I thought there was enough interest in this to warrant a new thread for it, this guide is applicable to the PS3 and the 360 and I'm just posting my experience from all the previous FIFA games into this one.
Feel free to add your own tips, and share your MM experiences.
The majority of this is off the top of my head, so it might be a little sketchy as to what things are called and what panels to go into.
First Things First (Staff Training)
This is the core of where your players abillity, your new signings and your money will come from... whether you like it or not.
Spend your cash wisely, invest in upgrading your staff!
Upgrading your GK/DF/MF/FW staff means your players will gain more skill points after each game, helping you to train them and get them to the magic 99 overall quicker.
Upgrade your negotiations staff. This section means that any contract talks go through smoother, you can sign players for less money and the contracts will cost less in the long run.
Upgrade your stadium. The most expensive upgrades you'll do in your game, but they bring in more money through ticket sales so it's worth it in the long run. Upgrading this from 0 - 10 will cost you around (or possibly over) £100m, so could take you some time with a small club.
Upgrading your scouts will help you learn more about potential signings and will find you better players through scouting. Personally, I never use the scouting system and prefer to buy players through the transfer market, but it can come in use for when the market is closed and you need a decent player quickly and cheaply.
Making Money In Manager Mode
An awful lot of people who are new to MM find it incredibly tough to make money in this mode, even with the biggest clubs.
The sponsors you can get are based on a combination of your managerial ability (which is ranked out of 10) and the club that you are managing at the time.
Simply, sponsors aren't the be all and end all and they will not generate enough income to keep the club making money each game. It's tough to be making money Home & Away in your first season, since your sponsors are normally quite poor to begin with so you'll need to drop your wages.
Now, if you've got this far you should have a very high rated negotiation manager... if you've been lucky enough to get him to 10 you can often offer any player in your club a new contract for half of what they're on now.
Ronaldinho costing you £60,000 a game? Not a problem if you've got a 10 rated negotiations manager. Offer him a new contract extension for just 1 year (it's 1 year plus what he's got now) and don't change the salary, he should sign for roughly £30,000. Do this to your best and most expensive players to get your wage cap down, it costs you money in resigning fees but can help in the long run.
Winning game after game? Good! This means you should be rated about 90%-100% for fan appreciation, heck anything over 80% is brilliant since it means you can start charging "High" ticket prices without losing out on attendance figures - maximising your income through home games. Do this through the staff upgrades screen in your office.
Finally, adopt the "Buy young. Sell old" method of playing MM. With a high level staff training team you can easily train players up to 95+ overall before they retire. Signing any player that's rated 70 or 80+ at the age of 16-21 means you'll have them in your squad for 15 season (if you stay with the same team) and they should easily end up as a world class player.
Any player that hits the grand old age of 30 should be considered over the hill. He's past his peak now and the only thing he'll be doing is declining in ability so any points you add on through training will usually come off as through his natural decline in abilities, if he hasn't retired by 35 it's incredibly hard to get him to gain skill. The value of all players rapidly decreases season upon season after the age of 30, so sell them in their early 30's to ensure you're getting the most out of them in terms of ability and price tag.
It's much more financially viable to sell players when they are 30 or 31, when they're still worth a bundle and their skills are only just starting to decline. Van Der Saar for Man Utd is 38, he's a great keeper in the game but you cannot train him since he loses stats so quickly, keep him until the first January transfer window if you must... but players like Hugo Lloris are ~21 years old and rated 81 overall, if you keep him as your main keeper for the full 15 seasons and follow the following tips he'll easily reach 99 overall way before the end of the Manager Mode.
Training in Manager Mode
The most important part of MM for me is doing manual training, getting your players better means you can sell them on later in the game for more than you bought them for. Never leave this on automatic, the CPU will often just randomly assign skill points, meaning your star 22 year old striker may have gained 3 points as a goal keeper when he can never play in goal. The CPU will focus on giving players who are "decent" at freekicks, better freekick points. If you've got a regular freekick taker, there is no point giving those other players points towards taking freekicks... it doesn't improve their game since they'll never take a freekick for you.
Back to basics here, but make sure your training staff has been upgraded as high as you can afford first, this is normally my first thing I update before starting on the contracts. If you've got some spare cash you can't use, put it towards updating your staff for better GK,DF,MF or FW trainers.
So what do you focus on for quick stats updates for your players, well first things first don't bother upgrading the (I think it's called this) Mentality Panel, I'm pretty sure these are the attributes the CPU uses when it controls your players, it should be the last thing you try and look at updating since these are irrelevant when you're controlling the player.
Remember that if you notice somebodies skills are declining, sell them before it turns into rapid declining ability so you can get a decent amount of cash for them.
Follow these rules first, and your players should be getting very high, very quickly
I've literally just got into the January transfer window in my first season in FIFA 09, and Ronaldo is rated 98 overall, Rooney is 94 overall, Berbatov is 91, Tevez is 89, Ferdinand is rated at 95 and Vidic is now at 93.
Goalkeepers
First and foremost, focus on the goalkeeping panel. Don't bother with agility, jumping, long passing or normal passing. Just raise this GK panel until it's maxed out.
In previous years, a straight 99 in the GK panel was enough for about 97 or 98 overall. You need to then start training the player for jumping, agility from the movement panel. Strength can help a little, but you from previous experience players that are around 20 or 21 years old and have about 80 overall in the first season, will be 99 overall within about 8 or 9 seasons.
Central Defenders
Defence panel (obviously), max this out... it's only three sections (marking, tackling, slide tackles) and a straight 99 is easy to achieve with decent players.
This alone won't get you a 99 rated player though, you'll need him to raise his strength, jumping and his heading as well. Agility here can help, as can long passing and regular passing. Acceleration and Speed aren't a necesity, but you may feel the need to push these up if you're getting left for dead by forwards.
Right/Left Backs and Right/Left Wing Backs
Again your first port of call is to push the defensive panel as far as you can. Following the rules from the previous Defenders section, but this time you'll need to focus more on the players speed, passing and crossing, dribbling and ball control (especially with the wing backs).
Defensive Midfielders
I've found it quite difficult to nail the DM/MF/AM players and these seem the hardest players to get to gain skill. DM's really need to focus on passing the ball, long passing, and then focus on the same skills that central defenders have.
The defensive panel is important but these guys will come forward occasionally so will need to be able to pass the ball better as well. These guys are the rocks in the middle of the park, they'll be picking up anything that goes between your midfield and your defence, they'll need to be strong as well as good at jumping and heading the ball.
Midfielders
These guys I find the toughest to get to gain skill. I generally focus on whatever style of play my team is like. If you've built up a side that plays quick attractive football then make sure these guys can pass it, long and short, make sure they have good ball control and dribbling as well not being afraid to take a shot with decent strength and speed.
Jumping and heading is always important and will help you win back the ball after a goal kick, 9 times out of 10 the CPU will knock the ball down the centre of the park from a goal kick and these are the players that'll be jumping up there for the ball. The defending panel again comes into use.
Attacking Midfielders
Long range shooting, finishing, shot power, dribbling, ball control, short passing and speed/acceleration should be your main focuses. Heading comes into it, and strength is also useful.
The movement panel comes in handy with AM's, balance, reactions and speed/acceleration are important as well as the players stamina as these guys normally do lots of running. Defensive duties are of no concern, so leave this panel alone completely.
Wingers
Accelleration and Pace, ball control and dribbling, balance and reactions help an awful lot.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that these guys need to be great crossers of the ball, and have great passing skills as well. Focus on these first, then move onto strength to help you out muscle defenders, heading and finishing should follow as well as the players stamina. Shot power and long shots help boost player points as well.
Forwards
Depending on your style of play, focus on either heading/jumping or finishing/shot power/long shots first. Max out either of those selections first for your forwards to ensure they're playing as best they can to match your needs. Then do the opposite (i.e. if you always cross the ball, make sure your forwards are great at heading, then move onto maxing out their shooting.. and vice versa if you like to hit shot after shot, max out their shooting before headers) to ensure he's good all-round.
Forwards will need to be strong, and you'll need to focus on their speed as well to ensure that they can beat anyone they come up against. If you max these out, begin to focus on passing (normal passing, not long range passing) as well as dribbling and ball control abilities.
Crossing, volleying skills and the players balance will help get them towards the magic 99.
And that's it, follow those rules and you can easily end up with a team of 99's within a few seasons. Remember to get your staff upgrades going as well, the better your staff are the more skill points each player gets after each game (whether they've played or not).
Buy players when they're young, train them up to world class level and sell them in their late 20's or early 30's and replace them with other youngsters.
Ensure that you've got players to cover them though, so when you've sold 4 players that are rated 95+ that are in your first squad you aren't forced to field 4 16 year olds that are rated in the high 70's or low 80's.
One last thing to remember, is that when you play a person out of position their skill drops. If you've got a Left Midfielder like Silva rated 99 overall, he's 99 overal for a Left Midfielder, not a winger. If he plays as a winger his rating overall will drop slightly (but his actual ability won't drop, so he won't play any worse) so don't be surprised that if you put a 99 rated winger in defence his ability drops to about 50ish... he'll still be unbelievably quick, a great passer and a great crosser but he just can't defend so his rating on the team management screen reflects this.
You should end up to a constant team of world beaters within a few seasons. If you sell a 99 rated player, you should easily get £100m for him if he's a forward or a winger... so you should have no excuses that you're low on cash and can't upgrade any of your staff.
Feel free to add your own tips, and share your MM experiences.
The majority of this is off the top of my head, so it might be a little sketchy as to what things are called and what panels to go into.
First Things First (Staff Training)
This is the core of where your players abillity, your new signings and your money will come from... whether you like it or not.
Spend your cash wisely, invest in upgrading your staff!
Upgrading your GK/DF/MF/FW staff means your players will gain more skill points after each game, helping you to train them and get them to the magic 99 overall quicker.
Upgrade your negotiations staff. This section means that any contract talks go through smoother, you can sign players for less money and the contracts will cost less in the long run.
Upgrade your stadium. The most expensive upgrades you'll do in your game, but they bring in more money through ticket sales so it's worth it in the long run. Upgrading this from 0 - 10 will cost you around (or possibly over) £100m, so could take you some time with a small club.
Upgrading your scouts will help you learn more about potential signings and will find you better players through scouting. Personally, I never use the scouting system and prefer to buy players through the transfer market, but it can come in use for when the market is closed and you need a decent player quickly and cheaply.
Making Money In Manager Mode
An awful lot of people who are new to MM find it incredibly tough to make money in this mode, even with the biggest clubs.
The sponsors you can get are based on a combination of your managerial ability (which is ranked out of 10) and the club that you are managing at the time.
Simply, sponsors aren't the be all and end all and they will not generate enough income to keep the club making money each game. It's tough to be making money Home & Away in your first season, since your sponsors are normally quite poor to begin with so you'll need to drop your wages.
Now, if you've got this far you should have a very high rated negotiation manager... if you've been lucky enough to get him to 10 you can often offer any player in your club a new contract for half of what they're on now.
Ronaldinho costing you £60,000 a game? Not a problem if you've got a 10 rated negotiations manager. Offer him a new contract extension for just 1 year (it's 1 year plus what he's got now) and don't change the salary, he should sign for roughly £30,000. Do this to your best and most expensive players to get your wage cap down, it costs you money in resigning fees but can help in the long run.
Winning game after game? Good! This means you should be rated about 90%-100% for fan appreciation, heck anything over 80% is brilliant since it means you can start charging "High" ticket prices without losing out on attendance figures - maximising your income through home games. Do this through the staff upgrades screen in your office.
Finally, adopt the "Buy young. Sell old" method of playing MM. With a high level staff training team you can easily train players up to 95+ overall before they retire. Signing any player that's rated 70 or 80+ at the age of 16-21 means you'll have them in your squad for 15 season (if you stay with the same team) and they should easily end up as a world class player.
Any player that hits the grand old age of 30 should be considered over the hill. He's past his peak now and the only thing he'll be doing is declining in ability so any points you add on through training will usually come off as through his natural decline in abilities, if he hasn't retired by 35 it's incredibly hard to get him to gain skill. The value of all players rapidly decreases season upon season after the age of 30, so sell them in their early 30's to ensure you're getting the most out of them in terms of ability and price tag.
It's much more financially viable to sell players when they are 30 or 31, when they're still worth a bundle and their skills are only just starting to decline. Van Der Saar for Man Utd is 38, he's a great keeper in the game but you cannot train him since he loses stats so quickly, keep him until the first January transfer window if you must... but players like Hugo Lloris are ~21 years old and rated 81 overall, if you keep him as your main keeper for the full 15 seasons and follow the following tips he'll easily reach 99 overall way before the end of the Manager Mode.
Training in Manager Mode
The most important part of MM for me is doing manual training, getting your players better means you can sell them on later in the game for more than you bought them for. Never leave this on automatic, the CPU will often just randomly assign skill points, meaning your star 22 year old striker may have gained 3 points as a goal keeper when he can never play in goal. The CPU will focus on giving players who are "decent" at freekicks, better freekick points. If you've got a regular freekick taker, there is no point giving those other players points towards taking freekicks... it doesn't improve their game since they'll never take a freekick for you.
Back to basics here, but make sure your training staff has been upgraded as high as you can afford first, this is normally my first thing I update before starting on the contracts. If you've got some spare cash you can't use, put it towards updating your staff for better GK,DF,MF or FW trainers.
So what do you focus on for quick stats updates for your players, well first things first don't bother upgrading the (I think it's called this) Mentality Panel, I'm pretty sure these are the attributes the CPU uses when it controls your players, it should be the last thing you try and look at updating since these are irrelevant when you're controlling the player.
Remember that if you notice somebodies skills are declining, sell them before it turns into rapid declining ability so you can get a decent amount of cash for them.
Follow these rules first, and your players should be getting very high, very quickly
I've literally just got into the January transfer window in my first season in FIFA 09, and Ronaldo is rated 98 overall, Rooney is 94 overall, Berbatov is 91, Tevez is 89, Ferdinand is rated at 95 and Vidic is now at 93.
Goalkeepers
First and foremost, focus on the goalkeeping panel. Don't bother with agility, jumping, long passing or normal passing. Just raise this GK panel until it's maxed out.
In previous years, a straight 99 in the GK panel was enough for about 97 or 98 overall. You need to then start training the player for jumping, agility from the movement panel. Strength can help a little, but you from previous experience players that are around 20 or 21 years old and have about 80 overall in the first season, will be 99 overall within about 8 or 9 seasons.
Central Defenders
Defence panel (obviously), max this out... it's only three sections (marking, tackling, slide tackles) and a straight 99 is easy to achieve with decent players.
This alone won't get you a 99 rated player though, you'll need him to raise his strength, jumping and his heading as well. Agility here can help, as can long passing and regular passing. Acceleration and Speed aren't a necesity, but you may feel the need to push these up if you're getting left for dead by forwards.
Right/Left Backs and Right/Left Wing Backs
Again your first port of call is to push the defensive panel as far as you can. Following the rules from the previous Defenders section, but this time you'll need to focus more on the players speed, passing and crossing, dribbling and ball control (especially with the wing backs).
Defensive Midfielders
I've found it quite difficult to nail the DM/MF/AM players and these seem the hardest players to get to gain skill. DM's really need to focus on passing the ball, long passing, and then focus on the same skills that central defenders have.
The defensive panel is important but these guys will come forward occasionally so will need to be able to pass the ball better as well. These guys are the rocks in the middle of the park, they'll be picking up anything that goes between your midfield and your defence, they'll need to be strong as well as good at jumping and heading the ball.
Midfielders
These guys I find the toughest to get to gain skill. I generally focus on whatever style of play my team is like. If you've built up a side that plays quick attractive football then make sure these guys can pass it, long and short, make sure they have good ball control and dribbling as well not being afraid to take a shot with decent strength and speed.
Jumping and heading is always important and will help you win back the ball after a goal kick, 9 times out of 10 the CPU will knock the ball down the centre of the park from a goal kick and these are the players that'll be jumping up there for the ball. The defending panel again comes into use.
Attacking Midfielders
Long range shooting, finishing, shot power, dribbling, ball control, short passing and speed/acceleration should be your main focuses. Heading comes into it, and strength is also useful.
The movement panel comes in handy with AM's, balance, reactions and speed/acceleration are important as well as the players stamina as these guys normally do lots of running. Defensive duties are of no concern, so leave this panel alone completely.
Wingers
Accelleration and Pace, ball control and dribbling, balance and reactions help an awful lot.
It doesn't take a genius to work out that these guys need to be great crossers of the ball, and have great passing skills as well. Focus on these first, then move onto strength to help you out muscle defenders, heading and finishing should follow as well as the players stamina. Shot power and long shots help boost player points as well.
Forwards
Depending on your style of play, focus on either heading/jumping or finishing/shot power/long shots first. Max out either of those selections first for your forwards to ensure they're playing as best they can to match your needs. Then do the opposite (i.e. if you always cross the ball, make sure your forwards are great at heading, then move onto maxing out their shooting.. and vice versa if you like to hit shot after shot, max out their shooting before headers) to ensure he's good all-round.
Forwards will need to be strong, and you'll need to focus on their speed as well to ensure that they can beat anyone they come up against. If you max these out, begin to focus on passing (normal passing, not long range passing) as well as dribbling and ball control abilities.
Crossing, volleying skills and the players balance will help get them towards the magic 99.
And that's it, follow those rules and you can easily end up with a team of 99's within a few seasons. Remember to get your staff upgrades going as well, the better your staff are the more skill points each player gets after each game (whether they've played or not).
Buy players when they're young, train them up to world class level and sell them in their late 20's or early 30's and replace them with other youngsters.
Ensure that you've got players to cover them though, so when you've sold 4 players that are rated 95+ that are in your first squad you aren't forced to field 4 16 year olds that are rated in the high 70's or low 80's.
One last thing to remember, is that when you play a person out of position their skill drops. If you've got a Left Midfielder like Silva rated 99 overall, he's 99 overal for a Left Midfielder, not a winger. If he plays as a winger his rating overall will drop slightly (but his actual ability won't drop, so he won't play any worse) so don't be surprised that if you put a 99 rated winger in defence his ability drops to about 50ish... he'll still be unbelievably quick, a great passer and a great crosser but he just can't defend so his rating on the team management screen reflects this.
You should end up to a constant team of world beaters within a few seasons. If you sell a 99 rated player, you should easily get £100m for him if he's a forward or a winger... so you should have no excuses that you're low on cash and can't upgrade any of your staff.
