FootballManagerLive went “live” again last week so I decided to test it out once again. I had a 4 month subscription last year but didn’t really get into it. Don’t get me wrong, the basics were brilliant, but there was just so much of an advantage given to managers who play it 24/7 I just didn’t really enjoy being at the bottom of the barrel all of the time.

Since this time they’ve added and tweaked a lot of features which I won’t go into as they’ve been covered numerous times elsewhere, but I feel they’ve really evened up the game. Obviously managers who are online more than anyone else will have an advantage – and rightly so, but those who cannot commit as much time can still stay competitive which is all I want.

My Team and Aims

The birth of John Trewick Football Genius came in the Ramos Gameworld. I chose a returning stars gameworld over a fantasy world mainly because I knew I’d have to focus on epic scouting to do well in a Fantasy World which is not something I initially wanted to master. My chosen skill to start with is infrastructure.

One of my main qualms about Football Manager 2010 is the lack of input you have into the youth system. You can upgrade via asking the board, or just sign random 16 year olds you find, but there’s not much more you can do. However, FM:Live allows you to construct youth academies which is pretty much where I will be pinning my hopes. I will, of course, keep cherry picking the best youth I see on the transfer lists, but I will not be going for big stars like Ronaldo, Messi etc. I will not be building a Youth Academy for a few days to gauge the interest that each country holds. I want to go into a top 10 country (Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Holland, Italy, Germany, England, France etc – but I want to go where there’s not so much interest… Maybe I’ll go down the route of a Russia, a Turkey, a Paraguay or another slightly lesser of the footballing nations.

Getting Started

Getting started on FM:Live you have a pool of 50 players of which you can sign up with a budget of £50,000 per day for wages, and £500,000 acquisition fees. Initially I was quite cautious about the size of my squad, selection just a minimum of 18 players but after playing a few friendly’s it was clear fitness was going to be an issue, you get a huge amount of injuries every game so a larger squad was required. Of the 50 players in my pool, I immediately highlighted 3 key players who’d be central to any success I may have over the next few years. [click name for stats screenie]

Name: Ricardo Faty

Nationality: French
Age: 23
Position: DMC

Name: Lorenzo Crisetig

Nationality: Italian
Age: 17
Position: DMC

Name: Wilifred Niflore

Nationality: French
Age: 28
Position: ST

Other than these 3 though, my pool was quite weak, it was clear I’d have a massive decision to make. Do I select the bare minimum of players and then hope for some luck in the transfer auctions? Do I select a squad that’s large enough for me to carry on in case I don’t win any auctions – after all, I don’t really know what the “average” wage for players are as of yet, I’m still learning…! Or, do I select a huge squad and spend my entire budget on average players hoping a few do better than their stats suggest, but then have no room to manoeuvre in the following transfer auctions?

I played it relatively safe; I decided to pick 20 players. My squad consisted of 6 youngsters (17-19), 6 early 20s (21-24), then 8 peaked players (26-32).

After the unveiling of this squad I still had a healthy bank balance and enough free wages to sign a few players if I so wish, although I wanted to see out the first 5 days or so without spending to get an idea for the average wages etc. My previous experience on FM:Live taught me the economy gets ridiculous after a few seasons, but hopefully the re-launch has attempted to fix this!

Coming up – my views on the Youth Academy and if they’re worth it plus my weekly review of the goings on in Ramos and John Trewick Football Genius!

Bayern Munich are the Giants of German football without a doubt, recently they’ve not been at the top of their game but they have had many a Golden Era, none better than in the mid 70s when they won the Champions League 3 times in a row. They’ve had some truely world class players in recent and not so recent times. From Oliver Kahn to Sepp Maier, Franz Beckenbauer to Gerd Muller. They’ve all left their own impact on World Football as we know it today, so I thought a Bayern Munich Legends database was a fitting tribute. I’ve added 13 of their legends to the current squad.

The players included were primarily those voted in the Bayern Munich best ever XI in 2005 by 66k fans. There were only really 2 players that rivalled this team, Bizente Lizarazu and Oliver Kahn.. Yes, Kahn wasn’t the best Bayern goal-keeper! The wages at present are too high so people will need to be sold, but I thought I’d let you decide who to sell and who to keep. The legends are all 24-27 years old I think, so are all in their prime!

Squad:

Sepp Maier

Augenthaler – Schwarzenbeck – Beckenbauer – Breitner

– – –

Scholl – Effenburg – Matthaus

– –

Elber – Muller – Rummenigge

– –

Reserves: Oliver Kahn, Bixente Lizarazu

–

Download Link – HERE

Thanks to aird too has produced a facepack specifically for this database. Download that here.

How do I load the database?

Firstly you download/save the database to: Users > *name* > Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2010 > editor data

Then, when you load up FM you will be promted with this screen…

Tick the box “Change” and then click Ok. You will be promoted to this screen: (will vary depending on other databases you have)

Check the box next to Bayern Legends VI.xml and you’re away!

It’s important to delete the fake.inc file if you want Oliver Kahn’s real name (contractual issues means he’s known as Jens Mustermann on the game).

A special mention goes out to the lads at FMLeague.net who helped a lot with the research side to this database. We hope to be working with them a lot more in the future!

As always, any comments and criticism is welcome, I will be doing a V2 of this if people give me feedback. It’s inevitable I’ve got some stats and positions wrong, so if you tell me I’ll change it!

Introduction:

I have to admit, the first thing that came to my head when I thought about German football was the 5-1 thrashing at the hands of England all those years ago. Second to this though was the great Bayer Leverkeusen team of the early noughties. For anyone who doesn’t know about this relatively successful era in the clubs history, it’s the time when the bottled a lead in the German league in 2000, then managed to bottle another League, German Cup and Champions League in 2002. Okay, losing against Real Madrid to that goal from Zinedine Zidane may not be a bottle, but losing out on 3 titles sure is!

This team was made up of stars who they predictably lost to larger European teams; Ze Roberto and Michael Ballack both left for Bayern Munich which really hurt Leverkeusen. Players such as Lucio, Jens Nowotny, Bernd Schneider, Hans Jorg-Butt, Carsten Ramelow, Oliver Neuville, Yildray Basturk, Dimitar Berbatov, Marko Babic and Ulf Kirsten all made up the 2002 squad which was famously named “Neverkeusen” after the treble failure.

Since that time they’ve not really been the same again, they managed a 3rd place finish in 2003/04 but since then they haven’t finished above 5th. They really are a team in a transition period that needs a few top players to take them to a place they’ve never been before – Bundesliga champions.

Fact File:

Full Name: Bayer 04 Leverkeusen
Stadium: BayArena (30,000 all-seater)
Training Facilities: Top training facilities
Youth Facilities: Excellent youth facilities + Youth Academy
Media Prediction: 9th
Board Expectations: Top half finish
Continental Competitions: None

The Squad:

The team is full of great individuals but really lacks enough quality throughout the squad. I’ll only be highlighting the good players in this guide as there are about 50 players in the first team and reserves who will never get close to the team! These can all get sold for for a tidy profit allowing you to bring in over £10m in the first summer.

In the goal keeping department you are blessed with one of the greatest goalkeepers on the game; Rene Adler. Rene has high ambitions though, so if he does not see the club progressing after 18 months – 2 years then you might be in trouble. Keep him tied down on a long term deal on frequent periods so you can demand top prices for him when he inevitably asks to leave. If he doesn’t ask to leave then you’re succeeding as far as I’m concerned. You must be in and around the top of the table and competing in the latter stages of the cup competitions to keep him around. Other than Mr Adler though, there is no real back up or competition. Benedikt Fernandez is the best of a bad bad bunch – you wouldn’t want him in goal for more than a handful of games a season!

In defence we have more good quality players but we’re really lacking any top class players. Daniel Schwaab and Michal Kadler are two good improving fullbacks who are solid enough in both the attacking and defending elements of their game. They could both be employed as a center half if you’re desperate for cover, although you’re going to really be missing out on their explosive styles from full back. If you wish to play with wingbacks then they’re also very capable of filling the right and right roles respectively. Gonzalo Castro is also another good young fullback, not quite at the level of Schwaab or Kadlec but he’ll offer more than adequate back up on the right. There’s little cover for the left though, definitely a place to strengthen.

Center backs at Leverkeusen come in abundance, although you feel there is something lacking from everyone of them that will stop them getting to the top of their game. Sami Hyypia is a recent signing from Liverpool although his legs have almost completely gone now and has shocking pace, he strikes me as a perfect substitute for when you’re defending a 1 goal lead on the edge of your 18 yard line. Manuel Friedrich is another good defender but there are questions about his lack of concentration. In truth he’s probably the best center back at the club so you need to take a punt with him really and hope any mistakes he does make are not costly. I’d partner Friedrich with Lukas Sinkiewicz, a 23 year old defender. His weakness, like Hyypia, is his poor acceleration although he does have a bit more pace to make up for it. At 6’3 he’s a menace in both boxes from set pieces and definitely one to keep hold of. Stefan Reinartz would be my 4th choice defender. At just 20 years of age he’s still very raw but would do a job for a number of games in a season if called upon. He’s solid all round defensively with no obvious weaknesses. Stefan could fill in in midfield either holding or breaking up the play with relative ease. A product of the youth system here almost guarantees he’ll be a fans favourite in years to come.

Midfield is where Leverkeusen have been arguably at their strongest in years gone by. Michael Ballack, Ze Robero and Yildray Basturk are just 3 of the names that have lit up the BayArena with great displays. You’ll be pleased to know this current team isn’t far off the pace, either. The best of the bunch in my opinion is Simon Rofles. The holding midfielder is in his 5th season with Leverkeusen and is one of the best in current times. Whilst he’s at his best sitting deep breaking up play and spreading the ball, Rofles can also be used in a central midfield role as a box to box midfielder. He could also cover the left flank if you got really desperate but I think that’s reducing his ability to control the game. Arturo Vidal is in a similar mould to Rofles, the holding midfielder has an all round game that could match the majority of Bundesliga midfielders, and to think this kid won’t make it into your starting line up! His only weakness is his finishing, although it never did Makelele harm from in front of the back 4 so I see no reason why Artuto cannot develop to one of the stars of Leverkeusen. At just 22 he still has a fair amount of potential that can be unleashed with the correct training; the Chilean international came through the famous Colo Colo youth set up so has a decent enough pedigree. Lars Bender is the third and final holding midfielder at the club worthy of first team football. The young German signed from 1860 Munich in the summer so wants to make a name for himself in the coming years.

Toni Kroos is an exciting player on loan from Bayern Munich. This is probably the most controversial point of this article but I’d terminate his loan immediately. There is little chance of you affording his transfer fee, which I’ve seen to be upwards of £20m in recent games, so I’d be quite tempted to let him go back to Bayern. He’s on huge wages too, upwards of £30,000 per week which is going to take a lot out of the bank over the period of a year for little return. There’s no doubt he’s going to have a massive future but for £30,000 per week at this stage in his career? No thanks. His readymade replacement is already at the club in Renato Augusto. The versatile midfielder can play right along the pitch and will always put in a decent shift. I’ve found him to be most useful on the right wing but with the freedom to cut inside in the “inside forward” role. On the left there’s Tranquillo Barnetta who is always highly coveted by Europe’s elite but won’t be that pushy in forcing himself out of the club. If you wish to use a formation that doesn’t use wingers or just want to sell him then you can make around £15-20m from him in the first season, which will increase as seasons pass. The attacking midfield/wing positions are where you really have the most quality but least amount of depth. If you were to keep Kroos it won’t be too bad, but otherwise you’d really need to dip into the transfer market at least once.

Upfront there is an abundance of different strikers, firstly there’s the big target man in Stefan Kiessling. At 6’3 the 24 year old German is the best physical presence you could employ upfront. He’s suited to the stereotypical target man role or, the more modern take on a defensive forward. He’s pretty much a German Kevin Davies/Emile Heskey. He won’t get you goals but his contribution to the team shouldn’t be measured in goals. Eren Derdiyok is next up, the recent signing from FC Basle is another target man but has a bit more about him. At just 20 years old he’s got a lot of potential he’s yet to fulfil, plus being already worth £6m can only bode well for the future.

Theofanis Gekas is without doubt your best goal scorer already at the club. The 28 year old Greek international lacks the physical presence of either Stefan or Eren, but he will give you the goals they will not. He’s probably best suited to the poacher role, especially if he’s playing alongside a target man, although he could play the advanced role with relative ease. Another great finisher at the club is Patrick Helmes. The complete forward starts the game injured but when he’s returned to full fitness he is without doubt your best striker. The 24 year old has only one goal for the national team but 100 in 188 for his club teams. This may point towards the fact he’s not a great big time player, or perhaps he’s just been unlucky, nonetheless he’s going to be key to your Leverkeusen future.

Richard Sukata-Pasu, touted by German media as the next Jurgen Klinsmann, is without doubt the brightest prospect at Leverkeusen. The 18 year old is very raw but has the potential to be an international-class player for club and country, but he needs to be handled carefully. When the big clubs come calling he will demand a move away unless the club has progressed to one of the best in Germany, if you’re outside the elite few then say bye bye to RSP!

Recommended formation/starting XI:

Recommended signings:

Marek Sapara – Rosenborg – £1.1m
Brilliant all round midfielder for a snip at around £1m. Will offer a more attacking edge to your team.

Mehmet Eckci – Bayern — £475k
The young German is often transfer listed and will develop at a rate similar to Lars Bender. A must at half a million.

Kikin Fonseca – Tigres – £700k
Goals may well be your problem so a proven scorer this cheap is too good to turn down. Short term option which will allow RSP to develop.

Bofa Bautista – Jaguares – £1m
Same as above really, plays better at AMC although he scores from anywhere. Another short term option that’ll prove worth every penney.

Aleksander Lukovic – Udinese – £925k
The left back will offer great competition up against the likes of Kadlec at fullback, allowing you to ship out the un-needed players.

Asmir Begovic- Pompey – loan
Back up to Rene Adler, won’t be called upon, good long term option if you can get him cheap enough though.

Finances:

Start of season balance: £12.8m
Loans outstanding: £61m bank loan (£270k p/m until 2028)
% of transfer revenue made available: 55%
Current wage budget: £475k p/w

Expectations:

Top Half Finish – £2.6m transfer budget, £525k wage budget
Continental qualification through league finish – £3.1m transfer budget, £550k wage budget
Title challenge – £3.3m transfer budget, £575k wage budget
Winner – £3.6m transfer budget, £575k wage budget

You can follow the discussions over on the forums!

Number Two: Match Analysis

Apologies for the lack of updates, been busy! Today I’m going to be reviewing another hidden/under-used feature; match analysis. How many ways are there to review how a player has played post-match? Do you judge them based purely on match rating? Goals scored? Man of the match awards won? All of these have their own individual merits but in reality it tells you very little on the whole match.

The match “analysis” screen, located on the match screen as a tab, shows you so much more. The image shown below shows one half of the screen. As you can see you can filter between sides; I am currently Argentina. There’s also a drop down box where you can choose from: shots, passes, crosses, headers, tackles, fouls, runs past opponents and interceptions.

Events:

Shots – Obviously you should read more into this for your attack minded players moreso, but none the less it’s very handy to use for all players. If, like my example, a player such as Messi has 4 shots with none on target, you may wish to look why. Clicking on the player in question will bring up the pitch map, seen below, showing where the shots were struck from. As you can see from the image below, Messi saw plenty of the ball on the edge of the area but was very wasteful. Maybe in his player instructions you’d limit his longshots seeing as he’s not the most accurate. Obviously this analysis is taking place on a one off match, but over the season you will see patterns occurring.

Passes – Staying with Messi, he made 16 passes, completing 10, one of which was key. It’s quite obvious from these 2 stats alone I’m not getting the most out of Messi who ideally will be running the show for me and getting involved in absolutely anything. None the less, from the pitch map show below you can see where Messi made his passes. Quite annoyingly it doesn’t highlight the key passes in a different colour like it does with blocked passes, but you can normally guess which one it was; in this case it was the second highest completed pass going into the box, from which Aguero scored.

Crosses – Being Argentina with a front 3 of Messi, Tevez and Aguero I really wanted to limit the crosses so it appears I’m doing a job there. The only crosses from Veron were corners, whilst Zanetti had a handful but only 2 out of 7 met their target. Crosses really could be key if you had a big target man such as Edin Dzeko upfront so you’d want to play to his strengths, but in this particular I’ve tried to limit it and been successful in doing so. I’m not going to keep on boring you with screenshots as I’m sure you’re getting the idea by now!

Headers – These really go hand in hand with crosses, although defensively there’s more room to analyse. Without watching every highlight individually, you can sort of assume that headers won in your box are going to be defensive from a set play or a cross, and vice versa with attacking. Headers in the middle of the park aren’t likely to be key and are most likely from long goal kicks or rushed clearances from the defending site. If you have a stopper/cover combination its to be expected the defender set on stopper will win more headers than the covering defender. If this isn’t the case then you could question the tactics you’re employing and perhaps switch them.

Tackles – The addition of the tactics creator has allowed us to employ defensive forwards and defensive wingers, this is a brilliant feature to analyse the success that they bring and if they’re suited to the role. It’s self explanatory with defenders and defensive midfielders – they should be winning the majority of tackles all over the park, but one thing you could draw from this is how high you should play your defensive line. If you notice players missing tackles on the half way line you might consider dropping a bit deeper.

Fouls – Linked to tackles again, the position the fouls take place is the best indicator here, similar to tackles, you can then adjust the defensively line accordingly. Furthermore, if a certain player is getting into double figures in terms of fouls you could toy with the idea of toning down their tackling mentality, or perhaps asking them to stay on their feet whilst tackling.

Runs past oppositions – More commonly known as dribbling, this is key for wide players and attack minded players. If you have centre backs making runs with the ball you should be scared! If you have a player making more runs than you want you can limit it on the tactics screen, similarly if you want your wingers to run more with the ball. Quite annoyingly it only shows successful runs, I’d find it just as helpful if you were shown unsuccessful runs as you could perhaps instruct a player to cut inside or go outside more often, whichever you though got the best out of the said player.

Interceptions – Sweepers and ball winning midfielders are most likely to see the double-figure results here, although all defenders should be winning their fair share of them. If you employ a defensive winger or defensive forward you will also see a higher return in the number of interceptions up the park as they back 4 will be hurried and will be more likely to give the ball away cheaply.

As you can see from my brief descriptions above there are endless ways you can analyse player performances, limit what they do or don’t do and really get the best out of a player. There’s no need to use this every single game, in all honesty I only use it in pre-season and once I’m settled on a few tactics I won’t touch it again until the following year.

Continue the discussion on our forum!

One area of FMV that has turned out some great reads lately is the Current Game area and so we are starting this award: Current Game of the Week! Apologies for the trophy graphic but it’s the best I could do on short notice

Our inaugural competitors are AlexBRFC’s “AFC Telford United”, upthehammers’ “The Hammers”, Marshall’s “Feeling the Burn”, and Blaze’s “Espanyol”

Please cast your votes for your favourite thread and thanks to all those that have created CG threads.

Okay, so you have arrived in Germany, where you will be looking for promotion back to the 1. Bundesliga. The German league consists of 3 tiers known as the ’1. Bundesliga’, the ’2. Bundesliga’, and the ’3. Liga’. As well as these competitions there is a cup competition known as the ‘DFB-Pokal’ which is akin to the English FA cup in both style and stature. Being in Europe means there are the normal transfer windows (1st July – 2nd September, & 1st January – 1st February). One match bans appear after every 5 yellows or after each red card throughout the leagues, and the top 2 divisions are sorted in the same way: Points > Goal Difference > Goals Scored > Results Between Teams > Away Goals Scored.

The 1. Bundesliga is composed of 18 teams which play each other twice, meaning there are 34 games in a completed season. The rules for the competition are pretty straight forward, you can name seven substitutes and can use a maximum of three of them in a match. The bottom two teams are relegated to the 2. Bundesliga whilst the team in 16th position enters a playoff against the 3rd best side from the second division for the right to compete in Germany’s premier competition. The top three teams in the 1. Bundesliga qualify for the European Champions League and the 4th-6th place teams enter the EURO Cup (depending on the winner of the DFB-Pokal).

The 2. Bundesliga is also composed of 18 teams which play each other twice, meaning there are 34 games in a completed season. The rules for the competition are like above, except that the top two teams are promoted to the top division and the 3rd placed team goes into the playoff for 1. Bundesliga football. At the bottom the worst 2 teams are relegated automatically, whilst the 16th place team enters another playoff – this time for the right to stay in the 2. Bundesliga.

The 3. Liga is composed of 20 teams which play each other twice, meaning there are 38 games in a completed season. There are a few changes to the rules at this level. The match squad must have no more than 3 non-EU players, and must also have at least 4 German players aged 23. Teams in this division are only allowed to sign non-EU players if they are from fellow German clubs. The Top two teams gain promotion to the 2. Bundesliga, whilst the 3rd place team enters the playoff for the right to play in that division for the next season. The bottom 3 clubs are relegated each season, and league sorting is slightly simplified for this division: Points > Goal Difference > Goals Scored > Results Between Teams.

1. FUSSBALL-CLUB KAISERSLAUTERN

1. Fussball-Club Kaiserslautern, also known as 1. FCK or simply FCK, is a German football club based in Kaiserslautern. The city of Kaiserslautern lies in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland (State) of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) at the edge of the Palatinate forest (Pfälzer Wald). It is twinned with two towns in England, Rotherham and the London Borough of Newham.

On 2 June 1900, Germania 1896 and FG Kaiserslautern merged to create FC 1900. In 1909, the club went on to join FC Palatia (founded in 1901) and FC Bavaria (founded in 1902) to form FV 1900 Kaiserslautern. In 1929 they merged with SV Phönix to become FV Phönix-Kaiserslautern before finally taking on their current name three years later.

1. FCK won their second German Cup in 1996, but that victory was soured since the team was relegated to 2.Bundesliga with a 16th place finish just one week before the Cup Final. At the time, Kaiserslautern was one of only four of the original sixteen teams that had played in each Bundesliga season since the inception of the league, never having been relegated. This group included Kaiserslautern, Eintracht Frankfurt who went down in the same season, 1. FC Köln down in 1998, and “the Dinosaur”, unrelegated Hamburger SV.

The Red Devils came storming back in 1998 with an accomplishment unique in Bundesliga history by winning re-promotion to the first division from the 2.Bundesliga and immediately going on to win the national championship under famous coach Otto Rehhagel.

They saved themselves from fully falling off the radar in German football by escaping relegation to the newly formed 3. Liga on the final day of the 2007–2008 season with a win over already promoted 1. FC Köln.

Kaiserslautern is by far the smallest city (pop. 99,000) to ever have a German Bundesliga championship team (in 1991 and 1998)

KEY HISTORY
German Champions: 1951, 1953, 1991, 1998
UEFA Cup: Semi-final: 1982, 2001
UEFA Champions League: Quarter-final: 1999

The Fritz-Walter-Stadion

FCK plays its home fixtures in the Fritz Walter Stadion first built in 1920. The stadium and the adjacent street are named for the player who brought the club to prominence after the war. The stadium has a capacity of 48,500 and was a 2006 World Cup venue, hosting four preliminary round and one Group of 16 round matches. The facility underwent a major refurbishment for the tournament with addition of new grandstands and a roof.

Chairman Stefan Kuntz has called you into his office and asked you to turn around 1. FCK into the former German powerhouse they were by any means necessary. Your task is to improve FCK back to the heady days when the club won the 1. Bundesliga and also made the semi-finals of the UEFA cup & quarter-finals of the Champions League. The club have never had money worries for many years now so this won’t be an easy task, but he hopes to be in a position to provide enough funding to return the club to the 1. Bundesliga.

Your first season minimum goal is to get into the top half of the 2. Bundesliga and to do so Mr Kuntz will provide you with a transfer budget of around £425k, and a wage budget of £165k per week (current wage bill is around £162k per week).

Your captain, Martin Amedick, is a 6’4″ central defender who, at the age of 26, is probably your best player. Also one to look out for is your young German keeper Tobias Sippel, who is under pressure from American Luis Robles for the starting birth – Sippel could become a star with the right management.

CHALLENGE DYNAMICS

This challenge will last for five years, upon completing your fifth season in Germany, you can consider your excursion to be over as far as earning points for the challenge.

You must start set your manager experience as “Automatic”.

You have until the 4th March 2010 to accumulate as many points as you can within the confines of a maximum of 5 seasons.[/color]

HOW TO SCORE POINTS

1. BUNDESLIGA
Relegation – -10 points
Win the Relegation Playoff game – 0 points
15th/14th – 1 point
13th – 2 points
12th – 3 points
11th – 4 points
10th – 5 points
9th – 6 points
8th – 7 points
7th – 8 points
6th – 9 points
5th – 10 points
4th – 15 points
3rd – 20 points
2nd  – 40 points
Win 1. Bundesliga Title – 60 points

2. BUNDESLIGA
Relegation – -10 points
Win the Relegation Playoff game – 0 points
15th/14th – 1 point
13th – 2 points
12th – 3 points
11th – 4 points
10th – 5 points
9th – 6 points
8th – 7 points
7th – 8 points
6th – 9 points
5th – 10 points
4th – 12 points
3rd – 15 points
Win the Promotion Playoff game – 20 points
2nd (Promotion) – 30 points
Win 2. Bundesliga Title – 40 points

3. LIGA
Relegation – -25 points
Survival – 0 points
7th – 1 points
6th – 2 points
5th – 3 points
4th – 4 points
3rd – 5 points
Win the Promotion Playoff game – 10 points
2nd (Promotion) – 15 points
Win 2. Liga Title – 20 points

DFB-POKAL
1st Round Win – 1 point
2nd Round Win – 5 points
3rd Round Win – 6 points
Quarter Final Win – 8 points
Semi Final Win – 10 points
Winner – 25 points

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
Qualify from Groups – 6 points
Win in Round of 16 – 12 points
Win in Quarter Final – 20 points
Win in Semi Final – 50 points
Winner – 100 points

BONUS POINTS
Beat FC Bayern – 5 points (Every time you do it in a competitive fixture)
Beat Mainz – 3 points (Every time you do it in a competitive fixture)
Beat Frankfurt – 3 points (Every time you do it in a competitive fixture)
Beat Karlsruhe – 1 point (Every time you do it in a competitive fixture)

FIVE YEAR ONE OFF ACHIEVEMENTS BONUSES
Increase bank balance to £20m (After Debt) – 20 points
Increase bank balance to £40m (After Debt) – 40 points
Sell a Regen from your youth team for £5m + – 30 points

POINT DEDUCTIONS
Sacked – -25 points

So there you have it. Kaiserslautern need you to get this fallen giant of German football into the Bundesliga and try to get into Europe once more – Do you have what it takes to put them back onto the map?
Give the challenge a go and see what you can do. Any good quality Current Game threads that result from this will be repped by myself, and the best one may also be entered into the next Current Game of the Week – Good Luck!

To take part of ask any more questions, please check out the forums!

Setting up a Scouting Network

There are a number of features on this game that I feel many people over look, personally I find setting up a scouting team essential. There are a number of ways to do this that really depend on the team you are; if you wish to sign predominantly home grown players, or if you want to sign the best of the best from around the world.

Stats that you should look out for stats are mainly Judging Player Potential and Judging Player Ability. I think it’s also important to have high stats in the other mental stats such as adaptability and determination.

Firstly, if you were aiming to pick up the best of your nation then I’d have around 6/7 scouts for your nation, and set them up as:

Scout One – Assign To: Your Nation – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 16
Scout Two – Assign To: Your Nation – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 18
Scout Three – Assign To: Your Nation – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Four – Assign To: Your Region – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 18
Scout Five – Assign To: Your Region – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Six – Assign To: Competition / Your Nation / Under 18s – Criteria to filter: none
Scout Seven – Assign To: Similar Region – Criteria to filter: Nationality is your nationality

If, for example, you were managing in England then that would be the nation, and the region would be the UK. Competition would be England/Under 18s. For scout 7, a ‘similar region’ could be central Europe which would cover the likes of Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Selecting nationality as English you’re going to be picking up any English players coming through the youth system of other clubs outside your country.

Depending on which team you are managing, you may be allowed more or less than 6 or 7 scouts, so you’d have a bit of freedom to chop and change where you see fit.

Secondly, if you were just settling up a rather large net to find any talent coming through around the world, similar to Arsenal if you will, then the approach could be similar to:

Scout One – Assign To: Your Nation [England] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Two – Assign To: Your Region [UK] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Three – Assign To: Similar Region [Central Europe] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Four – Assign To: Other Region [South America] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Five – Assign To: Other Region [Eastern Europe] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Six – Assign To: Other Region [Oceania] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21
Scout Seven – Assign To: Other Region [North Africa] – Criteria to filter: Age is at most 21

Again, depending on how many scouts you’re allowed you can add or remove certain regions. You could also double up on certain regions that you may deem to be more important, such as Central Europe and South America, with ages as 18 and 21.

Improving Scouting Knowledge

Scouting knowledge doesn’t just come from your scouting team though, far from it. Any staff members at the club, such as coaches, also improve your scouting knowledge. Obviously scouts are going to be the main source of knowledge, but it’s quite naive to think they are the only source. The one benefit scouts have over any other staff members is that they can increase their knowledge through scouting regions and countries they may not have any prior knowledge of.

Any affiliated clubs also give you a huge amount of knowledge too. For example, on my AS Roma game, Dinamo Kiev are one of my affiliated clubs. From this, the manager – Valery Gazzaev gives me 100% knowledge in Ukraine and Russia. This is shown on the scouting knowledge screen, and the “Source” shows how you are getting this information, either a person or a club. Not only is it their manager, but their coaches also give me a huge amount of knowledge in places such as Moldova, Kazakhstan etc. The club itself also gives knowledge, in this case it’s China PR.

Another case of improving your knowledge if through your coach’s favourite personnel. For example, Paul McGuinness of Man Utd receives knowledge from Sir Alex Ferguson when he moves to another club. This is shown on the source column as Paul McGuiness (Ferguson). You also get people such as Sven Goran Eriksson sharing their knowledge of Sweden through Luciano Spinosi.

All in all there are huge amounts of ways to a) set up a scouting network, and b) improve the scouting knowledge that I believe many people overlook. It’s a key part of the game once you get a few years in and you’re looking to pick up regens. At the start we all know the best youngsters such as Jonjo Shelvey, Simone David, Sergio Canales etc, but keeping a sustainable amount of youth in your team gets harder and harder as the game progresses, especially if you have a poor youth set up at your club.

Recommended Scouts

Name – JPA – JPP – Fee – Wages – Main Knowledge Areas
Oliver Bierhoff – 19 – 18 – free – £1,800 p/w – Germany and Italy
Andrea Pastorello – 18 – 20 – free – £1,300 p/w – Italy, Argentina, Spain and England
Paolo Berrettini – 17 – 20 – free – £650 p/w – Italy, Argentina, Spain and England
Txema Noriega – 18 – 19 – free – £1,100 p/w – Spain, Argentina, Brazil and England
Ed van Stijn – 17 – 18 – free – £900 p/w – Holland, Belgium and England
Vlada Stosic – 15 – 15 – free – £1,300 p/w – Serbia, Spain, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia
Dimitar Penev – 20 – 20 – free – £8,500 p/w – Bulgaria
David Hamilton – 20 – 20 – £22,000 – £700 p/w – England
Hans-Martin Kleitsch – 20 – 20 – £140,000 – £3,400 p/w – Germany
Jimmy Hampson – 20 – 20 – £400,000 – £4,900 p/w – England
Ernesto Varnier – 20 – 20 – £825,000 – £3,300 p/w – Italy, Argentina, Spain and England

Obviously a number of these will not drop down outside of the elite group of clubs, but when the majority are free then it’s worth a try!

Many people moan about the game being too slow when it’s processing, even on the bare minimum amount of leagues with a small database, but there are a number of ways to change this and improve the processing speed. I’m going to highlight just 3 of these ways in which I feel you can turn off unnecessary features allowing you to play the game faster – or load more leagues of your choice and still play the game at a bearable speed.

Part One – Turning off TV Games

This is a very basic feature that SI have had in the game for many years now, but not many people use it. In all honesty I only use it when I’m playing a network game, but in offline games I feel it’s not that helpful. Never the less, it does make a small difference so if your game is totally unbearable then it’s definately something you should look into.

To turn it off, click FM (top right of the screen), down to Preferences, then General, then half way down the list on the right is “Move Matches for TV” – just un-tick that box and click confirm.

Part Two – “View Only” Leagues

Another quite under used feature of FM in my experience. When starting up the game and selecting the Leagues you wish to load, many people load leagues they have no interest of managing in but want a full quota of players from that League – true? Instead of loading it up like normal, simply change the “Mode” to [b]view-only[/b] from the current Playable. Obviously you can now no longer manage in that league but the majority of the detail stays in the game, although it does speed up the play time.

Part Three – Changing Detail Level

This is without doubt the best way of changing the speed of your game. You locate this in the game by going to FM (top right), then Detail Level. This will take you to the screen where you can change how much depth is put into different competitions, for example the World Cup, Club World Championships etc. If you are managing down the bottom of Blue Square North there’s very little point of you having any of those in play. You can edit them all manually to suit your needs, or at the top left there’s a drop down box which allows you to load a Preset Configuration. Currently this will be set as Default but you can move that to minimum if you so wish. You can see the immediate affect on your game by looking at the Estimate Game Speed, indicated by stars out of 5, at the top of your screen.

View the thread on the forum to continue the discussion!

This is another feature that I feel a lot of people do not use. I didn’t find this out myself but since then I have used it to my advantage a lot. You can find this on the Transfers screen, then click on the Clauses tab. This screen will show any transfer clauses you have going in and out of your club. The ones you should be particularly interested in are the ones with a white arrow to the left, as seen below.

If you click on this clause, at the bottom of the screen you should see something similar to this:

There seems to be no logic at all in how it’s decided which you can buy out at given times, I have failed to spot any pattern occuring at all. All I have noticed is that it changes every few weeks so if, for example, you sold up every clause you could, the next day you wouldn’t have another 5 different ones up for sale, it’s not how it appears to work.

There are a number of clauses that could be sold and bought though, for example:

Good clauses to have (that can be sold):
x% of the profit made on his next transfer will go to your club (Signed for £x m)
x% of his next transfer fee will go to your club
Other team owe another £x m for the next x months.
Your team will be due another £x m after x international appearances

Bad clauses to have (that can be bought):
Other team are owed another £ x m for the next x months.

You can use these to your advantage when selling youngsters. It seems quite hard to get rid of youngsters who are pretty good but you know deep down they will never push your first team, so getting rid of them with a % of the next sale is the next best thing. Now you don’t have to wait for the new club to sell the said player either, if the clause gets the little white mark next to it you can sell it there and then. It’s really invaluable when you’re in a financial crisis to rase an extra few million.

It’s also important to understand how the profits work. In my given example, he was sold for £2m and I can now accept a further £2.11m for the 30% of profit on his next sale. Looking at his value he’s only worth just over £2m now so on the face of it it’s a great deal. To work out where the you can effectively maximise profit, you should imagine that the £2.11m you are being offered is 30% of the profit.

To work this out you simply do: Profit offered divided by percentage you hold… 2.11 / 0.3 = £7.03m

From this you know where you stand really, if he sells for less than £9m (£2m + £7m profit needed) in the future you’re going to be better off selling now, however if you feel he has the potential to be a £20m player then keep the clause for a few years longer and see what happens.

View the thread on the forums to continue the discussion!

Team Talks for Substitutes

Every year sites on the scene get the obligatory “What you want for the next version of FM” threads, and every year since the introduction of the half time team talks there have been calls for this feature to be implemented for substitutes. What would you say if I was to tell you this already exists? It’s a feature that I don’t think many people have found yet, and I have to admit it’s quite well hidden which definitely needs to change in future versions. I hope this will get it a bit more publicity anyway as it’s a key feature in my opinion. How many people select “None” as a half time team talk? This is effectively what you’re doing every time you make a substitution in the default “Tactics” window.

How do you do it?

It’s simple, on the match screen click “Touchline Instructions – Shortcuts – Make Quick Substitution”. You then have the normal options of what to say, such as “Tell *player* you expect a performance from him today”. Also shown on the screen, seen below, are the all important stats you need to know when making a substitution. Position, Rating and Fitness.

View the thread on the forums to continue the discussion!