WARNING: Large Ultimate Team related post incoming, along with grainy cell phone camera pictures. And towards the end, I ended up veering towards writing it almost as an AR thing, I'm not sure why, but I felt like I had to share! Mods, please tell me if this isn't appropriate or needs to be deleted/moved. This is the largest post I've ever done with images, please don't ban me!
I just got out of a match where I played basically all the big name players that I will never, ever even come close to owning. And I won! I don't have a PVR, but man if I have ever wished for one, it was today. I felt so strongly about it that I wrote up a match report.
Introductions to the sides:
Here was his side:
"BarcaHollywood" was the squad name.
3-4-3
Pedro(CR7 Sub) - Messi - A. Sanchez
Villa - Iniesta - Xavi - Fabregas
Puyol- Pique - Fontas
Valdes
Basically the entire Barcelona lineup, although he had a strange choice of silver defender in Fontas. I'm not sure why when someone of his financial capability can very EASILY afford like Ramos or Pepe. Or hell, even Dani Alves given that he's going for the whole Barca thing. Maybe he didn't want to play them out of position.
Here was my side:
"Budget ManU"
4-4-2
Welbeck-Lukaku (qq Berbatov injured)
Giggs - Anderson - Fletcher - J.Park
Fabio - Smalling - Jones - Rafael
De Gea
My objective in Ultimate Team was always to start small and go from there. This meant that I started with Bronze teams initially and then made the move to Gold much later. I didn't really stop at silver midway, because I found most of the players I wanted to be cost effective. I would learn later on about the quirks in the FUT economy and why silver players cost more than gold players with comparable or better stats. Eventually, I grew bored with the random, mish-mash "Ultimate" squads I was making on a budget and decided to go for recreating one of my favorite teams. It was Manchester United also because most of their players are decent and don't cost an arm and a leg if you don't get the superstars. Without Rooney, Vidic, Ferdinand and Nani; I was able to get almost the entire squad for about 1k each, with a few exceptions.
On to the match report.
I started out the match very apprehensively, in preparation for what was going to come my way courtesy of Messi and Sanchez. I started out with possession, and I was determined not to give it away cheaply. Just like real life, I expected that if I let the ball go, I wasn't going to get it back for a very long time.
It was a bizarre start, which ended up in a fairly fortunate goal for me. Right from kickoff, I made a few standard passes around midfield. Park made the run up the right and Fletcher fed him a nice pass. Puyol & Pedro were marking Park, and Rafael made the overlapping run to pull Puyol away.
The ball finally ended up at Welbeck's feet, inside the right wing overlap via a nice pass from Park. He dribbled it near the box, and came up against the tall figure of Pique between himself and Valdes (Puyol was taken out of the picture by Rafael's run).
Lukaku cut in front of Fontas at the far post and started screaming for the pass. Welbeck dwelled on it a little too long before he made the pass, but Pique was not able to complete a clean challenge.
The ball barely made it's way to Lukaku. He felt the pressure of both Valdes and Fontas right behind him.
It was a awkward finish, low to goalkeeper's right, but it was enough. Manchester "Budget" United were up 1-0 at 3'!
On the restart, I was fairly nervous. Teams are most vulnerable right after a goal in real life, and this rule applies in Fifa 12 as well (maybe too well!). Luckily, I was able to stop Messi after about 3 roulettes with Fabio. He had spun his way past Welbeck, Anderson and Smalling by then. I cleared it immediately, and didn't try to control it or backpass as I would usually do. Any sort of mistake with possession in that kind of a situation with the class of players he had would lead to a goal, and I wanted to minimize that chance even if it would cost me possession.
Like a good team (and a good player), he held on to most of the ball until his first chance in the 19' minute. Eventually there was an opening, but it wasn't the most powerful shot by Messi, as he was being boxed in by my defense. De Gea was able to make the simple save to his right without spilling it out and I breathed a sigh of relief.
This was looking a much more possible task now.
Eventually in the 28th minute, Lukaku was able to get free down the right wing, owning to the huge tracts of land that were left open thanks to the 3 man defense. He made it to the corner flag and whipped in a great cross. Or, was it a shot on goal?
The ball went off the bar into touch! That chance seemed to segue right into another one in the 32' minute.
Fletcher was able to pass it straight down the middle into Welbeck.
He flicked it to Lukaku on the right and immediately made his run into the box to receive the return pass, throwing off his marker who over committed himself.
Lukaku simply put it into Welbeck's path with enough weight to beat Puyol and Fontas, with enough in it to allow Welbeck to take the shot in his stride.
And what a finish it was! A low, hard shot to the right bottom corner heralded the second goal, as the stadium roared into life.
Lukaku hit the post twice in the following plays.
Once with a header and with a low curled shot. Both times Valdes was beaten, but the bar came to his rescue. Valdes could rightly claim that the uprights are part of any good goalkeeper's equipment, denying both goal scoring opportunities to a disheartened Lukaku.
There was another spell of good possession by "Hollywood" Barcelona right after those chances ending in a low drilled shot by Iniesta that tested De Gea. Luckily, the United GK was up to the test with a nice low save to his left. That was effectively the last spell of action before the half time whistle sounded.
As the second half started, I was encouraged by the great first half performance by my team. Keeping in mind that a 2-0 lead against the kind of opposition I was facing, I instructed my team to be a little more defensive than usual. The players would take care to make safer passes and only search for genuine opportunities instead of half chances.
In the 49th minute, Lukaku once again found himself face to face with Valdes. He took the shot, and was once more foiled by the crossbar.
Unfortunately, the more defensive switch seemed to kill the game for both sides. Messi was able to get one on one with the goalkeeper in the 59th minute, but a charging De Gea managed to pull off a scrappy save. Instead of the usual graceful finish, the crowd in the stands were greeted by an ungraceful clearence from Fabio, high into the stands.
It seemed that the game would peter out to a 2-0 finish.
The Barcelona manager subbed in C.Ronaldo in the 81st minute for Pedro, in the hopes of injecting some life into the attack. This move seemed to be positive for Barca, but they could not capitalize on their chances.
Eventually, there was a counter attack for United, lead by Lukaku, Anderson and Welbeck. Lukaku whipped in another cross from the right as he was able to do quite freely most of the game. Welbeck seemed to go down in the box from a challenge from Fontas, but the referee was not interested. Fontas was able to get to the ball first as a result, with Welbeck in a heap on the floor. However, Fontas' clearence was not nearly convincing enough and was intercepted by Anderson streaking in to the box. Pique attempted to correct the mistake by covering Anderson, but not before he got a quick volley off. Here, Fontas's troubles were doubled when he served as the deflection that put the ball past Valdes. 3-0!
The third goal capped off a remarkable performance by United in the face of a clearly superior Barcelona side. Somehow, United had managed to outpossess a sterling midfield of the world's best players. Their defense was built on the strong performances put in by Smalling and Jones, and some strong defensive midfield support by Fletcher. It was a victory that the team would not soon forget, and it lifted all of their morales as they went on to face other challenges. There would be many more losses and wins in their future, but this would be a special victory for each one of them. In the crucible of victory are great teams forged, and this squad was well on their way.
