ILRzz

You know what. This is a duplicate of an earlier reported issue: You can close my bug report as a duplicate.

Thanks. I've uploaded the save with the filename "B team club vision - A. Bilbao B.fm"

Sorry, looks like I don't have a save available where this Team Meeting would occur. I have overwritten my save game after the meeting I took those screenshots from was held. The last save overwrite backup is also too recent for this.

It looks like the pendulum has swung too far towards career longevity. In earlier FMs players had one foot in the grave when they turned 30 and it was only a matter of time before all physical stats (including Strength, which never made any sense) were in the single digits. I think Kimmich lasted until 36 as a Serie A rotation level player in FM20 back when I played a long career in it, and he was a huge, unique outlier. In FM23, it looks like star players generally don't decline much until their mid 30s. It's not unheard of, we've seen Pepe, Messi & Zlatan carry on as difference makers for a long time, but those guys are the exceptions. It should not be as common as reported here. I don't know which model is closer to what we see in real life. Calibrating a huge sandbox like FM is a difficult task. Here's some data. Young footballers of the year from Scotland & Italy between 2001-2010. The first list should be representative of high-end Championship / EPL rotation players. The latter of top players in the most veteran-oriented of the major European leagues. Scotland 2001: Stilian Petrov - EPL starter until 33 years old 2002 Kevin McNaughton - Championship starter until 31, Championship backup until 34 2003 James McFadden - EPL starter until 27, EPL backup & SPL starter until 31 2004 Stephen Pearson - Championship starter until 31, SPL rotation until 34 2005 Derek Riordan - SPL starter until 28, international journeyman until 33 2006 Shaun Maloney - EPL starter until 30, EPL rotation until 34 2007 Steven Naismith - EPL starter until 30, SPL starter until 34 2008 Aiden McGeady - Championship & Russian PL starter until 30, League One starter until 36, still playing 2009 James McCarthy - EPL starter until 26, SPL rotation now at the age of 32 2010 Danny Wilson - MLS starter now as at the age of 30 Italy (cutoff misses earlier winners Totti & Nesta who played as Serie A rotation players until 40 & 36, respectively) 2001&2003 Antonio Cassano - Serie A starter until 32, rotation until 34 2002 Matteo Brighi - Serie A starter until 31, rotation until 35, backup until 37 2004 Alberto Gilardino - Serie A starter until 36. Serie B rotation until 38 2005 Giampaolo Pazzini - Serie A starter until 32, Serie B rotation until 37 2006 Daniele De Rossi - Serie A starter until 35, rotation until 37 2007 Riccardo Montolivo - Serie A starter until 31, rotation until 33 2008 Marek Hamšík - Serie A starter until 32, still playing in Turkish Super Lig at 35 2009 Alexandre Pato - Serie A starter until 22, injured a few years, bounced around in Brazil & China & MLS since. Now 33 2010 Javier Pastore - Ligue 1 starter until 29, still La Liga rotation player at 33 I don't really know what conclusions to make here. The SPL winners seem to be close to the "old" FM model where very few players remained viable top league starters after 30. Personally, I find this surprising as the old FM career arc model always felt "wrong" to me. The Serie A winners are closer to what we see in FM23. A good but nowhere near elite player such as Brighi can hang around as a valuable squad rotation option until his mid-thirties. 36-37 year old Luca Toni / Fabio Quagliarella winning Capocannoniere trophies... The one exception (Pato) had a series of disastrous injuries that derailed his career. I don't know if that really happens in FM still.

That theory about the irrelevancy of B teams is certainly worrisome, considering how central they are in player development paths in some countries (Spain & Germany most of all, as noted in an earlier post). Even if the situation isn't quite hard coded, they (or a comparable lower division loan program) should offer a possible development pathway towards first team football. Here's a real-life example of a high-profile club running a self-imposed youth challenge of sorts. I'm of course talking about Bilbao's unique Athletic Club. These are their current first-team ingrown players, and their B Team / loan histories. The B Team has played in Segunda Division B (3rd tier) when these players did their internships there. Loans have been in 2nd tier or lower La Liga level. Current loans out aren't listed (these would include, for example, Unai Nuñez with 100 La Liga matches and an international cap with Spain). GK Unai Simón - star - 2 full seasons in B squad Julen Agirrezabala - backup - 2 full seasons in B squad DF Daniel Vivian - starter - 2 full seasons in B squad + 1 loan season Yeray Álvarez - starter - 2 full seasons in B squad Iñigo Lekue - rotation - 2 full seasons in B squad Aitor Paredes - backup - 2 full seasons in B squad MF Mikel Vesga - starter - 2 full seasons in B squad + 2 loan seasons Oihan Sancet - starter - 1 season in B squad Iker Muniain - star - 1 season in B squad Unai Vencedor - rotation - 2 full seasons in B squad Oier Zarraga - backup - 1+ seasons in B squad FW Jon Morcillo - backup - 2 full seasons in B squad + partial loan season Iñaki Williams - star - 2 partial seasons in B squad Nico Williams - star - 1 full season in B squad Gorka Guruzeta - backup - 4 full seasons in B squad, 2 seasons elsewhere (Segunda), signed back to Athletic Asier Villalibre - backup - 3 full seasons in B squad + 3 partial season loans Some of these players have "graduated" to starting 1st team roles straight from the B squad. Others have bounced around a bit as backups or loanees for a few years. But the point is that even in real life a resource-rich youth development focused club currently sitting in a Champions League qualification spot can field a reasonable starting 11 solely from club-grown players. And a majority of these players have been able to develop enough in the 3rd tier to jump up and contribute to the main club. --- That said, I haven't played FM23 (still in FM20), but based on this discussion I get the impression that player development is more unpredictable and difficult now (which I think is VERY good, personally), but the club-management AI doesn't know how to do it properly (which is bad), and that the older, easier development model covered a lot of these AI shortcomings so the issues weren't as visible.