FA Organising

Whilst waiting for the download to finish for the second part of the 1.6.5 hot fix, I thought I would write a short post about the joys (?) of being an FA organiser.

It quite frankly is a thankless task, something that is expected of you. During pre season you must be ultra active, sorting out all the leagues, cups and extra community competitions, not to mention the youth scene.

Me and my fellow org thought we just about had it all under control, the main problem being the starting of the playoffs - side note, playoffs! Do my head right in. As a manager, brilliant, as an organiser, stressful!! - when a moderator told us to create a complete ladder system, plus another three reputation specific competitions on top of that. Lack of time would be an understatement!

The season finished on Monday, now Wednesday I have not had the chance to look at any of the wage auctions yet, being too busy taking screenshots and writing up end of season reports. With the new competitions that need creating, and the complex senior promotions that need sorting, I can’t see that changing before season start on Saturday night. Pity, as I desperately need some new blood for next season, and I have a healthy bank balance of £5m to do it with.

With all that being said, I do enjoy organising, and that is the reason I carry on. I’ve said it so many times that the community is the reason I play this game. If it wasn’t for that, we may as well all be playing FMxx. The chance to help build the community and encourage activity in the chat rooms is something that I very much enjoy. Plus, someone has to do it ;)

One can only imagine though, how difficult a mods [in game] life must be. If my job is thankless, then I’m not sure what the word would be to describe their job!

Season 6 Lemerre Youth Haul!

It wasn’t a bad end to the season then. I didn’t take all of the youth trophies, nor as many as I wanted, but I can hardly complain with the two league wins and two cups, plus one at senior level.

First of all then, the senior one. I finally managed to catch my opponent online, so we could play the CFA Lower League Cup Final. A rather close game against a friend that finished 3-1. I took the lead early on but it was a tight game throughout, then in 6 bizarre minutes, I took a 2-0 lead, had a player sent off and let a goal in for 2-1 before finally clinching the win in the 86th minute with a goal from my centre back.

Another final in which I was awaiting my opponent to come online was in the XFA U17 Cup. I was signing in to find that I had missed him by 10-20 minutes a couple of times, so I decided to mail him to see when we could get the game played. Unfortunately I waited for him too long, and before he could reply the game auto resolved. Pity, but I did win, coming back from a goal down to win the game 3-1. Quite a haul then from my U17 side, also adding the XFA Elite league to the XFA Cup and CFA Cup, although I did only win the XFA league on goal difference, but a win is a win nonetheless. As for the CFA U17 Premiership, I was never really going to catch the eventual winners, in the end finishing 7 points behind. Ditto the U19 Prem, finishing comfortably behind the quite excellent Motown FC.

All of my squads over the 19 age group are not doing so well though. Lower League Cup win apart, my seniors finished a disappointing 15th in the Division 3, with things not really looking up. As for the U20’s and 21’s, both finished around mid table. One thing that has pleased me though, is that the team that won this seasons U18 Prem, won the U17 version last term. Can the same group of players go on to take the U19 crown next season? And just how far can my current U17 crop go? Especially seen as there isn’t many high potential players in there. Only time will tell I suppose…

There's Only One FML...Isn't There?

Bit of an embarrassing moment the other day on Facebook. A friend updated his status with: "Mum and Dad watching X Factor...FML save me!!!"

Nice one i thought, let's see what game world he is in and how he is doing etc. Turns out that FML also stands for **** My Life, but I'm sure you all already knew that. Oh dear :S

One Down, Five To Go?

I picked up my first trophy of the season today in Lemerre, with hopefully a few more to come. The CFA U17 Cup Final was a relatively one sided affair from start to finish. I never really got on the ball in the first few minutes but once Fredy Gonzalez picked the ball up on the halfway line with acres of space to run into, the game changed in favour of me and my team. A bit of luck is always needed in a game like this though, and I really felt for my opponent when one of his players went off injured in the 12th minute. A small squad, he only had 2 players on the bench, one a GK and the other an AMR. But instead of mixing it around he decided against making any subs for his injured striker. Then in the 62nd minute, one of his MC’s received a second yellow, so he played with just 9 men in a 4-2-2 for the last half an hour or so. A bit of luck as I say.

So one cup final down then, with another two to come. I’m currently waiting for my opponent to come online so we can play our XFA U17 Cup Final. The game is on red, but I never AI an active manager, especially in a final. Likewise with the CFA Lower League Cup Final, although the deadline for that game isn’t until tomorrow night, my opponent is currently set to ’on holiday.’

On top of that I am still within a chance of winning each of the CFA U19, U18 and U17 Premierships, although I’m going to be needing a lot of luck for those. In the U19 Premiership, I need to win all of my 6 games in hand and then hope that the team leading the league drop some points while I keep on winning. Slim chance on this one.

The U18 Prem is really mine to lose. Second with three games in hand I really should take this one, but you never know what will happen in FML.

My chances of winning the U17 Prem I would admit, are very slim. 10 points behind with ten games left, I need Carlisle City to lose most of those whilst not dropping a point myself.

Not much chance of me adding too many more trophies to the cabinet this season then, but either way I am pleased with how the team is progressing and our performances in all of the youth competitions this season. As soon as the season is finished I will report on which ones I won, lost and how small the margin was.

Living The Dream!

It’s been a while now since I rebooted my youth dream in Lemerre after a brief [unsuccessful] stint in game world Wegerle. Six seasons on and I’m finally getting to where I’ve always wanted to be. The latest rankings update has me at 5th in the game world! I know the ranking system means next to nothing these days, but it still gives some indication as to where you are compared to other teams in the world.

Last season I won the CFA U17 League, and am in good shape to retain my title this term. On top of that I am also knocking around at the top of the U19 league, fighting it out at the top with 3 other very good sides. Add to that my forthcoming CFA U17 Cup Final and also the XFA U17 youth Cup Final, hopefully this season will be a successful one for my young side.

My seniors however, are suffering. Mid to lower table in the Division 3 currently really isn’t good enough considering I really do have some top youngsters in the side. The leagues in the CFA though are currently under populated and we need to get them back up to 20 per league, so as long as I can above 16th I will still get promoted to Division 2. To miss out on that would be nothing short of a disaster for me personally.

Some of my youngsters are now asking for much higher wages thanks to the new update, but more on that and how it’s affecting my plans in a future post.

The Groove Machine Moves On!

So onto a new blog, dedicated purely to my experience playing Football Manager Live (and a bit of FM as well). I’ll start with a bit of news. Well, not quite ‘news’ in that it happened a few weeks ago now, but this is my first posting of it so to anyone reading, it is news.

After many disappointing seasons in Voller - not performance wise, but community wise - I finally decided to mail support to ask for a game world transfer. A couple of moderators I knew from Lineker are now in charge of Butragueno, so I requested to be moved there. Less than 24 hours later, I was in a new game world once again picking my starting squad.

I always find picking my starting squad as boring and tedious. Whereas some people spend hours searching through all the players available to them, filtering and trying out formations and tactics before confirming their squad, I generally just tend to pick a solid squad of 16 and be done with it. There was three positions that I did pay particular attention to though and made sure I picked up some quality players. Obviously crucial to any side is the two centre backs, so they were first on my list, followed by a quick forward that had all the right attributes for a poacher. Next up was probably the most crucial position in any of my squads, the player to take the role as playmaker. Nothing too special with a £500k initial budget, but a fairly decent looking Zarija Pelicic was snapped up for the role.

When I joined it was just under a week before the end of the season, so I decided to keep some cash back for the forthcoming wage auctions. Bad idea as I soon realised that the prices even the average players were going for was way out of my price range. So instead, I scoured the transfer auctions, picking up 3 new wingers (none were signed in my initial squad) and an even better poacher than I already had for £1 per player. I also managed to get this winger for £1,001. Quite a bargain I thought.

When I first joined, my returning star was drafted to be Didier Drogba. Excellent I thought, although I knew I wouldn’t get him with new members due to sign up right up until the start of the next season. Ebi Smolarek it was that I ended up with. A 29 year old striker who has started well, playing for me in unofficial matches, although his goal tally isn‘t the best. I don’t plan to keep however, although I will try and sell him rather than waive the option. Doubt I will get anywhere near his transfer value of £1.2m though. Auto accept is currently set at £750k, will see what happens over the coming weeks.