Youth Recruitment Network

So I'm playing as Shamrock Rovers, currently in 2018, my youth recruitment is 'Fairly Basic', was wondering how I could improve this? My Youth facilities are as good as they can be as are my training facilities, club is worth nearly 40 million, stadium now holds 12000, doing quite well in Europe, how do I get the option to make this better?

Just by winning in Europe and increasing your reputation.

Though i've read that for teams from smaller leagues it's really hard to improve the network..

Thanks mate, yeah in one of my previous saves with Afan Lido by 2028 I still hadn't gotten one decent player through my youth system, Last 16 of the CL was the furthest I got in that. Hopefully it improves soon because I'm running out of good players to sign and all are mine are being snapped up because the chairman keeps accepting bids

Well, my Honvéd side has now completely dominated Europe, Hungary is in the top 3 leagues and we have the best part of a billion pounds just sitting in the bank and has done made it there by developing young players...

...who thinks that should grant us the ability to get the best possible youth recruitment..?

...ha! Not a chance!

How good were the youth players you developed? The ones I have never surpass 2 stars so I'm not bothered developing them really :/

How good were the youth players you developed?

It's rated as above average. This means that about one every 5 years is good enough to be a decent midtable Premier League player.

Well it doesn't sound great but much better than what I have, sounds like an amazing achievement mate

Thing the main problem with this is that the money rewarded for winning the league doesn't increase even if the league reputation has increased.

I'm actually now trying to get my Hungarian rivals to same level.

Now, interesting test results. I've loaded a save from two years ago where I couldn't upgrade my youth recruitment (the same as now basically). I have loaded up FMRTE and having a look at Hungary has revealed something interesting! There is something here called "importance". It has 4 options, 'Very important', 'Important', 'Unimportant' and my personal favourite 'Useless'. Hungary is set to 'Unimportant' and both Ireland and Northern Ireland are set as 'Important'. Looks like you can upgrade your facilities after all! Hand on a moment, I'm going do some tests...

Also, Markyosullivan; it does increase, quite a bit too. I got something of the order of £7 odd million for winning the Hungarian League last season!

That's very interesting.. keep us updated.

Update:

So, I edited Hungary's "importance" and edited my own club's youth recruiment just to see what affected it. It seems that the nations economy and development status is irrelevant (I'll try and confirm this shortly). This is for the case of being a "top 3" European league in terms of importance though:

Useless: Upto 9/20

Unimportant: Upto 12/20

Important: Upto 15/20

The real question now is whether or not nations can become "important". It seems they can't, but let's see...

Keep us updated man

Well, after the mother of all fiddling, it seems that economy and "developed" state plays a role. However it seems extremely minor. The "importance" of a nation on the other hand is the biggest thing.

I've also found some odd values. Firstly, my side with "top training facilities" which my board tells me are "state of the art" are in fact only 16/20... Pricks!

The question is now definitely whether or not nations can become more "important". I have a sneaking suspicious that they can't, but let's see!

Here's the experiment, I have an old save during the semis of the 2022 world cup. I'm going to edit one of the finalists (the better one) to be a "useless" nation and see if winning affects that at all. It's a terrible experiment, but it's the only thing I can think of, considering that making the league of an "unimportant" nation is seemingly irrelevant, then them winning a major trophy seems to be the only thing I can think that may change it.

I forgot, that I'm the manager of Argentina at this point, and they are to play Mexico!

So I've crippled Argentina's "importance"... Let's see what happens...

...

...

Argentina win and are...

...

...

*drum roll*

...

...

...yep, didn't do a smegging thing!

Well, that means that DLR is really just a nice coat of paint over a static system. The players can't get a whole lot better!

Also, for those wondering how that guy who holidayed a century or two could have ended up with the Icelandic league being one of the best, it turns out that they are "important" whilst Hungary are "unimportant". The hell is this SI? Why is there this bit of code that ruins things like this.

Let's play guess the importance though, that might be fun:

Australia:

England:

New Zealand:

Sweden:

Denmark:

Belgium:

Andorra:

Kazakstan:

Korea:

South Africa:

Nigeria:

Cote D'Ivoire:

So, DLR may really just be a veneer over a static system for player development? How's everyone feel about that?

I should also point out that playing outside Europe with the intention of becoming the best league in the world is just a pipe dream too as the reputation of a league is seemingly pegged by the reputation of their continental competition in general. South America is okay, but sadly competing with the big European League's is still out of reach.

Hopefully SI can fix this in future versions.

The next question is now knowing this whether or not I should just edit Hungary up to being Important/ Very Important due to the quality of football being played in Hungary these days...

So basically DLR is irrelevant because of that importance rating?

And once you changed the status to "important" you could upgrade the network?

I'll try..

Australia: Unimportant

England: Very Important

New Zealand: Unimportant

Sweden: Important

Denmark: Important

Belgium: Important

Andorra: Useless

Kazakstan: Useless

Korea: Unimportant

South Africa: Unimportant

Nigeria: Unimportant

Cote D'Ivoire: Unimportant

The only thing i would say is, would winning one world cup make your nation very important in Football? Did winning the Euro champs do any good for the worlds view of Greek football?

But it is quite worrying seeing that above, it would be intersting to know if that value can be improved by in game results.

I've played in Hungary with Ferencvaros a lot too, got to semis of Europa League, Quarters of Champions League, yet I still can't improve my youth recruitment level, even though I think Debrecen has better than mine, and I'm already winning league without any problem at all, sometimes without a loss. In Austria it's the same thing. I increased my club's (SV Grodig) rep by about 4500, yet my recruitment level is fairly basic, which means that I'm stuck with youngsters from abroad, and I wanna develop my own, Austrian prospects, because that's why I play there - to make Austria a powerhouse. FM12 needs to fix it, it should by rep levels, like 1000 - fairly basic, 1500 - basic and so forth.

I'm quite glad I read this thread, considering I was thinking about starting a game in a smaller nation for FM12.

So for somewhere like Hungary, as the reputation of the league increases but the standard of local football stays the same, does this mean the league becomes full of foreign players (a bit like the Premier League)?

I should also point out that playing outside Europe with the intention of becoming the best league in the world is just a pipe dream too as the reputation of a league is seemingly pegged by the reputation of their continental competition in general. South America is okay, but sadly competing with the big European League's is still out of reach.

Hopefully SI can fix this in future versions.

I think that is always going to be a difficult one since there is no real competitive competition that can be used to compare clubs from different continents.

I'm quite glad I read this thread, considering I was thinking about starting a game in a smaller nation for FM12.

So for somewhere like Hungary, as the reputation of the league increases but the standard of local football stays the same, does this mean the league becomes full of foreign players (a bit like the Premier League)?

it doesn't for like 10-15 years, because other teams simply don't improve. But later, yes. In fact, there always are plenty of foreigners in Hungary teams (real life too), but Hungarians still are the majority.

Sorry for potential double posting, but it SUCKS that you can't improve youth recruitment in leagues, that always are really fun to play in - Austrian and Hungarian, I've been playing in Austria since 2006 and always have a great time, because you just can't win in first seasons very easily, in both leagues are two powerhouses (Debrecen and Videoton / RB Salzburg and Rapid Wien)

It isn't really the recruitment that sounds like the problem. If the good young players don't exist, it doesn't matter how good your youth scouting system is, they won't find them.

I'm quite surprised to hear that the youth systems behind the scenes (like importance) are not also dynamic, that's a shame.

It isn't really the recruitment that sounds like the problem. If the good young players don't exist, it doesn't matter how good your youth scouting system is, they won't find them.

I'm quite surprised to hear that the youth systems behind the scenes (like importance) are not also dynamic, that's a shame.

you still should have better youth recruitment than midtable clubs if you are by far the best club in the country.

The thing is, if the club and League got to the point where they are one of the top leagues of the world, they should be able to start producing some great Hungarian players(on this example) since they have the infrastructure and Money for it, i thought that was the whole point of DLR, it's dissapointing that the recruitment can't improve because of some background static attribute.

you still should have better youth recruitment than midtable clubs if you are by far the best club in the country.

Yes, that doesn't sound right. You should at least be able to work your way up to having the best recruitment in the league, even if there is a lack of talent to find.

Scotland are set to Very Important (at least in my game) yet I still have never managed to improve the Recruitment Network. I have had one good regen come through my youth system in 8 regen cycles and even he looks to have capped off at a fairly modest standard. I managed to improve my YFs and TFs for a number of years and although my YFs are at the max my TFs are not but I have not been able to improve them further. Perhaps SI could implement in the Board Room feature an explanation specific to the case as to why these options are not avaliable. Surely my chairman isn't going to refuse to answer a question I have in relation to why are recruitment network has only picked up 1 decent player in 8 years.

Again, in the perfect scenario, when your league is one of the very best, you're a top European club and so forth, that's when the above numbers are "true". For any less other facts such as league reputation have an effect. It's just worrying that they have such a harsh static control over the quality of regens.

So basically DLR is irrelevant because of that importance rating?

And once you changed the status to "important" you could upgrade the network?

I'll try..

Australia: Unimportant

England: Very Important

New Zealand: Unimportant

Sweden: Important

Denmark: Important

Belgium: Important

Andorra: Useless

Kazakstan: Useless

Korea: Unimportant

South Africa: Unimportant

Nigeria: Unimportant

Cote D'Ivoire: Unimportant

Nice try, here's the real list:

Australia: Important

England: Very Important

New Zealand: Unimportant

Sweden: Very Important

Denmark: Very Important

Belgium: Very Important

Andorra: Useless

Kazakstan: Unimportant

Korea: Important

South Africa: Important

Nigeria: Very Important

Cote D'Ivoire: Very Important

Also:

Austria: Important

Romania: Very Important (The hell is this?!)

Scotland: Very Important (..?!)

China: Unimportant

Japan: Important

Belarus: Important

USA: Unimportant (Although the way youth works there is very different, which may be the reason)

Mexico: Very Important

Canada: Unimportant

Costa Rica: Very Important

It seems almost arbitrary!! The hell is this?!

Oh well, I've seen enough that at the end of the season I'm going to up Hungary's "Important". It's funny to see Hungary, the nation that produced one of the greatest national sides of all time (still rated by the ELO system is the single greatest) is set to a static "unimportant". Thank SI!

Costa Rica very important??? que?

Exactly what I thought! Same with Romania... Yet Hungary...

Yeah I was wondering about Romania as well, Chivu and Mutu I can think of but who else? Problem with Hungary is they are currently in a lull of top talent aren't they?

Yeah I was wondering about Romania as well, Chivu and Mutu I can think of but who else? Problem with Hungary is they are currently in a lull of top talent aren't they?

Mostly, yeah... But considering that only a few decades ago they were one of the top nations in Europe the idea that they are locked for all of time in the game as unimportant is just a joke!

are you sure this is locked and just doesnt maybe take a long time to improve? Both with club and international success? How well have Hungary done in your game on the national side of things?

You're looking at the Game Importance value. This determines how important football is in the nation, so basically the little list you've made shows that Swedes and Danes care a lot about football while Canadians and Andorrans care less. Consider Brazil on one end of the spectrum and some nation that barely even plays football on the other.

It's a rather big factor to change along with DLR, probably taking at least several decades to move one "notch" on the scale if any realism is to be maintained, so I can sort of see why if it isn't dynamic. Would probably be worth testing if it really isn't though or if it just takes a really long time to change.

You're looking at the Game Importance value. This determines how important football is in the nation, so basically the little list you've made shows that Swedes and Danes care a lot about football while Canadians and Andorrans care less. Consider Brazil on one end of the spectrum and some nation that barely even plays football on the other.

It's a rather big factor to change along with DLR, probably taking at least several decades to move one "notch" on the scale if any realism is to be maintained, so I can sort of see why if it isn't dynamic. Would probably be worth testing if it really isn't though or if it just takes a really long time to change.

Well, I see no mechanism by which it would. It's has 4 integer values. There can't be a steady change so it has to be sudden, and by the looks of it that's not going to happen.

It being how important the sport is in the country though, that makes a lot more sense. The term useless doesn't, but maybe that's due to who made FMRTE. The question then is why it pegs it so much. I guess a replacement with a floated system (with more possible values than 4) would make it possible to float it in some way, with that being linked to the nations success, the league's success etc.

I'd like to know in such a case whether or not football is unimportant in Hungary then... It would be strange to consider Australia holding football in higher esteem than a nation like Hungary.

are you sure this is locked and just doesnt maybe take a long time to improve? Both with club and international success? How well have Hungary done in your game on the national side of things?

Well, the league has done incredibly well. The national team has done little to nothing, mainly due to the lack of players.

Can this value be checked using the ingame editor and not FMRTE? As good as FMRTE is, it may be limited in certain options as its not official.

What i would say is you havent really tested if the values can change, as SCAB says it shouldnt be something that can change over the space of few years, it should take a long long time to improve. Again pointing to Greece, winning the EURO champs did NOTHING to improve the national leagues on its own, infact Greece has gone backwards since that tournament.

I would have said if the national team is not doing well then that value is not going to change really, i would have through continued success both at club and international level then this value could be increased, but that would take extensive testing.

Well, it's now been nearly half a decade of Hungary being one of the biggest leagues in Europe (in the top 5/6) and in truth it would be nice to have not hit a glass ceiling in youth development. I guess I'll just make it "important" at the end of the season and a few years down the track up it again if things keep getting better. I never realised that the sport was "unimportant" in Hungary though.

So yeah, just restating it, it seems as though success of the big clubs on the continent over a prolonged period of time should increase the importance of the sport in a nation.

On top of that if in the future continental reputations could go up and down (and of course, those of their champions leagues) that would be a big bonus.

Changes in salary caps for nations like Australia as well would be good too.

I would have thought that football was important in Hungary. What other sports do football compete with in Hungary? Handball?

When it comes to youth recruitment, even a big league doesn't necessary produce very good young players.

It has taken England a lot of time to produce some world class footballers even though their league has been massive since 1991.

I don't say that the players from England are bad, but there is still no Cantonas, Messis, Zidanes, Henrys, Buffons, Iniestas, Xavis or Cannavaros coming from England.

But a lot of quality players of course, but look at the national team, haven't done very well compared to the league standard.

So this may also be in the game, that it will take som time for a country to start produce great players.

But I hope it's not that static as you point out here.

One of the best things with the DLR, in theory, is that you can start in any nation and make it the best league, and that should be the case for non-european leagues as well.

The only playable country which should have unimportant status is India, others must have important or better. wtf is this ****, why implement DLR, if you still can't make a small country the best one in the world in 150 years or something? Gosh, I don't wanna edit database, but if youre stuck with ****** recruitment I guess I'll have to. I certainly hope SI will get rid of it, or make it dynamic, because otherwise there's absolutely no point to play in some countries.

Based on what??!! Do you really think every nation falls over itself for football?

Honestly take a breath before posting.

Based on what??!! Do you really think every nation falls over itself for football?

Honestly take a breath before posting.

in which playable countries football is unimportant and there are few people who care about it? China? USA? Pretty much in every European country football is number one.

Well yes China and the USA are a start, but football is not number 1 for every european country at all, here in britain yes, but other countries have other sports ahead of football.

Well yes China and the USA are a start, but football is not number 1 for every european country at all, here in britain yes, but other countries have other sports ahead of football.

like? I've asked for examples.

Hungary according to the game...

There are nations like Australia where it comes in at around number 4. Strangely enough it's still fairly big here these days. But yeah, the AFL, Rugby League and Cricket are all bigger and there is an argument for Rugby Union too, but that's a little less clear cut.

Strangely enough it's pretty big in India... Have you ever seen a matchday for Kingfisher... Not massive, but still not insignificant.

Then you've obviously got the Kiwis and South Africa of course. Then there's Canada...

As for Europe, I'm honestly not sure.

Hungary should have at least important status, because the only other sports in which Hungarians are slightly interested are swimming and hockey, but football is still bigger than those

It has taken England a lot of time to produce some world class footballers even though their league has been massive since 1991.

I don't say that the players from England are bad, but there is still no Cantonas, Messis, Zidanes, Henrys, Buffons, Iniestas, Xavis or Cannavaros coming from England.

Since 1991? Beckham, Rooney and Owen in their primes probably compete for space on that list. Obviously not quite top of it (Xavi, Zidane, Messi), but up there. Then you've got the likes of Wilshere and McEachran who could get there. And the slightly lower, but still top 100 players in the world since 1991: Scholes, Terry, Ferdinand, Lampard and Gerrard. So, no, I disagree that English youth systems don't produce top top players.

like? I've asked for examples.

What do you want a full run down on the popularity of sports in European countries?

Scandinavians are huge on their motor racing and handball, Poland is huge on Basketball. Greeks are crazy about some of the Olympic sports like Javalin and shot put. Golf is a huge sport just as important as football in many countries. Looking further a field, USA are not huge on football, China, Canada, Australia like some guys says has various sports above it.

Since 1991? Beckham, Rooney and Owen in their primes probably compete for space on that list. Obviously not quite top of it (Xavi, Zidane, Messi), but up there. Then you've got the likes of Wilshere and McEachran who could get there. And the slightly lower, but still top 100 players in the world since 1991: Scholes, Terry, Ferdinand, Lampard and Gerrard. So, no, I disagree that English youth systems don't produce top top players.

Beckham maybe, but he was never in the same class as Zidane or Xavi, not even close. Owen was never that great and Rooney still has to show it. England produce good players, but very rarely anyone you would class world class, unless your writing for a british news paper. The fact is in recent years, England has struggled, after the "Golden Generation" start to retire the quality of the english national team will drop. Outwith Wilshire and maybe Jones there are no top top english young players.