Goodbye My Friend...

As season five draws to a close, I was forced to retire a legend in his own way last night. I feel that this player deserves some sort of a tribute, so you will have to make due with this rant for now.

'I don't care too much for money, 'Cos money can't buy me love.'

So goes the classic Beatles song, penned in 1964 by a fresh-faced Paul McCartney. In the case of Damien Grégorini, this may just have been the case. Quite a few times, managers have made me offers for the stylish French goalie, but I simply couldn't bring my self to part with him.

Loyalty and loyal players who stick by the club through thick and thin are a rarity. Players like Giggs, Scholes, Neville, Maldini, Totti, Raúl, Gerrard and others are a dying breed of footballers, and that's in the high-paced transfer circus of real life. The FML market is even more insane, with people switching clubs faster and easier, especially guys like Grégorini who are not top class.

Tall and slim, Grégorini was a safe, unflappable keeper who rarely needed to be spectacular. Quick and agile, he had good positional sense and great concentration, an asset particularly useful when playing behind a semi-successful Fortuna team that might be on the attack for much of the game only to be faced with a break away move from the opposition. Above all, he rarely made mistakes in big games, setting himself above many of the other keepers I brought in as back-ups for him.

Theo Zwarthoed, Jeroen Lambers, Tyronne and Rune Almennig Jarstein. They all got a few games between the sticks, they were given a fair chance, but they just couldn't compete with Grégorini, mister safe-hands.

Last night however, I felt the time had come for Grégorini to move on. He was slipping up. He was losing it. He made mistakes he normally didn't. He was getting older. At 33, he wasn't as agile and quick as he used to be.

Unfortunately, this isn't FM, where I can leave a legend like that in the reserve squad to finish his career with some honour and dignity. I need his wages in order to compete, so I had to release the Frenchman on a free transfer, only to replace him within minutes with Lithuanian Zydrunas Karcemarskas.

I hope Grégorini does well in the remaining seasons of his career. I noticed he had gone on trial with some Portuguese team. I really hope the manager thinks he's good enough for a contract deal there. He deserves this. After 1,476 appearances, 599 clean sheets and an average rating of 6.8, I wish I could've given him a more worthy good-bye, fitting of his status within the team. Unfortunately, he will have to make do with this tribute.

Sociology 101

I took some Sociology classes in the past and one of the things I learned was Nietzsche's herd mentality theory. Herd mentality describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, and/or purchase items. Examples of the herd mentality include the early adopters of high technology products such as cell phones and I-pods.

The term herd mentality is derived from the word “herd,” meaning group of animals, and “mentality,” implying a certain frame of mind. However the most succinct definition would be: how large numbers of people act in the same ways at the same times.

Anyway, before I bore you all to death, there's a reason for my re-kindled interest in Sociology and the herd mentality. An in-game conversation with a comrade sparked a discussion. This manager, we shall refer to him as N., wondered why I even bothered to trial players, as most were just snapped up by others anyway.

He reasoned that people would look at my status in the youth rankings and would just figure that any player I trialled would be decent. Surely, if he was good enough for a top 10 manager, he would be good enough for them. That's a nice example of herd mentality.

People would act as if they were sheep and they would just follow the example of a more dominant manager and sign their trialists, regardless of status, stats or potential. I can't believe people would be that stupid. They are not mindless sheep, who just follow a dominant person.

So either way, I wanted to prove a point and decided to run a little experiment. As most managers are not really into scouting African youngsters, I decided to trial six African youngsters, all of them 16 years of age and neither of them had a PA value above 2.5 stars.

Following the herd mentality idea, people would go mental and start bidding for my trialists, driving the price to around the same level of their European and South American counterparts, which is roughly between 500 and 2,000 quid for such average players.

My experiment ended today, this very morning. I will post the outcome below, noting the player names, their new club and the salary they went for.

• Joe Kuffour - Darxtar Szczecin - 525 quid
• Roland Konaté - Fortuna Aeternitas - 200 quid
• Chris Mokoena - The Reds - 1,001 quid
• Félix Kehinde - Karthi's 11 - 200 quid
• Alain Bell - Fortuna Aeternitas - 200 quid
• Michael Estrada - Dark Knights - 200 quid

Two out of the six players were never bid on by other managers, the other four were. The highest number of offers for any single player was four offers (including my own opening offer of 200 quid). Joe Kuffour was the most sought after, despite having a fairly low PA.

Out of our four players who were coveted by by other managers, two received a bid on them before I could even get my own 200 quid bid in auction. The other two, who were incidentally the most sought after, matched the values of their European and South American comrades.

So what do I conclude from this? Not much really, it's not nearly enough data to make any real conclusions, but if I were to have a go, I'd say that some managers have this herd mentality. They see a trialist at a good team and they just put a bid in. This was certainly the case for Kuffour and Mokoena, who had the best stats from the lot.

On the other hand, I get the idea that people are a bit afraid of what they don't know. They are used to signing Europeans and South Americans and they seem reluctant to bid for Africans, not being certain of how they will develop.

Alternatively, I have nowhere near enough data to back these claims up, but I may look towards repeating this experiment in the future and maybe throwing in some Europeans for fun, to see if they are indeed more popular.

The Dutchman Goes African?!

Yes, I too have succumb to the allure of the Real World Cup. I will be entering my All Nigerian Theme Team on Sunday. With no classy Nigerian players on a free transfer and me not having any in my squad, I will be forced to rely on cohesive teamwork rather than individual class, like some managers can afford to do.

I will probably be added to the roster to make up the numbers, but I love the idea of the tournament so I really want to compete, even if it's just once. It's like the Olympics, competing is incidentally more important than winning. Really... I meant that...

So yeah, an all Nigerian team, because the organisation wasn't sure about my Minor African nations team. I initially wanted to submit a team with players from Sudan, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Namibia, Uganda, Benin and Djibouti, since neither nation had enough players to create a squad on its own, but hey, a Nigerian team might be fun too. Maybe I can 419 scam my way to the second round, who knows...

Insane Youth Wages; Changing My Strategy

With more and more managers learning Scouting 5 and subsequently Judging Potential, the competition for youths has intensified, leading to crazy wages. We've seen several players go for insane wages. I've compiled a top 10, including my own comments as well.

1 - Younous de Souza - 26k

Probably never worth this much, but yes, he as a five star PA rating so the price went mental on him. He doesn't have the stats that go with his status though and he doesn't look like developing at all.

2 - Nando - 23k

Nick Brookes signed this kid and Nick generally knows what he's doing with these kids. Considering his stats, Nick might be the last one laughing with this deal, but right now Nando doesn't have the stats to warrant this excessive wage.

3 - Cléverson Nery - 21k

I've got him down at a three star potential, but he does have a tremendous attribute set. Taking into account the kid is only 15 years old, one can imagine the carnage of the bidding war. Too bad there's no guarantee he will develop at all. Still, he's currently one of the better youth AM's in the Game World. Alternatively, his wage might drop during the next wage auctions, since his contract is not protected.

4 - Marco Antonio Aquino - 20k

More proof that the youth market is sick. Yes, Marco has the potential and the skills to become a great player, but the 20k wage is killing the team that bought him. Marco was placed in an auction today so he will probably leave by tomorrow, with the selling team losing all profit (if there is any at all, at the moment I'm writing this the highest bid is still one quid...) on pre-sale taxes and the buying team getting a 15 year old on a 22k wage.

5 - Alessandro Gardini - 18k

One of the few players in this list who is actually worthy of such a wage. He's only 16 years old, but darn what a player... He's already good enough to perform well in senior matches and he excels in youth matches. What else can I say, he's a genius on the pitch.

6 - Scott Birch - 17.5k

Bought by the same manager who signed Aquino. This 16 year old striker has the physique of a grown man but that's about it. Average at best and like Aquino, placed in a transfer auction already. A waste of money...

7 - David Novillo - 16k

Again a player who is worth the effort and money spent on him. Tremendous skills and he's been ripping up the youth leagues for several seasons. At 19 years old, he looks poised to start doing the same on a senior level.

8 - Fernando Cortés - 15.5k

A very very young player. Perhaps he will go the same way as Novillo, but perhaps he will be another flop. Like Cléverson Nery, he has the skills to be a good player but there's no telling how he will develop in the future. Another huge gamble. Alternatively, his wage might drop during the next wage auctions, since his contract is not protected.

9 - Jonny Vallejo - 15k

Another very young player with a great skill-set. He's not yet good enough for first team, but he might get there. He does need some developing so as said before, the buying manager has taken a huge risk here.

10 - Simone de Gregorio - 15k

Pretty much the same as Vallejo, good talent, very young, big gamble, yadda-yadda.

I've probably left out quite a few players as well, but this is the top 10 of newgens with excessive wages.

This increase in wages works a long way. Even the poor(er) players are going for insane wages. PA isn't even an indication, as we have two-and-a-half and three star players in the above list as well as the more standard five star players. This means that average players are still going at 2k a piece, which is a huge blow for the wage budget.

I'm changing my strategy to keep my wages low but maintain a certain level of quality. I've noticed that most these high wage players are either European or South American. Most managers have focussed their scouting skills in this region. Admittedly, it's where most talents originate from, so it makes sense too.

It also means that most managers have not bothered scouting in Asia and Africa. Admittedly, there's less talent originating from these regions, but they are there and they're still fairly cheap because they're not spotted by most managers, meaning the competition is less fierce and the wages are fairly normal.

This morning, I managed to get several promising Asian youngsters, all three stars, to my club at a base wage of 200 quid. Hardly a great loss if they don't develop, so I can take a chance on them. A player of similar class from Europe or South America generally goes at 1,500 quid or more, so I'm not very inclined to take a chance on them.

My tip for youth managers is basically to move away from the familiar South American and European fishing grounds. There are too many people trying to muscle in on the action, causing the wages to sky rocket. Instead, invest some time and effort in looking in less familiar and standard region. You are often rewarded with some bargains and a few gems.

Modesty?! Surely Not...

Standards of modesty are aspects of the culture of a country or people, at a given point in time, and is a measure against which an individual in society may be judged. Though the term can be applied to both men and women, and boys and girls, it is most commonly applied to women, and girls.

The general principles of modesty include:

• Avoiding attracting attention to oneself by moderating one's actions or appearance;
• Downplaying one's accomplishments (see humility);
• Avoiding insincere self-abasement through false or sham modesty, which is a form of boasting.

The Dutch are generally considered modest. It shows in the way they dress, in the houses they live and in the cars they drive. It makes them the butt of jokes with Belgians and Germans: that they are excessively frugal that borders on cheap.

Thankfully, I am not your stereotypically Dutchman and I do enjoy a bit of boasting from time to time. Since this is my blog and since it is about my team, I feel I am entitled to a wee bit of boasting every now and then. It's not like my team is THAT successful anyway...

Anyway, I achieved two unique milestones this morning, earning me two new achievement badges. One of them is currently unique in the Game World and earnt me a Game World record, the other achievement is only held by two other people in the Game World. I took the liberty of copying and pasting both messages below.

"By avoiding defeat in the 1-0 win against Japanese manager Rene (Japan) Steffensen's seasoned Team farscape your side have now gone unbeaten for 50 matches and have unlocked the 'Unbeaten Streak V' achievement! A 50 match unbeaten run is a truly awesome achievement and one that is leaving many pundits asking whether anyone is capable of stopping your side."

And the second:

"The 3-1 win against German manager Manuel Warcholik's seasoned Fortuna 95 was your side's 25th win in a row and so has unlocked the 'Winning Streak IV' achievement! The Fortuna Aeternitas players have a real swagger in their step at the moment, and with every victory confidence continues to rise and tackling your side becomes a more and more daunting prospect."

Expectations, Analysis & Prognosis

Phew, a tough one this... In the past few seasons, I've always been struggling to attain a mid-table position in the XEFA Premiership. Last season started out well, but an injury to my main striker Dieumerci Mbokani pretty much ruined my league run. The poor bastard broke his leg and was out for 10 days, which pretty much left my team firing blanks upfront.

Looking at my position in the World Rankings, I should end top 10 this season. I feel I have signed a few decent new players and the newly recovered Mbokani has found his shooting boots again, scoring over 40 goals in the past two days. I've brought in quite a few players actually. Various new defenders, midfielders and forwards have come to Fortuna Aeternitas. I'm a bit of a merchant really...

With Uruguayan Robert Flores, Canadian Issey Nakajima-Farran and Irishman Pat McCourt (on loan) I now have the wingers to play a proper wide 4-3-3. These guys have been tearing it up during pre-season, wreaking havoc on many a defence. McCourt has impressed me enough to make a bid considerably above his Market Value, as I hope to make him a permanent part of my squad.

I also had to replace both wingbacks. Sturdy and reliable German Sascha Dum departed for Muzzy's FC Blitzkrieg for a friend's fee and Colombian wingback Rodrigo Sevillano was taken from me in a wage auction. I brought in two new faces to replace them, American Ricardo Clark came in for the RB position and Brazilian Tiago Carleto came in to replace Dum as LB. Both are more of a liability defensively, but they're stronger going forward. Since the best defence is proper offence, I feel this will work out.

At the back, Tom Mandzyuk and Sergio Diaz are forming the new central couple in the heart of my defence. Both are tall, strong and fast and they should be able to do well against most strikers. This means that last seasons duo has been broken up. Serge Wawa has moved on to a position as defensive midfielder, whereas Sandy Paillot is now benched.

In the point of the attack, I now have two decent backups for Mbokani running around. Swedish starlet Ola Toivonen came in near the end of the season and proved himself a worthy replacement of Mbokani in the few remaining official games and the post-season games, bagging an average of 0.8 goals a game before sustaining a serious injury himself, right at the point when Mbokani had recovered.

My second back-up is Iranian powerhouse striker Jalal Rafkhaei, who was brought in as an enforcer. The guy isn't that good, but he's tall and strong and his raw aggression is useful when you're trying to break down a defence in the last fifteen minutes. He's also capable of scoring goals, especially headers.

My expectations and prognosis are pretty much the same I guess. A top 10 spot in the league and with some luck of the draw we could stunt in the XEFA Cup... That will be the main aims of our senior campaign for season 5.

The Start Of A New Season

People often wonder what a moderator actually does in FM Live. They sometimes see us muting players or checking up on transfers, but as most would put it: "That's easy, any trained chimp could do that..."

That's probably true, as checking transfers is little more than setting up the right filters and views and checking current affairs daily. However, there is more to a moderators job than just checking transfers and keeping the chat rooms clean of filth.

We have a lot of work during the final days of a season and at the start of a new season. People sometimes underestimate this. Once the Football Association Organisers (FAO's) have set up the new competitions (which is a lot of work in itsself, well done lads), we have to check all of the FAO's work.

It's not that we don't trust our FAO's... We appointed them ourselves so we have full faith in their capabilities as organisers. We have to double-check everything, because if they accidentally make a mistake, the whole season goes tits up. And believe me, as mistake is easily made when you have to set up so many different competitions.

The slightest error in the calibration of a single competition can cause the entire season to delay for all federations, as a season can only end when all FA competitions have ended. As you can see, the double-checking of the competition length is rather important.

Because we believe in equality, we also have to check the financial settings for every federation. The bottom team in the bottom league has to earn at least 250k and the rest of the cash should be distributed accordingly.

Essentially the leagues and cups are already set up in terms of %’s for places so it’s only numbers of teams that will affect whether this is still correct. Suggest starting with the Prem and adjusting the total prize fund until the winners get exactly £1m. Then suggest adjusting all bottom tier leagues total prize money so that the minimum prize money is £250k. Adjust other tiers total prize money to suit somewhere in between. All leagues are to pay out daily, not as a lump sum.

Finally, we have to edit and approve all leagues before the FAO's can start them. Because of the lockdown of the FA's taking place only 24 hours before the seasons start, a moderator has 24 hours to manually check, edit and approve all competitions and cups in every federation. Believe me when I tell you it's quite a stressful task...

Still, the fifth season in Miller has gotten underway now without any problems, thanks to some excellent teamwork. With almost all of our FAO's and two mods online at the same time, we managed to check and approve all competitions in a little less than 3 hours time. Special thanks to Jordan by the way, for his last minute entry as "Super-FAO" to save the day for the OFA.

Quizzy III

A long one this time... Many questions were asked and the competition was fierce before Muzzy ran away with the win...

1 - Abdul Mu'iz - 40 points
2 - Volkan Ozkan - 18 points
3 - Nathan Polland, Tom Delgado - 17 points
5 - Alexander Sletten - 15 points
6 - Abdul Muqsit - 5 points
7 - Jocke Grundberg - 3 points
8 - Dan Hyde, Jukka Nieminen, Bernard Tapie, Adam McIntyre - 1 point

Altering The Youth Locks?

As everyone knows, you can currently use Youth Locks on talented youngsters. The end of the season coincides with the end of players' contracts. Contracts are signed with players for either one or two seasons. So every season you are going to have a fair number of players who's contracts will expire.

To protect yourself against this you have two routes of defence. The first is you are allowed to protect the contract of five of your players. When players are protected you automatically renew their contracts at a set - normally similar to current - wage. You also have extra locks for your youth players, but these end when the players reach maturity. You can protect a youth player for different amounts of time depending on what age you signed them:

• 16 - protect to 24;
• 17 - protect to 23;
• 18 - protect to 22;
• 19 - protect to 21.

So basically anyone outside your 5 senior locks and your youth locks goes to a wage auction 24 hours before the end of their contract. This means the highest bidder wins the player, and as compensation you receive their Acquisition Fee (AF) - which is somewhat below the market rate you could get for the player by selling him.

Each lock stays with a player until you either sell/release him or he signs a new contract with auto rebid. Of the five senior players you can protect, if you choose to change the player you want to protect, you have to wait until the current contract of the protected player runs out. You will know who has a lock by virtue of them having a blue closed padlock. If you choose to remove a lock, this becomes a green open padlock until the player signs his next contract, or is sold. You then get that lock back to use again. Sounds complicated but you will get it as soon as you see it.

Now I noticed a suggestion on the forums by our very own Nathan Pollard, who said that players like Pato and Bojan are considered youth players and can get locked under these youth rules, despite being tremendous talents for their age. Since both are 17 at the start of the game, a manager could potentially keep them until they reach 23, using the youth lock and thereby gaining a valuable first teamer without using any senior locks.

Nathan proposes that players with such obvious skills like Pato and Bojan should be classed as senior players, despite their age. I for one don't mind such players being classed as senior players, because they are obviously good enough to compete with any defence in the Game World.

The discussion quickly centered on how to implement such a rule. Most people felt it should be linked to wages, to stop managers from making crazy wage bids for players and ensuring a more even spread of top talents between the various Game World teams.

I disagree with that. If people want to invest in a top youth team, it will cost money. Good prospects will cost money, as we have talents going at 15k or more at the moment. I personally feel 15k is a bit much, but I have a few 8k youth strikers in my squad.

If the locks were linked to money, I would risk my young starlets being classed as seniors, which I feel is unfair. I'm not sacrificing any seniors for the good of the youth squad, so that would mean a rich team could just swoop in end of season and pay an even sillier wage to take my youth star away.

Instead of this wage system, I would like to propose a reputation system. As soon as a young player reaches a 3.5 star reputation, he should no longer be classed as a youth player. Most players won't reach such a status before they hit their early twenties, barring the odd exceptions of guys like Altidore, Messi, Bojan, Pato, Kroos and such talents.

This rule is much fairer on the true youth managers, who wish to develop talents and sometimes have to invest crazy wages to get a player. I sincerely hope SI take my suggestion seriously.

Player Development; Academy Re-Styling

Nah, this blog entry isn't about the academy skill that has been discussed on the fora, but about how I decided the re-style my academy. I've been pretty active in youth games over the past few seasons, playing between 400 and 600 games a season (manually playing, not counting auto resolves)...

I did all of that with a single squad of youth players, consisting of about 30 or so young players in different age ranges. I had 15 year olds in the same squad as the 19 year olds and the 20 year olds. To be fair, they did pretty well, getting me to a spot near and at times in the top 10 of the World Youth Rankings.

I still had the idea I could do more to maximise the development of my players though. That is the main purpose of the youth squad anyway, develop players you can either implement in first team or sell on for a profit. The youth rankings are a nice indication whether or not you're doing well, but these rankings are not a goal in themselves.

Since all of my players were bunched together in a single group, I decided to re-style my academy into new age groups, so I could sign every team into competitions against players of similar ages.

The Academy U19 and Academy U17 were created for the younger players to get match experience against players of their own age, which will generally help their performances during a match. Better performances should lead to a faster development of skills.

The Academy U21 acts as a gathering bin for players ineligible for the younger squads and the bigger younger talents, blending them into a single talented squad which will perform in the highest level youth competitions.

This is probably the best way to develop my talented U17 generation. Players like Clodoaldo, Velimir Jovanovic, Mahmoud Said, Fabio Antoniacci, Christian Rapp and Denivaldo are potential first teamers and I want to develop their skills as efficient as possible. Any other pointers are welcome by the way...

I Spy With My Little Eye... (Part I)

I pride myself in being an accomplished scout. In an effort to have some fun and improve community spirits, I've decided to make a list of some of Miller's finest newgen players. I will present these players in sets of three. Today, part one.

Luca Facchini - D / L C - 19 years old - Ashley Young 4 England

This kid has all the right makings to becoming a top class defender in the near future. At the tender age of 19, he is already fast and strong and good in duels. His jumping needs a bit of work, but he's got the raw potential to get there.

Stefano Fiore - AM / L C / F / C - 19 years old - Mental Militia

This young Italian forward is one of the hottest newgen playmakers I could find. His style of play and attribute setup reminds me of players like Alessandro del Piero or Francesco Totti. The ideal attacking midfielder, capable of both giving a penetrating pass or scoring a goal. His mental stats need developing, but he will get there...

Simone Gentili - D / L C / WB / L / AM / L C / F / C - 19 years old - Tallinna Piraaja

Everyone in the Miller Game World knows Simone Gentili, one of the most versatile talents in the Game World and certainly one of the most talented as well. Gentili can pretty much play anywhere down the left side of the pitch and his skill-set ensures that he will play well at pretty much any place on the pitch.

Doing Transfers My Way

There is no 100% accurate way to describe this style. I'm an opportunist and I will pounce on any deal I think is profitable to me in the long run. I have a special interest in youth players though and I have made some great deals for some of them.

Take for example a 5 star prospect I shall refer to as "Mister A" for obvious reasons. This is one of my first season signings, so he costed me a little over 20k at the time. During the second season, I managed to sell him for 200k, not knowing he was a 5 star talent. Still, I kept an interest in the lad.

When the signing manager forgot to put his contract on auto extend and instead put in an auto re-bid at minimum wage, he was quickly back at my club, costing me about 40k. That's 160k of pure profit there, made on a 17 year old striker...

"Mister A" developed nicely and at the age of 19 (this season), he's quite a decent striker, with a market value just over 400k. Along comes a manager who offers 600k for the lad. I accept his offer and "Mister A" is off again. 560k of profit this time, not taking wages into account...

Once again, his manager set his contract to auto re-bid instead of auto extend, so I reckon I might try another bid to re-claim him at the end of the new season. Cheeky, opportunistic, devious but within the rules and a perfect example of how I do business.

Quizzy II

Today's edition was a bit shorter, but I still felt I got a respectable amount of questions in. These were today's scores...

1 - Abdul Mu'izz - 12 points
2 - Abdul Muqsit Mohd Gazali - 6 points
3 - Rafael Affonso - 3 points
4 - Wayne Whitty - 2 points
5 - Jeremy Ang - 1 point

To serve and protect?

To serve and protect. It may not be the “official” motto for moderators across the various Game Worlds, but it certainly should be and in most cases is the driving force of their service to the public.

Trying to live up to this credo, I sometimes encounter situations that strike me as very unfair, but there are no rules against it, so my hands are tied. I encountered a situation like that this very morning.

Imagine if you will, a new user that only joined the Miller community last night. He built his team and he was ready to start playing. Three games later, his illusions are probably shattered and the new user has logged off, probably never to be seen again.

As soon as he confirmed his team, he was pounced upon by a number of high ranked teams. Unsurprisingly, he didn't stand much of a chance and he was crushed. Three games were played, all three were lost with humiliating numbers. 5-0, 5-0 and 7-0... Not a very nice way to welcome a new user and most certainly not a very good way to ensure a new user remains active in the Game World.

To me, actions like this are unfair and even counterproductive to the good of the entire community. Why pounce on these poor new users? For a few measely ranking points and some extra goals for your strikers?

In the end, most new users who encounter situations like this will lose all hope of settling into a new Game World. Losing your first matches big time is not very motivating to continue playing and it will just drive these new members away, leaving the in-game economy as dead as it was before they came along.

Where am I going with this rant? I feel we should add a bit of newcomer-protection for teams entering an established Game World. Some sort of protection for new users, which means they are given adequate time to settle into their new Game World, without being harassed by much stronger opponents looking for an easy win.

There's a few possibilities to achieve such a goal. We could opt for a protection system based on the team reputation, meaning the new teams with 1 and 1.5 stars are only capable of playing each other, ensuring they can easily settle into the Game World. As a team gets stronger players, its manager can opt to play stronger opponents as well.

A second way would be to add all these new players into a special federation for newcomers, which means they would mainly be playing each other in the first season, allowing them even more time to settle in. After the first season, they would be cleared from this federation and allowed to pick their own federation.

I'm sure there are other ways to achieve this, but that is not the point I'm trying to make. The current situation simply isn't working and it needs improving, before we succeed in driving away all new users...

Quizzy...

I am renowned in the Miller world for being the quiz master... I have to love up to that name and I will do so by running my quiz and keeping scores on here... A night of quizzing left me with the following scores.

1 - Abdul Muqsit - 20 points
2 - Nathan Pollard - 19 points
3 - Karsten Ulrik - 10 points
4 - Matt Pilgrim - 3 points
5 - Volkan Ozkan - 2 points
6 - Rafael Affonso, Michael Pearce, Jeremy Ang, Nick Brooke, Frank Sigurdsson - 1 point

Naming My Club

Despite starting the fifth season soon, I figured I wanted the opportunity to explain why exactly I have chosen such a pretentious name. It originates from the club I am supporting in real life, Dutch minnows Fortuna Sittard. Who the hell indeed...

Fortuna Sittard is a football club based in Sittard, The Netherlands. The club currently plays its football in the 13,000 capacity Fortuna Stadion and features in the Dutch Jupiler League (First Division).

The club is the result of a merger between former clubs 'Fortuna 54' and 'Sittardia' to combine forces as the Fortuna Sittard Combinatie on July 1, 1968. 'Fortuna 54' was a relatively successful club which once won the KNVB Cup in the 1956/1957 season where they finished the Eredivisie season 2nd place behind champions Ajax Amsterdam whereas the 'Sittardia' battled against relegation for many seasons. Another KNVB Cup triumph was also celebrated by 'Fortuna 54' in 1964 before the merging of the two clubs in 1968 due to financial difficulties.

The club experienced mixed fortunes throughout its history although they were a regular fixture in the Eredivisie in the 1990s, with many talented players such as Kevin Hofland, Mark van Bommel and Fernando Ricksen emerging from its youth system. These players later joined PSV Eindhoven and Rangers as well as featuring for the Dutch national team.

The team's management also had an eye for talent, as they snapped up Wilfred Bouma and Patrick Paauwe from the youth setup of PSV. Both players developed well under manager Bert van Marwijk, before breaking into the Dutch national side and moving towards bigger clubs.

At the end of the 1999-2000 season, successful manager Bert van Marwijk left to join Feyenoord and the team seemed to collapse. Due to poor management, the team signed a number of over-paid and under-performing "stars". Fortuna relegated to the First Division in the 2000-2001 season, where things were getting from bad to worse very quickly.

Financial irregularities had been discovered and the team has been facing bankruptcy for the past 4 seasons. A little highlight came in the winter of 2003, when two of the clubs fans won the Dutch lottery and donated all of the prize money to the club. The team still hasn't been performing on the pitch and finished dead-last in the Dutch First Division for three consecutive seasons.

In the 2005-2006 season, the club managed to set a new record in Dutch professional football, going a staggering 28 league games without a win. The club also set a new record by finishing last for the third time in a row.

Despite things improving from that moment on, the Dutch FA or KNVB has decided it's now time to terminate Fortuna Sittard and maybe one or two other clubs in the region...

In the business world, mergers are a fact of life and a straightforward way to gain size and market share. In football, we are rather more sentimental and the idea of clubs merging with neighbours who are (usually) bitter rivals is enough to send most fans into apoplexy.

Less so in the Netherlands, where, since 1958, there have been no fewer than 13 mergers among professional clubs. But the biggest could be yet to come. If the FC Limburg project goes ahead, Roda Kerkrade (a product of the merger of four clubs) in the country’s top division could combine forces with any or all of the following three: VVV Venlo, MVV Maastricht, and Fortuna Sittard from the second tier.

The four clubs boast a combined attendance of 29,600, which would make them the fourth-best supported club in the Netherlands. And while a merger would mean losing some die-hard fans, proponents of the FC Limburg plan (named after the area of the country that is home to the clubs) believe that it would be more than offset by the possibility of a bigger, more successful club attracting new supporters.

I suppose most of you have never heard of Limburg and couldn't care less, but I happen to live here and I happen to support Fortuna Sittard, so this is something I deeply care about. Please allow me to elaborate.

Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve Dutch provinces. It has a highly distinct character. The social and economic trends which affected the province in recent decades generated a process of change and renewal which has enabled Limburg to transform the drawbacks of its national peripheral location into advantages inherent in its European settings, linking the Netherlands to the southern part of Europe.

A consequence of this "international gateway" location is, for the last few decades international crime, often drugs-related is on the rise, especially in the southernmost part of this province.

This small province houses four professional football clubs, none of which have ever really had substantial and lasting success. In order to create a club that would be capable of challenging the traditional top-sides, a merger between all four was proposed.

Watching games of my own club, Fortuna Sittard, is a form of sadomasochism these days. The phantasms of a glorious past haunt the club and supporters. Occasionally we see flashes of pride and quality, more often we see a rage against the dying of the light. Deep down, everyone knows the glorious days of the past will never be brought back.

The players try to compensate by playing a physical and aggressive style of football, but they simply lack the quality. It's an act of desperation, a cry that shouts "we're still here, we're still fighting, we will not be forgotten."

The latter is exactly what will happen though, as bankruptcy threatens the very existence of the club once again. The players know this and they are desperate. All of them have to live up to high expectations, brought forth by a (fairly) glorious past.

They all suffer because of the burden of history, as the descendants of giants who were once the hub of the Dutch professional league. Fortuna '54 was one of the top-sides in Dutch professional football early on, but the team lost the momentum and was overtaken by pretty much all other Dutch sides.

Instead of looking back at a glorious past, other clubs—buoyed by wealth, have given it some extra effort, they dared to take a chance and they have left Fortuna and the other Limburgian sides in the rear-view mirror.

Recent attempts at a merger have failed, but I am afraid they will be successful sooner or later and my club will cease to exist. In tribute of the braves in yellow and green, I have dubbed my club Fortuna Aeternitas. Fortuna forever...

Audentes Fortuna Juvat

As you may or may not have noticed, the club crest boasts a Latin credo, "Audentes Fortuna Juvat." This phrase originated from Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid. It means that Fortuna, the Goddess of luck, is more likely to help those that take risks, take action, and develop their skills proactively.

In Roman mythology, Fortuna goddess of fortune, was the personification of luck; hopefully she brought good luck, but she could be represented veiled and blind, as modern depictions of Justice are seen, and came to represent the capriciousness of life. All in all, people that actively tried to better their situations by taking risks had a better chance of being lucky than people who just stood by and did nothing.

The Roman consul Lucius Cornelius Sulla for example was said to believe in the influence of the goddess Fortune in his life. He was a consummate risk-taker, achieving martial distinction by taking risks on the battlefield such as wearing disguises and living among the enemy. He was also the first of the great Republican Romans to march upon Rome- a great taboo, but one which cemented his power and influence.

Julius Caesar also transformed his fortunes when he marched on Rome, with the famous words alea jacta est (the die is cast) as he crossed the Rubicon river. The utterance was a commitment of his fate to Fortune. While Caesar was a thorough and professional soldier, many of his greatest victories were achieved by taking bold risks which often exposed him and his troops to great danger, but often resulted in memorable victories. Obviously, his last gamble, attending the Senate on the Ides of March without his lictors (bodyguards) exposed him to successful assassination.

I'm a manager who controls his team in such a style. I intend to aim for the highest and I want to take chances to try and get there. This is also reflected in the team's style, as I'm employing a proper 4-3-3 formation. Not an attacking 4-5-1, but a proper 4-3-3 with three central forwards. As I said earlier, the Goddess of luck, is more likely to help those that take risks, take action, and develop their skills proactively...

Welcome

This is the blog where I shall keep those interested updated on the current affairs around my FMLive team Fortuna Aeternitas, currently competing in the XEFA Premiership in the Miller Beta Game World.