1. Your club can have a feeder club from a European country that doesn’t use the work permit rule, you can send the player out on loan to the club and they will gain citizenship after a certain amount of years.

The shortest time to gain citizenship in a country is 3 years, in Belgium and Poland.

Pretty much all the other countries take 5 years, except for Spain, which takes 4 years.

2. You can leave the player in your reserves until he gains citizenship (which will take 5 years).

3. A sneaky way of getting past the work permit problem is to offer the player another contract, as soon as they join you. About 60% of the time the player will be granted a work permit, even though they had only just been denied one. Cheeky, cheeky!

Failing all that. Try and find foreign players who have a European nation as a second nationality. These players do not require work permits!

Hope that helps.

[ratings]

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1. Football Manager 2008 Bargain Buys
2. Football Manager 2008 – Random Hints and Tips
3. Football Manager 2008 – Facepacks, Kits, Logos & Skins

• The shooting training category covers a player’s finishing, long shots and composure.
• The set-pieces training category covers a player’s crossing, corners, free kicks, penalty taking and long throws.
• Players will naturally develop their mental attributes through experience as they get older.
• When training players for lower league clubs, it would be important to focus more on the physical aspects such as pace and stamina.
• Youth team coaches only train youth players, they do not work with or train senior players.
• Goalkeeping coaches work with and train both senior and youth goalkeepers.
• Fitness coaches work with the senior and youth players, but only deal with the physical aspects of training.
• First-team coaches only work with and train the senior players, they do not work with or train youth players.
• When consulting your Groundsman over pitch dimensions, it is important to keep in mind how your team plays.
• Having a wide pitch may suit teams that play with wingers whereas it may have a detrimental effect on a team that plays narrow and through the middle.
• When watching a match you can keep an eye on the opposing team’s formation and changes made during the game by selecting ‘Formations’ from the ‘tree’ menu in the side-bar.
• When using the ‘Use Playmaker’ tactic, your players will generally look to try and pass the ball to the person you’ve assigned to that role.
• A playmaker is someone who generally looks to receive the ball and dictate play.
• A target man is someone who will look to bring others into play via flick-ons or holding up the ball.
• If you find you’re leaving too much space behind your defence, try setting your centre-backs mentality to ‘Ultra Defensive’ or using a deeper defensive line.
• Pace, acceleration, dribbling, technique, finishing and off the ball are just some of the important characteristics that make for a good pacey striker.
• Jumping, heading, strength and off the ball are just some of the important characteristics that make for a good target man.
• The ratings for reflexes, handling, communication, jumping and positioning are generally a good indicator for how good a goalkeeper is.
• If you’re looking for a good wing-back pay special attention to an individual’s positioning, tackling, stamina, pace and acceleration.
• Positioning, tackling, pace and anticipation are just some of the important characteristics that make for a good full-back.
• When choosing your captain, the most important attribute to consider is his influence.
• When signing scouts from a foreign country, your team will benefit from the scout’s knowledge of players from that nation.
• Scouting a player more than once will increase the likelihood of the scout finding out more about his strengths and weaknesses.
• The more scouting knowledge your club has, the more players will appear on the player search screen.
• Assigning a scout to ‘Scout Next Opposition’ and to a country/region in another continent will result in that scout spending a lot of time travelling rather than actually scouting players
• Your club’s level of scouting knowledge can be increased by either signing scouts who already have a large knowledge base, acquiring an affiliate club or by sending your existing scouts out to investigate new territories.
• Scouting your next opposition will give you an insight into their tactics and key players and help you plan your tactical approach for the game.
• Be more generous with your praise for good performances when playing away from home.
• Be less harsh with your criticism for poor performances when playing away from home.
• Be more demanding of your players when playing at home, where your fans will be expectant of you to push on to try to get the right result.
• Team talks can be very useful for morale, but don’t always follow the same route. Constantly saying the same thing to your players may have less of an affect in the long-run.
• Ignoring your players at half-time is generally a bad idea, but on rare occasions leaving them to stew over their performance may result in a better second period.
• Keep your players happy. Praising wins keeps morale up and provides greater impetus for the team to string good performances together.

I’ll maybe post some more later in the week.

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Related posts:

1. Football Manager 2008 – Staff Hiring Guide
2. Scout Hiring Guide
3. Football Manager 2008 – Work Permits