What decides how good player turned staff can become?

I'm running a bit of an experiment, where I've let several people 'create' a player at the age of 15 (with some limitations), and I've ran it on holiday for a while now. I set them all to want to be staff after they retired, and indeed all of those who have retired by now (a couple are still going at 37) are staff, mostly scouts or youth coaches. I used FM Genie Scout to check up on them, and it seems like, at best, they have 130 potential as staff. Most of them have 130, though one (the one who retired first) has 104 for some reason. Strangely he's the only one who is a manger so far, at CCC level.

These were all 200 potential players, and nearly all had very successful careers ("among the best in the world" successful). When I saw the first one have 130, I figured it was a result of his mental stats or something like that, but now that I know that nearly all of them have exactly 130 potential, I don't know. Surely there's not a hard coded rule that players who turn into staff have that low potential? I know this isn't right either, since other, real, players who turned into staff have other levels. John Terry, for example, has 170 potential (and 170 ability, as it were). I was hoping that I could continue running the simulation (I've posted yearly updates since it started), but it wont be very fun if none of "us" have a big chance of being successful staff. Then again, John Arne Riise has 95 staff potential, and he's managed several big clubs.

Anyone got an explanation?

(I guess the last thing I could do is use an in-game editor and give us all 200 staff potential)

I think, from reading Kipfizh's excellent Bandits thread, that some mental attributes such as determination can have an affect. But more importantly some hidden attributes such as ambition can have a rather large effect, or so it seemed in that thread.

Many of the players he created had low attributes for ambition, and when they went onto be coaches this seemed to affect not only their PA, but also the roles they went into. Many were happy just to stay as coaches because of their low ambition and high loyalty attributes.

What hidden and mental attributes did these players have?

Ah, I hadn't really considered the hidden attributes. They all have identical hidden mental attributes (the ambition, loyalty, etc kind). But do the visual mental attributes matter not at all? At the time of retiring, they had quite different attributes. Sure, some had very similar to eachother, but overall too much variation for them all to end up as 130 potential. But if the hidden attributes are all that matter, then that would explain it.

Hidden attributes are could be the reason, but I can't say for certain. It's certainly worth thinking about though. Do you have any way of checking what their hidden attributes were before they became staff? It would be interesting to know if this was indeed the reason.

Something I annoyingly noticed (in FM 07 at least) is: I'll say a player with high Determination (among other things) would make a good manager or coach, then when he gets a staff profile his Determination goes from 18 to 5. I suppose the new Det. is his Det. for coaching/managing, still annoying though.

I'm yet to see a player become a manager in 09 but that could very well be because i've not encountered them yet.

I'm yet to see a player become a manager in 09 but that could very well be because i've not encountered them yet.

Well that would be logical.

Hidden attributes are could be the reason, but I can't say for certain. It's certainly worth thinking about though. Do you have any way of checking what their hidden attributes were before they became staff? It would be interesting to know if this was indeed the reason.

I've got a save for every year. I checked one a few years before, when everyone was still playing, and one 2-3 years into the experiment. And now I'm actually more unsure. I put the same "Person Data Attributes" in the editor at the start of the experiment, as listed below.

Adaptability: 12

Ambition: 20

Controversy: 10

Determination: 15

Loyalty: 10

Pressure: 12

Professionalism: 12

Sportsmanship: 12

Temperament: 12

These all seem to have been changed to different degrees in the actual game, probably related to the other stats they actually picked out for themselves. So by the end of the game, at least these mental attributes are different to varying degrees, none having exactly the same. They're sort of similar, but similar enough for everyone but one to have exactly 130 potential as staff? Are there perhaps any SI people who can comment on this (if they happen upon the thread)?

Anyone have the answer to this?

I do recall looking into this a little with FM08 and I too noticed that the majority of players turned staff, had PA130.

Maybe it's something they've just not got around to, or spent time on tweeking. In very long term games, I used to see that although the ex "real" players might have better reputations, eventually the "newgen" managers would start to take over as they often had better PA and developed better.