football scores today

Let’s be honest for a minute. We’ve all been there. You’ve spent hours crafting what you believe is the perfect tactic in Football Manager 2020. Your squad is brimming with potential, the board’s expectations are manageable, and you’re feeling confident. Then, a seemingly random event—a dubious penalty call against you, a star player missing a sitter from six yards, a defensive lapse you simply didn’t see coming—sends your meticulously built house of cards tumbling down. It’s a feeling of pure frustration, a sense that the game itself has conspired against you. I remember a crucial Champions League semi-final where my center-back, a model of consistency all season, decided to handle the ball in the 89th minute for absolutely no reason. The post-match interview played in my head exactly like the quote from Mo Tautuaa: “I’m not gonna say much. You all saw the play. I don’t agree with the call. That’s the exact opposite of the right call.” In that moment, FM isn’t just a game; it’s a narrative engine that sometimes writes its own tragic—and infuriating—scripts. But here’s the secret the best managers know: success isn’t about avoiding these moments. It’s about building a system so robust that these “wrong calls” become mere footnotes in a successful campaign, not the defining story of your season.

Mastering FM2020, therefore, starts with accepting its chaos. The match engine is a simulation, and like any simulation, it has its quirks and perceived injustices. Your job is to engineer consistency from that chaos. For me, tactical success has always hinged on two pillars: defensive solidity as a non-negotiable foundation, and attacking fluidity built around one or two truly world-class players. Let’s talk defense first. I am a firm believer that titles are won from the back. In my current save with AC Milan, I built my entire philosophy on a rock-solid base. I don’t mess around with a high line unless I have the personnel for it—which, let’s face it, most of us don’t in the first season. I prefer a mid-block, pressing with more intensity in my own half, usually around 65-70% of my defensive width. This conserves stamina and forces the opponent into areas where my players are numerically strong. My key metric? Expected Goals Against (xGA). If my xGA is below 1.0 per game over a 10-match stretch, I know the system is working. It’s boring to some, but it’s effective. I’ll happily win 1-0 every week. This approach minimizes the impact of those FM “moments.” A fluke goal might cost you one game, but it won’t derail your season.

Now, the fun part: the attack. While defense is about system, attack is about maximizing individuals. The single most important thing I do in any save is identify my “difference-maker” and build everything around him. In FM2020, players like Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, or a veteran like Lionel Messi can be those cheat codes. But it’s not just about buying them; it’s about creating a tactical ecosystem where they thrive. For a prolific striker, this means understanding his preferred moves. Is he a pressing forward? Then you need a high line and aggressive triggers. Is he a target man? Then you need wingers who will actually cross the ball—and I mean really cross it, not cut inside every single time. I made the mistake once of buying a classic target man and then playing with inverted wingers. He scored 4 goals in 25 games. It was a disaster. I learned my lesson. Now, I use player instructions religiously. My creative midfielder is always told to take more risks, my full-back on the side of my winger with the “cuts inside” trait is instructed to stay wider and overlap. These small tweaks create the space for your stars to operate. Data is your friend here. Don’t just look at average ratings; dive into the stats. If your playmaker is averaging 45 passes per game but only 1.5 key passes, something is wrong. Is he too deep? Is he isolated? Tweak and observe.

Player management, however, is where the game is truly won or lost. Tactics are just lines on a screen without the right players executing them with the right mentality. Morale is everything. I’ve seen a team with mediocre tactical familiarity but superb morale outperform a tactically perfect but unhappy squad countless times. My rule is simple: praise training ratings of 7.8 or above, and criticize anything below 6.3. Hold a team meeting after two bad losses, but never after one—it feels like an overreaction. And for heaven’s sake, manage your promises. I once promised a young prospect first-team football and then failed to deliver because he got a long-term injury. The entire dressing room turned against me, and my board confidence plummeted to 35%. It took me half a season to recover. Squad rotation is another critical, often overlooked, element. In a season with maybe 55 games, your key players cannot start more than 75% of them if you want to avoid burnout and injuries. I keep a simple spreadsheet tracking starts and substitute appearances. If a player is nearing 35 starts by March, I force him to rest, even for a cup game. This isn’t just realism; it’s a practical necessity to maintain performance levels in the crucial final months.

So, after thousands of in-game hours and more virtual trophies than I can count, what’s the ultimate takeaway? Football Manager 2020 is a game of layered control. You can’t control the referee’s decision, the random deflection, or that moment of individual madness from a usually reliable player—the digital equivalent of Tautuaa’s disbelief. What you can control is everything leading up to that moment. You control the tactical structure that limits your opponent to low-percentage chances. You control the morale of the squad so that one setback doesn’t spiral. You control the development of your wonderkid so that in two seasons, he’s the one winning you games you have no right to win. The joy of FM isn’t in scripting perfect victories; it’s in building a club that can withstand the storms, adapt to the setbacks, and ultimately, through your guidance, find a way to win anyway. Start with a solid defense, build your attack around a genius, manage your people like a real leader, and you’ll find that those “wrong calls” become nothing more than amusing anecdotes on the path to your next title parade. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a youth intake to scrutinize. There’s always another gem to find.