Most Football Manager players prefer club management. If it weren’t for international breaks and tournaments, most people wouldn’t know that it’s possible to have an active international management career.
However, it’s definitely possible, like with clubs, you can manage any nation you want. The game also allows you to manage the national team while also managing your club. When starting a new save, you have the option to manage over 50 different nations across the world, you get to choose between their senior squad, U-23 team, U-21, or U-18.
In case you don’t want the hassle of managing a nation and club simultaneously at the start of a save and prefer to build a successful club career before venturing into international waters, there are several ways you can get an international job on Football Manager and here, I’ll be sharing them with you.
Three Ways You Can Get An International Job in Football Manager
Managing an international team is an option you can select when starting a new save on Football Manager. However, this is the easiest way to get the job as things get tricky when you try to get an international position in an ongoing save.
Luckily, getting an international job might be tricky but not impossible, and here, I’ll share three tips that can help you.
Selecting The Option When Starting a Save
After creating your manager profile involving your name, personal details, and appearance, you’ll be directed to a page where you can select a team to manage. At the top of the dialogue box, you’ll see three options available. They are:
- Manage a single team
- Both club and international
- Start unemployed
Selecting the first option will allow you to choose any country to start with. There are over fifty available countries with most having youth teams you can also manage. If you select the second option, you can choose to manage a club and your selected country simultaneously.
For the last option, you’ll start unemployed with no experience, and most times, your first job might be a managerial role for a country’s U-21 or youth team. However, the chances of you ever getting promoted to the first team managerial role are very low or nonexistent.
Building Your Reputation and Getting Offers
If you take a look at some of the top managers in international football today, you’ll notice that most had very successful club managerial careers. Hansi Flick recorded immense success in Bayern Munich and other European clubs before taking the mantle in Germany, same for Luis Enrique in Spain and Louis van Gaal in the Netherlands.
If you started a save solely as a club manager and you’re looking to venture into the international scene, you’ll need to build your reputation. This is especially true if you’re doing a Road to Glory save where you manage not-so-popular teams in the lower divisions. In Football Manager, high-ranking nations like England, France, and Spain only employ high-reputation managers. One way to get international jobs is to build your reputation in the game, and you can do this by winning as many continental trophies as possible.
When you win tournaments like the UEFA Champions League or the FIFA Club World Cupseveral times, you will start to get offers from countries whenever there’s a managerial opening. Your nationality and the league you manage in also help as you’ll most likely be offered the England job if you’re a successful English manager managing an English club.
Applying For Jobs
While you can wait till you build your reputation and start getting offers, you can also apply for open managerial roles. That’s one of the beauties of a Football Manager, you can be in the fourth tier of English football and still apply for a managerial position in the Champions League-winning Real Madrid team, there’s nothing stopping you!
The best time to source and apply for an international job is after the completion of a major tournament like the World Cup, Euros, Copa America, and the Nations League. After these competitions, countries usually part ways with managers either through dismissal or mutual agreement.
Nevertheless, there are always multiple openings during these periods.
However, this doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be appointed because, as I’ve already mentioned, high-ranking nations mostly prefer high-reputation coaches. You can be successful if you apply for positions in South America, Africa, and lower-ranked European nations.
The Bottom Line
For the past decade, international management has been one of the most debated topics in Football Manager. Fans of the game have continually cried out for an improved experience and have blamed SI for solely focusing on club management.
Despite the multiple issues that plague international management like lack of proper communication with players, inability to set training schedules, and inactive backroom staff, managing a country can still be very interesting.
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