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Dar J

Key to success in lower leagues


One of the best methods to test your managerial skills is to take a team in a lower league and guide them to the top. These saves are not easy and with FMM17 managers aren’t given enough time to perform so sacking may be knocking on your door.
Hopefully with some of the tips below you would be able to take your first lower league team to glory.

Database setup

When setting up the database load at least one nation that is nearly at the same level as the league you would manage in so more players would be at your disposal for the first few seasons.

Expectations

After reviewing the board expectation examine your squad and set a personal goal for yourself because it’s easy to loose interest in the save after loosing a few games but with your personal goal the interest might still be there

Squad

When going through your players take note of their wages, if someone is earning more than he deserves give him the opportunity to prove his worth before selling or releasing him if his rubbish.

Make sure you have enough players to cover each position (2 players per position and some versatile players)

Tactics

Build a tactic based on what you have, it doesn’t make sense to build based on players you are going to buy because you found a tactic that worked for you in a previous save

Bear in mind when setting up your tactics that your players are not that good so playing direct, mixed or long (for pacy teams) are the way to go

Have a plan B so when you tactic doesn’t work as planned and you’re forced to change it you’re not short of players

Give time to you tactic, don’t change it because you lost a game 5-0 instead save the game and watch it again to understand what went wrong and don’t forget you might not have the strongest team in the division so don’t expect to win your games

Transfers

Don’t spend money on players unless it’s necessary.

Try to sign free players taking advantage also of the bosman rule

add the big club release clause to reduce their wages demand and renew the contract when the player is established in your team

set some personal rules like : my best players earns 1.5k so I won’t sign players that ask for more than 2k. Doing this you keep the club financially stable

When selling players try to have the sell percentage even if it’s only 5% Especially for young players

When signing players look at only the key attributes for that role because it’s easy to be carried away with lots of greens for attributes that don’t matter. When signing strikers search for pace because defenders are generally slow.

Before the end of the season transfer your remains transfer budget into the wage budget so it’s there for you the next season .

Above all enjoy the save because the only way to keep playing to achieve your goals is if you're enjoying what you are doing.

 

 

 

 

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On 11/19/2016 at 13:47, Dar J said:

Before the end of the season transfer your remains transfer budget into the wage budget so it’s there for you the next season .

Why?

If you don't do that does this money offset with the new transfer budget so in the end you get less?

Like the board saying:

"Ok, we were going to give you 10m of transfer budget but since you have already 1 remaining we only need to add 9" ?

Whereas if we follow your advice we get 10m of transfer budget and + 1m on wage budget?

Do I understand this correctly?

And if so, is this tested and confirmed?

 

Thanks mate.

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7 minutes ago, tenere1982 said:

Why?

If you don't do that does this money offset with the new transfer budget so in the end you get less?

Like the board saying:

"Ok, we were going to give you 10m of transfer budget but since you have already 1 remaining we only need to add 9" ?

Whereas if we follow your advice we get 10m of transfer budget and + 1m on wage budget?

Do I understand this correctly?

And if so, is this tested and confirmed?

 

Thanks mate.

They would give u 10 but you will loose the 1 you had because you won't find it even in the wage budget. 

You can test it yourself

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4 minutes ago, enggarenk said:

I want to play vanarama s/n team, if i choose english, ireland, n ireland and welsh database it will give me huge option of player? what u think?

You would have more players willing to come to you for the first few seasons because you are at the same level but when you start climbing up they won't be that good for you anymore unless they are regens

If you are going to manage only in England I recommend those leagues

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1 hour ago, Papaj said:

I do not want to know how much money you lost so far ;)

Yeah, me neither:P

Though it doesn't seem realistic, making money "disappear", only the board should be able to do that.

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3 hours ago, Dar J said:

You would have more players willing to come to you for the first few seasons because you are at the same level but when you start climbing up they won't be that good for you anymore unless they are regens

If you are going to manage only in England I recommend those leagues

Hmm, i think different ways, if i load english n one of them, then the other two is germany/france/italy/spain maybe it will load many players n backup my whole seasons, any idea? ?

Edited by enggarenk
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2 hours ago, enggarenk said:

Hmm, i think different ways, if i load english n one of them, then the other two is germany/france/italy/spain maybe it will load many players n backup my whole seasons, any idea? ?

It depends on how you want to play. I normale have England, Scotland, Italy and Spain

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Very informative and helpful read. I simply love playing the worst team in England and making them world champions :) but never did I  consider picking small leagues to help with finding players in the lower league in the first season. Oh how I payed for that mistake lol. 

Playing as Hemel Hempstead in Vanarama South and made it to the play off finals but over a dominating attacking display, all my strikers were firing blanks..ended up in a horrible penalty shoot out where they won on the 5th penalty with final score 5-4. Would have assumed SI had some kind of sympathy system in place to guarantee that you won in the end but I'm rather glad that's not the case. Now I know that the match engine is not rigged, I'm even more fired up to get promoted in this second season!

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I tried last year with FC United. Got promoted really quick to the Championship then I got relegated, I got so annoyed that I sold/released almost all the players, luckily for me I had enough money so I came back to the Championship and got promoted to the Premier League through the playoffs

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Ohh that's a nice tale of revenge :D as for me, I can't wait to get promoted and seek vengeance on Chelmsford City, the club that denied me a promotion! Oh wait a sec, looks like they're going to get relegated...oh mann..that's no fun :(

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I find that unless you're a top flight team, free transfers are all you'll be able to sign.

A Benfica's 'B' Team Reserves player was drawing 8.5k/w, my board allows wage budget up to 17k/w but that still can't satisfy Mr Greedy-Legs' demands.

How do other AI-managed lower league teams find guys who accept salaries £2k/w & under?

Edited by julystork
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On 19/11/2016 at 08:47, Dar J said:

add the big club release clause to reduce their wages demand and renew the contract when the player is established in your team

I love doing that! It's a great way to test a player before offering him a big wage.

 

I have started a carreer with Halifax. It was complicated to sign players because I already had quality players (for VNS, that is). So I was not interested in signing worst players compared to the ones I already had and the ones from bigger leagues didn't want to sign for me or demanded unaffordable wages. All in all, I managed to improve my GK and DL positions and I let go an expensive sub. 

 

The season started with a 5-1-0 record, so it looks promising right now. The board expectations are to participate in the title fight, so there's really no margin for error. Specially with this sacking ghosts. 

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41 minutes ago, julystork said:

I find that unless you're a top flight team, free transfers are all you'll be able to sign.

A Benfica's 'B' Team Reserves player was drawing 8.5k/w, my board allows wage budget up to 17k/w but that still can't satisfy Mr Greedy-Legs' demands.

How do other AI-managed lower league teams find guys who accept salaries £2k/w & under?

It depends, you can still still find players that are willing to come fore a reasonable price. 

Try to sign players When they are running out of their contract. I search for them in December and at the end of the season to prepare myself for the coming season

Regarding the AI teams, I think they pay their players a lot which is why if you go to a club that has been for example in the vanarama north/south for 2 or 3 seasons you find out that they are always in the red

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7 minutes ago, Guille said:

I love doing that! It's a great way to test a player before offering him a big wage.

 

I have started a carreer with Halifax. It was complicated to sign players because I already had quality players (for VNS, that is). So I was not interested in signing worst players compared to the ones I already had and the ones from bigger leagues didn't want to sign for me or demanded unaffordable wages. All in all, I managed to improve my GK and DL positions and I let go an expensive sub. 

 

The season started with a 5-1-0 record, so it looks promising right now. The board expectations are to participate in the title fight, so there's really no margin for error. Specially with this sacking ghosts. 

It's annoying though when you loose a player due to the big club release clause. Unless you signed him for a free and you got 1M (it happened to me a couple of time in my save last year)

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God, i detest the big club release clause. I always play in lower leagues and although it can be an extremely useful tool if you HAVE to have a player for the most part it bites you in the butt eventually. I can't even count the number strikers I've lost to the release clause. One save I had last year with Galway I couldn't keep a striker for more than half a year. He would come in, score 20-30 goals and someone would snap him up for a million or two and off I would have to go to find another striker capable of dominating the Irish League and holding his own in Europe.

The problem is that the buy out clauses are so low in the lower leagues. It used to be possible (before this year, haven't tested it/had much luck this year) to buy evogens for nothing and create a world class squad in the lower leagues. You have to pound the transfer markets, keep a look out constantly for bargains. Argentina, Columbia and Uruguay were places you could buy players for nothing and then go dominate your league.

One thing that was (seemingly) different in the older games was that evogens were cheap. So far everyone seems to be getting paid much more than last year. It's made it incredibly difficult to start in the lower leagues and build a world class club. I played as Grimsby a lot and one thing I would  always do is go on a loan spree. Look abroad and anyone who is better and in your wage bracket ask to loan them. Shoot for the stars. Occasionally you could get players that will allow you to become incredible.

In my opinion don't worry about wage budgets when you're in the lower leagues. Get the players and you will succeed. At the end of the day that's all that matters. Loans and Bosman transfers are the two most important tools you have to move up in leagues. Until you get to League One/Championship (aka when you get a real budget) loan as many players as you can that will make your squad better. There's no limit on foreign loans! I've had entire starting elevens of loaned players and won the league. The board on mobile isn't nearly as powerful as in the full version. Yeah, they'll get a little miffed at you for the wages but your victories will resonate much louder.

I would respectfully disagree with your advice to load Welsh, Irish, Lower English leagues if you're playing as a lower league team. There is more talent in lower leagues in Italy, Spain and Germany. You can bring them in on loan and get them through Bosman transfers. Yeah, you're financial acumen and domestic player bias will suffer but as the prophet Al Davis said "Just win baby!"

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1 hour ago, dltalbert84 said:

God, i detest the big club release clause. I always play in lower leagues and although it can be an extremely useful tool if you HAVE to have a player for the most part it bites you in the butt eventually. I can't even count the number strikers I've lost to the release clause. One save I had last year with Galway I couldn't keep a striker for more than half a year. He would come in, score 20-30 goals and someone would snap him up for a million or two and off I would have to go to find another striker capable of dominating the Irish League and holding his own in Europe.

The problem is that the buy out clauses are so low in the lower leagues. It used to be possible (before this year, haven't tested it/had much luck this year) to buy evogens for nothing and create a world class squad in the lower leagues. You have to pound the transfer markets, keep a look out constantly for bargains. Argentina, Columbia and Uruguay were places you could buy players for nothing and then go dominate your league.

One thing that was (seemingly) different in the older games was that evogens were cheap. So far everyone seems to be getting paid much more than last year. It's made it incredibly difficult to start in the lower leagues and build a world class club. I played as Grimsby a lot and one thing I would  always do is go on a loan spree. Look abroad and anyone who is better and in your wage bracket ask to loan them. Shoot for the stars. Occasionally you could get players that will allow you to become incredible.

In my opinion don't worry about wage budgets when you're in the lower leagues. Get the players and you will succeed. At the end of the day that's all that matters. Loans and Bosman transfers are the two most important tools you have to move up in leagues. Until you get to League One/Championship (aka when you get a real budget) loan as many players as you can that will make your squad better. There's no limit on foreign loans! I've had entire starting elevens of loaned players and won the league. The board on mobile isn't nearly as powerful as in the full version. Yeah, they'll get a little miffed at you for the wages but your victories will resonate much louder.

I would respectfully disagree with your advice to load Welsh, Irish, Lower English leagues if you're playing as a lower league team. There is more talent in lower leagues in Italy, Spain and Germany. You can bring them in on loan and get them through Bosman transfers. Yeah, you're financial acumen and domestic player bias will suffer but as the prophet Al Davis said "Just win baby!"

The problem with not respecting the wage budget is that if you find yourself in the same division for 2/3 seasons you'd never have enough money while respecting it gives you the opportunity to esagerate when you find someone you must absolutely sign.

Regarding loading the other lower league team, it's an advice. The reputation of the Italian Serie C for example is much more higher than the the reputation of Vanarama north/south so players would not agree to come to you in the first seasons while having the Welsh league loaded for example where players are the same quality of what you've got in you division more players would be willing to come to you and like I said it's just to help you for the first few seasons. Obviously when you get to League 1 you won't sign those players anymore 

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1 hour ago, Dar J said:

 

But the thing is that the lower leagues aren't difficult to get out of if you have talent. The league can be won with one or two mercurial players and solid players around them. In point of fact you are right. But in my system you aren't trying to get Serie C players to join your team permanently in the first year. You're looking at the big clubs reserve teams and trying to convince them to loan you players. You won't get all of them. But if you keep pestering you will get a couple of players who are way above the talent level. The main places I've found players willing to come to my side are the Portuguese and German teams reserve sides with some Spanish thrown in there. No, you're not going to get them in the Vanarama N/S but you can get them in the Conference. In the N/S you are probably right about looking for free signings. But, in my opinion you need to be looking ahead. You need the database of these bigger leagues as you move up in the ranks. What are you going to do with the availability of a bunch of Welsh and Irishmen who couldn't crack the bench of most League One sides?

The best thing to do is make smart signings and good tactical decisions. Almost all teams at the lower levels play either 4-4-2 or 4-5-1. They have very limited playmaking abilities. It's mostly kick the ball forward and run. Look for the best passers you can find/afford and set them in the middle of your pitch and watch the goals rack up. If you can get a player with 13 passing and decisions they will control your league. Get a striker with as much pace as possible with the best shooting you can find and he will score many, many goals. You know what's easy to find in the lower leagues, flawed players. Guys that can pass and set up scoring but not get back. You're not going to get a Gerrard but you can get the homeless man's version. Find defenders who are strong and know where to be. 

If you're playing in the Irish or Welsh leagues if you win the League you will get a half million or so budget. The players in those leagues are cheap. Fill holes from the League you're playing in and try to go find one or two evogens that should be playing in a much better league. 

Yes, if you don't get promoted you're going to be in trouble if you've signed a bunch of players looking at a bigger budget and you don't get it. DO NOT SIGN THEM. Loan them. Yes, it looks bad in the year but all of that is wiped off in June. Pick better players.

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3 hours ago, Dar J said:

It's annoying though when you loose a player due to the big club release clause. Unless you signed him for a free and you got 1M (it happened to me a couple of time in my save last year)

That's why I think it's important to offer them a new contract as soon as you see they've stablished in the first team. 

 

During an FMM 16 save, I've had earnings of over 40 million Euros because of that clause plus sell percentage. You might miss on a fantastic player but you'll earn enough money to build a whole new squad. Plus, it's always fun trying to  find a substitute that will recreate this scenario.

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29 minutes ago, dltalbert84 said:

But the thing is that the lower leagues aren't difficult to get out of if you have talent. The league can be won with one or two mercurial players and solid players around them. In point of fact you are right. But in my system you aren't trying to get Serie C players to join your team permanently in the first year. You're looking at the big clubs reserve teams and trying to convince them to loan you players. You won't get all of them. But if you keep pestering you will get a couple of players who are way above the talent level. The main places I've found players willing to come to my side are the Portuguese and German teams reserve sides with some Spanish thrown in there. No, you're not going to get them in the Vanarama N/S but you can get them in the Conference. In the N/S you are probably right about looking for free signings. But, in my opinion you need to be looking ahead. You need the database of these bigger leagues as you move up in the ranks. What are you going to do with the availability of a bunch of Welsh and Irishmen who couldn't crack the bench of most League One sides?

The best thing to do is make smart signings and good tactical decisions. Almost all teams at the lower levels play either 4-4-2 or 4-5-1. They have very limited playmaking abilities. It's mostly kick the ball forward and run. Look for the best passers you can find/afford and set them in the middle of your pitch and watch the goals rack up. If you can get a player with 13 passing and decisions they will control your league. Get a striker with as much pace as possible with the best shooting you can find and he will score many, many goals. You know what's easy to find in the lower leagues, flawed players. Guys that can pass and set up scoring but not get back. You're not going to get a Gerrard but you can get the homeless man's version. Find defenders who are strong and know where to be. 

If you're playing in the Irish or Welsh leagues if you win the League you will get a half million or so budget. The players in those leagues are cheap. Fill holes from the League you're playing in and try to go find one or two evogens that should be playing in a much better league. 

Yes, if you don't get promoted you're going to be in trouble if you've signed a bunch of players looking at a bigger budget and you don't get it. DO NOT SIGN THEM. Loan them. Yes, it looks bad in the year but all of that is wiped off in June. Pick better players.

We all have different ways of playing, there is no right or wrong way just do what you feel right

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30 minutes ago, Guille said:

That's why I think it's important to offer them a new contract as soon as you see they've stablished in the first team. 

 

During an FMM 16 save, I've had earnings of over 40 million Euros because of that clause plus sell percentage. You might miss on a fantastic player but you'll earn enough money to build a whole new squad. Plus, it's always fun trying to  find a substitute that will recreate this scenario.

When I get tired of FMM 17 I'd go back to finish that save

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Just now, Dar J said:

When I get tired of FMM 17 I'd go back to finish that save

I got sacked right before FMM 17 was released. And that was right before the Spanish Cup final... which they won :laugh:

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I find VNN/S leagues pretty easy just using promoted reserve / grey players. There is no real need to sign anyone from outside the club. often if you know what you are looking for in a player, the youngsters will mature enough to be used in the next two leagues, although not the most rounded players. For example, BWMs with good aggression, positioning, tackling and strength. TMs with very good aerial and strength.

They can do a job for you in the lower leagues, I've even had a couple that ended up championship / lower premier league level!

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On 11/23/2016 at 03:47, Neb said:

I find VNN/S leagues pretty easy just using promoted reserve / grey players. There is no real need to sign anyone from outside the club.

I think most people don't like signing/using 'grey' players. The challenge lies in finding real players in the market for a good price that actually have enough quality to add to the squad.

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14 minutes ago, BatiGoal said:

I think most people don't like signing/using 'grey' players. The challenge lies in finding real players in the market for a good price that actually have enough quality to add to the squad.

When playing lower leagues, I'm all for using grey players in the first season or two.  You barely have any budget or wages and need squad depth.  However they have been nerfed in FMM17 compared to FMM16 so it's hard to get someone who grows up to be better than a 1-star guy.

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