A true beginners guide for ambitious players!

[Al Svanberg]

WEEKLY UPDATE 3

Hi guys! I have been travelling so I apologize for the late weekly update. The first real week of the second season has been very victorious for my two teams. To be honest, the opponents in the CL and League is almost too weak, more often than not around 2-3 stars. The Cup has been a bit harder, but even if a game or two has been a bit closer I have still had a good advantage in % over my opponents (though not like in the league/CL). No pts has been lost by either account in the league, Cup or CL

Like I mentioned last week, I joined a great association. These games has however been -- unbelievable -- battles. In both our match-ups over the weekend we drew fresh associations lead by two tremendously strong players, and 4 weaker members. With loans from giants (avg 8-9 stars), the match-ups was very tough. Our association, Manchester United SKG did however prevail in both match-ups and we are 2 for 2 so far in these tournaments (the top member of the Heiniken associ. had a whopping 160% avg):



Even if the games wasn't extremely close, the associations where special since our members had to overcome thunderstorms, poor air-port wifi connections and what not to get in order and join up for the games.

General progress
Status as of today:


The gain in value has been great for both teams. Al is up from 20.2m to 33.3m in a bit more than a week and the HFF account from 19.7m to a whopping 37m during that time-frame, meaning that the HFF account has overtaken the lead the Al account had in value. The Al account is still the better account in ability however.

The biggest reason for the sky-rocketing value of the HFF account is the two great fast trainers I picked up (18 y/o, 99%, went for around 4.2 and 4.4 respectively):


Both players are up 20-22% in a little bit over a week. Will either become my first 8 star player?

This week's high

The best part of the last week has definitely been Al's play in the association games, winning 3-1 and 6-1 in the semi's against a vastly superior opponent (having three nine star players on loan) and then 5-2 and 7-2 against an evenly matched opponent in the final. I have said it before, there is something to the "5-4-1" formation used by the Al FC account:


It has just done very well in general, and can be downright nasty late in games. Its not unusual that it completely overtakes a game and scores 4-5 goals in the last 15 minutes against lvl 50-60 players with an advantage in ability in association games. Very fun! So far it has not been hurt by AMCs (ie no need to use DMCs) and it has not been hurt by 2 players going down my right side either. The one time it stumbled a bit was against a crazy DL-DM-DR-MC-MC-AML-AMR-ST-ST-ST formation which I adjusted to but injuries forced me to keep the original formation.

This week's low

Remember the Argentine prodigy striker, Ariel Zapegol, that I picked up? Loved everything about him. My top AMC for the HFF account Portuguese Nuno Candeais, has scored 39 goals in 27 games and my star striker for the Al account, Ivkovic, has scored 39 goals in 29 games. How many wouldn't Zapegol score? Fasten your seatbelt and check out this screen dump:



1 goal in 18 games (my team is avg. maybe 4-5 goals per game during this stretch)...

I still think its interesting, why isn't this kid scoring? A few thoughts I have.

-In the League/Cup/CL, I completely pwn possession. 80 sometimes closing in on 90%. When I faced a better player in the association games, Zap scored a hat-trick. When I push a team back really deep, he is just surrounded by players.

-While he is a 7 star player, his offensive ability is still not top notch (but it should still be enough).

-Is he cold? I have really pushed him so far, but now I am resting him for a bit to see if there is any improvement.

-My tactic with the HFF account is not and have never been favorable for its strikers. I am not sold on this formation, it is strong and dominates possession against good opponents too in association games, but sometimes its a bit flat offensively. It really opens up for my AMC though.

[ingineru]

Hi Al,

You are saying that you want to make your 18yo 8 stars. Is that possible with 30 greens per day?

[Al Svanberg]

Hi Al,

You are saying that you want to make your 18yo 8 stars. Is that possible with 30 greens per day?

Yes I believe so, but I am not sure yet. Zapegol has gained 24% to 123% in 13 days and Cesare has gained 23% in just 8 days. I have not focused extremely hard on these two only, put also pushed my 19 y/o a bit. 11 days left on the season and they need 16% and 17% respectively, so unless their progress slows down a lot it should be doable!

Thanks for your question and for visiting this thread!

[Al Svanberg]

WEEKLY UPDATE 4 -- THE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN AL FC AND HFF, THE STRIKER FROM SIBERIA, SIDING WITH MOURINHO, THE QUEST FOR 8 STARS AND MUCH MORE!!

Hi guys!

Here comes the update of how my two accounts have performed the last week. I will touch upon several very interesting topics, it has been a very exciting week!

The Showdown

Al played HFF. I was busy but my two kids were watching. Big brother (Al) vs little sister (HFF). Stakes where eye, things could get bloody afterwards. Red Star vs. Hajduk Split of Top Eleven.



Well, not much to say about it. Al won, HFF had a bit more possession, took the lead. The rematch -- tilted "There will be blood" by the media people -- will take place on August 16.

[U]The mystery of striker Ariel "Siberia" Zapegol
-- and some thoughts on cold strikers/ in general [U]

Last week I told the story of hold HFF's sole young prodigy striker, closing in on 130% while playing 2-3 star teams, Ariel Zapegol had been dead cold. He at that point had a total of ONE goal in 18 games.

During the course of the past week, I have mixtured with orders, trying to play low defense and counter attack. Arrows up and down for Zap and the players around him. I have rested him for 24 hours, and played him hard at other times. Maybe he got a bit better. But not by much.A few goals instead of none. After my last FA game yesterday I had it and remade HFF's tactic (more on this topic below). This definitely jump started Zapegol. And this is kind of my point, there are a lot of talk in the TE community about cold strikers. There is a wide-spread assumption that players in TE has hidden abilities, which especially affects strikers. I am not saying that this is wrong. But my impression is also that to a large extent, some formations -- that may be successful or unsuccessful -- really does not seem to premier a striker scoring a lot of goals. So what is the lesson to draw? Well if something works even if your striker isn't scoring, is there even a problem to start? If what you have isn't enough, it might or might not work to get a new striker, maybe buy one scout recommended striker for tokens. But, it might certainly also help your cause to change up your formation.

So what exactly on the field will help your striker score goals? My impression is that a striker is the most effective if he get a bit more of room to play in. In other words, you cannot have too much possession high up the field, you cannot have too many other players in and around the box. You can win games and score a lot of goals playing that well, but most of the time you striker will be covered and when he gets the ball he will just redistribute it. If you can get your team to sit back a bit, you will see many more situations where your striker get fast breaks and 1 on 1 situations.

Since last week Zapegol's production is up significantly:


He has gone from having 1 goal in 18 games, to 10 goals in 26 games. IE 9 goals in his last 8 games, with 4 of those 9 goals coming in the last 2 league games after I changed HFF's formation.

HFF's X and O's revamped -- from Pep Guardiola and Jordi Cryuff to José Mourinho

Like I said above, HFF's I found that HFF's old formation wasn't good enough yesterday. I believed in it, I had used it for a long period of time, I had tweaked with it a lot. I had tried different player types at different positions. It was an interesting formation from many POVs, and one reason for why I sticked with for so long was because -- sometimes -- it really threw a lot of very good players with better squads in FA games. It was a possession monster, I don't think this team -- ever -- had less possession than the opponent. But, my striker didn't score with it. In the league I played 2-3 star teams with my 6+ star team, and it just wasn't that pretty. Even if I eventually most of the time won big, I often only had a 1-2 goal lead 40-60 minutes into games. And at times I only won like 1-0.

The old formation was a dust off of a formation I had a ton of success with in the older CM games, a modified 4-3-3, inspired by Barcelona at that time. With wingers that wasn't quite wingers (in these games the wingers tend to play sooo wide and only cross the ball a lot, instead of going to the center of the field and to the net).

Here is the old formation:


Now I am going to try something somewhat similar, but instead inspired of José Mourinho's 4-2-3-1 formation. But it will still be heavily modified. This is how I have drawn it up:


It looks a bit ugly, but here is my thought process behind this formation:

-I want a presens on both flanks, but I do not want to loose the battle on the center midfield or have my forward isolated. Hence I have "cheated" by only having one player on the right side that has to do the job of two. I actually think this can function in TE in the sense that this right side seldomly is exposed even if facing a AML+DL, and it can provide a lot of offense if -- and only if -- it faces a team with only a DL and no ML/AML.

-The two DMCs. In many ways this is an offensive formation, a wing back with a forward arrow will be very offensive for example, but it still has 6 players on it defensive side of the pitch so to speak. Butcher is the "Matic" of this formation. The Kanté. The balance player. When the DL, DMR, DMC(L) and MC head up field to attack, Butcher is supposed to stay back and step up and stop counter attacks. Catch the AMC of the other team. Does it work that way in TE? I don't really know, but I will start with a defensive arrow on him. Solito is a small player from Uruguay that has the SP "Play-maker". He is the Cesch Fabregas of this team. The Xavi/Guardiola. The classic deep play-maker.

-There are two big differences between this 4-2-3-1 formation and my old 4-3-3 formation. Firstly, this is a normal style low pressure formation, the 4-3-3 was offense and high pressure most of the time (although I tried with low/normal many times too without much success). Secondly, this formation has one natural winger. I am not too found of these guys in real life, I like the players more that takes the ball to the net (like a KDB) as opposed to how wingers function in this game. But they definitely seem to give me another dimension with the ball in TE. It spreads the D out and opens up the field in front of the goalie.

The success so far in only two league games has been great, whereas I have won 8-0 and 13-0 and especially my striker Zapegol has been on fire with two 10 rating showings after a slumping start:



The winger I have used is only a mid 5 star player, but he has also been on fire with 5 goals and 4 assists in 2 games:


Quest to 8 stars

So will my two 18 y/o on the HFF account, the Brazilian wing back Roberto Cesare and the Argentine striker Ariel Zapegol, reach 8 stars before the season ends? My last update was 5 days ago, and since then Zapegol is up from 121% to 126%. I did rest him for a full 24 hours, so basically its 5 % in 4 days. 14 % remains to be gained in the 13 days that remain of the season. But I do think he will get there, but the marginals won't be great. Him playing better, getting a few MOTM etc would certainly help a bit. Cesare was/is 1% behind a week ago/today. Both have slowed down pretty much though, early in the season they gained almost 3% overall per day. But OTOH, FA game days are always tough and last of the last 4-5 days 2 where FA game days. I rested both from the league/cup games and wasted some greens on vets to prepare them for the FA games. I will stay on top of this subject to see if the leveling off is for real or just a temporary cool down.

General update of the accounts, performance and value etc

This weekly update is already long enough, so I will refer from making detailed updates in this section until next week. However, both accounts are still playing in all competitions. Al had a bit of a problem in the Cup though only winning like 2-1 and HFF only tied the first leg of the CL POs with 1-1. I definitely hope both accounts will make it through those match-ups, they are just much better than the opponent and both games where just real "crap" result with a bit of tired teams, no production despite a lot of shots etc.

Al FC has continued to play amazing in the FA tournaments. Full 9 pts this weekend, despite playing two stronger opponents. HFF only got 7 out of 12 pts, a big reason for why I changed her formation.



Until next week, good luck out there! And please never hesitate to ask me any questions or comment on any content in this thread! Any comments or question or input you may have is much much much appreciated!

[Nick Lizas]

WEEKLY UPDATE 4 -- THE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN AL FC AND HFF, THE STRIKER FROM SIBERIA, SIDING WITH MOURINHO, THE QUEST FOR 8 STARS AND MUCH MORE!!

Hi guys!

Here comes the update of how my two accounts have performed the last week. I will touch upon several very interesting topics, it has been a very exciting week!

The Showdown

Al played HFF. I was busy but my two kids were watching. Big brother (Al) vs little sister (HFF). Stakes where eye, things could get bloody afterwards. Red Star vs. Hajduk Split of Top Eleven.



Well, not much to say about it. Al won, HFF had a bit more possession, took the lead. The rematch -- tilted "There will be blood" by the media people -- will take place on August 16.

[U]The mystery of striker Ariel "Siberia" Zapegol
-- and some thoughts on cold strikers/ in general [U]

Last week I told the story of hold HFF's sole young prodigy striker, closing in on 130% while playing 2-3 star teams, Ariel Zapegol had been dead cold. He at that point had a total of ONE goal in 18 games.

During the course of the past week, I have mixtured with orders, trying to play low defense and counter attack. Arrows up and down for Zap and the players around him. I have rested him for 24 hours, and played him hard at other times. Maybe he got a bit better. But not by much.A few goals instead of none. After my last FA game yesterday I had it and remade HFF's tactic (more on this topic below). This definitely jump started Zapegol. And this is kind of my point, there are a lot of talk in the TE community about cold strikers. There is a wide-spread assumption that players in TE has hidden abilities, which especially affects strikers. I am not saying that this is wrong. But my impression is also that to a large extent, some formations -- that may be successful or unsuccessful -- really does not seem to premier a striker scoring a lot of goals. So what is the lesson to draw? Well if something works even if your striker isn't scoring, is there even a problem to start? If what you have isn't enough, it might or might not work to get a new striker, maybe buy one scout recommended striker for tokens. But, it might certainly also help your cause to change up your formation.

So what exactly on the field will help your striker score goals? My impression is that a striker is the most effective if he get a bit more of room to play in. In other words, you cannot have too much possession high up the field, you cannot have too many other players in and around the box. You can win games and score a lot of goals playing that well, but most of the time you striker will be covered and when he gets the ball he will just redistribute it. If you can get your team to sit back a bit, you will see many more situations where your striker get fast breaks and 1 on 1 situations.

Since last week Zapegol's production is up significantly:


He has gone from having 1 goal in 18 games, to 10 goals in 26 games. IE 9 goals in his last 8 games, with 4 of those 9 goals coming in the last 2 league games after I changed HFF's formation.

HFF's X and O's revamped -- from Pep Guardiola and Jordi Cryuff to José Mourinho

Like I said above, HFF's I found that HFF's old formation wasn't good enough yesterday. I believed in it, I had used it for a long period of time, I had tweaked with it a lot. I had tried different player types at different positions. It was an interesting formation from many POVs, and one reason for why I sticked with for so long was because -- sometimes -- it really threw a lot of very good players with better squads in FA games. It was a possession monster, I don't think this team -- ever -- had less possession than the opponent. But, my striker didn't score with it. In the league I played 2-3 star teams with my 6+ star team, and it just wasn't that pretty. Even if I eventually most of the time won big, I often only had a 1-2 goal lead 40-60 minutes into games. And at times I only won like 1-0.

The old formation was a dust off of a formation I had a ton of success with in the older CM games, a modified 4-3-3, inspired by Barcelona at that time. With wingers that wasn't quite wingers (in these games the wingers tend to play sooo wide and only cross the ball a lot, instead of going to the center of the field and to the net).

Here is the old formation:


Now I am going to try something somewhat similar, but instead inspired of José Mourinho's 4-2-3-1 formation. But it will still be heavily modified. This is how I have drawn it up:


It looks a bit ugly, but here is my thought process behind this formation:

-I want a presens on both flanks, but I do not want to loose the battle on the center midfield or have my forward isolated. Hence I have "cheated" by only having one player on the right side that has to do the job of two. I actually think this can function in TE in the sense that this right side seldomly is exposed even if facing a AML+DL, and it can provide a lot of offense if -- and only if -- it faces a team with only a DL and no ML/AML.

-The two DMCs. In many ways this is an offensive formation, a wing back with a forward arrow will be very offensive for example, but it still has 6 players on it defensive side of the pitch so to speak. Butcher is the "Matic" of this formation. The Kanté. The balance player. When the DL, DMR, DMC(L) and MC head up field to attack, Butcher is supposed to stay back and step up and stop counter attacks. Catch the AMC of the other team. Does it work that way in TE? I don't really know, but I will start with a defensive arrow on him. Solito is a small player from Uruguay that has the SP "Play-maker". He is the Cesch Fabregas of this team. The Xavi/Guardiola. The classic deep play-maker.

-There are two big differences between this 4-2-3-1 formation and my old 4-3-3 formation. Firstly, this is a normal style low pressure formation, the 4-3-3 was offense and high pressure most of the time (although I tried with low/normal many times too without much success). Secondly, this formation has one natural winger. I am not too found of these guys in real life, I like the players more that takes the ball to the net (like a KDB) as opposed to how wingers function in this game. But they definitely seem to give me another dimension with the ball in TE. It spreads the D out and opens up the field in front of the goalie.

The success so far in only two league games has been great, whereas I have won 8-0 and 13-0 and especially my striker Zapegol has been on fire with two 10 rating showings after a slumping start:



The winger I have used is only a mid 5 star player, but he has also been on fire with 5 goals and 4 assists in 2 games:


Quest to 8 stars

So will my two 18 y/o on the HFF account, the Brazilian wing back Roberto Cesare and the Argentine striker Ariel Zapegol, reach 8 stars before the season ends? My last update was 5 days ago, and since then Zapegol is up from 121% to 126%. I did rest him for a full 24 hours, so basically its 5 % in 4 days. 14 % remains to be gained in the 13 days that remain of the season. But I do think he will get there, but the marginals won't be great. Him playing better, getting a few MOTM etc would certainly help a bit. Cesare was/is 1% behind a week ago/today. Both have slowed down pretty much though, early in the season they gained almost 3% overall per day. But OTOH, FA game days are always tough and last of the last 4-5 days 2 where FA game days. I rested both from the league/cup games and wasted some greens on vets to prepare them for the FA games. I will stay on top of this subject to see if the leveling off is for real or just a temporary cool down.

General update of the accounts, performance and value etc

This weekly update is already long enough, so I will refer from making detailed updates in this section until next week. However, both accounts are still playing in all competitions. Al had a bit of a problem in the Cup though only winning like 2-1 and HFF only tied the first leg of the CL POs with 1-1. I definitely hope both accounts will make it through those match-ups, they are just much better than the opponent and both games where just real "crap" result with a bit of tired teams, no production despite a lot of shots etc.

Al FC has continued to play amazing in the FA tournaments. Full 9 pts this weekend, despite playing two stronger opponents. HFF only got 7 out of 12 pts, a big reason for why I changed her formation.



Until next week, good luck out there! And please never hesitate to ask me any questions or comment on any content in this thread! Any comments or question or input you may have is much much much appreciated!

amazing work , can you upload a video with some of them

[Al Svanberg]

amazing work , can you upload a video with some of them

Sure, but I have never done it, can anyone recommend a good recording software?

[Al Svanberg]

WEEKLY UPDATE 5

TOPICS:
-SPACE RACE 2.0
-DEVELOPMENT, HAVE WE SEEN A REVERSED HOCKEY STICK GRAPH?
-GLOBAL WARMING FOR THE SIBERIAN STRIKER?
-THE NEW PLAYMAKER, AN AFTERTHOUGHT OR NECESSARY REJUVENATION?
-IS IT HARRISBURG? CHERNOBYL? FUKUSHIMA? NO ITS NUNO CANDEAS, AMC FOR HFF!
AND MUCH MUCH MORE!

Hi Guys! Time for a new weekly update. As usually it has been a very exciting week in the TE world, topped off with a new update from Nordeus bringing some great upgrades to the game. Still, being the 3rd week of the season, it the past week has also to some extent felt like the week before the storm. Competing in the same league and CL, my twin accounts are still in the running for all four possible trophies.

The Space Race 2.0

It was a tough competition, but Al FC finally reached new heights being the first of my twin accounts to develop a 8 star player, the Serb Zvonko Ivkovic.



His speed is amazing, but as a side note I don't notice it all that often. It feels like the better opponents in association games' best forwards ran away from my Ds just as often as Ivkovic run away from theirs.

Development, have we seen a reversed hockey stick graph?

General
A hockey stick graph refers to a graph that is relatively long and flat forming an ice hockey stick's "shaft" followed by a sharp, steady increase corresponding to the "blade" portion and was coined by famous climatologist Jerry Mahlman describing the development of the earth's temperature. An reversed hockey stick graph refers to a graph that is first short (the blade) before it takes off for a long period (the shaft).

The first season I followed the development in ability and value of my accounts quite closely, but this season I haven't stayed on top of it since my method seemed to work well last season. So it was with a bit of excitement I compiled the data I have.

Value





I don't know how much it really says. I don't quite like that the general tab in the game don't relieve player's ability more than the stars that don't give the real picture, I am starting to feel that it would have been better to follow the ability of each player instead of value. I know that info is easier to obtain in the old, I will maybe look at that instead going forward.

Tokens

Al is up to 29 from 11 tokens this season and HFF is up to 129 tokens from 79 tokens. I have spent about as much time farming tokens with Al FC as HFF, but the reason for HFF's better results is that it as a registered to a girl seem to get to do a lot more survey's and my son with the Al FC account has spent around 35 tokens this season on jerseys and hurrying up arena buildings (not to be recommended).

Money
Al has 7.45m and HFF has just south of 6m. I think the important number for an aspiring manager about to enter lvl 2 is that both accounts has earned just south of 6m in awards from competitions. In other words, a lot of money can be earned at this stage.

Global warming for the Siberian Striker?

18 games into the season my Striker Ariel Zapegol had been extremely cold, 1 goal in 18 games:



As I mentioned last week, I changed my formation to get Zapegol going. I had noticed that when I had too much possession, my striker ended up as more of a coy high up field with 3-4 defenders around him and no room to work in. I pulled back my midfielders and team quite a bit, put a AMC on the wing, trying to give up some possession but to spread the D more. The result has been very good. I have started to work some with videos and I might try to get something up later this week to show exactly what I have looked at. But for now we can note that Zapegol's production has improved a great deal:


Since the change in formation Zap has 20 goals in 18 games. A good improvement I would say of around 2000%. Still not good, but definitely acceptable.

The new playmaker for Al FC, an afterthought or necessary rejuvenation?

All of a sudden I started to worry about the future of Al FC. The account has been doing really well, but it did not have a single 18 y/o, and with Ivkovic turning 20 and the other fast trainers being 19 the future didn't look extremely good. HFF was rapidly pulling away in terms of net value, and the slight edge Al FC had on the bank account grew about as much as money on bank accounts grows right now.

So I sat the clock on 6am one day last week and found exactly what I was looking for:


The kid is probably not going to be an extremely fast trainer, not like Zapegol or Cesare who where at 4.3m at 99%. But he is not going to be long after, and having a SA is a big plus. You can find these fast trainers with SAs at times mid-season, I think at least. I don't think this guy was from another player.

Is it Harrisburg? Chernobyl? Fukushima? No its Nuno Candeais, AMC for HFF!

We have touched upon how cold Zapegol has been for HFF for a while. But while the focus have brought negative headlines, I think its time for a positive one. HFF's AMC Nuno Candeais has been extremely hot, check this out(!):


43 goals in 18 league games is really really good by any standards. 2.39 G/G. I tried to check some old threads with top scorers but the forum is acting up a bit, but even if its not record breaking its good by any standards from the little I could see on the forum.

Its getting late here in Sweden and I must put the kids to sleep, first school day tomorrow. I have many more topics I would like to touch upon, but it will have to wait until next week! Until then, good luck everyone! Next week, we will most likely have played two extremely new hot games between Al FC and HFF, one in the league, and quite possibly one in the finals of the CL.

If any new manager out there want any help, want me to cover something, or anything, please do not hesitate to post in this thread!

[Nick Lizas]

al what orders you use for that formation, and you play that forrmation against any tactic?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]70446[/ATTACH

[Al Svanberg]

Nick-

These are my standard orders that I use 70-80 percent of the games:


Blandat=Mixed
Låg=Low
Av=Off

If someone is overloaded at center, I sometimes choose go down both flanks or go down left flank which I think have worked pretty good. Like in my last Association match-up I faced this guy with this tactic in the 2nd leg:


I won 4-2 after using the order go down the left flank.

This is the most common change I make.

Another change I make that isn't entirely uncommon is that I put in a AML instead of Cukon or a AMC instead of Tsyambalar (right in front of him). In some important games this can change the out-look of the game and give me a bit more punch if the other team doesn't have a DMC. I also do it to get better squad rotation at times since I have had a good ST/AMC.

[Nick Lizas]

Thanks al very usful