Personalities in Football Manager

Every single player in the Football Manager Database has a set of attributes (most hidden) that determine their personalities. These personalities determine how a player behaves on and off the pitch. In this article I will be naming all the different personalities and will give you an explanation what they mean.

In an ideal situation you will have a squad full of positive or neutral personalities. The negative personalities should be avoided at all times. These guys could make your life as a manager very difficult and they could even result in you being sacked. Lucky for you, there a no negative personalities in the standard database of Football Manager. But as the years progress, regens or newgens will be getting those, so be careful!

Spotting a player's personality

If you look at a players’ profile, you’ll find his personality on the right side. As you can see in the screenshot we have added below, this player has a Light-Hearted personality, which is considered to be a positive and good personality.

A personality can be seen on the right side in a player's profile.
Scouting needed

Obviously, you will see the personalities of the players on your team. But you will need to scout players from other teams to see their personality. One scouting trip will give an indication, but you will some extensive scouting to find out his true personality.

Personality Attributes

The personality of a player is defined by nine different Attributes, both visible and hidden. These are:

Ambition
How successful a player wants to be.
Controversy
How outspoken a player can be. Either in the media or in the dressing room.
Loyalty
If a player is willing to stay at his current club or the club he loves.
Pressure
How a player handles pressured situations. For example big matches.
Professionalism
How hard a player is willing to work to maximize his career.
Sportsmanship
If a player is ethical during games.
Temperament
If a player can handle certain situations when they go against him.
Determination
The willpower to keep on fighting.
Leadership
How inspirational and motivational a player can be to his teammates.
Types of Personalities

Now that you know what a personality is build from, we will now show you all the various personalities in Football Manager. There are three categories: Positive, Neutral and Negative. Real players in FM will not have a negative personality. These are mostly given to Newgens, who spawn every season at the yearly Youth Intake.

Positive personalities

• Model citizen
• Perfectionist
• Resolute
• Model professional
• Professional
• Fairly professional
• Spirited
• Very ambitious
• Ambitious
• Driven
• Determined
• Fairly determined
• Charismatic leader
• Born leader
• Leader
• Iron willed
• Resilient

Neutral personalities

• Jovial
• Light hearted
• Devoted / Very loyal
• Loyal
• Fairly loyal
• Honest
• Sporting
• Fairly sporting
• Unsporting
• Realist
• Balanced

Negative personalities

• Slack
• Casual
• Temperamental
• Unambitious
• Easily discouraged
• Low determination
• Spineless
• Low self belief

Mentoring/Tutoring

Is it possible to change the personality of a player in Football Manager? Yes, it’s possible, but it will take some time.

You can achieve this by tutoring/mentoring a young player. However, if a player is older than 23 (max age), it will be impossible to change his personality. We advise you to check out your yearly Youth Intake and look for any negative personalities. If the player is talented, keep him and try to change his personality as soon as you sign him on a youth contract. If he isn't talented enough; don't bother signing him at all.

Picking the right Mentor/Tutor

If you want to try to change a young player's personality, make sure to pick the perfect tutor/mentor for him. In Football Manager 2018 and older versions you need to pick an experienced player, we preferably plays in the same position and same role. It is also advised that you check out the Dynamics tab to see if the experienced players is one of your more influential players. This will help the tutoring.

Picking up traits

When tutoring, a young player will be picking up certain traits of his ‘mentor’. This could vary from mental attributes, player traits and his personality. It is also possible to have a young player being tutored by multiple player over time. That way you can develop multiple mental skills and player traits too, creating an even stronger player.

Mentoring in Football Manager 2019

In FM19, Tutoring has been replaced by Mentoring. It is now possible to have a group of players work together instead of you pick two players. This is a bit more realistic than the old Tutoring, but it will be more difficult to change personalities and traits. This is because the players you want to use for Mentoring need to be in the same squad as each other.

For example, if you want to change the personality of a 16-year-old, you will need to add him to your first team to have him train with the first team. This isn't something that you regularly do, also because you don't want you first team squad page to be cluttered.