FAQ written by TheMightyRoast

Game Modes

Manager Career

Choose Manager Career and pick a team to manage from one of the teams as listed in the Leagues, teams, players and stadiums listings and ratings section of this guide (although you can't choose a Rest of the World team or an International team). To help you choose the star rating of the team, their transfer budget, their weekly wages and their starting eleven will be shown. After you've carefully deliberated over all the clubs in the game and chosen to manage Real Madrid (or not) then you can pick your settings. First your career settings:

• Match difficulty - Affects the level the AI plays at, the higher you set it the bigger the challenge. Once you've set your Difficulty Level and started your career you will only be able to increase the Difficulty Level.
• Half Length - Changes the length of each half.
• Financial Strictness - The Financial Strictness setting determines how much of the cash income from player sales will be allocated towards your transfer budget.
• Currency - Changes the currency used in the mode (used to show transfer values and budgets).
• Stadium - Sets the stadium your team will be playing your home games in - you can even rename it if you wish to. (NOTE: This setting can only be changed for teams that have a generic stadium assigned.)
• Squads Used - Changes the squads used in the Game Mode. "Default" uses the default squads. "Download Latest" checks and downloads the latest available squads and "Current Customised" uses any modified squads currently loaded.
• European Competition in 1st Season? - Use this option to enable European competition in the first season of Career.
• Disable First Summer Transfer Window - Disabling the first summer transfer window will prevent any transfers from happening during that period.
• Global Transfer Network Tutorial - New for FIFA 14 the GTN tutorial will run through the basics of hiring scouting staff and setting scouting targets. It is highly recommended you complete it.

If you do enable European competition you get to choose which teams go into each of the 8 groups of the Champions Cup

Then you get to choose your Manager Preferences:

• First Name - Select to enter your first name.
• Last Name - Select to enter your last name.
• Nationality - Select your nationality.
• Outfit Style - Select the outfit style.
• Suit Colour - Select the suit colour.
• Skin Tones - Select the skin tone.
• Body Type - Select the body type.

Once this is done you are prompted to choose a slot to save your game. Now you can start your manager career.

At the interface screen you have five tabs, click the tab to jump to the paragraph within the page:

Central

The Central area is like a hub area where news items and things of interest will be shown. At the top will be your 5-day calendar allowing you to see what the next five days hold. You can advance your career along here too. Also you have news items and the table or fixtures, plus a featured element of career (e.g. GTN).

For the news section it is worth keeping an eye on. For example there may be news stories relating to your players who may be getting unhappy or something. Sometimes they will approach you asking for game time or a new contract and if you want to keep them happy then you may need to give them what they ask for. But you have to balance this up with how the other players in the squad will react.

Also the news stories will let you know when players at other clubs are unhappy. This may be a good time to get a player on the cheap. Also the news items allow you to link directly to the player screen now, just by pressing LS, making it easier to put a transfer in for them, say.

When matches come along you will be allowed to choose whether you want to play the match, or sim it. If you choose to sim you can also skip to the end at any time by pressing Y.

Also in the days prior to matches you will be able to talk to the media. Days you can talk to the press will be indicated with a red mic icon. You'll be invited by the Chief Executive via your inbox to attend a press conference:
If you do attend the press conference you can talk to the press to try and motivate your squad, or to play mind games by commenting on the opposition. Be careful though not to harm your squad's morale by saying the wrong thing to the media.

You'll be able to make a comment on your team, the opposition team, the opposition manager, or a particular player.

You will also have your email inbox pop up from time to time with emails that need dealing with, from the likes of your chief executive, or your assistant manager.

In the manager career menu the most important option is Squad. You want to improve your squad over time. That means that when you start at a club you need to look at your squad to see which players are surplus to requirements and can be transfer listed, sent out on loan (for young players that need experience), and where there are positions that need to be strengthened. Of course if you do strengthen you have to make sure you don't go over your wage bill budget otherwise you risk putting the club into debt and getting the sack because of it.

Squad

Your Squad tab has the following options:

• Team Management
• Club Squad/National Squad (if you are a national team manager)
• National Squad Selection (if you are a national team manager)
• Squad Report/Squad Ranking
• Shortcuts for Formations/Quick Tactics/Custom Tactics/Player Roles (which can otherwise be found in the Team Management section)
• Kit Numbers/Injury List/Edit Player

Under Team Management you get the following options:

• Squad
• Formations
• Custom Tactics
• Quick Tactics
• Player Roles

The Squad option will allow you to see all your players, their positions and their attributes, including their overall rating. This is also the place where you choose your team (and during a match you can pause and do your substitutions from this menu too).

By clicking RB you will see each of the players' energy levels and if they are getting low then you may need to rotate your squad. Also it helps keep your players energy levels up if you always make 3 subs per game. This also gives more players game time which keeps them happy and also helps them to improve.

By clicking RT/LT you'll be able to cycle through all the player attributes.

The Formations option allows you to choose a formation. The formations you can choose are:

• Default
• 3-1-4-2
• 3-4-1-2
• 3-4-2-1
• 3-4-3 Diamond
• 3-4-3 Flat
• 3-5-1-1
• 3-5-2
• 4-4-2 Diamond
• 4-4-2 Diamond Wide
• 4-1-3-2
• 4-1-4-1
• 4-2-2-2
• 4-2-3-1 Wide
• 4-2-3-1
• 4-2-4
• 4-3-1-2
• 4-3-2-1
• 4-3-3 False 9
• 4-3-3 Attack
• 4-3-3 Defend
• 4-3-3 Holding
• 4-3-3
• 4-4-1-1 Attack
• 4-4-1-1
• 4-4-2 Holding
• 4-4-2 Flat
• 4-5-1 Attack
• 4-5-1
• 5-2-1-2
• 5-2-2-1
• 5-3-2
• 5-4-1 Flat
• 5-4-1 Diamond

Or you can edit it by pressing X and moving positions manually to your personal preferences.

The sliders/options mentioned above that you can tweak are:

Build Up Play

• Speed (1-100)
• Passing (1-100)
• Positioning - Organised/Free Form

Chance Creation

• Passing (1-100)
• Crossing (1-100)
• Shooting (1-100)
• Positioning - Organised/Free Form

Defence

• Pressure (1-100)
• Aggression (1-100)
• Team Width (1-100)
• Defender Line - Cover/Offside Trap

Then you can save this tactic to use when you like. You can also assign it as a quick tactic. Quick Tactics will include the team default (as designed in custom tactics), counter attack, high pressure, possession, long ball, and things like that.


Under Player Roles you can assign the person you think is most suitable for the following roles:

• Captain
• Penalties
• Short Free Kick
• Long free kick
• Left corner
• Right corner

As you scroll through your player list you will see at the top their attributes for Power, FK Acc, Curve and Penalties to help you choose the best player for that role.

Make sure to be aware of which foot your corner kickers prefer. If you prefer to hit out-swinging corners then you'll want a right footer on the right side and a left footer on the left side. For in-swingers you'll want the opposite.

Also remember to double-check your Player Roles when you make substitutions. You want to make sure you still have your best possible kick takers assigned to each role.



The Club Squad/National Squad tiles allow you to switch between your national team and your club team (if you are a national team manager).



Squad Report is where you can see the progress of your squad and whether they or you have improved over the season.

Each player will have their status and stats tab and their attributes tab which you can cycle between using LB/RB.

The status and stats tab shows when the players joined the club, whether they have an injury, whether they have a suspension, what their form is and what their morale is like. Their stats show their appearances by competition together with their goals (for and against), clean sheets in those matches, yellow cards, red cards and their average match rating.

Their attributes tab shows the attribute ratings of the players as at the start of the season together with any changes over time. The attributes covered are:

• Physical
  • Acceleration
  • Agility
  • Jumping
  • Strength
  • Sprint Speed
  • Balance
  • Stamina
  • Reactions
• Mental
  • Aggression
  • Attack Position
  • Interceptions
  • Vision
• Technical
  • Ball Control
  • Dribbling
  • FK Acc.
  • Long Passing
  • Marking
  • Long Shots
  • Sliding TACKLE
  • Curve
  • Crossing
  • Finishing
  • Heading Acc.
  • Short Passing
  • Shot Power
  • Stand Tackle
  • Volleys
  • Penalties
• Goalkeeping
  • GK Diving
  • GK Kicking
  • GK Positioning
  • GK Handling
  • GK Reflexes

These will improve as players get game time and play well. The attributes grow quicker for younger players. Older players lose their attributes quicker, especially if they are not playing. Therefore it is advised that you always make use of all your subs every game so as to give your squad game time.


The Squad Ranking option ranks your squad against each other based on form. You will also see their previous ranking so that you can track who has done well over the week, and who hasn't.


Kit Numbers allows you to change the kit numbers of your players.


The Injury List option shows the players that you have injured by type of injury and length. You can also use LT/RT to cycle through the other teams in your league to see what players they have injured at that time.


For the edit players you can't change attributes, but you can change players' accessories to your preference, so if you want your whole team to play in pink boots you can do that. You can also edit players from other teams and across leagues. You will need to have purchased the level 19 item (2,500 FCC) from the EAS FC Catalogue to enable it though.

Transfers

The Transfers tab provides buttons to access your:

• Global Transfer Network (GTN)
• GTN featured item
• Search Players/Scout Instructions/My Shortlist
• Sell Players/Transfer Negotiations
• Finances/Budget Allocation

The GTN (Global Transfer Network) is new to FIFA 14. Check out the video. Whereas before you would automatically know every player's attribute rating, now you have to rely on your scouts to provide them. The better your scouts the more accurate the attribute ratings you will see to help you in deciding to purchase a player or not.

All clubs start with between 1 and 4 GTN scouts and can eventually hire up to 6. Scouts can then be sent out to set up scouting networks where they can look for players by position, by age, by contract, or by attribute with up to 6 of the following attributes being selectable at a time:

• Any
• Aerial Threat
• Attack Minded
• Box to Box
• Defensive Minded
• Distance Shooter
• Dribbler
• First Team Quality
• Free Kick Specialist
• Pacey
• Penalty Specialist
• Playmaker
• Prolific
• Promising
• Strong
• Tall

You'll then get emails about the players they have found that met your criteria, or will say they can't find any more and that you need to change their instructions. A well-managed GTN will help you better identify talent for your team, particularly in later years of your career when many players from real-life will have retired.

The Search Players option allows you to search for players. Early on in your career the chief exec will send you an email which you should be aware of before you go on a spending spree:
So value of a player will be determined in many ways (e.g. transfer listed players will cost less than non-transfer listed players).

Now you have the knowledge on where value lies use the Buy Players option to buy players. You can search by:

• Position
• Role
• Search Last Name
• League
• Team
• Player Age Min.
• Player Age Max.
• Nationality
• Transfer Status

Once you have found a player that you like you can click on them to:

• Ask Scout to Scout them
• Add to Shortlist
• Enquire about the player
• Approach the team to buy
• Approach the team to loan

Choosing to buy a player will give you the option to put an offer forward for them. Your chief executive's advice will be there to help you decide on a figure. You can also offer a player at your club instead in exchange, or a combination of a transfer fee plus a player.

After your offer has gone through you should receive a reply from the club in the next few days to say whether it was successful, or there may be a period of negotiation where you try and agree an amended transfer fee.

Also whilst buying players remember to keep in your transfer budget (although from the first January transfer window you will be allowed to request more funds) or: However if you absolutely must complete a transfer that you can't afford then perhaps you could try and use the request funds option under the office tab, or purchase one of the Financial Takeover items from the EAS FC Catalogue. The the Financial Takeover items are available at levels 13, 39 and 78 for 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 FCC respectively.

Also if your club has no money you may want to check out the free agents as they involve no transfer fee and you can pick up some good players there.

When a transfer offer is accepted you will need to enter negotiations with the player. The player demands will be presented to you, along with your remaining wage budget, and the contract options you have to offer to the player will be:

• Offered wage (week)
• Bonus per goal (or clean sheet)
• Length of contract
• Squad role

If your contract offer is successful then you will get the chance to stall, accept or reject the decision to bring the player into your club.

Choosing to loan or enquire about a player (which is used when you want to see what a club might be willing to accept for a player) will be much the same process. Adding a player to the shortlist means you can have all your targets on a shortlist enabling you to compare them against each other so that you are able to get the best player for your team.

Also, when buying players, it is important to know if you are interested in the short term or the long term. If you are planning to leave the club at the end of the season then you may as well buy established players (who are normally older) or just bring in loan players for the season. If however you are planning on staying at the club for a long time you may want to take a long term view and purchase young players with a lot of potential (which will only get realised through regular first team games).


The Sell Players option allows you to look at all your squad by:

• Position
• Name
• Age
• Overall rating
• Price (i.e. value)
• Wage
• Status

By clicking in here you will see at the top a summary of the players in your squad by position so you can see where you have too many players, and where you don't have enough players.

At the beginning of the season you will want to get this down to a reasonable level (say 2 players per position meaning a total of 22 players, or at nig clubs with many more matches a season you may want more).

The player status can be things like:

• Purchased this season
• Loaned out
• Loanee
• For Loan (Season) - i.e. available for loan
• Etc.

Sometimes clubs will come in for players that aren't transfer listed too. When a club does make an offer your chief executive sends an email to you, which goes into your inbox, and you are notified that you have to deal with it by going to the transfer negotiation folder (linked via the email).

If you want to check where this player fits into your squad plans then back out and check before coming back. Otherwise proceed to deal with the offer.

The offer will be presented showing the interested team, the transfer type (purchase or loan) and the sum of money on offer. Again the chief executive will provide some comments to aid you. Your remaining transfer budget and remaining wage budget will be shown too. Your options will be:

• Stall
• Accept Offer
• Reject Offer
• Counter Offer
• Reject All Offers / Disallow Future Offers

If countering then try not to set too high a price as to frighten off the interested club if you want to sell, or if the player wants away. On the other hand try not to aim too low as you want to get the maximum you can.

You can click on players here to transfer list them, or to make them available to loan (either season-long, or short-term), to offer them new contracts or to release them from their contract (by buying out the remainder of their contract - an option that should not be used except where you want rid of players at the end of their term at the club thus incurring no fee). On contracts you don't want your good players to let their contracts run out because they'll then be able to leave your club for free (under the Bosman rule).

View Shortlist is the place to go to see all the players you have shortlisted.


Transfer Negotiations is where you can view your transfers. Use LT/RT to cycle through Transfer Offers Received, Transfer Offers Sent, Successful Negotiations and Unsuccessful Negotiations.

There will be details for each showing:

• Transfer type
• Negotiation Status
• Estimated Worth (of player)
• Transfer Fee (of player, useful for comparing against the estimated worth)
• Wage: Current
• Wage: Offered
• Contract Length: Current
• Contract Length: Offered
• Bonus: Current
• Bonus: Offered

The Finances tile shows your remaining transfer budget and wage budget. Clicking in here allows you to amend your budget allocation. This is where you can set the split for your wage budget against transfer budget. At the left hand side will be the transfer budget details (your starting transfer budget, players purchased, remaining transfer budget) and on the right hand side will be the wage budget details (weekly wage budget, starting weekly wages, change this season, surplus weekly budget).

Below these sums is a slider you can use to determine the split of budgets that you want. So, for example, you can have 90% of your budget on the transfer side, and 10% on the wage side.

If you have no money at all you could purchase one of the Financial Takeover items from the EAS FC Catalogue (available at levels 13, 39 and 78 for 1,500, 3,000 and 5,000 FCC respectively).

Office

By choosing the Office tab you see the following options:

• Inbox
• Contracts - Manage the contracts of the players in your squad
• Youth Staff/Youth Academy
• My Career/Objectives
• Request Funds
• Browse Jobs/Resign Natl Team/Natl Team Job Offers
• Settings

Your inbox is where your emails go into. When you advance in your career any new emails you get will be flagged and you can auto read them pressing Y as they come in. Any unread emails will be indicated at the office tab by a number.

By clicking on Contracts you can see all your players, their wages and their remaining contract length, and their negotiation status if you have offered them a new contract. Don't let good players run down their contracts, and similarly don't give bad players long contracts. At the same time you don't want disharmony in your squad so if a player is being too demanding you may need to show them that you are the boss and transfer list them.

When offering to extend your players contracts see if you can set the signing on fees to nothing to save your transfer budget from going down.

The Youth Squad option will list the youth players you have. Their player attributes will be here too, plus their potential attributes. You will be able to promote players here to your main squad when they become 16.

If you want some more star youth players you could purchase one of the Scout Future Star items from the EAS FC Catalogue.

You won't have any youth players though if you don't set up your youth academy. This is where you can develop for the future. There are two options here:

• Scouting Network
• Youth Squad

The Scouting Network option is similar to the GTN except for identifying youth prospects. Clicking it will take you to three slots where you can hire a scout. Clicking on one will take you to see a list of potential scouting networks you can choose to hire.

The scouting networks will be show the scout's name, the country, their experience rating (out of 5 stars), their judgement rating (out of 5 stars) and the scouting network cost. This is worth setting up if you plan on sticking around at your club for a long time, or if you are at a low-rated team where youth team players could be bedded in quite quickly.

Once set up you can then click on the scout to set up a scouting network, or to fire him if you think you can get a better option to replace him.

When setting up a scouting network you can choose from the following options:

• Region (Asia/Australia/Africa/South America/North America/Northern Europe/Southern Europe/Central Europe/Rest of Europe)
• Country (depends on the above selection)
• Duration (3 months/6 months/9 months)
• Type (Any/Technically Gifted/Winger/Physically Strong/Playmaker/Goalkeeper/Attacker/Defensive Minded)

And depending on the options chosen the cost will be shown with the shorter duration local areas costing less than the longer duration further areas.

Then when he reports back to you the players he has found you can sign them up to your youth team if you want.


The My Career option is where you can view your career stats.

There are stats for My Career and Season stats too, which can be cycled through using LB/RB.

My Career shows stats for your:

• Clubs (number of)
• League Titles (number of)
• Domestic Cups Won
• Continental Cups Won
• Biggest Win
• Biggest Defeat
• Record Transfer Fee
• Total Earnings
• Current wage (at top of screen)
• Club Record (P W D L F A)

Then the season stats show by season your:

• Club
• League Objective
• League Objective Achieved
• Domestic Cup Objective
• Domestic Cup Objective Achieved
• Cup(s) Progress
• Manager of the Month Awards
• Manager of the Year Award
• Record Transfer Fee Paid
• Record Transfer Fee Received
• League Position
• Club Record (P W D L F A)

Select Objectives to view your own progress against your board's expectations. In here will be your league and cup targets that you got at the beginning of the season, or when you first joined the club mid-season, and whether you are meeting them.


Use Request Funds to request additional funds from your board. This will then send a letter to the board: So you can see that you are putting more pressure on yourself getting the sack by doing this, if you don't achieve your objectives.


Use Browse Jobs to apply for potential managerial job openings. You'll be able to see all the job opportunities here, which will normally be for clubs struggling in their divisions if halfway through a season. Their club details will be here to see (transfer budget and wage budget) as well as their season record so far, the wage they are offering you, and the objective they want you to achieve.

This is also the place to go to at the beginning of the new season if you want a new challenge and a new club after having done so successfully (or woefully) at your previous club.


Natl Team Job Offers is the place to go to for National team opportunities that are available, or if you are already an international manager then you will be able to resign from there to become available for another national position.

Your agent will early on in the game tell you he is looking into securing an international management job for you: If you fancy becoming an international manager early in your career then you can automatically be offered an international job by purchasing the level 23 International Manager Offer for 1,800 FCC from the EAS FC Catalogue.


Settings shows your game settings so that you can change what you originally set as you started your career.

Season

The Season tab has the following:

• Calendar
• Other Leagues
• Team Stats
• Player Stats
• Fixtures

The Calendar will expand your 5-day view on the central player career mode tab to a monthly view. You can then look ahead or look back using RT/LT to cycle through months. You can also click on a future date to sim to that date if you wish.

Next to the calendar you will see the key for the symbols that appear on it. There are labels for:

• League Match
• Cup Match
• International Match
• Friendly
• European Match
• Talk to Press
• Transfer Window

There will also be a clock icon on particular days. This indicates the transfer deadline day. Transfer deadline day is a special day where the mode advances in hour stages rather than the normal speed the season would normally advance at, which is days at a time. This is so you can do your last minute transfer business. Trackers for hours remaining and total spent on transfer deadline day will also appear on the day to enhance your transfer deadline day experience.


The Other Leagues option will show you tables from around the world, whilst the Tables option will show you your table and any tournament trees for your cups.


Team Stats gives you in-depth stats for all the teams in your league. You'll see the players listed for each team with their appearances, goals, assists, clean sheets, yellow cards and red cards and their average rating.


Player Stats gives you in-depth stats for all the players in your league/cup/internationals. You'll see the top scorers, goals, assists, clean sheets, yellow cards and red cards.


Fixtures will show you the fixtures by date (which can also be gained via the calendar).

So now all that is left is for you to play your 15 seasons of career at which point you will retire.