How to build a squad in a football manager game

You take the job, open the player list, count four centre backs and no left back, and your first instinct is to go straight to the transfer market. Sit on that for a few days. Learning how to build a squad in a football manager game starts before any signing, with the dull part: working out what you already have, what it costs to keep it standing, and where the squad will crack in February.
This one is about squad construction itself. Not about negotiating, not about picking a formation, but about deciding how many players you need, of what type, at what age, on what wages.

What does building a squad actually mean?

Building a squad in a management game means choosing its composition: how many players per position, in what age range, on what level of wages, and with how much left over for next year. Sunday's team sheet follows from that. Get the construction wrong and no choice of starting eleven will save you.
Notice that the word squad is doing more work here than the word team. The team is whoever walks onto the pitch. The squad is the whole group, including the backup goalkeeper who plays twice all year and the eighteen year old you promoted from the youth side who will barely feature this season.
In Footy Manager that group lives under two pressures at once: club finances, which cap the wage bill, and board objectives, which want results now. Building well means finding the squad that survives both.

Start with the position map

Before you sign anybody, write down how many players you have in each position and how many of them you would actually pick. That is your position map, and it almost always exposes a hole the alphabetical squad list hides.
The dangerous gap is rarely the empty position, which anyone spots. It is the position with two names where one is a teenager who is not ready and the other is thirty three. On paper, two. In practice, one and a half, and none of them available in January if the veteran pulls a hamstring.
Once the map is done, do the same for age and for wages. A squad where every starter is past thirty wins matches this year and hands you the bill two years later. A squad made only of kids loses now and does not pay the board's rent either. What works sits in between: a spine of experienced players holding it together, a block of players in their prime, and a few young ones growing behind them.
Wages deserve the same attention. That is the cost that returns every month, unlike a transfer fee, which lands once and then leaves the news cycle. In Footy Manager, club finances and infrastructure come out of the same pot, and a squad that is too expensive eats the money that would have grown the club.

Building a squad in a football manager game: six steps

Start from the players already in the building, then go shopping. This order avoids most first season damage:

• 1. Draw the position map. Two columns: how many players per position, and how many of those you would pick in a match that matters. The gap between the columns is your real shopping list.

• 2. Check the contracts running down. A player in his final year needs either a renewal or a replacement, and both take time. A contract renewal is the deal that extends a player before his current one expires, and doing it early usually costs less than doing it once he is free to talk to everybody else.

• 3. Pick the formation from the squad, not the other way round. If you have three creative midfielders and no winger, building a side that depends on wingers means starting from behind. Shape has a guide of its own, and it changes what you need to buy.

• 4. Set your wage ceiling before you negotiate. Decide what share of income you will spend on salaries and hold that line against the one player you really want. That number is the difference between a tight season and a club in debt.

• 5. Fill the holes in order of risk. A position with nobody comes before a position with one weak option, which comes before the signing that merely improves the first eleven. Almost everyone does this backwards, because buying the star is more fun than buying the backup full back.

• 6. Look at the youth setup before the market. A kid ready to be third choice keeper solves the same problem as a signing, without adding permanent wages. Footy Manager has youth divisions, trials and scouts, and a club on a short budget lives off them.

With all six done, advance a fortnight and look again. A squad that works on paper looks different after the first friendly.

How many players does a squad need?

A squad needs two reliable options for every position that plays every week, plus something extra where your system asks more of a role. That is not a golden rule. It is the floor for not losing a month to one injury and one suspension landing on the same weekend.
The right size depends on how many competitions you are in. A club playing only its domestic league gets by with a lean group. A club playing the league, the national cup and a continental competition in the same season, which is what happens in Footy Manager once your side climbs, needs bodies to rotate and bodies to keep it upright when three starters break down in October.
Oversized squads charge you too. A player who never plays still takes his wages, occupies a place and does not improve. If you have four options for one position, one of them is there for nothing.

The mistakes that cost you a season

The most expensive mistake is not a bad signing. It is building a squad that only works when everyone is fit. The rest turn up in the same places every time:

• Signing a name instead of a position. An excellent midfielder who becomes your fourth midfielder wins you no more matches than the third one did.
• Forgetting the goalkeeper. It is the position that generates the least debate and ruins the most seasons when it is missing.
• Loading up on veterans for the season in front of you. It works once. The year after, you have a high wage bill, an ageing squad and nothing to sell.
• Leaving the youth side idle. With no trials and no scouts working, every future gap becomes a purchase.
• Spending the reserves in a single window. There is another window coming, and it tends to arrive in the same month somebody gets injured.

You can spot a well built squad by how quiet it is. Weeks go by, somebody gets hurt, you swap the part, and the team does not drop a level. That is the whole point, in soccer and in the game.
If you are just starting out and want the basics of a first season, the beginner's guide covers it: https://www.footymanager.net/en/blog/jogo-de-gestao-de-fu…
Once the squad is built, the next decision is shape on the pitch, and choosing a formation has its own guide: https://www.footymanager.net/en/blog/tatica-no-jogo-de-fu…
And if you are still deciding what to install on a modest machine, the checklist is at https://www.footymanager.net/en/blog/jogo-de-manager-de-f…
Footy Manager is a football management simulator for PC built by Marajo Games, with more than 690 clubs across 27 countries simulated in parallel, a transfer market with loans and release clauses, youth setups, club finances and a board asking for results. There is more about it at https://www.footymanager.net/en, and the official store page is at https://store.steampowered.com/app/5096190/footy_manager.