About Positional Familiarity

Positional Familiarity gives managers complete freedom over their players’ positioning on the pitch… With a couple of exceptions:
Goalkeepers cannot occupy outfield positions
Outfield players cannot occupy the Goalkeeper position

Check out this video from Calvinator that explains the concept, or keep scrolling below!



Naturally, players will still deliver their best performances in their primary and secondary positions.
However, when placed in unfamiliar roles, they will experience an adjustment in their attribute ratings, and their performance will be affected.




As you can see in the image, familiarity is based on the player’s primary position only. Positions adjacent to (or similar to) a player’s secondary position(s) are NOT considered.

Alfons Ackermann, a natural Right Winger (RW), will shine brightest in his primary role. Slide him into the Right Back (RB) slot — his secondary position, and he’ll still hold his ground, albeit with a very slight performance drop. But ask him to defend the heart of your line-up as a Centre Back (CB), and you’ll find his skills don’t translate as effectively at all.

Chart and penalties

Here are the penalties:

Secondary/Third position: -1 to every attribute
Fairly Familiar: -5
Somewhat Familiar: -8
Unfamiliar: -20

Worth noting: Sometimes, players might actually have a higher OVR rating in a secondary (or even unlisted) position. When that happens, you may want to weigh the benefits brought about by their versatility against the potential drawbacks of playing them out of position. While this will be reflected in the Tactics page when moving players around on the pitch, AliColeman170’s tool https://mflplayer.info is also a great resource to find all the info you need on players’ attribute ratings based on their position and familiarity.

Updated on: 11/03/2024