Improvements to national team management.

[Azkal]

I'd love for SI to show more love to National team management. It's so barebones right now.

My case study is managing the Philippines, from 2018/19 to 2030/2031.

Dynamic 'Youth Rating'

I am not saying it's realistic for a country to produce better players in the same way a club can improve youth facilities/recruitment, but youth rating needs to be dynamic, even if it only improves very slightly every few years. Think about the changes in real life to Hungary, or Belgium. It should change, even if it's a long period of time.

Example:

Managing the Philippines. I have taken them from rank 115 to 33 (at my highest), I am now in 2030, but rank is falling again due to retiring players.

I've been to the World Cup twice and won the Asian Cup. However, all of my foreign-born stalwarts are now retired/retiring and I have to rely on domestic regens, with the Philippines having a youth rating of 30. The difference in quality is so vast that I had around 7 players with 150+ caps as I used them all the way until they retired. Neil Etheridge had 197 caps before retiring at 38 (I really wanted him to get 200 but that's besides the point).

It may not even be the case that Youth Rating be affected solely by National team achievements. I was controlling two teams in the Philippines top division, having won the ACL once and the Confederations Cup a few times and even appeared in the Club World Cup (lost 7-0 to Barcelona, obviously) The reputation from both sides has vastly improved and the league has moved up from around 37th (I can't remember exactly where it started) to 14th in Asia. It simply doesn't make sense that the players youth abilities are being hard capped by Youth Rating despite me improving facilities, reputation and everything.

Even if you argue it is not realistic for Youth Rating to be dynamic, as it would never change significantly enough to have an impact, I would argue this is where we need to treat it as a game over a real life simulation. It is, at least in my opinion, more fun to have something to work towards, than battle against a hard cap despite achievements.

Dynamic Game Importance:

I can't imagine that the success I have achieved in one decade wouldn't increase the importance from 'completely useless' to AT LEAST 'unimportant'. This one goes without saying really. Boxing in the Philippines is HUGE because of the success of Manny Pacquiao. Do you really think if the Philippines got to the world cup twice, and won the Asian cup, it'd still be considered 'Completely useless'? No. Media is everything over there. They would treat the players as heroes.

National Team Training facilities

A lot of countries have proper training facilities, or training camps at youth level. USA has a dedicated youth programme for all age groups. It would be nice to be able to 'build' this in game. Starting from nothing, to developing state of the art facilities etc, something to 'grind' for, as a national manager. An example can also be seen with the development of 'St George's Park' in England.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George's_Park_National_Football_Centre

Second Nationalities

One major gripe I have, although this may only apply to the Philippines and a select few other countries, is the lack of foreign-born regens with Philippines as a second nation. When I started my game, my whole squad was playing in europe/thailand, they 100% need to programme the chance for Filipino second nationality players to be born in other countries. The Filipino overseas population is HUGE and is the main source for their national team, this is simply not represented in the game, as once your players retire, you'll only be able to use local born players who are 10x worse than players you had been using.

Another major problem with second nationalities is convincing them to play for your country (this has improved from earlier versions, as you can now try and convcince some players that are 'undecided'), but those that straight up reject you are usually for stupid reasons. For example rejecting a nation because of their 'reputation' in the game, despite having 0 chance of playing for their birth country is just stupid.

https://imgur.com/eiLTcfW

There are other cases where players would retire before even considering playing for their second nation. It'd simply be rejected every time until they retire uncapped without a chance of a conversation. I am not saying that this wouldn't happen, but as a game, it'd be nice to have the opportunity to try and convince them or tell them they're an idiot.

Interaction with FA

Currently there is no option to interact with the FA. You don't have a contract. You don't have any chance to go on coaching courses. You can't request a new stadium. You can't request improvements to 'friendly' range (the distance that the FA seems acceptable for a friendly match). There are many interactions that just simply aren't there.

Squad registration

There needs to be a proper solution to being cucked by the national youth teams. My god it's so frustrating to see this pop up.

https://imgur.com/v0q8NDo

If the U23's don't have enough players because they're called up to the main squad, tough ****, make them look for more players, don't make the main team have to source players that aren't even good enough for the U23 squad. Priorities are messed up with squad reg here and it has been the same way for years.

Testimonial/Legends matches

This might already be a feature, but I don't think it is? It'd be cool to be able to have a testimonial match/legends match where you can pick retired players to play in a testimonial/legends match for a retiring player. Perhaps against his club team?

These are just the ideas i've had, but i'm sure there are many more great features that could be added to make managing a national team far more rewarding, as it's currently just a 'go on holiday' bore fest until squad selection (if not managing a club too). You shouldn't have to manage a club to make it interesting, there are very few examples of national team managers being in charge of a club at the same time.

[arajk2908]

Agree with all of this. Also think there should be an option to assign the FA the responsibility of hiring other staff members the same as with club management. Let them hire/fire the managers of the youth teams etc

[Hovis Dexter]

+1 A very well put argument. I’d like to add much improved interaction and dynamics with players

[Sheriff7]

+1

[Toads]

+1

[ClemB]

I agree with all this, especially second nationalities. 

The demographics of SI are completely outdated and inaccurate and i've been reporting this numerous times. I would be glad to help to correct the demographics, i've already collected data for several countries.

 

Off topic but do you mind sharing some screens about your save. I'm REALLY interested into this type of saves. Winning the ACL with a team from a minor asian country is a huge achievement, much more than winning the UCL with a team from a minor euro country.

[Señor Dan]

+10000

[Sheriff7]

I would add more realistic media reactions before and after an international game, sacking a national manager easier like IRL(especially in "smaller" nations they almost never sack a manager and  we must wait until he  leaves his post to take the job) and more specific goals from your FA.

[Sopel]

Hi, I mostly agree with the majority of your ideas, but I can't agree fully on all of them.

On 10/07/2019 at 15:15, Azkal said:

Dynamic 'Youth Rating'

I am not saying it's realistic for a country to produce better players in the same way a club can improve youth facilities/recruitment, but youth rating needs to be dynamic, even if it only improves very slightly every few years. Think about the changes in real life to Hungary, or Belgium. It should change, even if it's a long period of time. 

While I agree that this shouldn't be a static cap, the rating should be less tied to the national team accomplishments and more to the average club ratings. People with talent are born everywhere in the world, the main difference is how you can train such talent. It all comes down to the fact if the talent can be spotted (youth recruitment) and taught (youth facilities). In theory, every youngster can become a great footballer because they are all human, but in practice the combination of determination, talent and enviroment are what makes the greatest what they are. First two are individual but the third one must be created/given in order to progress as a footballer. And these are created by clubs (I mean, usually - ofc in some countries there are some ideas of finding and training national talents but one national project has smaller chance of success than thousands upon thousands of club academies) - the federation can introduce projects, league rules, etc in order to support them, but that's the most they can do. National teams in it's own don't impact this process. Winning a tournament doesn't make the kids more talented... permamently. After a success the "kids" (regens) should get motivated, which would mean that more of them should pick up football, which would mean that the clubs would have the greater variety of choice for their academies, thus increasing the number of greater-than-usual talents. But it's not an everlasting boost.

Ok, this point got convoluted. In short - Youth Rating should be dynamic - it should be an average of Club Youth Ratings. International successes should result in a "boost" to the Youth Rating, starting 4-6 years after abnormal NT success and ending in 2-4 years. The boost should be slight, yer yielding singular results. (Explenation: "Kids" aged 10+ experiencing the NT success would become regens at 15-16 which explains why the start of such boost should be applied 4-6 years after. The boost should fizzle out quicker than it took to acquire it)

On 10/07/2019 at 15:15, Azkal said:

National Team Training facilities

Problem with this one lies in the fact that SI is pretty adamant in what the series is about. "It is Football Manager, not Football Chairman". What you described is tied to the competence of the federation, not NT manager.

[Harper]

On 14/08/2019 at 11:17, Sopel said:

Problem with this one lies in the fact that SI is pretty adamant in what the series is about. "It is Football Manager, not Football Chairman". What you described is tied to the competence of the federation, not NT manager.

In this sense, similar to the randomization of a club being target of a takeover, there could be random philanthropic (retired star's setting up an academy, for example) or government investment into football that improves club and/or national team infrastructure, national interest, and youth rating.

 

On 14/08/2019 at 11:17, Sopel said:

While I agree that this shouldn't be a static cap, the rating should be less tied to the national team accomplishments and more to the average club ratings. People with talent are born everywhere in the world, the main difference is how you can train such talent. It all comes down to the fact if the talent can be spotted (youth recruitment) and taught (youth facilities). In theory, every youngster can become a great footballer because they are all human, but in practice the combination of determination, talent and enviroment are what makes the greatest what they are. First two are individual but the third one must be created/given in order to progress as a footballer. And these are created by clubs (I mean, usually - ofc in some countries there are some ideas of finding and training national talents but one national project has smaller chance of success than thousands upon thousands of club academies) - the federation can introduce projects, league rules, etc in order to support them, but that's the most they can do. National teams in it's own don't impact this process. Winning a tournament doesn't make the kids more talented... permamently. After a success the "kids" (regens) should get motivated, which would mean that more of them should pick up football, which would mean that the clubs would have the greater variety of choice for their academies, thus increasing the number of greater-than-usual talents. But it's not an everlasting boost.

The national team doing well in a high profile tournament spurs interest, especially among youth, who then take to the sport and play with the club teams and emulate their idols from the national team's glory days. A bit of a cycle.

[Sopel]

On 17/08/2019 at 23:36, Harper said:

In this sense, similar to the randomization of a club being target of a takeover, there could be random philanthropic (retired star's setting up an academy, for example) or government investment into football that improves club and/or national team infrastructure, national interest, and youth rating.

Easier solution - Federation's President, a new job position. Basically a Director for NT and other stuff. They are the ones that change league rules or start programs like those we talk about. Stats and individual traits could impact their focus while being the president. Also, they are basically hiring and firing NT managers. I suppose the exact roles are pretty unconventional so implementation of such deep mechanics would be hard, but as a positions, for starters, maybe?

On 17/08/2019 at 23:36, Harper said:

The national team doing well in a high profile tournament spurs interest, especially among youth, who then take to the sport and play with the club teams and emulate their idols from the national team's glory days. A bit of a cycle.

I wrote about that

On 14/08/2019 at 17:17, Sopel said:

After a success the "kids" (regens) should get motivated, which would mean that more of them should pick up football, which would mean that the clubs would have the greater variety of choice for their academies, thus increasing the number of greater-than-usual talents. But it's not an everlasting boost.

 

[Kyle Brown]

Reviewed so locked.