Football Manager Beginners Guide: Part Four

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We covered the first four steps of starting your journey in Football Manager 2024. So, now you should be able to pick your starting club, active nations and leagues, management style and tactics.

As you choose your tactics, you will now be asked to pick your formation and assign player roles to every position.

Step five - Formation and Player Roles

As you pick your tactics, you will now be asked to pick your formation on the pitch and also player roles. You will need to pick your preferred formation based on your tactics. Not every formation is ideal for all kinds of tactics so be very patient while choosing your formation. You can try to be creative and learn as you go along the game and tweak your tactics and formation along the line.

Some of the most popular formations are 4-1-2-2-1 or basically a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1 DM AM, 4-2-3-1, 3-4-2-1. Depending on the squad you pick, you will need to choose the right one for your players. Keep in mind that you will want to get the most of your best players and pick your formation accordingly.

Just picking the tactics and formation is not what you need to decide because it's not FIFA. You will not control the players directly but only through the instructions you give to your players. A player in a position can act differently on the pitch depending on the role you assign him. That's what makes FM stand out from rest of the football simulation games.

For every position, there is a set of player roles and you will be able to see what role suits your players the most. Your assistant manager will provide you a star rating for the same which will help you out. FM lets you know about each and every player role with description of the role but that can be a bit confusing for beginners. But FM helps you out with a graphical illustration of what they do on the pitch.

You can also tinker with the instructions for every player role to give your players an edge on the pitch against opposition. The thing you need to do is use your common sense and basic football knowledge. Even if you make the wrong descions, you will eventually get it right if you learn from your mistakes. A trial and error method does not do any harm here. In fact, it will make you even stronger than someone who blindly follows some preloaded tactics given by experts.

We have now covered the first five steps of Football Manager 2024 Beginners Guide. We will continue with the series in our upcoming articles. So, stay tuned and don't be afraid to try new things. Even if it does not work, you will learn a lot.