Sign In
Register
Help
Okay, so I’ve found in the top flight that each year in your intake of youth, there will be one player that stands out from the crowd and is tipped for success in the future. This is the kind of youth you are looking for to take over from your current first team in 5-12 years’ time. Currently with your youth squad, therefore, you are keeping the rest of the youth team on a contract to give this one star experience of competitive football so that he can step up to the plate in years to come, (as a sort of incubator if you like an analogy), or if he doesn’t quite make the standard sell him for a considerable amount of money.
My point is, why just keep it at one player who is there to progress? Why not poach this kind of player from other clubs? There are several ways to do this. One way is check the match report of your youth games and see who performed for their team. If they have fairly decent stats in the key areas you’d expect for their position, they have potential and should be snapped up. However, domestic clubs are unlikely to sell their precious youth star to a player on the same soil, and also this method limits your findings to player in your own country. The most effective way to find these bags of promise is much less time consuming, although it will draw your scouts away from scouting for first team talent.
My tactic is this: set as many scouts as you can bear to give up (preferably the ones with the good potential stats) to competition, and then pick one of the youth leagues from around the world (these will be from the nations you have loaded, so unless you have started the game to manually, this method will limit you to two other countries). You will find that your scout will stay stationed there and provide consistent reports on players to buy that show potential. Some will be ridiculously expensive and already at a top club, but a few will be very cheap to buy and show the same potential (you’re looking at 1.5m and below here). If you buy, say, three of these players per season then after three seasons you are looking at nearly a full team for the future, with only a few years’ difference between them. Most of the players you find will play in a variety of positions so don’t worry about only finding nine right backs, it doesn’t work like that.
Clubs do this in real life with domestic players, for example, Scott Sinclair of Chelsea was poached from Bristol Rovers at the tender age of 15, and he is touted to become one of the division’s top strikers in years to come. Arsenal did it with Theo Walcott at 16 from Southampton and we all know what happened after with the youth.
THE advantages of signing a player in this manner are numerous:
1. They come cheap, I mean really cheap for a player you are expecting to start in your team for years to come. Although they will probably have a considerable percentage of next sale clause on them, you are likely to make a profit on them if you decide to sell them later on anyway, which you are unlikely to do if they are any good. So in that case you’ve made a profit and had their service. Not a bad deal.
2. They grow up at your club. They will therefore count as home-grown for European competitions. That is the least of it however. They will also form bonds and other players/staff at the club, and possibly even you, will become one of his ‘favoured personnel’. This means he will be less likely to want to leave when he is a top flight star.
3. They will only want youth wages at the beginning of their career with you. This means that his contract demands will be much less as they increase and be more affordable by a less well off club at the point where you would normally sign him off another club. The salary you would need to offer to prise him from another good club, possibly better than your own, would be considerably more.
4. You get to train them. Simple as that. You choose in which areas you want them to improve. They are young and adaptable and have all sorts of potential. They are clay for you to mould and/or retrain to a position you think they’d be more suited for.
5. You can get the youth team to play the current tactic you are using for your first team. In that way, they are already comfortable with your tactic when it comes to the time they make their first team debut with you.
There are probably many more advantages, but those are the main ones that I can think of and I hope you will find some of them convincing. Now however, it is time that I show you some of my example of players I have signed with this method, what they look like at the beginning and what they could improve to.
Keith Macfarlane, Striker, 16.
Chris Rae, Striker, 17.
These two players are youths that I haven’t signed, they came up through my youth academy, but they are the youths touted for great success in the future. Notice the key stats for a striker (e.g. finishing, composure, acceleration, pace, off the ball etc.) are already at at least Championship standard, and these will improve to world class stats when they fully develop. This can be seen through this player who came through my youth academy like these other two and is now 19. Look at the stats you’d expect from a winger such as dribbling, crossing and creativity and they already top flight stats if not world class. This is at 19, with considerable improvement left to go:
John Lewis, AMR, 19.
Having already had bids for this player in the region of 4 - 5mil, it can be seen how easy it is to make a profit on these players if you wish, but the idea is for them to become your first team, and no matter how lucrative the amount may be for a player who doesn’t make your first team, try not to cave in as a quality player is always worth more than the money if they want to stay at your club. Now, here are some players I have signed using the foreign youth league scouting method. Notice the key stats for the position once again, as they will become world class and others will fill out to become sold 10s to 15s at least:
Raul Garcia Gonzalez, DC, 16.
Giovanni Menciassi, D/WB L, 18.
The first of these players cost me 1.4mil, and the second a slightly higher 1.6mil as he is touted to become a leading Premiership left back with the potential to become ‘far better than Stephen Warnock’. Even if they do not have the desired success, if they don’t fit in or do as well as you’d hoped, you can still make a considerable profit on these players. This is the sort of player that you’d hope they turn out like:
Carlos Hildago, GK, 20.
You can see how a lot of Hildago’s stats are now world class with just a few trailing behind. However, as he is a keeper, he has much more improvement left in him than an outfield player and I believe by the time he warrants a first team place in my side, his poor stats such as rushing out (4) will have improved tremendously if he is trained wisely.
In my opinion, there are several ways to get the best out of your youth player. Train him in a way that his key stats will become world class, but also that his other stats will bulk out while he is still young. This is very important. However, another great way to improve your youth player is to get a great or experienced first team player to tutor them. This will help the player form more bonds within the team as well as constructively improving the youth’s attitude and ability. Also, give the player a chance in your reserves as soon as possible. It is vital that your youth players get a starting place over senior players not good enough to warrant a first team place, as they have no real future at your club.
The Scouts to Use
The scouts that you use don't have to be world class, they just have to have a good judging player potential stat as really at this stage it is all you are interested in. However, a good determination stat is always helpful if your scout is long term in a foreign country so make sure he's going to be fully productive. Any other good stats are just a bonus really!
Here are some examples of scouts to use, and scouts not to use for this method of finding youngsters in foreign countries:
Walter Sabatini
Now this man has amazing judging stats, there won't be many better for a club of this stature. However, his determination lets him down quite a bit and the impact of his judging stats will therefore be reduced over time. I would personally use him for this role as 'judging player potential' comes before anything else, but there may be better options for you.
Tony Fawtrhop
This scout is more interesting. He is not as good at the actual scouting as Sabatini, but he makes up for the loss of judging by his increased determination. It is still not that great, but it is much better than Sabatini's and you can see that if you have him stationed for a season or longer in a foreign country, overall he will be more productive. So this kind of scout is the one to look to. Having no determination in a foreign country is like a striker with no composure: even though they have amazing finishing, they will not score very often. It just doesn't work very well for this kind of task. So overall you're looking for the best combination of 'Judging Player Potential' and 'Determination' that you can possibly get.
Conclusion
I hope you have enjoyed reading this report and hope you have found it entertaining or constructive in some way. The future of your team is in your youth, and overall, it will improve your club’s finances, and secure the long term goals of a team. I hope you try out the methods I have stated and give feedback on them, and also on this article as it took me a long time to write and conceptualize and I’d like to know what you think, so please take the time to reply with your thoughts. Thanks :D
(Thanks especially to Rob for his idea of improvement by including the section on scouts to use.)
This post has been edited by dunc182: 18 September 2008 - 11:25 AM
MultiQuote
