Many players, especially newbies, face with a low energy problem in FIFA manager 09. Below, I’ll try to list some tips and tricks I gathered through my own experience. I’m playing 3D match mode, so if you are a text mode fan, the tips might not work for you.
The first rule is to choose your favorite scheme and select players for the formation. My favorite is 3-5-2 (3 central defenders, 2 defensive midfielders, left and right midfielder, attacking midfielder and 2 strikers). Choose the best players in your squad for each position. You should take into your consideration:
1) potential (get rid of low-talented persons);
2) age (choose a younger person if competitors are equal in playing level, sell the older person);
3) promise (if you promised somebody to be in a starting eleven, you should either choose him number one or sell him).
Then, for each position sign a youth player (preferrably with a good talent level). All in all, you should have about 18-20 players, not more. Otherwise, you will have problems trying to give all of them a game practice. In my Benfica squad there are 19 players: 2 goalkeepers (I signed a youth player because of his talent level and because my main goalee is over 30 years old, if your goalkeeper is not old you might not need even a reserve goalkeeper as you can move a youth player to your squad temporarily in case your goalee gets injured), 5 central defenders (in fact, the main 3 defenders are playing most of the games and 2 youth players are subbed-in or play in cup matches against weak teams), 3 defenisive midfielders (1 experienced and 2 young are rotating), and 5 midfielders (some can play several positions) and 4 strikers (1 is loaned in by previous manager and will not be bought at the end of the season). The strikers should be all good enough for your championship, because if any forward doesn’t score for a lot of minutes, he will lose confidense.
You should always remember that you should have as many players as you really need, not more. Otherwise, you’ll have serious problems with atmosphere, players’ trust and morale.
The other reason why you should have as little players as possible is the teamwork factor. To my experience, it plays an important role in FIFA manager 2009. In fact, having the same line-up for every match can bring you a significant benefit. Of course, you can remind me about low energy problem, so let’s get back to it.
In fact it’s very easy to keep energy in acceptable values above 80 points or so. I do it the following way:
Train fitness only during pre-season. Play 3 friendlies, not more. Rotate players on friendlies. Don’t set training sessions higher than ‘Normal’ for players with energy level below 90.
Every sunday and after every match I go to training groups and sort players into groups by energy (predefined filter), so the first group will contain the most fatigue players, the second will have fresher players, and the rest group will have the fresh players (usually the ones sitting on the bench during the match)
If the lowest energy level in the first group is below 80, the training sessions intensity should show ‘Regenerative’: Focus on tactics and mental skills, have physical skills on 5% and outfield skills on 5-10%. Exclude fitness sessions if players fitness is above 95 (ideally, fitness should be trained up to 99 level during pre-season).
In the second group set the intensity level to ‘Friendly’. Physical skills not more than 10%.
In the third group you can set more physical and outfield sessions to have ‘Normal’ level, but the ‘Friendly’ is better, especially if the players are not 100% fresh even in the third training group.
In all groups you should have 10% for ‘No training’ and 10-15% for ‘Recovery’.
Be patient, you won’t have all tactics learned quickly. I spent about half of the season training Benfica in the way described above. But it worth of it: I have no defeats yet, the atmosphere is great and average energy level is 85-90.
You should try to set different training sessions every week so your players don’t get bored and atmosphere keeps good.
Atmosphere is very important for your team. Set one players’ party every month (don’t set more as it can give you even some negative effect). Go to restauraunt sometimes (I usually go about 1 time per month)
As for tactics. I use individual orders for each player, optimize the task for each player, but keep the whole picture in mind. I use individual tasks, but at the same time, I have commitment set to medium, so the players can have enough freedom for their creativity.
