Season 8: The Randon Season Episode 2: How to use the commentary to your advantage

Welcome back to another episode of the glorious Soccermanager Blog as in today’s episode we take a look at one area of SM that I’m sure none of you would’ve considered actually paying any sort of attention too:

The commentary section is the area within SMW that allows us to see how the match has panned out and gives us an opportunity to use our imagination to illustrate what is happening on the pitch. Although most managers tend to only want to see that “GOAL!!!!!”, the commentation has WAY more uses as it potentially grants us the opportunity to understand and identify certain patterns that occur based on the performance of individual players.

Today, I will be breaking down how to locate the following items via reading and re-reading the commentary section:

*Who is your key player

*Who’s out of form

*Why you didn’t see a particular player show up within the commentary

*How to know what’s actually going on within each highlight

*A good method of identifying when a goal is going to be socred

Let’s dive into each, shall we?

WHO IS YOUR KEY PLAYER

As an example, here are 4 different matches from a random team that I’ve picked from a gameworld that I am currently in which will showcase who their key player has been so far within the early stages of the season:

What these images are trying to illustrate is the fact that this specific player (in this case, João Felix) is one of the players within your set up that is enjoying your playing style and has the potential to become one of the most impactful players that you can rely on match after match.

WHO’S OUT OF FORM

Ideally, you would consider a player who hasn’t scored or assisted in quite a few matches to be out of form, but there are several different methods of realizing when you need to make an adjustment pertaining a particular player whom you’re simply just not getting the best out of. Firstly, we have a “performance barrier”. A “performance barrier” is when a player (particularly a world class player) continues to either have his shots and creative attemps being missed or “saved” by the GK (if he’s an Attacking player), constantly conceding goals via his area on the pitch (if he’s a Defender), or if he rarely shows up within the commentary section (which can occur for any player within any position).

WHY YOU DIDN’T SEE A PARTICULAR PLAYER SHOW UP WITHIN THE COMMENTARY

As I explained above, there can be an instance where a player not showing up within the commentary section means that he is out of form, but it can also be a representation of your tactical approach towards a particular match.

The above image is a match I played recently against one of my archest rival. This Benfica team is currently the best within the entire gameworld and is the most difficult to beat. Their manager has the best and most consistent player in the entire gameworld (Vini Júnior, based on stats), and he was coming up against Nahuel Molina, a ‘90’ rated DM(R) who plays for Atletico Madrid in real life. Since he would’ve had a real hard time against Vini, I decided to position Fede Valverde in an area where he would’ve “doubled up” alongside Molina to ensure that Nahuel was never isolated 1v1 against Vinicius, and if you know Valverde, you know he has exceptional Workrate.

Because of this decision, Fede did not do a single attacking play that showed up within the commentary section.

Now, a normal manager may get pissed and think that he didn’t play well, but if we take a look at the commentary section above, we will see that Vinicius Jr only had 1 attempt on goal, and played an overall rating of ‘6’ (which means he had a difficult match by his standards…

This is just one of the examples as to why you may not see a particular player show up within the commentary secton, and although there’s more, I don’t want this blog to go over the 20 minute mark, lol.

HOW TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON WITHIN THE COMMENTARY SECTION

I won’t sugarcoat anything here. Some of the highlights within SMW are simply trash! But, you can still identify what’s actually going on within one of your matches via tuning into a real life match on the tele (or via streaming) with the volume turnt up. The reason for this is down to the fact that the commentators do a great job of explaining what is going on when a team gets an opportunity in on goal. And this is very important since you can identify why a player either missed, scored or the different types of attempts they have been getting within each match.

A GOOD METHOD OF IDENTIFYING WHEN A GOAL IS GOING TO BE SCORED

In my opinion, there are 2 methods of identifying when a goal will be scored in SM, and they are:

1) A freekick that does not end up with a player being cautioned

2) SMW Gameplay Experience

If you really study the commentary, you will notice that once a team is given a direct freekick that does not result in a booking, the player normally scores from it 80% of the time:

Soccermanger is all about patterns and as you continue to watch your games, you will identify specific patterns to when a goal is going to be scored (but it’s quite a challenge, so it may take a while…)

Now, I don’t usually allow these blogs to go over the 5 minute mark but I may need to make some exceptions for this season… 😅

Anywho, I’ll catch you on the flip side, homie ✌️