Dear Virtuafoot friends,

I’m turning to you today with a mystery I’ve been trying to solve for several weeks, or even several seasons…

What actually causes the loss of fitness after a match on Virtuafoot? 🤔

Is it completely random?

Is it influenced by individual instructions?

Does it depend on the opponent’s level?

Is it linked to the percentage of possession? (After all, a team that keeps the ball is supposed to run less...)

Are there other factors we’re unaware of?

These are all questions I’m trying to find answers to. So I suggest we try to get to the bottom of this together – perhaps with some insight from A45 on the subject!

🔎 My experience

For my part, I’ve chosen to build a team with relatively good stamina, with players scoring between 26 and 33 for stamina.

The aim is simple: to be able to play matches back-to-back without necessarily regaining 100 per cent fitness for every game. In terms of training, by optimising the schedule properly, this remains more than sufficient.

But here’s the thing… Over the last few days, something seems to have changed.

When my players first reached an endurance rating of 30, their fitness loss generally fluctuated between 28 and 33 per cent per match.

A range I found perfectly reasonable: matches came thick and fast, and a rest day every two weeks was enough to maintain the pace.

Now, it’s a different story altogether!

Let’s just take four players who played a match yesterday:

• O. Dosmanbetov | 31 stamina | 40 per cent fitness loss.
• K. Zeinolllin | 33 stamina | 30% fitness loss.
• M. Kuznetsov | 26 stamina | 43% fitness loss.
• R. Kenzhebaev | 26 stamina | 38% fitness loss.

We can therefore see quite significant variations, even between players with exactly the same stamina level.

Even more surprising: a player with 31 stamina can lose 10 more fitness points than a player with 33!

I have now been trying for several seasons to identify any possible logic behind these variations.

In particular, I have sought to determine whether there are periods during which the loss of fitness is greater, but so far I have found no obvious correlation from one season to the next.

The scenario is often the same: everything runs normally for several days, then, for no apparent reason, a match suddenly causes a fitness loss that is 7 to 10 percentage points higher than the previous day’s.

And this happens regardless of the match result!

This season, for example, I have unfortunately never again seen those famous 28 per cent drops. Nowadays, my players very regularly exceed 30 per cent, sometimes by a considerable margin.

So, how can these variations be explained?

Below is an overview of the fitness losses observed in my players since the start of the season.

I’m curious to hear about your experiences:

Have you ever observed this phenomenon? Have you identified any factors that might influence fitness loss? Or do you think there’s an element of randomness involved in the calculation?

And above all, would it be possible to get some clarification from A45 on the mechanisms behind this loss?

The aim isn’t necessarily to know the exact formula, but simply to understand whether these variations follow a pattern that we could anticipate.

Share your observations, experiences and theories! 😁

Hi, it depends on stamina and the number of ‘plays’ in a match (part of which you can see through the chances and goals). It’s this number of plays that varies slightly from one match to the next, which leads to differences between certain matches.

A45 qui continue de faire mumuse

Perhaps Aymeric has added a variable – sleep duration – to influence a player’s form.

And soon we’ll have a news item at the club: “Robert was caught out by fans at a nightclub until 5 am; he’s not in great shape today” 🤣