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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Many of the worlds finest clubs have spent hundreds of millions of pounds/euro’s on transfer fees for the world’s best, most elite players in the hope of buying success. Chelsea, both Manchester clubs, PSG, Real, Barcelona, they tend to spend millions to bring in more stars to an already star-studded line-up. Ideally though, a club doesn’t need to rely on splashing the cash but should promote clubs from within, from the academy.

Barcelona used to have its own conveyor belt of talent in La Masia, its renowned youth academy. The harsh reality of the moment is that the Catalans’ academy is not producing young footballers of a good enough standard to walk tall in the first team right now. I feel sorry for any youngsters in the Juvenil A (U19) or Barca B teams that play in a forward, attacking role at present because there’s quite a few years left yet of the Messi-Neymar-Suarez trident and unless any one of the three suffers a catastrophic season-ending injury, no one is going to get a look in up front.

The fact is that there are plenty of graduates coming through but the conveyor belt is supplying Europe’s other clubs and not the team for which the players were developed. Perhaps it is the need for immediate and continued success that is driving the business model of the club in terms of its transfer policy at the moment.

That’s beyond the point I am trying to make though, as I want to focus on setting up such a conveyor belt of talent in Football Manager. If you want to look at a club structure which focusses on setting up a great youth academy system, which factors need to be considered, which steps should be undertaken and what the correct course of action is. (more…)