Championship Manager 3 celebrates its 25th birthday later this month. In lieu of baking a cake, I thought I’d take the opportunity to celebrate some cult players who would often develop into world-beaters.
I’ve come up with a list of 15 players in the CM3 database – young and, er, not-so-young – and have looked at where their careers went after the turn of the millennium.
I’m looking for cult icons, so I will not be including players like Pablo Aimar and Javier Saviola who enjoyed at least some real-life superstardom. I also won’t be revisiting anyone that I’ve already covered on my lists of Championship Manager 99/00 icons (Part 1 and Part 2).
KODJO AFANOU
We start off with one of the best young right-backs on CM3. Togo-born set-piece specialist Kodjo Afanou had played for France at the 1997 FIFA World Youth Championship, but that was as far as his international career went.
Afanou made his senior debut for Bordeaux in 1996. Over the next decade, he would make 194 appearances in Ligue 1 – winning the title in the 1998/1999 season – and feature regularly in Europe. He reportedly almost signed for Bolton in 2004, and also had a trial at Wolves before eventually leaving ‘Les Girondins’ two years later.
Afanou would subsequently move to Saudi Arabia, playing for Al-Faisaly and Al-Hazm either side of a stint at Turkish club Gaziantepspor. There are conflicting sources saying that he retired in either 2009 or 2012 – but either way, he has been away from professional football for some time.
MARC ANTHONY
If you wanted a young and prolific striker, Marc Anthony was a great free signing on CM3. He was still pretty good on CM99/00, scoring 28 Scotland goals in my “Fitba’s Coming Home” series. In reality, he didn’t achieve the same notoriety as Cleopatra’s lover… or Jennifer Lopez’s, for that matter.
In 1999, Anthony had just been released by Celtic, having made only one appearance for the Bhoys before being loaned out to Clydebank. He would spend the next five years playing lower-league football for Berwick and Forfar before moving to Perth. No, he didn’t sign for St Johnstone; he moved to Perth in Western Australia.
Marc played for a number of Aussie clubs – including a brief spell at A-League side Perth Glory – before winding down his career in 2011. He had an unlikely claim to fame when a photo of him playing for Perth appeared as a computer screen-saver on season 5 of NBC’s “The Office”.
HARUNA BABANGIDA
Haruna Babangida was one of the youngest players on the CM3 database, appearing as a sprightly 15-year-old winger at Barcelona. He was the younger brother of former Nigeria and Ajax star Tijani, who would himself become a cult icon on Championship Manager 4 (as Yours Truly can attest to).
Anyway, back to Haruna, who never graduated to Barça’s senior squad, despite an impressive goalscoring record for the B team. Instead, he was loaned out to lower-league Terrassa and Cádiz before being released in 2004. He had won his only Nigeria cap the previous year.
Babangida spent the 2004/2005 season at Metalurh Donetsk in Ukraine, beginning a journeyman career that would later take him to Greece, Cyprus, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. His final stop was in the Maltese Premier League, where he played for Mosta FC in 2015. He was still only 32.
TREVOR BENJAMIN
Division 3 side Cambridge United have two forwards on my list. The first of them is Trevor Benjamin, who’d already played 37 league games and scored five league goals for the U’s before the season of his 20th birthday. He would score another 30 over the next couple of seasons before being picked up by top-flight Leicester.
Big Benjamin banged in his first Premier League goal for Leicester in November 2000… and it was also his last. He was loaned out to Crystal Palace a year later, kicking off a nomadic career that would see him play for 29 (yes, TWENTY-NINE!) different clubs, including 16 in the Football League!
The former Coventry, Peterborough and Hereford star finished his career in north-east England, serving as Morpeth Town player-manager before bowing out at Seaton Delaval Amateurs in 2012. He spent the next few years running LocustUK – a company that made goalkeeping gloves. Did I mention Benjamin was a striker?
KRISTIAN BERGSTRÖM
He wasn’t Lisa Simpson’s supply teacher, but this Mr Bergström could teach defenders a thing or two with his pace and technical skills. Pacey winger Kristian was yet another bargain signing from the ever-reliable Swedish leagues.
Bergström joined Norrköping in 1998 and won a couple of international caps for Sweden. He got a big move to Malmö FF in 2003 but was not very successful there. Indeed, he would never leave his home country.
Bergström did achieve iconic status at hometown club Åtvidaberg, where he started and ended his career. He made almost 500 league appearances for the club before retiring in 2015. During the previous season, he became the oldest goalscorer in Allsvenskan history, finding the net against Malmö aged 40 years and 297 days.
ALEKSANDR FILIMONOV
Russia has had a few iconic goalkeepers in CM and FM over the years, and Aleksandr Filimonov was perhaps the first. We met this tall, strong and astute custodian when he was midway through a five-year stint at Russian Premier League giants Spartak Moscow.
Filimonov had 16 caps on the CM3 database… and though he did finish on that exact number, he was actually still in single figures when that game was released. His international career ran from 1998 to 2002, yet was defined by a mistake that cost Russia a place at Euro 2000. However, he did go on to win the World Cup in 2011 – the Beach Soccer World Cup, that is.
After winning six RPL titles with Spartak, Filimonov represented a variety of clubs across Russia and Ukraine (and also had a detour in Cyprus). When he finally retired in 2018 at the grand age of 44, he was the last active player who’d also played in the Soviet Union championship.
NIKOLAJ HUST
Ikast are way down in the Danish sixth tier in 2024… but they were a pretty big deal 25 years ago, having only just been relegated from the Superliga. Nikolai (or Nikolaj) Hust was one of two gifted youngsters in the Ikast ranks who would blossom into stars on CM3, along with Kenny Sivertsen.
While Sivertsen appears to have drifted into complete obscurity post-CM3, Hust hung around for a bit longer. The versatile defender/midfielder played for the likes of FC Midtjylland and Aarhus in the 2000s and also spent some time in Germany with Fortuna Düsseldorf.
Hust retired from the professional game in 2007 – shortly before the birth of his son Samuel, who now plays in Vejle’s youth team. Nowadays, he is the co-owner of the eco-friendly childrens’ clothing brand Hust & Claire.
GARETH JELLEYMAN
“Jelleyman’s thrown a wobbly!” That’s what Jeff Stelling used to say on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday whenever the former Peterborough left-back Gareth Jelleyman got a red card. He earned further notoriety on Championship Manager, when he was one of the best lower-league defenders to sign throughout the CM3 era.
Jelleyman – who was actually Welsh, not English – debuted for Posh in 1999 and made over 100 Football League appearances for them over the next six seasons. He also reached a century at his next club Mansfield, where he was perhaps even more popular.
In 2008, at the relatively young age of 27, Gareth dropped into non-league football with Rushden & Diamonds. He later spent three years at Boston United, where he had previously enjoyed two loan spells as a youngster, and ultimately retired at Stamford in 2016.
CARL LAURIE
In 1998/1999, it looked like Carl Laurie would be the next star to come out of Crewe’s esteemed (but now notorious) youth academy. A versatile defender or defensive midfielder, he was quick, energetic, had great passing ability… and he was only 16!
Trying to find out what happened to Laurie in real-life was tricky, but it’s safe to say he wasn’t the new Danny Murphy. He was released by Crewe in 2000 without making a first-team appearance. After playing nine Conference games for Northwich in the following season, he dropped further down the pyramid to join Hyde United.
Beyond that, the trail goes cold. The only information I can find is that there’s a Carl Laurie who is the General Manager of a business solutions company in Crewe. He might not have made it as a player, but perhaps he found his calling in management?
DANIEL MONTENEGRO
Pablo who? Yes, Aimar was also a great signing on CM3 – but if you wanted a little skilful attacking midfielder from Argentina, you couldn’t go far wrong with Daniel Montenegro either. Even with 20 Technique and incredible speed, the 19-year-old’s best seasons were still ahead of him.
Montenegro signed for Ligue 1 giants Marseille in January 1999, having broken out at Huracán in his homeland. Sadly, he couldn’t hold down a first-team place in France, and he returned to Argentina three years later. After that, he would only return to Europe to play for Russian Premier League side Saturn Ramenskoye between 2004 and 2005.
Montenegro went on to have three successful stints at Independiente and two at River Plate – winning a league title with each club. He also picked up a trio of Argentina caps midway through his career, which ended with an emotional return to Huracán in 2015.
ALEX NOTMAN
Alex Notman was the man on many CM3 saves. Any teenage forward with 20 Finishing would always be in demand, and if you could persuade Sir Alex Ferguson to let his fellow Scotsman leave Old Trafford, you would surely reap the benefits.
Notman’s senior career with Manchester United did not go as planned, amounting to a single substitute appearance in the League Cup against Tottenham in 1998. After a couple of loan spells, the Scotland Under-21s international was released in 2000 and signed for Norwich.
Notman would score just one goal in 54 games for City before disaster struck in September 2002, when he suffered a serious ankle injury while blocking an Ipswich free-kick at Portman Road. The injury ultimately forced him to retire from professional football, though he did continue playing at non-league level until 2010.
LEYDER PRECIADO
Leyder (or Léider) Preciado was one of Colombia’s hottest prospects on CM3. With his agility, flair and skill, he was seen as a younger version of Newcastle cult icon Faustino Asprilla – and perhaps a more prolific goalscorer too.
Preciado signed for La Liga outfit Racing Santander in 1998, after scoring for Colombia against Tunisia at that year’s World Cup. Unfortunately, he would only find the net five times across two spells with Los Verdiblancos, which sandwiched an even less prolific stint at Toledo.
By 2001, Preciado had returned to Colombia, where he rediscovered his golden touch with Independiente Santa Fe. He scored 108 goals for the club, though he also had some success at Deportivo Cali and won an Ecuadorian championship with Deportivo Quito in 2008. He called it quits three years later.
PETER PROSPER
Not to be confused with an electronic music duo, Peter Prosper – or ‘Prospar’ as his surname was spelt in CM – is the oldest player on this list. Though he was pushing 30 on CM3, Peter could still prosper as a hard-working striker for a few years at least.
Prosper really was a late-bloomer, only making his senior debut for United Petrotrin when he was 25. He won the first of his 17 caps for Trinidad & Tobago in 1996 but didn’t quite make the same impact as his compatriot Dwight Yorke. Instead, he spent a good decade or so moving back and forth between his homeland in the Caribbean… and Lebanon in West Asia.
His best years came at Al-Ansar, where he won three Lebanese Premier League titles between 1997 and 1999, also finishing as the league’s top scorer in that first season. Prosper later turned out for another three Lebanese clubs and eventually hung up his boots at Racing Beirut in 2009, not long before his 40th birthday.
VANCE WARNER
When you start a new CM3 save in England, Vance Warner is usually wanted by a number of Premier League clubs – and it’s not hard to see why. The centre-back’s robust tackling and solid attribute spread showed a player who was far too good to be at Division 3 Rotherham.
Warner had already tried to break into the big time with Nottingham Forest, but despite being dubbed “the new Des Walker”, he left in 1997 after just five league games. The native Yorkshireman would spend the next three seasons with Rotherham, after which he retired aged just 25 due to recurring knee injuries.
Vance later went on to work in telecommunications for BT (I presume he didn’t take any career advice from Jake Humphrey). He is still active in football today, retraining as a referee who oversees grassroots youth matches for the Sheffield & Hallamshire County FA.
TOM YOUNGS
He might share his name with a former England rugby union star, but this Tom Youngs was an icon of another ball sport – at least in the virtual world. The rapid striker was a great bargain buy from Cambridge United, destined to blossom into an international goalscorer.
Youngs didn’t fare too badly in real-life, scoring 43 Football League goals for Cambridge before moving on to Northampton, Leyton Orient and Bury. Injuries and poor form saw him drift into non-league, and his playing days were cut short when he suffered a hip injury at Mildenhall Town in 2011.
Tom obtained a degree in Sports Journalism while playing for Cambridge and looked set for further success off the pitch. Sadly, in 2014, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis – a long-term neurological disease which he wrote about in his autobiography in 2016. He now lives in Suffolk with his wife and their two daughters.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at some iconic players from Championship Manager 3.
Feel free to leave a comment here or tweet me @Fuller_FM if you want to give someone else a mention – or even if you are one of the virtual superstars on this list! It was great to hear from the actual David Collins when he read my CM99/00 article a few years back… so maybe Haruna Babangida is reading this right now? A man can dream.
[P.S. Don’t ask me who Bay Horseman is.]
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