Stamina
The invisible clock ticking down in every player's legs, deciding who's still sprinting when the whistle blows.
Stamina is a core physical attribute in Football Manager, rated on the standard 1-to-20 scale, that governs how long a player can sustain high-intensity effort across a full 90-plus minutes. It sits alongside Pace, Acceleration, Strength, and Agility in the physical block of a player's profile, and it is the single most important determinant of how quickly a player's on-screen energy bar drains during a match.
In practical terms, a midfielder with a 19 Stamina will still be pressing and making late runs in the 88th minute, while a 12-Stamina player may be gasping and dropping into a passive shape by the 60th. For managers building squads, Stamina is the quiet attribute that separates a player who looks brilliant for 65 minutes from one who can deliver a full performance week after week.
- Type
- Physical attribute
- Scale
- 1 – 20 (standard FM attribute range)
- Primary effect
- Rate at which a player's in-match energy depletes
- Most critical for
- High-volume running roles (full-backs, wingers, box-to-box midfielders)
- AI consideration
- Substitution timing and tactical intensity planning
- Scouting visibility
- Listed under the Physical attributes block in player profiles
Lore & Background
In the Football Manager universe, Stamina is the attribute that turns a beautiful first-half performance into a hollow second-half shell. Fans who have ever watched their star winger's energy bar bleed from green to red by the 55th minute know the visceral frustration it carries. It is the attribute coaches in the game's narrative world obsess over during pre-season conditioning camps, the one that separates a 22-year-old with electric pace from a 29-year-old whose legs are finally starting to betray him.
The attribute also carries a quiet narrative weight: as players age, Stamina tends to be one of the first physical attributes to decline, and watching a once-endless engine slow down is one of the bittersweet arcs every long-term save eventually encounters. Scouting reports in the game's world often flag a young player's 18 or 19 Stamina as a sign of untapped physical potential, while a veteran's dropping figure is read as the first whisper of retirement.
Within the broader attribute ecosystem, Stamina interacts with the player's mentality and playing style. A high-intensity pressing system will drain a squad's collective Stamina far faster than a possession-based, lower-tempo approach, meaning the same 14-Stamina player will look adequate in one system and exhausted in another. This interplay is a central part of the strategic depth that keeps managers tweaking tactics and squad composition match after match.
In Their Own Story
The physio's office smelled of ice and torn grass. Marco sat on the treatment table, 22, his 16-Stamina already showing the first faint crack after a 3-0 loss where he'd been asked to track back from the wing for seventy minutes. His coach, a wiry man with chalk dust still on his blazer, tapped the whiteboard where the squad's physical profiles were pinned in a grid.
"You're not slow," the coach said, not looking up. "You're just… finite. And I need you to be infinite for ninety. So we fix the engine, not the wheels."
Marco looked at the number scrawled next to his name. Sixteen. The winger two rows down had an eighteen. The full-back had a nineteen and hadn't stopped running once. He iced his calf, laced his boots back up, and walked out to the floodlit pitch where the second training block was already starting. The clock in the corner of the stadium read 18:42. Ninety minutes, he thought. I have to be someone who can do ninety minutes.
Reader's Guide
Stamina governs the rate at which a player's in-match energy bar depletes. The higher the value, the slower the drain, meaning the player retains a larger share of their other physical and technical attributes late in the game. A player with 19 Stamina will still access roughly 85-90% of their peak physical output in the 85th minute, while a 12-Stamina player may be operating at 50-60% by then.
The AI reads Stamina when planning substitution waves and when setting the team's overall intensity. If your starting XI's average Stamina is low relative to the opponent's, the AI's tactical engine will push a more conservative tempo to conserve its own players, and it will be more aggressive in pulling its own tired players off. This means a squad with poor collective Stamina can be systematically out-tempoed even if individual quality is higher.
A common misconception is that Stamina is only relevant for wingers and full-backs. In reality, any role that demands repeated high-intensity sprints—box-to-box midfielders, pressing strikers, even centre-backs in a high line—will feel its absence. Conversely, a deep-lying playmaker who mostly turns and passes will feel less impact from a 13 than a 17.
Practical advice: when scouting, weight Stamina alongside the role you intend to play the player in. A 14 is fine for a defensive midfielder; it is a red flag for a wing-back. In pre-season, focus training on Endurance and Stamina-specific drills to nudge the attribute up, especially for young players whose physicals are still developing. And in matchday tactics, if your squad's average Stamina sits below 14, consider lowering your team's tempo and pressing intensity to stretch the energy bar across the full 90.
Did You Know?
- A player's effective in-match performance is a product of their base attributes multiplied by their current energy level, so even a 19-Pace winger with 11 Stamina can be outpaced by a 15-Pace opponent with 18 Stamina in
- The game's training menu includes specific Endurance and Stamina-focused sessions, and stacking multiple high-intensity sessions in a single week can cause a player's Stamina to dip temporarily while their legs recover.
- Mentality and playing style interact with Stamina: a 'very high' intensity mentality accelerates energy drain, meaning a 15-Stamina player on a relentless pressing system will tire noticeably faster than the same player
- In long-term saves, Stamina is often one of the first physical attributes to show visible decline as a player passes their mid-twenties, making it a key indicator for managers deciding when to rotate or replace a veteran