Sheriff Skacel - Comments

Yeah I found that too when I played as CSKA for a bit on FM14, the quality of Russian player is low for the most part.

What helped me out a lot was manually scouting the Russian youth teams. These are the players who the Ast Man may say don't want to join, but when you scout them you see they have an interest in joining.

Foreigners wise I'd stick the scouting to Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and South America. The players can be brought in for cheap, are of a good quality and can grow into superstars. Sure you won't win the CL first season signing players from there, but the fees and wages will be so much lower than players from Central Europe and the UK. After a few years the players will be grow to be of a real CL standard and then you can make the European push, but they will be good enough for the league from the get-go.

I'd personally knock all filters off bar the nationality one, especially since the scout only has 13 for judging potential. Two star CA players can still do a great job, same with three star PA players. Can't afford to be too picky when your pool of talent is already limited.

Focusing on Russian players could be good for you. What I found when I signed players solely from my home nation (NATIONALISTIC MANAGEMENT HOMEBOY) was that I begun signing players I would never normally consider. Just made things a little bit different from the norm. So although the players may be of less quality, it makes you think about things differently, especially tactically.

I can remember at Ajax a few FMs back snapping up a tall Dutch striker every few seasons just to give me something different from the bench.

Judge it myself, I set every player in the first team squad an asking price. The highest right now is Borges on 65m, I like to keep it semi-realistic though. If you set backups at £50m you'll hardly get any bids, concrete or speculative. So if I have a backup player who is a good age and valued at £8m, I'll ask for £20m+.

I had a lovely save on FM14 with Torino, played about six seasons. Signed good ol' Gabigol for about £13m from Barcelona, he got a virus and was out for about nine months. Didn't even get a single league game out of him before he got the virus, good times.

Players used to stay for four years as I'd always hand out five year deals and sell the players instead of giving them new deals heading into the last year of their deal. This was because I didn't want an inflated wage bill and I liked keeping the squad fresh.

Now I sell players when a good price comes in or just when I get bored of them. For example, I signed an Egyptian MC two years back, great player, got him for 2m, heading into this season he was to be my starting MCR. Out of nowhere Man City bid 44m for him at the very end of the window, since it was a great price and I had younger MCs at the club I let him go. If this had been last years FM I would have kept him no matter what, I used to keep my players no matter how much money came in for them. Now I see the value in selling, obviously your club gets good money but it also helps keep the squad fresh and therefore the game fresh.

Halfway stage, league is wrapped up. Becomes a question of can we go unbeaten?

Also coasted through my League Cup group, straight into the Semis.

Have about £70m in the bank, sources of income are CL money and player sales. If I do cull the squad I will easily pull in 100m+ with transfers.

Wages are a 1.1m a week, Porto are on 60m a year so are slightly ahead of me on wages. In third place Sporting are on 26m, so its a two horse league.

Stadium wise I got my current stadium in 2066, board still think that was too recent to merit a new one. But we really need it, we need a 60k or 70k stadium, could make a killing on CL match days with sellouts of that size.

Really hard CL draw, not had the best of it against Man City when I have played them. Hoping for some Borges magic.

Looking at the squad and some of the youngsters available to me I think I might have a bit of a cull this summer. Its a possibility at this point, don't put her on lock. Would give the squad a new face and a new feel, will also give all of you a chance to get to know the team.

I think that's another thing that keeps thing fresh, I keep rejuvenating the team and it begins to feel like managing a whole new club.

I've never really steered far from Control and Fluid. Depends on what you want, if you want to flood the opposition box and dominate possession go for Control, if you want to utilise the pace of your attack then its worth playing with an Attacking strategy.

Champions League recap. Since the CL win I've usually coasted through the group stages and then got absolutely thrashed in the Quarters, step one of that process is complete;








Hard group on paper but no real difficulties, I rotated the squad just to keep things fresh. Kasapis is my normal starting GK but he picked up two injuries in quick succession. van der Ende has come in and done great, if I can be bothered I'll post up some of the more interesting player histories from my squad. Some of my players have lovely stories to tell.

Gonna play for a bit tonight, first game is a 1-0 win over Porto, Borges goal. 26 league games unbeaten now, only real targets for this year are the CL and getting money into the bank for a new stadium.

Slew of contracts up at the end of this season, so I'm gonna wade my way through the shite and retain my hottest prospects.

1. There's always been all sorts of problems in the lower leagues. Your struggles in signing players could be a number of things, your own manager rep, players having interest from other clubs and not wanting to join you, players not wanting to relocate to your area, etc. The best thing you can do is be persistent when chasing players.

2. Tactics all comes down to experience. You don't want to be constantly tweaking otherwise your players will never get used to your tactics. You just have to keep playing until you learn what does and doesn't work. Try and fit your tactics around your players and try and keep a balanced tactical setup.

3. I think if every player had 200 PA far too many players would get to the top. I do think there should be a dynamic PA feature whereby a player's PA can fluctuate by 20/30 points depending on certain factors, but I think 200 for everyone is a bit much. As for players declining in quality it could be down to lost form, injuries, lack of games or poor mental stats.

5. That's football my friend, every dog has their day.

6. You probably can't see them because your club has no knowledge of those countries. To see them on your player search you need to scout those areas or appoint staff or get feeder clubs from those areas. Then they will appear on the player search as your club will actually know they exist. Its like asking Real Madrid to name the top prospects in Libya, ain't happening unless they have a scout there or someone on the staff with a knowledge of Libyan football.

Also I'll say this, if you want to get the most from FM, then close FMRTE. Its the devil. It will have you focusing on the silliest things and editing things that don't need editing. You will learn far more about FM, and enjoy the game more, if you just play it naturally.

I only started other saves when I delved into FM14, for the most part I kept myself more than entertained with Mirandela through constantly setting myself new goals and targets. Silly things like bringing through certain youth players, changing tactics to a three man attack, a three man defence, playing a sweeper, etc, getting a new stadium. All that kind of shite.

I reckon I could jump around the basement leagues (Mongolia, lower Africa, lower Caribbean) and slowly work my way up though. Wouldn't just use Mongolia as a route to bigger things in Asia, I'd use them as a route to slightly bigger things amongst the banana trees.

Gotta remember how long we were in the third tier for, my wage was only a few hundred quid a week, if that. Current wage is £4.2k a week, my contract expires in two years time and I just asked for a new one. Board came to me with a £12k offer.

I'm not the savviest of negotiators.

He's the closest thing I've ever had to an internet Dad, except for maybe Q.

Your French game is a start though, I definitely could have won the CL in the 2040s with Mirandela if I had done what I usually do in an FM game. If I'd overlooked finances, stuck to tactics I knew and signed the players I knew would work we'd have been a lot more successful a lot quicker, but the save wouldn't have been as satisfying. You've got to make it harder for yourself to get the most out of the game. Even now I'm selling my best players just to keep things interesting.

Sounds stupid but I think because you've played so much FM you need to try and make it harder for yourself. I haven't got the time to sit and play FM like I used to, now and then I can still rattle off five seasons in five days but for the most part I play a few hours a day, I sometimes go weeks without even touching her and then return to it. For me FM has moved on from a game to a mindless exercise which relaxes me.

Worst comes to worst just load your favourite leagues, add in some curve balls, start unemployed and force yourself through the first few seasons. See where it goes. That's what I plan on doing, few things kill time better than FM.

We both know what career threads are for. The exercise in boredom is the publishing, not the playing. Its nice to talk FM again Max, this thread is less about me showcasing results and more me just rambling about FM.

Lap it up though, it may spark something in the catacombs of your heart. Pull an Ultimate Warrior, come back in a blaze of glory and then die.

This is FM theory, not FM practice.

I've played FM that much I've learned that I always almost regret leaving clubs, so I knew that if I ever left Mirandela I would just get bored of things. I've also always wanted to build a club up from absolutely nothing and that target kept me going.

For my next career I want a wide range of leagues so I can have a similar career to the ones I had on FM11 and FM12 where I globe trotted, but I also want to add some fifth and sixth tiers to countries like Holland so that I can build up a club from nothing if that tickles my fancy too. Best of both worlds.

All original players and staff are gone, when I load up FM I'll post up the best player I've ever seen in FM. He's never played for me but he's dismantled me on more than one occasion.

Since when did you manage Everton? Since when was your second name not Crane-bird?

Plagiarism.

Leek Town, now there's a Championship Manager blast from the past. I once told my school mates my parents were on the verge of buying the club for £50,000 after I had a short stint as their boss on CM.

Get the team focus on defending set pieces, that always does the trick for me. Its a simple thing but does make the world of difference.

Also have a think about your defenders, what's their heading, jumping, marking and positioning stats like? They may not be up to scratch in that department.

Big fan of Hiddink myself, if you can try and grab a copy of Guus Hiddink : Going Dutch, its a great wee book and covers his career up until he became manager of Australia I think.

My tastes never venture too far.

Aye they are, when I was coming up through the leagues I focused investment more on junior coaching so I could get the best youngsters as possible coming through. I also didn't want to be investing big sums of money just on facilities, I didn't think I could afford to lose a few hundred k in bulk sums.

Started to take more of an interest in the training side of things too, only just recently began to get specific youth coaches and start doing individual attribute training. I've always done position retraining to cover me in times of injury crisis and give me more rotation possibilities, but attribute training has only really entered my mind recently.

I'd say the formation is too attacking to be sustainable long term, you'll get results along the way but you will certainly come unstuck against the big teams.

There's loads of space free in midfield if Carrick is DMC and you have no MCs, hell there's loads of free space even if Carrick is the only MC. I'd say drop a striker and play two MCs, if you want a more direct style of getting the ball forward as quick as possible play two DMCs. How you pair the MCs is down to the players available to you. Carrick probably suits being a Deep Lying Playmaker or something, since you'll have 3 AMs and 1 ST left in the formation I dunno how much worth would be in having your other MC set to an attacking role. Might be worth setting him as a more defensive midfielder.

Just experiment with things, balance seems to be key with this years FM. If you are going for all out attacking formations then you have to make sure the roles match up, for example if you look at your current formation only really Mata is a creator in the final third because of his role, everyone else is basically set out to score. So it could be worth just changing a few roles and trying to make the players compliment each other.

Got Borges on a free too, I'd been scouting him since he was 16, couldn't get a price, contract was running down and I jumped straight in. Won the CL in his first season and he got a hat trick in the final vs Madrid.

If you look at the wages I still have quite a few players on around 20k, I've been dead stubborn with wages and its only since the CL win that players have inflated their demands. Think I only had one player on over 30k when we won the CL and that was Pedro Miguel. Before that I was always a tough negotiator on wages and I would just sell someone if they wouldn't lessen their demands. Now I'm starting to offer out bigger deals because the players want a lot more because of our rep boost and because I want to hang onto players until they are 26/27 as opposed to 22/23 so I can sell them for more.