FM Match Lab New Reveal! An Overhaul of the Training Files in FM24!

Summary

FM Match Lab has unveiled a comprehensive overhaul of the training files for Football Manager 2024. The FM community highlighted fundamental flaws in FM24's training system where ideal training schedules were unrealistic. To tackle this, FM Match Lab introduced revamped templates to ensure balanced player development. Notably, they emphasize realistic match reviews, tactical sessions, and less physical toll on players. By adopting these changes, players have started showcasing well-rounded skill sets with attributes improving according to their positional roles. This evolution ensures maximized player potential, removing previous system's inefficiencies.

Highlights

• FM24's old training system was deemed unrealistic by community tests ⚠️
• FM Match Lab introduced a new, efficient training framework 🛡️
• Templates now include crucial match reviews and tactical practices 🧠
• Focused training reduces fatigue and unwanted player injuries 🏃‍♂️
• Players show better development with well-rounded attributes 💪

Key Takeaways

• FM Match Lab revolutionizes FM24 training to fix unrealistic schedules 🛠️
• New training templates emphasize match reviews and tactical sessions 📅
• Player conditioning improved with reduced injury risk in new system 🙌
• Revamped system leads to more balanced, well-rounded player development 🎯
• A community effort that showcases successful modifications to FM24 ⚽

Overview

Football Manager enthusiasts have something to cheer about as FM Match Lab brings a fresh wave of changes to the FM24 training system. Historically, the training schedules were identified as unrealistic by the community. To remedy this, FM Match Lab stepped in, armed with revamped training methods that emphasize the importance of balanced and realistic development strategies.

One of the game-changing aspects of this overhaul is the emphasis on match reviews and tactical practice sessions, which were lacking in previous systems. The updated training templates ensure that players are not only developing their skills in alignment with their roles but are also engaging in practices that genuinely reflect match-day demands. This attention to detail enriches the player's development journey, encouraging proficiency across key areas.

Furthermore, the refined approach significantly reduces player fatigue and injury risks. This thoughtful adjustment facilitates smoother and more consistent athlete development. Ultimately, these upgrades reiterate FM Match Lab's dedication to enhancing user experience by aligning training with real-world football intricacies, thereby optimizing player potential on and off the field.

Chapters

• 00:30 - 01:30: Introduction to Training System Overhaul The chapter 'Introduction to Training System Overhaul' begins with music in the background, setting the stage for the content ahead. While the transcript primarily consists of music cues, it suggests an introductory segment to the book or series where foundational concepts or themes related to the overhaul of a training system might be introduced. The specific content details are not disclosed in the transcript provided.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Analysis of the Previous Training System The chapter titled 'Analysis of the Previous Training System' discusses the previous training methods used in football management, with a special look at the schedules implemented in a football manager save. The chapter highlights insights gained from tests conducted by the Chinese community to identify the optimal training schedule for player development. It aims to provide a beneficial overview and analysis to fellow football managers.
• 03:00 - 04:30: Issues with Individual Training Sessions The chapter titled 'Issues with Individual Training Sessions' discusses the unrealistic and broken state of the training system in Football Manager. It highlights that the ideal training schedules in the game do not reflect those used by real teams. An example of an ideal training schedule is provided, showing elements like 'quickness' being trained only once a week, and touches upon the broader implications of how training is handled in the game.
• 04:30 - 07:00: Examples of Training Session Problems The chapter discusses various issues with both the overall training schedule and the individual training sessions. The schedule includes two match practices and goalkeeper training, but additional activities like match reviews and team bonding are often added to address ongoing issues. These additions highlight the unrealistic nature of the current training plans and underline the need for a more effective approach to training management.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Conclusion on Previous System and FM Match Lab Updates This chapter discusses the limitations of the previous system in training through match reviews, highlighting the elements it focused on and the gaps it left unaddressed. It covers aspects such as mentality, passing style, creative freedom, and others, while also noting the incongruity of training certain attributes like anticipation and decision-making. It suggests that the scope of match reviews was narrow, indicating room for improvement.
• 09:00 - 10:00: Introduction to New Training System The chapter 'Introduction to New Training System' explores the comprehensive training approach in a game setting. It delves into reviewing both mistakes and successful strategies. The training is divided into specific focus areas, with general defending highlighted as an example. The breakdown of training effort is discussed, revealing that defenders receive 60% of the training focus, outfield players 20%, and goalkeepers 20%. There is a note suggesting that the 20% allocated to goalkeepers might be excessively high.
• 10:00 - 13:00: Overview of New Training Schedule Templates The chapter outlines the components of new training schedule templates. It includes a comprehensive list of attributes that are focused on during training, such as heading, marking, tackling, technique, aggression, anticipation, concentration, decisions, positioning, teamwork, and work rate. The outcomes of the training are also discussed, noting that happiness and team cohesion are increased. However, there are side effects like slight increases in injury risk, a slight reduction in condition, and a slight increase in fatigue. The chapter also notes that outfield players and goalkeepers have distinct training focuses.
• 13:00 - 23:00: Effects of New System on Player Development The chapter delves into the impact of a new system on player development, focusing specifically on defending strategies. It critiques the lack of comprehensive coverage on defensive tactics and highlights that standard defending sessions might not effectively benefit defenders due to inappropriate balance in training focus. The suggested improvements point towards a more defender-centric approach where a significant portion of training (around 70%) should concentrate on defensive skills to enhance tactical understanding and performance.

FM Match Lab New Reveal! An Overhaul of the Training Files in FM24! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] [Music]
• 00:30 - 01:00 Greetings fellow football managers. Tonight we wanted to look at the previous training system as well as some of the schedules that you would use as part of your football manager save. As some of you may know, the Chinese community did tests to come up with the ideal training schedule that would maximize the development of your players. While this is really helpful
• 01:00 - 01:30 information to know, what ended up coming out of those tests revealed how broken the training system really is in Football Manager. When I say broken, it's because the ideal training schedule is not realistic to what any team really would be using in real life. On my screen, I do have an example of one of those ideal training schedules. As you can see, you're training quickness once a week. You have one overall training,
• 01:30 - 02:00 two match practices, one goalkeeper training of one-on- ons, and then I even added on my own the match review and team bonding because I felt I always feel like I need to have that after every match. And once again, we can see how unrealistic this training schedule is. Now it goes beyond the issues go beyond what the training schedules are. Some of the problems are also with the individual training sessions. For
• 02:00 - 02:30 example, this is what a match review in the previous system would train. You can see some a lot of these make sense. Mentality, passing style, creative freedom, trigger press, marking, tempo, width, and then the position role and duty of the players. And it would also for some reason train the attributes of anticipation and decisions. and then team cohesion would be in increased. But it also doesn't really touch all the a aspects of what a match review would be. In my opinion, a match review really
• 02:30 - 03:00 would touch on just about every aspect of the game because you're going over the mistakes and you're reviewing what worked and what didn't work. Now, we can look at a couple others. One, another example is the general defending. Now, you can see that it's broken up into three groups. You have your defenders training 60%. Then the outfield players 20% and goalkeepers get trained in another 20%. Which maybe that 20% is a little high. Now you can see the
• 03:00 - 03:30 attributes that are being trained. Heading, marking, tackling, technique, aggression, anticipation, concentration, decisions, positioning, teamwork, and work rate. The happiness is increased. The team cohesion is increased. The sharpness is slightly increased and then you have an injury risk slightly increased, condition slightly reduced and fatigue slightly increased. The outfield players are training something completely different and then you have your goalkeepers that are training something else as well. Again, this
• 03:30 - 04:00 doesn't really touch on everything all aspects of defending. it doesn't talk about how your team would tactically play. As well as the fact that really if you're doing a general defending session, I feel like the percentages should be much more heavily skewed towards the defenders. So, this probably should be something closer to like 70% here, maybe 20% here, and then if
• 04:00 - 04:30 anything, 10% here. But really, you could almost go as low as 5% for the goalkeepers if I'm being honest. Another example, the quickness training, which was one of the ideal trainings used. You can see that it's only training acceleration, agility, pace, sharpness is slightly increased, decreases the happiness of your players, increases their fatigue, their injury risk, and their condition. While acceleration, agility, and pace are all part of quickness training, I would also argue
• 04:30 - 05:00 that if you're going to train agility, you should also be training balance. And then on top of that, there are other attributes that you would want to include. I think that this limits severely what the quickness training is actually touching on. And it could be argued that it does more than just what these attributes are that are shown. Another example here again we have attacking shadow play and once again it's broken into three groups 60% 20% and 20%. And if you look for attacking
• 05:00 - 05:30 shadow play it t it touches on anticipation composure decisions off the ball and teamwork over on this side for the defensive anticipation concentration decisions positioning teamwork. And then for goalkeeping, same thing. So it doesn't vary much based on the position group. I don't think that the attacking shadow play should really touch on the teamwork of the goalkeeper. On top of
• 05:30 - 06:00 for the defensive focus, it should be probably there should be other aspects included there. And once again, I think for the attacking portion, the goalkeepers shouldn't be getting trained 20%. I think that that does increase the fatigue of the goalie keepers unnecessarily. We're going to go over a couple more and then uh I'll leave you with a couple more notes. For ball retention, first touch, anticipation, composure, decisions, and teamwork. It's again broken up 60, 20, 20. Goalkeepers
• 06:00 - 06:30 do have a part to play in ball retention, but I would argue that it's very minimal. Also, what I find very interesting is is part of ball retention. There's no passing being trained. Passing is the arguably the most important part of ball retention. Especially when you are talking about the decisions, you need to work on the passing. Also, for your fullbacks and your wingers, you would probably want to be working on crossing and most definitely be working on the dribbling
• 06:30 - 07:00 aspect. But there again, it's not included. So this training schedule isn't ideal and it's not I feel like correctly going after the right parts. Here we have goalkeeper training and once again the percentages 60 20 for the goalkeeper training there should be a much higher percentage. This should probably be 90% goalkeepers 5% attacking and 5% defensive. That way you're maximizing the time that your
• 07:00 - 07:30 goalkeepers have. And here again, this is just for one-on- ons, but again, you look at the attributes and it's severely limited as far as what they're actually training. I would suspect that really if you're doing a one-on-one training, it touches on a lot more of the goalkeeper attributes than or what are being shown here, which again speaks to how unrealistic these schedules actually are. And lastly, I just wanted to show this one, which is the M uh recovery
• 07:30 - 08:00 session. For recovery, you notice that injury risk greatly reduced. That's more than accurate. Attributes, it somehow trains natural fitness, which there is some use of natural fitness, but not really. And again, by training natural fitness, you are taking up current ability that you probably would want put in other areas. The condition is slightly increased which is good. Fatigue is slightly reduced and
• 08:00 - 08:30 sharpness is slightly reduced. I would argue that the recovery should not reduce sharpness. In fact, it should probably have no effect on sharpness or increase it because you are simply helping the player's bodies recover to stay fully fit instead of getting hurt. So, like I said, I wanted to give a couple of conclusions. So in conclusion, we have discovered how broken the training system is for Football Manager
• 08:30 - 09:00 playing for in the vanilla aspect. The good news is that here at FM Match Lab, we have done some work and we have adjusted these training schedules and adjusted the training sessions or system. Also, I am going to be covering that in detail in another session that I speak to you guys and we'll go over in more detail how the new system works as well as how it affects the development of the players and how much more balanced the players are when they reach
• 09:00 - 09:30 their top uh ability. [Music] Greetings everybody and welcome back to another deep dive into the new training system that the FM Match Lab group has come up with for Football Manager 2024. In this session, what we're going to look into are some of the new training schedule templates that are now viable and usable in Football Manager. And then
• 09:30 - 10:00 after we do that, we're going to look at some of the top players in a simulated save using that used training system. And so we can look at the attributes and see how these players developed compared to in the vanilla match engine. The first training session that we're going to start off with is you can see in here in the screenshot I have we have
• 10:00 - 10:30 a variety of different training mechanisms. The templates that you can select from are now much more varied. If you notice after every match there is a match review. Uh this is vital given the changes to the match review and how important it is for the team cohesion as well as tactic familiarity. The other one that you'll
• 10:30 - 11:00 notice is that every single week there's at least one match tactics session. This is also very important for the familiarity of the tactic as well as the players developing in their position role and assigned duty. The other thing that we've noticed is that match practices are very important. We've lessened the physical toll that they take on players, but we have maximized
• 11:00 - 11:30 the attributes that it trains as well as how important it is. The rest of the schedules you can see you can adjust depending on how you want to train and how you want your team to play. This is just one example. So this is more of your uh template. The next template that we look at is here. Again, if you look, as
• 11:30 - 12:00 always, there's a match tactics, match practice, and then you have match review after every match. The important thing to remember is that we have lessened the impact of each training session so that players should be getting hurt less in training. That doesn't mean that you can load up with treat three training sessions every day. What I recommend is doing two a day and then you can add in a recovery. You
• 12:00 - 12:30 can do three a day every so often, like once a week, but if you do it consistently throughout the entire week, your players will get some muscular injuries and you'll start to notice that. And here is another example of the template scheduling. And you can see even when there are two matches a week, we still have our match review after each match. Specifically, if you're taking over a new team or if the team
• 12:30 - 13:00 cohesion is low, the match reviews will really help with that, as will adding in a team bonding in there as well. You can also get really specific with the types of training sessions that you use. You don't have to use the general trainings now. You can really focus in if you want. Or if you want to take the more holistic approach and train a little bit in each area every week, you
• 13:00 - 13:30 can do that as well. And the last training we have here is again you can see even win two matches a week we still have our match reviews. We still have our match tactics. You can also still do a little bit more in between. But you notice even before a game we have two training sessions. It's not going to impact the physicality the physical fitness of your players to the point where they're not
• 13:30 - 14:00 going to be able to play. Now, the real thing that we want to look at is how do the players develop when using the new system. So, what we're going to do is we're going to look at the top five players in each position and just kind of glance over, look at their attributes and see how balanced they are or if they are balanced, where are they lacking, and are they developing the correct attributes for their role so that you
• 14:00 - 14:30 can maximize their current ability. There's nothing more frustrating than a player developing really well, but their attributes that they gain increases in aren't the ones that you really want them to do better in. So, we're going to start off with our goalkeepers. We're and again, we're going to look at the top five. We do have the hidden attributes showing here just for this. It's not a save that I'm playing or anything like that, so it's not a big deal. The first goalkeeper we look at,
• 14:30 - 15:00 he's 29. His current ability is 176. So let's see. The first thing we know for goalkeepers, jumping reach and aerial reach is important. He has 14 in each of those. So not good, not not great, not bad. But if you look, all of the key attributes are very well balanced. We have 17s, 16s, 15s, 14s. The lowest attribute that the goalkeeper has is first touch, which is very realistic.
• 15:00 - 15:30 Goalkeepers aren't going to have the greatest first touch, but for the for him being considered the top goalie in the world. Definitely can see that a lot of green, there's nothing. The one-on ones is really high. You may not see as many 20s, but what we do see are a bunch of really high attributes. Here's Devonte Gowen Gowen. He's 26 at Liverpool and a lot of the
• 15:30 - 16:00 same thing. Again, the first touch is lower, but that's to be expected. We're talking about a goalie. 20 vision on a goalie is absolutely nuts. But again, what we're seeing are a bunch of really high attributes. It's very well balanced. This is a goalkeeper that could play as a sweeper keeper and could just play as a goalkeeper, but he's very well spread out as far as his training. Now we have Hussein Al Jabbrin. Again, first touch, so that's a trend, but
• 16:00 - 16:30 again, nothing that we're too upset about. Look at that aerial reach and jumping reach. 1919. This would be a great goalie. He's 31 for Saudi. He's a Saudi and playing at Napoli. That's those are really good attributes. All right. And here we go again. 20 one-on ones. That's crazy good. So, what we're seeing again is a lot of greens and a lot of yellows and very few grays in the key attributes
• 16:30 - 17:00 that you want. The player is very well trained. The lowest is again first touch for sweeper keeper, but even that's a 12. It's really well trained, really well balanced. The la the fifth best is Jody Mason or Masson. And here again, the rushing out is maybe a little bit low, but and the acceleration, but again, what we're seeing is a lot of yellow and
• 17:00 - 17:30 a lot of green, which shows that not only is the player are the players developing, they are developing in the role and in the position that you want. So, they're not wasting uh attributes or current ability on traits that aren't useful, like flare or off the ball for a goalkeeper or even teamwork for a goalkeeper. You can see that the goalkeepers are training really well.
• 17:30 - 18:00 Next, let's take a look at our left backs. So, the top left back on current ability is at Chelsea. That's a really good left back. 15 pace. Not worldclass pace, but it's still very good. 16 crossing, 12 dribbling. And again, what we're seeing are the attributes incredibly spread out. If you notice, look at the physical. 16, 16, and 17. That's insane. That's really
• 18:00 - 18:30 strong. This player would be a problem on the left side of any team. Here's an even pacier player. Again, pace st. Look at the physicals. But not only are the physicals developed, look at our technical skills. We got 17 crossing, 12 dribbling, 16 technique. Still really good at defense defense for a left back.
• 18:30 - 19:00 Throng. All right. And here's another example. What are we seeing? So, here's an example. Not with incredibly high stamina, still really strong pace. This is allegedly this player could be played as an inverted wing back. I would argue that you could still play him as a fullback if you wanted to. The dribbling is a little bit low, but if you're going to play this player as an inverted wing back, you can see that he is
• 19:00 - 19:30 welldeveloped to play that specific role. And here we go. Here's another example. A fullback on support. The pace again, not great, but once more, we have incredibly well balanced attributes. I feel like I'm repeating myself a little bit here, but the b the attributes are really well balanced and spread out. The current ability is used all across the players development. Here we go. A
• 19:30 - 20:00 28-year-old Namibian. So here again, the physical not quite as high the others, but again still really reasonable. You've got great pace, stamina. The dribbling is a little bit low, but there's no doubt that if you wanted to develop the player, if you started this player developing as with higher dribbling emphasis, this player would absolutely develop that and would have no problem with that. Let's look at our central
• 20:00 - 20:30 defenders. All right. And this is a worldclass central defender. Really good pace, 17 jumping reach, 15 strength, 17 heading. This is a worldclass center back. And look at how spread out these attributes are. There's nothing wasted on the corners or the crossing or the finishing. This player has been
• 20:30 - 21:00 developed to be a center back and is a very, very good center back. Here's another example. This of a ball playing defender. Not the greatest jumping reach, but still decent enough. You could still play him. The pace is still good. But look at the passing, the technique, the vision is high, positioning. this player, even if they're not the greatest uh error, you could play this player, especially in like a three at the back and you play him on the wide side, if you have a
• 21:00 - 21:30 taller center back in the middle, he this player would be more than capable. All right, here's a more well-rounded center back. We have 15 jumping reach and just 15s all across the board. 11 bravery, not the greatest, but not the worst either. This player is definitely still good. 15 passing, 16 vision for a center back. This This is a very well-rounded center back. Here we go. We
• 21:30 - 22:00 can look at more. And once again, the strength maybe not the greatest, but what we're seeing, the jumping reaches there, first touch, the marking, these center backs are all very welltrained defensively, and they are more than capable of holding their own as far as ball retention, but they're not there's just no wasted CA and other attributes that you probably wouldn't want a center back to have, which is ideal when you're talking about
• 22:00 - 22:30 maxim optimizing players and maximizing their development. Let's go to the right backs. All right, this is a world class right back. Wow. 16 pace, 19 acceleration, 16 agility, 18 balance. Look at the crossing and the dribbling. Again, just well balanced all across the board. And this is without us using our using a player to train. This is just
• 22:30 - 23:00 with the AI developing the players and using our new training system. So, what we're seeing is definitely a much more balanced and well-developed approach. And here again, 20 agility is just nuts. But again, what we're seeing is these players are perfectly, not perfectly, but very well trained in their role. The other cool part is if you're looking at the nationality of the players, we've
• 23:00 - 23:30 had a widespread nationality. So, it's not just a bunch of English, French, German, and Italian players. We've seen a Namibian, Egyptian, we've seen a Saudi. Here we have a Bosnian. He's uh capable of playing center back and right back. Probably much more suited to the right back because of that jumping reach. But again, still well balanced enough that they would be able to hold their own in
• 23:30 - 24:00 that regard. And here we have a Polish player. Yeah, still balanced. The accelerational and pace is a little bit low, but I mean, when you talk about maximizing what the player can develop into, that's still very welldeveloped. Definitely someone that you would love to have on your team. We'll look at some of the top midfielders. We'll look at five total midfielders. This is one of the players I wanted to look at. When you look at
• 24:00 - 24:30 their current ability is 192. So, they are one of the best players in the world regardless of position. And this is exactly what you would expect. This is a playmaker. 18 first touch, 16 passing. The tackling is there. teamwork might be a little low considering they're a playmaker role, but I mean you look at everything else and this player is world class. This uh nobody would want not
• 24:30 - 25:00 want this player on their team. Disregard the uh faces as well. I have a different face pack probably than some of the other than what the test was done on. Here we have another world class center uh central midfielder. So, a ball-winning midfielder definitely capable of that. I would argue with the passing, they could perform a different a variety of roles as well. But when you talk about someone that's just going to win you the ball
• 25:00 - 25:30 back regardless, they definitely possess that ability here. Again, a deepline playmaker. 16 first touch, 19 passing. This is a playmaker true and true. You've got 19 teamwork, 19 vision. Good luck getting the ball off of them and good luck getting them to make a poor decision. That is one of the best playmakers you'll probably see regardless of the save. Let's take a look at some of the traditional center midfielders.
• 25:30 - 26:00 Here we have an advanced playmaker. And yeah, there again, you just look at all the greens for the attributes that are critical to their role. everything that they have that's critical to their role is green. It's at least yellow, but more times than not, it's actually green. And here again, we see a whole lot of yellows and greens. There's just not a lot of wasted development for these players and they are really good. Let's
• 26:00 - 26:30 take a look at our wingers. All right, so for our wingers, Marlin Hughes. Wow, look at the pace, acceleration, agility, the crossing, the dribbling, the first touch. This player is a threat on the wing. Absolutely dangerous on the wing. Would give anybody, any defensive player a problem. Here again, pace is there, acceleration, agility, the crossing, the dribbling. So, these wingers are developing to be
• 26:30 - 27:00 absolutely lethal dribbling and crossing. Let's take a look at the right wing. See, Claudio Costa. Yeah, we're seeing the not only are the physicals there, but look at their technicals as well. The technicals are definitely there. The work rate isn't bad, especially considering it's a winger. And then you've got 14 off the ball, so it's not bad. Passing is okay, but look at the crossing in the dribble. All right, Mike Hopkins once again, physical
• 27:00 - 27:30 there. Let's look at our technicals. Still there and still absolutely lethal. the work rate a little bit low, but that is common for wingers. It's work rate is one of the harder attributes to really increase just because of how specific you would need the training to be to actually increase the work rate. And lastly, let's look at the strikers. Look, let's look at our goal scorers. All right, Marco Lenzaro and the pace
• 27:30 - 28:00 not great for a sent a striker, but you look at everything else. I mean, the dribbling, the finishing, the first touch, they may not be the fastest, but when they get in a position to score, they are going to be able to score. This is an advanced forward. Definitely see 15 pace, so a little bit higher pace. And if you played them as a deep line forward, yeah, absolutely. you look at for the role that they're best suited for, they have all greens and very few yellows even. And
• 28:00 - 28:30 here we have a striker with a much higher pace. No, not a lot of jumping reach, but that's okay. If you're playing them as an advanced forward, that's perfectly fine. The work rate isn't bad. And everything else is right there. Physically, this player is an absolute threat to push the lines. And here again, another jumping reach. Not quite there, but the pace, everything else is there as well as technically. So, we're seeing a lot of wells suited
• 28:30 - 29:00 advanced forwards that we can take a look at. And then here again, another classic advanced forward. 14 pace isn't bad. And look at all the technicals. All right. And lastly, we're going to look at here. We have a little bit higher jumping reach. So this player could potentially play as a target forward maybe. But look at the finishing, the pace, the finishing absolutely lethal in front of goal. So that round that completes our deep dive today into the
• 29:00 - 29:30 new training system that we've implemented. As you can see, the players are developing in a much better way, and they're developing in a much more well-rounded way so that you are going to be able to maximize your players current ability as well as their potential ability without wasting anything. Once again, if you have questions, find us in the Discord and we'll be more than happy to help you.