Tactical substitutions

When substitutions came into X11 they were a great tool in helping to develop younger players. Thye are also a great tool in adjusting the flow of a game, but more often than not they can end up losing you the game.  There are a number of ways of using them effectively:

Sub out stronger players

The first way of substituting is to play your strongest lineup from the start and put in weaker players if you are winning. This is how I started using subs but I felt it cost me a lot of games by subbing in weaker players too early and allowing the opposition to come back. This was especially a problem if a player had previously been injured and the team was already weaker than I expected.

Sub out weaker players

An alternative approach is to play a weakened team from the start then sub in stronger players if they are needed. This sounds silly but it seems to work well. You might start 1-2 weaker players in midfield and defence say. X11 is setup such that around 60% of goals are scored in the 2nd half so having a weaker side at the start is less likely to cost you.

If you are winning all the way from the second half (when you are eligible to bring on subs) then you can leave your developing players on the whole game and gain much more DV. Alternatively if you bring a stronger player on later in the game they won't be fatigued and will likely have more impact.

Multiple layers

I tend to favour an approach where I have multiple sub options. For example I might try and substitute for a stronger player at 45 minutes if I'm losing. I may then increase my expectations and try again at 60 minutes if I have a draw or worse - pushing for the win. I can repeat this at 70/75 minutes incase the opposition pulls a goal back. towards the end of the game I may want to bring a stronger player on just as protection against losing my lead. The picture below shows some examples.

Note there is an alternative sub at 80 minutes for a different development player. This stops the later substitution for the stronger player if we are leading by 2 goals.

Obviously the types of substitution you do will depend on your expectations for the match. if you are facing strong opposition you may also have options to replace a strong players with a weaker one if you are losing and have multiple layers so you can only sub the weaker players on once you are sure you will lose. 

Making the most of a boost

Sometimes in Xpert Eleven teams get so shabby the admin will offer a boost to the new manager. A boost is where the players in the team can have their skill increased so as to make them more competitive. Here's the description from the rules:



The "Boost team" button will raise the average skill of the team to 2-3% below the average skill of the teams in the lowest division in the league. That button should NOT be used unless it is absolutely necessary. And it should never be used on more than just one or maybe two teams or else it can destroy the balance in the league. The "Boost team-button" should only be used if the team is hopelessly unskilled compared to the other teams in the lowest division and that the team will have no chance to be competitive unless you boost the team. The league admin can only boost a team once every season and only between seasons.


Players younger than the age of 21 will not be affected by boosting.

Mostly teams are full of the wrong kinds of players to benefit from a boost, but here I show you the sorts of players to buy in in order to make your team really benefit from a boost.

There are 2 key issues. Your team must be as far below the average skill of the bottom division as possible but you must have players over the age of 21 who will significantly increase in value if they get a 1 or 2 bar increase.

The following team has been setup to benefit from a boost with a lot of 1-2 skill players to drag the average standard down and a number of younger players, especially with SQs. The average skill level of this team ended up at very slightly over 4 bars, and the average of the bottom division was around 6 bars. The team had an approximate value of 12m.

Many of the players were bought in specifically for this experiment but mostly they cost under 250k. Applying the boost added around 2 bars across all the better 21+ players to we ended up with a team looking a lot more useful. Note that the better players seemed to gain the most bars and a rather ordinary looking 22/8 midfielder becoming a 22/11.

Obviously after the boost you can dispose of all the lower skill players and buy in some older players to balance the team. 

Preparing for a new season.

Your season is ended and you are looking forward to the change report - but a good CR invariably means bad form for the new season and the expense and effort of getting things back on track. Here I will discuss the best way to do this.

The first thing to do is put players into training 3 days before the season end date. If the season ends on 10th Jan then start a round of player training on the 7th of Jan. This is sometimes referred to as "training day". If you do this then players will finish training in the morning of the day after the change report.

The second thing to do is arrange a friendly the first match day after the CR (always the following day in private leagues). Initially just arrange this one friendly. The day after the CR you will get a round of training and then a friendly and these should put your form well on track for the new season.

I always wait til after this friendly to see if I need more friendlies. I will train any player with a red arrow or dismal form and if necessary I will arrange a friendly for a week later, but 75% of the time one friendly is enough. Bear in mind players form bars can turn negative after friendlies so playing too many costs you extra training sessions.

Following the above process with 1 friendly and a few players being trained a second time should see your team's average form around 14 going into the first match day.

Xpert leagues work in a slightly different manner and will be discussed separately.

Average Form & Form Notations

Average form in XpertEleven is quite simple but seems to catch a few people out.

Form Notations

XpertEleven records a form notation for each player after every competitive match you play with your team. Friendlies are excluded but there is a form notation taken directly after the Change Report.

The average form is calculated by the sum of the form notations divided by the number of form notations. if you have 14 match days in a season then there will be 15 form notations.

SQs in more detail

There is some conflicting information as to how SQs work in X11. According to Iwe (original Xpert Eleven designer) the "outfield" SQs (heading, quick, Goal Instincts and Shooting Power) work by making players more specialised, but not better overall. That is to say that a player who has heading will get a bonus to heading activities but a penalty to activities requiring speed. Quick players will get a  penalty to heading chances. Goal Instincts and Shooting Power work similarly, with skill in one area educing ability in the other.

There are 2 aspects to the effect - a player with a special quality will have an improved conversion rate for that kind of chance but also those types of chances will fall to that player more often.

This first graph was based on analysis of thousands of matches and shows the affect of heading on a player's conversion rate.

This graph shows chance distribution for players with the heading SQs

These graphs were originally posted on a website by an X11 player called Terjekv. The affect of SQs seems to correspond to about 3 extra skill levels but probably the most significant factor is chance distribution. The players who are better at heading get significantly more heading opportunities and less through play opportunities and vice versa.

The big question comes when a player had both opposing SQs, and the analysis seems to suggest there are only benefits and no negatives applied.