The True Football Manager 2009 / 2008

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Interesting facts: Wonderkids, Relationships and Best Scorer Adebayor
2007-12-27 21:15:00
I would like to present you some interesting facts to you, my readers. Fact #1. I have 4 players in the first team squad of Arsenal who has Description - Wonderkid. They are Francesc Fabregas, Denilson, Ismael Aissati and Nicklas Berdtner.Fact #2. There was bad relationship between Sagna and Fabregas. I've even thought about selling Sagna somewhere during winter transfer window. Nevertheless Sagna managed to resolve his all problems with Cesc. I encounter this at first, I should say.Fact #3. Emannuel Adebayor is our best scorer at the moment. He made 13 successful shots in 12 matches. It's really unexpected news for me because I thought him at the season start to be on substitution for Van Persie and Eduardo.
More About: Interesting , Relationships , Facts , Eres

Arsenal November matches in FM 2008 (the first season)
2007-12-23 17:48:00
November of 2007 brought to my Arsenal very difficult encounters with different teams. Fortunately, the most of the games were won:Middlesbrough was the easiest opponent of all these. They managed to do only one shot to the gates of Jens Lehmann. The mood on the next Champions League match was superb and we were expecting the second victory over Valencia. And the encounter was really tough - equal chances for each team to win. Their attacking and flamboyant Silva scored twice and become the man of the match. Unfortunately, young Armand Traore could not managed with him in one of the goal situation when he should do. After this match, situation in our CL's Group F became really complicated? Though I had a match with Dinamo ahead.The next two games we had with leaders of the Premier League Championship: West Ham and Liverpool. The match with West Ham was really crazy. We were loosing 2:1 on the 87th minute when Emannuel Eboue broke through the rival's defense and did 3(!) strikes -...
More About: Matches , Season , November , 2008

Young talents and wonderkids in Football Manager 2008: Goalkeepers
2007-12-18 20:13:00
I'm playing Arsenal now and trying to perform better in the search of young talented players. Using and training young stars and wonderkids is one the main personal targets of my current game. Just want to become the second Arsene Wenger ;)Ok, the first position which can be strengthened by some young guy - goalkeeper. I need a replace for Jens Lehmann in the closest future (though he peforms very well during the current season). The research given the following results:Wonderkid keepersOscar Ustari - very fast and agile handler. My scout considers that he has potential to become as good as Jens Lemann. I think him to be the best under-21 keeper in the world.Igor Akinfeev - stable goalkeeper from CSKA Moscow who was wonderkid in the former versions of FM. In the FM 2008 he is not so cool (and this corresponds to the reality). Though anyway I consider him very good and prospective variant. The only bad thing is his low teamwork value (4).Prospective young keepersKasper Schmeichel - ...
More About: Football , Manager , Young , Talents , Football Manager 2008

Smart ball on FIFA Club World Cup in Japan!
2007-12-16 19:17:00
At last! There is a very interesting technical extension which was awaited by many people interested in football. The new Adidas soccer ball, which was shown on 12th of December at a press conference in Yokohama, equipped with a microprocessor system to determine the exact location of the ball on the field. "Smart " ball is the result of joint work of Adidas and a small German company, Cairos Technologies. This will help in situations when it is necessary to find out whether ball crossed the line or not.More details available on FIFA sitePS I hope that this innovation will be used in all European football championships in the closest future!
More About: Japan , World Cup , World , Club

Some thoughts about player conditions, training workload and rotation
2007-12-12 16:17:00
Let?s consider Player Condition value: ? From 95 to 100 - player will play the entire match at a speed limit. ? 90-95- usually player is enough for 2 times, but can be tired during extra time in cup games. ? 80-90- he is enough for 45-75 minutes. Such player should be better on a substitution bench. ? Below 70 ? a player should not appear on the substitution bench even. Such players will be not able to help the team. Normally there are problems with physics at the beginning and the end of the season. If in the middle of the season problems remain, it is time to review the training schedule. A rotation, of course, is necessary, if you do not want to have a tired team at the end of the season. Try to use the principle which Rafa Benitez uses in the real life with his Liverpool. Rotate the first squad every next match!
More About: Training , Thoughts , Workload , Conditions

September and October matches of Arsenal - Champions League wonderful start
2007-12-10 20:47:00
By this post I?m going to continue my story about managing Arsenal . There are my matches of the second half of September and October:The hard game with Aston Villa was won by one good strike of Robin Van Persie. Then my Arsenal started playing in the Champions League . There, I should notice, we got to almost ?Group of Death? with Valencia, Schalke and Dinamo Kiev. The first match our team played with Dinamo using very young players (actually, it was the second squad) : Aisatti, Walcott, Diaby, Flamini, Berdtner, Emanuelsson, Diarra. Unfortunatelly, they were not so successive as more experienced footballers from the first squad. And as a result ? goalless draw. Then my Arsenal had two very fine home games with leading Bolton and Ipswich (in League Cup). By the way, after all these good matches in September (3 wins and 1 draw), I was awarded as the Manager of the Month:Aftewards there were two strange games with Sunderland and Manchester City in the English Premier League. We had pe...
More About: Matches , Start

How to use coaches of your team in FM 2008 trainings
2007-12-08 11:37:00
At first you should pay attention to number of your coaches and their coaching attributes. I recommend to have one coach who is an expert in one coaching attribute. Level of expertise depends on the level of your football club and its finances. If you train Manchester United than value of coaching attribute must be not less than 19. From the other hand, for Watford you should try to sign coaches with value of, for example, Defending (if coach is expert of Defending) being not less than 16.Then assignments of your coaches will be done very easily using the same principle: one coach to one coaching attribute of his expertise.Summary on the Coaches screen gives the total information about workload and rating of your coaches. The rating is the most important parameter there. Therefore you can use Summary to follow covering all the attributes by the ratings with the most effective way. And the last tip ? if you do not have enough expert-coaches than you must cover all the attributes with...
More About: Team , 2008 , Raining

Trainings used for Arsenal in my game
2007-12-06 22:40:00
Here is link on archive with my trainings:My Arsenal TrainingsThere are several types of trainings in the file. Their names correspond to different positions in the following way:GK - GoalkeepersDC - Centre defendersDRL - Wing backsDMC - Centre defensive midfieldersMC - Centre midfieldersMRL - Flank midfielders, wingersSC - Forwards
More About: Game , Raining

Trainings in Football Manager 2008
2007-12-04 07:28:00
Considering trainings in FM 2008 , I would mention two different approaches which are most often used by FM gamers. The first is very simple and standard. Some of the gamers do not spend their time on trainings setup and leave them without any change. This is not bad. I mean, there?s no any bad influence of standard trainings on players of your team. Fitness, mental and technical player abilities are supported equally and enough for getting big wins. Anyway there is the second approach which could give you much more benefit. It consists in setting up trainings by your own hands. Usually an advanced FM gamer creates several trainings for different pitch positions: goalkeepers, centre defenders, wing backs, defensive midfielders, attacking midfielders, wingers, forwards. Normally, for goalkeepers the following skills are trained: Goalkeeping on Intensive level, Tactics, Ball Control, Strength, Aerobic on Medium level.Centre defenders are effectively trained with High setting of Streng...
More About: Football , Manager , Football Manager 2008 , Raining

New team and player stats in FM 2008
2007-11-28 20:04:00
I do not often visit team and player stats in Football Manager. Therefore I've just right found out about great optimizational changes of these screens.Team statsWe can see that all the information about teams is grouped into the blocks on the screen. It's very comfortable to see statistics of the whole championship and compare stats of the best Premier League teams. What's interesting, the first block (in the left top corner) is dynamic. It shows detailed information about one of the leading teams of the other blocks!Player statsNew player stats screen has the same concept as the team stats screen. It's convinient due to the blocks grouping and agile because of the first dynamic information block. Here we can easily see that footballers from Chelsea - Frank Lampard, John Terry and Michael Essien are very accurate with passing, that Wayne Rooney with six goals is top scorer of the Premier League or that Curtis Davies is very cool in defence having 6.47 average tackles.I think th...
More About: Stats , 2008

Football Manager 2008 - Arsenal Tactics
2007-11-23 18:40:00
I would like to present you the file with my FM 2008 tactics for Arsenal .Arsenal Tactics The tactics is oriented on a quick playing style, flexible and creative players (young talents are always welcomed). It is also very effective to turn on counter attacks for this tactics if your team will play on an away stadium.I promise I will try to improve the tactics in what follows.
More About: Football , Manager , Football Manager 2008

The first season matches of my Arsenal
2007-11-20 21:17:00
Now there is the time to describe my first matches with Arsenal . PRM Arsenal ? Reading 2:0 (Van Persie ? 2)CL FC Kobenhavn ? Arsenal 0:4 (Eduardo -2, Van Persie, Hleb)PRM Arsenal ? Newcastle 2:3 (Adebayor, Eduardo)PRM Everton ? Arsenal 0:1 (Van Persie)CL Arsenal ? FC Kobenhavn 1:2 (Eduardo)PRM Arsenal ? Fulham 2:0 (Eduardo, Fabregas)We have been playing a bit unstable. The loss to Newcastle was really unexpected. They used counter attacks successfully against my Arsenal. Obafemi Martins was the man of the match due to his cool realization of moment and very high pace with acceleration. Toure and Gallas were not so fast unfortunately.Totally, my team plays quick but often not so great as Arsenal in real life :) Though I think, we need some time for determination of the best squad and tuning our attacking tactics.Some words about player of the gunners. You might see that Van Persie and Eduardo started the season efficiently scoring both almost every ...
More About: Matches , Season , Football Manager 2008

5 Helpful Hints for Football Managers
2007-11-14 09:22:00
Team talksIf a team is low motivated or under great pressure from the press (or yours), the tactics will not work effectively. If your players have always played below their usual form, you are running poor talks with the team. This situation can be handled during conversations before the match and after the first half in the dressing room. But do not forget asking assistant to check reaction of your footballers on your talks!Conditions of playersIf your players are overloaded at the training or simply too tired, tactics will not work effectively. Remember, the main sign of overloaded trainings - your players approach the match with the conditions less than 95.Many newcomers in teamIf your team has a lot of newcomers, prepare yourself to the fact that the first 6-8 games will be somewhat chaotic for team due to low team-work. Learn from the assistant about team cohesion. Team leaderIf your team has no leader with a high determination, team will begin playing unstable sooner or late...
More About: Football , Hints , Managers , Ager , Football Manager

Dealing with new features of Football Manager 2008
2007-11-10 09:41:00
New version of FM has a lot of rather small but cool features. One of them is a flexibility of season expectations choice. You can increase or decrease expectations from board! If you are sure to perform better than board expects, you choose more hard season targets and board give you more money for their achievement. I did this with Arsenal claiming that my aim is fighting for Premier Championship title!I decided to use non-trivial strategy of team squad management. Actually, it is one of Arsene Wenger: search for young talents and growing them to real stars. Well, it is known that Arsenal?s squad is young at the start, but I decided to buy more players for U17-team. Part of new FM screen with bought players: Teaudors, Pele, Wright ? younsters for U17 who are able to grow into very good football players. Young and perspective Urby Emanuelson was bought for increasing of concurrency between left flank players. Ismael Aissati is a wonderkid attacking midfielder who is ready to play...
More About: Football , Features , Manager , Football Manager 2008 , Ager

My Arsenal Tactics
2007-11-05 21:14:00
Starting with the Gunners I decided to choose the attacking 4-4-2 tactics scheme for winning title of the Premiership:Back defenders are often to run forward within wingers who are dribblers absolutely oriented on attack. Hard-working guy with good tackling and strength (consider Gilberto Silva) in the centre of the midfield. And, of course, brilliant Cesc Fabregas. He is intended to be playmaker getting involved in attacking actions. Two different type of forwards ahead: technical and tough. There is choice between Eduardo, Van Persie, Adebayour and Berdtner. I'm not going to buy another one striker, by the way. Team instructions of FC Arsenal are set for showing quick style with more short than long passing:
More About: Tactics

Go Gunners! :)
2007-11-04 00:26:00
Just started playing for my favouring football club - Arsenal from London. Going to create the same style of playing using the same tactics as in real life :)
More About: Gunner

Common question about FM 2008 Match
2007-10-30 20:39:00
I often entangle the following question about FM 2008 :"I do not understand, is there a pause during a match? How tactics is customized?"Ok, let's talk about the innovation: the inability to stop the game while coach makes changes in tactics. This is not entirely true. Indeed, when the coach gets in the tactics, match is slowed, but not stopped. However, there are two options to avoid this chip. First, you can click on pause during the game, and get in the tactics. Secondly, getting in tactics without stopping the game, you can pause it by pushing space. So you can change your tactics without problems.
More About: Question , Common , Match

Pitch sizes in FM 2008
2007-10-24 19:25:00
One of the innovations in the FM 2008 - editable pitch sizes of your home stadium. Reasonable question: why must we suddenly deal with this issue? Suppose that reading this article to the end and then received a letter from an employee of your stadium, you will understand why and for what. In reality, pitch of Highbury, for example, is known as very small, and Arsenal always tried his best to "stretch" it. When Arsenal moved to The Emirates Stadium, the main requirement was to box its size-it should have been a long and wide. This allowed to stretch defense of an opponent, and not slowed to impact on the success of Arsenal. So you believe that all means good for a win? Then the sizes of your pitch can be a serious advantage. If you know how to use it correctly. Before deciding on the sizes of the pitch, assess your own team. If your team is clearly not among powerful, and you have to play mainly in defensive football. Therefore you need to have a narrow pitch, which would deprive of...
More About: Pitch , Football Manager 2008

My story with Football Manager 2007: Lazio/Inter, the 4th season
2007-10-20 15:54:00
New season, old expectations - win Seria A and reach the final of Champions League. I decided that?s should be determinative season for our team. We must win Seria A at any price!!! Transfers before during the low season:Bought GK: Matteo Sereni (Parma) ? Free DEF: Armand Traore (Arsenal) ? Free, Micah Richards (Man City) ? $17M, Alessandro Potenza (Fiorentina) ? $2M MID: Matthias Lehmann (Aachen) -Free, Gabriel Obertan (Bordeaux) ? Free, Denilson (Arsenal) - $16M FOR: Maxi Lopes (Barcelona) ? Free, Scott Sinclair (Chelsea) ? Free, Daniel Sturridge (Man City) ? Free,Sold DEF: Riccardo Bonetto (Man City) - $1.3M FOR: Goran Pandev (Liverpool) - $30MSo you see I tried to rejuvenate the first squad and substitution players. Highly progressing in Real Life Micah Richards was intended to become safe tower in defence together with Curtis Davies. Armand Traore is left back we just needed. And Denilson is the player of very high potential in the centre of midfield. Selling...
More About: Story , Football , Inter , Manager , Season

Football Manager 2008 Release
2007-10-12 12:23:00
Time of exciting FM 2008 release is coming. On the 19th of October many thousands will become really happy guys :)The release will contain bunch of tasty features: In-depth Awards - more history, more awards, better selection of award winner, Best ElevenImproverd Match Engine - it's promissed that macth will look like in a real football Changing dimensions of your fieldMore news and media interactionBetter and more convinient user interfaceFaceGen technology for regenerated playersArranging Fan Days - can boost attendanceSaving and loading of the game is promised to be faster than in FM 2007New International ManagementNew Transfer CenterI did not play in Football Manager 2008 Demo purposly because the release is so soon! Can't wait, looking forward to the end of the week!
More About: Release , Football Manager 2008 , Ager

My story with Football Manager 2007: Lazio, the 3rd season
2007-10-11 22:16:00
Expectations for the new season - win Seria A and reach the final of Champions League again. For achievement of these goals the following transfers were made:Bought GK: Jose Molina (Levante) ? Free DEF: Igor Tudor (Juventus) ? Free, Glen Johnson (Chelsea) ? Free MID: Alberto Aquilani (Real Madrid) - $9.25M, Andrea Gasbarroni (Juventus) ? Free, Jesus Navas (Sevilla) - Free FOR: Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid) - $25MSold DEF: Guglielmo Stendardo (Bordeaux) - $475K MID: Roberto Baronio (Vicenza) - $1M FOR: Roberto Soldado (Torino) - $3.4M, Stephen Makinwa (Middlesbrough) - $5MAll sold guys were not performing good. Though half of them found themselves in their new clubs. Saying about newcomers, I would admit that Aguero is a real wonderkid who had been considered to be replace for Tomasso Rocchi (and be better than he had been in the first two seasons). Alberto Aquilani is central midfielder for the first team squad surely. Glen Johnson was signed also for closin...
More About: Story , Football , Manager , Season , My Story

My story with Football Manager 2007: Lazio, the 2nd season
2007-10-05 21:23:00
After success of the first season my Lazio was targeted at fighting for Seria A title. And, of course, I was cherishing some hopes about success in the Champions League season. The success meant for me ? getting through to the quarter final of the tournament.Transfers before the seasonBoughtMID: Yildiray Basturk (Hertha) - Free FOR: Roberto Soldado (Real Madrid) ? Free, Stephen Makinwa (Palermo) ? $3.8MSold FOR: Simone Inzaghi (Messina) - $475KNot really big changes. We wanted to secure a good style of playing achieved during the first season. For that Soldado and Makinwa were attracted as substitutes for the main forwards - Rocchi and Pandev. Yuildiray Basturk was signed with a high hope of doing playmaker from him.So the season had started with two confident wins over Grasshoppers in the Champions League qualification. And we got to the group with Manchester United, Lyon and Shakhtar. Not easy one, but not mortal :) The next two away games were very hard and lost: 2:4 with M...
More About: Story , Football , Manager , Season , My Story

FM 2008 demo - download link on Vanilla version
2007-09-30 18:04:00
I've just noticed, dear readers, that many of you are seeking for FM 2008 demo appeared today. Unfortunately, sigames.com is not available now. Seems like that site was overloaded by user requests... But I managed to get so desired "Vanilla " version! And you can easily download from the following page:Download link on FM 2008 demoSo, guys, lets play together!!! :) And, of course, welcome back to this blog!
More About: Link , Demo , Version

My story with Football Manager 2007: Lazio, the 1st season
2007-09-28 22:50:00
I started managing Lazio in FM07 this winter and have been this game playing till the moment. Long time for one game, yup? :) But I would say I really relish the game...So lets get started! Lazio is a football club having prospects to become a grand-champion. I took it as manager having just right that target. There was enough two month for setting up playing style of team and tactics I like. The choice fell for standard wing-attacking 4-4-2 on counter attacks. Transfers before the first seasonBought: Cesare Natali (Udinese) ? $7.5M, Nicola Legrottaglie (Juventus) - $1.8M, Antonio Lopes (Sevilla) - $2.2MSold: Matteo Sereni (Parma) - $3.3MAlmost $12M for all. Lazio is not poor club, but not rich one. Therefore I decided to spend the most of the transfer funds on a good and solid center defender (Natali) who can take care of air balls and be concentrated tackler guarding access to gates.The main intrigue with Lazio was its starting fine of minus 11 points. But we played really cool ...
More About: Story , Football , Manager , Season , My Story

FM 2008 Demo
2007-09-27 16:12:00
According to the last news from SIGames the demo of 2008 .html">Football Manager 2008 will be released this Sunday (the 30th of September). There are going to be two different versions of the demo for each PC and Mac though only half of season is allowed to play. I?m not sure that this is enough for us. Anyway we all will wait the release of FM 2008 impatiently. Two vesions of the demo - ?Strawberry? and ?Vanilla?. ?Strawberry? includes all player pictures and logo?s, with quickstarts from the world?s biggest leagues. ?Vanilla? is just English language, and features the English and Scottish leagues, with no player photo?s or logo?s to try and keep the size of the download down.
More About: Demo

History
2007-09-25 20:44:00
From the very beginning there is a short history of my experience with football managers. I'm 25 years old now, and the first manager for me was Football Limited in 1996. It was a funny new kind of games? Of course, being 14 years old, I didn't follow all the championships and football life at all, though that was not need because Football Limited was not a simulator of football life? My football interests grew seriously two years later after I had got Championship Manager 97/98 and started the first season with the famous English club ? Arsenal (my favourite team now :) ). I had been playing this team for a rather long period in the game - 11 seasons? Dennis Bergkamp, Tony Adams, Ian Wright, David Seaman ? really great footballers whom I remember from the starting squad of the first season. So since that time I played many different football manager games. But the mainstream is, for sure, CM/FM series from Sports Interactive Games. I played every new game from all the time till t...
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Hello people!
2007-09-25 20:04:00
First of all I welcome people who love football and are fond of playing football manager. This blog is about my experience with football managers. It will contain my minds over this fascinating genre of games including some interesting remarks about the past, the present and the future of the game (FM 2007) I have been playing since the previous year.And I would like also to say sorry in advance for my English, because it is not my native language :)
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