Work Rate

Lore & Background

In the Football Manager universe, Work Rate sits at the intersection of physical capability and mental resolve. A young winger with blazing pace but a Work Rate of 7 will coast through the first half, then vanish in the second as the AI reads him as a low-effort threat. Conversely, a technically modest midfielder with a Work Rate of 18 becomes the team's glue — the player who never stops running, who presses the full-back, who sprints back to cover the space behind. The AI's match engine uses this attribute as a multiplier on every action that requires sustained effort: pressing triggers, recovery runs, overlapping, and even the willingness to make a late cross from the byline.

What makes Work Rate fascinating to the managerial community is its separation from Stamina. A player can possess the *willingness* to run (high Work Rate) but lack the *capacity* to sustain it (low Stamina), resulting in a player who is electric for sixty minutes and then visibly gassed. The reverse — high Stamina, low Work Rate — produces the 'cruise control' player who never tires but also never truly commits. The ideal profile, the one every scout in the FM world chases, is the combination of both: the engine and the fuel.

Across the fictional leagues and clubs, Work Rate shapes team identities. A high-pressing, high-line system built around 18+ Work Rate players will dominate possession through intensity, but it is brutally punishing on the squad's legs over a 38-game season. A low-Work-Rate, counter-attacking side saves its players for the moments that matter, but concedes the midfield battle in open play. The tension between these philosophies is one of the core strategic dilemmas the game presents, and Work Rate is the single attribute that tips the balance.

In Their Own Story

The rain over the training ground had turned the pitch into a grey mirror. Coach Okafor stood at the touchline, clipboard pressed to his chest, watching the U-18s run the pressing drill for the fourth time. Most of the lads were jogging now, heads down, conserving breath. But one kid — number 14, the one the scouts had flagged as 'low technical ceiling' — was still sprinting every single press, still barking at his teammates to close the space, still chasing the ball into the corner flag and back. His lungs were burning. His face was red. He didn't care.

Okafor wrote '19' in the little box next to the kid's name. Not for pace. Not for passing. For the fact that when the game was on, this boy would not, could not, *choose* to stop running. In a league full of talent, that was the rarest thing of all.

Reader's Guide

Work Rate mechanically scales the frequency and intensity of effort-based actions the AI takes for a player: pressing attempts, recovery sprints, tracking-back runs, and late-box entries. The AI multiplies the base action probability by a Work Rate coefficient, so a player at 18 will attempt roughly double the pressing triggers of a player at 9 in the same tactical setup.

It does NOT directly set how fast a player runs or how far they can cover in a single sprint — that's Pace and Acceleration. Work Rate is about *how often* the player chooses to make that effort. Pair it with high Stamina and you get a player who presses for 90 minutes; pair it with low Stamina and you get a player who is a furnace for 60 minutes and then a statue.

The AI reads Work Rate in combination with Determination and Aggression. A high Work Rate / low Aggression player will press patiently and positionally. A high Work Rate / high Aggression player will lunge, slide, and challenge aggressively. A low Work Rate / high Aggression player is the dangerous 'picker' who saves his energy for one or two violent challenges.

Common misconception: managers often think raising the team-level 'higher work rate' instruction simply adds a flat bonus to every player. In practice, it shifts the AI's decision threshold, meaning players already at 12+ see a bigger relative boost than those at 6-7, who still largely conserve. You cannot turn a 5 Work Rate player into an 18 with a tactical toggle.

Practical advice: when building a high-press system, prioritise Work Rate 15+ in your midfield and full-backs. For a low-block counter, you can tolerate 10-12 in the back line as long as your forwards have 16+ to chase. Always cross-reference with Stamina — a 18/8 (Work Rate/Stamina) player is a liability in a 90-minute pressing scheme.

Did You Know?

• Work Rate and Stamina are deliberately decoupled in the game's design: a player can have a 20 Work Rate and a 6 Stamina, making them a phenomenal first-half engine and a second-half shadow.
• The team-level tactical instruction for work rate does not override an individual player's attribute; it shifts the AI's probability threshold, so the relative gap between a 6 and a 18 player actually widens under a 'hig
• In scouting reports, Work Rate is one of the few attributes that the AI opponent's tactical setup can partially mask — a low-Work-Rate player in a high-press team may appear more active than their raw number suggests, co
• The attribute interacts with the 'Off the Ball' mental attribute: a player with high Work Rate but low Off the Ball will run a lot but often in the wrong direction, creating a busy-but-ineffective profile that is notorio