Setanta's first instalment of £31m for rights to EPL games is due tomorrow. In light of the fact that they couldn't make a £3m payment last week to the SPL, that should be the last straw. They are so hard up that this week they asked Sky for a £50m loan, a fantastic business opportunity for Sky to prop up their main competitor in the UK, which they very surprisingly declined to take up 
Setanta will most likely go into administration (which appears to be like the US Chapter 11) and it will continue while the accountants try to flog it as a continuing business. So either it will end up selling its programming to Sky, or else someone will buy it and its attendant EPL package to gain an entry into the UK market.
Eurosport FTW!
On DirecTV you can pay for a sports package that includes two Fox Soccer Channels (English and Spanish [and yes they show different matches]) and GolTV. On Comcast I pay $5 for Fox Soccer (English) and GolTV. I also get a couple of Spanish language channels that show Mexican League matches and Mexico's international matches. I think for a few more dollars there is a package to get more Spanish language channels that include ESPN Deportes and Fox Soccer (Spanish).
I just changed from DirecTV to Optimum and I have over a dozen dedicated soccer channels now. FSC, GolTV, ESPN Deportes, and a bunch of others. I'm set!
Fernando Torres is second star on cover of PES 2010 STOP It looks amazing STOP FIFA can't do realistic faces STOP
FIFA's players have looked very much like slightly horrifying Zombie Homunculi since they made the jump to 360, yes.
Although, again, we are not playing Pro Evolution Soccer: Xtreme Beach Volleyball here, are we? 
(Also, PES gets no slack from me on getting their star players right when they can't figure out how to do black people at all [See the horror that has been Michael Essien the last two years]).
That gem is a DM in Third Brazilian League. I had first option, I bought him for 7k euros.
He's the best player in club already. I wonder how much Barca will pay.
UCRC, I had been away from my LLM save for months until I saw you post that regen. I saw this guy and I thought, "hmm in my save pre-season friendlies are just about to start ... maybe I can make a good pickup like this." You are an enabler. 
Make me proud
Short, most simple comparison of PES2009 vs 2010 graphics. Neat.
Is there any chance of getting weekday games going in FIFA 09 10-player co-op? I just starting playing online (360) recently and it's a blast. Whose got it and for which platform?
Something I been wondering about FM09. Is there an editor option this year (mine's the Steam version) ?
Something I been wondering about FM09. Is there an editor option this year (mine's the Steam version) ?
Yep, you have editor in your steamapps folder, in game dir in 'tools' or something like that.
btw: What are you trying to do?
My current save is... back to Cardiff (some of you probably remember from the very first page of this topic that I was mad about managing that team in FM 08). I'm in middle of 2008/09 and it's as hard as in previous game: no transfer budget, strict wages, small balanced squad with Joe Ledley being only better-than-average player. I love this type of game. In my first six-seven games I got myself into relegation zone just to turn it around and climb to mid-table.
Go on, have a guess...
I might wait for a week or so though, still space for another defender...
Anyone interested in the Fantasy Premier League for season 09/10 ?
http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ind...
It's free to enter and I can set up a private league easily enough, all you will need then is the code to enter it.
I'm not sure. It's probably going to be fun but when October comes (university) I won't have time to tinker with my XI on weekly basis.
edit: I just won promotion to EPL via playoffs in my first season with Cardiff. That was probably the most undeserved promotion I've ever seen in this game ;] Anyway, it's going to be fun now, I have 3 players with four stars ('good' level) and rest are three stars or less, club lost about 10m and ends season with big negative balance. Looks like I'm going to be in good old-fashioned relegation battle next season.
Meanwhile, Newcastle finished 6th in Premier.
edit 2: however, Cardiff moves into all new St. David's Stadium, which is 30000 all-seater (and I presume it can be expanded to create even more revenue because Cardiff is not such small city) so next year's balance should look better
I've just edited City's transfers to date in....now let's see what's what
I've just edited City's transfers to date in....now let's see what's what :)
What formation do you want to use with that striker overkill?
Anyone pre ordering FM10 yet? got an email from SI a few days ago. to be honest I haven't kept up with it, and FM09 has been my least played FM prety much ever. I'm too lazy to research it myself but are there any real new features to sell me on 10?
davet010 wrote:I've just edited City's transfers to date in....now let's see what's what :)
What formation do you want to use with that striker overkill?
Striker overkill ? I think you'll find that a good many of them are moving on IRL
Jo - loan to Everton
Evans - sold to Sheff Utd, £3m
Caicedo - loan to Sporting Lisbon
Benjani - will be sold by start of season, probably to Sunderland/Portsmouth
For the first game, a UEFA Cup 1st prelim round game against some Albanian outfit, I went with 4-4-2 and the following team
Given
Zabalata
Toure
Onuoha
Bridge
Elano
Ireland
Barry (c)
Petrov
Adebayor
Tevez
Result - City 6-0 win, Adebayor (3), Elano (2), Ireland
Adebayor and Elano both got 9.4 marks, highest I've had in the current version.
Elano's left for Galatasaray. So 4-0.
Elano's left for Galatasaray. So 4-0.
Not in my game - I'd have rather City sold SWP, but to be honest Elano is the very epitome of the 'I'll play when I can be arsed' footballer. God help him in Turkey, though it's nothing like the reception Darius Vassell got at Ancarugu or whatever they're called.
Anyone pre ordering FM10 yet? got an email from SI a few days ago. to be honest I haven't kept up with it, and FM09 has been my least played FM prety much ever. I'm too lazy to research it myself but are there any real new features to sell me on 10?
Nothing announced yet, but they've confirmed that tactics will get main overhaul, with more simplified 'tactic creator' and ability to shout instructions to players during game a la FM Live, instead of changing your whole tactics.
edit: Oh, and a screen from Jacobson's twitter:
The early word sounds nice, but unless there's been some major, game-changing changes (Improved Scouting, Media Interaction, etc), I may stay with 09 until i'm less cash-strapped.
The early word sounds nice, but unless there's been some major, game-changing changes (Improved Scouting, Media Interaction, etc), I may stay with 09 until i'm less cash-strapped.
I'll probably make a transition because of new database. You see, when you've played two-four seasons with teams of every calibre (Arsenal, MK Dons, Cardiff, Atletico, CENE [Brazilian Third League] + brief adventures in Poland, Holland, France, Italy, Argentina, Croatia...*) you know most of database in and out. It's no fun to play in Premier League anymore when I know that best players I can buy for 15m are A, B and C. It was great the first time when I got there with MK Dons and built the best team in the world, but now it would be just like playing with walkthrough, and that's why I've dropped Cardiff save as soon as I got promoted.
*Damn, I've just admitted that I have no life.
We pretty much knew it already
I started a 25 league game with England being the only top tier playable nation, the rest are the smaller less glamorous leagues. I'm currently trying to keep Dynamo Bryansk out of the Russian first divisions relegation zone, with only 1 striker registered for the competition (who picked up a 2 month injury in the first match), a right winger with a temper (4 match ban for fighting) and a subs bench made up entirely of greyed out players, plus I'm stringently adhering to LLM rules, no player or staff searches for me, just whoever my scouts recommend and staff that answer my job ads. Good Times
EDIT: I'm running an ultra defensive 4-5-1 trying o pick up anything I can on the break, and shutting out my vastly superior oppositions.
What makes the Russian first division really hard is that 7 out of 22 teams get relegated at the end of the season.
7 out of 22 ? Is that normal, or are they doing some sort of restructuring ?
apparently that's normal, 2 teams get promoted to Russian Premier, and 7 teams go down to the lower leagues. I think it's weird that a third of a division goes down, but hey, that's how they roll in Russia.
Wait. 7 down. 2 promoted. That means that in 5 years they will have -3 teams playing in Premier.
Meanwhile, my new save is Toulouse FC. I wanted to try out Ligue 1 because I have no experience in it, I don't know any players etc. etc. Fresh start. Just like in real life I was expected to just avoid relegation, but it looks much better right now. I've checked and it turns out that in 2008/09 the real Toulouse almost got themselves into first four (CL spots).
I love this squad because it's ideal to experiment with 4-2-2-2, which is unusual and ineffective in all other leagues. You play normal back four, two holding midfielders (who are my best prospects, both young, big, athletic players), two wingers on normal ML/MR positions and two strikers with one of the playing deeper because lack of traditional MCs creates void in the middle.
You have to set up both DMs to zonal marking close down ALWAYS. I never go to the extremes with sliders, but this is a must because they're operating quite remotely from oppositions midfielders.
Three great advantages of playing two holding deep midfielders are:
a) This formation almost never loses shape. When you play regular MCs you can often see 'domino' effect in classical 442 vs 442: your MC goes into a challenge in middle of the park, 40-50 m from goal, misses his opponent, in turn your second MC has to mark two players now, and AI has huge space to operate in front of your box with easy opportunity to go for a long shot etc. In 4-2-2-2 DMs stay behind the ball until the play gets really congested and they can risk a challenge without opening up big areas.
b) Your full-backs can play gung-ho. This is a perfect solution for teams who utilise fast or creative full-backs who can cross. Given that my left back is Florent Mathieu (never heard of him, but turns out that he might be one of best left-backs in the game), it's perfect to put him on high forward runs and give him a lot of creativity, knowing that I won't be outnumbered at the back if AI counter-attacks.
c) Possession. If you have two DMs they are really removed from danger zone where AI will close them down wildly. Meaning that they can dwell on ball and pick their passes as they like. If you're paying attention to stats you probably know that in classical 442s defensive MCs are most likely to have high pass ratio, because they play short, easy passes. Now, it's the same but it's double the pleasure.'
M'kay, back to game. Just thought I'll share it as I know that all of you play FM right now. It's simple tactic that and probably can be put to use by even mediocre teams. Let me know if you want more feedback.
No, sorry if I didn't explain that properly, in Russia there is Premier THEN First, I'm in First. two from First goto Premier, two from Premier drop to First, and 7 from First drop to lower leagues.
Oh and I have to disregard all your tactical advice as it goes against my Sunday Leaguer LLM sensibilities, I'll stick with my Christmas Pudding formation
A cookie if you get the movie reference.
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