Player development

📈 Development runs on the weekly pulse, not every day. Each in-game week the engine settles training, player growth and mentoring together — the same pulse that pays wages — so what you set on the Training screen is a plan for the week ahead, and the results arrive in one batch. The weekly plan picks a session category and a squad intensity: there are 12 categories and three intensities (light, moderate, intense). Some categories simply do not offer intense — the engine will quietly pull the session back to moderate if you ask for more than the category supports.

Growth is gated twice. First by the ceiling: a player only grows while his current ability sits below his hidden potential. Second by age: the weekly growth base drops as players pass 22, 25 and 28, and stops entirely after 30. On top of the base, the player's mental attributes scale the roll, and so do his recent minutes — the engine reads the last match he played: 90 minutes is worth a 1.15 multiplier, 45 or more is 1.05, anything less (or nothing) is 0.85. Players aged under 21 who play 45 minutes or more get an extra tenth on top. Minutes are the single biggest lever you control.

Every category also has a fixed condition cost that rises with intensity, which is why the intense session is a spending decision rather than a free upgrade: it buys a bigger growth roll and a bigger fatigue bill. And from 31 onward the same pulse runs the other way — a weekly chance that one physical attribute drops, starting at 30% and climbing with age. Older squads are not developed, they are managed.

The inbox is your report card: the engine writes a message when a player improves a skill and a warning when tiredness is building, so you can move someone off an intense programme before the condition cost starts showing in results. Scout reports fill the other half of the picture — a current-ability and potential estimate, each with an error margin of up to four points, which is what tells you whether a 19-year-old is worth the minutes at all.