How to train youngsters and develop academy prospects

Buying ready-made players on the transfer market costs money, and in the lower leagues money is tight. The alternative is training youngsters: bringing lads into your academy, helping them develop, promoting them to the first team and turning them into starters or expensive sales. In this guide, we explain how the ELDT academy works, how to train each player and how to put together a sensible week-by-week plan.

It’s the most profitable long-term investment in the game, but it comes with rules. If you know them, in a couple of seasons you can have home-grown prospects in your first team without spending a penny on transfers.

How the academy works

The academy is your youth division: a training ground with a limited number of spots where youngsters develop until they’re ready to move up.

Scouts bring in the prospects

Every 15 days (the 1st and 16th of each month), each hired scout presents you with youth prospects. There are four levels (Junior, Experienced, Senior and Elite) and you can have up to three at once. The higher the level, the more youngsters they bring and the greater the chance of a gem or a star, but any scout can bring a youngster of any potential: the level improves the odds, it doesn’t guarantee the result. Scouts and youngsters are paid a weekly wage, and the training ground has a monthly upkeep cost.

Each youngster arrives with a potential from 5 to 20: average (5-10), decent (11-13), good (14-16), gem (17-18) and star (19-20). Potential is the ceiling, not the current level: a lad with 18 potential may start with a very low OVR. When you look at a prospect, focus on potential and position before the OVR on the day.

How youngsters develop

Youngsters develop every week, on Monday night, getting closer to their potential. What speeds up or slows down that growth:

• Minutes in the Youth Tournament: every match in the week adds extra growth. A regular starter develops much more than someone watching from the sidelines.
• The training ground: each level speeds up growth for all youngsters (up to +50% at level 5) and increases capacity from 15 to 25 spots.
• Age: younger players develop faster; at 16 or under there is a 15% bonus.
• Personality, morale and events: personality can boost or hold back development, high morale helps, and events dealt with quickly speed things up.

The Youth Tournament is played in zones of 16 clubs, home and away, on Thursday and Saturday mornings, with the game’s real engine. Set your line-up in Youths → Youth Line-up: if you don’t, the best automatic XI is used, but setting it yourself is worth it twice over, because you win matches and give minutes to the youngsters you want to develop.

Events and promotion

From time to time, a youngster will bring up an event (discipline, offers, personal issues, performance). If you deal with it within 10 days, the growth penalty is minimal (-10%); between 10 and 20 days, the lad develops much less (-25%); leave it longer and progress slows even more.

When a youngster reaches the minimum age and hits overall 12, he is ready to be promoted. In the first team he stops being a youngster and trains like anyone else. If you’ve got space and he’s already good enough, bring him up and give him minutes; if he’s still raw, let him mature. Youngsters are not sold straight from the academy: first you have to promote them, and only then can you sell them on the transfer market. If one is never going to make it, release him: he still costs a wage in the academy. Full details are in the academy guide.

Training youngsters in the first team: the 7 skills

Once the prospect is in the senior squad, he enters the club’s weekly training. You set a general plan (area and intensity) and it runs automatically on Sundays for everyone except the injured. The seven skills are:

• Goalkeeping: goalkeepers. It does nothing for outfield players.
• Defending: defenders and midfielders. Marking, tackling and positioning.
• Creativity: midfielders. Vision, control and decision-making.
• Passing: the whole squad.
• Wings: full-backs and wingers. Pace and dribbling.
• Finishing: strikers and wingers.
• Set pieces: the whole squad. Free-kicks, corners and penalties.

Each area affects some positions more than others: Finishing for a centre-back does far less than it does for a No 9.

Focus by line, by player or automatic

You don’t have to train the whole squad in the same way. In the By lines tab, you give a different focus to each section (goal, defence, midfield and attack). In the "Trains" column, you assign an area to each player, and it stays saved week by week. If someone is looking very tired, choose "Rest": that week he won’t improve, but he recovers an extra 25 fatigue points. And the Automatic tab makes each player train whatever suits his position best.

The intensities

There are three. Easy trains less (×0,7) and recovers 15 fatigue: that’s the rest week. Normal is the balance (×1,0). Hard trains 30% more (×1,3) but adds 20 fatigue to each player, and with high fatigue there is a greater injury risk; a player who arrives with fatigue of 70 or more trains at Normal even if you choose Hard.

Age and minutes: why youngsters improve faster

Age is the biggest factor in how quickly a player improves. Under 19, training works at full strength (×1,0); from 19 to 22, ×0,9; from 23 to 26, ×0,75; from 27 to 29, ×0,5; from 30 to 32, ×0,25; and from 33 onwards, ×0,1. An 18-year-old grows ten times faster than a 33-year-old veteran on the same plan.

Minutes played during the week also multiply the effect: 90 or more gives ×1,3; from 45 to 89, ×1,15; from 1 to 44, ×1,0; no minutes, ×0,6. League, Copa ELDT and the knockout stage all count in full; friendlies count for a quarter. Minutes in the Youth Tournament do not count, so a promoted prospect needs to play in the first team to get the full benefit of training. A head coach speeds things up for the whole squad, and without one nobody trains with a bonus. More detail in the training guide.

How to put together a training plan

A simple plan for a lower-league club that wants to produce prospects:

1. Hire a scout and a head coach before anything else. Without a scout, no youngsters come in; without a head coach, nobody trains with a bonus.
2. Set the youth line-up every week with your highest-potential youngsters starting, and deal with events in under 10 days.
3. Promote only when you have minutes to give. A promoted youngster with no minutes trains at ×0,6; with 90 minutes, at ×1,3.
4. Give each prospect a fixed focus based on his position and keep it for several weeks: improvements come in tiny steps, and switching areas means none of them stands out.
5. Use Hard only in lighter weeks and Easy when the squad is knackered. Release the ones who will never make it: the academy spots are for real prospects.

Frequently asked questions

How do I raise a player’s level faster?

Youth, minutes and focus. A player under 19 who plays 90 official minutes a week and trains an area that suits his position, with a head coach in place, is the best-case scenario.

What is a youngster’s potential?

It’s the OVR ceiling he can reach, from 5 to 20. It’s not the current level: a lad with 18 potential may start very low. Gem is 17-18 and star is 19-20.

When should I promote a youngster?

When he reaches the minimum age, has overall 12 and you’ve got space and minutes for him. If you’re not going to give him first-team minutes, leave him in the academy playing the Youth Tournament, where he’ll keep developing.

What’s the difference between Easy, Normal and Hard training?

Easy trains at ×0,7 and recovers 15 fatigue; Normal is ×1,0; Hard is ×1,3 but adds 20 fatigue and increases the injury risk. With fatigue of 70 or more, the player trains at Normal even if you choose Hard.

Training youngsters is patience plus method: a good scout, minutes in the Youth Tournament, events dealt with on time and a steady focus once they reach the first team. If you want to build your own academy of prospects, create your club and start shaping your first youngster.