my free kick specialists

[cookizzz]

I wish someone giving me some advices on use of free kick specialists.

My L22 team has 3 free kick specialists. None of them scored through free kick for my team in this season.

The first one is a mid 4 star DR/DC. He was a decent free kicker in past 2 seasons. As his attacking qualities becoming far lower than others, I gradually assign less free kick duties to him. I used to concentrate training him on attacking. Now I have to add him defending skills. In this season, he suddenly emerged as a good & reliable DC. So he's still always a starter in the team but is not assigned on free kick.



The second one is mid 5 star MC. His attributes are quite even. He has good number of assists (7 in 11 matches) but I never notice him making one through free kick and he even have not yet score.



The third one is a new mid 5 star DC. His attribute is strange that attacking and physical/mental are slightly better than defending. So I am also adding him defending skills. He only played 2 official matches for the team. But through these matches and friendly matches, he also could not score through free kicks.


Generally, my teams always attract quite a lot of fouls and score a lot through free kicks. Recently, I wasted a lot of chances by these free kick specialists.

I am not a fan of SA. I just brought these players by luck. I don't really trust them but will give them chances as other players. Generally, if I have front court players who have 5 or 6 higher qualities on attacking than the free kick specialists, I will prefer using the front court players.

Kindly let me know if you have any opinion, thanks.

[Gert Funck]

mine looks like this, but I also put a big burden on him.



You have to dedicate the skill assign process to the SA to optimize his performance. other wise he is just an ordinary player

[cookizzz]

...
You have to dedicate the skill assign process to the SA to optimize his performance. other wise he is just an ordinary player

Do you mean I have to continuously assign skill points to attacking skills in order to make them effective?

I shall not do so for defenders unless they have proved they are good free kick scorer, like the first player "Die" I mentioned above 3 season ago. This will just make their skills unbalance.

I

[Gert Funck]

Do you mean I have to continuously assign skill points to attacking skills in order to make them effective?

I shall not do so for defenders unless they have proved they are good free kick scorer, like the first player "Die" I mentioned above 3 season ago. This will just make their skills unbalance.

I

First, I wouldn't focus on a defender with SA freekick, you are not getting the best out of him. But on a midfielder or attacker i would assign more on attack yes. But he has to be the best ranking/skilled player for the SA to make sense (play key role)

[Buffs Mad]

iirc the devs, when pushed, said an SA makes a 1* difference to the relevant attributes when an SA event is triggered - but it was a long time ago so I can't swear to it.

I'd interpret that to mean shooting is +5Q when shooting from a FK with SA; crossing......etc. How much impact 'not improving' the attacking skills has on the outcome will depend on how good he is at FKs naturally. A very good FK taker could survive quite a bit of lag, an average one not imo.

How good a player is at FKs will not just be about this Q effect but also some sort of 'performance' issue too.

The first question is always 'is he good at FKs?', if so, on average, you're going to need to at least maintain his attacking skills to maintain the performance. But its always possible to find someone who is so good at FKs that he'll be unaffected by attacking skill lag but I suspect thats rare.

PS My original alt team had a DC with FK SA that banged them in for 2 seasons and his success was hardly affected by his lagging attacking skills. I'd guess he was just born to be a FK taker and was lucky to have been given the SA that's suits at 'birth'. Unfortunately although I have a screeny of some of his goal scoring I don't have one of his attributes. This is the type of latent ability that folks refer to as 'hidden'/'programming'/'Voodoo'

[cookizzz]

I usually appoints the players with top attacking attribute as free kickers. If any free kick specialists are within 5 quality points from the top attacking players, I will try them. Any players who can stay in the free kicker list are based on the free kick performance rather than their SA or quality. For bad form players who are in free kicker list, I will observe to their performance and take out them from free kicker list before or within a match.

[Kaizer Franz]

the Uruguayan one will be your best MC and Free kick specialist i'm 99% sure

But please , don't add defensive skill on him lol

[cookizzz]

The 3rd player Tejera is still new and will be given some more chances. But as a defender, his attributes are unusual (his defense is still slightly worse than the other 2 categories even if I have already added him a few defense skills). I do not prefer to add him much more attacking skills to help him fulfilling the role of free kicker. So I do not have much hope on him.

The 1st player Die is too weak in attacking now. He will concentrate to play his role as DC as he excel on this now, and I will add him more defense skills. The 2nd player Csaszar have already been given many chances. I have given up and may probably only assign him as 3rd to 5th free kickers.

I am never a fan of free kick specialists. It's so strange that I have 3 at the same time.

[David Grizzle]

If you have a good scorer at an attacking position who has offensive skills that are 5 or more better than those 3 then I would try that player instead. The SA is not a be all end all and lacking it doesn't mean you can't be productive at it.

If you have a choice you would want your FK specialist to be an attacking player. A CB is pretty much a waste IMO as you don't want to dedicate much to their offensive skills.

Skill alone is never enough either. It is all about form and success on the pitch. Just like in reality you will have players who are talented on paper but are crap in games. You will have seemingly lesser talents who get consistent 7-8-9 ratings as well. Your ultimate goal is to get a combination of both at as many positions as possible.



My FK specialist is a CM. I have a ST who is also a FK specialist but I gave it to the CM since he is also very good and it will allow him to get more offensive stats than would otherwise be possible. It helped me have six 20+ goal scorers last season. It also helps that he is either footed so equally deadly at all FK's.

Without seeing your whole roster I can't give you complete advice. Best case is you have a very good ST who is either footed to try there. Or at least a good striker with high offensive skills and good form. AM's are good as well.

[BridgeGoth]

FK ability I find rather useless on a defensive player.
I much prefer it on a striker, or an AM if I use them. I could live with it on a midfielder, I however have never had to worry about it since the best 2 players I've ever had were strikers which came with FK ability. Both of them scored an insane amount of goals.