If at first you don't succeed, blame the game and try again - A San Marino Youth Challenge 2.0

[Bedese]

Uhh... it's a good chance to try out a new tactic, I guess?

[Bedese]

Here is that new tactic:

The mentality is defensive with a structured team shape, and the only team instruction is low crosses. How'd we fare?

 

Not bad.

[Bedese]

Youth Intake Day!

Well, that's about as unhelpful as you could get. Not only did we not get in any decent defenders, we didn't get in any decent - anything. No-one to tag this year. I'm going to see if we can get a new HOYD. Here's why:

 

Compare our current HOYD (the second picture) to the old one. There's not much difference in the personalities they produced, but look at the positional breakdown. Our current HOYD has already produced 28 strikers! That's as many as the old one did, and he's been here for just over half the time. That's ridiculous. Let's take a look at who our HOYD is:

 

His stats are superb, but I'm not interested in that. Look at the bottom left corner. See that? He started his career with us.

Now, @Jimbokav1971 has a theory that someone who played as a striker will produce more strikers in an intake, a goalkeeper will produce more goalkeepers etc. Because Vannucci played for us, we can go back to the day of his youth intake and actually check what position he was.

 

Check the third name on that list. Claudio Vannucci - RM. He's not a striker. Despite being a RM, he's not really producing noticeably more of them, either - we're having roughly 1 RM (and 1.4 RWs) per year - which is actually less than the amount of LM and LWs we're getting.

The RMs he's produced haven't turned out to be good, either - in fact, in the 10 seasons he's worked here, not once has a RM been in one of the top three players of the youth intake. The only decent RMs at the club now are the ones that came in as a LM and that I've trained to the opposite wing. It looks like a player's old position doesn't actually influence what positions (and the quality of each position) come through in intakes.

But then, what does? Vannucci is producing an absolute bucketload of strikers - nearly three a year. It's too many and too constant to be an anomaly. But he didn't play upfront. His preferred formation is a 5-4-1, with only one striker, so you'd think that ST would be less of a priority for him, if the preferred formation had an impact. His second preferred formation is a 4-5-1, and his favourite defensive and attacking formation is also 5-4-1. A 5-4-1 has 2 CMs and 1 striker, but he's produced over double the amount of STs that he has CMs. It doesn't look like formation has an effect, either.

There's absolutely no visible reason I see that he's been producing so many strikers. But he has. Unless it's a ridiculously lengthy anomaly (which I'm hugely sceptical of), then there's something causing him to produce a lot more strikers than any other position. The only problem is I have no idea what it is.

 

So, how does that impact the save? Well, we don't need strikers. We need defenders. For some reason, he's rubbish at that. So I'm going to try and hire someone else and see if they can do a better job. 

Note that it might not be possible for a while - our finances are still a mess and so we can't exactly offer glamorous wages to anyone. It's possible that we'll be stuck with Vannucci for a while - if nothing else, that will give us even more data to go off, but I am going to try and replace him when I can.

[Jimbokav1971]

Really interesting post. No answers I'm afraid, but it certainly asks questions. 

When you get your youth intake through, the wording is as follows....

Coaching style and personality.  Well we know what personality is all about, so what is coaching style then?

Your current HoYD has a "Fitness" coaching style. The coaching style of my HoYD is "General".

Can you tell what your previous HoYD was?

[Bedese]

2 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Really interesting post. No answers I'm afraid, but it certainly asks questions. 

When you get your youth intake through, the wording is as follows....

Coaching style and personality.  Well we know what personality is all about, so what is coaching style then?

Your current HoYD has a "Fitness" coaching style. The coaching style of my HoYD is "General".

Can you tell what your previous HoYD was?

Here is our previous HOYD:

His coaching style is 'technical'. Here's the chart of how his intakes looked:

He produced more CBs than anything else, which doesn't exactly correlate to a 'technical' style.

The position he faired best with was by far GKs - a GK was in our top three players of in intake in over half of the intakes he gave us, and nearly double the amount of the next closest position. He only produced 17 GKs, but 9 were in the top three players of in intake, meaning a GK in any given intake had around a 52% chance of being one of the standout players.

Compare that to a more technical position, such as CM - now, 5 CMs were in our top three players over our old HOYDs spell here, but with 28 CMs, that only equates to roughly a 17% chance that any CM was in the top three players of their intake. That doesn't seem like the coaching style has any effect on the quality of players.

Although, there may? be a link between the coaching style and the amount of players produced per position. I'd call CM the most 'technical' position on the pitch (save for possibly CAM), and he produced around 1.75 CMs a year. Our new, Fitness styled HOYD is currently producing 1.2 CMs a year.

Now, there's nowhere near enough data so far on this yet - and the data we do have is by no means significant - but I thought it was something to note. I don't think there's any meaning to the data, personally - it's just down to chance that there's a smallish difference between the coaching style and positions produced, and I'm of the opinion that it would likely level out given more time. 

Considering that he still produced more CBs (the least technical position of outfielders) than CMs, I really can't see a distinction. Thoughts?

[Jimbokav1971]

2 minutes ago, Jupjamie said:

His coaching style is 'technical'. Here's the chart of how his intakes looked:

He produced more CBs than anything else, which doesn't exactly correlate to a 'technical' style.

The position he faired best with was by far GKs - a GK was in our top three players of in intake in over half of the intakes he gave us, and nearly double the amount of the next closest position. He only produced 17 GKs, but 9 were in the top three players of in intake, meaning a GK in any given intake had around a 52% chance of being one of the standout players.

Compare that to a more technical position, such as CM - now, 5 CMs were in our top three players over our old HOYDs spell here, but with 28 CMs, that only equates to roughly a 17% chance that any CM was in the top three players of their intake. That doesn't seem like the coaching style has any effect on the quality of players.

Although, there may? be a link between the coaching style and the amount of players produced per position. I'd call CM the most 'technical' position on the pitch (save for possibly CAM), and he produced around 1.75 CMs a year. Our new, Fitness styled HOYD is currently producing 1.2 CMs a year.

Now, there's nowhere near enough data so far on this yet - and the data we do have is by no means significant - but I thought it was something to note. I don't think there's any meaning to the data, personally - it's just down to chance that there's a smallish difference between the coaching style and positions produced, and I'm of the opinion that it would likely level out given more time. 

Considering that he still produced more CBs (the least technical position of outfielders) than CMs, I really can't see a distinction. Thoughts?

Well my initial thoughts are this....

This bloke has produced loads of GK's as well as centre-backs and a GK doesn't actually have a "technical" set of attributes, he has "GK attributes". His technicals are replaced by goal-keeper attributes. So for that at least, I think it looks bang on.

With regards to centre-backs, the 4 attributes I look for first are Heading, Tackling, Marking and Jumping, (and then strength and positioning), so 3 of the first 4 attributes are technical. 

I would certainly class a playmaker as a technical player, but I wouldn't for example class a ball-winning midfielder, (mental) or a box to box midfielder, (physical), in the same way, (please remember I am just blurting this out so it may not stand up to dissection.

As well as previous playing position, (which you have just a large way to disproving), there is also the preferred formation to consider. The bloke who has produced all the centre-backs plays 4 at the back and the bloke who producers strikers plays 5 at the back and 1 up front, so that doesn't figure at all. 

Every time I look at something and think "I bet that's it", these 2 seem to disprove it. I'm stumped. 

[Bedese]

@Jimbokav1971, I'm down to my last idea before deciding that they have absolutely no effect - what if the coaching style only affects the players directly mentioned in the intake message? It's looking like the coaching style has next to no effect on the overall intake, but is it possible that one or two players every year are a direct result of the HOYD's coaching style?

It's a tenuous suggestion, and I can't think of a way to prove it - I don't have any of the old intake messages, and I have no idea what kind of players a 'fitness' style coach would be more prone to producing - but it's the only thing I can think of right now. I'm really starting to think that there's a lot less that goes into a HOYD than previously thought.

 

[Jimbokav1971]

I think the only real way to definitively prove stuff like this is with testing of extremes via the editor.I am sure that someone who has a preferred formation that involves a sweeper will produce more sweepers than someone who doesn't, and the same goes for wing-backs and AMC's. 

What the player looks like from then on, (in terms of attribute balance), I have always assumed was linked to, (but only influenced rather than..... specifically created I suppose), in the same way that I suggested that a Model Pro HoYD doesn't specifically produce Model Pro Newgens, but they are more likely to be more Professional as a result of his influence. It's the same with the other aspects. 

If a HoYD has a fitness coaching style as above, then there will, (and this is an idea rather than a statement of fact), be a leaning towards the relative strengths of in the Physical attributes, when they are created. Obviously the coaching style is determined by the coaching attributes, with the Balanced staff having their non-GK attributes within a certain level of each other. (At least this is how it should work in my mind). 

I think it will really take some concerted use of the editor to work this out once and for all, and at this stage I'm just not prepared to do that. 

[BoxToBox]

1 hour ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

specifically created I suppose), in the same way that I suggested that a Model Pro HoYD doesn't specifically produce Model Pro Newgens, but they are more likely to be more Professional as a result of his influence. It's the same with the other aspects. 

That's how it works(I believe), they don't always get the same personality, but are more likely to have similar personality attributes and determination.

The problem with this is, as Jupjamie's been charting them, Balanced could be anything. As it's marked as a bad attribute, but it could have good(or reasonably good) Professionalism. IIRC, a Balanced player could have 14 in both Professionalism and Ambition, which is a player that'd develop well. In fact, I'm sure there are certain Balanced players that almost instantly pop to Resolute as they're only one or two points off it before tutoring or squad personality shapes the the player slightly. On the flip side, you could have a Balanced player that's only slightly better than Casual or Temperamental and basically useless from a development perspective.

 

[Ceching You Out]

Any time! Depending on the type of strikers you have, you could shift one to RM or LM. In my team those positions are WM that operate like IF -- all about quick acceleration, good finishing/composure, and smart off the ball. Then a little work rate goes a long way on the defensive side; occupy passing lanes by getting back and compact, even if you can't tackle to save your life.

ETA: Apparently I missed a whole page of updates! Interesting un-results on the HoYD comparison. @Jimbokav1971, you may be right about tinkering with the editor being the only way to give you the extremes needed to understand the impacts on intakes.

Even then it might be difficult to test. I've had my most recent HoYD for three years -- the last two strongly resembled his personality but the first was vastly different. There may be a lag between when an HoYD affects the intake which could mean simulating nearly a full season repeatedly to get different results.

[Bedese]

Season Review!

League

Winning every playoff game 3-0 is pretty neat.

Schedule

Squad

The ratings dropped a little, which is to be expected when you use a defensive tactic against weak opponents. Remo Serao (YP131) was the standout player - I've just noticed that he's hit 17 pace but doesn't have the 'knocks ball past opponent' PPM, which is a big oversight on my part, so I'm teaching him that now. I'll also try to move him to RM, because he's right footed and I'm very excited about Simone Zafferani (YP141) as a prospect on the left wing for us.

Other Teams: All lost in the First Qualifying Round of Europa.

[Bedese]

[Bedese]

Amazing. We're now lower than we were to start with back in 2016. 250 f***ing quid. Another round of qualifying to get injuries/suspensions in. Great.

[Bedese]

There are better ways to head into a second leg...

[Bedese]

That's the weakest pot I've ever seen. I'm desperate to avoid Celtic or Brugge, because the other three are easily beatable.

 

 

 

Presuming we get past Kukesi, we've been given a goldmine of a tie. Hapoel aren't the strongest team in Israel (Maccabi Tel Aviv have them beat comfortably), and I think we could/should beat them.

[Bedese]

I don't know what to say. We had the dream draw, but we've been knocked out by Kukesi, who we absolutely slaughtered over the two legs. We f***ed up.

[Bedese]

Youth Intake Day!

Absolutely useless. I'm booting Vannucci ASAP. Too many strikers, and nowhere near enough talent.

[MichaelBrown]

Do you think there's a bug in the league/prize money for league thing? It's strange that your save is such a yo-yo. 

[Bedese]

29 minutes ago, MichaelBrown said:

Do you think there's a bug in the league/prize money for league thing? It's strange that your save is such a yo-yo. 

If you read back a couple of pages, @endtime did some absolutely fantastic research on that issue, and it's well worth reading. 

I can't decide if I'd call it a bug or not. The system is working as it should (a team from San Marino gets less acclaim than one from a better country, and so our wins mean less), but it's gone too far, to the point that our reputation goes down significantly for drawing a game, just because our domestic rivals are so weak.

[Jimbokav1971]

17 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

Even then it might be difficult to test. I've had my most recent HoYD for three years -- the last two strongly resembled his personality but the first was vastly different. There may be a lag between when an HoYD affects the intake which could mean simulating nearly a full season repeatedly to get different results.

As you would expect, I have an opinion on this. 

If this were real life rather than a game, them when a real life club employed a new HoYD, he would inherit players who were in the Youth system and it might take him a few seasons to really put his own mark on the Youth Team/System. It would be just about impossible to do it by the following season for example. With that in mind, if I was part of the creative team within FM, then I would be suggesting that there be some sort of overlap between a HoYD leaving, and his influence evaporating. If a HoYD was at a club for.... let's say 10 years. then when he left there would be kids of all ages that he had brought into the club, and who would still be there and progress through the system after he left. Some might be 16 the following season, some might have a few years before reaching that point. I'm not sure that I would want, (or that we should expect), a new HoYD to give instant results, (whether good or bad). 

[Ceching You Out]

14 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

As you would expect, I have an opinion on this. 

If this were real life rather than a game, them when a real life club employed a new HoYD, he would inherit players who were in the Youth system and it might take him a few seasons to really put his own mark on the Youth Team/System. It would be just about impossible to do it by the following season for example. With that in mind, if I was part of the creative team within FM, then I would be suggesting that there be some sort of overlap between a HoYD leaving, and his influence evaporating. If a HoYD was at a club for.... let's say 10 years. then when he left there would be kids of all ages that he had brought into the club, and who would still be there and progress through the system after he left. Some might be 16 the following season, some might have a few years before reaching that point. I'm not sure that I would want, (or that we should expect), a new HoYD to give instant results, (whether good or bad). 

Never a doubt in my mind that you would! Only the question of whether you'd share. 

From a realism standpoint, you're exactly right. The effect of an HoYD takes a few years to establish and lasts long after he's gone; recruitment isn't a HoYD walking down to the local green where kids are having a kick about and pointing "You, you, you! You play for Chelsea now." In a vacuum, FM would ideally reflect this "gradient" effect -- four years under HoYD #1 starts a player closer to a Professional physical-type, three years under HoYD #2 pushes him in the direction of an Ambitious technical-type.

From a software development point of view, the more realistic you try to make the effect of previous HoYD's the more historical variables you have to store for every team. Those can drag on processing over time. It could be one of the areas where SI decides extra realism (especially because it's very behind-the-scenes) isn't worth the knock-on effects. I'm blanking on an example, but there have been a few similar things SI has admitted to over the years where they traded expediency for marginally increased realism.

That uncertainty makes it really difficult for us to set valid parameters for an experiment. If I was in charge of the world (and I most certainly am not...yet), SI would share the details of youth generation and development because it's such a fascinating area. There are so many factors we could poke and prod. I would love to see how much they're able to incorporate, what they can't, argue over realism, and then tinker in my own saves to see the effects. That's but a daydream though.

As always, appreciate your point of view! Even on occasions when we disagree, the extra perspective adds to the thoughts percolating in my head. Hopefully @Jupjamie enjoys it as well, otherwise we've just clogged his thread .

[Bedese]

14 minutes ago, Ceching You Out said:

As always, appreciate your point of view! Even on occasions when we disagree, the extra perspective adds to the thoughts percolating in my head. Hopefully @Jupjamie enjoys it as well, otherwise we've just clogged his thread .

I very much enjoy it  This kind of thing is really interesting, IMO - hence why I've been charting our intakes for the past 30 years to conclude absolutely nothing  

[Jimbokav1971]

4 minutes ago, Ceching You Out said:

As always, appreciate your point of view! Even on occasions when we disagree, the extra perspective adds to the thoughts percolating in my head. Hopefully @Jupjamie enjoys it as well, otherwise we've just clogged his thread .

As I was reading this, I suddenly thought to myself..... "who's thread is this?" 

When I realised it was the @Jupjamiethread I was relieved. We have had similar discussions in all our threads I think. 

[Bedese]

7 minutes ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

As I was reading this, I suddenly thought to myself..... "who's thread is this?" 

When I realised it was the @Jupjamiethread I was relieved. We have had similar discussions in all our threads I think. 

Personally, I really enjoy all of our threads sometimes going off on a tangent about a deeper mechanic in the game. X happened/is a pattern that seems to keep happening with our team, I wonder why? Then we post that with our thoughts, and others come in with their thoughts, not just about the mechanic but also how it's impacting your save and suggestions of ways to move forward. It really adds something to all of our threads, IMO. Feel free to carry on this conversation for 50+ posts, it's much more interesting than what's currently happening in my save  

[Bedese]

Season Review!

League

Nothing really stands out about this year. A solid win.

Schedule

Squad

Not much to report here, really, either. It was just a standard year. We won the league comfortably, but there weren't really any standout performers. 

Other Teams: All lost in the First Qualifying Round of Europa. Not that we can complain after our pitiful showing.

I'm going to be using our old WB tactic in the early rounds of Europe. I'm still going to try the defensive 4-1-4-1 in Europe once we play the big boys (and it's not letting us down too badly in the league), but against the weaker European teams the WB tactic never once failed us. I'm not saying that the 4-1-4-1 is the reason we lost to Kukesi, but playing defensively against a bad team probably didn't help.

[Bedese]

[Bedese]

We keep sliding the wrong way  

[Bedese]

Well, we have a new HOYD. Here's the old one:

His stats are great, but the intakes weren't fantastic, and we had a ridiculous overload of strikers. Here's the best we could replace him with:

 

His stats aren't bad, and neither is his personality - Honest means the determination is low (but that's a problem we've had since the start), but it also means Professionalism will be between 5-20. I'll take it. We'll see what 'traits' he has with the intakes.

[Bedese]

I hate being in this round, but we've came out the other side unscathed - well, except for losing one of our rotational CBs to injury. Massimo Gualtieri (YP142) will probably miss the first leg of the Third Round - I still haven't worked out if he's one of our starters or best served being on the bench (he's pretty terrible), so it's not a huge loss, but it's still a loss that wouldn't have happened if we weren't in this stupid round. We also had a couple of starters booked in the first leg, which may come back to bite us.

[Bedese]

I actually changed my mind and used the 4-1-4-1 for both the First and Second Round, and it worked pretty well (I was playing pretty much my U19 squads in the second legs to avoid any injuries or bookings). Hmm.

 

*Gulp*. Well, the Greek giants will certainly test how strong our defence is, that's for sure.

[Bedese]

Hey, that was actually good. Well, part of it. We went 3-0 down in 25 minutes without ever looking alive in the game. I changed our mentality from defensive to counter, and we stormed back big time. We scored twice, and actually had a 15 minute spell where we dominated the game. Our starting DM getting sent off with three minutes left makes things a bit more difficult, but we've given ourselves a chance to actually progress heading into the second leg, which is a lot more than I thought we'd get. 

[Northernpilgrim]

Good luck, definitely got a chance to go through

[Bedese]

Negatives: We're out.

Positives: Everything else. We outplayed Olympiakos! This is a team who make the groups most years, and they've escaped with their life against us. We were tight at the back and great going forward, and we're severely unlucky to be sent crashing out. I think this 4-1-4-1 will work just fine. (I've changed the mentality from defensive to counter permanently and made the RM a W(A) as well to give us more going forward, but those are the only two tweaks I've made since I originally posted the tactic on here).

[Bedese]

You have to go back to 2053/54 to find the last time they didn't make the Europa Groups, and they often make it to the Knockouts. Not the best of ties.

[Bedese]

We nearly beat Brugge with 10 men. I'm genuinely excited about Europe next season, because I think we can do some damage.

[dynaboyj]

10 hours ago, Jupjamie said:

Personally, I really enjoy all of our threads sometimes going off on a tangent about a deeper mechanic in the game. X happened/is a pattern that seems to keep happening with our team, I wonder why? Then we post that with our thoughts, and others come in with their thoughts, not just about the mechanic but also how it's impacting your save and suggestions of ways to move forward. It really adds something to all of our threads, IMO. Feel free to carry on this conversation for 50+ posts, it's much more interesting than what's currently happening in my save  

I have to say I really love how deep this thread has gotten into FM the game, FM the computer program, and FM the realistic simulation of world football. It's fascinating and admirable how much y'all have figured out prompted only by San Marino and youth only games.

[Jimbokav1971]

7 hours ago, Jupjamie said:

 I think this 4-1-4-1 will work just fine. (I've changed the mentality from defensive to counter permanently and made the RM a W(A) as well to give us more going forward, but those are the only two tweaks I've made since I originally posted the tactic on here).

I'm personally of the opinion that "counter" is significantly over-powered and it's easier, (not easy mind), to get at least decent results against stronger oponents as lo g as there or no issues elsewhere in the tactic.

That's a really good run of results and bodes well for future years.

[Bedese]

1 hour ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I'm personally of the opinion that "counter" is significantly over-powered and it's easier, (not easy mind), to get at least decent results against stronger oponents as lo g as there or no issues elsewhere in the tactic.

That's a really good run of results and bodes well for future years.

Interesting, I've never heard anyone else say that before. What about it makes it over-powered, in your opinion? 

[Bedese]

Youth Intake Day!

I can't remember what it's like to have a player worth tagging.

[Jimbokav1971]

7 hours ago, Jupjamie said:

Interesting, I've never heard anyone else say that before. What about it makes it over-powered, in your opinion? 

The effectiveness of the type of chances created I think.

I think there was a big discussion about this somewhere. It might have been in the San Marino challenge thread or somewhere else. Can't remember now. 

Actually..... maybe it was a Cleon thing. I really can't remember. If I was to put money on it though, a Cleon thing would get my vote. 

[Bedese]

Season Review!

League

Another good win.

Schedule

Squad

A couple of standout performers. It's pretty clear that Simone Zafferani (YP141) on the left wing and Marino Berti (YP137) at CM are the two best players at the club.

Other Teams: All lost in the First Qualifying Round of Europa.

 

[Bedese]

[Bedese]

 

 

It's an improvement, but we're still in the bloody First Round.

[Bedese]

Like usual, we played our starters in the first leg, and ran out the u19s in the second leg as the job was already wrapped up.

[Bedese]

A little tighter than we'd have liked, but we're through regardless.

 

One of the worst draws possible. They made the CL Quarters not too long ago, and are regulars in the Europa Knockout Rounds. 

[Ceching You Out]

Well done on the results in Europe! Being able to hold your own definitely gives a sense of optimism; one or two breaks and you could be back in the Europa Group Stages or better.

[Bedese]

2 hours ago, Ceching You Out said:

Well done on the results in Europe! Being able to hold your own definitely gives a sense of optimism; one or two breaks and you could be back in the Europa Group Stages or better.

Thank you! Unfortunately, my computer decided to restart and do updates during the second leg of the PAOK game, so I'm back in mid June. It'll take me a while to get back to where we were, which was heading out of the CL Third Qualifying Round. 

We were 4-0 down on aggregate to PAOK with about 20 minutes left but actually playing really well. Our starting striker, Stefano Zonzini was injured for both legs - if he was fit, I genuinely think that things would have turned out differently, because we squandered enough chances to win the tie. I'm going to play through and lose the CL Third Round to get back to the Europa Playoff, which is one of the most tedious things there is to do 

[Bedese]

So, uhh, this happened while I was replaying to get back to where I was:

That's set a new record for our biggest ever win  

[Bedese]

Holidayed through to get back to where I was. Here's our new set of European results:

Even when I'm not managing against them, Dinamo are brutal. Still, onto the important stuff - the Europa Playoff!

[Bedese]

This is the first time in their history that they've made it to Europe. I have the Italian leagues loaded, which explains it - and also means they have some very good players. I'm not sure what to expect - Spezia are hardly a powerhouse and were in Serie B six years ago, which makes me want a win - but at the same time, they could also batter us because of having the Italian league system loaded. I guess we'll find out.