Thema: Juniors

I've never bothered with this previously. At the start of the week I set my intake to 6 and was hoping that some juniors were going to turn up, as of yet, none have done so. I'm sure the news will get out and they will do so in time though ;-) But then what, what am I actually looking for? I mean, how do I judge what is a good junior and how do I weed out the gems from the mush?

Thanks.

Good old junior school help, my forte ;)

As a fairly new player, you need to get yourself an affordable youth coach. When looking to hire a youth coach the only stat you are interested in is the general appraisal, not the actual skills themselves. This is the opposite when looking for a head coach.

I would look for something like a formidable coach, there are plenty on the transfer list with wages between £5k-£7k and these will cost you peanuts to buy.

Juniors only enter your school on a Saturday morning, once per week. You can get anything from 0 to 6 juniors. Feel free to leave it set on 6, but for money saving, i would look at maybe only keeping 3 free spaces all the time i.e. next week if 2 join on Saturday, set it to 6 (whatever you do, don't set it lower than the number you have in your school at present or you will lose some of your juniors!).

The junior school system changed a couple of years ago, so coaches now only estimate the juniors progress. The better the coach, the better they do this (citation needed). You are only ever going to know if a junior is anything close to talented if they have been in school for 10 weeks minimum. Even then you can't be sure. This is because they may join the school as an "adequate" but this in itself is an estimation that can be as much as 2/3 levels too high or too low (highest skill they can join is "good", although due to the estimates now, you can get juniors that start at "solid").

You have to look for trends between the ups and downs, or more accurately, note the starting skill and exit skill and divide by the amount of weeks.

As an example, and taking away the estimations of the coach explained above, if you have a junior that joined as 'adequate' and leaves at 'formidable' after 20 weeks, we could say his talent is 20 (weeks in school) / (skill levels risen by 6 to 11) 5 = 4. This is pretty much the max talent you can get with a formidable coach. Anything over 6 would be deemed untalented.

Everyone has different opinions on what to keep and what to sack but it is dependant on your expectations. Some players you might sack straight away as an established team, would be worth keeping if you are a fairly new team, as they are more likely to make it straight in to your trainee set-up, or even first team.

Personally, i don't keep any juniors that start aged 18 whatever the starting level or weeks in school, to ensure the ones that i do promote are as young as possible for future training.

You need to hypothesise what level any junior could promote at by taking their weeks and dividing it by 6 (worst "talent" i would keep with a formidable coach) to get approximate exit level.

I keep around these rough boundaries but maybe drop a level for each for you/new teams; age/estimated exit level (minimum)/weeks in the season:

16 - any - 0-5
16 - average - 5-10
16 - good - 10-15
17 - solid - 0-5
17 - very good - 5-10
17 - excellent - 10-15
18 - formidable - all weeks
19 - outstanding - all weeks
20 - incredible - all weeks
21 - brilliant (yes, it's possible)

Remember that youths age with all players at the end of the season, so a good junior pulled on week 0 is far more valuable than the same level and age pulled at week 14.

I am a massive fan of the youth system (less so since it was changed) but i think it is vital for a new team to establish their selves. You can get lucky and pull a youth worth £1m+ on the market which you wouldn't be able to do easily by joining a cheap young player and training them.
(Edith war hier)

Many thanks for that, much appreciated.

The other day I hired an Outstanding coach so I already have him in place. I just need the young whipper snappers to show up now ... come on ... I don't bite I promise ...

That is a very good guid above but I would say the expectations are a little high... While your getting used to the youth school it might be best to ask a few of use about some of the youths you get in, as at the start it might be worth keeping a few of the weaker ones...

How were they?

I agree actually. I will tweak my note above. It's pretty much my guidelines so could be a level lower for newer teams.
(Edith war hier)

No idea, 2 juniors turned up though

However, my coach assesses them as Unsatisfactory and Weak so I assume they are both for the garbage can especially as they are both 17 ...
(Edith war hier)

Maybe keep the weak one if he has 15+ weeks to go?

Other than that, yeah, bin.

I'll be keeping all juniors for the moment though as I need to get my junior numbers up before I can join a junior league.

Good shout. Forgot about that ;)

I know which one will be cut first already!!! He's just gone from unsatisfactory to hopeless ...

They NEVER actually get worse its just that your coaches are not very good at estimating players...also I think from memory lower level coaches and players that have not played junior games are even more prone to fluctuation....

Fair enough, but I still can't imagine that he can be very good if my coach is estimating him to be hopeless :-)

True :)

This might take awhile! I don't think the word has got out yet that my junior school is open as only 1 junior turned up today and he was only estimated to be hopeless as well :-( So now have 3, 2 hopeless and 1 weak. I think my first junior team match might be a cricket score if I keep getting hopeless guys.

have you definitely got a junior coach?

and your school has sensible number of spaces?