Why Pace Is Such An Important Factor In Youth Development

In the past ten years, pace has become arguably the most important quality for young footballers in real life. FM Live tends to mimic this development, as pace is becoming more and more important. In fact, it's one of the key attributes the best teams scout for.

The reason for this probably lies in the increasing tendency for teams to play on the counter-attack, which means a fair amount of pace if a necessity to exploit the space the other teams are leaving going forward. It makes sense too, when you draw the opposition onto you, space opens up at their back for you to exploit, which works best if your players are fast and able to break away quickly.

The nature of modern football has meant that counter-attacking has become a major feature of almost every top club in Europe, and pace obviously plays a key role in this. The players on the pitch are more technically gifted players, matches are played on mostly pristine pitches perfect for passing on, and defenders are less able to escape bookings for cynical fouls. It even makes sense that teams are utilising a more conservative approach.

I picked up a nice comparison in regards to this topic on Zonal Marking, which I have quoted below.

The Arsenal side of seventy years later offers a good comparison. Theo Walcott versus Sebastian Larsson. Who is the better player on the ball? Walcott is a good dribbler; Larsson is more able to pick out an intelligent pass. But because Theo Walcott can sprint 100m in eleven seconds, and Larsson is quite sluggish (by Premiership standards), Walcott has been given four seasons’ worth of opportunities to impressin the Arsenal first team, whilst Larsson was discarded after only three league appearances, with an Arsenal coach hinting at the time that Larsson’s lack of pace made him incompatible with Arsenal’s system.

Take away the issue of pace, and there’s not that much difference in ability between the two. Indeed, it could be said that Walcott relies on his pace as much as any Premiership footballer today – Pete Gill at Football365 (perhaps slightly harshly) commented in the wake of Arsenal’s 0-3 defeat to Chelsea, ‘It’s just incredible that a football player of Theo Walcott’s stature has so little football talent. But for his pace he wouldn’t be a professional player. He has nothing else.’ Walcott’s own father puts it more politely, saying that ‘pace has been his killer edge over others’. But of course, you can’t take away the issue of pace, which is why Larsson is now at a mid-table club, and Walcott remains challenging at the top of the league.

Basically, for those of you complaining that it is not realistic that pace is so important in a player, give your head a wobble and try to actually watch real life football once in a while. Pace may not be the most important asset a youngster can have, but it certainly helps if you manage to snap up some pacey players to nurture and develop.

Youth Development; An Exploit

I've seen people talk about this on the forums and naturally, it wasn't long before some of our more cheeky managers had a chat with us regarding the possibilities in Altobelli. I'm talking about Senior ranked competitions, set up as private competitions which only allow U17 teams to enter.

This is, in my eyes, an exploit because the system is designed so that players ratings are an indication that you are playing them at a level that they can cope with. The higher level means better progression but only if they perform well. By limiting the quality of the opposition and thus ensuring decent ratings, people are exploiting the youth development system.

Don't get me wrong here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a manager playing their entire youth team in a Senior Ranked competition, as long as other managers are allowed to use their Senior teams in these competitions as well.

In most cases, a youth team entering the fray against senior teams will lose and get bad average ratings so there is no gain and no exploit. If the Youth players are good enough to play well against Seniors (like Arsenal's youths in for example the Carling Cup) then that is fine, but by limiting entries into private competitions to U17's alone, people have found and are exploiting a backdoor of the system.

The issue here is not Youth teams playing in Senior competitions versus senior opponents, but Youth teams getting a good rating in a Senior rank comp because they ONLY play other youth teams. If you are intent on fielding Youth teams in a private competition versus other Youth teams, make the competition reflect the strength of its members by setting it to U21 or U19. These competitions should be YOUTH competitions, not SENIOR ones.

I mentioned this earlier but this acceleration of youth players attributes (and the fact they are playing in "senior" games) clearly affects their Acquisition Fees and as a result their Market Values as well. If their stats go up faster due to them performing well in "senior" games, their ACQ and MV are bound to follow.

It's a way to make youth trading an even more lucrative business. So far, we've already seen multi-million offers for youths and with this stat boosting going on, the prices for youths will become more inflated. This could literally kill off the whole economy.

Imagine if you will the following situation. Spanish midfield maestro Jose Manuel Jurado happens to be one of my players. Valued at 1.4 million, on a 20k a day wage and at only 24, he's a talented and world class midfielder. However, when I see 16 and 17 year olds with an MV of 400k exchange hands for over nearly 2 million, why would I settle for anything less than such a sum for Jurado?

He's obviously five times the player these newgens are, as he is much older, can be fitted into first team instantly and generally has the same wages as these super newgens. If a 400k player can go for 2 million, thus five times his MV, why should I settle for anything under 10 million for Jurado?

Just hypothetically speaking ofcourse. There is no way on this planet that I am selling Jurado, especially not with these inflated prices. Either way, it shows the long term difficulties this exploit might bring.

I've strayed a bit off-topic though and I would like to get back to the original exploit. When I first noticed these competitions popping up, I immediately edited or removed them entirely, whilst asking for an official stance on this subject. Well, I got my official stance for now. Allow me quote a mailing I sent out in Altobelli after receiving word on our official stance.

If it's a senior ranked competition then any team can play in that providing it's not been set to stat pad. If we have proof that it was set for this reason then action can be taken - if we don't have proof but when checking results we see it has happened then we send a written warning saying don't do it again.

It's a grey area with many different parts to it, but playing youths in senior games is not against the rules.

There is a discussion going on about these competitions, as technically they are exploiting the game engine, but until there is no official ruling in place, we have to wait and allow these competitions.

So here's to hoping there's a speedy resolution, either SI coding something new or creating a rule which shows what we are and what we aren't allowed to do.

Overpaid Youths

Yup, one of my favorite topics to rant about. This generally only seems to happen as soon as people unlock the Judging Potential Ability skill, but in Altobelli, it has struck in week 1. Oddly enough I might add, since technically we are a beginner Game World. Then again, we already established the Game World isn't exactly full of beginners anyway...

Anyway, right now the youth wages are okay in most cases, but the highly rated ones are already a disaster-area. Every newgen that has appeared over the last month with an expected four star or more Potential Ability, is now earning at least 10k a day, if not more. I've seen 15 and 16 year olds with 19k wages. All of this within the first weeks of the Game World launching...

People fail to realise how much money this is costing them in the long run. 10k a day means 70k a week, 280k a season... For a 15 or 16 year old player, whose future is highly uncertain, as you need to nurture and develop this youngster. He won't be ready for regular first team football before he hits the age 20, so you're paying 1,12 to 1,4 million for this youth.

And let's not forget we're still not sure if the youngster can actually live up the high expectations. You're taking a huge, huge gamble when you pay wages like that to such young players. If he fails to develop into a class act, there's no way you'll be able to sell him for the amount of cash you have invested in him.

Last but not least, there's the time of this hyperinflation... The FA's started on Monday, two days ago. That means that most teams barely have any money to spend, yet some are investing heavily into players... Let's not forget you have to pay a signing-on-fee of ten times a players wage as well... That's 50k for a 5k wage, on top of the acquisition fee. For starting teams, 50k is a lot of money...

I'm not sure how this situation will develop, but I can say it's not looking good. If people are investing this heavily in youths without having Judging Potential as a skill, imagine the carnage as soon as JP actually becomes available... I'm not sure I like the prospect of that... Hyperinflation galore and the youth wages might go completely insane...

The Catch-22 Of Youth Development

As I have said before, I am quite devoted to developing my own youths, but I have stumbled across an almost impossible situation and rather annoying problem regarding the development of my youths. The developing of stats is becoming harder and harder, to a point where it is turning into a laughable Catch-22 situation.

Now for those who haven't read the novel by Joseph Heller, Catch-22 is a law defined in various ways throughout the novel Catch-22. First, the main protagonist Yossarian discovers that it is possible to be discharged from military service because of insanity. Always looking for a way out, he claims that he is insane, only to find out that by claiming that he is insane he has proved that he is obviously sane — since any sane person would claim that he or she is insane in order to avoid flying bombing missions.

Elsewhere, Catch-22 is defined as a law that is illegal to read. Ironically, the place where it is written that it is illegal is in Catch-22 itself. It is yet again defined as the law that the enemy is allowed to do anything that one can't keep him from doing. In short, then, Catch-22 is any paradoxical, circular reasoning that catches its victim in its illogic and serves those who have made the law.

Breaking this down into smaller portions and translating it to the youth development, you would get a situation like this.

1. Premise: If a youth player is to develop his stats in a decent tempo, he must get decent average ratings in the matches he plays.

2. Premise: If a youth player has decent stats, he will more easily achieve these higher average ratings,

3. Definition of implication: since a youth player who wants to develop further in a decent tempo does not already have decent enough stats, it follows that he will not play to his full potential for quite a while.

4. De Morgan: since this player cannot play to his full potential for quite a while, his performances are lacklustre and will result in decent but not spectacular average ratings.

5. Modus Tollens: since a players average rating is not very spectacular, his stats will not rise very much during the course of a season, causing his average ratings to stay the same, et cetera...

Surely you can appreciate the wonderful circular logic behind this... A player needs a high average rating to develop at a decent pace, yet he can only obtain or achieve this rating by developing into a better player first... By decent tempo, I mean that a player should be ready for first team in his early 20's. Anyway, this dilemma, gentlemen, is Catch-22.

Now of course there are ways around this. You can re-invent your tactics to actually suit a players strenghts more and compensate for their weaknesses a bit, but in general I believe the coaching skills are a bit underpowered.

You see, the coaching skills will boost the rate at which a player improves. This means they boost both attributes and Current Ability (CA). CA is just a reflection of a player's attributes, or vice versa, they aren't really seperate entities as the match engine for example doesn't know about CA at all, it only cares about attributes, which are in turn set according to CA.

Regardless of coaching skills, a player won't improve beyond his Potential Ability (PA), however he is more likely to reach his potential. A 2.5* potential player can only ever become a 2.5* player, no better, however a 3.5* potential player at another club may never reach that level. In that sense it is possible for a player with a lower potential to become better than a player with higher potential. This, of course, is true regardless of skills, but increased coaching skills allow you to get the most out of your players.

The problem is that the coaching skills really only kick in when the average rating is decent as well. So how can we make a youth really live up to his potential? A bit of luck that he faces weak opponents? Or just lots of tactical tinkering until we find a formation to play him in…

Fifty Player Squad Restriction Is Unfair

Seriously, I can understand the need to limit the amount of players in a squad, as it will lead to hoarding and people trying to corner the market early on. I have no gripe with the rule as such, as I can fully understand why it was implemented. I do have a problem with the number of fifty players.

As it stands, a player is currently capable to create five squad. This generally means one senior squad and various youth squads or maybe even a reserve squad. Generally, the setup looks like this:

1. Senior Squad
2. Reserve Squad
3. U21 Squad
4. U19 Squad
5. U17 Squad

Given that the minimum size of a healthy squad would be around 16 players, that means you have 80 players running around the club.

I have neglected the fact that players can feature in more than one team though. A very good youth player might feature in more than one youth team and maybe even in the senior team as well.

Still, as you can see it takes considerably more than 50 players to run a team with a full on youth academy effectively. Please SI, can't you raise the limit, so we don't get punished by poor morale and players rejecting their auto extends, whilst they actually do play enough games and have no realistic reason to complain?

Inflation Of The Youth Wages

As we all know, inflation has struck our merry little Miller Game World. For those of you with no basic grasp of economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.

When the general price level rises, each unit of the functional currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation is a decline in the real value of money—a loss of purchasing power in the internal medium of exchange which is also the monetary unit of account in an economy.

Translated into FM Live terms, players are becoming more expensive, in both wages and transfer sums. You have to pay more money in wage auctions and more money in transfer auctions to acquire decent players, which means less transfers are taking place.

In a post on the Developer Blog, Rob Cooper stated the inflation levels for every Game World. Miller and Coppell are on an average of 39.78%, which isn't that bad considering the fact that we've started out with 1.2 and the stadiums, which brings extra costs from the very start.

Anyway, I'm trying to look at the cause of this inflation. I think it's generally caused by people who don't know how the transfer market functions or people who are desperate to have a certain player (generally a top real-life player, someone who plays for their real-life club or a highly rated youth). They bid excessive amounts to persuade the player to transfer or the contracting club to sell.

Naturally, this causes some inbalances, as some of the wages have gone insane. The senior wages have pretty much stabilised, but the youth wages are a disaster-area. Every four star or more Potential Ability newgen that has appeared over the last month, is now earning at least 10k a day, if not more.

People fail to realise how much money this is costing them in the long run. 10k a day means 70k a week, 280k a season... For a 15 or 16 year old player, whose future is highly uncertain, as you need to nurture and develop this youngster. He won't be ready for regular first team football before he hits the age 20, so you're paying 1,12 to 1,4 million for this youth.

And let's not forget we're still not sure if the youngster can actually live up the high expectations. You're taking a huge, huge gamble when you pay wages like that to such young players, which is, in my eyes anyway, one of the main reasons for the current inflation.

I refuse to shell out these kind of excessive wages for every player, my top youths earn around 8k a day, but he's already playing regular first team football and he's developing quite nicely, with a Market Value of around 850k at the moment.

The one exception in my team is a Brazilian newgen, but his stats are so good that I don't consider him a youth player anymore, even though he is only 18 years old. He has proven that too, by getting 6.9 averages in the senior games he has played so far, in which case 14k isn't an excessive amount to pay.

Is there any way to curb this inflation of the youth wages? Can we stop this madness? Unfortunately, I don't see any way how to achieve this goal. I have actually thought this through (for a change...) and this is what I came up with.

Wage caps initially sounded like a good idea. Restrict the maximum bids. But these salary caps would be unfair, as it would be a matter who gets the maximum bid in first. Even with a more random distribution of youths time-wise, this would not work.

SI tried to hide the number of bids in the 3337 build of the Beta, but this didn't really help as people just bid high anyway to ensure they get the player. In a way, this measure was even restricting some teams. If you don't have a lot of cash, it's useful to be able to see how many bidders there are so as to decide where to spend your pennies, so in that sense it's not very friendly to weaker/poorer teams.

I considered removing all money from youth competitions, but I quickly realised most teams are not in the youth business for the prize money, since this is generally very very low and hardly worth the effort.

Most teams seem to be in it for the development of players and the chance to sell on their talents for huge fees. I have to admit that this is a lucrative business, as I have recently sold two youths for a combined value of 1,4 million quid. Since their combined wages were a mere 7k, they are cheaper than any of the newer newgens, which probably drove the price up.

Many other managers fail to realise this and they think these players only went for such excessive fees because of their superb Potential Ability. They therefore assume that signing top PA youngsters will guarantee them a lot of money in the future, when in reality it's the combination of superb PA, decent stats, chance of development and normal/fair wages that makes transfer sums sky-rocket at times.

The Demise Of A Generation...

With the wages for 15 and 16 year old players rising to absurd figures, I have decided to retire the Fortuna Aeternitas U17 team. The best five prospects, those being the ones who might realistically develop into first team assets, are added to the U18 selection, the rest of the squad will be sold in auctions starting at one pound.

I feel sad I have to break up an entire team, but with the current inflation, I don't think I can afford to replace the current U17 team come next season. Well, I could replace them, but it would either be a squad full of extremely expensive talents (10k or more wages pro player...) or cheap dross no-one else picks up.

This season, I experimented with that last option in the U17's. A team full of relatively cheap Africans and Asians was able to do okay, but not as good as the other Academy teams I have. Also, I have noticed the wages in the regions rise to well above my acceptable level as well. I refuse to shell out excessive wages (5k or more) for average players who are used to fill the squad and even more excessive wages (10k or more) for the top stars of a generation.

The current inflation of the market has prompted me to disband the U17's. This decision is effective as soon as the tournaments they are currently in, have ended. Most of the current squad members have been placed in auctions, which end Friday. I'm sad to see the lads go, but I just cannot afford to keep hold of them.

It is sad that I have to break away from the tradition of home-growing my first teamers, right at the same moment that the first Academy graduates are being induced into the first team. Players like Marko Damjanovic, Jack Cleverley, Angelo Antonucci, Carlos Amaro and Velimir Jovanovic were all part of the academy for three or more seasons, but this proud tradition of training my own youths will end in a few seasons, as there are no new Academy teams coming.

The New Newgen System

Apparently, the latest 1.2 build has a few nice and pleasant changes in store for us, especially regarding newgens and signing these newly created little wonders. Allow me to talk you through all of the new options.

First of all, when a player is signed on trial, his visibility to other users on the player search page remains subject to their scouting skills. This means that if you are no good at scouting for example South Americans, you won't be able to see South American trialists. A nice move forward from the old situation. Now it actually pays off to trial players to see if they fit your squad, since it doesn't necessarily mean you expose them for the whole GW to bid on.

Secondly, the first bidder in a wage auction is now informed of any second bidder making a bid, which balances out the fact that the second bidder was either notified or can see clearly that at least one bid has been made. This relates to recent changes to hide the number of bidders in a wage auction. Ergo, you can't go trawling through the list to see which player has the most bids on him.

Some managers used this method to find good players, even without the Judging Potential tool. In all fairness, this was a pretty effective tactic, but it was very harsh on the guys who did have Judging Potential and invested time and effort into getting that skill.

In the new situation, you can't see who else made a bid, which also makes it harder to determine the height of the bid. Are you really the only one that bid? Can you afford to go low or should you lock down your money for 24 hours in a high stakes bid for a player that may or may not even be worth the effort. Life's all about decisions and this latest addition has just made everything more interesting.

I also noticed that newgens are released on random times. They're no longer released into the Game World at midnight GMT, they are released in batches, all day long... In my honest opinion, that's more fair towards all the users in the Game World, especially considering the many different time zones people are in.

How this will affect the Game World in the long term is hard to say right now. The new build has only been effective for less than a day. After the first wage auctions end tomorrow, we can see if the wage wars for newgens will intensify or not...

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.

Altering The Youth Locks?

As everyone knows, you can currently use Youth Locks on talented youngsters. The end of the season coincides with the end of players' contracts. Contracts are signed with players for either one or two seasons. So every season you are going to have a fair number of players who's contracts will expire.

To protect yourself against this you have two routes of defence. The first is you are allowed to protect the contract of five of your players. When players are protected you automatically renew their contracts at a set - normally similar to current - wage. You also have extra locks for your youth players, but these end when the players reach maturity. You can protect a youth player for different amounts of time depending on what age you signed them:

• 16 - protect to 24;
• 17 - protect to 23;
• 18 - protect to 22;
• 19 - protect to 21.

So basically anyone outside your 5 senior locks and your youth locks goes to a wage auction 24 hours before the end of their contract. This means the highest bidder wins the player, and as compensation you receive their Acquisition Fee (AF) - which is somewhat below the market rate you could get for the player by selling him.

Each lock stays with a player until you either sell/release him or he signs a new contract with auto rebid. Of the five senior players you can protect, if you choose to change the player you want to protect, you have to wait until the current contract of the protected player runs out. You will know who has a lock by virtue of them having a blue closed padlock. If you choose to remove a lock, this becomes a green open padlock until the player signs his next contract, or is sold. You then get that lock back to use again. Sounds complicated but you will get it as soon as you see it.

Now I noticed a suggestion on the forums by our very own Nathan Pollard, who said that players like Pato and Bojan are considered youth players and can get locked under these youth rules, despite being tremendous talents for their age. Since both are 17 at the start of the game, a manager could potentially keep them until they reach 23, using the youth lock and thereby gaining a valuable first teamer without using any senior locks.

Nathan proposes that players with such obvious skills like Pato and Bojan should be classed as senior players, despite their age. I for one don't mind such players being classed as senior players, because they are obviously good enough to compete with any defence in the Game World.

The discussion quickly centered on how to implement such a rule. Most people felt it should be linked to wages, to stop managers from making crazy wage bids for players and ensuring a more even spread of top talents between the various Game World teams.

I disagree with that. If people want to invest in a top youth team, it will cost money. Good prospects will cost money, as we have talents going at 15k or more at the moment. I personally feel 15k is a bit much, but I have a few 8k youth strikers in my squad.

If the locks were linked to money, I would risk my young starlets being classed as seniors, which I feel is unfair. I'm not sacrificing any seniors for the good of the youth squad, so that would mean a rich team could just swoop in end of season and pay an even sillier wage to take my youth star away.

Instead of this wage system, I would like to propose a reputation system. As soon as a young player reaches a 3.5 star reputation, he should no longer be classed as a youth player. Most players won't reach such a status before they hit their early twenties, barring the odd exceptions of guys like Altidore, Messi, Bojan, Pato, Kroos and such talents.

This rule is much fairer on the true youth managers, who wish to develop talents and sometimes have to invest crazy wages to get a player. I sincerely hope SI take my suggestion seriously.

Player Development; Academy Re-Styling

Nah, this blog entry isn't about the academy skill that has been discussed on the fora, but about how I decided the re-style my academy. I've been pretty active in youth games over the past few seasons, playing between 400 and 600 games a season (manually playing, not counting auto resolves)...

I did all of that with a single squad of youth players, consisting of about 30 or so young players in different age ranges. I had 15 year olds in the same squad as the 19 year olds and the 20 year olds. To be fair, they did pretty well, getting me to a spot near and at times in the top 10 of the World Youth Rankings.

I still had the idea I could do more to maximise the development of my players though. That is the main purpose of the youth squad anyway, develop players you can either implement in first team or sell on for a profit. The youth rankings are a nice indication whether or not you're doing well, but these rankings are not a goal in themselves.

Since all of my players were bunched together in a single group, I decided to re-style my academy into new age groups, so I could sign every team into competitions against players of similar ages.

The Academy U19 and Academy U17 were created for the younger players to get match experience against players of their own age, which will generally help their performances during a match. Better performances should lead to a faster development of skills.

The Academy U21 acts as a gathering bin for players ineligible for the younger squads and the bigger younger talents, blending them into a single talented squad which will perform in the highest level youth competitions.

This is probably the best way to develop my talented U17 generation. Players like Clodoaldo, Velimir Jovanovic, Mahmoud Said, Fabio Antoniacci, Christian Rapp and Denivaldo are potential first teamers and I want to develop their skills as efficient as possible. Any other pointers are welcome by the way...