In which I reward my player for slacking off in training.

Consider the following:

1. Of the many factors important to match performance, there is a consensus that morale is one.

2. I should therefore select players for my starting 11 that, among other things, have the best possible morale.

3. If my assistant tells me that a player is slacking off in training, I should (I assume) tell said player to work his butt harder.

4. If I then have a private discussion with the player in which I tell him off, he may respond by agreeing and promising to improve his efforts in training.

5. This interaction will have several effects, including improving the player's morale.

6. The increased morale will make it more likely that I will select the player for my starting 11, especially if his competitors for the same position have rubbish morale.

7. Therefore, one way to get into my starting 11 is to slack off in training.

Something about this seems insane, but I'm not sure exactly what it is...

I'm not even sure if it matters that they have actually slacked off in training - just tell them that they have regardless of their training levels, and you might get a good response straight away, failing that tell them they ought to listen to you or I'M THE MANAGER and that usually bumps them up. If they still get uppity then you don't want them in your team anyway. Failing that tell them you're going to rest them, and then don't, that usually cheers them up too.

Consider the following:

1. Of the many factors important to match performance, there is a consensus that morale is one.

2. I should therefore select players for my starting 11 that, among other things, have the best possible morale.

But not at the expense of other important attributes.

It is important to be polite during an interview. But being polite is useless if you arrive in the buff.

@ Blinkenglights - when you have that convo with the player, re. training performance, if you check his personal status after the convo it says "feels he has a good relationship with you" which would naturally improve his morale. This is the same for all positive outcome talks. If the convo goes bad and you and the player argue then the opposite happens. So I would say that it is not the slacking that gets him into the team but his positive response to your constructive criticism!

It's a dumb exploit to compensate for the dumb coding that makes morale plummet to very low when an oppo manager gives a trivial soundbite.

@ Blinkenglights - when you have that convo with the player, re. training performance, if you check his personal status after the convo it says "feels he has a good relationship with you" which would naturally improve his morale. This is the same for all positive outcome talks. If the convo goes bad and you and the player argue then the opposite happens. So I would say that it is not the slacking that gets him into the team but his positive response to your constructive criticism!

Yes, you're right. I don't really want this, though. Best case scenario here is that I'm giving my players extra points for effort, and the worst is that I'm just surrounding myself with yes-men. Yes-men that are slackers. Next thing you know, I'll be North Korea.

I wish I at least had an option to praise the player for working hard in training.

I wish I at least had an option to praise the player for working hard in training.

You do, though only some time after you've asked a player to do better in training.

You do, though only some time after you've asked a player to do better in training.

Really? Haven't seen it. I'll keep a look out for it.

Anyway, if it's just the players that have been training badly to start with, isn't that just doubly rewarding players for slacking off? "-You've been training poorly! -Oh, sorry. won't do it again. -Great! I'm so glad we had this talk. Have a cookie!" Then: "I see you've been less of a lazy ass in training this week! Have another cookie!". At the same time, another player who had been busting his butt all along get no cookies.

I want the praise option for players who my assistant says have "trained well this month".

I feel like morale requires so much clicking with limited results. Media responses, praise, criticism, counteracting other manager praise. And the criticism for poor training is mostly wasted, since the same guys (presumably with low professionalism) do badly in training every month. I wish I had the option to delegate the entire psychology role to my assistant who would then execute it to perfection and give me a monthly report on who's impossible to work with in terms of personality and should leave. I don't want to be a babysitter. I want to be the manager who says nothing but expects professionalism, slowly weeding out unprofessional players from my team.