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One of the biggest new features coming in Football Manager 2015 is the ability to define your own unique management style when starting a new game and then develop it over the course of your career.

http://sortitoutsi.net/thumbnails/900x508/assets/fm15/video_screenshots/Manager-Style-1.png

When starting a new career in Football Manager 2015 you’ll be presented with a new screen which will allow you to set up your attributes to be more of a tracksuit manager, a tactical manager or a mix of the two. You’ll be given a range of attributes to pick from, which you’ll already recognize from the staff screen in the game, some will be concerned with your coaching ability, attacking, defending, fitness, technical etc, others will be mental stats such as man management, motivation and level of discipline. The coaching attributes work alongside the training system within the game, which means, for the first time ever, you’ll actually have a role on the training ground. In FM2015 you can now be assigned a role within the coaching setup and have a star rating just like all your other coaches. However you only have a limited number of points to spend on each attribute, so you will need to choose wisely if you want to become a 5 start coach, but if you manage it this will be an instant boost to your new look side (we all know how hard it is to find 5 star coaches, especially in the lower leagues!).

But it’s not as easy as simply assigning your attributes to make yourself a great coach, being a great tracksuit manager comes at the detriment of your mental attributes. If you spend all your points on technical and attacking coaching in order to be a 5 star shooting coach, you may not have enough points to spend on your mental attributes meaning you lack the ability to motivate your team or keep discipline within the ranks. If you decide these attributes are just too important you can choose to leave all the training ground stuff to your coaches and focus all your attributes on your mental stats. This will ensure that you’re well respected by your squad, but of course you’ll miss out on having the influence on the training ground.

Each attribute is customisable so you don’t have to necessarily choose between being a complete tracksuit manager or a complete tactical manager, you can scatter your points around to be a mix of both. Although we weary of this as well, you may wind up being a jack of many trades but a master of none. The number of points you can assign are based on your past experience and your coaching badges, which are also selectable from the new manager style screen when starting a career. The better license you start with, the more points you’ll have to assign to yourself. This adds a whole new dynamic to the game since you can now make it easier or harder for yourself depending on what you pick to start with. If you want to make your life as difficult as possible you might become a former Sunday league footballer with a National C License (the lowest possible license) and take over a top premier league job. Alternatively you might decide to take over a side in the conference with a Continental Pro License and the reputation of a former International Footballer. While the lower leagues are always difficult this will make your life a lot easier as players will respect you, allowing you to command authority over your existing squad and attract players that normal wouldn’t consider such a level of football, not mention the fact that your coaching abilities will be unrivalled in such a low league, giving a huge boost to your player development and match preparation.

It’s not all about how you start the game though, throughout your career you can take on new coaching badges (assuming you don’t start with the best one in the first place), which will allow you to gradually develop your attributes over time. If you choose to start in the lower leagues with a low reputation, your reputation will slowly build as you make a name for yourself, while improving your coaching abilities will require you to take additional courses to earn new coaching badges. Unfortunately this aspect of your development isn’t going to play a huge role in FM2015, taking your coaching badge is literally a click of a button (the same as telling coaches to take their badges in previous versions of the game). However there is one drawback, while you’re studying for a badge you won’t be able to spend as much time with your squad, either on the training ground or day to day man management, this could have an adverse affect on your squads happiness and development so be careful not to focus too much on earning your badges.

Buy FM2015 Now

Summary

- Personalise yourself in the game by defining your attributes, past playing experience and level of coaching qualification

- New difficulty options: make yourself a novice at a top club for a more difficult experience, if make yourself a big name in the lower leagues for an easier path to glory.

- Be listed as a coach in the training section and have your attributes influence your players developments

- Have a more personal relationship with your players as they react to how highly regarded you are (your reputation) and how good you are at motivating, maintaining discipline or working with the youngsters.

http://sortitoutsi.net/thumbnails/450x254/assets/fm15/video_screenshots/Manager-Style-2.pnghttp://sortitoutsi.net/thumbnails/450x254/assets/fm15/video_screenshots/Manager-Style-3.png
Comments
.verse
13 years ago
11 months ago
871
Another year, another bunch of unrequired gimmicks really. The game is becoming more and more complex with too much emphasise put on the "depth" of the game, some of which has absolutely noting to do with management. While it might all be okay at the start of a new game, it all gets mundane and annoying soon enough and all you tend to want to do is skip past it all just to get to the bloody match and focus on the football.

There's a couple nice little features like picking languages, the new layout looks alright from a glance and the new scouting system is a nice change. I'm just not sure if it's actually worth the money because after a day or so I'll be over much of what bogs the game and experience down, as has been the case for the last few releases.
Footygamer
18 years ago
10 hours ago
98,191
How do coaching badges and management style have absolutely nothing to do with football management? Surely that's a significant part of it which has been missing from previous versions of the game?
rwq
17 years ago
4 months ago
45
Quite right Rob, for those of us who want this and have wanted it for ages it's great. If you don't like the advances play Classic and let those of us who do want to enjoy them enjoy them.
.verse
13 years ago
11 months ago
871
How do coaching badges and management style have absolutely nothing to do with football management? Surely that's a significant part of it which has been missing from previous versions of the game?

I didn't mention anything about such features, though I do believe that beyond any initial influence they'll ultimately provide little in the way of changing the overall game or experience.

As far as I understood it, coaching badges are purely an extension of manager reputation. The game is football manager, the idea is to manage a football club, so obviously I'd expect my manager to have the required badges to do exactly what the game is based around. It's not like you can take up other footballing roles and build up into a managerial role.

As for management style, again, it's something that will have a more initial impact than anything longer term. Your manager stats change as it is depending on what sort of approach you take, this effectively just separates it from that and makes it a more stand alone detailed section.

Each year the game just further breaks down particularly aspects into their own stand alone sections, giving that allure of more detail. Which is fine with some things, but a lot of what has changed either is unrequired or has been expanded upon too far and actually becomes more tedious as the game goes on. What made older releases excel and so appealing was the ability to jump straight in and manage a side. Now days it's become fiddly and it's getting to the point where the detail of it is getting a little beyond what is literally needed. Soon enough it will take you 1 real time day to complete 1 day in game.

Classic Mode on the other hand should literally be just that; a carbon copy of earlier FM days. With basically each new FM release just updating the database and implementing only whatever basic features that have been updated: scouting/search bars/etc. That way it preserves that nostalgic feel which drew everyone in to begin with.
Footygamer
18 years ago
10 hours ago
98,191
Fair enough. You were commenting on an article about the new managerial style features so forgive me for assuming that was what you had in mind

I do agree with your point somewhat, but i'd also be more sceptical about revolutionary features, they are often the most buggy and worst implemented, small changes, which I think should have been in a long time, is a good way to add polishing touches to what is already a fine game.

I imagine the main developement time this year was spent on the new UI and the Match Engine, if you watch the video or the documentary you'll see they put alot more time, money and effort into the match engine this year.
Jubez
13 years ago
2 years ago
1,073
I personally like all the time consuming little details that are added to the game. I realize it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I like them and this is the first FM in several years that I'm truly excited of. The new 3D match engine seemed unfinished and I believe it will not be that great in FM15, but give it another year and it will become great. I'm sure of it.
BlueHawaiian
11 years ago
10 years ago
1
This is a nice addition to the game - it frustrates me so much on FM14 how some players will just not be motivated, and the scope of what I can do about it is so little, so at least I will be able to address this.
That is of course assuming I buy FM15, but I'm going to wait and see if there are any changes to the youth system. If there isn't, then I won't buy it.
Martin Sparkes
10 years ago
3 years ago
5
This is a nice addition to the game - it frustrates me so much on FM14 how some players will just not be motivated, and the scope of what I can do about it is so little, so at least I will be able to address this.


Having played cricket to a reasonably high level, and then coached, you learn that there are some know it all "bleep" "bleep" sods who just will not work with the team direction or manager. As always it's a question of whether their abilities offset their behavior, and the impact on the team.

I like the tracksuit manager idea. In lower league teams it allows you to get an extra coach for "free". I would have loved that in my exit skrill career where I took five different teams in skrill Premier and one into the league propper.
KEZ_7
18 years ago
1 week ago
1,883
I'm actually pretty excited by this, it means that if I start LLM I can actually create myself in terms of qualifications too! Nice little touch
CroMadridista
12 years ago
2 years ago
6
This is very very nice novelty, especially for those who play with lower league club, but this is also one of features that we missed over last two-three serials
GG.com
12 years ago
1 month ago
27
Considering finding excellent coaches isn't all that hard, wouldn't setting this all the way to to Tactical Manager be more useful since it makes it easier to gain the respect of the players?
Crane
14 years ago
2 weeks ago
2,434
Premium
Considering finding excellent coaches isn't all that hard, wouldn't setting this all the way to to Tactical Manager be more useful since it makes it easier to gain the respect of the players?


At a decent level club, it seems like that'll be the way forward.
louissiscool
10 years ago
3 months ago
5
So does anyone know for sure that your can stats can improve to the maximum level if you don't make yourself a manager with international playing experience?
I say this because the more playing experience you get the better attributes you have to begin with so if you start with a pro license and no playing experience your stats can't improve and surely if you start with neither it will just end up being as good as the guy at the start who chose no playing experience and a pro license rather then someone who chose both.
jujigatame
13 years ago
5 years ago
49
I put the slider 1 notch away from the rightmost setting, which is sufficient to allow you to max out all the important mental attributes while still allowing you to be a 4-star coach in at least 1 category.

The game always allowed you to choose your background (sunday league, international, etc) and assigned you hidden mental attributes based on that. This is just allowing you to customize them further. In a sense it's a way of adding difficulty levels and addressing the complaints that motivation was too opaque and unpredictable.

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