Crew
Welcome to VM 
This is an updated version of the guide first created in 2012 and amended in 2019 by Tom.
Sponsorship section updated 2023.
If anyone has anything that needs to be added (or changed) please do post a Reply & I'll update further:
Contents:
1. Forum Etiquette
2. VM Premium
3. Training
4. Player ratings, distinctions and values
5. Making credits (Trading and other revenue streams)
6. Staff (Scouts and Trainers)
7. Stadiums
8. Important stats + Leadership & Perseverance
9. General advice, hints and tips
1. Forum Etiquette
Be polite - the moderators can lock threads and ban people who break the FORUM RULES.
When creating a topic, try to post it in the right place, do not post multiple topics about the same thing and use a relevant title.
Avoid spamming the forums.
2. VM Premium
There are several advantages to paying for VM Premium. The currency shown in the Shop is defined by the Country of residence you have picked in your manager Profile - you can change that at any time. It's important to note that this game is not Pay to Win, but paying does give you some advantages, including:
1) The ability to see a player's training average - this will help you to gauge how good a player really is by the amount of stats they pick up through training.
2) Expand your training ground above Large Training Ground (Red)
3) Expand your stadium capacity over 1000.
4) The ability to use staff (Scouts and Trainers)
5) Create 5 youth players per week.
6) Ability to create a Youth Squad - and thereby increase maximum Club Squad size to 42 players.
7) Upgrade Physio facilities enabling you to reduce injuries > at a cost each time you do it!
8) See fewer advertisements
All of the advantages are covered in more detail in later sections
* > Get Premium without subscription "here"
2a. VM Pro
1) No ads!
2) Colour your stadium
3) Rename your youth squad
4) Upload your own match kit designs
5) Contract assurance without the use of tickets
3. Training.
For those that want it here's the Talent Chart(x2): (this is explained further below ... )
You can only train once per day.
This cycle begins at 11pm UK time and DOES NOT ROLLOVER IF YOU MISS ONE!.
(You can buy VM Tickets from The Shop which you can use to ensure you never miss a training session by having the system do it for you if you're likely to forget or not be online for more than the next day...)
You can train at any time during the 24 hour period.
There are several different training grounds - each upgrade comes at a price but will improve the level of training your players are able to achieve. If a player training on lawn moves to a club with World Class Training Facility then their training will improve dramatically. The players potential will decide how well he trains, the training ground ground acts as a multiplier on that potential.
This is the list of training grounds and prices:
Training without a trainer means your team will always be trained on normal intensity on training match. This means that the training will be divided across all the stats. You need a trainer to select the activities and intensity with which your players train, which enables you to target specific stats and train harder.
Trainers are expensive and a bad trainer is not worth having. You need VM Premium to use Trainers!, so you will have wasted your credits if you get one without it.
Ideally your Trainers should have 20/20 abilities on Outfield or Keeper, & If training players under 24 yrs old then they should be 20 in Youth too. There are Forum Threads to help with finding Staff.
Think of each stat as a bucket needing to be filled, If you train on aerobic for example which only works Stamina, fitness and acceleration stats, and your player does 99XP then that's 0.99 buckets of water distributed across 3 stat buckets. If your player was already near to filling those buckets, he could go up by one in every stat, if he wasn't close to filling up those buckets then he may not have any stats improve but will fill them up so that next time, he will go over and start a new bucket. These "buckets" are indicated by the green bars which tell you how full the bucket is. The 99% will not necessarily be divided equally between the 3 buckets though - depending on how much effort you put into each stat on the training screen. Training without a trainer means the training will be split across every bucket.
Advice for starting out:
Your players will not be good enough to benefit from a trainer for a while so it will be a waste of credits even with VM Premium. Youths which you create can become Talents with or without a trainer, and if they do so without a trainer then they will generally fetch a higher price on auction. My own advice would be not to bother with a trainer until you get to Grey (Standard Training Facility) training ground, but others will have different opinions on that.
4. Player ratings, distinctions and values
Player ratings are determined by the distribution of stats, and the total amount of stats. Each position group (Keepers, defenders, midfielders, attackers) has different requirements for ratings. Defenders need to be good at tackling, midfielders need to be good at passing and dribbling etc. There is no difference in this between individual positions within the groups - DC and DR/DL etc.
Player values are calculated each week during the Sunday update. They are calculated by looking at the players total stats, rating, and what similar players have sold for. These can vary wildly, and are not an accurate guide of the players true market value.
There are 4 different distinctions in VM: Talents; Wonderkids; Class Players and World Class Players. These are updated daily at 1pm UK time.
Talents
are shown by the small blue T symbol This distinction can only be awarded to players aged 15-18 and shows that they are training at a high level. There is a specific threshold of potential to gain Talent status, - see the Talent Chart above, however the level of potential above the threshold is a wide range so some Talents are immensely more valuable than others. EG a player training at 62 on Lawn would be a Talent. A player training at 120 on Lawn would be a Talent. The one with the higher training has lots more potential and will therefore be significantly more valuable.
Wonderkids
are shown by the small green W symbol. This distinction can only be awarded to players aged 17-22. This symbol indicates that the player is within the top X percent for his age and position based on stats/rating. A player can become a without having the training level required for status, if the appropriate stats are targetted heavily.
Class players
are shown by the small silver star. These are players that are excellent, but not quite world class level. This is based on them being in the top X percent of players at their position.
World Class Players
are shown by the small gold star meaning they are elite players and amongst the best in the game for their position.
If a player loses a distinction, it does not mean they are a worse player. They can lose the distinction if their training average drops below the threshold or if other players overhaul them.
Distinctions can be gained back again with better training results.
5. Making credits
There are numerous ways to make credits in this game. It is important to note that most of your income will be generated through players and trading.
Trading This is the most important credit stream in the game and if you don't actively trade then you will find it very difficult to make any progress in the game. Trading always involves an auction. If you buy players from the transfer list then they will go on auction for 15 minutes and you can be outbid. This is to ensure cheating is minimalised. Most activity in an auction takes place in the last 15 minutes or so, so there is no point bidding for great players with 14 hours left on an auction, because you might well be leading it until 14 minutes when you are immediately outbid. Leading an auction ties up your credits so you cannot use them elsewhere. The transfer market is closed from 11pm to 7am everyday UK time. Again, to minimalise cheating, if you buy a player off the transfer list between these times the auction will not be 15 minutes, it will be until 7am (or just after...).
There are two main methods of trading:
Player flipping: This involves buying players and selling them again on auction for a higher price. Usually this is short term and done within 24 hours or so. This will be the primary method available to newcomers and requires a bit of patience -see what kind of prices players are fetching. the best advice I can give people for this is to focus on one specific age group on the auctions for a day or two - Try to understand why some players are selling for more than others (look at training, rating, stats etc)
Developing players: This involves buying players, usually based on potential and training them up to sell further down the line. This involves having a training ground big enough to improve them significantly so is not really accessible when you're starting out (Personal advice is minimum Black or Turquoise training ground for this strategy)
(Having a Youth Squad increases the available opportunities at both methods.)
There is obviously some middle ground buying players cheap and transfer listing them so it's longer than flipping but not as long term as developing, but those are the two main strategies.
Other revenue streams include sponsorship, tickets, prize money.
Sponsorship: A sponsorship can give you extra income each season and who does not want that?
There are different sponsors to choose from, with different demands and outcome.
Some sponsors even have bonus amount, which you can choose to accept to get a higher payment from your agreement. You will need to mark the bonus amount to accept them. They are not automatically included in the agreement.
Amount:
The sponsors will offer a base amount, which is affected by the following, among other things:
Amount of supporters
Stadium capacity
Sponsor demands
Sponsors have different demands that must be met in order to receive the full amount. If they are not met, you pay a fine, which is deducted from the base amount.
The same applies if you do not meet the requirements for an offer at the start of the season because you have been relegated.
Payment:
The base amount will be payed out in the beginning of the season, monday morning.
The bonus will always reduce the base amount, but in return you will get the possibility to earn extra credits if you meet the bonus demand. Bonuses are payed out when they are completed, throughout the season.
Rejection:
If none of the offers look good, you can reject them all and get new ones right away.
If you do, you cannot decline again until 24 hours have passed.
Time limits:
To secure a sponsorship deal for the next season, you must have accepted an offer no later than Sunday at 13:00 GMT.
When the new season starts, you will be able to obtain offers again starting from Monday morning at 5:00 GMT.
Match Tickets: (Gate receipts) You should set your ticket prices low (5C) to begin with and then if you are selling out your stadium every week, then move it up by 1C until you are selling out again, then up by another 1C etc. The page to change ticket prices is the stadium page, which can be found by clicking on stadium on the left hand side of your homepage or club profile page (or clicking HERE ). You can check crowds by clicking on the result and looking at the spectator number.
Prize money: You will receive a small sum of money based on league position and television rights at the end of each season. You won't always get a notification about this, but it can be viewed by checking your accounts from your homepage. Higher league position means higher income from prize money and this increases so higher divisions earn you higher revenue from this stream.
6. Staff - Trainers and Scouts
NB - To hire and use staff you must have VM Premium - which can be bought via The Shop.
Trainers and Scouts stats are shown as a mark out of 20, but only certain stats are useful for each role:
Trainers: Important stats: Youth, Outfield, Keepers
Don't try and run before you can walk, wait until you can afford a trainer, as mentioned above, a bad one is not worth having and they are all expensive. When you can afford a trainer, the only attributes that matter are Youth, Keeper and Outfield - every other stat is irrelevant. I would suggest that 18 is the minimum acceptable for relevant stats to make it worthwhile having - for example if you are looking for an outfield players trainer then look for one 18 or above in BOTH youth and outfield but as he won't be training your keeper, his keeper stat can be 1, it's irrelevant. Trainer stats DO NOT increase so don't buy one thinking he will get better... To find staff you need to go here: Staff search
And here's a tip: Trainers can take sessions in BOTH Senior And Youth training!
- ie you can set the same trainer in a Senior "Exercise" and then in a separate Youth "Exercise", so you don't need so many trainers to do only one each
Scouts: Important stats:
Potential assessment: Scout's ability to assess potential
Ability assessment: Scout's ability to assess ability
Motivation: Scout's ability to return an untrained youth in the results
Discipline: Determines the maximum number of players in a report.
Motivation plus Discipline: Determines for how long the scout will need to rest after finishing a report.
Ideally you should have scouts with 20/20 on as many of the above attributes as possible.
The scout works by searching for players and providing a limited number of reports.
He shows his assessment of players as a grading - these are imperfect and different scouts may grade players differently - so to get a complete picture of a players potential you may need to run several scouts on the same player.
It takes 3 Minutes for the scout to report back and below are the ratings he comes back with:Catastrophic; Miserable; Below Average; Poor; OK; Reasonable; Promising; Formidable; Enormous.
You can also use your Scout to evaluate your own players or the players of a specific team, you do this by pressing the Evaluate Players button on club page.
> Information about scouts
7. Stadium
Repairing your stadium is most cost effective if done when it reaches 80% condition. Any less than 80% (overall average) and you start to lose fans. You can do it before it gets to 80% but because there is an initial fee for the repairs which is always the same, the best time to do it in terms of being efficient with credits is at 80% - or when advised by the system help notification.
Stadium upgrades: (Post changes of 2nd Sept 2014):
LEVEL 1:
E & W STANDS: Capacity ..100 each X 2 = 200 @ 500C each X 2 = 1,000C
N & S STANDS: .Capacity ... 60 each X 2 = 120 @ 400C each X 2 = . 800C
CORNERS : ..... Capacity .... 20 each X 4 = .80 @ 300C each X 4 = 1,200C
TOTAL Capacity …...................................... 400 ....…..….………….. 3,000C
LEVEL 2:
E & W STANDS: +250 fans each X 2 = 500 @ 35,000C each X 2 = 70,000C
N & S STANDS: .+120 fans each X 2 = 240 @ 22,000C each X 2 = 44,000C
CORNERS : ....… +90 fans each X 4 = 360 @ 20,000C each X 4 = 80,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ..................1,100 .…..….…...………..… 194,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY .…....... 1,500 Cost so far ................ 197,000C
LEVEL 3:
E & W STANDS: +850 fans each X 2 = 1,700 @ 450,000C X 2 = 900,000C
N & S STANDS: .+520 fans each X 2 = 1,040 @ 300,000C X 2 = 600,000C
CORNERS: ....... +290 fans each X 4 = 1,160 @ 180,000C X 4 = 720,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ……............ 3,900 ……....….…….… 2,220,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY ...........… 5,400 Cost so far ......... 2,417,000C
LEVEL 4:
E & W STANDS:+3,600 fans X 2 = 7,200 @ 2,500,000C X 2 = 5,000,000C
N & S STANDS: +1,700 fans X 2 = 3,400 @ 1,400,000C X 2 = 2,800,000C
CORNERS: ...... +1,000 fans X 4 = 4,000 @ ..850,000C X 4 = 3,400,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ….........14,600 ……….....…...…… 11,200,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY........ 20,000 Cost so far ........... 13,617,000C
LEVEL 5:
E & W STANDS:+10,200 fans X 2 = 20,400 @12,000,000C X 2 = 24,000,000C
N & S STANDS: ..+5,600 fans X 2 = 11,200 @ 8,000,000C X 2 = 16,000,000C
CORNERS: ........+3,100 fans X 4 = 12,400 @ 5,000,000C X 4 = 20,000,000C
TOTAL additional capacity …........... 44,000 .…........……...…….. 60,000,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY ...…... 64,000 Cost so far ............. 73,617,000C
LEVEL 6:
E & W STANDS:+13,800 fans X 2 = 27,600 @48,000,000C X 2 = 96,000,000C
N & S STANDS: .+6,400 fans.X 2 = 12,800 @28,000,000C X 2 = 56,000,000C
CORNERS: ....... +3,900 fans X 4 = 15,800 @18,500,000C X 4 = 74,000,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ….......... 56,000 .......…....…..………. 226,000,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY 120,000,000 COST ..................... 299,617,000C
Pitch upgrades:
LEVEL 1 .................. 400C
LEVEL 2 ..............10,000C
LEVEL 3 ........... 190,000C
LEVEL 4 ........ 1,200,000C
LEVEL 5 ........ 4,500,000C
LEVEL 6 .......10,000,000C
TOTAL COST 15,900,400C
Physio Facilities:
What do they Cost? and Provide?
8. Important stats & llifetime progression
Important stats vary by position but there are some less obvious ones that have important whole team effects.
Leadership: Applicable only for the team captain, or his replacement.
The captain's leadership gives a bonus to all players on the team.
The bonus for the captain's leadership is calculated as follows:
(leadership / 100) * 0.06
That is. that if your captain has 30 in leadership the bonus = 0.018 (1.8%).
0 in leadership = 0%
50 in leadership = 3%
100 in leadership = 6%
These 6% are added together with any home ground bonus and overtime bonus, but the total total bonus cannot exceed 10%.
The bonus is calculated at the team level, and is used in the calculations performed when a player performs an action, such as a shot on goal, attempted save, tackle, attempted resisting tackle, etc., and when calculating of his max speed and how fast he loses energy.
The simplest way to understand the bonus is to just assume that all of the player's attributes are increased by that percentage. This is not 100% correct in all aspects of the simulation due to additional complexities or exceptions. For example, of course no bonus is ever given to the captain's leadership, as it is itself included in the bonus calculation.
Fighting spirit is explained here: https://www.virtualmanager.com/blog/939
The captain's perseverance is doubled, so it is important for him to have a high stat there too.
Perseverance: It is your players' total perseverance that counts. That way, we get the effect that your players with high perseverance can inspire the less enthusiastic ones. Only those players currently on the pitch are taken into account. When your team is behind in the match. high perseverance will lessen the negative effect that players get when they are losing.
Perseverance is also crucial in determining the home advantage. The more the home team's perseverance exceeds that of the away team, the greater their home advantage. However, if the away team has more total perseverance than the home team, they can reduce the home team advantage or even completely eliminate it if their perseverance is really superb.
The home advantage starts at 5% (1% in cup matches) if the two teams have exactly the same total perseverance.
It rises if the home team has more perseverance than the away team and falls if the away team has the most perseverance.
If the home team has 2x (or above) as much perseverance as the away team, then the home advantage is 10%
If the away team has 2x (or above) as much perseverance as the home team, then the home advantage is 0%
In this calculation, all players in the match simulator get a base perseverance of 10. Thus, if a player has 2 perseverance, it will be counted as 12 in the match simulator. Base perseverance is added because otherwise there would be huge fluctuations in the lowest leagues where players have very low abilities. Without adding base perseverance, an otherwise insignificant difference of 1 or 2 in perseverance would have a huge effect. Adding base perseverance also gives the effect that the mental game becomes more important, the higher you advance in the leagues.
If you've got your head around everything else so far, and you still want, more here is a very nice thread on Projecting a Player Life Cycle
9. General advice, hints and tips
Playing players out of position matters. You should place players on the pitch in their favourite position. If you place a player on a green spot his performance will be 100%. On yellow it's 80% & on red it's only 50%
Changing Leagues/Countries You can apply to change league at any time during the season, but you will not change until the next season update on Sunday afternoon.
To do so, click on "World" at the top of the page to get to the World Map Page - click on a country and then you get a button appear on the left with "apply to join this league".
Bug reports - you can report any glitches and bugs with the game. This is not the same as raising a support ticket. Support tickets refer to general gameplay issues, such as if you feel you have been unfairly punished, cheat reports, and payment problems. Bug reports refer to a problem that is actually to do with the coding of the game itself. To report bugs you should use the Bug Report page
Banners and Logos If you would like to request someone make you a Banner/Logo then please post in THE BANNERS AND LOGOS FORUM. Make sure you read the Banner/Logo Forum Rules before posting as they are very specific to that forum.
VM Premium is valuable: It is possible to succeed without it and some players have won the top division without Premium, but it is harder.
VM Premium gives you ability to expand your stadium to increase your revenue, and training ground to increase your players' ability. It also gives you the ability to create 5 youths per week - these act like a lottery ticket, so don't waste them - a youth with high potential can be created by any club, on any training ground - they are worth more when trained without a trainer on the lower training grounds. Make sure you sign all of them every week, and if you get a good one, consider selling him after the 5th training session. This is the earliest point you can sell a player and if you keep them any longer, they are missing out on stats they would get on a higher ground so you will lose value.
Use the forums! - The community on here is very helpful and will generally be happy to answer any questions you may have, just make sure you adhere to the forum rules.
Be sure to renew contracts - Your players can be signed for a maximum of 21 days. Older players can retire after age 31 and if you do not have them signed up for the full 21 days then you have fewer days use of them, and less time to replace them.
Players decline - After age 28, player abilities start to decline. The rate of this will vary by player but increases as players get older so do not be surprised if one of your older players suddenly goes down in rating. Speed, Acceleration and Stamina decline most, followed by technical abilities at a slower rate. Perseverance and Leadership never decline. Training level will also decline from age 28.
Strategy for early success - Top tip for early success is to buy older players. Buying younger players won't get you very far as you can't afford good ones, and you can't improve them due to having a low level training ground. Buy old players to get you up the leagues, transfer list for a bit more than you paid and start piling up some much needed extra credits.
Credits are king in this game.
Difference between Transfer List and Minimum Price options: Transfer list is more commonly used, and means that if you meet the asking price, that player will go on auction for 15 minutes. If nobody outbids you then the player is yours. You can bid lower than transfer list price but that will send an offer to the club who will then decide whether to accept or reject your bid. Minimum price means that you cannot send a bid lower than the minimum and if you meet the asking price, it will still go to the club to decide whether to accept or reject. If accepted, 15 minute auction will follow.
Don't bother upgrading physio dept - You do not need any of these facilities until much further in the game, it's a waste of credits at the beginning - trust me.
Lastly, - & well-done for getting this far, there are Cup competitions that you can enter each season
- some depending upon the current standing of your team ... You can find them here: Cups
And for anyone who wants even more, (I have never used this, but I understand people do find it useful), there is the VMEnhancer which gives additional insight to a couple of things:
Good Luck with the game!
This is an updated version of the guide first created in 2012 and amended in 2019 by Tom.
Sponsorship section updated 2023.
If anyone has anything that needs to be added (or changed) please do post a Reply & I'll update further:
Contents:
1. Forum Etiquette
2. VM Premium
3. Training
4. Player ratings, distinctions and values
5. Making credits (Trading and other revenue streams)
6. Staff (Scouts and Trainers)
7. Stadiums
8. Important stats + Leadership & Perseverance
9. General advice, hints and tips
1. Forum Etiquette
Be polite - the moderators can lock threads and ban people who break the FORUM RULES.
When creating a topic, try to post it in the right place, do not post multiple topics about the same thing and use a relevant title.
Avoid spamming the forums.
2. VM Premium
There are several advantages to paying for VM Premium. The currency shown in the Shop is defined by the Country of residence you have picked in your manager Profile - you can change that at any time. It's important to note that this game is not Pay to Win, but paying does give you some advantages, including:
1) The ability to see a player's training average - this will help you to gauge how good a player really is by the amount of stats they pick up through training.
2) Expand your training ground above Large Training Ground (Red)
3) Expand your stadium capacity over 1000.
4) The ability to use staff (Scouts and Trainers)
5) Create 5 youth players per week.
6) Ability to create a Youth Squad - and thereby increase maximum Club Squad size to 42 players.
7) Upgrade Physio facilities enabling you to reduce injuries > at a cost each time you do it!
8) See fewer advertisements
All of the advantages are covered in more detail in later sections
* > Get Premium without subscription "here"
2a. VM Pro
1) No ads!
2) Colour your stadium
3) Rename your youth squad
4) Upload your own match kit designs
5) Contract assurance without the use of tickets
3. Training.
For those that want it here's the Talent Chart(x2): (this is explained further below ... )
You can only train once per day.
This cycle begins at 11pm UK time and DOES NOT ROLLOVER IF YOU MISS ONE!.
(You can buy VM Tickets from The Shop which you can use to ensure you never miss a training session by having the system do it for you if you're likely to forget or not be online for more than the next day...)
You can train at any time during the 24 hour period.
There are several different training grounds - each upgrade comes at a price but will improve the level of training your players are able to achieve. If a player training on lawn moves to a club with World Class Training Facility then their training will improve dramatically. The players potential will decide how well he trains, the training ground ground acts as a multiplier on that potential.
This is the list of training grounds and prices:
Training without a trainer means your team will always be trained on normal intensity on training match. This means that the training will be divided across all the stats. You need a trainer to select the activities and intensity with which your players train, which enables you to target specific stats and train harder.
Trainers are expensive and a bad trainer is not worth having. You need VM Premium to use Trainers!, so you will have wasted your credits if you get one without it.
Ideally your Trainers should have 20/20 abilities on Outfield or Keeper, & If training players under 24 yrs old then they should be 20 in Youth too. There are Forum Threads to help with finding Staff.
Think of each stat as a bucket needing to be filled, If you train on aerobic for example which only works Stamina, fitness and acceleration stats, and your player does 99XP then that's 0.99 buckets of water distributed across 3 stat buckets. If your player was already near to filling those buckets, he could go up by one in every stat, if he wasn't close to filling up those buckets then he may not have any stats improve but will fill them up so that next time, he will go over and start a new bucket. These "buckets" are indicated by the green bars which tell you how full the bucket is. The 99% will not necessarily be divided equally between the 3 buckets though - depending on how much effort you put into each stat on the training screen. Training without a trainer means the training will be split across every bucket.
Advice for starting out:
Your players will not be good enough to benefit from a trainer for a while so it will be a waste of credits even with VM Premium. Youths which you create can become Talents with or without a trainer, and if they do so without a trainer then they will generally fetch a higher price on auction. My own advice would be not to bother with a trainer until you get to Grey (Standard Training Facility) training ground, but others will have different opinions on that.
4. Player ratings, distinctions and values
Player ratings are determined by the distribution of stats, and the total amount of stats. Each position group (Keepers, defenders, midfielders, attackers) has different requirements for ratings. Defenders need to be good at tackling, midfielders need to be good at passing and dribbling etc. There is no difference in this between individual positions within the groups - DC and DR/DL etc.
Player values are calculated each week during the Sunday update. They are calculated by looking at the players total stats, rating, and what similar players have sold for. These can vary wildly, and are not an accurate guide of the players true market value.
There are 4 different distinctions in VM: Talents; Wonderkids; Class Players and World Class Players. These are updated daily at 1pm UK time.
Talents
are shown by the small blue T symbol This distinction can only be awarded to players aged 15-18 and shows that they are training at a high level. There is a specific threshold of potential to gain Talent status, - see the Talent Chart above, however the level of potential above the threshold is a wide range so some Talents are immensely more valuable than others. EG a player training at 62 on Lawn would be a Talent. A player training at 120 on Lawn would be a Talent. The one with the higher training has lots more potential and will therefore be significantly more valuable.Wonderkids
are shown by the small green W symbol. This distinction can only be awarded to players aged 17-22. This symbol indicates that the player is within the top X percent for his age and position based on stats/rating. A player can become a without having the training level required for status, if the appropriate stats are targetted heavily.Class players
are shown by the small silver star. These are players that are excellent, but not quite world class level. This is based on them being in the top X percent of players at their position.World Class Players
are shown by the small gold star meaning they are elite players and amongst the best in the game for their position. If a player loses a distinction, it does not mean they are a worse player. They can lose the distinction if their training average drops below the threshold or if other players overhaul them.
Distinctions can be gained back again with better training results.
5. Making credits
There are numerous ways to make credits in this game. It is important to note that most of your income will be generated through players and trading.
Trading This is the most important credit stream in the game and if you don't actively trade then you will find it very difficult to make any progress in the game. Trading always involves an auction. If you buy players from the transfer list then they will go on auction for 15 minutes and you can be outbid. This is to ensure cheating is minimalised. Most activity in an auction takes place in the last 15 minutes or so, so there is no point bidding for great players with 14 hours left on an auction, because you might well be leading it until 14 minutes when you are immediately outbid. Leading an auction ties up your credits so you cannot use them elsewhere. The transfer market is closed from 11pm to 7am everyday UK time. Again, to minimalise cheating, if you buy a player off the transfer list between these times the auction will not be 15 minutes, it will be until 7am (or just after...).
There are two main methods of trading:
Player flipping: This involves buying players and selling them again on auction for a higher price. Usually this is short term and done within 24 hours or so. This will be the primary method available to newcomers and requires a bit of patience -see what kind of prices players are fetching. the best advice I can give people for this is to focus on one specific age group on the auctions for a day or two - Try to understand why some players are selling for more than others (look at training, rating, stats etc)
Developing players: This involves buying players, usually based on potential and training them up to sell further down the line. This involves having a training ground big enough to improve them significantly so is not really accessible when you're starting out (Personal advice is minimum Black or Turquoise training ground for this strategy)
(Having a Youth Squad increases the available opportunities at both methods.)
There is obviously some middle ground buying players cheap and transfer listing them so it's longer than flipping but not as long term as developing, but those are the two main strategies.
Other revenue streams include sponsorship, tickets, prize money.
Sponsorship: A sponsorship can give you extra income each season and who does not want that?
There are different sponsors to choose from, with different demands and outcome.
Some sponsors even have bonus amount, which you can choose to accept to get a higher payment from your agreement. You will need to mark the bonus amount to accept them. They are not automatically included in the agreement.
Amount:
The sponsors will offer a base amount, which is affected by the following, among other things:
Amount of supporters
Stadium capacity
Sponsor demands
Sponsors have different demands that must be met in order to receive the full amount. If they are not met, you pay a fine, which is deducted from the base amount.
The same applies if you do not meet the requirements for an offer at the start of the season because you have been relegated.
Payment:
The base amount will be payed out in the beginning of the season, monday morning.
The bonus will always reduce the base amount, but in return you will get the possibility to earn extra credits if you meet the bonus demand. Bonuses are payed out when they are completed, throughout the season.
Rejection:
If none of the offers look good, you can reject them all and get new ones right away.
If you do, you cannot decline again until 24 hours have passed.
Time limits:
To secure a sponsorship deal for the next season, you must have accepted an offer no later than Sunday at 13:00 GMT.
When the new season starts, you will be able to obtain offers again starting from Monday morning at 5:00 GMT.
Match Tickets: (Gate receipts) You should set your ticket prices low (5C) to begin with and then if you are selling out your stadium every week, then move it up by 1C until you are selling out again, then up by another 1C etc. The page to change ticket prices is the stadium page, which can be found by clicking on stadium on the left hand side of your homepage or club profile page (or clicking HERE ). You can check crowds by clicking on the result and looking at the spectator number.
Prize money: You will receive a small sum of money based on league position and television rights at the end of each season. You won't always get a notification about this, but it can be viewed by checking your accounts from your homepage. Higher league position means higher income from prize money and this increases so higher divisions earn you higher revenue from this stream.
6. Staff - Trainers and Scouts
NB - To hire and use staff you must have VM Premium - which can be bought via The Shop.
Trainers and Scouts stats are shown as a mark out of 20, but only certain stats are useful for each role:
Trainers: Important stats: Youth, Outfield, Keepers
Don't try and run before you can walk, wait until you can afford a trainer, as mentioned above, a bad one is not worth having and they are all expensive. When you can afford a trainer, the only attributes that matter are Youth, Keeper and Outfield - every other stat is irrelevant. I would suggest that 18 is the minimum acceptable for relevant stats to make it worthwhile having - for example if you are looking for an outfield players trainer then look for one 18 or above in BOTH youth and outfield but as he won't be training your keeper, his keeper stat can be 1, it's irrelevant. Trainer stats DO NOT increase so don't buy one thinking he will get better... To find staff you need to go here: Staff search
And here's a tip: Trainers can take sessions in BOTH Senior And Youth training!
- ie you can set the same trainer in a Senior "Exercise" and then in a separate Youth "Exercise", so you don't need so many trainers to do only one each
Scouts: Important stats:
Potential assessment: Scout's ability to assess potential
Ability assessment: Scout's ability to assess ability
Motivation: Scout's ability to return an untrained youth in the results
Discipline: Determines the maximum number of players in a report.
Motivation plus Discipline: Determines for how long the scout will need to rest after finishing a report.
Ideally you should have scouts with 20/20 on as many of the above attributes as possible.
The scout works by searching for players and providing a limited number of reports.
He shows his assessment of players as a grading - these are imperfect and different scouts may grade players differently - so to get a complete picture of a players potential you may need to run several scouts on the same player.
It takes 3 Minutes for the scout to report back and below are the ratings he comes back with:Catastrophic; Miserable; Below Average; Poor; OK; Reasonable; Promising; Formidable; Enormous.
You can also use your Scout to evaluate your own players or the players of a specific team, you do this by pressing the Evaluate Players button on club page.
> Information about scouts
7. Stadium
Repairing your stadium is most cost effective if done when it reaches 80% condition. Any less than 80% (overall average) and you start to lose fans. You can do it before it gets to 80% but because there is an initial fee for the repairs which is always the same, the best time to do it in terms of being efficient with credits is at 80% - or when advised by the system help notification.
Stadium upgrades: (Post changes of 2nd Sept 2014):
LEVEL 1:
E & W STANDS: Capacity ..100 each X 2 = 200 @ 500C each X 2 = 1,000C
N & S STANDS: .Capacity ... 60 each X 2 = 120 @ 400C each X 2 = . 800C
CORNERS : ..... Capacity .... 20 each X 4 = .80 @ 300C each X 4 = 1,200C
TOTAL Capacity …...................................... 400 ....…..….………….. 3,000C
LEVEL 2:
E & W STANDS: +250 fans each X 2 = 500 @ 35,000C each X 2 = 70,000C
N & S STANDS: .+120 fans each X 2 = 240 @ 22,000C each X 2 = 44,000C
CORNERS : ....… +90 fans each X 4 = 360 @ 20,000C each X 4 = 80,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ..................1,100 .…..….…...………..… 194,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY .…....... 1,500 Cost so far ................ 197,000C
LEVEL 3:
E & W STANDS: +850 fans each X 2 = 1,700 @ 450,000C X 2 = 900,000C
N & S STANDS: .+520 fans each X 2 = 1,040 @ 300,000C X 2 = 600,000C
CORNERS: ....... +290 fans each X 4 = 1,160 @ 180,000C X 4 = 720,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ……............ 3,900 ……....….…….… 2,220,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY ...........… 5,400 Cost so far ......... 2,417,000C
LEVEL 4:
E & W STANDS:+3,600 fans X 2 = 7,200 @ 2,500,000C X 2 = 5,000,000C
N & S STANDS: +1,700 fans X 2 = 3,400 @ 1,400,000C X 2 = 2,800,000C
CORNERS: ...... +1,000 fans X 4 = 4,000 @ ..850,000C X 4 = 3,400,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ….........14,600 ……….....…...…… 11,200,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY........ 20,000 Cost so far ........... 13,617,000C
LEVEL 5:
E & W STANDS:+10,200 fans X 2 = 20,400 @12,000,000C X 2 = 24,000,000C
N & S STANDS: ..+5,600 fans X 2 = 11,200 @ 8,000,000C X 2 = 16,000,000C
CORNERS: ........+3,100 fans X 4 = 12,400 @ 5,000,000C X 4 = 20,000,000C
TOTAL additional capacity …........... 44,000 .…........……...…….. 60,000,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY ...…... 64,000 Cost so far ............. 73,617,000C
LEVEL 6:
E & W STANDS:+13,800 fans X 2 = 27,600 @48,000,000C X 2 = 96,000,000C
N & S STANDS: .+6,400 fans.X 2 = 12,800 @28,000,000C X 2 = 56,000,000C
CORNERS: ....... +3,900 fans X 4 = 15,800 @18,500,000C X 4 = 74,000,000C
TOTAL additional capacity ….......... 56,000 .......…....…..………. 226,000,000C
TOTAL STADIUM CAPACITY 120,000,000 COST ..................... 299,617,000C
Pitch upgrades:
LEVEL 1 .................. 400C
LEVEL 2 ..............10,000C
LEVEL 3 ........... 190,000C
LEVEL 4 ........ 1,200,000C
LEVEL 5 ........ 4,500,000C
LEVEL 6 .......10,000,000C
TOTAL COST 15,900,400C
Physio Facilities:
What do they Cost? and Provide?
8. Important stats & llifetime progression
Important stats vary by position but there are some less obvious ones that have important whole team effects.
Leadership: Applicable only for the team captain, or his replacement.
The captain's leadership gives a bonus to all players on the team.
The bonus for the captain's leadership is calculated as follows:
(leadership / 100) * 0.06
That is. that if your captain has 30 in leadership the bonus = 0.018 (1.8%).
0 in leadership = 0%
50 in leadership = 3%
100 in leadership = 6%
These 6% are added together with any home ground bonus and overtime bonus, but the total total bonus cannot exceed 10%.
The bonus is calculated at the team level, and is used in the calculations performed when a player performs an action, such as a shot on goal, attempted save, tackle, attempted resisting tackle, etc., and when calculating of his max speed and how fast he loses energy.
The simplest way to understand the bonus is to just assume that all of the player's attributes are increased by that percentage. This is not 100% correct in all aspects of the simulation due to additional complexities or exceptions. For example, of course no bonus is ever given to the captain's leadership, as it is itself included in the bonus calculation.
Fighting spirit is explained here: https://www.virtualmanager.com/blog/939
The captain's perseverance is doubled, so it is important for him to have a high stat there too.
Perseverance: It is your players' total perseverance that counts. That way, we get the effect that your players with high perseverance can inspire the less enthusiastic ones. Only those players currently on the pitch are taken into account. When your team is behind in the match. high perseverance will lessen the negative effect that players get when they are losing.
Perseverance is also crucial in determining the home advantage. The more the home team's perseverance exceeds that of the away team, the greater their home advantage. However, if the away team has more total perseverance than the home team, they can reduce the home team advantage or even completely eliminate it if their perseverance is really superb.
The home advantage starts at 5% (1% in cup matches) if the two teams have exactly the same total perseverance.
It rises if the home team has more perseverance than the away team and falls if the away team has the most perseverance.
If the home team has 2x (or above) as much perseverance as the away team, then the home advantage is 10%
If the away team has 2x (or above) as much perseverance as the home team, then the home advantage is 0%
In this calculation, all players in the match simulator get a base perseverance of 10. Thus, if a player has 2 perseverance, it will be counted as 12 in the match simulator. Base perseverance is added because otherwise there would be huge fluctuations in the lowest leagues where players have very low abilities. Without adding base perseverance, an otherwise insignificant difference of 1 or 2 in perseverance would have a huge effect. Adding base perseverance also gives the effect that the mental game becomes more important, the higher you advance in the leagues.
If you've got your head around everything else so far, and you still want, more here is a very nice thread on Projecting a Player Life Cycle
9. General advice, hints and tips
Playing players out of position matters. You should place players on the pitch in their favourite position. If you place a player on a green spot his performance will be 100%. On yellow it's 80% & on red it's only 50%
Changing Leagues/Countries You can apply to change league at any time during the season, but you will not change until the next season update on Sunday afternoon.
To do so, click on "World" at the top of the page to get to the World Map Page - click on a country and then you get a button appear on the left with "apply to join this league".
Bug reports - you can report any glitches and bugs with the game. This is not the same as raising a support ticket. Support tickets refer to general gameplay issues, such as if you feel you have been unfairly punished, cheat reports, and payment problems. Bug reports refer to a problem that is actually to do with the coding of the game itself. To report bugs you should use the Bug Report page
Banners and Logos If you would like to request someone make you a Banner/Logo then please post in THE BANNERS AND LOGOS FORUM. Make sure you read the Banner/Logo Forum Rules before posting as they are very specific to that forum.
VM Premium is valuable: It is possible to succeed without it and some players have won the top division without Premium, but it is harder.
VM Premium gives you ability to expand your stadium to increase your revenue, and training ground to increase your players' ability. It also gives you the ability to create 5 youths per week - these act like a lottery ticket, so don't waste them - a youth with high potential can be created by any club, on any training ground - they are worth more when trained without a trainer on the lower training grounds. Make sure you sign all of them every week, and if you get a good one, consider selling him after the 5th training session. This is the earliest point you can sell a player and if you keep them any longer, they are missing out on stats they would get on a higher ground so you will lose value.
Use the forums! - The community on here is very helpful and will generally be happy to answer any questions you may have, just make sure you adhere to the forum rules.
Be sure to renew contracts - Your players can be signed for a maximum of 21 days. Older players can retire after age 31 and if you do not have them signed up for the full 21 days then you have fewer days use of them, and less time to replace them.
Players decline - After age 28, player abilities start to decline. The rate of this will vary by player but increases as players get older so do not be surprised if one of your older players suddenly goes down in rating. Speed, Acceleration and Stamina decline most, followed by technical abilities at a slower rate. Perseverance and Leadership never decline. Training level will also decline from age 28.
Strategy for early success - Top tip for early success is to buy older players. Buying younger players won't get you very far as you can't afford good ones, and you can't improve them due to having a low level training ground. Buy old players to get you up the leagues, transfer list for a bit more than you paid and start piling up some much needed extra credits.
Credits are king in this game.
Difference between Transfer List and Minimum Price options: Transfer list is more commonly used, and means that if you meet the asking price, that player will go on auction for 15 minutes. If nobody outbids you then the player is yours. You can bid lower than transfer list price but that will send an offer to the club who will then decide whether to accept or reject your bid. Minimum price means that you cannot send a bid lower than the minimum and if you meet the asking price, it will still go to the club to decide whether to accept or reject. If accepted, 15 minute auction will follow.
Don't bother upgrading physio dept - You do not need any of these facilities until much further in the game, it's a waste of credits at the beginning - trust me.
Lastly, - & well-done for getting this far, there are Cup competitions that you can enter each season
- some depending upon the current standing of your team ... You can find them here: Cups
And for anyone who wants even more, (I have never used this, but I understand people do find it useful), there is the VMEnhancer which gives additional insight to a couple of things:
Good Luck with the game!
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