True Football Manager

I often entangle the following question about FM 2008:
"I do not understand, is there a pause during a match? How tactics is customized?"

Ok, let's talk about the innovation: the inability to stop the game while coach makes changes in tactics. This is not entirely true. Indeed, when the coach gets in the tactics, match is slowed, but not stopped.

However, there are two options to avoid this chip. First, you can click on pause during the game, and get in the tactics. Secondly, getting in tactics without stopping the game, you can pause it by pushing space. So you can change your tactics without problems.

One of the innovations in the FM 2008 - editable pitch sizes of your home stadium. Reasonable question: why must we suddenly deal with this issue? Suppose that reading this article to the end and then received a letter from an employee of your stadium, you will understand why and for what.

In reality, pitch of Highbury, for example, is known as very small, and Arsenal always tried his best to "stretch" it. When Arsenal moved to The Emirates Stadium, the main requirement was to box its size-it should have been a long and wide. This allowed to stretch defense of an opponent, and not slowed to impact on the success of Arsenal.

So you believe that all means good for a win? Then the sizes of your pitch can be a serious advantage. If you know how to use it correctly.

Before deciding on the sizes of the pitch, assess your own team. If your team is clearly not among powerful, and you have to play mainly in defensive football. Therefore you need to have a narrow pitch, which would deprive of the opponent’s attack space. But if you, looking at your team, are convinced that the best defense is an attack, you necessarily need a wide and long box to beat an opponent’s defense. Super Clubs, who has a large number of star players , are in need of a large field. Stars need space.

Also, pay attention to your key players, namely, their speed and acceleration. It seems, the higher acceleration the attackers have, it is easier to play the short field. And the higher the speed they have, the more chances they will have to run away from long distance defender. If both attributes equal - choose long pitch. It seems that powerful central forward should play on wide, but a short pitch. He do not rely on his speed, and his head must be as close to the gate. But the defense of an opponent will be stretched – and this is good for both powerful central forwards and wingers.

Generally, if you believe that the game will be based on wingers, a wide pitch should be chosen.

However, wide pitches can influence negatively on your defense – do not forget this! So think carefully!

And what’s the conclusion? If you read carefully, this article should be useful for you. If you are confused ... Just follow the standard sizes :)

New season, old expectations - win Seria A and reach the final of Champions League. I decided that's should be determinative season for our team. We must win Seria A at any price!!! Transfers before during the low season:

Bought

GK: Matteo Sereni (Parma) - Free

DEF: Armand Traore (Arsenal) - Free, Micah Richards (Man City) - $17M,
Alessandro Potenza (Fiorentina) - $2M

MID: Matthias Lehmann (Aachen) -Free, Gabriel Obertan (Bordeaux) - Free, Denilson (Arsenal) - $16M

FOR: Maxi Lopes (Barcelona) - Free, Scott Sinclair (Chelsea) - Free, Daniel Sturridge (Man City) - Free,

Sold

DEF: Riccardo Bonetto (Man City) - $1.3M

FOR: Goran Pandev (Liverpool) - $30M

So you see I tried to rejuvenate the first squad and substitution players. Highly progressing in Real Life Micah Richards was intended to become safe tower in defence together with Curtis Davies. Armand Traore is left back we just needed. And Denilson is the player of very high potential in the centre of midfield. Selling Pandev who had not impressed last season for $30M to Liverpool was a big luck for us certainly. It overlapped the expenditures on Denilson and Micah Richards.

And here we are with many new players and rejuvenated team. The first games were successful - easy 2 wins (1:0, 3:0) over Malmo and getting to Group Round of Champions League with Valencia, Feyenoord, Manchester United (oh, my God - "Group of Death"!). As a result, we were able to win only one match with Feyenoord, make 2 draws with Man Utd and Feyenoord. Gained 5 points did not even allow to get to UEFA cup :( In Seria A there were no success too. After the first half of the championship we were on the 4th place, falling behind on 12 points from Inter: It was sad, really-really sad. But in January one unexpected thing happened. That's what I call "Great reshuffle"!! Manager of Liverpool (winner of 2 last Champions Leagues) Rafa Benitez left his brilliant club for: Palermo - team with money, ambitions, but without large progress in their results (just participation in UEFA Cup). Roberto Mancini from Inter decided to be replace of Benitez at Liverpool :) And your most humble servant signed contract with Inter leaving Lazio: :)

From that moment new manager's life started for me. Chairman of Inter gave me plenty of money during the winter transfer window - $90M!!! Inter had a very strong squad with such names as Julio Cesar, Andrea Barzagli, Walter Samuel, Patric Vieira, Franck Ribery, Deian Stankovic, Zlatan Ibragimovic, Fernando Torres: But there was lack of players on a substitution bench. So I bought:

GK: Cristiano Lupatelli (Sampdoria) - $1.8M

DEF: Alessandro Tuia (Lazio) - $15M, Omar Benzerga (Lille) - $7M

MID: Anthony Van den Borre (Anderlecht) - $20.5M, Joey Barton (Man City) - $11M

FOR: Valeri Bojinov (Valencia) - $24.5M, Nicola Zigic (Betis) - $3.1M

Alessandro Tuia is my "foster child" from Lazio. I grew him to the first Lazio squad and substation bench of national Italy team. He's one of my favorites, frankly speaking :) Very fast central defender who plays legs and head very well. Van den Borre is a well known versatile talent from Belgium. Joey Barton - tough fighting defencive midfielder. Bojinov and Zigic are very different forwards. The first has cool strike, amazing technique and dribbling, good pace. The second - is just very high tower above 2 meters of height. He can win any ball on the second floor, believe me!

In Seria A we had 10 points at reserve dividing Roma (2nd place) from us. So I decided it should be easy to win it. The only problem was to find a good tactics for my new team. The choice was fell on an advantageous 3-4-3 with very wide and direct passing style.





My former experience helped me to do this choice. I should say the next thought: to gain success with 3 defender tactics, team should have fast defenders with very high values of Positioning, Tackling, Strength, Jumping. Almost from the very beginning new Inter started producing wins one by one. Chosen tactics scheme paid for itself. Consequently we won Italian championship with 11 points of lead. And could get status of the best European team but referee in the quarterfinal with Portsmouth (!) made mistakes giving penalty and sending off Samuel from the pitch: There are the main games of the season below:



Italian cup was lost on away goal in the hard final with Fiorentina. 0:1 away, 2:1 at home :)

Results of the season

Achievements

 Dreamt winning of Seria A (though without Lazio :) )

 Transfers of Micah Richards, Alessandro Tuia

 New attacking advantageous tactics I never played before

 30 goals by Fernando Torres (fan's best player of the season)

Failures

 Bad result during the first half of the season being manager of Lazio

 Transfer of Valeri Bojinov (only 3 goals in 18 matches)

 Loss to Portsmouth in the quarterfinal of CL.


To be continued:

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Time of exciting FM 2008 release is coming. On the 19th of October many thousands will become really happy guys :) Many of us will get FM 2008 download or buy it on DVD.

The release will contain bunch of tasty features:

• In-depth Awards - more history, more awards, better selection of award winner, Best Eleven


• Improverd Match Engine - it's promissed that macth will look like in a real football


• Changing dimensions of your field


• More news and media interaction


• Better and more convinient user interface


• FaceGen technology for regenerated players


• Arranging Fan Days - can boost attendance


• Saving and loading of the game is promised to be faster than in FM 2007


• New International Management


• New Transfer Center

I did not play in Football Manager 2008 Demo purposly because the release is so soon! Can't wait, looking forward to the end of the week!

Expectations for the new season - win Seria A and reach the final of Champions League again. For achievement of these goals the following transfers were made:

Bought

GK: Jose Molina (Levante) - Free

DEF: Igor Tudor (Juventus) - Free, Glen Johnson (Chelsea) - Free

MID: Alberto Aquilani (Real Madrid) - $9.25M, Andrea Gasbarroni (Juventus) -
Free, Jesus Navas (Sevilla) - Free

FOR: Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid) - $25M

Sold

DEF: Guglielmo Stendardo (Bordeaux) - $475K

MID: Roberto Baronio (Vicenza) - $1M

FOR: Roberto Soldado (Torino) - $3.4M, Stephen Makinwa (Middlesbrough) - $5M

All sold guys were not performing good. Though half of them found themselves in their new clubs. Saying about newcomers, I would admit that Aguero is a real wonderkid who had been considered to be replace for Tomasso Rocchi (and be better than he had been in the first two seasons). Alberto Aquilani is central midfielder for the first team squad surely. Glen Johnson was signed also for closing the right back position in the first squad.

We started the season from loss 2:3 to Inter with its skilful manager Mancini. Then we had unstable row of games till the winter in Seria A, passed through simple UEFA Cup group (Newcastle, Braga, U Craiova, Hertha) and got in the quarterfinal with Inter. Quarterfinal was really tough challenge for us. My team played careful football and passed to semifinal with 1:0 - home, 1:2 - away. On away goal.

After that Lazio started playing better and better. It's just enough to report about 6 winning streak within 3:0 over Fiorentina and 3:2 over Inter (at last - the first win over Inter in Seria A). Nevertheless, our brilliant form didn't last so long as it had been expected. Next opponent in UEFA Cup - Steaua threw cold water on heads of my players: 1:1 - home, 0:0 - away. This failure influenced on the performance in the Italian championship and the new win-loss-draw alternation for all the matches till the end of the Seria A began. Though last 3 won games allowed taking the fourth position in the table :)




I was dreaming of winning Italian cup. But in semifinal 3 away goals of Udinese knocked our team out of the tournament: 3:3 - home, 0:0 - away.

Results of the season

Achievements

 9 man of the match awards from Aguerro
 Transfers of Aquilani, Aguero, Glen Johnson
 Fortunate games with Inter

Failures

 Failure in UEFA Cup
 Transfer of Jesus Navas (he played football other players didn't understand)
 Low number of scored goals from Goran Pandev
 Expectations for the season are not reached at all

To be continued:

After success of the first season my Lazio was targeted at fighting for Seria A title. And, of course, I was cherishing some hopes about success in the Champions League season. The success meant for me - getting through to the quarter final of the tournament.

Transfers before the season

Bought


MID: Yildiray Basturk (Hertha) - Free


FOR: Roberto Soldado (Real Madrid) - Free, Stephen Makinwa (Palermo) - $3.8M


Sold


FOR: Simone Inzaghi (Messina) - $475K

Not really big changes. We wanted to secure a good style of playing achieved during the first season. For that Soldado and Makinwa were attracted as substitutes for the main forwards - Rocchi and Pandev. Yuildiray Basturk was signed with a high hope of doing playmaker from him.

So the season had started with two confident wins over Grasshoppers in the Champions League qualification. And we got to the group with Manchester United, Lyon and Shakhtar. Not easy one, but not mortal :) The next two away games were very hard and lost: 2:4 with Man Utd , 1:2 with Milan. And the next game was at home - 3:3 with Udinese. The problems with our defence became obvious! And there was also 3 month injury of Tomasso Rocchi, the real leader of Lazio. Although I didn't change 4-4-2 counter attacking tactics, just some small actions with few positions tuning their mentality and passing. But after such start I had more questions than answers concerning my team's strength and ability to fight for the title of Seria A.

And actually after the first half of the season the results were somewhat disappointing. In Seria A Inter took many points and there was no chance to compete with it (12 points of difference between us). Moreover, Lazio was on the 5^th place at all: Though the Champions League's start was rather successive. We had won home match with Man Utd what allowed to pass to the first knockout round even within 2 losses to Lyon and Shakhtar. Next opponent was astonishing and brilliant team of Arsene Wenger - Arsenal.

But before continuing the season we should attract new players to the club for solving the problem with defence:

Transfers during winter transfer window

Bought

DEF: Curtis Davies (Chealsea) - $19M


MID: Neri Cardozo (Boca) - $10.75M


Sold


MID: Valon Behrami (Liverpool) - $28.5M

Liverpool was absolutely in time with its proposition for Valon Behrami. Valon is fast and flamboyant but unstable winger. Therefore very highly priced proposition was accepted as a delightful event. On proceeds of the sale, I bought fast, safe and young central defender Curtis Davies and prospective winger from Argentina - Neri Cardozo. These transfers turned out very lucky ones:

Actually, Lazio didn't become to play better in Seria A. At least not so better as a expected. The defence became safer, but results were unstable: Often draws and losses to Inter: Stunning loss to Fiorentina with 1:7 - it was terrible beating!!! Lazio had 2 sending aways in that damned match :) As a result - only 6^th place in Seria A.

Lucky things became happening in the Champions League. All the matches with comments go below:

1/8     Arsenal - Lazio     3:2     It was like Arsenal of the former season in the Real Life. Many moments were missed by Gunners.

1/8     Lazio - Arsenal     4:1     Wonderful game by Basturk, Rocchi and Cardozo!

1/4     Lazio - Valencia 1:1     Villa was very dangerous and scored bad goal for us.

1/4     Valencia - Lazio     1:2     Lazio showed a fantastic character! Curtis Davies scored once, made many interceptions and tackles.

1/2     Inter - Lazio     3:1     We never won games with Inter before. This one did not become an exception.

1/2     Lazio - Inter     3:0     Something crazy was happening at Stadio Olimpico! We won thanking to Rocchi with his hat-trick!!!

Final     Lazio - Liverpool    5:6     Unrealistic game without defending! We lost at the extra time!!!! Unfortunately I don't have screens of this game because I know playing the 6^th season. Liverpool won the second final of CL in succession.

Here the screenshot of the Lazio's results at the end of the season (I have been playing for Inter during latest times - that's why it is selected with yellow colour)

Results of the season

Achievements:

• Fantastic team spirit in the Champions League, tremending final with Liverpool.
  
• Transfers of Behrami, Davies, Cardozo and Basturk.
  
• Tomazzo Rocchi is the best again!
  

Failures:

• 6^th place in Seria A
  
• Bad transfer of Roberto Soldado who didn't want to score goals anyhow
  
• Loss in the 1^st round of Italian Cup to Napoli on away goal.
  

To be continued: :)