The FM22 Youth Academy Challenge

[wicksyFM]

1 hour ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

Hi lads/lasses. 

I have spent some time looking at this Youth development problem and have looked at starting CA for 129 players in 4 different squads (U19's, U23's, B Team and Senior Team), and then SIM'd from 1st Oct 2029 to 20th May 2030. Then I have checked the CA again. 

Everything looks ok to me. (I mean it's not perfect and there are some drops and many no changes, but there is nothing completely unusual imo). 

I know it's a very small SIMing period but thought it would help if it turned up the same problems some of you are encountering. 

Someone has suggested that I might not have experienced the same issues because my facilities are probably quite good compared to some of yours, so it might be something linked to poor facilities. Anyway, sorry I couldn't help more but good luck. 

If you want to see what the results were then have a look at this. Page 9. 

 

Ive had a little look at my two saves after a season. Teams were viktoria berlin and catania. Berlin have facilities that are 6 i think and catania are 17. players at berlin had little to no improvement.  players at catania were all improving, lots of green up arrows.

not sure what to think though as that is a small sample. 

[Winski]

Youth intake 2024

The 2024 intake looks very promising!! We've got a new HoYD: Christian Maggio.This is his first intake for us. Some very, very nice talents! A lot of attacking players again. Hopefully next intake will give us some more central defenders with potential.

Spoiler

 

[Jimbokav1971]

I meant to post this in here the other day and forgot. Hopefully some of you find it helpful. 

I'm not sure if things have changed from FM21, but I can guarantee that this is accurate for FM22. 

 

[Padders]

Seems to be a lot better intakes since the game was launched this week?

[Makoto Nakamura]

Well, this doesn't look good.  

[Padders]

Only this game can do this to you

One loss in 15

To this

[Miek]

So based on early results you would have to prioritize upgrading your training facilities a bit earlier. Can't just ignore them while you're upgrade recruitment and coaching. 
Would only be a bug if your youngsters are regressing.

Hope SI can confirm quickly so I can decide to continue with my save or not. Who was the SI staff member that looked into the longterm saves where less and less newgens were generated by the game? He was very helpful regarding that issue last year. 

EDIT: Was Seb Wassell. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Miek

[Makoto Nakamura]

2025 End of Season Review

A good season finishing in 3rd again, but three out of the four seasons we've ended up with form of 7-7-4. I know it's a coincidence but it is also quite strange.

  

 

Overall Best XI

2025 Best XI

Lars Søgård

Vebjørn Atle Strømme - Klaus Ek Mannsverk (YP2g) - Marius Brøttum - Ørjan Bekkelien (YP2l)

Kim Steven Sara (YP1a)

Ole Martin Steen - Johnny Solberg (YP2a)

Ole Bjørn Jensen (YP1c)                                                 Frode Mæland

Steffen Klitgaard (YP1o)

[Makoto Nakamura]

2026 Youth Candidates

This is...not great.

[Slipky]

VV Katwijk - In youth we trust!

Back to the youth academy challenge, this time in FM22. I started a beta save but the Ajax staff drove me crazy so I decided to re-simulate and take whatever team that will get promoted.
So... Here we are. VV Katwijk, a small city club with some fanatic fans... Sounds like a club I might enjoy managing!

I couldn't manage a club without proper kits, so... Here we are, designed by yours truly.

Home (L) and Away (R) // Season 2024/2025

The Squad

Pretty much alright. I have to sort out these amateur contracts, but... One step at a time.

Facilities

My manager profile:

 

And with that... Off we go! For real, this time.

[DazRTaylor]

10 hours ago, Jimbokav1971 said:

I meant to post this in here the other day and forgot. Hopefully some of you find it helpful. 

I'm not sure if things have changed from FM21, but I can guarantee that this is accurate for FM22. 

 

@Jimbokav1971Does the Youth Recruitment still get stuck at 19 like in previous years?

[V50]

On 09/11/2021 at 12:47, Makoto Nakamura said:

It has given me a bigger idea...

The 4 corners of European Youth Only Challenges

Northernmost: Honningsvag Turn & IF - Norway

Easternmost: FC Nogliki - Russia

Southernmost: Bnei Eilat - Israel

Westernmost: Futebol Clube dos Flamengos - Portugal

 

 

If you want to get really extreme you could make the French Antilles (Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Martinique and French Guyana). They enter into the French FA Cup lol

[Winski]

Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur
Season 2024 (season 3)
League Table | Competitions overview | Transfers | Finances | Facilities | Youth intake | Club Overview | Manager profile

A good season, nothing spectaculair this year. The first half of the season went very well, we were fighting for the top spot. But the second half of the season was terrible. From the last 10 matches, we only won one match and lost 5 of them. So we finished 7th because of thad bad run at the end.
Some youngsters from 2022 & 2023 intake are getting a lot of playing time. My new GK is Ívar Bergmann 23a. He replaced my former GK due to a long term injury, but did so well that I decided to keep him. It's a talented goalkeeper, because Dutch side sc Heerenveen tried to buy him already. Also central defender Páll Árnason 22k, defensive midfielder Jón Magnússon 23c, attacking midfielder Davíð Baldursson 23b(who became topscorer with 8 goals overall) winger Hilmar Rafn Hjaltested 23d  and striker Bjarki Hallsson 22a are developing nicely.
Hopefully next year we can qualify for Europe, because we really need some money. Our finances are terrible at the moment.

Youth intake

As I mentioned earlier, our youth intake was very promising. Our new HoYD Christian Maggio gave us this youth intake. Some of these players already made their debut in the last matches of the season

Spoiler

[MelbVictory]

Only bought FM22 for this challenge .   Poland me thinks

[the_hdk]

56 minutes ago, MelbVictory said:

Only bought FM22 for this challenge .   Poland me thinks

nice...I was thinking the same. just waiting on the possibel youth bug to be sortred to start. 

What team  are you going for?

[MelbVictory]

1 minute ago, the_hdk said:

nice...I was thinking the same. just waiting on the possibel youth bug to be sortred to start. 

What team  are you going for?

Literally just holidaying now, and to be fair, I don't know much below ekstraklasa.   But I'm think a two div set up is the dry run for a longer run.    And you?

[MelbVictory]

Reset date for Poland is JUNE 28   @darren1983

[the_hdk]

16 minutes ago, MelbVictory said:

Literally just holidaying now, and to be fair, I don't know much below ekstraklasa.   But I'm think a two div set up is the dry run for a longer run.    And you?

Well there is Ruch Chorzow (14 time champion of Poland)  a fallen giant. Decent faccilities. Big history and a decent stadium.

There are also two possible clubs from Krakow, Hutnik and Garbarnia. Garbarnia being the bigger club IIRC. Both have interesting colors, Garbarnia is bronw, Hutnik Nassau-blue (very light). Both will try to fight Cracovia and Wisla as biggest club form Krakow.

Motor Lublin is another possibility, not a big club and I dislike the yellow color but Lublin is a quite big city and Motor is its  biggest club. They have a big stadium with 15k. 

or maybe GKS Belchatow? they ware quite big around 10 years ago finishing 2nd one year.

edit2: or you can hope for promotion of Polonia Warszawa like I did last year...but you need to sim 2 seasons.

Edited November 12, 2021 by the_hdk

[Pauldinho7]

Despite having the top level facilities, youth coaching and recruitment, we get this preview!

If the intake is as bad as it looks we might find ourselves leaving this challenge

[JLAB]

Beira-Mar – Season 1 – 2022/23 First 7 League Games

So far, the team has taken to my tactics rather nicely, it feels as if the long gaps between fixtures has been something I can use to my advantage to play friendlies (which I've hidden here) to keep our match sharpness up.

It also means that we're currently looking like a side that can finish in the top two of our group to give us a chance of getting promoted, which as far as I am concerned, would be the ideal situation for next season.

We've also had our youth intake preview as well, and while we don't have a lot of areas where it'll be great for us, I will 100% take this if it means that we get more bodies in certain areas of the pitch, especially in the centre-back role.

I go into more detail with the results and fixtures as I show every single goal in the opening quarter of the season in my latest video with the club down below. 

JLAB's YAC with Beira-Mar Part 3

Edited November 12, 2021 by JLAB

[bg0123]

*FM21*

Gazélec FC Ajaccio 2022/23 season (second season)

After a surprising promotion in my first season, we disappointingly go straight back down after a relegation playoff loss to SO Cholet. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised since even in the French National we are still a favorite to be relegated. Kinda shows the quality we have at the club unfortunately. We had to sell a few good prospects who garnered interest. Do you guys just tell them no and let them be unhappy if they are interested in moving? Maybe I should just do that since I really need to keep them at the club if we are to replace all the players retiring. I have 3 regular players who are retiring before the upcoming season.

 

[jstu9]

The Magic Season 6 2027-28!

First season in the Premier League and we pretty much hung out mid-table all season. Never in danger of relegation, never in danger of qualifying for anything. Which was great news since I figured I'd be battling to just stay up. I actually had the chance to put some youngsters in the last ~10 games and bench guys who would not re-sign with me (good bye 5 star superstars).

We qualified for the Super 8 Cup which I guess is a cup for the top 8 in the Premier League. Along with the SA KO Cup and the regular old FA Cup, there are plenty of cups!

Finances improved greatly. I believe we are in the black now so payroll has jumped up to. So I was actually able to sign some of my newer players who look like hey will be stars (tho they all want release clauses so I'll probably lose them anyways). Progress!

So we are now in the grind and we'll see how long it takes us to move up. I got another good youth pull. I was able to get both Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment to Exceptional. And now that we are making a bit of money, hopefully I can improve the training facilities soon. I also decided to try an affiliate to send some of my youths that I think have some promise but not good enough to be on the 1st team. We'll see how that goes.

For the first time we had a striker lead the team in goals!

[libbyshuss]

2035/36 (Season 14)

Vanarama National League

Season Summary

Our best season yet! at times we were unplayable!

League - we started brilliantly. The three new youngsters fitted in excellently and were fantastic. By October we were top and flying! After christmas though fatigue started to take its toll and for the last few months of the season most of the players were tired. It's no surprise results suffered, and even though we were somehow top with 12 games to go, a run of 2 wins in our last 8 meant we finished 7th, just qualifying for the play-offs. The little love hearts were barely ever green for those last 3 months....

So, into the play-offs! First round saw us away to the Franchise club, who we managed to beat 2-1 in a brilliant display! It put us into the semi-final against Harrogate. They beat us 6-1 a month earlier when we had to play an entire second choice XI due to fatigue. This time around? Well, the semi final was 4 days after the first round game and none of that team could stand up, let alone play a game. So i had to go with the second choice XI again. We didn't lose 6-1 this time, but we did lose, 2-0. 

The price of being semi-pro, sadly.

   

FA Cup - Not the best of luck with the draw again. the 1st round saw us go to league 1 Mansfield, who beat us AET in a replay

 

Players

A very young team, which helps explain why they ran our of steam towards the end of the season. Some brilliant average ratings across the side though

Alex Worsfold 35B - Improving steadily. Lots of interest from Championship sides and even an offer from Premier League Leicester. No way can I hold him for much longer sadly. I just got to enjoy him while I can and then get as much monet as possible for him!

Jack Hales 35A - another that lived up to the hype. Lots of Championship interest again. I loved that intake from last season!

Lewis Gordon 32C - he's not realy a striker, more of a midfielder. He's like my own little Phil Foden. he's doing ok though.

 

Youth

After last years intake I couldn't wait! Surely another 3 or 4 first team ready players? The preview was just as uninspiring as last years so who knows?

an A and a B isn't bad. 5 stars as well! I was ready and waiting for my 4 star CA youths!

 

Ok, so no 4 star players. But three 2 stars which will do, including a Mexican AMC who can go straight into the first team. 

Even better my admittedly limited research has been showing me that technicals don't seem to be improving much, if at all, but menta and physical attributes are increasing quite nicely amongst the youths playing in the first team. So with any luck these two will be real players in a season or three:-

 

 

Finances and Upgrades

Council still refuse to give us a stadium expansion! 

debt climbs to around 200k as well

 

Career

[Braumiller]

South Shields
Season 01  ( 2022 / 2023)

Well, that was officially a very fun season!  Started out steady, basically punching at our weight with a really nice 442 set up.  I think it was just before Xmas we changed to a much more attacking formation and things clicked!  Charging up the table, occupying a spot in the very crowded playoff spots for the last few months.  In the playoffs things got VERY nervous.  We got a first round bye.  In the semi final we went 2-0 up with quickfire goals midway through the 2nd half, then York did the same to us to finish 2-2.  No more goals in extra time and we went to penalties.  We missed our first two and thought we were dead, but they missed 3 of their 5 and we kept our nerve to go through 3-2 on penalties!  The final was equally nerve wracking.  We went behind 3 times, equalizing each time and scoring an almost immediate 4th right after making it 3-3.  We hung on for the last 10 minutes and a very surprising promotion was secured!

Next year will be interesting, it is definitely a 'score one more than them' affair for us and time will tell if the step up is too much too soon.  A couple of our guys are rated at League One or Two potential, so hoping that bodes well, although our best player (our right back) refused to re-sign, so a holiday year youth intake kid is stepping up (he played well this year as his deputy)

My current favorite part of the save, Phil Jagielka in a HOYD and he has a model citizen personality!  Apparently he is Polish as well, which might explain our decent Polish midfielder this year.

 

(I haven't decided on a posting format yet this year, once I do I will update this post.  I was spending longer trying to figure out what I wanted to do that playing the game.  So decided to do a basic screenshot dump for now so I can start season 2  and tidy up later )

[the_hdk]

Ruch Chorzow - Silesian Rebirth

 

I could not wait so I started with.... Ruch Chorzow. fallan giant in Poland.

 

Playing as Ruch Chorzow old striker and legend, Mariusz Srutwa. TopScorer in top league in the 90s. 5 time capped for Poland. 381 games for Ruch Chorzow and 158 goals.

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by the_hdk

[Makoto Nakamura]

We do still need good defenders.

[Palkey]

After many years of doing these kinds of saves, figured I would share one, and where better to start than Latvia.

The initial seven team league was very... intriguing to me, imagine my surprise when THREE new teams get promoted into the league.

 

The choice as you can see was fairly obvious, I couldn't make it too easy on myself. Lets just hope this doesn't backfire. 

[hubwub]

Shaoxing Keqiao Yuejia - CFA China League One - 2022/2023 Season

I finally made kits for my team. It's using the old kit sponsor Kelme. Their current kit sponsor is LOOKS.

I've requested things from my board. They granted my manager to study a National C License. Also got improvements for my training facilities.

 

[Palkey]

Like probably everyone in the thread, I've been perturbed by the seemingly game breaking development bug. Luckily Latvia's top division is technically a professional league, (Obviously not in quality exactly) as such, I should be able to navigate around that issue even if my facilities are abysmal. If not, then I should only have to wait long enough to upgrade my facilities to the point that they don't hinder us.

Having said that lets look at what I have to work with. Jadson my clear Star Player, so, not awful. A capable attacker with lots to work with. Unfortunately for me the sudden rise from semi-professional to professional made Jadson think awfully high about his talent, and now he wont talk to me about contracts. YAY!

Which brings me to Ouni, lots of room to grow, at 6'6 with 18 jumping reach I am expecting a lot from this little lad. two more points in most of those highlighted stats and this guy will be unstoppable 

Next is Patijcuks, really nice all rounder, same as above, a few extra points in a few and this guy is looking incredible. 

I'm not looking forward to seeing how much they suck compared to the competition. but at least we are in a terrible league rated 88th in Europe. Not the worst in the base game, but pretty close to it. 

Also just noticed this, which is kind of amusing. Riga is the capital I think, but that's still a pretty large disparity.

[Daddy]

Edit: I'm an idiot and wiped out my imgur stuff which breaks all my links. Well, I got fired is the morale of the story.

Finances were too bad to resign almost anyone so I went for broke and sold off as many players as possible that I couldn't resign. That left me a with a team that on the final day fell from 20th to 21st when we drew and the 21st team won.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Daddy

[Watson156]

Season 6: End of Season Update

Chertanovo Moscow | Russia Premier Liga | 2027/28

Results | Squad | League Table | Transfer History

 

We finish the season with our highest ever finish and yet this season feels a bit like a poor season. I think the main reason is that despite the good finish we just seemed so poor for a lot of the season, and don't seem to have made any real progress in closing down the top 5 teams. I've been thinking about trying to change the formation, but with the way this whole club is, the best players are all centre midfielders or strikers. Therefore it limits us on what formation we can play. We currently play a basic 4-5-1 because we need to play with 3 central midfielders. The only other real option would be to play a 4-2-3-1 but then I just feel like our defence will get overwhelmed and crushed and there's no way were going to be able to score enough goals to make up for it.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

Anyway onto a quick review of the second half of the season. We won 5, drew 2 and lost 6 including the cup game. Realistically we were expected to lose 6 possibly 7 but manged to beat Moscow rivals CSKA & Lokomotiv. The worse results by far were against Khimki. They were the worst team in the league finishing on 10 points. 4 of those came against us. Just unacceptable. The draw to Rostov and loss to Torpedo were also both bad results. Like I said hopefully something will click with this team as they grow older (and hopefully better) and results will start to improve and we can close the 11 point gap to the top 5.

Maybe I'm being to hard on myself and this team. In comparison to us Zenit spent £47m this season, Krasnodar £26.5m, Lokomotiv £9.5m, Dinamo £12.25m & Spartak £25m. To give some more indication of where were at this shows just the massive comparison on wages spent. So maybe I do need to realise that were still massively punching above our weight and are actually in a good place.

 

Youth Intake and it was another very good one. 7 5* players although this intake is one for the future as there aren't any players that are immediately ready to make an appearance for the first team. There isn't any really good personalities this season which is a shame but we will make do. Our main need is centre backs and it was nice to get a couple of them. Pawel looks likely to be the first player from this group who could make his first team debut. Hopefully a season or two in the under 19's will help develop these players and then we can decide what to do with them. 

Youth Intake

Andrey Yermakov | Artem Yermakov | Evgeny Burlakov | Ivan Kazakov | Roman Titkov | Rustam Ramazanov | Vyacheslav Shulenin | Paweł Wyszomierski

 

* * *

Edited November 13, 2021 by Watson156

[Daddy]

 

New save. FC Rapperswil-Jona in Switzerland. Didn't see anyone else trying Switzerland so I figured I would give a try. A professional team with decent facilities. Just need to not come in last place!

Edit: Fixed the logo size

 

Edited November 13, 2021 by Daddy

[The Gold Guard]

OFK Beograd - Year 12 (2033/34)

Table | Squad | Season XI | Overall XI

Let's start with the good - second place! RECORD HIGH! I am absolutely chuffed! Great to see we are aging like fine wine and not the carton of milk in my fridge!
We absolutely crushed it and achieved well-past our key performance indicators. Our attacking force was menacing and our defence was even more convincing than previous years.
Middle of the park has been solid. Still our weakest point but not that bad when it comes to domestic competition. Needs to step up if we want crowns to wear on our heads.
A slight hiccup with losing our main keeper to the January window saw a bit more blood, sweat and tears than usual.
Despite this, I think we are in safe hands with our new pair of gloves inheriting the role between the posts. 

Now onto the serious business - This squad is a ticking time-bomb.
I can see this summer being a total collapse if I don’t at least get into continental football.
Fatigue will be another problem next season because I did not have one ounce of worry about this domestic saga.
We need to rotate more again and I think the depth just isn't quite there yet. Hope I am proven wrong.
 

Transfers | Finances

Finances are looking safe - don’t be fooled lingering around the 1m mark, I pumped more into the training facilities.
This is super important as I need progression in the players fast if they want to be either in the first team here or be sold for a bigger buck to another.

Youth Squad | Preview | Intake 1 | Intake 2

The class of ‘34 are an unpredictable bunch leaning on the side of positivity.
I see some players who can crack into the first team immediately and leave an impression but I honestly think that they will be here only for the short term and grow too big for the club.
Everyone else, I may be babysitting them and loaning-out for quite some time.
I have definitely embraced the Chelsea approach by hoarding my youth and hoping to leech coins off others until their contracts or asking price hit their limit or slide in to my first XI.

In short, I can see the front of the pack getting picked up early-on after providing stellar efforts at the near-end of this season. I hope the rest enjoy their stay and pick some coins along the way.

Notable talents include:

Vuk Pantic (34A) | Kjell Steegmans (34E) | Denis Ratkovic (34E)

 

Healthy Crops: 

Bojan Jakovljevic (31A)

Sprouted as my main man to rely on in the backline. Rewarded with a new contract to fend off interest. Hoping to keep around for a bit and work towards him getting to his peak.

Ivan Jovic (30E)

The partner-in-crime. Since the sale of some older veterans, this young lad has come in full-swinging and not looking to budge. Really proud of his surge to solidify a first team spot.

Sasa Vukovic (30C)

Two-time Golden Boot winner! Surpassed last year with still ~10 games to go. Oil giants are already looming for his signature and I think I can still squeeze one more season out of him if we give a good charge into the continental competitions.

Nemanja Milovanovic (31B)

Filled the void of the left flank wonderfully. Will be happy if I can get one more season out of him. Hoping he can develop a good partnership with his younger brother in the future.

Edited November 13, 2021 by The Gold Guard

[Makoto Nakamura]

2026 End of Season Review

At the 5th attempt we've managed to get promoted to the 4th tier! No big dip in form this season sees us finish seven points clear of 2nd placed Bjorevatn and now we can look forward to a new challenge and try and stay in a league with four relegation spots if I remember correctly.

  

 

 

For some reason the Best XI pages didn't update this season, I can still take pictures of the starting 11 though.

Lars Søgård

Sami Kolpus (YP1d) - Klaus Ek Mannsverk (YP2g) - Jim Neilsen (YP1g) - Vebjørn Atle Strømme

Kim Steven Sara (YP1a)

Ole Martin Steen - Johnny Solberg (YP2a)

Ole Bjørn Jensen (YP1c)                                                 Frode Mæland

Steffen Klitgaard (YP1o)

[Makoto Nakamura]

2026 Youth Candidates

What is up with that positional spread? Almost everyone is an attacking midfielder. 

[Pompeyboyz]

For people concerned about the "bug" in youth development, see my investigation here that I think highlights the bugs not there

 

[MelbVictory]

21 hours ago, the_hdk said:

Well there is Ruch Chorzow (14 time champion of Poland)  a fallen giant. Decent faccilities. Big history and a decent stadium.

There are also two possible clubs from Krakow, Hutnik and Garbarnia. Garbarnia being the bigger club IIRC. Both have interesting colors, Garbarnia is bronw, Hutnik Nassau-blue (very light). Both will try to fight Cracovia and Wisla as biggest club form Krakow.

Motor Lublin is another possibility, not a big club and I dislike the yellow color but Lublin is a quite big city and Motor is its  biggest club. They have a big stadium with 15k. 

or maybe GKS Belchatow? they ware quite big around 10 years ago finishing 2nd one year.

edit2: or you can hope for promotion of Polonia Warszawa like I did last year...but you need to sim 2 seasons.

Awesome, thanks, will see.  Also, will look forward to Ruch save, do share progress.

[libbyshuss]

2 hours ago, Pompeyboyz said:

For people concerned about the "bug" in youth development, see my investigation here that I think highlights the bugs not there

thanks for this, it kinda backs up my experiences and thoughts after playing 14 seasons or so

I think you're right in that it's other factors that are influencing progression this version. My youths that are getting regular first team football are generally developing quite nicely, whilst those playing youth football aren't. But with my poor training and youth facilities this shouldn't really be a surprise.

Here's my best youth pull from March and here he is 6 months later in Septembr after playing regular first team football in the VNL. No huge improvements, but he is slowly increasing across the board. At only 16 still I'm quite happy with this level of development and what I woud generally expect.

 

It might just mean we have to alter the way we approach the youth challenge in that training/youth facilities and so on are now more important in terms of improvement than they may have been before. And that's ok, just makes it more of a challenge!

[the_hdk]

Ruch Chorzow - Silesian Rebirth - Season 22/23

 

League

League Stats / Transfers / League Positions

Well that went better than expected. Did not go as well as my first season with Polonia in FM21 but great. We ware lucky too as most of the season we ware 3rd placed with 6  points behind #1 and 2. But LKS gave it all away in 2nd part of the season and even lost the playoffs final to their Rivals Widzew. Wigry ware really the strongest. So two clubs who just promoted, ended up #1 and #2. We had a bad start to second halve of the season as in january many players became unsetteled due to interest from Ekstraklasa clubs. And our bright chairperson (what happened to Chairman?) decided to accept an offer on our 4 star GK. only 220k. really peanuts. Dude didn't  play any games in Germany anayway and is worth now up to 700k...so you just know it was a bad deal.

Overall happy with the results. My tactics that I keep using form FM18..or was it 19...still work quite well. In the cup we lost against amateurs from Garbarnia Krakow in 3rd round...during our bad streak. Really missed out there as we might have ended up in Semi Finals. KOWALCZYK was our best striker and also topscorer in the league.

Promotion!

 

Forced sale of our GK

 

Season Stats

Upped the Youth coaching up an level, otherwise no changes.

 

Youth

Our HOYD, WOJCIECHOWSKI, 4 times capped for poland, and one of few Polish players who has a Champions League winning medal (he won it with Bayern in the 90s...he had only 3 played games that year..but who cares).

Fairly Proffesional and quite good stats. Could have been alot worse.

Intake Prediction

Actual intake...is Excellent! was  on Good at prediction. We need a GK  really bad  as  what we have is just not Ekstraklasa material. KROLCZYK and KIELIBA look like 1st team potentials!

 

In year 0 (during the year we had to sim) Ruch got one player with potential that was decent. ANTKOWIAK, retraining him further to an LB. Does not improve alot sadly.  I took him to the first team and  let him play some games in u19. He also mad ehis debut due to suspensions and injuries. Next year he will get more 1st team xp.

KROLCZYK (the lil King) Love his bravery and tackling. Everything else is meh. time will tell.

KIELIBA, quite fast for a midfielder, especially on first meters. Otherwise he needs alot of training.

[andreidvb]

Since FM 22 is out, I ll be putting a stop to my FM 21 youth challenge attempt that I had with Hyde and will start this challenge in FM22, will try in England as I enjoyed my FM21 youth challenge attempts there. Only reason that I bought the game was for this challenge, hope I ll manage to make some progress with this new version of FM

[fries]

7 players on international duty... Not optimally for a Vanarama National squad with out much depth. My wish for this years intake is only English nationalities!

Edited November 13, 2021 by fries

[JLAB]

Beira-Mar – Season 1 – 2022/23 Youth Intake

The team continues to do well for us, we finally lost our first game of the season, but we didn't have an issue due to how much time there was between the fixtures.

We managed to win our group and lead the way for the teams that will end up in the promotion group. All we need to do now is end up finishing in the top two of our group and we will be promoted. Whether we can do that as Champions or not remains to be seen.

In other words, we've just had our youth intake which is even better than I was expecting it to be, which is rather exciting.

Given the personalities, where they are from, their current and potential ability, I like to think that this was a good intake.

The player that I was told to be excited about is João Pitarma and I like what I see when I look at his attributes. His mentals are exciting, even if his personality is a little lackluster.

The other player to have 5 stars in potential ability is our keeper José Cardigos, meaning that we now have two young goalkeepers who have amazing potential, which isn't an issue when my current starting goalkeeper is now in his 30s.

I go into more detail with my youth intake in my latest video, so why not check it out for the other players who look decent?

JLAB's YAC with Beira-Mar Part 4

[WhiteCat33]

3 hours ago, libbyshuss said:

thanks for this, it kinda backs up my experiences and thoughts after playing 14 seasons or so

I think you're right in that it's other factors that are influencing progression this version. My youths that are getting regular first team football are generally developing quite nicely, whilst those playing youth football aren't. But with my poor training and youth facilities this shouldn't really be a surprise.

Here's my best youth pull from March and here he is 6 months later in Septembr after playing regular first team football in the VNL. No huge improvements, but he is slowly increasing across the board. At only 16 still I'm quite happy with this level of development and what I woud generally expect.

 

It might just mean we have to alter the way we approach the youth challenge in that training/youth facilities and so on are now more important in terms of improvement than they may have been before. And that's ok, just makes it more of a challenge!

So at my point in Belgium we have good level facilities and 4-5 star coaching in every category with enough depth that they stay light-average throughout the year. We also have good morale as we overachieve in the season with consistent 8.0+ weekly average training reports.

IMO that should be sufficient to see some development for players in the youth team and reasonable progression for those U-18s who I bring into the senior squad for training who see maybe 10 games a season. 

That’s not happening. Maybe 1 in 10 will get slight gains in stats, the other 9 will stagnate or decline. However when I send those Players out on loan even to semi-pro teams with bad facilities playing in unplayable divisions they will progress better than if I rotate them into my squad.

Like I understand by 18 they need first team soccer somewhere to progress, but I’m talking about needing to send my 16 year old prospects out immediately on loan to whatever club will play them. And I also understand many of my prospects will be duds, but when they are wanted by all the major teams in the league and playing international youth games and still get worse that seems off to me. 

The only way I’ve seen true development is if they get at least the majority of the season playing time which is why the loans work so well. They go to the 3rd tier and play 30 games a season. What just sucks is you can’t fix personalities this way. 

Anyways maybe my expectations are just off as I haven’t played a new FM since 2019, but I’m glad they at least have my save to look at if they are so inclined. I honestly don’t expect any answer but more data if they want it can’t hurt. 

[Palkey]

So I'm nearing the end of my first season in Latvia, things have been interesting to be sure.

Clearly not going to plan, but the thing is the board are so happy with me they have offered a new contract to me.

[libbyshuss]

9 minutes ago, WhiteCat33 said:

So at my point in Belgium we have good level facilities and 4-5 star coaching in every category with enough depth that they stay light-average throughout the year. We also have good morale as we overachieve in the season with consistent 8.0+ weekly average training reports.

IMO that should be sufficient to see some development for players in the youth team and reasonable progression for those U-18s who I bring into the senior squad for training who see maybe 10 games a season. 

yeah, fair enough, I'd expect to see something like that as well.

Might take me a little while to get facilities good enough to see that happening though.

edit: makes you wonder what SI think the point of U18 squads are?

Edited November 13, 2021 by libbyshuss

[WhiteCat33]

7 minutes ago, libbyshuss said:

yeah, fair enough, I'd expect to see something like that as well.

Might take me a little while to get facilities good enough to see that happening though.

edit: makes you wonder what SI think the point of U18 squads are?

My guess is this is an over correction where they wanted to make developing new top tier players more of an achievement at lesser clubs. 

Facilities are frustrating for me as I got my second downgrade back to average from good at he end of the season. I upgraded them 5 years ago, guess they degrade faster now? Financially we are broke so my development is only going to get worse from here. 

Edit: also I tend to forget we are an extreme outlier of players of this game who fixate on the youth element. Most just buy youth talents abroad who go into first team play and discard many of our treasured youngsters from the u-18

Edited November 13, 2021 by WhiteCat33

[libbyshuss]

18 minutes ago, WhiteCat33 said:

also I tend to forget we are an extreme outlier of players of this game who fixate on the youth element. Most just buy youth talents abroad who go into first team play and discard many of our treasured youngsters from the u-18

this is true. When I did the dafuge challenge I never even went near the youth squad. Just signed up all the best youth prospects released by the top tier clubs instead. And to be honest, that is far closer to a realistic game experience than what we do. no club in real life would be mad enough to do a youth only challenge!

[WhiteCat33]

12 minutes ago, libbyshuss said:

this is true. When I did the dafuge challenge I never even went near the youth squad. Just signed up all the best youth prospects released by the top tier clubs instead. And to be honest, that is far closer to a realistic game experience than what we do. no club in real life would be mad enough to do a youth only challenge!

I’m not up on all the challenge names but agreed our behavior here is not replicated in the real world much. I think there are some active military only teams in Korea and then of course the Russian youth only club someone is Doing here. (Sorry on mobile or id link). 

The park-prem style game is the actual realistic behavior where your favorite day of the year is when the premier teams release their youth players and you hunt through the free agents for the gems they discarded. 

When zeelands team updates his USA pyramid database for fm22 I’ll be starting a save like that there where for once I can actually find a local team and build them to glory!

[Pompeyboyz]

45 minutes ago, WhiteCat33 said:

also I tend to forget we are an extreme outlier of players of this game who fixate on the youth element. Most just buy youth talents abroad who go into first team play and discard many of our treasured youngsters from the u-18

You look at the best of the past Youth only challenge players and they progress fast through the lower leagues and then slow down as they reach the top, but reality is that the teams that have made swift progress through the lower leagues were bankrolled and effectively bought success.  If you look at the teams in the non-league game, I know Gosport Borough in Southern League Premier will pick up discards from Portsmouth and Havant and Waterlooville a lot while also picking up players from the other local non league sides, who in turn pick up Gosports discarded players.  If Gosport tried to survive the way we play the youth only challenges, they would tumble down fast. 

[WhiteCat33]

6 hours ago, Pompeyboyz said:

For people concerned about the "bug" in youth development, see my investigation here that I think highlights the bugs not there

 

Appreciate your data on this! My biggest question is on the 16-18 development comparisons. In particular:

1) remain fully u-18 at high facility club, 2) cup player max 10 a season at high facility club primarily u-21. 3) loan to reasonable professional club and a rotation player 25 or less starts. 4) loan to a mediocre club with bad facilities and maybe even semi pro but is a star player hitting 35+ games with max playing time. 

 

In my experience 4 seems the best option developing my youth prospects who aren’t first team ready by a long mile