GAME CHANGERS
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW to Keep improving your team performance
Squad selection, Tactics and Strategy
You select your first team and substitutes for the next match.
Should you play a DL or DC in a 3 men defense line?
Who is to be the captain? What about Win Bonus? Home advantage?
Free kick taker then? Who to sub in and when? What about the strategy, change the playing style? Train or rest team?
All good questions and knowing the good answers will take your performance to cup finals, league and cup gold.
I'd rather talk about philosophy of management, the mental aspect of the game. This is a game where human behaviour matters, as other managers will try to analyze and guess your gameplan. You need to surprise them. Gameplan is a term I lack in the game but apply in all my teams I managed. It's simple, since match starts with a draw - I direct my team to work hard for that, defensive approach is the first thing I set on any team I manage. We need to let in as few goals as possible, period.
Then we need to score goals, that's where the speedy forwards with good control and heading come into play. We need to get the ball forward as quickly as possible and pass it as long as possible, beating the opponent with a counter attack. All players have offensive and defensive duties based on their strengths and weaknesses, this is based on position and not on formation.
For example, if 3 men midfield, the central midfielder - if AM then he will go forward and stay there, and if I use a DM then he will be working back to gain control of the ball and stay there.
Placing player on right position helps, especially in the beginning of the game, but when substitutions are made, position is not that important. My choice of the captain is either an older than 23 years old or a very experienced guy with lots of games in his career. Fielding unsuitable captain is costly.
Winbonuses help, suitable for the big games, champions league matches especially. You need to find the right numbers and that is based on the wage structure of the club.
Too high and you'd be wasting money, too low and you will insult players, and that will hurt performance.
Home advantage is there and playing more offensive at home and deffensive away could give better results. My freekick takers need to have good shooting/passing/flair attributes, best suitable being the AM players with 80 or better shooting. Flair is very important there.
Substituting younger players will give them match experience and trigger development, but only if opponent is better, else it will set development back, that is red numbers.
For optimal performance training management is key, to keep fitness and stamina as high as possible. That is a lot of training management but it's worth it. Very important.
Free role can give you a great advantage in a match, if applied on the right player. Free role is something I give only to my best players, and I almost forgot, they need to be fast.
Economy, always negotiate contracts with the players at the near end of their contracts, as player will then ask less, up to 20% of the initial demand.
I train whole team with match preparation and fitness low and it works for me.
Finding good players - if youngster, age less than 18, if player is an attacker, check tackling and if it's too high, will most probably not grow much more. Same with defenders, if shooting is too high, the same conclusion. Regular midfielders do not have very high tackling and shooting either. Check the best midfielders to see a pattern.
When buying experienced guys, I look for two things, that player can play in several positions and average rating needs to be higher than 6, and if is 7 or higher, then he is a great player.
Tactics, for me 3-5-2 or 4-2-4 works best, I can't make other formations work as well as these, but I guess it depends on the players you have at your disposal.
Don´t invest in youth academy while this system prevails. CPU market system and youth development.
Don´t play friendlies because it it is a waste of time and money and are completely useless. Also, if you don´t know what to do with your best players, give them to me!
Start with a simple tactic without too many instructions and player roles and keep improving it slowly, and try the players with different roles. before sending them away.
We asked some of the best managers for some tips and information on how to get better team performance