GK match instructions.

After a while away from the game I have come back to it again.

One of the first things I wanted to do was to encourage my GK to come to more crosses, (especially from set-pieces), but once again I am frsutrated that in most areas he is considered as just another outfield player.

I wast him to come for absolutelt everything, (a la Brce Grobbelar). I don't care if he spills the ball or even if he misses it completely, I just want him to come for everything anywhere near him.

The options I have are as follows.

Mentality - Well this could certainly have an impact, so I will experiment with that, but it's not that I want him to be more attacking, I just want him to be more dominant in the air, (or if he's not up to it I want him to attempt to be more dominant.

Creative freedom - There's nothing creative about what I want to ask him to do so that can't be it.

Passing style. It can't be linked to that.

Closing down. I want him to come for the ball when it is not in anyone's posession, so it can't be that either.

Tackling. Again, that's linked to challenging the opposition when they are in posession so it's not that.

So the only thing it can really be is mentality. Thinking about it, I suppose this is right. I suppose what I considered this to be in the past was the GK's starting position, rather than his decision making about when and how far to come for high balls and how often.

I'll have a play and see what I come up with.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

After a while away from the game I have come back to it again.

One of the first things I wanted to do was to encourage my GK to come to more crosses, (especially from set-pieces), but once again I am frsutrated that in most areas he is considered as just another outfield player.

I wast him to come for absolutelt everything, (a la Brce Grobbelar). I don't care if he spills the ball or even if he misses it completely, I just want him to come for everything anywhere near him.

The options I have are as follows.

Mentality - Well this could certainly have an impact, so I will experiment with that, but it's not that I want him to be more attacking, I just want him to be more dominant in the air, (or if he's not up to it I want him to attempt to be more dominant.

Creative freedom - There's nothing creative about what I want to ask him to do so that can't be it.

Passing style. It can't be linked to that.

Closing down. I want him to come for the ball when it is not in anyone's posession, so it can't be that either.

Tackling. Again, that's linked to challenging the opposition when they are in posession so it's not that.

So the only thing it can really be is mentality. Thinking about it, I suppose this is right. I suppose what I considered this to be in the past was the GK's starting position, rather than his decision making about when and how far to come for high balls and how often.

I'll have a play and see what I come up with.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I think Closing Down might have something to do with the goalie running out.

It's just a feeling though, I don't have any evidence.

Going for the ball is challenging the opposition in a way, so that makes some sense.

AFAIK coming to crosses is up to decision making skills. You can't ask your GK to come to EVERY cross, but:

1) he has to decide himself whether he should or shouldn't come to cross. Possible mistakes will happen if his decision making ability is low

2) his success will depend on rushing out ability (whether he'll reach the ball or not).

I think that actual success of rushing out is the combination of both with more impact of rushing out ability, as it's directly part of his GK abilities and decision is just mental skill.

Hmm, interesting. I have to say that I normally don't pay much attention to my GK's settings. I generally just set most things to rarely and leave it at that.

When it comes to crosses I always just look at the GK's Ariel Ability attribute. But thinking about it this attribute probably just governs how effective the keeper will be when he does attempt to collect a cross or high ball. I also can't really see which slider/setting would be used to instruct the GK to actively attempt to collect more crosses than they naturally would.

It might be nice to have slightly different individual instructions for a GK, ones that were more GK-orientated, as the current individual instructions don't always include things that you'd like the keeper to do.

On the other hand though is this the type of thing that a keeper would do themselves naturally, that's certainly the case with Grobbelar. So perhaps a PPM could be introduced for keepers (lets face it, there aren't really any GK specific PPMs that I've seen). This PPM would indicate that this keeper was more likely to attempt crosses. Their attributes would then determine how successful they would be at this. So if you wanted a keeper who went for a lot of crosses you'd have to look for one with that particular PPM.

Coincidentally i was browsing through the game manual last night, and it mentions for Goalkeepers that the Command Of Area attribute is a major factor for how often the GK will try to claim crosses or high balls coming into the area.

It does point out however that this attribute only indicates the tendency of how much the GK will attempt it, not necessarily how successful it will be.

So I guess you need to have a GK with a high Command Of Area attribute if you want him to come for crosses more often than not.

I know about the "command of area" attributeand understand how it works.

That is the GK's individual personality though.

I want an instruction where I as manager can instruct the player to come for more crosses rather than leave it up to him to decide.

If this was an outfield player there would be an instruction. Why not for GK's.

VERY good point madev by Chopper99. There are no GK specific PPM's. It's almost as if they've been forgotten about.

You could have any/all of the following.

- Moves early for penalties.

- Waits till pen taken before moving.

- Likes to punch ball.

- Likes to catch ball.

- Likes to try quick long passes.

- Likes to try and put penalty takers off.

I'm sure you can come up with loads more.

I think this is something that is generally out of your control, and is mostly related to player stats. I say this as i've had hugely differing performances from GKs while using the same tactic.

The GK that claimed crosses regularly had high decisions and high aeiral stats - this is imo the most likely control on claiming crosses.

Personally i'm having more trouble getting my moron of a gk to play the ball short - his passing is set to short, his distribution is set to "left back" and yet he insists on lumping any goal kicks up field to my dwarf-like striker, and inevitably i lose possession. Why do SI add these tactical options only for them to be ignored???

Yeah Ched, I agree.

What I'm suggesting is that it should not be out of my control.

We have to put up with GK match-ratings that are almost useless because they are designed for outfield positions and the tactical instructions seem to be the same.

Everything is geared up for the outfield player and it seems that little or no consuderation has been given to the role of the GK.

The game has come on leaps and bounds in some respects but this GK's just seems to be forgotten about or ignored.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jimbokav1971:

What I'm suggesting is that it should not be out of my control.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Spot on.

The amount of effort required to make a "sweeper-keeper" is testimony to the fact that SI just haven't got GK instructions right at all.

Of well, guess we'll have to wait until FM09....