So I'm managing my club team and Wales has offered me the job as NT coach. If I accept, will I continue to also manage my club team or just solely the NT?

You will coach both. You can also choose to resign either job at any time as well.

even more, if a game for both teams fall on the same day, they will clone you and you will be able to manager both games, even if they're on separate continents ;)

That's not a joke, I've done it multiple times...

FM

Ha! Same here. I remember those days traveling at the speed of sound halfway across the planet in an hour. :)

Is it a plane? Is it a bird? No, it's SuperFrogMan!!! :D

FM

Many more thanks for this tip... it has helped me a lot as well.

FM

Where did you extract that cleaner to to get it to recognize your save game files. It isnt showing any as available to select, where I have it.

The first screen is recently opened saves by it - you want to go to 'Clean' and 'Open' one. They're usually in My Documents \ Sports Interactive \ \ games

How the heck do you get your team to regain confidence?

My team rolled through the first season, and even in the second season they played well early, but all of a sudden we are giving up a ton of goals and we can't score...

what he said. I simply unzipped to its own folder on my desktop and then browsed to where the files are in "My Documents".

Quiksand, glad to be of help :)

FM

This game always provides something new. I clinched the EPL with 6 regular season games to go, along with a Champions League semi-final against Newcastle, who was second in the EPL. I figured despite setting a new goals and points record in the EPL, my team would keep focused for the match against Newcastle. Instead, my team gives up on the rest of the season, we win only one of the remaining six matches, draw one, lose four and get absolutely demolished in the semi-final. We lost our last game of the year in woeful fashion, with almost everyone getting a '5' rating. I let them have it but I think they were more interested in heading on vacation.

Easy. Win. :p

usually I get down on em, and that makes em try harder to prove something to me.

but it also can make them turn on you and not want to play for you, then playing worse and not winning more...

FM

then you get a new player in with something to prove..

I'm not talking about one player who stops playing, the whole 11 of them, and more...

FM

then, you're fucked.

Realistic, neh?

i sooo misread that...i was sure it said go down on em, and i seriously was typing out a really inquisitive reponse about what game you were playing...then i re-read and just held down backspace as i thought to myself "im a retard"

I usually have a lifesize cardboard cutout of the team's female owner dressed in something naughty. Then, everytime we win, I peel a section of her clothing off.

Or I play my veterans with the highest determination, mixed in with some youngsters with something to prove and sit the high skill/low mentality guys, but have them on the bench. Then, if you're winning, you can sub some of those guys in so that they feel like they've been a part of the win also.

So I've been searching around youtube to see some soccer clips and this tackle just flat out made me die laughing.

hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U0QJltJFIw&mode=related&search=soccer%20tackles

also found that inter has a team anthem, and it's pretty catchy. don't understand a word but i'm humming it while i play.

Ok, so my Albion Rovers went from SD3 to SD1 after only two seasons. I finished 3rd my first year in SD1, thanks in part to Kris Kettell at forward. I then sold him for almost 3 million big ones, which helped my team greatly.

The next year was a bit rough without him though, and we finished 5th. Still, picked to be relugated so I was ok overall I guess. Year 3 in SD1, I start slow again, 3rd year in a row and it drives me nuts. Find my combo of forwards finally, and pick up a MR in January who I thought had a bright future. I end up in 4th to finish the year. Once again I was just supposed to avoid relugation so I am ok I guess.

Year 4 in SD1, I finally start strong. My star F surprises me though. The guy has always had the ratings, but never played real well. He played little for two years, but also managed to be a Favorite Personel for the Wee Rovers already. Anyways, the guy starts to live up to his ratings and salary. HE is on fire, along with a young 19 year old I got before the season.

The key though is, like Kittell was, another Swede. That MR I picked up has been making huge gains in training and is playing great.

I have been struggling a little as Janruary approaches, but still hold 1st place by a point. Now my Swedish MR is getting everyone interested though, and I can talk Celtic into paying 4 million for him. I could always use the money, but I am not sure I want to send him packing yet. I want to get into the SPL, and I think I need him to feed my F's. My ML is a 19 year old who plays great, but doesn't have great ratings yet. He just can't be relied on enough, and my backup MR's are good but no where near as good as the Swede.

I'm playing as Borussia M'gladbach in the Bundesliga, pre-season expectations are to fight bravely against relegation.

I'm playing a boring, defensive formation for most of the games (all away games and home games against anybody we don't outclass) with minor tweaks, grinding out loads of 1-0 wins. Just after xmas a rare 2-0 win lifts Borussia into first place despite averaging only 1 goal for per game. We're grinding out 1-0's and being successful, just like the boring, boring Arsenal of old.

Obviously the team is seriously over achieving, so the next 6 games are 1 draw and 5 defeats to lower Gladbach down the table. Only one goal scored in those 6 games and my defence that has been strong all season is suddenly making mistakes all over the place.

Feels like the game is stopping my team from overachieving too highly. Maybe a bit of AI adjustment to keep it "realistic"?

or maybe your team is just coming back down to earth? or maybe the other teams have figured out your tactics?

From what I know about the game, it's not the AI saying 'you've won enough'. It's hitting a losing streak and, through bad luck or making the wrong managerial decisions, not doing what it takes to get out of it.

Critch,

This is not an uncommon belief. Its been a conspiracy theory that's been out there for several versions of the game.

Oh yeah, I'm familiar with that recurring complaint. I'd always thought it was just whinging til I was playing a game as Aberdeen in the SPL and 11 points clear with 3 games to go before the break. The 3 games were against lower teams and should have been at least 6 points closer to clinching, but Aberdeen lost all three. I then had a frotunate power outage that allowed me to go back and replay those three (a real power outage, not me turning off in a huff), and again Aberdeen lost all three. So then I thought I'd try again to test if it would happen again. Long story reasonably short, I replayed the three "easy" games 6 times and the best Aberdeen got was 1 tie and 2 defeats, even changing tactics didn't do any good.

And that's why I now think the AI normalizes teams overperforming.

My team is definitely due a coming back down to earth, they're not very good. It was the manner (and predictability) of it that made me take notice. I don't think it's a matter of the team figuring out my tactics as my team still outshot the opponents in 5 of the 6 (the other was v Bayern, that's always a destruction), they just stopped scoring.

Likewise my oppenents were not making any more chances, they just had the luck to come up against a defence and keeper that were suddenly seriously accident prone.

My Plymouth squad won the EPL last season and the board expects us to do the same this year. Unfortunately, our slide last year after clinching seems to have continued this year. One win and four losses after five games sees us in 19th to start the year. This is virtually the same squad, with no changes to major players. If this keeps us, I'll be sacked in no time.

Just to state, im playing as Napoli in italy, and im 20-0-0 with a +57 goal ratio...second place is 20 points back...havent had any "pull down" in my game.

EDIT: This is the first season, i havent brought in a single player. So its not my players, and im using the default tactic for now, so its not that. Im just kicking ass, and the game isnt pulling me down.

I think more then anything people get upset their great squad takes games off, and blames the game.

The games didnt matter..your players prob. already clocked out and were just cocky from the point lead

So after 5 defeats and a 0-0 "bore draw" that took Borussia M'Gladbach from 1st to 7th in the Bundesliga, 13 points behind league leading Bayern, next up is a visit to Leverkusen. Leverkusen are in 2nd place, the game is live on TV, so the scene is all set for a must-win game for both teams. Gladbach needs to take something home from Leverkusen to keep a UEFA Cup place in grasp; Leverkusen needs the win to keep in touch with Bayern at the top.

Gladbach's poor form continues with Leverkusen taking the lead through Schneider in the 5th minute, the first real chance for either team. Gladbach soldier on playing fairly well, making a few chances to equalize, but fall behind 2-0 in the 43rd minute when Berbatov scores something like his millionth goal of the season.

So it's half time, Gladbach have been struggling for weeks, they're 2-0 down at a form team and the bench is looking bare. At the end of the bench is Jeff Strasser, Luxembourg's finest footballer. He's the Gladbach club captain, a central defender of determination and influence, but he's been out 5 months with injury. He's not bounced back well from his Achilles tendon injury, all his lines on his attribute graphs are plummeting and he's listed as severely lacking match fitness. But this game is over, so he'll get 45 minutes to get back to match fitness.

He grabs the captain's armband for the first time in 5 months and leads his team out, his teeth gritted as he shows the legendary determination that has rightly made Luxembourg famous throughout the ages for whatever it is they are famous for. A 2-0 defeat isn't going to be good enough for this lion of a man.

Within 2 minutes Gladbach snatch 1 back from Sonck. Three minutes later it's 2-2 after Brioch strikes. It stays like that for the next 30 minutes, but the flow of the game has changed, Gladbach know they can't be beaten with the Luxembourgian Lion in the center of defense. Ten minutes from the end the turnaround is complete as Filip Daems strikes from his left back position like a Belgian Chinchilla and puts Gladbach ahead for the first time in simply yonks. The last 10 minutes drag by for the Gladbach faithful until Brison scrambles the ball home to make it 4-2, in the process both figuratively and literally pissing on the twitching corpse of ‘Kusen’s title challenge.

It doesn’t say it in the match report, but you know that on the final whistle the Gladbach players rushed to Strasser and lifted him on their shoulders and carried him off as the floodlights exploded, showering them in sparks of glory. A Gladbach team that had scored 1 goal in the previous seven games, that hadn’t scored more than 2 goals in a single game all season, had managed to score 4 in 45 minutes with Strasser in command.

So that was a nice return to form.

Team's whose main goal is to simply avoid relegation often take the foot off the gas in the second half of the season once they know they are safe. Classic example in real life are Charlton. For the past 3 or 4 seasons they made excellent starts to the season, usually in the top 6 and at leas once in the top 4 come December/January, then just start playing poorly and end up slipping down to 10-14th place by the end of the year. Every season it was the same and every time it made their manager Alan Curbishley tear his hair out, always berating the players saying they should have an ambition to finish in Europe, to the extent that he quit this summer.

The game doesn't do this - however it does model players personalities ...

Generally speaking most people (and players) will start getting confident and believing in themselves if they're doing well at something ... this is 'good' until they start getting cockey and over-confident (doesn't always happen to people, but some do).

If a player in his heart of hearts thinks his team have been 'lucky' and don't really deserve to be where they are in a league, then unless he's got a fairly robust and confident personality he'll lose morale should they lose and almost 'expect' them to continue that losing streak because in his head up until then they've been lucky.

Balancing and managing these sorts of things and ensuring that 'streaks' work in your favour is one of the hardest parts of being a manager both in FM and irl*, there are many managers irl who are great when things are going right - but its the mark of a truly great manager when you can avoid bad runs dragging the team down the table.

*Watch irl when the Premiership kicks off next season - I'll almost guarentee there'll be at least one club over-perform in the first 6-8 games before hitting a poor streak and dropping down the table towards their 'expected' position.

Quite often one of these teams is a newly promoted team who still manage to scrap with relegation later in the season, Wigan last season did themselves proud but no one was really surprised when their extremely strong form at the start of the season dropped off as the season progressed and their final finishing position of 10th while respectable was no where near the heady heights they scaled earlier in the season ...

A lot of about finding the players with the right 'drive' to go on and win things - imho a lot of Charltons problems were self-inflicted and Curbishley might have stayed imho if Scott Parker hadn't been sold off a couple of seasons ago as he was a huge driving force of that team.

I have heard you say this before and fully believe it. I am in fact experiencing it right now with my Albion Rovers in SD1. We finally got off on a hot start after our previous three SD1 seasons starting real bad. I have been fighting to keep it going, thankfully successfully so far. I have had a few losses, and a few draws, but am still out in first place in mid-January.

Along the way though I have had to deal with fits from one of my main forwards, who takes a loss or being substituted for very badly. My other main forward is 19, and my ML is 20. They are playing great but I have been sure to pull them from the lineup every few games to keep them levelheaded (atleast thats my theory, and it seems to be working).

Right now I am worried about all the teams trying to get about 5 of my players. It's driving me nuts. Crap, I got Leeds to offer over 5 million for my Swedish MR. That is more money then my team has in the bank. :) Players seem to be a problem when they get this much attention.

if I remember correctly, this is also similar to what the club I now follow, Luton Town, did in their first season in the Championship last year. At one point, after maybea quarter of the season played, they were in line to promote to the Premiership, or at least very high ranked in the playoffs spots. They fizzled somewhat and ended mid-table or so...

FM

Reality has a well-known AI normalization bug.

This shit is killing me. I have about 4 guys I keep getting offers for that are easy to turn down (for crap money).

But, I have 4 other players who I am getting higher and higher offers for. 1.5 million up to 5 million. I sit there for a few minutes each time going over and over in my head what to do. I keep rejecting right now, but it's getting harder. I just have to get through this transfer window and I think I will be fine. The goal is to get into the SPL, after that I will see what happens. By the end of the year one or two of these guys will probably demand to be sold off.

Still, that money is so hard to turn down.

I have a balance of $116 and a remaining transfer budget of $72.1 million. The most expensive player I've ever bought was an older Morrocan striker for $16.5 million. I was looking for someone as a target man who was dominant in the air and he managed to score a few goals for us off of corners but generally he wasn't worth the money.

We're expected to win the EPL but have started out poorly this season and one of my 22 year old back-up strikers has a severe injury. This means I'm only carrying 3, one being a 22 year old, and my top two are not performing. There's a French striker I'm interested in from Inter but they want $34.5 million, roughly 48% of my total transfer budget.

Has anyone here ever spent that much on a player? Did you get results to justify the expense?

If you're on a club that can consistently make it to the Champions League, then you really don't have to worry about justifying the expense, as the CL money will keep you in the black.

I've spent up to 78 million for a player. Obviously it's on a team that can afford this fee, but eh, it's hard to recoup that much money.

whenever I am spending over say...20 million on a player, I figure that I will never recoup that money in terms of transfer fees for him. so i look at it less in terms of "can i recoup the actual $ spent" and more like an investment, more like "what will acquiring this player allow me to have a shot at winning that i couldn't before?" or "what areas of my team will this player strengthen, and are they that critical that they require spending that much money?"

that said, in my Real Madrid games it's not uncommon for me to spend $20 million USD on a backup striker (Robin Van Persie anyone) and fail to recoup it either financially or in performance.

on the other hand i paid $40 million USD for Gennaro Gattuso in that game and although he's old now and his value is down to 4.8 million USD, the successes that i have had are due in large part to his play and thus I deemed that money well spent.

A lot depends on your club and its situation as to what you should spend and look for from signings.

For instance a £50k signing for Brighton is likely to be all of your transfer budget and as such should instantly be a key player in your side, preferably a youngster who will grow and gain in value over time as an investment.

However for a larger side £50k is a paltry amount and could easily be a speculative youngster who can be canned if he doesn't make it or an older backup player in case of injuries ...

To go back a bit... some people say that the AI makes sure that you don't go on a crazy run to win the title with 10 games left... some would say that the game realistically models actual soccer, in that almost no teams ever go on a crazy run to win the title with 10 games left. Teams may have hot streaks, but they are almost inevitably followed by cold streaks that leave the team about where they should've been in the first place. I think this was said earlier, but it's worth reiterating. I don't think there is some AI exploit that is used to keep certain teams down... but I do think there is an AI trait that realistically models how teams playing over their heads often come crashing back to Earth.

As for the transfer fees, I'm running into that in my Peterborough dynasty... I fear spending too much money because what if we end up 16th or something and I end up in the red? But then again, if I don't ever spend any money, I have to wait around for those free transfers all the time, and half of those good players either don't want to sign with me, or re-sign with their existing club before ever hitting the market. I say, go for it.

I lol'd. :D

I think what has happened to my team is two fold.

1) I have signed a lot of players with different personalities. No matter what I do, some players like it, others don't. I have been going back and forth between berating the players for some dreadful performances and praising them for good ones. We play the #5 team in the league to a draw on the road, but lose to the #20 team at home? We've had some bizarre things happen. We also nearly lost to a local club team in the FA cup.

2) We have had a TON of injuries. This has forced me to shuffle players around on the squads between the reserve squad and the senior squad. I think that may be playing with some of the players' confidence.

3) We just stopped scoring, and taking shooting opportunities. Much of the time we have a scorer on a break that pulls the ball out. We hadn't changed anything in the tactic, so I don't know what is happening.

4) Finally, I changed/added some tactics and those work decently, but we're still playing like a schitzophrenic team.

I've fixed that for you .... runs away from thread giggling before his wife reads it ;)

I've got a question about the U18 and reserves teams.

I'm playing as Notts Co. and we have a 16 year-old striker who has put in 45 appearances for both the reserves and the young lads. I don't control either team and I have him listed in the U18 section. Now, he's played incredibly well (35 goals, 15 assists), but he's only 16. The poor boy is going to kill himself out there. How do I keep him from being picked for the reserve squad? I don't have a shortage of strikers in my reserve side either, so he's not being picked because of a shortage of players.

Also, I've noticed that a lot of my reserve fixtures fall on consecutive days. Is this normal?

If you don't take control of the reserve team the best thing to do would be to call him up to the first team on reserve team game days.

Stupid database error with FOFC when I went to post. Hell if I am retyping that thing.

3 games left, up by 10 points. Albion Rovers are almost into the Scottish Premier League. Woohoo!