How to get started as a football noob

Discussion

Prior to this World Cup I’d watched maybe like 20 football games in my life (mostly other world cups.) Since then I’ve watched like a hundred, across all the different leagues around the world. I’m playing fantasy PL. Totally caught the football bug, and naturally, I want to try playing FM26!

The problem is, I don’t know too much about football strategy. I am learning quickly, and I know some basic concepts like all the positions, terms like “half spaces” and “inverted winger” and “tiki taka” and “over/underlap” and “pressing trigger”, the concept of passing “directness”, “low block”, “trivela”, “hold up”, “back 3” etc etc. So I guess I’m not a COMPLETE noob anymore, but I don’t think my knowledge is adequate to glance at a roster and know what system would work best for them, or make tactical changes based on how a particular game is playing out, etc. but I want to learn!!

I tried searching YouTube for FM26 playthrough geared at noobs, but it seems that doesn’t really exist. Most are making tactical changes I don’t completely understand, assuming a *lot* of knowledge from their audience. Most of the “for noobs” videos seem to revolve around tutorials on what the menus do and how to set up a game for the first time, not revolving around actual strategy. (But still appreciated and needed ofc!)

So yeah, does anyone have any advice on how to proceed with getting to an amount of knowledge that I’d have even the slightest idea how to manage a team’s tactics/transfers? (I gather that I could leave everything else delegated as a first run). Should I just try to focus on watching videos that focus on football tactics in general and not on FM26 itself at all?

If anyone has general advice or, even better, specific creators or videos etc, I’d really appreciate it.

Posted Aug 27, 2026, 12:05 AM UTC

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