Typically I don't buy many new players.

Also, typically, I actually start very WELL after promotion - it's returning from a mid-table season that causes me problems.

Hmm...that's usually what the problem is...so I'm not sure what's happening?

Robert Huth is awesome. I kept bugging Chelsea about him because he wanted first team playing time but he wouldn't sign because I was in the Championship. The moment I got promoted, I offered him a contract and got him on a free. He's an absolute stud that plays almost every game.

Yes I struggle with slumps badly. I seem to hit them a lot and just can't pull out of them. Right now my Huddersfield team is one of the favorites for promotion this season and I am in 23rd after 8 games. It is incredibly frustrating. Last season my losing skid was at the end, when I went from solid playoff team to 10th in the last 8 or so games.

I've got him in the middle of my defense as well, solid as a rock alongside Kevin Hoffman.

Huth is much less of a carthorse in the game than he is in real life :)

I typically try to schedule four friendlies that are over my head against better teams in mid/late July. I then schedule one or two friendlies against horrible opposition in late July/early August. This seems to give the team some good competition to get in game playing shape while simultaneously allowing me to boost their morale after they destroy poor opposition. The latter is the Brazil World Cup preparation approach (a game against New Zealand tomorrow? seriously?).

It's still tough to get that great start though. So I also play some of the younger backup players earlier in the year knowing that I might lose a few games early. My theory is that it leaves the first teamers a bit fresher later in the year for us to make a nice run.

'Course this is only my own speculation and may not work consistently.

In regards to friendlies, I usually open with one creampuff, then a moderately challenging match, then two matches against teams of equal or higher divisions, then a creampuff to wrap things up. Sometimes I will add a sixth, depending on how many new players I have to bring into the system.

...WHy is this game so difficult to acquire in America through the internet? I was just looking at Amazon.com, and they're selling it through other parties for a minimum of $112 USD!

digital download foo

Where exactly can I get said digital download from? I've been looking around SI's site to no avail. The only links they seem to have are to European sellers.

That's because Sega handles american sales.

http://www.shopsega.com/DRHM/servlet...en_US&Env=BASE

Thank you, Foz. :D

Let's see if I can finally get into FM...

A pattern my teams tend to follow is actually a quick start through August and September, followed by piles of injuries, and awful, inconsistent play through the rest of the year. Then after treading water through most of winter, I usually get rolling, and turn in three top notch months at the end of the season. I don't know why this happens to my teams; it just does.

In fact, you can already see a bit of this in my Sheff Wed dynasty. Very typical.

I am with you on this one. My teams usually hit a funk around December, things start to get a little better after the new year, and come March it's full steam ahead. I just have to hope the bad times don't hurt my teams too much and I can still finish high at the end of the year.

If this is the case then look at dropping your training regime down a little and (very important) firing your physio and purchasing another one. Having a good physio will make your players recover slightly quicker and the estimates on their recovery times more accurate.

Also consider your tactics - if you're playing hard-tackling and pressing style football then you will tend to pick up more injuries, especially later in the year where tired limbs are more suspect and liable to gain strains and such like ...
(remember the english winter weather isn't particularly mild ...)

This sounds more like a problem where you don't adapt your style of play to different weather and pitch conditions, you can't play quite the same neat compact passing style on a muddy winters pitch that you might on a balmy autumn day ...

There's normally a reason behind everything in the game if you can put your 'finger' on it - in real-life a lot of teams play a 'kicker' team before they enter a true competitive spell.

For instance England beating Jamaica 6-0 was largely pointless from a football and tactical point of view, however its good for the players mental perspective to go onto their next game feeling confident.

For this reason I often ensure I've a 'kicker' match at the end of my friendlies as this helps ensure that the players go into their first match believing they're world beaters (when just with like the England national team the jury might still be out on them ;) ).

Marc, if I give you a virtual hug can you make an update just for me so that San Jose is the Houston Dynamo?

I will even throw in a kiss. :D

Can't you just use the built in editor or a third party one?

Shut up!

:p

Actually I have no idea if I can. I have asked in this thread before and no one answered so I assumed there wasn't a way. You know of something? I don't like to edit games so I usually don't look into it too much, so when no one said anything I let it go. In this case though I am more then willing to edit something, somewhere, if I can.

I haven't used the editor in FM06 but i have in the past and you can edit any team, player or competition. In fact i just tried to do it, just open the editor, search for the team you want to edit and rename it to whatever you want. You can also edit their finances, location etc etc. Remember to do a backup of the database before editing as sometimes a wrong data entered could break your database (anyway you are asked to create a backup when you load the database so say yes to it).

Interesting on the physio. I carry 3-4 usually, and I have had a 20 Physio trainer on board for the past three seasons at Sheff Wed. It is sometimes hard to tell what else to look for in physios. Do other ratings matter for them? Or is it a hidden quirk of my physio? Meaning I can change from my current guy to another 20 Physio (if I can find one), and things might improve?

I do train pretty hard, although none of my regimens are rated as "Heavy". I usually try to go the level just before that (just before it reaches Heavy).

I don't play hard tackling, nor do I press much (well, about average). I do have a tactic that employs stronger pressing, but I only use it occasionally against top teams, and to "shock" my team into action if they get off to a poor start against a substandard squad.

Strangely enough, it is just in the October to December stretch when things get dicey for my players, where they pick up injuries, and get tired. From February or so on, my squad tends to be very physically fit and strong. The injuries go down, and I can even play my entire starting staff all match, with hardly any of them sniffing a sub-80 condition at the end of it. At that point, I sub just to change pace (if needed) or to get subs some action. I don't think it's coincidence that this is also when my team plays strongest--it just seems to take months to get the kinks out of the system, but when the weather warms, this team really turns it on.

Marc,

Just about every physio I've ever hired has a rating of 20 for physiotherapy, but I can tell that there are differences in quality. Are there other ratings we should be looking at when hiring a physio?

I am going to raise the same issue as before and run away...I definitely think that the end of half engine and end of game engine are setup to allow more dramatic events, especially goals. It is in almost every game wherein a goal is scored near the end of each or in extra time. You can say its a change in tactics or whatever but I have a hard time believeing it when it is in almost 80% of the games, off the top of my head.

Really? I can probably count on one hand the number of goals I've seen scored in injury time in my career (spanning 5+ years). And I can also say that the majority of those were scored by a team on the losing end of a 2+ goal lead, so it didn't affect the outcome of the game.

very very often are the goals scored in that last 10 minutes of a game including, taking into acount 2at the end of the 1st half and 2 minutes of ET and then 3 and 3 at the end of the game. I see it more times than not....maybe its just my game. It is the digital download version :)

This is a suggestion for FM 2007 which is coming out in October or there abouts. I hope the MLS league will be enhanced and fleshed out a little more.i think the MLS draft and the long tem issues with too many foreign players (non-american) coming into the MLS, in older dynasties/careers. So, often after you have played in the MLS for a number of years (a decade or) so many of the players are European. This shouldn't be the case especially with soccer growing more in the US only more players will be available in the US. Also, I hope the MLS's oddities compared to other leagues rounfd the globe like playoff structure and the like are improved . So just in general I would like to see it be more realistic. This would also include the teams being up to date as far as team movement. Curently San Jose has moved to Houston and a new teams are in Utah and next year Toronto is getting a team.

GOAL!!

2:37 into ET at the end of the first half. Christian Gatti's error is to blame :)

Well boys finished my first full season with Cambridge City and won the Conf South. The papers have been full of stories about my squad and me, perhaps you've read them :)

Nip and tuck with Canvey Island the whole second half of the season with 3 points or less seperating us over the last month. Then my two best strikers went down and I had to play a youngster named Duffy who had started to complain of not getting into matches. He has some decent attributes certainly enought to contribute off the bench, or so one would think. But whenever he got in a match he would not come through. Missing easy shots by sailing it over the bar or just plain hurrying and knocking it well wide. Or be on the break with a 2 on 1, only the gk to beat and try to do it all himself only to fail.

Now with 6 games to go and the outright championship and automatic promotion on the line this is the guy I have to count on. 6 games later we have won it. In those 6 games Duffy has a run of form 7-8-8-8-7-8, 7 goals, and 4 assists :) Man, I love this game.

I need some help on installing graphics. How do you install kits, and menu bars? I have been able to change the skin, but have had no luck with these two. Also, is there a recommended kit download, that includes both EPL, and Championship?

Nice! Mirko Vucinic just broke Robinho+Ronaldo's shared Real Madrid record for goals in a match with 6 in a 10-0 drubbing of Albacete. 9/11 of my team had 10's and the other 2/11 had 8's (one was Casillas). Wow

Thanks Icy. I will indeed be doing this right away. I always assumed the editor was just a player editor alone.

Pays to pay attention in class I guess. ;)

mmmm...FM has me addicted again. and i credit it with pulling me out of my "blah" stage too FWIW

Can you purchase and download this game still? I can not find the link anywhere. And read the first 8 pages of this thread with no luck. Thanks for any help.

Thank you.

dola

FM continues to amaze me. I just got a message saying Craig Gallagher didn't show up to training so I clicked his profile and there's an option for "resolve issue" that i have NEVER seen before. SWEET!

You should have just read up about 20-30 posts. :) J/K

Dola - Has anyone else had an academy player promoted mid-season? This is the first time I've seen this.

Was he any good?

Nothing to write home about, although he is only 15. But he is not even listed as a promising midfielder or anything.

A couple quick questions on ratings:

What is "Work Rate" exactly? Some indication of the player's work ethic?

How does "Anticipation" affect a player?

yes that is work rate. anticipation is...knowing where the ball is going to be played, knowing what your teammates and opponents will do. (at least common sense wise). specificially they should both be in the manuel under the list of attributes

At the moment judging physio's is very difficult because of this (you have to really go by their 'work' as much as anything) ... we're changing this in the future though don't worry (apologies for any inconvenience).

No nothing so underhand I'm afraid - however statistically you are more likely to concede at either the start or end of a half for sound and sensible reasons (both irl and in the game) - although the difference isn't as large as you seem to indicate* (its a 'statistical' difference more than 90% of goals come at these times ;) ).

At the start of the half players are at their most fit for that half and you have the chance that some opposition defenders aren't fully focused on the match after their half-time philisophical debates.

Towards the end of a half players will be at their most tired and in some cases start almost celebrating their win/loss/whatever prematurely rather than concentrate and be fully motivated on the match.

You'll find all of the above in the game, although not hard-coded in any way the AI and physical simulation of the match means this happens naturally.

*If you're seeing goals at these times a lot then its either a strength or weakness of your team and if a weakness then try and adapt to avoid it being a problem obviously. You 'can' build for these as strengths incidentally largely by looking for players with the right mentality to keep battling in all situations - most dominant winning sides have this sort of mentality, its what kept Man Utd going in the CL final a few years back when they came back from behind in the dying seconds and won it in injury time ...

Political debates.

Only once, got one half way through a season playing as Man Utd. A young winger from Barbados who signed up, spent a few seasons in the youths and reserves looking like he was going to be a great player before fading away to a respectable but unimpressive career in the lower leagues. Kind of like Freddy Adu in real life :)

I think the mid-season ones may be real kids rather than game generated ones, Steve Bozinovski pops up on an "Aussies Abroad" type thread in google as an unattached player.

Hey MikeVick, where did you get that skin? I like it.

It's the Hellenic skin. Here's the website...

http://www.ellines.com/fmskins/2006/

Thanks. I've been using the chameleon skin, but even with that, I still get that ugly blue background color that came with the metallic skin.

Nice skin. :) Me like it.

I like the skin, too. I have also noticed a performance increase with this skin. For instance, when I drag players around in tactics view it is much smoother.

Are there other popular skins out there that are popular or well thought-of that I can try to see if I get a performance increase or are easier on the eyes? This is such a huge improvement, I want to see if there isn't more I've been missing out there.

jus had one of those moments last night where you get way too into the game.

got drawn against ManU in the knockout round of the CL.

game 1: all-world WB L Fabio Grosso gets sent off on a BS call in the 4th minute. I manage to go up 1-0 before the Devils tie it up midway thru. pull out a stunning 2-1 win away.

game 2: I take an early 1-0 lead but ManU strike back and score two unanswered to take the lead on away goals in like the 78th minute or so. I throw caution to the wind and push everyone forward, throwing on 3 offensive subs. we manage to score in the 84th minute to take the aggregate lead back and close out the game surviving a late ManU rush.

and yeah I was yelling and exhorting my boys on

By the by, I have #1 on my wishlist for future versions of FM.

Make. Save. Files. Importable. :)

seconded

Um.. DT, if you won 2-1 away, and were down 2-1 at home.. it's tied, ain't it? 3-3 and 2 away goals for each

Is it possible to setup the current world cup with the real teams as a stand alone I guess like in say the action-style soccer games ie FIFA or Winning Eleven?

No, FM does not support create a cup or that kind of thing.

Might be possible for us to make inhouse - but not for a user I'm afraid ...

Just a thought regarding this...could it be possible to make a physio history, where his 'stats' would include information about players developing injuries while under his care?

It's a nice thought, but I wouldn't hold my breath. The SI boys have stated in the past that this is pretty much impossible with all the changes to the game engine, and more importantly, the yearly changes that occur in league and competition rules.

I know, I know.

But there's got to be a point where it MIGHT be feasible. The game as it stands is pretty damn rock solid. Is it really necessary to monkey with the guts of the game to the point where backwards compatibility is always out the window?

(Of course, as a programmer, I know the answer to this, but I'm hoping!)

i am absolutely LOVING this new skin!!! Thanks, totally freshened up my game and career.

For physios it's be great to have stats like "Injury Length Estimation" and "Treatment Length over Average". ILE would be a percentage of times where the physios estimate of injury length is within a reasonable number of standard deviations from the injury's true length. TLoA would be a percentage indicating how much faster or slower this phsyio helps players heal than the average physio in the nation, continent, world, whatever.

Yeah, tying something like that in with the suggestion I made earlier would be ideal to me.

One way I gauge their ability is to look at their reputation. In my current dynasty with Man U, I had two physios each rated "world class". Then one of my players retired and was classifield as a physio. I figured, what the hell, I'll pick him up for a year, see if I can boost his rep a bit. Well, I don't know if its a coincidence or not, but I had more injuries in that one season than I had in the four years since I joined the club. It could be that my team was getting pretty old, therefore more susceptible to injury, but either way, I didn't take any chances and let the new guy go. I'm just starting the new season, so time will tell.

If you want an alternative skin try this one...

http://www.throw-in.com/index.php?ac...1&sub=4&id=317

This guy created one that looks like itunes. It's kinda cool actually.

This would be a nice thing to release if at all possible during the world cup. I know it is kind of late but it could have been good to grab at the World Cup fever. In the us there isn't much of it but having lived overseas 12 years I know it can be pretty exciting during cup time.

That one looks interesting. Do the play, rewind, and ff buttons do anything?

Yeah, they just work like the reverse and forward buttons on any other skin. The play button is the continue and the reverse and forward buttons just go back and forth to the different screens that you've gone to if you're like searching the transfer list...etc.

blah. so i must have gotten it wrong. i was posting that from my phone at work. let me load up the game and check it out.

okay so it was 2-1 at home and then 1-1 away.

Here's another question -- in older versions, I used to be able to view a little graph which charted my team's standing in whatever league I was in throughout each week. Do they still have that?

I just wanted to say that I held out long enough. After 41 pages, 2000+ posts and 40,000+ views, I can no longer ignore or try to fend off the power that is WWSM 2006. I will be purchasing it tonight, where my journey into sleepless nights will begin. I hardly know anything about soccer but I figure to give it a good shot in trying to understand this game. I figure by the time I can play this game in any kind of average way, OOTP 2006 will have at least 2 or 3 patches. :)

dola

Also just wanted to say to Marc that I respect and appreciate how he handles the communication between the customers and his company.

I think for your first time, you need to jump into an international league, not the MLS

I was thinking of doing this. Is this still a good option in this version?

i was just thinking this earlier: are there any other games (short of FM05) that were released that have remained so consistently active and on the top couple pages of the forum for so long?

any other threads? cept the MF thread of course.

Yes or maybe just one league with all levels for a start.

I think there are two reasons which make this thread so durable: First, it is an EXCELLENT game. Second, the SI boards are a nightmare. We have no choice but to come here if we have questions.

Bug would say the MLS is harder to play as in FM2006?

Yeah. If you go to the League Standings page for your league (or any other leagues you have selected), click on the "Pos" number on the left - it will show a graph of the position of the team you choose for the season. One of my favorites.

Thanks, I'll try it! I just tried the itunes skin, too -- it looks pretty cool! I don't really use itunes, but I like it. Maybe it will inspire me to use itunes now..

I'm a new player this year. Found the disk version of wsm in a Gamestop and picked it up. The learning curve is steep if, like me, you know nothing of "football" but well worth the effort. Stick with it, don't give up, and I know people here don't like the SI boards but go there and read some of the topics in the tactics forums. I probably printed out 50 pages from different posts there that taught me a lot. And of course the bonus of more reading material for the throne room.

I believe this is the same post I used when setting up my leauge. I took out Germany and Holland and added Wales and Ireland top to bottom. I thought it would help since I was starting out unemployed in the UK to have other small leagues to try to find players.

My computer is a few years old but has a 1.256 gig or ram and a 2 gig p4 processor and has no trouble running the game. At least not yet:)

I wouldn't say it's any steeper than FOF or any of the .400 games.

Just keep this in mind:

GK: Handling
DC: Jumping, heading

Everybody else: Teamwork, passing

You'll be fine.

probably asked, but, does anyone else seem to suffer from a midseason swoon every year? No matter what i do, my team always tanks in the middle of the season. two years on a row with new york, i gained 3 points from 12 games each season, right in the middle of my schedule. i know that coaches adapt to your tactics, but i just think the game compensates too much. i mean, each year i went from 1 to last in the division. no major injuries either year, and at the end of the years i finished 5th and 4th, and both times my team had around 5 players in the top 20 in avg rating, and i had the mls player of the year both times. i changed up tactics, tried everything, but both seasons my team just collapsed in midseason. any ideas why? they didn't seem tired.

Thanks Sweed, BreizhManu, and MrBug708

Ok, i am thinking of taking the plunge and after playing the demo and reading about htis great soccer game all these years finally go ahead and buy it. Anyways I was wondering if there is anywhere where I can find acomplete list of international teams in the game as well as leagues? I haven't been able to find it anywhere, and strangely enough not even on the SI site.

I have fond memories of the old days (circa 2000-2001ish) when the board (some of the forums anyways, like Off-Topic and Strategies) was actually pretty good. I don't even think I've visited it in the last year and a half.

Every international team in the world is in the game, you can control about 70 of them (they have to have enough players in the database to do so)

There's more then 50 + nations and most have more then 1 league.. do you want the list?

unbelieveably in the first World Cup game for wales both of my GK's got hurt and have been out. Game 2, we won 5-3 while I had a striker play GK, but here comes game 3 and I dont know if Ill have one of them back. I love this game.

you only took 2?? this is why you GOTTA take 3

I hate injuries in these situations. I am currently managing Portugal. Having just played the 2016 European Championships, we had 7 starters injured (either in matches or training) by the time the first match ended. Needless to say, we were bounced pretty quickly.

If you have it and you could posyt it or send it to me that would great.

From wikipedia (hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Manager_2006) :

Playable leagues

Football Manager 2006 contains the same playable leagues as Football Manager 2005 but with 2 small additions. The French league now has a fourth viewable but unplayable level (the CFA division), and the structural change to the Swedish league involving the re-instatement of Division One has been implemented, with Division Two retained as a playable fourth level.

Country	Levels	Divisions
Argentina	2	2
Australia	1	1
Austria	2	2
Belarus	2	2
Belgium	3	4
Brazil	3	18
Bulgaria	2	2
Chile	2	4
China	2	2
Colombia	2	2
Croatia	2	3
Czech Republic	2	2
Denmark	3	3
England	6	7
Finland	2	2
France	3	3
Germany	3	4
Greece	2	2
Hong Kong	1	1
Hungary	2	2
Iceland	2	2
India	1	1
Indonesia	2	3
Ireland	2	2
Israel	2	2
Italy	4	7
Malaysia	2	3
Mexico	2	2
The Netherlands	2	2
Northern Ireland	3	3
Norway	3	6
Peru	1	1
Poland	2	2
Portugal	3	5
Romania	2	4
Russia	2	2
Scotland	4	4
Serbia & Montenegro	2	3
Singapore	1	1
Slovakia	2	2
Slovenia	2	2
South Africa	2	2
South Korea	2	2
Spain	3	6
Sweden	3	8
Switzerland	2	2
Turkey	3	5
Ukraine	2	2
United States	1	1
Uruguay	2	2
Wales	1	1

Each division is made of 8 (I think there is nothing under) to 24 teams (might be more in Brazil, I'm not sure), all playable.

And for Brazil it is not really 18 but more like 3 since there are National and State championships (with the same teams).

Oh and for international teams, it depends on the database you use, I know that for older versions of the game, any country with more than 250 players activated in the game was available for international management, I guess it has not changed that much. Marc V could probably tell you more about this.

I downloaded the game and get it all installed. But I do not see my registration key in the email anywhere? Any tips? Of course having this much trouble trying to find the registration key should forshadow my challenge with this game. :)

Thnaks for the list. i never thought to check to see if there was a wikipedia page.:o

So I just noticed, on the wikipedia site, that you can do a Harchester United mod? Can anyone tell me anything about it?

There's 20 different Harchester United mods. they will reoplace the Premier League team you choose with harchester

Does it change just the name?