Quote Originally Posted by Stefan Blackwell View Post
I'm curious to know how everyone manages their team in Top Eleven.

1. How do you prepare for the new season?
2. How do you prepare for League, Cup and the Champions League cup matches?
3. Do you have a full 22 man squad? (If not, let me know what you think works best or has worked best for you)
4. What strategy do you use to assign your skills points?
5. Do you stick to one formation or change it up to counter your opponent?
6. How long do you hold onto your players for?

I think you get the general idea. If you have anything else to add like tips in the transfer market, training etc then add it in. I'm just curious to know how other managers play Top Eleven, hopefully it'll teach me and other a few things in order to improve our game.
I think it would be best if you define your objective & expectations for this game first. Judging from your questions (I am assuming), that you are aiming for the Treble/ Triple Crown , or at least top the League table.

Here is my response base on MY objectives:
1. How do you prepare for the new season?
- Log on as soon as TE Servers are Up, reschedule or a later CUP game if its a Home match to cater for some time to perform player transfers.
- At the end of the previous season, I would already know who would be replaced (3*-4* all out, retirees) and who to keep.
- On the first day I would go to the scout list first to look for replacement (only 4 and 9s, 3s and 8s if I'm reallt desperate), those which I can't get from the scout list, try in the transfer market. Repeat on day 3 & 4 until my team average about mid 5* quality.

2. How do you prepare for League, Cup and the Champions League cup matches?
- Check/ Schedule home schedules in advance to prevent any matches too close to each other. If possible, I'll schedule them 12 hours apart.
- Check out Opponent's team, his quality, formation, does he have SA players? Check his match history to see which formation he has won over, and which he had lost to.
- Attend the match. Get your friends to support you in the match.
- Do not make unnecessary changes/ substitutes in the game. The green pack is not worth it unless you are leading by a few goals.
- Pray for a win.

3. Do you have a full 22 man squad? (If not, let me know what you think works best or has worked best for you)
- Usually no, as long as I have a substitute for every single position. Try to get players that can cover more than one Position (DL/DC, DC/DMC, AML/ML, AMR/MR/DMR..etc)

4. What strategy do you use to assign your skills points?
- GK (DEF + P&M), Defenders (DEF + P&M), Midfielders (ATK + P&M), Forward (ATK + P&M)

5. Do you stick to one formation or change it up to counter your opponent?
- I use to switch my formation base on a previous belief of counter formations. I would go through ALL the match history (only teams with equal quality), and list the results/formation/quality out in an excel spreadsheet, and would refer to the spreadsheet for every game, and change my formation accordingly to counter. This went on for about 15 seasons (15 tabs for 15 seasons!)
- During one of the finals, my opponent had a 4-4-2 Classic. He had previously lost a match (but won over aggregates) to 4-4-1-1. I have not used that formation before in 15 seasons, and when I put that formation to match my players, somehow all my scouts were in the formation. From that day onwards, I have been using 4-4-1-1 for all my matches, regardless of the opponent’s formation.

6. How long do you hold onto your players for?
- Refer to question 1, all 3* and 4* are out!