Two things FIFA Manager does better...

Please don't get angry at me for this! I have seen threads before where people have dared to suggest that FIFA Manager is better than FM and they have been lynched.

I recently downloaded FIFA Manager 11 to see what it was like and I'll be honest, I hated it, the game is just awful BUT there is one aspect of it that I believe is far better than on FM and that I would like to see implemented in FM.

The first aspect is the amount of control you have over your reserve side.

In FM unless you choose to manage the reserves yourself you have no control over them at all, except choosing who is in the reserves.

In FIFA Manager you are obviously able to choose which players to place in the reserves, but you are also able to tell your assistant to pick certain players if they are fit, and he will adjust the formation to fit them in.

The reason I believe this is much needed in FM is because I'm sure I'm not alone in having had players who are too old for the youth team, not good enough for the first team, but who you want to be playing regular football, i.e. reserve games, however they never get on the pitch because they don't fit into your assistant's prefered formation. It would stop this happening as if you have a player who you want to be playing reserve games you can tell your assistant to pick them if they are fit.

The second aspect that FIFA Manager does better is the youth side of things.

In FM you have your Under 18s, comprised of players aged 16 to 18 and each year you get a new influx of players. That is fine but completely ignoring the fact that all professional football teams have younger teams, so under 16s, under 14s, under 12s.

In FIFA your club has all of those age groups, each filled with players who are not on any contracts, but are just youth players training with your club. Obviously you are free to offer them contracts if they show talent, but the vast majority will be released. I love the fact that you have proper control over your teams youth development and can track a player from a very young age, nurture them at your club and eventually get them playing first team football if they develop well.

I just feel that given the amount of players that clubs take on below their Under 18s, it should be in the game in some way. Yes it would increase the amount of matches that the game has to simulate, but it could probably be made as an option, like the attribute masking, tick a box to include the youth sides if you want.

Anybody agree with me on either of these aspects?

Also, please don't lynch me, its just my opinion.

The first aspect is the amount of control you have over your reserve side.

In FM unless you choose to manage the reserves yourself you have no control over them at all, except choosing who is in the reserves.

In FIFA Manager you are obviously able to choose which players to place in the reserves, but you are also able to tell your assistant to pick certain players if they are fit, and he will adjust the formation to fit them in.

The reason I believe this is much needed in FM is because I'm sure I'm not alone in having had players who are too old for the youth team, not good enough for the first team, but who you want to be playing regular football, i.e. reserve games, however they never get on the pitch because they don't fit into your assistant's prefered formation. It would stop this happening as if you have a player who you want to be playing reserve games you can tell your assistant to pick them if they are fit.

You can tell your reserves (and indeed under 18s) to use the same tactics as the first team squad, you don't have to go with your assistant's preferred formation.

I full agree on the first point. We need more control over the reserve side. It especially annoys me that I can't give games to players I want to retrain to a new position, actually playing in the position they are about learn. If I put my striker that I am retraining to an AMC in the reserves, the ass man will always play him as a striker. There should definitely be an option to tell him who to play and where. This was actually possible in the old CM games, where you could set the formation for the reserve side. Not sure why they changed that.

The second point is good as well, but I'm not decided on if that would be too much detail for my liking. It's enough to keep track of the 50-60 players I have already in the senior/reserve/u18 side

Both good points. The only way to control reserve first 11 is removing or loaning out unwanted players. Younger youth teams, for bigger leagues I guess would be interesting.

Nobody gets lynched in these parts, surely.

There is an option when the Reserve team selection comes up on who to put in the reserves that says "Make players available that require match fitness" which is a handy little addition.

I'd also like to see a lot more control on the reserve side of things. And indeed just on my team in general.

For my team and holidaying through matches. When you select to go on holiday there is an option that says to use the team already selected. Yet when you go on holiday you find out that your striker you were giving a game to has been swapped for your best striker whom you were resting. I've tried to get around this by starting the game and then going on holiday immediteatly after kick-off - but the Ass man then subs the young striker about 15 minutes in. Not exactly using the team I have selected there.

I know holidaying is a bit naff but I don't want to sit through a game against a second division side that I know I'm going to win anyway.

There should be an option to tell the Ass Man - give the young players a chance and actually USE the team I've selected unless they are below a rating of 6.0 or below a fitness rate and specify that they play a minimum of 60 minutes or 75 minutes or 45 minutes, whatever tickles your fancy.

1. The Ass Man uses your team that you've actually selected - barring injury or poor rating
   
2. You should be able to select your team based on:
   
   1. 
      
   2. Fittest
      
   3. Least amount of appearances
      
   4. Best Rating
      
   5. Youngest
      

No. 2 would just be a much faster way of selecting the team rather than sorting then individually selecting each position. So tedious and long winded every game.

Same really for reserve team.

I like these idea's alot who knew FIFA manager might actually do something right.

I would also like to see bigger clubs stopping there hottest prospects moving to other big clubs, I think the way the AI pursues younger prospects needs toning down a tad I have seen one hot prospect move to 3 top clubs in 3 seasons he's only just turned 19!

Yeah, I'd like to have options like that. Things like "oh, play Rooney only for 45 minutes, he's coming back from injury" or "I want Corry Evans to be involved in the upcoming Carling Cup fixture - just sub him on in the second-half, thanks".

I've never even looked at FIFA Manager, but I'll bet it looks better than FM, no?

All that would happen would they would get at 15, 20 , 45, 60 etc. minute marker beside their name (like for international duty friendlies) and then the Ass Man knows to play them.

I'd really like the options I set out in 2 above. When you ask the Ass MAn to select the team I'd like more options there.

I mean of all the conversations you can get with Press and other players and other managers and with your own players.

For some reason you can't interact with your own ass man about the upcoming match and discuss tactics. Tell the ass man that you want youth players to play against lower league teams or teams in the bottom 5 of the table and things like that.

The lack of interaction between your own staff on matters is appalling in the game.

In FM you have your Under 18s, comprised of players aged 16 to 18 and each year you get a new influx of players. That is fine but completely ignoring the fact that all professional football teams have younger teams, so under 16s, under 14s, under 12s.

In FIFA your club has all of those age groups, each filled with players who are not on any contracts, but are just youth players training with your club. Obviously you are free to offer them contracts if they show talent, but the vast majority will be released. I love the fact that you have proper control over your teams youth development and can track a player from a very young age, nurture them at your club and eventually get them playing first team football if they develop well.

I just feel that given the amount of players that clubs take on below their Under 18s, it should be in the game in some way. Yes it would increase the amount of matches that the game has to simulate, but it could probably be made as an option, like the attribute masking, tick a box to include the youth sides if you want.

Anybody agree with me on either of these aspects?

Also, please don't lynch me, its just my opinion.

SI cant add players under 16 in England for child protection laws iirc

I remember fifam had some "facts" like "Juventus haven't lost this season after scoring in the first half yet" or "Sevilla have scored 4 goals in the opening 10 minutes". Would like to see that in FM.

SI cant add players under 16 in England for child protection laws iirc

i was going to say there will never be kids teams in FM because of child protection laws.

You could have youth leagues and not have ages visible or something. There's always ways around it. They don't have to be paid you could even have an Amateur team status or something like that -

its not really to do with being paid or anything its because they cannot use real players under the age of 16, therefor all youth teams would be made up of Regen's from day one which is not very realistic when players already exist at that age group.

i was going to say there will never be kids teams in FM because of child protection laws.

There must be some way of doing this though if like the OP says FIFA Manager has all these youth teams in it's game.

its not really to do with being paid or anything its because they cannot use real players under the age of 16, therefor all youth teams would be made up of Regen's from day one which is not very realistic when players already exist at that age group.

Don't see a problem with that to be honest. Give them negative PA and CA etc. until they hit the big time.

There must be some way of doing this though if like the OP says FIFA Manager has all these youth teams in it's game.

Its law, you cannot use real names of kids under 16 in Britain for anything. The game would have to generate thousands of fake players from the first day of the game, which i would imagine would take a massive amount of time and would really slow things down. There really is no point in having kids teams in FM it would be such a waste of time and resources IMO.

Don't see a problem with that to be honest. Give them negative PA and CA etc. until they hit the big time.

think about how many pro teams there are in britain alone, then think how many youth players each team has, you would be looking at generating a few hundred thousand players within the loading time of the game it would take a massive amount of time and be for very little use, 90% of them would never get beyond the youth teams and every season the game would have to generate new youth players which again would take an age.

There would be no benefit in replacing the system already in use, the game gives you a bunch of players which they say are the best of your youth academy or the best youth avaliable to you, all you would be doing is slowing this process down, and mean you having to go through tons of useless youth players every season.

Make it an option then.

think about how many pro teams there are in britain alone, then think how many youth players each team has, you would be looking at generating a few hundred thousand players within the loading time of the game it would take a massive amount of time and be for very little use, 90% of them would never get beyond the youth teams and every season the game would have to generate new youth players which again would take an age.

Then don't generate them as full players. What I mean by that is that it must be possible to code the game in such a way that these youth players could literally just be the most basic details, so name, age, position and ability. They wouldn't get proper attributes at that age, they just have a CA & PA, and if they get signed then they have attributes generated for them.

then what would be the point, how would you distinguish who is worth considering and who is not? you would have to rely solely on what your coaches or scouts say and if you dont have good ones you would constantly miss out on possible stars, the way it works you are given the best youth avaliable, why add thousands of players never going to be good enough to play, it would massively slow the game down having extra players and games to calculate, and we're talking about thousands and thousands of games every week.

Totally agree with the first point. We should have far more interaction with our reserve team manager regarding team selection.

Not sure on the second one. Don't think it would add a huge amount to the game and could lead to some processing delays.

I agree that there should be more indirect control over the reserves. Wasn't it possible to properly choose the reserve starting eleven in a previous version, without actually taking control of the game? You can do it in the current version, but does the assistant manager overrule it?

But I don't really like the other idea. Having the first team, reserves and youth team to look after is already time rather time consuming. Having two or three additional youth teams would be overkill, in my opinion.

then what would be the point, how would you distinguish who is worth considering and who is not? you would have to rely solely on what your coaches or scouts say and if you dont have good ones you would constantly miss out on possible stars, the way it works you are given the best youth avaliable, why add thousands of players never going to be good enough to play, it would massively slow the game down having extra players and games to calculate, and we're talking about thousands and thousands of games every week.

It doesn't have to act that way. "Grey" players occupy no space in-game - their attributes are presumably generated by some seed that is a function of the club name and time - so we can determine a grey player's attribute at any point in time by recalculating them from the club name and time, without storing it.

A bit like storing two numbers and its sum in a database - you don't need to store the sum because you can recalculate the sum from the two numbers.

Well, Im not too sure about the recent FIFA Manager but, when I last had it, which was the 2009 version, you could build Youth Camps in foreign countries which, in my opinion, was Great! And I think that aspect would be a worth-while addition to the Greatest game in the shops, Football Manager 2011.

then what would be the point, how would you distinguish who is worth considering and who is not? you would have to rely solely on what your coaches or scouts say and if you dont have good ones you would constantly miss out on possible stars, the way it works you are given the best youth avaliable, why add thousands of players never going to be good enough to play, it would massively slow the game down having extra players and games to calculate, and we're talking about thousands and thousands of games every week.

You think in reality that club managers consider every single player that comes into their academy or do you reckon they rely on their coaches & assistant manager to form an opinion on the players.

As for the speed problem, well FIFA Manager does it without the game being slow, and that game is bloated as hell yet still quick, so I don't see why it would have to be a problem with FM.

I agree that there should be more indirect control over the reserves. Wasn't it possible to properly choose the reserve starting eleven in a previous version, without actually taking control of the game? You can do it in the current version, but does the assistant manager overrule it?

But I don't really like the other idea. Having the first team, reserves and youth team to look after is already time rather time consuming. Having two or three additional youth teams would be overkill, in my opinion.

You wouldn't have a huge amount of direct input with the youth sides. As I said above, you would rely on your coaches to notify you of the players with good potential, and then you could simply do as little as checking them after a while to see how they have been performing in matches. You wouldn't have to do a lot, but would have scope to do more if you wanted to.

SI cant add players under 16 in England for child protection laws iirc

Yet FIFA can?

This would actually be a way for me to start my Academy: bringing in the best coaches from around the world with the latest State of the Art training grounds for my 9 year olds. SI should really listen to what this guy said in his post, It would certainly improve the complexity of the game which is by far the most appealing thing in this game, atleast for me. I do realize I don't have the greatest of feedback.

Pretty sure there's already a few 13/14/15y old regens in this game so that shouldn't be that hard to do either. A few tweaks to the regen system and a few tweaks to the stats that the players start with, it's not like a 9 year old is gonna have a 20 on finishing, hell he won't even have a 10. Unless he's Lampard. Obviously.

Yet FIFA can?

Neither game can include real players aged below 16. In FM you do get 14 and 15 year old regens appearing, and in FIFA Manager the youth sides are fully populated by generated players.

Even without the child protection laws though, the youth sides would have to be populated with regens because of the vast number of players it adds, combined with the lack of information available about clubs youth players.

This would actually be a way for me to start my Academy: bringing in the best coaches from around the world with the latest State of the Art training grounds for my 9 year olds. SI should really listen to what this guy said in his post, It would certainly improve the complexity of the game which is by far the most appealing thing in this game, atleast for me. I do realize I don't have the greatest of feedback.

Pretty sure there's already a few 13/14/15y old regens in this game so that shouldn't be that hard to do either. A few tweaks to the regen system and a few tweaks to the stats that the players start with, it's not like a 9 year old is gonna have a 20 on finishing, hell he won't even have a 10. Unless he's Lampard. Obviously.

That is why I said earlier that I reckon it must be possible to make the really young players essentially just shells. So the only details you have about them are things like name, date of birth, place of birth, the details about who they are, along with obviously their position. They would obviously have a CA and PA but you wouldn't see it. You would find out how talented they are from your coaches and if you offer them a contract or once they hit a certain age their stats are generated. Part of why I say this is because it would slow the game down a lot having all of these players with full attributes, and partly because at that age, 95% of the attributes for all players would be 1.

I like the first point in the OP but the second point to me is just too much, I like the way the youth policy works......so far

Very much like the first point.

The second one could be problematic because of how many players that would need to be generates. Saves would be get too big too quickly and it would be unfair to people have lower end computers. Unless SI were to make it an option to add an extended youth system before the you being your save...

FIFA Manager's talent(potential) system is better than FM's PA system too.

That is why I said earlier that I reckon it must be possible to make the really young players essentially just shells. So the only details you have about them are things like name, date of birth, place of birth, the details about who they are, along with obviously their position. They would obviously have a CA and PA but you wouldn't see it. You would find out how talented they are from your coaches and if you offer them a contract or once they hit a certain age their stats are generated. Part of why I say this is because it would slow the game down a lot having all of these players with full attributes, and partly because at that age, 95% of the attributes for all players would be 1.

what would be the point then, you are adding tons of extra data for next to nothing, all the game will have to do is calculate thousands of extra matches and situations, would these young players get injured? Would you be able to poach them, would they get happy or unhappy based on different situations, would they have favourite personal, because if any of that is yes, then you are talking about adding a hell of a lot to a very big and machine comsuming game, if no, then its completely pointless.

Anyway we can argue back and forth but i think i can easily say kids teams will never ever be in an FM game.

what would be the point then, you are adding tons of extra data for next to nothing, all the game will have to do is calculate thousands of extra matches and situations, would these young players get injured? Would you be able to poach them, would they get happy or unhappy based on different situations, would they have favourite personal, because if any of that is yes, then you are talking about adding a hell of a lot to a very big and machine comsuming game, if no, then its completely pointless.

Anyway we can argue back and forth but i think i can easily say kids teams will never ever be in an FM game.

They can be "quicksimmed" in the same way that inactive leagues are simulated very quickly but less accurately.

A single seed can determine these random players - essentially storing a few bits of data to cover lots of random players, so there won't be a huge data increase.

Even if there aren't youth leagues - which would be a bit naff if it slowed the game to a crawl. But let's not go there.

I would like to see players that have a high potential have in their History - U14 defender of the year or U15 top goal scorer or some sort of history stat that hints to their potential.

This could be completely derived from their PA and hint at least that one player is potentially a good defender or a good goal scorer etc. Especially if they keep it up in the U18's etc.

If I click on the reserve team tab and select the team, the reserve team manager usually plays the team i select.

There are several things that Fifa Manager does better. The major one for me personally is the finances.

All you can do in Football Manager to improve club finances is sell / release players and pray you make some money at the end of the month (obviously, I am ignoring some insignificant ways of saving money, which in most cases are not worth the effort - commercial links, loaning players, never asking for ground and facility improvement etc).

In Fifa Manager, it's completely up to you whether your club thrives financially, or goes broke. I personally would like this type of control in FM. I'd like to be involved in the sponsorship decisions for example.

Now, there are some fanatics out there, who will say that FootM is about 'realism'. Well, DUH, with all due respect - this must be one of the, for lack of a better word, dumbest arguments I have ever heard. How can A GAME be realistic? These two words exclude each other, just like 'a sunny night'. As I mentioned is some other threads, the finances could be implemented like the new tactics - switched off for the FootM nazis, and on for those who like to enjoy the game and would prefer to not get bored and holiday after the first three seasons.

If you want more control over the reserves, take control of them. If you want a certain player to play then select him in that position in the reserve team (even under AI control he'll be selected). Its worked for me.

While IN THEORY the OP has a point, I'm for the "less is more" approach.

Human maager can control the reserve team so if he really wants to play specific players in a specific way he can do so. Surely it's a lot of work, but it's up to him...

Youth squads would be even more time-consuming and I'm not really sure it'd be worth it, especially considering the average level of U18 newgens.. If most of those who get promoted to the "official" Youth team are already borderline useless (and quite close to the 1-5 attribute range) I think there wouldn't be enough room at the lower end of the spectrum for players aged 13 or 14.

Basically the in-game youth system already takes care of selecting the best (or less crap) youngsters and promotes them to your U18/U19 squad. I assume the rest of the kids were too awful even for the sloppy standard of the team, so why should we (and SI) bother with hundreds of players who would retire anyway even before they've turned 18?

It'd be a whole lot of work for nothing...

In Fifa Manager, it's completely up to you whether your club thrives financially, or goes broke. I personally would like this type of control in FM. I'd like to be involved in the sponsorship decisions for example.

Those decisions generally do not involve the manager at the club, as the manager at the club is responsible for the football, not the business.

I like the idea of better interaction with the Assistant Manager and Reserves but having younger players is a non starter for me. Just don't see the benefit, think it is good enough as it is.

If you want more control over the reserves, take control of them. If you want a certain player to play then select him in that position in the reserve team (even under AI control he'll be selected). Its worked for me.

I guess it works in England and other leagues but not in Spain were you have B teams instead of reserves and absolutely no control over them!

I guess it works in England and other leagues but not in Spain were you have B teams instead of reserves and absolutely no control over them!

no matter what they change you will never have full control of B teams in spain.

no matter what they change you will never have full control of B teams in spain.

I will, if I add a new manager to control my B team (but that's not what I want).

Besides, I don't need full control. I just want to tell my B team manager to use the same formation as I do. I can't even do that!

I guess it works in England and other leagues but not in Spain were you have B teams instead of reserves and absolutely no control over them!

Well in theory the manager of the regular team has no control at all but I would put money on them all having the ability to make the manager of the B side do what they want.

If you were managing a B team in spain and the manager of the full side told you that he wanted you to play a certain youngster as much as possible then you would do it.

Correct me if im wrong but their is a feature in fm that not only allows you to use first team formation but also to use the starting 11, so for example if you want said striker to play AMC to help retrain set him as the AMC and tick the box to use starting 11??

Anyway as to the youth side of things i totally agree i would like more control and younger players, maybe the ability to set up your own youth accademies around the world to train really young players without the need to move them out of their country, these players can be offered youth contracts once they reach a certain age, or be left to join other clubs.

Second thought maybe youth acadamies could be set up by fifa and other governing bodies with younger players being developed by them. the chance to take those young players would be to the accadamies wants. that way no club can have more chance of getting all youth players as the accadamies would not belong to any football club, anyway im thinkin too much now ive had my 2 pence.

If you want more control over the reserves, take control of them. If you want a certain player to play then select him in that position in the reserve team (even under AI control he'll be selected). Its worked for me.

That has never worked for me for some reason....