Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Guess what happens when a lecture is suddenly cancelled?
Going home early? NAH. How about soccer? Sure, why not?
Well, firstly, I must say that I only starting to know more about soccer in Secondary 1, which is like 6 years ago. It was considered a short period cos I have friends who started like in Primary 3?! However, there was not much that I know either, all the focus was on EPL which stands for English Premier League, yeah premier, only the best of the best can play in that league. At that time, the strongest team was Arsenal or Man U, so it was a close fight. I got to know more players like Thierry Henry, James Beattie, Shay Given, Jermaine Defoe, Frank Lampard etc. Previously the players I knew came solely from a club. Make a guess which club? Which club won the Treble in 1999 and had two blacks as their strikers? Not being racist here, Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke were damn good when they were in Man U, where they are commonly known as 黑双煞 in newspapers here. Yup at that point of time, I only know players like Van Nistelrooy, Scholes, Giggs, Beckham, Solskjaer, Schmeichel etc. However through friends who supported different teams, I got to know more players who are so good that I regret not knowing them in the first place.
However, my knowledge of soccer was kept stagnant at EPL though I still know some well known clubs like Real Madrid, Juventus, the Milan giants, Bayern Munich, Barcelona etc.Not bad already but I felt that it was still not enough. Ever since secondary school, I have heard my friends play Championship Manager which sounded quite nice. I always listen to them talking about various tactics and superb players. I hoped for the chance to get to play it and it was until JC1 before I really got my hands on the game, installed it and started the craze of playing CM0304, all thanks to Jen, haha.
So I started playing CM0304, managed Man U (of course) with a promising transfer budget. I bought wunderkinds like Diego, Tevez, Rooney, Quaresma, Freddy Adu. My team was virtually invincible and I played until year 2010 in the game, lol. Then came FM05, an improved version of CM0304. I started playing it, managed Liverpool (yeah the reformed one with more Spanish players than usual). This time round, the players' stats were more realistic than CM0304 where one can get defenders with stats 20 each for heading, marking and tackling at the age of 20 yrs old. As I got more experience from the game, I realised what a player stats a player needs for a particular position. But though I feel that my strategy is right, there's always a chance that my team can lose rather badly. So I wanted to know the reason why this can happen. I started my FM05 with another team, Valencia. I have always wanted to use that team because I don't think Barcelona or Real Madrid has enough challenge for me. As I started using Valencia, I told myself that I must find the answer to my question. After playing one full season using their first team, I think I have finally found the answer. The reason lies in the team itself.
Firstly, let's look at Liverpool,
goalkeeper: Dudek (Polish), Kirkland (English)
defender: Carragher (English), Hyppia (Finnish), Henchoz (Swiss), Josemi (Spanish), Riise (Norwegian), Traore (French), Finnan (Irish)
midfielder: Gerrard (English), Alonso (Spanish), Garcia (Spanish), Kewell (Australian), Hamann (German)
striker: Cisse (French), Baros (Czech), Sinama-Pongolle (French)
now let me ask what languages do they most commonly speak?English? Spanish?
now look at Valencia,
goalkeeper: Canizares (Spanish)
defender: Ayala (Argentinian), Pellegrino (Argentinian), Marchena (Spanish), Curro Torres (Spanish), Carboni (Italian), Moretti (Italian), Aurelio (Brazilian)
midfielfer: Baraja (Spanish), Albelda (Spanish), Vicente (Spanish), Rufete (Spanish), Xisco (Spanish), Angulo (Spanish), Aimar (Argentinian), Sissoko (Mali), Fiore (Italy)
striker: Mista (Spanish), Di Vaio (Italian), Corradi (Italian)
now see some difference? By the way, Argentinians speak Spanish as well. As you can see, almost the whole team of Valencia can speak Spanish!! And did I mention that their teamwork is extremely high as well? This team is able to score as many goals as possible in a match and almost all of the goals are teamwork goals. Thus this was how I got to like Valencia so much, haha. Compared with Liverpool, I still prefer a more homogenous team to one that is so rojak that i hardly see the teamwork there. This is also one of the reasons why I am still able to thrash strong teams in the second season :D
FM is a very strategic game, it requires a lot of analysis and cannot be played by just choosing some players that you think will definitely perform. Soccer is about the whole team and not individuals. This has certainly make me think more for the class when we play soccer together. We cannot depend on individual talent to score goals or win games. Teamwork is and will always be very important. Look at how the soccer first team played against us, their passing was much better than ours and all we could do most of the time was to just defend our goalposts. I just feel that we should work on our teamwork more often.Well I think I better stop writing or else I will drag on forever.
That's all folks,
hellmos signing off...
My mind's unweaving/ 9:57 pm
