Gloucester is playing in the South division.

So, what’s the FM19 challenge?

The challenge is of course to win the Premier League or even the Champions Cup. You will have to get promoted 5 times without getting relegated just to get into the Premier League.

Andrew, our team member has done this, and he’s told us a bit about his experience.

“It’s a very long and hard football manager challenge. It will take all your time, but it is possible to complete. I’ve done it in FM11 where it took move 27 seasons to do so. The sense of achievement you get by every little upgrade you get is something you never get when you play with the big guns like Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern and so on…

By the time you win the Champions League, your Stadium will grow from 3000 capacity to 50000+.  Your youth and training facilities will develop from Poor to State of the Art.

It’s a long-lasting challenge which can be quite frustrating when you get so close to promotion, but you fail to do so. You finally sign a good player, but the board forces you to sell him as soon as a good offer comes in because they just need the money. You’ll have many ups and downs in the meantime, but it will all be worth it in the end. “

This football manager challenge can be done with any from the teams from the South or North Vanarama National League, but Andrew says he chose Gloucester because in 2011 when he did this challenge for the first time, they were only worth 11k as a whole and it was the lowest of all the teams and the media predicted them to finish last.

Challenge No.2 – Start Unemployed – Accept all offers – Win Champions Cup

There’s no need for a huge explanation of this football manager challenge. You will start unemployed with these leagues playable:

• Sky Bet League Two and above
• French National and above
• German Third Division and above
• Italian Serie C and above
• Spanish Second Division B and above

You must accept the first job offer you get, and you must always apply to all available ones, even if it means making your fans and board angry. (This causes a lot of problems and that’s why the challenge can be rough).

Whenever a team that is currently ranked higher than you (if in the same league) or from a higher division gives you an offer you must accept it. And you have to do that until you win the Champions League. You can decline job offers from Nation Managerial jobs.

You are allowed to give yourself a Continental Pro License and International Footballer reputation in this football manager challenge. This will make it easier to attract higher rated clubs.

Challenge No.3 – Home-Grown Players Challenge to Champions Cup

This is another tough football manager challenge where it gets harder and harder the longer you play.

So, what does this FM19 challenge involve?

• Start with a club of your choice (preferably one with Excellent, Superb or State of the Art facilities)
• You are allowed to play the players who are already at your club who aren’t home grown until they leave your club or retire
• All incoming transfers are forbidden
• You are allowed to sell or send players on loan

After a few years, after all, foreign players leave or retire you will find yourself with a full home-grown team. You have to win the champions cup with this team to complete this football manager challenge.

Football Manager Challenge No.4 – Director of Football Challenge and win the Champions Cup

The DoF challenge is another very hard football manager challenge in which you delegate all transfer tasks to the director of football. Even contract negotiation and extensions!

In this challenge, you aren’t even in charge of finalizing the transfers. The DoF does everything and you must agree with him. This is another frustrating challenge as the DoF will often bring in players that you don’t need, and you will have too many players in one position. Good management and rotations are key to finishing this FM19 challenge successfully.

The thing that makes this challenge so popular is the anticipation of the transfer window. Who is he going to bring in, do I need that player, will he finally buy me left back? Those are all questions you ask yourself when the transfer window starts.

One thing you’ll learn about the Directors of Football in FM19 is that they are quite stingy. They won’t overly pay for players that often even though it can happen from time to time. And a really good thing about them is they are good at finding and persuading good players on expiring contracts to join you.

One example from my last DoF challenge is him signing Clément Lenglet for free from Barcelona when he had 6 months left on his contract. He sold him a year later for $70M.

Another example is him buying Kai Havertz for a price that was a lot cheaper than when I signed him manually when I played a normal game without any challenges.

A bad example would be from FM14 where my DoF brought in 5 left backs to Manchester United and they all head First Team or Key Player in the contract. That caused me so many problems in the dressing room and the overall atmosphere in the club.

FM Challenge No.5 – Sir Alex Ferguson – FM19 Challenge

This is another Football Manager 2019 challenge from our team member Andrew who is a Manchester United fan. But you don’t have to be a fan of Man Utd to do this challenge. You can even hate them and that might be even better because it is a reason to throw them off their throne.

You aim to win no less than 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups and two Champion League titles.

 This can be done with any English club, but you’ll want to play with one of the “big guns” to have a chance in completing this challenge.

This is a really long and hard challenge as it will take you a minimum of 13 seasons to play with winning each and every one of them along the way just to be even with Ferguson. This should be enough time for you to win the FA Cup 5 times and 2 Champions League titles.

FM Challenges Conclusion

This was our first ever post about football manager challenges in FM19 and we wanted them to be a bit more unique than most other you can find on the internet. FM19 is a gift that just keeps on giving and it gives you ways to play the game in many different ways which give you as a player a new experience every time you do it.

These challenges are really fun to do and give you a sense of accomplishment which can’t be matched with a normal Champions Cup win with a team that is expected to win it.

We really hope you’ll try some of these and leave us a comment on how they are working out for you. Have you started and given up or are you committed to completing them?

Until next time, have fun and enjoy the game.