In Football Manager, we can identify 4 attributes that define a good Captain: Influence, Determination, Work Rate and Team Work.

Influence

Influence is the player’s ability to affect events or other players without any intentional effort. Players with high influence will be leaders on the pitch and team-mates will tend to rally around these players.

In my opinion, this is the most important of those 4 attributes. A player with high influence (18 or more) can be considered a natural leader, an example for his teammates.

Determination

High determination can be understood as a commitment to succeed. A determined player will give everything in order to win. As you can see, any good captain needs determination.

Work Rate

This reflects the player’s mental drive to work hard. A high rating will ensure a player wants to work his socks off from start to finish, but he will need the necessary physical attributes to actually be able to pull it off. Nonetheless, it is an admirable trait to have in your team.

Team Work

How well the player follows tactical instructions and works for and alongside his team-mates. A team full of players with a high rating here will work better as a unit. Players with lower ratings will slack off and not ‘buy in’ to the team ethos. You can guess that your captain needs to work well with his partners, so high team work is a requisite.

Examples of great Captains

In both Football Manager and real world soccer, you can identify John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Fabio Cannavaro as top class captains.

This was a guest article written by Ruderic To read more of Ruderic’s Football Manager stuff checkout Football Manager Debot.

Related posts:

1. Scout Hiring Guide
2. Don’t Underestimate the Need for Good Backroom Staff
3. FM2010 Tactic 4-2-3-1

The main use I give to my scouts is the search for young promising players, also known as wonderkids. That is what I need several scouts with different areas of knowledge. I usually have 4 or 5 of them traveling around the globe looking for hot prospects.

Also, I usually get report cards from them before signing a new player. That way, I can read more things about the players, like their personality and if they are likely to adapt fast to my team.

Scout Attributes

When it comes to hire new scouts, you have to pay special attention to 2 key attributes, Judging Player Potential and Judging Player Ability. As you can guess, they indicate how good he is to judge player’s ability and potential.

However, those 2 attributes are not the only ones you have to pay attention to. A good scout also needs high mental ones, like Determination and Adaptability. A scout with good adaptability will aquire faster knowledge about an unknown country.

Recommended Scouts

The scouts I am posting here can be signed for free. If you are managing a small club, maybe they will not accept a contract from you. Feel free to leave a comment indicating wich scout has done a good job in your game.

• Oliver Bierhoff
• Andrea Pastorello
• Paolo Berrettini
• Txema Noriega
• Ed van Stijn
• Vlada Stosic
• Horst-Dietter Hottges
• Joop Lensen

This was a guest article written by Ruderic To read more of Ruderic’s Football Manager stuff checkout Football Manager Debot.

Related posts:

1. Football Manager 2008 – Staff Hiring Guide
2. How to choose a Captain
3. Don’t Underestimate the Need for Good Backroom Staff

Starting with the member of your coaching team I find most important, is the assistant manager. Your assistant manager will know the squad better than any other member of the coaching team and is also vital for finding out important information. Requesting a team report early on (after the one automatically given to you), will find out areas of the team that need cover, improvement and strengthening. You assistant can also offer advice on who they believe you should sign to improve certain areas of your squad. For example, early on in my campaign as Q.P.R boss, my assistant Tim Flowers advised I sign Kevin Doyle from Reading, and he went on to be my leading goalscorer for three seasons in a row (including my first in the Premiership). Try and keep the assistant you start with, but if for some reason you lose them (Tim Flowers was mine for two seasons before being offered the Managers job at Leicester), then make sure you sign the right man for the job. You have to look for an assistant who has attributes that match yourself. For example, if you like to play attacking football, make sure your assistant has a good attacking attribute. Remember, in most cases, people will ask their assistant to give team talks and occasionally pick the team, so they have know what they’re doing. High attributes in ‘Judging Player Ability’, ‘Motivating’ and ‘Tactical Knowledge’ will make sure your assistant can step in for you when needed and do a good job. As the game goes on, your assistant will most likely become a favorite amongst fans and players quicker than you will, which is a good thing because whenever you need to call on them to help, you know they’ll do a stand up job. In past games, my assistant has been liked so much that he usually gets offered my old job when I leave for another team, but they usually always end up joining me again as my assistant at the new club.

1st Team coaches are also important, and I usually find that most teams you take over will either have no 1st team coaches, or just the one. What I like to do is look through my clubs favorite staff/icons/legends and see if any of them are now coaches so I can bring them in as my 1st team coach. This works well as players and fans alike are happy that a club favorite has returned. If you already have a club favorite in your coaching staff, then try offering them a new contract with a promotion to 1st team coach. Good attributes for a first team coach include the style of play you like to play i.e. attacking or defending and ‘Technical’, as they will be working with the team that you will be judged on.

Coaches should already be in place at your team and shouldn’t be worried about too much until further in the game. Having a good coaching team will help your training and a good balance across your first team/youth team and goalkeepers is essential. I always try and sign club favorites and former players of mine as coaches as the game goes on. This is usually because I still have players and staff members at the club who are listed as favored personnel so can be good for moral. This is exactly the same for youth coaches, goalkeeping coaches, physio’s and scouts.

All the previous information was for when you are starting off at a new club at the very beginning of the game. If during the game, you move to a new club, then depending on your status on the game and how long you were at your previous club should determine what you do next.

If you have a world class reputation and won many honors with your previous club, then when you join your new club, always try and take across your old staff. As you may have seen throughout the game via tips, staff at clubs you take over will always agree to a mutual termination of contract, so take advantage of this and save some money, whilst also bringing your old team in. I recommend keeping one or two of the old staff at the new club, as they may be a favorite for some players so them leaving could have a negative effect. Check this out before you start releasing staff from contracts.

If you were fired, or don’t have a high reputation, then the best idea would be keeping all the staff at your new job, as they will be able to give you the same help/guidance/information as you get when you start off at the beginning of the game. Only when you are quite well respected, will you be bigger than the staff at a squad and be able to bring over all your own without having too much of negative response from players.

What do you think?

This was a guest article written by James Mertz so be sure to let him know what you think!

Related posts:

1. Football Manager 2008 – Staff Hiring Guide
2. Scout Hiring Guide
3. Football Manager 2010 – Wishlist

I’ll get things started for us:

Name: Samuel Pietre
Position: AMR
Club: None
Age: 24
Value: Free

Name: Denes Rosa
Position: AMLC
Club: Wolves
Age: 31
Value: 24k

Name: Michael Gray
Position: D/WBL
Club: Wolves
Age: 34
Value: 100k

Name: Marvin Andrews
Position: CB
Club: None
Age: 32
Value: Free

Name: Jean-Joel Perrier Doumbe
Position: Right/Left Wing Back
Club: Celtic
Age:29
Value:10k to 100k

Name:Pena
Position: D/WBL
Club: Albacete
Age: 24
Value: Free

Have you got any to add? Lets see them!

Related posts:

1. Football Manager 2008 Bargain Buys
2. FM09 – English Wonderkids?
3. FM2010 – Free Transfer Deals & Steals

Once again it’s a simple comment to win competition which gives everybody who isn’t as gifted with words as good a chance as somebody who is to win.  Although I want this one to provide worthwhile information to the thousands of daily visitors to thefootymanager.com so it will take just a little thought.

So what do I do

All you have to do to have a chance of winning is tell us who you think the most underrated players in Football Manager 2009 are in the comment box at the bottom of the page. The more information the better because it helps people looking for potential bargain buys although if you just want to drop a name in then that works just as well.

What can I win?

Well the lovely people at Sports Interactive (SI) have provided us with 3 packs of Limited Edition Football Manager Top Trumps so that is one pack for three lucky people.

I’m not a user of Top Trumps myself but I have flicked through a pack of them and they look very cool and I have looked on Google and can’t see where you can buy them so they do indeed look very limited.

When Can I enter?

Now, get posting in the comments below and I look forward to seeing what you guys have to say.

Participants can post comments until the 17th of January 2009. The comments will be closed on the 18th of January at 00:01 GMT.

Related posts:

1. Competition – Win Football Manager 2009
2. Football Manager 2009 – Wishlist

In FM08 I choose to manage  England, Chelsea and Newcastle. I like many others I love signing English wonderkids (which is crucial if you’re managing England as a country) however it seems like most of the good wonderkids in FM09 are from other countries so here is a list of some of the player who have impressed me so far on FM09 and were great on FM08;

Players who are top four Premier League standard

• Billy Sharp – Sheffield United
• Ryan Taylor – Wigan
• Steven Taylor -Newcastle
• Curtis Davies – Aston Villa
• Scott Flinders- Crystal Palace
• Leighton Baines – Everton
• Giles Barnes – Derby
• Nedum Onuoha – Man City

Players who I would consider good enough to play for England

• Joe Mattock – Leicester
• Michael woods – Chelsea
• Michael Johnson – Man City
• Adam Johnson – Middlesbrough
• Victor Moses- Crystal Palace
• Paul Anderson – Nottingham City
• Scott Sinclair – Chelsea
• Matt Derbyshire -Blackburn
• Chris Taylor – Oldham

These are all of the players that I have found and would consider as wonderkids if you have any other suggestions excluding all of the obvious ones  then please comment .

Related posts:

1. Football Manager 2009 Wonderkids
2. FM09 – Good Signings League 1 Teams
3. Football Manager 2008 – Wonderkids

There are two different versions of the demo available for PC and MAC, a ‘strawberry’ and ‘vanilla’ version, with both providing half a season of gameplay. The saved games from the demo will be compatible with the full release of the game.

Vanilla Version

The vanilla version of the demo is English language only, and features the English and Scottish leagues, with no player photos or logos in order to reduce the size of the download.

Strawberry Version

Related posts:

1. FM09 – Good Signings League 1 Teams
2. FM09 – English Wonderkids?

How can I participate?

Well that is the easy part.  All you have to do is comment in this article what you are looking forward to most in Football Manager 2009.  It can be three words, a sentance, a paragraph it’s totally up to you. We’ll then randomly pick the winners from the comments in this thread and notify you by email if you are one of the three lucky winners!

Please notice that:

• participants can post comments until the 13th of November 2009. The comments will be closed on the 14th of November at 00:01 GMT.
• the winners will be determined by a random generator;
• make sure that you fill your e-mail in the comment field correctly, so we can contact you afterwards.

What can I Win?

Football Manager 2009′s match engine has seen more testing than ever before having been extensively beta tested in Football Manager Live for the past year.

The famous Football Manager match engine can now be viewed in full 3D with motion captured animations for the players. Sports Interactive has been working on the 3D match engine for nearly 3 years with the support of SEGA Japan’s Virtua Striker team who provided the motion capture data and some of the animations. You can now watch your matches in 3D from multiple camera angles and re-watch any part of the match by fast forwarding and rewinding the action using a new match time bar that flags the key moments in the game. The old 2D view of the match engine is still there, especially for those people whose computers aren’t powerful enough to take advantage of the 3D views.

As a result of usability testing on Football Manager 2008, this year sees widescreen support for the game for the first time, as well as lots of tweaks to the user interface for easier navigation.

Football Manager 2009 is fully updated for the new 2008/09 football season with all the latest league, club and player data, featuring over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn fresh from the famous Sports Interactive database.

Sports Interactive have worked hard to reflect the greater impact the media has been having in recent years on the world of football, in the in-game dealings with the press. The game now features more news stories, more detail and greater media interaction than ever before, creating an even more realistic simulation of the football world.

When Will I Get My Prize?

Well the game is being released on the 14th November so we’ll select the winners and get the prizes sent out on that day.  You should get the game through your letterbox on the 15th (the day after release) just in time for the weekend of FM09 abuse.

So spread the word of the competition to your friends, other websites and most importantly comment yourself to be in with a shout of winning.

The competition has now closed folks so the winners will be hearing from us in the next 24 hours!

Good luck, thefootymanager.com Team!

UPDATE – Congratulations to Paul Murrey, Carl Lightfoot and Frank Keegan our competition winners.  Look out for more competitions in the near future.

Related posts:

1. Competition – Underrated Players
2. Football Manager 2009 – Wishlist
3. Football Manager 2009 – New Features

The obvious (and expensive):

• Anderson (AMC) – Man Utd
• Balotelli (AM RL, ST) – Inter
• Giovinco (AM LC, FC) – Juventus
• Walcott (AM LC, FC) – Arsenal
• Bojan (FC) – Barcelona
• Aguero (AM, FC) – At. Madrid
• Dos Santos ( AM RLC, FC)  – Tottenham
• Fiorillo (GK) – Sampdoria
• Galvan (Cruz Azul)
• Hamsik (Napoli)
• Kroos (FC Bayern)
• Pato (A.C. Milan)
• Pjanic (Olympique Lyonnais)
• Benzema (Olympique Lyonnais)
• Saivet (FC Girondins de Bordeaux)
• Sakho (Paris Saint-Germain)
• Vela (Arsenal)

Less obvious (not so expensive):

• Bruna (Liverpool)
• Boucher (Havre Athletic Club)
• Alamo (Tapachula)
• David Rochela (Deportivo B)
• Ansaldi (Rubin)
• Wijnaldum (Feyenoord)
• De Gea (Atletico B)
• Diaz (River)
• Villaluz (Cruz Azul)
• Walter (Internacional)
• Wilshere (Arsenal)
• Kolodziecziak (Racing Club de Lens)
• Paulo Henrique (Santos)
• Maidana (Spartak Moscow)
• Davila (Chivas)
• Nemeth (Liverpool)
• Willian (Shakhtar)
• Neymar (Santos)
• Taison (Internacional)
• Welbeck (Man Utd)
• Tales (Internacional)
• Monzon (Boca)
• Hobbit Bermudez (Atlante)
• Esparza (Chivas)
• Fleck (Rangers)
• Dalla Valle (Liverpool)
• Delfouneso (Aston Villa)
• Shea (FC Dallas)

Right that’ll do to start the ball rolling so who do you think the wonderkids of FM09 are?

What do you want to see from Football Manager 2011? How can they make it better?

Related posts:

1. Football Manager 2008 – Wonderkids
2. FM09 – English Wonderkids?
3. Football Manager 2010 Wonderkids & Future Stars

Thought I’d pull together and little article listing the new features so the people who have been too lazy to watch the videos know what is happening.  I’ll keep this article updated so all of the new features are listed in one place.

• Attend pre-match and post-match press conferences with local and national journalists and build up relationships with them over time, but choose your answers carefully because they could come back to haunt you in the media at a later date.
• Pre-match and in-match feedback from your Assistant Manager on how the team is performing and your player’s motivation levels, as well as hints on how your tactics are working and how you could outwit the opposition’s tactics.
• Transfer Rumours – View the latest news on what players are being speculated on, and who’s said to be interested in securing their services.
• Preferred Moves – Train your players to learn ‘preferred moves’ to add to their game. For example, train central defenders to not dive into tackles, or wingers to do stepovers before crossing the ball..
• Female Manager – For the very first time you can now play as a female manager. All of the text in the game now also has a female gender so the game represents female managers and staff in the game in the correct gender.
• Widescreen Support – As a result of usability testing on Football Manager 2008, this year sees widescreen support for the game for the first time, as well as lots of tweaks to the user interface for easier navigation.
• Improved Media – SI have worked hard to reflect the greater impact the media has been having in recent years on the world of football, in the in-game dealings with the press. The game now features more news stories, more detail and greater media interaction than ever before.
• Board Confidence – Following on from its addition in Football Manager™ 2008, board confidence has been expanded and improved. In addition, the board will now also feedback to you on your squad harmony and the club’s stature in the football world.
• Realistic Finances – SI have listened to feedback from all of their researchers to try and model every single financial area of the game correctly for each country, including transfers, staff wages, budgets, ticket prices, season tickets, competition bonuses and club sponsorships.
• Updated Competitions – Fully updated for the new 2008/09 football season with all the latest league, club and player data, featuring over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn fresh from the famous Sports Interactive database.
• Transfer System – Completely new and re-written transfer system code, providing an even more realistic simulation of real-life football transfers.
• You can now watch your matches in 3D from multiple camera angles and re-watch any part of the match by fast forwarding and rewinding the action using a new match time bar that flags the key moments in the game.
• Watch your matches in new full screen TV view and customise your match day screen with widgets to view the information you need as a football manager, be it player performance, match action zones, pitch radar, latest scores and many more.

Some Major League Soccer (MSL) specific stuff:

• Designated player rule added to ensure that the teams with more financial backing are able to sign one player outside the designated wage fund, or two by gaining another designated player slot in a trade. You can also offer your designated player slot to other clubs.
• Allocation funds can also be offered to other MLS clubs in a trade, with $1 of the Allocation fund being worth $5 in transfers between MLS teams.
• Transfer budgets now only change when an allocation is awarded – these are awarded in 2 ways in FM09, if a team fails to make the play-offs, and if a MLS team sells a player (the former is $300,000 and the latter limited to $500k)

So that is what we have so far as new features in FM09, feel free to comment and keep checking back because this page will be updated as and when new features from SI are announced.
[ratings]

Related posts:

1. Competition – Win Football Manager 2009
2. Football Manager 2009 – Wishlist
3. Football Manager 2009 Wonderkids