The Five Point System for Success in FIFA 08

Everyone is addicted to video games at one time or another. Some of us prefer shooting games, which place a heavy emphasis on reflexes and reaction. However, for those of us who are in love with sports games, we all know that they additionally require expertise in game management and coaching skills.

EA sport’s FIFA is the virtual version of perhaps the greatest sport on the planet, soccer. The highlight of this game is, of course, the manager game mode. Using these tips, I have turned half star rated teams with absolutely 0 dollars to start with into elite teams worthy of challenging teams like Man U and Chelsea. So, without farther wasting your time with a lame introduction, here is my system for success.

Getting Started

If you happen to want to start with a 0 bank balance, then the first thing you do is bring in more talent from the transfer market. In order to keep your transfer fees down, the first thing you do is head towards the free agency list. When your team has players rated 40 overall across the board, those 60 overall free agents can look like superstars, and, of course, they don’t cost any transfer money. Keep in mind, the number one rule in the transfer market is to NEVER buy anyone over the age of 27. It won’t do you much good to waste money on a guy who will retire 2 years later.

Tip: If you feel up to “bending the rules” a little, a great way to get a few extra million bucks added to your budget is to sign some of the best free agents and sell them right away.

The Board

One of the most annoying things about FIFA 08 is the ever demanding board committee. When you’re starting that low, the last thing you want to do is to get the board mad otherwise you’re gone. The first thing you need to know is to always try to do a good job on the interviews. The other thing is you need to know which board expectations you should try to meet, and which ones you’ll be better off abandoning all together. My rule of thumb is, anything dealing with the finical budget then ignore. That means any thing about reducing the weekly salary, limiting the money spent in the transfer season, etc. The ones you really need to pay close attention to is the ones expecting you to finish at a certain place by the end of the season. Also, it doesn’t hurt to do the little things like contract extensions and bringing in certain players, etc.

Tip: Don’t let those annoying board letters get to you!

Staff Upgrades

One pretty cool feature of the game that’s unique to FIFA is the ability to upgrade your staff members. When managing your team, it’s important to know which staff upgrades are more important then others. The most important position by far is the negotiator. Once you get a sufficient amount of money, be sure to upgrade your negotiator all the way. With a bad negotiator, it could cost as much two 2-3 times to money needed to bring in a new player then it would with a level 10 one. The next one is your medical staff since the difference between a tired player and a fully energized one. As for your goalie, defender, mid field, and forward coaches, don’t worry about them until later when you’ve got the luxury to burn a few million bucks. They don’t really do much for you and it’s not worth it early on.

Tip: As long as you’ve got a stadium manager at level 5 or above, don’t bother upgrading them since it’s not worth the 20-30 million dollars needed to upgrade them.

Managing Your Squad

The first thing you need do is find a formation that you like if you decide to actually play the games. Personally, I like a heavy defense and a counter attack so I go with a 5-2-3 formation. Obviously if you’re a passing type person then more midfielders would help. The other thing is I would like to point out is although most professional clubs carry like 30 people, it’s not such a good idea on FIFA. You don’t want to have to pay the weekly salary of all those people who are probably never even going to play anyways. I normally keep about 1 backup for every 2 starters (it could be one for 3, or 2 for 3 if you have an odd number of players in one position) and then about 1 or 2 players that can play any position.

Tip: Make sure you sub out any really tired players before games. They can still play pretty well but it gets really annoying when they get injured for a few months.

Picking Up the Right Players

This is BY FAR the most important part. If you could take look at my team, you would see that a midfielder is starting in virtually every position outside of goalie. Why? Because if you pick the right players, some midfielders can play a lot better at defender or forward then they can at their natural position by as much as 5-10 overall attribute ratings. They key is once you can upgrade to a good decent scout, then look for the key attribute ratings. There are two ways you can do this.

Here’s the first way, if you’re looking for say, a forward then here’s what you do. Conduct a search in the transfer market for all midfielders with a finishing rating of 80 or above. Let’s say you find a CM who’s 75 overall. Look at his supporting attributes that would be important to a forward. (Sprint speed, finishing, shot power) If all of those are above 80, then you know that if you sign him and put him at forward then he’ll be well over 80 overall. You can do this for defender to, just do the exact same thing except with attributes that are important to a defender. (Tackling, marking, strength)

The second way is a little bit easier but will exclude a lot of potential players. First you have to examine and see what the main attributes of the position you’re looking for is. For example, if you need a defender, some of the primary attributes are stamina, strength, marking, heading, tackling, and ball control. Now, if you go to the CDM position, you will see that their primary attributes are identical to the defenders in every way, except for dribbling. Search for all CDM who have a dribbling ability of 50 or less, then sort them to see which of those have the highest overall rating. This means that because of the fact that they have such a low dribbling ability, it pulls down the entire overall rating but all of the other attributes are still high. So therefore, if you put that player in the defending position, because of the fact that the dribbling doesn’t matter they will be much, much better.

Just follow all of this and you’re guaranteed to be able to build a successful club from scrap. Tell me what you think and feel free to tell me anything else you’ve picked up.