With the Football Manager series growing more and more complex with each iteration, it can be hard for newbies to wrap their heads around what is probably the deepest, most realistic sports-management game on the market today. So I am here to present five things that you may not have discovered yet in FM 2011.

But first, a caveat: FM veterans probably know most, if not all, of these already. After all, as deep as Football Manager is, it's still a game, and it is not necessarily as complex and difficult to comprehend as, say, the mind of the Chelsea management team during this past transfer window.

Another caveat: I did not conduct any "experiments" with these tips for any definitive results, but they have served me and many of my FM mates well so far. All of these things are based on my experiences with the game, which, according to my girlfriend, are abundant.

Gotta Have Faith, Faith, Faith

Ah, team talks. Some like them and some don't. Others leave the talks to their assistant managers and end up with egg, and perhaps a virtual flying boot, in the face. Admittedly, the team talk module in FM is still quite primitive. There are five choices in the overall team talk selection, and perhaps one or two more for specific players depending on their performances. And yes, a bad team talk, especially at halftime, can and will cause your team to blow a comfortable two-goal lead.

Logically, each team talk option should yield a potentially positive, negative and negative result, depending on the state of mind of the players. That would make sense, right?

Nuh-uh. For some reason, there are two team talk options that never cause players to react negatively: "for the fans" and "you have faith." "For the fans" is a pregame option, and most of the time players don't respond much to it. So it can be your last resort if you think the tricky "you can win" may de-motivate your players, and the gung ho "expect to win" puts a tad too much pressure on the squad.

"You have faith," on the other hand, is a much more useful tool, especially during halftime. This is for players who are playing well, but not extremely well, and so you want them to keep it up. I use it for players with a rating anywhere between 7.0 to 8.1. They will never react negatively, and better yet, they will often be more motivated and up their performance in the second half.

"Unfaking" It

Tired of seeing grayed out players on the German national team? You can easily get them back.

Navigate to your "Football Manager 2011" folder (not the one in My Documents, but the one under Program Files), click on "updates," then "update-11(x)0" -- "x" being the patch version -- then "db," then "11(x)0", then "lnc," then "all."

Once you're there, delete the "fake.lnc" files, and voila, the real German team is back. Yes, that sound you hear is the collective quaking in England. If you also want the real J-League team names, delete "nleague.lnc" as well. The league itself, though, is still unplayable because of licensing issues.

To recap, if you have patch 11.2, the lnc files are located in "c:\program files (x86)\sports interactive\football manager 2011\updates\update-1120\db\1120\lnc\all." If you're using Steam, just access the Football Manager folder inside the Steam folder -- the rest is the same.

The real German team.

Post-Retirement Plans

Once a player turns 30, sooner or later he will indicate his post-playing career ambitions in his profile. Some players will want to coach, others will want to manage, and some will just want to quit entirely.

What does that have to do with you, you ask? Plenty, actually. At least for the players who show an interest in remaining in the game after they retire.

You can reveal a player's staff attributes using private chats. Use the "recommend future staff role" option, and suggest to the player the role that he has expressed an interest in. Sometimes players will appreciate your suggestion and leave it at that, but a lot of times they say something to the effect of "I can start right away," and then out comes the staff attributes.

While this is not a great benefit in and of itself, remember that staff members do not have agents. So after the staff attributes are revealed -- usually a couple weeks later -- the player in question will fire his agent. That, of course, leads to much smoother negotiations that remove agent fees from the equation as well.

Another generation of playmakers on the way?

48 Months

While we're on the subject of money, here's one that will make your transfer budget seem a lot bigger. In fact, the game might be too easy if you use this all the time, but hey, to each his own.

When making an offer for players, you have the option to pay the transfer fee upfront or spread it out over a period of time. If you choose to spread the payment out over 48 months, only a quarter of the total transfer fee is deducted from your transfer budget. So theoretically, if you have a $20 million transfer kitty for the year, you can buy up to $80 million worth of players by spreading all of the deals over 48 months.

However, use this option with care. Your club will most likely be in the red as the season progresses, so make sure you win a few trophies to keep stature high and the prize money flowing, otherwise your balance will be in the red by the end of the year.

The Fan Community

From transfer updates to team logos to player photos to fantasy league structures, Football Manager boasts one of the most active fan communities around.

The nature of the game lends itself to customization, and die-hard FMers certainly take advantage of this by creating tons of add-ons that boost the game's already great replay value. What's more, the developers actually listen to feedback from the users (imagine that). In fact, a number of new features in FM 2011 were direct results of the community's input.


Kelvin Mak is the soccer writer here at Operation Sports. Residing in Toronto, Canada, his favo(u)rite sport is -- surprise -- soccer, and he religiously follows the Premier League. You can find him on OS under the username kelvinmak, or in a bar in Toronto, usually after 2 p.m., under the name Pukey.