[FM20] Voltaço

[_Ben_]

Youth Intake Preview

My worst one to date!

[_Ben_]

May/June 2030

A much calmer couple of months but, in typical fashion, given how busy this season has been - June has only been quiet due to the World Cup, taking place in Italy. Our cup form has been good, even if we saw our first defeat of the season against Mineiro, we had enough about us to turn it around and we topped off our Liberdatores group in fine fashion. We are rewarded with the easiest of the knockout ties - against Colo Colo.

To be fair, our league form has been less than exciting but we are unbeaten and managing the fixture congestion quite well. Normally, I'd be trying to get as many tactical thoughts down, sharing ideas and trying new things - but, in reality, this is all about doing the best we can with a small squad and seeing just well we can do with absolutely no pressure on us.

----

Following the successes in the State Championships - I've moved some players out on loan. The emergence of 16-year-old Pacato has meant that new signing Rafa has gone on loan and will more than likely be sold at the end of this. Magro rejected a big offer from Fluminense but has since joined on loan and he, along with other left back Josa, will get some good game time. It has, however, made me re-evaluate just how good first choice Joao Carlos actually is! Young keeper Quintanilha joins bottom of Serie A Operario as a first choice keeper and I lost unambitious youngster John to Fluminense.

I will be losing the second and third oldest players from my squad at the end of their deals as I look to opt for my own young players instead with the aforementioned Magrao and Josa coming back to fight for Kenedy's spot as second choice full back. Luiz Fernando has been good since his return from China, via Flamengo, and is now off to the Middle East to see out his career.

----

A good couple of months here and Filipe has picked up two points of Determination and moved to Professional, which is great given that he's now starting to become too influential to be influenced by others. 15 is still on the low side for what I'd like from my key players but his personality is, at least, much stronger. From what I've seen - the personality side seems to continue to rub off on all players, even when they are out of mentoring groups and my goal is, of course, to get him to that magic 20, so he'll move to a Model Pro once he turns 23 - as is the goal with the below players, too:

[Brentmeister]

3 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

Ok - this is not easy to explain, so let me do my best!

FM uses CA (current ability) and RCA (recommended current ability) to generate the attributes for a player. I'll take a completely random player to best explain this:

This is some Antiguan that I've never come across before and will never come across again, but I'll use his attributes (and, more importantly his RCA to explain) as well as the editor that I installed to change the kits. He currently has these attributes and I can tell you that the ratings are as follows:  Left foot: 16, Right Foot: 20 (this is important later)

He is currently like this:

If I change him, initially, to have 20 for each foot - I get this:

Now to 10 for his left foot and 20 for his right foot:

And now 1 for his left foot and 20 for his right foot:

----

So, what you're seeing is that being two footed essentially 'uses up CA' and, the way that I have interpreted that is that an Either footed player may be 1 or 2 points lower in certain attributes than a player who is one footed - yet may have a higher RCA (and, is very rough terms [obviously excluding all of the stuff like suitability for the role] is a better player).

I think this is why there is so much more to look at a player than those visible attributes.

Let me know if that makes sense!

 

That makes complete sense mate thanks for taking the time to reply. Adds another dimension to recruitment and development!

[Toffle]

Il y a 13 heures, _Ben_ a dit :

He only recently signed one but this takes away his £19m clause to domestic clubs, which was very close to being met!

What are his domestic and foreign clauses now? I'm sure they're gonna be met very soon! I'd like to see him perform in Europe, not China or Middle East..

What a great season so far! Hope the intake will be fine!

[_Ben_]

2 hours ago, Toffle said:

What are his domestic and foreign clauses now? I'm sure they're gonna be met very soon! I'd like to see him perform in Europe, not China or Middle East..

What a great season so far! Hope the intake will be fine!

I've priced him out of staying in this league, which is great, but I imagine that he'll move abroad at some point. I do, at some point, want to have a shot at getting a player to score an insane number of goals, maybe going for Pele's record - but I think we need to be the best team in the league when I start that, otherwise I just can't keep hold of a world class player.

[_Ben_]

July/August 2030

No rest for the wicked.

Our gruelling schedule has continued and, largely, we are coping with it. July was a great month and we have continued our fairy-tale by dispensing of Colo-Colo, and later Bragantino, to reach the semi finals of the Liberdatores on our first try. A slight slump at the start of August was quickly turned around and we keep pressure on the top teams in this wide open league.

---

We also had our first full international - but it wasn't who you'd think...

Beto isn't very good but, due to my database, Japan doesn't have enough players to fill a proper squad.

---

I've also had my second wonderkid as Filipe Marinho joins Joao Fernando. He's turned out pretty well! That cannot be said from the newest youth intake, of which I'll leave my assistant to decide who is good enough:

[_Ben_]

September/October 2030

The length of this season means that it's starting to drag somewhat right now. However, we are still doing really well in the league and have a shot at the Copa Liberdatores final - an outstanding achievement in our first ever entry to the competition.

It is the below that concerns me the most:

We are performing so far above expectations that the board didn't actually expect us to become an established Serie B side for another five years, let alone knocking on the door for the Serie A title. I have found that the level of quality in Brazil is quite poor, actually, despite the plethora of talent around.

---

More concerning, though, is the below message. One goal in twenty for my star striker will not help me in my goal to get an obscene amount of domestic goals for any one player:

 

[keeper#1]

Are the opposing managers poor at, well, managing?

[_Ben_]

End of season 2030

Our last two months very nothing more than very average but we have still recorded our best ever league finish and we continue to massively over-achieve with a poor squad made pretty much entirely of youth players, although there hasn't been too many new players who have been able to step in of late given our poor intakes. The table is a little more spread out this year than it was last year and my understanding of who the big clubs should be seems a little off: Cruzeiro (albeit a Serie B side when the game started), Santos, Sao Paulo as well as Mineiro and Internacional really don't seem that special. Even the teams around us (I must say that I've never head of Bragantino before) including the likes of Gremio, Palmeiras and Vasco, certainly seem beatable and haven't really built good squads nor have trusted a manager to take them through a few seasons (although I really believe that to be true to real life).

---

With nearly eighty competitive games this season - I've tried to rotate but with three ageing players in Luiz Fernando, Kenedy and Jaja, I have been unable to use them as much as I would have wanted - sot the likes of Marcos Antonio have massively benefited from the exposure to the first team. Joao Fernando won the top scorer in the Brasiliero with just 15 goals but that badly impacted his scoring record that was very close to 1.00 goals/90 when the league system kicked off. What I've noticed this year is this is that none of my creative players (Roma, Valdinei, Pacheco and Andreson) have averaged over 7.00 - and that has probably been a factor in the lack of goals scored as we are simply creating less.

---

The biggest thing I've noticed here is that Brazil just doesn't have the right newgen template for creating a good young side with great personalities. By that - I reference a template that is in the pre-game editor that stipulates a common set of hidden attributes for each nation - for example, Brazil naturally produces players with high Ambition so that they are eager to move to Europe. I haven't looked at this but, based on the player search criteria, I would imagine that the professionalism is really low as we, and the rest of the nation, are just not producing many M.Citizens/Pro players. It's a shame and is knocking me back a little in what I want to achieve but I am working hard to get the rest of the squad where I want to help push this.

---

[_Ben_]

2 hours ago, keeper#1 said:

Are the opposing managers poor at, well, managing?

Yes - really surprisingly. I would say that my playing style is hugely focused on the long term, which means I'm not the greatest tactical manager - yet I've been able to outclass a lot of the other teams here with inferior players. I don't know why...

[Fosse]

What happened in the Libertadores?

[_Ben_]

1 hour ago, Fosse said:

What happened in the Libertadores?

I kind of ran out steam with the games and the updates, much like we ran out of steam in the end against Palmeiras:

Still - that is a tremendous run and one we can be very proud of!

[_Ben_]

Sneak peak...

I've played on into the tiny off-season, and pulled off this magical bit of business...

Absolutely idiot move from Tianjin!

[_Ben_]

Out with the old, in with the old?!

The sales of Kenedy and Luiz Fernando, along with the retirement of Jaja combined with the poor intakes over the last two years has left me scratching my head about how I want to play this save. Part of me is saying slow down, enjoy the tactical aspects and, probably, dominate the league pretty quickly whereas the other half is saying turn this into a full on 'youth development program' whereby the development of youngsters comes way above the success of the team, and, as such, relinquish some of that day-to-day control over the game such as using the IR button a bit more. The sale of Marcos Antonio for a cut price £1.5m (he had a £4m+ bid from several domestic clubs rejected by me) shows that I'm probably leaning towards the second option right now...

Whilst I 'um' and 'ar' over that - I've made a few nice moves in the transfer market to strengthen us. 

Firstly, the young duo of Marcelo Felipe and Savio Flamengo join. Savio is a player who I am very excited about and his Flair of 20 is the only reason I've allowed him to have a top-knot but he might just be the future of our playmaking fulcrum. The big move was to bring Rodrigo Dinamite back from China. He has had a decent three-year spell there but is actually untested at this level. He's good but maybe not the star of the team as he was before he left. I'm excited to see how he re-integrates into the team though. He is my highest earner but has taken nearly a 50% pay cut to return home. Lastly, I made a move to loan in Cris, who, as the avid reader may remember, was sold over my head some eight years back. He's had a fair career to date but I feel somehow he has a bit more to offer, considering how excited I was when he first came through the academy.

---

The strongest XI now probably looks a little like this:

• 7 academy graduates.
• No negative (or even neutral) personalities.
• Only poor attributes for the two AMs (all my attacking mids have concentration less than 10, for some reason).
• Plenty of experience - the team averages over 160 appearances each.
• Edilson, Felipe Marinho and Joao Fernando are proven to be top quality players at this level.

[_Ben_]

2031 Copa Guanabara Review

Ok - so I have decided to move forward with the less hands-on approach, for the next few years, at least so I have used the IR button for this competition and, of course, have had my best performance to date! I will quickly update the second stage of the competition but then focus on less regular match updates and more regular player development updates, once I have got around to defining some new things to track.

As always, this competition is fairly straightforward but we've managed to not lose to Flamengo, which sets us up to top the overall table and we have, unless we win the Copa Rio, one foot in the overall final, too. We also face our feeder team Perolas Negras in the next turn, however, since promotion - they now only have two Haitians in the whole club, which is a bit of a shame.

[_Ben_]

Player Personality

I doubt that Rodrigo was influenced whilst in China (as the majority of the Tianjin squad was grey players) so that leads me to believe that he has picked up all of the Professionalism 'points' he needs whilst at our club. Furthermore, that gives me more hope to think that the likes of Geilton, Lorran Pereira Santos, Marcio Ricardo and Pacheco will reach this personality as they are all of a similar age and have been at the club for a similar amount of time.

He has now become the fifth Model Pro at the club, as we return to that number following the retirement of Jaja. We only have one Model Citizen (Edilson) but, as mentioned previously, it seems very rare to find them given the newgen personality distribution that I've found for Brazilians. 

Edited July 3, 2020 by _Ben_

[_Ben_]

2031 Copa Rio Review

We have quite simply blown the opposition away to take our first ever Carioca State crown!

The player stats back up just how good we have been this year - slightly annoying being as this is the first year where I've relinquished such tight control over matchday - but never mind! However, I've now played 473 career games in just nine seasons at the club, which is a ridiculous number - especially considering the first years in Serie C were just around 30 games, in total!

---

My plan is to now get through the season pretty quickly - and having a look at the kind of things I want to achieve from the youth side of this save...

[_Ben_]

Upgrades

This should help my next intakes...

[_Ben_]

Player Progress

In Pacato, I have the stereotypical good developer - a really good personality and determination combo. He's developed really well and now becomes my third wonderkid.

---

Joao Carlos is an unexpected change of personality as he was Resolute as close as the start of this season - when I posted my strongest XI. I have had a few mentions of him doing well in training and this must have been the move that he's made. 

The Model Pro list is growing:

[_Ben_]

Youth Intake Preview

Back to being really promising!

[_Ben_]

Player Sale

Marcio owes me nothing as he's been around forever but just really hasn't kicked on. He was always a player who I was using as a 'test' to develop and see how much I could squeeze out of him. Over 100 first team games and now a move to Spain suggests I've done pretty well. I can't see him making too much of an impression on the first team at Betis, but we'll see...

[_Ben_]

Milestone

Feels like most have come in the last two seasons!

[_Ben_]

Positional flexibility

One thing that I have really started focusing on over the last two years is having first team players comfortably able to play in at least two places on the pitch. This doesn't necessarily mean they need to fit directly into the mould of a player who would normally play there - for example, Pacheco has played a little bit as a right back this season. Moving a good 'footballer' back into a role that requires a good ability to tackle/head/mark as well as cross means I adapt how that role plays when he moves there - using him as a very deep and wide playmaker rather than a marauding wingback.

The youngest players in the squad now look like this:

• I like to retrain defensive midfielders as full backs - as they tend to fit into two categories: Ball winners - who make perfect FB(d) when we need to protect a lead or playmakers - who made perfect WB(s) or IWB(s) depending on the side that they play on. Roma, Aurelio and Christian are now all accomplished there.
• I also like to ensure that wide players can play on both sides so I can play inverted formations if needed - either IWB, IW or IF. Joabson has become accomplished at left back, which is great.
• DM's sometimes become AM's if they can fuse together playmaking and high pressing and AM's sometimes become DM's if they aren't as good off the ball.
• I like forwards to be able to play wide too. Currently, the left side is the second striker but that can be flipped, too.
• Tall DM's become ball playing defenders
• Poor ball playing defenders become Anchor Men or BWM(s) - as sometimes I just need that mettle in the middle of the park against a specific #10.

There are more - and this is something that I want to explore with each youth intake, too.

Edited July 4, 2020 by _Ben_

[_Ben_]

Injuries

Poor old Maicon can't catch a break and these two set backs mean he's unlikely to add to the 299 previous league games he's made as he's now no more than a Serie C player...

[Fudal]

12 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

Injuries

Poor old Maicon can't catch a break and these two set backs mean he's unlikely to add to the 299 previous league games he's made as he's now no more than a Serie C player...

When he returns from injury surely you have to give him his 300th game, right? It’d be cruel not to 

[_Ben_]

1 minute ago, Fudal said:

When he returns from injury surely you have to give him his 300th game, right? It’d be cruel not to 

I owe it to him, I suppose!

[_Ben_]

2031 Youth Intake

Antonio Carlos. Robson Luis. Mazinho. Nathan.

---

I like this intake a lot. 

We have the potential star in Antonio Carlos, a well rounded attacking midfielder, and then a little of bit of extra depth plus our first ever Model Citizen who I want to develop in Mazinho. I'll draw up some more detailed plans as the season draws to a close.

[OlivierL]

Great that u got the first Model Citizen. Happy about the other personalities ?  Carlos looks great.

[_Ben_]

12 minutes ago, OlivierL said:

Great that u got the first Model Citizen. Happy about the other personalities ?  Carlos looks great.

Not overly, no. In Spain, I was able to pretty much remove the poor attributes with good personalities within the staff. Maybe my facilities aren't quite at the level that they were at Guadalajara, which is negatively impacting them or maybe it is back to the whole newgen personality template thing - meaning Brazilian's are just coded to not be as professional?

[OlivierL]

12 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

Not overly, no. In Spain, I was able to pretty much remove the poor attributes with good personalities within the staff. Maybe my facilities aren't quite at the level that they were at Guadalajara, which is negatively impacting them or maybe it is back to the whole newgen personality template thing - meaning Brazilian's are just coded to not be as professional?

It may indeed have something to do with the country and its facilities. For the rest you have made enormous progress in terms of personalities in the staff, etc.  I'm curious if it can become even more positive with your youth intakes in the coming years.

[_Ben_]

Personality Change

The second completely home-grown player (excluding Rodrigo DInamite as he may have been influenced in China) to reach this personality, which tells me that I am 90% sure the mentoring is working as anyone with a Pro personality and under 23 will likely to have 20 for Professionalism - as they've been influenced by the mentors. The list of suitable players to run groups continues to grow, as seen below, and no - there is really no reason why I can't turn everyone to a Model Pro before the time they hit 23 - although I may have to re-think that if the starting point is a really poor personality - hence my insistence on getting the best I can for when they come through the academy.

 

 

[_Ben_]

International call-up

The first time I have had senior recognition at international level for a country who have a decent amount of players in the database.

 

[scousevasey]

18 hours ago, Fudal said:

When he returns from injury surely you have to give him his 300th game, right? It’d be cruel not to 

90+4 minute - Volta Redondo are making a substitution - Here comes Maicon to replace (insert name here)

90+4 minute - The GK takes the goal kick, and that is the final whistle

Roughly 30 seconds on the pitch, 300th appearance made, and he sails off into the sunset

[_Ben_]

2031 End of Season

I apologise -  Even using the IR button, I think that going a whole league season without an update isn't form to allow people to follow this save.

However, we've had another largely successful season as we look to stabilise ourselves in the Brasiliero and put more attention on becoming a world class academy. Never the less, we have still been able to produce some fireworks, such as a 7-0 away thrashing of Mineiro followed up by a comprehensive 4-1 victory over champions Flamengo. We ever so slightly improve on our performances from last season, scoring more and winning but also conceding a few more. I think that the gap between us and the top teams can be directly attributed to the ten times we have failed to score this season - as we currently rely on pretty much one person for that.

Our Liberdatores form was great, once again. This year, we didn't have to qualify from round one but again made a deep impact on the competition and, again, came up a little short in the semi-finals, this time against Corinthians. Most impressive, was our victory away in Buenos Aires against a really good River Plate side.

The less we say about our Copa do Brasil run, the better. Sampaio Correa are a mid-table Serie C side...

---

As I said - 42% of all of our goals this year have been scored by Joao Fernando. Whilst that is great for him and my quest to make him a top goalscorer, it does leave us a little one dimension. He's scored seven of our eleven penalties in all competitions and, realistically, I'd like to find a pure penalty taker - but we really don't have one. Still, I cannot take anything away from our game plan and that is to get the ball to Fernando or Fernandez, who are both scoring well. Yet, the former is converting 14% of his shots and the latter just under 11% - not amazing numbers if I'm honest - given that we play at least 7 of the 11 state games against non-league players!

I don't know if the problem lies a little further back - with my attacking midfielders:

53% of the chances Andreson creates turn into goals, whereas the figure is 40% for Pacheco, 14% for Savio Flamengo, 83% for Roma and 66% for Valdinei. Yet Valdinei gets on the ball much less than the other two more rotational players - attempting and completing less passes than the other two. Roma and Valdinei are clearly making good chances - but not enough of them to warrant first team football. What is evident here is that these players aren't really that high quality when compared with my other players so I will have a closer look at this over the break.

Further back, Rodrigo Dinamite did everything that I wanted from him upon his return - broke up play and used the ball wisely and formed a good partnership is a rarely rotated DM role with Filipe Marinho (who is on the bottom of the below image):

Dinamite is the better of the two in the air and in the tackle, whereas Marinho is slightly better working with the ball. 

The defence, whilst a little short on numbers with three full backs and three centre backs, by natural position anyway, have done well and Ederson has looked good in his sixty-four appearances too.

---

Things are looking good and we've just had a new chairman from the election who has immediately action new youth and training facilities for us. I've got three or four players who I'm going to be looking at as key development targets over the next year, too.

---

[_Ben_]

Finding appropriate talent to develop

A strange title for some musings here - but just trying to work through who is worth documenting the development of. I am referring to CA and PA stars here so it's easier to follow rather than memorising individual attributes and the like.

My plan is to find a few players who it is really worthwhile putting time and effort into developing.

5-stars

These players are the creme-de-la-creme and, as you can see, two of them are already top players for me. Therefore, it would make sense to really delve into the development of Antonio Carlos to turn him into a really strong player.

4.5-stars

Marinho is already a key player for the first team and I would say that both Roma and Savio are too old to be really changed. I still stand my by original thoughts that Roma would never be that good and I don't expect him to become a truly rounded player. I quite like the player Flavio Aurelio is turning in to - a ball winner rather than a playmaker in the middle of the park - so I'll see how I can best fill out the last two stars of his potential.

4-stars

Dinamite and Edilson have already reached their potential and I feel that Joabson is too old so it makes sense to focus on Mazinho and Nathan - the two prospects from my last intake and hope that they do have enough about them to reach their potential.

3.5-stars

I think that these two (excluding the slightly older Fernandez and the already 'ceiling reached Geilton') just need the odd change to their schedule and, as such, there seems little point putting lots in for marginal gains - especially when they are already first team players.

---

Here are the development four:

They'll form a big part of my updates over the next year, at least.

[_Ben_]

Player Development

I have spent a bit of time re-acquainting myself with Excel for the purpose of this but it won't take over the thread, I promise! I found a really great set of attribute grouping analysers by a twitter user called @Atahualpa Maia (no idea if he's active on these boards) and wanted to have a play around with them. I'd rather not go into each section and tell you what it is - instead, look him up and see how he does it. I am merely inspired by his work and take no credit for the naming or the initial ideas here.

Here is what I've come up with:

He has painstakingly grouped attributes together to make far better spider diagrams, which I can use to really pinpoint areas for development. I have then taken combinations of those groups that I think are important for each role and collated them to display the best role for each of these youngsters. I have also added the development ticklist from my previous youth development stuff as it's still really important and I quite like how it looks. It's all controlled via a drop down box to select the name of the player so it's as simple as reverting to my view that shows everything and copy and pasting the correct data in. I can branch out and use it for any of my own players (Joao Fernando) and then any player in the game world (current best player Hugo Bravo) if I want to make any signings.

If you are interested - you can see the results for Flavio Aurelio, Mazinho and Nathan, too. These will be used throughout the next few years as I look to keep FM and Excel separate (a big reason why I stepped away the first time) and look at numerical data in game - e.g. 'his tackling has improved by three points' and look at this kind of data outside the game - e.g. 'the technical radar is much more solid now his defence has improved.'

 

[OlivierL]

once again , looks  great.  a great tool.

[Brentmeister]

@_Ben_ quick question: I have this guy who has a casual personality and level headed media handling style, in the guides I've read, I'm led to believe that casual has a professionalism rating of 2-4 but level-headed as a professionalism rating of 13-20, what gives!?

Your threads have inspired me to be more meticulous with youth development so this has confused me a little?

Keep up the good work

 

I'm gonna cc @Jimbokav1971 and @OlivierL here too beacuse their threads also inspired me and hopefully someone knows the answer! Sorry to momentarily hijack your thread mate I hope this is ok.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Brentmeister

[Jimbokav1971]

13 minutes ago, Brentmeister said:

Ben, quick question: I have this guy who has a casual personality and level headed media handling style, in the guides I've read, I'm led to believe that casual has a professionalism rating of 2-4 but level-headed as a professionalism rating of 13-20, what gives!?

Your threads have inspired me to be more meticulous with youth development so this has confused me a little?

Keep up the good work

 

I'm gonna cc @Jimbokav1971 and @OlivierL here too beacuse their threads also inspired me and hopefully someone knows the answer! Sorry to momentarily hijack your thread mate I hope this is ok.

@_Ben_is the best person to answer this because he is more up to speed with it in FM20. I've hardly done anything like this for a few issues now. 

Casual does have a Pro rating of 2-4.

If it somewhere states that Level-headed gives a Pro rating of 13-20 then that's rubbish. There is no way that's the case. 

I'm trying to have a little look now but a lot of the stuff I use to use is out of date now. 

 

[Jimbokav1971]

Hi @BrentmeisterHave a look at this. 

I haven't seen it until just now but it looks decent. 

http://zfn4fun.github.io/fm/att/

The casual template mentioned above is accurate and it's the media-friendly bit that is wrong. 

[Brentmeister]

Yep, my guide is completely wrong! Thanks for that link @Jimbokav1971

 

According to this guide level headed has sporting 12-20 or pro 13-20 so the casual personality takes precedent which makes level-headed in this case: con 1 -14, tem 7-20, loy 11-20 and spo 12-20

[Jimbokav1971]

1 minute ago, Brentmeister said:

Yep, my guide is completely wrong! Thanks for that link @Jimbokav1971

 

According to this guide level headed has sporting 12-20 or pro 13-20 so the casual personality takes precedent which makes level-headed in this case: con 1 -14, tem 7-20, loy 11-20 and spo 12-20

The problem with that guide is that it's from 2012 and I know it's out of date, but I also can't find a better one. There is lots of "guff" being written by a lot of people who clearly don't really understand it themselves. 

Even that calculator link I gave you above is out of date I think.  

[Brentmeister]

I couldn't find any up to date info either. The original guide I was using was recommended on here and I just took it as gospel, silly me! But even that's for fm19

Edited July 6, 2020 by Brentmeister

[Jimbokav1971]

Just now, Brentmeister said:

I couldn't find any up to date info either. The original guide I was using was recommended on here and I just took it as gospel, silly me!

No, I've been bitten by that before. I was confused as hell when they updated the templates in about FM18 and didn't tell anyone. It was trial an error. 

What I would say is that the key, (and I think @_Ben_will agree with me but I don't want to put words in his mouth), is to use personality as an indication of a players personality. It doesn't tell you everything and 1 player with a certain personality and exactly the same attributes might be a good player for you in 1 situation and bad for you in another. 

A lot of us, (especially in this sub-forum), get bogged down by personality, (and even media handling that some may not fully understand), and my advice is to just relax a little about the whole thing. In my save at the moment I'm playing a really low level, (Tier 9 in England), and although I have maxed out Junior Coaching to level 20 already, and got Youth Recruitment to level 12, I can't get overly focussed on Pro, Amb & Det, because the harsh reality is that while I am producing players with decent potential, we are playing at such a poor level and training, (part-time), at such rubbish facilities, (level 1 & level 2), that any player growth is going to be pretty negligible. I might want to do the right things, but it's basically a lot of effort for really not much gain at all. 

So if I have a player come through with decent CA, but much poorer PA than another player in the same position, then it might serve my purposes to play the player with slightly better CA, much worse PA and even a worse personality, because developing players is not the only thing in the game. At some point you actually have to win games.

There is really no such thing as a good or a bad personality, (although I hate casual and slack), and I think sometimes we just need to have a feel for the player more. Even as recently as this save I'm playing right now I have released players just because of PA stars and Det level. That's stupid, (I'm stupid), but I have so many players I have to get rid of some and the truth is we have very little to go on. 

I have had players who look rubbish and don't have a good personality do outrageously well for me. Don't get me wrong I love developing players, but I think sometimes we need to make it less, formulaic and more...... intangible I guess, (although I'm not sure @_Ben_would agree with that). 

Anyway, apologies for going off on a tangent.  

[Brentmeister]

I appreciate the response and it makes complete sense.

 

I'm definitely guilty of being over analytical and formulaic towards youth development. I should try treating them like real people instead of numbers!

 

 

[_Ben_]

2 hours ago, Brentmeister said:

According to this guide level headed has sporting 12-20 or pro 13-20 so the casual personality takes precedent which makes level-headed in this case: con 1 -14, tem 7-20, loy 11-20 and spo 12-20

This is your answer!

2 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

use personality as an indication of a players personality. It doesn't tell you everything and 1 player with a certain personality and exactly the same attributes might be a good player for you in 1 situation and bad for you in another. 

Spot on! The only personalities that I think are 'set in stone' are those ones where we know something must be 20 (for example M.Pro is 20 for Professionalism) as there is a lot of difference in how a player reacts/develops etc from 15-20 plus, you have several other hidden attributes which are all likely to be at different levels, too - so a Pro player may only share one hidden attribute that is within like 5 points of someone else with the same personality.

2 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

There is really no such thing as a good or a bad personality

Again - this is it! I'd rather have a Slack player with a CA of 200 than a Model Citizen with a CA of 10. Personality is just one part of what makes up a player. If I'd rather have a Slack player with the same CA as a Model Citizen, with exactly the same attribute spread - I know then what I'd chose but that has a tiny probability of happening.

2 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Don't get me wrong I love developing players, but I think sometimes we need to make it less, formulaic and more...... intangibl

Yep. Again. I stepped away from using Excel because I was min/maxing development and blaming it all solely on personality info and not how they performed on the pitch or how I wanted them to develop. My latest little excel foray is just a different way to show the attributes, rather than to unpick their development.

[OlivierL]

2 hours ago, Brentmeister said:

Yep, my guide is completely wrong! Thanks for that link @Jimbokav1971

 

According to this guide level headed has sporting 12-20 or pro 13-20 so the casual personality takes precedent which makes level-headed in this case: con 1 -14, tem 7-20, loy 11-20 and spo 12-20

This is correct. But i see that Jimbo and Ben already posted all the feedback u needed. Good luck  

Edited July 6, 2020 by OlivierL

[_Ben_]

Loan move

Bit of a strange one but Joabson was very much a backup full back, so joining Osasuna with their great facilities in a high reputation league, with a manager, Jagoba Arrasate who excels in dealing with youngsters, was a no-brainer. His full back partner is Ben Chilwell and he'll play behind Cristian Pavon in a strange line up!

He's there until the end of their season so will rejoin us in July hopefully having made some good development.

Edited July 6, 2020 by _Ben_

[_Ben_]

100 up!

I sometimes forget that this lad is only 20 but he has just netted his 100th league goal (which includes State Champs) in his 167th appearance, which works out at one goal per 1.63 games. Funnily enough, I still don't see him as an out and out forward and really want to find that Ronaldo-esque player to move him out wide - but, in the meantime, he's doing really well!

[_Ben_]

Finding 'Ronaldo'

There would be little point in managing in Brazil if I didn't want to try and find/create a version of my favourite player growing up, Ronaldo. I mentioned him in the post just about Fernando and, whilst he's now a good finisher, just isn't pacy enough or dangerous enough with the ball at his feet to be truly Ronaldo-esque. My search for the new Ronaldo will revolve around this image, which took me back a little:

At just 21, he has amazing acceleration, balance, pace, and technique and his shooting, flair, off the ball and dribbling are also world class. These are the attributes that really make the perfect Brazilian forward to me. Fernando is great, but his lack of pace makes me want to move him away from the last shoulder and allow him to utilise the space from the wide left.

If I was to just get another good striker through my intakes...