Are you brand new to the Football Manager game? Maybe you’ve played EA Sports FC 25 but want to branch out into a soccer simulation game where you can channel your inner Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp or Ted Lasso by putting strategic thinking and tactical planning in front.
To help you get started on Football Manager, we are at your service providing you with this beginners guide to Football Manager 2024. Today we’re going to look at how you can set up your first Football Manager save, and all that entails.
For anyone new to the game, Football Manager might seem highly complex with all the different game mechanics: scouting, training, squad management and player interactions incorporated besides tactics and tactical analysis. But fear not, we got you covered with our Football Manager beginners guides.
This Football Manager tutorial will walk you through everything you need to know to get your first Football Manager save up and running. From the different settings to improve the user experience, what to consider when creating your manager profile, or how to select playable nations and active leagues, to the different advanced options when starting on a new save, this complete beginners guide to Football Manager 2024 provides you with all the tips and tricks you need to quickly get into action!
NB! This beginners guide to Football Manager will help you setting up your save when selecting Career Mode.
Table of Contents
Not yet decided on your FM25 save? Browse our articles of Football Manager 25 save ideas or identify a new challenge with our ultimate list of teams to manage on FM25.
Get more tips and tricks about how to setting up your save like a pro by FMNatics in the video tutorial below!
Customizing the Preferences
Before starting a new game, it could be advantageous to spend a minute or two looking through the game’s preferences. Here you’re able to customize the look and feel of Football Manager, from selecting your preferred Football Manager skin, its language and currency to match graphics quality and other changes to the game’s interface.
Whilst, it’s not necessary, or required, to make any changes to the Football Manager’s game preferences to enjoy the game, selecting certain preferences can tailor the look and feel of the game, which finally enhances your user experience.
The most important areas to consider tweaking:
Preferences < All
- General Preferences < Size of Text & Images; using the Standard text size or zooming to 110% or higher/lower will depend on your screen resolution and vision.
- General Preferences < Language & Currency; lets you choose between 18 languages from all around the world providing you the ability to play the game on your native mother language, and with the currency used in your nation.
- General Preferences < Use Auto Saves; This is turned on by default with the game saving at a weekly interval with 3 rolling files. This helps to recover the game if there are any bugs and crashes.
Changing this to every Fortnight or Monthly will help to reduce the number of files stored – handy if you got limited storing capabilities on your computer. - Most Common Preferences < Skin Colors; in here you can change the attribute threshold and colors of excellent, good, average and low attributes for players and backroom staff. Personally, I change the threshold to an interval of 5 between each levels rather than the default of 4. Changing the colors of the attributes helps to make those excellent attributes stand out more and you can quickly glance over key attributes for a player role duty.
- Preferences < Interface < Team Screen & Competition Screen < Landing Pages; Able to select between whether you want to go directly to the Team’s or Competition’s Profile screen, or the Squad or Stage screen (Table) is all up to you.
- Personally, I prefer to head directly to the Squad screen rather than the Club Overview screen when clicking on another clubs name. It saves me from an extra click of a button.
- Preferences < Interface: Enabling Continue Game Timeout could be a great opportunity if you want to run Football Manager faster. Here you can choose whether the game will automatically continue the save either Instantly, or after selected seconds.
This means that once the selected seconds has passed, the game will automatically process saving you additional clicks. Setting it to 10 seconds would give you more time to read the Inbox messages or interact before the game continues. - Another screen worthy to visit is the Formats Screen. here you will be able to choose the format of staff and players wages (Weekly, Monthly or Annually) or how you want players height, weight and date of birth be represented in the game. At the same time, it’s here you can change the format of distances, match odds and how digits / financial figures are represented.
- Match Preferences < Graphic Quality; What you select here depends on your computer. You can either go by the recommended settings for your PC, or select an higher graphics quality to enhance the match engine experience if you got a high-end dedicated graphics card that can handle 3D graphics. You will need to experiment with these settings according to the quality of your computer.
- Match Preferences < Highlights; Herein, you’ll be able to determine a default highlight mode or camera type for a specific manager or for all your future saves. This gives you the chance to select the match speed (during and between highlights) and whether you want to use the 2D or 3D match view once and for all. Personally, I prefer to use Comprehensive Highlight Mode which shows you more of the action within the game (chances and goals) at the expense of each match taking more time to finish.
With a comprehensive highlight mode, you’ll be better able to make more informed decisions to make tactical tweaks, or respond to the opponent’s tactical changes. With AI Managers improved for FM23, they will be more likely to make more realistic adjustments according to the on-going scenarios of the match which makes it more likely using Extended, Comprehensive or even Full Match highlight will be beneficial.
1. Career Game Setup – Starting Job
The next step is to simply click the Start a New Save button and actually going through the process of setting up your first save.
Football Manager gives you the ability to select whether you want to be a Club Manager, International Manager *, taking charge of both Club and Country, or start Unemployed. In this case, we want to use the default option ‘Club Manager‘.
Then, the real fun begins!
1.1 Selecting Playable Leagues
Football Manager 2024 enables you to manage in 55 nations across the world. From South Korea in the east to Chile in the west. Across any of the top nations in Europe or South America, to minor nations such as Hungary or Latvia.
*For FM25, the number of leagues will also include womens teams, increasing the number of playable divisions by being able to move seeminglessly between managing men’s and female clubs.
In the first screen you will be able to do a quick pick of a team to manage on Football Manager, or select a team to manage on a later date – for instance if you like to start off a career unemployed.
To select your starting job you will be presented with four options:
- Club Manager
- International Manager*
- Club & International Manager (for Build a Nation Saves)
- Unemployed
You can browse through the different nations and its playable divisions to find a suitable club for your first managerial career on Football Manager directly from this screen.
Personally, I recommend to choose Pick team later and use the Advanced Setup, after selecting the preferred game mode to fully customize your upcoming save, and then select which club to manage.
*For Football Manager 25, International management has been removed as an opportunity to manage.
2. Select Game Modes
After selecting Career Mode, you will be handed with the opportunity to select between three different game modes. The different game modes will influence on whether you wish to play the game with updated squads for the upcoming season, or experiencing transfers corresponding to real-life dates.
In Football Manager 2024 and beyond you’ll be able to choose from:
Original
The original game mode is the traditional way of playing Football Manager. By choosing this option, you will get the updated squads from the latest database version. For FM24 with database version 24.4 you will get all the latest football transfers happening within the 2023/24 Winter Transfer Window automatically added to the squads at the beginning of 2023/24 season.
This means that even transfers that has not happened yet according to the start date of your FM Career has been made in your upcoming save.
Transfer budgets will be reflected according to how much money the club spent on transfers within the past transfer window.
Real World
The Real World game mode will reflect how transfers and manager movements has gone by within a season. You will start off with the same squad your club had at the beginning of 2023/24 season. Then, players will move to their new club at the same date as they did in real-life as your FM Career Progresses. This means that any transfers happened within the 2023/24 Winter Transfer Window will not be proceed until January 2024 within your game.
Your World
The Your World game mode enables you to create your own story and have the freedom to rebuild your club’s squad according to your own preferences. You will start out with the same squad your chosen club had at the chosen start date – meaning no real-life transfers will be reflected afterwards.
This means that the transfer of Harry Kane to Bayern Munich, or Declan Rice to Arsenal has not yet happened when choosing a start date of July 10th, 2023.
However, you’ll experience that Mason Mount has been moved to Manchester United, as this transfer was finished July 5th, 2023.
Since transfers has not been made, the club’s transfer budget is reflected to what they got before the 2023/24 summer transfer windowed opened up.
NB! If you choose to select a team to manage later than within the game setup, you will only be limited to choose a club within the country you have selected in the game start date.
3. Quick Start or Advanced Setup?
From here you have two options. Either to launch your new save with Quick Start or going for a more Advanced Setup.
What you choose here depends on how detailed you want your upcoming save to be, how many leagues you wish to load and the database size you wish to work with.
3.1 Quick Setup
By clicking the quick start button it will start the process of setting up the save by loading the database and determining the number of players and staff available to you based on the team you have chosen to manage in the first screen you’re presented with when setting up a new save on Football Manager.
The quick start option will load the game with a minimal number of active leagues and playable nations. Frankly, the game will randomly fetch some recommended major nations that could be handy for you to sign players from, whilst also maintaining the highest game speed.
Based on the nations you’re managing in, Football Manager will behind the surface select a few major nations, some neighboring nations in additional to possible nations of interest.
Normally, the game will load 5 different countries with a few active leagues down to the third or fourth level depending on how far down the pyramid you are managing in.
The save will be loaded in a Small Database size meaning you will be limited to between 20,000 – 45,000 players and staff in your scouting pool.
The result is that some players and backroom staff won’t appear in Football Manager as ‘minor’ teams is represented by generated players. Which players that will appear in the game is a question of their reputation compared to yours, and the knowledge level the game believes you have over players according to your reputation, past playing experience and level of player knowledge. These are all factors you will determine once setting up your Manager Profile.
3.2 Closer Insight to the Advanced Setup
The Advanced setup gives you the ability to tailor your save according to your own preferences and needs. There are many reasons why you would want to set up your next save through the advanced setup. Let’s go through some of them.
3.2.1. Selecting Playable Nations & Activate Leagues
The main reasons for choosing the advanced setup of your Football Manager save is to choose the nations and leagues of YOUR interest.
When selecting playable nations and leagues you get the opportunity to hand-pick which leagues that should be playable, and thereby being processed in the background. You also got the opportunity to set certain top divisions as playable while the divisions beneath are View-Only. Or, for faster game speed, set certain minor nations as View-Only.
By selecting View-Only you will not be able to manage within that nation or division.
What’s important to consider is that which nations and leagues are activated and thereby playable will influence on the accuracy of statistics and data and detail level.
Any ‘View-Only’ nations or leagues will be simulate the league in less detail in terms of players performance and match results by using the Quick Match Engine. This will result in statistics and data will be not as accurate or more limited than if the league was simulated with the Full Match Engine.
Which nations and leagues you select as active and playable depends on the type of save, your vision for your save and where you are going to manage.
It’s useful to have a plan for your save relating to recruitment of players and whether or not you’re going to install a specific transfer policy in your save.
Personally, I prefer to activate the biggest nations in the world, like England, France, Germany, Spain, Brazil and Italy regardless of where I’m managing. This will give you around 45,000 players with a large database.
Then, I consider the level of the league and which areas of the world I can potentially attract players from. For instance, it’s not useful to add a lot of minor nations if you’re going to manage one of the biggest clubs in Europe. This will only make Football Manager run slower. The players in these leagues are rarely good enough either to be signed as their best players current ability is lower than a backup option for any of the top sides.
You could even consider which nations that would traditionally create the best newgens at the annual youth intake by picking nations with the highest youth rating.
Instead, I have four criteria when selecting playable leagues and active nations:
- The club’s geographical placement. You will want to add neighboring nations and leagues where it’s potentially easier to integrate players int your squad based on a cultural and social aspect. For instance, if you’re going to manage in Croatia, I would have picked, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia and Hungary. If I would manage in Norway, I would add England, Scotland, Sweden and Denmark.
- The nation’s historical and cultural legacy both in terms of language spoken at the moment and previous emigrations and colonies. For instance, if you’re going to manage in Italy, it could be purposeful to add Argentina and Brazil. Players from Argentina often holds a Italian passport as Italy are their second nation. This means that they won’t count towards the non-EU work permit rule.
If managing in Spain, you’ll want to include Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil due to the history of signing players from these nations. - The Squad Registration rules relating to work permit rules towards the number of foreign players is also something to take into account when picking playable nations. No need to include the nation of Israel, Hungary or South Korea if you’re managing in England with the current Brexit rules as it’s less likely they will gain a work permit as long as the reputation of their league and number of international appearances are low.
- The nation’s or its league’s reputation and thereafter its quality of players compared to your team’s. for instance, it might be more beneficial to load third division of Portugal and above if you’re playing in Spanish First Division since the level of current ability is roughly the same, as well as the availability of players increases when there is a neighboring nation. On the other hand, the nation of Cuba won’t be able to attract the best players in Europe. At the same time, it’s fewer potential signings in Bosnia who are likely First Team options for any of the top 5 European leagues.
3.2.1 A) How many divisions in the pyramid to activate?
The short answer is that it all depends on where you are going to manage and which teams to take on.
- If you’re going to manage in any of the top divisions, it’s less likely you will need to load any of the bottom divisions of nations far away from you e.g. third division in Portugal when managing in the Japanese top division.
- Which playable divisions to activate will depend on the player quality within your nation and its reputation and thereby chance of signing players from other nations around you of a similar standard. For instance, if managing in Serbia, it might be adviseable to load Croatia as it’s a neighbouring nation. Due to the nation’s reputation you might also consider activating the top divisions of Czechia, Switzerland, Belgium or Austria to find suitable transfer targets.
- Loading divisions beneath or above your playing level is recommended as you can loan out players to clubs below you so they can gradually increase their playing experience. This means that you should not only add divisions below your playing level but also divisions at a similar reputation which you can send your players out to.
- Finally, which nations you load will be a mix of Manangers Added, Neighbouring nations and Major Nations which you can find quality newgens in as you progress into the future.
- IMPORTANT! When deciding on the number of active leagues, it’s important to not go overboard. The more active leagues you got, the more processing power the game requires. Keep in mind your PC’s hardware such as RAM and Processor when setting up your save.
3.2.2 Increase / Decrease Database Size
The Advanced setup lets you increase the player count by selecting a larger database by adding thousands of additional players and staff. You will see the option to selecting your preferred database size on the right side of the screen by clicking the ‘Approximate Player Count‘ button.
Football Manager have three different database sizes; small, medium and large
Additionally, you can select a Custom Advanced Database by loading players and staff from a specific continents, regions, nations, sor division. For instance, if loading all players from top division clubs in Europe, you will see an increase in the approximate player count.
Or, you can include all players from top division clubs based in a continent.
Increasing the player count by increading the database size will have less influence on the game speed than adding all the nations within that region as playable. The reason is that all the matches must be processed for every gameweek.
By selecting fewer active nations but loading all players from a specific region you can ensure the game loads and runs quicker than if you should select all nations in Europe and its available divisions. Basically, the more playable leagues you load the slower Football Manager runs as it requires more processing time to simulate all matches in the background.
You can get more recommendations about setting up the database size within our Football Manager guide; how to scout for wonderkids and best newgens.
By loading the top 10 nations in the world, the player count will be around 60000 players compared to 80000 if you add players from top division clubs.
If you got a high-end processor with 16GB RAM , or more, you can easily load a save with 10 nations active and up to 120000 players loaded, and it will run Football Manager quickly.
Why considering player count & database size?
Until now I’ve talked a lot about the player count and database size. For a beginner to Football Manager you might wonder why. The short answer relates to the recruitment of players. A bigger pool of players increases the chance of finding potential signings that fits your playing level and might be affordable to your playing level.
Another subject relates to the accuracy of statistics and data relating to players within playable leagues.
When simulating matches in playable leagues the games will be simulated with the Full Match Engine ensuring more accurate results.
Simply put, you can scout players based on statistics and data as these metrics are more accurate.
You can learn more about the difference between the Quick Match Engine and the Full Match Engine in this article about how to increase realism in Football Manager.
3.3 Which Advanced Options to use?
When selecting the active leagues for your upcoming Football Manager save, you will see some Advanced Options to select from in the bottom of the screen. Here you will have different options to enhance or reduce the realism of your save. Rather than explaining each and every one of them, as you can hover your mouse cursor over the information icon to learn about each of these settings, I will go through the most important ones (at least in my opinion).
Ticking Add Players to Playable Teams can be a useful option if you’re intending to start a save in the lower leagues where teams might lack enough players to make up a full 21-man squad. It might be databases created within the editor which unlocks new nations or divisions where players and staff have not been added. By enabling this option you will ensure sufficient number of personnel (players) are added at the start of a new save.
In the case of managing in the lower leagues, make sure to leave the Do not add Key Staff unticked. Key backroom staff, such as assistant managers and coaches, will then be added to teams who do not have them.
Ticking Disable First Window Transfer Activity will enhance the realism of your save. Since Football Manager starts a new save in the same pre-season that have just happened in the real world, a clubs squad and transfer budget reflects what’s happened in real life. By disallowing transfers in the first transfer window you will ensure you’re not allowed to make any additional transfers in the same transfer window as what’s just happened in real life.
Leaving the Disable Player Attribute Masking ensures information that you normally wouldn’t know, unless you scout the player, is visible in their player profile. The player information might include player’s level of attributes, value and/or asking price or current and potential ability. The player attributes will then either be represented in ranges or if no knowledge displayed as ‘-‘.
It maintains a level of realism as the game assumes the Human Manager not necessarily know everything about every player in the world. You can improve your knowledge about players around you by scouting the player or interact with him in various ways to learn more about him. Ticking this option lets you see all players actual Player Attribute Level.
3.4 Game Start Date
The game start date let you decide on the length of pre-season and from when your managerial career shall begin.
Which nations start date you prefer is all up to you. There are no other consequences than a later or earlier game start date other than the pre-season period will be extended or reduced.
If picking a game start date from another nation than the country you will manage in, players might be at holiday meaning you won’t be able to setup pre-season training until they arrive back from holiday.
Personally, I prefer as long pre-season as possible, despite you might not be able to schedule friendlies or call the players back from holiday to quickly kick-off the club’s pre-season training.
However, it gives you a few extra days to take care of other typical day one tasks and get acquinted to your club, your players and other potential future transfer targets.
4. How to Add / Remove Leagues in Football Manager Inside Your Save?
Do you find the database size when clicking Quick Start setup too limited, or wish to expand the number of active nations and playable leagues by increasing the number of approximate player count and potential destinations to manage in once the game has loaded?
Football Manager gives you the opportunity to Add or Remove leagues or playable nations once you are inside a save. This means that you do not need to add a bunch of playable nations if you’re considering doing a journeyman save but instead add and remove leagues or nations as you advance in the save.
You can find the option by clicking on the FM main menu inside the game, then select Add / Remove Leagues.
Be aware that any nations or leagues you active or remove will only be playable at the start of the next season – meaning you have to wait until the country’s next game start date. Leagues like Norway, Brazil and Argentina will have a game start date in December, January or April meaning you will need to wait a few months before they get active, meanwhile most other European nations will only be available the next summer, as they follow the normal football calendar.
5. Setting up the Manager profile
Our beginners guide to Football Manager continues by looking closer at setting up the manager profile which is the natural step after selecting the playable leagues.
When creating ‘Your Manager’ you will need to determine your biographical details and physical appearance. The first section let you select anything from personal info, the managerial look (including attire and body type) to your past experience relating to coaching or playing football.
DID YOU KNOW?!
The body type, skin colour, hair and attire can be customize at any point within the game, for instance if you want to make the Manager look older as you advance further into your career. To make changes to your Manager, simply go to:Home > My Profile > Edit Manager Appearance *
You can even change the your profile picture anytime you want. Simply go to:
FM Menu > Preferences > General > Change Profile Picture
*represented with a small pencil in the upper left corner of the Manager’s face.
From here, you can save your current Manager model for future saves, or load a previous model you have created.
How you create your manager profile in Football Manager can both give you certain advantages and disadvantages within the game – basically determining the challenge level of your game.
Nationality: Your chosen primary and secondary nationality will determine your level of scouting knowledge within those nations, something that will aid the club’s knowledge about a nation.
This means that whichever nation you select will have an affect on the number of players and staff you, and your managing club, will have some sort of knowledge about. You might see more players from your home nation in your club’s scouting pool and discover more information about them that are available/visible to you. For instance, attributes are visible rather than displayed within a range.
Experience Level: If you’re brand new to Football Manager, ticking the box ‘Teach me about key management concepts‘ can give you some valuable tips about Training, Scouting, Tactics, Dynamics and much more.
These so-called Football Manager Inductions’ will be provided to you in Inbox Messages within the first week of your manager career giving you a deeper understanding of the different screens and what you need to pay attention to in each areas of the game.
If you’re completely new to Football Manager, going through these in-game tutorials can help significantly.
Preset Staff Responsibilities when setting up your manager
If you feel rather educated in the various aspects of the job, leaving it un-ticked enables you to preset what kind of responsibilities you shall have before starting the game. You can quickly handle or delegate control over Media, Staff Recruitment, Scouting, Transfers & Contracts, Training and Tactics.
For instance, perhaps you would like to leave the control of press conferences to your Staff, or on the contrary ensure you are responsible for assigning scouts at recruitment focuses.
By setting up the staff responsibilities when creating your manager you can once and for all choose the responsibilities you’d like to handle and whenever you load a new save with that Manager Profile, it will be selected – meaning you don’t need to visit the staff responsibilities screen after creating your save.
Along with being able to preset the staff responsibilities, you’re able to choose the selected tactical style and preferred formation – coming into the game with more experience towards the club and its players.
This opportunity is hidden if you have ticked the box ‘Teach me about key management concepts’.
When choosing your preferred formation you can drag and drop player icons – ensuring you can set up your preferred formation – whether it’s a traditional 4-4-2 or a more asymmetric 3-2-1-3-1.
By selecting your preferred tactical style and formation before setting up the game, your chosen tactical style and formation will automatically be selected in the Tactics screen – saving you from additional clicks where you need to go through the ‘Create New Tactics‘ process.
This is handy if you know what tactical style you prefer to use.
However, if you wish to create a tactic that fits your club’s players, which is recommended, you should leave this un-selected.
5.1 Choose Managerial Style
The final step in the process of setting up your Football Manager save is provide some sort of background story to your Manager. When creating the managerial profile, an important step is to determine your theoretical level of experience both relating to your ‘playing career’ and coaching qualifications.
The coaching badge you select, alongside your past playing experience will not only determine the number of managerial attribute points you will be allocated to distribute between Coaching and Mental Attributes but also theoretically set the difficulty level of your save.
LEARN MORE | Football Manager Staff Attributes & Non-Playing Tendencies Explained
Selecting a Continental Pro Licence and International Past playing experience when managing a smaller team will make the game easier while no badges and Sunday League Footballer (which most of us are) will make the game more challenging if managing at an Elite club.
If you ever should be unsure which coaching badges and past playing experience to select, the ‘Suggest badge’ or suggest ‘experience based on’ allocate the recommended attribute level for the club you will be in control of, according to their playing level (league and nation).
Ticking the box to suggest attributes relevant for the playing level can be a great way to find an appropriate level for your coaching attributes. You can then fine-tune your profile by moving the slider, choose a specific management style focus, or increase/decrease certain attributes you feel are valueable to create a manager profile that represents you and your football philosophy.
5.2 Tactical Manager vs Tracksuit Manager?
Even though you can style your manager however you want, there are two general types of Managerial styles in Football Manager to select from; Tracksuit Manager and Tactical Manager.
A Tactical Manager will often put a greater emphasize to his past playing experience focusing on his mental abilities relating to tactics and squad management over coaching qualifications. With a greater level of past playing experience comes a higher level of reputation.
A Tracksuit Manager will put greater focus to his coaching qualifications meaning he will be more likely to live and breathe every second of play with their players. They will see player and youth development as an important part of their coaching philosophy. As a prominent figure on the training ground they will oversee and be in charge of training, using their coaching qualifications to their advantage to improve the player’s abilities.
Allocating more attribute points towards coaching will see your Manager more as one who prefers developing players rather than conducting match analysis and being a tactical genius such as Carlo Ancelotti.
individual youngsters’ attributes – aiding you when scouting and recruiting wonderkids and talents.
Great tip!
When allocating attributes you could even prioritize certain attributes that doesn’t only represent your football philosophy but also are difficult to find when trying to improve your coaching staff. For instance, by making yourself a manager with above average knowledge in terms of Set-Pieces, or emphasize Technical and Mental Attributes, as it’s easier to find good Defensive or Attacking Coaches on Football Manager.
5.2.1 How will the level of experience and reputation affect your game?
Your past playing experience will basically determine your level of reputation within the game.
Your reputation will have an extensive influence over your career and how “easily” or “hard” things will be for you in your save.
With a higher level of reputation, your name will carry more weight and other clubs and players around the world will recognize you more easily. When hunting for a job, you will be able to attract the attention of bigger clubs. In terms of recruitment of players or staff, they are more likely to join your club as you got a name in the footballing world that makes them wanting to work with you. This enables you to make more prestigious signings, or basically get the players on your shortlist as long as the finances are in order.
However, the higher expectation the more demands of success is set on you. The board will be less patient with you in terms of performances and achievements and will be less forgiving when things go wrong as they want the targets to be achieved in a shorter period of time.
Basically, they expect to get return of their investments by reaching their seasonal goals agreed upon in the Club Vision and Expectations Meeting that you will be invited to at day one of starting a new save, or at certain points throughout the season (half-way and end of season).
As you advance into the game, you will experience that your level in certain attributes can affect how your players react towards you and your decision-making. For instance, a lower level of discipline can make the players slack off at training and complain more, or a lower People Management can have an affect at player’s reactions at team meetings and team talks.
5.2.2 More about Coaching Qualifications
Your coaching qualifications will basically determine your ability to coach various areas of the game in training. Your coaching attribute points needs to be distributed between Attacking, Defending, Fitness, Goalkeeper (Handling, Distribution & Shot Stopping), Tactical, Mental, Technical and Working With Youngsters. Which area you put the greatest emphasize on depends on your preferred playing style and what type of football philosophy you wish to instill at the club.
In Football Manager there are 8 levels of Coaching badges. These coaching qualifications influence on your knowledge level and ability to work within the game. From worst to best, these are;
- None
- National C Licence
- National B Licence
- National A Licence
- Continental C Licence
- Continental B Licence
- Continental A Licence
- Continental Pro Licence
With a greater degree in coaching qualifications, together with a higher experience level, brings more coaching points available to you to distribute. No badges will mean you are “useless” or poor in that specific area while a Continental Pro Licence ensures you are on the top of the game by being both a great resource at the training ground and able to work worldwide regardless of the level of the league.
5.2.3 Allocating Coaching Points
When choosing your managerial style you’ll be able to customize the level of attributes for each department within coaching and mental coaching – whether you wish to put greater focus on Tactical Manager(Mental Attributes) vs Tracksuit manager (Coaching Attributes).
You can remove coaching points in one area of the game to increase it in another more relevant area, or you can move the slider to allocate more points from mental attributes to coaching attributes or vice versa to fine-tune your Manager Profile to your needs.
How you distribute your coaching points will also have a greater affect on the save and finally your teams ability to play a certain brand of football.
By putting a greater emphasis at Attacking, Technical and Mental, you will be able to see your team getting more comfortable at playing an attacking brand of football with an higher priority surrounding the possession-game. By improving the players mental aspects of the game, the players’ will enhance their knowledge relating to Decisions, Teamwork, Anticipation and Vision.
If you change the focus from Attacking and Technical to Defending and Tactical, the team will get more comfortable at playing a Jose Mourinho type of football where tactical flexibility and parking the bus is most important.
If you wish to develop young players, it’s important to allocate more points towards Working with youngsters – ensuring they will develop better under your stewardship.
5.2.4 Explaining the Different Mental Attributes
While the coaching attributes seems enough to understand how works, the mental attributes are a bit more complicated as they have more wide-reach affect throughout the game. In terms of the mental side of management there are 7 important areas relating to the Human Manager.
Adaptability – is an important attribute for any Manager who will be managing clubs across different countries, regions and corners of the world, such as a journeyman manager.
It describes a person’s abilities to settle in a foreign country and adapt to foreign languages and cultures – something that’s important if you’re considering to bounce around different nations.
A low value will mean that the manager will need longer time to settle in and finding it more difficult finding employment in a foreign league (outside his birth nation). At the same time, their approach will also more easily be integrated into different countries around the world.
Determination – The level of Determination can have a huge impact on your save, and your opportunity to build a club from the ground up. Basically, it describes how adept the manager is at getting their own way with the board. A manager with low levels of Determination are less likely to convince the Board to upgrade facilities and get the other board requests granted. Your level of Determination will also rub of onto your players – meaning they are more likely to be more determined on a day-to-day and match-to-match basis.
Player Knowledge / Youth Knowledge – Are you considering taking scouting and recruitment in your own hands? If so, your levels of player and youth knowledge is of importance. With a higher levels of player or youth knowledge you’ll be able to assess individual players attributes more precisely. This means that more of a player’s attributes is visible outside your own club as your knowledge level of them is greater.
While player knowledge will affect your knowledge about senior players individual attributes outside your own club, Youngster Knowledge will affect your knowledge about youth players’ attributes, and thereby skills.
People Management – Want to be skilled at playing mind games, or perhaps use private chats and interactions with players, staff and agents as a way to garner success, then it’s important to have a higher level of People Management.
A Manager with an higher level of People Management will be better able to interact with players, staff and agents on an individual basis throughout a number of different scenarios and situations. All in all, it’s an important part of squad management that will affect everything from player chats, team meetings, team talks and managing promises or happiness/unhappiness.
Level of Discipline – This attribute does not only concerns how strict you are as a coach, but also how likely a player is to bring their concerns to you. When you’re strict a player is less likely to bring up minor issues and shy away from causing even more troubles. If you want to avoid players coming to you with their concerns, then increase your level of discipline.
Motivating – an important part of Football Manager is to manage a players morale. A manager with high Motivation will be better able to motivate your players as a group whether it being team talks or team meetings. Basically, you will have better influence over your players something that is more likely to increase their happiness and morale. A lower level of Motivation might turn your players against you earlier and quicker as you will have poor influence over your squad.
You can learn more about how to find the best coaches and how the allocation of coaching points will affect their best abilities in this guide. Our guide to staff attributes in Football Manager will give you a deeper insight to the Manager Attributes and their meaning, alongside giving you the low-down on manager tendencies and non-tactical attributes.
Then, Player knowledge and Youngster knowledge would be desired if you want to increase your default knowledge about senior player’s current abilities represented via their player attributes, meanwhile youngster knowledge will improve your experience about
5.3 Management Style Focus & Templates
Football Manager also includes a number of pre-made templates concerning the Management style focus. There are 6 different templates that gives you an unique ability to create the manager of your desire quickly and efficiently.
Disciplinarian – a strict manager who doesn’t tolerate fuss. With a higher level of discipline, the player’s are less likely to come to you with their concerns and bring up minor issues. The manager is also better at coaching the mental aspects of the game in training.
Real-life examples: Alex Ferguson and Louis van Gaal
Motivator – a manager who are able to motivate his players in team talks and team meetings. The manager is also better at coaching the mental aspects of the game in training making them better prepares for the intense psychological battle. These coaches also got great Determination and expect more from their surroundings. These manager’s are great at interacting with players on an individual basis.
Real-life examples: Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp
Youth Development – a manager who is capable of developing young players. He’s great at identifying young players with potential and is skilled at coaching the Technical aspect of the game.
Real-life examples: Rodolfo Borrell, Norbert Elgert and Lars Ricken
Knowledgeable – a manager with great knowledge both in terms of tactics and players. Most likely, he has been “around the world” giving him immense knowledge of player’s individual skills and tactics. He’s able to educate his team to be more tactical flexible and is able to get the best out of their players.
Tactician – a manager who has great knowledge about the tactical side of the game. He’s able to be more versatile in learning and switching between various tactics, educate his players into the requirements of his system and basically work on the player’s mentality on the training ground to make them psychological strong in matches.
Real life examples: Marcello Lippi and Carlo Ancelotti
Taskmaster – is a manager with greater abilities and knowledge about the physiological side of the game. Like Jürgen Klopp he’s proficient at coaching the player’s fitness and mental areas of the game. The manager will also have top class Determination as well as high-end Level of Discipline and Motivating skills – perfect if you’d like to play an intense high-pressing football just like Marcelo Bielsa or Jürgen Klopp’s gegenpressing.
You can use these templates of managerial style focuses to create a manager profile which is based on real-life examples, or based off of a certain managerial style. Regardless of how you decide to set up your managerial style there are no size fits all and you won’t do anything wrong by customizing it how you see fit.
However as you might experience, some things will make the game harder while some things might make the game appear easier – such in the case of Motivating and Determination.
READ MORE | 5 Further Tasks to do at day one | Football Manager Squad Management tips
On the contrary, if you have a lower level of experience and thereby reputation, the board (and its supporters) will be more patience early in your career and give you more time before expecting better performances.
At a bigger club it might give you longer time to incorporate a certain football philosophy or make thorough changes as you rebuild the club, at the expense of struggling with attracting the interest of prospective staff and potential signings.
Embarking on the ultimate challenge in Football Manager is in many ways a zero to hero challenge where you start of your career with no coaching badges and the lowest possible reputation – meaning you need to improve your coaching qualifications by taking coaching courses and improve your reputation by getting results as you work your way up from the lowest tier in the pyramid by making promotions and eventually, or hopefully, winning trophies.
What’s Next?
With your Manager Profile set up, you can finally begin your career. The next step in Football Manager is to familiarize yourself with the squad at your new club and before you can finally enter your save, you will be welcomed to the club with useful information about the club displayed to you.
To continue your journey to master Football Manager, we have written a number of different guides and tutorials which will help beginners and more advanced users to enjoy Football Manager. Here’s a quick list of other useful beginners guides for Football Manager.
Mastering Day One on Football Manager | What you need to do in the first hours of a new save!
Football Manager Beginners Tips & Tricks | How to get better at Football Manager 2024
Welcome to Football Manager 2024!
We hope you have found this guide to Football Manager 2024 useful and that it has enhanced your knowledge about the game mechanics around starting your first Football Manager save. It’s nothing else for us to do by now than to welcome you to Football Manager. Let the fun begin and we wish you lots of success in your next Football Manager save!
Now that we have come to the end of this beginners guide to Football Manager, it’s time to download some essential add-ons for your save.
To improve the experience and efficiency within your Football Manager career, we have created a number of useful tools to identify the best players to sign in Football Manager, by using custom views or search filters to identify the best staff in Football Manager. Browse our Football Manager 2024 essentials containing files to get the real names of competitions and clubs in Football Manager, custom views megapack and a large range of shortlists.
If you got some additional tips or things you like us to cover in the next episode of beginners guide to Football Manager, use the comment field below.
Stay tuned for more Football Manager 2025 content coming to you soon! If you got feedback or some specific tips you’d like to share, or simply want to discuss FM 2025 with like-minded join our official Discord server or tweet us a message via Twitter
Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: Illustrations within this guide may be slightly different to what you’ll see in Football Manager 2025.
