retired_jmathias

Yes, because he is a father of two.

retired_stelutaivan

I didn't bother with taking charge with my Pre-season friendlies with East Stirling 'cause I knew we were going to lose anyway.

btw, I've found a new team to hate - Gretna

retired_princess160

Pre-season friendlies have a dirty anti-LLM pitfall: in my experience, if I play a friendly against a top-team from another country (heck, they offered, was I gonna say no?) I sell 200 out of 5000 seats (which is absurdly low. I mean, which person from Verl is not going to enjoy watching Feyenoord coming to town? A couple of thousand at least) but if I play a top team from my own country, I sell out the house (OK, so HSV is more well known in Verl, but c'mon, it's just a friendly on a rainy wednesday, guys).

That first scenario is just a bit unrealistic, no harm done really, but the second means I make a (un)fair bit of cash selling tickets. Not LLM

retired_Siouxsie

I usually play the one big one that gets me all my money for the season, but don't really pay any attention because i know I'm going to lose by about 6 goals if i'm lucky. I just make mass substitutions at halftime to avoid having to pay attention, and it will really **** me off if someone is red-carded or injured because then i have to actually do something.

retired_amberger

DJ makes a good point about the attendances. I would probably be bothered to arrange some friendlies if anyone could manage to turn up and make me some money. If you're a League 2 club and a top division club wanted to play at your ground, you'd get a decent crowd, surely?

The only worthwhile use I can see at the moment of playing friendlies is if you have a CL qualifier to play, and need to get rid of the 'lacking match fitness' status from half of your squad.

retired_lizthibert

I let my assistant arrange friendly matches as I can't be bothered trawling through the calendar trying to find available opponents. If I get a decent team I'm happy, doesn't happen very often though.

I have also decided to let my assistant take control of the friendly matches to avoid annoyance over whether we play well or not. Pre seasons are much quicker now.

retired_jmathias

I always take my team on a tour. This is not due to match fitness, but due to me getting know of the players. Or to see how well will new "deinforcments" fit in.

retired_cacuna

Friendlies can always give a false impression of a team, this is simply because the players involved in them are regaining fitness and often not motivated in the manner that they would for a truly competitive match.

Hence if a second division side players a premiership side in a pre-season friendly while the second division side might be motivated by the chance to shine the Premiership team will likely field a fairly light side (ie. few first team players, apart from those wholly unfit) and those good players that they do field might not be particularly motivated to do more than amble around ...

This happens irl as well, check out real-life pre-season results, there are always a few surprising results in there ...

retired_stelutaivan

Woking 2-0 Palace, for example.

hang on, thats no shock really