In this series, I highlight a much-loved and talented footballer from the past. I’ll tell you a little bit about what I think their key qualities were that made them so special. We’ll go on to look at how best to re-live that legend in Football Manager, by naming a few current players who may be able to ‘mirror the magic’ of the superstar and potentially become your new FM20 hero. So far, we’ve had Juan Román Riquelme, Ronald Koeman…
To play or not to play, that is the question for many FM20 managers. Especially when it comes to developing young players. U18 players highly value training, while older players need playing time to keep developing. Playing time alone isn’t enough though, as a manager you need to provide your player with games at the right level. The level needs to be challenging, but not too difficult. The optimal level will vary based on age, current ability and potential ability….
Introduction I wrote this article last year on something at the time I called The Football Philosophy Index, while playing FM19. It was originally on my site FMStag.com and was picked up by a couple of community sites. Ridiculous title aside, I thought I’d bring it back with some updated advice. I know we all have our different ways of doing this, but this is how I export FM attribute data to Excel in order to drive immersion in my…
The advantage of using world-class team in FM20, is in the variety of tactics you can try on season-to-season basis. I started out my Benfica save attempting a more patient possession approach, reminiscent of Guardiola’s Barcelona. Yet as my campaign continues, I find myself experimenting with more adventurous tactics. So in 3rd year with the Portuguese giant, I attempt to show that Total Football does not necessarily equal boring possession-focused football. It can also be an exciting attacking style. In…
There’s a new country in Europe, and it’s called Aswijan. Created by @chilled_moose, it provides 64 teams in three leagues, three cup competitions, and about 6000 created players. The teams vary widely, from fallen giants Hesef to world-class titans like Aswijan Mailkiy. This will be a guide to playing in Aswijan, in six parts. Each part will examine half of one of the three leagues, continuing today with the lowest league, Liga Dukh. This league is comparable in quality to…
Three strikers might seem an extreme way of going about things but there are many ways to break down a defence. Sometimes the creation of space, overlaps and overloads are less about tactical refinement and more about brute force. We don’t all manage a team of La Liga or top-flight superstars so sometimes a more direct approach is needed to force the issue for smaller lower league sides operating on a budget. In this article, we float the idea of…
It is that time in the cycle where people are wanting the next edition of Football Manager, but we all have to wait. In this article I discuss five teams to manage FM20, and more specifically with an updated database. I have tried to mix it up so that the teams aren’t always the most obvious ones. We all know that this is the perfect time to start a new save, just to keep things fresh and with pr0 Transfers…
Over the last couple of months there has been a rise in Mental Health awareness in the Football Manager community. With many communities now opening spaces for their members to talk about the subject and several respected creators discussing these issues, we asked specialists on the matter for their take.
In this series, I highlight a much-loved and talented footballer from the past. I’ll tell you a little bit about what I think their key qualities were that made them so special. We’ll go on to look at how best to re-live that legend in Football Manager, by naming a few current players who may be able to ‘mirror the magic’ of the superstar and potentially become your new FM20 hero. Post one was Juan Román Riquelme, two was Ronald…
Introduction Since the dawn of Football Manager, we, the players, have focused our attention on any things. Some may have focused their attention on their youngsters, playing them week in, week out, in the hopes these wonderkids would become masters of the footballing world. Others may have focused on their teams tactics, hoping to string together a team not only able to play with each other, but that is also capable of outplaying any opposing teams simply through tactical play….