Finding yourself a new challenge in FM2008
Average Rating: 5/10 Hits: 1351 Submitted: Jan 7, 2008
Have you become to good at Football Manager 2008 and found yourself settling into a comfort zone within in FM08. This guide will offer some insight into getting out of your comfort zone and finding some new challenges for FM2008.
Exactly as the title says, to get myself “in to” the game and to learn some of the finer points of the new game I decided to take myself away from the English leagues which I always try to conquer and try a game in the lower leagues of Germany. With a knowledge of little or none of the players there it was always going to be a test of if I could master the tactics, get a decent feeder club and survive on sheer luck.
The first challenge in all of this was to choose a club for this learning curve, Sportfreunde Siegen was eventually the team I plumped for - aiming for a mid table position in Regionaliga South. I thought mid table finish - easy life, how wrong could I be, I finish the season in 10th and the board fire me for getting a mid table finish. Obviously nine months and 34 games is a long time, but surely not long enough to get amnesia? So it was a case of packing my bags and finding myself somewhere else to ply my trade. Four weeks later and I’m back in business at Eintracht Trier, recently promoted to the newly formed Regionaliga West (after the first season 3. Bundesliga is created and the Regionaliga becomes 3 divisions instead of the original 2).
Trier was a long term project, could a team with no decent players to speak of and definitely no money make it in this division and get promoted? Well certainly not the first season, 55 points meant we were well off course. The way the team gelled and also persuading Kaiserslautern to be my parent team was a stroke of genius - non stop floods of decent youngsters from a Bundesliga side was always going to help us out. Into the second season and I’d cut some of the dead wood out and bought in a few new faces plus the obligatory loan signings. This season was to be far more successful than my previous one. By now I’d got the hang of what tactics work, what doesn’t, which team talk works and when and was managing to persuade more of my players to become full time pro’s. 90 points were gained this season more than any other team in all three divisions of the Regionaliga apart from one - Wuppertal. Wuppertal also managed to get 90 points from 34 games and were thus promoted ahead of myself on goal difference, I was gutted. Never mind come the end of the season it was the annual bring and buy sale (minus the money obviously) and we swapped a few in and out and got ready for hopefully another promotion push. This time it paid off and we got promoted leaving Elversberg to wallow in the fact that 2 seasons running they’d missed out on promotion. We were now in the dizzy heights of the 3. Bundesliga ready to compete against Bochum who’d 3 years earlier had been in the Bundesliga. Needless to say after drawing the first game I got cold feet and hot footed it out of there.
Five months of living Kevin Keegan’s life (Unemployment) and I was ready for the dugout again. Former Rich boys and 2. Bundesliga side Kickers Offenbach were on the slide and in need of some shaking up and I fancied the challenge. being 6 places and 10 points behind Trier was the only motivation I needed. Now with 10 games of the season left I’m 4 places and 5 points ahead of them and heading for a more than safe mid table position.
By now you’re bored of my bragging rights, right? you just want to know what I’ve learned from this experience. Well, first up; whatever anyone tries to persuade you, there is no “winning tactic”. Tactics aren’t what formation you play, tactics are the settings you give to your players and your team as a whole. Any formation can win - as long as the tactics and more to the point the players can cope with them. My formation for the 5 years I’ve managed in Germany hasn’t changed, I’ve stuck with the bog standard 4-4-2 but my tactics have always been changing backwards and forwards from things that worked against some teams and didn’t against others. Mastering tactics in this game is 10% knowledge and 90% luck. It all depends on how your team talk affected the players, how bothered they can be and also how the oppostion is countering them.
Next up on my learning curve was whole team praise in team talks is only a good thing if you want to rant. Go for the personal option everytime and let each player know what you thought of their game - they seem to prefer it this way. Telling a player on form to “carry on where you left off” can get you a nice early goal to take the pressure off.
When told by the media about a controversial decision in the last game in which you got a penalty - always back your player - you’ll end up with a mutiny otherwise. On the other hand if the oppostion got one - it’s tricky but I usually go for the keep your mouth shut option, saves the FA warning you that way!!
Something a bit controversial here that might not work for everyone, I spent my first 2 years at Trier with a board on my back about the state of the finances. Luckily I was able to improve the squad and lower the wage bill to a stupidly low amount where the board were complaining that I might be forsaking the quality of the team for the sake of keeping the wages under control. Never the less I ignored the boards request to make money and that’s when we finished second. In desperation of shutting up the board that summer I sold my star player for �50,000. Now that didn’t make that much dent into �350,000 worth of debt but the performance of the previous season had unbeknown to me yet. In the promotion season, Season tickets had doubled, gates had more than doubled - the money was flying in!! So concentrate on getting results and ignore the boards need to make money and it can all come good.
I think the last thing that I’ve learned from these five seasons in Germany is that Scouts actually scout now! I didn’t use the player search function and formed a team worthy of getting promoted (and now surviving in the division above) just from employing what I thought were two very rubbish scouts.
On that note I’m back off to see how far I can extend Offenbach’s unbeaten run, whilst if you like you can try managing in the German lower Leagues!!!
The first challenge in all of this was to choose a club for this learning curve, Sportfreunde Siegen was eventually the team I plumped for - aiming for a mid table position in Regionaliga South. I thought mid table finish - easy life, how wrong could I be, I finish the season in 10th and the board fire me for getting a mid table finish. Obviously nine months and 34 games is a long time, but surely not long enough to get amnesia? So it was a case of packing my bags and finding myself somewhere else to ply my trade. Four weeks later and I’m back in business at Eintracht Trier, recently promoted to the newly formed Regionaliga West (after the first season 3. Bundesliga is created and the Regionaliga becomes 3 divisions instead of the original 2).
Trier was a long term project, could a team with no decent players to speak of and definitely no money make it in this division and get promoted? Well certainly not the first season, 55 points meant we were well off course. The way the team gelled and also persuading Kaiserslautern to be my parent team was a stroke of genius - non stop floods of decent youngsters from a Bundesliga side was always going to help us out. Into the second season and I’d cut some of the dead wood out and bought in a few new faces plus the obligatory loan signings. This season was to be far more successful than my previous one. By now I’d got the hang of what tactics work, what doesn’t, which team talk works and when and was managing to persuade more of my players to become full time pro’s. 90 points were gained this season more than any other team in all three divisions of the Regionaliga apart from one - Wuppertal. Wuppertal also managed to get 90 points from 34 games and were thus promoted ahead of myself on goal difference, I was gutted. Never mind come the end of the season it was the annual bring and buy sale (minus the money obviously) and we swapped a few in and out and got ready for hopefully another promotion push. This time it paid off and we got promoted leaving Elversberg to wallow in the fact that 2 seasons running they’d missed out on promotion. We were now in the dizzy heights of the 3. Bundesliga ready to compete against Bochum who’d 3 years earlier had been in the Bundesliga. Needless to say after drawing the first game I got cold feet and hot footed it out of there.
Five months of living Kevin Keegan’s life (Unemployment) and I was ready for the dugout again. Former Rich boys and 2. Bundesliga side Kickers Offenbach were on the slide and in need of some shaking up and I fancied the challenge. being 6 places and 10 points behind Trier was the only motivation I needed. Now with 10 games of the season left I’m 4 places and 5 points ahead of them and heading for a more than safe mid table position.
By now you’re bored of my bragging rights, right? you just want to know what I’ve learned from this experience. Well, first up; whatever anyone tries to persuade you, there is no “winning tactic”. Tactics aren’t what formation you play, tactics are the settings you give to your players and your team as a whole. Any formation can win - as long as the tactics and more to the point the players can cope with them. My formation for the 5 years I’ve managed in Germany hasn’t changed, I’ve stuck with the bog standard 4-4-2 but my tactics have always been changing backwards and forwards from things that worked against some teams and didn’t against others. Mastering tactics in this game is 10% knowledge and 90% luck. It all depends on how your team talk affected the players, how bothered they can be and also how the oppostion is countering them.
Next up on my learning curve was whole team praise in team talks is only a good thing if you want to rant. Go for the personal option everytime and let each player know what you thought of their game - they seem to prefer it this way. Telling a player on form to “carry on where you left off” can get you a nice early goal to take the pressure off.
When told by the media about a controversial decision in the last game in which you got a penalty - always back your player - you’ll end up with a mutiny otherwise. On the other hand if the oppostion got one - it’s tricky but I usually go for the keep your mouth shut option, saves the FA warning you that way!!
Something a bit controversial here that might not work for everyone, I spent my first 2 years at Trier with a board on my back about the state of the finances. Luckily I was able to improve the squad and lower the wage bill to a stupidly low amount where the board were complaining that I might be forsaking the quality of the team for the sake of keeping the wages under control. Never the less I ignored the boards request to make money and that’s when we finished second. In desperation of shutting up the board that summer I sold my star player for �50,000. Now that didn’t make that much dent into �350,000 worth of debt but the performance of the previous season had unbeknown to me yet. In the promotion season, Season tickets had doubled, gates had more than doubled - the money was flying in!! So concentrate on getting results and ignore the boards need to make money and it can all come good.
I think the last thing that I’ve learned from these five seasons in Germany is that Scouts actually scout now! I didn’t use the player search function and formed a team worthy of getting promoted (and now surviving in the division above) just from employing what I thought were two very rubbish scouts.
On that note I’m back off to see how far I can extend Offenbach’s unbeaten run, whilst if you like you can try managing in the German lower Leagues!!!
