All you need to know about ManagerLeague

In part 1 we looked at the team squad, setting up your lineup and which skills are important in certain positions. In this part we will go through the tactics page and explain what the different options mean. We are also going to have a short look at the events section.

Tactics

You can find this page on the menu beneath Team -> Tactics. At this page you can decide which players are supposed to do certain tasks on the pitch. Notice that you can change your formation at this page as well as on the team selection page. The choice of tactics should reflect your team-stats, which you'll notice in part 3 of this getting started guide.

Player assignments

Captain:

A captain should be at least 25 years or older and as experienced as possible. Having good perception is important, although the experience is more so. Also a good thing to know is that the captain gives a small performance boost to the section he is playing in. So if you have one of your best midfielders out with injury you can boost the replacement by making one of the midfielders the captain.

Freekick, own half:

For this one you should choose a player with a high passing skill. Picking your one defender with the best passing skill could be smart cause then you can have your midfielders higher in the field.

Freekick, opponent half:

A midfielder with high passing skill, shooting skill and preferably a good perception. Freekicks on the opponent half is mostly a scoring chance either with a good shot or a good pass into the penalty box. Some prefer to use an attacker here, due to being a better shooter.

Corner:

The smart choice is to choose the midfielder with the best passing skill. If you have 2 midfielders with the same passing skill and don't know which one to choose. Put the one with the worst heading skill to take the corner and the one with the best heading in the box.

Team tactics

Playstyle:

You can choose between three different playstyles. Continental (keeping the ball down), Longball (obvious) and mixed (both continental and longball). At first this is a selection from what you think suits your tactics the best, but after gaining some experience playing the game you might notice you can change this to gain advantages over your opponent.
Please note that these styles are not 100%, even teams playing with a longball tactic will have a lot of short passes too. It just means that when the opportunity comes and a player has both options available, he will prefer the selected setting. He will not pass the ball with a long pass if there is no one there to receive it.

Tackling:

How hard do you want your players to tackle? You can choose between soft tackles, normal and hard. The harder tackles you choose the more ball fights you will win. The downside is that your players will get more yellow and red cards.

Shooting:

Decide when your players should make their shots to try and score you goals. Yet again you have three choices, "shoot at will", "near goal" and "only when safe". They should all be pretty self explaining although remember that the closer you want to get before shooting, the less chances you will get, although the chances of scoring increase if the shot is made.

If the opponent goalie is really bad or has a really bad day it could be smart to let your players shoot from a longer distance than "only when safe".

Pressure:

How do you want your pressure to be? The choices are defending, normal and attacking. This often changes depending on your opponent. If you meet a superior team and expect to lose the game it could be smart to choose defending and hope you can keep a clean sheet and maybe get a lucky counter attack. On the other hand, if you are he superior team and expect a massive win, attack, attack, attack.

Offside trap:

With or without the offside trap? Before choosing consider the following. How good is your team-stat Offside? Do you expect your opponent to play attacking or defending against you? How good is your defenders perception?

Events

On the menu beneath Team -> Events you can put up events to happen during the match based on the match result at a certain match time. This means that you can change your tactics during a match if the event selections are true. For instance, if you are down by 2 goals or more at half time you might consider to change to a more attacking formation or a higher pressure.

Now you can keep playing some matches and get the feeling. If you make your choice based on the results you get in your matches you will have a bigger chance to succeed. In the next part we will go through the team training. We wish you good luck and hope that you are on the way to become the next great manager in the virtual world of ManagerLeague.