=--------------------------------------= |Fifa Football 2005 Elite Players Guide| =--------------------------------------= Game: Fifa Football 2005 (a.k.a. Fifa Soccer 2005) Producer: EA Sports (http://www.easports.com) Systems: PC, XBOX, GC, PS2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =--------= |Contents| =--------= 1. Introduction 2. Updates List 3. Preliminary Information 4. Squad Management Overview 5. Goal Keepers 6. Defenders 7. Midfielders 8. Forwards 9. Creation Centre Information 10. Career Mode Information 11. Frequently Asked Questions, Tips and General Advice 12. Credits 13. Legal Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =---------------= |1. Introduction| =---------------= Hi all. This is my first FAQ so I hope you find it useful. If you need any help with or want to comment on the guide, need help with the game, or just want to chat, then please email me at (oblivions_end007@hotmail.com). Fifa 2005 is definately one of the best Fifa games yet. It has a lot of new and improved features that have improved gameplay by monumental proportions over last year's installment. Career Mode is one of these features that have been updated, and to complete career mode easily, you might want to trade a few elite players to your team. However, outside Career Mode you can also trade players with no limitations in the Squad Management Mode. Due to the value and abilities of players changing in Career Mode, this guide will focus on the Squad Management Mode, however you can still use the information in this guide in Career Mode. I will also give a run down of what the statistics in the Create Player Mode do in terms of how they add up to your player's overall statistics. As there are 4 types of players in the game, I have split this guide into 4 sections. Each section is then divided up into the specific field positions (eg. CAM etc.). Then players will be ranked in terms of skill (SKL) level. There will be some other general interest information for each player. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =---------------= |2. Updates List| =---------------= Version 0.75: Created guide and added preliminary information. Version 0.76: Fixed small errors and added information to section 11 Version 0.95: Created Career Mode section and fixed some errors. To Do List: -Complete Creation Zone Section -Collaborate extra statistics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =--------------------------= |3. Preliminary Information| =--------------------------= This guide was produced with the PS2 version of Fifa 2005, however Im sure you can use it with the GC, XBOX and PC versions as well, as they would probably have the same data. Note: All squads have been updated from the end of the previous transfer window. Also, you may see some significant attribute changes with some players from Fifa 2004 (eg. Didier Drogba had a SKL of 69 in 2004 and now has a SKL of 88). These team lists mean that certain players are missing from the game. You can quite easily make them in the Creation Centre if you really want to play as them, which I have noted many people doing. This is a description of how to effectively use this guide. First of all, I will describe each of the attributes. - SKL: Skill Level. This determines the player's overall skill. It is also partly used to determine how well the player can execute first touches etc. - ACC: Acceleration. This shows how quickly a player can get to full speed from a stop. This doesnt affect your skill rating. - AGG: Aggression. This determines how likely your player is to take on an opponent. This doesnt affect your skill rating. - ANT: Anticipation. This shows how likely your player is of anticipating an opponent's next move. This doesnt affect your skill rating. - BAL: Balance. This judges whether or not your player will fall over easily or not when using skill moves. This doesnt affect your skill rating. - BALL: Ball Control. The higher this stat, the better the player will be at performing first touch moves and just generally keeping the ball. - COMP: Composure. This determines how likely your player will stay calm in situations. Probably the most useless stat, this doesnt affect your skill rating. - CREAT: Creativity. This shows how forward thinking the player is. In other words, the better the creativity of the player, the more likely that player will see open players or will use skill moves. This doesnt affect your skill rating. - CROSS: Crossing. This allows players to cross the ball well from the wings. However, you'll still cross poorly if you arent facing the right direction or are going to fast. Surprisingly, this doesnt affect your skill rating. - DRIB: Dribbling. This stat judges how well the player can dribble the ball at high speed. - HAND: Handling. This stat shows how well the player handles the ball. This only applies to keepers. - HEAD: Heading. This determines how well the player will use his head to move the ball around. - LONG: Long Balls. The higher this stat, the longer and more accurate the player's long balls and lobs are. - MARK: Marking. This judges how well a player can guard an opposition player which just means how likely they are of stopping them getting the ball. - PACE: Pace. Arguably the most important stat in the game. This determines how fast your player can run. - PASS: Passing. The higher this stat, the more accurate the passes that the player attempts. - POS: Positioning. This stat determines how well a player positions himself in front of goal. This only applies to keepers. - REF: Reflexes. This stat shows how good a players reflexes are. This only applies to keepers. - RUSH: Rushing. This stat judges how aggressively the player grabs the ball from a strikers feet. This obviously only applies to keepers. - SHT ACC: Shot Accuracy. This determines how likely a shot will hit the target. You still have to be facing the right direction but it does help. - SHT PWR: Shot Power. This judges how hard the player kicks the ball when shooting for goal. Generally when you power up a shot, a player with a higher power will kick it harder than someone with the same power up but lower power stat. - STAM: Stamina. This shows how long your player can sprint for before they get tired. This doesnt affect your skill rating. - STR: Strength. The higher this stat is, the more players you can move out of the way in dead ball situations. (eg. A player with 99 STR can move any other player out of the way, while a player with 10 STR cant move anyone.) - TKL: Tackling. Determines how likely a player can pull off a successful tackle. Although most of these stats are important, the stats that dont affect the SKL rating are just there for the AI control to use. This is how I will list all the players along with an example: [Player Name] - [Age] - [SKL] - [Club] Peter Reed - 17 - 91 - Manchester United Also, you should refer to section 11 for some important information on each player type. Note: More statistics will be added later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =----------------------------= |4. Squad Management Overview| =----------------------------= Squad Management is located in the My Fifa 2005 menu. This area allows you to customize teams by trading players. There are no fee restrictions, prestige points, boards of directors, offer rejections or player swappings here. You can trade whoever you like to wherever you like. However, you must have more than 18 players minimum, and less than 30 players in total! You also need at least 1 keeper. You may be able to trade all your keepers away, but only keepers can play the keeper position so it really defeats the purpose of getting rid of them all. Also, the majority, if not all, the outfield players have very crappy keeper ratings anyway, so it is kinda pointless not having a keeper. Now, I will describe how to use the Squad Management Mode. It is very simple to use, but unfortunately it is very slow and you may find yourself getting irritated by the amount of time you spend creating a team. However, this is generally due to you having to search for good players. First of all, you should choose a team to trade a player FROM. You always trade out. To select a team, you first press either L1 or R1 to move through the Leagues in the game (eg. FA Premier League). Once you have chosen a League, you then press either L2 or R2 to select a team from that league (eg. Manchester United). Simple eh? Now, once you have chosen your team, a list of players will be shown along with each player's age, postion and attributes. This allows you to quickly glance at, and sort the players into specific categories by pressing Square. You can also press Circle to see a set of graphs that give a better indication of a specific player's attributes. Once you have chosen a player to trade, highlight that player, and press X. A popup will appear. You can now select the team you want to trade this player TO. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =---------------= |5. Goal Keepers| =---------------= Goal Keepers are essential to a team's success. They guard the goal, and in terms of Fifa 2005's formations, you need at least 1 per team to actually play the game. In this section of the guide, a list of all the keepers with a skill level (SKL) of 80 or above has been added. There are quite a few keepers that fit into this category, and unless you intend on modifying a lot of different teams, then you probably wont need all of them. Keepers will be listed firstly under their SKL rating and then by the player's name. Other information added includes age, and club they play for. This will allow you to easily identify a player from the default squads. Note: You can always press Square on the positions list when viewing a team to sort the players into position order. Player List: [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Gianluigi Buffon - 96 - 26 - Juventus Casillas - 94 - 23 - Real Madrid Oliver Kahn - 94 - 35 - Bayern Munich Marcos - 93 - 31 - Palmeiras Edwin Van der Sar - 93 - 33 - Fulham Francesco Toldo - 92 - 32 - Inter Milan Carlo Cudicini - 91 - 30 - Chelsea Shay Given - 91 - 28 - Newcastle Fabian Barthez - 90 - 33 - Marseille Dida - 90 - 30 - AC Milan Antonis Nikopolidis - 90 - 32 - Olympiakos Canizares - 89 - 34 - Valencia Tim Howard - 89 - 25 - Manchester United Mickael Landreau - 89 - 25 - Nantes David James - 88 - 34 - Manchester City Molina - 88 - 34 - Deportivo La Caruna Timo Hildebrand - 87 - 25 - Stuttgart Jens Lehmann - 87 - 34 - Arsenal Petr Cech - 86 - 22 - Chelsea Reina - 86 - 22 - Villarreal Victor Valdes - 86 - 22 - Barcelona Rogerio Ceni - 85 - 31 - Sao Paulo Brad Friedel - 85 - 33 - Blackburn Antti Niemi - 85 - 32 - Southampton Angelo Peruzzi - 85 - 34 - Lazio Roy Carroll - 84 - 26 - Manchester United Robert Douglas - 84 - 32 - Celtic Christian Abbiati - 83 - 27 - AC Milan Hans-Jorg Butt - 83 - 30 - Bayer Leverkusen Gregory Coupet - 83 - 31 - Lyon Jerzy Dudek - 83 - 31 - Liverpool Sebastian Frey - 83 - 24 - Parma Stefan Klos - 83 - 33 - Rangers Helge Payer - 83 - 25 - SK Rapid Wien Prats - 83 - 32 - Real Betis Flavio Roma - 83 - 30 - AS Monaco Javier Lopez Vallejo - 83 - 28 - Villarreal Vitor Baia - 82 - 34 - FC Porto Cesar - 82 - 32 - Real Madrid Morgan De Sanctis - 82 - 27 - Udinese Rein van Duijnhoven - 82 - 36 - VfL Bochum Fabio - 82 - 23 - Vasco Da Gama Charles Itandje - 82 - 21 - Lens Jussi Jaaskelainen - 82 - 29 - Bolton Kasey Keller - 82 - 34 - Tottenham Pat Onstad - 82 - 36 - San Jose Ricardo - 82 - 28 - Sporting Lisbon Thomas Sorensen - 82 - 28 - Aston Villa Mark Schwarzer - 82 - 31 - Middlesborough Tim Wiese - 82 - 22 - Kaiserslautern Richard Wright - 82 - 26 - Everton Adin Brown - 81 - 26 - New England Julio Cesar - 81 - 24 - Flamengo Helton - 81 - 26 - Uniao Leiria Chris Kirkland - 81 - 23 - Liverpool Nigel Martyn - 81 - 38 - Everton Palop - 81 - 30 - Valencia Ulrich Rame - 81 - 31 - Bordeaux Frank Rost - 81 - 31 - Schalke 04 Tapia - 81 - 37 - Santos Manuel Almunia - 80 - 27 - Arsenal Aranzubia - 80 - 24 - Atletico De Bilbao Fabio Costa - 80 - 26 - Corinthians Robert Enke - 80 - 27 - Hannover 96 Craig Gordon - 80 - 21 - Hearts Kevin Hartman - 80 - 30 - Los Angeles Juninho - 80 - 23 - Esp. Club Vitoria David Marshall - 80 - 19 - Celtic Faryd A. Camilo Mondragon - 80 - 33 - Galatasaray Mora - 80 - 31 - Levante Moreira - 80 - 22 - Benfica Ivan Pelizzoli - 80 - 23 - Roma Paul Robinson - 80 - 24 - Tottenham Jonny Walker - 80 - 29 - NY/NJ Metrostars Note: The skill level of a keeper does not give the best indication of how good they are. You should ALWAYS check the keeper specific attributes as well to find out how good they are. Refer to section 11 for more information. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =------------= |6. Defenders| =------------= Defenders are possibly the most underrated players in football. They have the task of stopping the strikers from going one on one with the keeper. Which makes choosing quality defenders a vital part of any team structure. Again, in this section, a list of all defenders from skill level 80 or above is here. Firstly, the players will be ranked by position, then by skill level. There are various positions that defenders play in. These are LWB, LB, LCB, CB, RCB, RB, RWB and SW. Note: There may be some positions that have not been listed below. This is because there are no players that play in this position that have a skill of 80 or over. Note: For more information on defenders, refer to section 11. Player List: -------- | LWB: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Philipp Lahm - 84 - 20 - Stuttgart Amedeo Carboni - 83 - 39 - Valencia Patrice Evra - 82 - 23 - AS Monaco Bixente Lizarazu - 82 - 34 - Marseille Markus Munch - 81 - 31 - Panathinaikos Vincent Candela - 80 - 30 - Roma ------- | LB: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] R. Carlos - 87 - 31 - Real Madrid Ashley Cole - 87 - 23 - Arsenal Wayne Bridge - 85 - 24 - Chelsea R. Bravo - 84 - 23 - Real Madrid Ivan Cordoba - 82 - 27 - Inter Milan Gabriel Heinze - 82 - 26 - Manchester Utd John Arne Riise - 82 - 23 - Liverpool Giovanni Van Bronckhorst - 82 - 29 - Barcelona Sylvain Armand - 81 - 24 - PSG Cristian Chivu - 81 - 23 - Roma Kakhaber Kaladze - 81 - 26 - AC Milan Sergi - 81 - 32 - Atletico de Madrid -------- | LCB: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Cris - 86 - 27 - Lyon Jose Gomes Edmilson - 84 - 28 - Barcelona Kevin Hofland - 83 - 25 - Wolfsburg ------- | CB: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Alessandro Nesta - 94 - 28 - AC Milan Sol Campbell - 93 - 29 - Arsenal Lucio - 93 - 26 - Bayern Munich Jaap Stam - 93 - 32 - AC Milan Rio Ferdinand - 92 - 25 - Manchester Utd Paolo Maldini - 91 - 36 - AC Milan Roberto Fabian Ayala - 90 - 31 - Valencia Ciro Ferrara - 89 - 37 - Juventus Christoph Metzelder - 89 - 23 - Borussia Dortmund Walter Adrian Samuel - 89 - 26 - Real Madrid John Terry - 89 - 23 - Chelsea Daniel Van Buyten - 89 - 26 - Hamburg SV Dianbobo Balde - 88 - 28 - Celtic Ricardo Carvalho - 88 - 26 - Chelsea Fernando Meira - 88 - 26 - Stuttgart Jens Nowotny - 88 - 30 - Bayer Leverkusen Kolo Toure - 88 - 23 - Arsenal J. Andrade - 87 - 26 - Deportivo La Coruna Fabio Cannavaro - 87 - 30 - Juventus William Gallas - 87 - 27 - Chelsea Jonathan Woodgate - 87 - 24 - Real Madrid Christian Worns - 87 - 32 - Borussia Dortmund Mario Yepes - 87 - 28 - PSG Marcelo Jose Bordon - 86 - 28 - Schalke 04 Sami Hyypia - 86 - 30 - Liverpool Valerien Ismael - 86 - 28 - SV Werder Bremen Marchena - 86 - 25 - Valencia Gabriel A. Milito - 86 - 23 - Real Zaragoza Tomas Ujfalusi - 86 - 26 - Firenze Markus Babbel - 85 - 31 - Stuttgart Juan - 85 - 25 - Bayer Leverkusen Mikael Silvestre - 85 - 27 - Manchester Utd Sebastian Squillaci - 85 - 24 - AS Monaco Igor Tudor - 85 - 26 - Juventus Jamie Carragher - 84 - 26 - Liverpool Conto - 84 - 35 - Lazio Traianos Dellas - 84 - 28 - Roma John O'Shea - 84 - 23 - Manchester Utd Marvin Andrews - 83 - 28 - Rangers Wes Brown - 83 - 24 - Manchester Utd Frank Fahrehorst - 83 - 26 - SV Werder Bremen Juanito - 83 - 28 - Real Betis Zurab Khizanishvili - 83 - 22 - Rangers Mladen Krstajic - 83 - 30 - Schalke 04 Samuel Osei Kuffour - 83 - 27 - Bayern Munich Martin Laursen - 83 - 27 - Aston Villa Thomas Linke - 83 - 34 - Bayern Munich Johan Mjallby - 83 - 33 - Levante Patrick Muller - 83 - 27 - RCD Mallorca Jean-Alain Boumsong - 82 - 24 - Rangers Stephane Henchoz - 82 - 29 - Liverpool Karanka - 82 - 30 - Athletic de Bilbao Nicola Legrottaglie - 82 - 26 - Juventus Rafael Marquez - 82 - 25 - Barcelona Philippe Mexes - 82 - 22 - Roma Nadal - 82 - 38 - RCD Mallorca Pavon - 82 - 24 - Real Madrid Mauricio Andres Pellegrino - 82 - 32 - Valencia Pochettino - 82 - 32 - RCD Espanyol Facundo Quiroga - 82 - 26 - Wolfsburg Julien Rodriguez - 82 - 26 - AS Monaco Pablo Alfaro - 81 - 35 - Sevilla Jose Antonio Garcia Calvo - 81 - 29 - Atletico de Madrid Jorge Costa - 81 - 32 - FC Porto Daniel - 81 - 31 - Palmeiras Sylvain Distin - 81 - 26 - Manchester City Matteo Ferrari - 81 - 24 - Roma Alain Goma - 81 - 31 - Fulham Zdenck Grygera - 81 - 24 - Ajax Ingo Hertzsch - 81 - 27 - Kaiserslautern Sotiris Kyrgiakos - 81 - 25 - Panathinaikos Olaf Melberg - 81 - 26 - Aston Villa Uwe Mohrle - 81 - 24 - H. Rostock Oleguer - 81 - 24 - Barcelona Steven Pressley - 81 - 30 - Hearts Jose Vitor Roque Junior - 81 - 28 - Bayer Leverkusen Nestor Roberto Sensini - 81 - 37 - Udinese Dejan Stefanovic - 81 - 29 - Portsmouth Stanislav Varga - 81 - 31 - Celtic Tomasz Waldoch - 81 - 33 - Schalke 04 Joseph Yobo - 81 - 23 - Everton Lorenzo Amoruso - 80 - 30 - Blackburn Carlos Bocanegra - 80 - 25 - Fulham Daniele Bonera - 80 - 23 - Parma Alessandro Costacurta - 80 - 38 - AC Milan Martin Demichelis - 80 - 23 - Bayern Munich Marco Di Loreto - 80 - 29 - Perugia Claus Lundekvam - 80 - 31 - Southampton Paolo Montero - 80 - 32 - Juventus Jose Karl Pierre-Fanfan - 80 - 29 - PSG Eddie Pope - 80 - 30 - NY/NJ Metrostars Rigobert - 80 - 28 - Galatasaray Martin Stranzi - 80 - 24 - Stuttgart Matthew Upson - 80 - 25 - Birmingham Boris Zivkovic - 80 - 28 - Stuttgart -------- | RCB: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Pablo - 85 - 23 - Atletico de Madrid Luis Amaranto Perea - 83 - 25 - Atletico de Madrid Cesar - 81 - 27 - Deportivo La Coruna Gonzalo - 81 - 20 - Villarreal ------- | RB: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Lilian Thuram - 92 - 32 - Juventus Cafu - 90 - 34 - AC Milan Lauren - 89 - 27 - Arsenal Puyol - 88 - 26 - Barcelona Giourkas Seitaridis - 88 - 23 - FC Porto M. Salgado - 87 - 28 - Real Madrid Jackie McNamara - 85 - 30 - Celtic Juliano Hans Belletti - 84 - 28 - Barcelona Paulo Ferreira - 84 - 25 - Chelsea Massimo Oddo - 84 - 28 - Lazio Andreas Hinkel - 82 - 22 - Stuttgart Gary Neville - 82 - 29 - Manchester Utd Michael Reiziger - 82 - 31 - Middlesborough Joos Valgaeren - 81 - 28 - Celtic Gael Givet - 80 - 22 - AS Monaco Niels Onde Kamphuis - 80 - 26 - Schalke04 Mario Melchiot - 80 - 27 - Birmingham Guiseppe Pancaro - 80 - 33 - AC Milan -------- | RWB: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] J Zanetti - 90 - 31 - Inter Milan Willy Sagnol - 87 - 27 - Bayern Munich Arne Friedrich - 84 - 25 - Hertha Berlin M. Pablo - 82 - 28 - Deportivo La Coruna ------- | SW: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Frederic Dehu - 81 - 31 - Marseille ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =--------------= |7. Midfielders| =--------------= Midfielders are the workhorses of football. I would know. I play mid when I actually play football. We run all over the pitch, and need to be able to play almost all the positions to really be effective in most cases. Therefore choosing the proper midfielders is essential to a great team. As in all of these sections, players have been listed firstly by position, and then by skill rating, from 80 up. The positions are LWM, LDM, LCDM, LM, LCM, LAM, LCAM, CAM, CM, CDM, RCAM, RAM, RCM, RM, RCDM, RDM, RWM Note: There may be some positions that have not been listed below. This is because there are no players that play in this position that have a skill of 80 or over. Note: For more information on midfielders, refer to section 11. -------- | LWM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Vincente - 90 - 23 - Valencia Denilson - 89 - 27 - Real Betis Ze Roberto - 89 - 30 - Bayern Munich Luque - 87 - 26 - Deportivo La Coruna Harry Kewell - 86 - 25 - Liverpool Savio - 84 - 30 - Real Zaragoza Martin Petrov - 82 - 25 - Wolfsburg Laurent Robert - 82 - 29 - Newcastle Oliver Kapo - 80 - 23 - Juventus Kizito Musampa - 80 - 27 - Atletico de Madrid Hasan Sas - 80 - 28 - Galatasaray Simao - 80 - 24 - Benfica --------- | LCDM: | --------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Helguerra - 84 - 29 - Real Madrid De la Pena - 80 - 28 - RCD Espanyol ------- | LM: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Ryan Giggs - 92 - 30 - Manchester Utd Robert Pires - 92 - 31 - Arsenal Dede - 86 - 26 - Borussia Dortmund Damien Duff - 86 - 25 - Chelsea Arjen Robben - 85 - 20 - Chelsea Predrag Djordjevic - 84 - 32 - Olympiakos Fran - 84 - 35 - Deportivo La Coruna Wesley Sneijder - 84 - 20 - Ajax Santiago Hernan Solari - 84 - 27 - Real Madrid Jerome Rothen - 83 - 26 - PSG Alan Thompson - 83 - 30 - Celtic Peter Lovenkrands - 82 - 24 - Rangers Emre - 81 - 23 - Inter Milan John O'Brien - 81 - 27 - Ajax Roger - 81 - 27 - Villarreal Gilberto - 80 - 28 - Hertha Berlin -------- | LCM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Fabian Ernst - 83 - 25 - SV Werder Bremen -------- | LAM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Aparecido R. Cesar - 83 - 29 - Lazio Ricardinho - 83 - 28 - Santos --------- | LCAM: | --------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Ronaldinho - 93 - 24 - Barcelona -------- | CAM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Zinedine Zidane - 96 - 32 - Real Madrid Francesco Totti - 94 - 27 - Roma Pablo Cesar Aimar - 92 - 24 - Valencia Kaka - 92 - 22 - AC Milan Pavel Nedved - 91 - 32 - Juventus Tomas Rosicky - 91 - 23 - Borussia Dortmund Paul Scholes - 91 - 29 - Manchester Utd Valeron - 91 - 29 - Deportivo La Coruna Deco - 89 - 27 - Barcelona Manuel Cesar Rui Costa - 89 - 32 - AC Milan Andres D'Alessandro - 88 - 23 - Wolfsburg Felipe - 88 - 26 - Flamengo Marcelinho - 88 - 29 - Hertha Berlin Ludovic Giuly - 87 - 28 - Barcelona Guti. H - 87 - 27 - Real Madrid Juninho - 87 - 29 - Lyon Roman - 87 - 26 - Villarreal Rafael van der Vaart - 86 - 21 - Ajax Baraja - 85 - 29 - Valencia Joe Cole - 85 - 22 - Chelsea Johan Micoud - 85 - 31 - SV Werder Bremen Yildiray Basturk - 84 - 25 - Hertha Berlin Eric Carriere - 84 - 31 - Lens Ariel Miguel Ibagaza - 84 - 27 - Atletico de Madrid Kim Kallstrom - 84 - 22 - Rennes Carlos Alberto - 83 - 19 - FC Porto Julio Bapista - 83 - 22 - Sevilla Aliaksandr Hleb - 83 - 23 - Stuttgart Pedrinho - 83 - 27 - Palmeiras Robson Ponte - 83 - 27 - Bayer Leverkusen Mehmet Scholl - 83 - 33 - Bayern Munich Diego - 82 - 19 - FC Porto Jay-Jay - 82 - 31 - Bolton Preki - 82 - 41 - Kansas City Vladimir Smicer - 82 - 31 - Liverpool Hakan Yakin - 82 - 27 - Stuttgart Patrick Berger - 81 - 30 - Portsmouth Marcelo Daniel Gallardo - 81 - 28 - River Plate Luis Oscar Gonzales - 81 - 23 - River Plate Djalminha - 80 - 34 - America Juninho - 80 - 31 - Celtic Dejan Petkovic - 80 - 31 - Vasco Da Gama Ramon - 80 - 32 - Fluminense Roger - 80 - 26 - Fluminense Jan Simak - 80 - 25 - AC Sparta Prague Yeste - 80 - 24 - Athletic de Bilbao Ferydoon Zandi - 80 - 25 - Kaiserslautern ------- | CM: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Steven Gerrard - 93 - 24 - Liverpool Roy Keane - 91 - 33 - Manchester Utd Giorgos Karagounis - 90 - 27 - Inter Milan Frank Lampard - 90 - 26 - Chelsea Clarence Seedorf - 90 - 28 - AC Milan Michael Ballack - 89 - 27 - Bayern Munich Gilberto - 89 - 27 - Arsenal Stilian Petrov - 89 - 25 - Celtic Andrea Pirlo - 89 - 25 - AC Milan Edgar Davids - 88 - 31 - Inter Milan Kieron Dyer - 88 - 25 - Newcastle Benoit Pedretti - 87 - 23 - Marseille Ferreira Emerson - 86 - 28 - Juventus Enzo Maresca - 86 - 24 - Firenze Xabi Alonso - 85 - 22 - Liverpool Mahamadon Diarra - 85 - 23 - Lyon Thomas Graveson - 85 - 28 - Everton Theodoros Zagovakis - 85 - 32 - Bolonga Costinha - 84 - 29 - FC Porto Alexei Smertin - 84 - 29 - Chelsea Andreas Zikos - 84 - 30 - AS Monaco Arteta - 84 - 22 - Real Sociedad Edu - 83 - 26 - Arsenal Kleberson - 83 - 25 - Manchester Utd Thiago Motta - 83 - 22 - Barcelona Barry Ferguson - 82 - 26 - Blackburn Assuncao - 81 - 28 - Real Betis Lee Bowyer - 81 - 27 - Newcastle Maniche - 81 - 26 - FC Porto Scott Parker - 81 - 23 - Chelsea Simone Perrotta - 81 - 26 - Roma Claudio Reyna - 81 - 31 - Manchester City Martin Andresen - 80 - 27 - Stabaek Sebastian Battaslia - 80 - 23 - Villarreal Stephen Hughes - 80 - 21 - Rangers Maritn Jorgensen - 80 - 27 - Firenze Steed Malbranque - 80 - 24 - Fulham -------- | CDM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Patrick Vieira - 93 - 28 - Arsenal Claude Makelele - 90 - 31 - Chelsea Xavi - 86 - 24 - Barcelona Dietmar Hamann - 85 - 31 - Liverpool Paul Lambert - 84 - 35 - Celtic Albeida - 83 - 27 - Valencia Flavio - 83 - 30 - Galatasaray Juan Sebastian Veron - 83 - 29 - Inter Milan Matius Jesus Almeyda - 82 - 30 - Brescia Massimo Ambosini - 82 - 27 - AC Milan Aggelos Basinas - 82 - 28 - Panathinaikos Nicky Butt - 82 - 29 - Newcastle Zvonimir Soldo - 82 - 36 - Stuttgart Frank Baumann - 81 - 28 - SV Werder Bremen Matteo Brighi - 81 - 23 - Chievo Owen Hargreaves - 81 - 23 - Bayern Munich Neil Lennon - 81 - 33 - Celtic Sunday Oliseh - 81 - 29 - Borussia Dortmund Daniele De Rossi - 81 - 21 - Roma Antonio Folha - 80 - 33 - F.C. Penafiel Gavin Rae - 80 - 26 - Rangers Renato - 80 - 25 - Sevilla Alessio Tacchinardi - 80 - 29 - Juventus -------- | RAM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Campano - 82 - 25 - RCD Mallorca -------- | RCM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Camel Meriem - 82 - 24 - Bordeaux Pater Bernard Luccin - 81 - 25 - Atletico de Madrid Christian Tiffert - 80 - 22 - Stuttgart ------- | RM: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Gianluca Zambrotta - 91 - 27 - Juventus David Beckham - 90 - 29 - Real Madrid Gennaro Ivan Gattuso - 89 - 26 - AC Milan Figo - 88 - 31 - Real Madrid Fredrick Ljungberg - 88 - 27 - Arsenal Torsten Frings - 85 - 27 - Bayern Munich Michael Essien - 83 - 21 - Lyon Geremi - 83 - 25 - Chelsea Bernd Schneider - 83 - 30 - Bayer Leverkusen Didier Agathe - 81 - 29 - Celtic Angelo Di Livio - 81 - 38 - Firenze Fabio Baiano - 80 - 27 - Corinthians Chris Burke - 80 - 20 - Rangers Ray Parlour - 80 - 31 - Middlesborough Quaresma - 80 - 20 - FC Porto --------- | RCDM: | --------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Tomasz Zdebel - 81 - 31 - VfL Bochum -------- | RWM: | -------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Sebastian Deisler - 89 - 24 - Bayern Munich Jaoquin - 89 - 23 - Real Betis C. Ronaldo - 88 - 19 - Manchester Utd Etxeberria - 85 - 26 - Athletic de Bilbao Gaizka Mendieta - 85 - 30 - Middlesborough Dennis Rommedahl - 85 - 26 - Charlton Jesper Gronkjaer - 83 - 27 - Birmingham Rufete - 83 - 27 - Valencia Victor - 82 - 28 - Deportivo La Coruna Luis Garcia - 80 - 26 - Liverpool Mehdi Mahdavikia - 80 - 27 - Hamburg SV Dimitris Salpigidis - 80 - 23 - Paok ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =-----------= |8. Forwards| =-----------= Forwards are the glamour players of the game. They get the big salaries, they get most of the admiration, and they are also many people's favourite type of player. Why? Because they score the goals. Unfortunately, this means they generally have the highest skill ratings in the game. Which isnt a bad thing, but its a bit annoying not finding a midfielder with a skill of 97. Players have been listed by position and skill rating for players 80 and over. The positions for forwards are LF, LS, CF, ST, RF, RS. Note: There may be some positions that have not been listed below. This is because there are no players that play in this position that have a skill of 80 or over. Note: For more information on forwards, refer to section 11. Player List: ------- | LF: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Robinho - 85 - 20 - Santos Nilmar - 83 - 20 - Internacional Dagoberto - 82 - 21 - Paranense Alfonso - 81 - 31 - Real Betis Gil - 81 - 23 - Corinthians ------- | LS: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Antonio Cassano - 86 - 22 - Roma Nunez - 80 - 28 - Grasshopper ------- | CF: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Alessandro Del Piero - 92 - 29 - Juventus Raul - 90 - 27 - Real Madrid Dennis Bergkamp - 90 - 35 - Arsenal Vincenzo Montella - 86 - 30 - Roma Landon Donovan - 84 - 22 - San Jose Nihat - 84 - 24 - Real Sociedad Alvaro Recoba - 84 - 28 - Inter Milan Rivaldo - 84 - 32 - Olympiakos Carlos Alberto Tevez - 84 - 20 - Boca Juniors Lukas Podolski - 83 - 19 - FC Cologne Penna Bianca - 82 - 35 - Perugia Jermain Defoe - 82 - 21 - Tottenham Marek Heinz - 82 - 27 - Monchengladbach Simone Inzaghi - 82 - 28 - Lazio Robin Van Persie - 82 - 21 - Arsenal Cuauhtemoc Blanco - 81 - 31 - Veracruz Nacho Novo - 81 - 25 - Rangers Bernardo Corradi - 80 - 28 - Valencia Paolo Di Canio - 80 - 36 - Lazio Jonathan - 80 - 19 - RC Santander Ante Razov - 80 - 30 - Chicago Fire Josh Wolff - 80 - 27 - Kansas City ------- | ST: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Thierry Henry - 97 - 27 - Arsenal Ruud van Nistelrooy - 95 - 28 - Manchester Utd Roy Makaay - 94 - 29 - Bayern Munich Andriy Shevchenko - 93 - 27 - AC Milan Adriano - 92 - 22 - Inter Milan Ronaldo - 92 - 27 - Real Madrid David Trezeguet - 92 - 26 - Juventus Michael Owen - 91 - 24 - Real Madrid Christian Vieri - 91 - 31 - Inter Milan Djibril Cisse - 90 - 23 - Liverpool Filippo Inzaghi - 90 - 31 - AC Milan Hernan Crespo - 89 - 29 - AC Milan Morientes - 89 - 28 - Real Madrid Didier Drogba - 88 - 26 - Chelsea Eto'o - 88 - 23 - Barcelona Luis Fabiano - 88 - 23 - FC Porto Fabrizio Miccoli - 88 - 25 - Firenze Dimitris Papadopoulos - 88 - 22 - Panathinaikos Jose Antonio Reyes - 88 - 21 - Arsenal Alan Shearer - 88 - 34 - Newcastle Milan Baros - 87 - 22 - Liverpool Wayne Rooney - 87 - 18 - Manchester Utd Jon Dahl Tomasson - 87 - 28 - AC Milan F. Torres - 87 - 20 - Atletico de Madrid D. Tristan - 87 - 28 - Deportivo La Coruna Ailton - 86 - 31 - Schalke 04 Derlei - 86 - 29 - FC Porto Giovane Elber - 86 - 32 - Lyon Eidur Gudjohnsen - 86 - 25 - Chelsea Mateja Kezman - 86 - 25 - Chelsea Adrian Mutu - 86 - 25 - Chelsea Louis Saha - 86 - 26 - Manchester Utd Nicolas Anelka - 85 - 25 - Manchester City Marco Di Vaio - 85 - 28 - Valencia Alberto Gilardino - 85 - 22 - Parma Michalis Konstantinou - 85 - 26 - Panathinaikos Tamudo - 85 - 26 - RCD Espanyol Juan Pablo Angel - 84 - 28 - Aston Villa Shabani Nonda - 84 - 27 - AS Monaco W. Pandiani - 84 - 28 - Deportivo La Coruna Marcelo Salas - 84 - 29 - River Plate Javier Pedro Saviola - 84 - 22 - AS Monaco Sergio Garcia - 84 - 21 - Levante Mark Viduka - 84 - 28 - Middlesborough Sonny Anderson - 83 - 33 - Villarreal Shota Arveladze - 83 - 31 - Rangers Fredi Bobic - 83 - 32 - Hertha Berlin Ezquerro - 83 - 27 - Athletic de Bilbao Diego Forlan - 83 - 25 - Villarreal Zlatan Ibrohimovic - 83 - 22 - Juventus Peguy Luyindula - 83 - 25 - Marseille Shaun Maloney - 83 - 21 - Celtic Mista - 83 - 25 - Valencia Pauleta - 83 - 31 - PSG Dado Prso - 83 - 29 - Rangers Chris Sutton - 83 - 31 - Celtic Villa - 83 - 22 - Real Zaragoza Thomas Brdavic - 82 - 29 - Wolfsburg Franca - 82 - 28 - Bayer Leverkusen Nuno Gomez - 82 - 28 - Benfica Nwankwo Kanu - 82 - 28 - West Bromwich Robbie Keane - 82 - 24 - Tottenham Patrick Kluivert - 82 - 28 - Newcastle Henrik Larsson - 82 - 32 - Barcelona Emile Mpenza - 82 - 26 - Hamburg SV Emanuel Olisadebe - 82 - 25 - Panathinaikos Claudio Pizarro - 82 - 25 - Bayern Munich Portillo - 82 - 22 - Firenze Helder Prostiga - 82 - 22 - FC Porto Carlos Ruiz - 82 - 24 - Los Angeles Alan Smith - 82 - 23 - Manchester Utd Imre Szabics - 82 - 23 - Stuttgart Darius Vassell - 82 - 24 - Aston Villa James Beattie - 81 - 26 - Southampton Dimitar Berbatov - 81 - 23 - Bayer Leverkusen Angelos Charisteas - 81 - 24 - SV Werder Bremen Ernesto Javier Chevanton - 81 - 24 - AS Monaco Deivid - 81 - 24 - Santos Mikael Forssell - 81 - 23 - Birmingham Alexander Frei - 81 - 25 - Rennes Pierre-Alain Frau - 81 - 24 - Lyon Giovanni - 81 - 31 - Olympiakos Sidney Govon - 81 - 25 - Lyon Vahid Hashemain - 81 - 28 - Bayern Munich Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink - 81 - 32 - Middlesborough Miroslav Klose - 81 - 26 - SV Werder Bremen Luizao - 81 - 28 - Botafago Mantorras - 81 - 22 - Benfica Bennedict Saul McCarthy - 81 - 26 - FC Porto Ricardo Oliveira - 81 - 24 - Real Betis Salva - 81 - 29 - Atletico de Madrid Dario Silva - 81 - 31 - Sevilla Ebbe Sand - 81 - 32 - Schalke 04 Hakan Sukur - 81 - 33 - Galatasaray Victor - 81 - 30 - Real Valladolid Aruna - 80 - 23 - Anderlecht Mamadon Bagayoko - 80 - 25 - Nantes Bosco Balaban - 80 - 25 - Brugge Fabio Bala - 80 - 22 - Fluminense Emiliano Bonazzoli - 80 - 25 - Reggina Edilson - 80 - 32 - Esp. Blucb Vitoria Francesco Flachi - 80 - 29 - Doria Christian Gimenez - 80 - 29 - FC Basel Javi Guerrero - 80 - 27 - RC Santander John Hartson - 80 - 29 - Celtic Emile Heskey - 80 - 26 - Birmingham Frederic Kanoute - 80 - 26 - Tottenham Diego Klimowicz - 80 - 30 - Wolfsburg Kevin Kuranyi - 80 - 22 - Stuttgart Danijel Ljunbeja - 80 - 25 - PSG Obafemi Martins - 80 - 19 - Inter Milan Savo Milosevic - 80 - 30 - Osasuna Daniel Moreira - 80 - 27 - Toulouse Christian Rigano - 80 - 30 - Firenze Steven Thompson - 80 - 25 - Rangers Taylor Twellman - 80 - 24 - New England Maciej Zurawski - 80 - 27 - Wilsa Krakow ------- | RS: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Craig Bellamy - 84 - 25 - Newcastle ------- | RF: | ------- [Player Name] - [SKL] - [Age] - [Club] Adrian Ilie - 81 - 30 - FC Zurich ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =------------------------------= |9. Creation Centre Information| =------------------------------= Before I start, for those intending on creating players, remember that if you create players and trade players to other teams and then decide you dont like the teams, then DO NOT RESET THE SQUADS!!! I cannot stress this enough. By resetting the squads you reset ALL players, including the ones you created. I suggest either trading the players back to their original teams, or if thats to annoying, then write down the custom player's attributes etc before resetting so that you can quickly remake them. The rest of this information is coming soon! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =---------------------------= |10. Career Mode Information| =---------------------------= Originally I didnt plan on creating a section on Career Mode, but I decided as alot of people have been telling me they have used the guide for Career I might as well add a section. Anyway, Career Mode has changed alot from 2004 firstly because it runs over 15 years rather than just 5. This means that you can change teams, players retire, and new players come in. This guide will give you all the information you need to start your career going as well as help you succeed with ease. To start with, I'll show how career mode works from the beginning in a step by step guide: 1) First of all, you have to pick a manager. You can choose how he looks and what his name is. 2) Now you have to pick a team. You will only be able to pick one of the crap teams to start with. Generally the rule is: 1 League = 2.5 to 3 star teams max 2 Leagues = 2 star teams max 3 Leagues = 1.5 to 2 star teams max 3) After the newspaper report and some initial responses from the board, you can assign upgrade points to your staff members. You can allocate these how- ever you like. But once you set them and go "Done" you cannot change them. Upgrading various areas reward you with various bonuses. We will concentrate on the player managers. These managers can boost your players stats depending on how much you upgrade them. Im not sure exactly how much they upgrade your players, but last time I played career, I had Dimitris Papadopoulos and he went up to a skill of 90 after about 10 or 11 games with a manager with 1 full upgrade star. But this is a rough estimate from memory. 4) Once you've finished upgrading your staff, you can begin the season with your new team. You can transfer players via the "Transfers" menu item in the Options menu. However you probably wont be able to do much because your opening budget is always 0. You get transfer points by winning games. These can be increased when you upgrade you financial manager. Once you can buy players, the process is very much the same as in Squad Management Mode. However this time your transfer requests can be denied by one or more parties. This could be because you dont have enough managerial prestige, or the board feels the player is vital to the teams performance among other reasons. You also have to make sure you have enough transfer points to get the players you want. 5) Once you finish the season, you will have an opportunity to transfer some players before next season. This is a good idea because if you get a player you dont like, then you can trade them away next season. However you cant trade players who've been traded to or from your club, or who've denied your request earlier that season. Then you just continue for the next 15 seasons. Another thing to note is when you start out, alot of the player's attributes in the transfer mode wont show up. This is because your Scouting Manager is not connected well enough to find this information out. So you should upgrade him as well if you dont know what the players are like. Note: You can always check the skill level by looking at the ATT, MID and DEF bars to the left. The one that corresponds with the players position will tell you what skill they have (excluding keepers). Generally though, this guide will tell you what skill they started with and depending on what season it is, you can roughly work out where they are now. Here is a good strategy guide on how to succeed quickly in Career Mode, for all of you who want a good team quickly: (Submitted by SportsFiend13) This is a great way to start off career mode with a stacked team and a good, young bench. DO NOT ENTER CAREER MODE YET. ALL OF THESE PROCESSES ARE DONE FROM THE CREATE PLAYER SCREEN AND THE SQUAD MANAGEMENT SCREENS. Create yourself (or whomever you want) as a forward, making yourself perfect. Then create a midfielder and a defender. For the midfielder and defender, make all of their ratings an 85 EXCEPT for long ball, tackle, toughness, endurance, and cross ball (make these ratings 99). Make sure that when you create these three players, you make their ages 13 (which means that you have to put each of the three players' year of birth to 1990.) By doing this and making the players so young, they will start off in career mode as 13 year old players that are perfect or nearly perfect, giving you three good players for the whole 15 years of career mode. Place these three created players on any team in the game that has a half star or one star team rating (I chose Chattertown in Football League Two, because they are one of the worst teams in the game, and when you progress with them, you can move them right up to the FA English Premiership league within 4 seasons). Now after you make the three perfect players make sure they are placed on the sucky team that you want to use. Remove the best players on that team, untill the average ratings of all of the bad players (discluding your goalies and three perfect players) equal between 40 and 50. If you have to, trade with other teams and take their super garbage players to make this possible. After spending some time doing that comes the part that takes up the most time. Create 1 goalie that you are going to keep on your team. Make this goalie perfect, and make sure to put his year of birth to 1990. Now that you are done, you will have to create about 10-15 goalies. Make sure that all of their ratings are perfect, but put their years of birth to 1960. By doing this, the goalies will be 44 years old, and will retire after the first season of your career mode. MAKE SURE THAT EVERY CREATED PLAYER YOU MAKE IS ASSIGNED TO YOUR TEAM!!! How the goalie looks, their name, and all that other stuff doesnt matter, so don't bother with it. When you are finished creating all of the goalies you have one last thing to do. Go over to Celtic and take David Marshall, one of their goalies. He is 19 years old and has a rating of 80. He can be used as your backup goalie to your perfect goalie. Make sure that the team you have chosen to use is set as "Your Team", so that when you start your career and go to that respected division, they show up first on the list. Now you are ready to start your career and build the team of the future! Make your manager and all that junk and start your career. When you have to chose what team you want to coach, go to the division of the team that you spent so much time fixing up and they should be at the top of the list. Truthfully, the best team to do all of this work is Chattertown in Football League Two, as I mentioned above. They start WAY at the bottom of the FA rankings. Every year that you win the league, they move up in rank, and by the fourth or fifth season of career mode, they should be in the FA Premiership, and can dominate there. Now that you have started your career mode with your money-grabbing team, it's time to start making the money. Just a word of advice; I only wanted to keep two goalies, the one that I created that was 13, and the guy I jacked from Celtic. After you trade off two or three goalies, get out, save, and go back to the transfer market. If you do not do this, the Board of team you are with will say that some of the old goalies are valuable to the team and will deny the trade. You really don't want this, you just want their value. So be careful when you are trading your goalies. After you succesfully trade away all of the old goalies and keep the two that you will really need, you should have an accumulated amount of 250,000 to 325,000 transfer points available to you. These points will be able to get you a stacked starting lineup, and a good bench to back up the starting line. MAKE SURE THAT EVERY TIME YOU BUY A PLAYER, YOU TRADE AWAY ONE OF THE GARBAGE PLAYERS (for example, if you sign Kaka from AC Milan, make sure to go and trade one of your garbage midfielders that has a rating of 40 or 50 or whatever. Just make sure that the player you are trading away has a rating no higher than 53.) By the end, you should have a stacked starting line. Here is my starting line from my career and this goes to show just how stacked it is. Team: Chattertown FORWARDS Joel Smith (me) Age : 13 Rating : 99 Wayne Rooney (on Manchester United) Age : 18 Rating : 87 MIDFIELD Vincente (on Valencia) Age : 23 Rating : 90 Arjen Robben (on Chelsea) Age : 20 Rating : 85 Kerwyn Johnson (created player) Age : 13 Rating : 89 Christiano Ronaldo (on Manchester United) Age : 19 Rating : 88 DEFENDERS Ashley Cole (on Arsenal) Age : 23 Rating : 87 Christoph Metzelder (on Borussia Dortmund) Age : 23 Rating : 89 John Terry (on Chelsea) Age : 23 Rating : 89 Alex Bondy (created player) Age : 13 Rating : 93 Giourkas Seitaridis (on FC Porto) Age : 23 Rating : 88 As you can clearly see, my starting 11 are quite the stacked players, and are all extremely young. The team ends up having something around a 4.5 star team rating. Due to the fact that you already had 3 perfect fielders on the team, you save about 135,000 transfer points, allowing you to stack up your bench with young talent also. JUST REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE ONLY STARTING AS A COACH, SO SAVE CONSTANTLY DUE TO THE FACT THAT THE PLAYER MIGHT REFUSE YOUR OFFER. IF THIS HAPPENS, JUST EXIT CAREER MODE, GO BACK IN, AND TRY TO BUY THE PLAYER YOU WANT AGAIN. I recommend buying players that have a rating of 80 for their respective position, just due to the fact that they are decent enough to play well coming in as a substitute. For A list of these players, check the Elite Players Guide (or check above, if this is included in the Elite Players Guide). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =-------------------------------------------------------= |11. Frequently Asked Questions, Tips and General Advice| =-------------------------------------------------------= FAQ: COMING SOON! (When I actually get some questions XD...) Tips: -Remember to sort the player lists by pressing Square. -Pressing Circle allows you to get a better view of a specific player's attributes. -(Submitted by deeplennon@hotmail.com): You team star rating is a function of the average skill level of your STARTING 10 outfield players, reserves, subs, and all your goalkeepers are a complete non factor. Firstly, the game averages the values for each of your starting lines (your defender, midfielders, forwards) it then averages your three line averages to get your overall team skill level. Star ratings are then assigned as follows: Avg Skill Level Team Star Rating 50 1.0 55 1.5 60 2.0 65 2.5 70 3.0 75 3.5 80 4.0 85 4.5 90 5.0 Since all that was a little confusing I'll do a demonstration.. Say your starting defenders are as follows... LB CB CB RB 82 87 86 84 Total player skill value of your defenders is 339, Ave player rating is 84.75. The Game will round this number down to 84, it never rounds up. So if any one of your players had a skill level of only 1 point higher your defender avg skill level would be 85. Your midfield. LM CM CM RM 80 84 92 77 Total player skill value of your midfields is 333, divide by 4 and avg player rating 83.25, game assigns your midfield avg skill level at 83. Forwards LS RS 92 94 Total player skill value 186, avg player rating is 93, game assigns your striker avg skill level at 93. The game will then take the total value of your 3 ratings, 84 + 83 + 93 = 260, and divide it by 3 = 86.67. The game again, never rounds up, so your overall team rating is an 86. Which is more than or equal to 85, and less than 90. Therefore your team star value is 4.5 stars. It's obvious by looking at this that in a 4 4 2 the value of your forwards have a dramatic effect on your overall team value. If you were playing something like a 4-5-1, this would be even more dramatic. If you were playing a 4-5-1 and you had thierry henry upfront your forward avg skill level would be 97, and then that number would make up a whole third of your overall skill levil, even though Thierry would be only one out of 10 players that make up the rating. -The Skill rating of a player is equal to the rating that corresponds to the player's position. For example, Ryan Giggs has an ATT rating of 91 and a MID rating of 92, but since he plays LM, his skill is 92. -As I just mentioned, the Skill rating of a player is not the only thing you should look at when choosing a good player. Although it is a very good indication of the overall ability of the player, you should also look at other, position specific attributes. Here are the position specific attributes to look out for (Refer to section 3 for more information on these attributes): For Goal Keepers: Rushing, Handling, Reflexes and Positioning For Defenders: Heading, Tackling, Strength, Ball Control and Marking For Midfielders: Ball Control, Dribbling, Long Balls, Passing and Tackling For Attackers: Ball Control, Dribbling, Pace, Shot Accuracy and Shot Power However, you should also make sure wingmen have good stamina and pace, and your strikers also have good strength. This applies with corners and free kicks where you have to use the off the ball controls. If you're striker doesnt have good strength, then he will get easily pushed aside by the defense and that can get very annoying. -Remember, if you make your team too good, you wont be able to use them in Career Mode until later in the game. If they are a world class team then this applies by default. If you want to trade some players but want to use that team in career mode, you should choose a LEAGUE first, and then check the highest star rating you can choose for that league. At a later date, I will add these star ratings to the guide. However, as a general rule, countries with 1 league let you choose a max of 2.5 to 3 stars. The rest have maximums that are obviously less than that. Once you've chosen your league, choose a team. Then trade players until you reach your maximum star limit. Usually however, players over 90 skill raise your star rating by up to a star for each player. So I wouldnt suggest you load your team with 10 90+ players. Note: You can check your star rating by choosing a player to trade, and when the popup appears, go to your team BUT DONT PRESS ANYTHING. This will show your current star rating. -Another thing to note about Carreer Mode is that in almost all cases, the trades reset. All your created players stay there, but everyone you traded goes back to their default team. This can sometimes be very annoying, but I dont know of any way to stop this from happening so you'll just have to live with it unfortunately. (Note: This does not affect the strategy guide unless you create the players in another team and then trade them to your desired career team.) -Remember to SAVE often. Its unbelievably annoying to have made a great team and then something happens and you lose your team. Believe me, its happened to me already. Generally it happens when you enter the Tactics screen. I dont know why it happens, but sometimes it does. -For the best team performance, I suggest you choose a formation you like best first. Once you have chosen a formation, stick with it and then choose your players according to that formation. If however, you are a bit like me and like to switch formations every 10 seconds, then a general rule of thumb would be to choose: 3 Keepers 7 Defenders 8 Midfielders 5 Forwards ---------- 23 players minimum You wont be using up your maximum amount of players here, but these numbers fit into any formation pretty easily, with enough players for an even spread in the reserves and subs bench. However, if you want to experiment, by all means go for it. Those are just suggestion numbers. For more information on squad formations check out the applicable section in this guide: http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/file/fifa_soccer_2005.txt (It has some very useful information and I highly recommend you use it in conjunction with this guide). -One thing that I have found, is that a player's speed is very important in the game. Forwards, especially, should have a good speed rating. If not, you will have a hell of a time beating defenders. Or at least that is what I have found. If you have this problem, or are playing for the first time, I suggest you trade a few very fast forwards to your team, like Micheal Owen and Thierry Henry. If you dont like these players however, any player over 90 speed should be quick enough. -You may find that players in the positions LWB, LB, RB, RWB, LWM, LM, RM, RWM all get tired pretty quickly if their stamina is low. You should look out for this when choosing players to play in these positions. Im not saying you should restrict yourself in these positions, but if you pick someone with a relatively low stamina rating, you may find yourself changing players alot in Career Mode or Tournament Mode. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =-----------= |12. Credits| =-----------= If you find any mistakes in the guide, can provide any additional information, hints or tips, or just generally need help in any part of the game, feel free to email me at (oblivions_end007@hotmail.com) (Without the brackets). If you do send me any information, I will gladly add it to my guide, and will make sure I credit you with the information. To make it easier however, please type your GameFAQ's Username, or a username you would like me to put here in the email as well. Thanks. A big thanks goes out to these people and websites for their helpful contributions: -EA Sports: For creating a great title like Fifa 2005, and for improving it from last year. -GameFAQ's: For allowing people to read this and many other FAQs, and for allowing me to help them out. -DarkTim: For giving me information on creating FAQ's like this one. -Heart Broke Joke: For indirectly giving me the idea to create this guide. -TheMagicMushroom22: For allowing me to link to his guide for information. -deeplennon@hotmail.com: For contributing information on how team star levels are calculated. -stevie: For pointing out a glaring error of mine. -SportsFiend13: For contributing the in-depth guide to career mode. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- =---------------------= |13. Legal Information| =---------------------= First of all, I do allow people to print out this guide, but only for personal or private use. This may be not be reproduced, distributed or redistributed under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. Only these sites and people may use this guide: -GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com) -AngelTide (http://invisionfree.com/forums/angeltide) If you would like to use this guide on your website, then please email me at (oblivions_end007@hotmail.com). All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. Copyright 2004 Peter Reed