Gaming Football Manager 2021 (FM21)

Chipper

Adulterer.
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Champions!


Much less convincing 2nd half of the season if looking at points-haul. 48 from the first 21 matches, 39 from the second 21. We were running on empty at times there and it was a bit of a struggle but got the job done in the end.

Ended up having to add another player to our bloated squad after our starting left winger, Harry Bunn went down with a long-term injury just after the halfway point. Cieran Dunne coming in on loan from Sunderland. Brought him in quick when not fully scouted but I was in a bit of a panic. Saw the range of his partially revealed pace and acceleration attributes through the masking which looked good and was a bit disappointed when finding out his actual ability. Still, he contributed a bit and I've seen worse performers.

Now the fun really starts, this season was built on a lot of the players the previous coach had brougth in. There were 15 new signings in the summer before I took over and those guys would have been impossible to move on so we went with them plus my own signings. Now all off those, or nearly all of them are out of contract, time to rely completely on my own signings. This is new territory for me as I'd normally do it with the help of Genie Scout, an overhaul without it is going to be a lot harder. Not 100% sure how to go about it. As such, I'm not going get hopes up for consecutive promotions like I would if using a scouting tool, this could be a much more realistic save with slower progress. Still going to try to do the best I can and would welcome rapid progress up through the divisions of course but we'll see.
 
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weso26
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I bought this recently after my fm2020 game crashed.

Is there a knack to job interviews? I never get other jobs despite being big favourite beforehand.
 

Ludens the Red

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Finally started my long term save, thinking all the little bugs would be sorted and I’m about to start season two and what the feck is this opening day fixture list :lol:

Never seen anything as unrealistic in football manager as this.

 

WI_Red

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Finally started my long term save, thinking all the little bugs would be sorted and I’m about to start season two and what the feck is this opening day fixture list :lol:

Never seen anything as unrealistic in football manager as this.

I am missing something that is likely extremely obvious.
 

Dan_F

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Won the league in my first season in Slovenia, and almost made it into the Champions League but lost on away goals to Red Star in qualifying. Made it through to the Europa League though, so I’m well ahead of what I managed in FM20.

My best player wants to leave to go and sit on Burnley’s bench. Unfortunately for him he signed a 5 year contract before the transfer window, so he’s going nowhere :lol:
 

Ludens the Red

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I am missing something that is likely extremely obvious.
Haha, depends, how’s your knowledge on the lesser know local derbies?
Basically you have West Ham/Millwall, Sunderland/Newcastle and Forest/Derby all on the opening day. Why the opening day is on the 31st July is another mystery.
 

Dan_F

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Haha, depends, how’s your knowledge on the lesser know local derbies?
Basically you have West Ham/Millwall, Sunderland/Newcastle and Forest/Derby all on the opening day. Why the opening day is on the 31st July is another mystery.
Bristol City v Cardiff is pretty tasty too.
 

WI_Red

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Haha, depends, how’s your knowledge on the lesser know local derbies?
Basically you have West Ham/Millwall, Sunderland/Newcastle and Forest/Derby all on the opening day. Why the opening day is on the 31st July is another mystery.
I recognized the Sunderland/Newcastle one, but alas, the rest of them were beyond me.

Anyways, I would probably not have caught on anyways, considering it is common here in the states for local rivals to play their final exhibition series against each other (Dodgers/Giants, Mets/Yankees, etc.) the weekend before the season starts.

Edit: In baseball
 

Ludens the Red

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Bristol City v Cardiff is pretty tasty too.
Ah yeah of course! Amazing coincidence for a random fixture generator.

I recognized the Sunderland/Newcastle one, but alas, the rest of them were beyond me.

Anyways, I would probably not have caught on anyways, considering it is common here in the states for local rivals to play their final exhibition series against each other (Dodgers/Giants, Mets/Yankees, etc.) the weekend before the season starts.

Edit: In baseball
yeah that is weird .... the chances of something like this (fixtures) happening in England are about 1 in a quadruple trillion
 

Abraxas

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Has anyone tried any interesting formations and/or tactics on FM21?

Just taken advantage of Game pass and upgraded from FM20, saying goodbye to my beloved Dulwich Hamlet side in the Championship.

Thinking about doing a journeyman save on this one and trying some new ideas.
 

NoLogo

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Has anyone tried any interesting formations and/or tactics on FM21?

Just taken advantage of Game pass and upgraded from FM20, saying goodbye to my beloved Dulwich Hamlet side in the Championship.

Thinking about doing a journeyman save on this one and trying some new ideas.
If you ever had and interest about strikerless tactics I feel FM21 is a good version to use one. 4-1-3-2-0 so far seems to be the best version but I have seen people use 4-1-2-3-0 and 4-2-4-0 to also pretty good effect.
 

Siorac

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Mental. They all drew so United won :lol:

And the teams they played finished right behind each other on the table in the exact same order as their table-topping opponents:

United (1) vs Norwich (10)
Liverpool (2) vs Stoke (11)
City (3) vs Swansea (12)

Neat. I like it when stuff like this happens.
 

JB08

Searches for nude pics of Marcos Rojo
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Tg

That's mental :lol:
Aye. Can you imagine how frustrated the Liverpool fans would be, drawing 0-0 at home to Stoke :lol: not to mentioned they happen to be managed by Frank Lampard.
 

bosnian_red

Worst scout to ever exist
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Has anyone tried any interesting formations and/or tactics on FM21?

Just taken advantage of Game pass and upgraded from FM20, saying goodbye to my beloved Dulwich Hamlet side in the Championship.

Thinking about doing a journeyman save on this one and trying some new ideas.
I remember a long time ago, maybe fm13 or whatever, I had a 4-1-4-1 formation but the 1 was a regista holding down the midfield on his own, and the 4 behind the striker were all in the attacking midfield line/inside forwards or just advanced wingers. Shouldn't have worked at all but for whatever reason went on a disgustingly good run with it over a couple of seasons.

This one is weird. I've managed to get decent results out of certain types of 4-4-2, or 4-1-3-1-1 (basically a 4-4-2 but with a defensive mid and a support striker instead of flat lines), and then very rarely 4-3-3 working. 4-2-3-1 has been pretty much useless for me, and diamond/narrow formations or 3/5 at the back formations just haven't worked.
 

Lay

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
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I tried a formation that had as many exotic roles as I could fit in, all with personal instructions to take more risks. It worked well for a bit but I conceded a hell of a lot. Knocked Bayern out the UCL winning 5-2 away but then lost 7-1 to PSG
 

Chipper

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About to kick off in the National League following promotion last season. Been very busy on the transfer front and would still like to bring in one more player, think we could do a with a left back. Got a young squad now as the board asked we sign Under-23 players and I stuck to that mostly. Media prediction had us down for 20th, odds which I always think is better as they change when you make new signings has us 33-1 and 17th.

Would have like to have got players in sooner as not everyone is up to speed in terms of match fitness but I suppose they'll just have to play their way into shape.


Also changed the backroom team around a lot, quite a few were asking for the kind of money we just didn't have. Got a new director of football, assistant manager, head of youth development, goalkeeping coach, general coach and under 18s manager. For a bit of name recognition, Robert Huth is the general coach. Also appointed a head physio and chief scout for the first time. We previously had a scout, just not a chief one.

IN:
Scott Moloney (free) -
Former Bury youth academy goalkeeper joins us after a season at Barrow in League Two where he was their backup goalkeeper, making 5 appearances in the league with an average rating of 6.86. He'll be our #1 'keeper this season.


Matt Challoner (free) - Matt joins York after a season at Southport in the National League North where he made 15 appearances in the League. That was his second spell with Southport, having previously been a regular for them in a 3 year stint at this level from 2013/14-2015/16. He's got nice stats for how we want to use him as an inverted wing back but lacks elsewhere, not sure exactly how it's going to pan out but we'll see.


Dylan Thompson (free) - Young central defender who can head, mark, tackle, jump and run fast enough, what more do you want at this level besides maybe a bit of extra strength? He's another who is a bit raw away from the main things I want him to do but that's fine, and he's got a long time ahead of him to become more rounded. Joins after being released by Everton without making any appearances for them. I've had Thompson before in FM 20 so am somewhat familiar with him, he's signed on as a breakthrough prospect and that's exactly what I see him as.


Jacob Mensah (free) - Jacob joins York after a season with Weymouth at this exact level, he started 18 league games for them last season and another 3 in the cups with an average rating of 6.78. Looks to be a solid central defender already for this league and as he's still young can hopefully improve further. He'll be a regular for us. He was on the books of Crystal Palace in the past after he caught their eye playing for Ramsgate.


Levi Laing (free) - He can play a bit of right back and defensive midfield too, but the plan is to use Levi in the heart of the defence alongside Jacob Mensah. Just been released by Arsenal and also had a stint at Brentford. No appearances yet, but we'll change that here.


Jacob Jones (free) - Joins after being released by Swansea, another player who has yet to make his senior debut. Currently the only player at the club I'm considering for the left-back role, he'll get plenty of playing time this season to aid his development.


Callum Evans (free) - After a year with Bath in the National League South, the versatile Evans takes a step back up to the National League. Whilst being a natural at right back, I see him mainly as a defensive midfielder here. Evans started out with Manchester United before spells at Macclesfield, Forest Green, Macclesfield again, Port Vale then Bath.


Saul Milovanovic (free) - Released by Norwich, picked up by us, Milovanovic made one substitue appearance for the canaries in the Championship last season. Signed with the intention of being competition for Evans in defensive midfield and has a chance to claim to that spot, Saul can also operate in central defence. Was on Huddersfield's books at one point.


Ryan De Havilland (free)- Central midfielder who joins after being released by Fulham. Ryan has spent time on loan with the Metropolitan Police side before, making 4 appearances for them.


Josh Giurgi (free) - A wide man who can play left or right, Giurgi joins after Norwich released him and is a former teammate of Milovanocic in their youth setup. An U19 Irish international who started his career with Leixlip United.


Owen Bray (free) - Another wide player who can play on either side, Bray joins after being released by Leeds where he failed to make a first-team appearance. Unusually tall for a winger he should be able to win plenty of headers at the far post, shame his actual heading ability is so bad!


Michael Tait (free) - Young forward Tait joins following his release from Aston Villa where he spent 4 years in the academy. Quite a quick player at this level, we'll be hoping he can put his pace to good use.


In on loan:

Ben Wyss (from Ipswich) -
After spending last season on loan in the National League South with Hemels Hempstead, ben takes one step up in joining us for our National League campaign. He did well on that previous loan, hitting a 7.02 average rating so I'm hopeful he can handle this division too. He can play left back where we are currently short, but I'm seeing him as more of a rotation option at right back. Could just use him as general cover for either.


Warren Sung (from Accrington Stanley) - Yet to make his senior debut, that will surely change here after joining us on loan. Central midfield attack is meant to be his best position and role which is handy as that's exactly we'll be using him as. Fighting it out with Ryan De Havilland to make that position his own.


Chris Conn-Clarke (from Fleetwood) - Conn-Clarke joins the club on a season-long loan deal. Can operate on either flank and spent last season on loan with Kiddeminster in the National League North. Intending to use him mostly on the right here. He started out with Glentoran before spending a couple a years with Burnley ahead of joining Fleetwood. I've signed him in a previous save, can't remember if in FM20 or 21, needs a haircut.


Joe Rodwell-Grant (from Preston) - Joe , a young striker joins the Minstermen for the duration of the season. Will be making him part of the first-choice XI at first and see how he goes. He's yet to make his senior debut and scored 9 goals in non-competitive football for Preston last season.



Youth signings:

Signed a couple of youngsters from Carlisle after they transfer listed them for £0 and my scouts liked them. Kyle Clark is a 15 year-old AMR/ST with a 1 star current rating, 5 star potential. Sam Fishburn a 17 year-old forward with exactly the same scouting report.

Out:

Loads of players but this is already too long so not listing them all. The 3 most significant I'd say were:

Harry Bunn (released) - ML/AML/AMC who scored 5 and assisted 4 for us last campain in 27 appearnces in all comps, average rating of 7.00. Would have renewed but he had a few injuries last season and he wanted a lot of money.Has joined Swindon in League Two.

Bondz N'Gala (released) -Central defender who started when available for us last year. He did get some suspensions but ended up starting 35 times in all comps, scoring 6 goals when going forward for set -pieces with an average rating of 6.96. Would have renwed him too but he wanted a 3-year deal and at the age of 31 I wasn't going to do that.

Gregor Zabret (Bosman) - Goalkeeper who scored a 7.00 last season altogether. 42 appearances, 19 clean sheets. Lost him on a Bosman deal where I couldn't offer him the money he wanted as we were over bidget mid-way through the season. Shame as he's better than what we have now.
 
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Berbaclass

Fallen Muppet. Lest we never forget
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Aww yes! My CL group this season is Liverpool, Milan and Partizan. Milan won 6-5 against Liverpool on matchday one. I play Liverpool next and I'm going to put them firmly into the fecking mud.

Thursday night, channel five...
 

Berbaclass

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Just lost my 101 game unbeaten run in the league to bottom of the league at home. 84th-minute penalty.

Feel like sacking everybody.

Forgot to mention the player who scored the penalty was on loan from me...
 
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P-Nut

fan of well-known French footballer Fabinho
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What's the difficulty like on the touch version this year? Played last years for a little while, but it was far too easy and I had Sunderland winning the CL in 3 years.
 

Lay

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
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What's the difficulty like on the touch version this year? Played last years for a little while, but it was far too easy and I had Sunderland winning the CL in 3 years.
I think it depends where you start, I find England an easy place to manage due to the amount of money in England.

The problem remains long term for most countries, the AI just doesn’t make enough smart transfers. Only way I’ve found to make it difficult is with the in game editor to make transfers for other clubs.

I’ve made 3 CL’s in a row with Valencia but the league was harder, however Barcelona/Madrid/Atleti went from posting 90+ points to a mind boggling 73 points and below which meant I won the league after about 30 games.
 

P-Nut

fan of well-known French footballer Fabinho
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I think it depends where you start, I find England an easy place to manage due to the amount of money in England.

The problem remains long term for most countries, the AI just doesn’t make enough smart transfers. Only way I’ve found to make it difficult is with the in game editor to make transfers for other clubs.

I’ve made 3 CL’s in a row with Valencia but the league was harder, however Barcelona/Madrid/Atleti went from posting 90+ points to a mind boggling 73 points and below which meant I won the league after about 30 games.
Yeah seems its just an issue with FM in general, no idea why it's so hard to fix. You'd imagine a simple coding engine could make the top teams scout youth talents a lot better, as any time you focus on u21s you have basically no competition and can just keep printing money.

Think I'll give it a go and limit myself to specific transfers. Maybe a brexit FC starting in the lower leagues to ease myself back in.
 

Lay

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
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I know people sell players after a certain age and load their teams with wonder kids but I find that a bit hollow with how easy you can load your team up. I try to sign players slightly over the hill a lot more to balance out the game. Nothing beats 38 year old Florenzi banging in 20 yarders and breezing past his fullback despite having 6 for pace :lol:
 

Berbaclass

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Man trying to move leagues up in the rankings is so hard. 16 years in and I might get close to France in 5th in the next few years. Got it down to like an 8-9 point difference
 

Lay

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
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Man trying to move leagues up in the rankings is so hard. 16 years in and I might get close to France in 5th in the next few years. Got it down to like an 8-9 point difference
Interestingly, Scotland somehow have gone up to 6th on an FM19 save I have. They have two clubs in the group stages and one in the qualifiers (who never qualify). Rangers and Celtic get out of the groups now and then though, but are solely last 16 representatives.
 

Berbaclass

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Interestingly, Scotland somehow have gone up to 6th on an FM19 save I have. They have two clubs in the group stages and one in the qualifiers (who never qualify). Rangers and Celtic get out of the groups now and then though, but are solely last 16 representatives.
It’s just such a pain because if you have any chance of closing the gap to the top 4 leagues you need pretty much every team from your country to do well in Europe constantly. One off year and it’s fecked for a few seasons.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m pretty stable in 6th. Far ahead of Holland and I’ve cut the margin down to 4 points behind France. Then England, Spain, Germany and Italy are just way ahead of France and me.

I’ve resorted to cheating at this point by giving the other Austrian teams my players every season.I accumulated nearly £600 Million in transfer fees so I just started buying players for the other teams and selling/loaning them to them.

It’s working fairly well so far :lol:
 

Lastwolf

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I got inspired by a thread last week, the premise is basically to bootstrap Northern Ireland into being as good as the early 80s/ 1958. So my win condition is Quarter finals or greater. I combined this with a brexit rule (no signing players outside the UK + can't refuse any offer for a foreign player) to force me into not playing a real game of FM and trying to win the EPL or something daft.

I didn't want to edit in loads of money or anything and I could easily cheat in game by managing rich clubs and flooding the Irish league with cash but that'd be no fun.

I decided to build the team around Ethan Galbraith, cause he'd be young enough by the 10 year mark to be leading the team. I picked Newcastle as my team cause they have decent enough youth system that I can organically build a youth pipeline with the expectations as low as"don't get relegated please" and hilarously in game they think "buy young players to develop for resale" is something they do ever. But it suits me so I didn't argue, plus Jamal Lewis is already there.

I decided to manage properly until I get to 40-ish points then just instant results with my assistant manager to speed up progress.

I figured I'd stick with as many as the current team as possible and just replace as they got sold with young-ish English/ Scottish players that didn't cost me 900million. Whilst building my NI youth dynamos to take over in 3-4 years. I signed Ethan Galbraith but I musta rolled low on his stats, cause he was utter garbage when I gave him the last 15 games of the season as first choice, averaged 6.3, so I have him farmed out on loan instead. Hilarously I accidentally went on a massive winning streak anyway and finished 4th. I managed to unearth about 5 NI "gems" including some dude for Larne, who cost me 775k, I could by the city of Larne for that much. Annoyingly 3 of them, including Larne boy, have since been called up by England atleast at under 18 level, robbign bastards. My Keeper is now described as the second coming of Harry Gregg so that's nice. My second year of talent scouting seems to be a dud, 2-3 star talent with garbage stats, no-one in the NI league that'd even be worth bothering to steal and train up.

Considering any regens are gonna be 15-16, if I don't manage to find atleast 1 or 2 more, in the next 5 years, might need to adjust the plan. So Far, It's a Keeper, Jamal Lewis, a Right Back and Ethan Galbraith (who I can hopefully salvage despite clearly not being PL quality) and maybe a striker (His goal return has been dropping off massively for each level of club I move him to, 8 goals in 45 in the Scottish league, not bad at 19 but not great either).
 
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Crustanoid

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I want to set up an international version of the FA cup with the editor. Basically, every country out of the whole fifa rankings plays an unseeded knockout to win the trophy. How do I do this? Do I have to situate it in a country and move all the international teams in there?
 

Lastwolf

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I want to set up an international version of the FA cup with the editor. Basically, every country out of the whole fifa rankings plays an unseeded knockout to win the trophy. How do I do this? Do I have to situate it in a country and move all the international teams in there?
sounds like a lot of work.

There's

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2430196518&searchtext=cup

this one that restores the cup winners cup to the original format.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412557802&searchtext=British+Cup

By figuring out how both of these work in the editor might give you enough context to figure it out
 

sebsheep

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
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Just started a pentagon challenge, after having a few interviews and being laughed at for some job applications I got a job at Cape Town Spurs in South Africa (they really need to get some more African leagues in game). After going through pre-season and making selling 450k worth of players, then spending a massive 29k this is the way we will be lining up.


We are tipped to win the league, don't think that was the case when I first joined. We've won our first 3 games so it's been a good start. Club won't let me do a training course though because they are worried that I might leave. :lol:
 

WI_Red

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Restarted my Feyenoord save as it was the most fun I have had playing FM in years.
--Word of advice again that I learned the hard way: DO NOT ADD LEAGUES TO YOUR SAVE AFTER BEGINING IT!!!! It completely unbalanced my save by adding dozens of high end players to a single nation.--

Anyways, I received a midseason a 7.5 million pound offer for 31 yo Toornstra, so of course I snapped their hand off. My captain, Berghuis, complained and my response was that I wanted to play youth in the midfield. Fast forward to the end of the season where 19 yo Kokcu has started every game since, has 9G and 16A, and has been name the league player of the year......and Berghuis is now leading a player revolt because I did not honor my promise to play youth in the MF.

Don't ever change FM AI, don't ever change.

(and we know you won't)
 

Acole9

Outstanding
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Does anyone know a good place to get facepacks without faffing around downloading various programs to do so?
 

Lay

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
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Struggling to think of a new save. Might do Palermo as they're in the third division now.
 

stepic

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had FOUR goals pulled back because of offside in one game. luckily it didn't matter as it was a second leg which i was already winning, but feck me if it isn't annoying seeing that camera swing back every damn time (and then having to sit through the futile VAR check).
 

WI_Red

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had FOUR goals pulled back because of offside in one game. luckily it didn't matter as it was a second leg which i was already winning, but feck me if it isn't annoying seeing that camera swing back every damn time (and then having to sit through the futile VAR check).
they really are making the game more realistic.