Testing Football Manager Conspiracy Theories

[@benwoodburn2649]

To be fair, the insane part isn’t the team doing well as physical monsters. The part I was most shocked by is the 180-190CA team with 10 in the meta attributes and 20 in everything else coming bottom

[@isaac15752]

its like saying a team with 3 toni krosses in the midfield is worst than shefield united, let that sink in, SHEFIELD UNITED, its like saying a team with benzemas as their striker options wouldnt score more than 20 gols, BENZEMAS not william osulas LMAO

[@abrkPL]

Funnily enough, Zealand wants to claim that all is well, but he essentially proved what the bloke on Reddit wrote. IMHO the biggest problem with all of this isn't that *specific attributes* are meta or not, but the utter and complete disconnect of this concept with reality. Consider a defence that has 1 tackling, 1 marking, 1 positioning. A midfield that has 1 passing, 1 vision, 1 decisions. Wingers that have 1 off the ball, 1 crossing, 1 work rate. Strikers that have 1 finishing, 1 heading, 1 technique. And this team *wins* because they're all great athletes and have great dribbling. This is utterly ridiculous as a concept. IRL sports, all team sports really, work completely differently. Most players have a decent baseline level in *all* skills and are *great* in some specific areas. This is a completely reverse concept. A player can be great at a very specific skill and unrealistically dogs**t at everything else and still win. This is what bothers me.

[@YevOnegin]

@@abrkPL I didn't watch the stream, so I don't know if this was part of it or not, but you'd have to watch a match or two to see what the match engine is even calculating. It might just be one player pushing his way through everyone. If they were zipping the ball around Sarriball at it's best with those attributes, it'd be ridiculous.

[@audereestfacere983]

​@@YevOnegin yes...and I did those tests. You can not see which team has 1 or 20 values for attributes. The gameplay looks total equal...stopped playing.

[@MrShadowRaiden]

i mean freak moments have happened you cant really go by that alone. also this aint just being "great" at a very specific skill this is being a god physically like literally walking god physicality wise of course you would dominate players. Adama Traore has absolute fuck all technical ability and yet has played in premiership and for Barcelona... he is the closest example and even he didnt have 20's in all of these. also when they won they didnt have 1 in work rate

[@zinstincthd6540]

The fact that a team that can’t kick the ball and has 1 stamina picked up 29 points in the premier league is ridiculous

[@willmckay8172]

But when you have a field full of flying steamrollers then I could see physically weaker players getting a bit overwhelmed 😅

[@pedroalexandrecorreiafigue2199]

I mean, they have 20 acceleration, 20 pace, 20 agility, 20 balance, 20 strength and 20 jumping reach. They are faster than anyone else, stronger than anyone else and jump higher than anyone. 1 stamina doesn't make statues. They still have the agility of prime Messi, the strength of Akinfenwa, jump higher than anyone else, and even at 1 stamina they will be fast. When 1 player gets the ball, the only way the opposing team can only take it way is by clattering him, and that's if they can catch up. And that gets the freaks a set piece, and they'll win every single duel. I'm not surprised they found a way to get 8/9 wins. When you add 20 dribbling and the complementary attributes it makes sense they won the league.

[@Eldriitch]

It is a bit riduclous, but the match engine probably doesn't have the flexibility to actually have the teams effectively counter such an extreme team -- real managers and real players would absolutely be able to exploit the gaps in such a team tactically -- and so even if they lose the occasional points to set pieces and such, they'd walk over such a team most of the time.

[@zinstincthd6540]

@@pedroalexandrecorreiafigue2199 grab 11 of the most insane Olympians vs a team of championship footballers that can actually kick a ball the Olympians are getting destroyed it doesn’t matter that they can put run and out strength then

[@Cassandra_Steel]

That is some bs and you know it. Take 11 top athletes that compete at the olympics and I'll bet my life they won't get a single point let alone score a goal in a whole premier league season.​@@pedroalexandrecorreiafigue2199

[@darioabbece3948]

"Players like this don't exist" Adama Traore:

[@Draddar]

I think someone actually did a test a couple of years back with a team full of copies of Adama Traore

[@Jimmys_TheBestCop]

@@Draddar Yup 5 Traore dominated the EPL it was on Si forum and then they buried the thread and started warning people

[@steve10]

Exactly, I hate it when people prove META attributes, but others stifle it as a conspiracy because it doesn't fit their narrative.

[@tomiwa2410]

adama traore has 20 pace but doesn't have 20 strength agility or whatever other attribute. he's always the go to for this topic as if its a proper counter argument but a simple breakdown shows that it really isn't a point at all

[@bigrandomun9267]

Yeah as soon as Zealand said players with 20 acceleration, pace and strength didn’t exist, my mind instantly went to Adama. This should just be known from now as the Adama Traore test with amazing physical stats and dreadful technical stats.

[@JSlvr]

A team with no technicals what so ever got 70 points in the Prem? That's completely crazy. Phisical is king in this FM.

[@aurionh7662]

Physicaly is king in every FM

[@prod.slowjoe6639]

I still play fm 2012 and I can tell you it's been like this for years.

[@MrShadowRaiden]

always has been and is literally the case IRL. its no secret that physical ability has overtook football for 99% of players and it takes a pretty much "freak" of technical ability to be the exception. best defenders currently in world are all physical freaks who are tall,strong and fast. Maguire is literally ridiculed for his slowness IRL again showing how much pace is seen even IRL as an important ability.

[@prod.slowjoe6639]

@@MrShadowRaiden Exactly , the best defenders are all fast. Think about Van Dijk & Rudiger etc

[@altacc5356]

Physical is king in real life too. Is just that you need technical atributes in real life too, besides physical. Also the last test failed because Zealand change Natural Fitness to 1, that was a big mistake. Natural Fitness is related to fatigue mechanics that results in lower performance in games. In fact Work Rate, Stamina and Natural Fitness are on that category and that's why the test have them at 13 instead of 1.

[@TheRoonie222]

I mean, I get the setting of stamina and natural fitness to be above one. I feel like the test would become somewhat irrelevant if a player got tired by walking onto the field and takes three weeks to recover from such a harrowing journey.

[@GaganSingh-nx2yv]

Yea meaning it's more than 9 attributes. So bit misleading.

[@iambicpentakill971]

@@GaganSingh-nx2yv It's very misleading

[@TheRoonie222]

I don't disagree but I can see why the OP made that choice. If you want to test the 9, it's important that the players actually play. What I meant by this is let's say you have 25 players registered but all of them are completely gassed after the first few weeks, how valid of a test are you doing? Especially too if we consider injuries mean the injured player is out for longer. I'm not sure how I feel about the choice.

[@ranonchikanda1052]

Exactly, if players r tired then they’d play below what they can physically so it’d kinda be against the purpose of the experiment

[@an0gr0br]

But that’s the whole point. He went viral on Reddit for implying that he ran a test that he didn’t actually run.

[@melodic_ez0657]

For me the weird part is the first test from the reddit post where he had the 9 meta attributes at 10 and the others at 20 resulting into a 180~190 players and the fact that they got relegated, when a team like that should walk the prem.

[@Thealan93]

I think that could be a reflection of just how good the standards are in the Prem now that the physical requirements are quite high relative to other leagues

[@jahvedcole]

Talking about it as a CA thing is true yeah, but I mean in a realistic sense, if you compare a player who has amazing dribbling, finishing, and passing, etc. but was physically unable to compete with actual world class athletes to say a skills youtuber or fancy street player, then it makes sense. Those are people who obviously are better at soccer than the average person and some of them even win technical skills challenges against actual world class soccer players, but in a real game a team full of those guys would be unable to score consistently against a team filled with prem athletes as they would just get physically dominated and be at a massive disadvantage physically in terms of just running around the field or trying to defend or attempting to get to balls.

[@gameplaytv1374]

because a team like that would never be able to get out of their half. No threat of through balls/balls over the top means every team can press them easily, which means their great technique will still have issues as all will be played in their half. When they do play out of the press, they will have to run form the half-way line towards the opposing goal with 1 pace... It makes total sense

[@Fortunaatp]

It’s not surprising, 10 in physical stats would make them the worst team physically in the league by far. Football is a full contact, physical game.

[@kylerodd2342]

Literally not weird at all. Makes total sense.

[@Bobertron199494]

You literally ran a test with 1s on every single technical attribute and the team managed 70 points! That's completely broken! A team of freakish heptathletes with worse than Sunday league football ability is not finishing ahead of Aston Villa in the Prem.

[@HappySisyphus0]

Its even worse if you look at the other test they did. 20s on everything except the meta ones which all had 10s, the team of football gods got relegated being last in the league just cause they were a bit slower and didn't jump as high

[@gameplaytv1374]

Yes a team of such gods would likely be very succesful. There's several things to remember here: - They can always press high and always punt it long from GKs, meaning their technical deficit does not really matter as much. - When pressing high, they will catch up with the opponents playing through their press - The game assumes tactical knowledge for all players - 1 is the baseline in this game, but does not mean they cannot kick a ball to save their lives. They are just very bad compared to Pro players. But there's some CBs in first leagues that have

[@kylerodd2342]

@@HappySisyphus0nah. That makes sense. The prem is the most athletic league in the world. Twinks would get literally crushed playing against world class athletes. Doesn’t matter how fancy your footwork is. Hence why older players who still have insane technical abilities cannot play at the top levels. Their bodies can’t physically handle it.

[@bogus1896]

This isn't broken as these players don't exist irl and you'd never run into this situation in game. If a player has +5 physical stats compared to your league average they're never signing for you and if you're in the prem you'll never find anyone with 19s or 20s on all physical stats. And if you did, generally the game will also have their other stats be pretty high and so you'd expect them to be insane anyways

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

​@@gameplaytv1374you like the game but accept the reality, TECHINCALS DON'T MATTER IN THE GAME. it doesn't matter if you cant pass, shoot, defend, attack, etc, if you have physicals you can destroy the best league in the world, WHICH IS COMPLETELY UNTRUE

[@Bobertron199494]

Still completely agree with the main thrust of the original test. The idea that perfect athletes, lacking any technical/mental ability whatsoever, can finish 6th in the prem is broken. The match engine doesn't work

[@ahmedhamzic9065]

Well, I guess since his last visit to FM headquarters Z never said a bad word about anything in the game, so I assume they have him now on the payroll so he wouldn't badmouth the game, as your statement was so obvious and I expected him to say that. Let's leave all of the four attributes on 13, and make meta ones 1 you wouldn't get a point, so yeah, the rest of the attributes are pointless. They need to overhaul their engine badly, this game became like Pro Evolution Soccer or FIFA on beginner difficulty.

[@averyspooky625]

@@ahmedhamzic9065 yeah, they defintely keep zealand on the roll even though he constantly complains about every game mechanic that doesnt work in every one of his streams. They defnitely see all that negative press as a good investment. Be for real.

[@adking18]

I think there's some confusion what 1 means in the scale. Every single player on fm has at least a degree of technical ability to play football, as they're in a football game. 1 doesn't mean has never kicked a ball before, it's relative to the fact they are a footballer. Presumably 1 is the kind of thing you'd expect from the worst league in the game, which is still a semi professional football league, not someone with no ability at all.

[@lewissthompson2005]

i doubt they have z on payroll, but some bias is defo in play here@@ahmedhamzic9065

[@bigkuriboh3814]

.

[@cltmck]

This seems to suggest, at least to me, that physicals are the most important thing for defending by far. Attacking is a little more nuanced where they need at least one complimentary technical and mental attribute. Defending it just seems to be jump high, be strong, don't get beat for pace, you'll be fine.

[@MarthaGiu]

Which is actually pretty realistic

[@lokiness13]

​@@MarthaGiu physicality is hugely important to defend IRL for sure, there are plenty of exemples of CB, LB/RB and DM who compensate their weaknesses with their insane physicals and still play at a very high level. It still is really disappointing that a team full of players with 1 in tackling, marking, heading, bravery, composure, decision, positioning and teamwork doesn't concede more goals in the hardest league in world football, they should be constantly making mistakes. Just the technical mistakes after recovering the ball should cost a lot of goals with 1 first touch, pass, composure, decision, vision. Also 1 tackling should results in plenty of yellow/red cards, I wish Z had shown the cards stats in the vid'.

[@Flinsenberger101]

And anticipation. Ngolo Kante, but with anabolics.

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

what people don't realize is TECHNICALS ARE COMPLETELY USELESS, not that they are less important, they just have no use. the match engine is broken

[@jonpaul3868]

The duality of football: defending =close the space, attacking= open/ create the space. Having tall, strong and speedy men to cover/sit on the spaces is definitely logical.

[@tajj7]

One key thing I noticed, in all the tests, not a single Liverpool player was in the top goal scorers, so whilst people will be like oh finishing doesn't matter, it clearly does because a team winning the league with 95 points, yet no one is getting more than 18 goals shows it clearly does. Same with like assists etc. that team was basically doing well because it had 11 super athletes on the pitch, so eventually through brute force, speed, jumping reach and dribbling ability it would score goals, particular players won't stand out or excel that much.

[@charliedickson3480]

Because they all have the same attributes rotation and position changed would happen more often meaning a larger variety of players and positions played

[@tajj7]

@@charliedickson3480 No because their positions wont have changed, the AI wont play a striker in defence or vice versa even if they had the same attributes, they will play them in the positions they naturally play which wasnt changed.

[@charliedickson3480]

@@tajj7 yes, but the whole squad is the same, so Eg Salah will get the same minutes as Ben Doak and so on, so not one starter

[@charliedickson3480]

@@tajj7 case and point

[@tajj7]

@@charliedickson3480 Nope cos reputation as well.

[@stein6570]

Don't know why Zealand didn't test the 10 in 9 attributes, 20 in everything else as I am very curious in knowing why this team in the Reddit post got relegated.

[@saintbeesechurger2800]

Because he knows that one would definitively show how absolutely busted the match engine is

[@zekasbazooka7104]

You completely ignored the other part of the test where a team full of 180-190 CA where relegated

[@lourencoteles8414]

How many 180-190 CA players like that have you seen in game? It clearly brakes FM system, the game isn't supposed to be ran in such extreme because they don't even exist IRL so SI doesn't need to make the ME and the system "understand" how good/bad this players are.

[@DM-rc4yu]

@@lourencoteles8414 That's total cop out.

[@lourencoteles8414]

@@DM-rc4yu Saying someone is coping out without explanation is a total cop out.

[@yoyomama99]

@@lourencoteles8414 FM is supposed to be a simulation game. In simulation games, you do, guess what, SIMULATIONS. A great simulation should be where every variable matters. This game makes us think they matter, when in fact they don't. Even then, you're ignoring the point of the comment. It's not that they're 180-190 CA, its that they have those abilities in skills that the match engine deems "not important", while in REAL LIFE they do matter. My Newcastle team in their 5th season has 5 / 6 180-190 CA players and they're dominating the league. So what's your point about it being unrealistic? You're telling us we can't make a dream team of 180+ CA players because it will break the game? Is that how a simulation game is supposed to be? You tell me, going by your logic. Is having a team full of super athletes that can't even pass or shoot properly be in the top 4 a realistic thing then? (the 1st part of the test) Going by your logic, this kind of thing doesn't exist IRL. Yet that is the result of the tests. Check your logic, mate.

[@lourencoteles8414]

​ @yoyomama99 Having 5/6 180-190 CA players and dominating is clearly a skill issue. It has nothing to do with the quality of the ME. A team full of 135-145 CA can win you every major league and major trophies. This aren't super athletes, this are super humans, the game wasn't made to account for them. It's pretty easy to understand why.

[@ultrazazzon]

so after proving that you need ZERO technical footballing ability to win the premier league, we conclude that the match engine isn't broken? uhhhhhhhhh

[@christiang5209]

You had 20 dribbling ;)

[@celticbarry9877]

To be fair only if you have the speed of an olympic winning 100m sprinter with the stamina of a olympic marathon winner, with the jumping of an olympic long jump winner and strength as good as any footballer ever its not unlikely that physical beings that dont even exist would make a great football team mainly as it would be hard to score against them, they'd be buzzing around the pitch like Kante x 10. Theres also a limit on how bad you can be technically at football, you can still kick a ball a bit and if you can do that and have the speed and stamina twice as good as your opponents then you will totally dominate them with running in behind and catching and pressing them. Hakimi Varane Van De Ven Robertson Makelele Rice Kante Nunez Vardy Gordon Imagine like that team just at their peak physicality and pace or stamina but dictounting their footballing ability and how hard it would be to score goals against them and then think these players wouldn't be near the physical monsters of those with 20 pace, stamina, acceleration, strength, natural fitness. Physical attributes do matter more than technical when you think about it, if Cristiano Ronaldo had no pace he'd probably be like Arnautovic or if Messi had no pace he'd be like Iniesta or Payet or something. They wouldn't be close to the players they are if they were just stiff and slow. Where as if Cristiano Ronaldo was a bad finisher he'd still score 80% of the goals he scored as he scored many goals as his movement and physical attributes got him into the box and many chances. Same with Messi if Messi's passing was poor he'd still get 100s of assists in his career just through his dribbling getting him into positions to set goals up all the time.

[@christiang5209]

@@celticbarry9877 "Imagine like that team just at their peak physicality and pace or stamina but dictounting their footballing ability and how hard it would be to score goals against them and then think these players wouldn't be near the physical monsters of those with 20 pace, stamina, acceleration, strength, natural fitness." I guess pretty easy, since they will probadly made up there bad positioning but couldnt control the ball so that the skilled players get them and then they get a free kick because no technic just physical fight for the ball. Totti, Schweinsteiger and co there are many great player who aint physical freaks, also most prem team have good athletic abilities (i would say around 15), and all 20 doesn meant that you run a marathon in the speed of usain bolt for 100m.

[@FellheartLokhir]

@@celticbarry9877 the issue is not having a team full of physical monster being this good, it is doing this good compared to a team full of mental geniuses and technical Ronaldinho. "he scored many goals as his movement and physical attributes got him into the box and many chances." So you say having 1 placement, 1 flair, 1 concentration, 1 aggressivity doesnt matter to be in the box. Dumb take. You do not see mental when they play good, but then a defender has a half second deconcentration and everybody falling on him for this "goal leading error"

[@rob41n]

Agree. Like 1 finishing, 1 long shot, 1 teqnique and 1 first touch. How do you EVER score?

[@caiowasem]

This gotta be some SI's PR. Zeeland saying that the test isn't really a problem, when everyone else can see it really is...

[@ozgecko4050]

It’s not though? These stats can’t be done in the game. So why does it matter ? Completely irrelevant. So if you try to scout the player that doesn’t exist what then?

[@lourencoteles8414]

Why is this a problem? FM isn't played in theses extremes it holds no value to the player experience of the game itself.

[@liam-398]

@@ozgecko4050 Because it implies that these attributes are the only ones that need adjusting to actually rate the player? It's pretty simple. The average on these attributes will determine how good your player is. Unless further testing proves that say the adding of additional attributes actually matters. The dribbling example was pretty rough.

[@DM-rc4yu]

@@ozgecko4050 Thankfully tests with realistic players have been done and show the exact same trends so we can ignore this theory of yours.

[@pv12345]

Paid by SI

[@williamjt31]

I think it’s pretty bad that Zealand just decided to hyperfocus on what happened because he didn’t even read the original post properly, then basically accuse the poster of being disingenuous. The post was not disingenuous, those endurance related attributes were always included, and are included in any test just to make sure the players used don’t die of exhaustion. He then proceeds to run the same test and gets the same results, all the while talking to viewers in a condescending manner. He takes dribbling out (dribbling was flagged as one of the meta attributes) and immediately does worse. He then adds a couple mental attributes and does no better. If anything he’s just proved the original poster right, while looking absolutely stubborn, condescending, and out to prove that FM has a good engine as opposed to just doing the experiment honestly-as advertised.

[@HappySisyphus0]

its understandable to be in denial when you find out the game you have spent countless of hours that is supposed to be complex just boils down to 13 numbers

[@raphaelbarreto2486]

I completely agree

[@DM-rc4yu]

If he showed the truth it would negatively impact him as a content creator.

[@kiliwick]

And even worse, he is like "wow you can't win the PL with only 9 stats set to 20!" Also him: "See ? Now that I added 4 stats to 13, i'm winning the PL !" Then remove dribbling and... oh, almost relegated Me: So you are saying that only 5 stats really matter, instead of the 9 announced ? But also saying that the match engine is perfectly working ? 🤣 The funniest thing is people saying "there is no player like this in game" But if you reduced those 20 stats to like 15 to 17 and keep other 4 stats to 13, well you kinda get a perfectly realistic newgen, and he'll be almost as good as in the test..

[@dario6075]

Most important video Zealand made this year. Tbh the fact that technique is valued so low by the match engine is sad.

[@Fortunaatp]

It’s like Zealand said in the video, it’s complicated. Agreed about technique. It actually explains a lot of things that have frustrated me in my FM experience. Guys on 17+ finishing blowing half their xG for consecutive season, or

[@dario6075]

@@Fortunaatp You’re right it is complicated but in my humble opinion a full team of players with 0 passing should not EVER be winning PL or anything for that matter

[@speedwaygamer]

Nah this is a really bad analyse of the situation. The 3 stats that mean the players don't get exhausted after 5 minutes and actually put in a half hearted attempt to win the game . Shouldnt be the only thing stopping a team with that many 1s from winning is stupid . If all but 10 stats can be put to 1 and the premier league is a walk over ..

[@aethelstan3279]

IT's wild how many times Z called the original post dishonest because he didn't read the bloody thing properly

[@michaelyo874]

Dude is completely biased, he cant accept whats in front of his eyes no matter what, even when his own test proved its 100% true.

[@The_Guy_You_Love_To_Hate]

It is dishonest though. You can't spend the entirety of the introduction separatingthe attributes in two groups, saying how you will highlight the importance of nine specific attributes and say that these alone are the game breaking ones and when it comes to explaining the experiment you create a third "group" of attributes and the only "screen time" (or, well, text... space?) they get is literally one word. Context is really important and our minds can be easily decieved to omit the the word "almost", just like people omit the second "the" in the classic reading experiment that's been circulating the internet for ages (and happens in my comment too). And this misunderstanding is not one that produces similar results, but wildly different ones that don't even help the original assesment.

[@charles-ericlevesque1892]

please stay away from science, you clearly don't understand what a controlled test is

[@EEVNS-er6ys]

​@The_Guy_You_Love_To_Hate if he didn't increase those other attributes then the test is defunct. Those attributes literally allow the players to PLAY games, having 1 natural fitness means that every play will either be injured or will need rest for 3 weeks after1 games

[@The_Guy_You_Love_To_Hate]

@@EEVNS-er6ys ...thus disproving from the get-go the whole point of the experiment, clearly written in the post's title with caps that "ONLY 9 ATTRIBUTES MATTER".

[@stevec5034]

FM need to have a look at this. How can a team (beasts or not) who have never played football before get 70 points in the prem, that's makes absolutely zero sense.

[@fugginbazza]

They have played football before. A rating of 1 indicates a very basic ability to perform the task within the context of football. Saying 1 has no value would mean that a player with 1 pace or 1 acceleration would be incapable of movement. They'd be VERY slow but they would be able to run.

[@lourencoteles8414]

This team doesn't exist! The ME isn't catered to "understand" players like this because there are no players like this.

[@speedwaygamer]

Would be interesting to see what the 9 attributes players would do in the championship rather than premier league

[@DM-rc4yu]

@@lourencoteles8414 Multiple tests with closer to reality or entirely realistic players have been run that disprove this theory of yours. Trends are still the same.

[@kiliwick]

@@lourencoteles8414 But there is players with every physical stats to 15+, especially if you play a lot of season and have newgens, and even more if you know how to train your own player, which the IA doesn't Which means that those "perfect" players doesn't exist, but some close to it does, and they'll still break the game, and they don't need to have an especially high PA tho

[@Jack-pp8eg]

Bro is trying to say the match engine isn’t broken 😂

[@tabletbrothers3477]

Bro needs to see the next test by the new group

[@mathieuouimet6081]

But you can argue that all those attributes that stay at 1 during all those test clearly doesn't matter. Finishing and heading stayed at 1 but the team still scored some goal.

[@gameplaytv1374]

Yes a team of such gods would likely be very succesful. There's several things to remember here: - They can always press high and always punt it long from GKs, meaning their technical deficit does not really matter as much. - When pressing high, they will catch up with the opponents playing through their press - The game assumes tactical knowledge for all players - 1 is the baseline in this game, but does not mean they cannot kick a ball to save their lives. They are just very bad compared to Pro players. But there's some CBs in first leagues that have

[@gameplaytv1374]

If you aren't a freak athlete, those stats matter more. But yes, since the technicals need physicals to be useful, phyicals matter more. Considering how much the game has evolved physically, I think it's realistic. Maybe slightly overdone, but realistically in the right direction

[@The_Guy_You_Love_To_Hate]

Honestly, there is a serious argument to be made (and a very very hot take) that finishing is literally irrelevant as an attribute. Not in FM, but in the real life game.

[@langletprolet8378]

@@The_Guy_You_Love_To_Hate I would somewhat agree in FM, but not in real life. Because to me its very clear who has got very good finishing abilities, those that are mediocre, and those that are just bad.

[@The_Guy_You_Love_To_Hate]

​@@langletprolet8378 I was under the same impression too. Frankly, I still can't get my head around it. But the premise is as follows: We have xGoals, which take every parameter under consideration, except the player himself. So it measures what an average player would do at a shot. Now if finishing is a thing, that would imply that elite finishers such as CR, Lewandowski, Benzema and others, must be way above that average, meaning that they should overperform their xGs, because if not them, then who. Turns out, with the exception of Messi, every other elite striker (in a span of many seasons, not just one) scores what their xG say an average footballer would. Most of them were at best 1-2 goals/season more than the expected and at worse 1-2 goals/season below that. And the takeaway was that in the end, a striker's ability to score goals is dictated not by their accuracy, but with their ability to create good chances for themselves, utilising their speed, their dribbling, their positioning, basically everything they do before they take the shot. Because when they do shoot, in the long run their conversion rate is the same as eeryone else's, the difference being that the average striker is unable to make the shots that they do and score the goals that they do.

[@Barbaryotaku]

Running damage control for the game that funds his channel.

[@akt154]

Zea is one stubborn guy! the fact you can be a worse footballer in very specific positions that require technical ability which just gets overpowered by the pure physical ability literally proves the match engine is completely broken.. if not badly programmed and pre determined based off a few 'what the engine considers important' attributes

[@bogus1896]

Why would you want the match engine to cater to this very specific and impossible situation? We've known for a while that physical stats are the most important. Wild that the engine bias is this crazy but it literally doesn't impact anything. If you're not in a top league you aren't going to be able to sign a team of players with every single meta stat 5 higher than the average of the league you're in. If you are in a top league then if you did find such a freak athlete, you'd assume they'd be insane anyways. Remember this whole situation is balanced because worse players typically develop stats that are related to their role first. So to find a player that has all of the meta stats developed highly would suggest the rest of their stats are also pretty high.

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

​@@bogus1896 search FM ARENA PLAYER ATTRIBUTE TESTING on google. you are going to see that technicals and mentals (except anticipation and concentration) don't change the performance, while physicals change a lot. IT'S NOT ABOUT A IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION, its about the game being broken and not working correctly.

[@Pakinov]

Everytime something gets deeply tested in fm, it just come to show how big of a fraud most if its mechanics are.

[@FrankOpinion1]

So instead of the 9 meta attributes It's 13 meta attributes right?

[@raphaelbarreto2486]

Yes, but he doesn't want to admit that the match engine has been exposed

[@FrankOpinion1]

@@raphaelbarreto2486 honestly even I was hoping that theory to be fake

[@ClutchPwnageTv]

You should redo the dribbling set to 1 test for each of the other 9 "Meta" attributes. That way we can see how much each of those 9 attributes affects the team's performance in isolation. If 1 dribbling got Liverpool 6th place, I'd be curious to see what 1 in those other attributes would do to them. For science!

[@CoolSawce]

If you look at FMArena's player attributes testing, they've done pretty much that

[@charlesfowler4308]

I think giving players average Determination, work rate and stamina is entirely fair as they just affected the application of other attributes if you have 1 in all those all your other attributes are pretty useless as it doesn't matter if you're great at running, dribbling or passing if you never bother doing either

[@arnaudleroij3996]

Literally disproves the original premise. He mentioned these stats as most important and the others as useless. If these stats impact the performance heavily, it literally makes these stats just as, if not more important.

[@samalk5742]

There is a difference between having a minimum requirement and being important differentiators at higher levels. This showed technicals have no minimum requirement, those key ones have a min requirement and may or may not matter to increase beyond that and that physicals dominate over anything else.

[@thegrumpyraccoon]

That's why the potential isn't as important as attribute allocation. You can have amazing right backs with 130 current ability if the spread of points is proper.

[@mattnottm8363]

That's why I basically ignore the in game potential ratings (I prefer not to look at CA/PA). My recent youth intake has a goalkeeper who has 5 star potential but his current attributes are terrible. I'm talking about 1s and 2s in key areas Having played the game for many years I know that even with the best coaches, the best facilities along with playing him in the first team he will never become a good player. His base attributes arent good enough to give him the chance to improve

[@edenhazard2751]

yeah like a midfielder can have 140 CA but does not have passing or vision.

[@langletprolet8378]

@@mattnottm8363 if i may ask, what are GKs key attributes? Like the most main ones

[@andreasdefeuth6737]

@@langletprolet8378 Reflexes, Agility, Aerial Reach, Jumping Reach

[@johnniea4684]

I agree with this. Going way back to FM2010 I had a LB who I was tempted to replace every season, as overall he had no stand-out attributes, yet routinely played well and ended up with over a n average 7.00 rating. It's weird how getting told by your coaches that he's your worst starting player, yet still does well on the pitch, can effect your thinking though, so you're always on the look out for someone who looks better attribute-wise. Years (in-game) later I had the same thing with another LB. I paid big money for him, my coaches think I should replace him yet he plays well, including getting PotM in the last Champions League final. He's better on paper than the earlier guy yet still has just a solid look about him, rather than looking a standout in his attributes.

[@xFurashux]

Finally, just after a couple of hundreds of hours in FM I learnt that physical attributes are the most important.

[@mattnottm8363]

Always have been 🌍👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

[@CimbomFanFiction]

I think thats why everybody is freaking out especially the FM youtubers bc its kinda like saying its all a sham. Or shammier than we thought. We all spend too much time analyzing players with 1-3 pts different in finishing/tech/dribbling/etc and get huge boners when our wonderkids go from 12 passing to 15. While they do all still matter its just not as important

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

@@CimbomFanFiction the point of the testing is not that those attributes are not as important, is that they are USELESS. in this video, zealand tests the team with 1 in technical and mental and he got 70 points. he does the same but now with 20 in passing and 2 key passing mentals and the team suddenly got points??? what is the point? firstly, how can a team with 1 passing, 1 vision, 1 dribbling, 1 first touch get off a press in the premier league in the prem?

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

​@@CimbomFanFictionplease check FM ARENA PLAYER ATTRIBUTE TESTING on google and see that most of attributes doesn't matter at all

[@xFurashux]

@@gabrielfrancisco5661 maybe it was just 1 player after another trying to run by themselves to the goal using those physicals but again, with drybling on 1 it seems stupid. I guess with finishing on 1 but 20 strength when they get lucky to shoot at the goal and not the GK, it's a goal. To some point it makes sense that physicals are more important because that's how it is in modern football but they went too far with it.

[@bendrew5300]

wait until he hears about the transfer glitch

[@wiselettuce8715]

He knows it for sure, it's just not worth a video. lloujo did made a short about it though

[@Topolinho]

The transfer glitch is such a non issue. It's a single player game. You can modify the game however you like. The stat thing is a whole engine fault so having a vid on it is more important.

[@matthijsvroon]

​@@Topolinhoit's not a only single player game. I have not played the single player since fm21

[@anggaihzap]

@@matthijsvroonif you decided to use it on online games, that’s on you

[@slingshot7792]

@@matthijsvroon you’re trolling right? Multiplayer is so unstable and slow lol there’s no way in hell😂

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

what about when Z changed the passing stats to 20 and the liverpool players couldn't even get a player to the TOP 3 ASSISTS of prem? the technical and mental are completely broken, doesn't working at all

[@lunardancer6047]

The game is broken, I don't know how you can deny it at this point. Physicals matter way too much, technicals not enough, and some mentals (like positioning) literally don't do anything.

[@raphaelbarreto2486]

He's insanely biased towards FM and the staff that works on it. Either that or he genuinely thinks a team that can't pass a ball would not finish with 0 points in any of the major top flight leagues in the world.

[@michaelh878]

​@@raphaelbarreto2486The game pays his bills. If he says it is trash what does he do until the next patch?

[@dothegooey8867]

its really not that deep @@michaelh878

[@lourencoteles8414]

Riddle me this. How many players have you encountered that are similar to the ones in the test? FM isn't catered to "understand" such extremes, they don't exist IRL, so why would FM even test this type of situation if it will not happen in game?

[@DM-rc4yu]

@@lourencoteles8414 Except extremes do not matter as same tests with realistic players have been done and show the exact same trends. Stop burying your head in the sand.

[@GamesofSchill]

i honestly find the match engine easy to go by. you can raise a team from zero to hero pretty easy the only thing holding you back is the lack of fans and the lack of reputation . ( the money sometimes to like sponsors etc.)

[@langletprolet8378]

What are your tips?

[@GamesofSchill]

@@langletprolet8378 4 in the back at least 2 midfielders the rest doesent matter. Get player with Key atributs like a defener with 10 marking 10 tackling and half descent physics they are cheap and realiable. with this i got Avenir ( luxemburg) to win the champions leauge. Got Tura Medlorf in the Bundesliga with strait promotions vom Landes,Ober,regio,3 in to the 2 Divsion. Evry postion has a highlitet area this schould be minimum 10 or higher the rest is bonus. Thats how i do it.

[@house382]

I like how the more worked up Zealand gets the louder he becomes. It's fantastic.

[@ismailbaied8503]

This is why it's important to read the "Methods and Materials" sections of studies thoroughly rather than just reading the abstracts. Glad someone in your chat caught that "almost" in the description.

[@lunardancer6047]

Most people understood the original viral reddit test. They included screenshots and everything. You didn't understand it because you can't read.

[@alexsheets9085]

im genuinely so confused it feels like the entire video is talking about how the guy didnt do the test right

[@michaelyo874]

Zealand is delusional as fk, FM is his life, he equates it so he cant accept dude done test right and results are completely correct lol.

[@sarahparkinson3021]

@@michaelyo874I don’t think it was about the test being wrong, it was simply he misread the “almost” part, which meant he actually didn’t initially do the correct testing.

[@iambicpentakill971]

He did the test right, he just, intentionally or not, misrepresented what he did with what he posted

[@charles-ericlevesque1892]

just say you don't understand english then xd, he said multiple times that the guy did the test right, but was misleading about it

[@Sasquatch10]

I don't understand how you got to that conclusion, he said multiple times the test was right!

[@maxryan5861]

You can tell how upset he gets hahahha madness. Salty someone’s run a test that has a reality factor.

[@joaodomingos7860]

The last 3 FMs are like this: Broken! Fm have 36 attributes that the player can see, and 10/12 are the only ones that matter? What a game...

[@alvaropedro636]

If you can find and buy guys with 20 in all Physical - yes

[@patshipnik3689]

There was a test later, where test was setup like 17 speed/acc, all other physicals were 15; most of technicals were 11, some of them were lower; same with mentals. They weren't physical freaks like in "meta" test, they had very good physical attributes and not very good mental and technical attributes, relatively to EPL. And this team again comfortably won EPL (CA for these players were between 130-140). So, here's that. And I like how Zealand and almost all critics ingnored elephant in a china shop. Team with 20's across almost all mental and technical attributes finished dead last in original test. And they didn't had 1's in "meta" attributes, they had 10's there.

[@Jimmys_TheBestCop]

Plus Zealand already covered Squirrel Plays whose app weighs acc/pace #1 at every position because he based his research off of fm arean, genies scout evaluator and the chinese game developers. Kinda shows he has no idea what Squirrel Plays app was really about

[@HappySisyphus0]

I think its funny how people who critized the test ignore the part in which literal gods of football got relegated just cause they are a bit too slow or don't jump as high

[@D64nz]

4:00 a great working example of why all real studies get peer reviewed.

[@allackballack]

so instead of 9 its only 12 that matter lmaoo

[@cyphate]

Pretty bold of zealand to run this test and then say Adama Traore doesnt exist

[@Fortunaatp]

Adama has dogshit mental traits irl. These guys can anticipate like Maldini.

[@dantaylor5791]

You should definitely have watched one of the games to see how the match engine represents the attributes in game

[@bushidobrown6742]

He did watch some of the games

[@tajj7]

A key point as well should be that it wasn't just one superhuman, it was a whole squad of super humans, every single player as fast Usain Bolt, as agile as Messi, with the jumping reach of an NBA player and the strength of an olympic wrestler, plus the dribbling ability of prime Messi and as soon as one gets tired you have the same guy to bring on. I mean bringing on a guy with 20 dribbling, pace, acceleration, agility, balance and strength against tiring players is just an insane impact so OF COURSE that team is going to do well. We all know that technically limited but very fast, strong players in real life football are commonly used as impact subs, and this is someone who is physically above anyone in world football, and then you can bring 4 more guys on just like it. I'd point to the impact Jonah Lomu had on Rugby, a guy of that size, that could run that fast, change direction that quickly, was in his prime almost unplayable. That is the kind of physical freak you are putting on the field in those tests, so a whole team of them doing well doesn't surprise me and I don't think it shows the ME is 'broken' or whatever, it just shows that if you put 16 supermen onto a football pitch, yeh they are going to do well.

[@johnniea4684]

I agree with you to an extent. This is why some players in youth football dominate, due to being unusual physical specimens for the age group - it's like they are 17-year-olds playing against 14-year-olds. As they move up to men's football the advantage is lessened and more often then not they don't make it - unless they have actual footballing ability.

[@tajj7]

@@johnniea4684 Yeh very good point, we have seen players pull absurd numbers in youth football because of a big physical advantage that can often lead to them not even making it professionally as they hit adult football. This I suppose would be similar, it would be like a putting a team of low level semi-pros men against an elite academy U15 team or similar. We also see U23 PL teams struggle in the paint trophy against L2 teams as well.

[@johnniea4684]

@@tajj7 Exactly.

[@samalk5742]

There maybe just isn’t enough scaling for the low end technical attributes. A Sunday league quality player would not be able to use their skills - it would be like Bolt when he tried playing football they just couldn’t string any passes together.

[@sociopathetic17]

Wrong assumption here. 20 doesn't necessarily mean the best of all world. 20 means among the best of all football players in the history. So, Usain Bolt has more than 20 pace. Michael Phelps has more than 20 stamina. Vince Carter has more than 20 jumping reach. Mike Tyson has more than 20 strength. FM attributes are varied in footballers' context. Do not compare apples and oranges together. Best metaphor here can be a team of pro runners (but not best like Usain Bolt) can beat half of the premiere league on daily basis. And if those pro runners have also jumping and dribbling skills, then they can win anything in football according to FM. And this is ridiculous.

[@alexdewsbury5989]

“Players like this don’t exist”. Forget Adama Traore, I present to you Thomas Amang. May I bless you with his powers

[@HappySisyphus0]

So basically only 13 stats matter instead of 9? and so the game engine is fine then?

[@nicholasmello9855]

If you have 10 outfield freaks of nature who are as fast as Bolt/Noah Lyles, as strong as an NFL LB, can change direction like Tyreek Hill, can go to full speed as quickly as the fastest sprinters in the world, and can dribble like Messi, that team would dominate any team just based on athleticism in real life.

[@HappySisyphus0]

Alright then, look at the other test, why a team with 20s on everything and 10s on the meta attributes got relegated? A player with 20 passing always giving the best pass to a player with 20 off the ball and 20 finishing should score in most cases, but they get relegated somehow@@nicholasmello9855

[@nicholasmello9855]

@@HappySisyphus0 Because they don't have the athleticism to get in said spots, just like it would in real life in the premier league.

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

@@nicholasmello9855 he redid the test with no dribbling and still got 70 points in the hardest league in the world. search FM ARENA PLAYER ATTRIBUTE TESTING on google and see the results. stop the coping, game is broken

[@lourencoteles8414]

This are extremes. You don't see this in game.

[@jimibaboza]

I worked on FM back in 2001, back then it was more than possible to game the system by putting all of your players in the centre and playing an aggressive setup. Doesn't work now though, the game engine is pretty complex these days.

[@dylanrimbaud3193]

Football Manager didn’t exist in 2001

[@jimibaboza]

@@dylanrimbaud3193 yes it did, it was called championship manager though.

[@TricksterBloom]

I love Football Manager experiments! Would love to see you do experiments and tests with Football Manager

[@Big73Red]

FMythbusters is actually a pretty great idea for more content

[@Oi-mj6dv]

Physical attributes need to be nerfed. Yes, you can have a physical monster and have him do a good job at specific tasks but the BEST teams ever in the history were never built around them. You had your 1 or 2 but the rest were all either technical monsters or mental geniuses or at least had something to balance with the physical attributes. Ajax, the Orange clockwork of cruyff, peak barcelona, 2008 spain. Brazil back in the day etc etc etc etc. The fact that you can run a club full of incompetent footballers but with perfect NFL combine scores and be competitive should be a warning sign to SI to stop taking the piss and weigh the attributes more sensibly per position/role.

[@flameofthegame]

I think it makes sense ,imagine you are physical freak of nature but you gas out in like 15 minutes ,you cant really do that much in that short time .

[@danielevensen84]

Glad you were able to get to the post before it was deleted! Well done, though you'd have a much more rigid test if you used FMRTE instead of the in game editor.

[@yungpenaldo78]

Why was the original post deleted? Just pro censorship nazi reddit mods?

[@Jimmys_TheBestCop]

It is not about players actually having "20's" in meta attributes it is about your club being +3 points on the average higher in those meta attributes then the computer clubs. Which in start of save is harder then after 10+ seasons. At the start of the save in EPL and top UCL it is hard to be +3 higher because of In Real Life players being physical monsters. However the longer you go into a save aka Park to Prem or Build a Nation or even JourneyMan the Computer clubs can NEVER build clubs as good as the beginning In Real Life players. You can get +3 on Haaland he is basically all 18's. SO what you see in 10-15+ years later is the EPL will only average like 14 in physicals while the start of the save it is like 16-17. This allows us the human to easily find better physical players then the computer and be completely untouchable. So much so that nearly all other mechanics are useless. Aka morale, dynamics, even tactics. You can load up a blank tactic with no team instructions and Win the EPL. When the EPL averages 14 acc/pace on their Strikers there are a ton of 15/16 centerbacks that will completely prevent them from ever scoring. While your Strikers will be 16-17 speed and the EPL centerbacks in the future are like 12-14. I am in 2040 there are 100 players with 15 or higher for acc, pace, dribbling while also having 10 or higher for jumping reach. The rest of their attributes wont be close to 1's. And most are pretty cheap obviously a ton of World Class well rounded guys with way higher then 1's. The person on reddit test was too extreme. With 1's and 20's. It is about having the meta attributes higher then the rest of league especially by +3 points.

[@Chengyuan79]

... oh. Playing FM20 with Milan, 2057. While I use the star ratings because i do not peek at CA/PA, i didnt expect what you said to make so much sense. While there will be outliners (my current DLP is 35yo, pace12sta10str10, and had ~7.48 avg ratings for 30+ matches total still), i unknowingly prefers to sign pacy 5* SCs. Need to get a pacy CB next season~! Thanks~!

[@jackmcgarrity]

Well allocated complimentary attributes can make players who seem terrible absolute game breakers. Matt Smith at Salford is 34 has 2 acceleration and 3 pace, terrible right? He's also 6'6, 20 heading, 18 jumping reach, 17 strength, 19 bravery, 17 aggression. The man wins every single header that's ever been contested. I've done 2 saves with Salford and Wrexham and both times Matt Smith has top scored league 2 and then league 1 with over 30 goals in each season. 130+ goals in 4 seasons. Absolute monster.

[@Thealan93]

Doesn’t that just say more about the level of the league, how important certain attributes are and how well you managed to take advantage of those attributes though?

[@jackmcgarrity]

@@Thealan93 Perhaps. I'd be genuinely interested to see how many goals he would get in a Premier League team. From corners alone I'd guess 10+ and wouldnt be shocked to see him hit 20. The guy is a 2 1/2 star player in a League 2 side so I'd guess no more than 1 star in a Prem squad. His attributes are just perfectly aligned to do exactly one job at a world class level.

[@CimbomFanFiction]

@@jackmcgarrityhe would prob score more than a striker with 17 finishing long shots dribbling technique’s even if we gave them 10 accel/pace

[@michaelh878]

​​@@jackmcgarrityA lot. Had a striker average a goal every 41 minutes off his 19 jumping and he wasn't even the person I aimed for from set pieces as a defender with 18 jumping was better.

[@lourencoteles8414]

@@jackmcgarrity Olie Palmer scored 22 goals in the PL with Wrexham for me in FM22, mostly coming off the bench. A goal every 60 something minutes if I'm not mistaken.

[@siuuuuu6216]

The problem here seems to be that a player with such low CA can be a premier league winner , wich means that PA depends on the type of player you have and the atributes you have to look to

[@tsoiboy4073]

Zealand: No athlete can have... Jonah Lomu's ghost: Hold my beer.

[@eunbyul416]

Better tests have been done by the members of fm-arena and clearly show a attribute bias by the match engine, regardless of detail level. Any other tests than those are just cheap knock-offs of the original! After featuring squirrel's shitty python program on your channel that, I'd have hoped more research would've been done into further videos about this topic.

[@Jimmys_TheBestCop]

Which is hilarious because Zealand already showcased Squirrel Plays app which is compeltely based off of fm arena, genie scout and the Chinese developers all saying speed is #1

[@lourencoteles8414]

I've been playing since CM 99/00, physical attributes were always more important than technical and mental attributes. This just means FM values them more.

[@tajj7]

It also makes sense that passing/vision is not going to be impacted that much by physical attributes, because pinging a ball around doesn't need you to run. The best playmakers in world football often were not world class athletes. Also those sort of attributes to work well need other complimentary attributes like technique, top vision, first touch etc. and would also need the right system to excel, probably with good traits, but then would be super effective. So yeh in reality its not about 'meta' attributes, its about the right combination of attributes.

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

what about when zealand redid the test putting 20 to passing and key passing attributes and there was no liverpool player in the assist leaderboard?

[@ErolCanAkbaba]

@@gabrielfrancisco5661 KDB can get tons of assists by servicing a physically dominant goal scorer (Haaland), but imagine if Haaland had 1 finishing and 1 heading. How can KDB get lots of assists if his great passes aren't converted to goals often enough?

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

@@ErolCanAkbaba well, then if we look at the team with 1 technicals and 1 mental who is scoring then? own goal? the players are scoring. they have 20 passing so they should get some assists, but they don't. actually, they get 70 points with 1 passing, 1 decisions and 1 composure. they get 50 points with 20 passing, 20 decision and 20 composition. what is the point of this change? i get that there is rng but at least it had get a little bit better right?

[@Kaykaysnl]

good job failing to understand the premise, its about all the other attributes not having any importance. but sure

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

him and his blind fanboys just think about the super athletes and forget about the rest and most important fact

[@WaariGaming]

I like how the edit left out the part where he first spent an hour saying how there is no way the test is accurate. Mocking the creator of the post about the "obvious mistake" they had done setting up the database and then pretends the post was massively misleading because he skipped reading past the title of it. All while name dropping the lead dev at SI being "his friend". Huge ego over being good at a very simple video game. @@gabrielfrancisco5661

[@YevOnegin]

Also factor in Liverpool will have high consistency, high important matches and generally good personalities. I'd be interested in the same test with a squad with mediocre consistency/important matches and balanced personality. Because they're the biggest mystery to me by far in terms of how they actually work, after my important matches: 3 AM has scored in 4 straight derbies.

[@Jimmys_TheBestCop]

Captain Z you must do an even deeper dive. Your Squirrel Plays video he basis his player on app on fm arena, chinese game developers and the genie scout evaluator. Fm Arena does 2400 match tests per attribute to get the meta attributes. The chinese game developers alleged to use AI to reverse engineer fm match engine and game genie reads the Fm code from memory. The reddit post guy read another post which was about the fm arena attribute table. That is what you need to deep dive. Fm Arena 100% deep dive

[@AaronPushesWood]

I wonder what the flipped test would be like, 20 work rate/determination/stamina with 13 for the other physicals and 1for the rest

[@williamjt31]

This team gets relegated. Zealand didn’t do this test, but the original poster did one where all the mentals were 20s and the physicals and dribbling were 10. That team gets relegated.

[@stukaseptember]

You also appear to have proven that tactics are unimportant.

[@mediumsizedcal]

There's no such thing as 'over-indexing' on physicals, because that's just what top-tier football is. It's very fast, fit, strong, determined young people learning the technical skills to succeed.

[@bloatedblitz]

Can we just talk about Origi being the top scorer while forest placed 15th in that first liverpool test???

[@Gr33ny2012]

Football - Managed Athletic aliens - Created Transfers - Embargoed (allegedly) Myth - Busted

[@raphaelbarreto2486]

He didn't bust a myth. If anything he proved the original post on reddit was right .

[@sam1503cd]

I so feel the fact you discovered you did it wrong at the end and had to redo it, so human.

[@donkosaurus]

i think the assumption is that all reasonably able professional players, including goalkeepers will likely have natural fitness, stamina determination and workrate at least in the ballpark of 10-13

[@jonathanstewart8106]

I literally tested this theory with PEC Zwolle in the eredivisie. Made all contracts expire of the first team, grabbed 11 new starters from the reserves and put all the attributes highlighted at 16 not 20. 3 Seasons = 3 Eredivisie title doubles with Dutch CUps. 1 UCL Win and 1 Exit in the semis. This person is right, I didnt simulate the games and I didnt set the rest of the attributes to 1. I left them as is, so the range was 5-11 on most of the other attributes. I understand the need to debunk it but the game play seriously favoured the highlighted attributes. I wasn't surprised by this either, I have since 2018 completely targetted athletic mutants

[@altacc5356]

Because they also overperform in real life. For ex. Sporting got Gyokeres and he his king in Portuguese League that is a little more dificult than eredivisie since is more tatical. The problem is not that Physicals are king... is that you also need some of the other attributes besides physicals.

[@JakeLongworth]

Very interesting! I think the fact Adama Traore's stats were intentionally nerfed a few years back shows how broken physicals are, but a very interesting experiment for sure!

[@GeoffBoydCott]

I inverted lots of players and played out a whole season and it made no difference and that was basically the point I stopped caring about buying it every year. I gave then 1 for the mental and technical attributes that were key to their role and added on the same amount of points elsewhere so they had the same CA. It changed nothing.

[@gibospartan6185]

This makes me want a video explaining which attributes complement each other. I’m already aware of some examples but I’d be interested to learn which others exist.

[@benjaminsvensk-armstrong9106]

This makes me wonder if the suggested attributes for player roles in the game are the most complimentary attributes for those positions, or if certain roles are actually performed better with attributes that are not highligted in the player profile.

[@michaelh878]

They never change those and the match engine changes every patch so it's highly unlikely. For example jumping is (very) important for every role and position now but it is only highlighted in a few.

[@ArdeeRaccoon]

if you think no-one has the ability to run like a world class sprinter, Scout johnatan Quarcoo

[@Kimera794]

I believe he knows about him and mentioned him in a video about the quickest players on FM

[@simeonlp]

It would take ages and I'm running a 1070 so impossible for me, but it would be fascinating to test the most important stats per position, I believe this was done in FM 2021, an image was circulating, but not sure about the testing parameters of that one

[@michaelyo874]

It has been done, those physical attributes are the most important for every single position, no matter what.

[@bogus1896]

Speed (pace and acceleration) specifically are the most important

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

search FM ARENA PLAYER ATTRIBUTE TESTING to see the results. spoiler: technicals don't matter

[@eduardogoes9528]

If you think about it, dribbling is an attribute that depends a lot on the player physical. it would be interesting to test a player with 20 passing and 20 in some mental atrributes like vision, off the ball, team work, antecipation that are important for a passing style of play instead of the physical atrributes. i really don't undestand much of FM, just thinking about how it would change the results

[@adrianjackson-simmons8134]

Nice job proving that the ME is broken. Hope the payday from SI was worth it.

[@mattnottm8363]

I've been exploiting whilst playing lower league games for years. As long as a player has decent physicsls he can be terrible in most technical areas but as long as he's a freak in one or two of them, he'll be great. It doesn't matter what your strikers finishing is like if he's so fast he's flown by the defenders. Same with defending, it doesn't matter what their tackling us like when they're strong enough to knock the opposition off the ball In my current game I have Kyle Hudlin as my top scorer in League One, despite his stats/ star rating being far worst than every other striker in the squad

[@michaelh878]

Interceptions are far more important than tackles. Also pressing faster means worse passing from opponents.

[@Rizzoka]

Zealand yapping about the complimentary attributes overlooking the fact that physical mammoths with 1 all technicals (almost all mental too) finished with 70 points in the prem. Not very complimentary to his beliefs, is it?

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

he just chose to ignore like he did the team with 20's in passing and passing key attributes and the results didn't change and didn't get a single player in the assist leaderboard

[@Rizzoka]

@@gabrielfrancisco5661 FM is the one thing he is good at in this world so I understand the pain when you find out it really is not as complex of a game. spacebar simulator

[@lourencoteles8414]

The game wasn't made to handle such extremes, you don't find this players in game. This changes nothing. The only this as confirmed for the 10000000 time is that physical atributes are more important than technical attributes, that's nothing new.

[@EzeBall1710]

@@Rizzoka 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Rizzoka]

@@lourencoteles8414 yea cuz the game is very simple, its not this complex labyrinth people claim it to be. Getting good at FM is just about learning how the match engine works, its not like u need to be a genius, just patient

[@Neroshkiet]

1. Split the attributes between defenders, midfielders and attackers. 2. Maximize one category by line (ex. def=20physical, mid=also20physical, att=20tech) and zero-out every other attribute. 3. Create a league with exact copies of same team (27 different combinations of categories so 27 teams). 4. Figure out the most successful combinations and spot tendencies (ex. 20p/20p/20m -> conceeds the least, 20m/20t/20t -> scores the most, 3x20mental always ending last but always beating 10-0 the 3x20tech lineup who ends 1st, etc).

[@bigboibenedict7256]

You should've gone back and watched some of their games during the title-winning season to see how the team plays in the match engine

[@abrkPL]

My problem with this whole thing isn't whether there are or aren't "meta attributes". Neither do I care about the CA/PA as a predictor for winning. *BUT*... This game is a simulation. In other words, it's an approximation of the real world. To reverse that logic, when I look at the game, I should get SOME idea of what the real world is like. According to Zealand's test, all you need to win in football is to have 99th percentile athletes (top of the Premier League) and 1st percentile defenders / midfielders / attackers (below Vanarama North/South). Positional attributes/ability seem not to matter at all. It's a shocking level of disconnect and saying that it's all fine because some attributes seem to scale by others (say, speed by stamina) is sugarcoating the issue.

[@MrJonas1995]

So now I want a simulation with 20 in Natural Fitness, Stamina, Workrate and Determination and the rest on 1 (because those attributes made the difference in the first place)

[@michaelyo874]

No they didnt, they just allowed high attributes to work at all. If u dont get what i am saying. team with stats u named at max would relegate without a single win.

[@Morden]

So you get a 38 loss 0 points video? Do you need a simulation for that? I guess its cool seeing a team lose 25-0 every single game.

[@forgetfulLlama31]

Determination, Workrate, Fitness (Stamina + Natural Fitness) at 13 are fine.. they're hardly earth shattering values, and arguably focused on letting the other stats show through or not. Sure, the Reddit post should have made this clearer rather than saying "almost" when they used a fair bit of overstatement in their conclusions (eg, "many attributes simply do not matter"), but it doesn't invalidate the general conviction of the post.

[@hullahatzu]

You people are crazy if you think this is nothing special. It means that a team of 34-65CA players (because a midfielder with these attributes is 34 CA, defenders and strikers ~55-65) can comfortably win premier league. It basically means that this game makes no sense and there is finally a detailed overview to what a lot of us already felt was true regarding the importance of certain attributes. All of you rationalizing this are huffing copium, when saying that 23 (!) out of 36 attributes-including all but one technical-being pointless is somehow justified. Because why wouldn't a player who can't pass, can't shoot, can't tackle, among other things, be world class. Sure, this warrants additional testing to see how much you can reduce the '20' attributes before a difference is really visible, but a result like this shouldn't be ever possible. I get that a lot of you are now suffering from cognitive dissonance, because you've just realized you've dedicated a ton of your time to role-playing a serious management game that is damn stupid, but come on...

[@zHawkC]

Yeah I agree. Sure they're physical freaks but 20 in these attributes doesn't turn them into superman. 20 in one or two of these is achieveable for the best physical players. However, these players should be too braindead to win many, if any game. 1 decisions, first touch, composure, positioning, passing, tackling etc should lead to players who make mistakes every single time they touch the ball or are required to defend. Imagine how lost the best NFL players would look on a pitch against pros (I would love to see this). That all conquering Barca and Spain team showed how important things other than pace and strength were.

[@williamjt31]

This is my point exactly. People keep acting like physical players would just dominate everyone. If you don’t know how to tackle but you’re fast and strong, the only thing you’re getting is yellows and reds. How are you ever going to score if you don’t know how to place a shot or have no knowledge of positioning? No matter how you look at it there’s no way these results make any sense.

[@JeffJeff-bh5vm]

I know we're not playing them head to head, but I do think in real life, if you had enough humans to fill both teams. The pure athletes would probably be ok against the team that runs like they are in cement.

[@DrZaius3141]

When I was a kid, we often played football in PE. We had the kids that were in a football club and the others that were in various sports clubs (I did athletics, some did volleyball, handball, martial arts, etc.). We usually won, because the footballers had (in comparison to us) no stamina, no speed, no agility. Doesn't help that at least here in Austria most footballers are essentially taught to be selfish and arrogant.

[@michaelyo874]

pure athlete wouldnt be able to run with the ball ... so in real life this is impossible, they wouldnt have ability to run with the ball or to pass it, or to touch it and mentally they fall apart if wind blows near them lol... But in game they are gods

[@raphaelbarreto2486]

The athletes would get destroyed because they essentially have no midfield. How could they possibly play football at a high level if they can't string 2 passes together or even defend properly.

[@MazeMouse]

I remember your old "what is the best attribute" videos. And the physicals came out massively in that test too. Pace, Acceleration, Stamina, Strength all in the top10. I still use those results as a guideline for the players I sign (and what kind of individual training they get) For LLM I always stack my team with "Strength, Pace, Stamina, Determination, WorkRate" behemoths and just walk the leagues with ease right up until the Championship where the "complementary attributes" start being important. Has been that way since Championship Manager 97/98

[@ForzaInternazionale9]

I did a Machine Learning project a few years ago for class and used FM data to try to predict results. Got about 57% accuracy which isn't too bad I guess. But the main takeaway from it was that Strength seemed to be the most important attribute and had the highest correlation to winning matches.

[@desimirpopovic3281]

Erling haaland is basically the meta attribute player

[@pulleyfm8585]

The best defender I've ever had scored 20 in positioning and had other very strong mentals. His physicals weren't great and his match ratings were never that high but he won 12 champions leagues for me and a world cup with Wales (that I had high detail on and wasn't coaching in.) Once you start getting attributes into the 18s but especially the 19s and 20s the match engine really starts to let that freaky player dominate that area of the game. Tests that push the extremes of the engine are always going to be pretty pointless and silly because it's designed to handle things and players that are in the game and can actually exist. You can build lots of different types of teams and succeed in football manager, using lots of different types of players. The games really easy for an experienced player anyway and a lot of people completely forget the biggest strength of football manager... it's tells the best stories of any game out there.

[@Flash4ML]

Exactly how I feel, people are freaking out over these superhuman freaks that will never be in the game, this doesn't impact your experience lol. Claiming a system is deficient by pushing it to limits that it never actually sees in game isn't a premise that holds water, not even if they were running controlled tests. As it is, I'm not exactly about to be convinced the game is "broken" because you ran a single test in an uncontrolled league and your team of superhuman performed well that one season, that's not how data analysis works lol

[@langletprolet8378]

Speaking of telling stories, I wish SI would really improve relationships and dialogues with players. Even after years, they’re barebones eventho imho at least it’s very important for immersion aspect.

[@CimbomFanFiction]

@@langletprolet8378i really dont know wtf they even update year to year. Theres soo many easy ideas im sure we all have by now but yea just having more lines of text should be easy. Wtf r we even paying for? To give the exacttttt same speech and responses every single time?! U can literally have one dude spend an entire day writing up a thousand different dialogues i dont even care if theyre stupid!

[@pulleyfm8585]

@@Flash4ML Yeah...nobody will read this but there's another reason these kinds of tests turn out the way that they do... When there's a big gulf in CA between teams or a particular player isn't very good compared to his teammates the game closes that gap by a good margin to make the match engine stay pretty reasonable, ESPECIALLY if a team has a high reputation. These physical freaks with 100CA are going to be even freakier than they should be and have their weak attributes buffed up to something reasonable, still low, but not 1's. That makes these tests even dumber than they already are... it's breaking the game in a lot more ways than people think. Honestly though.. I'm glad that the way the sauce is made is still so poorly understood, hopefully Si keeps it that way.

[@Chengyuan79]

Total Digression, but I have been playing AC Milan in FM20 for 37 seasons now, and i think I have "only" won 10 Champions League, in total. In fact, 2057, was knocked out of CL in 2nd round by a German team (need to dig the name later, anyway lost 1-1a at home) who ended 5th in the German top league, but this German team won the whole damn CL~!

[@lilshawn465]

LMao Zealand thinks = Everyone Thinks

[@DJMavis]

Nobody has STR and SPD of 20? I give you Geoff Capes, former world's strongest man, European Gold Medal shot putter who could run the 100m in 11 seconds, 200m in 23 seconds. Imagine being chased by that 6'5" beardy monster.

[@cellyszn20]

More proof that people don't read and run with the first few lines

[@ozgecko4050]

It appears you? They say only 9 attributes matter which is clearly dishonest. They try to make the post more dramatic than they are. And they are all listed at 20. These aren’t normal circumstances so either way it’s irrelevant

[@cellyszn20]

@@ozgecko4050 it would be relevant if the goal was to make a template of the skills to prioritise when buying for certain positions or testing how important natural fitness is because I will never know lol

[@DM-rc4yu]

@@ozgecko4050 Talk about burying your head in the sand, LOL!

[@StybbGaming]

When there's only a single seasons worth of data with a single team we need to be careful about not drawing too many conclusions, but to me this all really shows that 1 in an attribute doesn't mean "Can't do it at all" it means "Worst of all professional footballers" which is probably a lot better than most of us normies. I'd be at least a -20 in passing I reckon.

[@michaelh878]

But also much worse than the u16s of a fourth tier Swedish team which no, I don't think would be much better than the average player playing with his mates in the park.

[@PetitAstronome]

Did you hear about the transfer bug to buy any player you want using a several path during transfer offer ?

[@DM-rc4yu]

Funny how you actually proved that test right. For everyone saying it's "realistic", Usain Bolt tried to play football, we know how that turned out. According to some people's logic he should have been an established Premier League player.

[@altacc5356]

Usain Bolt is just a sprinter. He does not have that stats. First you don't run just in a straight line in football, but even so let's give him 20 pace and 20 acceleration and that's it. The team they created will win every physical duel, It doesn't matter how good you're on the ball if you don't have physicals you just can't play. That's why people retire from the game, they still have all technical attributes is just that their physical attributes sucks... Physical attributes are king in real life football, but technical attributes also matters.

[@PLGamersARG]

To be honest I would love to see if those changes make the same impact in other leagues with other ways to play football

[@danieldodson5753]

I kind of feel like none of it really matters. Cause if we all agree that these types of players don't exists, then we should also expect them to throw off a game engine that wasnt designed to take them into account

[@gabrielfrancisco5661]

agree. but check FM ARENA PLAYER ATTRIBUTE TESTING on google. see that most of attributes don't matter for the match engine. pace and acceleration weights the most

[@HarcMad]

It matters because the game still massively overrates physicals, so any player with high physicals will do better than they would irl.

[@michaelh878]

But players with 15s in physicals exist and shouldn't totally dominate players with 10s in physical if they have terrible technicals.