The Cloughite

It's the end of the world as we know it ... and I feel fine.

2009-11-26T20:08:00.005Z

In yesterdays announcement we talked a lot about what gameplay changes we're making to the game. Today we concentrate on showing you what we plan to do with your gameworld and how we came about making some of the key decisions.

Too many gameworlds

As has been widely reported on the forums the amount of subscribers we have in the game is spread far too thinly across too many worlds. Fundamentally, our strategy for gameworld management wasn’t good enough. We saw that people wanted new gameworlds and, because the statistics for new orders and traffic on the website, backed that up, we didn’t foresee the long term effect.

As FML stands, we’ve been churning subscribers from the 34 worlds and we’re now unable to fill them back up because the perception is that people feel like they are not capable of competing in an existing world. This means that our subscriber base is now spread thinly and it continues to thin daily. This then has the snowball effect of more people deciding to leave because of the emptying gameworlds, which only worsens the situation.

During our analysis we evaluated a number of different options as to what we should do.

• Option 1: Keep everything ‘as is’ and attempt to fill up each world.
• Option 2: Keep active gameworlds and close all others.
• Option 3: Don’t close any worlds but encourage people to move to the active worlds.
• Option 4: Reset everything and start again.
• Option 5: Full merge of gameworlds

We came to the decision that the cleanest option, which was made with the best long-term interests of the game, will be to go for a full reset. This would involve the closure of all worlds and the opening of a set of concentrated new worlds. This will happen in March 2010.

We fully accept and understand that many of you will be unhappy with a reset as you’ve invested a lot of time and effort into your team and your community. We did explore Option 5 in a lot of detail (this was many of team’s preferred option) however there were a number of gameplay hurdles such as if we merged, how we would deal with two copies of the same player and how we would deal with the varied economies in both worlds. On a technical level we also had to consider the timescales and challenges involved in merging two or more databases together. Although not impossible, we decided that it would have taken too long to be able to do this.

The reset will involve you losing your skills and stadium. However, you will keep any reward points that you’ve earnt between 1.4 and the reset as well as any shortlists, tactics, views, filters and match plans that you have saved.

We understand what a major decision this is and of its implications but we feel that it’s the right thing to do in order to provide a stable, long term base for the game. As part of this base, we are also in the process of reviewing the price plans with a view to reducing the monthly cost of playing. A further announcement will be made on this before we reset.

We also hope that many people might be more in favour of a reset if we manage to do a few of important things:

Choice

Yesterday we talked about the different flavours of gameworlds that we will be launching after the reset. Once 1.4 arrives, all managers will be given a choice as to which gameworld they’d like to participate in, after the reset,when signing into the game. We’ll advertise in advance of this how many gameworlds there will be and what they will be called but you will be able to control where you go. We will also try to group people logically based on their current gameworld.

Elite gameworlds

As part of this choice we are also looking to introduce an invite-only, elite gameworld. This will be new-gen only and to get an invite you will have to be doing very well in your previous gameworld. You don’t have to take up the invite if you don’t want to, but if you do, you’ll be competing against the very best that Football Manager Live has to offer. Want to see how good a manager you really are? Then this is the place to be.

By being full of the most hardcore, dedicated and active managers, the elite gameworld should remain incredibly active with lots of managers online at any one time and have a buzzing transfer market and community.

Is this something you are interested in being part of? The original elite managers will be chosen depending on how successful your team is at the time of the reset in March, so there is still a lot to play for in the meantime.

Let’s Celebrate

A full reset means that all the gameworlds will start balanced but for us recognising the efforts of managers, especially those who are long term subscribers is vitally important. Many of you will have built up a club with a great history and will want to save a record of the many achievements you have made over the last 12 months. Well that’s where our brand new “celebrating success” features will come in.

Whenever you change gameworld (not just over the reset), you will be able to take a record of how well you have done in your previous home in two ways:

1) Portable Manager Biographies
Every manager already has a biography in their gameworld, which in a few paragraphs, gives an outline of their achievements over the seasons. It will be improved and transferable with you to your new gameworld.

2) Manager Medals
In addition, we’re looking to expand on the current achievements system and create a brand new set of manager achievements in the form of medals. Many of you have been in your gameworld since the start, hopefully some of you feel like you’ve done really well, you’ve probably won a few competitions, been near the top of the rankings and maybe once upon a time you were the game world champion. The manager medals will recognise and reward all your efforts. These medals will again be portable between gameworlds and aim to serve as a reminder, to anyone you come across, that you’ve got an FML history behind you.

2 Free Months

In consideration for the above which we accept are major changes to the game, we would like to offer every single paying subscriber 2 months free. Starting immediately, if you are paying monthly for Football Manager Live, you’ll find that your next payment date will have been delayed by 2 months whereas if you’ve paid up front, you’ll find that 2 months playtime will have been added to your account.

We’ll be online and on the forums all day today and we’ll do our best to answer all the questions you have about these announcements. We’ll also be appearing on next week’s Gameworld One podcast where Jordan and Millie will no doubt be grilling us on the plans and trying to put forward the main concerns from the community. Feel free to send any questions you have to podcast@gameworldone.com.

- Marc Duffy

A lot of the responses are drivel, but fear not I have trawled through the first 17 pages and pulled out the rare gem amongst the crap so that you don't have to.

Devastated

I invested a lot of time in creating my club from nothing to where they are now. I and many others begged SI not to continue opening new Gameworlds because it would create this very situation, this was not something that came out of the blue. We were not doom mongers, we argued politely and intelligently about the long term problems that SI were creating for us. We were ignored and now we are having all our efforts for 13 months trashed.

I appreciate SI may want to reset to simply forget the mistakes of the past, and a chance to start over from scratch; to simply brush previous mistakes under the carpet, however I feel this is taking the easy way out and a complete slap in the face to loyal gamers such as myself that have stuck around despite the problems in good faith that a solution would come.

I enjoyed FML overall, despite it's problems -- I really wanted it to be great, to live up to the potential I saw in it, I saw it as the kind of game I could be subscribed to forever because it is just as easy to play 6 hours a week as it is 6 hours a day; however you've just destroyed my trust in SI to deliver the product, whatever the situation the game faces I should not ever be told "sorry all your effort up 'til this point is being deleted, you must start again". I've played many MMOs, every single one of which has faced a declining population over time (I never played the exception to this rule: WoW, it just doesn't appeal).

Throughout server merges and closures not once has a player had all their efforts through away in this manner in any of those games, sure minor loss is always a part of server merges, but a complete reset is unheard of for me. I do not believe you understand the genre that FML finds itself a part of if you believe this course of action acceptable in any way. Even more so that you will not only rule our previous 12 months efforts for nothing, but now tell us that the next 4 months will also mean nothing. How can I trust you that this will not happen again in another 12 months? Quite simply, I cannot.

Good luck with the future, unless there is a sudden and drastic change of heart, which seems unlikely, I will not be part of it now.

- Durera

I dont know if you will answer this or not but how many of the FML staff have worked on an MMO before?

It just seems to me that Marc's post in which he said that the problem with having too many gameworlds from the start was not foreseen is a no brainer for an mmo experienced player, nevermind a developer.

I believe you have missed one of the biggest reasons people play a subscription based mmo - they have a sense of ownership over their character/team or whatever. That keeps them paying and playing but if you take that away the sense of betrayal is huge and I have a feeling you guys have hugely underestimated the retention rate for your subscribers after this announcement. (I don't mean that as hyperbole but I really do believe you have)

If any of the FML staffers are not familiar with the SWG NGE I would really suggest you google it and take a quick read. It is notorious in the MMO industry as the biggest screw up ever and effectively killed what was a thriving, if underachieving, game. What you guys are doing is very, very similar however to your credit you have been very open and honest about the decesion making process and why this is necessary. If you are interested this would make a good start "Star Wars Galaxies: Anatomy of a PR Disaster" http://blog.tp.org/chip/archives/002076.html

Please don't do this guys. I have never written a complaining or whiney post on here ever before but I write now cos I care.
- bacajow

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy:
I wrote this in the announcement and I stand by this as I feel what we're doing is vital for the games long term appeal. "We understand what a major decision this is and of its implications but we feel that it’s the right thing to do in order to provide a stable, long term base for the game. "
I think we are missing the point here... you have spent so long trying to work out why people leave that you have taken your eye off why people stay. People have stayed in this game because they are in it for the long run... we have invested a lot of time developing our stadiums and our skills. Your first mail focused purely on why people leave!! People will test/sample the game.. if they don't like it then that is life, the game wasn't for them

For me you need to encourage people to move game worlds (new gen) using the existing methods... or migrate people over.

Then close the empty game worlds and re-invent them in the re-gen style... if people want to move from newgen world to regen world then they make the decision to lose skills and stadium.

having a full reset is a really bad idea... FML may never recover... i sincerely hope it does. it is a thoroughly enjoyable game to me even in its current state, everybody has successes but sometimes all people want is to be number 1... in the real world this is not possible, just like in FML THAT is the challenge. FML is for the long term in its current state, it is not a 15 minute arcade game.
- FML General discussion

The honest answer here is that we're in this position for a variety of reasons but certainly as a development studio we take the brunt of blame for where we are right now - we've made some mistakes and we've worked hard looking at everything to try and get ourselves in a position to move forward. This is why I want people to take a step back and try to see the bigger picture. How did we get here and how can we push on? We've done that, it's taken us a long time and it's been a very hard process. I'm not expecting to win many of you over, you've invested a lot of time and effort in the game and we're grateful and we accept how emotive this is for you all.
- Marc Duffy

There is absolutely nothing in a full reset that is of interest to me, no. It does not excite me to start all over again, no.

I beta tested for 4 months before the game went live. I joined Clough at the start and was proud to be part of something I'd looked forward to for a long time. I struggled like others did when stadiums were introduced but got through it to a point where I'm now ranked 38th in my GW and have a lovely 40,000 seater stadium. I was made a Chat Helper, and later on became an organiser. The latter two positions I have resigned from after reading this unbelievable announcement. Why bother putting more effort into a GW which is now effectively dead? Why would it excite me to do it all again? What's to say that a few months down the line when you realise what a huge mistake you made, you won't reset again?

My sub doesn't expire til March, so I'll continue to log in if I've nothing better to do, and will go through the motions of playing the game. But you've killed it, what does it matter if my team get relegated now? What does it matter if my players are injured, why should I spend money on improving my stadium? Better to reset the GWs now and get it done with, give players like me the opportunity to see what life will be like in these new gameworlds before our subs end, as I'm sure many like me will not resub just to start over in March.

As for invites to an elite regen only gameworld for the top teams before the reset happens, well you'll be lucky if there are 50 left in a gameworld to choose from. wp SI gg.
- Stewie's Left Peg

What you seem to not realised is that in a MMO....there will ALWAYS be people ahead of others.

Doing a restart now to "level the playing field" for new users wont do a thing....all it will mean is that the new players starting in say May/June 2010 will be behind the people who restart in March.

To take away the skills we have all got in the past year is pathetic and simply not fair on us (the paying customer) who have supported you and FML from launch.

Remember SI/SEGA...this is a MMO....PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE SLIGHTLY AHEAD/BEHIND OTHERS. I wouldnt start playing World of Warcraft and expect everyone to have to start from Level 1.

Doing a restart we all might as well just go and buy FM10 and play that.
- Dynamo

I'm curious. If you go back 12 months to when FML first went live, I remember there was a poll. This poll was designed to determine what kind of strategy most players would implement when FML went live. The result was unmistakable. The vast majority aimed at a slow and patient build up in which they would reap benefits of from over the long haul. I guess in a sense, that kind of summarized your typical FML player as well. It's first now that we start seeing the results of 12 seasons worth of hard work , investments, trial and error in our teams. All that time spend nurturing our youth players that now have matured into players we depend on. All that ground work, and for what? To do it all over again?

I think a lot of those players who now see their long-term plans shattered into pieces feel a bit betrayed. I know I do.

I want to add that I really love the game. But this ugly turn in events have forced me to reconsider what I'll have to do further. I guess I won't reach a decision before re-launch.

BTW: Why are the fantasy GW's restricted to the top teams of the previous GW's?

- Celvin

Originally Posted by durera:
SI need to acknowledge that this is an MMO and people who've played it as such have invested time on the valid assumption that it is an ongoing world. Merges may be a lot more difficult than a complete reset of the game in terms of technical skill and time required, but I have never heard of an MMO shut down a GW and simply tell the players that lived there "Sorry, we screwed up, you need to start again" -- for good reason!

Any changes to the game should always protect the current player base and attempt to bring in new players, not simply throw us out with the bathwater and pretend it was all a bad dream.

I have to say I couldn't agree more.

- Zoah

Originally Posted by Loris:
Few quick questions:
- did you have fun in FML last 12 months or was just a boring work made to start having fun now?
- if you known when FML was launched that it'll be reset 15 months later, would you play anyway those 15 months?

Think 1 minute before answer.
Yes I had fun. But no, I would not have played it, no I would not ave invested all that time into it had I known that in 12 months time I would have to start again, and that all my effort would be deleted because SI refused to listen to those that could clearly see where the proliferation of GWs would lead to an inevitable need to merge/delete.

FML was, and is still, advertised as a MMO. It was the promise of an online, persistent gameworld that I could build a club from nothing in that made me sign up for FML half a decade since I stopped playing FM offline.

SI need to acknowledge that this is an MMO and people who've played it as such have invested time on the valid assumption that it is an ongoing world. Merges may be a lot more difficult than a complete reset of the game in terms of technical skill and time required, but I have never heard of an MMO shut down a GW and simply tell the players that lived there "Sorry, we screwed up, you need to start again" -- for good reason!

Any changes to the game should always protect the current player base and attempt to bring in new players, not simply throw us out with the bathwater and pretend it was all a bad dream.
- Durera

Originally Posted by Marc Duffy:
Manager medals will recognise everything good about your 12 seasons in charge.

I think you are missing the point here Marc, giving everyone a medal for playing for 12 months is nothing like the skills that will be lost. Please dont compare the two.

I dont often post on forums - the last time was when SOE effectively restarted Star Wars Galaxies, however, not even they were so bold as to reset skills. There are some good ideas here, many which will improve the game we know and love. However...

This is an MMO. Working on something over a long period of time is one of the cornerstones of an MMO. Wether that be exploring to gain experience in order to "level-up" or learning something over a period of time in order to be better at something . What you are proposing to do is remove what has been built up over the past 12/24 months, stadiums and skills in particular.

You say that migrating skills and stadiums etc. with the actual account will make things unbalanced. I am sorry but if you have invested your time, energy and money into something then you DESERVE to have that advantage. That is the world of MMO gaming.

Solution? Have "tiered" servers. Based on the amount of time you have been a subscriber. Been playing for a year? Have a number of servers that state that the server is designed for "mature accounts, newbies risk being dis-advantaged."

The proposal you have set out is worse than the SOE new game experience debarcle and I fear it will be the end for a lot of people, just looking down this thread should give you an idea of HOW bad this will be. You should act now to implement something that has been fully discussed and debated by the paying customers that keep you all in jobs.

Sadly, I will also be cancelling my account if this goes ahead, I refuse to give anymore to a dev team that so flagrantly disregard the long time energy, effort and money that has been placed in FML - and no a recognition system is NOT a replacement for 12 months worth of skills learnt (29 days per level 5 coaching skill anyone? Nah, have a medal instead.)

Please re-consider before you sign FML to the MMO scrapheap.....
- Wishdokkta

Yesterday I praised SI for the plans they detailed....

No one seems to be too peeved off about losing their teams because lets face it everyone loses their team at some point and I am sure people would gladly sacrifice their team in exchange for a new and improved GW and most importantly a commuinity.

The skills and stadium loss however need to be thought over, you say it's only the only way to start off fair but lets face it new users coming in 3-4 months after the reset are going to be behind in skills either way so what will you do about that? Restart everyones skills again??

FML is aimed at a paticular niche, the game doesn't appeal to everyone and in my opinion SI should focus more on the people who have been here from the start, people who have never played FML before won't suddenly be interested come the reset and start playing.

FML need a commuinity, without it this game wouldn't exist, all the users here clearly feel passionately about this game as they have invested not only money but a lot of time and energy, you claim you knew there would be reprecussions but lets face it there are guys on here that are the cornerstones of the FML commuinity, those who have decided to leave already WILL NOT be easily replaced, FML WILL NOT suddenly grow in popularity.

The main complaint is regarding the trading of skills and stadiums for imaginary medals, I have never played FML for the achievements and I don't intend to as they really are meaningless, I have never looked at any other managers achievements as they mean nothing, what good is a medal when your rock bottom, people respect current form and status not what you have done in the past.

The retention of all the main skills ( Coaching, Finance, Scouting, Construction, Physio) would be a fair comprimise, and a reasonable compensation for stadiums would please plenty of people.

How would you all feel in SI if you where told that SI was being reset that any projects you'd been working on would be lost, that you would recieve a medal and nothing more for all the work you've done and go back to your minimum wage?

- Eoin =)

Originally Posted by Paul Kiernan:
During our analysis we evaluated a number of different options as to what we should do.

• Option 1: Keep everything ‘as is’ and attempt to fill up each world.
• Option 2: Keep active gameworlds and close all others.
• Option 3: Don’t close any worlds but encourage people to move to the active worlds.
• Option 4: Reset everything and start again.
• Option 5: Full merge of gameworlds

you had 5 options and chose the worst of the 5 i strongly recomend you look @ option 2 again, it would still cause upset and problems but nothing like you are getting now

Agreed ... When I read the options I laughed when I read option 4, as if it was put in as a joke to lighten the mood, option 1 is clearly what has been the plan that failed so badly and options 2,3 and 5 were all viable solutions to the problem of too many GWs for too few subscribers.

But then a few lines later. BAM! The joke is on us it seems.
- Durera

Dear Marc & co.

I'm pleased to announce that I'm utterly gutted and disappointed.

I've just renewed my sub by 12 months, paying the full amount - not via any boxed versions or whatsoever. Because of my love for the game, the fellow managers in Cantona, where I've been from day 1, but ALSO because I wanted to support you with money to keep developing this game.

However, I will not continue once you close the ORIGINAL Gameworld Cantona. I simply cannot justify spending the incredible amount of time I've invested in building my squad, my tactics, my skills ALL OVER AGAIN.

I believe you will lose many managers who've been with this game for a very long time, if not from the beginning.

I urge you to reconsider the decisions made. You should at least keep one or two original Gameworlds, where some of us can and will stay - simply because you will lose the majority of us if you don't. In this situation we are allowed to maintain our skills and everything we've worked so hard for.

I hope you're happy with my money. There will be 8.5 paid months left on my sub once I leave. And honestly, I'd rather lose that money than to comply with the proposed way forward.

I feel you have completely disregarded the opinion of your hardcore fans and made a cold-hearted decision in favour of SI's cash flow.
Fantastic choice. You haven't got to deliver any services to those managers who will no longer log-on after March 1st and will retrieve loads of cash from newly acquired managers from that day.

Just do not forget. There will be an angry mob of ex-managers who used to be your biggest fans out there, who will make their voices heard - and the damage done to the SI and FML-brand will be remarkable.

So the option to keep some of the original Gameworlds for your hardcore fans and managers would not only be a wise decision, it would also work as damage-control, to ensure the longevity of FML. No company can survive when they disregard and disrespect their most loyal and hardcore fans.

Warm regards and I wish you a lot of wisdom,

- Jurgen | Fortuna Retra | Cantona

Dear friends at SI.

I almost understand the resons behind the view now that the only way forward is to restart again. However, that makes my position as a mod untenable and therefore after 20 months please accept this as notice of my intention to resign as a moderator.

I will post my views here at an appropriate time but basically you cocked up big time SI because you NEVER did have a plan either in terms of Development OR Marketing you have followed the beta route of suck it and see and it is for these reasons we find u now having to make the tuff decision to restart. The only reason we went live in the first place was to get income
in to pay for the continued and necessary development.

The best thing you could do now is withdraw the game until you are ready to restart afresh. If you dont then those that occassionally visit and are left will make the remaining mods jobs unbearable and you will find yourselves deactivating accounts for people who are left. Good luck with the NEW FML from March onwards but please if you've learnt one thing from this sorry episode it should be that rather than tinker about with little niceties in the game itself get your vision and plans out up front and clear to everyone or you might just as well pack in and go home.

Thanks for the fun times as the BEST things about my experiences have been the "Community" elements not the intricacies of the game itself and i will miss my online friends immensely. Cheers,

Steve H
Mod in Pearce - ex mod in Saunders
Beta worlds 7 and 23 and various org jobs
But above all - made many friends i will miss

Season 14 UFFA Membership Update

2009-11-13T12:08:00.000Z

A Really Bad Day at the Office

2009-11-04T11:01:00.006Z

Casual FA Weekly Cup final defeat
We had the better players, created more chances (16 to 6, 2 clear cut chances to 1) and generally bossed the match, however we succumb to a 1-0 defeat, conceeding a goal to a counter attack.

Light Heavyweight Championship final defeat
This one annoyed my more than FML has managed to annoy me in 12 long months playing the game; my team just didn't turn up for the match. My opponents stats tell it all 9 shots, 6 on target, 4 goals scored -- seriously, what the hell can you do about that? As for the chances that fell to my strikers, well my nan would have had a better chance of scoring the way my players performed in the match.

Super Afternoon League title thrown away
How on earth we lost this match I will never know, 29 shots to 8, 6 clear cut chances to 3, total control of the match, but seemingly destined to conceeding a goal on every counter attack we face today. A win here was the difference between winning the league and fighting for second place.

Casual FA Division 1 title lost*
In the last match of the season, a draw would likely be enough to claim the title, and a win would guarantee it. However, on his debut my new £1.6m left midfielder gets sent off in the 9th minute. Despite playing with a man down for the majority of the match, the team still dominate the play and create 3 clear cut chances to our opponents none. Somehow we still lose 2-1 and the season's efforts are for nothing.

* Lanky Legs XI need just three points from their final two games of the season to seal the title now, so in theory we can still claim the title, but it's not looking likely.

In a way it's good that FML pisses me off so much, it shows that it's succeeded in sucking me into the game, the same way the old Championship Manager games did back in my youth; however I've never felt more disconnected from my team than I do in FML at times like these. It honestly seems that there are times when your team are in a rut and there is nothing you can do about it, if that rut comes at a time when you are playing important games then tough luck, there's no feedback to explain why my team have suddenly stopped performing to their potential, and what's more there's no way for me to affect this.

Season 13 UFFA Membership Update

2009-11-03T11:13:00.002Z

Where are they now ... Relegation Fodder

2009-10-18T12:54:00.006+01:00

Back in season 5 something special was taking place at the Playing Fields; the club's under-21 and under-20 teams went 2 seasons undefeated in a highly competitive SFA league. The club had the number 1 ranked youth team in the world and the future looked bright. Eight seasons on the Cloughite is looking back to the players that started season 5 as part of that "golden generation"...

Joe Lynch
Goalkeeper, 751 senior appearances for the club. Season 3 to present day. Recently re-established himself as the club's #1 goalkeeper after displacing Rene Adler midway through season 12.

Cristian
Right back, 321 senior appearances for the club. Season 4 to present day. Cristian had to bide his time for a regular spot in the first team after the signing of fellow Brazilian Rafina. Originally seen as a utility player able to cover both full back positions, Cristian has continued to progress well into his 20s and is now one of the first names on the team sheet.

Guido Boncompagni
Left back, 1484 senior appearances for the club. Season 1 to present day. A first team regular from the age of 16, "Bonco" has become a club legend and has played more games for the club than any other player.

Alexandre Fernandes
Centre back, 1230 apearances for the club. Season 1 to present day. Alex "Assault" Fernandes learned his trade from compratriate Naldo, and went on to take on the captaincy the club following the sale of Naldo to London Town. Still only 26, Fernandes has recieved bans for assault on fourteen seperate occasions, a fact that is partly responsible for his cult status at the club.

Mariano Gamboa
Centre back, 709 appearances for the club. Season 4 to present day. Fernandes partner in the centre of defense initially found himself deployed in an anchor man role for the club when he progressed to the senior side. Following the departure of Gioda, Gamboa found himself partnering the great Brazilian once more in back 5 that has lasted the test of time.

Enrique Galvan
Defensive midfielder. Season 4 to season 8. The only player of that golden generation to find himself surplus to requirements at the Fodder. Galvan was released after only 22 senior appearances in his four seasons at the club. Enrique is currently in his 4th season at Melchester Forest, but only finds himself on the fringes of the fist team.

Sean Buxton
Central midfielder, 323 senior appearances for the club. Season 4 to present day. Currently first choice in the anchor man role. After graduating from the club's academy, Buxton found himself mostly used as a backup player, however following the departure of Luca Cigarini he found himself thrust into the first team, and it proved to be the making of him as a player. He excelled in a role that few at the club expected him to be able to make his own and is now considered as important a part of the starting XI as anyone else at the club.

Mirko Esposito
Central midfielder, 212 senior appearances for the club. Season 4 to season 9. Mirko was transferred to Firenze for £600k in season 10, after 6 years at the club, he never managed to establish himself in the starting XI, despite his starring role for the academy. After 2 seasons at Firenze Esposito was transferred to Polytech Grenoble for £600k and made 55 appearances for the club last season (season 12).

Edimar Teixeira
Central attacking midfielder, 604 appearances for the club. Season 3 to season 9. "Eddy Tex" was sold to Rapid Pitesti for £5.8m in season 9 much to the chagrin of the club's supporters. Seen as the successor to club legend Caio, many fans questioned why the club would sell one of it's best players even though he was only 22. However the £5.8m transfer fee was just too good to turn down and was part of the club's plans to secure it's long term financial future and ensure that never again will they have to sell a player they want to retain. The signing of Frenchamn Jeremy Menez went some way to appeasing the fans following the loss of Teixeira. Teixeira is still at Rapid Pitesti, having made 606 appearances for the club in the 4 seasons since leaving the Playing Fields.

Fabio Bernardi
Striker, 1103 appearances for the club. Season 1 to present day. Transferred to Phantoms in season 10 for £6.8m. "Berni" was and is a club legend, having lead the forward line for a decade, it was a huge shock to everyone at the club when manager David Parker negotiated a £6.8m deal for the player at the end of season 10. Following the sale the club promised the fans: "This is the last sale we will ever sell a player for financial reasons. The club's financal resources are now sufficient that normal market forces will no longer influence the club's transfer strategy".

Sergey Stepanov
Striker, 712 appearances for the club. Season 4 to present day. Released by London Town after 2 seasons at the club Stepanov has come back from that early setback to prove himself one of the world's top forwards.

Undercover: Judging Potential Revisited

2009-10-17T00:48:00.006+01:00

Editors Note: The following is subject to change, v1.4 is still in the early stages of beta testing, nothing is set in stone and beta testers have only recently been given permission to publicly discuss these changes. The changes detailed here are only a small part of what looks likely a major reworking of the way that the youth system works in FML that will extend far beyond the version 1.4.

Judging Potential; you either love it or loath it, and if you fall into the former category then you are a big pansy girl who should stick to playing Barbie Horse Adventures and leave this football management lark to the real men!

After what seems endless seasons watching the transfer market for youth team players spiral ever further out of control -- largely due to the propagation of the Judging Potential skill -- the powers that be have finally commenced a long overdue refactoring of the skill to coincide with the introduction of a formal Youth Academy system.

If you have a JP skill, then you would either need to have them in your squad, or add them to your assessment list, of which there is a limit to how many you can add before it starts taking longer to learn the potential of each player.

Either way their potential will then become apparent over time.

So to decide which free agents to bid on you would either go on their attributes as they are now and take a gamble, or use JP to assess them before bidding.

My hope is that this means more youths actually get signed-up because people take a gamble on more players without instant judging potential narrowing the focus on a smaller group of players and leading to their wages rising.
- Ov Collyer

In terms of bids happening before assessments are completed, I don't mind if this new JP becomes a more reactive system, ie people gamble more on a wider number of players and then chop and change as they assess players.

I think it will make for a more interesting youth market.
- Ov Collyer

As I've said earlier, I don't mind if JP becomes something used mainly after you've signed a player, or to assess players at other clubs who you might want to make a bid for, as opposed to something used in advance on free agents.

It's still a useful tool, but not something that can be used to monopolise the free agent market.
- Ov Collyer

That's right folks, everything the anti-JP-bandwagon has been saying for the past year has been fully taken on board by SI and there is genuine reason for optimism. Now contain your excitement and read on.

Here's summary of the current proposals as I understand them:

All managers will recieve a skill points refund for the current Judging Potential skill, which they may reinvest in the new version of the skill or in any other skill they choose. A new skill will take it's place, which for the sake of clarity I will call "Assessment" rather than "Judging Potential" to make it clear from this point when I am referring to the old skill and the new skill.
Yes there would be a refund and the chance to learn it again for fewer points.
- Ov Collyer
The "Assessment" skill will not grant a manager instant knowledge of the potential of every player on the planet under the age of 25 as the current Judging Potential skill does. Instead it will take a number of days, dependant on the level of your Assessment skill to reach an accuracy comparable to Judging Potential. Currently this ranges from 7 (level 5) to 28 days (level 1).
In addition to your Shortlist each club now has an Assessment List. Adding players to your assessment list begins an assessment process for the player.
- Whilst under assessment you will gain knowledge of the player's potential, as you continue to assess a player the accuracy of the potential you see for that player will increase up to the maximum accuracy possible for your current level of the Assessment skill.
- To begin with each club can assess up to 10 players at once.
- You may add more than ten players to your assessment list, however this will slow down the rate at which all assessments progress. Thus if you add 20 players to your assessment list you will complete assessment of all 20 players in the same time that you would have if you had first assessed 10 of them and then assessed the other 10 afterwards. There are advantages to both approaches; with the former, at the halfway stage you will have a rough assessment of all 20 players available, with the latter approach you would have a complete assessment of half the players, but no information at all about the other 10.
Players in your squad (excluding out on-loan, including in on-loan ) will automatically be assessed without you having to do anything (if you have the Assessment skill obviously).
At any time you'll be able to see the % of the assessment that is complete, if you stop assessing a player the progress you have made in the assessment is saved.
You'll start getting a reading when the accuracy reaches 25%, but it'll fluctuate regularly until gradually settling down on a final value as you reach 100% completion on the assessment.
The new Assessment skill is more accurate than Judging Potential:
- Level 1 is accurate to +/-30 PA
- Level 2 is accurate to +/-25 PA
- Level 3 is accurate to +/-20 PA
- Level 4 is accurate to +/-15 PA
- Level 5 is accurate to +/-10 PA
Remember, this is the just the beginning; there are many more changes coming to the game that affect the market for under-21 players. As and when the other elements become more defined I will bring you an update.

Regarding assessment duration:

I have a question I have JP4 at the moment and to assess a player it will take ten days to get a result of the old JP4.If i was to have JP5 would it still take 10 days to get an assessment of the old JP5 or would it be quicker.
JP5 will take 7 days to complete the assessment - as soon as you have JP5 it'll start increasing the % more quickly on any partially assessed players.
- Ov Collyer

Assessment lists:

If you go above 10 players on your assessment list (excluding any on the list who might be in your squad) then it'll start slowing down. E.g. 20 players would make it take twice as long, 30 players three-times as long etc.

Players loaned-out take twice as long to assess (for the loaning out team), but normal speed for the team who has loaned them in.

You'll get a news item when you reach 25% assessed with a ball-park potential 'reading', and a final one at 100%.
- Ov Collyer

Assessment/Judging Potential accuracy, of course we still don't know exactly how PA maps to the star ratings used in game, which makes this knowledge mostly useless:

Under the old system JP was accurate to within *+/- 10 of a player's PA for JP5, down to an accuracy of +/- 50 of a player's PA for JP1.

The new system is accurate to within +/- 10 at JP5, and +/- 30 at JP1, once fully assessed.

To get more technical, at the start of the assessment it generates two values:

- random final offset (in the range +/- 30) and this is what will be used for the 100% assessed figure
- random rough offset (in the range +/- 40)

At 0% assessed, you see (or you would if we didn't conceal it until 25% assessed) purely the rough offset.

As the assessment continues, it mixes the rough and final offsets according to how much of the assessment has completed until at 100% it's purely the final offset you can see.

All converted to stars of course.

*At least, this is what I thought it was, until I discovered at the start of writing the assessment stuff that it was actually +/- 8 at JP5 going to +/- 43 at JP1 due to, shall we say, a "discrepancy".
- Ov Collyer

Reminder: Everything discussed above is subject to change, v1.4 is still in the early stages of beta testing, nothing is set in stone and beta testers have only recently been given permission to publicly discuss these changes. The changes detailed here are only a small part of what looks likely a major reworking of the way that the youth system works in FML that will extend far beyond the version 1.4.

The CPUFA Challenge

2009-10-11T20:38:00.007+01:00

After watching my team be dismantled by level 14 CPU teams I figured I'd set the GW a little challenge ... I've duplicated the 10 team league competition I've just played through, with the exact same 9 CPU teams I played against. The challenge is simple: Finish the league with more points than the other challengers

Who's willing to accept the challenge and battle to prove their team is #1!

By the way; the competitions are non-ranked, entirely against CPU opponents which means (unless I'm mistaken):

No sticky injuries
No effect on team morale or form
No effect on win/lose streaks
No effect on player ratings

Your opponents are:

Clan Na Gael
Falls Park
Dunham Village Bishops -- Watch out for Yuji Sato -- he's a monster!
Northpool Dockers
Lea Grange Engineers
Sandhaven
South Foreham Athletic
Lorton Abbot
Toneborough Yeomen

The Standings ...

Rank	Club	P	W	D	L	GD	Pts
1.	Funky Town	18	05	03	10	-08	18
2.	Relegation Fodder	18	03	05	10	-16	14
3.	The Mighty Iron	18	02	07	09	-14	13
4.	Dueling Dragons FC	07	03	01	03	-01	10
5.	Halifax Leafs FC	11	03	00	08	-11	09
6.	Real Manchester United F.C.	13	02	00	11	-17	06
7.	Camembert Harriers	06	01	02	03	-02	05
8.	Ehcoelavon	08	00	03	05	-08	03
9.	Harlow Town FC	04	00	02	02	-03	02
10.	King Krimson FC	06	00	02	04	-06	02
11.	Nottingham Forest 1865	00	00	00	00	00	00
12.	All BiDoNs Fc	01	00	00	01	-01	00

FML Community: Embarrassment of Riches, or Simply an Embarrassment?

2009-10-10T20:36:00.000+01:00

BertieBG explains why the new "subscriber discussion" forum has no public access:

The reason we have set the current subscriber forums to private is because it will make us feel more comfortable in talking in detail about updates, your concerns and new features without feeling like we are sending confusing messages to those using the forums to find out more about the game and to find out whether they want to give signing up to the game a go.

*cough* Horseshit *cough* You'd have to be pretty naive to believe that:

I think people understand that persistent world online games are ongoing development projects that will constantly receive updates/patches/whatever-the-developer-labels-them -- it's part of the justification behind the monthly fees afterall, so this shouldn't concern anyone at SI or SEGA really

I don't think that anyone who'd consider playing a game like FML is going to view the fact it receives regular updates, including substantial new function such as the upcoming Academies, in a negative light.
- Durera

MyNameIsJohn was pretty blunt in his take on the changes:

Dress it up how you like but it's pretty obvious that the current subscriber forum has been made private to avoid potential new users being put off by negative posts. Surprised it's taken this long. Not surprised that SEGA/SI can't be honest about it though.
- MyNameIsJohn

In fairness SI responded to the criticism when it would have been very easy to simply ignore it:

It would be a lie to say that this wasn't a consideration, but the reason why we decided down this route was that we strongly felt that new users were potentially intimidated by the forums and wanted to change things to make it so that new people feel more comfortable about getting involved.
- BertieBG

Others raised the point that rather than improving the public perception of the game this move makes it look as if there is a problem:

Ok i think it is a terrible idea just like the person above does, in away you showing/proving that you have something to hide and therefore, you are saying yourself that the game/community has BIG problems.
- mkij

At the end of the day it seems to this cynical old man that the new structure looks like something a marketing dept would dream up without any real understanding of online communities. The General Discussion board is pretty messy and could definitely do with stronger moderation and some structure, however it is by no means any worse than any other gaming message board.

So, are SI ashamed of the community? I guess you can understand why they might be when you see "contributions" like the following:

KEEP YOUR STADIUM - It'll just be half full for a while;
KEEP SOME CASH - probably more than you will ever earn in real life anyway; and,
call your mum, she is concerned that having you as an only child has led to you wasting your life as a miserable selfish cokhaed that couldnt string a sentence together if it was for a chance to lose that virginity that keeps you locked inside all day.

How about some constructive criticism? Or build on it? Or learn to tie knots so you can hurry up and hang yourself?
- oscclever

FML Gameworld Census October 2009

2009-10-09T20:56:00.004+01:00

In an attempt to gain some insight into the strenth of the UFFA in relation to rivals the Cloughite have undertaken the following survey, unfortunately many rivals are unwilling to release their figures, perfectly illustrated by an organiser from Blissett:

Sorry and the point of this is? I'm sure SI could give you it if you asked...you won't be getting Blissett's
- Kev `BYFA` ORG

A very helpful attitude I'm sure you'll agree. Make of that what you will.

Note: inactive users = teams assigned to the Casual Inactive Football Association, active users = all other teams assigned to a Football Association.

Gameworlds Surveyed: 9/34
Total Active Population: 3103 managers
Average Active Population: 344 managers/GW

Total Inactive Population: 1003 managers
Average Inactive Population: 111 managers/GW

If you wish to contribute to the project you can do so on the Sports Interactive Forums.

Clough Boring Research Department

2009-10-06T20:45:00.000+01:00

Originally written by Tony McDermot

So I got bored and decided to do some boring research, like the Deloitte tables and so on and so forth, comparing the top-flight leagues of all the FAs in Clough and comparing them on a more or less arbitrary basis. And here's the results!

FOOTBALL STYLE:

"The side have been applauded in recent times as a side who truly epitomise the 'beautiful game.' They manage to achieve great success with an open, flamboyant style which has resulted in the side becoming known as a favourite of the neutral supporters."

1. MLFA PREM: 87.5%
2. SFA PREM: 64.7%
3. EFA PREM: 60.0%
4. XEFA PREM: 40.0%
5. CFA PREM: 30.0%

This study seems to indicate that the MLFA is the most beautiful, open and flamboyant of the top-flight leagues, making it not only an international television success but also gaining the praise of the football purists who like to see the game played in an open and technical manner. The SFA Premiership and the EFA Premiership both strive towards this level of technical proficiency, with well over half of the teams in these leagues portraying the 'beautiful game'. The XEFA Premiership can't quite make the same claim, as only 8 of the 20 teams are described as such, while the CFA is clearly the least beautiful of all the leagues, although it is not without its own redeeming qualities.

GOALS PER GAME:
1. SFA PREM: 695 in 455 = 1.53 goal per game
2. EFA PREM: 901 in 627 = 1.44gpg
3. CFA PREM: 918 in 672 = 1.37 gpg
4. XEFA PREM: 1662 in 1230 = 1.35 gpg
5. MLFA PREM: 830 in 668 = 1.29 gpg

In spite of it's open football, the MLFA is also the lowest scoring of the top-flight leagues in Clough. the CFA and XEFA achieved a healthy goals per game ratio, which is interesting mainly because these two leagues ranked as the 'least beautiful' of the five leagues studied. Perhaps their sides, while not necessarily playing beautiful passing games, may in fact play a more direct attacking style of football. The EFA can make it through 1.44 goals per game, but the king of excitement in Clough is the SFA Premiersip, with on average over one and a half goals in every game played.

FOULS PER GAME
1. XEFA PREM: 13819 in 11.23 fpg
2. SFA PREM: 5203 in 455 = 11.44 fpg
3. CFA PREM: 8173 in 672 = 12.16 fpg
4. MLFA PREM: 8120 in 12.2 fpg
5. EFA PREM: 8352 in 627 = 13.32 fpg

The cleanest of the leagues is the XEFA, only committing just over 11 fouls on average per game. The SFA isn't far behind, with slighlty under 11 and a half fouls committed per game, while the CFA and MLFA are almost joined on an average of 12.2 fouls per game. By far and away the dirtiest of all the top-flights in Clough however is the EFA, averaging over a foul per game more than any other Premiership in the Game World. Certainly this is something for EFA teams to improve upon, and may be a contributing factor in their inability to make the top rankings of the goals per game or the beautiful football standings.

Financial State
Very Rich = 5pts
Rich = 4pts
Secure = 3 pts
OK (in credit) = 2pts
OK (in debt) = 1pt

1. CFA PREM: 43/100 = 43%
2. MLFA PREM: 34/80 = 42.5%
3. XEFA PREM: 41/100 = 41%
4. EFA PREM: 39/100 = 39%
5. SFA PREM: 32/85 = 37.6%

Using a percentile ranking system, each of the top divisions in Clough have had their sides assessed according to the above tables, and that has led to the CFA being revealed as having the richest top-flight of the whole game world. Only slightly behind them lies the MLFA Premiership, with the XEFA slightly behind that. The EFA manages a percentile score of 39%, well behind the leading pack, while the SFA has by far the poorest Premiership in the whole of Clough. This poverty does not necessarily have an adverse effect on their goalscoring, but might have a negative long-term effect on the SFA's development.

Season 12 UFFA Membership Update

2009-09-29T12:31:00.002+01:00

CFA League Review (Part 2)

2009-09-27T20:48:00.000+01:00

Originally written by Garry Pettigrew

Part 2 of the League Round Up.

Casual FA Division Two

-- Title Contenders --
El-Bombers lead the way in what is a very tight league. With only 8 points seperating the top 6 sides and FC Ajaxtreesdown in 6th place have 3 games in hand over the league leaders. It's anyones guess as to who will take the 5 promotion spots.

-- Relegation Battle --
Two sides without a win and both teams are on a point each - New Portsmouth and sonicgroove. TheMightyPenguins also find themselves adrift with only 7 points from 12 games. somerset sabers should have the games in hand to get themselves out of trouble which leaves Muppets Inc. and Longburton Wizards sweating.

-- Worth Mentioning --
El-Bombers currentyl on course for back to back League Titles.

-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Marco Pérez 14 goals in 16 games (El-Bombers)
Most Assists - Mario Conti 13 assists in 15 games (Lanky Legs XI)
Best Average Rating - Marco Pérez 7.46 over 14 games (El-Bombers)

Casual FA Division Three

-- Title Contenders --
Spartak Nickow have a 4 point lead over 2nd placed Tricky Trees Utd and look assured of a promotion spot. Making up the rest of the top 5 are Whitstable Galaxy, Birchieboys & Ajax Trees. Although Sporting Delft and Cowderys Lillywhites will be pushing hard to steal one of those spots.

-- Relegation Battle --
I TAz Aston Villa, Cowdenbeef Albion, The Wizzards all have something in common - they have each only won 1 game and are certain for the drop. AFC Lions, Third Lanark FC and Foyle Athletic will be fighting it out as - 2 of the three will find themselves joining the aforementioned threesome in going down.

-- Worth Mentioning --
Tricky Trees Utd and Ajax Trees have two of the best defences in the entire FA with only 7 goals conceded so far.

-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Gabriel Agbonlahor 16 goals in 14 games (Spartak Nickow)
Most Assists - Medy Elito 9 assists in 13 games (PNE_33)
Best Average Rating - Gabriel Agbonlahor 7.59 over 16 games (Spartak Nickow)

Casual FA Division Four

-- Title Contenders --
It looks like Arkham United can start celebrate promotion - with a 6 point lead at the top of the table. Newbury Pirates look likely yo make promotion as well - currently stitting in 2nd place. After that it's tight and only 7 points seperate 3rd from 11th.

-- Relegation Battle --
The Smurfs without a win - look destined for the drop. I Dont Care aren't fareing much better with just the 1 win. The othere 3 will come from O.P.E Apple Raiders, Chester Arrows, Rebel Pom United, Baby D Destroyers or Shepbecks County.

-- Worth Mentioning --
The Smurfs with only 4 goals so far are very weak in attack. With no wins yet this season - it's hard to see where that first win will come from.

-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Roman Razdelkin 10 goals in 14 games (Morleys Magic Masters)
Most Assists - Saulo Rodrigues 7 assists in 15 games (eltham bears united)
Best Average Rating - George Boyd 7.52 over 12 games (Van Cortlandt Rangers)

Casual FA Division Five

-- Title Contenders --
The Bazmanauts currently lead the way in a very close league. Tels LUFC will be pushing them all the way to th finish line. Just 4 points off the pace but with games in hand are Nirvanas and Manor AFC. Skreemburn Spartans hold the 5th promotion spot for the moment.

-- Relegation Battle --
No relegation here - but Premier 11 courtesy of their -38 GD are the bottom team of the FA.

-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Philippe Lassalle 10 goals in 9 games (Argentine)
Most Assists - Zeljko Loncarek 5 assists in 9 games (Argentine)
Best Average Rating - Sammir 7.51 over 7 games (Nirvanas)

Thanks for reading - as always feel free to reply with any feedback - good, bad or indifferent

CFA League Review (Part 1)

2009-09-26T20:47:00.000+01:00

Heres the first of my promised season reviews - make of it what you will!

Premiership

-- Title Contenders --
Surprisingly Legless Ends FC lead the Casual FA Premier League 3 points ahead of nearest rivals Harlesden Harriers. Alea Iacta Est a side I had previously tipped for relegation find themselves in 3rd place, however they have played more games than anyone else in the league. Paddington Athletic hold the final Gold Cup place for the moment. My tip for the league title Razorshot FC find themselves firmly stuck in mid table - only just qualifying for the Bronze Cup.
-- Relegation Battle --
With only 5 points so far it looks like we will be saying goodbye to Real Garda Claudia. Anothe side that looks destined for the drop at this early stage is Seeteufel Konstanz. It looks to be a bit of a scrap for the other 3 spots and Donkey Rovers, Davos United, Hope Cove Utd and Tycoons Gunners will all be feeling the pressure.

-- Worth Mentioning --
Razorshot FC have won 7 of the last 8 Premier League titles (with 1 runners up spot) - 10th place - surely not good enough
-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Bojan 10 goals in 11 games (Harlesden Harriers)
Most Assists - Lee Phillips 11 assists in 10 games (Legless Ends FC)
Best Average Rating - Bojan 7.71 over 10 games (Harlesden Harriers)

Casual FA Championship

-- Title Contenders --
The Birmingham Bearded Women lead the way just 3 points ahead of Little Badgers. Erdington Villans only 4 points of top place will fancy there chances as they have 2 games in hand on TBBW and 1 game on LB. Making up the top 5 as correctly predicted by me are Balls Of Steel and Ann Arbor Arsenal.

-- Relegation Battle --
At the other end of the table things don't look good for our 2 Swedish sides Windy Forest FC with 5 points and Gothia FC with 6 points - just 1 win each for both so far. Just a couple of points ahead and with the worst goal difference in the league are Basildon Town Y.F.C who have played a couple more games than Windy and Gothia. Se SK and Petworth Panthers make up the rest of the relegation places although eveybody up to PITSIOTA FC in 13th place will be feeling the pressure.

-- Worth Mentioning --
If you want excitement the The Wright Stuff is NOT the team for you - with only 7 goals this season they have the worst attack although they make up for this with the 2nd best defence having only conceded 7 goals - so a goal difference of 0 and only 14 goals in total in the games they have been involved in.

-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Paulo Henrique 13 goals in 13 games (The Birmingham Bearded Women)
Most Assists - Arnaud Marchal 7 in 11 games (Balls Of Steel)
Best Average Rating - Paulo Henrique 7.71 over 13 games (The Birmingham Bearded Women)

Casual FA Division One

-- Title Contenders --
Old Avenellonians have made a good start to life in Division 1 with a 5 point lead over 2nd placed Throw In The Howell although they have played 2 more games. Belesta SV will also fancy their chances of winning the title - neatly placed in 3rd place. If Sloane Square Rangers can win their game in hand they can go within 4 points of the league leaders. Everybody as far down as Kung Fu Hamsters in 8th place will still be aiming for promotion.

-- Relegation Battle --
Without a win I think it's safe to say Rejects United are going down. Likely to be joining them are Smaley's Rams, Highbury United, Bill Quay Bombers FC and SV Furburger.

-- Worth Mentioning --
If your playing Relegation Fodder it's pretty likely to end up a point each - over half their games have ended in draws this season. However Arkadius United are yet to draw a game with 4 wins and 6 defeats.

-- Top Performers --
Most Goals - Daniel Morales 15 goals in 10 games (Throw In The Howell)
Most Assists - Pablo Alvarado 7 assists in 12 games (Kung Fu Hamsters)
Best Average Rating - Daniel Morales 7.98 over 10 games (Throw In The Howell)

Thats it from me for just now - Hope you enjoyed reading and Part 2 to come some time later today or maybe tomorrow

CFA League Preview (Part 2)

2009-09-17T20:51:00.000+01:00

Originally written by Garry Pettigrew

The 2nd part of my preview - apologies in advance if I put the kiss of death on anyone
Casual FA Division Two - again a plethora of new teams. Again a very difficult league to predict - I think it gets harder from here and on! I expect Lanky Legs XI & El-Bombers to battle it out for the title with FC Ajaxtreesdown, Take Me To The Hospital and The K.L.A. making up the top 5. I wouldn't be too surpised to see Paul Inniss's highly expensive youngsters 4ytry make it either.

Who'll go down? Well King Street Rovers avoided the drop last season but unfortunately I don't think they escape this season, Joining them will be Longburton Wizards, Muppets Inc., sonicgroove and Baghdad Bears.

Casual FA Division Three - a league where activity can pay off. My tip for the top is PNE_33 who will be closely followed by Spartak Nickow, skegblade utd, Ajax Trees and Birchieboys. It's a very tight league and one where I fully expect to look foolish at the end of the season .
Anyway going down I think we'll see - I TAz Aston Villa, Third Lanark FC, SELHURST STARS, Foyle Athletic and The Wizzards.

Casual FA Division Four - the 2nd bottom league in the FA. Niko FC narrowly missed out on promotion last season but should manage it this time around. FC Hadouken should have enough about them to secure a promotion spot and I expect Newbury Pirates, Take Your Life 3000 and Rebel Pom United to join them.

Who's for relegation to the bottom tier of a 133 team FA - well sadly I expect the following teams to end there - Van Cortlandt Rangers, Peacemakers United, Arkham United, O.P.E Apple Raiders and Shepbecks County.
Finally Casual FA Division Five - pretty much all newcomers to the GW - so hello Who do I think will get those all important promotion spots - this one is the most difficult to predict . Lee's sunny siders fc restarted and his FML experience should help guide him to the top of the league. I've seen Peter actively asking for advice and I think he has what it takes to guide Saxo Rovers to a promotion spot on his debut season. Clough veteran Tahaa should have enough know how to ensure Argentine get promoted.
I have a good feeling about this one Tels LUFC watch out for him making his way up the leagues. And lastly my final league prediction - The Bazmanauts will be playing Division 4 football next season.

As it such a small leage all Division 5 sides have also been entered into the Casual FA Victory Shield - where I expect to see the 5 aforementioned sides competing for another honour

THE CUPS
Casual Football Association Cup - the Main event a knock out Cup with all FA members participating - expect to see Razorshot FC triumph, Dark Horses - Kung Fu Hamsters

Casual FA Elite Cup - for Premier League and Championship Clubs. Favourites - Little Badgers, Dark Horses - Marsh Factor.

Casual FA Challenge Cup - D1 and D2. Favourites - Relegation Fodder, Dark Horses - Lanky Legs XI.

Casual FA Trophy - D3 to D5. Favourites - Ajax Trees, Dark Horses - AFC Lions.

Thats it folks.

I wish you all the best of luck Have a good season and hopefully you'll hear from me soon with an update on how everyone has started.

CFA League Preview (Part 1)

2009-09-17T15:51:00.000+01:00

Originally written by Garry Pettigrew

This is the first of hopefully many CFA round ups. (Anybody who wants to contribute please get in touch with either myself, Dave or Coach)

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that the Casual Football Association now has a new logo - thanks to Craig "Tweej" MacLean I'm sure most of you will agree it definately looks the part. If not feel free to let me know
The CFA has now expanded to 133 teams - with many newcomers from other FAs and some brand new members to Clough. I hope you feel welcome. Teams have been placed as appropriately as possible in the correct league - without disadvantaging existing FA members.
Here's my thoughts on the forthcoming campaign - please take with a pinch of salt. If you disagree feel free to pin it up on your dressing room wall and use it as motivation.

First up the Casual FA Premier League with 4 Gold Cup places up for grabs competition is sure to be fierce - Favourites to retain their crown are Clough stalwarts Razorshot FC, a team that will hope to be hot on their heels are Harlesden Harriers. Which will leave 2 places and I can see several teams fighting it out for these - so pick 2 from:Marsh Factor, Red Arrow FC, Tycoons Gunners & LetsTalkAboutCesc. With 4 Silver Cup places also we'll see another scramble for places with 2 of the above qualifying and 2 from: Kavchester City, Davos United, Werder Preben. Which leaves us with a brand new UFFA competition - the Bronze Cup. 2 from the Premier League will enter this as well as the Championship winners. Which means top 10 in the Premier League qualifies for entry into UFFA competitons. Well I've named 9 sides so I might as well be brave and predict another to give you my top 10 so here it is - Pimpslord.

Now for relegation With 5 teams down I feel it will be quite a battle to beat the drop - as in real life some of last seasons Championship teams may struggle so with that in mind I predict that 5 from these 6 will face the dreaded drop - Seeteufel Konstanz, Papagaios do Rio, Donkey Rovers, Real Garda Claudia, AS Saint Dicky & Alea Iacta Est. Folks I wish you luck and hope you prove me wrong .

Next up the Casual FA Championship a notoriously difficult division to get out of. This season it gets even harder with the addition of Little Badgers, The Birmingham Bearded Women and Erdington Villans whom add on newly promoted from Division 1 - Balls Of Steel as well as Ann Arbor Arsenal, Southsea & Citadel Benfica and we've got 7 very good teams and only 5 promotion places.

Going down I see The Wright Stuff, Petworth Panthers, Basildon Town Y.F.C, Gothia FC, PITSIOTA FC having a hard time and are my pick for the drop.
Casual FA Division One another league with lots of newcomers to the FA. Another tough league to call in terms of the promotion contest. It's too tight for me to call an outright favourite but I see Relegation Fodder & Sloane Square Rangers fighting it out for top spot. Closely followed by Kung Fu Hamsters, Belesta SV, Old Avenellonians who will go up alongside them.

For the chop - Rejects United, Swansea Jacks AFC, Insane S.F., Highbury United and Alrewas Athletic

Thats my predictions for the top 3 Divions Divisions 2-5 will follow and you never know I may even find the time to look at the Youth or Cup competitions.

Like I said at the start please don't take it too seriously - it's just my opinion.

Good luck to everybody this season and don't be afraid to let me know what you think

The Alternative FML Roadmap

2009-09-10T14:08:00.003+01:00

I for one was immensely disappointed at the reveal of the Roadmap for FML .. in an alternative world I left university and went to work for Sports Interactive rather than IBM ... here's my alternate-world roadmap:

1. Reward players for "doing stuff".
It could be argued that in FML the benefits of actually logging into your GW on a regular basis are negligable.
- A week well spent during the wage auction period can set your team up for the season ahead and with offline match plans you can set your team up to play exactly as you want them to when you're away.
- New players are being introduced into the gameworlds in a large burst rather than a slow stead stream, as long as you're around for this you can get your youth team in place for the season ahead.

So what are you missing out on if you do not log into FML during the season?
- You can't set a new skill to learn after your current skill has completed.
- You are costing your club money because the cost of maintaining your stadium is not linear, repairing your stadium every day will cost you substantially less over a season then repairing it every other day.

There needs to be more a link between time invested and progression in the game in the same way that any other MMO works. FML is increasingly becoming an online Fantasy Football game, and the way people lose interest over time mirror's what you see in most Fantasy Football games.

2. Fix the transfer system
- In wage auctions establish a link between a players Acquisition Fee and their wage demand. If you bid five times a players wage demand then you should pay 5 times the players Acquisition Fee (+/- bonuses from Transfer Negotiation skill).
- This will reward clubs for developing young players that they cannot spare a senior lock for, as any poacher that attempts to bid high to "steal" their player will now pay a premium.
- Say goodbye to 16 year old regens on £25k/day wages. The AF payable for such players would be in excess of £1m and more than likely closer to £2m.
- The Auction List is rendered unusable due to the high number of over-priced players listed there, although it's someone's right to ask whatever they want for a player, these speculative listings make looking for a signing a chore. Apply a fee to Transfer Auctions with a starting value higher than MV. A fee of 10% of the difference between the player's MV and the auction starting value should be levied against the team.

3. Better structure the Gameworlds
Placing teams in competitions that they can be competitive in regardless of their skill level should be key here. Too many of the current rules prevent that, and actively discourage competition at lower levels in favour of the high-end game:

- Teams moving FA enter at lower tiers regardless of their ability. Ruins the entire season for teams that are genuinely competing at that level.
- Teams exceeding the AI restrictions are relegated a division, this concentrates the inactive managers at the levels where the lesser teams play. How is this fair on the latter? Not only do they lose to the better teams relegated through this route, but most likely they will lose to that team managed by the AI which we all know is even more frustrating that losing to a human opponent. When I was still making my way in the game, I missed out on my first senior honour as I was beaten to a 2nd tier league title by a team relegated from the top-tier due to his AI%, who finished that season with 90% AI also.

4. Fix the AI rights/DND issue
My problem with DND is that it is used by managers to put off matches until this AI rights stage starts in the first place, so rather than 21 days to play our matches against these people we only have 5 so it is any surprise that a lot of these games get to the point where auto-resolve becomes an issue.

Why should AI rights only be awarded 5 days before the match in a 21 day season? If we're in the playtime of a competition then I think AI rights should ALWAYS be up for grabs during the playtime of the competition, and challenges should be able to be issued to anyone online during the playtime regardless of how far off the AI date is.

Everynight everyone gets an e-mail saying: "You currently hold AI rights for the following (official) matches, and your opponent holds the rights for these (official) matches ...". Each match is listed with the opponent, the AI date and the competition which should encourage people who've lost AI rights to try challenge back at the next opportunity.

Seeing as green is used right now as a way of saying "it's time to play this match" more than anything else, why not take advantage of that:
White = Any match out of competition playtimes. DND can block it, AI rights not awardable
Green = Any match during competition playtimes. DND will not block it, AI rights will be awarded.
Orange = Autoresolve approaching (5 days). Used to highlight games that need to be played as a priority (as green is right now).
Red = AI rights awarded, 24 hours til auto-resolve.

Everyone has the right to say "I don't want to play a match right now", but that's why AI rights exist; to reflect the fact that someone else tried to play the game and you turned them down.

5. Improve the way GW history is available
- Bring offical youth honours to club's profile; make the official honours element a tabbed panel that allows you to switch between looking at official senior honours and official youth honours. Obviously official senior honours should be the default viewed, but provide a simple tab that lists the number of wins in both and allows you to easily view official successes at both levels with the click of a button.
- Alter the Gameworld records page to only count official games (and goals). Player's histories have gone the right route only taking into account official stats, hopefully the GW records will follow suit. All the data is there already -- just pull in the top stats from each Domestic & Super FA's record books, which will only count official games.

6. Comparative Filters
Give us the option to add fields from the database to both sides of a filter to make the "don't waste my time" filter a possibility:

Auction Start Price IS LESS THAN 0 OVER Market Value
AND Player Wage IS LESS THAN 5'000 OVER Wage Demand

7. Make AI/Offline Limits in competitions mean something
When teams exceed the AI Limit in competitions there should be consequences, this encourages users to enter competitions that fit their playstyle (offline or online) -- negative effects that impact team's performance on the pitch should be imposed on teams when they are over the AI restrictions for a competition, this rewards those that meet their commitments. It does not penalise casual managers as they will be playing matches in casual competitions with no AI restrictions.

e.g a morale impact "hey, where's our manager these days?

8. Fan Expectations, Interaction & Support Levels
- Bring some fan expectations to the game, in addition to the "fan feedback" we currently get -- it'd be nice if they responded to the progress (or lack thereof) your club was making in a more direct & impactful manner and we had some tools to directly interact with them during major events at the club (transfers in & out, honours won/lost etc) that also had an impact on their support for the team.
- Have fans become jaded with the way the team is playing, perhaps they are unhappy that you have not brought in a big name signing recently despite sitting on a pot of gold?
- Failing to interact with fans in any way does not cost you anything (the club have a press officer who will always choose the neutral option in your absence) you do not have now for free, however interaction with fans can lead to temporary increase in support (attendance + stadium income) or temporary decline. It provides an optional mini-game to play that brings benefits to those that do, but is balanced out by the potential for a loss also.

9. Rivalries
Allow us to enter into a rivalry with other clubs that adds extra emphasis to matches between the teams. Limit this to a maximum of 5 rivalries per club, tie this into Fan Expectations and Support levels, winning a crunch game (official only) against a rival will provide a nice boost to fan support.

10. Academies
Create Academies as an optional season long mini-game. The end result being that at the end of the season you are left with X players on full-time contracts at your club and players that didn't make it.

The key elements of this mini-game:

individual judgement.
introduce a balance of risk/reward.
the more effort you put into your academy the more you get out of it. However if you don't have the time, or are not interested, you can still get benefits, but you're in the hands of the AI.

First things first: Judging Potential does not exist. There is no Potential rating in the game anymore. That was just a bad dream. Now let's move on.
Secondly, "fog of war" returns to FML.

Background
When a new player wants to enter the world of football he has two options:
1) Get an agent and become a free agent, his agent will ensure that he get's the best deal possible.
2) Sign up at a local academy.
There are now two distinct markets for youth players.

It is the start of the season. You recieve the following:
"Academy Director Joe Bloggs has reported that, following regional trials, x players have been signed on an academy contract. As manager it is your responsability to decide whether to offer these players full professional contracts or release them as free agents before their academy deals expire."

1. Academy contracts are always signed at wage demand. Academy contracts are fixed at 4 weeks. If you terminate an academy contract early you do not get back that space until the contract was set to expire. You are stuck with that player for the duration of his contract.
2. Players on Academy contracts are not considered full-time professional players. They are not eligable to play in senior football, at all.
3. The spread of nationalities from your regional trials will be influenced only by the regional scouting skills you have
4. Ability (potential and current) of the players that arrive as a result from regional trials is completely random, and equal for all. This is the starting point for everyone.

General gameplay:
During the season you can choose to invest time scouting new players to bring in to supplement/replace those already at the club, and make decisions about who to keep at your academy and who to release because spaces are restricted. However, if you choose to you can do nothing and simply retain the players that arrive as a result of the local trials.

Assessing (judging) players:
Reminder: JP does not exist.
1. Play youth team matches during the season.
2. Watch their development over the course of a season before you have to make a decision to sign them on a full-time contract or release them into the free agent pool.
3. Get reports from your Academy Director, and the assesment centre throughout the season.

Sample Elements of the Academy
Your Academy requires a financial commitment that will impact your effort elsewhere. The benefits of a good academy are huge, there must be a downside.

1. Ongoing running costs. The hiring of an Academy Director. This man is key to the success of your academy, he is your best way of getting an insight into the potential ability of players at your academy. This cost is an ongoing cost, which over time adds up, but does not restrict even a beginner manager from hiring an above average Director at Day 1 to run their academy.

2. One-off Infrastructure costs.
a. Assessment Centres -- investment here will affect the accuracy of the reports you get from your academy
b. Training facilities -- investment here will provide, to all players on an academy contract (thus their first season in the GW only), an additional boost based on your coaching skills. e.g. the bery best facility will provide a 50% boost to all skills: eg. a level 4 coaching skill provides a 20% + 10% boost and a level 5 coaching skill actually provides a 25+12.5% boost. Each facility provides a boost to a group of related skills. You are limited to the number of facilities you can create, certain facilities exclude other facilites being created, etc etc. There needs to be the potential for a real strategy here rather than "build everything".
c. Housing -- investment here increases the number of players you can have signed on an academy contract at any one time.
d. Regional Academy Presence -- investment here creates a presence for your club in the different regions. Investment here aids with seeing through the "fog of war", providing a boost to the regional scouting skills. e.g. at the very top end you get a 50% boost to the effectiveness of the skill you have learned. Therefore building an academy presence in UK & Ireland will seriously aid you in being first to spot the young talent in that country. Investment here increases the number of scouts you can send to players from this reason at any one time (see "New Scouting System")

New Scouting System
All new players appear in the gameworld with zero visible attributes. Based on your regional scouting skills players attributes will reveal over a period of days for different players for different managers. No two managers will have the same view of the player database, this is where a necessary random element comes in to play.
- Free agent wage auction bids are completely hidden. No more "following the crowd".
No more JP, you have two options for signing a player:
1. Take a punt. Go with your gut feeling on the player. High risk, but a good chance of getting the player before interest from elsewhere.
2. Send a scout to look at the player. Take a day out to send a scout to evaluate the player, this instantly gives you access to all the players' attributes, and you get the equivalent of a JP reading for the player as a bonus. However you have limited scouts who exist per region, so it's a mixture of luck/judgement as to whether you send socuts to watch a rubbish player or a potential star.
Active Scouting You choose the players, you manage the scouts.
Passive Scouting The AI randomly selects player to be scouted for you.
You get a daily report summarising your scouts opinions.

Players signed through wage auctions are signed on professional contracts, not academy contracts.

New academy signups during the season
If the number of players at your club on academy contracts is less than the number that you have at the club currently, you will be offered a random selection of new regens every night to sign on academy contracts, along with your academy directors opinion of the player (his fog of war is 100% clear). If you reject the opportunity he goes to the free agents, otherwise he signs a 4 week academy contract and takes up one of your allocation. Because once you have signed a player on an academy contract that uses up one academy space for 4 weeks you canot simply sign a player and then release him if someone better comes along. This introduces an element of risk/reward -- do you take a chance on the player that looks good and risk not having room for a GREAT player that might come along tomorrow?

11. Skills Trading
Hire another manager to lend his Physio skills to your club for a period of X days. The rates are set in stone based on the level of skill a player has, thus avoiding exploitation.

12. PvE Scenarios
Examples:
- Your team is 3-0 down at half time in the cup final, you pick the team, but the match starts at the beginning of the 2nd half. Can your team capture the spirit of Istanbul to win the trophy?
- Your team is down to 9 men against a 20* opposition with 30 minutes to go, can you set out a tactic to hang on to a 1-0 lead against the strongest team in the AI ranks?

Keep a logbook of all the scenarios in the game, and your progess/records against each one. This could even influence your transfer policy as you look to attack the scenarios where you need a rock solid defence next season even though your current team is more suited to open, attacking football.

Each scenario can be completed in two ways:
1) With a pre-selected AI team that you will manage for that one match. This team is hand picked to be suitable for the challenge. This is considered a success, but the real challenge lies with option 2 ...
2) With your own squad. This is considered a super massive achievement to pull off ...

The scenario logbook records your progress for each scenarion seperately for both the pre-selected team and using your own team.

New scenario's can be added every season to keep the game fresh, and keep the population generally playing similar (ie new) scenarios at a similar time, helping bring a competitive edge to things.

13. UFFA New Member (in an existing GW) Tax Breaks
"Welcome to the UFFA, during your first season the UFFA will pay all agent & signing on fees using the taxes collected from member clubs. You will recieve notification when your tax break expires."

Take the agent and signing on fees out of the equation and the new member has an advantage which they can leverage to gain a foothold in the game, at the same time it's not a poke in the eye to existing members, unlike many other suggestions to make it easier for "newbies".

14. Stadium Customisation, funded by tokens
Re: Token prizes, please let us modify the appearance of our stadium using tokens.
- Add a car park, a tube station
- Roofing (opening/permanent)
- Pretty up the local area
- Choose the design of our stands
All completely cosmetic changes, but allowing us to give our ground some character -- rather than seeing our stadium rendered against a grey background with the same graphics for all, we see it placed on a street map. I could see myself spending a hell of a lot of token points building up this "scene". With enough development effort designing a stadium and it's surrondings can become as central an element in FML as designing your avatar in the more traditional MMOs.

Season 11 UFFA Membership Update

2009-09-09T12:20:00.000+01:00

Media Deals Agreed

2009-07-23T13:57:00.007+01:00

Media deals for the coming season were announced yesterday, £590 million was shared between the nine federations.

Overall membership of the UFFA has remained relatively stable, but most importantly the number of active members in the union rose 8% to 452 member clubs.

The big news is the closure of the Nighttime Football Association, who have struggled for numbers in recent seasons. The big beneficiaries of this move are the Social Football Association who were the association of choice for the ex-NFA members, seeing the SFA rise to to the top of the FA rankings alongside the PFA. The other major change is the Xtreme Football Association's decision to move to an early evening schedule (6pm-9pm), which has re-invogorated the once-struggling association following a 33% growth in membership from last season.

Federation	Members	Media Deal	Per Club
SFA	66 (+22)	£73.3m	£1.11m (0.06)
PFA	67 (-4)	£74.4m	£1.11m (-0.07)
CWA	74 (+6)	£80.7m	£1.09m (-0.02)
AEFA	79 (+2)	£86.1m	£1.09m (0)
XEFA	75 (0)	£78.8m	£1.05m (-0.05)
XFA	47 (+16)	£48.4m	£1.03m (-0.02)
MLFA	22 (1)	£22.2m	£1.01m (-0.06)
CIFA	109 (-28)	£109.2m	£1m (0)
WCA	22 (-8)	£20.7m	£0.94m (-0.04)
TOTAL	561 (-9)	£593.8m	£1.05m (-0.02)

Fantasy Football League

2009-07-17T13:30:00.003+01:00

As a new season approaches the UFFA community has come together to form a private league in the official Fantasy Premier League 2009/10. The code to join is: 37833-57935.

The Cloughite will run regular updates throughout the season.

A Warm Welcome to New Member Clubs

2009-07-17T00:18:00.008+01:00

Picking the Right Football Association:
This is probably the most important decision you have to make once you have become a member of the UFFA. The Cloughite has gathered the opinions of real FA members who it believes will provide an honest assessment of their FA. We present this information to you not to persude you to join any particular FA, but to give you the information to make the right decision yourself.

Evening FAs:
Clough is primarily an evening gameworld, the majority of users are active between 7pm and 1am, if these are the hours you expect to spend in-game the majority of the time then you are spoilt for choice in terms of FAs:

Primetime Football Association (19:30-22:30). Peak activity 19:30-21:00. The PFA is the top ranked association in Clough with the strongest top division of any FA, if you are looking for prestige then this may be the FA for you. Like the XEFA, the PFA league is comprised of 4-tiers. The PFA is highly active, however the lobby is realitively quiet as member clubs spend more time playing matches. Clubs in the PFA can expect to play about 60 games during the season depending on progress in the cups. Youth structure: U21 league and cup, U19 and U17 league.

All Evening Football Association 18:00-00:00. Peak activity 20:00-22:00. The AEFA has one of the most varied communities in Clough, with managers from many nations taking part, with a particularly strong Greek & Italian community. The AEFA has one of the best structured youth systems in the gameworld, with leagues structured to seperate those managers who wish to manage their youth team from those that let the AI take control. Teams in the AEFA will be looking at a schedule of between 50-70 matches during the season depending on success in the cups. Youth structure: League and cup at U21,20,19,18 &17.

Social Football Association (19:00-23:00). Peak activity 20:30 - 22:30. The SFA has become known in recent seasons for the strength of it's youth system, it was the first FA to introduce youth leagues at all levels and teams from the SFA have dominated UFFA youth competitions in recent seasons. The SFA has a close community, with plenty of healthy competition and no over-competitive must-win-at-any-cost players. The SFA offers a number of optional competitions to allow members to play anything from a bare minimum league schedule (50 matches) to an intensive schedule of over 100 matches. Youth structure: League and cup at U21,20,19,18 &17.

Xtreme Evening Football Association (20:00-00:00). Peak activity 20:00-21:30. The XEFA was the first association to introduce a 4-tier football league, providing one of the most competitive environments in the Gameworld, offering the challenge to new members of progressing through 4 divisions. All teams in the XEFA will be looking at a schedule of approximately 100 games during the season.

Nighttime FAs:
In addition to the evening associations Clough has a number of nighttime football associations. After discussion with various community members the Cloughite would advise UFFA members to delay any decision on which of the associations below to join because there may well be big changes ahead for Nighttime football in Clough. Once we have a clearer idea how Nightime football in Clough will be structured next season will be sure to update this guide.

Moonlight Football Association (01:00-12:00) Youth structure: League and cup at U21, 19 & 18. U17 Cup.
Nightime Football Association (22:30-01:00) Youth structure: U21 League and cup, U19 league.
Xtreme Football Association (22:30-05:00) Youth structure: League and cup at U21, U19 and U18 level.

Casual Associations:

Casual Weekday Assocation (Mon-Fri 12:00-00:00). Peak activity 15:00-21:00. Over recent seasons the CWA has expanded it's range of competitions to provide a schedule suitable for casual players looking for any number of matches during the course of the season. Following the demise of the XFA the CWA is the only FA with a weekday day timeslot, which could make it the obvious choice if that is when you will be most active. Depending on which optional competitions you enter and progression in the cups you will be playing between 50 to 70 matches in the season. Youth structure: U21 League and cup. U19 League.

Weekend Casual Association (Fri 15:00-00:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-23:00, Mon 00:00-09:00)
Peak activity is Sat and Sun 11.30-12.30 although games are played throughout the week, not just the weekend. Chat wise. When we are all on at the same time we get a bit of chat - but with a small Casaul FA that can be difficult. The WCA was one of the first FA's to have an official Reserve League; essential for Casual Players with big squads, the WCA News & Official FA Player of the Season votes. Teams in the WCA should expect to play around 44 to 70 games . Youth structure: U21 league and cup, U19 and U17 cup.

Set your preferences for match finder: There's nothing more disheartening than watching your team get hammered match after match. There is a very small group of managers that are quite happy watching their team play weaker sides over and over again. When you recieve a friendly challenge take a look at the team's reputation and think whether you have a chance of winning the game.

Pick and choose your friendly competitions: Before you enter a competition, particularly if there is an entry fee involved, size up the standard of the opposition teams and consider whether your team can be competitive in that competition. You can do this by looking at the "Members - Entrants" tab on any competition.

Learn the Economy: The transfer market is constantly in flux, during this period of end of contract wage auctions you should be expecting to pay under Market Value for any players that are deemed surplus to requirements at another club, keep an eye out for players being sold for £1, this is a great way to get a head start in the world, even if you do not see the player as a long term solution.

End of Contract Wage Auctions: You should focus your attention on the players who's contracts are expiring this coming week (go to All Players and set your filter criteria to Contract Expires Is Less Than 3 days And Contract Auto Renewal Is Not Auto Extend), these are the players that you can sign from other clubs in the gameworld for a nominal fee (their acquisition fee). You may place a bid for one of these players when their contract has 24 hours left to run. Take note that you are bidding on the daily wage you will pay the player, don't go nuts!

Nerve Palace Look to Make History

2009-07-14T15:02:00.006+01:00

Sir Evren's formidable Nerve Palace are on the verge of a historic victory in the UFFA Gold Cup as they look to become the first team to retain the trophy following their narrow victory against Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek last season.

Palace will meet Hristo Krastev's BG United, victors in Season 6, in Thursday's final and whoever emerges victorious will become the first to win the Gold Cup for a second time.

Previous Winners:
Season 8: Nerve Palace beat Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek
Season 7: Erdington Villans beat Little Badgers
Season 6: BG United beat Ely Town
Season 5: Old Avenellonians beat Shaolin Avengers
Season 4: King Krimson FC beat Dragon team
Season 3: Rapid Pitesti beat FC Ulander
Season 2: Katalyst FC beat Dukes Park Dons

Ariadni FC Seal Place in Gold Cup Semis

2009-07-07T11:20:00.005+01:00

Ariadni FC became the first team to book their place in the UFFA Gold Cup Semi-Finals following their 3-0 aggregate victory over Jonathan Ditcher's Dynamo Dragons.

Leandro Gioda headed in the only goal of the second leg just before half time, and although the Dragons' created plenty of opportunities they were unable to score the breakthrough goal. In the 80th minute they earned a penalty when Magalhaes brought down Tagliaferro in the penalty area following some great play down the left. However Ariadni's young 'keeper Martin Lowing guessed correctly diving to his right to save Carlos Tevez's 80th minute penalty kick, extinguishing any last hopes the Dynamo fans' had of a late comeback.

Ariadni progress to meet one of Rapid Pitesti, Dueling Dragons, Nerve Palace or Cardiff United, who have yet to complete their Last 16 matches.

Transfer Roundup

2009-07-05T16:49:00.003+01:00

It's been a crazy week and a half in the transfer market. Hristro Krastev's BG United stunned the world with one of the most audacious player exchange deals in history, allowed Lionel Messi to leave Soldier Field in exchange for the services of Cristiano Ronaldo from Donkey Rovers in a deal valued at £3.875m.

The same day saw another huge transfer completed, with Sergio Aguero leaving Harlesden Harriers, signing for AEFA title challengers Arsenal FC in a £6m deal. Queiroz moved quickly to replace the Argentinian, signing Italian striker Francesco Silvestri from Phantoms for £5.25m. But this was only the beginning of the transfer activity at Scurbs Lane; only a day later midfielder Nuri Sahin also left Harriers for a fee of £2m, himself replaced by the £5m signing of Gael Kakuta from Smithson Town FC.

Erdington Villains' manager Richard Birchall reluctantly allowed unhappy star midfielder Oscar to move on to a new challenge, accepting a £4m bid from FC Alpha.

The biggest transfer of the season so far was the £6.75m deal that took Ramon Ribeiro from SFA Premiership side London Town to Sussex Sharks 9 seasons after making his debut for Mark Lockie's team; a huge fee reflecting not only the player's current ability but his huge potential to become even better. Sharks' took their spending this week past the £10m mark with the signing of Salvatore Foti from Boaster United for £3.25m.

After being priced out a deal for his number 1 target Ribeiro, Relegation Fodder manager Dave Parker added some experience to his youthful side with the signing of 29 year old Jeremy Menez from fellow SFA Premiership side Madrid Lions for a fee of £2.5m.

The Rise of The Playing Fields

2009-07-04T11:07:00.007+01:00

Over the past 4 seasons Relegation Fodder have invested £28m in redevelopment of the club's stadium. Season 8 saw the completion of that work, following the unexpected sale of club legend Naldo to London Town. The construction team behind the project have revealed the goals that shaped the development, the Cloughite hopes our readers will find this information useful in their own endevours:

The stadium was designed with these goals in mind:

Learn 4* Construction to save 20% off all costs, it only takes a week.
Consider the long term reputation of your club; in this case the Stadium must remain sustainable for a club with 3.5* reputation, so no point having a 70'000 capacity behemoth. Thinking ahead to when stadiums affect home/away performances I don't want a half empty stadium.
Minimize reliance on corporate fans, these are the first to abandon a team when you are not doing so well, so stick to Exclusif boxes to ensure that even at a lower demand you are still getting every last penny possible from the corporate crowd. 4000 Flauta capacity is no use when corporate demand is only 2000, whereas 2000 Exclusif bring in just as much income when demand is 2000 as they do when it is 4000. In either case, installing an Exclusif will return more income than installing Flauta in any given corporate block.
Stadium income streams should be optimised for the reputation you think you'll settle at; for this project that is 4*, we're expecting to stick between a high 3.5* to a low 4* rep. Ensure that when we have a drop in demand we lose as little income as possible and that the stadium can accomodate for the change in the fan demographic -- principally Glory Hunters & Corporate fans -- as the club shifts between 3.5 to 4.5 rep.
Keep maintenance cost as low as possible, so don't use three tier stands unless it is unavoidable -- due to their much higher maintenance costs, if the extra capacity is not bringing you more income than you'd achieve from a 2-tier stand you could end up worse off than had you constructed 2-tier stands.
Do not contruct anything that will later be demolished, get it right first time.
Dimishing returns begin to hit hard after 260k.
Leave room (capacity and income wise) to expand with corner stands in the future when/if such options become available (We worked under the assumption that a 2-tier corner stand will seat an additional 1000-1500 Di Lusso and that it is unlikely that they will allow for more corporate boxes to be installed).
Don't drain the bank balance all at once. Having saved up £26m before end of season taxes were introduced it would be very tempting to blow all of that in one go on the stadium, however saving back up to whatever balance you had before you begin construction will be much more difficult because the end of season tax that really begins to bite once you go over £3m profit per season.
Plan an initial development to bring the stadium to the mimimum needed to sustain the club (in this case £10.5m, all on the West Stand), spread all further development costs over a long period of time with the goal of achieving £3m profit per season whilst the stadium is being constructed, this way all construction acts as a "tax dodge", further reducing the real cost of construction (last season I saved over 1m in tax by bringing forward construction planned for the season after).

The result:

Stadium Value: £36.5m
Capacity: 46'420 (14'300 Astilla, 16'110 Pieghevole, 14'070 Di Lusso, 1'940 Exclusif)
Predicted Income at 3*: 213k (16'000 demand)
Predicted Income at 3.5*: 254k (26'000 demand)
Predicted Income at 4*: 274k (40'000 demand)
Predicted Income at 4.5*: 285k (60'000 demand)
Predicted Income at 5*: 290k (85'000 demand)

Three identical Two-Tier Ospitalia II stands were contructed at a cost (undiscounted) of £8'456'750 each, with the following blocks:

2 * Block of Pieghevole Seating
5 * Block of Di Lusso Seating
1 * Electronic Ad Boards
2 * Block of Exclusif Corporate Boxes

In addition, a Three-Tier Aziendale II was constructed in the West Stand with the following blocks at a cost (undiscounted) of £11'154'000:

5 * Block of Astilla Seating
4 * Block of Pieghevole Seating
3 * Electronic Ad Boards
1 * Block of Exclusif Corporate Boxes

WCA News Edition 11

2009-06-25T17:33:00.002+01:00

Player of the Season
The votes are in and have been counted and verified!

The WCA Championship Player of the Season was won by Dean Shiels of FC Taylormade.
The WCA Young Player of the Season was won by Matosinhos' Sebastien Weis with 50% of the vote!
The WCA Premiership Player of the Season was shared by John Fleck (Crimson Fists) and Emanual Adebayor (Matosinhos)

If you don't agree with any of these - let me know in the WCA chat room - start a debate and make sure you use your vote next time!

UFFA Entrants

This season will see LetsTalkAboutCesc and Matosinhos SC represent the WCA in the Gold Cup. The Silver Cup entrants are - Cheechsters, Band of Brothers, Davos Utd and Alea lacta Est. In the Cup Winners Cup we have - Bullard FC, Sporting Club Bainy and Grantchester Utd. Finally the Youth entrants are - Matosinhos SC & Davos Utd.

Best of luck!

League Reconstruction

Due to the number of teams now in the WCA the leagues have been split into 2 divisions of 15 - because of this GA Utd, Killer Saints and Evro41 were spared relegation. However we have seen 9 new teams join us this season - good luck folks!

Not much transfer news to report this pre season - we certainly don't have the big transfers that we saw last pre-season. So LetsTalkAboutCesc remain the favourites for the WCA Premiership and newcomers Legless Ends look like the runaway favourites for the Championship.

Media Deals Agreed

2009-06-25T15:13:00.011+01:00

Media deals for the coming season were announced yesterday, £609 million was shared between the ten federations. However it made pretty bleak reading for UFFA members.

Overall membership of the UFFA has dropped to a record low of only 570, an 8% drop from last season's membership. However, more worrying is the number of active members in the union, with only 433 active member clubs taking part in the coming season serious questions about the long term future of the union are beginning to be asked.

The PFA continues it's rise to dominance, with a record media deal worth £1.18m for each of it's 71 member clubs. Things are not so bright at the once strong XFA, who seem to be heading towards meltdown having lost half their members over the past 3 seasons, having suffered a further 25% loss in membership from last season's figures..

The writing appears to be on the wall for the NFA, with membership sitting precariously close to the minimum required (16) under UFFA regulations. Further federation consolidation would appear to be on the cards in season 10.

Federation	Members	Media Deal	Per Club
XEFA	75 (2)	£82.5m	£1.1m (-0.01)
PFA	71 (-4)	£83.6m	£1.18m (0.05)
NFA	16 (-4)	£16.6m	£1.04m (-0.05)
AEFA	77 (3)	£84.2m	£1.09m (-0.01)
MLFA	21 (-5)	£22.5m	£1.07m (-0.03)
XFA	31 (-9)	£32.6m	£1.05m (-0.01)
CWA	68 (-2)	£75.2m	£1.11m (-0.01)
SFA	44 (2)	£46.2m	£1.05m (0)
CIFA	137 (-23)	£136.9m	£1m (0.02)
WCA	30 (-9)	£29.5m	£0.98m (0)
TOTAL	570 (-49)	£609.8m	£1.07m (-0.01)

SFA Social Cup Season 8 Review

2009-06-19T15:59:00.003+01:00

- Written by Lenny Bernstein (manager, Wandsworth Rovers)

The Social FA Cup once again proved this season why the competition is the most highly revered and respected cup competition in the Social FA. With cup upsets, penalty shoot-out drama and it's fair share of goals, it had all the ingredients of a classic cup. Well, until the final that is, which provided possibly the most boring 120 minutes of football that the Social FA has ever seen.

The matches in the first round went mostly according to form, although IMT Fairground came very close to knocking out eventual finalists Made in Beverly Drive, taking the Drive into extra-time in what was undoubtedly the match of the round, a 5-3 classic.

The second round also caused no major surprises, although it took an injury time goal from Neymar to seal Premiership side's Real Villains 2-1 victory over Championship new boys.

The last sixteen saw the first of the favourites knocked out - a very good Honka side beat Premiership champions Relegation Fodder 1-0. And both Made in Beverly Drive and Wandsworth Rovers warmed up for their eventual cup final shoot-out by beating Nottingham Arna and Polish Forest respectively on penalties after the ties were 1-1 after extra-time.

The quarter-finals saw another upset. In what was the match of the competition, Made in Beverly Drive came back from 2-0 down away from home against 4ytry to take the game to extra-time. The Drive looked dead and buried when Rudy Ahamada scored in the 12th minute of extra-time to reclaim the lead for 4ytry, but a last gasp goal from Medo pulled the score back to 3-3 and the Drive then sealed their upset by winning through on penalties for the second time in the compeition.

The first of the semi-finals saw Wandsworth Rovers upset London Town, once again winning through on penalties after holding the Town to a 2-2 draw, despite being out-played for most of the game. The Drive earned themselves the title of Penalty Kings when they beat Simons Staffy Bull Rovers in their third shoot-out in a row after a 1-1 draw in a game that was low on chances.

And so to the final. Perhaps predicting the boredom that was to ensue, only 7,016 fans turned up to watch one of the FA's biggest games of season. Those SFA managers who came along to spectate actually fell asleep in a turgid 0-0 draw that disappointed fans and neutrals alike. However, those that managed to stay awake/not leave/stay alive were rewarded with a fantastic penalty shoot-out, with both sides showing why they had been so lethal from the spot in previous rounds. Each side was clinical with their first five penalties before 'safe hands' Wayne Hennessey saved from Kim Heung-Keun, a cruel blow for the South Korean who otherwise had made such a great impression at the Drive since his £900,000 mid-season transfer from Mampa Miners.

The surprise top goalscorer of the tournament was 4ytry's DC Gérson, who scored an impressive 5 goals from 4 matches, which also earned him the Player of the Tournament award with a excellent 8.03 average rating. A spccial mention must also go to Honka's Gabriel Obertan who was man of the match in both his sides two matches.

SFA Premiership Season 8 Review

2009-06-19T15:54:00.004+01:00

- Written by Amjad Parkar (manager, Made in Beverley Hills Drive)

4ytry proved triumphant in regaining the coveted title which had been surprisingly (yet deservingly) won by Dave Parker's Relegation Fodder last season. But manager Paul Innis didn't have it all his way, as Amjad Parkar's Made in Beverley Drive mounted a late surge, even having the audacity to thrash the eventual champions 5-1 on the final day of the season. Ultimately though, defensive errors earlier in the season proved costly for the Drive, and the team had to be content with a runners up spot.

Lenny Bernstein's Wandsworth Rovers also just missed out on a Gold Cup spot, being pipped to the post by Mark Lockie's London Town. But at least the manager from south London can be content with a place in the Cup Winners Cup, having edged a tense Social Cup final against Made in Beverley Drive.

SFA Premiership Awards:

Manager of the Season - Paul Innis (4ytry)
Total Football award - London Town who managed an average team rating of 7.06 for the season (4ytry only managed 6.88)
Fair Play award - jointly shared by Yann Brunn's Polytech Grenoble and Joe Nico's Nottingham Arna FC.
Hack and Slash award - goes to Liam Keane's Ajax Trees for managing to amass a spectacular count of 67 yellow and 4 red cards.
Player of the Season - Jérémy Ménez (The Madrid Lions)
Players' Player of the Season - Naldo (London Town) with 9 Man of the Match awards.
Golden Boot - Graziano Lasalandra (Made in Beverley Drive) who found the net 26 times in 38 games. However, there is little doubt that had Nags Head Rovers' Anatoliy Romanyshyn not been injured for 4 games, he would have finished top scorer (25 in 34)
Safe Hands award - jointly shared by José de Jesús Corona (KC Milan) and Wayne Hennessey (Wandsworth Rovers) who both managed 15 clean sheets each. Although a notable mention should go to Nottingham Arna FC's Dmitry Khomich who made some fabulous saves for his team to keep them in the hunt for a UFFA place.

Game of the Season: Mongiat Rovers vs The Madrid Lions
This cracker finished 5-3, and featured some fabulous scintillating attacking play between both sides, if not solid defending. Rovers raced into a seemingly untouchable 3-0 lead through goals from Anthony Modeste and a penalty from Chris Burke. It should have been game over, but Lion's Lionel Messi had other ideas. He waltzed through the Rovers defence to make it 3-1 before setting up Jérémy Ménez to make it 3-2. The Argentine superstar then equalised, ensuring the match had all the elements of a classic. However, just when it seemed Andy Cameron's side had the upper hand, up popped Everton Ribeiro who capped a lovely Mongiat move with piledriver into the top right hand corner, before Marco Martina Rini made the points safe.

David vs Goliath Award
So many contenders, not least Made in Beverley Drive who thrashed 4ytry at the Drive on the final day of the season (Made in Beverley Drive vs 4ytry - Overview). But the award goes to Adam Richardsons Ehcoelavon, who pulled off a major upset by beating Paul Innis' side 3-1 (Ehcoelavon vs 4ytry - Overview).

The writing seemed to be on the wall when 4ytry's Rudy Ahamada took advantage of a defensive error to slot in. But Ehcoelavon's Luis equalised from the penalty spot, before goals from Adam Lallana and Steven Langil, capitalising on some lacklustre defending from the opposition, made the points safe.

Team of the Season (based on a 4-5-1 formation)

GK Dmitry Khomich (Nottingham Arna FC)
DL Pietro De Zan (London Town)
DC Naldo (London Town)
DC Gérson (4ytry)
DR Paulo Lopes (Made in Beverley Drive)
ML Jérémy Ménez (The Madrid Lions)
MC Rabiu Ibrahim (4ytry)
DM Luca Cigarini (Relegation Fodder)
MC Stephen Ireland (Nottingham Arna FC)
MR Gabriel Obertan (Honka)
S Graziano Lasalandra (Made in Beverley Drive)

Subs

José de Jesús Corona (KC Milan)
Lukas Sinkiewicz (Mongiat Rovers)
Ramón Ribeiro (London Town)
Kim Heung-Keun (Made in Beverley Drive)
Riccardo Montolivo (Honka/Polytech Grenoble)
Fabio Bernardi (Relegation Fodder)
Anatoliy Romanyshyn (Nags Head Rovers)

*Eligible players must have played in at least 75% of their team's games

A Club in Focus: Govanfrontinvaders

2009-05-31T14:52:00.000+01:00

This week: govanfrontinvaders.

Managed by Glasgow Rangers supporter Jim Hisbent.
Stadium Capacity: 22480
Current GW Rank: 198
Youth Rank: 85

Govan were formed November 2008 and are one of the founding members of the WCA. So far govanfrontinvaders have picked up 2 senior trophies; the WCA Cup in season 2 and the Charity Shield in season 3. They were also runners up in the Championship in season 2.

Jim's side are famous for their youth acadamy - which has produced several of there first team players. The player to watch at the moment is young midfielder Sergio Dutra who has broken through to the fringes of the first team. Govans star at the moment though is undoubtedly Bruno Fornaroli a 28 year old stiker with a MV of £1.2 million. Bruno joined the club in season 1 following a successfull trial and a fee of £150,000 was all that was needed to make the move permanent.

Govan aren't big spenders and indeed there record transfer fee is only £675,000 for Juan Pablo Pino. Although Jim has proved to be a savvy manager and has recouped nearly all he has spent with there record incoming fee being £1.3 million for Nico Medina.

WCA News - Edition 10

2009-05-31T00:23:00.004+01:00

We're Back! Welcome to edition 10 of the WCA News - back after a season long brake!

1st up - UFFA qualifiers

The WCA representatives in the UFFA Gold Cup are Crimson Fists and LetsTalkAboutCesc. Crimson have been drawn in group with Dueling Dragons, Chester Rats & Athens Utd. LTAC will face Team Kolbotn, 4ytry and Smithson Town.

In the Silver Cup draw the WCA had 3 entrants - Band of Brothers, Matosinhos SC and Davos Utd. Matosinhos will face Athens Eureka Giants, BOR FC and Ajax Trees. Davos are up against Old Avellonians, Mongiat Rovers and Gothia FC whilst Band of Brothers have been drawn in a group with Alcoholics, Mutantes Raivosos and Kop fc.

Finally the 4 entrants in the Cup Winners Cup are Cheechsters who will face Nags Head Rovers, Gobias Industries FC and FC Nueva Casta FC. Alea lacta Est have been drawn against Belesta SV, Rhinokopolous FC and Sacramento Forrest. Unfortunately Papagaios Do Riot and Steinshamn Utd were drawn in the same group and will face Eastlands FC as well as Inter Blues.

The WCA News wishes all participants the best of luck and looks forward to covering there progress in the respective competitions.

Premiership Transfer News

Premiership managers can breathe a sigh of relief as one of the striking greats of the GW has left the WCA. Pavel Pogrebynyok has left Matosinhos SC and signed for Salford Reds for a fee of £500,000. Pogrebynyok was not the only player to leave Matosinhos following him out the door was Joao Moutinho to Athens Eureka Giants for a fee of £1.5 million. Also leaving the WCA is Davos Utd's flying winger Damian Ismodes - rumour has it that Band of Brothers were interested in keeping the winger in the WCA but the two clubs could not come to an agreement. In the end Ismodes moved to Chester Rats for a fee of £1.6 million.

Now if you think that means an easier time for goalkeepers and defenders in the WCA think again.

Matosinhos have reinvested some of there cash in striker Emmanuel Adebayor - £1.5 million to be exact whether he proves to be as successfull as his predecessor Pogrebynyok remains to be seen. Also active in the recruiting front were Band of Brothers - signing Gary Glen from Zen Eagles for a sum of £2.5 million the BoBs will be hoping for Glen to continue to show the predatory instincts he did for Zen. Newly promoted Alea lacta Est have also signed up a new striker - Imed Trabelsi for a fee of £700,000. Finally with all these new strikers popping up we need somebody who'll be able to keep the goals out and Davos Utd have signed possibly the best goal keeper in Clough - Igor Akinfeev for a relatively modest fee of £2 million pounds.

Championship Transfer News

Relegated duo Highbury Utd and Hamilton 1961 have both been active in the transfer market in there quests to be promoted back to the Premiership. Both sides spending £400k - Hamilton on striker Ari and Highbury on midfielder Bryan Arguez. New WCA side Sporting Club Bainy have spent near enough £3 million as they look to win promotion the Premiership at the first attempt - bringing in Nani for a fee of £1.6 million and Aaron Hunt for £595,000 as well as a couple of others.

Media Deals Agreed

2009-05-27T20:57:00.007+01:00

Media deals for the coming season were announced today, £658 million was shared between the ten federations. For the first time in recent memory the XEFA was not able to secure the best deal for their members, it was the CWA who secured the best deal (worth 1.12m per club) with the PFA second with a deal worth 1.13m per club.

Perhaps alarmingly, membership of the UFFA has dropped 12% from 709 to only 619 member clubs, leading to the closure of the Super Evening Football Association following last season's closure of the Early Evening Football Association. However, the percentage of inactive clubs in the union remains static at 26% of overall membership.

The only federation to see a growth in membership (discounting the merger between the SEFA and PFA) was the SFA, rising from 37 to 42 members. The WCA remained stable at 39 member clubs but every other federation saw a reduction in membership, with the XFA worst affected -- suffering a 20% drop in membership compared to last season.

Federation	Members	Media Deal	Per Club
XEFA	73 (-3)	£81m	£1.11m (-0.02)
PFA	75 (+20)	£84.8m	£1.13m (-0.02)
NFA	20 (-4)	£21.8m	£1.09m (0)
AEFA	74 (-6)	£81.4m	£1.1m (+0.02)
MLFA	26 (-6)	£28.6m	£1.1m (+0.02)
XFA	40 (-10)	£42.4m	£1.06m (+0.01)
CWA	70 (-2)	£78.4m	£1.12m (+0.04)
SFA	42 (+5)	£44.1m	£1.05m (+0.02)
CIFA	160 (-27)	£157.4m	£0.98m (-0.02)
WCA	39 (0)	£38.1m	£0.98m (+0.01)
TOTAL	619 (-90)	£658m	£1.06m (+0.04)

Transfer Roundup

2009-05-24T23:56:00.006+01:00

It's been a crazy week in the transfer market. Relegation Fodder manager Dave Parker offloaded star players Keirrison and Marek Hamsik just days after allowing fan favourite Ever Banega to leave the club. Keirrison joins Honka of the AEFA Premiership for a fee of £2m, but Fodder fans were particularly unhappy that Hamsik was allowed to join SFA Premiership title rivals Nottingham Arna, despite a healthy transfer fee of £2.8m. Parker stated "I have full confidence in the ability of the players already at the club to take this team forward".

Big spending Rafa Popovic's King Krimson completed signing of midfielder Romain Blanchard from Cardiff United for a fee of £6.75m, making him the most expensive player in the world post-Crash. The deal has been part funded by the departures of Elvir Filipovic (£3.5m to Aletheia FC) and Luka Modrik (£2.8m to Razorshot FC).

ZenEagles completed the signing of Brazilian midfielder Willian in a player plus cash deal that sees dominant centre-back Gerard Pique and £1.25m head the other way to Inter Blues.

Andy Parkes Dueling Dragons' complete a double deal, bringing in Maor Bozaglo for £2.5m from Strawberry Fields FC on the same day Karim Benzema arrived in an exchange deal with Harlesden Harriers for Javi Martinez, who only signed for the club earlier this season. Questioned on Martinez's short stay at the club manager Parkes responded "I was in the market for a high quality striker and Benzema certainly fitted the bill. It meant parting with Martinez in order to make him a Dragon, but managed to secure the signing of another long term target Bozaglo".

SFA Manager of the Season

2009-05-24T02:10:00.003+01:00

The result of the inaugural Social Manager of the Season award was announced by SFA organiser Adam Richardson earlier today. With only 1 vote seperating the top two managers as voted for by their peers:

Some would say that success doesn't translate into the respect of other managers, it all depends on how it is achieved. But in terms of this vote both the top managers have won a few trophies this season, and I can announce that this seasons winner is [dramatic pause] Mr Lenny Bernstein!

"Always up for a good chat, sporting and doesn't gloat too much when he batters your youths."

In a close 2nd place was Mr Dave Parker, this is what our winner had to say about our runner up:

"This has been a breakthrough year for Dave's senior side, who are leading the charge for the Premiership with a lot of homegrown talent. Meanwhile, his youth team has continued to perform well at u21 level and, most significantly they have won the World Youth Cup this season, a great achievement for Dave and for the SFA"

It must be noted that when saying this Lenny was unaware of the result. Honourable mentions go to:
Joe Nico
Joe Holloway
Anthony Case
Adam Richardson
Craig Tweej Maclean (since departed)
Liam Keane
Rodney "Dave" Trotter

- SFA Organiser, Adam Richardson

Undercover: SI Con-struction

2009-05-20T23:14:00.000+01:00

The Cloughite has uncovered financial irregularities in SI Construction's stadium maintenance billing system that has serious implications for all UFFA members. Rather than charging customers a fixed rate per percentage degradation, the company's rates are variable based on the condition of the stadium -- as condition decreases the base cost of repair (ie. the cost to repair 1% degradation) increases, this is clearly a deliberate attempt to take advantage of club's who are not able to perform regular maintenance on their stadium.

Exclusif installed in 2-Tier Ospitalita II:
Capacity: 240
Maintenance cost: x4.0
Degradation: 24%
Repair cost: £448
Cost per 1% degradation: ~ £18.67

Another Exclusif installed in a different 2-Tier Ospitalita II:
Capacity: 240
Maintenance cost: x4.0
Degradation: 12%
Repair cost: £128
Cost per 1% degradation: ~ £10.67

As you can see, the same block type installed in the same stand type costs twice as much per percentage degradation to repair. The Cloughite approached SI Construction with our findings, but at the time of writing has received no response.

This means that the more regularly you repair your stadium the lower your overall running costs will be. In simple terms, as illustrated by the example above, if you switch from a 2 week repair cycle to a weekly schedule you will reduce your daily stadium running costs by half. Ideally you should undertake repairs on a daily basis to minimize costs.

State of the Economy: Season 7

2009-05-18T23:13:00.001+01:00

UFFA representative Rob Cooper presented his "State of the Economy" report earlier today, this first report for 2 seasons, and it makes good reading for UFFA members, inflation has gone from a record low of -81% to a more manageable +18%.

The amount of money in the economy has almost doubled from £285m to £438m, seeing the average team's bank balance increase from a little under £600k to just under £1m. Finally, the PPI has risen 30% from two seasons ago's figure of £2.2m.

	Season 7	Season 5
Inflation (28 days)	18.09%	-81.86%
Player Price Index	£3,012,740	£2,186,780
Size of Economy	£438,347,441	£285,539,93
Average Balance	£978,454	£578,016

- Source

Transfer Roundup

2009-05-07T12:04:00.012+01:00

Andy Parkes all-conquering Dueling Dragons' team have added to their already potent midfield with the signing of Spanish superstar Javi Martinez from Wizardos for a fee of £2.6m. Speaking after the signing Parkes confessed that the deal have been in the pipeline for some time:

I have long been an admirer of Martinez and have tried to sign him a few times in the past. Worked out a fair deal with Ron over a couple of days and he's fitted in perfectly as a replacement for outgoing Emana
- Andy Parkes, Dueling Dragons FC

Karim Benzema has joined Harlesden Harriers in a player exchange deal with fellow CWA Premiership side Paddington Rovers worth £2.97m. French striker Henri Saivet (£2.75m) and young German centre back Patrick Schmitt (£220k) moved the other way. Benzema's move forms a what is surely the most feared strike partnership in the UFFA, as he links up with Sergio Aguero for Pedro Quieroz's side.

Argentinian forward Gonzalo Higuain signs for Ariadni FC from Anthony Usher's Rain Dogs FC after manager Alexandros Kovis won the transfer auction for the player, paying a fee of over £2.5m.

MK City FC have splashed out club record fee of £1m to bring 26 year old Firenze striker Bello Kofarmata to Manor Fields, eclipsing the £825'000 they paid to sign Kenwyne Jones last season.

Ever Banega has ended his 7 season spell at Relegation Fodder, after nearly 2000 appearances for the SFA Premiership challengers. David Parker and Dimitri Bestazzi agreed terms on a £1.2m deal for the player that Bestazzi has been trailing for over 5 seasons.

This week twenty four youngsters signed professional contracts worth over £10'000 per day. Duncan Debney broke the post-crash record for a first professional contract with the signing of 15 year old Brazilian striker William on a £35k/day (£980k/season) contract for Inner Sanctum.

Elsewhere, CF Barcelona manager Bogdan Butacel completed a quadruple swoop, signing Rica (15), Marcelo (15), Ludek Cerny (15) and Juan Pablo Alvarez (17) for a combined daily salary of nearly £54'000 (£1.5m per season).

Undercover: Judging Potential

2009-04-30T16:18:00.008+01:00

Following on from Rob Cooper's player progression conference the Cloughite have decided to lift the lid on one of the most mis-understood aspects of youth team management -- judging potential!

The core concept in judging potential is a player's Potential Ability (PA). This is a rating between 1 and 200, and represents the absolute maximum ability that a player can reach. Potential can not be exceeded under any circumstances, and whatsmore there are no guarantees that a player will ever reach his potential. For more details on the factors that influence whether a player lives up to his potential take a read through The Cloughite's summary of Rob Cooper's player progression conference.

Alongside PA, every player has a Current Ability (CA). As a player improves his CA increases. When a player's CA equals his PA he has reached the peak of his ability and can improve no further. CA is a complex subject but here are the key facts you should know about how CA is "spent" improving your players:

Not all attributes are equal: Attributes are weighted based on the importance of that attribute to the position(s) a player can fill. For example Finishing carries a very high weighting a striker, but for a defender the weighting is zero, because the attribute is of no use to that player's position. This means that attributes that are not relavent to the players position do not use up any of their PA, and those are key will use up more PA than those that are only complementary.
Players who can play in more than one position use up PA for being able to do so. They also suffer the highest weighting for each attribute from each position they play -- the more positions on a pitch a player can play the harder it is for them to become world class in any one of those positions.
Two-footed players use up a chunk of their PA simply by being two footed.

Please bear in mind that the following is speculation based on what little we do know about the system, in-game experience and my thoughts on how I would have implemented the system.

With all that in mind, we move on to the Judging Potential (JP) skill. To explain this skill I will introduce a term that is probably new to most of you:

Visible Potential Ability (VPA). This is calculated from a players' PA, within a given margin of error dependant on your level of the JP skill. The margin of error is spread equally either side of the true PA, so a 10% margin of error means that the VPA will be a maximum of 5% off the PA. The margin of error for each level of JP is listed below:

Level	Margin of error	PA Range
JP 1	50%	+/-50PA
JP 2	40%	+/-40PA
JP 3	30%	+/-30PA
JP 4	20%	+/-20PA
JP 5	10%	+/-10PA

JP displays the error adjusted VPA (0-200, the same as PA) as a Potential Rating (pot) between 0.5 and 5. The exact boundaries for the ratings are unkown, but I believe the following to be the logical choice:

Pot	JP 1 (+/- 50)	JP 2 (+/- 40)	JP 3 (+/- 30)	JP 4 (+/- 20)	JP 5 (+/- 10)	True PA
0.5	0-70	0-60	0-50	0-40	0-30	0-20
1.0	0-90	0-80	0-70	1-60	11-50	21-40
1.5	0-110	1-100	11-90	21-80	31-70	41-60
2.0	11-130	21-120	31-110	41-100	51-90	61-80
2.5	31-150	41-140	51-130	61-120	71-110	81-100
3.0	51-170	61-160	71-150	81-140	91-130	101-120
3.5	71-190	81-180	91-170	101-160	111-150	121-140
4.0	91-200	101-200	111-190	121-180	131-170	141-160
4.5	111-200	121-200	131-200	141-200	151-190	160-180
5.0	131-200	141-200	151-200	161-200	171-200	181-200

So, if you look at a player with a PA of 170, using JP 4 he would be reported as having a PA of anywhere between 150 and 190 (+/- 20PA of the actual value), so he will show as a 4, 4.5, or 5 star potential for different managers with JP4.

From the table above you can see why JP must be taken with a pinch of salt, even with JP 4 a player that you see as 3.5* potential (101-160PA) may actually be no lesser prospect than a player you see as 5* potential (161-200PA), and could in-fact be a better prospect than a player you see as 4.5* potential (min possible 151-190PA).

Media Deals Agreed

2009-04-29T22:25:00.003+01:00

Media deals for the coming season were announced today, with over £725 million on the table in total, a small reduction from last season's media package. Once again, the XEFA negogiated the strongest package for their members, but their position as the top federation was weakened significantly, suffering a £0.03m/club drop. The big gainers this season were the AEFA and CWA, whose media deals increased by £0.03m per member club.

Overall UFFA membership was static, remaining at 709, but the number of inactive clubs in the union rose to 187 (26%) -- an increase of 3% from season 6's figures.

Federation	Members	Media Deal	Per Club
XEFA	76 (-3)	£85.5m	£1.13m (-0.02)
PFA	55 (12)	£60m	£1.09m (-0.02)
NFA	24 (4)	£26.2m	£1.09m (0)
AEFA	80 (3)	£89.6m	£1.12m (0.03)
MLFA	32 (6)	£34.6m	£1.08m (-0.01)
XFA	50 (-17)	£52.5m	£1.05m (-0.01)
CWA	72 (6)	£77.8m	£1.08m (0.03)
SFA	37 (4)	£38.1m	£1.03m (0.01)
SEFA	35 (-8)	£35.4m	£1.01m (0.01)
CIFA	187 (21)	£187m	£1m (0.02)
WCA	39 (4)	£37.8m	£0.97m (-0.01)
TOTAL	709 (0)	£724.5m	£1.02m (-0.03)

Player Progression Conference

2009-04-23T16:49:00.010+01:00

UFFA representative Rob Cooper took some time out to discuss youth development with managers yesterday, offering many interesting insights and tips to make the most of your players' potential. The Cloughite has gathered the highlights of that discussion in an article that makes cruicial reading for any manager working with young players.

On the system of youth development/progression:

So, to start, how things work

As you guys all know players progress over time. But there is a little confusion about exactly what impacts their progression so I wanted to post a quick list of the main factors below :
Player's Age
Player's Potential
How much football they are getting
The standard of football they are playing
Average Rating
Manager's skills
Player's Ambition
Player's Professionalism
Player's Work Rate
Whether the player is injured
The player's morale

Now, obviously each of those factors are not equal, some have a bigger effect than others, but generally if you have a professional, hard working young player who is playing regularly, is playing well, and is happy at the club, then they should progress pretty much optimally.

It is worth pointing out here that average rating is more important than the standard of football they are playing - so it is better if they are getting a 7.5 average for the youth team than a 6.0 for the senior team, though of course, a 7.5 for the senior team is better than the equivalent for the youth team! Also, the average rating expectations are different according to age, so a 15 year old player with a 7.0 average will progress better than an 18 year old with the same average.

Another important point is that as many have said, if a player lacks the ambition and professionalism to train well consistently they will likely never reach their potential no matter how well taken care of they are by their manager.
- Rob Cooper

On why you shouldn't worry too much about a small downward change in a player's attributes:

One other thing I meant to mention is that even though the attributes are displayed in the 1-20 range on the screen they are actually stored in the 1-10,000 range behind the scenes to give extra accuracy during progression. Because they are rounded down to be displayed a small change behind the scenes can manifest itself as a fairly big change on the screen.

For example a player with 19 for finishing on the screen may have 9,050 behind the scenes. If they then drop to 8,950 during processing this is only a drop of 1 or 2% however on the screen it is the difference between 18 and 19 and so a red arrow is displayed and it looks like a drop of 5%. Rest assured though that for all processing the 'real' figure is used.
- Rob Cooper

On reaching potential early:

Some players simply start out with an ability that is closer to their potential - so players can burst onto the scene as a first-team quality player let's say, but then not take the step to the next level. But ... these will typically be players who have performed very well early in their career and so progressed quickly.

Players who haven't performed as well will progress more slowly but still have a good chance of reaching their potential eventually - it really depends how much more slowly they progress. The older a player gets the less likely he is to reach his potential, so if a player still has a long way to go by the time he is 22/23 let's say, then it is unlikely he will make it!
- Rob Cooper

On coaching reports:

Coaching reports are triggered if the player has progressed well over the last 3 months (game time) in terms of CA [Current Ability] improvements. For a new signing this might be confusing because the arrows you see are based only on while he has been at the club whereas the total improvement takes into account his progression before he joined as well.
- Rob Cooper

On future changes to youth development:

Ok, so finally, I guess since you are all using this system it makes sense for me to outline how I plan to improve it. The disclaimer here is that this is all planned for the time being and so is inherently a little sketchy and of course may or may not turn out to be feasible and so may or may not turn out to be done. It will all be in the patch notes though as and when it is implemented! So, the plan right now is to make the following changes...

Prevent negative attribute changes for newly generated youngsters until they have been on the free agent list for at last a certain amount of time, perhaps 3 game months i.e. a week real time
Improve progression arrows to avoid the dreaded red arrows when only minor attribute changes have been experienced - perhaps by having diagonal arrows for minor changes (such as the ones used on the morale and feedback graphics.)
Somehow tie player average rating into team average rating so that a player who is the best player in a rubbish team still progresses well - they shouldn't progress as well as the best player in a good team of course but it should at least make a difference
Tie player average for progression into the average rating for their position, rather than just the average rating for all players, this should iron out any potential problems caused by the ME giving lower average ratings for GKs perhaps than other positions which could have a progression knock-on.

What does everyone think? I am hopeful that these changes could make the system a lot better but of course comments and feedback are always welcome as there may well be things I haven't thought about!
- Rob Cooper

WCA News - Edition 9

2009-04-22T16:09:00.002+01:00

Welcome to edition 9 of the WCA News.

WCA Premiership
In possibly the most dramatic season yet Band of Brothers came out on top in the race for the Premiership. Going into the final day of the season Crimson Fists sat proudly in 1st position with 57 points from their 30 games. Cheechsters were in 2nd place with 55 points from 29 games and Band of Brothers in 3rd with 54 points from 28 games. 1st to kick off were the BoBs playing against Crystal Palliss, the match ending in a 1-1 draw leaving the BoBs joint 2nd on points but 3rd on goal difference. Next up was Cheechsters versus the already relegated Brayzil. With Cheechsters just needing to win to wrap up the championship the odds were stacked heavily against Brayzil. But the little Brayzilians fought hard and came away with a 1-o win. This left the Crimson Fists still in 1st place but Band of Brothers had 1 game left versus Redhill Travellers a win for the BoBs would clinch the Championship for the 2nd time in their history. A Scott Robinson goal gave them a 1-0 lead and Redhill weren't causing them many problems. However in the 92nd minute Redhill were awarded a corner and from the resulting cross they managed to prod the ball over the line. The BoBs looked devastated - until they noticed the linesman had flagged to disallow the goal, moments later the final whistle went and the BoBs could start celebrating.

WCA Championship

In this very column a week ago I suggested that ABCDE FC could push for promotion if they put a strong run together but never did I expect them to turn out as Champions. Thanks largely to Robin Van Persie and 9 wins from there last 13 games they flew up the table. With Bushby Babes and Highbury stuttering slightly this allowed ABCDE FC to clinch their first league championship and first WCA honour. Grabbing 2nd and 3rd spot were Ann Arbor RecEd and Highbury Utd.

The Cups

WCA Cup Final - Davos United v Euclydian Dynamo
A poor season for Davos United by their standards saw them finish in 8th place in the Premiership. So they went into the cup final knowing that it was the only way they could qualify for a UFFA competition this season. 2 first half goals from Wesley and Ismodes settled the nerves and Dynamo couldn't even muster a shot on target. In the end Davos ran out comfortable winners.

Premiership Cup Final - Band of Brothers v LetsTalkAboutCesc
In an extremely cagey game 1 goal was enough to win the Premiership Cup and luckily for Band of Brothers it was 21 year old striker Scott Robinson who got it. LetsTalkAboutCesc battled hard but could not breakthrough the resolute BoBs defence.

Victory Shield Final - Band of Brothers v Cheechsters
A tight first half saw the sides go in goal-less. Early in the 2nd half a Scott Robinson goal gave the BoBs the lead against the run of play. The 1-0 lead only lasted 15 minutes as Javier Arajo scored to make it 1-1. With 10 minutes to go Montero scored to put Cheechsters ahead and as the BoBs pushed for the equaliser Faiffer scored in injury time to ensure the inaugral Victory Shield went to Cheechsters.

Non Premiership Cup Final - Highbury United v Norfolkenchance FC
A scrappy 90 minutes saw the game finish at one each. Highbury Utd took the lead in the 60th minute with a goal from Jose Cargacha and Norfolkenchance equalised in the 81st minute. Extra time saw no goals and so we went to the lottery of penalty kicks. The first time a final of a WCA competition has been settled this way. Highbury Uniteds Jose Cargacha was the unfortunate player and Norfolkenchance finished up as winners, winning 5-4 on penalties.

The nominations for the Premiership, Championship and Young player of the Year are all in and all WCA managers are reminded to make their vote count.

Premiership Player of the Season - Michah Richards (LTAC), Peter Johnson (Davos), Roger Guererrio (BoB), Kevin Thomson (Crimson) and Pavel Pogrebnyak (Matosinhos)

Championship Player of the Season - Fabien Camus (Evro), Robin Van Persie (ABCDE), Matthew Etherington (Highbury), Jose Largacha (Highbury)

Young Player of the Season - Peter Johnson (Davos), Vladamir Ionov (BoB), Scott Robinson (BoB), Francisco Fuentes (Davos)

Clough: A Brief History (part 1)

2009-04-21T01:01:00.025+01:00

Season 1 - November 6th 2008 to December 11th 2008

Gameworld Clough launched on Thursday November 6th at 8pm under the 1.00 ruleset, unlike modern gameworlds there were no provisional squads meaning that opening night was a race to sign the best players with low acquisition fees. As the minutes ticked down towards 8pm the excitement grew, but those looking forward to being first across the line to nab their favoured stars were to be disappointed as the opening night descended into chaos.

The gameworld's doors creaked open at approximately 8:10pm, just 10 minutes late and within minutes over 450 managers piled into the fledgling world. Yet such was the perceived advantage at being first into the world that some managers were already demanding that the world be reset. Within 10 minutes 600 managers had entered and more were still trying to get in. Those that managed to get in and opted to use the team auto-select were faced with yet more problems though, with the process taking upwards of 1 hour due to the unprecedented demand in the gameworld on opening night.

The laws of the time rewarded teams who could keep their wages very low, it was not uncommon for teams to pad their 16 man squad with poor players with a wage demand of £300 to generate a daily profit in excess of £80k/day with the goal of being first to save enough to bid for a star player. This very tactic gave us our first in-game controversy, when Matt 'Moddy' Fletcher's Droitwich FC signed Cristiano Ronaldo for £2.6m on November 20th 2008. All kinds of accusations were thrown around; 'moderators should not use exploits', 'they should be setting an example', but at the end of the day the tactic was within the laws of the game even if some did not approve of it.

Towards the end of November the mid-season update to 1.01 caused widespread protest when it eliminated a number of tactics considered exploitative: Firstly, the trialling of high profile players was banned (acquisition fee of more than £100'000). Many teams had been repeatedly trialling players who they could not afford to sign on a permanent deal to gain an advantage in climbing the world rankings. Prior to 1.01 the only restriction on trial players was that their wage demand was less than £10'000 and success in the world rankings meant increased daily income.

The second change had an even greater impact on the gameworld; daily income was tuned so that teams could no longer gain improportionate benefits from artificially low wage bills. Overnight, teams that were previously "earning" £80'000 per day suddenly saw their profit margins reduced to a level similar to that of teams with much higher wage bills.

Despite the numerous rule changes, season 1 will be remembered by many for one thing alone: POZZI!!!!!!!1111!!!!!1!!!1!!

Argentine manager Taha Berjawi spent a small fortune flooding the market place with adverts for Nicola Pozzi, a young Italian striker, during the opening week of the season trying to build interest in the player's transfer auction.

The advertisements were characterised by outrageous claims regarding the player's ability and a tendency to title the post "POZZI" followed by a string of "!!11!!!!!!!!1!!!1!".

At £5'000 per post, and having sent at least two dozen messages over the course of the auction the cost of advertising the player was over a quarter of the £425'000 transfer fee received when he finally moved to F.C Barrett on November 16th 2009. From that point on "POZZI!!1111!!!!11!!!1" has became a running joke in the gameworld, and the player somewhat of a cult hero in the community.

It is still common to hear his name shouted when someone is over-stating the ability of a player for sale.

The world's first recorded match took place between Sergei Novitski and Lancashire United, and saw English midfielder Isaiah Osbourne score the first ever goal after just 33 minutes. Paralimni United topped the first ever UFFA world rankings.

The star player of the season was undoubtedly Brazilian striker Brandao, whose goals kept Fonejacker atop the UFFA world rankings for most of the season, lethal in the air Brandao scored an incredible 1'192 goals in 1'502 appearances. Season 1 also saw the emergence of Skylar Locke's Katalyst FC as a dominant force in world football, by the close of the season they fielded a team of superstars including Lenny, Sergio Aguero & Silva.

The Major Trophies:

UFFA Game World Cup: Terror Pigs beat Dueling Dragons FC
UFFA Game World Youth Cup: Real JUVENILES beat The Birmingham Bearded Women
AEFA Cup: FC Excelsior beat Auchinairn Athletic
CWA Cup: Motherwell Synthonia beat Swansea Jacks AFC
PFA Cup: Ljiljani FC beat SMEG HEADS
MLFA Cup: BG United beat CF Barcelona
NFA Cup: All BiDoNs Fc beat Arsenola F.C
SFA Cup: Tied in Notts beat IMT Fairground
SEFA Cup: Phantoms beat F.C. Porton Kenshin
WCA Cup: Band of Brothers beat Welwyn Wanderers
XEFA Cup: Whitstable Galaxy beat Myth FC
XFA Cup: Zigire FC beat AVN United

XFA Showdown in Gold Cup Semis

2009-04-19T23:54:00.008+01:00

XFA Premiership rivals Ely Town and Zigire FC will meet in the semi-final of the UFFA Gold Cup after overcoming tough quarter-final opposition. Ely Town defeated fellow XFA representative, Relleu Gooners, 4-3 on aggregate. Zigire completed a memorable comeback, recovering from a 2-0 first leg defecit to claim a 3-2 aggregate victory against CWA side Harlesden Harriers.

The second semi-final will be contested between the AEFA's Ariadni FC, fresh from victory over Chester Rats, and BG United of the MLFA after they edged out AEFA Premiership leaders Athens United FC on the away goals rule after a 4-4 aggregate draw.

Bumper Contract for Carotenuto

2009-04-18T03:18:00.021+01:00

Fulvio Carotenuto has signed his first professional contract with Street Sharks, who have offered the 16 year old Italian a bumper contract worth a massive £560'000 per season to fend off competition for his signature, making Carotenuto the 14th highest paid goalkeeper in world football, earning as much as German star Michael Rensing of Legless Ends, all before he's even played a single match at any level of professional football.

Highest paid goalkeepers in world football:

Player	Wage
Maarten Stekelenburg (31)	£1.96m/season
Iker Casillas (32)	£1.95m/season
Gianluigi Buffon (36)	£1.78m/season
Petr Cech (31)	£1.39m/season
Victor Valdes (32)	£980k/season
David De Gea (23)	£701k/season
Julio Cesar (34)	£644k/season
Diego Alves (28)	£622k/season
Gomes (32)	£618k/season
Jose Manuel Reina (31)	£618k/season
Artur Boruc (33)	£616k/season
Ben Foster (30)	£588k/season
Fulvio Carotenuto (16)	£560k/season
Michael Rensing (29)	£560k/season

The deal brings back all too familiar memories of the kind of financial mis-management that preceded the economic collapse of season 3; financial experts are already predicting that although the economy is heading in the right direction again it is only a matter of time until bust inevitably follows boom.

Friendly Focus: FML World Cup

2009-04-18T01:40:00.003+01:00

Friendly Focus returns to take a look at another reknowned friendly competition. This time we're taking a look at Bader Algubaisi's FML World Cup, currently preparing for it's 10th season.

Last season saw Mihai Cristian's XEFA Premiership challengers Rapid Pitesti take on Cheechsters of the WCA. Pitesti emerged as victors only after extra time, with the scores 1-1 at the final whistle, when Jo climbed above the Cheesters' defense to head in a from a corner and grab his second of the game. His first goal cancelled out Dame N'Doye's opening goal in the 21st minute for Cheechsters.

Past Winners:

Rapid Pitesti
ZenEagles
King Krimson FC
FC Koselsk
Real Patagones
Fonejacker
All BiDoNs Fc
Gobias Industries FC
Brixton Wanderers

Records:

Biggest Win: Futebol Club de Brinkworth 6-0 Spursky Hotspur
Highest Scoring Match: Olympique Marseille 6-5 Queluz FC
Top Goalscorer: Nikola Zigic (17 in 20 appearances)
Most Assists: Pierre Giogio Regonesi (17 in 25 appearances)
Most Appearances: Jose Antonio Castro (41)

SFA Headline GWYC Semi's

2009-04-16T13:00:00.007+01:00

The draw for the UFFA Game World Youth Cup Semi-Finals was made today.

Fresh from their narrow 1-0 victory over Wandsworth Rovers the the SFA Youth Cup Relegation Fodder will play last years winners, and the #1 ranked youth team in the world at the moment, London Town in the first semi-final.

The second semi-final is an all-SFA affair that sees Donut Town meet twice beaten finalists 4ytry. Their two previous meetings in the SFA U21 League this season resulted in a 1-1 draw and a 2-0 victory for 4ytry in the away fixture at Donut Bridge, Town manager Joe Strummer will be hoping his team can do better in a one-off cup tie.

Getting 3 teams into the semi-finals of the premier U21 competition in the world is a great achievement for a small federation. The SFA will no doubt be hoping that they can take this success at U21 level into the senior UFFA competitions next season; only one team from the SFA made it to the Game World Cup quarter-final stages, and none of their representatives in the Gold and Silver Cups managed to make it beyond the last 16 stage.

Record Deal for Handanovic

2009-04-16T02:13:00.000+01:00

Samir Handanovic has become the most expensive post-crunch goalkeeper in the world following his £2.3 transfer to King Krimson from Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek, and takes manager Rafa Popovic's transfer spending this season beyond the £5m mark. In turn Handanovic becomes the first goalkeeper to demand a fee in excess of £1m since the economic collapse in season 3.

The £2.3m fee is still some way off the pre-crunch record of £11m paid for Mexican 'keeper Francisco Guillermo Ochoa by Shan State Tigers back in season 2 but is further proof of the growing strength of the economy.

The 29 year old stopper has been with Scrufoviznek since season 1, keeping 255 clean sheets in 687 appearances for the club, on the way to becoming widely recognised as one of the top goalkeepers in the world.

Union of Football Academies Season 5 Roundup

2009-04-15T23:08:00.004+01:00

Division 1
Faversham Town claimed the UFA title for the 3rd time in their history, beating off the challenge of Relegation Fodder to top the table by 6 points having only lost four games all season. Strawberry Fields pipped Wymondham FC to third place by just a single point, resigning Wymondham to their worst finish in the UFA to date.

At the bottom of the table Queens Park Stone Age, Derry City and FC Dallas were relegated, with Linton Brown finishing 2 points clear of the relegation zone on 29 points.

UFA Division 1 Player of the Season: Thom Bjork - for the second season running, an average rating of 7.90, including 49 goals and 6 assists from his 33 appearances for title winners Faversham Town.
UFA Division 1 Golden Boot: Thom Bjork - An amazing 49 goals in 33 appearances for Faversham Town, his UFA second golden boot award.
UFA Division 1 Golden Gloves: Saul Blanco - 15 clean sheets in 33 appearances for Wymondham FC.

Division 2
4ytry made short work of their first season in the UFA, winning the Division 2 title with a 9 point lead at the top of the table, they will be joined in Division 1 next season by The Mighty Iron and Wilbury Wanderers. Huish FC will be kicking themselves after missing out on promotion by just a single point following a final day showdown with Wilbury to decide 3rd place. A 0-0 draw was enough to see Wilbury retain 3rd spot. This is the second season in a row that Huish have Narrowly missed out on promotion to Division 1, but their young squad has time on their side yet.

UFA Division 2 Player of the Season: Manuel Cagliano - an average rating of 7.33, including 2 goals and 14 assists from his 30 appearances for The Mighty Iron.
UFA Division 2 Golden Boot: Rudy Ahamada - 33 goals in 33 appearances for 4ytry.
UFA Division 2 Golden Gloves: Diego Hernandez - 19 clean sheets in 34 appearances for title winners 4ytry.

UFA Challenge Cup
Relegation Fodder met last seasons beaten finalists Hammers United in a final that got off to a slow start with both teams defenses dominating the opposition forward line. The first goal of the match came from a lightning quick counter attack, with Hammers' players commited up field for a freekick on the edge of the area, Fodder's Enrique Galvan intercepted the cross and hit a 40 yard pass upfield for an unmarked Lima Ferreira to latch onto and dispatch past Alan James in the Hammers' goal.

Relegation Fodder sealed their first Challenge Cup victory in the 82nd minute courtesy of an excellent goal from subsititute Marcelo. Following excellent work from Bernardi down the wing, Marcelo took a first time shot from just outside the penalty area smashing the ball into the far corner of the goal leaving James grasping at thin air.

UFA Super Cup
The UFA Super Cup saw this year's Challenge Cup victors Relegation Fodder attempt to defend the Super Cup they won against Wymondham last season. Meeting them in the final was Cat Vegas' Birmingham Bearded Women.

The capacity crowd only had to wait 10 minutes for a goal; Mariano Gamboa heading in from a corner kick to put the Fodder 1-0 up. Fabio Bernardi made it 2-0 shortly after the hour mark and it looked like BBW were going to be on the end of a heavy defeat at this point. On the 50 minute mark BBW thought they had pulled a goal back when Calle's deflected shot looped over Lynch in goal, but it was ruled out for offside. 10 minutes later, on 64 minutes they finally scored a deserved goal when Andre Teixeira broke the offside trap and slotted past the onrushing 'keeper.

With 15 minutes left to play BBW drew level when Mickael Forest rose above a flat footed defense to head in at the near post from a corner kick. From such a comfortable position Relegation Fodder looked in serious danger of capitulating under the pressure from BBW, however the Fodder's two star players linked up expertly to score the winning goal in the 77th minute, Teixeira's defense splitting pass to Bernardi allowing him to round the keeper and slot home experly from a tight angle for his second of the match.

UFA U19 Division 1
The UFA U19 Division 1 season saw the most amazing title battle this writer has ever seen, with a single point seperating the top five teams. Last years champion's, Relegation Fodder, defended their crown claiming the title by a single point over a chasing pack of 4 teams who all finished on 75 points -- Balls of Steel, Wandsworth Rovers, Strawberry Fields and Ariadni FC could only be seperated by goal difference after a 34 game long season. 2nd and 3rd place was only decided by +2 goal difference.

UFA U19 Division 1 Player of the Season: Marcelo Souza Campos - an average rating of 7.52, including 33 goals and 7 assists from his 32 appearances for Wandsworth Rovers.
UFA U19 Division 1 Golden Boot: Marcelo Souza Campos - 33 goals in 32 appearances for Wandsworth Rovers.
UFA U19 Division 1 Golden Gloves: Davor Krajnc - 19 clean sheets in 32 appearances for Wandsworth Rovers.

What's in a Name?

2009-04-15T01:55:00.007+01:00

Managers spent the day talking about the origins of their teams' name today. Here we pick out some of the more interesting stories:

Motherwell Synthonia

My home town and the team I support is Motherwell FC, the 3rd best team in Scotland.

The Synthonia part is a bit more interesting .... I now live in North East England. One of the local football teams is Billingham Synthonia, known for being the only club in England to be named after an agricultural fertiliser, Synthonia being a contraction of "synthetic ammonia". Told you it was interesting ......

So Motherwell Synthonia reflects my home town and where I live now.
- Willoughby Kipling

Queens Park Stone Age

As anyone who has heard of the band can guess, it's mosty because I'm a big Queens of the Stone Age fan. There's not really much more to it than that sadly.

I'm not so fond of QPR, but it kinda worked well with the name!
- David Hand

Waukesha 1834

Waukesha 1834 was a name I came up with by taking the city of my birth, Waukesha (not where I live anymore despite what my profile says) and 1834, the date Waukesha was first inhabited by European settlers - at least according to Wikipedia.
- Marshall "Elvis" Bussen

AFC Owls of Laughter

This name is one my old fantasy football team names. As a Sheffield Wednesday (The Owls) fan I always tried to make a pun on Owls of... (Howls of...). In the Beta I was Owls of Joy but as I did so badly I changed to Laughter as my team causes Howls of Laughter from all who see them...
- Ed Bott

Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek

I wanted a name that sounded like a real club. To me viznek is a real club now and its name is in the realms of spartak and other spikey sounding eastern european/russian sides, but I wasn't christened Scott nor Problems and just as that is wordplay so is my team name. For the non English speakers out there, a common phrase for an aggressive approach to an opponent is to 'grab him by the scruff of his neck'.

Fittingly, the club began as an aggressive side with 3 technically limited but physical and tough tackling centre midfielders and full backs with no attacking ability whatsoever. 9 players grabbing scruffs and Mario Balotelli masking the true horror of it all. Thanking you.
- Scott Problems

Halewood in Brighton.

While at uni our football team purchased some kits off ebay and they arrived with Halewood school of football printed on the front. As a result of this we changed our name to match our kits, Since we left and disbanded a few of us started up new teams in the places we now live and carrying on the spirit if our youth play for Halewood in (enter city name here). So i carried on this tradition now that I live in brighton and created a team on FML.
- Reuben Westwood

Relegation Fodder

When I was at school, the programming section of my Computing A-level required us to write a program in Pascal. At the time I was a huge fan of Championship Manager (now Football Manager) so I wrote a football management game titled "Relegation Manager" .. I spent hours inputting all the players of the time and giving each a rating for GK,DEF,MID,ATT, and a few other things (more like Premier Manager than Championship Manager).

I put together a simple match engine to play around with those stats and to round it off, in true Championship Manager style, I put a few cheat codes into the game -- one let you start off with my world all star team -- the cheat code was triggered by re-naming your starting team to "Relegation Fodder" -- all your club's players were released and instead you got a squad made from my favourite players outside of England.
-Dave Parker

Eintracht Mind

Did a search for some amusing team names along the lines of 'Obi Wan - Kenobi nil' or 'Dyslexia Untied' and came accross Eintracht Mind. I got it straight away (Ein = one, tracht sounds like track, hence I have a One Track Mind, but at the same time Eintracht is a common German team name, which translates roughly to United e.g. Eintracht Frankfurt).

Given that I spent about 5 years living in Germany and have a German wife I thought it was quite appropriate to go with something with a German theme. My team colours also represent this (although that's just what I tell my wife to keep her happy, in reality they are also the colours of my favourite team, Partick Thistle ;)).
- David Johnson

Mongiat Rovers

Mine's based on the team myself and some friends attempted to create in our younger days (we had one training session which ended in fight) which was christined Mongiat Rovers (Hader's Hawk's was another suggestion). So I'm attempting to take my team where we should have gone if our one training session hadn't ending in anarchy and we'd had more than nine players.
- Tim Mongiat

Folkestone Eagles

Quite simple really - I live in a town called Folkestone (anyone been here would know it's kind of rubbish lol). The Eagles bit was quite random to be honest, when I was siging up for FML beta last year I was on my laptop in the living room and watching a TV programe about Eagles, birds of prey, so I thought "wey hey!! lets have Folkestone Eagles".

Since then I have kept the same team name
-James Bambridge

4ytry Unbeaten Run Halted

2009-04-14T01:57:00.001+01:00

After 23 games of the season Paul Inniss' 4ytry suffered their first defeat in the Premiership to a battling Relegation Fodder team that have not yet given up hope of snatching the title away from the early season favourites.

The goal that decided the game came in the 53rd minute, a lovely passing move involving Naldo, Banega and Caio created an opening for mis-firing striker Keirrison on the edge of the penalty area and, despite having a poor season so far, the Brazilian striker expertly despatched the opportunity past the helpless De Gea.

It could have been a very different story had Marcel Risse's brilliant lobbed goal not been ruled out for offside shortly before half time, but despite their defeat here 4ytry are still odds on to retain the Premiership for a third successive season. With just 9 games left to play 4ytry would need to drop at least 6 points for Relegation Fodder to catch them -- but they would have to win all their remaining games this season, which is a tall order given their remaining fixtures.

WCA News - Edition 8

2009-04-13T13:37:00.001+01:00

Premiership Update

The season 6 Premiership title race is proving to be the most exciting yet. With only 6 points seperating the top 7 sides - it's anybody's guess as to who will come out on top. Currently the predicted winner is Pete Booth's Euclydian Dynamo side. A far cry from last season when LetsTalkAboutCesc ran away with it.

The fight to beat the drop is also causing some drama. Again there are 7 sides involved and only 7 points seperate them. James Bray's Brayzil side did look doomed but a couple of recent wins have dragged them closer to the pack above.

Championship Update

Another competitive Championship season has seen 2 sides going head to head for the title - Bushby Babes and Highbury Utd. Both sides look good for promotion and are likely to be followed by Ian Everington's Evro41. New members ABCDE FC, Real Boogie and FC Bundeslige look likt they'll have to settle for a mid table in there first season. Although if ABCDE FC can put a good run together they could make a late challenge for that last promotion place.

One to Watch

Ian Evrington and his Evro41 side have been around the WCA since season 1. Not a particularly active side over the first 5 seasons this has started to change in season 6. With Evro41 looking to challenge for promotion and having recently spent £850,000 on Paul Caddis as well as £300,000 on Matjaz Rimez there appears to be a decent side forming there. Not content with adding to the playing side - Evro41 have also started a new stadium construction project. Look out for this side - definately one to watch.

WCA News - UFFA Round Up

Gold Cup

LetsTalkAboutCesc - qualified from group D in 2nd place and faced highly regarded side Ariadni FC (AEFA) in the last 16. The first leg has been played and LetsTalkAboutCesc have managed to gain a 2-1 advantage to protect in the 2nd leg.

Matosinhos SC - Unfortunately Tiago's side struggled slightly in the Gold Cup this season finishing 3rd in their group and missed out on the knock out stages.

Silver Cup

Euclydian Dynamo - Finished 2nd in Group A qualifying for the knock out stages where they will face Tupton FC from the XFA.

Crimson Fists - Sadly Crimson Fists finished bottom of group A and did not join Euclydian Dynamo in qualifying from the group.

Davos Utd - Pitched into Group D, without the mercucial talents of Robin Van Persie this season Davos struggled to make an impact in the groups and finished 4th.

Cup Winners Cup

Band of Brothers - Finished top of group B, undefeated the BoBs will face Sloane Square Rangers (PFA) in the knock out stages

Team Extreme - Managed to confound the pundits and qualified in 2nd place from the group stages. They'll face Ehcoelavon of the SFA in the last 16.

Grantchester Utd - Poor season for Grantchester continued as they finished bottom of the qualifying group.

Could this be a season of success for the WCA in the UFFA competitions this season. It's certainly an improvement on previous seasons with 4 sides through to the knock out stages.

Modric and Rakitic Complete Transfers

2009-04-10T22:40:00.004+01:00

Ivan Rakitic has become the first £3m transfer since the collapse of the transfer market following the changes to UFFA regulations that forced clubs to invest heavily in stadium construction nearly 3 seasons ago now.

Matosinhos SC have paid in excess of £3.1m to bring the Croatian midfielder, consider by many to be one of the best players in the world, to the Municipal de Matosinhos. Rakitic has spent the past 5 seasons at Matt Ellis' Scunthorpe Seraphim, making 740 appearances for the club in that time.

The news comes on the same day that Rafael Popovic's King Krimson completed a £2.5m deal to bring Luka Modric to Abrada Park from SFA Premiership side Ehcoelavon. These deals may be some way off the inflated transfer fees that were once commonplace, but it is clear that the market is picking up once more.

UFFA Season 7 Allocation

2009-04-04T23:40:00.003+01:00

UFFA allocations for season 7 were detailed yesterday, the big news is that lower reputation federations have lost a qualification spot for the Gold Cup for the following season. In an interesting turn of events the New User Football Association has been granted UFFA qualification rights for the coming season, despite requiring all members to leave the federation after their first season in the union, thus forfeiting their UFFA place under existing rules.

Previously UFFA officials have stated that teams changing federation at the end of the season would sacrifice any UFFA qualification they earned at their old federation because allowing any disparity between the number of teams in UFFA competitions could create a further gap between the top federations and the rest. With this being the case it is not good news for the federations that have seen their UFFA allocation reduced this season.

Federation	Gold	Silver	CWC	Youth	Total
XEFA	4	2	3	3	12
PFA	4	2	3	2	11
NFA	3	3	2	2	10
AEFA	3	3	2	3	11
MLFA	3	3	2	3	11
XFA	3	3	2	3	11
SFA	2	3	3	3	11
EEFA	2	2	3	2	9
CWA	2	3	3	3	11
SEFA	2	3	3	3	11
WCA	2	3	3	3	11
NUFA	2	2	3	2	9

UFFA Representative Shaun Meakin explains how this was decided:

In the Gold Cup, the two 4 rep FA's got the most allocations (4 each) with the other strong FA's getting 3 each. Despite not having many people, both the NFA and the MLFA still got 3 allocations as they have a higher rep FA than compared to, say, the SEFA.

In the Silver Cup, only 2 spots were given to the high rep teams as a result of them having 4 Gold Cup spots. The EEFA and the NUFA both got 2 spots as they are the lowest rep (and members) FA's that are residing in the Clough Game World. The rest of the FA's got 3 allocations.

In the Cup Winners Cup, the top Feds got 3 allocations, to make up for not having an extra Silver Cup spot each. The next highest ranked FA's only got 2 allocations as they already had 3 Gold and Silver Cup allocations, and it was felt that it would be unfair on the NUFA and the EEFA if they didn't get 3 allocations in at least one UFFA competition.

Media Deals Agreed

2009-04-03T23:47:00.007+01:00

Media deals for the coming season were announced today, with over £730 million on the table in total, over £50m more than last season's media package. This year the XEFA negogiated the strongest package for their members, in a deal worth £1.14m per club. Most federations, however, saw a decrease in the relative value of their media deals per member, with the EEFA coming off the worst -- losing £30k per club compared to last season's deal.

Overall UFFA membership has grown by 60 teams since last season, but the number of inactive clubs in the union rose to 166, or 23% of all union members -- an increase of 4% from season 5's figures.

Federation	Members	Media Deal	Per Club
XEFA	79 (0)	£90.1m	£1.14m (0.03)
PFA	43 (-3)	£47.7m	£1.11m (0)
NFA	20 (-1)	£21.8m	£1.09m (-0.02)
AEFA	77 (-3)	£83.9m	£1.09m (-0.02)
MLFA	26 (-1)	£28.3m	£1.09m (0.01)
XFA	67 (9)	£71m	£1.06m (-0.01)
CWA	66 (9)	£69.3m	£1.05m (0.01)
SFA	33 (-4)	£33.7m	£1.02m (-0.02)
EEFA	19 (-6)	£19.1m	£1.01m (-0.03)
SEFA	43 (4)	£42.8m	£1m (-0.02)
CIFA	166 (41)	£162.7m	£0.98m (0.03)
WCA	35 (1)	£34.3m	£0.98m (0)
NUFA	35 (14)	£32.4m	£0.93m (0.03)
TOTAL	709 (60)	£737.1m	£1.04m (-0.02)

UFFA Season 5 Round Up

2009-04-03T22:00:00.001+01:00

Our sister publication, UFFA Legends, have completed their roundup of last season's UFFA cup finals, here we bring together their match reviews for the 7 games.

Grass Roots Cup
Winners: Camembert Harriers, managed by Tony McDermot - NFA
Runners-up: Centresbrough, managed by Adrian Harvey - XEFA

Before either team had time to settle, Djibril Cissé converted some good play between him, Ortiz and Delgado to head in the first goal of the game for the Harriers. And since they seemingly controlled proceedings in the first half, it came as a great surprise when Acuna, unmarked in the box, twisted and turned before firing home the equalizer. Even though many chances were created, few were good ones, so that the game went to Extra Time was no surprise.

At the beginning of the last 15 mins though, Camembert Harriers took advantage of some dreadful set piece defending from Centresbrough's side and Rajkovic could fire home the winner - a goal which gave him the Man of the Match award.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.

Cup Winners' Cup
Winners: London Town, managed by Mark Lockie - PFA
Runners-up: Sim City, managed by Craig Sim - PFA

In a tight game, Martínez opened the scoring for London Town when he fired in a long shot in the 1st half. Both teams managed to restrict each other from getting Clear Cut Chances, but London Town still had a hefty 9 shots on goal, with Sim City only having 2. This proved to be the difference, and De Luca fired home the winner after Kuzczak couldn't hold a corner.

Another Kuzczak error could have meant 3-0 after another corner, but Lequi's goal was ruled out for offside.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.

Silver Cup
Winners: Tycoons Gunners, managed by "Coach" Tycoon - CWA
Runners-up: Nerve Palace, managed by Sir Evren - XFA

In a tight game with no Clear Cut Chances, Coach's Tycoons Gunners held their cool in a tense Penalty Shootout. After Jacques Faty and the Man of the Match, Tuncay, had both missed their penalties for Nerve Palace, Emiliano Moretti didn't slip up and fired home in the decider - after 4 successive penalty goals, having missed none.

Considering that Tycoons Gunners also had a goal controversially ruled out for offside (by Walter), none can disagree with that the win was well deserved.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.

Game World Cup
Winners: Harlesden Harriers, managed by Pedro Quieroz - CWA
Runners-up: Camembert Harriers, managed by Tony McDermot - NFA

In a game totally dominated by Harlesden Harriers, it was by no surprise that they brought the Game World Cup trophy home to Scrubs Lane. Mathias Abel, the german DC, scored the only goal of the game off a corner, only challenge being from his own teammate Kjaer.

All in all, a good overall display from Pedro Quieroz' team that never really looked in trouble.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.

Gold Cup
Winners: Old Avenellonians, managed by Daniel Smith - PFA
Runners-up: Shaolin Avengers, managed by Matt Booth - MLFA

In a very tight Gold Cup Final, the defensive and offensive capabilities of Old Avenellonians' Household Name DC Federico Fazio turned out to be decisive. After having a few opportunities in the beginning, Fazio gave Daniel Smith's team the leading after converting an Indirect Freekick from Inan. And in the dying seconds of the match, he headed in a Gardner corner to send the PFA team into celebrations.

All in all it was a fair result, but it could have turned out differently if Diakhaté's strike at the end of the first half had ended up in the back of the net.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.

Game World Youth Cup
Winners: London Town, managed by Mark Lockie - PFA
Runners-up: The Birmingham Bearded Women, Cat Vegas - XFA

Having taken the lead after just 5 minutes and having been leading for most of the game, London Town must have been in shock when Birmingham's substitute Blauuw took advantage of some poor defending when equalizing the game to 3-3 at the end of the game. But London Town's Gabriele De Luca showed why he's been playing more and more Senior football lately, by cooly firing home the 4-3 goal to give London Town the win.

And considering that Mark Lockie's men had almost twice as many shots overall and on target, it's hard to say anything else than the better team of the day took home the cup.

London Town vs The Birmingham Bearded Women - Overview

Read the full match report in UFFA Legends.

World Youth Cup
Winners: Nags Head Rovers, managed by Rodney 'Dave' Trotter - XFA
Runners-up: Legless End FC, managed by Richard Millar - SFA

In one of the most exciting Youth games of all time, it looked all over when Legless End FC scored 3-2 after Mala's - apperent - hasty through ball ended up at Diallo's feet. But being only 10 men on the pitch after Leandro Silva had to go off injured 7 minutes after he was subbed in, Nags Head Rover could score an equalizer on stoppage time, after Koch found Aleksic with a superb pass, and he converted the 1-on-1 with the keeper.

He followed this up with missing his first Penalty in the Penalty Shootout, but it didn't matter - Richard Millar's men missed 3, Rodney Trotter's converted 3, and was officially the #1 Youth team in Clough in Season 5

Read the full match report in UFFA Legends.

Babel Joins Dream Diamonds

2009-04-01T23:40:00.002+01:00

Dutch superstar Ryan Babel has completed a shock move from Relegation Fodder to XFA Premiership challengers Dream Diamonds in one of the biggest transfers in recent seasons for a fee of £1.8 million.

Babel made 1'605 appearances for the the Fodder since signing for the club as a free agent in season 1, and is the club's all-time record goalscorer with 427 goals from his 5 seasons at the club.

The transfer market has been showing signs of recovery in recent weeks and this is further evidence that clubs are beginning to ramp up investment in their playing staff once more following a period where many club's finances have been allocated to stadium expansion.

The Big Interview - Tiago Nogueira

2009-04-01T07:52:00.006+01:00

An Interview with a winner .. Fresh from his sides first ever trophy win following a 2-0 victory in the WCA Cup Final over Band of Brothers, WCA News caught up with Matosinhos SC manager Tiago Nogueira

Garry Pettigrew: How would you describe your FML experience so far?
Tiago Nogueira: Very good. This game is awesome. At beginning I was a little sceptical about spending money on online games (the price of this game for Portugal people is a little expensive), but I wanted to try and I'm really happy with my decision. Playing with real people is more fun!

Garry Pettigrew: As an original WCA member - what do you like about the FA?
Tiago Nogueira: I've added myself to the FA because most of the time I'm working at week and on weekends I can play more. The most I like is the people on it. Always trying to play their games instead of playing against AI and always helping each other. Of course is not always possible to play against all people but we all try to play human vs. human which is very nice

Garry Pettigrew: With the talented Pavel Pogrebnyak and Niko Kranjaer both still only 28 and you first trophy win out the way. Do you envisage more success next season? Can you get closer to Wayne's LetsTalkAboutCesc side?
Tiago Nogueira: Season after season I'm trying to do better. It isn't easy, because we have to win against great teams. At the beginning this FA hasn't a lot of really good players, now all teams have 2/3/4 excellent players that make difference in some games. Niko was my first choice since the beginning and he's my best player, always playing at same level, doing a lot of assists. Pavel I had luck in season 4 when I buy him on a contract auction. It's not only these two players that are important, but this season they helped me a lot. If it wasn't the big number of draws that I have. I could have been more close to Wayne. He has a very strong squad with Matusiak in front making lots of goals. Next season I will try to do better, trying to get 2/3 young players into first eleven. It's not easy but I will try...

Garry Pettigrew: Your Best and Worst moments?
Tiago Nogueira: My best moment was winning the WCA Cup this season. It was an intense and close game against a great team ,but as I said before Niko Kranjcar and Pavel Pogrebnyak have made a difference. Also my goalkeeper saving that penalty at minute 76 made the game safe.

My worst moment was season 4, very poor performance when I have a good team, only winning some games at the end of season, trying to not get relegated.

Garry Pettigrew: And any final messages?
Tiago Nogueira: Hope all continue enjoy this game. Anybody that needs my help could always be talking to me; I'm always available to help u guys. Continue with good performances, trying to go for glory. Cheers and see u next season.

Pettigrew joins Cloughite staff

2009-03-31T23:52:00.002+01:00

Garry Pettigrew, editor of the WCA News has today joined the Cloughite's staff and will be bringing the latest news from the Weekend Casual Association direct to the Cloughite from now on.

The Cloughite is always looking to recruit new writers -- if you're involved in an association specific newspaper and would like to become an editor at the Cloughite please get in touch, with your help we can make the Cloughite even stronger; something that all UFFA members can be proud of.

WCA Season 6 Preview

2009-03-31T21:49:00.007+01:00

UFFA Qualifiers
- Gold Cup: LetsTalkAboutCesc & Matosinhos SC
- Silver Cup: Davos Utd, Euclydian Dynamo & Crimson Fists
- Cup Winners Cup: Grantchester Utd, Band of Brothers & Team Extreme
- Youth: LetsTalkAboutCesc & Crimson Fists

As always the WCA News wishes all the participants the best of luck as they try to bring some glory to the WCA.

Player of the Year Awards
The results of the 2nd annual WCA Managers Player of the Year awards are in.

The Premiership Player of the Year Award was won by LetsTalkAboutCesc's Marek Matusiak with 63% of the vote. Marek also won the Young Player of the Year for the 2nd year running with 50% of the vote.

The Championship Player of the Year was won by Brayzil's Matt Derbyshire with a massive 80% of the vote.

Thanks to all who took the time to vote.

WCA League & Cup News

WCA News Victory Shield: Thats right folks. A brand spanking new competition sponsored by the WCA News. With the low numbers in the WCA (although we are up to 35 now) it was decided that a new FA competition was in order. So - no prize money, no UFFA spot, simply for prestige. A Champions League Style competition starting with 8 groups with the winners progressing to the quarter finals. Good luck with it next season.

WCA Leagues: Currently looking at a Premier League of 16 and a Championship of 19 with 3 up and down for next season. The promotions from the Championship may increase depending on the number of WCA members next season.

Transfer News

Championship Major Transfers: In the Championship only Bushby Babes have been active signing Kakha Kaladze (250k) and Fernando Ance (450k) as they look to gain promotion back to the Premiership.

Premiership Major Transfers: Band of Brothers have been active with Yossi Benayoun leaving for 350k and Davis Curiale joining in a wage auction for a fee of 250k. Scottish fullback Mark Wilson was also signed for 200k in a transfer auction. Euclydian Dynamo spent 525k on Charles Kaboe and a further 220k on Rafael Dida. Last years runners up Matosinhos SC have yet to strengthen their squad but have let Rene Mihelic leave for a fee of 600k.

So that's it. Will anyone challenge LetsTalkAboutCesc? With 5 new members in the WCA will we see a first timer gain promotion to the Premiership?

Here's to another great season.

Toni enters Hall of Fame

2009-03-31T19:50:00.017+01:00

Nominations for the Cloughite Hall of Fame have closed. With 62% of the vote Luca Toni becomes the first player to enter the Hall of Fame. Clarence Seedorf finished second in the voting with 27% of the vote and Mauro Camoranesi took the remaining 10.8% of the 37 votes.

During the course of his career Toni racked up a staggering £36.6m in transfer fees over 12 seperate transfer deals, back in season 3 Toni turned out for no less than six different teams over the course of the season, including a return to one of his previous clubs -- David Grant's Rumford Rangers -- on loan.

1. Luca Toni, retired age 35 (ITA) S (62%)
- Rockanje (14 apps)
- Team Awesome FC (122 apps)
- Rumford Rangers (39 apps)
- FC Alpha (632 apps)
- FC Evolution (48 apps)
- Yeti FC (6 apps)
- KS Piast Nowa Ruda (17 apps)
- Kavchester City (285 apps)
- Wizardos (63 apps)
- Fiasco da Gama (11 apps)
- Rumford Rangers (29 apps)
- Banjo's Badgers (53 apps)
- Garibaldi Reds (65 apps)

Total transfer fees paid: £36.6m

2. Clarence Seedorf, retired aged 36 (NED) AM RLC (27%)
- Aston United (187 apps)
- FC Jardines Del Rey (165 apps)
- FC Goodwood (223 apps)

Total transfer fees paid: £1.5m

3. Mauro Camoranesi, retired age 36 (ITA) M C + AM R (11%)
- AFC London (88 apps)
- Wroxall Rovers (342 apps)
- AFC Wardle Dynamos 08 (92 apps)
- Anti-Football FC (79 apps)

Total transfer fees: £5.9m

The Cloughite's Ten To Watch: Under 19s

2009-03-30T02:30:00.005+01:00

Ten of the most promising young players Under 19s in the world today, as chosen by Cloughite editor Dave Parker:

10. Sebastiano Prisco (19, Strawberry Fields F.C.) M LC -- Manager Craig MacLean pulled off one of the bargains of the season when he signed Prisco from Southampton Saints FC at the end of season 4. Prisco has already established himself in the senior side at Pepperlands and looks to have a bright future ahead of him.

9. Rene Eckstein (19, Wymondham FC) AM RL -- A regular feature in Wymondham's senior team for the best part of 2 seasons since his arrival from Barnageera at the end of season 3, Eckstein looks certain to become one of the worlds' top wingers and has firmly established himself as superstar at the tender age of 19.

8. Ramon Ribeiro (19, London Town) AM LC -- One of the best crossers of the ball in world football, blessed with technique, pace and a growing reputation as a free kick specialist, Ribeiro is destined for greatness, having been brought through from the London Town academy, manager Mark Lockie will be hoping to hold onto this talent for a long time to come.

7. Craig Davies (16, Donut Town) AM L -- Joe Strummer beat off plenty of competition for the signing of Welshman Davies, already dubbed the "next Ryan Giggs". As one of the highest paid teenagers in world football Davies' has a lot of expectation on his young shouders', but when judging by the standard of his performances this season you wouldn't know it.

6. Edimar Teixeira (18, Relegation Fodder) AM RLC -- Equally comfortable in the middle of the park and on either flank. Edimar has the potential to be one of world football's true greats, currently battling fellow Brazilian Caio for a regular place in the Relegation Fodder starting eleven.

5. Gabriele Perrotta (19, Chester Rats) D LC -- Jamie Cook secured the deal for Perrotta on the back of a huge offer for the commanding defender in one of the most fiercely contested wage auctions in memory. Equally at home on the left or in the centre of defense he has been likened to former AC Milan and Italy captain Paulo Maldini.

4. Mamadou Aubry (18, Wymondham FC) AM R + FC -- nearly a goal a game for Wymondham's youth team, the young Frenchman has blistering pace, a sublime first touch and a clinical finish. A complete striker already.

3. Alexandre Fernandes (19, Relegation Fodder) D C -- "Fernandes is the prefect centre back" -- high praise indeed from his manager. A product of the club's youth academy Fernandes has already made over 1000 appearances since breaking into the first team at the age of 16.

2. Marek Matusiak (19, LetsTalkAboutCesc) S -- Signed as a 17 year old from Athletico Pathetico in season 3 Matusiak has averaged nearly a goal a game for Cesc's senior side since his arrival at the club. Great technique coupled with incredible strength and pace to burn make Matusiak a defender's nightmare.

1. Lee Phillips (19, Legless Ends FC) AM C -- Labelled the most gifted Englishman of his generation, and with good reason. After a brief trial with Real Garda Claudia, Phillips signed for Legless Ends FC in season 1 and has been a fixture in their senior side ever since.

Tycoons hold Nerve to claim Silver Cup penalty shootout

2009-03-28T14:58:00.005Z

Tycoons Gunners caused an upset against Nerve Palace to claim the Silver Cup in a tense final eventually decided by a penalty shootout.

In a match with few clear cut chances, it was Palace who constantly threatened the Tycoon goal throughout, with star striker and man of the match Tuncay looking lively for Sir Evren's side. By contrast, Coach Tycoon's players put up a determined resistance, with goalkeeper David Marshall on hand to deny the opposition with a string of fine saves.

The Gunner's star player Walter failed to live up to his billing, and was eventually substituted in extra time before the match went to penalties.

Both teams scored their first two penalties, before Jacques Faty blazed over the bar for Palace after Tycoons scored their third. Tiago Rodrigues then converted for the Gunners, before Tuncay was given the unenviable task of keeping the Nerves in the hunt for the Cup. The Turk proceeded to strike it straight at Marshall to ensure heartbreak for his teammates, while the Tycoons revelled in a professional and a hard-fought victory.

Sir Evren was understandably deflated after the match:

It was a cup final. Anyone could have won and in the end it was decided on pens so of course the tycoons were worthy winners. I guess my players did not match our team name... they did not display iron nerves in the shootout. But Sergio [Ramos] has become our marquee signing...we wanted a household name in our team considering that we want to challenge for the Gold Cup next season.

The Big Interview: Liam Spence

2009-03-24T22:38:00.000Z

... with Liam Spence, manager of Harlow Town FC. Without having much of a reputation before, except for being "the team that has Amelia", Liam are now gunning for the XEFA Prem. We're checking up what's happened, as well as getting the full story about Liam's baby, the XEFA Lobby Cup!

Dennis Moberg: Hi Liam. Looks like you're getting promoted to the Prem! Is this all according to your masterplan?
Liam Spence: Hmm Masterplan ... does loaning Dawson for 21 days and relying on him to keep the sheets clean for the first half of the season, and then struggle in the second half a plan as such? If so, I guess that was it!

Dennis Moberg: Or maybe you have Renato to thank? He's your by far best avaraging player in the Champs, avaraging 7.28 so far.
Liam Spence: Couldn't have done anywhere near as good without Renato, can't believe how well he has performed, and to be honest, I didnt want him originally -- owner wanted a trade for Jurado at the time, and I was a bit sceptical -- now he has come on bounds and leaps and performed like that (Don't tell him I said that).

Dennis Moberg: The Cloughite will surely make sure that message gets through! (Those damned tabloids...) Do you feel your team would be up for Prem football? It's got to be one of the toughest leagues in the world.
Liam Spence: Definately, but I am the Fulham of the XEFA, struggle against those lower in the league, but can beat quite a few people in the Prem. Take the Non-Prem Cup, struggled my way through that and thanks to some luck and dodgy organization got there finally... then play Daniel, Andrew and other greats and can beat them ... Wierd sometimes!

Dennis Moberg: You also do some work in our fine community. You've been running the XEFA Lobby Cup, for people active in the XEFA Lobby, since the first season, and it's now entering its 10th season. Where did you get the idea from?
Liam Spence: There was something set up when I first joined Clough from the very beginning for those who originally spoke in the Lobby, Chatroom League -- I won it even with Mihai in it. And then decided that a good community in the fed is needed and just went from there, first season was about 8 teams I think, and now up to 32. Couldn't have done it without those who actually speak in there thoough, so thanks all.

Dennis Moberg: This cup has got some influence now, and you've run it well. Are you waiting for James (XEFA Mod) to promote you to a real org soon?
Liam Spence: Hah, I could only dream of something like that, I'm nowhere near responsible enough and everyone who knows me knows that. And with so many others in the XEFA who could easily fill an organizer role I can't see myself ever becoming something like that with the "competition" I have.

Dennis Moberg: Last one - you got Construction level 5. Did you have a reason for this or did you think like me when learning Physio level 5 - "I want to be special..."?
Liam Spence: Bit of both really, to have Construction 5 is pretty special and I THINK I'm the only person in world to have it, as well as the other higher skills in the GW. Was originally gonna go to 4 and just leave it there, but then realised how much it could save me, even if it is an extra 5%, in the long term it should work out great! If only I had the money to go with it.

Dennis Moberg: Alright - thanks for your time Liam!
Liam Spence: Cheers, enjoyed doing it.

Tactics Corner with Dr P Wigwam

2009-03-24T22:33:00.000Z

...with Dr P Wigwam, XEFA Organiser and manager of Compit FC. Doc's a real yo-yo team, going up and down between the Prem and Champs, and he likes to be creative when creating his tactics.

Dennis Moberg: What is your tactical philosophy in FML?
Dr P Wigwam: I try to favour the beautiful game, with exciting players and nice pass and move. It never quite comes off for me, but that's my theory.

Dennis Moberg: You've been trying out some odd ideas in the past, most noteably the tactic where you didn't use any strikers - but a FR and FL. Do you like to experiment?
Dr P Wigwam: Yeah, I like to try things that most people shy away from as their not the norm. I'm hoping to put together a 3 man defence for next season, with 2 up front. we'll see. It might be suicide.

Dennis Moberg: Well, you got decent results last time! Do you feel that managers overall are to stuck with a tactical idea, and that it might hinder their teams progress in some cases?
Dr P Wigwam: It seems some guys have a tactic that they feel is right, and always get players to fit it. I find that restraining and am often looking to adapt my tactic to suit my players. I cant say it will hinder them, most of the top teams do it. It's just not my way.

Dennis Moberg: You're selling off your team right now, to build a new one. What will you be looking for mostly in the players? Different for each position or do you have a few attributes you feel are essential?
Dr P Wigwam: I'm pretty torn to be honest. I wanted to set up a decent youth academy, competing in 3 age ranges, but I feel now I've looked at the players available, that's gonna be really tough. I honestly dont know what I'm gonna do next, but I needed a fresh challenge, so I have no regrets.

Dennis Moberg: You've learnt the "Goalkeeper Distribution To" Skill. It's usually overlooked by many, do you think it's a must have to set up a proper tactic?
Dr P Wigwam: I realised that my keeper was too often just hoofing the ball straight to the opposition defence, and they were just attacking again. It was originally designed to stop that, then I tried using it to counter by getting it to my quick winger. I dunno how much difference it made, but I like to try different things.

Dennis Moberg: Alright Doc - cheers for your time!

XEFA Championship Update

2009-03-24T22:22:00.003Z

Hello everyone! Season is soon over, and that means we have to speed these Updates up. Today, we bring you the Champs!

STANDINGS
Current Top 3:
1. El-Bombers - 67 Games, 79 GD, 156 Pts
2. Harlow Town FC - 65 Games, 33 GD, 123 Pts
3. Faversham Town - 65 Games, 53 GD, 121 Pts

Projected Top 3:
1. El-Bombers - 176 Projected Pts
2. Harlow Town FC - 143 Projected Pts
3. Faversham Town - 141 Projected Pts

Current Bottom 4:
17. Russian Circles - 62 Games, -18 GD, 67 Pts
18. Derby County AFC - 63 Games, -16 GD, 63 Pts
19. Cowderys Lilywhites - 62 Games, -30 GD, 61 Pts
20. Bump N Grind - 64 Games, -32 GD, 59 Pts

Projected Bottom 4:
17. Bellshill Utd - 77 Projected Pts
18. Derby County AFC - 76 Projected Pts
19. Cowderys Lilywhites - 74 Projected Pts
20. Bump N Grind - 70 Projected Pts

TEAM STATS
Top 3 Goals Scored:
1. El-Bombers - 67 Games / 145 Goals
2. Faversham Town - 65 / 130
3. Kriss Kross FC - 66 / 95

Most Fouls Committed:
Ann Arbor RecEd - 899

Most Offside Runs:
Smaley's Rams - 299

Top 3 Least Goals Conceded:
1. Harlow Town FC - 65 Games / 54 Conceded
2. Alcoholic - 67 / 61
3. Droitwich FC - 59 / 63

Most Penalty Goals:
Harlow Town FC - 7

Most Goals from Corners:
El-Bombers - 47

Most Goals from Indirect Freekicks:
Kriss Kross FC - 14

Most Goals from Direct Freekicks:
Faversham Town - 6
Harlow Town FC - 6

Top 3 Highest Team Avarage Rating:
1. El-Bombers - 7.05
2. Droitwich - 7.0
3. Faversham Town - 6.94
3. Harlow Town FC - 6.94

PLAYER STATS
Top 3 Goals Scored:
1. David N'Gog - 65 Games / 57 Goals
2. Giorgios Samaras - 64 / 39
3. Jermain Defoe - 66 / 39

Most Dribbles per Game:
Amaral - 9.62

Most Clean Sheets:
Marco Amelia - 33

Top 3 Most Assists:
1. Olexiy Godin - 67 Games / 55 Assists
2. Yoon Bit-Garam - 63 / 42
3. Renato - 63 / 27

Most Fouls Recieved:
Thanasis Papazoglou - 156

Most Red Cards:
Dede - 4

Top 3 Most Man of the Match:
1. Per Martesacker - 18
2. David N'Gog - 14
3. Giorgios Samaras - 13

Most Yellow Cards:
Sebastian Dubarbier - 31

Most Penalties Scored:
David N'Gog - 6

Top 3 Highest Avarage Rating:
1. Olexiy Godin - 7.48
2. Per Martesacker - 7.44
3. Yoann Gourcuff - 7.32

In tomorrow's last edition we'll be giving you all the latest from the exciting End of Season drama in the XEFA Prem! Mata ne!

The Big Interview: Adrian Harvey

2009-03-22T22:49:00.002Z

...with Adrian Harvey, manager of Centresbrough. A big fan of Middlesbrough in real life, as well as new members in the XEFA, having joined us from our natural rivals XFA this season. He's also a community man, and he's in charge of the "Theme of the Week" vote since Damian Allen left our GW. Oh, and if you haven't noticed, this weeks theme is "Musical Legends".

Dennis Moberg: Alright Adrian, let's start by letting you tell our readers a little about yourself.
Adrian Harvey: Well I'm an ancient 37 year old computer engineer from a small town in Europe called Middlesbrough, some readers may have heard of it. I got married last year and with a 12 year old son, it's all go! Enjoy most sports, and even participate in one or two, darts mostly, though whether that's down to the social side more than the sporting side, I'm not 100% sure!

Dennis Moberg: This is your first season in the XEFA, and you're currently at 10th place in the Division 1. Are you happy with this start?
Adrian Harvey: So-so ... I'd hoped to be a bit higher up the league, but I got off to a pretty awful start. From now I'm hoping to finish inside the top 10, I think promotion is out of the question, although my league form does seemed to have picked up from what it was.

Dennis Moberg: Reputation-wise, your squad of players should - on paper - be able to handle Premiership football. Is making it there a goal for you - and if it is, in the short or long term?
Adrian Harvey: Yes, though they need some additions. It's more of a long term goal though, I'm aiming for the Championship next season, and I'll probably be there for a couple of seasons if I manage it. Plus by that time my squad will have aged a few years and probably need adding to then. I made a few mistakes early on with my player purchases back when prices were crazy, and the stadiums didn't help with trying to rectify those mistakes. so as with everyone else, it's a slow process to build a squad of players up to where you want them.

Dennis Moberg: You've conceded the 2nd most goals in the Div1 - have you neglected your defence in your team building?
Adrian Harvey: Yes I think I probably have. I've one solid DC in Leandro Rinaudo, my record signing, but the other DC is a problem, Grigorjev's come in and done a job this season but hasn't been as good as I hoped. Thiago Carleto's been pretty solid at left back but right back is another problem area. I guess the problem with playing an attacking formation such as my 4-3-3 is that it can leave you a bit short on the counter attack.

Dennis Moberg: Cleyton is your best averaging player, with an avarage of 7.15 in 45 games. Do you feel you've been a part of getting this much out of him?
Adrian Harvey: Yeah I'd like to think so. He was part of my original squad when the GW kicked off and I really liked him then, but got a £2m offer and at the time it was a tough one to refuse. When he became available again I snapped him up and he's gone from strength to strength and is performing as well as he has done in his career - I just wish he was 5 years younger!

Dennis Moberg: You joined us this season from the XFA - are you happy with this decision so far?
Adrian Harvey: It's been a good move for me really. I enjoyed the XFA but the social side was a bit quiet to be honest, and as I spend far too much time online it became clear to me that I needed a more chatty environment - other than the lobby of course! It's very rare that the XEFA room isnt talkative so I've no regrets about my switch.

Dennis Moberg: Good to hear Adrian - we're happy to have you onboard! Good luck with the end of season
Adrian Harvey: Cheers Dennis, and to you and all your readers!

Tactics Corner with Scott Davidson

2009-03-22T22:45:00.000Z

...with Scott Davidson, manager of MK City FC, who joined the XEFA from the EEFA this season. He's currently on his way to reach his first XEFA trophy by winning the Division 1.

Dennis Moberg: What is your tactical philosophy in FML?
Scott Davidson: Its not much of a philosophy but I like to keep the centre of midfield packed with players. This season I've created 3 or 4 different formations to try and combat different situations. However, almost all of them has 3 CM's

Dennis Moberg: You've scored the most goals by far in your division - 98 so far. Is this down to you leaning towards attacking tactics, or are you simply blessed with more attacking brilliance than other teams?
Scott Davidson: This season I moved to a 5-3-2 but a very attacking version of it. I found that my 4-4-2 Diamond was ok but I never scored enough goals (I'd rather win 5-4 than 1-0). I also wanted a new formation which the bigger teams weren't used to playing so I could surprise them a little. At the start of the season some of my players were on fire so goals were easier to come by. In the last week my form has changed quite a bit so I've had to play a slightly different way

Dennis Moberg: What do you look for in your MC's, attribute-wise?
Scott Davidson: Just the usual really, Passing, Creativity, Off the Ball, First Touch for the attacking ones. As they're centre midfielders I don't usually bother with pace and acceleration which does help me pick up some bargains.

Dennis Moberg: To continue on with the MC's - do you give each on of them a special duty to perform, or are they part of different "groups" in your tactic?
Scott Davidson: To be honest my midfielders do have special duties. I have one guy who is very defensive and another who is very attacking. He's the real creative one who is supposed to make things happen. The 3rd midfielder changes round quite a bit ... I have one strong guy who is a bit defensive but is good at passing and keeping the ball moving, and I have another who is more attacking. If my form is good then I'll go for the more attacking 3rd man in midfield, however at the minute the defensive player is getting the nod!

Dennis Moberg: What tactics do you feel you get an advantage and disadvantage of with your current set-up with the 3 MC's?
Scott Davidson: I think playing 3 MC's gives you more protection, particularly when you don't have the ball. Obviously with such a narrow formation you can't play as expansive as when using wingers. I've tried to combat this by getting in two good full backs who can go forward when needed. Another disadvantage may be that constantly playing narrow could be easy to counter over time. I'm trying to build a squad which can easily go to 4-5-1 mid-game so that if I do need to play wide I can do.

Dennis Moberg: Thanks for your time Scott.

XEFA Division 1 Update

2009-03-22T22:28:00.004Z

Hello everyone, now it's time to take a look at Division 1.

STANDINGS
Current Top 3:
1. MK City FC - 52 Games, 40 GD, 105 Pts
2. Motherwell Synthonia - 49 Games, 28 GD, 95 Pts
3. FC Chin Up - 49 Games, 27 GD, 91 Pts

Projected Top 3:
1. MK City - 153 Projected Pts
2. Motherwell Synthonia - 147 Projected Pts
3. FC Chin Up - 141 Projected Pts

Current Bottom 4:
17. Balls of Steel - 47 Games, -30 GD, 40 Pts
18. Tricky Trees FC - 46 Games, -26 GD, 38 Pts
19. Bus Shelter FC - 47 Games, -29 GD, 38 Pts
20. Sudden Death Warriors - 47 Games, -39 GD, 31 Pts

Projected Bottom 4:
17. Tricky Trees FC - 62 Projected Pts
18. Bus Shelter FC - 61 Projected Pts
19. Brighon and Hove Albion FC - 61 Projected Pts
20. Sudden Death Warriors - 50 Projected Pts

TEAM STATS
Top 3 Goals Scored
1. MK City - 52 Games/ 100 Goals
2. FC Evolution - 51 / 90
3. Barnsley Tykes - 54 / 78

Most Fouls Committed:
Jossys-Giants - 725

Most Offside Runs:
SELHURST STARS - 262

Top 3 Least Goals Conceded:
1. FC Chin Up - 49 Games / 40 Goals
2. Motherwell Synthonia - 49 / 41
3. Excelsiour - 47 / 46

Most Penalty Goals:
Excelsiour - 5
FC Evolution - 5

Most Goals from Corners:
MK City FC - 29

Most Goals from Indirect Freekicks:
MK City FC - 11

Most Goals from Direct Freekicks:
FC Evolution - 7

Top 3 Highest Team Avarage Rating:
1. FC Evolution - 7.0
2. FC Chin Up - 6.95
3. Excelsiour - 6.94
3. MK City FC - 6.94

PLAYER STATS
Top 3 Goals Scored:
1. Demba Ba - 49 Games / 35 Goals
2. Johan Elmander - 52 / 30
3. Ricardo Oliveira - 50 / 29

Most Dribbles per Game:
Simone Pepe - 7.93

Most Clean Sheets:
Fabian Carini - 20

Top 3 Most Assists:
1. Julio Alvarez - 51 Games / 35 Assists
2. Tranquillo Barnetta - 48 / 20
3. Christophe Greogorie - 50 / 18

Most Fouls Recieved:
Leonardo Ulloa - 144

Most Red Cards:
Olof Mellberg - 3
Betao - 3

Top 3 Most Man of the Match:
1. Demba Ba - 14
2. Christian Maggio - 10
3. Scott Carson - 10

Most Yellow Cards:
Fernando Tobio - 20
Fernando Navarro - 20

Most Penalties Scored:
Alessandro Rosina - 5

Top 3 Highest Avarage Rating:
1. Hamit Altintop - 32 Games / 7.39
2. Tranquillo Barnetta - 48 / 7.34
3. Alessandro Rosina - 51 / 7.29

Rearguard action provides memorable Gold Cup victory for Avenellonians

2009-03-22T09:34:00.006Z

Two goals from set pieces gave Old Avellonians a 2-0 victory over Shaolin Avengers in a keenly contested Gold Cup final. Star defender Federico Fazzio was the hero for Daniel Smith's winning team, opening the scoring in the 17th minute by heading home from a pinpoint Selcuk Inan delivery. He then ensured it was game, set and match by turning in Craig Gardner's corner in the dying seconds of the game.

By comparison, although Matt Booth's much-lauded Avengers side tried very hard to penetrate the Avellonian defence, their players were pretty much banging their heads against a brick wall. Much credit must be given to the American's opposite number Smith, the Englishman demonstrating tactical astuteness throughout 90 minutes of compelling play.

Football purists may complain that Avellonians' performance had the air of negativity about it. But let's not forget that this side has scored no less than 11 goals since the quarter finals. Smith's team also knocked out that advocate of attractive attacking play and defending champions King Krimson in the last eight.

Booth was gracious in defeat:

We went out with an attacking mentality and I feel no shame in that. Rather, I give full credit to Old Avenellonians. Daniel's team played great defensively and, truth be told, we hardly threatened his goal. I am, if anything, a bit disappointed in my defense, who gave up 2 set piece goals to a centreback that was marked. But that's football... now we have to concentrate on finishing in the top 3 this season, before any thoughts of next season's Gold Cup.

Smith played down his side's chances of defending the Cup while paying tribute to the Avengers:

The Gold Cup final was quite an even contest and neither team was clearly superior on the balance of play. I think what gave me the edge was that my defence were able to win a lot of balls around the box and retain possession, while the Avengers seemed to concede a lot of corners and other set peices when I attacked. My team are very strong from set pieces and this was crucial.

I very much doubt that I can defend the cup next season. There are too many good teams competing for it and in the knockout stages you cannot afford even a single bad result.

The Big Interview: Christian Michel

2009-03-21T22:57:00.002Z

..with Christian Michel, one of the new members to the XEFA this season and a total beginner to the world of FML. Still, he's sitting with a chance of promotion to Division 1.

Dennis Moberg: Christian, you're new to Clough and the XEFA this season. How has your experience been so far?
Christian Michel: Pretty Good so far. I might have made some mistakes, but I think I can manage to survive them. XEFA is pretty cool though, lots of helpful people. (You have to mention that im new to FML, too )

Dennis Moberg: Has your FML experience been satisfactory so far?
Christian Michel: Lets call it overwhelming. Never played a "game" lilke this. It rocks

Dennis Moberg: About your team name. Me and a few others followed you when you put german after german in your initial squad - but then you stopped. What happened, did you give up?
Christian Michel: I figured that its very hard to play a "theme team" if you are a complete newb to a game like this. So I did not give up, I put it on hold till I made some money. There are only a few real good Germans out there, & I cant afford them atm. But beware, we are coming. But to bring some light to my team's name, it's actually based on a movie called 12 angry men from 195x. Look it up in IMDB and try to watch it, the movie is great! But I try to get as may players who play in the Bundesliga as I can. My complete offence is playing there atm (Grafite - Wolfsburg Sestak - Bochum and Petric - Hamburg).

Dennis Moberg: How do you feel your season has gone so far, are you happy with your current position of 4th?
Christian Michel: I wish I could turn back the time and play my first 10-15 games again, I made some horrible choices. I hope I can achive top 3, because I'm not good in cups and playoffs, never have been, so I hope I can avoid this. But if you asked me 15 days ago, I would've taken 4th immediately, and I hope you correct my typos by the way.

Dennis Moberg: Nope, I wont [but the Cloughite will] - you've got quite the striker Partnership up front. Mladen Petric and Grafite. They avarage at 32.5 years of age, but still score a lot for you. Think they'll last a couple of more seasons?
Christian Michel: Experience is priceless. They know what to do. I hope I can [reduce] their wages by any chance, but I think I will keep both, because as you said they have a pretty good scoring ratio. But to be honest, in some games I want to kill both, but I think they still have a few good games in them.

Dennis Moberg: How do you feel about the fact you are 3 divisions away from the top flight? Do you feel that it would be better if we had a Pyramid Tier with two Division 1's? It makes us unique and I must say, it looks like the teams in Div 2 have been of the same quality this season.
Christian Michel: Not at all. We use the Same system here in Germay, and I think we have maybe the best second division in Europe because if you are in Div 2, you are Top 36, and it's the same here. If you have 40+ Players in a 2 Division League there are 20 teams wo are just cannon fodder to 20 others. It makes the higher leagues "better".

Dennis Moberg: If you do get promoted - do you feel your team could achieve successive promotions? And what areas do you feel you need to strengthen?
Christian Michel: I can't tell. I think with my fresh achieved knowledge I can manage to build a good team. I'm pretty happy with my team at the moment, I need a stronger defence, maybe a playmaker -- and I have to thin out my squad. I have 22 players under contract atm, and I already fired 4 and sold 3. I want to end up with 16-18 players. Maybe 20.

Dennis Moberg: Last question - are you planning in staying with us for a while in GW Clough? We're hoping so at least.
Christian Michel: Yes of course. I did not put so much effort in my team just to abandon it or to leave the UFFA, and -- by the way -- 12 Angry Germans - Senior Squad - ALMOST EVERYBODY IS FOR SALE!! If you are interested in anyone, just let me know!!

Dennis Moberg: Alright, a bit of shameless advertising here, but I'm nice this time and won't remove it -- good luck with the remainder of your season!
Christian Michel: Thank you.

Tactics Corner with Bobby Desilets

2009-03-21T22:54:00.002Z

..with Bobby Desilets, our new American friend that is one of this season's surprise packages in XEFA Division 2.

Dennis Moberg: What is your tactical philosophy in FML?
Bobby Desilets: I like to try to play an attacking 4-5-1, but really concentrate on my marking strategies based on the tactic I'm playing against. This sometimes meaning I have my outside backs man mark outside midfielders.

Dennis Moberg: You're a new side in the GW, and you've got one of the youngest teams in the whole FA, but you're still projected to finish 2nd in your league. What's your secret?
Bobby Desilets: A lot of the other teams in the division have older veterans teams, which might mean success in the short term, but they soon will need to replace those players, my goals is to grow my players and keep them in the first team for a while, or be able to sell them later for profit, which you can't do with older players, as they will retire, the players I added on from my original squad were all under 28 and class players which should start for me for 3 or more years such as Hugo, Wellington and Antonio Falvio.

Dennis Moberg: You've learnt a few Tactical Skills, which are the most important to learn do you feel?
Bobby Desilets: I actually feel that training skills are the most important, and I am level 5 in a lot of that, right now I am finishing up finance 5, because starting out the more money you get the better off you will be in order to finance your stadium later, I'm predicted to be tied for first now!! But ahead on GD.

Dennis Moberg: Yeah, I'm learning Finance 5 too right now. But I was mainly thinking about what particular Tactical Skills you think are most important?
Bobby Desilets: Oh right, since I play with only one striker, target man skills were important along with crossing instructions, and counterattack as I will change that from home and away.

Dennis Moberg: Do you have many different pre-made tactics, or just one for home games and one for away games?
Bobby Desilets: I use a 4-5-1 for most of my games, home and away, I also have a 4-3-3 to use when I am behind by a lot or down towards the end of the game, I also have a 4-4-2 I have had to use because of injuries, I have had some long term injuries to my best players this season, just starting off in the UFFA it has been tough

Dennis Moberg: Alright Bobby, cheers for the interview. Got a message for your competitiors in the Div2 before we end?
Bobby Desilets: Humph, how about your veterans will want to retire after losing to a bunch of youngsters?

Dennis Moberg: Good luck for the remainder of the season!
Bobby Desilets: Thanks dennis, you too

XEFA Division 2 Update

2009-03-21T00:18:00.005Z

STANDINGS

Current Top 3:
1. Bowdoin FC - 42 Games, 25 GD, 77 Points
2. Dynamo Dynasty - 41 Games, 23 GD, 76 Points
3. Makaveli The Don - 46 Games, 15 GD, 76 Points

Projected Top 3:
1. Dynamo Dynasty - 133 Projected Points
2. Bowdoin FC - 132 Projected Points
3. Makaveli The Don - 118 Projected Points

TEAM STATS

Top 3 Most Goals Scored:
1. Bowdoin FC - 42 Games / 72 Goals
2. 12 Angry Germans - 47 / 70
3. Rosyth Thistle - 49 / 65

Most Offside Runs:
Terrysmith Rovers - 185

Most Dribbles per Game:
Dynamo Dynasty - 26.56 / Game

Most Red Cards:
Bowdoin FC - 4
Dynamo Dynasty - 4
Terrysmith Rovers - 4

Most Penalties Recieved:
Rosyth Thistle - 5
Adrian Monk FC - 5

Most Goals From Corners:
Bowdoin FC - 22

Most Goals From Indirect Free Kicks:
Rosyth Thistle - 9

Most Goals From Direct Free Kicks:
Bowdoin FC - 5

Top 3 Highest Team Avarage Rating:
1. Dynamo Dynasty - 6.97
2. morley city - 6.96
3. Makaveli The Don - 6.92

PLAYER STATS

Top 3 Most Goals Scored:
1. Lionel Messi - 45 Games / 23 Goals
2. Michael Owen - 30 / 20
3. Hugo - 35 / 18

Most Goals Conceded:
Anton Amelchenko - 71

Most Dribbles:
Juan Carlo Mensegues - 9.53 / Game

Top 3 Most Assists:
1. Vitaly Denisov - 41 Games / 14 Assists
2. Gilles Yapi Yapo - 46 / 14
3. Hugo - 35 / 12

Most Commited Fouls:
Bruno Rafael - 100

Most Yellow Cards:
Francisco Molinero - 18

Top 3 Most Man of the Match:
1. Lionel Messi - 45 Games / 12
1. Aleksandar Mladenov - 45 / 12
3. Tavares - 34 / 8

Most Red Cards:
Mauro Minelli - 2
Ezequiel Carboni - 2
Tiago Silva - 2

Most Clean Sheets:
Jose Rafael Alamo - 17
Nicolas Puydebois - 17

Top 3 Highest Avarage Rating:
1. Lionel Messi - 45 Games / 7.37
2. Marti Crespi - 29 / 7.29
3. Marcus Vinicius - 36 / 7.27

Montolivo Completes Switch to Honka

2009-03-20T23:54:00.004Z

Italian midfielder Riccardo Montolivo has left Waukesha 1834 after four seasons and over 400 appearances for the MLFA outfit. A fee of £875'000 was enough to secure his transfer to Andreas Panayi's Honka, where he is expected to form a formidable midfield partnership with Levan Kenia and Luigi Bruins.

The player, 28, has agreed a 2 season contract worth an estimated £1'680'000.

The Big Interview: Tommy Kelpo

2009-03-19T18:56:00.006Z

I'm a Newbie in Clough, Get Me Outta Here!

The community continues to chop and change as the months fly by. Established managers leave for pastures new, yet the UFFA is continuing to see a steady influx of fresh new talent, wanting to make their mark in their respective FAs.

Some of the difficulties they will no doubt face is the stiff competition when signing players and the need to exercise substantial financial restraint; and of course the competition, which will 90 per cent of the time be more established and stronger.

To gain an insight into the life of a newbie manager, The Cloughite caught up with Bluebirds gaffer Tommy Kelpo, who is currently cutting his teeth in the XEFA Championship, having been promoted from the lower divisions -- not bad for a rookie.

During our interview, Tommy demonstrated an unwilting sense of optimism, both for his team and the UFFA in general. This is how it all went down:

*Note: This interview was conducted last season when Tommy was still cutting his teeth in the lower divisions.

The Cloughite: So you're a newbie in FML, how are you finding it so far?
Tommy Kelpo: I have got to say, on the whole...I'm loving it!

The Cloughite: Did you initially find it daunting? Considering you were around 3 seasons behind everyone else?
Tommy Kelpo: Very daunting! I signed up on a whim and at first I thought I was way out of my depth. But because I had paid the money up front I thought I'd better give it a serious shot. After chatting to some good blokes and getting a bit of info here and there, I ironed out my initial mistakes and things began to look up.

The Cloughite: Now you're sitting 5th in division 2, comfortably on course for a play-off place. The secret of your success appears to be a certain superstar Brazilian.
Tommy Kelpo: Ah my buck toothed maestro! He has been the real heart so far. I was very,very lucky to be playing against his owner during one of my first matches and mentioned how lucky he was to have him in his side. After some good natured chat he kindly offered him to me on loan. It took all of 0.0001 of a second to decide. He has been great though I am not foolish enough to rely purely on him...I do have players who can slot in to his place when I finally wave goodbye.

The Cloughite: Tommy, no doubt you'll have heard all the whinging about the stadiums coming into effect. How has it affected you as financially you seem to be quite sound.
Tommy Kelpo: Up until now I have been concentrating on the playing side of things, but I have now begun a construction programme in order to stay in line with the supporters' needs. From what I can gather if you are careful enough, expanding slowly when required, you should be OK. Financially...I have been very careful as far as transactions are concerned. I have made great use of the filter and bought players for a certain amount at the lowest possible wages, looking all the time for the attributes I needed. There are some great bargains to be had for those who are patient I feel.

The Cloughite: Does the mass exodus of managers from Clough bother you at all?
Tommy Kelpo: To be perfectly honest, not too much. Simply because, personally, I am dealing with what I have found and have right now. I am a newbie and don`t have anything to compare it with. I don't know how the Clough UFFA was before, only now and currently there is plenty for me to deal with.
Of course if it continues then questions must be asked and addressed. What are the real reasons behind this exodus? What are the major differences between UFFA's that managers find important?

The Cloughite: Have you made any friends on Clough? How have you found the general interaction?
Tommy Kelpo: There are quite a few people that I have had some regular chat and banter with. It can be a real good laugh with the action taking a back seat to the conversation at times. Of course some managers just prefer the game and keep the chat to a minimum and that's OK too. I do get the impression that the community here on Clough is quite a strong one and there are many good examples for people to follow. I learnt a long time ago it's nice to be nice, and even more nice when people are nice!

The Cloughite: Finally, what does the future hold for Bluebirds?
Tommy Kelpo: Well, I want to win as much as possible of course! But more importantly compete with everyone I play......it took me a while to combat the 4-5-1 formation and was very frustrating at times. I am slowly coming to terms with how to compete against it without actually becoming another 4-5-1 devotee. That's been the real challenge so far.

State of the Economy: Season 5

2009-03-17T13:46:00.006Z

UFFA representative Rob Cooper presented his "State of the Economy" report earlier today, this was the first report of it's kind to go into such depth about the state of the economy so we have little to compare the figures with.

However, we do know that the UFFA reported deflation at 58% as of mid-February, today's numbers show that this figure has risen over 20% in the 2-3 weeks since.

Inflation (28 days)	-81.86%
Player Price Index	£2,186,780
Size of Economy	£285,539,936
Average Balance	£578,016

- Source (The figures above are from March 9^th )

Friendly Focus: XEFA Lobby Cup

2009-03-17T11:33:00.003Z

Friendly Focus is a new feature at the Cloughite where we will take a look at some of the best run friendly competitions in the world.

First up is the XEFA Lobby Cup, hosted by Liam Spence's Harlow Town FC at Barrows Farm. Recently completing it's 9th season the XELC is one of the longest running friendly competitions in the world. It is a private competition for members of the Xtreme Evening Football Association who participate in the federations' lobby area.

This season's final saw Ryan Clamp's Nottingham Forest 1865 take on RockSteady FC, managed by Paul Stead, in a closely fought encounter which saw Forest claim the XELC trophy for the first time with a 2-1 victory, denying Paul Stead the opportunity to reclaim the trophy his club previously won in season 7.

Past Winners:

Wigan Rangers (2 times)
Strawberry Fields F.C. (2 times)
ScunthorpeSeraphim
Rapid Pitesti
RockSteady FC
ZenEagles
Nottingham Forest 1865

Records:

Biggest Win: Wigan Rangers 5-0 Smithson Town FC
Highest Scoring Match: Spaghetti Delight 6-3 FC Corby
Top Goalscorer: Giampaolo Pazzini (42 in 47 appearances)
Most Assists: Andrea Gasbarroni (37 in 56 appearances)
Most Appearances: Mauricio Molina (92)

Player Burdon Lifted

2009-03-15T11:53:00.004Z

Over the past few days young players across the world have come under increased media scrutiny leading to many becoming unhappy at their club's failure to protect them from the media spotlight as they feel the burdon of the expectation surrounding them. UFFA representative Rob Cooper anounced he would be working with the Players' Union to investigate the cause of the recent spate of player unhappiness (source):

The issue is caused by a youngster not being able to handle the pressure of playing in a side which is performing well. Over time the player will adjust and be able to cope better but the only short-term solution is to give them a less important role in the team. This issue does seem to be happening a lot more in the latest release though which is something I am looking into at the moment.

Following this investigation, Players Union representatives have today agreed a deal with the media at large that will see that spotlight reduced drastically, however they stress that this is not a blanket ban and that there will still be some players that this agreement will not be able to protect, in these cases it is the players' manager that must act to protect the player.

The Player's Union has issued these guidelines to assist managers in handling players feeling burdoned by the expectation surrounding them, or feeling the weight of recent media attention (source):

It is triggered by a low rep player who is also either a very young player, or a young player who can’t handle pressure very well playing an important role in a team that is overachieving.
It is resolved either by the player becoming more famous through playing well for the side, or by the team ceasing to overperform, or by the player being dropped for a while so they are no longer playing such an important role
If it isn’t resolved then the player’s morale will suffer so they won’t play as well in matches, won’t train as well, and potentially may even refuse to extend their contract.

WCA News Edition 5

2009-03-15T00:04:00.001Z

Brought to you in association with the Cloughite

Davos Utd Claim Charity Shield
Davos Utd and LetsTalkAboutCesc qualified for the Charity Shield Final. In a tight contest, goals in either half from centre half Fransico Fuents saw Mark Garner's Davos Utd retain the WCA Charity Shield.

Premiership Round Up
Perenial title challengers Cheechsters find themselves top of league with 36 points from 21 games, however with LetsTalkAboutCesc only 6 points behind and with the advantage of having only played 12 games this is likely to change between now and the end of the season. Also in the mix are last season's WCA Cup runners up Davos Utd with 25 points from 13 games. Surprise packages Grantchester Utd and Crystal Palliss are also in contention for UFFA qualification with 23 points from 12 games.

In the battle for the drop Jamtarts, Decca FC, Yeti FC and Redhill Travellers find themselves predicted for the bottom 4. Somewhat surprisingly last years Champions Band of Brothers as well as Silver Cup qualifiers Euclydian Dynamo and Papagaios Do Riot find themselves hovering above the drop zone.

Congratualtions to Wayne and his LTAC side as they won mover of the week. Also LTAC have become the WCA's first four star reputation team.

Championship Round Up
In a 4 way race for the title a Joe Cole inspired Brayzil find themselves top of the pile after 10 games with 23 points. With Team Extreme just 2 points behind on 21 points and followed closely by GA United on 20 points this title race looks as if it will go down to the wire -- Ballerinas on 16 points, but with 2 games in hand can't be discounted either.

UFFA News
Mainly bad news for the WCA. Gold Cup qualifiers Band of Brothers and Crimson Fists both found themselves eliminated at the group stage. Similarly in the Silver Cup - Cheechsters, Euclydian Dynamo and Papagaios Do Riot also faced the same disappointment.

In the Cup Winners Cup both Davos Utd and the Bushby Babes have been eliminated but LetsTalkAboutCesc have qualified for the last 16. In the UFFA Youth Competitions both Crimson Fists and LetsTalkAboutCesc have qualified from the initial stages.

Possible WCA Changes
The possibility of a WCA reserve league was discussed in the WCA chat room recently. If there is demand for this please let one of your organisers know. If you have any other suggestions on how to improve our FA - don't be shy.

Union of Football Academies Season 4 Roundup

2009-03-12T12:48:00.006Z

Division 1
Wymondham FC regained the UFA title after 2 seasons in the shadow of Faversham Town, and did so in emphatic style, finishing on 88 points, 12 clear of last season's champions. Lenny Bernstein's Wandsworth Rovers were the surprise package of the season, claiming third spot with 67 points ahead of Relegation Fodder and Phantoms, both on 63.

At the bottom of the table Pompey PFC, Ragnarok FC and Tycoons Gunners found themselves a little out of their depth, managing just 9 wins between them and finishing 17 points away from safety.

UFA Division 1 Player of the Season: Thom Bjork - an average rating of 7.61, including 47 goals and 5 assists from his 31 appearances for Faversham Town.
UFA Division 1 Golden Boot: Thom Bjork - An amazing 47 goals in 31 appearances for Faversham Town.
UFA Division 1 Golden Gloves: Leonardo Viera - 15 clean sheets in 30 appearances for Wandsworth Rovers.

Division 2
Hammers United FC claimed the Division 2 title with a 9 point lead at the top of the table, Waukesha 1834 and Sporting Nelson Cuevas claimed the two other promotion spots with a chasing pack of Huish FC and Team Awesome FC narrowly missing out on promotion by only 2 points.

UFA Division 2 Player of the Season: Norbert Angyal - an average rating of 7.38, including 24 goals and 4 assists from his 27 appearances for Hillsboro'.
UFA Division 2 Golden Boot: Danny Hoesen - 28 goals in 32 appearances for Sporting Nelson Cuevas.
UFA Division 2 Golden Gloves: Alex Smithies - 13 clean sheets in 32 appearances for title winners Hammers United FC.

UFA Challenge Cup
Faversham Town & Hammers United met in a final that saw Division 1 runners up face Division 2 champions. Division 1 player of the season Thom Bjork underlined his excellent campaign with a hatrick to seal a second UFA League and Cup double for Faversham Town.

Two goals in 4 minutes from Bjork, just after the half hour mark saw Faversham take a commanding lead, but on the stroke of half time Danny Groves powered home a shot from the edge of the area to give the Hammers hope for the second half. Bjork effectively sealed the vitory for Faversham in the 66th minute completing a swift Faversham counter attack to claim his hatrick.

Hammers' fans may feel slighty aggrevied by the result as it was a much more closely balanced game than the scoreline woudl suggest, but with promotion to Division 1 already secured they will have their chance to avenge this defeat in the league next season.

UFA Super Cup
The UFA Super Cup saw the best teams from last season meet in this prestigous cup competition. Relegation Fodder met last season's runners up Wymondham FC in a forgetful final. Wymondham didn't manage a shot on target over the 90 minutes, and their famed rock solid defense nullified the threat of the Fodder's front 3 of Bernardi, Lima Ferreira and Teixeira.

In fact it was a defender that settled the match, with just 6 minutes left on the clock and extra time looming large substitute Sebastien Parodi, who had only been on the pitch 10 minutes, headed in a Gamboa corner to seal a victory that will be long remembered by Fodder fans, even if they'd rather forget the match itself.

UFA U19 Division 1
This season saw the UFA expand into under 19 competition for the first time and it proved to be an exciting addition to the organization. At the top of the table Relegation Fodder and The Birmingham Bearded Women fought took the title race to the final day of the season.

David Parker's Relegation Fodder went into their final two games of the season knowing they had to win both to stand a realistic chance of securing the title, but they would stillbe reliant on BBW dropping points. Their 5-1 thrashing of Phantoms and a 4-0 defeat of Faversham Town gave meant that BBW would need to claim maximum points from their final four games of the season to secure the title. A 4-0 win against Faversham Town was followed by a narrow 2-1 victory over Steaua Radoi Bucharesti, but in their penultimate game of the season Cat Vegas' team failed to break down Damaged FC's 10 man defense and their title dream was over.

UFA U19 Division 1 Player of the Season: Fabio Bernardi - an average rating of 7.66, including 35 goals and 8 assists from his 32 appearances for champions Relegation Fodder.
UFA U19 Division 1 Golden Boot: Fabio Bernardi - 35 goals in 32 appearances for Relegation Fodder.
UFA U19 Division 1 Golden Gloves: Branislav Momcilovic - 16 clean sheets in 34 appearances for Wandsworth Rovers.

Deflation at Record High

2009-03-10T17:25:00.001Z

Rob Cooper announced today the findings of the UFFA's economic review concluding that, as of mid-February, the Player Price Index is facing deflation of 58%.

Transfer Desirability
All players in the game world have a ‘transfer desirability.’ This is a score between 1 and 10 which determines how ‘good’ the player is, based on their ability, perceived potential and their world reputation. Whenever a player is transferred their transfer desirability at the time is stored along with all the other details which include transfer fee, date and the acquisition fee of the player at the time of the transfer.

Market Value
To calculate Market Value (MV) for players we get the details of all the transfers (private deals, auctions and exchanges) that have taken place in the last year (28 days, real time). We then give each of these transfers a weighting based on how recent they are, so more recent transfers will be given higher weighting than older ones. Once we have the list we remove the top and bottom 5% (in terms of fee) to avoid any erroneous transfers upsetting MV. This leaves us with a weighted list of all the transfers that have taken place in the last year.

We are then able to divide up the transfers according to the aforementioned transfer desirability score so we can get at just the transfers amongst players with the same transfer desirability as the player we are calculating MV for. Because we store both the AF of the player and the fee when each player is sold we can calculate the difference, on average, between AF and transfer fee for all transfers that match this player’s transfer desirability. From this we can calculate a basic MV for the player in question e.g. if the average 8/10 player is being sold for 2x his AF then we can simply double this player’s AF to get his MV.

Age and Position
That is nice to know, but we aren’t done yet. In order to get more reliable MV information we go back to our weighted transfers and divide them up by age and by the best position of the player. Once we know what the typical difference is between AF and transfer fee for a player of his transfer desirability rating, age and best position we have a final inflation score for this type of player. We then take this and multiple the AF by this score to come up with MV.

The Player Price Index
Ok, and relax! We now know pretty much how MV is calculated and so, we are now ready to look into how we calculate player value inflation. As discussed above we calculate inflation values based on transfer desirability, age and best position – there are of course only so many combinations of these and every player must fit into one of these combinations. Using this we create a ‘Player Price Index’ which is similar to the Retail Price Index used by the government in the UK to measure inflation.

The way we construct this price index is to come up with an average FML team and give each of the aforementioned combinations of transfer desirability, age, and position a weighting based on how likely a player of that type is to appear in the squad. Once we have this we simply look at the inflation value for each type of player, multiply it by the weighting and add all the scores together. This will give us the current cost, in the market, to buy an ‘average’ FML team. By comparing the Player Price Index (PPI) at different points over time we are able to calculate inflation or deflation in player prices over that period. Typically, the period we look at is 28 days, which corresponds to a year in game time and so gives us an annual inflation rate.

Pazzini Completes Fields' Transfer

2009-03-09T23:15:00.003Z

Giampaolo Pazzini completed a £2'000'000 private transfer to Strawberry Fields F.C. today, bringing to an end his 2 season stint at Relegation Fodder.

Pazzini had previously been on loan at Strawberry Fields, and manager Craig MacLean has decided to take up the £2m option to make the move permanent. Despite his goals, the relationship between Pazzini and his old club could be described as strained at best. Doubts over this commitment and workrate have plagued the Italian superstar's time at the club and his crucial penalty miss in the last minute of the XEFA Championship title showdown with FC Cornelius in season 4 will be seen by many as his lasting legacy at the club.

WCA News Edition 4

2009-03-07T13:02:00.001Z

UFFA Qualifiers
Representing the WCA in the UFFA Competitions this season are:

Gold Cup: Band of Brothers, Crimson Fists
Silver Cup: Cheechsters, Papagaios do Riot and Euclydian Dynamo
Cup Winners Cup: Davos United, LetsTalkAboutCesc and Bushby Babes
Youth: LetsTalkAboutCesc and Crimson Fists

Everybody at the WCA News wishes all the competitors the best of luck! It's about time the WCA made some kind of impact.

Player of the Season Awards
In the inaugral WCA Managers Player of the Season awards there were few shocks.

LetsTalkAboutCesc's young striker Marek Matusiak was a double winner carrying off the WCA Young Player of the Season award (70% of the vote) as well as the Championship Player of the season (77.8% of the vote).

The Premiership award was shared by Band of Brothers player's Yossi Benayoun and Matuzalem (36.4% of the vote each)

League Reconstruction
Due to the number of members who were decanted off to the newly formed Casual Inactive Football Association (CIFA), the WCA was left with only 33 members.

The WCA orgs found them up untill the small hours playing around with possible league programmes. (Well this one at least) It was decided with the help of the GW Mods that the best solution would be a Premier League of 18 teams, followed by a Championship with 15.

The teams promoted from the Championship were: - LetsTalkAboutCesc, Bushby Babes, Redhill Travellers, Yeti FC, Crystal Palliss and Caspers Shockers. The Championship's remaining teams + the relegated PL teams were amalgamated with those remaining League 1 sides.

We also welcome a new member to the Championship in Owen Churchill manager of Spudders United.

Pre-Season Transfer News
There is still not much transfer activity taking place at the moment, hopefully this will begin to improve over the coming season.

There were a few major transfers in the Premiership. Firstly Davos United made Damian Ismales loan deal permanent in a swap deal worth £450k which saw Ji Sung Park move in the opposite direction.

Three of the newly promoted teams also strengthened, Redhill Travellers signed Tim Cahill (33) for £595k in a wage auction. Pablo Zabaletta joined Bushby Babes for £450k. Lastly Crystal Palliss were the most active with 2 major transfers with Simon Vukevic (£350k) and Sidnei (£650k) moving to the Championship's runner up.

Down in the Championship there were some big spenders as some experienced players were added to squads in the battle for promotion. Brayzil signed the talented Joe Cole for £600k. Sreinsham United signed Steven Pienaar for £800k, but the biggest spenders were jAgarna spending in total a whopping £4,300,000 on three players; Guisppe Rossi (£1.2million), Yury Zhirkov (£825k) and Sergio Ramos (£2.3 million).

Season 5 Kicks Off

2009-03-06T15:14:00.005Z

The new season got off to an exciting start with the 20:01 kick off in the NUFA League One fixture between Wakey's Wanderers and Jock Horrors.

Horrors' took the lead on 23 minutes when Slepicka's shot took a cruel deflection off defender Tonel, giving Wanderers' goalkeeper Alberto Becerra no chance. Just before half time Jock Horrors had an opportunity to go two up from the penalty spot after Hassell's foul on Luciano Leguizamon but Diguinho put his spot kick well wide.

Wanderers' equalizer came in the 74th minute when Galvao grabbed his first of the game after Horrors' failed to clear a corner kick properly. The scores were only level for 10 minutes before a decisive Jock Horrors' counter-attack down the left saw Manno cross for Bajter to head his team back into the lead with only 5 minutes to go.

The lead lasted less than a minute though, with Wanderers' scoring from kick-off in a free flowing move of top quality. The goal was avoidable though -- Pekarik had a chance to clear, but his header only fell to Galvao who blasted the ball home from just 6 yards out.

Horrors' manager THC Debonair will be left wandering what could have been following the penalty miss that would have put his team two up on the stroke of half time, and then seeing his team switch off after taking the lead with only 5 minutes left on the clock to allow Wanderers' to steal a point.

King Krimson To Defend Title

2009-03-05T12:20:00.007Z

XEFA Organisers have decided to allow current UFFA Gold Cup holders King Krimson to defend their trophy despite Rafael Popovic's decision to move to the AEFA this season, it had looked likely that Rafa's team would not be present in the competition to defend their title.

The decision means that King Krimson will take one of the XEFA's three allocated Gold Cup places in the coming season, leaving only two current XEFA members taking part in the competition -- whilst Krimson's new federation, the AEFA, will be represented by four teams.

UFFA competition places are allocated to federations to award to teams how they see fit -- usually if a team were to leave a federation they would face sacrificing any UFFA competition qualification place they earned in the previous season as federation organisers have proved unwilling to provide one of their UFFA allocation to a team that has left their federation; an approach seen by some as an attempt to dissuade the top teams from moving to rival federations.

After initially informing Rafa that his place in next season's Gold Cup would be forfeited if he moved to the AEFA, XEFA chiefs have now distanced themselves from that position stating 'Common-sense prevailed' after including King Krimson their UFFA allocation for the season.

XEFA Gold Cup Qualifiers:

Duelling Dragons FC
King Krimson
ZenEagles

Media Deals Agreed

2009-03-04T20:01:00.009Z

Media deals for the coming season were announced today, with over £675 million on the table in total, less than last years' £681.2 million media package. This year saw a four way tie for the top media deal, with the PFA, XEFA, AEFA and NFA all agreeing a deal worth £1.11m per club, however this represented a fall in media income of 0.05m per club for the XEFA.

The SFA benefitted most from the renegotiated media deals, agreeing a deal worth an extra £0.06m per club over last seasons' deal.

Overall UFFA membership has grown by 18 teams since last season, and for the first time there are official stats available indicating the number of inactive teams (for four weeks or longer) in the union. At the start of the season these inactive teams account for 19% of all union members.

Federation	Members	Media Deal	Per Club
PFA	46 (-25)	£51.1m	£1.11m (+0.04)
XEFA	79 (--)	£87.7m	£1.11m (-0.05)
AEFA	80 (--)	£88.8m	£1.11m (+0.05)
NFA	21 (-11)	£23.3m	£1.11m (+0.02)
MFA	27 (-2)	£29.2m	£1.08m (--)
XFA	58 (-17)	£62.1m	£1.07m (-0.03)
SFA	37 (-21)	£38.5m	£1.04m (+0.06)
CWA	57 (-3)	£59.3m	£1.04m (-0.03)
EEFA	25 (-24)	£26m	£1.04m (+0.04)
SEFA	39 (-3)	£39.8m	£1.02m (-0.09)
WCA	34 (-22)	£33.3m	£0.98m (-0.10)
CIFA	125 (+125)	£119m	£0.95m (n/a)
NUFA	21 (+21)	£18.8m	£0.90m (n/a)
TOTAL	649 (+18)	£676.9m (-4.3)	£1.06m (-0.04)

WCA Season Review

2009-03-02T20:03:00.004Z

The Cups

The Premiership Cup Final - Crimson Fists 3 Whisp R.O.L FC 2 AET
A cracking game saw Crimson Fists come out on top. Crimson raced into an early 2-0 lead with 2 goals after 11 minutes. Whisp pulled 1 back after 18 mins. On the stroke of half time the Whisps equalised, the second half was goal less. Which meant extra time! Just as it looked like we would face the heart ache of a penatly shoot out, Whisps got a corner. From the corner Gary's Crimson Fists launched a lightning counter attack, Naismith fed Silva who showed remarkable composure to chip the advancing keeper for his second goal of the game and the Crimson Fists first major trophy .

Non Premiership Cup Final - LetsTalkAboutCesc 1 Bushby Babes 0 AET
A somewhat cagey affair with the less fancied Bushby Babes pushing LTAC all the way. No goals after 90 minutesmeant extra time. Merida floated in a free kick, Micah Richards unleashed a half volley, 1-0 and thats how it finished. LetsTalkAboutCesc had their first trophy of the season and a place in the UFFA Cup Winners Cup.

WCA Cup Final - Band of Brothers 2 Davos Utd 0
In an open game the BoBs came out on top. A goal in either half from Danny Swanson saw the BoBs go into a 2-0 lead. Despite Davos creating plenty of chances they couldn't convert any of them into goals. The BoBs could even afford to miss a penalty in the 86th minute, 4 minutes later the frustration got to Davos defender Lance Laing and he was sent off in the 90th minute. Davos finished the gamewith 5 up front as they desperatley tried to make a break through but the BoBs stayed strong and the Cup was theirs for the second time in their short history.

The Leagues

Champions:

Premiership: Bandof Brothers
Championship: LetsTalkAboutCesc
League 1: Evro Utd

LetsTalkAboutCesc ended up finishing 23 points clear in the Championship. With 3 more automatic promotion places up for grabs it was an incredibly tight finish. Only 5 points split 2nd from 6th -- Crystal Pallice, Bushby Babes, Redhill Travellers and Yeti FC With a few decisions still to be made on some Premiership teams that have left the UFFA it may be that all of these valiant competitors gain promotion.

The Premiership as predicted went right to the wire! With one game to go both Crimson Fists and Band of Brothers were level on points although the BoBs had a slighty better goal difference. The BoBs kicked off their final game against Euclyidian Dynamo knowing that a win would virtually settle the title. ED took the lead and then went on to miss a penalty to put them 2-0 up! The BoBs won a penalty themselves and levelled the game at 1-1. ED again took the lead and in desperate circumstances the BoBs threw 4 up front. Luckily the tactic worked and 2 quick goals saw them take a 3-2 lead, knowing that the Crimson Fists still had to play Hamilton 1961 the BoBs fought bravely to secure the win. As predicted the Crimson Fists beat Hamilton but could not score enough goals so the BoBs were champions for the first time (double winners).

Brilliant runs of form saw Cheechsters and Papagaios do Rio grab 3rd and 4th place and the UFFA spots go with them . A slightly disappointing end to the season for Euclydian Dynamno drop to 5th but still qualify for the silver cup. 6th and 7th went to our two Cup runners up - Whisp and Davos, in a positive for them due to Crimson Fists and BoBs being in the Gold Cup both sides should qualify alongside LTAC in the CWC.

Relegation Issues - In a dogfight at the bottom of the Premiership Robs Decca side did drag themselves out. The unfortunate 4 were Nitros, Highbury United, Hamilton 1961 and Welwyn Wanderers. In terms of relegation from the Championship some issues are still undecided and could be affected by possible league reconstruction.

NFA Season Review - Youth Competitions

2009-03-02T19:57:00.004Z

NFA Youth League

Scott Problems' Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek managed to defend his Youth League title this season comfortably, finishing the season 12 points clear of the chasing pack. The real battle was for second place in this league, with Dynamo Dragons, led by Jonathan Ditcher, pipping Dave Parrett's Hammers United FC by a single point at the end of the season.

This season's player of the season was, by some distance, Mario Balotelli of Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek. In his final season at underage level Balotelli managed 33 goals in just 19 appearances, and consistently put in top-notch performances all season long.

The goal of the season meanwhile goes to this thunderbolt volley from Jorge Obregón of Oracle.

NFA Youth Cup

In the Youth Cup Scott Problems' Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek emerged victorious with a 3-1 win over Dave Parrett's Hammers United FC in the final. This confirmed Scott's men as the top youth team in the history of the NFA as they toppled the defending champions to claim the youth double!

The player of the tournament was Gil Blumstein of Spartaq Sedgley who put in a number of top-notch performances in his team's run to the Quarter Final.

The award for goal of the tournament goes to this excellent strike from Sandecja Nowy Sacz Márcio, as he picked up the loose bal in his own half, powered through the middle of the park and showed great composure to slot the ball coolly into the net.

NFA Season Review - Cup Competitions

2009-03-02T19:54:00.004Z

UFFA World Youth Cup

As well as completing the youth double at home in the NFA, Scott Problems' Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek flew the flag for the association by reaching the final of the World Youth Cup. Despite having the better of the match, Problems' men succumbed to a narrow 1-0 defeat against 4ytry of The Social Football Association in the final, and while we are all disappointed that they didn't get their hands on the trophy we acknowledge tha fantastic achievement that being a runner-up represents. Congratulations to Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek and to Scott!

UFFA Gold Cup

The final of the UFFA's most prestigious competition also saw an NFA representetive take part. This time it was Vasco Nunes' Dragon team but, like in the World Youth Cup, they were unable to overcome their opponents and were defeated by King Krimson FC of the Xtreme Evening Football Association. Again the NFA side were by far and away the superior team, dominating the match but failing to capitalise on their superiority in 90 minutes. While pushing for the wing in extra time Vasco's boys were caught out and eventually lost 2-0. Their performance in the tournament is nothing to be ashaed of however, and Dragon team are a credit to the NFA!

UFFA Silver Cup

Meanwhile in the Silver Cup there was better news for the NFA as Jonathan Ditcher's Dynamo Dragons lifted the trophy to become the first NFA representetives to get their name on the cup. It took extra-time for the Dragons to come out on top against Sloane Square Rangers, but they showed great character and nerve to survive a sending off and emerge victorious. We here at the NFA are extremely proud of this amazing achievement, and we wish to congratulate Jonathan and his team on their wonderful success!

Here's to even more success for the NFA in future UFFA competitions!

NFA Cup

This season's NFA Cup went to Jamie Cook's Chester Rats, who defeated James Harrison's Alrewas Athletic 2-1 in an all-Premiership clash. Indeed, having finished just 3 points behind Alrewas in the league, Jamie's boys will take consolation in knowing that they managed to defeat their rivals and bring some silverware home to Jamie Cook Stadium. Congratulations to Jamie and his squad!

The player of the tournament award goes to Alrewas Athletic defender Joseph Yobo, who not only played every game but also managed 3 goals from set-pieces to fire his team into the final.

The goal of the tournament also goes to an Alrewas Athletic player, with this fantastic volley from Gelson Fernandes being the pick of the finishes by some distance:
Gelson Fernandes's Goal.

NFA Non-Premiership Cup

The best of the rest this season goes to the deactivated Carter FC, as they defeated Rumi Nazgul's Se SK by 3 goals to 1 in the final. While it's a shame that Carter FC managed the Championship and Non-Premiership Cup double, Nazgul's men did the NFA proud in getting to the final and putting up a brave fight, so we at the Gazette congratulate them!

The player of the tournament however was without a doubt Wayne Rooney of Sandecja Nowy Sacz who managed an astonishing 7 goals in the 6 games played. His fantastic form throughout the tournament was unlucky not to be rewarded with a medal, but the England striker did net the goal of the tournament with this outrageous 40-yard lob:
Wayne Rooney's Goal

NFA Weekly Challenge #1

James Harrison's Alrewas Athletic's astonishing season began when they picked up the first silverware of the season by winning the first weekly challenge. A 3-1 victory over Vasco Nunes' Dragon team saw them lift the trophy which was the beginning of their most successful season ever.

NFA Weekly Challenge #2

Vasco Nunes' Dragon team showed great determination and character to bounce back from their final defeat in the first challenge to lift the Weekly Challenge #2 trophy. In an all-Portuguese final Vasco's men beat Jorge Nunes' All BiDoNs Fc in a tight 2-1 affair, with Dragon team only winning in extra-time following a 1-1 draw after 90 minutes.

NFA Weekly Challenge #3

Alrewas Athletic were back on top of the pile after their victory in the third weekly challenge this seaosn. A 3-2 victory over Scott Problems' Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek saw them lift the trophy and take the £100,000 prize, with Joseph Yobo knockimg in 2 of the goals.