Is my young player good enough for the U20?

Many of us have asked themselves, after several seasons training a young player in the Youth Academy or afterwards in the senior team : Is this player good enough for the U20? Sometimes we feel disappointed when he is not called and we cannot understand the reasons.

Here, we will try to explain what scouts and national coaches have to take in consideration when choosing a player for the U20 national team.

When a scout sees a young player for sale, after the seeking process in the tracker or in the list of best national players, the process to find the right player for the U20 national team continues by checking these requirements:

Age
Personality
Skills
Experience
Specialty

Let´s have a closer look at each requirement.

Age

The first thing we have to consider is, what age will he be at the start of the WCQ (World Cup Qualification) or the WC (World Cup) and how many games can he play.

For this, we use this tool: (http://age.ht-u20.com/index.php)
We can put in the current age in years and days and see how long this player can play games for the U20.

In order to know how many games, we have to count between the first game of the WCQ/WC and the last before reaching the age of 21 years.

Keep in mind that, not because a young player comes from the Youth Academy at the age of 17 years and 0 days with a good skill level, he will for sure be in the U20, the age is very important.

Example:

Possible spoiler. Click here to show

1. Enter (http://age.ht-u20.com)

2. Put in the age of the player you would like to check in years and days.
(http://tinyurl.com/hj9nxxf)

3. It shows how many games of a campaign ( World Cup or Qualification ) the player can play and when he is too old.

(http://tinyurl.com/ht2ey3h)

So you can find out if he has a good age and can play all games or a bad age and can play just a few games.

Personality

Even if it will not affect the game, except for yellow/red cards, in U20 it is important because of the effect on the team-spirit it could have once they are dismissed from the team because they are older than 21 and cannot play anymore.

The negative impact on the team spirit is more or less:

Nasty: 0.0% - 4.5%
Controversial: 4.5% - 9.0%
Pleasant: 9.0% - 13.5%
Sympathetic: 13.5% - 18.0%
Popular: 18.0% - 22.5%

With this, if a young player can only play 8 WCQ games, he better be nasty or controversial, that way the impact on the spirit will be small. Having any other agreeability, he should better have a much higher skill-level than others, to make it worth.

How much is "a much higher skill-level"? Not easy to say, but you should expect him to have at least one level above of the main skill, or some more experience.

Skills

Let´s focus on the most important aspect: The skills.

If we have to talk about a minimum, it could be between Passable(6) and Solid(7) in the main skill and Inadequate(5) in an important secondary skill. Still, the more important fact is, up to which skill-level can he get and at what age.

We will use the following tool (http://www.ht-tools.eu/trainingplan), first we put the Coach level (at least 7), Assistant coach level (at least 10), Training intensity (100%) and Stamina share, we will take an average of 15% (the way to use it in the training process should be discussed with the scout)

Experience

The importance of experience is not so high but it can be the edge your player needs to be in the team. The more experience, the better the performance.

Experience gives a boost to performance, more or less as follow according to (http://hattrickunited.org/zafreno/2011/05/25/experiencia/):

Experience	Boost
Disastrous	0
Wretched	0,401
Poor	0,636
Weak	0,803
Inadequate	0,932
Passable	1,038
Solid	1,127
Excellent	1,204
Formidable	1,272
Outstanding	1,333

Ok fine, but at 17 all young players start with wretched experience, right? Well, here you can start to make the difference, letting the young player play official games, that are league, cup (even secondary cups), and promotion. Of course, is not easy to be successful with a low level/experience young player but it can be worth it.

Type of game	Points
National cup	2
League	1
Trophy cups	0,5
Consolation cup	0,5
International friendly	0,2
National friendlyl	0,1

Why do we mention this here? Because scouts, after the seeking-process, keep track of many players, not only the ones that fit exactly, but also keep updating the list with young players that can have a better performance based on experience as they could do it better, that is why some times you see players with lower skills playing.

Specialty

Specialty part: The fact the young player do not have a (right) specialty, don´t mean he is out, but if you have two with similar skill levels and performance, it could make the difference.

But be careful, not all specialties are positive. “Head” is the most wanted, but some others are better according to the position he plays:

Position	1ª Spec.	2ª Spec.	3ª Spec.	4ª Spec.
Goalkeeper	Unpredictable	…	…	…
Defense	Unpredictable	Powerful	Technical	Quick
Winger	Quick	Unpredictable	Technical	Head
Inner	Head	Technical	Quick	Unpredictable
Forward	Quick	Unpredictable	Technical	Head

Conclusion

This is a global view of the process. Some countries, especially the big ones, have different requirements because they have a much higher number of players. And of course you have to also keep in mind other things, like Form and Stamina at the beginning of a WCQ/WC.

So, the recommendation because of all the different aspects you have to consider is, that you should get in touch with the local scout. Send him your Youth Academy players or freshly pulled players to ask for their potential and training plans and (very important) regularly update your players in the HT Portal tracker (http://hattrickportal.pro/Tracker)

In a small nation like Kuwait, every talent produced makes a difference and even a double inadequate can become a U20/NT potential if trained right. It always depends on the available players of a certain generation.

I really hope that this article can help you to understand how to know if a young player can be in the U20 or not, and can help you as well to make an initial evaluate of your young player.
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I want to thank the developers of the tools used here, with out their work, the scouting process would be definitely much harder.

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