youth idea

i was just thinking that every season we have youth players regenerated wouldnt it be good if a few came through without any set solid position and we as the manager had to teach them a position as they are improving based on there stats as i said its just an idea seeing what you guys think.

Don't think it would work TBH, I don't like it anyways

Most footballers have a position by the age they come into the youth teams and they stick with that 1 or 2, sometimes more, throughout their career, I mean, can you honestly say that a 16 year old who isn't already be relatively accomplished in a position, would be signed to play for a professional club?

I don't think that's realistic

A youth player is a player too. Even when you're 12, 13 years old you already know what position you'll be playing.

So, when a player reaches 15, 16 years, it's already good in one position.

You can always teach them on FM, youth players are fast learners when it comes to new positions or PPM's.

Don't think it would work TBH, I don't like it anyways

Most footballers have a position by the age they come into the youth teams and they stick with that 1 or 2, sometimes more, throughout their career, I mean, can you honestly say that a 16 year old who isn't already be relatively accomplished in a position, would be signed to play for a professional club?

good points you make

well then how about making 2 youth teams possibly an under 14's youth team and then implement my idea?

Maybe if they were 5 or 6 years old or so. At 16 they already have one or more natural position and you can still train them to another position if you like. It's realistic the way it is.

Maybe if they were 5 or 6 years old or so. At 16 they already have one or more natural position and you can still train them to another position if you like. It's realistic the way it is.

yeh fair point guy's ...how about implementing a level of youth below under 18's say like juniors? most in real life have juniors or maybe in the future more interaction with the youth academy for example you get a list of youngsters maybe you watch a few practice matches (optional) and pick which ones come through instead of them just being picked for you.

im just brainstorming here feel free to comment

good points you make

well then how about making 2 youth teams possibly an under 14's youth team and then implement my idea?

To be perfectly honest, no, don't think this would work, having 3 teams full of players should be more than enough, having 2 youth teams just overcomplicates things

Maybe if they were 5 or 6 years old or so. At 16 they already have one or more natural position and you can still train them to another position if you like. It's realistic the way it is.

WHS

Youth players are much more mouldable than senior players as it is and can easily be retrained to play elsewhere if you think their stats are more suited to that position

what about more interaction with the youth academy like i said picking the players to come into your under18's or getting recomendations of your ass man?

what about more interaction with the youth academy like i said picking the players to come into your under18's or getting recomendations of your ass man?

As it is, you do already get your ass man telling you the best new youth players who come through every season, but maybe having a bit more input in the players who you get wouldn't be a bad thing

Don't know how or even if this could be implemented, I think the regen structure is probably fairly rigid for each season and they just appear in the database and are assigned to a team, judged on their youth academies, but that could be crap, I know nothing about FM really

When the message comes up that there are players promoted it would be good if they could only promote decent players, not ones that say "you should release him". I'm quite far in to one game and have top notch youth and training facilties. I have some promising players but there are still some players that i release. I think thats a waste.

What might be good is to choose the players you want promoted to the youth team as someone has suggested.

more interaction with the youth academy for example you get a list of youngsters maybe you watch a few practice matches (optional) and pick which ones come through instead of them just being picked for you.

im just brainstorming here feel free to comment

That part I agree with.

Would like to be able to suggest they train their weaker foot.

I disagree with all these posts entirely and agree with the OP. Many player start off playing a different position and end up playing in another position - Thierry Henry was a winger and was converted to striker by Wenger. Ashley Cole was also a winger before ending up at full back. There are even goalkeepers who started off outfield, so I think the whole process for youth players should be more fluid, you should be able to change a players natural position at a young age as they would be able to adapt very easily compared to a seasoned pro.

I disagree with all these posts entirely and agree with the OP. Many player start off playing a different position and end up playing in another position - Thierry Henry was a winger and was converted to striker by Wenger. Ashley Cole was also a winger before ending up at full back. There are even goalkeepers who started off outfield, so I think the whole process for youth players should be more fluid, you should be able to change a players natural position at a young age as they would be able to adapt very easily compared to a seasoned pro.

Patrice Evra used to be a striker now a attacking left back

Patrice Evra used to be a striker now a attacking left back

Carragher also started as a forward.

I disagree with all these posts entirely and agree with the OP. Many player start off playing a different position and end up playing in another position - Thierry Henry was a winger and was converted to striker by Wenger. Ashley Cole was also a winger before ending up at full back. There are even goalkeepers who started off outfield, so I think the whole process for youth players should be more fluid, you should be able to change a players natural position at a young age as they would be able to adapt very easily compared to a seasoned pro.

Henry started as a Striker (under Wenger at Monaco) and was converted to a Left Winger by Juventus. Wenger simply converted him back to being a striker when he came to Arsenal. He was never really a winger and barely played for Juventus. However, with his habit of drifting around on the left and cutting in from there, you can see why Juventus played him as a winger.

When Sol Campbell was first coming through at Spurs he was a Striker, but because of his ability in the air and strength he was converted to a Centre Back. Cole was fast with a reasonable cross, and Wenger needed a Left Back. So Cole was retrained to that position. And whilst he was bad at first, his strengths (especially speed and tenacity) enabled him to compensate whilst he learnt.

The managers looked at the way the players played and their strengths and converted them to the positions they felt they would be most useful in.

And in FM we can do the same. There is no reason that you should take the position that a young player has on their profile as being their only and forever position. And rightly, retraining a player to a new position doesn't always work. The youth system is as fluid as you want it to be. You can sit back and let someone else do all the youth training, or you can do it all yourself.

To add another squad of even younger players would swell the database horrendously, and really, there's no point as we get our youth whilst they're still young enough to retrain and when they've actually developed enough skills for us to see how they play. Any younger and only the truly exceptional would stand out.

To select from a pool of potential youth players would be another massive swelling of the database, albeit brief. The processing time it would take to generate several thousand young players, just so you can pick a few, could be ridiculous.

People are asking for something that can already be done.

Well said, Cavenagh.

The only improvement I might like to see in this line is the ability to actually train a position all the way to "Natural". For example: a player comes into my squad at age 15 as a Natural striker, but he has great attributes for an attacking midfielder, so I begin retraining him as an AMC. I play him at AMC all through my Youth team, my Reserve team, and eventually he breaks into my first team as an AMC ...

... by age 23 or so, he's been playing AMC for eight, nine seasons, and as he's bursting onto the international stage, everybody (in the footballing world) is going to think of him as a "natural" AMC.

I find it unrealistic that, if I stopped playing him at AMC, his AMC "experience" would degrade at a similar rate to that of a player who just spent one season covering in at AMC for a player who was out injured.

That's the only change I'd particularly want to see .. but it might require such long-term retraining of a player's position as to not be worth inclusion.