Lower League Management Tips for Football Manager 2020

My favorite saves in FM have started in lower leagues. It is perilous, intimidating, and exciting to have no money or infrastructure at your back, but the climb can be the most rewarding experience in the Football Manager universe.

For this video I set out to prep players for the lower league experience. What to expect, what to anticipate, and what to do to make your team more successful. Tactical advice included, of course - and scouting, because duh.

Cheers, peeps.

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[DigitalBath]

I'm so used to playing lower leagues that when I play with top clubs I don't know what to do with all that money.

[franciscomarcelino]

Trialist: "Hey coach what should i..."
Me (who just saw the 1, 5 stars): "GET OUT"

[Withanopinion]

I just got promoted to the Premier League after 4 seasons at Charlton, I only bought the game recently so it's my first save. It's such an great feeling to promote a bad team. Your channel helped me a lot in understanding the game, so thanks.

[mateusgapski]

I'm currently on a campaing with the almighty Cheddar F.C, directly from the 10th div.
Got back to back promotions, only using youth recrutiment (can't buy players).
The last one required some amazing mental stuff from my players. 2-1 down, last match, pen for the other team.
Goalkeeper catches, 2-2 on 79', 3-2 on '89.
Champion (only promotion spot) on goal difference.
No title, any team, any season, will surpass this experience.

[axfaxf]

just bought the game after a 4 year break. bring the pain, thats whats footballs about imo. wo the pain, theres no gain. thx a lot for the gr8 content. :).

[johndeschlong]

The most entertaining FM youtuber, by a country mile.

[HCforLife]

Yep - from amatour club to semi-pro in 2 seasons, and 10 seasons later - 3 leagues later pro club, and than 10 more seasons to climb 2-3 tiers up... thats my game now.

[realwizardry]

Lol I only ever manage lower-league teams in FM. "Pain"? It's FM for me xD "Started from the bottom, now we here" kind of approach

[tetraneutron]

My best Run in the lower league was not with a direct tactic, except when away from home or against hard teams. FM17 Gainsborough, Noel Burdett on loan from Scunthorpe initially (at the club when I started). He is a deep lying forward with exellent vision at this level (13) and not bad at passing. So I set up 4-4-2 and looked in my squad for a striker and wingers with good enough off the ball to be played in behind, coupled with CM's with off the ball and passing (I put them on additional training regimes for any attributes below 8 that they needed) for him to recycle possession off. He would always have an option to play a through ball or a safe pass to to midfield, to receive the ball back and have another look for a through ball. I built a centrally penetrating control tactic, and Burdett did the rest. Had an absurd unbeaten streak and could not even be written off as an apparent relegation candidate at 3-0 down against promotion contenders.
You see who your key player is and you get the best out of him by not surrounding him with your other best players, but players with the skills to accomodate his exceptional ability. That is how you win in non-league. Even on my more defensive, direct grind tactic the philosophy was the same, go through Burdett, support him in midfield, and run off him in attack.

[mostaphaelmokdad]

Man I've been playing fm since the championship manager days and I've been watching fm videos for a few years now and today is the first time I've gotten across 1 of your videos. Love them!!!!

[MrAfalsetta]

The lower league saves are awesome.
I'm doing one journeyman save where I ended starting at Ekenas Tammisaari. The club was overbudget at the time and the rules of finnish league force you to play with finnishs player on your first team. I really need foreign strikers and there's no good wingers of finnish origins.
I saw that my team had some finnish players in the middle that where very good at passing and decision for the second tier of finnish football (even for first tier actually), that i ended up choosing a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond with vertical tiki-taka. I follow the idea of Brian Clough, simply put your best players to play.

i lost 4 in a row and were almost giving up, i didn't know how to put a defensive line without wingers (not the role, the position) so I said fuck it, let's keep the tactics.
My team got in a sequece of 15 wins straight (match cohesion improvement obviously). Winning in a save of bigger clubs don't give the same satisfaction that when you have to try something new.

I never played vertical tiki taka before, especially in the lower leagues.

[roman]

The testosterone is dripping off this guy, there's literally chesthair popping out from his shirt.

[HIM]

I love how u started with how u are elaborating pain 😂

[jasonglasser]

Been playing an FM20 save with Sportul Snagov in Romania 2nd tier (started unemployed, only loaded in Eastern/Central Europe as well as Italy so I have a way up to the big leagues when the time comes). First season we were such heavy favorites to go down, the preseason meeting my team wouldn't agree with me that we could even stay up (and a relegation would have removed us from being playable). Finished 12th, up safely by a decent margin.

I'm in the middle of season 2 now. Preseason expectation was either safety or midtable depending on if you go by the board's initial request, or the option I took in order to get a little more money. We're in 8th, 4 points from the playoff, including a 1-0 win over Astra Giurgiu who were supposed to walk the league after being relegated from the top tier the year before. They're in 5th, and the other relegated team (Hermannstadt) are 10th.

[Mohammad_.-]

I find this channel just today
I Love your personality .. you're obviously a Model Citizen
So .. I started playing from fm17 and never did a save with lower league team .. I'm a sucker N i only did Chelsea till 2027 :/
And then from last save I did a Fulham save N I was like oh this is painful .. Fun!
And after I was able to sign Haaland for Chelsea in fm20 i was like nah .. I'm good
So i started a save unemployed .. got hired by the Mighty U's aka Cambridge United
Promoted them back to back to Championship
And then I saw at the beginning of the season .. like there's no money
So that would've been more pain than I wanted to experience so I bailed on em and got hired by Palace and to sell all those *old* players and
re-haul was heck of a work
So the first season I finished 12th
And then I was required to get 8 points from 5 match to not get fired because we were supposed to be top-half
And then the next season we ended up @ 9th and last season was 3 points and 9 goals short of the UCL spot and I finally won sth which was the Carabao Cup ..
Also club got bought last year i think :/
@ this point i forgot what was The point .. but then i saw your Sos video and that dude with Cheltenham save was like me N i realised I did give up soon but now I'm like if i win the UEFL .. I'm good and I wanna move on maybe to another mediocre team in another country ..

[SteveGerrard]

Just got back-to-back promotions from Hungarian third division(enabled via editor) up to the first with Hungary's second oldest club(1887). Actually winning both divisions by 10-15 points. When I took over, we were predicted to be 5th in the third division, then of course in the second division bookies favoured us to get relegated at the rock bottom. Still did not make a non-free signing, got my best striker snapped up by french league 2 along the way but that at least remedied the club's finances.

My approach was to build up a team with tons of stamina and teamwork, compared to other teams around me of course. It worked like a charm after the team gelled together. When we got up to the second division I was a bit skeptical but we got off to a good start and actually stormed the whole thing to my huge surprise. Not really direct, rather short passing, high intensity, narrow, gegenpress, other teams just can't handle our stamina and togetherness. Looking forward for the first division, though I expect it won't be a cakewalk this time. Also got to two cup quarter finals along the way barely losing both.

Haven't played since fm17, forgot how I love this game.

[johnmarani]

Thanks! Starting off way down in the French Professional league with Red Star FC after a good but short run in Ligue 1. Appreciate the tips!

[asfhiouadhvioahvb]

Llm is the equivalent of manual driving, full of pain but satisfying once you’re successful

[GoheadGaucho]

Just started my first lower level saved today with fc united 😆 and this vid comes out..
*i found out that DOF suggestion is super helpful(even if your club didnt have any, for my case anyway)
*when looking for *unnattached player in the player search, put in this condition * at least 1 cap for national team, or 1 youth cap
*another filter is, second nationality, i would choose english..or any european country

Found some hidden gem using this filter 😆

This lower league saves is a good suffering so far..highly recommend 👌👌👌

[MareShabazz]

I'm using the same tactic (fmbase) in my German 4. League career atm. I had to do a lot of signing/releasing to adopt to the tactic but i still managed to reach 5. and 2. place in the first seasons. Considering being a recently promoted team with media ratings about 1:500 it’s been really successful. Absolutely recommend it. Defense robust as f! Offense pretty strong. I changed the DM‘s to BWM and Playmaker. They are just overperforming hardcore on a constant basis (like 20 games in a row with 7+ rating). Strikers are performing pretty average and the wings are very important!! Try to get some WB with pace and Offense ability rather than defensively strong ones. The 4 DM and CB will generate a strong Defense anyways.
It won’t be self-running and requires a lot of trials and scouting/ searching yourself. But if you enjoy and bring the effort in squad planning you‘ll have success pretty quick.