What do stars do?

[LeManiaque]

To add what I think is the real benefit of gaining a level:

When a player drops a star, the condition cost to gain it back is lowered (because of #2 above), this is beneficial to allow managers to increase particular skills at lower condition cost. So you can "rebalance" your characters. For example if your DC has very high tackling and marking, but you concede corner goals, you can focus on his heading, strength, or positioning at the beginning of the promoted season. It's one way you can get very high skills certain areas while decreasing others, if it fits your strategy.

I'll take Kenny over any evenly balanced 100% AMC. This can really only happen with age or huge token budget