Hello everyone

Many of you have been asking for new features for the training centre. I think it’s time to overhaul this module, or at least introduce some new features. To this end, I’m creating this thread to gather and summarise suggestions from the community.

The general idea behind the youth academy is that it’s a module intended to be separate from the rest of the game. That’s why you won’t find certain mechanics there that exist elsewhere, such as transfers, training sessions and advanced tactics. It’s also designed to be a slightly more ‘casual’ experience than the rest of the game (instant matches, futsal tournaments). I would therefore ask that your suggestions remain in line with this philosophy.

For those new to the game, it’s worth noting that this module is the same age as the game itself (20 years), and that it has already undergone a few changes. I’ve put together a brief history. The idea isn’t to repeat what’s already been done, but to use it as inspiration for the future.

The History of the CDF

2006–2011: The Foundations

• 2006 – Version 1 of the CDF: simply a junior scout capable of carrying out one-week missions, with juniors’ progression happening automatically.
• 2008 – Talent assessment: an estimate of a junior’s talent appears during their training. It is updated six times and becomes more accurate as training progresses.
• 2008 – New levelling system: like other facilities, the academy is reduced from 20 to 10 levels.
• 2008 - CDF: Changes: youth players train every day at the centre and earn PE, which they can spend once they join the first team. EPs are replaced by playing time following the training overhaul in 2009.
• 2009 – Progression profile: ‘Talent’ becomes ‘Potential’, and each player is given their own progression curve.
• 2009 – Season 29: the number of youth players promoted per season is reduced from 3 to 2.
• 2011 – Season 39: all youth players can now be trained with a single click, the minimum training period is reduced from 45 to 30 days, and a new metric is introduced: maturity.

2015: promotions and loans

• About training: the two promotions per season are replaced by one promotion every 21 days. The training bonus is introduced for loan deals, followed by training assignments.
• Progression Profile V2: pre-training gives the promoted junior points already allocated according to their progression curve, and juniors can now remain at the academy until the age of 23.
• Events: the U17 Tournament helps to identify young talent from the region.

2017–2019: the youth team

• 2017 – VF 2017: the duration of training and the interval between promotions are recalculated each season, according to the game’s requirements. Launch of the youth team and the junior championships, with a clear ambition: to make the academy a “game within a game”, focusing on talent spotting rather than competition.
• 2017 – 16-year-olds: the scout can propose 16-year-old players, whose position can be changed without affecting their potential.
• 2017 – Friendly matches: the youth team can play friendlies, which have the same effect on players as a league match.
• 2019 – Potential assessment: the potential range has been replaced by a list of probable potentials, which is narrowed down as training progresses. Progress is now measured in terms of matches played.
• 2019 – Junior team rankings: every victory by the youth team earns points in the league table and generates revenue for the club.
• 2019 – Futsal tournaments: a fast-paced game mode, with 5 junior players, in tournaments of 8 or 16 teams.

2020: Talent Scouting

• Talent Scouting: the manual talent scouting module. You choose a country, then a city; you assess the young players one by one and offer a contract to the most promising ones, with a response at the end of the season. At launch: 175 countries, over 400,000 cities and 37 million young players generated procedurally.
• Season 107: The Federations: scouting is opened up to all managers, and federations can subsidise the recruitment and promotion of players from their nation.

2023–2026: the most recent seasons

• 2023 – Season 128: the scout’s junior players now have only one potential rating, just like those identified through scouting.
• 2023 – Partnerships: Developments: partnerships can organise their own futsal tournaments.
• 2024 - Youth players: New interactions: position training, in exchange for one potential point, and the option to rename and naturalise a youth player at the VF Store.
• 2026 - Progression Profile v3.1: some promoted juniors receive a progression index.
• 2026 – Season 149: a club left without a manager loses one youth academy level every 90 days of absence, down to level 5.

The academy today

In summary, an academy currently allows you to:

• train up to 16 youth players at the same time;
• recruit them via the youth scout (a 7-day mission), scouting or the U17 Tournament, or even receive them as a reward for achieving a community objective;
• have them play for the youth team: junior league, friendly matches, futsal tournaments;
• teach them a new position before they are promoted;
• compete against other clubs in the academy rankings and the junior team rankings.

What you have already suggested

Some suggestions have already been made, but they cannot be implemented for various reasons, explained here:

• Exchanging juniors between academy centres (1, 2, 3) -> Incompatible with the very nature of the CDF module: this would be too similar to the transfers module.
• Filtering scouting by position or age (1, 2) -> This would make scouting far too easy. For the same average amount of time spent, the first promising player would be exactly the desired position or age. The difficulty of having to deal with a position that does not match is part of the challenge intended by the module.
• Organise scouting time differently: a pool of scouting opportunities spread across the season, or entrusting scouting to the recruiter (1, 2, 3) => Similarly, I think this would make scouting easier overall.
• Fielding the youth players alongside the first team, without having to choose between training and competition (1, 2) =>
• The pace of promotion (1, 2) -> A balance needs to be maintained between players retiring and new players coming through.

Your suggestions

Recruitment, scouting, training, youth teams, promotion, junior competitions: everything is up for discussion. To ensure a suggestion is useful, here are a few tips:

• One idea per post, so that each can be discussed separately.
• The underlying issue: what you’re currently missing or what’s holding you back.
• The mechanics: in practical terms, what the manager does, what it costs them (money, time, potential, etc.) and what they gain from it.
• The limitations: how to prevent it from being abused or upsetting the balance of the game.

Bear in mind that a free feature with no trade-off eventually becomes worthless. This is what makes it interesting to choose between a versatile player and a specialist, or between an early promotion and a late promotion.

Feel free to respond to other managers’ suggestions, to add to them or to qualify them. The ideas posted here will form the basis for future developments in the academy.

Enjoy the game, everyone

Hello, we’ve sent several junior recruiters to different countries and received a message from one of our junior recruiters saying that there is a junior recruit with great potential in that country

Ensure that the junior championships are properly organised, with home-and-away fixtures for all teams, so that every team plays the same number of matches.

Chaque saison qu'un jeune passe dans notre cdf, avoir la possibilité de donner un % sur un poste dont nous aimerions le former, peut-être 15 ou 20% à mettre pour un dfg que je voudrais mettre dlc par exemple

Hello, wow – first of all, thanks for the background info; I’ve just taken a trip down memory lane… I hadn’t realised – or rather, I’d forgotten – just how much the CDF has evolved since the beginning.

It seems to me that this is the first time you’ve consulted the community for views on the changes to be made; and, quite frankly, a big thank you for that too. It’s great to gather everyone’s views – it lets everyone have their say and at least we know where we’re heading.

I’ll read everyone’s ideas carefully and I’ll be giving it some thought myself :)

Même si ce n’est pas une modification directe liée au centre de formation, pourquoi pas intégrer une indemnité de transfert au club formateur du joueur (5% ?) a chaque fois qu’un transfert a lieu pour le joueur concerne, peu importe que ce soit le 2eme ou 5eme transfert de la carrière du joueur?
Bien sûr cette indemnité sera déduite de la vente du club vendeur

Hi! Thanks, Aymeric, for asking the community for their views. Back in 2024, I posted a proposal on the forum for a revamp of the shop; I don’t know if the recent changes were inspired by it, but some of the points I made back then have been included, so I’d also like to put forward a few suggestions for the training centre. This is a draft I drew up back then, which I’ve revisited to bring it up to date. My vision for the Training Centre is to transform it into a genuine development module, where the manager no longer simply waits for potential to be realised: they must support their young players and make decisions that can influence their development. In my view, the academy is currently the biggest factor in retaining young players’ commitment to the game outside of matches (though not everyone follows this approach); however, the way it operates is repetitive and not necessarily stimulating. Here are my proposals:

• Increase the number of juniors from 16 to 18 to give the manager greater scope to test different profiles and offset the risk associated with the new system I am proposing. More practically speaking, most youth teams consist of 11 first-team players and 7 substitutes.
• A truly managed recruitment process. Let me explain: the youth scout becomes responsible for recruitment, whilst the manager simply chooses the country from which he wishes to recruit. The scout organises talent scouting sessions in that country, and each session presents several profiles (3 to 5), with an estimated range of potential – never the exact potential. The manager still does not choose either the age or the position but may select an area of the pitch (for example, the attack (AS G/C/D, AT G/C/D), or the right flank (DD, MDD, MOD, ASD, ATD)). The junior scout also proposes profiles on his own initiative two to three times per season if the centre is not full, just as he does when asked, but using the new estimation system.
  When a position becomes vacant, the manager can initiate a new scouting process to fill it, with a maximum of three scouting attempts for that position. Each attempt incurs a small, increasing cost. After three rejections, the manager must choose one of the proposed profiles. This prevents the manager from restarting the scouting process indefinitely until the perfect player is found. This would therefore mark the end of the current scouting system, but I believe my proposal would be more effective and less redundant, whilst retaining an element of chance. The manager remains at the heart of decision-making, and the junior scout has a real influence on the centre’s performance.
• Potential becomes hidden and dynamic. Let me give an example: a player joins the academy; his estimated potential is between 72 and 81. His true potential is hidden (let’s say 70–79, or perhaps 74–83); there would be a margin of variation that becomes apparent when the player leaves the academy. The implementation of actions carried out at the CDF can then cause this potential to increase or decrease within the initially stated potential range, without the manager being able to see the changes directly. Thus, a player who arrives with an estimated rating of 72–81 could ultimately be released at 75… or 83. This must remain difficult to predict and, in my view, involve an element of chance so that managers cannot ‘crack’ the system to systematically release players at their maximum potential. Consequently, players would react differently to the actions I’ll outline below:
• Daily actions. Every day, the manager can carry out various actions with their youth players (a maximum of 3 out of 6, for example, to make the manager take responsibility for their youth training strategy): Technical training, Physical training, Individual challenge, Team work, Recovery, Observation. These activities would be free of charge: the main challenge lies in deciding how to use the player’s training time. Failing to carry them out would yield no bonuses and could simply lead to stagnation, leaving the player’s final potential to chance. Each activity can elicit several possible reactions: Very good reaction → significant improvement, Good reaction → improvement, Neutral reaction → no change, Poor reaction → regression, Very poor reaction → severe regression. This could affect the player’s stats before having an impact on their potential. The reaction would depend partly on chance and partly on the player’s hidden profile. The manager would simply receive feedback in the form of a message such as ‘The player has taken particularly well to this session’ or ‘The player seems to have struggled to take the work on board’.
  In such a system, the training and tactical aspects could become more engaging and help the best coaches stand out from the crowd. It might be more effective to vary the activities – for example, Technique → recovery → team work → challenge – rather than Technique → technique → technique → technique, as we currently do for first-team players.
  Some drills might yield diminishing returns when repeated, making it necessary to vary the programme. The aim is not to find a perfect mathematical combination, but to give the manager the sense that they are developing their own young players.
• Releasing a youth player becomes a real decision; if a player consistently performs poorly, or if the manager feels he no longer has a future at the club, the option to release the player remains. The place then becomes available, triggering the recruitment system described above. This prompts serious consideration: do I keep this player for a few more weeks or months in the hope that he’ll come good, or do I take the risk of freeing up his place?
• Reforming the youth league: a general division of youth teams, with a stable league system. This already exists, but players do not always play when managers make changes to the league structure, etc. Juniors should be able to play regularly during their training, and why not allow their performances to influence their training programme? Or at the very least, their playing time during training?

In conclusion:
The cycle would simply become: Scouting → assessment → daily training → observation of reactions → matches → decision to keep or release → promotion → new scouting. The Head of Youth Development would no longer be waiting to find out if they’d hit the jackpot, but rather thinking: ‘OK, I’ve recruited a player within this range of potential; it’s up to me to do the work to ensure he reaches the top of that range.’

I did think about ways to improve quite a few aspects of the game back then, but as my suggestions on the forum fell on deaf ears, I haven’t gone into greater detail here in my posts. I’d be delighted to share more, however, if there’s interest. Thank you for reading, and enjoy the game
Mandanda

Merci Aymeric pour l’ouverture de ce sujet, merci de demander l'avis de la communauté et pour le récapitulatif historique du module de formation.

Je suis sur VF en continue depuis 2008 et donc j’ai pu vivre toute les étapes et modification du module de formation. Et il faut dire que le système actuel fonctionne plutôt bien, je le trouve abouti et il offre plusieurs solutions pour fournir en junior son CDF.
Le système de détection est certes répétitif, mais il offre la possibilité de trouver de beaux potentiels. Au niveau d’une entente il y a la possibilité de mutualiser les recherches et d’organiser ainsi la "bonne santé " de nos CDF.

Ce que je trouve problématique actuellement, c’est d’avoir bridé la formation. Il y a quelques saisons, un Pot80 s’il était bien formé sans subir trop de blessures on pouvait aisément le monter à une NG de 88/90 (et avec une bonne endurance). Maintenant ça devient difficile de le terminer à +2/+4. La conséquence c’est que nos juniors ce retrouvent en fin de formation en concurrence avec des joueurs Stars NG90. Beaucoup laissent tomber la formation par lassitude et les joueurs Stars pullulent sur le marché des transferts.

En résumé, je trouve que le module actuel est bien mais que la formation elle même est trop bridé. Ou alors raboter les joueurs Stars à une NG de 80/85?

@oncleoink
C’est ton moment !

@oncleoink
C’est ton moment !

It should be possible to select a specific training programme for at least three players (minimum or more).
That would be good, but to make up for the time spent on this, these trained players should not be taken out of the squad, and their CDF rankings should be rolled over to the next full season.

Perso ce qui me dérange aujourd’hui est que tout le monde est capable de former les mêmes joueurs. Il est selon moi quasiment impossible de se démarquer dans la formation, ce qui résulte qu’on se retrouve avec 100x la même équipe sur le jeu, très peu de formateurs qui peuvent se démarquer. C’est pareil dans la détection aucun skill n’est utilisé à part passer du temps dessus.

Je sais je n’apporte aucune solution à ces problèmes mais voilà selon moi ce manque aujourd’hui dans le cdf.

Sans aucun rapport mais voilà une idée : ramener de temps en temps par le recruteur un joueur avec un potentiel bien au dessus des autres (90?) qui deviendrait un peu la star de l’équipe, le meneur.

Il y a quelques saisons tout le monde avait des 99ng, mais certains avaient plus d’endurance, d’autres privilégiaient plus les styles, il y avait un peu de variation.