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I was never the most gifted footballer in my youth, in fact at school I was only ever picked 3rd or 4th in the playground on the premise that I would go in goal (I was, and still am quite lanky) so I know I am not exactly the authority on how a footballer develops, but..
I’ve been playing CM/FM since the 96/97 game (the one with the grey square boxes as a menu) and the one thing that hasn’t changed in all these years is that PA is determined when you are invented on the game at 14/15 and it doesn’t change. It just seems to me that it’s a bit restricting to be labelled as a player with potential of 85 or 63 or 121 at the tender age of 14/15, and no matter which football club you are at, and no matter how good the facilities and coaches are, that PA number will never change. Take me for example, when I was 15 if I had been put on the game I’d have been judged to have a potential of somewhere between 1 and 1, yet if at the age of 15 I went to a state of the art youth academy with a state of the art training setup and 23 world class coaches it’s a fair bet to say that I’d be a lot better footballer than I am now, some 10 years later.
I think that on the game when you get a fresh batch of youngsters their PA shouldn’t be set in stone, and until the player hits 18 or 19 that PA could rise or fall depending on the environment where they train and who trains them. The future change in a players PA could also be linked to there own stats such as ambition, intelligence, determination etc. The rise/fall of the PA wouldn’t have to be huge, but the training facilities and coaches at a club should make a difference to a players PA. I’d love to think that if I got a youngster aged 14 on the game and he had a PA of 160, there was a chance that with my clubs youth setup and coaches, I could make him world class.
I always thought that the PA of players was not for us to know, there are ways to find out but it was simply there so that the game would know how certain players could develop?
A player should only reach there PA under perfect conditions, for example with world class coaches and a world class youth system with the right mix of first team football to aid them. Therefore your PA would probably have been around 50, but as you never had the right training by the right coaches, you never reached your potential and ended up as just some lanky guy who gets stuck in goal
In a word, no. Potential is the best a player can possibly be you could go to the finest youth academy in the world at 14 but you will NEVER exceed your potential. No one can make your potential increase or decrease only the ability you currently have will change. Its fair too say if i had gone to a state of the art training academy with the best youth coaches in the world i would be alot better than i am now but only because i would have reached my pontential not because i would have had more potential.
The real problem is that player are generated with ex 65 PA and reach that amount at 16 then they never improve. This is stupid, they should improve at least until 18/19; but before that PA shouldn't be set...
all this stuff about variable PAs or everyone should have a PA of 200 and the rest is based on your environment.
we're going along the assumption that we can see the PA. we shouldn't be able to. we get into this conversation about making PAs not set instone because some of us insist on looking at the PAs.
if you didn't then it makes no difference. the PA should be absolute. whether the player reaches that PA depends on their environment. this is how it is at the moment and how it should be.
Originally posted by postal postie:
all this stuff about variable PAs or everyone should have a PA of 200 and the rest is based on your environment.
we're going along the assumption that we can see the PA. we shouldn't be able to. we get into this conversation about making PAs not set instone because some of us insist on looking at the PAs.
if you didn't then it makes no difference. the PA should be absolute. whether the player reaches that PA depends on their environment. this is how it is at the moment and how it should be.
there is no PA IRE. how many times we seen PA changing to some player. it's just simplefied version of how things should be.
Variable PA is a bad idea in my view. This is because it could potentially mean the big clubs are constantly bringing through world class players simply because they are a big club.
If you are a small club trying to work your way up the ladder but the likes of Man United can constantly produce world class teams without having to find specific talent just because they can make any average joe a superstar talent.
Is it time for Variable PA 
Linear Mode
