Off To A Flyer: RCD Mallorca - Creating Foundations

By Luke - The Football Manager Addicts and Luke's Stories of An FM Addict

Hi all, welcome to the first blog of my new series 'Off To A Flyer'! A few months back I held a vote on the two Facebook pages above about what teams you wanted to see me get off to a great start with and show you guys the tricks of the trade! If you cant remember who were chosen it was: RCD Mallorca, Sydney FC and Manchester City.

Spot The Difference.

The first thing that I tackle when starting a new save or job is my backroom staff. This is because when you first join they are usually: poor, not mixed or over payed and if you leave it in a like that things will go badly wrong!

I've posted two screenshots below: one showing Mallorca's staff and one showing their first team squad. Can you spot any major differences?

The default staff of RCD Mallorca SAD.

The default players at Mallorca.

Hopefully you've spotted that my squad has a wide mixture of nationalities and all of my staff are Spanish (Apart from me and a board member). Now, when it comes to staff you may think that as long as they have high attributes they your club will run like clockwork: it wont because you need a mixture of people, let put it into an analogy.

Let's imagine you are at school and all of the teachers teach the same way, talk the same way, structure their lessons the same way and are all from the same place: how boring what that be? Very most probably. After a while would you stop learning because it was all taught in the same way? Yes, you would. So why would you create that environment on FM?

Another reason it is important to mix it up with staff nationalities is that it will help players to settle. You have all probably heard of a player being 'homesick' on your save and then moving to a team in the next city; despite being from the other side of the planet. Most people assume that in a situation like that it's just Football Manager having a bit of a break down but it isn't. A player says that he is homesick because there is no-one around him of a similar nationality, first language or personality! Therefore by having a wide range of nationalities your club will work better.

Rectifying The Problem

As you can probably imagine it isn't hard to employ some staff from different back-grounds! With the squad I have above I wanted to bring in an African coach, an Israeli and a Brazilian: because of Mallorca's limited funds that wasn't possible! Instead I my only option was to get Jacques Songo'o (a Cameroonian goal-keeping coach) and Mauro Silva (a Brazilian coach).

Because money is so tight at Real Mallorca Mauro Silva was the best Brazilian available to me, but despite his terrible coaching attributes it isn't all bad. Silva has quite good 'mental' attributes and is also heavily experienced in Spain so will, hopefully make the squad a happier place!

However, Songo'o was a better catch! He is a very good goalkeeping coach and has brilliant scouting knowledge of France, which could come in handy when searching for new players.

Problem Solved (ish)...

In two simple staff acquisitions you will have made your club a more versatile place. Your players should be happier (higher morale) which will make them play better; don't stop there! Mallorca's finances only allowed me to get in two members of staff, I would have preferred more, but you should get more!

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