Tired Of "Crap" Youth? Please Read This Thread and Help Get SI's Attention

[Leaf_Fan_85]

I’ve been throwing this idea out there since FM 2010, but realized I’ve never really fleshed it out, so here it goes.

Please, all comments/queries/bashing to flesh out this potentially game changing feature are most welcome.

So here we go.

In FM Live, we had the opportunity to build an academy (up to 5 I believe) around the world. While this may seem like an unrealistic set up, only the best of the best can get an international academy in the real world.

So the likes of Braintree and Foggia won’t be able to get an academy right out of the gate, only the big boys (and of the big boys, the ones with the money to spend) will be able to afford it. We ask the board like we would for a feeder club, and the more pull you have, you can pick where to have it set up, or give your opinion of 3 places to have it set up (gives incentive to remain at a club longer than getting bored and leaving for a new challenge).

You can appoint a director of scouting to the academy in order to “let the A.I.” run it if you don’t want to get too involved (Your top youth coach, the name Vincenzo Chiarenza, the best Italian youth coach ever comes to mind) or you can use that director to help you hire coaches scouts, staff and look and recommend talent.

You can set it up anywhere in the world (obviously the 18 members of the former G-14 would be those most likely to set an academy up anywhere in the world) while some of the smaller clubs stay within the continent.

Many will probably go for Brazil, and the risk is so would other clubs. Setting an academy in say Canada and being the only one there will guarantee you the best of their best. Once you build your reputation as an academy team, you can move down to Brazil and start snapping up talent from the other guys (and they of course can do the same to you).

Two very major points that could come out of this are the following.

1) Getting the type of player you want into your academy and into your club. Too often teams have a cornucopia of goalkeepers when you have a great number 1 and a great understudy, and will not need one anytime soon, or getting a young defender who could easily become a great holding midfielder or attacker. By getting the opportunity of setting them up at the age of 13/14, the kids can come in at a set age (your choice, can go as young as 13) and guide your future star into superstardom. Obviously the poaching of academy players will constitute higher fees as compensation because it’s much more of a crapshoot (and the academy teams can afford it). You can also get your director to look at developing specific positions (kids don’t necessarily get a set position until their teens anyway, why not help make them that leap.....the best part, some of those players may fight back against your decision. A young player believes he’s a #9 type striker, you think he’s more suited as a #5 centre back, and that could cause friction...deeper player/manager interactions)

2) Long term international development. Many of us get the urge to jump to international management and get bored coaching the big clubs. Imagine being able to become the person to successfully bring the next powerhouse nation to international prominence? (Ghana was an unknown in the early 2000’s, now they’re being considered a favourite in 2014, I smell a FMS Challenge folks). YOu get bored of just managig Man U and want to build Taiwan into the next World Cup Winners. Normally you'd quit the game, load all Taiwanese players and hope. Now, you can specifically set up an academy to develop Taiwan into an elite team OVER TIME (Not overnight) and help their development by sending the best coaches over and help set things up (or get a young Brazilian, move him to Taiwan and get him Taiwanese nationality, either way).

Here’s the kicker. Not every academy will be a gold mine. It will take a combination of economics, coaching levels, population (and of course luck) to align in order to get success in the academy world. If you’re a big team and have a crappy set up, even in Brazil you won’t get the best players. If you have the money, coaching staff, scouts, population, reputation and a load of luck on your side, your club may develop the next Ronaldo, Messi, Del Piero, Zidane and the rest. Obviously these are once in a generation players, and won’t come out year after year, but it will help international management, player development and home grown rules. Again you won’t be guaranteed a Wayne Rooney every single year, but you could get a Joe Cole, a Gianfranco Zola, a Les Ferdinand....serviceable club players plying their trade who while not elite superstars, are much better than say your current crop of “academy” rejects that everyone seems to complain about and can actually have a career in the top flight.

Each year, there could also be a news item highlighting the “top prospects” of each team’s academy, much like goal.com does on occasion touting the next talent. They can be right on the money, or be way off. Do you release a kid because the media ranks him 10 of 11 in your academy? Do you rush to sign the top rated academy player because NOTW say he’s the next David Beckham and instead turns out to be a bigger flameout than those who were destined to be the next superstars (Toni Kroos)?

You want to build your team? You want to get away from the boards complaining your 20/20 academies and training grounds aren’t getting talent? Here is your chance of not only getting the right players at a younger age to develop them your way, but for you to put your money where your mouth is and prove you can develop youth.

There is probably a ton of ideas I’ve forgotten about, but would love to hear the opinions of the board on this manner. Please, please SI, give us this nugget

[robzilla]

Love it love it love it. Good idea, good post.

SI take note.

[Nik_Dut]

can taiwan play in FIFA world cup ??

[MShing]

Would love to see this in fm12.

[RBKalle]

This is a great idea

BUT

as long as the training process doesn't improve, I'm not sure the "new and improved" Academy system would help that much... it could risk becoming another choretastic half-baked feature...

Think about it... currently we get a batch of young players, aged 15-17, every year. Their ability level is determined by the youth facilities at our club (and also by their nationality, in turns depending on the scouting knowledge of the club), while their position is totally RANDOM.

Then there's, obviously, no guarantee your Barça academy will churm out Iniestas and Messis on a yearly basis, so a good portion of your youth intake, even at top clubs, will consist of duds you'd just release ASAP.

However, even when you get a decent newgen, chances are he'll be saddled with one of those "odd templates" SI seem to have implemented in abundance... (like the pacey DM who can't tackle/cover/pass, or the striker who can't shoot, or the world's slowest fullback, or the "goldfish" player...)

Even disregarding the fact no player with 15 Accel/Pace and 8 Tackling/Passing/Bravery/Positioning would have EVER made it through the youth ranks of an amateur club as a DM/CM, you'd then get stuck with a somewhat talented player who's been mis-trained...

So you'd have to retrain him into his natural (and logical) position... something that'll take time and CA points... And under the current rigid attributes weighing system I'm not too sure it can be done in a satisfactory way, if at all.

And dealing with younger players would just mean they'd start from a lower point, but always with the same pattern... We need an improved training/development system, THEN we can concentrate on Academies.

Sure, we can customize training schedules, but as long as there are fixed categories, it's not much use... If I want to reconvert the 189cm winger into a more suitable Target Man, I'd be able to do so without too much fiddling around with sliders...

Just add like 3-4 areas of Individual Focus for youth players, so we can decide where they need major improvement, while letting the rest as "general training"

[isignedupfornorealreason]

It's a nice idea. I wish we could do more with the current local recruitment too though.

[Bracken]

Yes please

[Sir_aLex]

it could risk becoming another choretastic half-baked feature...

This is my only gripe with SI. I love the games and don't have any major problems with FM11 but with the pressure of releasing a 'new' game each year, i feel they are sometimes pressured into implementing unfinished features into the game that don't really work or having no under-lying, game changing effect. They then go onto fix these issues through patches or on some occasion, in the next version. Something like this idea from the OP would need to be fully implemented straight away but would more likely be 'choretastic' as you stated for several editions...

However, i do love the idea OP. Currently, finding youth is pretty simple and once there in your u18's you don't really have to do much to turn them into decent players...this would be excellent if implemented right as it would give you better chance of finding that star player from that unheard of country. I also think this would go hand in hand with the idea of managing youth/reserve teams in future FM's...instead of some no named, no experience 32 year old taking over Man United, you could start at the very bottom and be in charge of one of the Academy's in lets say, Brazil, eventually leading to the u18's job at United etc etc

[milnerpoint]

Think about it... currently we get a batch of young players, aged 15-17, every year. Their ability level is determined by the youth facilities at our club (and also by their nationality, in turns depending on the scouting knowledge of the club), while their position is totally RANDOM.

The positions are not totally random at all, they are based on areas of your team that are weakest in the long run, and youth ability is more tied into club reputation and how good your youth recruitment knowledge is, actual quality of your youth facilities mean little in regards to how good the youth players that come from it are, better facilities means you are able to train and improve your youth players better but it wont lead to better players coming into your club.

[markyosullivan]

Sounds pretty good. +1 to this idea.

[BiggusD]

I like the idea, given that SI implements a more player type+role based random generation process. Such a system would for example produce four different types of Defensive Midfielder: The deep-lying playmaker, the anchor (more of a ball-winner than the playmaker), the defensive midfielder (less of a ball distributor than the anchor and less of a "game-breaker" than the advanced defender - but a strong ballwinner) and the "advanced defender" (a stopper-like defensive midfielder whose role is to help the defence and control the midfield). This means that unlike now, ALL attributes would have to be tied to the type/role not just they key ones.

I believe this would help reduce the amount of absolutely useless and unrealistic players being churned out by all the thousands of academies across the FM gaming world. Now you get between five and ten completely randomized players, most of which hang up boots after a year or two with no club. This takes up processing time and gaming speed for no reason. With less randomization like I propose here there would be no need to churn out that amount of new players every year, because you could get from 0-3 new (and useful for someone) players up the ranks instead, which is much more realistic.

[Coentrao]

I love it, and if it was already in FML it probably makes it easier to implement on FM i suppose.

[TJJESSE]

Love the idea. SI should take it into consideration. Because thinking of it apart from the match engine changes, agents, dynamic reputation and player interaction how much has fm changed since 09? Not alot. Having a feature like this makes the game well more interesting whiles improving the international side of the game, cause to be honest the international side of the game is terrible. So please please take this into comsideration SI. BTW thanks for mentioning my native country ghana who were unknown in 2000 but look at them know.

[Enj]

Top idea, would love to see this in the game. Just as people above have said, it would not only help the development of youth products which imo needs an overhaul, but also the international side which is weaker than club management as things stand. Reading it reminded me of something I read about Liverpool irl - I think they have set up some sort of academy or at least 'soccer school' in the Caribbean. But I wholeheartedly agree with this feature, it's really going to add something to the long term games and help to at least improve issues we've had in the game for a while now.

[DivineOne]

(or get a young Brazilian, move him to Taiwan and get him Taiwanese nationality, either way).

Players don't have free will?

All in all, it seems to be pretty unrealistic.

[pelicanstuff]

Now you get between five and ten completely randomized players, most of which hang up boots after a year or two with no club. This takes up processing time and gaming speed for no reason. With less randomization like I propose here there would be no need to churn out that amount of new players every year, because you could get from 0-3 new (and useful for someone) players up the ranks instead, which is much more realistic.

No it's not. In real life on average a little under half of players at the top academies that exist go on to never have a long-term professional career even in the lower leagues. No more than 10% at the absolute max go on to play at a high level. On average, Barca's academy only churns out around 1.6 players a year that go on to have a long-term career in a top-flight European league.

[BiggusD]

No it's not. In real life on average a little under half of players at the top academies that exist go on to never have a long-term professional career even in the lower leagues. No more than 10% at the absolute max go on to play at a high level. On average, Barca's academy only churns out around 1.6 players a year that go on to have a long-term career in a top-flight European league.

Precisely.

[LARulz]

I asked for this in the wishlist thread too. A youth academy is a brilliant dea and because it was in FML I don't see what the issue would be in putting it in FM12

[dec2k]

Brilliant, I'd love to see this in the upcoming version!

[goblinshark]

Awesome idea , hopefully my idea can complement yousr . And also hopefully SI will implement it

[Lenzar]

I think the problem is that there is too much rubbish and not enough average player creation. The top leagues seem to mostly remain the same, at least from what I've seen, whilst lower leagues struggle to keep a decent standard.

[RBKalle]

No it's not. In real life on average a little under half of players at the top academies that exist go on to never have a long-term professional career even in the lower leagues. No more than 10% at the absolute max go on to play at a high level. On average, Barca's academy only churns out around 1.6 players a year that go on to have a long-term career in a top-flight European league.

That's highly debatable...

Barcelona B 2005/06 had EIGHT players who came from the academy (or without previous affiliation AFAICT) who played in a top division in the 2010/11 season, plus a some more who played in the second-highest tier.

Only a couple of them (four or so) are currently "lost" in the lower leagues...

Anyway, the main issue with FM youth teams isn't that we don't get enough Messis or Pedros...

They DO come around, and they're more than enough to replace the original Top Stars...

What we desperately lack are DECENT AVERAGE JOES who are good enough to become the next Beckford or the next Cahill...

Good reliable EPL (or whatever Top League you want) material who'll however need some time to get there or who'll never scream "Wonderkid!" but will nonetheless become valuable players, or good transfer targets.

I don't mind the 2 or 3 total duds my academies vomit out every single year... that's part of the game, and it's ok.

I do mind however the fact FM would tend to become the land of the extremes, due to perfectible newgen models and mostly due to AI ineptitude at talent developing...

It's either Monster Newgens, as seen in plenty of bragging topics or Awfulness Personified...

I don't quite buy the idea EPL academies will produce like 3 Top Talents, 20 Ok guys, 50 average-guys-who-ll-get-ruined-by-AI and 100 kids who'd struggle to make it in the Faroese league...

[DivineOne]

Anyway, the main issue with FM youth teams isn't that we don't get enough Messis

How many do you expect to get? I mean irl we get like 1 every 20 years. The barcelona situation is one that isn't seen before in modern football btw. They were lucky.

In my many seasons playing fm 2011 I've gotten plenty of average Joes btw, I just don't really care much for them, they're kinda average.

[RBKalle]

How many do you expect to get? I mean irl we get like 1 every 20 years. The barcelona situation is one that isn't seen before in modern football btw. They were lucky.

Where did I say I want more?

I said EXACTLY it's fine with the amount we get... Actually the Great/Ok ratio is skewed in the "Great" direction...

In my many seasons playing fm 2011 I've gotten plenty of average Joes btw, I just don't really care much for them, they're kinda average.

You might not care if you're playing as a Top Club... but if you play as an average side you're forced to pay attention and will notice most potentially Average Joes have major flaws that AI development overlooked or "forgot" to address/solve.

[DivineOne]

You might not care if you're playing as a Top Club...

Yes, Olsa Brakel is a huge Top Club!

[Yallii]

I'd like to see youth players in a sort 'developing mode' before they become 'real players'. They would either be players without a position but with stats, or without stats but with a position. Your training would then form them into players you could use for your reserves. A certain moment, like signing a professional contract would end this 'developing mode'.

The option without the position seems like the most realistic one. Isn't it quite common that players move around on the pitch during their youth career? Thiago Silva of Milan started his football life as winger for example.

[SweatyBob]

This is based on my understanding that for each position a player can play in there is a cost in his Potential Ability points - I vaguely remember reading about it in a youth training thread. If I'm wrong this post will be way wide of the mark!

---------------------------------------------------------------

I think it might be an idea if a players position wasn't set in stone immediately after generating.

Perhaps a system where a teenage player gains (or loses) the ability to play in different positons much quicker than older players and also his "natural" position could be forgotten when a player is not played there (like a learnt position can).

This would mean that training a player to a new position he's more suited to doesn't end up wasting a chunk of his Pot.Abi points as they could effectively be reimbursed to be used elsewhere when he "forgets" the postion he was originally generated with.

Sol Campbell is an example - as a youth player he played up front and on the wing before dropping into defence. Under the current FM model he would at 15/16 being generated with the natural positions of AML/FC (I think he was in the old CM days) which would have took chunks out of his PA and thus lessened his potential ability when you trained him as a DC. Under the non-fixed position system the other positions would have been "forgotten" and those freed up PA points could be funnelled into his defensive abilities.

You could dictate in the training screen where you want him to play in during reserve/youth games and the Assistant would ensure he plays in that or those position(s) to keep the "level" topped up and not forgotten.

[ACJMY2K]

Good idea would lie this

[kingjericho]

Good idea for more depth with feeder clubs. I like it.

[pelicanstuff]

That's highly debatable...

Barcelona B 2005/06 had EIGHT players who came from the academy (or without previous affiliation AFAICT) who played in a top division in the 2010/11 season, plus a some more who played in the second-highest tier.

Only a couple of them (four or so) are currently "lost" in the lower leagues...

Yes, there were a whole lot of great players who came through from the academy at once at the end of 2004/5 (Messi, Pedro, dos Santos, plus Pique & Fabregas who would have come through at the same time had they stayed) but before that, there was no-one since Iniesta who is now a regular starter in a top league. The last few years have been a little bit leaner as well, since that golden group came through we've seen what, Jeffren, Bojan and Busquets?

I guess for the sake of completeness Crosas should be mentioned as well...

[BiggusD]

Yes, there were a whole lot of great players who came through from the academy at once at the end of 2004/5 (Messi, Pedro, dos Santos, plus Pique & Fabregas who would have come through at the same time had they stayed) but before that, there was no-one since Iniesta who is now a regular starter in a top league. The last few years have been a little bit leaner as well, since that golden group came through we've seen what, Jeffren, Bojan and Busquets?

I guess for the sake of completeness Crosas should be mentioned as well...

And your point is? ... That there should be less players coming through the ranks every year, just like I said. I think both me, you and RBKalle are really arguing for the same thing here:

Instead of using lots of computer resources to churn out thousands of players every year, most of which is of no use to anyone, I would rather like a message from the Youth staff saying "There were no players who were worthy of being promoted from the youth academy this year" if that is the case.

To be more specific, a Premier League club with good youth facilities should only promote players with the potential to become decent premier league players every year (unless you adjust the "filter" down to take in more players). A Championship club minimum decent CH player and so on and so forth. Of course, not all of the "decent premier league players" will reach their potential fast enough to be given a pro contract with their club, and most won't be found good enough at all. Just like now. Except that the nobodies are filtered out before they are picked up by a professional club, just like in the real world.

You are right that such filtering would be a bit unrealistic since "nobodies" that hang up boots and do something else before they turn 20 are found also in the youth squads of premier league clubs, but this is a game and loading time is a major issue especially in long-term games where players like that clog up the system. No-one would miss them and the space and memory they take up could be better used on other areas.

I say: let us have the option of filtering out the useless youth players already in the youth academy.

[AndyRich]

Love this! Youth is a massive part of the way I play the game, and the fact with Reading fc i have NEVER once had a good player come through the ranks really annoys me! A team that brought up the likes of Kevin Doyle, Steven Hunt, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Dave Kitson etc etc can no longer find or bring up talent? Not true. This has made me REALLY want improvement to this area OR get the chance to influence this area in game! Just so for once I can have the satisfaction of knowing and helping a player from the age of 15 to become a leading first team player!

I would love the chance to watch youth and reserve games, to see how players develop and to really see the potential (or lack of) in my youth! ... Thank you for bringing this up, and if we don't see SOMETHING like this OR this actual theory, then I would be SO happy.

SI ... LISTEN!!!!!!

[kjb36]

I think its a great idea! It would really peak my interest which always slips after a couple of seasons as I have useless youth players coming through and no one I can really nuture. I really like the filter too, why promote 20 players and not one has premiership potencial.

[the blue ferret]

A team that brought up the likes of Kevin Doyle, Steven Hunt, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Dave Kitson

Reading bought all those players as established footballers except Gylfi Sigurdsson

[Eles Gergo]

Yes I like it.

But training needs to be adjusted as mentioned before me. Also I would love to see in fm14 the youth academy that is based on age groups like 8-10 year olds 11-12; 13-14 etc.

There's always place for improvement.

[Sheffield Sunday]

My personal idea for youth development would be to impliment a points distribution system, whereby at the start of each season a manager can assign points to four or five categories. The 'bigger' the club the more points you get to distribute.

Examples of categories would be Quantity/Quality, and one for each position. The idea being that just like IRL, clubs do not automatically bring through all their youth players. This system would allow a manager struggling to buy players in the lower leagues to assign more points to Quantity, to fill the squad, while an established EPL team with money to burn could assign all their points to Quality, which would bring less players through but of a better quality. The position areas can be used for the manager to influnce his recruitment network to look for players of certain positions.

[Eles Gergo]

I don't see the point of this or the actual implementation method.

[aderow]

I would love if SI were to expand the scouting and development part of the game.

[Erimus1876]

My personal idea for youth development would be to impliment a points distribution system, whereby at the start of each season a manager can assign points to four or five categories. The 'bigger' the club the more points you get to distribute.

Examples of categories would be Quantity/Quality, and one for each position. The idea being that just like IRL, clubs do not automatically bring through all their youth players. This system would allow a manager struggling to buy players in the lower leagues to assign more points to Quantity, to fill the squad, while an established EPL team with money to burn could assign all their points to Quality, which would bring less players through but of a better quality. The position areas can be used for the manager to influnce his recruitment network to look for players of certain positions.

I like this too because it keeps the manager "in the loop" - i.e. we have a direct influence on things instead of the whole regen & youth thing being automated and randomly generated.

[Sheffield Sunday]

I like this too because it keeps the manager "in the loop" - i.e. we have a direct influence on things instead of the whole regen & youth thing being automated and randomly generated.

It has further developments that could be added to to give your youth academies more 'character' - Maybe you want to play nice tick-tacka football like Barcelona, then points could be added to a 'passing' and 'technique' fields.

There should still be a strong random element, but you should be involved in the decision making of what 'type' of youth player you want to bring through.

[ATW]

A major problem with the youths is once the game starts we get 2, sometimes 3 levels of youths, while only 1 youth team. It is possible in one summer, to receive youths that can play U19, U17 and U16's (sometimes I think U15's too). The players made up from these youths should be - especially if they are the younger end - have potential spread between top level and Sunday Amatuer.

[ATW]

There should still be a strong random element, but you should be involved in the decision making of what 'type' of youth player you want to bring through.

Not really. You should have the decision on who to give pro-contracts too, but not who is eligible for you U15-U17's!

[jackripper]

Brilliant post and something like this would certainly make long term games more of a challenge, As long as the AI does this also

[tom_numbers]

I don't see the point of this or the actual implementation method.

Part this, and part I don't think it sounds like a significant improvement over the current system for me.

[TJJESSE]

About the whole position thing with the youth... Bastian schwienstiger is a perfect example. He started of as a winger/forward know he is a defensive midfielder/cm

[Leaf_Fan_85]

bump...now that the boards have sorted themselves out, would love to see what people think

[The Welsh Lad]

This is based on my understanding that for each position a player can play in there is a cost in his Potential Ability points - I vaguely remember reading about it in a youth training thread. If I'm wrong this post will be way wide of the mark!

---------------------------------------------------------------

I think it might be an idea if a players position wasn't set in stone immediately after generating.

Perhaps a system where a teenage player gains (or loses) the ability to play in different positons much quicker than older players and also his "natural" position could be forgotten when a player is not played there (like a learnt position can).

This would mean that training a player to a new position he's more suited to doesn't end up wasting a chunk of his Pot.Abi points as they could effectively be reimbursed to be used elsewhere when he "forgets" the postion he was originally generated with.

Sol Campbell is an example - as a youth player he played up front and on the wing before dropping into defence. Under the current FM model he would at 15/16 being generated with the natural positions of AML/FC (I think he was in the old CM days) which would have took chunks out of his PA and thus lessened his potential ability when you trained him as a DC. Under the non-fixed position system the other positions would have been "forgotten" and those freed up PA points could be funnelled into his defensive abilities.

You could dictate in the training screen where you want him to play in during reserve/youth games and the Assistant would ensure he plays in that or those position(s) to keep the "level" topped up and not forgotten.

I like this idea but how I would like to see it implemented, would be that when the youth players are promoted from the acadamy (which we dont have control of, I hope we will at some point) they don't have positions and say attributes are masked, so then you arrange a game and your coaches will view the players and effectively rate there skills, so after the match their attributes will no longer be masked and then you get to decided what position you would likr the player to be. If not a match a weeks training.

[pelicanstuff]

And your point is? ... That there should be less players coming through the ranks every year, just like I said. I think both me, you and RBKalle are really arguing for the same thing here:

Instead of using lots of computer resources to churn out thousands of players every year, most of which is of no use to anyone, I would rather like a message from the Youth staff saying "There were no players who were worthy of being promoted from the youth academy this year" if that is the case.

To be more specific, a Premier League club with good youth facilities should only promote players with the potential to become decent premier league players every year (unless you adjust the "filter" down to take in more players). A Championship club minimum decent CH player and so on and so forth. Of course, not all of the "decent premier league players" will reach their potential fast enough to be given a pro contract with their club, and most won't be found good enough at all. Just like now. Except that the nobodies are filtered out before they are picked up by a professional club, just like in the real world.

You are right that such filtering would be a bit unrealistic since "nobodies" that hang up boots and do something else before they turn 20 are found also in the youth squads of premier league clubs, but this is a game and loading time is a major issue especially in long-term games where players like that clog up the system. No-one would miss them and the space and memory they take up could be better used on other areas.

I say: let us have the option of filtering out the useless youth players already in the youth academy.

Coming back to this a long, long time later!

I think the reason we're disagreeing here is that we basically have a different interpretation of how youths are currently handled in the game. My understanding's always been that the players who are described as 'promoted' in the game actually represent the 'scholarship' age group of the youth academy and haven't actually been promoted yet, mainly due to their ages, the fact they are on youth contracts, and the wild variation in quality. However, I can see that the game text might lead people to think that they represent those that had already been promoted and reckon there might be scope for the game to clarify this a a bit better.

[WH]

Sounds good if you manage very big clubs. I would like to see the option to hold an open trial week. Young players could come for training and trial matches allowing your scouts and staff to have a look at them, then at the end of the week you have a good idea which players are good and which are not up to standard. It could be just local players for smaller clubs and players from across the globe for larger reputation clubs. I would prefer this than 15 no hopers pumped into the under 18's every year.

[BiggusD]

Coming back to this a long, long time later!

I think the reason we're disagreeing here is that we basically have a different interpretation of how youths are currently handled in the game. My understanding's always been that the players who are described as 'promoted' in the game actually represent the 'scholarship' age group of the youth academy and haven't actually been promoted yet, mainly due to their ages, the fact they are on youth contracts, and the wild variation in quality. However, I can see that the game text might lead people to think that they represent those that had already been promoted and reckon there might be scope for the game to clarify this a a bit better.

Yes I understand what you mean. What I am suggesting, then, is that the entire collection of u17-players should belong to the academy and not be our responsibility. We as managers are responsible for the professional players, and the Academy (and the staff you hire to be there) are responsible for the non-professional youth players. This is how it is in RL, and therefore the Academy vs Youth Player distinction is unrealistic. The u17s team should be run be the Academy (or a division distinct from the professional club for teams without academies).

What I would like is the option to click on the Academy and access an intuitive UI where you don't necessarily see youth players with attributes, but some sort of representation of positive development plus a coach report stating who seems to be the most promising prospect.

So when the time comes to give them professional contracts, you can select as many as you want from the ones who have turned/will turn 17 the coming season and negotiate contracts with them. I'd say you still shouldn't be able to see their attributes - only the head youth coach's report on their ability development progress and most likely player positions, weaknesses, strengths and personality. Or you could delegate all of this to the Assistant Manager.

So at the date of the youth intake, you finally get to see their attributes. Selecting the players who have made the most progress and who the youth coaches think have the highest potential, you can of course still have given professional contracts to players who may never be good enough for your club - but the point of all this is to remove from the equation all the players who have already reached their potential! The benefits of that to the whole game is huge: it will go faster, there will be less things to micromanage (if you want) and the general quality of youth newgens will improve - something which is absolutely necessary for long term lower league management... especially for the AI.