Football Manager 2008 FAQ - Includes hints and tips Part 2

This is part 2 so keep read ...
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++++GAMEPLAY FAQ++++
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++++TRAINING++++
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How To Retrain Players

Go to the training screen, then in the bottom section where the drop down menu 'view' is, change that to position training and then you will see it, where you can set a new position.

My players don't seem to be doing well in training
Morale affects how well a player takes to training as well. Ensure that he keeps his morale up, using him as a sub or sending him out on loan can help. Ensure too that your training schedule is not too heavy during the winter in areas of physical training

What's a good way to develop your youth

Its all fine and dandy if you have the right coaches, but getting the best out of players involves a lot more.

*Good facilities
*Good Tutoring
*And timing their development

At age 17 - Move him to Reserves or send him on loan where he can gain valuable match experience, the side should also have good facilities and the quality should match the player in question
At age 18 - Give him the odd run in First team matches and minor cups..always match their level to the opposition; be aware of burn-outs, these can happen if you continously play him against teams that are far above his level
At age 20 - Loan out to Championship. When he returns put him on rotation and see if he can fight his way through.

Its good to get a youth coach as well, ideally he should have high attributes for working with youngsters

Coach requirements for 7 stars- Updated for FM2008
The attribute nos need to be verified as these are off the manual and I do not have it in hand

Strength : Fitness > = 18
Aerobic : Fitness > = 18
Goalkeeping : Coaching Gks >= 18

Tactics : Tactical >= 18

Defending : Defending = 18 & Tactical>= 18 or
Defending = 19 & Tactical>= 14 or
Defending = 20 & Tactical>= 10

Ball Control : Technique = 18 & Mental>= 18 or
Technique = 19 & Mental>= 14 or
Technique = 20 & Mental>= 10

Attacking : Attacking = 18 & Tactical >= 18 or
Attacking = 19 & Tactical >= 14 or
Attacking = 20 & Tactical >= 10 or

Shooting : Technique = 18 & Attacking>= 18 or
Technique = 19 & Attacking>= 14 or
Technique = 20 & Attacking>= 10

Set Pieces : Technique = 17 & Mental + Attacking >= 39 or
Technique = 18 & Mental + Attacking >= 36 or
Technique = 19 & Mental + Attacking >= 33 or
Technique = 20 & Mental + Attacking >= 30


What are the important attributes for each position


Goalkeepers - Vital Skills

Positioning, handling, command of area, agility, stamina, jumping, reflex, strength, decisions and aerial ability

Other

Throwing, pace, concentration, composure, bravery and anticipation


Centre backs - Vital Skills

Positioning, jumping, tackling, marking, aggression, strength, bravery and heading

Other Skills

Stamina, anticipation, determination, pace and acceleration

Fullbacks

Choose well, easily the best position to exploit in the game. If you can have the best of both worlds then they could be the diff between winning and losing. They can be both defensively good and offensively awesome. Pace isn't a crucial factor, but if you want them to be good defenders, then positioning and anticipation may have to be introduced as well.

Vital

Work rate, stamina, teamwork, decisions, positioning and acceleration

Other Skills

Determination, strength, crossing and dribbling


Defensive Midfielder

Holding players who can help draw out the opposition, they can also play deadly killer balls and work very well with AMC based formations.

Vital Stats

Tackling, strength, aggression, marking, stamina, work rate, teamwork and decisions

Others

Pace, passing, acceleration, determination, concentration, creativity


Attacking Mids

Link players with DMs or with regular MCs. If you place FWR often on them they could drift out of position so never do that. Use their strengths. This can be an interesting area, what's listed are bare essentials,but if they have good dribbling skills they can be very deadly too.So adjust their instructions based on what they have..you can use dribbling for long shots as a trade off.

Vital Stats

Decisions, Creativity, passing, off ball, technique, finishing, work rate

Others

Stamina, teamwork, flair, long shots, pace, acceleration


Wingers - Vital Skills

Crossing, creativity, dribbling, pace, acceleration, tackling, balance, technique, passing

Others

Finishing, long shots, teamwork, work rate, off ball


Forwards - Vital Stats

Creativity, flair, finishing, off ball, dribbling, passing, technique, pace, acceleration

Others

Teamwork, flair, balance, long shots, anticipation, crossing

Strikers - Vital Skill

finishing, off ball, jumping, heading, anticipation, technique

Other

Pace aggression, acceleration, strength, long shots

Explain work permits and how to get them

Work Permits are one annoying thing to get around. They are needed in the UK
and Ireland. So how do you get your player a work permit? What does he need to
get one?

Well, if the player you are looking at has one of these nations as either his
main nationality or second nationality (basically the EU + some other nations),
you're fine:


Austria Germany Norway
Belgium Greece Portugal
Cyprus Holland Slovakia
Czech Republic Hungary Slovenia
Denmark Iceland Spain
Estonia Ireland Sweden
Finland Italy Switzerland
France,incld French Guyana Latvia United Kingdom
Guadeloupe Lithuania
Martinique Luxembourg
Reunion Malta



If it isn't, you'll need a permit.

First of all, the player's calibre is taken into account. If he's a very good
player, has many international appearance's etc then he'll most likely get the
permit first time round. If not you can always appeal the decision, and usually
get the decision in your favour.

If your player was rejected a permit, why did this happen? Well, people are
given Work Permits if they are skilled workers. If your target is not much
better than British players, there is no reason, in the governments eyes, to go
for the foreigner and ignore the English players. Its purpose is to protect the
Economy from being saturated with foreigners, and help give the British people
jobs, no matter what the industry. I used the UK as the example, but the same
would apply to other countries needing a work permit.

There are ways to get around this though. First of all, you can get a European
feeder club. This means that even without a permit, you can still buy the
player. By sending him to the European feeder club for a couple of years, he'll
eventually gain EU Citizenship = instant permit. It's a lengthy process, and
I'd only recommend it for players who are 21 or under. Each country takes a
different amount of time for foreigners to gain EU Citizenship there, so here's
the list:

3 years 4 years 7 years 10 years
------- --------- -------- -------

Belgium Spain Denmark Greece
Poland Holland Slovenia


5 years
-----------------------------------------------------------

Austria French Guyana Italy Renuion
Cyprus Germany Latvia Slovakia
Czech Republic Guadeloupe Lithuania Sweden
Estonia Holland Luxembourg Switzerland
Finland Hungary Malta
France Iceland Martinique
Ireland Portugal





As well as loaning out, every so often you can try offering your player a new
contract. He will be reapplied for a permit, and if you're lucky, he may be
granted one.

When searching for a new player too in South American countries, keep an eye
out for his other nationalities. Many Brazilians have Portuguese/Spanish, and
some Argentineans have Italian as a second nationality. If you find players
like this then it means they will get an instant permit.

In certain south american countries if your first language is spanish, you wait only 2 years to gain citzenship
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+++++SLIDERS++++++++++
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What is mentality

It influences how a player performs on the pitch, if he is attacking he will look to take part in more actions that help the ball move forward and to look for goal scoring chances. If he is defensive, he will take less risks, his actions will be guided by him trying to keep possession and to look for less risky passes.

Mentality also affects positions of players. The only players there is no positional effect on are the DCs.

What is closing down?
The higher the closing down, the closer to the opposing goal your player does the job of reducing space on the AI

What is tempo
The higher your tempo the quicker they will move the ball around

Do I have to use slow tempo for a short passing game
Tempo just sets the tone of how you want to play you can play a short passing game on low or high tempo

What does creative freedom do and how do I use it?
Creative freedom gives license to a player to do his own thing. Players will ignore some of the individual instructions you give them and do what they feel is right. Its good to have this instruction for AMCs and any attacking player who needs to find space. Comes in handy on congested pitches.

What is the defensive line and how do I use it

A defensive line is a defined line that players are given to designate how deep they will defend. Each player has his own defensive line, one for DCs, one for DMCs, one for Fullbacks. A defensive line is not a straight line through the centre of a pitch for all.

If you want to play defensive football, you would set a deep defensive line,which implies that your players are sitting deeper to defend. You can match that with defensive mentality. An attacking formation typically does play with a normal to attacking defensive line, showing that the players will defend much higher up the pitch.

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++Player Instructions++
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Hold up ball
This is a good instruction to have to allow players to get into advanced attacking positions. Any player on the pitch can use this instruction and this allows others to join in. One midfielder can hold up the ball and then redistribute it as a player, or a forward can use his strength to keep the ball at his feet to allow deep running midfielders or other players to support him. Its an instruction that requires strength,if you want him to be a playmaker then he needs passing and decisions too.

Determination and bravery are other important attributes.

Swapping positions

When you swap positions, you are telling two players to switch and take on the others role, a striker could swap with an AMC for example, or two strikers could swap sides with each other. In order for this to wokr well you need them to be able to play in both positions, if you want a striker to swap with a midfielder make sure he's brave enough to throw in a challenge.

Offside trap Offside is an on-field act when the opposing team plays a forward pass to an attacker behind the last defender of a team. The offside trap is an attempt by the defending team to push up their line of defense to catch attackers caught on forward passes played too early. Its a good tactic to have for an attacking team, but it requires good teamwork and a strong leader in the backline.


Cross ball and through ball, who uses it and how

These instructions can be given to anyone, but to be effective they should be assigned to players such as your wingers and fullbacks. If you give it to your central midfield players they will come out of natural positions to cross which isn't always a good thing.

Through ball option needs to take the type of game you are playing into account. If you are playing a defensive possession game and are not going forward a lot then often through balls will just give possession away and invite trouble.

If you are attacking and trying to get forward all the time then through balls are a good idea.

Note the passing attribute for when assigning through balls too.

Bear in mind the kind of football you want your winger to play too, you can have a dribbler or you can have someone do slick one-twos and go cross, you usually will find it hard to do both as the attributes required are high.

Through balls can be a good instruction for wingers who are slow but possess a good cross, or if your strikers are very pacey.

Avoiding conflicting instructions

Conflicting instructions can confuse your players and unbalance your formation.

Counterattacking - and short passing without TTBs. You are not using the options correctly Its counterproductive

Giving your players a high mentality and then dropping your dline, this is dangerous, its not entirely conflicting but it does make your playing area bigger and make your player conditions drop.

Playing direct passing on slow tempo. Tempo affects how fast or slow a play builds up. Direct passing is naturally fast, so slowing it down is not advisable

Giving a player RWB often and TTB often is a conflict. One is ideal for a hold up man the other for a dribbler. Asking a player to dribble often and then to slow down to make a through ball can sometimes lead to loss of possession. There are few players who can do this effectively.

A conflicting instruction is any instruction that creates oppositon between an attacking action and a defensive action. Give defensive actions to defensive players and offensive instructions to offensive players. If you want to play defensive, then choose options that help you either control the game or play a quick counterattacking game.

Creative players needs to be given room to be effective they shouldn'thave intensive closing down

Be careful when instructing players to do "forward runs" often as this can drag the player out of a vital position defensively or offensively. An especially important fact for link players like DMCs and AMCs

Keep the tactic balanced in that even if all the players can run with the ball that doesn't mean that they should. They can be intercepted while in possession leading to goal scoring opportunities for the opposition .

Opposition Instructions by Mr Personality


Usually after I give the pre-game teamtalk, I would check on the opposition instruction screen to see if I position my central defenders correctly. If my opponent is using the big-small combination, I shall adjust which of my two DCs to be on which side.

In my situation, both my DCs (I'm using a four man defence) are not the fastest players on the pitch (pace: 9 and 11) but they have decent (ie. is or more than 14) marking & tackling stats. Here is a few scenarios that I have run into in my games:

• DC marking a big targetman in a 2 man attack: always close down in hope that he would win most of the battles and contain the targetman from attacking my goal. If his preferred foot is right or left ONLY, then I'd show him onto the left or right respectively. Else, I will just leave it to my defenders on how to mark him.

• DC marking a pacey forward in a 2 man attack: never close down and always tight marking. This is what I'm not quite sure of. I'm afraid if I try to close down on him all the time, any mistackle would mean that my DC is going to be left behind by the sheer pace of the FC. With tight marking, I want the DC to nullify the effect of that fast forward without commiting himself too much. The higher the pace of the FC, the lower my closing down on my DC's individual setting is. Any other suggestions?

• DC marking a big targetman in a 1 striker formation: One DC (with the lower pace) will be set to always close down, the other has no specific instructions to pick up what's left.

• DC marking a pacey forward in a 1 striker formation: same as above as I have the numerical advantage and the extra man to cover should the closing down DC fail to clear or contain the man

• On AMC: Always close him down to prevent him from linking to his strikers.

• Opposition ML/R and AM L/R: Since I want to deprive opposition team of the supply from the wings, these players are given the instruction to always be closed down and shown onto the weaker foot (plus hard tackling depending on the match-up against my players). If the wingers are exceptional, I would tick tight marking on my DL's and/or DR's individual settings.

• Any injured field players and players below 85% (excluding strikers): Have always put the hard tackling on these players to either make their condition worse or take them to the hospital early

BTW I seldom use both tight marking & closing down on always unless my DCs have way better stats than the opposing strikers.

In the closing stages of any game which the opponents have gone 4-2-4 on me, I usually set 'always close down' on all 4 forwards. This is done only after I put 2 DMs in front of my 4-man defence. So far the result has been alright as I have not conceded an 89 or 90th min goal since one game in the beginning of the season. Have not tried anything on the opponent defence or goalies either, thus not sure how anything works on that side of the field. - Mr Personality