Getting Back to Virtual Football Management

12th January 2006, Thursday

Guess what.... IT'S STILL RAINING TODAY...
Not that I am complaining or anything because I am basically alienating myself to my office building for the entire day including lunch and work-out at the gym, therefore it's ok for me...
The rain and the cooling weather is a really good change for that usual tropical heat and humidity which we are so famous for....Thos suffering from the brunt of this wet weather has to be those setting the booth at Chinatown for the forthcoming Lunar New Year..... with that I have only 3 words to console you guys...

HA! HA! SUCKER!!

So my Football Manager 2006 duly arrived last evening and didn't take me long to get down with the downloading, patching and editing for a new season of professional football/soccer management with a much improved version of this line of game by Sports Interactive which I had been an ardent supporter since the days of CM1 (when you just need to sign Eric Cantona and win the freaking league).

I had already set my mind to manage Barcelona which should one of the easiest job in football with the talents they have, but most importantly I want a team that could do magic on the pitch and yet concede the least number of goals (basically not to make me lose) and Barca is the ideal choice....
Then again I also want a team that could repeatedly thrash 2 of my least favorite teams in the European scene right now, Chelsea & Real Madrid ..then again last checked them on the previous edition of the game, they are just not as formidable as they are in real life...

So I began my editing via the official editor provided...
Instantly I could see the stark improvement in loading up time, highlighting once more of how powerful my PC is...
So looking through the Barca roster, off goes the likes of Sylvinho and Rustu who always tend to get rid off. But retain another usual suspect in van Bronckhorst as I thought I would be weak on the left back position.
I created 3 usual fictitious players, one of course been an alter ego of mine..a 15 year old Dutch Wonderkid known as "Krystofur van de Heinz"...woo yeah... he better score 80 goals per season
I had also did some transferred confirmed on the market as of now such as Vidic & Evra to Man Utd, Maniche to Chelsea and Cicinho to Real. I wanted to put Cassano over as well but the loser side of me was afraid that would empower them with a player known to have devastating effect in the history of CM/FM...

So all is left is to start a brand new game and for once I had chosen to run about 20 leagues in 11 countries and was glad that there was no red warning screaming in my face about my PC cannot support such extravagant set up...woohoo
The initiation process took aorund 15 minutes, in contrast to around an hour before and I was overwhelmed that I had to take over the helms immediately...

2 niggling aspects I had to settle with as soon as possible before proceeding with the pre-season friendlies..
1stly the tactics...with the squad I have I basically can play any tactics and downloaded one famous one from the forum which claimed to be a winner in which it is a modified 4-4-2 with the wingers off the median line and more advanced to support the strikers which would suit the likes of Ronaldihno, Giuly and Messi perfectly...

Then the sticky part is to find a set of proper training schedules. In this new game, SI had made it much simpler than the previously daily timetable fo event...actually after going through I still have no idea what the training is done...
so to expedite the process I went to download some ready-made schedules online which supposed to work like Viagra as an aphrodisiac...
Basically the outfield are now trained as a whole, without clear segregation between the forwards, midfield & defence.
But there are seperate trainings for players on part time contracts (I supposed for loan or trial) and for youth players...perhaps less time schedule for party at the local disco and less punching up general public or sexually assault any women with their training schedules.
Seriously I rarely bother with the training part, as long as the players increase their attributes and deliver on the pitch I had no qualms and most importantly when my young winger can be converted to new positions like Attacking/Defensive MF/DF L/R/C who can play in goal and become strikers as well.

Some new features such as player bio in which you yourself as the player manager is dissected for your achievements and history which for now I don't know what it will do.

More accessible stats viewing for players and there is a "Position" option on the left hand menu bar to indicate which positions they play the best and which ones are "competent" or "ineffectual"..which is way cool unlike the trial and error in the past when you switch your winger to play as wingback and hope they can make it...

Now to game play...perhaps due to the improved game engine or the might of my PC, the 2D pitch view is flowing smoothly without the usual glitches.
There are now dug-outs on the sidelines where your coaching team and reserves will stay in...

During the halftime, you can give a halftime talk and convey how you felt over their performance over the 1st 45 minutes and cheer or jeer specific players... however I guess after a while it would get stale as the comment options are pretty limited.
Then there is a full time talk as you dress down or commend on the results you had acquired...
Nice inclusions but can do without...
However the halftime talk came into effect when I commended on my team for their 1st half performance against Greek side, Xanthi in pre-season friendly..saying "I was thrilled" after E'too scored a blitz solo effort to bring us 1:0 up..
Then due to complacency, the team let in 2 quick fire goals within 7 minutes in the 2nd half and I tasted my first friendly defeat after 5 games against minnows like Rouen from France (never even heard of them), AEK, Iraklis and Apollon.

It looks good with my fictitious alter ego clinched 5 goals in 4 games he played and the teams always dominate despite the changes of personnel time and again.
However playing 2 up front, I had only 3 natural forwards, so that is one aspect I had to look at..of course I have a quick-fix option in Henrik Larsson in the reserves.
The senior players like E'too, Marquez, Puyol, Belletti and Deco think I am a novice who would not bring the club to a higher level, thus a drop in morale..which I hope with positive results can be corrected...
No matter what..there's always "CTRL-ALT-DEL" or these days just a "Quit Game" button away from a restart...

Japanese word of the day:常習 (Addiction) Soon it would kick in for this game which why I hope that the day could extend by a good 24 hours so that I still got time to do my other stuffs...