Another trophy in the cabinet, our third in succession, winning the Community shield in a convincing 2-0 win over last season’s league champions, Man City.
Always nice to start the season off with a trophy.
The good form carried over into the league, after a demoralising 2-0 defeat in our first match to Spurs, we then won 4 and drew 1 of our next 5 games to sit top of the Premier league at this very early stage of season 8.
We also won our first Europa League group game vs Admira Wacker (?!) some lowly team from the arse end of nowhere, in a tiny stadium, even with the old style triangular nets, which was a nice authentic touch, and good to get another tilt at the Europa League as its often a tournament you only really find yourself playing in once, in that transition period between developing your team from mid-table fodders to league challengers.
I qualified even after finishing 10th, due to winning the FA Cup, which now earns a place in the EL and was faithfully replicated within the game.
After Dennis’s poor run of form last season, he’s started this season with aplomb, bagging 4 goals in the pre-season tournament, and then 2 in the Community shield match, and 4 goals already in his first 6 league games.
Meanwhile, backup striker, Altilavescua, signed from Inter for £62mil has failed to score once, and has missed several sitters, we will put it down to an adjustment period, at least his arrival has got Dennis fired up again.
Next up are Grimsby in our defence of the Carabao Cup, I have pretty much picked a youth team to face them, with fixtures coming thick and fast in 3 cups and the league, player fatigue is a huge thing, it really does accumulate in FIFA and a hectic run of fixtures takes its toll, even incurring injuries, so squad rotation is a must.
This season must be a focus on the Premier league and Europa League, with the domestic cups taking a back seat.
The video below shows in order, Dennis scoring in the Europa League away to Admira Wacker in their old style triangular nets, LB Saracchi scoring a nice side footed volley from 24 yards, and lastly, Dennis showing his return to form and confidence, bagging a nice winner against Southampton.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – of course I love that side-footed volley in the clips vid. The few seconds of scoring goals like that, and the few minutes of a glow of enjoyment afterward – that’s why we play these games.
Will the winter downturn strike again this season? I suspect if your squad is good enough the game will dynamically adjust to reflect that. It could be as basic a coding as ‘if team average OVR rating is =80 then GOSUB TopTeamMidWinterFuckery’, I.e. the top teams have a blip too but not so much of one, they can still stay in the race. I wonder if your squad has crossed that (speculative) threshold yet?
Re. your projector interest, have you followed through with that? I saw a YouTube vid of somebody playing FIFA on a 100-inch equivalent screen using a projector, it’d interesting to hear about it here. Short of full-on VR technology that Cinedome-style home experience is probably going to be as immersive as it gets.
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NG – I had a muted kind of joy when that goal went in, as i did press to shoot but never expected in a million years to see it go in, then saw the keeper just watch it, then saw who had scored, my Left Back !
Watching the replays you can see the ball; travels straight as an arrow and through a mass of bodies so the keeper must have been blindsided hence why he didn’t react until it was too late.
I’m hoping to keep up my focus on reducing goals conceded, which I have done relatively well so far, if I can then riding out the midwinter fuckery will be easier, scoring is never an issue, its just conceding.
Operation Movie room is in full swing, I spent all weekend gutting the office room which is going to be used, cleared out all the cabinets, dismantled the large corner desk, pulled all the trunking off the walls, pulled up the carpet, this week I will fill the walls where the trunking pulled the plaster off, and paint all the skirting and woodwork,
The next few weeks it will be papered, black glitter reflective paint on the ceiling to simulate a starry night sky and new light fitting.
Once all that is done i will have a 2 seater sofa against the back wall, a media unit on the far wall where a LG Minibeam UST PF1000U projector will sit in, just 10″ from the wall, and the PS4,PS2,Apple Tv etc will be housed in the cabinet. Just 10″ will give a 120″ screen.
Last steps will be one the projector is thrown on to the wall, ascertain the optimal size, and order a proper cinema grade projector screen to shine on to, install a 5.1 Dolby/THX surround sound system, and finally LED strip lighting at the top and bottom of the wall the projector screen will be on, to give an ambient glow.
Should all be done within 3 months hopefully.
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Just reading about all of that was exhausting me, and then I got to the ‘should take 3 months part’! What?! I can’t wait that long. You could get it set up to test it out somewhere long before the movie room is ready?
Re the goal, I thought 75% keeper unsighted, 25% him thinking it’d whistle wide.
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3 months purely because with working all day I only get weekends to do some of the work, on top of that just booked our summer holiday, so have that to pay for and this kinda thing aint cheap.
The projector is a grand on its own.
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Many years back a mate of mine ‘borrowed’ a projector from his own company and used it in his lounge instead of the TV. On weekend parties there it would take everyone a good two to four hours to cope with a 6 foot by 4 foot picture being way to close to where you were sitting. It was very good for gaming though as it greatly increased the immersion.
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in 1997 or thereabouts my now-girlfriend who was then just the sister of one of my mates lived in a house adjacent to a business. actually the buildings were connected and we had the key to the meeting room AND thus access to the projector. watched a lot of movies there. can’t remember the make or type of projector for the life of me. good fun though.
that side-footed goal btw Paul; sumptuous.
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Chris99 – The technology of projectors has greatly increased over even the last 2 years, so picture quality is so much better you dont get that queasy feeling sitting too close.
My room is only small, so will only be sat about 8 foot away from the screen, as a result I’ll probably settle for a 90″ screen or thereabouts, and at a grand for a full 1080p HD projector, thats still way cheaper than the equivalent 90″ TV would cost, and much more of a space saver.
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