Youth Intakes, Potential and Nationalities

[VoidVector]

This is a bit of a long read. I could probably make it shorter but that wouldn't be fun.

So I'm in my third season of my AZ save and I noticed something interesting. Liechtenstein's key player is a regen. While it isn't fully surprising since Liechtenstein isn't exactly the best country in the world, I decided to check who this guy is and I was pleasantly surprised

This guy looks like a talent and curiosity got the best of me so I deciced to check him with the editor. 178 PA. But what caught my eye it's his info



Born in Vaduz, only of Liechtensteiner nationality. So this got me thinking

What determines the potential ability of players born in a different country? Is it determined by the youth ranking of the nation of the club they're coming from? Or is it determined by the youth ranking of the country they're from?

[enigmatic]

8 hours ago, VoidVector said:

This is a bit of a long read. I could probably make it shorter but that wouldn't be fun.

So I'm in my third season of my AZ save and I noticed something interesting. Liechtenstein's key player is a regen. While it isn't fully surprising since Liechtenstein isn't exactly the best country in the world, I decided to check who this guy is and I was pleasantly surprised

This guy looks like a talent and curiosity got the best of me so I deciced to check him with the editor. 178 PA. But what caught my eye it's his info



Born in Vaduz, only of Liechtensteiner nationality. So this got me thinking

What determines the potential ability of players born in a different country? Is it determined by the youth ranking of the nation of the club they're coming from? Or is it determined by the youth ranking of the country they're from?

Its a whole bunch of different factors and a lot of randomness. Clubs get intakes based on their youth facilities/coaching and reputation whose nationalities are influenced by recruitment, local populations and the coaching team. So if you get the San Marino club to world class status and facilities (which some people with plenty of time on their hands have done) you start seeing more world class players with San Marinese nationality. But the game also tries to ensure important national teams get replacement players, so in a country with mostly low-ranked clubs but an impressive national team like Croatia a club has a decent chance of getting some very good players compared with a club with similar facilities in England.

AFAIK the 'youth ranking' of a country is really best understood a fudge to balance out other factors. So Egypt's is set higher than other African countries not because its players are better, but because its youth mostly come from unimportant local clubs with terrible facilities, whereas top French/English/Belgian academies in active leagues are much more likely to produce top newgens from other African countries.

Edited December 18, 2020 by enigmatic

[Dreambuilder]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

Its a whole bunch of different factors and a lot of randomness. Clubs get intakes based on their youth facilities/coaching and reputation whose nationalities are influenced by recruitment, local populations and the coaching team. So if you get the San Marino club to world class status and facilities (which some people with plenty of time on their hands have done) you start seeing more world class players with San Marinese nationality. But the game also tries to ensure important national teams get replacement players, so in a country with mostly low-ranked clubs but an impressive national team like Croatia a club has a decent chance of getting some very good players compared with a club with similar facilities in England.

AFAIK the 'youth ranking' of a country is really best understood a fudge to balance out other factors. So Egypt's is set higher than other African countries not because its players are better, but because its youth mostly come from unimportant local clubs with terrible facilities, whereas top French/English/Belgian academies in active leagues are much more likely to produce top newgens from other African countries.

Just added Croatia as a playable league to my save, thank you.