As a manager you will need to employ various types of non-playing staff to undertake different backroom tasks on your behalf. To ensure that these tasks are performed effectively it is important that you employ appropriate people for each job.
The Members tab of the Staff screen shows all the staff members that you currently have employed, along with the job (role) that each is employed in. Each staff role has different responsibilities and so requires different qualities. The standard responsibilities and required qualities for each role are explained in the Coaches, Scouts and Physios guides.
Other tabs on the Staff screen allow you to:
- Receive Backroom Advice from your staff to help you to manage your club.
- Assign various Responsibilities to particular staff members or to yourself – the setting of responsibilities is explained in the Staff Roles guide. These responsibilities are additional to standard responsibilities for each role.
- Use the Staff Search feature to help you to find new staff members to sign – advice on signing staff is given in the Signing Staff guide.
Staff Profiles
A staff member’s profile, accessed from his Overview tab, shows his staff attributes and various other information.
Staff Attributes
Like players, staff have their own attributes rated from 1 to 20 to enable you to judge their ability. These are categorised as coaching attributes, which primarily affect how well a staff member trains your players, and mental attributes, which affect how well a staff member performs in various different aspects of his job, for example, how well he assesses player ability and how well he demonstrates tactical understanding.
The effects and importance of each attribute differ for each staff role and according to the additional responsibilities that you assign. Therefore, rather than an overview of each attribute being given here, they are explained in the context of each staff role and each additional responsibility in the different Staff Roles guides.
Attribute Development
A staff member’s attributes can increase over time with experience. In particular, improvements can occur for those attributes related to his role and, for a staff member employed in a coach role, those attributes related to his coaching assignments.
Coaching Qualifications
A coach’s coaching attributes in particular can also increase as he gains coaching qualifications by going on coaching courses. A coach’s current qualification is shown on the Personal Details panel on his profile. In order from highest to lowest they are:
- Continental Pro License
- Continental A License
- Continental B License
- Continental C License
- National A License
- National B License
- National C License
A staff member employed in a coach role who does not already have the highest coaching qualification may at some point decide to go on a coaching course. If you would rather instruct a coach to go on a course rather than waiting for this to happen, there may be a Send On Coaching Course option available on his Contract drop-down. However, your club’s board would have to agree to fund the course.
Giving Staff Attributes to Players
A player nearing the end of his playing career can also gain staff attributes after you recommend a particular staff role to him.
This is done by selecting Advice then Recommend Possible Future Staff Role from a player’s Interaction drop-down. It is advisable to choose the role which the player is considering, if any, in the Long-term Plans shown on the Information section of his Overview drop-down, as he will then be more likely to react positively to your suggestion.
The player may respond by offering to make himself available as a staff member. If you agree then you will be able to see his staff attributes from his Overview drop-down and offer him a staff or player/staff contract. However, he may instead believe that he is too young and choose to continue to concentrate on playing.
Other Information
To the left of a staff member’s attributes are his personal details. Of particular importance are nationality, age, reputation and coaching qualifications, and these should be considered in addition to the important attributes for a role when signing staff. In addition, you should consider a staff member’s familiarity with each of the staff roles and his scouting knowledge in different nations, which are shown in separate panels.
More information on these aspects of a staff member’s profile is given in the Signing Staff guide.
The Tactics panel mostly contains information on the tactical preferences of a staff member, although the Coaching Style on this panel refers to how a staff member likes to set up training. However, these preferences are only relevant for a staff member when he is responsible for setting tactics or training. For example, you may assign a coach to control your reserve squad or youth squad in matches on the Staff Responsibilities screen, while your assistant manager will take control of matches if you put yourself on holiday (although in both of these cases you can request that your currently selected senior squad tactics are used, in which case the coach’s tactical preferences are irrelevant), or you may assign the responsibility for running training to a coach on the Staff Responsibilities screen.
A staff member’s profile also shows you his contract details and advice he has previously given to you.
The number of panels that you can see depends on your screen resolution and your settings. You may need to go to the Preferences screen and change the Size of Text & Images setting to Zoom Out (95%) or Zoom Out (75%) to see all panels.
The Information section of a staff member’s Overview drop-down provides further information, including:
- His personality and media handling style – these can also be important qualities to consider for your staff, as will be explained where applicable.
- His Tendencies – these affect the tactics that he uses and how he manages a club, where relevant.
- His Backroom Staff knowledge – this affects the quality of the advice that he gives in each topic area.