2014 Does International Football Improve Players?

[Ashez]

Does International Football Improve Players?

 

One thing i've moaned a lot about international management in game is that you have no form of intensive training to improve the players, however after becoming more knowledgeable about the subject while doing my "Youth Development" guide we discovered that intensive training is meaningless without game time. Which got me thinking, does international football improve players? Let's find out.

 

For this test i started a save with Brazil only and holidayed to the start of the World Cup, at this point i backed up the save and inserted it into the save editor making a note of five random players current ability and amount of caps. After this i continued to play the save by holidaying until the tournament had finished, at this point i redid the previously mentioned steps and now i'm going to share with you the results.

 

 

As you can see there has been a slight improvement in three of the five players which shows international football can improve the players, however it seems to be random. It seems to be random because Neymar played the same amount of games as Alba yet remained unchanged while Alba saw a current ability increase of three. The changes maybe small but over the course of a players international career these small increase will soon add up making a massive difference to the players ability, maybe this is why after each international tournament we are bombarded with new contract requests?

 

Another Example:

 

In my recently finished international goal challenge for the first few years the player i was using wasn't being played at club level, he hardly played for eight years apart from for the national team. The player in question was Jese from Real Madrid and at the start of the game he has a current ability of 124 according to Dec's short list. Looking at screen shots and using the save editor to look at his current ability on season seven i can see that he's grown by 14 points in roughly 86 games. Obviously this is a bad example due to him being ignored at club level but say you're managing a player at both levels those 14 points could mean the difference between world player of the year or being the runner up.

 

Conclusion:

 

The improvement gained by playing international football seems small but the improvement is there, it'll never match playing fifty games a season at club level but with these extra games improving our star players they have a much higher chance of reaching their potential ability.

 

Thank you for reading and hopefully you learnt something new.

[Lee-Roy]

Great use of the SE, wish I could see more stuff like this from the thousands that download it.

I now have a huge conundrum, in that I often have a German or two in my team as I know they won't be crippled with internationals....but now we know that although it's a small improvement, it's still one that the Germans miss out on :/

+1

[Ashez]

Cheers, yeah i wish more people looked into this kind of stuff to.

That's a very good point i over looked, i guess it would "hinder" any player with limited or no ITN games.

[Balobelly]

The only stuff I learnt about managing an international team was that you never end up with more than 15 of the squad with 95%+ fitness! and that signing youngsters to your club team from the nation helps hugely as they benefit for your clubs IT training.

So this is very useful - cheers

[Ashez]

IT means nothing without game time which is shown here - http://fmhvibe.co.uk/community/topic/21134-youth-development-the-best-method/#entry186027

I do agree that signing players of the nation you are managing is to your advantage, however that isn't an option if you aren't managing a club.

Cheers for the comment.

[Dec]

Interesting Ash. I would say that PA increase is a lot for a month. Given that PA is out of 200 so if it raises 2 in a month potentially a player can go from 1 CA to 200 in 10 seasons!

[Ashez]

Very good point Dec.

In my youth guide the player i tested improved by 13/14 points so if you add one or two more to that just for playing for the national team you could be looking at a 15/17 point increase a season. Although that player was German, i wonder if SI have a different "working out" for German and Japan players due to them not having ITN games?

[Dec]

Maybe they lose out on it. I would say you will have to test out many more players of all abilities, positions and ages as well as nationality in the 3 or so possibilities that can be managed internationally. It would be interesting see the World Cup effect v qualifying.

[Lewiitom]

Interesting read Ash

 

Something else I noticed on an old save of mine was an improvement at club level for my strikers after international tournaments, maybe this help explain it.

[Ashez]

WC vs qualifying would be a nighmare to check, due to club games you'd have to check before and after each game.

Cheers Tom, i guess that would .

[Dec]

I agree but I think it would be interesting. You would only have to sample 10 players from 5 weeks in my opinion and do the same for the 10 players during the World Cup.

[rseven]

i think more reputation will be got for players who play world cup. and more risk to injury.

[Lee-Roy]

I think that not having the break before pre season (when the players personality is "relaxing") cancels out the decline in stats, I think that's where toms experience comes from.