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The excellent trainer - useful for your team?

Written by Strategist

An excellent trainer is something we all would love to have, but actually hiring one can be very expensive. Is it worth it for your team to have one? Find out by reading this article...

The benefits

1) As everyone knows, an excellent trainer speeds up training for your players by a small amount. How much exactly is something most people do not know, but I often see people thinking it is such a low amount of added training that its simply not worth it to get actually hire the excellent trainer.

Well, the benefit to training is indeed very small. For U20 or NT players, that small benefit can often make the difference though between actually being called up to the team and playing for the country, so if you train such players, an excellent trainer is a huge bonus. Roughly, an excellent trainer adds two training weeks per three seasons, compared to a solid trainer.

Now ofcourse most people are not training U20 or NT players. For most of their trainees these extra few weeks of training do not matter all too much, and they only will be seeing this as a small bonus, being able to sell their trainees a little sooner then usual for the same amount of money, or slightly more as they are a bit younger. This, most of the time, does not weigh up against the costs that come with hiring the excellent trainer. However, this is not the only benefit of such a trainer.

2) The other benefit is one very few people know of, and even less know how big it actually is. The trainer level matters a lot to the average form of your players. If you get an excellent trainer, your forms (after a while ofcourse, give the players a little time to adjust to this new trainer's training sessions before they really start to help) will be higher then those of your league opponents who only have a solid trainer (or even lower).

Roughly, the difference between a passable and a solid trainer is a full level of form. (Only taking into account the players that actually play every week). The difference between a solid and an excellent coach is "only" half a level. Half a level of form is huge though. Assuming your starting eleven players are lets say passable low on form average with a solid trainer, they would now be passable very high. The difference between those levels is almost 3% performance. Taking into account some fluctuation in form, the full effect of such a trainer on your team usually exceeds this 3%. (With that I mean that if you have 2 players in bad form, the extra half a level on them would mean a very big difference while it wouldnt matter too much on players in near excellent form)

This extra bit of performance can just bring you the edge you need to stay up in your league, or to promote. Or maybe to just get an extra round in the cup. Therefore, this could be a valuable thing for any team...

The drawback

Well, the drawback is easy. The cost to hire such a trainer is very high. Lots of teams cannot afford such a trainer, and those who can, can also use it to buy a new player for their team. However, there are some ways to get around this high cost issue.

The first question in getting such a trainer should always be about if you already have a player on your team you would want to turn into a future trainer. I would advise to look at players with at least inadequate leadership, preferably passable or solid. This player would need to have at least excellent experience aswell to be allowed to become an excellent trainer. The more experience though, the cheaper this conversion.
Also, such a player has to be on your team for at least a full season (16 weeks).

Now if you do not have such a player, you can always go look on the transfer market. Simply search for players with at least inadequate leadership and lots of experience. You will find that such playeers with solid experience are often very expensive still, where the price goes down fast with the level of leadership. Remember though that actually converting the player to become your trainer will also still cost a lot of cash later, and that if you buy such a player now already, you still have to wait 16 weeks before you can make him your trainer.

The advice

My advice is simple: Make a longterm plan. Try to always have a future trainer in your team already, giving him extra experience in the matches you can afford to play him in, to lower his conversion cost later. Ideally, after making such a player your trainer, the first thing you do is look on the transfer market to get a new future trainer for a few seasons later. I myself already have my next three on my team, though that might be a bit too much ;)

Also, remember that getting that new midfielder you really wanted for a while now to up your midfield ratings a bit, might just be as expensive as hiring the excellent trainer, who would boost all your players' performances, resulting in lower wages (you didnt have to buy that better midfielder), and better ratings not just on midfield, but also up front and in the back.

(the mdfielder thing is just an example, this could be true for any position ofcourse).

Another thing I would like to add before I finish up, is about the people that actually have such a trainer. I have talked to a LOT of such people and most of them agree on one thing: Never again will they have a trainer other then an excellent one. I myself can be counted towards this group aswell, for sure.

I hope this article has helped you on whether or not it is worth it to get that excellent coach or not for your team, and that you enjoyed reading it.

Regards,

Strategist - proud owner of an excellent trainer until the end of time!

Editors note: Please join in on the forum discussion of this article at (14899468.1)