Kamas1 said: What do you think about the idea of adding attributes from FM Arena tests to Genie Scout—but skipping Pace and Acceleration—setting the other attributes according to Genie Scout's weighting, and then manually selecting players who have, say, at least 15 or 16 (or higher) in Pace and Acceleration, depending on the need? Expand
Skivinsk said: Zaz, I'm loving the tactic, but I have a question.
Can I play a player there who has no familiarity with the AM/SS position?
He has all the attributes you listed, but he's a striker, and his rating drops to half a star when I put him there.
Does this hurt his performance, or is it just a visual thing? Expand
Unfortunately, low ability in the In Possession position have a noticeable impact in performance (Out of Possession does not matter much, so you can ignore). That does not mean you must discard all your strikers, but sometimes it can take over six months to retrain them to a satisfactory level. In the beginning, you can bring them in when matches are secured, like winning by 2+ goals, so they learn the position with playtime. Once they become light green, you can feel more confident to use them as starters. Obviously, make sure to set them to train for the new position, so they become proficient faster.
Dkstick said: For example, I recently spent quite a lot of money on an Austrian player with 14 pace and 14 acceleration, which is very good for the Polish league, and over half a season he had an average rating of 6.02, which was extremely low compared to the rest of the squad.
Yet his CA was more or less around the league average, and the rest of his attributes were generally decent as well. Expand
There are some people with posts about how to optimize the performance of players based on attributes. One thing to watch is the scout reports for hidden attributes. I usually value a lot players with high professionalism, consistency, low injury proneness and dirtiness. You usually see in the scout reports if those hidden attributes are low or high, and I personally find players with low professionalism to be the most problematic (speaking about ratings).
Dkstick said: Regarding scouting and recruitment, what I’m currently doing is simply assigning my scouts with the silver star Current Ability and Potential Ability judging attributes to search for players in Central Europe, since that’s basically the extent of my scouting budget at the moment.
I’ve also set my entire scouting team to continuously look for players between the ages of 18 and 27.
Whenever I get the opportunity, I increase the number of scouts I can employ, as well as improve the club’s training facilities and youth facilities.
Should I be doing things differently? Expand
Scouts can only work in a number of players at a time. Do not waste them in players you would not want to hire. Make sure to tell them the attributes you want in players, especially a high level of pace and acceleration. Having fast players is probably the most impactful way of winning. Slow players are just bad, even if their other attributes are amazing. The best tip for someone wanting immediate results is to aim to be the quickest team in the league, with the fastest players. From there, market is all about developing your players or replacing them with even faster ones, or players with the same speed and better overall attributes.
In my opinion, there are several factors that impact a season, so it is hard to point out where exactly you can improve. What I can say is, if you want to play a multi-season game with a friend, it is often better to play different leagues, so you can both win together, instead of having a winner and a loser. Competitive saves are better in the same league, but the nature of football is that teams winning get more resources to keep winning, while others chase with much less.
That being said, the most important aspects of the game are the tactic you play, the players you use (including transfers), and people management. By people management, I mean keeping players in top shape (condition, match sharpness and fatigue), optimize contract and transfer costs, develop the most important attributes (pace and acceleration), and keep players with high morale and not unhappy.
Depends on your definition of "best". If you mean the forward role that maximizes possession, then DLP is probably your best bet, because they are playmaker (set to receive ball on their feet instead of on space). Players that run into space are more likely to decrease possession, because they encourage longer passes.
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.
Sounds like a reasonable approach.
Can I play a player there who has no familiarity with the AM/SS position?
He has all the attributes you listed, but he's a striker, and his rating drops to half a star when I put him there.
Does this hurt his performance, or is it just a visual thing?
Unfortunately, low ability in the In Possession position have a noticeable impact in performance (Out of Possession does not matter much, so you can ignore). That does not mean you must discard all your strikers, but sometimes it can take over six months to retrain them to a satisfactory level. In the beginning, you can bring them in when matches are secured, like winning by 2+ goals, so they learn the position with playtime. Once they become light green, you can feel more confident to use them as starters. Obviously, make sure to set them to train for the new position, so they become proficient faster.
Yet his CA was more or less around the league average, and the rest of his attributes were generally decent as well.
There are some people with posts about how to optimize the performance of players based on attributes. One thing to watch is the scout reports for hidden attributes. I usually value a lot players with high professionalism, consistency, low injury proneness and dirtiness. You usually see in the scout reports if those hidden attributes are low or high, and I personally find players with low professionalism to be the most problematic (speaking about ratings).
I’ve also set my entire scouting team to continuously look for players between the ages of 18 and 27.
Whenever I get the opportunity, I increase the number of scouts I can employ, as well as improve the club’s training facilities and youth facilities.
Should I be doing things differently?
Scouts can only work in a number of players at a time. Do not waste them in players you would not want to hire. Make sure to tell them the attributes you want in players, especially a high level of pace and acceleration. Having fast players is probably the most impactful way of winning. Slow players are just bad, even if their other attributes are amazing. The best tip for someone wanting immediate results is to aim to be the quickest team in the league, with the fastest players. From there, market is all about developing your players or replacing them with even faster ones, or players with the same speed and better overall attributes.
That being said, the most important aspects of the game are the tactic you play, the players you use (including transfers), and people management. By people management, I mean keeping players in top shape (condition, match sharpness and fatigue), optimize contract and transfer costs, develop the most important attributes (pace and acceleration), and keep players with high morale and not unhappy.
Where exactly do you think you are failing?
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.