CM5 - win some, lose some

Remember the Championship Manager 5 game that I blogged about a few days ago? About how I was playing in season 2026/2027 & the Dutch football club I'm coaching, Vitesse Arnhem, was gunning for 3 trophies in that season?

Well, Vitesse did win the Dutch Eredivisie championship - so champions of the Netherlands once again! Our nearest rivals Ajax Amsterdam finished second in the Eredivisie ladder. Vitesse also won the Dutch Cup, beating Ajax 3-2 in the final. But 3 days after that, Ajax gained revenge by beating Vitesse 3-0 in the UEFA Champions League final. Scoreless at half-time, Ajax got a penalty & opened the scoring, then added 2 more goals in the last 10 minutes to seal the Champions League trophy.

That means I got 2 trophies out of 3. Ajax got the biggest prize - the UEFA Champions League, making them club champions of Europe. I was disappointed with the Champions League defeat. Ai yah, I guess u win some, u lose some. I had a couple of key players missing through injury, & they could have made the difference had they been available. However, I don't want to dwell on those missing players - after all, I did win the Dutch Cup without them, & so perhaps should have been able to cope without them in the Champions League final. Anyway, I'll try again next season to see whether I can go 1 better & make a clean sweep of all trophies that Vitesse compete for.

My brother BT found the defeat "amusing", & did not hold back in poking some jokes about my Vitesse team. He just loves bagging my team.

To those who are wondering what's CM5 is about (one church brother asked me on Sunday): Well, I think I blogged about it previously a few months back. CM5 is a soccer management game, & you pick a club side & manage the club. You buy players, you sell players, you hire the coaches to train the footballers, you hire the physios to look after the players when they get injured. You create a training program for the club. You select your line-up for the team's matches. On match day, you watch how the team you select perform, & you can make player substitutions or change the team tactics as you see fit.

It's different from such soccer games like FIFA2008 or Winning Eleven, that you see on PC or XBox or PlayStation. CM5 is different from those soccer games, because in CM5, you do NOT control the player movements & you don't make the players on the screen pass, tackle or shoot. In CM5, you simply manage the club & do all the things I talked about in the preceding paragraph. It's fun!! Do try it if u are up for it & if u have the time to do so :)