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FatSamurai posted:That's a big improvement from the first few matches! Enjoy this period of being 'less bad' while it lasts ... ShadowedFlames posted:If that accuracy and pass were swapped, I’d advocate for DM with Slide Tackle. Alas, wishing will not make it so.
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Oct 20, 2022 22:29
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Yeah, those skills for Ally, really don't look useful on offense. That's a shame. When does the next player get called up from the juniors?
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Oct 20, 2022 23:11
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Start of next year. Always two per year there are*, no more, no less. A YouthGen at the start of each transfer window. * Except the first year, because you don't get one or have to re-sign anyone at the first transfer window right when you begin a campaign. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Oct 21, 2022 01:46
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Coach Details Taking a brief look at the coach/manager side of things; we won't spend a lot of time here as it's more for the journeyman style of play. First up, the Demands screen lets us know the mood of management. This will still be important for things like asking them for more money occasionally - I will want to achieve the demands when we can. At the beginning of the year they don't have an opinion and are just waiting for some results to come in. The 'management wants you to succeed' bit is because of Friendly strictness - basically it puts a floor on how mad we can make them regardless of how bad we do. Then league and cup performance are shown; as the league finish is their main goal, they're a lot happier about not being last there than they are by getting past qualifying in the Prestige Cup. Where it says 'Bonus +2', you get that amount of Reputation if you reach the 130% mark for mood. Reputation is spent when taking on new jobs, accumulate enough of it and you can jump up tiers. A 'prove yourself first' kind of mechanic, but not particularly relevant to this run.  There's a whole bunch of these to eventually choose and improve from my coach level-ups, and we'll go through them as we get them. They also can have drawbacks. It's likely we won't get all of them given how many there are, but the categories are: - Match Day Speech; motivations given for a match. Some are limited, as in the case of the Most important match of the season, that can only be used once per year. - Individual Training; these are hard to sell as a viable option at least until they're leveled up quite a bit. They either cost Glory or carry an injury risk to the player, with benefits like speeding up skill training, increasing specialization experience gained in the next match, etc. - Youth Work; improvements related to the Youth Academy. Generally the most important for this campaign. We already have the Prioritise defenders option, you can prioritise the other positions, or there's a 'rivalry among youth' possibility that will allow us to eventually choose between 2-3 different choices for the next youth player. That's a powerful ability that I expect to see some use in the future. - Injured Footballers; by expressing 'sincere support', I can help players recover from injury faster. - Talking With Management; asking for more money as mentioned, or improving their mood. That could be useful if you were about to fail an objective and didn't want to get fired for a journeyman save. -Scouts; Another one we can bypass. Discounts on transfers from a previous club, reduced prices for players in the transfer list, and the ability to send scouts to other countries which you can't do initially.  Some repeated info here, but also this is where you go to ask management for more time/money. The Career and Statistics panels give the same type of information that we can see in club history and stats, but it's covering the coach's career. For our purposes, they'll be the same but that wouldn't be the case if you moved around to different clubs.
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Oct 21, 2022 07:49
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- What Base Class should they play?. Forward - What Attribute Should They Train?. Accuracy PotatoManJack posted:Yeah, those skills for Ally, really don't look useful on offense. That's a shame. Look modern-day forwards don't score goals nowadays, the fans just demand I close down the goalkeeper and knacker myself out. ally_1986 fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Oct 21, 2022 14:21
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ally_1986 posted:- What Base Class should they play?. Forward Thanks for this; we are actually past that choice, latest one was here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4014526&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post527099249
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Oct 21, 2022 18:11
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22-23 Season Conclusion I've elected to go with AM and Nutmeg for the choices - I can still change the AM part of that if ally_1986 wishes to hold forth. The training time for Rainbow Feint is just too long to be worth considering; I'm valuing the sale potential here. If we get better attacking players in the future we can sell ally and just focus on them. I overall think this is the best fit for their prospects; I don't have much experience using AMs, but people have had a lot of success Nutmegging ones so hopefully we can replicate a bit of that. Home against Burghausen is next, we lost 2-0 to them the first time. It's a chance to play spoiler, as they still have a small chance to catch Embden and promote, but they need to win both of their remaining matches to keep the pressure on.  Getting AM position experience isn't the easiest thing to do; ally_1986 will need to stay in the middle, on the attacking side of the field, but not into the forward area to make that happen. I've got a MF up there just for position swaps if the situation makes that feasible, but at the same time I'd like to try to be competitive. There's a weak link for us to potentially attack, the one zero-class defender in the line, but they have 20 defense and our best control attacker, Posch has 24. So it's little better than a coin flip to get close enough for a shot. Meanwhile we've now got a CD, Klosner, in the middle of our line. One of their forwards has the Nutmeg skill, but he'll at least be able to deter them using it at will. A near-perfect start; Posch barely got through into the gap, and their effort to stop his shot was pretty weak. Then our defense held up on the other end, and we would go on to claim a 1-0 victory. Beating the 4th-ranked team is quite an accomplishment! I've mentioned possession battles a number of times; some of that in action to give a better picture of how these matches are playing out.  This is midway through the second half. Their keeper saved a shot that we'd spent some time working towards getting. They knew they weren't going to score, so a defender moved to the sideline and held it there. From here, without having access to skills it's basically impossible to do anything useful. Anybody fast enough to move multiple tiles still needs one action to get there, and enough defense to tackle it away. Good luck with that. If you press, you then have one action left and another player needs to get there and tackle it - there's not even enough time to get possession, nevermind do anything with it. This is one situation where wing players with their mobility can really show themselves valuable, moving quickly up and down the flanks. There wasn't anything useful for me to do here but wait and see what they wanted to try next, so I just did some position swaps. Wuppertal was our final opponent for the year; a road match after they beat us 1-0 when we hosted them. That was the one where they scored at the end and I thought we would be able to hold them to a scoreless draw. This one I'm going to walk through the first half on, because there were some good possession examples that happened, and just demonstrate the ebb and flow.  You know your defense is in good shape when they feel compelled to do something like this at the opening kickoff. We got this, right? Nope. Max. roll for them, and Mergel also rolls a 10 to just barely fail.  Another defender intercepts the ensuing shot though, so the threat is neutralized.  It was a power shot, they didn't expect to score but were hoping for a corner or a bad bounce. They got the second one. It's our turn, but we need to pick up the ball and our defensive formation is compromised.  Takes two actions to get possession and move here, ensuring one of their forwards can't just waltz into the gap with the ball. This is just a clearance pass, it's almost certainly not going to connect. Might go to us, to them, to empty space, but at least it'll be halfway up the pitch and not still in our end when it's their turn. Going into a crowded area like this can actually let you get the pass to somebody even it's not the intended somebody. We have two players adjacent, they have one, five tiles are empty space.  It went to Brummern, a fairly lucky turn of events. They press.  Then they tackle it away, but now what? Wuppertal has only one action left this turn.  Holding it is a reasonable choice. They are right in the middle of a bunch of our players though, unlike in the last match where Burghausen was on a wing away from everybody. On the other hand, if we had wingers on both sides then we wouldn't be as effective as here, where both sides have midfielders crowding the middle. Formation choices always have pros and cons.  We press, twice, then take it back. Obviously we're not getting anywhere, but neither are they, and the opening period is half spent. Our best chance of scoring is the second-half kickoff.  Press-tackle-dribble for them, moving it over the midline and away from our midfielders. It looks like they've won the possession battle ... but one of our players moves forward out of defense. The thing about this is that it has to work, because if it doesn't we've left a hole in our formation.  It's no risk in this case though. Wuppertal's player has low enough control that the result is guaranteed. A good example here of the flexibility that DFs - and other universal classes - can offer.  We pass it forward, where they press-tackle- .... and run a player away from the play up a tile? (#2 at top of the image). Sometimes the AI appears to throw up it's hands and make random moves when they don't know what to do. I would have done a lofted pass downrange here or Hold again.  One turn left for us, and we got it back, shot in good range. Odds of getting this past the keeper were not good. Tried a Power Shot in hopes of a corner, but it didn't get past their defender and that was it. A whole lot of maneuvering back and forth, one shot apiece, and no scores. A typical low-level amateur game at this stage.  Midway through the second half, we maneuvered for a point-blank shot. Even here, it was odds against thanks to the keeper's skill. Precision Shot shows as 19 vs. 25. This is the Dribble option, which is generally rough but a high-control player, usually a Wing Forward, can sometimes pull it off. The normal shot is somewhat more likely here. Power Shot, going for a corner kick, wouldn't be able to give a better chance and might just end in a turnover. Neither Posch or Theiner covered themselves in glory, but the attempt was just good enough to score. The celebration was short-lived though, as Wuppertal equalized immediately with a low-odds try of their own. One lucky score deserves another. A draw is probably the right result, 1-1.  We finish 6th, sandwiched between Wuppertal and Koblenz. Who would have bet after that initial 9-0 loss that we've finish ahead of the latter? I certainly wouldn't have. In the first half we went 1-0-6, 5 goals scored and 35 conceded. Second half? 2-3-2, 4 scored and 6 conceded. Almost average. I think we got semi-fortunate, that's a little better than we deserved, but it's still excellent progress. The players who made it happen:  Print it out and post it on your wall. Everyone needs a target to throw darts and other projectiles at, or for those moments when you just feel a desire to reach out and punch someone. In all seriousness, this is as large a roster as we'll have for quite a while in one of these annual shots; 19 players under contract. By the end of next year, the fire sale will have begun.  Once we're sure we don't want to do anything else at the moment, esp. setting up any skills training that we might not have done previously, it's time to end the season.  We reach mid-June, a month before the season begins. All competitions including Cups have completed. We're informed it's time to look at our Results, which begins another battery of click-through screens.  We're given a fairly pro-forma description of how we did, which is surprisingly flattering given out outlook at the start of the year. Mediocre is frankly high praise for this roster. How we ranked in any League and Cup competitons, and and trophies we won will also be shown here.  More stats than you will care about, both for league and cup competitions, are displayed next. But there are often interesting facts here worth looking up. If you emphasize defense, you'll get the 'boringly effective' 'honor' that we are awarded here quite often. As you can see, Sinsheim left very little on the table, leaving no doubt that they are deserving of promotion.  It says Team of the Tournament, but what this means is the Best XI from the league we played in for the year. Only two Amateur clubs didn't have anyone on it. Guess what? We're one of those two. The other is of course lowly Oberhausen.  This one is titled 'Your Players' Achievements'. We get Glory based on getting players in the Top 10 for a competition. Both Leagues and Cups are counted. The higher you rank, the more Glory you get; the more prestigious the competition, the more Glory you get as well. There are some items you don't get credit for; if a shot is blocked by a defender and doesn't get to the keeper, there's no category for that. This will never be our main source of Glory, but it's a nice supplemental stream of it, and yet another reason to try to do well in cup competitions.  No time has passed: it's still mid-June. By clicking New Season though, we are confirming that anything we want to see and do for this year of the game has been done. We're ready to boldly fail like no club has failed before in an entirely new year.  Of course we must decide if we're actually going to hang around. Our Assistant will have more offers for us if we've completed the contract at our current club. We had 1 year to finish not last in the Amateur League. We succeeded, hence our 6 reputation. We're not leaving of course, but in this case we have offers to take over at Koblenz and Oberhausen - the two crappiest alternatives the Amateur League has to offer - or similar situations elsewhere on the continent. One is Bosnia-Herzegovina, one in Iceland. They have differing lengths and objectives, different Reputation rewards, and cost us Reputation to move into. 3 each in this case. Since we aren't changing jobs, Reputation is going to be useless to us. But that's the basic scenario if we were. We take the President's extension. Spoiler alert; we are not going to achieve his goal of promotion in two years.  That info button near the bottom of the email brings up this reminder of how we did.  Technically speaking, Sponsors are the first action for a year, done immediately after you've decided where to manage. At the bottom note the 5% bonus we get for the Fan Favourites; that's reflected in the '+' amounts by each sponsor payment. Number of fans confused me for a bit, but basically it's saying that since we have between 0 and 1,000 fans we get no bonus. If we get over 1,000 we will have a bonus there. Each sponsor always has two conditions, and there's always an easy one and two that are some degree of more challenging. We can forget about promotion or winning the league, so it's pretty clear we want to go with Electrohouse here. There will be years where it's a lot more of a judgement call and we're unsure of whether or not we can pull off one of the conditions. When we return, we'll have a new youth intake, new contracts up for extension, three new clubs relegated from Third League to replace those promoting, and it'll be back to work figuring out just exactly how we are going to build on what we've done in '22-23.
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Oct 21, 2022 18:49
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Later we'll be getting into details on the Specialization Tree, and also the transfer window to start of the new year, including the first collective coach decision from all of you! First up though, our new youth player: Average Lettuce, this your charge. Who has no discernible lettuce, actually.  He also has no Giftedness, but we did do a little better here when it comes to starting off younger. In terms of attributes though, he is decidedly average; shift one point of passing into accuracy and he'd be flat-even across the board. The usuals are now requested: - Base Class: Goalkeeper, Defense, Midfield, or Forward - Training Attribute: Accuracy, Passing, Defense, or Control Suggestions You requested a winger. This Punchable Face won't be great at any of those roles, but he could be capable in any of them. Skill draw will be important. Control could make him a good Wing Forward eventually, Passing is slightly his best asset which would lend itself to Wide Midfielder, Fullback is definitely also possible. Going with Midfielder now would give you the flexibility to choose any of those based on the skills choices, and you really couldn't go wrong with the attribute training depending on your plans. Average Lettuce, you are on the clock; deadline is Tuesday the time of this posting. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Oct 21, 2022 19:04
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Yay! Let's go MF and train Control. Let's see what skill we will get before committing to anything.
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Oct 21, 2022 20:16
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Coaches Report: Summer 2023 Here's the Amateur League clubs for the new year. Schwerin, Zwickau, and Potsdam are the new opponents, freshly relegated from the Third League. The other four we already know. Overall a profit of 29 Glory and 8.96k Money. We lost 3 Fans, nearly breaking even but not quite.  This is the Youth Work screen. We can't spend any Glory yet on coaches or medical staff, since you have to actually have facilities before you can hire people to work at them, and we don't have the money for the facilities themselves yet. But if we wish, we can request a defender from our non-existent Youth Academy for the next transfer window. This scales with the level of our Academy; right know both options would cost 4 Glory. This is our first, and for now only, decision for all coaches to weigh in on. You might wonder 'if we don't have an academy, how do we get players?' . Well the way I imagine this is that we take an afternoon stroll - by we, I assume it's that Assistant Coach guy - around the local parks and see what teenagers are playing with the rec leagues because they're too good for other players their age to provide serious competition. Then a brilliant sales pitch along the lines of 'how'd you like to sign an amateur contract ... forget education, that's for fools ... to play for Backpfeifengesichter? What? Yes of course that's what the club is really called. We'll pay you absolutely nothing for the first year, and take every opportunity to give you the cheapest deal possible after that, but you'll have a chance - just kidding, not really - to make a name for yourself as a footballer. An offer you can't refuse, amirite?'  That's a lot of player contracts to consider; this part of the game will accelerate this year. A few more subs off the bottom of the screen but none with contracts up.  Everyone who can train a Skill is doing so. Some are nearing completion.  That's the state of the squad as it currently is. Contract Extensions  - Hense needs a year added on to his deal in order to push him to the last transfer window of age 32. 893 for that. Kehr gets the same.  - Milde gets another year as well, but as he's already got an advanced class it's somewhat more expensive. - We'll be selling Deutscher, so no new deal for him. - Rossen's existing contract will last through the next transfer window, when it will be time to sell him.  - Look at the glory it would take to hold on to ally_1986. If you do these deals for a young player, they get stupid-expensive. We want to lock him up for cheap right now, so we take the max 3-year contract for 2,854.  - Another one-year signing to get Fried to 32. Klosner as well for the same price.  - We need a year more from emergency reserves Kammerling and Pfeil to make them last long enough to sell the others. At 11 apiece, the cost of drawing up the paperwork is probably more expensive. Still, it must be done. We barely have enough money for all of this; with all new payments out, we're down to just 179! If we didn't have enough, we'd probably have to delay a signing or two - likely making them a little more expensive - until we sell Deutscher. Fortunately it didn't come to that yet. Player Sales Each player sale is different, sometimes you want to dump them immediately at the start of the window because it's not worth taking the playing time away from another player, others you want to hang onto them for every last possible match. - Deutscher I'm planning on playing probably three more matches. I don't think we'll be able to get him to another SL by the end of the transfer window. Possible, but unlikely without compromising development elsewhere. I do want to get him to High interest and up to say Level 7, and then we'll cut him loose and play the other defenders full-time. Playing Time The rotation will continue in defense as mentioned until we sell Deutscher. In midfield we'll now have Average Lettuce out there, and of cours ally_1986 continuing on at AM. That leaves five players - three forwards and two midfielders - rotating through three starting spots. That's plenty to keep their interest at High. It'll slow down development some but they are only going to have time for the one skill that's already training, experience gained is already hitting the 30% amount at level 10, so really all they are missing out on is specialization experience. That still increases the price, but there's only so much value to pack into them. This way the new players can hopefully be useful by the time the vets are gone. By the end of the year, enough players will be gone that we won't have quality depth anymore.
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Oct 22, 2022 01:53
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Coaches Ballot: Summer 2023 Proposal: Request Defender From Youth Academy Cost: 4 Glory A simple up or down vote if you please. We have at the moment one winger and one AM among the youth movement, and we'll need defenders as soon as we can get them. On the other hand, the cost will add up if we do this every transfer window. 4 Glory is cheap, we have 29 total. Do we Request Defender or Take What We Get?. Votes will be accepted until there is a clear consensus; I can pull the trigger on this anytime up through midseason.
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Oct 22, 2022 01:57
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We need that Defender Better to get 'em now and train 'em good than lose matches we didn't need to lose.
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Oct 22, 2022 02:20
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Glory is fleeting, players are eternal. Wait a minute... Eh, sentiment still stands. Take the Defender.
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Oct 22, 2022 12:25
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Next on the list is…a keeper? Eh, defender’s close enough. Request a defender. He can play a SW and be a pseudo keeper.
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Oct 22, 2022 15:18
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Defender, seems pretty important right now.
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Oct 22, 2022 17:08
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The Specialization Trees More reference material here for the Coaches Corner. The Specialization Trees will be important to all of your players, and to some of them soon.  As we've noted, once you get your Advanced Class the options open up. We can select any of the blue options. The grey ones need to be unlocked by working our way down each section of the tree.  This is another player, who has a Focused rather than a Universal class. The Talent section is a bit different, and there is also the added Utility section. Specialist We've already been through the first section. Every player gets a Base class, then an Advanced class, then they can get into the other options. Talent The top pick for a Universal player (first picture) allows training their first skill up to Level 3. Until you get this, Level 1 is the limit. The left pick for a Universal player allows training a second skill up to Level 3. In the second picture, a Focused player only gets their skill up to Level 2 for the top pick; they need to get the left pick to reach Level 3, and of course they don't get a second skill. For both types of players, the pick on the right speeds up skill training by 30%, and the bottom one increases that bonus to 70%. Completing the entire Talent Tree increases the maximum potential of skills by 2. Another way of looking at that is that it boosts your Giftedness by one star for the purpose of skills. Dedication Dedication has two types of picks. Upper-left is a 30% increase in match experience for increasing attribute levels; lower-left boosts that to 70%. Upper-right is 2 points in the attribute being trained on level-up; Lower-right is all 3 points, allowing total control of attribute gains and eliminating any further influence of the player's 'Fate'. Completing the Dedication Tree confers a sizable boost of 5 attribute levels. Fan Favourite Left is Glory boost for making it into the Team of the Round. Right is where you get the 5% boost in sponsor payment when signing a new sponsor deal each year. Middle is a 30% boost in selling price for the player; bottom a 70% increase. Completing the Fan Favourite Tree produces a one-time 5% increase in fans of the club. Stamina Upper-left; a player who has been in the game the entire first half will double their energy recovery at the half. Middle-left: 20% reduction in injury chance. Lower-left: 30% reduction in the odds of being carded when making a tackle. Right; player spends more time on the match day for recovery. 50% energy recovery on match day for players listed as substitutes. 150% if they are in reserve squad. Completion of the Stamina Tree halves the energy recovery penalty for players 30+. Utility This is pretty straight-forward; up to three different Focused classes to cross-train into. Completing the tree doubles Specialization experience gained for the next 10 matches. How to Choose Your Specialization No player will ever get all of the possible upgrades in a career due to the escalating cost. You need to be selective. There's also a tension between aiming for peak performance, flexibility, or the long-term goals of the club. Talent and Dedication are good ones to go for early to maximize a player in a particular class. Skills are powerful on the one hand, while Dedication allows you to shape your player more to your choosing and can give you a boost in leveling up. Esp. if you have a high-Giftedness player in a lower league, you may not be able to get enough levels to really have them reach their potential without it. If you want versatility instead, going for Utility right away is the play. Stamina is probably my least-used tree; I expect it will be uncommon for players to hang around long enough to really benefit from it, and the other upgrades are just better in general IMO. Fan Favourite allows the player to leverage their abilities to bring in some extra Glory and espescially money. If you go into this tree early enough to get the selling price boosts, it can really elevate the financial status of the club for the future after a player is no longer around.
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Oct 22, 2022 18:40
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July-August 2023 7.16.23 Burghausen (0-0-0, 4th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (0-0-0, 6th)  In another year or so head to head starts getting interesting, but throwing it in here anyway. We split the two meetings last year, their roster is triple the value of ours, average player is 3+ levels better, so we're definitely still the underdog.  This is an instructive formation. Look at their CDs hanging out deep in the back of the penalty area. Any forward that approaches them will have to deal with a challenge. This is the kind of situation that ally_1986 can feast on in the future - just moving up to the edge of the area and firing away from distance. Esp. against a keeper that is only amateur level, not a full GK. But it'll be some while before he's ready for that. I'm expecting a low-scoring match here as both defenses should be tough to crack consistently. A brilliantly terrible kickoff pass by Rossen led to a turnover and then him and ally getting stuck in possession battles for almost the entire first half. Average Lettuce failed at almost everything he tried naturally, getting himself motivated near the end of the half. They got one shot which was easily blocked; we didn't even get off an attempt. Close call on their second-half start, but Schmidinger made the save. They had a long-range try later, we got one decent possession but didn't even get close enough for their CDs to attempt a tackle, and that was it.  An aggressively boring game. It's hard to feel too good about it when you don't even manage a shot on goal. 7.23.23 Schwerin (1-0-0, 1st) @ Backpfeifengesichter (0-1-0, 5th) Schwerin is not in the mood to have any respect for us Amateur patsies; they're just about bouncing back up to the Third League. A 3-1 defeat of Wuppertal got them started on that path.  Good news is we can angle around the left of the defense in their 4-3-3. Bad news is it'll be a long-shot to score anyway, while their three forwards are more of a threat. I was going to give CD Klosner the match off, but that would be pretty much conceding in this situation. Our opening salvo had a one-in-three chance if we were lucky, but it went in and then our defense held. Could we really pull an upset on 'mighty Schwerin'?  Yes, yes we could. That single goal held up. Here's Average Lettuce making our first-ever Aggressive Tackle late in the match. Since there was only one action left, he then tried a hilariously long-ranged attempt, closer to the midline than the goalline. Results were predictable.  The tackles and interceptions tell the tale - another physical match. We haven't lost in possession so far, and through two contests haven't conceded a goal. Just sayin'. 7.30.23 Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-0, 3rd) @ Potsdam (0-1-1, 7th) I'll eat my hat if these hold up as the final placing for these two clubs - and I don't even have a hat. It's also hot today. Go fatigue FTW.  Potsdam has a nearly complete starting lineup of Advanced Classes. That back-and-forth arrow defender in front of the keeper is a Sweeper. They'll be in the way no matter what angle we attack from. On the left, that curved arrow fella is a Fullback (RD). Up-and-down bi-directional arrow in midfield is a CM, and their forwards from right to left are CF, FW, and then just an amateur forward (F). What do we do here? Angle around to the left and hope to try for a shot without the CDs getting in the way, and rely on our defense otherwhise.  Corner kick on their first turn, and yes that's one of our forwards come back to help out. The player they have in the middle of the box has 25 Control, and Posch is the only one on our team that approaches that to contest the spot. In other words, we're saying 'we're fine not scoring this half as long as you don't either'.  It works. We push both of them out, intercept the pass, they tackle it back but now it's our turn. Is this a parade, a mosh pit, or a football match? Thanks to MF Rossen, we win the possession battle, they never see the ball in our defensive area again, and we make some subs to contend with the heat at the half. Their fullback also goes off, already exhausted. On the other hand, they'd adjusted their defense so there is a CD on each side. That sucks. Trying to dribble through them, it's a 24 vs. 27 roll. We get 7. They get 26. You can do worse than that, but you have to really work at it.  Disgusting. We were holding the ball in defense, which is dangerous but the other option was leaving a hole in our formation. Our defender had good control. Then it was failed tackle - forward motivated - successful tackle - shoot and score. By the guy on the bottom of this screen. They shifted their defense again, CDs at middle and top, so we try going around. Not great odds, but doable if the keeper rolls low. It was 15 against a 15 for the Sweeper and a 20 for the Keeper. Nobody rolled higher than a six here. We score, but I'm also embarassed about it. If I wanted to watch people falling all over each other to see how can trip over their shoelaces the worst, I'd .... well, maybe i'd have the job I have right now. Nevermind. 1-1. Schmidinger makes an easy save on their kickoff, and that's the final score. Overall, the 'lob pass clearance' approach is working better for us right now than the 'fix the defensive line' approach. I think I'll go with that for the time being. 8.6.23 Backpfeifengesichter (1-2-0, 5th) @ Oberhausen (0-0-3, 8th)  Some new symbols here. These start showing up when you've played an opponent enough times. The fists on either side of the logos indicate a 'constant rival', i.e. someone you're butting heads with regularly. The feather on the left and the bicep pump on the right mean the same thing, just from the opposing perspectives of each club. Feather means that Oberhausen is an 'easy rival' for us; bicep pump that we are a 'bogey team' for them. I.e., we've been cleaning their clocks, winning three of four last year with one draw. Oberhausen should be glad to see us actually. That draw was the only match to date that they have not lost. Of one thing we can be sure; the constant trend so far has been fewer goals scored in each match. Since our last meeting ended with no goals though, we can't really keep that up anymore.  They're playing a quite defensive 6-2-2. Once again we'll angle towards the left to try to score if we have possession, and hope to survive a tackle from their CD who isn't that good (defense of 18). On our end, that curved arrow in one of their forwards indicates a Wing Forward (LF). That's why our defensive line is shifted. They have nobody on our left anyway, and we're cutting off the path to the break-in tile on the right corner. As it increasingly is these days, my biggest concern is whether or not we can score.  Average Lettuce has improved his control enough that he's a passable, though not great, option to try to hold the ball in the middle after we stop their initial attack. He hangs onto it, but their CD takes it away from our forward.  This looks dangerous, but the only reason they have the ball here is recovering a lofted pass on their last action. There was never any realistic danger. Goalkeepers can tackle too. As the tooltip notes though, we better be sure we succeed if we tackle an opponent in the penalty area. Safer to Press-Tackle-Lofted Pass to clear it.  Bring Posch in at the half. His superior Control survives the tackle attempt of their defender, and now he's got a decent shot at scoring. Ebner in goal does just enough to keep it out, and it's not going to get any easier.  A foul on our end late gives us an indirect free kick; we can't fire it at goal from here even if we wanted to. The players are spaced just right though for us to send it to ally_1986 in midfield, then over to Posch for another try.  Or maybe not. Their DF will intercept that pass with near-certainty.  So we settle for this. It's our final possession. It's not impossible for Fried, our most accurate shooter, to score from here. But not likely.  We're really running into bad limitations trying to score. Disappointing.  First appearance for the Average one among our best performers. 8.13.23 Zwickau (3-1-0, 1st) @ Backpfeifengesichter (1-3-0, 4th) Time to face off against what is apparently this year's front-runner. This is our first sighting of a true Wing Midfielder. My biggest concern is blocking off their forwards, one of whom has an accuracy of 41. They are the least concerned opponent defensively that we've seen so far, with just four defenders and one a fullback, so maybe there will be fireworks. As in, maybe they'll just kick our collective arse. Also, it's our first match in the rain.  When we say in the rain, we don't just mean a sprinkle or two. This is the best shot we can hope for. Passing is harder and we were lucky to get the ball through midfield; fouls are also more likely. It's blocked by their defense, and a couple of turns later they just blast a shot through our defensive line to score. We keep trying, but every time we attempt to hold the ball and set up an offensive play, their Slide Tacklers take it away. A 1-0 defeat against this kind of team is nothing to be ashamed of for us.  We are very much a mid-table club and boring as snot. Average match has less than one goal scored combined between both teams. Best defense and worst offense. We have our first skill - talent, actually - but in this case it's pretty useless. DF Milde has finished training Reaction Level 1, which counters Rainbow Feint. Which no opponent has used against us. It does make him the highest-valued player on the squad at nearly 10k, so it definitely is valuable, but not in the sense of helping us win in the short-term. And yes, compared to last year there's a lot to be said for stodgy and boring. It's a good path to respectability. But if you want to win championships - lol, look who's getting absurd thinking about that already - you have to put the ball in the net. And what on earth is Wuppertal doing in strong promotion position? The same club that was 5th place with a -13 goal differential last year now sits in 2nd just a point off of the top spot a third of the way in. * Note: I apparently was a big fat liar - who am I kidding, I am a big fat liar. But I proved it by exercising my executive prerogative, aka changing my mind, and not selling Deutscher yet. Just got up to High interest, which took longer than I thought because he is aggressively just taking up space basically and being an obstacle, although he did possibly save a goal with an interception of a shot. Fatigue on the defensive line has been an increasing issue due to more possession struggles on our end, so it's been useful to keep him around. Still going to be sold at the end of the transfer window if not before of course.
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Oct 22, 2022 19:24
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Average Lettuce Advanced Class & Skill Choices Average Lettuce is now an Amateur Midfielder (M).  In order of quickest to learn, we have: Cannon Shot There are times when other wingers can use this, but it definitely synergizes very well with Wing Forwards. If their Break-In move is successful, they will be at point-blank range and that means nobody will be in the path of the attempt. Interception Most useful with players who play in the middle, not wingers. We could consider going with this and then something like MF. Or you can still use it on a Wing Midfielder or Fullback, but the point is countering Long Pass & Layoff Pass, which isn't the most useful if you're not actually in an area where those are used a lot. It would still be helpful, particularly against opposing wingers who have those skills, but in most matches I think it would largely go to waste on the wings. Long Pass This one I think is most useful on the Fullback among the wing positions. After making a stop in defense, you can swing it out to a RD/LD, have them do their 3-tile run up to about midfield, and then Long Pass can fire the ball into the penalty area to a FW/CF. Not that we are actually developing any of those right now, but it's one way in which they can launch effective counterattacks. The other point of reminder is that if a wing class is chosen, as opposed to a universal one, then we are stuck with whatever we pick as the only skill. What we need here: Advanced Class. If choosing one of the wing positions, please specify right or left (i.e. RM, LD, whatever). Cross-training on the other side is an option for later if desired. Skill. Cannon Shot, Interception, or Long Pass. Average Lettuce, you are on the clock and have through Tuesday if needed. Do the necessary, if you please. Mechanics in the Coaches Corner if desired Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Oct 22, 2022 |
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Oct 22, 2022 19:28
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I think I'll go CM and Interception to maximize my current stats.
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Oct 22, 2022 22:33
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Will do. Sticking with Control training for now but can change that any time.
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Oct 23, 2022 00:08
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August - September 2023 8.18.23 Backpfeifengesichter @ Oberhausen Prestige Cup Qualifying Round, 1st Leg Yep, we lucked out again with Oberhausen in the qualifying round ... but the way the last two matches have gone it isn't a foregone conclusion we advance. Best/youngest players in of course to maximize experience gains, and we need to find a way in one of these matches to score a goal. I don't want this going to penalty kicks.  I'd like to use this, the one motivational speech that I have access to. We have a league match in two days, so less fatigue would be valuable. But 17 Glory? No thanks, that's too steep. The price does scale based on the competition; for an Amateur League match it's only 5 Glory. Still, it's not worth the expense in my opinion. Once again Oberhausen goes with a 6-2-2 to combat our 5-3-2. They have all the amateur defenders on one side though, with a CD and a couple of DFs on the other. Hopefully they'll keep that setup for the second half. After losing possession trying to dribble through our line, they promptly foul us immediately. Nice start.  Posch narrowly keeps control against a good tackle attempt, setting us up in good position to score. But how do we go about it? Fried can take an angled shot from the top, or Posch can just try to dribble straight through. He could get a point-blank shot that way ... but also could just not get a shot at all. It's probably pretty close which is better. I go with Fried though, under the idea that I just want to get as many shots off as possible. Eventually one will go in.  Yeah, I like the looks of this. I still like the look of it after we get a 7 on the shot and a 14 on the save by Ebner. There's no formation changes at the half, so we try it again. 14 on the shot, 9 on the save. 1-0. Our first goal in almost three matches against these clowns. Frustration sets in for the home club. Not that you can blame them. Another foul and we try to set up Posch for a close shot. It's about a 60-40 chance for Average Lettuce to get the shot through, but good anticipation by their defender picks it off. Later, they try an aggressive tackle from behind on Kehr.  Of course, this also means that's Laszmann won't be a problem for us in the second leg, as he'll be suspended. Not the smartest move. We have a indirect free kick for our final possession. Can't get anything better than a fever dream of a long-range try by ally_1986.  They were never close to getting off a shot. I'm highly confident we'll finish them off, and get an extra round in the Prestige Cup once again. 8.20.23 Koblenz(1-1-3, 6th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (1-3-1, 5th) Deutscher is back down to Average interest after sitting out the Prestige Cup. Booo. We'll run him out there again and hopefully rectify the situation.  This match has scoreless draw written all over it. Their lone CF we should be able to keep at bay and the LM isn't a good enough passer to be a significant danger crossing. On the other hand, their GK and CDs are good enough that while we should be able to get to a decent range to shoot against those green defenders, they'll probably stop whatever we fire at them. It held up that way for most of the first half. Then Fried was able to get his second try to go, only to have them hit an impressive strike against a sad-sack effort by Schmidinger. 1-1.  58th minute. I was trying to set up a play for Brummern to pass it into the area for a point-blank attempt to take the lead. Instead we get a free kick.  Too far away for a good immediate chance, I again delayed, then ran around their defense. Still only 22 vs. 27, but it was the best odds we were going to get. We won a battle of low rolls to take the lead!  Two goals in one match? It's an avalanche! The possession number is the big one here though. We seem to be gradually getting better overall at holding the ball midfield or the attacking zone, drawing fouls, grinding our way to more opportunities to score and fewer for our opponents. The 1k sponsor payment for a home victory was nice also.  The Assistant Coach holds forth on Power Shot. I have used it, but not very much. Haven't had many opportunities where a shot was likely to even get to the keeper with Power Shot. Still, it's always worth keeping in mind.  Technically there's still one match left before the window closes, but he's back up to High interest and I'd rather play the other defenders anyway. It's time. 2640 is his value, so we actually get a slightly better deal by taking the Burghausen offer.  There are two ways I generally evaluate a player's time at the club. One is sale price compared to purchase price - if they were a transfer initially - plus how much we spent on their contracts. You can't beat an infinitely high rate of return; Deutscher is still on his initial deal so we never paid him any more.  The other is to compare our investment in him to what we got out of him on the playing field. 14 matches played, 4 tackles, blocked shots aren't mentioned here unfortunately. One yellow card. There's nothing stellar about reaching level 6, and he never got to an Advanced Class. Still, he's the first to depart. #4 Deutscher, 2022-2023, 13 months spent with the club. He was a Punchable Face, more valuable for bringing in almost 3k to the treasury than anything else that he accomplished, but a minimal level of respect is still due.  Immediately his uniform changes, and we are reminded that we just made a rival better. Although in this case, probably not. If they play him, it's likely just taking time from someone with more potential. 8.27.23 Backpfeifengesichter (2-3-1, 5th) @ Wuppertal (4-0-2, 3rd)  We spent the first half desperately defending with multiple Lofted Pass clearances required. It was just enough to keep them off the board. In the second half, with the skill of their keeper the only chance was to get close. They have a sweeper, so I planted a forward in the area as here, blocking the sweeper's movement. If we can hold the ball in attack or midfield, and then get it in to them ... Really my only realistic idea on how to have any chance to score. It was a reasonable plan, but we never could get them the ball. Even if we had been able to, it would have been something on the order of a 20-25% chance of scoring.  A draw against a team that is clearly superior this year is a gift. 9.15.23 Oberhausen @ Backpfeifengesichter Prestige Cup Qualifying Round, 2nd Leg  Here's something new; Oberhausen has a DM. That's the bad news; the good news is he might be the worst DM I've ever seen, with a defense rating of 7. Still, it was enough for me to not pass it directly through but try to manuever and hold for a turn if possible.  Their defense was set up better also, and we couldn't get a shot going. Neither could they, and it looked like a draw. Then for some reason, midway through the second half they split their defenders out wide like this, allowing us to waltz in close enough for a try. Posch scored it to give us another win. The unofficial, but proper assist on that goal has to go to the Oberhausen manager. With the win, I've reached Coach Level 5, and another 3,775 Money goes into the account as the reward. Also ...  ally_1986 is now an Attacking Midfielder! When all the rewards were added up, we had reached a new high of 78 fans.
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Oct 23, 2022 16:16
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 No action necessary, this is basically just an informational update for ally_1986. If you want to cross-train to a new position, that would be a good time for that. Current training focus remains Accuracy. ally now is tied with Fried for the highest accuracy at the club, and as an AM that makes him by far the best long-range sniper we have. He's also the highest-value player for the time being. If there are no contrary instructions forthcoming, the next decision will be where to go with the next Specialization Level when that is achieved.
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Oct 23, 2022 23:48
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10.6.23 Backpfeifengesichter @ Kaiserslauten Prestige Cup Round of 32, 1st Leg It's raining today. That won't change the outcome.  Us.  Them. One of these rosters is not like the other. The only way we could possibly score on Ljankes is to use Kimmel's recently acquired Cannon Shot. It would be a remote chance to succeed even if he could get into position, which is highly unlikely against their defense. On the other end, both Heilemann and Grumel can either dribble through or shoot through our defensive line, whichever they happen to feel like. We would stop them some of the time, but keeping them out for an entire match? Not happening. Their players average level 28, ours level 7. Their roster is 10x the value of ours. And so on. Getting a result against a somewhat better team like Wuppertal is one thing, but Kaiserslauten is good enough that we're losing, badly, twice, they know, we know it, they know that we know that they know it ... Kaiserslauten finished 6th in Second League last year and that's where they sit now. They're only 3 points off a promotion spot, and expect to make the Prestige Cup Quarterfinals minimum. We're not exalted enough to qualify as a speed bump to them. It's back to where we started last year for these matches, just gain as much experience and money for our players as possible.  Looks fuller now. I don't think this is a random graphic, I think it's based on actual fan count how many people they show. Interesting.  The aggregate score for our humiliation was 10-0. We were consistent, losing 5-0 both at home and on the road. The fans weren't even that disappointed - if they thought we should win, there'd be a big-time rush for the exits here. Unless I miss my guess, it'll be many moons until we see four figures on ticket sales for a single match again.  We're the worst margin here, but some of the others are pretty stinking bad also. Misery loves company, right? The will of the coaches is clear; we spend the 4 Glory to ensure a defender is incoming as our next youth player. Winter Break and the ensuing transfer window are up next.
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Oct 24, 2022 01:27
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Insurrectionist Advanced Class & Skills Insurrectionist, your time has come. I can't claim he's big or burly as requested - they're all kind of the same in that department - but here's your center-back (or whatever you decide to do with him).  I'm not going lie, this might be the most punchable face I've seen yet. Before you get to mocking him too much though, you just might want to read on a bit.  D Insurrectionist comes in with the first stage of his training done. But that's not the best part. Check out the stars. He is a 2-star Gifted player. At our current academy level, we are due for a player at this level once every 42 years. This is year two. We don't deserve him, but we sure aren't throwing him back. To put in perspective what this means, he's a player who would fit in best at a club in the top half of the Second League. He won't have the same chance to develop as those players do, since he's playing down here in the Amateurs with us and starting at a lower attribute level than those players do, but that's where his potential matches up. Our 0-star players start slowing down in experience gain at level 5; Insurrectionist won't hit that penalty until Level 30. Practically speaking, he probably just plain won't hit it. He's literally too good for us, a whale in a bathup at the Amateur level, and much of his capabilities will be wasted. We'll try to minimize that of course. It'll also be fun getting the money to pay his larger contractual demands.  This is good stuff also. Head Play counters crossing attempts by the opponent, which will be rare at least for a while but you start seeing them a lot more once you hit Third League. Reaction counters Rainbow Feint, and Slide Tackle allows us to regain possession of the ball from opposing players without using an action, making a counter-attack or at least advancement more likely. It also of course renders high Control from opposing forwards irrelevant when trying to regain possession. Recommendations All input from fellow coaches is encouraged here. It'd be nice if he was younger, or if there was more defense and less passing. It'd also be nice if he could leap tall buildings in a single bound; those are details. Any position in the defense would fit well; so would DM (defensive midfielder). Center-back was initially requested, and CD would be fine here, as well as DF. I would lean towards either SW (sweeper) or DM for the largest impact. We're not going to see many players of this caliber within the span of his career; Insurrectionist is going to be a star on this team, so it's little different than just plugging in another 0-Giftedness guy wherever. I think sweeper would make the most difference, adding another layer of protection against most shots along with the keeper and freeing up the high defensive line; it also would mean committing to an extra defender most matches and not using the offside trap. The attribute breakdown favors defensive midfield in my opinion, plugging up the middle with the ability to intercept passes, and then having some passing to be able to get it up to another player - like AM ally_1986 or CM-in-training Average Lettuce. That could potentially be a powerful play-through-the-middle combination. On the other hand, you could look at it wanting to balance out Average Lettuce's interception talent by improving the deeper defense. Can't go wrong with any of the defense-oriented positions. Cross-training for tactical flexibility is also a potential option of course. Whatever the choice is, I'll be deploying him close to the most dangerous attacker on the opposition as soon as he gets up to speed. Insurrectionist, you are on the clock and have through the end of Tuesday for the following choices: - Advanced Class: Any from the midfield or defense should be permissible. - Training Focus: Stick with Defense, or switch to Accuracy, Passing, or Control. - Skill: Head Play, Reaction, or Slide Tackle Coaches Corner Reference Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Oct 25, 2022 |
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Oct 24, 2022 02:11
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Coaches Report, Winter 2024 Theoretically it looks like we're last among five clubs competing for three promotions spots. I don't think that's a realistic aim for us; it would take pretty much everything breaking our way. I think the best realistic aim for us is 4th, but we ought to at least be able to hang on as a mid-table club. Zwickau and Schwerin figure to bounce back up, Potsdam clearly having a disappointing year and will stay down with Wuppertal or possibly Burghausen escaping the depths of the Amateur League.  Third League results so far. Looks like new faces next year again, at least two of them. Embden's in danger of falling back down but Offenbach has a decent lead on the relegation zone. And look at Sinsheim! It's not often you see potential back-to-back promotions. They are really doing well.  Didn't get a lot of Glory in the first half of the year, but still a net gain of +6 to 41. It was a nice period for Money though, from almost broke to over 14k, and Fans are doing shockingly well at 73. Most of the way to our capacity there, but we can't afford an expansion and won't need it. The sad truth is that those fans are going to be leaving before too much longer.   All of the originals are done training their skills; the new players are still working.  Extensions There's a problem on the Contracts view; look at Baltz. There's another player like him that is 34 and has just come up for their first contract renewal, which means he's too old to actually sign one. I thought they'd all have a renewal available before turning 34; usually they do but we got a bad combo of age and contract length on a couple of them. This isn't a fatal problem, but I'll have to be pretty gamey to work around it. There's a feature which most players don't run into that we'll need to rely on - the President will hire a 34-year-old level 1 zero-class player if you don't have enough to field a roster. I'll either have to intentionally get a couple players suspended in order to be able to get everyone sold next year that we need to sell, or else temporarily hire a couple of crap transfers, then sell them when they've served their purpose. Either way we'll work around it one way or another. In terms of the players we do want to extend, Average Lettuce gets a 3-year deal for 3,953. 1 year for Brummern at 2,620. 33-year-old emergency depth guys Greuls and Kallenberger add another year for 11 and 105 respectively. You can see in Brummern's amount that as we deal with more and more developed players, the costs are going up. Fire Sale Begins The next three transfer windows, including this one, are where the fire sale starts hitting. Vigilant observers will note I didn't mention extensions for Schmidinger, Rossen, or Kimmel. They will be 33 by the time we get to next year, so they've got to go. Schmidinger will wait until the end of the transfer window because of how vital a keeper is to our success, but we have plenty of players at the other two spots and can't improve their value much by keeping them around. Our defensive line remains fully intact, but four of them will need to go at the start of next year.   Here's the first time we've seen the choice of getting more Money, if we're willing to wait for half of it. We definitely are, particularly with making a sale to Wuppertal. If they promote, that means that for at least a year they're taking Kimmel with them. After all the transactions are made, we have one more yet to sell at the last possible moment. We're down to 18 on the roster, but up to 21.4k in the account with another 5.8k incoming when the other half of that payment comes due. Value of the roster has hit six figures at 119k.   You can see from the stats that Rossen is the most impactful player we've parted ways with so far. He started off mostly just trying to get the ball through the midfield to the forwards, but this year and late last year became more involved in possession battles. Like Deutscher, we never spent any money on extending him so it's all profit.   Kimmel has been a decoy/possession forward, and you can see he's not real happy about it. We did expend 800 on an extension for him, but getting a better than 10-to-1 return is still outstanding.
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Oct 24, 2022 04:05
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Coaches Ballot: Winter 2024 We have the same choice we did last time: Request a Defender from the Youth Academy or Take What They Give Us. Price remains 4 Glory. The situation is different this time however. Our biggest need is to get a keeper, the sooner the better, because as soon as we sell Schmidinger we're going to be in trouble until we get a new one in place. If we want to keep the pain to a minimum, we should probably hold off and hope for someone with decent defense that we can throw in goal. If we're willing to languish for longer to get a better option, we could get another defender to play in front, and hold off on a keeper until we can upgrade the Youth Academy - planned for the start of next year - increasing the odds that our next keeper will be better than 0-star Giftedness.
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Oct 24, 2022 04:11
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Sign me up; I've been told I have a very punchable face. Whatever position you need, maybe a goalkeeper?
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Oct 24, 2022 05:00
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You're over-qualified then! Don't need to actually have a punchable face to have a virtual player persona  Added to the list as any position. We actually have someone waiting patiently - I hope - for a keeper already. Just need a player in the game to fill the spot.
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Oct 24, 2022 06:11
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 I forgot to post this. We're not going to accept this offer, but periodically we'll get offers for more than a player's value, sometimes twice as much. Happens more often when they are young, and also more often if they are particularly good/gifted. Most we will ignore, but some will be worth considering. For now of course we need all the young players we can get, and ally_1986 will be worth a much higher price than this by the time we're ready to start selling the new generation of players. They're just trying to get them for cheap before their prime. Another advantage of these deals is that they tend to come from other countries, which means we won't be making our competition in league play better.
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Oct 24, 2022 06:14
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Honestly, if the keeper's that important, I'd say play the long game and get the Defender for the front for now.
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Oct 24, 2022 10:16
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I think the issue is we’re gonna sell the one we have, and we need someone between the sticks (non-keepers get a big penalty), and none of the old players are gonna have time to raise as one. So I’m voting take what they give us. Let’s roll the dice and hope we get lucky.
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Oct 24, 2022 10:41
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NiftyBottle posted:I think the issue is we’re gonna sell the one we have, and we need someone between the sticks (non-keepers get a big penalty), and none of the old players are gonna have time to raise as one. So I’m voting take what they give us. Let’s roll the dice and hope we get lucky. Yeah, this. Whatever position comes from the Academy will be better than what we have right now. Save the Glory.
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Oct 24, 2022 11:05
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NiftyBottle posted:I think the issue is we’re gonna sell the one we have, and we need someone between the sticks (non-keepers get a big penalty), and none of the old players are gonna have time to raise as one. So I’m voting take what they give us. Let’s roll the dice and hope we get lucky. This right here
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Oct 24, 2022 14:37
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We got lucky once with asking for a defender—holy hell did we get lucky in this league!—but now we need an unclassed kid with decentish Defense to be the long term keeper. Getting an amateur defender from the academy does not help us here. Roll the dice, take what kid we pull from the streets/a player’s neighbor and hope we can turn them into a keeper.
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Oct 24, 2022 14:50
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Could we retrain the 2* gifted defender as a goalkeeper?
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Oct 24, 2022 17:11
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NiftyBottle posted:I think the issue is we’re gonna sell the one we have, and we need someone between the sticks (non-keepers get a big penalty), and none of the old players are gonna have time to raise as one. Correct. It might help for me to explain more completely why we have to sell the one we have and not just keep them a few more years. Basically, we have to do two things. One, upgrade the Youth Academy - we can only afford once - so that we have a better pipeline of players coming in. Getting one upgrade there will put us at an equal level to most of the Amateur League clubs. It raises our 'floor' in other words to the point where we'll always have enough quality players to compete on a long enough timeline. 0-Giftedness players will be less common once we get that. That other absolute must is putting cash away so that we can afford to resign our young players for some years until we get a decent roster of them, as opposed to having to sell some of them to pay for others. That means we have to get as much money as possible from our starting group of 30-somethings, and that literally nothing else matters in comparison. This is why I'm controlling the finances at the start here, because otherwhise even one significant mistake would mean the whole foundation of the club is screwed and we might dig a hole we can never get out of. For example, if we got to a point where we didn't have enough players yet but also didn't have the money to extend the ones we have. Then, once we get that minimum foundation in place, if we make hideous mistakes managing the thing, it will suck and be painful to fix but it will be fixable. There's always that 'competitive floor' that we won't be able to sink below. whowhatwere posted:Could we retrain the 2* gifted defender as a goalkeeper? A good idea, but no. Keepers can't be trained as other positions, and other positions can't be trained as keepers. At least one reason for this is the uniqueness of keeper skills. Other than Reaction, the key ones are different. You can't get Strong Goalkeeper or Playing Out if you aren't a keeper, and they would be totally useless at any other position. From the list that Insurrectionist has, keepers can't use Head Play either. They use Control for their positioning to combat headers, a totally different mechanic than Head Play. So it's the proverbial round-peg-in-a-square-hole idea.
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Oct 24, 2022 18:25
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February 2024 Insurrectionist has been awarded Strike One. As a result it falls to me to decide what to do with our defender progidy. I considered three builds: - Head Play + Reaction DF. This would maximize financial return when we eventually sell him. It's going to be a critical payday when we do, and having multiple skills really ups the value. There's tactical flexibility here, but overall it would be easier than the other options for opposing teams to just avoid him. - Head Play SW. Probably the largest defensive impact. Providing a line of defense in front of the keeper, who will almost certainly be lower-giftedness. Head Play in the sweeper position helps against crosses, and on set pieces we could even use him to try to score. We would hope them for a GK with Reaction + Strong Goalkeeper, not needing Playing Out as much to deal with crosses, and also able to not worry about keeper control (used for positioning against crosses). So basically the sweeper and keeper complementing each other. - Slide Tackle DM. Fits a little better with the passing attribute, but not as well with skills as Slide Tackle will take a long time to train. This is of course a classic combo though, and powerful in the lower leagues as we've seen. All three have their merits, but overall I definitely like Head Play Sweeper as the top choice. Sweepers tend to do quite well in picking up specialization points which will help development and eventual sale value, and at that spot Insurrectionist should be able to anchor a defense capable of being dominant in the Amateur League and effective even in the Third League. Accordingly, I am keeping him on Defense attribute training. Squad Rotation We have 12 players vying for 11 starting spots at the moment. The four DFs will rotate through three positions, and everyone else starts all the time. Also, to help fill the spots that we can't extend the 34-year-olds for, I did make one signing. Yes, this is a technical violation of the no-transfer clause, but not a 'meaningful' one. We're not going to play them if it can be avoided, and they'll be sold off as soon as possible.  Direct purchases from other teams work pretty simply; find a player you want on their squad and click 'Buy'. Here's a Level 1 33-year-old from Oberhausen. They give you a price; no such thing as a player you can't buy, but the cost is vastly inflated compared to using the transfer lists. And there's a Glory cost for the purchase. I found one player though with no Glory cost, and a price of just 130 - also from Oberhausen.  Hipp is not a true Punchable Face, and will receive no honors when he leaves. Think of him like a 'ghost player' from OOTP or FM. He's a mirage, filling a roster spot and taking up space, but he's not 'real'. 2.4.24 Backpfeifengesichter (2-4-1, 5th) @ Burghausen (3-3-1, 4th)  They're playing a conservative 6-2-2 and have a fairly good keeper. I was wrong last time I made this call, but it looks like a scoreless match to me. On our end, Insurrectionist will be effective sitting in the central sweeper spot directly in front of the keeper, able to try to intercept shots on either side. At the same time, he also will of course gain SW experience there. On the other hand that also means we're allowing easier access around the flank of the defensive line, which could cost us. You could argue for yanking all six defenders and yank someone elsewhere, but that would make any kind of counterattack even harder to pull off. On the attack, we don't have any good options but using the AM abilities of ally_1986 is now the best one.  16 minutes in, and a look at using skills; Posch has Rainbow Feint. Facing off against an old friend here. Maximum roll is 4, but actually 3 here because it scales based on how much energy a player has left. He had to hold the ball here and survive a couple of tackle attempts, so he's already done quite a bit.  Their formation is quite hard to crack from straight on, but we kick it back to ally_1986. This is the False Kick. If we use it of Deutscher, he'll be tricked out of position to the amber-highlighted tile. If we had a player on that tile, I wouldn't be able to use it, so AMs need some space to pull this off.  Instead, I'll use it on DF Blenker. No action is required, but I can do it once per turn only.  A passing AM would use this to open a hole in the defense, esp. for a CF. As a shooting AM, ally is about as accurate from here as an equally-accurate forward would be from a tile closer. It's still not a good chance, but it's the best we can manage. Blenker will still try to intercept, but there's a discount when you have to move to another tile to do that, so basically any shot good enough to beat the keeper is likely going to beat Blenker also. The range bonus really helps in counterattacking situations because often we can't get a shot with a forward as they don't have enough actions to get close enough. With an attacking midfielder, they often can get a shot worth taking with one less action since they can shoot further out. A sub-par effort resulted anyway, and it was blocked. Both sides had multiple low-odds shots, but they had one go in at the end that was even more remote, and we didn't. Very even struggle between two midtable clubs otherwise, and we lose it 1-0. 2.11.24 Backpfeifengesichter (2-4-2, 5th) @ Schwerin (6-0-2, 2nd) The drawingest club in the league, against one that doesn't have a draw yet. Something's got to give - and hey, we beat them the first time  The nice thing about the False Kick for AM is that it can be used on kick-offs, while skills can't. But on the counter sometimes other approaches are better. Schwerin doesn't play as conservatively as some of the other clubs, so I was able to dribble in here. Rainbow Feint was not a good idea, as this defender has higher giftedness so it was a 3 vs. 6 roll. Nah. Of course, I would have been tackled by multipe CDs if I just moved straight towards the goal. The main moral of this story is that it's invaluable to be able to score in multiple ways, rather than putting all our eggs in one basket.  Best part is that, after a narrowly failed tackle attempt, the CD directly in front of the goal can't move again. So I can just leisurely saunter in closer.  But once again, Rainbow Feint isn't going to do the job. Even if it was Level 3 this would be rough. Exhibit umpteen in how 0-Giftedness players just suck. Still, it was nearly even odds to score from there, and he punched it in. Were we going to upset Schwerin a second time??  Ensuing kickoff. No. No, we were not. Ok fine, we'll settle for a draw ...  After their keeper saved a decent attempt by ally, their fullback demonstrates a run up the flank. Notice Fried's tackle attempt on the second-to-last tile; this is automatic. It's also doomed, as he can't tackle his way out of a wet paper bag, but if a player with decent defense is in position it's a different story.  Here's an example of a better place to use Rainbow Feint. It's positive odds, since we win any tie. Two actions left on our final turn of the match. If it works and we survive the tackle afterwards - not great odds of both happening, but if - then it's a good chance of scoring. What actually happens? Worst possible roll, so they take the ball away. Pass it up to their forwards. Shoot through the line. Once again, worst possible roll - max 17 for their forward, 6 for Schmidinger in goal. We lose 2-1. Our second straight loss that could well have been a draw. That we played well enough for it to be a draw. Not that we have any standing to complain about the RNG with some of the gifts we've been given, but this one was right up 'you're just gonna lose, and that's that' alley.  Despite the unpleasantness, Average Lettuce became a full Central Midfielder. Still focusing on Control. We'll keep going unless there are any contrary orders. 2.18.24 Potsdam (1-4-4, 6th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (2-4-3, 5th) Snowing for this one. It'd be really nice to get at least a draw and hold on to our position. We're three points ahead - if we lose they'll be up by virtue of goal differential. They play a 5-2-3, which I find the most difficult to deal with overall at this juncture. Enough defense to complicate our scoring effots, and enough forwards to give them dangerous options. As if we hadn't seen it enough, after stopping us their first possession was another max-strike-through-the-line special. Passable effort by our keeper but not nearly enough. It was already clear how this match was going to go. There was a moment later in the half where we just needed a moderately bad tackling attempt against Average Lettuce to have a good chance to score I think. Didn't get it.  Snow skills in practice. I don't recall the exact amount, but it's just a direct hit to potential for using them. And since our potential for using them is already terrible, guess what? They're not gonna work. Start of the second half, they hit a shot from the open flank and I move ally out wide to try to get a better opening to shoot from. It failed spectacularly, and was actually slightly worse.  Yuck. Our fans agreed with that assessment. 14 of them jumped ship after this result. It's now three league losses in a row, five overall, so it's hard to argue. I can hear them now: 'Sage is really impressive when it comes to tactical flexibility. I've never seen a manager try so many different approaches and have all of them backfire so thoroughly'. 2.25.14 Oberhausen (0-1-9, 8th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (2-4-4, 6th) At least these guys we can be confident in not losing to. Unfortunately winning wasn't in the cards either. I'd pulled an exhausted ally at halftime and went to a full six at the back. Had one counter-attacking chance in the second half - Rainbow Feinted through their first line but an absolute garbage effort at hanging on against the tackle challenge meant it came to nothing. 0-0.  Can't get a great deal all the time. Koblenz is the only club willing to offer the full money value. They start him right away, which is better against Rainbow Feint but actually worse in terms of conventional shots on goal compared to the previous starter. I think they just gave us 10k to downgrade at keeper. Of course, they now have two keepers and we have none, so it's still better than our situation.  Here's what the profile looks after the sale. Which I'm only showing you because I forgot to take the screenshot beforehand, but we'll just forget about that and pretend it's a brilliant act of complete LP presentation. 33 matches, all started and played to completion as keeper. The save numbers show his improvement, as do our reduced goals conceded for which he was significantly responsible. It's going to be open season without him, even though Schmidinger wasn't all that fantastic as even 0-giftedness keepers go. Lots of near-useless passing there, but he was the best we had and the better than what we will have for a while. Everything but his stupid haircut will be missed. I didn't take this while he was blinking intentionally, but it feels appropriate.  Every transfer window, this lists up to the top 10 transfers in our league, and also the top 10 from the Premier League. We have three of the four sales, there tends to not be a lot of player movement from the others. Not sad to see Koblenz sending a young forward off to Zwickau where he'll soon be playing in the Third League.  If we manage to avoid dropping below Koblenz, it'll be the best we can do and more than I expect. And of course on top of everything else, losing more just means slower development for D Insurrectionist. In these four matches he's gotten all the way to Level 3. Yay???
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Oct 26, 2022 18:17
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quote:Despite the unpleasantness, Average Lettuce became a full Central Midfielder. Still focusing on Control. We'll keep going unless there are any contrary orders. Would it be more beneficial to go for passing now?
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Oct 26, 2022 18:41
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In general I think passing is better for CMs, because you get that 30% bonus, so more passing = more benefit from the bonus. 'Possession' based players I think are better off as MFs. But again that's very much in general. Brummern is a transplanted defender so he's a midfielder with high defense which is not at all the traditional way. He's end up being what FM would probably call a 'ball-winning midfielder', having decent range and moving around making tackles. Midfield in particular is an area where, other than accuracy, the other three attributes are all useful. Control is definitely valuable in a midfielder. If it was me I would go with Passing, but I don't think either way is 'wrong' and I can't confidently say one is better than the other here. I would call it more different flavors of capabilities; better at passing the ball through opposing midfielders, or better at keeping possession so that you have the opportunity to advance it on the next turn? The other part is, being at level 10 now after the promotion to CM, experience gained is down to 30% so additional levels will be few and far between. Not to be negative about it but there's limited room left to change for better or worse.  Attributes at level 10, FWIW.
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Oct 26, 2022 19:21
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| # ? May 16, 2024 14:18 |
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Ok, then let's change the focus to Passing.
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Oct 26, 2022 19:55
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