Training-- Is it truly THAT important?

Managing at AC Milan into my second season, just curious how important it is to train by lets say, position (seperate training for defenders, mids, forwards, etc.)

If I'm at such a strong squad as Milan does it make a difference compared to a smaller club?

And will my players improve more rapidly if they are in training by position compared to just the generic training scheme

Young players who play 1st team football always improve quicker so if you want your youngsters to develop quickly the best thing is to either play them or send them out on loan. Even the best training set up won't improve youngsters as quick as regular competitive football will.

As for customising training - well it's obviously useful in that your players will develop their key attributes ie your strikers won't waste all their potential on defensive attributes, but they won't learn faster - just in better areas.

Players improve a hell of alot if you have very good staff, it's worth the effort getting 7 star coaches, if you don't want to make your own training schedule then use Tugs training, this also drastically improves the chances of your players improving, althogh this obviously depends on their PA, if they don't have a decent PA then they won't improve regardless of the coaches, schedule or facilities

Managing at AC Milan into my second season, just curious how important it is to train by lets say, position (seperate training for defenders, mids, forwards, etc.)

If I'm at such a strong squad as Milan does it make a difference compared to a smaller club?

And will my players improve more rapidly if they are in training by position compared to just the generic training scheme

I find the Generic training schedule is far to likely to cause injuries and to get the best out of you players, you should make a point of training for specific positions, otherwise key attributes for a players position wont rise as much as they would otherwise, your coaches will just be wasting their time raising irrelevant attributes, eg finishing for dc's. I'd strongly advise you to either create a regime yourself,or alternatively do what I did and download the regime created by Tug, I've been using it for a few seasons now and It's working great for me.

ah thanks guys, this Tug training scheme sure does work wonders then eh?

Yep

Young players who play 1st team football always improve quicker so if you want your youngsters to develop quickly the best thing is to either play them or send them out on loan. Even the best training set up won't improve youngsters as quick as regular competitive football will.

As for customising training - well it's obviously useful in that your players will develop their key attributes ie your strikers won't waste all their potential on defensive attributes, but they won't learn faster - just in better areas.

Still haven't found an answer to this question:

Is it better to keep a player on your reserve team (club rep over 5000) or send them to a smaller affiliate (rep around 1800) to play on the first team? In previous versions the training overview page would mention that "the player has declined slightly" over the past few months upon returning to my team, so I haven't really used the loan function in 09 in hope of avoiding this.

And what makes the Tug training scheme effective?

ah thanks guys, this Tug training scheme sure does work wonders then eh?

It probably does but many players consider it a bit of a cheat, like dowloading tactics. Personally I find it more rewarding to work these things out for myself.

looknohands - you've gotta bear in mind that the weaker sides will have weaker training facs and coaches. It's all swings and roundabouts unfortunately

I have my own training set that I set up to complement my tactics that I came up with. I believe it is important to have position specific training. Also I have used Tugs myself before and found it really good

Still haven't found an answer to this question:

Is it better to keep a player on your reserve team (club rep over 5000) or send them to a smaller affiliate (rep around 1800) to play on the first team? In previous versions the training overview page would mention that "the player has declined slightly" over the past few months upon returning to my team, so I haven't really used the loan function in 09 in hope of avoiding this.

And what makes the Tug training scheme effective?

I'm not sure if this is still the case but if you loaned a player to a non-playable league in previous versions he would never improve, so to be safe you should loan him to a playable league to a club who want him as a valuable first team player.

I see. Thanks for the quick reply!

It's annoying really, because you would think, that if you are going by what usually happens when a youngster plays in the first team, that the league football itself when on loan would help them to improve, but it doesn't seem so.

I recently loaned two players, a goalkeeper and a right back to a non-league side because they wouldn't have got any football in my first team, despite being decent players. The right back had played 10 first team games the season before for me and he played a full season of games whilst on loan. Unfortunately his speed and stamina had gone down from 14 to 13, and I didn't see any improvement in other parts of his game. The goalkeeper, likewise played a full year and no improvements. Both players are 18ish.

It's more disappointing, because both would likely have improved if they had remained with me and played in the reserves. They may have seen some first team action because I had injury problems in both goal and the right back position. I ended up playing a 16 year old goalie in one league game.

There was a very interesting thread about training a while ago: Just how important is a 7 star training schedule?.

It's a long thread but you can search for some brilliant posts by a guy there, Hawshiels, that explain many things about training, how it works, how it impoves youngsters etc. On the last page you can read a mini review of the hole thread, you'll be surprised, anyway.

Thanks to FMRTE, I can now say that it appears that loaned players do improve when going on loan to non-playable leagues; I signed a Brazilian striker who was ineligible to play club football until 2009 but sent him to my non-playable feeder club (where the ban doesn't seem to apply -nice!) At the start of the game, the player had a CA of 88 and as of July 1st his CA is now 92. Not bad, considering the team's rep is only 1800 or so. An important note: I did improve the training facilities of the various unplayable American and Canadian teams to anywhere from 12 to 15 (good facilities) in the editor, so if you're limited to a league that doesn't have a playable league lower than the one you're in, this may be a necessary step to take.

The quick overview is:

In terms of a players' development (CA), I believe that the following is true:

Competitive match experience at the right level is the critical factor

A Full-Time contract and staying healthy are very important factors

Mentoring and high Morale are important factors

Facilities and Ambition are moderate factors

Training Intensity, Work Rate, and Determination are mild factors

Quality of coaches is a non-factor

However, Training is very important for determining which attribute(s) a successful rise in CA is applied to - especially so as early attribute rises can contribute to success on the pitch, which can contribute to high Morale and continued competitive match experience.

When I'm looking to loan a player out, I'm looking for the following:

- The "right level" of competition. (An 18-year-old Wayne Rooney wasn't likely to learn much from a loan to the Conference North no matter how much he played .. while a mediocre 16-year-old would be in over his head if loaned to a top Championship side)

- A club predicted to do well in their league. (Because wins on the pitch should contribute to high Morale; I also expect that they will be involved in plenty of Important Matches down the stretch.)

- A club in an active league with a void at his position. (Active league mostly from habit, and a void because he's likely to start whenever healthy.)

- In case of ties, find the club with the best facilities.

In terms of training schedules, I've evolved all the way from having just three ("pre-season", "attacking", and "defending") into the "one training schedule per player" approach, which can be both time-consuming and very rewarding.