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
  This 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.

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 (shirt and tie, track suit or suit).
• Suit Colour
  Select the suit colour (navy or grey).
• Skin Tones
  Select the skin tone (light, fair, medium, olive, brown or black).
• Body Type
  Select the body type (slim, regular or stocky).

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

At the interface screen you have five tabs:

• Central
• Squad
• Transfers
• Office
• Season

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).

It is worth keeping an eye on the news section. 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 transfer in a player on the cheap. Also the news items allow you to link directly to the player screen, 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.

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. (There will be some in there from the beginning.) You can quick access these by pressing Y in any part of the manager career menu.

In the manager career menu the most important tab is the Squad tab. 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, say), 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 Sheets (use RS to toggle between them
  you can have up to five)
• Club Squad
• National Squad (if you are a national team manager, otherwise greyed out)
• Squad Report/Squad Ranking (use RS to toggle between them)
• National Squad Selection (if you are a national team manager, otherwise greyed out)
• Formations/Tactics/Player Roles (use RS to toggle, these can also be found in the Team Sheets section)
• Kit Numbers/Injury List/Edit Player

Under Team Sheets you get the following options which can be selected with RB/LB:

• Squad
• Formations
• Tactics
• 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). You can easily switch between different teams (say 1st team and reserves) and different formations by making use of the Team Sheets.

Also make sure to keep an eye on your players' energy levels and if they are getting low then you may need to rotate your squad. Energy levels can be kept 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 RB you will see the Formations option. This 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 preference.

Pressing RB again takes you to the Tactics option.



The tactics you can assign are:

• Default (This is your team's default tactic)
• Counter Attack (Best suited to teams trying to defend a lead)
• High Pressure (Best for teams trying to get a goal back later in the match)
• Possession (Best for patient teams comfortable on the ball)
• Long Ball (Best for teams with a fast striker or strikers good in the air)

Or you can edit them to your preference (by pressing A) with the following sliders:

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 your tactics to use when you like in your career. You can also assign it as a quick tactic.

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

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

As you scroll through your player list you will see at the top their relevant attributes 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). If you want to be an international manager from the beginning you can purchase the level 15 item International Manager Offer for 1,500 FCC from the EAS FC Catalogue to let you.

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, assists, 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. Also loan some players out if you have a big squad

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 15 item (1,500 FCC) from the EAS FC Catalogue to enable it though, otherwise the option will be greyed out.

Transfers

The Transfers tab provides buttons to access your:

• Suggested players to scout/loan/buy
• Global Transfer Network (GTN)
• GTN featured item
• Search Players/Scout Instructions/My Shortlist (RS to toggle between them)
• Sell Players/Transfer Negotiations (RS to toggle between them)
• Finances/Transfer History (RS to toggle between them)

The suggested players section just shows some players you can look at for your club based on what you have instructed your scouts to do in the Global Transfer Network section.

The GTN (Global Transfer Network) was new to FIFA 14 and has been in the game since. Whereas before you would automatically know every player's attribute rating, now you have to rely on your scouts to find them out for you. 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 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
• Crossing Ability
• Defensive Minded
• Distance Shooter
• Dribbler
• First Team Quality
• Free Kick Specialist
• Pacey
• Penalty Specialist
• Playmaker
• Prolific
• Promising
• Strong
• Tall
• World Class

You'll then get emails about the players they have found that meet your criteria, or they 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 entitled 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 you can search out the good players. You can search by:

• Player Name
• Position
• Role
• Nationality
• Transfer Status
• Min Age
• Max Age
• Country (of league, not nationality which is above)
• League
• Team
• Nationality

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 they accept, or there may be a period of negotiation where you try and agree an amended transfer fee.

Also whilst buying players remember to keep within your transfer budget. If you do go out of your budget then you'll upset the board:



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 (available from the first Jan transfer window), or purchase one of the Financial Takeover items from the EAS FC Catalogue (available at levels 10, 25 and 35 for 1,000, 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 understand your long-term plan. 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
• Player 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 (i.e. how many GKs, DEFs, MIDs and ATTs you have, and your total number of players out of an allowable 52) 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 (or up) to a reasonable level (say 2 players per position meaning a total of 22 players, or at big clubs with many more matches a season you may want more).

The player status can be things like:

• Purchased this season
• Loaned out
• Loanee
  Full Season

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 inform you, and 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).

My 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
• Expiry date on the above (if applicable)
• 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 via a slider between transfer budget and wage budget.

On the left hand side will be your 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 the 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 10, 25 and 35 for 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000 FCC respectively).

Office

In the Office tab you see the following options:

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

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

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 (otherwise N/A). Don't let good players run down their contracts, and similarly don't give bad players long contracts. And if a player is being too demanding you may need to show them that you are the boss and transfer list them for the sake of squad harmony.

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 Staff option allows you to hire and manage scouts to find youth players, and works in a similar way to the Global Transfer Network. The players found can then be signed to your Youth Academyoption will list the youth players you have (if you have any otherwise option is greyed out). 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.

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 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 15 International Manager Offer for 1,500 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. Settings are explored in more detail in the Customise section of the guide.

Season

The Season tab has the following:

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

The Calendar option expands 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.

For the days with the red mic icon 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. You'll be able to make a comment on your team, the opposition team, the opposition manager, or a particular player.

Team Stats gives you in-depth stats for all the teams in your league. You can 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.

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

Fixtures will show you the fixtures and results by date (which can also be viewed via the calendar) for all teams in your league.

So now all that is left is for you to play your 15 seasons of career at which point you will retire, hopefully with a glittering career behind you.