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Monday, December 3, 2007

Tips for manager mode (1)

I regularly notice that lots of people are searching for some advice about manager mode of the FIFA’08. I’ve posted a few ideas in my blog posts but now I want to shape some structure of this kind of tips and get as far as I know of this topic.

As it was mentioned here, there are different strategies of playing manager mode, but we can extinguish two most opposing ones:

1) When You take a team-Cinderella (from the last league and almost without budget) and grow it up to the Princess (champion of national league and cup and European tournaments leader).

2) When You take a well-known (perhaps yours favorite) club, buy a few your beloved players and struggle to survive pursuing everything the Board of Directors requires.

Of course, we can create a lot of in-between variants, but every strategy is the combination of those mentioned ones. Naturally, the situation can change if You get team-Cinderella and then bring it to the leaders. Every year the expectations of the Board grow and suddenly You will find Yourself trying to meet with heightened standards. But it’s obvious. Let’s better talk about some specific tips for those two “pure” strategies and then everyone will be able to take from the list the tip he or she needs.

Firstly, when You take a rich and very reputable club, be sure You will be able to reach high results immediately. The Board of the club normally doesn’t like to wait till You get familiar to the team and find optimal strategy and formation. If You lose a few matches in turn, Your season with the team could end at the very beginning. Therefore I highly recommend either to take lower difficulty level, or to take less ambitious club, or to summon up all Your skills.

By the way, here is one more tip for the start of playing with teams like Barcelona, Manchester United and so on. It maybe a little bit psychological but it works at least for me. I usually try not to change the formation or strategy of the team radically, no matter that my heart shouts me to pick Ronaldinho or Rooney right now. I do it step by step, because it seems Team Chemistry (those two gearwheels with percents) is very sensitive to that.

Despite the fact You are managing a rich club money still can be problem: You have best players, You want better ones; Board of Directors requires to sell or to buy someone; some contracts expire; etc. At the beginning You’ll be able to enlarge Your stadium (but this action also needs money) and set tickets price to high status. But these ways have their finishes and they usually appear soon enough.

Money is one of the reasons You must raise Your manager prestige (that number near Your face in the game), so attempt to win every match and meet Board’s objectives. Sometimes You’ll have to sell a few Your stars, but I know how it hurts. So I suggest You to look through the market, especially a free agents list. There You can buy players for comparative low prices (cause You ought to pay only his salary) and then sell them to others clubs for their real market value and earn nice sums.

Here is one more tip. Sometimes it is worth not to be too quick to get rid of players who are getting old and their abilities drop, especially defenders who doesn’t need as much speed as those in the front lines. Bear in mind that numbers and figures don’t show real situation even in videogames. Veterans have experience and the whole line (defenders, midfielders or forwards) is used to play and share position with them (Team Chemistry). What is more, think how often You realize whole of Your defenders potential. And finally, veterans demand lower salaries.

If You have got some more tips about the manager mode, You are highly welcome to share them in comments.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i written my view about the game.your post was so helpful.i just trying the manager mode.
http://muralidharan.vangardx.net/fifa08-the-real-football-challenge/

cgedas said...

I'm happy if You found it helpful.Unfortunately, I can't launch Your blog somehow.

Anonymous said...

Great article!

The manager mode in Fifa 08 is so realistic, as it involves player growth, morale and of course finance.

I can imagine how many people choose Man UTD, or Chelsea, or Juve. Only to find that they can't meet the boards expectations, and that securing a new star is only half of the problem. The other half is getting frustrated with them underachieving with not scoring goals, not helping team chemistry, and on top of it all, their high wage per game!

I've mixed both of the strategies:-Taken a well established team (AC Milano), but NOT buying my fave players. (possibly b/c I missed the Transfer window!)

I think the key is building team chemistry, knowing which players tire easily, and who you need on the bench. Also it does need a lot of management (duh!) skills, especially when you have a Cup match soon, and not much time for training.

One thing I learnt quickly was that investing in young players is great, especially for a side like AC Milan, who's pretty much OAP's.

Another interesting point you'd might want to talk about is match experience(which I understand), and how it relates to earning points/attributes (which I don't understand).

I was thinking of simply letting Maldini, Cafu and a few others to leave. But then after reading your article, I'd keep them. Same wages, but add bonus for cleansheets/goals.

* Something EA Sports got wrong. Alexandre Pato, the (new) Brazillian sensation, is included in the squad, and eligable to play. In the real-world, Ancelloti missed registering him in the last transfer window, which means he can only play competitively in January.

He's helped me a lot! And my Fifa team isn't in the bottom half of the table, like in the real world.

Also, what do you think is the best way to improve player morale?

I've noticed changing the squad round, making so many substitute's isn't a good thing.

Getting players into the team of the month? That's amazingly good.

Anonymous said...

i love playing in the mls as a manager i brought the galaxy to four stars in 2 years! riquelme joined as a free agent and then i sold him and bought new stadium levels and 10 levels of coaches and whatnot...at 5 stars

Anonymous said...

its pretty helpful, thanks. I have one problem I keep winning my games but i still lose money instead of getting money. can yu tell me how to stop that?

cgedas said...

At first, I think, you should read this:

http://fifa08pc.blogspot.com/2007/12/managing-small-and-poor-club-tips-for.html

Anonymous said...

i wan exchange players but y my board of director wont let.
i gt no money i wan exchange player
like flecther for elano.

Anonymous said...

Well I have started playing with Manager Mode with Barcelona and I have been winning the league for 6 consecutive seasons including all the cups (And I play it is World Class mode). Maybe because of my experience in playing Winning Eleven, Fifa 08 was easy to catch up to.

I always buy the best players like Alexandre Pato ($54M) or Kaka ($40M) or S. Nasri ($30M). I recently made a purchase of 5 new players totally worth above $150M. And yet my total budget is still above $300M (trying to touch $400M).Here's a few tips for accomplising that.
1)Get a sponsor who pays more than what you pay per match. It is okay if it is less only if they pay you a win percentage.
2)Also check the sponsor bonus. Try to get the sponsor where u can accomplish most of the bonuses. Also make sure that the bonuses pay a lot (duh). But sometimes the bonus is in only thousands but it will be paid everytime u accomplish it like survvivng each cup of copa del ray or having player(s) in the player of the month. Ex-You get $150K for one player in POTM, get three in the list and you will get $450K. keep doing that for the whole year and u will make close to $6M.
3)Buy expensive players. Yeah they cost a lot and ask for a lot of salary but then u can sell them for double the price. Messi (who was already in the team) was sold for $110M. I bought Kaka for $40M and sold for $60M. Pato i bought for $54M and is now worth $100M. Sell the expensive players you have if you believe you can still win matches without them. For Barcelona all I need is Eto and Ronaldinho. So I keep on buying players, play them for one season to increase their worth and then sell them.
3)I currently have my team chemistry at 99. It drops to 90 when I buy players but I usually bring it up. I brought it up there in 4 seasons from 70.
One thing I did in the first season is find which formation was best for me. Once i found it(3-4-3) I haven't changed it. Player positions dont matter. I constantly keep changing position bringing midfielders to attack or vice versa or putting defenders to midfield. So position doesnt matter. But THE MAIN thing to bring the chemistry up is to win. Keep on winning and u will bring the chemistry up. Also answers questions that affect your team morales positively.
4)Morale can be brought up...you guessed it, winning constantly. Also accomplish goals for each player. For example get clean sheets to GK will bring his morale up. Or scoring goals will bring up the morale of the attackers. Also keep in mind that the starting 11 will have better morale than the subs. So to bring subs morale up, bring htem into play often.
5)Always take in your youth players and put them in your starting 11. Why? Because they are very young and grow really fast. Not only that they make good buck. You get them for free and once you take their stats to the top they can sell for a good price. For example, for Barcelona, I got a youth player called F. Cortes Sixto (a striker) in my 2nd season with a OV stat of 56. Currently his OV stat is 73 and his market price is $8M. Checking player growth, his OV stat in 4 years time will be 90. Guess what his price would be then? (And did I say his attack is currently as good as Eto's) Ofcourse not all youth players are this good. But all of them can make you some good buck.

You must have noticed the word 'win' many times. BEcause it is important. If you r losing change your formation and players and better your skills at the game. BEcause at the end, this is a game and winning is the only thing that's important.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Yeah these tips are helpful for newbeis. I am certainly not a newbie at this game.I am now in the 13th season of manchester united and i havent lost a single game with only 13 draws in the last 13 seasons.Get this, i have never simulated a match and all my players are above 90 in the starring 11.
here are some players that you should buy and will grow to be excelent players:

GK: sergio asenjo - vincenso foirillo

wing backs: sergio ramos - bale - gosling - rodwell

CB: breno - vidic - nordeiveit - richards

CM: fabregas - john obi mikel - d'amour

CAM: pjanic - andeerson

RM/LM: jesus navas - messi - C.Ronaldo - Nanni

ATT: baxter - rooney - tevez - balotelli - jovetic

And you might think that these players are a bit oo expensive and they could cut back on your budget, however, my budget is near 2 BILLION dollars . this amount of money comes from good financing and knowing when to let a player go when you have no use for him. i mean at the first season with MAN U FC i got rid of 16 player ( which hurt my team chemistry at first, it will eventually become 99 by the 7th season as a maximum amount of time)

heres another tip for you: if you are playing with Man U FC, the stadium manager is level 9 and it costs 92 million to upgrade, i say never upgrade because you will need app. 13 years to get your money back by the extra money from the added seatings.

If you want to bring a player into your club and he just isnt accepting your offer, you can offer a fee of 25% increase than the actual value and the lowest contract length possible (1 yr)

to increase your team morale do the follwing:
play your stars at only the hard games ( against teams that have 3.5+ stars rating)

play your subs against any other team, and if your stars are a bit tired.

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Gameplay:
if youre worried about fatigue for your player then you better play the match - - just keep passing the goal for at least 90% of the time and have a few shots but let them all be on target. However, most importantly : keep your hand away from the "sprint button" as it is the main cause of fatigue, u can use it when defenfing ONLY !
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Criteria: if you are looking for young talented players:
at age 17----->ovrl:65 or above
" " 18----->" :70 or above
" " 19----->" :77 or above
20 :82 " "
21 :85
22 :87
23 :90
this is the criteria for ultimate players like :rooney , baxter, jovetic....
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Warning: from experience, at the beginning of the 14 or 15th season, the world will run out of talent.
what i mean by this is that u will fail to fing you players that replace your old ones, u will find that there is no more talent to buy and your players will only get older.. just then is when the game gets annoyingf and depressing because all of the worlds talent is in ur team :(

the only solution at that situation is to delete your manager mode and restart it, perhaps with another team

GOOD LUCK !