enigmatic

It's a different issue from those that have been described by Yukon, but I actually think that's part of the problem. Instead of talking to a player day to day about your aspirations for the club and how the squad is improving you have one conversation in six months about them strengthening the squad, end up with them inferring a promise to play more youth players or something and with absolutely nothing you can do in the intervening six months other than hit their definition of "play more youth players", because you can't talk to them about how you might have to abandon that plan because both your prospects are injured and you've got a chance of pushing for Europe if you stick with the best XI, and if you get into Europe you'll be in a much better position to address their original concern about squad depth anyway. Sure, if you promise a player a new contract at the end of the season they'll probably hold you to it at the end of the season, but pretty much everything else is open for discussion and revision at any time IRL.

I assume it means they dwell on the ball to encourage the foul and sometimes even hit the ball intentionally against the opponent closing them down for corners, as well as preferring safe passes to chance creation. Can't say I've used it much, although it might combine well with timewasting

I believe flamboyancy covers creative freedom (and related elements, probably including player instructions and roles - picking one or more ball playing defenders is much more flamboyant than picking two no-nonsense defenders and a complete forward is more flamboyant than a poacher, and encouraging players to dribble or shoot from distances is more flamboyant than asking them not to) I assume the OP is correct about flexibility.

In the most extreme cases, I've even been unable to sign amateurs from the division below for a professional club paying decent wages because every single one of them has just renewed their £0 pa deal for another year (I mean, there certainly are amateurs uninterested in discussing professional contracts because they're happy with their career outside football and/or unable to move for family reasons, but not exactly in the way its been implemented)

The Youth Rating is only a small part of what makes a nation have good youngsters, always has been

In fairness, there's no reason to believe that being almost supernaturally gifted at football means that Messi is particularly good at telling the difference between lesser players than him. Pele's FIFA 100 players list and Maradona's management in general are the butt of jokes. I'd be a bit more concerned if a famously inventive and possession oriented flair player like Messi decided to adopt the tactical approach of Tony Pulis. I think there's some basic stuff that links coaching attributes to position so defenders are unlikely to be especially good at attacking in there and Determination obviously carries over, but there could be more logical links too.

I guess hiring you was the only way to stop you beating them every single time...

To be honest, if he's on trial at the club and I can see his attributes, I'd trust my own ability to assess whether the player had the right strengths and weaknesses a lot more than the coaches or scouts' guess at current ability, or even the actual CA rating in the editor. Especially since he's a goalkeeper and too old to improve much. I'd ignore past stats. Finding out how many clean sheets he kept behind a different defence tells you very little about whether he's actually good at stopping shots and doesn't make many mistakes.

Depends on how you look at it, I guess. One of the more frequent complaints about FM is that big clubs tend to hoard the Mason Mounts and Phil Fodens of the world, treat them as unsaleable assets and then not give them enough games to develop to their full potential before releasing them. Arguably this is the game realistically creating a whole generation of former "overhyped" youth players, but human players are usually very annoyed by this because they suspect they actually were potential elite players... On the other hand I think you're probably right that the AI doesn't necessarily gives as many games IRL to players that just don't have what it takes to be that good like Spearing (who I don't think ever had any attitude problems, and I also suspect wouldn't get near starting appearances if he came through the Liverpool academy tomorrow) and certainly the game world doesn't generate as much excitement about a couple of well-taken important goals from an otherwise uninspiring player like Macheda.

Sergi Roberto says wtf? Please stop embarrassing yourself with your ignorance of Barcelona. I've seen some strange arguments deployed on these forums, but the idea that La Masia isn't very productive in terms of talent has to be the strangest. I'm not sure it really helps your even stranger original argument that everyone at the same level as a tiny and pretty raw Messi in his early teens could have been as good as him with the right attitude and setup either either... Not every teenager who goes through an academy is ever expected to be able to make it as a first team regular, especially not if the first team is Barcelona. But it's quite hard to put out a youth side with only the one or two players you're really, really confident about and occasionally players pleasantly surprise you. Which isn't that different from the youth intake in a game which usually only gives you one or two 4* prospects, some of whom are a bit disappointing, and sometimes gives you 3* players who make it as first teamers. But I guess if you're really, really determined to avoid acknowledging the fact that Man Utd were so convinced a not-good-enough 18 year old Lingard had the potential to play for their first team they kept him playing in the U16s instead of releasing him, and Barcelona really didn't have a clue about Messi's genetic condition when they were paying for his treatment for it, you can pretend to yourself that this is refuted by some quotes you read in a magazine.

But of course scouts and coaches do have some idea what a player's "genetic peak" might be like. Man Utd spent years playing Lingard below his natural age group and telling him he'd be a late developer, whilst releasing more mature footballers playing with their age group because they didn't think they'd make it. At the most basic level, it is palpably absurd to suggest that elite professional football coaches can't even tell the difference between a teenager who's fully grown and one who isn't (even if the teenager who is fully grown isn't any stronger and quicker or more balanced than the one who isn't). Obviously there are more dimensions to the difference between 200PA potentially the best player in the world and 75PA Conference fodder, many of which aren't actually described by six personality attributes and/or ratings of their current skills in a match situation (hence the point of creating a potential ability rating in the first place). But that just gives the scout more things to notice. So yes, I have every confidence that Arsenal's actual coaching staff would judge a player in their academy who is likely to become the best in the world as more likely to make the first team than than a similar type of player in their academy who's reached his peak physique and stopped learning stuff. Though the actually interesting bit of your experiment is that they think the difference between the future genius and the future failure isn't particularly big, and rate the future failure as an above average prospect. @santy001 here's probably predicted the future career paths of Stoke's youth products as accurately as an FM coach (i.e. usually within 50PA, so I'm not paying him that much of a compliment ) , and afaik the club don't give him full time access to the players and a big fat salary. btw, it's also quite rude to repeatedly insist someone is "misunderstanding" or "misinterpreting" you simply because they point out your experiment isn't realistic and doesn't show what you think it shows.

Goalkeeper distribution is actually something SI have improved a lot, though they'll still not follow your instructions every single time, especially if the opposition has "prevent goalkeeper short distribution" selected. But most highlight settings aren't going to include goalkeeper throws as part of the highlight unless your player gives a chance away or gets the ball upfield for a chance of your own very quickly.

Current Match Engine runs smoothly on my 2014 Air with a broken fan that struggles to run multiple Chrome tabs. It's really very impressive compared with other recent versions. Not the highest graphics settings, but not the lowest either

There have been occasions when using an editor has confirmed to me that I assessed a couple of my players' PAs more effectively than scouts, without being able to see potential at all I'd figured a young defender had hit his PA because every time one of his abilities went slightly up, another one went slightly down, despite having stepped up from youth football to playing consistently well in the Bundesliga. My scouts saw a high performing 19 year old on loan from an elite club and figured he must still have room to grow. The elite club were willing to discuss a future fee so were a little more aware of his limitations. After finishing with that game an editor confirmed his ~130CA was equal to his ~130PA, and probably had been for the entire loan spell. On the other hand, I'd also signed a 24 year old released by a bigger club who my scouts thought would be my fourth best defender and unlikely to improve in future (and judging by the tiny min release fee he demanded he didn't rate himself that highly either!). I had a suspicion they might be wrong because he'd been better in a save where I'd managed him internationally, although he was a better tactical fit than my other players anyway. He improved a lot when exposed to first team football. The editor showed he still had more scope to improve to hit a potential in excess of 150, a lot better than the loaned teenager that supposedly had more room to improve. Probably would have done if I'd carried that save on. Could have signed for a much better club than mine very cheaply if anyone else had accurately gauged his talent.

The 75PA player is highly overrated because the scout has rated his potential in a 2-3* range at a Premier League club (i.e. he expects the player to be much better than he currently is and quite possible good enough to be a backup player at Arsenal) when he actually has barely any scope for improvement and will be lucky to forge a career in full time professional football. Ergo, the game actually places surprisingly little weight on his actual very low potential, and rather a lot on him being a player with decent ability for his age. And this is Arsenal, so your coach/assman is probably well above average at "judging potential" too. I'm sorry, but if you don't understand this point, you really aren't in a position to tell SI their mechanic is placing too much weight on something. How an earth can I look at the "I clicked a button and changed their whole ability to learn, grow and get fitter" (which is what PA actually is) be looked at in a "real life context" anyway? "Nobody can measure genetics?" Reaaaalllly? I mean, I'm pretty sure an average high school PE teacher could have a half decent guess at which of his teenagers are genetically predisposed to being a lot bigger and stronger when they're adults, and I dare say there was a fair bit more sports science going on at La Masia when they were treating Messi's growth hormone disorder. Rather than ask nonsense questions, what you should be asking yourself is "if I'm not completely wrong about scouts relying far too heavily on actual PA to come up with Perceived PA, why does changing a player to make them unlikely to have much of a future above Conference level make them only a little bit worse than changing them to make them potentially the greatest player in history". OK, I get it, you're a troll. Guess I should have realised this when you made your initial post about how everyone that's good enough to be moderately useful for Barcelona's B and C teams at 16 could have been as good as Messi later in life. Live and learn...