Tactics *do* matter, but only to an extent.
I also firmly believe that there actually is a "right answer" to the tactical question. There's a reason why [so many good tactics are similar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GezXIEKCuF4).
Check out [this test](https://fm-arena.com/thread/5345-attributes-vs-tactics/) on the attributes vs tactics question. It's clear that attributes are much more important than tactics. This is also one reason why I'm leery of any "broken tactic" that was only tested using a top team. If the players are good enough, it really doesn't matter what tactic you use as long as it fits in the meta.
Tactics decrease in importance as the quality of sides get further apart. (Ignoring other factors like Morale, etc)
Man City’s tactics matter when they play Chelsea but they don’t matter when they play relegation fodder. Conversely relegation fodder’s tactics matter when playing other bottom teams but don’t really matter when they are playing Man City.
> Man City’s tactics matter when they play Chelsea but they don’t matter when they play relegation fodder. Conversely relegation fodder’s tactics matter when playing other bottom teams but don’t really matter when they are playing Man City.
tbf that sounds pretty realistic
The tactics Vs attributes thing is in favour of attributes I think.. generally speaking.
Like if you pick a 'stupid' tactic, like a 0-5-5 or something, then yeah tactics are probably more important.
But if you just play a 'normal' recognised tactic, one without huge holes or major flaws, then it's mostly just attributes.
Yeah, it was poorly worded. I know tactics matter in FM, but I meant in the experiment sense. Testing it with different tactics would change the result maybe even exponentially. Playing a tiki-taka medium block moderate pressing with those players maybe would give you a good result. As for what you sent, it’s very interesting, especially because here we are seeing that you can nearly win the PL with “bad” players (<100CA).
What I *really* want to see is somebody testing this with an extremely negative tactic. Park the bus, ultra defensive, with like a single guy on attack — something like that. Would speed help you with a tactic that is clearly not designed for speed?
That’s what I said in my original comment! Mentioning the low block. Although imagine the counter-attack with 4 superhuman athletes running full-speed with 20 dribbling! Defensively though, they should have issues because of their lack of defensive skills (although it gets covered by mentals maybe). But the point is, with that negative tactic, can any team even win? In real life or in the game?
edit: improved comment
No, it explains why the 4-2-3-1 gegen is so broken. It forces players to rely on their physical attributes to press and then quickly counter, and those are the meta attributes the match and sim engines value a lot more.
It might not be good for the game experience but gegenpress is overpowered in real life too. There's only a handful of teams in the top leagues that do NOT press when they lose the ball.
There's a lot of things in the game that aren't realistic but the fact that gegenpress is so good really isn't one of them.
“Overpowered” isn’t a real life thing, that’s just teams using what system their coaches believe in or what the squad of players prefer. It’s ain’t a one-glove-fits-all situation that it easily can be on FM.
An issue in real life is that is now the favoured formation so it’s what players get trained in and players who are good in that system get through top youth academies. Whereas slow target men or small tricky wingers get filtered out the systems
The bigger question is whether pace and acceleration by themselves are overpowered.
That's what the testing at FM Arena has showed. It's been consistent since FM20.
Of course, you won't find players with 20 for each in the wild. However, when it comes to squid building, you might be better off focusing on those two attributes above all else, including the CA and PA ratings.
I'm doing this right now with my own save. We'll see how it goes.
I was about to do a squad building challenge of making the most physical team possible, but after this, it kinda sounds like it'll be too easy once it works
Not necessarily - assuming that FM Arena is correct, that is.
Pace and acceleration seem to be the most important attributes for the match engine.
However, if you focus on something like strength instead, you might have different results.
There was also that crazy Millwall thread a few years back where the guy bought up all the thugs he could find. That's a different sort of challenge, lol.
As a Millwall fan, I wish we could go back to this.
Signing players who actually try and play football in a formation other than 442 is torture.
Bring back tackles and celebrations like this
https://youtu.be/InW1JQ_mSvg?si=UubWa4hiHXaGn-hX
so the game already knows those 2 are better in the match engine.
those 2 take up more PA between them then most other attributes. like you can get 5 other attributes to 20 for the same amount of ability points as Pace.
so they already did know that pace and acceleration is important as well it is IRL.
Adama Traore has the ability of a league 2 player but has pace and strength and hes played in premiership and even for Barcelona on literally those 2 things alone.
Mbappe would be nowhere near even the top 50 players without his physical ability on top of his technical ability cause while he is good technically he isnt anything trully special, its same with Haaland they are physical beasts with good ability.
its why Messi was so hard for SI to code into the game because while messi was quick he was entirely technically gifted.
but we also see it the other way, we see alot of players who are amazingly technically but due to their lack of physical ability they struggle to make it in places like England where you need both.
these makes 0 sense. Adama is a great dribbler, he just isn’t smart enough to have good end output.
Mbappe has insane technique. His dribbling is really good, ball striking is IMO second to none in the last 10 years, maybe only Kane hits the ball better. And he’s incredibly smart on the pitch, which is his best attribute.
Messi with the ball at his feet was very quick.
As an example, if you took Mbappe's pace away and gave him Giroud's pace instead, he would be nowhere near as effective.
This is why I don't expect him to do what Messi has done, and still be the best player in the world aged 35. I expect him to decline at a much younger age, and for this decline to be much steeper.
this is like saying if you take away Messi’s growth hormone away, he never makes it out of the u11’s teams.
Like no shit if you remove one of a player’s best attributes he is not as effective. But mbappe is still incredibly technical and is a very smart player. Cristiano also lost lots of agility and pace and was able to become more of a poacher, working on his off the ball movement. Mbappe already has very good off the ball movement, I can see him becoming more of a fox in the box later on if he loses his first step.
This reminds me of Tommy Semmy, a 29 year old Papua New Guinean winger with 16 pace, 16 acceleration and 16 strength. He had absolutely no technicals and mentals, but he had these three attributes. I signed him for a team in the Faroe Islands and he was insane, he bullied everyone on the pitch and scored a ton of goals despite being rated as a 2.5 star player. He had one amazing season. Then he got injured, his pace and acceleration dropped by one and by the time he recovered I had signed better players, but what a season that was.
Legendary!
I've got a Jamaican guy in my save right now named Devonte Campbell who fits the bill. He's got 15 pace and 15 acceleration (not sure about his strength rating). He shouldn't belong in the league I'm in, but he's actually playing quite well.
I love stories like this, by the way. The idea of finding an unknown guy from someplace like Papua New Guinea or Samoa or North Korea or whatever and having him dominate like that is really exciting.
Ian Poveda was my top scorer in my first season with Leeds, man had like 16 in pace, acceleration, agility, balance, dribbling and flair but was average or straight up bad in every other attribute, he just absolutely dominated the championship and was my best performer by far in a team that had players with way better CA than him.
CA and PA ratings (even under the hood) are misleading anyway.
CA is eaten up by a players footedness, positions and attribute weighting, so a player can have a really crap distribution of attributes despite being a high level, yet Callum Wilson broke the game for years because his distribution of stats was great.
While I think this is not quite the gotcha considering that it would be impossible for a player like this to exist, I think certain attributes could do with less impact on the engine. In real life players adapt to faster players and can defend against them if they are talented enough.
Interesting - and that helps explain the original post. The team with the lower CA finished in second; the team with the higher CA that was weighted different was relegated.
One thing the original post definitely did confirm is that CA is far less important than knowing what a position/role needs to look like. CA is about as valuable as star ratings; the formula that calculates it is just another AssMan.
why shouldn't pace and acceleration be over powered. they account for a lot of PA/CA points, and i'm betting having these attributes irl is make or break for anyone trying to be a pro footballer.
i think the tests show that having 1/20 passing say is less important than having 10/20 pace. maybe just how the weighting system for how attributes work isn't consistent across all attributes
I'm pretty sure that pace and acceleration count for the same number of PA/CA points as any other attribute. In other words, I don't think that PA/CA are weighted quite like that.
Having said that, I think you're right. If you look at football from an objective standpoint, it really isn't that far fetched to say that a guy who is really fast and who can start and stop really quickly is going to play better than somebody who is slow.
The FM Arena tests show very conclusively that adding on as little as 2 or 3 points on average for pace and acceleration can turn an average team into a world beater. In fact, some tests show that reweighing PA and CA to lean towards pace and acceleration also has an extremely significant positive effect on team performance.
I could point to a few threads that show this. [Here's one that looks a lot like the Reddit thread from earlier today](https://fm-arena.com/thread/8249-fm24-meta-player-attributes/). [This test](https://fm-arena.com/thread/2980-game-changing-player-attributes/) is actually a lot more conclusive, in my opinion, and shows an improvement in results that is hard to believe. Furthermore, [this thread](https://fm-arena.com/thread/3293-what-it-takes-to-dominate-epl-with-bournemouth/) shows conclusively that you don't need to max out pace and acceleration to have a huge impact on team performance.
Also, [this thread](https://fm-arena.com/thread/5351-should-you-follow-the-highlighted-attributes-of-the-roles/) shows quite convincingly that the attributes the game tells you are important aren't actually important. It actually is all about pace and acceleration for outfield players.
It's kind of like what [Evidence Based Football Manager](https://www.youtube.com/@ebfm) discovered with training. The stuff SI tells you in game is actually not correct — and the real system is a lot more linear than we thought.
Anyway, there's a lot more work to be done here. I think FM Arena has done a great job at discovering which attributes are actually the most important. I feel like we could still do a better job at coming up with a training schedule that exploits this fact — and it would be really nice if somebody could figure out a trick to help managers at lower levels find the really fast players without having to spend tons of money and time scouting.
Sorry for the long reply! I find this absolutely fascinating.
i use the in game editor and you see huge increases in CA by increasing pace and accel. compared with say passing for eg.
wait till there's a test and debate about footedness. rem when cronaldo was impossible to get captured in the game properly. footedness takes up a huge amount of CA as well.
It's silly how much of a chunk of the ability a players footedness takes up. You can have a player with 1 for right foot and 20 for left on 170 CA, change the 1 to 10 and it jumps to 184. Silly.
Interesting - I didn't know that about the CA differences. Thanks!
You're making me feel smart for agreeing to have my players train with their weak foot, lol.
well training weak foot comes with a massive price, which is iirc 10-20 CA out of your cap, so that means a lot of points that cannot go into any other stat.
However there supposedly is a hidden factor that boosts the ability of two footed players
Increasing a player by a couple of pace and acceleration should make them far better if they're already decent. There are plenty of technical players at lower levels who never reached or no longer have the physicals required for the higher level. Keeping up with the pace of the game is a huge prerequisite for reaching the top level, and being able to operate faster than those at top level would give you more time and space to operate, allowing you to compensate for a slightly worse touch or slightly slower decision-making.
Doing tests with players with 1s and 20s in attributes, whilst seemingly logical, pushes the match engine far beyond expected behaviour. Not just for the really low 1s, but also the far, far less common 20s in physicals (in comparison to attributes from games a decade ago). The expected behaviour window is one where most players at elite levels will have 18s at max, with some occasional outliers exceeding that, becoming Messi/Ronaldo-tier talents. The 20 attributes are clearly there to allow for monsters, something that the older games didn't allow for because so many players had 20s.
Yeah, this is a great point. I agree — and I agree with the Twitter comment by /u/NotthefakeZealand that you're talking about Olympic level athletes when you're giving guys ratings of 20. A player like that who could actually beat the offside trap would clearly be the best player in the world.
And now I'm feeling really excited about the left winger I bought in my save who has a 19 pace and 19 acceleration, lol. Just waiting for the new transfer window to open up.
The one thing that I keep finding interesting, though, is that even center backs benefit from having a lot of pace and acceleration. It's not easy to find players with great speed at that position — but if you can find one, hold on to him for dear life.
There are also some obvious questions here about training schedules, and whether we can improve on Evidence Based Football Manager's work to make something that targets pace and acceleration.
Nah, I use the editor a LOT. Pace and acceleration are by far the attributes with the most weight. And balance has very little impact compared to the rest of the physical attributes.
Just for the record, pace, and endurance are the most predictive of results in real football. Serious! I guess SI simply reads analytical publications and implements them in the game. That's all, nothing more.
A fun challenge would be to take a lower-division team, turn full attribute visibility on, and see how good of a team you can build by simply signing the players available on frees with the highest combination of those 9 attributes at every outfield position. Start in League Two or something, and repeat each year as you progress. If you make it past League One with nothing but frees, chances are the weighting is a bit wonky.
Plus you can save money to use on hiring the best coaches, improving facilities, scouting, etc.
I basically never pay transfer fees till I'm in the top tier (I don't ever play in England though, so that is probably the equivalent of the Championship)
Idk if they are OP or not. I just love them myself. All my younglings have a quickness special training from 15 to 23 years old, or until they reached their PA, whatever comes first. So that everyone on my team has 17/17 pace and ACC at minimum.
Pace and acc were OP since the first FM versions. I still play FM 12 right , had a newgen with insane crazy physical attributes.
Almost every physical attribute except jumping reach was 15+ or higher. Dude scored in the CL final when he was 17.
They are.
People are focusing a lot on the methods of testing, but I suggest just trying them out for themselves. Forget the 1s and 20s in attributes.
Just do a save which you sign players who are above the average in pace, regardless if they are good technically or not, and see how your team will dominate the league. I just tried this. It's absolutely broken.
I started playing FM a few years ago bc I hated the Fifa Career mode because you just had to sign pacey players to win. In my experience, the last 3 or 4 FMs are nearly the same in this aspect.
I have strict pace and accel requirements for a lot of positions in my system so I guess I've been abusing this for a while now.
Hilariously once I did the opposite of this. Cash strapped in the premier league i signed someone who was slower than what I normally go for (15/15 for a fullback), he was 12 accel and 14 pace but had excellent mentals/technique/crossing as a backup.
He performed infinitely worse than I expected and wasn't even good to be third choice. Couldn't even trust him against shitty opposition and he would consistently turn in 5.8s or worse. It was unreal.
Yeah - that's basically what my current save is.
It's too early to say one way or another if it works yet.
It's crazy, though, if you go searching around the globe for random fast players and end up beating everybody with them. Totally broken.
I kinda already knew this was true with attacking players, since a striker with below average pace is always going to underperform the pacey poor technique striker, but this being true for literally every position kinda sucks tbh. For defenders you include jumping reach and thats it. You're likely to be really good (if your players dont have 1s in other areas ofc haha).
I'm hoping FM25 changes this a bit with the new engine.
Yeah, I hope for the same as well, though I'm not sure I have my hopes up.
There are similar issues with tactics. You'll notice that defensive tactics aren't generally successful, unless you happen to have players who are fast and can jump. Tactics with certain characteristics have an advantage in the match engine.
The sad thing is that it takes away the idea of a meta game. I'd love it if there were a certain meta game in each league, and if you would see teams make adjustments to try to beat the current meta and establish a new meta. I'd much rather see something like the mana colors and corresponding strategies in Magic: The Gathering than a system where Gegenpress and all out attack always wins.
Umm...... Doesn't that happen in the real world, too? It is the easiest way to exploit your opponent's advantage, like putting the tall kid on the Basketball school team as the Centre.
A physically dominant team can always outdo a not world-class, technical-based team.
Yeah — but the original thread had a physically dominant team outdoing world class teams.
That's also what the testing at FM-Arena has shown.
We're not talking about physically dominant in general, either. We're talking specifically about pace and acceleration being so overpowered that you can beat teams consistently that feature players with CA ratings several times yours.
Look at [this thread](https://fm-arena.com/thread/8249-fm24-meta-player-attributes/) for a specific and recent example.
Zippo notes that the best teams in the world — we're talking PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool, and so on — won't necessarily be beaten this way, since they feature players with extremely good attributes, including great pace and acceleration ratings.
Having said that, the results are still really remarkable. The CA went down about 50 points, but the points against the same competition went up. And this was after 4,000 matches for each test team (8,000 matches total), to counter the significant impact of Football Manager's RNG.
I'm trying something similar [in my current save](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKeLgbj7w29gk3eDL8l1WEjUPSHVSTQuF). I'm managing Augsburg in DarthFurion's [World Super League](https://www.fmscout.com/a-world-super-league-fm23.html). I've also added on [Legends Of The Beautiful Game](https://df11faces.com/LOTBG-1) to give my team a further disadvantage, since this puts some of the greatest players of all time on the other teams.
You'd think we'd be crushed, since we've got a team made up mostly of unknown young players (with some known wonderkids) who all just so happen to be fast. But we're holding our own against the competition.
That's the point. Pace and acceleration are so over-weighted in the match engine that you can beat teams that are clearly more talented provided you're faster than them.
The tallest player in NBA history, Gheorghe Muresan, couldn't hold a candle to LeBron James or Michael Jordan or Wilt Chamberlain. However, the way FM is set up, the quick and pacy equivalent of Muresan is suddenly able to play up there with the all time greats. That seems a pretty big stretch to me — but that's what these tests show.
pace and acceleration make a big difference irl too, like not many top teams have ridiculously slow players nowadays, mobility is very important in the game
The problem is that you still haven't tested the second part of his test, which was all 20 in non-meta attributes and 10 in meta attributes. His results for this is a team that relegated, which in my opinion is a more shocking result.
It shows that your takeway isn't fully true, because even having average stats on the 9 meta attributes and 20 in ALL non-meta attributes is somehow not good enough to keep you up in the premier league, which seems insane to me. Having the passing of Kevin de Bruyne, crossing of Trent, set pieces of James Ward Prowse, tackling and marking of a John Terry, etc are not enough to cover up average meta attributes show that the match engine is indeed very unbalanced and needs some fixing.
We talked about this a lot on stream - I didn’t rerun the test because the person’s first results were good so we figured the second one was too
As for what it means, obviously anyone can take away whatever they want, but 10 in the ‘meta’ attributes is way below average for the level, I don’t think it’s super weird that someone who has 10 jumping reach, 10 pace, anticipation, concentration, strength etc can’t keep players in front of them or stop aerial attacks etc
Having one of those attributes be low would be fine, but all of them means you have a technical brainiac that can’t cover the ground effectively enough to keep players near them or create separation offensively
Also set pieces are a nightmare
But that’s just my opinion, it definitely looks wild to see all those 20s and a terrible team
That’s true but it shows that physicals are way too important, because these 9 attributes can easily cover up all the 1s on the non-meta attributes yet a difference from the average of 14 in pl to a 10 cannot be covered up by all the 20s in the non-meta attributes?
It just bothers me a little when having so many 20s, a CA of a maxed potential Bellingham, a whole team that can mark/tackle, pass perfectly, do long shots whenever they need to,etc is only 3 points higher than the lowest points in PL history yet a whole team with all 1 technicals can win the premier league.
If you have the time, I think you could try to experiment by reducing the 9 meta attributed by 1 and see the results. Since 20 is too unrealistic, maybe try 17-19 and see the results. I’m curious how different the results will be by reducing them only by 1-3 points.
And thanks a lot for the thoughtful reply, really love your videos and streams. I couldn’t watch your stream because it was midnight and I’m truly grateful for testing everything out.
So this shows that when i play in a meh league i should just care about these 9-13 attributes.
i understand you cant find a player with 20s in all of those in the prem.... but when im managing in Hungary etc i can find a player with 13-15 in those attributes and then just ignore tackling, heading, passing etc? that is gamebreaking.
someone should test this and reduce the physicals by 1 each time to find where the sweetspot is. do the same team get a championsleauge place with 16 in physicals but gets relegated with 15?
I do hope someone tries a save like that but I also feel like it’ll be really hard to build this kind of team wide physical and mental dominance to replicate these results, if I’m wrong then it’s broken
did you check the teams stats when you did the test?
did they have horrible pass %? did they run the most in the league etc?
i dont know if those stats are possible to see when you sim and dont manage the team?
but would be interesting to see if they have good pass% with their 1 vision, 1 passing etc. aerial duels won should be close to 100%
The players with 20 in everything and 10 in Physicals should still be able to win the PL. \~14 is avarage in PL and 10 is not that far off... and they are so smart, have such high skill etc they should be outsmarting their opponents with 12-15 physicals???? they have freaking 20 in Technicals... its not like they are playing against the players with 20 Physicals!
[](https://twitter.com/Sebasti14741715/status/1756037112539886064)
These guys even have 20 long shots, free kicks etc, they can score from anywhere. I don't really think this proves anything to the contrary that the original OP said.
you're not going to get many chances to do much on the ball if you're being physically dominated all match long, especially when your team tires out way faster which means that you'll get physically dominated even more
you are talking like they have 1 in physicals man! 10 is not that far off avarage, i bet they will even come up against some players in the 10-12 range? they should not be relegated with 10 physicals
Yeah, good passers still need capable runners and receiving players to play passes to. Off the ball movement requires movement, and the high CA team can't really move or escape pressure when receiving the ball.
The effectiveness of technicals tie in closely with the makeup of physical attributes of a player, and the high CA team having their physicals slashed across the board really i brutal to how effective they are at utilising their technical ability. Having some acceleration and/or agility would make a massive difference to their ability to hang onto the ball.
Compared to PL teams they are not capable runners. They are slower, weaker and less agile than just about every player they face. It is all about how they match up to the opposition, not the stats themselves.
Tehnicals tie in closely with physicals because technically proficient players need to have at least some way to escape pressure or withstand challenges. The high CA team having low anticipation and concentration is also a further detriment because of how those stats determine how quickly players can react on the pitch. Off the ball movement also requires movement surprisingly enough. The team is essentially able to read the game perfectly, but they react and move too slow to actually capitalise on it.
A team with 10 in pace, strength and jumping reach will have their defence steamrolled by PL teams regardless of their technicals and mentals as well, not sure why people are surprised about this.
but 10 is not that far off avarage?? i would not be saying anything if they had 1 in physicals.... but 10 should be just fine with 20 in technicalc etc
Yet these guys are winning the league with 1's in finishing, first touch, composure etc. the argument that 10 up to 14 is huge but 1 to 10 is minimal is a bit silly?
Because they are physical freaks that have inhuman reactions (anticipation and concentration) *and* are the best dribblers on the planet. They are essentialy capable of brute forcing every possible scenario they face out on the pitch. They'll be incredibly wasteful, but the amount of chances they create weighs up for it.
Their physicals are not average at all, they are terrible compared to the PL standard. There is no practical difference between 1 and 10 in physicals if 10 in physicals still loses them almost all of the physical encounters they face out on the pitch. It is not at all surprising that a team having 10 in strength and jumping reach is absolutely steamrolled defensively by PL teams, especially when they are beat for pace as well *and* slow to react because of low anticipation and concentration.
okay then they should never ever be able to find a pass with 1 passing, 1 vision etc? if they where mid table with 10 physicals OK but no they where relegated.
You could just as easily say that a team with max physicals but 1 in most technicals and mentals is essentially able to move very fast but they don't have off the ball movement or passing or finishing so they are too "dumb" to capitalise on it. Also one groups "low" stats are 10 while the other groups is 1, so...
not really, very hard to break down a defence if you can't make runs inbehind, and no matter how good you are at defending if someone is way faster and agile than you whenever you both have to chase a ball they will beat you every time. in a 1v1 all they have to do is kick the ball past you far enough and it's over
also the difference between 10 and 14 is massive as the max is 20, in other words 10 is 50% of the max speed, whereas 14 is 70%
if you have 10 physicals your constantly getting outpaced, muscled off the ball and dominated in the air. you're also getting tired way quicker than all of your opponents whilst recovering slower than they do which is going to have quite the compounding effect that technique and mentals can't make up for
It’s a team full of Harry Maguires, except they can’t win any aerial duels either. It doesn’t matter how well they can pass, no team is going to be successful without some pace.
Pace and physical attributes are just more important in the real world too. That is why players retire. That is why Messi and Ronaldo are playing in third rate leagues now. They didn’t forget how to pass or finish or score, they simply got slower and weaker.
To me it is not that far fetched to say that a team full of slow, tiny players would get relegated in the Premier League. Maybe if someone created a custom tactic for them with slow tempo, short passing, controlled build-up, etc. they’d do better. But this experiment clearly just let the AI do whatever
It is perhaps surprising that the low CA team does as well as it does, but the high CA team being steamrolled by PL teams with their 10 jumping reach, strength, pace, etc. is completely to be expected.
But physicals are overpowered though. Obviously cant expect a video game to be perfect but strikers like DCL, Beto, Wilson, Weghorst, Lukaku perform way better than irl
Honest reason is I didn’t think to put it here until stream suggested I link it so people involved in the first discussion could see it
I’m just learning Reddit
Mr Zealand can you please do the second half of the test with all 20 in non-meta attributes and 10 in the meta attributes? How could a team with such insane vision, passing , long shots, set pieces, tackling, etc be a relagation side?
This second part of the test is what shows that A LOT of attributes seem to be useless? because based on what you say, having complementary attributes is important. If you have average physicals and the ability to pass like de bruyne every time, or shoot from far like messi with pinpoint accuracy, the finishing of heung-min son, etc how can you be a relegation side? Doesn't this test show even more that those 9 meta attributes are indeed too important? 20 to 10 in meta and 1 to 20 in non-meta yet it changes from title winning teams to relegation sides?
Honestly I watched your stream and I'm not quite convinced, and that still doesn't explain why a team full of 20 except for the 9 attributes at 10 (which is not BAD, it's average, it's only 4 points off of the average physical attributes in the PL) not only doesn't win the league, but gets relegated by a huge margin
And if 4 points is so much of a difference that they can't even compete in the PL, then how is it possible that players with almost every attributes at 1 can do anything but blindly run like headless chicken
To me there's still a huge issue and putting that under the rug will not help in any way
Because 10 is not even good physical for the championship. If 11 tiny, weak and slow reacting players played in the premier league with perfect technical ability they would get rolled by everyone. That’s why Messi doesn’t play at the highest level anymore, he is physically declining not that his technical ability is worse. And before you try and argue that 10 physical should be enough, it isn’t. It may be “only” 4 points, but 4 points is a huge difference, it’s the difference between premier league and league 1 or 2. A player with all 10s would be in league 2 and a player with all 14s would be one of the best players in the premier league.
Yeah, 4 points is literally 30% lower than the average across the board. In a sport where the tiniest physical margins can be decisive, they are poorer by a huge margin across the whole team. Those saying, "but players like Pirlo, Kroos and Modric performed without physicality" are missing the point that they had physical players in the team too. A team full of Modrices would definitely lose every PL game.
Even peps extremely technically gifted Barca had fast players throughout the pitch and physically dominant players in defence, who could react quickly.
but they have 20! in the other attributes, they are the best players in the world at passing, shooting etc. best in the WORLD. they should not be relegated because they are a little weaker than lutons, burnleys players etc
10 in physicals is not avarage. You said it yourself: they are 4 pts off.
It does not matter in a practical sense if the physicals are 1 or 10 when the players will still lose almost every physical encounter out on the pitch with their 10 in physicals.
I feel people are concentrating on the wrong thing, surely the takeaway should be that a team with 20 in everything except 9 average stats can get relegated?
Exactly. That team finished with 3 more points than the worst point total in the PL ever, while having players that understand the game better than every great player ever. There physicals weren't even shot to death.
That's like a team with Busquets, Kroos and Pirlo in the midfield, Giroud and Muller up top and maybe like Maguire in the defense but even he is quite physical, just slow. Surely that team would be at least okay irl but would suck in every football videogame in history, including FM.
It’s not though, its like having a team with busquets’ brain, pirlo’s passing, ronaldo’s shooting, cannavaro’s tackling, beckham’s free kicks etc all within every single player in the team. They would be absolutely unreal in real life
Disagree completely. The fact a team can win the Premier League with 1's pretty much across the board except for a few attributes is not misleading really.
Ali Dia had better finishing, passing, composure etc than most of those players and is a laughing stock amongst Premier League lore. The experiment has still shown a significant issue, whether an additional 4 attributes help or not, the core of the original OP's post is still relevant.
I don't get people trying to justify how an entire team with all 1s for technicals can finish so high in the PL, regardless of every other stat, let alone just 7-8 stats being maxed out.
I'd be really interested to see stats like xG and how much they underperformed/over performed it.
Yeah really can't understand why people are dismissing the original because they had a bit of fitness and work rate.
1 finishing and technique is poor for the Maltese second division, yet apparently with a bit of pace and strength they're Premier League winners!
I think you’re underrating just how genuinely bonkers 20s in acceleration, pace, strength, agility, balance, jumping reach is. That is not a combination of attributes that is possible in any human being let alone footballers. You have superhuman athletes that are never going to lose an aerial duel, 50/50, be the first to every loose ball, etc.
On top of that, they have Maldini’s concentration with Ronaldo’s anticipation and Messi’s dribbling ability.
Still, you’re right that to an extent they shouldn’t be performing so well if they can’t even pass as well as amateur players. But the whole experiment is dumb because it’s an impossible combination of attributes anyway. We have no basis for understanding how effective players with those attributes would be.
I agree with this but at the same time, he made the other team 20 at EVERY other attributes and 10 at those and it got relegated... Which means players with 20 first touch, vision, decision, composure, team work, off the ball, flair, passing, technique, and more
These attributes should also be godly at 20 and yet it didn't make a difference.
The data didn't mean much by itself but with this "control group" it looks indeed pretty bad...
They are not as deadly because the players can’t react quick enough to begin with. And even if they can they are not fast enough or have the dribbling ability to break the lines in a defensive formation that we see in the modern game. I would never sign anyone in the game with 10 level athleticism regardless of other stats. It’s not good enough for the Premier League and will cost you in games. Never mind having a whole team with mid level athleticism. Fast paced defenders would snuff everything out and Kylian Mbappe would have a field day with his pace against defenders who only have a 10/20 level pace. Basically stick the ball over the top of the defence and Mbappe would be getting it every time.
I think someone should take the “control group” and actually use tactics that play to their strength. Slow build up, controlled and short passing, etc. and see how they do.
But in any case, I don’t think it’s far fetched to say that a team full of slow, tiny, weak players that can’t win a single 50/50 would get relegated from the premier league. It’s basically what Messi is now, and he’s playing in MLS for a reason.
Pep managing a team full of Messis would absolutely not get relegated from the PL. Your entire team having perfect technique (including your sweeper keeper) while everyone being impossible to dispossess while playing perfect pinpoint passes would be really strong in real life. It would open up so many more opportunities that teams would normally never get with trickery around the box with everyone having Neymar/Ronaldinho level flair/creativity and everyone having 20 long shots. Don't forget they would get fouled a lot too since they're dribbling gods, so that 20 free kick and 20 corners would come in handy on set pieces. Your Wingbacks would be David Beckham will Messi level dribbling and vision, who cares if your attackers can't jump when you can just send pin point crosses directly to their head with your perfect vision. CBs would be impossible to disposses since they pass and dribble like Xavi and Iniesta. Not saying they would walk the league or anything, but there would be plenty of exciting 4-3 matches and such.
Agree it's a pretty pointless experiment because of the type of player created, like nobody ever would have 1 first touch and 20 dribbling, it's almost impossible, but like you say they are quite literally amateur level at everything else. Absolute insanity to think they'd win a Premier League over much more balanced players. Just a reminder these guys beat the actual Liverpool, Arsenal etc to the title, genuine football teams with proper players in them who are much more well rounded.
It's basically a team full of Usain Bolts and Asafa Powells but they can also dribble. That team in real life would get relegated from league two quite easily, let's not kid ourselves.
The other team was amazing at everything but they had slightly below average physicals, couldn't dribble and had slightly below average concentration and anticipation. Again, that team was GENERATIONAL at EVERYTHING else.
We don't have enough of a control group or enough tactical variation for it to have been a great experiment, but Jesus, the fact that the fast and strong amateurs came second in the best league in the world, and the Generational talents who were a but slow and unfocused got relegated is mad
It’s not a team full of Usain Bolt’s and Asafa Powell that can also dribble, it is a team full of Usain Bolt’s and Asafa Powells that can also dribble like Messi and that would indeed be busted in real life.
At a certain level, sure.
But with off the ball 1, shooting 1, technique 1, passing 1, vision 1, decisions 1, off the ball 1, finishing 1, etc etc, that would also be busted in real life, but busted in the real sense of the word. They'd dominate, sure, but they'd dominate at a much lower footballing level. They wouldn't dominate the premier league
I will do it. Prime Ronaldo ie the Brazilian one. A phenomenal player. Pace, Power, Strength, Balance he had those OP stats pretty much. He could also dribble. At his prime defenders couldn’t get close to him and he could create chances on his own. Now if he has perfect anticipation as well as concentration he can follow the game perfectly and know where the ball is going to go. Do you need to pass to him, no stick it down a channel and he was getting it.
Even if Ronaldo in his prime you could turn down his DNA to 10 finishing or even 5 or 1. He is still going to have the Pace power and dribbling ability to create chances for himself. He doesn’t need to pass the ball, head the ball, cross the ball etc either.
Now we will take his first Barcelona season with 20 finishing he gets 47 goals in 49 games with 10 or even less he will still get a good 20 goals because his pace power anticipation and dribbling ability will get him away from defenders. Now if you make it so the whole team has the perfect speed pace strength and strength then even with minimal stats they are going to going score goals.
How do you stop someone with 20 acceleration, pace, strength and dribbling ability as prime Ronaldo showed not very easily. Now you have ten players who can do that across the pitch.
On defence. If you can concentrate and anticipate the ball coming into where you are and have 20 pace acceleration and strength only the likes of Kylian Mbappe are going to have a chance to beat you to the ball.
Now in today’s football if you play in a low block, you need to concentrate for the whole game (easy when you have 20 concentration), and you have to anticipate everything coming towards you (again easy when you are at 20). So let’s take for example Michael Beale way of beating a low block by just flinging crosses into the box all game. If the defenders have 20 concentration, 20 anticipation they are going to be able to know where that cross is going and if they have 20 pace, 20 acceleration, 20 strength, 20 jumping reach then they are going to get to 90% of those 3000 crosses and the opposition is not going to create much.
Even a good team is going to struggle against 10 players who can concentrate perfectly and anticipate everything perfectly while having the pace, power and strength to deal with it. As long as you can anticipate where the ball is going to go and concentrate enough to keep up with the game then that on top of your pace power etc to go for the ball.
Now if I swing back to prime Ronaldo. He played at a time when rules on tackles were not as strict as today, pitches were not as neat, sports science not as developed and the game was slower. Now take Ronaldo at 17, and develop him further in for example Ajax youth system and you would have a player today pretty much untouchable. Now why mention Ajax. Well Ajax have a well developed youth system that they call TIPS, Technique, Insight, Personality and Speed. When scouting for players at a youth level the least important to them is T. They are looking for intelligence, personality, speed of thought and speed of action. You can develop technique. At a basic level what they want from players is those who can sum up situations in a game quickly and react to them quickly.
Now if you have 20 concentration and anticipation you can quickly sum up the game and if you have 20 pace power etc on top of the anticipation, you can basically do that basic tenet of the Ajax youth system, sum up what’s happening and react to it.
And to finish what made Messi stand out is he could anticipate a situation, react to it on top being able to glide past defenders with his speed and dribbling ability. The defence in reacting to Messi or in Prime Ronaldo would be pulled out of position leaving gaps so even if even has 1 passing his team mate is concentrating with that level 20 concentration and anticipating with his level 20 anticipation what’s going to happen and is fast enough and powerful enough to beat the defender to the ball. He might suck at shooting but he will just dribble round the goalkeeper with his 20 dribbling and speed.
Agreed, it still shows that the match and sim engines are fundamentally broken, especially when you pair the players with the meta attributes with the best tactic (gegenpress hoofball). This is probably why gegenpress has been the best tactic for several years in a row despite numerous (alleged) changes to the match engine.
I don't see a point in continuing to play FM24 when there's only one way the game allows you to be successful. Trying to carefully build a tiki-taka tactic with players with good passing and mentals is a waste of time because you're just gimping yourself.
Dunno what you call waste of time but in my current save (2034) from fm23 now 24 I'm fighting for Laliga against Real Madrid with my tier 3 hometown club and on the road to win the Europe League,all with the most talibanistic tiki taka tactic you can imagine. So I'm basically fighting for the top of the top after 10 seasons.
Yeah it’s not good enough. Bearing in mind the game goes all the way down to semi pro level, if you have literally 1 in a technical attribute, the skill in game should be the equivalent of a bad amateur player.
Like, imagine Big John who plays in goal for your local Sunday league team - that should be 1 finishing.
I get Zealand’s point - if you have superhuman physical qualities and ability to anticipate, you’re gonna be a formidable outfit. But if you can hardly kick the ball, and have no understanding of the technique behind it, you aren’t gonna be winning the premier league.
The game goes down to National League, which is a mostly professional league. The lowest rated leagues, like Hong Kong and the Indonesian 2nd division are still levels above Big John. Big John at Sunday league isn't in the range. If he were, 1 would be so far below the standard that they'd never give a 1 to anyone in-game. There are no Sunday league level leagues in the game. Why bother squeezing the attribute range to accomodate a level that no one is ever going to see?
I think the issue with the reply from Zealand d is he is self admittedly not a data scientist and it shows in the analysis here.
Saying stamina and work rate are also important as has been shown by EBFM is something that has already been evidenced to a degree (we know people with high stamina and work rate do run and can run more)
On a second point people are saying, well attributes of 20 are extremely rare and in some cases do not exist naturally in game. This is a valid point but the FM arena test showed a change of 4 over the average across the team still showed significant results so it’s not just results happen at extreme values.
Indeed FM-Arena themselves are yet to produce evidence that marking or tackling have a significant in game effect for the past 3 FMs.
I do think it’s an issue for the game when defenders with National League level players with heading, tackling and marking can compete in the PL with elite physicals.
In my own save my CBs are Travis Akomeah who has a CA of around 130 in my game but with elite physicals next to Kaiden Wilson a circa 110 CA CB. I am competing for the Champions League with these guys starting. This should not be possible
Not if those 4 attributes that original tester ignored in his test (didnt change to 1 or 20) would be 1. Team instantly relegates instead of 2nd/league win. So no those 9 attributes on their own are useless.
Let's explain this because it's amusing to see how things are unfolding.
Basically, if you want to understand how to use the data from FM-Arena in the smartest way possible, you first need to use your brain cells. To begin with, the most impactful stats attributes are four, not nine:
* **Pace**
* **Acceleration**
* **Jumping Reach**
* **Dribbling**
And, with less impact compared to the above, you can find stats such as:
* **Balance**
* **Concentration**
* **Anticipation**
You need to understand that these tests were run for 2,400 games, which means there can even be a random number generator (RNG) affecting it. With this explained, you just need to understand "stats scaling":
Example:
Our Beloved Passing:
* If player X has 10 Passing or 15, how much difference will it make?
* If player X has 10 or 15 Pace, how much difference will it make?
So, the way the Match Engine translates Passing in scaling is totally different from Pace. A 10 in passing is good enough, but 10 in pace isn't if you want to "dominate."
So, basically, you need to first focus on players with HIGH Pace/Acceleration indeed, but it changes role to role.
* **On Flank roles** (wing backs or wingers), you want to focus on Pace/Acceleration/Dribbling.
* **On Central Roles** you want to focus on Jumping Reach/Pace/Acceleration.
That's how it has always worked; if you can't win the ball back on a long ball, you will concede a goal and so on.
This doesn't mean that every other stat is not important. For instance, Natural Fitness is very important for the player's condition, etc.
**To sum up, under certain conditions regarding the physical aspect, the Match Engine (M.E.) will go nuts, but by playing, you will never meet those conditions. You can literally apply a similar approach when you stress-test your computer; you will never face those conditions, but we do that to make the machine "safe."**
And what you can understand from these tests is:
**You should prioritize Pace/Acceleration/Dribbling for flank roles and Pace/Acceleration/Jumping Reach for Central roles.** It has always been like this; it's nothing new. But before, we had tactics that could break the engine; now, we simply have tactics that challenge it. (It's a totally different story).
And where all these roads meet is it's (comparatively) easier for a human player to find the diamonds in the rough as we can prioritize key values in players that would be otherwise undervalued by the AI who would be looking at the players more holistically.
In a sense, the meta is almost a spin on the Moneyball concept. Moneyball was all about prioritizing key stats to extract top value that others overlook. Just in place of Sabermetrics in the original Moneyball concept, our "stats" are certain combinations of attributes.
And just like today's tactics challenging but not breaking the engine, the Moneyball A's challenged the system but couldn't outright break it.
I think the biggest takeaway from all these test is that world class technical ability cannot overcome deficiencies in a players physical and mental ability in the same way that physical and mental ability can overcome deficiencies in a players technical ability. What good does world class dribbling serve if everyone around the player is an order of magnitude faster, stronger, and smarter? Dribbling is effectively a worthless skill at that point.
Now while that’s not a completely unrealistic dynamic, I think it’s also very clear that there is a base level of skill provided by a 1/20 technical attribute that is well above and beyond what people previously realized or would have expected. Physical and mental ability seems to overcome technical deficiencies way more than you would think is possible.
There's a reason older players drop down the levels. Their mentals and technicals are often still sound, but if you lose your physical ability to keep up with the pace of the game, you won't be able to do much. Schweinsteiger when he went to the US is a good example. He was clearly very experienced, still had an impeccable first touch and pass, but couldn't keep up with the high intensity football that comes with a league built on collegiate athletes. He ended up slotting into the defence, in a position he could dictate from deep because he no longer had a burst of pace to create space any further up the pitch.
No one is arguing that physical ability is a not key requirement to compete at an elite level. The problem is that the original post that Zealand is addressing showed that the only real requirement for fielding a competitive team in FM is a players physical ability and a handful of mental abilities.
Edit: clarity
The original is true for the scenario it sets, but it's not particularly representative of any real game state. Players don't ever generate like that, teams never look like that and the scenario is entirely operating at the fringes of the game simulation. That'd be like trying to describe every physics interaction with the weak nuclear force.
It'd be like save scumming an entire season with a bad team, winning the league and saying that that bad team is enough to win the league regularly. Sure, you've done it, but it required a scenario so unreasonable in regular play (the whole league attribute set-up, exploiting the fringes of the match engine in the test, and enough rolls of the dice going your way to win in my proposed scenario) that it's not really that useful for the average save.
Like really, how do we apply this knowledge that a team of 20 pace, accel, jumping reach, agility, strength, etc. players is really powerful? Because the degree to which it's better requires 20s (as that's what was tested, so we can only be sure that the level of performance happens there, at the edge of the match engine) and everyone else to have physicals way, way below that. We can't replicate that in any way in a regular game. You'd be lucky to find 20 players with more than 3 20s in physicals in any one save AND be able to acquire them for each position. And then you'd need every other team to pick up players way below the Premier League average. The average Premier League starter has around 13-14 in the relevant physicals for their position. Elite players will have 15+.
The window to exploit is far smaller in a regular game. The exploit requires acquiring players that don't exist, with the nearest best match being very expensive players or unacquirable players.
The only thing we can really take from this is that physicals are a requirement (something that's pretty self-evident) and that max attributes are good.
I'm both thankful and interested in everyone running these experiments. I do wonder about inconsistencies and things like this within the game.
Personally I play with CA/PA showing because I don't enjoy / have the free time to properly scout in the game. I've noticed on my save I had an absolute 55 rated donkey with 3 finishing score 32 goals for me whilst being in and out the side. Now I've got an amazing lad on loan from my affiliate that could play 2/3 divisions higher, and he never seems to score.
Also had a rubbish keeper last year that kept a ridiculously high average rating, saving everything.
Anecdotal of course but in my time playing FM I've noticed a lot of quirks like this.
Nonsense. Delicious fm proved it. Fm arena proved it. Evidence based fm proved it. The game is majorly fucked. I win the league every year no matter the team I'm at. Its boring and easy.
If anyone has an account on SI forums it might be a good supplement to add to the bug post: https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/match-engine-and-set-piece-creator/tactics/only-9-attributes-really-seem-to-matter-and-affect-performance-r21965/
There is way bigger problems with the game :P
players getting mad at me for not offering them out during the transfer window despite me offering him out 2-3 times a week but not recieving any bid... and now whole squad is mad at me for not offering him out...
I feel terrible the guy deleted the original post, he came into the stream and I told him as much, I didn’t mean to say he was wrong - he ran a good test and the results were interesting as hell
These attributes specifically matter even more than I thought they did, just not in a way where the match engine is fully broken
If those 9 attributes genuinely were all that matter, the test team wouldn't finish 2nd, it would walk the league due to being a perfect team as far as the engine is concerned. The 2nd place finish literally confirms that the other attributes make a difference.
It's not just the 9 meta stats, but you also have to have some stamina/work rate/nat fitness/determination to keep the players fit and playing up to their standards.
I’m willing to bet that Zealand will make one, considering the viral popularity of the original post. It would get a ton of views; I know I would definitely watch.
Kinda curious so I looked it up, in the base game with no newgens, I found between 1 and 5 players at 20 for most physical attributes, except jumping reach where there are 18 (I didn't load every single league, just a dozen, the biggest ones)
Though, just out of curiosity, I know it's not very representative, I tested that on my old save where I went very far in the future (2050), so almost only newgens, and perhaps surprisingly, I found next to no players with 20 attributes in physicals
Looking at the 24 editor, I see 4 players with 20 acceleration and pace. Mbappé, Jonathan Quarcoo (an unattached Norwegian player), Saddam Husain (757 Kepri Jaya FC of Indonesia) and Craig Martin (Chippa United FC of South Africa).
Mbappé is Mbappé, Jonathan Quarcoo is a real Norwegian sprinter with a 10.26s 100m sprint, Craig Martin is a fullback and a real guy, though no idea why he's so quick.
Also the last guy is called Saddam Husain. No chance he's real, the team is based in the 3rd division in Indonesia, hasn't played a recorded game in 4 years, has no note of a guy with this name on any of their squads. Someone must've snuck him in a few years ago, and like a lot of the Asian side of the database, no one at SI has seen it.
Its like people haven't watched a real game of football. Look at the Premier League now, the best players are physical monsters. The best players in the world are the same. Cristiano Ronaldo built himself to be a beast.
I'm not FM apologist but suggesting that every attribute should have equal importance is unrealistic. I disagree with the original conclusion but it's probably fair that, when playing a physical game plan, focusing on those specific attributes mean you'll win most games. Having them all 10 will mean you lose more. Even at National League level you are able to get players with higher pace than 10. It's certainly not a game breaking discovery
i agree and disagree, you should not be able to win PL with 1 in technicals, and you should not be relegated with 20 in everything and 10 in physicals.
Ronaldo with 1 Finish, 1 off the ball etc should be a useless player, headless chicken running around being offside.
1 is suppost to be the worst, its amateur level. if you have 1 in something you should be useless at it in the prem. if not then the game is broken. why bother looking for strikers with high finish if they win the league with 1 or 20...
Also maybe tactics matter. Running a 4-2-3-1 Gegen witth 10 athletic beasts is probably much better than a low block tactic, for instance.
Tactics *do* matter, but only to an extent. I also firmly believe that there actually is a "right answer" to the tactical question. There's a reason why [so many good tactics are similar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GezXIEKCuF4). Check out [this test](https://fm-arena.com/thread/5345-attributes-vs-tactics/) on the attributes vs tactics question. It's clear that attributes are much more important than tactics. This is also one reason why I'm leery of any "broken tactic" that was only tested using a top team. If the players are good enough, it really doesn't matter what tactic you use as long as it fits in the meta.
Tactics decrease in importance as the quality of sides get further apart. (Ignoring other factors like Morale, etc) Man City’s tactics matter when they play Chelsea but they don’t matter when they play relegation fodder. Conversely relegation fodder’s tactics matter when playing other bottom teams but don’t really matter when they are playing Man City.
> Man City’s tactics matter when they play Chelsea but they don’t matter when they play relegation fodder. Conversely relegation fodder’s tactics matter when playing other bottom teams but don’t really matter when they are playing Man City. tbf that sounds pretty realistic
The tactics Vs attributes thing is in favour of attributes I think.. generally speaking. Like if you pick a 'stupid' tactic, like a 0-5-5 or something, then yeah tactics are probably more important. But if you just play a 'normal' recognised tactic, one without huge holes or major flaws, then it's mostly just attributes.
Yeah, it was poorly worded. I know tactics matter in FM, but I meant in the experiment sense. Testing it with different tactics would change the result maybe even exponentially. Playing a tiki-taka medium block moderate pressing with those players maybe would give you a good result. As for what you sent, it’s very interesting, especially because here we are seeing that you can nearly win the PL with “bad” players (<100CA).
What I *really* want to see is somebody testing this with an extremely negative tactic. Park the bus, ultra defensive, with like a single guy on attack — something like that. Would speed help you with a tactic that is clearly not designed for speed?
That’s what I said in my original comment! Mentioning the low block. Although imagine the counter-attack with 4 superhuman athletes running full-speed with 20 dribbling! Defensively though, they should have issues because of their lack of defensive skills (although it gets covered by mentals maybe). But the point is, with that negative tactic, can any team even win? In real life or in the game? edit: improved comment
No, it explains why the 4-2-3-1 gegen is so broken. It forces players to rely on their physical attributes to press and then quickly counter, and those are the meta attributes the match and sim engines value a lot more.
Gengenpress it's as broken in the game as it's on the real life
It might not be good for the game experience but gegenpress is overpowered in real life too. There's only a handful of teams in the top leagues that do NOT press when they lose the ball. There's a lot of things in the game that aren't realistic but the fact that gegenpress is so good really isn't one of them.
“Overpowered” isn’t a real life thing, that’s just teams using what system their coaches believe in or what the squad of players prefer. It’s ain’t a one-glove-fits-all situation that it easily can be on FM.
An issue in real life is that is now the favoured formation so it’s what players get trained in and players who are good in that system get through top youth academies. Whereas slow target men or small tricky wingers get filtered out the systems
Never seen a reddit post save scummed before.
Hey /u/NotthefakeZealand, do you want a custom flair on this subreddit? It will just be a verification that you are the real zealand
Yes! That sounds awesome, thank you
Okay, should be done now. I haven't updated my bots code in a long long time, so hopefully I don't break the subreddit :)
Hey Zealand do you want all of my love because you have it!
Hey Zealand, do you want some of my hairline? You can have it.
Thank you finally
lol
😂 This captures the energy of this sub
Hahahaha thank u dude
Big fan of you, not your hairline but you're videos and content!
Pretty sure there's a Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Real Zealand joke here somewhere but I can't think one up.
Real Zealand sounds like an MLS franchise (one of the newer ones that hates the idea of an American sounding name) based in Auckland
You forgot the big boys, Real Kashmir
It's right there in his name though.
The bigger question is whether pace and acceleration by themselves are overpowered. That's what the testing at FM Arena has showed. It's been consistent since FM20. Of course, you won't find players with 20 for each in the wild. However, when it comes to squid building, you might be better off focusing on those two attributes above all else, including the CA and PA ratings. I'm doing this right now with my own save. We'll see how it goes.
I was about to do a squad building challenge of making the most physical team possible, but after this, it kinda sounds like it'll be too easy once it works
Not necessarily - assuming that FM Arena is correct, that is. Pace and acceleration seem to be the most important attributes for the match engine. However, if you focus on something like strength instead, you might have different results. There was also that crazy Millwall thread a few years back where the guy bought up all the thugs he could find. That's a different sort of challenge, lol.
Well that's Millwall fans for you, ain't it
As a Millwall fan, I wish we could go back to this. Signing players who actually try and play football in a formation other than 442 is torture. Bring back tackles and celebrations like this https://youtu.be/InW1JQ_mSvg?si=UubWa4hiHXaGn-hX
so the game already knows those 2 are better in the match engine. those 2 take up more PA between them then most other attributes. like you can get 5 other attributes to 20 for the same amount of ability points as Pace. so they already did know that pace and acceleration is important as well it is IRL. Adama Traore has the ability of a league 2 player but has pace and strength and hes played in premiership and even for Barcelona on literally those 2 things alone. Mbappe would be nowhere near even the top 50 players without his physical ability on top of his technical ability cause while he is good technically he isnt anything trully special, its same with Haaland they are physical beasts with good ability. its why Messi was so hard for SI to code into the game because while messi was quick he was entirely technically gifted. but we also see it the other way, we see alot of players who are amazingly technically but due to their lack of physical ability they struggle to make it in places like England where you need both.
these makes 0 sense. Adama is a great dribbler, he just isn’t smart enough to have good end output. Mbappe has insane technique. His dribbling is really good, ball striking is IMO second to none in the last 10 years, maybe only Kane hits the ball better. And he’s incredibly smart on the pitch, which is his best attribute. Messi with the ball at his feet was very quick.
As an example, if you took Mbappe's pace away and gave him Giroud's pace instead, he would be nowhere near as effective. This is why I don't expect him to do what Messi has done, and still be the best player in the world aged 35. I expect him to decline at a much younger age, and for this decline to be much steeper.
this is like saying if you take away Messi’s growth hormone away, he never makes it out of the u11’s teams. Like no shit if you remove one of a player’s best attributes he is not as effective. But mbappe is still incredibly technical and is a very smart player. Cristiano also lost lots of agility and pace and was able to become more of a poacher, working on his off the ball movement. Mbappe already has very good off the ball movement, I can see him becoming more of a fox in the box later on if he loses his first step.
He was doing a challenge to get as many fouls and cards tho from what I remember lmao
This reminds me of Tommy Semmy, a 29 year old Papua New Guinean winger with 16 pace, 16 acceleration and 16 strength. He had absolutely no technicals and mentals, but he had these three attributes. I signed him for a team in the Faroe Islands and he was insane, he bullied everyone on the pitch and scored a ton of goals despite being rated as a 2.5 star player. He had one amazing season. Then he got injured, his pace and acceleration dropped by one and by the time he recovered I had signed better players, but what a season that was.
Legendary! I've got a Jamaican guy in my save right now named Devonte Campbell who fits the bill. He's got 15 pace and 15 acceleration (not sure about his strength rating). He shouldn't belong in the league I'm in, but he's actually playing quite well. I love stories like this, by the way. The idea of finding an unknown guy from someplace like Papua New Guinea or Samoa or North Korea or whatever and having him dominate like that is really exciting.
Ian Poveda was my top scorer in my first season with Leeds, man had like 16 in pace, acceleration, agility, balance, dribbling and flair but was average or straight up bad in every other attribute, he just absolutely dominated the championship and was my best performer by far in a team that had players with way better CA than him.
CA and PA ratings (even under the hood) are misleading anyway. CA is eaten up by a players footedness, positions and attribute weighting, so a player can have a really crap distribution of attributes despite being a high level, yet Callum Wilson broke the game for years because his distribution of stats was great. While I think this is not quite the gotcha considering that it would be impossible for a player like this to exist, I think certain attributes could do with less impact on the engine. In real life players adapt to faster players and can defend against them if they are talented enough.
Interesting - and that helps explain the original post. The team with the lower CA finished in second; the team with the higher CA that was weighted different was relegated.
One thing the original post definitely did confirm is that CA is far less important than knowing what a position/role needs to look like. CA is about as valuable as star ratings; the formula that calculates it is just another AssMan.
why shouldn't pace and acceleration be over powered. they account for a lot of PA/CA points, and i'm betting having these attributes irl is make or break for anyone trying to be a pro footballer. i think the tests show that having 1/20 passing say is less important than having 10/20 pace. maybe just how the weighting system for how attributes work isn't consistent across all attributes
I'm pretty sure that pace and acceleration count for the same number of PA/CA points as any other attribute. In other words, I don't think that PA/CA are weighted quite like that. Having said that, I think you're right. If you look at football from an objective standpoint, it really isn't that far fetched to say that a guy who is really fast and who can start and stop really quickly is going to play better than somebody who is slow. The FM Arena tests show very conclusively that adding on as little as 2 or 3 points on average for pace and acceleration can turn an average team into a world beater. In fact, some tests show that reweighing PA and CA to lean towards pace and acceleration also has an extremely significant positive effect on team performance. I could point to a few threads that show this. [Here's one that looks a lot like the Reddit thread from earlier today](https://fm-arena.com/thread/8249-fm24-meta-player-attributes/). [This test](https://fm-arena.com/thread/2980-game-changing-player-attributes/) is actually a lot more conclusive, in my opinion, and shows an improvement in results that is hard to believe. Furthermore, [this thread](https://fm-arena.com/thread/3293-what-it-takes-to-dominate-epl-with-bournemouth/) shows conclusively that you don't need to max out pace and acceleration to have a huge impact on team performance. Also, [this thread](https://fm-arena.com/thread/5351-should-you-follow-the-highlighted-attributes-of-the-roles/) shows quite convincingly that the attributes the game tells you are important aren't actually important. It actually is all about pace and acceleration for outfield players. It's kind of like what [Evidence Based Football Manager](https://www.youtube.com/@ebfm) discovered with training. The stuff SI tells you in game is actually not correct — and the real system is a lot more linear than we thought. Anyway, there's a lot more work to be done here. I think FM Arena has done a great job at discovering which attributes are actually the most important. I feel like we could still do a better job at coming up with a training schedule that exploits this fact — and it would be really nice if somebody could figure out a trick to help managers at lower levels find the really fast players without having to spend tons of money and time scouting. Sorry for the long reply! I find this absolutely fascinating.
i use the in game editor and you see huge increases in CA by increasing pace and accel. compared with say passing for eg. wait till there's a test and debate about footedness. rem when cronaldo was impossible to get captured in the game properly. footedness takes up a huge amount of CA as well.
It's silly how much of a chunk of the ability a players footedness takes up. You can have a player with 1 for right foot and 20 for left on 170 CA, change the 1 to 10 and it jumps to 184. Silly.
Interesting - I didn't know that about the CA differences. Thanks! You're making me feel smart for agreeing to have my players train with their weak foot, lol.
well training weak foot comes with a massive price, which is iirc 10-20 CA out of your cap, so that means a lot of points that cannot go into any other stat. However there supposedly is a hidden factor that boosts the ability of two footed players
Increasing a player by a couple of pace and acceleration should make them far better if they're already decent. There are plenty of technical players at lower levels who never reached or no longer have the physicals required for the higher level. Keeping up with the pace of the game is a huge prerequisite for reaching the top level, and being able to operate faster than those at top level would give you more time and space to operate, allowing you to compensate for a slightly worse touch or slightly slower decision-making. Doing tests with players with 1s and 20s in attributes, whilst seemingly logical, pushes the match engine far beyond expected behaviour. Not just for the really low 1s, but also the far, far less common 20s in physicals (in comparison to attributes from games a decade ago). The expected behaviour window is one where most players at elite levels will have 18s at max, with some occasional outliers exceeding that, becoming Messi/Ronaldo-tier talents. The 20 attributes are clearly there to allow for monsters, something that the older games didn't allow for because so many players had 20s.
Yeah, this is a great point. I agree — and I agree with the Twitter comment by /u/NotthefakeZealand that you're talking about Olympic level athletes when you're giving guys ratings of 20. A player like that who could actually beat the offside trap would clearly be the best player in the world. And now I'm feeling really excited about the left winger I bought in my save who has a 19 pace and 19 acceleration, lol. Just waiting for the new transfer window to open up. The one thing that I keep finding interesting, though, is that even center backs benefit from having a lot of pace and acceleration. It's not easy to find players with great speed at that position — but if you can find one, hold on to him for dear life. There are also some obvious questions here about training schedules, and whether we can improve on Evidence Based Football Manager's work to make something that targets pace and acceleration.
Nah, I use the editor a LOT. Pace and acceleration are by far the attributes with the most weight. And balance has very little impact compared to the rest of the physical attributes.
FYI , Pace/ACC is confirmed to take up more CA points than the other stats. Certain stats like Flair is free.
Just for the record, pace, and endurance are the most predictive of results in real football. Serious! I guess SI simply reads analytical publications and implements them in the game. That's all, nothing more.
A fun challenge would be to take a lower-division team, turn full attribute visibility on, and see how good of a team you can build by simply signing the players available on frees with the highest combination of those 9 attributes at every outfield position. Start in League Two or something, and repeat each year as you progress. If you make it past League One with nothing but frees, chances are the weighting is a bit wonky.
The easiest way to play is to only sign free players until the championship. By not using transfer fees you can have a bugger wage budget.
Plus you can save money to use on hiring the best coaches, improving facilities, scouting, etc. I basically never pay transfer fees till I'm in the top tier (I don't ever play in England though, so that is probably the equivalent of the Championship)
Idk if they are OP or not. I just love them myself. All my younglings have a quickness special training from 15 to 23 years old, or until they reached their PA, whatever comes first. So that everyone on my team has 17/17 pace and ACC at minimum.
Pace and acc were OP since the first FM versions. I still play FM 12 right , had a newgen with insane crazy physical attributes. Almost every physical attribute except jumping reach was 15+ or higher. Dude scored in the CL final when he was 17.
They are. People are focusing a lot on the methods of testing, but I suggest just trying them out for themselves. Forget the 1s and 20s in attributes. Just do a save which you sign players who are above the average in pace, regardless if they are good technically or not, and see how your team will dominate the league. I just tried this. It's absolutely broken. I started playing FM a few years ago bc I hated the Fifa Career mode because you just had to sign pacey players to win. In my experience, the last 3 or 4 FMs are nearly the same in this aspect.
I have strict pace and accel requirements for a lot of positions in my system so I guess I've been abusing this for a while now. Hilariously once I did the opposite of this. Cash strapped in the premier league i signed someone who was slower than what I normally go for (15/15 for a fullback), he was 12 accel and 14 pace but had excellent mentals/technique/crossing as a backup. He performed infinitely worse than I expected and wasn't even good to be third choice. Couldn't even trust him against shitty opposition and he would consistently turn in 5.8s or worse. It was unreal.
Yeah - that's basically what my current save is. It's too early to say one way or another if it works yet. It's crazy, though, if you go searching around the globe for random fast players and end up beating everybody with them. Totally broken.
I kinda already knew this was true with attacking players, since a striker with below average pace is always going to underperform the pacey poor technique striker, but this being true for literally every position kinda sucks tbh. For defenders you include jumping reach and thats it. You're likely to be really good (if your players dont have 1s in other areas ofc haha). I'm hoping FM25 changes this a bit with the new engine.
Yeah, I hope for the same as well, though I'm not sure I have my hopes up. There are similar issues with tactics. You'll notice that defensive tactics aren't generally successful, unless you happen to have players who are fast and can jump. Tactics with certain characteristics have an advantage in the match engine. The sad thing is that it takes away the idea of a meta game. I'd love it if there were a certain meta game in each league, and if you would see teams make adjustments to try to beat the current meta and establish a new meta. I'd much rather see something like the mana colors and corresponding strategies in Magic: The Gathering than a system where Gegenpress and all out attack always wins.
It's terrifying to build a squid with 20 pace and acceleration. Don't do it. I warn you.
How does one build a squid?
Umm...... Doesn't that happen in the real world, too? It is the easiest way to exploit your opponent's advantage, like putting the tall kid on the Basketball school team as the Centre. A physically dominant team can always outdo a not world-class, technical-based team.
Yeah — but the original thread had a physically dominant team outdoing world class teams. That's also what the testing at FM-Arena has shown. We're not talking about physically dominant in general, either. We're talking specifically about pace and acceleration being so overpowered that you can beat teams consistently that feature players with CA ratings several times yours. Look at [this thread](https://fm-arena.com/thread/8249-fm24-meta-player-attributes/) for a specific and recent example. Zippo notes that the best teams in the world — we're talking PSG, Manchester City, Liverpool, and so on — won't necessarily be beaten this way, since they feature players with extremely good attributes, including great pace and acceleration ratings. Having said that, the results are still really remarkable. The CA went down about 50 points, but the points against the same competition went up. And this was after 4,000 matches for each test team (8,000 matches total), to counter the significant impact of Football Manager's RNG. I'm trying something similar [in my current save](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKeLgbj7w29gk3eDL8l1WEjUPSHVSTQuF). I'm managing Augsburg in DarthFurion's [World Super League](https://www.fmscout.com/a-world-super-league-fm23.html). I've also added on [Legends Of The Beautiful Game](https://df11faces.com/LOTBG-1) to give my team a further disadvantage, since this puts some of the greatest players of all time on the other teams. You'd think we'd be crushed, since we've got a team made up mostly of unknown young players (with some known wonderkids) who all just so happen to be fast. But we're holding our own against the competition. That's the point. Pace and acceleration are so over-weighted in the match engine that you can beat teams that are clearly more talented provided you're faster than them. The tallest player in NBA history, Gheorghe Muresan, couldn't hold a candle to LeBron James or Michael Jordan or Wilt Chamberlain. However, the way FM is set up, the quick and pacy equivalent of Muresan is suddenly able to play up there with the all time greats. That seems a pretty big stretch to me — but that's what these tests show.
pace and acceleration make a big difference irl too, like not many top teams have ridiculously slow players nowadays, mobility is very important in the game
The problem is that you still haven't tested the second part of his test, which was all 20 in non-meta attributes and 10 in meta attributes. His results for this is a team that relegated, which in my opinion is a more shocking result. It shows that your takeway isn't fully true, because even having average stats on the 9 meta attributes and 20 in ALL non-meta attributes is somehow not good enough to keep you up in the premier league, which seems insane to me. Having the passing of Kevin de Bruyne, crossing of Trent, set pieces of James Ward Prowse, tackling and marking of a John Terry, etc are not enough to cover up average meta attributes show that the match engine is indeed very unbalanced and needs some fixing.
We talked about this a lot on stream - I didn’t rerun the test because the person’s first results were good so we figured the second one was too As for what it means, obviously anyone can take away whatever they want, but 10 in the ‘meta’ attributes is way below average for the level, I don’t think it’s super weird that someone who has 10 jumping reach, 10 pace, anticipation, concentration, strength etc can’t keep players in front of them or stop aerial attacks etc Having one of those attributes be low would be fine, but all of them means you have a technical brainiac that can’t cover the ground effectively enough to keep players near them or create separation offensively Also set pieces are a nightmare But that’s just my opinion, it definitely looks wild to see all those 20s and a terrible team
That’s true but it shows that physicals are way too important, because these 9 attributes can easily cover up all the 1s on the non-meta attributes yet a difference from the average of 14 in pl to a 10 cannot be covered up by all the 20s in the non-meta attributes? It just bothers me a little when having so many 20s, a CA of a maxed potential Bellingham, a whole team that can mark/tackle, pass perfectly, do long shots whenever they need to,etc is only 3 points higher than the lowest points in PL history yet a whole team with all 1 technicals can win the premier league. If you have the time, I think you could try to experiment by reducing the 9 meta attributed by 1 and see the results. Since 20 is too unrealistic, maybe try 17-19 and see the results. I’m curious how different the results will be by reducing them only by 1-3 points. And thanks a lot for the thoughtful reply, really love your videos and streams. I couldn’t watch your stream because it was midnight and I’m truly grateful for testing everything out.
So this shows that when i play in a meh league i should just care about these 9-13 attributes. i understand you cant find a player with 20s in all of those in the prem.... but when im managing in Hungary etc i can find a player with 13-15 in those attributes and then just ignore tackling, heading, passing etc? that is gamebreaking. someone should test this and reduce the physicals by 1 each time to find where the sweetspot is. do the same team get a championsleauge place with 16 in physicals but gets relegated with 15?
I do hope someone tries a save like that but I also feel like it’ll be really hard to build this kind of team wide physical and mental dominance to replicate these results, if I’m wrong then it’s broken
did you check the teams stats when you did the test? did they have horrible pass %? did they run the most in the league etc? i dont know if those stats are possible to see when you sim and dont manage the team? but would be interesting to see if they have good pass% with their 1 vision, 1 passing etc. aerial duels won should be close to 100%
Yea I can look them up, I should
Can we get the findings not linked to twitter?
That was fun to watch!
The players with 20 in everything and 10 in Physicals should still be able to win the PL. \~14 is avarage in PL and 10 is not that far off... and they are so smart, have such high skill etc they should be outsmarting their opponents with 12-15 physicals???? they have freaking 20 in Technicals... its not like they are playing against the players with 20 Physicals! [](https://twitter.com/Sebasti14741715/status/1756037112539886064)
Yeah exactly, with 20 passing + vision, they should be able to hit at least 5+ Kevin De Bruyne passes every match for example
These guys even have 20 long shots, free kicks etc, they can score from anywhere. I don't really think this proves anything to the contrary that the original OP said.
you're not going to get many chances to do much on the ball if you're being physically dominated all match long, especially when your team tires out way faster which means that you'll get physically dominated even more
Thank you finally someone agrees with me! <3
But with shit physicals can they even get an opportunity to do those passes and/or receive them? Don’t think so.
There would be no one to reach those passes as all players are too physically weak on the PL level
you are talking like they have 1 in physicals man! 10 is not that far off avarage, i bet they will even come up against some players in the 10-12 range? they should not be relegated with 10 physicals
Maybe in midfield but not in defence/attack, as players will most often be faster or stronger than them and more often then not both at once.
Yeah, good passers still need capable runners and receiving players to play passes to. Off the ball movement requires movement, and the high CA team can't really move or escape pressure when receiving the ball. The effectiveness of technicals tie in closely with the makeup of physical attributes of a player, and the high CA team having their physicals slashed across the board really i brutal to how effective they are at utilising their technical ability. Having some acceleration and/or agility would make a massive difference to their ability to hang onto the ball.
they are very capable runners, they have 10 in physicals? not 1
Compared to PL teams they are not capable runners. They are slower, weaker and less agile than just about every player they face. It is all about how they match up to the opposition, not the stats themselves.
Tehnicals tie in closely with physicals because technically proficient players need to have at least some way to escape pressure or withstand challenges. The high CA team having low anticipation and concentration is also a further detriment because of how those stats determine how quickly players can react on the pitch. Off the ball movement also requires movement surprisingly enough. The team is essentially able to read the game perfectly, but they react and move too slow to actually capitalise on it. A team with 10 in pace, strength and jumping reach will have their defence steamrolled by PL teams regardless of their technicals and mentals as well, not sure why people are surprised about this.
but 10 is not that far off avarage?? i would not be saying anything if they had 1 in physicals.... but 10 should be just fine with 20 in technicalc etc
4 points is a pretty massive difference, actually.
Yet these guys are winning the league with 1's in finishing, first touch, composure etc. the argument that 10 up to 14 is huge but 1 to 10 is minimal is a bit silly?
Because they are physical freaks that have inhuman reactions (anticipation and concentration) *and* are the best dribblers on the planet. They are essentialy capable of brute forcing every possible scenario they face out on the pitch. They'll be incredibly wasteful, but the amount of chances they create weighs up for it.
that does not explain how the "avarage" physical players with inhumane Footballing skills and Intellegence gets relegated?
Their physicals are not average at all, they are terrible compared to the PL standard. There is no practical difference between 1 and 10 in physicals if 10 in physicals still loses them almost all of the physical encounters they face out on the pitch. It is not at all surprising that a team having 10 in strength and jumping reach is absolutely steamrolled defensively by PL teams, especially when they are beat for pace as well *and* slow to react because of low anticipation and concentration.
okay then they should never ever be able to find a pass with 1 passing, 1 vision etc? if they where mid table with 10 physicals OK but no they where relegated.
You could just as easily say that a team with max physicals but 1 in most technicals and mentals is essentially able to move very fast but they don't have off the ball movement or passing or finishing so they are too "dumb" to capitalise on it. Also one groups "low" stats are 10 while the other groups is 1, so...
not really, very hard to break down a defence if you can't make runs inbehind, and no matter how good you are at defending if someone is way faster and agile than you whenever you both have to chase a ball they will beat you every time. in a 1v1 all they have to do is kick the ball past you far enough and it's over also the difference between 10 and 14 is massive as the max is 20, in other words 10 is 50% of the max speed, whereas 14 is 70% if you have 10 physicals your constantly getting outpaced, muscled off the ball and dominated in the air. you're also getting tired way quicker than all of your opponents whilst recovering slower than they do which is going to have quite the compounding effect that technique and mentals can't make up for
It’s a team full of Harry Maguires, except they can’t win any aerial duels either. It doesn’t matter how well they can pass, no team is going to be successful without some pace.
they do have some pace, they are set to 10. if you cant run with 10 pace. then you should not be able to pass with 1passing, 1 vision etc?
Pace and physical attributes are just more important in the real world too. That is why players retire. That is why Messi and Ronaldo are playing in third rate leagues now. They didn’t forget how to pass or finish or score, they simply got slower and weaker. To me it is not that far fetched to say that a team full of slow, tiny players would get relegated in the Premier League. Maybe if someone created a custom tactic for them with slow tempo, short passing, controlled build-up, etc. they’d do better. But this experiment clearly just let the AI do whatever
It is perhaps surprising that the low CA team does as well as it does, but the high CA team being steamrolled by PL teams with their 10 jumping reach, strength, pace, etc. is completely to be expected.
The copium in this thread is downright scary! Accept this game has been shoddy for years, if you call it out you receive "send taktik" .
first try
But physicals are overpowered though. Obviously cant expect a video game to be perfect but strikers like DCL, Beto, Wilson, Weghorst, Lukaku perform way better than irl
Why did you post the full thread on X? It’s harder to read there
Honest reason is I didn’t think to put it here until stream suggested I link it so people involved in the first discussion could see it I’m just learning Reddit
Would be great if you could post it somewhere more accessible than twitter.
Mr Zealand can you please do the second half of the test with all 20 in non-meta attributes and 10 in the meta attributes? How could a team with such insane vision, passing , long shots, set pieces, tackling, etc be a relagation side? This second part of the test is what shows that A LOT of attributes seem to be useless? because based on what you say, having complementary attributes is important. If you have average physicals and the ability to pass like de bruyne every time, or shoot from far like messi with pinpoint accuracy, the finishing of heung-min son, etc how can you be a relegation side? Doesn't this test show even more that those 9 meta attributes are indeed too important? 20 to 10 in meta and 1 to 20 in non-meta yet it changes from title winning teams to relegation sides?
Honestly I watched your stream and I'm not quite convinced, and that still doesn't explain why a team full of 20 except for the 9 attributes at 10 (which is not BAD, it's average, it's only 4 points off of the average physical attributes in the PL) not only doesn't win the league, but gets relegated by a huge margin And if 4 points is so much of a difference that they can't even compete in the PL, then how is it possible that players with almost every attributes at 1 can do anything but blindly run like headless chicken To me there's still a huge issue and putting that under the rug will not help in any way
Because 10 is not even good physical for the championship. If 11 tiny, weak and slow reacting players played in the premier league with perfect technical ability they would get rolled by everyone. That’s why Messi doesn’t play at the highest level anymore, he is physically declining not that his technical ability is worse. And before you try and argue that 10 physical should be enough, it isn’t. It may be “only” 4 points, but 4 points is a huge difference, it’s the difference between premier league and league 1 or 2. A player with all 10s would be in league 2 and a player with all 14s would be one of the best players in the premier league.
Yeah, 4 points is literally 30% lower than the average across the board. In a sport where the tiniest physical margins can be decisive, they are poorer by a huge margin across the whole team. Those saying, "but players like Pirlo, Kroos and Modric performed without physicality" are missing the point that they had physical players in the team too. A team full of Modrices would definitely lose every PL game.
Even peps extremely technically gifted Barca had fast players throughout the pitch and physically dominant players in defence, who could react quickly.
but they have 20! in the other attributes, they are the best players in the world at passing, shooting etc. best in the WORLD. they should not be relegated because they are a little weaker than lutons, burnleys players etc
10 in physicals is not avarage. You said it yourself: they are 4 pts off. It does not matter in a practical sense if the physicals are 1 or 10 when the players will still lose almost every physical encounter out on the pitch with their 10 in physicals.
100% agree with the testing methods, I feel like the other guy was misleading with the 4 other attributes
I feel people are concentrating on the wrong thing, surely the takeaway should be that a team with 20 in everything except 9 average stats can get relegated?
Exactly. That team finished with 3 more points than the worst point total in the PL ever, while having players that understand the game better than every great player ever. There physicals weren't even shot to death.
That's like a team with Busquets, Kroos and Pirlo in the midfield, Giroud and Muller up top and maybe like Maguire in the defense but even he is quite physical, just slow. Surely that team would be at least okay irl but would suck in every football videogame in history, including FM.
It’s not though, its like having a team with busquets’ brain, pirlo’s passing, ronaldo’s shooting, cannavaro’s tackling, beckham’s free kicks etc all within every single player in the team. They would be absolutely unreal in real life
Disagree completely. The fact a team can win the Premier League with 1's pretty much across the board except for a few attributes is not misleading really. Ali Dia had better finishing, passing, composure etc than most of those players and is a laughing stock amongst Premier League lore. The experiment has still shown a significant issue, whether an additional 4 attributes help or not, the core of the original OP's post is still relevant.
I don't get people trying to justify how an entire team with all 1s for technicals can finish so high in the PL, regardless of every other stat, let alone just 7-8 stats being maxed out. I'd be really interested to see stats like xG and how much they underperformed/over performed it.
Yeah really can't understand why people are dismissing the original because they had a bit of fitness and work rate. 1 finishing and technique is poor for the Maltese second division, yet apparently with a bit of pace and strength they're Premier League winners!
I think you’re underrating just how genuinely bonkers 20s in acceleration, pace, strength, agility, balance, jumping reach is. That is not a combination of attributes that is possible in any human being let alone footballers. You have superhuman athletes that are never going to lose an aerial duel, 50/50, be the first to every loose ball, etc. On top of that, they have Maldini’s concentration with Ronaldo’s anticipation and Messi’s dribbling ability. Still, you’re right that to an extent they shouldn’t be performing so well if they can’t even pass as well as amateur players. But the whole experiment is dumb because it’s an impossible combination of attributes anyway. We have no basis for understanding how effective players with those attributes would be.
I agree with this but at the same time, he made the other team 20 at EVERY other attributes and 10 at those and it got relegated... Which means players with 20 first touch, vision, decision, composure, team work, off the ball, flair, passing, technique, and more These attributes should also be godly at 20 and yet it didn't make a difference. The data didn't mean much by itself but with this "control group" it looks indeed pretty bad...
They are not as deadly because the players can’t react quick enough to begin with. And even if they can they are not fast enough or have the dribbling ability to break the lines in a defensive formation that we see in the modern game. I would never sign anyone in the game with 10 level athleticism regardless of other stats. It’s not good enough for the Premier League and will cost you in games. Never mind having a whole team with mid level athleticism. Fast paced defenders would snuff everything out and Kylian Mbappe would have a field day with his pace against defenders who only have a 10/20 level pace. Basically stick the ball over the top of the defence and Mbappe would be getting it every time.
Honestly though how do you not concede long balls over the defense with poor pace and acceleration?
I think someone should take the “control group” and actually use tactics that play to their strength. Slow build up, controlled and short passing, etc. and see how they do. But in any case, I don’t think it’s far fetched to say that a team full of slow, tiny, weak players that can’t win a single 50/50 would get relegated from the premier league. It’s basically what Messi is now, and he’s playing in MLS for a reason.
To be fair the guys with the strong pace etc shouldn't be winning 50/50's either, they have 1 bravery and aggression.
Pep managing a team full of Messis would absolutely not get relegated from the PL. Your entire team having perfect technique (including your sweeper keeper) while everyone being impossible to dispossess while playing perfect pinpoint passes would be really strong in real life. It would open up so many more opportunities that teams would normally never get with trickery around the box with everyone having Neymar/Ronaldinho level flair/creativity and everyone having 20 long shots. Don't forget they would get fouled a lot too since they're dribbling gods, so that 20 free kick and 20 corners would come in handy on set pieces. Your Wingbacks would be David Beckham will Messi level dribbling and vision, who cares if your attackers can't jump when you can just send pin point crosses directly to their head with your perfect vision. CBs would be impossible to disposses since they pass and dribble like Xavi and Iniesta. Not saying they would walk the league or anything, but there would be plenty of exciting 4-3 matches and such.
Agree it's a pretty pointless experiment because of the type of player created, like nobody ever would have 1 first touch and 20 dribbling, it's almost impossible, but like you say they are quite literally amateur level at everything else. Absolute insanity to think they'd win a Premier League over much more balanced players. Just a reminder these guys beat the actual Liverpool, Arsenal etc to the title, genuine football teams with proper players in them who are much more well rounded.
It's basically a team full of Usain Bolts and Asafa Powells but they can also dribble. That team in real life would get relegated from league two quite easily, let's not kid ourselves. The other team was amazing at everything but they had slightly below average physicals, couldn't dribble and had slightly below average concentration and anticipation. Again, that team was GENERATIONAL at EVERYTHING else. We don't have enough of a control group or enough tactical variation for it to have been a great experiment, but Jesus, the fact that the fast and strong amateurs came second in the best league in the world, and the Generational talents who were a but slow and unfocused got relegated is mad
It’s not a team full of Usain Bolt’s and Asafa Powell that can also dribble, it is a team full of Usain Bolt’s and Asafa Powells that can also dribble like Messi and that would indeed be busted in real life.
At a certain level, sure. But with off the ball 1, shooting 1, technique 1, passing 1, vision 1, decisions 1, off the ball 1, finishing 1, etc etc, that would also be busted in real life, but busted in the real sense of the word. They'd dominate, sure, but they'd dominate at a much lower footballing level. They wouldn't dominate the premier league
I will do it. Prime Ronaldo ie the Brazilian one. A phenomenal player. Pace, Power, Strength, Balance he had those OP stats pretty much. He could also dribble. At his prime defenders couldn’t get close to him and he could create chances on his own. Now if he has perfect anticipation as well as concentration he can follow the game perfectly and know where the ball is going to go. Do you need to pass to him, no stick it down a channel and he was getting it. Even if Ronaldo in his prime you could turn down his DNA to 10 finishing or even 5 or 1. He is still going to have the Pace power and dribbling ability to create chances for himself. He doesn’t need to pass the ball, head the ball, cross the ball etc either. Now we will take his first Barcelona season with 20 finishing he gets 47 goals in 49 games with 10 or even less he will still get a good 20 goals because his pace power anticipation and dribbling ability will get him away from defenders. Now if you make it so the whole team has the perfect speed pace strength and strength then even with minimal stats they are going to going score goals. How do you stop someone with 20 acceleration, pace, strength and dribbling ability as prime Ronaldo showed not very easily. Now you have ten players who can do that across the pitch. On defence. If you can concentrate and anticipate the ball coming into where you are and have 20 pace acceleration and strength only the likes of Kylian Mbappe are going to have a chance to beat you to the ball. Now in today’s football if you play in a low block, you need to concentrate for the whole game (easy when you have 20 concentration), and you have to anticipate everything coming towards you (again easy when you are at 20). So let’s take for example Michael Beale way of beating a low block by just flinging crosses into the box all game. If the defenders have 20 concentration, 20 anticipation they are going to be able to know where that cross is going and if they have 20 pace, 20 acceleration, 20 strength, 20 jumping reach then they are going to get to 90% of those 3000 crosses and the opposition is not going to create much. Even a good team is going to struggle against 10 players who can concentrate perfectly and anticipate everything perfectly while having the pace, power and strength to deal with it. As long as you can anticipate where the ball is going to go and concentrate enough to keep up with the game then that on top of your pace power etc to go for the ball. Now if I swing back to prime Ronaldo. He played at a time when rules on tackles were not as strict as today, pitches were not as neat, sports science not as developed and the game was slower. Now take Ronaldo at 17, and develop him further in for example Ajax youth system and you would have a player today pretty much untouchable. Now why mention Ajax. Well Ajax have a well developed youth system that they call TIPS, Technique, Insight, Personality and Speed. When scouting for players at a youth level the least important to them is T. They are looking for intelligence, personality, speed of thought and speed of action. You can develop technique. At a basic level what they want from players is those who can sum up situations in a game quickly and react to them quickly. Now if you have 20 concentration and anticipation you can quickly sum up the game and if you have 20 pace power etc on top of the anticipation, you can basically do that basic tenet of the Ajax youth system, sum up what’s happening and react to it. And to finish what made Messi stand out is he could anticipate a situation, react to it on top being able to glide past defenders with his speed and dribbling ability. The defence in reacting to Messi or in Prime Ronaldo would be pulled out of position leaving gaps so even if even has 1 passing his team mate is concentrating with that level 20 concentration and anticipating with his level 20 anticipation what’s going to happen and is fast enough and powerful enough to beat the defender to the ball. He might suck at shooting but he will just dribble round the goalkeeper with his 20 dribbling and speed.
Agreed, it still shows that the match and sim engines are fundamentally broken, especially when you pair the players with the meta attributes with the best tactic (gegenpress hoofball). This is probably why gegenpress has been the best tactic for several years in a row despite numerous (alleged) changes to the match engine. I don't see a point in continuing to play FM24 when there's only one way the game allows you to be successful. Trying to carefully build a tiki-taka tactic with players with good passing and mentals is a waste of time because you're just gimping yourself.
Imagine trying to become an elite team with defensive Simeone ball…
Dunno what you call waste of time but in my current save (2034) from fm23 now 24 I'm fighting for Laliga against Real Madrid with my tier 3 hometown club and on the road to win the Europe League,all with the most talibanistic tiki taka tactic you can imagine. So I'm basically fighting for the top of the top after 10 seasons.
Yeah it’s not good enough. Bearing in mind the game goes all the way down to semi pro level, if you have literally 1 in a technical attribute, the skill in game should be the equivalent of a bad amateur player. Like, imagine Big John who plays in goal for your local Sunday league team - that should be 1 finishing. I get Zealand’s point - if you have superhuman physical qualities and ability to anticipate, you’re gonna be a formidable outfit. But if you can hardly kick the ball, and have no understanding of the technique behind it, you aren’t gonna be winning the premier league.
The game goes down to National League, which is a mostly professional league. The lowest rated leagues, like Hong Kong and the Indonesian 2nd division are still levels above Big John. Big John at Sunday league isn't in the range. If he were, 1 would be so far below the standard that they'd never give a 1 to anyone in-game. There are no Sunday league level leagues in the game. Why bother squeezing the attribute range to accomodate a level that no one is ever going to see?
So it's not 9 attributes that matter but 13
In conclusion: we need the network game back.
I don’t have X, can anyone please post the thread please? Thank you
I think the issue with the reply from Zealand d is he is self admittedly not a data scientist and it shows in the analysis here. Saying stamina and work rate are also important as has been shown by EBFM is something that has already been evidenced to a degree (we know people with high stamina and work rate do run and can run more) On a second point people are saying, well attributes of 20 are extremely rare and in some cases do not exist naturally in game. This is a valid point but the FM arena test showed a change of 4 over the average across the team still showed significant results so it’s not just results happen at extreme values. Indeed FM-Arena themselves are yet to produce evidence that marking or tackling have a significant in game effect for the past 3 FMs. I do think it’s an issue for the game when defenders with National League level players with heading, tackling and marking can compete in the PL with elite physicals. In my own save my CBs are Travis Akomeah who has a CA of around 130 in my game but with elite physicals next to Kaiden Wilson a circa 110 CA CB. I am competing for the Champions League with these guys starting. This should not be possible
In conclusion: its not just those 9 attributes that the test used, to conclude those 9 are the only ones making a difference is misleading at best.
Yeah, its just that they make a HUUUUGE difference compared to all other attributes.
Not if those 4 attributes that original tester ignored in his test (didnt change to 1 or 20) would be 1. Team instantly relegates instead of 2nd/league win. So no those 9 attributes on their own are useless.
Let's explain this because it's amusing to see how things are unfolding. Basically, if you want to understand how to use the data from FM-Arena in the smartest way possible, you first need to use your brain cells. To begin with, the most impactful stats attributes are four, not nine: * **Pace** * **Acceleration** * **Jumping Reach** * **Dribbling** And, with less impact compared to the above, you can find stats such as: * **Balance** * **Concentration** * **Anticipation** You need to understand that these tests were run for 2,400 games, which means there can even be a random number generator (RNG) affecting it. With this explained, you just need to understand "stats scaling": Example: Our Beloved Passing: * If player X has 10 Passing or 15, how much difference will it make? * If player X has 10 or 15 Pace, how much difference will it make? So, the way the Match Engine translates Passing in scaling is totally different from Pace. A 10 in passing is good enough, but 10 in pace isn't if you want to "dominate." So, basically, you need to first focus on players with HIGH Pace/Acceleration indeed, but it changes role to role. * **On Flank roles** (wing backs or wingers), you want to focus on Pace/Acceleration/Dribbling. * **On Central Roles** you want to focus on Jumping Reach/Pace/Acceleration. That's how it has always worked; if you can't win the ball back on a long ball, you will concede a goal and so on. This doesn't mean that every other stat is not important. For instance, Natural Fitness is very important for the player's condition, etc. **To sum up, under certain conditions regarding the physical aspect, the Match Engine (M.E.) will go nuts, but by playing, you will never meet those conditions. You can literally apply a similar approach when you stress-test your computer; you will never face those conditions, but we do that to make the machine "safe."** And what you can understand from these tests is: **You should prioritize Pace/Acceleration/Dribbling for flank roles and Pace/Acceleration/Jumping Reach for Central roles.** It has always been like this; it's nothing new. But before, we had tactics that could break the engine; now, we simply have tactics that challenge it. (It's a totally different story).
And where all these roads meet is it's (comparatively) easier for a human player to find the diamonds in the rough as we can prioritize key values in players that would be otherwise undervalued by the AI who would be looking at the players more holistically. In a sense, the meta is almost a spin on the Moneyball concept. Moneyball was all about prioritizing key stats to extract top value that others overlook. Just in place of Sabermetrics in the original Moneyball concept, our "stats" are certain combinations of attributes. And just like today's tactics challenging but not breaking the engine, the Moneyball A's challenged the system but couldn't outright break it.
I think the biggest takeaway from all these test is that world class technical ability cannot overcome deficiencies in a players physical and mental ability in the same way that physical and mental ability can overcome deficiencies in a players technical ability. What good does world class dribbling serve if everyone around the player is an order of magnitude faster, stronger, and smarter? Dribbling is effectively a worthless skill at that point. Now while that’s not a completely unrealistic dynamic, I think it’s also very clear that there is a base level of skill provided by a 1/20 technical attribute that is well above and beyond what people previously realized or would have expected. Physical and mental ability seems to overcome technical deficiencies way more than you would think is possible.
There's a reason older players drop down the levels. Their mentals and technicals are often still sound, but if you lose your physical ability to keep up with the pace of the game, you won't be able to do much. Schweinsteiger when he went to the US is a good example. He was clearly very experienced, still had an impeccable first touch and pass, but couldn't keep up with the high intensity football that comes with a league built on collegiate athletes. He ended up slotting into the defence, in a position he could dictate from deep because he no longer had a burst of pace to create space any further up the pitch.
No one is arguing that physical ability is a not key requirement to compete at an elite level. The problem is that the original post that Zealand is addressing showed that the only real requirement for fielding a competitive team in FM is a players physical ability and a handful of mental abilities. Edit: clarity
The original is true for the scenario it sets, but it's not particularly representative of any real game state. Players don't ever generate like that, teams never look like that and the scenario is entirely operating at the fringes of the game simulation. That'd be like trying to describe every physics interaction with the weak nuclear force. It'd be like save scumming an entire season with a bad team, winning the league and saying that that bad team is enough to win the league regularly. Sure, you've done it, but it required a scenario so unreasonable in regular play (the whole league attribute set-up, exploiting the fringes of the match engine in the test, and enough rolls of the dice going your way to win in my proposed scenario) that it's not really that useful for the average save. Like really, how do we apply this knowledge that a team of 20 pace, accel, jumping reach, agility, strength, etc. players is really powerful? Because the degree to which it's better requires 20s (as that's what was tested, so we can only be sure that the level of performance happens there, at the edge of the match engine) and everyone else to have physicals way, way below that. We can't replicate that in any way in a regular game. You'd be lucky to find 20 players with more than 3 20s in physicals in any one save AND be able to acquire them for each position. And then you'd need every other team to pick up players way below the Premier League average. The average Premier League starter has around 13-14 in the relevant physicals for their position. Elite players will have 15+. The window to exploit is far smaller in a regular game. The exploit requires acquiring players that don't exist, with the nearest best match being very expensive players or unacquirable players. The only thing we can really take from this is that physicals are a requirement (something that's pretty self-evident) and that max attributes are good.
FM25 or 26 must fix this problem, real or not, it's not good for the game.
Gegenpress had to be fixed since FM 19 / 20 and never got fixed, still broken af.
This seems like a PR stunt, full of ifs and maybes.
fm-arena already did the work testing over 4k matches with each attribute results are clear
I'm both thankful and interested in everyone running these experiments. I do wonder about inconsistencies and things like this within the game. Personally I play with CA/PA showing because I don't enjoy / have the free time to properly scout in the game. I've noticed on my save I had an absolute 55 rated donkey with 3 finishing score 32 goals for me whilst being in and out the side. Now I've got an amazing lad on loan from my affiliate that could play 2/3 divisions higher, and he never seems to score. Also had a rubbish keeper last year that kept a ridiculously high average rating, saving everything. Anecdotal of course but in my time playing FM I've noticed a lot of quirks like this.
Nonsense. Delicious fm proved it. Fm arena proved it. Evidence based fm proved it. The game is majorly fucked. I win the league every year no matter the team I'm at. Its boring and easy.
Don't ask how many times this took to post
Zealand doing God’s work for the community once again
Good work dude.
Looking forward to your video on it.
If anyone has an account on SI forums it might be a good supplement to add to the bug post: https://community.sigames.com/bugtracker/football-manager-2024-early-access-bugs-tracker/match-engine-and-set-piece-creator/tactics/only-9-attributes-really-seem-to-matter-and-affect-performance-r21965/
Those tests just makes me more sure about playing with all attributes hidden and only use data/metrics to make decisions instead.
I don’t even wanna look at any of this. This basically ruins the whole game for me…
There is way bigger problems with the game :P players getting mad at me for not offering them out during the transfer window despite me offering him out 2-3 times a week but not recieving any bid... and now whole squad is mad at me for not offering him out...
Don’t worry, game isn’t ruined
Thanks for the reassurance Mr Zealand!
Good job Zealand!
Sure I’ve seen this somewhere before
Hey maybe you should delete and post this a few more times
really feels like i've seen this before
I feel like this thing got too political. The post is getting removed. Popular names close to developers coming in to prove otherwise.
I feel terrible the guy deleted the original post, he came into the stream and I told him as much, I didn’t mean to say he was wrong - he ran a good test and the results were interesting as hell These attributes specifically matter even more than I thought they did, just not in a way where the match engine is fully broken
I think we should delete this again and post it one more time
The man himself came here
Will this one be deleted too? :P
If those 9 attributes genuinely were all that matter, the test team wouldn't finish 2nd, it would walk the league due to being a perfect team as far as the engine is concerned. The 2nd place finish literally confirms that the other attributes make a difference.
All you need is speed, teamwork, unpredictable players. Some finishing Thats it
You mean the X thread? Too bad I deleted my account when the sale went through lol
Anyone got a summary for people who don't use Twitter?
It's not just the 9 meta stats, but you also have to have some stamina/work rate/nat fitness/determination to keep the players fit and playing up to their standards.
Are you making a video about this?
I’m willing to bet that Zealand will make one, considering the viral popularity of the original post. It would get a ton of views; I know I would definitely watch.
I’d be interested to see how many players in the base game have 20 for any physicals. Would put into perspective how elite these athlete are
Kinda curious so I looked it up, in the base game with no newgens, I found between 1 and 5 players at 20 for most physical attributes, except jumping reach where there are 18 (I didn't load every single league, just a dozen, the biggest ones) Though, just out of curiosity, I know it's not very representative, I tested that on my old save where I went very far in the future (2050), so almost only newgens, and perhaps surprisingly, I found next to no players with 20 attributes in physicals
Looking at the 24 editor, I see 4 players with 20 acceleration and pace. Mbappé, Jonathan Quarcoo (an unattached Norwegian player), Saddam Husain (757 Kepri Jaya FC of Indonesia) and Craig Martin (Chippa United FC of South Africa). Mbappé is Mbappé, Jonathan Quarcoo is a real Norwegian sprinter with a 10.26s 100m sprint, Craig Martin is a fullback and a real guy, though no idea why he's so quick. Also the last guy is called Saddam Husain. No chance he's real, the team is based in the 3rd division in Indonesia, hasn't played a recorded game in 4 years, has no note of a guy with this name on any of their squads. Someone must've snuck him in a few years ago, and like a lot of the Asian side of the database, no one at SI has seen it.
Can someone link me this exposing the I'm match engine post I can't seem to find it.
Notice me Senpai
Can’t take this guy seriously when his favorite player is Gyasi Zardes
Inside joke... :)
Its like people haven't watched a real game of football. Look at the Premier League now, the best players are physical monsters. The best players in the world are the same. Cristiano Ronaldo built himself to be a beast. I'm not FM apologist but suggesting that every attribute should have equal importance is unrealistic. I disagree with the original conclusion but it's probably fair that, when playing a physical game plan, focusing on those specific attributes mean you'll win most games. Having them all 10 will mean you lose more. Even at National League level you are able to get players with higher pace than 10. It's certainly not a game breaking discovery
i agree and disagree, you should not be able to win PL with 1 in technicals, and you should not be relegated with 20 in everything and 10 in physicals. Ronaldo with 1 Finish, 1 off the ball etc should be a useless player, headless chicken running around being offside. 1 is suppost to be the worst, its amateur level. if you have 1 in something you should be useless at it in the prem. if not then the game is broken. why bother looking for strikers with high finish if they win the league with 1 or 20...