I geniunely feel physically sick.

This game drives me up the wall.

I've just reached the end of January on my Atletico Madrid save and we come up against Almeria in the League.

They have lost about 300 games in a row without scoring a goal.

We are on a 10-game winning streak without conceding (you can see where this is going).

The match odds are: Almeria 14-1, Draw 8-1, At. Madrid 1-10 (something stupid like that)

The pre-match "Prediction Daddy" says he's surprised the bookies are even taking bets on this one: "Atletico to win by a big margin, 2 or 3 up at half time!"....

So at half time we're losing 3-0 and after the hair dryer treatment we manage to scrape 4-4.

This is the first time we've shipped 4 goals all season.

I seriously felt ill at full time, but I immediately press "Ctrl + S" (keeps me honest, you see)

I've lost count of the number of times I've been massive favourites to hammer cannon-fodder but find myself drawing or losing. Breaks my heart.

What about you?

PS - Of course, in my very next match I win the Spanish Cup quarter-final 7-0! I love FM.

It seems your team lacked motivation in the first half to me as once you gave them the hairdryer treatment they obviously improved.

Alot of FM08 is down to the teamtalk, you must have got your pre match teamtalk wrong, simple as that.

Alot of FM08 is down to the teamtalk

Which I think is quite unfortunate, really!

It seems your team lacked motivation in the first half to me as once you gave them the hairdryer treatment they obviously improved.

spot on.....

it happens irl too, just look at Liverpool, the small teams play a defensive/counter attack against them and can often scrap a victory or draw, whilst the bigger teams who are their equal play their normal game which Liverpool can often break down.

i find playing a long ball to the wide men tactic against weaker teams works well as they often have 5+ men sitting back and you can catch them with fast wingers hitting the ball in for a decent header/long shot on rebound.

I don't often find myself going down to lesser opponents. Although I do have a different tactic for smaller/worse teams than I do for the big teams. Mainly because smaller teams are far more likely to park the bus and play on the counter. Chances are that is how you were being exposed.

This game drives me up the wall.

I've just reached the end of January on my Atletico Madrid save and we come up against Almeria in the League.

They have lost about 300 games in a row without scoring a goal.

We are on a 10-game winning streak without conceding (you can see where this is going).

The match odds are: Almeria 14-1, Draw 8-1, At. Madrid 1-10 (something stupid like that)

The pre-match "Prediction Daddy" says he's surprised the bookies are even taking bets on this one: "Atletico to win by a big margin, 2 or 3 up at half time!"....

So at half time we're losing 3-0 and after the hair dryer treatment we manage to scrape 4-4.

This is the first time we've shipped 4 goals all season.

I seriously felt ill at full time, but I immediately press "Ctrl + S" (keeps me honest, you see)

I've lost count of the number of times I've been massive favourites to hammer cannon-fodder but find myself drawing or losing. Breaks my heart.

What about you?

PS - Of course, in my very next match I win the Spanish Cup quarter-final 7-0! I love FM.

I just want to be the first to say.....Its your tactics!!

I just want to be the first to say.....Its your tactics!!

Hmm, that jokes got a bit old tbh, but worth trying I suppose.

This has only happened to me once, as FC Bayern I lost in the first cup game of my second season against non league opposition, I blame a mxture of poor team talk and poor choice in pre game statement

It happens a lot on FM - probably too much to be realistic - but it also happens in real life. In FM terms it comes to team talks, media comments, and - yes - tactics. Personally, when a lesser team goes 1-0 up I always tweak something immediately, usually reduce the pace of my game to "slow". It tends to work, but not always. Not sure if there's some hidden status attribute like "underestimating the opponants".

Just to clarify - I was neither seeking help as to how to avoid this, nor was I moaning that the game cheated me, I just felt like letting off a little steam last night.

It didn't have anything to do with a poor motivational team-talk.

My pre-match media comment was "No comment" and my team talk was "I (quite rightly) expect a win"...

In the feed-back there was "Nothing specific noted" for most players and a couple of "Seemed motivated".

My half-time team talk was "Letting the team down".

To be completely honest, as hard as it is to admit, they were the better side throughout and deserved to win the match, never mind draw.

Winning streaks and losing streaks both have to end at some point! In some cases those ends coincide infuriatingly (for the winning streak...gloriously for the losing streak!).

It's what thickos misguidedly term "the law of averages"

If you say 'I expect a win' or somethingbefore an 'easy' match, the players relax imo

I've always found that the "Warn the team against complacency/Don't get careless" talk rarely works properly, the players just shut off and you end up going from 3-0 up to 3-3.

Winning streaks and losing streaks both have to end at some point! In some cases those ends coincide infuriatingly (for the winning streak...gloriously for the losing streak!).

It's what thickos misguidedly term "the law of averages"

Don't call me a thicko!

Heres what I tend to do. I say "I expect a win" or "For the fans" before kick off. At half time I say "disappointing" to 6 and under ratings and do a general "pleased" and that tends to do the trick until full time. That should help get more consistant results.

It seems your team lacked motivation in the first half to me as once you gave them the hairdryer treatment they obviously improved.

In games I am big big faves for I always play players who on on the brink of the first team. I also play down my chances of beating them but tell the players I expect a win. Reverse Psychology!

Winning streaks and losing streaks both have to end at some point! ....

agreed, but its damned frustrating when a 115-game winning streak ends like this

It's football. My (real) team won 7-0 against the league leaders last Tuesday night (away), then on Saturday lost at home to one of the poorer performing teams in the league. So, it happens.

agreed, but its damned frustrating when a 115-game winning streak ends like this

Ouch, I've never seen a game lost with so much domination. Also, they won by 4, yet had 3 shots on target? Penalty or own goal?

Ouch, I've never seen a game lost with so much domination. Also, they won by 4, yet had 3 shots on target? Penalty or own goal?

lol err.. both, would you believe?! penalty.. hit the post, hit my 'keeper and went in!

agreed, but its damned frustrating when a 115-game winning streak ends like this

I feel your pain - maybe due to the 3 shots on target/4 goals scored stat!

team talks on fm08 have never made much sense after the final result to me. im my career game in spain/italy, sevilla were usually one goal down at HT to which i responded "expect a better performance". 90% of the time i came away with a win, depite trying different pre match team talks in those games. in my 3rd game as fiorentina manager, i told them that i expected a win in the san siro against champions milan. i won 1-0, and actually dominated. now, at espanyol who are expected to finish mid table, i have been 2-0 up in 4/6 games and drew 2 and lost 2 to real madrid and getafe. i tried "you can win tonight" instead of expecting a win, and you can't say anything if you're 2-0 up by HT. "pleased" means " lets give up our 2-0 lead, lads!", "don't let your performance drop" obviously strikes fear in all your players so that they can't remember how they played first half.

i know that the AI will change their tactics at HT to a more suited counter tactic, but in my last game i was 2-0 down, told them i expected better, and won 3-2. i changed nothing, due to the performance being very good anyway.

espanyol are nowhere near where i left sevilla, so i'm not expecting massive results, but the calibre of players i have at espanyol is much better than the ai left them with last season when i took over. performances show that, results don't. calibre of players and (counter) tactics should have more impact on result than team talks imo. not instead of, just more.

i am chelsea and faced Darlington in the FA Cup. I was home and the odds for me to win were something like 1-6 and they had odds of 18-1. I was 2-1 up at half time, final score 3-3 AT HOME! second leg, 2-0 up at half time, being confident makes some changes.... 3-3 full time. 6-6 on aggregate. went to penalties and i won 3-0! crazy *****!

I find it hard to develop sympathy for anyone who has had a 115-game winning streak

I was a tad tee'd off though when I almost won every league game in a season once with Viking Stavanger only to draw 1 game late on courtesy of a fluke 70-yard goal from the opposition's left-back in the dying minutes!

I seriously felt ill at full time, but I immediately press "Ctrl + S" (keeps me honest, you see)

Hardest keystrokes you'll ever press...

Then again, when you fail to press it, and then end up accidently shutting down it's even worse. Next time the game loads and you realise it's suddenly all meaningless and the entire save has to go :-(

It's a horrible feeling r0x0r, loading up into an alternative reality(?) and knowing what really did happen, renders the game meaningless as you say.