Building a successful team in Football Manager 2013 requires good players, that’s fairly obvious, but having a solid team does not depend only on the quality of your playing staff. Having good coaches and assigning them to the right training categories is also very important, if not crucial.

There are nine training categories in Football Manager 2013 so the ideal set up would be for you to have at least nine coaches, each of them specialized in one of those categories. A good coach in any category should have good attributes for determination, level of discipline and motivation.

Those are the general essential attributes, then you have to look at specific attributes for each training category:

Fitness training

Strength – fitnessAerobic – fitness

General training

Tactics – tacticalBall control – technical (primary attribute) + mentalDefending – defending (primary) + tacticalAttacking – attacking (primary) + tacticalShooting – technical (primary) + attacking

Goalkeeping training

Shot stopping – goalkeepersHandling – goalkeepers

When it comes to technique training (ball control and shooting), there is a coach that might be the best in the world at that. His name is Rene Meulensteen and he’s a coach at Manchester United.

Striker Robin Van Persie recently revealed that the work this coach does at the club is a key factor in their success on the pitch:

“The way he (Meulensteen) trains is an exceptional. He is truly one of the best coaches in the world.”

In fact, by looking at Meulensteen’s attributes in Football Manager 2013 you can see why he’s the perfect coach for the technical side of the game. He has very good determination, level of discipline and motivation, the general requirements for a top coach, and he also excels in technical and attacking training.

(Click to enlarge image)

You can also notice that he has a very high attribute in “working with youngsters”, so he would be a very good candidate to handle your youth team if needed as Head of Youth Development since he also has a very good eye for spotting player potential.

Article written by Johnny Karp, founder of footballmanagerstory.com.