The Ultimate OSM PlayersGuide

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Hello and welcome.

This guide intends to tell you everything there is to know, regarding the superb Online Soccer Managergame.

There are a few basic things you need to know, before we go any further....

1. OSM is a “1 season” game. After your season has finished, the team you built up in tyour last game,will be no more. You can start again with a different team or in a different league, but unlike say with the“Football Manager” series, you do not carry on, longer than the one season.

2. OSM is fully playable totally free of charge, however, by obtaining ticket days, you unlock extrafeatures.You can pay for these ticket days, or you can use many of the free offers to earn ticket days instead. Byjust watching a few short video adverts, you can easily earn ticket days each day, so you have the fullfeatures of the game, while still not paying a single thing.

3. One week in OSM is equivilant to 1 real life 24hrs. Matches are simulated by the game engine,onwards from 00:00 GMT, where you can view your results as soon as the simulations for your league,have been completed.You basically have to just decide your line up, team tactics etc and then wait for the games to besimulated.

Although only playing 1 season then being made to start again may seem odd to you, depending on pastfootball managerial game experiences, it really does make perfect sense after you have been playing thegame for a while. You are rated in each season on performances, league position etc and are awarded Manager Points atthe end of each season. These points are accumulated after each season you play, to give you your overall points, which in turn determine yourworld ranking amongst the OSM community.

The intention of this guide, is to walk you through your first steps into OSM management and answer anyquestions that you might have.

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Select League: When you begin the game, the first thing you will have to do is choose the league you wish toparticipate in. You have several countries to choose from. Make your selection by clicking on acountry flag, then selecting one of the current leagues in progress. Thousands of leagues aregoing on simultaneously. If you are looking for a specific league that your friends play in, thereis a search option on the top of the page you can make use of.Tip: Select a league which is still in the preparation phase of the season. This gives you theopportunity to customize your team and prepare your strategies before the matches begin.

If you enter a protected league, you will not be able to join the league right away, you willhave to wait until the moderator approves you first. You can apply to join as many leaguesas you wish, you will automatically join the first one you are accepted into.

Select Club:

After you have chosen a league, you can choose any available club in league, that is bydefault in preparation period. By selecting the club you wish, you will got an offer from it.

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The offer will contain: cup information (is in this league cup competition or not), are privatefunds possible, current rank (only if you are joining a league that already started), dailybudget (the amount of money that you will receive every day), current week (if the leaguedidn’t started it will write: preparation day, there are 4 preparation days, after that seasonstarts), the number of players that are on your disposal and star players.

When you accept an offer, you will become the manager of the chosen team imme-diately.

Before you sign the contract, you get to view all the final details about the club and itsobjective, as well as details regarding the league, whether it has private funds available ornot etc etc. ...

Team Goal:

Every team has a “Team Goal”, which basically translates as the minimum league positionyour board expects you to finish, at the end of the season.

Top clubs, like Man Utd, Chelsea etc will be Goal 1 teams, while lower teams, like Norwich,will be Goal 16, with other clubs somewhere inbetween, depending on their status in reallife.

So you can choose to manage a decent team, like Man Utd, but because of your superiorsquad compared to most other teams, you will be expected to finish 1st in the league.

Or you can choose a lower team, like Norwich, who only have a Goal objecticve of 16, giventhe lack of quality in the team.

If you want to climb the world rankings though, you will need to amass alot of managerpoints and generally speaking, doing well with a low goal team, will earn you more ManagerPoints, than doing well with a high goal team.

Season Stage:

Although you can join in a league at any time of the season, its best to look for a league still in the “preparation stage”, this is like pre-season for real life football teams, where youhave upto 4 days to organise your team, buy / sell players, upgrade your stadium etc,ready for when the league starts for proper.Though please note, you cannot play any friendly’s or matches during this phase.

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The Control Panel:

This is the main screen which tells you everything you need to know regarding yourteam, next opponent, club funds, latest league news as well the menu bar at the top toenable you to access all the other features available to you in-game....

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The staff selection screen, is where you can hire additional staff, each which benefityou, in different ways & upon joining a new club, should be your first priority.

Below is a list of each staff member and the role each one plays in helping yourteam during the season.

You will always start with an assistant manager already employed and this is the onlystaff member that you cannot sack.

His main purpose, is to look after your team, during your absence, should you not log in for a while. However, it is worthnoting, that he will not do a very good job in covering for you.Every so often, he will offer useful advice on various aspects of your team, which are worthnoting and adhering to.

The goalkeeper coach will be working with one of your goalies inorder to try to increase his ability.He can train one goalie, every round, who is not in your startingteam line up.

The defender coach can train the defensive abilityof your defenders. He can train one defender, every round, who isnot in your starting team line up.

The midfielder coach can train the offensive anddefensive abilty of your midfielders. He can train one midfielder,every round, who is not in your starting team line up.

The attacker coach can train the offensive ability of your attackers.He can train one attacker, every round, who is not in your startingteam line up.

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The fitness coach specialises in keeping your team in optimal shape afterevery training session & match.When you have a fitness coach employed, your players will not becomefatigued as quickly.

The scout can search for interesting players based on your criteria.Through the scout, you can find the exact reinforcements you are lookingfor.

A doctor will attempt to speed up the recovery of any injured player. 1doctor can treat 1 player, per round. You can hire a maximum of 4doctors, if required.

The spy can be used to discover the tactics of your next opponent. Hewill provide a detailed report on the chosen team’s tactics and startingline up of your opponent.

The physiotherapist gives players regular treatment, which helps in theprevention of injuries. He will periodically administer a nice massage toyour players, without the need to instruct him to do so.

The psychiatrist attempts to keep the morale of your players high,even if they are not playing. He improves the atmosphere in the teamand helps players recover from depression. He will do his jobautomatically before each game.

The lawyer is specialised in protesting suspensions of players. Chancesare good that he will be able to lower the duration of a suspension,enabling that player to return to the team for selection, alot sooner.

The financial director helps handles your money. You can earn money onyour savings or use him to ask for extra sponsor revenue (a maximum of2 times, per season).

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By training your players, you attempt to increase their abilitys, which in turn, will give you astronger squad.

It is worth noting though, the folowing points.....

1. .The younger the player, the more likely the training will be effective.

2. You can only train 1 player, each day, for each of the positions (i.e 1 defender, 1 midfield-er, 1 attacker and 1 goalkeeper.

3. Training players does not automatically mean their attributes will increase every singletime.

4. If they do improve, their ability will be raised either by +1 or +2

5. By upgrading your stadium’s training facilities, you greatly improve the chances of thetraining being successful. (see below for appropiate upgrade)

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Further details are included under the “Stadium Upgrade” section.

To go to the training screen, using the top menu, select “Players” then “Training”.

At the top of the training page, you get to see the previous training results, from the daybefore. If the box next to each player trained is green with a tick, then training was successful (it willbe red with a “X” if it wasnt)The big number shown (in this case “75”, is the new skill level of that particular player andfollowing that, the smaller “+1” signifies that the player in question, improved his rating by 1skill point.

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To select a player to train from each area, click on the “down arrow” button (as highlighted)and this will display a drop down list of all the available players who play in midfield forinstance, who you can select to train for that week (or day if talking in real time terms)

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Selecting players to train:

Providing you have hired the correct coaches needed, you can 1 goalkeeper, 1 defender, 1midfielder and 1 attacker, each day.

However, please note, you can only select a player to train, providing he is not in yourstarting 11 for your next match. (substitutes are available to train).

The only other reason that would stop you being able to train a player, would be if he wascurrently injured.

Any players who currently serving a suspension, can be trained as normal though.

And i then see the screen change to the following....

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As an example, i click on the button to bring up all the midfield players that i can choose fromto train (as above)....

And have then selected “Ribery” as the player i want to train...

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Which confirms that the player chosen, is selected for training, for that particular day.

You must select either which player you want to train, each day or you can just press thebutton highlighted below, to select the same players to train, as the day before....

So the preparation days are over and the season is about to begin and now you mustselect which players are going to play.

To get to the team selection page, using the top menu, select “Team” then “LineUp”.

First you need to select which formation you want to use. This can be done by clicking onthe box at the top of the screen, in the middle, just behind the goal....

Upon clicking on this, a drop down menu appears where you select the formation you want touse....

(For this example, i will select a 4-5-1 formation)

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You will now see that the team formation has changed to the 4-5-1 formation that i selected....

All you need to do next, is to select each player you want to put into your team (by press-ing mouse button while over his name) and while still holding the mouse button down,drag the players name, from the list on the left, to the required position, where you wanthim to play.

You can play defenders in midfield or midfielders in attack, should you want to or need to(due to injuries/suspensions etc) however this is not advised as a player being played outof position, will never perform as good as a player who plays in that position originally.

There is no difference in whether a player is put in the left defence position for instance,or the middle or the right hand side of defence (same for midfield and attack).

So if you have a player like Ashley Cole in your team, even though in reality he is a leftback, on here it does not matter whether you play him at left back, center of defence oras right back. Any players real life side / position has no bearing on this game orhis performance.

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When using a formation like 4-5-1, you will notice that the midfield has 3 midfield positions(circled in red) situated behind 2 more advanced midfielders (circled in yellow)...

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(cont)

If you look closely at your mnidfield players, you will notice that they have 3 different skillratings....

The first is their Attacking skill, the middle their Defence rating and the last, their overallrating.

So using the picture shown on the page before, where i had 3 midfielders (circled in red)with 2 more advanced midfielders (circled in yellow), ideally you would want to select 3midfielders with a high “Def” rating, for the positions circled in red and 2 midfielders witha high “Att” rating, to play in the 2 positions circled in yellow.

There would not be a great difference in player performance, if say, i played “Lucas” (withatt rating of 87 and def rating of 92) in one of the 2 more advanced midfield positions, butit will have some effect, so where possible, try to play each player in a position that bestsuits their skill rating.

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By selecting “Fair”, you are less likely tohave players booked or sent off.

Ideal if you have a strict referee for nextgame.

By selecting “Normal”, your team will stillput the tackles in, while still being careful innot getting booked.

By selecting “Hard”, your players will bemore reckless in their tactics, however, ifyour opponent is playing with a “Fair” or“Normal” style, then this level of agressionwill have the advantage, although the risk ofbookings, sending off’s, is alot higher.

If you have a lenient ref in your next game,then you can use this tactic without theworry of having players booked.

If your ref is anything but lenient, then using this level of aggression, could seemany of your players sent off.

Style of Play: Tackling Agression

Style of Play: Team Passing Style

These are all self explanatory, so i wont insult your intelligence by describing each of the different styles of team play.....

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Line Tactics

These options determine how deep or how far forward each section of your team, i.edefence, midfield and attack, will play.

Attackers: You can choose whether your attackers play extremely defensive and fall back and supportyour defence, add strength to your midfield, by supporting your midfield players or juststay in their normal position by choosing “Attack Only”.

Midfielders:Like with the attackers, you can choose whether your midfielders play very defensively andfall back to support your defenders, play their normal style, where they will generally try tocontrol the center of the pitch or push them forward and enable them to support yourattackers.

Defenders:Again, you have the same options, where you can instuct your defenders to stay back,have “upcoming” defenders, where, when possible, they will try to push forward and also,the fully offensive option, which is “support midfield”, where your defenders will concen-trate more on attacking than they will defending.

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Advanced Tactics:

Your first option under the “Advanced Tactics” section, is to choose whether you want toplay using either “Man to Man Marking” or “Zonal Marking”.

Your second option allows you whether to instruct the team to play using the “OffsideTrap” or not.

Mentality:This slider adjusts the overall style of play for your team as a whole. The more you movethe slider to the left, the more defensive, your team will play.

And likewise, the more you move the slider to the right, the more attacking your team willatttempt to play.

By leaving the slider in the middle (neutral) your team will play with a fair mixture of both defending and attacking, where possible or needed.

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Tempo:This is self explanatory and by moving the slider, you generally are instructing your teamon whether to play using a controlled speed, where you will build up your attackingmoves more slowly and patiently, or whether you wish your team to play with moreurgency, passing the ball quickly from player to player.

Pressure:

What this slider controls, depends on your own personal interpretation of what it means...

From a defensive point of view, it means how much you want your players to chase theball when not in posession.

If your team is defending and not in posession of the ball, do you want them to hassleyour opponents and chase them down, trying to regain posession and control of the ballor are you content to let them sit back and soak up the pressure, so not to harm theirfatigue levels.

However, from an attacking point of view, it means how much you want your team topush on and create chances.

If your team is attacking, do you want them to try to get them forward whenever itspossible, or would you prefer to be more controlled and patient in their build up?

By moving the slider to various positions, you can select the style you most prefer.

Please Note: With all the different variations available to you, by setting each of the aforementionedsliders to their varying different positions, finding a successful combination of tactics /style straight away, might not happen for you straight away.

But by trying out different variations and styles, you will soon find a set of tactics thatsuit how you want to play.

On the links page of this book, at the back, you can find the link for the appropiate tacticssection, on the OFM forum, should you wish to ask for advice from other managers abouttactics.

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This is where you decide which players fill which role, ranging from who will be theteam captain, who will take any corners, which player will take your free kicks andlast but not least, who will take any penalty’s your team are awarded.

Captain: The Captain is the leader of your team, who directs the other players on the pitch.A good captain would be a player with high attributes and experience (older).

Penalties:Generally, this role is given to one of your attackers.

Free Kicks:Being as the player selected for this role, would be taking any free kicks which yourteam are awarded, a player with high attacking attributes will be ideal for this role.

Corners:The player selected here will take all your corners. Its generally best to select aplayer who doesn’t score as much as some of your players, so to leave those whodo score, the chance to score from the incoming corner.

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Training Camps and the Secret training utility, are limited options you can use, togive your team the edge in any upcoming fixture.

Training Camps:

A training camp increases your chances of playing well and is valid for your nextupcoming fixture, after selecting to use one.

It is worth noting though, the following.....

The use of a Training Camp does not guarantee you will win when using one.

Some people think they work better when you are playing at home, however it doesnot mean that they wont have any effect if used when playing away from homeeither.

Secret Training

By selecting this, you will render the use of the Spy, by your next opponent, uselessas it will hide your tactics from them, so you can have the element of surprise.

It will also hide the fact that you have gone on a training camp, if you use a secrettraining BEFORE using a training camp.

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To be successful on OFM, squad building is an important part of the game that youneed to master.

You can sell any player in your squad, however there are strict requirements thatrequire you have a minimum number of players for each position.i.e Your squad must have 2 goal keepers and must have 3 attackers etc.

The section of the team will be “greyed” out, should you reach the bottom limit ofplayers needed for each position, which will stop you selling any more players, fromthat position.

You also can only have a maximum number of 4 players up for sale at any one time

The cpu will buy your players from time to time, if they are put on the transfer list.Generally speaking, the closer the asking price, to the players original value, thequicker those players will be sold.

Ask too much for those players and there is a chance that the cpu never buys them.

Its up to you to find the right balance between making a profit to buy better players,while not over pricing them, so they never sell.

If you employ a scout, you can use the scout list and your scout to fine search aparticular player you would like to search and sign.

When using the scout, he will go off to search for a player matching the attributes youentered and if he has found a player matching those requirements, he will let youknow after the next games simulations have been completed.

You can access and look through the scoutlist, by visiting here....

http://www.ofmscoutlist.com

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Sponsors

Sponsors are one of the ways that your club can earn extra money.

The offers of each sponsor varies from day to day, but generally speaking, the better your team is performingand the higher up the table you are, the more money you will be offered per sponsor.

The length of each sponsor differs as well, ranging from anywhere between 2 weeks and 6 weeks.

It is worth checking your sponsors daily, so as soon as one finishes, you can then select another one toreplace it.

Stadium Upgrades

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By upgrading the stadium, you benefit in 3 different area’s, extra income, better trainingfacilities for improved player training results and pitch upgrades, which give your team abetter advantage, whenever you play at home.

The first 2 coloumns (from left to right) directly influence your clubs income, however theseupgrades usually take the longest to complete (upto 5 weeks)

The 3rd column are all upgrades for your teams training facilities which greatly improve thechances of your players doing well when trained and achieving the maximum of +3 skilllevels, when trained.

The last column, are upgrades for your teams pitch and condition and upgrading these,greatly improve your chances when playing any home games,

A Final Word

I hope if you’re a new player, you found the information useful andmeant you didnt have to spend ages endlessly searching thtough theforums to find what you was looking for.

But as this guide was just a basic guide to help the very new players, ifyou have any questions about something i have not covered or if youwant a more in depth answer to something, then dont hesitate to getover to the forums and post your questions there.

We don’t bite you know and there will always be someone aroundwilling to help you with any problems or questions you might have.

Good luck with your new managerial career and welcome to OFM.