Have you tried timed=true and different amounts of fixed cycles?

Yes, i tried all the options related to the joystick, cycles, core, etc., and nothing.

Please help, anyone knows how to solve this problem?
Whoever who has this game, if possible, try it out to see if the same problem happens.

Thanks!

Tried it with a joykey mapping, joysticktype=2axis timed=true cycles=10000, and didn't notice any problem. According to the README you can press C on the Controls menu with the joystick centered to calibrate the center point.

I think the game you tried is the "Kick Off 3 - European Challenge", the game which I refer is the first edition ("Kick Off 3" only)

Yes, I had tried the European Challenge version; and now that I try the other version, I see the issue with the joystick that you describe. It's kind of strange that it doesn't start "drifting" until after you move the joystick. A deadzone doesn't seem to help. There may be no easy solution for now; but the game's joystick axis code involves timer behavior, so the problem may be resolved by the timer re-write.

Then it seems like something difficult to fix, what a bad luck, I hope one day i can play this game in dosbox.

Thanks for your interest in trying to help me 😉

I found that the joysticktype=4axis_2 setting gives a slight bit of control that allows you to start a game. It's not playable, but just to see how it runs. The procedure is a bit tricky: you press a button to select the English language, and then on the main menu pressing right causes the pointer to drift to the upper right, and down causes it to drift to the lower right, so you can maneuver over one of the game options and press the button, and when the pointer finally settles in the lower right just keep pressing the button to proceed into the game.

There seems to be a graphics issue in the main gameplay regarding horizontal scrolling and the bottom status line. The machine=vgaonly setting eliminates the messed up referee graphics and the junk beneath the status line, but the status line still slides jumpingly left and right when it should stay still, and the player and ball sprites show some "ghosting" when the screen scrolls that looks like it's related to page flipping.

You're right, with that option, I can enter to play, but as well you say, I can not move the players and also has some graphical errors.
It seems that this game is hard to emulate properly.

The joystick seems to work in the game with this hack to joystick.cpp:

1         stick[0].ytick = currentTick + 1000.0*( JOY_S_CONSTANT + S_PER_OHM *
2-                         (double)(((stick[0].ypos+1.0)* OHMS)) );
3+                         (double)(((stick[0].ypos+1.0)* OHMS/3)) );

Moving down hesitates a bit when dividing by 2, but with 3 the movement seems smooth in all directions. The problem remains if you do the same to the x-axis. I have no idea why changing only the y-axis helps.

The game can at least be played with the hack, although the graphic glitches that remain with machine=vgaonly are a little distracting.

Fantastic, thank you very much for that fix!, i'm happy, ha ha.
The only problem is that i don't know how compile it, you could make a dosbox with that fix?

Thank you again! 😉