100 Youth Tournaments for FM21: Manage Your Youth Team

Hello! Welcome to this new mod. There is a lot of information here, so take your time, and read through slowly.

Introduction:

In FM, youth team management is almost non-existent.
Most youth team schedules are completely empty. For those who have youth divisions, they receive 1 match every week or 2! Generally, you're stuck arranging endless friendlies. And when youth can join your senior squad, use their better facilities, and still play the odd youth match, why have a devoted youth team?

Whether at top division or low divisions, you only have 2 options to develop youth:
1. Loan them out - to a lower division team who will leave them on the bench, use them in a wrong position, or injure them. Even if they do play often, you often still have to pay their wages, which is unfeasible for a lesser club.
2. Find a way to put them in the first team - Because youth divisions have poor reputation, and matches are few and far between, the only way to keep them is to put them in the first team. A 16yr old regular in the first team may happen once in a while in real life. But do you see Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Manchester City abandoning their 26+ year old players in favor of a teenage first 11? This is not very realistic!

In FM it's also a huge money sink, so 90% of clubs can't afford a youth team. There is no incentive to keep any youth players with less than good CA/PA, have a full 11/22-player youth team, or work hard to make sure they do well in the youth division.

Yet in real life, so many clubs(big or small) realize the importance of loans, but also the value of developing their youth in their own youth teams. They keep them at the club, focusing on intense training, preparing for tournaments and matches, to build their players into ones fit for the first team. World wide, clubs from very low levels have youth teams. Even teams from England's level 8 division have 300+ youth of all ages! They pay for better youth facilities, better coaches, better staff, join youth divisions, organize division cups, hold award ceremonies, and enter their players in any of the 1000's of youth tournaments sponsored by UEFA every year. Amateur teams from Luxembourg, Ghana, and many other very small nations, have the ability
to send their youth to tournaments in Europe, and rely on them to train and grow their players, as they have worse training facilities and setup than the big clubs.

Now, you can be like them!

You can manage a youth team! You can train your players, create tactics, pick starting positions, rotate the squad, and apply all your manager knowledge and strategy to the youth level.
You can let your seniors keep their rightful spots, and take time with youth: gradually molding them into your club's DNA, as they form relationships, perfect their play style, earn reputations, and win against the best, in their quest to become the next wonderkid!

Database Features

Realistic Profiles: Every tournament has realistic host nations, locations, stadium sizes, participants, logos, and color schemes.

Real Stadiums & Real Competitions: Playing in real stadiums means 0-3,000 people may attend the matches, based on clubs playing, tournament reputation, and stage.

Variety: Participants vary every year, and every competition. You can play against any team, in over 30 nations in Europe and around the world.

Winning Matters: Winning brings more experience than dumping out early. Winners of Elite competitions have their names put into the history books, but those in lower caliber tournaments don't.

Nation Reputation: Lower divisions are added based on nation importance/reputation in FM. Nigeria may only receive 1st division matches, but England receives down to the 5th division.

Competition Reputation: Every tournament is given a reputation based on a hierarchy system. 3rd Division tournaments have the least value, Elite have the most.

• Elite tournaments may be televised in the later stages.
  
• Most tournaments start with a 4-match group stage. After that, every one of the 4 remaining matches your team must earn!
  
• Battling in the IberCup can give youth teams from "underdog" clubs the chance to play against the big boys and earn a spot in the World Final.
  
• Tournaments are set up so that you can pick which categories you want to use, and not have to use all of them if you don't want to.
  
• Youth teams are always used, unless there is no default youth team. Then the Senior team is used. For example, USA, South Africa, etc.
  

NEW Manager Strategies

Devise a strategy on how to best spend your time between the senior and youth team.

Clubs in the lower divisions or small nations will not necessarily need a full-time youth team. These tournaments will instead give their players more experience, and more chance to develop.

Setting up a team that has players in proper positions, is cohesive, has enough quality, and has a solid tactic is now important.

Because more matches are better, your tactics have to be spot on, so your team can win.

Cups are dynamic. One year, your team may have 5 cups to play, another 2, another 0. You will have to vary your methods each year. Do you loan? Keep them to play the cups? Focus on training?

Big clubs in top divisions may need a full 25-player squad to handle all the fixtures.

Senior division performance, reputation, and youth setup now matter for your youth: Each of the cups allow clubs based on any one of those categories. Investing in youth facilities may give you a ticket to a tournament. Or, your senior team may earn your youth side a trip to one of the most prestigious ones!

Your player's reputation will increase some, so it will be even harder to keep them from being poached!

More scouting options available. Which youth tournaments do you scout to find the latest wonderkid?

The "can play in reserves" loan clause now has value. If you loan a player, does that club have several cups or high quality ones to play in? Can your player get even more match experience than just a rotation spot for their loan club?

Match Reports for your youth team are now important. Before it was "oh, boy, Jimmy scored a goal in some low division friendly…I care why?" Now it's "OMG Jimmy scored a goal against Real Madrid's B team to make it to the Final! LET'S GO!"

Youth player's performance in youth cups can indicate how they will fare in a senior match. Have they proven themselves ready for first team football?

Balancing training vs matches is a new management issue.

All tournaments allow full substitutions, to encourage development of many players, and ease fixture congestion issues. But you will still need a starting 11, how long to play them, and who to give less minutes to.

You now have to decide when to pull them from the youth team. Did you set the correct Player Pathway? Do you bring them as a sub for the first team? Is it better to let them develop in the youth team longer?

The days of mind-numbingly arranging friendlies over and over every year is now...reduced.

Club Visions to sign youth for the future, should now be more reasonable and easier to accomplish

Staff

Youth staff are more important, and who you hire matters.

Having youth physios and managing injuries is now a thing.

If you want to be hands off, hiring a youth team manager is important. With matches to play, a team to manage, and fixture congestion, he needs the ability to man manage, rotate, create a good tactic, and identify talent!

AI

Nations and divisions with little opportunities to develop their youth now have many more.

Youth from lesser nations should have better development, so searching for a good squad player in a small nation may be a great strategy!

Youth that leave your club just to rot in an AI club's reserves should be reduced...to an extent…

The poor youth development of AI clubs, compared to a human-managed club, should be improved.

NEW UPDATES For FM21

• Removed never-ending Suspension issues
  
• Added grant money to cover travel expenses for ALL tournaments
  
• Reworked 90% of tournaments' team selection logic
  
• Improved scheduling
  
• Varied teams to spread tournaments better
  

and more

How to Use These Files

Of course you can use as many however you wish. But, if you are only going to load 1 or 2 nations' top divisions,
these tournaments will be unbalanced and full of grey players.

Here is a guide, based on how many playable leagues you want to load:

Will you load ONLY 1st Divisions?
<6 top nations = pick a few standalone tournaments, like the IberCup, Gothia, ICC, etc.
6+ top nations = any or all of the 1st Division tournaments + any of the standalone

Will you load 1st Divisions and 2nd Divisions?
6+ top nations' 1st AND <3 2nd = any or all of the 1st Division tournaments + any of the standalone
6+ top nations' 1st AND 6+ 2nd = any or all of the 1st and 2nd Division tournaments + any of the standalone

Will you load 1st, 2nd and 3rd Divisions?
all 3 division levels of 6+ top nations = any or all tournaments

Using the File in FM:

Place in C:\Users\*your username*\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021\editor data folder.
Start a new save.
When selecting the database (before Advanced Setup), be sure to select the checkbox to enable this file.

Consider Donating

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Please know that it will be very appreciated, as everyone in my family have lost their jobs since March.

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