The new system of mentoring was introduced in FM19. I finally decided to be more patient and give it some proper chance. Mainly as it's not as easy as in the past and you have to combine more factors together than just only Driven personality of the experienced player with some promising youngster who will turn into a model citizen in three months. This is my system of mentoring in Football Manager 2020.
I spent some time reading different materials about mentoring since the new system was introduced.
This is the short and simple summary on SI Forum. It gives me the most important basic information.
But I think it gives all of us a lot of room for experimenting because you can try many ways how to use mentoring in the game.
No way is the best one, no way is the perfect how to do it and how to have the best results.
Mentoring in Football Manager 2020
This is how I made it before the end of the 2026/2027 season and how I kept it for the 2027/2028 season. And what happened with some groups and players.
Maybe it's a wrong way. I don't know. It's not a guide on how to do it. But I felt this is the best how to do it within my save.
Central defenders
If I've added all these five central defenders, the third column shows you the social group in which each player is. You can see Marion Arboleda is in different group.
If I will take the fact the players have a bigger chance to mentor/influence each other if they are in the same social group, the best thing is to remove Arboleda from this mentoring group.
Btw. He is Colombian, the rest of these central defenders are Mexican. The nationality can have influence/effect to the social groups probably.
As "Players can still pass player traits (PPM’s) on as well if the individual shares a similar position to those in the mentoring unit" it's one of the things I wanted to monitor through the season.
At the beginning, only Loreto (Stays Back At All Times) and Franco (Plays Short Simple Passes) have some trait. Infante and Briones none.
Changes during the season:
Infante - personality changed from Professional to Model Professional in December 2027
Loreto went for a loan in the winter, the group consists only three players for the rest of the season
Juan Manuel Briones became Influential Player because of the number of played matches in the Apertura.
Juan Manuel Briones - personality changed from Perfectionist to Fairly Professional, Determination attribute went from 16 to 13 within two years. On the other hand, he was called up to the Mexican senior national team for the first time at the end of 2027/2028 season.
Defensive midfielders
We had six defensive midfielders in the first-team squad at the end of the 2027/2028 season. Only one of them had a Balanced personality. Paradoxically, it was one of our two main DM players Salvador Garcia.
When I added them to the one mentoring group I found out they all are in the Core Social Group. But the fact they all are able to play as defensive midfielders, they will play in this position. That's why I had to select players for the mentoring group also relevant to their current and possible position on the pitch.
Despite it was not highlighted by the hierarchy, Carlos Castillo and Salvador Garcia were the two main players to lead this defensive midfielders group.
It led to the fact Raúl Ortíz and Ricardo Marín were not included as I train them in CM role and plan to use them higher than in the defensive midfield.
I know three of these four players are highlighted as Other Players and there are no leaders but I'm expecting that Castillo and Garcia will have a higher position in the hierarchy soon.
To be fair, I'm a big fan of Carlos Castillo. I signed him for free in summer 2026/2027 from Athlético Choloma. He is a member of the Honduran national team and he is great as the Half Back. Only need to improve my Heading a little bit.
He also has Plays Short Simple Passes & Plays One-Twos & Runs With Ball Rarely traits. I'm sure they would suit other defensive midfielders as well...
Changes during the season:
Irvin Moreno picked up the Plays One-Twos at the end of June. Nearly two months after the groups were set. He left for a loan spell in the end as he joined our affiliate club in the 2nd tier and was their key player.
Castillo - developed the Dictates Tempo trait in December 2027.
The defensive midfielders group remained despite I switched to the 3-4-1-2 formation without a DM role during the season.
Filling the mentoring groups is the same as selecting the team instructions within your tactic. You don't have to select all the instructions and you don't have to select all the players to have ten mentoring groups with all the players. It's not bad to not mentor all players.
My opinion
Central midfielders
The group of the most players in our squad. And also, same as all defensive midfielders, all central midfielders belong to the same social group.
I decided I will create one mentoring group around the Gilberto Erick Serrano. He is our own newgen and my favourite player. He has resolute personality, determination 15 and he has perfect traits for both CM(A) & CM(S) role.
Gets Into Opposition Area, Tries Killer Balls Often, Plays One-Twos, Dictates Tempo. The bonus is Uses Outside Of Foot aka Tomáš Rosický.
I selected him in hierarchy and just selected other CM players to add them with him to the same group.
I put Ricardo Marín and Raúl Ortíz together with Serrano. Both 18 years old players with Spirited and Professional personality and with decent potential.
They both had no player traits so it was interesting to follow what they can take from Serrano.
Changes during the season:
Raúl Ortíz picked up the Dictates Tempo trait quite soon. Same as he gained Tries Killer Balls Often. He also added Uses Outside Of Foot. That means he learned three from four traits from Serrano from May 2027 to March 2028.
Ricardo Marín - personality changed from Fairly Professional to Resolute in November 2027.
Ricardo Marín - picked up Tries Killer Balls Often trait from other two players in March 2028.
Central midfielders - the rest
They were not the only central midfielders in the squad so I created also one more group with four other CM players as Emmanuel Cantú was the leader of this group with the most experiences and most games for the club.
These four players have various player traits like Plays One-Twos or Dictates Tempo.
Changes during the season:
Fernando Robledo moved to Liverpool FC for the record transfer fee (€17.5M). I decided to keep this group only with three players.
Villalobos - Places Shots trait developed from David Escobedo.
Escobedo wanted to be a star player, wanted €200k per month wage. He moved to Chivas for €7.5M = I moved youngster Ortega here to keep the three-players group.
Leonardo Ortega (click to open his profile) took Plays One-Twos from Cantú within one month (March 1, 2020)
Team Leaders - Ozuna & Osorio
You maybe noticed in the pictures above there are only three team leaders in the squad. Infante, Ozuna and Osorio.
Infante is within the central defender's group and I decided to create a separate group with Emiliano Ozuna and Sebastián Osorio. (click to open their profiles)
Both are our most experienced players (the real players, not newgens). Ozuna plays as AML/Winger(S), Osorio plays as AMR/IF(A).
There are players for both AML and AMR positions who can learn something.
Both these groups were formed by three players, Osorio and Ozuna both had a significant influence on the group.
Changes during the season:
The first change happened even before the start of the season as Julio Cesar Jiménez moved to FC Porto. And I decided to place here 16 years old striker Jonatan Arenas who can develop in the wide player as well in the future.
Arenas had none impact on this group first couple of months but it changed to light after he made some appearances.
Víctor Ríos was placed to the group with Ozuna and Pineda during the season after Garibay went for a loan.
No evident changes despite both groups were formed by team leaders.
Social groups
I mentioned social groups several times in the post and the fact they can influence the mentoring of each player within specific groups.
We talked about it some time ago in FMSlack with @FromElevenOne and he mentioned the players changing their groups often.
More precisely, he said: "...those fuckers change so dam often."
And he is right. I mentioned I created the group of central defenders also with the view they all are in the same social group.
It took only three weeks before two of these players changed their social group.
If one of the main suggestions and advice within the new mentoring system is to be patient. And the second one is to combine players within the same social groups...
You can be the most patient human being on this planet but it's probably impossible to keep the same mentoring units in terms of the social groups. When four of your players are moving within the social groups every two weeks because one player talked too much with the girlfriend of the second player. The third player didn't come to the birthday party and the fourth player is the lover of the girlfriends of the first three teammates...
We can do nothing probably. Just give it a time despite the constant social group changing.
As it stands, I started to write and make screenshots on May 10, 2027. The first picture in the gallery below is from May 31, 2027. Only one mentoring unit remained the same in terms of the social groups.
May 31, 2027
September 2, 2027
November 15, 2027 (all players back in the Core Social Group)
December 1, 2027 (only two weeks after and two groups remained the same)
May 31, 2028 (all players in the same Social Group except the one)
The last words
Before Cleon closed his website, he wrote the post about the mentoring in FM19 when the new system was introduced.
It's still on the SI Forum website so you can find it here. He wrote about the simple system which is similar to me in some way.
I'm using the units with a maximum of 4 players and players in the same group has the same positions.
His third "rule" was to have at least 1 player who has significant influence in the unit. Same as I have it with team leaders Infante, Ozuna and Osorio.
I didn't use the mentoring groups without team leaders before the 2026/2027 season and before this post. I just wanted to try it.
"In this group, there is no one with any real influence over the group. What this would mean is that most of the unit are all equal with the exception of the first player. I wouldn’t have high hopes for a unit like this because of the lack of real influence. It would mean there would be barely any benefit to mentoring because no one is strong enough to take control of the unit."
Cleon
I knew there were groups without a player with significant influence. They at least passed traits between each other. As players in the group are players from the same position/role, I have no problem with it.
There was no big negative effect despite the smaller or zero influence. Same as there were no significant changes except the traits within the whole season.
The game itself gives you some suggestion during the season. One of them, within the mentoring, was, for example, moving striker to the group with central midfielders or wide defender/midfielder to the group with strikers.
Not sure what to think about it. Same as if you hit the "Ask Assistant to Assign" and he places together players with different positions and from different social groups.
But I will test it more. Probably...