Signing Youth Intake players

[wazzaflow10]

Is there any reason to not sign everyone on the list? I understand players that have silver stars or really really poor mentality but other than that?

[XaW]

I sign most players every time, unless they are both horribly rated by the coaches, the attributes are very poor, and have a poor personality. If they fit that horror trifecta, then I don't sign them. Otherwise, I will keep them. Even if they are rated as low as 2 stars, they can become great players if they have the right development (and often personality).

[wazzaflow10]

32 minutes ago, XaW said:

I sign most players every time, unless they are both horribly rated by the coaches, the attributes are very poor, and have a poor personality. If they fit that horror trifecta, then I don't sign them. Otherwise, I will keep them. Even if they are rated as low as 2 stars, they can become great players if they have the right development (and often personality).

Thanks that was my view too.

[FrazT]

Out of my regular intake of 16, I will usually sign 8 or 9- poor coach report, personality and determination will usually mean they wont be signed.

[Orion_]

10 hours ago, XaW said:

I sign most players every time, unless they are both horribly rated by the coaches, the attributes are very poor, and have a poor personality. If they fit that horror trifecta, then I don't sign them. Otherwise, I will keep them. Even if they are rated as low as 2 stars, they can become great players if they have the right development (and often personality).

This. But I also have slightly different strategy. I sign everyone promising on Professional contract while other get classic youth contract. If they look like they can develop more by the time they can sign professional contract I give them one. Otherwise I usually keep them until their youth contract expires. I don't know how it's in higher reputation clubs but at mine it's like 40 pounds/week so it's really like nothing. Yet their PA rating can change throughout the time. I got player who was at first rated like 3 stars PA and after like 2 years he was rated 4. It's quite impressive if you take into account that my club's reputation grew which should even lower his rating.

I used to throw the bad ones from the rock immediately but now I'm more like giving helping hand to my kids. If they cannot deliver by the age of ~20 then bon voyage.

[Grifty]

If a player has a low (sub 8) determination and work rate, poor personality or attributes for their role like if a defender has 3 tackling, then I don't offer them a contract.

[Orion_]

9 hours ago, Grifty said:

attributes for their role like if a defender has 3 tackling

You can always retrain player for other position especially youngsters. I never treat their natural positions as something obligatory. When attributes are good you can change players position to any other of your choice. Many CB's have good attributes to be strikers (good physicals, anticipation, decisions, heading).

[MowVu]

15 hours ago, Orion_ said:

You can always retrain player for other position especially youngsters. I never treat their natural positions as something obligatory. When attributes are good you can change players position to any other of your choice. Many CB's have good attributes to be strikers (good physicals, anticipation, decisions, heading).

too true. i have half my youngsters in selected position training. i love those paul warhust/phil neville characters who quickly learn every position i throw them in! 

[nully29]

On 06/03/2021 at 02:11, wazzaflow10 said:

Is there any reason to not sign everyone on the list? I understand players that have silver stars or really really poor mentality but other than that?

They may take up positions in your U18 first team, obstructing playing time for other, more talented players. This is particularly true if a future-less youngster is on his last year of youth contract and some 15 years old guy with potential comes in, but his position is taken.

[wazzaflow10]

On 08/03/2021 at 03:37, nully29 said:

They may take up positions in your U18 first team, obstructing playing time for other, more talented players. This is particularly true if a future-less youngster is on his last year of youth contract and some 15 years old guy with potential comes in, but his position is taken.

If I'm not mistaken I was under the impression that for players under 18 games are significantly less important that training time. While a poor 17/18 year old may be taking a spot in a squad for a more talented 15/16 year old I'm not sure that would affect their development that significantly.

[santy001]

Games are less important at younger ages, but game time at an appropriate level is still helpful to development. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a distinction between involved in match-day squad and not players for training. So if he's not involved in the U18 games then he's likely getting 3 days of that week in which the training schedule is reduced account for the day before, the day of and day after the game. 

Generally it is advisable to sign more players from the intake but you need to be keeping an eye on it and potentially cutting loose those who aren't developing. 

[coppicat]

My youth intake has been pretty miserable the last seasons even though I have state of the art facilities and exceptional junior coaching and youth recruitment at Nottingham Forrest. 

I would imagine that Mauro is up for the job as he has good stats and is professional. Can he really be part of the problem and should I sign Garrone instead and let him have a chance?  Or is it just bad luck getting bad youth intakes for a couple of years even if you have everything in place?

 

[Jtomsett11]

35 minutes ago, coppicat said:

My youth intake has been pretty miserable the last seasons even though I have state of the art facilities and exceptional junior coaching and youth recruitment at Nottingham Forrest. 

I would imagine that Mauro is up for the job as he has good stats and is professional. Can he really be part of the problem and should I sign Garrone instead and let him have a chance?  Or is it just bad luck getting bad youth intakes for a couple of years even if you have everything in place?

 

Looking at the staff you're signing,  I imagine you're at a really high level in terms of your squads ability? It will likely mean you rarely get players rated more than 3 star,  possibly 4, as these would still be potentially world class players.  With Farnborough on FM19 in the last season I played having won multiple Premier league titles and having great facilities my intakes still looked rubbish so I checked the hidden CA and PA figures.  

The two 4 star (3 gold) players had potential of around 150 while the five 3 star (2 gold) players had potential around 135. All of those should end up playing Premier league football to a high standard, just possibly not as high a standard as I was looking for. 

In 8 years of top flight football I produced three players with potential 160+ which is again probably about right.  How many current top teams have more academy graduates at that level playing at once? 

I also played a youth only save with Bari and in 11 years produced many Serie A level players.  My best players often had ability way below what I'd normally consider viable for the level and that's probably due to their attributes and personality allowing them to maximise their effectiveness. I think the problem sometimes is we can stock our youth teams with 5 star potential players we've bought in from all over the world and it becomes about their potential ability and not how well they're actually suited to roles and positions. Therefore our own youth look inadequate by comparison.   That may just be me though! I now try to sign anyone 3 star and above from my intakes and any decent personality players below this level and give them time to develop.  

 

Edited March 13, 2021 by Jtomsett11

[phnompenhandy]

Coaches have a sweet spot whereby if you go over the number of players they're coaching, their workload gets heavier, so just make sure the number of youths you've retained doesn't tip the balance.

[Sharkn20]

7 hours ago, coppicat said:

My youth intake has been pretty miserable the last seasons even though I have state of the art facilities and exceptional junior coaching and youth recruitment at Nottingham Forrest. 

I would imagine that Mauro is up for the job as he has good stats and is professional. Can he really be part of the problem and should I sign Garrone instead and let him have a chance?  Or is it just bad luck getting bad youth intakes for a couple of years even if you have everything in place?

 

HOYD doesn't impact in the quality of the players brought, it does modify their personality and the type of players that come through, i.e. Technical / Physical... etc.

Youth Recruitment, Prestige, Youth Coaching do impact the quality of players brought along.

 

If your team is full of Superstars, you won't be getting 5 star batches of players year in and year out as Superstars should be rare.

[coppicat]

After a half years hiatus I took over Arsenal. The youth players that came in before my arrival are considerably better than the youth players currently coming in during my reign and also the ones from my Not F save. Seems more than a coincidence. Could it be to balance the game so if you are the dominant force you will not also be blessed with great academy players? 

[santy001]

It's just a coincidence. It would be impossible to balance the whole youth system for the country you play in by impacting your club specifically depending upon circumstances. It's just luck of the draw. Additionally, the ability players come through with isn't an indicator of the ceiling of their ability. 

[turnip]

Also, AI-managed clubs have smaller youth intakes but the overall quality of the intakes will be similar. Therefore a club with the same level of facilities will produce a higher proportion of good youth players than a player-managed club will. 

Both will produce the same number of good players (on average), but the player-managed club will get more players overall. 

 

I disagree with @santy001, though - every time I've bothered doing the numbers on youth intakes, there's a strong correlation between CA at intake and PA. I'll agree that it's not strong enough to be consistently predictive, though (nor should it be).

[GreenTriangle]

Quote

Also, AI-managed clubs have smaller youth intakes but the overall quality of the intakes will be similar. Therefore a club with the same level of facilities will produce a higher proportion of good youth players than a player-managed club will. 

Both will produce the same number of good players (on average), but the player-managed club will get more players overall. 

Indeed. But ...

Quote

I disagree with @santy001, though - every time I've bothered doing the numbers on youth intakes, there's a strong correlation between CA at intake and PA. I'll agree that it's not strong enough to be consistently predictive, though (nor should it be).

It's not strong at all.

Test

Test conditions :

What is the average level of the newly received players' abilities (CA and PA) in case of 12 X 12 = 144 identical clubs ? This : (CA = blue, PA = red)

What happens if 72 of the 144 clubs belong to a nation having a youth rating of 150 (let's say ... Germany) and the other 72 belong to a nation having a youth rating of 50 (let's say ... Malta) ? All other parameters remain unchanged :

And what happens if 72 of the 144 clubs have absolutely all facilities (*) at the maximum level (level 20) and the other 72 clubs have absolutely all facilities at the minimum level (level 1) ? All other parameters remain unchanged :

(*) I am referring to facilities that are important for intake : youth facilities, junior coaching and youth recruitment

It's strange, isn't it? It seems impossible for the CA to change so few. In fact, it changes, but this change depends on other parameters, and primarily on the club reputation and the league level. These two parameters do not significantly influence PA but very strongly influence CA of that players received at youth intake.

One more thing : facilities do not seem to have the same importance. This test is not complete but some results suggest that the importance of "youth recruitment" parameter varies highly. In some conditions youth recruitment is almost completely unimportant (and doesn't influence at all the quality of players received) but in others it can be very important. Regarding the "youth importance" parameter, it seems it does not directly influence CA or PA.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

2 hours ago, GreenTriangle said:

One more thing : facilities do not seem to have the same importance. This test is not complete but some results suggest that the importance of "youth recruitment" parameter varies highly. In some conditions youth recruitment is almost completely unimportant (and doesn't influence at all the quality of players received) but in others it can be very important. Regarding the "youth importance" parameter, it seems it does not directly influence CA or PA.

But your last two graphs do show that facilities do have a fairly large affect on youth generation - your graph showing facilities set to 10 showed CA between 30-40 regardless of the nations youth rating, whilst the PA for bigger nations was 80-100 and 50-80 for smaller nations.

Then when you adjusted the facilities teams that got 20 ratings saw CA jump to 40-50 and PA jump to 80-120, whilst lowering the ratings showed CA dropped to 20-30 with PA lowering to 40-60.

Though you don't mention which sides you give the higher/lower ratings but I'm assuming from the graphs sides 1-72 got the higher youth rating and high facilities ratings, with the other sides getting the lower ratings, and if you reset the youth ratings for the final graph then that shows facilities have an even bigger affect.

[GreenTriangle]

Training facilities and youth / junior coaching are very important. I was referring strictly to "youth recruitment". In a preliminary test it turned out that the influence of youth recruitment is almost zero. But there may be an explanation : the test involved only one season, and the system I created is "closed": there are no transfers, no staff, no scouting knowledge area and no affiliations. In such a "closed" system youth recruitment is almost inactive. In an "open" system, however, (FM competitions are open systems), time, staff, scouting and affiliations can "activate" youth recruitment in such a way that it becomes very important.

[Britrock]

Youth recruitment is also heavily impacted by your club's reputation IIRC. However good your recruitment is at e.g. Oldham, you're going to be near the back of the queue for players in the north west with so many huge clubs around you hoovering up the best talents first.

[Matt_1979]

On 06/03/2021 at 10:03, Orion_ said:

This. But I also have slightly different strategy. I sign everyone promising on Professional contract while other get classic youth contract. If they look like they can develop more by the time they can sign professional contract I give them one. Otherwise I usually keep them until their youth contract expires. I don't know how it's in higher reputation clubs but at mine it's like 40 pounds/week so it's really like nothing. Yet their PA rating can change throughout the time. I got player who was at first rated like 3 stars PA and after like 2 years he was rated 4. It's quite impressive if you take into account that my club's reputation grew which should even lower his rating.

I used to throw the bad ones from the rock immediately but now I'm more like giving helping hand to my kids. If they cannot deliver by the age of ~20 then bon voyage.

PA ratings can change???? WTF?

Oh man. I’ve been doing it all wrong. 🤦‍♂️

[XaW]

Just now, Matt_1979 said:

PA ratings can change???? WTF?

Oh man. I’ve been doing it all wrong. 🤦‍♂️

PA don't change, but PPA does. PPA is Perceived Potential Ability. That is how your staff rate the players, so what you staff tells you about potential can change, but not the actual number underneath the hood. So how highly a player is rated can change quite a lot. When looking at youth intakes never look purely at the rating from staff. I look at their rating, their personality and the attribute distribution and make a decision based on all those. But I almost always keep any youngsters with a great personality (Model Citizen, Perfectionist, Model Professional), since they often hit their limit if handled correctly, and then release them after a few years if they don't improve or the coach ratings change.

[Matt_1979]

Thanks for that. 

Would you sign a 2 star potential kid who had a good personality and decent determination? Is he likely to improve past the initial star rating given by the report?

[XaW]

8 minutes ago, Matt_1979 said:

Thanks for that. 

Would you sign a 2 star potential kid who had a good personality and decent determination? Is he likely to improve past the initial star rating given by the report?

Yes, I would, but if he didn't show any signs of improving, I'd release him after a few years, or ideally sell him to make up money if possible. I'm talking about players from the youth intake, just to be clear.

[Matt_1979]

Just now, XaW said:

Yes, I would, but if he didn't show any signs of improving, I'd release him after a few years, or ideally sell him to make up money if possible. I'm talking about players from the youth intake, just to be clear.

Yes, youth intake. 
 

thanks for you help. 

[Platinum]

32 minutes ago, Matt_1979 said:

Thanks for that. 

Would you sign a 2 star potential kid who had a good personality and decent determination? Is he likely to improve past the initial star rating given by the report?

Yeah I would too, his personality and determination could also rub off on other players as well. Really you want all your squads to have the best personality's as possible, obvoiusly this is harder on your youth squads as its mainly filled with your youth intake.

[Matt_1979]

10 hours ago, Platinum said:

Yeah I would too, his personality and determination could also rub off on other players as well. Really you want all your squads to have the best personality's as possible, obvoiusly this is harder on your youth squads as its mainly filled with your youth intake.

What i'd been doing is just signing any youth intake players who are 3 star and above. Dammit!!

 

Haha - good job we're about to get FM22 so I can start doing it right!

[Platinum]

48 minutes ago, Matt_1979 said:

What i'd been doing is just signing any youth intake players who are 3 star and above. Dammit!!

 

Haha - good job we're about to get FM22 so I can start doing it right!

There is a balance to strike though as you dont want your youth squads to be massive to the point that the coaches are overworked.