Player Development; Development Theory

People have been complaining about the progression of the newgens in the Miller Beta GW. These new players are apparently not developing according to expectations. These expectations are probably based on the Potential Ability (PA) of said players.

In a way, they are right. Not all great talents live up to their reputations. Stefano Fiore, Alessandro Bernardini, there are a number of top notch newgens that come to mind when we're talking about top youngsters who are not developing as you may expect.

On the other hand, isn't this realistic? Isn't this exactly like real life? Not everyone who is dubbed a great talent actually becomes a world beating super-star. Allow me to introduce a real-life example... Denílson, full name Denílson de Oliveira Araújo, is a winger, who in 1998 became the most expensive footballer in the world when Real Betis paid São Paolo £21.5m. He was touted as a great, great talent.

Despite his obvious skill and talent, Denílson failed to live up to the high expectations. He never became the world beater everyone predicted he would become. The reason for all of this? Poor mentality... He may have had the skills, but he did nothing with them and didn't develop himself as a player... Is this starting to sound like the FML newgen scenario yet?

I think more noticeable improvements can be seen in the performance of young players if the clubs place greater emphasis on the mental side of the game. This way the players will develop a greater sense of determination, resilience and foresight. One of the reasons for this is that they will learn how to play the game in their head, eventually even compensating for poor(er) physique or technique by being smart(er) and positioning themselves well.

I've done a sweep of the top newgens in the Miller Beta world and one thing struck me. All of them had excellent mental stats, especially in the Work Rate and Determination departments. I then compared their mental stats to those of players that weren't living up to expectations. Most of those had decent mental stats, but they were lacking in the Work Rate and Determination attributes.

The conclusion is fairly easy. Players with decent values for Work Rate and Determination are far more likely to live up to their PA. There's less need of splashing loads of cash on top PA players if there's not a very big chance of them living up to that potential. Looking at these two mental attributes will give you a pretty decent idea if a player will be able to live up to his potential.