Youth

Youth Squad

You can acquire a new player each week by moving a junior player up into the senior squad. The better the youth squad activities are, the better the chances of the junior player succeeding. You don't have any choice in what kind of junior player you'll get, apart from choosing between a goalkeeper or an outfield player. Don't count on receiving top-notch players each week. Most junior players you try out won't qualify for the team. If you have one or two of them moving directly up into the team you should be satisfied - think about how things work in reality!

Most clubs put a lot of money into their youth squad, but there are also those who spend less money or none at all, buying reinforcements from the transfer lists instead. However, if you do decide to build up your junior player structure, be prepared that it might take some time before your investment pays off with reasonably able juniors. You may find there's little point in moving juniors up if your youth squad status is "poor", for instance. On the other hand after considerable investment, a 17 year old player who has at least one excellent skill, pulled on the first week of a season may be very valuable as they have a good chance of making their country's U20 team.

Every week you're allowed to make a large (20 000 €), medium (10 000 €), or small (5 000 €) investment in your junior squad. Many small investments are more efficient than a few large ones. In other words, it's wise to make long-term plans - if you're willing to invest a lot of future funds into increasing junior player activities, large investments can be a way to get results quickly. If you want to build up a decent structure gradually, without spending too much money, make a small investment each week. The upkeep of the youth squad won't automatically cost you anything, but if you don't make sure of regular funding, the structure will deteriorate quite rapidly. Once the level of the youth squad has dropped, it will take a long time to raise it again. The amount of time required for improvements is discussed in the page on youth squad improvements.

You're only able to promote one junior player per week. If you don't change the amount, the amount invested the previous week will be drawn.

It'll cost the club 2 000 € to move a junior up.

Information on your youth squad activities can be found in the "Your club" menu, under "The Club" caption. This is also where you enter the amount of money you want invested into the youth squad, and where you move them up from, each week.

A theory is that the distribution of each skill of a youth pull is an exponential (or a Poisson, if we prefer to remain into discrete distributions), with the level of the youth setup influencing the parameter of the exponential distribution.

Another theory is to pull Goalkeepers whilst your youth squad is lower than solid. The reason behind this is that only one skill is ever relevant, rather than all seven. A passable keeper will usually sell, whilst an outfielder with passable stamina, and 6 poor skills will not.

Plumbers and Golfers

Shockingly, even excellent youth squads may produce, week by week, suprisingly pathetic youth pulls. Many managers complain about their youth squad investment, decrying the level of players they pull as a waste of money, time, effort, and hopes. Even most inadequate youth pulls (17 year old goalkeepers or multi skilled players are an exception) are usually sent directly to the golf course or the local pub to spend the rest of their adult lives as miserable losers. The luckier ones end up chasing young blondes around said pub.

However, not all of Hattrick's drop-outs turn to become lazy bums. Many disastrous players have foreseen the future failure and prepared an altenative job. These players TSI sum usually does not mount much above 40, and most (And not very rarely all) of their skills hits "wretched" at most. These players are called by the HT-players by their possible alternative jobs - Plumbers, Carpenters, Politicians and so forth...

The Youth Academy

You have the possibility to let your youth team play in a youth division, together with your friends. You can create these divisions yourself, and the amount of teams playing in a division will vary between 4 and 16. The largest divisions can only be created by ‘Hattrick Supporters’, but all users can join them. Divisions can be made private, so only teams that are invited can join. You can also choose the exact moment when league matches will be played, up to 5 minutes accuracy. You will play a league match every week, and every three weeks have the opportunity to play a youth friendly as well. Only after 11 weeks (i.e. 11 scout reports) your youth team will be completely filled with your own youth players. Until then your youth team will be filled up with ‘the neighbour’s kids’. These are players, who for the most part, are without considerable capacities. Every week you will have the possibility either to let your scouts search for a talent for your youth team (new system), or to promote a player from your youth squad (old system) to your A team. Apart from that, you will be able to promote a player from your youth team (new system) to your A team, at least if he has been there long enough. Both systems can be managed parallel, but only one youth pull per week is possible. Which system you choose can differ from week to week, and will be determined by pulling a player in one of the systems. This also means that you’re not obliged to use one of the systems. The parallel system might disappear in the future. The youth players will not receive any wages, but the youth matches won’t give any profit either. The youth team will be mostly independent from the A team: matters as team spirit and flag collections will be independent, at least if they are implemented, which is not a certitude.

Only after a certain time you will have the chance to promote youth players to your A squad, because they must reach a minimum age of 17 and be in your youth squad for one season. Probably it’s best to wait until the player is fully-grown, then it’s possible that he’s even older than that. But such a player has advantages: he can be trained on more than one skill and he will be better than the average youth pull from the current youth squad. On the other hand, you won’t get such a player every week. On the long term, this means that there will be less youth players, but their average level will be better. Players in the youth team also have a cap for their qualities in a certain skill: at a certain moment the player won’t improve anymore, because he has learned everything there is to learn about that skill. Because you can’t see the skill of a youth player, you will have to watch his performances to determine whether you should stop training him on a skill or not. It’s impossible to sell or buy players who are in the youth team. Also, the transfers between your youth squad and the A squad is one way traffic, i.e. you can’t place any players from your A team in your youth team. The training type for your youth players is independent from the training type for your A squad. Similar to the older players, youth players will have a chance to get injured or get cards in matches.

The scouts will supply you with new players for your youth team. The maximum number of scouts will be 3. When you ask for the scout reports, they will present you their player one by one, and provide comments on each player. For each presented player you will have the choice either to accept him or to send him away hoping that one of the next scouts presents you a better player. Be careful, once you’ve rejected a player, there’s no possibility to take him back. If you choose to check the scout reports, you can’t do a youth pull in the old system that week, even if you reject all the presented players. You’re not obliged to have 3 scouts. If you have less than 3 scouts your wage cost for your scouts will be lower, but the chance of finding real talent will also be reduced. The total cost for 3 scouts will be similar to the cost of the current youth squad.

See also

• Youth Academy
• Scout comments