The Youth Academy (part one)

Ever since I started playing Hattrick in february 2012, I have been intrigued with the youth academy.

In the beginning I fumbled around quite a bit and found a lot of more or less useful information in various Hattrick forums. But there was this one thread in the danish forum which I found myself returning to, whenever I was in doubt of what to do. So when the second teams were introduced, and we got a lot of foreign managers in the faroese league, I decided to translate this thread to english and publish it in the faroese forum.

Possible spoiler. Click here to show

The original thread (15751660.1) was written in danish by WidowMaker666 (4261869)

In my thread (16283895.1) I have made a few corrections (imo) and additions to the original.

The content of the thread won't fit into one article, so I have to split it in two.

I might add that I'm publishing this upon request from HPE-relu_ (7533491).

I have just opened my Youth Academy. How do I get the best possible start?

Before you open your Youth Academy, it is a good idea to read Hattrick’s rules regarding the Academy:

(/Help/Rules/Youthgamerules.aspx)

There you will find a lot of basic information such as how many scouts you can employ and what the running costs are per week.

When you open your academy, you will be handed a squad of players that most likely doesn’t have any really big talents, but it should be quite adequate enough to get a reasonably good start.

The best advice at this point is to play your first match with the 11 youngest players in the squad as the starting eleven, placed in random positions. Choose two random training types (primary and secondary) and play the match. 24 hours after the end of the match, your coach will reveal some information regarding one players current skill and other players max potential. You can use this information when you plan next weeks match. On each players page you can see how well he performed in the match, represented by a number of stars. The more stars, the better the performance. For the following matches it is a good idea to try out the players in various positions to gauge their performance and thus get some information about their strenghts and weaknesses.
When you, after a few matches, have found the players that play to the highest amount of stars, you choose training type and positions accordingly. After that you have to make sure to keep moving the other players around to make sure that none of them are better suited to receive focused training.

As mentioned above, it is not likely that you will find any superstars in your squad, so you need to start looking for new talents right away. In the beginning you should be grateful for any reasonable talent your scouts can find, but you can of course get lucky right away and find a super-talent. In this case you have to focus your training and planning 100% on this player. If it turns out that some of your lesser talents can benefit from the super-talents training scheme, it is a most welcome bonus.

You can have a maximum of 16 players in your squad, so in order to be able to call your scouts, you have to fire at least one player to free up some space.

It’s up to you where you want your scouts to look for talents, and which type of players to look for. If they are looking for defenders, they will not always turn up with a defender, but it will be more probable. The same applies for all other types.

Call your scouts every single week. If you don’t, you won’t be able to call twice the following week. You can call each scout once a week. The week starts one hour after the economic update the night between saturday and Sunday. You can’t save the calls to the following weeks.

When you have accepted a player from one scout, you can’t call the other scouts in the same week, and you will have to wait until the following week before you can call them again.

Remember that the first season you will only have expenses, since you cannot promote a player until he has been at the Academy at least a season, and he is at least 17,0 years old.

It takes a lot of patience to run an Academy and your scouts won’t turn up with top talented youngsters every week, but with the right training for your talents, you will eventually be able to regularly promote players that can be either sold or become members of your senior squad.

Which players should I accept from my scouts when I call them?

You can call each of your scouts once every week. Each will offer you a player, and you now have to decide if you will accept the player or not.

Your scout will always provide the following information:

The players current age in years, but not days. You will be informed about one current skill and one max skill potential. The mentioned skills are always amongst the players top 3 skills. But the best skill is not necessarily mentioned.

Sometimes you will be informed about a speciality.

There are no general rules as such, as to which players you should accept or not, but here is a guideline based on 3 available scouts.

When you call your first scout, you should always accept:

★15 yo acceptable or solid allrounders.
★15 yo with solid or excellent max potential in a skill.
★15 yo with a current skill level at passable or above.
★16 yo solid allrounders.

When you call your first scout, you should never accept:

★17 yo no matter skills and max potential.
★Weak or lower allrounders, no matter which age. Goalkeepers are an exception, but they must have acceptable or above max skill potential in goalkeeping.

When you call your first scout, you can consider the following players:

★15 yo inadequate allrounders.
★16 yo acceptable allrounders.
★16 yo with a solid or excellent max skill potential.
★16 yo with a current skill at acceptable or above.

You should always consider if the players the scouts offer fit into your training scheme before you accept them. If you do not already have any talented players receiving focused training, you definately should accept one of those mentioned above.

If you on the other hand have some talented players in full training, you should consider carefully if the offered player fits into your training scheme. If he doesn’t you will have to sacrifice some talents for others, which can be an uncomfortable dilemma.

When you call scout number two:

You should accept the same types of players as you would have from the scout you called first, along with the following types:

★15 yo with one passable max potential.
★15 yo with one current skill at inadequate.
★16 yo inadequate or higher allrounders.

When you call scout number two, you should never accept:

★17 yo no matter skills and max potential.

★Weak or lower allrounders, no matter which age. Goalkeepers are an exception, but they should have passable or above max skill potential in goalkeeping.

Scout number three:

When you choose to call your third and last scout, things are much more simple. You should quite simply accept anything offered, since you won’t have any more opportunities that week. If the player turns out to be worthless, you always have the option to fire him.

The advice above is just a rough guideline and not set in stone as such. Always consider the players offered carefully, if they fit your training scheme etc. Use common sense and keep your current squad in mind when you make your choice.

- To be continued... (19252) -

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