It’s the International break in real life and whilst that is so much fun, it won’t be as good as what KOTR has brainstormed here…

Hello, and welcome! Well, you’ll be pleased to know I’ve been messing around with the editor again and well, what have we cooked up. From the 1990 World Cup, FIFA decided it would be a great idea to name an all-star team of the tournament after previously receiving complaints in early tournaments. It started with 11 players and by 1998 would become a ‘squad’ of 16. So, I’ll get to the question: how would the FIFA All-Stars of the 1998 World Cup actually perform as a squad in the 1998 World Cup? Well, thank God we have CM9798 to help us find out!

Representing France, Paraguay, Brazil, Holland, Denmark and Croatia. What…a…side. This should be fun. The least known CM9798 player in this squad in my opinion is…

Stats look a bit…iffy but I’m sure he’ll be great. We’ll start our preparations for the World Cup in a very traditional formation, but I’m 100% ready to mess with the tactics and see if we can come up with something else…especially as we have no right backs!

Our fixtures will be thus…tough crowd.

The opener tells us the all stars have got their work cut out to prove their worth.

We’ll have to go back to the drawing board as 2-3-1-2-2 seems like it will be a hard sell against decent opposition. And with such a thin squad, I dread moments like this:

At least we know that tier 2 opposition poses no threat to the boys. The bonny lad helps us on our way.

S*** hits the fan.

On the plus side, don’t the colours look superb. Gold on white in 9798 is excellent. Another tough gig against genuine opposition has me worried.

Thankfully, Neset and Olsen don’t get on the pitch! We rotate some players, Mexico are beaten but again, its not convincing at all. Am I the problem?

In better news, we are seeded, and we get a fantastic group.

To get passed the squad naming periods, given we don’t have enough players, I have to use the ‘Manager Holiday’ trick. This time, I forget to return from it and we lose.

Positives; we would have played Ultra Defensive and only lost 1-0. What happens next is all my nightmares come true.

We decide to mix it up tactically for the Sweden game, and it pays off massively.

We might be onto something here. Great news is always followed by terrible news in the CM9798 world. This is another deal breaker.

The missing players cause us great pain.

But our next result is ironic, hypnotic…brutal for Croatia.

Our final warm-up game is not so definitive.

The Germans, despite their terrible stats, are always a difficult opponent at international level in this game. If you can get something from them, you’re doing something right (the same would go for Italy). And with that, our preparations for World Cup 98 with our World Cup All Star XI are complete. Can we get out of our group? Can these boys live up to their name tag? Tune in next time to find out.

You can follow Andrew on twitter: @KingOfTheRooks