Jump to content

Daniel Evensen

Members+
  • Posts

    423
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Daniel Evensen

  1. Yeah, I watched that the other day. We can hope. Seriously, if FM's new graphics engine is anything like this, I might never stop playing.
  2. We've been telling SI that for years. Seriously - you can find posts on this very forum going back over 10 years that complain about international play. There have been dozens of suggestions over time. It is insane that SI doesn't create a special version for the game for each Euro or World Cup competition, given how popular those are. They are leaving a lot of money on the table by constantly choosing to do nothing with international play. I think this will eventually be fixed, but apparently it requires dragging Miles kicking and screaming into reality.
  3. I solved my own problem. This problem happens when you load a save file when your manager is on vacation. There is a "return from vacation" button. Click on that, and the sidebar will reappear. I hope this is helpful to anybody else who runs into this bug. It would be nice if this were fixed in future versions of FM.
  4. Hi all, My long term save has suddenly encountered an issue where the left sidebar will not come up at all. Other saves I have do not have this issue. It does not appear to be impacted by the skin, as I am using the default skin. I have attempted to remove the preferences and cache folders, but to no avail. All 3 versions of my rolling save file are impacted. As it stands, the save is completely unplayable, which is extremely frustrating. I've searched high and low for a solution to this problem, but found nothing. I had a similar problem in FM24 about 5 months ago, but was able to find an uncorrupted version of the save to continue with. This time it appears that all versions of the same file were corrupted. Is there a way to somehow retrieve the information from the save to allow me to continue? I want to continue this save more than anything else. I am seriously questioning whether I want to continue playing Football Manager after encountering this for a second time. There is no worse feeling than seeing months of progress be destroyed by a bug that appears to have received no acknowledgement anywhere.
  5. Agree with you on both points. Miles needs to hire somebody to write these updates for him. He can't stop himself from sticking his foot in his mouth. We've been clamoring for an update to international management for years now. It's ridiculous that they've done absolutely nothing, and now suddenly claim to not have enough time to fix it.
  6. This depends in part on your operating system. I've never gotten the Steam Workshop to work correctly on Mac computers, for example. You've got to know where the workshop saves the files and then copy them to the correct directory yourself. It's not just Football Manager that has this issue. Every game on Steam has similar problems. I'm on Arch Linux now, and I've learned to set shortcuts to find the correct Proton folder right away.
  7. Sorry for the lack of context! Yes, it's about $2,000 USD. The plan is to purchase parts online, mostly through Amazon.
  8. Hi guys, Apologies if this has already been asked - this is a long thread. Any advice for a processor and graphics card that can handle very large databases (i.e. hexagon challenge sized, with every country in the world loaded)? Bonus points if they are AMD, as I'm using Linux. Looking for a new PC build, though right now I'm mostly concerned with figuring out the processor and GPU. Thanks in advance!
  9. Here's an update as promised. I decided to take a little excursion over to Mars FC in Taoyuan, Taiwan. I did this chiefly because I wound up losing the dressing room at PanSa East FC. We'll be back to Oceania soon; don't worry. Here is the latest playlist, if you're curious.
  10. The Big Change Things have changed a lot. It didn’t go well at PanSa, unfortunately. I started to lose the clubhouse quickly, and we went on a small losing streak. I looked around the world, and found myself with an interesting option to move forward. Naturally, I wanted to stay in Oceania to keep the Hexagon Challenge spirit alive. However, there was an intriguing challenge looming not too far away, one that I simply couldn’t turn down. Mars FC of Taoyuan, Taiwan, was in last place in the Taiwanese league when I arrived. They weren’t just in last place, actually. They were in last place with only 6 matches to go, in an absolutely desperate situation. My challenge was to prevent them from being relegated. I had a little bit of money — not enough money to get anybody really impressive (besides, it’s Taiwan: we’re not signing Messi, lol), but enough to do something respectable. Tactic in hand, I set out to do my best. Great Results The results were positive, to say the least. My first match was against Taichung Futuro, the best team in the league — and, as it turned out, the eventual winners of the league. We were in dead last and were favorites to sink like a rock. We won, 4-1. We followed that one up with a 6-3 shellacking of Tainan City. And then came our first close match - a 3-2 victory over Athletic Club Taiwan. We had arrived. Doing it the hard way Of course, that wasn’t quite enough to keep us afloat. After a few draws and some bad luck, we wound up finishing the season in 7th place. That meant we weren’t automatically relegated, thereby saving my new job. However, it also meant that we had to play a relegation playoff battle against Ming Chuang University. We won both legs, though it wasn’t easy. We had two 2-1 victories, two matches that really could have gone either way. And, well that’s how we did it. I came in as a total unknown, a random coach from American Samoa going out on a little vacation. And now I’ve got a reputation for saving clubs from disaster. I think we’ll stay in Taiwan for a few seasons before returning to Oceania. It provides a welcome distraction.
  11. Apologies for the delay - being gone on vacation for a few days has thrown me way off schedule. Do You Believe In Magic? If you don’t believe in magic, you should check out our start to this season. We’ve been absolutely spectacular. We destroyed Ilaoa & To’omata by a 5-1 margin, exacted our revenge on Lion Heart by a 2-0 score, and have been spectacular since. Our only blemish was a 1-1 draw with Vaiala Tongan, and even then we looked like the better team. The plan is working. We’ve had 3 clean sheets, have won 5 of 6 games, and have yet to lose. Dark Clouds Ahead There are storm clouds on the horizon, however. Pago Youth are playing just as well as we are, and keep jumping ahead of us in the standings. We play against them next, and I’m not entirely sure how this is going to work out. The problem is that I released a bunch of the young players we signed from abroad when they started showing consistency and personality problems. Once they were dropped by us, they promptly signed with other clubs, leading to a real Pandora’s Box situation in American Samoa. We’re not the only club with foreign players now — and we’re in danger of slipping away. New Tactic Part of the success came from a new tactic that I designed. It’s a possession focused 3-4-2-1 system, designed to wear down the defense and play the ball up the middle. Ideally, we score goals after holding the ball for long periods of time and wearing out our opponents. It doesn’t always work, sadly. The American Samoan players seem especially prone to lumping the ball ahead and trying to outrun everybody when they are under pressure. Still, we’ve been able to maintain possession for large chunks of time each game. This could wind up being a great success for us in the long run.
  12. The Ultimate Humiliation I had my hopes up, I’ll admit. We came out of that funk looking impressive. Toa Maile scored 2 goals in a 3-1 win we enjoyed over Pago Youth, and then scored 3 more in a masterful 4-0 defeat of Black Roses. We were really close to Lion Heart, and we had a better goal differential than they did. All we neeeded to do was to win out to give ourselves a fighting chance. Game Over Of course, we didn’t do that. We came up against Taputimu Youth for the 19th match of the season, needing a win to stay alive. I went nuts with my transfer policy. I signed the best players from Lion Heart, Ilaoa & To’omata, and Vaiala Tongan. I figured I’d try a scorched earth strategy to prevent them from winning. It didn’t work. Lion Heart won — and then we inexplicably lost to lowly Taputimu Youth. It was a 1-0 loss, but it wasn’t really close. Joe Seong scored in the 65th minute, and we basically rolled over and died. And that was it for our season. The Plan As if our season wasn’t dead enough, a 3-0 loss to Ilaoa & To’omata sealed our fate. We wound up in 4th place at the end of the season, after being up near the top all year long. It’s a long offseason, but I’ve got a plan. I’m going to go around to all of the amateur countries in the world, and will sign anybody who is willing to come along. We don’t have the budget to scout these players, but I’m not afraid to sign them outright to amateur contracts and then release them. Let’s see if we can’t get some sort of super team put together for next season. I’m tired of losing, after all.
  13. Ominous Signs? You know what? I’m actually not sure we’ll win the league this season. The beginning of my worries came with our match against Utulei. We won, yes, but only by the slimmest of margins — an embarrassing 1-0 triumph against the worst team in the league. Our young centerback Hengihengi Pouli scored our only goal, which is the part that stings the most. Even our fan support waned. We only attracted 276 customers to that stinker of a match. We usually have right around 500. The Big One That’s when we faced Lion Heart. Lion Heart have established themselves as our only real competition this season. They came into this match in second place, with 27 points to our 29 and with a game in hand. And, oh man, did they ever beat us. We lost the match 5-2, and weren’t in it at all. After Jermaine Sione scored in the 40th minute for them, Toa Maile came back with an equalizer. Sione scored again in the 64th minute, but Rock Kaleopa game back a few minutes later to tie it up again. And then we just fell apart defensively. Sione got his hat trick, Junior Teoni added two more, and it was a disaster. It All Falls Down We followed that up with two poor matches: a 2-2 draw with Royal Puma and a 0-0 draw with Green Bay. We managed a 5-2 win against the Tafuna Jets to make it somewhat interesting, but I really don’t think we have a chance at doing anything better than second place this season. I’ve got no idea what happened to the magic we had the first year.
  14. This is relevant to my interests! I've been hoping for a good unified Korea file for a while. Looking forward to it!
  15. Back In The Mix We’ve made it back to the top of the league. We’re solidly in second place, right behind Lion Heart — and I think we can overtake them. This season has quickly advanced from a lost cause to something absolutely doable. We started it off with a big win against Taputimu Youth, a team that I always knew we were more than capable of beating. We destroyed them, 3-0. Maybe the defense isn’t so bad after all! 18-year-old Elama Atu had a goal. Atu has risen up as our most exciting young player, by far. It feels like there’s nothing he can’t do. He seems to give the rest of the team a boost of energy when he makes his runs, and is quickly becoming a fan favorite. The Big One We then had the real big one — a match against Ilaoa & To’omata, the team we’ve been fighting with tooth and nail for the past two seasons. I was ready for everything. I thought this was going to be one of those crazy matches that was going to come down to the wire. I thought it might be an all-time classic. It wasn’t, of course. We beat them 3-0. It wasn’t even close. Atu and Maile scored, which is the way it should be. This win has me thinking that we might wind up winning the league this year. Revenge Finally, we got our revenge on Vaiala Tongan. We destroyed them in this match, 5-1. It wasn’t even close. We scored early, and we scored often. We scored goals like gangbusters, and we didn’t take our foot off the gas at all. We do have a good team. I just don’t think we fully realize it yet. We should be winning the league, not drawing a few matches here and there and losing to a team near the bottom of the table. I just hope we can figure out who we really are as a team.
  16. Building Back Up Well, things have been pretty inconsistent since I last reported to you. We responded well to those frustrating early season draws, destroying Royal Puma by a 5-1 margin and crushing Green Bay, 4-1. I thought that we might be able to keep ourselves in the title hunt for a little while longer. Toa Maile was scoring goals for fun, and right winger Robert Kaleopa was getting in on the act. And then the other shoe dropped. We Lost To Them? We somehow managed to blow a match to the Tafuna Jets, losing by a 3-2 margin. Paneta Kuresa scored a hat trick for the Jets in the end. The first goal came near the end of the first half, when we had a 1-0 lead. Central defender Ueli Tualaulelei, usually one of my favorite players, gave up a penalty that I simply cannot forgive him for. Kuresa scored that one easily, added a second shortly after we went up 2-1 around the 50th minute, and then put us away in the 80th. It was simply an awful blow - there’s no better way to describe it. Our title hopes have not necessarily been completely dashed, but it’s hard to imagine us coming back strong from that one. Hatred of Big Matches I think we’ve got a lot of young players on the squad who secretly hate big matches. We followed up that loss by crushing Pago Youth, 5-3, and then blanking Black Roses, 2-0. We played well in both matches, though I worry a lot about the propensity our defense has for giving up goals. My worry is what will happen when we play Vaiala Tongan, Ilaoa & To’omata, and Lion Heart again. We can’t win the league unless we beat the other elite teams, and we don’t really deserve to call ourselves an elite squad until we do so. It’s going to be an uphill road.
  17. Slow Start It’s been a slow start to our third season here at PanSa East F.C. We were up 5-1 against Vaiala Tongan in our first home match, and looked like we were going to win it in a laughter. And then they started to come back. After an awful second half defensive performance on our part, we were lucky to get out of it with the shirts still on our backs. 5-5 was the final score, and we didn’t score a single goal in the second half. I’m not sure if I should chalk it up to our rivalry with Vaiala Tongan, or to poor defense. Whatever the problem is, I hope it doesn’t last. Bad Defense The bad defense only continued from there. We went up 4-1 over Utulei in our second match at halftime, and scored a 5th right after the second half started. I thought that we might score 7 or 8. We had a few matches like that during the preseason friendlies. Besides, Utulei look like a really bad team this year. True to form, though, we gave up a couple of second half goals, barely escaping with a 5-3 victory. We had 10 goals in 2 matches, and yet only had 4 points to show for it. Maybe there’s something in the air. What Next? We followed all of that up with a disappointing 1-1 draw at home with Lion Heart. I’m not sure what to think about our team this season. We’re not horrible, but we also aren’t as dominant as we were the first year. It might be the tactics. It might be some of my transfers. Or it might just be bad luck, combined with unfamiliarity on our squad in general. Whatever it is, we’ll see if we can’t turn this season around. We’re in 6th place right now, which is simply unforgivable.
  18. Aftermath Well, our second season didn’t go quite as well as we would have liked. It wasn’t an awful failure, of course. We wound up in second place, finishing with 43 points. We won 14, lost 5, and drew one. In the end, we were only 5 points away from Ilaoa & To’omata, who finished with 48 points after an end-of-season collapse. I want to take credit for at least part of that collapse, by the way. We were out of the running in the end, but I decided to woo all of Ilaoa & To’omata’s best players away anyway, mostly out of spite. Perhaps it wasn’t the kindest thing to do, but at least it made it look like we were closer than we really were. New Strategy From here on out, we’re going to put together a squad the right way. I’m getting rid of those inconsistent players, the ones who have a good match today and a poor match tomorrow. I can’t stand it anymore. From now on, I’m going to listen less to the recommendations that come from my scouts and will pay more attention to signs of consistency. We’re going to focus a lot more on personalities as well. I’m tired of being surrounded by players who are willing to give up once the slightest challenge comes their way. If your head isn’t on straight, there are plenty of other clubs in the league that you can play for. The Purge This has led to a purge — one that is deep and far-reaching. It’s not just a few players that we got rid of. We got rid of quite a few, including players who are on the American Samoan national team. There are too many players to mention here, of course. It’s a completely new squad — one that might not have the same international accolades, but a squad that is younger, more dedicated, and hungry for victory. I’m not sure we’ll be able to win the league in our third season. However, I’m convinced that I won’t find this team as frustrating as the team we had in our second season was.
  19. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue Well, the promised comeback never materialized. And now the season is officially over. We did our best. We fought as hard as we could. We came up short in the end, sadly. Ilaoa & To’omata have officially clinched the season after 18 games played. They’ve collected 48 points against our 40. We’re a cinch for second place, but there’s simply no way we can overcome them from here. Even if they lose their final two matches and we win both of ours, we’ll still be 2 points short. It’s sad but true. So Close, Yet So Far The kicker for us was a 2-2 draw with Green Bay for our 18th match of the season. We should have won. We’re a better team than they are, hands down. But we just couldn’t get it to work. We had an xG of 3.20 to their 1.36. We dominated possession, winning about 60% of it. We’ve done a good job of slowing down our offense, holding on to the ball and looking for incisive shots rather than just lumping it forward and hoping for the best. And we still couldn’t win. I mean, a win against Green Bay wouldn’t have necessarily saved our season. This draw, though, is a good symbol for what our second season has been like. We’ve had a lot of good opportunities wind up wasted. The Dagger The worst part of it all came a few days ago. Ilaoa & To’omata were on their way to a loss when we came up against Vaiala Tongan, a team that has been a real thorn in our side for my entire time at PanSa. It was one of those matches where we dominated everything but the scoreline. We had 58% of the possession, completed 75% of our passes to their 64%, won 60% of the headers, and seemed to be in control. However, none of our 9 shots were anywhere near the target. They won, 1-0, on a well-placed header by Sekone Vaiali’i on the counterattack. It’s hard to blame the defense for giving up a single goal. And I just don’t understand where our supposedly excellent strikers have gone. Just wait ‘till next year.
  20. Moving On The good news comes first. We beat Ilaoa and To’omata. It was close. Chris Fa’amoana scored in the 44th minute after a tight, defensive first half. Roy Ledoux, our unheralded left winger, scored a rare goal in the 52nd minute, after which Fa’amoana added his second in the 66th. I thought we’d be able to coast to the finish line. Not quite. Takai Faaoga finally broke through our defense in the 80th minute, making the score 3-1. And then, right when we thought it was over, Raynel Krishna (what a great last name) scored in the 4th minute of added time, making it 3-2. They didn’t touch the ball again, thankfully. But it really made me sweat. The Bad News And now, of course, comes the bad news. We had a full week between the Ilaoa and To’omata match and our next match against Taputimu Youth. Taputimu Youth aren’t a good team by any stretch of the imagination. We beat them 4-1 in our first encounter with them, and manhandled them 6-1 in the next to last friendly we played before the season started. They’re in 8th place and don’t show any signs of competing this season. But, well, we lost. It was a close lost — but, then again, all of our losses have been close. We had a 2.10 xG to their 0.61, had 9 shots on target to their 2, and had 61% of the possession. Petuliki Tualaulelei scored a goal in the 24th minute, though, after 34-year-old (and soon to be retiring) left back Liatama Amisone was too slow to get back to his defensive position. And, well, we didn’t really come close to scoring. Toa Maile did his best. Chris Fa’amoana, on the other hand, played very poorly, forcing me to bring Petu Pouli on at halftime. It didn’t matter what I did. I shouted, I screamed, I cajoled, I swore — and we still couldn’t get the ball into the back of the net. The End? The problem is that we can’t overcome this deficit. I suppose it’s mathematically possible. We’re only 6 points behind Ilaoa and To’omata with 7 matches left. We’re playing against the worst teams in the league. But so are they. Our goal differential is a mere 19 compared to their 24. In other words, for us to have a realistic chance, we would either have to blow our opposition out (something we haven’t done this season), or we would have to hope that they lost 3 out of 7. It’s not going to happen: that much I know. Now, I’m not in any danger of losing this job. While all of this was happening, PanSa East FC Chairman Nofomuli Scanlan stepped down. He was replaced by Samaraki Ah Sam, who is suddenly more than happy if we finish in the top half. But you know my ambition. I’m not here to finish in the top half. I need to win the Oceania Champions League, not battle for supremacy in American Samoa for years on end. And so we’ll see what happens. If there was ever a time to jump to a new team in Oceania, it would be now.
  21. Saving The Season? I told you we were a good team. We’ve recovered nicely from that awful loss to Vaiala Tongan. We’ve won 5 in a row, most of which weren’t anywhere near close. We destroyed Black Roses a week after that loss, 3-0. Toa Maile scored 2, and new signing Chris Fa’amoana added in a goal of his own. Next came Green Bay, who we slaughtered at home, 4-0. Petu Pouli scored 2 goals in that one, showing that he isn’t all that bad after all. We then squeaked by Lion Heart, 2-1, and ran Tafuna Jets ragged, winning 4-2. And that set us up for our second match against Royal Puma. Blowing It? This match was much closer than it should have been. Toa Maile came storming out of the gates, scoring a hat trick by the 20th minute and putting us up, 3-0. Chris Seleni, an occasional midfielder playing in a Mezzala role, added one in the 31st minute, putting us up 4-0. I thought we might wind up with 7 or 8 goals by the end of it. Royal Puma came back with one on a goal by Mark Ashley, but I didn’t think much of it. In fact, Petu Pouli came right back with a goal of his own in the 1st minute of injury time at the end of the first half. Royal Puma scored another one right before halftime. I don’t know what the referee was thinking, but it didn’t seem to matter. 5-2 is a great halftime scoreline. And then came the second half. We just didn’t show up. Mark Ashley scored again in the 50th minute, and then finished up his hat trick in the 62nd. We simply had no momentum. We got the ball in good positions, all right, and maintained quite a bit of possession. But we couldn’t stop them. We survived the barrage, thankfully, but still wound up winning by a very slim 5-4 margin. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. The Big One That sets up our rematch with Ilaoa and To’omata. We absolutely have to win this match if we’re going to stand any chance at winning the league. The season simply isn’t long enough for us to rely on second and third chances. I know we can do it. We beat then 4-2 in a friendly during the international break. We’ve got more talent than they do, a better tactic, and the best goalkeeper in the country. But I’m scared.
×
×
  • Create New...