SRL88 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Good Team Thread So.....are you thinking of making a Team Guide for any of the numerous clubs on Football Manager? Maybe you are playing as a club who dont seem as attractive to most people, or maybe you are playing as one of the big clubs even. Either way, you will need to create a good Team Thread, one which offers support and guidance to users as to what tactics and formations to use, which players to sign and even how to approach each game. Worried that you have never created a thread before so you arent sure what to do? Well there is nothing to worry about. There are numerous threads available for you to use as a guide and they can all be found in the Official Forum Links. Trust me, most have been here before when creating a Team Thread, myself included. My first ever team guide was for FM11 when I created this thread. I wouldnt call it great, but as an inexperienced user of these forums back then, it helped get me to grip with how to write things and what I needed to post. All I did was use another thread as a guide too. First of all, you will need to give your thread a suitable name. Remember, we DO NOT include official in thread titles anymore!!! A suitable name should include the version of the game you are creating the thread for (FM11/12/13 etc), and the name of the club you are creating the thread for (Arsenal, Leicester etc). Most people often put a little pun, or adder to the title too. Like on the link I gave you for my first thread (Supported by a certain Helen Chamberlain). It can be anything really, but try and make sure it relates to the club. One that sticks out in my mind was for FM11 on the Liverpool Thread (Getting Back to Where we Belong) in reference to the fact that Liverpool failed to reach that season's Champions League. Moving on to the actual thread....... It is always a nice touch to welcome people to the thread. This makes users feel more comfortable entering the thread and they feel comfortable posting there. A simple message should go along the lines of 'Welcome to the ................... Thread for Football Manager 20..'. That is a simple message, but effective. Under the welcome message, a good start to the 'formal' part of your thread would be to post a picture of the club badge. Pictures of the club badge can be found anywhere on the Internet, specifically an image searching site such as Google Images. To make it appear in the thread itself is a very simple task. To do so, save the image onto your computer and then go onto an image hosting site such as Imageshack or Photobucket. Follow the simple instructions and upload the photo onto the website, and then copy and paste the code which is listed as something along the lines of 'IMG Code'. This will post the image you have just uploaded in full size onto the thread you have created. Now that we have got the start out of the way, you will want to move onto the the bulk of the thread. This is where you need to add information about the club. To truely know what information you need to post, you will need to know about the history of the club. To find out the information you can usually find information on the clubs official website, or on a website such as Wikipedia. You will want to include in your thread some history about the club, to try and make people feel 'attatched' to the club and give them a reason to continue reading. It is very important though that you don't post too much information as people could become bored and stop reading. Keep it simple stupid is a phrase I like to use. Detailed, but not too much information. I recommend putting something along the lines of how and when the club were formed, as well as some of the key highlights in the clubs history. You might want to include a bit of information on club legends or icons too. In my FM12 guide for Hoffenheim, I tried keeping things very simple which I feel I covered to good effect. If you wish to include a bit more information though, then feel free. One of my favourite examples from FM12 was JDownie's Man City Thread which covered the club's history in a lot more detail. Now that you have covered all the real life factors to do with the club, you can now move onto covering the club in the FM world. This can be done in one or two orders (please refer to linked threads to see). The way I prefer, but this is completely up to you, I like to add a little bit of information about the club off Football Manager first. You can either do this by typing the information yourself off the club information screen on FM, or by taking a screenshot and posting that. If you arent sure how to take a screenshot, then please refer to this post. You then may want to include a screenshot of the clubs kits and/or history by posting the trophy list found on the clubs history. Some people also include a screenshot of the clubs past positions which can be found on the club overview screen next to the strips. You may also want to include some information about the clubs finances, from their bank balance, to the wage and transfer budget. It is also beneficial to provide information or a screenshot of the season expectations too, as this gives users an indication as to what is expected of them as a Manager if they are to take over that club. After completing this section of your Club thread, you will want to assess the current squad. This can be done in many different ways. First of all, you might want to list the current squad members like this. It could also be a good thing to include a screenshot of the Team Report as provided by your Assistant Manager. After this, you will want to move onto assessing the squad itself. To do this I would break it down into sections. First assessing the goalkeeping options at the club, from first team, to reserves and youth side. Give your opinion on who should be first choice, back-up, who you should be looking to sell and any bright prospects the club has within their ranks. After doing this for goalkeepers, move onto defenders. Personally, I would break this down into full-backs and centre backs. In the midfield, I would break it down to wingers and central players, and this can be broken down further into defensive and attacking. Finally, round off with your forwards. In the link I provided for my Hoffenheim thread in FM12 this is how I did it, but you may wish to go a different route. In this amazing thread by MrSundlofer, not only does he assess the squad as a whole, but he also rates each position out of 10. After the squad analysis, you will want to move onto formations. These arent necessarily the formations which people will use if they venture into a save with the club, but they are the formations you believe are best suited to the team based off the options they currently have available. You may possibly want to give an insight into team instructions too. For example, the current West Ham side which has Andy Carroll in it under Big Sam is best suited to playing long ball football, where as the current Liverpool side focus on the Tika-Taka style of play. To round off your thread, you might want to give suggestions as to which players users might wish to target for transfers. Include the name of the player, their current club, and value of the player. You may also wish to include how much it may cost the club to buy the player too, including possible wages. To finish off your thread, it would be a nice touch to wish the reader good luck, and thank them for reading the thread (which I will do in a second too), again making the thread a friendly environment. If you wish to make your thread more individualised and how to post differently such as font size, colour, bolding etc, then please look here to do so. I hope this guide has given you a little bit more help and will hopefully be able to give users the confidence to create a Team Guide. Like I have said, those of us who have created a Team Guide before have all been Team Guide virgin's so to speak, and there is nothing to worry about. Use this guide, and other peple's threads as a guide for layout etc. Thank you for taking your time out to read this, and good luck . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purefun Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Nice work. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRL88 Posted October 21, 2012 Author Share Posted October 21, 2012 Thank you kindly Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purefun Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 I have added it to the links thread and into its OP. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabio MVP Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Nice one SRL88. Sticky? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRL88 Posted October 23, 2012 Author Share Posted October 23, 2012 Nice one SRL88. Sticky? It should be, thats for sure Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purefun Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 Nope no stickie, its been linked in the OP of the links thread. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welshace Posted October 23, 2012 Share Posted October 23, 2012 nice guide fella.. id question the building a team around a formation route.. but other than that.. helpful for sure! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRL88 Posted October 24, 2012 Author Share Posted October 24, 2012 Nope no stickie, its been linked in the OP of the links thread. I know...I just belong as a sticky for all to see. (That just sounds wrong) id question the building a team around a formation route.. but other than that.. helpful for sure! Not that kind of guide dude Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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