Being competitive from the start, tips and images

Hello guys and gals,

I decided to make my first guide for players willing to be highly competitive in League, CL, and Cup.
If you are in the point of getting addicted (like me) to this really beautyful game, this might be really usefull for you.

I am currently level 4 and not falled lower than the second place in each season so my results can be a good proof of success so far facing most of the times stronger oponents.

Always having the best attack and defense in the League is something that is a primary goal for me in order to have the advantage at the end so I prefer the most attacking type of play to score loads of goals!!!

This is my trophy case in order to give you some proof to trust me on this to show you that you can be really competitive even with lower quality :

Season 1 : 2nd in League, just note that I entered the game 4 matches before League ends and was at te 11th place. Made 4 wins and in a row playing my games a bit smarter than my rivals with the 4 best players of the league and climbed to the second place.

Season 2 loads of experimenting during the season to find which formation and type of play to use :
League : 2nd plae
Champions League : top 16
Cup : Quarter-Finals

Season 3 has been a great season based on the previous season's experiments using mostly the same squad with a few changes getting rid of the older players replaced with much younger ones and having 2 new players from U21 that took some time in every match. They got sold during the season for much higher price that allowed me to take 4 new 5 star players.
League : 1st
Champions League : Quarter-Finals
Cup : 2nd (cup finalist)

Season 4 is the currently played season. This season began with experimenting again for me trying to change the squad and formation as well as tactics during the game. Lost the first 2 games of the league trying to find a new innovating way of performing effectively with loads of goals against any oponent. Currently in top 16 in CL, and top 16 in the cup (won the first game away against the stronger oponent of the cup which has players with 6 and 7 stars in his squad and 2 levels higher than me).

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So, as you can see there is a constant improvement season by season without having to spend tons of gold. simply by making wise choices on the selection and the tactics of my team. I advise you do the same if you want to succeed.


1) TRANSFERS

So you are new player with big ambitions and try to get a competitive team through the whole year?

Take a look at your squad and your budget. All choices must be wisely taken.

You don't want to buy players very expensive nor spend loads of tokens, so take a look at the transfer market and you will see something like this in the auction section :

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Now follow the next step and press the quality button on the top. This will show you the best players sold at that time :

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And now press the age button on the top. The young players might be a bit more expensive but are trained way faster than older ones and can be sold later much more expensive and in better quality as well :

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Now scroll down the page and you might see few players with an (F) after their price. Those players are free-agent players and can be bought with a very low price and be a very good investment if you choose to sell them a bit later but make usefull use as well.

this is how it looks like :

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Now check the price u will pay for him and the real value of the player, u will be amazed by the difference :

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The next step is to check his skills if we choose to go for a player like this :

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Personally I wouldn't invest for a 33 y.o. player, u can find (F) players at the age of 25 for a very low price and barely no competition so this can be a smart way to invest in 2 or 3 players per year.

But for the example this GK is 33 y.o. with a total of 81,8 skill points (27) and need a total of 31 more skill points for reaching next star. So if it's the begining of the season with a good training (and younger age, we'll see later about the training value of each player) this player might be a good investment for later. So, just to see how much we invest on this player, it will be something above 1k and reselling that player with 1 more star for much more money. It sure worths it even if it's not our main GK but he might be in some games.


So now to explain the criterials of choosing our player, we must first see which player we want to replace or which place/position we want to fill in our roster. Then we must choose a player with higher quality, always aim for players of 4 or 5 stars. Note that every player loses one star after your promotion to the next level.

The second step is to bid for that player. I like players to be close to reaching the next star, that means choosing a player that his quality ends by a 4 or 9. The secret for bidding correctly without losing loads of tokens and money is to bid in players without having big competition (the (F) players are perfect for that) and choose the right time and player.

By time meaning generally early in the morning and NEVER at the begining of the season where everybody is refreshing their squad.

Don't forget to bid on the last second (u'll need a good internet connection for that) and try avoiding big competition for that player.


2) FORMATION
So, we are refreshing our squad and we haven't chosen a good formation yet. The best formation is the one which will play the most time with the same strategy and same players. Changing formation in every game will affect the mood and form of your players and you want the highest performance in every match so u will have to choose one formation that will be easy to be turned into defensive or attacking during the course of the game by changing a single player or position. A good tip for that is having players being able to play more than 1 position in your squad.

There are several formation that you could choose but that's really up to you to decide, I will simply point out the positive and negatives of every formation. Here are some examples :

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As you can see all of the formations are using either 3 or 4 defenders, 3 to 5 midfielders, 2 to 4 wingers, 1 to 3 strikers and of course a Goalkeeper. This is a very logical way to start depending on where you have your best players situated and how you want to hit your oponent.

Having 3 defenders means that you might be vulnerable from the wings and 4 defenders can block the wings but can be vulnerable if the oponent puts an AMC and 2 strikers so he might hit from the middle. Believe me there is no perfect formation for receiving no goal.

for midfielders it's the same thing , having 4 or 5 midfielders in the same line means we will have less players in some other line and a vertical pass can be very bad for our defense but at the same time can be very effective from the wings.

As for the strikers, 1, 2, or 3? that's really up to you and check what kind of defense is your oponent using.

Personally I like to have all lines close to eachother so using a DMC is connecting my defense and midfielders or an AMC to connect my strikers to midfielders. As for the wings, well, I simply love them. They can be very effective on very defensive players.

So I leave it up to you to decide which tactic best suits you.

Personally I used a very tight narrow line on my first season , which is not something I would recommend as it needs loads of coaching during the game and also called an "illegal formation".

For the second, third, and this season I tried to be innovating and so far I haven't seen another player using that formation. So I risked it by having only 2 defenders and 2 or 4 wingers just in front (DMR-DML) with the use of a DMC. But it can also be played with 4 defenders and a DMC, depending on how much attacking or defending you want your team to be.

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Using at least 2 MC is highly recommended so I always use 2 or 3 depending on the oponent's formation.
And for the frontline try to have at least 2 offensive players. This can be 2 or 3 strikers, 1 AMC + 1 striker, 2 AM* + 1 striker, etc...
I like to use the wings so I prefer using an AMR and AML but even if you choose to put an MR and an ML this can be also very effective depending on your type of play.

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Just note that every gap between your lines and players can be in the advantage of your oponent. Soo you must choose wisely the way u wanna play.

3) ARROWS

What is that blue and red arrow thingy?
In my opinion it's one of the most important things in the game. That is if u want your player to be defensive(blue) or offensive(red), so always depending on your type of play you will have to choose in what space you want your player to be moving.

e.g. : I won my last cup match in an away (top16) match by putting all red arrows combined with the appropriate tactics as my oponent was 2 levels higher than me and had players with 6 and 7 stars in his squad. It's a good tactic to use if your oponent is thinking he will dominate the match. We will see later how the possession is progressing based on what factors. So if your oponent has low possession during a match that he has set his team as attacking mentality is putting him in a very dangerous position in his defense line.

4) TACTICS and ORDERS

Well, maybe the most important factor that can reverse a match from one second to another.
Those are the type of play u will follow during the match and what changes you can make during the match that your rival doesn't know about. This is the smarter tool to dominate a game and has to be used wisely.

So let's see how the TACTIC section looks like in the orders area :

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What we have here is a serie of orders that can contribute highly in your success and mentality of your team during the match.


Team mentality :
This is the first section you will have to fill choosing between
a)hard defending
b)defensive
c)normal
d)attacking
e)hard attacking

The words speak for themselves here, note that this has two main factors based on your choice : the possession and weaknesses during the game. So if you choose a tactic attacking u will have more possession but vulnerable in defense. And a defensive tactic will perform better in defense but will have less possession of the ball.


Focus passing :
Choose between
a)mixed
b)down both flanks
c)right flank
d)left flank
e)through the middle

Now it's time to observe where your oponent looks weaker
A narrow formation of your rival should be counter-attacked by the flanks for example. On the other side if u see him being weaker than you in the middle you should focus your pass through the middle.


Pressing style :
a)whole pitch means u will have more possession of the ball but your players will get tired more easily
b)own half is mainly used combined with defensive orders and counter-attacks which means that your players will wait your oponent to arrive with the ball till the middle and then starting pressure from there with the players being in that zone. Beware u will lose some possession by using this option but be more effective in counter-attacks.


Tackling style :
a)Easy means that your player will perform less effectively on tackling but not be afraid of being booked
b)Normal means your players will be a bit more effective on tackling with a slight chance of being booked, this is the order followed by most players in every game
c)Hard is the most effective type of gaining the ball back but with a higher risk of your player being booked



Passing style :
a)short
b)mixed
c)long

Mixed passing is the mostly used giving you an average of possession with the short passing used for attacking teams and high possession and long used mainly for defensive teams combined with counter-attacking.

Marking style :
a)zonal is mostly used by all teams meaning your team will perform a zonal type of marking having each player moving 1 space to the right or left, 1 verticaly up or down.
b)man to man meaning that your players will mark only one player each, with the positive off giving less space to move in the field and therefore more possession for your team, and the negative version of being outnumbered if you lost an attack and your oponent is developing a counter-attack as probably some of your player will have been forgotten upfront after a foul, corner, or generally some attack.

And finally the 2 last options on the bottom which are :
a)force counter attacks
b)play offside trap

Those 2 options have their own factor during the game. The counter attacking is very effective to defensive teams and the offside trap is very good for attacking teams. Although both have their own danger.

So just to summon two types of formations for a match, a defensive and attacking one to give u an idea of how those teams would perform :
a) defensive should be set as defensive or hard defending using mostly blue arrows on your defenders with a pressing style on your own half, passing style mixed or short and counter-attacking.
b) attacking should be used gaining higher % of possession with all the factor that favorise that as the red arrows, meaning attacking or hard attacking mentality, focus on short passing, pressing style on the whole pitch and play the offside trap. This should give you at least 60% possession during the game with a higher advantage scoring multiple goals.

The thread will be updated shortly with more images and tips but I leave you for now with all these tips. I leave it up to you to decide what type of play and formation you want to use as you are the manager and not me, and enjoy the game as much as you can. Just remember that a team cannot have an attacking mentality and play with counter attacks, long passes or having pressure in their own half, sincerely that doesn't make sense and that goes for the other way around as well.

So, here we are at the half of the season running for the 3 goals of the season.

Let me explain how this season started. My main focus was to improve the team by replacing the older players and the ones that had their contract ending this season. Had no special will to compete for a treble but advancing during the season has brought me with an advantage of proceeding to quarter-finals in Champions league with 5 goals advantage from the first match and 4 goals ahead in the Cup which will bring me to the semi-finals of the Cup. Note that I am the lower team in level competing for the Cup.
As for the League this has been the hardest League so far which much better oponents from past seasons, and by experimenting on new formation for this season during the first week I lost the 2 first games and started with -6 points. Now, after finding the proper formation and tactics the team is playing the same way during all games being undefeated from the second week till now. Only 1 point behind the first place, and by respecting every oponent we are just being patient and focusing on every game differently.

On this Chapter we will see how to have all our players with high form.
Personally I managed to have 90% of my players with a decent form in every game, meaning 7-8 or 9.

So, the first thing I advise you to do is checking your players ratings and form after the game. This will give you a general idea of how your players are performing better after each match.

A player might perform better on a different position (if able to play more than one position). So what we want to do is having the best 11 starting the game and use our players where we will have the most benefit from them. It takes time and some observation of different factors. Beware that a change of formation and tactic/orders might affect your players if you are not stable to a plan.

Let's start by taking a look at our players form :

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Personally I know about every reason why my player's form increase or decrease, and this has been tested.

So we see our new player Papara having a 7-6-7 so far. We are checking for his form very closely. We know that we are not using him where he performs better (DL) but so far persisting on him to gain his place on the first 11 starting gave him more confidence.

We have our main striker Guajardo that had a 9 (scored 4 goals + 1 assist + a penalty won in one match), then scored another goal on the next game which gave him a 8, and after that hasn't scored since so a long row of 7s. And suddenly there is a 6 on his last game that he didn't score .
To tell you the truth that was expected.
So, as we know that strikers are made for scoring, we will put him on an easy game where we expect him to score, as well put him on penalty and free kicks taker order to raise his form again. If Guajard scores on the next game we will have him again where we want him to be.

The other players with some bad performance during some games are Maltsev and Rauch. The reason they are not performing well is because they are not playing much, both are on their last year of contract so we don't expect much from them.

I can say that for the rest of the players we are pretty staisfied of their performance.
So, what we have seen so far is that we have a team with good form in general, and we know well our players. Observing your team's performance is a must. Many times I prefer using a player with lower quality but with better form. You simply have to use 100% of your players abilities and not let other factors determinate a match result. So, know well your players, know how they perform better and don't play too much with their mind changing tactics in every game or 3-4 times per game (you will drive them crazy :p).

So now that you have set your performance, have decided on your tactics and gained good ratings in every game we will see how we will increase our possession in every game.

Possession is one of the most important factors that can determinate a match result. So we want a high level of possession in every game. How we will achieve that? It's simple and costs just a few clicks.

As we said on our first chapter some orders can give you more % of ball possession like pressing in the whole pitch, attacking or hard attacking mentality, short passing, etc...

But, we must not forget about the other factor giving us up to 15% more ball possession which is our supporters.
1) on a home game having a full stadium will give us 5% more. This is done by setting our ticket prices (finance section) not too expensive and having good results.
2) our friends. Having loads of friends supporting us gives us 2% ball possession for each one of them and watching the game gives us another 8%. So be active and watch your games , have loads of friends supporting you.

Those friends are not the ones the refferal section is talking about but the ones from same server that you can add by simply finding them, either on a negotiation for a transfer or someone watching some game (on your friends fixtures section).

*Any tips about the correct and how many players have special abilities. and what age is the best to start training for special ability.
*Tips for the correct ticket prices and winning bonus so you will have bigger revenues.cause I noticed even if my attendance was 200/200 my income is only 1.4k I set the price at 7 and winning bonus for players 7.5k. Or any tips how to calculate?
*How to gain more income/revenues.
*which one is better Training or friendly match for gaining exp and mone?

Sorry I'm a newbie 2 days old player.