Wonderkids from minnow nations

[RBKalle]

2 ore fa, Nacaw ha scritto:

Disagree almost 100% with your points there Kalle. I'll pick out a few of them.

You were yourself complaining about FM producing too many "key players" in EPL or clubs like Sevilla. That's exactly what Mahrez is. He had one truly outstanding season, and two solid seasons. He's a key EPL player currently, and is likely to move to a top club this summer. This kind of player exist IRL, and when the game is able to reproduce that kind of talent in countries similar to Algeria, that's a good thing. 

But in FM world, a player like Mahrez would have been:

a) potentially as good as he was in Leicester's title season, and thus he'd have had a much better career in the game than IRL
b) as mediocre as he was in France, so a second-tier player with little or no potential left to develop
c) as mediocre as he was in France, but with relatively high potential, but with a low CA that would have stumped his development anyway

The game is NOT able to reproduce actual Late Bloomers and One-Season Wonders at all. But that's even besides the point and my observation.

What I meant is in (older?) FM third-rate countries produce many good players who can easily turn into solid EPL players, while IRL they are few and far between.

 

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Ghoulam is another key player from a top league. This guy called Zidane also had a bit of an impact... 

Zidane is French.

I'll give you Ghoulam, but it's 2 solid EL-level players in a generation.

 

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Total nonsense, Ronaldo is well known for being lanky and lacking physicality in his early years, if anything he's a prime example of the dramatic development that can happen when you join a top academy. 

I mean talent-wise.

The dramatic development was possible because CR was immensely talented. Also notice how big the turnover at top academies is, and how low success rate they have, despite investing millions in recruitment, infrastructures etc.

 

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Forgive me, but have you played much FM in 6+ season saves ?

My FM14 save is now in its 32nd season, so yeah, I've enough experience in long saves...

BTW, in that very save, Inter Milan had an INDONESIAN wonderkid in their youth intake whose CA/PA was likely in the 160 region as he was a first-team regular and was winning awards. It bothered me so much I had to lower him to 130 and it still irked me.

Indonesia... Really?

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What you are describing is a rarity, a non-factor in the game world. If anything, it should happen more often than it does. The main issue with regens currently is the complete opposite - big nations can recycle almost their complete national team within 5-6 years. This leads us to the real "issue" here; FM creates too many high PA players compared to the starting data. There are many reasons for this, all of which would be futile to cover here. A big one, however, is that the AI fails to develop quite a lot of high PA players. There's inequality here, because the high PA player in Sudan is less likely to make it than the high PA player in EU. Actually, the best league for such a player is probably either the Argentinian or Brazilian league, not because of having the best facilities, but because the CA required to be a starter is much less than in bigger leagues, and their rep is still fairly high. A talent in those leagues will get a chance to play, and as we all know, that's the biggest factor in maxing out their growth potential long term. This is where you get killer regens coming to Europe straight in to top teams, because they can develop to 150-160 PA before making the move. The Sudan player will often get stuck in his local league, and never reach a high enough CA to get sold on to a bigger club.

160+ PA players from the nations you mention are exceedingly rare. And even if they are generated, there's a high chance they won't fully develop, as I've already explained. 

You're describing two separate issues...

1) It's true, top nations produce way too many "ready-made" newgens who can walk into almost any Starting XI at age 17 or 18, and by 21 they're NT regulars as well.
1b) Provided the starting CA is high enough, they'll easily break into the first team or, at worst, will be sold to a slightly worse club where they'll still be able to grow a lot

2) Top newgens from smaller nations can be quite flawed or have low CA, thus they'll NOT fulfill their potential and rot in their home country or flounder around Europe's lower leagues.

2b) BUT sometimes they get a high enough CA, with equally good PA, and then they'll follow the same development curve of Brazialian or English wonderkids

 

 

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This is the key point. The game world is set up to produce a realistic outcome with AI managers. When you throw a human into the mix, of course you can develop more talent from fringe nations. If I spot a good player with many flaws (70 CA / 150 PA), for example from Luxembourg, I'll often buy him and develop him, loan him out so he grows, because I think that's a lot of fun. The AI doesn't have a concept of fun built in, and would ignore this player for better options. And yes, when he reaches 22-23, I can sell him for good profit. That's not a flaw in the regen system, it's just a human with a way of playing that the AI isn't capable of.  The players you mention would not develop without your intervention. 

 

Again, my case refers to players with high enough starting CA. Which is the crux of the matter.

IMO the game produces too "many" newgens from random countries with high starting CA if compared to real-life. They may be 3 or 4, but they're still twice as many as the real world, without human intervention.
Of course if a human manager takes action, the figures could be even higher.

Edited April 23, 2018 by RBKalle

[ryanlion28]

12 hours ago, RBKalle said:

I'd be fine with decent prospects failing to get spotted until later (or ever), or not developing so well. That'd keep the chance for a couple of "unusual" talents, but it'd not create a huge inbalance where suddenly you get top players from Libya, China, Granada and plenty of other nations that have maybe produced one half-decent player in all their history.

China, maybe, but countries like Libya, Grenada or nations of a similar vein? You'll have to enlighten me on that because in all the years i've played FM i've very very rarely seen this.

This topic alone kinda proves it's a big rarity. The majority are posting players from nations like Greece/South Korea - certainly not footballing minnows.

The fact is with China is they barely have any domestic talent right now, but in 15 years that probably won't be the case, considering whats happened with the money investment in recent years, and this is reflected in football manager.

When you're talking about these mid-tier nations such as Tunisia, Egypt, Bosnia, these all have potential to produce top players in real life, and in the game one or two can come through.

In my experience i haven't seen a nation like Egypt become world beaters without human intervention even if they produce one or 2 world class players in a generation, because the rest of the players they produce that would play for the national team are either at top Egyptian clubs or smaller European sides.

 

If you're talking about genuine minnows, let's say Malta, Somalia, Anguilla, Cambodia. It is extremely rare for there to be  regen from one of these nations that play at a top league side let alone be a wonderkid.

 

There are other countries that come through more as 2nd Nationalities, the likes of Indonesians in Italy, Vietnamese/ Carribean countries in England, Suriname / Curacao etc in Holland, but in FM players from these only ever declare for the weaker nation if they have 0 chance of playing for the big one, and it happens quite a while into their career.

 

I disagree with the idea that there's too many world beaters coming from smaller countries entirely. USA/China maybe, but these aren't footballing 'minnows' in comparison to others

[RBKalle]

7 minuti fa, ryanlion28 ha scritto:

I disagree with the idea that there's too many world beaters coming from smaller countries entirely. USA/China maybe, but these aren't footballing 'minnows' in comparison to others

For plenty of countries, "too many" could be as many as ONE

For others, it's more a matter of too many being better, on average, than their real-life counterpart.

In fairness, so far in FM18, I haven't noticed that being so prominent, but I'm only in 2025... I could take an in-depth look to an older save in my long FM14 career, but the game is too old...

[alanschu14]

2 hours ago, RBKalle said:

2b) BUT sometimes they get a high enough CA, with equally good PA, and then they'll follow the same development curve of Brazialian or English wonderkids

Just so I'm clear here... but it really sounds like you're saying that Brazilian/English kids are just... more capable of becoming wonderkids?

As someone that toiled around in Norway for about 10 seasons with an excellent youth program in Skeid and a continental reputation, my youth intake was still severely hampered by players that ultimately had no long term prospects with PAs that were not world class. It was endemic to most of Norway and I typically circumvented this by aggressively going after 17-18 year olds so that they'd eventually become home grown players to satisfy registration. My time in India showed that, very rarely, were there high PA players that came in through my reasonably high quality youth program at Shivajians and the rest of India rarely had anyone that could even threaten getting into Europe's top leagues.

Compare that with my time in France as Reims and Germany as Wolfsberg where I would typically get at least 1, often more, players with a potential greater than 150.

Taking a peek with my current game, Norway has 6 players with >160 PA in my scout screen (World Package, no filters aside from nationality).  Germany has 71. Brazil has 85. England has 89.  Spain has 92.  Wales has 4.

Indonesia has 0... their top player has 112 (which makes sense given their country's youth rating of 56). Now I don't have the league loaded, but your Indonesian came through Inter Milan's youth intake. Do they have an affiliate with an Indonesian team or... I'm curious how that player got there because that is likely very unusual. That said, if the player came through Inter Milan's youth intake, I don't see what issue he'd have potenially becoming an excellent footballer compared to the other players based purely on his nationality....

Not many pro basketball players come out of Nigeria, but Hakeem Olajuwon is one of the sports all time greatest players and he never picked up a basketball before he was 17.

Are you finding it a regular occurrence to have foreign players come through the youth intake of European countries?

[fmonit]

2 hours ago, RBKalle said:

But in FM world, a player like Mahrez would have been:

a) potentially as good as he was in Leicester's title season, and thus he'd have had a much better career in the game than IRL
b) as mediocre as he was in France, so a second-tier player with little or no potential left to develop
c) as mediocre as he was in France, but with relatively high potential, but with a low CA that would have stumped his development anyway

The game is NOT able to reproduce actual Late Bloomers and One-Season Wonders at all. But that's even besides the point and my observation.

What I meant is in (older?) FM third-rate countries produce many good players who can easily turn into solid EPL players, while IRL they are few and far between.

 

Zidane is French.

I'll give you Ghoulam, but it's 2 solid EL-level players in a generation.

 

I mean talent-wise.

The dramatic development was possible because CR was immensely talented. Also notice how big the turnover at top academies is, and how low success rate they have, despite investing millions in recruitment, infrastructures etc.

 

My FM14 save is now in its 32nd season, so yeah, I've enough experience in long saves...

BTW, in that very save, Inter Milan had an INDONESIAN wonderkid in their youth intake whose CA/PA was likely in the 160 region as he was a first-team regular and was winning awards. It bothered me so much I had to lower him to 130 and it still irked me.

Indonesia... Really?

You're describing two separate issues...

1) It's true, top nations produce way too many "ready-made" newgens who can walk into almost any Starting XI at age 17 or 18, and by 21 they're NT regulars as well.
1b) Provided the starting CA is high enough, they'll easily break into the first team or, at worst, will be sold to a slightly worse club where they'll still be able to grow a lot

2) Top newgens from smaller nations can be quite flawed or have low CA, thus they'll NOT fulfill their potential and rot in their home country or flounder around Europe's lower leagues.

2b) BUT sometimes they get a high enough CA, with equally good PA, and then they'll follow the same development curve of Brazialian or English wonderkids

 

 

 

Again, my case refers to players with high enough starting CA. Which is the crux of the matter.

IMO the game produces too "many" newgens from random countries with high starting CA if compared to real-life. They may be 3 or 4, but they're still twice as many as the real world, without human intervention.
Of course if a human manager takes action, the figures could be even higher.

Sounds like you don't really accept change. The fact is that there will be a lot more players from minnow countries coming through with dual nationalities IRL, and they may pick the lesser country to play for. 

Zindane is part Algerian. Nainggolan (AS Roma) is part Indonesian and looks like he would be a 160+CA player. In my FM game, England's main striker is part Isreali. 

But anyway, anyone plays the game their own way, but i personally love the fact that there is a possibility that a player from a country like Mongolia could be the next Beckham. 

[RBKalle]

9 ore fa, alanschu14 ha scritto:

Just so I'm clear here... but it really sounds like you're saying that Brazilian/English kids are just... more capable of becoming wonderkids?

In FM, they do, because they usually are generated as part of a top-division club (or 2nd tier at least) in a top-nation. So they "train" in a better setup, with more chances to get first team football or a loan move to a club in the same division or nation.

Regardless of nationality (as many clubs get foreign youth players), if Youngster 1 appears in Liverpool U19, he'll have much better chances to fulfill his potential than if he is generated at Hearts of Oak. CA, PA and mental traits will still be the same, but the time he's "born" in Ghana, he'll have to wait to be "found" by the scout of a good foreign club. Hoping it'll be, say, French or English, rather than Danish or Swiss, otherwise there will be more "wasted" years in a lesser league.

 

BTW, the Indonesian kid at Inter was likely a byproduct of the Thohir ownership. Born in Indonesia, generated at Inter, no dual-nationality when he was generated (otherwise Italy would have picked him for the NT before Indonesia could).

In the same save, I've found Iranians, Iraqis and even a KUWAITIAN good enough to play in EPL, Bundesliga etc, and all were not "second-gen" players produced by a good academy, but 100% result of a random club in their home nation.

Ok, it was 4 iterations ago, and maybe things have improved in FM18... I'd run a test, but my current save has a weird setup, so it'd be pointless.

 

9 ore fa, fmonit ha scritto:

Sounds like you don't really accept change. The fact is that there will be a lot more players from minnow countries coming through with dual nationalities IRL, and they may pick the lesser country to play for. 

Again, those who pick the lesser country do so out of opportunism and only rarely out of "patriotism" or whatever (unless, like Kosovo, or the former Yugoslavian nations, it's a choice they didn't have before).

And this has nothing to do with me not accepting change. WHEN in real life we'll have top players who are actually from China, Qatar etc, I'll be more than happy to embrace the change in FM as well. But as long as those nations can't even produce a decent player, I'll still see that as one of those FM quirks...

P.S. Nainggolan was born in Antwerp and, from a football standpoint, he's 100% Belgian. I'm willing to bet dollar to donuts that he wouldn't have become the player he is now, had he spent his youth in Indonesia playing in the local league.

My whole point is: I don't have an issue with dual-nationality players in FM opting for the lesser one. I DO have a problem with Top-flight players being generated in countries that IRL have never produced a single decent player, or have a "once in a generation" top talent and nothing else.

[Wolvesaywe]

Unless they are regens then hardly. Some great regens have come from Ivory Coast, South Korea, Ghana to name a few. Mind you there is Sydney Mohamed Sylla from Burkina Faso (real player) who is 18 with a -7.5 potential. Problem is getting a work permit. Another is Humam Tariq from 2015 who turned into an absolute word beater for me. 

[Nacaw]

You see to base your entire point on ONE Indonesian coming through at Inter in fm14 Kalle. An example that by your own logic is flawed in the first place (I'll get to that later). I've played 13 10+ season saves since fm14. I can assure you, there is no problem with Indonesian or other small countries getting world class players at crazy rates. Again, if anything, the chance of this happening is too low. Are we likely to see a player in the EPL from China, the middle east, India or another small country inside the next 10-15 years? My guess, and that's all anyone can do on this matter, is absolutely 100% yes. 10 years ago no-one thought an Armenian would play for a top EPL club. Same for a number of other nationalities. Back to your flawed example:

5 hours ago, RBKalle said:

P.S. Nainggolan was born in Antwerp and, from a football standpoint, he's 100% Belgian

 

5 hours ago, RBKalle said:

BTW, the Indonesian kid at Inter was likely a byproduct of the Thohir ownership. Born in Indonesia, generated at Inter, no dual-nationality when he was generated

Your Indonesian kid is exactly the same as Nainggolan. It's the games way of replicating players like him. He has never played in the Indonesian league, from a football standpoint, he's 100% Italian. The only difference is, he didn't get generated with dual nationality. 

Your original point was as follows:

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I'm not saying relatively smaller nations (that are still big players in their area or even confederations) shouldn't produce a handful of decent top-league players, at best, but FM, at least in the past, was literally filled with wonderkids from all kinds of African and even Asian nations

You seem to have conceded, at least to a degree. that this isn't really the case. 

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FM produces too many players from small countries who are able to walk into an EPL starting XI by age 19, basically as soon as they're off the plane.

Again, you seem to have changed stance here, saying that:

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Top newgens from smaller nations can be quite flawed or have low CA, thus they'll NOT fulfill their potential and rot in their home country or flounder around Europe's lower leagues.

This to me indicates, that they won't slot straight in to an EPL team, as you've previously claimed. In my experience, this is far more likely to happen with south american regens, and other regens from the EU. Small nation players cannot develop well in their home country, so they are reliant on a bigger club picking them up. Next wonderkids:

5 hours ago, RBKalle said:

In FM, they do, because they usually are generated as part of a top-division club (or 2nd tier at least) in a top-nation. So they "train" in a better setup, with more chances to get first team football or a loan move to a club in the same division or nation.

Absolutely not true at all. A player is better off being generated outside of EPL/La Liga. It's the combination of CA+league strength that matters in this context. An 18yo 120 CA player isn't going to play in the EPL. This is one of the AI's flaws in fact. These players very often don't reach their potential because of this, and would have had a better chance if they were generated in Belgium or Brazil, because 120 CA actually gets you game time in those leagues. 

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Top-flight players being generated in countries that IRL have never produced a single decent player, or have a "once in a generation" top talent and nothing else.

FM doesn't aim to replicate the past. It tries to predict the future, and it does so quite well. In your world, football, we could never have a George Weah, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Leon Bailey. Riyad Mahrez, Mohamed Salah, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Abedi Pele, Dwight Yorke, Jari Litmanen, Eidur Gudjohnsen + many more excellent footballers from minnow nations.

[ryanlion28]

The fact there was 1 Kuwaitan in your many saves that was BPL standard is a great thing! and the rarity of it on FM is really interesting.

Off the top of my head at a top level irl there is evidence that FM justifies reality with this.

Victor Wanyama - Kenyan International, joined a Swedish side after spending a couple of seasons at Kenyan clubs.

 

Mkhitaryan - Armenian international - signed for a Ukrainian side from an Armenian club, if on FM he'd have been generated in Pyunik in Armenia

 

Ragnar Klavan - Estonian international, if on FM would've been generated in estonia and spent 4 years there before going to Holland.

 

Nahki Wells- Bermuda, If on FM would've been generated at Bermudan club Dandy Town Hornets.

These are all players born and bred in their respective nations.

 

Cuco Martina - Curacao international - This is a 2nd nationality, a decent player not good enough for Netherlands so chose to represent his weaker nationality.

 

 

Now unless im missing one or 2, this is a very rare occassion and i think FM perfectly represents it, if anything slightly lacks in the possibility of a great player to be from a minnow nation

[a.panda]

6 hours ago, RBKalle said:

In the same save, I've found Iranians, Iraqis and even a KUWAITIAN good enough to play in EPL, Bundesliga etc, and all were not "second-gen" players produced by a good academy, but 100% result of a random club in their home nation.

For your information, Ali Al-Habsi was in the exact situation you described. An Omani, born in Oman, raised and developed in Oman, moved to Norway, and  capable to play in the English Premier League. He is not a world-beater, but he shows that a player from a minnow country could play in top level.

Another example would be Sun Jihai playing for Man City before all the money influx. I reckon real City fans would consider him an asset instead of making up numbers or as a marketing tool. And Bruce Grobbelaar for Liverpool. Is Zimbabwe obscure enough?

In fact, I invite you to read the following wiki entries and see how vast the number of countries are involved in EPL and Bundesliga over the years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_Premier_League_players

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_Bundesliga_players

[alanschu14]

On 4/24/2018 at 03:39, RBKalle said:

In FM, they do, because they usually are generated as part of a top-division club (or 2nd tier at least) in a top-nation. So they "train" in a better setup, with more chances to get first team football or a loan move to a club in the same division or nation.

I understand how the game works; that's not what I'm talking about. My question was more along the lines of "Why do you think an Indonesian that comes through Inter's Academy and becoming a good player is unrealistic?"

It would seem to me that virtually anyone, assuming they had the right mentality and dedication to the sport, would have a chance at being an excellent footballer if they were a part of the Inter Milan program. It was such an affront to you that you had to ensure that the player wouldn't actually become a star which makes no sense to me. But you'd be just fine with it if it was a Brazilian or an Englishman.

I'd agree that it's really easy for me to make a super star because attitude and high PA pretty much assures success, but we aren't going by reality if I'm peeking at player's PA scores because that's literally me going "I know this player has the potential to be as good as Messi" and whatnot.

But having a whole nation with almost no one over 120 PA after 6-7 years of regens doesn't strike me as an serious issue.

Taking a look at non-EU players the top players by PA are dominated by South Americans and a few Ivory Coasters and a couple Egyptians (Egypt has a youth rating of 138 in the game which does surprise me but I'm very oblivious to international football programs). One Egyptian is 21 and still in Egypt though so unless he suddenly gets picked up he's not going to grow much past his 140 CA.

 

 

[RBKalle]

37 minuti fa, alanschu14 ha scritto:

It would seem to me that virtually anyone, assuming they had the right mentality and dedication to the sport, would have a chance at being an excellent footballer if they were a part of the Inter Milan program.

By that logic, any club in a Top League should produce new talents non-stop, provided they have enough dedication.

I don't think sports work like that... Mentality can help a lot (just like dumb luck), but if you're born with two left feet, there isn't enough high-profile training that can turn you into a good professional footballer.

 

37 minuti fa, alanschu14 ha scritto:

It was such an affront to you that you had to ensure that the player wouldn't actually become a star which makes no sense to me.

 

To me it's a matter of keeping a semblance of realism in an increasingly crazy gameworld... One where minnows get promoted into the top-flights and then get relegated with 10 points because the AI just can't build up a team up for the challenge. One where Belgium and England win every other World Cup...

 

37 minuti fa, alanschu14 ha scritto:

But you'd be just fine with it if it was a Brazilian or an Englishman.

The wonderkids rate for those nations is questionable as well, but statistically I'm more willing to accept a top player being from a traditionally good country than from a place that has produced a bunch of decent low-EPL players at best.

 

Anyway, I've got some datas from FM18 I'll post later today for a better discussion based on figures and not on mere anecdotes.

[ryanlion28]

6 hours ago, RBKalle said:

By that logic, any club in a Top League should produce new talents non-stop, provided they have enough dedication.

I don't think sports work like that... Mentality can help a lot (just like dumb luck), but if you're born with two left feet, there isn't enough high-profile training that can turn you into a good professional footballer.

 

 

The Indonesian this relates this part of the conversation relates to wasn't born with 'two left feet' he was obviously an Indonesian immigrant who moved to Italy at a young age and was a top quality footballer. 

I believe the point below is referring to players in Inter Milans academy, regardless of their nationality, not that Inter Milan would pick Joe Bloggs up off the street and turn him into a Serie A player

It would seem to me that virtually anyone, assuming they had the right mentality and dedication to the sport, would have a chance at being an excellent footballer if they were a part of the Inter Milan program.

[RBKalle]

 

15 minuti fa, ryanlion28 ha scritto:

I believe the point below is referring to players in Inter Milans academy, regardless of their nationality, not that Inter Milan would pick Joe Bloggs up off the street and turn him into a Serie A player

Top-level, expensive academies can't even produce more than a handful of mid-level top-flight players per generation, so the theory is simply not true. Training and tutoring can only get ANY player that far, if the talent isn't there and another bunch of things don't go his way.

[a.panda]

8 hours ago, RBKalle said:

By that logic, any club in a Top League should produce new talents non-stop, provided they have enough dedication.

I don't think sports work like that... Mentality can help a lot (just like dumb luck), but if you're born with two left feet, there isn't enough high-profile training that can turn you into a good professional footballer.

 

To be fair to train a kid born with two left feet, first you'd need to polish his imperfections before putting him into a good training program, which by FM language use up a big portion of the PA 

 

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To me it's a matter of keeping a semblance of realism in an increasingly crazy gameworld... One where minnows get promoted into the top-flights and then get relegated with 10 points because the AI just can't build up a team up for the challenge. One where Belgium and England win every other World Cup...

Do you remember George Weah? He was the World Player of the Year, and he emerged from Liberia. This is the reality of real football you are watching. If I am honest with you I find your comments that "Indonesian football stars would be unreal" slightly xenophobic - it looks like you try your hardest to make sure your simulation do not contain talented footballers from obscure countries, yet you try to avoid the fact that there have been, and will be, many good footballers from obscure countries plying their trade in the footballing world. I cannot see why an Indonesian can't be good at football if there has been a real-life example from Liberia.

Also, you probably do not notice a trend but in real life, big football clubs set up schools and education programmes across the world (Africa, Asia, etc). Main aim is probably for marketing and profit, but the other aims include educating better crops of future players, as well as finding the next gem in other countries. If clubs in real life do so, I would indeed find it unreal if obscure country youngsters do not show up in the game at all! (Especially Inter Milan's board was Indonesian at the time) If I remember it correctly Barcelona, for example, had a Korean and a Japanese in the youth team.

And for the other arguments regarding the game, I am sure someone from SI mentioned - once you click the "continue" button, it is an independent world from the reality, from the inputs of the AI as well as the human manager. (OK there are bugs and imperfections but please try to get the idea, and probably not for discussion in this thread)

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The wonderkids rate for those nations is questionable as well

Would love the see data to support this hypothesis, because so far I have only heard one Indonesian which is good (and developed well) in your game, alongside few Middle East players. I assume it would be hard to prove, because even if one country pumps a few top players out of sudden, it may be due to in-game factors such as better youth facilities, junior coaching, etc via big money from either the board or takeover, or competition money.

I do think that some regen were way too good and develop fast in their own country (I have managed in lots of minnows and every year a couple of regen would pop up with 2-3 CA stars in a top team in respective countries), but are they so good enough for top leagues? I am not sure. But why can't these players have high PA? It's just all down to probability, mate.

As for *that* Indonesian star, I come up an explanation which I think is plausible - every year the youth academy at Inter calls up a few kids, I would suggest about 5-10% of the intake has the *potential* to be a top player. And the nationalities of the youth intake are based on nationalities of the team, you, affiliated clubs, and also owner(s). I would say about 5-10% chance again for a regen to be non-Italian or dual, so it was a lot of luck that one regen is a top player, and is from the owner's nation. Now most of the time the regen would be half-Italian for whatever reasons. I may be wrong, but in the game Indonesian nationality cannot be gained by time, so inversely I would suggest Indonesians cannot gain a second nationality as well, thus he is solely Indonesian even if the game codes him to be dual.

Edited April 25, 2018 by a.panda

[alanschu14]

7 hours ago, RBKalle said:

By that logic, any club in a Top League should produce new talents non-stop, provided they have enough dedication.

I don't think sports work like that... Mentality can help a lot (just like dumb luck), but if you're born with two left feet, there isn't enough high-profile training that can turn you into a good professional footballer.

Not at all.  Plenty of players have dedication that don't turn into great footballers. You don't get many great footballers that don't have great dedication though.

Unless you're suggesting that an Indonesian player is more likely to be born with two left feet than an English person (absurd on its face), there's nothing stopping success.

Inter Milan (and big clubs around Europe) have excellent coaches, facilities, and importantly intake/recruitment that increase the likelihood of them having an excellent player through their youth system. It's important to note that this is still rare. But if Inter Milan brings in a player that happens to be Indonesian, there's nothing fundamentally genetic about being an Indonesian that says "well, you're definitely not going to be as good as other players." Human beings don't work that way.

 

7 hours ago, RBKalle said:

To me it's a matter of keeping a semblance of realism in an increasingly crazy gameworld... One where minnows get promoted into the top-flights and then get relegated with 10 points because the AI just can't build up a team up for the challenge. One where Belgium and England win every other World Cup...

It seems a bit overstated that minnows frequently make all world players.  It's fine (and valid) to think that development happens too quickly/hastily. I think we're given a lot of benefit of clairvoyance because we can literally say "this player does, indeed, have the ability to become as good as Messi" as such we'll (especially if we're cool with looking at PAs) actively go after players from lesser places because we know that that player has a better chance of paying off. It's why I don't disagree with the Potential Star rating being largely based on the player's age and CA (a 16 year old who is at their PA of 115 would still be ridiculously highly sought after as a prospect).

7 hours ago, RBKalle said:

The wonderkids rate for those nations is questionable as well, but statistically I'm more willing to accept a top player being from a traditionally good country than from a place that has produced a bunch of decent low-EPL players at best.

Sure, the history of the sport has a lot more people playing it and I totally understand why SI creates a "youth rating" for nations that impacts their intakes. It tries to work with the realities of the situation and makes probabilistic assumptions. But you give me $3-$5 billion dollars annually and I suspect I could turn Indonesia into a decent football country.

[fmonit]

Maybe slightly off topic, but somewhat related. Im my FM game, Scotland is a World Cup winner! Also highly unlikely, but I guess it could happen if suddenly a golden generation is born. 

In an FM11 game, I had Egypt as ranked 3rd in the World in the 2030ies... They never won it, but performed well every time + African champions every time. I actually sent my scouts to Egypt to check it out 😀

[ryanlion28]

Scotland winning the world cup is definitely more commonplace on FM than it should be!

[oblongata21]

On 4/26/2018 at 12:19, fmonit said:

Maybe slightly off topic, but somewhat related. Im my FM game, Scotland is a World Cup winner! Also highly unlikely, but I guess it could happen if suddenly a golden generation is born. 

In an FM11 game, I had Egypt as ranked 3rd in the World in the 2030ies... They never won it, but performed well every time + African champions every time. I actually sent my scouts to Egypt to check it out 😀

Well Denmark wont the European Championship in 1990 after coming in as a replacement for Yugolsavia, so these things do happen

I dont understand what the big deal is about having minnow countries produce decent players, these things do happen. There's players like Billy Ketkeo from Laos and Wesley Lautoa from New Caledonia that have played in the French first division, both were first team players. I think its great that these smaller countries produce world class players. Even here in Australia, the likes of Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell, Mark Schwarzer, Bosnich and Viduka are proof that countries regarded as small on the world stage are capable of producing  decent players. I think FM got it right

[CFuller]

2 hours ago, oblongata21 said:

Well Denmark wont the European Championship in 1990 after coming in as a replacement for Yugolsavia, so these things do happen

I dont understand what the big deal is about having minnow countries produce decent players, these things do happen. There's players like Billy Ketkeo from Laos and Wesley Lautoa from New Caledonia that have played in the French first division, both were first team players. I think its great that these smaller countries produce world class players. Even here in Australia, the likes of Tim Cahill, Harry Kewell, Mark Schwarzer, Bosnich and Viduka are proof that countries regarded as small on the world stage are capable of producing  decent players. I think FM got it right

Sorry to nitpick, but Denmark won the Euros in 1992, while Ketkeo and Lautoa were both born and raised in France. 

I also think it's great that nations without much of a footballing background can still produce strong players every now and then. In my FM13 save at the moment, I've got a young central midfielder from Canada and a promising centre-back from India. To be fair, Canada have produced a lot of high-quality players in that save, but India certainly haven't.

Edited May 2, 2018 by CFuller

[alanschu14]

14 minutes ago, CFuller said:

I've got a young central midfielder from Canada and a promising centre-back from India.

I enjoyed bringing over an Indian Canadian while in India in FM17. He was playing in Canada and I picked him up as an 18 year old and he was my top scorer for several seasons. I moved on to Skeid in Norway and after I had made the top league and was there for a few seasons, I saw that he was the starting forward for one of my competitors making a lot more money. I was very proud of him

[craigd84]

On 4/23/2018 at 21:05, RBKalle said:

But in FM world, a player like Mahrez would have been:

a) potentially as good as he was in Leicester's title season, and thus he'd have had a much better career in the game than IRL
b) as mediocre as he was in France, so a second-tier player with little or no potential left to develop
c) as mediocre as he was in France, but with relatively high potential, but with a low CA that would have stumped his development anyway

The game is NOT able to reproduce actual Late Bloomers and One-Season Wonders at all. But that's even besides the point and my observation.

What I meant is in (older?) FM third-rate countries produce many good players who can easily turn into solid EPL players, while IRL they are few and far between.

 

Zidane is French. Who could of also played for Algeria... 

I'll give you Ghoulam, but it's 2 solid EL-level players in a generation.

There has been a few solid players from minnow nations:
 

George Weah played in the same national team as Chris Wreh and James Debbah two SOLID Ligue 1 players. Liberia produce three good standard players there.

I mean talent-wise.

The dramatic development was possible because CR was immensely talented. Also notice how big the turnover at top academies is, and how low success rate they have, despite investing millions in recruitment, infrastructures etc.

 

My FM14 save is now in its 32nd season, so yeah, I've enough experience in long saves...

BTW, in that very save, Inter Milan had an INDONESIAN wonderkid in their youth intake whose CA/PA was likely in the 160 region as he was a first-team regular and was winning awards. It bothered me so much I had to lower him to 130 and it still irked me.

Indonesia... Really?

You're describing two separate issues...

1) It's true, top nations produce way too many "ready-made" newgens who can walk into almost any Starting XI at age 17 or 18, and by 21 they're NT regulars as well.
1b) Provided the starting CA is high enough, they'll easily break into the first team or, at worst, will be sold to a slightly worse club where they'll still be able to grow a lot

2) Top newgens from smaller nations can be quite flawed or have low CA, thus they'll NOT fulfill their potential and rot in their home country or flounder around Europe's lower leagues.

2b) BUT sometimes they get a high enough CA, with equally good PA, and then they'll follow the same development curve of Brazialian or English wonderkids

 

 

 

Again, my case refers to players with high enough starting CA. Which is the crux of the matter.

IMO the game produces too "many" newgens from random countries with high starting CA if compared to real-life. They may be 3 or 4, but they're still twice as many as the real world, without human intervention.
Of course if a human manager takes action, the figures could be even higher.

 

[axehan1]

Indonesian playing in Germany in my scout report.

[tiago_wakabayashi]

On 23/04/2018 at 17:05, RBKalle said:

The game is NOT able to reproduce actual Late Bloomers and One-Season Wonders at all. But that's even besides the point and my observation.

I remembered of two local cases in Brazil, respectively 

Paulo Baier - He played till 40/41 years but his talent started to be really known when he was close of 30 years. The supporters nicknamed as "Highlander" and other similar joking nicknames because of his football longevity, even because in his career beginning his football name was Paulo Cesar, when he was only an average player and was thinking to stop playing, when he did good season with Criciuma, being Brasileirão Série B champion and since then playing for Serie A teams, like Palmeiras. Currently is retired, acting as manager. Trivia: he was the best Brasileirão top scorer ever in the round robin system* (adopted in 2003) with 106 goals till be surpassed by Fred.

*Formely the Brasileirão had two stages: round robin + playoffs.

Hernane - The striker lived his best career stage in Flamengo, coming from the small but traditional Mogi Mirim, after a good moment being the 2nd São Paulo State Championship top scorer. In Flamengo, he started slow, a few goals for a striker, but in the following season (2013) he had a big jump: Team Top Scorer, the best season scorer (36 goals), Copa do Brasil champion and in that moment the greatest New Maracanã top scorer, with supporters asking him in Seleção due his expressive numbers and in that epoch the Brazil was with problems to find their number 9. Current he's playing in Grêmio in this season, the current Libertadores champion, but far away from those magic numbers of the 2013 season.

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

I think at least the One-Season Wonders still is possible to see in the game, I have as example Emiliano Sala. I am playing with PSG and in one of the seasons was paying my attention a FC Lorient striker with expressive goal numbers, far away from the 2nd top scorer that was Cavani. Then I contracted him in the January Window to weak Lorient and to boost my attack power, with an immediate Cavani sub. even doing a bit less goals than first half of the championship, he was great scoring and creating goals. With the confidence he even doesn't keeping the numbers but getting close them, I kept in the team for the next season. He was worse unfortunately. I had to make money with him while I could and I sold him in January. According the last scout about him currently, his recommendation level is 34.

[RBKalle]

Ok, here are the result of my little research:

Season 2024-25
Large database
Leagues loaded at the time of the sampling:  South Korea, China, South Africa (all tier 1 only).
Previously loaded and then removed: Australia, New Zealand, other Oceanian countries and India

Under 23 players from the original DB with PA >150, -9, -9.5 or -10 vs Under 23 newgens within the save with PA >150

NOT INCLUDED IN THE GRAPHS: 128 Newgens with dual nationality
 

Countries with at least 10 newgens >150 PA.

As you can see, with the exception of Germany (for whatever reason), all Top Nations have a ridiculously high rate of top-quality newgens. Brazil and Argentina alone have produced enough newgens to completely take over the whole Premier League.

BTW, France has 3 players with Basque 2nd nationality, and Spain has 18

For smaller nations it's more of a mixed bag, but still the vast majority of those nations still produce WAY TOO MANY prospects compared to the original DB

Incidentally, Egypt's top 2 players in the db are outside the age bracket, so we can consider the score a 7-2... Still, 7 top-shelf Egyptians are a bit too many anyway.

On the negative end of the spectrum, minor African nations seem to get the shaft, while traditional strong sides like Ivory Coast and Nigeria still churn out many more talents than the increasingly competitive neighbours.

While Iceland's golden generation is a distant memory already, usually irrelevant nations like China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia get their superstars. I'd rant about the Cape Verde one, but I guess he was also Portuguese.

 

You can make a case for smaller nations having older original players who will be "replaced" by the strong newgens, but still they have nothing in the current U23 database anyway, so we have to accept those countries are sort of skipping at least one generation. That is for places with actual semi-top players, while it's absolutely random and unexpected for places with no football tradition or legacy to speak of.

 

 

All in all I see TWO major flaws:

* Top nations churn out Agueros, Coutinhos or Griezmanns at an alarming rate
* Relatively obscure nations produce more Top League players in 5 in-game years than in one century of football
* Globally, the amount of high-potential players is ridiculous if compared to the starting point in the game.

Edited May 5, 2018 by RBKalle

[Nacaw]

2 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Ok, here are the result of my little research:

Season 2024-25
Large database
Leagues loaded at the time of the sampling:  South Korea, China, South Africa (all tier 1 only).
Previously loaded and then removed: Australia, New Zealand, other Oceanian countries and India

Under 23 players from the original DB with PA >150, -9, -9.5 or -10 vs Under 23 newgens within the save with PA >150

NOT INCLUDED IN THE GRAPHS: 128 Newgens with dual nationality
 

Countries with at least 10 newgens >150 PA.

As you can see, with the exception of Germany (for whatever reason), all Top Nations have a ridiculously high rate of top-quality newgens. Brazil and Argentina alone have produced enough newgens to completely take over the whole Premier League.

BTW, France has 3 players with Basque 2nd nationality, and Spain has 18

For smaller nations it's more of a mixed bag, but still the vast majority of those nations still produce WAY TOO MANY prospects compared to the original DB

Incidentally, Egypt's top 2 players in the db are outside the age bracket, so we can consider the score a 7-2... Still, 7 top-shelf Egyptians are a bit too many anyway.

On the negative end of the spectrum, minor African nations seem to get the shaft, while traditional strong sides like Ivory Coast and Nigeria still churn out many more talents than the increasingly competitive neighbours.

While Iceland's golden generation is a distant memory already, usually irrelevant nations like China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia get their superstars. I'd rant about the Cape Verde one, but I guess he was also Portuguese.

 

You can make a case for smaller nations having older original players who will be "replaced" by the strong newgens, but still they have nothing in the current U23 database anyway, so we have to accept those countries are sort of skipping at least one generation. That is for places with actual semi-top players, while it's absolutely random and unexpected for places with no football tradition or legacy to speak of.

 

 

All in all I see TWO major flaws:

* Top nations churn out Agueros, Coutinhos or Griezmanns at an alarming rate
* Relatively obscure nations produce more Top League players in 5 in-game years than in one century of football
* Globally, the amount of high-potential players is ridiculous if compared to the starting point in the game.

Please, just stop. It's absolutely pointless to draw such wide conclusions from one game and you are just cherry picking numbers. Run 100, or better 1000 sims and show the average results.

You need to compare the entire database at game start, with the entire database at 10 years into the future. That's what can really be compared, as that is the status quo we're trying to maintain with newgens. You need to look at CA in any proper comparison as well, PA is only half the story. PA alone says very little actually, and could probably be explained as easily as looking at the youth rating for each country. 

In any case, there's certainly NOT wonderkid after wonderkid coming from India, Indonesia or China. And that's with their leagues loaded, which you obviously chose to do for inflated numbers to support your weak point. We're trying to replicate the gameworld most players experience, there will obviously be a larger impact when you manipulate it by adding nations no-one else uses. To further underline your inaccuracy, you make it seem like these are numbers for 5 years when it's actually 8 full youth intakes.  

And again this hate against random small nations.. Cape Verde has recently enjoyed their best ever international form, qualifying for 2 ACONs and reaching an all-time high world ranking of 27th. Other than that, they have a rich history of supplying players to the Portuguese national team and others, chief amongst them dual nationality players Henrik Larsson and Patrick Viera. If anything, they are vastly underrepresented with only a single 150 PA player.

[RBKalle]

1 ora fa, Nacaw ha scritto:

Please, just stop. It's absolutely pointless to draw such wide conclusions from one game and you are just cherry picking numbers. Run 100, or better 1000 sims and show the average results.

When I'll be paid to do so, I'll gladly run 1000000 simulations.

Until then, that's all I'm willing to do, and I already feel it shouldn't come to random users having to "test" weird stuff that should have been picked up by the beta-testers already. (and this goes for plenty of other, more serious, problems we've had throughout the years).

 

Quote

You need to compare the entire database at game start, with the entire database at 10 years into the future. That's what can really be compared, as that is the status quo we're trying to maintain with newgens. You need to look at CA in any proper comparison as well, PA is only half the story. PA alone says very little actually, and could probably be explained as easily as looking at the youth rating for each country. 

For the Nth time, high PA is a problem in itself because the game's development dynamics makes it too easy for players with high enough potential to make it, to an extent. Let alone if it's the human manager the one scooping up talents from all corners of the world (and selling the failed ones for profit to an overly "gullible" AI)

And I feel the current comparison is still telling.

The Messis and the Ronaldos have been replaced by the original db wonderkids, while they have indeed been replaced by the plethora of >150 talents. Most from Argentina and Brasil...

Isn't it weird how, only 6 seasons into the game, Italy and Spain could have easily "skipped" a full generation of modest talents courtesy of a generous youth intake after another?

I mean, SPAIN has increased the amout of potential top-players LITERALLY BY TENFOLD! How does it make sense?

 

Quote

In any case, there's certainly NOT wonderkid after wonderkid coming from India, Indonesia or China. And that's with their leagues loaded, which you obviously chose to do for inflated numbers to support your weak point. We're trying to replicate the gameworld most players experience, there will obviously be a larger impact when you manipulate it by adding nations no-one else uses. To further underline your inaccuracy, you make it seem like these are numbers for 5 years when it's actually 8 full youth intakes.  

Oh give me a ****ing break!

I'm playing a Five Continents challenge and decided to start in Oceania, then moving to Asia... If that's the kind of mindset you're in, NOTHING will convince you I'm simply getting sidetracked by this topic while just playing a regular career.

Quote

And again this hate against random small nations.. Cape Verde has recently enjoyed their best ever international form, qualifying for 2 ACONs and reaching an all-time high world ranking of 27th. Other than that, they have a rich history of supplying players to the Portuguese national team and others, chief amongst them dual nationality players Henrik Larsson and Patrick Viera. If anything, they are vastly underrepresented with only a single 150 PA player.

FFS, it's not "hate"... it's mild bemusement when I see nations that have rarely, if ever, produced decent players get a couple of hot prospects that will usually get signed by clubs at a high level, thus helping their development.

And of course the Cape Verdian players who were good chose to play for the stronger nation (hence, the "oh, you know he could have been eligible for Cape Verde too?" was a piece of football trivia)... Here, this single CV star hasn't opted for a second nationality, which is quite weird, but let's give him and FM the benefit of the doubt...

Also, Cape Verde was at best Vieira's THIRD nationality, so for all intents and purposes he's as French as Barthez or Blanc...

 

P.S. for what it's worth, I root for a smaller nation. One which, even in its Golden Generation, hasn't produced more than a handful of good EPL-players... So all your accusations of "football racism" are not only silly, but also baseless.
I'd find it equally off-putting had Norway been producing 10 Riise and 10 Solskjær per youth intake...

Edited May 5, 2018 by RBKalle

[Nacaw]

16 hours ago, RBKalle said:

When I'll be paid to do so, I'll gladly run 1000000 simulations.

Until then, that's all I'm willing to do, and I already feel it shouldn't come to random users having to "test" weird stuff that should have been picked up by the beta-testers already. (and this goes for plenty of other, more serious, problems we've had throughout the years).

I'm not saying you should. I'm saying it's what you need to do to prove any kind of point in your argument.

16 hours ago, RBKalle said:

For the Nth time, high PA is a problem in itself because the game's development dynamics makes it too easy for players with high enough potential to make it, to an extent. Let alone if it's the human manager the one scooping up talents from all corners of the world (and selling the failed ones for profit to an overly "gullible" AI)

And I feel the current comparison is still telling.

The Messis and the Ronaldos have been replaced by the original db wonderkids, while they have indeed been replaced by the plethora of >150 talents. Most from Argentina and Brasil...

Isn't it weird how, only 6 seasons into the game, Italy and Spain could have easily "skipped" a full generation of modest talents courtesy of a generous youth intake after another?

I mean, SPAIN has increased the amout of potential top-players LITERALLY BY TENFOLD! How does it make sense?

There are more high PA players because the AI isn't good at developing players. In order to keep a realistic game world, there is a need for more high PA players than start in the database. That isn't up for discussion, it's a simple fact. One human manager isn't a problem either in the game world, maybe you'll add 20 extra 150+ CA players to the player pool over the described period. PA in itself is still totally useless, Spain does not call players up based on their PA. That's where you need to look at CA in relation to the PA. Who cares if Norway has 10 wonderkids, if only two of them develop? In that case two is the important number. Spain is a weird example anyway. In your arbitrary selection method, it's clear that they haven't been producing many talented youth players the last 5 years. But this is uncharacteristic, they have been underproducing. Spain is known as a great football nation and will likely return to producing more talented youth players in the coming five years. The data generated by FM reflects this. 

The biggest problem, as you seem to have finally noticed after it was pointed out weeks ago, is that Brazil and Argentina not only produce so many 150+ PA players, but also get their CA close to this. Which is not the case for other nations. Even your flawed simulation will likely prove this. Again, the connection between PA and CA is crucial here, not just the PA. But I would argue that these two nations produce too many high PA players as well. 

 

16 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Oh give me a ****ing break!

I'm playing a Five Continents challenge and decided to start in Oceania, then moving to Asia... If that's the kind of mindset you're in, NOTHING will convince you I'm simply getting sidetracked by this topic while just playing a regular career.

I'm not interested in your career choices, I'm interested in usable data about how most people experience the game world. That's the only way to support any points.

 

16 hours ago, RBKalle said:

FFS, it's not "hate"... it's mild bemusement when I see nations that have rarely, if ever, produced decent players get a couple of hot prospects that will usually get signed by clubs at a high level, thus helping their development.

And of course the Cape Verdian players who were good chose to play for the stronger nation (hence, the "oh, you know he could have been eligible for Cape Verde too?" was a piece of football trivia)... Here, this single CV star hasn't opted for a second nationality, which is quite weird, but let's give him and FM the benefit of the doubt...

Also, Cape Verde was at best Vieira's THIRD nationality, so for all intents and purposes he's as French as Barthez or Blanc...

3

I'm not seeing the same in the data as you. None of the minor nations have values that are crazy outliers as you seem to suggest. Even if  Cape Verde had FIVE players with 150 PA, I would say that's realistic. All five reaching their potential, however, would not be realistic. If there was a pattern with the same minor nation producing wonderkid after wonderkid that reach their potential, we could talk about a database flaw. 

 

[ryanlion28]

On 05/05/2018 at 06:18, axehan1 said:

Indonesian playing in Germany in my scout report.

Nice to finally see a screenshot! Looks like he's bossingitfor Indonesia!

[enigmatic]

FM produces a lot more newgens with 150+ PA than in the original game, and has done for a very long time

I assume this is entirely deliberate, because (i) PA is an artificial limitation to influence what level real life players end up at based on a number of known factors about their actual experience, improvements in recent seasons, physical growth potential and bigger club interest, not an actual thing (ii) it's reasonably balanced by the higher potential newgens being much more likely to stagnate due to crap personalities, crap starting clubs and crap AI management than real life players and (iii) it's a game, and ultimately if newgen PA was distributed the way it is for real life players the whole academy side of the game would be incredibly lame because you'd only get one player every couple of years worth bothering with. Making everyone have 10-20 more points of possible improvement and typically needing more work to get there gives a lot more scope for youth challenges etc. 

Looking at the distribution of nationalities, it doesn't seem like there's anything very wrong with it once you've taken into account all the players are 10-20 points better in potential than starting players (particularly when you take into account most of the Danes and Poles will probably have successful careers at good European clubs and most of the Iranians probably won't get near that potential, and I bet France/Portugal/Germany have a decent chunk of dual nationals compared with Brazil & Argentina). 

[Nacaw]

On 06/05/2018 at 15:19, enigmatic said:

FM produces a lot more newgens with 150+ PA than in the original game, and has done for a very long time

I assume this is entirely deliberate, because (i) PA is an artificial limitation to influence what level real life players end up at based on a number of known factors about their actual experience, improvements in recent seasons, physical growth potential and bigger club interest, not an actual thing (ii) it's reasonably balanced by the higher potential newgens being much more likely to stagnate due to crap personalities, crap starting clubs and crap AI management than real life players and (iii) it's a game, and ultimately if newgen PA was distributed the way it is for real life players the whole academy side of the game would be incredibly lame because you'd only get one player every couple of years worth bothering with. Making everyone have 10-20 more points of possible improvement and typically needing more work to get there gives a lot more scope for youth challenges etc. 

Looking at the distribution of nationalities, it doesn't seem like there's anything very wrong with it once you've taken into account all the players are 10-20 points better in potential than starting players (particularly when you take into account most of the Danes and Poles will probably have successful careers at good European clubs and most of the Iranians probably won't get near that potential, and I bet France/Portugal/Germany have a decent chunk of dual nationals compared with Brazil & Argentina). 

Fully agree with this. Having many flawed but usable regens is much preferred to having a few perfect ones and many terrible ones in the current game world. Heck, I even think this mirrors real life fairly well. I see many former high PA players that never maxed out their CA. Quick example would be Benteke from Crystal Palace. I'd rate him at 175 PA when he got 19 premiership goals at age 21. However, he only ever reached 140 (even less this season obviously) for whatever reason, and FM doesn't try to represent this. The only players with large PA/CA differences are a few older star players which are definitely over the hill, and ofc in youth players, including regens. The starting database is low on players above 150+ PA, because it doesn't account for most of the current players that had potential but failed to get there.

[alanschu14]

On 5/5/2018 at 08:42, RBKalle said:

Relatively obscure nations produce more Top League players in 5 in-game years than in one century of football

Wait, I thought you were talking about PA with your numbers?

These players had all become top league players?

[a.panda]

@RBKalle I have to applaud you for the vast amount of information curated from your game. It is never easy to load the original DB and also the in-game editor to churn out all the numbers etc.

 

Now, get to the point. I do not see a major flux in minnow countries producing high-POTENTIAL (not current ability) players in 2025 in your game. There has been in general a 2-4 times increase (judging by the main nations) in the number of players with PA>150+, but this has been explained in earlier posts and I would take the explanation as a valid point. 

You mentioned Egypt, Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia as four "minnow" nations to have a bumped-up of POTENTIAL superstars. For Egypt you mentioned a 7-2 if you counted some slightly over-aged original DB players, and this is within the 2-4x window you laid out. Mind you, at this lower number comparison the ratio fluctuates so much it is almost meaningless. If you say there is only one over-aged PA>150+, then the ratio would rise rapidly from 3.5x to 7x. I hope you understand what I am trying to say.

For Iraq and Saudi Arabia, one PA>150+ for each country does not count as a major bumped-up isn't it?

For China, a 3-0 is shown, but for clubs in China it has been known that clubs improve their youth setup / recruitment / junior coaching due to the unlimited money influx from the foreground/background sugardaddies. Check if the main clubs have done so between 2017 and 2025, and I would not be surprised many of them have improved their facilities and thus their chance of churning out PA>150+.

 

And, I was slightly disappointed that you didn't show other data to support for hypothesis that minnow countries making up a significant portion in EPL or Bundesliga etc. I would have thought you'd provide screenshots of many players settling well in these leagues without coming from, say, the English or German setup. It would be great to compare their career paths and see if they really come from the minnow countries, and how many of them are employed by the clubs. Because what we have seen is one Indonesian player at Inter.

 

However, the main issue your research isn't comprehensive, is it only shows the potential abilities of players in your save. As mentioned many times, PA does not mean the end of story - there are many, many players having high potentials and hopes (C. Samba? F. Adu?) but failed to materialise their potential. To prove your argument I suggest you note down those regens in 2025 who have high potential in those countries you claimed to be imbalanced, take screenshots and record their careers at intervals (the more frequent the better), until, say, 2035. We can then come back and see if those regens a) have developed to their full potential, b) have their career paths altered by the involvement of big clubs or facilities "organically", c) have taken over the top leagues in vast amount. You would not need to play the save - just holiday it until a timepoint, record and continue.

Now before you jump on me and question "why would I have to do this", it is up to you to do so, but if you choose not to, we have no solid points for the whole discussion to develop, and baseless arguments would easily turn dirty (with more asterisked words).

For an even better experiment, it is best to start a new save to do the above, because even the slightest human involvement would detour the save, and also saves you from explaining you have done nothing to mingle with data 

 

So, the whole discussion, I believe, has branched out to three related but different streams:

1. Why are regens having higher PA in general?

2. Is the spread of high-potential regens country-wise even enough?

3. Are the high-potential regens, especially the minnow nation ones, developed better than in reality that the future footballing world is disrupted?

For now, my answer would be:

1. Yes, but this is how the game is set up to work to tackle several issues/limits

2. No

3. Inconclusive.

Edited May 8, 2018 by a.panda

[RBKalle]

1 ora fa, a.panda ha scritto:

And, I was slightly disappointed that you didn't show other data to support for hypothesis that minnow countries making up a significant portion in EPL or Bundesliga etc. I would have thought you'd provide screenshots of many players settling well in these leagues without coming from, say, the English or German setup. It would be great to compare their career paths and see if they really come from the minnow countries, and how many of them are employed by the clubs. Because what we have seen is one Indonesian player at Inter.

Keep in mind it was a "spur of the moment" research based on a gameworld I had created for a whole different reason (whether the "gentleman" who has questioned my motifs a few posts above cares about it or not...).

It was just a slice of FM life with no agenda or no criteria set, which is both a weakness and a strength IMO. Had I willingly and precisely set a scenario up to investigate how newgen distribution works, it'd have been much easier to skew the results by design.

I have to admit I'm still intrigued by the idea of a more throughout and rigorous analysis, but I'm not sure about the setup... Active leagues do get an advantage, so maybe the best way is to create a game with only a marginal league active, while the rest of the world is simulated as inactive?

BTW, I can still follow some of the aforementioned prospects to see where they end up and how good they'll become, but it'll still be very anecdotal to many.

[alanschu14]

5 hours ago, a.panda said:

You mentioned Egypt, Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia

With respect to Egypt, we'd have to talk with the scouting team at SI because Egypt does have a very high quality regen score of 138 (England's is only 120). Obviously more factors at play with so many more clubs in England and many of them having fantastic youth intakes to ensure there's going to be plenty of English footballers with high quality potential compared to Egypt, but as a dope for international football knowledge the impression that I get is that this is either a bug, or SI feels Egypt should have decent enough regens.

China's generated player score is a mere 60.  KSA is 85.  Iraq is 106.

Now I understand these are just "weights" that get used to factor in regens. China can probably compensate overtime because the clubs themselves are often quite rich and can probably grow facilities over time. But the game does not appear to do very much to support these particular clubs and their intakes based on the systems provided.

 

I also think that there's another factor with regards to comparing real players and regens. Real players, with each edition of the game, get tweaked. There's undoubtedly issues where players that were seen to have excellent potential in FM just didn't pan out, and their PA would have changed with different versions of the game. Same goes for players no one expected to become rockstars that had low PA in FM, but later had higher CA/PA because reality had them being very good players.  In essence though, we probably have a lot more context over how good a player is going to be based on real life scouting information and whatnot and don't need to roll the dice as much, so to speak.

Especially with the AI not being particularly strong at developing players compared to a human.

 

[a.panda]

4 hours ago, RBKalle said:

I'm not sure about the setup... Active leagues do get an advantage, so maybe the best way is to create a game with only a marginal league active, while the rest of the world is simulated as inactive?

I guess one could start a save with EVERY league (either all in game, or with Classen's league pack given the popularity and apparent impartiality), or use a commonly-utilised range of leagues (e.g. Euro top 5 with the two South Americans). Results would be skewed nevertheless, but a new save would eliminate any possible conflicts in human intervention 

4 hours ago, RBKalle said:

I can still follow some of the aforementioned prospects to see where they end up and how good they'll become, but it'll still be very anecdotal to many.

Looking forward to it, but not necessary if it is tedious to do so. Thanks in ahead. Out of interest are they any current stars from minnow nations in your save that has reached the level of top leagues that you find suspicious?

Talking of this, I realised there is a big assumption correlating ability with playing level - some players are in the top leagues not by their CA but by attribute spread, performance, reputation, language, fav personnels, or by nationality alone. So for that Indonesian star it would be nationality reasons, but would be interesting to see for the other "minnow stars".

 

 

55 minutes ago, alanschu14 said:

Egypt does have a very high quality regen score of 138

Geez this is quite high! I do set reminder to scout North Africa for a few iterations of FM but this seems a bit beyond the norm. However, I find that research outside the 51(2?) nations are not as accurate nor updated.

Edited May 8, 2018 by a.panda

[alanschu14]

16 minutes ago, a.panda said:

Geez this is quite high! I do set reminder to scout North Africa for a few iterations of FM but this seems a bit beyond the norm. However, I find that research outside the 51(2?) nations are not as accurate nor updated.

Yeah it is pretty high compared to a lot of other nations. It's probably among the top in the world, which is why I'm a bit suspect that it's not an issue in retrospect (when I first saw it, I just deferred to SI probably knowing more than the nothing I know!).

I'm not sure the values have changed at all over the years or anything, and if these values correspond to a balancing act for how the intake systems work (e.g. I wouldn't be surprised if England's value is a bit lower just because it has the most active leagues/teams which already gives them a good chance of having excellent regens as a nation, or if maybe it's an indictment on English football development which I hear isn't as awesome as other countries).

I ended up in Germany which I think is the 2nd or 3rd highest, but based on RBKalle's analysis they were lower in terms of regens with high PA compared to a lot of other nations, so there is definitely something more at play here.

[enigmatic]

3 hours ago, alanschu14 said:

With respect to Egypt, we'd have to talk with the scouting team at SI because Egypt does have a very high quality regen score of 138 (England's is only 120). Obviously more factors at play with so many more clubs in England and many of them having fantastic youth intakes to ensure there's going to be plenty of English footballers with high quality potential compared to Egypt, but as a dope for international football knowledge the impression that I get is that this is either a bug, or SI feels Egypt should have decent enough regens.

China's generated player score is a mere 60.  KSA is 85.  Iraq is 106.

Now I understand these are just "weights" that get used to factor in regens. China can probably compensate overtime because the clubs themselves are often quite rich and can probably grow facilities over time. But the game does not appear to do very much to support these particular clubs and their intakes based on the systems provided.

 

I also think that there's another factor with regards to comparing real players and regens. Real players, with each edition of the game, get tweaked. There's undoubtedly issues where players that were seen to have excellent potential in FM just didn't pan out, and their PA would have changed with different versions of the game. Same goes for players no one expected to become rockstars that had low PA in FM, but later had higher CA/PA because reality had them being very good players.  In essence though, we probably have a lot more context over how good a player is going to be based on real life scouting information and whatnot and don't need to roll the dice as much, so to speak.

Especially with the AI not being particularly strong at developing players compared to a human.

 

From experiments in FM17 (more pissing about with databases and watching Chinese superstars fail to win a world cup and Indian superstars fail to materialise than serious research) , those youth rating scores really don't affect very much (and I think are mostly intended as counterbalances to the reputation and facilities of the nation's clubs, which also impact the players they generate). You can crank that score for, say, Indonesia up to 200 and hardly ever see wonderkid amongst the Indonesian intake.

What actually makes a massive difference is the national reputation (bump a national team's reputation up to 8000 and they'll get some very good regens, even if their local clubs suck but that reputation will also drop very quickly if they don't keep winning tournaments...)  and the reputation of clubs that tend to generate players of that nationality (establish San Marino's local club side in Serie A as many FMers have and the San Marino national team will eventually become competitive)

[alanschu14]

9 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

From experiments in FM17 (more pissing about with databases and watching Chinese superstars fail to win a world cup and Indian superstars fail to materialise than serious research) , those youth rating scores really don't affect very much (and I think are mostly intended as counterbalances to the reputation and facilities of the nation's clubs, which also impact the players they generate). You can crank that score for, say, Indonesia up to 200 and hardly ever see wonderkid amongst the Indonesian intake.

What actually makes a massive difference is the national reputation (bump a national team's reputation up to 8000 and they'll get some very good regens, even if their local clubs suck but that reputation will also drop very quickly if they don't keep winning tournaments...)  and the reputation of clubs that tend to generate players of that nationality (establish San Marino's local club side in Serie A as many FMers have and the San Marino national team will eventually become competitive)

Ah interesting! That's fair since there's a lot of conflating variables. Wouldn't surprise me that a nation's overall profile was the most influential, though I did figure it was set up as a sort of "counterbalance" for nations to give an oh so sleight boost to their chances to have a good regen (hence Germany, Brazil, etc).  But there are a lot of variables at play as you point out so it's difficult to say "Brazil gets excellent regens because it's youth rating score is high" without finding a way to isolate for all the reputations for every team (club and national) that also play a factor.

I'm guessing if I went and made a top Indonesian team have 10000 reputation and they'll see a really excellent regen as well.

That said, this does restore a bit of optimism that I could make Canada a football powerhouse!

 

Edited May 8, 2018 by alanschu14

[RBKalle]

If I'm not mistaken, Youth Rating works in conjunction with Importance and Development.

Anyway, I'll take a look at how many of the >150PA players have developed into average top-league players (CA >130) to see if there really is an issue or it's just my perception

[alanschu14]

45 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

If I'm not mistaken, Youth Rating works in conjunction with Importance and Development

Admittedly much of what I have learned is just from peeling back layers and making inference. That said, I'm not sure what you're referring to here with respect to "Importance and Development." (if they are ratings I just don't recall them)

[ryanlion28]

To be fair referring to the North African nations as 'minnows' is surprising to me considering Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia and Egypt are 4 of the best african nations and you'll see at least 1 of them at every world cup.

I'd say without conducting any research and basing it of my own evaluations i'd say it is true that Egypt for example do produce a number of high quality PA regens over the space of 10 years, but do many really reach their potential?

I'd presume 2 of their biggest clubs, Al Ahly and Zamalek have good youth academies and do bring in some of the best Egyptian players. Thing that makes a difference is whether the young talent remains in Egypt or gets a move to Europe.

I'd say it might be a case on FM where a bigger club will notice a young talent playing in Egypt quicker than might happen in real life, which helps them realise their potential.

If i use Salah as an example, he was picked up by a big club in Basel at a young age, but if he remained in Egypt for a further 2/3 years his development might have stalled and he might not be the player he is.

This probably happens a lot in real life, i'm sure there's talented prospects all over the globe who's development gets stalled due to not being picked up quick enough.

The reason you might see a nation like Egypt reach the semi finals of the 2030 World Cup on FM is because their talented youths get picked up early and therefore do get the opportunity to realise their potential.

Thing is, the main point of this topic was to find wonderkids from real minnow nations, i.e. ranked 150th in the world and under, and the fact is there's not been many screenshots at all of players from real minnow nations, so i'd say the balance is perfect atm

[Cyp]

Citation

Zidane is French. Who could of also played for Algeria... 

I'll give you Ghoulam, but it's 2 solid EL-level players in a generation.

There has been a few solid players from minnow nations:

When talking about Algeria, you omit a lot of players (check the team). But the problem is that most aren't product of Algerian football...but of french football...

Just check how many Algerian at WC2014 :

• were also French (16...) , born in France
• never played for an algerian club
• played for france junior side...

From a football point of view, Mahrez is french (born in france, formed in france...would have been generated in a french club) .

For France, a lot of player from the junior team have chosen to play with another country : Mbaye Niang, Meghni, Brahimi, Feghouli,  Aubameyang, Lemina...

My gut feeling is that there is not enough player with dual nationality generated in France, and other Western European countries...and that they might be changing their main nationality too late (African countries are going after them for their main team early)

 

[ryanlion28]

This is also why you get a lot of top players on FM from nations like Comoros or Madagascar - born in France to parents from Comoros/Madagascar.

It's actually very intriguing to see when this happens, These are what i consider true minnows

[Sebfromsusie]

I had this insane striker in my journeyman save

Edited June 12, 2018 by Sebfromsusie

[Ales]

Below are some examples from my two current saves (FM 2007).

One from Syria: created at Gloria (Romania). 

One from Uzbekistan: created at Neftchi Fergala (UZB)

One from Armenia: created at Man Utd

One from Congo DR: created at Westerlo (BEL)

One from the Guinea: created at Bastia (FRA)

 

Has anyone witnessed these wonderkids secured their nation some shock win /qualification for a major tournament?

I once had two Venezuelan strikers in my team who scored 10 out of 11 goals in Copa America and winning bronze medal. But they failed to qualify for the WC.

 

[allezdae]

On 12/06/2018 at 13:26, Ales said:

Below are some examples from my two current saves (FM 2007).

One from Syria: created at Gloria (Romania). 

One from Uzbekistan: created at Neftchi Fergala (UZB)

One from Armenia: created at Man Utd

One from Congo DR: created at Westerlo (BEL)

One from the Guinea: created at Bastia (FRA)

 

Has anyone witnessed these wonderkids secured their nation some shock win /qualification for a major tournament?

I once had two Venezuelan strikers in my team who scored 10 out of 11 goals in Copa America and winning bronze medal. But they failed to qualify for the WC.

 

Well done on getting to 2160! Maybe in More than one hundred years time, Guinea will be an economic power. 160 years ago Brazil didn't produce that many wonderkids IIRC.

 

 

[ryanlion28]

On 12/06/2018 at 08:32, Sebfromsusie said:

I had this insane striker in my journeyman save

This is what i'm talking about! Do you mind showing his history?

[ryanlion28]

On 14/06/2018 at 15:00, allezdae said:

Well done on getting to 2160! Maybe in More than one hundred years time, Guinea will be an economic power. 160 years ago Brazil didn't produce that many wonderkids IIRC.

 

 

This is a nice range!  feel like the Armenian and Guinean compare to Mkhitaryan and Naby Keita who are both top talents from these nations.

 

We're yet to see a top level Uzbekistan or Syrian in the real world yet though!

[Ales]

On 27/06/2018 at 20:52, ryanlion28 said:

This is a nice range!  feel like the Armenian and Guinean compare to Mkhitaryan and Naby Keita who are both top talents from these nations.

 

We're yet to see a top level Uzbekistan or Syrian in the real world yet though!

Everyone except the Syrian one is from my Man Utd save, where I am only in 2021, so it is still time.  The Armenian has got into goal rut, so I sold him to Inter.

I found  two older pictures from my other save (further ahead in time), I  mentioned Venezuela once had and amazing strike force, sharing 100+goals in the international team, guiding Venezuela to the 2111 Copa America 3rd place. The pictures are seven year older, so the older one (Gonzales) has slightly decreased attributes. The younger one retired in 2123. Despite the duo Venezuela never reached higher than penultimate place in every WC qualifiers.