Chewbacca said: It's a great thread, pal. Keep up the good work! Expand
Thanks! I'm trying to add some tips of stuff I do when playing to see if it can help anyone. I'm by no means a pro player, so anyone can feel free to give tips back!
It's a good habit to give some rest to your most tired players after every match, especially when you have only 3 or 4 days in between. It not only recovers their condition but also prevents injuries and fatigue.
To help keep morale high, remember to praise your players every week for training rating when you receive the training report. It usually increases morale for all players above 8.0.
After so many tests, I'm finally back to the Concord career.
Once again, media predicts me to finish last by far. My annual wage expenditure is 11 million euros, while top teams are over 300 million. I obviously don't expect to win in this first season, so my goal is to grab a spot on Euro Cup to increase my club's stature.
Premier League brought me a huge sum of money, so I started upgrading my infrastructure and hiring seven or eight new players. Board is currently planning a new stadium and upgrading training and youth facilities, and I plan to bring a couple more of faces by the next transfer window. My goal is to replace both my DWs for AML/R, so I can fully migrate to Blue 4.0 (currently training both Blue 4.0 and Blue 4.0 DW, so I can use either winger as needed).
For the first matches of the season, I believe things are going pretty well. I don't believe I'll end the championship around the top, but it's free to dream about that.
Other than that, there isn't much going on. Players are asking for new contracts and I keep denying then, but if they offer an ultimatum, I'll gladly renew with anyone. Can't keep paying 20k wage forever in Premier League.
P.S.: I changed my motherboard, so my Windows license isn't valid anymore. That's why you have the watermark by the corner.
abdullah said: hello zaz Thanks for this great tactic. It was a big test. test tactic Blue 3.2 AW With this tactic, the finals were played in all European cups. CL ( manu)won uefa (napoli) won uefa2 (fenerbahce) lost in the final. Napoli won all the trophies. aston villa and lens did a great job. Thanks again for a great tactic. Expand
It's @ZaZFM, the one with zero followers. Every now and then people ask me my twitter to follow, so I created one for FM since my personal one is for scientific stuff.
First of, my very thanks to ZaZ! Great tactics you put up for this community.
I will try the AW version but I still use the Orange 2CM with great success. Yes sometimes the defence is not 100% safe but I score a lot. Just check Haaland numbers in my save. I know the Portuguese league is not the most competitive league but still is a lot of goals and if you see the nº of goals in the european competitions ("continental" he has a lot of goals.
I leave the last season I completed (2024/2025). I´m in the middle of 2025/2026 now. Probably I will leave to another club to get a more challenge competition. Expand
Thanks! Lots of people ask me to give some attention to Orange again, so I'll check it after winter patch.
Wardie37 said: Cool just get a load of slow donkey like CB's in non league and wondered if I'd be better off dropping one of my CM's in there. I'll just hunt for the best accomplished CB I can get. Cheers mate. Expand
Just use filters for your search, like acceleration and pace over 12.
dzek said: I already read this thread but i ask you to recommend the best one for more accurate results on finding players suit on your tactics. Expand
So after all these updates on your tactics and different combinations of it, which is the best rating file for Genie Scout to use? I need mostly the AW versions. Expand
Wardie37 said: Hi Zaz just wondering if you would recommend training a player in a new position if they have great attribute stats for it or stick with an accomplished player in that position but with much worse stats? Expand
It depends on how much time you want to wait. It can take over a whole season for a player to become accomplished in a position (it's influenced by a hidden attribute, training and matches played). I don't recommend using any player bellow accomplished if you want to play at top performance.
If you have two or three very good players for the same position and one position without any capable players, then go for it and retrain, but I would just keep the two players for the same position (main and reserve) and hire someone else for the position I'm lacking.
channibalism said: Hello mate. I tried so many tactics, only 2 tactics I found successful. One is yours and the other is "Afterlife 5.0"
First of all, the flaws I see in your tactic -from my point of view-:
-The man is running behind the defense, although my defense is fast, it can't catch up. -When the opponent makes a quick pass from the corner, inward from the ground, the opponent suddenly hits the ball and our defense cannot even intervene; he looks stupid. -You said "Use Solid Blue against strong opponents in the first half, and use Dark Blue or Blue 3.0 in the second half". I could not understand this: I am Beşiktaş, my team is strong; but my next match opponent is Rennes. I was defeated using Blue 3.0 even though the opponent was weaker than me. I did Save/Load, I used Solid Blue in the first half, I used Dark Blue in the second half and I was defeated again. I did S/L again, I did Solid Blue and this time I did Blue 3.0 in the second half and I was defeated again.
Can you tell me the exact way to do this?
What are the important features for positions?
The last thing I want to ask is:
I don't know how to squad "rotate", what should I do about it? My players are very tired. Expand
Thanks!
About the flaws of Blue 3.0, it can't be helped much, that is the way most goals were scored for any team in that match engine.
About your results, it's very common for some people to have a series of poor results during a season and think the tactic stopped working. Below are ten reasons your team might stop winning for a while.
1. Complacency: When a team wins too much, players take victories for granted, not giving their best. To avoid that, you must motivate them with team talk, shouts and media handling.
2. Pressure: When playing against stronger teams, your players might feel pressured and perform worse. To avoid that, you need to relieve pressure on team talk, shouts and media handling.
3. Fatigue: When a player has high match and training loads, he builds fatigue. It's not the same of condition or match fitness and you need a sports scientist to see it in the medical centre. To avoid that, you need to rest from training and rotate your squad.
4. Morale: When you lose matches or certain events happen (like player getting unhappy), players lose morale. It is one thing that affects performance a lot, so it can create a bad spiral if not managed properly. To avoid that, praise and warn players based on last match score, form (last 5 matches) and training. You can also increase morale with team talk after matches, team meetings and other forms of interaction.
5. Poor form of players: Sometimes, strikers can get into a poor form that lasts a long time, like ten matches without scoring or more. I am not sure if there is an internal mechanic for that, but it certainly happens fairly often. If both your strikers get into poor form at once, it can get really hard to win matches. To avoid that, I believe you need to score to avoid the poor form, but it might also be just RNG.
6. Injuries: It is fairly common to have injuries by the mid of season, forcing you to use worse players or play in lower condition. To avoid that, you need good physios, lighter training during season, rest and rotate players.
7. Condition: By the middle of season, you usually have several championships being played at once, forcing you to play 2 or 3 matches a week for several weeks in a row. That can force you to rotate to players of lower quality or use players with lower condition. To avoid that, you need to rest players from training and build a balanced squad to rotate.
8. Match fitness: Injuries and lack of rotation can make your players lack match fitness, decreasing their performance. That can cause your team to suffer when you are forced to rotate because of injuries or tight schedule. To avoid that, either rotate your squad or use those players in reserve friendlies.
9. Hidden attributes: There are hidden attributes like consistency and important matches that make your players not have maximum performance during some matches. There are other attributes like injury proneness and dirtiness which can harm your chances of winning some matches. You cannot avoid that unless you hire players with better hidden attributes.
10. RNG (or randomness): Sometimes, your luck is just bad during certain matches. There is no way to avoid that, just keep playing and results should normalize eventually.
About rotation, I'll paste what I said in the thread of FM22 below.
To be successful in football manager, you need to manage your team's playing time, which affects happiness, match sharpness, fatigue (can only see with sports scientist) and condition. Manage happiness and sharpness by making sure each player is getting enough minutes, and fatigue and condition by avoiding giving more minutes per week than they should play. Note that you can use friendlies and reserve matches to keep players sharp, but those matches have no effect on happiness.
My suggestion to manage the squad properly is to add two columns to selection info: "fitness and injuries > fatigue" and "stats (general) > general > games missed in a row". You can do that by right clicking any column name in squad screen, e.g., name, position, and selecting insert column. Make sure you don't use players with high fatigue and don't let any player reach too many games missed in a row (between 3 to 5 depending on your squad size).
After matches in tight weeks, you can rest the most tired players from training so they can recover condition to the next match. To do so, select any players you want to rest, then right click, training > rest > 1 or 2 days. That should be enough to have your most important players in shape for big matches. When you have 8+ days between matches, it's often a good idea to send players on holiday to prevent fatigue. You can do that in training screen > rest > click on training intensity > send on holiday > 1 week.
Morale is another characteristic that needs management. The easiest way to increase morale is by winning, but you can also praise last (official) match, recent form (last 5 games) and training level, as well as criticize the same things. I recommend praising anyone with a rating above 9 and criticize anyone with rating below 6. After defeats, I recommend complimenting any player with recent form or training with rating 8.1+.
Finally, you also need to manage complacency and anxiety. Do that through team talks and shouts. The effect is based on players' hidden status and match odds, but some talks and shouts are usually more positive than others. For example, praising a winning team with shouts usually gives a positive response, as well as encouraging your team when not winning (losing or tie).
For team talk, I usually prefer to relieve pressure by telling them to play their natural game, then tell them individually that I have faith in them. At half time, I praise them if winning by at least two goals, otherwise I tell them I'm not happy. After match, I praise them for victories, tell them I'm unhappy when we don't win and sometimes warn against complacency after big wins. Keep in mind that you should be a little lighter with your team when playing against stronger opponents.
If one of your players gets a yellow card during a match, it might be a good idea to change his player's instruction to Ease Off Tackles to avoid being sent off. To do so, click on the player card by the bottom of match view, then click player instructions. You can also do the same for exhausted players if you run out of subs, as well as reducing his individual pressing trigger, to avoid injuries.
Blue 4.0 uploaded, probably the final version of Blue for FM22. Legacy version with DW was also uploaded. I'll update first post after results, since I have yet to see if it goes better here.
Changes are set pieces, which are now very close to optimal and won't be touched anymore. Blue AW also became the main branch, because there are more players natural on AML/R than ML/R (thanks @Rince for the info), as well as the possibility of setting Ease Off Tackles after getting a yellow card.
Light version will also be uploaded after the results.
nijak05 said: It was more if I could rely on his jca under squad depth to see who should be my first pick etc.. fx ansu fati is my best winger but has been the most inconsistent compared to others with a lower ability .. or if I should trust the player and keep giving them chances to perform.I try to warn them if they have played badly etc.. just trying to learn what you good fm players do Expand
I'm pretty sure he uses role ability to make the list for squad depth, and that has no impact on performance at all. It's just cosmetic based on important attributes for the role, preferred foot and so on, but tests show that analysis is bad. For example, they only give good stars for IWB, If or IW with reverse foot, but footing makes barely any difference for those roles.
nijak05 said: Then how do you choose which players to choose ? Expand
What do you mean? Check the attributes, fatigue, condition, matches without playing, schedule and so on. You said you usually pick the team yourself, so just keep doing it. Assistant manager isn't reliable and often makes poor decisions. Also, he can't see the "long run", so he won't think about prioritizing one match over the next or resting a player with heavy match load, for example. He also often picks players out of position.
Thanks! I'm trying to add some tips of stuff I do when playing to see if it can help anyone. I'm by no means a pro player, so anyone can feel free to give tips back!
Once again, media predicts me to finish last by far. My annual wage expenditure is 11 million euros, while top teams are over 300 million. I obviously don't expect to win in this first season, so my goal is to grab a spot on Euro Cup to increase my club's stature.
Premier League brought me a huge sum of money, so I started upgrading my infrastructure and hiring seven or eight new players. Board is currently planning a new stadium and upgrading training and youth facilities, and I plan to bring a couple more of faces by the next transfer window. My goal is to replace both my DWs for AML/R, so I can fully migrate to Blue 4.0 (currently training both Blue 4.0 and Blue 4.0 DW, so I can use either winger as needed).
For the first matches of the season, I believe things are going pretty well. I don't believe I'll end the championship around the top, but it's free to dream about that.
Other than that, there isn't much going on. Players are asking for new contracts and I keep denying then, but if they offer an ultimatum, I'll gladly renew with anyone. Can't keep paying 20k wage forever in Premier League.
P.S.: I changed my motherboard, so my Windows license isn't valid anymore. That's why you have the watermark by the corner.
Probably next patch only.
Thanks for this great tactic.
It was a big test. test tactic Blue 3.2 AW
With this tactic, the finals were played in all European cups. CL ( manu)won uefa (napoli) won uefa2 (fenerbahce) lost in the final.
Napoli won all the trophies.
aston villa and lens did a great job.
Thanks again for a great tactic.
Thanks for testing!
Share your twitter so we can follow you.
Thanks.
It's @ZaZFM, the one with zero followers. Every now and then people ask me my twitter to follow, so I created one for FM since my personal one is for scientific stuff.
P.S.: Can I add that result to my new Twitter account for FM, @WALTON1981?
Thanks! Is that a good result? How does it compare to others?
After 4.0 is tested I make light versions.
First of, my very thanks to ZaZ! Great tactics you put up for this community.
I will try the AW version but I still use the Orange 2CM with great success. Yes sometimes the defence is not 100% safe but I score a lot. Just check Haaland numbers in my save. I know the Portuguese league is not the most competitive league but still is a lot of goals and if you see the nº of goals in the european competitions ("continental"
I leave the last season I completed (2024/2025). I´m in the middle of 2025/2026 now. Probably I will leave to another club to get a more challenge competition.
Thanks! Lots of people ask me to give some attention to Orange again, so I'll check it after winter patch.
For next patch.
Just use filters for your search, like acceleration and pace over 12.
https://fm-arena.com/find-comment/12291/
So after all these updates on your tactics and different combinations of it, which is the best rating file for Genie Scout to use? I need mostly the AW versions.
Thanks!
Check this thread for your answer.
Wardie37 said: Hi Zaz just wondering if you would recommend training a player in a new position if they have great attribute stats for it or stick with an accomplished player in that position but with much worse stats?
It depends on how much time you want to wait. It can take over a whole season for a player to become accomplished in a position (it's influenced by a hidden attribute, training and matches played). I don't recommend using any player bellow accomplished if you want to play at top performance.
If you have two or three very good players for the same position and one position without any capable players, then go for it and retrain, but I would just keep the two players for the same position (main and reserve) and hire someone else for the position I'm lacking.
One is yours and the other is "Afterlife 5.0"
First of all, the flaws I see in your tactic -from my point of view-:
-The man is running behind the defense, although my defense is fast, it can't catch up.
-When the opponent makes a quick pass from the corner, inward from the ground, the opponent suddenly hits the ball and our defense cannot even intervene; he looks stupid.
-You said "Use Solid Blue against strong opponents in the first half, and use Dark Blue or Blue 3.0 in the second half".
I could not understand this: I am Beşiktaş, my team is strong; but my next match opponent is Rennes.
I was defeated using Blue 3.0 even though the opponent was weaker than me.
I did Save/Load, I used Solid Blue in the first half, I used Dark Blue in the second half and I was defeated again.
I did S/L again, I did Solid Blue and this time I did Blue 3.0 in the second half and I was defeated again.
Can you tell me the exact way to do this?
What are the important features for positions?
The last thing I want to ask is:
I don't know how to squad "rotate", what should I do about it? My players are very tired.
Thanks!
About the flaws of Blue 3.0, it can't be helped much, that is the way most goals were scored for any team in that match engine.
About your results, it's very common for some people to have a series of poor results during a season and think the tactic stopped working. Below are ten reasons your team might stop winning for a while.
1. Complacency: When a team wins too much, players take victories for granted, not giving their best. To avoid that, you must motivate them with team talk, shouts and media handling.
2. Pressure: When playing against stronger teams, your players might feel pressured and perform worse. To avoid that, you need to relieve pressure on team talk, shouts and media handling.
3. Fatigue: When a player has high match and training loads, he builds fatigue. It's not the same of condition or match fitness and you need a sports scientist to see it in the medical centre. To avoid that, you need to rest from training and rotate your squad.
4. Morale: When you lose matches or certain events happen (like player getting unhappy), players lose morale. It is one thing that affects performance a lot, so it can create a bad spiral if not managed properly. To avoid that, praise and warn players based on last match score, form (last 5 matches) and training. You can also increase morale with team talk after matches, team meetings and other forms of interaction.
5. Poor form of players: Sometimes, strikers can get into a poor form that lasts a long time, like ten matches without scoring or more. I am not sure if there is an internal mechanic for that, but it certainly happens fairly often. If both your strikers get into poor form at once, it can get really hard to win matches. To avoid that, I believe you need to score to avoid the poor form, but it might also be just RNG.
6. Injuries: It is fairly common to have injuries by the mid of season, forcing you to use worse players or play in lower condition. To avoid that, you need good physios, lighter training during season, rest and rotate players.
7. Condition: By the middle of season, you usually have several championships being played at once, forcing you to play 2 or 3 matches a week for several weeks in a row. That can force you to rotate to players of lower quality or use players with lower condition. To avoid that, you need to rest players from training and build a balanced squad to rotate.
8. Match fitness: Injuries and lack of rotation can make your players lack match fitness, decreasing their performance. That can cause your team to suffer when you are forced to rotate because of injuries or tight schedule. To avoid that, either rotate your squad or use those players in reserve friendlies.
9. Hidden attributes: There are hidden attributes like consistency and important matches that make your players not have maximum performance during some matches. There are other attributes like injury proneness and dirtiness which can harm your chances of winning some matches. You cannot avoid that unless you hire players with better hidden attributes.
10. RNG (or randomness): Sometimes, your luck is just bad during certain matches. There is no way to avoid that, just keep playing and results should normalize eventually.
About rotation, I'll paste what I said in the thread of FM22 below.
To be successful in football manager, you need to manage your team's playing time, which affects happiness, match sharpness, fatigue (can only see with sports scientist) and condition. Manage happiness and sharpness by making sure each player is getting enough minutes, and fatigue and condition by avoiding giving more minutes per week than they should play. Note that you can use friendlies and reserve matches to keep players sharp, but those matches have no effect on happiness.
My suggestion to manage the squad properly is to add two columns to selection info: "fitness and injuries > fatigue" and "stats (general) > general > games missed in a row". You can do that by right clicking any column name in squad screen, e.g., name, position, and selecting insert column. Make sure you don't use players with high fatigue and don't let any player reach too many games missed in a row (between 3 to 5 depending on your squad size).
After matches in tight weeks, you can rest the most tired players from training so they can recover condition to the next match. To do so, select any players you want to rest, then right click, training > rest > 1 or 2 days. That should be enough to have your most important players in shape for big matches. When you have 8+ days between matches, it's often a good idea to send players on holiday to prevent fatigue. You can do that in training screen > rest > click on training intensity > send on holiday > 1 week.
Morale is another characteristic that needs management. The easiest way to increase morale is by winning, but you can also praise last (official) match, recent form (last 5 games) and training level, as well as criticize the same things. I recommend praising anyone with a rating above 9 and criticize anyone with rating below 6. After defeats, I recommend complimenting any player with recent form or training with rating 8.1+.
Finally, you also need to manage complacency and anxiety. Do that through team talks and shouts. The effect is based on players' hidden status and match odds, but some talks and shouts are usually more positive than others. For example, praising a winning team with shouts usually gives a positive response, as well as encouraging your team when not winning (losing or tie).
For team talk, I usually prefer to relieve pressure by telling them to play their natural game, then tell them individually that I have faith in them. At half time, I praise them if winning by at least two goals, otherwise I tell them I'm not happy. After match, I praise them for victories, tell them I'm unhappy when we don't win and sometimes warn against complacency after big wins. Keep in mind that you should be a little lighter with your team when playing against stronger opponents.
If one of your players gets a yellow card during a match, it might be a good idea to change his player's instruction to Ease Off Tackles to avoid being sent off. To do so, click on the player card by the bottom of match view, then click player instructions. You can also do the same for exhausted players if you run out of subs, as well as reducing his individual pressing trigger, to avoid injuries.
Glad you won, but you certainly lost some hair on that match!
Changes are set pieces, which are now very close to optimal and won't be touched anymore. Blue AW also became the main branch, because there are more players natural on AML/R than ML/R (thanks @Rince for the info), as well as the possibility of setting Ease Off Tackles after getting a yellow card.
Light version will also be uploaded after the results.
I'm pretty sure he uses role ability to make the list for squad depth, and that has no impact on performance at all. It's just cosmetic based on important attributes for the role, preferred foot and so on, but tests show that analysis is bad. For example, they only give good stars for IWB, If or IW with reverse foot, but footing makes barely any difference for those roles.
What do you mean? Check the attributes, fatigue, condition, matches without playing, schedule and so on. You said you usually pick the team yourself, so just keep doing it. Assistant manager isn't reliable and often makes poor decisions. Also, he can't see the "long run", so he won't think about prioritizing one match over the next or resting a player with heavy match load, for example. He also often picks players out of position.