While tactics, talent, and overall ability are essential in football, you can’t deny the importance of emotions and a good mentality.
In Football Manager, there are times when everything starts to go wrong. Your five-star Norwegian striker can no longer find the net, and your defense is leaking goals every game. Sometimes, this issue persists even after you’ve made serious tactical changes.
In times like this, the problem might not be technical but mental. Morale and happiness play huge roles in players’ performances on both Football Manager and in real life.
When you have unhappy players with low morale, it’ll lead to a poor dressing room atmosphere and, subsequently, poor performances on the pitch. There are many ways you can improve the atmosphere in your squad, but one of the most effective is through quality Team Meetings.
In this article, we’ll explore Team Meetings in Football Manager, how you can hold them, and their importance.
Contents
What are Team Meetings in Football Manager?
When you start a new save or join a new club, there’s an unskippable manager meeting where you have to introduce yourself to the players and make some promises. These unskippable meetings are also held at the beginning and end of every season.
Basically, team meetings are a great way to talk about issues in the squad, encourage your players, especially during losing streaks, or praise them during an impressive run. Sadly, team meeting is a very underrated feature in Football Manager, and it’s mostly because you may not understand its importance. Mentality plays a massive role in players’ performances, especially in Football Manager.
How Do I Hold a Team Meeting on Football Manager?
In most cases, a team meeting will be recommended to you by your assistant manager.
Assistant Manager recommending a team meeting before a title-defining game.
In cases where you don’t get the mail, this is how to hold one.
Go To Team Dynamics
The Dynamics tab is located at the left corner of the screen and is usually below the Squad and Inbox tab. This is where you can view the club atmosphere, team cohesion, and squad hierarchy.
Click On Team Meeting
Team Meeting is located at the top of the page, mainly between the Code of Conduct and Pep Talk Feedback tab. Click on it, and you’ll be directed to a page where you’ll see all your players and their current moods. From there on, you can pass on whatever message you have in mind and use the gestures available.
When you are done, you click End meeting, and the assistant manager will give you a report of the meeting’s results.
How Effective are Team Meetings in Football Manager?
Elite managers like Julian Nagelsman and Graham Potter have constantly highlighted the importance of social competence to the success of any team. Simply, an unhappy squad is an unsuccessful one.
If you plan to keep your player’s morale high, the value of proper communication cannot be understated! While Football Manager is merely a simulation and different from the real world, mentality and emotions are still vital in the game’s AI.
Team meetings are great because they help bridge the communication gap between you and your team. They are also a great way to pass a general message to the whole squad, like an introductory message when you join the club or promises for the future. However, the value of team meetings goes beyond that.
You can hold a team meeting when preparing for a cup final or a crucial game. Most times, your assistant or General Manager will recommend this meeting for you. There, you get to motivate the players with your words and your mannerisms.
They are also helpful when you’re on a losing run, and your squad’s morale is low. Once again, you’ll most likely get a recommendation mail. When holding such meetings, you should be very careful because your players morale is already low, and any wrong words could lead to them hitting rock bottom.
If this happens, the players will lose their trust in your ability to handle the dressing room, and sometimes, it might lead to a sack.
Try to use positive language like the “I know how hard you’re working to end this poor run of form,….” and the “Outstretched Arms” gesture.
Always imagine yourself as the players and think about what you’d like to hear if you were in their position. The goal is to get them to believe in themselves and also uplift their morale.
If you can achieve this, you’ll notice a slow but positive rise in the Club Atmosphere bar.
After every meeting, your assistant manager gives you a summary of the meeting and alerts you of any change in the players’ morale.
Finally, there are times when your message might not sit well with some players.
For example:
A trick to this is to wave your hands while convincing them. In most cases, they come around!
The Bottom Line
Your job as a manager is to get the best out of your players, both physically and mentally. Football Manager isn’t like most other football games where elite tactics and superior players automatically mean success. The inability to control your player’s emotions and happiness will lead to a serious blow in their on-pitch performance.
One sure way to maintain positivity in the club’s atmosphere is through Team Meetings. Your assistant manager will most likely recommend one when the time’s right, but when they don’t, you can find the option in the Team Dynamics tab.
Lastly, team meetings can be destructive just as they can be helpful. It’s better to have no team meeting than to have a bad one because, trust me, you don’t want to lower the morale of players that haven’t won in 10 matches!
They might never recover and also push for your sack. Team meetings should only be held when it’s utterly important. Don’t call for a team meeting after every loss; you’ll only be frustrating your squad!
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