HELP! - Football Manager 2010

[Dan]

I bought FM 2010 and I quickly realized that I know considerably less about the world of soccer than I realized. Like, I don't know any of the players. Or positioning. Or tactics. Or how to play the game. But then again, part of the reason I bought it is b/c I wanted to learn more about the world of soccer, so at least my plan is still solid.

So I'm starting this thread to ask you folks who've played it (namely, rva, butter and Jonathan if he ever comes back...but anyone else who knows anything, too) to help me get through my first struggles.

I started out with a Southampton squad, but then I felt so dumb and confused that I didn't want to mess up that organization any worse than it already is, so I thought I should go and have a "practice run" with something a little more familiar. So I converted all the units to American style and started a season with the Columbus Crew. This provided me with an opportunity to learn the the basic interface (less user-friendly than you'd think) and the general ideas behind soccer.

I'm going to try to avoid questions like "how do I win?" and be more specific. My first one that's come up is that I can't figure out how to transfer a guy away from my squad. I have a striker Jason Garey that I'm not using and I transfer listed him. I've got clubs who want him. Now what? How do I make this happen? Is there an MLS transfer window that's not open or something? (For the record, it's late June...as I type). Any help is appreciated...

Thanks in advance. I'm sure I'll "promote myself" over to the Southampton squad soon, but I don't know how to do certain things yet, so I'm clearly not ready.

[Butter]

I haven't played this in 2 years, so I am not sure how things work in the new interface.

If you want to transfer a guy away, you pretty much have to wait until a club contacts you about transferring the player, if I remember correctly.  They can say they want him all they want, but until they get to you with a figure, you just have to wait.  But that may be different in '10 than it was in '08.

[Dan]

Oh, that makes sense. They just send you an email?

[Butter]

Oh, that makes sense. They just send you an email?

Yes, it will be in your mail... it will say something like "Liverpool is offering $XXXXXX for Jason Garey", then there will be buttons at the bottom to negotiate, accept, or reject the offer.

[rva]

You can offer players around to other clubs. 

Click on "transfers & contracts" on the player screen (it's on the right).  That'll give you a pull-down menu.  The second option is "offer to clubs."

From there, you can set the type of transfer (loan vs transfer) as well as the fee and other various options like sell-on clauses or payments after incentives are reached.

The trick is in setting the price.  If you offer a player around, they can get angry at you so if you're going to make the move you need to make sure at least someone wants him so you aren't stuck with an angry player.   The other thing is, if you offer a guy at $2.5 million, you won't get a chance to negotiate price because obviously teams know you're willing to sell him at $2.5 million since you just made them an offer at that price.  Teams will most likely respond with a $2.5 million take-it-or-leave-it offer.  Whereas if they make the first move, you are far more likely to be able to counter with a higher price.

In this case, since you are unfamiliar with player pricing and this is just a test run and you just want to get rid of the guy and you already have teams interested-- I would say just offer him at his stated value.  In the future, you will better know what price to try and get.  In general, young players still improving and with long term contracts can be sold for much higher than value, and older players with very little time on their contract who are already transfer listed will have to be sold for less than value.

If you want to cheat a little since you are still learning the game, you can save the game then offer the player.  If teams are interested, go back to the save point and then offer him for more money.

[Dan]

Thanks Butter. I still haven't been able to get rid of Jason Garey, but someone wanted Gino Padula so I sent him packing just to say I made a transfer out.

Rva, it makes so much more sense when you say it then the way the game seems to play. So when I've got a guy who's valued at $350K and he's making $65K wage, does that mean it's financially smart to sell him off and make the profit, or that I should keep him around b/c he's a great deal? How do you guys deal with this?

[Poncho]

I jumped in to help, but this doesn't sound like football at all.  Maybe futball or soccer.

[Dan]

How do I utilize my youth academy? And my affiliated club? I'm not really sure what this is.

[rva]

You don't have to do anything with your youth academy.  It's just there.  Your youth academy will annually produce a crop of youngsters.  The better your youth facilities, the better the players.  Of course if you have the money to upgrade your academy, then you will be a very good side and will NEED much better players.

The upshot is that the academy never produces much of anything.  If you are a second division side, you will mostly get third and fourth division players.  If you are a first division side, you will mostly get second and third and fourth division.  Every once in a while you hit the jackpot and get a decent player.   More likely you will get 1-2 players who might be worth signing to a pro contract just to sell off to a lower league side.  The rest are simply roster filler for your youth team and you will most likely release them when they turn 18 and have to be signed to pro contracts (and can no longer play for your youth squad). 

At some point, you *will* start having to develop young players, but you will do this by buying young players from other clubs, not by developing players from your youth academy.


There are several types of affiliated clubs.

If you are a lower side, you might have a parent club.  You will have an advantage in loaning players from your parent over other clubs of similar stature.  If a player is available for loan, you might get him for a smaller or no free, or with no salary contribution.  If more than one club makes a bid, you will get preferential treatment and sometimes the other bids will be rejected.  If a player is NOT listed for loan, sometimes the parent club will still make him available to you if you ask, whereas they will not for other teams.  Obviously if Real Madrid is your parent club, it's not like they will loan you Ronaldo for free.  Every once in a while, your parent club may send you a player on loan.  You have to take that player, but it's no big deal.  You are under no obligation to play the player, and the parent club pays 100% of the wages.

If you are a higher division side, you might have a feeder club.  This is the same relationship as above, only you are the parent and they are the feeder.  So you can now send your players to the feeder club.  It's useful every once in a while when you have a semi-promising player who no one seems to want for loan.  You can then foist him onto your feeder club who will generally try to get that player a bit of PT.  And if not, you can recall him at any time.

Commercial link-- This is where you pay a club (typically a foreign one) some cash and agree to play an annual friendly.  What you get out of it is say you go and play Tokyo FC every year.  You will start to get some fans in Japan which then boosts your revenues and probably helps your reputation.

Work permit-- Some leagues (including every league in the EU) have rules where you can't utilize a player unless they are a citizen, or you can demonstrate that they are really something special that improves footballing in your nation in a way a domestic player cannot.  I think the rule in England is loosely something like did the player play in 75% of his country's international matches.

Now obviously, if you are trying to get a player in from say, Brazil... that player could be pretty awesome and still never make the national team.  So what you do to get around this is you take advantage of loopholes for certain countries that are EU countries but exempt from the EU work permit regs.  For example, Belgium has a short citizenship requirement of only three years residence.  So you get yourself a Belgian affiliate, and loan the player to that club for three years.  At the end of that time, the player becomes a Belgian and therefore EU citizen and no longer requires a work permit.

I never use the work permit option.  Because the player goes to some crappy Belgian side to rot for three years and by the time you finally get him, he's no longer a prospect.  What's the point?

Non-descript, random link-- Sometimes you just have a club where you agree to play them in a friendly every year.  Or you might allow players to train at each other's facilities.  That lets you take a look at each other's players just in case you want to bid.  That's the extent of the relationship. 

These things happen in real life.  For example, Arsenal has an affiliation with the Colorado Rapids that is also in the game.  It lets Arse tap into a potentially lucrative US market as well as get a look at some of our players.  Southampton had a loose affiliation with Liverpool for a few years where they sent Saints Danny Guthrie (who was good) and Adam Hammill (who sucked and apparently complained about how crap Saints were, although tbf he probably had a point).  Almost all the big EPL teams have work permit affiliations with Belgian sides.

[Dan]

Youth Academy - pretty worthless. Got it. I'll spend more time looking into my affiliations.

Another question:
Okay, so I switched over to my Southampton game. I was hoping to pilfer a couple of the MLS players that I liked, but they aren't in the game now. I am not sure if this is b/c

a) I'm restricted by my board to scout only UK, Ireland, and France

or

b) I told the game I am going to load only England.


Solutions to this? How do I get some of those players in the database?

In a possibly similar problem, when I was playing with Columbus I remembered Butter's old friend Mokoena so I typed him in and he came up. Well, a Brian Mokoena from South Africa did, at least, and although I couldn't sign him (why not?) he was at least there. Now he's not. Huh? What's going on here? Do you know, or is this something weird from my end?

[rva]

Yeah, you need to start your game over with a larger database.  Choose "custom" for the database option and select as large a database you can.  A lot of people play with the full world loaded, but my machine is getting kind of old and short on hard drive space so I don't have every continent selected.  But I at least have all of Europe, South America, North America, and a few other footballing nations.  You would need America to get MLS players, and South Africa to get Lebohang Mokoena.

Just make sure you get the right Mokoena.  Your fans will be very disappointed if you try and sign Aaron Mokoena, and so will I. 

If they are in the database you will be able to type in "Mokoena" or "Mark Burch" into your search bar and they will come up.  Your knowledge of these players might be restricted.  If you are an American in the game you should have extensive knowledge of the US and be able to see most if not all of the attributes for MLS players.  South African players will probably come up all no known attributes.  You will not be able to get scout reports either, as you cannot scout outside England (yet).

Also, you will be restricted by work permit rules.  Unless a player is on a national side or is well-known internationally, you can sign them but they will probably be denied a work permit and you will be forced to cancel the move. 

[Dan]

Thanks man. I'm only a couple friendlies in so I'll start over (although... we did beat Liverpool 2-0, so I'll be sad to lose that).

Also, you will be restricted by work permit rules.  Unless a player is on a national side or is well-known internationally, you can sign them but they will probably be denied a work permit and you will be forced to cancel the move. 

Boooo to that. Completely ruins my plan to cheat by putting together an rva/butter/jonathan team to take over the world.

[Dan]

Hahahahahahahaha.

Since I'm drunk and no one cares about video games... and since I'm impressed with what I've done, I wanted to share:

So I started a new game, and got tired of trying to sign guys who either rejected me (just like the women I go after) or couldn't work for me due to visas... I asked my coaches and players for some suggestions. Marek Saganowski recommended a Central African Republic AML named Eloge Enza Yamissi from a club called Esperance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne. No, Ive never heard of either the club or the player, but I went after him anyway. Eventually, after a back-and-forth, I get him. I don't know if he's good, I'm just happy I negotiated for someone. And we needed some AML's, so that's good.

The thing I'm laughing at is that I clicked on Marek Saganowski and it says his favoured personnel are Enza Yamissi....and me. AHAHAHAHAHAH.

I love it. I don't know why this excites me, but I think it's hilarious.

[rva]

Yeah, signing players and learning about them and their clubs is the best part of the game.  

I have never heard of Eloge Enza Yamissi either, but I know how Marek Saganowski knows him.  Esperance Sportive Troyes Aube Champagne aka. ESTAC is a ligue 2 French side.  ESTAC is the club that loaned and then later sold Saganowski to Southampton.  

I am able to scout Europe so I just ordered a report on the dude from my assistant coach, and got back the following:

He is a fairly sporting player.  He plays best as a left midfielder but is equally adept as an attacking left midfielder.  He possesses a fair amount of speed, and is a fairly consistent player. His only weakness is that he is fairly poor in the air (but he's a left-winger, who cares?).  He would be a good signing for most Coca-Cola League One sides (which is what Saints are).

This is a report from 2013 when Yamissi is a little past his peak, too.  So he's probably a bit better in your game.  It looks like you made a nice signing there.  Not only are both Saga and Yamissi good, but they will play better for you because they like each other and because Saga is all happy you took his advice.  Saga is pure class too, way better than Lambert.  Still holds my club record for league goals in a season.

You know who I just signed?  Hulk.  Yeah, that's right.  Hulk.  

"Your financial manager has informed you that we should expect a rise in revenue due to merchandise sales from acquiring Hulk."  

No shit, dude.  Who wouldn't want a shirt that says fucking HULK?  Plus who can defeat a team that has Hulk?  The dude is 6 feet of pure muscle. 19 strength.  18 acceleration.  17 pace.  17 fitness.  17 agility.  17 finishing.  17 dribbling.  18 Long Shots.  Granted, the mental attributes are a bit mediocre but I mean, what did you expect-- it's the Hulk!  Do you want Bruce Banner on your team, or do you want HULK?  Yeah, that's what I though.  Sorry Chelsea, I just checked and there is no Wolverine in the game so it looks like you are SOL.  

You think I'm kidding?  LOOK AT THE DUDE.  


Best. Soccer. Name. Ever.

[Dan]

Does he have a short fuse? Do amazing things happen when you piss him off? You should experiment with your "Team Talks" and single him out every time.