Since the last post, season two has come to a shuddering finish, with a very interesting end of season run-in.
Our final league position was 7th, one more win could have seen us finish 4th, and grab a UEFA Champions League spot for next season, in such a stark contrast to what’s going on in the real world right now, there will be a champions league next season, and the season did come to a natural conclusion, club training grounds are also fully stocked with Pasta and Rice in the pixelised FIFA world.
Overall it was a satisfactory season, meeting the board’s objectives and securing another year on my managerial contract, Standout player was CF Andre Kramaric, who weighed in with an impressive 23 goals for the seasonto finish runner up in the top goal scorers charts, youth promotee Jason Lokilo (RM) also forged his way into the side with a series of impressive performances belying his 19 yrs.
Last time round I mentioned we had reached the KO stages of the Europa League, where we faced Portugese giants Benfica, we drew 1-1 at home and demolished them 4-0 away from home to go through, we then beat Marseille and Hoffenheim to reach the final, we woud be contesting our first ever trophy (not counting the pre-season tournament win) against PSV Eindhoven of Holland, to be played at West Ham’s iconic London Stadium.
Below is the full match of the Europa League final, from start to end, if you can’t be bothered to watch, then a summary is after the jump.
So, disappointly we lost the final 2-1, after that dubious Red card against the AI I fancied our chances of coming back from 1-0 down, and we did, but then an equally dubious Red card against us, and a totally nothing penalty awarded to PSV in the 85th minute sealed our fate, it wasn’t to be, so close yet so far.
Of course if we had won, we would have gone into the Champions League next season, but as it stands, with only a 7th place finish, no European football for the eagles in 2021/22.
We have thre new players set to join, all signed on a free, who will significantly bolster the squad, with our scouts also looking at several other possible options, so we should be stronger and more prepared for a proper tilt at the UCL places next season, we have the Audi Cup coming up pre-season so will be a good testing ground for these new players and for a few promising youth academy players to make their mark.
There is so much to like in FIFA 20, especially with the PC mods, but one standout feature is the dribbling. When playing PES 20 it was extremely frustrating to dribble as it felt that the game had been designed with the bias solely on the defense, dribbling was often pointless, with inertia, foot planting momentum etc all largely ignored and defenders just able to barge into you and auto-take the ball, not so in FIFA 20.
You often see goal videos on Youtube of ‘kids’ scoring flicked up overhead sombreoro style goals from 50 yards after doing 14 stepovers, a rabona, a rainbow flick and a drag back, all very unrealistic, but thats online for you, at the core, FIFA 20 dribbling is superb and you can wave magic with the right players, right decisions and right control inputs purely just by using the LS alone, no streetfigher style button combos or RS flicks needed, just the Left stick and subtle presses of the sprint button, glorious, and all feels very intuitive.
Here is one example of many where choosing to dribble in the right moments and pure LS control works beautifully:
The way Lokilo gets the ball, drives down the wing, jinking and feinting, and dribbles into the box drawing a foul and earning a penalty.
So season 3 is underway, new players arriving, new objectives, a new GFX mod for pitch turfs and an improved sweeping broadcast camera, brand new kits, and a brand new custom match ball, and new pitchside animated adboards, Game On!
End of season 2 goal highlights:
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – I won’t get a post out tomorrow now, about to play some FIFA20 this afternoon but that’s my game time and I won’t have blogging time after. I just really need to play right now, not blog! Interesting times is a Chinese curse, remember.
I watched the full Europa League Final and it was a great game. You’ll forgive me for saying you played badly for most of it! Or was it an AI stranglehold on things too…? I thought the slide-tackle you did on the sidelines was red-card-worthy in the first half. It was oddly emotional seeing and hearing the crowd noises and a proper game of football. At least when we do get back to normal it’ll be the most amazingly great thing ever, like VE Day or something.
Good goals at the end too, Townsend at the start was my pick. You got good camera angles too.
The game is more than holding up for me on Vanilla right now but I will be indluging in FIFER 2.1 when it lands for subscribers (I’m still in the Patreon).
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NG – I delved into my allotted play time heavily this week, re-setting up my modded environment as firstly the windows update broke frosty, only way to resolve it was udate FIFA to TU13, which in turn broke FIFER Mod 2.0, and within frosty, all legacy files break with every title update, so my ball, adboards, and minikits all had to be remade and exported to new mods compatible with the latest patch.
Luckily enough I am in collab with FIFER himself now, helping him with graphical bits and he kindly sent me the alpha of his 2.1 mod days before it was on patreon, so i was able to get back up and running fairly quickly.
You know what to do if you don’t want to wait for the public Patreon release of 2.1 😉
and I must say, its much improved.
You are totally right in saying I played badly in the EL final, I did, was disppointing after breezing through the rest of the Comp.
PSV were noticeably a better standard opposition but we just couldn’t get going. The Penalty was super harsh though, wasn’t a penalty IMO.
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nice footage Paul, not spotted that crowd surge after a goal before – is it new in FIFA20 or modded in? I remember when a young Andros Townsend was on loan at Ipswich, he clearly looked brilliant but for some reason Roy Keane refused to play him, shocking manager.
good to see that skilful dribbling into the area and being hacked down is still in 20 although it did look a bit of a dive from Lokilo. Do you ever use any right stick skill moves Paul, or is it entirely left stick, R2 and L2 plus occasional shot feint?
just been to Sainsburys, it’s like there is a war on, most shelves completely stripped especially in the alcohol section aside from the ‘premium’ £14-15 wines on top shelf. Scots are panicking about pubs shutting imminently!
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I’ve seen a crowd surge in vanilla 20 on the PS4,and it struck me then as something new.
I’m bracing myself for a supermarket visit this morning. I could learn to hate people.
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Abbeyhill – The crowd surge is in the normal game, not a mod.
when dribbling I use various methods, straight forward L2 dribbling, stabs of Sprint for speed bursts, sprint plus RS for knock ons, and L1 is a deadly weapon, its the close control button, allows you to stop sharply, turn tightly etc, great for wrong footing players.
All supermarkets here are horrendous too.
managed a fairly productive shop at 7am this morning, stocked up with bread, milk, essentials, got 2 packs of bog roll, but have ordered a 30 pack off amazon too for next week.
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Quarantine day 3. To ease the boredom I’ve recorded a full length match with commentary from myself:
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Paul – is it just coincidence that your new first kit is very Liverpool-like from afar? Your vid and other footballgame vids that I’ve watched in the last week or two make me think how weird it’ll be when real football resumes.
That moment on 74 mins when you’re running horizontally across the penalty box looking to do a curler – they’re incredibly tough to pull off on FIFA20, I find, even with the space. PES, pretty straightforward and a common source of goals, but FIFA, don’t think I’ve got more than the odd one yet.
That is a good showcase for the game and the mods. You’ve got that environment down pat all right.
You did a good commentary too, it was invaluable seeing and hearing your Tactical Defending tips.
But what’s with you calling FIFER “FIFA”!!! FIFER is said the same way as “PIPER”, surely!
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NG – kit like Liverpool? Really? What part? The Palace kit is a brighter red with stripes, Liverpool kit is a darker cherry red and never had stripes.
I like to try that Coutinho-esque run across box and whipped curler into the far corner every now and then, but with the new FIFER2.1 you are closed down much more effectively.
Enjoyed doing the commentary but it’s often hard to concentrate on the match and what you’re trying to say.
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Paul — I said from a distance they resembled Liverpool’s kits. Through slightly-closed eyes.
And you haven’t addressed the point of biggest controversy: you calling FIFER ‘FIFA’. Hearing you say that was like hearing an American say ‘herb’ or ‘solder’ (they say ‘erb’ and ‘sodder’). Just wrong!
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NG – Purely just a speak-typo, whilst concentrating on the match, and commentary, when i say it in my head its always FIFER as in FYFER or Pfeiffer as in the actress.
Hope that clears up that important point 🙂
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Thank God for that. I am only about 30% joking too 🙂
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That literary OCD kicking in.
what stadium are you using as Cambridge?
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I like the notion of a speak typo. Should get a chance to play a bit of FIFA soon having spent the last week cramming for a Microsoft exam. Working from home turned out to be quite beneficial.
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Chris – what MS exam did you take?
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70-483 Programming in C#. Quite pleased it only took a week’s solid revision, as the study guide was 400 pages.
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Chris99 – Superb. great skill to have, most widely used programming language, and quite complex with all its classes and arrays, great effort!
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Well I’ve been using it for 15 years, but ability and real world use isn’t really what that exam was about. A lot of rote learning and the ability to spot minor differences between four blocks of code. I’m still convinced in one question where there were supposed to be two correct and two incorrect answers only one would work. Still, something to do when you’re stuck at home…
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