There's been plenty of debate about whether it's a good idea to invest in youth pulls. And plenty of debate about deflation. But most of the deflation talk is about higher-skilled players, not youth pulls. While the money is bigger with higher-skilled players, it's nothing to change the fundamental way the game is played (Buy young. Train. Sell. Repeat.). But the deflation in prices for youth pulls seems to have the potential of having a huge effect on the way people play the game--most people unthinkingly drop $20k a week into funding their youth squad and then pull every weekend, hoping to get lucky. I just finished training defending, so I'm training through passes right now and through the start of next season until I can assemble some PM trainees I'd like to use. I've been looking for some short-term trainees, 18 or 19yo's, whom I can train from weak passing to inadequate or inadequate to passable, so I'm using all of my training spots (19 a week: 4-5-1 in league, 5-5-0 in friendlies). I don't want to spend a huge amount of money, so I'm just looking for solids and excellents in PM or scoring. And I'm shocked at how low the prices are. When I pulled a solid winger a few weeks ago, I couldn't sell him. I just chalked it up to pure wingers going out of fashion. But there are solid PM's on the market for $2000 or $3000. It used to be that a solid youth pull was a great pull, the one that funded your youth pulls for at least a couple of weeks. Now it doesn't even come close to covering costs. And good luck trying to get anything for an inadequate or passable. So, in brief: Aside from hoping to get a great YP for your country, is there any reason to invest in youth right now?
Pulling an american trainee, training him up, selling him to someone in the upper leagues that is looking to get American players only, something I'm gonna start switching towards slowly. That's just one thing. I'll post some results from my youth pull study that I've been doing, I know I had a solid guy sell that has funding a lot of my youth system.
I think the youth pull will remain because far too many people like actually making the pulls other than that, its necessary to keep HT afloat.
Deflation has made my team what it is - a fourth division also-ran. When I see what I was dropping $7M for a few years ago, I don't know whether to cry or puke.
I wish I had not started to invest in my youth squad so early, maybe not even at all. I could have done much better things with that money so far. The only good thing about it is that it's interesting to pull youths, but money wise it's certainly not worth it if you could use the money for other profitable stuff (for examples trainees). It might be worth it in the long run if money is not an issue in the short run.
Oh, come on. If this was true, my team would be a heck of a lot better than it is right now. Even 32yo solid PMs go for 20k+...
this week i pulled a mid solid 21 y/o keeper, gave him free training in my friendly, and failed to sell him for an asking price of $75k. when i transfer compare him i see a lot of solid keepers going for prices in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. is it normal for keeper prices to fall this much at the end of the season, or have prices for solid keepers really fallen that much? i remember them going for an average of close to $100k not too long ago.
I bought this guy for $4k: Jules Barnes (100356730) 19 years, passable form, healthy A controversial person who is fiery and upright. Has disastrous experience and inadequate leadership abilities. Nationality: USA Total Skill Index (TSI): 160 Wage: 560 US$/week Owner: Metairie United AFC Warnings: 0 Injuries: Healthy Stamina: disastrous Goalkeeping: disastrous Playmaking: solid Passing: weak Winger: poor Defending: wretched Scoring: poor Set Pieces: weak Granted, he pretty much sucks--no one would want to pay top dollar for an IM with that little stamina, but solid PM can be gotten very cheap. And sure, part of the reason prices are bad is because of the time in the season. But even then, YP prices have crashed bigtime.
No one cares, but, I haven't had a Swede on my team since my first season. Not that I'm one of those anti-Swede knee-jerkers, but when I started, every team was full of Johanssons and Hendrikssons and Thomassons, and they seemed pretty interchangeable. So I decided to be an anti-Swede bigot. For two seasons, I had the only D.II team in the US (and, for all I knew, the world) without a single Swede. I'm in D.IV now, so ask me how that worked out in the long run.
The reference was to all the Swedish team managers, they seem to be the ones complaining the most, not the actual 1010101 players.
Oh, yeah. I knew that. *cough* Big Swedish managers have every reason to fear change, though. If my little fourth division dog and pony show struggles with wages, I can only imagine what the Mount Olympus divine squads dealt with.
A friend of mine is in II.2 in Denmark who has never had a Swede on his team. EVER. So it is definitely possible to do well. Of course there are a bunch of good players from Denmark too...