A (Very) Short Guide to Confidence and Match Expectations Management Démarré par NakS

Sujet original rédigé par WWfan sur les forums officiels

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The major morale boosting / confidence device is winning/losing matches. Press conferences and team talks fundamentally exist to exert expectations / reduce pressure on the squad, not to shift morale. There are three basic strings you can follow.

1: Use these events to a: stop an overly confident team lapsing into complacency or b: prepare them to play a minnow

2: Try to ensure a professional performance.

3: Try to reduce the pressure on a team that is a: struggling, b: in a tight title race or c: is about to play a side that totally outclasses them


If you have a well-disciplined, respectful squad, about 80% of the time the 'be professional' string is the right one. The other two strings are only required a couple of times a season. The important thing is consistency. Flaky or young teams might need the 'reduce pressure' string a lot. Highly ambitious, experienced and determined teams can cope with more expectation.

1: If you have chosen to build up the expectations, don't be soft on the team if they lost and don't praise too hard if they won.

2: If you have asked them to be professional, don't over praise when they were, but don't be too harsh if they played well but lost

3: If you have reduced pressure, be expansive in your praise if they won, be soft if they lost.


If you get the focus wrong, the team has a really bad day and you make it worse with your post match reactions, then morale might drop quickly. Do it twice in a row and you are in trouble, especially if you have a flaky squad.

If you have made a mistake, it is relatively easy to spot by watching the match. Your players lose a lot of 50-50 challenges, misplace passes, get caught in possession etc. Most of the match is being played in your half and there are some desperate defensive moments. Once you realise this, the key is to play some anti-football to see out the half and re-boot the team in the half time team talk. The current ME provides the clearest indications yet as to the team having a bad day as it has less exploitable holes than any previous ME. In previous MEs, if you were using an exploiting tactic, you weren't able to pick the team playing badly, because as they were still exploiting holes the AI couldn't defend, stats and shots were still looking good.


Example

Here's example of how pre-match elements work within the ME. Third match of the season, my Arsenal side are playing Everton away. Match odds are only slightly in my favour, so I am relatively neutral with expectations at the press conference, being positive on some answers, more pessimistic on others. Despite this, when I check the Assistant's pre-match feedback, the squad is looking over-confident. I decide to counter this by using the 'expect a win' team talk, which is an unusual option away against the team that came 6th the previous season.

The team talk partly worked. Of my six core, experienced players (keeper / back four / playmaker MC), five were motivated / playing confidently early on. The only one that wasn't, the DCR, who had been highlighted as the most over confident player by my Assistant, twice made positional errors that let the Everton FCL through on goal. One chance was covered by the DR and the other brilliantly saved. After 20 odd minutes, the confidence of the rest of the back four rubbed off on the DCR and he also began playing confidently and, more importantly, far better.

However, the team talk failed in that it placed too much pressure on my relatively inexperienced / young front line (22 / 21 / 19). None of them were playing well at half time. I tried to deal with their performance in the half time team talk by telling them to 'prove a point' or that I was disappointed, which seemed logical in relation to the over-confidence noted by my Assistant. For two of these players this backfired. The 21 year old AML began to do his level best to get sent off, so I subbed him after 55 mins. The 22 year old FC started playing even worse, so he went off after 60 mins. However, the 19 year old AMC played a stormer of a 2nd half, scoring two goals and picking up the man of the match award.

After the AMC scored the first, my DMC started to look nervous (possibly a hangover from the heavy expectation of the pre-match team talk) so I subbed him off at the 80 min mark and replaced him with a younger DMC, whom I told there was no pressure. I scored my second almost immediately after he came on, which killed off the match.

The match stats illustrated the context of the match perfectly. Although Everton had 15 shots, only 4 were on target and many were from long range. Once my DCR joined the party, they never looked like scoring. Prior to the confidence of the others in the back line rubbing off on him, Everton could have, and perhaps should have, taken the lead. Given my dominance in my own half from the 25 minute mark, the only issue was working out how to score. I'm still learning how to deal with my front three, especially the FC and AMC, who are new, which meant I made some motivational errors. However, the post match team talk focused on how I got a better performance out of the team in the 2nd half, asking how I did it. I chose the 'I reminded the team of my expectations 'option, which pretty much summed up what I tried to do.

I'm not saying that I have 100% worked out the motivation system. I haven't and I still make mistakes, as the above example illustrates, especially when dealing with high-end players. For example, I'm having a continued problem with my 22 year old FC, who is always complacent if I am soft on him and playing without confidence if I'm tough. However, I never see major morale drops or slumps, or bad feeling spreading through the squad.