Motivation, Pressure, Confidence - The 3 Key factors!

In combine with readings on the forum and many seasons of playing, I have developed a simple to understand system about player performance and interaction. I would like to share this with everyone and hope to enlighten your games.

Basically, there are 3 KEY FACTORS affecting your players match performance, and they are Motivation, Pressure, and Confidence. And these factors can be indicated during a match as follow:

Playing ok – average motivation, average pressure, average confidence

Playing with confidence – average motivation, average pressure, good confidence

Motivated – good motivation, average pressure, good confidence

Fire up – excellent motivation, average pressure, excellent confidence

Complacent – low motivation, average pressure, too much confidence

Playing without confidence – average motivation, average pressure, very low confidence

Nervous – average motivation, too much pressure, average confidence

So what a manager’s job now is trying to make the players into “motivated” or “fire up”, and preventing “nervous”, “complacent”, and “playing without confidence” etc…

1. Motivation:

A motivated player always performs better on field. He works harder and greatly involves in everything tackle and chance he get. In general, expected an overall boost in every attributes he got.

Motivation rating is hidden and only take into account during a match. Imagine there is a “motivation meter” for each player at the beginning of a match. This meter will be reset in every new match.

In general, a professional or ambitious player will start with a higher motivation bar when the match begins. Motivation can be increase or decrease by team talks or pre-match events. (Examples follow at the end)

2. Pressure:

Similar to motivation, you can imagine there is a “pressure meter” begins at each match, and that will be reset in a new match.

What determine the starting pressure will be the winning odd, home or away match, and importance of match such as cup final or rival match. Also, team talk or pre-match events can affect the pressure meter as well.

In general, a player with spirit, resilient or light hearted personality can handle pressure better than the others. (Or check the pressure rating with editor if you like)

3. Confidence:

And this is the tricky one and work different to motivation and pressure. Confidence works in a meter which accumulates in and off a match. So every time you win or the players perform well, the confidence meter increase and vice versa. This meter will carry onto the next match.

Meanwhile, by the time this confidence meter accumulated to a certain point, the player will become over-confident and being complacent. A good indicator of this is the “complacent” rating in match, or “don’t seem to listening” respond in team talk.

So there is no quick fix in this confidence meter but carefully manage during matches. In general, morale is directly proportional to confidence, so low morale players indicate he has low confidence as well.

A mixing game with Motivation, Pressure, and Confidence:

So, here are up to managers to find the good balance between these 3 factors. I can’t tell exactly what should be done but here are some points to start with, base on my experience:

Team talk effect: O = increase, X = decrease

Expecting a win: motivation OO, pressure OO

Expecting a performance: motivation OOO, pressure OOO

No pressure: motivation XX, pressure XX

**Please: motivation X, pressure X, confidence OO

**Delighted: motivation XX, pressure XX, confidence OOO

Don’t expect your performance to drop: motivation O, pressure O, confidence X

Disappointed: motivation O, pressure O, confidence X

Angry: motivation OO, pressure OO, confidence XX

You have faith: confidence O

Warn against complacency: confidence X

**team talks like please, delight can have inverse effect depend on the player’s current confidence level. For a player badly need confidence, give him the praise of pleased for a 7.1 rating can boost his motivation etc... On the other hand, give praise of pleased for an already complacent player with rating 7.3, might not be a good idea at all. Instead, a comment like “don’t expect your performance to drop” will be more suitable.

Other than team talk effects, there are more events which can affect the 3 factors I mentioned. There are no guarantee formula to work everything out but just try and error.

How can I maintain the confidence in a suitable level?

How do I deal with an over confident expensive sign in?

Should I lost or draw a match in order to smash the team off complacency, before I lost my match in a key battle?

Which of my players can handle pressure and harsh team talk?

Which of my players is unprofessional and need high motivation team talk?

But then if he can handle the extra expectation and pressure?

There are more and more questions and decision to make and I believe that can bring lots of extra enjoyment to a great football sim like FM.

Good post.

I have recently been looking very closely at the ability to handle pressure of my players and linking it directly to match odds etc. and I have got some very good results. In simple terms I have found a sort of pressure "pattern" to my players and I stick to that pattern while adapting the exact wording of my teamtalks to the relevant match context.

I think that half time teamtalks themselves depend more upon the first half performance than for example pre-match odds. Adapting pre-match teamtalks to personality and pre-match odds, then adapting half-time teamtalks to first half performance and personality seems to work well.

The fact you highlight Pressure is spot on. It is a vital attribute for taking into consideration for motivation. However things like Professionalism and Sportsmanship and Temperament also seem to play a role in seperating the performances of similar Pressure players.

Good post. People that read this cannot fail to gain a solid insight into the working of teamtalks and man management in my opinion.

In combine with readings on the forum and many seasons of playing, I have developed a simple to understand system about player performance and interaction. I would like to share this with everyone and hope to enlighten your games.

Basically, there are 3 KEY FACTORS affecting your players match performance, and they are Motivation, Pressure, and Confidence. And these factors can be indicated during a match as follow:

Playing ok – average motivation, average pressure, average confidence

Playing with confidence – average motivation, average pressure, good confidence

Motivated – good motivation, average pressure, good confidence

Fire up – excellent motivation, average pressure, excellent confidence

Complacent – low motivation, average pressure, too much confidence

Playing without confidence – average motivation, average pressure, very low confidence

Nervous – average motivation, too much pressure, average confidence

So what a manager’s job now is trying to make the players into “motivated” or “fire up”, and preventing “nervous”, “complacent”, and “playing without confidence” etc…

1. Motivation:

A motivated player always performs better on field. He works harder and greatly involves in everything tackle and chance he get. In general, expected an overall boost in every attributes he got.

Motivation rating is hidden and only take into account during a match. Imagine there is a “motivation meter” for each player at the beginning of a match. This meter will be reset in every new match.

In general, a professional or ambitious player will start with a higher motivation bar when the match begins. Motivation can be increase or decrease by team talks or pre-match events. (Examples follow at the end)

2. Pressure:

Similar to motivation, you can imagine there is a “pressure meter” begins at each match, and that will be reset in a new match.

What determine the starting pressure will be the winning odd, home or away match, and importance of match such as cup final or rival match. Also, team talk or pre-match events can affect the pressure meter as well.

In general, a player with spirit, resilient or light hearted personality can handle pressure better than the others. (Or check the pressure rating with editor if you like)

3. Confidence:

And this is the tricky one and work different to motivation and pressure. Confidence works in a meter which accumulates in and off a match. So every time you win or the players perform well, the confidence meter increase and vice versa. This meter will carry onto the next match.

Meanwhile, by the time this confidence meter accumulated to a certain point, the player will become over-confident and being complacent. A good indicator of this is the “complacent” rating in match, or “don’t seem to listening” respond in team talk.

So there is no quick fix in this confidence meter but carefully manage during matches. In general, morale is directly proportional to confidence, so low morale players indicate he has low confidence as well.

A mixing game with Motivation, Pressure, and Confidence:

So, here are up to managers to find the good balance between these 3 factors. I can’t tell exactly what should be done but here are some points to start with, base on my experience:

Team talk effect: O = increase, X = decrease

Expecting a win: motivation OO, pressure OO

Expecting a performance: motivation OOO, pressure OOO

No pressure: motivation XX, pressure XX

**Please: motivation X, pressure X, confidence OO

**Delighted: motivation XX, pressure XX, confidence OOO

Don’t expect your performance to drop: motivation O, pressure O, confidence X

Disappointed: motivation O, pressure O, confidence X

Angry: motivation OO, pressure OO, confidence XX

You have faith: confidence O

Warn against complacency: confidence X

**team talks like please, delight can have inverse effect depend on the player’s current confidence level. For a player badly need confidence, give him the praise of pleased for a 7.1 rating can boost his motivation etc... On the other hand, give praise of pleased for an already complacent player with rating 7.3, might not be a good idea at all. Instead, a comment like “don’t expect your performance to drop” will be more suitable.

Other than team talk effects, there are more events which can affect the 3 factors I mentioned. There are no guarantee formula to work everything out but just try and error.

How can I maintain the confidence in a suitable level?

How do I deal with an over confident expensive sign in?

Should I lost or draw a match in order to smash the team off complacency, before I lost my match in a key battle?

Which of my players can handle pressure and harsh team talk?

Which of my players is unprofessional and need high motivation team talk?

But then if he can handle the extra expectation and pressure?

There are more and more questions and decision to make and I believe that can bring lots of extra enjoyment to a great football sim like FM.

Great post and very intresting. I have one question though. Is the teamtalk thing you've posted completely accurate or have you just put that from your own expierence???

I'm very interested in how to combat over-confidence, i've used "despite the win it was an awful performance" a few times but this seems to have a short term effect before they are back to their old ways. Hopefully, more people join in and add to the topic, nice one Rickooko.

Yes, I agree with TigerJoe on this.

How did you come up with this?

I am hoping you did it through experiments and a collation of results.

Great post and very intresting. I have one question though. Is the teamtalk thing you've posted completely accurate or have you just put that from your own expierence???

Exactly what i was thinking, this is very very useful info but ONLY if it's (at least reasonably) accurate. I didn't expect someone to break down each individual team talk and the effects so in depth, without cracking open the ME or at least extract some info from one of the devs.

I'd just like to add my 'two thumbs up' to this excellent post. As with the others, I'd appreciate more rigorous testing (especially accounting for the other hidden personality attributes), and I have to take issue with one point: "Should I lost or draw a match in order to smash the team off complacency, before I lost my match in a key battle?", but overall, great postRickooko.

Extremely interesting and makes a lot of sense to me.

Sadly the influence by teamtalk on those 3 factors are merely base on my experience only. I wish those OOO XX chart can help to explain my idea in some way.

The important thing is i have categorize the hidden influence into exact 3 factors in motivation, pressure and confidence to make things simple and start with.

As Sfraser suggest there should be more elements such as sportsmanship, temperament which i agree with. I agree there should be more elements involves but no matter what elements they are, they should end up in the 3 factors i mentioned.

It can now explains some puzzled events in FM such as you cant win against a weak team even with 20 reloads? It is because you have mess up with the confidence meter of your players already at the save point, you can do nothing but put in 11 players with completely complacency status into the match. This is not an AI cheat or team talk crack, but just a mistake which many of us didnt notice.

For example as i am playing as Leverkusen in a less completive league, i often find my team smashed badly by equal opponent in champion league after i have won 5 games easily or so in the league. The thing i might do now is let my team be beaten or drawed in an non important match, then i send the whole team an angry smashing talk. If you dont see anyone respond unhappily, you did a successful job to bring down the complacency effect. (You can do it for individual as well)

Meanwhile, something i forget to mention in my post is in match events. As the motivation, pressure, and confidence meter start counting in a match, the actions during the match will start to influence those 3 factors. For example if your players did a lot of successful pass or tackle, their confidence and motivation will increase during the match and you can start to see "playing with confidence" "motivate" etc...

On the other hand, if your player keep failing to perform, their pressure will increase and you will start to see the "nervous" status.

Here are some observations on these in game effects, again base on my experience.

Actions with good influence:

Successful passes, shots, dribbles, tackles etc.. (build up confidence, might be motivation as well)

Successful tactic without obvious gaps (less pressure)

The team concede and being behind (boost motivation for determined players)

Actions with bad influence:

Unsuccessful passes, shots, dribbles, tackles etc.. (dropping confidence, build up pressure)

Tactic have gaps being exposed, such as 3 DC system against 2 quick wingers (building up pressure, getting nervous)

The team score and lead (dropping motivation, rising confidence/become complacent, especially for unprofessional players)

The player sub in while the team is leading more then 2 goals (feel complacent, link to professional rating i believe)

The team is lossing or in need of a goal badly, you make a sub in (This guy will feel nervous if he is not good to handle pressure)

Surely you can add a lots more to the list i just mention. And there is a general tips: Unless there is a need, dont sub out your players who is highly motivated already. As you cant tell the sub in player is motivated or not. On the other hand, after 60 mins or so, you might sub out a player with "playing ok" status, as they are failed to motivated themselves. (and surely nervous or complacent defenders etc...)

Lastly, i should mention there is still some "random" factors being programmed in a way to reflect reality, like any AI does. So a players starting motivation, pressure and confidence in the same match being reloaded can be vary, but not far especially in the confidence department.

Exactly what i was thinking, this is very very useful info but ONLY if it's (at least reasonably) accurate. I didn't expect someone to break down each individual team talk and the effects so in depth, without cracking open the ME or at least extract some info from one of the devs.

I am afraid it would not be easy to claim anything being accurate, unless we crack the game code or ask the developers as you mention.

The main purpose of my post is trying to simplify the hidden in match influential factors into 3 categories. (And they make sense to me)

Then, everyone can develop their own theory base on that, and toying around the options such as team talk in a more logical sense.

Actions with good influence:

Successful passes, shots, dribbles, tackles etc.. (build up confidence, might be motivation as well)

Successful tactic without obvious gaps (less pressure)

The team concede and being behind (boost motivation for determined players)

Actions with bad influence:

Unsuccessful passes, shots, dribbles, tackles etc.. (dropping confidence, build up pressure)

Tactic have gaps being exposed, such as 3 DC system against 2 quick wingers (building up pressure, getting nervous)

The team score and lead (dropping motivation, rising confidence/become complacent, especially for unprofessional players)

The player sub in while the team is leading more then 2 goals (feel complacent, link to professional rating i believe)

The team is lossing or in need of a goal badly, you make a sub in (This guy will feel nervous if he is not good to handle pressure)

All VERY VERY interesting. Keep it coming!! :thup:

Fair enough.

Overall, a really good and informative post. Really helps alot of people who are frustrated with the "why can't we thrash lower league teams 10-0".

Well done!

I am afraid it would not be easy to claim anything being accurate, unless we crack the game code or ask the developers as you mention.

The main purpose of my post is trying to simplify the hidden in match influential factors into 3 categories. (And they make sense to me)

Then, everyone can develop their own theory base on that, and toying around the options such as team talk in a more logical sense.

Don't worry it seems very accurate, good work, I was just wondering

Here are some more events which would influence motivation, pressure and confidence, base on my experience:

Motivation:

Press conference comments, such as "I predict we will do well", "I have confidence in my defender" etc..

Respond to critic, determine to perform well

Respond to being transfer listed, determine to prove its worth

Respond to manager's war or words

Respond to bonus money

Respond to goal drought

Win the league, and then become less motivate next season and so on (link to ambitious i believe)

Old players, who might lack motivation

Young player, motivate to break into first team

Fringe player, motivate to break into first team

First team player keep playing even perform badly, lost motivation to do well

Not enough competition in a specific position, lack motivation to fight for place

The team is under achieve, have the "will strive to help the team progress" status

Head to head history from the same team (revenge??)

Players up against their old team

Pressure:

Press conference comment

Respond to manager's war of words

Goal drought, especially or only for striker

Shaky defenders, after keep conceding goals continuously in a few matches

Players who make critical errors in the last match

Important match, cup final, rival match etc.. (also link to important match attribute i believe)

New signing rumor

Too much competition in his position

New to the team

Young player

Players who has recover from long injury

Players who lack of match practice

Confidence:

Winning or losing games

Performance, despite losing

Press conference

Big money signing will usually start with hight confidence, hence will become complacent very quickly (While you notice the "dont seem to be listening" respond while you say "pleased" in team talk)

Youngster who score very high rating in reserve, being falsely complacent by accumulated confidence (Again, while you spot the "dont seem to be listening" comment)

Surely, these list is not complete and everyone can come up with their theory differently and that is the fun of FM imo.

A point to note though, you can notice the way to influence Confidence is very limited and most of them are base on matches outcomes. For this reason, "maintenance" of confidence is most difficult and being a long term project during a season.

Will definitely give it a try in my next matches

There's one thing i'm very curious about though, it's the "Fired Up" status. You might have noticed that when playing against good to elite opposition, if you score first, some of their better players with good mental and hidden attributes immediately switch over to "Fired Up". And sometimes if your players are not playing well and you give the Angry hairdryer treatment, sometimes they can get Fired Up as well, which IMO is the best status you can hope for. It is like an adrenaline rush and they perform like supermen.

Fire up – excellent motivation, average pressure, excellent confidence

Angry: motivation OO, pressure OO, confidence XX

It's a bit odd that 1.) they gain a confidence boost after going a goal down, and 2.) they gain confidence after you express anger at them. But from my experience that seems to be the case and i love the Angry teamtalk, since i usually only sign players with high determination and pressure.

Will definitely give it a try in my next matches

There's one thing i'm very curious about though, it's the "Fired Up" status. You might have noticed that when playing against good to elite opposition, if you score first, some of their better players with good mental and hidden attributes immediately switch over to "Fired Up". And sometimes if your players are not playing well and you give the Angry hairdryer treatment, sometimes they can get Fired Up as well, which IMO is the best status you can hope for. It is like an adrenaline rush and they perform like supermen.

Fire up – excellent motivation, average pressure, excellent confidence

Angry: motivation OO, pressure OO, confidence XX

It's a bit odd that 1.) they gain a confidence boost after going a goal down, and 2.) they gain confidence after you express anger at them. But from my experience that seems to be the case and i love the Angry teamtalk, since i usually only sign players with high determination and pressure.

Yea, i think the status "Fire up" is the best you can get on the field. And i believe you will get this status with a combination like this:

Fire up – excellent motivation, average pressure (not to the degree of nervous), excellent confidence (not to the degree of complacent)

And i think the comment "angry" is best suit to a player who is determined and professional (get motivated by harsh talk and prove himself), can handle pressure (harsh team increase pressure), and having too much or high confidence ( Harsh team talk drop confidence, if he is already low in confidence, angry wont fire him up but destroy his morale)

Now check the team talk chart i suggested:

Angry: motivation OO (increase motivation), pressure OO (increase pressure), confidence XX (decrease confidence)

It is the exact right formula for the situation to motivate a player who can handle pressure, and currently being over confidence.

** Note that those OO XX doesnt mean good or bad, but just indicate the value is increased or decreased.

And for the case you score first and the opponents better player get "fire up", i will see in this way:

Lets say Rooney was "playing ok" with supert morale:

--> playing ok: average motivation, average pressure, average to good confidence? (we cant really tell unless he get the complacent or other status, but in general a supert morale players are with better confidence)

When you score a goal (assume your team is an unknown weaker side), that will highly motivate Rooney with his given determination. Pressure is increased as he is a goal down but he can handle it. Confidence is dropped but since he is started with a high value, he is still have full believe in himself. And now the status will go like this:

--> fire up: Excellent motivation (lose to a minor team!?? NO WAY!!), average pressure (pressure raise but manageable), average to good confidence (dropped after a goal down, but not to the degree of collapsing)

However, if they have a player with very poor rating in handling pressure and start with low confidence, he might turn in like this

--> Nervous: Excellent motivation (lose to a minor team....better not....), high pressure (i cant handle if i lost this.....), low confidence (We will very likely to lose again.......)

OR, a player with poor morale with low confidence, no matter what it will be hard to motivate him at all??

Really good OP, Rickooko. Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, with regards to giving out 'angry' teamtalks, you've got to factor in their match rating as well. Even if you have a highly professional and determined player, with the abillity to handle pressure and plenty of confidence, I wouldn't have thought that they'd react well to an 'angry' teamtalk if they're on a 7.0 rating or better.

Really good OP, Rickooko. Makes a lot of sense.

Of course, with regards to giving out 'angry' teamtalks, you've got to factor in their match rating as well. Even if you have a highly professional and determined player, with the abillity to handle pressure and plenty of confidence, I wouldn't have thought that they'd react well to an 'angry' teamtalk if they're on a 7.0 rating or better.

Yea, match rating play a big part in team talk.

In my experience you can still manage to give a "disappointed" or "angry" team talk for a 6.9, if you sure that player is currently complacent and not giving his best.

I suggest not to give harsh team talk for rating 7.0+.

The only exceptional case is your team lost or draw to a team with winning odds over 1:5 or greater. Giving an post match overall teamtalk of "embrassement" will not have bad influence, even they have rating over 7.0. (I called it a complacency clean up)

Actually RT I've just now tried this. Leading the EPL, I've just played an FA Cup tie against a League One side. We were cruising 1-0 into halftime when they got a free kick in the last second and equalised. The players had decent ratings - just under 7 in most cases and I'd normally go 'disappointed'. But I tried the hairdrier treatment and it had a great effect. I had 9 players 'happy' after the match (we won 3-1) whereas I rarely get more than 2 who 'seem to be listening'. Needless to say the players I screamed at had the appropriate personalities. The 2 more delicate flowers who were spared continued to be crap and got substituted soon after.

Actually RT I've just now tried this. Leading the EPL, I've just played an FA Cup tie against a League One side. We were cruising 1-0 into halftime when they got a free kick in the last second and equalised. The players had decent ratings - just under 7 in most cases and I'd normally go 'disappointed'. But I tried the hairdrier treatment and it had a great effect. I had 9 players 'happy' after the match (we won 3-1) whereas I rarely get more than 2 who 'seem to be listening'. Needless to say the players I screamed at had the appropriate personalities. The 2 more delicate flowers who were spared continued to be crap and got substituted soon after.

Yeah, I think that's probably along the lines of what rickooko is saying above, where you're strong favourites for a match and you get a bit more leeway to throw around the angry comments than usual.

I played a season managing Leeds in League One a while back, where they're odds-on favourites for most games. I loaned in a lot of youngsters who it turned out must have had very bad determination/professionalism scores, but also useless pressure-handling as well. They would always go out nervous as hell if I told them I expected a win, or to do it for the fans (especially if they didn't score in the first 30 minutes or so), but they'd also be complacent as hell if I tried to ease the pressure (you can win this, no pressure, have faith, etc) or we'd won the last few games. We scraped promotion, but I spent the whole season wanting to throttle them all!

I'm liking this thread a lot.

Also, I think you can get too technical with testing certain specifics of the game to the n'th degree and a more general overview can sometimes be just as useful and relevant.

Having read back through the opening post, it strikes me that there's something missing when we look at the various states that players can be in when we check the motivation screen.

It would seem that players can only really have low motivation when they reach a state of complacency - ie, when their confidence gets too high.

But what about those players whose motivation is low because their team is getting hammered? Surely players with low determination and perhaps low professionalism should react negatively to going a couple (or more) goals down? We have 'playing nervously' but that's a case of low confidence rather than low determination.

Maybe there should be a 'looking deflated' or 'looking disinterested' or something along those lines? I'd argue that even players with decent confidence could suffer from the feeling that the game's beyond them, given low enough determination and professionalism, when they're a few goals behind. Instead it often seems that players will come out motivated or fired-up from a half-time team talk even when the game seems dead.

I'm usually quite sceptical about people complaining about the 2-0 up at half-time syndrome, but you do tend to see far more complacency in a team that's winning comfortably than you do 'playing nervously' on the losing team's side.

I think confidence and pressure are 2 different thing.

A player will have the status "playing nervously", even they are having good confidence, good morale, or even your team is leading. That might lead to a very poor rating in handling pressure, or any other on field/ off field events.

The status "Playing without confidence" is the one to indicate low confidence player.

Motivation and pressure is work like a double edge sword if you have not notice yet. Almost, whenever there is a rise of motivation event ( harsh team talk, concede a goal etc..), there is also a rise in expectation and hence pressure. On the other hand, whenever there is a drop of motivation event ( praise team talk, leading a goal), there is a sense of relaxation and hence pressure decrease.

So when your team concede a goal, motivation and pressure rise together, with a drop in confidence. The outcome will be a few determine players got motivated/fired up, a few who cant handle pressure feel nervous, a few who start with average confidence become "playing without confidence" now.

I think confidence and pressure are 2 different thing.

A player will have the status "playing nervously", even they are having good confidence, good morale, or even your team is leading. That might lead to a very poor rating in handling pressure, or any other on field/ off field events.

The status "Playing without confidence" is the one to indicate low confidence player.

Motivation and pressure is work like a double edge sword if you have not notice yet. Almost, whenever there is a rise of motivation event ( harsh team talk, concede a goal etc..), there is also a rise in expectation and hence pressure. On the other hand, whenever there is a drop of motivation event ( praise team talk, leading a goal), there is a sense of relaxation and hence pressure decrease.

So when your team concede a goal, motivation and pressure rise together, with a drop in confidence. The outcome will be a few determine players got motivated/fired up, a few who cant handle pressure feel nervous, a few who start with average confidence become "playing without confidence" now.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

But I still think that there's that missing option of players whose motivation temporarily takes a dip, in certain match situations. Think of a team who are chasing an equaliser in the 80th minute but suddenly concede a second goal on the break. Even if the players have decent confidence and can handle pressure, it's likely that heads would drop (unless players are really determined or professional enough to carry on trying to get a goal).

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

But I still think that there's that missing option of players whose motivation temporarily takes a dip, in certain match situations. Think of a team who are chasing an equaliser in the 80th minute but suddenly concede a second goal on the break. Even if the players have decent confidence and can handle pressure, it's likely that heads would drop (unless players are really determined or professional enough to carry on trying to get a goal).

I think the players did drop their motivation from 1 goal to 2 goal down in the game already, or i miss something?

Even there is not a drop but definitely you would see a changes in the status among your players. (And their players as well)

An example (this happened in my game) is lets say your have a AMR with "motivated" status, he keep dribbling pass and keep crossing in. However, over 30 mins with tons of crosses, they are still not connected or being wasted by your striker. Then you would see his status drop from "motivated" to "with confidence", as he find his efforts were wasteful.

Another funny example which in my game is, once i have a player perform badly with "playing ok" status after 60 mins. I sub him out and instantly the 2 players playing next to his position rise their status from "playing ok" to "motivated" !!

In the assman's prematch report I've had a player who is apparently looking complacent while struggling to handle the pressure. Is it even possible to sort that out? or am I not understanding the terms properly?

Also the motivation tool...does this actually give you information on your players mental state or just how well they are playing? Sometimes you see a player flicker between nervous and complacent based on whether they completed a pass or not which seems to indicate it is more of text summary of players performance ratings than anything else.

My own view is "looking motivated" and "fired up" mean they are only playing ok but are running around a lot to try and get a result, "nervous" not playing too well but trying, "complacent" playing ok but not putting in much effort.

Some others seem to be direcly related to the overall player rating like "playing with confidence" rating 7+ "havng a good game" rating 8+ "having a storming game or bossing midfield etc" rating 9+

Yea, sometimes i see those flicker between complacency and nervous on the same players. It does not make much sense in real life but it happens in FM. Actually it is one of the reason i figure confident and pressure should be handled in 2 meters instead of one.

I think the status like "bossing the midfield", "deserves a goal" etc... are rare comment which is another expression of "motivated" or "fired up".

where can i see the status "Playing without confidence" or "playing ok" or "playing nervously" etc?

where can i see the status "Playing without confidence" or "playing ok" or "playing nervously" etc?

During match in the TV view, tick the "team motivation" box from the match day info icon.

Yeh, it's one of the 'widgets'. If for some reason you can't see the widget, it's also in the player stats screen. There's a rarely-noticed little drop-down menu at the top right - click on it and the pass/tackle/etc stats are replaced by the motivation comments.

Good thoughts, Rickookoo - your post dovetails very much with what I've been thinking, lately, and how I've been approaching my team-talks.

I am really glad to see this post does enlightening.

I have just completed another season and would like to talk a bit of the team talk "You can win this today".

As many of you have already noticed, actually there are another alternations of this phrase "All you need is one more goal, you can do it", "Show encouragement" etc..., which appear in pre-match, half time, or extra time period.

I think all of these can be regard as a team talk for encouraging. In terms of the 3 factors i mentioned, i believe this team talk will:

1. Slighting increase motivation (not as much as "I expect a win")

2. Slighting increase pressure (not as much as "I expect a win")

*3. Increase confidence (may be more than "i have faith in you", or simply a team version of that)

So, here is the problem! As many of you have experience the devastating "demotivated" effect after you use this lines of team talk right? Any demotivated player can easily lost your game as he WILL always making horrible mistakes in the matches.

Now i see the problem is that you have give an encouragement line of teamtalk to a players who is already in full confidence or even complacent. The extra buff of confidence with this team talk will then push it further and make the player "demotivated" before getting into the match. Therefore the better time to use this time is when you know all your team lacking is confidence. If in a key match or rival match with huge pressure, it is better to use "no pressure".

If your team have been in good form and won a fews games, you better dont use this team talk as your players are in high confidence already.

Really interesting post. I think you are in good way. This is explain way my team struggling when we play with lower class teams.

After i read your post i pay attention to motivation window and try to do teamtalks like you said. But strange thing happens. Before my player scored lots of my players include scored player plays with "looking complacent" but after my player score he and other 2 of my player become "playing with comfident". But i think they must stay "looking complacent" because he scores and gain extra comfidence, team gain comfidence because they score and losing is seems less possible. Why should they become confident rather than something like over complacent?

**sorry about my english but i think you can understand what i meant

Just to re-visit this thread for a moment, with reference to something I mentioned earlier in the thread, with regards 'complanency' versus 'playing without confidence' or 'playing nervously'.

I still think that the balance is still not quite right, with this one.

I've just finished playing a season in the Premiership where I was favourites for most game, and by and large did quite well. But even in games where I beat teams comfortably, I'd look at their motivation tab and see that they were full of 'looking motivated' or 'fired up'.

As an example (which I was going to upload as a PKM), I played Middlesbrough in one game, who were 19th and had fragile morale ranging from okay to very poor across their team. Now I can understand that they maybe had some very professional/determined players, and that their manager may have fired them up before the game, sure. We scored after 2 minutes, though, and were 3-0 up within 20 minutes. At each point, I kept checking their motivation, epxecting all but their most determined players to be broken, but instead they were all fired up or motivated. I think we won 6-0 in the end, but an no point were any of them 'playing without confidence' or 'looking nervous' - I think their goalkeeper was 'having a poor game' but that was it.

I experienced similar in games where we beat teams with poor morale by 3 or 4 goals.

Just to re-visit this thread for a moment, with reference to something I mentioned earlier in the thread, with regards 'complanency' versus 'playing without confidence' or 'playing nervously'.

I still think that the balance is still not quite right, with this one.

I've just finished playing a season in the Premiership where I was favourites for most game, and by and large did quite well. But even in games where I beat teams comfortably, I'd look at their motivation tab and see that they were full of 'looking motivated' or 'fired up'.

As an example (which I was going to upload as a PKM), I played Middlesbrough in one game, who were 19th and had fragile morale ranging from okay to very poor across their team. Now I can understand that they maybe had some very professional/determined players, and that their manager may have fired them up before the game, sure. We scored after 2 minutes, though, and were 3-0 up within 20 minutes. At each point, I kept checking their motivation, epxecting all but their most determined players to be broken, but instead they were all fired up or motivated. I think we won 6-0 in the end, but an no point were any of them 'playing without confidence' or 'looking nervous' - I think their goalkeeper was 'having a poor game' but that was it.

I experienced similar in games where we beat teams with poor morale by 3 or 4 goals.

I have faced similar situation as you mention and i would interpret like this:

As they are at 19th, they have nothing to lost against your team so they have no pressure at the first place.

They cant be complacent for sure, and they might lack of confidence then? However, as they are really expected to lose anyway, confident or not means less or nothing to them here.

And they lost 3 goals in 20 mins now......things is getting serious on them and embarrassing. They desperately want to score a goal and hence fired up/motivated.

I think there are many yet unknown factors on this aspect of the game. I think this is the addictive part of FM as nothing can be perfectly explained, just like in real life.

What would be your advice for players who have the "are looking/showing signs of over-confidence in the warm-up" message in the pre-match assistant advice screen?

I usually tend to say "expect a performance" to these players but from your description in the OP this talk does not reduce confidence - can you suggest an alternative?

What would be your advice for players who have the "are looking/showing signs of over-confidence in the warm-up" message in the pre-match assistant advice screen?

I usually tend to say "expect a performance" to these players but from your description in the OP this talk does not reduce confidence - can you suggest an alternative?

I will use "expect a performance" too, as it seems to be the best available option. Hopefully the high motivation can overcome the excessive confidence.

But be careful with this option, especially on GK and defenders. Sometimes you will prefer complacent rather than nervous GK/Defenders.

Excellent thread.

I never really used to pay much attention to squad harmony and in-match motivation, but this thread has inspired me. It's enabled me to get much more from my team, especially since I'm not good tactically.

One question for you all:

I often find myself in the position of being say 2-0 up at half time, with 5 or 6 players on "playing ok" and ratings around the 6.8 mark. What individual team talks are best here. As far as I can tell, I need to increase these players' motivation or confidence (or both). I usually go for the "Disappointed" talk to boost motivation, but that doesn't work that often, and it seems odd to be saying you are disppointed with them if you are winning. I could go down the confidence route and say "I have faith in you" I suppose. What would you guys recommend in this situation?

2-0 = NO team talk. I might use 'have faith' in the scorers but unless someone is exceptionally high or low, leave it!!

2-0 = NO team talk. I might use 'have faith' in the scorers but unless someone is exceptionally high or low, leave it!!

Why would you say "I have faith" to the scorers? From what Rickooko has kindly posted above, the effect of "I have faith" is a small boost to confidence. I imagine the scorers would not be "Playing without confidence", so why do this?

I think there are big advantages to be gained from handling team talks properly. When FM10 comes out I think I'll have to conduct some in depth research

Best post I've read in many months, motivation is something I'm definately interested in looking at now for FM10

Why would you say "I have faith" to the scorers? From what Rickooko has kindly posted above, the effect of "I have faith" is a small boost to confidence. I imagine the scorers would not be "Playing without confidence", so why do this?

I think there are big advantages to be gained from handling team talks properly. When FM10 comes out I think I'll have to conduct some in depth research

Yes, this is an example of the wordings of the team-talks being utterly illogical. 'Have faith' works!! I really hope SI have looked at the phrases they use and have changed them to something more sensible; that way we won't need some guru to unlock the hidden meanings.

Excellent thread.

Is it just me or should SI add this kind of thing in the game's manual.

Yes, this is an example of the wordings of the team-talks being utterly illogical. 'Have faith' works!! I really hope SI have looked at the phrases they use and have changed them to something more sensible; that way we won't need some guru to unlock the hidden meanings.

Is the 2-0 up at HT scenario the only time you use 'Have faith' on anyone who isn't 'Playing without confidence' or are there other occasions where it works? Also, are there any other non-obvious, non-sensical options that you know of?

No, 'have faith' tends to work with any striker or midfielder who has scored, whatever the half-time score. If you say you're 'pleased' they'll ease off, so have faith keeps them motivated and more likely to score again.

No, 'have faith' tends to work with any striker or midfielder who has scored, whatever the half-time score. If you say you're 'pleased' they'll ease off, so have faith keeps them motivated and more likely to score again.

Great, thanks! As you say, the exact wording of these talks could be more tidy. I look forward to trying this out next time...

No, 'have faith' tends to work with any striker or midfielder who has scored, whatever the half-time score. If you say you're 'pleased' they'll ease off, so have faith keeps them motivated and more likely to score again.

It all makes sense now while "have faith" was so frequently a winning option... the only possible negative aspect was making players over confident (hence why it was always a good option for subs where high confidence is less likely)

Excellent thread.

I never really used to pay much attention to squad harmony and in-match motivation, but this thread has inspired me. It's enabled me to get much more from my team, especially since I'm not good tactically.

One question for you all:

I often find myself in the position of being say 2-0 up at half time, with 5 or 6 players on "playing ok" and ratings around the 6.8 mark. What individual team talks are best here. As far as I can tell, I need to increase these players' motivation or confidence (or both). I usually go for the "Disappointed" talk to boost motivation, but that doesn't work that often, and it seems odd to be saying you are disppointed with them if you are winning. I could go down the confidence route and say "I have faith in you" I suppose. What would you guys recommend in this situation?

Actually i often use the lines of "dont let your performance drop" (You get this line for leading more than 2 goals) or "dont get complacent" (You get this for leading 1 goal only).

For me, in most situation, players (especially those are not too professional) will feel complacency while leading in half time, no matter how little it was. Therefore, i often use a teamtalk to bring down their complacency.

However, it have to be flexible in different situations. For example, you have a player start with low morale and your team lead in first half. I will likely give a "please" comment for this guy even he is not playing too great, to make him happier or boost confidence. On the other hand, you can give a much harsh "disappointed" comment for those you expect to play much better, even he got a rating of 6.7 at half time. (From my experience, you better not give a disappointed for rating over 6.8, as it seems to be a unfair comment and bring negative effect)

You might notice after you give a team talk of "dont let performance drop" etc...some players will get angry. Dont worry about that as i read it as a sign of motivation.

I think "have faith" and "no pressure" handle 2 different thing. As "have faith" give confidence and "no pressure" lower the pressure..

If you notice some player constantly dropping their morale from superb back to normal every week even your team was winning, it is a sign of lack of confidence and the comment "have faith" works wonder on them. (You can see "happy" as reaction for "have faith" in those players)

Moreover, have faith also work on striker who was on goal drought or those who made bad mistakes during a game. (Own goals or the like, but NOT those mistakes caused by complaceny)

In my experience over use of this comment will make the player no longer react to it for a period. Therefore i suggest dont over use it and save it for those who really need this. (So better dont use it for good performers as they dont really need this now, save that for the future.)