You know your goose is cooked when this happens

I'll player check first, the lad taking the free kick is my striker, the player to his right is a CB who is instructed to go forward, to his left is my other CB & my LB both of whom are told to stay back as is my RB who can be seen in the WR position, it's worth mentioning that I have a neutral setting for the defensive line but I do have roaming set to more & more expressive for CF in my team instructions which has probably resulted in this freak situation.

[video=youtube;-IaryEtU0G8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IaryEtU0G8

Got to love the decision to tap the ball to my CB who has a man on him rather than the wide open out of position RB or the slightly less covered CB to his right or how about just lifting the ball towards the box, once again my right sided CB who's been a rock for the last 5 years & has made nearly 200 appearances at the age of 22 is caught ball watching, all of my central defenders seem to have forgotten how to play this season.

Guess I should have applied for the Borussia Dortmund job when I was linked with it because this group of players has suddenly lost the plot.

Haha! Stuff like that happens to me all the time! I sit here wondering what all the other ppl who say the ME is fine are thinking! What part of your tactics could cause that? Honestly, it has happened so often to me, not always resulting in a goal and not always in such a position. When I'm in a good position to cross from a free-kick my taker passes it all the way back to my defender! WHAT? WHY? So annoying. Also, I think your keeper coulda got that!

Yep, one again my sweeper keeper not bother to sweep up.

Is there a reason you opted to have a striker take a free kick from 40 yards out, and a CB move into the striker's position? Would seem to make more sense to have a midfielder or even a defender taking the kick.

I could see why the LB would be pushed up so high if his role tells him to join attacks, but i have no idea what your other CB is doing!

For what it's worth, i never set my wide players to stay back on set pieces. I always send a CB up for corners, but a leave the other CB and my DM set to stay back so i always have two central players covering (plus they are the least likely to end up on the corner kick hierarchy, whereas my fullbacks tend to have decent corner taking stats).

A good solution that SI can implement might be some sort of "cover" feature, where players intelligently cover positions depending on who is taking the set piece. For example, instead of setting a specific player to "stay back", have a hierarchy (just like the set piece taker). Choose 5 or 6 players in order of preference, and the top two available end up staying back (Perhaps "Back if needed" already does this?).

You could use a feature like this to specify that there should be 1 player on the near post, 1 on the far, two on the GK, etc. and ensure that all positions are covered exactly the way you want no matter who is taking the set piece. So if your ST is set to attack near post, but ends up taking the set piece, someone else fills in the near post slot.

Is there a reason you opted to have a striker take a free kick from 40 yards out, and a CB move into the striker's position? Would seem to make more sense to have a midfielder or even a defender taking the kick.

I do not use defined set-piece takers as I find that far to rigid when I have 3 or 4 players capable of delivering a decent dead ball, the game decided that he was the best player to take the free-kick even though in my opinion he would only be effective when shooting directly at goal.

His selection by the ME is another flaw that I want to see removed, when selecting players who I want to see take free-kicks & corners the list should not be an order of preference as that just means the guy in the #1 slot will always take the restart until he is removed form the list or field of play & as it clearly shows here direct free-kicks from different angles & distances require a different set of attributes to be competent.

You could use a feature like this to specify that there should be 1 player on the near post, 1 on the far, two on the GK, etc. and ensure that all positions are covered exactly the way you want no matter who is taking the set piece. So if your ST is set to attack near post, but ends up taking the set piece, someone else fills in the near post slot.

There's another obvious mistake here too. I didn't know whether it is worth mentioning before now, but I have noticed defenders do not stand a full 10 yrds away from the taker, meaning incidents like this can occur. This is a clear break of the rules, yet I have seen it umpteen times, but what can you do?

In this clip, the taker passes the ball to a player around 5yrds away, whom is marked up; this is illegal, and the goal simply shouldn't have stood.

In case you are not aware of this rule, see here: http://www.socceru.com/soccer_rule_free_kick.htm

I think he is 10 yards away which is why I didn't mention his proximity to the take.

From that angel, Barside, it did look like the intercepting player encroached away from the wall, towards the player that was supposed to receive the ball. Maybe a alternative view would show it better.

Although this clearly doesn't detract from the poor decision making that led to the goal. Even it that was a lower league team, it would still be poor. I understand why some ppl believe the ME pre-determines chances before they happen. The chain of events which led to the goal made it look fated.

I'm sure one of the mods will come up with a tactical explanation.

Crap happens, will that do?

I made the thread title make sense, which is far more important to me;)

His selection by the ME is another flaw that I want to see removed, when selecting players who I want to see take free-kicks & corners the list should not be an order of preference as that just means the guy in the #1 slot will always take the restart until he is removed form the list or field of play & as it clearly shows here direct free-kicks from different angles & distances require a different set of attributes to be competent.

I agree with this. Instead of just having a list of takers for free-kicks from the left and free kicks from the right, how about separate ones for close range, long range and wide? This would be far more meaningful, since some are more specialist for shooting at goal whilst others are more appropriate for knocking in a long ball from deep or wide positions.

I agree with this. Instead of just having a list of takers for free-kicks from the left and free kicks from the right, how about separate ones for close range, long range and wide? This would be far more meaningful, since some are more specialist for shooting at goal whilst others are more appropriate for knocking in a long ball from deep or wide positions.

Rather than you selecting them, this really needs to be decided by on field intelligence, this ME doesn't have the sophistication to handle that but we can hope for the future.

Another question to ask is why the keeper fails to react until the player gets into his box. IRL most keepers would have noticed the danger as soon as the ball was hoofed forward and ran out to clear it.

A very similar one in my game, ET in the FA Cup 2nd round.

[video=youtube;zAzHnz_8fEA]

Soon as I noticed my player's sudden interest in birdwatching I knew they were going to score. Cue an unstoppable two man counter attack and bang. Still won though.

Looks like I'm going to write-off my current season, there has been plenty of pain between these incidents & the one that started this thread but it does sum up how my season is going.

Kick in the balls #1, first match after the winter break & we are in complete control, 1-0 lead at HT & in the second half we continue to dominate proceedings but cannot score the second goal as their keeper is having the game of his life, 88th minute & a sliced clearance by my keeper results in our opponents getting that all import equaliser.

Kick in the balls #2, 2-0 up & cruising at HT in the cup against a team of reserves & youth players, my players seem to leave something in the dressing room as our opponents go on to create 20+ scoring chances on the way to a 4-3AET victory.

Kick in the balls #3, Hamburg put in a bid of £5.5m + incentives for a player I am also tracking, I place a bid of £5.5m. The player's club, Corinthians, ask me to pay £15.75M + 30% of any future profit, I reject the proposal only to be left amazed as he signs with HSV for £1.5m + £4m over 2 years & 30% of any future profit.

I remember moaning about the 'Always stay back' being ignored on FM07 (the last one I played before FM12); unfortunately things like the OP do make you wonder about the AI deciding when it has to score (even if there is no truth in it cheating per-se, that goal is beyond being a little iffy). I also like that two of your forward players are marking each other and the shape (for both team) is awful.