High mental with low technique

[MijnEigenFan]

I wanted to use this thread to question the benefits of a player that has high mental attributes but low technique.

I wanted to start with excluding decisions, because that obviously does do well, also for lesser players. Mental attributes allow players to do things but if they can't, will they still do it? If so, would this be a benefit to their team. For example, if a players wants to pass a ball. His creativity is 20, but his passing is 1. Will he try to make that world class pass that a player with 20 creativity and great passing would do, because if he does, he will very likely fail because his technique doesn't allow him.

I think the same applies to aggression, it's great to challenge a player with good aggression, but you need to be able to tackle a player, else you are risking a card. So again, if a player has 20 aggression and 1 for tackling, my guess is that he is likely to get into a lot of trouble.

Keep in mind that I leave out the decisions attribute and it's the way I think it works, if someone is certain and willing to correct me, feel free.

[dribbler]

I might be wrong here but I'll have a stab at an answer. Also I'm not certain I understand what you're asking so I'll just explain things as I understand them:

A player with a high creativity (vision) attribute can see many options...he can see a great crossfield pass, he can see the chance to curve a shot around an onrushing defender and into the far corner of the net, he can see the chance to play a brilliant back-heeled through ball or to knock a delicate flick behind his marker and run onto the ball himself, he can see a quick one-two or an overhead kick etc. A player with low creativity can't see that these options are available.

So it's one thing to see various options but the player also needs the technique to be able to pull them off. So a player with high technique is the player who has these tricks in his locker and the player with low technique just can't do these things.

Next consider flair. Every time a player receives the ball he has one or more options. Players with high creativity and technique will have more available options than players with low creativity and technique. Now consider that some of these options will be more flamboyant than others. The player with higher flair will be more likely to pick a flamboyant option (like a back-heeled pass) and a player with lower flair will be more likely to pick a safer option (like a short-simple pass).

So creativity, technique and flair are all linked to each other when you are considering whether to buy a player. If any of these three attributes are low then he either won't see the flamboyant option or else he won't have the technical ability to pull it off or else he can see the chance and can do it but is in the habit of playing safe. Creativity, technique and flair are all mental attributes.

So for completeness let's consider a couple more mental attributes; the decisions attribute and the teamwork attribute. A player has a range of options and if he has a poor decisions attribute he's more likely to pick a poor option (speculative long shot) when better options are available. Teamwork is similar. Low teamwork means he's more likely to "go for glory" rather than pass to a team mate in a better position.

There might be other mental attributes that impact a players decision but those are the five that occurred to me just now.

So far we have just discussed the player's decision. Let's say he decides to play a through-ball to your striker. Now we need to consider his passing attribute. "Passing" = passing accuracy and as you know this is a technical attribute. But his ability to pull off the pass he intends to make also depends on other mental attributes such as concentration and composure. And it also depends what his striker does and what the defenders do.

So I think it's useful to think separately of (a) the player's decision-making and (b) the success or failure of his attempted action

Going back to your specific question you should now understand that you were correct to think that the player with creativity=20 and passing accuracy=1 might well try that world-class pass (so long as his flair is high). As I explained his passing accuracy is nothing to do with his decision to make the pass.

(if I got any of this wrong there are plenty of people on here who can explain it better)

[Stefanius]

What you are saying is in my opinion currect and honestly made me realise that I am putting to much emphasis on mental stats. But after admitting that I would still like to add that your examples are in an extreme that you never find. In your exemples a player with 20 passing and 1 in creativity would be more useful then a player with 20 in creativity but 1 in passing (I'm skipping all other stats that come into play for simplisity sake) because what good does it do to see all the options you have if you can't do anything about it. But if we go to a more realistic example and say a player with 20 passing an 13 creativity vs. a player with 13 passing and 20 creativity I would personally prefer the latter. The reason for this is that the latter would see more, and perhaps better options then the former and although the former has a better ability to complete what he sees the latter sees more and although he can't always succeed in what he is trying, when he does could be that much better.

This is just my opinion though and I can see why some would prefer it the other way around.

P.S. Just started thinking about your other example, aggression and tackling, and realized that I would pick it the other way around there, would prefer a player with high tackling and low aggression over a player with high aggression and low tackling, as that could be quite dangerous, as you stated. So I guess I'm back to squere one, looking at the players stats in detail and as a whole, think of what I would like him to do and how well his stats fit it. Gosh darn it, why did I have to think of that latter example, it turned my "valid" point into a mad mans rambeling. Sorry 'bout that.

[phnompenhandy]

I'll just add the brief observation that technical attributes a much more trainable than mental ones for a youngster. So I look for decent mental attributes in a kid; the technicals will be moulded at my club by the time he's in his early 20s.

[MijnEigenFan]

I'm giving these extreme examples to make sure the impression stays, and for dribbler, I left out the decision attribute because I believe it does take player skill into account, but having high flair and low technique would probably result in a player trying to do a lot of tricks while not being able to execute them and thus failing.

[Cleon]

I'm giving these extreme examples to make sure the impression stays, and for dribbler, I left out the decision attribute because I believe it does take player skill into account, but having high flair and low technique would probably result in a player trying to do a lot of tricks while not being able to execute them and thus failing.

Technique is the aesthetic quality of a player’s technical game – how refined they appear to be with the ball. A player with high technique will be more likely to pull off a tricky pass or a cross-field ball with greater ease than someone less technically able. This in turn affects a number of technical attributes – poorer technique will let a player down.

When talking about attributes you can't really break them down and rank them in number of importance as every single attribute is linked in some way or shape.

I talk about attributes in quite some depth in here http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/289528-The-SI-Sports-Centre-Including-the-W-M-Formation

[Marsupian]

I think a player does take his skill into account when deciding whether to try a pass or not. I think that if a player has 20 creativity, 20 decisions and 1 passing will play a very short passing game unless his flair is high as well in which case he will have the occasional attempt at a more technical and adventures pass.

[qqq]

This famous assist--- ask yourself, vision or passing skill?????

I see the final pass as pure and to quote Dribbler in post #2 vision (creativity) I could make that pass, technically, but would I of seen it in the first place?

I think that a player that can see many options for a good pass but with limited passing skills would be better than someone with great passing skill but with poor vision (creativity). Look at Messi, he has vision beyond any player I have seen and many of his killer passes are very short indeed but based on his awareness of the game he is able to do the most fantastic things, David Beckham on the other hand could land the ball on a penny from 60 yards but without the vision to see the pass, the skill is much less dangerous than the Messi type of pass.

Aggression is more of a mental ability to get stuck in rather than a scale of dirtiness, but it does mean to me that mixed with poor tackling it will cause more fouls. If you had two defenders with equal high tackling stats I would opt for the more aggressive player every time.

[dribbler]

Ahh looks like I was wrong to say technique was a mental attribute as Cleon was probably hinting. So maybe technique is linked to the other technical attributes to decide the outcome of the pass, shot, free-kick etc. Might have to read Cleon's mega-post again and pay more attention this time I guess

Sorry for the mistake :o

[Marsupian]

Ahh looks like I was wrong to say technique was a mental attribute as Cleon was probably hinting. So maybe technique is linked to the other technical attributes to decide the outcome of the pass, shot, free-kick etc. Might have to read Cleon's mega-post again and pay more attention this time I guess

Sorry for the mistake :o

Technique is the "repertoire" of the player (straight shot, curled shot, back heal, lob etc.) while the relevant technical stat (passing, free-kicks, dribbling, finishing etc.) is the "accuracy" of the action. Someone with 20 techinique and 1 long shots can shoot the most wonderful curled screamer but it will probably hit the corner flag instead of getting anywhere near the goal.

[Cleon]

Technique is the "repertoire" of the player (straight shot, curled shot, back heal, lob etc.) while the relevant technical stat (passing, free-kicks, dribbling, finishing etc.) is the "accuracy" of the action. Someone with 20 techinique and 1 long shots can shoot the most wonderful curled screamer but it will probably hit the corner flag instead of getting anywhere near the goal.

The type of shot comes down to flair and creativity though. I thought I'd make that clear because the way your post was worded, made out the type of shot etc was down to technique but it isn't.

Technique is just how good someone is with a ball.

Technique is the aesthetic quality of a player’s technical game – how refined they appear to be with the ball. A player with high technique will be more likely to pull off a tricky pass or a cross-field ball with greater ease than someone less technically able. This in turn affects a number of technical attributes – poorer technique will let a player down.