A Closer Look at Training.

[SFraser]

This post is a continual work-in-progress as discussion and experiment brings forward more information regarding training in Football Manager. This initial post will be updated as new information is brough to light and as I have the time to update it.

Overview of Training

Training in Football Manager is a means of interacting with the development of players. On its own training can help to improve players or help to reduce the extent to which players decline, but it is most effective when it is combined with individual player attributes, playing time and match performances.

Player attributes and match perfomances in conjuction with a training schedule that meets the needs of manager determined position/player development, player morale, player training happiness and player match fitness combine to produce an overall environment within which a player can thrive, decline or maintain the status quo. This "improvement environment" as I call it is a vital consideration for any manager and the factors involved make it easier for a manager to maintain success rather than fix what is broken.

Player Development

Player development is not consigned simply to a training schedule, but is modified by the ingame mentoring system, the players personality and his perfomances in football matches. In a general sense "development" means attribute improvement, but in the context of football and football manager "development" is fundamentally linked to a players perfomances on the pitch and training ground and his role in your formation and squad. It is vitally important to understand that the scale of player improvement is dramatically modified by factors outside of training as well as the intensity of the training regime, while the shape or distribution of improvement is in general determined by the training regime. In short a players actions, as determined by his attributes, within your club or another club or squad has a dramatic effect on the extent to which he improves, and the extent to which your training regime or another managers training regime influences his improvement.

A players attributes are a guide to his match day performance, but also to his interaction with other members of the club, and to his dedication or capability to handle the tasks you give him. Certain attributes such as Work Rate and Determination will tell a manager how quickly he can expect a player to achieve a high level of ability, how long a manager must wait for a dramatic improvement or indeed what areas to focus on to get the best possible development for such a player. A player with high workrate can be expected to achieve the desired results in a shorter period of time than a player with low workrate. A player with low workrate may need highly detailed attention and very specific training schedules to ever attain his potential ability.

Important Factors in Development

Player development is determined by multiple interconnecting factors regarding a players personality, his attributes and his playing, training and squad environment. All of these factors modify his natural progression, but his natural progression is profoundly determined by his age. Age plays a subtle but fundamental role throughout a players career in determining whether a players reaction to improvement factors is an increase in development or a decrease in decline, and age also determines the severity of improvement factors a player can cope with before they become overwhelming and produce negative results.

The most important factor I have observed in a players development is his workrate. The higher a players workrate the more likely he is to improve. Conversely the lower a players workrate the more likely he is to decline. This is a fundamentally important attribute that modifies every other factor and appears to be more important than any other factor when it comes to development. Other factors are important but when all other factors are equal then Workrate is decisive in understanding and managing attribute changes.

The next most important factor is the difference between a players Current Ability and his Potential Ability. This would be the top rated factor if it were not for the function of Work Rate. A low current ability but high potential ability will see a player improve dramatically, while a high current ability and high potential ability will see a player barely improve. The difference in the extent of the change between two players with similar current and potential ability is their workrate. That is why workrate is more important, in my opinion.

The next factor is match performance. A player that achieves good performances against teams of a high average ability will also improve dramatically, but this factor is determined by the above two factors. If the player is close to his Potential ability he will not improve much with high ratings. If he has a high workrate he will improve faster than if he had a low workrate. Good match performances by young players appears to trigger a widespread improvement of their key mental attributes for their position, irrespective of whether or not he is actually training those attributes. The relationship between match perfomances and large increases or decreases in player development strongly suggests that match perfomances act as a positive multiplier of natural and favourite position attribute growth, whereby young players that play regularly improve at a rapid rate and older players that do not play regularly decline at a rapid rate.

The fourth factor is the training intensity, although in cases where a player is not playing football matches this factor will obviously be more important than the factor above. Training intensity provides a continual degree of improvement that could be viewed as an improvement "foundation" of a certain intensity that will always affect the player irrespective of whether he is playing or not. Training intensity will set the basic rate of slow and methodical improvement of attributes, and all the factors above will either directly interact with training as in the case of Work Rate and the difference between CA and PA, or will be additional improvements ontop of training as is the case with mentoring or the gains made from match performances. Training intensity is a powerful force upon each individual player although it does not provide such dramatic attribute improvements as great match perfomances for young players. A player that does not train for a period of weeks is very likely to decline in ability, while a player that is overworked is likely to suffer from poor conditioning and low morale.

Other factors that play a role in development are morale and mentoring. Morale is an important feature as it influences a players application to a training regime and works to limit the intensity of training he is happy with. It also has an impact on match day, which will have an impact on performances and match day attribute gains. The other important factor is the mentoring system. The mentoring system works as a sort of template system whereby the mentoree will gain attributes in a ratio that resemble the mentor. Choosing the right mentor will influence a players personality and help to maintain his morale. Altering a players personality can have profound effects on his application to training regimes and his perfomances on match day, and personality is one of the most difficult aspects of a player to influence.

Player development in Football Manager consists of two closely related key features. The slow, methodical influence of daily training regimes and the compact "injection" of match practice experience. Ontop of this comes the players own individual influence, his work rate in training and his performance as determined by his attributes on the football pitch. Then come the considerations of player conditioning, fatigue and morale that have their own roles to play both in training intensity, match day readiness and match performances, and equally training intensity and match perfomances have a role to play in a players commitment to training. This is complex balancing act that applies to every player in a different way, and failing to take this balance into consideration when choosing your starting eleven and match tactics can have severe repercussions for young and old players alike.

A Closer Look At Training

As stated above training operates as the foundation for the development of your players. As a foundation it sets both the rate and the shape of the development of the player in question, but it also works as a foundation determining player condition and player morale. The key to understanding training is to understand both its general influence upon players in your club and to understand the specifics of training management. The latter is easiest as it deals with principles, the former much more difficult as it deals with specifics and it remains a work-in-progress as I write this. The following is my interpretation of the specifics of training management, and as my interpretation is shown to be erroneous or incomplete in specific detail I will update this guide.

Player Training Overview

To understand training the manager must understand the training overview for each player under his management. Each individual player his an individual training overview in his personal menu, and this provides all the necessary information to interperate and tweak a training schedule.

The Training Overview screen breaks down into five key panels. These are Player Information, Training Schedule, Coach Report, Training Levels and Training Progress. Of these five panels only the Training Schedule ignores individual player attributes, personality, morale, condition etc. while the other four involve those factors to a varying extent. The way interperate these panels is as follows:

Player Info shows his current condition and happiness with his schedule as well as position or preferred move training and the training schedule he is on. These last three can all be changed on this screen.

Training Schedule shows the exact details of the schedule he is following during training. This can be altered on this screen, but will alter the schedule for all players on that schedule.

Coach Report informs the manager of the coaches view on his development. The only real use for this panel is as a heads up of impending changes to attributes, if you have a good enough coach.

Training Levels shows the level he is training at in each area on a weekly basis. Click each area for a detailed breakdown of progress in that area.

Training Progress shows his progress in each area of training on a weekly basis.

The general process that is displayed on this screen is that the Training Schedule will show up in Training Levels as a representation of the workrate in an area the player is applying himself or being subjected to in training, and the end results will be produced in the Progress panel.

Player Info

The player info panel is a vital panel for the manager because it shows the condition of a player and the happiness of a player in the context of his schedule. There are limits to what a player will put up with in training and breaching those limits usually has detrimental effects to a players development AND morale. In other words you can not only stunt a players growth but also make him unhappy with the wrong schedule, and this is a bad situation to be in for a manager.

Generally speaking there are two key limits you want to find for each player, and stay under. These limits are a players tolerance of Fitness/Physical Training and his tolerance for the Overall Schedule Workload. For Goalkeepers you will also find a lower limit for Goalkeeping Training, but this is unlikely to be found unless the manager is doing radical training experiments, for obvious reasons. These limits vary from player to player but once you have found them you will be able to construct a training schedule that reaches but does not breach the limits of player happiness, and need only concern yourself from then on with his condition and the specific details of his schedule.

Training Schedule

Once you have found a players limits for Overall Training Intensity and Fitness/Physical Training Intensity you can begin custom designing a schedule for the player in question.

The Training Schedule is perhaps the most complex aspect of training because it is fundamentally linked to so many other areas of concern and is the only area where the manager has direct control over these areas in question. Changes to the schedule will show up in every other training panel and over time will have a profound influence on your players attributes. The Training Schedule is not an easy thing to deal with because the outcomes can vary dramatically and sometimes apparently illogically depending upon the schedule you design.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the Training Schedule is the Overall Training Workload. This works as both a theoretical maximum limiting factor to what you can add to a Training Schedule and as an individual player personality limiting factor to what can be added, depending upon the players own reaction to the Overall Training Workload. The Overall Training Workload describes the workload you are giving a player but counter-intuitively it does not describe the Overall Training Levels a player is subjected to. By reducing individual workload areas to their minimum you can increase the Workload of the remaining areas to maximum and increase the Overall Workload without actually changing the Overall Training Levels of a player. This is important.

The Overall Training Workload works as a limiting factor to what can be added to a Schedule, but it is altered by the individual training Area Workloads, such as Aerobic or Set Peices etc. As each individual training Area is increased so does the Overall Workload. However each training Area does not increase the Overall Workload by the same quantity. Aerobic increases the Overall Workload higher per click than Tactics, and Tactics increases the Overall workload higher per click than Set Peices. This means that a Schedule based around Physical Training will contain less intensive training per training area than one based around technical skills, for the same level of Overall Workload. This means you can train hard in Physical areas but it requires massive concessions in other areas of training, whereas hard training in Set Peices requires much less concessions in other areas of training, and indeed can be incorporated into many more solid training sessions.

The key to understanding the Training Schedule is to understand that it works by ratio and intensity. The higher the intensity of the Overall Workload and the higher the intensity of individual Training Areas then the greater the attribute gains in those areas. The greater the variation between the intensity in different Training Areas the more one area is favoured for increases over another.

Coach Report

If you have good coaches than the coach report can alert you to impending changes in attributes, but usually too late for you to do anything about it. This panel will also inform you of changes you already know about. Generally useless to be honest.

Training Levels

This panel goes hand-in-hand with the Training Schedule and is a vital panel in understanding and managing the training of a player. The Training Level bars show you the Level of Training in the relevant areas a player is currently undergoing, but it takes into account the players application and workrate and determination in training. In effect this panel is the result of the Training Schedule + Player Personality and the variations in bar height are vital to understand exactly what a player is training, how hard he is training, and what the overall result is.

Each individual area of Training Level equals each individual area of the Training Schedule, modified by a players personality and work rate. However the Overall Training Level does NOT equal the Overall Training Workload. This is a curious relationship that has important consequences for training.

By reducing the workload in individual areas to a minimum the manager can increase the Overall Workload of all remaining areas without increasing the Overall Level of Training. Infact you can train a few areas to a much greater Overall Workload for the same Training Level than you could train many areas, while still maintaining a high Training Level for those specific areas. This means that training in all areas carries a higher Overall Training Level cost than an equal Overall Workload in a few specific areas. As Training Levels represent the Level of Training a player is subjected to, a Maximum Overall Workload in a few key areas equals a much lower Overall Level of Training for a player than training in multiple areas. A good manager can use this to his advantage by maximising training in certain key areas and seeing dramatic returns in these key areas without increasing the Overall Training Levels and making a player unhappy, but is always limited in what he can do by the Maximum possible workload.

This is a complex relationship so let me attempt to simplify. A high Overall Training Workload does not necessarilly equal a high Overall Training Level, although the individual training areas maintain the same level of intensity. By reducing a few training areas to zero you can send the remaining areas through the roof and right up to maximum workload without changing the Overall Training Level. This allows the manager to construct a schedule with a low Overall Level of Training for the Maximum possible Overall Workload and maximum possible Individual Area Workload, maximising those key areas while keeping the overall level of training low.

This is a recent discovery by myself and requires a lot more testing and evaluation, but none the less I am confident through observation of my own training regimes that this allows a maximum level of development in a few key areas.

Training Progress

Training Progress is akin to Training Levels in that Overall Training Progress and individual area Training Progress do not match, but still show the Level of Training and the Progress in Training in the relevant fields. A goalkeeper for example is unlikely to progress much in every area of training, but will progress significantly in Goalkeeping related areas of training. The progress panel allows you to track the progress of your players in training and essentially provides a history of Training Levels throughout the season. It does not correspond to attribute improvements, but keeps track of the variations in training Levels.

Final Thoughts

My previous version of this original post focused on the importance of Overall Training Levels, and ignored the fundamental importance of match performances and CA-PA differences. No doubt many people will disagree with my interpretation of Overall Training Levels, but in conjuction with the ratio principle of individual training areas I do not see how this newly realised relationship can be ignored. One may not wish to see Low Overall Training Levels but one must remember that players play in positions and most positions demand a few key areas of training above all others. Having a Low Overall Training Level may seem undesireable, but if it is matched with maximum Training Area Levels of high importance then I do not see how this point can be argued.

Development is most definately an extremely complex area of the game, encompassing so much more than mere training. In combination with the slow rate of attribute changes and the slow rate of training screen updates it is perhaps much harder to grasp than the Tactical Match Engine, because relationships are so much harder to spot. This thread is now an important resource for individuals focused upon understanding training, and I encourage those that are involved in this thread to critique my ideas and experiment with the areas of training and development that are far from clear and often puzzling.

I also wish to say to those that read this guide that I hope it helps you to understand the principles underlying development, but that the fine details of training and development are very much hypothetical at this point.

[mancity12]

I dont suppose any of the mods/ helpers could confirm if this is correct regarding the sliders? (i.e notch 8 keeps attributes at a set level etc etc).

Cheers,

[Delilah_katona]

Look interesting! will give it a try thanks

[Iselilja]

I actually worked with the same theory (also taken from fm-britain) and tried to make some very advanced schedules for fm08. I never got the time to test them out for long enough to see if it worked or not, but i will try to explain why i think these schedules would be better than the regular way of training. Afterwords i have some questions, and some things to point out. My schedules relies on the fact that these studies are true, if not, the schedules looses some of its power.

My schedule (and the "theory" behind):

Before i can explain the whole schedule, and the theory behind, i will have to present some observations:

1) Many players between the age of 17-20 should not train as hard as the older players (not the last notch of medium training). But it is not a good solution to let them train with the u-18 team because that will mean to low workload. Therefore it is vital to have a schedule for when the players are between youth and senior. Some players can train with the other seniors when they are 17, for others it will become too hard. This schedule is meant for those who cant handle that large workload. The point of this schedule is to prepare them for a larger workload later, and to keep their morale up.

I will call this schedule YTH (for youth, even though it is not a regual youth schedule, since it is for young seniors, and not youth players)

2) When young players are ready to train at a full workload, it is important to try to max out their physical potential as soon as possible. It is harder to improve the physice after they reach the age of 24, therefore it is important to have schedules with lots of phyiscal training and always keep them match fit until they reach the age of 24-26 (until their physics stops improving fast)

I will call this schedule UNG (means young in norwegian)

3) When players reach 24-26, their rapid physical improvements stops. Atleast in the aerobic cathegory, but not in their strenght cathegory. Therefore, i reduse the aerobic training to a maintain level, but still keeps the strenght training up high. This gives room for more mental and technical training.

I will call this schedule PAC (because your players will not gain much pace after you start using this schedule)

4) When players reach the age of 28-31 their physical stats will start to decline. By training them very hard physically you will just make them tired, and therefore you should reduce both strenght and aerobic to a maintain level. To still keep their CA up, you should therefore increase technical and mental training. The goal is not to loose physical stats, but to try to maintain them as good as possible while they are matchfit and keeps their CA up high.

I will call this schedule ALD (the start of the word "aldrende" in norwegian, which basically means that you are getting older)

5) In between schedule number 2 and 3 (UNG and PAC) you can use a schedule where you reduce the aerobic and strenght training a bit, but still keeps the aerobic at a higher than maintain level. This can be smart for positions where it is important to have fast players (like wingers or a fast striker)

This gives me a lot of schedules, since each positions will have five schedules. But if the theories that SFraser presented is true, i believe these schedules will be one of the best way to train your players.

There are other factors than stats that determines how good a players is. How many positions they can play, and how good they are with each foot. It is important to remember that too. So a player that is too footed will play well, but his stats might not be so good

[BrianQuinn]

You say you should ruduce a players aerobic and strength to a maintain level but how many notches from the left is this ??

Im guessing its about 8 or 9 but could somebody clarify that for me.

Thanks .

[Iselilja]

Maintain is the 8th notch (7 clicks). If someone can confirm that the "theory" is right, then i will post the schedules. Im testing them on a save with Man City now, im gonna try to play two seasons and see if it works better than normal training. On my 08 gametest with Tottenham it certainly worked well

[zodbor]

Good post! It will be many scheudules if this is the way to go . keep us informed on your man city game. An intresting thought is how much dif it is in for example 2 seasons compared to for example thugs training.

[pp4321]

Really interesting read that.

So just to be sure, would i have a seperate training schedule for 17-20 year olds with less emphasis on the technical development and more physical training? So basically high strength and aerobic and low / medium tactics / attacking / defending etc?

And for those over 20 less emphasis on their physical stats and more on their technical stats?

Just as an example i have lots of players in my squad like Gerardo Bruna who will apparently become a good player but both his physical and technical stats look rubbish at the moment. He is only 17. Under your schedules he would develop his physical side, but would that not mean that when he is 20 and i want him in the first team his tecnical stats would still not be very good as they have only been "maintained"?

Or am i missing the point?

[Mitja]

Slider Mechanics.

According to my research of the research done by a poster on FMBritain, who by the way requires the thanks of everyone that has downloaded a training schedule on these forums, the slider mechanics are as follows.

There are 25 clicks on the sliders, therefore 26 positions.

Click number 7 or position number 8 is the level at which attributes will be maintained. This is not entireally true but I will explain later. From click number 7 or position number 8 each increase of 3 clicks shows up ingame as an increase in the bar height for the training level of that area.

Click number 13 or position 14 is the level at which attributes will begin to increase, and click number 19 or position 20 is where attributes will no longer increase in size but only increase in speed.

I would suggest personally that position 13 onwards determines the rate and size relative to all combined areas falling under overall workload.

The poster whom I am translating and copying recommands a number of slider clicks equal to 120 for outfield players and 140 for goalkeepers for maximum development but I am not sure about these values.

very interesting read, thanks for sharing!

a couple of questions. what happens between click number 7 and 13? do attributes increase or maintain? for example i changed my training regimes from pre-season to normal and i can see the arrows are changing - strenght and aerobic went down and other went up? do you recomend using 'general' training regime for all (probably older) players that we don't want their attributes to change. what would happen if we set those players to 'general' training regime where all sliders would be set to click number 7? or what would happen with players who still haben't reached their PA, if we set their training regime in between clicks number 10 and 13...i just don't get the 'Click number 13 or position 14 is the level at which attributes will begin to increase' part.

[Iselilja]

pp4321:

Some players cant handle full workload when they are between 17-20 (some cant handle it even after that). These players will be unhappy if you train them to hard, and therefore you gotta give them a bit lighter schedule, to keep their morale up.

The thing about developing physics first is not about only focusing on physical stats, their other stats will also increase quite a lot. But after they are older than 23-25 their physical stats won´t improve much (atleast not pace, acc, and some aerobic related stats). Therefore it is important to max out these stats before they reach that age, since it would be a waste of time to focus on improving aerobic stats after that age. Their strength stats will still improve after that, but not as fast as before they reach that age.

So basically you will get players with better physical stats, but they will still develop their technical stats. But it is right that their technical and mental stats will increase faster on these schedules where you just choose to maintain your physical stats.

[Corned beef & cabbage]

SFraser: Excellent post, brilliantly explained and plenty of food for thought. It's refreshing to see some proper discussions in here again. I'll chip in with my two pennies worth as soon as I have tested your thought provoking ideas.

Cheers for some inspiring stuff on an area which I for one have close to neglected because I have found it less than intuitive and a bit boring.

Time to scrap the (not so) good old schedules and returnm to the drawing board for the first time in years me thinks...

[plliverpool]

so basically for young players you would train them at 13 notches strength and aerobic, 7 notches for everything else?

[wwfan]

@ SFraser & Iselilja:

Could you post this up at FM-Britain as well. I'll edit it into a Training Research Thread. There's a fair number of regular FMB posters that don't post over here who might be able to give valuable feedback. They might not, but if they don't read it we'll never know.

[pp4321]

Do we have any answers from FM Britain on this yet?

[SFraser]

I only have a G-Mail E-mail address and cannot register on FMBritain, if someone else would like to post this thread up there that would be great.

Really interesting read that.

So just to be sure, would i have a seperate training schedule for 17-20 year olds with less emphasis on the technical development and more physical training? So basically high strength and aerobic and low / medium tactics / attacking / defending etc?

And for those over 20 less emphasis on their physical stats and more on their technical stats?

Just as an example i have lots of players in my squad like Gerardo Bruna who will apparently become a good player but both his physical and technical stats look rubbish at the moment. He is only 17. Under your schedules he would develop his physical side, but would that not mean that when he is 20 and i want him in the first team his tecnical stats would still not be very good as they have only been "maintained"?

Or am i missing the point?

The important point to remember is that the overall training workload is a limiting factor on the strength of training in each training area. The higher you can get each training area before you reach your maximum workload, the greater the level of training per session and the faster and greater attributes will rise. The relative levels of each training area within the schedule determine the proportions of the training session that the schedule shares out, while the combined overall levels determine the amount trained overall per session. Physical training increases the workload faster per click, setpeice training increases the workload slower per click.

Therefore there are two ways to increase attributes faster. One is to design a training schedule with the highest levels of training possible within the schedule at maximum workload, the other is to distribute training proportionaly so that specific areas train more heavily within the schedule, although this might reduce the overall quantity of training available when max workload is reached.

Specific training schedules for specific players require a lot of problem solving and customisation. Youth players in particular seem very susceptible to training for there is evidence to suggest that intensive or incorrectly balanced training early on has a detrimental effect to a player, however the evidence also suggests that young players go through what I call a "growth spurt" between the ages of 18 to 21 where relatively intense physical training has a dramatic effect across the board with these players.

Youth players also experience a secondary effect relative to training. Their Current Ability in terms of overall attributes is nowhere near their Potential Ability in terms of overall attributes. This means that vast increases in attributes are easilly possible, that it is possible to "overfill" certain attributes relative to their position and potential, but also that a manager can encourage "explosive growth" and then spend the rest of that players career fine tuning the attribute distribution of that player, much like handling the maturation of real world "wonderkids". I personally like to encourage "explosive growth" of a young player, although I try to avoid radically unbalancing a training schedule for anyone unless it appears to be a vital necessity for my team.

To answer you question directly; if you wish a dramatic increase in physical attributes you have to factor in the fact that higher physical training decreases the overall possible attribute increases through filling the overall workload much quicker. If you do not mind spending the rest of that players career fine tuning a massive early attribute increase into a finished product, then you want to couple a relatively intensive physical training schedule with high quantities of training areas that fill up the overall workload much slower in order to obtain the maximum possible attribute increase overall combined to an intensive focus on physical attributes.

The ideal schedule in general terms is much like my own personal Pre-Season schedule. You bias a normal training schedule in favour of physical training, reduce other areas of training slightly, and then make up the difference with setpeice training. This gives you a schedule with a larger quantity of training at the max workload limit therefore giving a high number of attribute increases per session, that is biased in favour of physical and setpeice training. You then spend the rest of the season redistributing those attributes as you see fit.

very interesting read, thanks for sharing!

a couple of questions. what happens between click number 7 and 13? do attributes increase or maintain? for example i changed my training regimes from pre-season to normal and i can see the arrows are changing - strenght and aerobic went down and other went up? do you recomend using 'general' training regime for all (probably older) players that we don't want their attributes to change. what would happen if we set those players to 'general' training regime where all sliders would be set to click number 7? or what would happen with players who still haben't reached their PA, if we set their training regime in between clicks number 10 and 13...i just don't get the 'Click number 13 or position 14 is the level at which attributes will begin to increase' part.

My understanding of the game is that the arrows seen in the squad training screen represent the effort the player is putting into those areas of training, not the attribute increases, although there will eventually be a correlation. I view the arrows in the squad training screen and the monthly Assistant Manager Training Report to be one and the same. The schedule in question can still improve attributes that fall under the category the player seems to be training poorly in, but it is likely you will get bigger benefits by customising a schedule according to his personality or his personal commitment to certain training areas.

An older aged player is the contra to a younger aged player. If a young player benefits more from a max workload schedule, can endure large quantities of physical training, can avoid knocks in training and recover faster from injuries then an older player is the opposite. An older player benefits more from a lower workload schedule that is perfectly balanced in favour of his key attributes, or the attributes you determine to be key. They are more likely to get knocks in training and take longer to recover from injury, which means that their attributes are likely to dramatically decline if out for a few months. Essentially what is occuring is that instead of the manager managing the growth spurt of a young player or the maturation of a mid 20s player, the manager is now managing the decline of an older player.

The game tells us that physical attributes will decline as they reach the end of their careers, sometimes dramatically so a physical bias is near essential. The real question is where do the attributes come from to minimize physical decline, and how much physical training is required to offset that decline while minimizing injury? From what I have seen it is nigh on essential to avoid injury. If an older player is out for a few months then his career at your club is pretty much over. The decline is rapid and there is little chance to recover what is lost. You need to highlight what makes him useful to you and allow the rest to drop. You have to pay attention and treat him with care.

Your first question is ultimately "the" question with regards to training. Training is not a "one solution fits all" scenario. My opinion, and it is just an opinion, is that the actual levels of "maintain" and "improve" and "dramatically improve" and all the areas inbetween are determined by the overall workload, the players personality, the ability of coaches and possibly even the time between games, his fitness levels and a few other factors.

Your best guide to the answer to this question is the monthly training data that shows up on the personal training screens for each player. In my opinion the most important factors are static, i.e. the training proportion and level, coach ability, player personality etc. Whereas monthly modifiers of a smaller degree of importance come through fitness levels and time between games. This is not fact only conjecture, but alteast some of these modifiers are fairly obvious, after a "red" injury for example, and the increase in overall training levels on a monthly basis for the same schedule during Pre-Season.

Basiclly the fundamentals are overall workload versus the proportional level of each area under that workload, then modified by other variables relative to that player, the club and to his activity within your club. If you become accustomed to checking training on a regular basis and spot the variations in training on a monthly basis you can alter the proportions and focus of that training on a regular basis to best suit what you desire and the conditions under which the player is active.

I personally use a 3 notch guide from the basic standards I discussed in my first post. I have found that 3 notches in general represent a different bar height for each training area, and so I guide my training by the bar heights during a season. A rough guide I use for the intensity of attribute increase compared to the bar height in the training levels is that at under the first dotted line is decrease dramatically, first dotted to second dotted is decrease slightly, second to third is maintain, third to fourth is increase and above fourth is increase dramatically. My opinion is that variations within each dotted line section can control the rate, so one can decrease slightly by alot less by staying near but under the third dotted line rather than close to the second. The actual time for the manifestation of these changes is unknown to me.

SFraser: Excellent post, brilliantly explained and plenty of food for thought. It's refreshing to see some proper discussions in here again. I'll chip in with my two pennies worth as soon as I have tested your thought provoking ideas.

Cheers for some inspiring stuff on an area which I for one have close to neglected because I have found it less than intuitive and a bit boring.

Time to scrap the (not so) good old schedules and returnm to the drawing board for the first time in years me thinks...

Thanks for your post and you are welcome. Any results on your experiments along these ideas would be most welcome.

[Leroy1883]

Great stuff,

Have you considered what role Physical training workload has on reducing Fatigue?

Having done some experiments with training in the past I was convinced that the lower the physical training the faster the recovery between match in terms of condition, however this was causing the player a decrease in recovery from fatigue.

Also it would be interesting to discuss your thoughts on the 'rest for x days' feature and its effects on training. e.g it makes more sense to rest a player for a number of days rather then drop the overall workload.

[Iselilja]

Resting players between important matches can be very good. Through one Premeir League season, i usually rest each first team player for about 5 days, this has lead to better matchform and fewer "burnouts", especially among the younger players

[Cydver]

Hi, may I ask if all these fascinating insights on training mean that I should have my overall training workload for all players (except the injury-prone ones) on heavy or almost to the extent of 'very heavy' even during the season?

[Iselilja]

I never have them on heavy through the season (i rarely use pre-season schedules either). I have most players on the last notch of medium. I have some of my young keepers on heavy schedules, because they dont play as many matches as the other players.

[Cydver]

Okay, and one more thing, is there any idea whatsoever about how long training takes to take effect?

[Iselilja]

If i change my schedules, i usually see some improvements pretty fast, like 2-4 weeks or so. But it depends, sometimes players have lots of green arrows, sometimes they are not improving as much. You should keep an eye on the workload and see that they are training as much as they should, and if they do, they will eventually improve

[mil_xela]

I actually worked with the same theory (also taken from fm-britain) and tried to make some very advanced schedules for fm08. I never got the time to test them out for long enough to see if it worked or not, but i will try to explain why i think these schedules would be better than the regular way of training. Afterwords i have some questions, and some things to point out. My schedules relies on the fact that these studies are true, if not, the schedules looses some of its power.

My schedule (and the "theory" behind):

Before i can explain the whole schedule, and the theory behind, i will have to present some observations:

1) Many players between the age of 17-20 should not train as hard as the older players (not the last notch of medium training). But it is not a good solution to let them train with the u-18 team because that will mean to low workload. Therefore it is vital to have a schedule for when the players are between youth and senior. Some players can train with the other seniors when they are 17, for others it will become too hard. This schedule is meant for those who cant handle that large workload. The point of this schedule is to prepare them for a larger workload later, and to keep their morale up.

I will call this schedule YTH (for youth, even though it is not a regual youth schedule, since it is for young seniors, and not youth players)

2) When young players are ready to train at a full workload, it is important to try to max out their physical potential as soon as possible. It is harder to improve the physice after they reach the age of 24, therefore it is important to have schedules with lots of phyiscal training and always keep them match fit until they reach the age of 24-26 (until their physics stops improving fast)

I will call this schedule UNG (means young in norwegian)

3) When players reach 24-26, their rapid physical improvements stops. Atleast in the aerobic cathegory, but not in their strenght cathegory. Therefore, i reduse the aerobic training to a maintain level, but still keeps the strenght training up high. This gives room for more mental and technical training.

I will call this schedule PAC (because your players will not gain much pace after you start using this schedule)

4) When players reach the age of 28-31 their physical stats will start to decline. By training them very hard physically you will just make them tired, and therefore you should reduce both strenght and aerobic to a maintain level. To still keep their CA up, you should therefore increase technical and mental training. The goal is not to loose physical stats, but to try to maintain them as good as possible while they are matchfit and keeps their CA up high.

I will call this schedule ALD (the start of the word "aldrende" in norwegian, which basically means that you are getting older)

5) In between schedule number 2 and 3 (UNG and PAC) you can use a schedule where you reduce the aerobic and strenght training a bit, but still keeps the aerobic at a higher than maintain level. This can be smart for positions where it is important to have fast players (like wingers or a fast striker)

This gives me a lot of schedules, since each positions will have five schedules. But if the theories that SFraser presented is true, i believe these schedules will be one of the best way to train your players.

There are other factors than stats that determines how good a players is. How many positions they can play, and how good they are with each foot. It is important to remember that too. So a player that is too footed will play well, but his stats might not be so good

very interesting... but i would suggest that u should upload it.. and call it beta version may be.. and let us test it out for you too... teamwork makes perfect man!

[mikaelaustin]

please upload so we can test theories, i've created and started to test on my strike force training schedules as they're the ones in my west ham team who have struggled the most not to increase meaning they miss the goal more often than not. i've got balotelli, monnet-paquet, ashton, cole, n'gog & a whole bunch of expensive kids i scouted from around the world. no-ones attributes have gone up in the 3 years i've been playing and when i loan players out their attributes actually go down.

[phnompenhandy]

I never have them on heavy through the season (i rarely use pre-season schedules either). I have most players on the last notch of medium. I have some of my young keepers on heavy schedules, because they dont play as many matches as the other players.

Fascinating analysis fellas, I'm enjoying this discussion a lot

Responding to the above matter, if I follow the logic of the argument correctly, it seems to me that a heavy/very heavy schedule should be successful providing the strength/aerobic regimes are low.

In other words, the fitness regimes cause most of the injuries, so if they are low you can easily max up set-piece training or tactics. After all, IRL you're not likely to injure yourself practising free kicks or watching tactics videos (okay, Rio's remote aside!)

Shouldn't this be the case, or am I missing something? Because whereas fitness training is vital for youths, once your player has matured he isn't going to increase in fitness, so surely you just need the sliders on the minimal notch to prevent decline and therefore crank up the other important ones pretty high.

[Iselilja]

Yep, thats basically what my schedules is about. You gotta have enough fitness to get them to perform well in matches and maintain their stats, but the older the players gets, the harder it is to improve their physics, so you should then decrease their stats even further. Going to upload my 08 schedules later today so you guys can test them.

Would be nice if people that disagree joined the discussion, nothing is better than a good fm discussion

[iamjerome]

question: do AI teams, then, use training schedules other than 'general'? i mean, for this to be the case, surely there should be other default training schemes in some /training/ folder somewhere in one of the fm directories like there is with the default tactics? because of the lack of such default training schemes i've always suspected AI teams always limit their players to train using 'general' which would further suggest that even supposed optimised training schedules only benefit minutely. i've long held the belief that training on the whole in fm needs to be completely revamped, and if it is the case that all the time it takes to scour the world for 7*coaches (which apparently aren't essential at all as proven before), setting up perfectly optimised training like researched by a lot of us i'm sure, give minimal returns in terms of improvement/time to improve for your players.

[Iselilja]

I wouldnt say it gives minimal improvement, because my experience with AI trained players is that they arent well trained at all. In both 07 and 08, i never played saves longer than 10seasons, because at that time, the regens should have started to dominate the game. But the problem is that the AI teams is full of high-potential players who never maxes out their potential.

What this lead to was that i had the best young players in the world, at Tottenham i had 7/10 best young players in the whole world, which is not realistic at all. Many of the other big english, spanish and italian teams also had high potential players, but they never seemed to reach their potential, so the game was really boring.

Personally i dont like the training part very much. When other parts of the game turns more and more realistic, the training part hasnt really improved much for a long time. Training and the regen players is what needs to be fixed, then the game is close to perfect. I would prefer a system closer to CM, where you set up normal training sessions like teams do in real life. Then you could also use your coaches more spesifically, and having more coaches would give more realistic benefits/disadvantages

[iamjerome]

i only lasted about 6 seasons before total boredom in 07, 11 or so in 08 because i had multiple managers running but in the latter at least, i found that i only had the best playrs in the world because i had the best scouting network, other teams were inefficient in signing players and often bought players who were unlikely to reach their PA early in any case eg. poor determination, work rate whilst still have a high PA. that's generally a big problem with AI in that as the game goes on the gap between your squad and any others gets bigger exponentially, but i don't think training has as much to do with it as you suggest. perhaps, though. another thing to note is that FM08 generally had regens 'grow' a lot later (apparently this has been adjusted for 09) as to keep in with 'peak ages' that fm suggests each position has, however wonderkids and what not should accelerate in their development a lot better this time around, i hope

[phnompenhandy]

Bump: sorry, this is a top quality discussion!

[BRAiNDEAD]

I`m wondering how does this training work also... I was looking at my club and following the training for few months.. All my players are on the general training MEDIUM very close to HIGH. Funny thing is that i have a small club and i`m only allowed 3 coaches. They are all pretty bad except medium att/def coaching. All my players seem to be increasing in some areas and the best young players increase in almost all areas(although my coaches suck in those areas of expertise, so that's weird i`m questioning the importance of coaches rating seems like poor coaches also train well). I keep all the players on general training because i feel like specific training can damage them. I`m not sure which players need what training.. I seems like when you thing that strikers only need good finishing , anticipation and positioning, heading, pace and acceleration and you train them higher in those areas they loose training in marking, tackling and other defensive areas but when you think of tactics arent those skills required to be trained as well? I like to pressure other teams so i have my strikers and attacking mids all high closing down. If my strikers and attacking mids start to train less and less in marking and tackling then they will become useless in closing down , no? I`m confused...

[Iselilja]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OIELMHK0

My schedules ready for download. This is the same as for 08, so its not tweaked for 09. Feel free to use them and upload them on other pages, would be nice with some feedback and suggestion for tweaking etc.

[GavinZac]

Just wondering - does the player's happiness with the level of training matter? I have lots of good young players, some of them are happy with my schedule, others are not. Is morale the only thing affected by their unhappiness? I can deal with that, but if they aren't training as well as they might then I would change that.

[Lyssien]

I doubt the "number-of-clicks theory" proposed here, although I haven't run any tests recently. The reason is that development depends on condition, natural fitness, injury proneness, professionalism etc, directly or indirectly. It also depends on PA-CA difference, on position, and on attribute values. So, when a player has really low Finishing, Composure and long shots, it's easy to improve or maintain those with relatively low Shooting training, while it's hard to improve in this area if the values are already high. Moreover, it's easy to improve those if the player is a defender, while it's harder if the player is a striker.

So number of clicks is all very realative. It affects differently different players, and also each player under different conditions.

Keep also in mind that injuries are more important when a player is young. that's because players also develop "naturally", irrespective of training. That means that an 18-yo player out for 6 months suffers a big setback in development.

Just wondering - does the player's happiness with the level of training matter? I have lots of good young players, some of them are happy with my schedule, others are not. Is morale the only thing affected by their unhappiness? I can deal with that, but if they aren't training as well as they might then I would change that.

I am not sure whether "training happiness" affects the player's "match morale". However, I am pretty confident that it affects the player's development. So, a player who is not happy with his training, has a greater chance of not developing as fast as he could or even he may decline.

[Iselilja]

Hi, im bumping this thread since it is an interesting discussion. There is a similar thread at fm-britain and one of the user there came with a positive response to the schedules i posted. I hope some of you guys will try the schedules, they are working well for me and other users

[lyw_85]

Sorry I'm abit confused.

So if I have a young player with PA 200 and CA 100.

And I train him in just Shooting(to the max), will he end up with finishing, long shots and composure 20?

Even though FM GenieScout says that he will end up with 18 for finishing, long shots and composure.

What I was led to believe, due to FM GenieScout , was that players usually end up with the stats that FM Genie shows, its just a matter of time when they achieve it.

[phnompenhandy]

lyw - it doesn't work that that and Genie just makes an educated guess. You'll be lucky if all the shooting atts end up at 20 anyway.

[donpost2]

What a spiffing thread

I have NEVER got into training before in FM/CM purely because it's so complicated, but this thread has inspired me to have a go. I have a few questions however.

First of all, if all attribute increases are down to training, what is the point of sending your players out on loan? The clubs you loan to will most likely have a poorer training setup.

Now, onto my training setup. What I've decided to do is pick out 4 players from my reserves with a lot of potential. All aged 16-20, all outfield players. I've given each player his own schedule to aid in monitoring.

For each player I have set Goalkeeping to position 1 (no clicks), everything else other than Strength and Aerobics to position 8 (7 clicks) so they maintain, and then made Strength and Aerobics as high as possible without pushing the overall workload past the last notch of "medium". The reason for the focus on physical training is I'm following what Iselilja said in one of his previous posts in this thread.

I noticed that all of the players were "Happy with the current training workload". Does this mean I can afford to bump up the Strength and Aerobics sliders (and therefore the overall workload) without any damaging effects on morale?

[lyw_85]

lyw - it doesn't work that that and Genie just makes an educated guess. You'll be lucky if all the shooting atts end up at 20 anyway.

Oh! I didn't know Genie was making a guess.

yeah I know it doesn't work that way but it was just an example.

Can someone explain the Youth part to me a little better?

I know we have to max out the CA before we start to redistribute the points.

How can we best max out the CA?

Thanks!

[DocSander]

First of all, if all attribute increases are down to training, what is the point of sending your players out on loan? The clubs you loan to will most likely have a poorer training setup.

The reason that loaning can pay off is that this way some of your younger players can gain expercience playing on a competitive level!

Loaning, however, has it's pro's and con's.

Pro loan:

- First team experience that you can't offer yourself, which is a key aspect to develop the CA of your players.

- Lower wage count (not relevant when loaning youngsters)

Contra loan:

- Poorer training facilities (not always)

- No control regarding training scheme (which distributes gain in CA to stats). In other words, no control as to what type of skills are developed

- Sometimes your player does not get the playing time you'd hope for, in that case it might be best to recall him from loan

Did I miss any?

[DocSander]

I noticed that all of the players were "Happy with the current training workload". Does this mean I can afford to bump up the Strength and Aerobics sliders (and therefore the overall workload) without any damaging effects on morale?

To my experience, yes!

Though the key problem with players who are unhappy with too high training loads is not their morale as displayed in their profile, but rather that their CA won´t develop. So please check on regular times that all your players are happy with their training setup and in the meantime, max out those schedules for happy players. The threshold determining the maximum amount of training that a player is still happy with seems to be mainly determined by professionalism (hidden stat). Ambition and determination also play a role in this...

[donpost2]

Thanks Doc!

I think, with regards to the loan question, I'm not quite understanding the relationship between training and CA (and experience). Could you expand on it as you know it?

[blairwatson]

hey i am new to fm09 and i was just wondering what attributes make a 7 star coach for denfensive attacking etc ?

[DocSander]

I think, with regards to the loan question, I'm not quite understanding the relationship between training and CA (and experience). Could you expand on it as you know it?

It works more or less like this.

Players need certain time on the pitch in order to develop. Training wothout any matches won't work for any players' development!

Things to take into account are:

- the level of competition of the match

- the rating a player achieves during the match

The result in terms of CA gain is a balance of these two. In other words, look for the highest level of competition where your player still achieves above average performances.

Further, there's a lot of discussion as to how much time on the pitch is needed for each playes. The little that's known on this question is derived from Hawshiels excellent lectures on the topic... But more than stating that 17-year olds need around 250 minutes of 'adequate' first team experience per season is not known yet!

Been hoping to find the time to test how this works with respect to diffent aged players, but haven't found the time to do so yet...

[kajito99]

Btw, you say that if players are happy with their schedule, you should increase the load. But won't that increase the risk of injury?

Also, you say that players unhappy at the workload will not improve their CA. I don't look at the CA as i feel that would spoil the game but I have noticed improvements (sometimes significant) in these players despite their unhappiness. Are you sure that you are correct regarding unhappiness at workload?

[donpost2]

Btw, you say that if players are happy with their schedule, you should increase the load. But won't that increase the risk of injury?

As I understand it, only the strength and aerobic training causes injuries. Therefore, you can increase the overall workload without increasing the risk of injury by increasing the intensity of the other types of training (attack, ball control, etc)

[DocSander]

Btw, you say that if players are happy with their schedule, you should increase the load. But won't that increase the risk of injury?

Also, you say that players unhappy at the workload will not improve their CA. I don't look at the CA as i feel that would spoil the game but I have noticed improvements (sometimes significant) in these players despite their unhappiness. Are you sure that you are correct regarding unhappiness at workload?

The problem with observing only the non-hidden stats is that this eflects only part of the CA points. Also hidden attributes, re-training positions, improving left or right foot etc., take up CA points. So, an observed increase in stats might not reflect an increase in CA, but a redistribution by other non-visible stats decreasing.

Furthermore, i'm not stating that players unhappy with the training workload never increase any CA points, with their development in CA points seems to be seriously compromised.

[Nick Toye]

Can I ask though, how do you find out the PA or the CA, unless you are using some kind of Third Party cheat application. (I am on a Mac by the way). I say it is a cheat because if we were supposed to know the PA of a player it would be in the actual game and not hidden.

[DocSander]

Well, for sure third party applications are needed to find out PA and CA.

Whether this is considered cheating or not is up to one's own taste.

To speak for myself, i don't use these applications to hunt down the best players around or scan any players other than my own team in order to assess my training performances.

[Nick Toye]

Can I ask. If the blue training blocks on the Player screens are all at the high level, does that mean perfect optimisation?

[Fabio MVP]

i am quite impressed with iseliljas opinions.i've downloaded your schedule, but there is only one thing that i am confused about.should i always use the same training workload or should i reduce it or increase it during the pre-season.could you explain me about that please. i read somewhere that you rest your players during the season for about 5 days max. are those 5 days used sparingly or at once?i find everything else pretty much clear.and just one more thing:5) In between schedule number 2 and 3 (UNG and PAC) you can use a schedule where you reduce the aerobic and strenght training a bit, but still keeps the aerobic at a higher than maintain level. This can be smart for positions where it is important to have fast players (like wingers or a fast striker).<-- this.could you explain me a bit?n which age of players should i use this?sorry for my english if there are any mistakes,'cause it's not my native and thanks.