In association football, the manager is the person who has overall responsibility for the running of a football team. They have wide-ranging responsibilities, including selecting the team, choosing the tactics, recruiting and transferring players, negotiating player contracts, and speaking to the media. In professional football, a manager is usually appointed by and answerable to the club's board of directors, but at an amateur level the manager may have total responsibility for the running of a club.
The title of manager is almost exclusively used in British football.[3] In most other European countries and rest of the world in which professional football is played, the person responsible for the direction of a team is awarded the position of coach or "trainer" is known as head coach.[citation needed] For instance, despite the general equivalence in responsibilities, Gareth Southgate is referred to as the manager of England, and Julian Nagelsmann is described as the head coach of Germany. Germany also has a team manager role that is subordinate to the head coach and is currently held by Rudi Vller.
This article will be the starting point for every Football Manager regarding the backroom staff. Here we will be covering the more high-level areas of the staff section in FM and you will be able to find links to all our seperate and more in-depth articles regarding backroom staff in Football Manager.
Football Manager has a wide range of available backroom staff roles. These roles are there to help you as a manager to run the club every day. The roles vary from director roles, who only act if you want them to and coaching roles. The coaches train with the players every day and will help develop their skills throughout their careers.
It is your job to ensure your club has the best possible staff that is available. This will depend on certain areas, including club level, reputation, finances and number of backroom staff members you are allowed to sign. At small clubs boards will not allow you to sign 40 coaches for both youth and senior teams, while the big teams are able to create a very big backroom staff.
Usually finding and hiring staff in Football Manager was one of the standard tasks of the manager (you). This could be a very time consuming job and that is where FM has stepped in. There are now options to delegate some of your tasks and responsibilities to various members of the backroom staff to help you with your day to day work. This includes signing staff, renewing contracts of your staff and even helping you finding the best staff.
Attributes
The most obvious one of all. The first thing you will be looking at are the attributes of a non-player. Every staff role needs their own set of attributes. In the in-depth articles we have created for every staff member you will find more information on their essential attributes.
Personality
Also very important is the personality of a staff member. It is advised to always look for a positive personality. The personality of a non-player can be seen in their profile.
Preferred formation & tactical style
It is really important that staff responsible for player development and player recruitment share th same tactical preferences as yourself. For example: a Head of Youth development tends to sign players who fit in his own tactical preference. It would be a shame if his preferred formation is different from yours and you end up with players you can't use in your tactical style.
Preferred job
Have a good look at the Preferred job of someone you want to hire. This could affect his demands during contract talks but also his ambition. A coach who wants to be a manager could be looking for a new job after some time.
The profiles of non-players are built in the same way as the profiles of players are build: using attributes. The attributes work the same as they do for players. Every attribute has a possible rating between 1 and 20, with 20 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.
All the attributes are ranked 1 to 20 with 1 being the lowest and 20 being the highest. The level of these attributes will determine the quality of the staff member. High attributes will deliver better results, for example a more accurate scouting or medical report.
Use the staff overview screen to get a good view of the current level of your staff. This area allows you to compare certain areas of the backroom staff to the rest of the league. It shows the highest and lowest average in your league and then shows how you score on that average. This makes it easy for you to spot the areas you should be improving.
You (the manager) and the coaches work with the players every day and different attributes are needed to ensure that the players can develop to the best of their ability. The training is divided into different categories and they all need their own set of attributes.
Also, some of the attributes will need to be used in combination with others. For example Attacking and Tactical are needed for the Attacking Tactical category in training.Combine these two with the needed DDM attributes to determine the overall quality of training a staff member is able to deliver.
Mental attributes are needed to give your staff member that little extra edge. A good coach needs good Determination, Discipline and Motivating while a good Scout needs Adaptability to ensure they will be able to handle themselves properly on long scouting trips.
Most of these are obvious or have already been mentioned. Man Management is a peculiar attribute as this isn't needed for either coaching or scouting but can be useful if you decide to delegate certain tasks to staff members that effect player happiness.
The scouting attributes are used for many of your backroom staff members. They are also referred to as 'knowledge attributes' in the game and are essential for scouts as they will have to advise you on ability and potential of possible signings. However, these could also be used by your own coaches to create Player Report Cards. And finally Judging Staff Ability and Negotiating are needed for a Technical Director.
The fourth and final are the Medical Attributes. These are important for both your physio's and sports scientists. The physio's are used to keep your players fit during the season and making sure that they will recover as fast as possible when injured. A Sports Scientist is used to inform you on the fitness levels of your players and the possible risk of injuries.
Here you can see the staff who deal with the first team on a daily basis. You can see for each team which staff roles you have at your disposal and you can also see whether there are still places available to fill.
Here you can see how these three teams can be compared to the staff of other clubs in your league. The bars show how your team scores in a certain attribute and you see both the highest and lowest average of the competition. Try to score above average at all times, although you will always have to strive to contract the best staff.
The Responsibilities area will give you a complete overview of all responsibilities within your club. Here you will be able to find people responsible for, among other things, extending contracts, completing transfers and finding new staff. Most of these responsibilities will be assigned to you by default and you can decide which of these responsibilities you want to delegate to someone on your staff.
The Football Manager staff is mainly there to support you as a manager, so use them wisely. If you are managing a large club, running a club can be very time consuming. By making smart use of your staff and delegating responsibilities, you will have more time to spare to focus on your players' performance.
You can delegate or change a responsibility by clicking the Delegate button next to the responsibility. This will automatically select the most suitable staff member for this responsibility. It is also possible to handpick a staff member for a certain responsibility. Just click the arrow to open the dropdown to receive a selection of staff members to pick from.
If you have successfully delegated one of your tasks, it will no longer show up on the Manager tab and will be shown on the Staff tab instead. Also, not every staff member can take on each responsibility. For example: hiring and firing a Director of Football can only be delegated to another Director or the Chairman. It is not possible to delegate this task to a coach or scout. However, it also not possible to ask your Assistant Manager to assign scouts or sign new backroom staff.
In the board tab you won't be able to make any changes to the responsibilities. Here you can see who is responsible for your job (hiring and firing the manager) and who will provide updates on facilities and financial operations of the club.
These are the three most important sections you can delegate to your staff. Think of responsibilities such as making the Manage Team selection, but also the search and signing of new staff members as well as firing staff members.
The Advice and Reports section includes responsibilities such as advice on whether or not to renew players' expiring contracts, as well as how players develop during their career. There is also a Miscellaneous category and those responsible will give you advice on Tactics, Training and the staff performance.
In the Scouting section you can determine who is responsible for making an analysis of your own team or your next opponent, but also who is responsible for scout assignments. He will be the one who decides where your scouts will be traveling to and what kind of players they should be looking for.
Who does the pre- and post-match press conferences? ANd who is responsible for the Team Talks during the match? If you don't feel like this as a manager, you can delegate this to one of your staff members.
Here you determine who is responsible for the training sessions of the first team, the reserves and your highest youth team. There are options to change the responsibilities for both general and individual training of the teams.
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