my free kick specialists

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.

mine looks like this, but I also put a big burden on him.
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You have to dedicate the skill assign process to the SA to optimize his performance. other wise he is just an ordinary player :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Gert Funck

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

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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

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Originally Posted by cookizzz

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

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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)

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' ;)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Thanks all for your opinions.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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It's hard to bring the whole team for discussion. My team performs unexpectedly well in this season with 6 points leads in a league with opponents with similar qualities. It also leads the league in scoring. But it is strange that there is no outstanding scorer in this team.

Among my 4 strikers, there are 1, 1 and 2 using either, left and right foot respectively. My most trusted striker is low 5 star and use both feet. But most of his match ratings are just 7. He also seems not good at free kicks. The striker with best rating is higher than 4 star and right foot. His average ratings is close to 8 but he has more assists than goals in this season. I think I will use this player more from now on and try to use him as free kicker.

I have not yet identified the most reliable free kicker in this season. That's why I am still considering those FK specialists. My FK specialists are either slow or average trainers. If they cannot break into the list of FK specialist, they will unlikely break into it in subsequent seasons.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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The first player "Die" was a pretty good free kicker two season ago. So I used him on this and assigned him some attacking skills up to a point that all 3 types of attributes are close. In last season, he gradually lowered down in the list of my free kickers and I assign him defensive skills. Now in season 3, as 4 star player, he become my best pure defender.

I think that even if the FK specialist is a defender, he should give a chance to try. If he's good, I will assign some attracting skills to support him. I am never sure how to manipulate skill development to shape the player into a good one.

In general, I usually avoid to involve in bidding wars for players with SA. So I don't choose positions for FK specialists. All my players with SA are acquired with at most 3 tokens.

Sorry , it was late when i wrote my last comments , i didn't see that the uruguayan one was a DC , in my mind it was a MC lol

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Originally Posted by Kaizer Franz

Sorry , it was late when i wrote my last comments , i didn't see that the uruguayan one was a DC , in my mind it was a MC lol

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Sorry too that honestly I did not understand your last message and then forget it.

Yes, I agree. The attributes of this DC is best fit for role as MC. His attacking skills are close to most of my MC and even ST.

The decision has to be on performance. But ofc you need to decide which ones to test - look for guys who score or assist or shoot or cross already and give them a try.

I tend to favour MCs and Strikers for who I test but couple of seasons ago I ended up trying an either footed AML/ML Shadow Striker and he performed best.

This was an either-footed DC FK specialist - he was a starting team player from creation so they are sometimes 'unusually exceptional'. But now I remember, he didn't play that long to suffer Attacking lag.

http://i58.tinypic.com/11wernq.jpg

My favourite Buffs' FK expert was a right footed MC with FK sa - a Scout Market purchase.

http://i62.tinypic.com/6z2bmq.jpg

Can't find any good stats on him but he finished Season 3 as top scorer and season 4 as top Assist, 2nd as goalscorer.

http://i59.tinypic.com/2ut56bs.jpg
http://i59.tinypic.com/wrcg2a.jpg

I know its not FK SA but I currently have been testing CKers. I have a left footed MC No SA (105Q Crossing) and a rightie MC (105Q crossing) who I gave CK SA to. The rightie's performance in general has fallen since he got the SA and he has had only 2 assists to boot, compared with my leftie no SA guy who has had 14 assists.

PS. The rightie wasn't actually much good at CKs before the SA but I wanted the test and I was prepared to waste the sp to do so. ;)
PPS. Whether being given responsibility for something he's not good at has affected performance (or whether his performance slump was coming anyway and affected CKs) I'm not sure - so I'll be removing him from CK duties for the rest of the season. If he starts performing better I might give him more CKs.

I got a bit lucky I guess. My first season I used a scout who did pretty well on CK considering.

Since then it has been my LW/LAM who is a CK specialist nordgen FT. He has over 100 career assists in 3 1/2 seasons so far. One season he had 36. He slumped last season a bit but he is back to being my leading assist man.

As for FK it is now my CM who is still the only player I have ever had at the position that has been in good form consistently. A TON of busts at CM for some reason. Glad I found him and dread the day he gets too old to keep him at 7* without breaking the bank.

I know im at low level (4) but my dedicated FK has doing the job well. He saved my ass today from a burn from a 2star avg team, 2 FKs=2 goals :) he is doin above 80%

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edit: hey "császár" is a hungarian name! császár means "emperor" in my lang. :p (french, right! defector son of a b.) :p

Just on skills in general, i have a corner specialist but he often delivers weak corners into the box. I checked his crossing stats and they're one of the strongest in my team, so i can't work out why he's poor at them. He's an MC a decent performer and gets some assists, so i've moved him to corners from the right only (inswingers), and getting someone else to take them on the left hand side. Will see if this makes any difference!

My main FK taker (Chikin) has been very good to the point that a couple of matches have been won solely on his freekick.

Just signed another ST who also has the FK Taker SA so will see how he does as he is weaker than Chikin.

Free kick, corner and penalty taker in my main team... He doesn't have any of these SA, and still scoring goals and assisting... I bought him 5 seasons ago and he was playing poorly in his previous team, but was training fast...

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My no SA CK taker (left only) now has 17 assists.

He's been taking FKs from left in last 3 games and scored 3 (2 from FKs).

The CK specialist I removed from CK list (from the right) has seen a slight form improvement. The new Rightie CK'er (no SA) has had same number of assists (2) in last 3 games as the specialist had in over 12. Keep it up son!

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Originally Posted by Hope Rugg

Just on skills in general, i have a corner specialist but he often delivers weak corners into the box. I checked his crossing stats and they're one of the strongest in my team, so i can't work out why he's poor at them. He's an MC a decent performer and gets some assists, so i've moved him to corners from the right only (inswingers), and getting someone else to take them on the left hand side. Will see if this makes any difference!

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Test result is always the most reliable factor to consider in assigning corner kickers, free kickers, and maybe even defensive wall. If test result is bad, I will rank down the player even if he is looked like with best attributes for his role. Maybe there is related hidden attribute. I don't play against identified reality.

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Originally Posted by Hope Rugg

Just on skills in general, i have a corner specialist but he often delivers weak corners into the box. I checked his crossing stats and they're one of the strongest in my team, so i can't work out why he's poor at them. He's an MC a decent performer and gets some assists, so i've moved him to corners from the right only (inswingers), and getting someone else to take them on the left hand side. Will see if this makes any difference!

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Well, corners have 3 sides... a corner taker... someone to jump high... and opponent's goalie to save it or let it in... You may have the best corner taker in the game, but, if there is no player in your team able to jump higher than his marker...

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Originally Posted by Hope Rugg

Just on skills in general, i have a corner specialist but he often delivers weak corners into the box. I checked his crossing stats and they're one of the strongest in my team, so i can't work out why he's poor at them. He's an MC a decent performer and gets some assists, so i've moved him to corners from the right only (inswingers), and getting someone else to take them on the left hand side. Will see if this makes any difference!

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My team has scored several goals after a weak delivered corner, so I don't believe you should put to much in that phrase from the random cut board (the machine)

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Originally Posted by Gert Funck

My team has scored several goals after a weak delivered corner, so I don't believe you should put to much in that phrase from the random cut board (the machine)

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I think the commentry used to also say strong as well as weak - I don't think its about the quality of the cross but rather a poorly translated way of saying long or short and high or low and blah or blah - so I agree just fluff I think.

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Originally Posted by Buffs Mad

I think the commentry used to also say strong as well as weak - I don't think its about the quality of the cross but rather a poorly translated way of saying long or short and high or low and blah or blah - so I agree just fluff I think.

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True... Weak corner is slow ball actually, not Roberto Carlos style lol...

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Originally Posted by Gert Funck

My team has scored several goals after a weak delivered corner, so I don't believe you should put to much in that phrase from the random cut board (the machine)

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Agreed. Geolier (my DL corner specialist) has this phrase quite a bit and score off that.

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Originally Posted by Steppenwolf

Well, corners have 3 sides... a corner taker... someone to jump high... and opponent's goalie to save it or let it in... You may have the best corner taker in the game, but, if there is no player in your team able to jump higher than his marker...

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really?

i have THREE aerial defender specialist in my starting lineup, THREE!
exactly are: 41 heading+special, 42 heading+special, 48 heading+special
also my GK has 45 marking

"corner taker" was his DR(!!) with 40 crossing

guess what happened yesterday against 5th level (im 4th but he was weaker) oppo in cup... after a corner his 32 header MC scored a goal with header.... REALLY? ooh wait he had double corner opportunity... ok, got it :rolleyes:
of course i had +15 poss from me and my buddies + full stadium... he wasnt there and the final result was a tight 1-1... with a real 63% ball possession... he defended almost everything.. lame...:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Gabez Teh

really?

i have THREE aerial defender specialist in my starting lineup, THREE!
exactly are: 41 heading+special, 42 heading+special, 48 heading+special
also my GK has 45 marking

"corner taker" was his DR(!!) with 40 crossing

guess what happened yesterday against 5th level (im 4th but he was weaker) oppo in cup... after a corner his 32 header MC scored a goal with header.... REALLY? ooh wait he had double corner opportunity... ok, got it :rolleyes:
of course i had +15 poss from me and my buddies + full stadium... he wasnt there and the final result was a tight 1-1... with a real 63% ball possession... he defended almost everything.. lame...:rolleyes:

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You may have 10 aerial defenders in your team, but if some of them are in bad form, it wont help you much... Usually, uncovered players on the pitch score more headers than others... I have ST in my team with decent number of goals from headers, but when he got new AMR position, he started scoring headers in almost every match (wingers are rarely covered, almost no one is playing with wing backs in formation)... I had 169 cm tall left winger who used to score much more headers than 197 cm tall striker... Special abilities are useless if players are in bad form... I had a goalie who used to save all shots from distance, but was conceding from 1 on 1 situations... He got 1 on 1 SA, but he kept conceding goals form 1 on 1 situations and what is worse, now he started conceding goals from distance as well... and he had much higher "handling" than any scorer had "shooting" or "finishing"...