Free Transfer Bonanza
How to poach good players as an amateur club in Football Manager
Free Transfer Bonanza
Managing an amateur team in Football Manager 2023 has its perks, believe it or not.
For one thing, you can do practically anything you want in the transfer market, so long as you are able to attract players to your club.
That’s what I’ve learned so far while messing around with transfers for PanSa East F.C. in American Samoa. Rather than waiting for my one amateur (i.e. salaryless) scout to finally find a player worth looking at, I’ve simply found every good player in the country based on what the game tells me.
This isn’t hard to do. If you go to the Competitions tab on the right and click on the league you are playing in, you can see who the in-game media consider to be the best players in your league.
In the league menu, click on “Overview,” and then on “Season Preview”:
That should give you a big screen with a few important parts.
For example, you will see the “Media Dream Eleven,” which is a listing of the best players in the league in every position within a standard 4-4-2 formation:
You will also be able to see a list of the “key players” for each team, two per team:
These are the players you want to focus on.
It’s not hard to focus on them. Right click on the player and have your scout take a good look at him. If you’re lucky, your scout will come back with a positive reputation, the player will be willing to sign with your team for free, and, just like that, you’ll be able to sign some of the best players in your country with minimal effort.
Signing Too Many
As you might guess, it’s easy to go nuts with this.
And, trust me, I tend to go nuts.
Don’t worry, though. Because these are amateur players, you don’t have to worry about silly things like contracts and payments to get rid of them.
If you have far too many players in one position, or if the arrival of a specific player has caused a lot of grief, you can get rid of unwanted players almost immediately.
Simply right click on the player, select “Contract,” and choose “Release On A Free:”
That will release the player on a free transfer, getting him out of your hair and allowing him to explore potential job opportunities with other amateur teams in your Football Manager world.
Of course, that does mean there is a chance that you’ll wind up playing against that player in the future. Use this information strategically.
And, as always, please remember that this only works for amateur teams and players. Once you’ve got contracts to worry about, you have to get serious and actually plan things out.