FM19 - Making a Manager - 05 - Semi-Pro Pre-Season

Your choice of pre-season opponents can vary, depending what you want to achieve. My primary concern was to play in friendly fixtures which would generate income for the football club. With this philosophy, we organised away fixtures against the likes of Leeds United, Bradford City, Coventry City and Sheffield Wednesday. They are by no means the crème de la crème of opponents, but they are strong professional teams in the English Football League system. Competing in this away friendlies brought in some much-needed money.

Due to playing against such high-profile teams, we were expected to get hammered. In fairness to us, we were only absolutely outclassed against Leeds United and against Sheffield Wednesday. The scorelines in the other games were somewhat flattering to our opposition. I felt we implemented our tactical approach well and, considering our team contained a number of players on trial, the squad did okay against superior opposition.

We played friendlies against Poole Town, a side in the tier below us, and against Oxford City Nomads. We were expected to win these games and our players put on a very good show. Lessons learned from the previous games had given our players a platform to work off and they excelled against our final two opponents, as we scored a very respectable nine goals. These were very important games to build morale and give a good indicator of what we could expect in the coming season.

If you haven't learned any lessons during your own pre-season fixtures, you're not paying enough attention. No team is flawless. I saw a clear development in how my players understood our tactical philosophies, the fitness levels of the players improved and the team cohesion soared, with players almost knowing where team mates were without looking. We had built the foundation for a good season. We may have lost the majority of our games but the lessons we learned from these defeats will propel us forward with a new-found sense of clarity.