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Post by Nick on Jun 26, 2020 14:47:37 GMT
Hi mates. Been reading a lot on the game so far, specially on youth development, training and youth scouting to try and play my new NEC save like I want to. This has led me to taking over both the Reservers and Youth Team training over, both generally and specifically. How do you approach this? I'm applying a similar outlook to what Hok is doing regarding periodisation, with schedules for Attacking, Defending and Transition rotating them every week, with the exception of two week games, where I have a special schedule just like Hokster has as well. Given that, I've got a couple of questions. 1.- Do you change anything on the reserve/youth schedules? Basically I've copied over the same calendar from the Senior Squad over, making a few changes to account for the day where they play, and making sure they play at least a game per week. 2.- What are your plans to re-focus the training when you get into Continental Football and thus get a lot of "two-game weeks". 3.- A sidenote I remembered. Has SI still not ironed the bug where you cannot select your pre-season start date each year? Or you don't get that choice in Holland? 1. In short, no. I copy them straight over so everyone at the club is running the same, or at least very similar due to match days, schedules. 2. I think it's still possible to use periodisation throughout but the rotations will just be slower during this period. 3. I assumed that had been taken out, but it may just depend on where you're managing. I didn't get the option in Argentina, which was annoying because my players always felt we started too late, and I don't get it in China now.
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Post by chaodck on Jun 26, 2020 14:55:35 GMT
Regarding item 3, I read in one of Oliver Jensen's blogs that there had been a bug by SI on that, and that you couldn't choose the Pre-Season start date. I really thought I could choose it on my La U save, but again it might be a memory issue and I'm remembering it from FM19 and my TeBe Berlin save.
Good to know I'm doing the same as you guys on items 1 and 2. I've been having great performances on training with only bad ratings for players who aren't happy right now with the club and the ocasional lazy week from a veteran on the senior squad so I'm pretty happy with the initial approach at least.
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Post by hokster on Jun 27, 2020 15:18:41 GMT
I've reworked my training schedules in light of some of the changes in perspective that I summarized and outlined here. First, I think there are two reasons why we train players in FM: - To improve their ability to perform on the pitch in an upcoming match through better cohesion and tactical familiarity (near-term goal)
- To develop their attributes so they can perform at a higher level (medium-to-long-term goal)
These are obviously not fully separable goals, but they're more separated in FM than they are in real life, which leads to a few differences between real-life training and FM training. In real life, teams generally don't spend a full week focusing solely on attacking principles or defending principles (though Rangers is an exception). In FM, we have pre-set training sessions and, I think, it's less important to train specifically for the next match, aside from sessions which focus on those tactics. That may be different if you're a manager who chops and changes the tactics a lot for the next opponent, but my changes tend to be smaller, as I want to play in my style and let the other team adapt to me. Someone who wants to play more defensively may need to be more reactive to nullify an opponent's particular strengths, though, and in that case, more sessions which boost familiarity with tactics would be helpful. With my setup, we get close to full tactical familiarity by the end of preseason, and it's just a matter of slightly modifying mentalities or player roles based on the upcoming opponent and who's fit. Part of this is that, as complex as FM tactics can be, they're nothing compared to real tactics. For example, real-life teams are likely to have an 11v11 session to whatever level of intensity to practice for the next match, as there are lots of nuances that players need to internalize that a manager might alter from week to week. But the match practice session in FM is quite high-intensity and runs a large risk of injury, and so I don't want to use that in a match week. And in real life, match review might occur a few days after the match, so players can have a full day off to rest and recover and be able to learn from the review. But in FM, we can only schedule match reviews on the day after the match. So instead of combining lots of match preperatory sessions into a week, I emphasize those on the activation day before the match, and also include sessions throughout the week which increase aspects of tactical familiarity which are related to the theme of the week. The goal of each week, though, is to focus on a particular theme, related to an aspect of play, much like Rangers does. So we will train in 3 week blocks (which may be interrupted by weeks with multiple matches) to drill in the core principles and subprinciples of our tactical approach. The advantage is that, as Graeme Murty pointed out above, when we have an attacking-oriented session we aren't only training attacking principles, as our other units are engaged in counter-point training (defenders defend against attackers, so they're getting defensive training), so we actually are working on the entire game. This may require balancing training units on a week to week basis, particularly for supporting players or players who are heavily involved in both the attacking and defensive phases of the game, such as central midfielders or fullbacks. I want a supporting fullback or wingback to get attacking training on an attacking week, but focus on defensive training during a defensive week. This is a bit micromanagey, and certainly isn't necessary (as Nick pointed out earlier, none of this really is; if you want to just leave training to your assistant, you'll still get results). Preseason SchedulesIn preseason, I'm following the same guidelines articulated in the linked post above. We have four goals in preseason: player fitness, tactical understanding, match fitness, and team cohesion. Playing friendlies is critical because it moves us towards achieving all of these goals. But we have to work towards match playing, as after a vacation players aren't in good shape. And if we push them really hard, we can make them more resilient during the season, but at the risk of injuries. So as I wrote then, I have four preseason schedules for different aspects of the periodization. This is arranged around a 5 week preseason; if yours is shorter, modify as needed. The first three are similar as before, but I'll post them here for completeness, along with some expanded thoughts about their structure Preseason EarlyAs soon as the players come back from vacation, our first priority is to build their physical fitness up. This yields benefits throughout the season. At that point, we can't exhaust them as thoroughly or they won't be able to play matches, but that's not a concern here. Pushing them very hard early in preseason reduces the chances of jadedness during the season. We also want to work on some broad tactical principles to begin ramping up the transition from isolated fitness training to match-focused training (the transition from controlled environments to chaotic environments) over the course of pre-season. This is a very high intensity week, but if you notice the injury risk isn't particularly high. This is because they have no match load, and we very liberally use recovery sessions. It should be obvious that we're mainly developing physical attributes, and oh, are we ever. Goalkeepers will get a bit boost to Aerial Reach, and everyone will get a major boost to all of their physical attributes and work rate. We will also get some boosts to teamwork, and there's a little bit of training on technical and mental attributes from the Attacking, Defending, and Tactical sessions. Preseason MiddleAfter one week with no friendlies, we want to start transitioning into more chaotic training. We do this by scheduling a single friendly and introducing more tactically-focused sessions. This raises the injury risk during the week, but we're still pretty early in preseason. I will say that I've rarely had these schedules result in major injuries during preseason, but if you are managing at a lower level or don't have good physios, you might need to back off them a bit. We're still heavily training physical attributes, but not to the same extent as last week (some of these get boosts from playing in matches, though). We're also developing the players' work rate quite a bit. They're getting a lot more technical and mental training now as well, as we're boosting tactical familiarity more, which the friendly only helps with. Preseason LateFor weeks 3 and 4, we want to fully transition into friendlies as the source of physical training. We also introduce more tactically-relevant training sessions and make sure that we maximize our players' tactical understanding. We schedule two friendlies a week, and allow the players to recover before going back to the pitch. This schedule will still exhaust our players, helping them later in the season, but we're doing it on the pitch, not in the gym. The main attributes we're developing now are mental, as players get back their sense of how we want to play. We're working on teamwork, decisions, vision (attackers), and anticipation (defenders), as well as passing. Keepers get some work broadly. Players will get physical boosts from playing in two matches, even though we're not directly training those attributes. Preseason EndFor the last week, we want to reduce the match load so the players can be relatively fresh going into the season. We will therefore introduce more tactically-relevant sessions, emphasizing the main principles and sub-principles from all aspects of play. Here we're putting a lot of emphasis on mental attributes: decisions, anticipation, teamwork, and composure. We're also training some technical skills, such as first touch and passing. Regular Season SchedulesThe MorphocycleThe broad structure, or morphocycle, of each week is similar. Match day is on Saturday (just shift things around if that changes), so Sunday (MD+1) is an off day, where we focus on recovery and team cohesion, and get a boost to tactical familiarity. We have a recovery session to help players get ready for the next week, then review the match and have a team bonding session. MD+2 is also a light day, though we're starting to build up. I always combine a shadow play session to improve tactical familiarity and mental attributes, then add a light general team session and one other session which is relatively light and isn't part of our core principles or sub-principles. This last session can be eliminated if the squad is fatigued and could use more recovery time.
The acquisition days are MD-4 through MD-2. MD-4 focuses on sub-principles and smaller group training, and I've tried to keep the standard tactical periodization approach of trying to focus on strength-like sessions which require a lot of acceleration and deceleration or are confined to small areas of the pitch. The idea for this is that the muscles then have the most time to recover before they're stressed again on the match day. MD-3 is the most intense day, and focuses on the core principles. So, for an attacking schedule I focus on the Attacking Patient session, which corresponds to the core principles. I also use the Attacking general training session, which I think of as corresponding to full team training, as it isn't done in individual units, and this is the day on which you would work on full-team, full-pitch training to help build endurance. MD-4 is a lighter day, as we want to ramp down the intensity for matches, but it's when we want to work more specifically on quick decision-making elements, as those should peak shortly before the match.
MD-1 is focused on tactics for the next match. This day is pretty flexible, aside from the the match preview session, but it should be pretty light so players aren't fatigued going into the match. I'll use a broad match tactics session by default, but that can be changed to an attacking movement or defensive shape session if you want to emphasize one for the upcoming match. The other session that day could be something that is less of a key tactical component (in my case, something like set piece training), or whatever else you like, so long as it isn't too intense. For each schedule, I've tried to articulate the core principles and sub-principles of my approach so that they can be readily modified depending on your style of play. I also list what attributes are trained, which hopefully shows how the session maps to my vision of how I want my team to play. AttackingThe core principles underlying how I want us to attack are patient possession and probing to find that incisive move. We want to keep the ball as a means of defending and force the other team to over-commit in some way. Our defenders should help with build-up and recycling play. I'm less concerned with finishing than I am with constructing good chances and opportunities, as we don't necessarily expect our chances to be few and far between, though this is an example of a sub-principle which I might change depending on the match; if we're playing PSG, say, I might use more chance creation and chance conversion sessions as we'll have to snatch opportunities when they arise. Technically, this schedule emphasizes technique and passing first, and finishing and first touch second (heading gets a large boost from the attacking free kick session, but as I mentioned that's optional and can and should be changed depending on your goals; I intend to use that as a flex session for anything that might need a bit more of a boost for the upcoming match, including set pieces). But it's focused more on mental attributes, really emphasizing anticipation, composure, decisions, off the ball, teamwork, and vision: all essential components of how I want to attack. Defenders will also get some work on dribbling and passing as well as marking and technique. Goalkeepers will mainly work on their individual roles, though they get some work on ball skills and agility. We also will see gains in tactical familiarity, particularly with passing style and creative freedom. TransitionsI've combined both transition phases (attack -> defense and defense -> attack) into one session due to the relatively limited number of relevant sessions. The main principle underlying my transition to defense is aggressive pressing once we lose the ball. However, I do use a split-block system, where I want my back line and defensive midfielders to keep their shape. As a result, I make heavy use of both the Transition -- Restrict and Transition -- Press schedules. In a gegenpressing or defensive system, you might want to focus on one or the other. I also use Defending from the Front to improve my attackers' ability to win the ball back or force a bad pass while pressing. One-on-Ones is used to sharpen my keepers' ability to react well if we turn the ball over and the other team gets a chance to counter quickly. When we transition to attack, I don't want to over-emphasize counterattacking (if you do, you could use Attacking Direct or Wings), but start to build the play patiently again. So we naturally use Play from the Back. I also want my goalkeepers to distribute the ball well to start a new move, so we have them work on Distribution. Once again, the set piece delivery session is a flex session. Technically, we end up working on first touch (for defenders), passing (for everyone), and tackling (for attackers). Goalkeepers work on their throwing and kicking as well as one-on-ones and rushing out. Mentally, everyone gets work on anticipation and teamwork, both of which are important for effective transitions, as well as some work on concentration and decisions. DefendingAs I mentioned above, when we defend, I want us to do so aggressively. This is for two reasons: defending by recovering the ball and holding onto it is less dangerous than letting the other team build up their play, and I want us to play compactly and high up the pitch in dangerous positions. I want to force the opposition to make a mistake. I would also rather win the ball back through interceptions than tackling, so as to limit the possibility of fouls. So I emphasize Defending Engaged versus Defending Disengaged, though your mileage may vary depending on how your team is set up. I also want to make sure that our keepers get work on Shot Stopping and Handling, and my attackers need to be able to Defend from the Front as part of their pressing. The technical attributes which are prioritized are first and foremost marking (for defenders), and then also heading, tackling, and technique. Keepers will get a lot of work on aerial reach, handling, one on ones, and reflexes. Mentally, we do a lot of work on positioning and anticipation for defenders as well as concentration and decisions, but teamwork also gets some boosts for everyone, including attackers. We also get some increases in tactical familiarity, namely to pressing and marking. Two MatchesIn weeks with multiple matches, the morphocycle goes out the window. Our focus is on letting the players recover and doing some preparation for the next match. The acquisition days are naturally what have to be sacrificed. We can, however, squeeze in a few sessions aimed at the really key principles, such as in my case Attacking Patient and Transition -- Press. These can be varied based on what you think needs work. We're mostly boosting tactical familiarity and teamwork this week. My schedule trains decisions as well, because of what I emphasize in my tactics, but this will vary depending on your principles. Two matches will help the players develop their physical and some mental and personality attributes as well.
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Post by chaodck on Jun 27, 2020 17:48:56 GMT
Great post Hok, I feared my approach for this season would be much different but in the end I managed to somewhat absorb what you said on your previous post and draw my schedules pretty similarly to what you've done for this new approach you're trying. I've had great results so far, little-to-no injuries during the season, general shape for the players come match day is always 90%+ (I ask them to double the intensity of training if condition is 90%+) and I've started to see developing of desired attributes as well and good training performances throughout the team. I'm not currently at the game, but I'll post my schedules during the afternoon with a bit of my insight regarding the other aspects of training, individual training, intenisity, mentoring and units.
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Post by chaodck on Jun 27, 2020 23:47:25 GMT
Ok, I ended up reworking all my schedules mainly because I have the Senior Squad playing on Saturdays or Sundays, the "B" Team playing on Mondays and the U-19's on Saturdays as well. As I used the same schedules for the three squads I had to micromanage a lot from the news item "Training Schedule for the Coming Weeks" each week to account for the games played I decided I would do over all schedules and make 3 versions of each one, to account for the day of the week with a match. I revised a few concepts and ended up with something I pretty much like based on the great concepts taught by Hok on this thread and his Le Havre save as well. Same as Hok, I divided my schedules into 3 main focuses, Defending, Transitions and Attacking and will rotate them weekly with the exception of weeks with two games (which as of now in my save are few, but will probably need rethink this focus once we play in Continental Competitions). The week will be focused from the Match, starting on the day after the match M-6 to the match day M (I'll explain what I'll do on longer weeks/shorter, for instance if we play a Saturday and next week on Sunday or the other way around). The most important days will be M-3 and M-2 and it's there where I chose to train the most important attributes I want to develop with particular drills, with M-5 and M-4 being days of more general training, finally with M-1 being a match preparation day and M-6 a recovery/review/team bonding day. I'll show what I'm doing with Saturday as the match day, explaining what I'll do with longer/shorter weeks and travel as well. This is thought with the idea (don't know if this is correct, I'm just asusming), that S1 and S2 are more important than the Extra Session, and thus I'm priorizing the more important sessions of each day in S1 and S2, with the extra session being a complement. Also, M-6 is a standard day so I'll assess it right now and then obviate it. Recovery post match, Match Review and Team Bonding, if there's travelling involved I'll lose one session and it's inevitably the Team Bonding one, leaving the former two. Attacking: So, the week starts with M-5 and M-4 where I'll tackle general sessions like Possession and Attacking, mixed with some technical sessions like Ball Retention and Distribution paired with a Set Piece session each. Then M-3 and M-2 are the specific work sessions where my priority will be to work on Attacking Patient, with a session each of wings and overlap and Chance Creation and Conversion. There isn't much to explain really here, pick 4-5 key specific sessions and put them in the two focus days, while working on more general concepts on the two general days. M-1 is match preparation and I'll work on Attacking Shadow Play, Attacking Movement and the mandatory Match Preview. Defending: M-5 and M-4 deal with a general Defending session, set pieces and GK work. There was an extra session and I filled it with Defending Engaged as I think it's important for my defenders to work on those attributes. The specific work in this case covers all Defensive drills, leaving the Wide and From the Front ones on the less important extra session. I might see to swap Wide with Aerial maybe. The preparation day sees us work with the defending alternative of the drills from the first schedule. Transitions: Here's a bit more to explain as this is more personal than the above which are similar to what Hok is doing. M-5 and M-4 focus more on the defensive side of things, as for me the Offensive to Defensive transition is less worked on the previous two schedules. Tactical general session works some interesting concepts and set piece delivery in an extra session. The focused days put double effort on the press as for me is more important than restrict, coupled with GK training related to transitions. Finally the match prep day sees us have a rare Attacking Direct drill, and I decided to go with it because for me it's a transition drill and will make us focus in counter attacking. When I have to travel, the M-1 session that is removed is the general one (Att. Shadow Play, Def. Shadow Play and Attacking Direct in this case). If I have a week with an extra day, I add another focus day in the middle, working on the most important drills of the week. If I have a day less in a week, I eliminate one of the general days M-5 or M-4, fusing both onto one. Two Match Weeks: A lot of less time to work, so a much more general approach, with Attacking, Defending, Tactical and Possession drills, plus two match preparation drills which would be adjusted depending on who I face. In the recovery days I slip in the two most important sessions of my schedule. Also a penalties drill just because. Now onto Individual Training. Unless I'm re-training a player, I use almost the same than what Nick posted on his June 25th post. Also fullbacks are part of my Offensive Unit (I should change them on Defensive weeks to the defensive unit but I just can't arse doing it) and CM's are divided depending on their abilities on the defensive or offensive units. GK: Sweeper Keeper - Support FB: Complete Wingback - Attack CB: Ball-Playing Defender - Cover or Stopper (I divide my players half and half) Defensive CM's: Ball Winning Midfielder - Support Mixed CM's: Box-To-Box Midfielder - Support Creative CM's: Roaming Playmaker - Support WG: Inside Forwards - Support (on the opposite side of stronger foot) AM: Advanced Playmaker - Support ST: Complete Forward - Support I haven't tried adding individual focus yet, as I've found it's badly implemented (for instance most fullbacks won't accept training in crossing or ball control which is borderline stupid, and also players too good on one thing won't train anymore despite the "too good" ability being 13-15 sometimes), and it makes players angry. Unless I have a player with a glaring weakness. Regarding Mentoring, what I do is put all the squad players into a single mentoring group to see their overall influence on the team. Then I structure smaller groups with 1 influential player and 2-3 less influential ones, taking into account positions and also determination (in order not to lower it much). On terms of general training intensity, I put all players on automatic, then set the sliders to Double Intensity when 90%+, Normal Intensity between 70% and 89%, Half Intensity between 60% and 69%, and no pitch or gym work below 59%. Sorry for the long post, I think that covers all what I do haha.
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