Some FM saves are made to win everything, and some are made just to see if it's possible. This one is the second kind. A Reddit user, nabcdxyz, took Peterborough United and decided to sign only players named Peter, or the version of the name in another language: Pedro, Pierre, Piero, Petr and so on. It took 15 seasons, but in the end he lifted the Champions League.
The rules of the madness
The idea was simple: win the Champions League with Peterborough without ever signing anyone who wasn't a “Peter”. Along the way he ended up signing 130 players with 33 variations of the name. Pedro and Peters were the most common, but Petruk, Petković, Piero and others the author never expected to come across also showed up.
Image: nabcdxyz, via Reddit
How do you scout Peters?
This is where it gets complicated, because FM doesn't let you filter by first name and scouts don't take requests like “just bring me Pedros”. The author solved it by hand: he went to the Players in Rangetab, searched name by name and had the Wikipedia page with the variations of Peter open next to him. He even sorted the results by wage, which, in his words, “wasn't a good idea, but was the best I had”. He tried the general search bar too, but it gave worse results.
With so few eligible players and a tiny budget compared to the rest of the Premier League, every transfer window was an exercise in improvisation.
Images: nabcdxyz, via Reddit
The names that made history
Two well-known names passed through the squad, Pedro Porro and João Pedro, both only briefly. The one who really stayed was Pietro Comuzzo, now a young prospect at Torino, who spent 13 seasons at the club. But the author's favourite was another: Pete Burrows, a newgen he obviously had to sign. He ended up losing him, because the player wanted to go to Al Ahli and refused to renew. “It broke my heart”, he confessed.
Ups and downs
Not everything was smooth sailing. One season the team survived in the Premier League with just 32 points. In another, they threw away a lead of 3 goals in a Champions League semi-final against Liverpool, the kind that makes you want to delete the save. Two seasons later came the revenge, with a 3-0 final win.
Along the way, Peterborough kept winning almost everything there was to win, while the bigger clubs kept taking their stars. And replacing a star when you can only sign Peters is much harder than it sounds.
What the community thought
The post passed 3,800 votes and the comments are on par with the challenge. The main talking point was, of course, who counts as a Peter and who doesn't. Some people turned their noses up at Dylan Zampieri and Diego Pérez, but the author had an answer: Zampieri comes from Giampietro (something like “John Peter”) and Pérez literally means “son of Peter”. Surnames like Pearson, which also derive from Peter, were left out.
Then came the suggestions for the next challenge, and the community was inspired: Stevenage with only Stevens, Tottenham with only Harrys, Barry Town with only Barrys, Rochdale with only Dales, Accrington Stanley with only Stans (and players from countries ending in “-stan”). Some people had also already done something similar, with Johns at St Johnstone or Dans at Everton.
And the youth academy? Practically non-existent. The only kid who came up through the youth ranks was a certain Pete Davies, who never made the first team.
What comes after the Peters?
The author already has the next project in mind: Sheffield Wednesday, with only players born on a Wednesday (Wednesday). If you've also done something this crazy in FM, tell us in the comments.
Sources
I won the Champions League as Peterborough with a squad of only Peters (r/footballmanagergames, reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/1wih317)
