Monday, May 7, 2007

The highs and lows of football management

Without a doubt, the best football management game, by far, is the series developed by sigames. The level of detail, complexity and sheer statto-ness of this game defies belief. Of course, this also makes it extremely hard for newbs to get into the game - which is probably the only reason other football management games can survive!

Anyway, I've been playing Football Manager for well over 300 hours now (talk about great value for money!) and I just recently finished my 2013/14 season. After 8 seasons in charge at Liverpool, the biggest surprise is that my central midfield is still comprised of Gerrard, Alonso and Sissoko! Other than that, the only players left from the original Liverpool are John Arne Riise (still playing great) and Pepe Reina (plays second fiddle to Casillas).

The highs

Anyway, as I said, I just finished the 2013/14 season and my Liverpool side are really dominating. In fact, we are kicking so much ass that I managed to do something I've never been able to do before - in any of my numerous years playing this game or its predecessors. I managed to win the quadruple!

Thats right. I won the Premiership, the League Cup (beat Chelsea on penalties!), the FA Cup and the Champions League all in the same year. Furthermore, I have been undefeated in approx 50 games! Talk about total domination.

The key for us this year is that my reserves and under 18's have been doing really well when I've played them in the first team. In order to rest my first team, I've been playing the reserves and under 18's in the League Cup and also in the FA Cup where possible. They have managed to step up and deliver some great performances.

In addition, we managed to wrap up the Premiership in mid-March. At this point, I decided to start playing the second string players in the Premiership so that they could get some more experience. I figured I would lose some matches but no big deal as I had already won the Premiership. However, once again, my reserves delivered big time and kept on winning matches. In fact, I ended the Premiership with 107 points!!

The Lows
I was also the manager of Portugal during this period. I say "was" as I got sacked after the World Cup (unfairly in my opinion!).

Basically, Portugal had been doing really badly during the World Cup qualifiers. In fact, they were in real danger of not qualifying for the World Cup. At this point, the Portuguese FA sacked the old manager and asked me to step in.

I agreed and promptly won the next 4 games and finished second in the qualifying group. Luckily, this was still enough to qualify for the World Cup as I was the best second placed team. Huzzah - I'm going to the World Cup.

So the World Cup starts in the summer of 2014 and things start well. I win the first 2 games in the group and qualify for Round 2. This was basically the expectations of the FA in the first place so I figure I'm not doing too badly. Plus, it also set a new record in the game for most number of games won in a row by Portugal! :)

The third game in the group stage was against France. I decided to rest some of my key players and played a second string team. We lost to France 2-1 which wasn't a bad result considering it was my second string team. Anyway, I didn't care as I had already qualified.

Unfortunately, our Round 2 match is against Brazil (the tournament favourites!). :(

I give it my best shot. Playing my best team, we manage to push Brazil all the way to extra time before losing 3-2. I figure this is a pretty good performance. Losing to Brazil by 1 goal isn't bad imo.

Unfortunately, the FA have a different view. They decide to sack me for the teams "awful performance" in the World Cup - despite the fact that I made it to Round 2 and eventually got knocked out by Brazil by 1 goal! :(

Talk about unjust. Maybe I should just stick to club management.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

2014 and your midfield is almost the same as now! How old are the players now? 34?

Haven't played champ man for a while now - too busy other games such as Medieval 2...

Bro

Jokemeister said...

Stevie G is now 34. I have just started the new season, and to be honest, he has difficulty maintaining his stamina for a full match. However, he can still play well for the period he is on the pitch.

iirc, Momo Sissoko is around 29 and Xabi Alonso is around 32. Both of them are still performing at a high level. And this is part of the problem.

With both Sissoko and Alonso playing at a high level, its difficult for my reserves to break into the first team. Also, although Stevie G can no longer play at peak performance for the whole match, the fact that he does well for the period he does play, couple with my affection for my captain of 9 seasons, means that it is hard for me to remove him at this stage.

At the moment, my reserves, who have been cultivated since they were teenagers only get to play as subs or during cup matches. Luckily for me, last year, they acquitted themselves really well hence my ability to win 4 trophies. The only reason they don't get a first team slot is that Sissoko and Alonso are still playing at such a high level.