CA vs PA: Current & Potential Ability Explained

The 0–200 Scale

Both Current Ability (CA) and Potential Ability (PA) sit on a shared scale running from 0 to 200. A raw amateur might register a CA of 20 or 30; a prime-age world-class performer will be somewhere in the 170s or above. The number itself is never shown to you in a normal save — what you see are the individual attributes on a player's profile and the star ratings your scouts assign. The hidden number is the engine behind both of those things.

The two figures serve completely different purposes. CA tells you where a player is right now; PA tells you where the ceiling is. A 17-year-old with a CA of 90 and a PA of 165 has a long road ahead. A 29-year-old with a CA of 140 and a PA of 142 is probably at his peak. The same visible attributes could look similar on paper, but the recruitment logic is entirely different.

How Current Ability Becomes Visible Attributes

CA is not a separate number that floats independently of what you see on screen. As the FM Base Complete CA/PA Thread explains, the general level of attributes assigned to a player is directly correlated to their CA — raise the CA and attributes rise with it, lower it and they fall.

The relationship is not one-to-one across every attribute, though. Each attribute carries a positional weight that determines how heavily it draws on the CA pool. As the FMInside CA/PA guide notes, heading is far more weighted for a target forward than for a false nine. Pace and acceleration are weighted heavily for wide players. Decisions and positioning carry more weight for goalkeepers and central defenders than for attacking midfielders. This means two players with identical CA values can look very different in their attribute profiles if they play different positions — which is exactly what you would expect from real football.

Equally important is what CA does not count. Four attributes — Aggression, Determination, Flair, and Natural Fitness — fall outside the CA calculation entirely, as confirmed by the FM Scout Definitive Guide to Current Ability. You can have a player with Determination of 20 and another with Determination of 5, and it will not shift their CA by a single point. This matters for recruitment: a high-CA player with low Determination may underperform expectations because drive and work ethic are invisible to the CA calculation. Likewise, a player with modest CA but elite Determination has qualities that the headline number undersells.

Set-piece attributes carry the lowest positional weights in the calculation. A weaker foot's strength, by contrast, is weighted progressively more heavily as you move up the pitch toward attacking positions.

PA as a Hard Ceiling, Not a Destination

Potential Ability is fixed from the moment a database is created. It does not change during a save, regardless of coaching quality, playing time, or anything else that happens in-game. What PA defines is the maximum CA a player can ever reach — once CA hits PA, development stops.

Reaching that ceiling, however, is far from guaranteed. The FMInside guide puts it plainly: PA shows how good a player can be, not how good they will be. The gap between PA and the CA a player actually achieves depends on age (younger players have more room and time), playing time at an appropriate level, coaching and training quality, and crucially, hidden mental attributes like Determination and Professionalism. A player with PA of 170 but Determination of 4 may stall at CA 130 simply because the drive to train hard enough is absent. As the Football Manager Blog observes, a player with a Determination of 5 is very unlikely to be committed enough to do the work required to fulfil that potential.

This is why personality scouting matters alongside raw CA/PA figures. Two players sharing a PA of 160 may develop entirely differently depending on their mental makeup.

Negative PA: Built-In Unpredictability

For younger or lesser-known players — particularly those outside the top European leagues — Sports Interactive's researchers cannot confidently predict a precise ceiling. For these players, a system of negative PA values is used instead of a fixed number. Rather than assigning a hard figure, a negative PA generates a different ceiling value every time you start a new save.

The ranges, as documented by the FMInside community and the FM Base CA/PA thread, work as follows:

• -10 — generates a PA between 170 and 200 (reserved for the rarest generational talents)
• -9 — generates a PA between 150 and 180
• -8 — generates a PA between 130 and 160
• -7 — generates a PA between 110 and 140
• -6 — generates a PA between 90 and 120
• -5 — generates a PA between 70 and 100

Half-step values (-95, -85, and so on) also exist, sitting between the integer tiers and narrowing the band further. The practical effect is that scouting a teenage prospect outside the major leagues involves genuine uncertainty — the PA you see if you use an editor might say -8, but whether that translates to 130 or 160 in your specific save is unknown. This mirrors real-world scouting: you are betting on a range, not a number.

Star Ratings and What They Actually Measure

The star ratings your scouts and coaches assign are the in-game representation of CA and PA, filtered through two lenses that many players overlook. First, they are relative to your squad, not absolute. A player who earns four stars at a League Two club may earn two stars at a Premier League club even though his attributes have not changed — because the scale shifts with your roster quality. As the FMInside guide notes, stars reflect squad-relative strength rather than absolute ability.

Second, ratings are only as reliable as the knowledge your staff has. Unfilled stars signal uncertainty in the assessment, not that a player is bad. Prioritise completing scout reports before acting on star ratings, especially for players from leagues you have limited coverage in. Gold stars represent current ability relative to your first team; silver stars represent potential. A player showing two gold and four silver is currently below your starting level but has the ceiling to become a key performer — the profile you want when investing in youth.

What This Means for Recruitment

Treating CA and PA as the whole picture leads to poor recruitment decisions. The numbers are aggregates, and aggregates hide shape. Two strikers at CA 140 might have completely different profiles: one with elite pace and weak decision-making, another with strong positioning and average physical stats. The aggregate says they are equal. Your system almost certainly favours one heavily.

The most effective approach is to use CA/PA as a filter for the shortlist, not a verdict. Scout reports and attribute analysis then take over. Check whether the attributes that matter for your specific role and formation are at the level you need — a deep-lying forward needs different things than a pressing centre-forward, and CA treats them differently too. Then factor in age against PA: if a player is 26 and the gap between his CA and PA is small, you are paying for what he already is; if he is 20 with significant room to grow, you are paying partly for what he might become.

Finally, watch the attributes that sit outside the CA calculation. A player with low Determination or poor Professionalism may have a high CA he achieved through natural talent, with a PA ceiling he will never approach because he simply does not train at the required level. Conversely, a player with slightly lower CA but strong mental hidden attributes often outperforms his number. FM Dossier's Scout and Moneyball views surface role-fit percentages and attribute breakdowns to help move from a wide candidate pool to a shortlist built around tactical fit rather than headline figures.

The Short Version

CA is where a player is now. PA is as far as he can go. Neither number appears on screen in a standard save, but both govern every attribute value, every scout rating, and every development arc. Use them to filter candidates, not to make final decisions — then let role-specific attributes and personality close the case.