Players in FM can play up to 40 years of age.

I'm in the year 2020.

10 years on from now I see Alonso, Hizlsperger, Ben-Haim, Vidic, Ferrari, Joe Cole, Van der Varrt, Kaka all still playing first team football at the age of 37-40

Essien (37) is still at Chelsea putting in 20 games per season.

Torres is still at Liverpool scoring 27 goals in 40 appearances.

Casillas is 39 years old still playing regularly with 41 appearance and is worth £7.75million

Buffon is my oldest player at 42 makes 44 apps, keeping 19 clean sheets

It seems like physical attributes don't mean anything, its mental stats thats key.

On Previous FM players retired at the age of 34, 35, 36 and their stats declined dramatically.

POint being?

Stanley matthews played to 50, Oldham legend played for us to 42 etc etc!

Point being how many 40 year olds play for top teams?

I think the retirement age in general is increasing due to better training regimes, personal coaches and so on. 20 years ago; most of the key players were already declining after 30 but nowadays as long as they are healthy many can play close to their peak still at 33,34. Of course there will be always exceptions but this is the average.

On the other if you are seeing many top class players at the age of 35+! I think you should upload it to SI bug forum because examples of such cases are very rate yet. I agree with your conclusion is; SI made the decline based on mental stats and so called more professional! players seem to last longer in your game but still Terry will not be enough good to play 24 games for chealsea at the age of 39 and Torres can not score 15 at the age 36 for Liverpool

And yet they dont look a day older than 29 in their pictures

Even if they are in top condition regarding training regimes I still can't seem them playing week in week out at the age of 35. They just won't be able to cope physically.

In order to test to see if this is a big issue, you need to check the database for "age" at at the start of a new game, then check the ages at the current game, to see if there has been a large fluctuation/increase in aged players.

I am not too fussed personally when I see old goal keepers and defenders. Goalkeepers can easily play 40+ especially ones that are current top players around 30 years of age. Defenders? Maldini still playing in one of the worlds greatest teams and hes what? 41? Cannavaro is 35 still playing at the top level.

Midfielders and Strikers however rarely play over 35 and this should be shown in game. As far as I remember when I used to be a tester, players do have seperate physical attribute degradation, so keepers stats should go down slower and goalies player longer.

Maybe SI can elaborate on this.

I would have thought that this is a fairly major issue. Thank goodness I'm still playing FM08

I actually like being able to hang on to my favourite players longer, this is a step in the right direction so I hope this stays. I was sick of my players playing consistently at 28-30, but after that their stats went down really fast along with their performance. Being in your 30's in RL still means your very capable of playing 2 games a week with the right management, diet, training and lifestyle.

Good players still playing in Premiership:

What about Ryan Giggs (Man Utd), Gary Speed (played top footy til about 36 with Bolton), Dean Windass (Hull to ?), Van Der Saar, Tugay (Blackburn), Brad Friedal (Villa), Sami Hypia (Liverpool), Marcus Hahnemann (Reading), Maik Taylor (Birmingham).

Theres plenty more from the past, I wish I could've added Shearer but injury was his downfall, forcing an early retirement. All depends on the individual + luck I suppose.

Okay, some famous names are playing on, past where convention would have them retire.

What about the less famous?

If it was universal and every player kept going into their forties, then that would be a problem. But there's only ever mention of famous players, hard working and highly determined ones at that. What's happening to the less determined, the less hard working? Are they retiring?

Goalkeepers playing at the age of near-40 is to be expected.

^ Looking at the database generally players with higher determination are lasting well over 36,37 years old

I used famous players because people know them. But there are are some regens in the 36+ category

Generally there are more GK, MC, DMC in the 38+ range.

Roar Strand is still playing 20+ games a season with Rosenborg, and he's 38. Slower league, sure, but still.

In my 07 game, I'm in 2026, and there's still a few people kicking about (Lower league goalkeepers, mostly).

I understand this is being looked at for 9.0.3. I can imagine its difficult to quantify as a bug as no one can be sure when a top player will stop playing at a top level, lehman, hyppia, hamman, p schmichel, giggs (sp) are all examples to different degrees.

completely unrelated, but where did u get your facepack(s) from?

completely unrelated, but where did u get your facepack(s) from?

http://sortitoutsi.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=26554

I think what happened is that, with FM08, some of us made the point that players deteriorated too quickly after 30. To me, it looks as if SI put more emphasis on mental attributes as a marker for how players will decline, and it's resulted in things going too far in the other direction.

Ive got David Beckham (38) in my Rangers team, he was released on a free and i snapped him up.

Not the fastest player by any means but if played in the middle then he makes countless killer passes.

Having said that i have gone and Bought 2 new Midfielders both under 20, and a 23 year old Alexis Sanchez for the wing.

I think what happened is that, with FM08, some of us made the point that players deteriorated too quickly after 30. To me, it looks as if SI put more emphasis on mental attributes as a marker for how players will decline, and it's resulted in things going too far in the other direction.

That doesn't make sense. Mentally he maybe able to play with all the experience or what not but physically players won't be able to hack it week in week out. I can see players over 35 playing 20 games a season most being subs but not 30 plus games at 90mins.

That doesn't make sense. Mentally he maybe able to play with all the experience or what not but physically players won't be able to hack it week in week out. I can see players over 35 playing 20 games a season most being subs but not 30 plus games at 90mins.

Well, all I was saying is that it looks as if SI have made mental attributes so crucial in terms of decline that physical attributes almost seem to have no influence. At least when mental attributes are so strong. I'm not saying I think that's the way it SHOULD be.

Teddy Sheringham woohoo. Its down to modern day fitness regimes, but reallym sign them all!!! especially Casillas

Seems more realistic then FM08, players were deteriorating way to early and way to fast. As always, SI seem to over-tweak thing and now the problem is in the other direction that probably they arent deteriorating fast enough but I still think its closer to the realistic rate then in FM08.

I think, it's great that the real worldclass and famous player now still can make good seasons if they are "not more the youngest". In real, I believe also that this kind of players are good enough for all challenges, if they are hard working and if they are still motivated enough. Look at Lothar Matthäus, he became german player of the year with age of 38. Because his determination was very high, and he was still hungry to win trophys. In past versions of the FM, a very good midfielder or striker retired with 33, 34 or 35, because he was mostly sub or played in the reserve team. Now I am looking forward, to see my Michael Ballack still with 38 as captain of my Bayern Munich team, .

casillas is the only one which seems ok for a gk, but the others are abit over the top.

Point being how many 40 year olds play for top teams?

Maldini, costacurta also. Cafu was 37.

As i see on the screens player degradation seems much better on FM09.

Personally I think this should be considered a bug. If we look at their physical stats they are dropping considerably. However this doesn't seem to matter as they are playing more or less the same number of games, scoring more or less the same, having more or less the same rating scores, etc. So, are physical stats meaningless??? They surely don't seem to be IRL and are the reason players retire. Doesn't happen in FM2009: their physical stats are dropping as they should but they keep on playing nonetheless.

More importantly, it's not at all realistic for top teams to hang on to so many ageing stars. Does this happen IRL? Everybody always mentions Maldini but this is because he's a "freak", i.e. it's not at all normal and simply doesn't happen to anybody else, especially TOP players. Even GKs don't play at top clubs until their 40s. We have VD Sar and who else?

Another thing which I always thought doesn't make sense is for the former top players to keep playing and playing and going to lesser teams. Again, this also doesn't happen much IRL. What happens IRL is that, top players, having earned quite a lot of money during their time, simply pack it up at 34-35 and call it quits. They never go to lesser teams. See Beckham IRL, he's past his prime and approaching retirement time. Did he go to a poor team? No, he went to Milan, which also happens to make sense since it's probably the top club with the highest average player age.

As said above, it was not very good on FM2008 because players stats dropped too dramatically too soon. On FM2009 the problem is not with stats, it's that the players don't retire and top teams keep on playing them forever.

the thing is we will not know whether this is realistic or not for 12 years

But there are other issues there also.

I have a hard time beliving Buffon will go on to play 191!! caps.

Casillas 185!!!

All these players well over 100 caps.

100 caps is a huge milestone in real life and not many reach that amount and if they do they rearly get many after the 100.

Slightly off topic but how old Landon Donovon and how many caps has he got?

I think things are fine. They'll want to keep playing if they are kept being played as first teamers. Besides, with their stamina dropping they aren't going to be playing 90 mins, which is fine. I have Lampard at 36 and am phasing him out, giving time for my young replacement to take the mantle.

the problem is the AI doesnt know when to phase them out.

game = too easy in the future.

Yes, game does get a lot easier the longer it goes on. All the other big teams in my game have such old squads on average that they just can't compete. I'm winning the league far too easily now.

For example, in the year 2019 Arsenal have 15 players over 30 in the first team squad, Man City have 16, ManU 14.

I think it's good that some players such as maybe Gerrard, Terry, Lampard will now play longer in FM than they did on previous versions, but there cant be so many at the top level.

Dirk Kuyt is still playing regular 1st team games for Liverpool at 38!!

Oh and in response to cpa above, Landon Donavon retired in 2017 and finished with 195 caps and 97 goals! He is now a rather poor coach in a lowly placed french side.

well maybe some SI member will give us their opinion on this, I wonder if is this on their TODO list?

How come they can't get it right though? FM08 and the players were awful by 33, FM09 and they are brilliant at 40. Am I making it up or was there never a problem with attributes and ages in earlier versions, so why has it happened now?

That doesn't make sense. Mentally he maybe able to play with all the experience or what not but physically players won't be able to hack it week in week out. I can see players over 35 playing 20 games a season most being subs but not 30 plus games at 90mins.

David Weir

aged 38

Rangers CB

2007/08 60 appearances in all competitions.

2008/09 20 appearances (so far)

(all starts and 99% full 90 minutes)

I think I saw someone post a player in their late 50s on here. I just did a search and have a 48 year old still on the game so late 50s wouldn't be too far-fetched. He is in the Fijian league though, so maybe very very rarely they have a technically gifted player for that league who doesn't need the physical condition to be a leading player in such a poor league. Makes sense, and it's not as if EVERY player goes on into their mid forties. They do age very well though...

I think there are two slight issues here. Mike's summed up the first; i.e. the rate that players decline has been tweaked a little too much from 08 (where it was a lot worse imo as anyone over 32 was simply useless). SI need to find the balance so that some determined players can play onto their later 30's, but not a massive amount of them.

The second issue has already been touched upon. AI managers seem quite poor at building squads for the future. Young talents are overlooked or sold on in favour of continuing to field older players. This gives the older players less insentive to eaither retire, or move to a lower rep club if they still want first team action.

This a huge bug that wrecks the game. How fun is it when your opposition is using over hill 40 year olds with a pace of 5. It is just stupid

Oh and in response to cpa above, Landon Donavon retired in 2017 and finished with 195 caps and 97 goals! He is now a rather poor coach in a lowly placed french side.

Thanks, someone had posted a picture of him with 201 caps and 100 goals:thup:

I genuinely aren't seeing it be that bad, I mean I'm watching Arsenal, Man Utd, Barca, Real, Juventus, Inter etc all trying to buy young wonderkids and generally speaking players under 25 as well. Yes, there's some aging players in teams but to be honest, there's older players in a lot of the big teams these days.

Goalkeepers playing into late 30s - early 40s is normal. Joe Cole playing into his late 30s is a joke. It must be a hard thing to do, developing an accurate career arc for a players fitness level. For every guy who takes a sharp physical decline in his 30s there is a Ryan Giggs. Then again, Figo still gets time at a relatively advanced age, despite not having nearly the physical abilities he once had.

I don't see anything wrong with this, players can easily play in to their 30's now days and in 10 or so years, training, diets, physiotherapy etc will have improved allowing players to play on till even older... surely?

Obviously some players aren't too realistic, but one of the only reasons Cole is unlikely to last is because his legs won't last. It's hard to tell which players will still have the legs for it and which won't. For some players pace is never going to be important, look at Bergkamp, when he got older and lost the rather lacking pace he did have its almost as if he became a better player. Better passes and movement which created more overall.

The problem is if you see players like Gerrard in his late 30's doing the box to box thing and not more of a holding, central role then there is a serious problem.

Also, one thing a lot of people seem to forget is that its only been really during the 80's/90's players started to retire in their early 30's and drop down. During this time there was a rather large influx of fast foods and player weights ballooning in the off-season and all that stuff. In the 70's many a team had older players, playing at the top levels for 90 minutes, in more games than the current league campaigns and in worse conditions.

As I said, during the later 80's and 90's players would sometimes be coming back from end of season holidays at 15 stone or so, they didn't keep themselves fit in the summers as they seemed to beforehand. The whole culture of players retiring earlier and dropping down so much was bred then and has sort of lived in peoples memories.

Yes, but players like Cole are already showing to be physically frail at a fairly young age. In general, I'd agree that it is hard to say which players can last longer than others. Tie it into their natural fitness maybe?

Looks like it needs some tweaking, as long as it doesn't end up like FM08 where players got completley useless after 30.

Most of the screenshots given by the OP are fine. Only Torres and arguably Terry are problematic.

what about Aldair at roma?! he was 40 something when he retired and wasnt there a scandal with his passport where it turned out he was 5 years older than he said? that would have made him 45 minimum!!

Great news about Torres since i just signed him as a 33 year old with Swindon. Many good seasons ahead of him