Coaches: Mental Attribute and Secondary Styles

[darthrodent]

I understand how most coaching attributes interact with and influence the players. I know that Man Management influences a player's Morale or that a coach with a higher Determination will probably improve a player more so than a coach with a lower Determination (all things being equal of course). However there is one attribute that I literally have no clue about:

MENTALITY COACHING. What on earth does it do?

To name but a handful of coaches with a very high Mentality attribute—Guardiola, Hitzfeld, Magath, Mourinho, Rijkaard—it's easy to make the deduction that these fellas have a lot in common. They are all born leaders, winners, supremely determined, and have that rare ability to maintain control and authority over the largest of egos. If someone could please let me know how it is supposed that Mental coaching affects those players and staff around them, it would help end a mystery I've been trying to solve for years now!

Also, every staff member has a bunch of preferences that are seemingly secondary to the main attributes. This includes Preferred Formation, Playing Style, Pressing Style, Playing Mentality, Coaching Style, and Marking Style. My question is this: are these preferences for display only or do they too have an influence on the players those staff members train or interact with? What would be the consequences or effects, for example, of having a coach whose Preferred Formation and playing styles, etc., exactly match that of your own tactical implementation and philosophy; versus a coach whose preferences are completely different?

[phnompenhandy]

If your assman.coaches are training your reserves, supervising reserve fixtures etc, having the same preferences as you will help those players blend into your first team squad.Hopefully you get less of the "Player X is used to playing at a higher tempo"from your assman every match.

The 'mental' attribute combine with 'technical' to train ball control. It also has a man-management aspect in that a coach with good mental attribute understands players better so they are less likely to get upset in training. Perhaps Di Canio has 1 for Mental. You've just made me realise my Fitness coaches have 2 and 3 - good old fashioned sargeant-major gym teacher types!!

[Auqakuh]

According to a certain site I've absolutely always found to be reliable,

Their mental approach to players. A good mental coach will be able to observe and act upon each individual's state of mind and react accordingly.

If that's accurate... it makes me wonder whether teamtalk advice is, in fact, not just derived from Motivation as I'd previously assumed, but perhaps a combination of Motivation and Mental.