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.