I have read in a few dynastys and other posts where guys refer to the FIFA Rankings in the game. How do I get to this screen?

World -> World Cup -> World Cup -> World Rankings

Quick question, is there a randomizer out there like the one for BBCF that will randomly select nations or teams or anything for the game?

If you are using FM2006 try this one: http://proxymoron.org/llm/

If you are using FM2005 try this one: http://www.llamaland.co.uk/fmteamsel...generator.html

Sigh. And then there are times when I don't love this game so much.

Like when the game decides that you've had too much success and it's time to come back to the pack. So some mediocre goalkeeper stops all 20 or so of your 27-28 shots that ARE on goal, drawing comments after comments of " somehow gets a fingertip on it!" And you grit your teeth and grumble some curses.

And then another, even MORE mediocre, goalkeeper repeats the performance! AMAZING!

I hate, hate and absolutely HATE artificial difficulties for the sake of creating supposed "challenges". I can accept that, in the days and ages of advance scouting, whatever holes exists in your formation can and will be exploited (in the case of the formation I currently employ, right down the middle). That whatever advantage my formation/attacking style may have had can become negated overtime, I can live with that. I will work on finding the cure for it or move onto another formation to seek the next advantage. On the other hand, to simply make Manuel Alumnia into Gigi Buffon -- for a game -- for the sake of providing "challenge" is absolutely asstarded and has always been a disappointing copout by SI.

Rant temporarily over. :)

I have the same problem. No-name keepers playing world class games against me. Meanwhile my keeper who has won the best keeper in europe 3 years in a row let's in their first shot. so the scoring line goes like

me
20 shots - 12 on goal - 0 goals
them-
2 shot - 1 on goal - 1 goal

A setup question:

If I only select W. Europe countries to be basic and fully represented, if I send a scout to Scandinavia is he going to find any prospects?

Depends on the size of the database, but with a normal one, yes he'll find some.

maybe that's not what is going on though? maybe it's that their defenders are so good at positioning that all of your shots are weak/right at the keeper/harmless? Maybe it's that one of their midfield players is great at tackling and anticipation and is breaking up your attacks before they start?

It could be anything factoring into that, not necessarily a "super-keeper." Although there are certainly instances where keepers go on "runs", witness the Swiss keeper in the WC.

I dunno - the more I play, the more I buy that there is some sort of super-keeper thing going on at times. At one time, I decided to compare opposing GK ratings vs me as compared to those vs other teams, and if I recall correctly - they were something like half a point to a point better against me. It seems like every game, the opposing goalie gets an 8.

there we go. now that's actual statistical evidence! can we get a SI response to this/someone to do a more thorough comparison in a different career?

For me it has more to do with the background matches vs "live" ones

That all depends on who you're playing as, if you play as a team that dominates then the opposing keeper will get a high rating as they'll make more saves. A keeper that is doing nothing or next to nothing will be stuck at 7.

I've found it the other way round as well, if I'm playing as a bad team my keeper will have my highest average as long as I can keep a keeper with high morale available.

greatest combination of positions ever: DM/AMC

God I love it, makes the guy so versatile in my midfield. He can be the primary playmaker and also track back on defense because his speed/stamina is high enough

Doesn't necessarily mean anything, especially if there is a problem with your offense. Where do your shots come from? If you're putting 15 shots on goal a match, but they're all half-chances, easily saved - that's going to help the opposing keeper rating.

To be fair, I'd probably have to adjust for something like long shots taken, the varying strategies and what not - by no accounts was it a scientific study.

Funny, I actually hate that combo as I can never seem to develop a tactic to utilize these players properly. A few pages back I posted about a quandarary with this type of player.

i just play him as one of my MC's in a 4-4-2 and set him as the primary playmaker and up his "closing down" and "forward runs" and "run with ball" and "creative freedom" , giving him a free role is optional depending on the opponent and his particular talents in terms of being suited for that. the other MC tends to be someone similar, although not the same hybrid type player, but someone like Michael Essien who is strong in all areas.

i don't think i'd play him the same way if he was my sole MC, or if he was "in the hole" behind the strikers

Just went through this - the opposing team's backup goalkeep and backup central defender both had 9's in the game - ending my winning streak.

To me that is an indication of a bunch of not so great chances. The defender was playing so well that your strikers heard footsteps and fired off shots at the first opportunity rather than really working their possessions.

I think I brought this up before, but right now I'm playing as Salt Lake in the MLS. In the first season, 15 of my first 22 games are on the road. This seems to be what generally happens whenever I play in the MLS, 2/3rds of my first part of the schedule is on the road. It's not too bad the first season, but obviously, when this happens in later years, my team starts off in a hole, since it can only get so many points out of the road games. Is this a constant problem for anyone else, or is it just particular to my computer.

super-keepers are alive and well in FM06

In 2015 of my former Gretna/now Zaragoza game, the following news item:

Grimsby stun The Blues
Grimsby Town 1-0 Chelsea (FA Cup Final)

The (in 2005) League 2 Grimsby Town promoted to L1 after 06/07, to the Championship in 13/14, then in 14/15 beat Tottenham (the EPL winners) in the semis; then 4th-placed Chelsea in the finals. Gotta love seeing this happen from a computer team.

Finally got around to buying the game and finished my first season.

Started unemployed and took the Lancaster City job which came with the expectation to start rebuilding by investing in new players, leaving me with the expectation that I'd be fighting for position in the middle of the league. Made a few purchases before the season and planned on developing a few players. I'm still rather unsure of what I'm doing with tactics and at the start of the career and ran a fairly basic 4-4-2 which saw my offense struggle. I seemed to be doing alright on defens thoughe as the keeper I signed before the season recorded clean sheets in the first 11 league games, before finally giving up a goal in a 1-1 draw in the match #12. The play of my keeper helped lead me to promotion and a Conference North Championship as he registered 23 clean sheets, giving up 16 goals in 35 matches.

Learned more on tactics as I went on, and although I still feel fairly clueless I started to get my offense going once I found two wingers who could guide my offense. I put up 94 points with a 29-7-6 record, winning the league by 12 and having a GD of 61 to 19. I also managed to reach round 2 of the FA Cup, losing to a EL2 team 4-0 in a 2nd round replay match.

I'm looking forward to the challenge after promotion and love a lot of the small things in the game, like the press and praise from supporters and the board after clinching the series title with 4 games to play, and seeing my favorite player on the team, an aging MC/DC list me among his favorite personel.

Grrr...
Is anyone getting the free kick marking bug ? All my midfielders and forwards are set to "Form Wall" - all the defenders to man mark - I know this for certain as those are my pre-game setting. Lo and behold, on a free kick, all the fucking defenders are in the wall. For some reason, the sitting of the midfielders has been set to default and the defenders to form wall (when I check back) - which results in a 9 man wall, and the opposing team scoring easily. This happens at least one a game, and is immensly frustrating ( I have to manually adjust all of them). I don't mind losing when I'm outplayed - repeated bugs like this drive me nuts.

just tied birmingham 1-1

27 shots 13 on goal for me

3 shots for them, 1 on goal.

seems like every few games no matter how great my team is, the game just decides to make my entire to play like absolute crap and tie/lose a game i should EASILY WIN. Or i get to play against a super goalie.

as much as i like the game, the same things that made me stop playing the last one are starting to push me over the edge on this one.

just tied birmingham 1-1

27 shots 13 on goal for me

3 shots for them, 1 on goal.

seems like every few games no matter how great my team is, the game just decides to make my entire to play like absolute crap and tie/lose a game i should EASILY WIN. Or i get to play against a super goalie.

as much as i like the game, the same things that made me stop playing the last one are starting to push me over the edge on this one.

sorry guys.... i have no idea how that happened

The game doesn't decide -- those little electrons running through your computer go at just a randomly slightly different speed and that's what causes these kind of results.

Everyone remembers the ONE or TWO times where they lose when they should have own, but forget the DOZENS when the win when they should have won.

Nope. Straight point-blank shot. On more than a few, the ball pretty much got past the 'keeper and he had to "dive" back (the dot makes a "leap" instead of the usual movement). Even the commentator makes a comment to the effect that the 'keeper JUST gets a finger on it. Except repeat a whole bunch of times.I've seen that. I've HAD that. That's one thing . . . "A GOALKEEPER" going on a hot streak.

I'm talking about various goalkeepers on various teams going on a hot streak. In games against me. Nobody else.

A really wish my Assistant would send me an email when making offers to players that will put me over my SI/YI limit. Nothing worse than not realizing youre at the limit and then dropping a bunch of money on players you'll end up having to cut.

Isnt it at the bottom of the offer contact screen?

1 or 2 times?? it happens to me every 4 or 5 games. In fact it just happened again(5 games after my Birmingham game). just played Middlesbrough at HOME, they litterally don't have a single player on thier team in 2011 that could even be a back-up on my squad. we tied 0-0. 17 shots for me 9 on goal. My forwards are Fred and Vucinic, 2 of the bestforwards in the game. Their goalie is Robert Green.... sub-par Premiership goalie. So 2 tied games in 2 weeks that i should have EASILY EASILY won. Then i'll go and score 7 vs Southhampton or something. Doesn't make much sense sometimes.

Like i said, i love this game, but for whatever reason, my teams will just refuse to show-up every few games. Im sure its written somewhere in the programing. Maybe a moral thing or a "we'll take this game for granted thing". But it happens to me every 4 league games or so. Hell i haven't won a game i should have lost in probally 2 seasons. But i've DAM sure lost/tied games i should have won.

My tactics are solid... one of the best tactics over at the SI forums. So that ain't it. Its just somewhere in the programing.

once again, i do love this game. But there are still problems with it.Regens are still screwed up. Probally 70% of the top regens are from england in 2011. Most countries don't have a single regen with PA over 150 by 2011. So in another 5-10 years 70% of the best players in the game will be from England.

Well, that's certainly different from wild accusations of "super keepers". I buy your explanations in the first paragraph as entirely plausible.

i remember reading a post somewhere from someone at SI that the "superkeeper" is a myth. argh i wish i knew where it was posted

This is interesting as I'm not getting this sense. It's just intuition as I haven't checked nor use the editor, but in my game in 2023 I see just as many good Spanish regens as English regens with a slightly lesser number of solid French and Italian players. I do wonder if it might have something to do with which leagues I have activated as Spain and England are both on while France and Italy are off.

On a different note, it's been interesting to see how my Barca squad performs differently than the Exeter team I left. If I would tell my Exeter boys that I was thrilled with their performance at half time, invariably they would let up and allow the other team to get back in the game. It seems my Barcelona team takes that same message with a sense of professionalism that rewards the compliment. They have turned 3-0 halftime leads into brilliant 5-0 and 6-0 demolition jobs. That just happened so rarely at Exeter. I'll be interested to see if they keep on responding this way.

It has, definitely.

I've posted along those lines repeatedly - there is NO bias for or against any teams keepers in the game.

You do irl get some keepers who on their day have great form, such is life unfortunately.

Morale is a possibility, run of poor form by strikers, etc.

Ok, so it wasn't a looooong loooong while, but it was long enough for me.....

After my Albion Rovers got red hot, going from SD3 to SD1 in two years, and winning the Challenge Cup in that second year while in the SD2, things came to a halt. Kind of figured it would, since I had not had a lot of upgrading in talent from my D3 team. No money to upgrade, and it's hard to find the players who are even willing to come to my Wee Rovers on loan.

I did have a couple moves before I got out of D2 though, that I was excited about. I signed a ML who would be a decent upgrade (my outside midfielder spots had been driving me nuts since I couldn't find anyone worth a damn to play there IMO).

The big signing though was a player my scout found in Europe. I don't remember where he was at the time, but he is a 'cultured winger' from Sweden and speaks 4 languages at 21 years old. He is a AM LC/ F. I signed him much to my surprise and was excited right away, because his technical skills were above and beyond anyone I had. His mental was not so hot, but we would work on that....

So, my first year in D1 starts. I suck. I am getting pounded. I finally get a win in game 4. From there It is win or lose, mostly lose. I think it was game 12 that I had my first draw, which with all the losing I would have been happy with draws at this point.

After the 2nd game of the year I started to get more defensive, which helped some. I had been running a 4-4-2 with the midfielders in a 'wide' diamond, L and R wingers and a DMC and AMC. Well, I dropped the AMC back to just a plain old Midfielder standing alone in the center. Seemed kind of odd but I stuck with it. I got a M who would work better then the AMC I was using.

Ok, already too long of a story here...so I am sitting in 8-10 most of the year up until Jan. comes around. I can't get any moves made to improve my team, except I finally find a couple Forwards to come on loan. Nothing special, but they have some decent finishing ratings for young guys, which I figured I could use. I messed with a couple different formations also at this point, getting desperate. Well, I got hammered by someone 5-0, so I went back to what I had.

Then things clicked. I have been tearing it up since mid-Jan. My Swedish striker is a mad man, scoring 9 goals over a 5 game stretch at one point. With mostof the SD1 kind of mediocre except the top two teams (Hibs and Morton) I actually end up shooting up the standings to third. 4-5 games left to go, and no shot at promotion, but I am ok with that. Hopefully I can keep this thing improving for another year in D1 and keep the hounds off my Swedish striker who went from nothing to me being able to demand over a million dollars for him (still not sure how I turned that down but I did) in this one season.

Since everyone else is sharing their stories:

I start off with Real Salt Lake. At the beginning of the season, I'm given 200-1 odds of winning the MLS. Over the course of the season, I end up selling off a starting defender, 3 starting mids, a spot starter at defense, my #2 forward, and my starting keeper. I start off the season with a pair of 2-0 wins, playing a 4-5-1 (4-1-3-1-1 to be FM technical) at both home and away. We then go 5 games winless. For the next 12 games or so we trade wins and losses until my team finally clicks on a PK win in the Open Cup in New York. We go 11 games without losing to finish the regular season #1 in points in the MLS. We're allowing just over 1 goal a game and scoring two. We go through the semis 4-2 on aggregate. We win the Western Conference 2-0.

So we get to the MLS Cup to face Kansas City. In the semi-finals of the Open Cup, we lost to KC 4-3 on PK's, our only loss since the end of July. So I decide, what the hell, lets go all out, so I go with the attacking 4-5-1 and hope that's good enough.

Well, KC comes out blazing and dominating, so after about 10 minutes I switch to the defensive and hope to hit them on the counter. The game goes the full 90 without a goal. In the 96th minute I sub in a new right back for my last sub, hoping my boys can just stay alive to make it to PK's again. The guy I brought on I debated about after I hit the tactics button. I only had 1 defender left, and bringing him on would cause me to have to switch a better producing defender to the d-mid role. Also, the player last played 2 games ago when he put up a 4 and got subbed at the half. He also put up a 4 when he was called to the Panamanian national side... but I had no one left.

3 minutes later, my brilliance is realized. My side gets a corner and my right back goes forward. Bam! Goal on the header in the 99th minute!!!! His first goal of the campaign is a 99th minute header in the MLS Cup. My team holds on for the final 20 minutes to secure the first MLS title in RSL history, after being labeled 200-1 shots to win it all.

In the end of the year awards, I had a GK, a Defender, 3 mids and a forward on the first team MLS All Pros, The top 2 defenders in the race, 2 and 3 in rookie of the year, top keeper (who started the year as the backup), the MVP, top two in Humanitarian of the year, and the top goal scorer by 9 goals.

All in all, a pretty good first season.

Let me guess : Kristoffer Kittel ?

In my current carrer, I managed RSL for two and a half seasons before leaving for Bologna in Italy. I won 2 MLS cups and one CONCACAF Champions Cup. Players like Nik Besagno, Jamie Watson, and DJ Countess all were lynchpins of my dynasty and I had great success finding good players from Mexico and South America. Good Luck!

Why are these people unhappy?

Defoe - played in 7 of last 9 games, starting 6. It's April 1 (England schedule) and he has 17 starts and 11 substitutions on the year, despite being out the first two months of the season, and today I get a message that he wants more first team time.

Fred - has played in 36 premier league matches last season and 27 of 29 this season so far, overall has played 36(8), yet he is still unhappy and feels he should be a regular starter, something he picked up two seasons ago and never lost. He is second in appearances on the team!

Do these people have to start every game to be happy? With league cups and champions league I am playing every 3/4 games, I have to give them rests!

is their "squad status" not set appropriately on the "transfer status screen" ?

Check their Personal screen, see what makes them unhappy, it's written there.

Yeah, I only threw Besagno in there for 6 games (4 as subs) the whole year since he was only 15/16. Watson played in 32 games and performed solidly (7.16). I've updated all the rosters in the US, so Countess wasn't with me anymore. He started as a free agent and wound up in Denmark. Christian Jimenez was a revelation on left side. Jeff Cunningham was a God up front, Jay Nolly was the best keeper in the league. Somehow Carey Talley was the best defender.

I forgot to mention it earlier, but one nice touch from the game is that at the end of the year, 6 of my American players got called up to the national team for a friendly. That was pretty cool. Cunningham was off and on the team through the season, but Carey Talley, Christian Jiminez, Jay Nolly and Jamie Watson all got called up for the first time, with Eddie Pope rounding out the 6. It was pretty cool seeing their good work in the season rewarded.

What's appropriate (only 3 or 4 seasons under my belt with this game)? I had Fred as a key player and Defoe as a back-up, I moved Defoe to an important first team player.

Both of them definitely feel they should be part of the first team.


Another question: I have a player that is out on loan, unhappy and won't resign. Will I get compensation when another team signs him at the end of the season (he is 21-22 years old)?

Out of curiosity, could anyone explain the various options (and the players' action in those instances) for throw-ins please? I'm tinkering with my formation (sort of a bastardized 3-5-2/5-3-2) and I'm relatively happy with it, other than hole I can do nothing about (spot right in front of defenders, behind the lone central midfielder). The only thing that still annoys me is the fact that my opponents are having too easy a time with throw-ins (I know, nitpick . . . but I do that). Can anyone enlighten me on those please?

I played against Carey in High School, Nice to see him doing well!

The computer controlled Ivory Coast just beat the computer controlled Mauritania by an incredible combined score of 21-0. The first game was only 5-0. The second was a blow out in the IC by 16-0!. Drogba was the leading scorer obviously but damn. The IC used all three subs in the game and all but 3 players received a 10. The GK only could manage a 9, one sub got a nine, and another sub got an 8

So why does the game slow down as you get more years into it? Is this only a problem in certain circumstances?

I don't have any similar problems on mine.. even with my monster config ( I have something like 110 leagues running, just about every nation).. it's slow during transfer season, but I don't care.

If you find the game slowing down on your PC then consider the following options which might improve things:

* Increasing the free-space on your hard-disk. If you have a low spec PC then its very likely that FM will use virtual memory, if you have a reasonable amount of free-disk space and a defragmented hard-disk then virtual memory access will be faster than on a crowded fragmented disk.
* Delete surplus packed match files (details on sibase on sigames.com) - these are historical match files which allow you to watch old matches. On slower machines, especially those will older file systems having a large amount of these can slow the game down considerably.
* Check if you're running any surplus items at the same time as the game, I have loads of stuff which auto-launches on my dev machine which will slow down any games I run (for instance the Incredibuild daemon etc.)

LOL! I went to high school with him, was a class ahead of him. I liked him much better than Ross Paulie at the time, but I never talked to either that much.

Man we had a hell of a soccer program back then...

EDIT: Which high school did you go to?

I went to Harding, and played against Ross as well. In the district tournament I had the, um, pleasure of marking Ross for a game. He got a goal late, but other than that I feel like I played him pretty well.

Sorry, I know I sound like I'm beating a dead horse on this, but is this just for me ?

not something I've heard about before - I'll see if I can reproduce it.

I can understand how that feels. For a time I think Ross held the MLS for fastest goals scored or something...

That team we had was absolutely stacked. Starting my senior year, they won 3 straight state titles I think...

Sorry if this has been covered already but does anyone know exactly what "Other" covers in the Finanace->Expenditure screen? I have looked over on the SI boards but haven't found any conclusive answer.

Miscellaneous expenses that a team can incur. Things like taxes, paying the club's non-coaching staff, etc.

I've actually been playing that save game lately. It's not so bad, since going into it I have the attitude that it will move very slowly. I'll get up, watch TV, hit continue, repeat, etc.

Sorry if this has been asked before (don't really feel like reading through 50+ pages right now. :) ). I took over East Stirling and all of my players maked 1k-4k per year. If I were to bring in a player (who would be a superstar relative to this level) and pay him 30k per year, would that have any bad effects on my players? Would they all start demanding very high salaries or get unhappy?

I have no clue about the other players, but would your team board even allow you to offer one player that much money?

I have heard of players asking for better contracts, but they usually talk about getting paid as much as their equivalent in the series I play in, or saying they are really not paid enough compared to others in the series, not necessarily in the team...


FM

Yeah, I can offer up to 35k a year I think for a "Key Player".

Possibly - if they respect the player and believe he is much better than them then maybe not, however it is likely they'd be looking to improve their contracts at the very least.

Obviously if you bring in such a player and up their contracts then they'll take his arrival fairly well ;)

PS> I try and make FM behave realistically as much as possible - so in most cases just try and consider how you'd expect people to react irl ...

Do the top leagues in Italy and Spain, for example, play reserve team games? It seems to me that only England does.

I started a career in England and then have switched over to Italy and Spain and both have reserve teams, but do not play any games. Do I have to have those countries on a certain detail level to have those games included or do they just not play them?

For those of you with ample budget, how many coaches do you employ?

This is one area where I think FM could be improved. I have yet to see a coach be in charge of more than one area and still retain 4 or 5 star quality. As a result, as soon as I was financially able, I brought in a coach for each training area. This meant 8 coaches and an Assistant Manager.

Now that I'm in the EPL with a large squad, that's been increased to 10 coaches plus an Assistant Manager. Frankly, that's too many but I haven't seen any adverse effects and I know of no other way to maintain 4 or 5 star coaching in each training area.

Also, how does reputation impact non-playing staff? Some of the staff have increased their reputations to World Class during my tenure but others lag behind. I've also noticed that some 'World Class' staff on other squads have distinctly average attributes and I'd be hesistant to hire them. I've got 'Local' staff with better ratings.

This is one area of the game that is unclear to me.

For Italy there's no reserve league in real life. If a player is too old for the youths and not good enough for the first team, they don't play. That's why there's so many loan deals.

In Spain teams have a B team that's part of the league structure. They can't be promoted to the same level or higher than the first team, but they can be promoted and relegated up and down the other levels. So in FM your B team won't play a full schedule unless you're simming far enough down the league structure to get to the level the B team is in.

Well for some real life comparisons, after looking at the various club webisties it seems that Chelsea have 2 assistant managers and 5 coaches of various descriptions, Arsenal have 1 assistant, 5 coaches and two 'youth development personell' which I suspect is a fancy name for 'youth coach', Liverpool have an assistant and 3 coaches, but that doesn't include youth team coaches. I looked at the Spurs and Man Utd websites but they didn't seem to have any information of the coaching staff. So overall, it seems that around 6-8 total staff is realistic which is fairly close to what I use in FM when I can afford it. Of course, the big difference is that in real life you have a goalkeeping coach and fitness coach and the others are more general, whereas in FM you have specilised coaches in every discipline. I suppose that is just a side effect of being able to see the raw attributes when in real life you can't.

Thanks Critch.

Anyone know what a "Sporting" personality means?

Chivalrous, fair, honest.

I had "fairplay" in mind if that helps...

FM

I understand that but I was kind of hoping to find out exactly what some of the major expenses are. I am barely at the end of November in my current season and have nearly 2 million in "Other Expenses". At that rate I will be bankrupt by the end of the season. My hope is that if I can figure out which of these "Other Expenses" is costing me the most I may be able to cut some corners. Dave C over on the Si board mentioned in several posts that Marc V had given him a run down of what other expenses were, but had since lost it. I was hoping Marc would share that list again here.

I believe sending injured players to specialists counts under there as well.

I guess I'm choosing injections for blown out knees from here on out then:D

Thanks Marc. I'll try and show you a before and after screenshot.

I looked on your website for this, and couldnt find it. Any more detail as to where these details are?

I was also unable to find it in the SIBase but I found this utility on sortitoutsi called FM Savegame Cleaner. I allows you to clear the old matches, player history, injury history. I backed up my game first, then tried it on it, only clearing the old games (the pks files) and the utility was able to cut 68mb from my 201mb file, that's quite a big saving if you ask me. The savegame file seems to be acting normally, nothing funky about it, but it's loading much, much faster.

FM

Wow, that sounds great, ill give it a try. Thanks!!!

Yes. I take it this is probably cheat-like since you knew the name right away? I don't follow everything so I didn't know the name and that he would be available and probably usually is.

Damn, kind of taints my game a little now if hat is the case. I had him for that one year only, then couldn't resist selling him to improve the future of my Albion Rovers. Between him, and my right winger I sold off because he wanted out already, I made almost $3 million.

I will have to put it behind me though, and continue on with the game I think. It's not like it opened up a whole new world or anything. Crap, I still can't get players to come to my team despite having the money to buy them and pay them.

Overall update....season 2 in SD1 I finished in 5th, down from 3rd with Kittell and my right winger who left. I was only able to sign a few guys to come in an replace them, none of whom had a huge impact. A new French forward I got was pretty good though, and after the fans worrying about him when I signed him he led the team in scoring and was voted Fans Player of the Year. My problem was once again, a very slow start to the season.

I am into season 3 of my SD1 years right now, and my start has been better then the last two years, hopefully this means I can get a top 3 spot again, maybe even that #1 spot for promotion. The key to my team is having the same old players. Once again finding it very hard to bring guys in, my team is still improving. All my young players (my whole team basically) is getting close to tose peak years. My defenders are becoming very good, although my main center back got injured right at the begining of the year, after break, so his ratings have dropped like a rock. Have been able to cover for him though.

I have a couple Forwards developing nicely, including the Frenchman. I am ver excited though as I just got Irishman Tommy Coyne to come over. I had him on loan my one year in SD2 and he was what gave me that extra edge to get promoted, he was just outstanding. So after two years without him, I got him to finally come back. The season is young, so not sure how things will pan out yet though.

I actually wrote this down the first time it was passed around:

1) load your saved game
2) go to Start->Run
3) type in "%temp%" without the quotes
4) go to Worldwide Soccer Manager 2006 folder
5) delete all the .pks files

My team F.C. Metz in the French 1st League was down 0-5 sadly enough in league play against Caen. Well, we still lost but almost pulled off a monumental comeback as we lost 4-5. What a game.

Bah since I don't go to FM forums anymore, I don't know if he is very well known but I often see him in my games since one I played in Wales. The guy is quite good and always accept to come to even crappy clubs.

He is one of the 2 really good players that do that, the other one being a MR/ST from cyprus.

I just downloaded this and its pretty slick. The last cleaning option is for "indexes if any" does anyone know what these are?

He is indeed good, that's for sure. He was dominating for me in fact. I should have tried to keep a hold of him longer then that one season. I had my club making money, just not a ton so selling him set my team up to be comfortable a little faster then it would have taken.

Now he is getting limited playing time for an EPL team (who I got a draw against in my friendly with them I am happy to say).

That one season got him listed as a Albion Rover favorite even, the guy would have been a superstar.

And my team isn't crap! :mad: ;)

Question for Marc or anyone who can answer...I downloaded a user created media comments pack and installed it before I began my current career. I am now really regretting using this. Is there anyway I can go back to the default pack that was included in the game?

I recall seeing an option to "refresh media comments", what does this do?

Applogies if this has been asked before but a search turned up nothing.

Just out of curiosity, what's wrong with it? I've always thought about using one but haven't bothered to yet.

The comments appear like they were put together by a 6th grader. My real issue was I decided to give a possitive comment about a rival manager instead it showed up plus was recognized by my team and the opposing team as a negative. So I also assume it wasn't done correctly....

I found it on SortitoutSI and saw a few good reviews/comments on it .

The comments appear like they were put together by a 6th grader. My real issue was I decided to give a possitive comment about a rival manager instead it showed up plus was recognized by my team and the opposing team as a negative. So I also assume it wasn't done correctly....

I found it on SortitoutSI and saw a few good reviews/comments on it, I will never trust those reviews again.

Unrelated question... I have just signed a 20-year old defender on a transfer, and he will join us in July after his current contract expires. His skills look okay for a defender, but just sensational for a forward/striker. I did a search, but couldn't find out how to try to train him into the new position.

(1) Is it advisable to try to train him, at 20 years of age, into playing a new position? The differences in skills is just startling -- hs has 18-20 in several things like finishing, heading, and off the ball... but his ratings in positioning, tackling, and marking are all pretty pedestrian (8-12 or so).

(2) If so, what is the best way to do this? I can't even find the option in the game to set him to shift positions... and I don't know whather I ought to be placing him into my reserves lineup at the new position to learn.. or what. I'm happy for a link to something already written - just couldn't find anything with a quick search.

Thanks for any input.

I've tried that on a few guys in their late teens/early 20's. No matter what I tried, they all hated it. And as soon as you try to put them on regular training, they lose the position. I too had a defender who was horrible at all the defensive stats, but could shoot and pass with the best of them, but he was constantly unhappy with learning a new position.

I did this with a 19 year old DM I sa. He had great pace and decent finishing so I trained him up as a striker. Took about 9 months to get him to acomplished. If you play them regulary in the position you are training them to it helps them adapt quicker (I didn't really with this one guy, he played about 5 or 6 games all season). Go to their training screen and on the box in the top left just pick a new position from the drop down box.

My reserve roster is such a wasteland that this might be a good way to go for this guy. Thanks... I think I'll give it a shot.

Should work ok with a player under 21. As tanglewood said, you'll find the option to switch positions on the individual player's training screen. Set the new position, and forget it. Eventually, he'll show as trained on his official position listing... I usually find out that my guy has successfully trained for a spot when I order my players by position, and the guy has moved up or down the order to his new spot. Again, as tanglewood said, it will probably take an entire season for him to be fully trained, but it works fairly well.

It wasd all worth it too when in the second game of the new season after his training was complete he scored 4 and assisted 1 in an 8-0 rout of one of our key league opponents. Yes, I felt like a genius that day.

The more a guy plays in matches at the new position, the faster he will learn the new position you have him training for.

Do people not train new positions frequently? I constantly have people learning new positions. I like my midfielders to be able to play LRC in case I need them there because of injury or conditioning or whatever, and my fullbacks to play DC if they have to. Every month or so I go into the training screen, view 'position training', filter 'all schedules', sort by level, and switch everyone at 'accomplished' to a new position, if there is one left I would think they would be decent at. I think it's a lot easier though to train someone into a more defensive position than a more offensive one, but I've trained guys in their mid-twenties to new positions.

With my current career, I am dealing with mostly young players so I do train them into other positions often.

I get a MC, he will always be trained for ML or MR, sometimes AM or DM. I like my fullbacks to know more then one spot, always centre back and one of the side spots. The only thing I will usually leave along are my forwards, though I could throw one out at a winger spot once in a while.

I have had very limited success in training "raw" players, who all tend to be central defenders. I'll inevitably fiind a young central defender, who is unconvincing at the position but has no ability elsewhere. Yet, his attributes are outstanding for some sort of offensive role. I'll try and train him at a new position and while he'll eventually learn the new position, I'm always guaranteed he'll lose attributes right across the board, including in "personality" areas like bravery.

I haven't had much luck training players in new positions IF they don't already have a 'Natural' position. Otherwise, it's fairly easy to re-train. I had a 17 year old WB L who was described as an attacking full back. Since I don't use wing backs, and I'm cautious with my fullbacks, I trained him as a ML. He's now on his way to becoming English Young Player of the Year. With 12 games to go, he's amassed a 7.67 AvR.