Good morning,

I’ve read time and time again that youth training has become boring, formulaic and too predictable. It’s true that these days, all you need to do is stick to one training session a day and a match every other day, and you can be pretty much certain that the player will reach a NG equal to their potential with 15 stamina points. In fact, in the long term, 80 per cent of the game’s club players with a Level 10 Youth Academy will all have a NG of 85, with little variation. (This was already the case with NG99 players.)

In other games, such as the Club Career mode in FIFA 16 to 20, each youth player recruited via the Youth Academy was assigned not a single potential rating but a range, the width of which narrowed depending on the quality of the youth scout (75–95, 83–88, etc.). In fact, it was impossible to know a young player’s exact trajectory before training them. It was often even necessary to recruit two young players for the same position and ultimately keep the better one.

The idea here is to add a random parameter to the progression coefficient for each season: a form factor that would take the values -2, -1, 0, +1 or +2. This parameter would even continue to apply once the player’s training was complete! So a 26-year-old player might end up with a coefficient of -2, then +2 the following year.

By the end of their development, following a Gaussian curve, the majority of young players would still have a NG corresponding to their potential. But a few players would deviate both positively and negatively. Some perennial prospects might end up 8 points below their potential, whilst others 8 points above. Some players might regress at 25 and then improve again at 26. Each player’s peak form would not necessarily occur at the age of 30 (before regression sets in).

This uncertainty would force clubs to manage their squads on a season-by-season basis, and there would be much greater variation among the good players. (With a handful of players who stand out from the crowd but whom we could not identify in advance)

From a development perspective, the feature requires a random parameter (which already exists on Virtuafoot) and the handling of a negative coefficient (which is less straightforward as the logic does not currently exist…). It remains to be seen to what extent this is feasible from a technical standpoint.

The graph below provides an example:

• the grey dotted line is the graph as we know it today
• the other three coloured lines represent three possible scenarios (green being the most optimistic, red the most pessimistic)

Thanks for not reading this, and have a lovely day! :)

Personally, I’m in favour of a radical change to player development.
The way I see it, it would be a matter of chance, with the big clubs ultimately recruiting those who stand out from the crowd.
Personally, I’d like a system where the coach really has a huge impact on the player’s final rating.
That would give many disappointed fans a new goal: to fully optimise the young players.

Personally, I’d envisage something along the lines of a young player scoring a goal earning +0.02 XP, or a clean sheet earning +0.02 for the goalkeeper and defence.
These are just off-the-cuff examples – I’ve never really given it much thought.

At the very least, we should see a difference between a good and an excellent coach.
As you say, one day in two and that’s it – anyone can do that.

hazard14: Perso je suis pour un changement radical pour la formation des joueur.
Ce que je comprend la c'est que ca serai du aléatoire pour au final avoir les gros qui recruteront ceux qui sortent du lot .
Moi perso j'aimerai un système ou le formateur aurai vraiment un énorme impact sur la Note finale du joueur .
Ca redonnerai a beaucoup de déçu de trouver un objectif pour optimiser a fond les jeunes.

Perso je verrai plus quelque choses du genre un jeune qui marque prendrai + 0,02 en xp ou si un cl...

I agree that the proposal put forward is based on chance, and I’m not really sure what benefit it would bring in that respect.

That said, relying on goals scored would be just as random and wouldn’t add anything either; we have virtually no control over it.

Finally, I’m not quite sure how we could distinguish a good coach from an excellent one; coaching remains a deterministic process. I don’t really see the point in making things more complicated either, apart from potentially losing young players with overly complex systems.

Youth development these days does require you to take a fairly hands-off approach, but it does allow you to have a competitive first-team alongside it. That’s not too bad.

In fact, these days it’s already down to luck – depending on whether you’ve managed to spot a potential 81, 82, 84… secured a U17 through the event, and whether that player’s form declines by the time they’re 31 or 33… But ALL of the player’s value is concentrated in the sale at the age of 17, on Day 1. We don’t give a damn about the rest of their career because, barring injury, it’s a foregone conclusion. And who’s snapping up those 17-year-olds with a potential rating of 84 these days? The richest clubs.

What I’m trying to do is introduce some variation into each player’s career. Depending on whether you’re Ben Arfa, Pogba or Griezmann, you don’t reach your peak form at the same age.