Player development — training, mentoring and caps

Every player has two ability numbers on a 0–100 scale: current ability (CA), what he is worth today, and potential ability (PA), the ceiling he was generated with. PA never moves — no training programme, no run of form and no mentoring changes it. CA is the number that climbs, and the engine recalculates it from the attributes whenever they change.

The weekly growth roll

Development settles once a week, on the same pulse that pays wages. A player can grow while he is 30 or younger and his CA sits below his PA, and the size of the roll is built from three things: an age base (0.8 up to 19, 0.5 to 22, 0.3 to 25, 0.1 to 28, 0.05 up to 30), a personality factor from his determination, professionalism and ambition, and a minutes multiplier from the last match he played — 1.15 if he played 90 minutes, 1.05 for 45 or more, 0.85 for anything less, with under-21s who pass 45 minutes getting an extra 0.10 on top.

A random swing of ±0.15 is added, and the roll has to clear 0.1 to take effect. When it does, the gain is concrete: one attribute from his position's weighted set goes up a point, and it is not always the one you would have chosen.

Decline after 30

From 31 the same pulse runs the other way. The weekly chance is 30% at 31–32, 40% at 33–34, 50% at 35–36 and 65% from 37 up, cut down by natural fitness and professionalism — the multiplier is 1.2 minus the sum of the two divided by 40, floored at 5% and capped at 80%. When it fires, one of the six physical attributes drops a point. Nothing stops it; good habits only slow it.

Where training fits

The weekly training session feeds the same model with its own multipliers: the category's base growth, an age factor that rewards players under 23, the coaching staff in that category's area (up to 1.25×), your club's development reputation (0.9× to 1.1×) and any mini-game bonus — paid for in condition, or paying it back in the two recovery categories (+5 active, +10 passive).

Mentoring

Mentoring is the simplest of the three. You pair a mentor with a player aged 25 or under — the mentor needs a current ability of 75 or higher — and the form also records a focus attribute for the pair. Each week the mentee banks 0.1 to 0.5 CA depending on the mentor's professionalism; the fraction accumulates and is applied in whole points, and CA stops at his PA. The pair retires itself once the mentee has banked 3 CA or reaches five below his potential, and that completion is worth a point of morale to the mentor.

The lever that is actually yours

Of everything in the roll, the minutes multiplier is the part that reacts to your decisions week by week, and it outweighs any training intensity: 1.25 versus 0.85 for an under-21 starter is a third of his growth gone on the same programme. A prospect who trains perfectly and never plays develops slower than one who plays every week — and those minutes are decided in the team screens.