Welcome to the world of Championship Manager 3. If you want a football managing game, this is the one. If you don't....go away

How to set up (or play) a Network Game
Before starting CM3, go to the directory where the game is and click on the file called 'ip'. That's all, just click on it and close the directory and start CM3 as usual.
Then, go to either create or join network game from the options menu, depending on whether you are hosting or joining a game someone else started.
Find out, from the host, what the ip number for the game is. If you are the host, it will tell you after you setup the network game.
Hopefully you have the program ICQ so you can easily tell all the other players what the IP number for your game is.
When other players go to options and 'join network game' they will need to type in the IP number they were given by the host. When they do, it will look for the game and if successful, will list the host's game after a short pause. Click on that game and hit next in the lower right corner. Everything from here out, should be easy.
Good Players
There are loads of lists of good players on the net, most of them are actually the same. Here, I've done my best to seperate this from the rest, listing each player with a rating (ot of 10), and putting them in order.
Goalkeepers

Richard Wright -- * * * * * * * * * -- Ipswich
Steve Simonsen -- * * * * * * - - - -- Everton
Robert Douglas -- * * * * - - - - - -- Dundee

Defenders

David Woozley - - * * * * * * * * * - Crystal Palace
Graeme Lee - - -- * * * * * * * * * -- Hartlepool
Clinton Hill - -- * * * * * * * * - -- Tranmere
Andrew Duncan - - * * * * * * * * - -- Cambridge
Izzy Irekpen - -- * * * * * * * - - ------ West Ham
Clarke Carlisle - * * * * * * - - - -- Blackpool
Marc Joseph - - - * * * * * * - - - -- Cambridge
Marc Nicholas - - * * * * - - - - - -- Cambridge
Larry McAvoy - -- * * * * - - - - - -- Cambridge

Midfielders

Tom Youngs - - -- * * * * * * * * * -- Cambridge
Dean Keates - - - * * * * * * * * * -- Walsall
Seth Johnson - -- * * * * * * * * * -- Crewe
David Wright - -- * * * * * * * * * -- Crewe
Carl Laurie - - - * * * * * * * - - ---- Crewe
Paul Emblem - - - * * * * * * * - - -- Wycombe
Kieron Dyer - - - * * * * * * * - - -- Ipswich
Kevin Street - -- * * * * * * - - - ---- Crewe
Alex Russel - - - * * * * * - - - - -- Cambridge

Attackers

Michael Kyd - - - * * * * * * * * * -- Cambridge
Trevor Benjamin - * * * * * * * * - -- Cambridge
Danny Webber - -- * * * * * * * * - -- Man Utd
Gavin Holligan -- * * * * * * - - - ---- West Ham
Martin Butler - - * * * * * - - - - -- Cambridge

If there's anyone you think should be included on this list (and I'm talking bargain gems here, not million pound superstars), or you disapprove of any of the ratings, e-mail me at the bottom and I'll see what I an do.
Training Tips
When Cm3 arrived one of the new things was the training. It's not difficult to train a player. Either fiddle about yourself, or download a training schedule and load it.
I usually divide my team into small training groups. For example is it unnecessary for a defender to to train much shooting.
I have 8 different groups.
goalkeepers
defenders
defensive midfielders
attacking midfielders
forwards
reserve squad players
young players
unfit players
If you train too much fitness during the season. Your players condition will be low. So have the fitness training set to light or perhaps medium during season. If this does'nt work, and some players go below about 60% for more than a few days, put them in the fitness group. If you know that you will have many games throughout a short period you can set the fitness training to none during the period.
As you probably know red numbers on the stats means a decrease and yellow means a increase. After the season I usually give my players a two weeks holiday and the i start with summer training.
The coaches are very important for the training. Have as many as you can afford with and look for
Motivating, tactical knowledge, man management and coaching outfield players all 15+

Some good coaches are;
Bob Clayton
Richard Stacey
Tommy Svensson
Ray Clemence
Ronnie Hellstrvm
Teamwork goes red if players get no tactical training for a period
Any regime needs at least 2-4 weeks to make any real impact (better coaches have a quicker impact)
Too many intense training regimes merely knackers the players and decreases morale.
If you want some player to improve on different data,give him some training for another position or different than usual.That is good in close season, when you have a lot of time.
Players who are getting consistant football tend to get more improvements to their stats than those who are warming the bench week in, week out. Injured players will also get penalties to stats like teamwork and pace.

Goalkeeping: This trains your keepers in agility, balance and handling, etc.
Skill: This will train your players in technique, pace, passing and crossing, etc.
Tactics: Improves teamwork, the effectiveness of the off-side trap and the % of passes your team completes.
Shooting: Increases shooting ability.
Fitness: Improves strength, stamina, jumping, etc.
If a player starts to drop drastically in one particular area of his game, then put him in general training for a few months (or give him a place in either your first or reserve team), and his stats should go back to normal. Old players, and younger, inexperienced players stats will fluctuate more than players aged between about 22 and 30.
If you look at the defenders and Defensive midfielders schedules you might wonder why they should have goalkeeping training. This is because of a bug(!?) in cm3. When you have them on GK-training their positioning stats gets better. If you train your players hard, they will get injured more often.
Schedules at the top are for during the season.
Schedules to the bottom are for during the summer.
Use the summer schedule from 1 june to 31 july
Use the season schedule the rest of the year.

Goalkeepers
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness --------X
Tactics --X
Shooting -X
Skills ---------X
Goalkeeping ---------------------X
Much GK for obvious reasons.

---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics -X
Shooting ------X
Skills --------X
Goalkeeping --------------------X

Defenders
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness --------------X
Tactics ------------------------X
Shooting ------X
Skills -------------------------X
Goalkeeping ---X

Doesn't need shooting, but have GK for the positioning

---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics -------X
Shooting ------X
Skills -------------------------X
Goalkeeping --------------------X

Defensive Midfielders
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness --------------X
Tactics ------------------------X
Shooting ------X
Skills -------------------------X
Goalkeeping ---X

Have GK for the positioning, and need more tactic

---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness -------------------------X
Tactics --------X
Shooting --------------X
Skills --------------------------X
Goalkeeping -----------X

Attacking Midfielders
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------X
Tactics -----------------------X
Shooting --------------X
Skills ----------------------- X

Skills (passing and crossing etc.)and tactics

---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics -------X
Shooting -----------------------X
Skills -------------------------X

Attackers
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness -------X
Tactics ---------------X
Shooting -----------------------X
Skills -------------------------X

Lots of shooting and skills

---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics -------X
Shooting -----------------------X
Skills -------------------------X

Reserve squad players
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics -------X
Shooting --------------X
Skills -------------------------X

Lots of fitness as their condition doesn't have
to be as good.

---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics -------X
Shooting -----------------------X
Skills -------------------------X

Young Players
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics ------------------------X
Shooting --------------X
Skills ----------------X

Unfit Players
---------None-Light--Medium--Intensive
Fitness ------------------------X
Tactics ------------------------X
Shooting -X
Skills ---X
Young & Unfit Player regimes stay the same in the summer and the season.

I know this is ugly, but it's the best I've got at the moment, I'll come up with something more pleasing on the eye soon!
Contracts My first advice is to always write as long contracts as possible. It's very rare that a player have anything against signing a 10-years contract. The good things about writing long contracts are: that the Bosman-rule doesn't affect you.(unless you play more than 10 seasons). You don't have to negotiate new contracts all the time. If you don't sign long contractsyou can come into a situation where you cant keep a player which contract runs out. Because he demands a way to high wage. But if sign long contacts you decide yourself if a player deserve a raise. And as you all know it's very frustating to have a good player with a contract that runs out. And because you cant afford his new wage your rival gets him for free. And if it's possible try to avoid contracts with release-clause. specially minimum fee. Often you can negotiate so you don't have to include a minimum fee release. And if the players refuse to write a contract without the clause, then raise the the fee to maximum for the clause. Sometimes when you want to sign a new contract with a player he refuses. It could be many reasons. But the most likely reason is that he doesn't think he gets the wage he is worth.So sometimes the screen below comes up. The first thing you can do is to change his Squad status. If the player is under 24years, then set his status to hot prospect for the future and hopefully he wants to sign the contract. If the player is 24+, it's a bit harder, you could try to set the player as backup for the first team and perhaps he want the contract. A bit strange but it works that way. If you have a player transfer listed, remember to make sure he knows he's not wanted, that way he is more likely to agree to a drop in pay from a new club that comes in to snatch him up. Any player who is getting a lot of first team football, but is told he is a squad player will soon become unhappy with his contract, so remember to keep ALL your players status' up to date. I always offer the players as most bonus as I can. I don't know if it works (if the players play better). But it's not much money if you compare to wages. so I include it in the contract.
Buying Players Young: My first advice is to buy young. Look for U21 players. The players in the U21squads are almost always good players. Average-rating: A high average rating is important. You can't see it when you start the game. But when you have played some games you can and then it's probably the most important thing to look for when buying and signing players. One important thing about averagrerating is that if you find a foreign player with a really good rating. Don't just sign because of the rating. Players from some countries always get superb ratings no matter how bad they play. So look out for players from easteurope, asia and african countries. Their rating is not to compare with the players in your league. But when buying players from your own league it's a big help. Man Utd:Look for players from Man Utd. I don't know how they do it, but the players in Man Utd are always good. So look for the inexpensive players in Man Utd and if you can't afford them shortlist them and sign them when they are released on free transfer. Every year Man Utd releases about five players and if your are fast you can sign, so shortlist everyone of them. Scouts: I never us them! I haven't found a single good player through a scout so I have stopped using them. I think it's better to be my own scout. But that's just my opinion. Perhaps it's just because I don't know how to use them. But if you really want a scout, I can be your scout. I have created a shortlist with players that I think you should buy if you can the shortlist is called Shorts When you have download it the you have to unzip it in your searchfolder and then load it from your shortlist. Buy/sign a player: Use the Bosman-rule when it's first january you start to look for players that have a contract that runs out this season. The easiest way to do that is to just search and click expiring in the searchwindow. When you have found a player you can sign him for next season already in january. by choosing approach to sign in the action menu. But sometimes you can't approach to sign a player although his contract runs out this season then you have to wait until it becomes 6 months until his contract runs out and then you can sign him. But remember the Bosman-rule doesn't affect players aged under 24 and players outside europe. A warning to everyone who really, really wants to sign that star striker. If your board has to block and unrealistic bid, They will become unhappy. If they have to block more than about 4 bids, they will sack you! I think this must be what is happening to all the people who are suddenly finding their jobs at risk even if they are doing well, so YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!! This is also true of contract offers. If you offer a new player a ridiculous contract, the board will block it and become unhappy. When you are buying a player. Sometimes it can be hard to buy a player, the club he plays in want maybe wants to keep him. Then you have to offer a bigger bid. Perhaps you could offer a fee after 20 league apps or 10 international apps. If you know that player that you're about to buy never will play in his nationalteam you can offer a big fee, which you never have to pay. When you bid for a player check if the other club wants to make a exchange with you. If yo are lucky they want some of your reserves.
Finances The most important thing for the finances is the stadium. It's hard to make much money without a large stadium, unless you buy and sell much players. You can make fast money if you sign players on free transfer and then sell them. But it's hard to focuse on the matches if you are buying and selling to much. So what to do if you're short on cash? It all depends on how your team is doing in the league, if you can sacrifice a point or two. If you can, you can start playing with players that aren't good enough for your team. To get other clubs interested in your reserveteamplayers. My advice is to play a reservecentraldefender in tour startingeleven. Why a centraldefender? Thats beacuse centraldefenders often get really high ratings. Mainly because they are involved in the game much. They are makeing many tackles and passes much. At least in the clubs I managing the centraldefenders are the players with the highest average rating. So try to get as good averagerating on the players you want to sell. That will help very much. A player that doesn't play matches is very hard to sell. And the easiest way to keep your finances good is just keeping down your expenditures. Don't buy too expensive, perhaps there is a player which contract runs out that you could sign instead of Stan Collymore or Tomas Brolin. If you are small club that climbs in the leaguesystem and your stadium isn't a big one.You could get a shock when you have reached the premier league. You can't play Premier league with a small stadium so your club has to build new seats and I can guarantee you, it costs! When playing with Cambridge, I had to expand Abbey Stadium from 9500seats to 16375seats and it costed 36millions!! And after that my board said that I was going to have to sell player and that I couldn't refuse any offers on my players. So what to do? I raised all player values so I wouldn't get any offers on my players. And if I didn't get any offers I couldn't sell anyone. So I could keep all my players. And if you wait long enough your club will be bought and the depths will be cleared. How long will you have to wait? It depends, once it took 4months to get the depths cleared and once it took more than than a year. But that was in version 3.02. If you have version 3.03+ you are not allowed to raise the playervalues if the club is too short on money. So it's a bit harder if you have downloaded the enhancement pack.
Penalty Shootout Tips Good shooting and setpieces of course. Play your young penaltyshooters in the first two penalties. Its good if you have your captain that takes the fifth penalty. Be cool, keep your regular penaltyshooter to the fourth penalty
Lower Division Management First of all, if you want to suceed fast you need a quiet good team from the start, ok you can take a not so good team but then it will take you longer to climb in the divisions. Anyway, the two clubs that I have played well with are Cambridge United (div 3) and Cheltenham Town (conference). Basic things that are important when you play a lowerdivsion team are: Play young. Go for u-21 players and if you are short on money look in the Northern Ireland team. Sometimes you find U-21 players that you can sign for free, for example excellent D/MC Garteh Graham. But there are more free transfers in the Norther Ireland team. Long contracts: Write long contract with the players you believe in. No release fees. I if you have to sign a release fee that raise the fee to 15 millions or something similar. Training: Train hard specially with your youngsters. the players that doesn't play in the starting eleven. Set their training to intensive fitness. During the summer you train them very hard. Tactic: Play my 3-3-1-3 tactic it has really worked for me. You probably know what I have done with Cambridge and I'm doing quiet well with Cheltenham too. I'm now playing my third season and I have won conference finished runner-up in division 3 and is now placed seventh in division 2. Buying players: Look for players that are in the players team of the year in the division below you. Coaches: You need good coaches and there are some top class coaches that will come to every club in England. Look at coaches for more information Semi-professional and professional When I started with Cheltenham they were semi-professional. Most players had part-time contract. And I could only offer 1900 pounds a month in wage. And I was semi-professional the following two season, even in division 3. But the a friend of mine said that I had to offer new fulltime-contracts to the players and when I had done that the club would turn in to a professional club. And it worked. I'm not 100 percent sure that it was the new contracts that did it, but I think it was that. if you know then contact me.
Making them Interestd We all buy players that we thought would be good. But when we have played them, we found out that were not so good after all. Or maybe they were quiet good but you have even better players and you need the money to buy Robbie Keane. So when you try to sell them you could have problems get other teams intrested in them. So what do to? First of all: play them in your first team. I know that sometimes there isn't space for them and you don't want to sacriface any points. But this is the best way to get other teams interersed. Transerlist them. But you probably know that you should know that. But after have played for about 30 seasons I found out a new thing, atleast for me. So if you have had an offer of one of your own players, and you have tried to negotiate the offer. But when you have done that, they have lost all intrest in your player. So even if you put the value down to zero they wont be intrested. What you have to do is lower the price and then remove the player from the transferlist and click set. and then again go in and transferlist the player. and the they will be interested again. This hint also works if you have wellpayed player with a long contract that you want to get rid of. For example if you have a player that is worth 1 million and just plays in the reserve team and cost money. You have had him transferlisted for ages and noone wants him. What you do is that you remove him from the transferlist set his value to 0k click set and then do in and transferlist him. Hopefully somone will be interrested. And when you get a bid, then you accept it, and then set the players transferstatus to not needed by club. You don't get any money but it's better than giving the player free transfer
Things to do when you start a new game I'm going to tell what the first things I do when I start a new game. The first week at the club ist the absolutely most important week ever. Its during the first week you can get the best players to really good prices. It's then you should sign the good players that are free transfers when you start. It's then you appoint the best coaches. But you got to be quick, If you wait a week then perhaps he is gone. Free transfers Gareth Graham Mark Nicholas Sign 10-year contracts This is very important. Look at your squad, when you pick a team you often know something about the players in the team. And you often know which players that will succed. Of course you don't everything but you know at least which players you think will be good players. So try to sign new long contracts with them, and the contracts you sign with players should not have release fees. The reason to why you should sign really long contracts is because its very sad to see your best player's contract run out and he refuses to sign a new one. So sign new contracts the first day at work. Most players will sign the contracts the first day, but later when other clubs want them it could be harder. Offer contract to new coaches Sign the coaches before it's to late Richard Stacey Bob Clayton Tommy Svensson Glenn Strvmberg Jurgen Klinsmann unemployed when the game starts read more at coaches Set transferstatus to your players This is no big rush, you don't have to do it the first day but you can might as well do it. So you don't forget it. Transferlist the players you want to get rid of. Make transferbids on new players There are som players you just have to make bids on. I have made a list of the players I always try to buy when I start a new game. Dean Keates Michael Duff David Woozley Andrew Duncan Trevor Benjamin Graeme Lee These are the players I try to buy no matter what club I'm manageing. You can get everybody for under 200k Make training schemes
Team Instructions Most of the times mixed. Why? Because I don't really know how it affects the tactic. Of course would it be fun to have a team that play short passing and have players with, passing, pace, flair and creativity. Although, I have never really given it a try. I have it set on normal. To me yellow/red cards is not a big problem. So I guess i could set it to hard, but I think my opponents will get more dangerous freekicks then. I have it set on yes, because I want players to stress the opponents to mistakes. Yes on pressing may mean that your players will receive more yellow cards and it will effect the condition negative. But I think it's worth it. I always play with offside trap. I mean it works in reality so why should it not work in cm3. But you have to train your defenders much on tactics. Men behind ball means that all your players are behind the ball (wow really?) so if the opponents have the ball in the middle of your half of field, all of your players (including your strikers) have to be between their own goal and the ball. Which mean that defenders in the other team can go up in the field and help scoring. So if you want to defend a lead just keep play your regular tactic and keep attacking. Someone with setpieces and good passing. I try to use someone who can use their right foot if the corner comes from left and a leftfooted player if the corner comes from the right High shooting and setpieces and the same with rightfooted and left as with corners Good shooting and setpieces. I ususally take my best scorer
>Favorite Links
.

FortuneCity
Here is a link to FortuneCity.



This page has been visited times.