Another youth recruitment whine thread

[fivetwelvepony]

So I'm finally doing something I told myself I wasn't going to do. I'm here to complain about youth recruitment. It's 2036, I've been at Bordeaux for nine seasons, and I've yet to have a player from my youth intake make more than the odd substitute appearance in that time. After a few seasons of perennial disappointment, I set about to change things.  I maxed out everything there is to max out. State of the art youth facilities. Exceptional academy coaching. Exceptional youth recruitment. Just in case it matters, the regular training facilities are also now state of the art. We are also now among the highest reputation clubs in Europe, due to some shrewd buys and some recent Champions League successes. I've also heard that France sometimes produces a decent player or two. They have won *only* two world cups though. Finally, I also have an amazing head of youth development:

Determined isn't necessarily the ideal personality for the HOYD, but now we're nitpicking. So, youth intake comes around, and yet again I'm told to be disappointed. I hope you will forgive me, but I fired up Geniescout to see just how bad it was. Real bad. My highest PA? 136. Last season? Even worse at 123. There are 50 players on 23 French teams age 16 or under with a PA higher than 136. Including several Ligue 2 sides, and gasp, at least one third division team. Even my regional rivals, Toulouse, have snared themselves two, so it seems unlikely to be a problem of Bordeaux being in a football backwoods. I had a supposed "golden generation" a few years ago. The highest PA from that year? 146. (He's now 23 years old, CA 114 and kicking around Ligue 2).

And then, presumably just to rub salt in my wounds, every couple of months I get a message from a coach telling me to use my youth ranks to find players for the first team. Argh.

So, tl;dr I'm just here to say that youth recruitment sucks and I officially give up.

Edited October 7, 2020 by fivetwelvepony

[Alejandro_FM]

I feel your pain :) 

I have not been this unlucky on any of my recent saves, but I will say that I've found the outcomes (anecdotally) quite erratic. Which I guess could very well happen IRL ... 

A couple of examples from me: 

• Lille OSC - 13 year save, 3 HOYD over the course of the save (progressively better personalities and attributes). Best prospects came in the first 3 seasons, before the facilities became "top". Then I had 10 years of pretty dull prospects.  
• Valencia - 10 year save, facilities got better over time and still the best prospects came in season 2 and didn't have much after that. 

 

[santy001]

With the right spread of attributes any player from around 120CA onwards would probably be a useful addition to a squad competing in the latter stages of the Champions League. I've won the Champions League with a player featuring in the game <100CA. Not due to injuries, not due to suspensions or anything else. He was just a functional squad player.

What this basically means is that as a squad option you can consider anything from what is a 1.5 - 2 star ratings from your scouts/staff. When it comes to youngsters you are better off waiting a few years to see how they develop and trying to identify what core handful of attributes you think the position in the team needs. 

[fivetwelvepony]

11 minutes ago, santy001 said:

With the right spread of attributes any player from around 120CA onwards would probably be a useful addition to a squad competing in the latter stages of the Champions League. I've won the Champions League with a player featuring in the game <100CA. Not due to injuries, not due to suspensions or anything else. He was just a functional squad player.

What this basically means is that as a squad option you can consider anything from what is a 1.5 - 2 star ratings from your scouts/staff. When it comes to youngsters you are better off waiting a few years to see how they develop and trying to identify what core handful of attributes you think the position in the team needs. 

<100 getting significant minutes against Real Madrid? You're a better manager than me!

You have to admit, though, that <100 CA is freely available talent in the player marketplace, so producing it yourself accomplishes almost nothing, maybe aside from meeting the registration rules.

[fivetwelvepony]

1 hour ago, Alejandro_FM said:

I feel your pain

I have not been this unlucky on any of my recent saves, but I will say that I've found the outcomes (anecdotally) quite erratic. Which I guess could very well happen IRL ... 

A couple of examples from me: 

• Lille OSC - 13 year save, 3 HOYD over the course of the save (progressively better personalities and attributes). Best prospects came in the first 3 seasons, before the facilities became "top". Then I had 10 years of pretty dull prospects.  
• Valencia - 10 year save, facilities got better over time and still the best prospects came in season 2 and didn't have much after that. 

 

LOSC...you should be managing them in my save. No Zidane's in there, but a bunch of 15 year olds with >150 PA.

[santy001]

In the tactical setup I had at the time as a defensive midfielder he just needed to be able to put a tackle in and position himself decently. It was a basic role that required the bare minimum. The RB and midfielder to his left would always be in fairly close proximity for a simple pass to. 

A forward who needs to pick the ball up on the half way line and fashion a chance out of spearheading the line needs a very different, and generally greater, spread of attributes than the guy who just needs to linger in the box and react to anything that drops in his vicinity.

High dribbling that is essential on the former is useless to the latter. I'd argue with high anticipation, off the ball and acceleration you could have a deadly forward in the right set up. Some free signings I've made in the conference have been able to continue scoring up until Championship and even in the Premier League and its very much down to just identifying what the player in a specific position needs rather because I'd say I'm below average at the tactical side of the game.

So coming back to my point, this could well mean your best youngsters are not at all those with the highest PA. Your good youth setup has positives in different areas than just raw PA. Taking a careful look at them and seeing what stands out about the players and then giving them a chance is by far the best way of seeing if your club can produce good players.

[enigmatic]

Leaving aside santy's maverick team selections   a player who actually hit a PA of 146 would be comfortably better than most players in Ligue 1 on paper.

Maybe he had a personality defect that stopped him improving or an unhelpful distribution of attributes if you let him go, but if you had a couple of players at that sort of level the 'golden generation' attribute wasn't wrong even if you've subsequently bought loads of better players.

There's intentionally a lot of randomness in where and when the best players come through, but few clubs get someone with a PA of 150+ very often. And maybe you missed some of them....

[fivetwelvepony]

2 hours ago, santy001 said:

In the tactical setup I had at the time as a defensive midfielder he just needed to be able to put a tackle in and position himself decently. It was a basic role that required the bare minimum. The RB and midfielder to his left would always be in fairly close proximity for a simple pass to. 

A forward who needs to pick the ball up on the half way line and fashion a chance out of spearheading the line needs a very different, and generally greater, spread of attributes than the guy who just needs to linger in the box and react to anything that drops in his vicinity.

High dribbling that is essential on the former is useless to the latter. I'd argue with high anticipation, off the ball and acceleration you could have a deadly forward in the right set up. Some free signings I've made in the conference have been able to continue scoring up until Championship and even in the Premier League and its very much down to just identifying what the player in a specific position needs rather because I'd say I'm below average at the tactical side of the game.

So coming back to my point, this could well mean your best youngsters are not at all those with the highest PA. Your good youth setup has positives in different areas than just raw PA. Taking a careful look at them and seeing what stands out about the players and then giving them a chance is by far the best way of seeing if your club can produce good players.

My counterargument is that you invest loads in facilities, HOYD, academy coaching, spend years developing and paying wages and paying the U19 coaching staff, but all you get is the guy to put a tackle in and position himself decently? That guy can be had on the open market for a transfer fee of <$500k.

[fivetwelvepony]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

Leaving aside santy's maverick team selections   a player who actually hit a PA of 146 would be comfortably better than most players in Ligue 1 on paper.

Maybe he had a personality defect that stopped him improving or an unhelpful distribution of attributes if you let him go, but if you had a couple of players at that sort of level the 'golden generation' attribute wasn't wrong even if you've subsequently bought loads of better players.

There's intentionally a lot of randomness in where and when the best players come through, but few clubs get someone with a PA of 150+ very often. And maybe you missed some of them....

I don't mean to disparage a 146 kind of guy. My point is more that in a decade of youth intake, I have had maybe two guys for whom if everything came together, and his personality was good, and he didn't get injured, might eventually be a bit above league average. And my peers in the league, who have worse facilities and coaching, get a couple of those guys or more every year. That's my whine.

[santy001]

My point would be that you're essentially talking nonsense. 

If a player comes into your side and scores 40+ goals a season, or 40+ assists that's world class level performance. Does it then matter what his CA/PA are? No. You could have a guy who has a high PA, the right personality, doesn't get injured play him in his preferred role and he still under performs. 

Using a flawed metric and discarding players by the wayside on the basis of this ultimately means you have no idea who could or couldn't have performed "above league average" in a given role. 

The youth system is never going to give you a checklist of criteria to fulfil to guarantee next year you will get a 160+ PA, 180+ PA youngster because that would just be ridiculous. You can ultimately spend and pump tons of money into youth and it doesn't produce anything. 

[fivetwelvepony]

7 minutes ago, santy001 said:

My point would be that you're essentially talking nonsense. 

If a player comes into your side and scores 40+ goals a season, or 40+ assists that's world class level performance. Does it then matter what his CA/PA are? No. You could have a guy who has a high PA, the right personality, doesn't get injured play him in his preferred role and he still under performs. 

Using a flawed metric and discarding players by the wayside on the basis of this ultimately means you have no idea who could or couldn't have performed "above league average" in a given role. 

The youth system is never going to give you a checklist of criteria to fulfil to guarantee next year you will get a 160+ PA, 180+ PA youngster because that would just be ridiculous. You can ultimately spend and pump tons of money into youth and it doesn't produce anything. 

My point remains. The low CA player you describe may be useful but can be had for peanuts on the open market, without the need for spending loads on youth development.

[fivetwelvepony]

Do  you not think my scouts could yield your role player with 14 tackling and 14 marking and 6 dribbling, and this would cost me more than a $500k transfer fee? Or what my HOYD makes in one year?

[santy001]

Well if you're confident your scouts can identify players and you bring them in for cheap scale back your spending on youth. 

At the top level of the game if you want to use CA as a guide this would be the best approximation you can use in my mind:

<120 In most instances will be a fringe player, a distant second or even third choice unless they have attributes that are well suited to a role in your team. 

121 - 140 Very functional players, as you're getting towards the upper echelons of this region you've got what can easily be a first team player who can perform in a complicated role within the team.

141+ World class with the right spread of attributes.

[Alejandro_FM]

6 hours ago, fivetwelvepony said:

LOSC...you should be managing them in my save. No Zidane's in there, but a bunch of 15 year olds with >150 PA.

To be fair though, before the 10 seasons of poor intakes I had a 186 PA midfielder in season 1 and a 180 PA striker in season 2  ( I checked through the in game editor at the very end of the save)... So I probably should not complain

[goranm]

12 hours ago, santy001 said:

My point would be that you're essentially talking nonsense. 

You're seeing it as nonsense because you're not arguing the same point or addressing OP's frustrations at all, which are fair. OP says that

Quote

youth intake comes around, and yet again I'm told to be disappointed

So this is something that the game is telling us - youth intake is disappointing. Can a 130 PA player be decent first team player for a strong CL team? Yes, but that is not the point. The point is that a maxed out youth setup in 10 years hadn't produced one intake that wasn't disappointing according to the game itself. Furthermore, the game will never treat a 130 CA as a first team player or a 142 CA as a world class player relative to a squad that has a, say 155 CA average - that much the star ratings tell us. I shouldn't rely on the opinion of a forum user about which CA ranges constitute a first team player or a world class player, I should go only with what the game is saying, and the game is saying that we don't have (potential) world class players, no matter what the spread of attributes is.

Youth intake notification is just another cryptic and/or misleading aspect of the game that has to essentially be ignored and instead a standard minmax criterion has to be applied on an individual basis to evaluate the intake by yourself, making the inclusion of various youth and scouting staff irrelevant, except as initial values for the equations that determine the youth intake.

[fivetwelvepony]

For the record, I'm not complaining about this as a problem with the game itself.  I am whining about my investment not paying off, and I am puzzled about why this is so. What can be done? Nothing as far as I can tell except wait until the roll of the dice is in my favor.

At the other end of the spectrum, my investment in state of the art training facilities? Paying off in spades!

[FlorianAlbert9]

Sorry, but what santy001 said is a serious deep issue of the game. One of the issue that exitinguish ever ambition for realism.

Firstly 'cause there is then a big discrepancy how the database research is set up and how it is implemented in the game. 

In the started database you don't find a world class player with 142 CA. 

nor a Champions League Winner Team (ever)  that had a <100 CA player in the starting 11 (but even in the bench). 

So in the reasearch phase (I think) there are guidelines for setting player CA, right?

But that are then disregarded by the game.

 

what may seem like a great managerial ability (using a <100CA in a world class team)  for me it is a big hole in the Match Engine and in the game in general 'cause no top team should use a <100CA player. 

 

If a player comes into your side and scores 40+ goals a season, or 40+ assists that's world class level performance. Does it then matter what his CA/PA are? 

in the perspective of playing the game the answer might seem to be "No, you're right" 'cause we shouldn't know CA. 

But in the experience of the game, yes, it matter. A lot.
Even if we still don't know the CA. 

firstly 'cause if in real life a player score 40+ goals in a top league/ChampionsL, in the research he will not set wit a <100CA. nor 142, but 160 at least.
then 'cause the AI will treat that player mostly for his (perceived) CA. So that World Class player (that is not WC really) with <100CA will be seen as a poor player even with 40+ goals (so for example, if you would sell him, you will sell him as a 90-120 CA range player, not as as a WorldClass)

Then what others say, that in that way is practically useless build a great youth academy/training, that at the end, is the focal key point.

[fivetwelvepony]

Just an update to this thread. Just got this message from my HOYD. I think this should be my signature:

[Deisler26]

On 14/10/2020 at 03:13, fivetwelvepony said:

Just an update to this thread. Just got this message from my HOYD. I think this should be my signature:

Are you buying in the best  young talent from around the world?

[Mr U Rosler]

Might it be the catchment area around Bordeaux is not very good? Lots of poncy wine connoisseurs but not many good footballers? Bigger Clubs mopping up the national talent and you left with the locals?

At Stockport I churn out 140+ players for fun, had a 182 and few in 150's, 160's & 170's. I guess the North West of England is considered a hotbed of football talent?