Player positions

[thejay]

This is something that has been bothering me in Fm for some time now.

The interpretation of player positions in the game is too rigid in my opinion.

I'd argue that nowadays youth players are trained in multiple positions and that the notion of a single natural position is somewhat outdated.

As I understand it now, when a player is played out of his position he receives a rating penalty relative to his familiarity of said position?

For example if I decide to put a player, who has AMC as his natural position in the AML position, for which he has no or less than natural rating he will receive a penalty to his attributes, the severity of which being determined by the familiarity rating of the position I decide to put him in. Is this correct?

Wouldn't it be better to have a players performance in a position primarily decided by his attributes? For example If I have an intelligent attacking player with good physical technical and mental stats who has AMC as his natural position and no familiarity in AML or AMR. Why wouldn't he be able to play in the AML position? And why is his performance not solely decided by his attributes, why would he receive artificial penalties ?

This is specifically annoying with regens. There is the perfect creative fast technical regen, who according to his attributes should be able to play in a variety of positions, but he only has a natural rating in one position, making it a pain to retrain him in other positions, especially when is adaptability rating is low and he looses an already trained position when you decide to train him in another. Then there is also the fact that retraining ones position takes away from the total amount of training .

I think the current system is flawed and should be overhauled in some way

[Cougar2010]

Whether you agree with it or not in the real world a player's familiarity with a position makes a difference to how he performs.

Think of it as experience in playing in that area of the pitch.

That said I do think the training of positions is a little too rigid and its a bit too difficult to train a player in several different areas.

[thejay]

Whether you agree with it or not in the real world a player's familiarity with a position makes a difference to how he performs.

Think of it as experience in playing in that area of the pitch.

That said I do think the training of positions is a little too rigid and its a bit too difficult to train a player in several different areas.

But can that difference of performance not solely decided by the players attributes?

Take for example Iniesta, when he plays on the left wing , he is less effective because his attributes are not used fully in that position , not because he plays worse because he is unfamiliar in that position.

I agree though that it depends on how a player is brought up in youth training, how familiar he is in different positions. An option would be nice to train youth players to be familiar in a variety of positions

[däkkä]

One could argue that positions in football only exist within the given formation and tactical instructions. Most wingers (ML, MR) in English football would be reincarnated as wing-backs in Brazil. In Holland they would be wingers (AML, AMR). It has to come down to attributes and tactical awareness of the role in the tactic.

I would like to see the current position system covered by match preparation with the players having a longer 'memory'. Players would know how to play certain roles in certain tactics that they learned in their youth. It would be more role-dependent and closer to real life as differences in footballing culture would be reflected as well.

[thejay]

Yes something like that.

For example, Guradiola at Bayern has started to play Lahm in central midfield on occasions, In FM terms he has no familiarity in that position, so he should suffer a severe penalty to his attributes and would have to be retrained of quite some time. In real life he slotted seamlessly into that position because of his intelligence and technical skills, he even said this about him : http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/08/31/pep-guardiola-philipp-lahm-is-the-most-intelligent-player-i-have-ever-trained/

[Cougar2010]

But can that difference of performance not solely decided by the players attributes?

Absolutely not.

A players experience and familiarity in playing in an area of the pitch is nothing to do with his attributes. For example a footballer can look comfortable and at home at ML but hopelessly lost at MR despite the two positions requiring the same attributes, this is down to familiarity and experience of the position.

EDIT

You are also mistaken a player will suffer a "severe" penalty by not having familiarity with a position, if the player has the right attributes for the role he can still play well just not quite as well as he could with full familiarity.

[soccer.joel]

Yes something like that.

For example, Guradiola at Bayern has started to play Lahm in central midfield on occasions, In FM terms he has no familiarity in that position, so he should suffer a severe penalty to his attributes and would have to be retrained of quite some time. In real life he slotted seamlessly into that position because of his intelligence and technical skills, he even said this about him : http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/08/31/pep-guardiola-philipp-lahm-is-the-most-intelligent-player-i-have-ever-trained/

Not all players would make that transition it's because of his versatility and intelligence that he can do that

[thejay]

Absolutely not.

A players experience and familiarity in playing in an area of the pitch is nothing to do with his attributes. For example a footballer can look comfortable and at home at ML but hopelessly lost at MR despite the two positions requiring the same attributes, this is down to familiarity and experience of the position.

Depends what his role is when playing ML, when said player is right footed, he will have difficulty playing as a touchline hugging winger because needing to cut back to his right foot for crossing

[podunkboy]

I've actually had players only rated for DMC who I have played at a MC or even a WB, and their overall rating is equitable or even a tad higher, even if it's showing their familiarity as "awkward".

You want to see specialization and inability to adapt to a new position, watch American football. You can have a lineman who is Pro Bowl-caliber as an left offensive tackle, but he can't play right offensive tackle, or left end, or defensive tackle, and he'll even demand a trade if the coach considers asking him to play any position but his "own". Of course, that's linemen, you can take a quarterback and turn him into a receiver, or a receiver into a running back. I think it's primarily because football linemen are incredibly dense.

[däkkä]

You are also mistaken a player will suffer a "severe" penalty by not having familiarity with a position, if the player has the right attributes for the role he can still play well just not quite as well as he could with full familiarity.

Whilst this might be the case, the words "ineffectual", "incompetent" and bright red colour denoting the positional unfamiliarity tell a wholly another story...

[Cougar2010]

Whilst this might be the case, the words "ineffectual", "incompetent" and bright red colour denoting the positional unfamiliarity tell a wholly another story...

They can say whatever they like the only important part is how they play in a match.

[siambluebird]

Possibly the wording does exaggerate the position, but there is no doubt you can play a player out of position and they can be successful.

I have MR playing as a WBR, and a DMC playing as a AMC at the moment because both of them seemed to have the attributes to succeed in those positions. I also refined the AMC role to suit my DMC a bit more. They have both had excellent ratings over the season

[thejay]

I don't really know how much of a penalty they receive, but the game really try s to deter you from playing out of position, form the player position ratings ("ineffectual", "incompetent" ) to the Assistant constantly reminding you that a player is played out of position, leads me to the conclusion that it must be pretty severe.

[themadsheep2001]

Whilst this might be the case, the words "ineffectual", "incompetent" and bright red colour denoting the positional unfamiliarity tell a wholly another story...

They can say whatever they like the only important part is how they play in a match.

But the problem is that then the info can become misleading.

What we might need imo is a refocus in how positions are trained, and revamping how it eats up CA.

In this case, Lahm has taken to it like a duck to water because he is extremely intelligent and a versatile player. We already have these attributes in game ( versatiliy is hidden). But I argue that the "speed" at which players to learn a role needs to vary, particularly in highly intelligent players being able to pick it up much quicker.

[Cougar2010]

But the problem is that then the info can become misleading.

What we might need imo is a refocus in how positions are trained, and revamping how it eats up CA.

In this case, Lahm has taken to it like a duck to water because he is extremely intelligent and a versatile player. We already have these attributes in game ( versatiliy is hidden). But I argue that the "speed" at which players to learn a role needs to vary, particularly in highly intelligent players being able to pick it up much quicker.

Misleading? perhaps but it certainly wouldn't be the first case of something like that in FM. You can start with the basics such as style of play being defensive/control/attacking or player roles that are defend/support/attack, they are far more misleading.

Whatever the choice of words there is nothing wrong with having a traffic light system showing how familiar a player is with a position.

Also as far as I'm aware the speed at which a player learns a position and how well he holds that position is also variable and has been for many years.

[themadsheep2001]

It is variable, but I think it should also have the ability to happen more quickly than it does. It certainly shouldnt take up CA.

[thejay]

As far as I know the hidden attributes versatility and adaptability decide how long it takes to retrain a player and how long he holds the trained position .

I'd argue the visible mental and technical attributes should be sufficient how well a player adapts to a different position. So if you have a intelligent technical player, it shouldn't be difficult to move to a different position where his attributes can be better expressed.

Villas Boas said something similar in a press conference recently, can't find a link though. Basically he said that clubs like Ajax train their players in different position from the youth level upwards, but that highly gifted players like bale are able to do the same even without being brought up that way.

What I'm trying to say is , imagine you get a regen who is basically Messi in terms of attributes but who only has competence in one position. Now if that regain has low hidden attributes of versatility and adaptability , it will take ages to train him in another position and to maintain it, even though he should have the talent to adapt easily.

It either should be possible to bring up youth players to be familiar with a variety of positions, or there should be a more fluid interpretation of positions altogether

[Cougar2010]

It is variable, but I think it should also have the ability to happen more quickly than it does. It certainly shouldnt take up CA.

It doesn't take up CA directly and never has.

The more positions a player is familiar with leads to more attributes being rated as "Important" to that player and therefore more CA points being taken up.

[TOUGHGUY]

The game does not do a very good job at simulating new player development, and player positions are one part of this. In real football, outside of the top tiers and biggest leagues players are often versatile not by the virtue of their abilities, training and conditioning, but necessity, and many (most?) hardly find their final position at the age of 16, with plenty of players changing positions even late into their careers, something that seems exceedingly rare in the game. And if a red dot next to the shirt on the tactics screen does not matter that much, then the game does not do a good job in communicating that to the player.

[lance101]

I totally agree that "positional ability" is way overrated in FM. Some years ago I did some experimenting with the assistant manager star ratings and estimated that, at least in the way AM assess star ratings, each positional point below 20 is equivalent to a loss of 6 CA points. You can find the details of my experiment here -> http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/174892-The-impact-of-the-positional-attributes

[QWERTYOP]

I've played people in "red" positions & got 7's before. And at the moment i'm playing a straight 442 but both my wingers are natural only in the attacking winger positions - i'm top of the league. Players in FM ARE versatile, but they also have natural positions. I think this is correct.

[whilewolf2]

thejay

It pretty much works like you want it to now. As I understand it not all attributes are penalised when a player is played out of position. Physical and Technical attributes are unaffected. Things like Positioning and Off the ball are penalised and that makes sense because knowing when it's a good time to make a forward run as a full back doesn't translate into knowing when you should be breaking forward from midfield.

As players out of position are only penalised a portion of their attributes value players who have high mental attributes, Intelligent players can do well out of position. Players with low mental values become headless chickens chasing the ball and making poor decisions.