And now the real game starts. You are ready to choose players for your first match. It goes without saying that by this time you know your squad and have chosen a proper tactic to fit them. You have also set all the relative issues, such as training.

You will have to decide which is your premiere goal for this season? Ok, if you are playing Barcelona you will have to go both for the championship and the champions league, but in case you are playing a lower-division club, you will probably have to decide that you don't care for the cup and your forced will be concentrated on the league matches. This way you will put in the first-team players in important matches, whereas in cup matches you can put your substitutes, or even give the B team members a chance.

Then you will need to take a look to your team's schedule. Is your opponent strong? Maybe a club you will fight against for the first place or to avoid relegation? Then you must win the game, and you will have to use all your club's star players. On the other hand, you might be playing at home against the last team in the league, and then the next match is important. In this case you might want to give your good players a breath, and the substitutes might be good enough to win the match!

A few rules now concerning your squad choises:

• When i am managing a club which can afford enough substitutes, i never put in a player which is not 100% in condition. When managing small clubs, you will have to do this, but keep in mind that this way they will get fastly tired and they might get injured.
• Look at the morale of the players. A player with superb morale is likely to play better than a nuch better player with morale just ok.
• If a player is low (or worse very low) in morale, do not use him, especially if he is playing in a crucial position (e.g. goalkeeper). If this player is important to your team's function, take his as a substitute and put him in for a few minutes in a match you are winning. Then it is quite possible that he will be getting better in the next match.
• Sort your players by form. A player with five 9s and 10s in a row is at a very good condition and is likely to go on the same way. Generally i avoid rotating players that are at such a good form, even if they start getting easily tired, because i have found that, leaving them for one match out, their morale drops and they stop performing as well in most cases.
• On any other case, rotate your team as much as possible!

Before proceding to a match, you will have to choose a captain to your team. This should not be changed if not absolutely necessary and must be a player of high influence in your tea, preferably speaking the native language. If your Gk has a high influence attribute choose him, as he is one of the players that you will not be rotating.The player chosen will perform a little higher than normally!