Beam me up, Scotty - Rangers & Scotland CM Story

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
I don't understand how this works. How do you get to play St Mirren, if they aren't in the Championship Group? I thought the end of season grouping meant that teams in each group only played each other...?

Presumably, Celtic are top because they have more wins...?

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Glad you asked mate. St.Mirren was match 33, so the final game of the "regular season", before the league was divided in top and bottom groups. So you are on point assuming that the clubs in the top half only play their final five games against other clubs in the top.

Celtic first, I think it's down to alphabetic order, to be honest. I had my doubts last season, where I lead on goal difference, and I couldn't tell if the goal difference counted the full season or only the championship group. Now it seems that only the points are carried over, whilst goals for and against is reset before the final five games.

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
Didn't think you'd beat Tottenham, so well done.

Spurs have a rather unbelievable mix of players - de Bruyne, Shaw, Martinez, Griezmann, Alvarez. It is strange what the game does in these areas.

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Yes, and especially in the big leagues. Now, I currently play in Scotland, and I've previously played in the Danish league too. And my experience from both is, that the teams tend to have much less activity in the transfer windows, so their squads often remain quite recognizable, even 4-5 seasons in. There are pros and * for every league, I think, but the reduced transfer activity is definitely a pro for me, when I start up away from the 'BIG 5'.

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
You seem to have got the upper hand against Celtic now, as you are winning most matches against them.

Looks like a league/European double at the very least.

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League, yes... European title, well, it seems the second leg did not go to plan. My recent upper hand vs Celtic failed this time, I'm afraid. A domestic double is still in the picture, but a European title will have to wait for now.

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
One down, one to go.
A domestic double, then?
It'll be interesting to see if Celtic win the Europa.
It's a pity that none of the other Scottish teams seem able to put in a challenge domestically. One of them needs an Alex Ferguson, I think.

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Yes, well, I don't expect another Alex Ferguson to drop by anytime soon though. But truly, what he achieved with Aberdeen does really emphasize what kind of generational talent he was as a manager. Never since has a non-Glasgow side won the Premiership. Rangers were even thrown several tiers down a few years back, and still no one else were able to go up and make a proper challenge in the title race.

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
Super substitution to win the cup - excellent when that happens.

From the sound of it, there are likely to be quite a few changes coming up on th squad front.

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Yeah, maybe there are. I haven't really thought it through yet, just trying to build up some talk in the media. I have a few ideas, and the Marcus Tavernier on left back test in the cup final could be something I'm looking more into in the coming season. As a result I expect to sell left back Ridvan Yilmaz and forward Cyriel Dessers, both with 1 year left of their contracts. And with both already replaced in-house (Oli Burke having replaced Dessers centrally), I would maybe wait until I see a few departures, before I start purchasing. But hey, that's a worry for tomorrow, I guess. First the World Cup with Scotland!

No Brazil.  Now that would make a headline in itself.

Interesting group paired with England.

No Celtic players in the squad?  Has that ever happened before?

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@CO88LER5 wrote:

No Brazil.  Now that would make a headline in itself.

Interesting group paired with England.

No Celtic players in the squad?  Has that ever happened before?

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No Brazil, yeah that was kind of a shock. But I know there's been some licensing issues, don't know whether that had anything to do with it. At first I was a bit frustrated, but they are actually struggling a bit in their IRL qualifiers, so if ever they were going to miss one, this could actually be it. It would be nice with a few other South American teams present then though. Netherlands and the other teams absent, I think that's more random, given there are no world cup qualifiers in the game.

No Celtic players, yeah I didn't really think about that myself, perhaps still counting Callum McGregor as such. But I suppose you're right, and even though I'm too lazy to check it just now, I'm inclined to agree with you; this has to be a first major tournament Scotland squad without a single Celtic player. To be fair, Greg Taylor might have a case that he should be called up, captaining them now (in game), taking them to the Europa League final (where they lost though) and having a nice 78 OVR to show. However, he would just have been ANOTHER left back in my already stacked group, and I'm no Southgate, am I?

" It would be nice with a few other South American teams present then though"

I'm beginning to wonder what is going on, as the number of countries you can send scouts to, especially in South America, has shrunk to almost nothing.  Yes, you can still scout for the academy, but not for first-team players.

If EA doesn't get its act together, it's going to be quite farcical soon.