Getting The Most From Pre-season in Football Manager
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This article explains how to get the most out of your clubs pre-season in FM2008, so that you're well prepared for the season ahead.
Games
For the amount of games I usually find that six or seven games are the most useful. Try to arrange a short tour of a country such as Japan or the USA as you will gain the financial benefits and your team will also be up against some decent opposition so the trips wont be a total waste of time. Try to base the rest of your games in your country to your players dont become too fatigued and also try going into the season on the back of a big win against a mediocre team preferably at Home just to raise the camps spirits. For timing try to have your first game around one month before the big kick off and space each game out by about four or five days.
Fitness
Obviously the main priority from the Pre-Season is to raise the fitness of your players, from the summer break you’ll always get a few players lagging behind the rest, these players you should ease into the first few games, twenty minute run outs never hurt. When a Players condition begins to hit around 75/80 in the games then bring him off as you cant afford to risk any injuries at this time and you dont want the players to be in a poor condition for your next match or even the big kick off. One injury could lead to another player having to play more games which could lead to another pointless injury so watch the player conditions very carefully mid-match.
Substitutions
As I’ve said look to bring players off when the condition hits around 80 in the first few games, after the first few games chop the lineup up a bit and start playing the players a bit more during games so they can really benefit or you can just go crazy at half time or on the hour mark as some managers do in real life. The Substitutions can be vital in game, try not to bring players off too early as they wont benefit and dont bring players off just for the sake of it, if they are faring well then keep them in the game as it wont hurt. Also try to avoid playing players out of position this early on as you dont want low morale from a 5 minute horror show at CB from your MC.
Training
For the first few weeks of Pre-Season I’d recommend keeping the training slightly more Fitness based just to help your team along, as you progress through the Pre-Season ease back into your old regimes and maybe chuck in a few new retrained positions as nows the best time to get players onto new regimes and into new positions. Make sure you can get as many stars on your coaching I’ll give you a quick rundown for what you need for each regime; (15+)
Strength - Fitness Stat
Aerobic - Fitness Stat
Goalkeeping - Coaching Keepers Stat
Tactics - Tactical Stat
Defending - Defensive and Tactical Stats
Ball Control - Technical and Mental Stats
Attacking - Attacking and Tactical Stats
Set Pieces - Technical, Mental and Attacking
Tactics
Nows also the time to try out different tactics you really shouldnt be changing tactics radically every 20minutes in game and try to give the tactics atleast a two game runout before changing just so your players can have some sort of familiarity towards the tactics and their own roles within the formation. Try and create different partnerships at the back, in the middle and uptop, so play your main players, then backups and then mix and match them just so everyone can get a good feel for each other.
For the amount of games I usually find that six or seven games are the most useful. Try to arrange a short tour of a country such as Japan or the USA as you will gain the financial benefits and your team will also be up against some decent opposition so the trips wont be a total waste of time. Try to base the rest of your games in your country to your players dont become too fatigued and also try going into the season on the back of a big win against a mediocre team preferably at Home just to raise the camps spirits. For timing try to have your first game around one month before the big kick off and space each game out by about four or five days.
Fitness
Obviously the main priority from the Pre-Season is to raise the fitness of your players, from the summer break you’ll always get a few players lagging behind the rest, these players you should ease into the first few games, twenty minute run outs never hurt. When a Players condition begins to hit around 75/80 in the games then bring him off as you cant afford to risk any injuries at this time and you dont want the players to be in a poor condition for your next match or even the big kick off. One injury could lead to another player having to play more games which could lead to another pointless injury so watch the player conditions very carefully mid-match.
Substitutions
As I’ve said look to bring players off when the condition hits around 80 in the first few games, after the first few games chop the lineup up a bit and start playing the players a bit more during games so they can really benefit or you can just go crazy at half time or on the hour mark as some managers do in real life. The Substitutions can be vital in game, try not to bring players off too early as they wont benefit and dont bring players off just for the sake of it, if they are faring well then keep them in the game as it wont hurt. Also try to avoid playing players out of position this early on as you dont want low morale from a 5 minute horror show at CB from your MC.
Training
For the first few weeks of Pre-Season I’d recommend keeping the training slightly more Fitness based just to help your team along, as you progress through the Pre-Season ease back into your old regimes and maybe chuck in a few new retrained positions as nows the best time to get players onto new regimes and into new positions. Make sure you can get as many stars on your coaching I’ll give you a quick rundown for what you need for each regime; (15+)
Strength - Fitness Stat
Aerobic - Fitness Stat
Goalkeeping - Coaching Keepers Stat
Tactics - Tactical Stat
Defending - Defensive and Tactical Stats
Ball Control - Technical and Mental Stats
Attacking - Attacking and Tactical Stats
Set Pieces - Technical, Mental and Attacking
Tactics
Nows also the time to try out different tactics you really shouldnt be changing tactics radically every 20minutes in game and try to give the tactics atleast a two game runout before changing just so your players can have some sort of familiarity towards the tactics and their own roles within the formation. Try and create different partnerships at the back, in the middle and uptop, so play your main players, then backups and then mix and match them just so everyone can get a good feel for each other.
