FC position?

In every previous version of FM/CM that I can remember, there have always been two types of striker position, "ST" and "FC". I never knew the exact difference, but I always understood FC to be a sort of second striker/number 10 type role, with the ST being the fully-fledged front man. When playing 4-4-2 in previous versions I always tried where possible to pair an ST with an FC up top, and it always seemed to serve me well.

I've had my first look at the FM11 demo and there doesn't appear to be any sort of FC in the game, wondering what the situation with this is? Was the change made to reflect the fact that most teams these days tend to play with just one out and out striker with 5 midfielders in various guises (4-5-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3) etc?

Or is it simply a case of all strikers being described as ST's now - or would an AM ©, ST in FM11 be the equivalent of an FC in previous games?

Not fussed either way, just genuinely curious.

Also sorry if this has been raised before but the search function doesn't seem to behave when searching for a word/phrase/abbreviation of just two characters.

IIRC, they are the same except for the hidden free role, which a FC has a high rating and a ST has a lower rating.

FC was just a ST with free role attribute >15. I guess they've decided that this sort of distinction isn't really necessary anymore.

It does take away from the hidden nature of the free role attribute, to be identified through FC vs ST.

Why would you hide it in the first place though?

I think they've pretty much removed (or heavily reduced) the effect it had in the match engine anyway. The tactics wizard assigns 'roam from position' on quite a few roles. In older games players with a low free role attribute would suffer noticeably from having this instruction, this doesn't seem to happen in the last couple of versions.