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| I Came, I Saw, I Conquered... |
But now it's time to go home.
What am I on about now some will be asking. Well, after just over 3 months in charge of The Corleone Family, in which time the team and I have won the Hattrick League Cup and the Champions League, I have decided to leave the club and return to my old team, which is currently in the JC.
During my time with The Corleone Family I have never felt like the team was really mine and I found myself missing my old team; a team I took over when they were really crap, had no money and were sitting in the 7th Division.
Over more than 2 real time years I completely changed the squad and had a number of players on the 16/4 and 16/5 skill paths coming through the ranks. I put the team in a healthy financial position and was starting to climb the divisions. I was doing what I love most about this game - taking over rubbish teams and rebuilding them. I had done the hard part, but left before I could really reap the rewards. Well now I'm going back to finish what I started.
I have enjoyed my time with The Corleone Family and have managed to answer many of the questions I had about the game:
- Could I successfully manage a team at the top level?
- How good am I tactically?
- Could I compete with the best managers in the game?
- Is it really more difficult managing a team in the top flight than it is in the middle and lower divisions?
- Is it easier to get a really high rank with a top team than one in the lower divisions?
Many of the answers are open to debate, but here's what I've concluded up to now:
It seems I am actually capable of managing at the top level and quite successfully too. 2 trophies in the bag and I leave them at the top of the league. Obviously the team I took over was very strong so, as always, I have to credit the departed V1klund for building the team.
Tacical prowess is difficult to measure. My experience of playing in the top division tells me that there isn't any difference between the tactical quality of managers in the top division than there is in the 5th division. That may sound unlikely, but it's what I've noticed. The real difference comes in the Champions League. Some of the managers in there are pure quality. When I reached the knockout stages of the CL I was having to plan 4 or 5 games ahead so that I could play exactly the lineup, formation and tactics I wanted to in every game. That's not very easy because not only was I trying to figure out my own tactics that far ahead, but I also had to figure out what my opponents would do over the same amount of games.
A large part of this was down to the way I chose to play: I knew I couldn't compete with the best teams and managers in the game using 4-5-1 or 3-5-2 in every game so I had to change things around and make it difficult to predict how I would set up my team. I had to throw in decoys to make my opponents think I would setup in a certain way against them, then play something completely different.
There are small bonuses for doing certain things in this game, like playing the same formation 3 times in a row, guessing the opponents formation, playing the ref correctly, etc. In the CL you have to trade some bonuses for others and hope you do it well enough to give you the edge. It's fine margins and it's not easy to get them right. It's like playing chess! The league is nowhere near as difficult.
I've said all along that I was lucky to win the CL. If Chrille hadn't had his cr the same day as the 2nd leg he would've progressed to the final. If Duffster didn't get a red card in the final he would've won. I was lucky and I'm not going to deny it. However, I think that in a tactical sense I did as well as I could have with the team at my disposal and I think I showed I can play with the best. Well, until MasterChe completely ruled me on tactics on Wednesday night that is!!
Onto getting a high rank. The ranking system is much maligned in the forums and that was one of the reasons I went to The Corleone Family. I wanted to see if the ranking system is really as bad as people say...
...well it isn't! If you play lots of games and win most of them you get a high rank. Seems fair enough to me. Managers who do well in their division get a good amount of ranking points, as do managers who do well in the cup an the CL. Managers who do well in all three competitions get loads of ranking points, and rightly so because they are without question the best at playing this game, with the exception of me maybe.
So, I've answered my questions and can now return to what I like best about this game. That's not to say I want to spend the rest of my days playing in the lower divisions; on the contrary, I want to do what many believe is the measure of a truly great manager and take a team from the bottom to the top. That's what I'm off to do.
I will be back, but until that time comes, I wish you all the very best.
(If I don't get the job at my old team I'm going to look rather silly... I'm praying that Chrille, Duffster, Blu3red, etc. haven't applied for the job!!)
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