The greatest Championship/Football Manager players of all time revealed in the ultimate gamers First XI!

After 3 months, 137 players, 2,121 votes and several nostalgic visits back to those playground debates about which players would grace your pixelated onscreen tactics board, it is finally time to reveal the 11 players who made the ultimate FM/CM first XI team of all time!

Back on July 17 I wrote a blog post which outlined my ambition to find out who the best players in the history of this great game are to celebrate the fact that I'd been an avid and addicted player myself for over 20 years. The rules were simple - you were voting on players whose in-game ability by far surpassed the reality. The response was incredible and I have to say a huge thank you to the Sports Interactive Forum community for their votes and feedback.

The voting was so tight and competitive that I have made the decision to create the starting 11 plus 9 substitutes made up of players who finished runners-up in the nine different position categories. So without further ado, here is the players who made the final cut...

Click the image to enlarge the picture to see the greatest CM/FM First XI in all its glory!

Goalkeeper: Igor Akinfeev (28%)
Runners-up: Sebastien Frey (12%), Vincent Enyeama (7%), Dionisis Chiotis (6%)
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Right-back: Anthony Vanden Borre (33%)
Runners-up: Darijo Srna (24%), Mike Duff (12%), Šime Vrsaljko (6%)
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Centre-back: Taribo West (19%) & Philippe Mexès (19%)
Runners-up: Mamadou Sakho (12%), Kyriakos Papadopoulos (10%), Kevin Hofland (8%)
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Left-back: Razvan Rat (13%)
Runners-up: Joe Mattock (12%), Isaac Okoronkwo (12%), Juan Manuel Vargas (11%)
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Defensive Midfielder: Mark Kerr (23%)
Runners-up: Fredy Guarin (18%), Miguel Veloso (15%), Tommy Svindal Larsen (7%)
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Right Winger: Kennedy Bakircioglu (22%)
Runners-up: Julius Aghahowa (15%), Mads Jørgensen (13%), Sherman Cardenas (8%), Georginio Wijnaldum (8%)
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Attacking Midfielder: Tonton Zola Moukoko (22%)
Runners-up: Kim Kallstrom (19%), Nii Lamptey (11%), Andres D'Alessandro (11%)
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Left Winger: Freddy Adu (31%)
Runners-up: Alexander Farnerud (14%), Mika Ääritalo (12%), Henri Saivet (10%)
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Striker: Cherno Samba (14%) & Andri Sigporsson (14%)
Runners-up: Maxim Tsigalko (13%), Tó Madeira (12%), Javier Saviola (12%)
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So there you have it folks! The search for two decades worth of football management simulation superstars has come to an end and as this wonderful game continues to go from strength to strength, stealing more hours from our lives and generally leaving our loved ones wondering what the hell we are doing staying up until 3am in the morning, I for one can't wait to unearth the next wonderkid who will break scoring records on my laptop despite ending up plugging away with a mid-table Conference team in real life.

Football/Championship Manager - I salute you, we all salute you!