Fitness in the lower leagues... are there any workarounds?

A

Atarin

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
69
Reaction score
0
Points
0
I want to take an English team from the lower reaches (level 8-9) to as high as they can realistically go.

I've tried various clubs but I always have the same problem. My players can't manage a game a week. Even with a weeks rest they go into the game with their condition between 70-83%.

It doesn't help that all the best tactics, at least the ones that work for me, require lots of closing down.

If I don't want lots of injuries and all my outfield players getting to the 70 minute mark and being on 50% condition then I have to rotate, near enough, my whole matchday squad. This means I need a squad of about 30 players (once you factor in the likelihood of injuries). Thats way too big.

Ideally I want a core of maybe 16 players, with maybe three or four fringe players and then any more reinforcements from the youth team.

I've read that training fitness in pre-season is not a solution because it just improves a players fitness stats like pace, acceleration, natural fitness. etc

I've tried lowering their training to nearly nothing but that doesn't seem to help and it also makes them all unhappy.

Has anyone got any advice.
 
Marco said:
Even with a weeks rest they go into the game with their condition between 70-83%.
Click to expand...

If you give them one week rest then of course, their fitness would be poor, you should train them
 
You misunderstand me. I don't mean that I don't train them or that I change their training to Rest. I mean even when they only play on Saturday and then not again until the next Saturday they are still very unfit. If we have to play a midweek game then the situation is even worse.
 
What tempo are you playing with? You can always play a pressing game with a lower tempo (although it is not always useful for comfortable results).

You also need to manage the fitness in games, if you are 3-0 up and cruising switch to a much lower tempo, retain possession, don't look to score more goals and so on. Rotation will also be an easy solution to this, from my experience on this with FM14 there is rarely much between player quality at level 7 and below so you should be able to get away with giving players rests as they go.
 
Players are so poor at that level that any tactic that tries to let the ball do the work is destined to fail, or at least it does when I try it. The players aren't technically or tactical capable. The only tactic that has worked for me on 2016 so far as been the Deadly Circle and its variants. As I say, the problem is that my players get exhausted.

As I said, I want to take a team from level 8-9 up through the leagues, I would like to do it without bankrupting the club by having a squad bigger than say 22 players and I would like to be able to keep a mostly settled side of 6 or 7 regulars who play most weeks.

How would you guys do it?
 
Currently I'm managing a club in the low league and don't have any problems with Fitness so probably you are doing something wrong
 
I realise that fearless. I'm trying to find out what. How big is your squad and how much are you rotating? Did you focus on fitness in pre-season? What tactic are you using and how does it work?
 
Marco said:
Did you focus on fitness in pre-season?
Click to expand...
Just want to point out that this will do nothing but focus on improving attributes. It has nothing to do with Condition or Match Fitness and nothing to do with keeping up fitness levels during a season. You did hint at it in the OP, but just making sure.

Are you setting them to have a rest day at least?

Do you have a heavy pressing and high tempo tactic? This will increase their tiredness.
 
What contracts are you signing these players to? You should look to only have a dozen or so on contracts, all the others should be on non-contract or amateur terms. I regularly had squads of 25-30 "first team" players at that level but with most on contracts where they only get paid by appearance or on performance (goals, clean sheets etc). You then have a core of players for the big games and then rotate round the rest when you need to.

You can get some good players on NC terms too, particularly if you look at locally based players. It is easier in the second season when you can just mine the youths released by nearby teams so be prepared to consult Google maps to find your neighbourhood and target the nearby teams.

Training at this level in my experience is a waste of time so I would usually stick it all on a low intensity, it is all about tactics. What I found worked reasonably well was to take a tactic I knew worked at a higher level and simplify it. So do away with short passing, take away creative freedom and make the most of set plays, try to get a few wingers who are fast as F and watch them create havoc. That may help you with your fitness
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

FMBase

Beta

Resources

Top