How do you pick CK, FK, PK?

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Originally Posted by nikolgiorgos

First of all, I don't give to much attention to sa of the players.
For free kicks, I choose the best attacker of the team and set him for both sides (foot is cosmetic).

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For penalties I also have the same players. Only if someone is in a bad form, I remove him.

For corners, I use my MCs.
I don't trust my defenders as C-S (but I know some cases with talents).
I prefer to have my attackers near the goal post, so remain my two MCs.
I set one from the left side and the other from the other side and I observe who 's better. Then if someone is better I choose him for both sides.
I haven't found so far someone really good to that. Just sometimes happening one C-S to have two assists in one game (and after that, none in the next 5 games - lol).
But it's rare for every one. When I see oppo players in top 5 assists, I can't find someone unique.

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My set piece selection approach is very similar to niko's.

Kicker roles will only be fixed after players are proven through testing. SA does not guarantee anything except high priority to be selected to test.

During a match, if a fixed free kicker fails and receives bad comments, I will usually replace him in that match because he likely will fail again. But I will not change his fixed role unless he fails in several matches.

Some attacking attributes also affect my priority to select players to test. Defenders' attacking attributes are often low and will not develop quickly. So I do not prefer to use them as any kicker even if they have SA.

I also rarely notice excellent corner kickers. Some of my players may provide many assists through corners. But it is not prominent that I am not aware of this until reviewing stats.

I can only remember 2 excellent corner kickers in history of my teams. Both of them were in the era that the 2nd corner always gives a goal and were corner specialists. One of them suddenly could not continue to assist because of the system change that reduce the goal rate of 2nd corner.

I always look for 5* FK ST and 5* CK MC, but I'll focus on 5* CK defender next season due to the success of SA-less Klochkov. I am heavily dependent on setpieces especially FK this season, David was recommended and is now scoring at an avg of over 1. Similarly, I remember in Level 4 (when we won the Cup, our first trophy) that Luke Rose had 25 assists. CK specialist have always made my season. A good FK and another CK taker will make your season. It doesn't matter if he is Jeroen Hulsbos ;)

I put my 6* DC/DR as my right side FK taker last game as i wanted all of my starters to have a goal. He got a goal and an assist and his first MoM. If your regular taker is struggling, try rotating other players that might not get much of a chance to score. Most of my players bought in previous seasons have fairly balanced stats compared to the new nordgens so I wouldn't do this with new defensive player buys.
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I don't put my STs taking FKs as I want them to be in the box looking to connect with headers or rebounds. Unless they are either footed with FK SA. But it's been 5 seasons since I had a good one of those.
Usually, I just put the player with the highest aggregate rating of shooting crossing and finishing.
Or I switch it in game to whomever is rating well, gotta make those gut decisions.

I have 2 MC who are my weakest players (not by much) but I play them 1 for FK and 1 for CK.

A lot of goals have come from FKs being tipped over the bar then scoring from the resulting CK.

Best players over the seasons for these have been MC or AMC

I set the playmaker SA for CK (+train his passing+crossing skills stats) and assign shadow striker SA for the FKs (train the shooting and finishing skills).
Much better results for me than the FK SA+CK SA players.

I've got some time to kill waiting for the new season to start and this topic has been massively important to me over the past few seasons as I've worked hard to look for more ways to further create separation between myself and my opponents so, sorry in advance for the rambling and meandering!

I obtain as many players as possible with "either" foot ability throughout my squad but it is a must for my strikers and I train all of my strikers to acquire the FK SA. Important to note however that the either foot ability is a cosmetic ability in my experience that makes the player more desirable when I'm selling and is not a requirement for a good FK taker from both sides. But it is clear that the perception of those that buy my players is that a FK stud with either foot ability is more capable.

I play one striker up top and the majority of my striker goals come from FK's. For a while now, in my opinion, strikers are good for one thing only in top eleven and that's scoring from set pieces.

My AM's score the majority of my non-set piece goals and while they are the first listed for FK's after my ST, they are almost always my best CK - I'm sure because they have the best crossing stats. I've never trained the CK SA simply because I've had a lot of success without it. But it shouldn't minimize the fact that both types of set pieces are massively important and not perfecting both is a quick way to lose to strong opponents.

My AM's always train to obtain the Shadow Striker or dribbling SA (depending on their skills when I acquire them and whether they play wide or not - I never give a central player the dribbling SA) and I should note I also train my AM's to play the ST position which I believe helps to make their shooting and finishing a more vital skill. My AM's in the past have been as good at FK's as my ST with FK SA. But my TE friends snap up a lot of my players when I list them or through negotiation so I stick with my ST to take PK's to demonstrate and advertise an able ST and to boost my ST stats to further seduce potential buyers that are watching my games or comparing stats.

Unlike my ST's, my AM's, especially the wide AM's, net the majority of my non-set piece goals. Plus, my CK taker gets plenty of additional assists from so the main stats of my AM's are already attention grabbers without the additional FK opportunities. So I can also maximize the return on investment of my ST's with their FK success and I do not consider a ST to be quality if they don't have success taking FK's.

In my experience, a good corner kick taker can be successful making attempts from either side of the pitch regardless of their dominant foot but it's important to reiterate that very few of my AM's have favored one foot so I have less experience on than other managers. It's also usually not very close between who I perceive as my best CK taker and the #2 - unlike FK's, my squad has a clear cut best CK taker each season. Though I prioritize the ST, my starting 11 usually has two or three lethal FK takers.

My AM's and ST's dominate my PK list. I've gotten into PK shootouts a lot in Finals of competitions and I get a number of PK attempts throughout a season so it's important to figure out quickly if a player has the yips and can't withstand the pressure. But because it's still relatively rarely used, I've never trained the PK SA and never will.

My defenders never go near my set pieces and they only take PK's during later rounds of a shootout.

Good luck!