FM08 In-Game Match Engine: My Thoughts

Hey guys,

I created this thread to share my thought and opinions about the current FM. I will only look at the in-game problems of which I feel they should be added/removed/changed. In my opinion, the match engine needs another huge make-over. I think that SI unintentionally did their best to remove some of the realism from the game. Purely looking at the in-game stuff, I am talking about the following:

* Player dribbling is gone; With FM07, it was said that there was too much dribbling in the game. When you had a quality dribbling player, he sometimes went past three, four players without any difficulty. With FM08, it's not only that a player can't properly dribble past an opponent, most of the time they don't even try. With Chivas (Mexico), I have Ramoncito Morales, an WBL/AML who has dribbling 20 and is really fast. However, in the nine matches that I played, he tried to get past an opponent TWO times. So that is two times in 810 times. One time he succeeded, the other he didn't get past his opponent. I have played with many teams (including Barcelona with Messi) but players are not interested in getting past an opponent. And when they do, they just go around the player, instead of getting past them. I would love to see the real dribbling back, like how it was with FM07 (perhaps a bit less). With this I mean that a player runs with high speed towards an opponent and you see the player icon almost go through the other icon, like a dribble is meant to be!

If a winger manages to get to the byline, it's just because the opponent was a couple of meters away from him and the player could run in a straight line to the byline. Otherwise, it's not going to work for the player.

* The pace of the game; Where is it? I've done a little test using quick and direct passing to see if I can use a fast pace tactic. The answer is no. How can it be that when a player passes the ball to another player, the receiver just stands still with the ball for over a second before continuing the attack? It doesn't matter how technical the player is or how good his first touch/ball control is... they just stand still with the ball! Do you guys think that in real life, a fast one-two is banned from the pitch?

* Intelligent through-balls; When do I see a through ball with the ball being passed on the left side of an opponent while the teammate is on the right side of the player. It doesn't matter how high I set creative freedom and through balls on often, through balls are being given very rarely. And it's not only the fault of the player who should pass the ball.... it's the attacker as well. Forward runs on often should mean he tries to run into the open space, looking for that through ball. Instead, Berbatov starts to run offside when the player hasn't even received the ball yet and when he comes back from offside position, the player passes the ball lol.

* Free kicks; Lets start with indirect free-kicks just outside the penalty box. The player who is set to take free-kicks is behind the ball (that's weird, I thought setting that player to take the free-kicks is that he tries to put them into the goal?) and another player, sometimes a defender who is only good at defending tries to shoot it in. What happens is another episode of comedy capers. The ball is being passed straight into the feet of his teammate, instead of passing it a bit in front of him so he can shoot the ball with maximum power towards the goalie. The result: the receiving player stands still with the ball and tries to shoot it with the point of his boot (because the ball is lying between his legs lol). I should expect something like that in the team where I play in... not when I am Barcelona, Tottenham or Chivas.

To continue, let's go to the free-kicks on the side of the pitch (I believe it is called the touchline). Perhaps one of you guys know a special trick to make these free-kicks work but for me, it doesn't matter how I put the team/player instructions, 95% of those free kicks end up with a simple ball in the hands of the goalkeeper.

* Giving away corners; It was so incredibly annoying in FM07, how players gave away corners. A long ball, defender goes after it, opponent on more than 30 meters distant, it's almost at the byline, the defender tries to control the ball but awww.... the ball gets away 3 meters from his foot and ends up as a corner. Annoying little bug, one which you would think should be gone in FM08. Unfortunately, it isn't lol. The bug is still there and now, after 2 years, it's more annoying than ever.

* The oh so famous 20 shots against 1 shot fiasco; I guess when creating a game, you should try to impress the young audience, since they are the ones who are controlling the games industry. Unfortunately, since FM06 (or FM07), this apparently means you have to make an Arcade game. Lets stick to FM08 and not to the older versions though. Example: I've created a pretty good squad. Found and bought some sweet foreign/domestic players who are incredibly good, especially for the price I paid for them. When looking at my opponent, my players are way better and this match should be a three pointer! Ending the match with 30 shots, 18 on target for me and 2 shots, 1 on target for the opponent means I was right. However, the match ended in a 1-1 draw. Almost everyone of my team created a chance but no one could score, except for one obviously. The opponent however, took it easy and waited for the final injury time minute before getting a corner and heading it in. A 1-1 draw and an angry person behind the PC who could break almost anything he sees hehe. And after a while, I even get so dumb to think that my tactic is working and I will win the next match. An hour later, the same thing has happened again and again and again.

My summary: FM should be fun to play, to create many many chances but the result should be realistic at the same time. Why am I saying this? Check the above...

* More action in front of the goal; When I look at the strikers, the main thing that I am missing is the real quality of certain strikers like Makaay, Klose, Huntelaar, van Nistelrooy. With this I mean that they are able to get that foot to the ball to tap it in the goal. A low cross (or medium height) from the sideline and the striker can touch the ball enough to make it towards the goal. How many goals don't you see like that in real life? For certain strikers, it's the only way they can score properly lol. And in FM, I don't ever see.... a striker (or attacking midfielder) always needs to touch the ball once before shooting...

Well, this was my five minutes of fame. Perhaps you will think this is a useless thread and perhaps (even thought I hope not) SI won't even look at it or do look at it but don't brother to do anything with it. The main reason I created this thread is to share my feelings with you guys. Because don't get me wrong, I was and I am still a huge CM/FM fan. I've been playing the game since Championship Manager 1 back in 1992 and still doing my thing. I'm even running a FM fansite for 2 and a half years now. So it's not that I want to destroy the game, I just want to know how you guys are feeling about it and if these things can be fixed and how they should be fixed.

That's why I hope SI can look into these problems and I would love to give more feedback as a beta tester for the upcoming release of FM09 (since I am a webmaster of a pretty large FM fansite). I just want to get the realistic part of football back in FM09. All of it!

Take care,

Bozza

Founder of FMFormation

http://www.fmformation.net

i agree with everything

but i agree with the freekick thing the most because i seem to be the only one who notices it

why when the ball is at the touchline, everybody is forward, but instead of knocking it in the box for a header

no...

he just curls it to the keepers hands

after a while it looks like it is on purpose

because it happens 9 out of 10 times, literally

it actually happens 9 out of 10 times at least

Many FM'ers share your criticism on those points. I think most of us had high expectations of the match engine after FM 07, but sadly 08 was a step backward in a lot of areas. Now I do believe it's insanely hard to code a convincing match engine and I appreciate how good it is in the first place, but it's still disappointing to see that some things are worse than they were in FM 07 or some issues hadn't been adressed. I agree with your points and I'd like to add on them.

Dribbling

What I noticed was that when a player has "run with ball" on often, instead of trying to dribble his was past defenders he'd run slower and ruin the pace of the game. I can imagine a player with bad dribbling would have to slow down to keep close control over the ball, but when I have Cristiano Ronaldo, who's famous for running with the ball at a great pace and beating opponents, it's annoying to see him slow down time and time again, even when the channel is open on the wing. Same with Nani, same with Messi, same with Silva, etc. I understand that in a lot of situations, the player will invite the defender onto him and then try to beat him, but when there's space to beat a man while running down the wing, why would a fast, world class dribbler slow down?

Along those lines, there's something else I'd like to see. When a player finally runs down the wing to reach the back line and cross the ball, they often / almost always kick the ball right into the defender that's running along with them. Players with good dribbling will often try to use the defender's momentum against him by suddenly stopping which gives them space to cross the ball or even cut inside. It's such a common move that even players without great dribbling skills often use it irl, yet I've never seen even the best players in the world try it in FM.

Pace of the game

That's indeed something that really bothered me when playing FM 08 for the first time. Players would almost always stand motionless for a short while after receiving a pass. I've grown used to it, but I can still remember how I got mad with frustration the first few weeks. Often when a pass is given into the feet of another player, the delay in his movement allows a defender who's a few metres away to tackle him before he even moves. Definately with strikers in the box this is a huge problem. You would expect if Van Nistelrooij gets the ball in the box with even the least bit of space around him, he'd try to score in a single touch, or even control the ball well enough and then take the shot swiftly. Not in this game he won't, nor will any other player. He'll receive the ball, stand helpless for a moment and the ball's already cleared into the stands before he realizes it. It's ridiculous, it's frustrating and it should be adressed.

Through balls

As Bozza stated, often obvious through balls aren't played, even with through balls on often. That's definately an issue. Another issue I have is the quality of the passes when they're played. Now I'm not complaining that each and every through ball isn't spot on, because that would be unrealistic. But when the pass is particularly obvious and the passer is someone like Xavi or Carrick and there's acres of space to pass into (like when an opportunity to counter arises or when a full back is doing an overlapping run on the wing), it shouldn't be sloppy as often as in the game. Most of the time such through balls aren't deep enough to allow the other player to really break away from a defender to reach the ball. They're often too lateral, which means the other player receives it too soon and can't develop enough pace before he reaches the ball. It's particularly annoying with players who have great acceleration, as they can't really put it to use.

Free kicks

Both direct and indirect free kicks are awful in this game, with indirect ones taking the crown (they're also awarded an awful lot in situations where direct free kicks would be useful, it's something to do with the majority of the fouls being labelled obstruction fouls resulting in indirect kicks). You would expect one player to play the ball in the path of the actual kick taker in such a manner that he could blast it past the wall. Doesn't happen, often he gives the slightest of touches and the kick taker shoots it from an incredibly unnatural position straight into the wall. Sometimes the first player even passes it backwards and then the other one shoots straight into him! What's that all about? Direct free kicks aren't much better, with almost each and every one of them getting deflected by the wall. Doesn't matter if it's Ronaldinho, Juninho or Riquelme, they rarely put it clean over the wall. It was perfect in FM 07, I don't understand why it had to be ruined in this game.

Clearing the ball over the opposition's back line

Happens a lot. The ball is very close to the back line and your player runs to it with enough space to deliver a perfect cross.... only to kick it straight out of play with the commentary saying "xxxxx clears the ball". It happens every few games and that's waaaay too frequent for such a blatant bug.

Offside

Still a lot of errors against it. The game has difficulties with an attacking player being offside but not actively taking part in the attack. This is probably hard to implement well as it's not even always clear in real life but when he's some distance away from the action it shouldn't be an offside call. Then there are the obvious errors that occur every now and then, like a player being a good few metres offside (and I really really know the fine details of the offside law) and no one, not even the media afterwards, saying anything about it.

While all this criticism might paint a very bad picture of the game, it's definately not intended that way. I enjoy the game and accept all the shortcomings of the match engine, but I feel SI really have to strive to improve on all those issues. At the end of the day, it all comes down to the matches. A beautiful combination resulting in a great goal is what puts a smile on any FM'ers face, as that's what they're playing for. Giving the match engine more credibility will make the game that much more enjoyable. I can only point out what I think is wrong with it and hope SI recognize it and try to improve on it.

I agree with all your points.Hopefully it will be better in FM09.

Can't agree with you guys more, especially the 20 to 1 shots. I just finished a game, Juve-Toro, and I had 20 shots on goal, 13 on target. Toro had 2 shots on goal, 1 on target being a goal. Game ended 1-1. Torino's goalkeeper is Matteo Sereni. This happens almost every game to me, only in this instance I tied when I usually escape with a narrow victory. Can't count the amount of times I've won 2-0 and get the news item after the match that says we should have one by more. I come up against an average keeper and suddenly he transforms into a Dino Zoff/Gordon Banks hybrid when he comes up against my team. SI have rolled out one the worst match engines ever. It just does a terrible job of simulating the matches. In fact, overall, the game is kinda of poo. From the match engine, to the transfer market and regen development, it's all poorly done.

My gripe (and forgive me, maybe I just suck) with the match engine is the fact that my team goes on streaks where I dominate, and then almost inexplicably, I lose or draw to every team I face. After conceding most of the goals from deflections and set pieces, I try changing formations, which somehow works for another run of games, and then I start losing again. I'm in my 3rd season as Nottingham Forest manager, and I've went from 5-3-2, to 4-1-3-2 (three CM with sarrows to LM and RM), to 4-5-1.....at this point, I think I'm gonna head towards a 4-4-2 diamond and see how long it last before I start losing again.....

Also, after getting frustrated for a few hours, I always come back for more........and I can't wait til FM 09.....I'm totally hooked

The real point imho is the 'dribbling': only the L/Rside players seem to can dribble the opponents, while che central Players doesn't seem interested in that: so you can have a left/right defender (e.g. with dribb, balance, tecn =10) with a dribbling % > than a TC like Ronaldinho or Kakà.

Second: i see too much long shot... also if a striker have the possibility to find himself alone ahead the gk, He try to shot form distance.

great thread great posts hope SI look into this the match engine is extremely flawed

yes i agree with pretty much everything!!! espicially hte dribbling part. It is annoying how the players dribble so slowly at times when it is obvious that a) a counter attack is on or b) they have space and can exploit the oppositions defense.

My gripe (and forgive me, maybe I just suck) with the match engine is the fact that my team goes on streaks where I dominate, and then almost inexplicably, I lose or draw to every team I face.

I thought this was a great post and can only agree with all comments.

Although I know I will get FM09, I admit to being very frustrated with FM08 and in fact I have stopped playing as a result of these issues.

Mostly though, this quote struck the strongest chord, so many times I have been going great, finding success with a system and set of players when all of a sudden and for no good reason, I can't buy a goal let alone a win!!!

This is against seemingly inferior teams, none of my settings or players change, its almost like its pre-ordained within the game.

Now I know that all teams have off-days for all sorts of reasons but if a system works, it will continue to work after the manager has chewed out the players for having an bad day!!

couldn't agree more. great post, Bozza!

i agree with the guy about the long shots

when i play 442 as soon as my strikers recieve the ball they seem to think

' i should kick this ball at the defender in front of me, that might work'

it happens waaay to many times

thats why i dont play 442 anymore because then i would have to put rooney and tevez' freedom and long shots on low.

the other thing i see to much is the player clearing the ball for a goal kick instead of crossing it

it is an obvious bug because

a player would NEVER clear the ball for a goal kick rather than crossing it for a goal chance,

and what makes it worse it that the commentary makes it seem like its ok to do it

'ronaldo clears the ball'

c**t

agree 100%

Very good points and I totally agree. I do feal sorry for the person coding the match engine because it must be an extremely difficult job with what it has to process.

Totally agree with all. One thing iv also noticed is that the 'Cross Rarely' feature doesnt work, which is kinda annoyin cuz i want my team to play like arsenal The 'Free Role' feature also doesnt seem to work Hopefully will be improved

excellent comments on the first post. I think many agrees the match engine of 702 was the best(not perfect but very convincing) 2d match engine so far. Hopefully SI also recognised the problem and 09 will be a step forward rather than fixing one bug and introducing two new ones.

"A long ball, defender goes after it, opponent on more than 30 meters distant, it's almost at the byline, the defender tries to control the ball but awww.... the ball gets away 3 meters from his foot and ends up as a corner."

Hilarious!

And of course I agree with your post and intent Bozza. KUTGW!

It's an interesting post. Some of it I agree with, some I don't. I think a lot of the problems you are seeing are tactical, especially the lack of dribbles and through balls. When you design a tactic you need to look at how much space the player will have to perfrom these actions and whether he actually has players in space to pass to, rather than just giving him high CF and TB/RWB. If there are no options for him to do either, he won't and will likely dawdle on the ball. Suffice to say, I see neither. It is likely to be an formation structure issue than an ME fault.

The huge shot count/lack of goals is certainly something I'd like to see totally fixed and I think FML has gone some way along the line of doing that. Personally, I believe it is a result of people pushing the tactical parameters of the engine in a manner the designers never intended, which warps all statistical performance. All evidence I have seen regarding this points in that direction and it has hugely informed my input into ME testing in FML.

The crazy corners (giving away) and awful free kicks have pretty much been fixed in the FML engine, which is the starting point for the FM09 one. I'd still agree that a team's tempo is pretty hard to pick but its getting better. My main gripe is still the over-reliance on forwards scoring goals, although, as with much else, that has also improved.

If you play with a flat back 4 the position of the defensive line can make you wander what instructions you have given. Playing very defensive and closing down rare the gap between the goal and the defenders is still immense and often exploited by quick strikers. The reason why i give the instruction to defend deep and not to close down!

I think a lot of the problems you are seeing are tactical, especially the lack of dribbles and through balls. When you design a tactic you need to look at how much space the player will have to perfrom these actions and whether he actually has players in space to pass to, rather than just giving him high CF and TB/RWB. If there are no options for him to do either, he won't and will likely dawdle on the ball. Suffice to say, I see neither. It is likely to be an formation structure issue than an ME fault.

This, on the other hand, I think only shows that the gameplay is not intuitive enough and also not giving you enough feedback on how your tactics are working and why. From playing the game and watching full matches -- in my opinion -- the problem seems to be the lack of movement on the pitch when attacking. Strikers seldom look for space or co-operate to make it harder for defenders to follow, and 2nd wave attacks seem to be non-existing. It seems that more often, a striker will come down to get the ball and then shuffle a shot from outside. Now, in my mind this would be an excellent situation for wingers and attacking midfielders to run for the deep spaces behind the defensive line, but this is not likely to happen as players seem more comfortable just to stay put regardless of the orders you have given them and the attacker and the amount of space to do this within. Perhaps the most frustrating thing with this game for many is to watch something happen and have absolutely no idea what to do about it.

Thanks for all the interesting posts guys! It's always nice to hear the opinion of others and see how they are thinking about certain problems. However, I encourage you to try and go deeper into the subject instead of just saying "totally agree!". Do you have anything to add or how do you think a problem could be solved?

There was one reply in particular I would like to comment on. Before I go to that reply. I would like to show you guys a video.

Indirect Free-Kicks

I thought it was a good idea to show you what I mean with a video instead of words. I have compiled the following clip using only 1 match (against West Brom) and it all happened in less than 30 minutes. Just watch the video and judge for yourself if it looks a bit weird/illogical of not hehe. Keep in mind the Free Kicks and Long Shots attributes of Woodgate (6 & 8) and King (5 & 4). Alex and Modric are set to take the free kicks. Watch the video and the commentary beneath it. Just click on the icon below and a new window will take you to the video. You might have a laugh about it all hehe.

It's an interesting post. Some of it I agree with, some I don't. I think a lot of the problems you are seeing are tactical, especially the lack of dribbles and through balls. When you design a tactic you need to look at how much space the player will have to perfrom these actions and whether he actually has players in space to pass to, rather than just giving him high CF and TB/RWB. If there are no options for him to do either, he won't and will likely dawdle on the ball. Suffice to say, I see neither. It is likely to be an formation structure issue than an ME fault.

The huge shot count/lack of goals is certainly something I'd like to see totally fixed and I think FML has gone some way along the line of doing that. Personally, I believe it is a result of people pushing the tactical parameters of the engine in a manner the designers never intended, which warps all statistical performance. All evidence I have seen regarding this points in that direction and it has hugely informed my input into ME testing in FML.

The crazy corners (giving away) and awful free kicks have pretty much been fixed in the FML engine, which is the starting point for the FM09 one. I'd still agree that a team's tempo is pretty hard to pick but its getting better. My main gripe is still the over-reliance on forwards scoring goals, although, as with much else, that has also improved.

Dribbling; I agree that some players should have the space to be able to make that dribble. However, some players like to have the ball played in there feet, even when there is a defender close in their back. Take a look at Messi, he needs to have an opponent nearby because his best dribble is one that is in small space. He wants to know where his opponent is. Other players, like Marc Overmars back in his day, either want the ball played in front of them so they can get rid of the opponent by using their acceleration or they want the ball when there is no opponent nearby. This is because they need to build up the pace to get past the defender since their technique isn't that fantastic.

So I believe when "Runs with ball often" is different for each player. When Messi gets the ball played in his feet with an opponent in his back, I expect the icon of Messi to go almost through the defender's icon, instead of running around him in a diameter of many meters. Players should try more in FM, just like in real life. I am not saying that I want to more succeeded dribbles, I just want to see more attempts. Like it was in FM07, that you see a 2D-icon run towards another icon and goes past it within centimeters. Or that he tries it but they bump into each other and the ball rolls another way.

You get what I am trying to say? It's not that I want FM to become some kind of paradise for quality dribblers like it perhaps was in FM07. Only thing I am saying is to see an one-on-one situation in which the striker tries to get past the opponent would be fantastic to watch. It's all a bit the same at the moment while football shouldn't be like this at all. Like they often say: It could go either way, the ball is round!

20 shots against 1 shot fiasco; I get your point(s) mate. First to discuss the fixing of it and that FML has gone some way of doing that. I always thought it was because your team was just too good and since you were playing against the AI (who won't complain on a forum afterward), you can easily create a ton of chances but to keep the result realistic, it compensates with a lucky goal from the other side. With FML, it is human vs. human. I can understand that the problem should be way less with FML. But will it be with FM09 as well, when you are playing against the AI again?

To continue with the second part of your comment about the huge shot count/lack of goals. What exactly do you mean with pushing the tactical parameters? Only the tactical options? Because I always thought "this problem" is caused by the possibility to buy 20 foreign players in one season who are (when looking at the attributes) four times better than the best player of the entire competition. Funny example is the South American Players Guide - Argentina, a guide I created a while back which shows ALL the quality and cheap youngsters based in Argentina. With this guide/shortlist, it is possible to buy 10 players, who will instantly be your best 10 players, with a second division club for under 500K. So if you start with a club in the Dutch First Division (2nd highest division in Holland), you buy many of those players (since your board will allow it anyway) and promotion is just a season away. And later, you can sell these players for many millions lol. Does this make FM08 realistic or just a so called Arcade game? As long as everyone is having a good time with the game, it is fine by us. But hey, I am now going into another direction. Lets stick to the match engine for now and I will cover the rest of the game soon enough.

To finish with your last comment. I really hope it will be fixed. Let me get one thing clear. I don't expect a perfect match engine. That is just impossible. However, I do see some good new qualities in the FM08 match engine but I am missing some good ones which were in FM07 but aren't in FM08. And that is just a disappointment. So I know the guys of SI can do it..... I now hope that they will do it again!

And SI, if you ever need a beta tester, I am more than available (especially since I asked to become one 35 months ago for the first time hehe).

This is me shutting up. I think I've typed enough for one reply hehe. Before anyone starts to complain... I am sorry if there are any errors in the English language of my post. Please keep in mind that English isn't my native language and especially when I try to type fast, grammatical errors are just around the corner!

hahaha the video is so true!

Hey guys!

I wanted to know if anyone has something to add to this discussion. I am waiting for a reply back from wwfan as well. It's an interesting discussion and I am hoping to read the experiences from others.

Another note. I am writing an article to share my opinion about all important aspects of the game. Transfers, media, editor, match engine, team selection... I want to say my word about everything! At this moment, I am reaching the end of my article and I am on 10 pages in Word (font size 11) and over 7,000 words. When finished, I will definately post it here!

Now this is critisism levelled in a constructive and reasoned manner.

Nice post.

do you think a seperate instruction is needed for direct/indirect freekicks ?

Now this is critisism levelled in a constructive and reasoned manner.

Nice post.

do you think a seperate instruction is needed for direct/indirect freekicks ?

Thank you for the compliment. All I want is to see my favorite game EVER become better and better. I don't so the point of cursing or shout at people.

What exactly do you mean with seperate instructions? For indirect freekicks near the goal, it would be nice if you could say how to take them. You can say that a player should be near the taker but you should possibly have the option to set someone as the taker when it is an indirect freekick. This way, the player who you set as the taker is actually going to shoot the indirect freekick on goal. It would even be nice if you could say that another player (than the direct freekick taker) takes the indirect freekicks. Perhaps you have someone who can shoot extremely hard like an Alex (Chelsea). This way, the ball can be played away from the wall and "the canon" can do his thing.

Indirect freekicks near the touchline is another story which I already explained above. If needed, I could always go further in it.

I hope this is what you meant with your question mate. I just wish my English was better so I could explain it a lot clearer haha.

I'll explain a little a better, sorry.

Currently we have Individual Instructions for Freekicks: Defend and Freekicks: Attack

where we can setup how we would like each player to perform.

do you feel it might be better tactically to split the attack option into Direct and Indirect subsections, to give gretaer choice & freedom in developing stategies ?

I would be better indeed if you have some kind of option to define those. I don't think you need to have a indirect option for the individual player instructions because for almost every player, it has no use to set something. Perhaps you can add another line when you are at the screen where you can select your freekicks taker from the left and right side of the pitch. An extra line where you can select who will take the indirect freekick and who receives the ball.

Like I already said, indirect freekicks near the goal needs to be better. At this moment, they are 99% useless since the shooter is always someone who can't shoot and the ball is always passed in the player's feet, instead of in front of the player.

The most annoying thing about free kicks is when the opposition have a free kick from at least 25 yards its a goal.

In the last minute of matches, the opposition always get a free kick in the Semi circle just outside the box, and you just know its going in, happens all the time.

when IRL free kicks very rarely go in, no matter how good you are at them.

Bozza, tis a well thought out post, and you don't need to make apologies for your english.

The ME is definitely better than 2007, but it is still way short of what I would think is the ideal match engine. I've been part of the FML beta for some time now and have seen how that me stacks up against 2008, and I have to say that its much better. I do share some pet hates with you, however in some areas I have to disagree.

Exploiting Space. The ball always seems to go to a player and rarely into space. In 03/04 the ball would attack space relentlessly, so much so that the game was way too easy. Right now a balance needs to be sought. Players need to distribute balls behind defensive lines more and they need to run into space as well. If a team plays with a narrow formation on a wide pitch, this needs to be translated effectively into the 2D screen. On the matter about dribbling and beating players, its possible to do that, its really a function of ppms, instructions and tactical settings. One thing I would like to see which is not done here in the current me, is a form of pendulum attack. If I am defending deep on the left flank and I get possession, and I have instructed my team to attack down the flanks I would like to see my right flank players make a mad dash to pick up hollywood styled passes. It used to be possible in older editions but that has disappeared right now and is only noticeable in counterattacks from corners.

Set-piece defending In 2008, it was not good enough, even with the right settings you could find yourself conceding a goal from an indirect freekick which finds a player unmarked in the box. Marking during set pieces needs to be tightened up. I have seen this improve in the last couple of months and am hoping to see more.

Ingame stats are actually not a good reflection of the match and its received its fair share of stick the last couple of months. Lets wait and see what happens.

The most annoying thing about free kicks is when the opposition have a free kick from at least 25 yards its a goal.

In the last minute of matches, the opposition always get a free kick in the Semi circle just outside the box, and you just know its going in, happens all the time.

when IRL free kicks very rarely go in, no matter how good you are at them.

If this happened to me all the time in every match, I would agree. Unfortunately thats not the case. I usually find the opposition conceding corners and freekicks late in the game against me. Its probably down to the fact that I have different tactical settings from other people.