Season Three strides on, we are hovering just outside the European places, as we approach mid-Feb, are through to the KO stages of the Europa league where we face Portugese giants Benfica in the last 32, and since the last post, we have crashed out of the FA Cup.
We beat Spurs in a comfortable 2-0 home victory, then played them again 3 days later in the FA Cup 5th round, with fatigue in mind and our impending Europa league tie, I fielded a B-side, with only 2 or 3 usual first teamers selected, it was a tense tight match with the youngsters and fringe players doing well but ultimately not enough as slack marking left Moura to waltz through our defence in the 80th minute and snatch a 1-0 win to send us out.
The January transfer window proved to be very successful, in the months leading up I purposely sent my scouts out to find players entering the last year of their contract, rules state that any player 23 yrs old or above, within the last 6 months of their contracts, are free to negotiate directly with another club, I used this fully to my advantage by identifying several very good players who were in this situation.
The pick of the free’s has to be Left Back Grimaldo, a very solid 86 OVR rated player, still only 26yrs old, snatched from Benfica, a player of his skills would command £40-£60 million in the game if bought traditionally, we ended up signing him to a 4year contract at £55k per week with a £300k signing on bonus, and a further £250k after 15 clean sheets.
We very nearly lost out on him too, as my initial approach showed his current wage was £28k, so I thought I would go in with an initial offer of £36k, which his agent dismissed as insulting, and ended negotiations, I then had to wait 2 in-game weeks before I could re-negotiate, by which time I fully expected him to have signed a new deal or been snapped up by another club, so we got lucky, he will be our new first choice LB, with Van Aanholt dropping to the bench but at least now come the end of the season when the new signings will join, we will have cover in that position.
These types of free transfers are invaluable when trying to build a squad with better players, the FIFER realism mod also takes transfer fees from transfrmkt.com so are in line with real-world fees, as are the clubs transfer budgets, so no having hundreds of millions to spend freely a la PES, it’s much harder to build a squad, and more effort due to having to scout in advance, but ultimately more rewarding.
The PC modding environment continues to allow for even greater immersion, a living, breathing, all-enveloping football world wrapped around the glorious game play, I design my new kits and change them every season, Palace’s real-world kit is a Puma one, I changed this after season one to a bespoke Nike design, and as you can see in the video below, I was able to manipulate the Selhurst Park electronic adboards to incorporate my new custom kit, and update the season year, to 2020/21 instead of the old 2019/20, and also change the puma branding to Nike.
I have also edited my locale.ini file (a reference file for game settings) to include tighter deeper and springier goal nets, and increased the AI’s standing tackle frequency, which means there are much more instances of the AI sticking out a foot and nicking the ball off you or flicking it away, more realistic.
The Video below has a couple of tasty goals from semi-distance from stalwart CDM, Keyouté, some nice dribbling, and a first time hit from Zaha
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – the way things are going, football games will be the only football we get to enjoy for a few months. How do Liverpool fans feel about the very real prospect now of winning the title behind closed doors? I saw the PSG fans massed outside Parc des Princes last night and imagine they’ll do much the same in Liverpool.
I’m doing the january Scouting thing in my own fledgling CM! Will report back on success or not. I think the low prestige and low cash of my club will count against me. Needless to say I am loving the challenge. Every kick of the ball counts. A couple of good players emerging from the pack.
The adboards and kits look amazing, still blown away every time at the FIFA modding scene, which we crazily knew nothing about for these past few years.
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NG – Wouldn’t bother Liverpool fans, Man City have lifted the Premier league trophy to a virtually empty stadium last 2 seasons! We’d all be out in our millions in the streets regardless.
Who would have thought when I bought this gaming PC end of Nov, to play a modded PES, to try and improve on the shitshow Konami served up, that we would bot in fact be playing a very sleek,. modded, FIFA 20 instead.
Just waiting for the FIFER 2.1 update to be compatible with the new patch (Title Update 12) then I will update, and have a new version of the GFX Mod Broadcast Camera and pitch presets to load in, already tried it and the LOD enhancements make the game look very crisp and detailed and the broadcast cam tweak we love so much has been further enhanced too.
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Paul – Assuming mass gatherings haven’t been outlawed by then. Still, at least any interruption to European football won’t affect you (sorry, couldn’t resist).
Loving your posts of this career, and the modding just adds to it. Can you afford to buy anyone outright or was it all pre-contract?
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Chris99 – Harsh, I guess seeing as we’ve dominated europe the last few seasons it was time to give someone else a go, I mean Man City need all the help they can get!
I have about £22million in the transfer kitty, so could afford a plater, or even two, but as the CM mod adjusts transfer fees to realistic prices, the chance of getting anyone that would significantly improve my team for that price is low, plus one of my board objectives is to finish the season with £17mil of allocated funds still left (weird objective I know) so pre-cntract is where its at, and you stand a much better chance of picking up quality players.
Take the Grimaldo deal, rated 86 OVR at 26, he’s one of the best players in the game, his market value was £48mil, but I would never have got him for less than 70-80 mil in game as clubs always ask for more, 55k a week salary, over 4 years equates to £114mil, but obviously much more affordable paying it like a finance deal.
Plus the added bonus of being able to accept a huge bid for him if one came in and i absolutely needed the money.
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I left another comment here that hasn’t appeared and presumably didn’t go into moderation… All I was saying is that it would be likely by this time tomorrow (i.e. today) that all football would be suspended indefinitely or behind closed doors. With so many corona isolations now in place, suspension is what’s going to happen. And the most likely set of events after that (the least-worst option) is the season declared null and void and we start again in August (hopefully) from scratch. That would piss off a lot of Coventry fans as well Paul, but thinking about it, what else could they do. Award the title to Liverpool is fine, but they could never do the same in the lower leagues as it would have to relegate somebody above the and those teams will never accept that, quite rightly too. Closed doors would have been the least-worst option until all the squads started having isolations. A minefield or what. My preferred solution: resume the 2019/2020 season in Aug/Sept and play it to a conclusion. Then pause all football until Aug 2021. Effectively skipping Season 2020-21.
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NG – Me and a work colleague were having this conversation today. The only thing we could think of is that the season will be declared nil and void. We all know the time window is too narrow and that this will run into next season. The only other option is the scenario you mention but this would cause a loss in tv revenue. Although this could be the end of football as we know it.
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Darryl — the solution I’ve mentioned would be the least-worst way of doing it. We all get to finish the current season and everybody gets their fair dues. They could start 2021-22 early and have a spaced-out season to fill the gap. They’ll come up with something.
I started re-reading The Road the other night. All the signs of the end of days. You don’t actually get to hear much about how the world of The Road ended in the book, but you get to find out everything about the world that emerges from a collapse of our civilisation.
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would be a particular shame for Coventry, after so many years in the wilderness they have built a really good side at last. Odd feeling Saturday morning here, with even my 11s game, and son’s football training, cancelled for virus reasons
quite fancy embarking on a new open world game, after completing Witcher III, Zelda, Dark Souls and getting stuck on MGSV, any recommendations? Thinking about Red Dead 2 – seem to recall a couple of you loved it to begin with but then dropped it like a stone, anything in particular wrong with it?
still enjoying your videos Paul, looks like there is more scope for dribbling and close control in FIFA20. Can’t wait to get started on it, but my FIFA19 career mode is just too enjoyable; Exeter have made a great start in the Premier League, in 3rd place and in semi finals of Milk Cup. Taylor Watson, my nippy New Zealand striker, is shaping up to be world class
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I think declaring the season null and void is the worst of the options on the table, and the least likely to happen. Which of the other options is chosen is dependent on when we start to come out the other side.
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NG – No idea whaqt happened to your comment, nothing in moderation this side.
Voiding the current season would be the most deplorable, ridiculous decision ever made, and knowing the state of people that run things in this country, could be a possibility.
Not saying this as just a Liverpool supporter, but scrapping 8 months worth of matches, where players have trained, developed and put in performances in the toughest league in the world, that have been umatched and unprecedented, would be shambolic, and insulting to want to just wipe that out, although i’m sure every imbecile Man City and Man utd fan in the country would approve.
The season needs to resume, whatever date that is, and come to a conclusion, Euro 2020 scrapped or delayed if needs to be for players to have a break, then the 2020/21 season, could start, again delayed if needed and also reduced if needed. This would have the least impact on titles, promotions, relegations etc.
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Abbeyhill – I still havent even played through 10% of RDR2, its gorgeous graphically but ultimately very linear with the ‘open world’ element just being dead space between linera routine missions, I was very excited for it, then dissapointed when playing it, it just didn’t grab me and pull me in.
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