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[FM20] Tequila and Mariachi?


_Ben_
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1 hour ago, Mikaelinho said:

Personalities matter, that's obvious, but quality wise it looks decent. What do you think is the cut-off ranking wise to become a future first team squad member? Top 20? 30-ish?

This question has made me think!

Below is a list of all of the players who have come through the academy monitoring process (all HG except for Benjamin, Baena and Angel) and made a first team appearance:

0c49a59d2306d3a7aa67dabad0fa65d0.png

I think that the bottom five can be disregarded as they came through when we were a much smaller side and making the team was considerably easier. Therefore, in 'modern day' terms MOlinero and Escobar are probably the 'weakest starting' players who have made the first team.

The average rank of these players is 35th but I'd probably extend that by 10/15 places - given the right personality and attribute balance. Based on the above intake - that cuts off at 8 players, which is certainly not 'poor' to me!

EDIT:

Whilst I'm playing with filters, here are the remainder of the top 20 best averages:

254efd5d97ffbbe7ea059eb482810098.png

Espinosa and Gonzalez are just finishing their first year, Vera and Mena have just come to the academy, Martinez played a lot for the first team before making a decent career for himself and was, annoyingly,  forgotten about(!!!), Felipe never did anything, Cesar played some B team football and Hrenuic has found his feet at the lower levels.

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February/March 2040

9e1044a64b5d0e595cfe1ae8d5e84ca1.png
 

Youth intake day comes round and it's a nice break from the frustration of first team action! To coin a Spurs phrase, we're putting the pressure on and, to coin a Spurs action, we're probably not doing enough to actually win. Yes - we beat Real, just, but these two months have been about winning. That is good, because they've been nothing like the scintillating football we normally play and we're just not doing the basics well enough; our possession has been down below 50% on a number of occasions. 

Levante, despite beating us, have just held Real to a draw so we enter the last seven games just two points adrift but with Barca hot on our heals. We have also had the draw for the Champions League, where, you guessed it, we face Barca. Three ties (as I face them on the last day of the league season, too) against the Catalan giants with a squad who, at its worst, has consisted of just sixteen non-injured first team players is going to be a challenge.

Whether we win this league or not - we are genuine title contenders and the next year or two (remember the three year plan which included a 'step back' by bringing through a whole group of youngsters - we are in year 2 of the protracted plan) will be key to making sure that we have the consistency to get across the line. I wanted to celebrate twenty years in charge with our first La Liga but it's more likely we'll be celebrating the club's centenary (2047) with success, instead.

---

In other news - I brought in another Brazilian:

27db3d405c90aa27fb42befec4959c6b.png

I've been watching him for ages and, once a bidding war was started, managed to get him for just €7m - a significant step down on the €23m I was willing to pay to release him from his contract. Unlike Athletico Paranense (I think!) I won't be playing him as a forward, instead, using him as an industrious midfielder with some steal - as we are lacking in that department.

We're getting to a point whereby 'the old guard' (Carlos Alberto, Neyveson, Ronaldo, Ruimar Evaristo) will need to be replaced and, despite some good prospects in the B team, I will need to keep my eye out for players like this.

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10 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

This question has made me think!

Below is a list of all of the players who have come through the academy monitoring process (all HG except for Benjamin, Baena and Angel) and made a first team appearance:

0c49a59d2306d3a7aa67dabad0fa65d0.png

I think that the bottom five can be disregarded as they came through when we were a much smaller side and making the team was considerably easier. Therefore, in 'modern day' terms MOlinero and Escobar are probably the 'weakest starting' players who have made the first team.

The average rank of these players is 35th but I'd probably extend that by 10/15 places - given the right personality and attribute balance. Based on the above intake - that cuts off at 8 players, which is certainly not 'poor' to me!

EDIT:

Whilst I'm playing with filters, here are the remainder of the top 20 best averages:

254efd5d97ffbbe7ea059eb482810098.png

Espinosa and Gonzalez are just finishing their first year, Vera and Mena have just come to the academy, Martinez played a lot for the first team before making a decent career for himself and was, annoyingly,  forgotten about(!!!), Felipe never did anything, Cesar played some B team football and Hrenuic has found his feet at the lower levels.

That certainly answer my question and I wasn't too far of with my guess of 30-ish! That really makes the mean/average ranking of a certain batch of players less interesting as it's more a question of how many players that are above a certain cut-off. The hard thing is to determine that cut-off though...

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1 hour ago, Mikaelinho said:

That certainly answer my question and I wasn't too far of with my guess of 30-ish! That really makes the mean/average ranking of a certain batch of players less interesting as it's more a question of how many players that are above a certain cut-off. The hard thing is to determine that cut-off though...

And now we're right back to the same kind of 3* potential cut-off! There is definitely a lot to take from this data though and I feel that I'm still only scratching the surface.

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New Personality

I've just noticed that my star midfielder, Claudio Lopez, has gained a new personality:

5994de85b0bced1ca7add538f5e97053.png

Here is the breakdown of what his personality/media handling entails:

Charismatic Leader
Leadership 19-20, Temperament-20, Sportsmanship 18-20

Unflappable
Temperament 15-20, Pressure 15-20

Great under pressure with fantastic sportsmanship and temperament and also a great leader. Some fantastic personality traits here.  However, this has no detail of his professionalism - he was considered Professional (Professional, Professionalism 18-19, Temperament 10-20, Leader <19) until recently. A look at his attribute progress tells me that his Leadership has been on a steady upwards curve and, probably, has now triggered that '19' mark, converting to a Charismatic Leader.

I'd actually be wary of this personality normally as he could have Professionalism of 1 - but in this case, I know that it isn't the case.

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End of Season 2039/40

8aa3e99ddbc1284bfa42fc1a752c2515.png

Despite the fact that the last two months of the season were very poor, we can hold our heads high given the amazing achievement of splitting the Real/Barca domination and causing the shock departure of Carlos Corberan, which could now see Barca either implode or splash hundreds of millions and return as a new beast. If you look at our league positions (we are yellow, Real: Blue and Barca: Green), you can see that we had a short spell atop the league and, in the grand scheme of things, probably deservedly finished second, despite the weird thing at the end of the chart that showed we both came first?!

---

Here is how the players performed individually:

8da70cf53fd02ac03b9b27c4219213bd.png

A bit of a mixed bag here.

Positives:

  • Four players in double figures for goals. This is the best overall return for variety of goalscorers.
  • Dani Barreda has the highest AR of the whole team - which is a) fantastic that a youth player has done that and b) shows that the retraining has worked.
  • A good amount of minutes for everyone (except for Anderson, not pictured) - means that my rotation is working better but now I must focus on outcomes with the rotation.

Negatives:

  • Goals shared well but still not enough and that '20-goal-a-year striker' still hasn't been found despite having an elite front three.

Here is an interesting few charts I made to compare just how good my strikers have been. To create the scatter, I have found a mean of their attacking attributes (Finishing, Off the Ball, Technique, Composure, Concentration and Decisions) and then compared it to their output:

7d1af7fa3948fc8e03b5d3a9f6eead9a.png

This has thrown up some interesting results! For clarity, I've used my five forwards (minus Ruimar Evaristo) and I have included Danilo, my most attacking midfielder. From this, I can see that Donato is the strongest player based on this metric, as I expected. What I can also see is that both he and Almansour, my starting Inside Forwards are converting a good proportion of their chances.

On the flip side, my strongest striker, Quique Garcia is well below his backup Ronaldo in terms of conversion rate (that is found by dividing shots/90 by goals to get a %). This tells me that, when Ronaldo comes on, usually later in the game, he generally does well when he gets the chance. Obviously, the end outcome is that Ronaldo has six goals and Garcia 19, but he's clearly he's a useful weapon off the bench.

In the goals and chances created, its my arguably weakest member, Neyveson, who has shone here. He's become more of a backup player but has still started 25 times, but only averages 57 minutes a game as he's usually my first substitute to come off should I need to change the game. Worryingly, it is midfielder Danilo who has created the least amount of chances despite being the focal point of the midfield. I'll need to further look at his game as he is neither getting goals nor assists.

-----

Here is my updated tracker for this season.

It shows that this league performance was outstanding and something we've never been able to do before. Hopefully, it's not an anomaly and can be continued going forward. I have also decided to track how many debutantes there have been (since I've been tracking youth intakes) and how much money I've spent and recieved.  

 

8b989194e8d3d6da67d3448ad90c1931.png----

Not a lot planned for the summer now with the squad almost at full strength.

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Unlucky to finish 2nd @_Ben_, perhaps could have been different if your PC didn't update from before. 

I will be watching with great interest on your quest to gain more output from your attackers. This is something I feel I have struggled with this year compared to the previous editions of FM in a lot of teams I have managed. Danilo will hopefully be the key once he's been tweaked slightly I'm sure. 

One thing I wanted to ask as someone who enjoys reading about all the details, is how you plan for the season in advance. Typically with myself, for the first 1 to say 4 seasons (depending on the club, division etc) I don't tend to plan until I know what division I am playing in however once I move into a top division and the club is settled, I tend to start planning for my next season around the November international break. This is because I have a better idea of who will be running there contracts down for the following June and allows me to scout a couple of matches before deciding to approach them on free's at the end of December. I also start to think about tactical changes and how my current players would fit in. Also, how long do you give a player a chance if they are not performing consistent or as productive enough for your liking, after so much tweaking there has to be a cut off moment ? 

Hopefully that makes some kind of sense to you as for me reading it back it seems to lack some structure lol. 

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6 minutes ago, RageMaster said:

Unlucky to finish 2nd @_Ben_, perhaps could have been different if your PC didn't update from before. 

I will be watching with great interest on your quest to gain more output from your attackers. This is something I feel I have struggled with this year compared to the previous editions of FM in a lot of teams I have managed. Danilo will hopefully be the key once he's been tweaked slightly I'm sure. 

One thing I wanted to ask as someone who enjoys reading about all the details, is how you plan for the season in advance. Typically with myself, for the first 1 to say 4 seasons (depending on the club, division etc) I don't tend to plan until I know what division I am playing in however once I move into a top division and the club is settled, I tend to start planning for my next season around the November international break. This is because I have a better idea of who will be running there contracts down for the following June and allows me to scout a couple of matches before deciding to approach them on free's at the end of December. I also start to think about tactical changes and how my current players would fit in. Also, how long do you give a player a chance if they are not performing consistent or as productive enough for your liking, after so much tweaking there has to be a cut off moment ? 

Hopefully that makes some kind of sense to you as for me reading it back it seems to lack some structure lol. 

Many thanks for the comment @RageMaster - and I agree, 2nd was a bit of a kick in the teeth after we'd actually beaten Real, too!

In terms of planning - this is something that I spend a lot of time thinking about but never really putting onto paper/Excel. I have tried to kind of model my thoughts and quickly thrown the below together. However, I think you've now inspired me to look at what I can do with the data.

1bd663f79b5a5ad09283b7059840aa45.png

What I really want to look at is who needs replacing either through age, contract demands or quality. The above does the first two and I kind of wish I hadn't deleted the 19 years worth of performance data I'd collected now!

From this, I can quickly see how is approaching the end of their careers:

77a57cb7c343d36291585b862eb590fc.png

Who is costing the club a lot of money:

2eb7961c8d96db4f63464c3636454565.png

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From here, I can start planning two or three years in advance.

However - in terms of the amount of time given, I'd like to say I give players two to three years (and will probably, in future, build in 3 year trend for AR or something) and then look to move them on. I rarely use the star ratings for this but I do sometimes look to see who has fallen to the bottom parts and corroborate that with their form etc.

Now that my squad is nearly complete and may well be with academy players, I can focus all my scouting and unsettling efforts into those one or two players who will really make a difference, even if I am a little reticent to spend big!

Hope that makes sense!

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B-Team update

It's been a really good three years for my B side since they got promoted to the second tier, and an invaluable tool for developing my youngsters. Here are the past finishes:

c968bf6b0f8c399cb15bda82dcc6414c.png

With our status as a solid second tier side secured, I'm going to make a few cut again, in line with the both the potentially poorer intakes of the past couple of years and because of the bloated nature of the squad as well as the Under 19 squad below it.

I'm going to go ahead into the season with the following crop of players:

7615b8a209e5fb635a9a3b99b7695a5a.png

You can see their suitability for my DNA here

We've cleared out a lot of the 20 year old's and have moved players on to get professional football elsewhere in the Spanish second and third tiers, replacing them with players who will spend at least three years here. I have also chosen to loan out Alison Zaros (who appears on the DNA) and I'm awaiting his choice of La Liga club in what is going to be a real chance to impress and replace, probably, Ronaldo, going forward.

The team retains a strong core with 2nd choice keeper Munoz behind three promising first team prospects, Espinosa, Frances and Ibero. We are lacking much in the midfield but Juan Carlos Sanchez performed reasonably well last year and Felipe Jimemez is accustomed to this league. We then having promising forward Alberto Gonzalez, who has successfully converted to a winger.

The team welcomes new intake players Calvo, Duarte, Vera, Mena, Yuste and Alvimar - with the idea that giving them as much football as possible will accelerate their development, as, overall, their personalities are not amazing.

---

Hopefully this group of players can continue to stay in LaLiga 123, develop well and provide me new players for years to come.

 

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Meeting my 'developing professional footballers' requirement

At the top of this page, and in response to a question asked about the quality of intake players and their ability to reach the first team asked by @Mikaelinho, I profiled the list of players who had come through my academy and reached the first team. What I didn't do, and now is a good time to do so with us now being genuine title contenders, is to look at the quality of players I have developed that have been able to forge careers elsewhere.

Some key facts for comparison:

  • Best player through my intake who has first team minutes: Miguel Angel Garcia (mean of attributes at start = 11)
  • Lowest player through my intake who has first team minutes (in modern times): Rafa Molinero (mean of attributes at start = 8.6)
  • Average starting rank of all players who made first team football: 35

Firstly - here are the players who have played for me and now play in La Liga (note - not all of these came through the intake):

2af66da8ff7ace813edea119949ad0bb.png

And here they are using my analysis tool:

871f15deb63bcf7733ed9ad4247d41ce.png

A much lower average starting rank of 66 and only three players (Ropero, Alejandro and Samuel) who have ever played first team football for us. 

---

Below are the players who have played for me and now play in LaLiga 123, the second tier:

f4ff94c3e8ee2992afc5fb1bc4576d04.png

And using my analysis tool:

1a11bc32d8d70e2869e9f48d9be1d0d2.png

No first team minutes for any of this lot but their average starting rank was 57.

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What have I taken from this?

  • Starting rank is obviously a measure of CA rather than PA - even though I was surprised that, on average, the group of players who are in the second tier started stronger than those in the first tier and the range is much smaller.
  • I feel that I'm able to give the players a good start in their career and those that aren't good enough for me are still able to turn out for Valencia, Celta Vigo etc.
  • There are still only a very small amount of poor personalities (James Dean: Unambitious, Juan Francisco: Temperamental) that have made it this far and I believe that, if I looked at the third tier, would find a lot more negative personalities. 
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Prowess

Just having a glance at some international football and I noticed the below:

8cabd3dc452e888b32d7ff97d40020ad.png

Spain with a Goal Difference of +74 from just 10 matches (yet, not winning the group!) as well as the excellent goalscoring of my man, Quique Garcia.

It was largely down to this 24-0 thrashing of Liechtenstein and the 15-0 reverse as well as a 9-0 and a 11-0 oer Azerbaijan. Funnily enough though, they lost 4-0 at home to Ukraine!

Now, if only he can bring some of that form to the club side...

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7 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

Meeting my 'developing professional footballers' requirement

At the top of this page, and in response to a question asked about the quality of intake players and their ability to reach the first team asked by @Mikaelinho, I profiled the list of players who had come through my academy and reached the first team. What I didn't do, and now is a good time to do so with us now being genuine title contenders, is to look at the quality of players I have developed that have been able to forge careers elsewhere.

Some key facts for comparison:

  • Best player through my intake who has first team minutes: Miguel Angel Garcia (mean of attributes at start = 11)
  • Lowest player through my intake who has first team minutes (in modern times): Rafa Molinero (mean of attributes at start = 8.6)
  • Average starting rank of all players who made first team football: 35

Firstly - here are the players who have played for me and now play in La Liga (note - not all of these came through the intake):

2af66da8ff7ace813edea119949ad0bb.png

And here they are using my analysis tool:

871f15deb63bcf7733ed9ad4247d41ce.png

A much lower average starting rank of 66 and only three players (Ropero, Alejandro and Samuel) who have ever played first team football for us. 

---

Below are the players who have played for me and now play in LaLiga 123, the second tier:

f4ff94c3e8ee2992afc5fb1bc4576d04.png

And using my analysis tool:

1a11bc32d8d70e2869e9f48d9be1d0d2.png

No first team minutes for any of this lot but their average starting rank was 57.

----

What have I taken from this?

  • Starting rank is obviously a measure of CA rather than PA - even though I was surprised that, on average, the group of players who are in the second tier started stronger than those in the first tier and the range is much smaller.
  • I feel that I'm able to give the players a good start in their career and those that aren't good enough for me are still able to turn out for Valencia, Celta Vigo etc.
  • There are still only a very small amount of poor personalities (James Dean: Unambitious, Juan Francisco: Temperamental) that have made it this far and I believe that, if I looked at the third tier, would find a lot more negative personalities. 

Interesting insights that strengthen the notion that personality plays a big part in successful player development. Could the finding of a higher starting CA for the 2nd tier players correspond with the number of players that left you before actually reaching your first team squad? What I mean by that is players that are determined to not be good enough for you, but have received a head start with their decent CA, making them good enough for other 2nd tier teams, despite a limited potential!?

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12 hours ago, Mikaelinho said:

Interesting insights that strengthen the notion that personality plays a big part in successful player development. Could the finding of a higher starting CA for the 2nd tier players correspond with the number of players that left you before actually reaching your first team squad? What I mean by that is players that are determined to not be good enough for you, but have received a head start with their decent CA, making them good enough for other 2nd tier teams, despite a limited potential!?

I don't know!

I just think it opens up an even bigger can of worms between current ability/potential ability and how that is reflected on the stars in game.

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Squad numbers

1b8cbf0fc7eb84065cd2086cb2116830.png

Still keeping the Argentine system and still being incredibly harsh kicking out historical numbers if they've stopped being first choice - hence the Neyveson move from 9, to 7, to 23.

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20 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

Champions League Draw

2785b69b2946faeab0ecaee8f310b2bd.png

The perfect group for rotation, even if I had to look twice to confirm it was, in fact, a Champions League group.

that's a Europa League group, surely?

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59 minutes ago, rodesire said:

that's a Europa League group, surely?

Ha, I know!

Reckon I've got the last placed qualifiers from each of these nations. May as well make the most if though and give six starts to each of my squad players.

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1 minute ago, keeper#1 said:

So, it's on purpose then.  

No - I'm not sure what I intended on it being but have since changed it to Command of Area - which is, to be fair, important for a Sweeper Keeper. Not sure why I hadn't seen that before.

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August/September 2040

35eaaa81f88ac91828adad588b9d32b1.png

Well, we're pretty bad!

In no way an excuse for our form and in no way a representation of how the game plays out but below is the data for the shots we have faced so far this season:

  • Osasuna - 1 shot faced, 0 on target
  • Hercules - 1 shot faced, 1 on target
  • Granada - 3 shots faced, 1 on target
  • Barca - 8 shots faced, 1 on target
  • Levante - 3 shots faced, 3 on target
  • Atletico - 2 shots faced, 1 on target
  • Malaga - 7 shots faced, 2 on target

So that is three goals conceded from 25 shots and 9 on target - a goal every three shots that has hit the target. Not sure that is great defensive form. 

Clearly, our biggest issues arise from goalscoring at the moment in that we just can't consistently do it. Quique Garcia is eight games without a goal and the only forward to find the net more than once this year in youth product Almansour, although he's now six without a goal.

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Historically, we start really strongly and fall away. I'll put all my eggs in one basket and say now that it's been good to get the poor form out of the way and I look forward to us improving as the season goes on - but that's really because we can only get better from here!

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9 hours ago, Fudal said:

Real Madrid not in the top ten :idiot:

Nope!

These are their important players at the moment:

5961b50789e4ffa7a3cfb5884e10e90b.png

Just one of those, Calleja, came through the academy.

Also, the best players in their B team have all been brought in from other clubs for extortionate amounts.

 

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Sentiment

3106d577b7d34e367f938fa2ccbf3634.png

What a story this is. Gustavo Catalan, the young Spanish striker playing at an unfancied Girona side, leading the top goalscorer chart as we approach December.

3946027bc864676e14798b29aec983e3.png

a237490ff858af34c55dc37846c7cf08.png

It's only now though we we need to take into account that this striker came through the youth intake rated as the worst player from the bunch with 0.5* Gold and 1* black and his profile looked like this.

There are more and more people advocating signing all youth players and people like @Jimbokav1971 have been talking about how little the stars matter/the room for error in those stars. I think it's important to remember that you're not going to get one each intake and, to be fair, Catalan isn't world class or even 'the one that got away' but he's certainly better than 1.5* ability (which, even at the time of generating, would have only made him about good enough for the third tier).

 

Edited by _Ben_
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October/November 2040

617804b379dc23a76e0e322b4c90a739.png

There are two methods to get out of a worrying spell of form:

  1. Spend significant amounts of time analysing where everything has gone wrong and put steps in place to eradicate the mistakes
  2. Continue to click through and expect to come out the other side in a short period of time, maybe slightly unaware of the dangers of not doing so quick enough.

I have very much opted for the latter here. Last year, we scored freely and pushed all the way for the title. Nothing has changed aside from the sales of backup winger Ruimar Evaristo and even-more-backup midfielder Anderson. Evaristo's replacement Javier Pinto has made eight appearances and, despite being quite poor, hasn't impacted the team negatively. Therefore, there should be no reason why we are performing so badly, only a combination of poor form from us and good form from the opposition. However, we are winning (most of the time now) and, despite not in any way enjoying what I'm seeing on the pitch - that will surely come back?

Importantly, we beat Real Madrid to extend their torrid form of late (which was triggered by a 9-1 victory of Granada, somehow) and it's great to see newly promoted Real Jaen doing well.

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51 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

Sentiment

3106d577b7d34e367f938fa2ccbf3634.png

What a story this is. Gustavo Catalan, the young Spanish striker playing at an unfancied Girona side, leading the top goalscorer chart as we approach December.

3946027bc864676e14798b29aec983e3.png

a237490ff858af34c55dc37846c7cf08.png

It's only now though we we need to take into account that this striker came through the youth intake rated as the worst player from the bunch with 0.5* Gold and 1* black and his profile looked like this.

There are more and more people advocating signing all youth players and people like @Jimbokav1971 have been talking about how little the stars matter/the room for error in those stars. I think it's important to remember that you're not going to get one each intake and, to be fair, Catalan isn't world class or even 'the one that got away' but he's certainly better than 1.5* ability (which, even at the time of generating, would have only made him about good enough for the third tier).

 

Well done for noticing this and pointing this out. 

I think some people are turned off by my way of highlighting errors like this on the actual date of the Youth Intake using the Editor, (because some people are just turned off by the editor for a start), but also because there seems no foolproof way to identify this without use of the editor. 

Signing all youth players and then making a more informed decision at a later date would seem to be a smarter move to me. :thup:

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1 hour ago, _Ben_ said:

Wonderkid

7e61cd2f6a71491a2eea34f0441e852c.png

A bit of a different one as i think he's the first player still playing for the B team to reach this media tag.

Do you pay much attention to the in game progress tracker or is that another thing like the star ratings that you don't trust so much?

Interesting to see that he's on a downward curve on that, I wonder why that is?

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30 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Well done for noticing this and pointing this out. 

I think some people are turned off by my way of highlighting errors like this on the actual date of the Youth Intake using the Editor, (because some people are just turned off by the editor for a start), but also because there seems no foolproof way to identify this without use of the editor. 

Signing all youth players and then making a more informed decision at a later date would seem to be a smarter move to me. :thup:

So on Youth Intake do you view all your prospects PA in the editor before making a decision to sign them?

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34 minutes ago, metallimuse said:

So on Youth Intake do you view all your prospects PA in the editor before making a decision to sign them?

Have a look here. (Just skim through the normal updates and go to each Youth Intake).

In this particular save I use the Editor to look at the intake and compare PPA, (Perceived Potential Ability), to PA, (actual Potential Ability). It's not how I normally play, but I'm trying to show what a big margin of error there is. What I usually do is sign all/almost all players to a Youth contract and then only offer Pro contracts to those at a much later date. By then you would hope that the information that I am basing my decision on will be less wrong, (it's never going to be 100%). 

Although I show this information on the Intake Day in my thread, I don't look at it on a day to day basis, so it's quite easy not to over-use the info, and I only ever use that screen on that day for the Youth Intake squad, so it doesn't affect other players. For example I don't use it when signing players so I've made quite a few poor signings and sold players for far less than I might have got for them. In this case I simply sign all/almost all the Youth Intake players to a Youth Contract and then make a decision at a later date as to who to sign, (in exactly the way that I would if I weren't using the Editor). I only use the Editor on Youth Intake Day. (Actually that's not quite true because I also did some Det/Amb/Pro experiments with players at the beginning of the save, but that's not related to this). 

The idea behind it is not only to highlight where much of the Community are going wrong, but also to try and make myself better at identifying who and what is a better player in a Youth Intake. I'm managing in Wales for example and the evidence shows that an English player, (or even an English/Welsh player), will be significantly under-valued in terms of PA in comparison to PPA. Basically, they are better than the reports suggest. So when I'm looking at who to sign in future, I know that a player of a Nationality with a higher Youth rating than I'm managing in is likely to be under-valued by the reports. I'm not suggesting that this is fool-proof, but it's just 1 area that I have identified in this particular save.

None of this is new to me, but proving it to others is not easy, (because opinions are like ***holes. Everyone's got one). I need to back my "opinions" up with evidence and that's what that part of the thread is about. I have long advocated the signing of all Youth Intake players on youth contracts with a decision only made when they can be offered a Pro contract. That's often quite a reasonable length of time, but in Wales players are promoted aged 16 and 17 so I have less time to make a decision. In reality this means that I'm offering contracts to players who might not be worth it, but that's a price worth paying to reduce the chance of players like Gustavo Catalan not being signed to a contract and going on to have a successful career elsewhere. 

(Apologies for hijacking the thread @_Ben_).

[Edit]

To give you an example of the lengths I will go to in order to make sure that a player doesn't get away, here are the Goal-keepers at the club). Please note that we only have U19 and Senior squads. 

d92ee9ea673ffb70b6b4e8e498e3153c.png

I've bought 2 GK's, Stirling (SCO) and Pajvot (CRO), and these are my Senior keepers. I've sent Stirling (SCO) out on loan so I signed Jairo Ruiz as a back-up in case Pajvot (CRO) gets injured. 

Murphy (WAL) LOAN was signed by me because scout reports suggested that he might be the next Welsh National Team GK, but I don't think the reports were accurate and he's no better than our home produced keepers. 

Speaking of our home produced keepers, we have no less than 6 at the club. Some were previously rated higher PA than now shown, but are they going to ever get to a level that they can become even our back-up keeper? Probably not, (at least until (43a Cheedy (IRL) who you will note is not Welsh, or at least not Welsh only). 

What I'm showing is that although I'm using the Editor on Youth Intake Day, I'm only using it on Youth Intake Day. 

Edited by Jimbokav1971
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Getting real close to the La Liga title. 

You seem to win an awful lot of games by the odd goal which is always a risky situation in my book as it leaves the door open for the opposition to fluke an equalizer. Optimistically, after poor early season form it seems you have turned the corner which is good to see. Hopefully, that combined with a slip in form from Barcelona will allow you back into the title fight.

Best Regards

 

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3 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Well done for noticing this and pointing this out. 

I think some people are turned off by my way of highlighting errors like this on the actual date of the Youth Intake using the Editor, (because some people are just turned off by the editor for a start), but also because there seems no foolproof way to identify this without use of the editor. 

Signing all youth players and then making a more informed decision at a later date would seem to be a smarter move to me. :thup:

Agreed - the longer I play FM, the more I realize that there are elements to just be 'ignored' so to speak. The Golden Generation tag is one that a lot of people now get frustrated with and I can see SI perhaps adjusting, in wording at least.

The strategy of signing all youth candidates is one I have been increasingly following too, after yours and @_Ben_'s examples and finding that there's plenty of value in the 16 (or so) players brought through, even if not all will be world-beaters. If you try and approach youth development with data and analytics in mind, it makes lots of sense to get more and more data points on the players. The difference between looking at a player for up to 90 minutes and making a final determination on sounds like madness when you can give a player 2-3 years contract and enough games to get more data points and making a better determination on.

The point which drove it home for me was seeing some top quality youngsters coming through at bigger clubs and yet I found myself thinking that if they were at a big club they might have only had 2-3 stars rating, but can still develop quickly at 16/17/18 years old.

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11 hours ago, metallimuse said:

Do you pay much attention to the in game progress tracker or is that another thing like the star ratings that you don't trust so much?

Interesting to see that he's on a downward curve on that, I wonder why that is?

Not really, no!

It's probably on the downward curve because other players have been brought in - as the line is a representation of CA stars, I believe, and other players are developing too. I am a little more interested with youth players but not once they make the first team.

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11 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

The idea behind it is not only to highlight where much of the Community are going wrong, but also to try and make myself better at identifying who and what is a better player in a Youth Intake. I'm managing in Wales for example and the evidence shows that an English player, (or even an English/Welsh player), will be significantly under-valued in terms of PA in comparison to PPA. Basically, they are better than the reports suggest. So when I'm looking at who to sign in future, I know that a player of a Nationality with a higher Youth rating than I'm managing in is likely to be under-valued by the reports. I'm not suggesting that this is fool-proof, but it's just 1 area that I have identified in this particular save.

I particularly love this point but, sadly, as a Spanish club, that doesn't happen often as it's only really Brazil who are better!

There are some great points that you've made in your post - thanks for dropping by.

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10 hours ago, pheelf said:

Getting real close to the La Liga title. 

You seem to win an awful lot of games by the odd goal which is always a risky situation in my book as it leaves the door open for the opposition to fluke an equalizer. Optimistically, after poor early season form it seems you have turned the corner which is good to see. Hopefully, that combined with a slip in form from Barcelona will allow you back into the title fight.

Best Regards

 

Yeah - the problem is that we're just not really playing well and we can't break down teams enough to score more than once.

We're in good form but it's always going to be a battle after you give a team like Barca a headstart like that!

Thanks for the comment!

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Ben, how much a factor does personality play for you when choosing a Captain and Vice-Captain?

Would you go for a new signing with the best personality or a player who is already a team leader, already been at the club for a few years, decent personality, and decent leadership?

Since it can affect the squad's personality changes, right?

Interesting to see what your take on this would be.

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8 hours ago, Johnny-Trotter said:

Agreed - the longer I play FM, the more I realize that there are elements to just be 'ignored' so to speak. The Golden Generation tag is one that a lot of people now get frustrated with and I can see SI perhaps adjusting, in wording at least.

The strategy of signing all youth candidates is one I have been increasingly following too, after yours and @_Ben_'s examples and finding that there's plenty of value in the 16 (or so) players brought through, even if not all will be world-beaters. If you try and approach youth development with data and analytics in mind, it makes lots of sense to get more and more data points on the players. The difference between looking at a player for up to 90 minutes and making a final determination on sounds like madness when you can give a player 2-3 years contract and enough games to get more data points and making a better determination on.

The point which drove it home for me was seeing some top quality youngsters coming through at bigger clubs and yet I found myself thinking that if they were at a big club they might have only had 2-3 stars rating, but can still develop quickly at 16/17/18 years old.

The main point that stands out there is what does a youth intake look like for another club - and I think of the players I've poached in the past and actually, where they'd be on that 'list.' That point you've made there has really resonated with me. Barca are the team that I'm trying to a) topple and b) emulate in terms of youth production yet I took five or six of their players from them (Pena, Puig, Benjamin, Sola, Villarasa, Neyveson and maybe even more) but I bet they weren't the top of the list player, yet you see the AI taking on a full 15/16 each year!

I also really like the whole data points and, to be fair, I don't (and certainly will) track my players for long enough, but it does seem like such a short-sighted move to track them based on one screen (which has stars that we know deviate so much) and one candidates game that I would bank on 99% of people not watching anyway.

As for the tags - yeah, I'm quickly learning that I don't really care what they say and having a sound infrastructure of coaches and facilities far outweighs that. So much so, I can't wait to see how my 'poor' intake get on this year, with the 3 players who have gone straight into a second tier professional side at 16...

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1 minute ago, quee said:

Ben, how much a factor does personality play for you when choosing a Captain and Vice-Captain?

Would you go for a new signing with the best personality or a player who is already a team leader, already been at the club for a few years, decent personality, and decent leadership?

Since it can affect the squad's personality changes, right?

Interesting to see what your take on this would be.

My take on captains is slightly removed from the personality game and more on my own, real life, interpretation of a captain.

I really rate Leadership but what I mostly like is a player who 'bleeds Guadalajara' and embodies the project that I'm creating. In this case, I have Fulvio as my captain as he's a long standing member and has worked his way up from the B team to the first team, and then from vice-captain to captain when Carlos Alberto's playing time dropped. Likewise, Carlos Alberto was a signing who made the jump up the leagues, fitted my playing style, is a Model Pro, a key player and never moaned - the perfect role model for the club.

If I was to walk into a squad that I didn't know, however, I'd be choosing a captain with the best personality. I say this because when I made Fulvio captain, he immediately turned to a team leader (I don't need the extra 'help' at this point and he's a GK so won't be that useful in mentoring) but it immediately propels them to a really important player who can then have his personality rub off on others. Personality would probably outweigh Leadership for me in this sense.

 

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11 hours ago, _Ben_ said:

B-Team Sacking

6e4ca42f5172e9f12ba7dce2e815ab5e.png

This is a worry as he was a really top manager. 

Another laptop update (this time I didn't lose a season defining game at Real) but he's still the manager!

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8 minutes ago, _Ben_ said:

My take on captains is slightly removed from the personality game and more on my own, real life, interpretation of a captain.

I really rate Leadership but what I mostly like is a player who 'bleeds Guadalajara' and embodies the project that I'm creating. In this case, I have Fulvio as my captain as he's a long standing member and has worked his way up from the B team to the first team, and then from vice-captain to captain when Carlos Alberto's playing time dropped. Likewise, Carlos Alberto was a signing who made the jump up the leagues, fitted my playing style, is a Model Pro, a key player and never moaned - the perfect role model for the club.

If I was to walk into a squad that I didn't know, however, I'd be choosing a captain with the best personality. I say this because when I made Fulvio captain, he immediately turned to a team leader (I don't need the extra 'help' at this point and he's a GK so won't be that useful in mentoring) but it immediately propels them to a really important player who can then have his personality rub off on others. Personality would probably outweigh Leadership for me in this sense.

 

Thanks, Ben!

Interesting that you covered both scenarios succinctly.

Knew you are the right person to ask, with your personality experiments and experience. :D

I had a Fairly Determined senior player welcomed a new signing (not sure why it wasn't the Captain, who was Driven), after a few months I noticed the new signing got a lower personality as result. At first, I thought it was the squad's personality or a failed mentoring. After a few repeats, I figured it is the welcoming period.

So, a new Captain's choice seems to be important in this regard. It would be weird not to welcome a new signing, just to avoid getting a lower personality :lol:

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Massive Bid

852b77acad797cda8d59cbaf9ba0fc15.png

Watford have always been a decent club in this save but have just been taken over by a consortium who clearly want to stamp their authority on the team.

It's a shame, because Almansour is going nowhere!

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