How exactly can staff become better?

Hi everyone,

I've been scouring the net in search for answers. Basically it comes down to this: I am wondering if staff can become top coaches over the years? I don't just mean an increase in reputation, but a visual change like rising attributes, similar to players? I think I saw one of my ex-player-turned-coach's attributes change, but I am not sure what his stats were when I offered him a staff function upon retirement, so I can't really say for sure in what areas he improved.

I love playing long carreers and rewarding long time players with a future staff function when they're nearing the end of their playing carreers. Yeah I know, I'm one of those folks who gets attached to his aging stars, haha. Example: a defender sets his retirement and wants to have a job as a coach, I then usually offer them youth coach positions. Now if their attributes can indeed change due to staff CA/PA, do I have to let them do general training (i.e. all fields), or should I let them focus on specific fields of training to see them get better?

I haven't been able to find anything definitive online during my wide array of google and FM fora searches. Can anyone with any know-how shed light on how this might works? It would be awesome if I can enlist my club's legends, icons and favoured personnel knowing they can become the club's future top staff instead of having to attract new coaches and other staff every now and then

Much appreciated!

staff have pa and ca, so i would expect them to improve as their reputation improves with the club

I have wondered the same of late, what increases attributes in coaches.

I am of the mind that age plays a part and also how competent they are in the role.

So using Keown as an example

I think his age is still young enough to have an increase in attributes, though my thinking is by the time he hits fifty, what it is, is what it is.

Now I also think he will be a good Assistant, and as he is still developing in that role, I am thinking that attributes may increase as he gets better.

With regards to coaching, as he is complete in that role I don't think there will be much, if any, increase.

With his role at the club I have him coaching in all areas to see if that aids in any development as a future Assistant. The idea with that is a larger interaction with players, hopefully improving Disc, Mot, ManM

These are just ideas and could be way off the mark, but hey, have to try these things

Thank you both for your insights

telV7, I've been doing the same thing, let them do general training in all areas during their period as a youth coach. I haven't really seen any increases yet, but most of them are still "young", as in not even 40+ yet, so that may be it

Still wondering if getting them to focus in one area would increase the chance of them increasing specifically in that area faster/better/etc. I haven't been able to find any documented info on it though.

I don't know about specifics of how or why. But I do know before 11.3 due to staff bugs I signed a 26y/o LB player/coach and set him to my defensive coach.

A couple seasons later he has significantly improved as a coach, so much so even with the fix tot he bug in 11.3 I still signed him in a new save. His mental and defensive coaching attribs had all gone up to mid teens from < 10. Just in 2 seasons... no idea what his PA is but it shows they can increase pretty fast. Maybe it's partly do to being so young or the fact that he actually played a lot of first team ball as well. Who knows how much depth the put into it. But i was pleasantly surprised.

Looks like Martyr has your answer .

I suppose the same rules apply for development as they do for hiring.

One of the main being Determination, if determination is described as a want to succeed/more driven, I don't see why it would not be also a want/more driven to develop.

Developing staff is a ridiculous idea imo. You don't know the CA/PA because no one can report them to you, and you have a very limited number of staff, unless you're a huge club. Hiring well qualified staff is always the better choice.

Developing staff is a ridiculous idea imo. You don't know the CA/PA because no one can report them to you, and you have a very limited number of staff, unless you're a huge club. Hiring well qualified staff is always the better choice.

True enough.. but there is more to it with the lower max wages for some teams. When I can only pay 70k/y for a coach I'll look for a younger coach and hope they improve, i have seen it pretty regularly as well. That being said, you are right because staff do progress but there is ZERO feedback from anywhere on how will a coach can be, the only think you have are their attribs and straight up guessing. It should be changed so we can get some more feedback on the quality of coaches other then just who has the higher numbers.

It might be ridiculous, but for many of us a big part of the enjoyment a longterm save brings us is loyalty to staff. We might want our heroic old club captain to stay on as coach a la Solskjaer or The Neviller.

By the way, I did testing on this back in FM09 and i don't think anything has changed. I discovered that staff peak around age 55 - after that their CA won't increase. I also noticed that a disproportionate amount of staff start with CA at or near PA, so many cannot improve. For those that did improve, the process seems baffling at best or random. One coach or scout would improve by 30 CA one year, then stagnate for years. I frankly couldn't find any cause & effect relationship to determine how and why staff improved.

Ah! Martin Keown. The only character with an ugly attribute of 20.

Jamie Carragher in my Liverpool v2.1 save had a 4.5* Defence coach rating from the off and in my new v3.0 save he has a 4.5* Fitness coach rating. At only 33yro old, it suggests to me that he is earmarked within the game to be a top staff member at the least and a top AI manager at best.

this subject has baffled me for a while too. i'm not sure age is that important, with players there are youngsters with high CA and also with coaches. yes they will improve with age and peak but that doesnt mean they can t develop when young. i was wondering whether the increase in attributes can be achieved by giving them specific training respondibilities, and they will improve in those areas. determination wont improve as it doesnt with players either but there's no reason why the other mental attributes can't improve i guess, just not entirely sure how.

i read earlier in this thread someone said that lots of staff start with similar CA and PA. from what i've seen using the editor to update my game a lot of coaches have a 20-point difference between the two and therefore lots of scope for improvement.

So from what I've gathered so far from posts in this thread is that it's currently not possible to somehow see attributes increase of young staff members, that it's not known what the best method of getting them to reach their potential is, and that there are no known methods of gauging their potential except for using an editor? That's a bit of a shame, but I won't let it hold me back from giving my club icons/legends a future as staff though.

Guess I'll just have to wait and see if they will grow in their roles, because I don't use editors. Would be awesome if future FM games would yield more control over this

Thanks for all of your replies so far, it´s good to see that I´m not the only one enjoying long carreers, planning a future for ex-players