Why are you forced to take on rubbish youth players?

I think you should be able to say to the assistant manager.

"If they don't have at least 3 stars for Potential, don't bother with them"

I think you should be able to say to the assistant manager.

"If they don't have at least 3 stars for Potential, don't bother with them"

Is that how it works in real life? If you only kept the 3 star and above players, then who would those players to have to train with? Youth players are kept for potential and to play in the youth team along side the better players to help them develop.

Potential is relative.

dont have a problem with new ones coming in, having far too many in squads is the problem ive noticed. dunno if its cause when they come in the contracts are set for 3/4 years but youths dont get released often enough and the under 18/19 squads keep growing every season. seen one side with over 35 players in the under 19 squad (none played any first team football) and the first team only had 14 players with 1 keeper, something wrong there? lol?

Would you prefer a squad of even-more rubbish grey players?

And nobody knows how the players will turn out in real-life - even if they start off much worse.

My cousin plays for a high level youth team, the way he is looked after and plays and the way others have been and are released, relates to zero of what we do in FM11. The Youth system needs an overhaul.

I think you should be able to say to the assistant manager.

"If they don't have at least 3 stars for Potential, don't bother with them"

They're only on youth contracts, so really, you're not forced to take them on permanently at all. Indeed, you're able to release any immediately that you don't like the look of, without any cost.

Don't particularly see the problem there at all.

Potential is relative.

So is the star system?

I'm not saying that I think it's actually an "issue", but your response certainly isn't very helpful or valuable to the conversation.

You need kids because your future stars - if you have any - are going to be developing in U-18 competitions, and you need to put a team of players on the field - and you also need the kids to back up any of your first team players in the reserves.

You can get rid of them if you want, but I for one appreciate their role.

In real life, a manager can't just say to his youth directors "don't bother with the lads who are not good enough" because no one knows how good any of their youth players will turn out. Though we may have the benefit of the star rating system to get an idea of who are the most talented and who are not, being able to fiilter out the low potential players majorly subtracts from the realism of the game and, more importantly, would disrupt the balance of players in the whole country. The players you don't take on are the ones that drop down to the lower leagues and bolster the teams in those leagues.

You've really got nothing to lose with the low potential players coming through your youth system, so I can't see what the issue is.

So is the star system?

I'm not saying that I think it's actually an "issue", but your response certainly isn't very helpful or valuable to the conversation.

I think it is. The star system shows relative potential, not absolute potential. Therefore, saying "don't bother" with a 2 star player could be very risky. If you're a top club, that player could still be good enough to be worth £1m, for example. You wouldn't give away an asset worth £1m. If you're a smaller club, a 2 star player could be a really good player in the league below. If you get relegated, he could be a key player for you in your struggle to get back up.

Also I might add, consider the revenue potential of loaning and selling these "lesser" young players.

They might never have a long term future at your club, but they can certainly make a financial contribution.

That post is a great contribution, and well put. Though it's more of a criticism of his decision to set 3 stars as his cutoff point rather than the mechanism that he suggests in general. Maybe he says, all the random trash that is rated as half a star could be auto dumped from the team. The idea in general doesn't seem misguided; a little lazy maybe.

I'm just pointing out that there is kind of a massive disparity between your first post and your follow up.

IMO some of the donkeys I get come through shouldn't even make it into football let alone a worldclass team with top facilities in everything.

The general standard of regens throughout the spectrum needs sorting so it allows a more balanced and realistic game. I know in rl scouts and coaches can't see stats but surely if a young striker walked into trials with 6Fin, 6Com, 4Stam and so on he'd be laughed off the pitch non?

Also I might add, consider the revenue potential of loaning and selling these "lesser" young players.

They might never have a long term future at your club, but they can certainly make a financial contribution.

This is very true, I tried developing all my youngsters in an fm 10 save with liverpool and although most of them were never good enough for my team i sold some of them for a bit of money. For example, i sold Kacaniklic to CSKA Moscow for 4m.

I think it is. The star system shows relative potential, not absolute potential. Therefore, saying "don't bother" with a 2 star player could be very risky. If you're a top club, that player could still be good enough to be worth £1m, for example. You wouldn't give away an asset worth £1m. If you're a smaller club, a 2 star player could be a really good player in the league below. If you get relegated, he could be a key player for you in your struggle to get back up.

But it's a bit of a skewed perspective...

If you're a Top Club, a 2* potential means the player will be AT BEST an adequate backup in the darkest hour, or the typical "offer to clubs" player.

If you're a smaller club, 2* potential means he's rather poor and you'll probably struggle to sell him for change at the lowest level.

Still, when you get a 2* PA youngster you're actually DAMN HAPPY, as the standard PA level for most intakes is 1* at best!

I agree with the OP there should be some sort of preliminary selection... after all the youth intake is supposed to represent the best of the yearly "production" in the local area/academy, so it's fair to assume, in FM world, those godawful kids your youth coaches have picked have been through a couple of years of training already...

Now we know Messis and Xavis aren't born every other day, but frankly the amount of useless players the in-game youth system produces is baffling... kids like that wouldn't last long in a real life football school/academy and would end up playing local Pub Tournaments or part-time lower league.

Now tell me how on earth such guys would have lasted for like 3 years (minimum) at La Masia...

P.S. then cut a couple of points off their best attributes and you've got yourself the "average" youth player of lesser clubs...

I’m no apologist for SI but these criticisms of insufficiently good youths coming through seem overstated. IRL The majority of every team’s youth intake gets released with out ever playing a first team game. A few players make a handful of appearances before being sold to smaller teams and if their lucky a team might get one or two players through that make the squad.

Have a look at the team you support over a five year period and see how many players came through the youth team each season and where their career took them.

Surely the quality of the youngsters should depend on the infrastructure, staffing and reputation of the club.

If you decide to go with youth then you need a few things to make it work well:

A decent youth manager/coach with a good stat in coaching young players. A good scout or scouts with judging player potential. Good training conditions for the young players and being a club with a reputation of developing and bringing through young players to attract them.

If you don't have a good youth coach or talent spotter then you shouldn't get decent young players.

The question would be how much players would want to go through the rigmarole of setting up a youth system like Ajax and Barcelona.

The game should regen a mixture of good, bad and indifferent youth players for all countries as happens in real life.The question being how hard do you want to search for the next Messi and Rooney?

Also players technical skills are generally fully formed at 18. It is the mental and physical skills that should have to be worked on. A player won't go from a 8 technical mark to 15 by training but it seems that a lot of young players seem to have low technical skills whereas it should be the mental skills that get developed throughout their careers

Have a look at the team you support over a five year period and see how many players came through the youth team each season and where their career took them.

My team is Southampton, so do I need to?

@RBKalle

I bet they'd have got regular first team action for my Eastleigh team in the BSS last season (wouldn't now in the BSP though)

just because they're crap in relative terms to the Messi's and co at Barca, it doesn't mean that they still can't forge a decent career at lower level and being at a top club means they get a good solid footballing education before embarking on that lower level career...

I think the star ratings for potential can be too accurate at times especially when you first get a team report on them when they come through at age 16. Obviously they know who the most talented are but to brand everyone else as being 1 star potential seems wrong. I think ive had one player over every fm ive played that was less than three stars potential and wwent on to get into first team evenas backup

My team is Southampton, so do I need to?

Usually playing in the leagues above

@RBKalle

I bet they'd have got regular first team action for my Eastleigh team in the BSS last season (wouldn't now in the BSP though)

just because they're crap in relative terms to the Messi's and co at Barca, it doesn't mean that they still can't forge a decent career at lower level and being at a top club means they get a good solid footballing education before embarking on that lower level career...

Basically they're crap compared to every single league in the game, except the lowest playable level of English football... a league where I doubt you'd be able to buy them anyway. And they are product of BARCELONA'S ACADEMY!!!

See, my point wasn't much about them being godawful per se, but first and foremost about them being incredibly substandard as players who supposedly had been touted as Barça material just a few years earlier...

Had they been 16, we could still give them (and the game) the benefit of the doubt, but as they're now they'll never develop into something presentable not only at Camp Nou, but in most Premier/First Divisions around Europe.

So my question was and is: if those are products of one of the best youth academies in the world, how terrible will those of Average FC or of Crapton United?

I think you should be able to say to the assistant manager.

"If they don't have at least 3 stars for Potential, don't bother with them"

If you have an attitude like that you will be lucky to get even ONE player coming through academy most years. Also, ratings depend on how high your coach's/scout's 'judging potential' attribute is. Just because you are a top level team, if your coach has judging potential of, lets say, 12....then his evaluation of the youngster will be hit or miss at best.

You can't expect 5 or 6 potential world class players to come through your academy every year. It doesn't work like that in real life. Heck even barca have crap players on their youth team and B team who will never play for their first team....and its the same for all teams.

I get the feeling that the star system is a bit too accurate a representation of how a player is going to turn out...

At 14-15 you should have almost zero idea, at 16 a bit better and 17-18 a much clearer.

Maybe this is already built into the game though so I'll shuttup

I get the feeling that the star system is a bit too accurate a representation of how a player is going to turn out...

At 14-15 you should have almost zero idea, at 16 a bit better and 17-18 a much clearer.

Maybe this is already built into the game though so I'll shuttup

The star system is only as good as your staff, if they are rubbish they could we way out in their judging of a player. Also if a player isn't playing first team games often their potential according to the staff will go down, they play a few games and it goes back up!

Is that how it works in real life? If you only kept the 3 star and above players, then who would those players to have to train with? Youth players are kept for potential and to play in the youth team along side the better players to help them develop.

IRL you dont know the players potential. And they can just train with the first team

If you have an attitude like that you will be lucky to get even ONE player coming through academy most years. Also, ratings depend on how high your coach's/scout's 'judging potential' attribute is. Just because you are a top level team, if your coach has judging potential of, lets say, 12....then his evaluation of the youngster will be hit or miss at best.

You can't expect 5 or 6 potential world class players to come through your academy every year. It doesn't work like that in real life. Heck even barca have crap players on their youth team and B team who will never play for their first team....and its the same for all teams.

So?

I'm not expecting ANY good youth players ANY season. I just can't be bothered with having them all sitting there for 2-3 years waiting to be released at the end of their deal.

So?

I'm not expecting ANY good youth players ANY season. I just can't be bothered with having them all sitting there for 2-3 years waiting to be released at the end of their deal.

Well as soon as they come through you can release them cant you!

Well as soon as they come through you can release them cant you!

But releasing them while they still have 2-3 years worth of contract is gonna cost money.

And if a Top Club can afford a loss of some hundred thousands, it's a much more relevant issue when you're at a lower level and you can't just throw 20k away.. be it for releasing crap youngsters of for paying their wages while they won't ever have a role, not even as bargain-bin sales.

Wouldn't be more reasonable, especially for clubs without good facilites, just having the option to accept or reject the proposed candidates?

My cousin plays for a high level youth team, the way he is looked after and plays and the way others have been and are released, relates to zero of what we do in FM11. The Youth system needs an overhaul.

His abilities aren't already determined in a database. With a skilled staff we can see their potential and with an outside program like Genie scout we can see precisely what they'll become.

Well as soon as they come through you can release them cant you!

At a cost. Why not have the option just to never have them in the first place.

At a cost. Why not have the option just to never have them in the first place.

I thought that would be fairly obvious. Clubs dont just say one year 'Oh we dont want anybody this year because they are all crap'. It doesnt work like that.

Basically they're crap compared to every single league in the game, except the lowest playable level of English football... a league where I doubt you'd be able to buy them anyway. And they are product of BARCELONA'S ACADEMY!!!

How many of Barca's first team in the real world actually came through their academy?

edit - reading up: I see a few key players have - but also bear in mind, they would still have some years where no one would come through who's good enough to play in that team.

His abilities aren't already determined in a database. With a skilled staff we can see their potential and with an outside program like Genie scout we can see precisely what they'll become.

Where are the scouting managers? Who look after the "area scouting" and who determine where we pick players up from?

Where are the coaches for youth who work one to one, where is the one to one option?

Where is the ability to have one of these say "Play A is currently playing [position] for the under 16s, we believe he would be a good addition to the youth set up but we think he has the potential to be a decent right back instead"

Youth internationals mean f - all in the game.

I have players in my youth team aged 15 who are being asked to play full 90 minute games every week, there are no specified training schedules for them like they would have in real life. Training is typical for all levels on FM11 - not the case in real life.

I can go on?

(I was a youth for a team too, some 10 years ago!)

I thought that would be fairly obvious. Clubs dont just say one year 'Oh we dont want anybody this year because they are all crap'. It doesnt work like that.

Thats because things are totally different IRL.

If IRL,coaches could tell for a 100% fact that most of them are not even close to ever being Premier League standard, then they wouldnt bother. They're not a charity.

Thats because things are totally different IRL.

If IRL,coaches could tell for a 100% fact that most of them are not even close to ever being Premier League standard, then they wouldnt bother. They're not a charity.

Not true. Even Manchester United and Arsenal have players who will probably never grace the top tiers on their books. A while back we had Michael Lea, Aaron Burns, Michael Barnes and Kieran Lee. Go ahead and Google them up to see where they are!

It's good to have a group of youngsters come up through together as continuity is always helpful at that level. All the youngsters know that they aren't guaranteed to play for the first-team but it is in both the club's interests and the player's interests that the club helps them develop.

Think about it - if you discard kids at 15/16, why stop there? Why not chuck out all 13/14-year olds who won't make it?

Things are never certain at that age.

Its annoying when youre a LLM club, are in debt and get given a load of rubbish youth players that you have to take on and take up wages, and if you wanna get rid of them it costs £500 each.

No chance on selling them either.

They should give you a list of youth players and let you pick any you want to sign and the rest get rid of for free.

Not true. Even Manchester United and Arsenal have players who will probably never grace the top tiers on their books. A while back we had Michael Lea, Aaron Burns, Michael Barnes and Kieran Lee. Go ahead and Google them up to see where they are!

It's good to have a group of youngsters come up through together as continuity is always helpful at that level. All the youngsters know that they aren't guaranteed to play for the first-team but it is in both the club's interests and the player's interests that the club helps them develop.

Think about it - if you discard kids at 15/16, why stop there? Why not chuck out all 13/14-year olds who won't make it?

Things are never certain at that age.

They are on FM though, making your whole point redundant.

How many of Barca's first team in the real world actually came through their academy?

I'm NOT saying "every single Barça newgen must turn out AT LEAST good enough to be a decent backup for the senior squad..." Far from that...

My point is more like "why most youth intakes for AVERAGE CLUBS end up being plethoras of useless kids who would barely play regularly in a Faroese team?"

edit - reading up: I see a few key players have - but also bear in mind, they would still have some years where no one would come through who's good enough to play in that team.

That's very very debatable... Au contraire there have been many who were EXPECTED to break through, but instead failed to do so.

Anyway, as I've nothing better to do, he's a quick "where are they now" analysis of Barcelona B's 2006-07 squad [couldn't find an older one...]

Out of the 17 names I've found:

* 2 play in La Liga (one is Bojan, the other one is Malaga's GK Rubén)

* 1 plays in Segunda A (Lluis Sastre at Huesca)

* 7 play in Segunda B (2 still with Barça B)

* 1 plays in a regional league

* 5 play abroad (at Tottenham, Wigan, Olympiacos, Swansea and Panionios)

* 1 is a free agent and his last club was Gloria Bistrita in Romania, but has 7 caps for Jordan...

So 30% of them are playing at a very good level, and it's reasonable to say half of them have "made it" in a way or another.

And even those who didn't quite achieve that much are still having a respectable career even as "Barça rejects". All in all the "failure rate" for that particular batch of players (far from being the most notable IMO) was a negligible 11% (or 5% if we are generous and consider Thaer as "sort of ok").

Now, back to the point... Do you think FM's youth intake (from Barça or from any other team) would produce similar figures?

I'm quite sure they wouldn't... In my longest run with FM10 I could probably reach such percentages with 4-5 intakes, if I'm being very very lucky...

I probably get one half decent player every 10 seasons.

Look at; Aston Villa, Arsenal, Everton, Man United.

To a smaller extent; Southampton, Exeter.

All have or have had players who have gone on to make more of an impact than most of the youth players on FM

They are on FM though, making your whole point redundant.

That's a different story. You shouldn't know how good a player will definitely become without an editor.

A few of my scouts and coaches have 20 JPA.

Then looking at their stats, it is pretty easy to see that none of them are going to be PremierLeague standard, much less Arsenal.

At best they can be an ordinary Championship playerl.

A few of my scouts and coaches have 20 JPA.

Then looking at their stats, it is pretty easy to see that none of them are going to be PremierLeague standard, much less Arsenal.

At best they can be an ordinary Championship playerl.

Look at Man Utd's youth/reserve teams from say the last 10 years. It has produced the highest number of Premier League players IIRC and quite a few Championship and below players. All released or sold because the were deemed not good enough for Man Utd or maybe even for the Premier League. Now look at them. When they were released, the clubs coaches/scouts may have thought they wouldnt have been good enough even for a lower Premier League team but you have somebody like Shawcross who is now being touted for a move to Arsenal and maybe even back to United.

As x42bn6 said, you shouldnt know 100% how a player will turn out without using an editor of some kind. The fact that you say you never get players good enough every year tells me you use Genie or FMRTE to check them when they arrive and immediately disregard them because you already know how good they will be. Maybe your players only get 2 stars for potential but if your a top team with top players, you will be lucky to get more than that. The stars indicate his potential level compared to the best player at the club in that position. So if a striker comes through with 2 star potential and the coach says that they dont have the potential to be as good as Rooney, are you really surprised by that? How many would be? What you need to look at is where it says, 'could be a good premier league player' or 'a top Championship player'. You might look at a new player in an editor and see a PA of 125. Believe it or not that is probably a good Championship player given his attributes are spread in the right places for his position. All these are worth keeping hold of and investing a bit of time in. When they reach an age to be loaned out, loan them out and have their wages paid in full. Then its no cost to you and your player is being developed for free. Their rep will rise and when they return, hopefully you will be able to sell them for a decent fee. Even if you sell 10 'crap' players for between £500k and £1m each and buy one player for your first team worth £7.5m, is it not worth it?

Look at Man Utd's youth/reserve teams from say the last 10 years. It has produced the highest number of Premier League players IIRC and quite a few Championship and below players. All released or sold because the were deemed not good enough for Man Utd or maybe even for the Premier League. Now look at them. When they were released, the clubs coaches/scouts may have thought they wouldnt have been good enough even for a lower Premier League team but you have somebody like Shawcross who is now being touted for a move to Arsenal and maybe even back to United.

As x42bn6 said, you shouldnt know 100% how a player will turn out without using an editor of some kind. The fact that you say you never get players good enough every year tells me you use Genie or FMRTE to check them when they arrive and immediately disregard them because you already know how good they will be. Maybe your players only get 2 stars for potential but if your a top team with top players, you will be lucky to get more than that. The stars indicate his potential level compared to the best player at the club in that position. So if a striker comes through with 2 star potential and the coach says that they dont have the potential to be as good as Rooney, are you really surprised by that? How many would be? What you need to look at is where it says, 'could be a good premier league player' or 'a top Championship player'. You might look at a new player in an editor and see a PA of 125. Believe it or not that is probably a good Championship player given his attributes are spread in the right places for his position. All these are worth keeping hold of and investing a bit of time in. When they reach an age to be loaned out, loan them out and have their wages paid in full. Then its no cost to you and your player is being developed for free. Their rep will rise and when they return, hopefully you will be able to sell them for a decent fee. Even if you sell 10 'crap' players for between £500k and £1m each and buy one player for your first team worth £7.5m, is it not worth it?

+1 well said

A few of my scouts and coaches have 20 JPA.

Then looking at their stats, it is pretty easy to see that none of them are going to be PremierLeague standard, much less Arsenal.

At best they can be an ordinary Championship playerl.

Blackpool were promoted with "ordinary championship" players - they were favourites for relegation!! I think 'ability' is relative in a lot of cases, they might be garbage on paper but fit into your set-up perfectly.

In FM09 Michael Timlin was my main CM @ Swindon for 5 or 6 seasons and he was "allegedly" an average League 1 player - We were promoted season 2 to Championship, season 3 to Premiership, won the Prem in season 5 on last day by beating Arsenal! Timlin was a God for me, but then the tactic I was using was created around him so... *shrugs*

Not every player is going to be a Ronaldo, Fabregas or a Messi, heck not even 1% of players are going to be that good. But that doesn't mean that they can't have a successful career.. I think you're being too hard on your youngsters and expecting the game to be too easy!

The thing is, and i'll be honest here. I use FMRTE as a scout tool and yes I look at CA and PA, but the main thing I look at is the percentage ability more than anything. You could get two defenders, one with a PA of 160 and one with a PA of 140. Believe it or not, the player with 140 PA can be better than the player with 160 PA if his attribute points are spread over the relevant attributes for that position. The 140 PA player might have 18 for all relevant defensive attributes and rubbish everything else. The 160 PA has more attribute points to distribute but they are no good if they arent distributed to the relevant attributes. The 160 PA player might have 13 for all the defensive attributes and 20 for finishing and crossing and whatever other useless attributes for a defender. So on paper the 160 PA player would appear better because of the higher PA but really he's not. The 140 PA player has higher attributes in key areas so his percentage for that position will be a lot higher.

Even if you sell 10 'crap' players for between £500k and £1m each and buy one player for your first team worth £7.5m, is it not worth it?

I can't remember the duration but I think it was £30m worth of talent sold in the last 10 years or something for Manchester United's youth products, which is a pretty good revenue stream. Especially since several of these sales are likely loaded with clauses. I have no doubt the Rossi, Piqué, Richardson and Bardsley transfers would have fetched even more in clauses.

To me it's not even a matter of PA...

It's a matter of distribution... When you get ill-shaped newgens, does it really matter if thier PA is 140 or 90?

Some people are focusing too much on CA/PA, while it's been proved time and again a well-rounded player with relatively low absolute ability can still perform as well (if not better) than a more talented but flawed one.

I see the logic behind the three "classes" of newgens, but I think the weak players should still get a bit of a tweak, not in terms of PA but in terms of balance... And STILL there should be a decent rate of re-usability for them when coming out of good facilities.

I can live with the weak newgens of a random Tier 1/2 club being really weak, to the point of being very hard to get rid of. I can totally live with newgens from second-rate countries' lower leagues to be so bad nobody will want them, not even at the lowest level, so they'll just retire.

But I can't really accept Top Clubs with state-of-the-art youth facilities to churn out dreadful youngsters who IRL wouldn't last two weeks there...

Weak is fine, but at Barça & co shouldn't be more like "he looked promising when he was 15 but then didn't pan out the way we expected him to"? I mean, those four newgens I posted are nowhere near Barça standard, probably not even at 15.

May I suggest a fourth model, like "Early Peak" or something...

P.S. once again, this has little to do with PA