Its ok…you can just create a new player and take over Barcelona and they can sell Gavi, Fati to you for 5mil.
Nah; that’s cheating.
It’s not that bad really, I’d say Liverpool is a good starting club, you have one of the best squads and a lot more money than in real life!
They are basically ready made to play a pressing, possession based 433 with wide forwards.
Also be interesting in a few years to make the rotation of the older players out.
Just remember to recruit 4* upwards coaches in each area so your training is 4.5* and above in every area and your players will improve and stay at the top levels. Borrell at City is amazing
Another tip is to make sure you have top class youth scouts, send them to South America and Eastern Europe (as well as the main European nations) and pick up all their highly recommended kids after rescouting them. Don’t just go by the first scout report.
As long as you get these youngsters mentored by your top senior players, they should develop into top players themselves.
No. This is allowed within the system. I passed all fit and proper person test in all the leagues.
From what I remember the classic mode was literally pick a team, make subs in game or just simulate through it and that was about it. Can still make transfers or whatnot but the tactics, press conferences is all taken out. Think it might be called Football Manager Touch now.
Yeah a huge part of my early game is sorting my entire back room including scouting. Also wise finding out when your get new players intake for youth (and around the world) as this is when best to check clubs out for 5* potential regens!
I end up enjoying seasons 1 to 4/5 ish then it’s just too easy.
How do you identify these players?
Scouts can sniff them out, each target you scout is given a current ability and potential ability star rating.
Of course, the star ratings are relevant to the level of your squad. So a 5* potential player for a Championship club might only be a 2 or 3* player for a PL club.
I’ve been having a decent time with FM22. I started as Liverpool, but found my interest waned by the second season. There just seemed little challenge, the squad is already great and by the time I added Haaland in season 1 and signed Mbappe on a free the next summer no team could really touch me.
So for a slightly different challenge I started a new save as Newcastle. The £200m transfer budget in the first summer was nice, but really their squad is garbage so it barely touched the sides. Managed to get into the CL my first season, largely thanks to the goals of Vlahovic and Belotti. By the first January window my only ‘original’ players were Longstaff and ASM, and both those were sold in the second summer to make way for high potential young players.
As ZB says you allocate scouts to areas looking specifically for the relevant potential.
A trick I found though is in each transfer window look at who the various top clubs are interested in (especially regens), as they somehow always manage to sign them… PSG are a devil for it! I’ve snuck in and got a few worldies by doubling the wage offer!
One thing I’ve noticed is that clubs are far more resistant to selling January than in previous editions - you’ll get quoted simply stupid amounts for some players midseason (eg £200m for Bellingham), but if you try again in the summer these can come down quite substantially.
It’s also worth building up a good-sized shortlist of players as you go, as you get notified if any of those players become unhappy or transfer listed at their clubs. I shortlisted Belotti early on when looking for strikers, but after buying Vlahovic and others I ran out of money and he was £30m+. Then as January approached I got told he’d been transfer listed and could be bought for £10m, which was a no-brainer.
Haven’t tried that, but what I did do in season 2, trying to get more English kids coming through, I did a player search for 15-17-year-olds with a few basic stats, like 10 stamina, pace, teamwork etc, and set my scouts looking at all the ones that came up, turned up loads of 3.5-4* kids and a couple of 5*s, all of which I snaffled up for relative peanuts.
I remember when I used to play it 20 years ago getting frustrated with the shortlists…when ever I put someone onto one, they were bought by another club!
Yeah I kept finding despite my scouting set up they missed a few real top tier wonderkids, talking 4* current and 5* potential at 16…
I used to add notes on the in game calendar for the youth intakes of certain countries. Could then trawl through some of the better academies and nab a few players early, or at least get them into your scouting network before they’ve already been snapped up by the likes of PSG.
So it is just like in real life then?
I just hope no one makes similar mistake to me managing Derby County and set the entire squad to be sold.
With the club being in administration you can’t negotiate transfer offers - they automatically get accepted. So even if you manage to sell off most of the squad, you get nowhere near enough cash to clear the debt so you are having to wait for a takeover before you can sign anyone.
Usually through scouts finding them, which feeds back from how you set your scouting assignments.
My preference is to set a scouting assignment and set it for 1 continent, Max Age of 18, Scouting Potential Ability Superb which is roughly 4-4.5 star potential and above.
Signing them whilst still under 18 means you can pick them up whilst still young enough to be both club and nation grown by the time they turn 21 and if they don’t turn out as good as hoped, you can sell them for decent money still
Free?! What an insult. I got a box of Mars chocolates from Tesco for one of my artwork. And that was 7 years ago. With inflation, its at least 2 boxes now.