BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!?!

So 6 hours a day with vuvuzela isn't enough to annoy the hell out of your girlfriend?

Well here is the solution: Bring the vuvuzela to FML!

1. Install match sounds from add ons in FML
2a (Mac). Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/Sports Interactive/Football Manager Live/fml_live_v1/add_ons/match_sounds/
2b (Win). Navigate to %appdata%/Sports Interactive/Football Manager Live/fml_live_v1/add_ons/match_sounds/
3. Backup/rename FM_loop2.wav
4. Download and replace with this file FM_loop2.wav
5. Restart FML & wave goodbye to your girlfriend when she moves out so you get more time to play FML! :)

Either footed strikers

Numbers pulled from GW Vald, 2001 observations:

An either footed player hits target 1.8% more often than a one foot/one foot only player (41.8%)
An either footed player scores 1.6% more often than a one foot/one foot only player when the shot hits target (31.3%).
An either footed player scores 1.4% more often than a one foot/one foot only player when he shoots at goal (13.2%).

Some numbers on two-footed Passing

Following my last blog, and the heavy, but interesting FM thread about player attributes linked by T-Bag, I decided to take a look at impact of two-footedness in the current GWs.

This data is taken from 2000 players in Vald.
The means of the passing attribute (passing between 8 and 17):
One Foot Only: 12.5
One Foot: 12.7
Either Foot: 12.2

Completed passes:
One Foot Only: 70.0%
One Foot: 71.7%
Either Foot: 71.5%

Even though Either Footed players have 0.3 points less in passing they complete 1.5% more of their passes compared to One Foot Only.

An interesting observation is that it the difference between One Foot Only and One Foot seems to be bigger than the difference between One Foot and Either Foot.

But let's compare apples and apples. As described in the thread from the FM forums, attributes will most likely be lower when a player is two-footed, and that is also why the mean from my test sample is lower for two-footed players.  So how does a player with One Foot compare to a player with Either Foot when they have the same attribute points for passing?

I'd say One Foot has about 1.5 % higher percentage of passes completed than One Foot Only when the passing attribute is equal. And Either Foot has around 0.5% higher than One Foot.

So how much do 2% translate to in terms of the Passing attribute? Well, that is the interesting thing. It seems like there is a clear threshold when reaching Passing 15 and Decisions 14, independent of footedness.

Below Passing 12 the passes completed rise very slowly, then there is a big jump of 5% up to Passing 15 before it again reaches a plateau. The same is true for Decisions, from 12 to 14 the passes completed jump up by 4%.

So to summarize, I started investigating two-footedness under the assumption that it impacts passing a lot. I've found that it improves around 2% of passes completed, but that getting a player who is not One Footed Only is probably a better bet. I've also found that having a total sum of Passing + Decisions above 28 is very important for completing passes, more so than how many feet they use...

So my next midfielder will probably be a one-footed player competent with his other foot, with Passing 15 and Decicions 14!

Sorry if this post didn't make too much sense, I just wrote down stuff as I found them so it might have ended up a bit unorganised.. :)

Wanted: Low Attributes!

Somewhere online I found a data file consisting of 290 000 FM players.
Well, what is more natural than to deep dive into the numbers to try to find something interesting?

For all you youth managers out there, here are the attributes you don't want a high score on if you plan to let your guys develop to the next wonderkids of the world. The higher these attributes are, the less of the CA points can be spent on other attributes.

1: Natural Fitness
From what I've found, Natural Fitness in FML doesn't really help much with anything except probably postponing the player aging a bit.  However, it eats up a decent amount of points that could otherwise go to more vital attributes. Next time you get a new graduate, you should pray to the FML-lord that he gives you a 5* potential player with Natural Fitness 1.

2: Two-footedness
I'll admit I haven't checked the impact of two-footedness in the ME yet (something for an upcoming post I guess). But what I can tell you is that two-footedness takes points from other attributes at the same rate as Natural Fitness.

3: Flair
As I've mentioned before, Flair does not help a player's team score more goals, neither will it help the team concede less. Flair does improve the average rating, but so does high jumping, and I know which one I would prefer. ;)

4, 5 and 6: Aggression, Workrate & Teamwork
The usefulness of these attributes depends a bit on the position your players play on the field. But for an attacking player, I'm quite certain I could do without these attributes and rather see the physical attributes sky rocket to fulfill the Potential Ability available.

On the other end of the scale, here are the main attributes that impact the CA in a positive way.
For strikers:
Pace, Off the Ball, Decisions, Crossing, Dribbling, First Touch, Heading, Acceleration, Anticipation

And for DCs:
Tackling, Marking, Positioning, Decisions, Heading, Anticipation, Jumping, First Touch, Passing

I'm sure someone somewhere must have blogged/forum posted the same results within the FM community. If you know where to find more information, feel free to post some links down in the comment field! :)

FML Myths Uncovered #1: Jumping is the only attribute needed to win headers

I'll start a new weekly column. FML Myths. Every week I'll try to verify or bust forum posts that come out with blunt statements regarding stats and attributes in FML. This is the first post in the new FML Myths Uncovered series!

Btw, the reason for this post is that I'm on one of my regular boat trips from Stavanger to Bergen, and I need to kill some time!

So what influences headers won? Several forum posts go a long way indicating that jumping is the only attribute needed to win a header.

Well, let the numbers answer the question.

Myth:
Jumping is the only attribute needed to win headers. Forum post link to one of the threads claiming this.

Data set:
1932 random players in Voller (sorted by apps, excluding GKs)

Attributes looked into:
acc agg agi ant cnt bal cre det dri hea jum off pac pas pos sta wor str fla mar tac

Result:
Jumping is the most important attribute for winning headers by a landslide, over 5 times as important as the next attribute. The importance of attributes for headers won in ranked order: Jumping - Heading - Strength - Anticipation - Marking

Conclusion:
FML Myth confirmed!
Jumping is the only attribute needed to win headers!

Youth attributes

I'm sort of switching jobs and stuff so haven't been too active on the blog lately. Michael over in Miller wanted some details about youth attributes, so I did some analysis and thought I'd write up my findings on how kids' attributes compare to grown ups'.

What I did was to filter all 15-17 yos in Voller and compare them to 28-29 yos.

Now, I've just thrown all positions (minus GKs) under the same bus here, but hopefully the data sets are comparable with each other. The reason for this is that I needed a minimum sample of 1000 players, and couldn't get that without either increasing the age range or including all positions. The three individual regression results are using Average Rating, Team Goals Scored and Team Goals Conceded.

Key findings:
Work Rate stands out as the most influental attribute for youth. The higher the work rate, the higher the chances of getting improved match ratings and scoring more team goals. The reason behind this is not up to me to answer, but perhaps there is a stronger correlation between high teamwork and CA?
For the grown ups, Work Rate is not that important, although it is still scores as a top 5 attribute for impacting Average Rating.

Flair, as we already know is important for increasing Average Rating for both kids and grown ups.

Some other points to note is that Acceleration and Pace are less important for youth, and that Heading is more important. From previous research, this could indicate that the youth data set might have included a higher number of midfielders, but since I never displayed playing position when mining the data, that is anyone's guess! :)

Anticipation, Creativity, Concentration and Off The Ball also look to be less important for youth in terms of Average Rating, whilst Balance and Passing is more important for the youth players compared to the 28/29 yos.

Overall, the mean Average Rating for the senior data sample was 6.87, the mean Average Rating for the youth data sample was 6.79, so it shows that age is still golden, if only by a small amount! :)

Again, I wouldn't read too much into this data. It all gets a bit fuzzy when all playing positions are merged together in one big group.

Here are the means for grown ups and youth respectively.