Description of issue
On FM22, I reported that there was a serious issue with the growth of young players' reputations. I felt this contributed to AI teams and nations often neglecting their younger talents, and instead filling their squads with older players. Sadly, this still seems to be an issue on FM23.
For this test, I set up a save file with all the English leagues loaded (all the way to the National League North/South) and holidayed for 15 years until the start of the 2037/2038 seasons. I know you still have some issues balancing smaller game worlds, but I felt that focussing on one major nation could still highlight significant problems.
Let's start by looking at how many players in the database have at least 2*, at least 3*, and at least 4* World Reputation.
PLAYERS WITH: | 2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
4* WR or higher | 39 | 72 | 61 | 40 |
3* WR or higher | 659 | 897 | 773 | 580 |
2* WR or higher | 6311 | 4512 | 3157 | 2596 |
You can clearly see that there has been a significant decrease in the number of players with at least 2* World Reputation - a reduction of around 60% in the space of 15 years. And after initial decreases in 2027 and 2032, there are now fewer players with 3* WR than you'd see at the start. The overall number of players in the database has been pretty stable throughout.
I'm now going to look at the age distribution of players with at least 2* WR. Because of the huge drops in high-reputation players, I'll be using percentages rather than raw numbers:
Things look well-balanced in 2022, but the age distribution shifts clearly to the older end of the scale at the later save points. We consistently see fewer high-rep players aged 28 and under, and more high-rep players aged around 29-36. By 2037, over 25% of all the 2* WR players in the database are aged 29 or 30.
Also note that in 2032, there was a sidden drop in high-rep players aged 26-27 before going back up again. In 2037, there was a similar drop at ages 31-32, and then a similar recovery. The players affected are primarily those who are aged 16-17 at the start of the save - in other words, the youngest players in the original database.
I have noticed this for a while now. Even as far back as FM13, players in the ODB aged 16-17 consistently underachieve compared to players in other age groups. They can't quite reach the same standards as those top prospects who start off aged 18-19, and they also get overtaken by the first few batches of newgens. The real teenage prodigies such as Youssoufa Moukoko, Gavi and Endrick will still turn out fine, but too many of their slightly less-talented peers get left behind.
I'm not sure why this is constantly happening. Do these young players' CAs start off too low for them to reach their potential? Are their reputations too low for them to be given enough opportunities to develop properly? Are slightly older players aged 18, 19, 20 perhaps rated too highly?
Here's another chart, showing the age distribution of players with at least 3* WR - and it's a similar story. Far fewer high-rep youngsters, far more high-rep oldies.
By the time we get to 2037, there are almost twice as many players aged 35+ with 3* WR than players aged 24 or under. Don't believe me?
PLAYERS WITH 3* WR OR HIGHER | ||||
AGE | 2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
15 - 24 | 124 | 44 | 47 | 61 |
25 - 29 | 283 | 453 | 136 | 206 |
30 - 34 | 200 | 372 | 544 | 288 |
35+ | 53 | 55 | 92 | 121 |
Next, I've taken a look at every first-team player in the top four leagues and recorded the average ages for each league.
AVERAGE AGE |
2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Premier League | 26.21 | 27.31 | 27.49 | 26.67 |
Championship | 25.25 | 25.82 | 26.71 | 26.45 |
League One | 24.69 | 24.63 | 25.43 | 25.41 |
League Two | 24.68 | 23.02 | 24.45 | 24.61 |
At first, you might think there isn't much to see here. Leagues One and Two stay pretty young, while Premier League and Championship squads get gradually older before starting to drop back down.
But not every player in a first-team squad is a first-team regular. What if I narrowed the results do, so I only looked at players who had an agreed squad status of at least Regular Starter? This also includes Star Players, Important Players and First-Choice Goalkeepers.
AVERAGE AGE |
2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Premier League | 26.73 | 28.69 | 29.63 | 29.34 |
Championship | 26.02 | 27.59 | 28.27 | 28.09 |
League One | 25.61 | 27.96 | 27.58 | 28.60 |
League Two | 26.00 | 26.74 | 27.33 | 27.99 |
In the space of 15 seasons, the average age of a regular starter in each of the top four leagues has increased by 2-3 years. These charts below show that the shift starts in the first few years of a save and never really improves.
REGULAR STARTERS (15-24) | 2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Premier League | 73 | 14 | 28 | 16 |
Championship | 104 | 30 | 41 | 34 |
League One | 113 | 19 | 27 | 16 |
League Two | 107 | 44 | 50 | 29 |
REGULAR STARTERS (30+) | 2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Premier League | 55 | 91 | 142 | 93 |
Championship | 56 | 51 | 97 | 72 |
League One | 48 | 62 | 49 | 72 |
League Two | 58 | 39 | 56 | 68 |
And things get really interesting when I narrow the results down even further, focussing on regular starters aged under 21 - and regular starters aged 35+.
REGULAR STARTERS (15-20) | 2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Premier League | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Championship | 19 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
League One | 20 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
League Two | 26 | 12 | 1 | 2 |
REGULAR STARTERS (35+) | 2022 | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Premier League | 7 | 8 | 12 | 24 |
Championship | 4 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
League One | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 |
League Two | 12 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
These results are very alarming, especially when we look at regular starters aged 15-20. At the start of the 2022/2023 Premier League season, seven players under the age of 21 are considered regular starters at their clubs - Bukayo Saka, Aaron Hickey, Moisés Caicedo, Michael Olise, Amadou Onana, Tino Livramento and Gavin Bazunu. Fast forward 15 years, and NOBODY in the same age bracket is considered good enough to start for a PL club on a regular basis.
Across all the top four leagues, the number of under-21 regular starters has dropped from 72 at the beginning of the save to just THREE at the start of the 2037/2038 season. Granted, this is from a save point that is very early in the season, when many lower-league clubs have not yet started loaning in youngsters from bigger clubs - but even if I was to holiday until the end of the summer transfer window and have another look, I doubt the results would be that much better.
At the other end of the age scale, we're used to seeing older players drop down the leagues as they enter their twilight years, but that doesn't seem to be happening so much in 2037. Instead, Premier League clubs are often clinging onto their elderly players and still starting them regularly, even when it would make sense to phase them out. Arsenal alone have SIX outfield players aged 35+ who are still regular starters - Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and William Saliba are still there, and they also have Caicedo, Tariq Lamptey, and a 38-year-old Kai Havertz!
This reputation issue also has an effect on the national teams, as I mentioned in this post on a General Discussion thread. Focussing on England, it is very difficult for younger players to break through. Jude Bellingham was still the youngest player in the national side until he was 26.
Between 2010 and 2022 in real life, at least 28 players have made their England international debut before their 21st birthday. Between 2022 and 2037 in my experiment save, only TWO players - both elite-level wonderkids - have achieved the same feat. It's a similar issues when you look at most major European nations - France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain. I thought the saying went "if you're good enough, you're old enough", not the other way round.
There is also a tendency for top national teams to keep veteran players way past their peak, which further restricts opportunities for younger players. To use Bellingham as an example again, he was still in the England squad aged 34, despite putting in rather mediocre performances for a Southampton team who finished 14th in the Premier League. At this point, he's arguably staying in the team because of his reputation.
I have uploaded four save files - one from the start of the save in July 2022, plus further saves in 2027, 2032 and 2037. I've also attached the Excel workbook I used to collate my data.
I hope you will look at these and make further changes to increase the reputations of younger players so that they get more opportunities to develop properly - and reduce the reputations of older players so they don't outstay their welcomes at top teams so often. I also hope you will do something to help those 16- and 17-year-old players in the original database get closer to their full potential, so that they don't consistently lag behind their peers.
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