Revaluation of the CA - PA system

[Maaka]

8 minutes ago, Longhorn said:

Enigmatic, you continue to be studiously obstreperous, missing the point and making allegations about others.  What is your agenda?  Was it not you that  said "Though FWIW it's pretty obvious that outstanding genetic specimens growing up in Germany are likely to choose football as their main sport and play it intensively from the age of four up to winning a professional contract, and those growing up in the United States and Jamaica are relatively unlikely to do so"?  To put it euphemistically you continue to argue based on "politically incorrect" and uninformed opinions, apparently merely for the sake of arguing. 

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But even though football (or "soccer") is growing in the US (and in China, for that part), it's still a "minor" sport compared to the "big 4" leagues. Like I said, over time it might grow bigger and onto the really major stages, but we're not there yet.

USA have placed 3rd in the World Cup once, in 1930, otherwise the best final position is 8th (2002), and although they've qualified for seven straight WCs (1990-2014), it's in large part due to the rest of the qualification group teams being even more inferior (except Mexico and the odd other exception), and they failed to qualify for the 2018 edition.
Meanwhile, the most succesful players (if we count int. caps), Landon Donovan played a total of 30 games in Bundesliga and EPL, scoring 2 goals, Cobi Jones played one season (24/2) for Coventry, Clint Dempsey spent 6 seasons in Europe, mainly at Fulham. Tim Howard had some success at Man Utd, but still played "only" 40 games through 3 seasons, finding a first team spot at Everton, who never really challenged for major titles. Michael Bradley had some good seasons with Heerenveen and Gladbach, and challenged for silverware with Roma. But that's the cream of the crop, so it's really very, very little compared to major nations.
As for China, they're not even close to what the USA has to show for.

So, as stated earlier, the current ratings are just fine, but it should be possible to increase them over time, given the right conditions (as outlined in my previous post).

[enigmatic]

1 hour ago, Longhorn said:

Enigmatic, you continue to be studiously obstreperous, missing the point and making allegations about others.  What is your agenda?  Was it not you that  said "Though FWIW it's pretty obvious that outstanding genetic specimens growing up in Germany are likely to choose football as their main sport and play it intensively from the age of four up to winning a professional contract, and those growing up in the United States and Jamaica are relatively unlikely to do so"?  To put it euphemistically you continue to argue based on "politically incorrect" and uninformed opinions, apparently merely for the sake of arguing. 

Somebody whose first contribution to the thread was to allege that the game is "essentially racist" accuses others of "missing the point and making allegations about others" 

My agenda is to not ruin the game with ludicrous nonsense like assuming that the potential peak footballing ability of the average American 16 year old should be the same if not better than the potential of the average German 16 year old. Scouts scour the world picking up George Weahs and Yaya Toures: the reason they have never found a player approaching that level of talent in the US is not because they are unaware the US exists, but because the US has not produced any players giving any indication of the potential to approach that level of talent and the American footballers they have picked up have been solid but unspectacular and often goalkeepers.

For similar reasons, I wouldn't expect OOTP Baseball to produce many potential British Babe Ruths or many British players at all, despite the fact we've got more teenagers that have swung a bat vaguely in the direction of a softball in the last year than Puerto Rico and there's nothing genetically wrong with our hand-eye coordination. Joe Root's got remarkable natural ability to read the flight of a ball and coordinate hand movements with it and even hired a baseball coach to work on his power hitting, but he's not a potentially brilliant baseballer because he spent his formative years hitting very hard bouncing red balls not moderately hard curving white ones

The Netherlands has a better Youth Rating than the US because it produces more good young players who have better careers. It's not rocket science and it's certainly not racism.

 

59 minutes ago, Maaka said:

I think we need do differ between two separate issues here. The current "average PA" for any country mostly reflects what the world looks like right now. And that's the way it should be reflected in FM now.

However, should a country over a longer period of time consistenly perform at a higher level, both the clubs (mainly in continental/intercontinental competitions) and the national team, and (again, over time) one (then two, maybe three, four and so on) players of a higher calibre who excels in major leagues, then that country should (I can't stress this enough) OVER TIME see an increase of the "average PA" of newgens. But it could, and should, take at least more than a decade to make the first small steps of progress, and several decades before it should be any increase that can be considered somewhat close to "major".

Countries already see enormous increases in newgen quality if their reputation improves through performance or cheating and/or their (usually domestic) youth intake clubs improve reputation or facilities.

If anything, too much, hence people doing rather well in challenges to make San Marino a force in international football.

It'd be nice to see the national-reputation-driven youth intake improvements lagged by about a decade for obvious reasons but I don't think that happens (or a big enough percentage of the player base plays for long enough to make it worth implementing)

[Maaka]

3 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Countries already see enormous increases in newgen quality if their reputation improves through performance or cheating and/or their (usually domestic) youth intake clubs improve reputation or facilities.

If anything, too much, hence people doing rather well in challenges to make San Marino a force in international football.

Hence why I pointed out that it should be over time, "at least more than a decade to make the first small steps of progress, and several decades before it should be any increase that can be considered somewhat close to "major"."
I agree that it can actually be too easy, given the examples of San Marino and Gibraltar, but I reckon it's quite hard to differentiate too much between which nation should be "easy" to raise, and which should be harder (and, tbh, those who should be "impossible", like those two mentioned). But it's not totally unthinkable that USA and China should become major forces in international football some time in the future, due to the economic powers they possess, and the large population base. In ten years? Don't think so. Twenty? Unlikely. Thirty? Possibly, but not very likely. Forty/fifty? Maybe. Sixty plus? If the stars are duly aligned, then sure, it might happen.

[enigmatic]

7 minutes ago, Maaka said:

Hence why I pointed out that it should be over time, "at least more than a decade to make the first small steps of progress, and several decades before it should be any increase that can be considered somewhat close to "major"."
I agree that it can actually be too easy, given the examples of San Marino and Gibraltar, but I reckon it's quite hard to differentiate too much between which nation should be "easy" to raise, and which should be harder (and, tbh, those who should be "impossible", like those two mentioned). But it's not totally unthinkable that USA and China should become major forces in international football some time in the future, due to the economic powers they possess, and the large population base. In ten years? Don't think so. Twenty? Unlikely. Thirty? Possibly, but not very likely. Forty/fifty? Maybe. Sixty plus? If the stars are duly aligned, then sure, it might happen.

Oh, I agree completely that it makes more sense logically to only improve player intakes over a long period of time, but in practice youth players filter through slowly enough anyway, and I'm not sure there's much benefit to writing code especially to make already long lags between improbable overachievement and improbably strong national teams even longer.

In the mean time, it's possible to make the U.S.A or comparable middle-of-the-road nation end up with much stronger next generation by overachieving in the World Cup with them (not impossible if you're good at tactics) and possibly throwing some money at an MLS club's youth infrastructure. 

Also, I think leaving in the ability to ludicrously overachieve with micronations like San Marino is fair enough; it's not something which will happen organically within the game and it is something a small segment of people really like doing.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.