Malenko

I have to disagree. The only Geldof's solo song i've really liked was Scream in Vain and while i think the last Rats albums aren't that great as a whole i think in noway does Geldof's solo work compares to the first couple of Boomtown Rats albums. ←

I'd rather see Solari remaining in the spanish league then moving to italy. The italian league teams rarely use wingers because the wing backs usually have enough stamina to fill in offensively and defensively. Going to Italy will make him either go back to the left wing back position where he has played before but isn't allowed to explore his qualities as much, or move to a interior left position in which he will have some troubles playing because anchor men in italy are fast on the ball and solari isn't a great playmaker. Meanwhile, without Figo and Solari, Madrid lacks wingers as well, and that probably means they will keep the 4-3-3 formation they were using in the final part of last season, which would rule out the possibility of buying Joaquin leaving him free for whoever else was chasing him.

Football Manager > Championship Manager ←

That's probably from when Chris Isaak sung Nothing Else Matters together with Metallica in a San Francisco radio show. The laugh probably comes from that event, i assume.

That's not entirely true. When you compare the foreigner limits, veteran limits, u18 limits, and things of that nature in European leagues, the NHL is pretty lax. Financially it's a mess of rules, but building a team wise, not so bad. ←

The NHL has way more rules then any league in europe, as happens with most sports in the states. You will end up with a lot of questions, believe me. Having the rights to a player doesn't mean he's yours but you do have the chance of signing him while other NHL teams can't because to get his rights they would have to make you an offer for them. You will notice that the transfer proposals you will get, will include (besides players) draft picks, and rights for certain players. Even if you get the rights for a player you won't be able to use him until you signed him to a contract, though. You don't have to pay the transfer to the minor league or european league team he's playing at but you still need to give him a contract. The other way you'll get the rights to a player is through the yearly draft.

Waivers are the players you drop from your roster. When a team wants to drop a player to their affiliates (equivalent to reserves and B-Squads in football), the player has to spend a period on the waivers list during which, if another team matches his contract he leaves for them and the team who dropped him stop owning his rights. If noone picks him up during that period he leaves the waivers list. EDIT: What league did you pick?

meh. We'll see then, but i seriously doubt they'll do much better than last season. All they have is Davidsson and Olausson. Even considering next season there won't be Forsbergs and Huselius playing for the rest they will never get any better than midtable.

Ok then. This is how those leagues go. On Sweden, Frolunda dominates the league so if you want a challenge don't pick them. If you choose the Swedish league pick Timra IK. If you pick Russia pick Lada Togliatti, also a team from the upper table but not the champions of the league, nor second placed. Don't pick Dinamo Moscow or Lokomotiv Yaroslav. If you pick Finland pick Hameenlina. Don't pick Jokerit Helsinki. Finally if you pick Czech Republic which would be the one i would pick if i was playing despite not being the best league in Europe, don't pick Sparta Prague or Pardubice. You can pick Liberec if you want to have an outside shot at winning the league but i would suggest picking Vitkovice. They had at a point the youngest team in any playoffs in Europe so it would be nice to build from there. Just check the teams and see what you think. EDIT: Note, being at the playoffs means they reached the upper half of the table, so they aren't bad either.

Sure, but just a question first, you want really the top teams aka Footballwise, Chelsea in England, Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, etc.. or the teams that follow them and still have an outside chance of winning the league but aren't the major favourites?

The Russian league is great.. It was even better this season with the lockout. The Swedish league is good and probably. The Czech and Swedish leagues are the other two good leagues in Europe. While i am at it i'll just rank the european leagues as i see them (not based on EHM 2005 as i still don't have him but based on what they are like in real life) Russia Sweden Finland Czech Republic Germany Switzerland Slovakia Italy Austria Slovenia I left blank lines to define the different levels the leagues are at. All other european leagues suck immensely so i didn't bother ranking those

The prologue means nothing. With 20 stages to go a time-trial that is a third of the distance of the other two doesn't mean much. The tour is long, the rider's peaks of form are different and all those who prepared their season to have a peak at the tour, may still have it in different occasions anyway. A couple of years ago Ullrich beat Armstrong by 2 minutes in the first time trial (not the prologue) and then lost the second to him when was a minute and a half behind. The tour won't be decided by the time-trials anyway, so yeah...

just a note. It's always better to pick the largest amount of leagues possible for realism (the most important at least). Of course just how many your computer can afford without the game taking an eternity to load. That is because, the leagues you pick will be better than the ones you don't pick. Example: In the case of the three top leagues, Spain, England and Italy. If you only pick England, England (both the league and the national team) will end up being better than Spain and Italy. And the same applies for the other 2. You will also notice this after a couple seasons when 90% of European awards for players come from the league your playing in.

Dan bums that Gonzalez guy on FM, but that's all I know. ←