perpetua

A lot in there. Let's start out with Nelsson. It's as simple as preference to highlight his concentration and decision making while making sure he isn't much of a goal scoring threat from set pieces, as well as reflect his tendency to mis-head the ball into poor areas. I think the difference between him and Davinson Sanchez became very clear as soon as Davinson Sanchez got some playing time (think the header assist from his own half). Yet, Davinson is rated merely at 13, probably because he doesn't have a very stellar goal scoring record from set pieces (albeit playing at a higher level in the EPL) either. You make the comparison to Kaan Ayhan. These are two quite different individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. As I see it, if all players had very similar attributes, what is the purpose of playing a football manager game where the point is to build tactics which highlight the strengths of your team and hide the weaknesses based on who the opponent happens to be. It's kind of like solving a puzzle. You need a player who has good ability to pass from the back, then it's probably a better idea to use Kaan Ayhan. You need a player who has good ability to track opponents and not make mistakes in defense while delegating playmaking to the midfield, then it's probably better idea to use Nelsson. If you need someone with speed against pacy attackers, then Davinson Sanchez is your best option. As for Sacha Boey. Again, it's a preference to better reflect his athletic ability that he uses to very good effect in defense. I already wrote a little about him in another thread, which I'll copy here. For Torreira. I think you will agree with me that Torreira has some great ability to press opponents as well as quickly change direction. His ability to anticipate where passes will be played and get to the ball before opponents his a major strength for him. He's not the type of player that runs after a player sprinting with the ball because he has already put pressure on the player just as his opponent receives the ball. All of these are going to be best reflected with anticipation, acceleration and agility. Should he have higher pace? Let me put it this way. Last season Sergio Oliveira ran at a pace of over 7 m/s (which is quite fast but less than Pace = 1) for 1% of the total distance he covered. For Torreira this was 0.6%. For Boey and Baris Alper it was around 3%. For Abdulkerim it was around 1.4%. For Midtsjo it was around 1.7%. For Berkan it was 1.4%. For Bafetimbi Gomis it was 0.9% For Juan Mata it was 0.5%. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put into Sherlock Holmes' mouth, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. We don't observe Torreira run at high speeds very frequently. This could mean he's lazy on the pitch and/or doesn't concentrate so he doesn't use the pace that he possesses. Or it could mean despite his hard working demeanor, he doesn't have a very high top speed. While this may be an uncomfortable conclusion, in my opinion it's a better conclusion than giving Torreira lower acceleration or agility which would diminish his ability when pressing or lower work rate and/or concentration which would have a similar result. "Unusual weaknesses in sports can only survive in the presence of unusual strengths." as Bill James once wrote in the Fielding Bible. So if players are to have unusual strengths they must also have some unusual weaknesses. As for his strength. When you hover over the strength attribute in the game it reads "This attribute reflects a player's ability to exert his physical force on an opponent to his benefit." Recall from high school physics that Force = Mass x Acceleration. So the larger the mass or higher the acceleration, the more force a player can exert on an opponent. Torreira is not a player that can exert force with a large mass. He's approximately 1.68 m tall (average football player in the database is 1.80m) and about 64 kg. So the mass portion of his ability to exert force on an opponent is well below the average football player. However since he's quite quick, athletic and fit, we have rated him slightly below what would be the hypothetical average for a 1.80 m tall player (which would be 10). Some other player with mass similar to Torreira would probably need to be rated lower than where we rated Torreira. Also it's worth remembering that strength is only a player's ability to exert force. There is also the willingness to exert force, which aggression and bravery will mostly cover. In this regard Torreira is certainly exceptional. However I don't believe that we should be seeing him possess a strength rating that would allow him to regularly bully (on the pitch) players that are much larger than him in size. Finally Ercan Kara. I haven't had a chance to analyze him yet but our Samsunspor researcher is certainly on the task. It will probably be a good idea to keep monitoring him and see whether the difference in his performance in the game and in real life is a product of his abilities, how he's used by his managers so far, or perhaps because of fitness related issues. Thanks!

Will be fixed. Thanks!

By the way are you the Ridvan Erdem who works as a translator for Rizespor? More info like this, if possible, would be much appreciated.

Oops, I didn't notice this earlier. Thanks for the suggestions. We will review and amend.

While I sympathize with your comments, I encourage you to have a look at the FAQ. If you have some concrete ideas of how his attributes could be different, I'm happy to read them.

In general, I agree with your early assessments of Djiku and Becao. We'll probably be able to make better assessments in January. As for whether to change players just after their transfer or not, the general rule is that they shouldn't be adjusted drastically especially if they have been thoroughly researched at their previous club already. I have noticed a tendency for some ARs to make huge wholesale changes to players who have just joined recently and often this has led to those same players ending up with very different attributes only a few months later. You gave the example of Atilla Szalai. He arrived with his passing attribute being rated at 12, was brought up to 14 immediately, then to 15 a year later, then to 13 a year later and finally ended up at 12 again. As I see it, this is a result of making early decisions about a player only to later backtrack. The same happened with his technique. He arrived with a 9, then dropped to 8, then went to 12, then to 14, then to 12, then to 11 over a period of 2 years. I don't see this as a healthy way of conducting player research and we have to encourage assistant researchers not to come to quick decisions on a small sample of information. While I understand the situation with Djuku and Becao is not ideal, it's also not possible for one individual to rate all players. Since providing ratings for players across many borders is a big task, many people have to be involved. And since different people can observe the same thing and come to different conclusions, such inconsistencies can, have and will likely continue to happen. That doesn't mean we as researchers shouldn't strive to be more consistent across the board but this is no straightforward task.

Thanks. I personally tend to agree with you about his passing and his free kick taking ratings. Would you care to suggest alternative ratings?

With respect to Ziyech, he has a signed contract which goes into effect if Galatasaray exercise his buy option. The club announced the details of this contract already. Unfortunately it's not possible in the game for us to set contract details for a buy option. So we have to either have: Loan option with no contract details that have been singed, which means the club and the player will have to negotiate a contract, or Future transfer which reflects the signed contract for next season. Neither of the two options are ideal. When sending over Ziyech the Chelsea researcher had set it as a future transfer so we assumed he had some additional knowledge from what we had. For Angelinho, the option vesting option was entered in the database when he was transferred from Germany to Turkey. The loan fee was also entered at this time. However it does not appear in the game. I suspect this is a game error which is why I logged a bug related to it.

Thanks! This has already been reported.

@Kane10 We do make these comparisons quite religiously. However more than individual attributes, I think looking at combinations of attributes that affect things like goal scoring, defending, playmaking, ball carrying etc. is a little more effective in identifying if a player looks out of place. For example you mention things like xG, xA etc. These are more closely related to combinations of attributes rather than individual attributes. We'll certainly keep watching and reconsidering player attributes for Tadic and others.

It's a bit complicated. He is indeed considered a foreigner in Turkey because he debuted for a nation other than Turkey after June 15, 2016. All Turkish nationals who have appeared for another nation after that date are not considered domestic players. Turkish FA allowed for one player who has Turkish citizenship but does not count as a domestic player this year. Recall that Yusuf Demir is also in the same situation. Suppose Galatasaray kept both Kerem Demirbay and Yusuf Demir in the squad. One would count towards the rule described above while the other would count as a foreign player. So he needs to count as a foreigner but the rules should allow for one of them to be fielded along with 2 other domestic players.

@bugra.gundogan I don't have an issue with lowering the extra positions and will recommend it to be done, just wanted to highlight the reasoning. Sometimes it takes a season or two for researchers to finally say ok this guy is not going to be playing in his old position anymore and the rating should be downgraded.

@bugra.gundogan More than having played in a position, in my opinion, his skill set makes him suitable to play in a lot of areas. Quite good with the ball, quite hard working, pretty good decision making, good stamina etc. So if a manager chose to use him as a super utility player, they could without issues in my opinion. He probably wouldn't play 8 or 9 out of 10 in those positions but he likely wouldn't fall under 6 or 7 out of 10 either. As for his attributes, feel free to make suggestions. My personal view on Ferdi's attributes is that he could be a little more proficient defensively and in terms of tempo while perhaps not so strong in some of the attacking aspects of his game. His attributes still look a bit too much like a winger for my liking.

Yes. Unfortunately we spotted this just after the database closed. It has already been fixed.

Oosterwolde is another one of those athletic players who seems to take the ball up the pitch when he has an opening. But when he's faced with an opponent, he tends to go for more give-and-go's rather than trying to dribble past them. But he's just now starting to play regularly this season so we'll obviously continue to monitor him. Good point about Samet and Serdar. Centre backs are a bit of a work in progress still. I generally agree about Irfan's passing. Something we'll probably need to look at next term. As for the dichotomy between our willingness to give low attribute vs. others. As I see it, if one attribute is low, then another is higher. A player being poor at something isn't the end of the world. The manager adjusts his tactics so that the poor attribute is required less and the strong attributes are used more to get more out of the player. Makes for a more interesting game in my opinion.

We lowered many of the positions for Ferdi this year to a level where it's not a big addition to his CA. We can probably lower them some more and will certainly be reviewing him and I agree that he's a full back now. Thanks!

We are instructed to leave out sponsor names. I am not aware that Fenerbahçe's stadium name change request has been approved by relevant authorities. Yesterday's match location is still listed as: ÜLKER STADYUMU FB ŞÜKRÜ SARACOĞLU SPOR KOMPLEKSİ https://tff.org/Default.aspx?pageId=29&macId=249243

Thanks. We will certainly keep monitoring him and try to improve how he's reflected in the database. My impression of him so far is that he needs to have a profile that more closely suits that of a second striker. His movements into areas vacated by Dzeko has been very impressive in my opinion.

Forgot to write about Icardi. Good idea. Will be done.

I appreciate your comments. Changes to attribues don't always imply improvement or worsening. They sometimes (often really) are a result of getting to watch the player over a longer period. For example you watch Nelsson for a season, notice that his heading is not vey good. So you really want to drop it 4 points but you give the player the benefit of the doubt. You keep observing to see if he shows something different. If he does, then you evaluate based on that. If he doesn't then you drop it a little further in a future database revision. So sometimes attributes can be dropped not because a player got worse but because the player didn't show something better. Opinions about players' abilities (which is what attributes in the database really are) become more solidified the more you get to watch them. Regarding Boey's dribbling, lets compare with a former teammate, Leo Dubois. Dubois has better ball control when he is dribbling but he's consierably slower. Lets suppose we raised Boey to 12. We then want to rate Dubois at a level higher than that. Maybe 13 or 14. Then you have Ferdi Kadioglu who is the best dribbler as a full back, then you want to rate him at 16-17 probably. So you have effectively decided at this point that any winger who is a decent dribbler needs to have 17-20 for his dribbling. Simply because a dribbling of 9 for Boey feels low, perhaps because it's in single digits. You then end up with players who look very similar in ability, they are easily interchangable. And the value of a winger who can dribble well is diminished. I will add one caveat. If you find that Boey doesn't appear very realistic in the game/match engine, then I would love to hear about it to help figure out ways to improve how he is rated such that he behaves more realistically. Same with any player. After all, the main purpose of attributes is to make player behave realistically in the game/match engine. Not just look pretty in their profiles.

Nope, don't hate any players. Boey's dribbling, specifically his ball control while running with the ball is quite poor. He's extremely athletic which contributes to his ability to get past players. As for off the ball, he's a full back, not a winger or an attacker. In the one match when he was asked to play further up the pitch you could really observe how poor his movement off the ball was and how lost he looked when he had space to exploit. As for flair, this attribute represents a player's likelihood of doing the unexpected. Boey is more of a bulldozer than a flair player. I have seen Ali Turap play live several times. I don't see a big issue with the off the ball rating. It's actually his best feature in my opinion. Nelsson himself said in an interview that his biggest weakness was his heading in attacking situations. In defensive situations he wins a lot of headers certainly. But the heading attribute is meant to reflect a player's ability to head the ball accurately to a teammate or in scoring situations. It's essentially a combination of finishing/passing with the head. I believe he is yet to score a single goal with his head so far in his professional career despite having quite strong aerial ability. So a higher heading ability would be somewhat similar to giving a high finishing for a player who has never scored a goal. Kerem's ability to accelerate very quickly is his biggest speed tool as well as his ability to change direction. However he doesn't have an especially high top speed.

On the contrary. We are very happy to receive any criticism and issue reports with a view to improving gameplay in Turkey. However the things you mention are often out of our control. For example the Turkish FA announcing drastically changed rules every season which the game AI struggles to deal with, then the FA abandoning this rule only a year later when they finally come to their senses and realize it's not workable. For example the game not being able to deal with deficit spending (until this version), something clubs in Turkey have often relied on, and hence transfers looking strange. I encourage you to keep offering critiques while recognizing that despite best efforts sometimes it's not possible to reflect both reality and enjoyable gameplay. Especially in the chaotic environment of Turkish football where rules frequently change or are relaxed when clubs demand.

Players are updated by researchers of the club that the player played before their transfers. It's not always appropriate for us to make wholesale changes to their attributes with limited information (ie. observing players for a short period). We have done this in some previous years when the game had a beta period, knowing that we would be able to revert or alter changes based on feedback as well as further observation. However this year this doesn't appear to be possible.