A few tips for the new managers of Fortress and ITSAGOAL.com, provided by fellow managers.

An introduction to ITSAGOAL.com and the Fortress League provided by White Hart Winners manager TopGun2

Welcome to ItsAGoal!

Congratulations on your appointment as the new manager of your team in our Fortress League - your challenge has begun!

IAG will challenge you in every area of football management from tactics and team selection right through to player/staff contracts, insurance and building works. It’s far from easy so we have put together the following ‘Handy Hints’ to help you in the right direction (ignore these at your peril!!):

1. IAG is as realistic as an online football management game can get, that means you are competing with those around you and to reach the pinnacle of the premiership you might need to take a few steps along the career ladder or be prepared for a long road if you want to get there with one club.

2. Firstly the basic info:

• Your league (Fortress) consists of 10 divisions and your division contains of 20 teams including yours - you play each of them twice per season. The top 3 teams are promoted at the end of the season and prize money is awarded to all. There are many other leagues, each operates individually.
• League matches are played at 3am UTC on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
• Each League holds a League Cup in the first half of the season where all 200 teams from your league are entered. More prize money available here too.
• In the second half of the season the IAG Super Cup is held, every club in every league is entered which makes it your best chance to go head to head with the best in the game and boasts some hefty prize money!
• Cup matches are played at 3am UTC on Wednesdays and Saturdays and, on rare occasions, on Sundays.
• Other than those you can play reserve matches at 5pm on Wednesdays and during the end of season break, these give you a chance to experiment with tactics and to give some of your squad players a run out.

3. Equally realistic are the Finances; depending on your division you may struggle to balance the books and this will need to be your first priority in the early stages of your career. You wouldn’t expect Accrington Stanley to be making money hand over fist so if you’re in a low division you’ll find it just as challenging.

• You may be lucky enough to find a decent balance on your club’s bank account, if so, use it wisely. Your Board will hold back 500k as a reserve fund for wages etc and will not allow you to spend that on just anything. As a result your ‘Available funds’ are 500k less than your bank balance.

• Nothing comes for free in IAG, take some time to get to grips with your club’s finances – go to Club > Finances. Take note of what your expenses are and what your income is made up of. Some of these figures you can directly affect (e.g. player wages by renegotiating their contracts or ticket sales by changing your ticket price or building more seats) and some of them rely on other factors (e.g. merchandising and policing costs).

• Make sure you look after your ticket prices, charge too much and you’ll alienate your fans, charge too little and you’ll be losing out on valuable income. Keep an eye on your ‘Oversubscription’, if you have one, which is a measure of how many fans were left outside because your stadium was full.

• Do what you can to keep your expenses down, make sure none of your players are being overpaid. Look for clauses in contracts that can wreck your forward planning. You may need to negotiate some new deals or even sell a player to save on his wages.

4. Players make the team but you don’t have to spend a fortune to get a superstar. You can train your Squad daily with various training types to help each player reach their potential. The quality of your coaches and your choice of training will clearly have an effect on your success on the training pitch. Each player is an individual and will train better in different ways.

5. Another alternative to splashing out on the transfer market is your Youth Academy. You’ll need a scout to find some budding young talent to promote to your academy and a youth coach to help improve their potential. You will have to pay to sign youths to your academy and then renew their deal every 70 days but once they are 16 or over you can try to promote them to the senior squad. Some will sign up and some will decide a life in football isn’t for them, which makes the youth academy a bit of a gamble. There are things you can do to help your chances, the longer you keep a youth in your academy he becomes more likely to stick around.

6. If your current squad aren’t up to the job and your youth system isn’t producing then you may need the transfer market. You can only see players listed from your own league, if you want to buy a player from another league you will need to send a scout out to find them. Top class players will attract many bidders, you may find you need to look at slightly lesser players until you are making enough money to compete with the big boys. Every player can do a job for somebody. Remember where you fit in to the league structure and don’t expect to have top class players in lower divisions very often.

7. No doubt you will have realised by now that your Staff play an important part in your club. You can place vacancy advertisements for each role and wait to see who applies. Each staff member has a job to do but you may feel that some are less important and perhaps even expendable. Staffing can give you an edge over your rivals but can also cause you problems.

8. If you feel you need to expand your Stadium you have the option to build various parts of your stadium. This is obviously expensive so make sure it’s the right thing to do before you call the builder, once he starts there is no going back.

9. Finally, controlling everything, is the Board. You don’t have a say in who they are. They will set you targets and will also put certain restrictions in place. Keep them happy as much as you can. If they’re happy you can be sure you’re doing something right. You may find you have to sacrifice some things to achieve others, achieving everything is virtually impossible.

There are a lot of things to look after and the closer you control the little things, the easier the big things become. Prioritise your targets and plan for the long haul, you can’t win it all overnight. Good luck, you’ll need it!