In last year’s Football Manager we had one of the easiest tasks when it came to scheduling friendly matches and most of us used them as a way to boost the profits. However, this year in Football Manager Sports Interactive decided to change the way friendlies work and go for added realism. Therefore, choosing the pre-season friendlies for your team is no longer a making money thing and you should pay a lot of attention to them because choosing the wrong teams to play against and the wrong dates could result in a failed season. Therefore, in this article I have decided to share with you a small guide on how to choose the best pre-season friendlies in Football Manager for maximum effects.

What should you aim for with Pre-Season Friendlies

It’s all very simple: friendlies are used to help your players build up their match fitness, build up the team blend and offer a boost to the morale, all while trying to get the most money out of the whole deal.

How to select the best teams to play against

My opinion is that you should always try to play at least 6 friendlies in Pre-Season (this might be impossible if you’re playing in early Euro or local cup qualification rounds, but do your best to start with a good match fitness). However, you should never let your assistant choose them or randomly select the teams you play against because the effects could be catastrophic!

Here is how I suggest you would approach the pre-season friendlies in Football Manager 2012 (and basically in any FM game):

- make sure that you have 4-5 days between matches because match fitness is low and so is the condition of your players so don’t force things up or you might end up with unwanted injuries!

- start with a friendly against a very poor team (non-league, eventually) that you know you’ll defeat: it’s a huge morale booster and builds up some match fitness to start with.

- continue against stronger teams – don’t go for those that you know will score bags of goals against you, there’s no sense in doing that. Make sure that you play away and home games and try to select teams that bring you the most revenue because financial aspects are important too in the game (I suggest you play 2 or 3 games against stronger teams).

- it’s time to build back morale so choose another poor team that you can defeat. HINT: you can still find higher or similar reputation teams that are a lot worse than yours and that means more income so search carefully!

- Now the start of the season should be close and it would be the perfect time to play against a similar team, ideally for a win, ideally away to get the lads in the competitive mood.

- Finally, end the pre season friendlies with a game against a team you’ll surely defeat for the morale boost before the start of the season. I always make sure to end the pre-season with a win to help the lads start the season with confidence.

Also, don’t forget that your players’ match fitness is also really important, so try to arrange a few friendly games for the reserve team as well in order to build up fitness (works well especially if you have a large squad).

I hope that these tips that I shared with you regarding pre-season friendlies in Football Manager won’t be overlooked as I consider them really important.

Feel free to discuss below!