First of all, thanks for sharing your incredible research and schedules. I have a question regarding the long-term development of young players, and I’d love to get your insight.
I’m currently managing a team strictly made of young prospects with high potential (mostly between 18-20 years old). Since they are very young, my main goal is to fully develop them and push them toward their PA, rather than just maintaining or reshuffling their current attributes.
After testing the setup for 2-3 seasons, I’ve noticed a pattern: my players' Pace and Acceleration increase nicely by 3-4 points, which is amazing. However, their overall CA remains completely stagnant. It feels like the game motor is just converting and shifting current CA points into physical stats without actually increasing the total CA volume.
While we all agree that Pace/Acceleration are the most impactful attributes, won't a player perform significantly better if they also gain overall CA and reach their PA? A player with 18 Pace and high technical/mental CA will always outperform a player who only has 18 Pace/Acceleration but low CA. Meta ratings don't just look at Pace and Acceleration.
Given that my squad consists entirely of 18-20 year olds who need heavy development:
1. How can we trigger both overall CA growth and Pace/Acceleration at the same time? 2. Once a young player hits that 17-18 Pace threshold, what is the exact transition plan to stop the CA stagnation and force the game to fill the remaining PA gap? 3. Should I completely ditch the Rebalance schedule for this age group and move into a specific Role Training layout?
Would love to hear your thoughts on how to optimize this for pure wonderkid development! Thanks! Expand
These are the tactics marked as "Growth": - 263 [Physical]x5[Attacking]x5: 27.85 CA - 214 [Physical]x2[Attacking]x2: 33.83 CA
As you can see, 214 has a much higher CA growth. If you want to promote more growth of CA, then ignore 263 completely and use only 214 for Growth. I still recommend to use Rebalance ([Resistance]x1) every now and then, but you can reduce the frequency to once every other month, for example, just to train some attributes that are not activated by 214.
Dkstick said: Sorry either I didn't understand the answer, or I worded my question badly, as my English is limited. The person I'm playing against uses the Autumn 4.5 tactic, and what I'd like to know is whether there's a formation that gets good results against Autumn 4.5. Do you know of one, or should I just go with Autumn 4.5 myself and try to simply have a better squad than him, even though I like that option less? Expand
My bad, I meant this one, but forgot to put the link.
bf3metro said: Hey, based on all the testing you’ve done here, do you have what you’d consider an optimal schedule to actually use week-to-week over a full season?
I’ve been using ZaZ’s Growth 2, but in my save it really isn’t delivering the development I expected.
What I’m mainly looking for is a schedule that pushes CA growth as fast as possible so players reach their PA quickly, rather than just maximizing CA efficiency.
Would you recommend switching fully to something like 260 / 214 / 156 depending on the players’ CA–PA gap, or do you have a specific weekly/monthly rotation you think is optimal in practice? Expand
I recommended 5x (Physical + Attacking) because it provides similar results than 2x (Physical + Attacking) in the important attributes, but with lower overall CA gain. However, I might change the recommendation to 2x during the entire season for simplicity, as well as because it fits better for semi-pro teams.
ahmet said: "Thanks. What is the difference between ZAZ 3.46 and the 4.5 you sent? Actually, I am happy with 3.46, but as I said, I completely mess up—especially in away games—against teams that are stronger than mine." Expand
There are a few changes, including CHMs roaming from position, frontliners triggering press more often, neutral defensive line, and goalkeeper in a different role and passing shorter. I am not sure if there are more changes, but you can see all team and player instructions in the first post.
ahmet said: "Hello. I am using the ZAZ Autumn 3.46 tactic and it is amazing. I can win the championship with almost any team, but I am looking for a tactic to beat teams that are stronger than mine. Especially in away matches, I cannot beat teams that are better than me with this tactic." Expand
skywalk3r83 said: Quick question: which training schedule do you use/advise for pre-season? Expand
Same for the whole season. Just remember to add friendly matches to boost income and match sharpness (you can leave playing for the assistant manager).
keleboo said: Incredible tactics. I'm always in European qualification spots in Portugal with a newly promoted team. It's true I've signed a few players, but with the attributes ZAZ recommends. I lost the league cup final against Sporting, but that's to be expected; there's too much of a difference between their players and mine. Highly recommended! Expand
Thank you, and glad you are enjoying the tactic! Good luck in the following seasons!
Temi said: If One of my players injure, should i change the individual training focus to Quickness Rehab or i should leave it on Quickness
Also,is it natural for my player sharpness to be mediocre after injury Expand
About the first question, I did not even know there was a different focus when players are injured. My recommendation is to leave it as rehab, since training is not a priority when injured.
About match sharpness, it can drop a lot for injuries longer than a week, there is not much to do about it.
Snsnnsjsjs said: could i play posistive instead of attacking as my team isnt as good, or play atacking fully even agaianst the big teams as i need to instant result everygame as im playing with my friends on console? Expand
You are free to change anything you want. What I am saying is that using this with positive mentality will be worse than using that other (Solid) with attacking mentality. Solid will concede much less goals and have a higher win rate than this one in positive mentality, balanced or defensive. If your goal is to concede less goals while having a good win rate, Solid is probably the most effective in this website. My suggestion is to not obsess over the name in team mentality, because Solid with attacking mentality defends better than most tactics with positive, balanced or defensive mentality (except those that sacrifice too much win rate to not concede goals).
Snsnnsjsjs said: I understand this but for console should i always just play attacking and because im playing with my freinds i should just instant result with no match plan so that it stays attaccking througout Expand
You can play the entire match with that "defensive" version if you think your priority is not losing. The performance is almost the same as this one, you can even use that one for the whole season if you want and results will be very similar.
Temi said: Do you recommend the Autumn 542 Solid over the Autumn 4.5 Expand
They have similar performance, but one is better attacking and the other is better defending. I recommend using 4.5 as default, and Solid when you want to avoid conceding.
Rain said: Yeah exactly it's always been the same thing in every sports game (i.e. Pace in Fifa and speed in other sport games) so I'm always surprised to see people complaining about it being such a big issue in football manager. Expand
If Roberto Carlos was slower, he would not be used as a striker in Winning Eleven.
First of all, thanks for sharing your incredible research and schedules. I have a question regarding the long-term development of young players, and I’d love to get your insight.
I’m currently managing a team strictly made of young prospects with high potential (mostly between 18-20 years old). Since they are very young, my main goal is to fully develop them and push them toward their PA, rather than just maintaining or reshuffling their current attributes.
After testing the setup for 2-3 seasons, I’ve noticed a pattern: my players' Pace and Acceleration increase nicely by 3-4 points, which is amazing. However, their overall CA remains completely stagnant. It feels like the game motor is just converting and shifting current CA points into physical stats without actually increasing the total CA volume.
While we all agree that Pace/Acceleration are the most impactful attributes, won't a player perform significantly better if they also gain overall CA and reach their PA? A player with 18 Pace and high technical/mental CA will always outperform a player who only has 18 Pace/Acceleration but low CA. Meta ratings don't just look at Pace and Acceleration.
Given that my squad consists entirely of 18-20 year olds who need heavy development:
1. How can we trigger both overall CA growth and Pace/Acceleration at the same time?
2. Once a young player hits that 17-18 Pace threshold, what is the exact transition plan to stop the CA stagnation and force the game to fill the remaining PA gap?
3. Should I completely ditch the Rebalance schedule for this age group and move into a specific Role Training layout?
Would love to hear your thoughts on how to optimize this for pure wonderkid development! Thanks!
These are the tactics marked as "Growth":
- 263 [Physical]x5[Attacking]x5: 27.85 CA
- 214 [Physical]x2[Attacking]x2: 33.83 CA
As you can see, 214 has a much higher CA growth. If you want to promote more growth of CA, then ignore 263 completely and use only 214 for Growth. I still recommend to use Rebalance ([Resistance]x1) every now and then, but you can reduce the frequency to once every other month, for example, just to train some attributes that are not activated by 214.
My bad, I meant this one, but forgot to put the link.
I’ve been using ZaZ’s Growth 2, but in my save it really isn’t delivering the development I expected.
What I’m mainly looking for is a schedule that pushes CA growth as fast as possible so players reach their PA quickly, rather than just maximizing CA efficiency.
Would you recommend switching fully to something like 260 / 214 / 156 depending on the players’ CA–PA gap, or do you have a specific weekly/monthly rotation you think is optimal in practice?
I recommended 5x (Physical + Attacking) because it provides similar results than 2x (Physical + Attacking) in the important attributes, but with lower overall CA gain. However, I might change the recommendation to 2x during the entire season for simplicity, as well as because it fits better for semi-pro teams.
There are a few changes, including CHMs roaming from position, frontliners triggering press more often, neutral defensive line, and goalkeeper in a different role and passing shorter. I am not sure if there are more changes, but you can see all team and player instructions in the first post.
My recommended tactics are:
For playing aggressively: https://fm-arena.com/thread/19850-zaz-autumn-4-5/
For playing defensively: https://fm-arena.com/thread/20391-zaz-autumn-5-42-solid/
You can use either of them for normal play, they are both very good.
No. That thing is probably just decorative and does not have much effect in performance.
Same for the whole season. Just remember to add friendly matches to boost income and match sharpness (you can leave playing for the assistant manager).
keleboo said: Incredible tactics. I'm always in European qualification spots in Portugal with a newly promoted team. It's true I've signed a few players, but with the attributes ZAZ recommends. I lost the league cup final against Sporting, but that's to be expected; there's too much of a difference between their players and mine. Highly recommended!
Thank you, and glad you are enjoying the tactic! Good luck in the following seasons!
Also,is it natural for my player sharpness to be mediocre after injury
About the first question, I did not even know there was a different focus when players are injured. My recommendation is to leave it as rehab, since training is not a priority when injured.
About match sharpness, it can drop a lot for injuries longer than a week, there is not much to do about it.
https://community.sports-interactive.com/forums/topic/611489-community-team-talk-getting-ready-for-fm27/
I would try this one. I created a tactic similar to this one to counter Autumn, but it was improved by this one.
Someone tested before and apparently training has no influence in set pieces.
You are free to change anything you want. What I am saying is that using this with positive mentality will be worse than using that other (Solid) with attacking mentality. Solid will concede much less goals and have a higher win rate than this one in positive mentality, balanced or defensive. If your goal is to concede less goals while having a good win rate, Solid is probably the most effective in this website. My suggestion is to not obsess over the name in team mentality, because Solid with attacking mentality defends better than most tactics with positive, balanced or defensive mentality (except those that sacrifice too much win rate to not concede goals).
You can play the entire match with that "defensive" version if you think your priority is not losing. The performance is almost the same as this one, you can even use that one for the whole season if you want and results will be very similar.
I did not make tests about it, so anything I say is a wild guess.
They have similar performance, but one is better attacking and the other is better defending. I recommend using 4.5 as default, and Solid when you want to avoid conceding.
Use the Solid version linked in the first post instead.
https://fm-arena.com/thread/20391-zaz-autumn-5-42-solid/
I do not use instant result.
Or at this point, it's better to loan them out?
Individual training and playing matches.
If Roberto Carlos was slower, he would not be used as a striker in Winning Eleven.