Season 5 all wrapped up and finished, and what a season
I keep saying this but FIFA 20 matures into a tastier, more rounded, mature wine, with every seasonal sip, the more you bond with players, see your signings come good, see tactical genius decisions play out, nurture those youths, the greater FIFA 20’s hooks sink in.
Building on last seasons Premier League title would be a hard act to follow, we are not a team of galacticos, or multi-dozen-million pound players, most players have been acquired on free transfers, or been targeted as a specific signing to improve key areas, we are still a young talented team on the rise, over-achieving as we go along, we are around 2 years ahead of my expected development curve, so anything less than a concerted effort at defending our title would have been seen as a failure.
In the end though, we just fell short. Man Utd won the title with daylight between them and second, during the run-in, we lost 2 key matches, a hammering away at Arsenal, 4-0, and a frustrating 2-1 defeat at Southampton, coming off the back of a 5-2 aggregate Champions League semi-final win over Barcelona.
Yes, you heard right, Crystal Palace are in the UEFA Champions League final, more on that in a bit.
An overall very good season performance, only 6 defeats all season, only one of those coming at home, a GD of +47, and a Carabao Cup Semi-final defeat to eventual double winners, Man Utd, oh, and that UCL final to come of course.
As Gomez was the standout player last season, with 32 goals, this season he failed to gain much traction, the move up to World Class had exposed his lack of pace, superb finishing but at this level you need pace to buy that critical yard of space in order to be in a position to finish, he never managed that, so lost his place to youth promote, Karl Schinkel, who took his chance to impress and was a mainstay for a majority of the season, weighing in with an impressive 17 goals.
His strike partner, Brewster, signed a year ago from Liverpool for £42 million, has pace to burn, and a deadly finish to match.
27 goals for the season, and a further 8 in the UCL, a great season for young Brewster, who is still only 24 and has his best years ahead of him.
Now, on to the pinnacle of the season, the climax, and none other than the final of the greatest club competition on the planet, the Champions League final, where we would face Juventus, at the Ajax Arena.
Juventus, UCL Final, World Class level, this will be one tough match, will we finish the season on a high and be crowned kings of Europe, or will we falter and have to settle for the experience and a consolation prize of Europa League football next season?
Extended highlights of the UCL final are presented below.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – I won’t give away the CL Final outcome either as you’ve done a fine job of putting together some TV-style highlights there. Reminiscent of Sunderland ‘Til I Die a little bit, which I binge-watched both seasons of last week!
‘Whatever happened’ in the CL Final, getting there and finishing 5th in the PL is about the level you’re at with the squad you’ve got. In my own progress I’m discovering just how tough it is to get a good set of players together whilst holding onto the ones you’ve got. It’s a fine mod we’re playing with I think.
And 2160p footage?! What wizardry is this – you were a consistent 1080p man until now. How did it play/record, any stuttering?
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NG – a UCL final, and 5th place in the Prem, only missing out on 2nd by a couple of points, and a domestic cup semi final, for my first season on World Class I consider a bloody good season.
Just updated my FIFA game, last night, as was still playing on the older version, didn’t want to tinker during the title run-in, so have updated to the FIFER 2.5 hot fix, and also got the new GFXMOD VI, with new camera and turfs, which is nice, had to re-do the adboardc mods, ball mods, and mini kits to be compatible with the updated game, so all ready to start season 6, but probably won’t until the weekend.
I started recording my videos in 2160p about 2 weeks ago, but when I play back that UCL final vid above on YouTube, it says its 1080p 60FPS, not 2160p, so where are you seeing that its 2160p?
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On my retina-screen MBP. I’m on wifi at the moment and it struggles to keep up but it’s watchable, and looks great. 3-5 years from now 2160 will be the new 1080. I’m 1440p for everything on my PC right now, anything more than that and I worry about the fans and temps etc.
I’m about to have a session myself on the game but won’t be updating, no time today, that’s time I coud spend playing.
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NG – I see it now, it appears that if I play the video on YT in Chrome, I get the full 2160p 4k options, if I play it in safari, it caps it at 180p, seems very odd that Apple’s own browser is incapable of playing 4k content on a 2018 4k capablw retina screen macbook pro.
To answer you previous question, the 2160 recorded absolutely fine, no dropouts, no frame stutters, like butter, hut I think I will limit it to 144 in future as not everyone is capable of 4k playback and ther extra processing time probably isnt worth it.
The update I refer to was the one from a couple of weeks ago, which you already did, when you installed the FIFER hotfix, there hasn’t been once since, it was just that I didnt update at the time as I couldn’t nbe bothered to remake all the mods i use.
You need any new Leeds kits yet?
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Paul – no regular Thursday post? This is the first one you’ve missed in so long, have you been summoned back to the office now? uNlucky if so, and same here, our semi-work from home phase is now in the past
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NG – No, still working from home, just didnt bother with a post today, as you are the only one thats bothered to comment, with the exception of Lloyd (twice), in over a month and a half’s worth of posts, even then its literally 4 comments per post, 2 of which are my own replies.
Too much effort and time invested to post if no one is bothered about reading or commenting on it, so just didnt bother.
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Paul – I’m reading them all even if I don’t comment. Rest assured I’m loving your story and look forward to the next chapter.
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Paul – we have had this discussion a couple of times so you know my view on it. I still think it’s a mistake to make comment numbers and frequency your motivation metric.
Every time you get some momentum going, such as your current run, you seem to lose heart and stop, thus ending the momentum. My prime motivation for blogging is to get my football gaming ‘out there’ in a form I can look at myself and feel that the hours have a concrete record. You’ll remember many of my own posts over the last few months that have attracted few or no comments for days – that’s how it goes, particularly in the months after February. Lockdown or no lockdown, footy gaming is a seasonal affair.
And remember that I am talking about FIFA20 on my blog too, effectively splitting the already small community. All in all, for a host of reasons, I think you’ve lost heart for the wrong reasons. Your posting style is developing a specific shape of its own and you are nailing things, getting tighter, etc. The world feels vague at the moment and nobody is quite playing the same thing as anyone else, but I go back to the prime notivating factor: your own weekly or twice-weekly testament to the hours you’re putting in.
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Yeah just not feeling it right now NG, people say they are reading but then why not comment and add to the discussion?
People comment about all sorts of things over on your blog, but I post up posts that took me days to compile, edit, design, showcasing massively im[portant matches etc and peopole still just for whatever reason dont comment, as I pointed out, I’ve had 2 comments per post for nearly 2 months now, you get a minimum of around 2 comments per post, twice a week.
I’m not blogging for the comments per se, but it does take days to collate all the footage, screenshots, edit up all the video, render it, design and write the faux magazine interviews i do, all that stuff, then to post and hjighlight big matches, and get nothing, except one or two comments from yourself, which I appreciate.
It’s lockdown, everyone is at home, theres no excuse to ‘not have time’ to comment, and interact, everyone does it on your blog with every post.
Like you said, i think when you was playing PES, I was iffering something different with FIFA, now you are playing FIFA full time its just more if the same and people jus comment in one place.
Not to worry, im not that bothered, just not into making a ton of effort for no reward.
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Paul – all I’ll say is, if I was starting my footy game blog nowadays, with the landscape the way it is, and if I wanted to do it to ‘connect’ with people (shudder) – I’d go for all-video content. I wouldn’t go for the text-and-images traditional blog at all. Maybe I’d even do one of those in-picture things of me playing and talking. That dramatically cuts down on the ratio of work put in/reward obtained, and who knows, if it takes off you might earn a few bob. There cant be many (or any) football gamers on the PC platform playing and showcasing mods. The TotalBrits is the only one I can think of., and that’s PES He does all right and he doesn’t appear in the image. You don’t have to wear a baseball cap backwards….
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We’ll see.
Maybe i’ll post again next week, just couldn’t be bothered this week, and wont mater baout missinga slot in a regular schedule, you cant lose commenters if there are none to start with.
We post for different reasons, yours as you say is to document your playing time invested and have some hard bricks and mortar, or morelik,e words and images to show for all the time you invest playing, mine isn’t that.
Mine is primarily because when you just disappeared a few years back, and stopped posting, I created a blog to keep the sense of community going amongst the regular commenters, the ones of us that had been visiting your blog since day x, and had built up a little community, continuity, and that expanded once you was back, into offering a FIFA-esque blog as something different to your own PES blog, but now with 2 FIFA focused blogs I guess people just comment on the one.
Makes no odds to me, I’m happy just playing the game and happy to post mini updates and vidoes over on your blog to keep in the loop as i see fit and get chance, maybe I’ll try and think of a new route to take FIFAFX once I’m done with my current career, maybe a Dog and Duck rags to riches journey in FIFA 20, or 21, we’ll see.
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ah, I remember those days – around PES2014 time wasn’t it, which everyone hated. NG met ‘Yoko’, went on holiday together. Then went almost mad under Werd’s constant ‘I’m going to start a ML edited with Belgian Div 3 teams no actually how about one with the great Uruguayan teams from the 1950s what do you think not-Greg???’ shut the chronicles and disappeared. So we moved our little community to Paul’s blog, made a video, wrote some poems. Can’t actually remember if any footy games were being played, certainly not PES. Then we unearthed NG under a pseudonym somewhere writing some pretty decent stories about Tentacles. And he sheepishly re-joined, trying to claim that PES2014 was actually ok. Peculiar, but happy days!
Paul – like everyone else I read all your posts and really enjoy them. The problem is that with largely the same group of commenters on both blogs I guess debate and banter will naturally flow towards one for ease of keeping track of the discussion. Not sure what the solution is tbh. Have always suspected that there is a larger audience out there for a good FIFA career mode blog
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Abbeyhill- I think you will find I plumped for a 2div Yugoslaviam league circa 1988…only lasted 1 season.
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Those were the days Abbeyhill – Ng’s eyes were turned and the chrinicles slammed th shutters down quicker than a dentist surgery during Covid19.
We had to go somewhere……
FIFAFX will be back this Thursday, either in pics and words format or video format, whatever feels easiest at the time, season 6 on WC is still chugging along at a 9.5/10 rate every session, and those who wan to comment as well as read are welcome and encouraged to do so.
Werd – long time fella, hope the gaming and pasta making is still keeping you amused
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Paul- having spaghetti today as a matter if fact☺can I ask what length half’s your on in fifa and the best sliders?
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Nice WERD! I have some strozapretti on order, my fave pasta, almost impossible to find in any supermarkets though.
I use 6 min halves and the OS Sliders in FIFA 20, with a few of the valus tweaked to my liking, of course overlaying all that is the FIFER realism and gameplay mod which also adjusts the way the AI behave and other stuff.
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Didn’t Strozapretti play for Juventus? Imagine going into Waitrose and asking if they sell priest chokers?
Looking forward to Thursday’s offering more excitedly that the local estate are looking forward to Primark re-opening.
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Unlucky with the final Paul, but as you said, a very good first season on WC. I’ve got an outside chance of finishing top 4 in season 8 with 9 games to go. Pressure is off after winning Carabao Cup Final against Liverpool. Got a FA Cup semi against Arsenal coming up soon, a cup double is very much on the cards.
Been on WC since Season 4 in Championship and its taken 3 seasons in Premier to win something and qualify for Europe. Best Fifa ever and best footy gaming experience since Pro Evo 12.
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Haha Chris – i somehow think the queue to read tomorrows post won’t touch the 22 mile long queues of single teenage mothers that will form when Primark re-opens.
Got sem key updates to share, and just entered Jan transfer window which could be the biggest transfer window ever for me, for the wrong reasons.
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Cheers Lloyd – have a bit of a domestic cup hoodoo going on in my CM. UCL final defeat, 3 Carabao Cup emi final defeats, and an FA Cup semi-final defeat, just cant get over that last hurdle.
Consistently strong in the league though, on for top 5 finishes both seasons on WC.
Definitely the best game for many a year, I actually cant even think of a more enjoyable career in any game I’ve played, PES11 ML still hangs in the memory but more for being the best PES game out of quite a few years of bad ones, more than being a standout amazing game on its own.
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yep, my current FIFA19 career mode is certainly up there among the best. One key thing is that the gameplay seems to get better as the seasons roll on and you get better players on FIFA – the array of extra skills and animations they develop give you more options. 1 point behind Man City with 9 games to go, one foot in the Europa League semi finals and still in the FA Cup, shaping up to be an epic finale. In contrast I tend to find PES these days brilliant for the first 3 seasons (like Dan’s recent comment on peschronicles) but then awful as the limited AI ramps up the cheating to cope with your improving team
Suspect you’re not a reader of Viz Paul but your strozapretti comment reminded me of Foodie Bollocks – in this month’s edition he is tramping round 20 supermarkets amid coronavirus, searching for orecchie di prete….
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Abbeyhill, sounds like you have a fantastic season going on there, make sure to post vids etc and keep us updated on how it all plays out.
I’m still seeing animations in FIFA that feel completely new that i haven’t yet seen in 6 seasons, or over 200 matches.
The first 3 seasons of a PES ML only feel ‘decent’ (if that) because its a new game, and every new game has that bedding in honeymoon period, but even in those early seasons in PES the game is still littered with abysmal design choices, piss poor AI, absurd commentary, canned animations, awful tactical/teamshape logic etc….. it’s just moe forgiveable in those first few seasons, not that its a very good game.
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