Youth Development - The Guide

[Cleon]

Rushing out - How good the goalkeeper is at coming off his line to react to through balls and similar situations. A goalkeeper will benefit from Pace and Acceleration here as well. You have to give attributes time to alter, it isn't alway quick. You can keep track and see if it's altering after 3 months or so if you use the training development graph and highlight that attribute.

Lowering handling would be pretty silly and pointless and I can't figure out for 1 second the logic behind that...........

How to train keepers depends on what league you are in etc. Some leagues see more completed crosses than others so in those leagues or games you'd need someone who is good in the air etc

[DKB]

Rushing out - How good the goalkeeper is at coming off his line to react to through balls and similar situations. A goalkeeper will benefit from Pace and Acceleration here as well. You have to give attributes time to alter, it isn't alway quick. You can keep track and see if it's altering after 3 months or so if you use the training development graph and highlight that attribute.

Lowering handling would be pretty silly and pointless and I can't figure out for 1 second the logic behind that...........

lowering handling would be to intensify tactical training without putting the hole training schedule on very heavy

had my keeper on intensive tactical training for 3 months without rushing out moving one bit

[Cleon]

lowering handling would be to intensify tactical training without putting the hole training schedule on very heavy

had my keeper on intensive tactical training for 3 months without rushing out moving one bit

I still don't understand the logic, why would you want to downgrade one of his core attributes?

Well did you track it via the graph or just look at the attribute? Somethings take longer to train and don't rise instant. training is all about the long term as you'll see from my posts at the beginning of the thread.

[DKB]

I still don't understand the logic, why would you want to downgrade one of his core attributes?

Well did you track it via the graph or just look at the attribute? Somethings take longer to train and don't rise instant. training is all about the long term as you'll see from my posts at the beginning of the thread.

not lowering his handling, lowering his handling training (put it down a few steps) to raise the tactical training

I tracked it via a graph

some people on here say that you can't improve rushing out, do you agree with that?

[Cleon]

Rushing out is covered in the 'Tactics's ' section you can check in game by going player profile >>> training >>> training catergory >>>> tactic's. It tells you what catergory covers.

Rushing out can change but it's probably the single hardest attribute to raise.

[Gee_Simpson]

Rushing out - How good the goalkeeper is at coming off his line to react to through balls and similar situations.

I thought I read somewhere on here that 'rushing out' was a tendency attribute rather than an ability attribute?

[Cleon]

I thought I read somewhere on here that 'rushing out' was a tendency attribute rather than an ability attribute?

It's the same thing in this scenario as both mean the same

[Gee_Simpson]

It's the same thing in this scenario as both mean the same

Ah ok, thanks.

[5uare2]

It's the same thing in this scenario as both mean the same

Strictly speaking, his ability to successfully come off his line to react to situations would be affected by other attributes too, right? Such as pace, acceleration, decisions, etc.

[7Bestie7]

Strictly speaking, his ability to successfully come off his line to react to situations would be affected by other attributes too, right? Such as pace, acceleration, decisions, etc.

Don't forget his "oh ****!" factor.

[mkjellander]

One part of training that I struggle with is the notion that training schedules only affect the distribution of CA, and not of the rate of CA gain. If that is the case, then the only benefit from being on a full-time schedule would be the ability to better specialize and overload certain attribute areas. The difference between the sliders would then (supposedly) govern the relative emphasis on a training area: 12 clicks of attacking training versus 6 clicks of shooting training would equate to putting twice the effort into attacking that you do shooting. The effective outcome would be affected by existing attribute values and a player's propensity for learning in those areas, but in essence you're asking to put twice as much effort into attacking.

Assuming this is correct, might you not get close to the same result by doing a 4/2 or even a 2/1 click split? You still get the same relative distribution, although the lesser intensity probably means that CA is distributed with less adherence to the training schedule. So you'll get something further from what you are aiming for. But you're also training with much less intensity, reducing the risk for injuries and whatnot.

It also doesn't quite jive with anecdotal evidence that when match prep is very high, I have seen attribute losses from players that are not anywhere near their PA (in the u-18 team for example.) It may just be related to either a lack of matches or a lag in training reports when coming back from holiday breaks.

It would seem reasonable that training intensity and full/part time schedules would have a non-zero impact on CA gain. However, I'd imagine that if that were the case then there'd be some sort of evidence of that present already with the number of people looking at training. Out of curiosity, maybe I'll put one of my lesser u-18 or reserve players on a very light schedule and see if there's any observable difference at the end of the season.

[Cleon]

Strictly speaking, his ability to successfully come off his line to react to situations would be affected by other attributes too, right? Such as pace, acceleration, decisions, etc.

Like I mentioned in the original sentence

[Cleon]

It also doesn't quite jive with anecdotal evidence that when match prep is very high, I have seen attribute losses from players that are not anywhere near their PA (in the u-18 team for example.) It may just be related to either a lack of matches or a lag in training reports when coming back from holiday breaks.

Because high prep takes time off training. So if he was training heavily in a particular area then you up the Match Prep then he won't be training as hard as he was in training, Hence the decline in attributes due to learning at a lower rate.

And if you're on about breaks after pre seasons then this is natural and only short term. With the right pre season schedule his attributes will be back to what they were.But it makes sense and is logical that any time a player is not training will see red arrows on his profile for attributes due to the PA not been distributed via training.

It would seem reasonable that training intensity and full/part time schedules would have a non-zero impact on CA gain. However, I'd imagine that if that were the case then there'd be some sort of evidence of that present already with the number of people looking at training. Out of curiosity, maybe I'll put one of my lesser u-18 or reserve players on a very light schedule and see if there's any observable difference at the end of the season.

It's been confirmed by SI loads of times that CA gains come from match experience and not training. Training just distributes it.

I'm not sure why people still fail to accept this and think its works a different way. It's clear to see that it works like stated.

[Fabian Jonsson]

It's been confirmed by SI loads of times that CA gains come from match experience and not training. Training just distributes it.

I'm not sure why people still fail to accept this and think its works a different way. It's clear to see that it works like stated.

They fail to accept it because it doesn't make sense. At least not if you put it like that. When I read that, it sounds to me as though you'd be able to fire all coaches, set all training to 0 and sell all the training facilities, but still see your players develop nicely - provided they get good match experience. The only difference beeing that the attributes would be distributed randomly. That simply can't be true, but at the same time everyone knows that players who don't see any action won't develop. Thus, the only logical conclusion is that CA comes from training AND (not OR) matches.

What I want to know is how CA and Attributes are related and which of them is actually of any use in the ME... Has SI been kind enough to tell us that?

[7Bestie7]

They fail to accept it because it doesn't make sense. At least not if you put it like that. When I read that, it sounds to me as though you'd be able to fire all coaches, set all training to 0 and sell all the training facilities, but still see your players develop nicely - provided they get good match experience. The only difference beeing that the attributes would be distributed randomly. That simply can't be true, but at the same time everyone knows that players who don't see any action won't develop. Thus, the only logical conclusion is that CA comes from training AND (not OR) matches.

What I want to know is how CA and Attributes are related and which of them is actually of any use in the ME... Has SI been kind enough to tell us that?

I've been playing using Attributes. I have a huge amount of filters broken down into position, style (winger/inside forward for ex) and "talent wise" so that I can look for those with, what I would consider, world class stats all the way down to potentially okay for Reserve/Cup games. I then look at the CA/PA to determine how much growth or readjustment a player needs to improve. There are times I've bought Championship/low level Premiership players because their attributes have been exactly what I've needed for the role I use them in even though they can't develop more than they have.

Which means I'm really hoping it's the attributes!

[Cleon]

They fail to accept it because it doesn't make sense. At least not if you put it like that. When I read that, it sounds to me as though you'd be able to fire all coaches, set all training to 0 and sell all the training facilities, but still see your players develop nicely - provided they get good match experience. The only difference beeing that the attributes would be distributed randomly. That simply can't be true, but at the same time everyone knows that players who don't see any action won't develop. Thus, the only logical conclusion is that CA comes from training AND (not OR) matches.

What I want to know is how CA and Attributes are related and which of them is actually of any use in the ME... Has SI been kind enough to tell us that?

It does make sense.

If you had no coaches and no training schedules then the PA gains wouldn't be distributed at all. Meaning the players attributes wouldn't change. Match experience free's the PA and training distributes this into the areas you focus on and makes up the CA.

How did you come to the conclusion of no coaches, no training and playing would see him develop the same all round?

[Fabian Jonsson]

Re-read my post and you'll understand that I didn't think that. I said that your post seems to suggest that. You still don't make sense.

According to you this all is true:

CA is a measure of how much a player has learned from match experience

PA is a measure of the same players maximum potential

Match experience increases CA towards PA. The closer CA gets to PA, the harder it is to increase it further.

Training workload, coaches ratings, coaches workloads, training facilities, player morale, player hapiness, player personality, etc, etc, "converts" the CA gained from matches into attributes.

Without proper training the "exchange rate" from CA to attributes will be low - meaning that CA "is lost"

Conclusion: a player with poor training but a lot of good match experience will end up with a high CA (close to his PA) but low attributes.

Is that true? If so, I can understand why people get confused. People think that CA is tied in with attributes, that they are somehow different sides of the same coin. Not that CA and PA is "only" a matter of how much potential growth still exists.

In essence, if the reasoning above is correct, it would be better to buy a high PA youngster with no match experience AT ALL, than a high PA youngster that has gotten a lot of match experience but poor training.

[mkjellander]

Because high prep takes time off training. So if he was training heavily in a particular area then you up the Match Prep then he won't be training as hard as he was in training, Hence the decline in attributes due to learning at a lower rate.

And if you're on about breaks after pre seasons then this is natural and only short term. With the right pre season schedule his attributes will be back to what they were.But it makes sense and is logical that any time a player is not training will see red arrows on his profile for attributes due to the PA not been distributed via training.

It's been confirmed by SI loads of times that CA gains come from match experience and not training. Training just distributes it.

I'm not sure why people still fail to accept this and think its works a different way. It's clear to see that it works like stated.

You have apparently seen an official statement on this. I have not, I haven't played the game in years before picking it up again. Forgive me for missing it, and for asking the question instead of taking it for gospel.

Perhaps, then, you can answer the following with a true/false/unknown and elaborate where appropriate?

Match experience "generates" CA that is then free to be distributed towards the player's attributes.

The distribution of this is a function of the training schedule.

The adherence to the training schedule is a function of the quality of your coaches and training facilities, and of a random element.

The rate of conversion of the unassigned CA to attributes is a function of training intensity, quality of facilities, and quality of coaches.

Given poor enough conditions, a player may have CA available for distribution that cannot be assigned. E.g. he may earn 5 CA due to match experience, but his facilities and training intensity only allows him to distribute 3 of the 5 in a given update.

If the above is true, any "unassigned" CA is wasted and will need to be re-earned.

If the last three points are not accurate in some form, then is it fair to say that the only benefit of coaches and improved training facilities is better control over CA distribution and the ability attract better players? If the rate of conversion/assignment is not affected by the quality and intensity of training, a training schedule with one click in every category and a single coach of half a star training all categories would in theory result in a player developing equally as fast as a player at the best facilities with a proper schedule and higher intensity, but the distribution would be almost entirely random according to what would be appropriate for his position on the field. He *is* getting training after all, right? As long as he plays matches, he should develop roughly in a manner useful for his position, with allowances for standard deviation.

Last, let me assure you that I am not doing this to be "clever", or annoying, or because I think I know better. I just want to understand as much of the training process as I can, as accurately as possible.

[Fabian Jonsson]

I see that our posts are along the same lines, and I would also like to stress that I'm doing this so that I can understand the game better. Since I find the lack of information given by SI to be astounding, I tend to pepper anyone suggesting that they know how things are with detailed questions.

[Cleon]

Conclusion: a player with poor training but a lot of good match experience will end up with a high CA (close to his PA) but low attributes.

Well yes and no. Might not be low attributes but the CA (if its a bad schedule etc) will be distributed differently meaning he might end up with high attributes for areas he doesn't even use. So you'll be wasting lots of ability in attributes that he doesn't need or use. For example you might have wasted a lot of training on a defender learning him off the ball when he really doesn't need it and vice versa.

So because of that his main attributes (well what I class as main) will end up lower than what they could/should be.

In essence, if the reasoning above is correct, it would be better to buy a high PA youngster with no match experience AT ALL, than a high PA youngster that has gotten a lot of match experience but poor training.

Not really, they both could still end up the same. But it'll happen at different rates. As you can always retrain and free up some of the CA by dropping other attributes again. The process could just be a longer route. Although both should still be pretty much equal at some point depending on how bad he was deveoped to begin with.

That's why you'll see on some of my screenshots how I reduced tackling and a few others (for Marcao) to free up his ability to spend elsewhere.

This is also one of the reasons that I believe for developing players you have to create individual schedules as generic position ones are of no use. Because every player develops at a different rate and doesn't always need training as intense for some attributes as he does for others.

Currently I have 2 DC's roughly the same potential I reckon. But both need training different, 1 needs to work on his physicals and 1 on his mentals. If I put them on a general position schedule then they'd be good players but I'd be wasting points for them and spending them on attributes that are already to high or to low to make a difference.

[Wes_Coulam]

I posted before my youth player who has now become my love child!

I feel he is progressing really nicely working on him to be a quick ST & also slot in in midfield when needed too but i desperately want too reduce his crossing & corners (i'm utilizing these stats by playing him on the right hand side of a central striker getting him to cross) but i want him to be the main man! Is there anyway i could decrease the crossing & corners stats like his defensive stats have dropped (if you compare the old pic to this one) .

Here is my lover:-

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Also any advice on tweaking his training schedule will be taken onboard

[Cleon]

Once you are happy with his off the ball, creativity and passing stats then you could drop his attacking intensity to a more medium one and that might help.

The schedule looks good. But I don't know how you play or what role you want the striker to be doing more frequent. I base my schedules around the attribute he'll be using for what you expect of him

[TwinsFan86]

Just wanted to share a couple of my players that have developed really nicely using individual schedules and other principles from this thread. These are regens that have been with my team for 5 years each and cost a grand total of 7.45M Euros combined so pretty good investment so far. According to my Assistant, these 2 players are very close to their max potential, so their training is pretty targeted at this stage to try and get that final bit of refining and polish on them.

First one is my main DLP. You'll notice that he is currently on intensive attacking training. I'm trying to squeeze just a little more off the ball and creativity increases out of him.

This next one has been in the first team rotation almost since day one as a poacher and/or inside forward from the AML position. He set a team record with 12 MoM's this year.

As I type this, I have actually decided to back off his attacking training and increase the ball control training to try increase his technique and dribbling just a little bit.

[TwinsFan86]

Actually gonna add one more player. I've had Junior for 4 seasons now. This year he led the team with 57 key passes, and as you can see not only had 16 assists, but also has an excellent knack for popping up late in the box and scoring. (Which I actually find a bit odd with his relatively low anticipation, but his Off the Ball is great so maybe that makes up for it.)

I like all of his technical and physical attributes, so his training is really focused on trying to raise his mental attributes.

[Cleon]

Some excellent regens there and looks like you are developing them nicely.

I like how you are trying to polish the ones who are near full potential. Are you doing this with individual focus? I find it helps greatly.

[TwinsFan86]

Some excellent regens there and looks like you are developing them nicely.

I like how you are trying to polish the ones who are near full potential. Are you doing this with individual focus? I find it helps greatly.

Yeah, that's the plan anyways. Poirier at one point had an 8 or a 9 for Off the Ball and I used the individual focus to get it to 15. I think I set Demba's to Dribbling after that screenshot was taken.

[DKB]

@Cleon

your training schedules seems to be on a medium average

why don't you push it to heavy or if the player don't mind very heavy?

does the player improve more if you keep the average training on medium and then in one or two areas on high/intensive

compared to having a player on heavy training with 3-4 areas on high?

[Cleon]

@Cleon

your training schedules seems to be on a medium average

why don't you push it to heavy or if the player don't mind very heavy?

does the player improve more if you keep the average training on medium and then in one or two areas on high/intensive

compared to having a player on heavy training with 3-4 areas on high?

Read the thread and you'd know why, I've answered these already in the intial posts and the replies afterwards

[mustardpower]

When sending a player out on loan would you risk sending the player to a club in a higher division if they will only be cover or send them to a league lower and probably get them more games?

[R0ca]

When sending a player out on loan would you risk sending the player to a club in a higher division if they will only be cover or send them to a league lower and probably get them more games?

I Personally will go for the lower league, especially if the team are in the upper reaches and are going to be challenging for promotion. Higher the player ratings the faster the CA gain.

No point in warming someone elses bench where he wont be tutored or on a custom training schedule. Remember the whole point of loaning your young starlets out is for them to get game time.

[Animosama]

How would you develop players to sell them and what would be the right age to sell them at ?

[Cleon]

When sending a player out on loan would you risk sending the player to a club in a higher division if they will only be cover or send them to a league lower and probably get them more games?

Depends how realistically his chances of playing are. Plus who the manager is and see what he is like with handling youths, if he has poor working with youth attributes then I'd find it pointless.

How would you develop players to sell them and what would be the right age to sell them at ?

Whether it be selling or keeping I'd train them the same way. As for selling depends at what age you think you'll get the best offer and most money. Each case would be different.

[Mighty Red]

I thought of a question over the weekend that's been bugging me - given that we know that the regen system doesn't always put good scores in appropriate attributes, is it counter-productive to improve your junior coaching? I.E. my understanding of junior coaching was the higher the rating, the higher the CA of players generated into your youth team. Would it actually be better to have a lower junior coaching and rely on training/mentoring/game time to develop attributes in the right places?

I've not really come up with any concrete conclusions so wanted to get people's thoughts...

[Cleon]

If the starting CA is to low then it'll be even harder to produce good regens and get them to a good standard. You'd waste years of development time. So in short, it would be wreckless of someone who wants to produce youth to neglect it.

[ham_aka_stam]

I cant' say about how true that is about CA and junior coaching, but CA being low isn't necessarily an advantage, if he's got too big a CA-PA difference, he might not have enough years at your club to get the match experience needed to reach his PA. Also, he might never actually get to the point where he's good enough for you to give him games. A wonderkid with a high CA off the bad can slot straight into the first team at 17-18, but someone who's still got a rubbish CA won't be good enough to play a part until 20-21, when it might be too late.

[Mighty Red]

hmm - OK. That was an emphatic response! What you say makes sense

[Lexis]

Wait wait. Cleon, you said that TRAINING does NOT INCREASE one's CURRENT ABILITY only distributes it in areas you want.

So a player might have a CA of 200 , but he might not have used all of his CA ?

And does CA only grow trough matches?

[Cleon]

Wait wait. Cleon, you said that TRAINING does NOT INCREASE one's CURRENT ABILITY only distributes it in areas you want.

So a player might have a CA of 200 , but he might not have used all of his CA ?

And does CA only grow trough matches?

You gain CA through match experience.

How can someone have 200 CA and still have some spare? 200 is the cap

he could have 200 potential ability and only have 190 CA then he'd have some spare.

[Lexis]

I meant as in have 200 CA but that CA woundt all of it been put to use trough attributes.

Sort of a player having 10 at all attributes but his CA is 200.

Because you said trough training you DISTRIBUTE the CA the player already has. That means if a player has 150 CA, training only distributes that CA and trough match experience the player would gain more CA up untill he reaches his PA.

[Cleon]

I meant as in have 200 CA but that CA woundt all of it been put to use trough attributes.

Sort of a player having 10 at all attributes but his CA is 200.

Because you said trough training you DISTRIBUTE the CA the player already has. That means if a player has 150 CA, training only distributes that CA and trough match experience the player would gain more CA up untill he reaches his PA.

You could be wasting CA in attributes the player doesn't need yes.

[ham_aka_stam]

What Cleon means is that training RE-distributes CA. If the training module were to be removed, players would gain CA from matches, but it'd be spread evenly through all their attributes. Only with training can we decide which attributes get CA pts and which lose it.

[Smac]

There seems to be a bit of confusion about the basics of how CA is acquired and distributed. I don't know how it works, but based on this thread and past threads, maybe I can describe a model that will satisfy the questions coming to a head here. In other words, I'm just trying to paraphrase other people's information, so I could be horribly wrong. A TL;DR version is at the bottom.

An example might help:

Player A, lets call him George, is a 20 year old with a CA of 100 and a PA of 200. He is at a club with just about average coaching and training facilities.

George plays a bunch of 1st team competitive matches over a period of a month.

Phase 1: Base CA-gain projection

When it comes time for the game to calculate if he's earned CA during this cycle*, we check:

Does he have room to grow? Yes, his CA is below his PA

Does he have training of some sort? Yes.

So, with some randomness thrown in, lets say George will have earned from 3-5 "CA" during this cycle. However, it isn't yet actually "CA", as we haven't distributed it mathematically to attributes yet, so perhaps to clarify it we could call it "Base Cycle Power or (BCP)". What I mean by this is that considering his age, CA/PA ratio, and maximum playing time, he's in a nearly ideal CA-gaining situation during this cycle. We've put all the right ingredients together so his Base Cycle Power is at max. Lets just call this maximum BCP "100" so we have something to plug into an equation. Getting lucky, George earned 100/100 BCP during this time.

Phase 2: Training Quality's influence on resulting CA gain.

BCP * Training Quality = TCP (Total Cycle Power).

In George's case with average training setup it could be expressed like this:

100 * 1.0 = 100 TCP

In other words his facilities and coaches don't add anything to his base score, but they don't detract from it either. Perhaps ideal facilities would weigh in at 1.5 and having horrible facilities could factor in @ .5 or something.

Phase 3: Training Level Impact on CA: Sliders and Total Levels

Too much training and injury or unhappiness may result, either of which may reduce the impact of training. Likewise, too little training may cause unhappiness or unfitness, either of which may negatively impact training. So right away there are several possible indirect ways that training levels may be impacted by overall training intensity. So let's set that aside and assume that we get that right with George. George is "Happy with his training workload" and lady luck didn't give him a surprise injury.

As long as there is enough intensity expressed in the training workload sliders to account for all incoming "TCP", then the slider ratios will guide the application of TCP into attributes completely. If training is too low overall then perhaps some TCP will go wasted during this cycle. I don't know this for certain, but that is how it seems from my experience.

We could represent that effect like this:

TCP * Training Quantity Impact = ACP (Applicable Cycle Power).

If a training slider is so low that it falls beneath some unknown threshold, then it is possible that no amount of TCP is going to be available to that category for attributes due to digitizing/rounding issues. I used to assume this was Zero and only Zero, but you can easily imagine a case where the TCP is low enough that even having a slider on "low" will mean that no incoming ACP gets applied there. For example if 5 sliders had ratings of 20 (intense) while another slider was on 1 or 2 (low) and only 5 ACP entered the algorithm, then clearly all 5 ACP should likely be applied to the "high" sliders and none to the low one. But there is some randomness, so....

George's 100 ACP get applied according to the proportions outlined by the training sliders, generally. The overall effect, cycle after cycle, is highly reliable. The immediate effect in any given cycle may diverge from the norm due to either some intentional randomness or the way the data is rounded / represented on a 1-20 attribute scale. The distribution of ACP into attributes via the slider system is another topic that has been touched upon in other threads (sorry don't have links). It is slightly complicated by the fact that negative growth may occur in low slider areas. EG: with no defense training George could lose "Marking" this cycle even though his overall ACP is ideal, if his defense slider is set low or to zero.

Messing with George: Reducing overall training workload

If we keep the relative proportions of George's training the same but reduce his overall workload we'll likely run into the indirect effects: George will be unhappy, or some particular slider will fall beneath a "rounding error" threshold and be effectively "zeroed". But we'll also run into the direct possibility that our total workload isn't high enough to account for all incoming ACP and hence George won't develop as much.

So yes, total training workload does matter. While it may be convenient to say that "Matches create CA, training only distributes it", I think this is oversimplifying things a bit. Training allows it, multiplies it, or even prevents it (by zeroing a category for example). It might be more clear to say: "CA only increases with match time, but training can inhibit or multiply this depending on it's quality and intensity".

If I'm mistaken please let me know. This is the model I've had in my head from reading articles here over the years and my own experience. The main reason I replied is to try to address the "Sliders as Proportions" issue. The proportions are key. But without the proper quantity this will not be expressed. So having a 6:3 ratio isn't the same as a 12:6 ratio, and the reasons why it is different can vary quite a bit depending on a whole host of other factors: BCP, TCP, ACP, etc..

My TL;DR version is something like:

Attribute Distribution = BCP * Training Quality * Training Quantity Impact * Matrix of Training Sliders

Definition: BCP (Base Cycle Power) = {(Recent Match Experience Factor) + (Player Age Factor) * PA-maxed?}

[Smac]

Some things I'm unsure about, and some other questions:

1. Does the Training Quality impact CA totals or not? I think it does but I've read that it does not. I've read that training quality (coaches and facilities) only impacts how well you're able to guide TCP into attributes. I just can't seem to believe that though, so I posted my own sense of it above.

2. How do players develop without any training? As implied earlier in the thread, there seem to be player templates that guide which categories a player will develop more highly than others. These templates seem to have something, but not everything, to do with what position the player plays in. Would be fascinating to really understand this.

3. How do players develop without matches, if at all?

4. How exactly do 1st team competitive matches differ from reserve, youth, or friendly matches? Is it possible to achieve maximum BCP with some mix of games that isn't all 1st team games? If so, where are these thresholds of experience?

5. How long is a training cycle? IE, how often does the game apply experience to attribute development. I used to think it was 1/month, but now I think it might be 1/week.

6. I have had some joy yelling at my players to increase their training to have a chance in the first team. Their training ratings improve dramatically (you can see this with custom views in the squad page). Anyone have an idea how much of an effect this can have? A talking-to only seems to last a few weeks and is painfully slow to do with a whole squad. On the other hand they only rarely complain about it.

[Cleon]

1. Does the Training Quality impact CA totals or not? I think it does but I've read that it does not. I've read that training quality (coaches and facilities) only impacts how well you're able to guide TCP into attributes. I just can't seem to believe that though, so I posted my own sense of it above.

It's true that it only impacts how you guide the attributes.

2. How do players develop without any training? As implied earlier in the thread, there seem to be player templates that guide which categories a player will develop more highly than others. These templates seem to have something, but not everything, to do with what position the player plays in. Would be fascinating to really understand this.

If you develop a player without training then the attributes will distributed evenly and at a lot slower rate. You can test this in game yourself for a few seasons with players and you'll notice he still gains attributes across the board but generally at a slower rate.

3. How do players develop without matches, if at all?

If a player is unfit then he can't develop. So if he doesn't play any games at all then he can't keep fit so wouldn't develop. But instead he would start to decline after a while.

4. How exactly do 1st team competitive matches differ from reserve, youth, or friendly matches? Is it possible to achieve maximum BCP with some mix of games that isn't all 1st team games? If so, where are these thresholds of experience?

Nobody knows the exact numbers but 1st team match experience is worth a lot more than anyone other type of game. What I have noticed though is that a player needs to play more than 20 minutes of 1st team games to get any benefit from playing in the 1st team. Any less than this and he would be better playing a full reserve game imo.

I don't have no time now for a few months or I would have posted about this in greater detail as I did a lot of research on this. But sadly RL is kind of hectic atm for me

5. How long is a training cycle? IE, how often does the game apply experience to attribute development. I used to think it was 1/month, but now I think it might be 1/week.

On older versions of the game (pre FM10 I believe) it was done monthly from what I can tell. But now since they updated the training module a few versions back, it seems to add them constant in small incriments. So it constantly seems to be working in the background even if we can't always see a change visually.

6. I have had some joy yelling at my players to increase their training to have a chance in the first team. Their training ratings improve dramatically (you can see this with custom views in the squad page). Anyone have an idea how much of an effect this can have? A talking-to only seems to last a few weeks and is painfully slow to do with a whole squad. On the other hand they only rarely complain about it.

I'm not too sure on this one but I believe it just gives them a kind of little boost for a few weeks simliar to what match preperation does for tactics. It's kind of the same thing but gives them a little boost. How well he reacts though would come down to his hidden attributes.

[Shakes]

Some things I'm unsure about, and some other questions:

4. How exactly do 1st team competitive matches differ from reserve, youth, or friendly matches? Is it possible to achieve maximum BCP with some mix of games that isn't all 1st team games? If so, where are these thresholds of experience?

I don't have any special knowledge, but my guesses from what I've seen are:

It's not just playing but playing well that matters. Very obvious if you play a "give youth a chance" style challenge where you can't recruit players and just have to make do with what you get. Even players with crap personalities develop well if they're getting good ratings, while players who have seemingly positive personalities develop very slowly if their ratings are poor. I've had a player who will hardly grow at all, since he started with terrible physical stats and it's never allowed him to play well enough to gain enough CA to up them to where they need to be. Meanwhile the players who consistently get good ratings for me see their CA fly towards their PA despite getting no more game time than the mediocre guys. Obviously model professional and the like is still what you want, but I'm no longer quite so afraid of unambitious players if I think they can do a job, knowing that if they play well they can still grow.

Also youth matches seem to be fine up until a point ... that is young players who are still a long way from reaching their PA will rapidly gain CA in youth matches, but once they get to a certain level they'll stall. My opinion is that if a player doesn't yet have the ability to play well in senior matches they may well be better off in youth matches getting good ratings than in senior matches getting bad ones. My rough guide is it's about half way to their star potential: so for a 4 star potential player, youth matches are fine until they hit 2 stars, after that you need to find them first team time to develop them further.

Also you seem to have to bring a player on early enough to get a rating for the match for it to do much for them. I had tried using young players as a really late 3rd sub, and if it helped their development any over not playing, I didn't notice it.

[Romanista1994]

Nobody knows the exact numbers but 1st team match experience is worth a lot more than anyone other type of game. What I have noticed though is that a player needs to play more than 20 minutes of 1st team games to get any benefit from playing in the 1st team. Any less than this and he would be better playing a full reserve game imo.

I don't have no time now for a few months or I would have posted about this in greater detail as I did a lot of research on this. But sadly RL is kind of hectic atm for me

I've been thinking about this and I'm wondering if players would benefit from playing at the end of matches if they actually got to do something useful, say getting an assist or a goal or dribbling past their tired opponent a number of times. To go a bit further in Shakes' train of thought, if you managed to get your young player to do well in a match and get a good rating because they grabbed a brace against slow opponents even if you subbed them on in the 80th minute, they would get a small boost to their development. If you can consistently put them in a position where they can perform even when their chances are limited to 15/20 minutes here and there, by setting up the team to get the best out of them when they come on (for example bringing on a flairy, pacy winger to skin the opposition's tired fullback and using shouts and instructions to get the play going through him), would you then be able to get your players' ratings increased and thus their development indirectly enhanced?

This does obviously require quite a bit of micro-management and a fair amount of luck as well, but it could also be applied to other situations: I remember that SFraser used to get the goalkeeper to pass to the youngest, most inexperienced fullback through his instructions, so that that fullback he was bringing through would get a number of easy passes and have a higher rating than he would normally get. That way you ease the player into the team, make him confident that he can do something and he performs from a young age. If I get the time I might write a thread for FM13 about such micro-management of performances.

[Cleon]

I've been thinking about this and I'm wondering if players would benefit from playing at the end of matches if they actually got to do something useful, say getting an assist or a goal or dribbling past their tired opponent a number of times. To go a bit further in Shakes' train of thought, if you managed to get your young player to do well in a match and get a good rating because they grabbed a brace against slow opponents even if you subbed them on in the 80th minute, they would get a small boost to their development. If you can consistently put them in a position where they can perform even when their chances are limited to 15/20 minutes here and there, by setting up the team to get the best out of them when they come on (for example bringing on a flairy, pacy winger to skin the opposition's tired fullback and using shouts and instructions to get the play going through him), would you then be able to get your players' ratings increased and thus their development indirectly enhanced?

This does obviously require quite a bit of micro-management and a fair amount of luck as well, but it could also be applied to other situations: I remember that SFraser used to get the goalkeeper to pass to the youngest, most inexperienced fullback through his instructions, so that that fullback he was bringing through would get a number of easy passes and have a higher rating than he would normally get. That way you ease the player into the team, make him confident that he can do something and he performs from a young age. If I get the time I might write a thread for FM13 about such micro-management of performances.

Indirectly you'd be able to change hidden attributes such as important matches etc. If you had a player who had low important match rating then by brining him on for the last half hour in a big game that you are winning will help him get a higher rating for it. And so on.

It does require a lot of micro-management though like you pointed out. But is worth it if you enjoy that side of the game. I'd love to read a thread about the way you micro-manage, so hopefully fingers crossed you get the time to create a thread for FM13

[Romanista1994]

Indirectly you'd be able to change hidden attributes such as important matches etc. If you had a player who had low important match rating then by brining him on for the last half hour in a big game that you are winning will help him get a higher rating for it. And so on.

It does require a lot of micro-management though like you pointed out. But is worth it if you enjoy that side of the game. I'd love to read a thread about the way you micro-manage, so hopefully fingers crossed you get the time to create a thread for FM13

That in bold is an interesting one, hadn't thought of that and I'll certainly keep that in mind.

For FM13 I'm hoping to have a Roma save that will probably go at a very slow pace (especially as I imagine RL stuff will also lower my FM-time), but where I manage the whole club from top to bottom. This year I've been experimenting with various things such as training, tactics and scouting, but also how to treat different types of agents, so hopefully I'm suitably prepared for next year's version. It certainly helps that I'm actually quite excited with our current squad and manager and our prospects for the season, can't wait for the new version to come out!

[Smac]

Minor Tangent:

1. Does the Training Quality impact CA totals or not? I think it does but I've read that it does not.

It's true that it only impacts how you guide the attributes.

I must be religious or something because I have such a hard time accepting this. It just seems so wrong a way to model it.

The idea that unless you play games you couldn't:

Become a faster runner

Increase your strength

Improve your heading or jumping

Stay in shape

Improve your technique

etc..

I long for some other model of development to be incorporated when I think about that.

But back to the topic: Thanks for your replies Cleon, Shakes, Romanista. A really good thread.

[larryman24]

This is a great thread, well done to all that have contributed. Here are a few things that I do, hopefully they help people or further discussion:

1. Putting players in the Reserves at the start of the season

Its been interesting to read what Cleon and others have said about attribute improvement, my take on it is that playing matches (this includes reserve matches for younger players) creates accessible current ability points for attribute improvement, assuming that there is free PA. Now, how many of these accessible points are added depends on the quantity and quality of the training and facilities and the professionalism (and to a lesser extent, ambition) of the player.

This being the case, it seems obvious that a rise in the percentage that Match Preparation takes up in training will affect the amount of attribute development, as players have less time to work on their skills. So to counter this, I drop the younger players into the reserves when they come back from their summer break so that I can focus on getting the first team used to the tactics as quickly as possible. I put the first team on the highest setting of match preparation, so that the tactics bar gets full as quickly as possible. This normally takes until late August to be achieved. In the reserves, however, there is no need for the same level of match preparation and so the players can focus on honing their skills. So at the end of August, my first team has fully readjusted to my tactics and the youngsters, having spent the last couple of months working solely on their development, come back into the senior squad and I lower the match preparation level. If during this time you need the players, you can still play them, but it allows them a bit more time to work on their attributes. I haven't found a downside to this and it seems to work very well.

2. Fit the attributes to the PPMs

When deciding what to focus the player's training on, you have to take into account their PPMs. Your most overriding concern when training players is not to have the prettiest looking attribute screen but to make them most effective in the match engine. So say you had two centre mids, both with similar attributes but one has a PPM of 'Stays back at all times' and the other 'Gets forward whenever possible', you would want to train them differently. The first would want to focus on tactics over shooting whereas the other would be the opposite. For example, in my West Ham team I found that Jack Collison was regularly getting into shooting positions as he had the 'Gets forward whenever possible' PPM. In response to this, I had him focus on improving his finishing, which went from 11 to 14 and he is now a fairly regular goalscorer. Things like this aren't rocket science but they do require you to think about things analytically.

3. Fit the attributes to the tactics

How do you play? Do your wingers cut in and try to shoot or do you want them to get chalk on their boots? Are your full backs there to add numbers to the attacks or are their main objectives defensive? Will your striker be a poacher or a target man? Do you play a high line? You need to taper your training to your requirements. Don't get too anal about it as tactics change but definitely keep it in mind.

4. Look at the match stats

After the game, have a look at your team's statistics. Who made the most tackles? Who made your chances? Who had the most shots? As I said earlier, the end goal of all training is to make the player effective in the match engine, so have a look at the stats and see what you come across. You might be surprised. Your defensive midfielder might be shooting the most, your full backs passing the most and your striker crossing the most. Make notes of what you find and adjust accordingly. It will lead you to 'Eureka!' moments, like I did with the next point:

5. Don't over-specialise

Here are the stats of my team in a match against Aston Villa:

What do you notice?

For starters my striker, Yaya Sanogo, attempted more tackles than anyone else in the team. Quite often you'll find that in goal mouth scrambles, your players will tackle the opposition in their box. A successful tackle here could lead directly to a goal scoring chance. So to totally ignore defensive training for forwards could cause you more harm than good. Think about defenders - If they go up for set pieces, the ball could well fall to them in the box. You don't want them skying it from 4 yards because they have 1 for finishing.

For me, the aim of training is to give a player a good weighting of attributes - ie you want your striker to have better finishing and composure than marking or long throws. Once I have achieved this, I put a player on 'all-round training' so that all his stats improve equally. Have a look at Labayd here:

Basically, he has the spread of attributes that I want for a CM/AM, so I have changed his schedule to this:

By doing this, all attributes will get an equal amount of growth, thus maintaining the spread. The aim of switching to this schedule is that it prevents you have strikers with 1 for tackling or defenders with 1 for shooting - attributes that they both use. Before doing this, I used to have schedules with strikers on the highest notch for shooting and nothing for defending but I don't think that is the way forward.

6. Don't bother doing specific training for jumping

I don't know why this is the case, but it doesn't seem that players can develop their jumping by more than, say, one point. I haven't put 'Strength' on intensive for anyone, but I have done heavy individual focus on jumping with a player for 2 years and it didn't achieve anything.

7. Don't focus solely on youth development

This is going to sound weird, given the nature of the thread. But sometimes I find that I focus too much on getting young prospects in that I a) have too many youngsters too develop them fully b) neglect the strength of my first team.

If you snap up too many youngsters, as I have in my game at the moment, it can stunt their development. It is best to have a plan for the individual player - say x amount of starts in a season, x amount of bench opportunities. But if you have too many players, they can't all get first team action. Either you will spread chances too thinly or some players won't get any game time at all. For example, at the moment I have about 10-15 young strikers that all have the potential to make it into the first team, but how can I realistically bring them all through? It can get expensive to have to send loads of players out on loan and have to pick up their wages. In short, target specific players, don't stockpile and have a plan for getting them into the first team.

Second - buying young players isn't the be all and end all. There are plenty of older players who you can get cheaply that will slot straight into your team, preventing the lag period in which your young players have whilst they develop their Current Ability.

8. Don't needlessly give them new positions

Yes, it can be great to have a team full of versatile players, but when you give a player a new position, make sure that they will actually player there. Training a new position takes up time that could be spent on developing attributes.

9. Make sure the Reserves are playing regularly

In England, the Reserve league only has 10 teams in it. The way that the league is scheduled means that your team might have 2 or 3 weeks without a game. This is poor for both development and match fitness. Give them a friendly to plug the gap, I like to have my Reserves playing once a week. Try to organise the friendlies for early in the week so that if you need to use any players in your first team they won't be too tired.

That's all I can think of for now - I'm sure there's more, I'll update as and when. I'd love to hear your comments - what you agree with, what you do differently etc. This isn't gospel, just what I've noticed...