How much are players worth?

Nothing like a rhetorical title to confuse everyone I like to think, but it's a question that every manager thinks about several times a session in FML? Why? Well maybe because FML has more in common with Command & Conquer or Warcraft III than Pro Evo or FIFA 09. It's a resource management game where you have two resources if you will; players and cash.

Lionel Messi (having slated him in the last article) has just been transferred for what I guess is a server record of £18m. Is he worth it? Well according to the in game banter and endless reply to alls on the discussion lists (and yes I know they have to be reply to alls) yes and/or no. Simple.

Some managers don't understand how the buying manager can afford £18m. A quick butchers at his transfers tabs will demonstrate a methodical approach (built up over shared beta worlds) where he generated as much cash as possible in the first week, then went on a focused trading strategy to generate our second resource from above, cash. He has now started to convert that cash into talent - namely Messi (plus others in his squad). Now obviously there are changes afoot in January to prevent this type of approach, and as realism goes it again demonstrates that FML is vastly different to FMxx. It's not a simulation, it's fantasy football, it's trading players like shares (or meat if you prefer), it's a RTS game.

But is Messi worth £18m? He's young, one of the top 5 players in the gameworld, has one of the highest if not the highest potential (197/200 in FM08) and if played correctly will obviously improve the quality of a team. He will obviously be an asset for a long time, and there is little chance that he would be sold for profit given the high cash figure. Yet to determine whether he is worth the money we must consider what alternatives are on offer.

Could two almost as good players be bought for the same amount? Almost definitely yes. An example of this would be if you compare the abilities of Messi and a bunch of random other good players purely by comparing their current abilities as per FM08 (and senior players don't change much year on year) you would see that Messi is 11% better than Breno, 11% better than Adrien, 6% better than Rooney, 26% better than Javi Martinez and 25% than Gareth Bale. I reckon any two of those players could be bought for £18m.

I'd like to return to an old article written about acquisition fees. AFs make good players look better than they are because the increments change in size on the scale. At the top end, increments change in units of £250,000, around the average level of £100,000 AF they move in blocks of £10,000. A change for Fabregas from £3.25m to £3.5m looks huge, but is in fact the same movement of £100k to £110k for Oliver Kapo. Is Fabregas worth 30 times the value of Kapo? No - he's 29% better (180 current ability / 140 current ability minus 1). The best value for money players are in the £150k to £350k range. A team full of £300k AF players would win most of their games. Purely looking at AF tends to give the impression that the good players are so much better than the above average players when it is just not true. Because the scale is not linear the better players get exponentially more expensive the higher you go up the scale. There are a bunch of average £1m AF players who are no better, and often if they have high reputation somewhat worse, than the best £250k players.

If it was me, I'd take £18m for Messi, I don't think I would bid that much for him. £18m for me would represent 4-5 first team players who would collectively improve my starting 11 and increase the standing of my club. Again, as mentioned in a previous article the best deal I saw struck in beta was Fabregas for Baylon, Caio, Javi Martinez, Alex Teixiera and £2m. Four first team players with lower wages than Cesc plus cash - improved the team, reduced the wage bill and increased the cash balance. That is the definition of a good deal and is hard to dispute. You can easily dispute the Messi deal. Personally I think that many of the top names are vanity buys - favourite players IRL, trophy players or commodities ready to be sold on for a profit.

FML is Command & Conquer or Warcraft III not Emlyn Hughes' Soccer, Sensible Soccer, Kick Off, Football Director or Match Day. What goes on off the pitch is not the prelude to what happens on the pitch, it's the vast majority of the game.