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Youth-Academy

Written by koekedallie

Youth-Academy: The new system where you play with youngsters and at the age of 17, you can promote them to your senior-squad.

If you have a Youth-Academy or considered to start up one, it’s necessarily that you read this…

In 10 points we want to let you know how the youth-academy works and how to manage it properly.

What stands on the menu:
1. How to get started?
2. What do you need to train?
3. Training individual
4. How do you know you have some potential in your YA?
5. Analysing your scout reports
6. Analysing training notes
7. What are the costs of a youth-academy?
8. League and tactical choices
9. When to pull?

1. How to get started?
When you start up a youth-academy your players are not that good and they have barely no talent. But every week you can pull someone, put him in your youth-academy and train him. To pull a player every week you need to call a scout and he answers if he has found somebody. We advice you to take 2 or 3 scouts and ask yourself these questions:

A) What kind of players will I train? (goalkeepers / defenders / midfielders / wingers / strikers)
If you answered that question, you need to put all your 2 or 3 scouts on the same task (searching for goalkeepers / defenders / midfielders / wingers / strikers). Every scout can also search in an other region (explained in question C).

B) Now you can pull every week a new player at your youth-academy, but is he worth pulling?
Well you need to see what the scout says when you pull your player. For example your scout could say: Tim will reach solid if you train him on scoring, his passing is rather weak at the moment. Now you know this is a nice forward that you can train.

If you see that the player isn’t worth anything (maximum that he can reach is weak), you can go to another scout and maybe you have more luck that time. The maximum is 3 scouts. (more info in part 4) If you get a 15 year-old player who has potential, don’t doubt and take him. 17 year-olds should be avoided unless he is really talented and if it’s your last scout you are contacting.

NOTES:
- If you don’t accept the player, and move on to the next scout where you have a player who is worse then the first one, you can’t go back to the first one and pull him. So think twice before you say to your scout that you don’t want the player.
- You can hire only 3 scouts, if you change the amount of scouts every week, from 3 scouts too 1 scout and back too 2 scouts, the scout association can give you a small penalty.
- If you let you scouts look for certain players (ex. Keeper), it will not always be a keeper that your scout is offering you, but there will be a larger chance that the offered player is a keeper.

C) In which region should I search?
You need to picture the new pulling system as a swimming pool, the pool is filled with players. Every region has his pool. If your scout is searching for a defender in a certain region it could be that there is not much talent anymore. So it could be useful if you set your second or third scout to search in another region.

NOTES:
- The size of the pool of talents depends on the region. In large regions there is a bigger number of players in the pool and the number of available great talents will be higher.
- The pool of talents will be updated every day so it could be smart if everyone pulls on Sunday that you pull a later day of the week, that way the chance that the great talents are gone is smaller.

2. What do you need to train?
A) Which training?
You’ve got 2 training choices in your youth-academy: primary training and secondary training (2 training types where you can chose out of scoring/passing/defending/…).

Primary training trains faster then secondary training!!! So it’s far more appropriate to keep your player at the youth-academy when he isn’t fully trained.

If you have decided to pull defenders for your youth-academy, you should train defending as your primary training of course, but you have 2 types of training that you can fill in. So the question is: “what should I train as secondary training?” Well you can see what the scout says about your defenders. If your scout says that a player is a natural talent in passing you can decide to train through passing, if a lot of your defenders are good in wing, you could choose wing.

NOTES:
- You can’t hire a coach for your youth-academy, everyone has the same coach.
- If you train defending and wing, your 2 wingbacks will train 100% defending en 50% wing. The players who get training with defending/playmaking/…-training are the same as in your senior squad.

B) What may you never forget?
-Maximize your training (though remember that the same rule about not having more than three forwards, central defenders or central midfielders applies also here in the youth academy, otherwise you will lose your training.)
-Put your trainees at the right place so they can be fully trained. (If you train scoring: play 3-4-3 so you have 3 attackers that you will train)

C) What do you need to know?
-The day after every match you get a training-report, there you can see who is in progress and what your trainer suggests.
-When you pull a player you can put the players in different positions and try to find out some valuable information about there side-skills.
- Like in the senior-squads, lower skill-levels train faster then higher skill-levels
- If your primary training and secondary training is the same you don’t get 2 times that full training, there is a big penalty given fort hat, so you lose part of the training. If you pick to different training types you gain 25% training.
- You get training if you play against a bot-team (result 5-0).
- The maximum skill of a youth-player is excellent except for goalkeeping it’s solid and set pieces it’s outstanding.

3. Training individual
Training individual means training every player, that plays in a match, on a skill that is needed on his position. You never know what he trains then. Training individual is more effective then before but is far more ineffective then training defending/playmaking/…
You can train individual as secondary training, in that way every player gets some training. It comes handy when you have on every position talented players, but if you don’t, it’s better that you don’t train individual.

4. How do you know you have some potential in your YA?
Like your games from your senior-squad, every player gets a certain amount of stars. Because there is always a weak/inadequate stamina and form doesn’t matter in de YA, a star-increase will tell you that the player is growing in the skill that you are training if the skill is necessary for that position. If your trainee has only one good skill the amount of stars show you what skill he has. For example if he has passable defending (6 stars), solid (7 stars), excellent (8 stars, not goalkeepers). BUT the player can achieve a lot more stars if he has for example passable defending and passable wing (such a player is called Multi-skilled). If you put such a player as a wingback he will reach more then 6 stars.

REMARK:
This is not exactly correct, but it gives you an idea what the amount of stars mean.

The players amount of stars in a game is not really predictable. Sometimes a player can play in a match and receive more stars then usual, probably he played as good as his potential. If the difference between that and his normal amount of stars is big, he needs a lot of training.

5. Analysing your scout reports
For the players who are pulled before 8 February 2008, the scout still speaks in terms of hot prospect, talented, hopeful, … After the change the scout reports are much easier to understand. In the new scout-report only stands the exact skill-level at the moment or the skill-level he might reach when he is trained.

6. Analysing training notes
A) When do you get a training-report?
You get a training report 24 hours after you friendly/league-game is finished.
For example: If your game is at 2 pm on Saturday, you get your training-report on Sunday around 3:45 pm.

B) When do your players train?
Immediately after your game (friendly/league), your youth-players will train. But you get the report of that training 24 hours later.

C) Who trains?
The players who train is just the same as in your senior squad. The players who played at the right position get a normal training. But, like in your senior-squad, every player who has played in your game (not on a training position) gets always a small amount of training. Players who don’t play get NO training. So in your training report 24 hours after your game your coach will only talk about them who played.

D) What can be shown in a training-report?
-Completed training notes:
Your player is fully trained in your youth-academy, it’s time to pull.
-Anniversary notes:
Your player has his birthday in that week of training.
-Skill pop-up notes:
Means that he popped in one of the skills that you train.
-Talent Search notes:
Your player has talent on a certain position or at a certain skill. Your coach suggests a better place on the pitch
-Behaviour notes:
Tells something about a player his characteristic (leadership, calm) and sometimes even specialities.
-Training problem notes:
Means that the training that you are giving is not the training a certain player needs
-Unusually good game notes:
A player performance on a specific game is better for no specific reasons

For some examples of those notes check this site:
(http://wiki.hattrick.org/Training_Notes)

7. What are the costs of a youth-academy
The costs of the new youth-academy depends on how many scouts you have contracted:
- 1 scout = $10.000
- 2 scouts = $15.000
- 3 scouts = $20.000

So if you have started up the youth-academy your Total cost will maximum be $20.000. You earn nothing when your youngsters play a match and you haven’t got to pay extra for your youth-stadium, doctors, wages, …

There is no cost when you pull a player into your youth-academy. BUT if you promote a player, that is older then 17 years old and has played 1 season in your youth-academy, to your A-team it costs $2.000.

8. League and tactical choices
A) League choice:
It doesn’t really matter who you play against but it’s maybe smart to pick a youth-league with only 4 teams in it. Why? A player gets a red card if he has got 3 yellow cards and so he can’t play in your next match and doesn’t receive any training. For example in a league with 8 teams there is a bigger change that one of your player gets a red card due to the yellow cards.

B) Tactical choices:
- Probably you want good results with your youth-team but it doesn’t really matter that you win. You need to optimize your training by choosing a good formation. For example you train passing, the best formation will be 2-5-3, there is probably a larger chance that you lose but you have a training-spot more then in a 3-5-2 formation.
- No youth-academy coach is more offensive or defensive than anyone else.

9. When to pull?
As earlier mentioned you can only promote a player to your senior-squad if your player is turned 17 years old and has already been 1 season at your youth-academy. At that point you can decide if you pull him of train him further. Player in youth-academy train much faster then in your senior-squad so if your player hasn’t reached his maximum you can train him further in your youth-squad (see part 2)

NOTES:
- Players who turned 19 years old can’t play in your youth-academy anymore. You will still see the player in your list of players BUT he can’t play in your youth-games (so also no training). So if your player is 19 year old, you need to pull him.
- If your player stays long enough in your youth-academy and plays a lot of matches they can already gain a lot of experience.
When your trainer says a player is ready for senior football, he really is. He may still be able to improve a skill some more, but he's pretty close to his full potential.
- When you pull a player he gets a boost in all his skills, how older he is how bigger the boost. (if he reached his potential he doesn’t get a boost in that skill).

If you have questions after reading this, please ask them at the national forum. We are pleased if we can help you.