Managing Youth

[alanschu14]

My lowly VNS team rose quickly to eventually be in CH League for a few years and just made it to EPL team. We avoided relegation too!  In this time we've maxed our stadium capacity and our training/youth facilities continue to improve (and upgrades finish in 4 days too!).

As such I'm in a better position to start developing youth, something I love and honestly probably why I was eventually successful in CH League and even leagues below (picking up EPL discards and cheap young players, growing them and selling them was how I made a good chunk of money my first few years in the CH League).

My U21 team is now in Group 1 and my U18 team is in Group 2.  My general strategy for the most part has been static: training kids primarily in physical attributes when they're a part of the U18 team.  When they move to U21 start looking to loan them out (I'm also now being more diligent to make sure I loan them out to teams with good training facilities too).  But with my U21 team being in Group 1, I'm wonder if it's maybe more beneficial to keep my players there a bit longer?  Since I've also taken to finding young players from abroad that are under 18 years old (so they can get HG status), I know there are advantages to keeping them on my team, especially as Euro Cup evidently requires 4 roster slots for "grown by team" which I didn't realize either!

I think in the short term I plan on keeping my U18s local as long as they can.  It's excellent for their physical abilities and lets me cater their PPMs/Tutoring and any positional training I'd like them to do more easily.  But even then turns out I have a potential wonderkid STC who is already probably ready for L1/CH team.  Obviously if he's good enough for my First Team I'd keep him there, but feel that a loan to L1 might not be sufficient enough, while a loan to CH League will probably do him good.  Even then, Group 2 U18 is still showing loads of skill growth and maybe keeping him around after he joins U21 is still best for me to control his development and have him available for occasional First Team fixtures (He got a good chunk of time playing the qualifying rounds of the Euro Cup for example).

 

Rambled a bit but I enjoy the youth development and having "Excellent Youth Coaching" with the persistent improvements I've made to recruitment and Youth/Training facilities is probably the main reason why I'm still going strong despite my game now being in 2028

 

Cheers!

[herne79]

Good going on your VNS team .

I'm not 100% sure what the question is here, but I think you've already answered yourself .

[alanschu14]

I guess it's not a specific question perse but a thread for discussion >.>

If there's something more specific, it'd be balancing when it is best to send a player out on a loan, compared to keeping them around. I think local training facilities are super important and something I hadn't considered much, but I also wonder if 1 month loans somewhere would get people "more match experience at a higher level" then they can return home to better training facilities?  I can get any idea for whether a loan to a league makes sense based on the league reputation level, but the youth teams don't get that.

Oh and while I write this I wonder, what helps a team decide I'm the bestest senior affiliate for them?  I imagine reputation plays a large part?  But it became a conscious decision to find places with good facilities for my loaner clubs. I have Stevenage which, until recently, had better facilities to me and it seems like it had a good effect (anecdotally).  But they didn't have a senior affiliate at the time. I tried a different place that had excellent facilities, but they didn't want to replace their current senior affiliate.

(Also hat tip to Peterborough who basically got me into L1 on the strength of their loaned players! )

[AFCBeer]

Generally you are better off NOT sending a hot prospect out on loan. However, as with many situations on FM it depends....

Ideally, if you have a 17 year old who is only slightly below the standard of the current first team player in that position, get him in. The trade off between slight reduction in ability will be more than made up with the improvement your hot prospect will show in the medium term let alone long term. Of course its not always that easy if you are struggling in the league and every result is vital. For positions like MC where rotation is easy then definitely give as much game time as possible. For more specialist positions then a loan is worth considering.

My criteria is if I cant guarantee game time immediately, I'll loan a player to a lower league club provided:-

• They play at a much higher standard than my reserves (ideally only 1 level below first team)
• He is assured of game time
• The club has good training facilities

The crucial thing is, if you agree to a loan move, you have to commit to first team football upon his return. Never loan a player out without a plan.

Regarding training, I nearly always work on technical attributes. Physical attributes develop with age anyway, while mental attributes tend to improve with first team experience. For that reason, the ideal candidates to loan are those who have decent technical and physical attributes but still lack on the mental side of the game. Obviously if you have an otherwise quality youth player who is woefully lacking in a particular physical attribute then you might need to develop that, but unfortunately it might not be possible to get to an acceptable standard regardless.

The great thing is that in my experience (I have no proof of this) but high PA young players tend to outperform their attributes immediately which means persevering with them in your first XI should quickly reap rewards.

[alanschu14]

Awesome thanks!
 

17 hours ago, AFCBeer said:

My criteria is if I cant guarantee game time immediately, I'll loan a player to a lower league club provided:-

• They play at a much higher standard than my reserves (ideally only 1 level below first team)
• He is assured of game time
• The club has good training facilities

The great thing is that in my experience (I have no proof of this) but high PA young players tend to outperform their attributes immediately which means persevering with them in your first XI should quickly reap rewards.

I definitely had factored in points 2 and 3.  Is there a way to assess the standard of reserve/u18 teams?  My understanding for 1st Teams was the league reputation, but I can't find anything like that for the reserve teams.  I guess I could peek at the players within the reserve league?  I do play better youth teams now that I'm in Group 2, but hard to tell if it's better than lending them out to a CH League team.

 

Quote

Regarding training, I nearly always work on technical attributes. Physical attributes develop with age anyway, while mental attributes tend to improve with first team experience. For that reason, the ideal candidates to loan are those who have decent technical and physical attributes but still lack on the mental side of the game. Obviously if you have an otherwise quality youth player who is woefully lacking in a particular physical attribute then you might need to develop that, but unfortunately it might not be possible to get to an acceptable standard regardless.

Ah interesting. My U18 team focuses heavily on Physical attributes because I figured that was when they'd be most likely to make an impact! I'll experiment with this more.

And yeah, my one phenom in my youth program is in his last year of U18 and already flirting with being better than my backups.  In fact I already included him in early rounds of the Euro Cup (Evidently I qualified due to "fair play" so wooo) which also saw him get "Match experience at a higher level" bonus so that seems to have turned out well with some luck B-)

 

Agreed with the plan aspect too.  Though I'd add that sometimes it can be good to loan to pump up the value of someone you realize probably isn't cut out for first league.  That said, now that I'm in EPL that isn't really as necessary as an extra $500k-$1M isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things.... that said I'm still a penny pincher! ("Ooo I got $100k prize money woo that pays for my youth team this year" lol)

[Ceching You Out]

I generally try not to point people at a long thread for an answer, but there isn't a single best way to develop your youth. Some folks (like @Jimbokav1971 in the thread linked below) believe in shaping each youth player every step along the way. He prefers keeping his youth at the club through their formative years (~23 y.o.) for tutoring, targeted training, and PPMs.

My approach is more aggressive and less tailored. I more or less use four categories for my youth players:
(1) Talented enough to make the 2- or 3- deep depth chart. They train with the first team and get rotation minutes.
(2) Needing further evaluation of their potential and monitoring of their progress. They stay in my youth teams until they fall into one of the other categories.
(3) Unable to make it at the club. They are loan candidates.
(4) On the fringes of the depth chart who need a bigger challenge. They are loan candidates as well.

I'd recommend reading the linked thread for more info. While I take a different tack, @Jimbokav1971 does a great job of detailing his approach plus there are some interesting discussions on the approach of some of the other FMers playing youth-only challenges.

[Jimbokav1971]

Hi @alanschu14

My whole reason for playing the game now is Youth development, so even without @Ceching You Outlinking you to my thread, it's a discussion I am certainly interested in. 

As has been pointed out, I have a particular style of playing, but that style is as a result of the particular team I am managing, (Partizan Belgrade in Serbia), and it's tailored for their particular position not only within World/European Football, but also Serbian football, (I think they would have sacked me in my early years had I not won the Serbian SuperLeague for example). Put me at a club in a bigger footballing Nation than Serbia, (or a real minnow for that matter), and some of the strategies I employ might have to be changed, or even done away with completely, and now avenues to success found. 

Some of what I am going to tell you will be just plain common sense I'm sure, (so apologies for boring you), and other stuff might not be agreed upon by the whole community, (I tend to do what I think works rather than what someone else writes on a forum). I've also not got any documented tangible proof for some of my thought processes, and it's often a mix of a gut feeling about the game, (and also about real life and how I would want the game to work if I was making it), rather than absolute 100% fact.

That being said.

• When a player signs a pro contract, I move them from the Youth/U18/U19 squad and put them in the Reserves immediately. What I also do however is make them available for the  Youth/U18/U19 team. This means that they are still going to be competing at the same level as they were previously, but by virtue of them becoming a full-time Pro, they will be able to train more and to take advantage I need to get them out of the Youth/U18/U19 squad and into the Reserves or Seniors. It's rare that a player will go direct into the Seniors, but if he's a 5.0 PA player and I have an opening where I think I might be able to get him some game-time, then I see absolutely no issue with him going into the Senior Squad, being made available for the Youth/U18/U19 Squad and then managing his availability on an as and when basis. 
• I've hinted at a 5.0 PA youngster going straight into the Senior squad, (with a view to gaining minutes on the pitch at senior level), as this sort of exposure is absolute gold-dust in terms of developing a player. When I was managing San Marino in a FM14, I had the luxury of 12 subs so I was always able to have at least a few youngsters on the bench and if we were 2 or 3 up at half-time, (or even before), then I would just throw the youngsters on, safe in the knowledge that we weren't going to throw the game away from that position, (at least not with my ultra-Pro squad and Model Pro captain, but that's another story). Now though, although I'm managing a bigger fish in a smaller pond, I'm also using an IR button, (Instant Result if you don't know), so because I'm not actually managing the games, I have to be more risky and play the youngsters from the start. This doesn't mean that they play the full 90 mins, because usually the Ass Man will just drag them off at HT irrespective of score-line or performance. Would I prefer that they were kept on for a full 90 on occasion? Yes of course I would. Am I happy just to give them 45 mins most weeks safe in the knowledge that  my Ass Man is in charge and we are unlikely to come unstuck.
• You mentioned in one of your posts that you like to train your youngsters in their physical attributes during their formative years. I don't agree with that, and instead I would tailor the training schedule around the needs of the individual player with the end-goal in sight rather than just getting him in the team. IN my thinking, I don't care about the immediacy of results now. All I care about is producing the best player at the end of the process and it's that rather than titles and Championships that is the driver. If I develop the player correctly, (and sort out the contracts), then the success will surely come and I should just relax about it. On the other hand, if I go chasing silverware, well then my best young prospects might never reach their potential. I make every decision, (almost almost almost every decision), with the long-term goal in mind. That doesn't mean that I don't train physical attributes in young players, (of course I do). I just don't train them across the board like that. 
• Something else that needs to be mentioned here is mental attributes, (I'm ignoring hidden attributes for the moment), and in particular determination. I like determination in my players. It's no professionalism , but certainly in terms of performances on the pitch, (rather than training), determination is important. When you are looking at the schedule that you are looking to put a player on, don't just stick him on the schedule that lines up with the role(duty) that he is playing. Think about what sort of player you want to produce at the end of the process, (in my mind that's at aged roughly 24 years old), and then tailor the schedule appropriately. If determination is something that the player is going to benefit from training, then don't train him on a schedule that doesn;t train determination just because that#s the role he plays in your tactic, find a similar role that will improve his determination and use that instead. There is no rule that says that you have to even train your player in a schedule that even vaguely resembles their playing position. They are separate. Think of what you want the player to become and then work out how you are going to get him there. (I would suggest that simply focusing on physical attributes is NOT the way to go, but if your end-goal "vision" is an Orri Freyr Oskarssson, then you full your boots.
• The next step on from there is individual training and this is huge, (and I think is where you are using the physical training). While that might still be what you want to do, (you should always do what you want no matter what people like me right), I actually use it to fine-tune and hone a players development. It might be that the best training schedule I could find was ok, but there was 1 particular area that it wasn't going to cover and I would have to cover this via the individual training. The other option os course that the player might have a particular area in which you wanted to hammer him with training, (finishing and composure for a clinical striker for example), so don't think it's about maxing out strengths or boosting weaknesses. It's about getting to the 24 year old version of the player you see in your head, (whatever that is).
• I'm big into tutoring and there are actually 2 different aspects to that. The first is that if I have a player with a particularly poor personality, (let's use casual as an example in this instance), then unless I manage to change his personality, no matter what I do and how many other things I get right, this player is unlikely to ever reach his potential. I could play him in the 1st Team for 90 minutes every week, have the best facilities and the best coaches and make the correct decisions at every juncture with regards to his development, but while he remains a "casual" personality, he is unlikely to get anywhere near his potential. I for one don't want to miss out on the next big thing just because he has a poor attitude. The next part is about developing a tacting and moulding players to it. PPM's are tactical.... not sure what the word is, not nuances, not short-cuts, not cheats, tactical.... refinements maybe, that allow you that extra bit of control over who does what in a given sutuation. Think about what PPM's your seniot player have, think about how they benefit their particular role(duty) in your tactic, (if at all), and think if there is somethig else that you might prefer instead. Don't tutor a PPM just because you can. If all you want to do is tutor a personality, then use that option and leave the PPM's alone for ewhen you say "I want that player to have that PPM because.....).
• In terms of loaning a player out, I never EVER loan a player out until he is too old to play for the Youth/U18/U19 team. Just think abut what you are giving away! The ability to set the tranining schedule. The ability to set the individual training. The ability to tutor. The ability to learn PPM's. Why on Earth would you want to give up that sort of control over a young player. It could be that you don't want the player, but if you don't want the player then just sell them and be done with it. No half measures. It could be that you are following the new fad/style where you attempt to speculate simply to accumulate and you buy lots of players young and loan them all out and then just sell them at a profit later down the line, but I am not a fan of that either in real life or within the game. It's not until a player can no longer feature for the Youth/U18/U19 team that he is allowed to go out on loan, (and only then if he is not ever going to be good enough tvo cut it at the club). 

What else haven't I mentioned that I need to blurt out before vanishing. 

• Professionalism is all that matters. (Ignore ambition). 
• Consider buying players who might never play for youn but who will make excellent tutors. 
• Consider keeping players simply because of their personalities. 
• Think about your captain and his personality and look beyond Determination and Leadership.

Sorry, feel like I've done half a job here but gotta go. Sorry.
 

[eriktous]

3 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

and also about real life and how I would want the game to work if I was making it

Great post, Jimbokav1971. I find that I'm more and more enjoying playing the game in this manner, the role playing aspect of it, so to speak. I try to make decisions in a way that I think I would make them if I was in that actual situation, not so much thinking about how the game mechanics work. It may very well be suboptimal in many cases, but I'm enjoying the flow of the game much more this way, instead of fretting over each and every decision and trying to game the system. Not to mention that FM is actually such a good simulation, that in many cases this style actually will work out for the best.

As an illustration of this, I used to keep on all youth players at least for the length of their initial contract. After a couple of seasons worth of youth intakes, this would of course result in a youth squad of almost forty players, who were all competing for the scarce game time (and attention from the coaches on the training pitch, I assume), so I was arranging a lot of U19 friendlies just to get them all to play. I was also continuously shifting players between the U19s and the first team, to fill in for injuries in the senior squad or to get fringe players some game time for match fitness in U19 friendlies. All this work was slowing down my game progress, as well as impacting my results, I think. I was having a rough time, results wise, and started to think the continuous changes in squad composition wouldn't be good for team cohesion and would affect consistency. I would also like the U19s to be more competitive in their league. So I've now decided that would not be how I would run a club in real life, and have chosen to work with two much more distinct squads of 23 players each - two players for each position plus a wild card. This means I will have to be much more selective in which youth players I keep and which get sent away. I also have an aversion against the loan system in real life, so I'm not loaning out anyone.

I'm still a slow player, watching matches in full detail and such, so I don't have much results to show for this method yet, but at least this aspect of the game has become much smoother for me. When that inbox message arrives, asking for players to make available for the next U19 game, I can now click continue right away and leave them to their own devices. In one of the three saves I'm running, I'm actually almost enjoying the results of the U19s more than the results of the main squad; they're top of the table and having a good cup run.