Training and development

Training runs Monday to Friday at 10:00. Every non-retired player has two persistent slots. You may split them across two skills or select the same skill twice; the second selection is a real second daily session.

Current skill grows in hidden decimals and becomes visible when the rounded value changes. Pace depends on development type, positional importance, talent and the player’s hidden three-game-year bloom. Approaching natural potential before maturity slows training gradually; it does not freeze a trainable skill until a birthday. Training at or above the lower of current and natural potential stops skills outside the rating formula at that ceiling; role-impacting skills continue at one quarter speed, cut further for elite ratings and after age 28.

With regular training, the important skills generally approach natural potential around ages 24–25; development type, bloom timing and slot choices can move that earlier or later. A senior can still have unfinished supporting skills, and unused skills stay well below their ceiling. Generated adults follow a two-slot career with the same bloom and training rules, rather than receiving the same completion percentage in every skill. After age 28, declining current skills can widen a gap even though natural potential is already fully known; after 32 the current rating typically sits one or two bands below that known potential.

• Only role-impacting skills trained beyond natural potential can lift the current potential ceiling.
• An Unfulfilled development type cannot create overtraining potential.
• Every skill also respects its positional cap.
• Potential develops visibly through age 20 and is fully revealed at 21.

Every player has a three-game-year bloom. During this period, each selected training slot receives a ×2.05 growth multiplier; outside it, the multiplier is ×1. This affects current-skill training, not the age-based revelation of natural potential. It also applies during qualified overtraining, together with its slower rate.

The start is fixed for the player. Natural ratings 2–4 start at age 18 or 19, with equal probability; ratings 5–6 start at 19 or 20, also equally. Across ratings 7–8, starts at 19, 20, 21 and 22 occur with probabilities 15%, 35%, 35% and 15%, correlated with development type. A bloom starting at 21 is active from the 21st birthday until just before the 24th birthday.

• Only the skills in the two training slots receive the extra growth; bloom does not develop every skill automatically.
• For example, a session worth 0.10 current points outside bloom is worth 0.205 during bloom, with other conditions equal and enough room below the applicable ceiling.
• Training continues at the ordinary rate after bloom ends. At six game days per real day, the full bloom lasts about 183 real days; sessions still run only on weekdays.

Decline begins at 28 and runs every day, weekends included. Higher skills fall faster. A skill at 25 or below is protected while any other skill remains above 25. Training still runs alongside decline on weekdays.

• Outfield retirement rolls begin at 33; goalkeeper rolls begin at 34.
• The annual retirement chance rises with age and becomes certain at 37.
• A player’s game age advances six days per real day.