Signing Players and Contracts
Auctions:
One of the unique features of Top Eleven is the live auctions that take place in the game for signing players. This allows the game to replicate the drama of transfer deadline day, with teams that have tons of money vying for the big names, and those scrabbling to stay afloat trying to sign a bargain youngter under everyone else’s radar.
To take part in a live auction you need to use the Transfers menu. From here, simply search for players that you may want to try to sign. You can search by a number of attributes – probably the most useful is Position, but you can also filter by Age, Value and Nationality. Once you have found a player that you would like to make an offer on, click on them. This will show you how long is left and allow you to make a bid on the player in question. This is one of the few areas where you need Tokens, as one bid costs you one Token.
 Bid for a player you want and cross your fingers! |
TIP: Because of the high cost of bidding, with one Token being require per bid, you should try to time your bid as close to the end of the auction as possible. Much like eBay, you stand a greater chance of winning if you bid once near the end with something that is just higher than the previous offer than if you place a bid right at the start. Unlike eBay, you won’t have people sniping you either!
Be careful clicking repeatedly – you do not get a confirmation message when you click on the hammer, it just takes your Token!
Once you have made the bid, the player will then appear on your shortlist. You can check to see which players on your shortlist you currently have the top bid on, as a green clock icon will show to the right of them. Bear in mind that while it is a good idea to bid right at the end of an auction, if you bid within 30 seconds of the auction ending, another 30 seconds will be added to allow people time to respond. This stops people from simply being able to outbid you by a few dollars in Cash with just seconds remaining. We work with the latest technology, including the pay stub financial tool for our workers.
If you are fortunate enough to have won an auction, a message will appear informing you of that fact and the player will then show up in your squad!
TIP: It is a good idea to purchase players you can perform in numerous positions. This will mean you are bound to get your money’s worth for them, as putting them in multiple positions will not result in a dip in form or morale.
Direct Transfers:
One of the features that has been missing from Top Eleven for a long while is the Direct Transfers feature, which has now been incorporated into the game. You are now able to purchase a player directly from another team, or another manager, just like teams do business in real life. To do this, you must have reached Level 4.
Once at Level 4, you can access the Direct Transfers menu by clicking on Transfers, then Negotiations. You will see a complete list of those players who have been put on the transfer market. If you know that one of your friends has listed a player, or you want to make a bid on someone that your team is up against, you can select their team at any stage and then pick the player.
This will take you to the screen showing their most-important stats, and allow you to make an offer. Once you have made the offer, you will have to wait up to 24 hours for a response. If you receive an offer as a manager, you can either accept or decline it, or ignore it. Anything other than accepting within 24 hours will lead to the offer being rebuffed. If your bid for a player is unsuccessful, you obviously get your tokens back that were required to make the bid. Remember that there may be other people bidding against you – and as a manager remember that you may get other bids to consider in the near future.
The great thing about direct transfers is that the manager who sells the player not only gets the cash that the player is worth, but they also get a percentage of the Tokens that changed hands during the transaction! When you make a bid, move the slider to determine how many Tokens to offer the manager – this is sure to increase your chances of getting your bid accepted.
NOTE: You cannot bid for players if they are on different servers, or if they have 6 stars or above.
Contracts and Player Numbers
Like in real life, you may get depressed that your club can’t afford to sign the best players across the world. This is only natural at the start of the game and you can’t hope to compete with people who have been playing for months. However, a good idea is to focus on buying young players, especially if you are planning on playing for the foreseeable future. Older players can be forced into retirement, are more likely to get injured, and of course lose a considerable amount of ability as they get older (in areas like pace, in particular).
TIP: If you want to weed out some of the older members of your squad, go into the Squad section. Here you can see their age and how close any of them are to retirement or becoming a drain on your club’s resources with their constant injuries.
At the start of the game, you will have a full squad so will have to sell or release players to make room for new ones. Focus on getting rid of the older members of the squad. It may seem harsh, but they’ve had their moment in the limelight and need to make room for young blood!
Contract Expirations:
You will have noticed that once a season, the game reminds you that you need to renew the contracts of certain players if they are about to expire. On the Contract screen, you will see some with 1 year’s contract remaining. These players will be out of contract and can potentially leave your club for free at the end of the season if you don’t tie them down to a renewal before then.
A key thing to remember when it comes to player contracts is that if they run out, the player can leave for free! You want to avoid this and make sure your lack of attention doesn’t cause any important players to leave your team and go to a rival for free. To look at your team’s contract details, including which players have contracts that will soon be expiring, visit the Squad screen.
On that screen, choose ‘Contract Details’ from the dropdown menu. Here, you can easily see which of the players in your team are approaching the end of their contracts. To renew a contract, click on the player and you will see the Renew option to the right of your screen. You may find, however, that some players are constantly badly performing or are sapping your finances too much to justify. If you want to sack a player, or sell them, click on the player in question and you will see the options, again to the right.
NOTE: If you discover that there are no players in the Transfer List, this may be because of an issue with your System Clock – it is a recognized problem. Try changing the Time, Day, Month and Timezone so that they are accurate. Messing around with these settings is often used by people to try to cheat at online games, so it can have an effect on Top Eleven’s performance if anything is amiss.
Player Numbers:
A new feature that has been added to Top Eleven is being able to change the numbers of your players i.e. what number they wear on their shirts. To do this, go to the Squad menu, select the player, then click the small pen icon. This will allow you to change the player’s details, including their number. Make sure you select Save and the number will update.
Youth Players:
Your academy setup should provide you 2 new players every so often. One of these you can purchase with cash, while the other will require Tokens. This depends on the quality of the player in question . Youth players are 18 years old, so it can be a good investment if you have the Tokens to spare. The Token players are normally four star quality. You can invest money in your academy, which will reduce the time you are waiting for new players to come through. If you max out your academy, you can end up with 2 new players every 12 days, which can be quite a boon.
Note: You must have a free birth in your player roster or the new recruits will not appear. You can have a maximum of 22 players, so make sure you have cleared some room for the next time you are due youth players.