FM2012 Training And Match Prep

Masterclass
by Ix Techau on 20 Oct 2011, with 54 Comments
This article is an updated version of the FM2011 Training Masterclass, and will go through the
training and match preparation modules in Football Manager 2012 how it works, whats
changed from FM2011, what all the sliders do and how to utilise them properly. All info
presented in this article is factual, confirmed by the developers either through personal messages
or through the official SI forum. Any speculative information will be noted as such.

Training Categories
There are nine different training categories two of them are fitness related, two of them are
goalkeeping related, and the other five are general training. All categories affect visible player
attributes only, and you can read more about what player attributes do and how they interact with each
other in the Player Attributes Explained article.

The first important thing to know is that all related attributes in a training category have an
equal chance of increasing. As an example; the strength training category affects jumping,
natural fitness, stamina, strength and work rate, but none of the attributes have higher priority
than the others they all have an equal chance of increasing if youre training the strength
category. Although it takes longer to increase an attribute from 19->20 than from 10->11, that
doesnt affect the chance of the attribute being trained.
Lets go through the training categories one by one:

Strength (physical training)

This category controls 5 attributes: Jumping, Natural Fitness, Stamina, Strength and Work Rate.
In FM2011 it only affected 4 attributes Jumping was previously in the Aerobic category. This
category is used for boosting overall fitness (players losing condition quickly in matches) and
physical impact (will keep your players tenacious and able to win more take-ons through
strength). Its also an essential category for pre-season training (see the Pre-Season section for
more info). Goalkeepers training in this category will not see an increase in Work Rate.

Aerobic (physical training)

This category controls 4 attributes: Acceleration, Agility, Balance and Pace. This category is
mainly for improving the athleticism of your player. It will make him faster, more agile and
steadier on his feet. Often used in conjunction with the Strength category to increase a players
overall physical presence, and is also used for Pre-Season purposes.

GK Shot Stopping (goalkeeper training)

This category controls 4 attributes, 2 of them goalkeeper specific: Reflexes (GK), One On Ones
(GK), Composure and Concentration. This category trains the goalkeepers mental abilities, and
only includes background or prime attributes.

GK Handling (goalkeeper training)

This category controls 4 attributes, all of them goalkeeper specific; Aerial Ability (GK), Kicking
(GK), Handling (GK) and Throwing (GK). This category trains the goalkeepers secondary
(accuracy) attributes. Side note: Aerial Ability is the goalkeeper equivalent of Jumping.

Tactics (general and goalkeeper training)

This category controls the most amount of attributes (8), as it also trains goalkeeper attributes if
applied to one: Anticipation, Composure (non-GK), Concentration (non-GK), Decisions,
Teamwork (non-GK), Command of Area (GK), Communication (GK) and Rushing Out (GK).
Being the category that affects the most amount of attributes, its the most important one,
especially for younger players. It teaches them to read the game, how to move and how to make
good decisions. If a goalkeeper is training this category, its an extension of his mental
goalkeeping training, making him interact better with his team and make better goalkeeping
decisions.

Ball Control (general training)

This category controls 5 attributes; Dribbling, First Touch, Technique, Flair and Heading. All are
technical or accuracy attributes except for Flair, which is an attribute that controls the
unpredictability of a player. This category is useful if you feel your players repertoire is limited,
and/or if you feel the player needs to control the ball better, as indicated by the category name.
Goalkeepers training in this category will only increase their First Touch.

Defending (general training)

This category controls 3 attributes; Tackling, Marking and Positioning. A fairly straightforward
category useful for all defensive minded players to increase their defensive precision. In
FM2011, this category included the Concentration attribute, but it has now been swapped with
the more suitable Positioning, which is the defensive equivalent of Off The Ball.

Attacking (general training)

This category controls 4 attributes; Crossing, Creativity, Off The Ball and Passing. Not as simple
as the Defending category though, as this one contains the prime attribute Creativity, which
essentially controls how many options a player has to choose between, together with Technique
and Flair. Its also the only category training the Passing attribute. Useful for all players on the
pitch, but obviously most useful for attack-minded players.

Shooting
Lastly, this category controls 2 attributes; Finishing and Long Shots. In FM2011, this category
included the Composure attribute, but that has been properly removed from this category in
FM2012. The Shooting category is self-explanatory useful for all players expected to provide
end product, and will increase a players accuracy in front of goal.
As mentioned at the start of this section, ALL attributes in a category have an equal chance of
being increased, and this is true regardless of how many attributes are in a category. It gets
complicated when you include attribute value into the equation, but more about that later.

Training Score (Advanced)

So now that we know what the different categories do and what attributes they affect, its time to
understand how this is all calculated to result in an increase for one or more attributes. Simply
explained; a training score is calculated in every training category, and then that score is used to
decide whether or not attributes are increased or not, and if so; how much.
This training score is calculated from three different factors:
Category Workload how high the slider for the category is set.
Coach Workload light, average, heavy or none.
Coach Ratings the amount of quality (stars) the coaches have for the category.
When this score has been calculated, its put up against several other factors, such as player
happiness, hidden mental attributes and current attribute levels, and then decides if the training
has been a success, and at what rate. Higher value attributes are harder (slower) to train, and
player morale affects the training performance. The final result is simply that one or more
attributes are increased or not.
The higher the training score is, the bigger the chance that one or more attributes will be
increased. In order to achieve the highest training score (and therefore highest chance of
increasing attributes), make sure your coaches have as many stars as possible, are on a light
workload, sliders are set to maximum in the category you want to train, and that your player is
professional and is on a superb morale.

Category Workload Sliders

Theres been much speculation about the mystery of the sliders since they were introduced in
Football Manager. Several theories exist (e.g X amount of notches will give you X result), but
there really is no mystery to them: there arent any trigger limits, the increase is purely
linear, forcing you to find the sweet spot on your own for every individual player. The labelling
(medium, high, intensive, etc) is only there for visual feedback.

Every notch increases the final training score (the chance of a player improving an attribute). In
order to have a realistic chance of one or more attributes to increase, a minimum level of
medium is recommended for the slider connected to the category in which the attributes are tied
to.
Even though a player could still increase an attribute at the lowest possible slider setting (notch
1), the training score at that setting is so low that the chance of an attribute increase is almost
non-existant.
Even though the sliders are only one part of the equation that forms the training score (coach
workload and quality/stars are almost as important), the final training score is drastically reduced
when the category workload sliders are below light.
Also worth keeping in mind is that the higher the overall workload, the bigger risk of injury and
player unhappiness. This doesnt mean you cant push up the individual sliders to max setting (in
fact, I recommend you do, to increase the training score) it just means that you have to keep an
eye on the bottom slider, the overall workload. Try to keep the overall workload one notch
below heavy and you minimise the chance of injuries/unhappiness.

Coaches & Workload

When it comes to coaches, its simple really: the more stars, the better. The stars take
everything into account, and are to be 100% trusted. If two coaches both have 4-star rating in
Tactics, you will achieve the exact same training score regardless of which one you use.

The coach workload decides the speed of the attribute increases. Light will get you results
faster, medium slower, heavy slowest and - none at all. The coach workload doesnt affect
the level of attribute increase (how much), just the rate (speed) of the increase.

If you have a 5-star coach and a 1-star coach training the same category, the training wont be
affected by the low level coach. The rating is all that matters, its the overall indicator of how
well the category is being trained. Therefor, its safe to sign high level coaches for all 9
categories, and then use low level (cheap) coaches to fill out the category workloads to light. It
also doesnt matter how many categories a coach is training in.
So with all that in mind, the best long term plan is to prioritise star rating over workload.

Coach Attributes
Similar to player attributes, coach attributes consists of background, prime and secondary
attributes, but they have a different meaning when dealing with coaches specifically:

Background Attributes
There are two types of background attributes. The first type (coaching) influences the training
score for individual players. They are Man Management and Working With Youngsters. They
are the equivalent of each other, so the former is preferred for first team or regular coaches,
while the latter is preferred for youth coaches.
The second type of background attribute (mental) controls things like how well the coach settles
at the club and his tactical knowledge. This also includes his judging abilities, so mental
background attributes are most important when choosing an assistant manager.
None of the background attributes have an influence on the star rating of the coach.

Prime Attributes
Prime attributes are used for every training category when calculating quality rating (stars). They
are Determination, Level of Discipline and Motivating. If these three attributes are high enough,
the coach is generally good at most of the training categories, regardless of his secondary
attributes. Prime attributes can make up at least 50% of the maximum star rating for all
categories.

Secondary Attributes
Secondary attributes only affects specific training categories. Heres how they affect specific
training categories, and how much:
Attacking 43% attacking and 24% shooting
Defending 43% defending
Fitness 62% strength and 62% aerobic
Goalkeepers 43% GK (shot stopping) and 43% GK (handling)
Mental 24% ball control

 Tactical 43% tactics, 19% defending and 24% attacking

Technical 43% ball control and 43% shooting
With all this information we can now make some pretty good assumptions on how to select and
appoint coaches. High background (coaching) attributes will increase the training score, and high
background (mental) attributes are best for assistant managers. High prime attributes are
preferred in all cases, and then the secondary attributes are used for specific categories.

Custom Schedules
Compared to FM2011, theres a new default schedule called Conditioning from the start of
your save. This training schedule can be used for any fitness-related training, and works pretty
well for Pre-Season purposes. These default schedules are only there to make training easier for
those who dont wish to travel deeper into the training module, but in order to maximise your
players potential you should create custom schedules.

There are different approaches here. Some create general schedules (similar to the default ones),
but with altered category sliders. Some make schedules for every position, and some even make
schedules for every individual player.
Making schedules for every single player isnt necessary in FM2012, as we have individual
focus on top of the general training. More about that in the next section.
In my own opinion, the best approach is to make custom schedules for: every base position +
team specific + pre-season. So in my case, first I make schedules for goalkeepers, central
defenders, full/wing backs, defensive midfielders, attacking midfielders, wingers/wide forwards
and strikers. I then create a prime schedule (a team-specific schedule in which the main focus
of my team is trained maybe my team has an attacking personality, so the focus would be on
that). Lastly I have a pre-season schedule for increasing player fitness levels when they come
back from their season break.

Individual Focus And Set Piece Training

Just like in FM2011, you can set individual training focus for all players. This is helpful if you
want to be more specific than the training categories allow you to be, targeting single attribute
boosts.

Individual Focus allows you to focus and spot train one of 7 physical (all except Natural Fitness),
3 mental or all 14 technical attributes the most powerful being the prime attribute Technique,
and also the important Composure attribute controlling how well a player performs under
pressure. In FM2011, Tackling wasnt included as an option in Individual Focus, but it is
available as an option in FM2012.
The other important aspect here is that in FM2010 and earlier, you had a specific Set Pieces
training category. With that being replaced by the goalkeeping categories in FM2011, you have
to use individual focus to train set piece attributes that arent affected by regular training
categories: Free Kicks, Penalties, Long Throws and Corners.

Match Preparation
New for FM2012 is the updated match preparation panel, giving you a visual indicator as to how
comfortable your team feels with your tactic. It also has a temporary effect on specific matches,
depending on the special focus area youve chosen. Its now located in the tactics module, as
opposed to having its own module in FM2011, but the functionality is exactly the same as in
FM2011.
First important thing to understand is that the workload level and the special focus areas do not
impact one another directly, other than special focus areas taking time from all other training
activities (including familiarity rate). A higher workload will NOT increase the effects of the
special focus areas, and none of the special focus areas will have an effect on the tactic
familiarity levels.

Workload Setting
Having this at the highest setting (Very High) will not make your players unhappy with the level
of training. It will just take away more time from normal training schedules (lowering the
training score). Its safe to push this up all the way when learning new tactics, as a short-term
solution.
As soon as the familiarity levels reach fluid for all tactics trained, lower the workload slider to
Low to maintain the levels, shifting more power to your regular training schedules in the
process. The match preparation workload setting cuts into regular training time, so if you leave
the slider on Average/High/Very High, training scores will be affected.

Familiarity Levels
As these increase, your players will perform the tactical instructions better. Always aim to have
all bars on fluid. Whenever you alter your tactics, even the smallest of changes will make the
game re-calculate the familiarity levels of your team. This is also true in a match using
touchline shouts or altering tactics mid-game could have a negative effect on the team, as theyre
not as familiar with the new tactic.

Special Focus Areas

These selections are made to gain temporary benefits on a match-to-match basis. They will not
stack up (except Team Blend), and should be viewed as a boost for the next match only. If you
have a tough game coming up you might want to focus on Defensive Positioning, if you have an
easy game coming up you might focus on Attacking Movement, and so on.
Worth noting is that if you have any of the special focuses selected the familiarity levels of
the tactic(s) wont increase as quickly. So if you want your team to learn the tactic(s) as fast as
possible, dont have a special focus selected.
The way these focus areas translate into the match engine is to give temporary boosts to related
attributes. The boost is only given if the player is familiar enough with the tactic used, so thats
how familiarity levels and special focus areas tie in together.

Teamwork (previously Team Blend in FM2011)

This is the only focus that stacks up over time, and the only focus that is not active during a
match. Instead, its active in between matches. Having Teamwork set as the default special focus,
and then focusing on a specific area one day before a match will give you double the benefits.
What Teamwork does is to increase player relationships, gelling them together, which ultimately
increases morale and performances.

Tutoring And Player Preferred Moves (PPMs)

When you go to a Player Profile Positions, youll see a list called Preferred Moves (or
PPM). There are two ways to have a player learn a PPM: First one is to have a private chat with
him, telling him specifically what PPM you think he should learn. The second one is to have a
senior player (that currently has the PPM you want your player to learn) tutor him, hoping that
the player learns that specific PPM.
In order to tutor the player he needs to be young age plays a big part in tutoring. The older the
player is, the more reluctant he will be to learn new tricks.
Even though tutoring is mostly designed to give you an option how to have your players learn
PPMs, the other benefit is that you can build relationships within the squad. You always run the
risk of creating enemies as well, but a positive outcome is likely if you take player personality
into account when selecting tutoring pairs.

Player Workload And Training Levels

In the Player Profile Training panel, you will see overall workload percentages in the bottom
left corner. These will tell you how much the player is focusing on the different aspects of
training. Every time you add purpose-built training like PPMs, new position or Individual

Training Focus, it takes a piece out of the main training schedule the player is currently in
(causing the training score to take a hit).
The match preparation also cuts into this share. The ideal situation is to have at least 70%
dedicated to normal scheduled training, and the rest dedicated to individual focus and/or match
preparation.

Training Levels (Advanced)

An often overlooked panel is Training Levels, located in Player Profile Training Levels (the
far right tab at the top). The reason this panel is useful is because it tells you how high your
training score is in a specific training category the bars indicate how well a category is
trained, based on player happiness, fitness, hidden attributes, current attribute levels, training
facilities, etc.

Contrary to popular belief, the bars do not tell you how hard the player is training they arent
telling you if the player is in the risk zone for injuries or unhappiness.
If a bar is low, it tells you that either a) the workload slider for that category isnt high enough to
make an impact, or b) the player already has very high attribute values in the category, making it
less likely that his attributes will increase, or c) the player has run out of current ability points,
so there is nothing left to take from to increase attributes.
If a bar is high, it means this category has a high chance of improvement calculated by
current attribute values, category workload, and so on. You should aim to have as high bars as
possible in the categories you want to train, but there is no penalty for low bars that just means
that the chance of improvement in the affected attributes is small.
This info means that we can customise training schedules solely based on this information. With
access to a visual indication of our training score, we can control the height of the bars by
increasing or decreasing the workload in the players current training schedule. For example, if
you only need a player to increase his Tackling and Pace attributes and dont care about the rest,
you could use the Training Level bars as a guide to scale away all unnecessary training.

Training Tips And Tricks

Using all the information weve reviewed in this article, here are some suggestions on how to use
training efficiently. Just to be clear, this entire section is speculative and just my personal
opinion based on the facts presented earlier in the article.

Pre-Season
Use a specific training schedule, focusing mostly on tactics, strength and aerobics to have players
work up their fitness and key mental attributes after the summer break. Have your main tactic
loaded as the only tactic in Match Preparation, and have the workload slider set to Very High.
Have the Teamwork special focus selected all the way through pre-season.
As soon as the fitness information (Player Profile Attributes) says a player is either match fit or
in superb condition, he does not need pre-season training anymore, but I usually keep all
players on pre-season training until 2 weeks before the season starts, just to get the benefit of the
mental attribute increases from the high workload in the Tactics category.

Set Pieces
Assign individual training focus Free Kicks, Penalties, Long Throws and Corners for your
corresponding set piece takers. There is no set piece training category in FM2012, so all set piece
attributes has to be increased through Individual Focus.

Short-Term Training
If you want to quickly raise a specific player attribute, first find the training category in which
the attribute is learned. Then check to see if the attribute can be learned through individual focus.
Here is the list of what attributes are trained by what category/focus;
Technical Attributes
Corners individual focus Corners
Crossing training category Attacking / individual focus Crossing
Dribbling training category Ball Control / individual focus Dribbling
Finishing training category Shooting / individual focus Finishing
First Touch training category Ball Control / individual focus First Touch
Free Kick Taking individual focus Free Kicks
Heading training category Ball Control / individual focus Heading
Long Shots training category Shooting / individual focus Long Shots
Long Throws individual focus Long Throws
Marking training category Defending / individual focus Marking
Passing training category Attacking / individual focus Passing
Penalty Taking individual focus Penalties
Tackling training category Defending / individual focus Tackling
Technique training category Ball Control / individual focus Technique

Mental Attributes
Anticipation training category Tactics
Composure training category Tactics / individual focus Composure
Concentration training category Tactics
Decisions training category Tactics
Flair training category Ball Control
Off The Ball training category Attacking / individual focus Off The Ball
Positioning training category Defending / individual focus Positioning
Teamwork training category Tactics
Work Rate training category Strength
Physical Attributes
Acceleration training category Aerobic / individual focus Quickness
Agility training category Aerobic / individual focus Agility
Balance training category Aerobic / individual focus Balance
Jumping training category Strength / individual focus Jumping
Natural Fitness training category Strength
Pace training category Aerobic / individual focus Quickness
Stamina training category Strength / individual focus Stamina
Strength training category Strength / individual focus Strength
The attributes that has both a training category and an individual focus assigned to them will
have a higher rate and chance of increasing if both are used. The attributes that you cant
increase through training are Aggression, Bravery, Creativity, Determination and Influence all
mental attributes that are increased through other means (first team action, player growth, etc).
In order to increase a specific attribute as quickly as possible, create a custom training schedule
with the corresponding category on Intensive (all the way up), then have the player set on
individual focus for the intended attribute. Remove all positional and preferred moves training,
and keep the match preparation training as low as possible. Make sure your coach(es) have an ok
star rating in the category youre training, that the category workload is light (workload is more
important that star rating in short term training), and that the player is happy (high morale).
These factors will give you the highest possible training score, and therefore the highest chance
that an attribute will be raised.

Long-Term Training
The long-term training is used for creating a team personality and instill a recognisable character
to your team. Do you want to be known as a possession-based team? Masters of the defence?
With long-term training you will build a specific set of attributes to shape the behaviour of the
team.
Using the above list for attribute/training category/individual focus, we can build a custom
training schedule that I like to call a prime schedule. It should be balanced enough that almost
all outfield players should be able to take part in it, to be shaped into your teams personality and
philosophy. But also specifically focused on 1-3 training categories.

Here are some prime schedule examples;

Attacking/Possession (Arsenal, Barcelona, etc) Tactics and Attacking
Defensive/Counter (Real Madrid, Inter, etc) Tactics, Defending and Shooting
Muscle/Control (Chelsea, etc) Strength, Ball Control and Tactics
The prime schedule should be used mainly for newcomers to the club, so that they blend in well
with the rest of the squad, giving them similar attributes. Make sure that your main tactic(s)
reflect the training focus as well, its pointless having an attacking prime schedule if your main
tactic is a defensive one.

Final Words
Hopefully youll understand more about the training and match preparation functionality of
Football Manager 2012 now, even though it is quite a lot to take in. If you have any questions, or
maybe your own tips & tricks for training, let me know!