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Building a GG

Written by Troglodita

This is just a guide of things to keep in mind while trying to build a GG or understand what things are done, is not only to have good players, now, we don´t intend to say we are experts, is just an idea, for sure not the only one.

As reference, we will use article Is my young player good enough for the U20? (19580)

GG - Golden Generation

First let's see what is a GG, is a process where you take a young team, play a first WCQ using that experience (see Experience in the article) to improve the players, looking to play a second WCQ where you will try to qualify to the WC. To sum up, is a three WC process, the first, once you are out pick the initial team, a second where you just train and a third one where you will fight for a WC spot.

What do you have to keep in mind to select the team?

First you must have clear the minimal skill levels you want to reach (as a guide) and review initial levels, in general you can think the initial should be 17;0 years old, the main skill in Solid (7) and the main secondary in Inadequate (5), but you cannot rule out a double Passable (6).

Also you have to check the owners staff and if this can be upgraded in a short term if it is not the ideal, this is a level Solid (7) coach, 10 Technical Assistant levels, a level 5 Doctor and even as it is not a must from the beginning, project to hire a level 5 Form coach, this is to be sure we can reach the levels required, off course, have the proper training.

What are we looking for?

First thing we could think of is to have multiskill players with a very high main skill and perfect specialty, but here is our first problem, we don´t produce that much players, we have to do a really good serch and follow up.

But we have a list of minimals we should meet right? well, here is our second issue, you can have a minimal, but not always possible to reach with all the players, also, having all of them in the sme level is not the best either.

Why is that? because when you start to build the team, and keeping in mind we start a process of about 4 seasons, you can have a lot of inconvenient, that is, injuries, players being sold, managers losing their team, wrong training process or stamina, etc, also it could depend on the style of playing you want to have, this is, keeping in mind the the skill contribution to different sectors and if he is to play normal, offensive, defensive, etc.

Now, just to be clear, minimal skill levels are just a guide so people can know if the players has any option to play in the U20, but as mentioned in the other article, they should be in contact with the scout to be sure of it.

When should we call the players?

The idea of the process is to built a team with a great skill level improved by the experience gain during the first WCQ, but that beyond that, is a normal team. I mean, when we prepare a team for a WCQ, we plan to call the best players under 21 yo, this mean we can call players that can play the 14 matches, but we can also improve the team with older players that can only play 10 or less games, if they have a higher level from the others and the correct personality, that will also give us time to continue the training of this ones to be ready once we have to kick them out.

Well, a GG is the same, we can have players to play 14, 12, 10 or even less games, here is important to have good skill levels and bad personality if are to be fired really soon during the WCQ. We can also have younger players that will play the WC, so they can play the last games once qualified so can get some experience too.

With this, we will start looking for players that at the first match of the third WCQ have 20:60, for those that play only seven games, as we can only call players at 17;0, the process should start 57 weeks before the WCQ, as that first match is on week threes each season has 16 and the process will last at least three seasons, we can start calling players only from week ten, this is once we are really sure our chances to qualify are gone. That is to call the players that play a few number of games, for the ones that will play the entire WCQ, we have to wait additional 46 days, seven weeks, so that is next season. For the ones that will play the WC, we have to wait even more, one season.

But wait, it doesn´t mean we cannot do anything up to week 10, the opposite, it means we only have up to week 10 to start looking for the players, for that, if you are the actual coach or a scout, you can use the HYC tool to look for players according to stars or on TBS tool if you cannot have acces to the first one. In any case you can ask for help from the actual staff. During this time you shuld get in contact with the owners, find out the exact skills (actual and future), start to work on the training plan, confirm if he is going to be trained or sold, so ther is a lot of things to do.

How to build the team?

And here we are, one idea is to start from the back to the front, with the idea that is you don´t concede goals, you already have one point, if you have luck and score, you will get three, so the first thing is to look for the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper not only plays as that, his skills also contribute to the defense, if I can get a high level one, he will help a lot to my defense, so maybe I don´t need defenders with that much level in the main skill and can change a little to playmaking or passing, that way our midfielders could do the same, focus on other skills. We can also think on using that help to train Set Pieces to one of them and we already have that position covered

But maybe your playing style is more offensive, so you will try to have a strong midfield, so you will look to have inners with high levels and build the team around in the same way as in the previous example. Some others can look for a more balanced team with “normal” main skill and high secondary ones, this depend on the coach.

Final facts.

As this is a really long process, one of the key important aspect is to have full cooperation from the owners, not only to follow the training plan and normal adjustments, also the stamina, keeping the minimal staff, etc, this also mean, a good communication between both parties.

Don´t forget that the main object is to have a high experience level, for this, additional to the games with the U20, they should play with their team, league, cup, etc, we need to reach for the SP, GK and Captain, at least Excelent (8) experience, the other players at least Solid (7) or really close, so those games are really important.

Just to keep in mind, if during the process the U20 coach is changed, that could lead to adjustments to the training plans, also to change players to best fit his style of playing, etc, it doesn´t mean the first call or plan was wrong, is just that everyone has his own way of doing things.

As always, this is just a guide to the process, there could be many others but the end is the same, in any case, if we can share ideas or experiences, we can all learn.