tomav84

17 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Cheers mate.

And yeah, despite all of that and a £1bn+ balance... NO, I CANNOT HAVE ANYTHING BETTER THAN "GREAT" YOUTH FACILITIES.

that's the only stuff i'd use the editor for. it's totally unrealistic and an error that needs to be fixed

49 minutes ago, bobzy said:

The scaling up is huge once you hit CL money in these leagues.  The league becomes too easy, but that's fine.

Just loaded up my game to check bits... I'm in 2044:
- 2nd best club coefficient for the season behind Man Utd
- Optibet Virsliga is ranked 8th in the World (behind Eredivisie in 7th) although the season falls oddly, starting in January.  I think the league rankings update in June and TV revenue jumped from £26m last season to around £70m this season so I'm guessing the league will climb when June comes round.
- 8 of the 10 Latvian league teams are rich

For my Super Nova team, I've won the league 21 times in a row, the cup 14 out of the last 16 years (really odd blip in 2039, lost the final ), and have won the Champions League 3 times, with back to back victories having just happened.  First win was 2037/38.  Valmiera have developed as the undisputed 2nd best team in Latvia and are becoming a competitor in the Europa League although have only got to the quarter finals as yet.

The gameplay is QUITE stale though   Obviously just trying to get the league to be as strong as possible but, because those usual superpower leagues are still up there, my recruitment is essentially all "buy young player from South American country, develop them.  Sell, reinvest".  Managing to keep a few "elite" players now, though - which makes a nice change.

that's really impressive. just shows it's possible to really create a strong team from one of those leagues

56 minutes ago, bobzy said:

 

Have actually done this in FM2023... with a Latvian side (Super Nova) 

It's a slog after a while.  I've got a ridiculous bank balance and top training facilities but my board just won't budge on upgrading youth facilities from "great".  I was hoping to produce a national side of wonders, alas...

i'm really enjoying it. got them playing really good football and won 2/4 of my CL games, beat zurich at home and galatasaray away. lost to shaktar and juve away so got some home games left at least. reckon 1 more win will give me a good chance of qualifying for next round which i think gets me about another 10m

14 hours ago, Avfc96 said:

What's the weirdest thing anyone had happen in your current save?

In mine, Mowbray won the WC with England in 2030 and then was sacked after the 2032 Euros after getting knocked out by Ireland in the 2nd round.

to be honest i don't really pay a huge amount of attention to other world events when i play

on my FM23 save i recall norway won the WC though, mainly due to haaland

On 23/03/2024 at 16:27, villan95 said:

Speaking of ex Villa strikers I also came up against Keinan Davis in the Europa League who was playing for West Ham 

well if we're talking about ex villa players, one of my most inspired signings for zilina has been josh onomah on a free. been outstanding for me.

sold a top youngster for a few hundred grand which allowed me to build a team that absolutely destroyed the league in my 2nd season, and just got all the way through the various qualifiers to the CL league stage. went up against dynamo zagreb in the playoffs who i thought would batter me but i breezed through them. first game of the league was my easiest fixture (FC zurich) and battered them 4-0. just the small matter of the likes of juve, chelsea and barca to come

with all this money i've got now for a team of my stature, you'd thing the board might've accepted my requests to improve the intrastructure (training, youth etc) wouldn't you? would they ****

1 hour ago, a-k said:

A FH would have come in handy...me after BGW29:

yep. lots in the same boat though (me included)

i'm leaning towards a WC33, BB34 strategy. GW37 could see some rotation if teams no longer have much to play for

20 hours ago, a-k said:

DGW34 has been announced.

which DGW to bench boost between 34 and 37 will make or break seasons IMO. at the moment there's not a clear winner between the two

3 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Genuinely worrying the impact the daily mail, GB news and social media have had on the country. 

despite what they think, they're still very much in the minority. gbeebies has the a car crash everyone thought it would be.

i really wouldn't worry

1 hour ago, fightoffyour said:

A significant Reform vote would virtually wipe out the Tories, but what it says about the general population would be concerning.

seeing the tories relegated to the 3rd post popular political party in the UK but then having reform as the new opposition

offshore processing centres in british overseas territories? aren't most of our overseas territories in the carribean? that'll deter them.....

Petty thing pissed me off this morning. Having walked 30 mins to work someone held the door for me when I was a good 20ft away causing me to break into an almost jog so as not to leave them holding it for me for ages. Was totally unnecessary.

I thought 6ft was the unwritten rule? (can be extended to 10ft if it's for a pretty lady)

1 hour ago, villan95 said:

Ah yeah the squad registration rules are a little annoying.

i'm playing with zilina - thought might be a challenge. no money to spend, clear dominant team in the league to get past.

got to next qualifying round of conference league but got beaten by hibs. board were happy with that though

5 hours ago, villan95 said:

Nice! Me and my pal have actually been playing a network game in Latvia with the aim of building the nation. We took a couple of the smaller teams though (Jelgava and Tukums) rather than Riga or RFS. We are about 6 seasons in if I recall. I have 3 or 4 league titles while he is still awaiting his first The multiplayer element has definitely been fun though.

So both my saves right now are build a nation but both enjoyable in different ways

As for San Marino I've just started the 28/29 season. Lost in extra time of the CL playoffs to Celtic so back in the Europa League again. I've managed to drag us up the coefficients quite a bit so we now get 4 teams in European qualifiers.. unfortunately they don't get very far right now so all down to me I'm helping them as much as I can though with loans. Think we're up to 80 something players out on loan to the rest of the league right now. They have been a hassle to arrange though, I'm basically having to buy their bad players and send them players in part exchange most of the time. I do feel like I've laid good foundations at a few of the other teams though now as long as I can keep renewing the loans.

i actually gave up on the latvia save when i saw the squad registration rules! i started a slovakian save instead

Greg Lee, singer of ska band hepcat, dead at only 53. Very sad  

On 15/03/2024 at 17:11, Van Rijsel said:

Hello Aston Villa fans 

I will write in French. My level in english IS Bad, like a lot of French !

Sure the translator will do a better job!

Bonjour a tous les fans d Aston Villa.

Je suis un supporter du Lille OSC depuis des décennies maintenant, et c est avec un grand plaisir que nous allons participer au premier quart de finale européen de notre histoire...

Pour cet événement, il y a un adversaire que nous ne voulions pas rencontrer, Aston Villa. Car vous êtes l immense favori de cette compétition.

On aurait préféré vous rencontrer en finale. 

Bref, le sort a voulu que ce soit en quart. Ainsi soit il.

Nous avons nos chances, et je crois que nous allons (et devons) jouer a bloc les 2 rencontres. Notre coach Paulo Fonseca aime les compétitions européennes, le groupe a envie de bien figurer...

Nos atouts sont notre jeu basé sur la possession du ballon, une certaine facilité technique avec de bons techniciens (Yazici, Haraldsson, Cabella), des ailiers dribbleurs et rapides (Zegrova, Ounas), notre meilleur joueur et buteur, Jonathan David qui jouera sûrement l année prochaine en premier League. Deux milieux défensifs d expérience (André et Bentaleb), et une défense assez intéressante avec une charnière assez solide (Alexandro, Yoro notre jeune pépite et Diakité), et de bons ailiers comme le jeune Tiago Santos, Ismaily ou notre suédois Gudmonsson

 

Sans compter notre excellent gardien issu de notre centre de formation, Lucas Chevalier (équipe de France espoir, et qui aura un jour le poste chez les A)

 

En tout cas c est avec grand respect et grand plaisir que nous allons jouer votre équipe impressionnante.

Amitiés sportives et bonne chance dans votre course a la ligue des Champions !

 

PS : la bise à notre Lucas Digne !!

Merci de votre visite!

Une question s'il vous plaît... qu'est-ce que ça fait de visiter le stade en tant que supporter visiteur ? La ville est-elle sûre et y a-t-il des zones à éviter ?

Merci!

english: what's the stadium like for away fans & is the city safe or are there any areas to avoid?

14 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Maybe not one for this thread, I don't know, but the political orientation of Birmingham's football clubs is interesting. I would argue that both clubs are right-coded, but that Birmingham are, as you say, more street-fighting fash type right, whereas Villa has a bit of an establishment Tory vibe (we seem to be followed by a disproportionate number of Tory MPs and various hangers-on). 

i guess it could be measured by the number of boos of the taking of the knee. i'm making a sweeping generalisation but i'd say anyone who boo'd leans farly far to the right. we had a few, but much less than other clubs that you'd identify as very right wing (burnley, millwall etc) and the majority of the stadium applauded it, so i'd say we're actually overall more left leaning as a general fanbase

i don't know how loud boos were at st andrews in comparisson to us, difficult to judge when there's only 500 people there i guess

another point to note, previous election polls on here leaned to the left

decided to start a new game. need a challenge having won 7 PLs in a row with villa which is possible to do with any PL side due to the finances involved once you've got a settled side, good prospects etc.

one thought was to take a struggling english team up to the PL but i'm going to find myself in the same boat once i get there so i've decided to give this "grow a nation" thing a go. wondered about scotland but think the scottish league's reputation is already too good and i'm not even going to bother with something like a san marino etc because i don't have the energy

i've decided on latvia, taking control of Riga (went there on a stag once...nice city). seems like it's somewhere between scotland and san marino in terms of reputation. wish me luck

1 hour ago, Rds1983 said:

Was browsing Reddit over the weekend and saw a thread where a mum had been asked by their child to destroy every photo of them before they'd transitioned as they were painful reminders. An added complexity in this was that some of them contained pictures of the father who is now deceased. 

It's a side that I hadn't even considered as I'd always seen it as something going forwards in time and not reaching back. Whilst I hope that I would support my son if he ever went through this (it's their life to do so as they wish), I'm not sure how I'd feel getting rid of 20 odd years worth of family photo's to try and support. 

It'd be like getting rid of 20 year's of my own life and my own history. Photo's and videos of our family holidays are some of my most precious items and memories. 

Would have to hope that some sort of compromise could be reached.

Had a chat to a transgender lady at work a few months back. Basically that person is dead to them. Asking questions like "what was your name before?" Should not be asked etc.

But asking to destroy family photos is quite an extreme and agree you'd hope a compromise would be possible 

6 hours ago, Genie said:

There was footage of her and William at a farm shop over the weekend on the news last night so it seems like the fun is over. 

Have you seen this supposed footage? It's not even her! It's just made the whole thing even weirder

30 minutes ago, imavillan said:

It's on X/Twitter as well........DVB.....getting help from that lot down the road

 

 

 

 

what have 'lefties' got to do with it? what an odd tweet!

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2024/this-town-trailer

V excited 

Quote

The BBC has released the trailer for This Town

scary how much muscle he's lost on his right leg

4pts deduction

Just now, MaVilla said:

while i agree in principle, Antonio literally headed the ball 1 foot off the ground today for their goal.

I agree we have a height/physical issue defending set pieces, but it also a tactical issue i think.

that wasn't from a set piece?

not giving away stupid free kicks in dangerous areas would be a start