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Training schedules on Football Manager are just one aspect of training, you could have the best schedule possible, but if you don’t bring in a balanced coaching staff then there is only so much effect a good schedule can have on your side. But what actually is a balanced coaching team? I will show you how to understand how coaches relate to the different aspects of training.
Balancing your coaches
It is no surprise that a lot of Football Manager advice is about having a balance squad, tactics and now coaching staff, because it is balance what makes a successful Football side, being great in one area but terrible in another can make you a relegation candidate. But being ok in all areas could make you a contender for Europe.
There is plenty of tools available around the community which will calculate the perfect backroom team. But the 5 stars although is something that would be good to aim for is not really something worth crunching the numbers for. The main thing to consider is the workload of each of your coaches. The less they have to do the more effective they will do particular jobs. Think of it as a school classroom, it is going to be much harder to teach a room of 30 then it would be a team of 15.
If you have a squad of 50 players, that will mean that you will need more coaches then a squad of 25. But you will also want to consider how much each coach is doing, the perfect scenario is to have each one of your coaches doing one particular job. Therefore if you are playing as a side such as Liverpool, you will want much more goalkeeping coaches on your side to cope with the exceptional amount of keepers at the club.
Therefore I will rarely look to crunch numbers to find the perfect coaching team, but instead I will advertise in the job centre, and pick up coaches that will work in the particular areas that I am looking for. Considering how each of the coaches attributes relates to what they are training, will help you identify what the perfect coaching team would be.
Do you think you can gain a reasonable success by having a coach handle more then one role?
How does your coaches relate to their training?
Coaching Attributes
Strength and Aerobics
Fitness coaches will only work on these two areas, including training of speed, stamina and agility they are important attributes for every member of your squad that you want to be able to cope with a full season, or improve on their ability to run away from players. Therefore it is obvious that the best fitness coaches, will have the best fitness attribute.
Goalkeeping and Tactics
I think once again it is obvious what a coach taking the goalkeeper will have to excel in. He will be the only coach that will be looking to improve the goalkeeping attributes. Same with tactical training that tactics attribute would be the essential for this job application.
Defending
Defending would be an important attribute, but couple that with tactical attributes and you have the perfect coach. Although you could probably up the workload on the tactical training to improve your defenders, as defending is not only about keeping the ball away from the net. Tactically a defender will need to be positioned well, anticipate where the ball and opposition are going to go so not to be out of position when the opposition are on the attack. Many tactical skills of a defender can be more important then the tackling and defending aspects.
Ball Control
Coaches that are skilled in technique and mental areas are in demand when it comes to ball control. As you can imagine when dribbling or flair is required technique can be highly important so that your players don’t look stupid and lose the ball, just like a younger Cristano Ronaldo. Mentally you want your players to be composed, brave and able to make decisions on where they should go when using the ball.
Attacking
Just like the defenders, you will be looking for similar tactical ability in your strikers to be able to outwit the opposition. Knowing when to pass or shoot. Knowing the best places to move to find space can be is important for good attacking players. Coaches with good tactical ability coupled with attacking attributes are best here.
Shooting
The ability that you want all your strikers to posses, the ability to hit the ball and score. Consider what is involved in putting the ball in the back of the net. Attacking skills such as creativity and vision is needed to make your own chances in front of goal to shoot. But you don’t just want your striker, to shoot and hope. Technique is therefore required, as you would expect technique would be used to develop composure and finishing.
Set Pieces
Finally set piece coaches are men with a mixture of mental, attacking and technique attributes. Set piece training focuses on improving crosses, free kicks, corners and penalties. The mental attributes are therefore important as you would want your players to make the right decisions, where to put the ball. When to shoot from a direct free kick or when to knock it on to someone’s head.
Technique is important, not only as the technical aspects of training are related to the free kicks and corners, but also you would expect your set piece taker to know how to dip a ball, float a cross in or produce the perfect show. Without a certain unique technique the likes of Ronaldo and Beckham wouldn’t be the best in the world.
Determination, discipline and motivation attributes
Last year SI Games decided it was too easy for gamers to get 7 star coaching or 5 now in FM2010. When 9.3.0 was released determination, discipline and motivation were made more important. In theory determination similar to work rate shows the commitment that the coach has towards the teams success and how much effort they put in. Motivation and discipline have more of an affect on how well a coach is able to get the most of out the players that they are training. Although that is the theory of why these attributes work, it simply numbers game and these aspects will create multiply the effectiveness of the other coaching attributes.
Next time I will look into the different coaching roles vs the general coaching type. But until then I am interested to know how you look for coaches, do you have a sheet infront of you with the perfect formula or would you rather make the judgements yourself? Do you think SI Games can improve coaches affects on training, if so how?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
The changes to the coaching staff have been interesting. The change in FM09 to make determination, discipline and motivation have an effect seriously caught me out. I found myself with most of my staff actually being quite poor. Although it was annoying at the time, I think it was a good change.
If you’re managing a top side, with plenty of money to offer coaching staff, it’s a lot easier to recruit the best staff of course, but that’s not such a good challenge. At the start of the game I tend to run a filter on the required attributes for each coaching position, along with determination, discipline and motivation. I usually start with the attributes up high, and the other 3 at 15. I gradually lower these until you start seeing coaches that appear to be suitable, and then start checking them out. Having your assistant filter out unrealistic targets is also useful. One of the tools that allows you to enter the coaching attributes to see how good a coach they are can be very useful, especially early on, when it’s hard to fully appreciate how each attribute effects their quality. Later on, once you get a feel, it becomes easy enough to just check against your best staff already at the club.
I’ve also picked some great coaches, through the backroom recommendations. This leads to something interesting, whereby you start to get bonds built between members of the backroom staff. I think this leads to loyalty to the club, but of course if you do lose a member of staff, it could lead to sevearl leaving, so it could work against you. Once you’ve reached the point where you’re maximising the training, by having at least one dedicated coach for each training area, you can start looking to improve the overall quality. I always look to improve the worst areas, so that I have a coach who gets at least 4 stars in that area. Remember in FM10 the coaches are now rated to just 5 stars. Once you have at least 4 stars in each area, it becomes a case of doing a search once in a while to see if there are any improvements to be made. You need to take care though, because you replace a member of staff, you may upset others, and actually lose someone else.
Once your reputation as a club rises, or coaches that have friends in the club already, you might start to get reports of a coach who wants to join the club. Sadly many of them just aren’t the right kind of quality, but I’ve picked up a couple of great coaches so far through this, Brian McClair and Tony Colbert. McClair gives 4.5 stars in 2 or 3 areas, and Colbert is a 5 star fitness coach. It’s worth noting that the highest attribute that McClair has is 18 in attacking, so it’s not all about having the maximum attributes to be one of the best coaches.
A further point to take into account, is that the attirbutes for a coach do change slowly over time, so it’s worth checking your training a couple of times during the season, to make sure the staff as still the same quality. Also in order to try and get better loyalty from the coaching staff, you should make sure you check when their contracts run out, and renew early, and may get you listed as one of their favoured personnel. Once you’re in their favoured personnel list, you have a much better chance of them staying with you. Other clubs can start to become aggressive about trying to steal your best staff, and renewing a contract is one of the best ways of putting them off.
.-= TheZiggy´s last blog ..Analysis of QPR 2011/2012 Season =-.
Ziggy, I know the tools are there to allow you to search for staff through the database, but do you not consider sometimes that this tactic isn’t much of a challenge either. I sometimes think that using the search function is like picking an online fantasy football team. I’m interested to hear what you think on that subject and does FM allow you easily play any other way?
I have really utilised using the recommendations of other coaches and the job centre when appointing new coaches. I know this is more of a long term solution, but it means that just like you would in any real circumstances, you put together a team of people using your own knowledge and people approaching me. As you go further through the game you start to get to know certain coaches and favour certain people who you will want at your club.
I do like to build up a whole loyal backroom team and for those games where I am moving from club to club myself in a career that i have built up such a strong side that they follow me to each of these clubs too because of the bonds that I have made and the other coaches together. Be that only virtual but we do put alot of time and effort into the game for these connections to seem half real
I think your right though, it is important to maintain the coaching behind the scenes, it is not just simply a case of putting it together and leaving it to go on by itself, using my method I get much more fun even with the big sides in gradually building up this team and improving each time I do so as my reputation grows too. I also love to keep former playing staff and bring them behind the scenes as they will have a better club knowledge and be more loyal it does really bother me when someone comes in and robs one of my coaches.
But I do think that coaches in the future Football Managers have alot more to offer and I hope that their effect become far greater on the squad itself and not just the training and the advice they give you which I think is coming along really well in Football Manager 2010.
I think the search in game, which I use appears to only search through those the same areas that the player search does. If I’m not right, then I hope someone can correct me on that. I certainly don’t like the use of tools that directly search the database, as that makes it far too easy. If it was based around the knowledge that your scouts have picked up, then I think it would be even better. If you start with a club that has a restricted number of coaches, and wages you can offer, it’s very difficult to find any top staff that will to join anyway. It would be more realistic if you could ask the backroom staff, as you can the players if they have any recommendations for coaches or scouts, because that moment it tends to be limited to one who keeps telling you same each backroom meeting. I get the impression that most people forget that you can ask the players for recommendations, which will also help increase the loyalty between you, the staff and the players. I think putting job adverts up is probably also under utilised.
Even by using the search to find possible coaches when I first started, the only ones I had better than 2.5 stars were a couple of fitness coaches, and a goalkeeper coach. The funny thing is, all my best coaches have come either through recommendations from other staff members, or by coaches wanting to join the club.
When I eventually decide to finish with my current team, I will try to build up my coaching staff through recommendations and staff that say they want to come and work for the club. It will be a good challenge that way, even though it will take longer to get top staff doing it that way.
.-= TheZiggy´s last blog ..Queens Park Rangers – Pre season 2012 =-.
I like very much getting the ball control higher than shooting even in strikers, because as the tactic I use, which has been succesful for me in the last 3 FM versions, 2010, 2009, and 2008, I set the tempo to very slow, and I have noticed we score many more goals, because my strikers participate on the game, and don’t shoot fast, but wait for the opportune moment, or if they have good thecniques, they try to get past a defender or two and score…Try it! Btw, it’s me again from the FM site, FM Legends, http://www.fm-legends.co.cc, and I will like to know if you get a look! Thanks!
.-= Samir´s last blog ..It’s decided! The next save will be in 2050! =-.
Sounds a great tactic Samir and I very much agree with your approach in using your tactics as a basis of what you are training your players, I think that this can be hugely important on concentrating on what you need out of your players and the different roles that you expect them to play in the game.
I have visited the FM Legends a few times, nice little site you have obviously showing your enjoyment for the game. I will keep a regular eye on it, I’d like to see some more discussion topics on the site. But that is the because it the sort of thing that I enjoy.
Thanks then!
.-= Samir´s last blog ..It’s decided! The next save will be in 2050! =-.
You should definitely get some drops in about what categories affect what stats. I know that its easy info to access while in FM but a lot of people have no idea how to get to those pages in FM.
I look forward to part two \o/
.-= Skacel´s last blog ..A Billion Fans =-.
I have already covered this in http://www.fmpundit.com/2010/commentary/training-worthwhile/ on the site. I am sure that in the future though that we will come across it again in a much easier way to find and more purposeful to the article. I have guided a few people Los Wonderkids way to look at Fantastic’s training articles which pretty much is alot of what people should know about training.
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