It is well and truly the business end of the season.
The last few league games in the Premier league, latter stages of the Champions League, and Semi’s of the domestic cups, the season should be all wrapped up and finished by this time next week, which will see the fortunes of Nottingham Forest come to a close on this blog, as I go away on holiday next Friday for 2 weeks, when I come back the blog shall resume with the culmination of England’s World Cup exploits, which will bring about the closure of FIFA 19 as a whole here on FIFAX.
Back to present day matters, Premier League form stuttered a bit in the last few weeks, all down to simming the matches, we saw a 7pt lead reduced to 2 points, just edging ahead of Man City, in second place, we then had a 6 pointer against them come up so I played this match, running out 1-0 winners to open up a more healthy lead with only 3 games left to play.
An FA Cup semi-final also beckoned, against Wolves, which I played and duly won on penalties after a 0-0 stalemate during the 120 mins, FA Cup final opponents are Chelsea, which has a double meaning, I will come to that in a bit.
UEFA Champions League, and all its glory, after edging past Inter Milan in the last 16, we then drew their neighbors, AC Milan, so back to the San Siro we went, here is how it played out.
Note: the footage below shows first leg and second leg highlights in succession.
So another victorious trip to Milan, we rode our luck in large parts of the tie but ultimately did enough to squeeze through, and put our name into the draw for the Semi-Finals.
Champions League Semi final opponents ……….
So it’s Chelsea in the FA Cup Final and UCL semi-final, it would be a fitting and enjoyable way to end 11 seasons on FIFA 19 by securing the treble, something I’ve never achieved in any FIFA ever before, still a few games to play to realize that scenario, it will be tough, as the difficulty is noticeably bumped in in major cup finals, but all part of the fun.
Next Thursday’s post will wrap up the conclusion to the Premier league, FA Cup final and Champions league.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – lovely goal from Racic in your highlights there. I’ve played enough FIFA19 by now to know how tricky those first-time mid-range hits can be, even on the full assisted settings. So many end up in the stands. Love FIFA19’s shooting model. Foden’s shot at 1:50 is more like how most of mine go right now.
Also I’ve switched from the Broadcast cam to Tele while I acclimatise, as the angles for passing and shooting feel strange on the former.
Also a (for now) minor nitpick: you have often said that although there are few/no fouls in FIFA19 (did you get a reply from the EA man last week?), ‘every foul is given’ on FIFA19. Not so! Countless times there have been clear and obvious fouls where the controller has rumbled and everything, but nothing is given, not even advantage. I had a penalty shootout in a Tournament that I won comfortably, scoring 4/5 penalties and saving 2. So far so good, this is shaping up to be the most serious tilt at a FIFA since ’15.
Bittersweet to see your run on the game coming to an end here, will you post at all between next week and FIFA20?
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NG – Thats a good idea acclimatising to the new mechanics and getting rid of the PES muscle memory on Tele cam, where the angles are straighter, even now on Broadcast cam, after 11 seasons I still miss place the od simple 5 yard pass in crucial positions, but for me, the aesthetics, and realism of the Broadcast cam makes it worth it.
On the fouls front, I played a game this morning before work, had a docs appt so came in late so had an hour to spare, I finished a crucial match with 5 fouls given to me, so they are in FIFA, but seem to only rear their heads, or moreso the COM only gets that aggressive in pivotal matches.
I do love the shooting on FIFA, its proper meaty, and you know when you have connected properly.
My CM is climaxing fast (ooer). I have the resolution of the Premier League title chase, the FA Cup final and the Champions League all to shoehorn in, with highlights etc for next week, I’m undecided as to how to do it as my time will be limited due to getting stuff ready this week after work, for my holidays Friday, and dont want to post up a big length video Next thurs as people dont tend to watch longer videos.
Maybe I’ll do a couple of mini posts throughout the week leading up to Thursday, think thats the only way to make the content more digestable and get everything in.
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great footage of that quarter final Paul, I was certain that Milan’s late header in the second leg would go in, must have been incredibly tense to play. Nice to see your penalty technique of aiming straight then deviating at the last moment in action. Not sure I could do that, too nervous in penalty shoot outs and prone to blasting it wide without careful aim
I like the fact that your and not-Greg’s epic careers on FIFA and PES are coming to a conclusion at the same time, seems right somehow
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lots of new info on FIFA20 out today, I do like the look of that 5 a side mode, never got the chance to play it back in the day but it was apparently tremendous. Not sure about the plan to make free kicks and penalties more ‘fun’, we might be scoring free kicks just as easily as you do with Vasilj on PES, Paul! At least it suggests there might be some free kicks and penalties this year
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Abbeyhill, the new penalty system in FIFA20 looks much better IMO.
at the moment its too hit and miss, Penalties should have around an 80% if not more success rate, in FIFA 19, it was much less, if you pre-aim, the GK always saves it, my central aiming then changing method is the only method I’ve found which doesn’t fall prey to over-powered GK saves, but is unrealistic in the mechanics.
The new PES-like system of an aiming reticule that gets bigger or smaller, introducing more or less accuracy depending on player stats, and power, is a positive change I think.
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Looking forward to the upcoming details on Career Mode changes too.
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Interesting, are people expecting any substantive Career Mode changes given that EA have previously stated that it is in run-off? No big problem if there are not as it still seems a rock solid structure unlike certain others
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Abbeyhill – Career Mode was virtually untouched from FIFA 18-19, the community kicked up a fuss, EA responded by saying that their focus for that year was improving FUT and online elements, there has been a ton of community feedback around Career mode,as referenced in EA pitch notes on the website.
Career Mode is set to undergo changes this year as based on fan feedback they have made it a development priority, so hoping to see some nice new features.
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A treble would be a fitting end to your fifa 19 journey best of luck with that! Just on my way from pesfx and love the eswish kit looks great! I have to get my pes 2020 kit orders in after you return from holidays. Looking forward to the blogs final Forrest installment best of luck.
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Cheers Gary!! Glad you like the kits, plenty more coming
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Paul – they are fine kits indeed and a taste of what’s to come. I can never decide if this is the worst era for football gaming or the best.
In my FIFA19 news, I’ve had 2 penalties awarded in my first 10 matches of Season 1… and the keeper has saved them both. I was 4/5 in a penalty shootout in a custom tournament, but am 0/2 in Career Mode so far.
A question – what am I doing wrong when it comes to changing formation mid-match? E.g. I’ll want to go to 4-3-3 or 4-2-4 or something, to chase a game, and I patiently make the change, move everyone around, make the subs… and then I go back out to the main menu and all my changes are gone? and then sometimes, it’ll work. I have no idea what I’m doing right or wrong on each occasion, seems random.
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NG – its all in the prep pre match.
Go into team sheet and set up all your formations and assign to Ultra Attacking / Attacking Neutral / Defending / Ultra Defending.
You can assign different formations and tactics too each of these four presets, then you use the DPad left and right to switch up attacking m mentality or down defending mentality during a game.
If your base formation for example is 4-4-2, but you have a 4-3-3 with more attacking tactics set to ‘Attacking’ then shifting to attacking in-game will enable the formation and tactics assigned to that.
You can’t move players positions about mid game, they are overridden by your set tactics.
On Mine I played a 4-3-3 attacking as my base, then had same formation but tactics set to get forward quicker and more runs on attacking, and then a 3-4-3 all out for ultra attacking, similarly I had a 4-5-1 on defending and a 5-4-1 on ultra defensive.
Hope that made sense.
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Paul – the penny dropped late last night after I posted my question. I thought the d-pad left/right settings (from Ultra Defensive through to Ultra Attacking) were ATT/DEF levels as in PES, but they’re actually alternate formations and instructions sets!
Much more flexible of course than simple ATT/DEF levels, and I spent ages last night tinkering with them.
The Team Sheet you set up pre-match ONLY applies to the starting ‘Balanced’ setting. What I was doing was, I was heading into the Formation screen mid-match and moving players around, then going back to the match and wondering why none of the changes had worked. And of course I was on a different ‘ATT/DEF’ setting as I thought of it. I don’t recall seeing any in-game tutorial on this, maybe I clicked through it.
Was up till 3.30am playing, safe to say this will be a serious FIFA effort this year.
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NG – glad you got it sorted, the tactics can be very powerful and flexible, and very useful for changing a match.
There are a plethora of videos showing the setups of these on Youtube, but now you know how they work you’ll be fine!
Also don’t forget you can set instructions for each player, so tell your AMF to stay forward, wingers to either cut inside or stay out wide etc.
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