Five hints and tips for all of you who are starting Football Manager journey. Brought to you by Miles Jacobson.
Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson gives 5 tips for beginners on how to play Football Manager.
It’s not easy task for a total beginner to start playing FM for the first time. Interface can be confusing even for more experienced players, but what makes Football Manager a nightmare for the beginners is it’s complex tactics screen and both scouting and transfer system.
Here are Miles Jacobson‘s 5 tips on how to play Football Manager and that you don’t end up frustrated and sick of the beautiful game that is FM.
1) Player Roles Are IMPORTANT
If you are new to the game, you might think that having world class players or having some latest tactic will be enough to win your games on Football Manager, but just isn’t the case!
It doesn’t matter how good your first XI are, if you don’t assign player role to each of your starting eleven, your team won’t perform as you wanted. It’s simple as that!
“There’s still a lot of people out there who think that football is just ‘well, today we’re going to play a 4-4-2’. If you just play a 4-4-2 and you don’t tell your players what to do it that formation, it’s not going to be very successful,”
“For example, at Watford Troy Deeney plays more as a target man or an advanced forward, with Andre Gray, who features just behind him, as a deep-lying forward. If you don’t set those up in the game, you’re going to have two players trying to do the same thing, which isn’t effective.”
If you want to go a step further, you could watch how your team plays in real life and take notes of the player roles that will best suit your players in the game.
2) Patience
Sometimes a manager can have an instant impact on newly taken club, by this we mean an impact on players and club results, but often this is not the case, it will take you time to grab all handles of your new club.
Real life example would be Fergie’s career. The most successful manager in English history didn’t even won the league title until his seventh seasons managing in England, this could also be the case for your career in Football Manager.
We know it might be depressing for anyone waiting for their first title for that long in the game, but remember to be patient and don’t get discouraged if things don’t start going your way immediately.
“Any new manager going into a club has to spend their time getting to know the players, and the players need to spend time getting to know you as well.”
“Don’t expect them to all listen from day one, and don’t expect perfection because what we’re making is a football management simulation, not an arcade game. You’re not going to be able to make a defensive midfielder go on mazy runs and do loads of step-overs, unless that’s something he would do in real life.”
So remember, patience is the key to success in the long run!
3) Know Your Limitations
There is no manager that can run a club on his own, no matter how hard you try to be in all the sections at the club. You have to trust your assistant manager and backroom staff, as they do play a big role in your success in Football Manager.
So if you know your own limitations you can hire the staff that will assist you in the areas you are limited in knowledge and will help you in the best possible way.
“Work out your weaknesses and then look for an assistant manager who has good stats in those weaknesses. If you don’t know much about tactics, make sure you hire an assistant who does,”
“Then again, if you do think you know a lot about tactics than look for really good scouts to be recommending the players to you. Balancing your abilities against other members of your team is very important.”
4) Scouts in Football Manager
Scouting system is complex in Football Manager and finding the right player for the exact position you are lacking quality is never easy.
In Football Manager there is a feature that lets you to single out a specific player and ask of your scouts to find a player with similar skills and abilities.
So if there is a real life player that has impressed you, here are your scouts you can set to work for you and track down the best possible options!
“If there’s a player out there in real life that you admire and you want a player like that for your team, go and ask you scouts to find somebody that fits that mould and they should trawl around the world looking for him,”
5) Be Yourself
25 match days.
— Football Manager 🏆 (@FootballManager) June 13, 2018
64 games.
96 hours of football.
That leaves you with 648 hours to fill… 🤔
You know what to do 👉 https://t.co/CrQUoR9x0q pic.twitter.com/PiRUQ1DyeR
Never have media interviews and team talks had such a big impact on your team in Football Manager, so in order to have success in the game play close attention on how you conduct yourself!
Being yourself is important! If you moulded a character or the type of a manager you’d like to be in the game, don’t go wondering outside the characters boundaries. Stick to the way you are, don’t do any dramatise personality shifts.
“You have to play the game as yourself or the character that you create. You live and die by the sword and Football Manager as you do in real-life football,” Jacobson explained.
“There are managers out there who might have said something negative about players in the past and it’s come back to bite them later.”
