Hi there Nerazzurri and FM 18 hardcore fans. Greetings to you all!
It’s my pleasure to present you with the outstanding performance of winning the Italian Championship undefeated with Internazionale Milano, in the first season.
These are the things you will learn after reading this post:
- See how I won the Serie A unbeaten
- Find out where you can download the best FM 18 tactics
- Discover a few bargain signings
- Read a few tips that will help you win more matches
This was my first full season in FM 18: I won the Serie A title (and the Coppa Italia) at Inter finishing the season undefeated: 9 games drawn, 29 won. Previously I just tested tactics managing various clubs trying to find this releases’ soft spot.
I’ve got to admit unless I pick one of my favourite teams, it’s kind of hard to concentrate enough to achieve tremendous success in Football Manager 2018.
That’s mainly due to the fact that playing the game the right way – which also happens to be the hard way – is very time-consuming. And I’m pretty short of time lately.
But I can tell you that FM 18 isn’t disappointing…
Football Manager 2018 Pros and Cons
This is not exactly a Football Manager 2018 review but a list of interesting changes in this year’s release. The FM 2018 new features aren’t mindblowing but I wasn’t expecting them to be like that anyway.
- Scouting seems to work as you’d expect it to, in the sense that there’s less you have to do in order to find worthwhile prospects.
- Team Chemistry can now be understood by the human manager with the help of the Dynamics panels. YAY! No more guessing games!
- The Matchday Experience is a bit weird if you compare it to FM 17. The upside is that they’ve actually improved it since BETA. Extra clicking is required and it takes a bit of getting used to, though…
- Your player’s reaction to Team Talks is better described
- The FM 18 Match Engine is nothing like FM 17. Low crosses coming from slightly more central positions (as opposed to the wider areas) seem to work best. Forwards are awful when it comes to finishing on one-on-ones.
- Player Traits literally work.
- Although players are emotionally unstable you can solve most of their concerns as long as your team is performing well. Most of the times I ask the captain to give me a hand with those matters – and it works!
Now let’s get down to business!
Serie A Final Standings (1st season)
Inter Best Eleven
Top Performers Stats
Awards
- Icardi won Serie A Top Goalscorer award (31 goals)
- Icardi named Serie A Player of the Year winner (7.49 Avg Rat)
- Icardi won the European Golden Shoe award
- Six of my players were selected in the Serie A Team of the Year: Handanovic, Kannemann, Ranocchia, Valero, Joao Mario & Icardi
- Handanovic won Serie A Goalkeeper of the Year
- Perisic won Serie A Midfielder of the Year
- Icardi won Serie A Striker of the Year
- I won Head Coach of the Year
Goal of the Season
Worthwhile Transfers
I’ve got to admit I wasn’t too busy in the mercato. I’ve let Nagatomo go for £5 million and brought only 4 players (spent just £5.5), out of which one was loaned in and another couldn’t be registered so I’ve sent him out on loan.
Antonio Barreca
Got him on loan with a £10 million Optional Future Fee. Unfortunately, he damaged his cruciate ligaments on April the 1st (not joking) and the spell was interrupted by the AI. Otherwise, I would have definitely signed him for that fee (he was capped twice for Italy under my command).
Walter Kannemann
Mr Nice Guy is half Argentinian and half German. Picked him up for a measly £2.5 million before he got the chance to sign a new contract with Gremio. He is one of the recommended signings in my recently published FM 2018 eBook. He made it into the Serie A Team of the Year, which is not too bad.
Khama Billiat
Guess how much I had to pay to sign the 2016 African Champions League winner you’ve probably never heard of? Half a million pounds. His wages you’re asking? £900.000 per year. He might not be a world-beater but he’s been my number one AMR and an occasional striker.
Alejandro Chumacero
As Billiat is non-EU and Inter have already signed Dalbert in this window I couldn’t register Chumacero, but he did play a few games for Napoli. I reckon he’s going to outperform the South African right-winger. A £500.000 bid was enough for The Strongest to say yes.
The best part: He’s on a £400.000/year salary. Beat that!
Football Manager 18 Tips
- Follow these selection criteria: Morale, Current Ability & Fitness. I like rotating the starters more than anything but I recommend you not to get over the top with it in this release. Your team will suffer when you start the youths to rest the stars. Frankly, I was lucky to get away with it a couple of times, but I’ve learned my lesson.
- Be mindful of Individual Training: assign a low-intensity level when adding an Additional Focus to avoid injuries.
- Constantly monitor Dynamics: The Happiness screen is very useful because it gives you an overall picture of what’s going on in your squad.
- Ask players to learn/unlearn Player Traits (Player Preferred Moves). It can pay off. I managed to stop Antonio Candreva from cutting inside as often as he did despite the respective coach had initially said it wouldn’t be likely to happen due to his age.
- Change tactics as many times as you feel the need to during a match. Unless your Morale is very low, this trick should work most of the times. For me, it worked every time…
‘Tactics, what about tactics?‘ I hear you asking…
Football Manager 18 Tactics
After spending 200 hours on FM 18 I can gladly say I found a few tactics that suit this match engine. You will find the three tactics I used in this save inside FM 18 Can’t Win To Champion – this years’ release of my annual FM eBook. Best of luck!
FM 2018 is a bit more flexible than its predecessors, in the sense that you can have success with multiple formations: One, two and three striker formations can be used successfully. Not sure about strikerless though, but I believe it could work as well.
Also, shorter passing can work, as well as direct passing, so this gives us a lot of freedom to experiment with different playing styles…
