Ever since its introduction in FM17, the Sports Scientist role in football manager has slowly been built upon with the role being given a more defined presence as is the case in real-world football.
This trend should continue in the next few FM versions, starting with FM22, FM23, and FM24.
A sports scientist in football manager is responsible for reducing the likelihood of players getting injured.
Unlike the physio, the sports scientist is not actively involved in helping a player recover from an injury.
As is the case with other staff members in football manager, how successful the sports scientist is in preventing your players from getting injured will depend on his primary rating for the job, in this case, the sports science rating.
However, even if you have the best sports scientist in the game, but your tactic is centred around a high pressing system that forces players to cover a high amount of ground per game, coupled with a training schedule that is relentless, your players will suffer injuries no matter who you employ to head your sports science department.
To prevent this, football manager provides a medical centre, from where your head of sports science will provide you with a wide range of information regarding your players’ physical condition.
You are then supposed to use the provided information to determine which players can play the third game in a week, and which ones could do with a rest, as you risk running them down to the ground.
The squad information provided by the sports scientists in your team includes the match load, training load, injury susceptibility, physical condition, and physical status as well as the overall risk which takes into consideration all the aforementioned factors and finds an average for them.
Taking a keen look into the individual factors will give you an idea of what is the best step to take for a particular player to prevent him from getting injured.
For instance, a player with an overall “very high injury risk” whose training load is “heavy” could do with the training load being reduced, while a player with the same “very high injury risk” but a “very light” training load and a “heavy” match load consisting of 4 matches in 2 weeks could do with being rested for a few days.
If you want more information regarding a specific player rather than the whole team as a whole, head over to the player’s screen, then under reports, there is an option to request a medical report.
Your head of sports science will then provide all the relevant information regarding the player including fitness, injury susceptibility, and injury history.
The accuracy of these reports will hinge on the prowess of your sports scientist, with a highly rated one providing more accurate reports.
When managing clubs that can not afford to hire a sports scientist, the physio will perform this role, but will not use his physiotherapy rating but rather the sports science one.
Therefore, if your team is in this situation, hire a physio that has a decent attribute rating in sports science in addition to his physiotherapy rating that he will use to perform his physio duties, which I have discussed here.
Attributes Needed For A Sports Scientist In Football Manager
As already mentioned, the sports science attribute is the primary attribute needed for a sports scientist. However, for immersion purposes, I also consider a few other attributes when looking for sports scientists for my team. The attributes in question are as follows;
- Working with youngsters – I pay attention to this attribute when signing sports scientists that work with my youth teams. The rationale is that those with a higher rating in working with youngsters should be more effective.
- Adaptability – When signing a sports scientist from a different country, one who has a higher adaptability rating should theoretically find it a lot easier in settling in a new country with a culture that is different from what he is used to.
- Man management – When signing the head of sports science, I always pay attention to his man-management rating with the belief that it will make him more effective in leading the other sports scientists.
Keep in mind though that football manager only takes into account the sports science rating, I only consider the other additional attributes for my immersion and world-building.
You are free to ignore them if you do not have the funds to look for a sports scientist that fulfils all the listed attributes.
