Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Final

England v Spain

So we reach the final, an unlikely pairing await us. Spain the favourite for the competition and now the favourites on the night take on England, what an alternative to Euro 2008 not only are we in the competition for us all to support but have at last got to the final…. Click here to read more

Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Semi’s

The Semi Final Draw
Sweden V Spain
England V Germany

An interesting set of draws, the first one being the curse of all England teams since 1966. Will it go to penalties? We sure hope not, it will also be a chance again to make those comparisons with the war. Click here to read more

FM Tactics: Holland 4231 Part 2

In  the second part of our FM Tactics piece on Holland’s 4321 we look at the basic formation to play within FM, its a basic run over each position and the basic stats are needed for each player to get the best out of the tactic and the best out of your players

In FM

To Be Continued…

Thread On Forums

FM 08 Transfer Update Released!

GK and FMV have released their first update FM08 summer transfer update, leagues across the World have been updated and many small tweaks such as Ronaldinho, Deco, Barry, Bentley, Quaresma and more being unsettled at their clubs aswell as club finances reworked!

So hit the forums and report any changes!

Download Transfer Update

Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 7

The draw for the Quarter finals:
Sweden v France
Poland v Germany
England v Czech Republic
Holland v Spain
So as it has worked out each of our 6 teams left, are to meet each other in the quarter finals to fight it out to be the best team in Europe and interestingly Poland and Germany are drawn together. Click here to read more

FM Tactics: Holland 4231 Part 1

Well two games into Euro 2008 we can all see the Dutch playing method, they’ve moved away from the 4-3-3 of past and adopted more of a 4-2-3-1. In a way this tactic is a lot better for them, you can defend with six player and attack with five. The tactic has very few flaws but leaves a lot of physical demands on the players especially on the Wingbacks who join every attack and then have to run back into their defensive roles. In FM you are probably looking at around four or five variations of the Dutch tactic and I’m going to recreate the Dutch magic into a good, solid FM tactic for the Arsenal’s, Barcelona’s and Holland’s of the FM world.
Trying to use Holland’s tactics in FM is a very difficult thing to do, as by no means are we going to get a cheat tactic that promises to win you every game, but what we can achieve is a tactic that replicates the Dutch style of play as well as FM will allow us to.

In Real Life

Basic Formation

Holland deploy the 4-2-3-1, with the two full backs providing support in attack, the DMC’s and DC’s forming a solid base, the three attacking midfielders picking up the ball and running and the main striker holding the ball up and connecting the play. The formation is a very simple and very effective one that potentially can give you six players defending at any one time in your own half and six players attacking at any one time, the formation is perfect for a quick, short, counter attacking game.

Defending

When the Dutch defend their formation naturally means that a lot of players have to track back from offensive positions, the wingbacks have to track back to cover any sort of attack from the oppositions wingers and the most central attacking midfielder has to pull back to make sure he picks up the ball if the team regain possession and launch a counter attack. The defensive midfielders will sit in front of the center backs forming a box midfield, one of the most secure tactics within the world of football, the opposition find it very difficult to get any sort of play down the middle of the field and are forced to play the ball wide and in turn this forces them away from the goal.

Attacking/Counter Attacking

This is where the tactic comes into its own, with the fullbacks joining every attack you end up with six players in the final third of the pitch, a lot of play goes to these attacking fullbacks and this allows the striker and attacking midfielders to overload the box and around the box this will result in a lot of headed goals and a lot of passing and moving. The defensive midfielders can also act as play makers in this formation and generally they have three options; through ball to attacking fullbacks, short pass to one of the attacking midfielders or the long ball up to the striker. Each option is very effective and often deadly, with on coming support from midfield and defense there is never a lack of options while attacking and counter attacking.

Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 6

The first of the round of games we bring to you is just for the decision of who will win the group giving the better draw as Germany and Sweden go head-to-head.  Schmitdt opened the scoring, 10 minutes in good position allowed him space, when the ball came in he fired it past Isaksson. Click here to read more

FM Debate: New Leagues?

Across the Scene, in every “FM09 Wishlist” thread you can guarantee to find one thing that will be called for numerous people; More Leagues. In FM08 we already have 50 countries to manage in and around 200,000 players and staff to choose from, so would the addition of even more players, even more staff, even more countries really enhance our Football Manager?

People seem to be wanting more leagues to have a new Managing Experience and a new army of players to pick up. The majority want to see Africa better represented with countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Eygpt and Tunisia getting big shouts to be included in the game. New Leagues are all fine and good but why do we really want them there? How can people want new managerial experiences when they havent even hit 50% of the playable Countries in FM? How many of us have had a real crack at managing in Belarus? Indonesia? or Hong Kong? Very few of us I bet, yet people call for New Leagues to be added all the time when they havent even touched most of the available leagues. Realistically African leagues arent exactly going to be a massive hit, people arent going to be playing in those leagues more than 3/4 times throughout that version of FM’s lifetime, the leagues will get probably one good run out then most will return to the familiarity of England, La Liga, Serie A and Scotland.

People also want the New Leagues so they can have new players in game, they fail to realise that very few of the players from these African nations will actually be in an average FM game, due to their low Reputations also work permit problems will leave you without your new star player from Chad for up to 3 years in some cases. In FM08 we already have a lot of African players in FM, if you load the South African league you will be loading players from across Africa and if you dont you still get a decent amount of Africans, but if more players were to be in game that would mean SI would have to rise their Reputation which in turn raises their sell price.

Would these leagues really make FM better? In CM 03/04 we had around 40 players playable in FM08 the figure is now around 50 but many fans of the series have said that the game has declined in quality, could that not be down to SI spending more time researching, gathering data, creating players, coding leagues and getting every little detail right now than every before? Surely new leagues would leave SI with less time to make changes to the game, such as the Match Engine, Scouting System, Transfer System and less time for SI to develop new features. Surely its no coincidence that the series has supposedly declined in quality but the amount of leagues in game has increased?

What arguments are there really for new leagues? The majority just want them so they can sleep easy at night knowing they are there, but could new leagues really make the game that much better?

Visit This Thread to give your opinion

Staff Shakeup

As Goal-Kick continues to develop and progress, there are times when several staff changes are needed. Here is a brief update to make you aware of our updated staff team.

Firstly, Q steps down from his role as root admin due to other commitments. We thank Q for his hard work behind the scenes to help keep Goal-Kick alive and help the site on its way to its former glory. He’ll still be involved in the site a little behind the scenes, but won’t be seen as an active staff member.

There are two other admin departures to comment on; Dave will be slipping into a ‘Free role’. Not an active staff member, but able to view the staff room and input on site ideas. JC will be moving from his Admin role to Head of GFX in the build up to FM09.

Goal-Kick now has a three-headed administrator team, arguably our most ambitious to date. James, Wazzar and Skacel are the new head boys, and will oversee the running of the site from here on. James steps directly into Q’s old boots as root admin of the site, whilst Wazzar and Skacel bring their expertise in the running of the forum and FM related matters.

Read more

Managerial Reversal European Championships Special Part 5

Scotland once again showed that they were out of their depth even with one of the best managers in British history, Gus Hiddink also showed he was a magician. Sweden played good football throughout the game, Scotland conceded their second consecutive goal in the first minute. Click here to read more

Next Page »