Many many thanks for coming back on this topic. Very interesting observations and interpretation.

From my history matches I noticed that playing vs teams with big discrepancy key attributes players were the hardest matches, so I am almost convinced that key attributes are reflected into match engine.
My team has had some tough opponents at equivalent or lower % quality, but I did not observe what you describe. I’ll look harder.

I have a slightly different (or complementary, if you will) theory at the moment. Sorry for the big info dump.

In my current opinion
- only %DEF and %ATT and %PHY matter.
- players might also have the so-called talent hidden attribute. Meaning that 2 players with exact same attribute values will never perform the same. It looks then to me impossible to assess how individual attributes matter.

To me the individual attributes are only relevant when it comes to training, in the way and the way to make these %DEF, ATT and PHY grow by focusing on the key attributes. The fewer key attributes in a skill group (ATT, DEF, PHY), the harder it’ll be to keep this group at a high level, increasing the player’s specialisation

I also find striking that in the squad screen the stats&skills list view mentions these 3 values. Maybe if Nordeus placed them here, it must be for a reason.


Then I made some other observations related to this on the attributes gains during the match
- gains are always on ATT or DEF and more often on the key attributes - but for instance an AML can also get 1% gain in tackling.
- players never gain PHY attributes. However the player that got MoM sometimes do (e.g. 4% bonus on fitness for the MoM).


This theory has influenced my way of selecting players and my training strategy.

1) I select lower overall quality players:
For instance, I select defenders based on the highest %DEF value.
My best lineup at the moment comprises a 22yo DML/DL/DC (note the 3 positions) with 145% DEF. He's only 96% Quality, and gets good ratings against 105% teams. He does not score or assist much anymore.
His skills are now quite unbalanced indeed (he's an ex-fast trainer), so in that regards it matches what you guys have observed.

Due to his positions he has only passing and crossing in ATT. He’s for the moment
• DEF: 145%
• ATT: 42%
• PHY: 100%

Only 2 key attributes in ATT made it very hard to keep a high %ATT, therefore his overall quality remained under 100%. But he’s got the DEF and PHY of a 110% player.


2) I adapted my my training strategy:

- I made a experiment using only physical drills in training (warmup, stretch, gym, long run) in the daily routine (makes it easier to setup training sessions )
Is it a coincidence? I noticed that players having gotten the highest %PHY were getting among the worst performers. Therefore I stopped.
My advice is not to let PHY go too close/too high relative to ATT&DEF.

- my favorite drill is “use your head” because it trains all three ATT, DEF, PHY . I use it mostly for ST, AMx, MC, DMC. To DL/DR I give copious amounts of “defending crosses” to keep the ATT skill group not too low.

- as you noted, MC have 10 key attributes, (4 DEF, 3, ATT, 3 PHY), I had noticed that because of this MCs don’t gain as much in ATT, so I take this into account in my training sessions, I train them more in ATT drills. Mostly “pass go and shoot”