What does match preparation do, exactly?

Does anyone even know this? If I choose "defensive positioning", say, does it give my defenders an attribute boost? Does it give my whole squad better positioning? Is it something else entirely, not related to attributes? How big is the effect, really - huge, or not worth bothering with?

Would be nice to know. It seems like the game gives completely zero feedback on this.

On a side note, am I the only one who changes match prep for some important match on the off chance that it actually does something useful, and then forgets to put it back? It's such a tiny box, so easy to forget about... it would be nice to have it more noticable, somehow.

I'm always changing match preparation depend of opposition I'm gonna to play and where I'll play - home or away.

I don't know whether this has any impact on my results.

Does anyone even know this? If I choose "defensive positioning", say, does it give my defenders an attribute boost? Does it give my whole squad better positioning?

This is essentially what it does, defensive positioning gives a boost to your players defensive attributes when the opponent is attacking, attacking movement boosts the relevant attributes when your team is on the attack.

^WHS

By spending extra training sessions on a particular activity the players get a temporary boost in some attributes for that one match. This is at the expense of longer-term regular training development.

I just discovered something really annoying last night which I suspect many other players are unaware of. Like most people I get my assman to supervise the reserve and youth squads - well I just want him to manage the fixtures, that's all. I tick the 'copy first team tactics' box so that the reserves/kids are well drilled in my formation, tactics, roles and duties. What I DON'T want is for them to waste points on match prep since the results are unimportant - the development that comes form playing games and training is what I'm after. However, the game keeps defaulting to match prep, thus taking % points away from their training development. You don't see it because the match prep column on the left is hidden. When you untick the box in team policy you can set match prep to 'none', but then when you tick the box again it resets to match prep. This is very annoying - SI can you please 'fix' this.

I don't know whether this has any impact on my results.

Seems like so much of this game is like a rain dance sometimes.

What is the lowest you can set your preparation on to maintain a high level? Is it low or very low for example?

I moved to "Attacking Set Pieces" in match prep and my Centre Back scored 12 gls in 14 games from crossed corners.

I remember reading somewhere else, in a detailed thread discussing tactics and preparation, that match preparation focuses like attacking movement do NOT take any time away from individual training. They only take time away from the team's match preparation (i.e. training up familiarity with your chosen formations/tactics). However, increasing your overall intensity of match preparation will take away time from individual training.

I guess we could test this pretty easily by setting focus to "none", checking any player's training time percentages, and then setting to something like "attacking movement", and then re-checking his percentages.

It's ridiculous that there are things like this in this game that are just a complete mystery to the majority of players. Bizarre really.

But surely its pretty clear from the descriptions? If your match prep is just on the formations, your team will be more familiar with your formations, and therefore more confident playing in those formations?

If you focus on your attacking movement, your team will be more familiar with your attacking movement, and therefore will be more confident on the attack?