New player seeking help

[Flop]

I purchased this game a few days ago, having eyeballed it for a while. I decided to start out with Danish 2nd Division East club Boldklubberne Glostrup-Albertslund. So far, I've played for a bit over a year, and I managed to get myself into 1st division, but this is where everything falls apart.

During the first year, my scout and ***. manager would often advise me to scout out specific players, which I did, and sometimes I'd sign those players, if the recommendation was good enough. It didn't take long for me to get a whole bunch of players, many of whom seemed quite decent. However, after advancing they all want to get paid, and my budget didn't allow me to sign them all, so many of them left. Now I'm left with only a handfull of decent players, and a bunch of useless ones. I've lost 7 games in a row.

I suppose I shouldn't have signed that many players in the first place, but my guys kept asking me to scout them.

My other problem is tactics. For almost the entire first season, I would switch between formations, although I mostly used 4-4-2. I then switched between counter/standard/attack when I felt it was needed, and that was about it. I've since realised (mainly from reading these forums) that I should probably try to flesh out a more detailed tactic, and stick to it. My best players are strikers, although I have a few decent midfielders and 1 or 2 decent defenders. The rest are basically filling, but there's not much I can do about that, because of the manpower problem mentioned above. I've tried using a 4-4-2 tactic based on this thread, starting each game out with counter, for the last 7 games, which I've lost. I'm not sure if my tactic is off (it seems sound enough to me), or if I would have lost those games anyway, because my team sucks. Any help in this department would be appreciated.

Lastly, I'm not too sure what to do about training. When I was in the 2nd division, I just used the default training program, and I never noticed any of my players increase any skills. Then again, I only had 1 coach. Now I have 5 coaches, but I'm still not noticing anything, although I'll occasionally receive a backroom message saying that some guy has increased his strength or something. Anyway, should I make more specialised training programs? How specialised would they have to be? Also, I assume that it's not a good idea to, for instance, not train an attackers defence at all, so how far up and/or down should I move those sliders?

Sorry for being such a newbie, but I'm having a very hard time understanding this game, and it's not helped by my general lack of football knowledge (I had to use google to figure out what a cross is ). I really want to learn it, though, since I've been having a blast so far, and I can only imagine how fun it must be for people who know how to play it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Kevnaylor]

Mate if you are looking for a good tactic go to mr houghs tactic thread and download the tactic. It is the best I have used

 

[Niall]

Ok pal, I've got LFA from from 2nd Division to the top division. Basically, don't worry about training, your facilities will be too poor to get any real development out of players even with the best schedules and coaches so don't worry about that until later when you have more money.

Give the players and formations time to gel, if a new tactic/players don't work in the first 3/4 games, don't worry, just give them time and they (hopefully) will begin to gel.

From experience, sign players (especially forwards) who are quick, a forward with pace/acceleration of 16 or above will score for fun even without good technical stats.

Sign players on frees, loads of Danish quality players get released at the end of season, especially try to find player in lower league Germany/Holland as you can find some real gems.

Your players are (broadly) going to be technically poor, a norrow 4-4-2 will be fine, try to keep it rigid and pack the middle, I find avoiding wide midfielders/wingers works well.

Hope this helps.

 

[MFC1992]

download genie scout that should help you sign very good players in future

 

[Flop]

Mate if you are looking for a good tactic go to mr houghs tactic thread and download the tactic. It is the best I have used

Thanks, but to be honest, I'd prefer to make them myself, in order to learn the game. I'm afraid that if I just download tactics, I'll never really understand that part of the game.

What I'm really wondering, though, is how/why people pick a specific formation. Is it just to suit the players you have, or is there more to it?

@NiallZemin: Thanks for the advice. Is 16 generally a good score, or is that just for the lower divisions? And how do I pack the middle?

Actually, I'm wondering what the scout recommendations are good for, seeing as how I can see the players stats without scouting them. Or are those stats just estimates?

 

[Niall]

I just say 16 because that's when the stat changes colour so it's easier to spot when you're browsing players, but yeah, if you get a forward with 16+ pace he'll score for fun, I find defenders in the Danish league tend to be ridiculously slow.

Pack the middle generally means play a Defensive Mid, 2 Centre Mids and an Attacking Mid, pick the specific roles depending on what suits your players.

 

[MFC1992]

do you need set piece help?
download Tactical Theorems '10 it gives all the advise on tactics you need

 

[Flop]

do you need set piece help?
download Tactical Theorems '10 it gives all the advise on tactics you need

Actually, I have yet to figure out what set pieces are. I'll take a look at that document, though. Thanks.

 

[Chaz Sexington]

I purchased this game a few days ago, having eyeballed it for a while. I decided to start out with Danish 2nd Division East club Boldklubberne Glostrup-Albertslund. So far, I've played for a bit over a year, and I managed to get myself into 1st division, but this is where everything falls apart.

During the first year, my scout and ***. manager would often advise me to scout out specific players, which I did, and sometimes I'd sign those players, if the recommendation was good enough. It didn't take long for me to get a whole bunch of players, many of whom seemed quite decent. However, after advancing they all want to get paid, and my budget didn't allow me to sign them all, so many of them left. Now I'm left with only a handfull of decent players, and a bunch of useless ones. I've lost 7 games in a row.

I suppose I shouldn't have signed that many players in the first place, but my guys kept asking me to scout them.

My other problem is tactics. For almost the entire first season, I would switch between formations, although I mostly used 4-4-2. I then switched between counter/standard/attack when I felt it was needed, and that was about it. I've since realised (mainly from reading these forums) that I should probably try to flesh out a more detailed tactic, and stick to it. My best players are strikers, although I have a few decent midfielders and 1 or 2 decent defenders. The rest are basically filling, but there's not much I can do about that, because of the manpower problem mentioned above. I've tried using a 4-4-2 tactic based on this thread, starting each game out with counter, for the last 7 games, which I've lost. I'm not sure if my tactic is off (it seems sound enough to me), or if I would have lost those games anyway, because my team sucks. Any help in this department would be appreciated.

Lastly, I'm not too sure what to do about training. When I was in the 2nd division, I just used the default training program, and I never noticed any of my players increase any skills. Then again, I only had 1 coach. Now I have 5 coaches, but I'm still not noticing anything, although I'll occasionally receive a backroom message saying that some guy has increased his strength or something. Anyway, should I make more specialised training programs? How specialised would they have to be? Also, I assume that it's not a good idea to, for instance, not train an attackers defence at all, so how far up and/or down should I move those sliders?

Sorry for being such a newbie, but I'm having a very hard time understanding this game, and it's not helped by my general lack of football knowledge (I had to use google to figure out what a cross is ). I really want to learn it, though, since I've been having a blast so far, and I can only imagine how fun it must be for people who know how to play it.

Thanks in advance for any help.

For training I'd suggest Dan's training schedules. Assign your players to these and you'll see some increases. However, this also depends on how close your player is to his potential ability (PA). You can further tweak it by using the sliders. Clicking a player -> training -> attributes -> training category also shows you what each training category trains. If you want to improve your tactics, I'd suggest reading tactics & theorems, which is essentially a guide to making your own tactics. If they still fail, I'd suggest downloading a few until you find out how to make your own (it's what I did!).

For players I'd suggest a shortlist or two; however for lower-league management (LLM) which is what you're doing, it's more difficult, as players won't always come or they want to much money etc. Using some of the player threads here are good for that

download genie scout that should help you sign very good players in future

This is considered cheating btw.

 

[Zaffarano]

Actually, I have yet to figure out what set pieces are. I'll take a look at that document, though. Thanks.

Set pieces are corners, free kicks, penalties etc.

 

[Flop]

Thanks guys, this is all very helpfull, and I feel I have a better idea of the things I need to do. I have one more question, though:

I've been using the search function to look for players and staff. I'm a bit unsure of why I actually need scouts, when i can already see the attributes of all the players. I was thinking that maybe these attributes are inaccurate, and become more accurate, the more you scout a player. Is that correct? If so, what about the attributes of potential staff members, seeing as how you can't scout those?

 

[Jake]

Actually, I'm wondering what the scout recommendations are good for, seeing as how I can see the players stats without scouting them. Or are those stats just estimates?

At that level i would suggest ignoring the tactical advice of your assistant and ignoring your scouts tips altogether.

Remember that a scout/assistants advice is only as good as their stats, and at the level you are playing im guessing their stats are awful, meaning the advice they give you will be pretty awful too.

Scout players but dont take the word of your scout as gospel, if he rates a player as a decent prospect he might actually be a potential world beater (or a total flop) its a risk you have to take, its part of the fun of playing the game; finding that one class player out of the 10 or so you looked at.

Devise tactics yourself and ignore the advice of your assistant until you can find one with good enough stats to give decent advice. If you want to look at (but not necessarily use) a proven lower league tactic, look at my la cultu tactic in my signature below.

 

[arun]

I am sure you can find decent (but not good) scouts with the search function. I did with Bradford (in League 2) but I am not sure where your league compares with that. You can also get a decent *** Man.

I wouldn't worry too much about the coaches as your training facilities are likely useless. Just use Dan's training schedules.

Since you don't like using other people's tactics, you probably won't like using the Genie Scout either.

And trawl the list of players available for free. You will almost certainly find someone who will be rated 5 star for your team. You just need a couple of players like that

 

[Darth South]

Well, you have your answers, but knot knowing what cross means... I consider you're Danish and that's the reason.

About signing, you *** man gives few names for ONE pace. It's up to you to choose which is the best of them; but I have only found one quality player(considering that I can't afford all these players) among all the players they have recommended...

And never underestimate yourself! You have guts to stay in the first division, just trust a bit to yourself. You may be a newbie but never a noob(I hate this word, mostly because I am a bit(H))...