Thanks Stan, I appreciate that (every time I write on here now I think of how much I'd love to be involved in journalism like yourself, I take great joy in writing something, even knowing that it's too long for 90% of people to read).
Of course, I agree that it is frustrating not being able to be a player on the pitch in Football Manager, for the same reasons that it's fantastic to play Pro Evolution Soccer - you see so much realism topped with so many joyous moves that your players pull off, not to mention the goals, and you want to "do that yourself". And PES does allow you to do the moves and the glorious goals that Football Manager allows it's virtual-players to do. But the reason myself and lots of other players keep coming back to Football Manager is that every time you start a new game, it's different - one of the big reasons why being that you can change jobs, and shift the football world as you know it entirely. If I could add one feature to the next PES, it would be that.
Now in PES, they've programmed into the game that different teams have set styles of play, i.e. Arsenal counter-attack themselves to death and the South American teams ping the ball around a lot (and do a few more tricks), frustrating you no end. I love this. It's the same in Football Manager. But in Football Manager you get to experience a lot more of it, and you get to experience different forms of it YOURSELF rather than just playing against it.
In PES, if I go Arsenal, then I know it will benefit me to play counter-attacking football because my players are some of the best counter-attacking footballers around, and you play against the rest of the English teams (unless you make a custom league and fill it with random teams, which I don't because I aim for realism in everything I play). So there I am, playing counter-attacking football against teams who all play in a pretty similar way. For twenty seasons. Until the end.
In Football Manager, if I go Arsenal (which I never have, I have always started the game with a team at least two divisions lower than the top league in the country, something else that would delight me beyond belief if Konami could get themselves to add - it only costs a few extra researchers, they can fake the names up all they like)... I have counter-attacking players, so I play a counter-attacking style, and don't do too badly. At first it's a learning curve, being a big club and dealing with big-name, tempramental prima-donnas (something else that you're not challenged with in PES), but I do reasonably well. Then, I get a job offer from another country - France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, wherever. So I consider if I've achieved enough, then accept it. Now, everything is different, and it's a LOT harder. I have to research the way my new team plays, as well as the way that the rest of the division plays. I can't just use my old tactics any more, not even my old formation. In this division, the general stats of the players are higher in areas where, in the English Premiership, they are generally poor. You even have to do new training regimes. And hire staff that know the country better (which is even more important in FM2007 - scouts now have knowledge on specific countries, they have a rating out of a hundred, so it's even more important that you make the right hiring and firing choices from day one).
Look at the difference in size between those last two paragraphs. If that first paragraph of gameplay keeps me entertained for six months, the second one would keep me entertained for a year. Not a little bit of a difference, a LOT. And that's excluding the challenge of working your way up more than one, eight-team division, which would be easy enough to add if they just put their hand in their pocket for extra researchers and data inputters (I realise businesses don't like to spend, but firstly it would increase the sales of their product a LOT and secondly researchers and inputters are two-a-penny compared to the other departments they have). If they added
one simple thing, or paid out a tiny bit more and added the job changing AND the lower leagues for each country, the game would last people until PES10, in the same way that the leagues and cups from PES1 have kept the majority of us buying the game until PES5.
Incidentally, I know the feeling of "discovering" someone - it was in FM2006 with me, however... I saw Tamas Priskin playing in the Premiership for Watford yesterday, having bought him for my Mansfield side (now in the Premiership after six long seasons) two years ago. He came, he scored 20 goals in 20 games, and then he decided he wanted to leave to "further his ambitions". From then on I've always labelled him a Judas, as I hope the virtual Mansfield fans have as well (there's a new feature I'd like, a section in the "Club Information" under "Favourite Players" called "Disliked Players").
Ah, it's a beautiful game.
. Although Im not very good at both,I do realise that in real football, its not just where you kick the ball to it also depends on which part of the ball you kick, the distance between u and the ball, your stamina when u kick it etc.. have you ever try to kick a ball after a 30m dash?
