Youth development

[Lyngby]

Hello 

Is ty any use to promote selected promising u18 and u23 players to senior squad and attach them to the senior mentoring groups? The players are avaible to the u 18 and u23 matches.

Most of my coachers have good rating in working with youngsters

Will it speed up ther development?

When they reach 20  hey can go on loane. 

[Grifty]

I'm testing this now. I've never really used the mentoring, but I've got some good personalities in the my team leaders. I've promoted two players who have poor personalities and determination and just come through my youth system, made them available for the u19s but put them in a mentoring group with someone who has a resolute personality and is a similar position.

[Jack722]

I’ve heard that this is a bad idea. Basically, as the youth schedule and the senior schedule doesn’t match up, the player won’t get nearly as many training sessions as the players in the youth squads. For example, if he’s training with the first team and not playing games, then he’d have the rest days of the first team, but he won’t need them as he wouldn’t have played. He would also be forced to train straight after playing a game for the youth team which can cause injuries.

in general, only promote a player to the first team if you are sure that he is going to get a few games, either off the bench or in the cups. Mentoring will always work as long as the your young player isn’t influential, which he won’t be for a long time, so mentoring can wait. Adequate training is more important for players who are still developing

[Snorks]

@Jack722 has it pretty well summed up.  To expand a bit on that post - I have some mentoring groups set up in my age-group squads as well as the first team, not as effective as first team mentoring but still getting some positives from it.

I have three or four younger players in the first team squad, but those that are ready for some first-team action -  I also make sure they DO get first team minutes as well, cup games and final 20 of games we are winning well. They are also 'Available for u23s'. It does mean my set up tactically and pre-match selections for players available for u23s can be a bit time consuming,

As for loaning,  I still work on the advice from here that under the age of 18, training is more influential on their development, 18 and older, game time is the biggest influence. So once they turn 18 I am willing to loan them to a club at the appropriate level with average or better training facilities. At 20, I would hope to have them breaking into the first team as 2nd choice for the position.