Football Manager Beginners Guide: Part Three

Add as a preferred source on Google

We covered the first three steps to start your first Football Manager journey in our two previous articles. That means you have picked your team, selected the active leagues and nations and also have picked the right manager attributes as per your liking. Now you have started your save and the game actually starts.

However, there are so many things you need to do as soon as you start your new save. We will cover the fourth and probably the most important thing of the game that is creating your tactics.

Step four- Tactics

The most important quality of a top manager is to have a good tactical insight about football. All the Pep Guardiolas and Jurgen Klopps and Carlo Ancelottis are world class managers because they are top tacticians. One may have the right players and right coaching staff but without the right tactics, things are bound to not work out.

You need to choose your starting tactics at the start of your game and it could become a tricky decision to make especially for beginners. The first thing you need to do as soon as you start your save is to go through your squad and take a look at each and every player and their attributes for various positions. You will also have to chalk out a rough idea of the players who will cornerstones of your team and get the most out of them.

you can download plug-and-play tactics provided by FM nerds from various websites but that is not really recommended from our side. Because, it is after all your own game in your world and just blindly following working tactics will take away the fun from the game.

Take your time with the tactics screen and read the descriptions of all the tactical style provided by the game such as tiki taka, gegenpressing, vertical tiki taka or park the bus. You will get a rough idea of what should work for your team and can select any of the provided tactical styles and tweak them as per your convenience.

There is also an option of creating your own style from scratch and we couldn't recommend that stronger. Style like control possession, tiki taka and vertical tiki taka are mostly suited for stronger teams who like to keep more possession of the ball.

These are only suited for teams with more technical players. These are also very demanding styles because of the amount of hard work players need to do when they are not in possession and look to win the ball back. Such styles can also keep you vulnerable to counter attacks against teams sitting deep.

Gegenpressing is one of the most popular tactics particularly associated with Jurgen Klopp although the current Liverpool side do not play exactly the typical gegenpressing system nowadays. This is probably the most demanding system in the game but is also the system that brings the best of both worlds.

It also suits various formations which is why you can apply it at most clubs. However, it is very demanding for players and can lead to injuries.

There are also several other tactical systems suited for teams who like to sit deeper and hit on the break. Such systems are particularly helpful if you go with a weaker side who will be underdogs for most of the season. There are also a set of mentalities to go with from very defensive to very attacking. You will need to choose your mentality carefully as that will be hugely important in how your teams will fare on the pitch.

As you select your tactics, you will also need to choose your formation and player roles for every position. This part of tactics we will cover in our next article. So stay tuned.