All football fans are likely to have seen many matches where they wondered just what the players were doing. Weak offence, sloppy teamwork, a general lack of motivation… you had to wonder just what the manager of the team had been doing. Certainly if you’d been the manager, you could have done better than that.

Now, you have the chance to prove it. In Online Football Manager, you can enter football leagues from all over the world, take control of your favourite team, and make all the decisions a team manager usually makes: tactics, formation, line-up, buying and selling players, all is possible. 100,000 football fans of all ages across the globe already actively play the game every day.

Participating is simple, all you have to do is sign up, choose your league and team, and make your decisions. Every night a match is played, and based on the results you can choose to adapt your tactics. Is your next opponent FC Barcelona? Playing it safe might be wise. Aggressive tactics may do better against teams with a weak defence, but is it worth the risk of injuries and suspensions? You be the judge.

While logging in daily is not necessary, doing so will let you take quick actions such as buying newly available players, replacing players who have become exhausted and need to rest, and giving bench players a chance to shine to increase their morale. If all else fails, you can even put your team through a special training camp to give them the boost they need to be victorious.

Signing up for Online Football Manager is completely free, but there is also the option to purchase a Season Ticket for a small fee to gain access to additional options. Examples are the option to scout players abroad, expanding the team’s stadium, and watching every match live as it happens including commentary from a football commentator. It’s as if you’re right there in the stadium!

Simple to learn but hard to master, Online Football Manager provides a long-lasting challenge for all who aspire to take their favourite real-life football team to the top. No matter your age, nationality or team preference, all football fans will find something to enjoy. Take up the mantle of football manager today, and show the world how champions are made!

This is not a shameless plug for one of the sponsors. I started playing this game well before I started writing for Soccerlens.com. Online Football Manager (OFM) is one of the greatest interactive online football games on the web today. It’s simple, easy to learn, and best of all its free!

For anyone looking to learn more about players and tactical elements of the world’s game, continue to read up on Soccerlens and then click on over to www.onlinefootballmanager.co.uk, for a great way to interact with other wanna-be Jose Mourinho’s.

Ever dreamed of managing your home club or maybe one of Europe’s Giants? Well, on OFM, you can become the gaffer of Scunthorpe United or Manchester United, AC Milan or AC Cesena. The teams and leagues are many and hail from far and wide. Take the helm of your favorite team from England to Spain, Peru to Argentina, Russia or Japan. Unlike some manager simulation games online, the squad lists are always being updated with the team’s actual players. So, instead of managing an Arsenal squad with first-teamers with names like Tony Smith and John Wright, you can choose to play Robin Van Persie up front with Adebayor.

With OFM you are in the driver’s seat of your club. You make all the calls that determine whether the fans will be cheering you on as the next “Special One” or booing you off the pitch like Sam Allardyce at St. James Park. Once a team has offered you a contract with a weekly budget, you are responsible for signing on sponsors, training your players, selecting your formation, your first team and substitutes. Pick a captain who is a veteran and performs well even when the rest of the team is not. Select who’s taking corners, free kicks and the ever important kicks from the spot.

Ever wish that the transfer window was open all the time? On OFM it is. At any time during the season each manager in the league can put his own players up for sale on the Transfer List. The game even randomly offers players of varying ability from other nation’s leagues just to give each league a little foreign spicing up (No ridiculous Sepp Blatter quotas either)! You can even make bids to the other managers in the league for their players. Just don’t expect to buy Cristiano Ronaldo for anywhere near his estimated value. Part of the game involves a manager being a shrewd business man, trying to sell his disfavored players for far more than they are worth and buying players for as little as the other manager will take. You’ll find yourself anxiously waiting, hoping that you can raise enough money before the next guy does and beat him to the signature of an Aguero or a Yakubu.

A manager gets to pick his staff, which can include trainers, physios, doctors, lawyers and even a spy, who will let you know what your opponents are up to. Trainers are definitely important as they help your selected players gain ability points each gameday. Train the young bucks as they gain ability much faster. There’s nothing like having a Theo Walcott or a Bojan Krkic showing up the big dogs after a bit of training. Doctors help them recover from the hard knocks received during a game, cutting down the number of days they would be out of contention. Lawyers can help you battle the FA and get those red card suspension days reduced.

When it comes time to start the season, nothing matters more than picking the right formation for the players on your squad and the right tactics to suit that formation. If your squad has got a lot of talent in the midfield, choose a 4-5-1 or a 3-5-2, and opt for tactics which will favor your midfielders’ abilities. If you are heavy on talent up front, go with a 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 and Get Wide! If you are so blessed with the problem of having to decide where to play Ronaldinho, Messi, Henry and Eto’o, you can even play a 4-2-4 and play it forward with the Long Ball.

This, in conjunction with the tactical selections of your opponent, will determine the outcome of your matches (thus, the importance of hiring a spy!). Every day a game will be played and you can see the results including goalscorers, bookings and injuries and watch as your team rises to the top of the table. If success doesn’t come quickly, don’t be afraid to experiment with your formations and tactics and discover which best suit your squad.

If you want to give yourself an extra advantage, sign up for OFM Season Tickets, which give you access to special functions like developing your stadium, hiring a commercial manager who can help you get more funds for transfers, and most importantly you can hire a Scout. This is one of the most fun aspects of the game because with the right financial management you can build an amazing team, drafting your favorite stars. Send your scout to a country in Europe looking for a player of a certain age, position, ability and see who pops up!

The other great thing about purchasing Season Tickets is the access to special leagues. Take the reigns of the English National Team and show the FA why they should have picked you over ‘Cabbage Man’ Capello, or participate in a league table comprised of the Champions League teams. My personal favorite is the Fantasy League. I love starting from scratch and putting together a dream team. The team I’m currently fielding is amazing and is as follows:

1 Reina
2 Puyol
3 Milito
4 Evra
5 Cristiano Ronaldo
6 Gattuso (c)
7 Fabregas
8 Sneijder
9 Ibrahimovic
10 Tevez
11 Toni

Subs: Utaka, Quaresma, Daniel Alves, Drenthe, Kameni
Playing a 3-4-3 Wide

Get your friends signed up and battle it out to see who’s got what it takes to be champions! Whenever I come up against one of my friends it’s like a derby day and the trash talk flies. I challenge you to season of the most authentic and fun football management around. My manager name is Thierry Henry the King and I’ll see you out on the web-based pitch.

Click here to go to Online Football Manager.

Update: The league’s full, thanks for joining. Remember, you can still sign up for OFM and play one of the best online football manager games around.

I’ve setup the Soccerlens Premier League over at Online Football Manager (OFM), and all you OFM fans reading Soccerlens are welcome to hop on board and take up one of the 19 available teams (I’ve already picked Manchester United – what did you expect?).

The competition runs for less than 2 months (I think) so it’s an excellent chance to beat your fellow SL readers, win a shirt and boost your OFM rankings all at the same time.

How to join the Soccerlens Premier League:

1. Log in / Sign up to OFM – if it’s a new account then you can move to step 3 directly.
2. If you’re already playing in a league and don’t have a spare subaccount, I would suggest becoming a Premium Season Ticket Holder – it allows you to setup 3 subaccounts (so you can have four versions of yourself running across OFM) and one of those subaccounts can be used for the Soccerlens Premier League, I’m sure.
3. Select ‘England’ as your region through the Manager control centre (for new accounts and new subaccounts).
4. Find ‘Soccerlens Premier League‘ and join up. You can also search for it through the search box on the left.
5. Click ‘join’ and follow the instructions.

See you on OFM – I’ll be tracking the progress of the league in the SL forum and by posting regular updates in the Online Football Manager section of the blog, so stay tuned.

For help with OFM, make sure you read the comments sections of this two articles:

OFM – 2 weeks later
Cracking the OFM code

Readers are welcome to send in their own article on OFM tactics, although I’ll try to put one up by tomorrow.

If you haven’t already, go on and sign up for OFM.

I think I’ve finally figured out how to win in OFM (online football manager).

There were several strategies mentioned in the comments section of the previous report but I think that:

• you need to develop your own strategy based on the players you have
• you should adapt your strategy to suit your opponents (and conditions – home vs away)
• you should watch what the league toppers are doing and learn from them

Right now I’m using a 3-4-3 formation, ‘Hard’ style of play, passing game (overall tactics), +1 offensive mentality (one behind extremely offensive), man-to-man defensive tactics, offside trap off and pressing on. Defenders are set to ’stay back’, midfielders ’support attackers’ and the attackers are set to ‘attack only’.

I’m playing Arsenal and I adopted the above strategy after losing 0-3 at home to Chelsea. Result? 5 games, 5 wins, 21 goals scored, 0 conceded. From outside the top 10 back into the top 6 and gunning for 4th spot (although only half the season is left).

I took the 3-4-3 formation from the team that beat me last (Chelsea), but the rest has been part intuition and part learning experience.

It also helps to train your players like crazy buggers, although someone must explain to me how Manchester United have several players with 100 on some of their ratings – can training improve you that much or is there something else going on that I’ve missed?

All in all, it’s more fun once you learn to win and start playing with the big boys (who are usually way more experienced than you).

I’d be interested in hearing more from regular OFM users on their strategies on playing the game. And if you aren’t playing OFM yet, I suggest you sign up today – easily one of the best online football games around.

Also see: Previous articles on Online Football Manager.

Ok guys, I need help.

For the last 2 weeks or so, I’ve been playing OFM – online football manager – and to be honest, I haven’t been able to crack the system.

I’m more used to the Fifa 07 type games, where you have to go on and win the game yourself. Football Manager I learned eventually, although the detailed tactics and training routines were a bit beyond me – how the hell do people find time for stuff like that?

Anyway, OFM is a fun game, although if you stick to one league at a time the game becomes a bit slow as it’s time-based (1 real day = 1 week of game time), so the better option is to create sub accounts and join other leagues. That requires you to purchase tickets, although those are quite cheap and IMO if you enjoy the management interface (I did) then getting the tickets and setting up multiple accounts to participate in different leagues at the same time is the way to go.

So, back to my initial question – any SL readers who are actively playing OFM? If so, shed any light on the tactics for me, I’ll be grateful.

And for those of you who want to play OFM, sign up here.

Please limit the conversation in the comments to OFM – if you want to suggest other footy management games, contact me and I’ll review them if possible.

As football fans we follow our club(s) very closely and it’s a natural consequence that we have strong opinions about how things should be done – tactics, transfers, formations, etc.

It’s easy to pit your skills against the computer in games like Fifa 07, Pro Evolution Soccer or Football Manager, but the real test comes when you have to put your money where your mouth is and go up against real people managing clubs just like you.

Short of the real thing (boy would it be good to be manage a club for real or what?), the best thing I’ve found so far is Online Football Manager.

I’m going to test OFM out over the next couple of weeks and bring you more updates. From what I’ve seen in my early testing, it is impressive and addictive.

If anyone is already a user I’d be really interested in hearing their comments on OFM.

And if you haven’t so far, make sure you give OFM a spin.