Managers and coaches are even more important in FIFA 23 than ever before, and Career mode now allows you to play as over 350 real-life managers. Exactly what a manager does in FIFA 23 depends on which mode you’re playing in. For the most part, FIFA 23 is still a game about playing, and not so much about managing, so managers are still largely cosmetic. But managers do nonetheless impact gameplay in a few important ways.
Related: How to play as Ted Lasso and AFC Richmond in FIFA 23
What do managers do in Ultimate Team mode in FIFA 23?
In Ultimate Team mode, managers have two purposes. First of all, all the managers you own, even if they are not selected in your squad, have a Negotiations stat, although for many of them it’s +0%. Whenever you negotiate a new contract with a player, the total of all your managers’ Negotiation percentage is added to the value of the Player Contracts card you use. So, if you use a Silver Player Contracts card to negotiate with a Silver player, that would normally get you 10 more matches out of that player. However, if the total Negotiation score for all the Manager cards you own is +10%, that same card will get you 11 matches from that same player.
The other role of managers in Ultimate Team is that the manager you select for your squad contributes to chemistry. The manager doesn’t earn any Chemistry Points himself, but his nationality/region, league, and club all count towards your squads Chemistry Thresholds. So for example, if you’ve got two players from the same league in your squad, that won’t get you a Chemistry point, because the first league Chemistry point requires three players. But if you add a manager from that same league, that will bring the total to three, and both those players will get one Chemistry Point.
What do managers do in Career mode in FIFA 23?
There are two quite different Career modes in FIFA 23: Manager Career mode and Player Career mode. In Manager Career mode, you play as a football manager. You can create your own manager or select a real-life manager. Either way, you get to design your own outfit. Your choice of manager makes no difference to gameplay, but your choices as manager make a lot of difference. In Manager Career mode, you are the manager, so the manager does everything you do. That means buying and selling players, selecting squads, organizing training, speaking to players and staff, holding press conferences, and just generally trying to keep the club board happy by meeting their expectations.
In Player Career mode, your team’s manager is controlled by AI, and he has a very singular, but very important impact on gameplay. Your main aim in Player Career mode is to keep your Manager Rating as high as possible, by fulfilling your role in the team and playing well. If your Manager Rating falls too low, your manager may move you to the substitutes bench, drop you from the squad, or even place you on the transfer list.
