The Effect of Morale on Match Day Performance

[SUCK IT]

Morale

Morale can be described as the motivation at which to carry out a certain task. In this case the players motivation to put a good performance on the pitch

Morale is something that is very important in Football Manager 2010, it can be the decisive factor, for example, between getting Blackpool to stay in the league in your first season or them getting relegated.

It is something that needs to be addressed during pre season, When you play your friendlies you may see some players have Superb morale, whilst others have Okay or Poor morale. This is something you want to avoid.

When a player has Superb morale it means that he will more than likely perform extremly well for you. When a player has Okay or Poor morale, it means he is struggling to motivate himself to play for you, here you need to praise this player for the minor things.

Doing this could automatically raise his morale from Okay to Very Good or even Superb. I have witnessed this countless times in my management in Football Manager and it has lead to a string of great performances. Most notably is the one which made me write this, a 10-1 win over Middlesborough with Man City. You may say well you can do that with Man City easily but you would be wrong. Normally I would say without the perserverence of maintaning a high morale you would only get a 4-0 win, maybe a few goals conceded.

Some will ask me to upload this tactic, but I will say no. This tactic is bog standard, it was built with the intention to attack the opposition from the start but it is also the morale that has allowed me to achieve this result.

How do I know that this is not a fluke match?

The question above is one some of you may ask. I will tell you this. I played Bury in pre season, the players had Poor Morale. I only managed a measly 1-0 win. I thought that is a disgrace, but whilst thinking this remembered the Poor Morale. I said to the players Well Done on the win.

This in turn raised the morale from Poor to Very Good or in some cases Superb. Harry Redknapp said the other day YOU can argue about formations, tactics and systems for ever, but to me football is fundamentally about the players

I dont like the guy but he is right here. Tactics, Formations help but if the player is not up to it mentally you will achieve nothing. Press Conferences can also be used to help increase morale. They are perfect places to say, Yes that player has been playing well. If he is on Superb morale but underperforming say you are disappointed in him, This generally will get him to perform better.

How do I increase morale to its maximum?

To increase morale we can do a few things -

1) We can tell a player in as match who is on Okay morale that he played well, maybe he made that one inch perfect pass, or scored that goal that helped you to win. This will boost his morale to Superb

2) Through Press conferences we can say after a match, Yes that player played well, or exceptionally, the key here is to be true with your comments. A guy who got 7.1 does not want to hear that he played exceptionally but more wants to hear he played well so that he has something to build on.

3) Lastly we can praise players via the Player comments menu. This is the perfect place to tell your players what you think of them. If a player has Superb morale but is not performing well, tell him your dissapointed, if hes on a low morale tell him if he has had a few good games, you are pleased with him. He will take this as a great compliment and his morale will be boosted

Regards

SUCK IT (Alex)

[matthew56]

to continue on this thread - how do you increase morale ? what factors increase morale

[SUCK IT]

I will post that in the next 30 minutes Matthew

[matthew56]

thansk mate

[Reading\'s Revolving, Rant]

One way to encourage players who are on 'Okay' or worse morale is to say 'you have faith' in team talks.

Personally, although I believe morale to be important, I've never seen it as vital. However, I rarely find myself in a position where my entire team have poor morale for an elongated period of time, so maybe I'm a bit naive

[drhay53]

I think you have to be a little careful saying that morale and motivation are exactly the same.

Morale is more like the resistance of your players to getting down when bad things happen to them.

Motivation is affected by team talks, match odds, and opponent reputation. They are very different things, however a high morale player is much less prone to getting rattled when he gets skinned or makes a bad pass or misses his tackle.

It is very important to have high morale as your team will seem to play more consistently, but morale does not directly cause high motivation.

[SUCK IT]

I see your point drhay53, but from my experience when morale is down the players are never motivated but when it is up they are motivated alot of the time.

[Simply... Awesome!]

I have a habit of bringing on players just before the 75th minute with low morale as substitutes (especially in matches I am winning) just to have an excuse to say "well done" at the end of a game - boosting morale, even though I would normally not bring them on as substitutes.

Players need at least 15 minutes of playing time (or an assist or goal or card) to get a rating; making my "well done" count for something.

[drhay53]

I see your point drhay53, but from my experience when morale is down the players are never motivated but when it is up they are motivated alot of the time.

I think high morale might just increase the chances that your team talks work, while also reducing the chance that a player's confidence goes down during the game.

Also, though, I think of bubbaytuna's team talk explanation here. Player's have three things to take into account on gameday: morale, confidence, and motivation. The values for each player are based on a number of things (the most important for team talks is their pressure attribute, and confidence and motivation if they are complacent beforehand). A player who is not very motivated but very confident will be reported as 'looking complacent' while a player with low confidence and high motivation may be reported as 'playing nervously'.

As I said before, morale simply reduces the negative impact of bad things happening in the game. A team full of players with low morale who give up an early goal will see 4-5 players immediately switch to playing nervously. I believe playing nervously is the effect of high motivation but low confidence, leading to player's trying to force things and hence 'looking nervous'. However, a team full of 'superb' morale players will have their confidence barely impacted by the early goal and will all be reported as 'looking motivated'.

Somehow the pressure attribute in conjunction with your team talks plays a huge role in your players confidence and motivation during the game. Low pressure players are more likely to be motivated by low pressure team talks, and and high pressure players are more likely to be motivated by high pressure team talks.

So while motivation does seem to be directly related to morale, I think it's actually because morale acts as a modifier on how team talks and in-game occurrences affect your players motivation and confidence, but morale is NOT a direct indication of how motivated your players will be as you still have to pick the correct team talk for your player's pressure attributes.