Career Strategy

By Ben Barker

FIFA Soccer 2005 has arrived, and it's proving to be another dazzling installment of EA SPORTS' biggest international sports franchise.FIFA's return to Xbox® is garnished with extensive XboxLive™ support, fluid in-game control, a new First Touch system that makes amazing shots a reality, and a massive 15-year career mode that will take you from obscurity to international sports legend … if you can prove yourself against literally hundreds of competitors from all over the world.

The most authentic FIFA game yet.

Building Your Team
You'll begin a potential 15-year career in one of five regions with a bush-league (or whatever they call it in soccer) squad of no-name footballers of varying skills that you've got to train up to greatness. Your challenge is to make something of yourself. If you want to make it to the top tiers of the sport, you have to make the most of your starting team. In game time, you'll spend multiple seasons rising up the ranks, but it gives you plenty of opportunity to learn the ropes as you delve into the new, more intuitive franchise interface.

One of the key skills to learn as a manager is how to modify your team with upgrade points. You can spend your upgrade budget in eight different areas, including a coaching staff to train your players in offense and defense, team doctors and fitness trainers to keep your footballers healthy and shipshape, scouts to find new talent, and even experts to help you manage the trickier financial aspects of your team. Scouts, for example, will give you critical skill information on hot prospects, but only if you make with the points.

Needless to say, you can't use something you haven't got, and to get upgrade points, you'll need to win games. A career can end badly if you're not careful. If your job security rating falls because of a losing record, management will look elsewhere.

Building the Legend
Of course, accountants and team doctors can't win a championship by themselves—you've got to have a skilled manager making the calls for a well-balanced team. EA has made formations that should be easy even for newbies, with color-coded position indicators. Yeah, it's a little embarrassing to need that sort of thing, but hey, you it to your best advantage.

Each player is an individual, too, and you'll need to make sure your players keep their morale up (by winning, making great shots, and generally playing like pros) as well as keeping them happy financially, healthy medically, and in good form. All of these aspects go into the player's numerical rating, but high morale (for example) can make a player perform much better than usual.

Players also tire out and will eventually suffer poor performance from fatigue as much as from low morale. Keeping your scrappy young team from getting worn out is a lot like keeping Sims going, when you think about it. And, like that other EA game, you can jump into the action any time to keep the roster fresh.

If you ever want to make it to the big time, you'll have to build up your relatively unknown team into a real challenger. Here's where you management skills will really come into play, as you scout talent from around the world and take your obscure team to greatness. Eventually, your skills will come to the attention of teams like Arsenal or Real Madrid, but it won't be easy, and you'll probably make a few stops with mid-level teams before you get to World Cup status. Fortunately, the challenge is half of the reward in FIFA Soccer 2005.