Siddo

Just finished my 1st season on FM08 and was wondering what people do as regards arranging friendlies?

When you start a new game there are 5-6 friendlies arranged and this seems a good number for me. However when it comes to the 2nd season i find difficult to arrange 5-6 friendlies as the teams have already arranged them when i'm offered friendlies by other teams.

My Questions are the following:

1, How many of you use the assistant to arrange friendlies? Do it work?
2, At what point do you arrange your friendlies?

Thanks in advance for any replies, I want to give my Notts County team the best possible preparation by playing 5-6 games against opponents above and below my league to see how my tactics and new signings work out.

opul

I do not let my assistant arrange friendlies at all.

I usually arrange friendlies very late, after the holidays are over and the training begins again... in England that would be sometime before the transfer window opens on the 1st of July. Usually I give them around 10 days of training and then start arranging my friendlies, starting one week before my first game of the regular season, then counting back every 4 days one.

Yes, lots of teams are gone by then, but there are a few choices:
- play foreign teams with no league activated (e.g. Sofia, Rosenborg, Sturm Graz etc.) and pay them a small fee
- affiliates, they always say yes
- non league teams... no cost, always available

and there will always still be room for the odd team from and around your league.

Sometimes I simply do a tour abroad which brings 4 games.

It can take a bit of patience sometimes to arrange friendlies when you do it late, but I prefer it that way. On top of it I arrange friendlies for my reserves for the whole season so they never go more than 1 week without game.