I'm not sure where to put this, but I think there's a serious issue with the reputation growth of young players.
I set up a save file with just the top divisions of the five major European leagues loaded (England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain) and all European international players. I then went on holiday for nine years, until the start of the 2030 World Cup.
At the start of the save game, there were 591 players under the age of 25 with a World Reputation of at least 2.5*. 151 have a World Reputation of at least 3*, which I believe is a good benchmark for an international player from a major nation. There are 161 players under the age of 22 with at least 2.5* WR, 34 of which have at least 3*.
After holidaying nine years, here's what has changed:
There are now only 128 players under the age of of 25 with a 2.5* World Reputation (a 78% decrease from the start of the save). 49 of these have 3* WR or better. (Incidentally, I also found that there were 22 English players aged under 25 with 3* WR or better at the start of the save - but NONE at all when we get to 2030. In fact, there's only one English player aged 15-24 with even a 2.5* WR).
In terms of players under 22, there are only 21 who have a WR of at least 2.5* (an astonishing 87% decrease from the start of the save), and just SEVEN with at least 3*.
I also measured the number of young players (aged under 25) who had at least 140 Current Ability at the start of the save, and then again in 2030.
Again, there's a big decrease - from 213 players to 116. But this reduction of high-ability youngsters in the database is only by around half, compared to the 75%+ reduction of high-reputation youngsters.
As a consequence of this, it seems many talented newgens are not being used by top clubs or being picked for top nations until they're well into their mid-20s.
The average age of a major European club's squad increased from about 26.3 at the start of the save, to 28.8 at the end of the 2029/2030 season. It appears that these major teams are packing their teams with
And here are another couple of charts showing the reduction of young players being capped by major football countries.
At the start of the save, there are 165 players under the age of 25 who have been capped by any of the ten major nations listed above. Fast forward nine years, and that number has dropped to 42. The number of under-22s players with caps has gone down by nearly a quarter, from 39 players at the start to just 10 players in 2030.
Most startling for all for me (being English) is that nine seasons into this save, England haven't capped a single newgen at senior international level. The youngest players in the save with any England caps are Lewis Hall and Thierry Small, who are now 25 in-game and didn't win their first caps until they were 24. Other nations which have a reputation for blooding young internationals early are now neglecting their best talents, perhaps because their reputation is not growing fast enough.
I have written a blog post explaining this in some more detail, but in summary, it appears that many young players' reputations are not increasing fast enough - at least not relative to their abilities. This leads to them effectively being ignored, and club and national teams being stacked full of veterans when you get to around 2030. I'm not sure if this evens itself out in the 2040s when all the original players have retired and we're left with just newgens - but as someone who likes to immerse myself in a long-term FM save, this is a huge realism-breaker.
I have uploaded a save file from June 2030, so that you can see for yourself. Unfortunately, I do not have any save files from previous seasons.
If you have any questions, please let me know. I'd also be willing to run a few more holiday saves if that helps. I appreciate that it's too late to fix this for FM22, but I hope you can at least balance things out a bit more for FM23.
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