Championship Manager Season 2001/02: Hints and Tips for New or Returning Players
Are you reinstalling CM01/02 after being stung by the nostalgia wasp, but need help remembering how to actually win games? Don’t worry, pal. I got you.
Hi! I’m Mike.
I’ve been playing Championship Manager since the original version of CM2, which became life-changing for me when it was updated to CM97/98. To this day, I’m still occasionally visited at night by the ghostly visage of Ibrahima Bakayoko.
However, for those of you who have followed Diamond Geezers or Los Coladeros, you’ll know pretty well that my favourite incarnation of Eidos’ timeless series is CM01/02, or to give it its full name: Championship Manager: Season 2001/02.
I’ve become part of a fantastic online community since I started writing my series in early 2019, and there’s already tons of great advice out there for new or returning CM01/02 players — but I’ve also noticed that there are a few things I’ve learned after going through many years and several girlfriends playing the game that maybe aren’t as widely reported. Some of the tips I’ve got might not even be true, for all I know; all I can tell you is, they seem to work for me, so they might work for you as well. I won’t repeat things that have been written or recorded elsewhere, I’ll simply link off to them or embed them if I can.
Also, it should hopefully go without saying that there are bound to be things I haven’t covered in this guide. I’m not an oracle of CM01/02 help, I’m just a recluse who spends too much time playing it. If there’s something missing that you want included, let me know either by commenting here, or on Twitter.
With that, though, let’s dive into some Championship Manager 2001/02 hints and tips for new or returning players!
Downloading and Installing
PC, Windows 10:
Or visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM8cDixZxGg if you prefer. While you’re there, check out Golden FM’s YouTube channel for reams of fantastic CM/FM content.
MacOS/OSX/Linux:
With thanks to macRetro on YouTube, who also has some other very useful guides for reactivating your old games on MacOS, including CM97/98!
Further Installation Tips
If you ask me, and most other CM01/02 purists on Twitter, the original game, colloquially known as “.60”, is best — but the .68 patch is useful for stability and a few more realistic updates. If you want Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo to live up to their real-life potentials, the original database isn’t the one for you — but if you want to sign certain legendary players, heroes of CM01/02 aficionados the world over, you’ll need to use .60.
Additionally, one small tip that worked for me once I’d downloaded and installed the game from champman0102.co.uk. When I used the standard .exe file in the Championship Manager folder, the game wouldn’t start properly. I tried everything to get it running, but nothing would solve it. I looked in the folder, and noticed another executable file:
cm0102_GDI.exe
I double-clicked it, and hold onto your trousers — I was in. I have no idea what this .exe file is, what it means, or why it’s there, but blow me down, I’ve been wasting my nights and days playing CM01/02 ever since. I assume GDI refers to graphics, and would hazard a guess it stands for graphical display interface, but honestly, who cares.
Another thing to do to make the game work more reliably, which seems embarrassingly obvious since Tim (@sc_timmy1180) pointed it out to me on Twitter, is to actually use the CD. For me that meant buying an external DVD drive which cost about £15 on Amazon; for you it might mean buying a physical copy of the game for about the same price, but honestly, if you’re planning on sinking countless hours into this classic, why not do it?
Which Team Should I Be?
The eternal conundrum. Picking the team you want to play as on CM01/02 is usually tough, assuming you’re not hella basic and always just go with Man Utd or Real Madrid. There’s not much I can do to advise you on which team you should be, but if you’re looking for some interesting challenges, the link below will take you to easily the most comprehensive CM01/02 Team/League guide I’ve ever seen.
It has teams’ reputations, transfer budgets, stadium and squad sizes for every single playable team in CM01/02 at the starting screen, allowing you to easily choose who you want to be — a small team with no money but a big stadium to grow into is always a good challenge. Find your new love below.
Championship Manager 2001/2002 Team/League Guide
Version 1.0 (August 15, 2002)
By Colin (niloc1@sympatico.ca)Players
The online CM01/02 community is dedicated to finding the very best players and wonderkids on the game and it would be silly of me to sit here and list all of them myself, and disingenuous to copy-paste them from other places and pass it off as my own brilliance. Instead, here’s a link to a pretty exhaustive list of the premium CM01/02 talents you should add to your shortlist at the start of the game, regardless of what team you are. They might not sign for you straight away if you’re starting out at Torquay United, and in lots of cases you won’t have the money to pay for them anyway, but if they’re on the list, you’ll get updates about their careers, plus you can filter them in the Shortlist to see who is Interested right now, and check back regularly for updates.
The one thing I will say before I start posting links, which lots of people don’t seem to realise, is that lots of players won’t appear on your game unless you select the largest database size in the Game Settings, and then — when starting a new game — select all leagues as Background options.
The only downside of choosing all other leagues as Background is that the teams in those leagues become competitive in the transfer market, so you might have to really fight for your targets. However, I think the alternative — not having the targets in the first place — is far worse.
Here’s that list I was talking about earlier.
Champman0102.co.uk Forum Player List
For me, this is the most comprehensive list of players you can find. It’s almost overwhelming in its completeness. Be aware that some players might or might not exist depending on whether you’ve patched the game or not — for example, the legendary Tó Madeira, who will win you trophies single-handedly, is only available in the original .60 database.
My Favourite Players
I can’t really leave the Players section without a short homage to some of the great players I’ve encountered over my time in CM01/02 who don’t make it onto the “best players” lists, but are still well worth your time and money. I’m not going to spend time on Tó Madeira, Mark Kerr, Cherno Samba or Tonton Zola Moukoko, since there are basically shrines written to them elsewhere online already. No, these are the lads that seem to have flown under the radar of most CM01/02 players, but pretty much never let me down, especially in the lower leagues. I’ve also posted the database I found them on next to their names, for reference.
Meysam Javan (.60)
Perhaps just a lower-league goal machine as he started to dry up in my ascent to the Premier League with Rushden and Diamonds, but there’s no question that if you’re in Division One or below, Meysam Javan will be a 30-goal striker for you.
Marcel Mahouvé (.60)
My great destroyer, my Mahouvé Dam — Marcel is an absolute animal on the original game. If you can overcome the work permit problems, which I managed to, he will anchor your midfield and own the DMC position well into his thirties. He is made of granite, after all. Granite doesn’t age.
Jamie Davies (.60)
Ah, young Jamie, the tap-in king. He really doesn’t look like much, I realise, but when I lost Gary Mills to Nottingham Forest, there was a big hole left in the centre of my midfield three. Up stepped Davies, who ran and passed and scored far more often than he had any right to. One of my great loves, who’s dearly missed.
Sergio Sestelo (.68)
Apple of my eye and holder of my heart, young Sergio is the Jamie Davies of my Spanish save on the .68 database. Extremely limited in the attributes department, but with big numbers in all the right places, apparently — Sergio was a revelation in the Spanish lower leagues. And, despite his numbers hardly changing and far superior replacements arriving, he’s still banging them in for me four years later in the Champions League.
Buying and Selling Players
Buy Over 6–24 Months
My first and main tip for buying players is this:
Make your bids over 6–24 months if you’re pretty sure you’ll have money coming in to cover it.
This is because if you have £1m in the bank and you sign a player for £1m over 24 months, you won’t have all the money taken from your transfer budget at once — just the initial payment of around £50k. This little tactic, therefore, allows you to stretch your transfer budget as far as it can possibly go.
This technically means that you could sign ten players for £1m as long as you have a £1m budget and the selling clubs accept your bids over 24 months — but beware. Just because you’ve pulled a right little scheme in the short term, you’ll still owe £10m to those clubs over the next two years. That means if you don’t have a regularly-filled, high-capacity stadium, or you fail to win any honours in that time, you could run your team into bankruptcy. Not many boards keep their managers after they’ve led the club to liquidation.
The other thing you’ll probably find is that selling clubs don’t want the money over two years — the selfish so-and-sos want it now. Some will accept without trouble, others will only accept six or twelve months which is also fine, but most clubs will demand you pay over the odds in order to spread the cost, especially if it’s a player they don’t want to sell anyway.
This tactic doesn’t always work, but if you can sign three players that win you the league, it’s totally worth it.
Use the Player Comparison Tool
Also when buying players, make sure you use the Player Comparison tool to give you at least a basic idea of whether your shiny new plaything is actually any better than the ugly old sweater you’re already wearing. It’s also useful if you’ve just taken over a team, haven’t got any money for new players, and need to decide which of your ageing centre-halves is going to be less of a liability against the division’s sprightly young strikers.
Be aware, though, that the Player Comparison tool is not gospel and doesn’t guarantee anything. It’s just a handy guide when you’re trying to make decisions and need some kind of nudge in one direction or another. Remember my young love from earlier, Jamie Davies? Every single Player Comparison I did told me that his colleagues were superior to him, and they probably were on paper — but football isn’t played on paper. It’s played on laptops by sad old bastards with too much time on their hands. What I’m trying to say is, if you’ve got a feeling about a player, or you’ve taken a shine to someone, don’t just drop them because the Player Comparison says so. Trust your eyes, trust your heart. It will be broken regardless.
Steal Players whose Contracts are Expiring
Another buying tactic I use every single time in CM01/02 is to shortlist virtually every good player in the world whose contract is expiring at the end of the season, even ones who wouldn’t be caught dead taking instructions from a nobody like me. It’s amazing what being unemployed will do to a player’s willingness to sign a deal, and in a lot of cases — especially those of ageing veterans — clubs just let their contracts run down and release them for nothing when their time seems up. You can save them from the glue factory just long enough to get you promoted — but you need to know they’re available, and that’s where your Shortlist comes in. Around October or November, take the time to go into your Player Search, turn off the Interested filter and turn on the Contract Expiring filter, sort by Value (or Caps if you like collecting former internationals like me), get the list into Contract view, and start shortlisting the ones you might want.
Some players you’d never expect to even look at you will start talking when their deal is running out — believe me.
Once a player is on your shortlist, you’ll get updates about his career, or lack of one. It’s the perfect way to stay abreast of Paolo Maldini’s inevitable release by AC Milan at the end of the second year. I’ve still never managed to sign him. One of these days, though. Of course, the main thing about most players you’ll get at the end of their contracts is that they’re usually free, assuming you don’t have to pay the development fee that comes with U23 players in the UK (I think). I have gone from Conference to Premier League without ever having spent a single penny on a player by utilising free transfers and expiring contract sniping. You can too.
Minimum Fee Release Clauses = Bargains
Plus, if you’ve really got a lot of time on your hands and a decent wedge in your bank account, using the Player Search with the Interested filter on and the Contract view enabled allows you to see which players around the world have got Minimum Fee Release clauses in their contracts — which can often mean bargains.
Again, you obviously need a transfer budget to take advantage, but exercising a player’s release clause can end up saving you a packet if you know it’s there. Keep a beady eye out at all times.
Selling Players
When it comes to selling players, obviously transfer listing them is your first stop. I normally list them at their value initially to see if any clubs instantly pop into the “Interested” column on their Transfer screen. They often do, and if they do, you can sit back, take a long swig of absinthe, and celebrate the prospect of money rolling in shortly. If not, you’ve got a few options. I’d knock the player’s value down a bit to see if that helps, and if it doesn’t, reducing a player’s value all the way to £0 occasionally gets a nibble that you can negotiate up into a realistic bid that you’d be happy with.
An important tip here to get clubs to bite: rather than just going in and taking a player’s value down, follow this process:
- Go to the player’s screen and choose Action > Set Transfer Status
- Take them off the transfer list
- Click Set
- Go back into their Transfer Status
- Reduce the price, re-list them, click Set again
For whatever reason, going through the slightly extended process of unlisting and then re-listing players seems to re-announce their availability to other clubs, prompting them to appear on the Interested list more quickly. Can’t tell you why it happens, but it does. See below:
Also, it’s worth saying: don’t be afraid to sell a player for £0 if they have a long, expensive contract and you’re never going to play them. If you take a moment to add up what their wages are going to cost you over the lifetime of their deal, the numbers can be eye-popping. Best to get them off the books ASAP so you’ve got the wonga to pay for that overpriced striker you’ve signed for £45m over 24 months.
Tactics
If you ask me, Tactics are the most important thing about CM01/02. You can really, honestly take the most average bunch of no-marks and turn them into title challengers if you just take the time to sort out the way your team plays, and also understand a few tricks of the trade that might not be obvious at a first glance.
Play 4–1–3–2 for pretty much guaranteed success
Yep, the 4–1–3–2 is, in my opinion, the king and queen of tactics in CM01/02. It’s so good that I won the League Cup with Rushden and Diamonds when I was in Division Two. It’s so good that I’ve just created a save as Scunthorpe United where I’m only allowing myself to use over-35 players who all look like they’ve just tumbled out of a pub every Saturday morning (it’s an experiment based on Dave Black’s wonderful Retirement Home, which you can read here), and I’m still winning.
Honestly: if you set up that 4–1–3–2 with the same Team Instructions as me — don’t worry about Attacking, you’ll thank me later — it’ll be the foundation for overall success.
You can also tweak it to drop one of your two strikers into AMC to make a 4–1–3–1–1 if you’re finding the two-man strike force to be a little impotent, or if you’ve just signed an unbelievable maverick AMC from South America who’s got no interest whatsoever in tracking back or listening to anything you tell him.
You’ll still lose games, of course, don’t get me wrong; you’ll lose them in devastating, horrifying, rocking-back-and-forth circumstances… but you’ll win more than you lose. I’m sure of it.
Individual Player instructions, accessible from the View menu on the Tactics screen, are also important, but should be self-explanatory. Don’t let your centre-backs make forward runs, tell your full-backs to cross, take everyone off long shots unless they’ve got 18 or above — you get the idea. However, on that note…
Man Marking or Zonal Marking?
A lot of people will tell you that you should have your centre-backs set to man mark as a default. This seems like good advice until you consider that plenty of opposing teams won’t play with two strikers, and at that moment it all unravels, because both your CBs will be marking one guy, leaving inevitable space for onrushing midfielders to score the goals that leave you dead inside.
My advice, therefore, is this.
Always have zonal marking as your default. In-game, before kick-off, if the other team is playing with two strikers — that’s when you go in and change your CBs to man-marking.
Otherwise, you’re just opening yourself up to whole heaps of trouble that you might never diagnose. Don’t be lazy and expect to blitz your way into the Club World Cup without ever changing your tactics to fit your opposition. Small tweaks are almost always needed depending on what you’re lining up against.
On that note, another thing about man-marking is that if you have it on, you must pay attention to the other manager’s tactical changes throughout the game, otherwise it could seriously catch you out. Here’s an example.
In my Los Coladeros save, I played Real Madrid at home in our maiden La Liga season. They started with Raul and Ronaldo up front, which was a terrifying sight in itself. I told my two centre-backs to man-mark the life out of them, and prayed it would work. However, within half an hour, the sneaky jefe of Madrid had changed formation, putting Raul in the left-sided AMC position and leaving Ronaldo as a lone striker — but my right-sided centre-half was still set to man-mark Raul. This meant that one of my central defenders was constantly out of position, leaving acres of space through the middle for Ronaldo, one of the world’s greatest ever strikers, to maraud into, one-on-one with my only other defender. You can imagine what happened next.
In this situation, I realised what was happening and switched them all back to zonal, so that Ronaldo was covered by two men when Raul went wide — where my right-back was within better kicking range — and also meant that they could split and take a man each when Raul inevitably beat my right-back and cut into the box. I don’t know if this is an official thing within CM01/02, but I can tell you, it’s something I pay attention to, and in general, it works. Not against Raul and Ronaldo who would have smashed me into next week regardless of what tactics I’d played, but you know. Against normal players.
Players Can Play Out Of Position
Now, this is another one that you’ll need to use your own eyes for because there’s no hard and fast rule, but it’s generally true that players don’t have to be put into the exact position they tell you they can play. Ryan Giggs is a left winger, is he? Stick him up front and see if he scores. I bet he does. Cristiano Ronaldo’s position is FC, or Forward-Centre, which would lead you to think he’d have to play either right up front, or as an AMC behind a striker or two. However, for me, by far and away his best position is MC with a forward run instruction. He’s far more potent coming from a deep position, it turns out.
The important thing is that players have the attributes they need for a certain position; their actual listed position doesn’t necessarily matter. You’ve got to imagine it’s like in the playground at school where a lad tells you he’s a striker when he can’t shoot to save his life, but he’s 6'2" and loves a tackle. It’s up to you to choose a player’s position and work out if he’s useful to you in your system. This means, in my 4–1–3–2, I’ve occasionally played AMLs on the left side of my midfield three or an FC, like the aforementioned Ronaldo, in the middle of the pitch. I’ve had MRs at right-back and shoved goalkeepers up front. Anything can work in theory, and within reason. You’ve just got to use your instincts.
A great example of this was during a challenge I accepted from Mr Megasave on Twitter to manage teams all over the old British Empire — starting with Finn Harps. One of the Harps’ best players is this lad: a Midfielder Right/Left by the name of Patrick McGrenaghan.
In truth his attributes aren’t amazing and you’d think, with my narrow 4–1–3–2, there’d be no place for him in my vision for the future of the mighty Harps. However, his Dribbling and Technique stats are high, he has decent numbers for Flair, Teamwork and Stamina, and he’s two-footed — a rarity in the lower divisions. As an experiment, I started the season with him on the left of my midfield three, told him to Run With Ball, and the rest, as they say, is history.
He did well in our first season down in the First Division as we were promoted to the Irish Premier League — and then he just wiped the floor with everyone. You can see his numbers from that 2002/03 season: 21 goals and 8 assists in 40 games from central midfield, a 7.92 average rating, Player of the Season, you name it — Paddy won it. And all from a position you’d think he couldn’t play. The moral of the story is, if you go for the 4–1–3–2 but you have a few tasty looking out-and-out wingers in your side, don’t ditch them just yet. They might well come in handy.
Having Said That, Avoid Traditional Wingers
So yeah, speaking of wingers — don’t be tempted to play with them unless you’ve got actual world-beaters like Luis Figo or Ryan Giggs. In my long and painful experience, wingers are just not very effective on CM01/02. They might have brilliant individual games where they’re unplayable, and in the lower divisions it’s true that a player like McGrenaghan, with high Dribbling and Flair, could rip a side apart on the flanks. I just think that your best bet is to play narrow, as the computer rarely deals with it well, and shove your wide men into midfield on the side of their dominant foot — lefties on the left, righties on the right. Two-footed players, as I’ve mentioned before, are extremely useful since they can be shoved into any injury-hit hole in your team and probably do a job. You can’t filter for two-footed players in the Player Search, but if you’re comparing two lads who look basically the same, it should be a useful tie breaker. In fact —
Sign Two Footed Players Wherever You Can
There.
Playing the same XI every week might be why you’re losing
So, this one came to me fairly recently by way of many replies on Twitter when my Los Coladeros side ran into a slump that I didn’t understand. A few of my wonderful, loyal Ultras told me that I needed to rotate to keep the squad fresh and morale as high as possible — and they were absolutely right. It seems that even within the relatively modest code of CM01/02, they’ve managed to include minuscule emotional responses from the players when they’re not used, and also built in some sort of invisible complacency setting that seems to erupt when certain lads think they’re untouchable. The moral of the story is: be more Ranieri. Climb aboard the tinker train. Don’t change your entire eleven every single week, obviously, you’re not stupid — but small changes here and there, giving players with low morale a start in a game you’re bound to win for example, can be the key to winning games you might otherwise lose or draw.
Don’t Entirely Trust the In-Game Ratings
Many managers base their entire squad makeup and transfer policy on the average ratings of their squad at the end of a season, and with good reason. Average ratings are, by far, the most obvious way to be able to tell if a player has had a good season, and you should use them too. However — don’t be misled into thinking a decent performer is crap, or a player with 7.8 shouldn’t be replaced. There are exceptions.
For example, in my current Coladeros save, Real Sociedad have a left-back called Agustin Aranzabal. His attributes are good. His average rating is 7.62. He must be phenomenal? No need to replace him at the end of the season at massive cost, surely? Well, if I was in charge at the Anoeta, I’d be thinking about it, and I’ll tell you why: he’s only got one goal and two assists. Now, of course, I’m sure if I was in charge at the Anoeta he’d have far more attacking responsibility and would most likely have entire abacuses of assists, but assuming one of my left backs finished a term with those numbers… I wouldn’t be happy . The average rating is all well and good, but it’s not the important number, in my opinion. The one in the Assists column is.
The same goes in the vice-versa too. Look at this result against Liverpool in the Champions League and ask me how much I care that none of my players have a single eight between them. Ask me how much I care that Jérôme Rothen and El-Hadji Diouf have nines. Go on, ask.
In short, don’t worry too much about either average or individual ratings if you think your players are doing fine. Mine definitely are — I don’t care what the numbers say. Of course it would be nice if Mark Kerr scored every other game or John Welsh won 90% of his tackles, but does it really matter if you’re beating Liverpool at Anfield? Not on your nelly.
Staff: Hiring and Firing
Staff are generally pretty easy to sort out. They’re fairly simple to find, usually don’t want crazy wages, and if you find a better one the following week, you can release them instantly for nothing. It’s an insecure and uncertain life for a CM01/02 football coach, that’s for sure — better for you, of course.
The attributes you need for coaches, scouts and physios are pretty self-explanatory. There’s no secret code or unwritten rule: coaches need to be good at coaching outfield players and/or keepers, scouts need to be able to judge ability and potential, and physios need to, well, physio. Having said that, I do have one little tip that might help you find excellent staff members that are far too good for you at a fractional cost. And that is:
Some of the best coaches on the game are, insanely, employed as Scouts. Offer them Coach roles and clean up on the training ground!
Yes, amazing as it is, there are some staff members who are both listed and employed elsewhere as scouts, but are hiding 20 for Coaching Outfield Players and/or 20 for Coaching Goalkeepers. It’s insane, but true — and you know what, most of them would just love to sign for you as a coach and do what they’re actually good at.
I used this trick at Los Coladeros at the end of my third season. I wanted to refresh my coaching staff so that everyone had 20s in the right places, but the top, top coaches were asking for the sort of money my players were on — upwards of £5,000 per week, which is well over the odds. After some sneaky searching and even sneakier sniping, I hired these former scouts as coaches, and my players’ training performances have never been better.
And once you’ve got the best coaches and scouts you can find, make sure you re-check the Staff Search list every 6/12 months for improvements and replacements. As I said earlier, you can sack any of your current staff instantly and with no compensation, so there’s no need to worry about it costing you a fortune. Out with the old, in with the new, until you’ve got perfect scores across all your staff. Plus, I think it should go without saying that you shouldn’t ever not hire staff — that is, always get the maximum compliment you’re allowed. You’ll regret only having one physio when the injuries start piling up, believe me; and scouts are useful even if their attributes look hopeless. Getting any information about players will push you in the right direction, even if it turns out to be the opinion of a raving lunatic.
Training and Scouting
Scout Countries for Depth, Regions for Breadth
When it comes to scouting, you always have the option of scouting either Regions or Nations. Regions obviously cover much larger areas, and are more tempting than individual nations — I mean, why just send your guy to Brazil when you can tell them to scout the whole of South America in one go?
I’ll tell you why.
Because the results are nowhere near as thorough.
Scouting a whole region has its advantages, for sure: mostly that there are only so many Nations in the drop-down menu. If you want Billy Binoculars to go to Chile or Romania, you’re bang out of luck, and the only way you’ll get him there is by choosing South America or Eastern Europe from the Regions menu.
However, if you really want to unearth those Dutch gems or get the latest on what Andres D’Alessandro’s team-mates are up to at River Plate, you need to send your scouts to Holland and Argentina from the Nation menu. Basically, choosing countries will get you more results that have greater depth. Regions provide breadth, but your scouts will miss a lot of players as they skip across the borders.
Keep One Scout Behind
Another little trick that I rarely see on CM01/02 hints and tips websites is: don’t send all your scouts out at once. Keep at least one of them at home. This is because we all suddenly get a taste for a particular player and want an update on him ASAP, but if all your scouts are away on assignments, you won’t get that report until they’re back, which could take weeks — by which time, the new apple of your eye might have been snapped up by someone else. Keeping at least one scout at home at all times means you’ll always get reports promptly.
Training: The Basics Will Do
There are lots of guides to CM01/02 coaching and training out there already, so I won’t bother to cover old ground.
From my experience, I’ve never done a whole lot with training other than a few extreme basics:
- Making sure the right players are in the right routines, e.g. Defenders in Tactics, Attackers in Shooting and so on
- Hire the best coaches you can and give them specific roles, maybe two if they’re especially good, so they can work together. I feel like this helps.
And, finally, set every routine to have Light Goalkeeping training. This is because Goalkeeping training focuses on not just ball fondling, but also attributes that are useful for all outfield players like Acceleration, Positioning, Passing and Strength. It certainly hasn’t hurt my players.
The Lower Leagues: Things That Might Help
Unless I decide to really ruin my life by playing as my beloved Brentford or I’m taking on some ill-advised Twitter challenge, I always start new games of CM01/02 in the very lowest division available in the country of my choice. Playing in the lower leagues and rising through them to glory is, if you ask me, the only way to enjoy playing CM01/02 to the max.
Starting in the Evostick Bumblebee League means you have to live frugally and maximise the Sunday league rejects you’ve got to work with. Along with all the advice above, like making sure you’re using 4–1–3–2 and sending your scouts to every corner of the earth in search of someone, anyone, who knows where the goal is, here are a few more little starter tips that might help you on your way.
Scout Youth Players regularly for free reserves/squad depth
Yes, as well as sending Matty Monocle to Timbuktu, it’s worth getting your scout with the highest Judging Potential attribute to regularly scout Youth Players who can be added to your squad. They’ll be rated between one and five stars — it goes without saying that one star players are destined to play for the McDonalds staff team, while five-star players should be offered all the money you have as soon as you can get them on the phone.
In the lower leagues, though, pretty much any free transfer player with three stars or above should be looked at; if nothing else, they can provide very cheap cover for your first team and do some running around in the reserves while they wait for a game. You might even find, especially in the English Conference, that one or two of those seemingly hopeless youth prospects might end up helping you get promoted. Stranger things have happened.
Signing Players: Look for Acceleration & Pace
The truth is, when you’re down there, just finding players that have 12 for their most important attributes will work for you — but you’d be surprised how many players you can find that have pretty blistering pace, and also how effective they can be, even if the rest of their attributes are hot garbage. Full-backs that are incredibly pacy, in the 4–1–3–2 system, should get you plenty of assists simply by being able to run so fast that nobody can stop them chucking their terrible crosses into the box. However, if they put in ten terrible crosses per game, you can bet that the massive neanderthal you signed to play up front will eventually get his oversized forehead on one of them — and that might be all you need. Speaking of huge stupid strikers and nippy little fellows also allows me to segue perfectly into my last tip…
The Little-and-Large strike partnership can work wonders
Yep, if you sign a striker with good numbers for Strength, Jumping and Heading, instruct him to Hold Up Ball, and then make sure your other striker has at least half-decent numbers for Acceleration, Pace and Finishing, you ought to see some results. Off The Ball is obviously helpful too, but the same can be said of most other attributes — the important thing is that if your lumbering colossus wins a flick-on, you want a Speedy Gonzalez loitering just on-side so that he can zip through and tuck the shot away with no problem. It’s by no means a guaranteed way of winning games or even scoring goals, but all I can tell you is, having a big target man with Hold Up Ball duty has often worked for me when I surround him with intelligent speedsters. If you’re not sure where to begin with augmenting your starting squad, you could do worse than giving it a try.
And blimey, that’s about all I can think of for now. I’ll update this post whenever I think of something new, or I get sufficient abuse on Twitter to be pressured into adding new sections.
For now, though, thanks for reading. I’ve been Mike Paul, you can find me on Twitter @mikepaulvox or on my website, www.mikepaulvox.com.
Now go! There’s no time! You’ve got titles to win!
If you’ve found this post either useful or entertaining, please consider clicking and holding the “clap” button to recommend it to other Medium readers. It really helps! Thank you ❤
