Step 1

Download a facepack of your choice. Let’s use one just for testing purposes, the Brazil facepack. Download it and you should have a file called Brazil.zip in your computer.

Step 2

Extract the contents of the zip file into the following folder

If you are using WindowsVista -> C:\Users\Your Account Name\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\graphics\players\

If you are using Windows XP -> C:\Documents and Setting\Your Account Name\My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\graphics\players\

If the graphics or players folders do not exist just create them like this:

Go to the Football Manager 2009 folder in My Documents, right click in the Windows Explorer window and select New > Folder. A folder is created and you should name it with the appropriate name, “graphics” or “players”.

Step 3

Open your Football Manager 2009 game.

Step 4

Go to Preferences, click on Display & Sound. Untick the box that says Use Skin Cache and tick the box that says Always Reload Skin on Confirm, like in the picture below.

Step 5

Click on “Confirm” and everything should be OK. Let me know if there are any problems, I’ll try to help you out.

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We were going to play the first leg away from home and that was a slight advantage for our counter attacking tactic. My boys were totally concentrated for the game and they played brilliantly, we dominated the game and we won 2-0 away from home with 2 goals scored by my Romanian centre back Remus Ardelean (both goals came from corner kicks!).

I had no fears for the second game, I was sure that we would preserve the advantage that we took in the first leg. We let them have more posession of the goal but we struck on counter attacks, we won the game with a comprehensive 3-1 lead and we were ready for the final!

The final was not going to be played in two legs, only one decisive game against Southport. They won their semi final easily, they finished second in the league. Despite that I felt that we had a slight advantage because we didn’t lose against them in the league, we won the away game 3-2 and drew 1-1 at home.

The game was going to be played at the Pirelli Stadium in Burton-on-Trent with more than 3000 people in the stands, a nice atmosphere for us as we were used to our 800 spectators for our home games. We were very motivated, the lads understood that this was a big chance for them and we won the game not allowing our opponents to have any shots on goal! Our reserve striker Shaun Reay was the hero of the game, he scored twice after half time!

Here is a video capture of the three goals that we scored, I hope you’ll enjoy watching it!

Here we are, the Blyth Spartans won promotion to Blue Square Premier against all odds! Remember, the bookmakers gave us a 150-1 chance to win promotion, if one of our fans might have placed that bet he’d be a rich man right now! The board was thrilled and the fans were ecstatic!

There you go, a great triumph for the Blyth Spartans but now I have to be very wise in pre season and pick the right players for the tough challenge ahead of use, surviving in Blue Square Premier! In the next post you’ll find out all about the pre season, the players that I’m going to buy and sell and the friendlies that we are going to play. Until then, best wishes and enjoy your Football Manager 2009 games!

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The tactic was not made by me, I only added a few tweaks here and there. It was made by a nice Romanian user down at The Dugout Forums, his nickname is Steeler. Here is the thread that he opened to describe the tactic, I guess nobody can do that better than him.

I’m using two versions of the tactic, depending on the opponent that I have to face. The one that I use the most is the counter attack tactic, which I used in the Champions League final against Barcelona.

The second version of the tactic is more attacking, with the full backs getting more forward runs and with the striker set up as target man. I used this version mostly for home games and for games against weaker opponents that use very defensive tactics.

The thing that I like about this tactic is that it produces a very good attacking play, if you have good creative players in midfield you will be amazed of the plays that they will produce. The wingers are essential to the success of this tactic, you will need fast wingers with good dribbling and good shooting also. If your midfielders have good long shots they will score a lot of goals too.

The other great thing about this tactic is the set pieces, specially the corners. If you have good corner takers and players with good heading you will score loads from corners.

About the opposition instructions, most times I don’t set specific instructions, I do that only if I see during the game that one or two of the opposition players are giving me a hard time. For instance, in the game against Barcelona I chose to hard tackle and show to the weaker foot their two central midfielders because they were dictating play and giving their team a lot of great passes. 

That’s about it, you can download the two tactics by clicking on the download badge below. This has been the best FM 2009 tactic I’ve used so far, and I’ve used it only with patch 9.3.

If you have questions about the tactic just leave a comment, I’ll try to answer as soon as possible.

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After going through the first rounds of the Carling Cup without too many difficulties we had a tough battle to face in the semi finals against our rivals, Arsenal. Fortunately for us we were able to win the first leg, at home, 3-1 so in the second leg we played an intelligent counter attack game and lost it 2-1, but we were through to the final!

Our opponent in the final was Aston Villa, a solid team, but a lot easier to face than Arsenal. We won the game 2-0 and there’s another trophy in our hands, the third one in the club’s history after the Europa League and the European SuperCup! The game was a lot more difficult than I expected though…

As you can see from the screenshot below, our best player was the keeper, Serdar, he made some absolutely miraculous saves to keep a clean sheet and to push the trophy in our hands.

And now, the Premier League… We were 8 points ahead Manchester City and 9 points ahead of Arsenal after the first 19 games of the season, but I was quite sure that Arsenal would be the main contenders because they really have a very strong team and, a very important thing, an absolutely great bench. Manchester City have a good team too, but if they miss a first team player they can have quite big problems. But ultimately it was in our hands, if we would manage to give our best in every match and not lose too many points we couldn’t miss the title. In fact, we didn’t lose any game in the second part of the Premier League season, but we made quite a few draws, some of them unexpected, like the ones with Bolton or Stoke. 

The game of the season was the direct battle against Arsenal, at the Deva Stadium. And it was a fabulous game, the most beautiful game I ever played in Football Manager 2009. Arsenal took the lead in the 11th minute with a great goal from Fabregas, and then my Brazilian forward, Choco, showed everybody what he’s made of. We were 3-1 up and then Fabregas scored again… Our midfielders just couldn’t keep him quiet! The first half ended 3-3, and their third goal, scored by Van Persie, was created by… Fabregas. After the break I brought in French midfielder Clement Chantome to keep an eye on Fabregas, and he did that very well. Despite that Arsenal scored again in the 60th minute, they were leading 4-3! Seven minutes later Choco pulled another trick from his bag to complete his hat trick and level the game, 4-4. We dominated the last 20 minutes of the game and right during the last minute Clement Chantome scored from the edge of the area! A fabulous win and the title was almost in our hands! Arsenal were 15 points behind us with 11 games to go!

We won the title 3 games before the end of the season, I still didn’t play the last game, so here’s the table after 37 games, with Chester City as Premier League Champions! We did it!

The board was absolutely ecstatic and the fans love me more than they love their wives, I’m pretty sure about that

English regen midfielder Russell Gill was a very important player for us, although I didn’t think that he’ll be a first team regular at the start of the season. He’s 20 years old now and he already played 1 game for the national team. I bought him in 2012 from Stockport for 350.000 euro because my scouts told me that he could be a good player in the future, and they were not wrong. His passing game is absolutely wonderful and he is a very good team player. In 19 games in the Premier League this season he scored 3 goals (mostly from free kicks) and made 7 assists! He’ll be a big star next season, you can count on that!

Another important player for us was the Brazilian attacking midfielder that I bought at the beginning of the season, Willians Santana. He scored 13 goals in the Premier League and made 11 assists, a great performance considering that I used thim in 4 different roles on a regular basis: right winger, left winger, attacking midfielder and central midfielder.

And last but not least, the Champions League. We qualified from the second place in our group, behind Barcelona, and we were drawn against Internazionale Milano in the first knockout round. The first game was played at the Deva Stadium and we dominated from start to finish. Unfortunately we only scored one goal, so we had to defend a narrow 1-0 lead at the Giuseppe Meazza. As we expected, Inter attacked furiously and scored three times, but with the firepower that we have upfront we had to score too… And we did, it finished 3-2 and we qualified on away goals. 

In the quarter finals we had to play… Arsenal, our fierce rivals this season. The first leg was away and they were missing a very important player, Fabregas. We took advantage of that and won the game 2-1! In the second leg we managed to defend the lead and drew 1-1. We were through to the semi finals, where we were drawn against a good opponent, Manchester City, but a lot weaker than Arsenal or Internazionale. I was sure that if we would play a solid first leg away we were one step into the final.

We won the first leg 1-0, so the second game at the Deva Stadium was entertainment for our fans, we won it 3-2. We were through to the final, it was a dream that I didn’t even dare to imagine at the start of the season!

And guess who we were going to meet in the final… Barcelona! We played against them in the group stage, we lost at the Nou Camp 2-0 but we won the home game 3-1, so I guess we had our chance! They have a fabulous team, with Messi, Bojan and Givanni Dos Santos upfront and with the brilliant Xavi in midfield. My scout gave me some good news, both their central midfielders were injured, both Xavi and John Obi Mikel. Unfortunately their replacements are called Iniesta and Anderson, so it won’t be a lot easier for us…

As you can see my scout says that they usually play 4-4-2, but from what I remember the always played a 4-3-2-1 against us, with a defensive midfielder, 2 midfielders, Messi on the left wing, Dos Santos on the right and Bojan upfront. This will be the most important game of my career, so I’m going to study the Champions League games that Barcelona played this season to see which are their strengths and to think about how to keep their fabulous players quiet… In the next post I’ll tell you all about the Champions League final, now I have to prepare the game and do my best to win it. See you!

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Samples

Author

Steifus & Garzya

Download
link

How to install
Extract the zip file to \My Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\graphics\players.

In the game preferences screen untick “Use Skin Cache”. Enjoy it!

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