True Football Manager 2010 / 2009

Football Manager 2010 Kits

2009-11-29T09:32:00.002+02:00

Today I want to present another portion of FM graphics – Football Manager 2010 kits. It contains more than 2900 kits of different teams! If I am not mistaken this kits pack was created by guys from FMGlive.com

Arsenal

Juventus

How to download Football Manager 2010 kits

I uploaded the file with FM 2010 kits to several file sharing web services. You can choose any of them for downloading:

Kits on SendSpace.com
Kits on ZShare.net
Kits on GigaSize.com

FM 2010 kits installation steps

Unpack the RAR file using 7-Zip or WinRar.
Copy its unpacked content to folder “graphics” subfolder of your Football Manager “user data” folder (if “graphics” folder is absent - create it!).
For being able to see kits from installed pack you must have the following settings in FM 2010 Preferences:

- Use Skin Cache = Off
- Always Reload Skin on Confirm = On

League 1 will be won

2009-11-26T08:32:00.001+02:00

Dear readers, I am in the middle of February with Leeds United. Now you will get an information about my latest matches and squad changes during winter transfer window.

Latest results

Comfortable 10 points lead allowed to try changing squad easily. In first 4 matches of January Leeds gained only 1 point. The reason of such poor performance was intention to sell several players and their unhappiness about that. Few of them were sold by the way. I am going to describe my transfers below.

I don’t think it’s really interesting to tell you in details about League 1 matches. Definitely Leeds had an absolute advantage in the most of them. Moreover, it was rather predictable. I have even started thinking about going on holiday to miss several League 1 matches and approach the next season more quickly…

But one of the most funny and emotional games was against Leyton Orient:

Follow the goal minutes and how the score had been changing: 1:0, 1:1, 1:2, 2:2, 3:2, 3:3, 3:4, 3:5

It’s a pity but FA Cup match with Bristol City was suddenly lost. Though my team showed better football and earned victory having more shots, corners and possession… But it’s a football. Now we can only win Johnstone’s Paint Trophy – and we are close to the victory. The final against Southampton awaits in the end of March!

Leeds Players

Transfers

I had many hopes on this transfer window. Just wanted to sell several players whose price grown up to $2M and higher and buy better guys instead of them. Actually it was my intention of preparation to the next season in the Championship. I think it’s very efficient if you buy new players in the winter window – they will have enough time to adopt in a team and adjust to a new team play.

Players Out

Nevertheless I didn’t cope with task of selling Bromby, Williams and Michalik (their total price is over $9M together!). Only Snodgrass and van der Meyde were sold to other clubs. Why I sold my main wingers? Because they’re slow! I think flank players must be fast and explosive.

Players In

Another problem I met is that the reputation of Leeds and its manager (me ) is not enough to get players of really high quality. In spite of this fact the following transfers were made:

19 years old Cameroonian Teicou was bought for $1M + $2.4M of monthly instalments stretched out for 2 years. He will be play as MC in the main squad.

The most valuable signing is central defender Roman Hubnik:

Joel Lindpere is a replacement of Snodgrass with better speed and crossing abilities.

Player stats

And now some statistics about Leeds players:

Pair of quick forwards – Jermaine Beckford and Andriy Yarmolenko – is a very complicated problem for all League 1 clubs. They have already scored almost 40 goals together!

Among other players I would like to single out Sol Campbell. His experience and wonderful pitch vision allows us to escape unneeded goal moments.

Previous posts of Leeds United story, season 1:

- Excellent start in the League One!

- Season expectations and first transfers

- Leeds United squad analysis

- Leeds United will be my first FM2010 team!

Football Manager 2010 Logos

2009-11-22T10:13:00.001+02:00

After Football Manager 2010 Facepacks post I was asked by many blog readers about pack of logos for the game. It wasn’t a complicated task to find it because guys from Sortitoutsi.net prepared FM 2010 Metallic logos for fans of the game as well (that wonderful 2.7GB facepack is also their work)

The size of logopack is 1.75 GB. It contains more than 17000 different club and nation logos!

Download Football Manager 2010 Logos

You can either use this Torrent link

or

download FM 2010 logos by means of the following Rapidshare links:

http://rapidshare.com/files/304914633/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part01.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/304943186/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part02.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305000117/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part03.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305036785/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part04.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305074505/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part05.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305114944/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part06.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305148829/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part07.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305181352/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part08.rar.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/305209145/Metallic_Logos_FM10.part09.rar.html

Logopack is created by www.sortitoutsi.net

FM 2010 logopack installation steps

Unpack the RAR file using 7-Zip or WinRar.
Copy its unpacked content to folder “graphics” subfolder of your Football Manager “user data” folder (if “graphics” folder is absent - create it!).
For being able to see logos from installed logopack you must have the following settings in FM 2010 Preferences:

- Use Skin Cache = Off
- Always Reload Skin on Confirm = On

Excellent start in the League One!

2009-11-19T08:51:00.001+02:00

Hello my dear readers!

The day of the next Leeds story post has come Today I am going to show results of my starting 3 months in Football Manager 2010.

Table and matches

At first I would like to boast with League One table after 14 fixtures:

Well, what I can say… Leeds United is stronger by squad than any other team in the league. My transfers before the season start have only strengthened the squad and added more flexibility. Another important reason of success is efficient tactics choice and its tuning.

Here are results of Leeds matches:

I had problems of the team play quality in the end of August, start of September. Several draws and losses happened during that period. That was caused by my tactical experiments and try-outs – 5-3-2 scheme was unsuccessfully used.

During that period Leeds was knocked out by West Brom in the 2nd round of League Cup. We were winning the game with 1:0 score after the first half and had certain advantage in performance on pitch. But then West Brom players showed very good football enclosing my team during the whole 2nd half. It was a slight shock for us – however I understand that opponent’s squad was stronger in almost all positions

Regarding other matches I would like to say we had always technical and flair advantage over opponents. It resulted in many victories with very low amount of conceded goals!

Johnstone’s Paint Trophy

I was glad to have an opportunity of participation in this tournament. Don’t understand why but JPT matches turned out very complicated for my team. Look at the 2nd round fight against Tranmere:

Series of penalties were really crazy! All 20 players scored goals apart from goalies. In the end there was some kind of duel between legendary Ian Walker (Leeds GK) and Luke Daniels (Tranmere GK). Walker struck penalty shot quite efficiently as opposed to Daniels

Tactics (new one!)

I think the most important factor of such good start is my new tactics. Starting new story in new Football Manager I decided that’s enough of 4-1-4-1 which had been the tactical scheme of Hull (FM 2009 story) and Southampton (FM 2008 story). So work over new tactics started with first friendly matches.

I am happy with quick result:

In my opinion 3-5-2 is a very special formation. I had several failures trying to tune it for different clubs in previous Football Manager versions. I remember I had success only once when this formation was used for Parma in Football Manager 2005. Therefore I was selecting roles for each position and changing individual instructions very carefully.

I will describe my tactics and the way how I use touchline shouts in one of the next posts!

Leeds Players

I would like to single out 4 players I am happy with:

Jermaine Beckford – excellent scorer with 12 goals in 16 matches. I set up Poacher role for him!

Sandrinho – seems like this Brazilian is my best transfer before the season! The most technical player in the squad. Best assister. Playmaker.

Patrick Kisnorbo – confident work in defence.

Sol Campbell – the most slow DC but he compensates this problem with fantastic pitch vision and position choice.

Looking into the future - Championship

As far as I understood I won’t have any problems in Championship’s promotion. So I have already decided to start thinking about strengthening squad! Leeds squad will changed much before the 2nd season – it’s obvious. Obvious because many players either too old and slow like Ivan Campo or merely below level of “average Championship” player.

Now I am very interested in price growth of my players. I am going to sell several guys during the winter transfer window because prices grew highly. In the very beginning Beckford was the most expensive Leeds footballer – $1.4M. At the current moment I have the following players with price about $2M:

Leigh Bromby (will be sold)

Patrick Kisnorbo (he stays, of course)

Gareth Williams (don’t know if I should sell him )

Luciano Becchio (will be sold)

Jermaine Beckford (he stays)

I have already started to rub my hands with joy of gaining transfer money in winter

Previous posts of Leeds story:

Season expectations and first transfers

Leeds United squad analysis

Leeds United will be my first FM2010 team!

Football Manager 2010 Facepacks

2009-11-15T19:22:00.009+02:00

I think facepacks are the most interesting extension of Football Manager. It’s just always pleasant to see player faces in your team or other teams. Therefore I spent several hours in the Web trying to find a really big Football Manager 2010 facepack. And I found one! It contains more than 55000 photos of players and staff. It’s certainly the best of all I’ve seen!

Several well-known faces from it:

Facepack Download Links

You can download this FM 2010 facepack through torrent: Torrent (2.7GB)

you can use these Rapidshare links:

Facepack is created by www.sortitoutsi.net

FM 2010 facepack installation steps

Unpack the ZIP file.
Copy its unpacked content to folder “graphics” subfolder of your Football Manager “user data” folder (if “graphics” folder is absent - create it!).
For being able to see faces from installed facepack you must have the following settings in FM 2010 Preferences:

- Use Skin Cache = Off
- Always Reload Skin on Confirm = On

Season expectations and first transfers

2009-11-10T21:05:00.001+02:00

Today is the day for Leeds story post.

Season expectations

The board didn’t give me any chance to choose other goal. Leeds United has certainly the best squad in Coca-Cola League 1. It means if one becomes Leeds manager he should promote the club to the Championship at least. If one doesn’t do that he is a looser

So my target for the first season – win the title of League 1!

Interesting that my club is not the top favourite by odds from Sky Bet. Charlton and Norwich are considered my closest opponents who will fight for the title.

Leeds Transfers

I didn’t define a tactical formation when I had been working on transfer market signing that or another player. I had just been thinking over Leeds tactics… So you should understand that all my new players were signed mostly separately from my tactical thoughts.

Players out

I sold several quite poor players like Grella, Ankergren, Robinson. The last one had to be sold because of his pretty high wage.

And the best sale here is the transfer of Alan Sheehan - $625K when his price was $350K!

Players in

As usually for my Football Manager stories bought players attract more attention than sold ones:

The list consists mostly of free transfers and loans. I had many free transfer clauses on different players. Some of them were lost to other clubs:

- Skacel

- Glauber

- Pablo Cavallero

- Samuel Kuffour

- Brahim Hemdani

- Stepen Appiah

- Ebi Smolarek

- Vratislav Lokvenc

Seems like I wasn’t too insistent for signing those names. From the other hand fortune turned to me with Sol Campbell, Andy van der Meyde, Gareth Williams, Carsten Janker, Ivan Campo and Ian Walker. These two are the best of them:

Sol Campbell

Former star of English national team and Arsenal. Simply the best defender in my Leeds now.

Gareth Williams

Williams is central midfielder with good passing, creativity and team work. And his age is 27 – that’s good. I am going to use him in the first squad instead of Kilkenny, Howson and other native players of Leeds United.

And, of course, I should mention Ian Walker who was signed to be the first team goalie of Leeds.

Now some words about two bought players. I think they are really special guys for my club.

Sandrinho

I intend to use Sandrinho as playmaker in my team. His Passing, Flair, Agility and Dribbling attributes inspire me to buy him for this role. Nice Brazilian from Bulgarian team .

Andriy Yarmolenko

Well, I have some kind of weakness regarding Ukrainian players just because I am Ukrainian . Therefore I was looking for an opportunity to transfer one of Ukrainian talents. Of course, I know Ukrainian footballers very well and there was no problem to make several transfer offers. The transfer offer regarding young talent of Dynamo Kiev – Andriy Yarmolenko – had been accepted and I got quick forward and winger for quite high price of $1.1M.

I am going to use Yarmolenko as second forward together with Jermaine Beckford. Becchio and Jancker will play from substitution bench actually.

And now, I should inform you that my first season has been started! Follow my blog and you will know what tactics I choose for Leeds and if I gain success with it!

Football Manager 2010 Free Players

2009-11-06T21:08:00.009+02:00

Players that you can sign for free at the very start of the game are really important if you manage any club that doesn’t belong to top 10 of English Premier League. For instance, I have signed several players for Leeds United because they will help my club and it’s for free! So I decided to prepare list of free Football Manager 2010 players grouped by positions.

Goalkeepers (GK)

Pablo Cavallero

Other decent goalies:

Maxym Levytskyi (Ukraine, 36 years)
Ian Walker (England, 37 years)
Scott Tynan (England, 25 years)
Paul Jones (Wales, 42 years)
Sebastian Viera(Uruguay, 26 years)
Christian Mora(Ecuador, 29 years)
Henk Timmer(Holland, 37 years)
Marcos(Brazil, 33 years)
Porato(France, 35 years)

Central Defenders (DC)

Samuel Kuffour

Sol Campbell

Vladislav Vaschuk

Jorge Andrade

Other decent central defenders:

Jeff Strasser (Luxembourg, 34 years)
Marlon Ritter Ayovi (Ecuador, 37 years)
Roque Junior (Brazil, 32 years)
Lucien Mettomo (Cameroon, 32 years)
Ivan Helguera (Spain, 34 years
Bobo Balde (Guinea, 33 years)
Sergiy Fedorov (Ukraine, 34 years)
Dejan Stefanovic (Serbia, 34 years)
Olexandr Zotov (Ukraine, 34 years)
Boris Zivkovic (Croatia, 33 years)
Izzy Iriekpen (England, 27 years)
Glauber (Brazil, 25 years)
Mehmet Polat (Turkey, 31 years)

Right Defenders (DR/WBR)

Ze Maria

Elliot Omouzusi (20 years old!!!)

Other decent right defenders:

Lauren (Cameroon, 32 years)
Danny Mills (England, 32 years)
Jean-Joel Perrier-Doumbe (Cameroon, 32 years)
Steve Watson (England, 35 years)

Left Defenders (DL/WBL)

Olivier Bernard (France, 29 years)
Jean-Joel Perrier-Doumbe (Cameroon, 32 years)
Michael Ball(England, 29 years)

Defensive Midfielders (DMC)

German Villa

Other good central defensive midfielders:

Edgar Davids (Holland, 36 years)
Johan Vogel (Switzerland, 32 years)
Andriy Husin (Ukraine, 36 years)
Pape Diop (Senegal, 34 years)
Seifo Soley (Gambia, 29 years)
Amaral (Brazil, 36 years)
Ivan Campo (Spain, 35 years)
Brahim Hemdani (Algeria, 31 years)
Mathias Cardacio (Uruguay, 21 years)
Dietmar Hamann(Germany, 35 years)
Fabio Santos(Brazil, 38 years)
Fredson(Brazil, 28 years)

Central Midfielders (MC)

Stephen Appiah

Other decent central midfielders:

Joe Keenan (England, 26 years)
Inigo Idiakez (Spain, 35 years)
Jermaine Wright (England, 33 years)
Matt Holland (Ireland, 35 years)
Gareth Williams (Scotland, 27 years)
Abderrahman Kabous(Morocco, 26 years)

Left Midfielders (ML/AML)

Denilson

Other decent left midfielders:

Rudi Skacel (Czech Republic, 29 years)
Boudewijn Zenden(Holland, 32 years)
Fabrizio Zambrella(Switzerland, 23 years)
Cesar(Brazil, 34 years)

Right Midfielders (MR/AMR)

Jorge Soto (Peru, 37 years)
Klever Manuel Chala (Ecuador, 38 years)
Andy van der Meyde (Holland, 29 years)
Hamed Namouchi(Tunisia, 25 years)
Tabare Viudez(Uruguay, 19 years)
Imants Bleidelis(Latvia, 33 years)
Felix Dja Ettien(Ivory Coast, 29 years)
Abass Lawal(Nigeria, 28 years)
Pius Ikedia(Nigeria, 28 years)

Central Attacking Midfielders (AMC)

Sylvain Wiltord (France, 35 years)
Mustapha Hadji (Morocco, 37 years)
Ervin Skela (Albania, 32 years)
Dino Toppmoller(Germany, 28 years)
Baek Ji-Hoon(South Korea, 24 years)

Forwards (FC)

Vratislav Lokvenc

Ebi Smolarek

Other good forwards:

Mark Viduka (Australia, 33 years)
Carsten Jancker (Germany, 34 years)
Amoroso (Brazil, 35 years)
Tommy Mooney (England, 37 years)
Rune Lange (Norway, 32 years)
Christian Vieri (Italy, 35 years)
Goran Ljubojevic (Croatia, 26 years)
Henri Camara (Senegal, 32 years)
Ibrahima Thiam (Senegal, 27 years)
Ivan Kaviedes (Ecuador, 31 years)
Michael Mifsud (Malta, 28 years)
Viola(Brazil, 39 years)
Dario Husain(Argentina, 33 years)
Luizao(Brazil, 33 years)
Serhat Akin(Turkey, 28 years)

PS As I have told I managed to sign several free players from this list to my Leeds. Overtaking my next post I disclose Sol Campbell is one of them .

Leeds United squad analysis

2009-11-04T07:28:00.002+02:00

Let’s start Football Manager 2010 story with Leeds! The first thing every new manager should do is an analysis of the squad. It has to be done at first because it will influence on decisions of tactical schemes, transfers and signings and targets for a season.

So here is my Leeds United squad analysis…

Goalkeepers

It’s certainly the weakest line of the club. Shane Higgs and Casper Ankergren – two pretty poor keepers that doesn’t deserve to be in the first squad. It means that I must buy a good goalie very soon!

Defenders

I didn’t look through the squads of other League 1 clubs but I am quite sure that Leeds has one of the best defensive lines in the league.

Take a look at Australian DC - Patrick Kisnorbo:

He is good defender for Championship, I think, not only League 1.

Leigh Bromby. Decent central defender with good natural fitness. He has good chances to be in the first squad if I don’t buy better DC.

Lubomir Michalik is pretty average DC that will be backup player together with Richard Naylor if I don’t sell them both.

Best left back in the team is Irish guy Alan Sheehan. His level is probably enough for League 1 but not for Championship. Ben Parker is slightly worse and should start matches from substitution bench.

Regarding right backs I can say that there are two guys: Jason Crowe and Andy Hughes. The first one has good Work Rate and Natural Fitness values + average values of other important attributes. So he is my preference for sure.

Midfielders

Jonathan Howson. MRC of 21 years old. He has quite average values of attributes but his Work Rate (15) allows me to think of some his prospects in the club.

David Prutton. Another MRC. Determined pitch fighter that will start any match from substitution bench.

Bradley Johnson. MLC. 22 years old. Good for backup. Most of attributes are between 10 and 13.

Michael Doyle

Central midfielder loaned from Coventry. And I will not cancel this loan because this player seems very useful.

Neil Kilkenny is a bit better than Bradly Johnson but costs much – $875K. So maybe he will be sold if I need additional money.

Andy Robinson. Poor AMRL with high salary of $11.5K. I have to try to sell him!

Robert Snodgrass

Young Scottish star of Leeds United! Of course, he is left-right winger with somewhat poor speed (Pace=10, Acceleration=12)… But his other attributes including Work Rate promise bright future for this youngster.

Forwards

5 forwards here. The best of them is top scorer of the previous season - Jermaine Beckford:

By the way he has the highest transfer price in Leeds United - $1.4M.

The second forward is Luciano Becchio who costs $800K. Well, he is not enough for promotion from Championship but perhaps good for League 1.

Prospective young striker Tom Elliott makes me to think about his destiny. From one hand he can develop in decent forward, from the other hand I can sell him for at least $325K…

American Mike Grella and Nigerian Enoch Showunmi are quite weak attackers in my mind.

Leeds United will be my first FM2010 team!

2009-11-01T11:29:00.000+02:00

What I can say… It was the most hot voting in my blog. I have been following it till the end… Newcastle or Leeds, Leeds or Newcastle? It was a great competition between voters of these two great English teams! Both clubs are very interesting to me for managing, but finally 1020 of you chose Leeds United. So I must follow your decision!

The third position is taken by Burnley with 10% of votes. Frankly speaking I thought that Burnley is one of the favourites in this poll and it should get more votes… Another surprise for me is in that the last positions were taken by Birmingham City and Wolverhampton with 5% of votes both. Not so many fans of these clubs?

Thank you, my dear readers, for you participation in the poll! You selected a team for new story from me! Football Manager 2010 story, this time…

PS By the way I gave my vote to Nottingham Forrest in the very beginning .

Buy FM 2010 and download 10.1 patch for it!

2009-10-30T08:42:00.001+02:00

I congratulate all of you, dear readers! Football Manager 2010 is available now. I have ordered it on Amazon and should wait some time till delivery.

You can follow my example if you want:

Buying Football Manager 2010 Digital Download

Another totally different option is buying FM 2010 digital download through Steam, IGN D2D, GamersGate or Gamesplanet.com. It will cost you more money but you will receive FM 2010 almost instantly.

FM 2010 Patch 10.1

Football Manager 2010 Patch 10.1 is announced and can be downloaded from here. In my opinion the most important changes in the patch are:

- Fixed player listed as 'Unh' no longer will have no evidence that they are unhappy on their personal section.

- Adjusted quality of newgens produced in both active and inactive leagues.

- Fixed crash when going to squad screen after retiring

- Fixed bug where Match Preview screen was missing team and competition links.

- Extra-time and penalty wins now indicated on team fixture panel

- Fixed players on very high wages requesting a lot less when renewing contract.

- Prevented board from stepping in and accepting bids just over the basic value of the player on behalf of a manager when player was transfer listed.

- Prevented big clubs from actively looking to replace their terrible third choice goalkeepers

- Fixed bug where playmaker and target man roles were not being setup correctly in the match.

Football Manager 2010 Wonderkids and Young Talents

2009-10-24T14:13:00.027+03:00

Today I would like to present you my list of Football Manager 2010 wonderkids and young talented players! I tried to do my best to make this list maximally useful and long. Hope that results of my research will be one of the best your sources for search of Football Manager 2010 wonderkids!

Some facts:

- I spent almost 8 hours to prepare this list of these FM 2010 wonderkids and best youngsters.
- Research was performed using 3 quickstarts of Football Manager 2010 demo: English, Italian and Spanish.
- I used different methods of player search: manual player search, U21 national teams check, usage of my FM 2009 wonderkids list, reading discussions of FM10 young talents at forums, etc.
- Data about each player of the list was verified by me personally.

So after all I feel myself a bit tired but happy …

Pay attention that every week I add new wonderkids and young talents to this list! It allows you to follow the list continuosly.

Goalkeepers (GK)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Sergio Asenjo	SPA	20	Atletico Madrid	$6.25M	$24.5K
Matej Delac	CRO	16	Chelsea	$4.3M	$90
Rui Patricio	POR	21	Sporting	$3.7M	$10K
Vincenzo Fiorillo	ITA	19	Sampdoria	$1.6M	$3.9K
Silviu Lung jr	ROM	20	U Craiova	$210K	$550
Alphonse Areola	FRA	16	PSG	$12K	$100
Jeroen Zoet	HOL	18	PSV	$1.1M	$1.7K
Alex Smithies	ENG	19	Huddersfield	$750K	$6.5K

Central Defenders (DC)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Breno	BRA	19	Bayern Munich	$6.5M	$19K
Sidnei	BRA	19	Benfica	$5.25M	$13K
Mamadou Sakho	FRA	19	PSG	$9M	$32.5K
Kyriakos Papadopoulos	GRE	17	Olympiakos	$975K	$725
Micah Richards	ENG	21	Manchester City	$9M	$58K
Holger Badstuber	GER	20	Bayern Munich	$7M	$15K
Ryan Shawcross	ENG	21	Stoke City	$7.25M	$12.25K
Mark Beevers	ENG	19	Sheffield Wed	$1.9M	$1.4K
Nicolas Otamendi	ARG	21	Velez	$3.7M	$1.6K
Neven Subotic	SRB	20	Dortmund	$7.25M	$17.25K
Marc Muniesa	SPA	17	Barcelona	$2.5M	$210
Mathias Jorgensen	DEN	19	FC Kobenhavn	$1.7M	$3.9K
Leandro Cabrera	URG	18	Atletico Madrid	$2.7M	$5.75K
Jerome Boateng	GER	20	HSV	$7M	$38.5K
Lorenzo Ariaudo	ITA	20	Juventus	$4.4M	$19.75K
Omer Toprak	GER	19	Freiburg	$3.7M	$8K
Gale Agbossoumonde	USA	17	Miami	$220K	$1K
Sergiy Kryvtsov	UKR	18	Metalurg Zp	$900K	$1.1K
Simon Kjaer	DEN	20	Palermo	$10.75M	$15.75K
Marek Suchy	CZE	21	Slavia Prague	$875K	$2.7K

Left Defenders (DL)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Diego Renan	BRA	19	Cruzeiro	$5.5M	$4.2K
Arman Traore	ENG	19	Arsenal	$8.5M	$16.5K
Gareth Bale	WAL	20	Tottenham	$8.25M	$41K
Marcelo	BRA	21	Real Madrid	$8.75M	$69K
Emiliano Insua	ARG	20	Liverpool	$6M	$13.25K
Jeremy Helan	FRA	17	Manchester City	$375K	$150
Joe Mattock	ENG	19	West Brom	$1.6M	$10K
Pedro Botelho	BRA	19	Arsenal	$2.8M	$1.6K
Joao Paulo	BRA	18	Fluminese	$3.8M	$3.7K
Dodo	BRA	17	Corinthians	$2.3M	$2.6K
Thimothee Kolodzieczak	FRA	17	Lyon	$2.1M	$130
Ivan Obradovic	SRB	20	Zaragoza	$5.25M	$10.75K
Fabio	BRA	18	Manchester United	$6.5M	$750

Right Defenders (DR)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Raul	BRA	19	Atl. Paranaence	$3.5M	$3.9K
Rafael	BRA	19	Manchester Utd	$7.75M	$16.5K
Davide Santon	ITA	18	Inter	$10.5M	$39.5K
Sebastien Corchia	FRA	18	Le Mans	$2.8M	$5.5K
Cesar Azpilicueta	SPA	19	Osasuna	$7.5M	$7.25K
Loic Nestor	FRA	20	Havre	$2.5M	$5.75K
Richard Stearman	ENG	21	Wolves	$4.1M	$10K
Kyle Naughton	ENG	20	Tottenham	$8.25M	$8.25K
Daniel Opare	GHA	18	Real Madrid	$950K	$575

Defensive Central Midfielders (DMC)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Ignacio Camacho	SPA	19	Atletico Madrid	$2.6M	$10.5K
Sandro	BRA	20	Internacional	$6M	$7.75K
Francesco Bolzoni	ITA	20	Genoa	$5.5M	$27.5K
Lorenzo Crisetig	ITA	16	Inter Milan	$2.7M	$90
Miles Addison	ENG	20	Derby	$2.5M	$11.5K
Moussa Sissoko	FRA	19	Toulouse	$8M	$10.25K
Etienne Capoue	FRA	20	Toulouse	$5.25M	$11.25K
Aaron Gunnarsson	ICE	19	Coventry	$1.7M	$4.1K
Edu Ramos	SPA	17	Malaga	$2.2M	$2.8K
Dan Gosling	ENG	19	Everton	$3.6M	$4.9K
Kwadwo Asamoah	GHA	19	Udinese	$11.5M	$11K
Kyrylo Petrov	UKR	19	Dinamo Kiev	$1.1M	$2.1K
Denys Garmash	UKR	19	Dinamo Kiev	$1.1M	$2.6K
Vitaliy Vitsenets	UKR	18	Shakhtar	$650K	$2.7K
Lukman Haruna	NIG	18	Monaco	$1.7M	$1.7K

Central Midfielders (MC)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Franco Zuculini	ARG	18	Hoffenheim	$3.4M	$6.75K
Tinga	BRA	18	Ponte Preta	$1.5M	$3.1K
Bernardo	BRA	19	Cruzeiro	$6M	$6K
Javi Martinez	SPA	20	Athletic	$9M	$12.75K
Lars Bender	GER	20	Leverkusen	$5M	$14K
Jack Rodwell	ENG	18	Everton	$7M	$13.25K
Aaron Ramsey	ENG	18	Arsenal	$8.75M	$24.5K
Ever Banega	ARG	21	Valencia	$4.7M	$39K
Axel Witsel	BEL	20	Standard	$2.4M	$13K
Nuri Sahin	TUR	20	Dortmund	$8.5M	$43K
Marek Hamsik	SVK	21	Napoli	$9.25M	$43.5K
Jack Collison	WAL	20	West Ham	$8M	$13.25K
Mauricio Isla	CHI	21	Udinese	$7M	$9.75K
Michael Johnson	ENG	21	Manchester City	$6.25M	$41K
Lee Cattermole	ENG	21	Sunderland	$10M	$74K
Sergio Busquets	SPA	20	Barcelona	$8.5M	$44.5K
Necip	TUR	18	Besiktas	$2.8M	$7K
Steven Defour	BEL	21	Standard	$4.6M	$18K
Adrien	POR	20	Sporting	$2.7M	$7.25K
Rene Krhin	SVN	19	Inter	$1.1M	$15.75K
Rasmus Elm	SWE	21	AZ	$5M	$16K
Morgan Schneiderlin	FRA	19	Southampton	$1.3M	$2.8K
Zakaria Labyad	HOL	16	PSV	$1.1M	$250
Sven Kums	BEL	21	KV Kortrijk	$500K	$3.6K

Left Midfielders / Wingers (ML/AML)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
David Alaba	AUS	17	Bayern Munich	$1.8M	$1.2K
Angel Di Maria	ARG	21	Benfica	$6.75M	$17.25K
Juan Manuel Mata	SPA	21	Valencia	$14.25M	$24.5K
Mesut Ozil	GER	20	Werder	$8M	$33K
Stevan Jovetic	MON	19	Fiorentina	$9.25M	$27.5K
Carlos Eduardo	BRA	21	Hoffenheim	$7.5M	$55K
Zezinho	BRA	17	Juventude	$1.9M	$2.8K
Rodney Sneijder	HOL	18	Ajax	$1.1M	$1.3K
Guido Marilungo	ITA	19	Sampdoria	$3.2M	$190
Magaye Gueye	FRA	19	Strasbourg	$2.5M	$1.7K

Right Midfielders / Wingers (MR/AMR)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Theo Walcott	ENG	20	Arsenal	$10.75M	$58K
Henri Saivet	FRA	18	Bordeaux	$3.8M	$9.25K
Marko Marin	GER	20	Werder	$7.75M	$28.5K
Georginio Wijnaldum	HOL	18	Feyenoord	$3M	$4K
Giuliano	BRA	19	Internacional	$5M	$8.5K
Eduardo Salvio	ARG	19	Lanus	$3.1M	$1.1K
Adem Ljajic	SRB	17	Manchester Utd	$5.75M	$80
Stephan El Shaarawy	ITA	16	Genoa	$3.6M	$90
Diego Perotti	ITA	20	Sevilla	$5.25M	$11.5K
James O'Shea	IRL	20	Birmingham	$130K	$2.5K
Luca Tremolada	ITA	17	Inter	$2.2M	$90
Vladimir Weiss	SVK	19	Manchester City	$3.3M	$8.25K
Sebastian Blanco	ARG	21	Lanus	$3.1M	$1.1K
Roy Beerens	HOL	21	Heerenveen	$5.25M	$20K
Kiko Femenia	SPA	18	Hercules	$1.7M	$1.7K

Attacking Central Midfielders (AMC)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Javier Pastore	ARG	20	Palermo	$11.75M	$15.75K
Patricio Rodriges	ARG	19	Indenpediente	$2.3M	$1.1K
Renato Augusto	BRA	21	Leverkuzen	$7.5M	$44.5K
Dudu	BRA	17	Cruzeiro	$3.6M	$4.3K
Paulo Henrique	BRA	19	Santos	$5.25M	$5.25K
Marquinhos	BRA	19	Internacional	$5.25M	$5.25K
Ismael Aissati	HOL	20	Ajax	$5.5M	$19.5K
Miralem Pjanic	BOS	19	Lyon	$8M	$28.5K
Willian	BRA	20	Shakhtar	$6.25M	$13.25K
Toni Kroos	GER	19	Bayern Munich	$7.5M	$51K
Jack Wilshere	ENG	17	Arsenal	$5.5M	$24.5K
Coutinho	BRA	17	Vasco	$3.4M	$2.1K
Douglas Costa	BRA	18	Gremio	$4.3M	$5.25K
Diego Buonanotte	ARG	21	River	$3.9M	$2.6K
Eden Hazard	BEL	18	Lille	$5.5M	$9K
Jano Ananidze	GEO	16	Spartak Moscow	Free!	$900
Martin Galvan	MEX	16	Cruz Azul	$1.5M	$15
Alan Dzagoev	RUS	19	CSKA Moscow	$7.5M	$4.4K
Jonjo Shelvey	ENG	17	Charlton	$1.7M	$4.1K
Marco Verratti	ITA	16	Pescara	$350K	$90
Milan Badelj	CRO	20	NK Dinamo	$1.5M	$2.7K
James Rodriguez	COL	17	Banfield	$1M	$400
Levan Kenia	GEO	18	Schalke	$5.5M	$8.75K
John Fleck	SCO	17	Rangers	$2.6M	$1.6K
Celso Borges	CSR	21	Fredrikstad	$1.3M	$3.3K
Sambou Yatabare	FRA	20	Caen	$3.3M	$7.5K
Sofiane Feghouli	FRA	19	Grenoble	$4.3M	$6.75K
Eyal Golasa	ISR	17	M. Haifa	$425K	$475
Gael Kakuta	FRA	18	Chelsea	$650K	$9.25K
Sotiris Ninis	GRE	19	Panathianaikos	$2.7M	$7K

Forwards (FC)

Name	Nation	Age	Club	Value	Wage
Dentinho	BRA	20	Corithians	$6.5M	$4.7K
Guilherme	BRA	20	Dinamo Kiev	$6.75M	$21.5K
Neymar	BRA	17	Santos	$5.25M	$10.5K
Keirrison	BRA	20	Barcelona	$9.5M	$32K
Sergio Aguero	ARG	21	Atletico Madrid	$29M	$86K
Bojan	SPA	18	Barcelona	$11.5M	$47.5K
Mario Balotelli	ITA	18	Inter	$11.25M	$59K
Alexis Sanchez	CHI	20	Udinese	$12.75M	$15.75K
Pato	BRA	19	Milan	$28M	$39.5K
Tomas Necid	CZE	19	CSKA Moscow	$4.8M	$3.8K
Walter	BRA	19	Internacional	$4.2M	$3.1K
Alberto Paloschi	ITA	19	Parma/Milan	$8.5M	$15.75K
Ched Evans	WAL	20	Sheffield Utd	$4.9M	$33K
Andrej Kramaric	CRO	18	NK Dinamo	$1.4M	$1.2K
Federico Macheda	ITA	17	Manchester Utd	$7.5M	$2.3K
Robert Acquafresca	ITA	21	Genoa	$6.75M	$17.75K
Romelu Lukaku	BEL	16	Anderlecht	$1.1M	$1.4K
Daniel Villalva	ARG	17	River	$1.4M	$40
Sercan	TUR	19	Bursaspor	$6M	$11.5K
Daniel Aquino	SPA	18	Murcia	$3.1M	$2.7K
Iker Muniain	SPA	16	Athletic	Free!	$500
Khouma Babacar	SEN	16	Fiorentina	$3.8M	$90
Abel Hernandez	URG	18	Palermo	$5.75M	$9.75K
Nathan Delfouneso	ENG	18	Aston Villa	$4.3M	$650
David N'Gog	ENG	20	Liverpool	$6.5M	$16.5K
Yannis Tafer	FRA	18	Lyon	$3.9M	$3.6K
Roman Zozulya	UKR	19	Dinamo Kiev	$1.5M	$5K
Marko Arnautovic	AUS	20	Inter	$6.5M	$9.75K
Andriy Yarmolenko	UKR	19	Dinamo Kiev	$875K	$1.9K
Vitaliy Balashov	UKR	18	Chornomorets	$925K	$625
Jonathan Cristaldo	ARG	20	Velez	$950K	$700
Jose Baxter	ENG	17	Everton	$3.1M	$1.3K
Robert Lewandowski	POL	20	Lech	$1.8M	$2.2K
Jay Rodriguez	ENG	19	Burnley	$4.5M	$1.6K
Chris Wood	NZL	17	West Brom	$3.3M	$2.5K
German Pacheco	ARG	18	Atletico	$2.4M	$9.25K
Vaclav Kadlec	CZE	17	Sparta Prague	$1M	$1.8K
Batuhan Karadeniz	TUR	18	Besiktas	$6.75M	$2.8K
Mohammed Gadir	ISR	18	Maccabi Haifa	$375K	$475
Artur Kas'kov	UKR	17	Metalurg Zp	$750K	$425

Barcelona – Rubin 1:2, Inter – Dynamo Kiev 2:2

2009-10-20T23:46:00.001+03:00

Barcelona – Rubin 1:2, Inter – Dynamo Kiev 2:2 – simply fantastic!

Post-USSR clubs created sensational results tonight. And, of course, I am proud for Dynamo Kiev and Andriy Shevchenko!

PS Rangers – Unirea 1:4 – another sensation!

FM 2010. My first impressions

2009-10-20T20:22:00.001+03:00

Hello my dear readers!

I am completely in exploration of FM 2010 demo now. I started some kind of trial game with Genoa. It’s just for playing the demo, trying new features and expressing my feelings about it. And when the poll about my future FM 2010 team is over and I have patched full version of the Game I will start a new story managing another team.

Now some words about FM 2010 features that impressed me.

Backroom Advice

Backroom advice give so much information... I think it can be very useful feature. Sure it is necessary to explore it more deeply to understand the whole power of the feature.

Customizable Views

I have been dreaming of customizing columns in squad selection and transfer search since Football Manager 2005 probably! And now my dream has come true! My first action about this feature:

I opened squad selection, added two columns - Nationality and Value.

From the other hand the feature is pretty buggy now. Actually column resizing works quite bad. You can hide other columns trying to resize another one.

Tactics Creator

Tactics Creator is probably the most important change between FM 2009 and FM 2010. I impressed by the screen above – highlighting of the most important attributes for selected Role looks awesome. And the description of role is also very good. Click on Advanced button returns us to the former system of individual instructions with sliders and comboboxes.

By the way in my humble opinion setting up and tuning tactics using new wizard looks fluent as well as tuning through Tactics screen.

Press Conference about new player

Press Conferences regarding new signings are nice. They are not so important as abovementioned features but they make The Game more realistic.

New User Interface

New UI looks good. System of tabs and buttons instead of tree view on a sidebar allows to access any section in more easy way. Additionally sidebar was removed – so we have more space that can be used by added columns to your views (customizable views).

I like also relocation of many buttons - for instance, Continue, Assistant Advice, Media Comments.

It’s also cool that Player Report looks better and more understandable than in FM 2009.

FM 2010 Skins

I have negative impressions about standard FM 2010 skins.

Light one is too light. Impossible for me to use because white background strikes my eyes.

Dark skin is not really good because of some white words on light background. For instance, Overview screen and Pending transfers screen part at the right bottom corner. And Background of player profile could be darker as well.

So in my mind Football Manager 2009 has much better standard skin!

That’s all at the moment, dear readers. Play Football Manager 2010!

Fooball Manager 2010 Demo Download

2009-10-15T08:01:00.005+03:00

Football Manager 2010 Demo is available for downloading now! As usually there are two versions of FM 2010 demo: vanilla and strawberry.

Vanilla

It can be downloaded from here:

MirrorFootball.co.uk FM 2010 download page

DailyRecord

Description of FM 2010 Demo Vanilla

Quickstarts: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

Languages: English only

Stripped assets: including no player pictures, club logs, competition logos, sounds, etc

Strawberry

It can be downloaded from the following sources:

Worthplaying site

Rapidshare site

Torrent - PC

Torrent - Mac

Steam

FilePlay - PC

FilePlay - Mac

Description of FM 2010 Demo Strawberry

Quickstarts: Brazil, Denmark, England, France, Italy, Northern Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and Wales

Languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish

Full assets: including player pictures, club logos, competition logos, etc for where we have the license. Full pitch textures, stadiums and sounds.

Have fun with Football Manager 2010 demo!

Hull Game Download

2009-10-15T07:54:00.001+03:00

As I promised here is my Hull story save. You can download it now from here:

Hull Game Download link

Hull story is finished. The season of 3 finals!

2009-10-14T22:51:00.001+03:00

Hello, my dear readers!

The season #7 is over. My Hull has the following results:

What I can say… It was the best season in my Football Manager 2009 career! Let’s analyze a bit results of my club in every tournament.

Premier League

I didn’t cope with Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal at all and disappointed board expectations of getting Premier League title.

By the way my Hull got only 1 point in 3 last Premier League because of second squad players usage. I tried to have 100% conditioned first squad players for Champions League and FA Cup finals.

Three finals

But the results in the other tournaments more than satisfied Hull board.

League Cup

League Cup final was a very dramatic one. We took a lead on the 19th minute and I was already starting to celebrate the first historical League Cup of Hull when Asier (regen forward of Man City) scored a late equalizer on the 3rd minute of injury time. Then sudden penalty brought Manchester City ahead in the score. Unfortunately my guys were unable to do anything with strong defence of opponent during the last minutes of extra time.

FA Cup

Blackburn awaited us in the FA Cup final. It was easy game because Hull is better and more strong team than Blackburn. 2:1 score doesn’t reflect our complete advantage on the pitch of Wembley stadium.

It was my second FA Cup in row!

Champions League

I got so many emotions during the 3 last rounds of Champions League. It was something really special! Quarterfinal with Inter was complicated but not so dramatic as semi final matches against Real Madrid:

Real Madrid – Hull 1:1

Hull – Real Madrid 2:1 (extra time)

The decisive goals in the second match were scored during last minutes of 2nd and 4th times by Manuel Brand.

We had certain advantage in the home match but Iker Casillas was truly perfect performer! I think he is the best goalkeeper in Football Manager 2009!

Look how many cards were shown to Real Madrid players! They battled hardly against my team!

The Final

Ooooh, it was absolutely incredible match!

1:0 – Milovan Rakic scores!

1:1 – Kaka scores!

1:2 – Strange own goal by Ochoa on the 81th minute!!!

2:2 – All out of attack mentality creates one-on-one chance for Rakic!

3:2 – 114th minute. Manuel Brand makes a golden header for our club!

It was really great fight, equal game:

Milovan Rakic got Man of the Match award:

As a result:

This is how my Hull story ends… But don’t be sad if you are becoming sad because Football Manager 2010 is on the way! And new story will begin for you and me…

PS Tomorrow I will post a link on my Hull game save. I know some of you are keen to try it.

Football Manager 2010 System Requirements

2009-10-13T21:03:00.002+03:00

I am glad to share the news that yesterday Miles Jacobson announced Football Manager 2010 system requirements. The great thing is that the requirements remain the same as for Football Manager 2009 (drum roll!):

OS

Windows XP / Vista / Windows 7

Processor

1.4GHZ+ for XP

or

2.0GHZ+ for Vista / Windows 7

Memory

512MB Ram for XP

or

1GB Ram for Vista / Windows 7

Video Card

128MB of memory.

NVidia FX 5900 Ultra or better; ATI Radeon 9800 or better; Intel 82915G/82910GL or better.

If you have older card then only 2D Match will be available for you.

Mac

Intel Processor

OS X 10.5

NVidia Geforce 7300 GT / ATI X1600 Radeon

Important remark

If your computer does not meet FM 2010 system requirements the game may work anyway. But you will not receive support from SI Games and SEGA. You should just try FM2010 demo coming out this week.

Hull. First half of season #7

2009-10-10T12:46:00.001+03:00

I am trying to do my best to finish my last season in Football Manager 2009. And this is the latest report about it. Actually about the first half of the season.

Matches

Here are Hull matches of season #7 in 2014:

I want you to pay attention to the Community Shield Final against Manchester United. That was really great victory – 4:1!

The next important thing you may notice in the screenshots is poor start of Hull in Premier League. We managed to loose 3 away matches of starting 5… It decreased my chances of winning title perceptibly.

Tournament Tables

You see there is a gap between Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal and my Hull. But I hope to shorten the distance because in the second half of the season I will play only home matches with these rivals.

Meantime I got quite complicated group in the Champions League having Inter, Lyon and Celtic as opponents.

But excellent 3 wins and 3 tough draws (the one with Inter was really tough) provided the first position in this group. Now Bayern Munich waits for Hull in the next round!

Players sold during winter transfer window

All 5 players were sold because they had been unhappy with their second roles in the team. 33-years old Eto’o didn’t impress me at all.

Player stats

Some Hull player statistics:

Best players of the season #7 first half are:

1. Darwin Suarez – the man who makes goals in my team either scoring or assisting!

2. Diego Buonanotte – the best assister, Hull leader.

3. Javi Garcia – brilliant debut from former Inter DMC! His long shots are amazing!

4. Fabian Monzon – the most confident and reliable defender in my club. Heavy transfer money paid for itself.

5. Milovan Rakic – sometimes he scores wonderful one touch goals from any position on a pitch.

Praising Fabian Monzon I can add the following picture:

PS This is my last weekend with Football Manager 2009. I will start investigating FM 2010 demo on the next Saturday!

Football Manager 2010 Demo Date

2009-10-07T19:11:00.001+03:00

According to this source Football Manager 2010 demo will be available on the 16th of October! It’s very very soon!

Meantime I will be trying to finish my last season with Hull in Football Manager 2009. I have already played the first half. And there is going to be a report about the first half of season #7 in 2-3 days.

PS Don’t forget to vote for my future team in Football Manager 2010! The poll is located at the right panel of the blog.

Football Manager 2010 Voting!

2009-10-04T10:28:00.001+03:00

Hello, my dear readers! Today I would like to start so awaited voting! Since this day till October, 30 (the date of FM2010 release) you will be able to choose a club that I will be managing in Football Manager 2010!

I selected nine English clubs for the voting. They are divided into 3 groups by league of each club. So you will choose a league for me start from as well as club.

Premier League teams

Birmingham City

Burnley

Wolverhampton

Championship teams

Newcastle United

Nottingham Forest

Queens Park Rangers

League One

Leeds United

Millwall

Southampton

The poll that will determine my future team in Football Manager 2010 is located at the right column of this blog. Only votes through that poll are accepted.

So do you want me get Leeds United or Nottingham Forest back to Premier League? Or it’s better if I try to survive with Burnley in the first Premier League year? Choose and vote!

I am looking forward to know my first FM 2010 club!

Hull. Before the start of the last season…

2009-10-03T00:28:00.001+03:00

You know the upcoming season #7 is the last one in my Football Manager 2009 career with Hull. It’s just because FM 2010 is on the way! So without any risk I decided to set up the highest targets for the season and receive maximum of money for transfers and wages:

Win the league! Ye! We can try – though it will be very complicated having such great opponents as Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City. And you see my Hull is on the 4th position following season bets:

Transfers

Players out

I sold Barazite and Witsel who were unhappy with their second roles in Hull. Genero Zeefuik disappointed me during the last season due to his inefficient dealing with ball when there should be goals from his side. So he was sold as well.

Players in

I decided to buy experienced players who can either become new team leaders or add some depth to Hull squad.

Fabian Monzon

The most valuable signing is Fabian Monzon. Left back of Argentina, World cup champion… I paid $53M paid to Villarreal for him. Look at his stats. He is one of the best (if not the best at all) left defenders in my game!

Gojko Kacar

Excellent versatile player from Bayern Munich. Hope to use him on different positions: DR, DMC, MC. We’ll see where he will show himself better.

Javi Garcia

Inter should cry selling this very good DMC to my club. He will certainly be in the first squad instead of my Ukrainian defensive midfielder - Eugene Shakhov.

Joe Cole

Risky $8M transfer aimed at gaining experienced flank attacker. But surely he will start the season from substitution bench because of current team leaders – Buonanotte, Suarez and O’Brien.

Robert Lewandowski

During the last season I had a real problem when leading forward Milovan Rakic had been injured. So I decided to buy two good forwards. Robert Lewandowski is the one of them. I think many of you, my dear readers, tried his services in your team. Now it’s my turn to try him!

Samuel Eto’o

The second forward is the most famous footballer of Cameroon – Samuel Eto’o. Experience of Eto’o should help in the Premier League and Champions League.

PS They predict us the 6th position…

Football Manager 2010 New Features

2009-09-30T08:52:00.001+03:00

Let’s talk about new Football Manager 2010 features. There are really a lot of them. Every new FM10 features announcement makes my heart to beat harder! :-)

Press conferences

In Football Manager 2009, it's possible to ask an assistant to visit press conferences instead of you. However, there was no way to know whether your assistant would be any good at them, so there's a media handling style for your staff. It will specify how a staff member will deal with press conferences.

Declaring job interest

You will be noticed by supporters and the board if you declare your interest in a job, and then visit a match of the club you are interested in. Such your behaviour will add some media focus as well as in real life.

Stadiums

Stadiums can have both terracing and seating. Now terracing will be shut or replaced with temporary seats for matches like an international fixture or European cups.

Supporters will comment!

Your team’s supporters will comment on a team selection you did telling their impressions about some players and aspects after match. The players who don’t play in the first squad will be also discussed by your supporters and you will be able to read all those discussions.

Monthly board updated

Monthly board update includes:

- financial aspects with profit and loss for the month

- club, and a regular physio summary too, telling you about who in the squad in injured or coming back from injury

New type of press conferences

Press conference for new signings. Journalists will talk about possible impact of new signing on your club, your squad, pressure on the player due to transfer fees, financial pressure due to the signing.

Free transfer player list

At the end of each football season, Football Manager 2010 will inform you about the high profile players who have been released. There will be a simple link to a list of all of them that you can checkout and analyze. Convenient feature, I think!

Equal values – one award

Sometimes it happens when 2 players have the same amount of scored goal in the season’s end. FM 2010 will explain you why one of these player got Best Scorer award. It doesn’t happen using alphabetic order by the way!

Controlling amount of news

Dear readers, I suspect you are different in the following thing: some of you like to receive a lot of news about different leagues and football events, another part of you is interested in news about your club only. SI Games presents excellent feature for all of us – we will be able to manage amount of news we want to receive in Football Manager 2010! There will be very flexible system to do that.

Football Manager 2010 Release Date

2009-09-27T15:37:00.002+03:00

Some people still don’t know Football Manager 2010 release date and ask me about it in blog comments. It happens when you are not really interested in FM community. You just need The Game and when you have it you start having fun with it. That’s all! By the way I was of the same kind of people 7-8 years ago.

Therefore I decided to create this post and announce for those who still don’t know the release date:

FM 2010 Release date – October 30th

Regarding demo I can say that Football Manager 2010 demo will come out in 2-3 weeks before the release.

World Cup 2014. My Ivory Coast got the bronze!

2009-09-26T12:34:00.001+03:00

It was tough and very interesting competition for me that I had been waiting for a long time.

Currently Ivory Coast national team has a row of really good players like Kolo Toure, Yaya Toure, Emmanuel Eboue, Salomon Kalou and 36 years old Didier Drogba. But when I take a look at squad of Brazil, Argentina or Holland it seems almost impossible to win the World Cup… Anyway great team collaboration and quick direct tactics I use made my Ivory Coast the 3rd best national team in the world!

Matches and results review

The group with Colombia, Sweden and Iran didn’t seem a complicated one.

So after first 2 fixtures we had 6 points and guaranteed the 1st place in the group. Therefore I decided to use players of the second squad for their form estimation in the last game with Colombia. It explains the loss in that game.

2nd Round – Denmark

Denmark wasn’t a strong opponent for us. They have no dangerous forwards in my game at all. Their best one is Nicklas Bendtner who plays in FC Kobenhaven. So you understand if he plays Danish club then his attributes are not impressive.

Excellent strikes of Drogba and Yaya Toure brought 2:0 win:

Quarterfinal – Serbia

National team of Serbia – the first opponent that had squad stronger than the one of Ivory Coast. Vidic, Ivanovic, Jankovic, Kacar, Kuzmanovic and some great regen-players as well... Just look at this brilliant regen forward - Nicola Petrovic - playing in Milan:

His price is $73M!!!

I had some fortune with the fact that Serbian star forward Milovan Rakic (my Hull player) had been injured. As a result he was substituted by Nicola Zigic in the first squad who wasn’t dangerous in the match at all.

Again Yaya Toure, again Didier Drogba and powerful header from Kolo Toure guaranteed the victory:

Semi final - Holland

Mighty Holland, World Cup 2010 champions, were expecting us in the semi final. I remembered our 3:1 win in the Confederations Cup and thought that we have all chances of becoming a finalists. But, but, but…

The class of Holland team was perceptibly higher. Though it was an equal game. The only thing is that Ivory Coast was not so good in shots on target…

By the way, Holland has lost the Final to Argentina with 1:3 score. Two goals - by Carlos Teves, two other – by Pablo Zabaleta and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.

3rd place match - Brazil

It is my moment of triumph! Ivory Coast – Brazil 3:1!!! Bets were absolutely against my team but two quick goals by Kolo Toure (9h minute) and Baky Kone (16th minutes) shocked Brazil players and fans! Fantastic commitment by all players of Ivory Coast team allowed to have an advantage in the amount of made shots:

Player ratings of this historical match:

This is my last post about Ivory Coast team in Football Manager 2009. It’s always said to say “Good Bye”. But who knows… maybe I will be managing this flamboyant national team in FM 2010.

Hull - FA Cup winner!

2009-09-23T08:35:00.001+03:00

The season #6 is finished and it’s time to sum up its results. Here are the latest matches of my Hull:

Premier League

Sudden losses to Aston Villa, Tottenham and Middlesbrough and awful defeat to Manchester City (0:4) made my mission of struggle for title totally impossible. Moreover, Man City got a great form and left Hull behind at the 4th position.

What were the reasons of such failure? Actually I can say that the main problem was the absence of Milovan Rakic – our leading forward – due to that damned 3-4 month injury. Genero Zeefuik was absolutely unstable and many goal moments were failed due to his poor shots and other actions. Another forward - Akeem Ugbah - was too young and inexperienced for participation in the most decisive games of the season.

Champions League

The problem of Rakic’s absence played its role in the second quarterfinal match of the Champions League against Manchester United. The Red Devils got the unconvincing win having less shots and only 61% of passes completed versus my 71%.

The first quarterfinal match on the Old Trafford gave me some hope on getting to the semi final. The game was pretty equal and we had a quite convenient 1:1 away draw. But the goal moments failed by Zeefuik in the second match played the main role in this face-off…

FA Cup

But Hull didn’t finish the season without any trophy! At first The Tigres have won FA Cup!!! It happened in easy final with Sunderland:

The easiness of the final was some kind of compensational award for very complicated opponents in the previous rounds. If you follow my Hull story you should know that Manchester United and Arsenal had been beaten in the 4th and 6th rounds.

Additionally the semi-final with Tottenham was really hard one. Don’t believe 3:1 score in the first screen shot of this post! We had been loosing with 0:1 until Ramires scored an equalizer on the 63 minute. The next two goals were made done by Shakhov and Brand during 115 and 116 minutes (extra time!).

Some emotions from fans and board about our historical victory:

Hull players

Traditionally here are some statistics of Hull players:

The best debutant of the season is Manuel Brand. He is fantastic central defender who wins headers during attacking corners very often!

Darwin Suarez and Milovan Rakic became real young leaders of the team in this season.

But the best Hull player of season #6 is certainly Diego Buonanotte. Hull old-timer became the best assister of the club, and even Darwin Suarez couldn’t compete with him (please note that Suarez was on the 1st position of best assister rating in the middle of the season).

Fans agreed with me:

Previous posts of the Hull story (season #6)

Hull – the most interesting is ahead!

Top 8 of all best championships in my game

Chasing Arsenal…

Coaches of Hull in Football Manager 2009

Champions League debut of Hull in FM2009

July and August transfers before season #6

Expectations and transfers of the upcoming season

PS The next post is going to be about my Ivory Coast national team in the World Cup 2014!