MAN MANAGEMENT

A few weeks ago I was looking at the message board of a baseball "management" game. I was astonished to see a post on there that asked that the game be expanded with the "man management features" of a soccer game called SaaP. It's very rewarding that a feature of SaaP should be known in circles that have nothing to do with smgs.

Buying better players and developing suitable tactics are only two of the things a manager has to get right if his team is to be successful. No matter how good the players, no matter how correct the tactics, if the confidence, commitment and fitness of a team are low then that team will always fail to meet its potential.

There are many areas in SaaP where you will have to take decisions and actions that work on these aspects of your players. There are obvious ones like bonuses and wages. But there are not so obvious ones such as talking to players, informing them of opposition qualities, dressing room team-talks, keeping faith with your promises during contract negotiations, anticipating a players contract demands as he improves, responding reasonably to his requests, taking care of him when injured and so on.

The realism of SaaP is illustrated by the way these three characteristics are shown to you. Talk to your captain to learn how players feel about the club. Talk to your assistant coach to learn about the confidence of a player. Talk to your fitness coach to learn about his physical condition. Then monitor the players performances in training and matches (compare the last 6 match ratings with career and season averages) to confirm these opinions.

Success in SaaP comes when the team is confident, committed and physically prepared as well as skillful and tactically aware. SaaP gives you the tools to see that it is.