Supporting Players
Do you have any trusted supporting players on the team? They may not be the players with the highest rating, but they have distinct skill sets.
We can’t develop a tactical system without a superstar, and we can’t finish one without the right supporting players. A superstar makes the beginning of a tactical system. Supporting players make the ending.
Trust comes from working together. They can do what you want them to do and give the team the assists it needs. As a manager, you are familiar with them. You know what they can do. Even if they seem ordinary and unremarkable on the market, they can still be valuable (you cannot know their detailed abilities before you give them a contract and they join your team).
ZhongPing Sun is the shooting guard on our team. He usually comes on as a substitute. His salary is 2,600 EUR a week. It is not a high salary, because his total rating is not high. I did not think he would be a strong player when I first saw him on the market. I just needed a shooting guard, so I hired him. Then, unexpectedly, he turned out to be very good at driving to the basket.
So I let him do this. He averaged 15 points per game and played efficiently. This is because defenders may commit more fouls when the attacker drives to the basket. Shooting is unstable when the attacker has stamina issues. But driving to the basket may lead to more free throws and easy points.
Weng Tian is another player on my team. He is good at defense and passing, and he also has high offensive awareness.
Good off-ball players are hard to find. Weng Tian is one of them — he doesn’t require the ball to be effective.
There are many supporting players on the team, but these two stood out. Sun can play one-on-one when the team needs his scoring. Weng Tian can be effective without the ball. They aren’t the most powerful players, but they are important to the team.