Personalities Don't Always Matter
Contradicting Myself
Personalities Don’t Always Matter
Under my tutelage, PanSa East F.C. is currently undefeated. And we show no signs of slowing down.
I know that the season is only half over. But we look absolutely awesome, like a team of destiny. It’s going to be difficult for anybody to catch up with us now.
The crazy thing about this, though, is that this team has accomplished this despite not having a lot of players with great personalities.
It’s a hint that player personalities might not always be all that important.
Contradicting Myself
The sad truth here is that I’m completely contradicting myself.
Several months ago, I put together this bit on how important player personalities are:
RSL in the WSL Part 8
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In fact, I was so certain about how important this is that I even created a YouTube video about it 3 months ago:
But it turns out that I may have been wrong.
I mean, just look at the personalities of our most influential players:
We’ve got a lot of unambitious players, as well as a lot of players with low self belief. And that includes some of our stars.
Toa Maile, one of the best players in the league at the tender age of 15, has a fickle personality.
Corey Nortey, one of the best attacking midfielders relative to the league I’ve ever seen in Football Manager (and also only 15), is unambitious.
Afa Leatualevao, another 15-year-old superstar, is also unambitious.
I could go on. The important point is that this is a complete contradiction to everything I’ve said before.
When Personality Doesn’t Matter
Instead of hemming and hawing about this for much longer, I’ll cut to the chase.
I think there are a few situations in which player personality really isn’t all that important:
When you are focused on winning now, not on developing young players.
When you are playing in a league filled with players with awful personalities (especially if most of the players are newgens).
When the player’s raw attributes are so high that additional player development likely wouldn’t help him much anyway.
When Personality Does Matter
In contrast, here are some cases where personality does matter:
When you want your young players to hit their top potential ability.
When you are playing against teams with world class players.
When things are happening on your squad that could cause players to become upset.
Additionally, player personality matters less when the player is unlikely to develop much (probably about age 25 and older). However, if the player is highly influential, aspects of his personality (especially the hidden attributes) can wear off on other players.