Using young players: bad?

Sorry for the confusing title, just couldn't come up with anything better. If you are still paying attention, read on.. In real life, we have different type of managers. Some prefer using players who are way passed their twenties and hitting the middle of their thirties. Mature players. For example, Carlo Ancelotti. We can safely say that he likes to have experience in his squad. He likes having players almost the same age as himself, with a bit of exageration. There are of course clear benefits in this type of squad management, as people gain technical and mostly mental values with age. You can expect players like Figo or Maldini not to get carried away in the heat of the moment and to generally make better decisions than Quaresma or Pato, but you can't expect them to have the same speed or stamina.

On the other hand, we have the "Wengers", who tend to focus on youth and they try building their team using youngsters. A good example of this is the new German sensation, Hoffenheim. They bought a bunch of 18 years olds a few years ago for a cheap money and now the 21-22 years old are demolishing the Bundesliga. Youngsters are generally better physically than players past their peak, but using players who are yet to gain experience on a personal or a footbalistic level can be a gamble. Wenger's Arsenal is a good example of paying a price for the lack of experience. The team lacks any kind of consistency and even though young flamboyancy can win them matches, they also show that they can crack when things get heated, or they can get overcomplacent on a regular basis.

Which one is better? Seemingly both.. AC Milan are constantly major players in Europe, even though they had a disappointing last season. They are one of the best teams of the 21st century and the likes of Maldini, Pirlo or Inzaghi have their names written all over history books. Arsene Wengers's Arsenal had some brilliant moments as well and from time to time they become the subject of envy from different teams or from the press. Buying youngsters and then passing them on for a fortune is probably the dream of many. Surely, finishing the Premiership with no defeats is also something that Wenger can include in his CV until he retires.

What does this have to do with FM? Community members and their style in squad management.. As shown from the examples only a select few build their team from wonderkids and success is never constant when you don't have at least a couple of experienced players. Arsenal are starting to blend into mediocrity, meanwhile the Hoff seem to be losing their momentum. Would this be the same on FM? Probably not.. 90% of FM players focus on getting youngsters, for obvious reasons. They are cheaper than experienced players, they have just about the same ability and they have already been tested by other youngster-lovers. Players like Lewandowski or Nicolas Mazzola are starting to become legendary, yet we know nothing about them in real life and probably no big team would get them in real life. In FM they win matches for the likes of Real Madrid or Inter. Not even talking about that brilliant South American 17 years old who I just got for a million. In 2 years he is the best player in the World. My word on that..

Is this ruining our FM experience? I think it does, to a certain extent. Apart from the fact that I consider it to be highly unrealistic, I think it can make you bored of the game as well. Not saying that I never get hot prospects to teams I am managing, as I do. Sometimes I even check out players recommended by others, even though I think I pretty much stopped doing it in order to become a better manager. I try getting older players and try setting up some rules for myself, to make things more interesting. Broaden you horizon and signing unknown players can also make things much more interesting. Not denying the fact that building up your own team from youngsters you nurtured has no value or it makes the game less interesting, but in order to keep things interesting trying new things and thinking about real life situations is a must.

If you are interested in an advice from me, I would say you should try thinking as your favourite manager and manage as he would. Would he play 5 teenagers in a Champions League final? You may win it with them, but Rafa Benitez says you are a weirdo. I agree that we should all play FM because of the fun and joy it brings to us and not because it's a simulation, but sometimes fun and realism can be combined together, offering you a better overall experience.

Could SI do something about this? Yes, I think they could. Apart from the fact that this little article is aimed at members in order to give some advice, it is also aimed at SI to a certain extent. I think youth development on FM is far from being perfect. As Fanny pointed out in a discussion thread about this subject, there is a lot to do. I will try to reproduce and explain his words with my own.. Let's think of the best finisher in real life football. I would say it's a pretty hard call, but Ruud van Nistelrooy is surely amongst the best. Let's say his Finishing is 20. On the other hand, we have a 15 years old kid, who is a great Striker for his age. Is he as good as RVN in Finishing? Could he do the same things after playing footie for a couple of days as the Dutchman from Madrid? No.. I would say he is about half as good of a finisher in the best case scenario. Let's give him 10 for finishing. As I said, he is brilliant for his age and in real life he could probably become very good with intensive training. In FM, with a finishing of 10, you will never reach more than 16-17.

SI's solution for this? Giving youngsters extravagant attributes. Aspects of football which would require intensive training are very high for a bucketload of youngsters. In real life we do have a couple of "wonderkids", as Messi or Fabregas used to be, but we don't see many teams using more than 2-3 played under the age of 20. Arsenal's youngen are mostly too old to play in the U21 teams of their country, yet they are still considered to have a very young team, compared to others. Barcelona has a 21 years old Messi and a 18 Bojan, meanwhile the rest of the squad is built from players who passed their mid-twenties. Now count the number of U21 players in your starting 11, in your current game. I have 4 at Amkar and I tried to avoid getting over the top with them..

I can understand that FM represents the future and that playing youngsters is getting more and more popular in real life, but I think we are very far from that and training should be much more important. God knows I am very bad at creating schedules, but I would love if they would mean more. Youngsters should have separate ways of developing and many players aged 27 could still develop into much better players. I think that was about the age when Fabio Grosso started playing football. I doubt back then he was as good as a couple of years later when he was a key member in Italy's World Cup winning squad. On FM08 we lacked quality regens, now we have too many. If you have a good scouting system, in 5-6 years you could build a team out of regens, which would just about demolish anything in his way. Imagine that in real life.. Would you be able to win something in 2015 with a team built from players who started playing football in 2009?

And the time has come for me to stop writing this here article. If you got this far, congrats to you. Sorry if I bored you, just wanted to share my thoughts, my views and my opinion about the way people play FM and ultimetely about the SI's way of handling youth development. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed with ideas, thoughts and views in this thread.

You could not have chosen a more innapropriate title...

But with the thread I think it is a good point made and several other have said about the youth system is not all that good.

If people have a problem with the thread title, I have nothing against a mod renaming it (y)

The aim of my article isn't just blaming SI though. It is more like an advice for FM users to change their ways, if they feel they need it.

If people have a problem with the thread title, I have nothing against a mod renaming it (y)

The aim of my article isn't just blaming SI though. It is more like an advice for FM users to change their ways, if they feel they need it.

No well you will get a lot of views because it does stand out quite a bit.

Yes I understand what the article means and it is a very good, very thought out article.

Using young players... Good or Bad?

That may have been a better thread title . With regard to your post, in FM08 the issue with regen youth players was that they were.... well..... rubbish! That takes away the fun from longer term save games. It now appears that this version has gone too far the other way, young players are too good, perhaps not but they are certainly too good too quickly and too frequent!

Using young players... Good or Bad?

That may have been a better thread title . With regard to your post, in FM08 the issue with regen youth players was that they were.... well..... rubbish! That takes away the fun from longer term save games. It now appears that this version has gone too far the other way, young players are too good, perhaps not but they are certainly too good too quickly and too frequent!

That title would have been so boring though

Sorry for another link, I know some may call it blatant advertising, but LW requires no registering to be able to view topics, so I will do it anyhow.

The actual thread of this article on lw is: http://loswonderkids.com/community/index.php?showtopic=3453

Good article, Im a blend of the two types of managers. I love buying a lot of young promising players and try and nurture them into top flight wonderkids, from there they do it themselves and can turn into superstars. Having said that, I know when I need to splash the cash and get in a more experienced player. My squads average age is 21, but my first team players ages are as follows:

Gk: 28

DR: 21

DC's: 21 and 31, a 28yr old Zapata can fill in at anytime.

DL: 21

MC's: 24, 22, 24, equally good 24yr old can fill in

AMC: 25

ST's: 24, 27

There's still experience in my team but theres quite a few young players. This is a team I use in Champs league, with different aged rotation/backup from 17/18 yr old hot prospects to a few 30yr olds, eg. Pirlo (35), Gattuso(37), Robinho(31).

The 21year old DC has spend 3 seasons getting first team action in the Prem with Wolves, his 20year old mate is still there and looks to surpass my current DC ability. My DL came to my club at 17 after I sold my 26yr old DL to another side. The 17yr old DL went straight into the side and impressed so much he hasn't moved since.

I do notice a difference when I put some young kids in, they give away cheap passes, seem nervous(dwell on ball, dont get stuck in, etc) so I wouldn't dream of putting them in an important game.

Anyways back on topic, I agree that I don't really have a need for old players. Firstly, they are expensive, then they naturally decline so not worth large sums of money and finally the ones able to replace my first teams wouldn't move to my side or it would cost stupid amounts to get them.

I would like to see improvements in training and player development but at the moment I fear if muddled with it could ruin regens and youth in FM2010 and we would need to wait for a patch to fix it. I quite like regens atm, but across the board I am noticing the average age of squads declining.