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rrf_1 · 2026-01-27, 10:48 AM - Word count:

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The attribute system in the SSL allows for a ton of build versatility. With 36 total attributes for outfielders to adjust, the possibilities are nearly endless.

The most important part of the SSL earning system is that max earning doesn’t grant max ratings for all the attributes, or even just the attributes important for a particular role. It would take 5,304 TPE to get to a max rating of 20 in all attributes, and a player’s total TPE will peak somewhere in the low 2,000s even if they claim every earning opportunity along the way. This limitation means that every player’s build will look different, not just along the way to their peak but at their peak as well. Attribute development involves choice and trade-off, and players and their clubs need to make careful decisions at every turn.

There are many ways to solve this complex puzzle of player attributes. The player build tool offers some help on building toward a particular player archetype. However, the tactics of a club also influence the build decisions of their players. We might call this the club’s “identity”, which aligns the team toward particular strengths that might reflect its history, its personnel, or its manager’s preferences. Maybe a club has a strong legacy of being a scoring powerhouse, so they tend to strengthen all of their player’s offensive skills accordingly. Or maybe a team prioritizes drafting defenders, so they place higher emphasis on rounding out the defensive attributes across the outfield to build a stalwart defense. Or maybe a club simply seeks a well-rounded unit, so they adopt a strategy of improving each of their player’s weaknesses before investing in advanced skills. Every club has a unique identity that influences the attribute development of their players. This identity is also subject to constant evolution as players join, grow, regress, and retire.

A club’s roster construction can serve as some evidence of team identity. but it is difficult from roster alone to immediately identify the strengths of a club. Identifying strengths requires a deeper analysis of the team’s attribute build across its outfielders. This article aims to do just that: reveal the identity of each club by grading the attributes of their outfielders against their peers. It’s time to hand out the report cards ahead of S24.

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Football Manager groups its attributes into three categories: physical, mental, and technical. These categories divide the attributes based on whether they relate to moving around the pitch, making intelligent decisions, or executing technical plays. While this is a meaningful way to split attributes for personal growth, these categories don’t give much insight into behaviors that contribute to a club’s identity like defending, scoring goals, or holding up in clutch moments, for example. Different categories are needed to measure team alignment along the different dimensions of the sport.

With some help from the league discord, I created 7 categories that I believe have a closer link to strengths and club identity: athleticism, cooperation, focus, creating, ball control, scoring, and defending. These attribute categories intend to simplify the larger attribute list into fewer higher-level behaviors, and they represent the competing priorities for a club when out on the pitch.

ATHLETICISM: The six adjustable physical attributes are the most straightforward to categorize. These determine how well a player moves around the pitch in contest with their opponents. They contribute to the overall athletic ability of the squad. Across all active players in the major and minor leagues, these attributes tend to have the highest average rating across the board.
• Pace (18.1 avg)
• Acceleration (18.1 avg)
• Agility (14.2 avg)
• Strength (13.0 avg)
• Balance (12.6 avg)
• Jumping Reach (13.1 avg)

COOPERATION: There are four mental attributes that influence how players work together and how players create or alleviate stress on their teammates by acting in certain ways. Leadership and teamwork influence how well players stick to a particular strategy, while aggression and bravery influence individual risk taking and the collateral need for teammates to cover when those risks fail. These attributes tend to have the lowest average rating across the board.
• Leadership (5.9 avg)
• Teamwork (9.3 avg)
• Aggression (7.3 avg)
• Bravery (7.6 avg)

FOCUS: Five of the mental attributes relate to a player’s mental focus to handle various kinds of pressure during a match. Anticipation manages pressure to counter opponent activity, decisions manages pressure to execute complex offensive tactics, concentration manages mental fatigue, composure manages mental load, and determination manages pressure to perform to expectations. In addition to the physical attributes, these are also among the strongest across the league, on average.
• Anticipation (14.3 avg)
• Decisions (13.0 avg)
• Concentration (11.6 avg)
• Composure (12.5 avg)
• Determination (9.6 avg)

CREATING: There are two mental and four technical attributes that relate to creating offensive opportunities. Off the ball and vision help create advantageous positioning, passing and crossing move the ball forward to create a striking opportunity, and corners and free kicks attempt to create goal attempts on stoppages in play. These skills are more technically specialized but form an important foundation for a functional offense.
• Off the Ball (9.9 avg)
• Vision (11.1 avg)
• Passing (12.8 avg)
• Crossing (8.9 avg)
• Corners (5.9 avg)
• Free Kicks (6.0 avg)

BALL CONTROL: Within the act of creating, there are finer skills that help maintain possession of the ball. First touch and dribbling improve individual ball control, technique and flair contribute to behavior while on the ball, and heading controls possession on contested aerials. These attributes support the creation skills as another requirement for a functional offense.
• First Touch (11.4 avg)
• Dribbling (13.6 avg)
• Technique (11.0 avg)
• Flair (7.7 avg)
• Heading (9.4 avg)

SCORING: Capitalizing on a scoring opportunity is essential to winning a match, and three attributes relate to the final step of putting the ball in the net. Long shots and finishing improve the success of shots of goal from different distances, while penalty taking improves the ability to convert penalty kicks when they arise. There are other attributes mentioned previously that impact scoring, but these are the only attributes related purely to scoring.
• Long Shots (8.2 avg)
• Finishing (10.2 avg)
• Penalty Taking (5.7 avg)

DEFENDING: The remaining four attributes correspond to playing defense when not in possession. Being in the right position, applying physical pressure, and winning possession are all elements of defending that positioning, marking, and tackling impact. Work rate applies to a player’s input of effort in all activities during a match, but this attribute is especially important for defensive coverage.
• Positioning (10.6 avg)
• Marking (9.6 avg)
• Tackling (10.1 avg)
• Work rate (12.3 avg)

With these 7 attribute categories established, I set out on my quest to generate a report card for each SSL club that reveals that club’s identity and player development priorities. I won’t get too deep into the technical details here, but in the simplest sense, I calculated a letter grade per category per club by comparing that club’s weighted sum of the category’s contained attributes to those of the other clubs in their league. If, for example, a club’s outfielders have a combined rating in positioning, marking, tackling, and work rate that exceeds the combined rating in those attributes of the other 11 clubs in their league, then that club would receive an A+ grade for defending. It’s important to note that attributes within a category weren’t combined purely using a sum of ratings, since this technique would treat all attributes as equal contributors to the category. Instead, attributes were combined using a weighted sum system, which ensures that the attributes with a higher average rating across the SSL (those with a higher perception of importance) have a larger influence on their category’s grade.

With the technical details out of the way, let’s look at each team’s report card by division.

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MAJOR LEAGUE, DIV 1

The six major league clubs that made the cut into division 1 are Reykjavik United, Hollywood FC, União São Paulo, Shanghai Dragons FC, Liffeyside Celtic FC, and CD Tenochtitlan. Across the board, none of these clubs have glaring weaknesses, but all have stronger alignment toward certain strengths over others.

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Reykjavik’s identity appears to be constructed around supplemental offensive skills. With an A+ in creating and an A in ball control, the club excels when in possession. A strong supporting defense helps win back possession effectively as well. Occasional issues with team cooperation might be the only thing getting in the way of dominance.

Hollywood tops the major league in the defending category. They also have a notable strength in mental focus, giving the team a level of tenacity to keep up relentless defense against all types of pressure. Hollywood also has a strong bid for the top club in the major league.

União São Paulo has an identity of being the most athletic and mentally resilient club in the major league. The team’s outfielders know how to compete, and they have the physical skills to keep up with everyone. Their technical skills in creating offense are slightly lower but still solid. This is a very competitive squad as well.

Shanghai, Liffeyside, and Tenochtitlan are all well-rounded clubs without alignment toward one particular strength. Shanghai has a slight edge in defending, but their athleticism lags a bit behind. Liffeyside prioritizes working together, but they don’t excel in handling physical and mental pressure. Tenochtitlan was the most balanced of all major league teams. Nothing prevents these clubs from making a run to the top, but it remains to be seen if they have enough pop in one area to make it happen.

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MAJOR LEAGUE, DIV 2

The six major league clubs that start the promotion/relegation era in division 2 are CA Buenos Aires, CF Catalunya, A.C. Romana, Schwarzwälder FV, Tokyo S.C., and Xelajú Cósmico FC. These clubs have certain areas where they excel, but they also have holes that make their game vulnerable.

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Buenos Aires has the strongest identity as flashy scorers. They are good at creating offense and better at finishing shot attempts. Their athletic abilities and teamwork are passable, but the club lacks the mental focus to hold up in high pressure situations.

Unlike Buenos Aires, Catalunya isn’t known as a major scoring threat. They create scores by playing with excellent ball control, and they have decent tactical defensive skills on the other side of the ball. Like Buenos Aires, though, the Catalunya squad struggles with maintaining focus and sometimes fails to capitalize on advantages.

Romana might be the weakest team with maintaining mental focus when under pressure. They also don’t have the strongest athletes on the squad, but their technical skills in creating, ball control, and scoring are well balanced and stand well against the other clubs in the divsion.

Schwarzwälder is best known for their scoring talents, but they sometimes lack the physical abilities to showcase them. The club has also struggled to create a defensive identity, and they concede opponent scoring at a high rate.

Tokyo is more of a tactical champion. The team shares great chemistry and especially excels in defending, but the mental focus, technical skills, and physical capabilities fall behind, which makes it challenging for the squad to execute to plan at times.

As the newest club, Xelajú at this point in time is working to build its identity. They have some decent athletic ability, but the club is still in the process of finding a way to be competitive in the major league.

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MINOR LEAGUE, DIV 1

The six minor league clubs that made the cut into division 1 are AS Paris, Krung Thep FC, F.C. Kaapstad, Montréal United, CS Rova Mpanjaka, and AF Masques Sacrés. These clubs don’t have as much attention or resourcing as the top major league teams, and their identity is quicker to pivot based on drafting and callup decisions by their major league counterpart, but they still find ways to be successful with what is available to them.

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Going into S24, Paris has the best athletes in the minor league. Their squad trains for high pressure moments and knows how to control the game when faced with challenging circumstances. The coaches haven’t yet created a cohesive team unit that works compatibly with each other, but the technical skills of the players are good enough to compensate.

Incredibly balanced, Krung Thep excels by doing all of the fundamentals well with dedication and consistency. The club drafts to fill its holes, and the managers have a good sense of where those voids exist at all times.

Kaapstad has a similar identity to Paris. The club prioritizes physical abilities and mental focus but doesn’t play with a high degree of cooperation. This weakness has a more dramatic effect on the Kaapstad squad, though. The team has a weaker defense, so poor cooperation can create vulnerabilities in the defensive front.

In contrast, Montreal has strong defenders that know how to work together in the best interest of the team. The team can struggle with scoring goals, so it remains to be seen if they have a strong enough defense to carry them to wins.

Mpanjaka puts athleticism first, although its players are still developing their fitness level to get noticed by the rest of the league. There are plenty of ways this squad can improve their mental and technical skills to become more competitive in the division.

Like Xelajú in the major league, Masques is part of the newest organization and is still working toward creating an identity. Their picks have leaned slightly towards favoring players that maintain good focus under pressure, but their other skills still need some work.

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MINOR LEAGUE, DIV 2

The six minor league clubs that start the promotion/relegation era in division 2 are Seoul MFC, North Shore United, Rapid Magyar SC, Inter London, Athênai F.C., and Cairo City. These clubs may enter the season in the lowest division, but several are readying a campaign for promotion into division 1.

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Despite being in division 2, Seoul has a strong squad that doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses. Their identity is built around defending and creating, but they are good in all the supporting skills to make a strong case as the leader in the division.

North Shore has a fair challenge for that title. The club identifies as an athletic squad with a champion attitude. They don’t have as strong of an offensive foundation as Seoul, and the team can lose the plot on their strategy, but they often have enough physical and mental talent to make up for it.

Rapid Magyar is all about commanding possession with expert technical skill. They are very good at what they do even in high pressure situations. However, their technical skills have enabled the team to forgo extensive physical training, which may be an issue when playing against athletic opponents.

London is known as the minor league club with the best team spirit. All of their players work toward the team’s collective mission. The defense is solid, while the other skills are about average for the minor league.

Athênai and Cairo City hold down the bottom of the minor league in a period of soul-searching for a new identity. They rank close to last in all areas and will need some time to rebuild and get back into the mix.

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It is clear that there are many ways for a club to prioritize the attributes in the SSL, and there are many ways for a club to build its identity. Does your club’s report card match the identity it is trying to build?