These are attributes that you do not see when you are playing the game in a normal way. However Championship Manager does include an editor, and there are also many editors available by third parties (see a list here). This allows you wo see the hidden attributes of the players. (Of course this is a way of cheating, so be careful before using it!)

Part 1: player abilities

There are two types of player abilities. The potential and the current ability.

Current ability

This reflects the overal quality of the player at this very moment. It can improve or it may not, depending on the potential ability of the player. If you have a player with a current ability equalling his potential ability, then the player will never ameliorate and might even drop in quality if he is not well-trained or does not play in matches.

Potential ability

There are three cases

If the player is young, then his stats will be going up for many years, and he might move towards his potential ability (but not certainly reach it!)

The player is at the moment at a bad condition (e.g. has just recovered from a very serious injury that has left him out for many months) In this case his current ability will fastly move towards the potential ability.

The player is starting to show signs of age: In this case the potential ability is an indication of the "history" of the player. He might improve in certain attributes through training, but in most others he will drop and will never attain his potential ability.

An important thing to mention: If in the editor you see a potential value of 0. then the player's value has not yet been determined. If it is -1. it means that he willl have an ability between 85-165, determined randomly, and if it is -2, then he might get 180-200! Look out for those noted with -2, cos they are the youngsters who will be making a huge impact in the game. You can often buy them cheaply, and they will serve an enormous value!