Just how important is a 7 star training schedule?

My first game on FM09 is with the mighty Tottenham, who are obviously doing fantastic at the moment since the revamp of staff. This means that the only coaches are Kevin Bond, Joe Jordan, Tim Sherwood and Clive Allen. These staff do not have amazing stats so a 7 star training schedule is impossible. Is it overly important that i bring in new coaches, or can i just stick with the ones i have?

Think its was last year we did some research, and as long as you have light workload in all categories (shooting, ball control, tactics etc) - the players are fine.

7 star coaches is not important in terms of CA improvements, but match practice, club facilities, age and player mentality is.

so whats the point in a 7* rating then? what exactly does it do?

so whats the point in a 7* rating then? what exactly does it do?

A 7 star coach can train more players. F.eks if you have 20 players on high intensity tactic training - a 7 star tactic coach is needed to keep the workload on light. If its it average or high, they are not getting enough out of the training.

Wow, this is new information to me. I always thought 7* coaches provided better training? So what you are saying is that all coaches give the same CA increase, but the higher rating they have, the more players they can train? If this is the case then as long as the team have good facilities then their players can improve just as well as if they were being trained by a 7* coach, as long as they have a light workload still...

Yep. As i said before, match practice, club facilities, age and the hidden mentality professionalism(a low value and they get unhappy about the high workload).

So in that case, would it be a better idea to look for coaches mental stats (Motivation, Level of Discipline, Determination, Working with Youngsters etc) then worrying about getting high coaching stats? So as long as I don't exceed light workload, I will get the same results (perhaps better from mental stats)?

Mental attributes is only for Assistant Managers / AI managers.

Are you sure about this? So, what is important for a good coach then?

So by that reckoning, all coaches are even in ability. The only limiting factor is how many players they can train.

Revolutionary break through in terms of my games now! I have always wanted the best training possible so have thought I would therefore need all 7* coaches. In fact I just need to ensure I don't exceed light workloads. No more bank-busting coaches! :-D

Does this apply for all mental stats? Working with Youth and motivation included? Are those sides of training left down to the assistant if this is the case, therefore emphasising the need for a world class assistant?

And what about Physios and Scouts? Was there any work done to decide whether mental stats affect them at all other than the obvious Physio, JP and JA?

Sorry for lots of questions, but I am shocked by this. I feel mislead by SI now.

Nothing wrong in having 7star coaches for all 9 training catagories. Its expensive but all top club can afford it without any problems..

Its not really Revolutionary since its been like this in Fm08 and Fm07. Just make sure your club have top training facilities - thats the most important area.

And no coaches are even in ability - the best ones can work harder with a lot more players .

F.eks I have a 6 star tactic coach , but my players train hard in tactics so its on average workload with only one - thats why hiring a 2nd coach got workload down on light.

So what determines how hard the coaches work? Is that the hidden stat Hardness of Training?

Do you have a link to the research so I could have a read through?

But a coach with good man management skills, motivating and discipline + good coaching skills must be good? since he makes the players train harder/is good at motivating them and handling difficult personalities?

Mental attributes means nothing at all for coaches, only for Assistant Managers.

You can read more about it here; http://www.fm-britain.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=7134

More on this forum http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=da&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://www.fmfan.ru/board/index.php%3Fshowtopic%3D21831&usg=ALkJrhgrRysFI95XWh1zp-8cCAbxAVXuCg

I mean in the game, some coaches are world class, even though they don't provde 7 star rating, so what makes these coaches better than others?

I mean in the game, some coaches are world class, even though they don't provde 7 star rating, so what makes these coaches better than others?

I guess they can provide high workload in more than one area ?

I'm not sure I believe you...

This doesn't seem to add up. As I understand it, the number of stars they get is only relevant to the amount of people they can train, and the most important thing is to keep the training at a light workload....

So I did a quick test:

I put all my players on one training schedule, cranked up the workload to very heavy and then put the worst coach I had in charge of everything. 1 coach - 9 disciplines. He had 1 in fitness and goalkeeping. Despite this however, all the workloads remained light. So by this theory, you could run an entire squad off one coach?

I'm not convinced either...

I dont care if you believe me , do what you want - its your game after all

So what people are suggesting here, is that instead of going for 10 world class coaches for a premier league club, you should go for as many local coaches as you can. This will be much cheaper and will still allow your players to develop in line with their potential. So theoretically I could have 17 coaches with 1 in their training and pay them all £500 a month, thus saving myself several million a year in wages.

That seems a very strange concept. Why would AI clubs ever try to poach your staff?

You cant have more than 11 or is it 12 coaches.

You cant have more than 11 or is it 12 coaches.

Liverpool allows me 17 coaches.

I wish someone from SI could clearify on this.

I can have 15 in Milan .

I'm more than prepared to believe Joor because of the research that those guys did last year. There were some very interesting findings on those threads - including the fact that players loaned out to 'non-active' leagues generally don't develop their CA at all.

Of course, it may have changed for 09, but I can't imagine this is a part of the game that has had a big overhaul.

I'm prepared to believe; it would save me a fortune each season. Just have the cheapest coaches and lots of them.

If it could be 100% confirmed, then I would change my whole start of game strategy; instead of going for coaches with 20 or so for then relevant stat(s), I'd go for lots of cheapies. I wouldn't renew my expensive coaches or more importantly mutual terminate where it costs millions if you do a lot!

I'm not saying he is wrong, but it just doesnt seem right when I can put all my team on the same schedule (goalkeepers seperate, and including seperation for youth/1st team) and one coach with really poor stats can have the workload at light still. I had 22 players in youth schedule and 36 in 1st team. All trained by just one coach. The rating was 1* for each discipline, but the workload stayed as light for all. The only way I managed to get the workload up was to put goalkeepers in the same schedule as outfield players.

Could it be possible to train your entire squad with just 2 coaches (Goalkeeping and Outfield?)

maybe you only need 7 star coaches, when you want to do intensive training in one discipline?.. just an idea

That makes sense actually. Further initial testing shows that when I put aerobic and strength on intense, with a little tactics, the workloads increase to medium for aerobics and strength and heavy for tactics (even though it has very little training in that discipline).

It seems that as long as your training isnt too intense in any single discipline, then perhaps this could work and you could get away with very few coaches. It still begs the question why have a rating system that implies better training from the coaches with higher stats when, according to this research, there is no difference.

I don't think this will stop me looking for good staff, but I feel less guilty for having staff with lower rating training my players as long as I can keep the workloads down.

I do have issues with this. It means I can hire 17 useless coaches who could not explain how to kick a ball, let alone instruct in free kicks and crossing, but have all my players being trained perfectly. That is just not right.

Why should I look for the best staff and pay out hundreds of thousands a month on coaches, when I could spend about 10k a week on all 17 coaches and have brilliantly trained players.

This is just not realistic IMO.

it does appear so if they are correct about the most important thing being a light workload. I am not going to doubt their research, but it does seem silly for SI to have programmed in all these stats and for them to in fact mean nothing. Another thing that Joor said was that mental stats do not apply to anyone but AI manager and your assistant. Yet the manual says working with youth for example improves youth development.

Does confuse me a little I must say.

It might explain how auto-assigning your coaches training does not maximize the star potential of your staff, but rather they assign multiple coaches to do the same training aspect. I always thought this was bizarre and wanted to put one coach per aspect and maximize the star rating. Now, i'm starting to think otherwise...

Workload means how busy is coach not how hard players train.

This is absolutely baffling. Also, I thought that some mental attributes (specifically discipline, determination, motivation, and working with youngsters) had a real influence on coaching abilities, sorta behind-the-scenes. I believe the manual (or something in the Tactics Bible) says that determination and motivation affect physios, I know determination and adaptability affect scouts (I have seen evidence), but that stars and coach ratings only apply to workload makes me feel so worthless for spending countless millions poaching coaches away to build a full staff of individualized 7-star coaches.

I am still non-the-wiser about this.

Someone give me clear consice answers

I can only disagree with the idea, that the stars have to do with workload.

You can set your entire squad on a training (e.g. strength) with a coach who has got a fitness skill of 2 and it will be light, same as with a skill of 20. It has to do with the quality of the training only, not the workload.

I have just checked, because it is better to be safe than sorry (and this forum is merciless anyways ). I used a coach with 20 fitness coaching and pretty hard fitness training... fitness training so hard, that it is on the last notch of "light workload" with only the 20 coach in charge of aerobics. Then I took a coach with a fitness rating of 2 and put him as the only one in charge of aerobics... workload still light.

Dunno where that idea came from, but don't get confused, it is all as it always has been, so no waste of money for 7* training, if that helps you sleep better again

Well If you dont believe it - do your own test.

See how a wonderkid progress with 7 star coaches or 3 star coaches - just remember to have workload on light.

All that matters are how high or low you can set hes training intensity, and the amount of games he actually play during the season.

Also how fast he progress depends on the club facilities.

So to make sure everyone is not confused: "workload" is meant as coaches workload under the training-->coaches screen (where we see the star ratings) and not the actual player's training workload/intensity in the training-->player screen (where you design and assign training schedules to specific players).

I agree with Opul--the number of stars has no bearing on the amount of players a coach can train, nor on the level of intensity he can train them at. I have 35 players on my attacking schedule: 22 hard and 13 medium (training intensity levels). Switching between a 6-star attacking coach and a 3-star attacking coach only lowered the level of stars in the training: the workload remained light.

An idea is perhaps that the star level has to do with how quickly a player achieves their potential (the speed at which their CA increases)? That would make more sense, as it still explains how some players will develop almost inspite of themselves (natural development), the importance of training facilities (poor facilities = poor development, ie, CA does not rise as much), and coach star rating. If Player X is a striker and has a PA of 185 and a CA of 140, they would naturally go up to say 160 while training in the Arctic. Put them in a top flight training facility, and by their prime (28) they are at say 182. With training at a top flight facility with a 7-star coach, Player X would still hit his peak CA of 182, but would do it a year or two earlier (age 26-27).

Actually I would love a difinitive answer on this from SI!

I cant see the opening post being true. Someone who has 3 stars can train someone eqaully as well as someone with 7 stars? That makes no sense. I mean a coach with 20 technique means he is highly qualified in coaching techniques.

Maybe it makes no sense, but thats how it work. As long as the coach workload is on light , the players gets all the training they need - 1 star or 7 star is not important for how fast they develop attributes/reach their PA.

Read those links I already posted or do your own test..

Thanks Joor for the info!

so seems before I have some misunderstanding with the 7 star coach

So if a coach has 5 for attacking he will still train them as good as someone with 20 attacking?

Does things like determination, man management, motivation have any affect?

Man.... this is really an eye-opener and it's kind of a bad one. Cause frankly, how many players actually know that this is the way it works?

And it's highly unrealistic that a coach that i would assume has the best education, the best reputation and the best experience can't train Footie Guy #1 any better than a local lad that got to be a coach because his son plays in the team....

Even if this is how it works I shall choose to not remember this thread and hope this will be changed for the next FM

Can SI look at this?

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?p=2073949#post2073949

Is this true?

So 7 stars is not needed at all. Someone with 5 for attacking can equally training a player just as good as someone with 20 attacking so look as training facilities are good and the workload is light?

afaik the 'star rating' only indicates how many players the coach can handle without overdoing his workload - so still useful at big clubs with big squads, but the actual quality of the training given is not affected at all.

SI really should explain these things clearly in the manual and/or in game help, it's really not intuitive at all. Same with the way the mentality system works, makes sense when you get your head round it but you'd never figure it out from the terms used and the way it's described in official materials. Shame that they never clarify these things that do confuse experienced players, let alone newbies... yet are quite willing to patronise us by merging the 2 match speed bars together because some focus group that they won't elaborate on suggested it.

This kinda explains something i noticed while searching for coaches.

Some top top clubs (dont remember which) have GK coaches with the GK training stat at 7!!

At the time i thought this seemed odd, but it does sort of make sense if thats how it works as 7 is more than enough for a GK coach (with the small amount of players they coach)

Also it doesnt make them pointless, its still great to have 5+ stars if you can afford it, it gives you alot more flexibility in terms of tweaking training and getting more out of people (as you can increase the intensity more without adverse effects)

I wonder if this also means that those obscure things like preferred formation and such like have more meaning as well. Maybe a 13 Att coach with attacking mentality and 4-4-2 would train my team better than a 20 Att coach with 3-5-2 and cautious?