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Overview France's run of dominance hit a snag last year; we'll see if that trend continues. England will close the gap significantly if they can repeat their performance last season. I expect Spain, who is showing signs of improving, to jump back above Austria soon. And then there is the disaster that is Italy ...  We are 3rd for the 8th straight year, and 11th out of the last 12. Italy meanwhile, has gone from #1 to #12 in five years. That is incredibly difficult to do, just a total free-fall. It's not as if there are no talented clubs there; the Italian Premier League has 10 4.5*, but apparently they are just all good at losing in continental play.  Judging from our history, I'd expect us to move up to 3.5* soon.  It was a record year for the club for both sponsor and ticket income. Prevously our best sponsor take was 4.3M, and the ticket sales mark was 3.6M.  All-time numbers, by %: Income - Tickets: 22.4% - Sponsors: 29.2% - Tournaments: 2.5% - Player Sales: 45.9% Expenses - Club Upgrades: 77.2% - Contracts: 22.8% Profitability continues to gradually increase, and the secondary sources of cash continue to rise.  As before, the charts on the far right are the most recent season. The distribution is remarkably similar for both scoring and conceding; crossing plays are the biggest asset, and biggest problem. Our opponents are also somewhat more diverse than we are. Continental Rank I made this up - the info exists in the game but not the rank as such 314th. 313 clubs have played in at least one EFA Cup in the past 22 years; 182 have managed a European Cup. Out of 2,380 total domestic clubs in Europe, that puts us in the top 13.2% by qualifying for an EFA.
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Nov 7, 2023 19:13
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Strategic Sage posted:I don't know how serious this is. Would something like: Rotation when on 6th or better place and otherwise Best Foot Forward be something you would take into consideration? Obviously we would also have to get rid of another playing time option (maybe play youngest). This would of course ignore the quality of the opponent we are playing against, but that would be something I personally could live with for the sake of simplicity and clarity.
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Nov 7, 2023 19:55
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That seems a little needlessly complex, personally.
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Nov 7, 2023 21:08
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DTurtle posted:I’m pretty sick right now, Stop being sick.  In terms of the rest, no that's not going to be an option. I really don't know how to explain why in a different way that isn't just repeating myself, but I'll try. - Right now our playing time choices are being made on the 'action' or 'input' side, not on the 'results' side. I.e. 'play these players' not 'play enough players to get X result'. Theoretically we could switch to a results-oriented approach, but we would have to switch all of the choices to that, not just one of them, and I still think it would be inadequate. Otherwhise the number of potential combinations would just explode unreasonably. - Qualifying for the EFA is only one of many, many possible targets that could be aimed for. Not everybody is going to want that to be the target, esp. long-term. A situation where we have three proposals on the playing time side, and then a fourth saying 'hit this target' will inevitably devolve into a debate on what that one target should be. That just doesn't work in terms of giving sensible options to vote for. I think it works better for people to choose playing time, as long as they still want to vote on the topic, and have choosing the option that they think will result in a reasonable outcome for the club that half-year be part of their responsibility in doing so. If we want to switch to doing Adaptive always, and we can agree on a limited set of targets that people are going to be satisfied with, we could go that direction instead; but hitting the question from both angles at once is not going to fly.
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Nov 8, 2023 03:31
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EFA Scheduling The vote comes later today, but my brain took it's occasional turn actually functioning and I recalled the importance of 'Show, don't Tell'. Hopefully these images of our schedule for the upcoming season will help with understanding how the EFA will impact us.    After our 8th PL contest, we start in EFA Group Play - that would be the bluish or purplish-shaded dates on the 8th and 22nd. Not coincidentally, this is shortly after the transfer window closes at the end of the August.  Two more in October ...  League play ends in the first weekend of November, but we have our first National Cup match on the 11th and our 5th in the EFA on the 17th.  Dec 1st ends the EFA Group Stage. We will know by then, if not before, whether we have done well enough to advance to the knockout rounds. On the 16th, the first round of the National Cup ends. Everything up to that point is guaranteed, and highly likely we'll move on to the next round of the National Cup over the next couple of weeks. Our Winter Break only lasts a month to a month and a half - it's basically just January. No rest for the weary? Wicked? Whatever we are, there's not much rest for us compared to years gone by. Part 2 That's what the vote in the first transfer window covers; emphasizing here that the rest of this will have a Winter ballot to decide how to handle it.  If we make it this far, that's a National Cup Quarterfinal starting on the 3rd ... but not concluding for a while, so that we can play in the EFA Cup Round of 32 - again IF we do well enough to reach that point - later in the month.  National Quarterfinal concludes, and the EFA Round of 16.  If we make it this far in either Cup, nevermind both of them, we will have seen some heavy action. National Semifinal begins, and the EFA Quarterfinal is played. The pattern of one National match, two EFA, and playing two matches more weeks than not continues.  Even as the stakes rise further, it gets denser in May. EFA Semifinal, then the second leg of the National Semifinal, then the EFA Final. As we saw in the Prestige Cup many years back the final is just a single match. This is the end of League matches, and the National Final is played on June 2nd ... after which the Offseason lasts about another month and a half before we start all over again. It's a 9+ month season divided in two by month-long breaks, more or less. A far cry from the Amateur League, where we had more time off than on. We're not in Kansas anymore.
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Nov 8, 2023 10:44
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Very excited to see the crabs in the aoife cup
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Nov 8, 2023 11:17
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I think "Adaptive: EFA" is a good option to have, by far the best single target and definitely better than a second "play kids" option. This season worked out perfectly but it would have been wiser to have aimed for "safely in the EFA" rather than "barely in the EFA". But, I also grudgingly agree with Sage. We now have three separate fields of competition, all of which are important, and no Adaptive playing time is going to address more than one of those, so our position on e.g. the Cups would be "undefined" which isn't satisfying. I think we probably want to decide how hard to hit the throttle and use Prioritization if you want to focus more on something. I'm all in on Best Feet Forward and Balanced right now, let's win all the games we can so we can earn more games to further exhaust our roster. I'm confident fatigue is going to do our rotation for us. It's not a foregone conclusion that we're getting dunked out of EFA groups, the German Premier League is no joke and we have a shot anytime the opposition chooses to forget that crosses exist. It also helps to know that Winter Break is the rough division between the lower-stakes and higher-stakes portions of the Cups. A good spot to reevaluate how knackered our Faces are getting. Strategic Sage posted:- CD/DM PokeyTax (32, 1*, L 34)  ilmucche posted:Very excited to see the crabs in the aoife cup 
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Nov 8, 2023 22:14
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Coaches Report: Summer 2044 Resources Glory - 1.01k Money - 6.55M Fans - 10.3k Over a thousand Glory gives us enough to splurge a bit if we choose; we made just enough money to do whatever we want with contract issues; and the Fan count hit five figures, meaning that we're back in the situation of exceeding Stadium Capacity   Full Experience 'Ceiling' by Giftedness * - 3*: Level 50 - 4*: Level 70 - 5*: Level 90 This is the point at which a player starts getting reduced experience gains.   We expect to have six new skills come in within the next year. PotatwoManJack is first up, and he'll need to decide which skill goes to L3 first.   Dragongem2 is the only imminent upgrade, followed by a smattering of others expected over the next few months. The majority of our players are over halfway to their next level than their last one. Extensions       Upgrades  We are over our Stadium Capacity by 278 Fans, or 2.8%. The Youth Academy can support 12 additional staff upgrades. Youth Academy Giftedness *: - Current: 35% 3*, 59% 4*, 6% 5* - Final Upgrade: 70% 4*, 30% 5*  The Training Grounds can support 5 additional staff upgrades.  The Medical Centre is at capacity, and must be upgraded before adding any more staff improvements. Youth  The midfielder skill is Long Pass. There are two tiers of Youth Work; only one request per transfer window. For 99 Glory: - Request Amateur - Request Random; advanced class chosen at random within each position group, i.e. LM, CM, etc. for Midfielders. For each of these, please include the position group. For example, 'Request Random Forward' or 'Request Amateur Defender'. - 2-player Youth Rivalry For 224 Glory: - Request Specific. Same as the previous requests, but we can name the advanced class we want, such as 'Request Sweeper' or 'Request Attacking Midfielder'. We can now make this request for all position groups. - 3-player Youth Rivalry Important Note: If you vote for something we don't have the Glory for, your vote will be nullified. Also, if you vote in such a way that it could be taken as multiple options such as 'Request Forward' or 'Youth Rivalry', that will also be nullified until you clarify your intent. This is necessary to ensure all votes are counted accurately, and are for proposals that can actually be enacted. Competition Priority - Choose League if you want the club to prioritize results in the domestic table. - Choose Cup if you think pursuing advancing in those tournaments is more important. - Choose Balanced if you wish to favor an approach that puts equal effort into both. Playing Time - Important: Only votes for one of the listed approaches will be counted. Votes of the form 'I want this general approach but make an exception for this player/position' are not permitted to prevent chaos and an impractically high number of alternatives. Voting is complicated enough as it is. In all cases exceptions will be made where appropriate due to stamina/injury/suspension, blowout situations, and to maintain at least a vaguely balanced formation. The decision here is about what to do in most matches, the ones in which the mix of players we put out there will likely make the difference between winning and not. - Rotation - The manager will attempt to equalize playing time as much as reasonably possible for all players. This option is effectively a compromise between current performance and developing players and maintaining Interest (sale value). The other choices sacrifice value and development for part of the squad to emphasize another part. - Best Feet Forward - Playing our best current players as much as possible. This will give us the best current results, at the expense of minimizing development of the rest of the squad. - Play Youngest - Play Most Gifted - These last two are similar but not identical. Both emphasize developing players at the likely expense of short-term results. The difference is whether it is preferred to play the most gifted players even if they are older, or to choose to have the lowest age as the determining factor.
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Nov 9, 2023 03:46
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Individual Instructions AJ_IImpy - 30% xp, 70% xp Arcturas - Fan Favourite tree, beginning with Glory bonus. Dragongem2 - 30% Training Time Reduction, 70% Training Time Reduction DTurtle - Talent Tree Grouiik - starting with the Talent tree going to 30% Training Time Reduction first for the 2nd point Kangra - Talent: Second skill Trainable. Kanthulhu - Complete the Dedication Tree KG3 - 2 Points in Focus, 30% skill learning speed, followed by 2nd skill. The Mattybee - rest of Talent Tree Megane II - Level 3 Skill Trainable, then the rest of the dedication tree. Nea - 70% XP, 3 Points in Focus Odder Wilson - Left side of Stamina Tree PokiiTax - 1) Cross-train to RD 2) 2 Points in Focus 3) Level 2 Skill Trainable PotatwoManJack - right side of the dedication tree, stay on Defense until 150 pthighs - rest of the dedication tree. stab - Level 2 Trainable. Twackles - +30% XP, then (if I haven't finished 2nd level skill) -30% training time or (if I have) 3rd level skill. Tworrannor - 2 Points in Focus, 70% XP, 3 Points in Focus Twovery Best - 3 Attribute Points in Focus.
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Nov 9, 2023 03:46
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Coaches Ballot Stadium Expansion Contract Extensions Youth Signing Glory Investments Playing Time Competition Priority Other Proposals Please include number of years with any extensions. It is not required to vote on all proposals to submit a ballot; anything you don't include will be counted as abstaining. The EFA awaits. Cutting off the vote after two days doesn't seem to be causing any problems, so I'll keep doing that unless there are objections. It's Voting Time.
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Nov 9, 2023 03:48
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Do we have enough Glory for two coaches and a 2-rivalry?
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Nov 9, 2023 04:41
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No, but the numbers are all there in the Coaches Report for you to be able to figure that out.
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Nov 9, 2023 08:40
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No Stadium Expansion Extend Arcturas and PokiiTax for 3 years Extend AJ_Iimpy and KG3 for 2 years Extend Odder Wilson and Kanthulhu for 1 year No Player Sales Sign M Leitinger Hire Midfielder Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Best Feet Forward Balanced The midfielder here is a gift. Let’s go win everything we can. I think playing Best Feet Forward is also our best way to conduct reconnaissance on the stamina impact of playing a heavy schedule; Rotation would obscure this. We can adjust at the half but we probably need some BFF in order to make the EFA cut again so doing it first gives us more info. I also want to preemptively argue for retaining Kanthulhu a while. Yes, he’s going to be able to play less in the future, but that just means some rotation at forward which isn’t inherently bad for the team. Whatever we pay him or forgo in sale price is more than compensated for by the Glory and money that a few clutch goals can earn us, now that we’re in two Cups.
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Nov 9, 2023 10:37
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No Stadium Expansion Extend AJ_IImpy, Arcturas and PokiiTax for 3 years Extend KG3 for 2 years Extend Odder Wilson and Kanthulhu for 1 year No Player Sales Sign M Leitinger Hire Forward Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Rotation Balanced
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Nov 9, 2023 11:38
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Strategic Sage posted:In terms of the rest, no that's not going to be an option. I really don't know how to explain why in a different way that isn't just repeating myself, but I'll try. We previously had adaptive where there really was only one goal (promotion), though even that got complicated by the cup back then, and would be even more complicated now that we have three competitions we are in. So ... I guess we'll just leave it where we are right now. Changing our playing time during the middle of the season does still give us some option of reacting to what is happening (as it did last season). My vote is going to be for plan AJ_Impy: AJ_Impy posted:No Stadium Expansion
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Nov 9, 2023 14:15
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No Stadium Expansion Extend AJ_IImpy, Arcturas and PokiiTax for 3 years Extend KG3 for 2 years Extend Odder Wilson and Kanthulhu for 1 year No Player Sales Sign M Leitinger Hire Midfield Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Rotation Balanced
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Nov 9, 2023 14:48
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No Stadium Expansion - for want of a nail, where that nail is like seven million eurobucks. Contract Extensions 2 years for Arcturas - he's about to hit his final big salary bump and a three year contract would run past his age 30 year. Sell Kanthulhu - it is time. Four hundred grand is just too much for a player that will only be able to play half the time once his past-30 stamina recovery penalties kick in, which will happen before we even get to play a single cup match. Considering his value to the team is almost entirely his Nutmeg ability, which, like any skill, drains Stamina rapidly with every use, this is a serious problem. 1 year for Odder Wilson - unless he picks up skill training time reductions, which I think he already has, there's no way he can get to L3 reaction before his next extension, so we can wait for the bump to come closer. 1 year for KG3 - core player, no big bumps yet. 1 year for AJ_IImpy and PokiiTax - future core players, no big bumps yet. Youth Signing - Leitinger, no question. The beauty of it is that he can develop into any type of Actual Midfielder (i.e. not AM/DM) and bolster the team almost immediately. That's how pressing our midfield needs are right now. Glory Investments Hire a Bench Coach. We'll have some turnover in the squad soon and it would be great if we could speed up the replacement prep pipeline a tad. Request Central Forward. This is costly, but we need to find our future cross scorer now. Head Play is the only thing that realistically matters for this role - as you can tell by how TB2 wrecks goalkeepers despite only having 2 stars. This means we need to start training this guy sooner rather than later, even if TB2 still has a few years before retirement (but only a few months before he stops developing), as you can't meaningfully accelerate skill training without an insane Glory investment, regardless of playing time. Playing Time - Rotation. We've proven we can hang in the PL, but we still need a season or two before seriously challenging for the top 5. We need to focus on developing the squad. Competition Priority - Cups. You know what? I wanna see how far we can go against continental competition.
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Nov 9, 2023 14:49
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No Stadium Expansion Sell Kanthulhu Sign M Leitinger Hire Forward Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Rotation Balanced
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Nov 9, 2023 14:53
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Tevery Best posted:No Stadium Expansion - for want of a nail, where that nail is like seven million eurobucks. With only one change already reflected in the above, I back the Tevery Best ballot. The change, of course, is to Sell Pokiitax.
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Nov 9, 2023 15:11
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It seems the coaches want a midfielder this time.   Amateur players with skills are funky. I can't tell you what the other skills are until you decide if you're going to be universal or not. Yeah, I know that's backwards but them's the breaks. The padlock icon on Grouiiik and KG3 is what I would click to show the other skills, but that isn't displayed here. Clicking on the Long Pass skill just makes FTG beep at me in annoyance. We'll have to roll the dice on it one way or another.  What a tool. Somebody punch him for me please.  M iltwocche, you're back in action. Advanced class and focus attribute if you please, further instructions optional at this point.
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Nov 9, 2023 16:53
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I’ll sign on to plan tevery best since as I built my plan it ended up very similar and I’m lazy.
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Nov 9, 2023 17:14
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No Stadium Expansion Extend AJ_IImpy, Arcturas and PokiiTax for 3 years Extend KG3 for 2 years Extend Odder Wilson and Kanthulhu for 1 year No Player Sales Hire Midfield Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Rotation Balanced
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Nov 9, 2023 17:22
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DTurtle posted:We previously had adaptive where there really was only one goal (promotion), though even that got complicated by the cup back then Just wanted to point out that almost all of the time this was going on, we expected to lose early in the Cup. It didn't conflict with playing in the league nearly as much as it would now; the adaptive approach was all about avoiding relegation and consolidating in a new league.
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Nov 9, 2023 17:32
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No Stadium Expansion Extend Arcturas 2 years, everyone else 1 year Hire a Bench Coach Request Central Forward Playing Time - Rotation Competition Priority - Balanced
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Nov 9, 2023 19:31
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Coaches Ballot Stadium Expansion NO, can't quite afford it. Contract Extensions 2 years - Arcturas 1 year - everyone else Glory Investments Hire 2 Bench Coaches - For stamina reasons we need a deep bench, and this will improve every single player. Playing Time & Competition Priority Rotation, League focus We aren't likely to be that competitive in the cups yet, and if we push too hard there, we risk keeping our Premier League standing. Looking at what I was proposing earlier, I think 'adaptive' + competition priority is close enough to what I'd like. 'Pure' Rotation would be when we're out of the running for higher goals, but still good enough to tread water, and it seems unlikely we'll need anything more granular outside of competition priority. Other Proposals Upgrade the medical center. It's less than the price of 100 cups of coffee a day; chump change at this point. My plan doesn't have glory for youth work, so nothing there, but I do think we should get a back-up keeper next go-round. Also, for DF Kangra : Second Skill Trainable, then finish out the Stamina Tree, starting with Rest Day Recovery. Kangra fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Nov 10, 2023 |
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Nov 9, 2023 20:34
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Kangra posted:Adaptive, League Round and round the mulberry bush ... Everything else in your post is excellent and has been added in, including your player instructions. Unfortunately I can't accept your vote of Adaptive here because I don't know what it means. I mean that literally. Adaptive cannot function without a specific target. What are we intending to adapt to? It can't just be 'League results', that's too general. That could be any of: - Avoid Relegation (15th or better). Avoiding Relegation is the condition we used previously, many club years ago, prior to people becoming dissatisfied with Adaptive and opening the whole Playing Time can of worms in the first place. - Finish mid-table/top-half (helps with National Cup draws the next year if we are, for example, 8th or better) - Make the EFA (7th or better) - Make the European Cup (4th or better) - Make the European Cup w/o going through qualifying (3rd or better) - Win the Premier League (1st) And maybe others that didn't occur to me off the top of my head. In order for 'Adaptive League' to have any meaning, I need to know what the condition is for me to stop pushing for better results and play more of our reserves for a while. Similar problems would exist with 'Adaptive Cups' because I wouldn't know what that means either. Would we want an Adaptive Continental and an Adaptive Domestic option to distinguish between National and EFA/Euro/Club World Cup competitions? How far into these competitions would be 'enough' to trigger the adapting part of Adaptive? Through the group stage? Quarterfinals? All the way to winning in which case there's no adapting really happening at all? Something else?? If we want to do this, I need to know how to do it, and we need some specificity to put it into future ballots - not this one. The current ballot needs to be governed by the four choices in the Coaches Report. I'm happy to make changes, but they need to be specific and actionable. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Nov 9, 2023 |
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Nov 9, 2023 21:39
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I vote that Sage Adaptively decide what goal to set for Adaptive. 
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Nov 9, 2023 21:52
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No Stadium Expansion Hire a Forward Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Playing Time - Rotation Competition Priority - Balanced
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Nov 9, 2023 22:33
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Stealing Nizaha's vote with a minor edit; No Stadium Expansion Sell Kanthulhu Sign M Leitinger Hire Midfield Coach 2-player Youth Rivalry Rotation Balanced Because I think it will be interesting to see how the team does without the nutmeg specialist. It's time for the other forwards to step their game way up!
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Nov 9, 2023 22:55
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For PMJ2 - Let's switch focus to Strong Goalkeeper Lvl 3 after the current skill completes
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Nov 9, 2023 23:09
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with stats like that i'm tempted to go for RM and passing to get crosses in, but would happily take some advice from other coaches
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Nov 10, 2023 00:40
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I would go for a generalist approach:, MF. Our current MF is 27 and not getting any younger.
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Nov 10, 2023 00:54
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Oh I didn't peek the age and just saw we had one
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Nov 10, 2023 01:13
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Yeah, we desperately need you to cross and you will be there almost day one. But if you go MF you can also assist every other scorer better than anyone else and get a second skill for fun. I love janky builds but MF is a hero who solves all our problems here.
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Nov 10, 2023 04:13
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My apologies; I'd forgotten that ditching adaptive was how we got to the current approaches we're using. Changing the vote to : Rotation, League focus
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Nov 10, 2023 07:11
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MF and Passing please
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Nov 10, 2023 09:58
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Indecision Report There was more disagreement than agreement. Our new midfielder, unanimous reject of a Stadium Expansion, a 1-year extension for Odder Wilson, and strangely enough the usually contentious issue of playing time were all clear. We had only one dissenter from Rotation, and a strong majority for taking a Balanced approach to the now-three competitons we are in. The other Contracts were all close. Kanthulhu will become our first 30-year-old player soon, as there were 7 for keeping him on another year against 5 for selling him and one abstaining. AJ_IImpy gets a 1-year deal, 5 in favor of that with 4 wanting 3 years. It went the other way for PokiiTax, 5 for 3 years and 4 for 1 year. Arcturas and KG3 ended up deadlocked in how long to keep them for at 5 votes each; 2 or 3 years for Arcturas, and 1 or 2 years for KG3. After consulting the Oracle of Randomness, they both ended up with the longer extensions. A 3-way split for our new Staff Upgrade ended with a Bench Coach boost; 6 votes for that, with 4 each for Midfield and Forward Coaches. There was one vote for going with the 2-coach option, but everybody else wanted to get Youth Work in and stay with one coach. 8 for 2-player Rivalry and 4 for Request Central Forward, so we pound that rivalry button once more. Results We are up to a 1* Bench Coach now at a 20% XP increase. 2.19M Money and 451 Glory remain. Our next staff upgrade will cost 476 Glory.
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Nov 11, 2023 03:19
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7.17 Backpfeifengesichter @ Leipzig  6' - CF Gazi's opening shot is a poor one, and PotatwoManJack makes the save. 18' - A second try by Gazi is of the Power variety, kept in play. Unfortunately he's motivated now. 34' - Third try, saved again. We are completely defensive, but they haven't scored yet. 45' - We had cleared it down to the other end, but they passed well enough to get back in position. Power shot for a corner this time. A cross, and CD Neubert easily scores it. 1-0. HT - stab in for Kangra, our defense is getting a bit tired. 52' - Power shot by Tworrannor yields a corner kick. Kanthulhu gets a shot, odds-against but it scores! 1-1. 60' - They try a lateral pass right in front of our defensive line; KG3 intercepts. 68' - It's our first chance to counter, and Kanthulhu does his thing. 2-1. 82' - It's a hat trick with stab providing the long pass setup after we get another stop. Then their last desperate attempts fail. FT - 3-1, though it didn't start off well. Kanthulhu is MoM of course. 7.24 Augsburg (0-0-1, 14th) @ Backpfeifengeischter (1-0-0, 2nd)  Just not a good matchup for us. These 'cram everyone in the box' defensive formations can be a pain. 6' - Both their defender and keeper had a decent shot at the cross, but Twovery Best scores anyway because of course he does. 1-0. 12' - RF Vielhaber evens it up by just shooting through Odder Wilson and PMJ2. 1-1. 18' - DM Winkelhock stops our header this time. 40' - Odder Wilson stops Vielhaber's next attempt. There's nothing we can really do from there. HT - No changes. 52' - Another shot by Vielhaber is narrowly stopped by OW. We try to hold in midfield with Arcturas. 86' - One more cross attempt, again shut down by Winkelhock. That was the last chance.  Not sure if I should be relieved, irritated, or both by this draw. The first Qualifying Round of the EFA is finished, and the chaos of the Second Qualifying Round with 92 clubs in action is set to begin. It's not our turn yet though. 7.31 Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-0, 5th) @ Frankfurt (1-0-1, 7th)   Unavailable (Fatigue): Arcturas, Twackles 6' - Hollmann takes the open path around our right, shoots and scores. If we had a CD over that way, Bublyk would likely draw a penalty. If we block off that flank so they have to dribble through us, we'd have to leave a path open for Paez. Throwing a raft of defenders at the situation would improve it, but only a little. 1-0. 28' - An errant lofted pass allows DTurtle to slide tackle and set up Kanthulhu. GK Mantella is not particularly high in Defense, so if we can get good shots to him, we can score. 1-1. 34' - Hollmann scores again, by a sizable margin; 111 on the shot, 84 on the failed save. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. 2-1. HT - iltwocche switches places with DTurtle, so he can handle the kickoffs.  58' - They run Hollmann all the way back here to retrieve the ball instead of disrupting their defense. I mean ... it's an option, but why? 74' - Paez does the Feint-through-everybody routine. 3-1. 84' - A surprising save is made on Hollmann after they pass through our line. Not that it really matters. FT - 3-1, a sound defeat. They were just much better, at least than the group we put out there. 8.7 Bremen (1-2-0, 7th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-1, 11th)   34' - Corner kick after Arcturas and Twackles run around a lot battling to keep them from pushing up the right flank. The fairly-cheesy Nutmeg tactic works again, and Kanthulhu scores despite a quality effort from the keeper. 1-0. 45' - CF Bayerl evens it up, decent try by PotatwoManJack but he needed a roll 5 higher to stop it. 50' - They try to flank the other direction, but stabmakes the tackle. 66' - A low-odds lofted pass in the rain after a slide tackle ... Arcturas can't make the connection. 78' - They chain long passes through our hopeless 'defense', then a cross and Bayerl puts it away. 2-1. We have three motivated players, but can do nothing with them, and that's how it ends.   Dragongem2 adds -30% Skill Training Time. 8.14 Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-2, 12th) @ Munich (2-2-0, 3rd) From the rain to the heat, and visiting one of our nemesis. This might not be pretty.  Meant to have this scrolled up further to show the starters. Oops.  Unavailable (Fatigue): Arcturas. We could really use Arcturas for crossing in this match, but we didn't know that was coming ahead of time of course. We'll have to do the best we can. They are pretty well set up to defend crosses anyway, but we don't have anything better. 6' - LF Hopken shoots, and Odder Wilson deflects it back to him. That's bad with his high Control; PokiiTax presses to make the tackle a coin-flip, which we get lucky on. 18' - Wehe and his 196 Accuracy fail; PMJ2 makes the save. We've already gotten as much luck as we deserve for the whole match. 32' - We hold with Megane II at midfield, but of course they take it away. Another blast by Hopken is out for a corner. They cross and we can do nothing about it. Familiar. 1-0. 44' - Dragongem2 crosses for TB2, who is at a significant disadvantage against CD Hense, roughly 2:3 proportionally. He scores anyway, nearly getting a max roll, because he's just that doggone special. 1-1. 45' - Odder Wilson deflects a power shot from Wehe, and we make it to halftime even. Somehow. 52' - The cross is off-target this time and out of play. 62' - Another chance after an errant lofted pass went straight to Megane II - his lofted pass was right on target thank you. Hense tells us to shut up and sit down though. 74' - After CM Hagel rolls a 15 on his long pass through two defenders, we are fortunate that PotatwoManJack manages to boot a shot by Wehe out for a corner. If you combined the rolls of pthighs and our keeper, you still wouldn't have enough to stop the header that followed. 2-1. 82' - They adjusted their defense, so we have the stupid situation of Dragongem2 trying to dribble through their LF to set up a cross. He fails. 90' - Yet another save by PMJ2. It's not enough.  This is really a good effort against a far superior opponent. Nothing feels that way though when you're on a losing streak. 8.21 Gelsenkirchen (2-1-2, 8th) @ Backpfeifengesichter (1-1-3, 16th) It's early, but it doesn't feel great to be in the relegation zone.   Unavailable (Fatigue): Dragongem2. Arcturas and DTurtle will each play a half as they are both doing all right, but neither is fully rested. Odder Wilson, PotatwoManJack, and Twovery Best are not 100% either but all could play if needed.  22' - A nice interception by Twackles ... but we can't actually do anything with it. Their DM basically shuts him down from doing anything useful, and they moved their CD so that he couldn't be false-kicked into nutmeg position. 38' FW Mollais feints Nea, then blasts a power shot. PotatwoManJack keeps it in play.  45' - To close the half, stab executes a long pass to Kanthulhu who moves sideways, false-kicks Seaton here, and Nutmegs him. That was quite convoluted. It also gives us a slightly favorable chance to take the lead; Goal! 93-85. Gelsenkirchen looks disgusted, and I can't blame them. 52' - Mollais shoots through everyone. 70 on the shot, 65 on the save attempt. Could have done without that. 1-1. 75' - They pass through the middle, Di Iacova nutmegs, power shots ... badly, and it's deflected safely. I thought they were going to score there. FT - We don't get another chance to really do anything, and it's a draw. I'm not complaining.  Our EFA Group has been announced: Group E. Going soley off of star rating, Madrid figures to win the group but we should have a fighting chance to fend off Haugesund and Estoril for the second spot. Interestingly we do not play the other clubs in the same order for each half of the round robin; Madrid will be both our first and last opponent for example.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:14
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This stinks. I like winning and this is not winning. I thought about warning we might get relegated without Kanthulhu, but I didn’t think it was true. I still don’t think it’s true, especially if we go BFF second half, but we’re not making a strong case otherwise. Looking forward to seeing how high the Fatigue-o-Meter gets in a few weeks... Very strong name game from this club. Need to hope some of these stalwarts retire soon. Strategic Sage posted:78' - They chain long passes through our hopeless 'defense', then a cross and Bayerl puts it away. 2-1. feeling like the tone of the locker room “pep talks” is getting darker Pokeytax fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Nov 13, 2023 |
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Nov 13, 2023 01:26
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None of Bremen's starters are older than 30, and a number of them are about 27. They're not retiring anytime soon.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:49
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