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 Xpert Eleven is back and we're gearing up for our 5th season in the new goon league! The new season will be starting once we add a few more managers, so get in quick! What is this game and how do I join? Xpert Eleven is a football manager game where you manage a fictitious football team. The thought behind the game is that you compete with your friends in a league that you create yourselves. You manage your team/teams in good times as well as bad. Your tasks consist of selecting your team and working out some cunning tactical moves. You don't need to know anything about soccer at all and the game is designed to only take up about 15 minutes of your time twice a week at a minimum. You may find yourself enjoying it so much that you spend a few hours trying to find that perfect transfer, though... To join, create a free account at xperteleven.com then click this link to create a team in our league: http://www.xperteleven.com/?lid=461360 Once you pick a team name and kit colors and your team has been approved: Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of a fictitious internet soccer team.  Team Boosts for New Players Now that you're in the game, you might notice that your squad is filled with horrible players. Don't worry, this is normal for newly-created teams. Your job now is to use the transfer market and your starting funds to build a team how you want it. To help you with this, I will be boosting all newly-created teams. This is a handy feature because it will bring your squad value up to the average of the lowest division. You'll still have a few worthless players, but one or two of them should be worth millions on the transfer market. It's up to you if you'd like to keep those players or sell them off. Either way, this should help you make it through your first couple of seasons without getting steamrolled by the teams who have been here since Season 1. If you started in Season 1 and would like to start over with a boost, let me know! How to Play Here are some great resources: FAQ - Self-explanatory Rules - Everything you need to know is right here. The Goon Guide to X11 - There are a lot of great tips in here and it's recommended to skim through this before you start making decisions with transfers. Serie Goon Discord - We mostly post here in the thread but we're also hanging out in Discord so feel free to jump in, operators are standing by to answer your questions. Useful Links http://www.jobbystats.co.uk/ - If you feel like going full Moneyball, look under the Transfer Market tab on this site. http://x11stuff.blogspot.com/2014/01/calculating-players-exact-skill.html - This can help you figure out your players' true skill rating, once it can be narrowed down it will give you a guesstimate of how much DV you'll need to get a single or double jump. Goon League Information We're in the third iteration of the Goonship League: http://www.xperteleven.com/?lid=461360. The previous league went for 20 seasons before fizzing out. Seasons last about 8-10 weeks and there is plenty of time for a new team to get their youth going and turn into a bunch of superstars. Our league has a pyramid structure with 3 divisions and a promotion/relegation system. So no matter how horrible your team is, you should find yourself with somewhat even competition. We have also decided not to have a cup tournament since these can disproportionately benefit the stronger teams in the long term. The first and second league played for 20 strong seasons and we had a blast. Rivalries were formed, broken, and soap was had for all. Feel free to invite non-goons but be sure they're a good fit. Most of the poo poo talking happens on the forum too, but that's their loss. I check the game daily so team approvals shouldn’t take too long. If for some reason I’m slacking post in this thread! Housekeeping Long term inactives (3 weeks + of no activity) will be cleaned between seasons. Previous Threads https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3956892 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3657166 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3638431 https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3602737 Previous Champions  Season 1 (Placement) - Norfolk-in-Chance (Rapner), ABCDE FC (Spyde), Capitalist Pigs (JiveTurkey), Sheds of Grey (Masonity) Season 2 - Bromo-Dragonflies (ShadowIz) Season 3 - Bromo-Dragonflies (ShadowIz) Season 4 - Nerds of Prey (bees everywhere) Season 5 - Lil GuendoUzi Verts (PTizzle) Season 6 - Lil GuendoUzi Verts (PTizzle) Season 7 - ABCDE FC (Spyde) Season 8 - Nerds of Prey (bees everywhere) Season 9 - ABCDE FC (Spyde) Screenshots & More Information Example Squad:  Example Player:  Example Match:  One fun part of the league is press releases- it gives you a chance to smack talk your opponents and write how your team is full of winners who just constantly get screwed by RNG poor circumstances. Also you get money every week you write a press release so just do it!  Xpert Eleven also has VIP, which thankfully gives you absolutely no advantage over regular players. However, it does give you access to neat stats and charts where you can truly understand how hard your team chokes under pressure. Also, you can rename your players to whatever idiot gimmick you want. I do get final say on names so no, you can't name your entire team "Weedlord Bonerhitler". Android App There is an official Xpert Eleven app on the Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xperteleven Is it good? In my opinion: not really. Personally I prefer to use the web browser on my phone but you are welcome to try out the app, it might look different but it's the same game. bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Apr 27, 2022 |
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Aug 14, 2021 19:06
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My Tips You can learn a lot of great stuff just from reading the rules closely as well as the goon guide linked above. I will share some of my own tips here that might not be obvious to everybody: General - Your team's average age on the field is very important for both performance and development. They are grouped by GK+D and MF+F and you'll want to keep each group's average age between 25 and 29. You'll start to lose out on your players' performance and their DV (developmental value aka experience points) the further you fall out of that window. Some people like to build a whole team of 17-year olds with the hope that giving them all endless playing time will give them great DV, but they will find out soon that the penalties can be harsh if you take it to the extremes. - Your youth players gain more DV when playing with teammates who are more skilled than they are. They also gain more DV when playing against stronger opponents. So it's always a good idea to have some strong players and to be competitive. - The 2 most important players on a team are the goalkeeper and the freekick specialist. Skilled goalkeepers are expensive, if you go with a rookie you should be prepared to suffer for it until they're older, but you'll save a lot of money in the long term. - You can get a lot of money from sweeping end-of-season awards, even if you don't win the league. Having a player score the most goals, assists, and points can all add up to a pretty penny. Because of this, your primary free-kick specialist probably shouldn't be a defender. - It's considered poor form to mark players and offer win bonuses in friendlies. This isn't a huge deal... but you should keep in mind that dirty tricks are enabled in this league. Tactics - As a general rule, it's a good idea to play more defensive if you're using an offensive formation, and more offensive if you're using a defensive formation. - For away games, your players will perform worse and the referees will be more lenient to the home side. Use a higher win bonus than you would at home and maybe try to be a bit more careful with your aggression/cheating. - It seems to be a good idea to always choose a playmaker, even if there is a risk your opponent will mark them. - Playmaker SQs are important and can make a huge difference - since your playmaker will have more time on the ball, their SQs come into play more often. So if you're doing Long Range Shots, it might be a good idea to select the guy with Powerful Shot. - The most common formation in the game is 3-5-2, followed by 4-5-1. These are usually considered to be "the best" but they can be easy to counter since the former leaves your defense weakened and the latter only gives you 1 forward. - Most people like to mark midfielders, but don't forget that defenders and forwards can also be marked. This can be especially effective against the two formations I just mentioned. SQs - Cool helps players perform better when their team is losing. It also makes a massive difference for penalty takers, but not for goalkeepers. Yes, I know the official rules say otherwise - they are wrong on this. If you want your GK to be good at stopping penalties, you want them to have Good Reflexes. - Many "positive" SQs come with drawbacks. A Quick player will perform well with Through Plays, but they will perform worse on Wing Plays than an equally-skilled player with zero SQs, and the opposite is true for Good Headers. A player with both Quick and Good Header, though, has no drawbacks. They do not cancel each other out as you might think. These players are usually very expensive. - Hard Trainer is arguably the best SQ, but it can be hard to find. Hiring a youth with HT could save you a few million in training fees over the long term. - Fragile/Injury-Prone does not have any effect on how frequent injuries are, it only makes those players more likely to be the ones who receive the injury. Keeping that in mind: 1) This SQ becomes a good thing if it ends up on an older player who isn't very important since they are more likely to "take one for the team". 2) If you only have 1 player with this SQ and it's on an otherwise promising youth player, from my personal experience I think you're going to hate it and you should consider selling him. 3) If every player on your squad has this SQ, then, effectively, none of your players have this SQ. While you might be able to build a good squad cheaply by doing this, you also might have trouble selling them later on. It would be really weird to try this. Transfer Market - Team compatibility is important, and while young players will eventually go from Poor to Excellent, they won't budge at all if they're a Diva. One time I spent several million on a last minute transfer and I tried to save some money by skipping the evaluation. I ended up with a poorly-compatible Diva. Always evaluate before bidding. - Remember that players over 30 might not let you sell them and will sometimes insist on retiring at the club. Guess what happened to my very expensive, poorly-compatible Diva? Always evaluate before bidding. - If you're looking for hidden SQs and evaluating a lot of players, you can save money by looking at players who were just recently listed with lower transfer fees. But keep in mind you can only have 30 players evaluated at one time, so if you reach that limit you're going to have to wait for some trade deadlines to pass before you can evaluate again. Change Reports & "Double Jumps" - The skill level you see on a player is actually rounded up or down to the nearest integer. Their actual skill level has a decimal, so your 21 year old with 8 skill points (abbreviated to 21/8) could be anywhere from 7.6 to 8.4 in reality. - A "double jump" only happens when the player adds enough to their true skill value to round them up to an additional integer. So if your 21/8 is actually 8.4, they could become a 9.6 which would then show them at 10 skill points. - Getting a double jump gives you a good opportunity to sell that player since their transfer market value will be significantly higher with the extra visible skill point and it isn't very likely you'll get any more double jumps out of that player (though it is possible). The buyers won't know if the player's true skill rating is below the visible skill rating, so theoretically you could sell your 22/10 (who you know is actually 22/9.6) and buy another 22/10 (who could be anywhere between 9.6 and 10.4). This specific example wouldn't be worth your time but it could help you afford a new 17-year old with your preferred SQs. - If you keep a player who just had a double jump, you're going to want to make sure their next season is a good one because there's a strong possibility they won't gain any visible skill points at all after an average season. How to evaluate your opponent and set your tactics Here is a post containing a walkthrough on how to evaluate your opponent without spending money. bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Dec 25, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 19:07
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 Not too bad but I'm a bit upset about only having one double and it wasn't my GK who really needed it. Also Ralph is retiring which sucks rear end.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:56
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Dear anyone thinking anything along the lines of "Hey this sounds like fun but I am worried I'd be really bad at it" - Don't sweat it. I'm really bad at it too. Like, if they restructured the league to have a single division at the very bottom of the table for the absolute worst teams and named it The lovely League For Teams Who Are poo poo, I would probably be comfortably ensconced within it (and yet Feces FC, oddly enough, probably wouldn't; I think that might be irony). I consistently forget to change up my formations, or choose different playmakers, or set win bonuses to inspire my team to play better in exchange for cash, or scour the transfer market for better players. I'm not good. But I'm having fun, and you could too. Come! Join us!
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Aug 14, 2021 20:24
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In further proof of estimated value being a crapshoot, I've just noticed my unused 32/4 Goalkeeper is apparently worth 3.4million. Any takers?
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Aug 15, 2021 09:13
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Destrado posted:In further proof of estimated value being a crapshoot, I've just noticed my unused 32/4 Goalkeeper is apparently worth 3.4million. Well, I do need to keep my average age up
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Aug 15, 2021 17:00
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Just applied as Turkey Gang FC. It looks like I previously had an account, but... I don't remember ever playing this. Watch out!
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Aug 16, 2021 16:40
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Welcome! You're all set. 3 spaces left
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Aug 16, 2021 16:57
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Destrado posted:In further proof of estimated value being a crapshoot, I've just noticed my unused 32/4 Goalkeeper is apparently worth 3.4million. This is made even funnier by the fact that "the club" won't let you list him for less than a 1/10 of their ludicrous EV, and then they didn't want to leave and want to end their career at the club. So I guess he gets to sit there inexplicably making up 1/6th of my entire squad value until I put a bullet in him. The beautiful game.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:59
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bees everywhere posted:Welcome! You're all set. I remember playing in a goon league like 10 years ago. I’ll take a spot later today if they are still there. Edit: in as Q to 12 Voodoofly fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 18:44
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Nice, welcome back! The RNG gods have smiled upon you, you've got a nice young GK and an even better FK specialist.
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Aug 16, 2021 19:52
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My 35/6 midfielder, who I think maybe played one game last season in an emergency sub, decided he is going to stick around for at least another season. Guess he just gets to be comic relief. In good news, just signed my new GK - 22/8, intelligent, lightning reflexes, and he's a hard trainer! I can't wait until he horribly, horribly disappoints me. Dragongem fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Aug 17, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 21:40
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So, I've just spent a small fortune and way overpaid... but got myself the best keeper in the league by a solid 3 points... A 30/13. Not one to develop but should be a solid player for 5-6 seasons at least, and plugs my one big weakness. Hopefully he'll help turn some of those 3-3s into 3-0 wins. Based on last season, I should have the best offence in the league. 32 goals means I outscored anyone not in the bottom divisions. But 18 conceded was embarrassing.
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Aug 18, 2021 14:55
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He's not your only highly-skilled player, drat  Once we get 2 more managers I'll press the start button, hopefully this weekend.
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Aug 18, 2021 18:35
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Where the stat dump at?
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Aug 19, 2021 15:03
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Crushed 3-0 in my first friendly! Despite my squad being outclassed in every aspect, is anyone willing to take a look at the match and tell me what I should have done differently? Is it bad form to just share the match here?
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Aug 19, 2021 16:56
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If we don't get 2 more managers by the weekend then I think I could reactivate 2 of our inactive teams to get us back to 30 so we can keep this same league structure.Nephzinho posted:Where the stat dump at? I've been busy but I managed to copy down everyone's squad value just before the change report so I'll post those numbers when I have some time. The season overview will have to wait until the next season starts. In the meanwhile, here are some of the VIP reports. Richest Team: Norfolk-in-Chance Poorest Team: Capitalist Pigs (  )Strongest Team: ABCDE FC Best Average Match Rating: Sheds of Grey Most Bookings: Cancel Culture FC Least Bookings: Norfolk-in-Chance Best Coach: Nerds of Prey Highest Valued Player Squad: Honking Geese FC I Love Topanga posted:Crushed 3-0 in my first friendly! Despite my squad being outclassed in every aspect, is anyone willing to take a look at the match and tell me what I should have done differently? Is it bad form to just share the match here? I wouldn't worry about friendly results too much. In this case you were up against Honking Geese FC, which is the most valuable team in the league.  If you look at the team ratings at the bottom, you can see that he simply had more quality in all areas of the pitch. You both used 3-5-2 formations which relies on winning the midfield battle and dominating possession to be effective. In most cases you would want to use pressure with 3-5-2, but if your opponent does the same but better then your players will get tired even faster since they are constantly chasing the ball on defense. So that might explain why the 2nd half was even worse for you than the first half. (The possession and chances numbers in parenthesis are for the first half only, so you went from 48% possession in the first half to 42% possession overall.) Without seeing the tactics report I would bet you both used pressure. There is a lot that goes into those player ratings: - Average age (sweet spot = 25-29) - Teamwork rating - Player skill - Player form - Tactics (everything from formation used to win bonus will have an effect) bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 17:17
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bees everywhere posted:I've been busy but I managed to copy down everyone's squad value just before the change report so I'll post those numbers when I have some time. The season overview will have to wait until the next season starts. Yesss, still got the value crown... while I sit in the lowest division next season. Hopefully plan to fix that this season. Masonity posted:So, I've just spent a small fortune and way overpaid... but got myself the best keeper in the league by a solid 3 points... A 30/13. Not one to develop but should be a solid player for 5-6 seasons at least, and plugs my one big weakness. Hopefully he'll help turn some of those 3-3s into 3-0 wins. Your team is genuinely scary, you've got like a solid window of 2-4 seasons to win consistently I Love Topanga posted:Crushed 3-0 in my first friendly! Despite my squad being outclassed in every aspect, is anyone willing to take a look at the match and tell me what I should have done differently? Is it bad form to just share the match here? I wouldn't draw too much from it. We basically just both went midfield/posession heavy and charged straight at each other. However, you have a new team that's still working out the kinks and my team is starting to come into their prime years after basically raising kids for 4 seasons. Usually if you're at a skill deficit like that you gotta try and get cute around it. You actually had more chances in the first half, but my goalkeeper actually stopped something (would have been nice for my GKs to do it at any time during last season). I also set a small win bonus because I wanted good performance to keep the form up, which is always important for actual league games. I think others have different opinions on win bonuses for friendlies. Dragongem fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 17:42
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Thanks for the suggestions. Considering I guessed he was going 3-5-2, and knowing my players were going to be somewhat outclassed it sounds like it would have been in my best interest to maybe run a 4-4-2 or something wild like a 4-3-3 with long balls and try to completely take those mids out of the games as much as possible. but it sounds like my chances of winning this matchup were extremely low.
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Aug 19, 2021 22:04
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I Love Topanga posted:Thanks for the suggestions. My personal recommendation would be to buy a few old, cheap players to bring your average age up. Right now 3-5-2 suits your team because it lets you put your best players on the field but if you add 1 or 2 defenders you could do something like 5-4-1 offensive or 5-3-2 long balls against a team like this. 4-3-3 is also good. I don't think 4-4-2 is very good against 3-5-2 unless your midfielders are better than theirs (and if that were the case I'd still prefer 4-5-1 or 3-5-2). It's commonly agreed that 4-2-4 is the worst formation, followed by 5-2-3, but I'm sure there are situations where those 2 formations could actually work out. bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 23:44
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bees everywhere posted:My personal recommendation would be to buy a few old, cheap players to bring your average age up. Right now 3-5-2 suits your team because it lets you put your best players on the field but if you add 1 or 2 defenders you could do something like 5-4-1 offensive or 5-3-2 long balls against a team like this. 4-3-3 is also good. I don't think 4-4-2 is very good against 3-5-2 unless your midfielders are better than theirs (and if that were the case I'd still prefer 4-5-1 or 3-5-2). I'm pretty sure those are pretty much solely used as development formations.
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Aug 20, 2021 14:56
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Here are the squad value stats. This time I didn't take out any recent transfer market activity so it's all-inclusive. - Sheds of Grey had the biggest gains, adding 12 million to their value. - Sun Devils FC was the most-improved squad with 2x their squad value from 1 week ago. - The mean squad value as of today is 21,426,481. Each squad gained 3,885,700 value on average, improving by 24%. (Eventually I might put this into some lovely-looking charts, but if anybody with fancy chart skills would like to do it then I could send the data to you) bees everywhere fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Aug 20, 2021 |
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Aug 20, 2021 20:28
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I'll be pushing the button tonight for the new season so this is the last call for anyone who wants to join in. Unless there are objections I'd like to have 3 relegation spots this season, I think it would make things interesting in the lower divisions. (Ignore the screenshot, the first game will be Thursday)
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Aug 21, 2021 14:45
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bees everywhere posted:I'll be pushing the button tonight for the new season so this is the last call for anyone who wants to join in. With how competitive both RNA and RNB were this past season i think that makes sense.
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Aug 21, 2021 16:02
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New season has started! Here is the Season 4 Overview And here are the new tables I picked 3 relegation spots but it looks like Xpert Eleven decided to give us 2 anyway. Oh well.
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Aug 21, 2021 23:52
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most red cards last season 
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Aug 22, 2021 07:54
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Excited to get my first youth in a month and a half and he's a boring, vanilla 18/4
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Aug 23, 2021 14:49
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Dragongem posted:Excited to get my first youth in a month and a half and he's a boring, vanilla 18/4 You can at least take and sell that, unlike my 19/5 moody.
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Aug 23, 2021 15:30
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Well after signing up last season while drunk I promptly forgot about the game. This time I am not drunk and I have already dipped my toe in the transfer market.
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Aug 23, 2021 22:21
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Tiger Crazy posted:This time I am not drunk aw gently caress there goes my plan to succeed this season
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Aug 23, 2021 22:40
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Lets gooooooo
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Aug 25, 2021 13:50
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Time to spend all this money...
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Aug 25, 2021 14:07
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Ok fine, I'll throw away all my money in the pools this season
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Aug 25, 2021 14:22
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Vando posted:Time to spend all this money... You guys have money!? I must be way too training happy because am always broke (but my players seem to need the training). Might need to start throwing money into the betting pools to get out of the poverty line.
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Aug 25, 2021 17:33
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Jive Turkey posted:You guys have money!? I must be way too training happy because am always broke (but my players seem to need the training). I can only recommend losing fewer games (yes, it's yet another 'success breeds success' mechanic in this game)
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Aug 25, 2021 17:47
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 Hmm Jive Turkey posted:You guys have money!? I must be way too training happy because am always broke (but my players seem to need the training). Don't worry, I'm always broke too and I've won two seasons, came 2nd in two seasons, and won many awards. Shadowlz fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Aug 26, 2021 |
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Aug 26, 2021 03:04
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Take him and sell and hope some one doesn't do an evaluation.
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Aug 26, 2021 04:17
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 FC Bearpope's new GK is officially the best player in the league  My midfield 100% saved my rear end today, 14 chances on goal and only 4 went through, compared to his 5 chances and 3 goals. Also this was an , our pool winners got half of them wrong but still beat everyone else:
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Aug 26, 2021 18:35
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He's just a Guy
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Aug 26, 2021 18:43
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Do it! Take the mystery box!
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Aug 26, 2021 19:15
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