Match Preperation - What does it do?

Can anyone tell me why I need it and what it does? (other than annoy me)

If I change my tactics on the day of a match and the formation I change to was not in one of the 3 slots for preperation does that mena my team will play worse?

it allows your team to focus on different aspects of the game before your next opposition, allowing you to focus your training depending on your opposition.

if you have new players or pass completion is low, setting team blend will help.

if your defence is making a lot of errors focus on defensive positioning, and so on

So what if I have my tactic set to 4-4-2 all week long leading into a match (and hence the match prerperation has this formation listed) and then last minute I change to a 4-3-3. Does my team's play suffer?

if your team aren't used to playing a certain tactic then yes, performances will suffer.

in the match prep page next to the tactics tab there is one that says current. if you click on that it will give detailed feedback on your team are getting used to the tactic.

also notice on the main match prep page you can assign 3 tactics on your match prep. it is a good idea to get your team used to a few different tactics in case you need to switch things about, although if your team are learning 3 tactics it will take longer to get used to them so learn your main tactic first

I´m wondering, If I do a minor change or a little bigger change for that matter and save the Current tactic with the same name as previous current tactic I havent noticed a negative change in the level of knowledge of that said current tactic.

But if I make the same minor or little bigger change to my tactic and save it with another name than the current tactic, the knowledge of that new tactic dramatically lowers. why is that?

I have also noticed that if I make a change in Tactics creator, let´s say I change a midfielder from support to defensive and save as current. Then I check on the match preparation on the current tactic and the midfielder is still on support.

Are the match preparation tactics knowledge not taking all the minor changes to tactics into consideration when calculating the knowledge of the tactic when saving the tactic with the same name, or is the saving of the tactic with a different name causing the match prep. to "think" that it´s that much different to the original, that we must lower the knowledge.

Wow that was hard to read, but I´m too tired to word it again so I´m posting like it is, no matter what you guys say!

WBR

Mati

It sets you up for the match, i treat it like this...

Set an attacking formation, your normal formation and a defensive one, and then define which one to make current by looking at your next opposition and deciding the formation you are most likely to play.

Then choose on of the options (Attacking Movement etc) again, depending on how well you think you will do against the next opponent. (e.g. Chelsea vs Watford, Attacking movement or team blend, as you are most likely going to win that match)

I find if i dont do match prep my team generally doesnt perform as well, i think its a good little feature, i recommend you do it after you finish each match, set up for the next.

It sets you up for the match, i treat it like this...

Set an attacking formation, your normal formation and a defensive one, and then define which one to make current by looking at your next opposition and deciding the formation you are most likely to play.

Then choose on of the options (Attacking Movement etc) again, depending on how well you think you will do against the next opponent. (e.g. Chelsea vs Watford, Attacking movement or team blend, as you are most likely going to win that match)

I find if i dont do match prep my team generally doesnt perform as well, i think its a good little feature, i recommend you do it after you finish each match, set up for the next.

I find the exact same thing which is why I asked the question. Whenever I change tactics the day of the match, even small changes I find that my club performs really bad. It drives me nuts that I have to take this stupid extra step now to "prepare" for a match. Why can't I just play the game? Is the fact that I didn't go to a certain screen and click a few buttons really the determining factor of who wins a match now?

I find the exact same thing which is why I asked the question. Whenever I change tactics the day of the match, even small changes I find that my club performs really bad.

That makes sense. Imagine a manager IRL decided to alter the tactic on a match's eve - that would very probably be a bad idea.

It drives me nuts that I have to take this stupid extra step now to "prepare" for a match.

This may be a lot of things, but it definitely is not a stupid step. I had thought of this some FMs ago, there wasn't a process to prepare for the matches, like studying the ooponent, etc. Now this exists, and it's very helpful. You can always choose to leave the match preparation to your assistant manager if you want.

Set a formation in match preparation, say 4-4-2. Now, put the special focus to NONE, and work load to average or high. Within a certain amount of time your team will learn how to become fluid at aspects within the paramaters of the formation. If you choose to work on a specific area, such as defensive positioning, then it will take longer for your players to become fluid within the 4-4-2 formation then it would if you had NONE set.

TEAM BLEND, is literally geared toward players gelling with eachother/raising morale etc, which is very important to match performance and squad harmony, and connected to team work. If you have become fluid at 4-4-2, you can then set the workload to low so as to maintain it. Or you could switch to TEAM BLEND for the week leading up to a big game, and then 1-2 days before the match, switch to DEFENDING SET PIECES for example, and this will have a doubling up effect for you.

It's a little confusing if you don't know what exactly it all means, but it is well worth it and the difference between success and failure. With correct match prep you can take points of bigger side. Figure out their strengths, learn how to nullify, figure out weaknesses, learn how to exploit.

The key is not to overload the players with match prep because it eats into training and individual focus. Hope this makes some sense, hard to put down in words

I find the exact same thing which is why I asked the question. Whenever I change tactics the day of the match, even small changes I find that my club performs really bad. It drives me nuts that I have to take this stupid extra step now to "prepare" for a match. Why can't I just play the game? Is the fact that I didn't go to a certain screen and click a few buttons really the determining factor of who wins a match now?

We are playing a game called football manager, a football management simulation. SI have an obligation to recreate, or represent should i say, all aspects of what being a football manager entails. Yeah, it's a more serious game than CM, but that has short shelf life, this has longevity. I wouldn't play the game if it skipped all the important things like match preparation. Anyway, you can leave to yer ass.man, training too, and just become a team selector. Boring as that is.

We are playing a game called football manager, a football management simulation. SI have an obligation to recreate, or represent should i say, all aspects of what being a football manager entails. Yeah, it's a more serious game than CM, but that has short shelf life, this has longevity. I wouldn't play the game if it skipped all the important things like match preparation. Anyway, you can leave to yer ass.man, training too, and just become a team selector. Boring as that is.

Set a formation in match preparation, say 4-4-2. Now, put the special focus to NONE, and work load to average or high. Within a certain amount of time your team will learn how to become fluid at aspects within the paramaters of the formation. If you choose to work on a specific area, such as defensive positioning, then it will take longer for your players to become fluid within the 4-4-2 formation then it would if you had NONE set.

TEAM BLEND, is literally geared toward players gelling with eachother/raising morale etc, which is very important to match performance and squad harmony, and connected to team work. If you have become fluid at 4-4-2, you can then set the workload to low so as to maintain it. Or you could switch to TEAM BLEND for the week leading up to a big game, and then 1-2 days before the match, switch to DEFENDING SET PIECES for example, and this will have a doubling up effect for you.

It's a little confusing if you don't know what exactly it all means, but it is well worth it and the difference between success and failure. With correct match prep you can take points of bigger side. Figure out their strengths, learn how to nullify, figure out weaknesses, learn how to exploit.

The key is not to overload the players with match prep because it eats into training and individual focus. Hope this makes some sense, hard to put down in words

I'm afraid not, the Match Preparation only takes the setting on match day as the one to use. So in your case you won't get any benefit at all from Team Blend.

I've found Match Prep to be very useful. Team gelling has always been a bit of a mystery in the past, now I can tell how it's going.

I couldn't get the team to gel because they couldn't get used to slow pace & short passing, so I changed it.

Once they get used to the main tactic, I introduced a more defensive one, then concentrated on attacking or defending depending on my next opponents.

Seems to work pretty well.

Unfortunately there's also a bit of a bug in it. I didn't change the tactics in the match preparation setting for quite some time. I had all levels of all tactics fluid. Then I took my "3rd tactic" for a cup match against a top tier team and put my common tactic in 3rd place and the familiarity levels of both tactics dropped considerably. Now in the new season after being promoted I often switch between tactics, but this way I'll never get either tactic fluid. While if I would leave the tactics as it is and change them let's say in the 1st minute of the game, it would, which sounds a bit odd to me.

If you train a team 3 different tactics for 2 seasons, the familiarity shouldn't drop if you swap tactic 2 and 3 for instance.

You don't need to change the slot that your tactic is in, just use it as normal even if it is the 3rd tactic and you'll have the benefit of the familiarity levels you have gained by having it set as the 3rd tactic.

On the pre match screen my assistant tells me that a few players are struggling to blend into the team. I have set match preparation to team blend for months so I do not understand why these players are not fitting in.

It might be a personallity clash with those players. No amount of team blending will change a players personality.

If, for example, your squad is described as "ambitious" then chucking in an unambitious player into that mix will mean that he'll struggle to blend fully with the rest of the squad.

There's only 2 things you can do:

1. Live with the odd player not fully settling into the team.

2. Only buy players with a similar personality type.

On the pre match screen my assistant tells me that a few players are struggling to blend into the team. I have set match preparation to team blend for months so I do not understand why these players are not fitting in.

Spankie's got it right, but it might also be that the player in question doesn't speak the same language as the rest and it's making blending in harder. It'll just take more time for him to get grips with the language.

Spankie's got it right, but it might also be that the player in question doesn't speak the same language as the rest and it's making blending in harder. It'll just take more time for him to get grips with the language.

In my experience it's just as slow with the 'blend team' as it is without. So I just use defensive positioning now.

It might be a personallity clash with those players. No amount of team blending will change a players personality.

If, for example, your squad is described as "ambitious" then chucking in an unambitious player into that mix will mean that he'll struggle to blend fully with the rest of the squad.

There's only 2 things you can do:

1. Live with the odd player not fully settling into the team.

2. Only buy players with a similar personality type.

Thanks very much that makes sense