Thoughts on FM2009: How to improve players

As you all know, in my Football Manager 2009 game I have started a so-called "ultimate challenge" with an underdog Italian team, Andria Bat. I have noticed - like everybody else who starts with a team in the lowest divisions, that the coaching staff completely lacks quality.

Usually (and hopefully) this staff will agree with a mutual termination which will not cost you too much, but it rarely happens in lower divisions, and since money are also a problem, you must stick to keeping them. Generally this means a very poor number of stars in your training schedule, which further means that your football players won't improve their stats too much, even if they have a big potential.

Right now there are not lots of things you could do. However, you should take the time to set particular training schedules and also make sure that the coaches train players in the areas they are the best: when the game starts, coaches are selected to train all categories, and this results in a lower number of training stars.

If the workloads are high and your team doesn't have the money to purchase another coach, or if the board simply won't allow it, you could do a little trick: let your worst coach train all categories (in order to decrease the general workload) and then set your coaches to their best positions.

However, you should do your best to offload your coaches as soon as possible and the best moment to do so would be the second season of the game. That is because a lot of newly generated coaches will get promoted in Football Manager 2009 - usually with very low reputation (therefore likely to accept any offer) and great skills. So go ahead and sign a few young coaches with good stats (which can also get better) and try to get rid of the dead weight.

Indeed, it is costly to wait one season to get good coaches to improve players, but especially for teams in lower divisions, this is the best call, since they save lots of cash. Good luck!

Andria Challenge: Transfers for a New Season

Continuing my Andria Challenge, I had to make a couple of changes to my squad. I clearly need a bunch of stronger players, but unfortunately finances for my C1/B team are not the strong point and there are few things I can do.

However, just as always, I'm keeping my eyes on the transfer market and this year, just like it happened in my previous season, I managed to grab a couple of players I'm really proud of.

First, I got myself a solid new striker, Marco Di Matteo, a 23 years old football player that should become a leading star in my Football Manager 2009 underdog team. Hopefully he will score a lot of goals this season and help me remain in the C1/B division.
The second player who comes to strengthen my defense this time is Vincent Beduer, an incredible leftback coming from France. He only agreed for a one-year contract with a Non-promotion clause, which means Andria will only have him for a season (unless we get promoted again, which I really doubt) but still he is a really good find and potentially a solid player.
I also had to offload some of the dead weight - player who were just eating up from the already low salary cap or ones who simply were not good enough for the C1/B division. I'm still searching for players to strengthen my midfield but I do believe that I have a pretty solid team right now and we'll stay in the new division. I'll keep you updated!

Side-challenge for Andria challenge launched

It's been a while since I last posted about my Football Manager challenge and I will try to make it up these days and update you with my progress. Until then, I must announce that I started a side-challenge for my Andria team in Football Manager 2009.

It's not about gaining anything, it's just for pure fun and progress watch: every time my assistant manager considers a promoted youth "one of the best which ever was promoted", I will keep an eye on him, help him progress, offer him first team chances and finally check him until he ends his career.

I consider this very fun because, most important of all, will allow us all to see just how acurrate are our assistant's predictions.

Therefore, I have already started with Armando Carnevali, a central defender which got promoted at the beginning of the second season with Andria. He does not look too bad, unfortunately he did not record a rise in stats because I have some very poor coaches (which I plan to change in my third season, since I am in a better division).
I have also instructed Carnevali to learn a new position and become a right fullback, even though he doesn't necessary have the required stats, but this will grant him even more first team chances.

So this is my FM2009 side-quest related to the main Andria challenge. I am really curious what will become of him...

Win prizes by voting in Football Manager Polls!

Here are a few results of polls from Sports Interactive for FM 2009 players:

Q. If you were the England manager, would you pick Michael Owen in your next England squad?
A. The jury was nearly out, with it almost going fifty fifty, but then the 'Yes' vote edged it.

Q. Who do you think will win the English Premier League this season?
A. Manchester United slightly edged out Liverpool here.

Q. Who Will Win the FIFA World Player of the Year Award?
A. Cristiano Ronaldo the somewhat unsurprising and resounding winner!

Q. Who do you think will be the top scorer in the Champions League this season?
A. Lionel Messi is still in front, but this poll has a few more days to go!

The interesting thing is that you can also cast your vote in these polls and be eligible to win goodies related to Football Manager 2009. Visit the game's official website for all details!

The Big Football Manager 2009 Giveaway

If you fancied Top Trumps when you were little, that's exactly what you can win now, but not any of them: Football Manager Top Trumps! Sega and Sports Interactive are offering them. You can see an example to the left and read an excerpt below:

For your chance of winning one of our 50 limited edition Football Manager Top Trump packs all you have to do is tell us the correct answers to these 3 questions:

1. With which club did Jose Mourinho win the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League?

2. Which current Premiership manager previously managed Wycombe Wanderers, Norwich, Leicester and Celtic?

3. Which national team is Sven Goran Eriksson currently in charge of?

Email your answers, with the title Top Trumps Competition and your postal address, to: competitions@soe.sega.co.uk.

All entries must be received by midnight on 20 February 2009. All correct entries will be submitted into a prize draw. The winning entries will be the first 50 entries drawn at random after the closing date and the winners will be notified by email before February 25th.

For complete details and rules of this Football Manager 2009 giveaway, visit the official website.

Five New FM2009 Wonderkids

It's been a while since I last updated my wondekids list here, and I think it's time to change that. Therefore, I present you five new great youngsters you should purchase for a bright future at your club. Here are the new Football Manager 2009 wonderkids I have to recommend:

Alberto Paloschi (Striker, incredible stats):

Sergio Asenjo (Class Goalkeeper, a bit pricy but definitely a wonderkid and a good investment):
Bartosz Salamon (Central Attacking Midfielder, amazing stats):
Mascio (Brazilian Central midfielder, one we'll certainly hear about more often)
Vincenzo Fiorillo (Goalkeeper, great reflex skills and lots of room for improvement):

Winning 4-4-2 Diamond Tactic

You saw that my Ultimate FM 2009 challenge with Andria Bat is going extremely well, as I have won promotion. As promised, I have now the tactic that helped me get that promotion: a simple, yet effective 442 tactic.

In my 4-4-2 Diamon Tactic I do alter things very little. Below I have posted the on-pitch positions and the team instructions for this great tactic for Football Manager 2009 (click image to enlarge it, hit back button on browser to return here):

Every player on the pitch will get a specific "Closing down" (CD) setting, done as follows: Strikers have the biggest CD and it decreases until the central defenders, who have a low setting for it. The goalkeeper has none.

Next, your full backs will have a normal mentality and they should cross often. Central defenders should man mark and have a very defensive mentality.

The defensive midfielder is very important in this tactic, as it double teams players. Make sure to keep him on a defensive mentality and let him close down a lot.

Wingers and the central attacking midfielder have normal creativity levels and also make sure you will set one striker a bit less offensive than the other and don't let him forward run or run with the ball. This way, he will sometimes go back for the ball and provide it to the other striker. He usually drags the central defender with him, so if your other striker likes to "move into channels" you will have lots of goals.

Here you go! This is the great FM 2009 tactic that brought me promotion! As I said, keeping it simple seems to pay off. Try it and let me know the results of trying my tactics!

Football Manger Live Trailers

I announced a while ago the release date for Football Manager Live and today I have a new update about FML: Sports Interactive has released two announcement trailers for the game. One is intended for an adult audience only, while the other can be viewed by everybody. According to your age, please select the corresponding trailer.

The clean Football Manager Live trailer:



The adult version of the Football Manager Live trailer:

Football Manager 2009 Patch 9.2.0 Released, Download Now

SI Games has released the 9.2.0 patch for Football Manager 2009, fixing and improving a lot of stuff to make our playing experience even better. The patch brings tons of new stuff, so you'd better go download it right away without losing your save game!

"The 9.2.0 patch includes an updated database and incorporates all of the updates from the 9.1.0 and 9.1.1 patches. The 9.2.0 update is save game compatible, so you can continue playing your current games, although to make use of the updated database, you will need to start a new game." says an official posting.

If you want to download the Football Manager 2009 patch 9.2.0 follow this link for instructions! Cheers!

Andria Challenge: Season 2 Over

It's been a great and impressive season for Andria this year, since we've managed to grab the promotion to a higher league and, hopefully, to real football - only if the team manages to keep up the great form of the season! But I will worry in the future, as I have to show you the great results of the second season!

As you can see in the screenshot below, Andria Bat managed to keep up with the great form presented in the previous update, and I am sure that naturally we would've been the winners, but Gela also had an amazing form and grabbed the first place. Fortunately, following the playoffs, I managed to lead the team to victory and we gained promotion - it was tough and unexpected, but I am incredibly happy.

French man Yann Schneider was impressive and he became the best player in my team and also the highest rated player in the division, while winger Aris Falzone - a kid with awful stats, managed to perform incredibly well in the matches. Probably he won't be here next season, but he looked great and I kind of got attached to it.

Also, as opposed to last year when my strikers were simply embarrassing, this year Andria made me proud of the Football Manager challenge and we had two forwards in the top - unfortunately no first place for us.

Finally, the Serie C2C stats: Andria was not considered overachiever (which seems strange to me) but Yann Schneider grabbed the signing of the season tag and, as I said, he also became the highest rated player in the division. He loves the club and I love him, so I hope I'll be able to keep him a little longer in the team :) Oh, and as a fun fact, Daniele Russo, the "worst signing of the season" is an ex-Adria player. It appears that I have done a good job selling him for an immense 10K!

More personal and detailed impressions about the second season in my Ultimate Football Manager Challenge are coming up in a future post, as well as an explanation of the tactic that got me so high in the charts. So stay tuned!

Back for business!

Hello again, Football Manager fans all over the world! After some great Christmas and New Year holidays, I am back home and ready to carry on with my Adria challenge. But until that happens (with updates, of course) and other goodies like players, tactics and more will be posted, let me wish you all the great things for the new year.

So, may 2009 make all your wishes come true and be an overall better year than the previous one. And, of course, let's hope that this year we'll all do great and achieve everything we have wanted. A happy new year, my dear visitors!