I stated in a post that jadedness doesn't matter much, but match sharpness is crucial.
I feel like this topic deserves it's own thread and I've done some original research for it. And I think that in a way it's one of the last remaining actual challenges of the game to make it fun. If you don't use gegenpress tactic or pick/train high pace/acc then you lose a lot, simple as that. But even if you work out the mechanics of fitness management as I am trying to do, it remains a challenging and rewarding aspect of the game. In fact, just knowing how much it effects win rate to me brings back some significant enjoyment to the game.
My overall impression is that counter-intuitively to my mind, it's better to sacrifice condition for match sharpness. Maybe this is why the AI often/always plays players with 87% condition without any rotation. It's because low match sharp players suck in terms of performance, low condition not so much (injury risk is bigger downside here). The other thing about it is that you can deal pretty easily with the problems of low condition - rotate them, pick low injury proneness players, rest them. Match fitness is much trickier, there is only one modest offset for it (natural fitness), it also has a high injury downside, you have to pay the price of lower performance to get their match fitness up if you neglect it, and as I'll show below even friendlies have a limit to recovering match fitness so there's no get out of jail free card really.
I've taken this graph from EBFM's video on match sharpness. What it's telling you is that the difference between 90% and 100% match sharpness is 33% difference in win rate.
For comparison, the difference of pace/acc 10 > 18 is 23.5% win rate according to HarvestGreen22.
To boot, match sharpness significantly impacts injury rate, even at 90%:
So how do we optimize for 100% match fitness of all players every match? And also, how to handle condition in concert with match fitness? There's a lot of variables to consider, it's fascinating to contemplate, but I will try and lay things out in the most straightforward way:
Starting at 100% condition, 90 minutes will reduce to 75% condition (typically).
Condition & match fitness update at midnight (00:00), starting the midnight that may be just a few hours after the match.
It takes 10 days for full recovery to 100% condition.
In FM24, Man City (English Premier League) has the following schedule in a save I looked at:
67 games (excluding national games):
38 league 13 cup 16 continental
Total recovery days between matches:
53 x 7 days 4 x 3 days 5 x 2 days 1 x 16 days 2 x 13 days 1 x 11 days 1 x 9 days
So there are 9 matches where condition recovery will be insufficient, and another 53 which would be sub-optimal. With a weaker team with a less filled up schedule, such as Burnley, I found it could be as low as 6 + 35. In both cases, we would conclude a player should be ideally be rested every 2nd match.
But before we continue, let's look at the other half of the picture, match fitness:
after 3 weeks, match fitness dropped to 98% (recoverable in 1 game) (20 nat) after 4 weeks, match fitness dropped to 94% (20 nat)
after 6 days, match fitness dropped by 1% (10-12 nat) after 8 days, match fitness dropped by 2% (10 nat only) after 9 days, match fitness dropped by 3% (10 nat only) after 11 days, match fitness dropped by 4% (10 nat only) after 12 days, match fitness dropped by 5% (10 nat only) after 13 days, match fitness dropped by 6% (10 nat only) after 14 days, match fitness dropped by 7% (10 nat only) after 15 days, match fitness dropped by 8% (10 nat only) (99% > 91%) after 18 days, match fitness dropped by 11% (10 nat only) after 21 days, match fitness dropped by 15% (10 nat only) after 4 weeks, match fitness dropped by 22% (10 nat only) (99% > 77%)
Friendlies gain match fitness at 55% rate of competitive. As you can see, this is adequate for when the player has low match fitness, but once it hits around ~90% you run into the following complication: You can't have a friendly the day straight after the last one, so you are likely giving at least 2 days rest, yet only gaining 1% match fitness with the friendly.. so potentially you are losing 1% match fitness to later gain 1% match fitness. Hence, at 90%+ match fitness, competitive matches for gaining are recommended, and that means you have to consistently give players playing time - you'll note that the decay rate increases as a player becomes less match fit. Edit: On reflection and doing some testing, this part about friendlies hitting diminishing returns is in error. Unfortunately, I may have to re-evaluate certain conclusions I've drawn based on this presumption, which I'll revisit tomorrow.
If you do the math with the league schedule previously mentioned:
10 nat player needs to play every 8 days 12 nat player needs to play every 11 days (2 in 3 matches) 20 nat player needs to play every 21 days (1 in 3 matches)
So while for condition, a player should ideally play no more frequently than 1 in 2 matches, for match sharpness, a player typically needs to play either every match or 2 in 3 matches in most cases.
I accidentally pressed submit on this thread, so I will add more detail and my theory on squad composition in a followup post soon.
So I have concluded so far that for condition, playing 1 in 2 matches is ideal. For match sharpness, typically 2 in 3 matches is ideal, with natural fitness allowing some variation to this. But notably some players will even need weekly matches just to keep up and avoid exponential match fitness decay. I had a look at the availability of 12+ natural fitness in genie scout amongst players, and its fairly common, so I would say try to get players of 12+ natural fitness if you can, as 10 or less is quite unforgiving.
Now, the implications for squad composition. If you think about it, this is really something that hasn't been examined at all, in spite of how consequential we all know it to be - that ill-fated tendency of us to bloat our squads; what even is the actual optimal number of players for a first team squad?
In my view, the number is 20 outfield + 2 goalkeepers + the occasional promotion from reserve/youth squad or loan to cover an injury.
9 matches need sub replacements (10 x 9) 17/53 matches permit sub replacements (6 x 17) 26/53 matches permit sub replacements for high Nat players (4 x 26)
4 developing players (AML/AMR/DL/DR) get 35 matches 6 players (2 ST, 2 DM, 2 DC) get 26 matches
Remember that 25-30 matches/season is the ideal for player development. The reason why the wonderkids should typically be wingers not centre backs or strikers I would reason is that you don't want to interrupt your ST's bucketload of goals and young players aren't usually developed enough to fill the shoes of a proper DC, but also that wingers seem to tire fast and only have 1 of each position instead of 2 on the pitch.
It is definitely adjustable to some extent according to personal preference. Basically, for each wonderkid you add, make one of your starters a high Nat player so they can handle the reduced playing time.
Some extra info:
My figures are based on using the optimal HarvestGreen22 training regime, using rest not recovery. So it is safe to combine this info with those training regimes.
Stamina does NOT effect condition recovery post-match. It only affects condition usage during the match itself.
Having a physio reduces match sharpness decay significantly, but it doesn't matter how good the physio is or how many extra you have - you just need one for the benefit.
50% match sharpness or 1 natural fitness recovers condition to 66% vs 68% for 100% sharpness. 20 natural fitness recovers condition to 74%. I mention these select figures to illustrate that natural fitness is kind of important to condition recovery, and match sharpness less so, but overall condition recovery is pretty stable and predictable regardless of the player.
There is a way to kind of exploit match sharpness gain:
friendlies:
~10 minutes for 100 (1%) match sharpness gain ~25 minutes for 200 (2%) match sharpness gain ~43 minutes for 300 (3%) match sharpness gain ~60 minutes for 400 (4%) match sharpness gain ~78 minutes for 500 (5% - max) match sharpness gain
So if you want to play absolutely optimally, you could sub a player at 78 minutes in friendlies to maximize match fitness. And throwing a player on for 10 minutes gives the most efficient match sharpness boost, while you'd know not to do 7 minutes as it gives them nothing.
For competitive as I mentioned before, it's 9% max instead of 5% max. However, EBFM did find that sometimes players would inexplicably get 10-11% max for a reason he could not identify, but I would just treat this as a kind of bonus.
9% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 50-65% sharpness 8% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 70% sharpness 6% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 80% sharpness 2% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 90% sharpness
Comaring training regimes after 19 days with 4 friendlies
Man City default:
Before final match - condition 83-91%, match sharp 91-95% After final match - condition 69-80%, match sharp 96-100%
Pure rest:
Before final match - condition 84-91%, match sharp 66-80% After final match - condition 67-81%, match sharp 72-86%
Quick + Attack + Match Practice + Quick focus + double intensity:
Before final match - condition 84-92%, match sharp 85-92% After final match - condition 71-81%, 93-96%
So HarvestGreen22 training is slightly better for condition, but a little lacking in match sharpness. However this may be about the right balance, as this was still before end of pre-season. Pure rest training is clearly problematic.
Training & rotation is something that has to be micromanaged as you go along, but here I've kept the same starting starting 11 for about 2 months in (5 friendlies + 6 competitive) and on the HarvestGreen22 training regime:
Before final match - condition 96-100%, match sharp 96-99% (all but one are 99%) After final match - condition 69-83%, match sharp 100%
So it happens to be well suited to fitness management to begin with. But if you were to try to keep your subs & backups at 95%+ match fitness, that would no doubt change things. So I did a full rotation (using only 7 subs though) every match:
Before final match - condition 95-100%, match sharp 79-99% After final match - condition 73-99%, match sharp 83-100%
Those figures include all the subs. 11 players had 100% match sharpness after the final match. So overall, it's not bad, but definitely needs more match sharpness for subs.
Now going by Piperita's clarification on the best HarvestGreen22 training regimes, and taking into account match sharpness, the top ranked one still overall looks viable: Quick + Match Practice + Attackx2 + Double Intensity + Quick focus. Since injuries are an enemy of match sharpness, I won't change the middle condition to double intensity, but just try and manage the players better. Additionally I've promoted more players to the first team squad, to make it 18 outfield + 2 GK, and added some more pre-season friendlies.
Results:
Before final match - condition 95-100%, match sharp 62-100% After final match - condition 69-100%, match sharp 78-100%
My observation here is that there were a significantly greater number of injuries, which led to low match fitness in a number of players throughout. Resting from training was also more frequent. You probably want just enough match sharpness so that low condition doesn't result in missed training days, which means either using a lighter training regime, or not scheduling too many friendlies.
I decided to have another go, cancelling the default friendlies and not adding too many. Because why not try and see if one can hold onto the optimal training regime.
Results:
Before final match - condition 96-100%, match sharp 89-100% After final match - condition 67-100%, match sharp 92-100%
So if you manage things right, it does work pretty well. I used just 4 pre-season friendlies here. I'm sure with some minor adjustments, you could get maintain match fitness of all players at 95%+ without having to field any low match fit players in competitive games (a handful of the backup/sub players could be played in u23 matches for the first month after pre-season to get them to 95%+).
tl;dr Use Quick + Match Practice + Attackx2 + Double Intensity + Quick focus (Agility for GK) training regime every week, even on congested schedules. 'No pitch or gym work' for first 3 condition icons. Don't do too many pre-season friendlies, it's counter-productive, 4 or 5 might be best. Full rest training lowers match sharpness far too much, but you don't need to change rest to recovery sessions or increase intensity at lower condition.
I stated in a post that jadedness doesn't matter much, but match sharpness is crucial.
I feel like this topic deserves it's own thread and I've done some original research for it. And I think that in a way it's one of the last remaining actual challenges of the game to make it fun. If you don't use gegenpress tactic or pick/train high pace/acc then you lose a lot, simple as that. But even if you work out the mechanics of fitness management as I am trying to do, it remains a challenging and rewarding aspect of the game. In fact, just knowing how much it effects win rate to me brings back some significant enjoyment to the game.
My overall impression is that counter-intuitively to my mind, it's better to sacrifice condition for match sharpness. Maybe this is why the AI often/always plays players with 87% condition without any rotation. It's because low match sharp players suck in terms of performance, low condition not so much (injury risk is bigger downside here). The other thing about it is that you can deal pretty easily with the problems of low condition - rotate them, pick low injury proneness players, rest them. Match fitness is much trickier, there is only one modest offset for it (natural fitness), it also has a high injury downside, you have to pay the price of lower performance to get their match fitness up if you neglect it, and as I'll show below even friendlies have a limit to recovering match fitness so there's no get out of jail free card really.
I've taken this graph from EBFM's video on match sharpness. What it's telling you is that the difference between 90% and 100% match sharpness is 33% difference in win rate.
For comparison, the difference of pace/acc 10 > 18 is 23.5% win rate according to HarvestGreen22.
To boot, match sharpness significantly impacts injury rate, even at 90%:
So how do we optimize for 100% match fitness of all players every match? And also, how to handle condition in concert with match fitness? There's a lot of variables to consider, it's fascinating to contemplate, but I will try and lay things out in the most straightforward way:
Starting at 100% condition, 90 minutes will reduce to 75% condition (typically).
Condition & match fitness update at midnight (00:00), starting the midnight that may be just a few hours after the match.
It takes 10 days for full recovery to 100% condition.
75% (day 1 - 16:00) > 83% (day 2 - 00:00) > 90% (day 3 - 00:00) > 93% (day 4) > 95% (day 5) > 96% (day 6) > 97% (day 7) > 98% (day 8) > 99% (day 9) > 100% (day 10)
In FM24, Man City (English Premier League) has the following schedule in a save I looked at:
67 games (excluding national games):
38 league
13 cup
16 continental
Total recovery days between matches:
53 x 7 days
4 x 3 days
5 x 2 days
1 x 16 days
2 x 13 days
1 x 11 days
1 x 9 days
So there are 9 matches where condition recovery will be insufficient, and another 53 which would be sub-optimal. With a weaker team with a less filled up schedule, such as Burnley, I found it could be as low as 6 + 35. In both cases, we would conclude a player should be ideally be rested every 2nd match.
But before we continue, let's look at the other half of the picture, match fitness:
after 3 weeks, match fitness dropped to 98% (recoverable in 1 game) (20 nat)
after 4 weeks, match fitness dropped to 94% (20 nat)
after 6 days, match fitness dropped by 1% (10-12 nat)
after 8 days, match fitness dropped by 2% (10 nat only)
after 9 days, match fitness dropped by 3% (10 nat only)
after 11 days, match fitness dropped by 4% (10 nat only)
after 12 days, match fitness dropped by 5% (10 nat only)
after 13 days, match fitness dropped by 6% (10 nat only)
after 14 days, match fitness dropped by 7% (10 nat only)
after 15 days, match fitness dropped by 8% (10 nat only) (99% > 91%)
after 18 days, match fitness dropped by 11% (10 nat only)
after 21 days, match fitness dropped by 15% (10 nat only)
after 4 weeks, match fitness dropped by 22% (10 nat only) (99% > 77%)
The gain rates are:
76% > 88% (1st friendly)
88% > 90% (2nd subsequent friendly)
90% > 91% (3rd subsequent friendly)
91% > 93% (subsequent competitive match)
Friendlies gain match fitness at 55% rate of competitive. As you can see, this is adequate for when the player has low match fitness, but once it hits around ~90% you run into the following complication: You can't have a friendly the day straight after the last one, so you are likely giving at least 2 days rest, yet only gaining 1% match fitness with the friendly.. so potentially you are losing 1% match fitness to later gain 1% match fitness. Hence, at 90%+ match fitness, competitive matches for gaining are recommended, and that means you have to consistently give players playing time - you'll note that the decay rate increases as a player becomes less match fit. Edit: On reflection and doing some testing, this part about friendlies hitting diminishing returns is in error. Unfortunately, I may have to re-evaluate certain conclusions I've drawn based on this presumption, which I'll revisit tomorrow.
If you do the math with the league schedule previously mentioned:
10 nat player needs to play every 8 days
12 nat player needs to play every 11 days (2 in 3 matches)
20 nat player needs to play every 21 days (1 in 3 matches)
So while for condition, a player should ideally play no more frequently than 1 in 2 matches, for match sharpness, a player typically needs to play either every match or 2 in 3 matches in most cases.
I accidentally pressed submit on this thread, so I will add more detail and my theory on squad composition in a followup post soon.
So I have concluded so far that for condition, playing 1 in 2 matches is ideal. For match sharpness, typically 2 in 3 matches is ideal, with natural fitness allowing some variation to this. But notably some players will even need weekly matches just to keep up and avoid exponential match fitness decay. I had a look at the availability of 12+ natural fitness in genie scout amongst players, and its fairly common, so I would say try to get players of 12+ natural fitness if you can, as 10 or less is quite unforgiving.
Now, the implications for squad composition. If you think about it, this is really something that hasn't been examined at all, in spite of how consequential we all know it to be - that ill-fated tendency of us to bloat our squads; what even is the actual optimal number of players for a first team squad?
In my view, the number is 20 outfield + 2 goalkeepers + the occasional promotion from reserve/youth squad or loan to cover an injury.
9 matches need sub replacements (10 x 9)
17/53 matches permit sub replacements (6 x 17)
26/53 matches permit sub replacements for high Nat players (4 x 26)
4 developing players (AML/AMR/DL/DR) get 35 matches
6 players (2 ST, 2 DM, 2 DC) get 26 matches
Remember that 25-30 matches/season is the ideal for player development. The reason why the wonderkids should typically be wingers not centre backs or strikers I would reason is that you don't want to interrupt your ST's bucketload of goals and young players aren't usually developed enough to fill the shoes of a proper DC, but also that wingers seem to tire fast and only have 1 of each position instead of 2 on the pitch.
It is definitely adjustable to some extent according to personal preference. Basically, for each wonderkid you add, make one of your starters a high Nat player so they can handle the reduced playing time.
Some extra info:
My figures are based on using the optimal HarvestGreen22 training regime, using rest not recovery. So it is safe to combine this info with those training regimes.
Stamina does NOT effect condition recovery post-match. It only affects condition usage during the match itself.
Having a physio reduces match sharpness decay significantly, but it doesn't matter how good the physio is or how many extra you have - you just need one for the benefit.
50% match sharpness or 1 natural fitness recovers condition to 66% vs 68% for 100% sharpness. 20 natural fitness recovers condition to 74%. I mention these select figures to illustrate that natural fitness is kind of important to condition recovery, and match sharpness less so, but overall condition recovery is pretty stable and predictable regardless of the player.
There is a way to kind of exploit match sharpness gain:
friendlies:
~10 minutes for 100 (1%) match sharpness gain
~25 minutes for 200 (2%) match sharpness gain
~43 minutes for 300 (3%) match sharpness gain
~60 minutes for 400 (4%) match sharpness gain
~78 minutes for 500 (5% - max) match sharpness gain
Source: EBFM
So if you want to play absolutely optimally, you could sub a player at 78 minutes in friendlies to maximize match fitness. And throwing a player on for 10 minutes gives the most efficient match sharpness boost, while you'd know not to do 7 minutes as it gives them nothing.
For competitive as I mentioned before, it's 9% max instead of 5% max. However, EBFM did find that sometimes players would inexplicably get 10-11% max for a reason he could not identify, but I would just treat this as a kind of bonus.
9% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 50-65% sharpness
8% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 70% sharpness
6% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 80% sharpness
2% match sharpness gain per 90min competitive match @ 90% sharpness
Puts a spanner in the works for "full rest" training
Thanks for your research GeorgeFloydOverdosed
Comaring training regimes after 19 days with 4 friendlies
Man City default:
Before final match - condition 83-91%, match sharp 91-95%
After final match - condition 69-80%, match sharp 96-100%
Pure rest:
Before final match - condition 84-91%, match sharp 66-80%
After final match - condition 67-81%, match sharp 72-86%
Quick + Attack + Match Practice + Quick focus + double intensity:
Before final match - condition 84-92%, match sharp 85-92%
After final match - condition 71-81%, 93-96%
So HarvestGreen22 training is slightly better for condition, but a little lacking in match sharpness. However this may be about the right balance, as this was still before end of pre-season. Pure rest training is clearly problematic.
Training & rotation is something that has to be micromanaged as you go along, but here I've kept the same starting starting 11 for about 2 months in (5 friendlies + 6 competitive) and on the HarvestGreen22 training regime:
Before final match - condition 96-100%, match sharp 96-99% (all but one are 99%)
After final match - condition 69-83%, match sharp 100%
So it happens to be well suited to fitness management to begin with. But if you were to try to keep your subs & backups at 95%+ match fitness, that would no doubt change things. So I did a full rotation (using only 7 subs though) every match:
Before final match - condition 95-100%, match sharp 79-99%
After final match - condition 73-99%, match sharp 83-100%
Those figures include all the subs. 11 players had 100% match sharpness after the final match. So overall, it's not bad, but definitely needs more match sharpness for subs.
Now going by Piperita's clarification on the best HarvestGreen22 training regimes, and taking into account match sharpness, the top ranked one still overall looks viable: Quick + Match Practice + Attackx2 + Double Intensity + Quick focus. Since injuries are an enemy of match sharpness, I won't change the middle condition to double intensity, but just try and manage the players better. Additionally I've promoted more players to the first team squad, to make it 18 outfield + 2 GK, and added some more pre-season friendlies.
Results:
Before final match - condition 95-100%, match sharp 62-100%
After final match - condition 69-100%, match sharp 78-100%
My observation here is that there were a significantly greater number of injuries, which led to low match fitness in a number of players throughout. Resting from training was also more frequent. You probably want just enough match sharpness so that low condition doesn't result in missed training days, which means either using a lighter training regime, or not scheduling too many friendlies.
I decided to have another go, cancelling the default friendlies and not adding too many. Because why not try and see if one can hold onto the optimal training regime.
Results:
Before final match - condition 96-100%, match sharp 89-100%
After final match - condition 67-100%, match sharp 92-100%
So if you manage things right, it does work pretty well. I used just 4 pre-season friendlies here. I'm sure with some minor adjustments, you could get maintain match fitness of all players at 95%+ without having to field any low match fit players in competitive games (a handful of the backup/sub players could be played in u23 matches for the first month after pre-season to get them to 95%+).
tl;dr Use Quick + Match Practice + Attackx2 + Double Intensity + Quick focus (Agility for GK) training regime every week, even on congested schedules. 'No pitch or gym work' for first 3 condition icons. Don't do too many pre-season friendlies, it's counter-productive, 4 or 5 might be best. Full rest training lowers match sharpness far too much, but you don't need to change rest to recovery sessions or increase intensity at lower condition.