For the second season running, we made it to the Carabao Cup final, our opponents this season were Arsenal, who at the time were topping the Premier league table, it would be a very tough match and one that we were keen to avenge and the trophy to the cabinet.
Here are extended highlights of the final:
So it eludes us once again, a 2-0 defeat to a very good Arsenal side, the difficulty level definitely gets a boost for cup final matches, as I have played this Arsenal side in the league and beat them, but for the majority of this cup final I just couldn’t get anywhere near them.
They didn’t lose their shape, there was no space between the lines in order to probe, they covered the wings, they were fast, strong and skilful, it was one of my toughest matches yet, maybe next year.
Since mid-Jan our league form has been sporadic, flying along in the cup comps but league form, the bread and butter, really took a hit, not helped of course by having 5 first team players out with lengthy injuries.
The squad just wasn’t strong enough to cope, youth players did their bit but ultimately games we were leading in, ended up as draws, and enough points were dropped to see us slip a few places to just outside the Champions League qualification places.
The teams around us are consistently winning so the race to grab that 4th UCL spot is very tight with just 2 games left to play.
Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool battle it out for the title, whilst us, Spurs and Man City all fight for 4th place, of course, there could be an alternative route into next seasons Champions league, the Europa Cup.
Win it, and you automatically qualify for the UCL, and after beating the same resurgent Arsenal side 1-0 on agg in the Europa League quarter final, we then despatched Lille 4-1 on agg to make it to the Europa League final:
Benfica won their qualifying group, and comfortably eased through their semi final beating Guimares 5-1 on agg, so this will be another tough match, 2 cup final defeats in one season would be too much to bare, we need to make this happen.
Next weeks post will fully wrap up the season, I had planned to finish season 6 by todfay, but with the gorgeous weather we’ve been having I spent most of my free time outside, in the garden, or fishing, no video gaming time, so its taken a little longer to get it done, but season 6 will climax within the next few days, so next week I will post full unedited match coverage of the Europa League final, hopefully with some self-commentary, and detail the race for 4th.
I leave you with a short video with 4 goals included, the first is a nice driven curling FK from Brewster, note the new far-out FK view that’s part of the latest GFXMod, same style of view for penalties too, I’m not keen, you can’t see too well and much preferred the default closer in view.
Second goal in the clip was a tasty little goal scored by the AI against me, and finally the last 2 goals are a brace from CF Ferreira against Lille in the Europa League semi final.
FIFAFX.com 
Paul – unlucky with the Carabao Cup Final mate. In a weird coincidence I beat Arsenal 3-1 to win back to back Carabao Finals last night. I’m sitting 4th with 10 games to go, 12 points off Man City in top spot. Through to the Europa League last 16 and FA Cup quarters as well. I may have a cup treble on my hands al a Liverpool 2000/01.
Good luck with the Europa League Final.
Did you say fishing? I’m all ears!!
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yes here too Arsenal are nowhere in the league but I’ve got them in the FA Cup final second year in a row. 2-0 defeat last season looked very much like your Carabao cup video Paul. Two points behind City with a game in hand and three to play in the League, plus Europa League final v Roma coming up after nervy 3-2 semis win over Dortmund, should be an epic session tonight
not-Greg might have used it in the past but that is still a great post title Paul!
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Paul – the carabao final looked like one of those games where you were never going to be allowed to score no matter what you did – did it feel that way? FIFA has its own box of tricks that it uses, and as ever we go with it, whatever it is.
Game looks fantastic on your rig there, a notch up from mine. I quite like the look of that zoomed-out free kick. I still haven’t scored one like that on FIFA20 in my almost 4 complete seasons so far. The right stick thing confuses me, I’m guessing you just use left stick and shoot? I can’t use the right stick AND press shoot with the correct timing.
I’ve had a work overload this week, clearing the decks ahead of a few days off next week when I will more than make up for it. So no gaming of any kind since Monday and no post for me tomorrow, skipping is a bad habit I’m always scolding you for 🙂 but necessary as the world gets back to normal and everyone tries to catch up at once.
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Lloyd – Cheers, was gutted, I beat them in the league, but th difficulty was ramped up x 100 for this final, they played me off the park.
Good luck with that Cup Treble, lets hope you do a Houllier!
Yeah fishing, used to go when i was much younger, but haven’t been for about 15 or so years, dusted all my gear off as it was nice weather, and is a perfect sport you can do without being near people, but all my gera was rusted or mouse eaten, so ended up spending about £600 on new kit.
You a keen angler then?
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On for a League and Euro double then Abbeyhill, keep us posted how it goes, they will be some tough, nervy matches for sure.
Ahh thanks, it just semed perfect for the situation, I was gonna put a still from the video as the post image but thought better of it 😉
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NG – Very much so, the highlights show a flurry of chances from me in the second half but I was always chasing shadows, I kinda gave up hope after the 70th minute that i was playing for pride and nothing else.
The new FK system is a bit iffy, i dont like it, but once you get used to it its quite easy.
You aim the reticule where you want to aim the initiual kick, power up, usually around 2, or 2 and a bit bars is perfect, then use the right stick to apply spin, this is where the learning comes in.
Normally you’d assume holding the RS to the left, if you wanted to curl the ball from right to left, would be the logic, but its not, if you watch the RS stick icon moving when you take a free kick it shows you the directions for each shot type, either curler, dipping, or standard.
To curl the ball you’d aim a few yards wide of the post, how far depends on the FK takers curl and FK accuracy stats, then power up and after powering up, to curl the ball from right to left you’d move the RS down, around in a semi circle to the right, up into the top left position, like this:
For a dipping topspin shot, youd aim about a fot above the crossbar and move the RS down, or leave the RS centered for a standard driven shot.
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abbeyhill – I thought I’d used it too, but the record shows that I went for ‘Four Goals, One Cup’, back in the days of PES2015, which looks like it’s from another century now when it was only the first PES game of the current console generation.
Paul – I have this stubborn belief that you have to press the shoot button once to power up the shot, then again at the moment of kickage to enable accuracy. It’s combining that operation with a right-stick manipulation that is the problem for me – I just can’t do it. My fingers can’t move fast enough from shoot button to right stick. You’re going to tell me that the second button-press at the moment of foot striking ball is not necessary and in my head, but the reticule indicates green positive feedback for a well-timed press, and orange-red negative feedbacks for ill-timed presses. I am confused.
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Paul – love a bit of fishing. Went to France for a week last August. 5 lads, 30 crates of beer and 5 carp over 40lbs. What a week!!
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NG – the secondary button press you refer to is the ‘Timed Shooting’ mechanic, and totally unnecessary.
It’s a new feature for FIFA 20, which you can turn on or off in settings, whereby for FK’s and normal open play, when shooting you can press the shoot button a second time to ‘stop’ the reticule in the sweet zone (green indicator) which increases the chances of scoring, or if you fail to stop it in the sweet zone, your shot can be wildly scuffed, think the swing meter on a golf game and its the same principle.
You can also choose to show or hide the timed shot reticule in settings.
But as I said, totally unneccesary for Fks, just take them as normal, aim, power up, apply RS bend as i showed above, job done.
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Llloyd – Awesome. I’m more of a pole man, do have a flat and feeder rod too but never use bite alarms or anything.
Went to a local fishery Tuesday, fished under 2 feet deep, scorching hot day, about 6 metres out on the pool, was there 5 hours, had 32 fish, a mix of F1’s, mirrors, common, some Chubb, Ide, ranging from 2lb up to about 12 lb, all on expander pellet and sweetcorn, great days fishing.
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If it’s not in the sea it’s not proper fishing. Right, that should get some comments flying 😉
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The Carabao final looked to be just one of those games Paul, where the AI team is almost unplayable, weirdly the opposite experience I had. It would be interesting to know more about the back end decisions football games take but it’s probably best for the suspension of disbelief to stay ignorant. At least with FIFA it tends to be the good teams knocking it about rather then Burnley, as per PES. The end of your season is going to be a cracker, there’s nothing like every game being a must win game to get the juices flowing.
I’m into December of my current season now, great fun so far. The Europa group stage was passed despite a couple of thrashings from Torino. Malmo was a must win game and they hit the post in the last minute to equalise, one of those fine margins we have no control over.
I wonder whether you can help me on editing? How do I change the radar colour for my away kit? I’ve gone from the default white kit to a blue but can’t work out how to change the radar colour. I tried to use Live Editor/Cheat Table thingy but couldn’t get it to work, is this the best method or can I do it via RDBM?
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Chris99 – Love a bit of sea fishing too, however, not living near the coast its not possible, always dabble in a bit when on holiday though, caught some beautiful red snapper in cuba, fishing from a row boat using freshly caught prawns as bait, then bbq’d the fish over an old petrol barrel back on shore, superb.
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Cook – I’ve not played for about 5 days just due to being busy so plan to get the season finished today, the league is beyond reach, i could still sneak UCL qualification, and of course have the EL final to play.
As for the radar, you cant change the colour of the dots specific to kits, you can have the colour change whether you are home away, between red/blue/white, but you cant make the colour match your away or home kit, as far as I know its not a moddible feature either, but I will have a root around inside the game code later see if i can find anything.
RDBM is only used to alter your squad file or career save, not game mechanics such as the radar.
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Hope everyone had a good weekend and you had a great birthday Paul!
14th May 2028 and Exeter City are crowned Premier League champions, topping the table for the first time all season on the final day. 2 points behind Man City with a game in hand we did our best to mess it up – 0-1 defeat to Palace, 1-1 draw at Newcastle and a 1-0 win at Everton. Passing went awry, players stopped making runs and missing 2 out of 3 penalties did not help. But City unaccountably were held to a 1-1 draw at Watford and then lost at home to Southampton allowing us to sneak in. It did feel a bit hollow to win the title in such circumstances but still a nice achievement. Then a 3-2 thriller v Arsenal to win the Cup, extra time winner from Henry Thomas who signed as a youth in season 1. Although his development maxed out at 79 OVR he is still our most useful sub striker, partly due to being 6 foot 5, and a beautiful glanced header looped into the far corner. Roma in the Europa final tonight, hopefully round off a superb treble.
Chris99 – do saltwater lochs count? That’s where I’ve done most of my fishing
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Abbeyhill – I would have said no until a couple of weeks ago when I saw an RNLI rescue on a loch. Now I think they count as coastal sea 😉
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Cheers Abbeyhill and congrats on the double, fine achievement, and extra good luck in the Europa league final, a treble would be immense.
Shall be playing my EL final today at some point too, lets make it a double bag !
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And the treble! 1-0 down at half time to Roma, but then an equaliser from Lindstrom and then a late winner from his strike partner Taylor Watson, the ‘New Zealand Messi’ who is now 90 OVR. Pretty happy with the achievement given the long gruelling season and only two proper centre backs in fact one of whom Eriksson is really a CDM. Still sticking firmly to Exeter’s youth policy, a bit like Sir Bobby Robson’s Ipswich, as we head into season 11 despite getting £182m for winning the league. Particularly excited by up and coming Austrian CDM Clemens Winkler who has ‘potential to be special’ and can help reinforce at the back as we have another crack at the Champions League.
Good luck in your Europa final Paul!
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WOOOOP! Awesome Abbeyhill, thats a remarkabkle achievement.
Remind me, are you on FIFA 19 or 20, and PS4 or PC? And what level?
Sounds likemyou’ve nurtured those players well, 22 seasons is a huge commitment, I’m just about to finish season 6, i didn’t start playing until January though.
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abbeyhill – indeed, I will do well to get to Season 5 the way the board is frowning at my current form, but even if I weather that storm, 22 seasons would see me playing for a year or more I think. Even a worst-case Covid scenario sees new games (or old games) displacing FIFA20 before Xmas, so I think I’ve got 10 seasons in me, max.h
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11 seasons not-Greg, I presume that 22 was a typo on Paul’s phone! Still, no weekly work trips to London have given me a lot more time for PS4 and PC gaming, at the expense of Switch titles, so it’s great that FIFA has lasted the course
Paul – I’m on FIFA19 PS4, still got FIFA20 to look forward to. Similar settings to you I think: World Class, tactical defending, mostly semi controls. Mind you that camera angle you play on is like an extra difficulty level in itself…..
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Sorry, 11 seasons, was a typo, even 11 seasons is good going!!!
Ahhh FIFA 20 is a whole differnet game Abbeyhill, even the vanilla PS4 version of 20 is superior in every way to 19, you’ll enjoy!!!
I have to play a broadcast camera, I find the default side on FIFA camera so boring and generic.
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PS: I’ve just played the Europa league final ….. will save details for thursdays post.
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