Good morning, it’s Thursday again, and time for another FIFAFX update post, how the time rolls around so quickly during these still strange times.
Who would have thought back at Christmas time that come mid-July, we’d still be watching Premier League football with the season unfinished, still be playing FIFA 20, balls-deep in FIFA 20 actually, and that our way or usual life would be changed so drastically, but here we are.
Season 7 is still unfinished in my CM world, probably the longest a bseason has dragged out, due to several factors, nice weather, life, work, and PC mods, all diminishing play time, more recently the mods.
My FIFA 20 game kept crashing when starting a match, so I had to systematically disable every mod, one by one, and load the game, enter CM, start a match and see if it crashed, I play with over 20 mods applied, so this took a good 2 days to rectify, its never happened before, so hopefully was a one off, and the culprit was a corrupt faces script within the new FIFER v3 Mod, the pros and cons of PC modding, but the mods do give you so much that the odd hiccup is a justifiable nuisance.
As a result, i had to rebuild the squad file soo when you see Saint -Maximin’s goals at the end of this post, and are expecting a black dude with a headband, what you will see instead is a very girly looking, white person, with a pony tail, I will fix it but for now I can’t be assed, I’m not that fussed, I’m not one for boots, tattoos, and faces to be a priority, FIFA 20 + (PC modded ver) still plays a bloody amazingly good game of ultra-realistic football, easily the best footy game I’ve played to date.
So, season 7, we are out of the FA Cup, and Carabao cup, and are loitering around 8th in the league, here’s how it looks:
14 points off 4th place and UCL qualification, with just 5 games to play, it’s not gonna happen.
This has been a tough season, playing on Legendary, with the added AI difficulty imposed by the FIFER mod, its been a real struggle at times, but ultra realistic, teams like Liverpool, Man Utd, City, Arsenal, have battered me, their showcase players all stepping up and standing out, and really makes results so much more rewarding when you do grab a good win.
Our only distant ray of hope was to win the UEFA Champions League, to automatically qualify for it next season, the small matter of a Quarter final against Real Madrid stood in the way.
We played Madrid 2 seasons ago, and it was hands-down the most difficult game of pixelated footy I’ve ever faced, they tore me a new one, repeatedly, in a 5-0 aggregate win, so I wasn’t looking forward to this one.
First leg was away at the Bernabeu, look at this:
Glorious!! I’m using the GFXMod turf and camera mods alongside the FIFER mod, and at times I thought I was watching a live game on TV, it looked so photo-realistic, the stadium, turf, crowd, atmosphere, noise, was electric, I was nervous playing the game, from the comfort of my brushed Mink contoured L-shaped sofa.
We lost the first leg 1-0, to a very cruel 88th minute Shtick goal, but gave a good account of ourselves and wasn’t overrun at any point.
The second leg came after a disappointing 3-0 defeat in the league to Southampton, confidence was low, I opted to try to cancel out Madrid’s 4-3-3 attacking formation by playing an attacking 4-5-1, with Ferreira up top as a pacey target man, this gave us numbers in midfield but also width.
The plan worked superbly as we largely stifled Madrid’s midfield play, and I’d say we largely controlled the game, we finally went 1-0 up to level the aggregate score, and extra time beckoned, then in the 92nd minute, this happened:
Unbelievable, and very unfair, first you see our equaliser then the cruel hand of fate snatch the tie away from us in the final minute with a shot deflected off the post against my defenders foot for an OG. Devastated.
So that’s it, we are now out of every cup competition, and at best will finish 6th-8th.
Season 7 is effectively over, I shall be telling the boys to go out and play with freedom and have fun for the remaining games.
I feel I have taken palace as far as I can, from a mid to lower table side, to Europa League champions, Carabao cup winners and premier League champions all inside 7 years, I feel now is the right time for a change, to apply my managerial genius elsewhere.
I will see out the final game of this season, then browse the available jobs and apply for one, I fancy Spain’s La Liga as most of the stadiums are licensed, I actually did a test and applied for the Valencia job, and got it, and I was instilled as manager right away, I need and want to see out the season, so reverted back to a side save, and carried on at Palace.
So next season, pastures new, or will an appealing job offer come in on home shores? Next week’s post should have it all wrapped up and decided.
Finally, a short comp of goals from the last few sessions.
FIFAFX.com 
That own goal in the Madrid game was harsh. The TV pundits will look back as that being the moment not-Paul decided to leave Palace. Some slick goals in the compilation. Your kit for the second one reminded me of the early eighties England Admiral kit that caused such uproar at the time.
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Paul – from the Broadcast angle the own-goal looked like a glitch of some sort, I was relieved to see it actually go in off your player in the replay.
No idea what’s best for you to do with Palace, I’m a great believer that you should blog whatever you’re playing, not play for the sake of the blog. If you want to move onto another club, just do it. Keeping saves means you can always return – remember me leaving Leeds a good while back.
Totally agree about the way FIFA20 on PC looks and moves, easily the best looking footy game, the kind of luxurious good looks I never dreamed I’d get to play with, and gameplay to more than match. In the final tale of the tape it’ll have to be in my top 5 all-time footy games. It’d be a strong contender for top 3, maybe even top 2, without the obvious nerfing of long-range goals that happened as early as back in March IMO, and the dearth of proper physical play, i.e. consequences for reckless barging and charging and hacking, the game still goes to pointless lengths to preserve ‘flow’. The disease of all football games since approximately 2012.
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Chris99 – I modeled that kit on the old Enbgland kit you mention, with a twist.
The OG was harsh as we was on top of that game against Madrid and if it had gone to extra time I’d have fancied our chances of making the UCL semi-finals.
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NG – I will absolutely be moving on, just feel its the right time, this is more about my managerial career than having to stick with one club for 20 seasons.
Just be nice to experience something different, whilst still keeping an eye on how palace are doing in the virtual football world.
Kinda hit a stumbling block so far though, season 8 has sstarted, no new signings, still at Palace, heart isn’t in it, was expecting to be able to browse jobs pre-season but nope, ‘No new jobs available’ is the message i keep getting, kep advancing through the calendar, simming matches, checking jobs but none, I could end up purely wasting a whole season almost doing this at this rate, really poor mechanics.
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Epic post Paul, embellished with the extra detail of your brushed mink sofa which set the scene nicely! Probably a good time to move on if you’ve taken Palace as far as you can. In a previous FIFA I took Exeter all the way from league 2 to the prem but then ran out of steam in mid table, without the finances to get star players in and move to the next level and got bored. Youth players seem to be the best way round this natural financial cap as it is relatively easy to get a squad of 85-90 potential players but does take a lot of patience
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Abbeyhill – the mink sofa mention was a little nod to Turf’s playful mocking, there is no real mink sofa I hate to disappoint there is however a crushed velvet Silver sofa in the cinema room though.
I just feel I’ve done my job at palace, and am keen to experience playing in new stadiums, aybe even a different lrague, so will see what, if any job offers come up.
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Next you’ll be claiming there isn’t an oiled youth who slowly feeds you pork scratchings while you play FIFA.
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Theres an idea……d love a pork scratching.
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Every sofa you sit on is crushed mink Paul, thanks to the luxury underpants you had made by exotic boys while on safari.
I do think, and the own goal is a small piece of evidence, that the scriptery is very strong in fifa, so much so at times you have to simply hang on and do nothing but guaranteed tiny passes and no optimistic movements. Even then chances are…
Stoke are developing nicely with new signings but they have a horrible old guard that need dispatching, big wages, no use – too slow for anything most of them, and the wrong side of 30. If I get it right it’s a real sleeping giant but so far, I’m not.
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Turf – I distance myself from all things youth and kid related !!!
I really don’t see the f8ckery in FIFA you se, in PES it was rife, in your face, horridness, over 8 seasons on FIFA 20, I could count on one hand, probably even 2 or 3 fingers, the amount of times I’ve thought ‘wow, this is scripting keeping me at bay’.
I know there is scripting or nudging of outcomes, every footy game has to have it in place, but it’s really not that visible or an issue for me in FIFA, even when I feel there are games that i could do everything and not score, i dont ever feel the game is cheating me, and 90% of the time I eill find a way to score, its just about changing up your style, aproach, foration whatever to try and ‘beat’ the handicap thats going on in the background.
Also the FIFER mod removes alot of it, thats why I probably don’t see it half as much as you do.
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