Question about retraining players

If you retrain a player, do they keep their original position aswell as the new one, or does it completely replace the old position with the new one?

They still have natural in the original position and get better with the new one with time and games

Yay thanks, was worried I'd lose the extra versatility

Yay thanks, was worried I'd lose the extra versatility

Don't forget that gaining extra position mean you eat up some CA point for that player (if i remember correctly).

So expect drop in some stat

REally?? :O ... oh darn ... I always train the small creative midfielders in youth to AMC's en the tall strong ones to DMc's ... that means i might have spoiled points on just 'learning' a new position?

I always do this. Even with 'strange' things ... like when I have a 1m80-1m90 winger with high Jumping and heading skills I retrain him to DC

im not sure about them losing ca/pa points if you retrain them, although i very rarely retrain players... maybe someone else could answer that point?? i could see it being more difficult for them to reach their pa, especially if you're doin things like retraining a winger to be a cb....

Retraining does use up large amounts of CA. I was reading in someones experimentary thread (forget whos) that the first and one of the most significant uses of CA is positions.

Ched is 100% correct. The reason is because when the computer works out the player's stats, it takes into account something called "free stats". These are stats that DO NOT take up any CA points, depending on the position of the player. For example, Heading for a DC would clearly NOT be free, however I believe Finishing is (since DCs dont' really use it). ALL set pieces are free for all positions, since in real life if you get ur entire team to take lots of penalties, they are obviously going to get better at them, but its not like learning how to take them makes you forget how to dribble!

When you retrain a new position, it takes away some of those free stats, leading to the game having to take the points away from them to "fill up" the new position score. Its alot more complicated than this, but you get the idea.

Would it be best not to bother re-training positions then? If it makes them less of a player, then i wont bother...

Retraining does use up large amounts of CA. I was reading in someones experimentary thread (forget whos) that the first and one of the most significant uses of CA is positions.

Ched is 100% correct. The reason is because when the computer works out the player's stats, it takes into account something called "free stats". These are stats that DO NOT take up any CA points, depending on the position of the player. For example, Heading for a DC would clearly NOT be free, however I believe Finishing is (since DCs dont' really use it). ALL set pieces are free for all positions, since in real life if you get ur entire team to take lots of penalties, they are obviously going to get better at them, but its not like learning how to take them makes you forget how to dribble!

When you retrain a new position, it takes away some of those free stats, leading to the game having to take the points away from them to "fill up" the new position score. Its alot more complicated than this, but you get the idea.

cheers you two, cleared that up nicely for me!! never knew that!

i assume it would do the same for those who have some sort of ability in the new position? ie ryan babel as amr or ryan taylor as lb??

Would it be best not to bother re-training positions then? If it makes them less of a player, then i wont bother...

There are only 2 benefits from re-training positions for a player. Firstly, if they already have some excellent stats to play there but aren't very accustomed to it, so they end up with slightly higher average ratings. Secondly, is if you train (and play) a player on the opposite side to their strongest foot, i.e. an AML with 20 and 3 for left and right foot being trained as an AMR. This is because his right foot score will improve, GREATLY improving him as a player. However, it takes something like 3 seasons of training to get even a 1 point increase in their foot score. So in summary, its best not to bother lol.

cheers you two, cleared that up nicely for me!! never knew that!

i assume it would do the same for those who have some sort of ability in the new position? ie ryan babel as amr or ryan taylor as lb??

The game removes the free stats of a player after they reach a value of 10 or above in that "new" position. So if they already have above 10 in the position, the game's already removed the free stats so you won't lose as much CA from continuing to train them there. An example would be Elano, who has a very high score in ALOT of positions. He basically has no free stats, so improving his position values shouldnt change his stats too much, but will obv take up some of his CA points.

Thanks for all the replies guys, Was just wanting to retrain steven taylor and christopher samba to DC/DR's since good, cheapish DR's are in such short supply, and I've went ahead with it. Thanks again.

Is there a more thorough explanation of CA and 'free stats' somewhere? I never knew this r/e CA and position training, and am shocked really.

Is there a more thorough explanation of CA and 'free stats' somewhere? I never knew this r/e CA and position training, and am shocked really.

There might be somewhere - the thread that contained the experiment i read was around pre-forum change, hence it may have been deleted. I suspect that if you do a search it won't turn up anything useful due to the frequency of "CA/PA" debates.

If i find it or remember who wrote it i'll post it here

There are only 2 benefits from re-training positions for a player. Firstly, if they already have some excellent stats to play there but aren't very accustomed to it, so they end up with slightly higher average ratings. Secondly, is if you train (and play) a player on the opposite side to their strongest foot, i.e. an AML with 20 and 3 for left and right foot being trained as an AMR. This is because his right foot score will improve, GREATLY improving him as a player. However, it takes something like 3 seasons of training to get even a 1 point increase in their foot score. So in summary, its best not to bother lol.

Also take in account that if you boost the weak foot you drain a big amount of CA points .

Also take in account that if you boost the weak foot you drain a big amount of CA points .

Oh good god yes, i forgot to mention that. Never retrain a player to play on both sides, as this may cause his weaker foot to improve and then your more likely to be left with an absolute chimp. Also i'd strongly suggest binning any youth player who is two footed.

I had a regen who in the end acheived 190CA, however he was entirely two footed, which meant he only had 2 technical stats >15 and 1 physical stat >15 - he was shocking. However because the AI can only see CA i managed to get £65m for him, i felt quite evil afterward lol

Let me guess: This phenomena of position training draining CA doesn't take into account the Versatility stat? So even if its easy for a player to learn new positions this is still going to limit him in the same way (actually a faster way) than a player with less versatility?

So Versatility is junk. I'm upset now. Why in the world would position training limit the development of other skills?

"John could have been a great right winger, but he also learned to play left wing, which seriously impaired his ability to dribble and cross the ball".

Um. Yeah.

Well, just one more way i've been unwittingly sabotaging my team, i guess.

I understand why the game values certain attributes more for specific positions, but this seems like an unfortunate consequence of that. I also wonder how you were supposed to know this, or figure it out, without using a third-party program to look at CA.

I guess the moral of the story is never to use the retraining feature, which is disappointing.

Well, just one more way i've been unwittingly sabotaging my team, i guess.

Same here, such a shame. I loved the feature.

So Versatility is junk. I'm upset now. Why in the world would position training limit the development of other skills?

Actually, it is fairly reasonable, really.

If you're a great AMR, but I need someone to play WBR, I need to train you in skills that have nothing to do with attacking, but all the more with defending. If that takes me 6 months to get you to learn how to place a proper tackle (despite you not really having a talent for it), you eventually learn it (despite still sucking at it, but you'll manage by now), but hey - you actually haven't trained at all in those 6 months in any of your attacking abilities. So of course you're not progressing that well in that part of the game.

And if you take in mind that progressing is a linear process with training, it is fairly clear that you managed to underachieve in the PA you could've been gaining, but you did get the ability to play in a different position you didn't have before. In short, it's a fair trade of progress-points, so to say. In real life it's not all that different; if a trainer trains you constantly as a central defender while you being most suitable as a striker, your potential never gets unlocked. And when a new trainer takes over and plays you as that striker, you probably never get to the level you could've got, unless you're a real gem :-)

Wow! Fascinating insights here. However, this is the first place that I've ever read the idea that the VERSATILITY attribute is no use whatsoever. Can we get conformation on this, as it's a pretty explosive claim!

Wow! Fascinating insights here. However, this is the first place that I've ever read the idea that the VERSATILITY attribute is no use whatsoever. Can we get conformation on this, as it's a pretty explosive claim!

I haven't claimed that anywhere - iirc the versatility attribute reflects how quickly a player may adapt to a new position and how well he may play in a position for which he isn't trained.

It may also dictate how many CA points are used up per position, e.g. a guy with versatility 2 may use 30CA per position, whilst a guy with Ver20 may only use 10 - this is just speculation on my part, but the first paragraph i seem to remember reading somewhere.

Oh good god yes, i forgot to mention that. Never retrain a player to play on both sides, as this may cause his weaker foot to improve and then your more likely to be left with an absolute chimp. Also i'd strongly suggest binning any youth player who is two footed.

I had a regen who in the end acheived 190CA, however he was entirely two footed, which meant he only had 2 technical stats >15 and 1 physical stat >15 - he was shocking. However because the AI can only see CA i managed to get £65m for him, i felt quite evil afterward lol

No no no no no no no no no!

You've completely misunderstood how the weaker foot score works! The game works out a players technical stats according to 3 things, their starting values, how much CA he has, and how STRONG ARE HIS FEET. A player with 20 and 16 for his left and right feet with only 15 for dribbling is a MUCH better dribbler than a player with 20 and 1 and 19 for dribbling. If you got rid of a regen with 190 PA and he was two-footed, you basically sold a regen version of rooney or ronaldo (if u look at them, their technical stats aren't actually that high, same for tevez, because they are "Either Footed", but they all have 185+ PA). Ever noticed how some players (especially strikers) seem to score against your team every time you play them? Examples for me were (The 3 I just mentioned), Leroy Lita, Kitson and Dean Ashton - ALL of these players are either footed.

The reduction the game makes in their technical stats due to their two feet score improving is smaller than the improvement they gain from having better feet. So basically, if possible, retrain every player you own to be two footed! (Oh and buy Mutu, he's a GOD) - they're technical stats might not look as pretty as with a "single footed" player - but they will be amazing in the match engine. I once bought an entire team who were either footed (so at least 14 on both feet) they were incredible.

No no no no no no no no no!

You've completely misunderstood how the weaker foot score works! The game works out a players technical stats according to 3 things, their starting values, how much CA he has, and how STRONG ARE HIS FEET. A player with 20 and 16 for his left and right feet with only 15 for dribbling is a MUCH better dribbler than a player with 20 and 1 and 19 for dribbling. If you got rid of a regen with 190 PA and he was two-footed, you basically sold a regen version of rooney or ronaldo (if u look at them, their technical stats aren't actually that high, same for tevez, because they are "Either Footed", but they all have 185+ PA). Ever noticed how some players (especially strikers) seem to score against your team every time you play them? Examples for me were (The 3 I just mentioned), Leroy Lita, Kitson and Dean Ashton - ALL of these players are either footed.

The reduction the game makes in their technical stats due to their two feet score improving is smaller than the improvement they gain from having better feet. So basically, if possible, retrain every player you own to be two footed! (Oh and buy Mutu, he's a GOD)

I assure you, the regen i sold was rubbish - he had an avg rating of 6.2 for gods sake! Every two footed regen player i've seen has performed dismally. Two footed players already in existence work fine, but regens just seem flawed.

Oh and i'll never buy that coke monkey. (chelsea fan who made the error of buying a shirt with MUTU on the back some years ago lol)

NB: I'm talking about entirely two footed players - e.g. very strong and strong - i've had very successful players who have a reasonable weaker foot.

I assure you, the regen i sold was rubbish - he had an avg rating of 6.2 for gods sake! Every two footed regen player i've seen has performed dismally. Two footed players already in existence work fine, but regens just seem flawed.

Oh and i'll never buy that coke monkey. (chelsea fan who made the error of buying a shirt with MUTU on the back some years ago lol)

NB: I'm talking about entirely two footed players - e.g. very strong and strong - i've had very successful players who have a reasonable weaker foot.

Ok then with a rating THAT low you did some good work to get that much for him, however, its well known that alot of regens are dodgy (thats why I never buy them).

Basically, the best way to judge how good a player is, is to look at their CA/PA, NOT their technical stats. At the end of the day, a player with a CA of 185 HAS to have used all those points on something. So fabregas for example is an outstanding player, but has a very weak "weaker foot". I assure you, two-footed players are the best in the game, their defenders have a higher tackling % (ferdinand is incredible, despite his "low" technicals), their passing is more accurate, crossing % higher, basically all technical abilities with their feet are better.

Have a read of this thread for proof:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=18848&highlight=ability+research

Yeah I've noticed Mutu is a god. Man that guy scores from every angle and from every distance! (talking bout FM btw)

Anyhoo thanks for the info I never read so much about retraining players, CA and PA.

alot of regens are dodgy (thats why I never buy them)

It's 2032, i don't have much choice

Basically, the best way to judge how good a player is, is to look at their CA/PA, NOT their technical stats. At the end of the day, a player with a CA of 185 HAS to have used all those points on something. So fabregas for example is an outstanding player, but has a very weak "weaker foot". I assure you, two-footed players are the best in the game, their defenders have a higher tackling % (ferdinand is incredible, despite his "low" technicals), their passing is more accurate, crossing % higher, basically all technical abilities with their feet are better.

This sort of screws up searching for player attributes doesn't it? If i find a striker with 19 finishing and composure, then he might not be better than a two footed player with 15 finishing?

I prefered it the old way, where it either didn't, or didn't seem to use CA points, a players footedness (my new fav word ) was something that just...was.

So basically what you (Savagenick) are saying is that Sneijder should be a God in the game because he is as two-footed as a player can be in FM (and his stats are very high)?

It's 2032, i don't have much choice

Lol Fair enough then!

This sort of screws up searching for player attributes doesn't it? If i find a striker with 19 finishing and composure, then he might not be better than a two footed player with 15 finishing?

I prefered it the old way, where it either didn't, or didn't seem to use CA points, a players footedness (my new fav word ) was something that just...was.

Yup, your totally right, its confusing as hell! And ur correct about those values aswell, an either-footed striker with 15+ for finishing will be absolutely amazing (see Rooney, Eto'o, Shevchenko, tevez, del piero, trezeguet, totti, benzema, mutu, rossi, klose etc etc). You can basically tell how good a team is according to how many either-footed players it has (arsenal, man utd, chelsea, barca, real madrid and Roma are examples where at least half the first team squad are either-footed). A special mention needs to go to Totti and De Rossi - I bought both of them and put them in the centre of the park and they are magical - with their high CA and PAs, VERY high either-foot scores and their rediculous number of Preferred Moves.

OK then.... I retrain ALL my players apart form GKs....... the reason being, is that I've always got cover....

So..... if i take them all off of retraining, will my players/team dramatically improve???

OK then.... I retrain ALL my players apart form GKs....... the reason being, is that I've always got cover....

So..... if i take them all off of retraining, will my players/team dramatically improve???

Well atm, if the retraining is going through properly (i.e. you are playing all the players in their "new" positions AND retraining them at the same time) then you are using up ALOT of CA points. If they have reached a 10 or above in the new position then you have used even more CA points. So if you take them off the retraining, then they will start to improve in a normal way their stats yes. However, if you aren't retraining them properly (i.e. they are "squad" players) then it wont have made much difference. So it depends entirely upon your situation. If you stop the retraining and their position score goes below 10, then you'll get all those lovely free stats back again and so they will jump back up.

Ok then with a rating THAT low you did some good work to get that much for him, however, its well known that alot of regens are dodgy (thats why I never buy them).

Basically, the best way to judge how good a player is, is to look at their CA/PA, NOT their technical stats.

Sorry but this is not entirely true at all. Looking solely at CA/PA is most definitely not the best way to judge how good a player will be. I've seen plenty of high CA players outplayed by lower CA players simply because that lower CA players attributes are more geared towards their position. Two examples of this are players in the game called Salvatore Foti and Guilherme (sp?). Foti has a PA in the 130's so is never going to be classed as decent looking solely at this. However, he has perfect attributes to make him a target man striker and therefore despite having low PA he's always been fantastic for me. The only downside being that no matter how well he plays or how many goals he scores his value never gets much higher than £5m, due to his low PA.

Guilherme is my other example. In my current Sunderland game this player has a PA of only 151. However, because his attributes are distributed in such a way that makes him an excellent fast striker he's played absolutely amazing for me for the past 4 seasons. If I'd been looking solely at CA and PA I would never even have signed him. Another good indicator of this is using the Best Position type thing on Genie. This looks at the players and tells you, based on all attributes and hidden attributes etc, how good a player will be in the positions they can play. Plenty of the people who are high on this list have CA's and PA's below 170, but because of the spread of their attributes thay are better than other, high CA players.

So basically PA is not everything, attributes generally are more important. Either footedness may make some players better in the game but I now just disregard it and look at attributes. All my best players have been the ones who had the best attributes for their position, rather than the ones who were either footed.

Ched is 100% correct. The reason is because when the computer works out the player's stats, it takes into account something called "free stats". These are stats that DO NOT take up any CA points, depending on the position of the player. For example, Heading for a DC would clearly NOT be free, however I believe Finishing is (since DCs dont' really use it). ALL set pieces are free for all positions, since in real life if you get ur entire team to take lots of penalties, they are obviously going to get better at them, but its not like learning how to take them makes you forget how to dribble!

When you retrain a new position, it takes away some of those free stats, leading to the game having to take the points away from them to "fill up" the new position score. Its alot more complicated than this, but you get the idea.

If this is true then surely there is no problem in retraining a player just to play in a different part of the pitch. If you have MC and you want to retrain him to be a MRC then he'll still have the same free attributes as he's still a midfielder. He'll just now have the ability to play on the right side of midfield as well. I imagine the same goes for training an AMR to be an AMC, still the same free attributes but the player can now just play in more positions.

So if you're trying to re-train a CB to be a FC then you may get a problem due to the different free attributes, but just training you CB to be a RB shouldn't be an issue.

I retrain a lot and have never seen a noticeable drop in attributes while doing it.

Sorry but this is not entirely true at all. Looking solely at CA/PA is most definitely not the best way to judge how good a player will be. I've seen plenty of high CA players outplayed by lower CA players simply because that lower CA players attributes are more geared towards their position. Two examples of this are players in the game called Salvatore Foti and Guilherme (sp?). Foti has a PA in the 130's so is never going to be classed as decent looking solely at this. However, he has perfect attributes to make him a target man striker and therefore despite having low PA he's always been fantastic for me. The only downside being that no matter how well he plays or how many goals he scores his value never gets much higher than £5m, due to his low PA.

Guilherme is my other example. In my current Sunderland game this player has a PA of only 151. However, because his attributes are distributed in such a way that makes him an excellent fast striker he's played absolutely amazing for me for the past 4 seasons. If I'd been looking solely at CA and PA I would never even have signed him. Another good indicator of this is using the Best Position type thing on Genie. This looks at the players and tells you, based on all attributes and hidden attributes etc, how good a player will be in the positions they can play. Plenty of the people who are high on this list have CA's and PA's below 170, but because of the spread of their attributes thay are better than other, high CA players.

So basically PA is not everything, attributes generally are more important. Either footedness may make some players better in the game but I now just disregard it and look at attributes. All my best players have been the ones who had the best attributes for their position, rather than the ones who were either footed.

I definitely take your point, what I really meant to say was "Use your common sense". If a player has excellent stats for the particular job you want him for, then he will most likely be excellent for it. However, when it comes to technical attributes, the Either footed-ness is the most important thing and so don't be put off by low scores here, as long has the player has high foot scores and at least reasonable tech attributes, its likely he will still be excellent for you. Im not saying ONLY buy either-footed, otherwise fabregas wouldn't be very good in the game would he?

If this is true then surely there is no problem in retraining a player just to play in a different part of the pitch. If you have MC and you want to retrain him to be a MRC then he'll still have the same free attributes as he's still a midfielder. He'll just now have the ability to play on the right side of midfield as well. I imagine the same goes for training an AMR to be an AMC, still the same free attributes but the player can now just play in more positions.

So if you're trying to re-train a CB to be a FC then you may get a problem due to the different free attributes, but just training you CB to be a RB shouldn't be an issue.

I retrain a lot and have never seen a noticeable drop in attributes while doing it.

This isn't actually accurate and I'll explain why.

An MC isn't expected to cross the ball very much, neither is a CB. However, MR, AMR and DR's ARE expected to cross (since thats actually their main job) so by retraining a player from the center to either side, you lose crossing (which is a free stat for MC and DCs) and a couple of other free stats, so these will go down. There's a very large post on all of this (with proper testing) here:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=18848&highlight=ability+research

An MC isn't expected to cross the ball very much, neither is a CB. However, MR, AMR and DR's ARE expected to cross (since thats actually their main job) so by retraining a player from the center to either side, you lose crossing (which is a free stat for MC and DCs) and a couple of other free stats, so these will go down. There's a very large post on all of this (with proper testing) here:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=18848&highlight=ability+research

Wait.

So, if I read your post right, it means that when you retrain a MC to a MR, you lose crossing? A very valuable stat for a MR? Which means your MC will become a worse MR when properly retrained to play there?

(no, haven't had the time to read the link yet)

Wait.

So, if I read your post right, it means that when you retrain a MC to a MR, you lose crossing? A very valuable stat for a MR? Which means your MC will become a worse MR when properly retrained to play there?

(no, haven't had the time to read the link yet)

No. If you train a MC to a MR then crossing becomes significant - i.e. a MC with crossing 18 will not have it affect his CA, however a MR will have it impact his CA as crossing is not a "free-stat" for MRs. So if you retrain a MC to MR then both stats significant for MC and MR will be taken into account when using up CA - hence a multirole MC and MR will have lower stats than a dedicated MC or MR with the same CA - it's a fairly logical state of affairs imo.

I'd like this system to be redone so that a player can be retrained only if he has spare CA points. As it is now, retraining reduces ability points all over the board and it's not realistic that learning to play in another position would damage pace, influence, work rate, concentration, dribbling etc. There are certain areas that would be affected IRL, but not to this extent.

I'd like this system to be redone so that a player can be retrained only if he has spare CA points. As it is now, retraining reduces ability points all over the board and it's not realistic that learning to play in another position would damage pace, influence, work rate, concentration, dribbling etc. There are certain areas that would be affected IRL, but not to this extent.

I'm almost certain it can't affect physical stats and i'm fairly sure that mental stats develop independantly of CA - i read it somewhere when someone had bought guilherme and asked that since his CA had reached it's max when he was 21, would he not dev any further - the reply, i think by cleon, was that he would.

Thanks for the explanation, Ched. And yeah, that does sound logical, but who said that FM always plays the game of logic ;-)

I assume that, when you're a natural in MC and MR, when re-training to a ML, you shouldn't be losing as many of your free stats (except for weak foot-training) as changing to a position entirely different like a ST or DC, right? Seeing how your MR-role already has taken into account all non-free stats you're using as a ML after all.

I'm almost certain it can't affect physical stats and i'm fairly sure that mental stats develop independantly of CA - i read it somewhere when someone had bought guilherme and asked that since his CA had reached it's max when he was 21, would he not dev any further - the reply, i think by cleon, was that he would.

This thread in another forum (don't know if you can read it without registering though) contains an experiment which suggests otherwise.

Won't let me view it

Any chance of a synopsis?

As i said, i was only fairly sure of this as i'd only heard it from one source, i'll happily accept any proof to the contrary

Won't let me view it

Any chance of a synopsis?

As i said, i was only fairly sure of this as i'd only heard it from one source, i'll happily accept any proof to the contrary

Basically the guy who experimented with this took a few one footed players and made them two-footed with an external editor. This ended up with the players in question losing one or two points in almost every attribute. Also it didn't make any difference how many points were added for the weaker foot, it still reduced the attributes by pretty much the same amount. Now this doesn't actually prove that the same happens when you retrain players in a position without improving their weaker foot but the way it takes away points from every area (and remembering how attributes drop when players age or get a serious injury) it suggests that there is no sophisticated model for redistributing ability points when the CA is reduced or being used up for other stats. The observations I've had with retraining players in my game seem to support this theory as well.

Wow, lots of good info here. Thanks Ched and SavageNick esp.

I have one question then: If your tactic makes use of arrows, how important is it that the player can play in both the starting and ending position of the arrows? There are a lot of 4-4-2's with MR --> AMR for instance, and MC ---> DMC. In your opinion does the cost of multi-positions outweigh the utility in (x)arrowed tactics? Does that even matter?

I'm taking all my boys off position training. I used it all the time. The only positions I may keep it for are swapping wingers and AMC/FC's who already have some position points allocated.

This thread in another forum (don't know if you can read it without registering though) contains an experiment which suggests otherwise.

Ok after reading the thread, its not as well-researched as the one I posted earlier. Basically they are 75% of the way to the answer.

Increasing a players "two-footedness" will reduce their stats (clearly quite significantly), since it "takes up" CA points, but since the player hasnt actually gained anymore, the game has to thief them from his PRESENT stats (and apparently, chooses this at random - why would some1 become less brave or intuitive if he learnt how to use his weaker foot better????). So basically, if a player increased his weaker foot score AND upped his CA while developing "normally", his stats wouldnt drop very much, but since all they did was change his foot score, it showed up as a massive decrease.

The fact of the matter is that for technical attributes, the two footedness is very important. For example, in real life (and in the game) gareth bale is a pretty good dribbler of the ball, but is HEAVILY left footed. Rooney, on the other hand is an excellent dribbler, but in the game his dribbling stat isnt 19 or 20 (which it probably should be), its 15 to start, rising to 16, very similar to bale's. However, rooneys feet scores are 14 and 20, and when u watch him in the game (which Im sure every1 has) he's absolutely rediculous and is a far better dribbler than bale, despite only the small difference in their dribbling stats. This is because of the way that the match engine treats either-footed players. Basically it makes them godlike lol. It makes sense doesnt it? A defender who can tackle with both feet can tackle from both sides, a winger can cut in and shoot or choose to cross, a striker can shoot immediately without having to wait for the ball to move to his "stronger" foot, and when dribbling the ball, both of your feet are excellent so u can choose whichever way u want to go, increasing your chances of beating your man.

In the thread you posted, they only took into account the stats values, NOT the quality of the player in the engine. Like i said before - a team of either-footed players is wonderful to watch, passing is amazing, shots are almost instant and from daft angles, last minute tackles from defenders when normally it would have been a goal etc etc.

Ok after reading the thread, its not as well-researched as the one I posted earlier. Basically they are 75% of the way to the answer.

Increasing a players "two-footedness" will reduce their stats (clearly quite significantly), since it "takes up" CA points, but since the player hasnt actually gained anymore, the game has to thief them from his PRESENT stats (and apparently, chooses this at random - why would some1 become less brave or intuitive if he learnt how to use his weaker foot better????). So basically, if a player increased his weaker foot score AND upped his CA while developing "normally", his stats wouldnt drop very much, but since all they did was change his foot score, it showed up as a massive decrease.

The fact of the matter is that for technical attributes, the two footedness is very important. For example, in real life (and in the game) gareth bale is a pretty good dribbler of the ball, but is HEAVILY left footed. Rooney, on the other hand is an excellent dribbler, but in the game his dribbling stat isnt 19 or 20 (which it probably should be), its 15 to start, rising to 16, very similar to bale's. However, rooneys feet scores are 14 and 20, and when u watch him in the game (which Im sure every1 has) he's absolutely rediculous and is a far better dribbler than bale, despite only the small difference in their dribbling stats. This is because of the way that the match engine treats either-footed players. Basically it makes them godlike lol. It makes sense doesnt it? A defender who can tackle with both feet can tackle from both sides, a winger can cut in and shoot or choose to cross, a striker can shoot immediately without having to wait for the ball to move to his "stronger" foot, and when dribbling the ball, both of your feet are excellent so u can choose whichever way u want to go, increasing your chances of beating your man.

In the thread you posted, they only took into account the stats values, NOT the quality of the player in the engine. Like i said before - a team of either-footed players is wonderful to watch, passing is amazing, shots are almost instant and from daft angles, last minute tackles from defenders when normally it would have been a goal etc etc.

Rooney actually has good technical stats, particularly technique which to my knowledge is a very important factor for dribbling, shooting, passing etc. Plus his mental attributes are quite amazing which I guess would contribute to him being that good. Personally I haven't seen that much difference between one- and two-footed players in the game. I have two right wingers for example, one completely one footed, bit faster but worse technical stats and the other with both strong feet and good technical attributes. They perform equally well for me - the two footed lad gets better ratings but their effectiveness is about the same.

You are probably right about the bent nature of the above experiment, but my point was not how much the stats drop but the fact how they drop - and this is what I've observed myself - when a player gets better on his weaker foot not only his technical stats drop but mental and even physical stats as well. Plus, what would happen if you retrained a player that can't improve his CA? He'd still learn the position at the expense of other attributes.

I guess there's not enough evidence to suggest I'm right. But then the effectiveness of two-footed players can only be rated subjectively thus making it hard to conduct an experiment with objective results. I didn't read whole of the thread you posted because it was 7 pages long and full of maths which is not something I think I'd be able to stomach after a days work but as much as I gathered this exact matter wasn't the focus of the experiment either?

As Cowdenbeath I had a regen come through my youth team who was two footed and had good stats (i don't know ca/pa or values attached to his feet because I don't use any searchy/edity tools on 2008), his stats were comparable to my best winger but he was a fulll back, i retrained him as a winger and within two seasons he was accomplished (I think) his key stats (crossing, decisions, pace, acc, passing,technique, creativity, first touch) had all gone up by 1-3 points and he was averaging over 7.5 per season, so did I infact stop him progressing even more by training him as a winger?

No. If you train a MC to a MR then crossing becomes significant - i.e. a MC with crossing 18 will not have it affect his CA, however a MR will have it impact his CA as crossing is not a "free-stat" for MRs. So if you retrain a MC to MR then both stats significant for MC and MR will be taken into account when using up CA - hence a multirole MC and MR will have lower stats than a dedicated MC or MR with the same CA - it's a fairly logical state of affairs imo.

Yeah, this is what i mean by "unfortunate consequence" of the way retraining apparently works. If i happen to have a MC with a high crossing (not that rare), one of the first things that would occur to me is training them to play MR or ML, whichever is appropriate, to take advantage of that ability. However, apparently that's exactly the wrong thing to do because it will torpedo the player's long term development.

I understand the attribute-balancing reasons why it works this way, but it also seems pretty counter-intuitive when you consider that CA and all of that balancing is more or less completely under the hood and invisible to the player unless you use an editor.

As Cowdenbeath I had a regen come through my youth team who was two footed and had good stats (i don't know ca/pa or values attached to his feet because I don't use any searchy/edity tools on 2008), his stats were comparable to my best winger but he was a fulll back, i retrained him as a winger and within two seasons he was accomplished (I think) his key stats (crossing, decisions, pace, acc, passing,technique, creativity, first touch) had all gone up by 1-3 points and he was averaging over 7.5 per season, so did I infact stop him progressing even more by training him as a winger?

If the above posters are correct, and it seems like people have done the research, then yes, you limited his progression by training him to a new position. However, two things to consider: Maybe his initial outlay of stats were better for a winger anyways, and he'd have been a decent, but not brilliant fullback in either case (he sounds brilliant though). It has to be that sometimes retraining makes the most sense, even with the reduction in attributes from what they could have been.

And secondly, it doesn't seem that anyone knows just how much each position change re-weights the attributes. At least not in this thread. So it may well be that a left-back and a left-winger are quite similar and have lower penalties for cross-training. This could be implemented a few different ways, but based on what has been said so far, seems likely.

........

+ ditto to what medievalist said. Maybe it would make sense if eventually a player became natural in the new position, with the original position dropping below the 10-point limit. But as things stand natural positions lock some inherent futility into retraining.

So, is there actually a way to train a player to be two-footed? Pardon my ignorance but I found mention of it but not how it's done.