The FM20 Youth Academy Challenge

[Quacky]

Well there goes my promotion attempt... time to thank the board Pep Guardiaola style. Down to my very last prospect for the AM position now, who isn't really ready for this season.

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Quacky

[Bubbles_DK]

I'll try again this year.

Determined to complete the challenge in my home country Denmark. Hoping to get my childhood club Boldklubben 1908 (B1908).

[jstu9]

I'm not sure what to do here.

I have my "wonderkid" 4-star youth pull from a couple months ago, still on his youth contract (which runs until the end of the year), getting offers from the big boys in the top league in Belgium. It's July 5th and I've already had 4 offers for him. The first two I rejected.

No way I'm going to be able to keep this guy. I just tried to re-sign him and he won't talk. And like i said he has only that one year left. Is it better to just let him go for a ridiculously low amount (see below) with added clause of "50% of next sale" or try to keep him? I'd obviously rather keep him. But losing him for nothing seems pointless.

[Soviet]

I'd say get a good clause on him and move on. Good advice is to sign proffesional deals with the best ones as soon as possible (even day one after intake) - if you can.

Edited November 18, 2019 by Soviet

[Brother Ben]

13 minutes ago, jstu9 said:

I'm not sure what to do here.

I have my "wonderkid" 4-star youth pull from a couple months ago, still on his youth contract (which runs until the end of the year), getting offers from the big boys in the top league in Belgium. It's July 5th and I've already had 4 offers for him. The first two I rejected.

No way I'm going to be able to keep this guy. I just tried to re-sign him and he won't talk. And like i said he has only that one year left. Is it better to just let him go for a ridiculously low amount (see below) with added clause of "50% of next sale" or try to keep him? I'd obviously rather keep him. But losing him for nothing seems pointless.

Sometimes youth players come through that are just too good for the level you're at.

Take the 50% clause and try and forget he existed, it's for the best. 

[schnauzer]

@jstu9 He's absolutely class. Don't worry too much about the transfer fee, just make sure you get a 50% of next sale clause in there because if you sell him to either Genk or Standard, his next move is going to be for millions!

Edited November 18, 2019 by schnauzer

[schnauzer]

What a relief!  We are so so so bad right now it will be a minor miracle if we can survive this second season

 

[darren1983]

51 minutes ago, jstu9 said:

I'm not sure what to do here.

I have my "wonderkid" 4-star youth pull from a couple months ago, still on his youth contract (which runs until the end of the year), getting offers from the big boys in the top league in Belgium. It's July 5th and I've already had 4 offers for him. The first two I rejected.

No way I'm going to be able to keep this guy. I just tried to re-sign him and he won't talk. And like i said he has only that one year left. Is it better to just let him go for a ridiculously low amount (see below) with added clause of "50% of next sale" or try to keep him? I'd obviously rather keep him. But losing him for nothing seems pointless.

Personally I'd sell but try and get some good add ons. 50% of next sale is a must, I'd also try and add a friendly too.

[schnauzer]

Wins are like buses - you wait 18 games and then 2 come in a row!!

 

 

[King Axther]

50 minutes ago, schnauzer said:

What a relief!  We are so so so bad right now it will be a minor miracle if we can survive this second season

 

Im in a 20 game streak (without a win), enevr thought the 2nd season will be so hard

If you get sacked will you try again in England?

[schnauzer]

12 minutes ago, King Axther said:

Im in a 20 game streak (without a win), enevr thought the 2nd season will be so hard

If you get sacked will you try again in England?

The 2nd season is proving to be harder than the first for me too.

I would try England again however I'm hopeful that I won't need to! All of a sudden we picked up some great form, and currently only 1 point off safety with 12 games still to play

Edited November 18, 2019 by schnauzer

[King Axther]

Just now, schnauzer said:

The 2nd season is proving to be harder than the first for me too.

I would try England again however I'm hopeful that I won't need to! All of a sudden we picked up some great form, and currently only 1 point off safety with 12 games still to play

Sadly I think its a goner for me, im 14 points off safety with around 20 games left, and the team looks super bad, nothing works, tried 4-5 diffrent tactics and all fail

[schnauzer]

21 minutes ago, King Axther said:

Sadly I think its a goner for me, im 14 points off safety with around 20 games left, and the team looks super bad, nothing works, tried 4-5 diffrent tactics and all fail

That sucks  My advice would be stick to one tactic for most of the games, and only briefly change it when on a big losing run. There's still plenty of points to play for and you never know! This is what has got me 10 points out of a possible 12 in my last 4 games, if it helps you at all:

 

I was about 8 or 9 points adrift from a similar position as you and now we're 2 points clear with 11 games to go, so if you can string 2-3 wins together anything is possible. Good luck mate!

[Novafluff]

33 minutes ago, King Axther said:

Sadly I think its a goner for me, im 14 points off safety with around 20 games left, and the team looks super bad, nothing works, tried 4-5 diffrent tactics and all fail

Yeah like schnauzer says try to keep the tactics for a while otherwise the players will just be confused and never really learn the tactic. also try to keep instructions simple dont have to many as in the lower leagues my experience is that the players cant really handle to many instructions

[Fastbasher]

3 hours ago, jstu9 said:

I'm not sure what to do here.

I have my "wonderkid" 4-star youth pull from a couple months ago, still on his youth contract (which runs until the end of the year), getting offers from the big boys in the top league in Belgium. It's July 5th and I've already had 4 offers for him. The first two I rejected.

No way I'm going to be able to keep this guy. I just tried to re-sign him and he won't talk. And like i said he has only that one year left. Is it better to just let him go for a ridiculously low amount (see below) with added clause of "50% of next sale" or try to keep him? I'd obviously rather keep him. But losing him for nothing seems pointless.

That player is awesome for the level you're at. Unfortunately you will lose him either way. Try to drive up the price as much as possible and make sure to get the 50% sell on clause.

If you keep refusing deals, I suspect he will sign for another club for compensation once the offers reach the level you would get for compensation anyway.

[schnauzer]

A consortium has taken over Folkestone and has invested nearly £150k, meaning that we're no longer in the red!!

EDIT: They have agreed to upgrade youth recruitment - my first upgrade since starting the challenge!!

 

 

SECOND EDIT: They have agreed to upgrade junior coaching as well!

Edited November 18, 2019 by schnauzer

[Novafluff]

An Intake like most so far okay CA on 3 players and alot of potential. all 5 star pot gets a contract. Most exciting we find Robin Eklund a striker which with some shooting training may become something. Niklas Bergqvist another potential central defender which will have some competition since we got some.and then Filip Sandholm which might need retraining to a MC since we dont use AM at the moment. a position i will want in the future but to far in the future for this guy to make that team

[Soviet]

That's a lot of stars...

Small tip: you can use two columns for sorting, just Shift+Click the second one. This way you can have players ordered by Potential first and then Ability, which I think looks nice

Edited November 18, 2019 by Soviet

[Novafluff]

Just now, Soviet said:

That's a lot of stars...

I think it says a lot more of my team than the potential of my players. 

[schnauzer]

Don't think I've ever seen a worse month's training than this - and no he's not injured!

[craigcwwe]

2 minutes ago, schnauzer said:

Don't think I've ever seen a worse month's training than this - and no he's not injured!

He's determined to train **** by the looks of things.  

[Winski]

Four games before the end of the season we became champion of League Two!! I'll make a proper update when the season is finished.

[SpS_Zen]

Game is out, time to start a new save

[Atrux]

Atrux - Taranto FC - 2020/2021 Season

Youth Intake League Table Squad Transfers Finances

It has been an up and down season, but we survived relatively comfortable.

My Goalkeeper wants to move on and since I have two other good Keepers he is allowed to have his wish.

I'm preparing for the second season now, which even in reality is most of the time the harder to survive, as the teams around you know you better and your promotion hype is worn off.

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Atrux

[Vipertitan]

i decided to try this challenge with Sozopol from Bulgaria first time managed there 

Manager Profile

Club info

Starting squad

Club Vision

facilities

Edited November 18, 2019 by Vipertitan

[Kazushi80]

Last time i tried this challenge was on FM 17 and since a few months i knew, i'll try it again on FM 20. Maybe the first time with success (you can dream). I choose Italy and my team is:

S.S.D. Latina Calcio 1932

My japanese manager is of course not that good, has only played on Sunday League Level, took never part in a coaching course and doesn't even speak the language.

The freshly promoted club is predicted to get relegated, the vision from the board is to fight bravely against it.

The starting squad (Defense / Offense) seems to be big enough with a lot of very young players (especially in goals) and a few very old players who have maybe one last season in them. All players are on non-contracts and part time contracts.

Let the game begin...

[schnauzer]

Folkestone Invicta - Season 2021/22 Review Vanarama National League South

 

League Performance - We had a really poor season but in the end we cobbled together enough points to ensure that we are staying up! We only won 9 games (compared to 13 last season) but picked a lot of points by drawing. It was always going to be tricky after loosing our best player last season but some individual performances from our youth intake from the 20/21 season helped keep us going - even when our established players underperformed. With no talent coming through from the 21/22 season, I can only hope for a third season of survival.

FA Cup -  Knocked out in the 3rd qualifying round for the second year running, but it was to a bigger club - Torquay.

FA Trophy -  After making the quarter final last year, we could only make the 1st round this year, getting eliminated by Bath.

Squad - Some of our bigger players not hitting the same heights as last year, in particular Johan ter Horst and Callum Davies. My top 3 players for the season were: 1. Spencer Smith couldn't even play CB at the start of the season, by the end he's a mainstay. Reliable defender that bagged 6 goals in his debut season. 2. Kane Rowland Much better than last season. Has always got into good positions but recently starting taking some of his many chances. His goals kept us up. 3. Russell Hayden really didn't have him in mind for the first team at the start of the season, but he made his starting spot his own. Really composed in the middle of midfield and has improved lots this year.

 

  

 

Youth Intake - Absolutely rubbish. John Brewster below is the best of the bunch, which should tell you all you need to know. Last years' intake was supposed to be really poor according to the HOYD but turned out to be fairly decent, with a number of youngsters breaking through to our 1st team. This year's was meant to be better, but ended up being absolutely shocking. I've only signed 3 in total. Very annoying as it holds our progress back a year. Hopefully with our recent upgrades to youth coaching and recruitment we should see a much better bunch in 22/23.

Transfers - No in and outs transfers wise.

Finances - Actually not that bad after our takeover! We have a £80k loan to gradually pay off but hopefully attendances should rise next season and we can come close to breaking even.

 

Onto the next season, come on you yellows!

Career Progress

Edited November 18, 2019 by schnauzer

[Scab]

St. Ives 2025/26 Season Review

League Table    Playoffs    Youth Intake    Squad    Transfers

Okay, game, don't be cruel. I'm allowed to win playoff matches, too.

Decided it was time for Jackson, Forde, Wood, and Dawkin — all seniors at the club since the start — to finally move over for upcoming youngsters, though success has been quite mixed. Duncliffe and Harrison have been good, but I think I've asked too much of Gardner-West who's actually declined after many poor performances. Newton had a few solid appearances but also slid back on a number of attributes between January and May. There's clearly a balance here that I'm not striking for every player.

A pretty poor youth intake overall, but Hayes isn't too far off first-team level. I think I'm going to let him develop in peace in the U18s next season. Competition on RB is weak so he should be good to step in by then. Apart from Hayes, there's Stringer with good mentals and a good personality, but he'll need a lot of technical training before he's ready. I may just try putting him on a heavy schedule to get that going; he seems to have the attitude to cope with it.

Now if someone could come along and teach me how to get through these playoffs...

Season    League              Finish   Notes
2025/26   Vanarama North      2nd      Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd
2024/25   Vanarama North      2nd      Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd
2023/24   Vanarama North      5th      Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd
2022/23   Vanarama North      4th      Lost in Playoff 1st Rnd
2021/22   Vanarama North      9th      -
2020/21   Vanarama North      15th     -

 

[Diego D10S]

OK the day is here  I will start over today with a team that has developing youth as the club culture.

So we'll see what I end up with but it will still be Italy.

GL All !!   

Edited November 19, 2019 by Diego D10S

[Soviet]

I hope y'all starting new saves are aware of the attributes bug. Not really a big deal for long term challenges like this one, but can make first few season extra tough.

 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Soviet

[XaW]

15 minutes ago, Soviet said:

I hope y'all starting new saves are aware of the attributes bug. Not really a big deal for long term challenges like this one, but can make first few season extra tough.

To be fair, it wouldn't affect much in this challenge. It will be equal for all teams (both user and AI), and this challenge mostly rely on players from the youth intake after a few years, and as I understood it, they aren't affected by it.

[schnauzer]

1 hour ago, Soviet said:

I hope y'all starting new saves are aware of the attributes bug. Not really a big deal for long term challenges like this one, but can make first few season extra tough.

 

Wowww that's absolutely shocking! Will this affect saves from beta?

This basically makes the save so so much harder if newgens are nearly all coming through with 1s for consistency, determination and important matches???

[schnauzer]

I can't imagine that any hotfix will be save compatible for this either... Game breaking?!

[Soviet]

4 minutes ago, schnauzer said:

Wowww that's absolutely shocking! Will this affect saves from beta?

This basically makes the save so so much harder if newgens are nearly all coming through with 1s for consistency, determination and important matches???

The saves from the very first beta are unaffected. The bug was introduced in the patch some 5-6 days ago.

And, most important, newgens are not affected by this and work as intended.

[schnauzer]

3 minutes ago, Soviet said:

The saves from the very first beta are unaffected. The bug was introduced in the patch some 5-6 days ago.

And, most important, newgens are not affected by this and work as intended.

Thankfully I think I started my save long enough back to be unaffected then!

Still seems like a very poor issue to be present on the full release.

Thanks Soviet.

[Novafluff]

2 hours ago, Soviet said:

I hope y'all starting new saves are aware of the attributes bug. Not really a big deal for long term challenges like this one, but can make first few season extra tough.

 

Luckily i satarted mine before that as well. But i cant believe they wen through with the release knowing about this bug.... so many people are gonna start heir saves and play a while and then find out that the need to start a new save

[XaW]

1 minute ago, Novafluff said:

Luckily i satarted mine before that as well. But i cant believe they wen through with the release knowing about this bug.... so many people are gonna start heir saves and play a while and then find out that the need to start a new save

2 hours ago, XaW said:

To be fair, it wouldn't affect much in this challenge. It will be equal for all teams (both user and AI), and this challenge mostly rely on players from the youth intake after a few years, and as I understood it, they aren't affected by it.

 

[schnauzer]

Last season I persuaded my new owners into upgrading both youth recruitment and coaching.

However both still remain at basic and average respectively, the exact same as before...

Please does anybody know what this might be?

@XaW did you not have a similar issue with this a while back?

[Novafluff]

1 minute ago, XaW said:

 

Yeah i didnt mean for people in this challenge just people overall playing fm with regular saves  sure the longer you get into the game the less effect it will have

[XaW]

Just now, schnauzer said:

Last season I persuaded my new owners into upgrading both youth recruitment and coaching.

However both still remain at basic and average respectively, the exact same as before...

Please does anybody know what this might be?

@XaW did you not have a similar issue with this a while back?

Yeah, but remember, just because you have it improved, does not mean the description will change. The actual rating is a number from 1 to 20 and each description have certain values. An example (and I don't know the exact values, so I'm estimating).

Say you have the value 4 and the description is "Basic", then you request an improvement and they accept and it's upped to 6. Incidentily, the value 6 is also Basic. In that case you will have an improvement, but the description is still the same. Perhaps 7 would be the next value, or 8, I don't know. But if you get several improvements approved and the description don't change, then I would upload it and report a bug so SI can take a look.

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, Novafluff said:

Yeah i didnt mean for people in this challenge just people overall playing fm with regular saves  sure the longer you get into the game the less effect it will have

Yeah, for some it could annoying, but to be fair, it's the same for the user and the AI.

So while it's annoying, it's quite easy to tutor/mentor up those stats for young players. And for older players, well, how many of those are good enough (with unknown stats) to really matter? While I see the issue, I don't consider it as much a crisis as some report it to be. The majority of casual FM'ers won't even know about this unless they read it somewhere.

[schnauzer]

8 minutes ago, XaW said:

Yeah, but remember, just because you have it improved, does not mean the description will change. The actual rating is a number from 1 to 20 and each description have certain values. An example (and I don't know the exact values, so I'm estimating).

Say you have the value 4 and the description is "Basic", then you request an improvement and they accept and it's upped to 6. Incidentily, the value 6 is also Basic. In that case you will have an improvement, but the description is still the same. Perhaps 7 would be the next value, or 8, I don't know. But if you get several improvements approved and the description don't change, then I would upload it and report a bug so SI can take a look.

Ah, this makes a lot of sense, thank you my friend!

Hopefully on the next upgrade I will start to notice the difference. That may be some way off as our finances are starting to look a bit dire again...

I'm looking forward to your next update! Between yourself, @Scab and @darren1983 there must be someone to enter the VNL in the next year or two!

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, schnauzer said:

Hopefully on the next upgrade I will start to notice the difference. That may be some way off as our finances are starting to look a bit dire again...

Remember, when you increase the level, the costs also increases! So if it costed say £100k per year earlier, and improvement will now cost say £200k per year, and the cost seems almost exponential as far as my anecdotal evidence goes. So be careful about improving it if you don't have the finances to support it!

[Soviet]

Regarding youth recruitment and coaching. They changed it this year so the description in Facilities tab actually changes only when it's upgraded. In previous FMs it changed as soon as the board accepted it, even if it worked on the same level as before, because it needs time to improve. Like it was in the news text "junior coaching will eventually reach the so-and-so level", the "eventually" being the key word. It's better reflected this year, so you just have to be patient @schnauzer

[SpS_Zen]

I was going to start a save with King's Langley, i guess i will wait the update as they want to fix the issue today

[schnauzer]

14 minutes ago, Soviet said:

Regarding youth recruitment and coaching. They changed it this year so the description in Facilities tab actually changes only when it's upgraded. In previous FMs it changed as soon as the board accepted it, even if it worked on the same level as before, because it needs time to improve. Like it was in the news text "junior coaching will eventually reach the so-and-so level", the "eventually" being the key word. It's better reflected this year, so you just have to be patient @schnauzer

Ah that's good to hear! Thank you mate

[XaW]

43 minutes ago, Soviet said:

Regarding youth recruitment and coaching. They changed it this year so the description in Facilities tab actually changes only when it's upgraded. In previous FMs it changed as soon as the board accepted it, even if it worked on the same level as before, because it needs time to improve. Like it was in the news text "junior coaching will eventually reach the so-and-so level", the "eventually" being the key word. It's better reflected this year, so you just have to be patient @schnauzer

Hmm... didn't catch that change! Nice one!

[Novafluff]

Season review coming later tonight when i get home but an interesting season to say the least!

[craigcwwe]

14 hours ago, schnauzer said:

Folkestone Invicta - Season 2021/22 Review Vanarama National League South

 

League Performance - We had a really poor season but in the end we cobbled together enough points to ensure that we are staying up! We only won 9 games (compared to 13 last season) but picked a lot of points by drawing. It was always going to be tricky after loosing our best player last season but some individual performances from our youth intake from the 20/21 season helped keep us going - even when our established players underperformed. With no talent coming through from the 21/22 season, I can only hope for a third season of survival.

FA Cup -  Knocked out in the 3rd qualifying round for the second year running, but it was to a bigger club - Torquay.

FA Trophy -  After making the quarter final last year, we could only make the 1st round this year, getting eliminated by Bath.

Squad - Some of our bigger players not hitting the same heights as last year, in particular Johan ter Horst and Callum Davies. My top 3 players for the season were: 1. Spencer Smith couldn't even play CB at the start of the season, by the end he's a mainstay. Reliable defender that bagged 6 goals in his debut season. 2. Kane Rowland Much better than last season. Has always got into good positions but recently starting taking some of his many chances. His goals kept us up. 3. Russell Hayden really didn't have him in mind for the first team at the start of the season, but he made his starting spot his own. Really composed in the middle of midfield and has improved lots this year.

 

  

 

Youth Intake - Absolutely rubbish. John Brewster below is the best of the bunch, which should tell you all you need to know. Last years' intake was supposed to be really poor according to the HOYD but turned out to be fairly decent, with a number of youngsters breaking through to our 1st team. This year's was meant to be better, but ended up being absolutely shocking. I've only signed 3 in total. Very annoying as it holds our progress back a year. Hopefully with our recent upgrades to youth coaching and recruitment we should see a much better bunch in 22/23.

Transfers - No in and outs transfers wise.

Finances - Actually not that bad after our takeover! We have a £80k loan to gradually pay off but hopefully attendances should rise next season and we can come close to breaking even.

 

Onto the next season, come on you yellows!

Career Progress

Progress, up a place from the first season.  

11 hours ago, Scab said:

St. Ives 2025/26 Season Review

League Table    Playoffs    Youth Intake    Squad    Transfers

Okay, game, don't be cruel. I'm allowed to win playoff matches, too.

Decided it was time for Jackson, Forde, Wood, and Dawkin — all seniors at the club since the start — to finally move over for upcoming youngsters, though success has been quite mixed. Duncliffe and Harrison have been good, but I think I've asked too much of Gardner-West who's actually declined after many poor performances. Newton had a few solid appearances but also slid back on a number of attributes between January and May. There's clearly a balance here that I'm not striking for every player.

A pretty poor youth intake overall, but Hayes isn't too far off first-team level. I think I'm going to let him develop in peace in the U18s next season. Competition on RB is weak so he should be good to step in by then. Apart from Hayes, there's Stringer with good mentals and a good personality, but he'll need a lot of technical training before he's ready. I may just try putting him on a heavy schedule to get that going; he seems to have the attitude to cope with it.

Now if someone could come along and teach me how to get through these playoffs...

Season    League              Finish   Notes
2025/26   Vanarama North      2nd      Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd
2024/25   Vanarama North      2nd      Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd
2023/24   Vanarama North      5th      Lost in Playoff 2nd Rnd
2022/23   Vanarama North      4th      Lost in Playoff 1st Rnd
2021/22   Vanarama North      9th      -
2020/21   Vanarama North      15th     -

 

Man, been following this thread from the start and you're due some good fortune in those pesky POs! 

2 hours ago, XaW said:

Yeah, but remember, just because you have it improved, does not mean the description will change. The actual rating is a number from 1 to 20 and each description have certain values. An example (and I don't know the exact values, so I'm estimating).

Say you have the value 4 and the description is "Basic", then you request an improvement and they accept and it's upped to 6. Incidentily, the value 6 is also Basic. In that case you will have an improvement, but the description is still the same. Perhaps 7 would be the next value, or 8, I don't know. But if you get several improvements approved and the description don't change, then I would upload it and report a bug so SI can take a look.

You learn something new everyday. 

[Fastbasher]

Not only did @schnauzer finish one place higher, he also gained a fan. Season tickets up from 48 to 49.