Youth Squad
With youth squad (YS) you can promote each week, at the cost of 2 000 € of US$, a junior player up into the senior team.
Investment
The upkeep of the youth squad won't automatically cost you anything, but make sure you can afford to fund it regularly, because the structure deteriorates quite quickly when investments are cut. Once the investment is stopped, the level of the youth squad will rapidly drop and it will take a long time to raise it again.
Every week you're allowed to make in your junior squad a large investment of 20 000 €, a medium one of 10 000 €, or small one of 5 000 € investment. Many small investments are more efficient than a few large ones.
Prepare to be very patient as it might take some time before your investment pays off with reasonably able juniors.
Level
Even if we only talk about probabilities, the better the level of youth squad, the greater the chances to pull out a good player are. 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.
Improvements
When you do decide to build up your junior player structure, it will take some time to see improvements in your squad. On the maximum investment level (€20k), it will take 2 seasons to rise to the top level. The amount of time required for improvements to next level is the folliwing:
Level Change | Week | Seasons |
Disastrous to Wretched | 1 week | 1 season |
Wretched to Poor | 1 week | |
Poor to Weak | 1-2 week | |
Weak to Inadequate | 2 weeks | |
Inadequate to Passable | 3-4 weeks | |
Passable to Solid | 5-6 weeks | |
Solid to Excellent | 16 weeks | 2 seasons |
Many small investments are more efficient than a few large ones. 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.
Note that with minimum investment (€5k), your squad will only rise to inadequate, and with medium investment (€10k), the squad will not improve beyond passable.
Dropping your YS investment from maximum investment to 0 will cause your YS to deteriorate by one level per week. If you then decide to start re-investing, you'll find that increasing the levels takes just as long second time around as it did the first.
Promotion
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.
A suggestion 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.
See Also
- List of Best pulls ever.
- Youth Academy alternative system.