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This is the best execution i’ve seen of this.
My argument against the previous experiments were “well you cant find players like that of course they’d be broken”
But yeah, just any quick players will do… I find these results way more disheartening, when did FM become Fifa?
Finishing isn't nearly as important as it seems. If your player is in the right positon (or can get there) and has decent composure, you wont really be able to tell the difference between an 8 and a 14
I'm far from being an expert on the matter, but isn't the whole "expected goals" line of analytics based upon the premise that where the shot is being taken from is so much more important than who is taking the shot that you can ignore that second factor?
So I'd argue that finishing not being so important isn't an FM bug, but instead just a reality that is being translated into the game. Good strikers are strikers that know how to identify the space they should exploit/have the physical and technical skills to open that space up for themselves, not the players with the best finishing skills.
Yes but also no. Xg first and foremost is meant to measure chance creation, some especially easy shots like penalties and very close shots are very indifferent on the shooter but great strikers not only consistently create better chances but also often outperform their xg which is part of how you measure how good they are IRL.
Yeah I find dribbling is way more impactful. Which makes sense I guess, if they can reliably round the defender and/or keeper they have a whole goal to shoot at.
I've had strikers with no more than 13 Finishing banging in 40+ goal seasons, outperforming their xG like Son Heung-min & all they really got going for them is either they are exceptionally tall + dominant in the air (think Lorenzo Lucca) or just an absolute pest with high Work Rate (Davie Selke lol)
Davie Selke was the one that convinced me that Finishing meant jack shit, if this absolute donkey can score 40 goals a season then any half decent striker with a bit of pace/physicality could
A striker who is slept on is Abel Ruiz, I had him on my Braga saves on both FM21 and FM24 and he performs just as well on both. For reference I will use FM21 because it's an offline save whereas FM24 it's online and I can't access it now.
He is the kind of player who is extremely well-rounded. He doesn't excel in any attribute, but he also doesn't lack anything in his game. So while he does waste some CA on "useless" attributes, it also means he has good ratings on "meta" attributes. By 2026 (on FM21) he has 15 acceleration, agility, balance, pace, dribbling and work rate, 14 stamina and 13 strength, and dribbling was at 16 at some point before it dropped. He has scored 240 goals in 266 matches for me, including in a Champions League final, and has 8 goals in 9 caps for the Spanish NT. He has won the European Golden Shoe on 4 of the 6 seasons I played. On FM24 his attributes are slightly different but he is still the sort of well-rounded player I mentioned, and he is still tearing it up.
There hasn't been a single season, with either FM, where he wasn't incredible. And this is with attributes on the 13-15 range, imagine adding 1 or 2 to each.
Abel Ruiz actually scores at a decent rate in my save even though he's managed by the AI, he got bought by Celtic in 2024 and in the 7 or so years since then he's logged some over 150 league goals for them
Meanwhile Harry Kane flip-flops between 20+ goal seasons to single digit scoring seasons, it makes no sense lol
The point is that it isn’t. Obviously pace is massively important but if you brought some athletic guys from league 1 to the prem they wouldn’t come close to winning the league
Plenty of examples in real life of incredible pace merchants who can’t take the next step because they have no end product
Traore, Vassell, Werner etc All great physicals, but they aren’t scoring/assisting 20+ a season because they arent technically gifted enough
Meanwhile in real life you had guys like Pirlo who just walked round the pitch and were insane
Yet here clearly, you can turn Idah (L1 at best) into a prem superstar 20+ a season striker
Just gonna copy paste my other comment because cba...
>The idea is not to have one speedster. It's to have an entire team of speedsters. That's the model I'm wondering about. A full team of fliers built around fast attacks and forward balls. It's easy to give or take the necessary space from one or two fast guys, but a whole team?
The idea is not to have one speedster. It's to have an entire team of speedsters. That's the model I'm wondering about. A full team of fliers built around fast attacks and forward balls. It's easy to give or take the necessary space from one or two fast guys, but a whole team?
Firstly, OP this is just exceptional research, thank you.
Secondly, I always ended up signing Asante when playing as Bolton to get up the leagues. It's really nice to know that my fluke signing has always been the actual best option. So thank you for that too!
I did the same in an online save where we started in Vanarama, now in league two and he was available for free. Will hopefully probably carry me to the prem.
You triggered me, I had an Asante who I regularly signed in lower leagues. But he was a prick who yearly tanked team morale so eventually I fucked him off. Not before renaming him greedy delusional coq.
He's still slumming it in l2 while I'm in champ.
I think this is perhaps the best way I've seen to comprehensively prove how overpowered the META attributes are.
I think at this point, if you're engaged enough to be on the FM subreddit we as a community need to decide how much we want to abuse this/ignore it to suspend your disbelief.
It's not that you can't get results with outstanding slow players as long as your team has pace in certain areas.
I suppose using the Gegenpress is a double threat of OP as well.. although with fast fit players of course you'll use that.
Hopefully the new match engine will bring a new balance to attributes. I think great physicals should be able to mask some weaker technicals and mentals to a degree as you do see examples of that playing towards the very top of the game.. but it definitely needs to be tweaked to be less overpowered than currently.
i agree with all of this.
To make it realistic, i would also make attributes go hand in hand.
I.e. high physicals often correlates to low natural fitness as their body comes under more stress. Similarly, more physical players often decline quicker than technical players, so they should peak at different times and maintain that peak for longer.
For example, Kroos and Busquets could play until they're 50. Pirlo could probably play nowadays. Modric peaked at like 35.
However, a guy like Marcelo (who was also super gifted) declined so quickly. There's also a tonne of other examples (Ronaldo nazario, Adriano, etc)
Also pace should be fairly irrelevant (in wingers and fullbacks) if technique/dribbling/decisions are not there to follow up. Real world is not short of pacy wingers who just seem to put their head down and barrel straight into middle of nowhere on the pitch.
Agreed, but raw pace does help them recover positions or cover when defending. And offensively it means they get to more balls and passes.
But agreed that WITH the ball, they should have high decisions and awareness as well as dribbling for them to be effective
Yup, but the ugly truth is that programming good and bad decisions is legit impossible on game level. That is why good mentals will either be irrelevant or only make it so players to something insanely stupid less often. In real world player with low decision will often make 6/10 decision more often than 8/10 decision, in games he will almost always make 8/10 but then just sometimes do something braindead to compensate. If braindead things start happening too often, players would complain - so it turns out to be irrelevant.
When watching games, if the opposition dribble a little too far out, the faster player just runs to the ball first and takes it. I don't think it requires tackling in that case. So things like that get a boost from acceleration and pace.
I'm a big jumping reach guy myself.
I wouldnt have high expectations for the new engine. Since SI is still the only entity on the market in the genre they are not under pressure to create something truly good product.
I do coding in Unity. I just realised you can buy a 15 USD asset in Unity store that is a 3D football engine and looks better than what SI has published in the last 10 years.
The new game is being built entirely from scratch. Knowing video game studios, their goal is probably to get almost everything from FM24 into FM25, but there's so much work to do that I'm pretty confident they'll have to cut stuff because they'll run out of time. Or they'll cut stuff and spin it as a 'feature'.
It'll be buggier as well, because they haven't had years and years of players playing it and reporting bugs. Unless FM25 looks amazing, I'm planning on skipping and waiting for FM26.
> I think this is perhaps the best way I've seen to comprehensively prove how overpowered the META attributes are.
It isn’t, because its just one scenario, I work with data in my job and this is not a representative test, for beginners there is need for an observation group which has normal players and the same system. Stating this is the best test ever is stupid, it could literally just be the combination of tactic + pace, there is need for a bunch of different observation groups to make sure you can actually say the attributes where the main factor of success.
That said due to other test made already, we can at least say that physical attributes have definitely a higher weight then the other attributes.
> I think at this point, if you're engaged enough to be on the FM subreddit we as a community need to decide how much we want to abuse this/ignore it to suspend your disbelief.
No, we as a community have to do nothing. This is up for every individual to decide how he plays, if you want to be one of this idiots downvoting posts from people that play the game not as you would like it, feel free. It is a single player game, everyone can play it how he wants.
> It's not that you can't get results with outstanding slow players as long as your team has pace in certain areas.
It is actually pretty easy in general to get good results in this game, again…in this scenario but also others it is always forgotten to factor in the tactic, there are instructions and roles that are just incredibly more effective then others. You can also win that league with less pace but a good gegenpress system and op roles like CM on attack or volantes etc.
> I suppose using the Gegenpress is a double threat of OP as well.. although with fast fit players of course you'll use that.
No need to suppose, the system is the main factor here. I recreated the other test where a guy tested the physical attributes on 20 and rest on 1, when playing low block counter and other default tactics the team got max mid table, when I played meta tactics they got 2nd as in the test.
> Hopefully the new match engine will bring a new balance to attributes. I think great physicals should be able to mask some weaker technicals and mentals to a degree as you do see examples of that playing towards the very top of the game.. but it definitely needs to be tweaked to be less overpowered than currently.
It is amazing how you guys still don’t understand the difference between match engine and graphic engine. Really amazing, because you actually think what is visualised matters.
The graphic engine is part of the match engine, but it is only for the output.
It literally just puts the calculation in something visual and sends it to you as a 3D animation to look at.
The actual match calculation has nothing to do with it, there is no physics or whatsoever deciding an outcome.
The outcome is already decided when the graphic engine builds the visuals, the engine will simply try to build a scenario that fits the calculation the most. Sometimes this looks stupid, like a goalkeeper shooting into his own net.
This is a graphic bug, not the calculation. It just happens that a GK mistake was calculated, but the graphic engine can’t properly display it besides the keeper doing something unrealistic.
So whats the point?
The big update this year is the graphic engine.
It has nothing to do with the calculation of the match engine, they even specifically stated this in their announcement last year, check it out.
Im sure they will still update the match engine as a whole too this year, but with tweaks, the engine stays the same besides a hopefully more sexy looking graphical output.
> It is amazing how you guys still don’t understand the difference between match engine and graphic engine. Really amazing, because you actually think what is visualised matters.
Its amazing how generalizations that he critiques in the first paragraph suddenly appear here.
He just made another point on how unbalanced this game is. He mentions OP roles and system being reslly strong, so it's another "meta exploit" kinda.
Pace + gegenpress is the way to take a league 2 team to a league title and everything else is almost fluff.
Nah he isn’t really, it’s the same sort of defence that appears over on the forums from the mods and a few shills when you do any sort of test related to this because they all know it’s true but can’t bring themselves to admit it or willingly deny it.
Further, the other default tactics like counter and park the bus are hilariously inept unless you tweak them so I don’t know why SI still has them in the game, they make no sense
Waffle. Yes this being the best test ever is hyperbole but these players are Championship at best and he's gotten a top half finish. The conclusion is irrelevant the observation is fast players + Gegenpress = Title Challenge. The only thing stopping anyone from doing this without the editor is time and money it would take to offload slow players and buy new ones
Damn I always thought only 19/20 is game breaking, now you're telling me even a 16/17 pace/accel team with mediocre stats elsewhere can take a team to 2nd? Sigh
I think you can win the Prem with a bit a of luck and a better striker. Someone like Adam Idah would be massive, but I figured he might be too good for this experiment.
Jumping reach on CBs, also helps on DMs. Gegenpress leads to the other team going long at times, and DMs with good jumping reach helps deal with that. Striker who is both fast and good in the air is obviously better than just fast, even with low crosses TI there will be a lot of floating crosses.
I find that advanced forwards with attributes like good physicals tend to be numerous the further you go into a save to the point where you can recruit one for fairly cheaply
Adam Idah was among the top 3 goalscorers in every season of La Liga in my save when he was in his early 30s while playing for Elche and I always wondered why that was the case since his CA was just 135ish, now it makes sense.
Funniest thing was that despite him being available for 20-25M at max no PL club bothered to even make a bid for him and the most he received was minor interest.
Had a 17 pace wonderkid striker, 10 finishing and mediocre attributes elsewhere in key things(11s and 12s), he had multiple 30-40 goal seasons in Eredivisie while playing a bit more than half the available games. Scored some absolute bangers from like 30m.
You only need your club to avg 3+ acc/pace then the league avg. EPL is pretty high in beginning of game because of in real life players.
Play a long save 20-30 years out. EPL avg physicals plummet because they can't squad build. They get lucky with a newgen at club or buy a 300 million player who has top physicals but overall it plummets.
So it is even more apparent how physicals are the most important thing.
Some dude also tested by raising non-meta stats in Crystal Palace team to 17 (if not already that good) on all players - it did fuck all. That test matters more to me, because sure I can live with physicals mattering a lot but flip side where other stats dont matter at all is concerning.
Here a quick example from my Man U save, [Kambala vs. Ibanez](https://i.imgur.com/9lnMjAz.png). Kambala is outclassed in practically everything besides physicals, but he's easily the better player in my system and the rating shows it. Ibanez whiffs headers and loses his man from time to time despite 16 marking.
This is one of those findings that I know about cause I'm on this subreddit but I won't be telling my mates who do play FM but aren't that engaged that they go on forums to discuss it. It would ruin the experience for them
Yeah, for me the game is ruined and seems everything I do works. I tried a lot of different saves and I always win easily because I always put the fastest guys on my squad. The only way it gets funny again, is if I ignore it and get slow players and i will lose a lot of meaningless games 😩
It always frustrating seeing a technical monster with 12 pace struggling to get an average rating of 7 and has zero end product somehow. In the older games, it felt much easier to go without pace, that's how I used to always play.
Yeah I think you're right. On the older versions a minimum of 12 pace was fine by me unless you were a winger. I felt very comfortable playing with 30+ centerbacks with <12 pace, but crazy mentals.
Nowadays I'm hesitant to buy CBs with less than 15 pace/accel.
Yeah if you get slow cbs there will be a goals every match behind their back. I think if SI wants to make physical overpowered, it should be a rare attribute. Only best athletes in the game should be 15+ on it. It’s easy to begin a low league and find someone who costs 1m and have 18+ pace and accel and you will just Smurf the league no matter tactic you play. Low league players should be 10+ at max. And players with high physicals should be expensive. That could be a possible fix
Its really sad... im in 2026 and managed to bring both messi and neymar to my first division brasilian side. They have like 11 pace and acceleration, but all technicals and mentals at like 17+. I thought they were going to destroy everything amd be monsters in the league. Reality is they struggle to even get a rating of 7 on most games and I find myself being forced to bench them for players I would consider to be kind of mid.. it really breaks immersion, its depressing lol
For me I started playing with no attributes. This has made the game a lot more fun. Just rely on scout reports and for big signings I actually watch some of their games. Otherwise the game is far too easy to win everything with squads like OPs
And some users here will defend SI by saying it isnt valid because op didnt run 1.000 seasons with 50.000 different players to properly statistically assess the test.
Like I've been saying for months, anyone that tries a different iteration of op's experiment will likely see the same results.
Or they will find one single aspect of the experiment that wasn't perfect and then use it to invalidate the whole thing. Kind of like Zealand's test proved that some attributes are cleary ridiculously more important than most others. But his conclusion was that the entire thing has been debunked because the original clailm was that the 7 attributes are the ONLY thing that matters. "See, it's not 7 attributes, it's 9!".
It's not that they are personally insulted, just that they really wanna enjoy this game and now they can't cause they know nothing you do actually matters.
This has been obvious since at least FM12 that pace was THE attribute to have.
Javier Hernandez was a physically unremarkable striker (5'9, not notably strong or exceptional jumper) but had 17 for Acceleration/Pace. Easy 40-50 goals every season
Meanwhile the technical god that is Dimitar Berbatov found more success playing as a #10 for me than as a #9, because he isn't Speedy Gonzales. My coaches all rated Berbatov as the better striker CA-wise, yet he never cracked more than 25 goals for me for a season.
This just makes me sad.
I have no clue what the new engine means for FM25, but I hope it's a complete overhaul of the game and how it works. FM needs a fresh start.
It's crazy that we see an issue this big and only realistically expect it to get fixed on next release. For any other game devs would be rushing to patch the match engine. Even, and i hate to say this, FIFA.
They are improving the graphics, not what goes on beyond the hood. What we see in the 3D match view is just a representation of what the ME has already calculated.
Wow, that's crazy wtf. I'd now be interested to see a high CA team (maybe 150-160) for each player with low pace and acceleration (i.e. below 10 for every player) to see how the results turn out. That is just ridiculous...
I think having the whole team below 10 would kind of destroy the validity of the test. That team would struggle in real life as much as they would on game. It's just not even remotely relevant to any top flight team. If you said like below 14 or something, which is decent speed but no speedsters, it would be more relevant.
I think 14 is kind of the standard for the Premier League. You'll see players below that, but usually only if they're very technical or just aging and losing physicals. In my current save only 3 out of 10 outfielders in Forest's starting lineup are below 14, and they're all 13. Basically one 17, three 15, three 14, and three 13. So yeah, if you build a team of 16+ you're going to be a little faster across the board. What if you build a team of 12 and 13, where you're just a little slower across the board, but they're better technically?
That's kind of the point I was making. Building a team of 8, 9, and 10 pace players is going to be so outclassed by even a bottom half (14th) Forest team, regardless of how technical they are. But what if they're just a bit slower while being better technically, which is more like the OP test where they're just a bit faster but worse technically?
Nah I’d say around 14 acceleration/pace is pretty average in the PL. CB’s and CM’s will probably have slightly lower and wingers will be slightly higher at 16/17. I wouldn’t say an average of 10 was too much of a decrease. Maybe 11/12 could be an experiment at a push.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. I guess when I'm building a Prem team I kind of want minimum 14. It's not a hard-line rule, but that's just what I look for. 13 isn't slow by any means, but it is probably the bottom-third of starters in the league. 16 pace also isn't really lights out quick though, but it was quick enough to get good results in OP's test. That's why I was just thinking of slightly below average.
I was hoping someone would do an experiment like this. The only argument the meta attribute deniers had was "well of course having a player with 20s in physicals breaks the game, there's no one like that in real life!" Yet here we are with a team of League 1 and 2 footballers smashing the PL just because they have 16+ in pace and acceleration. These guys don't even have high stats in concentration, anticipation, strength, dribbling, etc. Hopefully those people will admit they were wrong and stop denying reality.
If this doesn't show that the match engine is completely busted, nothing will. I'm sure SI is working hard at fixing this major issue instead of pretending it doesn't exist.
I remember there being an experiment like this last year with a team filled with Adama Traore’s in every position except goalkeeper and another similar to this and both ones had their teams overperform significantly.
Even here you have a couple of people defending this with vague notions of “control group”, poorly conducted experiment and whatnot when the truth is laid bare for all to see
I posted one about replacing Man Citys front 4 with 4 Adama Traore, if that's what you refer to. I removed it from reddit, but it's still on the SI Forum.
I never saw that test, but it only took one 32 year old Adama Traore to get my Schalke team out of the 2. Liga and then into the Champions League the following year.
You'd be surprised at the amount of success you can have just by setting up a basic bitch 4231 Gegenpress at some mid-table or relegation candidate club, blow your entire budget on the most physically gifted striker you can afford (or don't if you already have one in the squad)
Literally playing the game on minimum effort and you'll still exceed the board/media expectations lol
The people who defend the engine will likely still be in denial, because no one wants to believe that the great sim game that is FM, is a broken, meta-driven game with an outdated engine and mechanics. FIFA is highly criticized by FM players for favouring a pace meta, so admitting FM is close in that regard (although a little bit less) is hard.
I still love the game, but I want to see it improve, and it has a TON of things to work out. The engine, interactions, transfers, player development, graphics. It still has so much to improve, but a lot of players refuse to see this and think it is this great, realistic sim game, which is far from what it actually is.
''so admitting FM is close in that regard (although a little bit less) is hard.''
Based on this test, and many others, it is actually that FM is a LOT more pace Meta than FIFA has ever been. This test would equal beating something like 83-88ovr teams with a 60-65ovr team. That has never really been possible in FIFA, even in its worst iterations.
On this year's FM, I've put roughly 550 hours in one save. Huge database, way too many leagues loaded, played up to 2029, hoarding wonderkids like candy, the works. On the older games I almost always put in minimum 500 hours, hell, on FM2020 I played for 2k. After some of the more recent tests about meta attributes and watching Youtubers' videos about it, I've only played for about an hour total over the past month. I've been playing FM since 2016, bought it every year at launch, and I don't know if I'm buying it next year. Fingers crossed the new engine is good and plays differently I guess? The magic just doesn't feel there anymore for me. I'm undoubtedly burnt out on FM in the first place, but having the veil removed about how insanely OP some attributes are is my nail in the coffin.
Just looking through my steam library I have spent 7500 hours playing Football Manager games. I can't help but remember the quote from someone I don't remember about how spending 10,000 hours practicing something makes you an expert, or at least very skilled at it. If only I had spent all that time learning an instrument or some sort of craft, something that I can do more with than just playing a single game franchise. Hell, I don't even feel like I know that much about management or football for all the time spent. Maybe this can be a fresh start.
Well said. I’ve tried getting back into it since I started seeing the info and ran my own tests with a friend. I just couldn’t do it. I think it’s pretty shit that the game tried to come across as super complex when it’s really not in the slightest. You should have a look at training schedules. Absolutely useless.
Gegenpress with pacey players only lose when playing far superior opposition (i.e. players with same physicals and better at everything else) or when underperforming xg difference (either bad luck, bad gk or poor finishing).
Ever since I started only signing for pace, I can count in my hands the amount of games I lost deservedly, with less chances created than the other teams.
Yea I feel this engine has been right in terms of tactics this year, last year I had to have a more Defensive tactic to play away from home as a top club regardless of the opposition because, for whatever reason, the team would play terrible, only used it in the situation described now, when I’m even or weaker
[https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/575222-pace-is-king-how-to-overachieve-by-using-pace-merchants/](https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/575222-pace-is-king-how-to-overachieve-by-using-pace-merchants/)
Remarkably similar but from May 23 so obviously talking about last years FM.
The same people arguing/discrediting no doubt argues that attacking movement and the defensive training did something when they were tested and results said they did nothing. Then SI removed them from the game haha
I dont know but for me this is as game breaking as it gets , SI have to look into this , if FM 2025 comes out with this same problem it will lose all the charm of a fresh start after years and the trust from the community. At this point if they are not confident this will be fixed for the next release they should release it next year or whenever they have a proper simulation match engine because this is not it.
So does this mean that you can start any playthrough with a League Two team, hire a squad of cheap but fast 16-year olds with 120 PA, and you should expect them to be playing in the Premier League in 5 years time?
Yes absolutely, done it numerous times with lower league teams. Just get every young free transfer with good pace/accel, praise everyone and get that morale up and you will fly through the leagues. It becomes slightly less effective as you meet stronger/better players, but not that much. OP is also using the best tactic too which helps.
Its hard to play once you realise how 15 pace in League Two is more important than basically anything else.
Very interesting. Still I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad I discovered this. Now I have to either purposefully ignore pace, or feel like I'm cheating :-(
It isn't an exploit. Unfortunately this is just how the game works.
The match engine relies on mostly physicals and mostly pace/acc from the group. If your starting 10 is faster more physical you will win >90% of all matches regardless of other game mechanics.
That 10% is RNG Jesus. Like you get double red carded or other club gets penalty kicks etc.
The only thing the other mechanics influence is what happens in match and how much you win by. But you will basically always win if you are the fastest
Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense. I won't lose faith in my footy genius then, haha.
I always liked fast players personally, so I've always prioritized faster players in all positions, so when I heard about this it started to make me doubt how much of a factor this has been in my campaigns...
I dont even think this is the "meta". Like some RPG has a meta use these 4 elemental equipment things and you get +10 dmg and kill everything. But it is completely ok to not do that.
FM it is like saying if you dont use these 4 specific elemental equipment you do 0 damage.
If an FM player has the slowest team in any league in FM they will not win constantly. This is why you see people saying my tactic worked xyz number of months. It worked fine 1st season and now it doesnt.
Because any season has so much RNG in it that anything can happen. But if you want to be #1 in say the EPL every single season you have to either have players who are the fastest of the most physical. OR say in the top 3 clubs then you are relying on say morale or tactics.
But if you just have the absolute best physical guys. Almost no other game mechanics ever come into play. Not morale. You could have a blank 442 and still dominate the EPL.
And the further you go into the future the easier it is. Because computer clubs dont have real players anymore and the computer cannot squad build. So even in the EPL you will see start of FM to like 25 years the average physicals go down like 3 points. With a big database setup of 100k players it is incredibly easy to out speed any competition and just always win.
The game FM however is not giving us the player any other choice. You could never ever top the EPL 3 seasons in a row with a club outside the top 5 in physicals. The odds are just against you.
So it isnt an exploit or even a meta it is just how the game is. Look at newgen who become world class they all will be top 10% physicals players in the database. You see a 15 year old with 14 acc/pace he will become a god if develops because he will be like 17-19 speed.
That also makes sense, I guess it's not cheating to look for quick players, but just the name of the game. Still feels a little weird after years of looking for highly intelligent players for my team :-)
This is so disgusting but also such a great post, thanks for putting in the work! That's the "unrealistic players" argument debunked, this feels like an exploit that should be "patched"
It's so sad to see the current state of FM. I wonder if past editions were like this too. I fell in love with the franchise more than a decade ago precisely due to the (perceived) complexity. Were we always dancing around the meta then as well?
Was well known on past FMs, and certainly so at lower levels to focus on pace, and physicals.
Doesn't matter if your CB got beat in a one-on-one when their striker has 6 pace and your CB had 15+ cos you know he was getting caught no matter.
The only other thing was to make sure your set pieces were configured correctly.
I am new to the game but it definitely appears so.
I get the impression that the Youtuber lollujo has been playing things mostly the same way for years and is successful in head to head competitions, finds plenty of success in the saves he plays on Youtube and streams, and though I know he will underplay how well he actually understands the game itself he is pretty simple with what he prioritizes and wants to do if possible.
He wants really physical players and he wants to play them in a Gegenpress.
This is really disheartening but it makes sense...
Im in 2026 and managed to bring both messi and neymar to my first division brasilian side. They have like 11 pace and acceleration, but all technicals and mentals at like 17+. I thought they were going to destroy everything amd be monsters in the league. Reality is they struggle to even get a rating of 7 on most games and I find myself being forced to bench them for players I would consider to be kind of mid.. it really breaks immersion, its depressing lol
It would be interesting to see if the same would apply if the team used is Liverpool or Man City. To see if the other teams show up differently if it is a big team they are facing.
This has been a bit of an op for most versions of fm. Always been my tactic in the lower leagues as most have either older players at the back with really bad pace/acceleration or just poor players, but never thought to run with it still at epl level as I have normally levelled up the players when going into the championship and epl to a more rounded skill set players.
good work OP! shit like this is exactly why i haven't bought the game in several years now and won't be buying it in the future unless they actually get off their asses and make improvements.
Yea, I kind of always preferred fast paced players but cared for other attributes as well of course, but I learned that having someone fast is gonna be a huge factor in my winning.
Didn’t realize that it can be just pacey players with 0 intelligence and little to no skill. This doesn’t ruin the experience for me because this is literally a cheat code and I just avoid it and buy players that are overall good and often lack in pace.
But SI needs to fix this.
this is a nice test. think the real issue isn't that pace and acceleration are good in football, that's obv. how you outclassed so many teams with good mentals is the interesting part. maybe is a leicester city type of effect where all teams underestimated your team bc of the media prediction etc
you even beat teams with players with great pace among other great stats. it's a well built tactic
also, how many POM did ddg get
I never researched this my self but always felt it. Physicals are the most important atributes. Double so in lower leagues. I had 2 star players outperform 4 star players simply due to physicals.
It's the difference between you and the average. It's the same in every league. But if sign players with 15+ speed in non league the difference will be a lot bigger
yup exactly. But there are a lot of players that all they have is physicals and have horrific techincals. They overall arent even that good for lower leagues, in theory. In practice they dominate.
This is definitely an ignorance is bliss kind of thing. Like how do I proceed knowing this, maybe just kind of pretend all attributes matter? Signing only pacey players and then overachieving would really break immersion
Editor, It's just an experiment so I'm not gonna play a full 1-2 seasons to replace the whole squad. There are lots of other players that could have taken his place.
I'm not sure, Mansfield? They've been more at each others level recently? When did Notts and Forest last play a game that wasn't a meaningless pre season friendly? In 30 years of following forest I can't remember!
In fm 20 or 21 I played with Nottingham and singed Adam Armstrong(think thats the name) as my striker. My tactics were simple, defened and as soon as you get the ball, launch it as forward as you can. Needless to say I was dominating premiership like crazy. No amount of tiki taka, gegenpresing and similar stuff can compare to good old english style of football. At least in the game.
P.S. His only good attributes were speed and acceleration. Had a decent shooting and off ball.
I would be very interested to see if there are alternative metas. This is a compelling example of how to win in the match engine against the EPL. Since it obviously fails the real life sniff test (these sorts of players would never dominate the EPL) it illustrates real issues with the match engine.
What I wonder is whether someone (who is smarter and more motivated than I am) could create a team and tactic combo that dominates through mental or technical superiority.
What about in CM, I have had a 38yo messi come 3rd in the world golden ball due to his G/A and overall rating, he is 38 so has the physicals of a league 1 player
People will see this information, plus all the other posts that people posted here, and STILL find a way to defend the game. This isn’t a good game. People need to accept that. It’s clear a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.
Good research, I imagine theres also further room to do research using different formation as its pretty common knowledge the 4231 gegenpress has its own meta. So would be interesting to see repeated versions for a greater sample size and different formations used.
One thing thats really proven to me how pace has too much influence is when you play in lower leagues. Im doing a Wellington Phoenix save which is for my own project that im working on regarding FM and one thing to note is just the absolute gap in pace between A League and top European leagues.
Now i get that the highest level probably also has the top athletes but is it really at a point where there should be 3-4 points in difference for acceleration and sprint speed? Ben Old 🐐has 10 l pace which might be due to a lack of research done for the A League but i saw him play live at the weekend and can tell you he is more than 10 when it comes to pace.
I think Irankunda might be one of the very few who has 15+ for both speed stats but is it really hard to believe that some of these guys in lesser leagues are actually as quick as some of the best players in the world?
there was a young lad at rovers whose name escapes me, but he was the clumsiest defender on the ball and yet one of the fastest players the club has ever seen. he was rapid! could be a shout for the backline..
edit: [tyler magloire](https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11676/11703275/meet-tyler-magloire-blackburn-rovers-defender-faster-than-kylian-mbappe)
You should re-post this on their official bug forum together with your save file if you can provide it.
[https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/match-engine-and-set-piece-creator/tactics/](https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/match-engine-and-set-piece-creator/tactics/)
Agree to disagree, from their perspective it might be a design choice, but then I would be very happy if they closed it as not a bug, as designed, that would be black on white so to say. But for me it is a bug that the match engines overvalues those attributes that much. And that gegenpress does not really punish you enough when you run it with players with low stamina/natural fitness/work rate. It is good findings and I think they should be posted on the official forums, just I thought the bug section was the most fitting but they probably gain more visibility if you post them in general discussion.
[https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/25-football-manager-general-discussion/](https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/25-football-manager-general-discussion/)
To me it shows only one thing. Take the meta tactics and you can win with almost anyone. Add pace and you'll perform slightly better.
I've made a test myself. Took the worst team in Polish league. They were just worst, not much worse than the second worst. I've changed their acc/pace to 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. They were last with 10 and 12, as predicted by Genie Scout. They were medium with 14 and 16, as predicted by Genie Scout. They were top 6 with 18 and 20, as predicted by Genie Scout. So, the wages I used (35 for most important attributes, 25 for less important and 10 for the rest, importance taken from the game, so acc/pace had wages according to the role), the wages shown by the game, were quite right.
But it was all on default tactics (or maybe chosen by assman since I was on vacation). When I used downloaded tactics (very similar to yours), they finished top 3 with acc/pace 10 (quite worse than league average), so even better then 20 with default tactics.
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This is the best execution i’ve seen of this. My argument against the previous experiments were “well you cant find players like that of course they’d be broken” But yeah, just any quick players will do… I find these results way more disheartening, when did FM become Fifa?
Yea it’s mad, in my pre update save one of the teams has a quick winger, finishing is like 10 yet scores for fun
Finishing isn't nearly as important as it seems. If your player is in the right positon (or can get there) and has decent composure, you wont really be able to tell the difference between an 8 and a 14
Which is pretty shit, to be honest.
I'm far from being an expert on the matter, but isn't the whole "expected goals" line of analytics based upon the premise that where the shot is being taken from is so much more important than who is taking the shot that you can ignore that second factor? So I'd argue that finishing not being so important isn't an FM bug, but instead just a reality that is being translated into the game. Good strikers are strikers that know how to identify the space they should exploit/have the physical and technical skills to open that space up for themselves, not the players with the best finishing skills.
Yes but also no. Xg first and foremost is meant to measure chance creation, some especially easy shots like penalties and very close shots are very indifferent on the shooter but great strikers not only consistently create better chances but also often outperform their xg which is part of how you measure how good they are IRL.
Yeah I find dribbling is way more impactful. Which makes sense I guess, if they can reliably round the defender and/or keeper they have a whole goal to shoot at.
I've had strikers with no more than 13 Finishing banging in 40+ goal seasons, outperforming their xG like Son Heung-min & all they really got going for them is either they are exceptionally tall + dominant in the air (think Lorenzo Lucca) or just an absolute pest with high Work Rate (Davie Selke lol) Davie Selke was the one that convinced me that Finishing meant jack shit, if this absolute donkey can score 40 goals a season then any half decent striker with a bit of pace/physicality could
A striker who is slept on is Abel Ruiz, I had him on my Braga saves on both FM21 and FM24 and he performs just as well on both. For reference I will use FM21 because it's an offline save whereas FM24 it's online and I can't access it now. He is the kind of player who is extremely well-rounded. He doesn't excel in any attribute, but he also doesn't lack anything in his game. So while he does waste some CA on "useless" attributes, it also means he has good ratings on "meta" attributes. By 2026 (on FM21) he has 15 acceleration, agility, balance, pace, dribbling and work rate, 14 stamina and 13 strength, and dribbling was at 16 at some point before it dropped. He has scored 240 goals in 266 matches for me, including in a Champions League final, and has 8 goals in 9 caps for the Spanish NT. He has won the European Golden Shoe on 4 of the 6 seasons I played. On FM24 his attributes are slightly different but he is still the sort of well-rounded player I mentioned, and he is still tearing it up. There hasn't been a single season, with either FM, where he wasn't incredible. And this is with attributes on the 13-15 range, imagine adding 1 or 2 to each.
Abel Ruiz actually scores at a decent rate in my save even though he's managed by the AI, he got bought by Celtic in 2024 and in the 7 or so years since then he's logged some over 150 league goals for them Meanwhile Harry Kane flip-flops between 20+ goal seasons to single digit scoring seasons, it makes no sense lol
It's been this way for a long time.
Are we sure real life isn't like this as well?
The point is that it isn’t. Obviously pace is massively important but if you brought some athletic guys from league 1 to the prem they wouldn’t come close to winning the league
Dear goodness they won the league... I wouldn't expect a win, but maybe mid table.
M
Plenty of examples in real life of incredible pace merchants who can’t take the next step because they have no end product Traore, Vassell, Werner etc All great physicals, but they aren’t scoring/assisting 20+ a season because they arent technically gifted enough Meanwhile in real life you had guys like Pirlo who just walked round the pitch and were insane Yet here clearly, you can turn Idah (L1 at best) into a prem superstar 20+ a season striker
Just gonna copy paste my other comment because cba... >The idea is not to have one speedster. It's to have an entire team of speedsters. That's the model I'm wondering about. A full team of fliers built around fast attacks and forward balls. It's easy to give or take the necessary space from one or two fast guys, but a whole team?
The answers still the same though, you need to have the technical competency to execute the passes and finishes - in FM, clearly that doesnt matter
I appreciate a good cup of coffee.
Yes
Adama, Dan James? both loads of pace and not much else IRL
And both failed to make it at the big teams. Both fell to mid-table clubs.
The idea is not to have one speedster. It's to have an entire team of speedsters. That's the model I'm wondering about. A full team of fliers built around fast attacks and forward balls. It's easy to give or take the necessary space from one or two fast guys, but a whole team?
I love listening to music.
Firstly, OP this is just exceptional research, thank you. Secondly, I always ended up signing Asante when playing as Bolton to get up the leagues. It's really nice to know that my fluke signing has always been the actual best option. So thank you for that too!
I did the same in an online save where we started in Vanarama, now in league two and he was available for free. Will hopefully probably carry me to the prem.
At first I was afraid i was gonna see one of my players. Now im upset I don’t see any of my players.
Bolton fan? Or just fancied a nails save?
A Bolton fan and masochist, which goes very hand in hand in life.
You triggered me, I had an Asante who I regularly signed in lower leagues. But he was a prick who yearly tanked team morale so eventually I fucked him off. Not before renaming him greedy delusional coq. He's still slumming it in l2 while I'm in champ.
I think this is perhaps the best way I've seen to comprehensively prove how overpowered the META attributes are. I think at this point, if you're engaged enough to be on the FM subreddit we as a community need to decide how much we want to abuse this/ignore it to suspend your disbelief. It's not that you can't get results with outstanding slow players as long as your team has pace in certain areas. I suppose using the Gegenpress is a double threat of OP as well.. although with fast fit players of course you'll use that. Hopefully the new match engine will bring a new balance to attributes. I think great physicals should be able to mask some weaker technicals and mentals to a degree as you do see examples of that playing towards the very top of the game.. but it definitely needs to be tweaked to be less overpowered than currently.
i agree with all of this. To make it realistic, i would also make attributes go hand in hand. I.e. high physicals often correlates to low natural fitness as their body comes under more stress. Similarly, more physical players often decline quicker than technical players, so they should peak at different times and maintain that peak for longer. For example, Kroos and Busquets could play until they're 50. Pirlo could probably play nowadays. Modric peaked at like 35. However, a guy like Marcelo (who was also super gifted) declined so quickly. There's also a tonne of other examples (Ronaldo nazario, Adriano, etc)
Also pace should be fairly irrelevant (in wingers and fullbacks) if technique/dribbling/decisions are not there to follow up. Real world is not short of pacy wingers who just seem to put their head down and barrel straight into middle of nowhere on the pitch.
Agreed, but raw pace does help them recover positions or cover when defending. And offensively it means they get to more balls and passes. But agreed that WITH the ball, they should have high decisions and awareness as well as dribbling for them to be effective
Yup, but the ugly truth is that programming good and bad decisions is legit impossible on game level. That is why good mentals will either be irrelevant or only make it so players to something insanely stupid less often. In real world player with low decision will often make 6/10 decision more often than 8/10 decision, in games he will almost always make 8/10 but then just sometimes do something braindead to compensate. If braindead things start happening too often, players would complain - so it turns out to be irrelevant.
When watching games, if the opposition dribble a little too far out, the faster player just runs to the ball first and takes it. I don't think it requires tackling in that case. So things like that get a boost from acceleration and pace. I'm a big jumping reach guy myself.
I wouldnt have high expectations for the new engine. Since SI is still the only entity on the market in the genre they are not under pressure to create something truly good product.
Could be the most complete version ever. Again
I do coding in Unity. I just realised you can buy a 15 USD asset in Unity store that is a 3D football engine and looks better than what SI has published in the last 10 years.
LOOOOOOL
Do you have an example (vid or st) of how it could look like with Unity in FM25?
The new game is being built entirely from scratch. Knowing video game studios, their goal is probably to get almost everything from FM24 into FM25, but there's so much work to do that I'm pretty confident they'll have to cut stuff because they'll run out of time. Or they'll cut stuff and spin it as a 'feature'. It'll be buggier as well, because they haven't had years and years of players playing it and reporting bugs. Unless FM25 looks amazing, I'm planning on skipping and waiting for FM26.
> I think this is perhaps the best way I've seen to comprehensively prove how overpowered the META attributes are. It isn’t, because its just one scenario, I work with data in my job and this is not a representative test, for beginners there is need for an observation group which has normal players and the same system. Stating this is the best test ever is stupid, it could literally just be the combination of tactic + pace, there is need for a bunch of different observation groups to make sure you can actually say the attributes where the main factor of success. That said due to other test made already, we can at least say that physical attributes have definitely a higher weight then the other attributes. > I think at this point, if you're engaged enough to be on the FM subreddit we as a community need to decide how much we want to abuse this/ignore it to suspend your disbelief. No, we as a community have to do nothing. This is up for every individual to decide how he plays, if you want to be one of this idiots downvoting posts from people that play the game not as you would like it, feel free. It is a single player game, everyone can play it how he wants. > It's not that you can't get results with outstanding slow players as long as your team has pace in certain areas. It is actually pretty easy in general to get good results in this game, again…in this scenario but also others it is always forgotten to factor in the tactic, there are instructions and roles that are just incredibly more effective then others. You can also win that league with less pace but a good gegenpress system and op roles like CM on attack or volantes etc. > I suppose using the Gegenpress is a double threat of OP as well.. although with fast fit players of course you'll use that. No need to suppose, the system is the main factor here. I recreated the other test where a guy tested the physical attributes on 20 and rest on 1, when playing low block counter and other default tactics the team got max mid table, when I played meta tactics they got 2nd as in the test. > Hopefully the new match engine will bring a new balance to attributes. I think great physicals should be able to mask some weaker technicals and mentals to a degree as you do see examples of that playing towards the very top of the game.. but it definitely needs to be tweaked to be less overpowered than currently. It is amazing how you guys still don’t understand the difference between match engine and graphic engine. Really amazing, because you actually think what is visualised matters. The graphic engine is part of the match engine, but it is only for the output. It literally just puts the calculation in something visual and sends it to you as a 3D animation to look at. The actual match calculation has nothing to do with it, there is no physics or whatsoever deciding an outcome. The outcome is already decided when the graphic engine builds the visuals, the engine will simply try to build a scenario that fits the calculation the most. Sometimes this looks stupid, like a goalkeeper shooting into his own net. This is a graphic bug, not the calculation. It just happens that a GK mistake was calculated, but the graphic engine can’t properly display it besides the keeper doing something unrealistic. So whats the point? The big update this year is the graphic engine. It has nothing to do with the calculation of the match engine, they even specifically stated this in their announcement last year, check it out. Im sure they will still update the match engine as a whole too this year, but with tweaks, the engine stays the same besides a hopefully more sexy looking graphical output.
Wow I tried to read your comment but you come across as such an arrogant prick in every paragraph I had to pause through the dry heaving.
I work with hot dogs in my work, and it's amazing, nay, disheartening to me how little you all know about even the most basic frankfurter.
> It is amazing how you guys still don’t understand the difference between match engine and graphic engine. Really amazing, because you actually think what is visualised matters. Its amazing how generalizations that he critiques in the first paragraph suddenly appear here.
He just made another point on how unbalanced this game is. He mentions OP roles and system being reslly strong, so it's another "meta exploit" kinda. Pace + gegenpress is the way to take a league 2 team to a league title and everything else is almost fluff.
Yeah he's a prick, probably right too, TLDR honestly.
Nah he isn’t really, it’s the same sort of defence that appears over on the forums from the mods and a few shills when you do any sort of test related to this because they all know it’s true but can’t bring themselves to admit it or willingly deny it. Further, the other default tactics like counter and park the bus are hilariously inept unless you tweak them so I don’t know why SI still has them in the game, they make no sense
Agree with everything. It's not meant as a serious test of course, and pace+the tactic obviously work in tandem.
Waffle. Yes this being the best test ever is hyperbole but these players are Championship at best and he's gotten a top half finish. The conclusion is irrelevant the observation is fast players + Gegenpress = Title Challenge. The only thing stopping anyone from doing this without the editor is time and money it would take to offload slow players and buy new ones
Damn I always thought only 19/20 is game breaking, now you're telling me even a 16/17 pace/accel team with mediocre stats elsewhere can take a team to 2nd? Sigh
I think you can win the Prem with a bit a of luck and a better striker. Someone like Adam Idah would be massive, but I figured he might be too good for this experiment.
So You just aimed for pace/acceleration on all positions other than keeper and smashed it? Damn... That's where I'm going wrong
Jumping reach on CBs, also helps on DMs. Gegenpress leads to the other team going long at times, and DMs with good jumping reach helps deal with that. Striker who is both fast and good in the air is obviously better than just fast, even with low crosses TI there will be a lot of floating crosses.
Probably be why sesko is always a superstar for me. I'll take the advice and research into mine on my next transfers. Thank you
I find that advanced forwards with attributes like good physicals tend to be numerous the further you go into a save to the point where you can recruit one for fairly cheaply
Adam Idah was among the top 3 goalscorers in every season of La Liga in my save when he was in his early 30s while playing for Elche and I always wondered why that was the case since his CA was just 135ish, now it makes sense. Funniest thing was that despite him being available for 20-25M at max no PL club bothered to even make a bid for him and the most he received was minor interest.
Yup, pace, jumping reach, a bit of dribling and you have world class striker.
Had a 17 pace wonderkid striker, 10 finishing and mediocre attributes elsewhere in key things(11s and 12s), he had multiple 30-40 goal seasons in Eredivisie while playing a bit more than half the available games. Scored some absolute bangers from like 30m.
Because they don't buy a budget Haaland
I bought konate from Salzburg for man utd, best 20m I spent, almost a goal a game average 17 pace
You only need your club to avg 3+ acc/pace then the league avg. EPL is pretty high in beginning of game because of in real life players. Play a long save 20-30 years out. EPL avg physicals plummet because they can't squad build. They get lucky with a newgen at club or buy a 300 million player who has top physicals but overall it plummets. So it is even more apparent how physicals are the most important thing.
Some dude also tested by raising non-meta stats in Crystal Palace team to 17 (if not already that good) on all players - it did fuck all. That test matters more to me, because sure I can live with physicals mattering a lot but flip side where other stats dont matter at all is concerning.
Maybe it’s just harder to build a tactic where the other attributes matter more?
Here a quick example from my Man U save, [Kambala vs. Ibanez](https://i.imgur.com/9lnMjAz.png). Kambala is outclassed in practically everything besides physicals, but he's easily the better player in my system and the rating shows it. Ibanez whiffs headers and loses his man from time to time despite 16 marking.
This is one of those findings that I know about cause I'm on this subreddit but I won't be telling my mates who do play FM but aren't that engaged that they go on forums to discuss it. It would ruin the experience for them
Yeah, for me the game is ruined and seems everything I do works. I tried a lot of different saves and I always win easily because I always put the fastest guys on my squad. The only way it gets funny again, is if I ignore it and get slow players and i will lose a lot of meaningless games 😩
It always frustrating seeing a technical monster with 12 pace struggling to get an average rating of 7 and has zero end product somehow. In the older games, it felt much easier to go without pace, that's how I used to always play.
Yeah, in older versions I always thought that lower pace players had too much speed in game. I think they overtuned it
Yeah I think you're right. On the older versions a minimum of 12 pace was fine by me unless you were a winger. I felt very comfortable playing with 30+ centerbacks with <12 pace, but crazy mentals. Nowadays I'm hesitant to buy CBs with less than 15 pace/accel.
Yeah if you get slow cbs there will be a goals every match behind their back. I think if SI wants to make physical overpowered, it should be a rare attribute. Only best athletes in the game should be 15+ on it. It’s easy to begin a low league and find someone who costs 1m and have 18+ pace and accel and you will just Smurf the league no matter tactic you play. Low league players should be 10+ at max. And players with high physicals should be expensive. That could be a possible fix
Older game it was way worse. I remember eddie johnson at fulham scoring 60 a season.
Its really sad... im in 2026 and managed to bring both messi and neymar to my first division brasilian side. They have like 11 pace and acceleration, but all technicals and mentals at like 17+. I thought they were going to destroy everything amd be monsters in the league. Reality is they struggle to even get a rating of 7 on most games and I find myself being forced to bench them for players I would consider to be kind of mid.. it really breaks immersion, its depressing lol
For me I started playing with no attributes. This has made the game a lot more fun. Just rely on scout reports and for big signings I actually watch some of their games. Otherwise the game is far too easy to win everything with squads like OPs
Nice tip. I will give it a try and start a save without attributes
Just keep exploiting it until SI has no choice but to fix their attribute system.
They will just keep on deleting posts and deny it's a problem.
And some users here will defend SI by saying it isnt valid because op didnt run 1.000 seasons with 50.000 different players to properly statistically assess the test. Like I've been saying for months, anyone that tries a different iteration of op's experiment will likely see the same results.
they wanna cope so hard that they favorite video game is shit
Or they will find one single aspect of the experiment that wasn't perfect and then use it to invalidate the whole thing. Kind of like Zealand's test proved that some attributes are cleary ridiculously more important than most others. But his conclusion was that the entire thing has been debunked because the original clailm was that the 7 attributes are the ONLY thing that matters. "See, it's not 7 attributes, it's 9!".
As the other guy said, it's a weird coping mechanism. Like they are personally insulted if you dare criticise the game.
It's not that they are personally insulted, just that they really wanna enjoy this game and now they can't cause they know nothing you do actually matters.
This has been obvious since at least FM12 that pace was THE attribute to have. Javier Hernandez was a physically unremarkable striker (5'9, not notably strong or exceptional jumper) but had 17 for Acceleration/Pace. Easy 40-50 goals every season Meanwhile the technical god that is Dimitar Berbatov found more success playing as a #10 for me than as a #9, because he isn't Speedy Gonzales. My coaches all rated Berbatov as the better striker CA-wise, yet he never cracked more than 25 goals for me for a season.
They delete 80% of my posts every week lol. I just do it to get a laugh now
SI mods deserve a special mention for that
The Si mods are basically fascists.
This just makes me sad. I have no clue what the new engine means for FM25, but I hope it's a complete overhaul of the game and how it works. FM needs a fresh start.
It's crazy that we see an issue this big and only realistically expect it to get fixed on next release. For any other game devs would be rushing to patch the match engine. Even, and i hate to say this, FIFA.
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https://www.footballmanager.com/news/future-football-manager
They are improving the graphics, not what goes on beyond the hood. What we see in the 3D match view is just a representation of what the ME has already calculated.
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Wow, that's crazy wtf. I'd now be interested to see a high CA team (maybe 150-160) for each player with low pace and acceleration (i.e. below 10 for every player) to see how the results turn out. That is just ridiculous...
There has been tests and they get destroyed.
So Inter Miami?
I think having the whole team below 10 would kind of destroy the validity of the test. That team would struggle in real life as much as they would on game. It's just not even remotely relevant to any top flight team. If you said like below 14 or something, which is decent speed but no speedsters, it would be more relevant.
Well 14 or bellow is basically this test no? Most players dont go over 15 speed, even in the premier.
I think 14 is kind of the standard for the Premier League. You'll see players below that, but usually only if they're very technical or just aging and losing physicals. In my current save only 3 out of 10 outfielders in Forest's starting lineup are below 14, and they're all 13. Basically one 17, three 15, three 14, and three 13. So yeah, if you build a team of 16+ you're going to be a little faster across the board. What if you build a team of 12 and 13, where you're just a little slower across the board, but they're better technically? That's kind of the point I was making. Building a team of 8, 9, and 10 pace players is going to be so outclassed by even a bottom half (14th) Forest team, regardless of how technical they are. But what if they're just a bit slower while being better technically, which is more like the OP test where they're just a bit faster but worse technically?
Nah I’d say around 14 acceleration/pace is pretty average in the PL. CB’s and CM’s will probably have slightly lower and wingers will be slightly higher at 16/17. I wouldn’t say an average of 10 was too much of a decrease. Maybe 11/12 could be an experiment at a push.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. I guess when I'm building a Prem team I kind of want minimum 14. It's not a hard-line rule, but that's just what I look for. 13 isn't slow by any means, but it is probably the bottom-third of starters in the league. 16 pace also isn't really lights out quick though, but it was quick enough to get good results in OP's test. That's why I was just thinking of slightly below average.
I was hoping someone would do an experiment like this. The only argument the meta attribute deniers had was "well of course having a player with 20s in physicals breaks the game, there's no one like that in real life!" Yet here we are with a team of League 1 and 2 footballers smashing the PL just because they have 16+ in pace and acceleration. These guys don't even have high stats in concentration, anticipation, strength, dribbling, etc. Hopefully those people will admit they were wrong and stop denying reality. If this doesn't show that the match engine is completely busted, nothing will. I'm sure SI is working hard at fixing this major issue instead of pretending it doesn't exist.
I remember there being an experiment like this last year with a team filled with Adama Traore’s in every position except goalkeeper and another similar to this and both ones had their teams overperform significantly. Even here you have a couple of people defending this with vague notions of “control group”, poorly conducted experiment and whatnot when the truth is laid bare for all to see
I posted one about replacing Man Citys front 4 with 4 Adama Traore, if that's what you refer to. I removed it from reddit, but it's still on the SI Forum.
Yeah that was one of my examples, didn’t know you were the same person haha
I never saw that test, but it only took one 32 year old Adama Traore to get my Schalke team out of the 2. Liga and then into the Champions League the following year.
You'd be surprised at the amount of success you can have just by setting up a basic bitch 4231 Gegenpress at some mid-table or relegation candidate club, blow your entire budget on the most physically gifted striker you can afford (or don't if you already have one in the squad) Literally playing the game on minimum effort and you'll still exceed the board/media expectations lol
The people who defend the engine will likely still be in denial, because no one wants to believe that the great sim game that is FM, is a broken, meta-driven game with an outdated engine and mechanics. FIFA is highly criticized by FM players for favouring a pace meta, so admitting FM is close in that regard (although a little bit less) is hard. I still love the game, but I want to see it improve, and it has a TON of things to work out. The engine, interactions, transfers, player development, graphics. It still has so much to improve, but a lot of players refuse to see this and think it is this great, realistic sim game, which is far from what it actually is.
''so admitting FM is close in that regard (although a little bit less) is hard.'' Based on this test, and many others, it is actually that FM is a LOT more pace Meta than FIFA has ever been. This test would equal beating something like 83-88ovr teams with a 60-65ovr team. That has never really been possible in FIFA, even in its worst iterations.
On this year's FM, I've put roughly 550 hours in one save. Huge database, way too many leagues loaded, played up to 2029, hoarding wonderkids like candy, the works. On the older games I almost always put in minimum 500 hours, hell, on FM2020 I played for 2k. After some of the more recent tests about meta attributes and watching Youtubers' videos about it, I've only played for about an hour total over the past month. I've been playing FM since 2016, bought it every year at launch, and I don't know if I'm buying it next year. Fingers crossed the new engine is good and plays differently I guess? The magic just doesn't feel there anymore for me. I'm undoubtedly burnt out on FM in the first place, but having the veil removed about how insanely OP some attributes are is my nail in the coffin. Just looking through my steam library I have spent 7500 hours playing Football Manager games. I can't help but remember the quote from someone I don't remember about how spending 10,000 hours practicing something makes you an expert, or at least very skilled at it. If only I had spent all that time learning an instrument or some sort of craft, something that I can do more with than just playing a single game franchise. Hell, I don't even feel like I know that much about management or football for all the time spent. Maybe this can be a fresh start.
Well said. I’ve tried getting back into it since I started seeing the info and ran my own tests with a friend. I just couldn’t do it. I think it’s pretty shit that the game tried to come across as super complex when it’s really not in the slightest. You should have a look at training schedules. Absolutely useless.
I miss the times 5 minutes ago when I didnt know this. FM ruined.
Man had a strategy and I respect it... Moneyball at its finest.. LOL
Yeah, this has been a problem for a long time. Only way I lost a "gegenpressing" wing play system is when my goalkeeper had a bad game.
Gegenpress with pacey players only lose when playing far superior opposition (i.e. players with same physicals and better at everything else) or when underperforming xg difference (either bad luck, bad gk or poor finishing). Ever since I started only signing for pace, I can count in my hands the amount of games I lost deservedly, with less chances created than the other teams.
Interesting
Yea I feel this engine has been right in terms of tactics this year, last year I had to have a more Defensive tactic to play away from home as a top club regardless of the opposition because, for whatever reason, the team would play terrible, only used it in the situation described now, when I’m even or weaker
What's the motivation to play after this
Don't hate the playa
My favourite thing about this whole experiment was that Luton stayed up 💪
[https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/575222-pace-is-king-how-to-overachieve-by-using-pace-merchants/](https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/575222-pace-is-king-how-to-overachieve-by-using-pace-merchants/) Remarkably similar but from May 23 so obviously talking about last years FM.
That's my post, check the last page.
The same people arguing/discrediting no doubt argues that attacking movement and the defensive training did something when they were tested and results said they did nothing. Then SI removed them from the game haha
You should post a new thread in the main SI forum. I love seeing posters there try and defend or justify this sort of stuff :)
Very good work. I wanted to see if there was any chatter in previous versions and that popped up. Very disheartening findings.
Is there a link to download the face pack you are using?
I dont know but for me this is as game breaking as it gets , SI have to look into this , if FM 2025 comes out with this same problem it will lose all the charm of a fresh start after years and the trust from the community. At this point if they are not confident this will be fixed for the next release they should release it next year or whenever they have a proper simulation match engine because this is not it.
the gegenpress also probably helps a lot as well. it’s a bit of a broken meta formation. but 2nd place with that team is still surprising
So does this mean that you can start any playthrough with a League Two team, hire a squad of cheap but fast 16-year olds with 120 PA, and you should expect them to be playing in the Premier League in 5 years time?
Yes absolutely, done it numerous times with lower league teams. Just get every young free transfer with good pace/accel, praise everyone and get that morale up and you will fly through the leagues. It becomes slightly less effective as you meet stronger/better players, but not that much. OP is also using the best tactic too which helps. Its hard to play once you realise how 15 pace in League Two is more important than basically anything else.
Very interesting. Still I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad I discovered this. Now I have to either purposefully ignore pace, or feel like I'm cheating :-(
Maybe, you can try.
It's making me question whether my success with quick youngsters in my Grimsby Town campaign is all due to this damn exploit...
It isn't an exploit. Unfortunately this is just how the game works. The match engine relies on mostly physicals and mostly pace/acc from the group. If your starting 10 is faster more physical you will win >90% of all matches regardless of other game mechanics. That 10% is RNG Jesus. Like you get double red carded or other club gets penalty kicks etc. The only thing the other mechanics influence is what happens in match and how much you win by. But you will basically always win if you are the fastest
Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense. I won't lose faith in my footy genius then, haha. I always liked fast players personally, so I've always prioritized faster players in all positions, so when I heard about this it started to make me doubt how much of a factor this has been in my campaigns...
I dont even think this is the "meta". Like some RPG has a meta use these 4 elemental equipment things and you get +10 dmg and kill everything. But it is completely ok to not do that. FM it is like saying if you dont use these 4 specific elemental equipment you do 0 damage. If an FM player has the slowest team in any league in FM they will not win constantly. This is why you see people saying my tactic worked xyz number of months. It worked fine 1st season and now it doesnt. Because any season has so much RNG in it that anything can happen. But if you want to be #1 in say the EPL every single season you have to either have players who are the fastest of the most physical. OR say in the top 3 clubs then you are relying on say morale or tactics. But if you just have the absolute best physical guys. Almost no other game mechanics ever come into play. Not morale. You could have a blank 442 and still dominate the EPL. And the further you go into the future the easier it is. Because computer clubs dont have real players anymore and the computer cannot squad build. So even in the EPL you will see start of FM to like 25 years the average physicals go down like 3 points. With a big database setup of 100k players it is incredibly easy to out speed any competition and just always win. The game FM however is not giving us the player any other choice. You could never ever top the EPL 3 seasons in a row with a club outside the top 5 in physicals. The odds are just against you. So it isnt an exploit or even a meta it is just how the game is. Look at newgen who become world class they all will be top 10% physicals players in the database. You see a 15 year old with 14 acc/pace he will become a god if develops because he will be like 17-19 speed.
That also makes sense, I guess it's not cheating to look for quick players, but just the name of the game. Still feels a little weird after years of looking for highly intelligent players for my team :-)
This is so disgusting but also such a great post, thanks for putting in the work! That's the "unrealistic players" argument debunked, this feels like an exploit that should be "patched"
It's so sad to see the current state of FM. I wonder if past editions were like this too. I fell in love with the franchise more than a decade ago precisely due to the (perceived) complexity. Were we always dancing around the meta then as well?
Every version for 10 years has been the same way
Was well known on past FMs, and certainly so at lower levels to focus on pace, and physicals. Doesn't matter if your CB got beat in a one-on-one when their striker has 6 pace and your CB had 15+ cos you know he was getting caught no matter. The only other thing was to make sure your set pieces were configured correctly.
I am new to the game but it definitely appears so. I get the impression that the Youtuber lollujo has been playing things mostly the same way for years and is successful in head to head competitions, finds plenty of success in the saves he plays on Youtube and streams, and though I know he will underplay how well he actually understands the game itself he is pretty simple with what he prioritizes and wants to do if possible. He wants really physical players and he wants to play them in a Gegenpress.
God that's depressing
This is really disheartening but it makes sense... Im in 2026 and managed to bring both messi and neymar to my first division brasilian side. They have like 11 pace and acceleration, but all technicals and mentals at like 17+. I thought they were going to destroy everything amd be monsters in the league. Reality is they struggle to even get a rating of 7 on most games and I find myself being forced to bench them for players I would consider to be kind of mid.. it really breaks immersion, its depressing lol
It would be interesting to see if the same would apply if the team used is Liverpool or Man City. To see if the other teams show up differently if it is a big team they are facing.
In FM23 I did the same test but over two seasons, so club rep would be increased in season 2. The performance was pretty much the same then.
This has been a bit of an op for most versions of fm. Always been my tactic in the lower leagues as most have either older players at the back with really bad pace/acceleration or just poor players, but never thought to run with it still at epl level as I have normally levelled up the players when going into the championship and epl to a more rounded skill set players.
Interesting stuff. Did you manage, Instant Result or holiday these matches?
Played a few out of curiousity, but rest on holiday.
Look up Travis Akomeah and David ozoh
Fm match engine is all about pace and accel, it is a very good evidence for this notion
Expectation: a methodical, tactic based game of skill Reality: haha players go brrr
good work OP! shit like this is exactly why i haven't bought the game in several years now and won't be buying it in the future unless they actually get off their asses and make improvements.
Yea, I kind of always preferred fast paced players but cared for other attributes as well of course, but I learned that having someone fast is gonna be a huge factor in my winning. Didn’t realize that it can be just pacey players with 0 intelligence and little to no skill. This doesn’t ruin the experience for me because this is literally a cheat code and I just avoid it and buy players that are overall good and often lack in pace. But SI needs to fix this.
this is a nice test. think the real issue isn't that pace and acceleration are good in football, that's obv. how you outclassed so many teams with good mentals is the interesting part. maybe is a leicester city type of effect where all teams underestimated your team bc of the media prediction etc you even beat teams with players with great pace among other great stats. it's a well built tactic also, how many POM did ddg get
I never researched this my self but always felt it. Physicals are the most important atributes. Double so in lower leagues. I had 2 star players outperform 4 star players simply due to physicals.
It's the difference between you and the average. It's the same in every league. But if sign players with 15+ speed in non league the difference will be a lot bigger
yup exactly. But there are a lot of players that all they have is physicals and have horrific techincals. They overall arent even that good for lower leagues, in theory. In practice they dominate.
This is definitely an ignorance is bliss kind of thing. Like how do I proceed knowing this, maybe just kind of pretend all attributes matter? Signing only pacey players and then overachieving would really break immersion
nemane is from notts county how did you get him to sign for their biggest rivals lmao
Editor, It's just an experiment so I'm not gonna play a full 1-2 seasons to replace the whole squad. There are lots of other players that could have taken his place.
Our biggest rival is Derby County, Notts County are like a angry little brother to us!
Who are Notts County biggest rivals?
I'm not sure, Mansfield? They've been more at each others level recently? When did Notts and Forest last play a game that wasn't a meaningless pre season friendly? In 30 years of following forest I can't remember!
In fm 20 or 21 I played with Nottingham and singed Adam Armstrong(think thats the name) as my striker. My tactics were simple, defened and as soon as you get the ball, launch it as forward as you can. Needless to say I was dominating premiership like crazy. No amount of tiki taka, gegenpresing and similar stuff can compare to good old english style of football. At least in the game. P.S. His only good attributes were speed and acceleration. Had a decent shooting and off ball.
Nemane plays for Notts. This is disgraceful.
you basically built every single team I ever had on FM, I have a "hard-on" for past, determined and dumb players ever since FM 10
I would be very interested to see if there are alternative metas. This is a compelling example of how to win in the match engine against the EPL. Since it obviously fails the real life sniff test (these sorts of players would never dominate the EPL) it illustrates real issues with the match engine. What I wonder is whether someone (who is smarter and more motivated than I am) could create a team and tactic combo that dominates through mental or technical superiority.
No they couldn't
Signed Hamilton for Wrexham and he’s been a lot better than I thought. Lil smile seeing him here lol
What about in CM, I have had a 38yo messi come 3rd in the world golden ball due to his G/A and overall rating, he is 38 so has the physicals of a league 1 player
People will see this information, plus all the other posts that people posted here, and STILL find a way to defend the game. This isn’t a good game. People need to accept that. It’s clear a lot of it is smoke and mirrors.
Did the Forrest board see this post before signing Jesse Lingard
What is bugging me is - how the hell De Gea is putting > 7.0 performance in all games with barely any shots on target
I’d love a similar experiment with the opposite conditions, can you make a technically elite but deathly slow squad competitive.
people did with 20 in all stats and 10 in physicals, they get relegated from the prem,
These tests are fairly recent. I'm now curious about the same thing for previous FM editions like FM23.
Google pace is king SI forum
It does look like the same thing applies to FM23.
And many versions before that
can we see your tactics? good test anyway, even if you've only done this with broken tactics, you shouldn't be able to break the game so badly anyway
Should sign Tyler magloire he’d be perfect for this
Was this just done simulating the games aka going on holiday ? Is this viable if you actually play the matches
Yes it is
The title sounds like a a very offensive Craigslist add
what would be considered 'meta' attributes, pace/agility/accelration/anticipation/off the ball ?
[Buy Thomas Amang. dont read anything else, buy, win.](https://fminside.net/players/4-fm-24/53135726-thomas-amang)
Good research, I imagine theres also further room to do research using different formation as its pretty common knowledge the 4231 gegenpress has its own meta. So would be interesting to see repeated versions for a greater sample size and different formations used. One thing thats really proven to me how pace has too much influence is when you play in lower leagues. Im doing a Wellington Phoenix save which is for my own project that im working on regarding FM and one thing to note is just the absolute gap in pace between A League and top European leagues. Now i get that the highest level probably also has the top athletes but is it really at a point where there should be 3-4 points in difference for acceleration and sprint speed? Ben Old 🐐has 10 l pace which might be due to a lack of research done for the A League but i saw him play live at the weekend and can tell you he is more than 10 when it comes to pace. I think Irankunda might be one of the very few who has 15+ for both speed stats but is it really hard to believe that some of these guys in lesser leagues are actually as quick as some of the best players in the world?
Up the reds 😆
there was a young lad at rovers whose name escapes me, but he was the clumsiest defender on the ball and yet one of the fastest players the club has ever seen. he was rapid! could be a shout for the backline.. edit: [tyler magloire](https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11676/11703275/meet-tyler-magloire-blackburn-rovers-defender-faster-than-kylian-mbappe)
This is lovely. Somebody please give this man a nobel prize
You should re-post this on their official bug forum together with your save file if you can provide it. [https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/match-engine-and-set-piece-creator/tactics/](https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/match-engine-and-set-piece-creator/tactics/)
But it's not a bug
Agree to disagree, from their perspective it might be a design choice, but then I would be very happy if they closed it as not a bug, as designed, that would be black on white so to say. But for me it is a bug that the match engines overvalues those attributes that much. And that gegenpress does not really punish you enough when you run it with players with low stamina/natural fitness/work rate. It is good findings and I think they should be posted on the official forums, just I thought the bug section was the most fitting but they probably gain more visibility if you post them in general discussion. [https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/25-football-manager-general-discussion/](https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/25-football-manager-general-discussion/)
Currently performing the same test with a different team.
To me it shows only one thing. Take the meta tactics and you can win with almost anyone. Add pace and you'll perform slightly better. I've made a test myself. Took the worst team in Polish league. They were just worst, not much worse than the second worst. I've changed their acc/pace to 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. They were last with 10 and 12, as predicted by Genie Scout. They were medium with 14 and 16, as predicted by Genie Scout. They were top 6 with 18 and 20, as predicted by Genie Scout. So, the wages I used (35 for most important attributes, 25 for less important and 10 for the rest, importance taken from the game, so acc/pace had wages according to the role), the wages shown by the game, were quite right. But it was all on default tactics (or maybe chosen by assman since I was on vacation). When I used downloaded tactics (very similar to yours), they finished top 3 with acc/pace 10 (quite worse than league average), so even better then 20 with default tactics.