All right! It's time to continue my Liverpool video game career! For full discloser here, I'm going to admit to putting the game difficulty on "Amateur". I tried playing on the "Semi-pro" level and it just wasn't working for me. I was having problems keeping a hold of the ball, passing, and could barely even get shots off at the goal, let alone score anything! So I moved down to amateur. And believe it or not, the game is still a challenge! Maybe because I'm an American, maybe because I'm not used to the controls, I don't know. But even on Amateur the computer still comes after you when you play!
So now I've pretty much got my squad all set up. Or at least I think I do. *chuckle* That's one of the fun things about these new video games, just when you think you have all the great players you need, they start to get hurt and things go all to hell!
Before I get into what happened, let me say a few words about Liverpool's real life new manager. I like the guy! I like him a lot! But from what I've been told, a lot of Liverpool fans don't care for him as manager because he wants to focus on bringing up and developing young talent. (Kind of like what I'm trying to do in the game? *chuckle*) The fans want wins and good players now, not developed players later. Oh well. On to my season.
So I started out playing a team called West Brom. It should be easy, right? I'm playing on amateur level. Oh no, West Brom comes right after me! I ended up winning the match, but the score was 2 - 1! That's all I could pull off, 2 goals. Wow...I'd better work on my game, or maybe change something. The way West Brom scored their goal was pretty disturbing, too! One of my back fielders (Is that correct?) sprained his knee! His name is Daniel Agger. So Agger sprains his knee, the announcers start talking about it and the man he's guarding runs away free towards my goal. The ball gets passed to him and I'm thinking "Oh no!" I'm sure the goal keeper had some profanity going through his mind as well as this guy scores on him! DAMN! And on amateur, too! But at least I won the match. On the down side, Agger is now injured. So I end up replacing him with Mbaye in the starting line up.
Before my next match, I was watching the tv show Being Liverpool again. And I see them talking about how this really good player has just arrived named Oussama Assaidi. I have him! I've been using him to warm my bench, though. I decide I should maybe put him in, and he's been doing pretty damn good! I play him at LF and we beat Arsenal 3 - 0! Very good! My 17 year old named Sterling is scoring a few goals now, too! I'm doing well. I also notice something:
When I play at Anfield, my home stadium, my players play better. On the road things are tougher. Very interesting!
Anyway, I move on and see I have a tournament match for the "Champions Cup" coming up next. This should be interesting. I'll be playing a French team called LOSC Lille. This should be easy, right?
No problem! It's raining, but that won't matter...will it? I start the game and score my first goal. And then these guys CAME AFTER ME! It was all I could do to keep them away from my goal! Even on amateur level, these guys played HARD! I score a second goal, and so do they! DAMN IT! I don't want to lose in the first game of this tournament! Luckily, near the end of the game Sterling puts one home and now it's 3-2. I actually manage one final goal just at the end of regular time and make it 4-2, but this match was ROUGH! Now I'm wondering how tough some of the later brackets in this tournament might be! Damn!
Only one other notable thing to report. This game allows you to maybe be picked to also manage one of the international teams. I received and email saying two teams might make me an offer to manage them soon, Romania and...wait for it...the UNITED STATES! The US probably isn't going to have the strongest players, but then being a first year manager I'm not going to get offers from any of the larger teams. Romania actually sounds fun, though. But if offered, I will go for managing the US team.
Ok, back to being a boring writer and video game player for a bit. Bye bye til next time!
