Pre-Match Formation & Intro Screen Accidentally Appeared

[Gossima]

For those who are missing the pre-match formation screen - this might be of interest. I just had the pre-match formation & intro commentary appear by accident in a low level match.

I was managing Chippenham Town in the Vanarama South, was about to play a pre-season friendly against Barry from JD Cymru Premier in Wales. Not a particularly important match worthy of the pre-match formation screen.

My highlights were set to commentary only, no replay of goals etc.

Just as the match was about to start, I decided to go to Comprehensive mode, and clicked on the Settings gear circle to change the settings to comprehensive. I'm not sure if I paused the game or not before clicking the settings button. I do think I managed to change to comprehensive though.

To my surprise, instead of starting the match, I went to the pre-match formation screen and accompanying commentary about Chippenham and Barry, and panning pictures of the stadium. Match was paused at 0-0, and I couldn't get it to unpause. If I moved my mouse around the screen it would highlight where the previous match formation screen had player names (I think), so I could click that and go to a player screen, from where I could access the usual FM interface - although I was stuck with the red "Match" screen in the top right, forcing me back to the stuck match screen. Couldn't holiday to the next day either.

Eventually I gave up fiddling around, restarted and picked up from my previous save just before the match. This time I didn't mess with the highlight settings and the match started as normal, without the pre-match formation screen. No crash this time.

Hardly a momentous bug, I just found it curious as it suggests that the pre-match formation screen & commentary are apparently being generated but only shown if the match is deemed important enough? I mean, if you are going to bother generating them, why not just show them?