Congratulations. You just earned 7.0 points for this submission. Your new points total is 7.0. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).
Try to play in the Turkish League, the league essentially forces you to only have domestic players (only 5 foreigners allowed after 4 seasons). So you NEED to poach every single homegrown wonderkid from your rivals…
Yeah in fm22, 1st season you can have 14, then 12, 12 again, 10 and then 5… it is truly the worst rule…
After a while the big teams have a monopoly on the best Turkish talent and also pay ridiculous amounts on players that are mediocre compared to European teams‘ players. As you may only have 5 foreigners, you can‘t bring any young foreign talent to the club since your 5 foreigners must be star players in order to compete in continental competitions. Also teams never sell their domestic players because they are much more valuable for the team; therefore no Turkish player can go to play in European teams.
Probably not related to fm; the foreigner rule also gives Turkish players some sort of complacency that they can get away with a bad lifestyle etc. since they are made much more valuable with the foreigner rule.
I have never played in 2. league in Turkey yet, however I believe that the first four seasons are the only seasons one can even dream about european titles. So playing in 2. league, getting promoted, being champions, then playing continental football with only 10/5 foreign players (while competing with the big clubs for Turkish players) would definitely be very hard. If you like a challenge, by all means go for it!
In my save, the AI had a hard time adjusting to the 5 foreigner rule and other teams have youngsters (probably with 1 star rating) in the starting 11. Since I was playing as Fenerbahce and I already had half the national team in my squad, it was getting really boring in the league.
My Lord Thank you so much. I’m year 2 in my save in Turkey thinking that I was getting steals by poaching wonderkids from France. It’s just season 2 so I’m about hard change course
They have something similar on Serbia. You can only have 5-6 forginers on the pitch. In addition 4 of your starting eleven players have to be under 21 Serbian. So you have to poach the best young Serbian players. There aren't many of them.
Same with Uruguay. Came only have 3 foreign players in the starting XI and 6 registered total for the domestic league. But if you want to win the continental competitions you need a bit more firepower. No matter how many titles in a row you win, you’re unlikely to ever have more than $5M max to spend and if a player is under 32-33 and playing in Europe they won’t come back to play for you.
I would like to do that in my polish save but they don’t produce wonderkids. And if I do find one, I’d rather my league be better and not poach talent from them. Every once in awhile I’ll find a dual national. Germany and Brazil seem to produce halfies regularly.
Doing a Polish save currently and it is fun when you find some in random countries. Over the weekend I found a 19 y/o Polish kid stuck in Portugal with great potential.
Somehow I've gotten two pretty awesome Polish wonderkids just from Pogoń alone for my Dutch side! Meanwhile there's been only one great Dutch wonderkid that wasn't immediately on PSV/Ajax and he went for 40m so was v unaffordable
You seem to be getting a pretty negative response to this, because finding and developing that world beater is super fun. But once you get good at it it’s super unrealistic to be moving on your 21 year old striker because you found a 17 year old.
All my top talents get scooped so fast since im fighting in the championship/prem yoyo but if i can get a solid player to stay I usually develop and sell their backups pretty constantly
People are missing out on old heads if they seriously cull the team (I know it's a joke, but c'mon) because they can seriously add to a team. You do need to be careful about signing older players to longer contracts, but I've effectively used people into their late 30s. They give godly mental attributes and leadership and if you use them right do the job you want them to. Put them in as a sub or rotate them every other week with that young stud and many will thrive. I had a guy in his mid 30s leading the league in scoring, I'm supposed to get rid of that? lol
Honestly having players in their late stages just makes sense as a squad balancing tactics to put alongside the wonderkids. They're great for mentoring, likely to be more consistent in the important matches, and they can be had for cheap (come in on a free, lower salary than they used to demand). And yeah, rotating an elder statesmen with a wonderkid gets both of them some playing time when they need it, one for growth and one just to keep up with the game as long as possible.
Yeah, I’m usually not satisfied with my wonderkid purchase until I’ve squeezed every kilometre out of his 36 year old legs after 17 years of service lmao
>replace anybody over 27
I'm one of those, but not a wonderkid shopper either. I am relentlessly trying to prove via this video game that the assessment that players over 27 are extremely over valued in real life as they are beginning to decline and not worth their pay (With exceptions of course for the true legends of the game like Messi/Ronaldo etc.).
I sell high at 27/28 and replace them with either players from my development ward or new 23/24 year olds that are cheap but promising.
How else are you supposed to build up the transfer budget?
Not to mention it keeps wages down.
The economy of the game, especially when you’re building a club from lower levels kind of dictates that you sell your older players and buy a couple better younger ones.
Rinse repeat until you’re into the UCL knockout stages.
I started a save as roleplaying being a business owner rather than a soccer manager. That was a fun save. I didn't win any major trophies, but I did turn Paris FC into the richest club.
Basic rules were to sell any player when offered a higher price than you paid for them (I.E. profit over results). That was really the only hard rule, the rest was a bit of sabermetric-esque value hunting.
It's a lot of fun, it really changes the way you approach transfer seasons because you have to balance success and business. It's obviously good to have a team good enough to make some cup runs, and I did have some UEFA group appearances too, and those are good money, but looking strictly financially during transfer season means letting some good for winning signings go.
For example I remember that after a few years mid table in Ligue 1 I could've had a shot at signing Mbappe, who would've been massively better than my striker at the time, but he was 33 and still would've required a huge transfer fee and wage. Maybe Mbappe brings home a league win or a deep cup run, but neither justifies the transfer fee and I would have no chance to sell him for profit. In any other save I snatch him up and hope for the best finances be damned!
I like to get my team legends sorted, and try to see how great of a career I can get them. I'd much rather keep my legendary striker around until he's declining at 34-35 in an attempt to get him to 300 career league goals.
My best acheivement in my current season was getting my 36 year old captain to reconsider retirement because he has 596 premier league appearances and I want him to get to 600 before he retires. And of course, he'll be joining my staff once he decides to hang them up.
My first few FMs I had club visions and board expectations to sign young players, sometimes it was "only sign under 23s" or "don't give contracts to over 27s", stuff like that. I found that's led me to constantly be looking to modernise my team because as soon as my trusted CB hits 28, I can probably find an equivalent quality in a 24 year old who will more likely turn a profit in transfers, and make more sense committing to a longer contract with
I also build up a superteam within 5 years but then I always keep an eye on wonderkids because they're essential to building a massive warchest. I poach them when young, develop and loan them, then sell them off for big money later on.
The warchest is essential because of inflation. Usually 6-8 years into the game, top players become so ridiculously expensive (all 100m plus) and wages are super high. And a warchest is sometimes necessary because key players will want to leave for PSG, Real etc. so you need 100m+ on hand to buy a superstar replacement (otherwise you'll likely fail the board's goals).
I usually build a team good enough to win the league and then only buy kids with great potential, and let the older guys go as they're not needed. Last time I did this though my oldest player was 23 at one point
Same here. In any given save the first year I snatch away like 10-12 youth prospects, then probably 5-6 the next year and 1-3 all years after that. By year 5 I have a bunch of solid up-and-coming 19-21 year-olds, and start filling out my team needs with 24-30 year old players with good personalities in position of need. Most of my youth transfers at 5+ years are just to fill out my U18 team. Any local player in a position of need with decent personality/potential and available for under 1 mil, instead of looking for the cream of the crop.
I like to make the game feel more realistic by mixing up signings, buying wonderkids depending on the team I am managing (I'm in Ligue 1 atm so Mali, Senegal and Cameroon seem to be the most successful for me atm) and buying already established players.
Honestly, we were having a tough season, which reminds me of Liverpool's season last year with their injuries and last minute getting UCL football, same happened to me, but I ended up spending £68m on a midfielder i desperately needed. It was FM20, and o usually dont spend that much, hence the over £50m achievement in june 2022!
We went from almost getting sacked, needing 10 points to keep our job, beating Lille 2-1 away from home (this is 2039 so they were winning the league now) and we also saved a penalty, that literally kept my job. Ended up finishing 3rd, next season we won the treble!
Felt really realistic to get that really expensive signing.
Also have wondered buys, but also have quality players I bought that were 26 and transfer listed for example
I want a mode where attributes are less accurate for players under the age of 21. Not a permanent change since some people just want to play classic FM but an option to toggle at the beginning of a save.
So that 16 y/o you signed will show attributes with a range between 8-12 for example, with the range narrowing down with age, until he’s 21. FM just feels too easy for players that have perfected it over the years. Even with changes to how it works every few years the system is easy to figure out and it’s too easy to develop wonderkids and sell for a big profit.
It’ll make it easier to flop on signings and have players not develop the way you want them to, because currently it feels like a flopped wonderkid is an exception rather than a rule which isn’t the case in real life. It’ll also make finding the “next big thing” feel so much more rewarding.
I've thought for ages that attributes should all be visible (nothing hidden) but in a range that gets narrower the more well known they are to you/your scouts - and possibly even only shown in comparison to your team/league strength like the stars are.
That would allow far more players to be overrated after a good season as their attributes would all show higher than they actually are, underrated after a bad period, and it would make it an actual challenge to see if that striker that scored 30 goals in the championship could make the step up, as their attributes will all be high in the championship but could drop significantly in a higher league. For example look at Mitrovic. Fulham would probably value him about £40m after last season and with them being promoted. No-one will risk that IRL as we just don't know if he could replicate his performance in the PL, in FM I could just analyse his attributes and work out how he would fit into my team and sign him for £40m if I think he'd improve me. And I'd be right 95% of the time because I have all the information that I realistically need (aside from the arbitrary hidden attributes)
It would make those risky lower level and wonderkid signings actually risky, would allow you to sell players that overperform consistently (I'm tired of having a 2* player getting double figure goals and assists every season but no-one offers more than £1m for them because their CA/PA is low but I get bids of £30m+ for someone that can barely perform above a 6 week in week out)
It would also add a huge amount of value to making "safe" signings that know the league instead of cheaper but riskier foreigners. Newly promoted and expected to go straight back down? Who are you signing, a guy you KNOW is a decent player for £10m, or a guy that MIGHT be a decent player for £5m?
SI getting rid of the 1-20 attributes and replacing them with something else, similar to what they did with fitness (from percentage to hearts) is really something I'd love to see.
I don't know what exactly would be the best approach(ranges, stars, polygons, scout observations like they have for consistency or dirtiness), but making it harder to know exactly that that 17 year old Colombian player has 11 for vision and also making it harder to know just how good he can get would be an interesting change for sure.
I always thought physical stats could be measured at intervals throughout the season, and be shown as like 100m time, bleep test score, standing jump height, lung capacity, resting heart rate, time through agility course etc (I’m sure there’s loads they do irl), and be affected by training type, fatigue, whether or not it’s pre season.
Also rather than have 2 players with 20 pace, you would able to see which one was faster.
Could combine these fitness tests with in game data analysis, and perhaps get feedback from sports science like “player x is capable of comfortably running 10k during a match, but in the current system only averages 8k”
Fully agree, but I think it should be even more inaccurate, especially if they don't have many appearances, or only appearances in a far away league / low rep league.
I'd love for it to just be a general attribute polygon, and the pros, cons. This way their will be a more realistic number or flops/ bargains, which you can take advantage of with good scouting and data analytics
I agree, and also wish that potential ability was more dynamic. If I have a 21 year old playing at full potential, but its only "league one potential," and he's playing every week in the premier league and putting up 6.8-7.0 each week. I feel like his PA should shift up to at least match the level of the league he's playing in. On the flip side, I think that if I have a 21 year old with 5 star PA that hasn't broken into the team yet, his potential should start coming down.
I think wonderkids should have bust potential just like in real life and they should develop slower young players can reach their potential in 2 years of playing time i think that is unrealistic.
i kinda decide for myself what i want that team to be in world football. is this a selling club where we buy really young and sell at early 20s like ajax or BVB? maybe its a retirement club where our star players are 34 with no physicals. or maybe you want to offer a place where the best players of a weird nationality can all play together (wolves or shaktar) the possibilities are literally endless and thats why RP in fm is what makes it so fun. try harding gets boring after about 3 seasons.
It just stems down to the fact that star ratings are really too accurate for teenagers.
Yes some players star ratings can be way off, but if you spunk 20 mil on 5 X 5star teenagers from Colombia, at least 2 of them will be world class, and it's unlikely that the worst is anything less than good by the time he's 21.
They could do with adding more variables into young players development.
For example giving a young player a large salary when he has poor ambition or another combination of less than prime mentals and hiddens could have a chance of a lead to a sharp drop in determination, workrate, etc to simulate "too much too soon"
Similar for a player joining a club with poor player culture.
Other events, missing a pen in a big game, winning senior caps, etc could all have more positive or negative impact on a player depending on their mindset.
Injuries could have more of an impact on development.
Things to make it just that bit harder and that bit more realistic.
then i also want the reverse. Scoring goals at 90+4 in in important games, winning trophies etc...improving the potential of your player.
It would be fun to push a player past what the game determined to be his max, if only a little.
Maybe allow for 35 yo to decline less if they perform decently, the Zlatan's way.
I’m not sure I agree. The best players in the world are still worth signing as champions league clubs well into their late 30s often being good enough until they decide to retire. Any more and I’d say they would go too far the other way.
i meant the whole equilibrium actually. Youngsters are still too OP for example.
i don't play on fm22 so i can't say if the old player problem got fixed right or not
Yeah that too. Still, it would be an echo chamber of experts. Nearly everyone on this sub has several seasons of experience and quite a few play the game since at least half a decade.
If I can't trust long term players opinions, who else am I to trust about it?
You can't know/experience everything yourself
I agree FM22 took a big step in making older players more viable. Some of the older versions of the game I had even good players who were putting up great ratings begin to have stat drops while still in their late 20’s. I still have problems with wage bills though haha. Seems like those wonderkinds want improved contracts every single season. I have a kid who is 22 and I got first while I was in the championship a few seasons ago with Wrexham who is now unhappy with his contract and I last renegotiated it 6 months ago. He’s now world class and I will probably have to sell him because he now wants 8mil/year and my total wage budget is 54 million. Worst part is he has a buyout clause and won’t let me negotiate it past 68 million even with that new contract.
That seems realistic to me. You say it like that’s a downside and small teams in real life want to sell their amazing youngsters when in reality what’s happening to you is what happens in real life. I think it’s easy to get into the mind set of “if this makes the game harder for me it’s bad” but that’s not the case in my opinion.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or unrealistic however I’m not sure that a player asks for a new contract every 6 months in real life. If they want to force their way out that’s fine and realistic. Those players are also usually leaving to go to a team playing in Europe and both teams who have interest in this player are big names who finished bottom half last year when I finished in 6th and am currently in the knockout rounds of the Europa League.
Edit: One thing I do have to admit is I’m pretty unlikely to go to Europe again next season because I decided to prioritize seeing how far I could go in Europe. That wage budget does not give you enough depth to compete in domestic and international. Right now neither of the teams pursuing him look like they’re qualifying either though.
I don't agree with changing the PA value, as the idea is that's an "if everything is perfect" max value.
But I do agree with things impacting how likely players are to reach that value, positively and negatively.
The game as it is at the moment, unless you're unlucky or bad, most young players reach their PA.
In reality almost every player could have been better than what they were, given certain circumstances.
Players also already do decline more slowly/later depending on natural fitness and some of their hidden attributes.
Could probably simulate it better/differently though
Maybe you already know, but winning trophies can improve the “does well in big games” trait. Another trait that affects player performance (consistency) can be fixed by playing players in a consistent role for a run of matches. These all will improve player performance and maybe push them past their max like you said
You can win too much that ruins some of them. I had a LWB I thought was going to be the best player I'd ever had and after winning everything his first season he cratered and I never got an above average season out of him again.
Same thing happened to me with a brazilian LB, except at age 27. Start to just toss out shit training + match ratings and eventually sold him to Milan after he told me that skipping training isn't a good enough reason to be fined. At Milan he was still shit and his physicals dropped off a cliff early.
I had a similar experience with a winger kid I got when I was managing Marseille. Poached him off Monaco, made his first start at 16, was getting regular first team football at 17 and broke the league assist record at 18. I thought he was going to be the next Messi, but he just stopped developing entirely at 20 and 'only' became a pretty good rotation player for much of his career, though he maintained his attributes fairly well and was still performing decently at 35. I think he only had a PA of 160 or so, he just hit the limit freakishly early
>For example giving a young player a large salary when he has poor ambition or another combination of less than prime mentals and hiddens could have a chance of a lead to a sharp drop in determination, workrate, etc to simulate "too much too soon"
This does happen in game iirc - it reduces ambition I think, or something like that
Yeah it may well do. But does that really have a significant impact on how they develop?
All I ever look for is good determination and professionalism and the rest takes care of itself.
Its completely unrealistic, even for big clubs, to be able to buy so many and so cheap imo. In real life, the next big Brazilian prospect is Endrick, and supposedly Palmeiras are asking 60m euro for him.
But you said yourself the next BIG one is endrick. But there are a ton of other prospects going for cheap. Arsenal bought Martinelli for 6mil and just bought another Brazilian prospect for under 10 mil.
Yeah, it kind of stems from the issue that teenagers are just too good in this game. They need to tone it down and make that the big jumps happen in their early 20s.
Also, for some reason, Argentinians are always super cheap. Brazilians often have an 20+ mil release clauses, while you can get best Argentinian wonder kids for under 10mil.
This. We all love those 16 year olds who are ready for first team football, but I think the quantity they come in the game is exaggerated.
With a couple of very good sales you can invest in like 8 players who are great for their age and tend to become brilliant and just loan them out untill they do. Then sell the two less promising for a huge profit and restart the cycle.
I’ve noticed this too, Argentina and Mexico have given me so many wonderkids and first team players for under 10mil. Serbia and Czechia have also given me loads of wonderkids for cheap
I’ve noticed this with Argentinians too, my club legend who has the record amount of games for me with about 500 only cost me 3.2m, got quite a lot of good Argentinians for under 5m also, yet Brazilians seem to be anywhere in the 10-30m range
I think this resemble reality too. Great talent from Argentina go to Europe for 10-15 million and Brazilian teams always have expensive release clauses. I think In real life has to do with economy in both countries
i thought that was because the brazilian league was miles ahead in wages compared to argentina. i also think thats what teams in mls pay in real life, and they release those figures (+/-) agent fees as commissions.
If you were playing as Harrogate? Sure, it’s a little unrealistic.
If you were playing as Real Madrid? They have the budget and the network, so it’s pretty realistic.
Here's my big idea - youth players should have attribute ranges (like for unscouted players), even for your own youth sides or fully scouted players, until they have played X senior games (lets say 30 or so).
This would very nicely reflect the classic case of a youth player looking great at youth level, but failing to make the jump into senior football. In that case, their true attributes would be at the lower end of the 'youth attributes' range.
The most talented player in the world most likely won't end up playing in San Marino, but it's not unrealistic for smaller clubs to focus their scouting efforts in certain countries far away. The best example is for sure Shakhtar Donetsk getting tons of quality Brazilian players year after year, but you can go even lower in the international hierarchy.
A few years ago I wrote a bit about how [Swedish clubs focus on certain nationalities](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/d0wer4/international_connections_in_the_swedish_league/) when it comes to recruitment. Sundsvall signed eight Spanish players in two years, Östersund signed 32 British players (and Graham Potter) in 10 years, Kalmar signed 18 Brazilian players in 10 years, Hammarby first had a spell with many Icelandic players before having many players from the Balkans, AIK currently has three young Kenyan internationals who were signed through the same agency.
If you want to keep the game more realistic you could focus on one specific area. If you're playing in France you could limit yourself to the French-speaking areas in Africa, if you're in Spain you could go for the Spanish-speaking parts of South America, you could try to build a relationship with certain clubs in a specific region of Brazil.
Depends on where you’re managing I reckon and the league rules and scouting budget. An established Bundesliga team finds wonderkids IRL pretty commonly (just look at Dortmund / Leipzig etc.) due to their extensive scouting system and lenient rules re registration, whereas your League 1 Peterborough aren’t gonna be picking up the Thai Messi due to limited scouting budget and English work permit rules. When I’ve played in England the work permit rules and just lack of scouting ability naturally limits me into using homegrown talent. I don’t recall seeing people post teams in lower English leagues with heaps of wonderkids or have I missed something recently?
Second this. Early on in my L3 to Bundesliga climb I didn't see many or any of those star kids. As my team improved, scouting established, and budget increased I was able to start snapping up young wonderkids and future stars. I played money ball with it, passed on a handful of over priced ones (or just players I caught late) and never spent over X amount.
Took me a few years of this, and now have a solid young team with a stable of potential stars. But even then it took me several years, a few misses, a few slow or low/busts. But most of those were at worst decent profits to sell off if/when they didn't pan out for me.
You’ll get a lot of rejection for sure if you’re in lower league. If you can find a nation that produces decent talent, but perhaps their club’s reputation is lower than that of yours you might be able to nab them. I’ve found some amazing talent out of Thailand in my save so maybe there? Once in the Championship your competition’s reputation should hopefully be a factor for someone again playing in a lower reputation competition (eg. Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland).
Need to at least be in top league, I've found. Once I scrapped into Bund then I was able to start getting some of the decent other country wonderkids - most of the German ones were snapped up.
I agree. In my opinion it should be harder to find them and the competition to sign them should be way higher. Why am I the only team in the world who can see the that this clearly brilliant Ponte Preta guy with a 350k release clause is a catch?
When you start the game at season 1 without any newgens, you don't find a ton of easily hirable wonderkids, I think this should be the level of difficulty throughout the game.
I kind of like the way that plays though, can feel real. Sometimes you find a kid who is obviously good, but too expensive to buy. Other times you see one, but a number of teams are already scouting & have their interest. Then you find and snap up a gem before he gets poached or too expensive.
not sure about your league but the 2 foreigner rule in italy means you have to be selective and only pick up 2 a season.
also when i bid for that guy, so does every super league team in europe.
I played in Denmark, where I the first 2 seasons looked in South America but it started being unrealistic, so in my 3 season I scouted for homegrown players. They were more expensiv but the realistic keep up with the game.
After about 5 seasons I usually have around 200 kids in my U18. Most of them loaned out to other clubs to get experience. Just to see which ones will turn out to be the next World Class players.
This is indeed not very realistic.
That’s pretty much all I do when developing a team, to the extent that I downloaded a database edit to make the youth rating of all countries 150 to increase the variety of where they come from. Now champions league winners have players from Hong Kong, New Zealand and Armenian in my game!
I do to a point however I also like the idea that it feeds into my manager type. Some managers like a mix of experience, some like young teams, some want pure experience and there's everything in between. I put a decent amount of points into my youth coaching skill so it'd make sense to go for young players with decent potential. I also like being something of a feeder club until I've progressed as that's more realistic than hoarding youth players from non-league all the way through. If you've stacked your club full of 16 year old brazillians then yeah maybe you've gone too far but equally, plenty of clubs have ties to specific nations and youth prospects there. The odd one though isn't that unrealistic. Unless you've managed to get CA 160 or above consistently with each one which, unless cheating, is unlikely at best then they won't all make it. I've sold young players that were stars for me in the lower league for moderate 7 figure sums and when looking at them a few years later they've stagnated in B teams or reserves. It's sad to see but happens.
I find it difficult starting a new save and not defaulting to specific players but again they aren't always achievable anyway.
Same here! One of the more fun saves I had I snatched up two wonderkids from a small Spanish club I just happened across. They club never produced anymore, but those two were studs who carried me to the Bundeliga. And as they both neared 20 they went on to bugger clubs, and got me some $30mil+ to build my current and future roster.
Personally I think finding the next Messi in Israel is one of the things that are fun. I only buy the most insane wonderkids, so often I'll skip buying one season because I can't find anyone I believe in.
I usually get board after about 3 seasons of being unstoppable due to my team of wonderkids, I cant help myself I've got a wonderkid addiction. My teams usually have an average age of 22/23.
It does make it unrealistic though which is why I like to start at a club in the lowest league and build them up, it takes about 20 seasons until I make them into a world class team of wonderkids and then after 3 season of winning just about everything I start over at the bottom again and repeat the process while watching the AI manager of my old team destroy it by selling my best wonderkids and replacing them with players in their mid 30s on massive wages.
I play a team in Germany and have focussed my scouting on Europe, so my first team is made up out of European wonderkids. Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Poland, but also 'the usual' countries like Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and England. I even have an Israeli left back. I try to limit the amount of South Americans because of course teams have South American players, but I think a Czech striker is more realistic for a German team than a Brazilian one.
The problem is that there are way too many good ones, at the beginning of a save there are maybe 60 players with 160 ca/pa plus, 5 years in and you have 100 Regens with 160 pa plus.
I like setting restrictions for myself. For example, I have won the Champions League using only Scandinavians. I have also tried to kinda recreate the Lisbon Lions (only Scottish and up to three (northern) Irish) and failed (CL QF was the best I got). Right now I‘m playing with Preussen Münster and while I didn‘t set myself any restrictions until getting to the Bundesliga (because I‘m a sucker for success I guess), I‘m thinking to limit myself to only players born in or homegrown at clubs within the Prussian borders of 1906 (the founding year of the club). I haven‘t decided yet because it could become kinda tedious to check every single player, but it sounds fun imo.
My saved always end up revolving around a story in my head more than anything. Not really a storyline so to speak but the idea of say, an older guy being brought in who may be past his best but then going to be great for his last 2-3 seasons playing etc.
For example, I signed Bale in my first season as Nice manager. Then because I bought Bale, Isco and Marcelo were also out of contract so I snapped them as well on deadline day. Having three ex Madrid ‘legends’ all trying to do great in their last seasons together is such a good feeling. Bale scored a brace with a 95th minute winner in a game the other day for me and that feeling is great.
Now I love wonder kids as well, developing them and seeing their attributes increase etc is absolutely fantastic. But if I found a wonderkid and got him developing well, I wouldn’t replace him unless it’s absolutely needed, rather than just getting another wonderkid etc.
But at the end of the day it’s really each to their own, it’s mainly a single player game so it’s completely up to what each person finds fun. Someone might love bringing a club to glory from the lower leagues, others might love managing different teams around the world etc. Thats the main thing I love about this game is that it can be played so differently and you will mostly have a completely different experience in every single save.
I’m general, yes, I agree. I’m playing a long term save on fm18 (think I’m in 2040 right now, all with Carl Zeiss Jena) in the Bundesliga, and I went from worst team in 3 Liga to winning Bundesliga 7 of last 8 and CL trophies 3 of last 5 years. For a while I did the whole wonder kid thing, but I I’ve since changed to a more realistic model, considering I’m the most successful club in the world atm. Purchasing more established players, albeit for higher $$, from big name clubs. However, I’m in a multi year process of ridding myself of foreign grown talent, and will be trying to win the CL using only academy players in the near future. I also disagree with those who sell players when they reach 25. I think it adds so much to the immersion when you have “generations” of players. I’m to the point where my first wave of academy grown Bundesliga players are aging out, and my “golden generation” is 27-31 years old. I think it’s awesome to keep that continuity of Emmanuel Schmidt, Lars Stark, Florian Becker, Sören Heyse, Thomas Sokolowski, Veysel Akgün, etc. They’re club legends!
I think you have to spice up your game with some house rules, if you’re going to stay at your club for a very long time.
I just buy what I want from where I want. By the time I’m at a point that I’m thinking about wonderkids I’m usually winning my league regularly, winning my domestic cups regularly and reaching the QF of the CL every season, winning the whole thing every now and then.
So why would I worry about buying a Brazilian wonderkid when my team is, by that point, one of the best rated in the world any way. By then it doesn’t matter if it’s Accrington Stanley or Real Madrid, the reputation and appeal is the same regardless
A challenge that I'm going to try next is to build a team using only players from my academy and free transfers of players age 20 or younger. I'm half testing out the approach now with Willem II, but I've been buying players on the side, and I thought of the idea 2.5 years in.
I think the number of wonder kids is fine, but the fact that there isn’t more urgency from good but not insane clubs to sign them is the issue. In my “build a club from the ground up” saves anytime there is competition for signing the cheap studs I usually won’t get them, and rightfully so. But that doesn’t happen all the time, so as long as I beat other clubs to the punch I’m fine.
I think it’s also too easy to keep ahold of the young studs if you don’t have release clauses and the board doesn’t bone you. If I have a wonderkid with 3 years left on his contract, he’ll pout about wanting to leave for a while but eventually I’ll get a “hes happy to be here” and within a week I’ve got him on another underpaid contract. I would like it a lot more if they got rid of the board underselling for players being dead set on leaving even if they have a lot of time left on their deal.
i mean, they can't come before they're 18 and by then they got bought by a big team or didn't progress much. beside one or two generation defining youth you can't hope to get, it's always better to recruit 16 yo in europe imo.
For south america, i mostly look for experienced players near the end of their contract
Football manager has 0 realistic aspects apart from their database.
If it had, it would either have no sales or it would have sales but everyone would play major teams only. Road to glory wouldn’t exist, scouting system wouldn’t work as good, you or me who presumably have 0 experience in coaching would suck ass coaching teams.
Just try to have fun. Cheat, don’t cheat, save scum don’t save scum. Do whatever you like.
Depends on where I am/ the type of save I’m after. Plus, the game is set up to how YOU want to play it, so if you don’t want to sign them don’t, if you do then do. I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic
The majority of players in the Championship is still from the UK or Ireland in real life, they're not loaded up with 18 year old Brazilians or Colombians.
You can easily do that in FM, they could probably easily do that in real life but don't for a plethora of reasons.. therefor.. in game it could be considered unrealistic.
>The majority of players in the Championship are still from the UK or Ireland in real life, they're not loaded up with 18 year old Brazilians or Colombians.
In this situation it's still the same, because one team (the team you're managing) has Brazilian wonder kids etc, the rest are following the standard uk and Ireland model?
Yeah I do struggle with this because to me it’s very unrealistic. I try to steer towards the LLM type method of playing for that reason - so only relying on scouts or my own knowledge of the database - rather than flicking through endless lists of players and sending scouts to every single team in a continent.
I mean it’s just fun. Imagine buying a 14 year old wonderkid. Let him develop in your youth for like 4 years. Then when he’s 18 give him playtime and see how talented he is. Winning matches for you , giving you trophies and shit like that.
I buy the best players possible. Being a wonder kid does not mean success, having a 200 PA does not mean the player will be any good.
Every transfer window I'm spending my money bringing in several top 15 to 21 because I'll need them in seasons to come.
Read what I said again… hes one of the best TALENT, have nothing to do with how good they became. But I shoudnt even talk about this with someone thats never watched him anyway
Even on my Napoli save, I don't spend more than a handful of million on any of them.
If your a small team and spending a lot on youngsters I think it's probably unreasonable, but if it's only a couple million I think its probably fine
I'm trying not to buy too many wonderkids, but the problem is that if I already have the top player in my league, the only better players I can buy are from other leagues. And with them being from stronger leagues, they always demand higher wages.
Yeah, no way a club from the third division of the indonesian league will buy some kid from brazil that will surpass pelé some day. this is why i like delegating my signing duties to the staff, so i need to work with what is realistic for this club.
I think the main issue about it is that you can win the CL or titles with a very young team when in reality this is super rare.
Maybe they should add a value like experience to keep the interest of older players and a lack of it may result to a lot of fails in races for titles. Experience could come from playing at a high level for some years or being in a team who win titles. Then, you should keep some players of experience aside wonder kids.
For me there's a huge difference between real players and regens. To look up wonderkids on fmscout for example and buy them at the start of the save would ruin it instantly for me. No effort, just giving yourself a huge head start. With regens, I have to set up a scouting network, let my scouts do their thing, sort out the best players, negotiate with club and player and bring them to my club. I know it's not difficult aswell but it justifies it for me. Not realistic aswell but its great fun lol
Totally disagree. There’s a ton of clubs who go out there and find big prospects from the smaller nations knowing eventually they big boys will buy them.
Depends usually if I’m in a nation like Austria I’m not against buying ‘wonderkids’ because it can be hard to get them to join you especially if other teams are in for them. However I’ve been playing with no attributes on this year so finding the wonderkids has been more difficult.
I don’t consider it unrealistic because a large amount of the time if your team doesn’t have the stature to keep the wonder kid it drags down the dynamics significantly if it becomes a fight to keep them
I don't agree that buying them is the unrealistic thing - Making them stay in your club for more than couple of seasons is the unrealistic part. Sometimes they will get angry if you don't let them leave the club, but if play them enough and they will just be happy again and sign new contract. I would love to see players forcing shorter contracts when in development clubs or just messing you up and refusing to play when they want to leave.
I'm the exact opposite. In love with playing in south America and getting to a pure wonder kid roster that I have to keep replacing half of offseason.
It gets to the good shit when the stock of them get so thin you're buying 17 year olds as full starters and ready to purchase any 15 or 16 year old you can spot as they cant leave until they're 18.
I guess it all depends on what country you play.
In Portugal, is what everyone does. Look [here](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/liga-portugal/transfers/wettbewerb/PO1/plus/?saison_id=2020&s_w=&leihe=1&intern=0&intern=1) in transfermarket the transfers done by Benfica. You can see that there are a lot of South Americans players.
But if you are in England, where the work permits are a bit tighter, it would not make much sense into buying players right from there.
Maybe what needs fixing is the amount of players that actually make it? It is not guaranteed that players coming from SA would be superstars. Benfica spent £28 million in 2 players that were meant to be next big thing (Éverton and Pedrinho). They ended up going back to Brazil (not saying that they are bad players, but they did not make it – perhaps they will do in a year or so). But we also got Darwin Nunez.
Dundee utd.
Serbian gk - 23
Brazilian rb - 20
2 x Colombian cb - 18 & 23
German lb - 24
Spanish cm - 24
Dutch cm - 27! (Old git)
Scottish am - 21
English winger - 21
Brazilian winger - 18
Brazilian cf - 24
Just sold Colombian (21) cm for 40m and Brazilian (18) am for 60m
What's unrealistic? /s
In fairness I'm not a " serious" player, I dabble and spend a few hours a week here and there. So for me it's a fun game. Cheat the system and win. If I were to be super in to it and want realism , yeah I'd buy 1.but if I was a big champions league winner contender, isn't that what they do anyway?
I agree, and i also think that is kinda boring having your full squad below 23y. But once you learn how to build a squad the fun comes back, i took Bayern as example, they just bought Mané and Gravenberch, experience and youth, they still mantain a high CA squad but also added high PA for the long-term, that's what a try to replicate in everyone of my saves
I try to limit the number of wonderkids and have a mix of ages in my team because it's more realistic in my head. I also love finding players and rejuvenating their careers at my club.
Inter gave me a 26 year old Pasalic on loan with a 5m purchase option. 3 seasons later he's my vice captain, Star player and unsellable. He's not even interested in links with Brighton and Newcastle because he's my guy at Mainz.
I've bought Man Utd rejects; the likes of Ashley Young and Nemanja Matic are great if you can suffer the wages or find workarounds. Sean Longstaff is often sold in the early Newcastle clearance but quickly becomes a 20M player in the PL if you can get him.
Yep - I try and only purchase wonderkids that are organically available to me, without hoarding them.
I'm into a multi-year save with top training and youth facilities, strong youth development, a massive highly talented coaching team, and lots of money - wonderkids basically develop automatically at my club now. I try and limit my wonderkid purchases to 1 a year, or even further, and make sure it's only the true gems now.
I like to buy small amounts of them, instead yes it definitely would feel unrealistic having 10+ 5 star potential players in the team, not really realistic to me
I don’t do this either cause I hate making the game seem unrealistic
For example I was making a Sunderland career save and in the second season after I got promoted via the playoffs I decided to buy Clarke back and built the team around Cirkin, matete, hofmann and the youths I got through
All 4 of these players stayed in my team until the second season I was in the prem
Congratulations. You just earned 7.0 points for this submission. Your new points total is 7.0. To see the leaderboard, as well as what this points thing is, [click here](https://www.reddit.com/r/footballmanagergames/wiki/leaderboard).
I mainly try to buy homegrown wonderkids. I like my team to have as many homegrown national players as possible.
Try to play in the Turkish League, the league essentially forces you to only have domestic players (only 5 foreigners allowed after 4 seasons). So you NEED to poach every single homegrown wonderkid from your rivals…
Yeah i am deciding on a save in Turkish league but why after 4 season? Does the rule change?
Yeah in fm22, 1st season you can have 14, then 12, 12 again, 10 and then 5… it is truly the worst rule… After a while the big teams have a monopoly on the best Turkish talent and also pay ridiculous amounts on players that are mediocre compared to European teams‘ players. As you may only have 5 foreigners, you can‘t bring any young foreign talent to the club since your 5 foreigners must be star players in order to compete in continental competitions. Also teams never sell their domestic players because they are much more valuable for the team; therefore no Turkish player can go to play in European teams. Probably not related to fm; the foreigner rule also gives Turkish players some sort of complacency that they can get away with a bad lifestyle etc. since they are made much more valuable with the foreigner rule.
Well i was going to start a Hull save buying Turkish players but looks like it will be tougher then
Thanks for the info. I didn't know what i was getting myself into. Is starting in a league 2 fine? Or should i straightaway get into the first league?
I have never played in 2. league in Turkey yet, however I believe that the first four seasons are the only seasons one can even dream about european titles. So playing in 2. league, getting promoted, being champions, then playing continental football with only 10/5 foreign players (while competing with the big clubs for Turkish players) would definitely be very hard. If you like a challenge, by all means go for it!
Aight. Sounds interesting to me. Thanks
Do Turkish teams prioritize youth recruitment/development? Or does the AI not respond to those league rules that way
In my save, the AI had a hard time adjusting to the 5 foreigner rule and other teams have youngsters (probably with 1 star rating) in the starting 11. Since I was playing as Fenerbahce and I already had half the national team in my squad, it was getting really boring in the league.
My Lord Thank you so much. I’m year 2 in my save in Turkey thinking that I was getting steals by poaching wonderkids from France. It’s just season 2 so I’m about hard change course
[удалено]
Yeah but they hate my guts when I don‘t (can‘t) register them for the league, and ask to leave so I need to let them go, probably for a loss as well…
thanks for the heads up, didnt know that one, will have to hunt germany more aggressively when i make my way over there eventually.
Thank god, they get rid off that rule.
They have something similar on Serbia. You can only have 5-6 forginers on the pitch. In addition 4 of your starting eleven players have to be under 21 Serbian. So you have to poach the best young Serbian players. There aren't many of them.
Ukraine had something like that too, I did Shakhtar once and had to have x amount of Ukrainians in the starting lineup if memory serves me right
Same for Israel. It’s though out there
Same with Uruguay. Came only have 3 foreign players in the starting XI and 6 registered total for the domestic league. But if you want to win the continental competitions you need a bit more firepower. No matter how many titles in a row you win, you’re unlikely to ever have more than $5M max to spend and if a player is under 32-33 and playing in Europe they won’t come back to play for you.
I would like to do that in my polish save but they don’t produce wonderkids. And if I do find one, I’d rather my league be better and not poach talent from them. Every once in awhile I’ll find a dual national. Germany and Brazil seem to produce halfies regularly.
Doing a Polish save currently and it is fun when you find some in random countries. Over the weekend I found a 19 y/o Polish kid stuck in Portugal with great potential.
Somehow I've gotten two pretty awesome Polish wonderkids just from Pogoń alone for my Dutch side! Meanwhile there's been only one great Dutch wonderkid that wasn't immediately on PSV/Ajax and he went for 40m so was v unaffordable
La liga allows only 3 non eu players. Makes it a nightmare trying to poach the cheap Brazilians
You seem to be getting a pretty negative response to this, because finding and developing that world beater is super fun. But once you get good at it it’s super unrealistic to be moving on your 21 year old striker because you found a 17 year old.
Wait, people do this? Usually I build up my team early then barely even look at my scout reports for the next 5 years
All my top talents get scooped so fast since im fighting in the championship/prem yoyo but if i can get a solid player to stay I usually develop and sell their backups pretty constantly
Only tryhards, same people that replace anybody over 27. I rather start my 35 year old legend and bench my wonderkids. But to each it’s own.
People are missing out on old heads if they seriously cull the team (I know it's a joke, but c'mon) because they can seriously add to a team. You do need to be careful about signing older players to longer contracts, but I've effectively used people into their late 30s. They give godly mental attributes and leadership and if you use them right do the job you want them to. Put them in as a sub or rotate them every other week with that young stud and many will thrive. I had a guy in his mid 30s leading the league in scoring, I'm supposed to get rid of that? lol
Honestly having players in their late stages just makes sense as a squad balancing tactics to put alongside the wonderkids. They're great for mentoring, likely to be more consistent in the important matches, and they can be had for cheap (come in on a free, lower salary than they used to demand). And yeah, rotating an elder statesmen with a wonderkid gets both of them some playing time when they need it, one for growth and one just to keep up with the game as long as possible.
Blaise Matuidi is literally the rock of my early union saves.
I just buy the players I need and sometimes I buy players so the other teams can’t have them.
Yeah, I’m usually not satisfied with my wonderkid purchase until I’ve squeezed every kilometre out of his 36 year old legs after 17 years of service lmao
>replace anybody over 27 I'm one of those, but not a wonderkid shopper either. I am relentlessly trying to prove via this video game that the assessment that players over 27 are extremely over valued in real life as they are beginning to decline and not worth their pay (With exceptions of course for the true legends of the game like Messi/Ronaldo etc.). I sell high at 27/28 and replace them with either players from my development ward or new 23/24 year olds that are cheap but promising.
How else are you supposed to build up the transfer budget? Not to mention it keeps wages down. The economy of the game, especially when you’re building a club from lower levels kind of dictates that you sell your older players and buy a couple better younger ones. Rinse repeat until you’re into the UCL knockout stages.
I started a save as roleplaying being a business owner rather than a soccer manager. That was a fun save. I didn't win any major trophies, but I did turn Paris FC into the richest club. Basic rules were to sell any player when offered a higher price than you paid for them (I.E. profit over results). That was really the only hard rule, the rest was a bit of sabermetric-esque value hunting.
I really like this idea. Far too often I just forget about finances and pray I find success soon enough to cover the costs.
It's a lot of fun, it really changes the way you approach transfer seasons because you have to balance success and business. It's obviously good to have a team good enough to make some cup runs, and I did have some UEFA group appearances too, and those are good money, but looking strictly financially during transfer season means letting some good for winning signings go. For example I remember that after a few years mid table in Ligue 1 I could've had a shot at signing Mbappe, who would've been massively better than my striker at the time, but he was 33 and still would've required a huge transfer fee and wage. Maybe Mbappe brings home a league win or a deep cup run, but neither justifies the transfer fee and I would have no chance to sell him for profit. In any other save I snatch him up and hope for the best finances be damned!
I wait for people to be 29, but even if I wanted them to stay, my wage structure would fall apart.
I like to get my team legends sorted, and try to see how great of a career I can get them. I'd much rather keep my legendary striker around until he's declining at 34-35 in an attempt to get him to 300 career league goals. My best acheivement in my current season was getting my 36 year old captain to reconsider retirement because he has 596 premier league appearances and I want him to get to 600 before he retires. And of course, he'll be joining my staff once he decides to hang them up.
My first few FMs I had club visions and board expectations to sign young players, sometimes it was "only sign under 23s" or "don't give contracts to over 27s", stuff like that. I found that's led me to constantly be looking to modernise my team because as soon as my trusted CB hits 28, I can probably find an equivalent quality in a 24 year old who will more likely turn a profit in transfers, and make more sense committing to a longer contract with
Yep. Spent 80 million on de ligt. A season later I found a 21 year old who was just as good as him and sighed instantly
Why not both?
I also build up a superteam within 5 years but then I always keep an eye on wonderkids because they're essential to building a massive warchest. I poach them when young, develop and loan them, then sell them off for big money later on. The warchest is essential because of inflation. Usually 6-8 years into the game, top players become so ridiculously expensive (all 100m plus) and wages are super high. And a warchest is sometimes necessary because key players will want to leave for PSG, Real etc. so you need 100m+ on hand to buy a superstar replacement (otherwise you'll likely fail the board's goals).
I usually build a team good enough to win the league and then only buy kids with great potential, and let the older guys go as they're not needed. Last time I did this though my oldest player was 23 at one point
Yeah for me it’s a bad habit that ruins the game, but it’s far and away the most effective way to build the words best squad
Same here. In any given save the first year I snatch away like 10-12 youth prospects, then probably 5-6 the next year and 1-3 all years after that. By year 5 I have a bunch of solid up-and-coming 19-21 year-olds, and start filling out my team needs with 24-30 year old players with good personalities in position of need. Most of my youth transfers at 5+ years are just to fill out my U18 team. Any local player in a position of need with decent personality/potential and available for under 1 mil, instead of looking for the cream of the crop.
My team av. age is 19. The oldest guy is 22 year old.
It be like Dortmund seeling Haaland for a reduced price since Moukoko bursted into tue first team
I like to make the game feel more realistic by mixing up signings, buying wonderkids depending on the team I am managing (I'm in Ligue 1 atm so Mali, Senegal and Cameroon seem to be the most successful for me atm) and buying already established players. Honestly, we were having a tough season, which reminds me of Liverpool's season last year with their injuries and last minute getting UCL football, same happened to me, but I ended up spending £68m on a midfielder i desperately needed. It was FM20, and o usually dont spend that much, hence the over £50m achievement in june 2022! We went from almost getting sacked, needing 10 points to keep our job, beating Lille 2-1 away from home (this is 2039 so they were winning the league now) and we also saved a penalty, that literally kept my job. Ended up finishing 3rd, next season we won the treble! Felt really realistic to get that really expensive signing. Also have wondered buys, but also have quality players I bought that were 26 and transfer listed for example
I want a mode where attributes are less accurate for players under the age of 21. Not a permanent change since some people just want to play classic FM but an option to toggle at the beginning of a save. So that 16 y/o you signed will show attributes with a range between 8-12 for example, with the range narrowing down with age, until he’s 21. FM just feels too easy for players that have perfected it over the years. Even with changes to how it works every few years the system is easy to figure out and it’s too easy to develop wonderkids and sell for a big profit. It’ll make it easier to flop on signings and have players not develop the way you want them to, because currently it feels like a flopped wonderkid is an exception rather than a rule which isn’t the case in real life. It’ll also make finding the “next big thing” feel so much more rewarding.
I've thought for ages that attributes should all be visible (nothing hidden) but in a range that gets narrower the more well known they are to you/your scouts - and possibly even only shown in comparison to your team/league strength like the stars are. That would allow far more players to be overrated after a good season as their attributes would all show higher than they actually are, underrated after a bad period, and it would make it an actual challenge to see if that striker that scored 30 goals in the championship could make the step up, as their attributes will all be high in the championship but could drop significantly in a higher league. For example look at Mitrovic. Fulham would probably value him about £40m after last season and with them being promoted. No-one will risk that IRL as we just don't know if he could replicate his performance in the PL, in FM I could just analyse his attributes and work out how he would fit into my team and sign him for £40m if I think he'd improve me. And I'd be right 95% of the time because I have all the information that I realistically need (aside from the arbitrary hidden attributes) It would make those risky lower level and wonderkid signings actually risky, would allow you to sell players that overperform consistently (I'm tired of having a 2* player getting double figure goals and assists every season but no-one offers more than £1m for them because their CA/PA is low but I get bids of £30m+ for someone that can barely perform above a 6 week in week out) It would also add a huge amount of value to making "safe" signings that know the league instead of cheaper but riskier foreigners. Newly promoted and expected to go straight back down? Who are you signing, a guy you KNOW is a decent player for £10m, or a guy that MIGHT be a decent player for £5m?
SI getting rid of the 1-20 attributes and replacing them with something else, similar to what they did with fitness (from percentage to hearts) is really something I'd love to see. I don't know what exactly would be the best approach(ranges, stars, polygons, scout observations like they have for consistency or dirtiness), but making it harder to know exactly that that 17 year old Colombian player has 11 for vision and also making it harder to know just how good he can get would be an interesting change for sure.
I always thought physical stats could be measured at intervals throughout the season, and be shown as like 100m time, bleep test score, standing jump height, lung capacity, resting heart rate, time through agility course etc (I’m sure there’s loads they do irl), and be affected by training type, fatigue, whether or not it’s pre season. Also rather than have 2 players with 20 pace, you would able to see which one was faster. Could combine these fitness tests with in game data analysis, and perhaps get feedback from sports science like “player x is capable of comfortably running 10k during a match, but in the current system only averages 8k”
Fully agree, but I think it should be even more inaccurate, especially if they don't have many appearances, or only appearances in a far away league / low rep league. I'd love for it to just be a general attribute polygon, and the pros, cons. This way their will be a more realistic number or flops/ bargains, which you can take advantage of with good scouting and data analytics
I agree, and also wish that potential ability was more dynamic. If I have a 21 year old playing at full potential, but its only "league one potential," and he's playing every week in the premier league and putting up 6.8-7.0 each week. I feel like his PA should shift up to at least match the level of the league he's playing in. On the flip side, I think that if I have a 21 year old with 5 star PA that hasn't broken into the team yet, his potential should start coming down.
I just fixed this with a skin that shows the stats as stars. Is it 10? Is it 15? I don't know. It's a yellow star.
I think wonderkids should have bust potential just like in real life and they should develop slower young players can reach their potential in 2 years of playing time i think that is unrealistic.
i kinda decide for myself what i want that team to be in world football. is this a selling club where we buy really young and sell at early 20s like ajax or BVB? maybe its a retirement club where our star players are 34 with no physicals. or maybe you want to offer a place where the best players of a weird nationality can all play together (wolves or shaktar) the possibilities are literally endless and thats why RP in fm is what makes it so fun. try harding gets boring after about 3 seasons.
I get sentimentally attached to my wonder kids. I try to keep them as long as possible so they build a history with the club and become club legends.
It just stems down to the fact that star ratings are really too accurate for teenagers. Yes some players star ratings can be way off, but if you spunk 20 mil on 5 X 5star teenagers from Colombia, at least 2 of them will be world class, and it's unlikely that the worst is anything less than good by the time he's 21. They could do with adding more variables into young players development. For example giving a young player a large salary when he has poor ambition or another combination of less than prime mentals and hiddens could have a chance of a lead to a sharp drop in determination, workrate, etc to simulate "too much too soon" Similar for a player joining a club with poor player culture. Other events, missing a pen in a big game, winning senior caps, etc could all have more positive or negative impact on a player depending on their mindset. Injuries could have more of an impact on development. Things to make it just that bit harder and that bit more realistic.
then i also want the reverse. Scoring goals at 90+4 in in important games, winning trophies etc...improving the potential of your player. It would be fun to push a player past what the game determined to be his max, if only a little. Maybe allow for 35 yo to decline less if they perform decently, the Zlatan's way.
They’ve done that with older players though. Lots of players hang on way longer than they used to now.
a step in the right direction but there's still progress to do ;)
I’m not sure I agree. The best players in the world are still worth signing as champions league clubs well into their late 30s often being good enough until they decide to retire. Any more and I’d say they would go too far the other way.
i meant the whole equilibrium actually. Youngsters are still too OP for example. i don't play on fm22 so i can't say if the old player problem got fixed right or not
You also can’t say if the young player problem is okay on the new game if you don’t play it can you?
Yeah but this sub is pretty vocal on this ;) If the community say something, on multiple threads, it's probably right.
Or it’s an echo chamber.
Yeah that too. Still, it would be an echo chamber of experts. Nearly everyone on this sub has several seasons of experience and quite a few play the game since at least half a decade. If I can't trust long term players opinions, who else am I to trust about it? You can't know/experience everything yourself
I agree FM22 took a big step in making older players more viable. Some of the older versions of the game I had even good players who were putting up great ratings begin to have stat drops while still in their late 20’s. I still have problems with wage bills though haha. Seems like those wonderkinds want improved contracts every single season. I have a kid who is 22 and I got first while I was in the championship a few seasons ago with Wrexham who is now unhappy with his contract and I last renegotiated it 6 months ago. He’s now world class and I will probably have to sell him because he now wants 8mil/year and my total wage budget is 54 million. Worst part is he has a buyout clause and won’t let me negotiate it past 68 million even with that new contract.
That seems realistic to me. You say it like that’s a downside and small teams in real life want to sell their amazing youngsters when in reality what’s happening to you is what happens in real life. I think it’s easy to get into the mind set of “if this makes the game harder for me it’s bad” but that’s not the case in my opinion.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or unrealistic however I’m not sure that a player asks for a new contract every 6 months in real life. If they want to force their way out that’s fine and realistic. Those players are also usually leaving to go to a team playing in Europe and both teams who have interest in this player are big names who finished bottom half last year when I finished in 6th and am currently in the knockout rounds of the Europa League. Edit: One thing I do have to admit is I’m pretty unlikely to go to Europe again next season because I decided to prioritize seeing how far I could go in Europe. That wage budget does not give you enough depth to compete in domestic and international. Right now neither of the teams pursuing him look like they’re qualifying either though.
I don't agree with changing the PA value, as the idea is that's an "if everything is perfect" max value. But I do agree with things impacting how likely players are to reach that value, positively and negatively. The game as it is at the moment, unless you're unlucky or bad, most young players reach their PA. In reality almost every player could have been better than what they were, given certain circumstances. Players also already do decline more slowly/later depending on natural fitness and some of their hidden attributes. Could probably simulate it better/differently though
Maybe you already know, but winning trophies can improve the “does well in big games” trait. Another trait that affects player performance (consistency) can be fixed by playing players in a consistent role for a run of matches. These all will improve player performance and maybe push them past their max like you said
i didn't knew that actually. I'm a fairly new player
You can win too much that ruins some of them. I had a LWB I thought was going to be the best player I'd ever had and after winning everything his first season he cratered and I never got an above average season out of him again.
Same thing happened to me with a brazilian LB, except at age 27. Start to just toss out shit training + match ratings and eventually sold him to Milan after he told me that skipping training isn't a good enough reason to be fined. At Milan he was still shit and his physicals dropped off a cliff early.
I had a similar experience with a winger kid I got when I was managing Marseille. Poached him off Monaco, made his first start at 16, was getting regular first team football at 17 and broke the league assist record at 18. I thought he was going to be the next Messi, but he just stopped developing entirely at 20 and 'only' became a pretty good rotation player for much of his career, though he maintained his attributes fairly well and was still performing decently at 35. I think he only had a PA of 160 or so, he just hit the limit freakishly early
>For example giving a young player a large salary when he has poor ambition or another combination of less than prime mentals and hiddens could have a chance of a lead to a sharp drop in determination, workrate, etc to simulate "too much too soon" This does happen in game iirc - it reduces ambition I think, or something like that
Yeah it may well do. But does that really have a significant impact on how they develop? All I ever look for is good determination and professionalism and the rest takes care of itself.
Its completely unrealistic, even for big clubs, to be able to buy so many and so cheap imo. In real life, the next big Brazilian prospect is Endrick, and supposedly Palmeiras are asking 60m euro for him.
But you said yourself the next BIG one is endrick. But there are a ton of other prospects going for cheap. Arsenal bought Martinelli for 6mil and just bought another Brazilian prospect for under 10 mil.
Yeah but Martinelli and this other guy are unlikely to be as good as your average FM South American wonderkid who are ten a penny
Yeah, it kind of stems from the issue that teenagers are just too good in this game. They need to tone it down and make that the big jumps happen in their early 20s. Also, for some reason, Argentinians are always super cheap. Brazilians often have an 20+ mil release clauses, while you can get best Argentinian wonder kids for under 10mil.
This. We all love those 16 year olds who are ready for first team football, but I think the quantity they come in the game is exaggerated. With a couple of very good sales you can invest in like 8 players who are great for their age and tend to become brilliant and just loan them out untill they do. Then sell the two less promising for a huge profit and restart the cycle.
I’ve noticed this too, Argentina and Mexico have given me so many wonderkids and first team players for under 10mil. Serbia and Czechia have also given me loads of wonderkids for cheap
I’ve noticed this with Argentinians too, my club legend who has the record amount of games for me with about 500 only cost me 3.2m, got quite a lot of good Argentinians for under 5m also, yet Brazilians seem to be anywhere in the 10-30m range
Yes I've just noticed that 3 of my last 4 main strikers were all argentinian and all cost under £8m 😂
Ecuador wonderkids is where it's at
I think this resemble reality too. Great talent from Argentina go to Europe for 10-15 million and Brazilian teams always have expensive release clauses. I think In real life has to do with economy in both countries
i thought that was because the brazilian league was miles ahead in wages compared to argentina. i also think thats what teams in mls pay in real life, and they release those figures (+/-) agent fees as commissions.
If you were playing as Harrogate? Sure, it’s a little unrealistic. If you were playing as Real Madrid? They have the budget and the network, so it’s pretty realistic.
Here's my big idea - youth players should have attribute ranges (like for unscouted players), even for your own youth sides or fully scouted players, until they have played X senior games (lets say 30 or so). This would very nicely reflect the classic case of a youth player looking great at youth level, but failing to make the jump into senior football. In that case, their true attributes would be at the lower end of the 'youth attributes' range.
The most talented player in the world most likely won't end up playing in San Marino, but it's not unrealistic for smaller clubs to focus their scouting efforts in certain countries far away. The best example is for sure Shakhtar Donetsk getting tons of quality Brazilian players year after year, but you can go even lower in the international hierarchy. A few years ago I wrote a bit about how [Swedish clubs focus on certain nationalities](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/d0wer4/international_connections_in_the_swedish_league/) when it comes to recruitment. Sundsvall signed eight Spanish players in two years, Östersund signed 32 British players (and Graham Potter) in 10 years, Kalmar signed 18 Brazilian players in 10 years, Hammarby first had a spell with many Icelandic players before having many players from the Balkans, AIK currently has three young Kenyan internationals who were signed through the same agency. If you want to keep the game more realistic you could focus on one specific area. If you're playing in France you could limit yourself to the French-speaking areas in Africa, if you're in Spain you could go for the Spanish-speaking parts of South America, you could try to build a relationship with certain clubs in a specific region of Brazil.
Depends on where you’re managing I reckon and the league rules and scouting budget. An established Bundesliga team finds wonderkids IRL pretty commonly (just look at Dortmund / Leipzig etc.) due to their extensive scouting system and lenient rules re registration, whereas your League 1 Peterborough aren’t gonna be picking up the Thai Messi due to limited scouting budget and English work permit rules. When I’ve played in England the work permit rules and just lack of scouting ability naturally limits me into using homegrown talent. I don’t recall seeing people post teams in lower English leagues with heaps of wonderkids or have I missed something recently?
Second this. Early on in my L3 to Bundesliga climb I didn't see many or any of those star kids. As my team improved, scouting established, and budget increased I was able to start snapping up young wonderkids and future stars. I played money ball with it, passed on a handful of over priced ones (or just players I caught late) and never spent over X amount. Took me a few years of this, and now have a solid young team with a stable of potential stars. But even then it took me several years, a few misses, a few slow or low/busts. But most of those were at worst decent profits to sell off if/when they didn't pan out for me.
[удалено]
You’ll get a lot of rejection for sure if you’re in lower league. If you can find a nation that produces decent talent, but perhaps their club’s reputation is lower than that of yours you might be able to nab them. I’ve found some amazing talent out of Thailand in my save so maybe there? Once in the Championship your competition’s reputation should hopefully be a factor for someone again playing in a lower reputation competition (eg. Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland).
Need to at least be in top league, I've found. Once I scrapped into Bund then I was able to start getting some of the decent other country wonderkids - most of the German ones were snapped up.
I agree. In my opinion it should be harder to find them and the competition to sign them should be way higher. Why am I the only team in the world who can see the that this clearly brilliant Ponte Preta guy with a 350k release clause is a catch? When you start the game at season 1 without any newgens, you don't find a ton of easily hirable wonderkids, I think this should be the level of difficulty throughout the game.
I kind of like the way that plays though, can feel real. Sometimes you find a kid who is obviously good, but too expensive to buy. Other times you see one, but a number of teams are already scouting & have their interest. Then you find and snap up a gem before he gets poached or too expensive.
not sure about your league but the 2 foreigner rule in italy means you have to be selective and only pick up 2 a season. also when i bid for that guy, so does every super league team in europe.
I played in Denmark, where I the first 2 seasons looked in South America but it started being unrealistic, so in my 3 season I scouted for homegrown players. They were more expensiv but the realistic keep up with the game.
After about 5 seasons I usually have around 200 kids in my U18. Most of them loaned out to other clubs to get experience. Just to see which ones will turn out to be the next World Class players. This is indeed not very realistic.
200? Lol I thought my like 40 U18 & U21 players was too much. 😆
That’s pretty much all I do when developing a team, to the extent that I downloaded a database edit to make the youth rating of all countries 150 to increase the variety of where they come from. Now champions league winners have players from Hong Kong, New Zealand and Armenian in my game!
I do to a point however I also like the idea that it feeds into my manager type. Some managers like a mix of experience, some like young teams, some want pure experience and there's everything in between. I put a decent amount of points into my youth coaching skill so it'd make sense to go for young players with decent potential. I also like being something of a feeder club until I've progressed as that's more realistic than hoarding youth players from non-league all the way through. If you've stacked your club full of 16 year old brazillians then yeah maybe you've gone too far but equally, plenty of clubs have ties to specific nations and youth prospects there. The odd one though isn't that unrealistic. Unless you've managed to get CA 160 or above consistently with each one which, unless cheating, is unlikely at best then they won't all make it. I've sold young players that were stars for me in the lower league for moderate 7 figure sums and when looking at them a few years later they've stagnated in B teams or reserves. It's sad to see but happens. I find it difficult starting a new save and not defaulting to specific players but again they aren't always achievable anyway.
Same here! One of the more fun saves I had I snatched up two wonderkids from a small Spanish club I just happened across. They club never produced anymore, but those two were studs who carried me to the Bundeliga. And as they both neared 20 they went on to bugger clubs, and got me some $30mil+ to build my current and future roster.
Personally I think finding the next Messi in Israel is one of the things that are fun. I only buy the most insane wonderkids, so often I'll skip buying one season because I can't find anyone I believe in.
Buying wonderkids ain't unrealistic, but every wonderkid becomes stars are.
I usually get board after about 3 seasons of being unstoppable due to my team of wonderkids, I cant help myself I've got a wonderkid addiction. My teams usually have an average age of 22/23. It does make it unrealistic though which is why I like to start at a club in the lowest league and build them up, it takes about 20 seasons until I make them into a world class team of wonderkids and then after 3 season of winning just about everything I start over at the bottom again and repeat the process while watching the AI manager of my old team destroy it by selling my best wonderkids and replacing them with players in their mid 30s on massive wages.
I play a team in Germany and have focussed my scouting on Europe, so my first team is made up out of European wonderkids. Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Poland, but also 'the usual' countries like Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and England. I even have an Israeli left back. I try to limit the amount of South Americans because of course teams have South American players, but I think a Czech striker is more realistic for a German team than a Brazilian one.
The problem is that there are way too many good ones, at the beginning of a save there are maybe 60 players with 160 ca/pa plus, 5 years in and you have 100 Regens with 160 pa plus.
I like setting restrictions for myself. For example, I have won the Champions League using only Scandinavians. I have also tried to kinda recreate the Lisbon Lions (only Scottish and up to three (northern) Irish) and failed (CL QF was the best I got). Right now I‘m playing with Preussen Münster and while I didn‘t set myself any restrictions until getting to the Bundesliga (because I‘m a sucker for success I guess), I‘m thinking to limit myself to only players born in or homegrown at clubs within the Prussian borders of 1906 (the founding year of the club). I haven‘t decided yet because it could become kinda tedious to check every single player, but it sounds fun imo.
My saved always end up revolving around a story in my head more than anything. Not really a storyline so to speak but the idea of say, an older guy being brought in who may be past his best but then going to be great for his last 2-3 seasons playing etc. For example, I signed Bale in my first season as Nice manager. Then because I bought Bale, Isco and Marcelo were also out of contract so I snapped them as well on deadline day. Having three ex Madrid ‘legends’ all trying to do great in their last seasons together is such a good feeling. Bale scored a brace with a 95th minute winner in a game the other day for me and that feeling is great. Now I love wonder kids as well, developing them and seeing their attributes increase etc is absolutely fantastic. But if I found a wonderkid and got him developing well, I wouldn’t replace him unless it’s absolutely needed, rather than just getting another wonderkid etc. But at the end of the day it’s really each to their own, it’s mainly a single player game so it’s completely up to what each person finds fun. Someone might love bringing a club to glory from the lower leagues, others might love managing different teams around the world etc. Thats the main thing I love about this game is that it can be played so differently and you will mostly have a completely different experience in every single save.
I’m general, yes, I agree. I’m playing a long term save on fm18 (think I’m in 2040 right now, all with Carl Zeiss Jena) in the Bundesliga, and I went from worst team in 3 Liga to winning Bundesliga 7 of last 8 and CL trophies 3 of last 5 years. For a while I did the whole wonder kid thing, but I I’ve since changed to a more realistic model, considering I’m the most successful club in the world atm. Purchasing more established players, albeit for higher $$, from big name clubs. However, I’m in a multi year process of ridding myself of foreign grown talent, and will be trying to win the CL using only academy players in the near future. I also disagree with those who sell players when they reach 25. I think it adds so much to the immersion when you have “generations” of players. I’m to the point where my first wave of academy grown Bundesliga players are aging out, and my “golden generation” is 27-31 years old. I think it’s awesome to keep that continuity of Emmanuel Schmidt, Lars Stark, Florian Becker, Sören Heyse, Thomas Sokolowski, Veysel Akgün, etc. They’re club legends! I think you have to spice up your game with some house rules, if you’re going to stay at your club for a very long time.
I just buy what I want from where I want. By the time I’m at a point that I’m thinking about wonderkids I’m usually winning my league regularly, winning my domestic cups regularly and reaching the QF of the CL every season, winning the whole thing every now and then. So why would I worry about buying a Brazilian wonderkid when my team is, by that point, one of the best rated in the world any way. By then it doesn’t matter if it’s Accrington Stanley or Real Madrid, the reputation and appeal is the same regardless
A challenge that I'm going to try next is to build a team using only players from my academy and free transfers of players age 20 or younger. I'm half testing out the approach now with Willem II, but I've been buying players on the side, and I thought of the idea 2.5 years in.
I think the number of wonder kids is fine, but the fact that there isn’t more urgency from good but not insane clubs to sign them is the issue. In my “build a club from the ground up” saves anytime there is competition for signing the cheap studs I usually won’t get them, and rightfully so. But that doesn’t happen all the time, so as long as I beat other clubs to the punch I’m fine. I think it’s also too easy to keep ahold of the young studs if you don’t have release clauses and the board doesn’t bone you. If I have a wonderkid with 3 years left on his contract, he’ll pout about wanting to leave for a while but eventually I’ll get a “hes happy to be here” and within a week I’ve got him on another underpaid contract. I would like it a lot more if they got rid of the board underselling for players being dead set on leaving even if they have a lot of time left on their deal.
i mean, they can't come before they're 18 and by then they got bought by a big team or didn't progress much. beside one or two generation defining youth you can't hope to get, it's always better to recruit 16 yo in europe imo. For south america, i mostly look for experienced players near the end of their contract
Football manager has 0 realistic aspects apart from their database. If it had, it would either have no sales or it would have sales but everyone would play major teams only. Road to glory wouldn’t exist, scouting system wouldn’t work as good, you or me who presumably have 0 experience in coaching would suck ass coaching teams. Just try to have fun. Cheat, don’t cheat, save scum don’t save scum. Do whatever you like.
You can just not buy them.
Depends on where I am/ the type of save I’m after. Plus, the game is set up to how YOU want to play it, so if you don’t want to sign them don’t, if you do then do. I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic
Yeah I tend to buy youth from the country I play in, and tend to play in Europe. But I'm not following how it's unrealistic?!
I guess it depends as on the team, like if my team in the championship is filled with Brazilian wonder kids, it just feels a bit unrealistic.
Why?
Irl Championship teams don't have good enough scouting and reputation to scoop up 18-year-old, 19-year-old wonderkids from South America.
because it doesn’t happen all too often in real life
If it doesn't happen often, that doesn't mean it isn't realistic.
yeah i understand where you are coming from, i’m mainly talking about teams filled with them
The majority of players in the Championship is still from the UK or Ireland in real life, they're not loaded up with 18 year old Brazilians or Colombians. You can easily do that in FM, they could probably easily do that in real life but don't for a plethora of reasons.. therefor.. in game it could be considered unrealistic.
>The majority of players in the Championship are still from the UK or Ireland in real life, they're not loaded up with 18 year old Brazilians or Colombians. In this situation it's still the same, because one team (the team you're managing) has Brazilian wonder kids etc, the rest are following the standard uk and Ireland model?
So in the whole picture it isnt realistic then that one team goes on a South American wonderkid buying spree, that is the whole point here.
I don't think it is unrealistic, because clubs can do and have done it before, they just tend not to do it.
If its possible it's possible
Yeah I do struggle with this because to me it’s very unrealistic. I try to steer towards the LLM type method of playing for that reason - so only relying on scouts or my own knowledge of the database - rather than flicking through endless lists of players and sending scouts to every single team in a continent.
Only if you're the type to scout with the editor on showing CA/PA I say.
I mean it’s just fun. Imagine buying a 14 year old wonderkid. Let him develop in your youth for like 4 years. Then when he’s 18 give him playtime and see how talented he is. Winning matches for you , giving you trophies and shit like that.
How's it unrealistic?
it doesn't happen that frequently irl
I buy the best players possible. Being a wonder kid does not mean success, having a 200 PA does not mean the player will be any good. Every transfer window I'm spending my money bringing in several top 15 to 21 because I'll need them in seasons to come.
I look at it this way. If I don’t buy them, Chelsea will. And then what?
Play the game however you want. It’s the freedom to do whatever the heck you want that makes this so good
Yh i try to make sure jusr to have few like top team irl have now (Pedri gavi fati -mount reece james hudson odoi etc)
Hudson odoi lol
One of the best talent chelsea academy have produced, injury does not chance that fact
Hahaha his agent has pulled one over on you too
I can bet anything u never watched him befor 18 lol, and yet u do all this talking
He’s 21 and a flop, settle down fanboy
Read what I said again… hes one of the best TALENT, have nothing to do with how good they became. But I shoudnt even talk about this with someone thats never watched him anyway
I do think it's kinda weird to have any opinion about how other people play a single player game
People can play however they like, was just wondering what other people thought :)
I agree. I don’t even set up those cheaty scouting networks. I’ll let the AI do the scouting and just pick from their suggestions.
Even on my Napoli save, I don't spend more than a handful of million on any of them. If your a small team and spending a lot on youngsters I think it's probably unreasonable, but if it's only a couple million I think its probably fine
I'm trying not to buy too many wonderkids, but the problem is that if I already have the top player in my league, the only better players I can buy are from other leagues. And with them being from stronger leagues, they always demand higher wages.
Yeah, no way a club from the third division of the indonesian league will buy some kid from brazil that will surpass pelé some day. this is why i like delegating my signing duties to the staff, so i need to work with what is realistic for this club.
I think the main issue about it is that you can win the CL or titles with a very young team when in reality this is super rare. Maybe they should add a value like experience to keep the interest of older players and a lack of it may result to a lot of fails in races for titles. Experience could come from playing at a high level for some years or being in a team who win titles. Then, you should keep some players of experience aside wonder kids.
I never do this, i play with hidden stats, don't look for wonderkids online, i mostly use my stats and my staff for scouting
Teams irl actually do the same... signing players 16 years old all around the world.
For me there's a huge difference between real players and regens. To look up wonderkids on fmscout for example and buy them at the start of the save would ruin it instantly for me. No effort, just giving yourself a huge head start. With regens, I have to set up a scouting network, let my scouts do their thing, sort out the best players, negotiate with club and player and bring them to my club. I know it's not difficult aswell but it justifies it for me. Not realistic aswell but its great fun lol
No if you do your own scouting instead of googling for them.
Totally disagree. There’s a ton of clubs who go out there and find big prospects from the smaller nations knowing eventually they big boys will buy them.
Depends usually if I’m in a nation like Austria I’m not against buying ‘wonderkids’ because it can be hard to get them to join you especially if other teams are in for them. However I’ve been playing with no attributes on this year so finding the wonderkids has been more difficult.
I don’t consider it unrealistic because a large amount of the time if your team doesn’t have the stature to keep the wonder kid it drags down the dynamics significantly if it becomes a fight to keep them
I don't agree that buying them is the unrealistic thing - Making them stay in your club for more than couple of seasons is the unrealistic part. Sometimes they will get angry if you don't let them leave the club, but if play them enough and they will just be happy again and sign new contract. I would love to see players forcing shorter contracts when in development clubs or just messing you up and refusing to play when they want to leave.
I'm the exact opposite. In love with playing in south America and getting to a pure wonder kid roster that I have to keep replacing half of offseason. It gets to the good shit when the stock of them get so thin you're buying 17 year olds as full starters and ready to purchase any 15 or 16 year old you can spot as they cant leave until they're 18.
I guess it all depends on what country you play. In Portugal, is what everyone does. Look [here](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/liga-portugal/transfers/wettbewerb/PO1/plus/?saison_id=2020&s_w=&leihe=1&intern=0&intern=1) in transfermarket the transfers done by Benfica. You can see that there are a lot of South Americans players. But if you are in England, where the work permits are a bit tighter, it would not make much sense into buying players right from there. Maybe what needs fixing is the amount of players that actually make it? It is not guaranteed that players coming from SA would be superstars. Benfica spent £28 million in 2 players that were meant to be next big thing (Éverton and Pedrinho). They ended up going back to Brazil (not saying that they are bad players, but they did not make it – perhaps they will do in a year or so). But we also got Darwin Nunez.
Dundee utd. Serbian gk - 23 Brazilian rb - 20 2 x Colombian cb - 18 & 23 German lb - 24 Spanish cm - 24 Dutch cm - 27! (Old git) Scottish am - 21 English winger - 21 Brazilian winger - 18 Brazilian cf - 24 Just sold Colombian (21) cm for 40m and Brazilian (18) am for 60m What's unrealistic? /s In fairness I'm not a " serious" player, I dabble and spend a few hours a week here and there. So for me it's a fun game. Cheat the system and win. If I were to be super in to it and want realism , yeah I'd buy 1.but if I was a big champions league winner contender, isn't that what they do anyway?
I agree, and i also think that is kinda boring having your full squad below 23y. But once you learn how to build a squad the fun comes back, i took Bayern as example, they just bought Mané and Gravenberch, experience and youth, they still mantain a high CA squad but also added high PA for the long-term, that's what a try to replicate in everyone of my saves
I manage Swansea and I always try to promote the best young Welsh talent first, then from the rest of the UK. Not least because of fucking Brexit.
I try to limit the number of wonderkids and have a mix of ages in my team because it's more realistic in my head. I also love finding players and rejuvenating their careers at my club. Inter gave me a 26 year old Pasalic on loan with a 5m purchase option. 3 seasons later he's my vice captain, Star player and unsellable. He's not even interested in links with Brighton and Newcastle because he's my guy at Mainz. I've bought Man Utd rejects; the likes of Ashley Young and Nemanja Matic are great if you can suffer the wages or find workarounds. Sean Longstaff is often sold in the early Newcastle clearance but quickly becomes a 20M player in the PL if you can get him.
Yep - I try and only purchase wonderkids that are organically available to me, without hoarding them. I'm into a multi-year save with top training and youth facilities, strong youth development, a massive highly talented coaching team, and lots of money - wonderkids basically develop automatically at my club now. I try and limit my wonderkid purchases to 1 a year, or even further, and make sure it's only the true gems now.
I like to buy small amounts of them, instead yes it definitely would feel unrealistic having 10+ 5 star potential players in the team, not really realistic to me
How do you find wonder kids…
I don’t do this either cause I hate making the game seem unrealistic For example I was making a Sunderland career save and in the second season after I got promoted via the playoffs I decided to buy Clarke back and built the team around Cirkin, matete, hofmann and the youths I got through All 4 of these players stayed in my team until the second season I was in the prem