Big new arrival and departures

Juan Jose Gonzalez - world class regen - signed for 3.4m in transfer auction. He's going to be my playmaker and will provide a huge boost to my rep. Other transfers:

OUT

Cabrera - Regen AMC - £3m. Had to make room for Gonzalez and recouped most of the cost of the Argentinian.

Martin Caceres - DC, Beaulieu FC legend - £1m + Simon Kjaer too good an offer to turn down for a 32 yo.

IN

Tersigni - wonderkid MC - 2.7m PEx - the long term successor to Toledo, he's gonna be a beast.

How much is a player worth?

It’s a question each and every manager in football manager live will ask himself on a near daily basis. Should I bid £33,500 or £35,000 on that defender? He wants £1m for that left winger, but is he worth that? Someone’s just bid £100k for my goalkeeper, should I sell? It’s also been the subject of many a blog post, from Wild Geese’s last effort through to Jakswan’s most recent post. So I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring with a couple of posts with, for what it’s worth, my two cents.

Jakswan recently proposed a system whereby you paid a certain amount based on reputation and age, assuming no resale value. I don’t completely agree with the figures he uses, although I accept that it’s just a rough baseline, and I think it’s an interesting idea. However, I disagree whole-heartedly with any such system for one key reason

Every player is different and should be judged on his own merits.

There are so many things to consider when buying a player, but ultimately you’re trying to weigh up a players’ contribution to your side on the pitch against the financial cost for the club.

A playmaker who can pass is essential, but without pace the impact that the player can have is somewhat limited. Add pace (and the ability to go past people) and you can find your midfielder getting into better positions and creating more chances. But without a decent level of finishing, when in the position to shoot, they’ll often blow the chance. The PPMs (player preferred moves) that players have can have a huge impact too.

So given the choice of two players with similar AF but one with the ability to finish, another without, the first player is clearly worth more money as he’s likely to have a greater impact on your fortunes on the pitch.

This leads me onto another point – AF isn’t a good indicator of effectiveness on the pitch. AF is linked directly to the player’s current capability, with modifiers for potential and age. Effectiveness on the pitch is down to the distribution of current capability. This means your fullback with 10 pace and acceleration is never going to be a world beater, no matter how high his acquisition fee is and isn’t worth splurging the money over.

Finally, the calculations shown assume a player is going to stay at the club from the point he joins until he’s 32. The in-game ‘locks’ mean that this assumption is wide of the mark. Most players spend between 2 and 4 seasons at my club. That means all I care about is that the player isn’t too old to swap/sell at the end of his stay. I don’t really care if a player is 21 or 26 because at the end of the day I’ll have to use a lock to keep him and those are in short supply. Yes a player of equal ability at 21 compared to 26 is more valuable because he’ll be more attractive in 2-3 seasons time, but ultimately, not by the vast differences in price shown.

Starting Strategy for Older Gw - The Future

The future







My squad is strong, with a number of top youths coming through such as Walton, Richardson and Hughes. The stadium is in a good state, with a new corporate box next on the wish list. Morei mpressive is my past rankings when considering I joined in season 6, my lowest ranking being 57 and even touching upon the top 10!!!

I’ve continued down the path of replacing older players with talented youngsters, and even have a youth team, as I move towards a more healthy average age of 25 (rather than 30). Some of my players are approaching their sell-by date, especially Pepe, so further investment will be required shortly.

However, the bulk my stadium payments are finally coming to an end, so I will now have a lot more money to play around with. I’ve already reinvested some cash, namely the money received from the Jandra sale, into my stadium in the form of 3 new blocks of Astilla seats, taking my total capacity to 26,000. I now plan to be on the lookout for a ‘marque’ signing to bring the corporate fans in – this is where the real money in stadiums exists.

My ranking is holding steady, very rarely outside the top 50 and occasionally touching the top 20 – a great achievement for a club 3 seasons old. Performances in all competitions have been steady and I expect to really be able to kick on with signings at the end of the 4th season.


Skills

Often skills are down to personal choice, but I think the skills you choose are important and choosing bad skills (no-one needs Physio 5 until they have nothing better to learn...) can really impact upon your team. So here’s the list of skills I went for, in rough order, and the reasoning.

1. Construction 4 + Foreman 4

I knew I was going to be building a lot of stadiums, so I wanted to save myself money and time. I went for the learning skill first (to level 4), which is debatable as to whether this paid off over the two skills I learnt.

2. Contract Negotiation 4 + Transfer Negotiation 4

In my opinion, these two skills are very, very useful and pay for themselves many, many times over. Having an entire team on 80% of wage demand, instead of 100% of wage demand, can save you £50,000 a day at the top end of the gameworld – which means you can have an extra two household players and stay under the ‘soft cap’ of £250,000 daily wages. Transfer Negotiation greatly helped me stretch my limited funds in wage auctions.

3. Scouting 5 and Judging Potential 4

I’ve almost finished learning Judging Potential 4, which is a key skill in this game in its current form. Being able to tell the potential of young players can really help you in signing younger players. I didn’t go for this straight away, as I always intended to sign older players first, where judging potential is of zero benefit.

4. Coaching

Next up, and for the foreseeable future, is coaching. Having a high level of coaching really helps bring on your kids. As I’ve moved more towards youth and away from senior, this is the next step in securing the long term future of my club.

Starting Strategy for Older Gw - Season 3

Season 3 - Moving towards youth

Transfers

After two seasons of signing experienced high profile players, I’d raised my reputation to 3.5 stars. This was boosted by the sale of Ari and subsequent reinvestment of that money in the slightly older, higher wage but excellent Barreto and the recruitment of solid defender Lima to replace an aging Walter Garcia. I then shifted to looking at excellent youth players who could come through at my side, buying regen midfielder Simon Hughes at wage auction, followed by ace left winger Tim Walton in private transfer and powerful striker Mark Richardson in transfer auction.

This trio of younger players marked a change in my clubs strategy from immediate success to planning for the future, merging youth with the experience to ensure a future for the club.

Towards the end of the third season, I sold Joe Mattock and Petr Jandra. With both of them coming to the end of their contracts, I felt I could cash in and reinvest the money. Mattock had been played out of position at right back, but fetched a cool £600,000, In Tim Walton, I had a ready made replacement for Jandra, and the £600,000 recouped represented a vast profit on the £170,000 paid and a huge reduction in projected wages (as he was due to increase to 15,000 from 5,000!)


Matches and Tactics

Unlike the departed Ari, Barretto possessed great pace, passing and dribbling skills, making him excellent in an attacking midfield position. I therefore shifted to a 4-6-0 formation to make best use of my 3 central attacking players – Barretto, Ernane and Hughes. This meant I was even tighter at the back and made my side notoriously hard to beat, especially with the

The AEFA closed and migrated to the EFA the following season. However, as I had qualified for the premiership the previous season, I was put straight into the EFA premiership. My main aim was to avoid relegation, my hopeful target was a top half finish. In the end, I managed to pull together a decent set of results and qualified for the Silver Cup in my third season in the gameworld – quite an achievement.

Stadium

I took a gamble and paid out a lot of money for a 3-Tier Azindale stand with 2 blocks of Astilla and 3 electronic advertising boards. I could have, and probably should have, gone for another 2-Tier stand, which would have been built quicker, resulting in quicker turnaround of profits. Additionally, I would have been able to afford (and require) another corporate block soon.

The reason I went against this as I was of the opinion that if I went down this route, I’d need to build a 3-Tier stand eventually regardless and my overall expenditure would be much higher for initial increase in income compared to cost.

Due to the long construction time, these improvements wouldn’t finish until the start of season 4.

Summary

- Reduced the average age by switching to purchasing top prospects rather than experienced players, keeping an eye out for relative ‘bargains’.
- Reached and retained 3.5 star team rep.
- Added a new, 3-Tier stand with ample space for future improvements.

Starting Strategy for Older Gw - Season 2

Season 2 – Establishing the Club

Expanding the squad

Wage auctions can be excellent value, or you can end up spending your money on players whose wages are far too high. I had a clear strategy – to sign higher reputation players to increase my clubs reputation. I picked up world famous DC Pepe and solid midfielder Pierre Ducasse in transfer auctions, and added to that Joe Mattock (DL), Eoin Powderley (DL – oops! Bid on both expecting to only get one!), Ernane (MC/AMC), Petr Jandra (MR/ML) and Yaser Yildriz (AMR/ST) through wage auctions. After this I had very little money left, but I had kept my wages relatively low in total (around £110,000), so I was still making a daily profit, despite stadium payments.

These signings really established my club, adding real quality for not that much in wages. The key was to sign players such as Ernane for under half their wage demand in wage auctions, and players such as Pepe for very small fees in transfer auctions, meaning I could punch above my weight in terms of quality on the pitch. It also marked the first time I managed to sign players in their prime. Yildriz, Jandra, Mattock and Powderly meant my first team was no longer almost retired!


Matches & Tactics

GK – Sippel

DL – Powderly
DR – Mattock
DC – Pepe
DC – Garcia

ML – Jandra
MR – Yildriz
MC – Ernane
MC – Ducasse
MC – Kurtulus

ST – Ari

With the signings I’d made, I kept the same formation, but this time around my midfield had far more bite with Jandra, Ernane and Yildriz. Defence was much stronger, too, although I had to play Mattock out of position at right back due to my mistake in signing two left backs!

I moved to the All Evening FA and was placed in Division 1A, directly below the premiership. Here I faced a mix of teams, some teams who had joined at the same time as me as well as some teams who were entering their 7th season! To my amazement, my team managed to push for promotion, eventually winning the league. Key to the success was the use of Ernane. I gave him very, very attacking instructions and a lot of freedom. He re-payed me by managing a goal every other game and really being the driving force behind all my attacking play.

Stadium

Although the signings of the previous season had left me relatively poor, I continued to add to my stadium, paying it off over 4 to 8 weeks. By paying it off over time, I always made a slight profit and my income steadily increased. By the end of the season, I had mostly filled out the 2-Tier Azindale stand with an equal mix of Disagio and Di Lusso seats. As I was starting to get some demand for corporate fans, I also paid out for a Flauta corporate box, which really boosted my income.

I funded this not through player sales, but by keeping wages low and paying the stadium costs over 4 to 8 weeks. This meant I always made a modest profit to reinvest into players

Summary

- Expanded the squad through a mixture of low-fee transfer auctions and low-wage wage auction purchases.
- Improved the quality throughout the squad with players in their prime.
- Still avoided private transfers – much better value to be had in transfer and wage auctions
- Reached 3 star team rep.
- Filled out my first stand with Di Lusso and Disagio
- Added a Flauta Corporate box.

Starting Strategy for Older GW - Season 1

Season 1 – Getting a foothold

Initial Squad Selection

I opted for an old, experienced team for my initial squad selection, picking a starting 11 on key attributes and filling out the rest of the squad with minimum wage players with tiny acquisition fees. My wages were a lowly £55,000 and I had money in the bank from my initial £500,000.

Your income is relative to your wage for clubs under 3 star reputation as long as your total wages remain under £100,000. This meant that I only made marginally more profit by going for a lower wage squad. However, by keeping my initial wages low, this meant that when I expanded my squad I still remained under the 100k wage limit before I started eating into profits.

Transfers

You can only win matches by scoring, so I quickly spent a large chunk of my remaining cash on Brazilian striker Dinei. I then added to this by signing players such as Walter Garcia (DC), Sercan Kurtulus (MC) and Edson (DR/MR) for very small fees (lower than AF) in transfer auctions. This enabled me to build a competitive squad for only a small amount of money.

Later on I signed a quality goalkeeper, Tobias Sippel, for £600,000 spread over 4 weeks, and I sold Dinei for £250,000 before signing a better, younger replacement in Ari for £350,000.

Tactics & Matches

With my best player a striker, I opted to play 4-4-1-1, with Dinei (and then Ari) upfront and initial squad signing Sergey Krivets as my midfield playmaker sitting just behind. I played defensive football, setting myself up as hard to beat and generally played on the counter.

The difference between gaining 1 point or all 3 points is often a set piece so I had made sure I had a good corner taker (16+), a good free-kick taker (16+) and someone good in the air (Jumping, Heading, Strength all 17+) in my initial squad selection. This combined with the occasional magic from Krivets or Dinei made my side very strong compared to other new joiners.

I joined a New User league set up by the Beta moderators for the influx of new teams. This pitted me against clubs of my own ability only, and I steadfastly refused to play against teams of far greater ability. The result of this was that my world ranking (I reached the top 10 in the world and generally didn’t fall out of the top 50), and FA ranking was impressive. I ended up winning New User League 2 with a couple of games to spare.

Stadium

One of the biggest decisions to make is over when and how to expand your stadium. I opted against improving one of the existing stands, as I felt it was a short-term and short-sighted investment.

One of the biggest money earners in the game are corporate fans, or ‘Corps’. I knew there was no point in catering to corporate fans at this point, because the demand wasn’t there for my club, but I decided to give myself the option by building a stand with corporate provision.

A 2-Tier stand is a good choice to start off with, because you can reap the rewards relatively quickly. A 3-Tier stand takes upwards of 20 days to build and the seats take up to 15 days more, so it can be a season before you reap increased income.

I therefore opted for a 2-Tier Azindale Type 2 stand. It offers a decent number of seating blocks, combined with space for one Corp box and advertising provision. I initially included a few blocks of Disagio seats and 1 block of Di Lusso seats, along with electronic advertising boards, resulted in a modest jump in projected earnings.


Summary

- Experienced initial starting squad, low wage, filled out with very cheap players
- Made sure I bought in a quality striker to bang in the goals
- Expanded the squad in numbers and quality, cheaply, through transfer auctions, rather than the much higher private transfer fees.
- Reached 2 star team rep.
- Started expanding my stadium with future proofing in mind – 2 Tier Azindale stand.

Starting Strategy for Older GW - Intro

When I made the step up to moderator, I was asked to play in the Beta as well. This is so we are up to date with all the coming changes to best inform the members of our respective live worlds as to future changes. Instead of going over my team, I thought it would be more interesting to describe my path to (relative) glory. I joined the gameworld a week into season 6, leaving me a long way behind established members of the gameworld. I realise this is ‘just’ the Beta, but I hope that what I did could act as some sort of ‘road map’ to success for those players who choose to join established worlds.

I don’t pretend that this is the best way of doing things – I made some questionable decisions and I’m sure other people will come up with better options in their own strategies (Jakswan’s guide in particular is an interesting read and his blog in general is worth a look). I also got lucky in some of my signings, but then you need a bit of that luck to succeed. However, I do know that as of writing, I’m sitting 18th in the world rankings, with wages of just 130,000, a productive stadium mostly paid off and some good youngsters coming through, after joining the gameworld 6 seasons late.

I’ll separate out the strategy in a number of posts to make it easier to read. Feel free to post questions or tell me what I should have done.

Beaulieu FC – A (players) history

While I claim to have a fairly good memory, a lot of the history of the club is contained within the pages of this blog over the course of the last year and I doubt I’d be able to add anything new! Instead of regurgitating the information, I thought I’d change the focus and look at the players who have been at the heart and sole of the club. I thought that the best way of doing this would be to present a new Beaulieu FC dream team, 5 seasons on from the first one. ‘Regen’ players are denoted by an asterisk. (http://beaulieufc.blogspot.com/2009/04/beaulieu-fc-dream-team.html)


GK – Maurizo Setaro* - 590 App

Contenders: Denis Gorbachev*, Samir Handanovich, Rogerio Ceni

It was clear that Maurizo Setaro was going to be a superstar when his manager persuaded me to part with £1,000,000 to bring him to Beaulieu FC back in Season 6. Over the next 3 and a half seasons he emerged as one of the world’s best, regularly pulling off amazing saves in order to underline Beaulieu FC’s defensive prowess.


DR – Dani Alves - 1149 App, 143 Goals, 622 Assists

Contenders: Nelson, Matteo Longobardi*, Thiago Viera*

Dani ‘Superman’ Alves was the first household name to grace Beaulieu FC, joining the club in the first season and remained at the Anchor during his best years. A marauding force down the right flank, he was often switched to right wing to make better use of his offensive qualities. An amazing record made him one of the best players in the gameworld, season after season. None of the contenders came close.


DL – Christian Ansaldi - 532 App, 9 Goals, 99 Assists

Contenders: Frederico Balzaretti, Vanderson Canela, Ivan Sima

Left back had always been a bit of a problem position for Beaulieu FC. Of the contenders, but Argentinean brawler Ansaldi has neatly solved that issue for a number of seasons. Either footed, being able to play up and down both wings, Ansaldi has been an invaluable member of the side.


DC – Martin Caceres (Captain) - 2280 apps, 296 Goals, 126 Assists

There were no other contenders for Caceres’ place. The club captain has been with the club since he was 21, emerging as one of the worlds best defenders and winning a host of trophies to become one of the most decorated players in the game. The only player to have remained at Beaulieu FC across all the seasons, he’s now 31 and into the twilight of his career, but still remains as integral a cog to the Beaulieu machine as ever.


DC – Nedum Onouha - 931 app, 43 Goals, 48 Assists

Contenders: Mats Hummels, Henrique, Andreas Kjaer*

One of the first players signed by Beaulieu FC after the initial squad, he stayed with the side for a number of seasons, moving from right back to the centre as he grew in stature. His blistering pace really marked him a notch above most other defenders. Mats Hummels will be desperately disapointed not to have made the cut, with most Beaulieu FC fans including him for the goal that won Beaulieu FC’s first gold cup.


MR – Geovani Capitani* - 1064 App, 98 Goals, 224 Assists

Contenders: Diego Valeri, Felipe Monteiro, Rommano Denneboom.

The sheer fact is that I’ve not had many quality players on the right wing. Sometimes this was due to formation (playing without wingers for a couple of seasons), but more often than not it was due to one of two men holding this position and making it their own. Dani Alves is forced to right back because of one man – Capitani. Signed for a significant sum of money at 19, he was touted as the future of Beaulieu FC and hasn’t disappointed. Now 25, he’s one of the best right wingers in the game.


ML – Jeremy Menez - 931 App, 122 Goals, 213 Assists

Contenders: Andres Guardado, Marko Marin, Carlos Eduardo

This is where it starts getting difficult. While in defence I’ve not had a lot of amazing players, in midfield the strength in depth over the history of Beaulieu FC is immense. In the end, I had to go with Menez due to his level of performance and length of service for the club. Signed in Season 4, he spent a full 6 seasons at the club before being replaced by current incumbent of the left wing, Marko Marin. His ‘wide forward’ role neatly complemented that of Capitani’s out and out winger role and he greatly contributed to the most successful period of the clubs history – picking up two Gold Cup winners’ medals.


MC (d) – Marcio Toledo* - 884 App, 90 Goals, 162 Assists

Contenders: Marco Donadel, Danielle Dessena, Michael Johnson

Signed as a 21 year old from one of the gameworlds’ top youth academies for a large sum of money, Toledo emerged into exactly the player I hoped he would become. While other Regen midfielders overtook him in terms of value, his contribution to my club has been superb. His stats are perfectly distributed for his role as a defensively minded midfielder and that enables Toledo to act as the metronome and steel for my side.


AMC – Sergio Aguero - 306 app, 177 Goals, 158 Assists

Contenders: Guilherme, Yoann Gourcuff, Freddy Adu

It pains me greatly to leave the prodigal son of Beaulieu FC on the bench, but I simply couldn’t justify leaving Aguero out of the side. I’ve always had a creative midfielder in my side pulling the strings, and Aguero was simply the best. Finishing, passing, speed, aerial ability, the Argentinian magician is put simply, a complete player. He also scored two of the best goals I’ve ever seen in FM (although neither rated highly on the longshot volley biased star rating system). That they both occurred in the same match against perennial nemesis Monobrow FC made it all the sweeter.


AMC – Moussa Kouakou - 898 App, 406 goals, 463 Assists

Contenders: Julio Baptista, Jorge Martinez, Ismael Aissati

Of my pair of attacking midfielders, I’ve usually had one who is dominant I the air. For nearly 5 seasons, that man has been world-class powerhouse Moussa Kouakou. Julio Baptista ran him close in terms of performance, but Kouakou simply gets better and better with a huge amount of goals, assists and match winning performances. One of the best players in the game in his own right, he does the business when he’s called upon.


ST – Mario Balotelli - 535 app, 651 goals, 184 Assists

Contenders: Pato, Carlos Vela

Not only is he the best player to have ever graced the pitch at Beaulieu FC, the Italian stallion is the best striker in the game in Saunders, bar none. He’s into his third season at the Anchor and is one of the chief reasons for my continued success. A goal machine, his ‘worst’ season of the three yielded ‘just’ 1.2 goals per game. I only listed two competitors as Aguero and Guilherme were listed in the midfield. Both Pato and Vela were immense forces in my side, but at the end of the day, there’s only one Super Mario.


Current Squad

You’ve met the dream team, but here’s the current squad of superstars entertaining the masses at The Anchor:

GK – Denis Gorbachev*

DR – Thiago Viera*
DL – Christian Ansaldi
DC – Martin Caceres
DC – Andreas Kjaer*

MR – Geovanni Capitani*
ML – Fausto Rossi
MC – Marcio Toledo*

AMC – Gregory Cabrera*
AMC – Moussa Kouakou*
ST – Mario Balotelli

Note that the formation is fairly fluid, with Mario often playing as a third AMC, and with the wingers often pushing forward. Against small defences, Kouakou often finds himself at the head of the spear, while a flat midfield is often seen when the prodigous Gregory Cabrera is on the field.

Re-launch of the blog

For a number of reasons, chief among them being my move to being a moderator and taking part in the beta, over the last few months I just didn’t have the time to update this blog. I still don’t really have the time, but I’m going to try and keep it more up to date with the comings and goings at Beaulieu FC.

As the Gameworld nears the end of its 11th season, I thought I’d start the re-launch with a brief history of the club and some of the myriad of world class players to have graced the hallowed turf at The Anchor.

Expect my thoughts on a range of issues, from my team, GW Saunders, game updates and the introduction of my team from the Beta, Langford FC.