Football Manager

[calgaryballer]

Might be wrong, but I think this is our own BigHouse...

 

[calgaryballer]

In the WC Semi's with England. Beat Ivory Coast, Italy and Saudi Arabia in the Groups, then beat Ecuador, Switzerland and now am hammering Greece. Easiest run to the final ever

 

[calgaryballer]

I take that back. England has shit the bed and it's 2-2 now...

 

[Fappin Raptor]

On a 13 game win streak with Napoli.

 

[calgaryballer]

We opened the game with 2 goals in the first minute and a half. Then Greece equalized. We just opened the second half with two goals in two minutes and now Greece is trying to hit back...

 

[calgaryballer]

England v Argentina. Grudge match for the World Cup

 

[calgaryballer]

Lost 2-1 to the Argies. Close game, could have gone either way. Sergio Romero was a beast in the Argentina goal

 

[Lanteri]

Made it all the way to the Europa League semi-finals with Stoke, with pretty much the original squad.

Here's a screenshot of the fixtures and squad stats from the EL.

Pennant missed the quarters and semis, and Fletcher missed the semis as well, as he just finished recovering from an injury and wasn't ready to go. Could have used both of them.

Domestically, with 4 matches to go we're hanging on to a Champions League spot, in 3rd place in the table with 71 points and a game in hand + 3 a point lead over 4th place Chelsea, and +4 over 5th place Spurs. Fortunately, 3 of our last 4 are at Brittania, against Arsenal, Wolves, and Bolton, with our lone away match at QPR. We drew at the Emirates 3-3 with Arsenal way back in October. QPR we beat 3-0 at home, Wolves we beat 2-1 away, and Bolton 2-1 away as well. Fairly confident that we can come away with near-max points from the final four matches. The title is out of reach, as Man U has 88 points, having lost just one match.

Be back later tonight most likely with the end of season summary.

 

[Lanteri]

Here's the end of season summary:

*Bardsley made 8(4) appearances for Stoke with a 7.24 avg rating. Vastly improved over his Sunderland form.
*Fletcher made 11(1) appearances for Stoke with a 6.86 avg rating. 6 goals.

 

[Lanteri]

Tried to bolster the squad for the CL, while making sure I have enough depth, while also not spending absurd amount of money on wages. Trying to learn from past mistakes.

Here's what went down this summer (so far, I'm pretty much done though, might add a loanee or two for depth, but I'm happy with my starters). Dempsey and Cigarini I think were bargains for their respective transfer fees. Clemens and Clifford I think will prove to be good long term signings as well. If not Clifford, definitely Clemens.

Planned starting XI

GK: Begovic
LB: Marc Wilson
CB: Felipe
CB: Ryan Shawcross
RB: Ryan Shotton
LM: Matthew Etherington
CM: Glenn Whelan
CM: Dean Whitehead
RM: Clint Dempsey
ST: Steven Fletcher
ST: Peter Crouch

Subs: Taylor, Bardsley, Walters, Jerome, Clemens, De Laet, Cigarini
Unused/rotation: Delap, Ben Davies, Connor Clifford, Diego Arismendi, Ricardo Rodriguez

 

[Fappin Raptor]

Got drawn with Benfica in the first knockout round of the CL.

Finally suffered my first loss in Serie A to also undefeated Parma. Sitting in 2nd at 13-1-1 and a +35 (43 GF, 8 GA).

 

[Lanteri]

Lost Cigarini and Whitehead to multiple month injuries in the first two matches of the season. Good thing I got CM depth. :shifty:

Snagged Jermaine Jenas on loan before the end of the window as I don't really feel comfortable going the first half of the season with Whitehead-Delap in center mid with Clifford covering .

Drew Porto, Inter, and Celtic in the group stage of the CL. Not my favorite draw in the world.

 

[Fappin Raptor]

The final day of the Serie A comes down to Napoli (me) and Inter. If Inter wins, they win. If Inter loses/draws and I win, we will win the league.

EDIT: And I lose Cavani, who has 51 goals in 50 apps, three days before the game. :rage:

 

[Fappin Raptor]

Well, Inter won and we loss. 2nd place will do.

 

[mgoblue2290]

I've had probably my most interesting FM season so far. Its my second year with LFC and we finished 2nd my first season. We started the year with almost every player losing faith in me because I congratulated them for dominating a friendly in which obviously they felt differently. So the first 2 months was rough with unhappy players and lackluster performances. I thought I might actually get fired. I finally managed to right the ship near the end of October and we began playing really well all the way up until Luis Suarez broke his leg at the end of December. So he's done for the year and Andy Carroll has been beyond awful. Thankfully Iker Muniain, who I signed in the first season, and Andriy Yarmolenko both stepped up big time. I also brought in Olivier Giroud for 7.5m and he's played well too. So those three have formed a pretty potent attack along with some clutch goals by Dirk Kuyt.

I've managed to win the League Cup by beating Everton 4-0 too. I made it to the CL knockout stages and barely got past Anji Machalaka (the Russian team with money) on away goals tying them 2-2. Then I drew Manchester United in the quarterfinal knockout round and I also drew them in the FA Cup semi final. So I played them 3 times over the course of 4 matches, with Sunderland in between the CL games. Drew them 0-0 at Old Trafford then beat them in Anfield 1-0 on a Martin Skrtel header. I should mention that Jose Enrique played possibly the best game of defense I've ever seen in FM. He stopped multiple breaks and at one point sprinted across the field to stop Anderson. I drew Real Madrid in the semi-finals. Then we beat them 1-0 to advance to the FA Cup final where I will be playing Newcastle.

Unfortunately my league form has suffered recently and I'm currently 5th and 5 points behind Man City who are 4th with a game in hand. I play them twice at the end of the season here along with a bunch of other games crammed into May. I'll be surprised if I make the top 4 as we've just got too much going on. Still though, its been to fun manage as things have gone very well in some competitions and have not gone so well in other areas. Hoping to win the CL and the FA Cup and crack the top 4.

 

[spiker]

This thread needs to be stickied again. I had to wade through too much EA Sports nonsense to find it.

 

[spiker]

Do you guys keep 3 tactics loaded into your match prep at all times?

Here's my issue: It feels like after about 15-20 games or so, the CPU AI starts to understand what you are doing tactically and all of your opponents adapt to that game plan and start to shut you down. So the first 5-10 games, your new tactics are blowing shit up and you're destroying teams left and right. Then your blowouts start to slow down and soon enough, you fall back into a rut of eeking out close games. So, if I keep all 3 tactics loaded up, can I switch back and forth between matches to keep the CPU on edge all season because it is relying on what tactics I've used in previous matches? Or does the CPU adapt to whatever I have in my match preparations so I have to "hide" my tactics by not preparing with them loaded? A very odd question, I know. I'm trying to understand the CPU's logic in how it adapts to me.

 

[calgaryballer]

FM13 is available now for everyone who preordered!! Firing it up now

 

[Bigpapa42]

Got it downloaded Friday night. Didn't spend much time with it yesterday, beyond the basics of taking a look. Fired up a game today and will probably toy with it a bit. Interested to see how the matches look, if they've actually impoved it at all.

 

[BigHouseUSA]

The interface is definitely a big change, and training is a lot easier, which I'm not against. The matches look pretty nice, nothing extremely noticeable except for the stadium exterior and a few other small things. Still moving around from save to save trying to get accustomed to it.