Official Fifa09 Manager Mode Guide

[BrianFifaFan]

Here's the EA guide for Fifa09's Manager Mode.

Manager Mode

Manager Mode is your opportunity to take the helm of a football club for a 15 season run. You control every aspect of the team: scouting, ticket prices, transfers, player growth and more. You’ll need to have a keen eye for potential superstars and the skills to manage your budget and handle your finances effectively. In this section of the Official Player’s Guide for Fifa 09, we’ll take a high level look at Manager Mode beginning with Team Selection.

Team Selection

Manager Mode in Fifa 09 begins with your team choice. There are several factors to be mindful of when it comes to picking your team. With bigger clubs, you get better staff, superior players and more funds to buy transfer players. You’ll be able to garner more funding from sponsors as well.



However, there is a tradeoff. With more resources come higher expectations. You’ll be required to reach the late stages of tournaments and finish at the top of the league table. With a lesser team your requirements are much lower. Sometimes avoiding relegation is the only objective you have to meet.

Manager Preferences

Once you have made your team selection you will be presented with the Manager Preferences screen. Some of these options can be changed at any time during the game; others are locked in once you make your selection. Filling in your manager’s name is pretty self explanatory, so let’s look at the other decisions you will need to make. You’ll be able to see your starting budget from this screen as well.



Currency is a pretty simple choice. You’ll work in Dollars, Pounds or Euros. Choose whichever one you are most comfortable with. This choice is locked in for the duration of your Manager mode game.

Turning the Player Auto Growth feature On will allow the CPU to handle updating your player’s attributes based on the experience points that they gain. Turning it Off puts you in full control. You can change this option at any time during this mode.

Ticket Price can be set to Low, Medium or High. You can change this setting at any time during this mode. Obviously the higher the price, the more revenue you can pull per ticket sale. Keep in mind that a poorly performing team will not have as many fans attending their games.

Difficulty Level & Half Length settings can be changed at any time. These settings come into play when you actually play the games. If you are simming games, then these will not have an effect on things.

Sponsor Selection

At the beginning of your Manager Mode, you will have three choices of sponsor. Each sponsor will provide you with a Match Payout and several bonus options.



Match Payout refers to how much the sponsor will pay your team for each game that you play. This is going to be the bread and butter of your team funding.

You will also see Loyalty Qualifiers and Bonuses. Achieving these milestones during the course of a season will result in additional payouts from your sponsor. You can look at the details for each sponsor to see what options they provide to you. In the beginning, the most important things to look at are the Match Payouts and the Season Objectives. You’ll need to be successful to keep the money flowing from year to year.



As your prestige rating increases, new sponsors offering more money will appear. This gives you a huge advantage when it comes to the transfer market.

Central Hub

The Central Hub is your launching pad for everything you need to do your job as Manager of the team. From this screen you’ll have quick access to the League Table and Top Scorers for your league. You’ll be able to see your next couple of fixtures as well as the current Match Day’s game. You can enter in to play the game yourself, or Sim the game.



By hitting the X/Square button, you can flip to the Manager Information screen. This will give you a snap shot containing key information about your manager. Job Security will give you and idea of how strong your position is with your team. If your team performs poorly on the pitch, or you fail to manage your fund properly, then your Job Security will dip. If it goes too low, you’ll be out of a job. However, quality performances by your squad will solidify your position with the team. Winning games will usually raise your Job Security by a point or two. Losing them will cause it to dip by the same margin.



You can receive bonus Job Security points from time to time via Email Notification. If the Board is really pleased and the sponsor kicks in extra funds, you can expect your Job Security to rise.



Manager Prestige gives an idea of how the footballing world views your Management abilities. The higher the prestige of your Manager, the better the sponsor offers he will receive at the beginning of the next year.

As mentioned above, Fan Appreciation affects game attendance. Winning increases Fan Appreciation. More appreciation equals more fans in the stands. Higher attendance gives you more money for transfers and coaching upgrades.

There are more ways to keep your fans satisfied than just winning games. You’ll have several opportunities throughout the season to make decisions that will affect your Fan Appreciation rating. The Board of Directors will present you with different ideas, and the fans will either receive your responses positively or negatively. Use common sense when answering these questions or proposals. As a fan, would the answer make you mad or happy.

Upgrades to your stadium will increase Fan Appreciation as well. In addition, you will want to adjust ticket prices depending on the fixture. If you are playing a team dwelling at the bottom of the table, you won’t be able to pull big attendance, even if you have a full Fan Appreciation bar. Lower the prices for these fixtures so that you can bring in more fans. For matches against top rival Clubs, you can go high with your prices and still fill up the stands. After each game you will receive a Financial Summary. After a few games you should have a good feel for how you need to structure ticket prices for each match up.

Your Budget indicates how much ready capital you have on hand for transfers, upgrades and salaries. If you players’ salaries are more than your sponsors and ticket sales will cover, then you’ll need to have some cash on hand to make up the difference. We’ll cover this in more detail in our section on Money Management.

Experience points refer to the total number of points that your team has accrued. You will be able to put these points into use to improve your players’ ratings.

Finally, the Transfer Window option tells you whether the window is open or closed. When the window is open, you can buy, sell and loan out players. When the window is off, you’ll have to get the job done with your current squad.

Player Growth

The Player Growth screen is where you put your hard earned experience points to work. Each game that you play will result in new experience points for your players. Upgrading your staff will result in more experience points accrued for each player depending on their position and the rating for that coaching unit.

You can set it up so that the CPU will make adjustments to your players, or you can take full control and do it yourself. In Be A Pro:Seasons we gave a comprehensive breakdown of how player growth works. We won’t go into that detail again here, but we have included the key attributes you will want to work on for each position.

CB – Marking, Standing Tackle
SW – Positioning, Marking, Standing Tackle
RB/LB - Marking, Standing Tackle
RWB/LWB – Marking, Standing Tackle
CDM – Positioning, Ball Control, Short Passing, Marking, Standing Tackle
CM – Short Passing, Long Passing
CAM – Ball Control, Dribbling, Short Passing
RM/LM – Ball Control, Crossing, Dribbling, Short Passing
RW/LW – Acceleration, Crossing, Dribbling
CF – Ball Control, Dribbling, Finishing
RF/LF – Dribbling, Finishing
ST – Acceleration, Finishing, Heading Acc., Shot Power



Bear in mind that younger players will gain more experience points than older ones. It also takes more experience points to go up in ratings the higher your player’s attributes are.

Team Management

This menu works just like it does in regular game play modes. You can change your formation, squad make up, set custom tactics, roles, etc. You’ll want to rotate in different starters from time to time to manage your team’s fatigue. Remember, you are playing a full season now, not just a single game. If your squad goes deep in their League Cup, you’ll be playing a number of extra games.

You’ll have to rest some of your players from time to time to keep them playing at optimum levels. Increasing the quality of your Fitness coaching staff will help players recover quicker.



When it comes to Custom Tactics, take it slowly. Unless you have dramatically changed the makeup of your squad, your team’s default tactic will usually be a sufficient starting place. Your team has been crafted to work with this tactic. Make minor changes and play a few games (if you are simming) to see how things shake out.

Transfer Market

This aspect of Manager Mode is one of the most fun to delve into. If you have done a good job with managing your money, you should have some available cash to try to make a splash on your team.

There are two transfer windows each year. You’ll have one at the beginning of the season, and another one in January. These are the only times that you can make player moves.



The Transfer Market screen will show you the players that have currently been put up for Loan or Sale by their teams. You will be able to quickly see their age, overall rating and their transfer price. You can click on the Right Thumbstick to view more information about the player.

The Player Information screen gives you the basics about your player. Their height, weight, preferred foot and country are all broken down for you. You can view all of the player’s attributes as well as their current fitness level.

You can also put in a request to buy or take a player out on loan that is not on this list. It will cost you more to get a player this way. You will need to propose a higher transfer fee and per-game salary, or your offer will be rejected. You can search for a player by name, or choose from a series of parameters. These parameters are listed below:

· League
· Team
· Attribute Category
· Min. Overall
· Max. Overall
· Position
· Role
· Age
· Transfer Status
· Max. Cost



Pressing X/A from the Transfer Market screen will pull up the Contract Conditions page. The Contract Conditions will break down the terms of any transfer deal that you wish to make. Players can be bought, in which case all their rights are transferred to your team. The second option is to offer a Loan. This allows the player to come play for your team, but they remain the property of their original team. You won’t have to pay a transfer fee when you take a player out on loan, but you do have to pay his salary. When you do try to buy a player, it is usually a good idea to increase your offer just a bit more than what the team asks for. This will help you have more success with your transfers.

Remember, you are bidding against other teams for the services of these players. There are many factors that determine which bid a player/team will accept. Just keep it in your mind that you aren’t the only Club in the market with money to spend.

From this screen you will also be able to see the player’s top attributes and their current market value. If you have a quality negotiator you might be able to get the player for less than market value. If you don’t offer enough, then your offer will be rejected and you won’t get the player. There are two requirements that you must satisfy to land a player that is for Sale. You must meet or exceed the transfer fee, and you must make the player a Salary offer that they can’t refuse. Contract length also figures in. Younger players will sign longer deals, while older players tend to only put ink to 1-2 year contracts.

You can work on more than one negotiation at a time. To keep up with your current negotiations, you’ll want to use the Negotiation History screen.

The other side of the coin is your Transfer List. From the Transfer List screen you can take your own players and offer them out for loan or put them up for sale. You can only carry a maximum of 42 players on your squad. You don’t have to have that many, but if are going to go deep into several cups, you will need lots of players.

Statistics

The Statistics screen tells you just about everything you could want to know about your season. The standard items like the League Table and Top 20 Scorers can quickly be accessed from this menu.



In addition, you can go even deeper and see the top rated players for each position as well as get a full statistical breakdown of your team’s shooting, passing, tackling and movement performance.



Calendar

The Calendar menu shows you all your fixtures for the whole season. You’ll be able to view any cup fixtures that are on your schedule (F.A. Cup, League Cup, ECC, EFA etc.).



Home and Away matches are denoted by color. The beginning season and January transfer windows are also shown. These are key as they provide the only opportunities for you to make additions or subtractions to your squad.

Staff Upgrades

Your staff is broken down into 8 different coaching areas. Each coaching unit is rated from 1 to 10. The higher each rating is, the more experience points your players will gain. You can use your budget to increase your ratings for any of these coaching units. The higher the rating, the more money that is required to move up in a rating. So in other words it costs more to go from level 5 to level 6 than it does to go from level 4 to level 5.



Here’s a quick look at each of the coaching units and the effect they have on the team:

Attacking - Focused training for strikers. Each upgrade increases the experience strikers earn per match.

Midfield - Focused training for midfielders. Each upgrade increases the experience midfielders earn per match.

Defensive - Focused training for defenders. Each upgrade increases the experience defenders earn per match.

Goalkeeping - Focused training for goalkeepers. Each upgrade increases the experience goalkeepers earn per match.

Fitness – Focused team training for conditioning. Each upgrade increases your rate of recovery after matches and helps rate of fatigue during a match.

Head Scout – Having better scouts will provide you with more information about players from other clubs, and also get you better youth players through scouting.

Negotiator – Upgrading your negotiators will help you bring better talent to the club for less money.

Stadium Manager – Invest in your stadium manager to increase your stadium size. If you cannot fit in all your fans, you are losing ticket sales.

Scouting

The scouting screen is where you queue up your scouts to go out in the field and find future stars for you to sign. You can see your current player distribution by looking at the top of the page. It will let you know how many players you have currently on your squad for each position.

To send out a scout, you first begin by choosing the location for his scouting trip. You can send scouts to Europe, the Americas, Africa or Asia/Oceania. Different types of players can be found in each of these zones. You’ll find strong defenders in Europe, creative players in the Americas and speed burners in Africa. This is a generalization only, as different types of players can crop up anywhere.



Once you have selected the area of the world you wish to send your scout, choose a position that you want him to key in on. Standard positions include keepers, defenders, midfielders and strikers.

After you lock in position, you’ll want to set up the length of the trip for your scout. Longer trips cost more money, but give you better results. The more time your scouts have, the better the quality of player they can unearth. You can send your scout for a quick trip, a few games, or a full search.

The Cost of Trip shows you how much money out of your budget you will need to spend for the scouting. You can only scout one area at a time. If you change your mind, or need to adjust your scouting focus, then you’ll need to recall your scout.



From time to time as you return from a match, your scout will inform you of a player that he has found. The better your scout’s rating, the more skilled a player he will find. You will also receive more accurate data about these players. One nice feature of the scouting system is that it allows you to sign a player outside of the transfer window. So if you have a critical injury without a quality back up, send your scout out when the transfer window is still closed. You’ll be able to find a replacement.

Details & Objectives

This screen allows you to look at your sponsor’s requirements and see how many of them you have completed successfully. Remember, achieving these milestones will result in more money for your bottom line. A greater budget equals more money for transfers, scouting and staff upgrades.

Money Management

In order to be a successful Manager, you have to be able to manage your money. You have a budget to work from at the beginning of Manager Mode. From this budget you’ll have to pay player salaries, make transfer purchases, upgrade staff and go on scouting missions.

This may sound like a ton of money going out. However, you will have some coming back your way. Your sponsor will pay you a certain amount per match. You’ll receive bonuses for tournament play, and for achieving sponsor objectives. In addition you’ll receive money from ticket sales for each of your home games.

As you increase in prestige, you will be able to pull larger sponsorship deals. For this reason, it is often a good idea to start out Manager Mode with a smaller club. You’ll have a prestige rating of 1 to start with, and won’t be able to win as big of a sponsorship deal right out of the gate. You don’t want to get into a cash crunch right at the beginning of your career. Play through a season, raise your prestige, and then make a move to a bigger Club.

It is important that you don’t run out of money. If you owe more each match than you bring in, you’ll start eating into your budget. If you are smart about things, you’ll never run into a problem, but you have to plan ahead.

it is important to note that if you're spending more than you're earning, your manager prestige will take a hit even if you are winning matches. No club likes to lose money. Keep your player signings in check as big players simply cost more from match to match.

One technique you can use to raise money if you have ready cash it so sign free agents with high market value. Put them in play for a year and then sell them off for a big transfer fee. You got his services for free (no transfer fee for free agents). You just have to pay his salary for the year and can recoup your investment plus more on the transfer market.

Each match will require you to pay out player salaries to every player on the team (not just players that play in the game). You can go to the Player Contract screen and view each player’s contract. Add them all up and you’ll know what you have to pay out for matches. Another quick way to figure out this total is to play your first game. After the game you’ll receive a Financial Summary that will list your player salary total.

Take what your sponsors are willing to pay you for each match and subtract your player salaries. If you end up with a positive number, then you should be just fine. You won’t be chewing into your budget and can use it for staff upgrades, scouting and transfer purchases.

If you end up with a small negative number when you subtract your salaries, then you might need to keep a close eye on things. You’ll pick up at least 19-20 home matches that will give you ticket revenue that should take care of things for you.

If you end up with a big negative when you subtract your salaries, then you might have some trouble. Consider selling off some of your more expensive players and building with younger players.

So, now that you understand the basics, let’s play with some numbers.



We’ll start off with Barnsley, a Coca-Cola Championship team.

Beginning Budget: $1,845,000
Sponsor Payout: $445,940
Player Wages: $70,170
Typical Home Ticket Sales: $173,490

So for home games, we’ll profit: $549,250

445,930 + 173,490 – 70,170 = 549,250

For away games we’ll profit: $375,760

445,930 – 70,170

With a team like Barnsley, we can attack the transfer market, upgrade our staff and send scouts out to find new players with confidence that we won’t run short of funds.



Now, let’s take a juggernaut team, like Manchester Untied.

Beginning Budget: $104,822,460
Sponsor Payout: $1,099,590
Player Wages: $1,751,160
Typical Home Ticket Sales: $604,100

For home games we’ll lose: -$47,480

1,099,590 + 604,100 – 1,751,190

For away games we’ll lose: -$651,700

So for a full season of regular league games we’ll have to dip into our Budget to come up with $13,284,420 (approximately). We will pick up some extra funds for League & FA Cup games, as well as some Tournament bonuses if we are able to go far. If we hit our targets, our sponsors will kick in some extra bonus funds as well. Some of our gates will be larger than others, especially as we perform well. This could very well turn our deficit into a small profit by season’s end.

We have a huge budget to start with, and could operate at this deficit for 10 seasons or so without running out of funds. However, this would prevent us from dipping into the transfer market or upgrading our staff. Not a good long-term plan. Depending on how the year goes, it might be time to sell off some players and bring along our young talent.

Money management isn’t difficult if you act conservatively. Don’t go too crazy in the transfer market until you get your feet under you with this mode.

Season End

At season’s end you’ll go through a series of screens showing you the League winner, domestic cup winners and the Team of the Season. Hopefully your club picked up some silverware during the course of the season.



After the first season, it is possible that you will qualify to compete in a regional cup. For Europe, you have the ECC and the EFA. The top 4 finishers in the league will go to the ECC. This will open up the Group Tables menu item when you start your season. Cross your fingers that you won’t be stuck in the Group of Death.



A list of promotions and relegations for your league will also appear at this time. Once all of the awards and notices are out of the way, it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty of off-season team management. You’ll need to renew the contracts of players on your team that have expired deals. Hopefully you left some cash in the bank to make these deals. You do have to pay a resigning fee to each player you want to bring back under contract.



Your final act of the season is to determine whether you want to re-sign with your current Club or ply your trade with another team. If you did well, you will be asked back. If you failed miserably to meet expectations, you’ll have to find a new home.

[SpHSpH]

can this be .doc like you did with the other guide?

that was super awesome!

thanks!

[BrianFifaFan]

Added.

[ChubbyBanana]

Thanks for this Brian. Super Nice.

I'm getting very anxious for this game.

[adstout1]

If you choose to switch to another team, can you basically pick any team you want to control, or can you only switch to teams that make you an offer based on last seasons performance. Seems like the latter would make the most sense.

Doesn't seem right to switch to Real Madrid if you had a below average season managing a MLS team.

[Rankiz]

How can you export ur Manager mode team so u can play it in normal matches vs friends(offline)?

Talking about Playstation 3 here.

[cepwin]

Thank you again Brian!! I'm also printing out the BAP guide(s) ...thank you for all you hard work!!!

[Feenstyle67]

Thanks for this

[postaboi707]

this is awesome...........

[toomerk]

Do players sulk and go through performance slumps? In other words, do you have to deal with player morale?