Is it 'cos i'm cool

Oh well, seen as I have given up, here it is, how to be as awesome as me.

This is a somewhat an amalgamation of a previous post, combined with other stuff I have learnt plus some new stuff, but here it is:

How to win stuff:


The Formation

Set up a simple 4-3-3. You can use the tactics creator to do this. You want to set it to be more fluid, standard strategy. Passing should be set to more direct and roaming set to stick to position.

The Tactics

Set all individual long shots to rarely. If you have a midfielder with especially good long shots you may want to allow one or two players to be set to sometimes.

Set corner aim to far post. You want to be taking inswinging corners so a corner taker for the left foot and one for the right would be useful.

You want your best header on attack far post and your second best header on challenge GK (both of these must be DCs, it rarely works with other players) and a third player on near post flick, a defender isn’t essential for this. Ensure you have plenty of players back so you don't get caught on the break - at least 3.

Set free kick aim to best header

For defending corners, the default instructions actually work fine most of the time, just ensure you that you don’t have more than one player forward when defending. You can use mark specific on opposition instructions if there’s an especially problematic player.


The Players

For all players you should avoid anyone with stamina below 14, you can compromise on DCs.

Technical and mental attributes are not especially important, it's all about the physicals, you want players with very strong physical attributes.

Fullbacks should have the following attributes. Pace & Acceleration must be at least 16 (the higher the better) and tackling around 13+ will do. Nothing else really matters but other defensive attributes are useful, but mainly look for the physicals. Jumping will help improve average ratings but it’s not actually that essential for a decent full back.

Central Defence - Heading/Jumping - at least 17/17, this is important for corners. Pace & Acceleration should be at least 12. (higher is preferable but hard to find on a budget) Strength is probably the next most important thing followed by tackling and marking but they are of less importance. Filter on heading/jumping at 17 and tackling 14 then pick the best. Your best defender needs to be your corner banger, he needs to be a good quality DC with jumping ability. You can compromise with any old crap for the 2nd DC as long as they have heading, jumping and decent physicals in other areas.

FCC - This is your money man. This needs to be your best player, he must have pace & acceleration at least 16+ (preferably higher) with strong dribbling ability. Finishing, composure etc are not important although they are obviously desirable. Also look for flair and off the ball. The faster and strong the better, this is the key. Remember, this is the player you need to break the bank for, this is the man that is going to win you games, don’t get it wrong.

Forwards, right and left - Pay attention to the footedness of the players, you want to ensure you have a left and right footer if possible. You can sometimes find players who are massively right footed who can play fine on the left, but there aappears to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to why some players can do it and others can’t. Experiment, chop and change until you find someone who can play on the left if they are not left footed. Again, pace & acceleration is required here, you want 17/17 ideally with good dribbling attribute. Nothing else really matters but again, finishing and the likes are desirable.

Midfield - Doesn't really seem to make much difference what you do here. Just go for the physicals, as strong as possible. You obviously want to be looking for good passers and those with beneficial midfield attributes, dribbling is beneficial too. You want a DM in the middle then and at least one decent AMC on one of the sides. I've always been a bit crap at finding midfield players tbh, what i'm trying to say is go for someone who's reasonable in midfield but has very strong physicals.

Make sure one of the above players has at least 17 in corner taking and ideally you need someone who can take a free kick.

You should pick a captain who has at least 16 in influence AND is who is going to average high most games. So don’t pick some guff striker as he’s likely to be inconsistent. A defender or a top MC is a good choice usually.


Duck N Dive

Also known as DnD ;) Ok something you need to understand now. The quality of your team and tactics actually has very little bearing on the result at all. This is absolutely crucial, you must manage your form. It's all about the form.

Therefore you need to ensure you have good form and mitigate any potential dips. You have a massive advantage in home games so you need to start your league campaign by playing a weak team at home to get a strong result. Pick your games carefully, you ideally want to play as many home games, against weak teams, as possible to start you off. It doesn't matter if you leave yourself with a load of away games as you will be on top form by then.

I really can’t stress this enough. This may require you to be a massive arse, someone challenged you to a game, is it away? Does it look tough ? Start a CPU game to avoid losing AI rights. Sit in DND and check the league table/online managers and target the weak teams, target the home games against the weak teams. Get at least 4-5 games in against teams you are fairly sure you can beat. Spotted a manager who is 'away' ? Get him challenged if it's green balled to make sure you win AI then play him while he's offline.

Hopefully you have now won all of your early home games, now in top form. You are almost unbeatable so challenge the good teams now ! If you go more than 2 games without winning - be that a draw or a loss. STOP !!!!!! Get yourself on DND. Stop what you are doing, you are about to enter bad form. You need to find someone bad to play or someone suffering injuries, someone else bad form. Duck in and out of DND and snipe your targets, you MUST get yourself back to winning ways or you are screwed.

If you are serious about this, you need to aim for 0% AI. Any game played against your AI is a serious disadvantage as you wont be able to deploy the correct tactical changes in game. You may need to be an arse again here. Take note of what time AI is awarded, make sure you are online and auto start as soon as possible. If you have one of those pesky managers who are constantly starting AI games, then add them as a friend and sit there ready to pounce as soon as you see their match has finished. Don't forget to remove them and neg feedback them afterwards ;)

Pay attention to who is injured and suspended for your team, try and play home games when you have players missing and try and snipe the better teams when they are having injury problems.


Matches

So what to do in matches ? This is quite key and one of the reasons why you need to play your games because you can’t replicate much of this with match plans.

Once you have submitted your team, do not click kick off, instead wait for the opposition manager to submit their team. Now you need to set opposition instructions and show every offensive opposition player onto their weaker foot. This is a right ballache, but do it. I don’t think many people actually do this but it helps massively. In a 433 just the strikers will do and any dangerous midfielders, in a 442 you want the strikers and wingers. Just use common sense – but don’t forget to do it, every game!

Home Games

Due to the strength of home form, you should be looking to win every single home game regardless of the strength of the opponent. Start the match doing show opposition onto weaker foot and shout run at defence. If you are not dominating after 10 minutes, so you haven’t had many shots, they have had too many shots, whack on hassle opponents. Is it still going bad ? Shout play narrower. Is it still going bad ? Drop your MC into DMC. Is it still going bad ? Replace run at defence with ump ball into the box if your players are not getting enough space. Have you had lots of shots but haven’t scored ? Is your FCC averaging badly ? Rotate him with one who is averaging higher. Is it still going bad ? You’re doing it wrong! You can look to replace a striker at HT if they are averaging <6.00 but don’t bother with other positions.

Away Games

Okay, you are not trying to win these games, you are trying not to lose them. A draw is a result. You need to stifle play, stop them playing, then you will hopefully win the game on the counter.

Show players onto weaker foot (never forget this!!) Start the game with hassle opponents and play narrower.

Watch the game, are you getting space ? Add in run at defence. Is it going bad ? Use pump ball into box instead. Consider dropping your MC back into DMC if needs be. It doesn’t actually seem to matter if they can’t play DMC or not.

General

Circa 60th minute you need to start looking to make your substitutions. Have you ignored my earlier advice and bought some low stamina players ? They need taking off about now so you can continue pressing and pressuring. Unless they are playing exceptionally well consider replacing them. Replace any strikers who are not contributing much, except your money man – you NEVER sub your money man no matter what his average rating is.

Always leave one sub unused in case you get an injury. You should only use your final sub if you are desperate.

Regardless of venue, if you are winning past the 60th minute and the other team is starting to come into the game more, shout play narrower. You can continue attacking just fine with this shout but it stifles them.

If you are dominating the game but not winning past 60th minute go to control strategy, you can leave play narrower on, I know this is counter intuitive If you are still not winning go attacking 75th minute and overload from about 85 minutes. But he careful, only use this in games where you are the better team.

If it gets to the 75th+ minute and you have clearly won the game, then take of hassle opponents to reduce the risk of injury.

Some games you are just going to lose, accept it. Don’t go all out and suffer a bigger loss than you need to. It hurts form and morale. Most of the time you can just hang tight anyway, if you are on good form you are pretty much unbeatable anyway and will score a last second equaliser or some crap.

Use youth or CPU games to increase condition after a player comes back from injury, don't play any games until they are 96%+ fit. Even if it is a senior player, a youth game magically increase the condition of a player returning from injury.

Morale seems to randomly increase about 10 minutes after playing a match regardless of whether you won it or not, so consider waiting a short while before jumping into the next match.

Final thoughts

Player ability doesn’t really count for much, i’ve consistently being one of the lower ability teams in every league that I have played in and consistently finished at or near the top. You don’t need good players, you don’t need expensive players, you need the RIGHT players, you need the right blend and that’s it.

If the above doesn’t work, then you have the wrong players.