EPL dominating the european cups??

DiasV · November 4, 2018

Is it only a coincidence for me or are English clubs dominating the european cups.

I have now played 2 seasons with my own career (managing in swedish football so not interfering myself, but with all big leagues fully loaded) - original database and no transfer budget in first transfer window. I have also holidayed another game with same setup to see if things went the same way. I then have in total of 3 seasons played (2 in my own career and 1 holidayed season in new career).

Of 3 CL - I have 2 english wins (ManU and Liverpool) and one win for PSG

Of 3 EL - I have 3! english wins (Burnley!, Tottenham and Arsenal)

No spanish wins at all, while in real life they would propably have won 5 out of 6 or something like that

So is I the only one having this "issue" and if so, who is winning the european cups in your career??

November 4, 2018

It’s brought up every year, every year is disregarded by many as plausible despite all the recent historical data to the contrary & no doubt this year the anomaly of last season having an English side in both finals & England earning more than 20 coefficient points for the first time in over a decade will be used as proof that English dominance in Europe is realistic.

Spurs08 · November 4, 2018

Yeah, the British and Irish teams are all substantailly overrated in FM. Compare the attributes of players at Burnly to a mid-lower table Bundesliga club, or Arsenal to someone like Valencia.

Piperita · November 4, 2018

The Brits always start strong in my saves but they still tend to fizzle out with time.

They don't buy overprized average-to-bad players all the time after seeing one good season now but over longer periods of time the likes of Barca, Real and PSG almost always prevail. Discounting saves with weird Brexit scenarios, they don't produce newgens as good as other teams and tend to buy high profile while not going too much into depth. Together with a few bonkers transfers inside the league and the British inflation of value there are just a few pretty interesting setups.

They cling to a few highly reputable players that are good to great but are slowly being overshadowed by even better newgens, especially once the stars of now age and retire. The Spanish clubs are decked with youth prospect and the South American market together with big miney from the big two. PSG is financially comparable but often more intelligent. I can't speak for Bayern Munich longterm because they completely lose it once they stop being #1 for a longer period of time but until then they have some pretty good ideas.

Meanwhile the Brits only buy a few overprized big names into their - by top standards - average squads and if they don't work or are bought just by reputation or were an intra-English transfer, it just makes it worse.

Not too mention that way too often they almost gift away good players for more expensive but similar replacements. Way too often they buy a 23 year old Bundesliga player for 30-40, sell them two years later back for half the value only to once again show interest in their late twenties if they were successful.

The only ways they don't falter over time is when the British leagues are fully loaded with the other nations set as view only or when there is no complete surprise in the big five leagues. If any team really overperforms over one to twi years, the top Brits try to scavenge like crazy, even if the players are not that good under regular circumstances.

santy001 · November 4, 2018

It's tough to get right, there's more money in the premier league, and more often than not the leagues that have these teams in that are getting the better of English teams are also selling on their better players to English teams.

There's a very much intangible element to it, replicating the psychology of players at smaller clubs being motivated to step up their game in these bigger games (thinking of more the lower co-efficient nation sides who have pulled off results against English teams) and even the other top leagues being better at getting the results. We have attributes that govern this, but you give the players at the lower club these good attributes and then they still are true once an English club buys them.

It is very much realistic that the players in Premier League have the highest CA. The clubs there are generally speaking buying them up from other leagues who have rated these players highly. I often mention this, an awful lot of players that Stoke signed from European clubs were only getting their CA decreased over time after coming to Stoke. Mame Diouf, Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic all had higher CA's when they came to Stoke than they did a couple of seasons later. There's been many others, and it would be strange to think I'm the only one who experiences this.

I don't know where the solution lies. Part of me thinks it lies somewhere tactically, but then the problem just reiterates a level higher up, premier league clubs can still sign the best coaches so any with successful approaches in game around Europe will filter back to where the money is more often than not.

Maybe its somewhere more left-field, do we need to be looking perhaps at the ambition of premier league players, and should SI be looking at the systems a bit more that deal with complacency and player motivation once they reach the top? Or is it something in the champions league/europa league itself in game? Are these matches flagging as big matches (which they are in one regard) even when against a team they should on paper streamroll and aren't suffering any complacency because of the status of the competition?

Spurs08 · November 4, 2018

2 minutes ago, santy001 said:

It's tough to get right, there's more money in the premier league, and more often than not the leagues that have these teams in that are getting the better of English teams are also selling on their better players to English teams.

There's a very much intangible element to it, replicating the psychology of players at smaller clubs being motivated to step up their game in these bigger games (thinking of more the lower co-efficient nation sides who have pulled off results against English teams) and even the other top leagues being better at getting the results. We have attributes that govern this, but you give the players at the lower club these good attributes and then they still are true once an English club buys them.

It is very much realistic that the players in Premier League have the highest CA. The clubs there are generally speaking buying them up from other leagues who have rated these players highly. I often mention this, an awful lot of players that Stoke signed from European clubs were only getting their CA decreased over time after coming to Stoke. Mame Diouf, Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic all had higher CA's when they came to Stoke than they did a couple of seasons later. There's been many others, and it would be strange to think I'm the only one who experiences this.

I don't know where the solution lies. Part of me thinks it lies somewhere tactically, but then the problem just reiterates a level higher up, premier league clubs can still sign the best coaches so any with successful approaches in game around Europe will filter back to where the money is more often than not.

Maybe its somewhere more left-field, do we need to be looking perhaps at the ambition of premier league players, and should SI be looking at the systems a bit more that deal with complacency and player motivation once they reach the top? Or is it something in the champions league/europa league itself in game? Are these matches flagging as big matches (which they are in one regard) even when against a team they should on paper streamroll and aren't suffering any complacency because of the status of the competition?

One thing I do notice that's totally off with the European competitions although I don't know if it's related. Choose an early start, put them on full detail, and wait for the qualifiers. You will see the better teams absolutely destroy their opponents - the likes of Celtic regularly pump double figures past some poor sods from Eastern Europe or Scandinavia. These are games they should be favourites for, but in real life are inevitably combative, see shocks decently often, and are rarely total blowouts especially within a single leg. But for some reason in FM the smaller team absolutely implodes to a much greater extent than seems to happen in domestic cups.

Showerman · November 4, 2018

europa league is a given every season too

enigmatic · November 4, 2018

50 minutes ago, Barside said:

It’s brought up every year, every year is disregarded by many as plausible despite all the recent historical data to the contrary & no doubt this year the anomaly of last season having an English side in both finals & England earning more than 20 coefficient points for the first time in over a decade will be used as proof that English dominance in Europe is realistic.

tbf, people used to moan about it when there was an English finalist on a regular basis too

It's pretty inevitable that in a long term save, a league with six moneybags clubs with top squads will tend to dominate over those with 1-3. Game doesn't really reward La Liga's tactical approach and freshness from easy wins at the weekend or punish players hard enough for Premier League match intensity and top end competitiveness.

ParanoidBuddha · November 4, 2018

4 minuti fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

Game doesn't really reward La Liga's tactical approach and freshness from easy wins at the weekend or punish players hard enough for Premier League match intensity and top end competitiveness.

That's clearly not the main reason. Barça and Real of last years are WAY better teams than any PL one

enigmatic · November 4, 2018

24 minutes ago, ParanoidBuddha said:

That's clearly not the main reason. Barça and Real of last year are WAY better teams than any PL one

I don't think the difference between them and, say, Man City is really that huge, never mind permanent. Real Madrid haven't exactly looked WAY better than anyone this season. And the Premier League sides have at least as much money for the squad rebuilds as they do (and enough to on paper absolutely dominate nearly anyone they encounter in the Europa League)

It's entirely plausible that the five years without an English team in the Champions League final was a bigger anomaly than the 8 finalists in 8 seasons that came before that.

ParanoidBuddha · November 4, 2018

26 minuti fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

I don't think the difference between them and, say, Man City is really that huge, never mind permanent. Real Madrid haven't exactly looked WAY better than anyone this season. And the Premier League sides have at least as much money for the squad rebuilds as they do (and enough to on paper absolutely dominate nearly anyone they encounter in the Europa League)

It's entirely plausible that the five years without an English team in the Champions League final was a bigger anomaly than the 8 finalists in 8 seasons that came before that.

That's your opinion but is far from what really counts (CL results). I edited ''year'' in ''years'' before you replied Btw the fact you didn't see a difference between a team that reached at best a semifinal and a team that won 4 CL makes you look a lot biased.
Money isn't everything specially if you keep massively overpaying players.

I don't get your last sentence. Then let's say is an anomaly that serie A teams in the game don't dominate in the european competitions because even if last years they aren't doing well, in the past it's the league with more good results

ozza000 · November 4, 2018

19 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I don't think the difference between them and, say, Man City is really that huge, never mind permanent. Real Madrid haven't exactly looked WAY better than anyone this season. And the Premier League sides have at least as much money for the squad rebuilds as they do (and enough to on paper absolutely dominate nearly anyone they encounter in the Europa League)

It's entirely plausible that the five years without an English team in the Champions League final was a bigger anomaly than the 8 finalists in 8 seasons that came before that.

This season that's true, but over the last years what they were saying is definitely true. The reason Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated CL over say PL clubs is they have been streets ahead of PL clubs over the last decade. Football Manager has never really properly replicated this, and the PL has always been insanely overrated vs other leagues.

The bigger thing to me is that the average Premier League player is always just rated far higher than the equivalents abroad. As has been said it's actually the Europa League in FM this shows up even more, as there are still other top clubs in the game to compete in CL, in the Europa League the PL teams being way overrated shows up as they tend to totally dominate the competition. The team that finishes 7th in PL in reality normally struggles to get beyond the group stage in Europa League, yet in FM they will routinely be one of the main contenders to win with the other English sides.

I don't see how anyone can think that the last 5 years before last year without an English team in CL final were an anomaly, only total suckers for the Sky propaganda machine could believe this. Over that period the Premier League went through a period of the top sides being very average at the top level. You can barely think of a performance in those 5 years where the Premier League sides looked at the same level as the top European sides. The reason they made a lot of finals before that is simply the teams were stronger in the mid-2000s. There are now signs since the start of last season the PL is starting to get stronger once again, but this is the top teams. In reality the gap between the top and bottom is getting bigger in PL, but the mid-table PL teams in FM continue to be massively overrated.

wardog · November 4, 2018

43 minutes ago, ozza000 said:

This season that's true, but over the last years what they were saying is definitely true. The reason Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated CL over say PL clubs is they have been streets ahead of PL clubs over the last decade. Football Manager has never really properly replicated this, and the PL has always been insanely overrated vs other leagues.

The bigger thing to me is that the average Premier League player is always just rated far higher than the equivalents abroad. As has been said it's actually the Europa League in FM this shows up even more, as there are still other top clubs in the game to compete in CL, in the Europa League the PL teams being way overrated shows up as they tend to totally dominate the competition. The team that finishes 7th in PL in reality normally struggles to get beyond the group stage in Europa League, yet in FM they will routinely be one of the main contenders to win with the other English sides.

I don't see how anyone can think that the last 5 years before last year without an English team in CL final were an anomaly, only total suckers for the Sky propaganda machine could believe this. Over that period the Premier League went through a period of the top sides being very average at the top level. You can barely think of a performance in those 5 years where the Premier League sides looked at the same level as the top European sides. The reason they made a lot of finals before that is simply the teams were stronger in the mid-2000s. There are now signs since the start of last season the PL is starting to get stronger once again, but this is the top teams. In reality the gap between the top and bottom is getting bigger in PL, but the mid-table PL teams in FM continue to be massively overrated.

I think this comment nails it on the head for me.

Not necessarily sky but English media in general. The English game is insanely well marketed and has been since Sky came in, in 1993. Wonder where the English game would honestly be without that marketing help and the way broadcasters have found for the rights since. The "its the best league in the world" comes out regularly while until last year there was nothing in Europe and even an arrogance in some games playing kids prioritizing the league. Burnley this year is a prime example, I feel sorry for their fans who may never have another chance at a run in Europe in all honesty.

But then this translates to we have the best players. Dont get me wrong theres some very very good players in the Premier League. But without giving away CA's or PA's in here as thats not fair but with 13/32 best players in the world playing in the Premier League seems a little like hype to me. How many of these 13 players would realistically get into squads of Bayern, PSG, Juve, Real or Barca in real life?

That in turn means early game domination which doesn't reflect what happens in the real world.

Theres a comment above that mentions early stages of European Qualifiers how easy it is to say load up with Rangers (especially on 18 when they were in the first qualifying round) and smash a team 14-0 over two legs. Does this highlight overrated British teams, I'd disagree I think looking at Scotland certainly this year I don;t think theirs a whole lot wrong. But maybe these other leagues are under-represented or these teams in real life would play much more defensively? Aberdeen took Burney to extra time over their two legs while huge underdogs for example, I don't think that simulating FM numberous times would produce anything other than a dominant Burnley win. Maybe tactical approach of how sides face these sides is in effect then?

That said I do still strongly agree that the premier league as a whole is hugely overrated. The money is one thing and of course that can have an effect on longer term saves but it shouldn't early on. I have this debate with many people in real life and theres a constant debate over how good are top players in the premier league. Is Robertson good enough to be in the same breathe as Alaba and Sandro etc. Is Hazard on the same level as Neymar, Ronaldo and Messi. Reality says the answer to these are no, but the way the media sells it Hazard seems like the only option to replace Ronaldo at Madrid, He might be but he might not be.

RBKalle · November 4, 2018

EPL feels quite overrated, much moreso second-tier clubs (4th-7th place).

Champions League in real life is a bit of a "lottery", where an unlucky draw or one sub-par performance can see every top-club eliminated before the final.

In the CL era (incidentally started in the same year of the EPL...), English clubs had the 3rd best % of finalists and winners (not taking into account "minor" countries like Netherlands and Portugal, which have a better win ratio due to fewer appearences).
The 5 years dry spell between Chelsea's triumph and Liverpool's unexpected final may be balanced by the previous great run (LFC 05-CFC 12), but it was the first time English football actually had a prominent role at all, besides United's iconic injury-time turnaround in 1999 (which may or may not count as a "fluke" win).

So 8 good years in the late '00s can't really be used as a valid reason to justify FM world turning the CL into an all-EPL affair more often than not.

And Europa League is even worse... In-game, the likes of Arsenal and Tottenham win that cup for fun, while IRL it's been a bit of a "consolation prize" snubbed by most Top Clubs (unless they REALLY need to save face) and out of reach for the second-tier clubs that have qualified via league position.

Fulham's run many moons ago was an exception, in FM it's almost the rule.

All in all, EPL is a tad overrated, but it's the rest of the second-tier clubs across other leagues (and Top Clubs from other nations) that are underrated. The notion that Everton or Arsenal can play circles around their Spanish, Italian or German counterparts (or against the likes of PSV, Porto etc) is laughable, and it's often been disproved, even very recently, in real life.

FM however is still very much telling a different story unless you almost purposedly stack the gameworld deck against the Almighty Premier League

enigmatic · November 4, 2018

2 hours ago, ParanoidBuddha said:

That's your opinion but is far from what really counts (CL results). I edited ''year'' in ''years'' before you replied Btw the fact you didn't see a difference between a team that reached at best a semifinal and a team that won 4 CL makes you look a lot biased.
Money isn't everything specially if you keep massively overpaying players.

I don't get your last sentence. Then let's say is an anomaly that serie A teams in the game don't dominate in the european competitions because even if last years they aren't doing well, in the past it's the league with more good results

I mean, yes, CL results count, but a team's success in knockout cups are a **** poor way of evaluating whether their squad has an unassailable lead over everyone else's which will remain that way for a decade or is just very good at grinding out cup wins under their manager at the time, especially whilst Ronaldo was scoring extraordinary numbers of goals for them. In extreme cases the fifth best side in the Premier League wasn't WAY ahead of Real back in 2005 (The fact you actually would never believe that makes you look a lot biased! :brock: ) and four German sides in four finals up to 2013 and Bayern spanking Guardiola's Barcelona by a seven goal margin actually lead to an era of Spanish dominance...

As for Serie A, I certainly wouldn't complain if my FM save had Juventus winning the Champions League or an Italian side reaching the final of the Europa League, both things which haven't happened IRL since the 1990s. It's almost like Juventus' consistent failures in European knockout competitions doesn't mean they're actually a level below everyone else... (In fact, I think they've got a pretty good chance, but then I also think that of Chelsea)

2 hours ago, ozza000 said:

As has been said it's actually the Europa League in FM this shows up even more, as there are still other top clubs in the game to compete in CL, in the Europa League the PL teams being way overrated shows up as they tend to totally dominate the competition. The team that finishes 7th in PL in reality normally struggles to get beyond the group stage in Europa League, yet in FM they will routinely be one of the main contenders to win with the other English sides.

But 7th place Premier League sides have made the final in the not too distant past though, and nobody would argue this proves that Fulham ought to have had better players than Juventus or Middlesbrough than Roma at the time. English sides often do particularly poorly in the Europa League from choosing to play heavily rotated sides and focus on Premier League points (and because they're most consistently represented by infamous bottlers Tottenham Hotspur ), which kind of underlines the point I was making about squad rotation, fitness and tactics mattering a lot more IRL, unlike FM where it's mostly relative squad quality. Still, we're second only to Spain in recent finalists despite nearly everyone else sending sides than finished higher in their league, and the Premier League Europa sides typically being either in a tough and more financially-rewarding battle for the top four or in total disarray.

I assume Italian teams have similar issues causing their underperforming in the Europa League relative even to Scottish sides. Fans are a bit more likely to write it off as an unwelcome distraction when the league isn't a total stroll apart from a few big games, and it's a fair bit harder when you're playing Napoli at the weekend than when you're playing St Mirren. Certainly not going to cite it as evidence the top two in the Scottish Premier have been stronger than the fourth and fifth best sides in Italy over the past decade and a half.

2 hours ago, ozza000 said:

I don't see how anyone can think that the last 5 years before last year without an English team in CL final were an anomaly, only total suckers for the Sky propaganda machine could believe this. Over that period the Premier League went through a period of the top sides being very average at the top level. You can barely think of a performance in those 5 years where the Premier League sides looked at the same level as the top European sides. The reason they made a lot of finals before that is simply the teams were stronger in the mid-2000s. There are now signs since the start of last season the PL is starting to get stronger once again, but this is the top teams. In reality the gap between the top and bottom is getting bigger in PL, but the mid-table PL teams in FM continue to be massively overrated.

They generally got out of their group and got knocked out in close ties by another big side, a couple of them in the semi finals. (They also reached three Europa finals, winning two of them, over that period). Arsenal were the only side to get properly spanked, and even a side having as disastrous a season as Leicester looked competitive. It was viewed as underperformance because they were expected to actually challenge to win the competitions, not because they were out of their depth.

I mean, most sane people would argue that rather than it being a period of English sides being incapable of competing in Europe it was a period of Spanish dominance notable for a bunch of exceptional players - most now in their 30s - at their peak under exceptional managers who have since left. Whereas the Premier League's financial advantages are structural. Still, it's a game: you can subvert that pattern by turning Serbia into a powerhouse

And yes, I don't think it's a particularly odd or Sky-worshipping suggestion that Wolves' £100m rebuild after winning an unusually strong second tier might make them better than Eibar or Getafe (never mind Moreirense or Fortuna Sittard)

ParanoidBuddha · November 4, 2018

48 minuti fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

I mean, yes, CL results count, but a team's success in knockout cups are a **** poor way of evaluating whether their squad has an unassailable lead over everyone else

It's poorer believe that a team is between the 2-3 best just because wins the PL.

I deleted the last part because would be a pointless discussion since we have 2 completely different points of view.

enigmatic · November 4, 2018

tbh, if we're looking at the teams as they are now, Juventus, Bayern and City all went out at the same stage last year, which was a lot earlier than the third best team in the PL

Personally I think Juventus ought to be (and are) represented in game as a team capable of winning the Champions League based on them having much better players than sides that went further than them into the competition, but it's a very, very long time since they won it so maybe their side's CAs need a snip too.

The reality is they're all on a pretty similar quality level, but the Real and Barca squads that won so much need a bit of an overhaul, Bayern's squad's frankly old now, and the Premier League clubs tend to buy more top players and if one goes into a downward spiral then Arsenal are more likely to step up than Bilbao or a German club that balances its books buy selling their best players

ergo in a football match simulation where the team with the best players usually wins, the four or five biggest Premier League sides normally perform like the mid 2000s and not like the early 20-teens. It's hardly an outrageous simulation outcome in a game which also lets you turn San Marino's club and international sides into contenders.

Add in the fact physical teams typically marginally outperform technical teams in FM games which again obviously doesn't help La Liga, the only league that could seriously be argued to be underperforming in game.

ParanoidBuddha · November 4, 2018

27 minuti fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

bh, if we're looking at the teams as they are now, Juventus, Bayern and City all went out at the same stage last year, which was a lot earlier than the third best team in the PL

Personally I think Juventus ought to be (and are) represented in game as a team capable of winning the Champions League based on them having much better players than sides that went further than them into the competition, but it's a very, very long time since they won it so maybe their side's CAs need a snip too.

:lol:

My bad that I was taking you seriously.

ozza000 · November 4, 2018

53 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I mean, yes, CL results count, but a team's success in knockout cups are a **** poor way of evaluating whether their squad has an unassailable lead over everyone else's which will remain that way for a decade or is just very good at grinding out cup wins under their manager at the time, especially whilst Ronaldo was scoring extraordinary numbers of goals for them. In extreme cases the fifth best side in the Premier League wasn't WAY ahead of Real back in 2005 (The fact you actually would never believe that makes you look a lot biased! ) and four German sides in four finals up to 2013 and Bayern spanking Guardiola's Barcelona by a seven goal margin actually lead to an era of Spanish dominance...

As for Serie A, I certainly wouldn't complain if my FM save had Juventus winning the Champions League or an Italian side reaching the final of the Europa League, both things which haven't happened IRL since the 1990s. It's almost like Juventus' consistent failures in European knockout competitions doesn't mean they're actually a level below everyone else... (In fact, I think they've got a pretty good chance, but then I also think that of Chelsea)

But 7th place Premier League sides have made the final in the not too distant past though, and nobody would argue this proves that Fulham ought to have had better players than Juventus or Middlesbrough than Roma at the time. English sides often do particularly poorly in the Europa League from choosing to play heavily rotated sides and focus on Premier League points (and because they're most consistently represented by infamous bottlers Tottenham Hotspur ), which kind of underlines the point I was making about squad rotation, fitness and tactics mattering a lot more IRL, unlike FM where it's mostly relative squad quality. Still, we're second only to Spain in recent finalists despite nearly everyone else sending sides than finished higher in their league, and the Premier League Europa sides typically being either in a tough and more financially-rewarding battle for the top four or in total disarray.

I assume Italian teams have similar issues causing their underperforming in the Europa League relative even to Scottish sides. Fans are a bit more likely to write it off as an unwelcome distraction when the league isn't a total stroll apart from a few big games, and it's a fair bit harder when you're playing Napoli at the weekend than when you're playing St Mirren. Certainly not going to cite it as evidence the top two in the Scottish Premier have been stronger than the fourth and fifth best sides in Italy over the past decade and a half.

They generally got out of their group and got knocked out in close ties by another big side, a couple of them in the semi finals. (They also reached three Europa finals, winning two of them, over that period). Arsenal were the only side to get properly spanked, and even a side having as disastrous a season as Leicester looked competitive. It was viewed as underperformance because they were expected to actually challenge to win the competitions, not because they were out of their depth.

I mean, most sane people would argue that rather than it being a period of English sides being incapable of competing in Europe it was a period of Spanish dominance notable for a bunch of exceptional players - most now in their 30s - at their peak under exceptional managers who have since left. Whereas the Premier League's financial advantages are structural. Still, it's a game: you can subvert that pattern by turning Serbia into a powerhouse

And yes, I don't think it's a particularly odd or Sky-worshipping suggestion that Wolves' £100m rebuild after winning an unusually strong second tier might make them better than Eibar or Getafe (never mind Moreirense or Fortuna Sittard)

The problem is you are going back a long time to find this. FM is meant to be reflecting the now, not events of 9 years ago. 9 years is a long time in football and it moves much quicker than that. The English teams out of the top English sides have struggled to have any impact at all for years now in the Europa League, the obvious conclusion is they aren't anywhere near as good as they're made out to be. The Premier League itself kind of demonstrates this picture, look how for years the agenda was you can't dominate the Premier League like other leagues, the smaller clubs are tougher to beat, yet last year the first top Premier League side we've seen for several years was able to thoroughly dominate the competition and looks set to do the same this year. Kind of showing up the idea that the top sides were struggling due to depth and intensity of Premier League making it tough for them, no they just weren't good enough. Now the top teams are improving in the Premier League look what is happening, the top positions in the league are all on record points for this stage of the season, it wasn't that the league was so tough, it was that the top teams were nowhere near as good as they were made out to be.

A lot of the issue here is you are associating spending money with being better, but there's just so many ways to demonstrate this isn't true. West Ham have something like the 13th highest wage bill in world football, yet struggle to do anything in Europe when they are there. At a higher level Man Utd are one of the biggest spenders around, yet there are quite clearly much better sides operating on much lesser budgets. Price inflation is much higher in the Premier League, and a lot of clubs have been very poorly run in recent times.

You only have to look back objectively. Back in the mid-2000s I remember years outside Barcelona I couldn't see who else could beat an English side, you almost expected 3 of our sides to make the semi's from the start. In recent times you've struggled to see who could make a semi before the season started, and you was more thinking they'd need a lucky draw to progress that far. The tide on this is turning, especially combined with some of the European heavyweights declining too, but it's nowhere like it once was, and not really reflected in FM where most of the last 6-7 years have been ignored like they never happened. For starters in FM it's pretty much a given that English sides cruise out of their groups, that's not reflected at all in real life though, of course the majority make it out as the English sides are still some of the better sides, but they aren't streets ahead of the lesser teams like FM would have you believe. In 5 of the last 7 years at least 1 English side didn't make it past the group stage of the CL, something almost certain to be 6 out of 8 this year.

On Juventus, there's a big difference though, yes they haven't won it, but they have been competing at the very end of the competition for years now, making 2 of the last 4 finals, and generally running the best teams close. So of course when they then add one of the best players in the world they are going to be one of the favourites to win the competition and it wouldn't be a surprise at all. This is totally different to the case of the English clubs who generally haven't been competing at the top level until last year, they haven't been getting close to winning the CL. Their position is more like Chelsea of the mid-2000s, undoubtedly one of the best teams in the world, they were constantly in a position to win it, but never quite did during that period, ironically they then won it later when they'd declined quite a bit with a weaker side, but that is the cup element of the competition.

Lanko · November 5, 2018

For a game that so loudly talks about using realistic stats about a lot of things in the game, this is the only one that's off the charts on being unrealistic. It's not even just in the beginning, you reach 10, 20 seasons and it's not rare to see 2 or even 3 English teams constantly on the semis of the UCL.

Sure, the game is made by English, so of course there is a lot of bias involved, but if you really want a realistic experience, it might come to the point that it might be better to load the other leagues but leave the EPL off. Their teams will still be strong and win and reach decisive phases here and there but will probably not be the false powerhouses they are in FM.

Not to mention the curious fact that in some previous versions you could see Mourinho and Guardiola mouth each other off in the media and both could be winners, yet lately Mourinho can easily stay 20+ years at Man Utd while Guardiola frequently retires after 2 years. SI must be Man Utd supporters.

Jedi5diah · November 5, 2018

mine has none in top 4

santy001 · November 5, 2018

4 hours ago, Lanko said:

Not to mention the curious fact that in some previous versions you could see Mourinho and Guardiola mouth each other off in the media and both could be winners, yet lately Mourinho can easily stay 20+ years at Man Utd while Guardiola frequently retires after 2 years. SI must be Man Utd supporters.

Odds are its just significantly more difficult to nail down the nuance of Guardiola and the intricacies of his style than it is those of Mourinho.

- - -

The issue with CA's and "over-rated" being used for English teams still comes back to the same problem. Most of the players coming in are coming from outside of England and have their CA's already high. You can say they're overrated, but then you're saying they're being overrated for their performances in these other leagues.

Is there some kind of innate English CA tax the game needs to impose... a case of "well you're going to England, -10CA?" because it's not at all realistic. As I've said before, the vast majority of players that came from outside of England into my team got CA reductions, or stayed flat, as time went on.

The big reason behind the CA's in the premier league being higher is not because we have to make them higher because any "England is best!" mentality, it's because the players coming in are rated by the research teams all over the world and then English teams keep hoovering them up.

For anyone interested, let's use the club I do the research for in Stoke, and have a very specific discussion, within the scope of this thread, on it and what your thoughts are.

At Stoke I've had, over the last few years, the following players come in with higher CA's than comparable squad members:

Badou Ndiaye (Turkey)
Moritz Bauer (Russia)
Gianelli Imbula (Portugal)
Bruno Martins Indi (Portugal)
Choupo-Moting (Germany)
Ramadan Sobhi (Egypt)
Jese (France)
Xherdan Shaqiri (Italy)
Joselu (Germany)
Phillipp Wollscheid (Germany)
Ibrahim Afellay (Spain)
Mame Diouf (Germany)
Erik Pieters (Netherlands)
Marko Arnautovic (Germany)
Brek Shea (USA)
Geoff Cameron (USA)
Maurice Edu (Scotland)

There's quite a few who came through with lower, Bojan being the most notable at the time I think but each of these players were pulling the squads overall average CA up. All of these players were rated outside of England. Ratings coming from 11 different nations of researchers. They all earned their CA's based on their merits of playing for teams who in some cases were playing in European competition as well. Others, not even playing in Europe but still pulling "Premier league" level CA's.

Over time, usually within 2 research cycles (less than 1 season), around 14 of the 17 on that list had their CA's decreased. Look at these signings though, most of these players are financially beyond the comparable teams to Stoke in Germany/Spain/Italy/France. Most of them came on terms well beyond the means (or at least willingness to spend) countries that have seen some of their teams doing well in Europe in recent years. I really do not believe CA is the driving force behind this, because in terms of "on paper" ability, the premier league does have the collective "best players". By the very virtue of what it does, going around cherry-picking the high performing players. But how do you reflect these players being rated outside of the premier league, away from the English research team, yet coming in to a side - who at the time - were in the premier league and being better?

Samelders · November 5, 2018

17 hours ago, ozza000 said:

This season that's true, but over the last years what they were saying is definitely true. The reason Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated CL over say PL clubs is they have been streets ahead of PL clubs over the last decade. Football Manager has never really properly replicated this, and the PL has always been insanely overrated vs other leagues.

The bigger thing to me is that the average Premier League player is always just rated far higher than the equivalents abroad. As has been said it's actually the Europa League in FM this shows up even more, as there are still other top clubs in the game to compete in CL, in the Europa League the PL teams being way overrated shows up as they tend to totally dominate the competition. The team that finishes 7th in PL in reality normally struggles to get beyond the group stage in Europa League, yet in FM they will routinely be one of the main contenders to win with the other English sides.

I don't see how anyone can think that the last 5 years before last year without an English team in CL final were an anomaly, only total suckers for the Sky propaganda machine could believe this. Over that period the Premier League went through a period of the top sides being very average at the top level. You can barely think of a performance in those 5 years where the Premier League sides looked at the same level as the top European sides. The reason they made a lot of finals before that is simply the teams were stronger in the mid-2000s. There are now signs since the start of last season the PL is starting to get stronger once again, but this is the top teams. In reality the gap between the top and bottom is getting bigger in PL, but the mid-table PL teams in FM continue to be massively overrated.

It has been this way since years and years. In FM England wins the World Cup or Euro Cup quite often, and English clubs dominate the Champions League. But i have seen this pattern since i play this (FM 2006 or so).. Not very realistic but hey, game is made in England Also the Premier league surpasses the La Liga after 2-3 years in every game FM game I have ever played. While IRL Spanish clubs are dominating the Champions League and Europa League..

RocheBag · November 5, 2018

I'm playing as AC Milan and have just had my chief scout tell me Jack Butland would be a leading Serie A goalkeeper. Says it all really.

santy001 · November 5, 2018

5 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

I'm playing as AC Milan and have just had my chief scout tell me Jack Butland would be a leading Serie A goalkeeper. Says it all really.

I won't reveal his CA on general discussion, but there's more than 20 goalkeepers with a better CA than Butland. From the tidbits I get to see from other research teams, there's around 40-45 goalkeepers who right out of the door would be better to sign than Butland.

I won't say why, again this isn't the place for that, but as he's been rated since his return from his injury playing for England he isn't a goalkeeper you should be signing for a top team. Very competent, but there's something missing. In fact, I'd still take Asmir Begovic over Butland on FM every day (and in real life too).

Nacaw · November 5, 2018

19 hours ago, santy001 said:

It is very much realistic that the players in Premier League have the highest CA. The clubs there are generally speaking buying them up from other leagues who have rated these players highly. I often mention this, an awful lot of players that Stoke signed from European clubs were only getting their CA decreased over time after coming to Stoke. Mame Diouf, Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic all had higher CA's when they came to Stoke than they did a couple of seasons later. There's been many others, and it would be strange to think I'm the only one who experiences this.

I'm right there with you, English teams buy at the top of the market from other leagues, meaning they both pay a premium and get players at their highest CA. Mid and low table team in other leagues than the EPL simply don't spend as much, and even with the AI being mostly abysmal regarding transfers, spending big WILL improve your team in FM. This could potentially be an issue causing the biggest clubs outside England to not compete for the CL, they simply don't spend enough to improve. Because IRL they do spend a lot. We're all expecting Real Madrid to spend big next summer, while Barca recently recruited Dembele and Coutinho for huge sums, something that just wouldn't happen in FM (in my experience).

Finally, overall it's probably too easy to buy players in the game. Spurs and Utd struggled this summer getting upgrades. In FM every human manager will easily upgrade these teams with players that are available in the summer window. I'd be interested in numbers, like total transfers above 5/10/20 mill in the game compared to RL. League specific ones too. It's really hard to get these things right, but the balance has been skewed towards the EPL in pretty much every version of this game.

forameuss · November 5, 2018

19 hours ago, santy001 said:

It's tough to get right, there's more money in the premier league, and more often than not the leagues that have these teams in that are getting the better of English teams are also selling on their better players to English teams.

There's a very much intangible element to it, replicating the psychology of players at smaller clubs being motivated to step up their game in these bigger games (thinking of more the lower co-efficient nation sides who have pulled off results against English teams) and even the other top leagues being better at getting the results. We have attributes that govern this, but you give the players at the lower club these good attributes and then they still are true once an English club buys them.

It is very much realistic that the players in Premier League have the highest CA. The clubs there are generally speaking buying them up from other leagues who have rated these players highly. I often mention this, an awful lot of players that Stoke signed from European clubs were only getting their CA decreased over time after coming to Stoke. Mame Diouf, Xherdan Shaqiri and Marko Arnautovic all had higher CA's when they came to Stoke than they did a couple of seasons later. There's been many others, and it would be strange to think I'm the only one who experiences this.

I don't know where the solution lies. Part of me thinks it lies somewhere tactically, but then the problem just reiterates a level higher up, premier league clubs can still sign the best coaches so any with successful approaches in game around Europe will filter back to where the money is more often than not.

Maybe its somewhere more left-field, do we need to be looking perhaps at the ambition of premier league players, and should SI be looking at the systems a bit more that deal with complacency and player motivation once they reach the top? Or is it something in the champions league/europa league itself in game? Are these matches flagging as big matches (which they are in one regard) even when against a team they should on paper streamroll and aren't suffering any complacency because of the status of the competition?

This, absolutely. And given it comes from the position of someone who actually has a hand in the data, it shouldn't be discounted.

The league is by far the richest in the game, and the hands on the purse-strings are cold, calculating AI agents, rather than fallible chairmen. They're much more likely to use that money better. The whole framework of the game is also going to heavily lean towards them.

But whether that's right or wrong, it's also not going to be an easy one to "fix". Why aren't English sides dominating Europe given their resources? There's no right answer to that, and most answers given would be subjective or unprovable. Without a demonstrably good answer, how is the game supposed to balance to achieve that?

sedge11 · November 5, 2018

22 hours ago, DiasV said:

So is I the only one having this "issue" and if so, who is winning the european cups in your career??

Answering the original post, the English teams have done well in Europe on my Pompey save.

I’ve done 3 seasons and in them seasons the winners were:

CL - Juventus, Man City and Athletico Madrid

EL - Lyon, aresnal and lazio.

So the winners has been quite spread out, but like say the english teams have done well, Man City have been in the final of the champs league every season.

westy8chimp · November 5, 2018

It's a lot harder to capture good old English "bottle it" mentality in a simulator. Based on the money and talent in the EPL the clubs should dominate Europe more often than not.

However, there are still big issues in FM that the AI do not sufficiently manage teams like Barca, Madrid, Juve, Bayern. This is tactical and squad building.. and 10 seasons into a save you are far more likely to be challenging teams like RBL who play 442 with pace in attack.

wardog · November 5, 2018

1 hour ago, santy001 said:

Odds are its just significantly more difficult to nail down the nuance of Guardiola and the intricacies of his style than it is those of Mourinho.

- - -

The issue with CA's and "over-rated" being used for English teams still comes back to the same problem. Most of the players coming in are coming from outside of England and have their CA's already high. You can say they're overrated, but then you're saying they're being overrated for their performances in these other leagues.

Is there some kind of innate English CA tax the game needs to impose... a case of "well you're going to England, -10CA?" because it's not at all realistic. As I've said before, the vast majority of players that came from outside of England into my team got CA reductions, or stayed flat, as time went on.

The big reason behind the CA's in the premier league being higher is not because we have to make them higher because any "England is best!" mentality, it's because the players coming in are rated by the research teams all over the world and then English teams keep hoovering them up.

For anyone interested, let's use the club I do the research for in Stoke, and have a very specific discussion, within the scope of this thread, on it and what your thoughts are.

At Stoke I've had, over the last few years, the following players come in with higher CA's than comparable squad members:

Badou Ndiaye (Turkey)
Moritz Bauer (Russia)
Gianelli Imbula (Portugal)
Bruno Martins Indi (Portugal)
Choupo-Moting (Germany)
Ramadan Sobhi (Egypt)
Jese (France)
Xherdan Shaqiri (Italy)
Joselu (Germany)
Phillipp Wollscheid (Germany)
Ibrahim Afellay (Spain)
Mame Diouf (Germany)
Erik Pieters (Netherlands)
Marko Arnautovic (Germany)
Brek Shea (USA)
Geoff Cameron (USA)
Maurice Edu (Scotland)

There's quite a few who came through with lower, Bojan being the most notable at the time I think but each of these players were pulling the squads overall average CA up. All of these players were rated outside of England. Ratings coming from 11 different nations of researchers. They all earned their CA's based on their merits of playing for teams who in some cases were playing in European competition as well. Others, not even playing in Europe but still pulling "Premier league" level CA's.

Over time, usually within 2 research cycles (less than 1 season), around 14 of the 17 on that list had their CA's decreased. Look at these signings though, most of these players are financially beyond the comparable teams to Stoke in Germany/Spain/Italy/France. Most of them came on terms well beyond the means (or at least willingness to spend) countries that have seen some of their teams doing well in Europe in recent years. I really do not believe CA is the driving force behind this, because in terms of "on paper" ability, the premier league does have the collective "best players". By the very virtue of what it does, going around cherry-picking the high performing players. But how do you reflect these players being rated outside of the premier league, away from the English research team, yet coming in to a side - who at the time - were in the premier league and being better?

I think using Stoke is a pretty extreme example. Even looking at your list there could be some flaws. Edu for example was good In Scotland but not great - that in itself could have been a database error. He was a starter in a decent Rangers side but wasnt guarenteed to start and much of that was because he was one of the only senior more defensive minded midfielders. I'd also argue that in the case of someone like Edu under the circumstances Stoke got him in, pretty much any team in the world could have mustered up a way to get him. I can't get a figure as its all undisclosed but media reports at the time saying he was a cheaper alternative to Huddlestone. While Jese, Shaqiri, Affelay and Bojan had all previously had a bad spell at top clubs.

Stoke went on a signing spree signing up talents like this though. I don't think thats the same for most other premier league clubs. Sunderland tried it to a lesser extent. But again this is highlighting past football manager games and not the current one. Burnley being a prime example here first season going deep into the europa league and being a contender in many saves. In reality scraped past the poorest Aberdeen side in 5 years, and then didn't qualify. Mean no disrespect to this current Aberdeen side when I say that but in the summer they lost 3 key players, and hadn't replaced 2 of them before the Burnley game and could even be argued they still haven't.

In the Champions League England being completely dominant over a period of time can be explained by the money, but then its not really, PSG, Barca, Madrid and likely Bayern can all match and in some cases blow the top premier league sides out of the water when it comes to spending.

Again the world cup highlights a huge issue. England havent made a final since 66, yet in game they'll comfortably win a couple of the first 2 or 3 world cups. This is where money isn't highlighted as an issue, theres very little youth development in real life in the Premier League, and actually has been highlighted by the media. We're seeing some improvements and yes they made this years semis - but how much of that was a good draw in a knockout competition.

We've also seen in real life foreign talents come to a league and struggle. Its happened loads in Scotland, Barton flopped heavily yet in England was still a very good player until his ban - just a recent example. Does that make the SPFL better than the Premier League of course not. But its something again thats hard to represent in game. Celtic a couple of years ago in peps first season put the roadblocks onto city, which in turn cause them a little downward spiral that they've since came out of dominating the league that as someone else mentioned "cannot be dominated"

I don't know what the fix it. But right now its hard to argue theres not an issue, over this fm and past fms english clubs completely dominating the European scene while England is the world power house at international level. Thats not reflective of real life and its the one thing that fm lacks on reality. Someone else said the last 5 years are an anomaly when I think it could be strongly argued the spell between 05-12 was the anomaly in terms of the champions league era and English dominance.

We've seen smaller leagues provide attempts during this time, Ajax, Porto both having won it and Rangers being a point away from the final in 93 when the set up was different. Of course the way the co-efficient are done now makes that a much harder task and a human manager can still take a team from these leagues to those reaches, but the AI never will regardless of how long you sim.

Can England become a dominant nation with its backing of course it can, but it shouldn't off the bat. And this in most cases isn't down to CA of players outwith the country coming in.

y0lo · November 5, 2018

Basically the balance of the database is unrealistic

Either PL teams are overrated or everyone else is underrated.

Especially important is the example of clubs from smaller nations in qualifying.

For this reason I spend a good amount of time addressing this balance in the database by decreasing the attributes of overrated PL players and raising some of the CA/PA of smaller european clubs, leaving a more balanced and less predictable game.

ozza000 · November 5, 2018

8 hours ago, Lanko said:

For a game that so loudly talks about using realistic stats about a lot of things in the game, this is the only one that's off the charts on being unrealistic. It's not even just in the beginning, you reach 10, 20 seasons and it's not rare to see 2 or even 3 English teams constantly on the semis of the UCL.

Sure, the game is made by English, so of course there is a lot of bias involved, but if you really want a realistic experience, it might come to the point that it might be better to load the other leagues but leave the EPL off. Their teams will still be strong and win and reach decisive phases here and there but will probably not be the false powerhouses they are in FM.

Not to mention the curious fact that in some previous versions you could see Mourinho and Guardiola mouth each other off in the media and both could be winners, yet lately Mourinho can easily stay 20+ years at Man Utd while Guardiola frequently retires after 2 years. SI must be Man Utd supporters.

The thing is 10-20 seasons this is potentially realistic. The PL with the finances it has could potentially dominate like that in 10 years, at some point it will likely cycle back to where it was 10 years ago. Of course it shouldn't happen every save, but it should be one of the main leagues capable of dominance. Also notable towards this is that England currently have maybe their best generation of youngsters ever coming through which again would be highly beneficial towards PL teams. The real issue is in somewhat replicating the now.

2 hours ago, santy001 said:

Odds are its just significantly more difficult to nail down the nuance of Guardiola and the intricacies of his style than it is those of Mourinho.

- - -

The issue with CA's and "over-rated" being used for English teams still comes back to the same problem. Most of the players coming in are coming from outside of England and have their CA's already high. You can say they're overrated, but then you're saying they're being overrated for their performances in these other leagues.

Is there some kind of innate English CA tax the game needs to impose... a case of "well you're going to England, -10CA?" because it's not at all realistic. As I've said before, the vast majority of players that came from outside of England into my team got CA reductions, or stayed flat, as time went on.

The big reason behind the CA's in the premier league being higher is not because we have to make them higher because any "England is best!" mentality, it's because the players coming in are rated by the research teams all over the world and then English teams keep hoovering them up.

For anyone interested, let's use the club I do the research for in Stoke, and have a very specific discussion, within the scope of this thread, on it and what your thoughts are.

At Stoke I've had, over the last few years, the following players come in with higher CA's than comparable squad members:

Badou Ndiaye (Turkey)
Moritz Bauer (Russia)
Gianelli Imbula (Portugal)
Bruno Martins Indi (Portugal)
Choupo-Moting (Germany)
Ramadan Sobhi (Egypt)
Jese (France)
Xherdan Shaqiri (Italy)
Joselu (Germany)
Phillipp Wollscheid (Germany)
Ibrahim Afellay (Spain)
Mame Diouf (Germany)
Erik Pieters (Netherlands)
Marko Arnautovic (Germany)
Brek Shea (USA)
Geoff Cameron (USA)
Maurice Edu (Scotland)

There's quite a few who came through with lower, Bojan being the most notable at the time I think but each of these players were pulling the squads overall average CA up. All of these players were rated outside of England. Ratings coming from 11 different nations of researchers. They all earned their CA's based on their merits of playing for teams who in some cases were playing in European competition as well. Others, not even playing in Europe but still pulling "Premier league" level CA's.

Over time, usually within 2 research cycles (less than 1 season), around 14 of the 17 on that list had their CA's decreased. Look at these signings though, most of these players are financially beyond the comparable teams to Stoke in Germany/Spain/Italy/France. Most of them came on terms well beyond the means (or at least willingness to spend) countries that have seen some of their teams doing well in Europe in recent years. I really do not believe CA is the driving force behind this, because in terms of "on paper" ability, the premier league does have the collective "best players". By the very virtue of what it does, going around cherry-picking the high performing players. But how do you reflect these players being rated outside of the premier league, away from the English research team, yet coming in to a side - who at the time - were in the premier league and being better?

Your posts have been interesting on the topic, and it's hard to go through every player as each player is a different case. Eg. Someone like Arnautovic now has a higher CA than he's ever had again, but he's been a very up and down player throughout his career.

One thing that maybe affects this is how a player adapts to the Premier League, the Premier League isn't an easy league to adapt to for many, and has the highest % of foreigners of any league of course. There's countless examples of players that say excelled in La Liga but struggled to adapt here. Same is true of South Americans, many have struggled to adapt to the Premier League but been much more successful abroad. Language and culture barriers of course playing a part, and these are somewhat represented in the game, but whether it's an accurate representation of real life is another thing.

And of course this isn't actually researchers fault, researchers are rating in their guidelines, whether those guidelines are achieving the best balance is another thing. A mid-table PL side in game runs through top teams of lesser nations in the EL much easier than they ever do in real life.

rcirani7 · November 5, 2018

I had a save where 8 different English teams won the Europa in a 10-year period (one of them winning it twice), which was fun.

RocheBag · November 5, 2018

2 hours ago, santy001 said:

I won't reveal his CA on general discussion, but there's more than 20 goalkeepers with a better CA than Butland. From the tidbits I get to see from other research teams, there's around 40-45 goalkeepers who right out of the door would be better to sign than Butland.

I won't say why, again this isn't the place for that, but as he's been rated since his return from his injury playing for England he isn't a goalkeeper you should be signing for a top team. Very competent, but there's something missing. In fact, I'd still take Asmir Begovic over Butland on FM every day (and in real life too).

That's what I mean. Wasn't a shot at the accuracy of Butland, rather an observation that Serie A (and pretty much every league that isn't in England) are very underrated. There's no way Butland should be considered a leading player for any of the top leagues.

bangkonggedek · November 5, 2018

13 minutes ago, ozza000 said:

One thing that maybe affects this is how a player adapts to the Premier League, the Premier League isn't an easy league to adapt to for many, and has the highest % of foreigners of any league of course. There's countless examples of players that say excelled in La Liga but struggled to adapt here. Same is true of South Americans, many have struggled to adapt to the Premier League but been much more successful abroad. Language and culture barriers of course playing a part, and these are somewhat represented in the game, but whether it's an accurate representation of real life is another thing.

I think the hardest thing to adapt with rather than the league was living in England itself, which is not the most appealing place to live among the more developed parts of the world, really. You'll read plenty accounts of foreign players struggling with the people, the weather and the food and all these daily stuff play bigger part in affecting players' motivation and focus than usually being credited for.

Another thing I observed from the players failing to deliver their good performances prior to moving to England then subsequently sold/discarded to another league, is that in most cases they will looked as if they had suffered a considerable loss of ability during their time in England, and they could never reach the same level they had even in the same team, same league where they used to excelled at. Maybe on average the coaching/backroom staffs standards in England were actually not very good in maintaining, let alone improving, the players' quality?

enigmatic · November 5, 2018

16 hours ago, ozza000 said:

The English teams out of the top English sides have struggled to have any impact at all for years now in the Europa League, the obvious conclusion is they aren't anywhere near as good as they're made out to be.

In the last three seasons English sides have won it once and come runners up once. The other time Arsenal lost a semi final by a single goal to the winners. You call that struggling to make any impact?

I've already pointed out that PL sides - particularly the weaker ones - rotate their sides because they usually simply don't care about the UEFA relative to domestic competition. I mean, what do you think played more of a role in West Ham going out in pre-qualifying: them changing 11 players and granting five first team debuts or them actually not having the quality to compete with the third best side in Romania?

17 hours ago, ozza000 said:

Their position is more like Chelsea of the mid-2000s, undoubtedly one of the best teams in the world, they were constantly in a position to win it, but never quite did during that period, ironically they then won it later when they'd declined quite a bit with a weaker side, but that is the cup element of the competition.

So we're acknowledging that sides can be one of the best sides in the world whilst going out in the quarter finals like Juve last season or several other English Champions League hopes, and that it's a competition which is very much possible to win with sides that are merely very good rather than as great as Peak Barcelona or Peak Real, especially if you've got four of them and Peak Barcelona/Real has passed. I mean, apart from the gratuitous dig at Juve I'm pretty sure that was my whole point.

You've also helpfully acknowledged that the Premier League sides are better this season than they were two or three seasons ago and that the money will help over the long term, so I'm struggling to understand what you would like to see. Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea downgraded so they're not capable of winning the competition, even though they clearly are? The Premier League sides not having the resources to repair their weaknesses and become more successful, even though you agree they do? Preventing a no reputation PL side like Wolves from poaching top talent from the Champions League sides, even though they're already doing it? Ronaldo back at Real and Bayern's side made young again so they don't have to do rebuild jobs better than better-resourced English sides to remain on course to replicate their past glories?

I mean, I've suggested fatigue and rotation could play a bigger role in making English sides underperform even against obviously limited opponents in Europe than it does in FM (see also some underperforming imports not adapting...) but apparently that doesn't work for anyone...

The ironic thing is if people here got their way and the Premier League sides were arbitrarily downgraded by 10 CA points or more for historic cup performance reasons, in game they'd just go out and buy half of the less rich European sides' top players and leave the Eredivisie and Primera Liga and non-PSG Ligue 1 sides even weaker than before. That's what the financial advantage is in a simulation, not the expectation that high wages are going to magically make West Ham consistent.

Spurs08 · November 5, 2018

11 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

That's what I mean. Wasn't a shot at the accuracy of Butland, rather an observation that Serie A (and pretty much every league that isn't in England) are very underrated. There's no way Butland should be considered a leading player for any of the top leagues.

Or that the scouts are wrong.

sporadicsmiles · November 5, 2018

Well, reading what @santy001 says (and I guess he knows the process better than most), the problem may be that players are being overrated when they are abroad, and then when they move to England they increase the CA of teams because their CA was already too high. This kind of thing is hard to regulate, as you have to trust the researchers until enough time has passed to re-evaluate a player.

However, while FM can simulate the footballing world, it can never properly replicate it. On paper, outside of the Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern and PSG, the top 5 or 6 teams in the EPL have by far the best teams on paper. The Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea teams are loaded with talent at all positions. Manchester United and Arsenal are also pretty sure to be on that list, although Manchester United definitely are probably not as strong as they look given their players are not performing. Tottenham, likewise, have a squad as good as anyone in Europe. If you are looking at the players only, you would expect English sides to dominate Europe.

And that, really, I think, is the point. FM can only simulate based on the input data. There are so many intangible things that go into a football match that are really hard to simulate. Some playing styles are hard to translate into FM (because they are so complex in real life almost nobody can play them either). This explains Guardiola not really being a manager to fear on FM. Since I cannot place my finger on what, exactly, it is that has made English sides underperform recently (although we say that, Man Utd won the Europa league 2 seasons ago, and Liverpool were finalists last year, we are dealing within small numbers where statistics are often not useful), I do not know how it could be translated into the game. I mean, nobody can say the current Man City side is overrated in the current game, but they lost to Lyon, who are definitely man-for-man worse. It is a very tricky area, because a number based simulation will always favour those with the best numbers. To me, it is not always obvious that the numbers in the FM database are wrong.

Freakiie · November 5, 2018

England attracts top players way too easily in FM, that's the big issue. Clubs like Utd and City can poach players from Real, Barca, Bayern, Juve etc with no issues whatsoever and the players also are far too keen to go because "omg premier league reputation is sooooo big". Not sure how the importance of league rep is in 19, but I remember in 17 that the golden ball winner wanted to move from my 2x CL champion Bayern side to West Ham (who weren't even playing in Europe and despite a tycoon takeover had no achievements at all) simply because "PL is a better league".

Seeing Real selling Isco, Asensio and Casemiro within a year, while they were performing and the players seemingly being happy (at least judging by the transfer prices that were needed to get them) just makes no sense. Vice versa, would someone like Isco be that interested in a move to Utd? Perhaps if Real tries to dump him, but I doubt he'd come begging for a transfer if Real said no to Utd.

As said by others as well, the lack of fitness struggles with how overloaded the PL schedule is and how almost no players have issues adapting also should be looked into, but in the end they just strengthen the fact that the PL can buy every player in the world in FM, whereas in real life there's plenty of clubs that can say no to Utd/City without their players flipping tables that they must play in PL because reputation.

As for England dominating world cups, they do get some pretty outrageous regens and with how easy it is to develop regens in FM it's no surprise that England in no time becomes one of the strongest national teams simply due to raw CA. Which considering their RL youth situation doesn't make all that much sense either, seeing how most clubs completely neglect youth and just buy cheap foreigners due to beneficial labor laws and then just loan them out a few times before pawning em off for some easy money.

ozza000 · November 5, 2018

6 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

In the last three seasons English sides have won it once and come runners up once. The other time Arsenal lost a semi final by a single goal to the winners. You call that struggling to make any impact?

I've already pointed out that PL sides - particularly the weaker ones - rotate their sides because they usually simply don't care about the UEFA relative to domestic competition. I mean, what do you think played more of a role in West Ham going out in pre-qualifying: them changing 11 players and granting five first team debuts or them actually not having the quality to compete with the third best side in Romania?

So we're acknowledging that sides can be one of the best sides in the world whilst going out in the quarter finals like Juve last season or several other English Champions League hopes, and that it's a competition which is very much possible to win with sides that are merely very good rather than as great as Peak Barcelona or Peak Real, especially if you've got four of them and Peak Barcelona/Real has passed. I mean, apart from the gratuitous dig at Juve I'm pretty sure that was my whole point.

You've also helpfully acknowledged that the Premier League sides are better this season than they were two or three seasons ago and that the money will help over the long term, so I'm struggling to understand what you would like to see. Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea downgraded so they're not capable of winning the competition, even though they clearly are? The Premier League sides not having the resources to repair their weaknesses and become more successful, even though you agree they do? Preventing a no reputation PL side like Wolves from poaching top talent from the Champions League sides, even though they're already doing it? Ronaldo back at Real and Bayern's side made young again so they don't have to do rebuild jobs better than better-resourced English sides to remain on course to replicate their past glories?

I mean, I've suggested fatigue and rotation could play a bigger role in making English sides underperform even against obviously limited opponents in Europe than it does in FM (see also some underperforming imports not adapting...) but apparently that doesn't work for anyone...

The ironic thing is if people here got their way and the Premier League sides were arbitrarily downgraded by 10 CA points or more for historic cup performance reasons, in game they'd just go out and buy half of the less rich European sides' top players and leave the Eredivisie and Primera Liga and non-PSG Ligue 1 sides even weaker than before. That's what the financial advantage is in a simulation, not the expectation that high wages are going to magically make West Ham consistent.

Ok it's because of a slight typo on my part, but that post is meant to say "the English sides outside the top English sides have struggled to make an impact in the Europa League in a long time", and that is true, and that context should have been clear from the rest of the paragraph. The Man Utd's, Liverpool's, Arsenal's, Chelsea's of the world of course should do well in the Europa League, they're normally some of the best teams in it.

You are being very selective when blaming the lesser PL sides woes down to not caring about the Europa League. Eg. You've chosen 1 year with West Ham, but ignored the fact they lost to the exact same team the next season with their full strength team at the time (albeit they had a number of injuries at the time). Also guess what, the Spanish sides rotate in the early stages of the competition too, they don't fail to get past the early stages though like our teams regularly do. The lesser PL sides simply aren't anywhere near as good as media and people would like to believe. Look at Everton in the Europa League in recent times, they didn't struggle because of rotation, they struggled because they weren't good enough.

The problem is you aren't looking at the bigger trend over years. Juventus went out in the QF's, but look at recent performances over 3-4 years vs English sides, there is the difference. It's not hard to work out who has been the better side over that time frame. Over several years the English sides failed to make much impact at all, simply because they weren't as good as they were made out to be in England.

I've already said there's two issues, the top sides are slightly overrated, they win the CL at too high a rate in the early seasons vs what is likely in real life. If you looked at it this year, there was probably 7 sides with a reasonable chance of winning the CL, only 2 are English, everyone else very much rank outsiders, though a few capable of coursing a few upsets. I said the bigger issue is how overrated the rest of the PL though, the rest of the PL way over perform in Europe and generally in PL. Look what's happened, last year the first genuine top English side for several years sets a record points total. This year the early pace setting is all the top 5 are on record points tallies for this point of the season. Some of the top teams have started improving over recent times and they're dominating the rest in PL at a much greater rate than seen before, which all points to the rest simply not being as good as they're portrayed.

Also some of your agenda is just blatantly not true. Yes the PL has the most resources, but let's not pretend no side abroad has zero resources. You make out Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are struggling for resources, they have more resources than virtually any PL club, Real Madrid are more attractive than any PL club, and Bayern Munich have the in built advantage of being more attractive to Germans (traditionally a very strong footballing nation) than any PL club. So let's not pretend the PL are the only clubs with resources.

On your last point I'm not sure how much of a role this plays in FM and to what extent it does, but because of the fact the PL clubs have more resources they should generally have to pay more for players, there should be like a hidden tax because they have more money. This is a major factor outside of just being poorly run while average Premier League sides can spend nearly 100m or whatever and still be a much worse side than say a Sevilla on a lesser budget. This should affect further down the market more than the top end, though of course still exists higher up as seen at the likes of Man Utd. Average players move between PL clubs for sums that wouldn't be dreamt of abroad. Again this is a resource thing, no PL club needs to sell for financial reasons, thus all of them can hold out for a big price from another rich PL club, another factor why you see average players moving for so much money in the PL. Abroad, a lesser club in Spain has much more financial pressure and is operating on a tighter budget, so their players can be picked up by some of the 2nd tier Spanish clubs for much lesser fees.

wardog · November 5, 2018

38 minutes ago, bangkonggedek said:

I think the hardest thing to adapt with rather than the league was living in England itself, which is not the most appealing place to live among the more developed parts of the world, really. You'll read plenty accounts of foreign players struggling with the people, the weather and the food and all these daily stuff play bigger part in affecting players' motivation and focus than usually being credited for.

Another thing I observed from the players failing to deliver their good performances prior to moving to England then subsequently sold/discarded to another league, is that in most cases they will looked as if they had suffered a considerable loss of ability during their time in England, and they could never reach the same level they had even in the same team, same league where they used to excelled at. Maybe on average the coaching/backroom staffs standards in England were actually not very good in maintaining, let alone improving, the players' quality?

But this can be said for all leagues. Many players have done well in England came to Scotland and struggled for example, and like wise for players abroad to Scotland. I used Barton as an example above. Ok he wasnt the best player in England but he was decent. In Scotland he was no better than Andy Halliday.

ParanoidBuddha · November 5, 2018

23 minuti fa, sporadicsmiles ha scritto:

On paper, outside of the Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Bayern and PSG, the top 5 or 6 teams in the EPL have by far the best teams on paper

Based on what?

Btw yes, Liverpool excluding City reached the final facing Sevilla, Spartak Moskov, Maribor, Porto and vs the first good team (Roma) have been close matches overall. All respect to those teams but sorry that doesn't prove anything.

wardog · November 5, 2018

21 minutes ago, sporadicsmiles said:

If you are looking at the players only, you would expect English sides to dominate Europe.

Why is that? Are these players really that good? Thats the debate here.

bangkonggedek · November 5, 2018

4 hours ago, santy001 said:

For anyone interested, let's use the club I do the research for in Stoke, and have a very specific discussion, within the scope of this thread, on it and what your thoughts are.

At Stoke I've had, over the last few years, the following players come in with higher CA's than comparable squad members:

Badou Ndiaye (Turkey)
Moritz Bauer (Russia)
Gianelli Imbula (Portugal)
Bruno Martins Indi (Portugal)
Choupo-Moting (Germany)
Ramadan Sobhi (Egypt)
Jese (France)
Xherdan Shaqiri (Italy)
Joselu (Germany)
Phillipp Wollscheid (Germany)
Ibrahim Afellay (Spain)
Mame Diouf (Germany)
Erik Pieters (Netherlands)
Marko Arnautovic (Germany)
Brek Shea (USA)
Geoff Cameron (USA)
Maurice Edu (Scotland)

There's quite a few who came through with lower, Bojan being the most notable at the time I think but each of these players were pulling the squads overall average CA up. All of these players were rated outside of England. Ratings coming from 11 different nations of researchers. They all earned their CA's based on their merits of playing for teams who in some cases were playing in European competition as well. Others, not even playing in Europe but still pulling "Premier league" level CA's.

It can be argued that almost every players you've listed above actually had struggled to perform in their previous clubs the season before their respective transfers to Stoke, so considering that their CA before the transfers were based on the season prior to the one where they were not performing well, then by the time they got transferred to Stoke they really should received some decrease in CA to better reflect the reality. But this isn't the case currently in FM. Latest example in FM 19 is Fabinho. His performances last season in Monaco weren't very good really, but I don't think there's even a noticeable reduction in his attributes compared to the last FM.

Just now, wardog said:

But this can be said for all leagues. Many players have done well in England came to Scotland and struggled for example, and like wise for players abroad to Scotland. I used Barton as an example above. Ok he wasnt the best player in England but he was decent. In Scotland he was no better than Andy Halliday.

Very fair point. I think the adaptation factors in game aren't as pronounced as they are in real life as it stands.

November 5, 2018

9 minutes ago, wardog said:

But this can be said for all leagues. Many players have done well in England came to Scotland and struggled for example, and like wise for players abroad to Scotland. I used Barton as an example above. Ok he wasnt the best player in England but he was decent. In Scotland he was no better than Andy Halliday.

Do you think that was due to a lack of technical ability or mental focus?

For me British based players tend to overrated in FM on the mental aspect of the game, this includes hidden attributes.

If the Spurs squad does not have pressure & important matches attributes at an average of 10 I’d be disappointed.

ParanoidBuddha · November 5, 2018

4 ore fa, santy001 ha scritto:

Xherdan Shaqiri (Italy)

Just to be fair, he played 1 season in Italy and made 20apps between all competitions. I hightly doubt his CA has been changed much by italian researchers.

wardog · November 5, 2018

16 minutes ago, Barside said:

Do you think that was due to a lack of technical ability or mental focus?

For me British based players tend to overrated in FM on the mental aspect of the game, this includes hidden attributes.

If the Spurs squad does not have pressure & important matches attributes at an average of 10 I’d be disappointed.

Honestly for me I'd say it was physical. Scotland one of the more physical leagues going and that has a huge impact on players. Barton youd expect not so much but especially technically gifted players aren't used to being clattered and in Scotland alot of players wont pull out the way they maybe would in another league.

forameuss · November 5, 2018

31 minutes ago, Barside said:

If the Spurs squad does not have pressure & important matches attributes at an average of 10 I’d be disappointed.

Hiya Gary Neville, Hiya pal!

RocheBag · November 5, 2018

1 hour ago, Spurs08 said:

Or that the scouts are wrong.

The scout isn't wrong every time. Butland is one of many, many instances of this.

enigmatic · November 5, 2018

14 minutes ago, ozza000 said:

You are being very selective when blaming the lesser PL sides woes down to not caring about the Europa League. Eg. You've chosen 1 year with West Ham, but ignored the fact they lost to the exact same team the next season with their full strength team at the time (albeit they had a number of injuries at the time). Also guess what, the Spanish sides rotate in the early stages of the competition too, they don't fail to get past the early stages though like our teams regularly do. The lesser PL sides simply aren't anywhere near as good as media and people would like to believe. Look at Everton in the Europa League in recent times, they didn't struggle because of rotation, they struggled because they weren't good enough.

Well I could have picked plenty of other examples. Pretty sure that in FM, Burnley wouldn't have brought 95 CA players off the bench to try to rescue things against Olympiakos like they did this year. (The fifth and sixth best sides in England last season are top of their group and amongst the favourites to win it). Everton are notorious for rotating badly during their campaigns, and still only failed to before the knockouts when they were actually facing relegation.

But if you honestly think the average Premier League mid table side doesn't have the players to compete with the third best side in Romania.... it's a niche opinion. And if you were right, one you could make a lot of money from being an scout in Romania!

14 minutes ago, ozza000 said:

The problem is you aren't looking at the bigger trend over years. Juventus went out in the QF's, but look at recent performances over 3-4 years vs English sides, there is the difference. It's not hard to work out who has been the better side over that time frame. Over several years the English sides failed to make much impact at all, simply because they weren't as good as they were made out to be in England.

Two final defeats for Italy's strongest CL performer vs one for England's doesn't seem that clear cut to me. If you lengthen or shorten the trend or include the Europa League it favours English sides. If you look at which league's poaching the other's top players it favours English sides.

Juventus have a much better starting squad in the game than Man Utd which is obviously correct, but Roma don't have a better squad than Liverpool, which again seems fair. But Man Utd also have the resources to buy better players if they want to, including sometimes buying Juventus' star player despite them being the "bigger club" in FM terms. I think I can recall a circumstance in which that happened which everyone would have dubbed ludicrously unrealistic if it happened on FM...

And Roma don't really have the resources to out compete Liverpool on transfers even though their squad and appeal really isn't far behind.

14 minutes ago, ozza000 said:

Also some of your agenda is just blatantly not true. Yes the PL has the most resources, but let's not pretend no side abroad has zero resources. You make out Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are struggling for resources,

No I don't. I simply point out that the Premier League in general has a lot more resources than the teams a step below the Real/Barca/Bayern/Juve/PSG level. The Premier League has six teams close to that level in the longer term and others that become rich very rapidly, so there's a lot of slack if one buys replacements or hires a manager really poorly, whereas if PSG cock up then Lyon aren't on a financial footing to replace them.

Similarly and even more obviously, Wolves have massively more resources than Ajax despite Ajax obviously being a far superior team historically.

54 minutes ago, ozza000 said:

On your last point I'm not sure how much of a role this plays in FM and to what extent it does, but because of the fact the PL clubs have more resources they should generally have to pay more for players, there should be like a hidden tax because they have more money. This is a major factor outside of just being poorly run while average Premier League sides can spend nearly 100m or whatever and still be a much worse side than say a Sevilla on a lesser budget. This should affect further down the market more than the top end, though of course still exists higher up as seen at the likes of Man Utd. Average players move between PL clubs for sums that wouldn't be dreamt of abroad. Again this is a resource thing, no PL club needs to sell for financial reasons, thus all of them can hold out for a big price from another rich PL club, another factor why you see average players moving for so much money in the PL. Abroad, a lesser club in Spain has much more financial pressure and is operating on a tighter budget, so their players can be picked up by some of the 2nd tier Spanish clubs for much lesser fees.

I totally agree with you on this, but English sides typically pay a lot more than Spanish ones for 140CA players is very much in the game already (and a tweakable value in the data editor too if you want to play with it)

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EPL dominating the european cups??

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