Autumn has come to Sweden, it is soon getting too cold to go outside for a smoke (or maybe I need to put on more clothes than my Y-fronts while sitting here playing ML - try getting rid of those pictures in your brain  ).

 

As you can imagine, I'm getting grumpier by the day and it will soon be time for another cup. And if my memory haven't failed me completely I owe some credits from the last cup as well (I believe Bozo the clown does too, but he probably spent it on XXXX). So if there is enough people interested I'll create a 64-team credit free cup and throw in 100 credits in prizes next season. Hopefully some drunken old grumpies will follow my lead and rid themselves of some credits too and we will have a great cup with loads of winners. 

 

What do you say, is there any interest for such a cup?

 So finally, by popular demand, Ratty has his own Facebook profile:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001627240246

 The official list of prizes for this seasons Grumpy Cup!

 

Winner: 80 credits

RunnerUp: 50 credits

Loosing semifinalists: 30 credits (*2 = 60)

Loosing quarterfinalists: 15 credits (*4 = 60)

Loosing round 3: 5 credits (*8 = 40)

Total = 290 credits

 

Top goalscorer = 12

Best Performer = 12 (need help on analysis)

Beat Sir Tulloch = 5

Beat TanTheMan = 5

Beat kbvall = 5

Total = 39

 

Special Prize - The Grumpiest Manager = 21 credits

(decided by Rational and Kris10an)

 

 

Total prizes from Rational = 350 credits

 

Other prizes:

Nice of you to move your cup Mr. Stordal 

Prizes:
* Winner - 10 credits
* Winner is not 1.div - 50 credits
* Runners up - 5 credits
* Runners up not 1.div - 20 credits
* If your team is so unfortunate to get beaten by Ratty or Looserboys I will compensate the bad moral with 2 credits.
* If you beat the kittens I will give you 5 credits. If you manage to kick the shitt outta them and win by 3 or more goals I will up that to 10 credits.
* I guess Ratty will have a special grumpy price and I will contribute to that prize with anoter 10 credits.

No donations to your shitty cup Ratty, only prizes.


Sir Tulloch

 

 

 

 

Rational

 

 And that makes me grumpy! And it doesn't make it better that it takes way more time for us, the older generation, to learn the 'New ML'. Kids are flying past me in the league-table, and there is nothing I can do about it. And look to the Norwegian div1....Jeezez!

 

Anyhow: www.managerleague.com/ml/showthread.pl

 

I and at least a few others believe that custom cups are one of the main features of ML. It gives us the possibility to play teams we would not play normally, and chat with managers we would not meet otherwise.

I suggest that Fifth Season implements 'No pain - No gain' custom cups where there is no fitness loss, no injuries, no gains, no morale drop/increase, no income and no prizes. This way we could have more manager to manager interaction without disturbing the game. The cups coul be played whenever the creator wants it to be played (save ofcourse for the specific ML-times of training and matches). It could of course cost, say a couple of creds to create these, and you'll have some income from it too.

 

I find it hard to see any flipsides to this suggestion except from perhaps the time spent implementation/testing. On the other hand I strongly believe this would lead to a more live community and more interest for ML itself.

First of all, I have now become used to the new look. However, there are several things I believe could be changed to the better. Some of these items I have stolen from different threads in the forum, others I have actually thought of myself, believe it or not.

First of all the custom cups:

- The kick button needs to be re-implemented....NOW

- Q-limits should not apply to the creator of the cup. It is called custom cups, as in the setup is customized. So let those who creates (and pays) for the cup set the rules for the cup themselves!

- Do not show the setup for the next round before you have seen the result of the current round.

 

The TeamSetup page:

- The formations (still there are far too few of them) should be displayed as they are on the field. In the future I hope that we have the possibility to choose 3-2-3-2 as a formation. Then we need to have a proper graphical lay-out of the formations. The way they are displayed today makes it easy to believe that the formation is quite different from what you choosed.

- When selecting captain etc you shouldn't have to drag a player from the 'field'. A dropdownlist with the selectable players would probably be the best solution, while keeping the drag and drop as a option (also from playerlist, not only the field)

- Fitness shown on the field for each player would make it easier to select the team while playing those darned boring friendlies (when will this madness stop??)

 

Information Cards (popping up while hovering)

- There should be an option to turn these off, perhaps with different settings per page, ie at the general page you want them off, while on other teams' pages you want them to appear, and likewise in the table section.

 

Gains and performance

- It seems team training gaining has increased. Will we end up with div1 teams with Q95 avg and 99 avg in team training?

- Individual gaining is slower, and that is a good thing. However I still think most gains should come from training. Today I still haven't seen much gaining from training. Friendly-gaining is slower. But cup-games gives almost nothing at all. It is almost as friendlies gives more atts than cupgames, anyone else experienced this?

- Performance of keepers and defenders seems to be adjusted a tad bit. I believe it should be adjusted even more as I find it hard to believe that middies and strikers always have higher avg performace than defenders and keepers through a season...

 

Medic center and Lawyers

- Why on earth have these under 'stadium' instead of under 'employees'?? I cannot see the logic (yeah, I've heard it's an 'upgrade', but still....)

 

General

- I mostly use my laptop when playing. This means huge amounts of scrolling, and during my time on Dev before 2.0 was launched, I missed out on much information due to fact that it was further down on the page. Spinner says this is now a design which gives you more the 'game' feeling, and less internet-feeling. Well....design it so that we don't have to scroll as much in the game as we have to when reading a newspaper on the Internet!

- Why do you have to go to your 'public' teampage to view certain things about your team? I fail to see the logic here as well....

- Those who choose to add the transfer threads to their favourites, should see them on the frontpage as well

- My gut-feeling tells me that Fifth-season has made a bad decision spending so much time on a new design vs spending more time on the functionality. I believe (of course I do not have the correct figures) that many of the managers who have been paying real money for this game has either quit already, or is struggling with motivation at the moment. At the same time, it seems the younger generation who plays this game for free without buying credits, are ravishing fans of the new design....

Let the coming updates be of the kind that improves the depths of the game, not the shallow design and colours and nice pictures.

The 'new' ML is here. With all the new graphic solutions and design, this is making those of us who have passed the 'best before date' even grumpier. So I thought I would make a new Grumpy Old Men cup. As usual this event is for those who were born before the Berlin wall fell, and I hope that even though the world has faced some tough financial times lately, there are still some credits out there that can be donated to this good cause. I'll create the cup, but in order to have the cheap ol' bastards join, we need huge prizes to lure them with. So all you bitter old managers out there, join in and let the credits flow!

 

(More information can be found in the Cup Talk thread in the Common Forum

Result	Credits	Total
Winner (incl ML-prize)  - Veritas et Aequitas	80	64+16ML
Runner-Up    - CzarneKoszule	40	40
Semi-Finalists   - Kaisers Angels/The Evil Looking Clowns	15	30
Quarter-Finalist  - Aggoreta, Solberg, The Evil Empire, Sydney Wednesday FC	5	20

Special Prizes (Beat…)	Credits	comment
Dynamo DDR -Dave Basset   - Lavras City	10	To be payed by Blodstrupmoen
Veritas et Aequitas - Mycroft - None	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
RationalXI - Rational - Panjevi	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Sydney Wednesday FC - Kew Almighty  - Veritas et Aequitas	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
petandro peres FC - Kung Pedro  - Sunrise FC	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Popular Front of Judea - Sir_Bignose - Kaisers Angels	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Pubkameratene - Barkeeper - CS Cisme Rupte	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Nabolaget - Lardonio  - Rothes Undone	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Kaizers Angels - Mr. Kaizer  - Veritas et Aequitas	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Solberg - Ferdinand  -  The Evil Looking Clowns	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Notodden FK - Mr Stordal  - Veritas et Aequitas	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Blackpool - Sir Lance  -  Solberg	5	To be payed by Rational
Corfebol - Turcas  - Malajonny United	5	To be payed by Rational
SamvirkeIaget - Katchoo - SC Latsabban	5	To be payed by Rational
a lower div team beats a div 1 team (x10)	50	To be payed by Rational
Reservoir Dogs - Kaiser Soze - Czarnekoszule	5	To be payed by Rational
The Evil Empire - Lord AC   - CzarneKoszule	5	To be payed by Rational
CzarneKoszule - Ny1900 - Veritas et Aequitas	5	To be payed by Rational
Special 'kick Lardonios @ss' prize, courtesy of GasseLasse - Rothes Undone	20	To be payed by Rational
Extra 'kick VeAs ass like Rational did' award  - None	7	To be payed by Rational
Best excel statistics 'The Bozo Prize'  - Bozo	25	To be payed by Rational

15 more creds have been donated, will go to the team that beat The Big Cats, The Evil looking clowns and Ssteaua.  -  (The Big Cats chickened out), Sydney Wednesday FC and CzarneKoszule wins 5 each

There are 14 results where a div 1 team was beaten by a lower division-team:

petandro peres FC

1 / 1

Sunrise FC

2 / 2

0 - 6

Team Labbetuss

2 / 1

Azulas

1 / 1

6 - 0

SV Wunderland

1 / 1

The Go Team

3 / 12

0 - 4

LOST

1 / 1

SC Latsabban

3 / 5

1 - 2

Il Team Gigante

1 / 1

The Best Playing

2 / 4

0 - 1

Team Labbetuss	2 / 1	FC Wombat	1 / 1	9 - 8
INDEPENDIENTE SANTA FE	1 / 1	DreamTeam Utd	2 / 2	0 - 2

Mestrica

1 / 1

Seierherrene FK

3 / 14

2 - 3

SamvirkeIaget

1 / 1

SC Latsabban

3 / 5

3 - 5

Himmelsblått

1 / 1

Notodden Fotballklubb

2 / 1

4 - 7

Popular Front of Judea

1 / 1

Kaizers Angels

2 / 2

2 - 4

Seierherrene FK

3 / 14

Kopytko

1 / 1

1 - 0

Kaizers Angels

2 / 2

Argentinean KneeBreaKers

1 / 1

4 - 0

Kaizers Angels

2 / 2

Agorreta FC

1 / 1

8 - 5

Sunrise gets 5 creds
Team Labbetuss gets 10 creds
The Go Team gets 5 creds
SC Latsabban gets 10 creds
The Best Playing gets 5 creds
Dreamteam Utd gets 5 creds
Seierherrene gets 10 creds
Notodden gets 5 creds
Kaizers Angels gets 15 creds

Team Performance	Credits	Winner
Highest team performance  (min 3 games)	20	CzarneKoszule
Second Highest PF (min 3 games)	10	Kaizers Angels
Lowest Team PF (one game)	10	Sixth Season
Highest Team performance (one game)	10	Kaizers Angels
Most scored goals (one game)	10	Kaizers Angels
Most scored goals (tournament)	20	Veritas et Aequitas
Least disciplinary points (yellow 1, red 3) (avg per game)	10	Veritas et Aequitas
Biggest defeat	5	Sixth Season
The Grump (most disciplinary points)	5	INDEPENDIENTE SANTA FE
Most Shots on target (avg per game)	10	Liverpool No 1
Most Chances (avg game)	10	Liverpool No 1
Most Corners (avg game)	10	SSteaua
Low div team in round 4 (x3)	30	Ringnesklanen, Kaisers Angels, Seierherrene

Individual Performance	Credits	Winner
Best player (min 3 games)	20	Panjevi Arturo Manuzio
Worst player (min 3 games)	5	CS Cizme Rupte Preda Constantin
Top scorer	20	Panjevi Arturo Manuzio, CzarneKoszule   Badoi Ion, Agorreta FC   Bobby Oh, Veritas et Aequitas   Katchy the Magnificent
most goals in a match	10	Ricfig FC Guilherme Rolando
Most man of the match	10
Worst PF goalie round 1 (Edda IL)	24	Michael Keriell of Kamma Hickstars  with 21 perfomance
Best PF GK  (min 3 games)	5	Odd Mørck CzarneKoszule PF 71.33333
Best PF DEF  (min 3 games)	5	Nicola Malajonny United PF 68.33333
Best PF MID  (min 3 games)	5	Kim Källström CzarneKoszule PF 79,75
Best PF ATT  (min 3 games)	5	Arturo Manuzio Panjevi PF 82,33
Best PF teenager (min 3 games)	10	Goes to Diambar Project
Best PF Old grumpy player (+35 years, min 3 games)	10	Arturo Manuzio Panjevi Age 36 PF 82,33

Veritas et Aequitas	121	- 106 Goes to ML-Africa, 15 from Notodden
CzarneKoszule	85	- 50 goes to Africa
Kaizers Angels	77	- 72 Goes to Africa - 5 from Mr Stordal
Sixth Season	10	- Goes to Africa
INDEPEDIENTE SANTA FE	5	- 3 creds to Africa
Liverpool No 1	20	- 10 to africa
SSteaua	10	- 5 Goes to Africa
Ringnesklanen	10	- Goes to Africa
Seierherrene	20	- Goes to Africa
Panjevi	45	- 12 Goes to Africa- 5 from Mr Stordal
CS Cisme Rupte	10	- 5 from Mr Stordal - All to Africa
Aggoreta	12	- Goes to Africa
Ricfig	10
Kamma Hickstars	24
Malajonny United	10	- Goes to Africa
The Evil Looking Clowns	20	- 5 from Mr Stordal - All to Africa
Solberg	10	- goes to africa
Sydney Wednesday	12	- 2 Goes to Africa
The Evil Empire	7	- Goes to Africa
Lavras City	10	- Goes to Africa - To be payed by Blodstrupmoen
Diambar (beat VeA, and The Big Cats)	17	- No winner
Sunrise FC	10	- 5 from Mr Stordal, 5 to Africa
Rothes Undone	25	- 20 Goes to Africa 5 from Mr Stordal
SC Latsabban	15	- Goes to Africa
Bozo	25	- Goes to Africa
Team Labbetuss	10
The Go Team	5
The Best Playing	5	- 2 creds goes to Africa
DreamTeam Utd	5	- Goes to Africa
Notodden	5	- Goes to Africa

(if I have missed any, please feel free to tell me so :p )               

The list of awards:

Result	Credits	Total
Winner (incl ML-prize)	80	64+16ML
Runner-Up	40	40
Semi-Finalists	15	30
Quarter-Finalist	5	20

Team Performance	Credits
Highest team performance  (min 3 games)	20
Second Highest PF (min 3 games)	10
Lowest Team PF (one game)	10
Highest Team performance (one game)	10
Most scored goals (one game)	10
Most scored goals (tournament)	20
Least disciplinary points (yellow 1, red 3) (avg per game)	10
Biggest defeat	5
The Grump (most disciplinary points)	5
Most Shots on target (avg per game)	10
Most Chances (avg game)	10
Most Corners (avg game)	10
Low div team in round 4 (x3)	30

Individual Performance	Credits
Best player (min 3 games)	20
Worst player (min 3 games)	5
Top scorer	20
most goals in a match	10
Most man of the match	10
Worst PF goalie round 1 (Edda IL)	24
Best PF GK  (min 3 games)	5
Best PF DEF  (min 3 games)	5
Best PF MID  (min 3 games)	5
Best PF ATT  (min 3 games)	5
Best PF teenager (min 3 games)	10
Best PF Old grumpy player (+35 years, min 3 games)	10

Special Prizes (Beat…)	Credits	comment
Dynamo DDR -Dave Basset	10	To be payed by Blodstrupmoen
Veritas et Aequitas - Mycroft	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
RationalXI - Rational	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Sydney Wednesday FC - Kew Almighty	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
petandro peres FC - Kung Pedro	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Popular Front of Judea - Sir_Bignose	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Pubkameratene - Barkeeper	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Nabolaget - Lardonio	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Kaizers Angels - Mr. Kaizer	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Solberg - Ferdinand	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Notodden FK - Mr Stordal	5	To be payed by Mr Stordal
Blackpool - Sir Lance	5	To be payed by Rational
Corfebol - Turcas	5	To be payed by Rational
SamvirkeIaget - Katchoo	5	To be payed by Rational
a lower div team beats a div 1 team (x10)	50	To be payed by Rational
Reservoir Dogs - Kaiser Soze	5	To be payed by Rational
The Evil Empire - Lord AC	5	To be payed by Rational
CzarneKoszule - Ny1900	5	To be payed by Rational
Special 'kick Lardonios @ss' prize, courtesy of GasseLasse	20	To be payed by Rational
Extra 'kick VeAs ass like Rational did' award	7	To be payed by Rational
Best excel statistics 'The Bozo Prize'	25	To be payed by Rational

15 more creds have been donated, will go to the team that beat The Big Cats, The Evil looking clowns and Ssteaua.
That gives us a grand total of 650 credits in prizes. In total 728 credits has been donated. The cup itself costs 128 credits, and RationalXI donated 50 creds.
Prone to errors, but my word is final and no objections will be sustained :p

One final word:
Managerleague and Fifth Season is sponsoring an african school, please read more here:
http://www.brann.managerleague.com/blogperma.pl?id=2360, ML-Africa

I hope that as many as possible of the winners will donate their credits to this good cause instead. I have already been told to donate the 'Bozo Prize', and if I should qualify for any award myself, that will go directly to the cause.

Good Luck and happy hunting!

And btw: if anyone else wish to add awards, please feel free to do so and publish it in the thread :)

After a few seasons playing ML I have grown steadily more and more bored by the way the players are developed. Today it is recommendable to you play the maximum amount of friendlies each season while putting your players on rest during the training sessions. For me, and I do believe it is the same for a number of ML managers, this has become a routine action between match and training: set up team based on fitness, send out / accept challenges, change line-up according to fitness, send out / accept challenges and so on until fitness is down to 89-92. What is the achievement? Gains are randomly (or at least they seem very random, chosen attribute to train does not seem to have an impact), fitness loss is based upon your own and not least your opponents tackles. For each home game you earn 250K, and you pay one credit. An away game doesn’t give you anything except the random gains. One positive effect of this system is the possibility for those who are playing the game for free to develop their players as well, or as SRXPsycho said: they feel they play in the same ballpark as those who buy credits. I am not going to focus on the differences between paying customers and free-riders here, I’ll leave that up to those with more in-depth knowledge of the financial models of ML. What I will suggest here is quite simply to create a new system for development of players, and I’ll try to give pros and cons to both today’s system and the system I’m proposing.
I’ll split the suggestion up in different parts, but remember that they are very much affected by each other, so try to look at it with a holistic view.

(Thanks for input goes to Charlie, Thales, Manny Calavera, Mycroft SRXPsycho and more.)

Trainers
Today you can choose trainers based on level up to ‘Excellent’. My suggestion is that instead of these levels, coaches are given attributes visible to the manager. These attributes influences the possibility for players to develop better. So the higher trainers attribute in Shooting, the easier a striker would develop in that attribute. “Well” you say, “this would only create alot of players with 99 in certain attributes and Q95 at the age of 25!” This is not correct as the development of an attribute would slow down as it climbs higher towards maximum. And when a player’s attribute surpasses the attribute of the trainer, it would become very hard to further develop it. And don’t forget that the Q is based on more than one attribute, and a trainer for attackers will be in charge for developing all the attributes, both main and the others, of an attacker.

Training
Today the training sessions is mostly used for resting your players. In my opinion training should be the main source of development of the players, and resting should be done between matches and training. So my suggestion is that we use the trainings to train and that fitness is regained after training. I believe that a manager should be able to decide how hard the training should be, perhaps on 4 different levels ranging from soft through medium and hard to Extreme. The fitness loss will increase in proportion to how hard the players train, but the gains will also increase proportionally. (This might be a good place to introduce an extra credit cost...but I’m not going to focus on that). Say that you have a League game at 1500 and a MLCL match at 1800, some of your players might have lost up to 6-8 fitness points. It might then be a good idea to have a soft training, just running around and play some 5 a side. This would cost an additional 1-2 fitness points, and your players would be fully fit again until the 0300 match (regain fitness/10 after training).    


Gains
Gains are probably the most talked-about issue in ML, perhaps even more than league placement and match-results. As it is today, most gains come from friendly games and it is random on which attribute a player gains. Why do we then have coaches? To bring them to a fancy hotel on Ibiza for our training camp? I’m not saying that the gains should be removed from the friendly-matches, I’m saying that the trainings should be the main source of the development of players. So during a training session, a player should gain in all attributes, and the amount gained should be based on a number of parameters: The attributes of the coach, the current attribute level of the player, the intensity of the training, the current fitness of the player, hidden stats like potential and (in lack of a better word) ability to learn. It should still be focus on one attribute at a time per player, making the player develop faster in that attribute compared to the others. “Wow” you say, “the players will gain in every attribute on every training?” Yes they will. However, you will not notice it every training as they only gain fractions in every attribute. The one that you focus on can give i.e. 0.178, while those you do not focus on might give 0.009 (please do not argue: those amounts can never be implemented! I know, they are examples only). The higher a players attribute is, the lower the amount of the gain each training. And if the players attribute is higher than the trainers, it will dramatically decrease. I do not have the solution for the formula, there are many people out there with better prerequisites than me for calculating that

Friendlies and teamstats
The amount of friendlies should be reduced to a much lower number. Perhaps maximum 25 during the season. These 25 matches should be used mainly to drill new formations and tactics, and they should have an influence on teamstats. “Why?” you scream, “they are only friendlies, the result doesn’t count”. No it doesn’t, but as you play friendlies and your team becomes more accustomed to the new tactics and formations, the team play and understanding will become better, and so will also your corner kicks and free kicks and offside trap etc etc. Friendlies are the way to go to train your defending tactics, and also your brilliant new attack plan  (the credit cost of a friendly could be the same or even increased, but I’m not focusing on that part here ) Even the trainer’s attributes should influence the Teamstats.

I think I’ll stop there and let this melt for a while. The main pros of this suggestion would be that the manager is more in control and that the boredom of 250 repetitive friendlies each season, be it you are a contributor of matches or the one waiting 5 minutes between the open challenges. The main cons are of course the complexity of the game; will new managers be able to understand the gameplay and will ‘older’ managers adopt to the changes? Also the issue of payment is a challenge, how should Fifth season be compensated and how should people playing the game for free be able to compete on fairly the same level as those who pay for the game? To give a quick answer: I don’t know! But I can give me initial thoughts here as well:

Game play complexity
Initially I do not believe that the new players will find the game more complex, the focus has just been changed from friendlies to trainings and for anybody not used to ML but to real football or many other manager games, trainings is the more logical place to develop players and teams. And the complexity around gains and how that is calculated, well most managers do not know that today and that will be the case with my suggestion as well. All you need to know is that the better the trainer, the better the development of the players (a bit simplified...).  Another Idea when it comes to trainers is to let those who pay have the possibility of an ‘advanced’ training, while those who do not pay, or do not wish for the extra complexity, will have the same UI as today with trainers at different levels only, no attributes shown.

Credit costs
For every open challenge accepted today there is a credit cost. This means that if we only have 10% of the friendly games left, the other 90% of the credits must be replaced by something else. And even those who only accept opens should have a possibility to train and develop their players. Trainers (the better the more expensive), intensity of training, physios, increased cost of training camps, increased cost of friendlies, and many more possibilities exists to make up for the loss of friendly credits. I’m quite certain that there are many managers out there capable of coming up with some very clever and creative ideas for how to replace the loss of income for Spinner & Co. I do not have a good solution to this, and I honestly do think that those paying should have advantages compared to those who do not. Manny Calevera came up with some ideas for how to distribute some credits amongst those not buying yesterday, I’m not sure if he has translated it to English as he wrote the initial thread in the Norwegian forum.
I am quite certain that this is the issue that will create the most havoc in here with thumbs up and down in all sorts of colours, but please: if you do not have anything to say, don’t say it! I would very much appreciate a discussion around these issues, but look at the whole, not just the details.

Feel free to leave your comments below, however try to be constructive, I hate the thumbs up or thumbs down or 'I didn't read it all but others leave a thump up, so I'll do that too' comments! Follow the discussion here:
http://www.managerleague.com/ml/showthread.pl?thread_id=50170
(THREAD: 50170)

Today you have the possibility to hire employees (Coaches, scouts, physios and janitor) based on the quality ranging from poor to excellent. My guess is that 90% of the managers hire those with quality excellent, and hence the use of employees somewhat disappear. My change request will therefore be:

* Add abilities to the employees (first of all to the coaches) similar to the way players have a set of a abilities. Make training efficiency dependent on these abilities.
* Have youth coaches, offensive coaches, defensive coaches , goalkeeper coaches, physical coaches and mental coaches (other can be considered as well). Picking the right coach for your team should depend on your football philosophy / tactics. For instance, a manager that prefers a continental playing style should choose coaches with high abilities within passing and creativity, while the physical coach might have high agility or balance in his set of attributes. Get where I'm going? :)
* The flipside to this as I see it is that this will make ML less attractive to new managers as it can become quite complicated. This is where the assistant manager pops out of the hat. If you choose to walt the easy path in life, you can let the assistant manager handle the signing of your employees.
* Implementation of this will of course demand more than just a couple of hours behind the laptop on a saturday evening with nothing but a romantic drama on the telly for Spinner, but the basics should already be there as there is an existing coach system and there is an existing player attribute system (man it sounds easy when I put it that way :) )

Feel free to comment :)

/Rational 24nov 2008

***Might be subject for updates/changes/deletions/what ever comes to mind***

At the moment I'm writing on a small change request list for ML based merely on my own opinions and ideas (ok, so I might 'steal' some suggestion that I like, but I'll try to give proper credits for it). I've not been a ML-manager for that long, started out around season 25, but during these months I've seen a few things I believe can be changed into something better. If you disagree.....tough luck, write your own damn blog ;)

I will try to update the blog as often as I can with new suggestions, but time flies and it'll soon be christmas and everything that brings of things that can remove focus from ML.

I'll start off by giving you the headlines of the coming change requests (lets see if I can live up to it, puts some pressure on me now, doesn't it?) :

Transfer System

Friendly System

Moral system

Coaches

That should keep me occupied for the rest of the year :)

Wish me luck! :P