retired_tealjen

Before Reading:
Bear in mind that these was extracted from Goal-Kick forums and I probably link to SI threads etc. which may seem silly, so that's the explanation for that.

[center]Introduction[/b]
Seen there are not many guides concerning the tactical aspect of the game, and lack of any training articles, I decided to set up here few articles and guides. Those articles will include topics for discussion, and some parts which people tend not to pay attention to. Don't treat them as definite guides, every tactical so-called expert over the scene is basically a gamer that experience things and wrote them down.

Few days ago, something caught my mind, if you look at the main site major poll you'll find out that 66% of goal-kick main site visitors find the tactical aspect of the game difficult, surely training doesn't get much respect and people don't even bother changing the default ones so leave that for a while, but how's that possible that even tough there are 30+ topics over SI games forums, comprehensive and detailed guides regarding the various formations in our own content database and probably more guides around the scene, people still find tactical aspect difficult? I call it the 'here and now' attitude, if casual gamers used to buy few unknown amazing talents to boost their squad and win every possible trophy with the same downloaded super-formation (Diablo, Scramjet) now those days are gone for good, literally.

In addition to more accurate, realistic match engine we got ourselves less-effective transfer system in Football Manager, fortunately, managers can still do fine without any tactical knowledge simply by setting a 4-4-2 system and mastering the transfer market, so these type of managers can still have fun playing the game. Tactical-managers, such as myself, who don't pay that much attention to transfers, budgets or wages have now a brand new game to crack, a period of unlimited fun if you ask me.

As previously mentioned, there about 30 topics over SI games forums, located under the unofficial tactic bible right here, these are all kinds of discussion which I recommend reading but I won't be surprised if you don't, because who really can be arsed reading 30 topics (me!) and for what purpose? Therefore, with much awareness to the fact that people don't want to spend more than 5-10 minutes reading so I'll keep my updates short and to the point, moreover this introduction will also be used as index so you could pick up the specific text that interest you.

Any suggestions, ideas, things you don't understand that concern tactics/training, feel free to ask and involve. Next update today.

retired_tealjen

Training Approaches

Introduction

Training, probably the most important thing in real-life football, no matter what's the player's reputation, value, or position at a certain the club if he fails at training, he won't play (unless he's of course David Beckham). However, the importance of training in our lovely game seems to be less than garlic-shell, with the attitude "do-not-touch, it doesn't matter" attitude. In some degree the majority of people are right, if a player has a potential then he's going to improve, no matter what training he's on, default one or customized. Nevertheless, training not only improve randomly players stats, but it also affects their performance, morale and erm.. stats.

According to Marc Vaughan's "Hints and Tips for Football Manager 2006" there is a maximum effect of +/- 3 on a player attribute resulted from training, that's the difference between average finishing of 12 to lethal one of 15~!

Training is quite simple to use, just go and push the sliders as you wish, note that the physical criteria: Strength and Aerobic have more effect on player' overall workload than technical criteria.

The Slider System in training goes from 0 - None to 25 - Intense

Matching Training to Position

When people do involve in their team's training they usually do this by matching the training to the stats they want their players to improve, for instance a winger will have more physical aerobic and ball control than defending for the obvious reason that pace and dribbling are more useful for his position than concentration. This method usually comes with a creation of 6-7 to training schedules:

Goalkeepers, Central Backs, Full Backs, Defensive Midfielders, Attacking Midfielder, Wingers, Forwards and Strikers.

1. Note, central midfielders, are likely to fit into one of the two: defensive or attacking, depends on their tactical duties and stats.

2. Another comment must be said about the difference between forward and striker, forwards are the players that play behind the striker, they usually have high pace, acceleration, technique and dribbling but also good finishing and composure, it's a sort of mixture between an attacking midfielder and striker, with striker being the typical strong player with massive body, high strength, jumping and stamina. For that reason, forwards and attacking midfielders' schedules tend to be very similar with the exception of shooting for the forwards as after all, they are in front of the goal.

3. To maximise the effect of training you need certain amount of resources to acquire coaches with higher levels of attributes that will deal with each schedule. Surely a low league club with one senior coach can't handle 6 training schedules, moreover if he's on a part-time contract. As rashidi1 commented on The Sheffield United Project of Cleon: "Depending on what kind of side you take, the preparation is very different. With a good side you can be more selective, with a poor side you need to make some hard choices."

Global Training

This approach should be used in my opinion within clubs which don't have the resources or capability to implement the first approach. An example for it is the default training, having all the training categories set on medium with the exception of goalkeeping attributes, is a regime that meant to be keep on certain level of fitness and balance. However, a customized global schedule could more effective to your team needs, you can adjust the physical workload according to the level you're playing in and by that reducing injury risks or alternatively adding extra notches to tactical training to improve the overall tactical understanding of your squad - a preparation of a disciplined line up against much better opponent etc.

Individual Training

This is the very opposite to the global training approach, each group, depends on the area the manager wants to improve will have their own customized area, for instance a group of 'attacking full back' will have more attacking, ball control etc. than 'regular full backs' group. Obviously a schedule for each player is craziness and couldn't be taken into action unless you're one of top clubs in the game e.g Barcelona or Chelsea.

This was an observing text of few of the known approaches regarding training, in my next update I'll have a nice research about pre-season training with my Nottingham Forest team as example (from goal-kick 3rd official challenge of course!) with hopefully a comprehensive explanation of how to implement fitness training with minimum injuries.

retired_tealjen

Not much is known about pre-season training in Football Manager 2007, therefore I'm intending to explore it asking myself few major questions which hopefully I'll be able to answer. First of all I'll try to find out if there is any connection between highly physical training to the fitness of my team, Nottingham Forest. So, in the period of time between the start of the game (2nd July to the first competitive match against Northampton, 5th August) I'll keep my training schedule on the default one, when in second version, I'll use one general high physical training. I hope that the fact that we got only one month of pre-season is enough to conclude a definite conclusion.

First Version - Default Training

All categories are set to medium with exception of goalkeeping, overall medium workload.


No. of Injuries: 2
* Junior Agogo - torn groin muscle, expected to be out for 3 weeks - 2 months.
* Sammy Slingan - twisted knee, expected to be out for a week - 3 weeks.

Fitness in terms of percentages:
7 players are 100% fit;
4 players are 99%;
2 players are 98%;
1 player is 97%;
1 player is 94%;

Fitness in terms of descriptions:
9 players are match fit.
5 players are fully fit.
1 player is severely lacking in match fitness;

Second Version - Global Pre Season

Heavy Workload, 17 clicks on Strength and Aerobic each in addition to 9 clicks all the other categories except of goalkeeping.


No. of Injuries: 5
* Danny Cullip - groin strain, expected to be out for 2 weeks - 4 weeks.
* Junior Agogo - strained wrist, expected to be out for 5 days - 2 weeks.
* Julian Bennet - damaged heel, expected to be out for 5 days - 2 weeks.
* Ian Breckin - pulled hamstring, expected to be out for 2 weeks - a month
* Julian Bennet - gashed head, expected to be out for 4 days - 2 weeks

Fitness in terms of percentages:
4 players are 100% fit;
4 players are 99% fit;
2 players are 98% fit;
5 player are 97%, 95%, 94%, 93% and 86% accordingly;

Fitness in terms of descriptions:
4 players are severely lacking in match fitness;
7 players are match fit;
2 players are fully fit.
2 players are in superb condition

Wes Morgan and John Thompson are the only two players who are in superb condition, which I find surprising, despite the injuries it seems there is a little hope for this extra physical training, if only I could discover what these two players have in common which the other players don't. Firstly, I make a comparison, they both have high stamina and high natural fitness, but I feel that there are other players who also have these high stats and aren't in superb condition, perhaps it has something to do to time on the pitch? Thompson was 329 minutes in a game, while Morgan was 369 minutes on the pitch, I wonder if that's their uniqueness? I load up my FM Genie

Morgan:
Professionalism 12
Injury Proneness 4
Stamina 12
Natural Fitness 15

Thompson:
Professionalism 15
Injury Proneness 7
Stamina 12
Natural Fitness 14

If we calculate and filter Nottingham (actually you can't filter by team so I filtered by division and sort the teams) by these:
Professionalism > 12
Injury Pro. < 7
Stamina > 12
Natural Fitness > 14

I found that another player enters the filter named Grant Holt who isn't in superb condition, so is this the end of a brand-new theory? No! Because Grant Holt was sent off in one of the friendly and played only 181 minutes at all, so if we add playing time of above 300 minutes to our filter we get ourselves a theory!

As a direct conclusion from my experience in other games and this one, there seems to be a negative effect for extra physical training in the pre-season unless you have the right players; 5 injuries and general lack of fitness are the prize for those who aren't capable of maintaining a decent level of the below mentioned stats in addition to minutes of play.

Professionalism 12+
Injury Proneness 7-
Stamina 12+
Natural Fitness 14+
Over 300 minutes of friendly games

This is the current pattern for having players in superb condition at the start of the season.

* Writer Note: More research need to be done to make these theories actual facts, one team is sufficient for a theory, if you want to check these yourself and report to me in this thread I'll appreciate that, as testing it is time-consuming.

Next update will be on a try to turn one potential player, in different kinds of training builds to a different type of player, and once for all we'll check if it's all decided in advance or we can actually influence how our hot prospect's gonna look like. Stay tuned! :thup:

retired_tealjen

I can see some of the tags aren't working properly as in IPB version, if any moderator can simply delete those who aren't working it will be great. If I had a permission I would've done it myself. Cheers :thup:

retired_tp337b

Brilliant read Roy, any idea of next update mate.

retired_elpata

Are the training tips still relevant what Marc V wrote for 2006, seeing as training was revamped?

retired_tealjen

Thanks Cleon for editing my posts. Next time I'll write it without the broken tags. :thup:

Regard your comment, you're right, it's different since now certain attributes changed by different categories, but overall I think that he has made some fair points in his guide and the training hasn't changed much since FM2006.

The next update will be tomorrow or in two days, as I have to do some time-consuming research.