So far, my Emulating La Masia series has looked at various factors that help you in developing your youngsters. However for all the promise of youth development and improved standards, the development of players is the ‘easy part’, it is integrating them into the first team which matters most. Teams like Manchester City, Chelsea, Real Madrid and ironically enough in recent times Barcelona snap up top talents on a global scale and excel in various youth competitions, but in my eyes youth development is not about winning competitions, it’s about preparing players for professional football and I cannot remember too many academy players breaking into the first team in recent years at any of these sides.

Although the academy teams of these clubs can be regarded as being amongst Europe’s best and in terms of facilities and coaching they most certainly are, what is the point of having a youth academy if you do not attempt to produce players for your first team? If their youth development efforts are so impressive then it begs the question as to why there are so few youth academy prospects breaking into the first team.

Clubs need to find a way to bleed more youngsters into their team, to bridge the gap between youth and senior football much more effectively and as sides like Chelsea and Man City are showing, for all the money spent on facilities, coaching, and wages if they cannot integrate these young players into the first team squad then what really is the point? In terms of this article, we will look at the influence of first team football on the development of our youth players.

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In this installment of Emulating La Masia I want to focus on an often overlooked factor in a player’s development; the tutoring by a more experienced squad member. If you want to look at the importance an experienced player can make in terms of tutoring the youngsters, look no further than the Ajax ’95 team. After the sale of Bergkamp to Internazionale in 1993, Van Gaal re-signed the experienced Frank Rijkaard to complement his young Ajax team featuring academy graduates Frank and Ronald de Boer, Edwin van der Sar, Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, Michael Reiziger, and Winston Bogarde, as well as mercurial foreign talents Finidi George, Nwankwo Kanu and Jari Litmanen, and veteran captain Danny Blind. The team regained the Dutch championship in 1993–94, and won it again in 1994–95 and 1995–96 to become the first Ajax side to win three back-to-back championships since 1968. The height of Van Gaal’s success came in 1994–95, where Ajax became the first, and to date only, team to complete an entire Eredivisie season unbeaten. The team also won its first European Cup since its glorious 1970s era, beating Milan in the 1995 UEFA Champions League Final 1–0, with the winning goal scored by 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert.

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In part five of the Emulating La Masia series we zoom in on the requirements players should have and more importantly, how you can polish the precious raw diamonds your recruitment efforts have yielded, turning them into players who can effortlessly slide into first team. There is some overlap with the previous post, especially the part detailing the tactical identity. There will be a few WTF-moments this post, but bear with me.

I have set up a four step proces to look at the requirements and tailor all the factors to suit my needs.

1. Step 1: determine which roles are required;
2. Step 2: set your training regimes;
3. Step 3: work with the players ready for first team action;
4. Step 4: assess the performances of the players;
5. Repeat ad infinitum if necessary.

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One of those often overlooked yet absolute crucial parts of Football Manager is the star of part four of Emulating La Masia. In this article we look at determining “how you want to play.” One of the more alluring aspects of football and therefore of Football Manager is the almost infinite number approaches to the games. When executed to perfection, nearly each and every of these approaches can set you on the road to victory and glory. There is no uniform way to play the game and the game is better and more interesting for it.

It is important if not crucial that you choose one clear path to success. If you want to execute a plan to perfection, you need to iron out the details instead of cobbling a concept together and making the details up along the way. Youth development is about long term planning, which means you need to sort out your goals, your philosophy and your means to achieve your set goals. That’s what we will be focussing on in this article.

We will look at creating a tactical identity, a distinctive style and setting long term goals and policies.

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The second factor that influences and actively enhances the quality of your youth players is the staff you employ, both to run the daily training sessions and to help with the intake of new youth players. Consistently high-level training-sessions help you raise the attributes of your players, both in general and when you employ specific role- or attribute-training. That means you need to find as many good coaches as you can and use these coaches effectively, whereas the quality of the intake is partially determined by the Head of Youth Department, which makes him a quite important staff member. These are the subjects I want to look at in this part of the series. Where to look at when you recruit coaches, how to use the coaches once you get them and what makes a good Head of Youth Department?

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Part two in my Emulating La Masia series focusses on the first factor that influences and actively enhances the quality of your youth players; the facilities. There are several options the board offers you that help you increase the position and standing of your youth academy. This article will look at these options and how they can help you in establishing a powerhouse youth academy. We will look at the Youth Training, the Youth Facilities and the Youth Recruitment.

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