Keeping a older player going..

[Wilson7]

Is there a special training schedule I can put on a older player to stop his stats decreasing? Iknow the physical stats will decrease but anyway to stop technical going down or prolong their career ?

Any helps appreciated

[LlamaZA]

From what I've gathered the trick to keeping an old player going is to protect his physical stats decreasing by pushing his training to high Strength/Aerobic.

The game mechanics are such that he will be losing stats regardless, training will determine which stats those are.

[furiousuk]

Carefully regulate their playing time as well. Older players that play regularly can have very long careers, particularly if they have a high Natural Fitness attribute (this seems to be the key attrib but I haven't really tested this, I expect some hidden attribs are also very important). The problem is that playing players too frequently can result in jadedness, fatigue and injury and a serious injury to a 30+ player can be career ending. So, as with everything, a balance needs to be found.

[Wilson7]

Thanks, I'll look into improving his fitness if I can

[Marsupian]

You can't really stop his stats from decreasing. At first you can put him on higher fitness training to prolong his physical side but at some point his attributes will just start to go down no matter what you do. You can chose to try to keep either his physical side intact or his technical side or just give him a regular schedule and have both decrease naturally.

The most important part to keeping him in the game is carefully managing his fitness and game time and adapting his role to his new attributes. An aging winger for example might have been playing in a Winger (attack) role most of his career but in his older days he will likely adapt his game and adopt a Winger (support) role. Instead of beating his man to the byline he will come deeper and use his better technical and mental attributes to cross from deep (ala Beckham). A marauding midfielder who has played as box to box or ballwinner for years might adapt his game and become a deep lying playmaker focusing more on his technical and mental side instead of relying on his physique and fitness.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

Carefully regulate their playing time as well. Older players that play regularly can have very long careers, particularly if they have a high Natural Fitness attribute (this seems to be the key attrib but I haven't really tested this, I expect some hidden attribs are also very important). The problem is that playing players too frequently can result in jadedness, fatigue and injury and a serious injury to a 30+ player can be career ending. So, as with everything, a balance needs to be found.

High "Professionalism" appears to help lengthen careers.

[Marsupian]

High "Professionalism" appears to help lengthen careers.

True, high professionalism means he will train more and harder which in turn keeps his CA up. I've also found it to be absolutely key for prospects. If a prospect is not professional enough he will just outright not improve. It's not the only hidden attribute that helps (I think determination and ambition also help) but from my experience it's definitively the most important one in terms of development.

[loladarulz]

Not much to do, the player must be professional, increase significantly strength/aerobic training and give them enough playing time. Its good idea to retrain ageing players to more static positions if possible.