What Exactly is a “Mercurial Talent”?

First of all, before we start with our article, I would like to thank our SI Staff, @Marc Vaughan who had contributed a lot in making this article and also to @George Traistă and @Rich for encouraging me to do it.

A “Mercurial Talent” is something that had been around FMM for a few years now but nobody seems to be knowing what exactly it is. I’ve compiled a few information about it and will sort the confusion that everyone have.

What is Mercurial?

Before talking about what a “Mercurial Talent is, we need to take a look at what is the meaning of the word “mercurial”. According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, mercurial has two meanings (3 if you would like to count “containing mercury” too) which are:

• Often changing or reacting in a way that is unexpected
• Lively and quick

Got it right? Now let’s head to the next one.

What is a “Mercurial Talent”?

According to Marc Vaughan, this is what a Mercurial Talent:

Quote

This is someone which high creativity and flair, but he might gust in and out of games a little ... think someone like Dele Alli, on his day he can be the difference in any match ... but some games you wonder if he's actually on the pitch.

As you can they are the mixture of both meanings of mercurial. This type of players possess a very good creativity and agility but you can’t predict his mood. There are times where he’s going to score 4/5 goals but there are even times where he can barely even passes the ball correctly.

You may have a lot of questions still right? Don’t worry I’d sort it all out now.

Mercurial Talent vs Inconsistent Player vs Engimatic Player

How does mercurial talent any different from an inconsistent player and an enigmatic player? Here’s the answer from Marc Vaughan:

Enigmatic Player:

Quote

My Question:

“What do we say about an enigmatic player? Is it someone like Balotelli who do something that we never will understand the reason like lighting up fireworks inside his toilet?"

His Answer:

Yes that is that type of player in a nutshell - undoubted talent, but can be prone to self destruction unless managed delicately ..

Inconsistent Player:

Quote

My Question:

"How does Mercurial Talent any different from Inconsistent Player since both have about the same meaning?"

His Answer:

The meanings are slightly different - Mercurial implies talent and creativity ... 'inconsistent' is just what it says on the lid and can be any player .. you wouldn't have a mercurial defender for instance and you can have an inconsistent player with limited ability.

From his explanation, you can see all 3 of them have different meanings despite being relatively similar.

An enigmatic player is more of a professionalism and work rate issue and you can easily fix it with motivational coaching, fining/criticising his bad performance and praising his good games.

While mercurial talent needs a fair deal of creativity and agility, an inconsistent player can be anyone. They are often defenders and strikers because they don’t really have the creativity like midfielders have although someone like Matthijs de Ligt and Sergio Ramos could be an exception for creative defenders.

3 confusion are now cleared. Another may have popped up in your mind right now.

Why Is It Considered As A Positive Aspect in The Coach Report?

Marc Vaughan had a somewhat reasonable explanation to this:

Quote

My Question:

“If a Mercurial Talent turns up in a certain match and get lost in another, why does it considered as a positive attribute in the coach report?”

His Answer:

This is because they are good players and 'on their day' can be incredibly influential ... think Balotelli ... he's unplayable when he's on his game ... 

Mario Balotelli and Dele Alli may be a bad example of mercurial talent but I’d give a better one to make it clearer.

Ronaldinho and Jadon Sancho are two of the notable players to have had the mercurial talent in FMM. Why?

You may think, how can a prospect who has 70 goals and 71 assists in his career and a Ballon D’or winner could be considered as someone who are inconsistent (sort of) right? But.... remember correctly. How did Sancho start the season? He struggled to create anything for the first few months and it’s the same as last season when we restarted football after the lockdown. Now onto Ronaldinho, remember his final season at FC Barcelona? Or his career at AC Milan? It was full of inconsistencies although there are still brilliance to his gameplay.

These examples have shown that a mercurial talent can be a world beater with the right management so don’t be afraid of playing them 😉

How to Manage a Mercurial Talent

Based on my experience, there are 3 ways that I found very effective to manage them.

2 Man Team

What’s better than a one man team? A two man team for sure. Your mercurial man may be worthy of winning the World Best Player but you wouldn’t want to lean solely on him to bring your team to glory so get another lad to back him up. Like Sancho in Borussia Dortmund, he got Erling Haaland to cover him whenever he needs it.

I suggest getting a good striker when using a mercurial talent in your team since they’d still bang some good amount of goals for you.

Praise/Criticise

The key of getting the best out of these type of players are to keep their morale at the best. If he gets a bad game, criticise him and if he gets a good game, praise him. Treat him like your son and he’d do his best for you no matter what.

Adopted Brother

Something that I found quite late in the game, mentoring your mercurial talent with a consistent player helps him to remove it from the player. I had a regen (probably Di Maria) who started with a mercurial talent and an enigmatic player in his coach report. I mentored him with another player who got consistent player and high professionalism and picked up both traits from him. He’s now a consistent player with normal personality.

 

That’s the end of our lesson. I hope it helps everyone. If you have any question just drop it down below. Good Bye!

[billy2shots]

Very nice write up.

 

In a nutshell an inconsistent player is any player with less than great stats.

 

A mercurial talent is an inconsistent player with quality stats and or potential to be a quality player.

 

The question.

Will you out up with inconsistent performance if on his day he's a world beater?

 

[broodje kip]

6 minutes ago, billy2shots said:

Will you put up with inconsistent performance if on his day he's a world beater?

I’d say yes. He’s a good player and play consistently but he’ll have a bad time let’s say about a month or sometimes a week so that won’t worry me as long as I’m doing the first step 😉

[George Traistă]

Good one!!

I only saw that once. I try to make things simple and only look at professionalism and work rate. 

[hhooo]

I had always associated mercurial with high dribbling and movement based on my personal observations. Good to know the differences. Thanks! 

[Ashez]

The answer in FMM terms unfortunately in my opinion is "someone to avoid at all costs". 

The trait is interesting and it's a thing in real life, however in a game about luck, stats and coin flips it's not worth it. Why bank on the coin flip of him turning up that day and only potentially doing something when you can get a steady Eddy who'll always perform. 

Maybe they won't smash one in from 30 yards on the regular but maybe they'll make that defence splitting pass more often. 

The key stats to any player is availablity and consistency. Look at how many people have failed to make use of Balotelli or Ravel Morrison or even a Ricardo Quaresma. Quaresma was hyped at being natural talent wise better than Ronaldo, he's played for Barcelona, Chelsea and Inter Milan yet he'll be forgotten, sure he's had moments and he's been unplayable but without consistency it may take you to the top but it won't keep you there. Ronaldo had the work rate, desire, consistency and professionalism to make sure he's never, ever forgotten. 

Having this trait is similar to an injury, you wouldn't play a player at 80-90% on the regular and that's essentially what this trait means, it means you aren't always getting everything they can offer, you just get it when they feel like it or in FMM terms when the coin flip goes your way. 

Pogba is undoubtedly an incredible footballer (when he wants to be) but I'd always take a Jordan Henderson over him at the BBM role. I'd take 7-8/10 performances week in week out over loads of 6s with the odd 10. Obviously if you could find someone capable of 7-8s at their "I'm not bothered level" who can turn it up to 11 on occasions maybe it's worth it, but that's a hell of a lot rarer, but possibly possible in FMM. 

[broodje kip]

18 minutes ago, Ashez said:

The answer in FMM terms unfortunately in my opinion is "someone to avoid at all costs". 

The trait is interesting and it's a thing in real life, however in a game about luck, stats and coin flips it's not worth it. Why bank on the coin flip of him turning up that day and only potentially doing something when you can get a steady Eddy who'll always perform. 

Maybe they won't smash one in from 30 yards on the regular but maybe they'll make that defence splitting pass more often. 

The key stats to any player is availablity and consistency. Look at how many people have failed to make use of Balotelli or Ravel Morrison or even a Ricardo Quaresma. Quaresma was hyped at being natural talent wise better than Ronaldo, he's played for Barcelona, Chelsea and Inter Milan yet he'll be forgotten, sure he's had moments and he's been unplayable but without consistency it may take you to the top but it won't keep you there. Ronaldo had the work rate, desire, consistency and professionalism to make sure he's never, ever forgotten. 

Having this trait is similar to an injury, you wouldn't play a player at 80-90% on the regular and that's essentially what this trait means, it means you aren't always getting everything they can offer, you just get it when they feel like it or in FMM terms when the coin flip goes your way. 

Pogba is undoubtedly an incredible footballer (when he wants to be) but I'd always take a Jordan Henderson over him at the BBM role. I'd take 7-8/10 performances week in week out over loads of 6s with the odd 10. Obviously if you could find someone capable of 7-8s at their "I'm not bothered level" who can turn it up to 11 on occasions maybe it's worth it, but that's a hell of a lot rarer, but possibly possible in FMM. 

Yeah true Ash. In real life I wouldn’t risk my squad for a mercurial player like Pogba and take McTominay instead who’s more consistent and professional. In FMM I wouldn’t really bother someone who can give 7/8 each games and smash a 10 once in a while although it’s still quite rare.

[Ian]

I remember this coming up a year or two back and there seemed to be a bit of a debate about it as most of us kind of linked it to the ‘enigmatic player’ trait.

It’s certainly not a definite negative trait though as Bruno confirms. Not many better players on this game than him.

[broodje kip]

8 minutes ago, Ian said:

I remember this coming up a year or two back and there seemed to be a bit of a debate about it as most of us kind of linked it to the ‘enigmatic player’ trait.

It’s certainly not a definite negative trait though as Bruno confirms. Not many better players on this game than him.

Yeah, Sancho didn’t do that badly for me either but I can see why they gave it to Bruno.

[Felix_is_king]

Thanks for the insight. I always awed at the South Americans with mercurial talent because when I think mercurial I think neymar and anyone who wears the CR7 cleats. 

[broodje kip]

55 minutes ago, Felix_is_king said:

Thanks for the insight. I always awed at the South Americans with mercurial talent because when I think mercurial I think neymar and anyone who wears the CR7 cleats. 

I used to think the same honestly. I thought it’s only about the high agility and creativity but it is not.

[Stuttgartsteve]

another great article although i would stay away from someone mercurial because I would think they are inconsistent.

[Ian]

1 hour ago, Stuttgartsteve said:

another great article although i would stay away from someone mercurial because I would think they are inconsistent.

You’d stay away from Salah, KDB and Messi due to fears they’d be inconsistent? Each to their own I guess.

Spoiler

 

[Stuttgartsteve]

3 hours ago, Ian said:

You’d stay away from Salah, KDB and Messi due to fears they’d be inconsistent? Each to their own I guess.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

salah is a diving cheat de bruyne is ok as he is a ginge like me and messi isn’t as good as the real goat chris waddle

[DIRECTFX]

Very good write up and getting quotes directly from the source helps take some of the guessing out of it. I always believed as some others have said that mercurial was more of a negative as I thought of them as high dribbling & technical skills but they were more of a show off and I thought besides the uneven play was more worried about his impact on team morale especially with the added relationships this year thought the negative morale be bigger impact as could have teammates not like a mercurial talent but guess Marc didn’t seem they were negative in that area just strictly skills so I’ll give em another shot this year because of article .

 

@broodje kipAny idea maybe making this a series tackle some more positive/negative traits or personalities and what I really liked was the ways to correct traits/personalities  if you can (ie. mentoring, fines, training, coaches etc) . Think it would help lots of players getting a bit deeper into the game . Either way good job bro 👍

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by DIRECTFX
Link name

[broodje kip]

1 hour ago, DIRECTFX said:

@broodje kipAny idea maybe making this a series tackle some more positive/negative traits or personalities and what I really liked was the ways to correct traits/personalities  if you can (ie. mentoring, fines, training, coaches etc) . Think it would help lots of players getting a bit deeper into the game . Either way good job bro 👍

I haven’t really went deep into personalities and dynamics as I can’t find a real consistent way to improve them. Sometimes it says professionalism and work rate improved but after even a year, there’s no effect to it. 😕

[eternalaurora]

Sorry to bring up this ancient thread, but after observing a series of players, I believe "Mercurial talent" is a purely positive comment that symbolizes good technique, creativity, and flair. Lack of consistency is represented either by "Inconsistent player" or "A very enigmatic player" (poor consistency and professionalism). 

If "Mercurial talent" does represent good creativity but poor consistency, then David Silva's coach report would've contradicted itself.

Correction: "Mercurial talent" is just high flair and creativity, it does NOT indicate good technique.

Edited October 24, 2021 by eternalaurora

[broodje kip]

25 minutes ago, eternalaurora said:

Sorry to bring up this ancient thread, but after observing a series of players, I believe "Mercurial talent" is a purely positive comment that symbolizes good technique, creativity, and flair. Lack of consistency is represented either by "Inconsistent player" or "A very enigmatic player" (poor consistency and professionalism). 

If "Mercurial talent" does represent good creativity but poor consistency, then David Silva's coach report would've contradicted itself.

I thought the same but Marc Vaughan said this. Even the likes of Salah and Messi have mercurial talent on their coach report.

I believe this is because their “bad days” are just too good compared to the others. For example Messi will drop an 8 for his bad days but a massive level of 10 on his days.

[eternalaurora]

2 hours ago, broodje kip said:

I thought the same but Marc Vaughan said this. Even the likes of Salah and Messi have mercurial talent on their coach report.

I believe this is because their “bad days” are just too good compared to the others. For example Messi will drop an 8 for his bad days but a massive level of 10 on his days.

Salah and Messi have "Takes pride in his performances" in their coach report, which indicates good professionalism and consistency. If CR7 somehow gets his creativity boosted, he would also have "Mercurial talent" in his coach report and he has 20 consistency.

No offense to Marc, but sometimes staff members forget things as well.

Edited October 24, 2021 by eternalaurora

[broodje kip]

1 hour ago, eternalaurora said:

Salah and Messi have "Takes pride in his performances" in their coach report, which indicates good professionalism and consistency. If CR7 somehow gets his creativity boosted, he would also have "Mercurial talent" in his coach report and he has 20 consistency.

No offense to Marc, but sometimes staff members forget things as well.

Yeah, maybe you’re right. I didn’t know about Ronaldo’s consistency but something I’ve found is players with 15+ agility, if you get their coach report, they often have mercurial talent. I haven’t found one that doesn’t.

[eternalaurora]

48 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

Yeah, maybe you’re right. I didn’t know about Ronaldo’s consistency but something I’ve found is players with 15+ agility, if you get their coach report, they often have mercurial talent. I haven’t found one that doesn’t.

Check out KDB, Pogba, Benzema, Isco, and Tadic.

Edited October 24, 2021 by eternalaurora

[Ashez]

54 minutes ago, broodje kip said:

Yeah, maybe you’re right. I didn’t know about Ronaldo’s consistency but something I’ve found is players with 15+ agility, if you get their coach report, they often have mercurial talent. I haven’t found one that doesn’t.

I thought aglilty was a goalkeeper stat tbf?

[broodje kip]

2 hours ago, Ashez said:

I thought aglilty was a goalkeeper stat tbf?

Yeah but for some reason outfield players have agility too. It’s just that they don’t show it on their face stats.

[eternalaurora]

13 hours ago, Ashez said:

I thought aglilty was a goalkeeper stat tbf?

All players have all categories of attributes. An outfield player will still have the goalkeeper attributes although they would usually be pretty low, but agility seems to be an exception.

[Ian]

I’ve often wondered why agility doesn’t feature on the game as an attribute for outfield players as you’d think it would do. Pretty sure it’s there on the full game, or at least I’m sure it was years ago. Perhaps it’s there in the background mixed in with another attribute like say movement, dribbling or maybe even technique.

[eternalaurora]

12 minutes ago, Ian said:

I’ve often wondered why agility doesn’t feature on the game as an attribute for outfield players as you’d think it would do. Pretty sure it’s there on the full game, or at least I’m sure it was years ago. Perhaps it’s there in the background mixed in with another attribute like say movement, dribbling or maybe even technique.

It's not mixed. It is hidden in the background along with other goalie attributes. You can see them if you change their main position to goalkeeper.

[Ian]

6 minutes ago, eternalaurora said:

It's not mixed. It is hidden in the background along with other goalie attributes. You can see them if you change their main position to goalkeeper.

Interesting, thank you. Can you show me how to do that please as I’ve just been on the game and I can’t seem to retrain an outfield player to the GK position. 

[eternalaurora]

20 minutes ago, Ian said:

Interesting, thank you. Can you show me how to do that please as I’ve just been on the game and I can’t seem to retrain an outfield player to the GK position. 

I think you need to use IGE for that.

[broodje kip]

33 minutes ago, eternalaurora said:

It's not mixed. It is hidden in the background along with other goalie attributes. You can see them if you change their main position to goalkeeper.

You can see it if you search it on the transfer market too.

[Ian]

2 minutes ago, eternalaurora said:

I think you need to use IGE for that.

Thank you, so yes it is hidden and I’m kind of still wondering why it is for outfield players.