Footballers from computer games

[Blootoon87]

64bit heroes.

1. Michael Gardyne (Football Manager 10/11)- Picture the scene. After guiding Peterhead to second in the championship at the end of January, the only obstacle between us and premiership glory appears to be Raith Rovers surprisingly. 8 Points clear of us at the top and with an evergreen 36 year old Gardyne performing heroics for them, another season in the championship seems a distinct possibility.

I decided to chance my arm and ask how much Raith wanted for him, 50k was the answer. Bought and signed the next day for peanuts, he scored or assisted about 20 goals for me by the end of the season to bring home the title while Raith bombed and finally finished third.

2. Leroy Lita (Football Manager 10/11) - Scored the winning goal against Ross County in the same save to get us promoted to the Premiership. He did very little else and I only had him for one season but what a legend.

3. Billy Dodds (Football Manager 10/11)- Amazingly he makes the list for his tactical nous rather than playing ability. Appointed as my assistant the season we went up, and was my right hand man for more than a decade. Billy picked up the pieces when I (frequently) chucked the toys out the pram if we were being gubbed 2 or 3 nil at half time. I would click the 'go on holiday' button and return the next day to assess the damage. The number of times he guided the teams to highly improbable draws or wins was unreal. I never asked what he said to the players and he never told, but it worked miracles. BILLY LOVES FITBA!

4. Jari Litmanen (PES 2005ish)- This beautiful man was a wizard. Discovered how good he was when me and my pals used to play random matches and I ended up with Finland. He pulled the strings and generally floated about the place (at walking pace). Unfortunately it became apparent he was made of glass which led to some agricultural tackles as soon as he got the ball. If you could keep him out of harms way he would set up goals galore and deftly curl balls into the top corner with ease.

5. Tijani Babangida (Champ Man 2002?) - Signed for Peterhead on a free, few fans had heard of this ageing Nigerian winger. TJ showed them what they were missing though with mesmerising displays, jinking past defenders for fun he set up a shitload of goals for us and ended up player of the season. Unfortunately he left after one season when we finished second in the championship by a point to Falkirk. f**k Falkirk.

[Gaz]

To Madeira

[Sloop John B]

Benedict Vilakazi (Football manager 2006) - some random south african centre mid who was always the first signing I made

Carlos Tevez - Fifa 2005 - Surprisingly signed for Hibs from Boca Juniors and led them to champions league glory.

Adriano - PES 6 - Simply Unstoppable

Anthony Vanden Borre - The ultimate utility man, I couldn't care less about Vincent Kompany.

Joao Moutinho - The football manager love of my life.

[CM.]

Pablo Aimar and Diego Tristan - LMA manager

[calum_gers]

Mehmet Yozgatli - signed him for Wigan in FM 2007 or thereabouts and he propelled me to promotion. Top lad.

Antoine Sibierski - with Yozgatli in the hole Sibierski netted 46 in my first season in the Premiership as Wigan finished 2nd. Baldy f**k only got 3 or so the season after though.

Thierry Dutuel - regen from 97/98, put him penalties for my Rangers team despite having signed the entire England strike force. Another good lad.

Jason Dozzell - one of the first players I ever bought as I tried to rebuild my ageing Blackburn team in the 95/96 version, needless to say a few barren years ensued.

Patrick Thistle reserves 97/98 - there was about 5 of them you could buy for 100k and sell for 12million a pop. Although it wasn't worth selling them as they would win you the Champions League easily. I can't really remember their names, Kevin Mackenzie, Jim Lauchlan, Alex Martin, John Ritchid and there was a centre back too.centre

[tamthebam]

1.Mark Ceraolo- stolen from non-league Morecambe for sweeties on Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 and couldn't stop scoring to propel Leyton Orient to the Division 3 title..

2. The ageing legs of Charlton's Chris Powell got Bristol Rovers into Europe from D2 on USM98

3. John Salako- in the same team as Chris Powell

4. I renamed a player on XpertXI after Meadowbank's Dave Roseburgh and he went on to do rather well for my team.

5. For some reason on USM98 Scarborough goalie Ian Ironside was one of the highest rated in all of the English leagues- unfortunately they never parted with him despite my multi million pound bids otherwise he would have propelled me to glory

[mynameisearl]

Brian Plank x 5

[Egg Shen]

McArest - ISS Pro. Great baldy spot.

P. Ness - FIFA 95 - why are scotland in red?

[D.A.F.C]

Hate Adriano in real life because of how he was in PES.

Crafting together a masters team and tactics only to see them bulldozed by noobs running in a straight line.

[JamboMikey]

Pavel Dolezal - Regen on FM12. Signed him for free as a 17 year old and he was the playmaker and captain of my all conquering Hearts side for over 15 seasons. Beautiful long hair and a winning smile on his wee cherub face. I loved that cluster of pixels. I sometimes get sad that I don't have that save anymore.

Adriano - Back in the golden days of Pro Ev. The guy was strong, fast and had tonnes of skill. The ultimate football computer game player.

Alvaro Recoba - From the same era Pro Evs as Adriano and the same Inter side. Used to spend whole games against my mates cutting in from the left to try and get him to score a rabona.

Eddington - Baldy, Scottish left back from the original Pro Ev master league team. Got by due to hard work and being dependable in a team filled with much more talented and exotic players. A lesson to us all.

Miguel Linares - A Spanish centre forward who I think plays for Real Oviedo at the moment. Signed him mid season for my Hearts side on FM once and he scored the goals that won me my first league title with Hearts on an FM game. Some boy.

[Latino Lover]

Great topic:

1: Georgi Kinkladze on sensible world of soccer. Used to always play longest possible games on icy pitches as Georgia with ketsbaia just behind him, and the arveladze's up top. My mate was always Switzerland who were also decent at the time on sensi, but Kinkladze was just unbelievable with perfect ball control and couldn't be stopped, other than by injury. Great times.

2: emanuel olisadebe on pes2, the Nigerian born pole was an unfashionable choice alongside Batistuta, Figo, Carlos etc but had ridiculous pace and that counted for quite a bit in those great early days.

3 sinisa Mihajlovic, also early pro evo. The right wing Serb was never the quickest but his real life dead ball talents were well recreated on here, culminating in a memorable hat trick once v my mate as oz (tragic that I remember that). A solid master league signing and part of a decent Serbia and Montenegro side with Kezman, Stankovic and other useful players.

4 Scott booth, swos. Amiga format had a demo where you started as Aberdeen who I believe had Dodds and shearer around that time. The game ended if you lost making the tension unbearable and you couldn't save it either. Aberdeen was quite an exotic place to start for a young English boy.

5: Julian dicks, Manchester United premier league champions. Another Amiga game and sensi imitator, that ultimately was a flash in the pan but seemed a bit more polished. It was another dodgy copy where you couldn't save and it was also very hard to score from open play so my favoured tactic was to get penalties off mcmanaman then have the alleged bristolian hardman and very forgettable Liverpool player convert. I can only assume this was the first premier league season as I wouldn't of played as anyone other than Newcastle back then.

[BFTD]

Stephen McPhee - scored 50 goals in 102 games for Scotland in CM 01/02, and won the Golden Boot at the World Cup in 2014. Only scored one hat-trick and, unlike *cough* some countries' top scorers, he was equally happy hitting the net against Brazil or San Marino.

See also the holy midfield trinity of Kerr/Ferguson/Severin. More than a hundred caps each.

Colin Hendry - World Cup 98. I drove my girlfriend's brother mental by slide-tackling my way to constant goalless draws against whatever country he chose, followed by inevitable victory on penalties. Eventually he made me drop Hendry for a game against Holland, and I ended up 5-1 down at half-time. He stopped crowing for long enough to agree that I could bring on Hendry, but only in attack. Somehow managed to shitfest my way to a 5-5 draw, and the outcome of the penalty shoot-out resulted in a proper toys-out-the-pram session

[Fuctifano]

Trying to pick 5 is difficult, particularly as I gave up on CM / FM about 8 years ago when it got too in depth.

By game

SWOS- my relative bargain front 3 of Jorgen Petterson, Patrice Loko and Sonny Anderson were good for 200 goals a season between them as Queen's Park conquered all before them

Pro Evo 4- Ricardo Vaz Te- sign from Bolton, become best striker in the world. Even thought he was of Chinese origin due to how he looked in the game until he rolled up at Hibs years later.

The entire PTFC team of CM 97/98. No idea who got away with slinging that research through but he's been responsible for absolute haddies like Willie Howie getting more than 15 minutes of internet fame. Alan Archibald, who was the only one of that team to play in the top division in Scotland was pretty good in the game but eclipsed by guys like Chris Edwards who never played a first team game IRL but would win you the CL playing at CB.

Oliver Bierhoff- CM Italia 93/94- sign from Ascoli in serie B, play direct ball. Goals all over the shop. Got to be one of the earliest examples of the CM researchers getting it spot on.

P.Ness- Fifa 94, just because of the joke.

edit: on the other side of the coin I should point out I harboured lengthy IRL grudges against Tommy Johnson and Ashley Ward for their performances against me in CM 93/94

[Jarkko Wiss]

Anyone who played PES 2012 (or 2013, can't remember) will either love or hate Van Der Mirch.

[The Grass Is Greener.]

Adriano - PES 6 - Simply Unstoppable

Absolutely this

Unbelievable how much a machine he was, get it on his left peg and it was flying in.

[banana]

1. To Madeira - CM 01/02

The man. The legend. Nuff said.

2. Garrincha - PES 6/7

Utter speed and finishing demon. Feed him and he will score.

3. Gemmill - Kenny Dalglish Soccer Manager

Usually random generated as a wide midfielder, usually scored more than the strikers, sometimes 3/4/5 in a game.

4. Jim Duffy - Dundee's European Challenge

Defensive stalwart, baldy b*****d, always the first signing to go for when enough cash became available.

5. Fuckwhippet/Wankbean/Bumface/etc - Footballer of the Year

User-defined surname for inevitable Vardy-esque rise from the fourth tier to the top tier in four seasons.

[cmontheloknow]

Andre Sigporsson

David Collins

Championship Manager legends

David was a pal of mine's brother at MMU. After David was released by Burnley he went to MMU while playing with iirc Altrincham so we roped him in for a uni 5s competition - iirc he 'helped' us to the semi final though there were a few questions asked as to who he was! I think he picked up an injury so didn't play the semi and we were found out a bit.

Our team: David is in white and the only one who looks an athlete, would have been 1998-99ish.

[KnightswoodBear]

1. Maxim Tsigalko - 100 goal a season machine that could play at that level for 20 years if you signed him as a 17 - 18 year old in Champ Man 01/02. I think my all time record with him in my all conquering Rangers side was 150 odd goals in one season. Man mark the keeper FTW.

2. To Maderia - Fake player snuck into CM 01/02 by the Portuguese analyst for the game, Tsigalko's perfect partner.

3. Mark Kerr - Essential purchase from Falkirk at the start of any 01/02 game.

4. Taribo West - Your first action after taking over a team was to offer big Terrible West a contract on as much cash as you could afford.

5. Mark Van Bommel - Sit him in the hole in the DMC position and push him on right up behind the strikers. 20 goals plus a season and even more assists.

[Dave1875]

Carlos Vela - Football Manager 2006

Signed him for Hibs from Arsenal for a small fee. Absolutely destroyed the League and Cups before being sold to Real Madrid for a healthy £20million. He was worth less than that and it took one of those "chairman accepting the bid in your stead" moments for him to leave

Pione Sisto - Football Manager 2015

The must signing for most clubs with good money. Could be bought cheap and turned into an absolute monster

edit: adding more since we've finally found a St Mirren fan who can count, wasn't going to use regens since people have already mentioned players I'd include so...

Laurie Pyper (Great name) - Football Manager 2014

Absolute beast of a regen, only 5 star potential regen I've stuck around long enough with a save to see become a star. Managed to hold off selling him from Hibs until we got a massive offer from Spurs from him. Last I checked before I deleted the save he was Scotland's number 1 striker and at Man Utd

Leigh Griffiths - Football Manager 2012

We've all probably seen how much of a player Super Leigh was in this game

Eder Alvarez Balanta - Football Manager 2014/15

If you were playing as a biggish club and needed a CB, you immediately went for this guy. Turns into easily one of the best defenders in the game after a few years

[mizfit]

Off the Top of my head:

Agostinho Ca (Fifa 14) - Barca B player signed for my rather poor mid league 1 Bristol City, ratings through the roof and ended up selling for Millions after he started struggling to make my bench.

Regen Goalkeeper (Fifa 15) - I wish i could remember this guy, i started a game where i placed Newcastle in League 2 and set about taking them up the league, signed him from Morecambe and watched his value rise, broke what id imagnie were all club records for a goalkeeper.

Sold to Rennes for £1m after he flipped out because i dindnt give him a 1 year extension and instead gave him a 2. Arsehole.

I will come back with more at a later date if i can remember.