Building a Squad

written by Butlee

Building a Squad

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Finding your base level
2.3 New players A Maintain
2.4 New players B Step Up
2.5 Topping Out
2.6 Consider your Competition (Jagger)

2.1 Introduction
Building a squad is basically about how and why you add players to your squad. It is about finding your weaknesses and strengths and just aiming so that you have all the tools available to you when creating a strategy.

This is really my area of expertise. I spend a lot of time looking at my players, ensuring that I have adequate coverage for all my positions, formations, tactics and strategies and even a few for my theories. All that for short term and long term as well. The idea behind this chapter is how to build your squad up from scratch, to be an elite squad. Keep in mind that building the squad is only half the battle, the other important factor is strategy and winning games!

2.2 Finding your base level
Before you can begin to build you need a foundation, that's pretty simple. Finding that foundation is a bit harder. I think the trick here is to be really pessimistic about your side, and totally undervalue your squad for now. What am I talking about? Well in this stage you basically have to come away with a the ability to say (for example) The worst possible striker I would use right now is dec SC, good OP and weak BC. You need to be able to do that for all positions, and you need to be able to look at a player at a glance, and decide if he's worth another look to be around the level of your squad.

This stage is basically a decision making stage. You look at all your prospects in a certain position and then pick a mid-range guy from there and take that as your base level. It's not an exact guide, but the trick is to pick a level that you never want to be worse then, that is why you need to pick a realistic base level.

Let's do this with an example:

You have to pick a level you're happy to play with. So say you pick a defender in your squad that is dec in CO and good TA and good DP. You decide that that is your base level and from now on you don't settle for anything less. If you've only got one of these, there's nothing saying you can't buy an older guy, like 30 plus years, to support the one you already have.

All in all, this 2.2 Section probably doesn't make sense, but it's usefulness will become apparent in the other sections.

2.3 New Players A - Maintain
To put it differently, the Maintain stage could be called "The Art of Not Getting Worse". Once you have a base level, it is important that you at least stay at that level.

So let's look at the type of player you're thinking of to maintain your level:

This player will be used to maintain the step you are on. He's mostly to replace guys who can no longer maintain your step (due to age and skill deterioration). This player doesn't want to be too young, as by the time he is ready to maintain, he may actually be a step back.

In the defenders example, you would want a 'maintain' option to cover for any guys over 30 years old. So you probably want to buy a guy 25+ years with dec TA dec DP and dec CO, with potential to go to good TA and good DP. That way, in one season from now, when the 30 yr old's skills drop below good/good, you have a 26-27yr old to maintain the good/good level you want.

But if you bought a 22yr old as a "maintain" player, by the time he is 27 it's been 2-3 seasons, and over that time you want to move forward, so you don't really want to be relying on dec/good/good defenders now.

2.4 New Players B - Step up
Step up in my opinion is the best and smartest way to get a better squad. The overall idea is that you look at your squad at any given time, and when all positions are maintained, then you pick where you wish to step up, and start looking for players accordingly.

Let's have a look at what you'd look for in a player set to "step up" :

The idea is to buy a younger player that you can train, that will be better then your current players. These guys can vary in ages, but your general idea is that the younger the player, the better he needs to be potentially, as you will assume your team is getting better.

So once you have a good/good CB, and a maintain CB to replace your old guy(s), you pick a step. Do you want to try and get some AE on your CB's? In which case, maybe your next step is getting dec/dec/good/good AE>DP. Or, maybe you're finding attackers get free too much, or there's a lot of OP in your division? You could make this step dec CO, good TA and exc DP. Or are you promoting fast? You may want to go higher.

Say you take a bit of a large step up, and you want your backline to be dec AE, dec CO, good TA, exc DP. So now you do a bit of rough math and figure out what current skills a guy needs to be able to reach that. I'd say 1 denomination per season for 2 different skills (roughly, I think it's a pretty conservative estimate also!). So two seasons is 3.2 player years, so maybe I'm going to look for a 22-24yr old with weak AE, dec CO, dec TA and good DP. That gives me heaps of time to train him up if he has the potentials I need.

Further to this stepping up process, you don't just plan to cover 1 era. Your next step after dec/dec/good/exc might be dec/good/exc/exc - you decide that you need to make some tackles better, and you feel you can gain an advantage from more CO then your opponent. So now you do some numbers again. Maybe I can find a 17yr old with weak TA, weak DP, but already dec CO and weak AE? Mostly now though, we're looking for potentials that are good/good TA/DP that will rise to exc/exc and the potential to have the CO needed.

Just keep in mind that there's nothing wrong with a maintain style player. And there's definitely nothing wrong with simply maintaining your current level long term in a certain position or area of the field. Don't step up too fast either. Remember, the idea is never to have to step back, so if you push too hard stepping up, you're basically ignoring the principles of the idea : to avoid stepping back ever!

2.5 Topping Out
I just wanted to put a few little comments here too. It is possible to top out in 2 ways. The first is financially. If you can't afford to buy the step up players then you've topped out for your level of playing. Generally there's only 1 think I can offer here: be patient. You've bought the players that will eventually give you the strongest possible team with that "budget", so eventually that's going to start paying off… focus on those +25 years maintaining players without breaking the bank.

The other part to topping out is simply availability. This really is only a factor when you hit the "high rollers" market. For example, my modest side runs CB's that look like exc/dec/bril/bril or dec/exc/bril/bril, and that's my maintain level. I can hover with different levels of CO, or go sup/awe in TA/DP, but I can't really step up from where I'm at because the step up players just aren't available for purchase…….well they do say every man has his price, but in my case it brings me back to the financial "top out" position : the maintain players I can afford, the extra step (ie, up to world class players) is out of my financial reach at this time.

So availability and finances/budget are the two ways to top out in terms of building your squad.

2.6 Consider your Competition

You should also look at your competition for the week (opposition) and other teams in the league. Pick a mid-level and top opponent within your division. Look at the skill levels of their goalkeepers, defenders, midfield and forwards. You could also look at the Achievers (Stats) section of the league. This will give you a base level objective of reasonable skills needed to compete within the division.

Personally, I would recommend building a team beginning with goalkeeping, then defensive backs, then midfield, then offense. Goalkeepers are expensive but the most important position on the team, in my opinion. Good defending backs and defending midfielders will make a newbie team competitive quicker and at less expense than the glamour forwards.