Tips for Day One

awesomeau talking

Get to know the game. Challenge managers to friendlies, as many as possible, and have a look at teams around your league to get an idea for the game. Don't make any big decisions yet, you may regret them later.

If you want to build up a team from a young age - great. In fact, now is the perfect time to do it. As you're in the Amateur leagues, you won't need great players to achieve some success. In fact I would recommend buying some 'oldies but goldies' even if you are going for the training-up-youths idea.

Why? All you need is 3 good players, a CB, a strong FW (high in OP or AE works best) and a GK. As a result you'll win more, get more sponsorship money and have a better economical situation with which to bring in those younger players. Furthermore, make the rest of your team relatively young... but with some nice potentials. They will grow for you, and you will use them regularly... and they will thus get some great experience. I bought a few 20-ish old players when I first started, and because they kept raising in skills as I trained them and went up the divisions, they kept being in my first team for a long time. This gives you a great base of players to build upon.

Cafa talking

If you invest in little league so early, you'll have financial problems, you won't have a competitive team, and it will take you at least 5-6 seasons before your first draft secures a place in the senior team. Players age 1.6 years per season, and a season lasts 14 weeks, meaning, it will take you a year and a half before your 15 year old player becomes an important senior first team player.

You need a team which will keep winning, so you get the sponsor money and increased attendance due to popularity and flair.

For this you need quick success. Old experienced players (age 30+) are severely undervalued in FK economy and they can be bought very cheap, even though they're the best players due to experience, which reduces the random factor. Most managers just don't like them as they dream of developing a top class player. Just buy a developed player. "Buy young and cheap, sell when old and expensive" doesn't work here. It's upside-down.

If I restarted playing the game, I'd buy fifteen players aged 30+, replacing the ones who get really too old, and I'd save the sponsors / attendance money as much as I can, to be able to buy even better old players when I advance to the higher league.

That's the way you'll have success quickly, and later your team will be strong / rich enough to support a big little league investment without influencing your senior team strength.

And, you have to learn much about tactics. Use normal 4-4-2 for a start, and learn which players go to which positions. Players are tactics. So 4-4-2 can be many different things, depending on the players you field.

Avoid the usual newbie mistake. Midfielders have to have some defensive skills. You won't get far with 4 offensive guys. Don't copy real-life soccer, learn the rules of THIS game. Weak defending and weak tackling might work, at the minimum.

braeken talking

One big difference with T.O.G (Hattrick) for me is that you always have to look far ahead. You can not sit back for a season and do nothing. Players age quickly and you need to make a plan. Therefore I would recommend to focus on the youth and that includes older youth players. Look where your weak spots are plan for that.

Now you could also buy older players to cover your weak spots. Keep in mind that they lose skills quite quickly (and of course value).

Freekick is totally based on players and not on the average of all the players skills as in T.O.G. Technically you could have 1 great CB but if the other CB is very weak, you do have a weak spot in the back since the strong CB might be able to stop a striker in 8 of the 10 chances but in the other 2 chances the weak CB might be one who needs to stop the striker. I think it's better to have a well balanced team in each area of the field. Don't spend all your money on 1 player.

Now which area is more important? Good question. This season the goalie is definitely very important but they are going to be toned down next season. But I think a goalie is definitely important. The reason is that he is normally often mentioned in a game report.

Now which is more important: attack of defense? I think they are equal. And the midfield is important when it comes to starting chances or the prevent the other team from starting a chance. It's not as T.O.G, where midfield is the most important. I think each area is pretty much equally important. A strong offense is useless when you can't create chances for instance.

It also depends on tactics. I play long ball which means that my midfield is less important than when you would play passing since the ball will often flying over the midfield players. But then again, midfield players can prevent chances for the opponent.