Football Manager 2021

[nickhastie2004]

4 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Finally getting around to installing the facepack megapack but no matter what I do, I can't get them to appear in game, no matter what I try. Is the process different in this game?

No, shouldnt be any different, mine works fine on my laptop in the usual folder. Have you tried redownloading the facepack in case its corrupted somehow or reinstalling the game. Annoying I know but worth a shot.

[Lineker]

Downloaded it fresh over the weekend, all 20 gigs of it!

[FLiam]

Usually it's a case of booting up the game and then going into preferences, unticking the cache option and ticking reload skin, reload and then tick the cache box again. File path should 'Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021\graphics\pictures'.

On another note, I really haven't been able to stick with a save for a while so I decided to start a Glory Hunter challenge ala DrBenjy. Started with Barcelona.

[TMM]

I love the logic of the big clubs on this game. As AFC Wimbledon, Man City wanted to sign Emi Buendia from me after one season. He’d had an ok season so I was willing to sell, asked for £60m and they accepted and a few days later, bye bye Emi, thanks, you had a decent season.
Couple of days later I see that he has been transfer listed for £80m with zero interest. Ok, that’s funny. Let’s see if they’ll accept a loan...they did. No fee, 50% of his wages and option to buy for £80m and Emi has returned!

[JasonM]

27 minutes ago, TMM said:

I love the logic of the big clubs on this game. As AFC Wimbledon, Man City wanted to sign Emi Buendia from me after one season. He’d had an ok season so I was willing to sell, asked for £60m and they accepted and a few days later, bye bye Emi, thanks, you had a decent season.
Couple of days later I see that he has been transfer listed for £80m with zero interest. Ok, that’s funny. Let’s see if they’ll accept a loan...they did. No fee, 50% of his wages and option to buy for £80m and Emi has returned!

I see the Barcelona logic has infected other teams, too...

I had it with a few players. Most notably with my ace striker Dion Beljo, who got bought by Arsenal for 86M after having 2.5 really good seasons with Feyenoord. 1.5 year later he was fringed and had played less than 10 total games for Arsenal, so I bought him back for 28M and even got 7M back on the sell-on fee on the original deal.

AI makes some really mind-boggling choices. Also in general I feel their rotation is garbage, lots of players barely playing or only getting subbed on. The AI seems content having the entire starting eleven play 38 games + euro ties.

Also managed to loan Joshua Zirkzee for a full season from Citeh because he was fringed despite being a top end striker, again because Citeh just spends 300M a season on players to never actually put in the rotation.

[Lineker]

11 hours ago, FLiam said:

Usually it's a case of booting up the game and then going into preferences, unticking the cache option and ticking reload skin, reload and then tick the cache box again. File path should 'Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021\graphics\pictures'.

Yeah, I'd followed all that and it wasn't working. But I got there eventually - I think it was my retro face pack for the 01/02 db that was interfering with it working.

[Gorka]

On 14/05/2021 at 21:34, Gorka said:

I'm still playing the same Glory Hunter save that I started last year while on furlough, and I'm having a lovely time with Inter Milan. Inter were the Champions League holders when I joined but had not won a domestic trophy since Mourinho, even AS Roma had managed to win the league in the save.

First season, Romelu Lukaku was on fire (at 32 years old!) and scored as many goals as his age in the league. I won the Italian league by about seven points or so but the domestic cup was a disappointment with a quarter-finals exit and Real Madrid knocked us out on away goals in the Champions League final eight. Good season, could be better.

Oh, it got so much better in the second season. Quadruple! Went about thirty-odd matches undefeated in the league to break the record for most wins and the best-ever points total (104!), won the Italian Super Cup, beat Udinese in the domestic cup competition and lifted the Champions League after knocking out Kylian Mbappe's Chelsea, my former Manchester United team, Villareal in the semi-final and then Schalke (who knocked out Real Madrid and Barcelona in consecutive stages) in the final.

Lukaku didn't bag as many but that doesn't matter because my 21 year old winger, Giuseppe Mottarlini had a real breakout season after a few slow years by bagging about fifteen goals and just as many assists. Somehow, Italy didn't call him up for the 2026 season despite having the best average rating in the league and winning the player awards.

I'll stay here for one more season, just for the joy of it.

Welp, six matches in and my star winger is out for several fixtures and I've lost three league matches to Roma, Napoli and Juventus. 

Just seven points behind the leaders already...

[Hobo]

4th League of Ireland in a row. With about 6 games left. So i am literally playing the kids. I literally played some terrible youths in a 3 - 0 win over Bray. Who had ex Celtic striker Cillian Sherdian upfront.

Third Champions League group stage appearance too.

And so far drawn with 2-2 with Porto and 1-1 with Bilbao. Roma next. Looking forward to my players having no post season holiday again if we can pull off qualifying

 

[Cymbols]

Won the league three seasons in a row with Genk, and turned down interviews with Manchester United, Juventus, Hoffenheim and Valencia at different times over the last season. Was planning on moving on at the end of the season but nothing too exciting cropped up in the off season so stuck around for number four.

Hasn’t gone quite so well. Actually had money to spend, so upgraded at CB, LB and ST. Then Real Sociedad triggered Sander Berge’s release clause, so I’ve had to replace my best CM as well. Add to that Leandro Trossard (who scored 26 in 34 from LW last season) has missed the first two months of the season injured, my players are just not used to playing alongside each other and haven’t clicked yet. Thankfully, Aly Samatta is still a beast, as his 7-in-7 league games to start the season has done me a real solid. 

[FLiam]

Didn’t realise how fucked Barcelona we’re financially. Into February now and we’re £54m in the red and I haven’t done any transfer business. Couldn’t even get Glen Kamara in on emergency loan as cover as Rangers wanted a mandatory £6m fee at the end of the season that we couldn’t afford. 

One point behind Betis in the league, semi final of the Copa del Rey to come and a CL knockout tie with Manchester United to look forward to. Hoping I can at least clear Spanish domestic objectives so I can tick off La Liga in season one.

Messi won’t sign a new deal so bringing in Depay on a free as well as Jovetic from Monaco.

Edited May 28, 2021 by FLiam

[Hobo]

On 25/05/2021 at 23:54, Hobo said:

4th League of Ireland in a row. With about 6 games left. So i am literally playing the kids. I literally played some terrible youths in a 3 - 0 win over Bray. Who had ex Celtic striker Cillian Sherdian upfront.

Third Champions League group stage appearance too.

And so far drawn with 2-2 with Porto and 1-1 with Bilbao. Roma next. Looking forward to my players having no post season holiday again if we can pull off qualifying

 

Lost 3-0 to Roma at the Olympico. Although it was a fairly even game in every other way. Dropped to 4th. Only 2 points separate us from qualifying though.

Will once again be facing Bray in the FAI Cup final. After playing them in the League Cup Final and the league in the final month of the season.

EDIT:

Roma arrived in Navan and that 3-0 defeat was avenged

[King Ellis]

So, I didn't quite appreciate the injury crisis bestowed upon my team and the 4 right backs it wiped out but it did lead to this inexplicable rebona cross from my Greek wonderkid I've been waiting 3 years to actually arrive:

 

[Malenko]

13 hours ago, Hobo said:

Lost 3-0 to Roma at the Olympico. Although it was a fairly even game in every other way. Dropped to 4th. Only 2 points separate us from qualifying though.

Will once again be facing Bray in the FAI Cup final. After playing them in the League Cup Final and the league in the final month of the season.

EDIT:

Roma arrived in Navan and that 3-0 defeat was avenged

How many Brazilian Regens do you have on your team?

[Hobo]

10 hours ago, Malenko said:

How many Brazilian Regens do you have on your team?

All my Brazilian are real!

I did have 3 or 4 in my youth and B teams for a bit. They all ended up getting sold to Bray Wanderers for some reason.

I guess they just wanted to live by the irish sea.

 

[Adam]

8 hours ago, Hobo said:

All my Brazilian are real!

I did have 3 or 4 in my youth and B teams for a bit. They all ended up getting sold to Bray Wanderers for some reason.

I guess they just wanted to live by the irish sea.

 

How did you set up this Irish Money world? Just give all the LOI clubs money and see what they went and did with it?

[Hobo]

1 minute ago, Adam said:

How did you set up this Irish Money world? Just give all the LOI clubs money and see what they went and did with it?

Pretty much. I know there's a version out there where someone did the same thing but they turned everything up to 11, so to speak, but I didn't really want that.

I  set it up so each club located in the top 10 biggest urban areas in the Republic of Ireland got some sort of big financial boost. Upped their bank balances, gave them all additional sponsorship income. Gave them all new owners that are basically clones of the owners of Chelsea, City and PSG. I randomly generated names for each of them too.

Some of them got less than others. But still more than they'd have normally.  It shakes out that Parkvilla, Shamrock Rovers, Dundalk, Bohemians and Cork City are the richest clubs in the league.

 I've run these games a few times over the years. The clubs take a bit of time to start attracting players from abroad. They tend to start with Irish players abroad playing in lower levels (Callum O'Dowda is a fairly common signing early on by someone), usually in the 2nd season Cork City sign Kevin Doyle. Eventually the likes of Aiden McGeady (signed by Shamrock Rovers in this gamee),  Darron Gibson and Glenn Whelan (Bohemians),  Conor Hourihane (Cork), Paul McShane (Waterford).

A few years in they start getting older players who aren't Irish. In this game, Danny Graham is at Galway. Bray have signed Costel Pantillmon.  Stéphane Sessegnon and Liam Rosenior at Waterford Utd. Bohemians have Giampaolo Pazzini.  I'm hoping to see a few more pop up now. It's not quite gotten as wild as the time Limerick had what looked like a Harry Redknapp Spurs team or Fernando Morientes' relegation candidates Shamrock Rovers in my first attempt at this.

The computer tends to be a little more conservative with their money than I am. The biggest signing any computer run club has made is 3 million and I've spent 15 million as a record transfer

The Champions League performances are a new element. Never managed to get in there 3 times in a row in any variant of this "give Irish clubs money" game I've run. Although, I've taken a bit more care with assembling a team in this game more than I have in others. I've also somehow held on to my key players by and large.

 

 

[Hobo]

drew 2-2 with Porto in Porto. Bilbao beat Roma.

oh man this group. Roma were top and Bilbao were bottom after 4 games. We led 1-0 at Porto for a bit and were top of the group (briefly).

 

I had a look and the other groups aren't quite as tightly matched:

 

Spoiler

 

[Malenko]

The fact you play without logo packs activates my OCD.

Still wish you luck.

[Hobo]

1 hour ago, Malenko said:

The fact you play without logo packs activates my OCD.

Still wish you luck.

Normally im the very much the same tbh

But ive had to install and reinstall fm on 2 laptops in the last year and just havent gotten to it.

[Cymbols]

My top CB, Jhon Lucumi just did his ACL about a week after the summer window shut. Luckily, his usual partner, Rivaldo Coetzee is also really good, so the fact that the other options aren’t as strong shouldn’t matter as much. But still, 11 months out is sub optimal.

The right back saga finally ended before the start of season five, with Maehle leaving to join Tottenham for £25m. Not thrilled, but I could only reject so many offers. Got Reece James in on loan, and signed an 18-year-old for £6.5m, so we’re covered both short and longer term.