While tactic is a really important part of the game if you want to be successful and "break the game", squad building is as important.
To keep my save more fun and engaging, I've decided to implement the popular DNA philosophy. You can find more info in for example FoxInTheBox's video, but the general idea is that I've identified a few key attributes, and have set certain treshholds, that I will want every player in my squad to have.
I've chosen 4 mental attributes that are often used in people DNAs to build a hard-working, resilient team, and 4 physical attributes as the tactic is pretty physically demanding and I often find my players being really tired by 70-75 minute mark if I play every 3 days (and for the most part of the season I do).
The attributes will be:
- Determination
- Teamwork
- Work Rate
- Decisions
- Pace
- Acceleration
- Natural Fitness
- Stamina
To calculate the DNA stat I'll simply add all the mentioned attributes and divide them by 8, to get the average. As I'm managing a top bundesliga club, that have already won a treble last season, I'll be aiming for an average of 14 for every regular starter, and 13 for bench players. I won't be as strict on youth players as they have time to develop, but to seriously consider a youth player in my future plans, I'll still want them to have an average of at least 11-11,5. Goalkeepers are obviously exception to the rule, as they don't really need attributes like stamina or pace.
These are the current DNA values of my team:
As you can see, at the moment I have only 5 players that meet my DNA threshhold, so there is a lot of work to do. Players highlighted in red are players that theoretically shouldn't be in the squad. However, Buske and Drągowski are goalkeepers and Zöllner is a 17 year old with a big potential. That leaves me with Marcus Edwards and Jean-Claude Ntenda - Edwards is 24 years old, but he is a star player, and I don't really have anyone who could be remotely as good as him, so for the time being he's staying in my team. Jean Claude-Ntenda is a 20 year old right-back with only a little bit more room to grow - I'll be looking to loan him for the next season, and if his DNA doesn't improve, I will then sell him. As my other right-back doesn't meet the regular starter DNA treshhold I'll be looking for a new one.
The player I've decided on is 24 years old Takehiro Tomiyasu.
His DNA stat is 14.75, which is above the treshold for starters, all his DNA attributes are over 13 and to add to that, he has a resolute personality, is a consistent performer, enjoys big matches, isn't injury-prone and can use both feet. I couldn't really ask for more, perfect fit for my team. First transfer according to DNA philosophy done.
These are my current scouting assigments:
Players I'll be looking to bring in, don't need to have all the DNA attributes over 13/14 to meet the treshold, but at least 10 in all of those is what I'm looking for. I'll then filter for a player that meets the threshold when I'm looking to buy someone.
I'm already a rich club, with superb youth facilites, so I don't really need to bring wonderkid regens to my team, but if you're a smaller club looking to make money you could lower the age, lower the attributes requirement to 8-9, remove the current ability needed and set potential to superb. I'm also looking for players that fit my tactic in terms of position, because I can afford a player that is instantly ready to use, but with a younger player you can remove it.
If you have less scouts, or more nations loaded, you can set a region as scouting range, instead of specific nation.
If you want to implement the DNA philosophy in your club, but you're a smaller team you can just lower the DNA treshold for regular starters to something like 11 or 12, and then gradually increase it with time.
In the attachments I've added my squad and scouting views for DNA:
DNA Hacker and DNA Scouting are general views to get a quick glimpse at their DNA attributes, while DNA Export is a view wich you can use to export your data to excel - press ctrl + p when using the view, export to web page, then open the file and there you have data that you can copy-paste to Excel, and calculate your averages to get the DNA stat. I've also included my general squad view which I've used for a long time.
DNA Training:
To complement the DNA philosophy I've also created training schedules that focus on the DNA attributes - you can replace a defending engaged session with aerial defence, every now and then, to work a little on heading for defenders (useful for set pieces). As there is not much rest in these schedules and 2 physical session a week, I don't recommend setting the intensity to double for the first team in the rest tab (but for the youth teams, go ahead and do it). When having a internation break and no games, you could probably use some sort of balanced schedule, as the one I'm using is set on a certain set of attributes while neglecting the others a bit. Maybe I'll create a free week schedule later.