Tom Delgado: I Salute You

For those of you who were never in Game World Miller, allow me to introduce Tom Delgado and his enigmatic Red Devils USA. In Miller, we have a bit of a running gag that involves Tom and his team's rather poor performances. When people think they have hit rock bottom, we point towards Tom, who has been struggling far worse over an extended period of time. A very extended period of time. Like five seasons.

Ever since winning some Manager of the Season award in season 1 (God knows which bug/fluke caused this ;-) hehe...), Tom and his team have been unable to perform decent in any official competition. His team have shown consistency though, but mostly in crumbling horribly and getting hammered by their opponents.

As you can imagine, this was a cause of great frustration for poor Tom and a source of great amusement for the rest of us. Bad luck for someone else is always a good form of entertainment, especially when that someone goes off on long rants in the Lobby of the Game World.

Despite all of his bad luck and our constant taunting, Tom has stuck to the game though. Many others would have given up, had they performed as bad as the Red Devils USA over the course of five full seasons. Tom hasn't and I respect him for that, it shows determination and courage.

Over time, several managers, including myself, have tried to help Tom. We gave him advice, we helped him with his tactics, we loaned him players and we pointed out bargain deals for him. Not that he wasn't capable of doing that himself, but I felt genuinely sorry for his bad luck and what can I say, I have grown to like the bugger...

Anyway, despite our best efforts, his team remained unable to win anything decent. In fact, the Red Devils USA trophy cabinet was still empty, despite the fact that he had actively played in six seasons. We even set up a non-ranked tournament he could win, as we all promised to field weak(ish) teams. He wouldn't participate, which was probably the honourable thing to do.

I realise now that, despite our good intentions, this offer was quite degrading. We probably insulted his honour as we sort of implied he wasn't good enough to win a tournament on his own. For this unintentional insult, I offer my most sincere apologies to Tom, since I know he actually reads this blog.

Last season however, things looked like they were changing for Tom's Devils, as the team actually won a trophy. They won the OFA Youth Cup over two games, beating Vulcan Lee's BB City with a 2-1 aggregate.

I can honestly say that this was one of the happiest moments I have had since playing FM Live. I think that there was probably no-one in the Game World who wasn't rooting for Tom to break his long spell of bad luck and unlucky defeats. So yeah, this post is a bit of a tribute to Tom and his endurace. Chapeau old boy, you deserve that trophy.