What Potential Really Means, and Potential Boosts

Potential is not a cap

Growth depends on age, how much room remains up to your potential, and morale. Growth slows as OVR approaches potential, but it keeps going a little even after OVR reaches it. So it is more accurate to think that the higher the potential, the faster and longer the same training makes a player grow.

True potential is revealed at retirement. During the career, the scout sums up the player’s level in a single line in the season review, and the retirement report breaks it down for the first time into initial potential, changes during the growth years, boosts and events. The grades are S 90 or higher, A 84–89, B 78–83, C 70–77 and D 69 or lower.

It rises and falls on its own until age 25

True potential moves up and down a little at random each season until age 25. This variation follows the same rule for every player regardless of choices, so no action can avoid it or push it up. Events that raise potential directly, such as investing in a famous trainer (+2 at age 23 or younger, +1 after that), are separate from this.

When to boost potential

From the end of your first season until age 29, you can raise potential with funds using Potential Boost in the Player tab. You can try once per season, up to 4 stages, and the higher the stage, the higher the cost and the lower the success chance. Each success raises potential by 1. Signed-in club owners can also use club funds for a guaranteed boost, which raises one stage with no roll, once per player.

A failure only costs you the funds, but each failure raises the next success chance by 5 percentage points. Since potential is a growth-speed benchmark, the same +1 pays off longer the earlier you get it, over the seasons that remain. In the early game, when funds are tight, trying steadily from the lower stages is more efficient.

In a season when you are short on funds, you can watch a rewarded ad to the end in the app, or, if you are a signed-in owner, try once with club funds. Potential Boost tickets bought in the app have the same success chance as trying with funds, and the same stage cap and age limit.

More strategy articles

• Starting Your First Career: What to Check When Creating a Player
  How to choose a position, focus attributes and growth trait when you create your first player in OFFSIDE, and how to pick among the three candidates.
• Training and Self-Investment: How to Run a Season
  How to choose training and self-investment in each pre-season, first half and second half, what you lose by building only one attribute, and when to rest.
• Transfers, Renewals and Loans: Choosing Your Next Destination
  How to choose between staying, renewing and moving at the end of a season, how to read the estimated finish on a transfer offer, and how to use a loan when you are not getting playing time.
• National Team and Military Service: A Crossroads for Korean Players
  How national team call-ups, international tournaments, international retirement and military service for Korean players (Gimcheon Sangmu, active duty and the sports service exemption) affect your career.
• When to Retire, the Hall of Fame and Retired Numbers
  When it is best to retire, the legend score and the conditions for entering the Hall of Fame, retired number review, and the Wall of Honour title.
• Building an Owner Team, Team Synergy and Offside Cup Prep
  How to build an owner team from retired players, position fit and team synergy, the manager slot, Offside Cup entry conditions, and how match results are decided.
• What to Know Before Starting a Manager Career
  What changes when you start a manager career with a retired player, how playing records carry over into manager ability, and the effects of the manager card and manager slot.