The Wheels on the Bus…

By: Tom B | May 15th, 2009

… don’t go round and round, in fact, they may as well be rusting as the bus is not moving from in front of my goal.

Remebering who I was playing against if anyone was mad enough to bet on me then the official FM Bookmakers would have paid out 11.00 if I’d won. I mad enough to bet on me. I was playing Orihuela, the club fancied by the bookmakers as the second most likely champions. They are fully professional, and they even have a player worth EU400,000, my best player is Antonio, the 15 year old penalty taking kid who can’t head the ball, worth a cool 70k…

So what did I do? I took one look at my squad and chose the most defensive tactic I could. This wasn’t helped by the fact that Valdez was injured. On top of this, I had no left back, or natural left footed outfield players in my squad, which basically left me 2 choices, play Manuel (II) at LB or my youth team LB Adrian Sole (see below). Given that Manuel (II) had cost me a goal at left wing back at the last time of asking, and that I really needed him as a defensive midfielder, I went with the young kid (see below) in a 5-1-3-1. Anti-football at its best.

Now the LLM way I play means that in order to scope out the opponent, I will only look at their last game, key player and my scout report, so I did. They play the ball down the wings, a lot, so if I just mark up on their wingers, and put a brick wall between myself and their goal, a 0-0 is on the cards. Playing them on the break with long balls to the Swedish fishmonger Johansson might even see him sneak a goal. The only positive is that they’re missing about 10 players.

The Match

I conceded our first goal because I’m an idiot. I had our DM mark their dangerous striker. Now, that is the job of the Centre Back, and so while my DM was cleverly making a defensive line of 6, their who couldn’t mark the other striker who headed home from 15 yards. I quickly made amends and (contrary to all the people who claim the AI cheats in the game) scored a ridiculous goal, from an own goal (see the video below). They had a couple of gilt edged chances, the best of which coming in the 52nd minute, but I held out and managed a 1-1.

Olle Johansson went off injured (the game claims it’s a torn calf, but I believe it’s RSI from filleting fish, either way he’s out for 5 or 6 months) in the 68th minute, and I brought on Alfonso as my striker, but nothing much changed. I repelled attack after attack, they kept crossing and I kept clearing, with some ridiculously good saves in betwen.

I was proud of my charges, and I let them know via the media, who were impressed with the most undeserving of 1-1 draws.

Lorca, of Boss Guillermo Rodriguez wants to sign Nieto, and I’m that broke and he’s that old that I just might have to consider it.

Player Profile:
Adrian Sole

What can I say about Adrian? Well, he works for the team, can concentrate, will run all day, and isn’t very good at football. As an aside, he too can strike a fair penalty. If my youth team ever makes it into a penalty shootout I wouldn’t bet against them. Maybe, however, there are more important aspects to football than just putting it in from 12 yards. In saying that, he wasn’t that bad in the match, despite his first touch being a complete freakout and booting the ball into row z when unmarked and in acres of space.