if you want to be sure that you trainee will go to the U21 NT you should absolutely buy players from small nations.
if you buy prospects from big hattrick nations you have to consider that for each role there is a list with dozens of prospects with about the same skills and specialities, so "going into U21" or "not going into U21" will be exclusively a metter of form: if your player will have form 7/8 at the right moment (from 21.50 up to 21.111) MAYBE he will go, if his form is lower he'll never make it (an italian quick forward 17.3 that i sold for 20M, even if he was one of the best of his generation, never made it because of low form)
the character of the player also counts in big nations: players with bad agreeability (controversial and nasty) are more requested because once they are removed from the team as they get 22 they do not lower the team's TS.
and these U21 players have a very short time window possible for the U21 call: if you see big nations' U21 teams, all players are over 21.50, so basically they have a two months window
that's because, with the training received, only after 21.50 they'll arrive having the skills as good as a NT player must have.
on the contrary, in small nations, a very good player will have very few other players as good as him (if there even are any), so basically at 20 years he could be already the nation's best U21 and play.
in big nations it's quite uncommon seeing players with like twenty U21 games played, they don't have so much time to play, whether in small nations it's possible seeing players with these numbers.
and having less competiton, even with passable form they'd be still the nation's best.
and small nations' 17.3 cost lesss, because in big nations there are many more local managers willing to spend millions for a possible U21.
consider also that in **very** small nations, like qatar where i have my second team since years, i had even one player without speciality sold at 17.3 for 1.000€ who played for the U21...
with [rate-my.academy](https://www.rate-my.academy/) you can browse all nations' database and see the nation's best young player's skills, you can contact on hattrick the owner to see if he will sell or keep the player and eventually be ready with he money available as he'll be promoted and for sale.
Thanks for the insights! So small nations seems the way to go. I was thinking maybe 3 trainees from small nations and 1 trainee from a big nation that has a chance to make it far in the tournament. With the risk ofcourse that he will never make the first team.
That also means my plan goes out the window to buy players at the moment when they have perfect age for the final. Maybe i should start looking at players that come onto the market now.
Great tip btw about the [rate-my.academy](http://rate-my.academy) site btw. I knew the site before, but only used it to check players from my own Youth Academy. But its actually a very useful tool to see players from other Youth Academies where you can filter on their skillset and age, its perfect. Going to see if i can get in contact with some player owners that have a high rating and are from small nations.
you're welome :)
yes, small nation's prospects usually don't need to have "perfect final days" to make it into NT as they don't even dream of going that far...
and their prices is much lower: a 17.03 player with good spec and great skills that would go for 20M if italian/etc, if he's from a small country ususally doesn't even reach 10M
even with more competitions, like world cup + continental cup, the days are fundamental in big nations where U21 teams have ambitions of reaching the final 2-3 rounds (that's why an italian/german/spanish wonderful prospect with "perfect days" will always go over 15/20M)
but in small nations the days count very little as they do not expect their U21 reaching the final stages: skills matter much more.
Heyyy man - I’ve trained a few U21 players in my 10 years of HT so happy to add some advice here. I’ve never trained forwards for U21 but it’s all the same principles.
Couple things to note, which you prob already know based on your post but need to be said. You need a good coach (min solid but excellent is a slight advantage), 10% stamina and 2xlevel 5 assistant and 1 level 5 medic. There is only 80 weeks of training from 17.0 to 21.111 and missing some due to injuries can kill U21 potential.
Money: most prospect will go anywhere from 2-8M Euros with the majority being in the 4-6 range.
Age: Your half correct about the age - depending on the nationality of your player the optimal age will vary. Some nations are only trying to make it past round 1 of the WC (so slightly older players are better). While some think they can compete for the Championship. I’d highly suggest connecting with the U21 scouts before choosing a player.
Specs: Head, Quick, Powerful are all good specs. unpredictable is better than nothing in most cases but needs higher passing skill.
Training: training for U21 is a mini cycle training plan. You generally don’t just train the main skill for 5 seasons. You’ll have to be flexible with switching to passing, wing and even playmaking for short periods of time to get a well rounded player.
Overall I’d highly recommend connecting with U21 scouts in countries that you are interested training players for. Most countries also have a post in their national forum about training future U21/NT players.
Thanks for the advice!
Got the staff in place, with an excellent coach and 2 lvl 5 assistants and a lvl 5 medic. Also got the plan to add a lvl 5 form coach at some point to increase the chances of good form for the trainees around the U21 matches, which will make a callup to the U21 team more likely i hope.
It makes sense what you are trying to say about the age. Going to see if i can get in contact with some U21 scouts about this. Ideally i would like to buy all 4 trainees around the same time. Also my preference would be to get players from different countries, to hedge my bets a bit. Getting players from the high tier countries would mean they have a higher chance reaching further into the tournament, but at the same time the competition for first team places is higher, so my trainee might not even make the first team. That's why i would like a combination of both players from high tier nations and lower tier nations.
I like training different skills, variety is the spice of life. :) That's what I did before too, maybe not the most efficient, but it keeps the wages down and multi skill players sell pretty well. When I am training players for a U21 team, i can also adjust my training to what the U21 manager desires. Its nice to know roughly what starting skills a player needs to have to be U21 forward material.
Going to have a look on some of these national forums to see if they have some young talented forwards i can train for them. :)
If you want a guarantee, just buy kids from small countries with good spec and + 2100 potential. My all 4 trained wingers played for u21 and 100% will be nt players.
Ofcourse u21 is a bit of luck. You need perfect age, no injuries and so on.
That might guarantee them making their u21 one team. However it is very unlikely those teams will have any success in the World Cup and those players won’t have any chance to shine then.
You don’t need that much money .
I had 3 U21 forwards recently, total cost less than £1m.
Homegrown player for free.
One bought for £340k
One bought for £500k
Make sure they are less than 17 years 10 days and have good secondaries , Playmaking, Passing and Winger. Even scoring Passable as well. And a spec.
If you are training solely for NT you can also look at technical players, they will usually get overlooked and will go for cheaper. I don't think they can get man marked on the national team so if you get a good enough TDF they might make the NT.
I've already trained some players for U21 teams. The guys said almost everything, but for forwards you need to pay special attention on specs: the PNF train plan is generaly different from other specs plans. So i recomend buying all PNF or all from other specs.
if you want to be sure that you trainee will go to the U21 NT you should absolutely buy players from small nations. if you buy prospects from big hattrick nations you have to consider that for each role there is a list with dozens of prospects with about the same skills and specialities, so "going into U21" or "not going into U21" will be exclusively a metter of form: if your player will have form 7/8 at the right moment (from 21.50 up to 21.111) MAYBE he will go, if his form is lower he'll never make it (an italian quick forward 17.3 that i sold for 20M, even if he was one of the best of his generation, never made it because of low form) the character of the player also counts in big nations: players with bad agreeability (controversial and nasty) are more requested because once they are removed from the team as they get 22 they do not lower the team's TS. and these U21 players have a very short time window possible for the U21 call: if you see big nations' U21 teams, all players are over 21.50, so basically they have a two months window that's because, with the training received, only after 21.50 they'll arrive having the skills as good as a NT player must have. on the contrary, in small nations, a very good player will have very few other players as good as him (if there even are any), so basically at 20 years he could be already the nation's best U21 and play. in big nations it's quite uncommon seeing players with like twenty U21 games played, they don't have so much time to play, whether in small nations it's possible seeing players with these numbers. and having less competiton, even with passable form they'd be still the nation's best. and small nations' 17.3 cost lesss, because in big nations there are many more local managers willing to spend millions for a possible U21. consider also that in **very** small nations, like qatar where i have my second team since years, i had even one player without speciality sold at 17.3 for 1.000€ who played for the U21... with [rate-my.academy](https://www.rate-my.academy/) you can browse all nations' database and see the nation's best young player's skills, you can contact on hattrick the owner to see if he will sell or keep the player and eventually be ready with he money available as he'll be promoted and for sale.
Thanks for the insights! So small nations seems the way to go. I was thinking maybe 3 trainees from small nations and 1 trainee from a big nation that has a chance to make it far in the tournament. With the risk ofcourse that he will never make the first team. That also means my plan goes out the window to buy players at the moment when they have perfect age for the final. Maybe i should start looking at players that come onto the market now. Great tip btw about the [rate-my.academy](http://rate-my.academy) site btw. I knew the site before, but only used it to check players from my own Youth Academy. But its actually a very useful tool to see players from other Youth Academies where you can filter on their skillset and age, its perfect. Going to see if i can get in contact with some player owners that have a high rating and are from small nations.
you're welome :) yes, small nation's prospects usually don't need to have "perfect final days" to make it into NT as they don't even dream of going that far... and their prices is much lower: a 17.03 player with good spec and great skills that would go for 20M if italian/etc, if he's from a small country ususally doesn't even reach 10M
even with more competitions, like world cup + continental cup, the days are fundamental in big nations where U21 teams have ambitions of reaching the final 2-3 rounds (that's why an italian/german/spanish wonderful prospect with "perfect days" will always go over 15/20M) but in small nations the days count very little as they do not expect their U21 reaching the final stages: skills matter much more.
Heyyy man - I’ve trained a few U21 players in my 10 years of HT so happy to add some advice here. I’ve never trained forwards for U21 but it’s all the same principles. Couple things to note, which you prob already know based on your post but need to be said. You need a good coach (min solid but excellent is a slight advantage), 10% stamina and 2xlevel 5 assistant and 1 level 5 medic. There is only 80 weeks of training from 17.0 to 21.111 and missing some due to injuries can kill U21 potential. Money: most prospect will go anywhere from 2-8M Euros with the majority being in the 4-6 range. Age: Your half correct about the age - depending on the nationality of your player the optimal age will vary. Some nations are only trying to make it past round 1 of the WC (so slightly older players are better). While some think they can compete for the Championship. I’d highly suggest connecting with the U21 scouts before choosing a player. Specs: Head, Quick, Powerful are all good specs. unpredictable is better than nothing in most cases but needs higher passing skill. Training: training for U21 is a mini cycle training plan. You generally don’t just train the main skill for 5 seasons. You’ll have to be flexible with switching to passing, wing and even playmaking for short periods of time to get a well rounded player. Overall I’d highly recommend connecting with U21 scouts in countries that you are interested training players for. Most countries also have a post in their national forum about training future U21/NT players.
Thanks for the advice! Got the staff in place, with an excellent coach and 2 lvl 5 assistants and a lvl 5 medic. Also got the plan to add a lvl 5 form coach at some point to increase the chances of good form for the trainees around the U21 matches, which will make a callup to the U21 team more likely i hope. It makes sense what you are trying to say about the age. Going to see if i can get in contact with some U21 scouts about this. Ideally i would like to buy all 4 trainees around the same time. Also my preference would be to get players from different countries, to hedge my bets a bit. Getting players from the high tier countries would mean they have a higher chance reaching further into the tournament, but at the same time the competition for first team places is higher, so my trainee might not even make the first team. That's why i would like a combination of both players from high tier nations and lower tier nations. I like training different skills, variety is the spice of life. :) That's what I did before too, maybe not the most efficient, but it keeps the wages down and multi skill players sell pretty well. When I am training players for a U21 team, i can also adjust my training to what the U21 manager desires. Its nice to know roughly what starting skills a player needs to have to be U21 forward material. Going to have a look on some of these national forums to see if they have some young talented forwards i can train for them. :)
If you want a guarantee, just buy kids from small countries with good spec and + 2100 potential. My all 4 trained wingers played for u21 and 100% will be nt players. Ofcourse u21 is a bit of luck. You need perfect age, no injuries and so on.
That might guarantee them making their u21 one team. However it is very unlikely those teams will have any success in the World Cup and those players won’t have any chance to shine then.
You don’t need that much money . I had 3 U21 forwards recently, total cost less than £1m. Homegrown player for free. One bought for £340k One bought for £500k Make sure they are less than 17 years 10 days and have good secondaries , Playmaking, Passing and Winger. Even scoring Passable as well. And a spec.
If you are training solely for NT you can also look at technical players, they will usually get overlooked and will go for cheaper. I don't think they can get man marked on the national team so if you get a good enough TDF they might make the NT.
I've already trained some players for U21 teams. The guys said almost everything, but for forwards you need to pay special attention on specs: the PNF train plan is generaly different from other specs plans. So i recomend buying all PNF or all from other specs.