SME Beta Test Phase III – Season 1 Final Round report

Round Highlights:

And the final round of this entertaining season! It was a great season with lots of changes in the table until we reach this final round with all the decisions in the title race and the relegated teams.

Juventus were the favourite to win the league and it would need only to win the match. The match was tight but the bianconeros forwards weren’t with much accuracy and had 7 shots out of the frame of the goal. Tottenham took the lead at the 5th minute, the Best Goal Scorer of the league D. Costa levelled the game, but the 2nd Juve goal didn’t showed and the 1st place run out through Hersi007 fingers in the last round.

Real Madrid were facing the red lantern of the league Everton and they were struggling to get the win has the match reached the half-time with 1-1. Knowing that Juventus were losing and that the title chances were higher, los blancos got back to the field really motivated and with 2 goals from G. Bale, they got a 3-1 win, the 3 points and were crowned the CHAMPIONS!

In the lower side of the league, that was also an entertaining last round!

Napoli lead by Pakal got an outstanding and crucial win in France aggainst the 5th of the table PSG, with 1 goal on each half the 3 points seems really secure all over the game and so was the maintenance in the Division 1.

With the Napoli win, there were only 2 teams fighting for the last place of the relegation to be decided, between Arsenal and Leicester. And that’s how it was…
-In the 2nd minute Barcelona scored but Arsenal kept away from relegation
-In the 61st minute Barcelona raised the advantage to 0-2, but still Arsenal was above the death line
-Probably due the news in Emirates Stadium, right in the minute after Leicester scored and with these results Leicester was in the 16th place and Arsenal dropped to the 17th place! Terrible times for the London boys
-But on 86th minute, AC Milan scored and levelled up the game and that was the final result, so it turned back to how it was Leicester was 4minutes away to kept their place in the 1st Division, but in the end, with some luck with was Arsenal, managed by UIGoku who kept the team in the top division.

The Leaderboard:

• CONGRATULATIONS Tigerbaker for the throne conquered by the white jersey from Madrid. It wasn’t a tough trophy with a lot of discussion, but in the end, who gets more points is the winner, so enjoy your champagne! 😉
• Of the losers of this round has to be Hersi007 who made a great recover, reaching the 1st place when not much people were expecting some other manager besides tigerbaker and heinzjohan would compete for the title, but the great recover wasn’t complete and in the last match of the season, to frustration of all their supporters, they lost the 1st place.
• One of the losers of this season probably will be heinzjohan. He lead Inter Milan to be the leader mostly of the season but a poor run at the end of it, with only 1 win in the last 6 matches, made the Italian team dropping from 1st to 4th place.
• Other unhappy managers would be the ones of Leicester, Atalanta, Roma and Everton, 4 jersey we won’t see in the top flight next season.
• Besides the title in the league, I would also congratulate Tigerbaker for being nominated the Best Manager of this Beta Phase 3, he surely shown he is the Elite of the Elitist manager. You can check the full table here
• I would like to congratulate every manager who fulfilled their goals and also, I would like to thank you everyone for the entertaining season it was. BIG BIG Thank YOU! And with this post, I wish everyone a great new season
  

SME Beta Test Phase III – Matchday report

Round Highlights:

A really entertaining round that proved to be decisive in the final decisions of the league!

Juventus fulfilled the goal against the neighbours of their rivals! Madrid city was looking forward for a cooperation between the 2 teams for the orgullo madrileño but Atlético Madrid wasn’t strong enough to take away points from Hersi007 lads. Rabiot was the hero responsible for the 3 points with also C. Ronaldo getting another MofM performance.

Real Madrid, managed by Tigerbaker travelled to Italy, many Juventus supporters travelled to Roma, bought blue jerseys supporting Lazio against the their rivals, believing they could celebrating the title at the end of the 90minutes but Real Madrid didn’t left too much space for the dream be alive as Kroos scored right at 6th minute and that was the only goal of the match!

The biggest surprise of the round came in a English clash! Liverpool was in the title fight and were facing the threatened Arsenal. The Liverpool were the favourites, they were the team closer to the goal, Leno had a great performance saving lots of shots, but were surprised by the efficiency of the London team, that scored 3 goals with the 3 shots on the frame of goal. With this defeat blade is out of the title.
I would like to welcome UIGoku to the Division 1 – gratz for the win too!

Also I would to welcome Topher who took charge of AC Milan and started really well with 3 points in the bag.

The biggest win of the round was the match of Napoli vs Man. City! The Italian blues defeated heavily the English ones. 4-1 was the final result. It seems Pakal took advantage of City having the cup final to play and saved the best players for that game, but this 3 points might be crucial for surviving!

The Leaderboard:

• Some rounds ago no one would predict this, but now, with only 1 round to go Juventus are clearly the favourites to get the trophy and that it would be standing at Juventus Stadium Museum next season!
  
• In the past rounds we had 5/6 teams battling out for the title but with only 1 round to play Real Madrid is the competitor for the throne!
  
• There is no surprise at all Hersi007 and Tigerbaker are managing the 2 teams fighting until the end for the title and both of managers are the only ones fighting for the Best Manager title of this Beta Phase round 3 of SM Elite!
  
• Liverpool is one of the losers of this round, the painful defeat left no chances to conquer the trophy.
  
  Further down in the table the fight in really hot too

• Arsenal and Napoli were the winners of the round, both getting 3 points against teams that were way above them!
• Leicester City managed by MarkGoldbridge that was praised in the past for the incredible recover run they had, are currently in a result crisis, with only 1 win in the last 6 matches dropped down in this round to the relegation zone! Will the recover in the past be useless and being relegated after all!? We will have the answer next week but in this round, it would be one the losers of this round.
• AS Roma and Atalanta have confirmed the relegation and 3 relegated teams are know, there is only 1 team to be determined.

Next Round – the games to watch!

Tottenham (14th) vs Juventus (1st)
Real Madrid (2nd) vs Everton (20th)
The 2 tittle competitors both seems to be favourites to get the win. Juventus will travel to England and if they are able to get the 3 points, they will have a lot of Italians waiting for their heroes in the airport!

Arsenal (15th) vs Barcelona (11th)
Paris SG (5th) vs Napoli (16th)
AC Milan (6th) vs Leicester (17th)
The survival race has 3 teams battling out, Arsenal, who are on the highest place on the table, the only one playing at home and facing the team lowest in the table, seems to be the favourites to stay up!

The other 2 will travel to top 10 team grounds and will have tough challenges ahead. Note that Leicester really need to win to survive, with only a draw they will be relegated, no matther what happens on the other fields.

SME Beta Test Phase III – Matchday report

Round Highlights:

One more round has been played and the fight for the title is really entertaining!

One of the highlighted matches to be checked was Juventus and PSG! The match played at Juventus Stadium was really tight and the PSG was a bit unlucky since they had the majority of the ball possession, made more shots, but the accuracy of the black & white forwards was better and with the top agent CR7 in the field, Hersi007 was the happy manager at the end of the match.

The other match highlighted involved in the title competition was Chelsea vs Real Madrid. We have commented about the unbeaten run from Chelsea and if Tigerbaker would break the record… and he did! Ehswar side started really good the match, scoring right in the 1st minute and seemed they were heading to the 15th unbeaten run but the Spanish team fought back and scored the winning goal at the 78th minute!

One of the surprises came from Camp Nou, Inter Milan was the favourite side but was unable to collect the 3 points vs Barcelona. Ter Stegen was the one to blame for the Italian supporters as he was the MofM of the game, saving all the 11 shots on goal made from Lautaro Martinez (the best goal scorer of the team) and his fellows!

Other highlighted match was as important match for the relegation battle! Pakal had a crucial win over AS Roma. After the match, Milik shirt got sold out at the Napoli store, with countless sky blue supporters willing to praise the hattrick hero!

Surprising results were in the fight for the points that Sevilla and Atalanta were battling for. In the end, the Spanish team sitting in 8th place was unable to defeat the 19th in the table. The match was entertaining, there were only 4 shots made in the frame of the goal and ALL got in! 2-2 was the final score! Note that Atalanta finally scored and the goalless run is over.
Also the 10th of the table Lazio wasn’t beat the red lantern of the league Everton. In this match it was a goaless draw!

One of the uneven match came when the 2 Manchester teams collided! The Red Devils reds beat the Citizens with a clear 3-0! The match was more tight than the result seems to wonder but the red jersey players had a better killer instinct, being Rashford the player in evidence with 2 goals scored. Surprisingly the biggest transfer of United this season (R. Sterling) didn’t left the match against his former club…

The Leaderboard:

• The team leading the table Real Madrid, survived the competitors fierce battle. Not only survived but they raised the points difference to the 2nd place of the table.
• One of the losers of this round has to be Inter Milan. A punishment draw in the visit to Spain, punished a lot this team, seing los blancos rivals getting running away from them, but also leaving the podium – dropping 2 places in the table!
• One of the winning side of this round was Juventus, Hersi007 performance lately has been great and the Italian side reached now the amazing 2nd place in the table, with just 1 point to reach the peak of the mountain.
• Liverpool supporters will be happy with this round. They took advantage of having on their side the best goal scorer of the league to get the 3 points, and skipped through Inter Milan and come back to 3rd place in the podium.
• NGrimes was unlucky with the match, as I mentioned earlier and also with the overall results of the round, dropping down 1 place and seeing the leader gap raise to 5 points.
• The digital manager 111010111xx wasn’t happy with the performance of their lads and this result punishes the team really badly, dropping 2 places in the table.
• Napoli had a crucial win in this round that allowed the team to skip though Arsenal, rising and leaving the relegation zone!
• On the other side, Arsenal ended the match frustrated by the defeated against the unmanaged team of the league AC Milan. The shareholders might be really unhappy the club going back to the underwater. We now wait to see what the new Arsenal manage Goku can deliver to the team… and fans.

Next Round – the games to watch!

Inter Milan (4th) vs Juventus (2nd)
Real Madrid (1st) vs Napoli (16th)
Arsenal (17th) vs Leicester (15th)

Inter Milan (4th) vs Juventus (2nd)
The match of the 36th round! This Italian derby is a great match to be followed, with only 1 point apart from them, and with only 2 matches left to be played at the end of the round, the team that loses this match should have the title chances crushing down 1%.

Real Madrid (1st) vs Napoli (16th)
Crucial match for both teams! Real Madrid is clear the favourite in the bookmakers, it is crucial for the club as the title race is getting close to the finishing line but on the other side, we have Napoli that has also a crucial life or death match in their hands!

Arsenal (17th) vs Leicester (15th)
Another emotional derby in this round! Arsenal is the 1st team below the relegation zone and facing Leicester the team 2 places above in the ladder with only 3 points away from them, with would crucial to the London side in the survival battle and a golden chance to catch up the opponents!

SME Beta Test Phase III – Matchday report

Round Highlights:

I mentioned last week that this title fight was getting even more entertaining with the results of that round… but oh my – this was nothing compare with the results of this week! The top of the table it’s getting packed up with teams aiming to win the premiership and take home the big trophy featuring in the museum of their stadiums!! What an entertaining 2 weeks we have left.

The big game of the round was Inter Milan and Liverpool! It was a top match as expected, between 2 great managers heinzjohan and blade. Two managers who have prove their capabilities over and over in this beta phase!

Liverpool had performed a little bit better in Giuseppe Meazza and but the game remained goalless at the half time. The 2nd half started with Liverpool leading with a goal at 53rd minute from Firmino, levelled up to 0-2 in the 61st minute with a free kick from Wijnaldum. On 66th minute V. Lazaro brought Inter back to the game…and on 67h minute a goal in the Santiago Barnabéu from Greenwood put Liverpool virtually in the 1st place of the table! But it seems that was too much pressure for the red boys because it only lasted 17minutes, when A. Sanchéz goal tied up the game and crushed Liverpool dream to jump into the top of the table so soon!

And one of the biggest surprised came from Santiago Barnabéu as it was mentioned above! Real Madrid was clearly the favourites, playing within their own stadium vs the 15th of the table Manchester United. As Tigerbaker mentioned in the interview they were crossing fingers to the match between 2nd and 3rd end up tied, that it did, and if he was able to get the win they would be clearly favourites to win the title! The probably is that they didn’t and this loss make the champion fight very open! Oladz made a great work, controlling the game and being very active in the attack, so much that the brightning star of this game was Real Madrid’s keeper Courtois, saving everything he could, unless the penalty taken by Greenwood.

Other surprise came from another clash between an English and a Spanish team, again being the British club the joyful one! Arsenal, probably the busiest time in the transfer market this week, managed by RobsterNL took advantage of the skills of the newcomers and brought down Sevilla! The well know of the home supporters Lacazette was the goal scorer of the only goal of the match, but the MoM performance was delivered to new signing G. Chiellini! Featuring also in the starting eleven there were also K. Walker, Gundogan and Joselu!

Other against the odds result came from Goodison Park! Who went to the stadium has seen a great performance from Calvert-Lewin scoring 2 goals and giving the 1st win of the season to Everton!! A great work from krille120 with only 7 games in charge was able to get the 1st victory of the club and also more points than the previous manager in 25 matches! The new manager arrived too late for avoid relegation, but the Toffee supporters believe this is the right manager to bring them back to the top next season!

The Leaderboard:

• The table leader, Real Madrid, was disappointed at the defeat but their feelings weren’t bitter because even with the defeat they were able to keep the 1st place on the table.
  
• Also, the Nezzaruzzi supporters had a mixed feelings at the end of the match. The draw at the start of the game didn’t seemed a great result, but recover from a 0-2 defeat to get a drawn and with that point catching up Real Madrid on the 1st place, it seemed a valuable point!
  
• The winner of this round it has to be Juventus! Hersi007 got the biggest win of the round, clearly beating Man. City in English soil by 0-3 and climbed up to the podium! This recent streak with 4 wins in a row, made them climb from 6th place, 9 points away from the 1st place, to the 3rd place, now with only 1 point behind of the throne!! What a recover!!
  
• On the other side, the loser of this round it has to be Liverpool. They have reached a 0-2 win, they had virtually the 1st place of the league for some minutes, but a goal from the opponents 6 minutes to the end, make them drop from the virtual 1st place to the 4th place!! What changes a goal can make! 😮
  
• PSG and AC Milan also won their matches and we have now a only 4(!!) points of distance between the 1st and the 6th place of the table!! What entertaining end of season this will be!
  
• Note or praise to Chelsea‘s Eshwar that moved up to 9th place again. And remembering this team after the 21st round was sitting in 16th place with only 19points and now they have 48, it really worth to be mentioned. Congratulations for your development Eshwar!
  
• In the top 10 we welcome SS Lazio who got a win from their Italian fellows Atalanta!
  
• Moving down to the shadow zone, we have Barcelona that lost in an entertaining 3-2 match vs PSG and dropped down 2 places and also left the top 10.
  
• Man. Utd great win in Spain, make them one of the winners of this round, climbing up 2 places in the table, to a comfortable chair nº 13!
  
• Their fellow English Tottenham supporters wouldn’t be happy with the recent performances, with 6 games without a win, and their defeat against the unmanaged AC Milan make them drop 2 steps down in the ladder, now standing in the 14th position.
  
• Of the teams that benefited from the results of this round was Arsenal! The 58M spent in the market in this week has proven to be worthy to get some points! Also, some English nation cooperation seems to be working, with Everton bringing down the Italian sky blue team Napoli, the direct rival of Arsenal. This helped Arsenal moving out of the relegation zone and finally they can breathe natural oxygen.
  
• As mentioned, Napoli defeat against the 20th of the table make the supporters furious, as the team entered now the relegation zone, due to their poor performance with 6 matches without a win.
  
• Also running poor performances and keeping without scoring and the Italian duo AS Roma and Atalanta! Arsenal win make them see the survival gap rise to 9 and 10 points respectively and with only 12 points to be on top of table, probably next week we will have 1 or 2 teams doomed to follow Everton steps.

Next Round – the games to watch!

Juventus (3rd) vs PSG (5th)
Chelsea (9th) vs Real Madrid (1st)
Napoli (17th) vs AS Roma (18th)

Juventus (3rd) vs PSG (5th)
Thrilling match is to be played in Italy, with the clash of Hersi007 and NGrimes. Juventus rasied to 3rd place and is looking up to get even more up in the table but it will be a tough match, since PSG is 2 places below but only 1 point behind!

Chelsea (9th) vs Real Madrid (1st)
Real Madrid will face another english team in this round and this time they will have to travel to Stamford Bridge, where lives the only team that has no defeats in the last 6 matches played! In fact Chelsea recent campaign is so amazing that the unbeaten run is already lasting for 14 matches in a row! It is really amazing Eshwar, congratulations! So, will Tigerbaker break this amazing record!?

A fun fact, Tigerbaker revealed that it was he who appointed Eshwar manager of Chelsea! How Eshwar (and Chelsea) return the favour?

Napoli (17th) vs AS Roma (18th)
Won’t be one of the better matches of the rounds since the both campaigns have been really poor. However, from a survival point of view, it will be crucial to see the final result of Napoli and AS Roma. AS Roma really need to win to be stay in this division next season, however Napoli doesn’t have any more positions to drop. So both teams really need the win and we will be watching.

Meet one of SME’s most influential managers of Beta Test Phase III

I personally would like to thank you Heinz Johan (account: heinzjohan) Heinz, for accepting this interview and for taking the time to reply to all my questions 🙂

Santa Claus.

Heinz Johan – Interview

If you are familiar with Soccer Manager Elite, you will know that Heinz Johan as the highly successful and determined manager of Inter Milan, the team with the most consecutive rounds leading Division 1 of Beta Phase III. And while the competition at the top of the table is now fierce, Heinz will stop at nothing to ensure an Inter Milan victory!

Claus: Heinz, where do you currently reside?

Heinz: Santa Claus, thank you, I live in Indonesia

Claus: How did you come to find out about SM Elite and Xaya?

Heinz: I am playing other SM games on other devices and have done so for around 3 years. I’m familiar with Soccer Manager games and I knew about this SME because I follow their fans page in Facebook.

As for Xaya, I don’t really know much about them except to say the SME runs on the Xaya blockchain and it is also the CHI cryptocurrency.

Claus: Is this Beta Phase 3 your 1st experience in SME?

Heinz: Yes, I have started playing SME in this 3rd phase.

Claus: When you found out about this game, were you familiar with cryptocoins or CHI? Did you already hold some CHI?

Heinz: No, I’m not too familiar with cryptocurrency since in my country they aren’t popular. Nor did I know how to buy CHI.

Claus: And now? Is your knowledge about crypto coins greater now? And now, have you invested in CHI?

Heinz: I haven’t. I believe CHI could be a very good investment, but I’m not taking any risk for now. I will continue to educate myself on blockchain and cryptocurrency before I invest in it.

Claus: Who is your favourite soccer team? Is it one of your goals to take charge of that team when the full game is released?

Heinz: My real-life favourite team is Manchester United, but I’m not going to be picky about the job offer. As long as the owner cares about the club and plan to invest in the team.

Claus: What are your favourite tactics and why?

Heinz: I have many favourite tactics but one of them is an attacking rotation. It’s a tactic developed by one of my favourite managers, Gian Piero Gasperini. That’s why I play aggressive in every possible way, such as pressing and attacking, but trying keeping the balance as well.

Claus: The title fight has really hot between Inter and Real Madrid over recent weeks. Who do you consider to be the favourite to win the title? And after last round – at least 4 other teams are looking a threat. How are you feeling in this late stage of the season?

Heinz: I’m keeping a positive mindset. And I believe a positive mentality will be rewarded. I know about the threats and accept that this battle will be tough – but I will fight for the title until the very end.

Claus: How do you feel after Inter Milan be rooted in the 1st place for so long, losing the title position so close to the final and be sitting in 2nd place when there are only 5 matches to be played?

Heinz: I’m frustrated. There are technical problems within the game that cost me some matches because I can’t log in and not able to change players. However, we can’t change what’s past – but it’s time to rebuild the foundation and win games again.

Claus: Both of the teams have cup matches to play, do you consider this situation will make any of the teams struggle with the amount of games they still have to play? And, how are you handling the player conditions between the cup and league matches?

Heinz: No, because we are the biggest club in the world, that’s why we need to compete as many competitions as possible and reach semifinal or final and I always have rotational players that I put trust on an able to compete in many competitions.

Claus: Do you set any of the titles to be a priority one?

Heinz: No. I’m ambitious person and a believer, so I want to reach as many finals as possible and win the league title!!

Claus: You started this season with Boca Juniors, and the results weren’t great at that point, let us know how the Inter Milan manager opportunity came up, and how you handle this shift from a division 2 team to a top division 1 team?

Heinz: I noticed in Discord that Goldsmith was offering the manager position at Inter Milan, so I have applied for the role. There aren’t big differences from changing one club to another or one league or another, but you need to adapt in the league you were on since your opponents are different. I’m also continuing the foundation that already build and implement my new tactics in Inter.

Claus: Inter Milan is one of the most active teams in the transfer market with plenty of signings and also a lot of players sold. Any major signings you consider to be crucial to the campaign you have made so far? Any regrets seeing C. Eriksen moving to your title chase rivals Real Madrid? Do you think this move could penalize you and helped your rivals to get closer to you? How were the negotiations between the clubs, since they were already title rival by then?

Heinz: No, every player are crucial in this title challenge and winning other competitions, as I already said that we are the biggest team in the world – that’s why we need rotational players and active in transfer window and getting profits from smart business.

I don’t have any regrets selling my players that needed to be sold since they aren’t fits with the tactics, or we need the money for purchasing rotational players, and about Eriksen deal specifically? He’s not that crucial and I don’t really think he helps Madrid title win run.

Claus: Also, with all this transfers Inter Milan is one the richest club with around 58M available in cash for transfers and still build a strong team to handle the league and being still in one of the cups. Talk a little bit more about this strategy.

Heinz: Because we are the biggest club in the world that’s why we need to have smart business that getting us profits, and always active for bargain deals in transfer window.

Claus: If you could change 3 things in SME, what would they be?

Heinz: Maybe transfer windows, along with communication between manager with other manager or manager with the board and substitutions.

Claus: For our readers – what do you think about this game and would you recommend them to play this game? Why?

Heinz: I’m not going to miss playing SM Elite full release. The game feel is fun, entertaining and also challenging for anyone who interested in tactical or football in general. The devs also care about the game and willing to hear the users, so that’s a good sign for the future game.

Once again I would like to THANK YOU, Heinz Johan, for taking your available time to come here for this interview. Your insights are highly valued, as you are one of the most successful managers in Soccer Manager Elite… thus far.

SANTA CLAUS.

SME Beta Test Phase III – Matchday report

Round Highlights:

Overall it was an entertaining round in the title fight point of view, with more clubs raising their chances to win the Beta Phase 3 Division 1 title!

Let’s start with the highlighted match to be seen of the previous post, that took place at Juventus Stadium. Hersi007 had license to kill Real Madrid, CR7 with 1 goal and a MofM performance was the agent inside the 4 lines in action to annihilate Tigerbaker lads. With was a close and tight match but Juventus was the more effective team in front of the goal, so they were the ones to take the 3 points from the game, 2-0 was the final result! In this game that were more to fight for than the positions in the table and the champion title. Hersi007 has also climbed to the 2nd table in the best SME managers table with only Tigerbaker ahead of him, so this game was also a crucial win in the top managers table too!

Another match with high expectations was the one in a crowded Anfield were the lads of blade and NGrimes were fighting against each other! Another really close and tight match proving these teams are really top level and really close to each other’s value! The reds was also the ones with the best aim at goal, getting 2 perfect shots and Becker being the 2nd player with best rating of the match has been decisive in this match too, getting the Liverpool net unbeaten, denying all the 10(!) attempts made from the PSG striking force!

A curiosity note is that PSG has the greatest striking force of this league with 57(!) goals netted in this 33 matches and this was only their 7th time they reach the 90th minute without the joy netting 1 in! On the other hand, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise as Liverpool defenders seem to know the secret as they also finish the game at Parc du Prince with a clean sheet! 😉

Also just another praizing note that this 2-0 wins from Juventus and Liverpool seems to be due to their defenses performance as they both are the 2 teams with the less goals aggainst with only 18goals getting past to their keepers.

The most surprising and most unbalanced game of the highlighted ones took place at King Power Stadium, the strenght of the teams powered by the blue jersey seemed to be decisive as Inter Milan used the alternative outfit and they left the stadium in misery with 3 Leicester goals without answer! Maybe heinzjohan make the big boys rest for the cup match…

The other game in the highlights was another italian team in trip to England. Like in the match above, the english lads of Arsenal were the happy ones and Atalanta lads left the field crestfallen, clearly worried about their future in Division 1! It wasn’t a good start for Aexio, the new manager in charge of Atalanta.

Note also to the most uneven victory of this ground, where blaugrana was the joyfull in Camp Nou stadium beating Man. City for 5-0! This was due to probably Harris follow the footsteps of heinzjohan and also took the best players out of this game.

Another surprise came from the english blue derby were Chelsea and Everton were facing each other. The top 10 team Chelsea was really close to be defeated by the 20th of the table and making this a even more surprising result. Chelsea were never in the winning position and it was only 11 minutes away to left the match with 0 points. Kai Havertz with the 2 goals from the London team was the hero for the home supporters.

The Leaderboard:

• The two first teams of the table, we get us used to winning and winning week in and week in, this time they both got defeated so the distance between them (Real Madrid and Inter) are the same as before, but both can be considered losers of the rounds because they let the competitors teams get closer!
  
• One of the winners is definitely Liverpool! blade got a major win vs PSG, took their place in the podium and they are now only 3 points away from the 1st place. Also, an important note, that in case Real Madrid lose the next match and Liverpool wins, due to goal difference, Liverpool would take over Real Madrid!
  
• Juventus also took this round to raise their chances in the title! Their win against the leader Real Madrid, let them able to climb one more place and they are now sitting in 4th place. The distance to the trophy is currently set as 4!
  
• One other loser of this round was PSG, if they had won, they would be only 1 and 2 points away from the 2nd and 1st place respectively, but they had lost and not even they weren’t enable to take advantage of the top 2 teams defeats, they also lost 2 places in the table, dropping now to 5th place!
  
• Man City was unhappy with the results, seeing AC Milan taking over them and also Sevilla being grabbed by them.
• Barcelona‘s MasterNinja98 was on the winning side of the round, with their great 5-0 win they climbed to 9th place, taking over Chelsea who was penalized by not getting the 3points against the 20th, Everton.
  
• Leicester‘s MarkGoldbridge had 1 more impressive match with the win against the 2nd team in the table, they have raised the undefeated streak to 9 matches(!) and even the distance from the water line is kept the same, they moved 1 ladder and they are now on 14th place, climbing over Man. Utd.
  
• RobsterNL should really feel one of the happiest managers on the round, with the over Atalanta, they have glued up at Napoli, with only the goal difference keeping them away to get out of the water to finally breathe some oxygen! 😉
  
• Roma and Atalanta draw and got defeated and they are with 1 less round to recover. Seeing Arsenal moving so much ahead of them it would be a hard task this 2 Italian teams recover and get a salvation from the death row…For curiosity it really seems that the relegated teams will be English and Italian teams, as the last 7 teams in the table are all or English or Italian!
  
• We welcome Aexio and wish him all the best, it will be a run against the clock, but let’s see how it goes!

Next Round – the game to watch!

Inter Milan(2nd) vs Liverpool(3rd)

In this round, instead of shuffling the reports to a bunch of games, all the reports and media will be attending a match that should be really crowded! How interesting and decisive would be match between the 2nd and the 3rd teams in the table when after the match, it would be only 4 matches to be played!?

The title fight is getting really hotter in this end of the season…and Tigerbaker, will be a close watcher at this match and has he mentioned in his interview will be crossing the fingers for the match being tied up when the referee blows the whistle 3 times!

SME’s most influential Manager – Beta Test Phase III

First of all, I would like to personally thank you Tigerbaker, for accepting our offer to be interviewed and to come to our studio!

For those who don’t know him, Tigerbaker is one of the top managers in this Beta Phase 3 of SME, at the time of this interview – currently ranked #1.

And as the manager of Real Madrid, currently in 1st place in Division 1 – he truly is a man on a mission.

But let’s hear it from the man himself.

Q: Tigerbaker, tell us a little bit about yourself?

A: I am English but I am currently living in Sydney, Australia. I’m in my late 30s.

Q: Were you playing SM previously and how did you find out about SM Elite/Xaya?

A: I’ve been playing SM Worlds for over 10 yrs. I got an email informing me about SM Elite.

Q: Is this Beta Phase 3 your 1st experience in SME?

A: Yes, I haven’t played in the previous 2.

Q: When you found out about this game, were you familiar with cryptocoins or CHI? Did you already hold some CHI?

A: I have been a trader of financial products so I was aware of Crypto’s but not CHI. I held Bitcoin, but not CHI.

Q: Which is your favourite team and is it your intention to take charge of that team when the full game is released?

A: I haven’t got a favourite team. I enjoy watching the Premier League and the Champions League .

Q: What are your favourite tactics and why?

A: To be fair, I have no favourite tactics, but have had a lot of injuries so play the tactics must be adjusted depending on players available.

Q: The title fight is really hot between you and Real/Inter all over the season, who do you consider to be the favourite one to win the title?

AND; Do you still consider that any other of the teams below pose a threat?

A: Inter had a head start because the team when it didn’t have a manager built up a sizeable lead.

I have caught them up and over taken them I think I can win the title but Inter, Liverpool and Juventus are all in with a chance.

I would like to see Liverpool and Inter draw in the next match and Inter have a cup match so I have to beat Man Utd.

If I beat Man Utd I would think Real are the favourites!!

Q: How do you feel after finally reaching the 1st place so close to the end?

A: I’m enjoying every game so happy to play each game as it comes.

Q: Both of the teams have cup matches to play, do you consider this situation will make any of the teams struggle with the amount of games they still have to play?

How are you handling the players conditions between the cup and league matches?

Do you set any of the titles to be a priority one?

A: I am happy with my team don’t worry about the competition. Injuries have affected Real badly but hopefully Benzema (note: he missed 7 league matches) will be back for the next game.

Q: You took charge of Barcelona, then Real Madrid, then Man. City and then moved back to Real Madrid in the 6th round, any recall what came in the result of switching teams test and why you have choosen Real Madrid to be the one to manage?

A: In the beginning I built up 5% stakes in a few teams and I looked at a few teams before Real, but they were the best team for me, so I took them on.

I gave Eshwar, Gabinho, N Grimes, Master Ninja and Oladz starts in the big league and they have all been impressive!

Q: You are one of the largest shareholders of this game, owning shares from multiple teams and players and probably the user with higher returns in this beta phase, how you handle with the Tag “Tigerbaker, the moneymaker?”

Talk a little bit more about this strategy.

A: I like dealing in shares in real life and this game is just an extension of that.

Q: I noticed you have sold plenty of players and signed a few. Any major signing you consider to be crucial to the campaign you have made so far?

Did Eriksen help, letting you know the strategy heinzjohan uses and how to take advantage of it?

How were the negotiations between the clubs, since they were already title rival by then?

A: I like Eriksen and he replaced Modric. But I don’t think any one player has influenced Real it’s been a team effort.

No negotiation just bidding actually think SM Worlds is better for negotiations etc the transfer market is a little dull in SM Elite.

Q: If you could change 3 things in SME, what would that be?

A: I would change the transfer market to be more like SM Worlds; I would change the player positions to be more like SM worlds; and, I would shorten the voting times for manager of the club and player’s agent positions to 24 hrs or 48 hrs.

Q: For our readers, what do you think about this game and would you recommend them to play this game?

A: The game is fun so I’d definitely recommend it to anyone

Q: And now the final question, that our readers are really eager to know the answer…Who let the dogs out?

A: Prefer the good winner / good loser approach, so the dogs never get let out.

Q: Anything you would like to add?

A: I would like to say Goldsmith from Goldsmith money is a complete legend! I love his YouTube channel – definitely makes the game more fun. And, your reporting is definitely exciting and entertaining to read. I hope you both keep up the great work!

Me and also in the name of Goldsmith Money would like to THANK YOU very much for your compliments, for taking your time available to come here to this interview and for all your answers. Surely they will be valuable for the users who are already familiar with SME, but also for the ones who were in doubt if they should join or not! 😉

SME Beta Test Phase III – Matchday report

Round Highlights:

1st thing I noticed in the overall of this round and got really surprised by it, it that NONE team playing in their home ground was able the collect the 3 points!

The biggest surprise came right from the Milan derby between Inter Milan and AC Milan, where at the end of the 90th minutes, the unmanaged rossonero team was the one celebrating when the final whistle was blown! AC Milan was really the stronger team in the field and only a great performance by Inter Milan keeper Handanovic make the loss kept at low numbers.

Santiago Barnabéu was the field where one of the most awaited matches of this round was played! Two great teams, filled with great top players performed in this El Clásico, that this time didn’t have a great moment to celebrate because the game ended with a goaless draw. The game was really tight between the teams of Tigerbaker and MasterNinja98 and the draw was an acceptable result.

Other game from this round that the result surprised the most also came from a derby (plenty of derby played in this round) this time the North London Derby between the white shirts of Tottenham (11th) and the red shirts of Arsenal (17th). The game took place at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium but it was the away team to celebrate the victory over the rivals!

Another out of ordinary result was performed by Leicester in their travel to France to face PSG! PSG the 3rd of the table was clear favourite facing the 15th of the table, but besides MarkGoldbridge team seemed to be the stronger team in the field, it was NGrimes team who was closer to get the 3 points, as J. Draxler scored right at the 5th minute and the advantage was kept secured until, when the referee’s watch reached the 75th minute, J. Vardy scored and levelled the score, that kept still until the end of the match.

The Leaderboard:

The winner of this round it surely has to be Real Madrid! Besides not being able to win, the blancos did enough to collect 1 point and that was enough to climb over to the top of the table! Also with the results of this round, Tigerbaker seems now to be the clear favourite to win the SME top manager of this season as, with only 6 matches to be played, the manager has a 5 win advantage from the 2nd best manager!

Of the losers of this round it will be Heinzjohan‘s Inter Milan! Sitting in the 1st place of the table since the 4th round, it should be really painfull dropping that place in the 32nd round, when there is only 6 matches to recover the 1st place. There is still time, but the blue & black jersey boys now don’t depend on themselves as a 6win in a row from Real Madrid would move the title to the spanish club.

A note to Juventus, managed by Hersi007, (that got the biggest/clear winner of this round (0-4) at the costs of the italian fellows AS Roma), that recently as been really solid and was sitting in 6th place since the 23rd round, was able to move 1 step up in the ladder in this round and they are only 2 points away from the bronze medal podium position! A negative note to the AS Roma team who was severe punished in their Stadio Olimpico, and seems to be struggling recently, seeing the salvation point already 7 points away from them, also being the 2nd team with less goals scored (only beaten by the red lantern Everton) and now have already 6 matches in a row without scoring any goal! Reporting this, I would also have to report that other italian like Atalanta is facing the same goaless score of Roma and I would also have to add that Tottenham is now facing a “dark era” in front of goal too, with 4 matches without scoring too!

Of the losers of the round is also Man. City that were facing their english rivals Liverpool and were only 1 point behind, but a punishing deafeat at Etihad Stadium, saw the opponent moving further ahead, Juventus getting though them and also being catched by AC Milan.

The media was already tooking notice of Chelsea‘s Eshwar management skills performed recently, and was on the winners of this round, coming back from Italy when they visit the 10th in the table Lazio with the 3 points, make them able to reach the top 10 table. Congratulations for that! Also, it has, so far as I reported the biggest jump on the table ever, climbing 4 places in only one round, skipping through Lazio, Tottenham and Barcelona. A note that Barcelona had draw aggainst the new leader by 0-0, but that wasn’t much of a surprised as that was the 3rd consecutive goaless draw from Barcelona. I guess, if they continue like this, the attendance of Barcelona matches will be dropping, because no one wants to go to a stadium knowing goals won’t happen! 😛

Down in the table, the fortunate one was Arsenal, being the only team to collect the 3 points between the last 6 of the table, which provided them reducing the distance to the lifesaver buoy, from 5 to 3 points.

2 of the italian teams, AS Roma and Atalanta, as I reported above, are facing really troubles to score and without scoring you can’t get the 3 points, and they seem to be almost drowning as the water line is already 7 points away, and if the scoreless record doesn’t break, it would be impossible to reach out there!

Next Round – the games to watch!

Juventus(5th) vs Real Madrid (1st)
Leicester (15th) vs Inter Milan (2nd)
Liverpool (4th) vs PSG (3rd)
Arsenal (17th) vs Atalanta (19th)

All the supporters will be bubbling hot to know the scores of their teams! what to say when in 1 Round 4 of the 5 top teams are facing each other!? One thing will be guaranteed! Thrilling matches and the table won’t stay the same!!

New leader Real Madrid will travel to Italy to face the new rising Juventus! One of the curiosity is, if CR7 would be eager to punish his former club and maybe taking the throne away from them!?

2nd place will travel to 15th of the table, and supposedly it would be a easy win, but on the english blue side we have MarkGoldbridge recent performances to prove otherwise, with the draw in Parc du Prince to prove they won’t be that easy punching bag that the position in the table makes us think to be.

Liverpool and PSG were for some time battling in and out to keep/get this 3rd place and now they have a golden chance to reach and kill the direct opponent of the competition! Another thrilling match to be seen! 😀

As the positions on the table aren’t great, can’t say the level of the game will be great, but the enthusiasm and the emotions will be on top, that’s a guarantee, as the season gets to an end, 17th facing 19th could be decisive to know who survived and who got relegated when we reach 17th March!