Sorry to everyone for no updates in a long time, I've been pretty swamped by real life responsibilities, as you can all surely understand.

First things first- promotion! Hurrah! I managed to make it into div. 5! To prep for this, I bought a new middie, (PLAYER: 4934066), to shore up my midfield section and replace the weakest player in my starting line-up, though he has been underperforming in the few games he played and has since gotten injured. As far as the finish of season 37, I had many awarded players, in fact, both individually and collectively, I think I picked up every trophy bar the goal keeper award.

So my goals for season 38? Stay in the top 10, and so I picked my sponsor accordingly, leaving room for the possibility of making it into the playoffs. Immediately I was glad that I had decided to aim low, since finishing in the top spot is no easy task- div. 5 is a whole different story when it comes to getting promoted and I'm counting on possibly spending 2 or more seasons here.

My youth player? Yeah, I'm not too sure whether to be disappointed or glad- he's a Q68 middie, which I'm assuming isn't too great (a Q70 would've been great), however, he seems like an able replacement for any of my other midfielders, so at the very least I'll be able to utilise him that way.

So a quick note on tactics- I started the season off thinking that my midfield could not possibly cope against those of the others in my division, particularly since I was playing 4-4-2 rather than some variation with 5 in midfield, therefore I opted for a mixed playstyle early on. I have to say that I decided to change my playstyle back to continental and have had much better results, with more chances and 'possesion' (more text in my colour :-)). I also changed 'shoot at will' to 'near goal' and have had much more success generating shots on goal.

I'm currently placed 5th, with two easy matches coming up, so I have a reasonable chance of making it into the top 3, however, it is very tight in the top 10 and one loss could see me slip a couple of places easily, especially with my pathetic goal difference (only +3).

A special thanks to the manager of Sydney Wednesday F.C. who has been guiding my clueless self since my first blog entry. :-)

Wish me luck!

So it took 20 rounds, but I've finally figured out one small, but seemingly very vital aspect of tactics. That is, the decision of whether to go longball, mixed, or continental. It seems that in div 6, my mid-field is a force to be reckoned with, so continental yields some amazing results (basically, I have a lot of chances, and the other team has next to none). I'm assuming that someday, when my mid-field is garbage compared to my opposition, I might want to shift to longball. Basically, weak midfield = longball, strong= continental, and if the playing field is pretty level, stick with mixed. I'm sure there's other factors that influence this, but give me time, I'm still learning.

Now some of you may be thinking- "Hey, that's pretty obvious, all you have to do is read the fine print at the bottom of the tactics page to realise that". Yeah? Well I'm not good with details... also my eyes probably hurt or something like that. At any rate I didn't read it alright?

Now I've gotten some strange results out of my team recently, not from the team as a whole, as we've yet to lose a game since a defeat sometime in the early rounds, but from individual players. As I may have mentioned in an earlier blog I'm playing your standard 4-4-2 formation, and my two attackers up front are decent. Both are young, one is of Q73 (or something around that) and one was Q68, but has since improved dramatically. The one that is Q73 also had far superior stats in all departments, bar heading. However, he didn't score goals! The Q68 guy has got 12 goals out of 17 matches while Mr. Q73 has got only 7 in 15 (I get a lot of help from my midfield players as far as goal-scoring is concerned don't worry ;-)).

Is there some sort of hidden stat that is affecting this? Is heading really such a big part of my team-play? Why is it that one guy is supposed to be better but yet, kind of sucks?

As for the bookings I complained about last week, they've eased up when I changed to soft tackles, and just as claimed, it made no impact on my defensive performance, as I haven't conceded a goal 7 games in a row now, though, to be fair, I only conceded 4 prior to this anyway. At any rate I recommend soft tackles to anyone having problems with players sent off. I recently found out (after some light reading) that soft tackles also reduce the amount of fitness lost by your players, which is a nice added perk.

I've already begun looking forward to next season in div. 5, seeing as how, bar some major reversal of fortune, my 14 point lead at the top should hold out. My first move will surely be to buy another midfielder, as the weakest link in my team is a Q63-er who, although has had a couple of assists, isn't really anything special. Some sort of speed-demon is the sort I'm looking for.

So I'm pretty angry with my team right now. We had an important match against the 2nd placed team to try and extend our lead at the top to 7 points. And they blew it. We were even up 1-0 and ended up conceding two in the 2nd half to lose the game, cutting our lead to just a single point, albeit with a large margin in goal difference in my favour.

One thing that has really struck me is how many yellow cards my team seems to be getting, including one of my defenders being sent off during this crucial match. At first I thought it was because I had my tactics up to 'hard tackle', so I turned it down to normal. But no, still they make ridiculous amounts of fouls. In fact, I've had 2 players red carded in 7 games, one of them twice. So I know who the problem players are, but I can't really do anything about it. If someone in a position of power is reading this, I would suggest including an event for players recieving yellow or red cards, so that the team set up can be changed and it can adjust accordingly, just like in real life. Often if a coach sees that a player is being overly aggressive he will be taken off, and if a player is sent of a change of formation will surely take place.

Another thing that sort of annoyed me was what I suppose I see as a lack of luck. There have been two games where I've had an abundance of chances, but the other team's goal keeper makes stops. I think I've seen my goal keeper make one stop in all 7 games played.

Now to the good news, Lachlan Jones, one of my younger mid-field players has been playing great. He's scored 5 goals in 6 games and has also managed 3 assists and 3 MoM awards during that time, and at 18, he looks to be a very promising player. I've also got two attackers that I feel really complement each other, one is fast and nimble and the other has great skill with his head.

More good news, and a 3-0 win away rekindled my love for the team, with both of my strikers and a midfielder scoring in a great display. I also had a cup win earlier in the week after a 0-0 game went to penalties which I won comfortably (4-2), whether it was luck or simply a lack of quality on the part of the other team I don't know, though it was nerve racking sitting through a 0-0 draw.

I've got some (seemingly) easy matches coming up, so right now I'm looking to just scrape together some more wins in a row and keep morale high.

Speaking of morale, it is the only team attribute I have really succeeded in raising, with a +14 boost since the start of the season (probably in no small part due to my large winning streak to begin with), however, despite a small increase in teamplay (+2), attacking, which I also set to train has not improved at all, and I have in fact had decreases of -1 in every stat bar corner and -2 decreases in understanding and free kicks. Hopefully the increase in confidence and team spirit will more than make up for this loss.

So, first of all, this is my first blog- ever- so please forgive any faux pas things that I may do, but it just so happens I'm not in the know when it comes to blogging. I figured I would take half an hour every week or so to give the story of a newbie's journey in Manager League (it's great isn't it?).

So, I made my team, and yes, the name is weak, and unoriginal, but it's the best I could do without spending hours trying to think of something clever and witty. At first I was confused and wondering when the hell I could jump into a game and kick the damn ball around. Fortunately, the begginers guide is extremely handy and did a good job of running me through all the basics of kick-starting my season. 

I decided to stick with the basic 4-4-2 formation, though I was actually considering 5-3-1, since I was gifted with some really talented (albeit young) defenders to begin with, however I played that formation off as 'lame'. I proceeded to fire all of my crappy players (those under Q50) as well as a few other real oldies. Next I got on top of upgrading my stadium (as per the guide), setting up some tactics, hired a couple of staff memebers, set up a training regime and so on and so forth. I also brought over a new goal-keeper, as my two other options were quite mediocre. All in all I was pretty satisfied with my team to begin with. My average Q for my starting 11 was 68, which for a beggining team is seemingly quite good, or so I hope.

So to my first two games, the first was played against a bot in the 6th division and ended as a solid 2-1 victory, and remarkably, my goal-keeper scored a goal and certainly earned his place on the starting 11 as well as justifying the 8,000,000 I had dished out to lure him over to my side. On a rather more unfortunate note, one of my defenders earned himself a red card! Granted, I had set the tackling to hard- something which I promptly changed after the match.

The next match was against 'Hoops', and another win, this time 1-0 was in order. I was a little bit disappointed that we didn't score any more goals as the chances certainly weren't lacking, however all in all I'm very pleased with two victories in hand.

So after my first 2 games I finish in first place in the 6th division, a meager achievement I know, but a big deal for a newbie such as myself. Hopefully the team can keep it up til the end of the season and I can earn my first promotion into the 5th division where more glory awaits.