girotex8

I always like an Italian career. My favourite from FM23 was taking Palermo to the summit of the game (eventually!). I'm starting with Sassuolo. Nice mix of youth and experience, couple of heavy hitters in the squad, a couple of very talented younger players, great club colours, nice challenge to overcome the bigger clubs in Italy.

Anyone noticed a lot of screamers going in? Last two games the opposition have had Xgs of 1.03 and 1.47 and I've conceded 5 in both games, and 8 of the ten goals were from outside the area.

Really hugely enjoying it. Particularly noticing some nice positional fluidity between my Mezzala and Inverted Winger in a 4-3-3DM. Match engine seems excellent.

You're beautiful b*stards, every single one of you.

It's clearly today. Given all the signs, hints and the youtubers having it a day earlier, it's quite obvious. Anybody saying otherwise is ignoring the obvious or on the wind-up.

The old manager ceases to have ever existed, and all his ancestors are also erased from the timeline.

Crystal Palace Granada (went there on holiday and had a soft spot ever since) Palermo

I'm hoping some of the improvement to manager and transfer AI of others in FM24 teams helps to address this.

I just think Serie A is super competitive, if you start at the top. Both Milans, Napoli, Lazio, Roma, Juve all able to compete...some other nice teams like Fiore, Atalanta, Sassuolo also able to compete if you do well. If you go lower down the leagues there are some nice legacy teams to bring back to the top of the game. Lots of world class players spread throughout Serie A (Kvara, Osmhen, Barella, T Hernandez, Leao, Pulisic, Maignan, Tomori, Thiaw, Lui Alberto etc etc). I also like that the finances aren't insane like the Premier League, so it remains a challenge and it remains competitive. You can sell players for big money to the Prem and other big European clubs and still bring in lots of money. I prefer it to Spain and Germany by a long way.

I thought it said ''teleporter'' not ''teleprompter'' initially.

Can't believe people don't manage in Italy. Arguably the most fun of the major European leagues now.

Crystal Palace career is always fun, trying to make them into serious contenders, all the other London clubs to battle with, usually lots of good young players coming through, decent enough starting team with Eze and Olise.

I've loved Italian careers in recent years. Super competitive league with numerous teams who can challenge for the title, lots of exciting world class players now (Leao, Kvara, Maignan etc etc). My favourite save was taking Palermo to Serie winners and CL contenders.

Yeah the end game is dreadful unfortunately, for such a great game.

I think most people would be understanding as long as it was communicated clearly and effectively enough beforehand. The issue is that there are no competitors with a product anywhere near as good as theirs (which is a complement and a credit to them btw), so there is no incentive for them to improve customer engagement. If there were 2/3 different highly competitive products in the field, you can bet that they would be communicating constantly with their customers, because they couldn't afford such complacency. It's a constructive criticism that's all, and not an unreasonable one. There were people in here on Monday and Tuesday all day waiting for the beta. Presumably there was no chance of a release on those days. Would it be horrendous for someone in the know to inform their loyal customers that it wasn't going to be ready? I really don't think so.

You're right, but obviously it's not really is it? 99% of the final product comes out 2/3 weeks early, so effectively it's out before then. And many of us have paid for the early access, as we do every year. Look it's an amazing game, an amazing product and it's given us all so much pleasure for a long time. Incredible work they do. I just don't think it would hurt to have better comms in the lead up to the release of the beta. Constructive criticism.

The release of the beta is largely beneficial to them though, because it gives them large amounts of data to iron out issues and bugs and make their product and the company better and more valuable. If they just released it on a pre-announced date every year, with no room for grey areas, I think most people would be totally fine. I don't think people should be unpleasant or abusive ever, but I also don't think it's unreasonable to expect some comms in the lead up to the release of a product that many people have paid a decent amount of money for. People are genuinely planning days off work or hanging around here for days, wondering when it might be. Is it so outrageous to ask that a member of the team comes on and says ''it won't be today'' at midday each day, or ''it's at least a few days away''?

Nah, I don't feel sorry for any of them. We're loyal paying customers who have given the company large amounts of money and time over decades in some cases. There should probably be better comms really. Unfortunately, they have such a strong product and we have such brand loyalty, that we're a captive audience and market, so they don't need to up their game in terms of comms and serious engagement. They know they're selling many copies every year.

If you put content out on youtube, you are monetising it, and you should have absolutely no problem with criticism, as long as it remains within the boundaries of taste and the law. I find most of the FM youtube content to be pretty poor, and a number of the individuals making them to be somewhat cringey. Sorry if the criticism bothers the individuals in question, but it's how I feel and I'm not going to lie just to protect someone's feelings because they happen to have posted on the forum. Zealand's content is particularly juvenile.

I imagine those youtubers with early access have to send their initial videos to SI for sign off, before they can publish them. It's hardly objective.