Youth Squad
Once your academy is built, it starts finding young players for your club. How they reach your first team depends on which of the two youth systems your game runs: with talent points you sign the players you want, and with a youth programme players train at the academy and the best of them graduate. Your academy page, under Club > Youth Facility, shows which one you have.
Signing players with talent points
Each week your academy may find new candidates, listed on the academy page with their position and how good they could be. A candidate stays on the list for three weeks, so sign the ones you want before they are gone.
When you sign a candidate, his exact rating is settled: usually around the middle of his range, but sometimes higher or lower. He joins your first-team squad at 15 on a four-year contract, on lower wages than an established player.
Whether a 15-year-old can play depends on the game: in most he must wait until he is 16, and in some he can play friendlies. The Youth Players In Matches setting on the game info page shows the rule in yours. Players aged 15 cannot be loaned out either.
The youth coach: when you sign a candidate, a youth coach may boost his rating, and the better the coach, the more likely the boost and the bigger it is.
The youth programme
New players join your academy at 16, as long as it has room, and train for 40 weeks. Each week a player earns progress points, and his row on the youth squad list shows how he is doing: his points so far, how many he gained last week, and a bar against the progress he needs. A player who misses a week through injury earns nothing that week.
At the end of the 40 weeks, a player who has made enough progress graduates to your first team on a four-year contract. The better your academy, the more he is worth. A player who has not made enough progress leaves the academy.
At the halfway point, after 20 weeks, you can let a player go if he is falling behind, to make room for someone new. This is the only time you can let him go early.
Players at the academy do not play matches until they graduate, and you do not pay them wages: the academy's running cost covers them.
The youth coach: a youth coach lets you steer the academy, in the way his speciality allows:
- Playing positions: choose a position, and more of the new players will play there.
- Playing styles: choose a style, and more of your graduates will have it.
- Talent nurturing: choose between steady progress each week, or a riskier mix of big and small weeks.