How to manage a youth academy in a perfect way

Hello! Your U20 coach N-Kobayashi asked me to write some important things about how to manage a youth academy (YA) in a perfect way. First of all I would like to introduce myself. I´m playing hattrick since six years. Also my own successful YA exists since nearly the beginning of the new youth system hattrick invented. Additionally to my work for my own team I´m the scout for YAs in Al Iraq and the Head scout of Al Iraq´s U20 team. In my position as scout for the YA in Al Iraq I builded successfully up a new YA-programm of training and cooperating, which in the last weeks brought up the first very interesting multiskilled players.

(This article was written by Berti_Blaeser(540948))


my main goals:

1) to establish a youth academy system which generates young players, who are competitive on an international level (interesting a-, b- and c-skills)

2) to unite all powers of our nippon youth academies only for the best possible success (important: that means: it isn´t absolutly unimportant which result a YA achieves in a league-match or in a friendly -> it´s only important to reach the best possible success in training the own youth players )

3) to build up a cooperation program between the YAs of Nippon

4) to give some interesting hints how to manage a YA in a perfect way

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1) One of our most important goals should be to build up a youth academy-system, which fullfills international conditions. that means: we should try to find a system, which develops youth players, who havn´t only one a-skill like defending, playmaking or scoring between passable and excellent. It would be great if we could develop a system, which generates players with such an a-skill like mentioned above and additionally an interesting b-skill like passing and in the best case also a c-skill like crossing/wing. So it doesn´t make sense to train two a-skills like f.e. defending (a-training) and scoring (b-training) in the YA, because these kinds of training doesn´t fit together like f.e. scoring and passing.

Result: We have to try to train a few really good, multiskilled players in our YAs instead of training a lot of moderately good players with only an a-skill

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2) The second important goal should in my opinion be to achieve the most possible success by using the right (mostly unusual!) tactical systems. By using the right tactical system you are able to train much players as possible, to reach this goal (most possible success on every training position). that means regarding to the types of the training:

a) goalkeepers: 5 - 4 - 1 // 5 - 3 - 2 => the YAs which specializes on multiskilled goalkeepers can also train/ some defenders by using this training programm (a -training: goalkeeping, b-training: defending or set pieces)

b) defenders: 5 - 5 - 0 => the YAs which specializes on multiskilled defenders can also train some playmakers by using this training programm (a -training: defending, b-training: through passes, crossing/wing, set pieces)

c) playmakers : 2 - 5 - 3 // 3 - 5 - 2 // 4 - 5 - 1 // 5 - 5 - 0 => the YAs which specializes on multiskilled playmakers can also train some forwards/defenders in their b-skills by using this training programm (a -training: playmaking, b-training: passing, through passes, crossing, wing attacks, set pieces)

d) winger: 3 - 5 - 2 // 4 - 5 - 1 // 5 - 5 - 0 / 2 - 5 - 3 => the YAs which specializes on multiskilled winger can also train some playmakers/forwards in their a- or b- skills by using this training programm (a -training: crossing/wing, wing attacks, b-training: passing, through passes, crossing, wing attacks, set pieces)

e) forwards: 2 - 5 - 3 // 4 - 3 - 3 // 3 - 4 - 3 => the YAs which specializes on multiskilled forwards can also train some playmakers/winger in their a- or b-skills by using this training programm (a -training: scoring, b-training: passing, wing attacks, set pieces)


Result: you can easily see:with f.e. a 5 – 5 - 0 system you will get a lot of confusion during the match, so will probably loose the match. But this isn´t important at all to achieve our main goal. So if you train f.e. defending (a-training) and through passes (b-training) by using 5 – 5 - 0, ten players get the most possible training success (five players -the defenders- get defending and through passes training, five players -the midfielders- get b-taining in through passes).

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3) Now we have to go a step further to increase the quality of our youth players in the YAs on every position. This goal can in my opinion only by achieved by a cooperation program between the YAs. to get the most possible success we have to train multiskilled youth players on each position. So it is extremely important, that we have at least ten YAs for every position. F.e.: If we have 200 YAs in Nippon it wouldn´t make sense, if 150 YAs specialize on playmaking and 50 YAs on defending. Our main goal has in my opinion to be, that f.e.each 50 YAs specialize on training each of the six positions like goalkeeping (see below).

That means that we mustn´t concentrate on training as much as possible players of a medium quality and different positions. We should concentrate on developing two or three high quality players on one special position in each YA over seasons. so a specialized YA can´t/mustn´t change the training each weak. the owner of a YA has to train consequently one a-skill and the associated b-skills/c-skills (like defending and through passes/crossing/set pieces or scoring and passing/wing attack/set pieces).


The most important thing regarding to the cooperation: the owners of the YA´s of Nippon have to communicate in this thread(13172419.1) about some important points of this cooperation:


A) choosen specialzed position (we have six positions to specialize on):

a) goalkeeper (a-skill: goalkeeping; b-skills: defending, set pieces)
b) defender (a-skill: defending; b-skills: through passes, crossing, set pieces)
c) playmaker (a-skill: playmaking, b-skills: passing, through passes,crossing, wing attacks, set pieces)
d) winger (a-skill: crossing; b-skills: playmaking, passing, wing attacks, set pieces)
e) forward (a-skill: scoring; b-skill: passing, wing attacks, set pieces)
f) set piece taker (a-skill: set pieces; b-skill: goalkeeping, defending, playmaking, crossing, scoring)

the first best way to develop a successful system of YA cooperation would be, if each owner of a YA chooses one of this six different positions ( depending on the potential of his players ) and gives his players on these positions a consequent training programm ( a-skill & b-skill ).

If you have choosen such a position please write it down in this thread(13172419.1), so we - the youth academy scouts of Nippn - can coordinate this and look, which positions arn´t choosen so much.


B) the pull of players in the YA: if every YA is specialized on one type of player ( f.e. defenders ), the three (!) scouts of the YA have to be adviced only to pull/ to search for this player type ( defenders ). I wouldn´t employ less then three scouts. The number of scouts is i.m.o. also an important key to success of your YA (more about this later).

C) tactical system: to train much players as possible, the owner of the YA has to use the first best tactical system (please see “2) second important goal -> unusual tactical systems”)


Result: To cut al long story short: Our cooperation programm can only work, if:

a) every YA chooses one position to specialize on and write this down in this thread(13172419.1) -> we have to hope that some japanese YAs also specialize on rare positions like goalkeepers or set piece takers (the more rarely the position the higher the chances to bring this player in the U20 and to get a high transfer prize, if you sell him)

b) every YA selects a training programm (a-skill and b-skill) fitting to the choosen position

c) every YA chooses the perfect tactical system refering to the choosen position and the choosen training programm


the success of this system of cooperation between the YA´s highly depends on the activity and the will of the owners of the YA´s of Nippon to increase the quality of the own players, the own YA and of the U20/NT of Nippon. the YA-scouts can only try to coordinate this programm for the best of nippons youth players.

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Last but not least I have some general proposals/hints to manage a YA in a perfect way. this are only some small things to consider, but some times considering the small things brings great successes:

1) each YA should have three scouts to discover the best young talents of nippon. if the first scout or the first two scouts fail to present a young and interesting young player with potential, often the third scout presents an interesting player to you. The costs of employing one or two scouts more arn´t comparable to the profits, you can make with a very good player, who is discovered by the second or third scout.

2) the scouts of the YAs of nippon should be sended to as much as possible different regions. if this happens the chance to discover a lot of great young talents in the limited player pool of each region in each week is higher than if most of the YA of nippon search for their players in the same popular regions. So every owner of a YA in nippon should think about sending the scouts in three different regions, which arn´t so popular in nippon. the chance that one of this scouts discovers a great talent would be a little higher.

3) it is extremly important to try to pull 15 years old players, even if the scout says that their main skill is only weak or inadequate. So if the first scout offers you a 16 or 17 years old player with passable main skill it is imo better to reject him and to ask the second or the third scout if he finds a 15 years old player. the 15 years old player has so much time to train a weak or inadequate main skill and his b-skill to something like solid or excellent (if he has the potential).


4) most of the owners of a YA ask their scouts for young players on the first day possible (on saturday). So the limited pool on this day is often emty or there are only weak or old uninteresting players remaining in the pool.

result: please try to search the young players by the scouts on unusual days like wednesday, thursday or friday in the early morning (never on Saturday afternoon).

5) we could also establish another thread like "Youth Academy players"(13166575.1) where every owner of a YA in nippon, who is interested and has a young and interesting youth player with much potential, can write down the training comments given by the coach after a youthmatch. so everybody can see the potential of a youthplayer and can estimate how the situation regarding to the U20 team is (how many good forwards are trained/needed and so on). The YA scouts could save this datas and write down some lists with every young talented player on every position who are later perspectives for the U20 of nippon.

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