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Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide and Tips

Start your journey today to become the next football legend!

The new season of Soccer Manager is finally here, and the developers have impressed yet again. Filled with improvements and new features, SM23 offers the next level of football manager simulation, corresponding to the 22/23 season. Soccer Manager 2023 gives players a huge grasp of control over a huge plethora of clubs, encouraging decisions such as transfers, tactics, and even youth academy management. Whilst this much power feels brilliant, there may be some hidden info or some things that are difficult to understand. This beginners guide will cover all those things, to give a much clearer perspective on what Soccer Manager 2023 offers.

Understanding the Menus

Starting with the Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide, there are a ton of UI buttons and menus, like most simulation games. Navigating this labyrinth takes some time to get used to; this section will explain all you need to know about each of the different menus.

The Main Menu

This is the main core menu, which covers most of the useful information you need about your next steps. This includes things like a snippet of the league table, upcoming fixtures, information on facilities, and more. To the left of the menu, you’ll see a taskbar. Here, you’ll get reminders of when transfer bids come in, training is available, etc. Keep an eye on this, and make sure it’s always empty, so all the important tasks have been dealt with.

SM23 Main Menu Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image by Invincibles Studio

Menus in SM23 function by swiping sideways. On the left, is the inbox, and it is pretty much essential to always check this section to keep updated. On the right of the main menu displays news from around the world. It can be interesting to see the top goal-scorers and the big-money moves, and this might help inform later decisions down the line.

The Squad Menu

This is the section where you can view your whole club and all the players in an easy-to-navigate list format. If you ever need to manage individual players, compare contracts or anything as such, this is the place to do so. Clicking the blue button on the right below will display a different set of columns showing other useful data, such as statistics and contact information. It’s also possible to sort the rows by just tapping at the top of the column to sort by.

SM23 Squad Menu
Image by Invincibles Studio

Swiping to go right takes you to the squad stats section. Although you can view all these numbers from the main Squad menu, this view looks much nicer! Swiping to go left brings you to one of the most useful reports in the game – the Squad report. This report covers everything you need to know about the players at your club, whether it contracts expiry dates, player growth, or morale levels. The coach report is useful too, as this highlights the pros and cons of the group of players you have. In some cases, it’s better to trust your own judgment over what the scout report says, however. Just take notes as an indicator of some areas that may need to be considered.

The Manager Menu

This bit is all about you and your manager profile. The stats system indicates how you can improve your own abilities just like players. Additionally, the manager upgrades are other perks that can be unlocked later on. Try to use all manager and skill points once earned, as you’ll only need to start managing them carefully further down the line. If you were wondering how to earn these, it’s literally as easy as just playing the game!

SM23 Manager screen Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image by Invincibles Stuido

Swiping to go right takes you to the Board section, where you can see the objectives, their confidence in you, and the fan’s confidence. There’s also the Job Vacancies section in this menu, in case you’re considering a move. Swiping to go right again from there will take you to your manager career stats, where you can view all your records and accomplishments.

The Finances Menu

This might seem like a complicated menu, purely because of how much information there is. You don’t need to worry too much about this though, it is all mainly just a summary of the different sources of income and expenditure. There are different sections showing your projection (how much money you’re going to have at the end of the season if you continue as you are now), and summaries of prize money, sponsorships, merchandise, etc.

SM23 Finances Menu
Image by Invincibles Studio

All in all, though, the only major thing to keep an eye on is the Projected profit/loss. If that’s negative, then something should be done about it.

The Tactics Menu

This is where you’ll be putting together your line-ups, and organizing instructions in preparation for the next game. It’s all in a drag-and-drop format, where you can shift around players wherever you want on the pitch. There are preset formations as well if needed.

SM23-Tactics-Menu Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image by Invincibles Studio

Swiping to go right takes you to the instructions part of the tactical setup, where you can define what kind of football you want your side to play. Swiping to the left will take you to an overview of your next opposition, their predicted line-up, and more. Note that the line-up is predicted and could change when the match actually comes around.

The Transfers Menu

This is the main hub of all things transfers. Here you can search through the huge database of real players to find the ideal player for your team, and make the deals happen. There are a bunch of filters you can use to pick out the kind of player you want, however, there is also the option to search for a club as well, which may come in handy in some situations.

SM23 Transfer Search Menu
Image by Invincibles Studio

Swiping to go right will take you to the world transfers section, where you can view a list of all the people that have moved clubs. Swiping to go left will take you to a list of all the players that have moved in and out of your club, be it loans or transfers. You can also see the shortlist here. If there is ever a player you want to keep tabs on, add them to the shortlist, so it’s easier to find them in the future.

The Club Facility Menus

SM23 has 5 facilities that make up the club’s infrastructure. All 5 have their own purposes and can be upgraded for better perks.

SM23 Stadium Menu Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image by Invincibles Stuido
  • Stadium – This is where you can upgrade the appearance and the capacity of your stands, giving you high income through ticket sales.
  • Club Zone – This section features a bunch of different aspects which all just act as a bonus bit of help. The sponsorships are deals you can sign for some easy money, and upgrading the club zone will bump up a lot of stuff too, like cash income and injury management.
  • Training – This is where you can conduct training drills, and view progress on individual player development. The reminders in the Main Menu will automatically bring you to this section when your training drills are ready to do, so don’t worry too much. Upgrading this area opens up more spots so you can conduct more drills at once, and also makes the quality of training better.
  • Scouting – This is where you can view your scouting reports, and set your scouts off on other assignments too. Upgrading here gives you more scouts, makes them quicker and gives them better judgment.
  • Youth Academy – This is where you can sign youth players and see them develop until you think they’d be ready to be called up to the main side. It will be long filling this up at first, but after a while, you will start to have a bustling academy with a variety of promising players. Upgrading this will improve the capacity, and allow you to sign more players at once to your academy.

Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide: Tips and Tricks

1. Create a gameplan to organize your squad

All good managers have a good gameplan, and that is probably the best way to achieve success with your club in Soccer Manager 2023. Improvising may work for the odd run of games, but you may need a robust idea of how you will want to be playing football. This involves the formation you want to be playing, the individual roles of each player, and their squad statuses too. Having all this sorted out means that in the future of your career, you’ll be able to easily identify areas of improvement, and managing the team will become much simpler too.

2. Keep upgrading your stadium facilities

Stadium facility upgrades are brilliant ways to drastically improve your club as a whole for the long term. Make sure that these are getting upgraded where possible. The initial upgrades are usually quite cheap and will not be much of a hit to your budget. Obviously, they’ll get pricier, as you go higher up the levels, but the benefits are huge and will make the money worthwhile in the future.

3. Keep an eye on your Board Objectives

SM23 Board Objectives Menu Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image by Invincibles Studio

Head over to the Manager menu and swipe to go right once to see what your objectives are. Keep an eye on your progress, as this is essential if you want to keep your job at the club. Some are pretty easy to do, whilst others are more focused on long-term improvement.

4. Keep tracking the Free Agents list

The Free Agents list is way more useful than you may think. There will always be some way in which it helps you out. Obviously, there are some good players up for grabs there, that have had their contracts run down. As well as that, there may be some bargains you can pick up on fairly priced contracts, that can turn out to be solid rotation players, or even starters if you so wish.

SM23 Free Agents
Image by Invincibles Studio

When searching through the list, try adding a filter for under 19/21 free agents. You might see some low-rated youngsters, but with oddly high price tags. The reasoning behind these prices is that these players could be future stars and probably have high potential. You could start offering contracts to these wonder kids, and then training them up to eventually use or sell for a profit.

5. Send youngsters out on loan for more game time

It is likely at some point in your club career, the 25-man limit on the first team will begin to feel more of a stronger restriction. The abundance of quality players and the boundary of how many you can play at once will likely become more difficult to manage, forcing you to make decisions on which players to prioritize. Obviously, you’ll want to play your high-value stars as much as possible, however, this may be a burden on the minutes of your youngsters. Luckily, there’s a really useful tool at your disposal, allowing you to temporarily loan out your players to other clubs.

SM23 Loan reports Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image via Invincibles Studio Ltd

Any players you don’t need but may need in the future, you can send out to loan to get some minutes under their belt. This is a very useful way of developing youngsters, without actually handling them yourself, and you won’t even need to pay their full wages either! Make sure to be comfortable with loaning out a player too, if they play as a backup to one of your first-team players, you should probably keep him just in case. Use the monthly loan reports to keep updated on how the loans are going too.

6. Keep an eye on your upcoming schedule

The schedule menu gives a complete view of what games are coming up for your club. It can be very useful to keep a close eye on what the full view looks like, rather than just the short snippet of dates on the main menu. Also, this menu offers good visualization of how packed the fixtures are too.

SM23 Calendar
Image by Invincibles Studio

By knowing the sequence of matches coming up, managers should select a balance of players so that fitness can be maintained, and injuries prevented.

7. Try out your luck with loans

Especially with lower league teams, loan moves are really useful ways to pick up quality players. Perhaps the sound of signing a new player and getting used to them, only for them to leave in a season may sound underwhelming. However, they can be really good placeholders and even star players that can drive you to victories. Try digging through a bunch of popular top-flight clubs and looking at their youngsters and reverse players.

8. Don’t forget your optional free rewards

Soccer Manager 2023 offers a range of free loyalty bonuses, including the daily login system and the Free Pack system. These are just small things that offer small packets of cash, boosts, and maybe even credits, but they’re free and you can’t complain! The reason why this is tagged as optional is that obviously, there’s an element of unrealism here, so conversely, if you want to play a realistic game, with no free bumps, you may want to avoid them.

9. Spend Manager Points and Tokens as soon as possible

The brand-new manager upgrade system gives both Manager Points and Tokens which you can use to upgrade your manager. It’s highly advised to use these up as soon as you can since there really is no point in holding them. The traits are pretty straightforward, simply pick whichever looks appealing to you. For the first few levels, you’ll find that by the time you reach the level required to unlock the next set of traits, you’ll have unlocked every single one in the previous category already. The attributes are a bit more complicated. There may be some that you find particularly useful, but if you’re still confused, just try going for an equal spread.

10. Take advantage of all the shortcuts

There is a range of ways in Soccer Manager 2023 in which you can beat the laws of physics and advance through time. Put simply, there is the option to watch ads to speed up cooldowns. If you’re going for a realistic career save, obviously ignore these. If not, these are genuinely close-to-overpowered shortcuts you can use to skip waiting times and get a bunch of upgrades to your club instantly.

SM23 Boost Rating Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide
Image by Invincibles Studio

There’s also the option to boost a player’s overall by a decent amount prior to a game, by watching an ad. Just as it sounds, this is also close-to-overpowered and makes a huge difference to their ability when playing. If you want to have a fair game, avoid this completely, but if you don’t care, this can be a really useful tool to win games.

That’s all for today folks! Go ahead and give it a try and if you are finding trouble, don’t hesitate to fall back to this The Soccer Manager 2023 Beginners Guide and Tips!

That’s all for today’s Soccer Manager 2023 beginners guide. Did you find our Soccer Manager 2023 beginners guide helpful? Do let us know in the comments!

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Jan

Hi, thanx for great work. One question: I have, one od the Objectives, to upgrade Club facilieties. I have youth 2, scout 3, etc… I upgraded it by 1, there is still 0 and objective not Done…any help? Thanx

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