Football Manager 23 Best Directors of Football
A list of some of the best Directors of Football you can sign on your FM23 saves
We cover youth football and we love Football Manager. On this page, we’ve compiled some of the best Directors of Football in Football Manager 23 that are relatively attainable at the start of the game. Get on in to bolster you recruitment team and streamline the management of your club.
Scroll down to see our recommendations. If you want more FM23 pages, click here.
Our lists of the best FM23 staff
Why are Directors of Football important in Football Manager 23?
It is obviously one of the stranger aspects of Football Manager 2023 that the manager is the person that hires the director of football, and not vice versa. Your role in FM23 is essentially as both the manager and director of football of your club.
Alas, your director of football can help you speedrun the game, by helping you with the following: initial contract negotiations and then negotiating contract renewals, recruitment for the first team and/or reserve/youth team, arranging loans, managing scouts and assignments, attending press conferences, and so on.
Essentially, their role can be just about as big or small as you want. The game gives you a lot of flexibility to play as you would like: DoFs can be your transfer market guru spotting young talent, or they can simply be a shortcut to renewing staff contracts.
Conversely, you can put your director of football in charge of finding good deals on youngsters and wonderkids, and either give yourself (or them) the final say on whether the deal is made.
What does a Director of Football do in Football Manager 23?
The Director of Football can fulfil a range of roles. Some of these are interchangeable with other staff members, including your technical director, assistant manager, chief scout, so will depend on each one’s individual attributes.
In saying that, a good DoF can handle signings, contracts, loans, scouting assignments, press conferences, and more.
What are important attributes for Directors of Football in Football Manager 2023?
This will depend on what you want them to do. If you want them to take press conferences, mental attributes such as people management will be important.
If your DoF is signing players, then their negotiating skills, and judging player current ability and judging player potential attributes will be crucial.
Some DoFs will also have tendencies, such as Manchester City’s Txiki Begiristan, who has a tendency to ‘sign many youth players’ and ‘sign a lot of young players to turn a profit on them’.
Newgen Directors of Football in Football Manager 2023
There are not many great directors of football that are free agents in Football Manager 23. But the game almost always loads up with lots of really good regen options that have the ability to be great options for top clubs.
A lot of them will have 18+ ratings in the key attributes: negotiating. judging player ability and judging player potential. These will generally set you back somewhere in the vicinity of €30,000 p/w, but are worth every penny if you intend to make full utilisation of your DoF.
And above all, you will not need to pay Sevilla the €6 million compensation fee they want for Monchi, for example.
Michael Edwards
- Club: Unemployed
- Knowledge: ENG
- Personality: Perfectionist
- Expected wages: €19,000 p/w
- Reputation: 4 stars
Michael Edwards has a massive reputation after a brilliant spell at Liverpool as director of football, where he helped mould the Reds from Premier League battlers into Premier League and Champions League winners.
He left at the end of the 2022 season to seek some time off, but if you are a big enough club to satisfy his demands, you’ll be able to get him to come work for your club at a decent wage.
Jochen Sauer
- Club: FC Bayern München (GER)
- Knowledge: GER, AUT
- Personality: Model Professional
- Expected wages: €29,000 p/w
- Reputation: 2.5 stars
Jochen Sauer has come through VfL Wolfsburg, Hertha BSC, the Red Bull school, and now Bayern München, and he comes with an extraordinary set of attributes that make him not just a great head of youth development, but also a fantastic director of football.
You will need to be a well-established club to tempt him away from Bayern, and willing to stump up a hefty wage alongside a €250,000 compensation fee, but his attributes read like a wall of green.
Monchi
- Club: Sevilla (ESP)
- Knowledge: ESP, ITA
- Personality: Driven
- Expected wages: €27,000 p/w
- Reputation: 4 stars
The man, the myth, the legend; Monchi. He won’t come cheap, but there’s no doubting the pedigree of the current Sevilla, and former Roma director of football.
He won’t come cheap, especially with the monster compensation fee required to release him from Sevilla’s clutches, but he has everything you could want from a DoF, including extensive knowledge of Italy and Spain.
THE BEST YOUNG TALENTS IN FOOTBALL
Marcus Mann
- Club: Hannover 96 (GER)
- Knowledge: GER
- Personality: Professional
- Expected wages: €11,000 p/w
- Reputation: 2 stars
After a journeyman career in Germany playing at lower levels, Marcus Mann has risen up the ranks quickly as a director of football, moving from Saarbrücken to Hoffenheim (as head of youth development) and then to Hannover in the space of a season.
He is probably the best cheap option available, although he doesn’t lack any quality either. Furthermore, his two star reputation means he should be quite attainable for lower level clubs that can afford him.
Rouven Schröder
- Club: Schalke 04 (GER)
- Knowledge: GER, AUT, SUI, POL
- Personality: Resolute
- Expected wages: €15,000 p/w
- Reputation: 3 stars
Rouven Schröder is a slightly upmarket version of Marcus Mann in FM23, with very similar stats, but better scouting knowledge, at a slightly higher price. The main issue is the high fee required to sign him from Schalke.
Nonetheless, he is worth considering if you can spare the extra budget, and are looking for the additional scouting range that includes Austria, Switzerland and Poland.
Michael Edwards is definitely one of the best. Having left Liverpool, he’s available to sign on a free trasnfer at the start of your saves.
Make the most of the staff search tool, where you can specify your searches to suits your specific needs. Set the minimum judging ability/potential attributes to 17 tio find some of the best Directors of Football in the game.
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