Rags to Riches ... Your FIFA 08 Cinderella

I'm one of those guys that like to take a team from nothing and turn them into a powerhouse: past accomplishments

FIFA 06:

Peterborough: 6 Premier Championships, 3 FA Cups, 3 Champions League titles

Southend United: 7 Premier Championships, 5 FA Cups, 5 straight Champions League titles

FIFA 07:

Notts County: 6 Premier Championships, 4 FA Cups, 4 Champions League titles, 1 time Champions league Finalist

FIFA 08:

Brentford: 1st season 2nd in CC2. Through free agency and transfers my team 08/09 team looks like this:

GK: Carson 80
RB: Hutton 70
CB: Coda 78
CB: Thiago 78ish
RD: Edwards 67
RM: Sagnal 64 (fictional via scouting)
CM: G Dos Santos 72 (could be 75 as a striker)
CM: Maduro 76
LM: Baio 65
RF: Luke Moore 76
LF: Kluivert 72

What have you done?

MarkMis;2433800 said:

I'm one of those guys that like to take a team from nothing and turn them into a powerhouse

Click to expand...

Sounds familiar

Well, you can see exactly what I've done with the past three versions of FIFA on the sample output pages on my web site. The information there is a little out of date, in that I've finished another season with Wycombe and two more seasons with minor Scandinavian teams, plus I'm a third of the way into my first FIFA 08 season with Dagenham & Redbridge in League Two. Like you, I prefer a challenge in manager mode

Just to summarise, in a similar format to your own:


FIFA 05:

1 season with Southend, League Two title and LDV Vans

6+ seasons with Crystal Palace, 3 ECCs, 4 Premier Leagues, 2 League Cups, 2 FA Cups


FIFA 06:

3 seasons with Crystal Palace, 1 ECC, 1 EFA, 2 Premier League titles, 1 Championship title, 3 League Cups, 2 FA Cups

1 season with FC Seoul, 1 K-League title


FIFA 07:

7+ seasons with Wycombe, 2 ECCs, 1 EFA, 4 consecutive Premier League titles, 1 each for Leagues Two, One and Champ, 4 FA Cups, 3 League Cups, 2 LDV Vans

9+ seasons at eight lowly ranked clubs in eight different countries, winning league in Korea and league and cup titles in Turkey, Poland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Holland.


FIFA 08:

My Redbridge squad looks exactly like it did on day one, no signings and no worthwhile scouting or youth academy finds. Currently in first place in League Two, knocked out of League Cup in second round by Wigan, and with an overall record (excluding friendlies) of Won 15 Drew 1 Lost 3

when i abandoned fifa 07, my notts forest team was something like this:

-------------------Ochoa (88)-------------------
Richards (92)---Baloy (79)---Clichy(86)---Bale(90)
-----------------Mascherano(88)-----------------
------A.Gonzalez(83)-------------Mapp(80)------
------------------Boateng(83)-------------------
-------------Torres(96)------vucinic(90)---------

We'd won league 1, champs, prem league x4, 4x CL in 7 years. every year i moved up a difficulty level until i was at world class.

This season I'm again using notts forest:


------------Cassio--------------
Bocaly---David---Morgan---Perch
------------McGugan-----------
---Davies-----------Commons---
-------------Kroos--------------
--------Tyson-----Patrik--------

I won promotion to the championship in my 1st season and the FA in my 2nd (got lucky with weak opponents in the semi and final) and i'm hoping to get up to the prem next season. need to sure up the back 4 or i'm going to get smashed by decent teams with quick strikers (though i did get lucky and beat man u in the charity shield)

How do you guys manage to make any money?

In Fifa 07 it didn't matter how many games I won, sponsors wand ticket prices were always the same.

Has that changed in Fifa 08?

Without money, it's next to impossible to hire any decent players. I can slowlly try to upgrade the staff but that's about it.

I played 6 or 7 seasons with Sporting Lisbon and won the Champion's league as well as the domestic League and Cup and was always stuck with limited funds. The only way to get any cash was to sell my good players and go back to really bad ones and hope they would develop.

do one thing,buy as many free transfer players as you can and then sell them.

I tried that but sometimes no one wants to buy them. the transfer window is too short, so I end up getting stuck with them and paying their salary. it's a finantial nightmare when that happens.

if you want money then do one thing,try to save your game and play the game and win it by a big margin and let your free transfer players score many goals.You will then see buyers for the players.If no one buys them then start your saved game from the saved position.
Try this.

Cool, i usually want to follow this method, start with a low team then go up to the stars
The only thing which blocks me to to this, i get bored very fast
But in FIFA07 i started with Kaiserslautern in the Bundesliga 2, my aim was not to win the league and compete in the Champion's league, but to put together a massive team for the UEFA Cup

So my team was something like this :

---------------------- Fromlowitz ----------------------
------------ Béda ------------------- Schönheim -------
Jansen ------------------------------------------ Vignal
--------------------------------------------------------
--------- Bajramovic -------------- Reinert -------------
----- Schlaudraff ------------------------- Hajnal -------
--------------------------------------------------------
------------ Halfar ------------- Dagoberto -------------

Not a very strong team but i liked to play with them

I had
2 German Cup Victories
2 Ligapokal or what is when i start the season
1 Bundesliga 2 championship
1 Bundesliga 1 championship
2 Bundesliga 1 2.places
3 UEFA Cup trophies(so i took it home )

Styphelus;2434219 said:

How do you guys manage to make any money?

Click to expand...

With my 'flitting around' career I generally didn't bother, and for the last six or seven seasons simply accepted the team that the game lumbered me with. Made it more fun. For my Wycombe career I signed youth players before the end of the season and then sold them off in the transfer period at the start of the new season (as long as they grow adequately between seasons you can make a tidy profit) and also occasionally abused the free agent market.

Styphelus said:

In Fifa 07 it didn't matter how many games I won, sponsors wand ticket prices were always the same

Click to expand...

I've not got far enough with FIFA 08 to identify whether or not this is still a problem, but the sponsorship money was based primarily on your team's international prestige and whilst the game increased your domestic prestige as you moved up the leagues and won trophies, it didn't touch the international prestige even if you won the EFA or ECC.

Ticket money is simply a question of balancing your team's support with the stadium manager level. I used to save my game, check the Financial Prediction screen to see how much each ticket level would bring in, upgrade the stadium manager by one level and then use the prediction screen to identify whether or not the upgrade was worth the money. If not, then I'd revert to the saved game.

Styphelus said:

Without money, it's next to impossible to hire any decent players

Click to expand...

With my Wycombe career I had a fair bit of success from scouting, which is definitely the cheapest way of acquiring talent. Free agents are always ridiculously expensive in terms of weekly wages and even transfers tend to require more than the market rate to come to a lower level team.

1) look at your sponsors carefully: if they only offer 2/3 of what the highest offer per game is but they pay a 45% winning bonus you're better off with them (so long as you can win). also, league bonuses and loyalty etc are pointless if you don't think you'll win (and they're normally a fraction of the total you make per game x 60 games in a season)

2) cut the dead wood - get rid of under used squad players that cost more in wages than some 17 sluggo (being able to get more out of relatively average players is useful - my notts 2nd squad were all around the 60 mark but could slot into the main team without me really noticing).

3) in 07 especially you could buy similar players from faraway leagues for less than you'd pay in europe - k league, msl, etc the players are, in many cases, cheaper for the same quality.

4) upgrade the stadium. it's not the best investment (typically it takes a year to see ROI for upgrading) but it's the only way to make big money after 8-10 years with a tiny club.

5) buy and scout youth. you'll make money on them after a few seasons

6) buy old. so long as they don't cost much in wages you can get high quality players for very little in transfer costs. basically, 5+6 say don't ever buy a player at his peak.

7) plan your transfers: i guess this is cheating, but i always sim my transfer windows. i pick my target players and save them in the shortlist and then go through the transfer window a few times quick simming each game and discovering exactly how cheap i can transfer the players that i want (if i could get them at all). means you get the best deal and don't waste transfers in an already ridiculously short transfer window (transfers are still stupidly unrealistic - only 3 "bids" per week? ridiculous). remember that free transfers are typically a bad deal as the weekly salaries are too high, but i still look and if you can pick up a ridiculously good player for half a season and sell him i don't rate that as cheating (where as i wouldn't cheapen the game by buying and selling free transfers in the same window).

FIFA 07 I started with Barnet and won the premiership, ECC on WC but soon got bored after it took me a season to upgrade my stadium and couldn't afford any decent players.

This year I started with Arsenal and sold off every player I could get decent money for. Van Persie Rosicky et al and bought as many players from Brazil due to their low wages. Eventually after upgrading my stadium I was able to make some money and sell of some of the better younger players like Clichy and Bendtner and buy even better youths like Lulinha and Pato.

Starting Lineup (4_2_2_2) for Arsenal FC

2 L. Messi (98) 8 Alexandre Pato (99)

30 S. Aguero (96) 7 G. dos Santos (96)
23 Miguel Veloso (90) 4 F. Fabregas (96)

25 W. Morris (81) 29 M. Richards (91) 17 P. Mertesacker (93) 31 Sergio Ramos (94)

6 Cassio (92)

I'm pretty happy with my starting line-up but still have a solid bench.
Thiago Silva 87.60
D. Digard 87.57
Denilson 90.00
K. Benzema 94.97
Carlos Eduardo 95.00
Lulinha 92.95
G. Castro 90.80

Had to sell of some of my other good players like Bojan, Bojinov and Ben Arfa so I had spot in my squad to scout. Haven't got anyone exceptional yet although have started to pull some players that will end up 90+ as LB, CM and ST.

In FIFA06 I once had a wicked run with S****horpe United. XD

Got them all the way up to Premiership and Champions League before Newcastle would hire me!

im going to make a story to share about taking catania to become the best team in the world, all i need is cm08

i've won the ucl with everton and fulham in past fifas, didnt play much manager mode last year becaue of patches

Christhefuzzy;2435848 said:

In FIFA06 I once had a wicked run with S****horpe United. XD

Got them all the way up to Premiership and Champions League before Newcastle would hire me!

Click to expand...

HAHAHA! It edited Scun thorpe! XD

My Brentford team:
Pro Level

2007/2008: 1st CC2
2008/2009: 2nd CC1 and Johnstone Paint Trophy
2009/2010: 1st CC and English Cup
2010/2011: 1st Premiership (A surprise - tied with Liverpool with 78 points)
2011/2012: 2nd at the winter transfer window. Beat Liverpool 1-0 to win English Cup

Team:

GK, Carlos*son*, 87, Italian
RB, Petrocus*, 80, French
CB, Roseau*, 86, Brazilian
CB, Jammad*, 87, Brazilian
LB, Bale, 83, English
RM, Bentley, English
CDM, De Rossi, 87, Italian
LM, Adriano, 83, Argentinian
CF, Aguero, 88, Argentinian
RF, Messi, 93, Argentinain
LF, Adriano, 91, Brazilian

Bench
GK, Ngeda*, 84, Polish
CM, Fuhler*, 83, English
CAM, Dos Santos, 81, Mexican
RF, Fuchs*, 83, Brazilian
CB, Thalbeuhrer*, 80, English

* Fictional Player

MarkMis;2433800 said:

I'm one of those guys that like to take a team from nothing and turn them into a powerhouse

Click to expand...

Yeah I like doing that also, makes for a good challenge...
Recently I took Bury to back-to-back EPL Championships.


~Cahill

This is awesome.

I turned MK Dons into a potential English power all through free agency! In three years I accomplished the following.

2007/2008: 2.5 stars, CC2 Champions
2008/2009: 3.5 stars, CC1 Champions, Johnstone Paint Trophy, FA Cup
2009/2010: 4.5 stars, CCC Champions, Lost in the finals for UEFA Cup (MK Dons 0 - Valencia 1), FA Cup (MK Dons 0 - Liverpool 0 Penalties 4-5), English Cup (MK Dons 0-Chelsea 0 Penalties 5-6).

I moved to Newcastle to start a new career.

In November/December the January transfer window ...

1. Newcastle
2. MK Dons

I love that the team I built up is still plowing ahead.

I use my own custom created team with myself and my mates and just swap them for some horrible team in the CC2, and see how far i can get up the table. They all pretty much start with stats around 60, and so far i have won CC2, and am coming 3rd halfway through the season in CC1 playing on professional difficulty with professional goal keeper. I found FIFA 07 to be ridiculously easy, winning every league and cup so comfortably on legendary difficulty that i had to play without using turbo lol.