How to prepare for an important match in FM2008

Analyze the scout report - no matter how stupid your scout is, or how untalented, he’s getting money to bring results and surprisingly - it pays. Not only that you’d know what formation your opponent lines-up (information that could easily be gathered from the manager profile, to be honest) you can also know what style of game characterizes him, counter or possession are the main ones.

Check previous games - assuming that this big match isn’t taking place at the very start of the season, it’s worth checking previous games of your opponents and how the manager reacted to different results on the pitch. Anticipate the artificial intelligence moves beforehand, and act accordingly. If the opponent manager adds an offensive player once losing, you can bring on a defensive player to counter him or keep playing your style to get the second goal - trial, check, see what goes best for you and decide on your own how you want to react in each situation happen.

High/Low attributes - the various personalities and capabilities of players are live and kicking testimony to their weaknesses and strengths. If you don’t feel like checking each and every player, you can always get some help from statistics - who’s the leading scorer of the opposite team? what’s his strength? who delivers the assists? how can you prevent him from doing so? etc. etc.

This is just a three basic code I recommend on, and doing myself, while playing a fairly basic game and look to invest less time in details and more at the whole picture (a players-based game, if you want).