Creating your own Training Schedules

[ham_aka_stam]

I've heard it mentioned that it's too difficult to create your own training schedules, and that I only find it easy because I have some background knowledge of how it works.

None of that is true. Here is how I go about creating training schedules:

1) The first thing to note is that any positional or global training schedule will involve you training players in attributes you don't need them to improve. Put a striker who can't dribble but already has great first touch and technique onto a striker's schedule and he'll be training his dribbling. This wastes CA on an attribute he's never going to use. So what I do, and what I'll cover here, is creating individual training schedules for all your important players. It sounds like hard work, but it needs doing once and once only. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but if you want full control over your players' training, this is how I'd suggest doing it.

2) Create a new schedule for your player. Name it something sensible... go crazy and use the player's surname, I dare you The best place to do this is in that player's profile, on the training tab, for reasons you'll see in a minute, but one reason is because it puts that player into the schedule.

3) So we have a schedule, firstly, set everything (except the GK training) in the middle (we'll assume this is an outfield player).

4) Using the tabs on the training tab, flick between the attribute development tab (I've forgotten the actual name for this as I'm not at my machine) and the training schedule itself. Use the drop down on the former tab to highlight which attribute each training group works on.

5) Here's where you need to understand that training in and of itself doesn't improve your player. Every player has a CA value and a PA value. If they're young, and their CA is less than their PA, good match performances vs a good team, for a good amount of time, at a high level (eg champs league vs friendlies) then their CA will increase. This is where training comes in, when a player has new CA, training decides where it goes. So using that knowledge, set the sliders in a tier system so that the areas you want the player to gain are at a higher intensity to those where you're not so fussed, which are in turn higher than those that you're happy the player loses points from. Give those of high priority a few clicks extra on the slider, leave those that you're happy with in the middle, and take clicks off sections that you're happy for him to degrade at.

6) I normally tier these in 2, 3 or 4 priority levels depending on how well rounded the player is, and whether he has any major weaknesses. Here is where you can sculpt your players to fit your role. Like to play Rooney as an out and out striker? Remove some from his defending and attacking training and bung it onto his shooting and pace. Prefer pacey strikers? Your striker with 20 and 20 for pace and acc doesn't need to train his speed, so he can concentrate on something else, but that 13 and 12 striker you've got can work on it more.

7) Once I've got my tiers, the only thing left to do is shuffle the tiers so that the overall workload is on the last notch of medium. Why? I don't know, I've just found it's a happy medium for 99% of players. Some will be lazy and want to reduce it, so I will, and those who don't play every week can have it higher. But the main importance I've found (anecdotally) is the gap between them, if training section A is on 0 and B is on the top (20?) then you're going to see all his CA go to B and none to A. In fact if he's starting to age as a player, you'll see A reduce in favour of B (this includes during periods of injury, because remember, it's game time that maintains and increases CA).

Tips:

- I very rarely train a player very intensely in shooting. Why? I never instruct players to take long shots. The shooting category only covers Long Shots and Finishing. So put Shooting on a medium intensity and just use the individual focus on Finishing (this is in the assumption he doesn't have a weaker attribute which needs the focus, in which case I'll bite the bullet and train his Shooting more actively).

- Don't overdo the physical training (Strength / Aerobic) as players can develop more injuries this way, and may also complain about it.

- Adjust and play. There is no instant effect to training so any mistake or error of judgement isn't going to hurt you. I regularly change my mind about a player's best role in my team. I've had Eriksen training as a DLP (lots of Defensive training, no Shooting) and then had injuries to Pastore and Rooney and decided to use him as my Trequartista (lots of Shooting Training, low-medium Strength and no Defensive).

- Start with your most important younger players, those who are first team regulars but aren't near their peak yet, you'll see the most gains with them, and can then filter this down to others.

- Players older than 30 benefit loads, you can decide which attributes they lose (to a certain extent) as they decline with age. Don't care that Giggs and Scholes are getting old and slow? Cool, drop their physical training and increase their tactics and technicals to make up for it.

I don't want to be seen to be selling this to you, I just want people to realise that this is easy to do, and doesn't involve too much micro-management.

I'll probably reword this, I've just bashed it out in one sitting so there're probably spelling errors and maybe even factual ones that I'll correct as I see them. I might also add some screenshots if I'm feeling extra useful.

Hope this helps someone get the best out of developing their players.

[Toronto Blizzard]

Thanks, Ham - this is very helpful for me in particular as I've used other people's downloaded schedules in the past and I've been wanting to develop much more individually customised schedules!

[furiousuk]

Posts like this are superb at dispelling the myth that creating individual schedules is difficult and help to encourage more people to give it a go.

[heddy]

Thing is, if I have world class coaches under me I shouldnt have to spend one second on schedules. Players should develop just fine while I'm sipping wine in my office.

[yonko]

I agree, this is a good post. But I think it would be better if it's supplemented with some screenshots. Those of us who have played the game longer can do with just description, but those who are relatively new to the game would perhaps understand better with pictures.

[Cleon]

Try the first few replies of this thread for pictures http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/304750-Youth-Development-The-Guide

[mikcheck]

Thank you for sharing this ham_aka_stam.

What do you people think in having 1st team players with intensive training in certain categories? Isn't heavy already strong enough?

[ham_aka_stam]

Thing is, if I have world class coaches under me I shouldnt have to spend one second on schedules. Players should develop just fine while I'm sipping wine in my office.

Very good point, to a certain extent, but I consider this as me advising my coaches what sort of player I want him to become, not me telling them how to do their job.

If training were ideal the coaches would have a good stab at this themselves, but with a rigid set of options, we can do it, and it's not that difficult.

Thank you for sharing this ham_aka_stam.

What do you people think in having 1st team players with intensive training in certain categories? Isn't heavy already strong enough?

Don't mention it.

No problem at all as long as it's not one of the physicals. I have a young Brazilian CM on the top notch of tactical training, no problem.

[Church CM]

Really nice post ... thanks for that. I use to be into buying my favorite players for high fees ... the past few years it's been about building my favorite players from scratch. Posts like this and those done by Cleon and Furious really inspire me (and many others I am sure)