Asunto: Youth team start up

Yeah, I think I could count on one hand the amount of brilliant or better I've ever pulled and that's from over a decade playing. Hope he comes out with a good distribution. Age will work against him though, midway through the season at 19 is going to hurt a bit unless you get a good distribution that makes up for it.

Hi all,

Apologies for reviving this old thread. I used to play sokker many years back and have come back and it's been looking good.

For the sake of the national team pool and myself, I am contemplating creating a youth team to join the league some time next season (once I have the fanbase and funds with league home games). I understand in the past, you could tell the talent of youths from its pops and it never decreases. How do you tell the talent now and if so, does having a team in a youth league give you better indication of talents?

So it use to be a pretty easy way to identify talent as there was almost perfect information (as the only factor was the youth coach general level). Now that still exists in behind but they’ve added “errors” to simulate a coach not really knowing a players true talent. We don’t know about these errors in terms of magnitude other than coach level minimises errors a little (expect not much) as does playing youth games. More game a player plays the more accurate the estimation of level is. Again could be quite small.

So that aside there’s 2 ways you can measure talent now.

1) Easiest method is probably sokker assistente (don’t have the direct link atm can update later today/tonight but it should be easy enough to find in sokker international forum). That tracks all sorts of things for you when it comes to training so long as you’re consistent in updating it.

2) Failing using other 3rd party tools you can use something like excel as well. Requires knowing what you’re trying to achieve though but essentially you map out your data points for what skill a player is every week (and it needs to be consistent) and then graph that, put a trend line in and then determine talent by dividing 1 by the slope coefficient. I mean you can do it in a formula format too without the graph but again that requires more specific knowledge around functions. If this doesn’t make any sense then I refer you to option 1.

3) If option 1 isn’t suitable and option 2 is too technical, your next best option is probably number of weeks youth has been in school / (current level-entrance level) as a real rough approximation but it’s highly prone to being inaccurate.

4) Should all the above fail, I’m happy to help you out if you send me a skmail with the data points for the youth as to what level the youth was every training update.

I recommend option 1 though as it’s the easiest way if you’re time poor or not great with functions in excel.

Bottom line is all these are approximations as you’ll just never know the true talent anymore. You’ll only get a ballpark estimate.

Best way to track talent is to use the user tool created by Terrion Sokker Asistente

https://raqueto.com/sokker/asistente

It does regression analysis for you so you don't have to and it also tracks your regular players too and tries to work out their talent too.

Awesome. Thanks guys for the advice.

It does seem having them in youth league matches provide a good gauge of the positions the youths will succeed once they are out of youth school. The problem is needing the running costs for at least 11 youths per week. I currently have an outstanding coach for youth school as well so the outlay is fairly huge for my team 2 seasons in. Hoping the bonuses and potentially some player sales would help cover the costs.

Pressroom give an update on the potentials of youths coming in as well. Any truth in that?

Ignore press room for junior potential. It’s currently set at a flat rate of 4 for every junior regardless of what their actual talent is. So don’t even look at that.

In terms of matches sometimes you can get an idea but it’s not easy to know for sure. Say a player is doing well tackling (is that because he has defender skill or is it that opposition players have terrible technique?) The only one I can usually pick fairly easily is PM because it inflates player ratings (but so does stamina). Striker might be able to be seen but it again depends on the opposition gk.

Average ratings can give some idea on defending/passing and striking but again it says not much about who has it.

Really just seems to be a play them in a position for a few matches and see what they do before shifting to another position if you’re not convinced they should be in a certain position.

Ah fair enough. Thanks all for the advice! I will have to stick with the lottery for this season and start a team next season!

So yeah just remember with youths you can only get a max of 6 new ones each week (often you don’t get that), so work out what number you’d ideally like to have that you can afford (don’t go over that) and gradually build your numbers up that way and be brutal with who you keep or sack. If you have say 5 juniors currently and you want say 15 max because that’s all you can afford, you’ll first have to set your squad size to 11 (+6 above 5, any higher you pay for slots you won’t use as you can only get 6 a week). Then repeat the process the following week and increment the capacity up to whatever your max limit is. Once there it’s a case of ensuring you pull/sack enough so that every week you have a chance of getting 6 new ones without increasing your capacity. Hence I usually sack the worst projected talents or those that are the worst in my school (eg 18yo tragic) so that I have a chance of bringing in a great player every week. The majority of the time you get garbage but it only takes 1 to turn into a profitable exercise and if you care for our NTs every youth place increases our player pool increasing our chances of winning the lottery.

Yeap makes sense, I do it in increments of 2-3 each time and select those who are 17 years and below (had some 18 year olds that graduate in 30 weeks a couple of times!) Ultimately, my aim is to help the NT and U21. I train pace and probably will do so for another season so it doesn't really matter in terms of profit (Pace with decent def or striker can be marketable i feel). Thanks though for the tip!

I have really enjoyed having a youth academy. I bounce between top and second league, and it gives something interesting to focus on during the season I'm in the lower league and saves me money on buying trainees.

I have 4 players selected in NT sides, pulled a fantastic midfielder last week and have an incredible skilled goalie coming out next week.

I think I was also very lucky to find an unearthly youth coach after only spending a couple of million but started with a formidable or outstanding for a long time (at like 20ish youths I did my first coach upgrade)

Welcome back. :)
Main thing is running the youth school. On div 2 finances you need to be pretty brutal with who you keep each week. It's good to always have 6 open spots, if you can afford it. Then you won't miss any gems, especially in the first 2/3 of the season.

I use Sokker Assistante to track youth talent, which is very useful.

Don't worry too much about the youth team, until you have 11 youths you want to train. It will give a slightly better read of talent and a minor income (3k?). You rarely get a good read on youth talents anyway.

And outstanding is a good level of youth coach to start with.

Good luck with it.

Great insight on the benefits of youth academy! I'm at the point where I don't usually consider changing my training plans for the near future (training pace), but definitely would like the excitement of something else besides playing vs bots on league matches!

Sound like a good yield on your end for youths!

Thanks! :)

Yeap, was thinking about 11-15 youths to start with. Would probably do so next season when bonuses come in! I want to juggle having a stadium build at the end of each season and sustaining a youth team.

Got lazy and just used plus but will get on sokker assistante!

Thank you for the tip! Will do! :)

I mean I think 8 of my starting XI have come from my own youth school. That being said a few of them I could have done better buying off the TL.

I suppose my highlights are my 2 main strikers (Crampton - starting/bench NT player, Greenwood - fringe NT squad member and likely will be bench NT player in a seasons time, Ponting - was our u21 keeper mag have a shot at senior keeper but should make the sl senior squad at some point if he stops getting injured, Renaud and Scuderi - both midfielders with huge chances of making the senior midfield side in a few seasons) All of that is quality from my youth school. However, it is a lottery system. There is no guarantee you’ll get a gun star or several gun stars. Patience is really the key as is careful maintenance by weeding out the not so good ones and keeping space in case of bringing in a good one.