Youth intake notifications

[Pawn55]

I'm playing with Roma, so the newgens I'm getting are solid.

In the fourth season, my hoyd gives me a message that I'm about to get a "golden generation" of newgens. I can hardly wait, played the game till 2 A.M. just to see those talents, and once they appeared, there's just one guy with 2,5 stars, all the others are worthless. Of course, I was not amused

In the fifth season, again, "the golden generation" is arriving. This time I'm a bit more careful, already sensing what's coming. The funny part was that in this message, the guy said it's a golden generation, but also there are no good goalkeepers, central defenders, full/wingbacks, attacking midfielders or wingers/wide midfielders (definitely seems like a gg ). They finally arrive, one talented guy is 2,5 stars fc (expected), and the other is a 3 stars left back. So the most talented guy has a position that 3 months ago hoyd said there are no good players in?!

Now, I understand that, although I have a top hoyd and facilities, I can't get a Messi each season, but why are my staff members giving me idiotic information? All recruiting staff has judging potential above 18, and they proclaim that one semi-talented player is a golden generation??!

[yolixeya]

I view that same as bad out out of context tactical advice I get from my Assistent Manager. There are certain parts of the game that I just ignore.

[Danielfc]

Agreed. The because sophisticated AI doesn't exist, the advice and decisions etc come off the back of stats and behind the scenes stats. For example when my team are instructed to play a short passing game and retain 60 percent possession, the advice I get is that we should now play direct and I guess that is the AI thinking I am doing well in possession so they'll advise that. I'm doing well keeping possession because I am playing short haha 

[thomas166]

 

5 hours ago, Pawn55 said:

I'm playing with Roma, so the newgens I'm getting are solid.

In the fourth season, my hoyd gives me a message that I'm about to get a "golden generation" of newgens. I can hardly wait, played the game till 2 A.M. just to see those talents, and once they appeared, there's just one guy with 2,5 stars, all the others are worthless. Of course, I was not amused

In the fifth season, again, "the golden generation" is arriving. This time I'm a bit more careful, already sensing what's coming. The funny part was that in this message, the guy said it's a golden generation, but also there are no good goalkeepers, central defenders, full/wingbacks, attacking midfielders or wingers/wide midfielders (definitely seems like a gg ). They finally arrive, one talented guy is 2,5 stars fc (expected), and the other is a 3 stars left back. So the most talented guy has a position that 3 months ago hoyd said there are no good players in?!

Now, I understand that, although I have a top hoyd and facilities, I can't get a Messi each season, but why are my staff members giving me idiotic information? All recruiting staff has judging potential above 18, and they proclaim that one semi-talented player is a golden generation??!

Stars are relevant to your current squad. With Roma a few seasons in, I'd expect you already have amassed a pretty solid squad with a reasonable amount of high/top level players. Most of your starting XI are probably 3.5 stars or higher maybe? 

2.5 stars at that level is probably gonna be a decent back up option, and able to do the required job when your star man breaks his leg in a 1st round cup game against a Serie D side... Assuming you're saying 2.5 gold stars, there's usually an extra 1 star in black 'possible' potential. Let's say you know what you're doing and can nurture a players development right, you're now looking at a 3.5 star player with HGC and HGN status. 

That 3 star left back, ehh 3 stars would perhaps be a weak member of the starting XI or a really solid back up option. Again assuming the black star of possible potential, a 4 star HGC and HGN left back would be pretty nice right.

Plus because you'll be controlling their development from the very start, if you want your left back to play in a certain way, you can mould him from the very start to be the perfect left back for you. 

 

4 hours ago, yolixeya said:

I view that same as bad out out of context tactical advice I get from my Assistent Manager. There are certain parts of the game that I just ignore.

How high is your AM's attribute for tactical knowledge. Does he share the same tactical preferences as you're using currently? 

If he has a low tactical knowledge attribute, that's fairly self explanatory. If your AM prefers a 4-2-3-1 counter attacking but you play a 4-2-3-1 possession game, you probably will notice his suggestions will lean more towards a counter attacking style. 

3 hours ago, Danielfc said:

Agreed. The because sophisticated AI doesn't exist, the advice and decisions etc come off the back of stats and behind the scenes stats. For example when my team are instructed to play a short passing game and retain 60 percent possession, the advice I get is that we should now play direct and I guess that is the AI thinking I am doing well in possession so they'll advise that. I'm doing well keeping possession because I am playing short haha 

Without knowing the full scenario, I would argue in that instance you may be dominating possession but are you using it effectively, I play with Wolfsburg currently using a possession based tactic and we've just won the league. I found towards the end of the season, teams would sit back and put men behind the ball. I'd have 60-70% possession most games, but not many good chances on target. With 11 men behind the ball, I am restricted to long shots which are always ambitious. So I made a second tactic in which I sat back, moved the entire team very deep, drawing out the opposition. I'd only take 40-50% possession on a good day, but when the defenders won the ball, long ball over the top for my 4 pacey attacking players to go do their thing. Although I was dominating possession with short passing, by playing direct I was using it more effectively. Again I don't know the specific situation, this is what I've experienced.

[Russiandude]

From what I've seen the game sort of gives a range of CA&PA for your youth intake players when the notification appears and those ranges are what's being used for the evaluation (probably gives you the average numbers). When it's finally the day you can get really lucky and get a 120 CA for a player whose CA range is 50-120 or vice versa.

 

Simply put, the current/potential ability actually gets generated semi-randomly at the day when you can finally see them.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Russiandude

[Chesters86]

I always take the "golden generation" comment with a pinch of salt. I've had the odd promising guy come through the intake, but never a group that seemed highly talented.

[yolixeya]

5 minutes ago, thomas166 said:

How high is your AM's attribute for tactical knowledge. Does he share the same tactical preferences as you're using currently? 

If he has a low tactical knowledge attribute, that's fairly self explanatory. If your AM prefers a 4-2-3-1 counter attacking but you play a 4-2-3-1 possession game, you probably will notice his suggestions will lean more towards a counter attacking style. 

I feel like it doesn't matter if he prefers same style or formation like me. There isn't any intelligence behind those advices.  Sometimes I will go for totally different approach then how I uasually play but AM will just keep telling me same thing. During a game if you have a few successful crosses he will tell you to try to put more crosses in as we seem to do well without considering your tactical approach. If you have a fewl long shots he will tell you to add work ball into box etc.

[The Gold Guard]

I think the term golden generation is a collective and generalised statement.

I reached this conclusion when I looked at my "all time best XI" report and 5 or 6 of my youth academy prospects over a few intakes were in the lineup and it was stated that collectively these players were 'a golden generation for the club'.

Maybe the HOYD just means "some good players are coming through annually and should bring good times ahead"

Edited April 28, 2020 by The Gold Guard

[Grifty]

I find the initial star rating for the youth intake changes on the player (normally for the better) after a few months training.

I had a striker who was half a gold star and 4 black stars, kept him in the youth team for 2 seasons, he's currently 19 got 27 goals in 23 games and fluctuates between 4 and a half gold stars to 5.

[XaW]

I'd like to come back to this topic now that I finally have a good example of something. Now, a couple of year ago (in game) I had a youth intake:

Note the two strikers I've highlighted in red. The top one 23a seems WAY better than the lower one 23k. I signed both, mostly because I didn't have many youth players, and his determination was high if nothing else. But still, 23a was far better, and I had decided to let him play a lot early on since he was a good talent for me.

Now, here is 23a two years later:

.

He has played 82 matches for my team, and scored a few goals. Not enough, but I'm a poor Hungarian team, so it's not a real surprise. He is still a good talent.

However, also take a look at 23k:

Suddenly, he looks like a very talented player as well! And his potential is now rated as 4.5 stars, and his ability is the same as 21a! Look at a comparison I'd say 23a is slightly better, but not by much.

So what happened here? Well, I might have given 23a too much games too early and that has hindered him rather than help him, because he played against far too good players. At the same time 23k played youth games for a few years and could slowly improve. At the same time, 23k have gone from a "Balanced" personality into "Fairy Professional", so his professionalisation have clearly increased. But additionally, the coaches have worked with the players for a few seasons and perhaps the initial assessment was plain wrong?

So, once again I've been give a lesson by the game. The stars are merely a still frame of a player, and could be very wrong. So even if the coaches don't rate a newgen from your intake, he could be good and you could miss out on a real player if you reject them on a glance.

[HUNT3R]

12 minutes ago, XaW said:

So what happened here? Well, I might have given 23a too much games too early and that has hindered him rather than help him, because he played against far too good players. At the same time 23k played youth games for a few years and could slowly improve. At the same time, 23k have gone from a "Balanced" personality into "Fairy Professional", so his professionalisation have clearly increased. But additionally, the coaches have worked with the players for a few seasons and perhaps the initial assessment was plain wrong?

So, once again I've been give a lesson by the game. The stars are merely a still frame of a player, and could be very wrong. So even if the coaches don't rate a newgen from your intake, he could be good and you could miss out on a real player if you reject them on a glance.

Scouts and coaches also estimate potential (as they can't 'see' the actual PA number) of a player by ability/CA for their age, so that could also be a factor into why 23k was judged to not be worth it. Looking at the first screenshot, that seems to be what the coaches did there as well.

Looking at the screenshots following that, with them at 19, both now are estimated to be at a similar ability, so that's likely why you're seeing a similar estimated potential.

It's very interesting and thanks for sharing that. It's not easy to keep track of these things, so it gets missed unless you do go through all of that effort.

[XaW]

9 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Scouts and coaches also estimate potential (as they can't 'see' the actual PA number) of a player by ability/CA for their age, so that could also be a factor into why 23k was judged to not be worth it. Looking at the first screenshot, that seems to be what the coaches did there as well.

Looking at the screenshots following that, with them at 19, both now are estimated to be at a similar ability, so that's likely why you're seeing a similar estimated potential.

It's very interesting and thanks for sharing that. It's not easy to keep track of these things, so it gets missed unless you do go through all of that effort.

Yeah, I've had situations like this, but I finally have the screenshots to match, so I thought I'd finally post it here since there's been so much discussion regarding youth intakes and stars vs "golden generation".

Additionally, this also leads me to tweaking my view of youth players a bit. I've always had the thought that I'd chuck youngster into the fray in a trial by fire would be fine, but seeing it now, I think I'll hold back a bit more. At least when I look at the progress charts for the players. For 23k it looks very good:

For 23a is more grim:

So it seems that 2 years of getting first team football have had a minor negative effect on his development. Now, this will obviously be different from player to player, but I think I need to be a bit more cautious, and definitely more observant, when throwing young players into the lions den.

Just to add to this, I also have a 17 year old I started to give some first team football to in August and his development have shot through the roof, so it's clearly different from player to player:

Edited May 22, 2020 by XaW

[yolixeya]

18 minutes ago, XaW said:

But additionally, the coaches have worked with the players for a few seasons and perhaps the initial assessment was plain wrong?

I always keep this in mind. On FM18 with Lens I had quite a few good prospects who played for my CL winning team. I have noticed that PA stars kept changing after some time. When I finished that save I loaded that save in some external tool to check their PA and the results were suprising. My winger who showed like 3 star and 1 black star PA at the beginning but later changed to 4 gold stars and 1 black had a PA of 194. So they clearly assessed him wrong initially.

[Tiki Tak'n Turner]

6 hours ago, XaW said:

I'd like to come back to this topic now that I finally have a good example of something. Now, a couple of year ago (in game) I had a youth intake:

Note the two strikers I've highlighted in red. The top one 23a seems WAY better than the lower one 23k. I signed both, mostly because I didn't have many youth players, and his determination was high if nothing else. But still, 23a was far better, and I had decided to let him play a lot early on since he was a good talent for me.

Now, here is 23a two years later:

.

He has played 82 matches for my team, and scored a few goals. Not enough, but I'm a poor Hungarian team, so it's not a real surprise. He is still a good talent.

However, also take a look at 23k:

Suddenly, he looks like a very talented player as well! And his potential is now rated as 4.5 stars, and his ability is the same as 21a! Look at a comparison I'd say 23a is slightly better, but not by much.

So what happened here? Well, I might have given 23a too much games too early and that has hindered him rather than help him, because he played against far too good players. At the same time 23k played youth games for a few years and could slowly improve. At the same time, 23k have gone from a "Balanced" personality into "Fairy Professional", so his professionalisation have clearly increased. But additionally, the coaches have worked with the players for a few seasons and perhaps the initial assessment was plain wrong?

So, once again I've been give a lesson by the game. The stars are merely a still frame of a player, and could be very wrong. So even if the coaches don't rate a newgen from your intake, he could be good and you could miss out on a real player if you reject them on a glance.

I noticed one is 1 is only 16 yrs old while the other is 17, not sure how relevant that is. Did you control their training or your staff? were there any significant injuries or multiple minor injuries that added up to couple of months out? only other thing I can suggest is Bokros has 19 Natural fitness.

[XaW]

4 minutes ago, Tiki Tak'n Turner said:

I noticed one is 1 is only 16 yrs old while the other is 17, not sure how relevant that is. Did you control their training or your staff? were there any significant injuries or multiple minor injuries that added up to couple of months out? only other thing I can suggest is Bokros has 19 Natural fitness.

They are only a month apart in age, the intake is simply within that month. So no significant difference there. I have controlled their individual training, the assistant does the team training. No major injuries for either of them.

The idea behind the post was simply to show that you shouldn't take the stars from the intake as gospel, rather make your own decisions and let a few more youngsters stay for their youth contract, as they could surprise you.