Eigth day - It's a trick of the light

I hate my coaches, not only they are useless at football, they also are bad at counting money.

My plan is to promote all my 6 coaches to assistant managers and leave two empty slots to hire real coaches. Of course, this is an extremely expensive thing to do, because this promotion usually comes with a doubling of the salary. But as I said, for certain things, I'm the richest club in the league and I can afford some luxuries.

I start offering contracts to the coaches and most of them seem to understand that I'm offering doubling the money I give them every week for doing the same shitty job. However, two of them refuse. They don't want the money, they want to keep their post, the idiots.

And of course, they are the two I cannot fire, because without my goalkeeping coach I go from a skill of 13 to a skill of 1. The other guy is already covering alone 3 areas of the game and I cannot replace him positively.

So I cancel everything and leave it for later, there are more urgent matters to do.

The next part is going to be difficult, because I have never done it, so I better get to it.

I need to develop tactics.

A tactic is not only a positioning in the field, it's also a set of instructions to each player so that they interact with each other in a meaningful way. The instructions of each player amount to roughly 20 different parameters with moving sliders and 20 positions in most sliders, so each player could basically have 400 different configurations, times 10 players, times the many, many possible positions in the field...

Welcome to Football Manager, the biggest tamagochi in the world.

Queen's Park nickname is the spiders, and that fits with our black and white kit. It also fits with my approach to the game. I'm going to play this game in a proactive way, planning little tricks and letting others fall in my traps. Acting and controlling instead of reacting.

Right, so my first decision is how many tactics I need. 

Ideally, I'd like to have 5 basic tactics, one fully defensive, one fully offensive and three balanced.

The defensive one seems to be the simplest. I am leaning for a 4-2-3-1 so that I can use two defensive midfielders (I love defensive midfielders) and a lone striker. That way, I'll have plenty of destroying power but a life line through the centre towards the enemy's goal. This would be my preferred lineup in away matches against strong teams. If it proves to be offensively useless against attacking teams, I'll later try a 6-4 and let my runners run, but for the moment, I'd like to try this one.

The offensive one will also be quite straightforward and only to be used in desperate times. I intend to do a 2-2-2-4 so that the enemy's penalty box is covered in spiders. However, this tactic is almost sure to fail against any slightly competent enemy wingmen.

The real meat of the problem lies in the 3 balanced tactics. Ideally, I'd like to have three tactics that play tricks with the light. I'll explain. This league is going to be decided in the matches against human opponents, that is clear to me. So I need to play tactics that will fool a human opponent, not the computer.

So what I'd like to do is to have 3 tactics, one balanced but attacking on the left, one balanced but attacking on the right and one balanced but going through the centre but to have it so that they all use the same positions. They'll look like being the same one

In this way, I could start with a left tactic, for example, so that the statistics go up on the left and when I see the enemy coach react to that, change immediately to the right tactic. Basically, fudging his perception of what is happening in the field by fudging his stats.

But of course, doing this is more difficult than saying it.

To do this "psychology game", the ideal is a classic 4-4-2 that could mutate into an assimetric formation. However, if I do that, I lose the defensive midfielder position. Did I say already that I love the defensive midfielder position?

The other alternative is to have a 4-4-2 in a diamond, which is my prefered lineup on a piece of paper, but this would make it very clear that I'm coming from the wings, and I don't want to be too obvious.

One answer would be to have a false midfielder that would fall back to the DMC position as soon as the whistle blows, but I think it's basically going to invalidate any advantages by straining the system to the limit. My players are not that clever.

For the moment, I'm leaning more towards the 4-4-2 classic, but until the hordes of Anglia have left Hampden Park, nothing will be decided.

Speaking of which, Notthingam Forest is coming, I can already see the smoke rising in the horizon.

Hampden Park is the Scottish national team's stadium and our home. 

The british are coming, man the walls!

Seventh day - Kahnn!!!!!!

The other coaches are nervous. This is not the expected Queen's Park. I was supposed to be poor, blocked to get new players and crushed by the Premier League friendlies. In fact they are now having the same kind of problems I should have had. Forfar loses 6-0 to Fulham, and there is worry in Labchimp's voice.

Now comes my moment. In a quiet way, I change my friendlies calendar, cancel with Middlesborough and arrange a match against Edimborough University, the most pathetic team I find. If I could, I'd play against a girls team. I want my strikers to taste blood before the league comes.

As I don't say anything, no one realizes I have changed my calendar. They'll see it pretty soon.

While the match comes, I try to regroup my transfer situation. I establish my priorities and decide that, after the match against Nottingham Forest, I am going to "freeze" the team and start developing tactics.

At the moment, it seems the left is my strongest vector of attack, with my two young loans playing there.

However, some coaches try to react to the other team's tactics, and they could try to close the left. I am convinced they'll try to do just that, specially if they see me playing all the time on the left before in the previous match.

My priority now is to have a good alternative tactic that I can use as smoke before playing this particualr "Big Brother" coach. I need good players to have a second tactic...

I start looking for a MR and the most important player in the game if I find him, an AMC.

Also, I fine tune my training schedules and prepare positional schedules so the players specialize. Inmediately, my strikers forget how to defend...

Before the match comes, I start to prepare the move of my coaches to assistant managers so I can hire two real coaches. In order for this to work and be worth it, there needs to be good coaches available. At the moment, it does not seem so.
And so, Edimborough University arrives, with the rest of the students tagging along and ready to drink all the beer in Glasgow at the friendly match against a smallish team of friendly amateurs.
I promptly proceed to place everyone in attacking positions, tell them there's no pressure and I release the dogs.
After the 90 minutes are over, Queen's Park wins 4-0 what should have been a 8-0, my good striker has tasted blood and discovered he likes it.
Morale is superb, Montrose has lost 7-0 against Aston Villa and I think I'm winning the preseason.
However nothing has been done yet. There is still one barrier to jump, Nottingham Forest, a team from the ultra evil British Premier League. My last defensive match of the preseason.
After that, it's all offense and tactical development and my second smoke screen will be lifted. Will they realize?
After Notthinham Forest leaves Hampden Park and my last defensive home match is over, I am going to relay the pitch, making it the biggest in the league, specially the widest.
When at home, Queen's Park will attack from far, far away.
We are coming from the wings.

Sixth Day - Once more into the breach!

I am genuinely scared of Celtic, for the same reasons as the Rangers. They are better than me in every single skill. Their fourth coach is a better coach than me, their goalkeeper is a better striker than Ian Watt. Again a lot to lose and almost nothing to win, just some second grade benefits and useless money, always the money...

So it is with a trepidation that I call my men in the dressing room and tell them to defend again, to play cool and boring, to let the superstars do the fancy stuff and to devote themselves to defense, defense, defense.

Result is not important, just mental resolve and concentration.

My men know what is coming, the already saw it one week ago. They know what to do and how lucky we were. Still, like Henry V's soldiers, they cooly go back into the breach to try once more and take Orleans from the frog eaters.

Celtic shoot 50 times and only 5 on target, my defense holds up, keeps ordered and resolved. This time I cannot attack more that 2 or 3 times, the match is even more one sided than before, but the reward is greater.

At the end of the match, Celtic wins 0-1 having scored in minute 83.

Morale in my team is superb, the defense is rock solid.

Orleans is taken, the plan can unfold.

Fifth day - A Mother's Love

The results pour in and there are no big surprises. Only East Stirlingshire wins, against a very bad team. Fulham destroys as expected and Montrose has problems against their own under19, but of course, Montrose's first team is also under 19, so it's not as bad as it looks.

A good side effect of my friendly calendar is the tactics setup. I  know for a fact that at least one coach is spending his time seeing our matches to find holes in our teams and our tactics. My ultradefensive tactic will not reveal anything, as I am never going to be in this situation in the league. Let him watch, he's seeing smoke...

The coaches start to do underhand deals between themselves. Some players are offered, some information is exchanged, but I cannot have trust. The fact that I can get the 4th worst goalkeeper from Montrose sounds awesome until you realize he's actually the 4th worst keeper from Montrose.

East Stirlingshire offers to buy my right defender, but I refuse, it would destroy my whole concept and I do not have replacements.

As the 5th day is finishing, I make balance of my squad holes.

I am finding it hard to find the players I lack, specially good wingers, at the prices I can pay.

Most of the good deals are going to Montrose or East Stirlingshire, Livingstone does not need players, they only need meat to crush. I am lagging behind...

I decide to call for help to my mum.

Queen's Park has a mother team, the appropriately named Motherwell, from the Scottish first division. I get to have access to players on loan that would normally be expensive.

So when I go to my mother to tell her my problems, she answers as mothers do, comforting her child.

Motherwell meets and exceeds my expectations. I get for free a loan of probably the best left attacking midfielder in the whole league.

He runs, shoots, and is generally good looking in numbers that double anyone else in my team. As an added bonus, he can play as a striker if needed. I love him, I love him very much. And I want more like him.

After having seen how this "loan" thing works, I go out for more and come back with a left midfielder that's almost to the level of my top star from Motherwell. I am very strong on the left, and I will profit from that.

But before my two new guys come home where they belong, a small matter need my attention...

Celtic is at the door.

Shit.

Fourth day - Defend the Alamo!

So I am going with an incomplete squad to the battlefield and in front I meet the Afrika Korps of Rommel. 

At the same time, the other teams are playing friendlies, some against Fulham, some against their own under 19 team.

What's a poor coach to do?

It seems irrelevant, but there could be serious consequences to this friendly. I do not have the confidence of my players, so a big score against could sink morale and leave me with no way to get it back up. Part-time players are very prone to mood changes, and I fear a big score against me.

I choose to defend the Alamo.

I place my defensive line a little behind, so they cannot outrun me easily because they have less space, but not too much so they cannot play between lines. I put Tiernan in front of them and tell him to forget attack and press on the 2 midfielders. Just for laughs, I ask the team to counterattack, as if we were going to get out of our own penaly box...

I plan to change the 10 players if possible at half time so they don't lose too much confidence. If the score is too high, I'll change them earlier.

As a team talk, I take pressure off the team and send them to die.

However, football is the strangest game.
In our stadium, where the national team play it's games, glory is there to be taken, and my team decides to take it.
At half time, Queen's Park is tied 0-0 to the Glasgow Rangers, having had 4 real goal opportunities and having kept a very orderly defense at all times. The Rangers shoot many, many times but always under pressure and from afar.
I'm extremely happy with the result, tell exactly that to my players and I leave them on the field. Morale is high all round, specially in my goalkeeper, who's doing the match of his life.
The Rangers come back with a grim resolve to wipe the floor with us and renew their merciless pressure on my team. It takes them another 27 minutes to score a goal in an extremely lucky rebound after a corner.
I inmediately change all of my team, they are almost exhausted anyway, and let the future unemployed Queen's Park reserves have their try.
They keep the final score at 0-2 and I'm deligthed. Morale is high and my defense is solid as a rock.
Life (in Scotland) is good.

Third day - Jerry McGuire

Before getting into the transfer market, I assess my team to decide what players I need.

After one hour, I decide to change my approach to the problem. Instead, I start deciding what players I'll keep.

The list is awfully short, I could keep, as a last resort, a right defender (Stephen Reilly), a defensive midfielder (Fergus Tiernan) and maybe, being generous, a striker (Ian Watt).

The rest simply cannot play.

So I have 0 euros and 8 players to find, easy...

The most seroius problem is the defense, where i have no real DC and a shitty, shitty DL.

So I start looking for either very young or very old DCs and a fast DL.

I also need 2 goalkeepers, a whole midfield and at least one striker.

While the reports start coming, I realize that the others are controlling each other (and me) a lot, so there's some blocking of offers and the like. Sometimes up to 4 teams bid for the same player. The plot thickens.

I start to see patterns in the other player's projects.

Forfar is paying clearly too much for so-so players, he'll have problems.

Montrose basically tries to hire 40 players under 19 to get a very young and cheap team that will explode int he future. Sounds great, except that his 17 year olds are already better than my 24 year olds...

East Stirlingshire is going for quality, hiring players in the 120-160 euros band, as well as Montrose.

Meanwhile, Queen's Park cannot afford to pay 100 euros. and I'm looking more into the 30 euros band. Of course, the results suck.

However, after much dealing and rejecting and all that, I find myself with 5 new players that seem to give a lot of strength to my team:

2 new DCs (one of them 34 years old), a DL, a very young striker that has a lot of potential and a striker that has a little bit of everything and has a good overall, allround vibe.

The holes in the team start to become more and more obvious, my goalkeeper is horrible, my right midfielder is a drunkard, but there is no time for more, the first enemy approaches my field.

It's the Glasgow Rangers, the best team in Scotland.

I'm doomed.

The second day - Financial Engineering

Right, let's get to the task.

The first move is to use the money in the bank to change all the contracts of every coach in the team to a full coach status. That way I'll have one coach per role and although the are really, really bad, they'll give me a minimum 2 star training rate. If I could get good trainers, coupled with my installations, I could really, really profit at the end of the season, specially because I know others have worst coaching stats because they cannot afford so many coaches. However, they can choose good ones...

The team is not going to have a deep bench, my limitations in the transfer market are too big, so I really need to keep my team in perfect shape and have little injuries, so I fire my physio and hire a new one with 15 skill.

After that, I also fire my scout and hire 2 good ones I can trust.

The new scouts and physio are quite competent, as well as the goalkeeper coach, so I'm less worried there.

Then it's on to the team. I basically fire every player who has less than 2 stars and start looking for everything, defenders, goalkeepers, midfielders, the lot.

The total count goes up to 15 people fired in one day.

This leave the QP reserve team almost empty, but I have a big cushion of 300 euros of salary to spend.

Firing is easy for me, as the money comes from the great 2 million pot, as well as paying staff. The next move for coaching will come a little bit later, when I try to promote all my coaches to assistant managers and hire 2 real coaches, but for the moment, I'm covered.

Next, time to set up a good friendlies calendar. Here comes my first tricky move of the game.

Although the rest of the coaches know of my debt, they do not really understand how it works and think I do not have money at all. However, I'm the richest team in the league.

So I decide to play a little mind trick. I set up a "desperate for money" type of calendar, I prepare matches against Celtic, Rangers, Nottingham Forest, Middlesborough, Fulham and Motherwell. In theory this would give me a lot of money but destroy my morale or, if I play with only reserves, make my team start the league completely green. It's a shity tactic, on purpose.

In fact, the plan is to lose horribly the first 2 matches but tighten a lot the defense and learn from it. Then change the calendar saying it's too much and get shitty teams so the morale goes better. This way I'd give the impression to the other teams that my team is green at the beggining of the league. Maybe someone will try to attack me...

The money I get or lose is aboulutely meaningless to me at this stage. I need time to play and players, not money. The plan is to get this without the others realizing.

Reality, as always, has her own ideas.

The First Day - A tale of poverty

We decided to play twice a week on weekend mornings, as it seems to be a good format for everyone. We are blessed with a mix of newbies (me, Johnny, Lab and Gameon) and experienced players (Tokey, Dimmy and Daniel).

As we set up the game, I had already done quite a lot of familiarising with Queen's Park (QP) and had ben able to identify some weak points.

Queen's Park was at it's time one of the best football teams in Scotland, but was devoured by the arrival of professional sport. It stayed true to it's roots and went on as an amateur team, but it could not stay in the top levels and went down to the depths of the 2nd and 3rd division.

Still, it's an old team with a big stadium, it should be easy enough to set up some friendlies and get money, right?

Wrong, because no matter how much money I get, it won't be enough.

Queen's Park is a huge mess of a team.

QP owes around 9.5 million euros the day I step in as head coach. It has also around 2 million euros in the bank that it uses to pay the loan at a rate of 70K per month.

The normal cash flow of the team will bring roughly 1000 euros of profit before having to pay the 70K, so in order to clean he debt I'd have to play for around 10 years, give or take.

So I have great facilities, but I have a budget of 0 euros to buy players and a total wage budget of 1047 euros.

That means that I can pay less than half the salary than most of my rivals can pay.

To complicate things a little, I am going to stick to the spirit of the team, I will not hire full time players unless it's on a loan.

Not only things look bad, just wait, they get worse...

Queen's park does not have good coaches, meaning the team has 7 coaches split between the 2 squads but only one of them has 2 skills above 5. The most common coach is a 5-5-5-5-4-5-5-5 that leaves you wondering if it's worth the hassle. Of course, the directive board decides that a total of 2 coaches will be allowed in the team, so in order to hire a good coach, I'd have to fire 6 of them, and that sounds... risky.

The scout and physio are also of almost the minimum quality possible, as well as roughly 50% of the players.

Queen's Park needs a lot of cleaning to do, a lot of dead wood to cut and an awful lot of dealing in the back of the director's board to improve significantly.

The only real advantage of this team is the 2 million in the bank, so the first task is to find a way to get access to those funds without the board realizing it.

The setup

This blog will tell the story as it unfolds during a long multiplayer Football Manager 2010 game.

The setup is ambutious, 4 to 7 players will each pick up a team in the Scottish Third Division, where 10 teams play. The idea is to have fun together and enjoy discovering what FM2010 can do in a long, detailed game with lots of human players.

After the inital setting up these were the chosen teams:

- Gameon took East Stirlingshire, a good solid top of the table team with reasonable resources.

- Labchimp took Forfar, again a top 5 team.

- Daniel took Montrose, a team with good past results but in a clear decadence.

- Tokey took Berwick, a little worse team, should struggle to get in the top 4.

- Dimmiy took Stanraer, similar to Berwick.

- Johnny Spent took Livinstone, the top of the league and way better funded team.

- Me (Joe Duck) I had the huge privilege of being given the reigns of the most awesome team of all, Queen's Park, the oldest team in Scotland and based on the by far best stadium of the lot. I can sit 55000 people in my stadium, and that allows me to receive plenty of top teams for profitable friendlies. Also, my training facilities are better than the rest. It looks good...

For comparison, I'll also post one of my rival's stadium photo. It's not the worse in the league, by a long shot...

However, there's a catch. Many catches, in fact, that I will reveal as the blog goes along.

My personal objective is a top 4 finish and it should be doable if all goes according to plan. The rest have other objectives, but they are not telling...