Yet again. The problem with the research of the database in FM. (some CA-spoilers).

Since 2006 I have tried to bring up this issue, but with more or less no respons over the years, both in the siren-forum when it existed and in here in this and the old forum (back in 2006 etc).

During all major tournaments involving national teams we see it over and over again. When you bring up the best 11-14 players from each nation having qualified for tournaments, the level of the players are "more or less" the same, with a few exceptions in top 3 and bottom 3. The FM database have never reflected this and is just as bad now as 10 years ago.

The biggest problem is, and has always been, the english research. English players has been very overrated as long as I can remember, both the top but also the width of the nations players. Add on that the PL has been overrated compared to other leagues for the last 5+ years and we have a problem making the game much more unrealistic than it needs to be.

The examples is so many so its hard to sort them, but I will come with a few.

Lets start with the obvious. England vs Iceland. The average rating among the 11 players starting for England: 150,7. The average rating among the 11 players starting for Iceland: 122,8. To that you can add that many of the English players has lots to increase to when you look at PA, and quite a few of them has got 10-20 ability points to come for the next few seasons.

So: Lets have a look at the average Icelandic national team player. This is players having qualified before the likes of Netherlands and Turkey, and going through their group in front of Portugal and then beating England.

How good is the average player according to FM? Most of the players would not even get a place in the Derby squad! A club like Derby have got 16

players with a CA above 124 and out of them 8 Englishmen! Add that Derby County has yet 3 English players with CA 122, and you see that a regular team as Derby has got 11 englishmen with the CA to play for the Icelandic national team! Seing this you dont exactly need the brain of a rocket scentist to understand that there are several hundreds of english players with better CA than the 11 best Icelandic players! Propably the researchers mean that England could field 10-15 teams with better players than the likes of Iceland, Hungary etc. How on earth can this happen?

In general english players get far to high physical stats and also to high vision, flair and dribling and technique skills. Its easy to see when you look at the best english players, when they dont have south european and south american team mates to lean on they struggle to create chances against defensive teams and the defenders dont have the skill to press high up the field. They neither has the physical skills to outrun and outjump players from other nations and competition after competiton they perform according to this.

In this game players from "big nations" far to easily get high ratings, while players from smaller nations, even the national team players get far to low ability. This makes such things to happen. Its a problem within several countries, but by far the biggest problem is in the english research.

A few more examples: PL has got 4 teams with better players and higher CA than Atletico Madrid, two times CL-finalist for the last 3 seasons. Zero teams would be the right number.

Top 15 teams in the world: PL 6 teams, Spain 3, Germany 2, Italy 2, France 1. What on earth have english teams done in Europe for the last 2-3 years to deserve this???

All PL-teams + several Championship teams with better CA than teams like Basel, Anderlecht, Gent etc...look how they have done in CL/EL the last years and try to explain it?

I could continue for ever. My point is. The database is very unbalanced and its strange that no one never seems to look into it. The difference between countries and players are lots hugher than what reality shows, some nations are very overrated and there is no red line in the database below the top 20 teams (and even among them there are lots of strange things as pointed out above.)

How a team of players not good enough for half of the championship teams in England can go this far in the Euro, well its hard for me to understand.

How can a team with a squad like Leicester have win the Premiership?

Nobody in their right mind could claim that they have as much ability in their squad as a team like Manchester City, Chelsea or Arsenal have and yet they beat all of those teams to the title.

It's because ability isn't everything, the mindset of the players, how effective their tactical approach is, how well they work together, how determined they are to fight, all play a massive part in how successful they can be.

Euro 2004 is another great example. Did Greece have the best squad? No. Would more than about 1 or 2 of the Greek players have made it into any top nations team on ability alone? No. They didn't win because they had the best team but they still won.

Your Iceland example is again very flawed. Have you actually watched their games?

They clearly do not have many, or indeed any, really good players. They have a lot of decent players but more importantly they have a squad who will fight for every ball, will put their bodies on the line every time, who will give absolutely everything they have for every second of the match.

They don't have a single player who would make it into the team for any top club but the system they're using, combined with the effort their players put in, is producing results.

I think you're going to run into serious issues defending any point when you start comparing an establish footballing nation with the most popular football league structure in the world, which one of the highest amount of professionals playing the game in the world to a nation of just 330,000 who have only a handful of professional players with sporadic history of producing players playing in the highest leagues... never mind, trying to compare club football with national sides in a knockout tournament format.

That said, trying to dig through to some value in your argument here...

I have, for instance, taken a look at Freiburg, who top the second division in Germany. And baring in mind I don't have the nation or league loaded.. they still have 11 players with a CA above 120 ... which is more than comparable with Derby etc.

And i'm going to go out on a limb here and say you'll probably find the same thing with other teams in other comparable leagues.

What are you judging the top teams in the world on exactly?

I wouldnt say they are overated, they got all the best facilities, are trained and coached to perfection, these players perform well for club, (some werent playing well for their clubs and still got picked) they dont perform well for england, smaller nations play out of their skin for the national team, they play to their strengths, for english players its a step down playing for england, we dont play to our strengths, if that was FM our ass man would be telling us everyone was a red on the tactics screen. The england team didnt perform badly because they fancied going home early, or because they cant string two forward passes together, because we see them do this every week in the prem, its poor management, poor tactics and over confidence and a turn up and win mentality. They froze and got worse as the game went on because they lost confidence it what they were doing, if I took over Barcelona in real life, it wouldnt be long before I could turn them into a team that couldnt string two passes together and on the verge of relegation. I thought they were terrible against russia, roy thought they were great just unlucky, so he went for it again. End result very predicable.

Why they do better in FM than in reality is because they probably have a better manager and better tactics, Ive took over england and done as badly as roy before, but I got sacked, he got another 2 years. Give england to the worst fm player in history and he too could also make england look more like they do in real life.

Posts like this partly make me wish that player CA was invisible. It draws far more attention than it warrants. It also ignores some of the truly defining elements of players as it is unweighted attributes that are a tremendous modifier on a players effective CA.

You're making sweeping generalisations on the actions of in the region of a couple hundred plus people involved in this process just in the leagues your mentioning.

To help make my point Apaco, since joining Stoke City I've been making Marko Arnautovic a gradually better player. His CA has actually reduced since joining Stoke, but he's a far better player.

If I'm remembering rightly he came to Stoke at 147 or 148CA. Bear in mind this is an Austrian £2m player who arrived in the Premier League, from Germany with that CA.

I adjusted his stats to what I felt were right and his CA began to decline towards 140CA. However, he was a better player than when he first arrived. How is this the case?

Consistency: Marko Arnautovic was proving to be a little more consistent than when he first arrived, without touching his CA in the slightest after it had been dropped I made him a better player by increasing his consistency.

Professionalism: Marko Arnautovic arrived as a player with a very unprofessional attitude, but over time he proved this to no longer be relevant. He settled down, got married, had children - he matured more as a player. I increased his professionalism and this makes him a much more manageable, much more applied player in the game.

These are two very telling attributes that you get no scope of with CA that make a phenomenal difference with their application. There are more attributes beyond this though, and of course an even more telling part is that the CA's are even more inconsequential when it comes to the support structure around it - the staff, their ratings and the tactics deployed. You have to realise that at times with the England squad many a time, they've succeeded in spite of the tactics because of their ability - rather than on the back of the strength of their tactics.

Look at the Iceland game, the game was condensed in the final third and England were completely negating their own strengths, no space to make runs to - not proper runs that would stretch the defence. The current England squad is perfectly set up to sit deep, draw opponents onto them and aim to devastatingly counter with pace down the wings or through the middle. The players were there to play a high up the field passing game, but the sheer technical supremacy required to condense a game into a small area and tear an opponent apart wasn't there.

100% agree santy, and it's extremely interesting to see how researchers view things - I really appreciate you sharing these insights.

If people spent a little less time worrying about CA/PA and a little more time reading couch and scout reports to get a feel for player personalities and these "hidden attributes" (for want of a better phrase), I think they'd enjoy squad building more.

Case in point - managing West Ham at the moment and I can't wait to terminate Alex Song's loan deal from Barcelona. That may surprise some people as on paper he is a great looking player with decent attributes. He also has a pretty high CA, especially for a team like West Ham. But he's a dirty player. If he's not getting booked he's getting sent off. What's the point in keeping such a player, who costs £140k a week, if every other match I'm reduced to 10 men?

And it's all there to see if you read his coach report.

Posts like this partly make me wish that player CA was invisible. It draws far more attention than it warrants. It also ignores some of the truly defining elements of players as it is unweighted attributes that are a tremendous modifier on a players effective CA.

You're making sweeping generalisations on the actions of in the region of a couple hundred plus people involved in this process just in the leagues your mentioning.

To help make my point Apaco, since joining Stoke City I've been making Marko Arnautovic a gradually better player. His CA has actually reduced since joining Stoke, but he's a far better player.

If I'm remembering rightly he came to Stoke at 147 or 148CA. Bear in mind this is an Austrian £2m player who arrived in the Premier League, from Germany with that CA.

I adjusted his stats to what I felt were right and his CA began to decline towards 140CA. However, he was a better player than when he first arrived. How is this the case?

Consistency: Marko Arnautovic was proving to be a little more consistent than when he first arrived, without touching his CA in the slightest after it had been dropped I made him a better player by increasing his consistency.

Professionalism: Marko Arnautovic arrived as a player with a very unprofessional attitude, but over time he proved this to no longer be relevant. He settled down, got married, had children - he matured more as a player. I increased his professionalism and this makes him a much more manageable, much more applied player in the game.

These are two very telling attributes that you get no scope of with CA that make a phenomenal difference with their application. There are more attributes beyond this though, and of course an even more telling part is that the CA's are even more inconsequential when it comes to the support structure around it - the staff, their ratings and the tactics deployed. You have to realise that at times with the England squad many a time, they've succeeded in spite of the tactics because of their ability - rather than on the back of the strength of their tactics.

Look at the Iceland game, the game was condensed in the final third and England were completely negating their own strengths, no space to make runs to - not proper runs that would stretch the defence. The current England squad is perfectly set up to sit deep, draw opponents onto them and aim to devastatingly counter with pace down the wings or through the middle. The players were there to play a high up the field passing game, but the sheer technical supremacy required to condense a game into a small area and tear an opponent apart wasn't there.

Spot on. I think its vital that you keep posying stuf like this, because not enough people understand the research side of things in such depth, and I include myself in this

The short version of this is: people need to stop with the CA obsession, it doesn't even tell you half the story.

I can see what the OP is trying to say, he feels the EPL is over inflated CA/PA and can't understand how Iceland can beat England. Has he actually taken a second to see where all these Icelandic players are playing, they are playing all over the European leagues from France, Germany, Russia, EPL etc and beat some very good teams to get to the Euros. Englands problems are they have no distinctive style or tactic, they throw together what they feel is their best players and hope it works, Iceland like Leicester had a game plan which utilised their players and it has worked. FM is pretty much the same, you put together a squad and play a style to get the best out of the players you have depending on their capabilities, in England's case they just had a poor manager who was out his depth.

I understand why folk get caught in the CA/PA trap, the game sort of encourages it though the star rating system not adjusting coach/scout ratings due to key strengths/weaknesses.

The following player is rated as the best central defender at my club even though my defensive minded assistant points out a number of negative aspects to his game that make him a consistent liability.

Exactly. Low professionalism, dirty, poor concentration and inconsistent. With high ambition (and low everything else) he's probably going to be a handful to manage as well - I bet his media handling skills aren't up to much.

I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole despite him being your "best" defender.

Let's look at the clubs the Iceland starting 11 play for. Bodo/Glimt, Hammarby, Krasnodar, Malmo, OB, Charlton, Cardiff, Swansea, Basel, Nantes and Kaiserslautern. Does that not answer your question as to why they don't have high CA? Two Championship clubs, one 2. Bundesliga, 4 from Scandinavian leagues where the standard is approximate to the bottom of the Championship/2. Bundesliga to the top of League 1/3. Bundesliga, Sigporsson who scored 3 goals for a midtable French team, Bjarnason and Sigurdsson from decent clubs in averagely ranked leagues, and the one player that might get in England's squad, Gylfi.

Are Gudmundsson and Gunnarsson massively overrated because they play for Cardiff and Charlton? Using your Derby example, these two would not get in Derby's starting lineup. Anybody who pays attention to the Championship knows this.

You seem to have missed a fundamental aspect of football. The best players do not make the best team. A well organised team of average individuals with a clear plan will beat a much better group of individuals with no idea what they're supposed to be doing. This is literally the whole point of the game you are playing!

I've said for a while that players should have an International rating.

Basically, these could be hidden stats, like making errors, teamwork, workrate, - and it would only affect international level football.

Not sure if it's a feasible idea.

I've said for a while that players should have an International rating.

Basically, these could be hidden stats, like making errors, teamwork, workrate, - and it would only affect international level football.

Not sure if it's a feasible idea.

But isn't that just trying to quantify something that isn't really that quantifiable, just so that some people who have a bee in their bonnet about England sometimes doing well can have their minds eased?

If that international value is dynamic, then why is that? Why should it be? If it's static, then what's the point in managing England? Where's the prospect of any nation who is "bad" at international football getting any better? And how do you define whether a team failing is down to this "international rating" and not down to managerial/player error, or just them not being good enough to start with?

Personally I'd much rather that international tournaments were just about the best managed team winning, rather than certain teams being hamstrung by some value thought up by researchers.

Isn't it then up to the manager to pick the players that play well for their country. A lot of people thought that Drinkwater deserved a place in the Euros, and a lot of people didn't see a point in bringing players through who weren't playing well for their country.

On the note of having international qualities in their hidden stats, these could be defined when they play the U17, U18, U21, tournaments, and how they perform in these matches define who they are like in full tournaments.

The international scene in FM is pretty bad, it's never really been improved on.

For example, I've often picked players based on how they're performing for clubs, and leave out a 36 year old Rooney who hasn't played 10 games that season, only to be lambasted by the media.

I don't know what the answer is, maybe international teams can be given potential "points", based on the current selection, and those points are distributes as IPA (International Potential Ability) across the whole team.

For example, France could be given 1000 PP for their squad, and this is distributed to the players based on their performances at club and international level. This can then increase or decrease their IPA.

And a team like Ireland can be given 500 PP for their squad. And this is distributed to their IPA.

It's then up to the manager to acrue more PP through winning games, tournaments etc. The more presitigious the tournament the more points they are allocated.

A bit like the way the Tennis is ranked with the points, if they get to a final they get more points, fail to get to that final again and the points are reduced - meaning less IPA is available.

Basically, the international team has to perform at tournaments consistently to gain more PP and give the individual players more IPA.

That was completely off the top of my head, I have in no way thought it through, but it's out there now.

What you're essentially suggesting there Smurf is FIFA's Ultimate Team chemistry system with different triggers for improving chemistry. It'd cause players to play in no way accurate to how they actually are, all of a sudden you could have a 34 year old player whos legs have gone making tremendous bursting runs because that's where his points have ended up being assigned.

It would instantly turn international football into a very arcadey bolt-on with no basis in any of the actual research we've done.

There is a solution to making international management more tangible but this isn't it. International management isn't going to ever really have all that much to it though as in truth there is only 1 or 2 meaningful and competitive games for the big teams every 2-4 years. England's performance against Iceland isn't an indicator of how they would've performed against Germany, Italy, France etc. Now we don't even have a chance to possibly see it again until 2018.

What you're essentially suggesting there Smurf is FIFA's Ultimate Team chemistry system with different triggers for improving chemistry.

I have no idea what FIFA's Ultimate Team chemistry system is, never heard of it.

It'd cause players to play in no way accurate to how they actually are, all of a sudden you could have a 34 year old player whos legs have gone making tremendous bursting runs because that's where his points have ended up being assigned.

I never said that at all.

Just because a players PA increases doesn't mean their CA will.

And if a 34 year old has a pace of 20, then why not have a sudden burst, and if he has a pace of 1 then there's no way he can.

All I'm saying is that teams could be assigned points based on how they perform in tournaments - and those points get assigned to the teams potential ability - distributed amongst the players.

If the team isn't playing well in tournments, then it could have a negative impact on the players International Potential Ability - meaning they wouldn't be as good as they are in terms of Potential Abitlity at club level.

For example, take Messi, PA of 198 (everyone knows this).

But at International Level, based on how Argentina have performed in tournaments, Messi's international potential ability would be lowered to around 175.

It would be then up to you as a manager to improve Argentina, and when you get them to a round of the tournament that they didn't get to before, Messi's IPA would increase to 180. If you win the tournament it would go up to 185. If you don't do well in the next tournament then it goes back to 180.

Similarly - those lads playing for Iceland, club PA roughly 150 for example. But at International Potential Ability could be roughly 170, allowing their CA to increase while on International duty at a tournament.

Undoubtedly, this would decrease again at club level - as they only have a club PA of 150, perhaps for a short time their ICA is 163 and their IPA is 170, so once they go back to the club their CA is reduced back to their club levels - perhaps they can stay a little higher but generally reduce back to their original levels over time.

If that makes sense.

If you just mean it in the sense of potential ability then - I don't see what your system would do. Potential ability is just that potential. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't indicate anything, it's what can be if the future goes right for a younger player but beyond that there's nothing tied to it.

I made the leap to assuming you meant it would apply to CA because PA just makes no sense at all from how the game works. And then it comes back to my point, it's got no basis in anything we do as researchers. Lionel Messi could have his CA tanked by losingg his technique and pace, an ageing Icelandic Eidur Gudjohnsen could have his CA made up by dramatically increasing his pace.

I'm suggesting that for international tournaments they have a sorta like an independent CA and PA system - that is only relevant to their international performances.

A team would win a tournament be assigned say 500 Potential Points - these are then distributed to a 25 man squad for example.

This would allow an international team to assign an extra 20 points to a players current and potential ability.

For example, the Icelandic lads - CA of 130 and PA of 150 at club level.

Win Euro 2016 and their International CA and International PA could be afforded 20 more points each (500/25=20) at International Level only.

Conversely - if you finish below your expected position (the English FA expects England to reach the Semi Finals of the Euro 2016) and you get knocked out in the group stage.

Then your country is assigned -400 pts - meaning of a 25 man squad the players CA and PA is lowered for International duty only (say -16 in their CA and PA for each player).

This way - the players CA and PA at club level is left in tact.

But at international level - the teams need to be winning to retain their CA and PA that they have at club level.

Let me know if that makes sense.

It makes sense in that I can follow where you're going with it now but here's the situation, I do the research for Stoke and had Butland been fit he would've been in the squad alongside Forster and Hart.

So my role is to rate Butland on the basis of how he plays, that's fine and dandy.

I submit my ratings, and let's say he was in the ballpark he was at the start of this season 133-135ish range.

My HR comes to me "Right Michael, we've got Butland here and he's 133CA. We've done the math and as he's playing for the England squad I need you to give me some ratings for Jack Butland that you feel are right - but bring him in 16CA lower. Send me these through separately by the deadline."

I've already sat down and assessed Butland at the level I think he's playing at, I've rated his ability, now what becomes worse when he's playing for England that isn't as poor when he's playing for Stoke? It's too arbitrary to work. I would have to pick attributes at random and just make him to the player that isn't Jack Butland.

It's again a case of thinking about it in the wrong manner in my eyes. It sounds somewhat arrogant in how I'm going to phrase this, but this is the role of a researcher. Jack Butland only exists in the FM game as I envisage him. It gets approved by others and is tested and such, but Jack Butland is the spread of attributes I give him. If arbitrarily I have to change those attributes so that he fits a condition like this then he's no longer Jack Butland. He's a goalkeeper I'd have rated to have 117CA and would be rated to that point explicitly.

That's no longer an accurate reflection of players.

Yeh but you're not meant to know what CA and PA is for any player.

It would be down to how well the nation performs at tournaments.

If they're performing well and above expectations they can get a slight CA and PA boost playing internationally, that would give the likes of Iceland the chance to beat England.

Iceland get a slight boost, and England have a slight decrease, putting the match closer to reality in terms of the players international CA and PA.

Really, the CA and PA always works behind the scenes.

I do know these for the players I research though (I'm looking at this from the logistical sense of putting this into the game, not what the end user will see - because things have to work on all levels front end, the middle ground with researchers & testers and the back end for developers), and I'm using Jack Butland as the example because he's a Stoke player & in the England squad.

My role is to rate Butland as I see him, there's some loose guidelines for research that we follow, a degree of peer review, head researcher oversight and tester feedback that goes into the process. All in all though, I get the freedom to submit what I think is right.

Your suggestions is essentially, for me to submit what I believe is a correct representation of Butland, and then to arbitrarily cut him down by X CA to fit this formula. If I thought he should have been X CA lower, he would've already been X CA lower. So at that point it's a case of researchers being asked to just provide ratings for a player in a position to a certain CA. That's no longer the research process, its just a numbers exercise. I can't decide where I think a player like Butland ought to be lower just because England play quite poorly in major tournaments.

That's the issue, you'd be losing what makes these players these players and just gaining a set of numbers on either side that helps people feel more reassured that they're going to get the outcome they think they should get.

If it isn't your intention for researchers to mould these players after these changes and for the game to just be automatically doing it, you're going to get some horrendous outcomes and no one will be able to satisfy why X/Y/Z is going so badly in your game because its left to the AI to decide on these arbitrary changes.

It's worth pointing out I'm providing more insight into the research process so you can try and further augment your point if you want to. People do have good ideas that end up making it into the game one day. I don't see the merits in this one right now, but I can see the immediate road blocks to what would effectively kill it off before it begins - just from a research perspective.

I'm not asking you to do that at all.

I've no problem with how Butland is rated in the game, his CA or PA is not an issue.

I'm just saying, for Internationals, his CA or PA could be adjusted slightly, depending on how the International team performs.

Go ahead and give Neymar a CA of 190 and a PA of 200, if you want. But if Brazil are not winning tournaments, then I think for international games his CA and PA should be cut down in the process I describe above. Giving points to nations who perform well in tournaments can boost the players CA and PA. And vice versa if the team performs badly.

Obviously it's not the most conducive thing on the forums to have a circular debate between ourselves so I'll try and elaborate a little further before vacating this thread for a while! But this is the important point whether its Butland, whether its Neymar, Messi, Jon Walters etc. In FM they are nothing other than the attributes we the researchers set for them. They aren't just their CA or PA with a name, they're their technique attribute, their professionalism, their determination, their consistency, their height etc.

The aim is to recreate someone who plays like they do in real life within the game, if you just arbitrarily bolt on some CA or lop off some CA - they stop being that player, they stop playing like the player they are and stop being the intended reflection of that person.

If you take 10 points of pace away from Raheem Sterling in FM, is he still an accurate reflection of Raheem Stirling? I'd say he isn't, I'm taking it to the more extreme territory with attribute loss to make the point but even if you just lop 1 off everything, its no longer what the researcher has decided is Raheem Sterling.

I'm not asking you to do that at all.

I've no problem with how Butland is rated in the game, his CA or PA is not an issue.

I'm just saying, for Internationals, his CA or PA could be adjusted slightly, depending on how the International team performs.

Go ahead and give Neymar a CA of 190 and a PA of 200, if you want. But if Brazil are not winning tournaments, then I think for international games his CA and PA should be cut down in the process I describe above. Giving points to nations who perform well in tournaments can boost the players CA and PA. And vice versa if the team performs badly.

But that is completely arbitrary, which is Santy's point. I made the point to Santy before that people overly obsess and focus on CA/PA, and with respect, this is a perfect example.

But that is completely arbitrary, which is Santy's point. I made the point to Santy before that people overly obsess and focus on CA/PA, and with respect, this is a perfect example.

I'm not obsessed with it, I'm saying the players can be boosted in their hidden stats for international duty, based on how the international teams perform.

I shouldn't have focused on just CA and PA, as before I've said hidden stats

Consistency

Dirtiness

Important Matches

Injury Proneness

Versatility

Adaptability

Ambition

Controversy

Loyalty

Pressure

Professionalism

Sportsmanship

Temperament

etc

If you take 10 points of pace away from Raheem Sterling in FM, is he still an accurate reflection of Raheem Stirling? I'd say he isn't, I'm taking it to the more extreme territory with attribute loss to make the point but even if you just lop 1 off everything, its no longer what the researcher has decided is Raheem Sterling.

Why would you take 10 points off his pace? His pace is always going to be the same, whether England play badly or not.

But Pressure, Loyalty, Professionalism, etc. can be affected, which are hidden attributes.

And let's face it, Sterling for England in the Euros wasn't the best we've seen him play, due to things like his professionalism (posting things like thehatedone), and his performances were lower than expected as the pressure did get to him, apparently.

So in essence, he wasn't the player we know him to be, when he's playing for England.

So yes, adjusting his hidden stats for England based on something like England's performance by bringing his hidden stats up or down - would give a more accurate reflection of his ability on an international level. Which also includes his CA and PA moving up or down depending.

Yeh but you're not meant to know what CA and PA is for any player.

It would be down to how well the nation performs at tournaments.

If they're performing well and above expectations they can get a slight CA and PA boost playing internationally, that would give the likes of Iceland the chance to beat England.

Iceland get a slight boost, and England have a slight decrease, putting the match closer to reality in terms of the players international CA and PA.

Really, the CA and PA always works behind the scenes.

This bolded part is key. You don't need to do anything to see results like that. Nothing whatsoever.

I have spent a lot of years in FM16 managing internationally. For the first few decades, it was with Scotland. Let's take the results I saw in Euro 2016 as an example. Within that tournament we saw...

Portugal beat Germany in the group stage. Not beyond the realms of possibility, but that's an underdog winning. The Czech Republic drew with the hosts, and then beat Italy. Spain drew with Russia. Romania then beat previous German-botherers Portugal. Scotland beat England (although I can discount this, as I was directly managing). Spain drew with Austria. Finland beat Scotland. Italy and Holland scraped through to the next round while Poland - current quarter-finalists - went out. Italy and Spain out in the 1st knockout round. Eventually, the last two standing were Turkey and Switzerland, with the latter going on to win on penalties.

Now, does any of that seem like it needs some kind of artificial system to make sure that Iceland could beat England?

EDIT: It actually looks to be a trait of the Euros competition, given the lop-sided structure of it. Looked at the results for WC2018, and they largely went how you would expect. Portugal, Germany, Italy and France made up the semi-final line-up, with Scotland, Brazil, Wales and Chile falling in the quarter finals. With the exception of Wales (no idea) and Scotland (managed by me) it's looking pretty realistic. Everyone's favourite "overrated" side England went out in the 2nd round, comfortably beaten by France.

Euro 2020 stabilised a little, with the final 4 being Spain, Portugal, Holland...and Romania. Portugal beat Holland in the final. England went out in the 2nd round. Again. I could go on, but any further in terms of tournaments and you're moving further and further away from realism, and it's harder to draw any parallels between saves.

So there's absolutely no problem with the little guy beating the big guy.

Why would you take 10 points off his pace? His pace is always going to be the same, whether England play badly or not.

But Pressure, Loyalty, Professionalism, etc. can be affected, which are hidden attributes.

And let's face it, Sterling for England in the Euros wasn't the best we've seen him play, due to things like his professionalism (posting things like thehatedone), and his performances were lower than expected as the pressure did get to him, apparently.

So in essence, he wasn't the player we know him to be, when he's playing for England.

So yes, adjusting his hidden stats for England based on something like England's performance by bringing his hidden stats up or down - would give a more accurate reflection of his ability on an international level. Which also includes his CA and PA moving up or down depending.

I've got to reply here in a way that's going to perhaps come off as somewhat abrupt but I want people to be able to better make their own arguments for things regarding elements of the game.

You said to reduce his CA, you can set his pressure, loyalty, professionalism, consistency, dirtiness etc to 1 or 20 - it makes no difference to his CA or PA.

These attributes hold no weighting.

This is the paramount bit of information here. This is in part what makes these attributes such enormously influential elements of the game. You can't divine any score or answer from them, there's no approximation or summary of these you get to see. They are set and they are wonderfully intricate in the small and barely noticeable way they are functioning, yet massively shaping everything you do in FM.

There are attributes that effect CA, and these are pace, these are technique, finishing etc.

This means that if you're wanting to cut/inflate a players CA while on international duty you have to be targeting attributes like pace, not their hidden attributes.

- - - - -

Now I'll use a separator to make the other part of this point.

A players performance at international level does play a part in how we judge players as well, we don't just judge them on league performance, or performance for senior club games - whenever a player under our remit as researchers play and we can observe them the hope is that we will do so and factor this in. It's a bit more of a struggle with international games, as we can't travel the world watching our players in these games (although if SI are up for funding it, I'm happy to sacrifice my time travelling the world watching football) but there is generally a lot more available for us to keep tabs on players with now.

It's not an isolated process, it's very wide in its scope researching players.

I've got to reply here in a way that's going to perhaps come off as somewhat abrupt but I want people to be able to better make their own arguments for things regarding elements of the game.

You said to reduce his CA, you can set his pressure, loyalty, professionalism, consistency, dirtiness etc to 1 or 20 - it makes no difference to his CA or PA.

These attributes hold no weighting.

This is the paramount bit of information here. This is in part what makes these attributes such enormously influential elements of the game. You can't divine any score or answer from them, there's no approximation or summary of these you get to see. They are set and they are wonderfully intricate in the small and barely noticeable way they are functioning, yet massively shaping everything you do in FM.

There are attributes that effect CA, and these are pace, these are technique, finishing etc.

This means that if you're wanting to cut/inflate a players CA while on international duty you have to be targeting attributes like pace, not their hidden attributes.

- - - - -

Now I'll use a separator to make the other part of this point.

A players performance at international level does play a part in how we judge players as well, we don't just judge them on league performance, or performance for senior club games - whenever a player under our remit as researchers play and we can observe them the hope is that we will do so and factor this in. It's a bit more of a struggle with international games, as we can't travel the world watching our players in these games (although if SI are up for funding it, I'm happy to sacrifice my time travelling the world watching football) but there is generally a lot more available for us to keep tabs on players with now.

It's not an isolated process, it's very wide in its scope researching players.

Thanks for the insight to how things work - I didn't know that.

And in no way am I suggesting that what I say should be implemented into the game. I'm just trying to come with a scenario that could reflect why some players who can perform well at club level don't really seem to do the same at international tournaments.

The only way I can think of in FM is for the players ability to be altered, and I wouldn't want to see Sterling's pace reduced to 5 - that would be ridiculous.

The only way I can imagine a player playing better internationally is if they have different CA and PA for international games.

I know my idea is wide off the mark to what is realistically possible - I'm not saying my idea is golden, I even said I hadn't thought it through fully.

And I thank you for giving me the insight to what CA and PA affects for a player.

On that note - I don't know what SI can do to reflect international form of players. It does need to be addressed, and although giving extra points or deduction of points from CA and PA based on the nations international form seems to be a no go - I am out of ideas.

I think trying to make a point on the inadequacy of CA based upon a single match between an underperforming English side and a very well drilled Iceland side is stretching it a bit, is it not? I think there are reasons beyond the subjective quality of players behind the defeat of England. Lack of tactical imagination, lack of ability to play as a team, inability to break down defences, tiredness, loss of form for England. Being on a high, taking advantage of terrible opposition play, being well drilled, being able to defend a lead for Iceland.

These are on the whole things that are in the game. A team can have a spell of bad form despite being filled with good players. I team with poor players can have a run of extended good form. A team of good players can be poorly coached and not achieve their potential. A good manager can extract the absolute best from his players and make them achieve more than people thought possible. I could go on.

The fact here is that, on paper (which is exactly what CA is) English players are better than Icelandic ones. There is no real way to avoid this. CA, however, is one piece of a much much larger puzzle, even in FM.

I honestly wish there was NO possible way for us to access CA and PA information. Make it go away.

It's hard to avoid focusing on CA/PA and star ratings sometimes, but they really do more harm than good in the long run.

I honestly wish there was NO possible way for us to access CA and PA information. Make it go away.

I wish that too. Nor the hidden attributes.

Ok, I read the OP and altough I dont want to make comments on much of it, one thing he wrote is worth a big discussion, Ill quote: " Top 15 teams in the world: PL 6 teams, Spain 3, Germany 2, Italy 2, France 1. What on earth have english teams done in Europe for the last 2-3 years to deserve this???"

Ok, I read the OP and altough I dont want to make comments on much of it, one thing he wrote is worth a big discussion, Ill quote: " Top 15 teams in the world: PL 6 teams, Spain 3, Germany 2, Italy 2, France 1. What on earth have english teams done in Europe for the last 2-3 years to deserve this???"

What constitutes "top" with the OP? Was it the top 15 in terms of finances? Easy to see why. Reputation? Again, just because they've not won much doesn't mean their rep will have taken a hit. They'll consistently be high. I'm not aware of any other way the game has of ranking clubs - there is the European club rankings, but if they're high up, it's because they've won enough to be that high up. Again, there isn't enough information there to draw any conclusions.

So without a bit more information, I don't think it needs a "big discussion".

Why are we looking at the top 15 though? What happens if its 16? What happens if its 10? What happens if its 20?

The truth of the matter is though in those other leagues there tends to be a larger rift between their top few and the rest of the pack. England hasn't had that in the last few years especially, the pre-ordained "big 4" have ceased to be for a while. And while its probably more media hyperbole than anything, you never really heard much mention of the big 4 in Spain, Germany etc.

Thanks for the insight to how things work - I didn't know that.

And in no way am I suggesting that what I say should be implemented into the game. I'm just trying to come with a scenario that could reflect why some players who can perform well at club level don't really seem to do the same at international tournaments.

The only way I can think of in FM is for the players ability to be altered, and I wouldn't want to see Sterling's pace reduced to 5 - that would be ridiculous.

The only way I can imagine a player playing better internationally is if they have different CA and PA for international games.

I know my idea is wide off the mark to what is realistically possible - I'm not saying my idea is golden, I even said I hadn't thought it through fully.

And I thank you for giving me the insight to what CA and PA affects for a player.

On that note - I don't know what SI can do to reflect international form of players. It does need to be addressed, and although giving extra points or deduction of points from CA and PA based on the nations international form seems to be a no go - I am out of ideas.

I think I was a little bit blinded by the comments in regards how the CA and PA works. And I know that the CA and PA affects the visible stats.

But what I was getting at, and I lost my way in putting my point across, was that players would have a new stat for internationals, which would be International Current Ability and International Potential Ability.

And it would be these IPA and ICA that would influence their Hidden Stats, like Pressure, Loyalty, Professionalism etc.

I think I was a little bit blinded by the comments in regards how the CA and PA works. And I know that the CA and PA affects the visible stats.

But what I was getting at, and I lost my way in putting my point across, was that players would have a new stat for internationals, which would be International Current Ability and International Potential Ability.

And it would be these IPA and ICA that would influence their Hidden Stats, like Pressure, Loyalty, Professionalism etc.

But on the whole these hidden stats apply equally to club performances. It's unlikely that the entire England squad are model professionals most of the time, and then the total opposite at tournaments, or suddenly disloyal. They're fundamentaly personality attributes, and it seems absurd to suggest the players suddenly have different personalities at tournaments. Rather, perhaps they just aren't very good at handling pressure or media attention to begin with - after all, few of the England XI have proven themselves capable of doing well in the most pressurised moments. The five from Spurs are the ones that messed up the run-in pretty dramatically, Joe Hart's had calamity after calamity, Sterling has shown no signs of it, Sturridge was more influenced by questionable fitness, Rooney is maybe the only exception but not a natural leader and certainly not great at it anyway, and the center-backs are honestly just poorly drilled by Hodgson and far from world-class to begin with. That can all be taken into account with their general ratings - many of them having low 'pressure' even if they're decent at 'important games'.

Perhaps there's room for one more attribute along the lines of 'international commitment' that would distuinguish between players who are incredibly patriotic and motivated to perform for their countries (ala James McLean) or don't care much for international football and are just using it to further their club careers, as that's one thing I'd say you can't capture so well with current attributes that may impact international performance. But with England, the main causes are arguably poor pressure handling, poor fitness due to no winter breaks (with these two factors, note that England are normally very good outside tournaments), and poor management, preparation and tactics - all things that can already be simulated by FM.

But on the whole these hidden stats apply equally to club performances. It's unlikely that the entire England squad are model professionals....

Let's take the spotlight off England for a second, and what would be Portugal's excuse? They haven't won a game in 90 minutes this tournament, effectively drew all their games.

Portugal were also abysmal in the last World Cup. Yet, they have a World Class player in Ronaldo, and he's been quite bad this tournament.

I do think the stats need to be tweaked when players are on int. duty.

I don't claim to have all the answers... but we know that teams with fantastic individual players doesn't necessarily make a fantastic team, e.g. Belgium, and vice versa with Iceland (you can say Greece and Denmark in their place also).

I do think that SI need to revamp how international pressures, media influence and things like affect players performances at these tournaments, as that's reflective of real life, and in the end that's what FM is trying to simulate.

Let's take the spotlight off England for a second, and what would be Portugal's excuse? They haven't won a game in 90 minutes this tournament, effectively drew all their games.

Portugal were also abysmal in the last World Cup. Yet, they have a World Class player in Ronaldo, and he's been quite bad this tournament.

I do think the stats need to be tweaked when players are on int. duty.

I don't claim to have all the answers... but we know that teams with fantastic individual players doesn't necessarily make a fantastic team, e.g. Belgium, and vice versa with Iceland (you can say Greece and Denmark in their place also).

I do think that SI need to revamp how international pressures, media influence and things like affect players performances at these tournaments, as that's reflective of real life, and in the end that's what FM is trying to simulate.

Honestly, I'll fully admit I don't know nearly enough about the Portugal team to comment much - but Ronaldo is only one piece in the jigsaw. Indeed, he was horribly out of form at the start of the tournament when they were really struggling - compounded by his lack of teamwork meaning he still tried to do everything himself even when he was obviously frustrated and not playing well. Since he returned to form, they've looked better going forward but suspect at the back; not unexpected considering they don't have a particularly strong team on paper him aside.

Let's take the spotlight off England for a second, and what would be Portugal's excuse? They haven't won a game in 90 minutes this tournament, effectively drew all their games.

Portugal were also abysmal in the last World Cup. Yet, they have a World Class player in Ronaldo, and he's been quite bad this tournament.

I do think the stats need to be tweaked when players are on int. duty.

I don't claim to have all the answers... but we know that teams with fantastic individual players doesn't necessarily make a fantastic team, e.g. Belgium, and vice versa with Iceland (you can say Greece and Denmark in their place also).

I do think that SI need to revamp how international pressures, media influence and things like affect players performances at these tournaments, as that's reflective of real life, and in the end that's what FM is trying to simulate.

Probably the same one England have. They're a side with some good players, but no-one truly outstanding. In Portugal's case they have Ronaldo, who is having his own personal battle with his own mind. The way Portugal get set up, they can turn meh performances into progressing (so abysmal this tournament that they're in the semi finals). England were set up in a way that didn't manage it.

And again, I disagree with the last part. Fair enough on "realism", but the way international football is now is arguably better than it is in real life. Right now it's a true battle between sides with the better prepared one on several fronts gets the win. I'd be massively against putting some kind of construct in so that certain nations get effectively nerfed. Especially when there's no real need for them to be nerfed in the first place. You can get just as many examples of England not going on this mythical tear through World football as you can examples of them doing so.

Its quite clear isnt it. Top 15 teams in regards to quality of players. But since you threw the bait, Ill bite Why should England have 6 PL teams among the top 15 in finances? And reputation? And Club rankings for that sake? Theyve done nothing both at international club and national side level to merit it the last years. I am not talking about what happens if you only play a certain number of leagues, then you know what will happen, but at the root of the playerbase. It doesnt make sense. Those high esteemed from EPL always fail at international level and if it happened once or twice, even three times, ok. But every year it happens. Then maybe, just maybe the quality isnt as good irl as the level of the games database...

Its quite clear isnt it. Top 15 teams in regards to quality of players. But since you threw the bait, Ill bite Why should England have 6 PL teams among the top 15 in finances? And reputation? And Club rankings for that sake? Theyve done nothing both at international club and national side level to merit it the last years. I am not talking about what happens if you only play a certain number of leagues, then you know what will happen, but at the root of the playerbase. It doesnt make sense. Those high esteemed from EPL always fail at international level and if it happened once or twice, even three times, ok. But every year it happens. Then maybe, just maybe the quality isnt as good irl as the level of the games database...

Finances - are you really asking why the teams that have the billion dollar deal should be in the top 15 in terms of finances? What 15 other clubs should be higher exactly?

Reputation - because reputation moves at a glacial pace, so it doesn't really matter that they've had a few fallow years. If you go back a bit longer, English sides ruled the Champions League. Plus historically they're some of the bigger teams.

Club Rankings - like I said, if you'd read, we have no idea where the OP was counting from. If it's not from day zero in terms of a save, then we have no idea what has happened in the intervening days. If English sides have succeeded in that time, then of course they'll be high in the rankings. And to be honest, although English sides have fallen away from where they once were, how many clubs have actually overtaken them on a consistent basis in that time? A pretty small number.

Seriously though, we've gone through several reasons why this imagined bias is there. It varies massively between saves, because every save varies massively from others.

I've just done some analysis of the claim that Atletico Madrid are lower rated than four English teams. For the sake of keeping it simple, I looked at the average CA of the top 15 players in each squad - those you might expect to feature significantly in big matches. The first thing to note is that the difference between Atletico Madrid and Manchester United is insignificant - less than 1 CA point. But in all cases, the thing that stands out is that the English clubs have at least one truly world-class played (170+ CA) each, which Atletico lack - and I think that's fair. Their success has been the result of working well together as a team, not world-class individuals. They don't have an Aguero upfront, a Hazard in midfield or a De Gea in goal, but they do well in spite of this.

Indeed, when you look in more detail, you can see why the top English clubs may have less success despite these higher averages. When you look at Man City, their top two players are Aguero and Silva - who've both struggled with fitness in the last season. United have a huge lack of top quality apart from De Gea - if you take him out they're a worse team than Atletico Madrid, and that's entirely accurage as he is crucial for them. Arsenal have been the most impressive of the big clubs, at least partly because unlike City their stars, Ozil and Sanchez, stayed fit if not always in form - their failure to progress in Europe was due to underperformance in the group stage due to over-rotation, nothing to do with a lack of player quality. And then we have Chelsea - a failure caused in huge part by dreadful personalities with the team in open mutiny against their manager for half a year, again, nothing to do with the players being any worse than what Atletico have.

This is all without mentioning again the winter break factor, which seems to hurt English clubs European performances in the second half of the season.

Really, it comes down to what's been said before: there is more to a team's performance than CA. Atletico in real life are more than the sum of their parts, and I expect going by how they often seem to challenge vastly higher-rated sides in Real Madrid and Barcelona that this is the case in-game too. Meanwhile, the underperformance of English clubs has a lot of causes, but on the face of it lack of talent doesn't seem to be one of them.

CA and PA don't matter its where the points are used that matters, and where a player fits in with everyone else.

on my United save, Bale can't get in the side over Isco, Ziyech Depay or Mahrez

and Vidal can't get in past kovacic who isn't even fully developed yet.

in my save in March, 3rd placed player for golden boot is a certain Jordan Rhodes, Leicester went down with Vardy and Wayne Rooney, and most of the team they had in the first place.

A good example in my save is Bayern, where the managers tactics are vulnerable to the strengths of the Match engine by playing Narrow, it got to the point where they won the Europa league after flopping in the groups and failing to qualify the season after, losing the manager and key players. I bough Lewendowski off them, and he scores for fun for me, if he scored for Bayern like he scores for me then they win the league etc.