New Match Order page in depth

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– Posted on August 25, 2017Posted in: General
We’ve put together this more detailed guide to the new match order page, since many of the options and features in it may not be obvious from the first look. We’ll step through each of the tabs at the top of the page.


The START tab


This tab lets you select which lineup you want to start with. You can pick your saved default for this match type, a lineup from a previous match or, of course, decide to start from scratch with an empty one. New users also get a quick start with “assisted lineups”, where the system picks a decent lineup for you.


Sometimes you’ll notice that a player is shown just as a silhouette instead of as a real face. This is because the player in your saved lineup doesn’t play for your team anymore. Make sure you replace him by another player once you get to the Lineup tab.


The LINEUP tab


This is where you make your actual selection for the upcoming match. If you picked a default lineup as a start, you can make changes to it before submitting it as your match order. If you started from scratch, you need to pick players for all positions.


The Player list


Here you find one of the biggest changes from the old match order. Players are now sorted not be main skill, but by the actual contribution a player will make in the match in a certain position. This saves a lot of time when looking for your ideal lineup!


Player list: View modes


But before we go into the various ways you can sort your players, first have a look at the three icons at the top of the list. These are our three view modes, that controls how much info about the players will be shown in the list. You can switch between them whenever you want.


  • Collapsed mode. Shows player name, speciality, form, predicted star rating if sorted by position, and injury if he has one.
  • Smart mode: This shows the above information, but also the key skills that matter for the sorting option you have chosen. Please note that if you have chosen a certain tactic, the skills shown in Smart mode may change as well. For example, when using Counter Attacks, the sorting of any defender positions starts showing passing as well.
  • Expanded mode: This shows all skills, along with age, TSI, salary and personality traits. It also shows date of latest match played.


Form and stamina bars


Please note that in all view modes, we have made form extra visible by our new form meter, shown as a series of ted, yellow or green dots. In Smart and Expanded mode, we also show our new stamina bar. It displays the player’s stamina level as a series of red, yellow or green bars.


Player list sorting


You can sort players in the list in many ways. By position, by shirt number, by name, age, TSI, form, stamina, experience, leadership or set pieces.


Sorting by position is where it really gets interesting. Sorting by position looks at all the player’s skills as well as current form (but not stamina). You will also see the expected star rating for the position in question.


Why have we made this change? We wanted to make the interface more to the point. Looking for a keeper? Cool, we’ll sort the players based on their performance as keeper. Even if the Keeper skill is more important to a Goalkeeper than defending, that doesn’t make Goalkeeping the only relevant skill. Say for example that one player has 15 in keeper but only 3 in defending, and another player has 13 in keeper and 13 in defending. They both have the same level of Set Pieces. The second player is the better keeper in this case. That’s why sorting by keeper skill isn’t the best option.


There are two ways to sort like this:


Either you pick a position in the drop down menu, for example “Forward (Toward wings)” or “Inner Midfielder (Defensive)”. Or you click an empty position in your lineup. If you click for example the Winger position, the player list will automatically sort itself based on that position.


This is really, in our opinion, where the new interface shines – use the field position as a shortcut for any decision you need to do. This way, you will quickly find the best options for each position, even for the bench, and you can sort and select players with a single click.


Sorting by Name, Age, TSI, Form, Stamina etc


These are fairly straight forward. They will sort your players by the requested attribute. If you are in “Smart View” mode, the best four skills of the player will be shown.


Sorting by Category


This one is only for Gold+ supporters. As they can manually assign a category (such as Goalkeepers, Inner Midfielders, Forwards) to their players, they can also sort by these categories in the match order player list.


Two things changes here. First there’s the grouping of the players which is unique to this sorting option.


The second one is more interesting. If you look at two players in two different categories you’ll notice that the skills shown is different, there could even be a different amount of skills shown. That’s because we only show the skills that affect the players performance on the position of his category. So a player categorized as Goalkeeper will have three skills shown: Goalkeeping, Defending and Set Pieces. The other skills are irrelevant for a keeper.


Additionally, they’re actually sorted in terms of importance. It’s important to remember that this is in terms of performance, or star ratings. But most stars isn’t always what you’re looking for, you’re looking for the correct ratings. So while Set Pieces is ranked lowest for a keeper in terms of his individual rating, it still has a very big impact on the defensive indirect set pieces ratings.




The Field


There’s a whole lot of things going on here too. First, let’s take a look at the player positions. As you mouse-over (or is dragging a player) on a position you may notice that it is just not the box itself that gets highlighted, but also an area along some of the edges of the boxes. This indicates the behaviour (offensive, defensive, towards wing or towards middle), while the full box indicates normal behaviour. So the first noteworthy thing here is that you can click on these areas to sort your player list by their performance on that position. Secondly, the area you drop your player will be his behaviour. This will be indicated by an arrow after you dropped him. While we’re on that subject, let’s talk about behaviours.


In addition to dropping the player on the right behaviour, there’s two more ways to change it: As you hover a player you can see arrows pointing in the direction of all relevant behaviours, with the current behaviour being marked in gold. You can also click the player to open a little menu, here’s a dropdown where you can also change the behaviour. So let’s talk about that menu.


Context Menu


By clicking a player or an empty position on the field you open up a little context menu. If you clicked on a player you’ll see next to his name a number. This is the ratings this player will have on that position (in the beginning of the match).


The menu also allows you to select a player as Captain or Set Pieces taker, and you can also remove the player from your lineup completely. Below these options, you have three “ Alternatives”. This shows the 3 best players for that position that hasn’t been chosen yet, along with their star rating (again, for the beginning of the match).


If you designate a player as captain or set pieces taker, this will be shown on the corner of his avatar on the field.


Ratings over time


Let’s talk about “the beginning of the match”. All ratings are by default in the beginning of the match. This is because we can’t predict what will happen in the match that may affect those ratings. This is also true for the team analyzer, so comparing your ratings there is perfect. But maybe you’re still interested to see how your ratings might change over the match, given that nothing unexpected happens that might affect those ratings (injuries, weather events, substitutions, etc)?


Take a look in the upper right corner of this box. There’s 3 tabs here, “Lineup”, “Player ratings” and “Sector ratings”. Choosing either of the later two will open a time line in the corner of the box. Moving this time line will show you how the players stamina drops over the course of the game and how the rating is affected, or how your sector ratings changes over the course of the game if you chose the last tab. This is a very useful tool to decide when is the optimal time to make your substitutions!


Sector Ratings


On to the most important part of the whole interface! I’m talking about the sector ratings. While player performances gives a good hint as to which players you should choose, it’s ultimately irrelevant. What it all adds up to is the sector ratings. With this in mind we show the little mini-pitch which updates live to any (relevant) changes you do. Always keep an eye on this, and use it to try to counter what you think your opponent will do. The sector rating view even has a memory feature, which lets you compare the impact any lineup change has on your sector rating with what you had immediately before. You can also press the M+ button to create a benchmark for your sector rating, and compare to that while you make a number of changes to the lineup.


Training mode


Another nice little feature is the “training mode” (only available in friendlies and offical matches, and the simulator). Activating it will show you which positions are relevant for your training. For youth both trainings are shown, and more important positions/players is marked by double circles (for set pieces) and smaller effect is marked by dashed circles. Note that residual training (very small effects) is not marked. Also, if you activate training mode, any player that played in your weekend match will be marked with a blue ribbon in the player list. This will make it easier to decide which players still need training in your friendly or Cup match.


Tactics and Attitude


Last let’s talk about the footer on the field. Tactic and attitude is pretty straight forward, but in the end you’ll see the formation. It’s marked in red if the formation is invalid, and shows the formation experience if it’s valid. Mouse-over the box to see all the experience of all your formations.


Substitution Bench


We’ve added two places on the bench, so you can now use 7 subs in total. The most important other thing to note here is that you can put the same player on several bench positions, making for example your Wing Back sub a backup for your Central Defender sub. Also note that you can click these positions as well to see the recommended players that hasn’t been chosen yet. Read the information box (press the info-icon in the corner) for details on how the bench works. The Extra slot on the subs bench does not get recommended players, however, as we make no assumptions on how these substitute slots are to be used by you as a manager.


The TEAM ORDER tab


To start setting up team orders you can use the “New team order” button in the list to the right. The setup is pretty self-explanatory. But, there’s another way to setup substitutions. If you drag and drop a player to a new position we automatically set up a team order for you. Drag between the bench and the field and you setup a substitution. Drag a player from the field to another position on the field and you setup a swap, or a behaviour change if the position is empty. In addition, if you have the time line open, we setup the substutition to take place at that exact minute. Remember to check out the “Advanced conditions” for more detailed substitutions.


The PENALTY TAKERS tab


There’s not much to say here, but I’ll give you a little hint at something you might not have known. When your set pieces taker is removed from the field (by card, injury or substutition) the replacement will be the next player in the penalty takers list. So if for some reason you don’t want the best player to be set pieces taker you can set him in a later position in the penalty takers list (remember, the first 5 will always get to shoot). This might be useful if you want to optimize your specialties (header helps you score more often in set pieces).


The REVIEW tab


Here you can find a summary of your lineup and compare them to the opponents previous ratings. This is a stripped down version of the team analyzer provided for convenience. For a more extensive analysis we recommend you use the team analyzer instead (available by a link in the upper right corner of the page).


You can also save your lineup here for later use as well as saving it as your default lineup.


One thing to note: We have a coming feature, which is Main Marking. When released, you will be able to change man marking here. But do so carefully! Man marking an opponent affects the sector ratings, so make sure you go back and look at your ratings when you set man marking so there’s no surprises.


The SEND ORDER tab


This is quite self-explanatory – this button saves the order for the match in question. What may be pointed out is that you can use this at any time, there is no need to use all tabs before you do. If you are happy with the lineup you loaded in step one, you can send that one in as it is.




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