Caixa Futebol Academy: Youth Development & Adapting Tactics

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

23 hours ago, vrbrasa said:

thanks @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! i wiil try that

i must say i have the fm18 because of this post. i was in the year 2045 with sporting in fm17...

and just because you are here, do you have any more pis?

 have to say the fluid match with 4-2-3-1 wright?

Very few. The centre backs dribble (very specific to the players I have with Benfica), the goalkeeper distributes to the central defenders, the striker moves into channels. That's about it.

You also don't have to be Fluid. That's just because the team have the mental attributes to pull it off. If you're less confident in the team you could equally use Structured or any other shape.

[vrbrasa]

yes, i notice that.

my big strangle is to decide the control or overload or neutral...

[howard moon]

19 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

You also don't have to be Fluid. That's just because the team have the mental attributes to pull it off. If you're less confident in the team you could equally use Structured or any other shape.

Can you explain this a bit more please @Ö-zil to the Arsenal!? If you moved from fluid up to very fluid, or down to flexible or structured, what would happen? (Assuming everything else was unchanged)

[MadOnion]

Team shape influences the mentality of the team as a whole. It also affects how defenders, midfielders and attackers will contribute to the defensive, transition and attacking phases.

The more fluid the shape, the closer they will play as a team. That requires a degree of intelligence (the big 5, in my opinion: decisions, concentration, first touch, off the ball, work rate, but there are others attribute equally as important) from your players since they will attack and defend as a unit.

If you go more structure, you will isolate them a bit more. Defenders will spend most of their time defending and attackers attack, leaving gaps in the formation.

What @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! is saying is if you're not sure/confident about your team (in basic words if you don't have complete footballers), start with a Structured shape and work your way up.

In FM19, things are a lot different though since shape has been dropped.

[zlatanera]

Yeah to add to the team shape thing, on FM18 I had great success using O-zil's Barcelona 433 with Real Sociedad, but on Flexible as although my team were technical and athletic enough, they just weren't quite mentally up there with the Barcelona team he'd assembled. Ended up winning the league using a version with a striker and IF-At on the left, and the cup (and coming 2nd in the league) using Oyarzabal in the Messi SS role. 

Can also be a positive in that it spaces the players out a little bit so you don't just end up camping on the edge of the box (although that still happened)

Edited June 12, 2019 by zlatanera

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

5 hours ago, howard moon said:

Can you explain this a bit more please @Ö-zil to the Arsenal!? If you moved from fluid up to very fluid, or down to flexible or structured, what would happen? (Assuming everything else was unchanged)

This is a very good question. I'll write a proper answer over the weekend, if that's OK as it basically could be a thread of it's own and my opinions on this have developed over the course of this thread. Thanks! 

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

On 12/06/2019 at 16:51, howard moon said:

Can you explain this a bit more please @Ö-zil to the Arsenal!? If you moved from fluid up to very fluid, or down to flexible or structured, what would happen? (Assuming everything else was unchanged)

Sorry for the delay in responding to this. As mentioned, it's an excellent question and probably justifies a thread in it's own right so I wanted to do it justice. Life's gotten in the way the past few weeks, but I finally have a coffee and a free afternoon 

My thinking on team shape has evolved through the various saves and threads I've experimented with.

In summary, the initial breakthrough was combining Very Fluid to give intelligent, hard working, technical players freedom to make decisions but also bring them together to play as a unit. For example, please see:

Johan Cruyff's 3-4-3

Arrigo Sacchi's 4-4-2

..and even the simple Dutch style 4-3-3

During this time I'd essentially identified that Very Fluid caused players to prioritise the Team Mentality over their individual Duty. This is why the early shapes all used Standard team mentality, in order to keep the team balanced, rather than the Control, Attack and Overload you see me using regularly further down the line.

The next breakthrough was identifying that I could balance increased Team Mentality with reduced individual Duties.

This originated from the Guardiola's 4-3-3 thread, playing a Control team mentality but with only two in Attack.

The concept was then smashed home in the Bielsa thread experimenting with Overload balanced entirely by using only Defend and Support roles.

Anyone notice anything similar in the last shot?  Perhaps suitably for a thread about Bielsa, this one never attracted the interest of the others - perhaps because I didn't really finish it - but was the most influential on the style I play now.

In quite a plot twist, given the ongoing narrative on team shape, thinking carefully about the individual Duty frees you from needing to use Very Fluid to create compactness.

For example, a fairly disappointing crop in Benfica B have been set up to play in a Structured, Control 4-3-3.

They'd had 1-2 years in the under 19s so starting to develop reasonably well technically and I want to maintain the style of pressing and possession at that level, but Control rather than Overload meant it was at a more manageable tempo and Structured meant they had less freedom to deviate from the basic plan.

They recorded very high possession figures, higher than the first team in fact, and won the league.

Despite the Structured shape, the compactness can still be seen looking under the hood at the individual mentalities themselves.
 

      11
11          11
   11 11 11

11  8    8  11
      8

As you can see we're already nice and compact. It'd simply be a case of increasing to a more fluid shape when the players decision making is ready for it.

This could easily be any possession-friendly shape and I'd be interested to give it a spin somewhere else.

[Garrlor]

Well @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! once again.... you have proven yourself to be a bloody genius.

I have just read through your Cruyff inspired 3-4-3 thread and boy has it whet my appitite. I am very tempted to start a game trying to implement those ideals with Salford City, to see if I can build a culture through the leagues and develop players to sell for a profit and re-invest. I just looked at my Man United save that I started after being inspiried by this thread and I realised that I was getting it all wrong. Having finished the season with a treble (EPL, FA Cup and CL) I went out and signed Harry Kane (first time ever in FM) as he was a much better option as a DLF/CF than Lukaku (who will be sold). I also signed De Ligt, a couple of promising regens and picked up Arthur and Xadas in the winter window. Looks great on paper and I have a feeling that I could get a clean sweep next season (and probably an unbeaten one).

However in buying the players I have done, I have abandoned the idea behind developing my own and just played the game with my heart. I cannot seem to remove myself from Manchester United as a fan, which means I buy players to fill gaps that I wish the club would potentially buy in real life. So my best bet to develop a system and squad of my own is to start low or in another league where I will have the challenge of winning the CL.

I might just keep the United save on the side so I can see some of these players develop...

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

4 hours ago, Garrlor said:

Well @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! once again.... you have proven yourself to be a bloody genius.

I have just read through your Cruyff inspired 3-4-3 thread and boy has it whet my appitite. I am very tempted to start a game trying to implement those ideals with Salford City, to see if I can build a culture through the leagues and develop players to sell for a profit and re-invest. I just looked at my Man United save that I started after being inspiried by this thread and I realised that I was getting it all wrong. Having finished the season with a treble (EPL, FA Cup and CL) I went out and signed Harry Kane (first time ever in FM) as he was a much better option as a DLF/CF than Lukaku (who will be sold). I also signed De Ligt, a couple of promising regens and picked up Arthur and Xadas in the winter window. Looks great on paper and I have a feeling that I could get a clean sweep next season (and probably an unbeaten one).

However in buying the players I have done, I have abandoned the idea behind developing my own and just played the game with my heart. I cannot seem to remove myself from Manchester United as a fan, which means I buy players to fill gaps that I wish the club would potentially buy in real life. So my best bet to develop a system and squad of my own is to start low or in another league where I will have the challenge of winning the CL.

I might just keep the United save on the side so I can see some of these players develop...

 Thank you for your kind words. Glad to be of service.

Why don't you try the structured control approach at Salford?

The 3-4-3 diamond is an advanced system and you very much need the right players to pull it off. Structured control is more of a simple, organised, positive possession approach which is designed for a much more basic level.

Could be anything possession friendly such as a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, Diamond or something with a back 3 so something must fit.

[howard moon]

16 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Sorry for the delay in responding to this. As mentioned, it's an excellent question and probably justifies a thread in it's own right so I wanted to do it justice. Life's gotten in the way the past few weeks, but I finally have a coffee and a free afternoon 

My thinking on team shape has evolved through the various saves and threads I've experimented with.

In summary, the initial breakthrough was combining Very Fluid to give intelligent, hard working, technical players freedom to make decisions but also bring them together to play as a unit. For example, please see:

Johan Cruyff's 3-4-3

Arrigo Sacchi's 4-4-2

..and even the simple Dutch style 4-3-3

During this time I'd essentially identified that Very Fluid caused players to prioritise the Team Mentality over their individual Duty. This is why the early shapes all used Standard team mentality, in order to keep the team balanced, rather than the Control, Attack and Overload you see me using regularly further down the line.

The next breakthrough was identifying that I could balance increased Team Mentality with reduced individual Duties.

This originated from the Guardiola's 4-3-3 thread, playing a Control team mentality but with only two in Attack.

The concept was then smashed home in the Bielsa thread experimenting with Overload balanced entirely by using only Defend and Support roles.

Anyone notice anything similar in the last shot?  Perhaps suitably for a thread about Bielsa, this one never attracted the interest of the others - perhaps because I didn't really finish it - but was the most influential on the style I play now.

In quite a plot twist, given the ongoing narrative on team shape, thinking carefully about the individual Duty frees you from needing to use Very Fluid to create compactness.

For example, a fairly disappointing crop in Benfica B have been set up to play in a Structured, Control 4-3-3.

They'd had 1-2 years in the under 19s so starting to develop reasonably well technically and I want to maintain the style of pressing and possession at that level, but Control rather than Overload meant it was at a more manageable tempo and Structured meant they had less freedom to deviate from the basic plan.

They recorded very high possession figures, higher than the first team in fact, and won the league.

Despite the Structured shape, the compactness can still be seen looking under the hood at the individual mentalities themselves.
 

      11
11          11
   11 11 11

11  8    8  11
      8

As you can see we're already nice and compact. It'd simply be a case of increasing to a more fluid shape when the players decision making is ready for it.

This could easily be any possession-friendly shape and I'd be interested to give it a spin somewhere else.

Thanks for giving such a detailed response. 

Map, if I’m understanding rightly, you’re saying there are two ways to create compactness:

- very fluid shape (which gives more scope for using attacking roles, especially with a balanced mentality)

- using mostly (or exclusively) defend and support roles)?

So the main difference with fluidity would be the amount of creative freedom you want to give your players?

I’m guessing that the two approaches give different ‘styles’ of football? If this is the case, what would you say were the noticeable differences?

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

53 minutes ago, howard moon said:

Thanks for giving such a detailed response. 

Map, if I’m understanding rightly, you’re saying there are two ways to create compactness:

- very fluid shape (which gives more scope for using attacking roles, especially with a balanced mentality)

- using mostly (or exclusively) defend and support roles)?

So the main difference with fluidity would be the amount of creative freedom you want to give your players?

I’m guessing that the two approaches give different ‘styles’ of football? If this is the case, what would you say were the noticeable differences?

Precisely. To illustrate the point we can look at the mentality structure of the 4-3-3 in a Structured shape in comparison to Very Fluid.

As already stated, the mentality structure is:

 

      11
11          11
   11 11 11
11  8    8  11
      8

 

Shifting shape to Very Fluid naturally:

1. Brings the mentality of the wide players together so Overlap TI is no longer necessary
2. Increases the playmaker mentality above neutral meaning we can use a Defend duty.

Leaving us with the following mentality structure:

 

      10
12          12
   12 11 12

12  11  11  12

      11

As you can see, very similar. The centre backs and goalkeeper become marginally more expansive which makes the set up marginally more compact, but really the mentality structure is very similar.

The noticeable difference is that the Very Fluid shape gives considerably more creative freedom. You can see this clearly in the match engine through the variety and unpredictability of play.

The Structured shape is much more disciplined. I actually observe noticeably higher possession, perhaps due to taking less risks, and more emphasis on the playmaker in typical play with the Deeplying Playmaker receiving a lot more of the ball. I'd suggest that if you try this with a lower-quality side you'd still want to invest in your playmaker.

I'm reluctant to say "mostly/exclusively defence or support roles" across the board, but it does seem to work with Team Mentalities of Control and above. You might want to add one/two attack roles depending on your team and if you observe a lack of penetration but I've not had that issue.

Conversely, playing a Defensive or Counter system I'd be inclined to use more Attack duties - again to balance. In terms of a numerical value, I have a personal preference for having most of my team in the 11-14 range.

Finally - you can also add Team Instructions as a way to create compactness.

1. Exploit the Middle increases the mentality of DC(C/D/S), DM(D/S) and MC(D) allowing you to bring them closer to your midfield unit.
2. Structured shapes mean mentalities increase as you go up the field, reducing compactness, but Look for Overlap increases DR/L mentality and reduces MR/L and AMR/L mentality which tightens up the flanks again.

Edited July 6, 2019 by Ö-zil to the Arsenal!

[axelmuller]

fantastic once and again..

how are your fullbacks performing in the Structured system? when im using Overlap with Exploit the middle, they dont overlap. but when removing exploit the middle, they do.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

On 06/07/2019 at 15:30, axelmuller said:

fantastic once and again..

how are your fullbacks performing in the Structured system? when im using Overlap with Exploit the middle, they dont overlap. but when removing exploit the middle, they do.

Difficult to compare, because I use that system with significantly lower quality players but I've never noticed any identifiable difference as far as wingbacks are concerned. 

[Garrlor]

On 06/07/2019 at 01:43, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

 Thank you for your kind words. Glad to be of service.

Why don't you try the structured control approach at Salford? 

The 3-4-3 diamond is an advanced system and you very much need the right players to pull it off. Structured control is more of a simple, organised, positive possession approach which is designed for a much more basic level.

Could be anything possession friendly such as a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, Diamond or something with a back 3 so something must fit.

Hey, genius needs to be recognised. The best part of your threads is that you really understand the match engine and what SI are trying to get at with the various instructions that are in the game. Taking "Exploit the Middle" as an example, most people would look at it and think that you concentrate all of your play through the middle of the pitch most of the time. As you have said, the reality is that it bumps up the mentality of everyone playing in the middle, encouraging more risk taking/forward runs etc etc. Simple, easy to understand explainations.

As for Salford, I was already considering some of the issues that I might encounter. Long balls over the top against slow centre halves, so you have to drop the DL a little. One of the things I considered for the 3-4-3 is picking up a couple of fast full backs to play the outer 2 CD posistions, with a reliable rock in the middle to mop up the headers. That won't help the relative lack of off the ball movement, though it will be good for the level, it is not a tactic that I can potentially keep using throughout the save as I will need a couple of seasons at each level to build the right players.

However, Evolution not Revolution. I already have the players that I could pull off the 4-3-3 Structured, and it is not that much of a departure from my Man United tactic. I think strangling possesion at this level will be very effective. Relatively speaking the players that I have available are of a much higher quality than 80% of the league so it will be interesting to see how they will fare. I romped the league in a Salford save playing a bog standard 4-4-2 with wingers and a target man / poacher combo. Easy to do, but I feel like building a dynasty and total football philosphy. Getting heavy investment in the youth set up is the way forward. Maybe even get my payers playing a 3-4-3 diamond when I have the youth prospects coming through, ready to transistion to the first team by the time I get to League 1 / Championship.

Now my head hurts...

PS, I hope that you dont mind me taking your Benfica thread off in a different direction. I just love your vision of football and wish that Man United would actually implement something like this in real life

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

Euro 2024 Update

Hope you're all enjoying the weekend. Apologies for the radio silence on the updates lately, life's been hectic again. Likely to be hectic at for the next few weeks but I have managed to get through the Euro 2024 championship and it does leave us at a fairly major crossroads.

At this point, the Portugal squad is beyond a 'golden generation'. Not only are we reigning world champions but the squad consists of 3-in-a-row Champions League winners, Benfica plus multiple world class players from around Europe including Bernardo Silva, Xadas, Gonçalo Guedes and Andre Silva with many first team players from top clubs around Europe unable to make the squad.

Obviously, with a squad like this winning is no longer simply expected, it's demanded. This said, it remains an interesting challenge to maximise the talents available and the European Championship remains the final trophy to win in this save.

Tactics

In 2022, we won the World Cup playing a 4-3-3 with the same high-intensity, high tempo style we've used with Benfica to dominate Europe.

The majority of the squad remains together, with João Felix and Umaro Embalo establishing themselves as key players. João Felix in particular has established himself as - possibly - the best player in Europe playing behind the striker in a dominant 4-2-3-1, however at national level this would have world-class trio João Felix, Bernardo Silva and Xadas competing for one position, or playing out of position.

During the build up to the World Cup, we settled on a 4-3-3 playing two of João Felix, Xadas and Bernardo Silva with Afonso Sousa as understudy playing in Guardiola-inspired 'Free 8' roles either side of Dantas.

Free 8 role:

We consistently played at an exceptionally high level, qualifying easily, however the system did need some work. The issue observed was the high tempo meant that the ball ping-ponged forward very quickly, often reaching attacking positions before the free-8s had moved into attacking positions, leaving Andre Silva isolated and over-relying on wing play.

Switching to a Control mentality achieved the desired effect of using more controlled build-up play to allow players to get into position.

The final pre-Championship change was actually using Bernardo Silva first as a False 9 and then as an Attacking Midfield (Support) in a strikerless system, which allowed all 3 superstars on the field, in their best positions, interlinking and playing some beautiful football.

 

The only downside was coming up with this after submitting my squad, and if I'd anticipated this switch I'd have taken Bernardo Sousa (after a breakthrough season at Sporting) in the place of Goncalo Oliveira, but not a big issue.

Squad

Our starting team now consists of two natural defenders, two natural wide players and 6 natural midfield players, with a clear focus on technical, intelligent players and an ingrained style of play.

Most of this squad is still early to mid-20s so this team is likely to be together for the foreseeable future.

Group Stages

 

Knockouts

Final

I've not got a huge amount to say about this one. It's a very simple system, slightly adapted from one we've seen quite a few times before.

The attacking shape is a 2-3-5 involving inverted wingbacks solidifying midfield and two Guardiola-inspired "Free 8s" flanking another playmaker, rather than the usual Centre Forward.

 

Bernardo Silva is crucially asked to Hold Up Play whilst the onrushing midfield swarm past him, and are extremely difficult for the AI to pickup. This set up repeats itself extremely regularly and - as you can see from our results - Xadas and João Felix are contributing a lot.

Essentially we've now reached a point where we've got a very talented group who have been playing together for a long time and can play a number of different systems. Looking at the squad screenshot you can see that overall comparisons for ability are less friendly when compared with the best of the best, but the team is out there on their own as an overall unit.

The Crossroads

With 3 consecutive Champions Leagues, a World Cup and a European Championship this group of players has achieved everything it can, and feels a natural time to disperse and take on the biggest and best leagues of Europe.

Europe's elite are circling with some mega-bids and we're reaching the point where it's the right time for a new challenge.

Quite a few major clubs around Europe are going to be in major rebuild having failed to replace major stars, so far and now forced by age.

In Spain, Real Madrid won the league very comfortably under Allegri who just moved to Man City and replaced by Mancini but still have gaps, particularly in attack. Simeone's Atleti look like they'll run Real Madrid close next season. Whilst Barcelona have an almost mid-table quality team and require major, major rebuild.

In Italy, Inter have finally broken the dominance of Pep Guardiola's Juventus who have a weaker side than usual.

Bayern are back on top after Dortmund took the previous title and have one of the strongest squads in Europe.

Chelsea won the Premier League under Marcelino, and the Premier League is the most competitive by a mile. Arsenal are back in the mix and the Champions League under Ralph Hasenhuttl. Mourinho's Man Utd and Luis Enrique's (now Allegri) Man City right in the mix.

There seems to be a whole host of potential suitors for the stars of my time, but nothing jumping out as to a new challenge for me.

At this moment, I'm leaning strongest toward staying with Benfica and overseeing the transition as this generation disperses around Europe and managing the transition whilst maintaining the club status and re-kindling the academy. I'm kinda thinking out loud so I'll think more and make the call shortly.

[Jean0987654321]

Take the money and run, Ozil

[axelmuller]

I hope next step is Ö-zil to the Barcelona!

on the side note, what kind of players did you use with the B Team in the Structured Control system. been using it with semi good success at Cambridge United.

[Tom8983]

Well if the Premier League seems the most interesting, as one of the most successful managers in the world why not see if you can do it on a cold night in Stoke, every week?

[leesmith90]

Would definitely like you to give the premier league a crack. Would be interested to see how you would manage your playing and development philosophies whilst satisfying ambitious owners!

[zlatanera]

Obviously its wherever you want to take the save, but I'm curious to see how much / little you would change to do youth development in a league were there are u20/21/23 teams playing in their own competitions rather than a B team in a professional division like Ajax / Barcelona / Benfica. 

I always feel like its a bit random if I manage to maximise a player's potential in England / Italy (the two I primarily manage in where there aren't B teams)  - in France, where the reserves can only play in the 4th tier, I often get the training note "needs better challenges" i.e. loan the player out, but I never seem to get that in England even if the guy is hardly developing. 

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

On 17/07/2019 at 15:14, axelmuller said:

I hope next step is Ö-zil to the Barcelona!

on the side note, what kind of players did you use with the B Team in the Structured Control system. been using it with semi good success at Cambridge United.

 They're really not that special:

Under 19s:

B Team:

This would be the next year's crop, but of a very similar level. Typically around 2 stars for ability and they've had 1-2 years in the academy already so have a reasonable technical ability and intelligence but nobody is banging on the door for the first team or even squad right now.

 

On 17/07/2019 at 17:07, Tom8983 said:

Well if the Premier League seems the most interesting, as one of the most successful managers in the world why not see if you can do it on a cold night in Stoke, every week?

I'm edging toward this as a preference as well but I am not sure when and how to handle the transition. I've left it a little late for this season as clubs switching coach have already done so. Arsenal - I would say Spurs, if I wasn't biassed. But I'm not, so I won't - and Liverpool look like the most interesting propositions in the Premiership.

Manchester City and United have dominated the league in the past few years, although Chelsea won it last season. Premiership sides also dominate the later rounds of the Champions League so it's an interesting league, for sure.

 

10 hours ago, zlatanera said:

Obviously its wherever you want to take the save, but I'm curious to see how much / little you would change to do youth development in a league were there are u20/21/23 teams playing in their own competitions rather than a B team in a professional division like Ajax / Barcelona / Benfica. 

I always feel like its a bit random if I manage to maximise a player's potential in England / Italy (the two I primarily manage in where there aren't B teams)  - in France, where the reserves can only play in the 4th tier, I often get the training note "needs better challenges" i.e. loan the player out, but I never seem to get that in England even if the guy is hardly developing. 

Interesting question. Almost any thread about youth development winds up being Ajax, Barcelona, Santos or now Benfica. In an ideal world I'd find a feeder club with a similar style of play and loan players out there. More pragmatically, I'd probably rely on the most general loan system to take players from U-19 level to First Team. To be honest, I am anyway. The quality of our first team squad means that there's not many pathways directly through the club into the first team. Most positions are 2-3 deep with 4/5-star players plus a couple out on loan. The academy has been a victim of our own success.

Ultimately you've got to offer opportunities if you expect people to develop, and I think that one of the reasons we're seeing less coming through is lack of opportunity in the first team.

 

Given that the squad has now largely peaked, I am erring toward a few major sales and then managing that transition.

Lautaro Martinez, João Felix and Embalo all have £100m+ offers floating around for them. We have ready made replacements in the squad and this would open up some serious pathways into the team. Others like Grimaldo and Lo Celso should probably be cashed in upon as well.

Aragon, for example, still strikes me as a huge potential, but could be given more opportunity:

After a few years in limbo Diego Batista has returned from Real Madrid an absolute beast.

As has Ederson Mosquera:

The interesting thing is that these are all quite different players to the existing squad, shifting the 'DNA' somewhat.
 

[TheJanitor]

Just wanted to pop in again and say how wonderful this thread is. Probably my favorite in this forum, a lot thanks to your writing style.

Keep it up, I hope to see much more of this.

Edited July 19, 2019 by TheJanitor

[BadAss88]

As always you inspired me a lot @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! !!

Gonna start a Benfica save because of this topic!

[zlatanera]

12 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Interesting question. Almost any thread about youth development winds up being Ajax, Barcelona, Santos or now Benfica. In an ideal world I'd find a feeder club with a similar style of play and loan players out there. More pragmatically, I'd probably rely on the most general loan system to take players from U-19 level to First Team. To be honest, I am anyway. The quality of our first team squad means that there's not many pathways directly through the club into the first team. Most positions are 2-3 deep with 4/5-star players plus a couple out on loan. The academy has been a victim of our own success.

Ultimately you've got to offer opportunities if you expect people to develop, and I think that one of the reasons we're seeing less coming through is lack of opportunity in the first team.

What you are describing is, I think, exactly what happened to La Masia from around 2011 onwards when Sergi Roberto is iirc the only academy graduate to break into Barcelona's first team. I don't think its a coincidence that some of the most famed groups of youth players to win things in their clubs' first teams - think Xavi, Iniesta, Valdes, Messi etc. at Barca, Class of 92', Müller etc. at Bayern in the early 2010s, came through when their clubs were at a lower ebb so there were less obstructions to the first team (having a youth-promoting manager also helps - Pep sold Ronaldinho, Ferguson sold Ince, Van Gaal sold Luca Toni). Whereas with Ajax they always have to sell, so that allows the next great group their opportunity even if there were good players ahead of them at one point. 

12 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Given that the squad has now largely peaked, I am erring toward a few major sales and then managing that transition.

A lot of people (myself generally included) only tend to have 2-5 season saves where they'll build up a team until they can win everything, so I imagine there would be quite a bit of interest in seeing this too, how you manage to change quickly enough to develop the next generation without doing too poorly in competitions and losing all that prize / tv money. 

[Aquaplex]

Great article and updates.  How do you apply some of these tactical settings to FM19?  Would be nice to see this in FM19

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

Interesting video, relevant to this thread. Extremely busy week, but hoping to respond to recent posts and get an update out next week 

[Garrlor]

A very interesting article indeed @Ö-zil to the Arsenal!. It was mostly accurate and spot on, though my opinion on counting some of the players as "academy" graduates is a little wide of the mark. Alba for instance had 7 years playing for other clubs before he rejoined Barca, hardly a smooth path to the first team.

I do like how it relates to your current struggles to fit some of your academy graduates into your side. I Know you have used the loan market to give your players a lot of first team exposure (at some big clubs too!) but right now without selling anyone that path to the first team is blocked. And you don't strike me as they type of player who signs a lot of players either. I guess at the top level you really cant rely on your academy in the same way that you can bringing kids through at a club you take through the leagues. Benfica are now the dominant force in world football in your save, so where else is really up for them? It has to be serious mega money, which you wont spend much of.

As a side note, I just checked something on Piques wikipedia, apparently when United sent him to Zaragoza on loan they had a clause that he had to play at least 20 games for them during the loan. I wish that FM included an option, despite a manager saying he will be first choice etc I sometimes find that they are lying gits....

[BadAss88]

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! How do you train a young talented winger? Do you train him as winger or as a complete forward to make him a complete player? But if you train him as a complete forward then his corssing will not be attented, any suggestions? In FM19 it isn't possible to give extra attention to crossing..

 

[BadAss88]

Furthermore, how do you descide what role a player can play? Especially with youngsters, do you envision already a role for him from the start? Do you look at the attributes highlighted by the role? Sounds not, if you use a fine-tuned CM-s for example. And how do you know which mental attributes are critical?

I've noticed that this is the part I'm most struggling around with FM. I'm too hung up on the stars rating for the role..

[Garrlor]

8 hours ago, BadAss88 said:

Furthermore, how do you descide what role a player can play? Especially with youngsters, do you envision already a role for him from the start? Do you look at the attributes highlighted by the role? Sounds not, if you use a fine-tuned CM-s for example. And how do you know which mental attributes are critical?

I've noticed that this is the part I'm most struggling around with FM. I'm too hung up on the stars rating for the role..

@BadAss88 So I will use the example of one of the players that I had in my last United game, Josef Eckman a 15 year old with what looks to be a boundless talent.

 

 

Looking at his stats, he is good posistionally, brave, makes good decisions and works hard for the team. Combined with decent physical stats (alas for the jumping ability) I already have the makings of a good anything other than centre back. His technical ability tells a story too, good marking, excellent tacking and decent technique and first touch. Your initial thoughts might be to go full Kante and turn him into a destroyer, but with a little work I can see a different type of player in there. His current skillset and abilities lend themselves to a full back, defensive midfielder or inverted wingback. But he has a reasonable passing ability, decent enough first touch and ok off the ball. With work as a roaming playmaker and focusing on his off the ball skill you could easily turn him into a hard hitting "false 8", who would scamper up and down the field all day long, winning tackles, playing passes and anchoring the right side of midfield like some sort of Teutonic stone wall, with the right stat development and tutoring you could bring out that "gets forward whenever possible" with "plays one twos" and have someone who breaks the lines as well as he breaks up play. This is where i saw him heading in my game, playing as a CM(Su) in my 4-3-3 which would probably have freed me up to go attacking with my right back.

Alternatively as an inverted wingback he would provide an excellent screen for your defense and midfield locking down that right hand side all by himself.

Looking just at the stats to begin with can seem to be daunting. A player will generally have a leaning on where they are good but dont be suckered in by the star ratings. That just tells you what they are probably best at based on a few key stats, not the overall performance of the player. I personally think that playing young Eckman there as a ball winning midfielder would be a waste of his full potential, he could be so much more than that.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Garrlor

[Chief232]

On 18/07/2019 at 19:31, zlatanera said:

Obviously its wherever you want to take the save, but I'm curious to see how much / little you would change to do youth development in a league were there are u20/21/23 teams playing in their own competitions rather than a B team in a professional division like Ajax / Barcelona / Benfica. 

I always feel like its a bit random if I manage to maximise a player's potential in England / Italy (the two I primarily manage in where there aren't B teams)  - in France, where the reserves can only play in the 4th tier, I often get the training note "needs better challenges" i.e. loan the player out, but I never seem to get that in England even if the guy is hardly developing. 

I wanted to talk on this a bit as youth development is an aspect of the game that I've really focused on in this version and I've put an embarrassing amount of hours in this year lol.  I know you're a regular poster on the forum and you're very adept at the game so I apologize if you already know some of these things - I don't see them commonly talked about on these forums, and maybe it can help a few others, but I think I clarify a bit of the randomness. The youth team part of the game is very inconsistent indeed with what will and will not develop a player and I think I've narrowed down, for the most part, a good few rule of thumbs for this. I do think SI could do some work making it more consistent throughout the leagues regarding how youth teams work.

When a player is under 18, you should absolutely keep them in your youth squad which is common knowledge I think, preferably at the youngest level they can play. Good coaching, facilities, a good personality, and I think keeping them match fit(aka actually having them play in youth games) will help them develop and you can get some ridiculous growth from players at these ages. It's not uncommon for a regen with decent PA to get pretty close to his potential before he's even 19 with all those mentioned factors being ideal. At the age of 18 I feel it kind of turns into a tossup. I feel things may have changed for FM19, or maybe I didn't pay as much attention in FM18. I find players at 18 years old who are playing in the youth squads won't develop at the extreme rate they can before that, but they also usually don't stall, and you can really get some serious boosts here by giving them occasional first team action. This changes at 19, however, and it can be pretty much instant. At 19 you'll soon get the dreaded "Needs more playing time and match experience", and if you can't offer them semi-serious game time at this age they will stall.

Now to touch on reserve/youth teams, the randomness you mentioned, it depends on how your league handles them. In a country like England, with dedicated youth leagues, players don't seem to develop that much if they're 19 or over playing exclusively for youth/reserves, so a loan is a good move in these cases if you're not going to play them. Players 19 and over who I keep in the u-23 squad in England, for example, tend to stall in development, getting "Needs more playing time and match experience". The only time I've seen otherwise in England seems to be for EFL Trophy matches which I think do seem to count as first team football. Otherwise, here I'd be looking for a loan at the right level.

In a league like France or Poland(where my current save is) this is where I'm finding it a bit more complicated, but I think I've also figured it out. I have the Polish 4th division added, where my side's reserve team start, so we do actually play real fixtures and I don't know how it'll work without them. If your reserves are in the same league system as your parent club, but you DON'T have to register them for the reserve squad and can freely move them between squads, you will (edit: sometimes) get "Needs better challenges" if they are actually placed in the reserves. I find this won't always completely block a players development like some of the other bad training reports but it will certainly impact it negatively. I have seen players even at the age of 17 get this in their training report if they are placed into these specific types of reserve sides. If they are 18 and under, you are best off keeping them in the actual youth squads for development. In Poland 18 year olds can't play for the youths though so I had to figure out a workaround. I found this can be avoided by having reserve players moved into your first team squad, but marked available for your reserves. I only do this for the ineligible 18 year olds, but I no longer get "Needs better challenges" from these players.This obviously will leave you with a huge first team squad which is a headache, so I personally wouldn't even bother in a normal save, but I'm currently doing homegrown players only so I'm trying to really maximize development. However, for 19 year olds, it seems like my players have all had their development slow using, and occasionally I get "Needs more playing time", so I've started loaning them out in this save. Edit : I don't think all leagues with these types of reserve sides will tell you players need better challenges. In FM 18 I didn't have this issue in the Netherlands but I'd have to test this for 19.

It gets really interesting in a league like Russia and I'm not certain if other similar leagues are the same. In Russia for example, your reserves team are considered a completely separate side with their own squad registration. Spain and I believe Germany are the same but I haven't tested how this works there so I can't be too sure. Therefore you gotta move them into your reserves and usually can't control their individual training, and they won't be getting the benefit of either your first team coaches or your youth coaches, or the ability to control what part of training your they actually coach. You also won't actually see the arrows by their attributes changing unless you go onto Development > Training on their player page. On top of that they develop pretty poorly so I wouldn't be surprised if they were getting "Needs better challenges" here too.  The workaround I found in Russia was, again, keeping players in the first team squad and making them available for the reserves. The tricky part in Russia came transfer deadline day, as I couldn't register players for my reserves side without actually moving them into the reserves, but while the window was open, they didn't need registration. What I would do here is move all players who are going to play for the reserves back into the actual reserve squad on deadline day. I would register them, wait until the window closes so they're locked in, move them back into my first team, and make them available for my reserves again. This had brilliant results to the point where I'm feeling it's pushing toward being a bug. Players who played for the reserve team would develop very well regardless of their age. I was signing 22-23 year olds with wasted potential, playing them for my reserves, and having them get some serious development before moving them on for a profit. On their training reports, they often got "Gained match experience at a higher level" regardless of where I bought them from, so I'm thinking the game was treating the game time they were getting as if it were in the top division, while my reserves side played in the second division. Couple that with the players performing very well, which helps with attribute development, certain players really shot up in attributes a lot higher than I thought, to the point where some became first team players. I'm planning on testing this out in the likes of Germany and Spain to see if it works the same, and I might potentially report this as a bug if so, but it made for a very fun test save where I was just trying to improve as many Russian players as possible.

If you intend to loan a player out, the level you send them to depends on a few factors from what I found, looking at it purely from an attributes development standpoint. You really want to avoid the "Needs match experience at a higher level" training report which is almost as bad as "Needs more playing time and match experience", and there's a few ways to do that. If they've just turned 19 and have barely played first team football for anyone, it's good to loan them to the lowest reputation league(preferably a club with good facilities) who will give them playtime in the position you want. You can find this under Europe > Competitions > Leagues, where they'll be sorted by the star rating of reputation. I have never seen a player in his first season of first team football needing "match experience at a higher level" at any club I've been at, so this first loan is really important as it dictates what their next loans are. It's good to take a look at the manager's tactical setup as well. I used to see teams playing a 3-5-2 for example bid for my wingers, lie that they'll get first team football, and then barely give them a game. You then continue loaning them to progressively higher levels, preferably keeping them in leagues that have a lower reputation than the club you manage at. Affiliate clubs can really help with this, so I always try to ask the board for clubs that can help with scouting knowledge. I often see the same faces, such as Botev Plovdiv in Bulgaria, AS Trencin in Slovakia, and NK Domzale in Slovenia, all with good facilities, all in lowish reputation leagues. If you finally decide to bring them back from a weaker league to your first team squad, you are likely to get the "Gained match experience at a higher level" training report which can significantly boost growth. I've signed players at 26 years old who end up growing a lot just because they are playing regular football at a "higher level", and you can really find some gems this way by getting a player to grow later than you'd expect.

There's also a chance a player just has an off year in development. This has happened to me numerous times in numerous saves, and it just seems like a player barely grows in any attributes for an entire season. This appears to be able to happen at any age, with any PA, and I don't think there's much you can do. I had NDombele at Lyon in my first season completely fail to develop in his first season, for example. I changed nothing in his schedule or anything like that, and the next two seasons he grew a lot and I believe hit his max potential.

Couple other tips - I believe if the coaching report says they are unhappy with the workload, it's an issue with professionalism, and if they have a casual approach to training, it is a problem with ambition. I think the workload one seems to be more detrimental to development as when they are unhappy they don't train as well, while the casual training one can come in and out of training reports.

Bit of a tangent here and I apologize if this derails the thread a bit, and I haven't had a read through in a long time so some of this might already be known.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Chief232

[zlatanera]

@Chief232 Yeah a mix of stuff I did know and a lot I didn’t.

The point about 18 year olds not developing as much in training is interesting, it’s certainly a trend I’ve noticed in all but players with the best personality.

r.e. Manager tactics, a hugely overlooked thing. I’ve vastly increased the successes of my youth players by looking for managers who use a formation that will use them, and a style that will get the most from them. Of course you still get the occasional liar who’ll loan a player as “Key Player” and give them 20 minutes for the entire season.

[Garrlor]

6 hours ago, zlatanera said:

@Chief232 Yeah a mix of stuff I did know and a lot I didn’t.

The point about 18 year olds not developing as much in training is interesting, it’s certainly a trend I’ve noticed in all but players with the best personality.

r.e. Manager tactics, a hugely overlooked thing. I’ve vastly increased the successes of my youth players by looking for managers who use a formation that will use them, and a style that will get the most from them. Of course you still get the occasional liar who’ll loan a player as “Key Player” and give them 20 minutes for the entire season. 

That whole key player thing pisses me off. I always check up on the players that I am interested in, get scout reports etc etc. As i mentioned in one of my previous posts, Pique had a clause at Zaragoza that meant he had to play in at least 20 games when on loan to them, something that I think could work well if added to FM20. SFraser mentioned picking the right manager for your loan players. I think he used Owen Coyle at Burnley in his example, as he had great working with youngsters and played the right style of football. This meant that he could develop his young players at his feeder club in the right way and with a lot more certainty in how they would develop.

Looking at young players in a league which doesnt have a B team (Lets take England) then you are stuck with what to do. As you correctly identify, there is no point sending your young promising Ronaldo to play dour long ball football where he barely gets a sniff in the game. My compromise is to clear my U-23's of the deadwood, and keep players there that are 18-20 who need regular games. You can clear the dross from your youth team as they make the step up to the reserves and be very selective about which players you send on loan. I made a promise to myself the last time I managed Utd that I wouldn't send any player on loan until they were at least 19 (If I was interested in keeping them, not shifting them to play on loan so I could run thier contracts down or sell for a profit). This meant that they would get a decent ammount of time playing for my outstanding Youth and Reserve teams, under some of the best coaches in the land.

If you do it right, and select your first team squad that need playing time for the reserves then you can really boost the growth of these young players before they then head out on loan at the age of 19-20 for a season or two to grow even more as footballers. I try and aim for an age of around 21-22 for entering the first team picture on a full time basis, with games given to the promising young players in low profile or meaningless games to help give them that stat boost. The reason I pick that age to bring them in full time is because they have done pretty much all of thier physical development by this point so are less likely to suffer serious injuries. Plus they are more likely to be mature enough to cope with the types of games being thrown at them. There will always be exceptions to this rule of course, where a player is just too good for this sort of system, but I can develop some seriously good players this way.

 

[steakfaced]

11 hours ago, Garrlor said:

That whole key player thing pisses me off. I always check up on the players that I am interested in, get scout reports etc etc. As i mentioned in one of my previous posts, Pique had a clause at Zaragoza that meant he had to play in at least 20 games when on loan to them, something that I think could work well if added to FM20. SFraser mentioned picking the right manager for your loan players. I think he used Owen Coyle at Burnley in his example, as he had great working with youngsters and played the right style of football. This meant that he could develop his young players at his feeder club in the right way and with a lot more certainty in how they would develop.

Looking at young players in a league which doesnt have a B team (Lets take England) then you are stuck with what to do. As you correctly identify, there is no point sending your young promising Ronaldo to play dour long ball football where he barely gets a sniff in the game. My compromise is to clear my U-23's of the deadwood, and keep players there that are 18-20 who need regular games. You can clear the dross from your youth team as they make the step up to the reserves and be very selective about which players you send on loan. I made a promise to myself the last time I managed Utd that I wouldn't send any player on loan until they were at least 19 (If I was interested in keeping them, not shifting them to play on loan so I could run thier contracts down or sell for a profit). This meant that they would get a decent ammount of time playing for my outstanding Youth and Reserve teams, under some of the best coaches in the land.

If you do it right, and select your first team squad that need playing time for the reserves then you can really boost the growth of these young players before they then head out on loan at the age of 19-20 for a season or two to grow even more as footballers. I try and aim for an age of around 21-22 for entering the first team picture on a full time basis, with games given to the promising young players in low profile or meaningless games to help give them that stat boost. The reason I pick that age to bring them in full time is because they have done pretty much all of thier physical development by this point so are less likely to suffer serious injuries. Plus they are more likely to be mature enough to cope with the types of games being thrown at them. There will always be exceptions to this rule of course, where a player is just too good for this sort of system, but I can develop some seriously good players this way.

 

For me, especially in a post-Brexit save, I buy as many 18 year olds as I can a lot of the time early in the game. My U23 is usually full for a first season as I keep them 3 years to get everyone hGC at club (the goal of most of my saves). Usually only a few of these players can make the first team, but most can be moved on for profit. After Brexit hits I try to thin out my club a lot and move out non-HG players in favor of HG. And then, I'll try to keep a near full U23 and U18 of players that can became HG. And a first team squad of maybe 28 players with 5-6 of them being U21, and available for Reserves. IT usually serves me well over all the competitions, and injuries of the 3 sides.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

On 30/07/2019 at 01:19, Garrlor said:

A very interesting article indeed @Ö-zil to the Arsenal!. It was mostly accurate and spot on, though my opinion on counting some of the players as "academy" graduates is a little wide of the mark. Alba for instance had 7 years playing for other clubs before he rejoined Barca, hardly a smooth path to the first team.

I do like how it relates to your current struggles to fit some of your academy graduates into your side. I Know you have used the loan market to give your players a lot of first team exposure (at some big clubs too!) but right now without selling anyone that path to the first team is blocked. And you don't strike me as they type of player who signs a lot of players either. I guess at the top level you really cant rely on your academy in the same way that you can bringing kids through at a club you take through the leagues. Benfica are now the dominant force in world football in your save, so where else is really up for them? It has to be serious mega money, which you wont spend much of.

As a side note, I just checked something on Piques wikipedia, apparently when United sent him to Zaragoza on loan they had a clause that he had to play at least 20 games for them during the loan. I wish that FM included an option, despite a manager saying he will be first choice etc I sometimes find that they are lying gits....

Yes, it's interesting. I've had a hectic couple of weeks but just managed to get through a couple of weeks of pre-season.

The transfer market is actually extremely interesting.

I'm not pro-actively selling, but I am negotiating rather than rejecting transfer offers and then looking at replacements. I've just accepted £84,000,000 for Victor Bobsin from Barcelona. The only two other first teamers I am actively trying to sell are Grimaldo and Lo Celso but at 28 years old I think I have held them a little bit too long to get maximum transfer value.

The reason I am finding the transfer market interesting is that our success the financial inflation of the transfer market mean that there are limited options for our top players.

Embalo and Lautaro Martinez are both at peak value it's only really Manchester City, Manchester United and Real Madrid who can afford them. PSG have Neymar, Martial and Mbappe and aren't really on the market. Juventus, Barcelona and Bayern all seem to be falling off a bit. Real Madrid have big money behind them having sold Vinicius Junior to Chelsea for £153m.

I'd want a Neymar-esq transfer bid to let go of João Felix and I don't think Dantas is going anywhere.
 

On 01/08/2019 at 00:57, BadAss88 said:

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! How do you train a young talented winger? Do you train him as winger or as a complete forward to make him a complete player? But if you train him as a complete forward then his corssing will not be attented, any suggestions? In FM19 it isn't possible to give extra attention to crossing..

Depends how I'm going to use him. I'd typically want another position in there as well. As a minimum being able to play in the M and AM strata as a winger. Depending on their attributes either on the other wing, up front or as an attacking wingback as well.

Depending on which I'd then go for Complete Fullback, Inside Forward or Complete Forward training.

Re @zlatanera @Chief232 @Garrlor @steakfaced - also an interesting discussion. I've seen a huge contrast in this save.

Initially we had the Golden Generation, which went on to make the hattrick of Champions League's, World Cup and European Championship. When these guys were coming through they had clear pathways through to the first team and we're progressed at the quickest possible rate.

Once established, this has clearly been to the detriment of the academy and something I'm now trying to remedy. We've had a few touted as world-beaters who have been unable to come through. I've talked about Lucas Aragon who still has 5-star potential but has yet to really set the world alight at 23. There's a Brazilian playmaker who was touted big but failed to be tutored and has spent 2 years in the B Team and gone back to Brazil on loan. Mosquera is in danger of being overlooked unless I open spaces in defence.

Along with earlier comments about the inflated transfer market leaving limited options and young players needing a pathway to the first team there's currently pressure from both sides.

Ultimately I think it's going to be a question of finding the right balance.

I think that over the next 2-3 seasons, most of this 'Golden Generation' needs to move into the big leagues to further their career and open up space and get the academy firing again.

Another issue has been the decline of the youngsters coming into the academy. I wonder if the game has a balancing mechanism when your first team is particularly strong as I previously experienced the same at Ajax and Barcelona, but that's pure speculation. The best talents are coming through in Brazil, but I cannot bring them in until 18 which sacrifices 2-years of base development which means by the time they're arrived players with less potential but have been with the club since 15/16 out play them.

 

[Chief232]

On 02/08/2019 at 06:00, zlatanera said:

@Chief232 Yeah a mix of stuff I did know and a lot I didn’t.

The point about 18 year olds not developing as much in training is interesting, it’s certainly a trend I’ve noticed in all but players with the best personality.

r.e. Manager tactics, a hugely overlooked thing. I’ve vastly increased the successes of my youth players by looking for managers who use a formation that will use them, and a style that will get the most from them. Of course you still get the occasional liar who’ll loan a player as “Key Player” and give them 20 minutes for the entire season.

Yeah it seems personality really kicks in hard for development at 18. I definitely notice it having an effect when they're younger but not as much. However if a player is Resolute at 18 for example their attributes do often keep shooting up if they have a good amount of PA to spare, especially with some first team involvement.

It's also a good way to determine if a player is close to peaking in my experience. Say you have an 18 year old and the coaches see his potential as one/one and a half black star above his current ability. He has a great personality, he was developing superbly...and then suddenly his concentration went up, but every other stat goes down! Yeah he's probably not that far off the finished product/hitting his PA at that point. I find good coaches start to get pretty accurate around 18 about a player's real potential for attribute development with the yellow stars. A single black star of potential left at that age usually isn't a great sign.

If you notice the trends in development right, you can really trick the AI into overpaying for that black star of potential that you know isn't really there. I have a CB right now who's starting most games. He's 18, already a very good player, resolute personality. I think he's close to peaking as his development is getting strange with some stats going up, some going down. Coaches think he has one black star left, "could improve by a slight amount in the future" which I would guess is 10-15 CA left to grow at max. I'll probably sell him this summer for quite a bit more than I should as I think a team will take a gamble on his remaining potential cuz of his age. If I waited until he was 20 I don't think I'd get nearly as much regardless of how well he plays for me until then.

Yup you're spot on about the loans. In certain positions this is essential to me - I make sure the AI's playing two strikers if I loan a fast poacher for example, or 3 in midfield if it's a pure DM or a box to box who's better going forward than defending. Basic things like that can really help. The AI can also lie to your benefit about playing time as well. Sometimes I offer a player for a loan and 15 teams bid but they all say he'll be a rotation player. I'll start looking through squads and comparing their players...wait a second, I'm loaning a striker, their manager plays 4-4-2, they only have one striker...and then I send them there and they play every game. The AI doesn't always do a good job of determining what the player's role in the squad will actually be. I think they may weigh in coach ratings/scout ratings too much, without putting enough into what their squad actually needs.

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! This is a struggle I've always had and have tried to work on a lot in FM19 lol. I always used to get attached to players far too easily personally and indeed it leads to players with big potential who don't have a path into the first team anymore. I've sort of started creating long term plans for individual players - for example loan "here" at 19, loan "there" at 20, two seasons playing for me, sell. I'll then deviate from this a bit depending on how they develop/other players develop/how the loans go/etc, but generally if I stick to these I'll have a rough idea of what my squad will be in two years, three years, etc. I basically turn the club into a factory of players really lol. I also load a lot of active leagues and right now I manage in a weak Poland so I have plenty of suitors for my players, and I've had to learn the art of flipping my players at the right times. If I notice teams are interested and I'm ready to sell, I'll offer him them out without transfer listing them, as long as they're interested in speaking to other clubs. I find it's also sort of fun checking in on your sold players every few months and watching how their careers go.

However it'll depend on how rigid I am with my playing style and tactical philosophy in the save. I usually develop players to just make them into the most effective they can be in their ideal roles for most teams, rather than developing them for a specific philosophy, with maybe a couple of "DNA" elements such as defenders who can pass or players with high workrate/teamwork.  I understand it's different when you're developing players to a certain philosophy. I'm less likely to move a player on if I'm playing a very specific 4-2-3-1 that needs a very specific type of  winger who I don't have a like-for-like replacement for. But if I'm willing to significantly adapt tactically in the upcoming seasons, I may move that winger on to make room for that young advanced playmaker. Then now I need a more attacking fullback so somebody else has to step up in that role - now that right back out on loan is very useful and is a future starter. It kind of becomes like a domino effect.

Sometimes I'll start the season with a very different starting lineup to the previous, playing an aggressive 3-4-3 and then switching to a patient 4-3-3 for example, but it was all planned out, and since a lot of those players were squad players/academy players last season the cohesion and all that is still pretty good. As long as I try to think of what I want to do tactically/transfer wise a year or two ahead of time, I can make space for players even if they don't fit into my current setup. Then I get the most out of them in the new setup, move them on, shift towards a different setup.

Regarding the academy balancing, that's very interesting. Honestly I've always been the type to create new saves a few seasons in, only recently starting to do longer-term so I don't have a lot of experience with long term youth intake trends. This save is more for the long haul though and I'm only using Polish players so my youth intake is even more valuable, so I'll certainly keep an eye here and in my next few similar saves to see if I notice the same. And yeah, it's insanely frustrating when you see that 16 year old Brazilian waste away for two years cuz you can't have them!

[Garrlor]

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! you could always add a manager to a team in Brazil to go alongside your Benfica save. Set up the tactical preferences etc etc and then go on holiday. It means you can sign and develop those young players then sell them on to Benfica in the future. Almost like City are buying clubs around the world to totally not be feeder/marketing clubs.

I know you wont do this however lol.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

@Chief232 - very interesting point about bias due to attachment to certain players. Certainly forms part of it. Joao Felix and Dantas have been two favourites throughout and have been somewhat except from the summer overhaul. Partially for logical reasons, but also partly simply due to personal attachment as they personify everything I've tried to do with the club so far.

My playing style is about to undergo a fairly substantial change in order to fit the team I now have. Interestingly having focused on intelligent, technically skilled and versatile players they can fit into just about any style of play so we certainly have options.

 

2 hours ago, Garrlor said:

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! you could always add a manager to a team in Brazil to go alongside your Benfica save. Set up the tactical preferences etc etc and then go on holiday. It means you can sign and develop those young players then sell them on to Benfica in the future. Almost like City are buying clubs around the world to totally not be feeder/marketing clubs.

I know you wont do this however lol.

 Very devious.

I think Feeder clubs might be a partial solution. I am going to look into that this season.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

This is what I'm talking about. Look at this guy for 15 years old. Scored 30 goals and 18 assists for Cruzeiro U-19s.

Getting someone like this in the academy from 15 years old would be lethal; tutored, with our facilities, coaching and a path to the first team (by about 18 by the looks of it).

[zlatanera]

Emotional attachment is definitely the main thing that holds me, and I imagine most of us, back from maximising the potential of all our players - when I had a really long youth save on FM16 with Lyon I eventually had to impose a restriction of only players from our academy just to get myself to finally move on the likes of Rodrigo Bentancur and let some of the youngsters through (it worked quite well, won the Champions League with a bunch of players who'd never played football for any other team). 

Mário César looks like the perfect guy to be your next Ponte de Lança - if he's not the next Pelé then he's at least the next Kaká - if you're still playing the save when he does turn 18 I'd be interested to see if Cruzeiro have developed him well, and if you can get a hold of him and make him into part of the Seleção!

I'm on FM19 and one thing that's really frustrated me is the removal of the mentality bars on the Player Instructions screen. Whereas on FM18 you have something like this:

In FM19 we only get a word description, here's an example with my AM on both Control Positive and Attacking mentalities:

Positive

Attacking

Or is it the other way round? You have no way of knowing!

which means when I'm increasing my team's mentality sometimes it suggest the player mentality hasn't increased even though it must have done. I'm therefore left to just assuming that it still works similar to previous years where you get the bump to compensate for not fielding an Attack duty player, and that AML-Su will have a higher mentality on Attacking than on Control / Positive. 

I get that they wanted to make it simpler for new players, but its not great that when we want to go more advanced we're basically reduced to guessing that things still work like they did previously (I still got back to that FM18 mentality calculator, just leave it on Flexible and hope that's equivalent to how it works on FM19).

[Garrlor]

6 hours ago, zlatanera said:

Emotional attachment is definitely the main thing that holds me, and I imagine most of us, back from maximising the potential of all our players - when I had a really long youth save on FM16 with Lyon I eventually had to impose a restriction of only players from our academy just to get myself to finally move on the likes of Rodrigo Bentancur and let some of the youngsters through (it worked quite well, won the Champions League with a bunch of players who'd never played football for any other team). 

Mário César looks like the perfect guy to be your next Ponte de Lança - if he's not the next Pelé then he's at least the next Kaká - if you're still playing the save when he does turn 18 I'd be interested to see if Cruzeiro have developed him well, and if you can get a hold of him and make him into part of the Seleção!

I'm on FM19 and one thing that's really frustrated me is the removal of the mentality bars on the Player Instructions screen. Whereas on FM18 you have something like this:

In FM19 we only get a word description, here's an example with my AM on both Control Positive and Attacking mentalities:

Positive

Attacking

Or is it the other way round? You have no way of knowing!

which means when I'm increasing my team's mentality sometimes it suggest the player mentality hasn't increased even though it must have done. I'm therefore left to just assuming that it still works similar to previous years where you get the bump to compensate for not fielding an Attack duty player, and that AML-Su will have a higher mentality on Attacking than on Control / Positive. 

I get that they wanted to make it simpler for new players, but its not great that when we want to go more advanced we're basically reduced to guessing that things still work like they did previously (I still got back to that FM18 mentality calculator, just leave it on Flexible and hope that's equivalent to how it works on FM19).

One of a number of reasons why FM19 is poor in comparison to FM18. I have never gone backwards in FM before, but the tactics creator in comparison is just so so poor. You feel like you have no real control over what your team is doing, which is why this forum is chock full of "striker can't score", "whats up with my attacking mid", "4-2-3-1 Gegenpress is the only way I win". It's a poor effort from SI if I am honest.

Moving back on topic, I feel you with player loyalty. I had a save on FM05 where i started off by managing Altrincham, then got offered the Bolton job once I had gotten them up to League 1. Made Bolton a dominant force in world football, but I could let Riccardo Gardener go. He was just an assist machine from left back, constantly pinging in crosses with laser accuracy. Which meant that my promising left back stagnated as 38 year old continued to play for my side long after he should have been put out to pasture.

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! about all you can do is sign these players when you get a chance and hope that football in the Benfica B side with your coaching is enough to turn them into world beaters. You will have about 3 years in which to get them up to speed, and if he carries on playing in Brazil then he should develop quite well before he even gets to you at 18. I guess you could look at it as if you are adding the layer of gloss onto a nearly finished product, which you should still be able to do. If they are good enough already when they come in from Brazil its not the end of the world. If the only way that they would have reached the top with tutoring and working at Benfica then let someone else take on that burden and just cherry pick the best young talent you can. You are already struggling enough to let players into your first team so it's no great shakes if some of the "maybes" slip through the holes. I appreciate that you come across as wanting to develop these footballers just for the sake of developing them but I am afraid you will have to let some of them go to ensure you get the best.

[zlatanera]

49 minutes ago, Garrlor said:

One of a number of reasons why FM19 is poor in comparison to FM18. I have never gone backwards in FM before, but the tactics creator in comparison is just so so poor. You feel like you have no real control over what your team is doing, which is why this forum is chock full of "striker can't score", "whats up with my attacking mid", "4-2-3-1 Gegenpress is the only way I win". It's a poor effort from SI if I am honest.

Well the forum was full of that sort of thing during FM18 wasn't it? It wasn't "why are AM so bad" but it was still a lot of the same old questions. You'd think the reduced options would make it easier to fix things but it doesn't.

49 minutes ago, Garrlor said:

Moving back on topic, I feel you with player loyalty. I had a save on FM05 where i started off by managing Altrincham, then got offered the Bolton job once I had gotten them up to League 1. Made Bolton a dominant force in world football, but I could let Riccardo Gardener go. He was just an assist machine from left back, constantly pinging in crosses with laser accuracy. Which meant that my promising left back stagnated as 38 year old continued to play for my side long after he should have been put out to pasture.

Oh yeah, I took my local team all the way from League Two to the Premier League in consecutive seasons, so obviously a lot of squad turnover but even once we'd gone back down, up, and down again I still had a Conference-quality LB in the squad because he just kept getting performances. It wasn't a youth save so he wasn't keeping anyone out of the team, but still it was a bit dumb as I could easily get better players.

[Chief232]

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal! Yeah there's always a couple that I really don't want to move on regardless, particularly when they are players I put real work into developing and they've become exactly what I've hoped. Or, when they're on the older side(24+ lol), I have a tendency to keep below-par players who scored a couple of important goals or who have any other positive memories.

That player is ridiculous and exactly what I'm talking about regarding the frustration. He's legitimately a pretty good player already IMO, who knows how good he could be, especially starting out with fairly determined which isn't bad and should help with easy tutoring. Even if tutoring DID turn out difficult, you'd have so much time to get it right. Hope you keep an eye on that one and report back, as zlatanera said, he should at least develop ok in Brazil being so young and you might already have a player on the verge of stardom when he's 18. Would really love to see how you'd fit him in. Your setups are some of the most interesting on the forum for sure and definitely opened my eyes to not sticking to all the "rules" I used to set for myself tactically and to just try things out, so I really appreciate your posts.

Looking forward to seeing how you change things up. Spot on with having players who can fit into different styles. For example almost every save I play, I end up with defenders who can pass the ball. It always ends up being a benefit to me. Doesn't matter if if I'm playing a more direct style so they can actually accurately and calmly get it up the pitch, or if I legitimately want to play out of the back every time.

I will forever preach feeder clubs! It's also great when you've been at the club for a bit so that you can pick one yourself. Don't know if you have many yet, but I always find asking the board for the "recruit foreign youngsters" and "scouting knowledge" affiliate clubs are the best for pure loans, but the scouting knowledge one may give you limited options if your actual scouting knowledge is high.

@zlatanera Ugh the mentality thing drives me nuts too. It was already frustrating to me in 18 when you had the bars cuz you'd have to count them and I'm lazy but at least you knew exactly what was going on. Likely they wanted to move away from the "sliders" feel, which the bars were basically just sliders you can't change...but now it's just giving you less (fairly important) information! I think the tactic creator still needs to be more streamlined for this information to lose it's use, which it probably the direction they're going I guess. it can still be hard to understand exactly what certain instructions will do to your setup, though.

I do still think both the compensating for lack of an attack duty and the AML-S control/attacking thing work similar.

I just kind of assume there's an under the hood effect when it comes to mentality/the duties you use and your fluidity. I know SI have said fluidity is just a label now, and I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist or argue with what they say. But I think it's a  "label" essentially letting you know your team changes depending on your duties. For example on very fluid with a balanced mentality, my striker on an attack duty has an "attacking mentality", if it's balanced very structured, he is "very attacking". Then go to a very attacking mentality, my DM-D has a cautious mentality on very structured, with a balanced one on very fluid.  Changing the fluidity of my team also lowers my team's familiarity with creative freedom. It just makes sense to me that it works this way anyways. So I don't think fluidity is the exact same as it was in FM 18, but I do think there are as I said small under the hood changes to the mentalities of your players based on the duties of your other players. I wouldn't change a bunch of roles just to make my DM-D a bit more attacking, I'd obviously just change the role/duty/instructions. But I keep these things in mind, and some of the prettiest football I've gotten on this match engine was on an attacking mentality with lots of support duties, it just felt...well...fluid!

Just my crazy thoughts though and I'm no tactical expert either...I mean, my success in this game has traditionally come from loading most of the playesr in the game, creating something simple tactically,  and then filling the spots with bargains from obscure places so I could be completely off here.

@Garrlor I actually had a save with a very useful Ricardo Gardner many, many years ago, so long ago I can't even remember where/when it was lol.  Actually used to like him in real life too. I never have luck with older players though, if it were me starting him he would've gotten an injury at 31 bringing his acceleration down to 6... But I totally get it. Sometimes you have a player that just works so well in your setup why change it? Tends to be hard working fullbacks for me who end up sticking around.

Also completely agree with cherrypicking the talent, especially with the level of success he's had. Only really need the best of the best now, if he is that, he will be good at 18 regardless.

[Garrlor]

@zlatanera - If it was, I didnt see it as I kind of migrated over here reading reviews of the FM19 early access beta and got tempted in. I never really needed much help with FM18, I used to read Cleon's stuff, as well as Bustthenet but that was more for other ideas than needing help per se. When I first came across team shape it used to annoy the hell out of me, but eventually it clicked. Reading through threads like this really get my creative juices flowing as @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! knows how to break the mold and play amazing football as well as develop players properly (The way I wish United would do at the minute!).

@Chief232 @zlatanera @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! as this references the whole discussion on mentality. In FM19 it is hidden behind text, which gives you a broad idea of what your player is going to do in a system. Team shape has gone (Which I initially thought could be a blessing) even though you have a reference to it you dont really see how it changes things for you that easily. I understand that SI wanted to make things easier for people by introducing tactical templates to allow the new user to just dive into what is a huge and diverse world of player interaction, development and training. But I feel that they missed something as the actual explainations of what changing certain things do are poor. To the layman, focus play through the middle means you will play the ball through the centre of the park at every opportunity. What O-zil does in this thread and others is show you how that one change just shifts the mentality of your central players up a couple of notches, easy to see using the mentality calculator but even if you count the bars you can see the difference. As Zlatanera says, text does not change, it just stays as positive. You have to assume that one is more positive than the other but you have no idea of how much. This is where the plug and play tactics come in, as they are set up by SI with eyes under the hood so they know what is happening and why, hence why people say that just picking 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress = Win with vaguely decent players at any level. I tried for ages following Hernes possesion football thread to come up with something I liked but the game kept annoying the hell out of me.

One of the things SI need to add is an explaination of what a change does when they select it. Some people look at an attacking fullback, attacking winger/IF and wonder why the look for overlap button doesnt result in an overlap as thier defender gets caught out time and time again while the winger/IF smashes the ball into the box at every opportunity. Work Ball Into Box is a magical possesion cure, not actually getting players with good decision making and vision. It is frustrating and causes even the experienced issues at time (looking at myself here, played nearly every iteration of the game since 01/02). I understand why they moved away from sliders to control things and became more text based. The thing is, some of the indicators are actually useful and I feel this is where SI have slipped up and why you have people like Cleon and Rashidi answering daft questions and writing thread after thread on football basics in FM. It is one of the main reasons that I have slipped back into FM18. The training system isnt as good but the tutoring system is far better than 19's "hope for the best" approach.

I love the fact that we can sit and discuss this sort of thing until the cows come home, we can read threads like this and be inspired but I worry where the new blood is coming from as the attempts to simplify the game havent really worked all that well. Alright, some of it is down to some criminal ME flaws in this years version, but how would you feel about FM if 19 was your first one?

@Chief232 Gardner was actually a quality winger/fullback back around 04/05. People never really gave Big Sam the credit he deserved for the quality of that Bolton side that he put together. Gritty when they needed to be and flash and free flowing when it was on. Also, Jay Jay, so good they named him twice! Sam will forever be tainted by his later years battling relegation and becoming really pragmatic. Hell, I remember putting him forward for the United job when Fergie was sruggling in the early 00's back on the old footygamer forums.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

It is done.
 

Before

After

I'm not ready to talk about it 

 

[Pattric_b]

The board must love you lol. Looks like you got more than a few "Neymar-esq" transfer offers  

 

[Garrlor]

Jesus wept! That is an absolutely outrageous ammount of money.... Now to introduce the next crop and make even more! Stadium upgrade ahoy... hell, with that ammount of money coming in the board could afford to build you a new 150K stadium!

[zlatanera]

1 hour ago, Garrlor said:

Jesus wept! That is an absolutely outrageous ammount of money.... Now to introduce the next crop and make even more! Stadium upgrade ahoy... hell, with that ammount of money coming in the board could afford to build you a new 150K stadium!

Isn't that pretty much exactly what went wrong for Serie A? Except the government built the stadiums then charged them rent.

But for real that's a nuts transfer window. I think my biggest ever fire-sale is around £200m. 

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

6 hours ago, Pattric_b said:

The board must love you lol. Looks like you got more than a few "Neymar-esq" transfer offers  

 

Actually, just one. Well technically two bids but only one went through as the other was scuppered by a near-season ending injury during pre-season  Quite a few Harry Maguire-esq transfers though 

[Pattric_b]

15 hours ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Actually, just one. Well technically two bids but only one went through as the other was scuppered by a near-season ending injury during pre-season  Quite a few Harry Maguire-esq transfers though 

Ah that's a shame hopefully you were able to find some suitable replacements. If not then I guess the only thing left to do is join the rest of us on FM19 finally