We changed the long-standing rules of football to actively punish teams for winning matches. Teams gain more points for drawing and losing than they do for winning, and gain more money if they draw or lose a match.
Atalanta BC shocked Italy as their superstar attack of Ronaldo, Raúl, Álvaro Recoba, Vincenzo Montella, Domenico Morfeo and Juan Román Riquelme blitzed them to a maiden Serie A title with 128 league goals in 1999 (2028). And those exploits saw Montella and Recoba installed as Atalanta legends.
Big Sam Allardyce made it 3 survivals out of 5 as he led a beleaguered Wolves to unlikely Premier League safety in 2028. But there was no time to hang around in Wolverhampton as Big Sam tendered his resignation, holidayed ahead to Christmas, and went in search of a new club to save.
Big Sam enjoyed a positive fourth season of his Bottom At Christmas experiment, leading an underachieving Köln side to comfortable Bundesliga survival. And that made it 2 survivals, 2 relegations and 1 sacking. But, despite growing fond of the German club, he wasted no time in taking 7 months out of the game and holidaying ahead to Christmas 2027.
Big Sam suffered his second relegation in three seasons of the Bottom At Christmas challenge as his Sampdoria side was relegated by local rivals Genoa on the final day of the 2025/26 campaign. He took seven months off to lick his wounds and holiday ahead to Christmas Day 2026.
Italian football saw seismic change as a young Atalanta side established itself as the 2nd best in Serie A in 1998 (2027). Their massive overperformance saw the vultures yet again circling their best players, clearly cognizant of the club's dreadful finances, but things were about to get very exciting in Bergamo.
Big Sam Allardyce enjoyed a much stronger Season 2 of his Bottom At Christmas challenge, leading Cádiz CF safely away from the LaLiga dropzone. But he swiftly stood down and holidayed ahead ready for a new challenge in Season 3. Looking back at his former clubs, Nottingham Forest gained promotion at the first tome of... Continue Reading →
Atalanta surprised everyone, including their manager, as a sublime end-of-season surge saw them climb into the European places and finish 3rd in Serie A in 1997 (2026). The challenge now was for Roberto Lombardi to strengthen his squad and hold onto his exciting youngsters.
Season 1 of Bottom At Christmas ended with a pretty pathetic relegation at Nottingham Forest. But, for some reason, Forest didn't sack Big Sam, so he was forced to resign and holiday ahead to Christmas 2024.
In the last two versions of Football Manager, we've run experiments with Big Sam Allardyce stepping in to try and rescue teams sitting bottom of their leagues at Christmas time. We weren't planning to run it on FM24 but, with the delay to FM25, this Christmas period seemed like a good time to revive the series.
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