Football Manager 2014 - Full Game Out Now!

[korme]

Guys, I have seemed to run into a problem here.

I was in the second half of extra time, and hit 'make substitutions' right as the half was ending. It took me to the PK screen, to pick my kickers. But I couldn't seem to find a Done button, and now I can't go back to my tactics screen or find any way to get this shootout started. What am I missing, or did I somehow end up in no man's land here?

[flere-imsaho]

Wow....

[korme]

Nevermind, figured it out. Ended up mashing keyboard buttons and the spacebar actually took me to the screen I needed to be at with the confirm changes button at the bottom. Phew, managed to scrape by in this match and didn't want to have to re load.

[korme]

Wish I would've restarted, lost 5-3 on PKs

[whomario]

I had a similar situation once, only my last saving point was 3 months back. I think i spent 2 hours until i freaking figured out how to continue

My Liverpool save went very easy afterall. Turns out, the quality of players in League 2 or 1 is not all that impressive. Maybe should have gone more "empty cupboard" but was no changing it once i got attached to a few players. Anyway, in the championship i actually ran into some early problems with my ultra attacking style. Changed that up, then got Gary Medel on a loan with option to buy and since then been on a roll. Big 1st vs 2nd game coming up (in december vs reading).

Games will get tougher in the PL i think, especially since quite a few of my youngsters are stretched as far as can be and might have already plateaued.

I am also going all nutty professor tactics wise, have implemented a Libero tactic with no real striker (despite that potential all world dutch youngster. Genius, right ? ) and playing Gerrard there from time to time.

Now am searching the world over for players to be the next Beckenbauer. Might have found a handfull that i´ll try to lure to me. Mind you, none of them can actually play the position as of now On my radar are a 20 year old spaniard from the Athletico B team (who is an AMC but lacks speed and has decent defensive skills), a 17 year old Portuguese MC, a 20 year old Left Back from Barcas B team (who´d be awesome as a left back) and a 17 year old swiss AMC (also lacking pace)
Other than the Barca LB, neither would be more than an average (at best) PL player at their normal position i guess.

Had to create a new shortlist just so i remember why i am keeping tabs on them

[CAsterling]

One thing that still annoys me with FM is this.

In some games, I take a 1-0 lead, playing well my team dominates up to this point. Then for the next 20 minutes my team plays like the Keystone Cops, can't pass, players tackle their own team mates, they stop chasing the ball and generally just suck.....then the opposition equalise and all of a sudden my team starts playing like a team again!

It is like the game has decided the opposition are going to score, and until they do my team will have their skill level drop to schoolboy level.

It is so blatant that it causes my average daily swearing quota to be exceeded every time I see it happen. I dread to think what my blood pressure is up to during those moments

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by CAsterling

One thing that still annoys me with FM is this.

In some games, I take a 1-0 lead, playing well my team dominates up to this point. Then for the next 20 minutes my team plays like the Keystone Cops, can't pass, players tackle their own team mates, they stop chasing the ball and generally just suck.....then the opposition equalise and all of a sudden my team starts playing like a team again!

It is like the game has decided the opposition are going to score, and until they do my team will have their skill level drop to schoolboy level.

It is so blatant that it causes my average daily swearing quota to be exceeded every time I see it happen. I dread to think what my blood pressure is up to during those moments

I can think of multiple games at the World Cup this past summer that this accurately describes...

[JonInMiddleGA]

Just saw the lowest match rating I think I've ever seen, in the boxscore of a friendly

A DR somehow managed to earn a 3.9, without an own goal and without being responsible for any PK's.

[vex]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Just saw the lowest match rating I think I've ever seen, in the boxscore of a friendly

A DR somehow managed to earn a 3.9, without an own goal and without being responsible for any PK's.

That is impressively low.

[MrBug708]

Space bar is the pause start keyboard shortcut

[korme]

Just lost in the Capital One Cup 2-1 on my keeper's OG at 120'. Doesn't get much worse than that. Beautiful save, 30 seconds from penalties, and he drops the ball and it rolls backwards..

[britrock88]

ABC, or others messing with the 8-level USA mod, any developments in keeping the geography straightened out? I would take the time to program it in the editor if I knew what to do...

[DaddyTorgo]

True story:

1) Buy a 22 year old DL from Metalist for $4.7m in 2015 (Jonathan Silva, DL - Argentina)
2) Silva plays 45 games as my starting DL in 2016-2017, clocks a 7.14 rating. 5.23 tackles per game. Didn't keep a snapshot, but I assume very few mistakes led to goals.
3) Clocks a 7.14 rating (including a monster 7.63 in the CL) over 18 games in 2017-2018 so far, with just 1 of his 65 mistakes leading to a goal. Raises his value to $24.5mil.
4) PSG comes in with a market-value offer for him. I counter with $40 million and 25% of next sale (not profit, just next sale). PSG accepts the counter.
5) Next game he goes to clear a chip off the goal line as he's running back towards the goal and hits an own goal as he ran out of room to get it over the bar.

Haha.

He'll be tough to replace, but I can't turn down that kind of ROI. Turn a $5mil guy into a $40+mil guy in a season...yikes.

6) He signs for PSG with a $9.75m/yr annual salary. 3x what I was paying him per year.
7) I plan to replace him with a combination of Dodo (true story, Brazillian dude's name is Dodo) who I had picked up for $2.5m off Roma to be his backup. Step down defensively, but can get forward and whip in crosses so much better. Having Gotoku Sakai and him as my FB's will make my overlapping runs and crosses into the box deadly from BOTH sides instead of just one.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by britrock88

ABC, or others messing with the 8-level USA mod, any developments in keeping the geography straightened out? I would take the time to program it in the editor if I knew what to do...

I've been playing around with it, including making the bottom league flexible in size (14-18, instead of a firm 16) so it doesn't bump teams off to make room for relegated teams. I haven't been able to test it yet, but I'll let you know if it works.

[AnalBumCover]

So I did a one season test on my latest tweaks. My biggest change was to make the league sizes in the bottom level flexible. It seemed to help a bit but I still saw a couple of teams moved across regions. So it's not 100% foolproof. One thing I noticed in my test was that one of the clubs that moved was not assigned a stadium. If I go back to the editor and make sure all clubs have at least a stadium and/or city (Braza is not linked to a particular city) it may help further.

A side effect to the flexible league size is that I cannot make it a mid-season split league. The editor prevents me from that. So the bottom level is straight league play from top to bottom.

[whomario]

@ DT: Quality DL/DR are literally the most sought after commodity in the game (and IRL), i have often seen absurd prices paid for them. I have had saves where i literally spent years trying to upgrade those positions (one problem is that even the good ones allways seem to have some sort of "defect" like a 7 dribling or crossing rating). One thing i found is that it is very interesting to retrain young players to play there, especially if i´m looking for an attacking minded DR/DL.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by whomario

@ DT: Quality DL/DR are literally the most sought after commodity in the game (and IRL), i have often seen absurd prices paid for them. I have had saves where i literally spent years trying to upgrade those positions (one problem is that even the good ones allways seem to have some sort of "defect" like a 7 dribling or crossing rating). One thing i found is that it is very interesting to retrain young players to play there, especially if i´m looking for an attacking minded DR/DL.

Yeah - that's why I was kinda torn about selling him, but bottom line is that he wasn't that great going forward (like you said, that was his defect) and I can get a more well-rounded guy (who will help me offensively) at half the cost who is roughly the same age.

Made for a nice windfall profit that I reinvested - half on a similarly aged, more well-rounded, homegrown player (which helps), and 1/4 on an 18 y/o English GK wonderkid who is "the next Peter Shilton."

[whomario]

Awww, the great myth of the English Wonderkid GK

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by whomario

Ah, the great myth of the English Wonderkid GK

There was a generation where England had wonderful keepers available - Shilton and Clements were both fantastic, then Seaman took the helm for another decade ..

Today unfortuantely the influx of non-UK nationality keepers means that few English youths ever get experience at the top level, the exception presently being Joe Hart.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

There was a generation where England had wonderful keepers available - Shilton and Clements were both fantastic, then Seaman took the helm for another decade ..

Today unfortuantely the influx of non-UK nationality keepers means that few English youths ever get experience at the top level, the exception presently being Joe Hart.

Joe Hart

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by whomario

Awww, the great myth of the English Wonderkid GK

Right? I was like "OOH!!!"

Of course I've also got a 21 year old German GK who's a 4+ star prospect. Not sure how long Szczesny will end up sticking around...

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Got my first huge promotion of my career. Coached Southport from Skrill Premier all the way up to L1 in England. Got a huge offer from Paris Saint Germain that I couldn't pass up.

Went from a team with a 46K/week salary and no transfer $$ to a team who had won the top French league 12 of the last 15 years and finished 2nd the other three years. Coach was fired three months into the season after a slow start (16th in late October). I now have a team with a $7.8M/week salary ($2.2M/week under that mark currently) and a transfer fund of $280M. I'm honestly not sure I know how to handle all this money.

My salary went from $700/week to $43K/week.

[MrBug708]

280? Wow! I dont think I've ever seen that much being allowed

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

280? Wow! I dont think I've ever seen that much being allowed

Yeah - it's pretty crazy when you get to those levels.

Enjoy!!

[MrBug708]

I've been on plenty of great teams, but I think about 180 is the most I've ever gotten. Then again, I usually have built me teams so it's not being used to entice me. Seems like you grab two world class players or a few great ones

[MrBug708]

How did the interview go? (what were they looking for?)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

How did the interview go? (what were they looking for?)

They wanted attacking soccer, go and grab star players, and build youth within the first team. I love to coach attacking soccer and love to build with youth, so it was an easy decision for both them and me. Once I was hired, the media guys said that I was their #1 target from the start. Not surprising given that my old team I had running an agressive 4-3-3 and I had no players on my team over the age of 26, yet I was still competing in L1 when not expected to do so and after seeing my salary amount cut by 30%. I'm not sure I could have done a better job under the circumstances.

[JonInMiddleGA]

An almost total aside perhaps but ...

It's actually kind of a nice change of pace for me to play a FM career without doing a full dynasty. It's an entirely different pace. I've starting a fourth so-so season in the Atlantic Coast Premier League (uncorrected 9 Level U.S. mod). I doubt I'd be any farther than year two if I were posting it.

Selfish perhaps, but it's a definite change of pace.

[DaddyTorgo]

So I'm thinking of continuing my path through the world.

Real Madrid beat my Arsenal side 3-2 in extra time in the CL Final. And they've just offered me an interview for a job.

Transfer kitty 3x Arsenal's (so $150m)
Wage budget $262m per year ($50m more than Arsenal)

But aside from Bale & Isco they're looking a bit thin on strong talents, and I have like 3-4 wonderkids about to pop at Arsenal.

Decisions decisions.

[MrBug708]

Trade the wonderkids to Real Madrid then switch sides

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Trade the wonderkids to Real Madrid then switch sides

Haha - that's not fair or realistic.

And I already saved the game at the point where I have to make the decision anyways.

Going to sleep on it, but think I may stay with Arsenal. If I keep winning with them my transfer kitty will get up to there, they're only just barely richer than me (I'm #2 in the world by like $40m), and I'm so stacked with young talent at like every position (except for AML I suppose) that I think the future is a lot brighter than at a RM where all of their best players are about to hit 30 or on the wrong side of 30.

[mrtourette]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Just saw the lowest match rating I think I've ever seen, in the boxscore of a friendly

A DR somehow managed to earn a 3.9, without an own goal and without being responsible for any PK's.

I lost a game to Real Madrid 7-0 and my keeper received a score of 3.3. He was at something like 5.6 but then was at fault for the seventh goal and dropped to 3.3, and never recovered.

[vex]

You always know the transfer proposals are about to get interesting when you have the following clubs all interested in one prospect:

Arsenal
Chelsea
Man U
AC Milan
Barca
Monaco
PSG

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

So I spent some of my new found money. I just spend 210M to transfer in a 23 year old striker and a 22 year old player who can play all four of the left positions (AM, M, WB, D). Salaries were around $300K/week combined. Both of them are among the four favorites to win World Footballer of the Year.

The good news is that they'll both arrive in January (one month away). The bad news is that I really think I'm going to have to overhaul this team to get them in a position to have long-term success. We've got 6 players over 32 years old and I really like to get my players under 28 years old if possible and build with youth. I can get these guys out through transfers, but I'm going to have to make sure to get more transfers in to replace those guys.

The other problem is that this team is currently in 16th place. They were in 18th when I got them, so not a huge deal after only a month, but if my transfers don't work, I could lose all of this in a heartbeat. Such is the pressures of taking on a big-time club I suppose.

[PilotMan]

Well, I've guided Larne to another Danske Bank Premier Title this year ('21-'22), we also managed to win the Northern Irish Cup and Northern Irish League Cup. Just missed winning the All-Ireland Cup with a 2-1 loss in the Final against the top team in Ireland this year Derry City.

Our team was lead by 2 incredible scoring machines: Our captain and best player; 24-year old William Maxwell. In 57 total games played this year he scored 44 goals, had 28 assists and 13 POM's. He played the central attacker in our 433 and was allowed considerable freedom to impact the game.

The other leader was Darren Carson, an 18-year old from our youth system. He won a starting job last last year with 5 goals and 3 assists in 9 games but this year took over. In 55 total games he scored 33 goals with 20 assists and 9 POM's. He played the right sided false #9 in our 433 just off Maxwell's shoulder.

I've signed on for another season as I've finally convinced the team to relay the pitch and improve our training facilities. We are finally in the black as well and it looks like money might be flowing in much faster if we can keep it up. However, I feel like I may be hitting a wall and that maybe I need to let my contract expire and see what else might be out there. I have a National rep, but I've not had a single job offer from a bigger team out there. Not sure what else I need to do to draw some bigger attention. I guess getting out of Northern Ireland would be a start.

[bulletsponge]

So I spent some of my new found money. I just spend 210M to transfer in a 23 year old striker and a 22 year old player

my FM self couldnt fathom spending that kind of $$. ive maybe spent over 20 mill for a player maybe a half dozen times in all my years playing FM

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

So I spent some of my new found money. I just spend 210M to transfer in a 23 year old striker and a 22 year old player who can play all four of the left positions (AM, M, WB, D). Salaries were around $300K/week combined. Both of them are among the four favorites to win World Footballer of the Year.

The good news is that they'll both arrive in January (one month away). The bad news is that I really think I'm going to have to overhaul this team to get them in a position to have long-term success. We've got 6 players over 32 years old and I really like to get my players under 28 years old if possible and build with youth. I can get these guys out through transfers, but I'm going to have to make sure to get more transfers in to replace those guys.

The other problem is that this team is currently in 16th place. They were in 18th when I got them, so not a huge deal after only a month, but if my transfers don't work, I could lose all of this in a heartbeat. Such is the pressures of taking on a big-time club I suppose.

Such was my concern with the Real Madrid job. Not the poor league position, but the age of the first team and the expectations.

[PilotMan]

I had a cool situation where I got to hire one of the former favorite and best XI players of the team back as one of our coaches. He is our new fitness coach and a nice upgrade over the last guy who was in that position.

The club apparently is ready for us to make the most of our new found money. After nearly 10 years of scraping by they have granted my a 20k transfer budget and raised our weekly salary budget by nearly 50%.

For us little minnows at Larne this is an incredible windfall that I'm not sure what to do with.

edit: Oh, and I've cracked the top 273,500 all time games too.

[CAsterling]

One of those little touches that make me love this game is:

You have a player who has scored 2 goals in a game, and then you get a penalty - rather than the normal penalty taker scoring, the player who already has 2 goals takes the penalty so he can try to get his hat-trick.

It is a little thing, but it is the fact that SI added this and other realistic touches makes the whole game more enjoyable to me

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by CAsterling

One of those little touches that make me love this game is:

You have a player who has scored 2 goals in a game, and then you get a penalty - rather than the normal penalty taker scoring, the player who already has 2 goals takes the penalty so he can try to get his hat-trick.

It is a little thing, but it is the fact that SI added this and other realistic touches makes the whole game more enjoyable to me

Hope you fined him a week's wages for unprofessional conduct

[DaddyTorgo]

BBC Sport - FA Cup: Romsey Town manager, 22, to be youngest ever boss

And now, on Saturday, he is likely to become the youngest manager in the history of the FA Cup, with the Football Association confirming they were unaware of anyone younger.

Phillips first became interested in coaching through a popular computer game - and now he is playing it out in reality.

"I was one of those sad people after school who was sat there for hours playing Championship Manager," he said. "I always used to try and take a really small club up through the leagues.

[Grover]

Pfft. We're not sad people.

[DaddyTorgo]

I agree. He should be vilified for saying we're sad.

[Flasch186]

F him!

[flere-imsaho]

I'm not sad.

I'm incandescently furious that the intellectual midgets I have chosen to employ as supposed "athletes" or even "football players" in my side can't seem to resist the obvious joy of firing off shots from 30+ yards that somewhat inevitably go out for a throw in, not even a corner because your Long Shots attribute is 3, flounder-brain!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I'm not sad.

I'm incandescently furious that the intellectual midgets I have chosen to employ as supposed "athletes" or even "football players" in my side can't seem to resist the obvious joy of firing off shots from 30+ yards that somewhat inevitably go out for a throw in, not even a corner because your Long Shots attribute is 3, flounder-brain!

Be happy you can convince yours to shoot. I have the opposite problem lately.

[korme]

After advancing from Sky Bet 2 to Sky Bet Championship in 2 years, I accepted the position as Zimbabwe National Team Head Coach, keeping my post at Dag and Red.

I love it because it will obviously be quite the challenge. Zimbabwe's national rank is 82.

My first problem however, is getting guys to coach there with me. I can't get a guy with local reputation to come be a national coach, let alone native Zimbabwean coaches. Any tips?

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by korme

After advancing from Sky Bet 2 to Sky Bet Championship in 2 years, I accepted the position as Zimbabwe National Team Head Coach, keeping my post at Dag and Red.

I love it because it will obviously be quite the challenge. Zimbabwe's national rank is 82.

My first problem however, is getting guys to coach there with me. I can't get a guy with local reputation to come be a national coach, let alone native Zimbabwean coaches. Any tips?

Congrats!

Try some of your Dag & Red coaches? Pretty sure they'll tag along...

[flounder]

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Be happy you can convince yours to shoot. I have the opposite problem lately.

Tell me about it. In 4 games my team has 8 shots. Thankfully they have 5 goals, but with that accuracy, I'd prefer they try a bit more. It would be one thing if we were getting trounced in possession, but we're at 52%. They just seem to have no idea what to do in front of goal.