Player growth in career mode

What does affect the player growth in FIFA 18's career mode other than their potential and number of matches played? I've seen one guy growing by 10 points within a season and others not even 5 with equal potential and age.

Is it more effective to play on harder difficulty or can you even simulate your games with no impact other than the AI coach not letting your favs play? Can you do something proactively to make your kids grow better (other than training sessions)?

1 Answer

I think one of the most important factors is, either the youngster is a promising player or not. Within the player selection screen in training menu, you might have noticed a green arrow indicating an upward trend near some player names. That means these players are "promising", and likely they will grow quicker than others. You can easily see the difference if you train both a promising and not promising player in the same session and see different growth numbers. I think this applies to growth without training as well.

I believe difficulty level does not have an effect on growth speed. But I remember reading somewhere that player form (if the player gets good match ratings in the games he played) has an impact. I haven't confirmed that myself, but sounds reasonable.

Also for simulating games, if you simulate to a date from calendar view, assistant manager picks the starting players and you don't have a control over who plays. But if you are at the day of the match and choose simulate match instead of play match at the first tab, the team should be on the field with your choice of players. Of course, that will take longer than directly simulating to a date. But if you really want to play some players who have lower overall ratings, it might be a sacrifice you can take.

PS: It's been well over a year since the question asked. I'm not even sure if the question is still relevant. But I noticed there are still no answers posted :)

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