Relationships through the lens of Football Manager 2024

For those who are not familiar with Football Manager, it is easy to assume that the series is just about football. After all, you choose a team to manage, get a squad together, pick some tactics, and hope they work out to take your team to glory. It is easy to come to that conclusion. It is also wrong. Football Manager 2024 is a game that’s about so much more than just football. It’s really just the cover to a game about interpersonal relationships, and the importance of how managing them is integral to success or failure.

The connection between players and manager

The most crucial relationships in Football Manager 24 are between you and your players. You are managing people at different stages of their careers, from the youngsters just taking their first steps into the world of professional football to those who are experienced and close to retirement. Just like any workplace, each individual has their own needs, wants, and goals. If you’re a good manager, you will help each of these players to meet their expectations and exceed them in some cases. One player may want to be seen as the most important player at the club, while another will want to go out on loan to gain valuable experience. Others can make demands of you to make improvements to the club or push you to back other players in the squad.

Dealing with the different demands and promises made of a small group is hard enough, but now imagine that for a squad of 25 or more players? Not everyone will get what they want, no matter how hard you try. If you have two players wanting to play in the same position, and there is one who is clearly better than the other, your job as manager is to pick the better player for the good of the club. You can do your best to support the other player, such as placing them on loan, but this can upset them just as much as not playing. Making too many promises comes with its own issues. Break a promise to one player and you might get away with it, depending on their influence on the team, but keep breaking promises and the squad will turn on you making it almost impossible to get success on the pitch, putting your own job at risk.

No manager really wants to admit it, but everyone has their favourites. Some players will be backed no matter what because of how good they are, while a player who doesn’t take their chances will start to be ignored, leading to a breakdown in your relationship. However, your favourites can also turn on you when the transfer windows open, demanding to be sold to someone else, no matter what you say. At the same time, the player you ignored may not want to leave and try to prove they can be better.

All of this just scratches the surface of how relationships with players works in Football Manager 2024, and it can be a source of more frustration than losing 1-0 in a league match where your team had 15 shots while the opposition had one. Players are not the only group you have to have a good relationship with though.

The connection between the backroom staff and manager

The players are the public-facing part of the football club, with their performances there for all to see. However, those performance and player development depends on the hidden engine which is the backroom staff. Assistant managers, coaches, the medical team, and the recruitment team all influence the club’s success, with the advice they can give you and how they help your players.

The relationship system with your backroom staff is not as deep as it is with players, but it still matters. For example, if you find an exceptional coach that is great for your team’s development you will want to keep them happy, lest another club comes in and offers them a job. You can convince them to stay with you, usually with a better contract, but if you do not know their needs they will decide to leave.

The whole backroom squad is also reliant on your for their jobs, and at times you need to be ruthless. Better coaches and scouts may become available, meaning you weigh up keeping a current staff member or deciding to get rid of them and bring someone with better attributes in. It is not a simple decision, because firing someone usually means paying them some compensation which can also impact your club finances.

The backroom team has as much power as you allow them to have. As a manager you might want to control everything or, like me, delegate responsibility for things like training. You can choose to have meetings regularly with your staff too, discussing things like recruitment policies and player development. Their suggestions can help you decide if a staff member fits your vision, or is providing information that is useless, so firing them is the better option. Like the players, it is all about managing staff expectations and doing what is best for the club, even it means letting people go and angering them in the process.

The connection to the board

While you have management power over players and the backroom staff, you are not the final authority. Just like most of us in real life, you also have a boss in Football Manager 2024 and you need to meet their expectations to keep your own job. When you start at a club, the board will set you targets to meet. Unhappy players and staff can be managed, but an unhappy board of directors is a sign you are not going to last long in your post.

What you have to do here is apply techniques of managing upwards, influencing your board to come to your way of thinking. Some boards are easier to persuade than others, especially those with some money behind them. Those with poor finances will need convincing that your requests will turn the club around. When you make a request a board may decide to implement it or reject it. If they reject you can try to convince them or give them an ultimatum. Much like real life, ultimatums rarely work so it probably isn’t a good idea unless the board really likes you.

Boards will like you if you are meeting their targets, which vary club to club. Some will want you to focus on building up the youth squad for long term success, so convincing them to build better youth training facilities should be easy. Others will want you to focus on club finances by buying and selling players for profit or reducing the wage budget. Meet these expectations and the board will listen to you. Fail and you’ll be sitting in front of them convincing them to keep your job.

The connection between the fans, media and manager

There are two other groups that will help decide your fate with those being the club fans and the media. As a manager you have a responsibility to engage with these stakeholders too. Fans are similar to the board in that they have their expectations, and if they are unhappy that will influence the board. Their expectations usually align, so the only way to keep them happy is to meet or exceed them, as there is no direct way to chat to a fan spokesperson about club issues.

The media is another matter. They will contact you for quotes about club happenings, grill you over new signings, and want to chat post-match. Each sports journalist will form an opinion of you, with some loving you and others absolutely loathing you. How they view you impacts the way they write their stories, which will influence relationships with others other managers, the fans, the players, and the board.

How do you manage the media? By providing them some juicy quotes and tidbits, so they want to keep you happy so you provide more information. How do you turn the media against you? Well, keep your information close to your chest or just don’t engage with them. They will write stories that are not great for you, but as a manager you need to put the club first.

Football Manager 24 is not just a football management game. It is a relationship game which is set in the world of football. You have to meet the expectations of players, the board, fans, and staff. Just like real life relationships, each one has different ways to navigate them so that people feel valued, but just like in reality, you cannot keep everyone happy all of the time. Sometimes things will work out for you and the relationships are all positive which is great, but if things start to break down it can lead to a messy breakup with the club.