Agusta gives us a brief but concise look at the workings of potential and current ability in

Football Manager 2008! 

Some people might think that these two hidden attributes are very simple ones but actually they are not! I will try to explain to you, and hopefully you will find it particularly useful in scouting your players especially young players.

Lets start from the general meanings. CA is an indicator of how good a player is at the moment. Usually at the beginning of the game CA will be less than PA (example CA of 160 and PA of 190). Both attributes range from 0 - 200. The CA can improve by correct guidance and correct amount of games until the maximum figure, which is PA, at the correct time. If you use players who are under 19 too much then he is going to reach his PA too fast and therefore, it causes "burn out." Usually CA will drop when the player gets older or at some moment after he reaches his PA.

Now lets talk about people's general opinions about this. People usually think that the higher the PA the better the player is going to be. I would like to say THAT IS WRONG! WHY?? Let me give you an example. Without telling you, I already assume that you all know Fabregas is a very talented player! IN FM07 Fabregas has only 172 for his PA with a CA of 160+ at the beginning of the game. Why is his PA not 190+ like Ronaldo, Robben or Robinho ? Well, the reason is he is already too good for a player of his age. Thus it is impossible to put his CA of 180+ at the beginning of the game since he is too young. That is the reason why SI limits his PA to 172. If he were to have a PA of 190 + then he would be a godlike player and be better than Ronaldinho or even much better than Gerrard.

So why is this useful for scouting? When you are scouting a player you do not only consider his skills and talent (in this case his PA), but also other attributes such as consistency, important matches (whether he enjoys playing in big matches), professionalism, etc.
Players with lower PA can be better than players with higher PA due to these other hidden attributes that I mentioned above. It is useless if you buy player with a PA 199 but consistency 8 out of 20, am I right?!

In this case If I had 100 million to spend then I would better buy Andres Guardado that will cost me around 20 millions than C. Ronaldo that will cost me a lot more. That is because Guardado has better consistency and important matches attributes with lower PA.

That's all. I hope you will find it useful

Many Thanks