[Official] How To: Where to start when you're new?

[Jeeves]

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I. PREPARATION ⚽

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"Prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance" The five P's of success!

Before heading out to the stadium you should first gather some info on the upcoming match. In time you'll notice that some matches might hold higher priority to you than others depending on the competition they're in and your team's standings. This is part of your job as a manager. Top Eleven, being a management game, is about strategically handling your resources as much as it is about leading your team to victory!
So first lets see when exactly our next match is going to be. Go to the "Home" menu. The latest match you'll have to play will be displayed there as seen in the image below.

You can also go to the "Fixtures" menu. Over there you'll see a full list of your team's fixtures. League fixtures are scheduled right on the 3rd day of the season while fixtures for other competitions are added depending on placement and other factors.

HOME & AWAY If your team's emblem is on the left you'll be the Home team and the match will be played at your stadium. This means you'll get some sweet cash from all the tickets you sell! The emblem on the right, therefore, is that of the Visitor team.

⚽ Important! Additionally, if you're Home for a particular match, you will have the ability to reschedule the time of said match. To do that go to "Fixtures", find the match you wish to reschedule and select the pencil button of the particular fixture as shown in the image below.

Now that we have the date and time of the event let's proceed ahead in a step by step manner.

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1. SCOUT YOUR OPPONENT

You gotta know what your opponent is going for and with what, a.k.a. what's the composition of their team, what players does it have. And this is exactly what we'll start off with.

MATCH PREVIEW | Select the "Match Preview" or VS button in the home menu, or the actual fixture in the "Fixtures" menu. This will bring up a preview of the match. Here you'll see a comparison between the Defence, Midfield and Attack capabilities of both teams (Which are calculated from the Starting 11 players of the squad), as well as the competition form of each team (This is the outcome of the club's 5 most recent matches). At the bottom you'll notice a pitch with the two teams in their current formations. See image on the right. OPPONENT PREVIEW | Selecting the emblem of any club, anywhere in the game, will open up that club's profile. The profile compares various statistics about yours and their team. What we're looking for here though, is the Squad tab, for under that tab you'll see the opponent's full roster of players with all their stats, skills and quality. See image below.

Club Level: Strength of teams is relevant only to the Club Level. This level can be different from the Manager Level but it's of no consequence. Also, Club Level is always the same as the level of the League.

Having all this data we can start predicting what kind of strategy the opponent might be going for. The main points being, what their formation is and what kind of players are positioned where. ⚽ Here's a tip from us: Take a good look at your opponent's formation. Some formations offer an attacking edge or increase the defensive strength of the team, and others could be employing more players to the midfield which increases the team's ball possession.

⚽ Important: All this, of course, takes time to get used to. Don't fret if you just can't figure out what the opponent might be going for. It takes experience and a few matches under the belt to get to that point! Additionally, since you're already on the forum, you can always ask the veterans here for advice or search already existing threads. The managers here on the forum are some of the most long-time players that Top Eleven has seen and they know the game in and out. So take a look at the Tactics and Guides forum.

⚽ To give you an example: 4-5V-1 - This is an attacking formation offering some good defence together with ways to counter from the flanks. 5-3-2 - This is a defensive formation offering, well, great defence. If you concentrate your attacks through the middle you'll also have the manpower to swing the ball around toward your opponent. (More about this later) 3-5-2 or 4-5-1 - Both of these variants promote a possession game for your team. The more players you have in the midfield the greater your ball possession will be. 4-4-2 - A nicely balanced formation, offering coverage of the field which lets you try different approaches during the match without changes to the actual formation.

⚽ Important: Formations are written in the fashion of 3-2W-2N-2W-1, because this format literally explains what the formation looks like on the pitch. Formations start from your side of the field and expand toward the opponent. Digits represent: Number of players. Letters mean: W - Wide; N - Narrow;

Lastly. Formations go together really well with the team's "Tactics" options. We'll talk about this below in the "Setup your team" section. But it's important to mention that you can't view your opponent's tactic choices. This is what we were talking about when saying that "Being able to figure out your opponent comes with experience", and observing their formation is the key element from which to judge on how their Tactics are set like.

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2. SETUP YOUR TEAM

Now lets shift the view to your team. Here we'll see what's actually going on under the hood. And knowing how the engine of your team works means you'll know how your opponent's works.

Lets go to the "Squad" menu.

There are three tabs here - Lineup; Formation; Tactics - For this exercise we'll only take a look at the last two.

FORMATION TAB: As seen in the image below, both ours [1] and the opponent's [2] players are visible in their current formations. This is really useful since you won't have to jump back to the match preview while setting up your formation.

Important | Set Piece Takers Don't forget to appoint your team's Set Piece Takers! To do that select the button [3] in the bottom right corner and then the Set Piece Takers option. You can appoint: 2 Corner takers 2 Free Kick takers 5 Penalty Kick takers. 1 team captain. Additionally, if a match goes to a penalties shoot-out due to a draw, you will be prompted by the game to pick your penalty takers. If you don't pick new players, the game will simply go with who you chose before the match.

CHOOSING YOUR FORMATION: The formation system allows for a fluid placement of players on the pitch. This means that you can basically put your players anywhere on the field. But, it is important to remember the following things:

⚽ FIRST: Player Roles & Pitch Zones Every player is proficient in certain roles that correspond to their namesake zones on the pitch. When you select and hold a player, a dotted line (Red Arrows) will show what the player's roles are. You can of course put a player where ever you wish but he will take a hit to his performance (See image on the right): - If the position is only similar to the ones he knows. - If the position vastly different than the ones he knows. This "performance hit" will be signified by an orange/red cone, respectfully. Example: In the image you can see how Morel (DC, DR), is being tried as a DMC and GK but gets and orange/red cone for the roles that aren't completely suitable for him

⚽ SECOND: Player-to-player interactions The distance between players is directly interpreted by the system. This means that if, for instance, your player is right on top of an opposing player, he is basically covering him and vice-versa. The two will be in conflict with each other and the system will take into account. This can be helpful for when you're trying to defend your flanks with a DML or DMR for example. ⚽ THIRD: Formation Warnings The game will warn you if your formation is unbalanced (Symmetrical presence of players on the field) or is lacking players-presence somewhere. Example: If you have more than 3 players in a zone the game will tell you that the zone is crowded and that players require more space in order to play well. To see the warning just select the exclamation mark button.

TACTICS TAB: There are two categories here - ATTACK and DEFENCE - Each with 4 toggles with several option. These toggles let you influence the mentality and behavior of your team. For instance you may order your team to go for the offensive or defensive play, to go for short passes in order to keep ball possession, or even instruct your defenders to be hard with their tackles. Note: If you select the yellow "info" button next to each toggle you'll get a hint as to what the options do. What ever you chose, chose carefully and have an overall strategy for the match in mind because these options here can offer some very powerful advantages if you supplement them properly to your squad's current setup. To give you an example: Say you go with the 4-5V-1 formation we mentioned earlier. Lets say your opponent is aggressive (You may notice this from the 2D animation and how the opposing players are constantly on the attack). What could we do? Let's see what we have: Players | 4 Defenders, 1 DMC to close up the hole in the middle, and 4 players in the midfield forming a wedge toward the flanks of your opponent with an ST waiting for a pass or keeping the defense line busy. Strategy | Lets take control of the ball on our side of the pitch and then counter toward the flanks. Why? The opponent has set up camp on our side of the field, so we can't even get to the middle and make some plays of our own. So, lets get aggressive with the defenders, get the ball back. Then, push it fast toward the middle-and-flanks, with counter attacks and the wedge of the formation. Tactics | And now lets set the toggles following the strategy we have in mind. ATTACK Team Mentality: Hard Defending Focus Passing: Down Both Flanks Passing Style: Long Force counter attacks: ON DEFENCE Pressing style: High Tackling style: Hard or Normal Marking style: Man to Man Play Offside Trap: OFF

Jeeves: This is actually one of the matches I played recently. Beat the opponent 3:2. Opponent was playing with a 3-3-2W-2. I tried to go for attacks in the first half but couldn't pass the midfield, the opponent was now taking potshots at my goal line. Eventually they scored once and then twice and then it was the end of first half. Second half came. I decided to risk it with some counter-play and hopefully get a draw at least. Match was for the Cup's quarterfinals. A draw would make us equal on aggregate and I intended to cross my fingers for a chance at penalties. Instead? Haha, my defenders were always beasts but jeez, they got the ball in return for two yellows and then the tides switched. My guys completely stormed the other team. 1. Long ball to my AML, then a pass to the ST - Goal! 2. DMC gets the ball, rushes forward, pass to left MC, MC long pass to ST, defenders try to intercept, ST pass to AMR - Goal! 3. Left MC receives a pass, right MC gets close and they tiki-taka toward the left flank, shoot, ball is intercepted by defence, AML storms and takes the ball, pass to AMR, shoot - Goal!

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II. SHOWTIME

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Preparing for a match is just half of the work done. Playing (and winning) the match is the other!
Advice: Always check your opponent minutes before the match begins! Some managers tend not to show their hand and might even scramble their team only to set things up only minutes before the start.

On that note: You may apply changes to your team up to 3 minutes before the start of a match. After that its time for both teams to assemble on the field so the options will be locked. And once the first whistle blows it's time for action!

MATCH SIMULATION: Everything runs on the official game servers. This means that no player can dabble with the game code and essentially hack their opponents. Your computer/device is but an interface with which you control your team. Basically your device is the benches from which you observe the match and signal your team and the server is the actual football pitch on which your team plays. The system will be matching and comparing the statistics of both teams, pitting players against each other. Plays will occur and those will be shown in 2D on the pitch. The calculations that go in the background are numerous and complicated but suffice to say players' roles, abilities, attributes and skills, as well as everyone's positioning on the pitch and when in time that is, are all taken into account to build sequences of events that may or may not lead to plays and even goals.

2D ANIMATION In case there are interesting situations or plays that are happening the 2D animation will fire up and give you a visual representation of whats transpiring. (Jeeves: Similar to how, earlier, I described the three goals my team scored.) Pay attention to this as its one of you best tools via which to tell of your opponent's team mentality and tactics! Important: The 2D animation may be switched off from the "Settings" menu's "Live Match Animation" toggle. In that case you will receive a live text commentary instead.

JUDGING THE SITUATION So, what now? Well your job as a Manager is to supervise your team and make swift changes if/when the moment is right/requires it - Be it, changes to the formation, the tactics or even substituting a player who has a yellow card so as to protect him from turning that yellow in to a red, after another yellow booking. You are the strategist!

2D Animation | Look at how players are positioned when the animation starts, who's where and how they move and what they do. While the animation isn't running, you'll instead see info about each team Note: You have to switch between teams by selecting the emblem button. Top right corner.
Match Highlights | A timeline of important events like Goals, Bookings, Corners, etc. Take notice of which players are scoring the goals. Can help you determine if you should pressure them by putting one of your players near them or bolster your own offence.
Match Statistics | Probably your most important tool in this list! Take heed of stats such as - Possession; Total Shots; Shots on Target; Shot Efficiency; Passes completed - These values can give you an idea whether or not your formation/tactics are working properly against the opponent or not. Note: If the statistics aren't updating (values stay at 0), just switch to another menu and then back to the live match. That makes the local client re-update itself with the information from the server.
Team Bonuses |These bonuses are raised when the team trains. They constantly provide their % value to the team during a match, and can even be activated for half of the value added on top of the base value for 20 in-game minutes. Example: Activating 8% attack will make the bonus into 12% for 20 minutes of the match.	Important: You can always remind yourself how bonuses work during a match by selecting the yellow "Info" button in the top right corner.

Well, this is pretty much it. You have the tools a boost to your knowledge and now all you need is practical experience. So, gather your team, set up realistic goals for the club and update them as you get better. And start collecting the head... ah, I mean trophies of your opponents!

⚽ Good luck in the competitions everyone! ⚽