[U18 Development Advice: Balancing Mentoring, Training, & Game Time]

Hey all,

I know that training is the most important variable for U18 development, but is it the only one that I should be considering? I'm managing Barca, the B team is in now up in the Second Division, and some of my more promising 16-17 y/o's are capable of playing at that level.  As I see it, I have a couple of options, and I was wondering how better players would think about this:

1) Keep them in U-19
    Pros: More time in training, about the same level coaching as B team
    Cons: Bad competition in matches, no mentoring, worse coaching than senior side

2) Promote to Barca B
     Pros: Lots of game time at a challenging level, more training time than option 3
     Cons: No mentoring, less training time than option 1, worse coaching than senior side

3) Promote to Senior Side, register/play for B team
    Pros: Mentoring, game time, best coaching
    Cons: Substantially less training time due to senior side match schedule

My thoughts were #3 for those with lower professionalism & #1 for those with good professionalism.

Attaching a few screenshots for reference:

option 3

Spirited + Evasive/Unflappable -> 15-17 prof -> option 1

bad personality -> option 3

 

Training king

[[FM21] Teams to manage]

Quote

Borussia Dortmund : Haaland, Sancho, Brandt, Reyna, Bellingham, Moukoko... Surely the first save on the beta.

FWIW Moukoko is not on the beta -- he should be in the full version as he turns 16 in the next week or so. I likely will play Barca on the beta or potentially a big money English side to get a feel for the new ME. Likely will play in Germany or France for my real save, my full candidate list below:

barca - my club, so always on the list. lots of finances to sort out. can build around fati/fdj/pedri
athletic club - youth development challenge
real oviedo - segunda divison
deportivo/racing - fallen giants in the mess that is the segunda division b

Germany: Lack of registration rules can make these really great

bayer leverkusen - my favorite ever save from FM18. Consolidate as a perennial champions league side / start to own the league.
borussia dortmund - wonderkids everywhere. as mentioned above, Moukoko isn't in the beta, but should be in the full release
st pauli - german 2nd division, great punk rock songs to play when you score / start a match

England
leeds united - el loco
nottingham forest - championship, fallen giant
brentford -- championship! analytics!

france: More registration rules than Germany, but most African countries don't count towards your EU slots

le havre -- ligue 2, good youth
rennes
lille
marseille
lyon

smaller league, youth focused
ajax
dinamo zagreb
maccabai tel aviv
malmo
midjtiyland

 

[Getting salah to score tons of goals...]

5 hours ago, yonko said:

I will have to disagree with a few things here. 

Klopp doesn't use Playmaker roles in his tactic. Counterpressing is the playmaker in his style. He has been quoted as saying that there is no better playmaker than forcing a turnover and taking advantage of the space / opening as soon as possible.

TAA's role is definitely not IWB. I see him more as CWB. He has slightly more freedom and is more adventurous than Robertson. Firmino is not a Trequartista. His role varies between F9, DLF and CF. He's going to drop deep regardless, because he has that Player Trait.

 

I would add Pressing Forward to the list of potential Firmino roles -- imo he can really be any support role that isn't a ball magnet (TQ/ TM). Other than that, I would second yonko's comments above

[B Teams - Tactics Forcing and General training.]

I believe you can change this in Staff Responsibilities by taking control of Team Selection for the B Team.

 

Edit: Nevermind, this has you manage the matches as well. Although, I think you can take this responsibility, set up your tactics/team, and then re-delegate it to your B team coach -- hopefully your tactics will be retained.

[Johan Cruyff's 3-4-3 Diamond (Very Fluid)]

I've also been experimenting a touch with this tactic in FM18. I had tried it more or less out of the (original) box in some past seasons with decent results but have started giving it a serious run this preseason, with some experiments/tweaking as I see how my team plays.

My largest adjustment has been changing the duty of the AM player; I found that he was getting too far forward too quickly in the build up and have changed to AM(S) with Get Further Forward PI. With two rotation options who have the Comes Deep PPM, the AM(A) worked a bit better.  I think this is may be an interesting option to employ in this set-up -- the PPM acting as a counterweight to the role/PI to strike a better balance in the AM's positioning.  I've also been using WM(A) rather than W(A) for a lot of my wide players, as I don't always like the "runs wide with ball" PI, but I haven't noticed much of a difference. Having a lot of success so far, but it's early days, and it could be just a function of my squad. 

Future updates to (hopefully) follow 

[Caixa Futebol Academy: Youth Development & Adapting Tactics]

44 minutes ago, Ö-zil to the Arsenal! said:

Excuse me, missed this one.

They may never play as a Complete Forward, but they may play as a Striker - particularly as I don't have many - and this is the widest spread of attribute development whilst training to play in the Striker position.

At this moment, I am just keeping potential doors open.

Sorry, meant CF as in Center Forward not the role, should've clarified. I assumed from your writing (both here and the Barca recreation) that you train attackers with the CF role regardless of whether they may play there or not, e.g. training wide forwards as CF rather than IF for the spread of attribute development. If you're lacking strikers then that's obviously another consideration  

[Caixa Futebol Academy: Youth Development & Adapting Tactics]

10 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

@Pass and Move If I'm not mistaken learning a new position takes up PA, so I imagine given he has no intention to use a Libero / Sweeper he just wants to maximise his players' development for their main positions. 

If so, why train wingers with Complete Forward if they will never be played at CF? My impression was that learning a new position made the player's CA weight attributes differently, i.e. weigh certain attributes more highly than they would be otherwise -- meaning that a retrain to a more 'foreign' position would have a strong impact on CA but a like-to-like retrain (left wing to right wing) or a similar position retrain (CM to DM, CB to SW, RB to RWB, etc) would have a minimal impact. 

Cracked open the editor to look at this and changing a CB's sweeper rating from 1 to 15 brought his 'recommended current ability' (I have no idea what this means) up by 2 but did not change his CA. 

[Caixa Futebol Academy: Youth Development & Adapting Tactics]

@Ö-zil to the Arsenal!, I generally use very similar roles for training (CF/IF for attackers, RPM for midfield), but I tend to use Libero rather than BPD for CB's as it covers more physical attributes (pace and stamina in particular) as well as dribbling, which seems useful for building out of the back. What's your rationale for BPD > Libero, assuming player is already natural at CB?