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- Massimo Donati, CM/RM, Milan
- Antonio Cassano, AM/RW/ST d) Attackers:
- Allan Delon, CF/ST/AM, Vitoria
- Mark Burchill, ST/CF, Celtic
- Hassan Ahamada, ST/LW/RW, SPVGG U'Haching
- Dimitri Kirichenko, ST/CF, Rostselmash
- Roman Adamov, ST/CF, Rostselmash
- Alberto Gilardino, ST/CF, Verona
- Laurent Silva Da Cruz, ST, Monaco

(More to come in updates of this FAQ, send me your tips too!)

- The absolutely superb players (the top 5 players for the most common positions on the field and a top 10 for strikers).
Name, team, rating and age. If you start with a big team, here are the best players money can buy. The further you progress in the game, the more this list will become obselete and other stars will emerge.

A) Goalkeepers
- Buffon, Juventus, 90, 23
- Barthez, Man Utd, 89, 30
- Kahn, Bayern Munchen, 86, 32
- Martyn, Leeds Utd, 85, 34
- Nigmatullin, Lokomotiv, 83, 26

B) Central Defenders
I placed Balabonov on top, but he's almost impossible to buy, way too expensive for almost any team at the beginning of the game. Most of the time he does appear under a Bosman ruling after about 4 years.
- Balabonov, Dobrich, 99, 22
- Hyypia, Liverpool, 88, 27
- Stam, Man Utd, 87, 28
- Campbell, Arsenal, 85, 26
- Nesta, Lazio, 83, 25

C) Right backs
- Babbel, Liverpool, 87, 28
- Cafu, Roma, 86, 31
- Thuram, Juventus, 85, 29
- Zanetti, Inter, 83, 27
- Gary Neville, Man Utd, 81, 26

D) Left Backs
- Roberto Carlos, Real Madrid, 84, 28
- Iuliano, Juventus, 83, 27 - cannavaro, Parma, 82, 27
- Silvinho, Arsenal, 81, 27
- Hreidarson, Ipswich, 80, 26

E) Centre Midfielders
- Zidane, Real Madrid, 92, 28
- Nedved, Juventus, 85, 28
- Seedorf, Inter, 84, 25
- Titov, S. Moscow, 84, 25
- Hamann, Liverpool, 84, 27

F) Right Midfielders
- Figo, Real Madrid, 92, 28
- Beckham, Man Utd, 87, 26
- Luis Enrique, Barcelona, 81, 31
- Conceicao, Inter, 80, 26
- Gattuso, Milan, 79, 22

G) Left Midfielders
- Giggs, Man Utd, 84, 27
- Overmars, Barcelona, 82, 28
- Gronkjaer, Chelsea, 80, 23
- Coco, Milan, 80, 24
- Zambrotta, Juventus, 79, 24

H) Attacking Midfielders
- Rui Costa, Milan, 87, 29
- Denilson, Betis, 86, 24
- Totti, Roma, 85, 24
- Scholes, Man Utd, 85, 26
- Nakata, Parma, 83, 24

I) Attackers
Ronaldo and Raul are in the game, but under a different name. It's easy to modify the names of these players. Ronaldo is with Inter Milan and
Raul with Real Madrid of course. The will be the unknown strikers with very high ratings.
- Ronaldo, Inter, 89, 24
- Vieri, Inter, 87, 27
- Henry, Arsenal, 86, 23
- Raul, Real Madrid, 86, 24
- Kluivert, Barcelona, 86, 25
- Larson, celtic, 86, 28
- Bergani, Cobreloa, 85, 20
- Owen, Liverpool, 85, 21
- Shevchenko, Milan, 85, 24
- Van Nistelrooy, Man Utd, 85, 25

- Keep an eye on the Eufa Cup and the Champions League. Be on the lookout for unlikely teams. When you spot a team that you wouldn't expect, take a look at their roster, they might have a few players you can use.

- If you buy a non-EU player and you play him regularly for three years, he will get EU status.

- Bringing a non-EU player to England will increase his value just because he will be playing in a thougher competition. In any case' you should be able to get a nice profit when you sell the player.

- Do not loan a player you intend on buying during the next transfer period.
Why not? If you loan that player, his ratings will go up in case you have a training facility (which you should have very early on!). That player will thus become more expensive for you to buy.

- The Bosman ruling really kicks in at the third year. Lots of players will hit the market that are available without a transfer fee. However, plan carefully. You have to pay the signing fees before a new finnacial period starts. If You have to cough up 7 million in signing fees and you only have 4 million over the financial target, you will end you financial year with a big hole in the budget. Not reaching your financial objective will get you an angry e-mail from the chairman. Falling millions short can get you fired.

- Beware of players on the transfer list who are injured for a long time.
(Longer than 10 weeks) If you have a medical centre and a doctor, you will be warned for risky transfers, but if you do not have a doctor to give you advice, then you might be better off buying the lower rated player who does have a good condition.



4) Facility Development
-----------------------

General advice:

- Don't build to close to your stadium, so you have room to upgrade your stadium. A friend of mine surrounded his stadium with facilities and found himself boxed in when he wanted to expand his stadium.

- Start with a medical centre, so you can hire a doctor. This greatly reduces the risk of a career ending injury.

- Your second priority is a training centre. Now you can hire a good coach to get your players'ratings up.

Facilities: a) Medical Centre: A first priority for long-term management. Speeds recovery of injured players and reduces the risk of career ending injuries. Upgrade this falility when you can afford it or really need it. b) Training Centre: A second priority and essential if you want to develop your players. Upgrade this facility as soon as possible when you have the resources. And be sure to get the best coach out there to train your guys. c) School of Excellence: To improve the quality of your own youth players.
A pretty good investment, but very much on the long term. If you can spare the money, upgrade the School as quickly as possible to get the maximum out of the local talent. d) Clubhouse: Cheap, only one level and attracts more active fans. Put it as close to the stadium as possible, without hindering future stadium development. Not quite necessary for big clubs, but a great help for the little teams. e) Sports Shop: Increases income from merchandising. Is well worth the investment, but it all depends on the number of supporters that attend the matches. f) Car Park: If your stadium is packed for every home game, you don't need it.
Only interesting if you can't seem to fill your stadium. g) Hotel: Consider building a Hotel only when you are a regular contender in
European competitions. Attracts more away supporters when the visiting team is from abroad. Even for big clubs this is the lowest priority facility.



5) Stadium Development
----------------------

- When an upgrade to your stadium is complete, go to tickets and change the visiting team seats a bit. If you do not do this, the upgrade of the stadium will not affect the attendance. If you do a major upgrade, you'll have to allocate more seats for the visiting team (about 1/7th of the full stadium capacity)

- Take a look at your teams info page before you decide to expand your
Stadium. How many active fans do you have? This number goes up slowly if your team performs well, but there's no need to have a 60.000 seat stadium when you only have 30.000 active fans.

- When you have decided to expand the stadium, take a look at the calendar and see when your last home game of the season is. Start construction right after that last home game, thus limiting the number of matches you have to miss that part of the stadium. Of course, this does not apply when you build a new stand where there was none before (e.g. in corners with only lights).

- Expand the stadium in little steps, increasing the seats by a few thousand at a time. Expanding the stadium by 15.000 seats at a time might leave you with 10.000 empty seats during home games. Even when you play every home game for a full stadium, upgrade in small steps.



6) General Tips
---------------

- Do not try to rush things. If it takes you two seasons to get your team into the higher division, so be it. If you try to rush things by buying players like mad, you will create some major money issues down the road.

- Don't be cheap on support staff. Sign the best trainer, doctor or scout there is, these investments pay off in the long term.

- If you do not use the auto-training option, check on the training settings at least once every two weeks. Players returning from injury won't resume training if you don't put them back on the training shedule.
Auto-training takes some workload of your back, but the downside is that your players keep training on the same skills week after week.

- If you put aggression all the way down, your players will hardly get any cards, but it shouldn't affect the performance of your defense. (This is a tip I received from another Gamefaqs member and I haven't tried it out yet, so I can't confirm if your defense doesn't give up more goals this way.)



7) Team Management (Coming in through the main gate)
----------------------------------------------------

What I mean by "coming through the main gate" is starting with a team like
Manchester United, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Juventus or Bayern Munich. There is no great challenge in coaching Man United to a Champions League win in this game. You start with world class players, a ton of money, a big stadium and lot's of loyal supporters. However, there are some guidelines you should keep in mind.

- You have lot's of money, but don't spend it all at once. Don't start by buying Ronaldo, just because you want him. Do you need him? Are you prepared to sell another player later on to achieve your financial objective? If you start a game with a big team, go training first, then you can go shopping.

- If you really want a great player, check out the list of top 5 players in the transfer section of this guide. Keep in mind that some of these players aren't that young anymore, so when building a team for the future, buy the mid 20's rather than the late 20's players.

- Start by building facilities and pitch upgrades, you can afford them and your team will benefit greatly.

- Try to find a balance between young talent and more mature effeciency. You could theoretically build a team with only 90+ rating players, but these