The Half Time Team Talk

Team Talks have had there fair share of hate directed towards them in FM. I've been thinking about how SI could change the team talks to provide more depth and variety and give the player more control over what they want to say. What I'm going to suggest would effectively be a complete overhaul. The basics are the same ie players and squad personalities will respond differently to each different approach.

Type of 'Talk'

This is a simple choice between a one way 'speech' or a two way discussion. Do you want to involve the players or do you just need to drill home a point? I see this feature as giving the players a voice, which they obviously don't currently have. FM already uses events from the match in the assisstant manager feedback widget, for example, and that is how I could see this feature going. They could give feedback on how confident they are or how they are struggling on the pitch.

Tone

Are you aiming for a Ferguson style 'hairdryer' approach or a more symapthetic approach? Do you want to simply encourage your players without going to either extreme? Happy with the team?

This part would be similar to what we have already. This should tell the players your mood and what direction your want your team talk to go down.

Confidence

This is simply focussing on getting the players motivated and confident for the second half. This includes just rollicking them or telling them to forget the first half and focus on the second.

Tactics

This would be more along the lines of reinforcing what the players need to do. I know tactics are already covered in the way they can be totally changed at HT but I'm thinking more along the lines of positive reinforcement. For example, If you're 2-0 down, you could say to your team go out and get an early go then see what happens - or you could emphasise that they have plenty of time to get two goals ie We have 45 minutes that is plenty of time, don't rush. Depending on the player, you would see a different reaction. The first example could put pressure on the team or it could alleviate it depending on how they take it.

Extra Help

This would be similar to letting the assisstant take control but a bit more powerful. I know some managers work with their assisstant to create an effective team talk and I would like to see an option like this in FM. You could either have them takeover completely - which we already have or you could 'team up' with him. Basically, this would allow the AM to have some input too. You could set him up to do one of the two major areas outlined above. He could give the players a run down on tactics and you could do the rousing speech or vice versa.

I also thought of another addition that could be available, before half time. You often see managers follow in their teams but sometimes you see the manager shoot off down the tunnel before the players can get there. This may be a good option when you are playing really poorly, shoot off down the tunnel and be waiting for your players.

The idea isn't fully fleshed out but I think that these sort of things would help make team talks more interesting.

Discuss

Good post mate, some good points covered in there. I think that team talks are one area of the game that need the most work doing, and some of the above suggestions would benefit the game no end in my opinion.

I actually really like the suggestion about going into the tunnel early. There could be some manager options, near where all the camera options are. Things like; Go to dressing room early, Leave game, Tell

1. to warm up, shout encouragement at team

These are only small things, and not really related to team talks, but they are related to players motivation so I thought I would post them in here. It's the little things that make a big game good, and things like the above (in both your post and in my second paragraph) would help to improve the series.

Great post:thup:

Definately some good ideas there, in addition to the shoot off down the tunnel before the players option, it'd be good if you could make your players receive your team talk on the pitch for that added public dressing down effect. (As was done recently by Phil Brown at hull).

Some good ideas there, I particularly like the idea of setting a 'tone' to the talk before saying what is said...

Brilliant ideas there Neji, ive been saying for a while that teamtalks need improving and given my thoughts, but i struggled to think of detailed ideas on how they could improve the game, i especially like the idea of extra help and combining different aspects of teamtalks together