In Football Manager, everything has a reputation.
Your club has one, and so do your players, your staff, your country, and your league. Even you, the manager, have a reputation!
However, it’s still not entirely clear what it influences.
I mean, it’s pretty understandable that Man City is a more reputable club than some mid-table one stuck in 2. Bundesliga, but what does that really mean?
Is a high-reputation staff team always better? How do you improve your reputation as a manager?
Well, you’re in luck! I’ve done my homework and I’m back to tell you all that there is to know about reputation in FM. Sit tight and take some notes, this piece is going to change how you play this game.
Contents
What Is Reputation in Football Manager?
First of all, reputation is an attribute, shared by players, staff, managers, clubs, nations and leagues. It signifies how “important” or “well-known” something or someone is.
Reputation has a lot of influence in this game. For example, a manager with a stellar reputation has more chances of being hired by bigger clubs. More reputable clubs, on the other hand, will attract more and better players each season.
According to Football Manager Wiki, the Reputation attribute is a value that ranges from 0 to 10.000.
However, this attribute is shown differently in-game. You can see how reputable your club is on the first page of your “Club Info” section.
For players, you’ll have to click on their name, click on “Overview”, and select “Information” from the drop-down menu.
Older players, especially those who played in important clubs throughout their careers, have the best cost-to-reputation ratio.
They are the guys you should sign when the board requests to buy high-reputation players!
You can’t check your staff’s reputation as a whole. Instead, you’ll have to go through each member, click on their name, and see their stat on the top right corner of the page. The same goes if you want to check your reputation as a manager.
For nations, reputation is quantified with FIFA rankings, just like in real life. FIFA redacts a list of all the nations in the world and ranks them from worst to best through points they award following certain criteria.
To check your nation’s world ranking, all you need to do is go to “Club Info”, click on the nation’s logo, and look to the very right of your screen.
Finally, to check your league’s reputation, you need to go to “Club Info” once more and click on your competition’s logo instead.
Pros of Reputation
Reputation has quite a lot of pros to its name. Here, we’ll go through the ones that impact your saves the most.
#1 Club reputation helps sign better players for cheaper
Players will always have an opinion about the clubs they stand to join. Generally, they want to join a side where they can excel and play games where they can be seen by a lot of people.
Reputation doesn’t impact the first point – your squad does – but it greatly influences the second one.
A club with a high reputation naturally has a bigger fan base and better news coverage, so players will be swayed to join them more easily.
Thus, they will usually force their manager’s hand and join you, even if you bid lower than other interested clubs.
Pretty handy, if you ask me!
#2 A high club reputation leads to better leagues
If you manage to improve your club’s reputation, your league will be much better off.
Say you’re playing in Austria or Switzerland. These national leagues aren’t really the best out there, at least at the start of the game.
One season, you manage to win the Europa League. The next one, you even reach the Champions League quarter-finals. That’s when you notice your club’s reputation has increased.
But wait, what’s that? Your league’s reputation has increased, too!
What does that lead to?
More players will want to join clubs in that league, more journalists will take an interest in it, and more money will be invested.
#3 Better clubs will want to hire you
If you do well leading a club, your reputation will skyrocket pretty quickly.
You can take Jurgen Klopp as a real-life example of this. He started coaching a 2. Bundesliga club called 1. FSV Mainz 05 in 2001. He didn’t even have a coaching badge to his name!
However, he had talent. He made a name for himself, and pretty soon Borussia Dortmund hired him as their manager. The rest is history.
So, focus on doing well at the club you’re managing.
For example, I managed to get Reggina, an Italian Serie B team, all the way to the nation’s top flight in a single season.
Next thing you know, Marseille sends a message my way saying they want to hire me.
Now, that’s pretty cool.
Cons of Reputation
Nothing is free, and this is true for reputation as well. This attribute can surely improve your club, but it could also make things harder.
The biggest negative impact reputation can have is when big teams start failing hard.
When giants fall, they fall hard.
This concept is pretty straightforward. For example, say you’re playing Man United. Things are going ok: you’re doing pretty well at home and abroad.
Then, disaster strikes.
For whatever reason, your player’s form takes a big hit, and you’re in for a major slump.
You lose three games in a row: At home, Nottingham Forest and Leeds manage to beat you, while you also lose a Champions League game against Maccabi Haifa. You’ll notice these are three teams with a much lower reputation than yours.
The results are catastrophic.
Your board is incredibly mad. Your fans are too. Your player’s morale takes the biggest hit you’ve ever seen.
Recovering from this is going to be pretty hard.
When you’re managing a high-reputation club and it starts to fail against smaller clubs, everything could crumble quickly – even your job’s security – leaving you powerless.
Does reputation really matter in Football Manager?
Yes, reputation does matter in Football Manager.
It can make the difference between a great transfer window and a poor one. It can even lead to you managing PSG, Bayern Munich, Juventus and other famous clubs.
However, it could also lead you into a spiral of bad form and even worse results.
Conclusion
Reputation is a double-edged sword. Learn how to wield it, cut down your opposition and stay on top of the game forever!
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