Christmas is around the corner so I thought we’d use Football Manager and, more importantly, the FM Editor, to spread a little festive joy. I started researching Christmas-related football teams and discovered the brilliantly-named FC Santa Claus, which is based in the city of Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland.
The club, for obvious reasons, has “fans” around the world and developed a legend about being formed by Santa’s elves kicking a football around in the snow to take a break from wrapping Christmas presents. It then gained Santa’s permission to use his name and the big man now serves as an honorary coach, attending the first match of the season to officially launch the campaign.
FC Santa Claus play in the non-playable Finnish lower leagues. So, for the sake of a bit of Christmas cheer, I used the Editor to promote them into the second-tier Ykkonen and provide a healthy boost in finances and reputation. I gave them a new nickname of Santa’s Elves, renamed the stadium to Santa’s Grotto and expanded it to a 180,000 capacity, and gave the club perfect infrastructure. I also boosted the Finnish league reputations and used a bit of creative licence to destroy real life big teams around Europe.
I then began building a new team for FC Santa Claus, created custom kits, loaded up FM24 and created a new manager by the name of Kris Kringle. We also have Chairperson Papa Elf ruling over the Grotto.
Meet The FC Santa Claus Players
The all-new FC Santa Claus team is comprised of a special goalkeeper and his troop of nine exciting, hard-working wonderkid Reindeer, who are all brothers, and another special guest. All players begin with current ability of 100 and potential ability of 200.
GK – Father Christmas: Who better to hold the reins of this FC Santa Claus team than the one, the only Father Christmas? The 19-year-old goalkeeper is the oldest player created and should be a rock in between the sticks. He’s a terrifying presence for any striker, standing at a mighty 6ft 11in and weighing over 16 stones.
RB – Buddy The Elf: This team was built around nine key players, leaving us with one player spare. So I thought, who’d be a decent option as a filler at right back. And came up with Buddy The Elf.
CB – Donner and Blitzen Reindeer: The absolute rock at the heart of this FC Santa Claus team are two big burly centre backs known as Thunder and Lightning. Donner is a 6ft 7in two-footed player who just loves to defend and play long passes out of defence while Blitzen is an absolute reindeer mountain of a man, towering over his brother at 6ft 9in.
LB – Dasher Reindeer: Dashing down the left flank will be lively left back Dasher Reindeer. He loves to run with the ball, get forward and join in with attacks, has solid creativity and has a rocket of a throw in on him.
RW – Prancer Reindeer: The left side of Finnish defences wioll be terrified by the prancing, twinkle-toed Prancer Reindeer. He’s packed with pace and creativity.
CM – Cupid and Vixen Reindeer: The engine room of this FC Santa Claus side will aim to flutter the heartstrings of football fans across Finland. Cupid looks to dictate the tempo, wants to be the key playmaker in the side and is a bit of crowd pleaser with his silky skills. Vixen is a bit more of a divisive character who loves to fly into tackles, wind up opponents and has more of an eye for goal than his midfield compatriot.
LW – Dancer Reindeer: Bringing even more flair to the left flank is little Dancer Reindeer, who’s the shortest of the nine brothers at 5ft 9in. Dancer loves to attack, get into the opposition box and is a total crowd pleaser with his tricks on the left wing.
ST – Comet Reindeer: Arguably the focus point of this FC Santa Claus team is the giant 6ft 11in Comet Reindeer. Comet is your archetypal target forward but also loves to smash home netbreaking shots and attempt ludicrously unstoppable overhead kicks.
ST – Rudolph Red-Nosed Reindeer: The star man of this team is the exciting Rudolph Red-Nosed Reindeer. Rudolph is the youngest player at the club, starting at just 16, but is also by far and away the best player. He’s also a crowd pleaser who loves to lob the keeper, attempt ridiculous shots and does everything he can to allude defenders – making him the perfect foil for Comet.
Those players aside, the squad has been filled with newgens, some of whom also have huge potential but aren’t the focus of this save. The club has over £500m in the bank, so we may look to bring in additional players as backups down the line.
Exploring The Rest Of This Custom FM World
As alluded to above, I’ve used the Editor to destroy big clubs across Europe and, out of sheer annoyance, the Saudi clubs. The likes of AC Milan, Arsenal, Atlético, Barcelona, Bayern, Chelsea, Inter, Liverpool, Man City, Man UFC, Newcastle, PSG and Real Madrid have no players, are in huge debt and have transfer embargos until 2040.
As a result, Barca, Madrid and Atlético look set for relegation from LaLiga, Man UFC, Arsenal and Liverpool have a combined 9 points 17 games in, Inter and Milan are going down, PSG still have 0 points, Bayern are doomed and the last 16 of the Champions League looks very different. Additionally, ALL of the players from those clubs, so all the best footballers in the world bar Lionel Messi, are unattached.
There’s no specific objectives for this festive Football Manager adventure. But a few targets include:
- Getting FC Santa Claus into the top tier of Finnish football
- Winning the Finnish title and dominating domestically
- Attemping to win the Champions League
- Seeing how good a team of Finnish wonderkids become
- Boosting Finland’s coefficient, so it’s also effectively a mini Build A Nation experiment
- Seeing how Europe’s major leagues develop without the bigger clubs monopolising them
So how will FC Santa Claus far in Finland’s Ykkonen? Find out in Part 2 of this FM Experiment at 11am tomorrow! And we’ll have a series of episodes over the festive period.
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