Dear readers,

Today I want to analyse Marco Verratti and the influence of my FM 2012 training schedules on him since the very start of the story. Probably you remember I bought Italian wonderkid during the first transfer window when he was just 18 years old. Therefore it should be entertaining to take a wide look at his whole career in my Queens Park Rangers.

Development during trainings

Verratti has been training under the same schedule developed for attacking midfielders since the story start. It's based on a quite heavy workload with accents on Attacking, Shooting, Tactics, and Ball Control categories. This is how it looks:

As a result you can compare how Marco's attributes changed between 2011 and 2016 years.

Marco Verratti in 2011

Marco Verratti in 2016

Now we can look at Verratti's history of some major attributes for playmakers. But at first you should pay attention to the past injuries my favourite playmaker had. Unfortunately, Verratti broke his leg in the end of 2014 and was out of the game for a long period of 5 months. It influenced his development much, you will see this on the screenshots below.

Aerobic attributes

OK, I has taken 4 Aerobics attributes. You see their confident growth since the very beginning and the drop due to 5 month injury. Well, it's logically.

Tactical attributes

Marco's tactical learning is very well I should confess. His first two years in the club were played under sign of a large progress. It's also interesting to see that the long-term injury doesn't influenced the tactical attributes so much as it was in case with the Aerobics category.

Attacking attributes

Growth of Attacking attributes is very good and doesn't differ much from the Tactics category. Though I am slightly worried regarding depression of growth during the last half of year…

Comparison with Wesley Sneijder

I think Marco Verratti is a playmaker of the same type as Wesley Sneijder. This is the reason why I decided to compare Italian talent with great Dutch playmaker who is already 31 years old in my game. What we see here? What traits does Verratti lack in comparison with Sneijder?

First of all, the Dutch is better technically in First Touch, Long Shots, and Free Kicks. In Mental area Sneijder has even larger advantage overcoming Marco in Concentration, Decisions, Determination, Off The Ball, Team Work, and Work Rate. I suppose this difference in mental attributes is a key to answer why Sneijder is better than Verratti.

Physically Marco excels Wesley slightly. But it's not really important for a playmaker.

Career roller-coaster

Marco Verratti is like on a roller-coaster now due to his 5 month injury in the end of 2014. It was the time when he had got his last award. Moreover, his Premier League stats are not so good in 2015/16 season as it was in the previous season before the injury. I hope my favourite QPR player will return to his level closer to decisive spring matches.

Marco's statistics in the current season (March, 2016)

Couple of questions for you in the end:

What do you think of Marco Verratti as a player?

How has Verratti been developing in your FM story?

Excited to blog for you,

Vitaliy Mokosiy

True Football Manager