and that, Zsone, sounds like envy..

I'm not impressed by anyones "trading".

All you need is VIP 3 and a level 10 TC to consistently buy and resell for more money.

Most people do this at various levels but it's the one's with the very best facilities (TC/YC/Stadium) that can benefit the most from it. Managers will pay a lot more for a player who's not significantly better than the one they have if they recognize the club name.

On top of that, I always check out what these top clubs are trying to peddle on the forum and 80% of the time, the prices are laughable. In many cases, the player was purchased a day earlier and they are trying to make some obscene profit.

I'm sure I'll get people telling me that it's not against the rules to resell that quickly and they'd be right. It still seems pretty unsporting. This is a Soccer Manager game, not a stock market game.

I reiterate that trading doesn't impress me one bit. If I had the safety of being in the top 2-3 every season with top facilities, I could do the exact same thing.

I don't mean this as disrespect but I mean it as "Trading" is certainly nothing to brag about if you are a Top club.

Trading isn't restricted to top clubs, though. Lesser clubs can still buy bargains and sell them on for a good profit to help them work their way up the ladder a bit quicker, if they have the time and patience for it. You just need to know what to look for.

Games like this tend to be a financial management game, ultimately. Make the most of your money and success will come more quickly, and all that. So some clever/sneaky trading is a fair strategy IMO. And often a successful one.

@Ipfreely I never said it was restricted to top clubs. I said they benefit the most from it (which is true).

I have Managers in my league doing it to various degrees. I make a ton of transfers but I've only ever resold in a window once and it was to upgrade a facility. You could say that I do it on some level but 95% of players I think will be valuable to me and not for the purpose of resale.

I like to upgrade my team every window. You buy only players that are better than your current bunch. (current situation or potential)
Both teams I've managed got strong clubs in no time thanks to this manner of trading. And every time there was money to spare, I invested in a few cheap players that would know a value decrease of at least 100% or a few million in one or even half a season. Aiming on big profit margins, covers you for when the market is rough like now.

If being a good trader in this game isn't an accomplishment than what is?

What defines a "good trader"?

@Lied I'd say someone in your position has better TC and YC than everyone in Norway. There are facilities that can be upgraded but by no means are you desperate to upgrade.

If I focused on only buying/selling, I'd have been relegated last season. This is my 3rd season in the top division of Canada and my team is the best it's ever been but by competitive comparison my team has digressed since my first season.

The bigger teams have more money and better facilities. They buy extravagant players and their youths are better and improve faster.

You have "Freedom" to make expensive investments unlike most Managers (like myself) who are buying to improve their team or their facilities to keep up with teams like yours.

There's nothing wrong with that. You've played the game a long time to get the advantages you have and that's fine. I just don't see the point in bragging about something in which you have a distinct advantage over 95% of teams. I think @Eddie was hinting at this before.

I'm just using your team as an example @Lied. I'm not trying to associate you with this.

I wouldn't call that "trade"

There are ones who really "trades" (buy players JUST in order to re-sell them soon (next window or later).
I almost never did that, I had 3 rules:

1) Avoid buying players who can't help my team now or later.

2) Try to buy the "less important" players (here I talk about positions like LM/RM/LB/RB/3rd S/5th Def, mid etc.), for cheap prices only, as those players for me usually weren't worth to pay above real value or even real value itself. Of course, for the important positions (S,AM,CB,GK), I could defenitaly agree to pay value or even over-pay sometimes for the correct players, as 20M (or more than that) more or less were nothing here, but getting the player is.

3) Not having such thing "not for sale", everyone had their price, and usually that price was their real value, but in extreme cases (for an important player which I over-payed myself) more. Anyway for fair bid, I would sell most of the players, but if nothing like that came, I kept the player (that wasn't too usually though, only example survived is Contereas now, who is 24yo.

And that can exaplain everything I belive, just selling the 4 youth10 kids gave me like 80M per season (or even 100-120M in the first seasons of having youth10). And with some players I bought cheap for 30M, and years later got 60M, gave the rest to give me nice amounts of income (6 of my last 7 (or 7 of my last 8) seasons were with above 200M income (euros), the only time I didn't had that I had 170M, and also once I had almost 400M).

Of course, I sometimes did pass my rules (bought a "not important player" for too much, or bought players for selling porpuses only, or sold someone for too cheap) but that was really not too frequant, and I could overcome those mistakes in the long run.

And of course, the result of my strategy was one trophy in 16 seasons.. even if I would stay, I would not continue with it exactly, and do some changes, to keep better squad and get better results

Jax@ I wasn't a VIP3 always, only VIP1 for 6 seasons of the 15 I played the game, also most of my competitors started before me and had better facilties.

@Jax

Having better YC/TC than everyone in Norway doesn't really mean much. The league was one of the lowest ranked in EU when I started (now ranked nr.9), the NT was around nr.60 in the world (now nr.16), and until season 11 there were lots of teams at my level who quit or became inactive because of the match engine.
Teams like mine have exactly the same problems as yours, except I have to catch up to teams like Subotica. I've had to sell my best players in order to invest in youth so that I might become and outsider for the CL title in 8-10 seasons.

But back to Maccabi. Whenever you are the best at something it's impressive, he severely weakened his team in order to concentrate on trading, missing out on top positions in the league, CL money and somehow made it worth it by now having the best talents in the world. To my knowledge he is the only one who have done that to such an extent, be it older or newer clubs.

@Lied Fair enough about your team. Competing in your Continent is not fighting to stave off relegation though. The consequences of you losing early in Europe are less than if I get demoted to division 2 so I don't think it's fair to say your in the same situation. I understand the comparison though.

My point is that you can subject yourself to the same process that Maccabi did and still stay in your division, can you not? I'm guessing he stayed in the top division during this process? I bring this up because most of us don't have that luxury.

I'm curious as to how Maccabi is proclaimed the best. Is it because he came on the forums discussing this plan with others? Were his transfers audited by other Managers? Who's to say there isn't another manager who has an even more impressive trading record and did so in tougher circumstances?

I'm not hating on anyone by saying what I am. I'm just being critical of some of the statements being thrown around. I hope nobody takes offense to my inquisitiveness on the matter.


@Jordy You're right, you certainly don't need VIP 3 but it does help, especially the 10 loans (I currently have VIP3). Being able to get 10 players more Match XP every season certainly makes me look like a good trader ;)

Depends, since I've sold my highest valued player, not training special attributes on the first team or improving the first team, the risk of not getting CL football is much higher which I think means losing out on more money than a relegation would imply (depending on popularity in D2). Money that the EL brings in is nothing compared to the CL.

If I did what Maccabi did I highly doubt the revenue would outweigh the money CL group football brings in, not to mention the popularity. It's a risk I'm not willing to take and I've simply never heard of anyone except Maccabi who have with such results.

@Darius

That is not envy my friend,let me explain.

I got nothing against these two managers who left the club and other joined(maccabi and Nehemiah),i got a very good relationship with them,ecspecially maccabi.I got a bit of problem with a situation here.With this that Nehemiah left his already big club and joined another big club with full of talents his new team will already be a world class team.What happened:
-maccabi already had Pucciol(one of the best youth around,8.3 talent)
-maccabi knew he will left his club and had probably around 250M euros or more and as a "go away gift" brought Gaël Thibedeaux(one of the best youth strikers around,7.1 talent)
- Nehamiah joines from jamaica with his 3 supersuper talents(Kearns 7.1 talent GK,Monroe 6.3 talent Defender,Culai 5.9 talent striker)
-As a result he has now 5 brutal supertalents+ other maccabis taents and now with these 3 coming he can easyli sell 3 players on that position which could bring him probably 250M+ euros and buy other players.

It's too easy this way to became a world class club...

All these players are roughly the same generation so in 3-4 years they will challenge the big teams in CL.I got nothing against competition but all of a sudden it became a huge club.Of course even before it was a good team but it's a question would maccabi brought Thibedeaux if not leaving the club.Was all this against the rule? No. Is it fair toward other club? I think not. Maybe it's time again to set some new rules in what kind of club managers can join and take 3 players with them.
Maybe a suggestion that one manager which got youth10 and training complex 10 can't join other team who has also youth and trainng complex 10...of course it can but than not taking 3 players with him.

Again maccabi and Nehemiah,i'm not against you guys,just the situation.

Zsone, while I agree wholeheartedly with your points - there IS a penalty for doing that. Look at maccabis popularity, 1.1 million. That is very low. So yes, the upcoming team will be insane, but it really cost them in infrastructure. level 9 stadium is soo far away now.

Is it worth it? maybe. I dunno. I am against club hopping anyway. I just wanted to point out that there is a cost to pay for doing something like this.

@Zsone

It might not be a fairplay situation but it is a realistc one. Even in real life managers or coaches can take players(even more than 3) with them or take control of big other big clubs. The fact that 2 teams ''emerged'' and became one great powerful is kinda normal and it's strange to you because it happend for the first time. Also, I see this situation as a chance to get closer to seeing an almost perfect team.

zsone; a club without manager cant have level 10 buildings since they always degrade one level when the coach leaves