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Season 7 starts tomorrow. Time for stats! Highest squad value: Nerds of Prey  Most value added: Balamb FC  Most improved team: Balamb FC              
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Dec 4, 2021 23:27
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 14:31 |
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Seeing the Coffee Beans and River City Rovers tied on the 'youngest team' tier just tells me we're gonna have a nice long rivalry
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Dec 5, 2021 00:25
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Seeing the Coffee Beans and River City Rovers tied on the 'youngest team' tier just tells me we're gonna have a nice long rivalry Yeah except someone is Mr Moneybag and the other team is dirt poor.
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Dec 5, 2021 00:58
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Tiger Crazy posted:Yeah except someone is Mr Moneybag and the other team is dirt poor. does it make things better if I say I intend to be much poorer by season's end 'cause you can't hang in the middle divisions without picking up a useful vet or two?
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Dec 5, 2021 01:13
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awww my team's value slipped pretty bad after a rough CR. Hopefully can reverse it this season!
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Dec 5, 2021 02:05
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No. The only thing that makes feel better is when I see my enemies flee before me and beating The Coffee Beans. I keep accidentally overspending on players. I blame that on drunken player buys.
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Dec 5, 2021 02:29
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A 6 - 1 loss to Coffee Beans, the only reason I scored 1 point was Beans scored an own goal.
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Dec 7, 2021 04:44
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I was legit shocked at that result sat there staring at the screen like it was some kind of a trick for an embarrassingly long time
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Dec 7, 2021 10:27
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Just realised there was a new thread! I’m back in dumpster league. Need to try hard the next 4/6 seasons!
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Dec 7, 2021 11:57
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I played a long time ago for a while and have forgotten... pretty much everything. At least I can waste some time each week writing stupid press releases.
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Dec 9, 2021 17:19
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hmm do I want a 17/5 midfielder with the Cool As Ice SQ why yes I do thank you youth academy now the question is, do I turn him into cash for high-skill veterans or develop him myself
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Dec 10, 2021 04:01
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:hmm do I want a 17/5 midfielder with the Cool As Ice SQ why yes I do thank you youth academy Yes, the league we are in still has the ability to develop players. A 17/5 only needs a couple games before they will hit a high skill level. Then you can sell a 18/6 or if it goes right a 18/7. I am happy with the start of my season hopefully I can get a couple more wins and insure my safety in the league of lurkers.
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Dec 10, 2021 05:00
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Sorry league, but I'm going to abandon my team, Turkey Gang FC. I gave it a couple seasons: got promoted, then didn't get relegated, but I have no idea what I'm doing.
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Dec 10, 2021 06:53
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I Love Topanga posted:Sorry league, but I'm going to abandon my team, Turkey Gang FC. I gave it a couple seasons: got promoted, then didn't get relegated, but I have no idea what I'm doing. Mate I finished second, 1 goal from the title, in the top division 2 seasons ago. And I still have no idea what I'm doing!
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Dec 10, 2021 21:19
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I don't know what I'm doing either but I must be doing something right, so here's a bit of an effort post on my routine for setting tactics. I'll use my women's league team as an example because it's a relatively well-balanced team with a difficult match coming up tomorrow. First up, let's look at the opposition and try to figure out what I'm up against.  It looks like we're pretty evenly-matched, on paper at least. Let's look at their team now:  (Some of these might be only visible to VIP, I'm not sure. You can still find this info yourself but it would obviously take longer.) Things to note here: 1 - They have a clear preference for 4-4-2 and have used this formation in their last 3 games. They're down a midfielder so if I were them I would switch to 5-3-2 or something similar, but because they have used 4-4-2 for the last 3 games, I'm going to prepare against that anyway just in case. If I were to prepare for 5-3-2 and they chose 4-4-2, they would get a massive bonus. Likewise, if I were to prepare against 5-3-2 and they actually happened to pick this, I would get a massive bonus. It all depends on how much risk I'm willing to take, and in this case, I'm not willing to take any. 2 - Their offense isn't very specialized, but their defensive record shows they're vulnerable to long range shots and shots in the penalty area. They also defend well against crosses and to a lesser degree, breakaways. I will want to avoid playing down the wings on this info alone, though I would consider it if their defender Walsh wasn't playing today. 3 - They only have 3 veteran midfielders and one of them is injured. This is a good opportunity for me, because they're likely to choose 1 of the other 2 as their playmaker. They might even skip choosing a playmaker altogether, which would still benefit me. 4 - Their defense and GK are very, very strong. My offense is going to have a tough game. Fortunately, they will need to play at least 1 youth player to keep the average age down. 5 - They have a couple of good FK specialists and the ref is S9 H5. I need to be careful not to give away too many free kicks, so I should make sure I don't choose a cheater or tough player as my playmaker. Now let's try to get some more insight without spending any money.  These are their player ratings from their last match. It's important to note that this was a home game against a very weak opponent. Okake on defense was their best player, Clemence was also strong in midfield. Symonds is their strongest player on paper, but she played awfully in this match - I'm going to guess that she was being marked or she had low form to begin with. She will be injured this game so chances are, their best midfielder will be Clemence rather than Callahan. I also checked their other games to make sure this wasn't a fluke since one of them could have the moody SQ. Also to note, there are 2 players named Ajose and one of them is much better than the other. The older Ajose is also clearly better than Morawa, but she spent the last match on the bench. If I were to mark a forward, this could be tricky, but I would pick Ajose. I could also check the club's page to see their top scorer, but since this season just started, that won't be helpful to me here. Is that all we can look at without buying tactics reports? No, let's look at some more. Here is their last match against a very weak team in the cup:  Even without the tactics report, I can still see their ratings on the left and glean some useful information out of it. This was a home game that they probably didn't set any bonus for, so I could expect to see slightly higher ratings when I face them. If I were to look at one of their away games, their ratings would show even lower, so I would prefer to look at a game similar to the one I'm about to face them in. Defense: 14 (this probably won't change tomorrow unless they change formation) Midfield: 10 (with their best midfielder out of action, this will probably be lower, let's say 8) Offense: 6 (they only played youth, so looking at their other games, I can probably expect for them to have a rating of 10 here) So assuming they go 4-4-2 again, I'm looking at a team rated around 14-8-10. So that's what I have to beat. I would have a better idea if I bought the tactics report, because that would also tell me if they were playing offensively or defensively. I'm feeling cheap, though, so let's assume they played normally. Let's look at my team now:  There's not a lot to work with here since my team is still very young. But I have strong form on most players and several of my youth players are ahead of the curve. My youth academy investments have been paying off. (You get more mileage out of your youth academy in leagues that only play 1 league game per week.) None of my players will really stick out to the opponent, except I only have 1 decent forward, Anne Haglund, and she's quick. They might try to mark her or tighten the center, or both. They might also notice that I don't have any FK specialists. Whoops. Here is my last comparable match:  I played away 4-4-2 normal against a crappy team with a $150k win bonus and I ended up with ratings of 12-11-10. I wonder what the opponent thinks I'll do?  I clearly like using 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 with this team. They will probably plan for either of these formations. I can also check my own individual player ratings from here, but there was nothing surprising from that so I'll move on. --- So, after looking at all of that, I'm not feeling great about this game. Let's go ahead and set our tactics. At this point I'm very tempted to go 4-3-3. The extra forward could help me break their defense. I might still win the midfield, even without pressure or long balls, and my defense should hold against their weak offense. 3-4-3 might also work. If I set a high win bonus, maybe my 3 defenders will be enough to hold the line. I already know my 4 midfielders will beat theirs. I could also go 4-4-2 or 3-5-2. If I know I'm going to win the midfield battle, why not use that to my advantage? 4-5-1 would also work, but the 1 forward isn't going to help much, I would need to play very offensively.  In the end, I'm going to play 3-5-2 normal. I don't want Brigit Bonner on the field unless there is an injury. Her form is just too awful, and I'd rather be using all of my best players. Brigit isn't worth the price of form training, so this will be her last season on my bench. Marion is also injured, so 3 defenders it is. 3-4-3 isn't a very safe formation to use, and in this case it would require me to bench one of my better midfielders and leave no subs for my forwards. Cautious would be the smart play, since A) I'm playing away and B) I'm not sure how my 3 defenders will hold up against their 2 forwards. But their defense is very strong and I'm playing to win, so I'll leave it on normal and hope for the best. I'm going to do through plays, even though I anticipated that they might tighten the center or mark my forward. Long range shots would also be a good idea here, but that can also be countered by tightening the center. I'm going to hope they don't mark Anne Haglund (they actually marked her once in a previous match so I might be in trouble) and I'm going to mark their quick midfielder, Clemence. Clemence is their only midfielder with stamina and quick, and I'm playing through plays with pressure, so this should work out. I'll be a little sad if they choose Callahan as their playmaker, but not by much, since Clemence seems to have better form. If I was playing 4-3-3 long balls, I would maybe consider marking one of their defenders instead. Playing wing plays wouldn't be so bad if I were to mark one of their defenders with the good header SQ. I'm not going to set a defensive strategy - keeping it on normal is the safe bet, and in this case, I don't see anything that would suggest I need to change this. I want pressure and offside tactics because I'm playing for possession, and I also have a couple of midfielders with the stamina trait. The referee is S9 H5 so offside traps is a no-brainer. I might consider playing carefully, but that will hurt my defense and I'm already dropping to 3 defenders. I'm selecting Marisa Jacinto as my playmaker because she has intelligence and stamina, both great SQs for a playmaker to have when you're playing 3-5-2 pressure. There is a high chance she will be marked but in this case, there is also a good chance that they will choose to mark my highest-skilled player, Astildhur Sveinsdottir. If I was playing long range shots, I would have gone with Zara Zidane. The only 'bad' choice here would be Aliz Lipovan, since she has low skill and is tough, and being a good header doesn't help much for midfielders. Finally, I'm going to set a large win bonus. I will probably still lose but the win bonus should help my chances and my overall team form. If I had a lot of money, I would even consider putting a 1 million win bonus here, but today I'm not willing to spend more than $500k in case I do win (or $125k for a draw). So I think the team ratings will look like 14-8-10 for them, and maybe 13-14-11 for me. My defense will beat their offense, and their defense will beat my offense, but my midfield will dominate the game and hopefully give me enough chances to score. This will probably still end up as a low-scoring game, and I'm going to guess that I will lose 1-0 or draw 1-1. If they choose to go 5-3-2 or 4-3-3 long balls, they will almost certainly destroy me, but I'm going to take a gamble and hope they don't change up their formation. If I had better defenders, I would probably have gone with 4-3-3 and long range shots, but in this case, I feel that using all of my strongest available players and taking advantage of their injured player to dominate the midfield will give me the best chance. Who knows, maybe I'll win? edit: I was going to post the result with some more commentary, but it looks like my opponent forgot to set tactics (or did a horrible job of it), so I ended up cruising to victory at 0-3. A bit anticlimactic, yes, but hey, 3 points! They were rated 14-10-9 and I was 12-13-12 so at least my estimates were pretty close. bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 23:59
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Tiger Crazy posted:Yes, the league we are in still has the ability to develop players. A 17/5 only needs a couple games before they will hit a high skill level. Then you can sell a 18/6 or if it goes right a 18/7. Fair! The only issue is that they're gonna have to compete for playing time with my other 17/5 midfielder. ...that's not an awful problem to have, mind
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Dec 14, 2021 00:02
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Man, my team is cranking on all cylinders, with gaudy form numbers. Where were you last season?
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Dec 14, 2021 18:51
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bees everywhere posted:Ridiculously high effort post Nice work, that might be material worthy of adding to the OP for new season threads. Also, worst of luck in your next match but hopefully we can both stay injury free.
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Dec 15, 2021 00:08
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Jive Turkey posted:Nice work, that might be material worthy of adding to the OP for new season threads. Yeah that was about 100x more thought I've ever put into tactics.
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Dec 15, 2021 00:50
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Panicked that I forgot to set tactics again but turns out I had a bye anyway! Wife being in the hospital for a week + baby being in the NICU for ??? has not been good for hobbies/games.
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Dec 18, 2021 14:52
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Yes excellent a good win against the Beans at home. I am sure it will be done back to me on the away fixture. Though the real challenge now lies in the Honking Geese.They have a game in hand, but being tied on points with league favorites is pretty nice. With my best veteran defender out I am not liking my chances. I feel like each season River City has the dubious award of being the team with the most injury days. On another soccer manager note if you have prime gaming Football Manager 2021 is free from the epic games store. Lot more in depth game for those people getting that manager itch. Also congratulations on the baby. Start then young in the youth academy. Tiger Crazy fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 20:36
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My 24/11 GK, over 4 games, is at an average 17 form, 19 current form, and a +5 DV. Intelligent/hard training is an absolutely disgusting combo. Dude's gonna be unstoppable in 3 seasons. Also glad my team decided to finally come together and play promotion caliber quality!
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Dec 19, 2021 20:27
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Hard training truly is a cheat code in this game.
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Dec 19, 2021 20:42
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Subliminal Ninja posted:Hard training truly is a cheat code in this game. It really is a shame that it is hidden or I'd seek it out everywhere.
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Dec 19, 2021 22:11
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Nephzinho posted:It really is a shame that it is hidden or I'd seek it out everywhere. On one of my other teams in another league I decided to try a strategy of hiring only 17/3 youths with HT and other desirable SQs. It took a lot of evaluating but it worked out OK, they each cost around 150-300k and they're all 19/6 now and worth 800k-1mil. They'll never turn into mega-stars but now I've got the richest team in the league because I'm saving so much money on form training. It might not be too bad to go after 17/4s or better with HT but then you're starting to hit the higher costs to evaluate and it might not be worth it. It really is the best SQ because those players also lose form at half the normal rate, so keeping them above 16/17 all season is very realistic.
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Dec 19, 2021 23:17
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Splashed on VIP for a while out of curiosity and LOL my team has no money compared to these other teams. Wow.
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Dec 20, 2021 20:49
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So on my "official league" team, I got this guy from the YA when there were only 4 games left in the season: So he's played every minute since then and is now sitting at +3 DV before the final game. I'm hoping I'll get lucky and get him to +5 or +6... If he double-jumps to 17/7, I'll be rich. Best YA player I've ever had! edit: +5 now, not bad, but good news is I finished 2nd so that means I get to play 1 more game, the promotion playoff match. Maybe I can still get to +7... bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Dec 23, 2021 15:46
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Dang I have a 4 1/2 star youth academy and the best thing I have gotten is a 19/6 midfielder who can shoot the ball well. I had another one who was 18/4 with greedy and a diva trait. I passed on that that guy. Also after my bye week I am surprised I am still in second in the league of lurkers. The other teams either lost of tied to keep me in my place. Honking Geese tied to end their winning streak but still haven't been scored on.
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Dec 24, 2021 19:36
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Love those Americanisms 
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Dec 25, 2021 10:56
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Flayer posted:Love those Americanisms It's cool. Because a Brit is top of the league on Xmas Day!
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Dec 25, 2021 23:04
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Serie Goon is mad this season. Every team could still theoretically be champions or be relegated, very competitive. Well apart from my strike force which has managed 5 goals in 8 games...
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Jan 2, 2022 19:16
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Flayer posted:Serie Goon is mad this season. Every team could still theoretically be champions or be relegated, very competitive. Well apart from my strike force which has managed 5 goals in 8 games... I lost those two to Capitalist Pigs purely out of civic duty, it's true.
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Jan 3, 2022 05:03
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Destrado posted:I lost those two to Capitalist Pigs purely out of civic duty, it's true. Thank you for your service 
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Jan 3, 2022 23:55
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My perfectly clean sheet has been ruined by the Rovers! A well earned point, I actually suspected you might go a 5-3-2 (or a 5-2-3) but went against a 4-3-3 instead. Dragongem fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Jan 6, 2022 17:47
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Dragongem posted:My perfectly clean sheet has been ruined by the Rovers! The Goose has been partially cooked! I'm glad you did pick 4-3-3. I figured your midfield would bully mine so I tried to bypass it all together. We both managed to get 5 star manager ratings so it was a hard fought game. What I'm surprised by is that it was my older barely used forward was able to salvage a point and finally get it past your keeper. A draw is a good result and hopefully I can draw or beat the Coffee Beans and coast for the rest of my games for that youth DV. I am hoping I don't get promoted because I feel it would be a hellish year in a higher division. Tiger Crazy fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jan 6, 2022 |
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Jan 6, 2022 19:44
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Ugh. For the second time in 3 seasons I'm a big final day win from the title. Last time, I missed out by 1 goal. This time I'll probably do one worse and lose 4-0.
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Jan 17, 2022 22:19
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It's that time again - time to spend all of your money on form training and the 300k pools buy-in!
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Jan 18, 2022 01:03
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bees everywhere posted:It's that time again - time to spend all of your money on form training and the 300k pools buy-in! Are we clear to train now or is it another day or two? I never count right and try to err on the side of waiting the extra day.
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Jan 18, 2022 02:38
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My perfect clean sheet now has two marks on it, but my team finally put it together in the lower leagues. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum in Elite Goonship. DV's pretty solid except for my 24/9 who decided to go out drinking or something and his form crashed despite training. Maybe my 17/5 can double-jump.
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Jan 18, 2022 15:30
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Nephzinho posted:Are we clear to train now or is it another day or two? I never count right and try to err on the side of waiting the extra day. The best way to tell is to check the transfer market, if it only says it's closed then you're too early, but once it says 100 hours or less until opening, you're good to go for training. I just tested it at the 100 hour mark and it's good.
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Jan 18, 2022 17:57
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