mitja

ire, if your youngsters are dedicated persons, love to play and train, dont have injury problems, bla, bla they should become at least decent players if you're managing a EPL team.

no one would hear of Ronaldinho talent, if he was from Mongolia and played there. there is no PA ire.

zoopaloola

In my opinion the CA situation is fine as it is, it's the PA thats the problem. Take Carlos Vela from asenal who is a -10, in my opinion he should not be automatically set with such a high potential where excepting a mjor injury he is bound to become world class long term. Players should have a PA which is not specifically defined, ie. Vela could have a PA between -9 and -10, depending on how thing go for him (first team oppurtunities, form, good training etc) and someone like Christantus could be between -8 and -10 in that he could become world class but more than likely he will just be a good player. Even a player in the blue square north/south should have the ability to be able to play at a high level, although this should be extremely rare.

Neb

I'm almost certain that if you got an average 16 year old lad from the conference who had the right mentality and the right physiology (right height, natural fitness, etc) and let him train with the Arsenal youth team for a couple of years you would end up with a player capable of league 1 standard. The key bits are - mentality - natural fitness - training. You'd end up with the same step change that the arsenal youngsters would go through in the same period. However the conference lad would be starting from a lower level of skill.

That makes sense to me. As all of the Arsenal youngsters would have been in training since 8/9 years old, the conference lad might have just finished his GCSEs... A better youth academy would kick out better young players, the better youth training facilities would help those players train to be better in conjunction with level of staff, but the biggest impact of a players development should be a players attitude. The way it is in real life. You might then get young players that start out really good (francis jeffers?) but actually get worse, due to bad man handling, too much pressure, injuries that while not career threatening, knock a youngster back a year, makes them less of a prospect, which starts a downward spiral to lower league footy. It also means that players that were mishandled earlier on in their career, might not make the grade and drop down a league or two, only to get the right opportunities and become world class! Thats what happened to shearer. I heard that he was released from Newcastle because he didn't make the grade (notice I said HE didn't make the grade, not that all of the newcastle coaching staff and youth coaching staff made a mistake with judging his ability as I doubt that would happen, although it does in FM at the moment) He went to southampton(?) scored a few goals, the rest is history!

A simple way to measure potential = Current skill + (rate of improvement * years left till end of youth contract or cut off point) if a player isn't looking like he's going to make the grade you'd bin him. simple as that!

I see FM as a simulation before a game (sounds a bit sad I know!) you don't base a simulation on flawed logic if you can possibly help it, I'm sure back when I discovered CM it was the best solution as my 100mhz pentium probably couldn't handle anything more! Its now 12 years later! You'd think that with FMlive on its way now would be an ideal time to have a look at something different.