Enlightening Craven
Introduction
Each year sees a new Football Manager and each year there is tactical improvements to the match engine that go way over my head. Since CM 03/04 I’ve never had any great success using my own tactics and always relied on community made world beaters to reach champions league glory with my favourite local team, Derby County. Let’s face it, since the 70’s we’ve never even came close to looking like a team capable of this feat so I live the dream in a management simulation.
After trying several times over the years of Football Manager to create a solid tactic, I find myself giving up and downloading the next big thing. Today at college during my dinner break I sat down with a coffee and thought about why I tend to give up so easily when giving up is just not something I do. I came to the conclusion that if I was to write about my learning experience and share it with a community, it would drive me on to succeed. If there is one thing worse than failing, it’s having people watch while you do it.
So with a copy of FM-Britain’s Tactical Theorems ‘10 and hopefully, input from the lovely FM-Base regulars, I hope to reach a target I’ve set myself of winning one trophy in three of the five countries loaded over a span of 5-10 years.
The Leagues loaded are:
England – Premiership, Championship
Italy – Serie A, Serie B
Netherlands – Eredivise ,Jupiler League
Spain – Liga BBVA, Liga Adelante,
Sweden – Allsvenskan, Superetten
I created my manager with past experience on automatic and set myself as unemployed and started the game.
I applied for the vacant jobs at Qviding (Sweden), Djurgardens IF (Sweden) and Valladolid. After a few days I got my replies back and Djurgardens and Valladolid offered me the job. The season is already half way through in Sweden and Djurgardens are sitting in 14th spot above the relegation zone, but in the relegation playout.
Valladolid haven’t even kicked a ball yet, have a better standard of players and a much better wage and transfer budget. I’ve played the La Liga many times and only the Allsvensken once so I’ve gone with Djurgardens and will look to avoid relegation and bring in a few free agents if possible to strengthen things up.
Meet the team
According to my assistant Carlos Banda, my team are more suited to a 4-5-1 or 4-4-2 formation and after looking at the squad I’d have to agree with him, with morale so low winning is going to be difficult for me. I’m quite happy with the defensive midfielders attributes and both my first choice wingers AND both back up wingers have good pace and acceleration so there is at least something to play with but the strikers aren’t that great. A look in the transfer/loan market might be in order here and having only £300k to spend and £2k under the wage budget won’t make it easy.
The key member of my squad is Daniel Sjolund
I’ll probably try to have him pull the strings in the centre of the park. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to set up yet but having pacey wingers might be ideal for counter attacking football? I’m going to have read through the TT’10 pdf and make a decision when I get back home from football tonight.
Introduction
Each year sees a new Football Manager and each year there is tactical improvements to the match engine that go way over my head. Since CM 03/04 I’ve never had any great success using my own tactics and always relied on community made world beaters to reach champions league glory with my favourite local team, Derby County. Let’s face it, since the 70’s we’ve never even came close to looking like a team capable of this feat so I live the dream in a management simulation.
After trying several times over the years of Football Manager to create a solid tactic, I find myself giving up and downloading the next big thing. Today at college during my dinner break I sat down with a coffee and thought about why I tend to give up so easily when giving up is just not something I do. I came to the conclusion that if I was to write about my learning experience and share it with a community, it would drive me on to succeed. If there is one thing worse than failing, it’s having people watch while you do it.
So with a copy of FM-Britain’s Tactical Theorems ‘10 and hopefully, input from the lovely FM-Base regulars, I hope to reach a target I’ve set myself of winning one trophy in three of the five countries loaded over a span of 5-10 years.
The Leagues loaded are:
England – Premiership, Championship
Italy – Serie A, Serie B
Netherlands – Eredivise ,Jupiler League
Spain – Liga BBVA, Liga Adelante,
Sweden – Allsvenskan, Superetten
I created my manager with past experience on automatic and set myself as unemployed and started the game.
I applied for the vacant jobs at Qviding (Sweden), Djurgardens IF (Sweden) and Valladolid. After a few days I got my replies back and Djurgardens and Valladolid offered me the job. The season is already half way through in Sweden and Djurgardens are sitting in 14th spot above the relegation zone, but in the relegation playout.
Valladolid haven’t even kicked a ball yet, have a better standard of players and a much better wage and transfer budget. I’ve played the La Liga many times and only the Allsvensken once so I’ve gone with Djurgardens and will look to avoid relegation and bring in a few free agents if possible to strengthen things up.
Meet the team
According to my assistant Carlos Banda, my team are more suited to a 4-5-1 or 4-4-2 formation and after looking at the squad I’d have to agree with him, with morale so low winning is going to be difficult for me. I’m quite happy with the defensive midfielders attributes and both my first choice wingers AND both back up wingers have good pace and acceleration so there is at least something to play with but the strikers aren’t that great. A look in the transfer/loan market might be in order here and having only £300k to spend and £2k under the wage budget won’t make it easy.
The key member of my squad is Daniel Sjolund
I’ll probably try to have him pull the strings in the centre of the park. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to set up yet but having pacey wingers might be ideal for counter attacking football? I’m going to have read through the TT’10 pdf and make a decision when I get back home from football tonight.