Series Improving the international game for club management

[Dec]

One of the major factors of the international and club game every two years is the African Cup of Nations. Some players go to the Cup in blistering form for their club and as this occurs in the January and February months it means that they potentially miss a few weeks at their clubs and as Manchester City and Newcastle have found out this can have a big affect on morale and general team performance. However FMH doesn’t factor in this competition at all and in the case of the Copa America when not loading Brazil it is the same in which a lot of players were fatigued after returning to their club later than expected.

In my opinion factoring in a real life occurrence such as this would be more realistic despite it may take up some significant memory. It could be a bit of depth that would enhance the game a lot by making the player think about possibilities that managers in real life have to.

One of my major problems is that I have to manually go through my players in cups to find out who they’ve done. This may ok if I only have one international player but factor in it being a big club such as Chelsea where 30 players could go every time a World Cup occurs.

What I’d like is a round-up of how my players do and if one of them stood out or was top scorer as every time a major competition comes around players who may be the best in the world could flop and this may affect their club form, however this doesn’t happen in FMH currently and it would be a nice little touch and with a report of how they’ve done and if one has won the tournament it could directly affect my first choice XI and also the player’s morale/fatigue in general as I may be inclined to rest a player for the friendlies if he played in the World Cup final where as I may not know otherwise without spending a considerable amount of time searching.

Simple little enhancements with a news item on this could go a long way as these statistics would be available in the real world and a lot of pressure would ensue on the World Cup golden boot winner for the season following. Also it would help the manager know he is on form and should be picked for the start of the season at least.

This was mentioned on the SI forums and I have to say I loved this idea so much I decided to include it. The feature itself is fairly basic but something that would be amazing. The ability to send a few scouts to a major international competition in order to find hidden gems or top performers whether this is on a general level, age range or position search is something that is current in the real world and to do this on FMH would make the tournaments more interactive than they are at present.

Using a major tournament as a scouting platform often inspires moves so why should FMH be any different? I reckon it shouldn’t and this feature is one that has to go in for anyone that wants to take their transfer policy to the most realistic method but it also could be used as it is in real life to watch the progress of a player you may want to sign but have doubt about due to him being based in a small nation.

A major annoyance is that the news feed is often full during an international break just to tell you who got called up or played. One simple message as follows could be used for international call ups:

“The following players have been called up for international duty for the 30/01/2012-01/02/2012:

England – Frank Lampard, John Terry, Ashley Cole

France – Florent Malouda

Ivory Coast – Didier Drogba

…”

A similar message could be used after the matches have been played listing who’s played, who’s scored and who’s captain like currently but adding to this good performances’, players’ first caps and landmarks (such as scoring 100 goals for their international side) would bring more depth to the game while not really adding anything but in fact taking things away (lots of news items).

Again it is a few simple changes, but they will add to the overall feel to the game and stop it being too predictable or boring in this aspect as I for one often don’t read the international news items anymore.

As briefly touched on above the game hardly factors in international form or games in the morale or fatigue of a player. In real life a fatal error costing his team a final slot in the World Cup may leave his morale low and in other instances a first cap may lead to better form due to high confidence.

As a whole affecting a players’ performance through international games happens, but not so much on FMH. Enhancing this aspect wouldn’t take a lot of work in my opinion and would be highly more enjoyable with the realism it will give to the game. As well it could present many different scenarios and views to think about such as whether to drop a player for receiving a red card in an important game for England.

The media during World Cup season is frenzied at best all around the world so why isn’t it on FMH? How come Sir Alex can comment on Rooney getting suspended for England’s first two Euro 2012 games in real life but when it happens in FMH I can’t?

It doesn’t seem fair and it isn’t. A bit more hype about a player that has come from unknown or low expectations to be amazing at the World Cup then be linked with every club under the sun would be something that would put the immersion into the game, but also make it realistic. Also on the flip side doing the opposite would be cool where a player could get slated for ruining their nations’ chance by a string of bad performances in which causes his future to be unsettled.

Not only this though as I mentioned above the ability to comment on your players’ performance at international level would be neat little features that could reassure or unsettle him in the club game. You may choose to reassure Rooney that his kick out was a mistake but it wouldn’t harm his chances for Manchester United in which would make him score a lot of goals because you had faith in him, or you may choose to say he shouldn’t have done it and rip into him for the media which causes him to request a transfer.

Overall the media side of things needs improving as it has so much potential yet as a club manager you hardly see this and a bit of unpredictability and involvement could go a long way despite it being a tiny addition in the whole of the game.

This post has been promoted to an article

[rafa]

Nice article Dec!

[Chelsea8]

Very nice Dec

[Dec]

Cheers guys .

[Ashez]

Nice article

Another usefull tool would be if you could send a scout to league games to watch your international players then they could tell you if a player deserves a call up or to be dropped etc.

[Dec]

Yes but this is for club managers not international managers .

[Ashez]

Good point

Once again great work

[Eoin]

Nice article

Another usefull tool would be if you could send a scout to league games to watch your international players then they could tell you if a player deserves a call up or to be dropped etc.

On FM for PC you can watch a game as an international manager, it's a great tool to use

Also nice work Dec enjoyed it and agree with your article.

[samhardy]

Good work Dec

[Lewiitom]

Great article Dec!

[Sunny]

Cool article

[rayjayokocha]

Nice work Dec

[Dec]

Cheers guys, glad you like it. If you think any point should be highlighted or there's something missing please say.