retired_B_RAN

I want to ask for opinions on an interesting issue that came up in my latest saved game. In this game, I loaded all players from many African countries, to open up potential international jobs in the future. There was little risk of unbalancing the game, as most good African players are already contracted to European clubs, and the rest are crap. And many of these countries have barely enough players in the database to make them manageable.

Midway through the second season, I noticed in my news ticker that several international managers had announced their pending retirements. So I made note of the potential national jobs in Africa and waited around for the retirements. Keep in mind that I won promotion from the Belgian D3 in my first season and then narrowly missed out on the promotion playoff league that feeds into the top flight. I was Belgian D3 Manager of the Year in my first season, and have been building a very good managerial resume.

A month before the international retirements I was waiting for, a few other African jobs opened up unexpectedly. They were Libya, Gambia, and Mozambique. Unlike the big powers like Cameroon, Nigeria, and Ghana, the smaller countries in Africa have unknown and unaccomplished managers in real life. Many are not even natives of their country and have no club accomplishments in real life. They even have lower reputations than most LLMs in FM2006.

So I decided that it would be fair to apply for these smaller country jobs and see what happens. Granted, I would prefer to receive job offers instead of applying, but in all of my FM2006 save games, job offers from clubs or countries have been non-existent. I've never been offered a job, whether higher or lower than my current job, regardless of success. So, to me, this is a programming issue and not a matter of LLM ethics. The game clearly requires job applications for nearly all manager hiring.

As it turns out, Gambia offered me a job, with the FA expecting nothing other than avoiding embarassment. I went ahead and accepted it. For now, since it's been the close season, the plan has been to manage club and country, but that might change if my first result with Gambia secures qualification for the African Cup of Nations. With the 2008 Cup of Nations and World Cup qualification on the horizon, there might be enough matches to make it worth leaving my club. And that would be more realistic anyway.

My question is whether people think this is somehow counter to LLM or completely unrealistic? Based on the qualifications of real life managers for the weaker African countries, it seems like a LLM manager would have a real chance at getting a job with one of these smaller countries. In fact, a couple of the real life managers seem to be former European coaches and not even experienced managers.

So what do others have to say?

retired_kswansonwoolf

My main objection, in terms of realism, would be that not many (if any?) football managers have a club and a nation to run at the same time, however small the nation/club may be.

On the other hand, the FM and CM versions (with the exception of 01/02) have mostly been virtually unplayable when only managing a nation. So, in my mind this is more of a "having fun with your game" issue than a realism one.

retired_babymwc07

:cool:

temperamental

I am goalkeeping coach of the “Macau International Select”

retired_davek

In the current season (halfway through 2020/2021 season) of my current save alone, I've been offered three club jobs and one International appointment: none of which were solicited.

Just because you personally haven't had any offers doesn't make it a programming issue.

retired_nick88

I've only been offered two jobs that I didn't apply for in my whole CM/FM career, although they were both in the past two versions. I think it changes alot depending on your nationality and as I always play as Australian I never get offered them.

retired_sargent

I have, in past incarnations of CM, had many enjoyable hours with second (or even third) rate countries. I have not had so much fun with FM yet as my international management has been limited to the USA and Latvia, neither of which, by the time I took over, had a great deal of players available.

I am not over sure of the sustainability of loading all African players as I do not know the mechanics of the regen system which may, or may not, lead to an overload of African players in the selected leagues.

That said, it seems to me a perfectly acceptable way of playing your game although the managing of a country alone, without the day to day work associated with a club, would bore me to tears. I suppose that with the ability to scout players being lost, you could spend all your days watching prospective players in games.

creative36

In my tenure as manager of Ghana, that would have been "watching prospective players sit on the bench all feckin season long".

I quickly started finding the International aspect to be an unwanted distraction. I suppose the rather dreadful quality of the regens didn't help much.

retired_B_RAN

Exceptions prove the general rule. If there are no job offers 98% of the time, the other 2%does not mean that there isn't a programming problem.

I really can't understand why people keep insisting on this kind of reasoning, because it simply doesn't go through.

Also, you're not taking into account the number of years in game time. After 15 years, you've likely built the reputation necessary to overcome programming flaws.

Now, I haven't played an FM2006 game for 15 years yet, so maybe I'll get job offers once my current game gets to a decade or more. Meanwhile, the job offers are non-existent no matter what level of success I achieve. This despite the fact that I see managers with obscure and local reputations getting jobs in the top flight.

retired_google

In an earlier game, I'd had a job with semi-pro teams in Norway, then received an unsolicited offer for the USA job after the 2010 WC.

I found that unrealistic.