retired_kellyk

Its hard for any of you guys to do a long term test on training. 6 months is not long enough. The forums actually miss the analysis Lyssien used to do for training, and the schedules he'd design...I'm wondering if we could design a methodology along those lines.


Objective: To find the best form of training for players:

1. Should it be general for all
2. Should it be specific targetted to positions
3. Should training be varied to account for player condtioning
4. Can it be a hybrid of 1 and 2.

Assumptions:
1. It has to be the same team
2. The sample group of players should be 22...10 first team, 10 reserves and 10 youth
3. The Assman should be left in charge of the matches and teamtalk
4. The manager will holiday every month and record the results at the end of the month


End of each month track results (Morale/Games Played/Injuries/Attributes increase& type of schedule)

Do one test with players on a general kind of schedule for 1 season; break the team down into age groups & play-time & morale for analysis. Look for correlations between personalities as well.

Using the sample group of players then repeat the test with another set of training schedules this time specific targetted training for strikers/midfielders/defenders/goalkeepers/fullbacks.

Repeat recording of results

3rd test: Training schedules are adjusted every quarter..only in areas of aerobic training and strength.

Final Test..6 months of general training followed by 4 months of specific training. Same method of recording results

Goal is to cross check all training results to find the best style of training for a bunch of players.

Test includes youth players as well.

This is a really long and involved test.

retired_becky

I was thinking about a suitable methodology for this type of test a few days ago, as I've always been interested in training up young players and I would like to get a better understanding of this aspect of the game.

The first thing that I would suggest is that, rather than picking an existing team, you think about creating a custom team in the editor for the test. This way you can control the CA/PA and other stats of each player and set up an 'optimised' test environment.

It might also be useful to have pairs/triplets/quadruplets of 'replicated' players in the team, so that you can compare training results on a 'like-for-like' basis.

There's almost certainly a random element in the training results, so it will be important to get a large pool of test data in order to get a clear picture of which effects are trends caused by the training system and which are random noise.

In fact, you could even fill a whole league with identical teams and collect test data from all of them over a season, using the same tactics and selection policies for each team.

retired_becky

I forgot to say, I'm up for helping to collect data for the test :thup:

retired_kellyk

A sterile group if you like... I like the idea but it sounds mammoth..the post has been up for a few days now and you're the only one who responded...hmm.

I definitely can't do this alone...and this will involve running the game on massive holiday tests.

retired_davejwk

This sounds an interesting research concept, but personally I don't have the time available to undertake a project of this size. An optimal way of recording attribute trends would be in Excel spreadhseets; basically list squad attributes at the start of a new game, and then record all trends per attribute in the same spreadsheet. At the end of a full season, analyse results dependent upon the specified starting criteria, IE the type of training schedules assigned, the duration of the schedules assigned, the number of schedules assigned, the rotation of training schedules, and so on.

Perhaps cross sections would need to be taken from different levels of football, in different countries, across various continents to cut down on bias.

retired_kellyk

Yeah that was what I was thinking too....wish I was still in uni...had tonnes of time back then to do this kind of thing instead of going to school

firefighterhilf

If I've got the time I'll have a go at this when I get round to buying '08 (Still in the middle of an '07 game with Darlington and I'll not be quitting it until they're League and Champions league winners).

I think it would be a very useful experiment, and spread among a few testers shouldn't take too long (although writing up the results of each players attribute increases every month may take a while).

Because of varying PA's when a new game starts it might be useful for us to all use the same database for a game already created. So someone could start a new game, save it, then upload the save. That way we'll all have the exact same players generated, with the exact same PA's.

Keep me posted and if I can find the time to help out I definitely will.

retired_uplift123

Good idea about the uploading of a "controlled specimen" game. also, rashidi, why not get a group of people to test all 4 theroies and then post the results.

I think also, that the same tactic should be used as if the same tactic is used with similar results across the test subjects then morale wont play too much of an issue to training results.

Being a mod, rashidi, maybe you could put a post at the top of this tread to track results.

There are a lot of influences that can change training results and even with the test game injuries and results will not be the same. Whatever the final decision on the testing procedure is i am keen to keep an eye on it

firefighterhilf

If we would all be using the same team and holidaying for a month at a time it may be simpler just to ensure that no-one changes any staff and gives no instructions to the ass man while holidaying.

Therefore each person would have the same ass man taking charge of every game and you'd think he'd use the same tactics in each of them (also by each using a save that's already been created you'd all have the same fixture list meaning the ass man should approach each game the same way right from the start).

This would save time setting up a tactic and then getting everyone else to set up the same one.

retired_becky

I definitely agree that we should all work from the same saved game, as it's the only way to get meaningful data for comparison. :thup:

I can also see the sense in using a team that is already in the database for the initial tests, as it will be much less effort to set up.

However, I think that it might still be a good idea to edit the coaching staff to ensure that each area is being trained equally effectively. For example, we could create a set of 'super' coaches for the first tests so that any effects we observe are not biased by the relative strengths/weaknesses of the coaching staff.

It may also be worth investigating whether we could set up a shared Google spreadsheet where we could each enter our results? I've never used them before, so I'm not exactly sure what is possible, but it might be more efficient than trying to copy & paste our results into this forum!