Three Wolves

Getting Ready For Launch

2008-10-06T15:56:00.000-07:00

Venglos turned into a veritable zombie wasteland after most of its members shifted to another Beta gameworld. Those few of us left behind carried on as best we could, until we too shifted to a new Beta gameworld.

Conklin Forks FC is now a member of GW Dublin, and so far, things are going OK. Team is in the NFA's Q2 Division, and is 2-4-4 after 10 games (2-1-1 home, 0-3-3 away).

GW Keane, the gameworld that I selected to join, will be the last one to go live, on October 29.

0-for-the-love-of-god (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The AI)

2008-09-07T23:16:00.001-07:00

Season 1 is over, and well, it was a season of two halves.

The first half saw my team fail to win in its first 21. That's not a mistype. Twenty-one. And the first 20 of those games were all decided by a goal or less.

Then the Forks lost one by 3 and that, coupled with the disappearance of several owners, allowed me to save the season by racking up wins against the AI and finish 13-11-14 for 50 points. That's right. After not recording a win in the first 21 games, the Three Wolves won 13 of the last 17.

Every win was against the AI, though. I didn't win a single league game against live opposition. Which means I suck. But my world ranking is bubbling under the top 200 as I type this. Go figure.

How NOT to start your season

2008-08-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

Conklin Forks began its inaugural season in NFA Qual. 4 today. And after 5 games, the Three Wolves are 0-2-3, which would be pathetic enough, but then you add this into the equation. These were the scorelines for the five games:

0-1
0-0
0-1
0-0
0-1

We also played a lingering cup game against a team's AI. Yep, 0-1.

What's wrong? In 51 games prior to the start of the season, Forks were held scoreless 12 times. The most games in a row the club had gone scoreless before this was 3.

Anyway, if preseason showed me anything, it's that Betoligar is half-decent, Fleck is still a little green, Paterson is sporadic and Wilson Parks is an unmitigated piece of crap. I'm currently bidding on some help for up front. Hopefully we can get off this evil duck in short order.

Home Kit

2008-08-16T00:47:00.000-07:00

The Conklin Pen Company was established in 1898 and is regarded as one of the most significant and innovative manufacturers from the golden era of fountain pens.

The manufacturer insignia is actually the logo I designed a few years back for my now-defunct Diamond Mind Baseball virtual team, the Los Angeles Nessmen of the Internet Simulated Baseball League (ISBL). There's a WKRP joke in there, in case it isn't obvious. And yes, Bailey over Jennifer.

Moving On Up

2008-08-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

So the dreaded lag finally lifted and us newbies got to see our first world ranking. And now I don't remember it, but it was in the top 200, which caught me sort of by surprise. Midnight rolled around and it dropped to somewhere in the 210-220 range (214th, I see, now that it's back up), but I've been elevated in the news from "obscure" to "surprise package." Which you can take one of two ways: 1) I'm playing way over my head, and it'll all come crashing down soon enough; or 2) sticking with a youth movement is going to pay dividends down the line in the form of unexpected performance levels. Too soon to tell.

Seems like there's too much hitting of the post, own goals and awarded penalties in these games (I've played about 40-45), but otherwise gameplay has been relatively smooth. You have the occasional "goal on a missed offsides," as you should. It's the other items I cited that seem to be too frequent. Although when I checked my stats, I've only been awarded 5 PKs so far (and gone 4-for-5), so maybe it's a warped perception thing.

Since my first post, I've picked up some additional bodies, entered some additional cups, and tried to find games against some of the better teams. I scored a 3-0 win over a club ranked 50+ places ahead of me for the first time. I'm winning about a third of my games, losing a third and drawing a third. Itching for the season proper to start.

Here We Go

2008-08-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well, after a false start Monday, I was finally able to get started with my FM Live club in GW12 Vengalos on Tuesday. I used the automatic team selection to get started, and well, it didn't quite as planned. Despite setting myself up for about £85k in salaries, with ages between 16 & 23, the team I ended up with came to less than half of that salary-wise. I also ended up dumping 6 players and picking up 7 replacements.

KEPT
GK Matt Allen (USA) 22, £14k, £800/wk
GK Phil Marfuggi (USA) 22, £12k, £1250/wk
SW/DC Olexandr Yatsenko (UKR), 23, £22k, £2000/wk
DRC Jon Leathers (USA) 23, £10k, £1250/wk
WBL Mike Randolph (USA) 23, £10k, £1000/wk
DC/DM Pat Phelan (USA) 23, £16k, £1500/wk
DC Rob Valentino (USA) 23, £16k, £1250/wk
DM/AMC Dax McCarty (USA) 21, £16k, £1500/wk
AMR/FC Avdija Vrdajevic (BIH) 22, £16k, £1500/wk
MLC Guy Dufour (BEL) 21, £20k, £2250/wk
AMC Michu (ESP) 22, £20k, £4000/wk
S Martin Paterson (NIR) 21, £24k, £4000/wk
S Misdongard Betoligar (CHA) 23, £24k, £2000/wk
S Ahmed Al-Suwaileh (KSA) 22, £16k, £2250/wk

DUMPED
WBR/DM Efrain Juarez (MEX) 20, £22k, £2000/wk (now w/North Angels FC, WCA)
DLC Arnaud Buhler (SUI) 23, £10k, £2000/wk (NYA - not yet available)
DC/DM Jimmy Magee (USA) 17, £9k, £200/wk (now w/North Angels FC, WCA)
DM Bryan Gaytan (USA) 17, £14k, £400/wk (FA - free agent)
AML/FC Amaechi Igwe (USA) 21, £12k, £1500/wk (NYA)
AMR/FC Johann Smith (USA) 21, £14k, £2000/wk (NYA)

Looks like North Angels FC is run by an American, as well, and got those guys as auto players once I dumped them. Why did I dump these six? Variety of reasons. Wing backs and defensive midfielders don't usually figure into my style of play. And I had a list of players I wanted to grab, thanks to doing some Genie homework with the FM08 database, and they figured to be the replacements.

ACQUIRED
GK Juan Turrubiates (MEX) 23, £16k, £1500/wk
DRC Mateo Musacchio (ARG) 18, £14k, £400/wk
DL Jonas Elmer (SUI) 20, £18k, £2500/wk
DC/DM Cala (ESP) 19, £35k, £300/wk
AMRC/FC Benito Carbone (ITA) 37, £8k, £3500/wk (my one concession to age)
AML Kevin Artmann (GER) 22, £24k, £1750/wk
AMLC/FC John Fleck (SCO) 17, £40k, £2000/wk

Once I got that taken care of and confirmed, I joined the Nighttime FA, as it seems to be the best fit, being as I'm 5 hours behind most everybody (that puts game times between 5:30 - 8 pm Eastern). And I started playing.

Conklin Forks' inaugural match had us traveling to Ashington to face nufceltic of the PFA. A 25-yard Dufour free kick in the 15th minute gave the Three Wolves their first-ever goal, and it proved to be the winner as Conklin Forks won, 1-0.

Next, it was time for some Cup play. Forks entered the Tesco Value Cola 17p Cup, a 10-team tourney broken into two groups. In our first cup match in Group B against fellow Nighttimers and lupines the Jazzman Wolves, Fleck opened the scoring in the 5th minute with a thunderous drive from the top of the boxthat clanged off defender Donovan Slijngard and into the lower right corner of the net. Bulgarian striker Vladimir Manchev evened the scoreline in the 14th minute with a well-placed shot from 10 yards out, but Forks were back in the lead 3 minutes later when Goat of the Day Slijngard brought down Dufour inside the box and Vrsajevic cooly slotted home from the spot. Dufour made it 3-1 Forks 10 minutes later with a drive from just outside the box. The J-Wolves got back to within a goal in the 67th minute, thanks to a Rudolf Skacel strike, but Forks held firm for the last 25 to score a 3-2 victory.

Next came another Nighttime club, AFC Kobras. After 55 minutes, the Three Wolves found themselves down 3-0, thanks to goals by Simone Motta (35'), Míchel (38') and Henok Goitom (55'). Still, Forks pressed ahead, and after being gifted a Ivan Dudic own goal in the 75th minute, Betoligar followed 5 minutes later with a header off a Cala corner kick to pull within a goal and make things interesting. But Forks hopes were snuffed out in the 84th minute as Goitom collected his second to lead AFC Kobras to a 4-2 win.

Team Habu of the AFA were the next opponents, and Forks stormed out of the gate, as Leathers took the opening back pass, found Fleck 40 yards ahead, and Fleck rustled the back of the net 17 seconds into the match. Turrubiates held firm, saving 5 shots on goal, but Gerardo Castillo played a perfect pass to the head of Boubacar Sanogo in the 81st minute, and the Three Wolves would have to settle for a 1-1 draw.

And so after 3 games in the Tesco Cup, Conklin Forks find themselves sitting third in Group B with 4 points, behind AFC Kobras (6 pts) and the J-Wolves (4 pts, ahead on GD by 1). All three clubs await Swell City of the XFA, who won their opener against Team Habu (2 pts, finishing 5th in group) before disappearing into the night.

Finally, some initial thoughts about FM Live. The server issues that plagues Day 1 seem to be resolved, and everything seemed to be running smoothly by Tuesday night. Gameplay is very similar to FM08, but learning my way around the interface has been a little daunting. And I miss having an Assistant Manager around to help me figure out my team. Although maybe I'm supposed to go buy one? Don't know. I'm still flying blind on a lot of this. But fun, it is.