England - The CM2 Story

2013-06-21 14:51#114482 Louis O. :

2013-06-19 20:03#114038 lets_play_CM2 : I thought the same, Blanc could only make the bench. I was disappointed in Seaman letting me down, only rated a 4 in that game.

Did you ever play CM2, Special One?

No he didn't, I'm his brother lol, and the first FM we had was FM11

Brothers you say, who's the better manager?

2013-06-21 16:58#114539 lets_play_CM2 :

2013-06-21 14:51#114482 Louis O. :

2013-06-19 20:03#114038 lets_play_CM2 : I thought the same, Blanc could only make the bench. I was disappointed in Seaman letting me down, only rated a 4 in that game.

Did you ever play CM2, Special One?

No he didn't, I'm his brother lol, and the first FM we had was FM11

Brothers you say, who's the better manager?

Him probably

England in Holland Euro 2000 - Qualification

Spain weren't the force they are now. We knew who Poland were we seemed to always be drawn with Poland. The others, well, even with only one qualifying spot available you would expect the losing World Cup finalists to qualify from that group.

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I had never been totally confident in our Goalkeeper David Seaman so I decided it was time to send him out to pasture. Walker and James had been given chances without impressing. I made the bold move and brought in a young Richard Wright.

Our team was evolving, I had retired David Seaman and was ignoring drunken phone calls from a 33yr old Paul Gascoigne begging for one more chance to impress. Out with the old and in with the new was becoming a theme, was our formation old?

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Disregarding the players in those formations, the differences between formation A and formation B are huge. It wasn't obvious to me at first but changing from WB's to FB's made a huge difference to our team.

Formation A asked too much of the WB's and we didn't have the right players for those roles. I was playing players out of position holding back their potential which ultimately was detriment to our capability.

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Our qualifying got off to a superb start until a small hiccup against Spain. They'd taken a 2 goal lead and we couldn't pull it back. Neither team dominated and it could and maybe should have finished a draw in fairness.

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Far worse than a qualifying defeat to Spain was the injury to David Beckham in the 71st minute. We'd lose him for 7 months and the remainder of our qualifying campaign.

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He had been a jet stream of fresh air to the team scoring 6 times in 8 appearances from midfield. His Average rating was almost record breaking and I couldn't believe our misfortune when I heard how serious his injury was.

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We finished the qualification for Holland with aplomb. Our confidence amongst the clouds, we simply couldn't wait to get started.

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You've messed up some of the coding there Never mind that, great update once again, nice new tactics and good work in the qualifying stages, unlucky with Becks' injury though

Damn coding, one tiny bit disappeared and the whole lot screws up, should be fixed now.

Thank you for your kind words, appreciated

England in Holland Euro 2000 - The Group Phase

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...and I couldn't wait to get started.

I was confident. I considered us genuine contenders for the trophy. I knew we were capable as we'd seen our potential in France.

Our first game had a touch of sentiment to it, Norway had been our opponents in my debut as England manager. The debut I lost to a Lars Bohinen inspired side. We'd had some revenge by winning the other tie during that World Cup qualification but they still topped the group forcing us in to a playoff.

It was our turn to draw first blood, 2 goals from our Knight Sir Alan and a third by our midfield General lay waste to a rather poor Norway.

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There was a golden boot award up for grabs before our next game against Scotland, but it would be hard to see past our star man Sir Alan after this hattrick. It was a perfect hattrick too. He nodded us in front, then tapped in with his left from 5yrds to make it two. He capped an almighty performance with a right footed rocket from the edge of the box. A strike so powerful the ball felt warm to the touch of Colin Hendry who collected it from the back of his goalkeepers net.

McManaman added one more to make it 4-0 at half time.

The cotton wool came out and Sir Alan became Sir Les. With 45 to play and 4 goals behind, most teams would succumb but the Scots didn't know the meaning of the word. The obligatory William Wallace battle cry had taken place, within minutes of the whistle they had honoured themselves, only to add a second soon after that. A formation change on my part nipped that in the bud, a 4-2 victory was sealed.

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Two games played and maximum points achieved. It was now time to seal it with a victory over Russia.

That victory turned out to be a 1-1 draw. It was a fair result, neither team turned up to be frank but only one would qualify.

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Well done, good win over the Scots

Cheers. A loss to Scotland would have ended the story. Not because I would not have qualified or that it was versus Scotland but because I was 4-0 up at half time. Can you imagine the shame.