FM22 | Goal Scoring Superstar Keeper | Ep1 – Intro

Hi! I’m Neil. I like playing Football Manager and I like reading blogs on the game and watching content.

I had an idea, it just popped into my head and I wanted to share it.

The series aim is to get a goalkeeper to become the highest scoring goalkeeper in football history on Football Manager.

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I have always been interested and inspired by goal scoring goalkeepers. The club I support (Dundee United for my sins) had Hamish McAlpine.

He loved to entertain the fans and during a season when the team was battling relegation (1976) and had been missing several penalties, McAlpine volunteered to take over as penalty taker. He scored on his first attempt in the penultimate game of the season. He had another opportunity in the last game of the season but missed it, luckily the team held on for the game to end 0-0 and the team avoided relegation. He scored a couple more in the following season but was relieved of the duties after some more misses.

Rene Higuita scored goals from free kicks and penalties. He also loved to dribble with the ball. He invented the scorpion kick and used it to clear a cross in an international friendly against England.

Jorge Campos was another flair keeper who was known to transfer up front in a match to try and score late in games when required.

Jose Luis Chilavert was a free kick specialist and took penalties, scoring 67 in his career including 8  international goals.

Rogerio Ceni scored 131 goals during his career, most from Free kicks and penalties. He did score one from open play. He is recognised by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) as the goalkeeper to have scored the most goals in the history of football.

Jimmy Glass played in goal for Carlisle (on loan from Swindon). He scored a last minute goal in the last game of the season (1999) that saved the team from dropping out of the Football League. He was waved up for a corner and ended up tucking it in from close range.

A more recent example is Alisson Becker, who scored a dramatic last minute winner for Liverpool versus West Brom by also coming up for a corner.

My history of scoring goals with keepers

When playing football games in the past I have attempted to get goalkeepers to score in some fashion. I found an exploit in ISS64 on the N64 where players with poor Attack skills (Gk’s were the worst) would perform a high looping shot when attempted from just passing the half way line. If you added some after touch to the shot you could curve it back towards the goal and catch the opposition keeper out of position.

I once accidently scored a goal in FM13 with the goalkeeper. He was in his own penalty box and punted it long and hard up the pitch. The ball sailed over the high defensive line and bounced over the opposition keeper on his penalty spot into the net!

In more recent version of FM I have been able to get a goalkeeper up for corners to nick an odd goal.

Strategy

To achieve the overall goal of being the highest goal scoring goalkeeper in the history of football I’ll aim to do it by having:

1. a free kick taker,
2. a penalty taker or
3. an attacking corner adventurer.

If I’m lucky I’ll find someone that can do 2 of the 3 ways of scoring or, who knows, all 3!

Players and tactics will be key. I’ll outline my approach to each goal route in the next episode.

Thanks for reading!

Finally, I would like to thank MikaelinhoFM for allowing me to be an author on his site. I was inspired to write this blog by reading his fantastic series like Santastico – Finding the next Neymar amongst many other posts he has written. Please check them out if you haven’t already done so.