FIFA 16 career mode guide

The Dark Side: ‘Cheats’ and Extra Hints

We've given you plenty of hints and tips already for how to build up a strong team legitimately, however if you want an extra slice of help then these additional tricks can further your competitive edge.

If you get back a scouting report and it’s full of duff players, there is a way to get a better outcome, and it’s super simple. First of all, save your game the day before your scout is due to report back to you. Advance to the next day and take a look at the scouting report, and if there are no good players on it, quit your save (without saving) and reload it. You should be back on the day before your scout’s report. You can then advance one day again, and this time the players on the report will be different.

This is a great way to ensure you only get good players back from your scouting missions. Of course, this can make the game rather easy, but it is also very useful if you are a tiny team with a very restrictive budget and can’t afford to pay for a boatload of scouting trips. If that’s the case, you’re going to need to find as many good players as possible for minimal financial outlay - which is why this method can be useful.

There’s also a way to get better players without reloading your scouting reports. Whenever a player joins your team, their hidden potential rating can improve or decline. This is the game reflecting real life, where hyped up players can fail to live up to expectations and unheralded players can turn out to be revelations. You can turn this to your advantage by loaning out a player then instantly recalling them - the game treats them as if they have just joined your team, and so changes their potential (usually by 1-10 points). Just be warned though that you could worsen your player’s potential this way, so do it at your own risk.

One way to tell if a player has improved is to go to the Squad Report screen and highlight the player in question. Under the Status bar there may be one of the following statuses:
• ‘Showing great potential’ - means the player has 80-85 potential
• ‘An exciting prospect’ - means the player has 86-90 potential
• ‘Has potential to be special’ - means the player has 91+ potential

Check your player’s status before loaning/recalling them, and then check it again afterwards. If their status has gone from, say, ‘Showing great potential’ to ‘An exciting prospect’ then you know they have improved. Just note that a player must have at least 60 OVR, at least 80 potential and must be 21 years old or under to get one of these status messages. Players under 60 OVR, with less than 80 potential or who are older than 21 can still have their potential improved, but you don’t get this visual clue in the form of a status change.

There’s nothing more frustrating in FIFA 16 than scouting an absolute world beater and then having them force their way out of the academy - and out of your team - before you can promote them to the first team squad. Occasionally a youth player will get uppity and demand a professional contract or threaten to quit, and if you don’t cough up the contract soon enough, they’ll be gone forever. You may feel that they need a bit more growth in the academy before you promote them, but this kind of situation can irritatingly force your hand.

Luckily, there is a way to prevent this until you feel they are ready. When they demand a contract, simply offer them one so insultingly bad that there’s no chance they’ll accept it - something like £10 a week usually does the trick. In a few days you’ll get a message saying they’ve turned it down but are confident that an agreement can be reached. Wait a few more days and then offer them exactly the same contract. This situation will repeat itself ad infinitum until you feel they are ready to be promoted. Yes, it’s tedious, but if you want to make sure their OVR is good enough for the first team and feel they need more training before that’s the case, it can help.

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• The Dark Side: ‘Cheats’ and Extra Hints