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English >> Questions
Defensive midfielders (10)
Hi,
A lot of great players decide to play a defender in the defensive midfielder positition. When I do this and analyse my games, I see this player gets a penalty on his skills. Why do players still play with a defender in the defensive midfielder position?
" ... I see this player gets a penalty on his skills."
He doesn't.
The analyse function simply gives him a star rating as if he were a midfielder. This is just a calculation where the Passing skill has a very high weighting so defenders with no passing get a very low star rating as a midfielder.
But in the match itself this has no apparent bearing on his performance. He won't be any good at passing but will do a lot better at tackling and interceptions than a normal midfielder.
The effect is that he will help to stop the opponent scoring by winning more possession. On the other hand he won't provide any assists and may sometimes lose possession due to his poor passing.
Don't overestimate star value of players. I was maybe one of first managers who experimented with defenders on DM position specially for whole season and there was no difference, I got my usual league position. Typically I used there some younger central defender who needed first team experience.
Having right special attributes on players may give 2+ invisible stars to your team when missing them may cause losing matches you expect to win easily, especially when your non-correct defender or DM gets red card.
There are also a lot of complications mostly as a result of how the position xp works.
The most effective defenders played as DMs will have their position xp at or near 1000 in midfield, as this makes them perform better. They will still be called defenders but have a lower star rating as a defender.
In turn this makes them less likely to be selected for the national team and if they are may then be played out of position - in defence - which woud be detrimental to their position xp as a midfielder.
Besides all that they count as weak players - in midfield - in all the league matches so team selection and squad rotation can become a bit of a nighmare.
Ultimately this is all because of a poorly designed game in some aspects and it's not likely to change any time soon. You just have to work with all the idiosyncrasies.
Idk why i didnt but i wanted to try an athletic defender with just dueling and longshots as DM, and well man marker,correct and maybe 2.5 tactics,2 blocking
"The most effective defenders played as DMs will have their position xp at or near 1000 in midfield, as this makes them perform better. They will still be called defenders but have a lower star rating as a defender."
Why would they have a lower star rating as a defender?
Because position xp is part of the calculation for star rating.
Experienced defenders will typically have 950-1000 defence xp.
Experienced DMs who always play as a DM will typically have 950-1000 midfield xp and 450-500 defence xp.
The higher midfield xp will give them a better performance in midfield, which is what you want. But the defence xp of near 500 is used in the calculation for their star rating as a defender, which is the value that you see on the player profile and on your squad list and is also used when making the NT shortlist.
Confusing right?
It was. But it makes sense to me now. I've a lot of thinking to do about this.
You might find this thread useful, where I go into a bit more detail on position xp.
https://rockingsoccer.com/en/soccer/forum/home-en?topic=87322