Football Manager 2007

[therockbox]

Also, how weird is the Italian youth system? I sent a scout to look at one of the under-20 competitions, but apparantly they're allowed to play a few older players as well. Out of about 20 players recommended almost three quarters are over 25.

Edited June 3, 2007 by therockbox

[Number of the Breast]

Not sure if anyone's really realised it, but the Mexican leagues are a goldmine for talent. Sadly my Maldonado deal fell through because he couldn't get a work permit, but a great Chilean striker, Reinaldo Navia, I picked up for £2M. I've also been told that there's a definite purchase in a Mexican DM called Pineda, and a keeper Ochoa, who I should sign whatever the cost. I doubt I'll be able to get him though, again because of work permit issues.

[Steeb]

Argh, I hate injuries :@

Cicinho - out

Higuain - just got back

Ramos - out

Pantelic - out

Robert - out

Acapandie - out

Beckham - out

I also hate that I somehow missed registering Robert and del Horno for the league, so just argh. Fuck Spain.

[TMM]

Not sure if anyone's really realised it, but the Mexican leagues are a goldmine for talent. Sadly my Maldonado deal fell through because he couldn't get a work permit, but a great Chilean striker, Reinaldo Navia, I picked up for £2M. I've also been told that there's a definite purchase in a Mexican DM called Pineda, and a keeper Ochoa, who I should sign whatever the cost. I doubt I'll be able to get him though, again because of work permit issues.

Ochoa always turns out amazing on this game. I usually sign him and then ship him out to whichever Belgian club I have as a feeder club for two years and then he'll get a work permit.

My Arsenal season finished on a high, despite some dodgy performances over the season. Lost eleven games in the Premiership and went out of the Carling and FA Cup's to Everton early on, but I won the Champions League, so it's all good in the hood.

Franck Ribery (and Ochoa) are the only main signing's I've made while stealing Bojan, Iago, Thiago and Dos Santos from Barcelona as well, but this summer I'll be bringing in Thomas Hitzlsperger on a free, as well as Lukasz Fabianski for £2.8m and Manuel Fernandes for £4.8m, which I'm hoping will be my summer spending, unless I can get Daniel Alvez perhaps. I'm looking at Igor Akinfeev who plays for recently relegated Werder Bremen, but my funds are looking pretty poor at the moment.

I'm trying to offload Freddie Ljungberg, Mathieu Flamini, Jose Reyes and possibly Emmanuel Eboue for a tidy sum to fund some more signings.

[IAceI]

Finished my third season in 6th, real step down as I didn't win a single trophy. Very disappointing.

Finished on a 3 match defeat, 1-0 loss to a shitty Botafogo team, 3-1 loss to 2nd placed Corinthians and a 2-0 loss to Internacional on the final day to crown them champions. Absolutely pathetic.

Not a happy chappy >_>

[Pesci]

So I'm just about to start season number four with Liverpool. The board have gone from expecting me to challenge for the title to expecting me to win it, so I'm guessing this is the year I'll be out the door if I fail. I'll be playing this team to start off with, and I think it's a pretty good team, but they just happen to have lapses every now and then. Well, most of the time.

GK: Pepe Reina/Scott Carson (Carson's been out on loan three years on a row and he's got three solid seasons of Premiership experience behind his belt so hopefully this is the year he can challenge Reina for a first team spot. Reina's been superb for me, barring last season when his average rating fell under 7.00 for the first time. I'm hoping that if I alternate them it'll keep them on their toes. I decided against doing this earlier because as mistake-prone as Dudek is, I always had a soft spot for him, but now he's finally left for Nurenburg )

DR: Cristian Zaccardo/Jose Manuel Garcia Cabrera (the latter has the best regen name ever and he's not too good at the moment, but he played in all my friendlies due to my not having signed Zaccardo yet, and Alexis having buggered off to Barcelona, looking impressive in most of them. I'm hoping Zaccardo will give me a couple of years good service because I've tried Finnan, Barragan and Alexis at right back, and none of them kept the standard of the rest of my team. Finnan was the best out of them but he requested a transfer so I sent him on his way to West Ham.)

DL: John Arne Riise/Carlinhos (Riise's been fairly consistent and is one of the few members of my team who never seems to get anything lower than a 7. I brought Carlinhos in at the start of last season as backup due to Fabio Aurelio's departure to Juve, and he'll probably become first choice left back when Riise gets too old to play well.)

DC: Any two from Daniel Agger/Jamie Carragher/Gabriel Paletta/Jack Hobbs/Tomasso Franchi (Godwin Antwi is also an up-and-coming centre back but since Hobbs spent last season on loan, while Antwi enjoyed some time in the first team, I've decided it's only fair that he gets his chance this season and Antwi is loaned out instead. Franchi is a brilliant regen, I bought him when he was seventeen because he had ace attributes for a defensive midfielder and I've just finished retraining him into that role. For the time-being though, the only way he can get experience is as a defender in my less important games. Agger and Carragher are my first-choice pairing, but Carragher's just come off of a poor season by his standards and he should be hitting 31 any time now so I'm starting to wonder if he's not past it a little. I'll probably start easing Paletta into his role this year so he's ready to replace him in a few seasons or perhaps a little sooner. Agger's just been stellar, he's my rock.)

MR: Luis Garcia/Jermaine Pennant/Paul Anderson (Last season Luis Garcia spent most of his time on the sidelines and it showed as the team really lacked his creative influence. At the start of the game I found that playing him on the right wing and allowing Gonzalez to flourish on the left worked best, but last year they were both out so Jermaine Pennant ended up with the most assists, apart from Higuain who was in a league of his own anyway. Anderson's currently a wonderkid and I considered loaning him out but decided against it in case Garcia decides to break his other leg this year. Anderson played some good football last year and it's only a matter of time before he eclipses both Garcia and Pennant, around the same time Garcia retires and Pennant can leave the club now that we've got somebody of better ability and consistency in his role.)

ML: Mark Gonzalez/Charles N'Zogbia and if worst comes to worst I shall be calling upon Luis Garcia and Paul Anderson (As I said, Gonzalez is top-notch on this flank when he's fit, and he had two awesome seasons before repetitive injuries meant he missed most of last year. Since Garcia was out too, I was forced to utilise N'Zogbia, who I've been grooming for the central midfield role as opposed to the wing. N'Zogbia had the season of his life and finished with the highest average rating of all my players [except Higuain, who again, is in a league of his own] so I'll have a hard choice this year. Anderson is there because last year I had a lack of cover for N'Zogbia and decided to retrain Anderson to play on the other flank is well. He only played there once and twice. And he'll only play there this year if all three of the better choices are injured. Going on the season I had last year, I wouldn't rule it out,)

MC: Steven Gerrard/Andrea Pirlo/Momo Sissoko/Charles N'Zogbia (Gerrad and Pirlo are generally my starting pair, with Gerrard taking the much more defensive holding role and Pirlo steaming through in the attacking role. Since Gerrard's an AMC and Pirlo's a DM this may seem strange, but Pirlo has better attacking stats than Gerrard, and Gerrard has better defending stats than Pirlo. Pirlo had another fantastic season last year, scoring 13 goals before injuring himself just before the climax of the season. In stepped Sissoko who'd been performing very well in the few appearances he'd made and he showed himself to be a prized asset, notching up about five goals in seven or eight games, which isn't bad considering I'd slid the defensive duties over to him when I needed to call upon Gerrard to attack in Pirlo's absence. Unfortunately, Sissoko got injured too, right before the FA Cup Final, so I decided to test N'Zogbia in the centre, which is what I originally intended him for. He had a pathetic first game there and he let the team down. He's probably the reason we couldn't nab 3rd place from Man United and the reason we lost the FA Cup to Spurs who we should've trounced. He played well in his other games though, so I still have hope he could settle in when Pirlo is too old. This year I'll be giving Sissoko a lot more first team football and N'Zogbia too when he gets his chance.)

FC: Gonzalo Higuain/Michael Owen/Darren Bent/Aaron Niguez/Peter Crouch (So, Dirk Kuyt played like shit last season and since he isn't willing to move to a smaller club it looks like he'll be staying here. I'll have to loan him out, the cunt. And Sinama-Pongolle never reached his potential so he's now waste but nobody wants him either, not even for £1m, and he'll be loaned out too. My initial instinct was to loan Niguez out too so he gets as much first-team football as possible, but he performanced exceptionally well in the friendlies so I'm probably gonna keep him. Higuain will be starting against any of the other four choices unless he's lost his form over the summer. I'd love to reprise his and Owen's partnership, since it rocked the casbah at the start of last season but gradually faded away. Bent had a great Confederations Cup for me as England manager so I signed him for the sake of consistency, so I'll be rotating him on a regular basis with Owen and Higuain. Niguez will start the odd match against lowly teams and earn himself a plethroa of sub appearances, I'm hoping. Crouch is there in case I hit a snag and need to rely on using him as the target man again, like I did at the conclusion of last season, which saved me so much and earned the man a new contract. I was prepared to let him go but I realised I had a taller player than anybody else in the league and should use it to my advantage.)

That's an essay and a fucking half. I don't know why I wrote that much since nobody's going to read every word, but I'm bored. Plus this could be fun to look at half-way through the season when I'm pissed off that I'm underachieving. That took me ages. Jesus.

[Buford Ripley]

I HATE that Man Utd have become practically invincible to me and only me in this game. Sure, lose 2-0 to Wolves giving them their only win in ten games but please go ahead and beat me 4-1 convincingly. :@ They've beaten me three times already this season and it's not even December yet.

[Bigal]

Just out of interest, is it possible to be offered the U-21 job of a nation?

[IAceI]

Yeah, but it's very rare. Which is a shame. Same with U19's I believe.

[ravenjuice]

So how do you send someone to a feeder club to gain a work permit? I've never worked that one out.

[Thomas]

You just send him away on loan as you might do to any other player to another of your feeder teams.

Edited June 3, 2007 by Thomas

[Kanegetshighbysmellinhisarmpits]

So how do you send someone to a feeder club to gain a work permit? I've never worked that one out.

Edited June 3, 2007 by Kanegetshighbysmellinhisarmpits

[TMM]

So how do you send someone to a feeder club to gain a work permit? I've never worked that one out.

I swear you went on 'move to affiliate' and then pick your team from Belgium or wherever and send them there? (although, to be honest, the option is always greyed out for me, for some reason.)

EDIT: Thomas beat me to it.

It's only usually greyed out if you're outside a transfer window because you can only send them on a year long loan. Ochoa actually got a work permit after one-year at Beveren.

[IAceI]

Luke Harvey has resigned from Sao Paulo after being forced out by the chairman. More news to come

I'll update when I see if I'll be right back into a managers hot seat soon ¬_¬

EDIT: Blackburn Rovers can confirm Luke Harvey is their new manager

Edited June 3, 2007 by IAceI

[Summers]

My influence helped the move.

[Steeb]

Started a new game. Ended up as the Republic Of Congo manager. Not one keeper exists for them.

Fuck.

[Kanegetshighbysmellinhisarmpits]

So how do you send someone to a feeder club to gain a work permit? I've never worked that one out.

I swear you went on 'move to affiliate' and then pick your team from Belgium or wherever and send them there? (although, to be honest, the option is always greyed out for me, for some reason.)

EDIT: Thomas beat me to it.

[Summers]

3 years, on average.

[Kanegetshighbysmellinhisarmpits]

Oh shit, Mikel's on 13k a week and hes playin in Belgian division 3 for 3 years. Great. Thanx for the heads up.

[9 to 5]

Started a new game. Ended up as the Republic Of Congo manager. Not one keeper exists for them.

Fuck.

Play Samba in net for them. He is big enough. >_>