In a career that lasts more than one season, every club has a youth academy. Each season a new intake of teenagers arrives, most of them long shots and a few of them special. Spotting the right ones and giving them a path to the first team is one of the most rewarding parts of a long career.
How the academy works
At the start of each season your academy receives a new intake of young players, usually sixteen or seventeen years old. Bigger clubs attract better kids: a club at the top of the league will see more high-potential prospects than one fighting relegation.
Each prospect has a current rating and a scouted potential, shown as a range. The range is the scouts' best guess at how good he could become. It narrows as he plays and the scouts learn more about him.
Reading the verdicts
Each prospect gets a short verdict based on the top of his potential range.
- Wonderkid. A potential world-class player.
- Top prospect. Very likely to become a strong first-team player.
- Promising. Could make it with time and minutes.
- Long shot. Unlikely, but not impossible.
Promote or release
Open Squad and then the Academy tab. For each prospect you can do one of two things.
- Promote to first team. He joins your squad on a two-season prospect contract and can be picked in your line-up straight away.
- Release him to free up the place.
Anyone still in the academy at twenty moves on by himself, so there is no point keeping a prospect for ever. Your first team has a maximum size, so promoting a prospect may mean selling or releasing someone else first.
How young players develop
Every season, players develop. Young players with high potential improve, and they improve faster when they play. Veterans slowly decline and eventually retire. A seventeen-year-old rated in the sixties with a potential in the high eighties can become a regular starter in two or three seasons, if he gets minutes along the way.
Giving prospects minutes
You do not have to start a teenager every week. Bring him on from the bench, start him against weaker opposition and rotate him in during a busy run. Every appearance helps his development and narrows his scouted potential.
Rewards
Promoting a prospect the scouts rate very highly earns the Wonderkid achievement. An academy graduate who plays twenty league matches in a season earns Homegrown. And a player who comes through your academy and stays at the club for years is the best story a long career can tell.
Building a pipeline
The best long careers have prospects at every stage: a sixteen-year-old just arrived, a nineteen-year-old ready for the bench, and a twenty-two-year-old graduate in the first team. Promoting one good prospect each season is usually better than promoting several at once and finding minutes for none of them.
Think about positions too. If your first-choice centre-back is thirty-one, a highly rated centre-back in the academy is worth more to you than another winger.
Common mistakes
- Promoting everyone. A first team full of teenagers who never play does not help anyone, and they use up squad places.
- Never playing them. A prospect on the bench all season develops slowly, and his potential range stays wide.
- Selling too early. A promising seventeen-year-old sold for a small fee can be worth ten times more at twenty-two.
- Ignoring the range. A wide range with a high top end is a gamble. A narrow range near the top is a safer bet.
When to sell a prospect
Not every prospect will make it at your club. If a young player is blocked by better players in his position and you cannot give him minutes, selling him can fund a signing where you need one. Young players with high potential attract interest from other clubs, sometimes from abroad.
Academy tips
- Check the academy at the start of every season: the intake does not wait for you.
- Promote the best prospect early and give him minutes.
- Release long shots rather than letting them fill the academy.
- Remember the first-team limit when you promote.