Positional Analysis In Football Manager (Re)Defined

After the frantic final days of June I have slowed down the posting a bit (actually I haven't made any), but that doesn't mean I'm having a summer meltdown. Right now I'm working on collecting data for all the positions I have yet to analyze. During that process I'm thinking about a couple of things. Things that may lead me to revisit my initial posts on the matter.

The fact is that I failed to set specific criteria for what would make an attribute count as an essential attribute. That means I'll have to revisit my initial posts about the positions and my initial posts about the players in the Lota Schwager squad. None of this, however, will happen until I have collected data on all the positions. This post will define, as clearly as possible, the criteria defining the analysis.

The Player
Any attribute with a value of 16 or more will count as a strong attribute in the player. Most would probably agree that 15 is a pretty decent ranking for an attribute. To ensure that we get only the best attributes I decided to make 16 the treshold used in this analysis.

Players valued at more than £1 million or the top 100 will be analysed. If the value of the 100th player is tied among multiple players all players of that value will be included. That means there can be more than 100 players in the analysis. However, as seen in my Sweeper research teh number can also be lower. If the number of players analyzed is lower than 100 I will define the data as insecure. In truth 100 players probably isn't enough for a proper analysis, but time constraints have caused me to set that limit.

The Data Set
If an attribute has a rating of 16 or higher in more than 30 percent of the players I consider than attribute to be significant. The reasoning is that 16 is a pretty harsh requirement and more than 30 players in a set of 100 is a pretty significant group.

Evaluating The Player
The purpose of this is te enable us to make the right choices in the transfer market. So we want to rank the players according the attributes we find significant. However, and attribute with a rank of 16 or higher with 60 percent of the players should be considered twice as important as an attribute that only has a ranking of 16 or higher in 30 percent of the players. To that end we calculate an attribute facotr for each player. Here's an example.

• Heading - 35%
• Anticipation - 40%
• Composure - 35%
• Off The Ball - 50%
• Jumping - 60%
• Strength - 55%

This is not a real example, but could feasibly be a target man type analysis. As you can see each attribute is assigned a percentage value. This percentage value indicates the ratio of players where this attribute was significant. In this example the total percentage value is 275%. This number is important in calculating each attributes relative significance. We do this using this simple formula:

Attribute Percentage * 100/275

From that we get these values.

• Heading - 13
• Anticipation - 15
• Composure - 13
• Off The Ball - 18
• Jumping - 22
• Strength - 20

The sum of those values is: 101.

So, finally we are ready to calculate a players base ability according to this made up analysis. The player in question R. Andom a target man with unknown potential. His stats are Heading 12, Anticipation 15, Composure 13, Off The Ball 14, Jumping 20, Strength 17. His base skill level, according to my analysis, is:

((12*13)+(15*15)+(13*13)+(14*18)+(20*22)+(17*20))/101 = 15.66

So R. Andom has a base skill value of 15.66 when performing in this made up position. That's actually not a bad rating. Although his headers aren't always accurate he seems able to find space by using his strength and jumping higher than anybody else.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Setting The Teamsheet

If you read last nights post about using 4-1-2-1-2 or 4-1-3-2 you realized that I obviously meant 4-4-2 or an entirely different formation right? Well, frankly it's a bit too soon to talk about specific formations for my Lota Schwager squad. Tomorrow the third position analysis post will be published. This time about central defenders. It would be foolish to decide on a formation without analysing all players in the squad the same way. Which leads me to to the topic of todays post. Selection policy.

The question is really simple. How can I decide on a formation without knowinig all the facts!

I obviously shouldn't, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the first who has made an attempt at that. And FM actually lends itself really well to making somewhat uninformed decisions. Here are a couple of selelction methods I have usded in the past.

Assistant Reports: Using the subjective opinion of my assistant manager to select the squad has been a proven initial selection method in my FM saves. When I say proven I don't necessarily mean proven to be succesfull! The main strength of using the assistant reports is that you can quickly get an overview of who you should select based on the number of stars assigned to each player. The weakness is that this star ranking is based entirely on the assistant managers opinion. This is fine if your assistant manager is good at judging a players ability, if he is not you will find yourself in a very bad place!

Average Rating: Selecting the players in each position with the highest average ratinig ensures you get the player who has performed best throughout the season on the pitch. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if he is on poor form or has low morale at the time you might not be making the best choice. It also says very little about his capability to play a specific role against a specific opponent, however, this can be said about most of the selection methods I use.

Form: This is a good way to get players who are currently performing well on the pitch. It also ensures some rotation in the squad. It's a selection method I use on a regular basis, or at least factor into my overall selection method.

Elaborate Excel Sheet: On this one I will ALWAYS be guilty as charged. I love Excel, and it's gotten to the stage where I can't play Football Manager without using some kind of Excel sheet concocted by yours truly. The main weakness is the time it takes to create these, but if you love Excel this will just add to the exitement.

Careful Analysis Of Opposing Team And Your Own Team: YAAAAWN! This is exactly as time consuming as it sounds, it is definitely even more time consuming than the Excel spreadsheet. There is a big problem though. This is what you SHOULD do! It's definitely not a method suited for the casual gamer, but it works! A less elaborate method is to take some time to set the opposition instructions properly. That maybe a topic for another post :-)

The point is team selection is actually rather tricky. Everybody will work out their own system. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. I have used 4 of the above 5 systems in the past (no prize for guessing which!) with varying degrees of succes. When I'm done analysing possitions I'll probably create a spreadsheet for the purpose of analysing players, maybe I'll make it available to you.

The First Steps With Lota Schwager

All right, tonight I decided to take a break in analyzing the game and actually play it a bit. The team, as mentioned in a previous post, is Lota Schwager In the Chilean First Division B. Even though I'm playing the game tonight doesn't mean I'll disregard my precious posts. So, first I'll ake a look at what the keepers on my team are up to.

The goalkeeper post suggests there are 4 attributes more important than any others: Reflexes, Jumping, Determination and Agility. The reason these 4 attributes matter more than the others is that at least 30 of more than 100 players had a rating of 16 or more in these attributes. I will determine each keepers base level using those 4 attributes. Of those 4 attributes Reflexes accounts for 34%, Jumping 25%, Determination 24% and Agility 17%. That is something I will take into account.

The first team has 3 keepers:

• Germán Sotelo (11.74)
• Iván Mateluna (10.36)
• Camilo Rodríguez (11.71)

The Reserve team has one keeper:

• Ernesto Bravo (9.86)

Finally the youth team has two keepers on the payroll:

• Mario Julio (8.8)
• Sebatián Piña (8.69)

Taking a closer look at the players keeping the 3 first teamers makes sense. Sotelo has a fair amount of natural skill and will be the natural first choice keeper. However, Rodríguez isn't fair behind and will keep him on his toes. Mateluna is a lot better than Bravo and will serve as a backup for the two main goalkeepers. Bravo on the other hand will be moved on. For the time being I will keep both Julio and Piña. They are nearly at the same level and although Julio is a more determined player it's too early to say.

My staff suggests playing either a 4-1-2-1-2 or a 4-1-3-1 formation so I'll set up tactics with both formations. This advice suggests that width will mainly come from my fullbacks. I'm thinking that I wan't to create tactics that work by starving the opposition of chances. I'll build from the back and destroy the opposition with deadly counter attacks - in theory. I will show Chile a destructive brand of football MUAHAHAHA!!!

Value For Money In The Transfer Market

Moneyball and Soccernomics are two books that have really inspired me lately. And they brinig with them a different approach for the dealing with the transfer market. They point to the fact that dealing in the transfer market is little different from dealing on any other market. The key is to buy cheap and sell for a profit.

The key to buying cheap is to avoid doing what the big clubs are doing. Paying £50 million for a player like Fernando Torres is just plain silly when you can get 3-4 other players of similar quality in other positions.

The point is that buying strikers is generally a bad idea. Having been on the receiving end of such a policy in Lyon Houllier would probably disagree. The fact is though, that strikers are overrated in the transfer market. For the price of Fernando Torres you could easily get 4 goalkeepers of the same quality.

Where strikers are the most overrated players in football, goalkeepers are the most underrated. It seems to me that the old adage that you should build from the back isn't just a wise footballing decision. It is also a wise financial decision. Here are a couple of rules to live by in the transfer market.

• Never buy strikers.
• Try to buy players from less prominent football nations. (that is avoid brazilians, dutchmen etc.)
• Build from the back.
• Never buy a player based on one performance.
• Always sell a player if offered more than he is worth.

Lyon has a philosophy that goes something like this: buy smart and improve your team. A better team improves your results. Better results gives you more money. Which gives you more money to buy smart and further improve your team.

This is a great philosophy. It might not be sexy. It certainly won't allow you to brag to your friends about how you signed Messi. It will on the other hand improve your team and give you a competitive edge in the future.

What Do You Do When You Have Sold All Your Strikers?
This is an obvious question you need to think about if you choose to follow the strategy outlined above. Here are 3 potential answers and a bonus answer.

Youth Development: Cherish the striker you get from your youth setup. Do your utmost to make these players as efficient as you possibly can. I know Football Manager caps their level with the potential ability attribute. I'd like to postulate that you can turn a player with a low potential ability into a lethal strikeforce if you handle him right. I had a save with Hearts where I had a DM with little natural ability who was a frequents starter. Why? He was good at exactly the things I needed him to be good at. The same can be done with strikers.

Freebies And Bosmans: The free transfer market can help you fill in the gaps you have in your team. Take a good look at strikers released by other teams, you might find someone you can use.

Retrain Players: You have no strikers but you have too many central defenders? Maybe one of the surplus central defenders would make a good target man? Other positions are useful as well. AMs could be deep lying forwards, wingers could be poachers etc.

BONUS - Switch Tactic: Roma and Manchester United have at times had succes with 4-6-0 formations, maybe you can do the same? There are always options.

The Sweeper - A Rare Breed

In the analysis of different positions in Football Manager we will now discuss the sweeper. The sweeper is so rare that I didn't feel I could reach a set of 100 players. To ensure that each player has at least some quality I have only included players worth at least £1.000.000. That leaves me with a set of just 24 players using my evaluation save which includes all the biggest European leagues and the Brazilian and Argentinean league. So, I can't really say that the data presented in this post can be considered conclusive in any way. However, there are some strong tendencies it might be worth exploring should you decide to be adventurous enough to employ the good old sweeper.

Here we go.

The technical attributes expected of the sweeper are hardly surprising.

Heading, Marking and Tackling are by far the most important technical attributes for the sweeper. In other words, the sweeper needs sound defensive capabilities to perform his duties.

Mentally the pictured is slightly more varied.

Positioning is clealy the most important attribute for a sweeper followed by Determination. Bravery and Influence also seem to be highly desirable attributes for a sweeper. I suppose this is because the sweeper needs to stand his ground and ensure that his defensive compatriots does so as well.

The data doesn't allow us to make a conclusive guess about which physical attributes are important for the sweeper. In fact, looking at the chart below we might even say that physical attributes aren't important at all as far as the sweeper is concerned. A little bit of Balance probably wouldn't hurt though.

Of the attributes mentioned I would say that only Heading, Positioning and Determination can be considered must haves based on the data available. That's the weakness with analysing positions such as the sweeper. The data simply isn't sufficient, but hopefully you still get a decent starting point out of this.

The One Stat You Want Your Goalkeeper To Have...And A Few Other Nice Ones As Well!

Right, a while back I wrote a blog post about the anatomy of a world class player. Following the link will take you to that article. I have now decided to take that one step further and go through at each position one at a time in the same manner. The goal is to determine exactly what attributes you can't live without in each position. Todays post is about the last line of defense, the goalkeepers.

The methology is simple. I will go through each of the top 100 highest valued players in a specific position manually. Each attribute with a value of 16 or higher will be noted. If the value of the player in the 100th position the remaining players of the same value will be included. In the case of goalkeepers that means 108 players in total will be analysed.

By a huge margin there is one runaway attribute in the Goalkeeping Attributes department.

As you can see Reflexes is by far the single most important goalkeeping attribute. In fact it outranks all other attributes in my research by at least 16 points! The next Goalkeeping attribute I would like my keeper to have is One On Ones, but reflexes is the must have attribute that a good keeper must have.

The result in the mental attributes department took me by surprise. Although I knew the winning attribute was important in all players I had expected another attribute to shine a bit more than it did. Here's the graph.

Determination confirms its position as one of the most important attributes in the game. The second highest attribute, Positioning, was one I had expected to be more important than it apparently is. It's an attribute you would definitely like, but it's apparently not as important as other attributes.

In the physical department I went "Oh yeah. That makes sense."

Agility and Jumping are the physical attributes you want your keeper to have, and that makes a lot of sense. I was kind of surprised to see so many keepers having a high Natural Fitness, but there you go.

So, if you are looking for a new keeper the attributes he must have (in order of importance) are: Reflexes, Jumping, Determination and Agility. Secondary attributes it would be nice for your goalkeeper to have are: One On Ones, Handling, Kicking, Aerial Ability, Positioning and Natural Fitness.

Should He Stay Or Should He Go - Revolving Doors During The Transfer Window In Football Manager

It's silly season and today we'll discuss squad turnover. In other words how many players leave or join your club during a transfer window. I'll look into some different ideas for how you could do it and discuss the pros and cons of each as I see them. I've discussed the matter a bit with others as well to get their opinions.

Building For The Future/Internal Promotion
In this scenario all you ever do is sign youngsters with the purpose of grooming them for future roles in your team. You hardly ever strengthen the squad with senior players coming from other club, if you do they come to the club free or on very low fees.

Pros: Very inexpensive recruitment method. As most players you sign will start in the youth team or reserves, there won't be many squad blending issues in the senior squad.

Cons: It will be hard to instantly improve the squad using this method. Relying on youth players and freebies is a strategy that requires patience.

Applies to: Poor teams, usually in the lower leagues.

Impact Signings And Youth Development Only
You're mainly looking to improve the squad by promoting youngsters, but you do have the resources to occassionally sign a player that can make an immediate impact. You will probably be signing at most 2 such players every year. Additionally you will scour the world for future superstars.

Pros: You are able to maintain a constant level of quality in your squad and possibly challenge for trophies. You will most likely have very few squad blending issues.

Cons: You can't buy trophies the same way other teams can(try).

Applies to: Any team with fairly good although not unlimited resources.

Squad Rebuild
Occassionally we see teams switching almost their entire senior squad. This can happen during one or through a handful of transfer windows. This tends to be the case with teams that are preparing to take a step up and challenge at another level for which they need to improve their overall ability.

Pros: You get a stronger squad.

Cons: You will probably have severe squad blending issues. You will have to spend loads of cash.

Apllies to: Newly promoted teams with immense resources. Teams with immense resources switching to a new style of play.

Reach for The Stars and Sign Them
This strategy is really simple. Who are the biggest stars is the question you ask yourself. When you find the answer you sign those players without consideration of team balance.

Pros: You get very good players.

Cons: Squad blending is a constant issue. You need virtually unlimited funds.

Applies to: Chelsea, Man. City, Real Madrid

If you have a different transfer strategy I would love to know more!

Silly Season In Football Manager

This is one of those times bi-annual events that drives headlines like no other. The silly season aka. the transfer window. Clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea and Real Madrid look to break transfer records twice a year signing the best of the best without too much concern about whether or not these players fit into their game plan. Other clubs have more limited budgets and will simply try to get through the window strengthening their squad as much as their budget affords. Or at least without losing too many of their best players.

How do you go through the transfer window in football manager? Here are a couple of strategies that I've used in the past.

Championship Manager 2001/2002 Transfer Strategy
Still one of my favourite iterations of the football simulation game created by Sports Interactive. In this game scouting the next opponent meant getting a star rating on each of the players in the team. What I did was take a closer look at all 4 or 5 star players. Those I deemed would fit my criteria would be scouted again and if they looked good, added to my shortlist. Whenever a player who was on my shortlist was able to leave the club via Bosman I would sign him up. My squad had a huge turnover every season, and I did have to prune the shortlist every couple of seasons.

Application in FM2011: Although you don't get as comprehensive reports on players from the opposing team you could send your scouts to check out any players highlighted in scout reports or pre-match backroom meeting. This could be a good way to find your transfer targets and you could probably also get some decent Bosman signings along the way.

Assistant Advice
At any time you can check the advice from your assistant manager. Ask for a team report and he will tell you about your teams strengths and weaknesses from his perspective. He will also often suggest some players he believes you should take a look at.
I have done this more than once. I will send my scouts and if the player looks good I will start negotiations with his club.

Recommendations From Players
You can at any time ask one of your players to recommend a player he thinks you should sign. This is useful if you have a player who isn't blending into the squad very well. He is likely to recommend a player he has played with in the past he likes and believes is good enough for the team. The downside is that he may consider it unprofessional of you to ask advice about signings from players. Use with caution.

Trial Days
In many leagues they have trial days where players who have been released from their clubs gets a second chance to prove themselves to other clubs. This is mostly useful for smaller clubs who might find a player or two who can be an upgrade on what they've already got. It's not the place for big clubs like Barca, Inter or Liverpool to find players to bolster their squads.

International Competitions
After every World Cup, European Championship, Copa America etc. you can bet the big clubs will be on the best performers like a shoal of piranhas on a feeding frenzy. It happens every time. Sometimes the players will do well at their new clubs, but there are also many examples of players signed this way who fail to impress in their new surroundings. If you do this and sign a player from an exotic country it maybe worth while signing a good friend of his as well to keep him company.

Good Old-Fashioned Scouting
If it aint broke don't fix it some would say. This is the old school way of finding transfer targets. Sending your scouts around the world or around your country as your budget allows is a tried and tested way to find fresh meat for the grinder. Some players will fail others will succeed. That's where you need to step in and do your job to make sure you sign the right man for the job.

These are some of the many ways you can approach finding transfer targets for your club. Tomorrow I'll look into another important detail about the transfer season. The working title is "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and the post will discuss how big the turnover of players in your squad should be. Or at least the consquences of different player turnover strategies.

Problems With Football Manager And Moneyball

Over at Howard Hamiltons Soccermetrics blog there is a great blog post about Moneyball and Soccer. Howard describes a metric he believes would be awesome in regards to football. I would love to get to work on that metric, in my own amateurical(is that actually a word?) fashion. However, as far as I can tell that's goiing to be a bit difficult. He describes some factors it might be wise to take into account for each of goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and strikers.

Let's first relate those to what's available in FM. Italicized stats are those you can feasibly derive from other stats while bolded stats are those you can't easily figure out.

Goalkeepers
Suggested stats: saves, goals conceded, penalty kicks conceded, corner kicks conceded, passing/distribution %, balls won.

Defenders
Suggested stats: goal kicks forced, balls won/lost, corner kicks conceded, fouls conceded, penalty kicks conceded, passing %.

Midfielders
Suggested stats: passing %, balls won/lost, assists, fouls conceded, fouls won, corner kicks forced, shots, goals

Strikers
Suggested stats: shots, goals, passing %, balls won/lost, corner kicks forced, fouls won.

For the more defensively inclined positions that's a lot of metrics you simply either can't get or will have to work very hard to get. In my view this is a major shortcoming in the game. Another major shortcoming is that you can't see the players stats for previous seasons. Or at least I haven't figured out how to (if you have please be so kind as to tell me in a comment below!) do it.

In my view Howards startiing point is sound, and he definitely know a lot more about statistical analysis than I do (by a lot I mean much, much, much more than I do). Having said that, I can't stop thinking that the categories in his Moneyball and Soccer post are a bit too narrow. I mean would the same stats apply to a central defender and a fullback? What about the not so subtle differences between defensive midfielders, wide midfielders and attacking midfielders. These are things I believe would need to be adressend, but if it all got sorted out you would have an amazing metric to go by.

So, where does that leave us. Well, the game isn't totally useless. We can start to look at how the stats available to us influence the chance of winning matches. Obviously the average rating seems like a good indicator of the players quality, but any random player with a high average rating might not be the piece of the puzzle that makes your team come together.

I suppose it will be a matter of looking at your gameplan and trying to figure out what you're missing to make it complete. Just remember that you might not need a worldbeater to fill in the last piece of the puzzle.

Finally, I just want to plug Howards Moneyball and Soccer blog post one more time. It's really good!

Transfer Strategy - The Moneyball Saga Continues

More chapters of Moneyball has been read and more interesting theories have emerged. Targeting high school players is generally considered a bad idea, whereas targeting college players yields better results. Since football(soccer) outside of the US generally doesn't have that distinction how would that transfer to Football Manager and football in general?

The point is that the very young player is more of a gamble as empirical evidence of his quality is less profound. He is also mentally less prepared to the pressure of first team football. The advantage of targeting youth players is that they are usually fairly cheap.

In Football Manager if a player reaches the early twenties without showing his potential he is more often than not written off completely. Football Manager operates with 2 attributes behind the scenes that is a genuine cause for virtual managers to do this. Those two attributes are current ability and potential ability. These traits are hidden from the manager, as they should be, but it seems logical to assume that if a player is not showing signs of ability when he is close to his prime he never will.

To follow Billy Beanes transfer strategy you would mainly have to target players ranging from 19-23 years of age. Those are players who are no longer considered youth players, have had time to show their potential at their clubs and have yet to reach their prime.

That, however, is not all. You need to determine their ability in the game. Physical stats such as Pace and Jumping have often been highly rated in Football Manager. Now is the time to try to look past that. In a prior article I did some research on the prominent attributes of world beaters, and those are good traits to look for. However, I'm suggesting not using the player attributes as the first metric when considering whether or not you are going to sign a player.

Look at the players performance in the past. How it is developing. And how the player is contributing to the overall team performance.

At the start of the game this is nearly impossible and that's when you probably have to focus mainly on the players attributes. Try to look past the numbers though. Personality should play a huge part. As should a players prefeered moves if he has any.

Right. This is just a bunch of ramblings right now. And honestly I don't really know what you should primarily look for. I'm still investigation and so are a lot of other people. Allow me to suggest looking at the Soccer Analysts blog which is frankly pretty awesome!

Going Moneyball On FM

If you have read some of the previous blog posts you will have noticed that I'm fairly obsessed with Sabermetrics. So, now I've started reading the book that started it all, Moneyball. Although the book is mainly about baseball I have a strong feeling that the principles can be applied to pretty much anything. So far the book revolves around one man, Billy Beane. A guy who was himself touted as one of the best things in baseball since sliced bread. He didn't succeed at the highest level of the game as was expected, but he learnt many valuable lessons.

The main principle I can take from the book so far, and I'm only two chapters in, is never to take what you see as a measure of a players quality. What you need to do is take a good look at first the game, and then the player. You need to find out what is the most important factor in winning the game. Then you have to find the players contributing the most to that.

Since the book has more than a few more chapters in it I'm pretty sure that's oversimplifying it quite a bit. However, it seems like a good starting point.

So, what wins footie games? The obvious answer is goals. It's just not enough, though, looking at who scores the most goals. You need to find the factors that a. creates goals and b. prevents them.

So, how would one go about this? My idea, which of course involves excel, is to take a look at a lot of games played in the game. Looking at the stats and use the data to figure out which are the most important factors to winning.

This should actually make it easier to create tactics as well as sign players. The main problem though would be the lack of stats when just startinig the game. So, the analysis would require a save with at least one season in it. I would have to look at the stats for all games played to determine the most important game winning factors.

Sounds like a lot of work, but also sounds like a very fun challenge.

What Team To Manage?

Selecting a team in Football Manager can be done in a multitude of ways. Many select their favourite team. Others select a team randomly. And some evens start the game unemployed. Today, having too much time on my hands for once, I decided on another approach. I looked through the available teams in the lowest division of all playable leagues and found teams with names I though seemed funny in some way.

• Beijing 361 Degrees (China) - The last degree makes all the difference.
• Indian Arrows (India) - Medieval Gunners?
• Ansan Hallelujah FC (S. Korea) - Blessed?
• Chimney Corner (N. Ireland) - Got a nice ring to it.
• Morön BK (Sweden) - Sounds a bit moronic to be honest.
• Joinville (Brazil) - Who wouldn't want to be a joiner.
• Lota Schwager (Chile) - Possibly open to misinterpetration.
• Centauros (Colombia) - A mythical quest.
• Atenas (Uruguay) - Aesthetic football a must?
• Rentistas (Uruguay) - Proper rentboys!

In a world map view they are located as follows.


View Funny teams in a larger map

Asia and South America has the most teams. I'm not yet ready for Asia I think (or Asia isn't ready for me), but I do fancy a save starting in South America. I will include The English and Scottish leagues in the game as well as I have a hard time seeing me play a save without those. I hate playing in Scandinavia so the Swedish team is ruled out effortlessly and Chimney Corner is probably the least humorous name of the lot.

Somehow the name Lota Schwager intrigues me. I'm pretty much certain that will be where I start my next save. So Chile is in and so is Uruguay because it's got 2 teams in the mix. I'll be looking for a save with 5 leagues and that means the last spot goes to Brazil or Colombia. I don't fancy getting shot in drug related crimes and Brazil has such an unorthodox league structure that I have to give it a go. The final Verdict then is:

• Brazil
• Chile (Starting point)
• England
• Scotland
• Uruguay

This should be most interesting!

A Team Possessed

I'm not a tactical genius, but this is a post about tactics and there will be a few of those in the near future. I'm currently managing Vejle in the Danish First Division. A team that has traditionally been know to produce many talented players. Names such as Allan Simonsen, John Sivebæk and Thomas Gravesen. These are players that should be well-known internationally, but the club has produced several other players who are well-known in Denmark.

The team is also generally known for their technical attacking play which is the key to this blog post. Long term the goal is to recreate the Vejle team in the vein it is traditionally known. That means the majority of the first team players must be home grown and the style of play must be attacking and possession based.

Goals

• Possession: > 60%
• Pass Completion: > 80%
• Replenishing the trophy cabinet.

Challenges:

• Poor financial situation.
• Only average youth facilities + recruitment network.
• Being outside the top division means our players aren't exactly of superb quality.

Inspiration
The following articles serve as inspiration for the tactical decisions I will make.

• The Playmaker - Heartbeat of the Team
• Mechanising Wide Play in FM11
• The Importance of Depth in FM11

Looking at the squad I have decided on a a 4-3-3/4-5-1 half-breed formation. 4 at the back, 3 central midfielders an AML and an AMR and a lone striker. Updates on the first two games and the initial setup tomorrow!

A Basic Approach To Team Talk

Last years Communication & Psychological Warfare Ebook revolutionized the way I perceived player interaction in FM. Sadly, the publishers and developers of the game failed to see the positives of this publication, mainly because you had to pay for it, but that's another story that I will no doubt get into in detail later on.
Since I'm a chart and graph fanatic I created a team talk chart based on the information in Communication & Pshychological Warfare and the FM Britain forum.

Team Talks

Pre-Match

Team Talk	Pre-requisites
Tell the players they can win this game	Home games where you are favourite Favourable odds away where you feel a win is realistic
Wish the team luck ahead of the game	Home or away games where the odds are clearly against you
Tell the players you expect them to win the match	Clear favourites with a very determined, ambitous and professional squad
For the fans	Against fierce rivals Cup finals Always add individual instructions
No pressure	Facing certain defeat Combine with encouraging team talks to key players

---

Half-Time

Team Talk	Pre-reguisites
Show your anger/Expect nothing else than a win	Behind or drawing a game you should clearly win Make tactical changes Bring on new players Add individual team talks Don't use too often
Dissapointed/I want to see more from you	Behind in a game you want to do better in, but not necessarily get a resounding win Players are putting in an average performance and need to improve For ambitious squads where you are drawing or only leading by one
You can win today	Use this route if angry/disappointed is too harsh Useful if holding onto a draw away without being favourite If your team has too low morale for angry/disappointed
Sympathize	If you are unlucky to be behind in spite of good performance
Pleased	To sustain 2+ goal lead against a good opponent To keep morale up when playing well after poor performances Unprofessional and inconsistent players may see this as an excuse to stop trying
Show encouragement to the team	If leading closely against strong opponents
Don't let your performance drop	Leading closely, in control and dominating but has to stay focused When expecting committed opposition in the first half
Pleased at the performance	If you dominate the game but need a bit of luck to score
Thrilled	3+ goal lead at home 2+ goal lead away Leading against very strong opponent When squad is clearly performing above themself
For the fans	Same as pre-match
Enjoy the rest of the game/the pressure is off	Friendlies Nothing left to win Clearly behind against clearly better opponent

Post-Match

Team Talk	Pre-Requisites
Show your anger	May work once or twice if doing well in the league Can cause bad dressing room atmosphere
Disappointed	Often a better choice than showing anger Give individual praise
Don't say a word	Can be used instead of anger with poor squad morale Useful with big team with unremarkable performance
Warn against complacency	After narrow wins With a series of narrow wins that you used to win easily
Sympathise/good effort	When unlucky not to get a result
Pleased	They have done what you asked for and possibly more
Delighted	Convincing performance
Fantastic	Always use if available
Why can't you play like this every week	Good for a good team on a bad run Bad for small team with a lucky result

This worked fairly well in FM 2010 and should work reasonably well in FM 2011.

Simplifying things in a simple chart isn't always enough though. A lot depends on the players personality, morale etc. Any method you see published on the Internet should be regarded as a guideline and it is always a good idea to test it and possibly improve upon it.

Applying Sabermetrics To Football Manager

Ever since FSG took the reins at Liverpool sabermetrics has been a hot topic in football. Even though I suspect it will be a great deal harder to apply to football than it is to baseball I suppose with the right analytical system and data it can be done. I suggest you read the wiki article I linked to if you don't know what sabermetrics is about. In short it is about finding undervalued players based on statistical analysis.

Fortunately FM is a data driven game. As FM players we have a lot more data readily available to us than managers do in real life. So, it's very possible that this approach can be used in FM.

What stat has the most to say about a players impact on a game?

I think it's obvious that the players match rating has a big impact. However, there's bound to be more to it than that.

First of all, you can't just go by the players average rating. Why not? Well, if he has only played one game and received a rating of 10 then you can't be sure this player will be a good investment. So, the average rating is more accurate if it is based on 40 games than if it is based on 5 games.

Does that mean all players with a high average rating and a high number of games played is a good buy. If you were managing Manchester United would you buy a Blue Square North player with an average rating of 8.5? Most likely the answer is no. The league has to be factored in as well. In Football Manager every league is assigned a reputation, beware that this reputation may change over time, the link discloses each leagues starting reputation as of 2009.

I'm not a huge fan of using editor data so what about using the leagues co-efficient? The advantage is that you can see the changes over time, but it doesn't say anything about the different tiers in each league.

Fortunately a bit of research, clicking around in the game, I found the screen I needed.

It even shows a star rating of each league. So that information is also readily available.

At this point the factors we will consider are average rating, appearances and league reputation. Appearances could be a problem though. Someone playing 55 matches a season would get an unfair advantage over someone having played 50 matches. And I think we would all agree that both players have reached a point where their average rating has reached a point where you can count on it. I would say that after 30 matches the average rating has reached its level. It is also a point where I would consider the player to have made a full contribution to the team that season.

This brings up another point. The player probably shouldn't be judged on his current season. You won't get the full picture before the season is over. And what about players in leagues you are not playing in? They won't play as many games.

The formula I'm going to use to evaluate players at this point is Average Rating*Appearances(max. 30)*League reputation.

There are still a ton of open questions and issues, but I think I'll save those for other blog posts. (That means I haven't sorted them out yet)

Finally Revealed - The Anatomy Of World Class Players In Football Manager!

Bold headlines rock, and it got your attention didn't it? Anyway, today I decided I would try to find out what attributes most world class players share in FM. To do that I did a player search and sorted the players by value. Then I created an Excel sheet and recorded every attribute over 15 for every player valued higher than £10 million.

Took me about an hour so hopefully you'll get a kick out of it. Here are the final graphs.

Technical Attributes:

Mental Attributes:

Physical Attributes:

You probably have to click on the images to get a good view, but let's go through them for a minute.

From the technical group First Touch and Technique are by far the most interesting attributes. They are the only attributes with a rank above 25. Dribbling is pretty high as well, but not as high as those two. It seems Technique and First Touch indicate the classiness (not sure that's an actual word) of a player. Many of the other attributes are important to specific positions and therefore don't appear as often.

Mentally the game prefers players who works hard and reads the game well. This is indicated by the fact that Anticipation, Determination, Off The Ball and Work Rate appear more than 25 times in this little experiment. Determination seems particularly important being the only attribute that appears more than 35 times!

Physically Stamina is the key to success. The player needs to be able to last all game to become a truly world class player. No other physical attribute appear more than 25 times.

Going by this limited study you should be looking for players with high First Touch, Technique, Anticipation, Determination, Off The Ball, Work Rate and Stamina. In addition it seems it would be a good idea to look for position specific attributes as well.

That's it for today, hope you find it useful.

FM Log 08-03-2011 - New Beginnings

Yesterday a new career was initiated. My challenge is a team called FC Svendborg located in Denmark.

The team is playing in the Danish Second Division West and is expected to finish in the top half. The wage budget is £500/week and the transfer budget is £0.

Playing in Denmark is a special kind of beast as there is a 3-4 month break running from the latter part of November to the early parts of March. This break is longer than the seasonal summer break and if the team has been doing poorly 3 months is a long time.

The goal is to win the Danish Premier Division (Superligaen) within 10 seasons! And then? Move abroad!

First look of the squad tells me they are a decent lot. Not spectacular, but not horrible either (considering the division). This is good news as there isn't much chance of improving the quad given that we are nearly $1k over the wage budget and have no transfer budget. We look a bit weaker than I like in midfield so some loans might be needed.

I'm looking to focus on defense and will be playing a counter attacking strategy. The formation will depend on the opposition, but a 4-5-1, a 3-3-2-1-1 and a 3-3-2-2 have been defined on the match preparation screen. This should allow us to exploit most formations (kudos to Kenny for showing me how to use 3 at the back :-)).

Friendlies are coming up and tomorrow I'll tell you all about the first steps towards world conquest.