North American Regens

[Ryan,,,]

Ha?

Oh yeah, also the term "touch down" confuses me as they dont actually have to touch the ball down

[NepentheZ]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

Ha?

Oh yeah, also the term "touch down" confuses me as they dont actually have to touch the ball down

Confusion is one of the many things that will happen to you, if you live your life in literal terms.

[Ryan,,,]

Ah yes, but confusion is overrated!

[Pio]

i've noticed this as well, specifically with Bermuda. I use American as my nationality in game but run the english, italian, french, german, spanish, dutch, and portuguese leagues and when cycling through the north american national teams you go from teams being entirely greyed out to Bermuda, which is usually full of signable players.

no clue why, just noticed it myself as well.

[Ryan,,,]

I also think the draft system is stupid too.

[NepentheZ]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

I also think the draft system is stupid too.

Stupid, or confusing?

[Ryan,,,]

No, stupid! I think you should have a youth system where you bring up local talent.

And i cant laugh at your ability to speak english as i live in ireland so i know all about crap English. Even our English teacher has a pretty poor stadard of English!

[Medicineman]

small carribean nations producing premiership quality players is far from unheard of - jason roberts(grenada), Yorke, kenwyne Jones, carlos edwards, stern john, shaka hislop (all T&T), jamican players (robbie earle, marcus gayle) and plenty more, all of whom were much better than the examples the original poster gave.

maybe all are not born in their respective contries but quite a few are so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see quality regens from the area.

i dont think its unrealistic in the slightest that because you have scouting knowledge of the area you would pick up a higher proportion of the players that play there which would normally have been missed (in real life and the game)

[NepentheZ]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

No, stupid! I think you should have a youth system where you bring up local talent.

And i cant laugh at your ability to speak english as i live in ireland so i know all about crap English. Even our English teacher has a pretty poor stadard of English!

My ability to speak English? No offense, Ryan, but I'd say I'm one of the most grammatically correct, and punctual people on the site.!

Also, I'm not American, I'm English.

[Ryan,,,]

D'oh! Well, how do you know so much about crappy american sports and other **** like that?

[rancer890]

All American sports have a draft system, and I don't mind. High school and college is our youth system.

[B. Stinson]

No, stupid! I think you should have a youth system where you bring up local talent.

Why? It wouldn't change anything.

[GoGa70]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

I also think the draft system is stupid too.

It's because you don't understand how US model works. But ignorance is curable, or so they say...

[NepentheZ]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

D'oh! Well, how do you know so much about crappy american sports and other **** like that?

I'm a very, very big sports fan. From NBA to Football, NHL to Grid Iron, Olympics, Snooker... anything really. I attach myself to a team / player from a particular sport for any number of reasons, and then follow them intently, and just learn general rules and regulations of the sport via my chosen medium.

Apart from that, I gamble a lot, and am online extremely late, so American Sports are always there to bet on.

[Ryan,,,]

So you learn everything about anything!

[Pio]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

I also think the draft system is stupid too.

since american leagues don't have promotion/relegation the draft system is needed to keep some sembalance of parity in the league, otherwise you'd have the rich teams dominating year after year. i'd actually much rather prefer a promotion/relegation system but with how many years our current leagues have been in place and with how much money is involved, this will never happen.

[NepentheZ]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

So you learn everything about anything!

I wouldn't go that far. But if theres something I want to know about, I apply myself to the subject with intent, and learn as much as I can. I don't like losing arguments, either, so having a vast range of knowledge, and an even wider range of vocabulary, I can usually flummox people into defeat

[Mravac Kid]

Current distribution of PA170+ players under 25 in my game, according to MiniScout (only Croatia selected):

24 - Brazil, Spain, France, italy

21 - England

17 - Argentina

13 - Germany

12 - Mexico

10 - Romania

7 - Colombia

6 - Bosnia, Turkey, Ukraine

5 - Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia

4 - Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Israel, Uruguay

3 - Austria, Belgium, Chile, Slovakia

2 - Algeria, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, Ghana, Paraguay, Russia, Switzerland, USA

1 - Anguilla, Costarica, Greece, French Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Macau, Morocco, Moldova, Nigeria, N. Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, S. Africa, Scotland, Somalia, Tonga, Tunis, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia.

As you can see, the usual suspects get the lion's share of the loot. At best there's some countries that should probably get more players (i.e. Russia and India), and some notable absentees (China and Japan, surely there should be at least a few great talents there), but not many countries who got more than their due share.

I daresay it all depends on what leagues you have selected, and which leagues are connected to those (as evidenced by 6 Bosnians and 4 Albanians in my game).

[Pio]

Originally posted by Mravac Kid:

Current distribution of PA170+ players under 25 in my game, according to MiniScout (only Croatia selected):

24 - Brazil, Spain, France, italy

21 - England

17 - Argentina

13 - Germany

12 - Mexico

10 - Romania

7 - Colombia

6 - Bosnia, Turkey, Ukraine

5 - Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia

4 - Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Israel, Uruguay

3 - Austria, Belgium, Chile, Slovakia

2 - Algeria, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, Ghana, Paraguay, Russia, Switzerland, USA

1 - Anguilla, Costarica, Greece, French Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Macau, Morocco, Moldova, Nigeria, N. Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, S. Africa, Scotland, Somalia, Tonga, Tunis, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia.

As you can see, the usual suspects get the lion's share of the loot. At best there's some countries that should probably get more players (i.e. Russia and India), and some notable absentees (China and Japan, surely there should be at least a few great talents there), but not many countries who got more than their due share.

I daresay it all depends on what leagues you have selected, and which leagues are connected to those (as evidenced by 6 Bosnians and 4 Albanians in my game).

this isn't about top class players though, basically all the players that i've looked at are crap. it's just weird that all of the small caribbean islands national teams are greyed out like they should be then there's a few completely filled with signable players.

[Kill Rock Stars]

24 - Brazil, Spain, France, italy

21 - England

17 - Argentina

13 - Germany

12 - Mexico

10 - Romania

7 - Colombia

6 - Bosnia, Turkey, Ukraine

5 - Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia

4 - Albania, Belarus, Croatia, Israel, Uruguay

3 - Austria, Belgium, Chile, Slovakia

2 - Algeria, Ivory Coast, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Finland, Ghana, Paraguay, Russia, Switzerland, USA

1 - Anguilla, Costarica, Greece, French Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Macau, Morocco, Moldova, Nigeria, N. Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, S. Africa, Scotland, Somalia, Tonga, Tunis, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zambia

the main problems with regens in fm at the moment, in terms of distribution, is that africa gets very few top quality players. i make it eleven players in that list, and i think it's very unlikely that mexico will in the future possess more great players than the whole of africa

the problem is made worse by african sides having poor facilities, so few players reach their potential in game, and by the ai generally not buying them, compared to the real life situation where young african players flock to european clubs

[G-Man11]

Being half australian I can tell you that the Draft system is not entirely American and that a similar model is run in Australia, also Austrlians do call football Soccer hence the name of the national team. the draft system works in America and I admit I do prefer the system used in the Uk but for different countries, different system are used. Though I do think its stupid that atheletes who arent clever enough to go to universities or at least good ones can because they are good at sports. Also there is nothing wrong with knowing about American sports or any sports for that matter, I follow Rugby, Football, American Football, Aussie Rules, Ice Hockey and many more.

[DodgeeD]

I've found exactly the same thing in my game on Gundo's challenge - I've only got the Czech leagues running and my nationailty is English but in my first season, there were about 20 New Caledonian players available. Most of them were rubbish but 5 looked decent and I signed them. 6 seasons on, one is now at Benfica and worth 15mil, one is at Shaktar Dontesk and worth 2.5mil and the other 3 are attracting a lot of interest from clubs across Europe.

Now, my star striker is from Aruba and a search at the start of the season brought up a lot of players from Bermuda. I have to agree with Nepenthez that, while the odd superstar could possibly emerge from one of these nations, so many talents emerging like this at once is unrealistic.

[jwarner]

Wow, I thought it was just me. The problem (feature?) seemed to be more pronounced in FM2007 though.

[podoooo]

Originally posted by DodgeeD:

I've found exactly the same thing in my game on Gundo's challenge - I've only got the Czech leagues running and my nationailty is English but in my first season, there were about 20 New Caledonian players available. Most of them were rubbish but 5 looked decent and I signed them. 6 seasons on, one is now at Benfica and worth 15mil, one is at Shaktar Dontesk and worth 2.5mil and the other 3 are attracting a lot of interest from clubs across Europe.

Now, my star striker is from Aruba and a search at the start of the season brought up a lot of players from Bermuda. I have to agree with Nepenthez that, while the odd superstar could possibly emerge from one of these nations, so many talents emerging like this at once is unrealistic.

Bermuda = Territory of UK

Aruba = Territory of the Netherlands

New Caledonia = Territory of France

I think that it has something to do with the fact that these players come from countries still controlled by big European countries (same as Anguilla, B Virgin Islands, Montserrat)

[Veg]

I played a game were I tested the Regens distribution I had the following countries with regenerated players with a PA +150:

5 from Anguilla

3 from British Virgin Islands

2 from Tanzania

1 from Puerto Rico and Indonesia

This was in the second season:

If I'd tested it with pa +130 there would have been a lot more.

In the third season of the same game the list is this, some from the second season had retired:

5 from Anguilla

3 from British Virgin Islands

2 from Tanzania, Guinea-Bissau, Mayotte,

1 from Chinese Taipei, Libya, Lebanon, Nepal, São Tomé and Principe, Yemen, El Salvador

I posted about this in the Beta testers forum, but SI haven't cared to respond.

[Sigporsson59]

Originally posted by Bongo-Bongo:

I've got to say that this is one of the things that frustrate me the most with FM. After a couple of seasons, a quick flick through the BSP and BSN/BSS leagues and there's barely a club that doesn't have at least one regen from these countries. Whats worse is that many of them are also better then the level they are playing at.

This is total speculation on my behalf, but I think the reason why so many get generated is that, with all the players coming from these nations having an English second nationality, with the Englisg keague running, more are generated. I've noticed many former French and Portuguese colonies also having numerous regens generated when I have the French and Portuguese leagues running, but not when they aren't.

absolutely that this is taken into account when regen selection happens.

In FM07 they were doing something really interesting, there were so many french regens with african names, and african second nationalities, which were produce in french clubs.

this is completely accurate forecast, based on demographics.

Population ageing, below replacement populations and migration as factors contributing to decisions on regen development.

I should write about that to share with SI. because that's what i do: i write about stuff like that.

many more things to write before that, i really should get back to work.

cheers.

siggy

[Sigporsson59]

Originally posted by Pio:

it's just weird that all of the small caribbean islands national teams are greyed out like they should be then there's a few completely filled with signable players.

why is that bad? i think this is good. I also want to make sure that if a regen is french but second nationality uganda, and does not play for france he still is selected by uganda.

or, in this case, playing in england yet called up for i don't know, Barbados.

of course you really can't get natural regens from barbados in barbados, football infrastructure is zero

trinidad and tobogo thought, there's a footie tradition there.

go mexico

sig.

[Ryan,,,]

There have been quality players from these nations, Yorke and Hislop from Trinidad and Goater from Bermuda. Also someone from Uganda used to play for QPR, i cant remember his name at the minute though.

[alwo]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

There have been quality players from these nations, Yorke and Hislop from Trinidad and Goater from Bermuda. Also someone from Uganda used to play for QPR, i cant remember his name at the minute though.

These are exceptions rather than the rule though. I'm not saying that there's no chance of another world-beater coming out of Trinidad a la Yorke, but it's a sort of speculation on SI's part that more and more high-quality players will emerge from the Caribbean over the next ten years or so.

[No Email]

Originally posted by NepentheZ:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

No, stupid! I think you should have a youth system where you bring up local talent.

And i cant laugh at your ability to speak english as i live in ireland so i know all about crap English. Even our English teacher has a pretty poor stadard of English!

My ability to speak English? No offense, Ryan, but I'd say I'm one of the most grammatically correct, and punctual people on the site.!

Also, I'm not American, I'm English. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not to rail on about that point, but I found those two ironically funny.

[Ryan,,,]

Yes, im as funny as Jimmy Bullard.

And it might be a carri-beeee-anne, just to get the pronunciation out of the way, footballing rennaisance.

[Guest arrogantio]

In summary FM:

a) overrepresents links between nations and their current overseas territories without factoring in their size and footballing tradition

b) underrepresents links between nations and their former colonies - particularly where these are African nations with large populations (and equally large diasporas) and real footballing traditions but just not the infrastructure and training facilities of a Tier 1 football nation.

It's teenagers from the Ivory Coast, and Nigeria that turn up in large numbers looking for places in the academies of big French and English footballing clubs; whereas New Caledonia and Bermuda simply aren't as large or as closely connected to their colonial power than the FM world seems to think. Meanwhile, the quality of domestic Africans is linked closely to the domestic leagues, which produce few top regens due to lack of money meaning low reputation and facilities rather than a lack of support base and talent pool.

Reputation of nation (and probably "population" and "footballing tradition") variables ought to play a much bigger part in their regens - with a lot more top young Africans (in particular) being generated starting at the big European clubs. More foreign regens in domestic leagues might also reduce the tendency for the English national team to overachieve so consistently...

[pelicanstuff]

I would say that a lot of these players should be appearing in england as english but with carribean second nationalities. This would be far more realistic. Probably about 70% of the talented youth footballers around where I life have carribean or to a lesser extent african origin.

[Frame]

Originally posted by NepentheZ:

Yea, Zidane, Vieira, Herny, Gallas.... none are "French" - But they are from French Colonies, and rarely play for the home nation. But thats an exception, rather than the example.

Zidane is of Algerian descent.

Vieira is born in Senegal.

Neither are french colonies.

[Scott1990]

Originally posted by Frame:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by NepentheZ:

Yea, Zidane, Vieira, Herny, Gallas.... none are "French" - But they are from French Colonies, and rarely play for the home nation. But thats an exception, rather than the example.

Zidane is of Algerian descent.

Vieira is born in Senegal.

Neither are french colonies. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The thing is, the former French colonies have a lot more people than the former British colonies, but FM weighs them both the same. For instance, there's an equal chance for a great soccer player to come from Guadeloupe as a great player from Montserrat. You'll find that Montserrat isn't even habitable anymore and its population is something like 20,000 anyway.

I have no problem with tons of good regens born in Guadeloupe and Martinique or with these second nationalities because this is realistic. While many British players have 2nd nationalities from Caribbean islands, they weren't born there, whereas many French-Caribbean players were.

I think FM needs to make some of these North American regens be born in England with Montserrat/Antigua/whatever second nationality.

[Ryan,,,]

I actually think with the amount of English people moving to places like Hellas and Spain they should have Spanish born English players like Johnny Dixon.

[DontCallItSoccer]

In simple statistical terms, taking a normal bell curve as a starting point, the chance of having a top class player (PA 170+) come out of a pool of 10-12 newgens should be very slim indeed.

In my game (currently April 2019), I've done a quick scan of newgens under 24 and I have PA170+ players from Yemen, Malaysia, Iraq, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea (2), Trinidad & Tobago, New Caledonia, San Marino, and some other obscure places (in foootballing terms).

There are none from Brazil (!), Argentina (!), Mexico or Russia, just to name some of the more established nations.

That suggests to me that the standard distribution bell curve (for PA) is applied to the entire pool of newgens for every batch, after which nationality is somehow calculated, based on active leagues and so on.

The fact that neither Argentina nor Brazil are producing top class newgen players is just ludicrous, so the way this is calculated seems to require adjustment in FM09.

I'd propose applying a standard distribution to a national pool of newgens and applying a modifier, based on footballing tradition, status of the sport in the country, and so on.

That way a top nation should be able to produce a number of star players every year, whereas a lower ranked nation would literally only have 1 or 2 top class footballers in 100 years.

[Pio]

that seems very off from my experience, but i don't check with an editor. i do know in my game (around 2020) that japan has 2 very high rated forwards/strikers who have won multiple world awards, plus there's an uzbek defender always in the running but has never won. all the other players in those shortlists have been from countries you'd expect.

that's not to say there are no players with 170+ from very odd places that i just haven't seen, just posting a bit about my experience.

[DontCallItSoccer]

I've played the Mac version, so i don't know if that makes a difference. Had to use Parallels and install windows XP so I could install PC version and use save game editor Fm scout to look for all 170+ players.

Whatever calculation is used, it seems not to use national newgen pools to determine a distribution of talent, but the global newgen pool, so that based on pure chance, you can get an Uzbek or Yemeni star player, but none from Brazil.

[Scott1990]

Originally posted by DontCallItSoccer:

I've played the Mac version, so i don't know if that makes a difference. Had to use Parallels and install windows XP so I could install PC version and use save game editor Fm scout to look for all 170+ players.

Whatever calculation is used, it seems not to use national newgen pools to determine a distribution of talent, but the global newgen pool, so that based on pure chance, you can get an Uzbek or Yemeni star player, but none from Brazil.

True, but the way I see it, every regen has an equal chance of having a 180 PA for instance. However, there are a lot more Brazilian regens than there are Yemeni regens, so more Brazilians USUALLY tend to have better PAs. I think it's all about luck.

[NepentheZ]

Thanks for all the effort in the thread guys. At one point it almost turned into a slanging match, but came good in the end. Despite the discussion we've had here, I'd like a response from SI (or even Ackter) - as to why the proportion of regens from this region is so high, as it's happened in every save I've played on FM08.

[Ascanius]

I just had exactly the same thing with people from Ghana, had 16 unattactched under 16 year olds in my filter. Nobody else.

[DrEdwierd]

So i might be able to find a few premier class players from these countries on the cheap despite only having the English leagues down to league 2 loaded?

Also what about other former colonies such as the U.S and Australia, India etc??? Do is it work for these aswell?

[Ryan,,,]

Britain still own Canada, so shouldnt they be like BVI?

[GoGa70]

Britain still own Canada, so shouldnt they be like BVI?

How exactly do you own it?

[Ryan,,,]

It is a sovereign state owned by Britain, like Australia. Although it has it's own goverment the Queen is still the head.

[AB-forever]

Originally posted by Pio:

that seems very off from my experience, but i don't check with an editor. i do know in my game (around 2020) that japan has 2 very high rated forwards/strikers who have won multiple world awards, plus there's an uzbek defender always in the running but has never won. all the other players in those shortlists have been from countries you'd expect.

that's not to say there are no players with 170+ from very odd places that i just haven't seen, just posting a bit about my experience.

Well, this case is a little different because newgens from countries like Uzbekistan, China, Japan and others, are almost always relased after a few years at their original club (unless you have their league loaded of course). Then their reputation is low so nobody sign them and sometimes players with great PA are lost this way.

[pouncer]

True, but the way I see it, every regen has an equal chance of having a 180 PA for instance. However, there are a lot more Brazilian regens than there are Yemeni regens, so more Brazilians USUALLY tend to have better PAs. I think it's all about luck.

This is what makes most sense to me.

[bermybhoy]

Originally posted by Ryan,,,:

It is a sovereign state owned by Britain, like Australia. Although it has it's own goverment the Queen is still the head.

I shouldn't get involved in this off-topic nonsense, but this is utterly wrong. Both are independent countries who have the UK monarch as head of state. They are not 'owned' by anyone. Note that Canadians and Aussies do not have UK passports.

This is distinct from the likes of Bermuda or Cayman, which are 'overseas territories' of the UK (a more acceptable term for the word 'colony'). People from these countries DO have UK passports.

[Ryan,,,]

Oh, but they're not completely free from Britain.