Morning guys,
Quick update for you.
I've sacrificed the weekend to try and crunch through this - I'm desperate to start an ML but I can't for as long as I spot errors.
I've started again from scratch, downloading the most recently available official patch (1.02) plus the Live Update (released around 24/10) to get the most up-to-date data.
I've gone through all 14,444 players by hand and found 34 duplicates (not as many as I expected - but there are a couple Konami have done themselves in the licensed leagues, which boggles the mind), along with 64 names missing accents on the letters (might as well note them down and fix them if I'm going through that many players, right) and a hefty number of fake free agents from the formerly fake teams (e.g. Bundesliga teams).
It took two-and-a-half nights just to write all of the affected players' details down! But last night I had a couple of hours starting to fix them, which is easier.
But after that, I have to reinput all of the tactics from the great Operation Sports tactics database I mention in the credits, because it makes a big difference.
My plan is to change all of those fake players from the formerly fake teams into missing players in those formerly fake regions (then there's less chance of a "real" version ever appearing in a Live Update in future).
After that, I need to check for duplicate managers, and then it's ready to go. I'm aiming for a weekend release, but no promises...
TL;dr: new Live Updated version on the way with zero duplicates guaranteed, 33% done, aiming for a weekend release (no promises), need to remove duplicates, rename misspellings and create real players out of the fake ones.