enigmatic

Above all, I'm looking forward to Louis van Dyche's explanation they weren't playing long ball football at the end And the red cards in extra time, of course.

My first thought on checking the full time score (shortly after switching off after the team completely in control of extra time scored the goal they needed to progress...) was that the forum's own Croatian bottling enthusiast would be really, really enjoying himself

I think the key thing is the free text (like the current free text) doesn't actually do anything of any significance Sure, it's megalolz when you add "and journalists are cockroaches and scum, and I'm sleeping with the chairperson's daughter" and you get an AI write an article about it, and the article is quite coherent and believable even though it does also accuse you of being a racist. Then you still have your job and journalists still like you, and it's not exactly adding to the realism. - Similarly, the assistant's advice is unreliable enough already, a glorified text continuation engine that's absorbed lots of sentences about FM and football but has no idea how to actually play the game and needs careful prompt engineering to generate any advice at all isn't an improvement (seriously, if you type out which striker is better in every relevant attribute, it's not a surprise a text continuation engine could give you something that looks like a reasoned answer based on which attributes one striker is better than the other. Yago Cariello is a crap Complete Forward and Rochez probably better suited for a pressing and counter attacking game though, so I'm not sure it's a good answer except from the point of view of being coherent text...). Every time it gives you a good answer like suggesting that although Messi is a world class footballer he is not typically considered a good target man [because he is not known for his strength or aerial ability), it'll give you a bad one like suggesting he's an excellent pressing forward. The game already has functionality that's a bit like that sometimes, but at least it can be debugged...

Big gap between choosing not to throw someone under the bus and his clubmates going out of their way to signal they're with him as if he's got emotional/family issues rather than disciplinary ones. Not like Southgate hasn't gone public with disciplinary decisions before either This just feels like a bit of journalistic licence on the already trending "Ben doesn't even like football" rumour, and comes from a source that makes the Sun look a newspaper.

Sure, if you already know the answer and write it down, it will rewrite it with more words. But I don't see that as a learning aid Or it saying "I am sorry, but I do not have information about specific soccer games". Same with the scout report. It can summarise the stuff that's already there (less sophisticated AI has been summarising texts for years), unless you don't provide it with all the information in which case it apologises for not being able to help. Which is a pity, because I kind of hoped to get a Shakespearean description of my striker who is a fairly consistent performer with a fair amount of pace and a balanced and normal personality, but this wasn't enough information for ChatGPT to try it. Same with basically any non-generic tactical question like ones asked on these forums... The really generic ones with loads of blogs like "what technical attributes does a complete forward need", it can handle. But so can a manual Beyond that, if SI need to provide all the information to a GPT model in text form, they might as well skip the bugs and apologies and just provide the information in text form to the end user....

I'd prefer to look at the attributes and realise Rochez is well suited to the pressing forward role, could probably play the AF role well and would be a pretty poor target man except against aerially weak defenders tbf

But the difference is that the game data actually tells you what you did in game and what the outcome was, and GPT-type chat models have no concept of what you did in game or how it affected the outcome, although if you tell it "write an article about why Santiago Tiago should not have substituted his star striker" they can produce a reasonably convincing article about how Santiago Tiago should not have substituted his star striker because substituting the player upset him (even though the player was perfectly content and the actual problem was that Santiago Tiago substituting his star striker meant they conceded possession very time they won the ball back and they possessed no threat at all when the opposition equalised) Case in point: the "communication skills" that ChatGPT mentions if you ask it about scouts vs recruitment analysts are not at all relevant for scouting in FM (you can safely ignore "people management" "personality" and "media handling" in your scouts but "judging player ability" and "determination" and knowledge of specific regions are critical). ChatGPT3's ability to provide generic paragraphs which have nothing to do with actually playing the game is impressive but not at all useful for understanding the game, as opposed to generic football concepts that have been written about a lot.

"Fewer matches in really small stadia" just sounds like everyone attending gets there by private jet anyway...

nah, not having that. Unwinnable? He had a good squad with expectations so low that World Cup 2010 was considered acceptable, that was one of the few major teams still playing his favourite 442. Same players had played better in previous tournaments without the army camp, club rivalries or no club rivalries (and for another old foreigner who didn't get the club rivalries and did love kludging players into a rigid 442). Hilarious thing was the only player who actually had a proper public clash with Capello was Terry, the players didn't back Terry, and then Capello ends up dying on the hill of "but nevertheless, he should still be captain if he's in court explaining why he racially abused Rio's brother" a couple of years down the line tbf, Euro 2012 was about the right time to duck out because those players were getting old, but it also underlined how terrible his man management was.

tbh those articles look just as generic as the existing ones, with the unhelpful quirk of also making up a family you don't have and previous jobs you never actually held...

OK, she was only his then girlfriend and mother of his kids.

The only thing he wasn't strict on was John Terry sleeping with international teammates' wives and racially abusing their brothers

Pity Saudi Arabia have already been knocked out, reckon Ronaldo could get a game for them

If you can be "magically" rehired, you could probably use some more magic to sort your players out

nah, keeper had it if he didn't hit the post. I like casual penalties but that was even worse than the Japanese ones Still, I see why Croatia played for penalties.

Lacroix is absolutely brilliant if you play with a high line.

Rice will be fine if Bellingham comes deep to offer an option that can carry the ball forward or play one twos a bit more often. Not coincidence that when Bellingham's been on the ball we've looked fantastic, and when he's been the other side of a press our midfield has looked missing (first 30 minutes today, USA game until he was subbed off). Bellingham seems like a guy that learns quickly though, which is handy.

More bizarre how you'd conclude this when we've been more likely to complain about one of the two United players starting! Think this forum had as many Leeds fans as United fans who would have started Rashford, and not because there are more Leeds fans...

Bellingham not impressed with the people that were angry at Hendo being subbed on for him against the USA

You'd think Matterface and Dixon had actually watched us play Iran, but considering how many times they've pretended Iran's first goal came when we switched off in injury time, not just after the hour I'm not sure it was just England that switched off

Would actually switch channel to hear Ant and Dec on commentary

I did laugh when they brought up the statistic that England hadn't received a single yellow card and I'm thinking well we should have had at least two today...

Surprised you missed a completely legitimate opportunity to mention Gibraltar

SHUT UP I WANT TO HEAR MATTERFACE TALK SOME MORE!

Let's be honest, this Senegal side beats Roy Hodgson's England in 90 mins and Capello's on penalties after 120 mins of 0-0 He's actually had a much better World Cup than the last one he scored all those goals in. Linkup play's been top notch Would have given him a rest at 3-0 though, especially with Senegal now playing the sort of defensive line Rashford dreams about BoRiG EnGlAnD (but seriously, it's only because we haven't faced such luminaries as Romania, Costa Rica and Trinidad and Tobago like we usually do)