Darthrodent's Morale Toolkit

Football is a game of inches. I don't know if you've ever been around a training session at a decent level, but goalkeepers get worked to the bone. Yes I know that outfield players do too, but I once made the mistake of poking fun at one such goalkeeper, bizarre creatures that they are, making the regretful claim that they have it easy. Once the goalkeeping coach caught wind of this, close-knit, prideful mad-men too, he and the three GKs put me through a training session. It was one of the few times physical exertion made me puke.

It was of course all done in the name of camaraderie and fun, but I asked the coach in all seriousness afterwards why they get trained so hard; I mean it's not like they do too much running. He informed me that goalkeeping is the most mentally taxing position in the game, if not one of the most mentally taxing positions in all of sport. And not only that, he went on to tell me that all this physical training could be the difference between finger-tipping a ball over the bar or not being able to reach it at all. All this training keepers do, he said, was in order for them to be able to reach just an extra inch. Football is a game of inches.

WTF has this got to do with FM 13 and morale? Well, quite a bit really if you expand on the axiom above. Confidence, or morale (I'll use the two interchangeably) as it's called in FM is supremely important. How can a player like Jelavic go from a laser accurate finishing machine to a Sunday morning hungover blob of a pub team player? Confidence.

It's something I feel is oft overlooked in FM, when it is—in my opinion—the most important attribute a player can have; perhaps even more so than his abilities. To give you some perspective, the supremely confident striker with the finishing ability of 11 and composure of 10 is more likely to put the ball in the net than the abysmally confident striker with finishing of 19 and composure of 20.

Morale—namely team-talks—has been a wagging point (often a sore one) on these forums, but this thread aims to provide a morale toolkit of sorts that aims to maximise your chances of raising individual and, therefore, team morale.

Raising morale is more an art than a science, such is the nature of our, well, nature, but there are definitely a few things the user can do outside of team-talks to raise morale. On the subject of team-talks real quick, I will NOT be going into them today because I am now of the opinion that they are so contextual, so situational, and so personality-based that there is not one 'one size fits all' guide out there that can help. A word to the wise, however, your very own reputation is of paramount importance. If you find yourself in a situation with a team of prima-donnas—like I did—do NOT try and motivate them or be too harsh on them. Remain calm and nondescript and general until you've earned their trust through time or you bring them a Premiership or two—a catch 22 since it's difficult to motivate them to win the trophies in the first place.

If you'll pardon my blatant hubris, the link below will take you to a good thread (yes I started it but it seems to have gathered some great momentum and has been an eye-opener for me), which I hope can help:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/354390-Team-Talks-Ruining-Game-Experience

What You Can Do to Raise Morale

Always play minnows for friendly matches

Look, I know you think your new Torquay side are the bees knees and you have the utmost respect for Daniele De Rossi, but what are you really trying to prove by organising an away match at the Stadio Olimpico? Play all your matches at home against as many pub teams as you can find and play as many as you can fit into pre-season for other benefits. I can't take credit for this approach, but this man can (the strategy has worked wonders):

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/348337-Approaching-Pre-Season-My-take-On-It

Always, always introduce yourself to the team/have a pre-season meeting. Always have a team meeting when available

There is a small window of time at the beginning of every season in which you have the opportunity to introduce yourself to your team. If you miss out on this, you miss out on an opportunity to dramatically bump up that morale. I always start as an international manager and I've had good success using the line 'Many of you know me…'. Ask the room after each phase of talks; if you find morale is going up, keep asking the room or captain until you either hit a plateau or a decrease, at which point you should passionately let them know it was the reaction you were looking for. In my experience, team-meetings provide the largest universal increase in confidence. The option to have a team-meeting will open up again multiple times across a season depending on the situation. I find being assertive works well if you're having a dip in form. It's not a bad idea to save it at this point and experiment with trial and error.

Always choose high league and cup bonuses regardless of your team and financial situation

The bump in morale far outweighs the financial implications of paying your squad come end of season. A happy, confident squad going into the first league game is an eager squad and you're going to get promoted anyhow right? So what's the point in not paying out larger bonuses? The promotion to a higher division will indeed offset any player payoffs and a good start to any campaign can very realistically define your success or failure for the whole season.

Ask your players for staff advice and follow through

This method is the one I use the least since it is so dependent on your squad's needs. However when it works it works well and doesn't change the fact morale can be raised with this method. Simply initiate a conversation with a player and ask for Advice. Most of the time the player won't even have a suggestion.

Always check a player's long-term plans from his Information tab and encourage him to pursue his goal

Usually it's the older players who know what they want to do when they hang their boots up and often you will find players who—under no certain terms—want nothing to do with the game when they retire. I'm a musician, so if you could pardon the terminology, notice how Robbie Blake's morale went up a half-step in my Doncaster game by simply telling him he should consider taking up management.

Before advising Robbie Blake on his future

After advising Robbie Blake on his future

Simply click on a player's Information tab and make a mental note of his intentions. Then just initiate a Private Chat, click on Development, Recommend Future Staff Role, then match it up to his intentions and voila! Easy money or easy morale in this instance.

I tend to use this method strategically or sparingly and perceive it as a morale bank. If your morale is already pretty high at the start of the season using all the other methods then don't waste this because you can only use it once. After your pre-season is over using Cleon's approach, your players should be pretty high in confidence regardless. A well-timed conversation with several of your elder starting players before the same upcoming match can raise morale a half-step across an entire team.

Constant communication with your players—whether they're playing well or poorly—is essential

It's essential to be in perpetual conversation with your players. As a good rule of thumb I speak to my whole team individually approximately every three days without fail. I'll speak to them right after a match if they have either an excellent game or a really poor one. I can't tell you the number of times I had James Milner bounce back with a stellar performance as a result of my being assertive with him (he's mentally excellent, mind) after a poor game. If a player is on a poor run of form I will assertively tell him he needs to step up; if he's on a good run of form I will passionately let him know I'm impressed with his performances.

It's vital to use the History/Conversations tab here since you don't want to repeat yourself and lower morale for no reason. Players tend to accept the same talk after a few days or games. Use your discretion and trial and error.

Using these methods I'm now able to maintain an acceptable level of confidence throughout my squad for a whole season. Please keep in mind that there is no substitution for winning games, but football is indeed a game of inches. I am sure there are untold effects of having a player's morale one half-step or one full-step higher. By maintaining a good level of confidence I'm sure when that when situations do come down to inches that they will be in your favour.

I'm reluctant to interrupt what I fully expect will be a fantastic thread so early, but I really would point out that this one should be used with caution.

If a player agrees with you they will often then 'start right away' and instantly acquire staff attributes.

They will then be near impossible to sell as they will demand a staff role everywhere they go, and will reject any offer that doesn't give them it. Fine if it someone you wanna keep or who doesn't have long left on contract, but if you want rid of someone then don't do this. (Same goes for buying the ridiculous amount of 28/29 year old free agents to for some reason get staff attributes, sort it out for fm14 si)

EDIT - Contrary to the above, I did just sell a player to a club who didn't offer him staff role, after 6 months of him rejecting offers. So change the above from 'near impossible' to 'difficult'. Sorry SI for marginally over-stating your error.

That said, darthrodent, please carry on with your very useful thread.

Hey man, if you have anything to add, or you disagree with anything, or your gaming experience differs, by all means let me know. This thread is exactly for that. I had NO IDEA this happened, so that's very good information to know.

Several good pieces of advice that would come in handy for many a manager, I think. Could be coupled with wwfan's 12 steps.

But this one?

Constant communication with your players—whether they're playing well or poorly—is essential

It's essential to be in perpetual conversation with your players. As a good rule of thumb I speak to my whole team individually approximately every three days without fail. I'll speak to them right after a match if they have either an excellent game or a really poor one.

Not in a life time. I'd rather quit playing FM all together Personally, I find it easier just winning to keep morale high than this sort of micro management... But I do see some usefulness to it if you're a mid league team that experience ups and downs (but never will I speak to all my players every 3 days).

Several good pieces of advice that would come in handy for many a manager, I think. Could be coupled with wwfan's 12 steps.

But this one?

Not in a life time. I'd rather quit playing FM all together Personally, I find it easier just winning to keep morale high than this sort of micro management... But I do see some usefulness to it if you're a mid league team that experience ups and downs (but never will I speak to all my players every 3 days).

Each to their own, pal; I can't argue that it's not tedious at times (though it really appears a lot more tedious than it actually is; takes about 20 seconds) and I certainly can't argue that winning isn't the greatest medicine. Unfortunately I go through patches of not winning games, but my logic is that so long as confidence is high within the camp, I'll draw more games than I lose.

As I said I've downgraded my warning from avoid at all costs to just bear in mind, seems they do eventually accept but I had a guy turn everything down for 6 months first, and have had the problem before across a few FMs. But it seems they do now occasionally leave your club.

I agree fully that the introducing yourself to the players is a solid banker

I've often seen players respond to the effect of "Would you like me to get started right away?" to which I always respond "Not right now", which doesn't result in a morale drop. Is this what you're referring to, mate? Are you sure you're not accepting his proposal, unwittingly asking him to get cracking? I'm sure you're not that oblivious but at the same time it's easily done once you get in the habit of doing something.

I've often seen players respond to the effect of "Would you like me to get started right away?" to which I always respond "Not right now", which doesn't result in a morale drop. Is this what you're referring to, mate? Are you sure you're not accepting his proposal, unwittingly asking him to get cracking? I'm sure you're not that oblivious but at the same time it's easily done once you get in the habit of doing something.

A successful go at tutoring players can not only he;lp morale, but buiold intra-squad friendships which will help out performances when they play together i believe, and of course the obvious transfer of ppms and raising hidden attributes. I very rarely fail when i set tutors, so i see this as a great way to boost individual morale, i try to have everyone with the coorect eprsonality tutoring someone else perpetually.

A successful go at tutoring players can not only he;lp morale, but buiold intra-squad friendships which will help out performances when they play together i believe, and of course the obvious transfer of ppms and raising hidden attributes. I very rarely fail when i set tutors, so i see this as a great way to boost individual morale, i try to have everyone with the coorect eprsonality tutoring someone else perpetually.

COMPLETELY forgot about tutoring, Kev, thank you. I put this down to my not using it as much as I should as a consequence of it having a detrimental effect on morale after the tutoring didn't work. That's down to me not knowing how to use it than anything esle. Any words of wisdom, Kev? Do personalities have to be similar or something? I'd imagine they don't have to match since, from what I've read, the whole idea is to "propagate" those personality traits on to the next generation of players.

COMPLETELY forgot about tutoring, Kev, thank you. I put this down to my not using it as much as I should as a consequence of it having a detrimental effect on morale after the tutoring didn't work. That's down to me not knowing how to use it than anything esle. Any words of wisdom, Kev? Do personalities have to be similar or something? I'd imagine they don't have to match since, from what I've read, the whole idea is to "propagate" those personality traits on to the next generation of players.

Similar personalities certainly helps, there are other little key signs like a player might have something like "thinks so and so is a good player" in his info.

I think tutoring can be a little buggy though at times. For example I recently started my season with a collection of tutoring. I have a young centre-back called Maitland who had a 'balanced' personality. Obviously that needed changing so I got Nathaniel Clyne to tutor him (Clyne is about 25 now in my game and an England regular) who has a 'fairly professional' personality. After like just 2 months Maitland broke of the tutoring saying their was an obvious clash of personalities. Yet when I now click on Maitlands information he is 'fairly professional' just like Clyne! I suppose maybe their emdia handling style may also have an effect but generally I find that tutoring goes ok, I would say in that current game I've had a good 30 tutoring set ups and that was the first one to break down so it's worth the risk.

As other have said it also helps build bonds between players, you will start seeing fellow teamates on players favourite personnel, that certainly helps with team unity and morale IMO. It's an important part of squad building as well. Just be careful though if you sell a well liked individual as that can disrupt harmony.

There is a good advice on tutoring in Cleon's thread in the tactics and training forum, can't find the link to it atm. EDIT: Post #13 in this http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/343043-Ajax-Youth-Development-%E2%80%93-When-The-Real-World-Meets-Football-Manager

Another factor you could think about it in terms of Moral is captaincy choice, that can have a have a big effect.

I agree with your approach to post game chats to players. I generally go for a uniform approach to teamtalks and don;t like to single individuals out in this area, but I will certainly talk to players privately post game. Maybe not every player like you but I monitor the last 5 game form ratings and highlight those that have played well and those that could do better, if a player has had a particularly poor game (avg. rating less than 6) or a great game (9+) then I will pick them up on that as well.

A key thing to learn in this is your players personalities, some players will have very high standards, so for example I praised Bale for a last 5 game rating of around 7.30 but he didn't think he was doing that well and lost morale. So next time around, i noticed he as aonly around 7.20, so I criticised him and this brought a positive reaction and better performances.

A key thing to learn in this is your players personalities, some players will have very high standards, so for example I praised Bale for a last 5 game rating of around 7.30 but he didn't think he was doing that well and lost morale. So next time around, i noticed he as aonly around 7.20, so I criticised him and this brought a positive reaction and better performances.

This is good advice actually. Keep in mind that form and expectations can indeed be relative. There is no real discrete number per se or threshold that the user can not exceed causing a good or bad talk. There are times when players will say something along the lines of "I think we disagree on what constitues good form…" or I'll have a defender from time to time saying "I blame the midfield for my performance." Any advice on why these reactions may manifest?

Not sure, an ambition issue? I suppose some who's personality is 'perfectionist' would demand high standards of themselves. I've had the same with Ronaldo as well and Boruc. I wonder if a player has high ambition and maybe high determination then that would cause them to not accept average performances. Both players I mentioned (Bale and Ronaldo) are also ones I have had trouble with when it comes to teamtalks.

It may though be a rep issue, i.e. they don't listen to you as manager?