My god, Steve Sampson posts here???!??!

(ok, if you're not a hardcore USA Soccer fan, you won't get that, it's ok :D))

The guys I played a lot were in their mid 20s so no real problem there. There wasn't any explicit indication that the heavily played players were getting tired. It was just an intuitive sense that their performance seemed to drop some towards the end of the season. I'm thinking my lack of depth forced me to play them and subsequently may have cost us a shot at promotion.

Me likey the 4-4-2 attacking diamond

I'm still on WWSM 2005 (will probably buy WWSM 2007), but wanted to post something.

My latest game is with Gretna in the Scottish league. Wanted a quick ascendency type experience. Anyway, this weekend in one of my Second Division matches my keeper scored from his own 18-yard area. Gathered the ball and booted it deep. My striker pressured the center back and keeper into a misplay at the edge of the other box and the ball trickled in as two defensive dots scrambled after it in a desperate attempt to clear it off the line. All these matches I've played and yet another first.

My 2nd Div Gretna club is 20W, 2D, 1L and on our way to the 1st Div. Fluke loss, but oh well. ;) Still alive in the Scottish Cup, as well, into the quarters. Beat Premier League side Hearts in the round of 16. A nil-nil draw at home where we outshot them on goal 15-0 but their keeper played out of his gourd. Then we beat them 1-0 at their place on 18 shots on goal. Their keeper rated at 10 and 9 in the two matches. But we allowed a total of 2 shots on goal to a top level club in 180 minutes. Quite the performance.

dola -

My chairman is ambitious and well-financed for the level. But he ticked me off a little in the last transfer window. He told me he wanted to raise our profile by signing a big name. He fails to recognize that we're still a Scottish Second Division side. Surprisingly Ryan Giggs did not want to sign with us. I know, I was shocked. My transfer budget remaining was £4.3M and he was willing to let me go over that on a big name. Sorry, but £4.5M value players aren't going to sign with us, moron.

I did sign David Fox formerly of the Manchester United youth system, who is listed as having a national reputation in England. Not good enough, apparently. :mad:

That's Gretna for you. You'll fly through the divisions, but miss out on something and you're in trouble.

That and I haven't gotten a single "the board was delighted with the win" message yet. Even after beating Hearts of Midlothian in the cup. Then again when I won the 3rd Division in the first year it was the first time I didn't get a message regarding the fans' celebrating the achievement. Are my fans that jaded, too? I hope I make the promotion to the premier league next year if that's the case.

Wanna give more details about that setup? I might be interested in checking something like that out for my Silkeborg Danish league club.

I think you may want to wait until the SPL for that. The other side is, Gretna's natural rivals are all in the third division, so you won't have any rivalry matchups for a while.

whistles in game?
 

Been meaning to ask this since it's been going on in my game (WSM disk version) from the beginning and through each patch up to the current 6.03.

Should I only be hearing whistles when a foul or some stop in the action occurs?


The thing is I get random whistles while watching my matches in 2d. I do watch the whole 90 minutes with game speed set to the 3\4 mark and the highlights at the halfway mark on the sliders.

I very rarely will get a hesitation in the 2d match. The game will stop for maybe a half second. This does not happen every match though. It's so rare it probably only happens once every 5 games or more. I run with full sounds on now but when I first started I used the "smart" sound option. The random whistles still occured either way the sound was set.

It's not a big deal but is distracting. I hear the whistle and quickly look down at the pbp to see what has happened only to find nothing, and the game continues normally.

Does anyone else (or everyone else) get this same thing?

If nobody esle get's this could it be a driver issue on my system?
I have onboard sound while the computer is probably 3 years old. I don't believe the sound drivers have ever been updated but haven't had any issues with any other games. Rome TW and Combat Mission would probably be the only other games that see any action on my pc other that FM, EHM with sound.

yup, there's some whistles in the sounds they recorded.

I think the fans are whistling just to get you to look at the commentary and wonder what happened. Oh, those tricky fans. What won't they do?

i always think of them as fans blowing whistles in the stands.

2700 baby

If an away player the crowd doesn't like is on the ball, the crowd will whistle and/or boo them. Good example is if one player dives for a penaly or goes in for a bad challenge and isn't punished, the crowd will get on their back. Other possibility is if it's near the end of the game and the home side is barely holding on to a lead the crowd will whistle as if they are the ref calling the game to end.

Wow, I just accepted the England U21 manager position. Why they'd hire an American who's running a League One squad is beyond me, but I'll take it. Now I have to resist the temptation to put a bunch of my youngsters on the squad. There are much better kids in England than the ones on my team, but I really want a couple of my players to get some experience against good competition.

Thanks guys for the answers. Guess I overthought that:)

Were yo offered the job by the manager of England? Did you have a previous relationship in the media with him?

mmmmm....FM. I need to put the CD back in my cd-drive and re-enter my fanstasy world...

That has an effect?! :eek:


Woooaaaahhh...

Nope, I never said a word about the man. I think the FA wanted me. My Cheltenham team has overachieved in the four or five seasons I've been there, so I guess the FA thinks that I'm pretty good with young players. Of course, they hire me for this job in the same year tha tI'm about to upgrade Cheltenham with veterans, but so be it.

The FA and the England fans are expecting me to qualify for the U21 Championship which is coming up in 2 years. I don't have very much time to start watching every young player who plays against my Cheltenham squad, because I'll need to decide which ones need to get called up to the national side.

I'm really excited about this!

Not totally out of the realm of possibility. Current England U-21 manager Peter Taylor was managing a lower league side at the time he took the job. He was briefly in charge of Leicester in the Premiership but got them relegated, but has had consistently good success with several clubs in the lower leagues a good reputation of working with youngsters.

Taylor got a shot at England proper as I recall,, but didnt do much with it.

As for FM, every time I get back into the game, there are things in the engine that drive me nuts - for example, the 10 man opposition score a 90th minute goal - their striker is standing all alone on the pitch, while the central defender set to be marking him is up the field (he's set to "defensive" all the way, and no forward runs and no running with ball, as well as man marking the striker, so I have no bloody clue what he's doing up there) - while the other central defender is 30 yards to the right, playing him on and running in the opposite direction. This with a team alignment set to defensive and with the CM's set to no forward runs - there is no frigging way the guy should be there alone - and the commentary suggests my team is launching a counter attack (the counter attack option is turned off). Every time I get back in, things like this, or the central defenders running away from the last man make me wonder whether the bells and whistles are coming at the expense of the engine. Heck, maybe the fact that I get worked up about a game is a problem. :D

Int management is fun - the sad part for you is that your best U 21 players will get nicked by the senior side.. :D

Something that I have been wondering about is your U18 team. I leave that up to one of my asst to coach and renew contracts...etc. But when a player turns 19 aren't they ineligible to play in any further matches for the U18 team? When going through that roster today I noticed that I now have three 19 yr olds that are still playing in matches for that team. What are the rules on this?

Oh snap. Chivas USA just offered me their manager job. They currently have a slim lead in the MLS Western Conference with 10 games to go. The thing is, over in England, my Cheltenham squad have just been given 8-1 odds to gain promotion. This could really be the year that we get out of League One. I think I'm going to have to turn Chivas down. I never really had aspirations to manage in the MLS, but it would have been nice to build up a reputation in the USA to help move me toward the national team job someday. :)

It's to do with theire age at the start of the season - if they are eligible at the beginning, even if they turn 19 mid-season they will be OK until the summer for the U-18 squad - not sure of the date now but it used to be 'under 18 on the 1st August' and you can play for the U18s all season.

Thanks for clarification. After I posted, I started to think about it and was wondering if it was a situation like you had described. Ok, makes sense now.

Actually 2 different shows. "Footballer's Wives" is a newer show and can be
found on BBC America. "Dream Team" is the Harchester United show and
can be watched on Fox Soccer Channel.

i want to coach the england u18 team, so i go look who is the coach....frickin' david beckham. ugh.

I've never cared about skins before, but I have to say I am quite impressed with the Aurora flow left skin. I am really liking the full screen 2d match as well.

My team is trying to piss me off though. After starting out with a string of great games and climbing as high as 2nd in ECS we have fallen back to 7th. We suffered some injuries and morale continued to be okay until we played the league leaders Weymouth. We got up 2-0, but proceeded to concede 3 goals and lose. That started a crisis of confidence in the club that I have just managed to turn around. Luckily we are doing okay in the cups and generating some $.

Weymouth seems to have 1st locked up so I need to get into the playoffs and grab the 2nd spot for promotion.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and started a new career. Having played my first game as a total newb, to both fm and football, I was continually trying to make up for my rookie mistakes. So the Kettering dynasty is no more.

Started again unemployed and was hired by Cambridge Town(ECS) in late Febraury. It's a lot more fun starting out with some knowledge of what you want on your club. I'm a relegation battler but the budget is at least sound and the messages from the board are somewhat positive.

Spent my first day looking over the roster and have to say I was not impressed. Playing a 442 my midfield is my strength. Two good MC's and a MRC, the MLC looked good along with his backup but both tend to disappoint in a match. But since I can't fix it if I don't know what's broke I stuck with what I had. I installed my tactics and made my way to my first match. Much to my surprise I found the lads can move the ball up the pitch with some pretty impressive speed and can get off about 10-12 shots a game with a high of 18. Problem is they seem to have a little trouble finding the net. Although in their defense I have seen the opposition GK make some impressive saves. Slight underdog in the first one and I'll be damned if I didn't win 2-0.

The team has played pretty well since, lots of 1-0, 2-1, 1-1 type scores. Bottom line though is the club was in 19th when I took over and things didn't look good. With tonight's win though I am up to 14th with 3 to play and the worst I can do is 18th. Relegation avoided and almost time to refit the club for next year.

High point of the year was finding a MLC that I transfered in at no cost. Not a scorer but he can run, dribble, and pass. This guy has really stabilized the team and he's still not in match shape. As a matter of fact tonight's win was against the 1st place team in ECS 2-0 on their pitch with my Cambridge Town club dominating the match. Score could have easily been 5-0.

This game is so much fun. I've had it for about 5 months and it just doesn't get old. Can't wait to get to next season to see what my club can do. My best players are still under contract and if I can find one or two more pieces I think we'll be making some noise in the ECS.

Sweed, does it really say Cambridge Town? I am currently managing Cambridge City in my game of FM2k6. In my fm2k5 game that I was playing right before fm2k6 came out I played Cambridge City for the 1st time and got promoted to Conference National my first season. Not quite sure if I am going to make it this season. About 1/2 a season left though so there is hope if we keep up our form and get a good run going like the start of the season.

RPI, what team in Russia are you managing? I have plans to manage Kuban (Krasnodar) in the future as I have been there and seen the stadium. I also need to tackle my long time goal of promoting Limerick in Ireland. They are the team I used to play in the older CM games, and I never got anywhere with them. I have seen their pitch as well a few times.

Got to love this game.

Sorry, your are right it is Cambridge City. Worked a long day today and then came home and fired up fm. Just a tired guy up checking the boards when I should be in bed :) But then I was a little excited after knocking off the first place club. So tired now can't even tell you who it was but then to this noob there are so many new names to learn it's kind of hard to keep track:)

Sounds like you are quite the football (soccer) fan. Me, I'm a typical guy from the US that 6 months ago knew absolutly nothing about football. Always heard so many good things about FM here at fofc and wanted to give it a try.
Now I'm becoming quite the fan. I'm hoping when HD tv hits my area that the
FSC will be part of the expanded package that you have to take. Otherwise talking the wife into paying extra to watch "soccer" may be the last straw;)

I do get to see the occasional match on tv here though. While watching, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking what a great game this is and how wrong I was to think it was boreing.

Congrats on beating the #1. I know I was excited yesterday when I got up 2-0 on Weymouth. It sucked losing 3-2. :( Have you made any progress in the cups? I made to the 1st round of the FA cup and got beat, and just now won my 1st rd FA trophy match. I am still hoping I can make a run for the top of the ECS before the season is through.

I think it was CM that really turned me into a fan. I'm not even sure how I initially found out about CM, but I ordered CM01/02 through Chips & Bits and became a fan. I also around that time had a Russian girlfriend who lived in Ireland (Limerick). So when I would go to see her I would get to watch the CL and UEFA Cup games in pubs, and also got to watch some WC 2002 games when we were in London. She was from Krasnodar, and I visited her family there once. Now that I think about it, I might have first seen CM the first time I visited Limerick. I bought my copy of CM4 in Cork the last time I was in Ireland.

It is truly a beautiful game, and it is rather odd that being a nation of immigrants from all around the world that we don't thrive on the sport like everyone else does. I just moved into my new place and have Dish network now, which means I have GolTV and Fox Soccer. Now I just need a Tivo to save everything when I am at work.

Question: can you view matches that other people save from their games? On the match day screen you can save the match under options, and on the initial screen you can view match. That might make for some fun with people's dynasties (I am lazy, and haven't looked. For all I know ppl are already putting them with their dynasties).


I am going to need to stock up on Tums if my team keeps this up. I'm in 5th, playinng the 3rd ranked team at home. Right off they score on a free kick in the 2nd minute. I proceed to equalize and go ahead around the 28th minute. The ref is handing out yellows like candy on Halloween. In the 40th minute one of my DCs gets his second yellow. 43rd minute I get another goal. 50th minute Weston-super-Mare gets another goal, and is within 1 now. 79th minute W-s-M player gets his second yellow and is off the pitch. Last 10 minutes consist of many corner kicks on my end of the pitch. Held on to win 3-2.

Yeah there's a view match option on the opening screen of the game (where you select new game, load last game or whatever normally).

They're both teams from the same City - Town are traditionally (irl) the larger club and were a league club until last season when they went down to the conference national (and nearly went bust) - City are a smaller club but somewhat more stable financially.

I normally play as City because they're the smallest club in a close location to my home (Brighton who I support are too far up the pyramid these days for me to play in a long-term FM game really).

To tell you the truth I am still trying to figure out the whole cup thing, I don't even know what FA means:confused: :)
I started umemployed and after looking back at my game was hired on March 5 not late February. I have gone 5 wins 2 draws and 1 loss since taking the job at the club. So because of the late hiring I'm guessing that I'll have no cup games until next season?

Also wondering if there is an explanation of the cup abreviations in the game like the rules tab for each league?
I admit I haven't taken the time to look yet but there is so much for me to learn and look at so if it's there and obvious forgive me.

Thanks Marc. Ever present as usual:) I think it's so funny that over at the oopt boards there are people worried about how SI will handle the game. Since the "big company" took the game they are afraid the customer support just won't be there. How they will just become a dollar sign to SI and nothing more. I try to tell them and get them to read this thread and the SI boards to see the great operation you guys run and how involved you are. But of course that would be like going to the dark side to some of them, so they just keep droaning on and on about it. When they find out how good you guys are I may just have to quote some of their old posts;)

FA stands for the Football Association. I need to look in the game again to
make sure which competitions equate to which irl. I have made it back up to
3rd, but still about 18 points behind Weymouth. They have 57 out of 66
possible points. I have made it to the 3rd round of the FA trophy competition,
but I have played any serious sides yet. I am hoping to get past York
(National Conference) this round.

In real life in England there is the FA Cup, the Carling Cup, and I am not sure what else.

I manage Sokol Saratov. They start in the 1st Division (Second level out of the two, Premier Division is the top one). Kuban also is in the First Division, I believe.

I got promoted after three seasons, and while I've made Europe the past three seasons, Kuban has bounced up and down. Nevertheless, they're in a bit of an upswing right now so I think they may make a push for Europe. They have some good young players in my game (current year is 2012).

I like managing Russia because there is tons of European opportunity -- in my game right now 50% of the top teams make Europe. However, it's very difficult to do well in the Premier Division because of the monopoly of Moscow teams led by CSKA who are as good as any 2nd tier team in the world in my game.

Sheesh, Marc.. Cambridge Town Does not exist, you're thinking of Cambridge UNITED :) The U's :)

For Cups? FA Cup, League Cup, the LDS Vans tropy (League 1, 2, and Conference teams only) and the FA Trophy (non-league teams only!) are the four knockout competitions, the Supporter's shield (played between last year's FA Cup champions and EPL champions) being a one-off.

i put FM back in my CD-drive yesterday and promptly played from like 6pm-4am.

i <3 this game!

After getting Vauxhall Motors into the championship, I've been on the lookout for a larger squad. I was sitting in 15th place, tied with Plymouth who was relegated from the Premiership the year before. They fire their manager and I pounce. They hire me and state that they are really ambitious, immediately wanting me to sign a high profile player. I spend $7.5 million on two players from my Vauxhall squad, along with a striker from Serie A. The biggest problem I have is my best striker wants $1.8 million/yr. and the board will only allow $1 million. I think I'll have to sacrifice some of my high-priced veterans to get him under contract. Oh yeah, since taking over I've climbed to 10th. With 5 games to go, we're only 2 points out of a playoff spot. Vauxhall have dropped to 20th. ;) Damn this game is good.

This game makes me disgusted at myself sometimes. World Club Championship Semifinals versus Mamelodi Sundowns. So I decide to cut Mamelodi a break and start all of my bench players and my non-squad guys, the ones who are whining about playing-time or the ones who just havn't managed to see the field enough.

Uh huh...so we only manage to squeak by 10-0.

That's all...I just found that funny, I was hoping it'd just be like...4-0...maybe even 4-1. But 10-0?!?! I'm mean :(:(

Just to keep people updated on my career with Cheltenham, I'm halfway through the 2012-2013 season. Noting that my team has fallen apart in the final month of each of the last two seasons, I decided that I needed to upgrade, particularly in defense. It took a few weeks for my new players to get used to my team, and we were sitting in the relegation zone after about 10 matches.

Since that time, I discovered that my formation was partly to blame. I decided to stop getting fancy and go back to basics with a standard 4-4-2. My midfield had been allowing too many opponents to run through the center of the pitch, and nobody was getting the ball to my forwards anyway. Now that I have some guys in midfield, there's less pressure on the defense, and the strikers are getting some shots. Sadly, my high-priced strikers (including good ol' Hammertime) were missing the net. I brought in a kid who had been sitting on my U18 squad since he was 16, and after he hit age 19, I put him on my reserve team. I figured that I had nothing to lose, so I promoted him to the senior squad. It's been like magic. This kid is 20 years old, and here are his first four league performances for this season:

September 29: 1 shot, 1 goal
[some time off for international duty with my U21 national squad]
October 20: 6 shots, 3 goals
October 27: 4 shots, 4 goals
November 3: 6 shots, 2 goals

He hasn't scored so many goals since, but he does have 13 goals in 13 league appearances this season. He also has 2 goals in 2 cup matches. He loves playing alongside Hammertime, so they get to start as my forwards for every match now. They really play well together. The kid now has a "national" reputation, and his value has skyrocketed to $350,000. He's only played a quarter of a season! Honestly, though, my favorite thing is that one of my defenders, a very mature and seasoned individual, absolutely loves the kid. It shows that the youngster is really impressing people.

Another interesting thing is that the kid is listed as being unambitious. I think I can use that to my advantage. He may not want to leave Cheltenham for a bigger club anytime soon.

Now, unfortunately, I am about to enter the 3rd round of the FA Cup against Arsenal. Our cup run will end here. :(

We held Arsenal scoreless for 73 minutes. We had three good scoring chances and their keeper stopped them all. Cheltenham go down, 1-0. I still told my entire squad that I was elated with them after the match. I never expected to give up only one goal away at Arsenal. Great job, boys. Now let's go win League One. :D

Random question - does anyone else 2 seperate replies in the "news" screen when you reply to a player ? I had a player who wanted first team action, I told him that I picked the team, and I get 2 responses- one saying he understands and accepts that he was a bit hasty, and a second saying that he wants a transfer.

Never seen this one before, maybe cause I never tried it.

But I was playing a friendly match before the season starts. I always go 11 on and 11 off at halftime with an extra outfield player being the 23rd. At the 55 min mark I get an injury and for this game the 23rd is my 4th string gk. Normally I'd just go with 10 men and see what my guys can do, but today I decide to put him in, as a central midfielder with forward runs (playing the 1 in a 4312), in front of 3 other center midfielders (figuring I'll let him screw up the offense, but don't wanna mess up with the defense) I paid no mind to the rest of the match and went thru commentary only, and when I get to the end I noticed we scored 2 more goals, but this guy ends up with a match rating of 1. I've seen some 3s and 4s before, but never a 1. Stat line was 4 passes att/1 complete, 2 headers att/1 complete. The guy he replaced (who only played 10 min) had 2 for 2 passes, 1 int, 1 attempted header.

I understood why it happened, but has anybody else ever seen a ranking like this?

Yes, I have seen a guy with a rating of 1. It was a GK playing out of position. :)

Are you using the latest patch? - if you are can you email me the titles of all the news items involved (ie. the one you responded to and the two which appeared) and I'll try and work out whats happened ...

Sorry for any inconvenience,

Marc

I upgraded to 6.0.2 Marc- I haven't upgraded since, but I'll try that. Its happened a few times when I reply (Ie, my reply shows up twice). Next time it happens, I'll take a screenshot and send it to you.

Btw, the single greatest thing about this thing is that its like crack. I bought Gal Civ II, Civ 4, and they're great games - but damnit, FM keeps me away from them. :D

Got a screenshot - in this case, I replied to Jason Brown telling him he was a backup - and my message showed up twice. If he responds twice (which I'm fairly certain he will) - I'll give you a copy of that. Should I just email you the image ?

Dola - Brown replied twice, though in this case, his replies were identical.

If you've got a save game before it occurred then that'd be great ([email protected] - zipped up please my account does have a limit on it unfortunately (many thanks to the chap who tried to email me a 2Gb file and enforced this ;) )) - if not then screenies to the same addy.

What are the rules about replacing injured players on your national team? Normally I get a "So and So is injured and needs to be replaced" e-mail, but one of my goalkeepers got injured in the first game and was unavailable for the second game after my declaration of the team. I had no chance to replace him, and had to play with one keeper and my fingers crossed.

Scotland beat France 3-2 anyway, by the way...booya! :D

Number of physios?
 

Is there any advantage to having more than one physio?

Wierd,
noticed something else in the game - West Ham's no 1 keeper has made 22 starts - their no 2 keeper, Roy Carrol, has made 22 sub appearances- looking through the log, it looks like he's come in every game which is ... surreal. Its the same save game Marc, so I'll get that out to you.

This must be a bug. Scotland couldn't beat the French women's team... :D

'salright. We subsequently got pushed around by Serbia-Montenegro and missed qualifying for the World Cup as a result. :(

Just got proclaimed the greatest American coach ever after working my up to inter in series A and winning the quadruple(italian cup, super cup, series a, and champions league) to add on to all my dutch dominince...took the USA job, and a coach is on my staff i cant fire or see ratings for, but can have run teams and ask for roster. Is he good, should i trust him? Why cant i fire him(Thomas Rongen)

Thanks - would be much appreciated.

I saw that in my '05 game. When I looked at it closer, the starting GK had something about being restricted to playing 45 minutes.

Restriction is usually with national teams. I have not seen that at the club level.

Yeah thats only possible for national teams at the request of the club manager.

For a club team the only explanation I can really think of is:

(1) One of the players requiring a work-permit so is being played to keep that (damned unlikely for a keeper to be frank, because there are huge benefits to keeping a keeper consistently with regards to his confidence).
(2) One of the keepers has a niggling long term injury and is 'carrying' it ... thus he's aggravating it frequently but it isn't serious enough to actually keep him out for many matches (this can happen with keepers irl, but I've never seen it to the extent you're mentioning).

I saw that in one of my games too. Celtic were substituting their keeper in almost every game, I think I mentioned it in a post a few pages back here.

The keeper they were bringing off was a youngster, the keeper they were bringing on was older and Polish (Boruc, the keeper they have at the moment). So I guess it could be work permit reasons.

My turn to tell a story on how this game still can surprise me:
I'm playing Cambridge in League One, with two games remaining of the season we're in 18th place, and need to beat Aldershot (22nd place) to avoid being dragged down in the relegation battle. On the eve before the game, I'm stunned by a news item saying my star striker has issued a rallying cry to inspire the team to stave off the relegation threat. Very cool to see, and what's even better - in the actual game, that striker turned in his best performance by a mile, scoring four in our 6-1 rout of Aldershot. Just when I thought I've seen it all with FM... :D

bump

WOW. I just had a CTD with FM!

Fortunately i had just finished loading my savegame so nothing was lost, but wow...this is a first. The game said that it generated an error file. I wasn't trying to do anything other than advance a day...loading up now and hoping my game isn't toast so i won't hafta use a backup save

This has probably been brought up in another thread (possibly even this one) but I'm too lazy to search.

Anyways, I was watching the fox soccer channel the other day and they had a program called Road to Germany or something, where they talk about the teams in the world cup.

To my suprise, they simmed the first round games using WSM. Then the announcers went on to praise WSM, and they actually showed screen shots and everything (including holding up the box for the camara). Obviously Sega paid for the whole thing, as they mentioned Sega 10 times in the 5 minute segment. But overall I thought it was pretty cool US exposure for WSM. Maybe Sega is putting some money into the US market and we'll actually be able to find the next version in a store here.

Road to Germany is, I believe a European-produced show and not US-produced. 90% of FSC's content is produced by Europe.

Hmm... wonder if I have the right show then. The announcers definitely had American accents (at least I think they did), and if was a European show why werent' they advertising FM instead of WWSM?

Now you got me wondering though...

Edit ... check that, I think it was "Passport to Germany".

No, this is definitely a FSC-produced show. Max Bretos was one of the hosts along with Nick Webster, the same dudes that host Super Saturday.

Sure, it's possible that it was made by FSC. But typically the only original content they have is Fox Football Friday and FSW Report. Maybe this is different, though. You are right about WWSM instead of FM.

To my knowledge no money changed hands and it wasn't a 'bought' piece - they were supplied with the game (slightly customised for this purposes) to use as a tool on the show after they requested it having seen it used in a similar fashion elsewhere.

We semi-often do this sort of thing for European newspapers/television shows and I think its quite cool personally :D

I remember you guys doing the java CM World Cup game for either 98 or 2002, that was pretty neat :)

I'm actually having some buggish occurrence with the game. I've got a couple of players complaining about lack of first team action. I don't have a problem with that as it occurs quite a bit (bbor calls me a player hog for a reason). However, in this case, the two players are currently on loan. I don't think it was meant to work that way.

Was originally done for Euro 2000 if I remember right (was part of my spontaneous urge to learn Java for no particular reason ;) ).

We kept updating it and improving it until the 2D match engine came along with CM4 and at that point we retired it and the CM3 engine it ran upon.

Didn't you guys also do a Java rugby game too? Anything else ever come of that?

That's awesome that you got that kind of publicity for free. One of the announcers was talking about how he was on a train in Manchester or something and saw the kid in front of him playing and he spent the entire train ride looking over the kid's shoulder watching him.

On the downside, I was kind of hoping Sega actually paid for it (as it would indicate they are somewhat serious about getting the product on the shelves here).

We wrote one yonks back at the request of a national newspaper here in England for one of the International Rugby tournaments. It was a fairly accurate simulation and the promotion went down well - BUT it was never planned to be turned into a full game or anything, not least because my knowledge of Rugby simply isn't good enough (I had a lot of assistance in the simulation from ex-pro Rugby players advising me on things).

I've always wondered this as well. I basically have more(when Im coaching better teams) who are of a difference nationality to help my new signee's feel more at home

Since Chelsea had like 8 when I started a career with them and combined they gave me a better idea of when an injured player would return, I think there is.

Did they give differing opinions on when a player would return? I usually have 3 physios at once, and I don't think I've ever seen a differing opinion among them.

No, it was just one opinion. But I had a career with Portsmouth and had about 3 or 4 pretty decent physios and the consensus would be something like "He'll miss 1 to 3 weeks. Where with the 8 physios at Chelsea, who individually were no better, but their consensus was always like "He'll miss one week." Or, "He'll miss two weeks." The gap of time was never as wide as it was when I was at Portsmouth.

What MikeVick7 has indicated is correct ...

Time wasting?
 

It appears to me that time wasting with a lead at the end of the game isn't always working for me. I am using the latest patch playing WSM disk version.
When I have that 1 goal lead I set the time wasting to the max at around the 80 minute mark.

On throw ins and free kicks my players seem to put the ball in play quickly, almost always around 10 seconds, sometimes a little more sometimes a little less. Being from the US and just learning the game I don't know how much time IRL a player can take but I'm pretty sure the AI is taking longer than that when it has the lead. I rarely get the "he'll be in no hurry" comment anymore. Usually when I do it's with under 3 minutes left in the match, but even then it doesn't appear to be consistent. I have alos tried setting it just below max, like 18 or 19, but see no difference.

I am currently in my second season (was hired in late Feb the previous year after starting umemployed) and have a record of 5 wins, 5 draws, 1 loss. So I can't say if the AI is suffering from the same problem as I have only been behind once as the end of the game approached:) But I am trying to keep a closer eye on it as the season progresses.

I thought maybe because my tempo was quick it was having an affect so at the same time I turned TW up I turned down tempo. Didn't notice any difference.

I'm just curious if anyone else has noticed this in their game?

Couple of more things..

My current game was started with the newest patch 6.03.

It seemed before with my pre 6.03 dynasty that I did get the "he'll be in no hurry" comment and then what seemed to be significant time run off the clock.

I also know in my pre 6.03 game the AI would drive me nuts with the amount of time they would run off the clock on throwins and free kicks. But like I said there was only the one opportunity so far for the AI so I'm not sure how it's working there.

Or should I be doing someting more than just turning up the time wasting?

Certainly not a gamebreaker, as WSM has quickly become the number two game on my schedule after ootp, but any help would be appreciated.


Thanks.

A brief update on my Exeter career. I'm in 2015-16 and still managing the Grecians. We've been in the Prem for the last three seasons and escaped relegation by four points or less in every one of them. The Prem is definitely much tougher than Conference given the resources the opposition has to work with.

But imagine my surprise when a struggling Real Madrid offered me their managerial job. I knew I'd done a good job with Canada and then Ireland in international management, but didn't think my Exeter performance had done enough to justify this kind of approach. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head when I saw what they wanted to give me as a budget. After working with Exeter's paltry 10 million pounds or less transfer budget and 180,000 pounds/week wage budget, I was astounded to see Real Madrid offer me what looked like an open checkbook. 285 million pounds to spend on transfers and 528,000 pounds/week wage budget! :eek:

It was extremely tough to let that job go, but I didn't think my work at Exeter was done yet. Besides, I can't stand the galacticos. Now if Barca come calling, it will definitely be time to reconsider...:D

I'm not going to read this whole thread, but: Is there a demo? I finished a rather massive project this morning and I'm researching ways to reward myself.

good reward st.cronin

looks like the try n buy for wwsm is offline right now, but here's the gold demo for FM (same game, different name)

http://www.sigames.com/downloads.php?type=view&id=356

Thanks Daddy!

yw

(and an aside...that's why this SN is so amusing)

dola

it's great that this thread about a legitimate game that we're not all ripping on has 1/2 as many views as the comedy-fest that is the MF-thread.

to me that is an accomplishment you should celebrate Marc. Because people will obviously have less to say about a good game than a poor one.

I finally broke down and bought the game. Updated to the latest patch and I certainly am not disappointed!

From what I've read in the FM forums...

Time wasting isn't purely about holding a lead. It's about your players holding the ball long enough for the rest of the team to join in on an attack. Specifically, your faster paced players will tend to hold the ball and wait for everyone else to catch up, it's mostly aimed for slower-paced teams with good handling that can dominate possession despite not running a fast offense.

I'd suggest going more defensive by narrowing down the pitch and switching to long-passing along with high time-wasting to try and hold a lead with a few minutes left.

The articles that I read at FM Britain seems to concur with Neon_Chaos' view of that statistic. I believe you will have better success with narrowing the pitch (as he said) as it allows your defense to hold shape better, changing the mentalities (more defensive), passing styles (more direct for better clearance) and possibly their tackling preferences (more easy as they apparently take less chances then). In combination with bringing the defensive line further back (to prevent fast strikers getting behind your defense) and, perhaps, having a defensive midfielder protecting your defensive line, you should have greater success holding leads.

If I understand those articles correctly, at least.

As an aside, I am running into some weird bugs with my roster. One, last season, I had players complained at lack of first team action. While they were on loan (their complaints were with lack of action with my team, which is decidedly difficult for me to rectify since, y'know, they are on another team). Also, for the last few seasons, I've been having problems with players not returning from season long loans once their loan deal ends. They just kind of stay on loan until the season just about starts. Lastly, and this is new to me, I have 2 players whose contracts ended while they were on season long loans and ended up signing with another team. Now that the new season has started, they are still on my screen. Albeit, in a different colour than the rest of the squad. When I look at their information, it says that they are on loan with the team that they were on loan with last season while listing their actual team as the new team they signed with. No mention of the Arse, yet they are on my screen. Weird, to say the least.

I don't know if this has anything to do with my pushing the limit of the new lack of roster thing or not (at least new to me, my last version was 01/02).

Thanks for the replies.

I agree with both of you guys. I do pull back and narrow down the defense in
my games. I would say I hold the lead for the win 90+ % of the time so it's not a "the AI always comes back" rant

I just get a little frustrated when it seems my guy throws the ball in too quickly when he could hold it and let time run off the clock. Certainly not a gamebreaker but since it's my first version I wondered if this was normal. If it is that's cool.

Also as I stated in my post I am still very new to football and I am curious how long a player can hold the ball or delay the kick? Is there some penalty if they don't put the ball in play in X number of seconds?

There are no real guidelines, but they can be booked for timewasting at the referee's discretion. Usually they'll just get a warning first though.

Thank you for the info. It's taking time but I am learning little by little :)