Player Motivation

[ZdlR]

In FM13, player motivation and player performance are shown in separate widgets, making it easier to see the continuum of motivation levels that a player experiences.

By default, I assume that the continuum looks something like this:

I have probably forgotten some of the descriptions along the way, but the diagram shows how I feel the explanations map onto the 1-dimensional measure of a player's motivation. At the lower end of the scale, the player is suffering from the affects of increased pressure and/or a lack of confidence. Towards the upper end of the scale, the player is suffering from the affects of decreased pressure and/or over confidence. What we, as managers, must do is balance the player in the 'goldilocks zone' where they will be sufficiently confident without spilling over into complacency, or worse. The main tool at our disposal is the much-maligned team-talk. With the team talk, we can attempt to adjust the pressure or confidence for our players. Talks like 'Expect a win!' will undoubtedly increase the pressure on the team. 'No pressure on you,' obviously decreases the pressure. 'I have faith in you', 'you are playing well', etc., will increase the confidence of the player. I'm not sure if there are specific talks that would directly aim to undermine a player's confidence (such a thing would be pretty antithetical to the point of team-talks). However, because the two variables exist on the same 1-dimensional continuum, it is impossible to increase one without concomitantly decreasing the other. So, if you increase the pressure on a player, you are likely to decrease their confidence.

There are a number of difficulties that come into play which cloud this otherwise simple system. Firstly, there is your reputation as manager. Two examples: imagine Alex Ferguson suddenly walks into the dressing room of Aberdeen. Not only is Alex Ferguson an absolute legend in his own right, he is pretty much a god to Aberdeen. Absolutely every word he uttered in a team talk to those players would be taken as gospel: he would be respected. Contrast this to Andre Villas-Boas taking charge at Chelsea, where he barely had a few years on the more experienced - and influential - players there. He had previously brought success to FC Porto, but this - so it seems - wasn't enough for the players to pay too much attention to him. So, being heard and respected is a difficulty dictated largely by your starting reputation (Sunday League footballer through to International Pro) and then your successes or failures from there on.

Next, you need to choose how you are going to say what you have decided to say. You can give reluctant praise, cautious criticism, calm encouragement, assertive assurance, a passionate rallying cry or an aggressive dose of the hair-dryer - or any mixture of these. Again, some of these are extremes and a manager who vascillates from one extreme to another within a single team-talk is probably going to be swiftly ignored. Which is why being forced to give a full-group team-talk before being allowed to single out the defence or individual players adds yet more difficulty. You have to be careful about giving the entire team the hair-dryer before becoming Mr. Nice Guy and telling your terrified 17-year-old centreback that there's no pressure on him. While the kid might react badly to the team talk and then well to the individual talk, I've noticed in FM13 that players take into account what you say to other people and can change their reaction as a result.

The current scenario is an extremely important variable, too. In pre-season, it is not surprising to see that players are Disinterested in the game. I see this quite often when I tell the players that the game is about fitness, not the result. What I'm doing is reducing the pressure on them because I don't want them to place too much importance on a friendly game. However, there is already very little competitive edge to a friendly game so I've decreased the pressure to the point that they don't care about the game at all. Contrast this to a team that is on the verge of their first silverware and it is likely that they are feeling pressured and nervous, so it is more likely that your job will be to increase their confidence and reduce this pressure.

The final, probably most important, piece of the puzzle is the player. Each player has a different personality, although much of it is not immediately obvious - you need to build up a picture of the player over time and through trial and error. The personality descriptions will tell you whether one of the hidden variables is an outlier compared to the rest (and some descriptions tell you that combinations of variables are high/low). This will affect how the diagram shown above would look for the player.

For a player with a good personality it might look like this:

I'm going to hypothesize that this player has a fairly high rating for his 'pressure' attribute. This is because he can take a lot of pressure before becoming anxious. He also probably has a decent rating for his professionalism or determination stats, because he has a lot of scope for being confident before losing focus. Notice that you really would have to pile the pressure on this player in order to make him anxious. You would also have to really talk him up before he became complacent - this player is really easy to keep motivated and is an exemplar for others.

Compare and contrast with this player. Look how small the 'Goldilocks zone' is for this player, it is tiny. A slight jolt of pressure and he's anxious, a slight jolt of confidence and he's complacent. What a nightmare. If you've ever seen a player vascillate between 'anxious' and 'complacent' then this diagram is probably what their attributes dictate. This sort of player is really difficult to keep grounded enough to focus as well as being really difficult to keep thinking positively. I certainly wouldn't inflict this player's personality on others through tutoring.

There is one other aspect of motivation which bears considering. Motivation is the short team version of morale, yet the two are intrinsically linked. When you give a player confidence you increase their morale but risk reducing their motivation. When you apply pressure to a player you decrease their morale but can increase their motivation. As with all things in FM, it is a trade-off. Do you want to increase morale which will feed in to better long-term motivation for the sake of short-term motivation, or is the here-and-now more important and you'll risk some morale to motivate? Ideally, you will have a squad of players who all have continually Superb morale and any first XI you choose will play for 90 minutes `very confident', but that is so unlikely as to be impossible. You can, however, master this side of the game to the point where there are fewer and fewer players who are unhappy or disagree with your team talks or lack morale/motivation.

[Cleon]

I wondered who'd be doing a player motivation guide this year, glad it was you

Great thread

[furiousuk]

Yeah I skim-read this earlier and it looks great, love the diagram (I'm a sucker for a nice infographic! Geek!)

Will definitely be giving this a proper read later, motivation is key to a lot of what I do and as the team-talks were considerably less involved in FM11 I'm looking forward to stepping up with 13.

[lam]

When you give a player confidence you increase their morale but risk reducing their motivation. When you apply pressure to a player you decrease their morale but can damage their motivation.

I think you might have meant to have choose a positive comment above.

Great thread!!

[lam]

I'm getting into the team talks this year a lot more....

I think there is some interpretation from the AM that can help people. I am still testing it but it goes something like this:

I think = Cautiously

Make sure they know = Assertively

Let them know = Calmly

That's as far as I got at the moment..... though, like you said, Swinging from one to the other alot cant be good, especially in the same match.

[ZdlR]

I'm getting into the team talks this year a lot more....

I think there is some interpretation from the AM that can help people. I am still testing it but it goes something like this:

I think = Cautiously

Make sure they know = Assertively

Let them know = Calmly

That's as far as I got at the moment..... though, like you said, Swinging from one to the other alot cant be good, especially in the same match.

Very good point, I never really pay much attention to what he says, but I suppose I should do in future.

[Brokk]

Great thread - the diagrams really help with understanding how the team talk feature works rather than 'do x when player feels like y'.

Now just don't get complacent

[Rashidi]

Nice thread..any plans on interlinking player personalities to motivation as well. I find that this plays a huge part in how I choose to address my team.

[eddymunster]

Great thread, very helpful. Good stuff.

[lam]

I've been testing a few things over the last few games and have something that seems to work quite nicely.

I'm a pretty strong team (Spurs in season 2) and when we are playing away I will CAUTIOUSLY tell my players I expect them to win (assuming of course we are favourite, even by a little). When at home I will CALMLY tell them the same. I tend to get a good result from at least 3 or 4 players and most importantly, at least to me, they seem to be the stronger players ie the ones that histrorically have become complacent.

Also, once doing this, the AM seems far more adept at picking out individuals for positive comment after my overall team talk.....

Just thought I'd share.

[atcdelay]

The trouble I have with team talks is the unfair advantage morale wise the user has over AI teams once they are mastered and player's reactions are known. I've delegated the talks to my assistant manager to try to make things fair.

[Contexx]

The trouble I have with team talks is the unfair advantage morale wise the user has over AI teams once they are mastered and player's reactions are known. I've delegated the talks to my assistant manager to try to make things fair.

But AI managers also have motivation ratings and so we can assume they do team talks as well. When your opponent makes a spirited comeback against you, their players can "praise the manager team talk for the turnaround", just as AI controlled players can be unhappy with their manager's team talks.

Giving anything, especially team talks, to the AM neglects a huge element in building and maintaining teams - man management. In real life, someone like Alex Ferguson is not known as a great tactician as much as a master of man management and motivation. As for finding a set pattern for team talks and motivation, it's not as simple as it seems, since there is a huge variety of player personalities and how they respond to different situations. Granted, at times it can be repetitive, but there are instances where that change in morale can make a world of difference to how the team plays.

One thing I find peculiar is when giving an individual team talk to a player, and the occasional negative reaction from another one. For example, telling the team as a whole they did well but "disappointed" for one player, and a subsequent "switch off" or "angered" from a totally different one. Perhaps it's got to do with player relationships or something - it's quite interesting and in some ways similar to the media talks where singling out an individual affects multiple members of the squad. I find it mostly affects players with high influence or those held in high regard by their teammates. For example, I gave a harsh team talk at the end of a game to my captain who gave away a penalty near the end of the match, and in turn, three of my players reacted negatively after I had told the team I was pleased with their performance.

Anyway, excellent thread and a very valid discussion on an underused facet of the game

[Steve Odom]

I realise this could be considered bumping but I still think it's relevant. There have been some questions about this subject recently and this would be a good place to start. However, here I go again, I don't think furious is at the right place in this graph. It shouldn't be on the graph at all as it isn't a questiion of too much pressure and too little confidence imo. It has more to do with the inability of a player to accept criticism (low professionalism and temperament) or accept refereeing decisions.

[Auqakuh]

I'd actually say that furious is just aggressive + fired-up...

[Steve Odom]

I noticed a lot of furious players in my Redditch save. I have no real strong personalities and the 'furious' shows mostly with temeramental players when we go a goal down because of mistakes, penalties or lucky goals. They aren't actually 'motivated' or 'fired up' before it happens. It rrally is difficult motivating a squad of 'fickle personalities..

[Britrock]

Great post, but don't forget that you can talk to players between the games as well, giving them praise and/or criticism for various things, team talks aren't the only opportunity you get to talk to players. Doing this can help get a player on your side and keep morale high

[Steve Odom]

It is indeed, I know. I'd like to create some sort of a guide to the basics of... That will take some time though so I thought this old post of ZdIR could help some people out for now.