lozzny

In Germany, many reserve teams play in unloaded leagues, so maybe that's the reason they aren't affiliated in one. However, they are still useful. Your reserve team manager can set up friendly matches every week, so the players in this team will have playing time, although their growth won't be as good as when playing competitive matches. It could be useful to develop young players with not enough potential for your first team but who may grow enough to be sold for a profit. Also, it allows you to accommodate more players in the club, so you can make some business. Loan the best ones and let the rest develop until they can be sold (even if it's only a couple thousand euros, if you can trigger a next sale clause, that's good business). It's also useful to provide match recovery and keep match sharpness for players who are recovering from injury or who won't play enough as starters. Finally, I'm not sure if Germany is the same, but in some leagues these teams may move up the ladder to a playable league (never to the first division). After all, theoretically, they are playing the pro ladder.

Before discussing tactics, I'd like to acknowledge something first. I'm not a code engineer or anything but I think you're contradicting yourself. It's true that there's a difference between when the ME calculates outcomes and when you see the visual result, but that doesn't invalidate the engine as a representation of football. Comparisons with real life are unfair for obvious reasons, but even if you could narrow the time between calculations to the point a scream was calculated right when you do it, in real life a scream from a manager doesn't necessarily make any difference. However, you seem to believe, to a certain extent, that the outcome is decided before the match even starts. This is not the case. The delay is neither that long nor that simple. Many of the ME inputs are variables that interact with each other. Energy levels, for example, aren't fixed because they depend on how they interact with the physical attributes of the player and how you change your tactics mid-game (focusing play down the wings drains stamina faster in those players, both for you and for the opposition). Now, talking about tactics themselves: I am, again, no expert, but I can point out some conceptual failures that may benefit your playstyle: The shape you see on the tactics screen is your defensive shape. The roles determine the offensive shape by each player's movement. Currently, you have nobody covering the DMC position, neither in defense nor in attack. Your CBs aren't stepping forward, and your CMs aren't retreating (BWM is a hound dog, he doesn't drop or hold position). This means you are giving away the edge of the area for free, especially when defending. You don't have any cover behind the wing-backs, because a NCB won't always be in a position to cover for his partner and the center defense at the same time. This means more through balls behind their backs, more crosses without opposition, and more goals in later stages of the game when your tired players may can't cover that ground fast enough. I don't know your players, but a CWB has to be a superb player to do this effectively. The most important are the mentals. They can't be average; they must be outstanding. If not, they will be out of position constantly and fail to perform in later stages of the game. Some of your instructions are contradictory. Pass into space asks for quick transitions, but if you tell your players to regroup after gaining the ball, many of them won't make the forward runs to counterattack. Being more disciplined tells your creative roles (CWB, WB-at, AM, and MEZ) to not risk the passes and not roam that much, so they sometimes won't create enough or they will make outstanding passes while their partners hold position. Your NCB will kick out the ball when they are pressed. This means you are giving away possession, contradicting the instruction to play out from the back and giving the opposition team a lot of chances in late game when your players are tired and may not cover space quickly enough or make good enough decisions. As said before, you are exhausting the wings when focusing play left/right. They already have difficulties covering the space behind them. This would explain why you concede late goals, when they can't cover effectively or are caught out of position. Even if you substitute them, the substitutes are probably not good enough to perform in exactly the same way as your starters. Finally, "step up more" is the new wording for the offside trap, which won't work that well in a mid-block and may be even worse for the plays behind the defense. Finally, consider that even in real life, late goals against and having to fight back from an early goal is pretty common. Just look at the last Man City games. So it's not necessarily unrealistic, although maybe by correcting the above stuff you can diminish it happening. Hope you can fix it, mate. Have a nice day

I wold guess that actually is impossible not to have rondo in your training schedule. IRL every youth academy and pro team I have visited uses rondo as a primary excercise in training, from U8 to 1st division. Is not even a "training focus", is just the baseline (in Latam). In game there's no mention of it other than ball possession training.

Doesn't matter, they are just numbers. The currency is just to add flavor cause In Game there's only one global currency. Hope you find it useful

Yes, I do the same, hard negotiations where I try to get the lowest wage / agreed playtime. And obviously performances are almost always > dinamics. However, that's not the use of this table. You can think of it like a lite moneyball style. It only gives you a picture of a given moment in wich you can see what's the state of the finances relative to the agreed play times so that you can make decisions. For example, in the picture of my Ajax save, I know from first day that Bergwijn and Berghuis must deliver good performances, otherwise I should start looking for replacements while if they perform I may consider not replacing them, or can try to lower their wages (If, for example, I value their leadership, position in dinamics, personality or ITs as very useful) Realistically, in Ajax this sheet will probably get used as a simple guideline for new signings after two seasons, but I find it very useful the lower I go down the league ladder. In non-league I have to be very cautious of who is getting paid and wheter or not they are performing accordingly, or if a new signing demands ceratin wage I just end negotiations and go next. Also, as I go up I can be on top of how much I am willing to pay for an improvement. Yes. Is kind of too much corporate haha. But I'm playing football manager :P There's folks in here who have gone a lot deeper in the moneyball rabbit hole.

TL;DR: I shamelessly copied and gathered inspiration from various sources, and now I'm sharing my new wage structure spreadsheet with you. Below are instructions on how to use it, explanations in the middle, and downloads at the bottom. Maybe it'll be useful to you. Credits: This is my own spreadsheet, but I gathered information and received inspiration from the following sources: - https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/15v0zyf/club_wage_structures_anybody_else_implementing/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/comments/17jxuuz/how_do_you_not_screw_up_your_wage_structure/ - https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/564908-how-do-you-setcalculate-wage-budgets-to-set-a-wage-structure/ - https://fminside.net/guides/financial-guides/54-how-to-use-a-wage-cap-in-football-manager - https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/577189-wage-structure-excel/#comment-14110950 I am aware that there must be other places where this has been shared or discussed, but these are the ones I looked into. How does it look? This is an example of my Ajax save in the first season (23/24). As you can see, there is a nice color scheme that indicates some overpaid starters and important players from the start, as well as room for squad players who could be given more playing time. This is an automated sheet, so every time you modify the info, colors, and calculations will change accordingly. How to use it? 1. First, you must download it. There is one protected version, so there's no risk of breaking formulas by mistake. 2. Enter the required info. You can fill the cells surrounded by a black border: A. Player's info. Wages are in £ per year/week according to the one you downloaded. End of the contract is dd/mm/yyyy. Key player: Star & Important players. Starters: also includes the first-choice GK Squad players: squad players and below, I make no distinction. Prospects: the most important upcoming youngsters. In big teams, usually the best among U23/U21/B team. Youth: future prospects and below, practically everyone in U18. B. Total budget: transfer budget + wages budget + scouting budget. (you can see all three in the finances tab, to the right, in the default skin) C. Scouting budget (you can set this according to your level and finances) I usually do it by multiplying Scouting package cost * 0.5. D. Your preferred percentage of wages budget against your transfers budget. In small teams and non-league, this usually is 100%. For big teams, I have found that 80% is a healthy ratio and then I test it over time. E. Percentage of Buffer: it's healthy to have some non-spent money that can alleviate bleeding cash for unexpected needs, like increasing the scouts' budget or paying bonus fees. F. Number of matches that you expect to play in a season (this helps to better calculate the recommended appearance fee) G. Important dates for the end of contracts. By default, I want to know which players are in their last 1 or 2 years. H. Ideal number of players you wish to have eventually. The ones by default are based on a team with U23/21/B team and U18 team. The exact numbers and calculations are in the EXPLANATION below. I. Change these as you wish. The ones by default are the ones I use, but feel free to redo. Once you enter the info, everything else will calculate itself. There you have it. EXPLANATION Why is this important? Many managers fill the forums with issues derived from upset players who want their agreed playtime, and others avoid this issue by overspending. Having a strong financial structure ensures you are always in the green, or at least, that you can have enough reaction time to see the issues coming. Also, a clear wage structure tied with the agreed playing time allows you to evaluate your players. Who is being paid for poor performance? Who doesn't deserve their playtime? Who deserves a raise? In my experience, although it's difficult at the beginning (it's tempting to give a superstar whatever they ask, and negotiations can take a hard turn once you see a player who accepts a squad player position but charges an important player wage), the end results are extremely healthy finances, a full squad of happy players (I already know who will not get next season's Christmas), and a tight planning. Also, the naturally growing room for wages allows you not to be afraid of buying megastars when the time comes. How am I calculating these numbers? OK. By researching in a lot of places and some testing, my ideal configuration right now is based on a 75 players full-squad, 25 per tier (senior, U23/B, U18) 4 Key players 7 Starters 11 Squad p. 14 Prospects 36 Youth and for smaller teams, a 50 full-players squad (senior and U18) 4 Key players 7 Starters 11 Squad p. 7 Prospects 21 Youth Obviously, we're talking about the ideal. Those are the numbers that I expect to achieve during the first two seasons after rebuilding. Now, the numbers. Total budget is all the money you, as a player, have at your disposal. It's divided between transfers, wages, and scouting. The reason I use this added number is so I can manage the squad building and club finances at the same time. With other methods, there's a tendency to break the bank account if you suddenly enter on a takeover or have to make emergency signings in lower leagues. Every club and every manager has a style for scouting, so I allow myself to decide my scouting budget based on the pack that I can afford. Also, since you always want to have some extra for individual scouting, I usually calculate this by +50% (pack cost * 1.5). Unless you have a very long shortlist with the checkbox for keeping the reports up to date at all times, usually it's ok. And if you spend it all, there's always the buffer. To me, 80-20 in the wages-transfers budget ratio is more than enough unless you are already ahead of the curve. Once you have filled the spaces, you can see the percentages each tier of player takes from the budget. In my first example, Key players account for 29% of the wages budget. This is then calculated per player on the left. Bear in mind that the entire sheet uses only two values: base wage (weekly or yearly) and appearance fees. The formulas are: For recommended max base wage: ((wages budget * %tier) / #players per tier) * 0.8 For recommended max app. fee: (((wages budget * %tier) / #players per tier) * 0.2) / (#matches per season * %matches expected per tier) As you can see, I have divided the 100% of a player's contract (when you sign it) into 80% base wage and 20% for the maximum app. fee. (the number displayed is purposely taken down, so in reality, you have the buffer + some unaccounted budget for other bonuses, but I don't want to math. The point is, you can put in other bonuses and maybe never notice the difference) Also, I assume these numbers for the % of matches each tier expects to play in a season: Key: 90% Starters: 65% Squad: 50% Important prospects: 20% Youth: 1% :P This is matches played, so matches paid for, NOT matches as a starter. Even if you substitute a prospect, he is being paid the full app fee. DOWNLOADS Everybody plays differently, and honestly, who knows if this will be used by anyone, but just in case, I have created different files for different kinds of FM managers, so that you can play with the numbers and configs as much or as little as you want. Also, I usually play in the local currency of my club, but since the majority of you are playing in £ that's what the protected versions use. I have divided the community into: "I just want to use it but not break it": protected sheet, only allows you to write into the black boxes. - Beta weekly wage guy: same formulas but divided into 52. - Yearly wage enjoyer "I want to break it": you can edit as you wish. Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts or if there are mistakes, and have a nice day. Just_use_not_break_YEARLY.xlsx Just_use_not_break_WEEKLY.xlsx I_want_to_break_it.xlsx