Youth Academy - A Simple "How to" Guide

This guide will be just а few basic things to help when you start with the youth academy. In a smaller nation like South Africa, every talent produced makes a difference and even a double inadequate can become a U20/NT potential. Quite often I heard the phrase "no sense in starting an academy, because there's no financial benefit from it." The 20 000 Euro expenses per week are not a lot, even if you're just beginning (I'm saying this with the idea that you have decent planning). Usually, people think "oh, no, I'm pulling crap players for two seasons now, why I am doing this", but in reality, all it takes sometimes is even just one player to cover the losses inflicted in seasons. Overall, with good planning and a little luck, one can achieve much through the academy, and in helping South Africa. Not to mention the thrill when you see your kid reveal solid/excellent potential or when he has the "proper" specialty for his position ... or even when he puts on a South Africa national shirt! ;)

During the first season you will only invest money without getting anything out of this, as each youth player must've stayed for at least a season, before he can be pulled in the seniors. Generally, it's nice to use those players in the seniors, because of the 1,5-level bonus to their skills, but this shouldn't be an obsession however, since it would be very difficult to build a team of own youth pulls strong enough to compete in the highest division.


The boys from the neighborhood

When you open a youth academy, you'll find 16 guys with all 'unknown' skills. How can you find out if they are good? The only way is by fielding them and seeing what stars they pull in each game. The next day you'll get a training report by the youth coach on some of the players' specific attributes (stats, speciality, mentality, etc)

In most cases, the boys from the neighborhood are useless. One or two may not be that bad, but everyone else will be extremely poor, so do not be afraid to train them "properly" - this first season is something like a trial and error period for you in the youth academy zone. Just move the players to different positions in each match and see what you find. This is the time to familiarize yourself with the academy and how to "reveal" skills. More on this topic a bit later!

Note: In order to call your scouts and sign new talents, you must first fire one of the existing, if you already have a full count of 16. It's general knowledge to start with the oldest and/or lowest in terms of skills. After awhile, the other option for opening slots will be to pull the best in your first team.


Stars and what to make of them!

In general, 5 stars is inadequate for defenders and goalkeepers (with some defense) or close to it, while 5.5 and 6 stars is inadequate for midfielders with low secondaries and 7-7.5 stars is about inadequate scoring forwards. Of course, it should be noted that defender with some sideskill and weak defense can also get 5 stars, so this is only a very basic definition of things.

Attacking ratings (passing, scoring) get more stars than others. For goalkeepers it's important they have defense as high as possible, as it improves their performance (and selling price!) greatly.

Revealing Skills

In the academy we can "force" a skill to be revealed.

Current skill

We can reveal the current skill of a player using the main training. Example:

We want to see what level Player X has on playmaking.

1. Set "Playmaking" as main training.
2. All players in trainable positions (inners, wingers) should have their playmaking already revealed.
3. ... or we need to limit the number of players in said trainable positions (for example, fielding 5-1-3).

Setting this up:

Goalkeeper
Wingback Defender Wingback
Wing (4.0) Midfielder (6.0) Player X (?) Midfielder (7.0) Wing (3.0)
Forward Forward

(numbers in brackets are example known ratings of the fielded players)

or we can do this:

Goalkeeper
WB Defender Defender Defender WB
Player X (?)
Forward Forward Forward

It's a must that you start the match with nine players (goalkeeper + 8 field) or you will lose training.

In these circumstances, if you put playmaking as your main training, player X will reveal his ability the next day.

Skill Potential

We can find the potential of a skill by using the secondary training. Here is an example:

We want to know Player Y's maximum potential in scoring.

1. You have to choose "Scoring" as a secondary training (Note that if you choose the same training for primary and secondary, there will be no skill reveal! ).
2. One way to go about it is fielding players with known potential on scoring alongside Player Y.
3. ... or just use Player Y as the sole forward.

The tactic goes like this...

Goalkeeper
WB Defender WB
Wing Inner Inner Inner Wing
Striker (6.0) Player Y (?)

or...

Goalkeeper
WB CD CD CD WB
Wing Inner Inner Wing
Player Y (?)

In both scenarios, we'll find out Player Y's potential in scoring.

Friendly Games

Every three weeks you can arrange friendly matches. Use them well, as they have around 50-75% of the training one gets in the "regular" youth matches. These friendlies are a good option to try something different or to emphasize on (lets say) more playmaking for the excellent inner you're developing.

Selecting a youth league

After opening the academy, you can find a league (no fee for going abroad in international games, unlike with the seniors). My advice is to find a league as soon as possible in a group with 1-2 open slots only, regardless of the number of teams.


Scouts

Somewhen about Saturday morning, you can call your scouts and sign a new talent. There are theories that "the player database is refreshed (filled with new players) several times a day". Unfortunately, just when that happens - nobody knows. But since many managers draw players right after the economic update, you can try any other day...thus having a better choice :)

Scouts always note some things about the talent available, but most importantly, they provide information about 2 of the top 3 skills of the player.

Scouts and coaches in the academy often fail to mention a specialty on the players. It is therefore recommended that you use the "Play creatively" tactic, as this way you'll be increasing the odds to reveal a player's specialty during a match.


Signing the right player

This is the most important part of the academy - and sometimes the most difficult ...

Rules:
1. Pull any 15-year-old, that's offered by the scout, unless he's extremely crap (more on that later...)
2. Don't pull a 16yo, unless he's "overall passable" or two solids in trainable areas.
3. 17yo are not to be pulled, unless they're said player in point 4.
4. Always pull the player offered by the last scout, even if it's just to sack him! That's called "refreshing the database" and it's important for our nation and player pool.


How to know if a player is strong or weak?

Sometimes a player can be reported with wretched and poor skills and potentials. Depending on the combination of the displayed statistics, however, it may indicate that the player is a goalkeeper. But if the maximum of his keeping is poor or weak, he will be useless. The report on the said player should mention either goalkeeping or a decent level of defense, so that he can be a goalkeeper. If you get something like "right now he's poor in scoring and has weak potential in playmaking", he's probably just a poor player and definitely not a goalkeeper.


The meaning of "overall"

If your scout says "overall, he's ...." that highlights the sum of the three best skills on the player. A little more detailed:

Weak overall: probably not worthwhile, unless a goalkeeper (be advised, set pieces NEVER count towards those top three!)
Inadequate overall: could be decent!
Passable overall: in a combination with "he's 15 years old", you've just hit the jackpot!
Solid overall: in this occasion, this is double the jackpot and 99% surely a U20/NT prime candidate.

And what exactly is the sum of skills? We're looking at it as a combination of points. Example:

Anyway, Boba Fett is 15 years old and from what I've seen of him, I must say I'm impressed.

Without any further training, this player will remain with inadequate Passing. Overall, I'd say he's passable. Coach this player right and he'll reach his potential of passable Defense before you know it!

Do we sign him, boss?

We know that the player has 6 points in defense. Thanks to the overall rating, we cam suppose that his passing (the other noted skill) should be either on 6, 7 or even 8 potential. This we'll reveal with the 2dary training, mentioned on a prior note.

On a side note, I couldn't help but notice that Boba Fett can reach solid in Passing.

From here, the math becomes easier (6 + 7 = 13), so now we'll be looking for a number between 5 and 7 on a third skill. So, regardless if a player's overall total score is 6.0 or 6.9, the game reports him as "overall passable".

In the next game we try his wing skill to see if it's there...

I watched Boba Fett during the game, and I would say he can reach wretched at Wing.

Obviously the potential mentioned is not here :) Next week we'll try with goalscoring, but meanwhile...

You remember to login at (http://www.hattrick-youthclub.org/) (haven't registered yet? Please do so!) and we click on "Team" and then "Twins" from the top bar.

We see that Boba Fett has two twins and they not only reveal his potentials (6 def/ 6 pm/ 2 wing / 7 pass / 5 scoring), but they also show up a Head spec!


What are "twins" in the academy?

The Hattrick twins look alike, though they MAY have different haircuts (their faces are the same). They are also on the same number of days - it is possible that some of the twins to your player are 19yo and 24 days now, while your kid is 17,24. The term "twins" is used in the sense that they both have the same stats and the regular check up in Hattrick-Youthclub (once-twice a month), may help you a lot in the development of your talents.

If you also have FoxTrick addon on your browser (https://www.foxtrick.org/), it can also suggest that one of your players has a potential twin in HY - on the youth team player page, they should look like this: (http://gyazo.com/d2631d77165152e5820314364eab8ba2.png). The green kit represents a marked twin, while the yellow - unmarked. Once marked, the information from the twin is shown on the player page in red, to help your knowledge of the players. It's very useful as it helps a lot when developing your talents.

I know that if you haven't used Hattrick-Youthclub nor Foxtrick so far it can be a lot to digest all at once, but both things are very essential.

After that bit of straying aside, we're now back on the player - we learned everything on him, thanks to Hattrick-Youthclub.


Training

The training effect is visible 5 minutes after the youth match, so all changes to the skills should be visible shortly. The coach gives his report 24 hours later.

Training two different things is always a better option than to train one skill as both main and secondary (defense/defensive formation is better than defense/defense).

Individual training

Due to getting quite a lot of information already in this article, I won't be going into details on this one, but for me, it's not effective to use it.


Training report

The coach will mention when a player has fulfilled the maximum on his skill, but you can also notice this yourself, when the skill bar turns yellow.


Here you can see what each comment means: (http://www.hattrick-youthclub.org/site/coachcomments_show)

Training speed: (http://www.hattrick-youthclub.org/site/trainingsspeedcalculator)

And finally, you can join the forum youth academy discussion here: (16843738.1) (whether it's to ask a question, just boast about a talent and basically anything related to the academies).

Link directly to this article (HT-ML, for the forum): [ArticleID=19174]