lowerdivision

FOOTBALL MANAGER 2002

LOWER DIVISION MANAGEMENT

This page is to help those of you who prefer to manage lower division sides. By lower division I mean leagues like England Division 2,3 & Conference, Belgium Division 2 and German Regional etc. I don't really have much experience of lower division as have only done 1 proper season outside of the top division in any country and that was getting Leicester out of division 1. As I am not as knowledgable about lower divisions your tips on the guestbook will be very important to me. I will also at somepoint put in a direct link to the Football Manager forum at Gametalk where you can post your ideas.

Here is some tips from the Englander from gametalk. I say a big thanks to him for giving me this information.

It can be very tempting to to build new stands/terraces, sports shops and youth centres all in one go, until you've spent all your money for that season. I would recommend you follow this saying "You need a team to play in the stadium". For example, its all very well building someone like Plymouth a 20,000 seater stadium but are you going to fill it in Division 2/3. My tip is to start improving your stadium when you get your first promotion (with the exception of teams who start in Division 1). I was once Scarborough and my friend (bad player) Stevenage. My friend ended up with a 15,000 seater stadium, a really nice training ground, but no the money to strengthen the team. He finished 6th. I on the other hand only built a basic sports shop and invested in my team and i won the conference by 10 points, not actually losing to my friend! for those of you who are interested, I beat him 2-0 away at his 15,000 seater stadium infront of 2,000 people and i beat him 3-1 infront of 4,500 of my fans.

Players to buy: Lower class Division 2/3 players, good class conference players, out of contract players and ones who want to move clubs. Also loaning players is a good idea this low down in the league.

Here are some of my tips for England Division 1. This is based on the situation i was in when i became Leicester manager in 2018.

When i took over at Leicester the team was a mediocre mid-table division 1 team. The team had few good players and there was a number of players who had something like 40-50 for skill. The team had a number of attackers but none of them were particulary special. The best had about 63. So i looked on the transfer list and i found a player for around �4m who had about 71. I signed him and i also got a player with 80 for skill in on loan. The player with 80 scored no end of goals and in the end was a very important team member. The other player struggled with injuries that year though but as he was 23 he came good in the end.

The team also didn't have any right midfield players. So i signed one for �2m who had about 67/68 and after a bit of training he went up to about 74. They only had 1 goalie as well so i signed another on loan for cover. In the first year i left the stadium as it was to save money for the team. I did though hire a better assistant manager and build a training ground to help players improve quicker. I also signed a couple of other players who would do a job in division 1 to strengthen the squad.

In the end we finished in a comfortable 3rd place and were promoted through the play offs. I also won the League Cup which got us prize money and a place in europe. Then in my second season in the premiership i nearly won but in the end i had to settle for 3rd place. Loan signings were agaim crucial that year as i signed a defender with 88. Also i signed a number of out of contract players to help. I came close the following year but in the end i won it after 4 years. Just follow this advice as well as my tactics and you should be successful.

I hope those 2 different scenarios will help you through the lower divisions. It isn't easy as you don't have much money to spend but if you use some of the tips given on this page it will hopefully make your job easier.

Below I will list some of the main tips you may need for the lower divisions.

Try and avoid spending lots of money on development and your stadium. As money is short try and            spend it on strengthening your squad.

Always check the out of contract players. Some players that might normally be too expensive may be          available for nothing. Don't expect top stars like Zidane to sign for your club though!

Also look out for players on loan. As long as their club accepts the loan deal the player will always agree.     You can only loan a certain amount of players at a time though. That is the way Zidane could be playing       for you!

Try and buy young players. Although you won't be able to buy the top youngsters like Saviola and Cole       you may find some players who will develop into half decent players and go up to about 70, which is very good for the lower divisions. They are cheap as well so hopefully as your team improves then the players will as well.

Your youth team could also be important. It is difficult to find a top class youth team player at a top club but at a lower division club it should be easier to find youth team players to suit your needs. As they cost no money and wages aren't high they could make up quite a part of your club.

As staff aren't much good in the lower divisions if you see a half decent coach on the staff list then hire him so you can improve players quicker.

If you have a small squad and a player whos worth a bit then you could sell him and use the cash to strenghthen the squad to make it bigger.

Buy Hientz from Dakar as he only has about 46 at the start but he improves to have over 90. He can play in AM & CF.

If you want to be a lower division team with a lot of money then be Queens Park in Scottish Dvision 3. Their stadium fits around 50,000 people and you can seel lots of season tickets for prices of around �750. It gets you a lot of cash to spend and makes lower division life a lot easier.