FIFA 13

[Rino8]

I've done the whole La Liga squad thing, sold them all and went for Serie A in the end. Benzema is a beast, but I wouldn't bother with Pique. Go straight for Ramos as Pique is way too slow.

Oh I know that with Pique, but Ramos is about 140k and Raul Albiol is pretty shite, I can always sell him and get Ramos when I get closer to enough money.

I thought about a Serie A squad, but that league has lost too much quality last summer and it's pretty limited to choose from. A lot of good CM/DM's + Sneijder but after that it's a bit of a struggle.

When I get a lot of coins I'll make a Bundesliga team,too with Ribery, Robben, Gotze, Schweinsteiger etc. That's the plan anyway.

[villarule123]

Ribery is 500k+ I think

My Bundesliga team have nearly reached the ceiling, the only affordable upgrades I have left are Hummels & Neuer.

Robben and Ribery would complete the team but I haven't got a spare 650k

[Rino8]

Ribery is 500k+ I think

My Bundesliga team have nearly reached the ceiling, the only affordable upgrades I have left are Hummels & Neuer.

Robben and Ribery would complete the team but I haven't got a spare 650k

Yeah I went and searched Ribery after I posted that, still, Robben and Schweinsteiger are getable.

Do keepers make much of a difference on UT? Is it worth spending an extra 20k on a decent one?

Oh and I did play somebody earlier with a front 3 of Ronaldo-Messi-Walcott. And they played 5 at the back with a 3 of Vidic - Pepe - Ramos. Insane.

[kurtsimonw]

Serie A doesn't have a tonne of quality. At the moment think I've got...

------------------------ Handanovic -------------------------

------------- Barzagli -- Benetia -- Chiellini ------------

Maggio --------------------------------------------- Armero

------------------- Vidal ------ De Rossi ------------------

----- Palaco -------------------------------- Giovinco ----

--------------------------- Cavani ----------------------------

Got some pace in the front 3 + wing backs which helps, always get exposed in the middle then when I can't keep the ball.

[Czechlad]

Well it's happened finally in career mode. I had a match scheduled Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then Saturday. Once I saw that, I restarted career mode.

[fightoffyour]

Ribery is 500k+ I think

My Bundesliga team have nearly reached the ceiling, the only affordable upgrades I have left are Hummels & Neuer.

Robben and Ribery would complete the team but I haven't got a spare 650k

Yep mine too, next to buy is Piszcek at RB and Alaba LB (both pretty cheap) and then Reus at CF (though I do already have Mario Gomez who I really like).

After that there's plenty I could add like Ozil, Robben, Ribery, Lahm but they cost more than I will ever save up, so I might just buy loads of packs and hope to find Messi instead.

[Don_Simon]

Aaaaah, @GarethRDR, my rezident Bundesliga and Fifa expert! I come to you for yet more expert guidance..

Does your epic trick of youth players costing next to nothing from Fifa 12 still work on this years game? Ive started a career with Villa and want to do it properly, (unlike our recent managers!)

Cheers buddy.

[GarethRDR]

It's still probably the best way of building a squad up if you're on a limited budget with a low-rated team, but the setup's been tinkered with so it's not quite as exploitable. For instance, you can't immediately transfer list a youth player you've just promoted, you have to wait for the next transfer window to roll round. Also youth player's wages are a little higher, you're limited in the length of contract you can offer them and players won't accept long contract renewals until they're contract's literally about to expire. You can also no longer tempt clubs into loaning you their best players by putting a massive to-buy clause in which you've no intention of fulfulling. On the flip side, you can start to get some amazing re-gen players from the Free Agents list this time around, from as early as your second season onwards.

In terms of tricks that do work, I've found a few handy ones for dealing with player demands:

1. If a player requests a pay-rise, go to contracts, offer their requested amount but always set the contract extension length to 5 years. 99.9% of the time, they'll refuse the offer (sometimes they accept if they've got less than a year to run anyway) but by making the offer at all it stops the player going to the board to force a transfer, which is what will always happen if you don't make an improved contract offer; if that happens you'll get notified of this by the board and the player could potentially be sold out from under you but at this point it is still possible to recover the situation by doing exactly the same and offering the player the money they want with a 5 year extension. Once they refuse, you can then take them off the transfer list. Note that you might have the player ask for a pay-rise again a season or so down the line, but simply rinse and repeat until they're in the last year of their contract (by which point you'll have to pay them what they want, but they'll accept the 5 year extension and at least you've put off paying them any more until the very last minute).

2. If a player agitates for more game-time, loan-list them. You then don't have to accept any of the loan offers that come in for them (unless you know you're not going to be playing them much, in which case you might as well so they can develop faster at another club), but like the above this will prevent them player from going to the board to request a transfer (which they will if you do nothing). Even if you refuse every loan offer that comes in, the player will now happily sit on the bench/in the reserves as long as they're loan-listed. In fact, if you do loan them out then by the time they come back their morale will be completely reset to "happy", no matter how pissed they were when they asked to play in the first place.

3. Every once in a blue moon, one of your best players decides to be a cock-juggling thunderc*nt and slam in a request to leave about a week before a transfer window closes. At this point, you'll get one of either two messages from the board; the "we'll back whatever you decide to do" message which is great as then you can just decide to not sell the player, or the "we've decided to let him go" message which you can do **** all about bar damage limitation. By damage limitation, I mean you should accept the first offer that comes in over the player's market value. You should automatically get an offer from one or sometimes two clubs as soon as the situation occurs, and at least one of those offers is generally a little bit over the player's value. Now they won't be great offers, so you won't be making a great deal of cash which is an almighty shitter, but you absolutely do not want to wait in the hope of better offers (don't even go back to the buying clubs with a counter-offer) as the board will suddenly turn round after a matter of days and tell you they've sold the player themselves and it will always have been for less than what they're worth. This one I'm afraid you've got to just take in the ass. ncidentally, if you're vindictive bastard like myself you can then get revenge on your board by terminating the contracts of the rest of your best players, go to your job offers page and walk out on the club immediately then pick up said players from the Free Agents list once you're at your new club. I call this move the "MON burger with extra cheese".

As for general tips:

1. When you're shopping for players, keep an eye out for anyone who's in the last year of their contract, off-form or a rotation player. You can make a ****-tonne of savings on these players, particularly the expiring contract ones. I've managed to bring in players age 21-25 and rated ~80 for as little as £4m before. Shop smart!

2. If you get an offer for a player you don't necessarily want to sell, counter-offer twice their market value (perhaps slightly over if it's a massive club bidding for them). I always used to use the "twice-their-value" rule for selling in FIFA 12, but it was annoying having to go back and forth so the counter-offer function is great for just cutting to the chase and getting what you want. Be aware though, if the bidding club meets your counter-offer you can't then back out of the deal at all and you're player is as good as sold (barring a breakdown in wage negotiations twixt them and the bidding club, which rarely happens).

3. Players develop much faster in the game. They'll still always develop quicker if they're playing regularly, but the drop in development rate for subs and reserves is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Also, they are a couple places online that purport to have a database of all player potentials. It is possible for players to actually exceed their potential this time around. Never by more than a few points it seems, but with the faster development you can sometimes have players peaking as early as age 24 so it's good to know that you're not then hamstrung by having players hit a wall they can't develop beyond. For example, Benteke is listed on these websites (clicky) as peaking at 80. Well, I'm 5 years into my Villa career, Benteke's been a regular since day one and I've got him up to 83. Weimann's meant to peak at 78, and I've got him at 81 and partnering Benteke up front (lethal **** combo, by the way).

4. By using a combination of tips 1, 2 and 3 it is entirely possible to horde cash whilst significantly improving your squad. As I said, I'm 5 years into my Villa career and through some shrewd management I'm now on the cusp of becoming a 5 star team in addition to having £52m in the bank should I want to spend it. It started out as an exercise in "virtual Lambertism", I'd either source young players with potential from the lower leagues or players who were about to run out of their contract, all whilst selling any player I could double my money and loaning out fringe youth players so they could develop. In the game at least, the system definitely works. The best example I can give is this; I bought Iago Falqué in a January transfer window from Spurs for £4.5m. He was rated 80 at the time I bought him, but I got him cheap as he was in the last year of his contract and Spurs weren't playing him. By the time next January rolled around, he'd grown to 83 and was valued at £9.5m. I then received an offer from Bayern Munich of £15m, so I went back and asked for £20m. They paid it. I then bought Sergio Canales from Valencia for £6m as his contract was due to expire, and in about a month he grew to 82. So in the space of a year, I was still one highly-rated CAM better off and I'd made £9.5m.

My squad, as it stands, looks like this:

GK - Fraser Forster (82)

GK - Mitchell Langerak (77)

GK - Jason Steele (73)

GK - Ryan Meara (66)

RB - Adam Matthews (82)

RB - Elliot Hewitt (75)

RB - Matthew Lowton (76)

CB - Gary Cahill (81)

CB - Ciaran Clark (83)

CB - Rhys Bennett (78)

CB - Nathan Baker (77)

CB - Mikael Dyrestam (76)

CB - Karim Rekik (74)

LB - Ryan Bertrand (78)

LB - Luke Shaw (76)

LB - Joe Bennett (76)

CM - Fabian Delph (82)

CM - Gary Gardner (82)

CM - Barry Bannan (83)

CM - Henri Lansbury (81)

CM - Oscar Gobern (77)

CM - Emyr Huws (73)

CM - Daniel Johnson (72)

CAM - Sergio Canales (82)

CAM - Samir Carruthers (77)

CAM - Stephen Ireland (78)

ST - Christian Benteke (83)

ST - Andreas Weimann (81)

ST - Nahki Wells (79)

ST - Nathan Delfouneso (77)

ST - Max Clayton (73)

ST - Matt Lecointe (73)

ST - Lateef Elford-Alliyu (72)

I play a narrow 4-3-1-2, like the following but with a flat line across the midfield three as opposed to the CDM shown below.

[Nath182]

Gareth, do you sim your games or play them? I always quite like the idea of playing the career mode as a football manager sort of game but I seem to get dicked when I sim games.

[villarule123]

I just turned FIFA on and noticed I had won 10 Div1 titles and all my UT players had gone, then realised I was playing FIFA 12

[fightoffyour]

what happens to UT players and coins when the next game comes out? Transfer over? Do their stats/team/etc change accordingly then?

[GarethRDR]

Gareth, do you sim your games or play them? I always quite like the idea of playing the career mode as a football manager sort of game but I seem to get dicked when I sim games.

I'd say I sim about 85-90% of games over the course of a season. Makes it a little more interesting. I'll tend to play domestic cup games where I can field the youngsters and European cup games once I've reached a knockout stage. Will play the occasional derby match in the league or any 6 pointers myself too.

[jacketspuds]

_{Anyone know if your transfer budget carries over to the next season if you don't spend, with the board topping it up with the usual amount? I get the impression that if it's not spent it's effectively lost as I will only be given 10m the following season as Villa even if I try and carry it over.}

[AVFCforever1991]

I just turned FIFA on and noticed I had won 10 Div1 titles and all my UT players had gone, then realised I was playing FIFA 12

Idiot

[Big_John_10]

FIFA career mode is great.

PSG are doing me a massive favour.

I signed Muriel for villa, who is amazing, PSG came in for him, I asked for £50 million and they signed him. I used the money to sign Shaqiri and Jovetivic. 6 months later and PSG are back this time for Jovetivic. I ask for £50 million again and once again they snap him up.

I signed ibrahimovic who finished top scorer in the league and helped me finish 3rd in my 3rd season in charge.

Lerner's been a right word removed now though. He expects not just the league title but also the champions league trophy as well.

[Rainer]

Not really got into career mode yet.. Up to Division 2 on online seasons though.

[BennettVilla]

Is it just me who plays the Career mode on FIFA?

Maybe i should read through the thread more lol

[Czechlad]

Is it just me who plays the Career mode on FIFA?

Maybe i should read through the thread more lol

I do. I really like Career mode. Love buying and selling players.

[jacketspuds]

FIFA career mode is great.

PSG are doing me a massive favour.

I signed Muriel for villa, who is amazing, PSG came in for him, I asked for £50 million and they signed him. I used the money to sign Shaqiri and Jovetivic. 6 months later and PSG are back this time for Jovetivic. I ask for £50 million again and once again they snap him up.

I signed ibrahimovic who finished top scorer in the league and helped me finish 3rd in my 3rd season in charge.

Lerner's been a right word removed now though. He expects not just the league title but also the champions league trophy as well.

I've bought Muriel in the first season after flogging Bent to Roma. I've also picked up Zaha and Adryan, who are both excellent as well.

[Big_John_10]

Adryan is a great player but at the moment Gary Gardner has turned into a quality player for me so he's keeping him out.

Signed a defender called zouma who is young and improves brilliantly.

Also picked up a young Swedish forward for not a lot of money called Barkroth. Ok finishing but pace and dribbling skills get into the 90's