Earlier this week, I brought you a Champ Man & Me with www.cm97-98.eu. If you haven’t read it, do so now! The real headline to take from the interview is that the team still update CM9798 to this day, and they have just produced an update for the summer transfer window. I had to give it a go!

I put a load of screenshots on the CM9798 Twitter account during the week, so if you want to see some more squads and players head over there, though I will put some in here.

It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s pretty damn close. As you’d expect, the top divisions have had more focus than the lower leagues – and bear in mind the creators aren’t based in England.

I’m just simming the save, so let’s find out how this wonderful display of editing translates into the real game.

You’ll notice there’s a B squad now, which essentially houses the Man Utd reserves. It’s a good move that allows for more squad space but the problem is anybody in the B squads who are any good get bought up by lower level clubs pretty quickly. It’s a good idea but maybe a little bit needless, just because the game can’t really handle it.

It’s also not possible to amend certain things in the game, such as 4 clubs from the Premier League qualifying for the Champions League. As a result, you’ll find Man City slumming it in the UEFA Cup…which can’t be renamed the Europa League. Also the Cup Winners Cup is still a thing, but because Chelsea have been bumped up to Champions, 96/97 runners up Middlesbrough (now of Division 1) have been bumped up to Thursday night action.

Obviously the crazy inflation in transfer fees doesn’t translate to 1997, where the figure of £220m was merely something Dr Evil requested as a ransom in Austin Powers. Any player aged 30 or over can only have a maximum value of £5m, which is why you won’t find Messi or Ronaldo on the below list. Neymar comes in at £7m. Bargain! Though I’m not sure Jonathan Calleri is worth more than him.

How to install the 17/18 Update

The process is actually fairly simple, especially compared to getting the game running as detailed in the How To guide in the menu. You will have to do that first of course, but once you have a working version of the game, all you need to do is download the update file from CM97-98.eu. The update file contains three files – players.db1, mgdata.db1 and tmdata.db1 – all you need to do is copy them and paste into the CM9798 folder which is located on your computer. You’ll be asked if you want to overwrite the files of the same name, and you should say yes to this.

NOTE: I strongly advise you take a copy of the three files of the same name already located in your cm9798 folder. Copy them and put them in a new folder anywhere else – this will allow you to copy them back if you want to revert to the original database in the future, and it’s a lot easier than doing a reinstall!

Once you’ve nailed that, load up the game as normal and start a new save. Enjoy!

How did the 2017/18 season pan out for cm9798.co.uk?

I guess the proof in just how good the database is would come in how the league table roughly pans out. If Crystal Palace romp clear to Premier League glory, then it’s probably one to miss. I’m happy to say that didn’t happen.

Fans of Man City, you’re in for a mixed bag. You’re in the UEFA Cup final but you’re also 16th in the league and shell out for Jordan Henderson, Jesse Lingard and Ross Barkley to try and correct things. Oh and you lose that UEFA Cup final on pens.

Oh and how can we forget, you win the pointless cup too. John Terry leads Villa to Wembley then gets sent off

Tottenham on the other hand, it’s going to be a golden season. Here you are topping the Premier League, scoring just over a goal a game.

Kane finishes with 35 in 55, scoring 27 of those league goals.

That many appearances probably shows you how they did in the cup competitions. Here they are winning the FA Cup despite Loris Karius playing out of his skin

To top it all off though, Spurs are the Champions of Europe. Despite Dortmund playing in their home stadium, the England boys Dier and Kane are not phased and win at a relative canter.

Before we see if that form translates into the World Cup, a quick look at the bottom of the table

Chelsea had a nightmare trying to defend their title and lost in the Champions League quarters to Bayern Munich. Conte has held on to his job though – as has Pep for that matter. Watford struggled after selling Troy Deeney for £7m to Liverpool – Troy didn’t play a single game for Liverpool. Not a single manager lost their job, incredibly.

England should be in good shape heading to the 2018 World Cup, set in 1998. Here’s Gareth’s lads for the occasion…just the 4 left backs.

The good news is, we make out of the group stages! An opening day draw with the USA is overcome with two wins. Phew.

A 3-0 win over Paraguay is a safe passage to the quarter finals, but then sadly the Italians are too good and that’s where it ends. Progress?

If you fancy an early flutter on next year’s World Cup, get your money on Spain. A Spain/Brazil final will be pretty enjoyable I feel especially if Spain play three centre forwards as seems to be the plan here

So that’s it, a full season on the 17/18 version of CM9798. It’s a nice stop gap if you’re looking for something between now and the release of FM18, obviously there are certain quirks that can’t be helped such as the European qualification. It’s probably unlikely that Spurs will win everything but then again, it happens on FM, so don’t rule it out…

That’s it for this week but next week we embark on a new journey, the details of which are below…see you there.

Announcing the CM9798 Cup: Read the preview here