Life in FM http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk Thinking inside the box Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:33:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en Goal Kick http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/career-game/liverpool-fc/goal-kick/ http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/career-game/liverpool-fc/goal-kick/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:33:49 +0000 To Madeira http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/?p=57 In an attempt in improve Life in FM, I can announce that I will be working more closely with popular Football Manager site http://www.goal-kick.net which has been around the scene for sometime and has and is doing some great things.

I will take up a staff role on the forums hoping to help with the continuing improvement of the site. Life in FM will live on within the wall of GK and the domain of the site has now changed to http://lifeinfm.goal-kick.net

So please update your bookmarks, I would like to Thank Rob at The Portal for all his help while the site has been hosted here.

Regards,

]]> http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/career-game/liverpool-fc/goal-kick/feed/ Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 6 http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-6/ http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-6/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:00:38 +0000 To Madeira http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/?p=50 The first of the round of games we bring to you is just for the decision of who will win the group giving the better draw as Germany and Sweden go head-to-head.  Schmitdt opened the scoring, 10 minutes in good position allowed him space, when the ball came in he fired it past Isaksson. A tough half finished 1-0, the second half began and Busch doubled Germany’s lead as he fired from outside the box, poor Swedish positioning once again letting the Germans in. But Sweden quickly got back into the game straight from the kick off Sweden attacked, Farnerud found Zlatan inside the box who headed Sweden back. Sweden changed to the familiar 4-2-4 and with 2 minute to go Zlatan was the goal maker this time who put Elmander on sight of goal and hit it home 2-2. But the Swedish comeback was deflated when Schmidts ended the scoring in a scrappy final goal.

Germany 3-2 Sweden

Scotland didn’t have anything now to play for but pride, and came out of the stocks quickly a fantastic goal from Ross Wallace who ran from deep into the box in time to meet a Hutton cross. It was Scotland’s first goal of the tournament and what a goal! But the lead only last half an hour, Andy Webster giving away a penalty, Rotan stepped up to the spot to miss, the rebound came back to him and once again Craig Gordon got to the ball, but he didnt get it far enough away and Oleg Husyev tapped the ball into the net. Just before half time Ukraine put themselves into the lead Husyev corner headed home by Chygrynski to take away the pride Scotland were playing for. Scotland had a better second half but just couldn’t find the back of the net.

Scotland 1-2 Ukraine

France who had already qualified took on Switzerland who still had a chance of going through if they won and the other game went their way. But it only took a minute for France to score, Ben Arfa who was getting his first chance of the tournament, picking up the ball in the box and expertly turning Djourou to score with his second touch. Ben Arfa didn’t waste any time getting his second and the architect was Nasri another player getting his first chance of the tournament in for the injured Toulanlan, curling the ball into Ben Arfa who struck it home in a match Switzerland didn’t even turn up to.

France 2-0 Switzerland

Other results in Group A Turkey 1-1 Poland, the hosts qualifying from the group

Group C went into the final games in an exciting mood, any team could qualify and all really had fate in their own hands. First up was Holland and Serbia. Sneijder opened the scoring when Boulahrouz put the ball into the middle finding space for Wesley who struck it into the top corner and by half time Holland thought they had wrapped the game up and qualification, Van Persie crossing the ball in from the byline Huntelaar jumping higher then three Serbian players to end the half 2-0. Holland had 22 chances throughout the game and the majority of the ball, but that made them complacent and leaving holes at the back which Rakic exploited with two goals but the result was enough to see Holland through.

Holland 2-2 Serbia

But all this meant that Italy had to beat the Czech Republic to go through, and Spalletti had to get a result from his home country to progress. Nervous times inside the stadium as neither knew how the teams would go at it. When Jiri Kladrubsky was ordered off the field after injuring Gilardino in a professional foul. But the knock didn’t stop Gilardino spurring him on to score the first goal of the game. From the corner Kalouda didn’t move out quick enough with the rest of the back four and when the ball came back in from deep Alberto was in a dream position for the goal. But Rosicky put the game level again from a wonderful strike from way out. In the second half Italy once again got themselves infront, Gilardino pulling the ball back to Rosina who slotted home and the game looked won, but with 85 minutes to go Kalouda who was to blame for the first goal repaid his team from another wonderful strike, this time the Italians were caught out of the position when the free kick came in and Kalouda curled the ball around the players and into the corner. The game ended a draw which was enough to knock out the Italians.

Czech Republic 2-2 Italy

Leaving only one thing to decide, will England be joining the eight sides in the quarter finals? England met once again the side that had kept us out of the 2008 competition, Croatia. England dominated the game but just couldn’t find the back of the net, I am thinking taking just four strikers is something that might haunt Rafa. The guys up front really weren’t on form today and both replaced by Crouch and Defoe and it was the latter who was to thank for striking England through, a wonderful strike from outside the box to rival the two Republic goals with 10 minutes to go this was enough for the win.

England 1-0 Croatia

Spain had nothing to play for now and could use this game as a run around ready for a push in the next round. The only action in the game was an early flurry of goals in the first 10 minutes. Torosidis lofting a brilliant ball from the back to Konstantinos who found himself behind the Spanish back line, there was plenty of protests for offside and they could have had a point. But Alfaro quickly replied with a goal scoring from an Alonso cross.

Spain 1-1 Greece

]]> http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-6/feed/ Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 5 http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-5/ http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-5/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:01:02 +0000 To Madeira http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/?p=49 Scotland once again showed that they were out of their depth even with one of the best managers in British history, Gus Hiddink also showed he was a magician. Sweden played good football throughout the game, Scotland conceded their second consecutive goal in the first minute. Rosenberg opened the scoring and although they dominated the game, Sweden also left it late to score the winner Rosenberg again with 7 minutes to go struck the ball past Iain Turner and Sweden became the first team to qualify from the group stages.

Sweden 2-0 Scotland

Other Result in Group B Germany 3-0 Ukraine, Ukraine the first of the hosts to be knocked out and Germany qualified.

Rafa vs Spain next as England look for another victory to assure qualification. But it was two former players of Rafa’s that punished England. Xabi Alonso opened the scoring on the 35th minute, Rafa tried to beat his home country in this game, but the Spaniards showed why they were best team in the World. El Nino, Torres scored late to secure the victory for the Spain just after Casillas continued bad discipline record in the Spain camp being the second player to be sent off.

Spain 2-0 England

Other Result in Group D Croatia 1-2 Greece

Next up for Zidane was Turkey, it was surprisingly a tough game for France and Turkey gave a real fight, and look to push for qualification from the group. But the difference was in who could actually take their chances and Menez who was having a fantastic tournament and struck twice to give France the win in the first half. But the most worrying thing for the French is in this game they have three players stretched off, Sakho, Ribery and Toulalan. The former two will struggle to be back in time for the end of the tournament, but France have qualified for the next round.

France 2-0 Turkey

Other result in Group A Switzerland 0-1 Poland

Group C showed that it was the toughest of all the other groups, as we have Paul Jewell meeting Spalletti, one of our sides had to go from this group each not wanting it to be the team to do so. Daniel Pudil scored early to give the Czech’s the lead, bad defending from Ron Vlaar giving the ball away gave Pudil the chance on goal. But after the half hour mark, a flurry of action occurred to get the fans going, first off Huntelaar levelled the scoring to put Holland back into the game only for Grygera two minutes later put the advantage back with Czech Republic. Five minutes after that the Republic were to blame for their own downfall Simunek being to blame for a Huntelaar fall, Man of the Match Van Persie stepped up to slot the ball into the net to end the half and the game 2-2.

Holland 2-2 Czech Republic

Italy got themselves back on track and took advantage of the other game finishing deadlocked. Not an exciting game and infact Italy played like Italy and not the attacking football you may expect from Zola a guy who spent many years playing in an English system. Gilardino scored after 15 minutes getting on the end of a corner to get his first goal of the tournament. But then Rossi who was looking to contend for the golden boot scored just after half an hour to give Italy their first victory.

Serbia 0-2 Italy

]]> http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-5/feed/ Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 4 http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-4/ http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-4/#comments Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:38:06 +0000 To Madeira http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/?p=48 The opening game of the tournament was Sir Alex Ferguson vs Ze Germans! and it wasn’t one of Ferguson’s finest moments in football. Winning the league with Manchester United before he came out obviously made him a bit worse for wear. From the start the German side was all over Scotland, Schippers firing early just after kick off to give them the lead. Not long after that was doubled when Holger Schmidt scoring in the 5th minute. Schmidst blastered himself to the top of the goal scoring charts with his second goal a fantastic move from Germany who threw themselves forward all game. Busch ended Scotland’s misery for some of the Scots to get the hair dryer treatment at full time from Alex.

Scotland 0 - 4 Germany

Sweden faced Ukraine next in Group B and after reaching the final of the World Cup will hope to live up to the expectations put upon them now. One guy that usually cracks under pressure is Zlatan Ibrahimovic but this time he opened the scoring, a through ball from Kallstrom, sending him through as he used his pace to get into the box and fire home. In the 75th minute is was a chance from the spot that doubled the scoring, Alexander Farnerud slotting it in the corner to gain our first win of the tournament

Sweden 2-0 Ukraine

The European and World Champions took on Croatia in what a heated game against the two teams, but Spain played like Champions throughout the game, keeping hold of the ball and putting as many shots on goal as they could. Pietikosa had a good game between the sticks for Croatia but couldn’t stop David Villa in the 10th minute from heading home a cross from Silva to make it 1-0, but that is how it stayed. Both Iniesta and Eduardo were shown the tunnel after both receiving two yellow cards, in a game with many hard hitting tackles.

Spain 1-0 Croatia

For this European Championships you don’t have to choose between France or Spain, Italy or Portugal. England are here in the Ukraine and Poland for these games and you can get behind our Football Manager side managed by Rafa. Greece though took an early lead against England in a close game, Greece playing their usual defensive way with England playing attacking football. It was Dimitris Papadopoulos who fired the first goal with their only shot of the game. But England played a fantastic game and in the second half came out even stronger, Walcott and Rooney up front was terrifying for any defender trying to keep up. Walcott struck twice in the game to secure a win for England.

England 2-0 Greece

Hosts Poland were the opponents for France and home soil made no difference to the performance of the Poles and France revelled in the game. Menez scored the first goal, running in from the right into the box to put the ball behind Boruc to open the scoring. Before half time the game was over and young striker Benzema put the ball into the back of the net to give Zidane a win in his opening game.

France 2-0 Poland

Other Group A result Turkey 1-1 Switzerland

The first meeting of two of our teams was the clash between Italy and Holland. First blood went to Zola’s side, Rossi showing that he was learning under the talents of Zola and in his mould the striker went past two players to hit the ball from outside the box to open the scoring. But what ever Paul Jewell said at half time really did get instant results, straight from kick off Van Persie quickly attacked Buffons goal to draw level. Then De Zeeuw quickly took the ball back from the kick off and put it infront of Huntelaar who straight away put Holland in the lead. A very tight game which either side could have won, but Holland did on this occasion

Italy 1-2 Holland

Spalletti who had just watched his country lose to Holland would not want to see his own team suffer the same fate as Czech Republic met Eastern European rivals Serbia. The first half was contested well and as the sides went in at half time the game was still in deadlock. It took just over an hour before score was opened and it came from the spot, Rosicky being clattered to the ground and he then getting up to take the spot kick. After that Serbia were forced to go forward leaving space for Fenin who doubled the scoring.

Czech Republic 2-0 Serbia

]]> http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-4/feed/ Best For the Kids? http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/best-for-the-kids/ http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/best-for-the-kids/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:53:23 +0000 To Madeira http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/?p=56 Looking around the internet forums, the FM scene has never had it so good, how can anyone say that the community is dying when we have some great Football Manager communities to meet everyone’s needs of the new Football Manager player. But anyway I noticed a thread upon one of these forums asking about co-ownership which many gamers will know is a major part of Italian football when developing young players. That got me thinking, is the system in Italy a better system to help their youngsters reach a their full potential?

So I felt a proper experiment was obviously needed to see which system works best for these young players. The experiment will start off with a group of clones, identical players that play in the same position, same attributes and same fixed CA and PA to make it all fair. I will then subject the group of players to different enviromental conditions and see which of them.

The idea really came about because I pondered, whether the co-ownership system in Italy works better than the system used in other countries, so the first group of players will join up with Serie B teams half of which will already be co-owned with the top clubs in Italy while the rest will be left to their own devices.

Next up we will be looking at the English league, were we will have a group of players joining up with Championship sides, a group of players in the Premier League but affiliated with clubs with decent training facilities in lower leagues. Then the next task is to test out training facilities vs trainers, this will only need three of our clones, one will join a club with state of the art training facilities but poor coaches, the other will be the visa versa and then a control will be somewhere in the middle. But what I am going to do with the club with the poor training facilities is give them a state of the art youth academy and see how the new players from that side progress, along with another side in Italy doing the same.

How it will be measured?

As usual with all the experiments that are done on the site I will the game out in holiday mode for a number of years and we will log the progress of each of our clones. But from that we won’t be able to see the hidden attributes from within the game so using FM Scout we will be able to track statistically the progress of our players in the game.

This is by no means a perfect test, to get a dead cert answer to what is the best system it would mean rigirious testing over many different games and many more sitatutions and countries, with so many variables time contraints that would not be possible. But I think it will be an interesting insight to how the game works and it may even help some people in their own quest to youth development. Feel free to suggest your own situations that we could throw our clones in as well.

]]> http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/best-for-the-kids/feed/ Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 3 http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-3/ http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/what-if/managerial-reversal-european-championships-special-part-3/#comments Thu, 29 May 2008 10:57:59 +0000 To Madeira http://lifeinfm.footballmanagerportal.co.uk/?p=46 The squads have been named and look like this:

France

Goalkeepers

Sebastien Frey (Fiorentina), Hugo Lloris (Milan), Steve Mandanda (Marseille)

Defenders

Phillippe Mexes (Roma), Mamadou Sakho (Paris SG), Sebastian Squillaci (Lyon), Bakary Sagna (Arsenal), Gael Clichy (R. Madrid), Armand Traore (Arsenal), Francois Clerc (Lyon), Mathieu Bodmer (Milan) Samir Nasri (Marseille)

Midfielders

Younousse Sankhare (Paris SG), Abou Diaby (Lazio), Benoit Pedretti (Fiorentina), Jeremy Toulalan (Lyon), Franck Ribery (FC Bayern),

Forwards

Hatem Ben Arfa (Lyon), Yoann Gouffran (Tottenham), Jeremy Menez (Manchester United), Gabriel Obertan (Bordeaux), Karim Benzema (Lyon), Andre-Pierre Gignac (Lazio)

Sweden

Goalkeepers

Andreas Isaksson (Torino), Rami Shaaban (Club Brugge), Ivo Vazgec (Larisa)

Defenders

Olef Mellberg (Rimini), Anes Mravec (Williem II), Martin Olsson (Getafe), Robert Ahman-Persson (Panathinakos), Andreas Granqvist (Wigan), Jon Jonsson (Auxerre), Mikael Lustig (Reggina), Mikael Dorsin (West Brom)

Midfielders

Sebastian Larsson (Catania), Tobias Linderoth (Free Agent), Pontus Fernerud (Lavente), Samuel Holman (Monaco), Alexander Fernerud (Stuttgart), Kim Kallstrom (Lyon), Niklas Barkroth (Cadiz)

Forwards

Johan Elmander (Catania), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter), Marcus Berg (Lazio), Henok Goitom (Reggina), Markus Rosenburg (Villerrael)

Scotland

Goalkeepers

Craig Gordan (Celtic), David Marshall (Norwich), Iain Turner (Derby)

Defenders

Mark Wilson (Celtic), Mark Reynolds (Middlesbrough), Garry Kenneth (Rangers), Stephen McManus (Celtic), Andy Webster (Wigan), Alan Hutton (Tottenham), Steven Smith (Rangers), Lee Wallace (Empoli), Ross Wallace (Wigan)

Midfielders

Ian Black (Cardiff), Darren Flectcher (Manchester United), Kevin Thomson (Blackburn), Scott Brown (Manchester City), Chris Burke (Rangers), James Morrison (Sunderland)

Forwards

Shaun Maloney (Torino), James McFadden (Celtic), Kevin Cawley (Celtic), Danny Swannson (Portsmouth), Derek Riordan (Derby)

Holland

Goalkeepers

Tim Krul (Southampton), Erwin Mulder (HSV), Maarten Stekelenburg (Bolton)

Defenders

John Heitinga (Bordeaux), Gianni Zuiverloon (PSV), Edson Braafheid (Getafe), Joris Mathijsen (HSV), Khalid Boulahrouz (Blackburn), Ron Vlaar (Deportivo), Hedwiges Maduro (Valencia), Jan Kromkamp (Marseille)

Midfielders

Royston Drenthe (R. Madrid), Nigel De Jong (At. Madrid), Demy de Zeeuw (AZ), Jonathan De Guzman (Inter), Rafael Van der Vaart (Roma) Arjen Robben (R. Madrid), Wesley Sneijder (R. Madrid)

Forwards

Robin Van Persie (Arsenal), Ryan Babel (Liverpool), Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (Chelsea), Dirk Kuyt (Bolton), Genero Zeefuik (PSV)

Czech Republic

Goalkeeper

Petr Cech (Chelsea), Michal Danek (Sunderland), Radek Petr (Catania)

Defenders

Zdenek Grygera (Juventus), Jiri Kladrubsky (Messina), Milan Kopic (Genona), Michal Kadlec (Sevilla), Jan Simunek (Wolfsburg), David Rozehnal (Catania), Tomas Sivok (Derby), Marek Suchy (Torino), Lukas Kuban (AZ), Michal Svec (Fiorentina)

Midfielders

Jaroslav Plasil (Osasuna), Daniel Pudil (Messina), Michal Held (Slavia Prague), Jan Polak (Bochum), Lubos Kalouba (Lyon), Tomas Rosicky (Zaragoza)

Forwards

Tomas Necid (Heerenveen), Martin Fenin (Valencia), Michal Papadopoulos (Leverkusen), Vaclav Sverkos (AZ)

Italy

Goalkeeper

Marco Amelia (Lyon), Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Gianluca Curci (Roma)

Defenders

Marco Andreolli (Roma), Cristian Zaccardo (Juventus), Domenico Criscito (Juventus), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Andra Barzagli (Juventus), Lorenzo De Silvestri (Inter), Manuel Pasqual (Roma), Fabiano Santacroce (Napoli)

Midfielders

Daniele De Rossi (Roma), Andrea Pirlo (Milan), Luca Cigarini (Espanyol), Pasquale Foggia (Lazio), Alessandro Rosina (Arsenal), Alberto Aquilani (Roma), Riccardo Montolivo (Juventus)

Forwards

Antonio Cassano (Espanyol), Sebastian Giovinco (Juventus), Lauri Dalla Valle (Lazio), Giuseppe Rossi (Juventus), Alberto Gilardino (Milan)

England

Goalkeepers

Scott Carson (Liverpool, Ben Foster (Manchester United), Paul Robinson (Tottenham)

Defenders

Nedum Onuosha (Chelsea), Micah Richards (Manchester United), Wayne Richards (Bolton), Gary Cahill (Aston Villa), Curtis Davies (Manchester City), John Terry (Chelsea), Ryan Taylor (Tottenham), Ashley Cole (Chelsea)

Midfielders

Michael Carrick (Manchester United) Micheal Johnson (Manchester United), David Bentley (Espanyol), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City), Steward Downing (West Ham), Jermaine Jenas (Zaragoza), Danny Rose (Tottenham)

Forwards

Theo Walcott (Blackburn), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Peter Crouch (Liverpool), Jermain Defoe (Aston Villa)

Spain

Goalkeepers

Iker Casillas (R. Madrid), Jose Manuel Reina (Manchester City), Victor Valdes (Barcelona)

Defenders

Alexis (Valencia), Sergio Ramos (R. Madrid), Emiliano Insua (Roma), Pablo (Inter), Raul Albiol (Valencia), Cesar Arzo (Sevilla), Gerard Pique (FC Bayern), Antonio Lopez (At. Madrid)

Midfielders

Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal), Xabi Alonso (Liverpool), Xavi (Barcelona), Silva (Valencia), Andrea Iniesta (Barcelona)

Forwards

Alejandro Alfaro (Fiorentina), Aquino (Valencia), Aaron (Aston Villa), Imsa Lopez (Athletic Bilbao), Jose Antonio Reyes (At. Madrid), Fernando Torres (Liverpool), David Villa (Valencia)

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