Football Manager 2026 Best Assistant Managers

Welcome the ultimate guide to the best Football Manager 2026 assistant managers! Today we would like to help you to set up a 5-star backroom staff team by looking closer at the best assistant managers in FM26.

Since 2012, we have taken great measures to hand you our recommendations of the best staff in Football Manager. This year is no different! Here you’ll get a complete insight into the best Football Manager 2026 assistant managers.

Editor’s Pick

Why Your Team Needs One of the best Assistant Managers on football Manager?

Perhaps expect from the head of youth development, there are no other staff roles as essential to the daily management of your squad as the assistant manager in Football Manager. As your right-hand man, the assistant manager will take care of a huge variety of tasks, and how much you’d like to delegate of staff responsibilities to the assistant manager is all up to you.

From providing feedback on the team and its individuals, or provide valuable feedback about your tactics and tactical instructions in-matches, the assistant manager finding an assistant manager that fits your tactical philosophy and style of management is essential!

If you’re a manager who enjoys playing possession football in a 4-3-3 formation, you should try to find an assistant manager in FM26 with a similar preferred formation. Personally, I think it’s essential that the coaching staff has similar preferred in-possession and out-of-possession shape as what you’re going to be implementing.

Apart from having similar tactical philosophy as yourself, the assistant manager can even oversee training and assist you by setting up training schedules. If you don’t bother taking the time to customize the training calendar according to the next opponent yourself, you must pick one of the best FM26 assistant managers with similar tactical philosophy as you.

Since the staff role is highly important relating to player’s development you need someone you can trust, one with the qualities to coach the player – meaning the best assistant managers on Football Manager needs good level of coaching attributes.

Apart from being an essential member at the training ground, the assistant manager in Football Manager can help you to take care of all the ‘boring stuff’, which you don’t want to take control of yourself, such as helping you to be in control of pre-match team talks, tactics brief meetings, setting up opposition instructions or attending press conferences for you!

The role of the assistant manager can be as specific or general as you wish. What’s required of the assistant manager depends on his duties and how much you delegate to your assistant manager in Football Manager but regardless of which team you’re managing, and its playing level, taking the time to analyze what you want from your club’s assistant manager in Football Manager helps you to supercharge your team’s future performances.

Key Attributes For Assistant Managers on Football Manager

With such a demanding job, the best assistant managers on Football Manager requires a whole set of different attributes

Depending on his tasks, the ‘perfect’ assistant manager in Football Manager requires:

• Judging Player Ability – to provide an accurate assessment of a players current ability star ratings, or you let him select the team for the upcoming fixture. – Squad Depth
• Judging Player Potential – to judge individual players potential ability – Squad Planner
• People Management – valuable to maintain players happiness on a great level especially if he’s charged at setting up training sessions
• Tactical Knowledge – to provide you with accurate in-match feedback about tactics and tactical instructions. It’s also worthy if you delegate the task to setup opposition instructions to the assistant manager, or let him lead friendly matches
• Motivation – if he shall take care of team meetings and pre-match team talks, or provide other touchline instructions like motivating the players via touchline instructions.
• Positive Personality to aid player’s development
• Positive Media-Handling Style e.g. Media Friendly

Prime examples of good assistant managers in Football Manager 26 are Steve Holland, Peter Krawietz, Pepjin Lijnders and Davide Ancelotti – all reputable coaches in FM26 who has worked under some of the most legendary managers in today’s football.

In Football Manager, searching for and replacing your right-hand man with one of the best FM26 assistant managers will be one of the first things to do when starting a new save. This is why we have collected a list of the best Football Manager 26 assistant managers and thereby made it possible to aid the team’s performances from a quality staff with both tactical knowledge, people management and the ability to provide more accurate feedback about your players and the team’s performances.

READ MORE | Football Manager Staff Attributes Explained

Best Assistant Managers Football Manager 2026

Our list of the Football Manager 2026 best assistant managers lets you scour through and find the most appropriate person according to your individual needs, and how you’d like to use him.

This year, you’ll be able to browse our list of the best assistant managers in Football Manager 2026. Earlier has the list been sorted first by their level of judging player ability, then by judging player potential, and at last their people management but this year they have been listed in no particular order. This way, you need to truly examine the list to find the perfect ass.man for your career!

Featured alongside our list of FM26 best assistant manager’s you’ll find our downloadable shortlist which enables you to import it into your own game and discover more assistant managers that just quite didn’t make the cut.

Complete List of Best Assistant Managers on FM26 [26.3]

Last Updated: 17 April 2026

NB! Do note that staff attributes may vary from save to save.

FM26 Assistant Managers

A comprehensive list of the best Assistant Managers on FM26. Last Updated 18th April 2026

* Manager / Assistant Manager
** Recommended Head of Youth Development & Scouts
*** Recommended for Director (DoF or TD)
**** Recommended as Coach

Download Instructions

• Download the file above.
• Put the files into folder : My Documents / Sports Interactive / Football Manager 2024 / Filters
• Open Football Manager 2024
• Go to: Staff / Staff Search
• Click Edit Search
• Locate the gear icon in the bottom left corner
• Click Manage Filters
• Import the file: Passion4FM-backroom-staff-search-filter and click Load
• Voila! All the different filters are added and can be selected as a search by clicking the gear icon afterwards.