Value for money

Creating And Using Graphics For Squad Management

I am not going to take credit for coming up with this style of graphic, I saw it in one of the articles over at Voetbal International and figured it looked cool enough to replicate. While I am not at all an expert in the usage of Excel, it didn’t take me long to whip up something that looked reasonably good. It’s a quick way to identify squad management issues and let’s be honest, it looks cool in your blog or on your social media page as well.

By Guido, ago

A Blast From The Past; Radar Love

Allow me to show you how my star player performed this season. This is just a matter of showing off of course, but humour me. I could screenshot his history from the game, but if I really wanted to detail his style, I’d have to describe more statistics or include match clips. Yet I can convey how this player performed in a single image. Ready?

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By Guido, ago

Getting Great Deals For Your Players

Teams like Udinese and Basel are hardly world class teams, filled to the brim with superstars. They are certainly not the teams who compete for the Champions League every season, despite occassional stunts in the tournament. Yet despite all of this, these are teams who excel in a very particular area of the game: the transfer market. While some teams have acquired fame for their overwhelming spending summer after summer —more often than not thanks to the monetary backing of Eastern European or Middle Eastern investors— Udinese and Basel have mastered an investment approach that any Wall Street stockbroker would envy. Their keen eye for scouting young and affordable talents, combined with the common sense to actually field these youngsters instead of letting them rot away in the reserves, allows for these clubs to dramatically increase the market value of their players over relatively short periods of time. In short, these clubs have demonstrated the enviable knack of buying players relatively cheaply, benefiting from their prowess for a couple of seasons, then selling them for a very good price to richer European teams.

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By Guido, ago

Sign-To-Sell Revisited; The Way Forward For Smaller Clubs

Modern football is changing. With money becoming more and more important, the club landscape has changed. That applies to FM just as well as real life by the way. There is now a top tier of untouchable clubs who, like big businesses, get constantly richer and keep football alive with a trickle down of capital (Man City, PSG, Chelsea, Bayern) and then there is a secondary tier of clubs who provide a safe shop window for investors.

It seems rather unlikely we will ever see another ‘Ajax ’95’, a team which (arguably pre-Bosman ruling) bypassed economic restrains to achieve romantic glory. However, the most organised and forward thinking boards can overachieve and rise up the tiers. Take real-life examples such as FC Basel, Ajax, Porto and Sevilla. They understand that, in capitalist football, all staff are up for sale and will only remain at the club until they have reached their peak. The best businessmen know who to sign cheap and even more importantly; when to cash in before hitting a glass ceiling.

In this blogpost, I want to focus on the business side of things. If you’re a smaller club trying to break the strangle-hold of the traditional top clubs, be it nationally or internationally, how could you sign the right players for the right price? Which strategies can you employ to scout and sign players, how can you get the most value for players you intend to sell, basically, how can you be a smart wheeler-dealer?

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By Guido, ago

Value For Money; Exploiting The MLS (FM15)

First off, I know there is a lot of overlap in the initial stage of this post and my earlier post regarding Value For Money. The older post still isn’t 100% complete and in hindsight, I should have released each region as an individual post instead of making it one huge post.

Secondly, with interest in the MLS rising due to the guys like Lampard and Gerrard moving there, I decided to give the league a go myself, which in turn helped me discover this little exploit, loophole or whatever you want to call it. Now I would like to stress this isn’t a game-breaking exploit, but just a neat way to make some extra cash or get potentially great players cheap.

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By Guido, ago

Collateral Damage; What To Do With Excess (All) Strikers?

Let’s just presume you have fallen under the spell of the siren song of strikerless tactics. Otherwise, why would you be here, on Strikerless.com? By its very name, a strikerless formation has no need for actual strikers. So, when you are hell-bent on playing a strikerless formation, you are going to have to find solutions for your excess bagage; the strikers you have inherited in the squad you have just taken control of. What do you do with excess (most if not all) strikers?

So what are the most effective and efficient ways to get rid of those banes of my Football Manager existence; strikers? If you’re the kind of guy that’s not interested in long, winded posts, here’s the TL;DR version:

  1. Re-train them;
  2. Sell them,;
  3. Loan them away.

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By Guido, ago

Value For Money; Where To Scout?

Value for money; a brief introduction In order to navigate and exploit the transfer market, you need to know the products available to said market. This is where your scouting network comes in, constantly scouring various leagues and nations for talent that you can bring into your side. An ideal scenario would consist of Read more…

By Guido, ago