FM23 Youth Intake Analysis 1 + statement

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[@ZealandonYT]

You're a great guy and a great Football Manager creator, it was awesome to chat the other night, I look forward to linking up in the future

[@Reapppo]

Z, as a fan, I think you should honestly delete your cancelled video and address this again. Steve has completely hoodwinked you here. I wouldn’t feel comfortable as a fan of yours, knowing you left a video up that is essentially discrediting EBFM and implying their entire body of work is a complete lie. I know that was definitely not your intention, and you did the best you could, but I am huge EBFM fan, I wait for every upload and have done since I discovered the channel in 2021. It doesn’t sit right with me knowing that video is still public that claims things to be true that are far from it. I do believe your heart is in the right place, but there should be no half measures for this sort of thing.

[@babbalad]

Oh fuck off its literally not that deep. The two creators have spoke thats it. Thats the end. Anything they decide to do going forward is up to them but "I think you should" no just no. Thats between the two creators. Its so ridiculous how viewers feel like they have to have their input on a resolved situation.

[@evertvandenberghe3301]

If 2 people test stuff & they get the same results, it might mean that the results are correct. Also taking min 45 & 70 as substitute timestamps si the most logical thing to do & does not show an intent to copy... i mean when else are you gonna sub? min1-45 seems a useless test & after min 70 they wont count. Not to mention this ' drama' has probably only boosted both creators youtube channels so dont think Z should take it down or EB should... nope , they both made a statement & they both claim to have no hard feelings. Show's over ppl , move on :')

[@DC10_]

@@Reapppo Exactly. Having watched the 'Cancelled' video I came away from it with the impression that EBFM was (indirectly) being accused of being the actual plagiarist who was dishonestly passing FM Korea's work off as his own. As the statement in this video seems to suggest, that is completely false but the dog-whistle was certainly there. To compound this, the vast majority of people who watched Zealand's 'response' video wont watch/have watched this one for the additional context. I cant help thinking that this will have had a negative net-impact on EBFMs reputation with the people who watched it and certainly isnt the best first impression for people discovering him for the first time.

[@MrPercipience]

I agree with what's already been said above. I think you need to take down the original video permanently if you're ever serious about this. Your buddy Steve is 100000% full of shit with you here. It's not even worth tarnishing your rep for some donkey who clearly didn't care how it affected you. It's your channel/career do as you wish, but keeping that video up and not distancing yourself from Steve makes the entire thing seem like a half hearted click bait apology video.

[@Bearskickass976]

Literally, an hour ago I got a youth intake. I have 20 youth recruitment, 20 junior coaching and 18 youth facilities. Every year it's rubbish. And now you've posted this video. Legend.

[@joeyodonnell123]

wheres your save?

[@zewlson8617]

If you want golden generation more often you need to have an HOY with model citizen/ model professional/ perfectionist/ resolute/ professional personality and media handling Evasive or reserved or unflappable those are the best media handling that a player/coach can have and they unveil some of the hidden attributes ( evasive and reserved means min 15 out of 20 professionalism) and also try to have all the U19 coaches with the same personality/media handling style and forget about their attributes. I always get good players and I am playing in Romania.

[@TehRealRyan]

Where did you find that you have 20 junior coaching?

[@derricktalbot8846]

@@zewlson8617 I second this.... There is NO ONE at my clubs who is not one of those personalities.... anyone who is not a professional is sent on their way.

[@richardmatthias6098]

If you're playing at a big club then it's more likely to be "rubbish" since your definition of a good player is way too high in standard.

[@randomname9949]

Let's hope everything can be sorted out in the best possible way, both you and Zealand are people that have helped the FM community a lot and this situation sucks.

[@Somnambulist9]

Excellent work! I know you spent hours and put in thoughtful planning and execution to run these tests - you are always impartial about conclusions even, even careful with the word choices. Read countless posts/articles and seen videos where people just say things, but no actual data/proof to support their claims. If you think, it all quite makes sense. - Better Youth recruitment will recruit better ceiling talents (higher PA) - at youth intake preview. Now that they joined you, it's for you to improve their CA (only up to their max potential) and their personalities - You need a good personality HoYD to breed good personalities among intakes. - Youth facilities and junior coaching can only improve CA - they currently get better because of good coaching - Home nation and junior coaching can affect PA. Regardless of how good your system/coaches are, you can never breed out 5 stars newgens from let's say from Lithuania (nothing against Lithuania btw) until you raise the footballing interest and level in the country over decades I do wish in your second test, you included HoYD reputation - whether it affects the PA at intake PREVIEW. It's another factor being thrown around quite a bit - it does make sense that you need a world/regionally renown HoYD to attract top talents. I'm also surprise JA/JP has no impact at all whatsoever! I wonder if there's still a hidden time stamp earlier - sometime in the year way earlier than Dec 25 Preview, lets say Aug/Sept - where HoYD goes around the countries based on his personal and club's scouting knowledge, and tries to spot talents to recruit into the club based on his good judgement of potentials (JP). Even if that's the case, it will be a lot harder to test because you don't know how far ahead you have to start given it's a hidden time stamp. HoYD with high JP spots talents, bigger footballing countries will have higher ceiling and bigger pool of talents, but he still has to rely on his good reputation and the club's good youth recruitment to recruit those talents into the club in Dec (reflected in Intake Preview), HoYD rubs off personalities in talents, who also improves in their CA (small extent PA) over the next 3-4 months to become final intakes in March/April. Of course I made up the part of JP and good reputation.

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, appreciate the detailed feedback. I don't know if you've watched the rest of the series, but I did test HOYD reputation, and found that it has no effect on youth. Only HOYD personality matters. As you've mentioned, it's possible that JPA/JPP have effects that I could not detect. It didn't seem to be effective according to my tests, but maybe it works in ways that I did not predict.

[@VodkaHellstorm]

Agreed that let’s not add to the drama, but if this truly is the case then it sounds like someone on Zealand’s team lied to him about the work they did, or that this third party service is basically stealing your work and profiting off it, and either way that is really sad.

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

That's not "Evidence Based" and it's no surprise that other people end up using a similar process to get such results. Difference is this mofo, EB, is doing it solo on his home computer and that is impressive. I hope EB and Zeeland hook up and do a show together, that'll be the only highlight of this unfortunate charade.

[@VodkaHellstorm]

My understanding from what Z said and from what EBFM said in this one is that it was literally the same work. Based on him saying the third party sent them the same results as were sent to EBFM. Said third party also claimed that EBFM was a user, which EBFM has said he has never heard of nor used the service. So someone is attempted to cover their ass here, and I don’t think it’s either of the guys at the end of this, and is likely someone in the middle. Someone who probably saw a way to make some money and wasn’t smart enough to realise that even though EBFM is a small creator, the community interested in this kind of look at the games is a small one.

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

@@VodkaHellstorm You're still assuming too much. This third party may have sent out multiple copies of their research to KZbinrs etc, just assuming that EB was one of them. As I said, it's not like the same process wouldn't be used by this third party and EB. There's that and many other possibilities. Nonetheless it would be wise for Zeeland to investigate further, because he's paying for a service. I'm not saying what you suggest is not possible, but at the same time you should stand by the 'innocent until proven guilty' mindset, especially when it comes to a crime or, someone potentially losing their job.

[@mantorras7752]

​@@wtfamiactuallyright1823OJ Simpson was innocent right?

[@wtfamiactuallyright1823]

@@mantorras7752 Ask the organisation, Black Lives Matter. Seriously tho, what is your point?

[@PainForPleasure97]

I'm new after the Zealand thing and have watched several vids already. I hope the exposure makes a rather negative story have a positive outcome. Keep up the great work!

[@Mateus_Carvalho]

Same here, I'm curious about this channel. It's probably great.

[@memphisjaxx]

Add one more to that. I've just subbed to you and will be watching regularly. I too, hope that this awkward situation can turn out to bring some good vibes your way and some new subs/viewers like myself. Keep up the great work and thanks for all the work you put into your videos. All the best to you.

[@robvermeer5951]

Well I don't know if this is a positive outcome but I'm a huge fan of Zealands work and because of this incident I got aware of Evidence Based Football Manager and clicked on subscribe right away. Love your work too Max. Keep up the good work.

[@TheHungryTrollRawr]

theleast you could have done, being as your idol is pinching his work and passing it off as his channel's@@robvermeer5951

[@danabarker84]

I have admiration and respect for both of you. I had switched my training schedule to something almost identical to your FM 23 training schedule before you published the information showing the new stats on the blue attacking and defending training sessions, according to your tests. I did that because those sessions were showing better player development than previous years in my own tests. Regardless of what anyone believes about copying work, I think that both channels are illustrating that the game works the way it works.

[@slipshatch]

Glad you have spoken with Zealand. Having watched him for years i don't believe he would have deliberately copied your work without giving credit. I have seen him credit many other people where he has taken their ideas. If any good has come from this then you both seem to be genuine people and not looking for drama. I hadn't seen you channel before I found you through Zealands apology upload and wanted to see for myself. Im now a subscriber and you have great content. So at the very least im sure your get a few new subscribers out of this and some positive comes from how you have both dealt with it. Thanks for the detailed work and great videos. Im looking forward to working my way through your prior videos.

[@LordPiddlington1912]

Hi Max, gutted that someone appears to have taken your work and attempted to pass it off as their own (whether that's FM Korea or "Steve"). Z seemed mortified about the situation and I don't think anyone should hold it against him if he's just presented findings that he had every reason to believe that it was developed 'in house' by his team. Still, thanks for another great video and looking forward to the next one!

[@JM-tj5qm]

Is still Zealand's responsibility though. Is ok to outsource work, but he is the face of the channel. If the work is stolen he should clarify the situation and take measures so it won't happen again. That whole FM Korea seems to be a lie. So now Zealand's audience have been told misleading information about the source of the data, twice.

[@InsaneMagnus]

@@JM-tj5qm if this is someone he has worked with for a loong time and more than likely have contributed to his videos a lot, it is completely understandable why Zealand would trust him.

[@JM-tj5qm]

@@InsaneMagnus Understandable or not. Still his responsibility if stolen work is presented under his name.

[@InsaneMagnus]

@@JM-tj5qm Yes i said so in my comment. And he has taken responsibility for it.

[@JM-tj5qm]

@@InsaneMagnus He haven't clarified the situation and he didn't take measures so it won't happen again. That's what taking responsibility means to me. If anything his last video made things more confusing. I hope he will investigate this further, cut ties with the people who has lied to him. And be more careful about accepting others people's work, to make sure is theirs, in the future. Because if this ever happens again, the excuse that his team did it and he has no reasons to doubt his team won't work anymore.

[@tuco7523]

So far from what I've seen, both your and Zealand's communities don't seem to blame either of you directly, which is a testament to the great communities you've developed. Hopefully whatever is going on over at Zealand HQ or FM Korea gets sorted and stuff like this doesn't happen again

[@iad77]

Love them both ☺️

[@sessionmill]

I love Max, I love Z, this whole thing is so strange. My first take was ok the man in Z's Team made shit up to cover his ass in front of Z. It's not about blaming, I just feel there needs to be a logical answer. What I actually dislike is the mindset "it doesn't matter, lets's move on" tho, I feel this is weird, because this whole scenario is not so deep that someone got killed over or something, so why can't Max just reach out to Z, they talk to each other, figure it out and tell us? This makes me rethink my blame on Z's Team tbh, because on a second thought, it is strange that they had the same data, but Max saying it's his own, pretty much makes everything just more complicated and gives me bad vibes. Because presented in Z's Video were actual excels, how is this possible? The guy on Z's research team copied from the video a replica in excel to then record for the video? I mean possible, but then couldn't he just have changed it up a lot more? That's what is the weird part, if FM Korea doesn't do the calculations for EBFM, how?

[@mastertrams]

@@sessionmill So, Max has just established that he does his own simulations. So the strange thing is, it wasn't just "Steve" who claimed Max didn't do his own simulations. FM Korea themselves also said they'd provided data to EBFM... Why would FM Korea make such a statement, in the email shown on Zealand's video, if that claim is not actually true? It's one thing having people lie, but organisations / companies?

[@TheTheMoran]

@@sessionmill Not to presume, but I feel like it's less "it doesn't matter, let's move on" and more Z runs his team, he'll clean house and everyone external doesn't need an answer they can all move on - which is fair enough, this is the only industry the customers/fans get to hear about what is company disciplinaries - in your assumption is a worker stole another companies data, they'd be fired and the businesses would make amends but you wouldn't get that much insight publicly. Giving someone grace (and being the bigger person) is a good thing, we encourage and respect this kind of behaviour and not snap about who might've done what and demand answers when the subject themselves is moving on. FWIW if EBFM sees this, I found this channel via Z's video / this situation, which doesn't make up for the stress caused, but you know - hope a few more are like me and there's a bit of a silver lining. Looking forward to more!

[@sessionmill]

@@TheTheMoran I disagree, you can't compare this scenario with a general office job. Also there is no need to butcher names, not even companies, but in this videos statement the genereal underline was that what Zealand said in the video trying to clear up this mess, wasn't true. I just think saying right after "whatever, doesn't matter" ist just unfair for both communities, where I happen to be part of both. I want to have a real answer to what happened, that's it. Especially because I don#t want a blame game, if you just leave the Elefant in the room there will always be some questions about it. Even if it is only a subconscious feeling, I don't want to watch a EBFM or Zealand video thinking they're bad guys, which I'm pretty sure they aren't...but still. What is the problem to just clear thinks up? Like give out one reason whats so hard to just completely tell what happened? Z reached out, so @Max just make a video with him, or if not a video, just talk to him? Even if someone sits in different tiemzones, there are some overlapping times even if you sit on the other end of the world. I'm just saying, it is so bullshit to just end this on, whatever, while you could just have a 5 minute talk and then give the community feedback...

[@Pakinov]

I appreciate your work so much dude. Since I discovered your channel some months ago you are my main source or knowledge to the game. I'm negativelly surprised about how little theorycrafting there is in the FM community. Your apportations are huge

[@zebrarogers96]

Hi, I think a flaw in your study and results here is that you simply looked at the average attributes rather than median, ranges, and standard deviations. We all know you’re not going to get a Youth Intake full of superstars and there’s going to be plenty of stinkers, you will only get a couple of potential first teamers. This will of course drag down the average severely, and we’re not bothered about the quantity of the intake or the bottom feeders who will be released; we only want the best. Thus, I think you should adjust your results in order to look at the median, standard deviation and ranges of ca/pa. This would be far more effective in showing the effect of each variable. Or perhaps even look at the number of youth products produced between different pa ranges for given variables; ie. 20 Working with Youngsters produced = 20% chance of a player with pa>170

[@ebfm]

Ah , a very keen observation and suggestion. You're right, who cares if you get 100 stinkers per year, as long as you get 1 next Lionel Messi. I calculated the average values from the entire youth intake, since data analysis is much simpler that way. I'll see if I can redo some of these tests focusing just on the top few wonderkids and not the entire group.

[@brobertswray]

​@@ebfm hey - yeah that's kind of what I was thinking while watching this and it got me thinking. Potentially FM will still produce lots of players who will never be good enough, because realism, but then there are variables that could increase the number of very high quality players. Overall this might smooth the averages out, but the number of overall anomalies (ie top tier players) increases. The %age idea is good, say with 20/20 such and such variable there was a 15% increase in getting a player with PA >170. With maximum everything (perfect scenario, 20/20, god tier HYD, best country ever at producing players) compared to the minimum of everything (literal worst possible everything) there was this much difference. I was also wondering about personality type of HYD and whether that changes the personality of players produced, but I guess this might just be the same as changing the individual hidden attributes, I'm not entirely sure if the way you've done it essentially covers this. Thanks for the vid!

[@gpolonia]

@@ebfm Something else you can look into is the Italian intake system. Every Serie A team starts with 20+ non league national affiliates which are hard coded to expire after few years. These affiliations (all within Italy) have the "Send youngsters for training" or something like that which should be only allowed for affiliations outside of Italy. As I said these affiliation expire after few years, after which the best youngster you can get is 130. Any idea on how to fix it?

[@ebfm]

@@brobertswray Hey bud, I've only covered Professionalism and Ambition in this vid, since those are the Hidden Attributes I consider the most important. Prof/Amb of HOYD affect the Prof/Amb of the youth, as shown in the vid. Of course you can't see these hidden attributes in the game without using the editor, so a HOYD with high Prof/Amb will have personalities such as Model Citizen / Model Professional, and you'll get more youngsters with professional / ambition personalities.

[@ebfm]

@@gpolonia Hey mate, hmm never heard of the Italian system. When you say the affiliations expire after a few years, does that mean the game is broken? Are they not supposed to expire after a few years?

[@ScottMansfield]

This is a fascinating video. I've played FM for years and I've always tried to find extra ways to improve things like youth development. I've known for a while that the HOYD's personality is very important. Now, I not only have clarification I also have a way to narrow it down further so I target specific HOYD personalities. TY for the video.

[@Cainjaa17]

Everyone out here forgetting the god-tier thumbnail! Great video to back it up as well!

[@dudewhateverish]

One benefit of the whole controversy is that I discovered your channel. Love your videos.

[@vinceo1058]

Here's how much i value and trust your work, Max: I no longer use Recovery sessions - ever.

[@scoutmain]

Lol, this is a little bit random, but I love that you had a recording on this video of my local team a lot of love from Alkmaar❤️.

[@JonnyisaNERD]

It's interesting to see the stats behind this because it backs up what people have been suggesting for a while about how the HoYD personality is vital. Definitely going to make me look more at that than the attributes since I've been focusing on JPA & JPP and not seeing results. Going to change personnel to see the effects

[@meanonsunday6995]

Excellent work as always. A couple of points you didn’t mention/ test, based on comments SI developers have made in their forum. 1) The real driver of the quality of your youth intake is team reputation. According to SI the youth recruitment is only a tie breaker that differentiates teams of equal reputation. So if you are a 3* team in a country with lots of 4* and 5* reputation teams you have very little chance to ever recruit those high PA players. In fact if you start in a low division and begin to get promoted you will probably be getting worse intakes than other teams in your division until you start being successful in the top division. Of course there is always a small chance due to randomness, but usually you are better off signing the 18 year olds that high reputation teams reject. 2) Regarding the head of youth development, SI has always described his effect has being related to his personality. Because of the way you did the experiment when you set everything to 20 you made him a model professional, which has no other restrictions except on temperament (so for example determination can be anything from 1-20). I think this leaves open the possibility that other attributes do have an effect on the youth. You could for example set the attributes to the maximum that still allows the HOYD to be a model citizen and repeat the test. Just my thoughts, and we certainly know that SI sometimes doesn’t tell us correct information or it becomes outdated as they change the game. That’s why it’s so valuable to have someone like you that tests what really happens in the game.

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, appreciate the input. 1. Few others have also suggested the same. Apparently Youth Preview is like a 'draft' where teams with higher reputations get first dips. I'm planning a follow-up video, and in that video I will try changing not just the reputation of my own team but the reputation of other teams, and see if that makes a difference. 2. I've been running further tests past few days and it definitely seems that HOYD is more to do with personality rather than attributes. There'll be follow up video(s) where I'll be presenting more results. Stay tuned!

[@mouyaho7021]

응원합니다. 무야호~

[@confusafs]

The last finding on the youth recruitment attribute pre-youth previews got me thinking. Not only the variation from 10 to 20 was not proportional to the one from 1 to 10, it was also sharper than anything else we saw in the rest of the tests. This made me wonder if there is some sort of network effect on this variable. If we transpose the concept of "youth recruitment" to the real world, we will think about how bigger global clubs are recruiting talent all around the world from very young ages. What if on FM there is some sort of threshold, somewhere above 10, where your youth academy starts being able to consistently recruit players from other countries, thus exposing your team to nations which might have a higher youth rating than yours (or just exposing you to more good players, as these nations might need to generate high PA-players, due to their ratings, but won't generate as many players, due to not having leagues loaded, thus increasing the rate of high-PA to total players)? We know for sure that big clubs on FM do generate players from all sorts of countries in their intakes. I could also imagine a fancy algorithm that might kick in before that threshold, but on a national level. We know from the editor that the game model has the concepts of Cities and Local Regions. Maybe when the FM algorithm generates the youth players for a certain country, it distributes the best players through the local regions (this way, they could do a proportional distribution based on the sum of the populations of all cities in each region), and just fill everything else with low PA players as needed. If your youth recruitment is low, you might only have access to players in your region, but as you increase that attribute, you start getting more players from other places, thus slightly increasing the odds of accessing the superior players. If there is some algorithm remotely implemented like this, then we might not be able to observe its effect in a small country like the Netherlands, but we might do in a huge country like Brazil. For example, on a team from the least populated Northern states, which might eventually get access to players from the densely populated Southeastern states.

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, I like your theory. Few others have also suggested the possibility that the variables could be interacting with each other, rather than them all acting in isolation. Testing the 'network effect' of the variables will however be a nightmare to set up 😅 For now you'll have to bear with me as I test the individual variables in isolation.

[@jscupa]

@ebfm you should've added adaptability for HOYD. It makes a massive difference for HOYD.

[@zepar6076]

Whatever happened with Zealand does not matter, thanks to it you got exposure and a new subscriber. Like the details in the video, hope to see more in future.

[@Joe-ug8kg]

Love your work mate! Keep the great content coming!!

[@UrielVentris4th]

You're such a great guy. Love your content but also love your approach in handling yourself. Classy.

[@handuion4539]

Best video on this topic I could find. All that negative drama brought you some subs so something good still came out of it.

[@morlath4767]

As a follower of Zealand for a good few years, I would say with 90% certainty that the guy would not have deliberately stolen your work. I've seen him credit a random Russian poster for the software backbone of his NewGan Manager program, so I can't see him knowingly using your work without at least crediting you. However, this doesn't mean anything about his research team, nor does it take away how horrible it must have felt for something like this to happen to you. I'm sorry you had to go through that, mate.

[@pulleyfm8585]

Opening introduction video features a spreadsheet, I know I can settle in here for sure. I've watched Zealand for years now, I don't always agree with his philosophy in FM but I have massive respect for how much he's raised the bar for FM content. He's also impressed me a lot on a personal level, he seems like a legit good dude who has strong morals and values that he adheres to. I'm here because of what happened, and I'm sure in the long term it'll be a good thing for everyone involved to learn from or benefit from in terms of additional exposure.

[@moreish7193]

I honestly believe Zealand is a really genuine guy (not that I know him irl) and it was a genuine mistake to not credit you. I think the least he could do as an apology would be maybe have a collaboration on his channel to get some coverage on yours. Keep up the good work, your doing gods work 😂

[@TheDdvd1]

Never heard of you before the zealand thing .. can't believe I missed your work. Great stuff!

[@wojodyjowski]

Bro I love your work! Keep your head up!

[@dekaan]

Great video as always, Max! On the whole Zealand situation, if anything it made more people get to know your excellent work, so I guess there's a silver lining to it.

[@tomkmb4120]

Wow, the plot thickens again with the Zealand stuff again.

[@LatchedLungs]

this is an absolutely brilliant video, stumbled upon your channel from a random fmscout thread and i must say you are making excellent stuff

[@Shardzikk]

Hey there Max. Regarding the drama - it sucks but kudos to you for acting so gracefuly. Hope it at least brings some traffic to your channel! Regarding the video itself there is much to try out still. Anectodes on the forums say that youth team coaches also (albeit in smaller way) influence youth stats. This is certainly the case when a team member has to act as a hoyd when there is none at the club. Affiliations with youth recruitment work for sure for nationality but hard to say about the CA and PA. Nationality of the coaches are rumored to work but I never saw visible difference. There is also an interesting mechanic when club is based in different nation than the played league (like in AS monaco) and if the region assigned to the club has different languages assigned. This is for sure something to be tested in a custom database when you could control many teams with different stats assigned to them. Thanks for an interesting video as always

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, few others have also suggested that youth team coaches may be a factor, not just the HOYD. Not sure how the nationality / languages of the coaches would matter though. Maybe the youth with low adaptability will struggle to develop? But why would they have a lower CA/PA to start with? There are lots of questions that need further testing 😅

[@ZtrangeParallax]

Probably the best FM content creator very informative video, with no corny jokes just straightforward facts.

[@dariorajic3075]

Now this is what I love ! Detailed description on everything, and finished with simplified evidence based conclusion. Awesome work, truly appreciated, and hope to see some more content ( couches influence on players for ex. as I have some doubts 😅). All the best !

[@mdwellington]

I do not know Zealand personally be he comes across as an honest bloke and seems as mystified as you do about what happened. Perhaps his researcher weren't honest with him about where they got their information or maybe it was just a huge coincidence - the internet is a huge place after all and it's not impossible that two people could come up with the same ideas and come to similar conclusions at a similar time. Anyway, it has given you both a lot of exposure - I hadn't heard of EBFM before this and will definitely be subscribing.

[@alexwallach7683]

Wow, Max! Talk about a bump in views. Some long overdue recognition of your fine work. Just wish it had occurred in a less salicious manner. Classy response though mate. 👍

[@adonis1168]

Zealand with shit ton of resources does ridiculously little useful content. You're by far the best I've seen. Keep up my man!

[@Rafaels3DPrintLab]

To much...

[@pb5531]

Thank you for pronouncing Z correctly. The KZbin generation keep going with the Americanisms

[@alexjp123]

So essentially once your Junior Coaching, Facilities, Recruitment are at a high level the only thing that makes a difference is the personality of the HOYD

[@rogervanaman6739]

I think I stumbled along something that effects youth intake. I downloaded a US pyrimid database and picked a team in the 6th tier (I believe) my computer is kinda crap so I run small databases. The players on my team were complete trash and I didn't even have 11 players. But the way the database was set up meant I had a ton of money (relatively) to spend so I overpayed every free agent I could find and built a team that completely dominated. According to my coaching my best players were at the standard 2 divisions above me. My youth intact preview was trash. All the variables I could see that effect youth intake all very low. Yet when the youth intake comes in while the players, except one, where useless compared to what I have, according to me coaching the worst players CA was at a standard to be a good player in my current division. So since me team was at a higher level then they should of have been so was my youth intake. Whether it is reputation or ability the players currently on you team seem to have an effect. And likely a major one, which could be a confounding variable in these tests.

[@twgtjp]

Hey man, first time commenting, recent sub I love you. I've been FMing since 2011 off and on, and this is the analysis that I've always wanted. It's weird how such a data driven game has such a weird alt magic voodoo type scene of 'trust me' & false idols with Pep Guardiola energy, but Frank Lampard results. Much respect for your honest and direct output. At the end of the day, even we are just numbers on a spreadsheet. Also, even more respect for your unwillingness to be baited into a weird E-battle. I like Zealand's output, and he does seem genuine. - AND, at the end of the day, no offense, you're not exactly minecraft or call of duty youtubers. There's enough digital space for all of us to co-exist and farm our youth academies in peace. Much love from the UK

[@twgtjp]

Also that's a strong neckwear game, I wish I could pull such a thing off.

[@twgtjp]

Double edit - Love is a strong word and I, in no way, condone being a minecraft or call of duty youtuber.

[@benwilliams8667]

Really great to see u putting out a statement to the community mate. Ive been a big fan of both yourself and zealand for a long time so this has been weird. Ive always admired the way Zealand speaks out whilst displaying a strong moral compass and passion for helping the FM community as well as other twitch streamers. I still trust his integrity despite this situation as imo hes earnt that trust. At the same time its clear from what you show in your videos alone that you run these simulations and take insane amounts of time to gather the results. I hope that this ultimately becomes the publicity catalyst for bringing you own brand into the FM mainstream as its long overdue! Thanks for the latest video btw 👍

[@boxingboxingboxing99]

You have to be the best KZbinr in the FM community. Great video!

[@sam-rv8tp]

so much work went into this. i've been really working hard on getting a good HOYD who is Model Citizen and also have state of the art youth facilities. I still run into the odd average/bad intake but there is usually at least 1 player who i would actually consider to be a prospect

[@ebfm]

Sounds like you've been doing everything right. HOYD Model Citizen + state of the art facilities is your best bet.

[@andrerodrigues3583]

@@ebfm Is there a way to find out HOYD's ambition without using the in-game editor? Like checking media handling style or something like that?

[@ebfm]

@@andrerodrigues3583 you have to use the editor to check the exact value. Without the editor, the personality of the HOYD is the only clue.

[@Mash027]

An hidden attribute that changes your chance to a youth intake is the population of the city and region of the club. Imagine youth intake as sort of lottery, the bigger the lottery pool, the bigger your chance to pull some nice gacha. I know it doesnt make sense, because the attributes in the video that actually determines how good your intake is. But i've tested it out(in an uncontrolled testing environment). Changing the population of cities in the pre editor, club with higher population receives more intake. This raises the chance of some hidden gems to pop out in the more under developed clubs.

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, super interesting to hear that population matters. Now I'm tempted to test it out. Possibly in the next video.

[@8Tarkus8]

I'm sorry but Zealand in his video said he used something or someone called FM Korea (not sure you even spell it that way) to virtually simulate an FM career for his research. In this video, I think you said, that all the research you've done is done locally and not by using any third party service. So, if that's the case, how can Zealand have the same data as you do if you don't share the same service? By the way, I think I might look at some more of your videos and subscribe. I've been looking for this type of content on FM for ages now and Zealand does an excellent job in explaining and researching stuff in the game, but having a channel dedicated exclusively (and empirically, I'd say) on that is golden. I guess not all bad things, referring to what happened with Z, come to harm, as you still gained some exposure thanks to that little controversy, right? Okay then, watched this and subscribed. Thank you

[@kai45654]

There was a old thread on the forums "Crucial attributes for head of youth development" and a dev said: "A Head of Youth Development will mainly influence the personalities of your newgens. In some cases he will affect the newgen template selected, i.e. positions and attribute spreads. To elaborate his preferences will on occasion influence the "type" of player coming through. For example there are many different styles of MC, if your HoYD favours a "Technical" Coaching Style you are more likely to produce those proficient in the technical side of the game. There are many factors at play when "styling" a newgen (regardless of CA/PA); we have numerous templates from which newgens are created for every position. These templates are based on several factors, such as the aforementioned HoYD preferences, but more significantly factors like nationality (a Brazilian full-back is much more likely to be of an attacking style than an Italian one for example) and so on. Obviously this is all mixed in with a heavy dose of (weighted) random to ensure variety. " If you want to do more youth tests, figuring out the difference between these templates (if they still exist) and testing other factors like nationality, that might influence differences might be interesting.

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, I also believe HOYD is more about influencing the personality of youngsters rather than their CA/PAs (as shown in this video). I've only recorded Prof/Amb in these tests, but it's possible that other Hidden Attributes eg. Loyalty / Temperatment and also favourite formation are affected too. I'll defo take these other factors into account too, if I get another chance to dig deeper.

[@dxfifa]

@@ebfm Can you also do HOYD preferred formation impact on positions of youth?

[@funkerman7]

As much as it may pain you, such controversy is by far the best thing that could happen to your channel. I wouldve never in a million years have found your channel otherwise

[@nyykSIUUU]

I really needed this video, I‘m in my 9th season now and have only gotten half-star youth intakes so far

[@sergiobarrospereira]

Dont worry, your videos are way better than his :) if he doesnt publicly apologise i will unsub him in the next few days :) you are the best FM channel and thats a fact, keep it up brother

[@joaopires1761]

This is great, I'm so glad this controversy led me here. Great work. I've been fiddling with these experiments in the last few years myself and I feel there's some possibilities for this experiment to be expanded upon. The following values could be experimented on, as well: Club Reputation (will definitely affect youth intakes) Nation's Reputation (might affect youth intakes) Nation's Economic Factor (unlikely but might affect youth intakes) Nation's Game Importance (unlikely but might affect youth intakes) (I'd posted this a while ago but somehow that comment seems to have disappeared... Can't believe it's moderation as it's 100% benign, I'll have to investigate what's happening with my network)

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, few others have also suggested the factors you've listed. I am planning a follow-up video where I'll be testing those variables.

[@joaopires1761]

@@ebfm sounds great, looking forward to it!

[@elmasmiller4371]

yeah i just wanted to say ive heard about your channel thru zealands video and i love every bit of it, subbed and bingewatched several videos already. great work.

[@Mebsuta]

Been here since halfway through FM22's life cycle, didn't buy FM23 and as such haven't watched any video of yours from the moment FM23 released, but since Zealand is no longer an FM channel but rather a generalist football news channel with FM sprinkled occasionally, I kept watching his. I'm sad to have learned about this story, particularly in this manner, and I'm glad you're happy to move on and I can only hope you're being honest about being OK with it because it can be very mentally demanding to keep it cool for the long term in situations like this. I wish you the best and hope nothing happens to your mental health as a consequence of this drama.

[@dinosoftic8259]

If you are going to do a follow up on this, I would recommend just looking at the top 5 players in the intake (CA/PA-wise, PA being the qualifier). Usually an intake (even a spectacular one) only has a few good prospects. Stats being fairly close (despite major differences) might just be the game balancing out the intake. The bottom 5+ might as well be greyed out players.

[@ebfm]

Few other have suggested the same. Disregard the rubbish, focus on the 1 or 2 that matter. There will be a follow up.

[@koalabear555]

I believe from previous research that the size of the clubs home city & the population in the clubs home region will also impact the quality of recruits.

[@altacc5356]

A few years ago a developer wrote on SI foruns about youth recruitment, the post is normally mentioned on a challenge on SI foruns where you can't contract and only rely on newgens. Youth recruitment is compared across all teams of your country that are getting new gens (it is affected by the number of divisions you loaded). The reason why 1 to 10 doesn't make a difference, is probably because in that league most teams have 10 or more what means if you have 1 or 10 you will be on the back of the queue to get the best players, 20 will put you in the front of the queue. The game in December (in this ex.) generates Newgens based on the YouthRating of the country then teams with best Youth recruitment have better chances to get the best of them... this 2 variables directly affect the chances of you having a D or an A... Then in March you receive them, you can see when you reload that they have always the same name (for old players that tried for a son, you saved before youth intake and the try over and over again, odds where like 1 in 10000... now you need to save in December and go to until March, what killed the method). What is definied in March is their stats (including personality and hidden atributes). Even do the range of the stats that they can have is already limited by recruitment in December, not sure if max is capped, since the range is big, i already saw a player being generated with 130-140 PA and then 170-180 PA, there is a lot of randomness happening in March. Even so i can assure people that the player with most PA will always have the same name most of the times. So if Peter is generated with 180 PA and Jack with 120 PA, when you reload they will be there and is almost certain that Peter have more potencial than Jack, but can happen them being generated Peter with 155 PA and Jack with 130PA with different personalities and hidden attributes than their previous versions.

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, this is great information and gives me food for thought. I'm planning to do a follow-up video on youth intake. If Youth Recruitment is only related to the preview event in December, then it makes sense that it produced no effect in April. I can try doing an experiment where I lower the Youth Recruitment of all other teams in the league, and see if that makes a difference for AZ Alkmaar. I've also noticed that once the youngsters are recruited in Dec, their names become fixed. In the first part experiment that I showed in the video, the player names & positions were 100% identical everytime I flipped a coin.

[@matthewtully7328]

Classy intro Max and a great video as always. Lets hope it brings more people to your channel and thanks for everything you do.

[@scinematography6196]

This 100% confirms the need to a HOYD with the right personality types, a model professional may be preferred over a model citizen as the MP requires 20 Professionalism while MC only needs 15. Additional variables could possibly also include city population & city attractiveness , I noticed an increase in consistency of high potential players in a moddified Basque save where I had changed all basque cities to maximum population and attraction.

[@ebfm]

If city attractive mattered, it wouldn't explain why Manchester gets so many wonderkids every year. Jokes, it's an interesting thought and I might test it out.

[@JSTN432]

I will say that at the start of every save I do, I replace the HOYD with the best person I can find, and always improve youth recruitment/coaching ASAP and I routinely get above average youth intakes.

[@RoyTheSoccerFR3AK]

Allways loved your work. Keep it up/going

[@8Tarkus8]

Great in-depth video. I'm still playing Football Manager 2022, but I believe most of these things, if not all, still apply on last year's game.

[@dillonandon]

I was just about to start a new FM save focused on improving a smaller club so this video gave me a lot to think about. Thanks very much.

[@pauladams2841]

You are very gracious, keep up the fantastic research

[@JakOfalltrates]

Love this video! Thank you for sharing your analysis with the world, and for your hard work!

[@famei7500]

what a nice vid :') pardon for 1 year late to seeing this information. thanks!

[@BurningNitrum]

Hey Max, I think we need to find out if the YOUTH RATING of the nation is influenced by the performances of that same nation in the world competitions. I've checked it on my editor and maybe this is still false, but your research would be highly appreciated as many FM players become coach of their nations just to increase that youth rating. THANK YOU! You're amazing man.

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, I also believe that the performance of nations in international competitions eg. World Cup can raise the nation's Youth Rating. Proving this will however require a whole separate test setup, so maybe not so soon. I will write it in my list of things to research though.

[@BurningNitrum]

@@ebfm thanks man :) keep hard the good work, you're amazing

[@BurningNitrum]

@@ebfm oh, by the way: in my 2025 Heerenveen save Switzerland has won the World Cup and is placed #9 in the Fifa ranking. In my Reggina save (2023) Switzerland did bad in the World Cup and is placed #12 in the same ranking. Their youth rating is always 127 in both saves. Youth ratings look fixed values to me! In both saves they are always the same.

[@ebfm]

@@BurningNitrum Strange mate. The devs did say a while back that National Youth Ratings are dynamic and can change...

[@davidrichards613]

It makes sense for youth recruitment to need to be improved prior to the announcement. In real terms it dictates the scope of the players your youth system attracts. To be more realistic, it would take a season or more to be noticeable as not all the players brought in would instantly be 15 or 16 and hit the youth intake.

[@georgeholly5489]

I think that scout knowledge of different countries and affiliated clubs with shared scouting knowledge helps too. At least i got this way few foreign gems to my youth team.

[@Cnotolamacz]

Didnt know filthy frank does FM videos. Huge fan keep it up bro

[@TheSean94]

Would love to see a video of Matt and Zealand together where Matt explains his findings to Zealand and they discuss about it, think it would be really interesting and would be great exposure for the channel!

[@ebfm]

It's Max 😅

[@TheSean94]

@@ebfm My Apologies Max 🤣

[@viditagarwal274]

Great video as always! Been using EBTS in my save for a few years (fm time) and I've seen really good player development since switching over.

[@darthwatson8274]

Which schedules did you use?

[@fccadoni7304]

Keep the good work mate!

[@theqaz1828]

Something I noticed recently is that a defensive midfielder on support (in the defensive midfield slot/position) and centre midfield on support (cm(s)) are exactly the same. That is if you play one of each next to each other, they will play the same way with the same average position over the course of a game.

[@ghodd9983]

I''m glad that you cleared this whole mess about the testing method, the data and using third party. After watching zealand video honestly I started to question if any of the so called 'test videos' are actually real and using real data. I trust you 100% and keep up the good work.

[@kworey]

Hey man is there a possibility to reach out to you? I would like to discuss some of the stuff you have in the video that might be not be so accurate cause i did some tests on youth intake and the results i got kinda deviate from the ones you have on this research and prolly has to do with the way you change the facilities on pre-intake and pre-announcement

[@ebfm]

hey bud, feel free to message me on Discord: maxebfm

[@kworey]

@@ebfm Sent friend request

[@getthetowelout]

another 5 star video keep um coming

[@marcelomarques1811]

Thanks for the video, very good info. One comment: I have seen an article from SI that stated that changing the HYD does not have an immediate impact on Youth intake because it is changing the quality of the players that start on your youth development, that are not yet visible on the game, and might only be visible after years. So I guess a change in HYD or other variables like youth recruitment might only show results after some years. That being said, would be interesting to do the same testing, but taking out the results 3 or 4 season after the changes have been maid. Cheers

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, Few others have also suggested the possibility that some variables are only effective after some time. There are practical problems however with setting up any long-term tests, because as you elongate the testing timeframe (1~2 seasons), unwanted variables and factors will be introduced into the save that will mess up the reliability of the results. The tests won't be controlled anymore. So I'm bit hesitant to run any long-term tests. But I hear you, in my tests many bar graphs appear flat and that could just mean that the variables don't have any effect in the short term.

[@marcelomarques1811]

@@ebfm Sure, I get that. Some things shall remain a mistery then 😁.

[@Vulacior]

Funnily enough Zealands "explain" video was where I first heard about you. Decided to check out for myself and I've watched all your videos within past 2 days. And it did for sure feel like a summary of all your work presented as their own. Still hoping Zealand himself is not at fault here, seems like a good guy.

[@JM-tj5qm]

I'm with you here, I don't want to think that Zealand lied on purpose. But I can't ignore being lied to twice.

[@calvinliew888]

The conclusions and presentation is evident that you've conducted and collected these tests, I hope you get credited for your work. BTW, I'd like to suggest for your todo lists, correlation between morale/fatigue/form in relation to CA/attribute growth, correlation between league/reputation/CA/etc to wage demand, as well as wage demand vs other clauses in the contract (for example, a one year extension option for the club is roughly how much in net wages for the duration of the contract?), also whether the various correlations are linear or otherwise

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, I'm also intrigued by the topics you suggested. Hopefully I can get to those topics soon!

[@RL-]

Perfect, thanks mate. I was a bit worried when youth recruitment showed no effect at first, and was thinking "surely that's gonna affect signings before the preview". And you also immediately alleviate my fears lol I know this is a relatively old (albeit still brilliantly useful) video now, but I have a question. Do you know if players on console versions have the ability to improve youth/junior ratings somehow when they don't have the option to ask the board? They can upgrade youth facilities, but seemingly not youth recruitment or junior coaching. I thought maybe the board will naturally upgrade this over time in line with the player's progress up the tiers, but there's virtually no information on this anywhere. I guess that, unless there's something coded in to address this, the HOYD and youth facilities become more crucial for them? Thanks for putting so much care into this. Edit: sorry boss. Only just saw the "retirement announcement". Don't want to bring you back to do more work lol. All the best. Cheers!

[@zvonimirbrekalo1291]

Great job as always Max. One thing that's interesting to me is that they flipped youth facilities and youth recruitment's from last year. What I mean by that is that I did a similar experiment last year and youth recruitment influenced PA and CA greatly even if adjusted the day before the intake itself. Shame you didn't look into consistency of the produced players as well. Keep up the truly magnificent work!

[@ebfm]

Oh interesting that YR and YF had opposite effects last year. YF this year only seems to affect CA though, so it's possible that SI just made some changes and not necessarily 'flipping' YF and YR. Consistency is an attribute everyone says is important but I've been neglecting it 😅 I've always focused more Prof/Amb/Det but I need to spread the love a bit more.

[@zvonimirbrekalo1291]

@@ebfm yeah consistency is important. There have been three or four experiments that looked at it in previous fms. Remember someone changed Messis consistency to 1 and he averaged a 6.8 haha. These last few years I mostly do youth academy or build a nation challenges, that's why consistency in youth intakes really interests me

[@TheXelstyle]

Uncertain how relevant my observation is but figured it'd be worth sharing: Something I noticed in trying to find some patterns in youth intake/announcements is that while the intake grades have been disregarded by the public, I noticed them to be set days prior to the message. IE if I reloaded from the day before, the intake grades would remain consistent (1.5 stars each time) as opposed to simming from less than a week prior to the intake message. With the limited correlation in the intake portion of your video, I wonder if the timing of when the variables were changed could have been a limiting factor.

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, it is possible that changing the variables 1 day before the Youth Preview/Announcement was the limiting factor. Maybe I should have changed the variables at least a few days before. But for many of the variables shown in the video, changing them 1 day before did produce different outcomes.

[@taktischeseinhorn8094]

Nice work. I have a question though. At 14:50 you say that the increase of Determination could be explained by the increased CA due to Junior Coaching. But wouldn't we then expect to see the exact same in the Youth Facilities? They also increase the CA but it does not reflect in Determination.

[@ebfm]

Very keen observation. I was wondering if anyone would have noticed it. You are right. If the rise in CA necessarily accompanied the rise in Determination, then higher Youth Facilities should lead to both higher CA & Det. But this was not the case, according to my tests. Why? I don't know 😅When I mentioned that high Junior Coaching would increase CA & Det in tandem, it was just a theory that I was suggesting.

[@UEBERSICHT]

Nice experiments. One thing I would point out is that youth recruitment interacts with the youth recruitment from other clubs. Because it basically determines how far away from your clubs city you have knowledge of youth players. This should determine your pre-intake youth player pool. 10 might just be a very low value for the Netherlands thats why you don't see any improvement from 1 to 10. At 20 you are basically sourcing from all of the Netherlands. This might also have a knock-on effect on the HOYD JPA/JPP ratings. Because if your pre-intake pool is very small the is not much he can do. If the pool is very big he might outpick HOYD from other clubs and thus increase the PA. I think this interaction would be interesting to look at.

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, very interesting suggestion you make. If YR decides 'how far the net is cast', then it will have implications on other variables as well eg. JPA/JPP. I'll have to think about that. Further tests may be needed to investigate.

[@danielwheels9529]

I’m from Ringwood!!! Melbourne represent🎉🎉🎉

[@ebfm]

I live in the West. It's a cold night mate take care of your health!

[@iad77]

I heard it depends on your head of youth recruitment the type of players you get, depending on his preferred formation, style of play, mentality etc

[@austintaylor7159]

Great informative video man, thanks for your hard work

[@williamcross210]

A couple of points 1. What about the personality of the HOYD. SI says this is important to some aspects of the youth intake. 2. Why do you not use the variation in your data? You can point out the step increases but can only answer the question of whether or not these steps are real increases by using the variability. 3. Related to 2, you should maybe only use the top 5 or so youth in an intake as in general most of the youth intake players are crap, so are of no significance to the squad. This may also decrease the variation from 2 and that would allow to actually make statistically significant observations

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, 1. HOYD Professionalism, Ambition is discussed in 10:10. Other Hidden Attributes will be covered in the next video. (to give you a teaser - yes, HOYD personality DOES affect the personality of the youth.) 2. I thought of it, but I also had to think about the simplicity of presentation. There are many different statistical analyses and jargons that I could have mentioned, but average values are the easiest for people to understand. 3. Yes others have also mentioned focusing just on the top players. Will be done in the next video.

[@stankappotamus]

If you ever run a similar test, i would check a combination of high working with youngsters with high professionalism/ambition/determination at 20 instead of 10. WWY may only change det/pro/amb when the HOYD has high values in these attributes, and not drag them down when they are set at 10.

[@k-man-wz3bx]

이참에 한국어 자막도 달아주시면 채널 떡상할거같습니다

[@middler5]

So literally the HOYD, i just need the his personality. There are other things like his favourite formation and style of play which supposedly influences the type of players they produce. If youre using a certain style or tactic and want the youngsters to match as much as possible. Another one which may not even be true, as it's never tested.

[@ebfm]

Yup, according to my findings, HOYD personality matters, the regular attributes don't. Preferred formations I haven't tested.

[@Chengyuan79]

Hi. Will just like to point this out because no one did all these years - Scouting budget? Certainly the easiest to test. Else, the Scouting Network would mean foreign youths can join our clubs too. Meaning - always try to get Brazil networks. Finally, repeating what I wrote earlier - All the factors seem to push up the PA pool for the exact number of newgens (like, 16 newgens all the time in the test mentioned here), and then the PA pool would be somehow distributed between the 16 newgens during the Youth Preview. And, it's like the old CM/FM days when a "-2" PA is 180-200 and a "-1" is 150-180, something like that. My FM20 save spammed ~40 seasons now, and I had about one 5* youth every 10 years, roughly (total is five of them, after ~40 seasons. Maybe one more 4.5* kid. Damn). A few comments here already mentioned - only the better kids mattered. In fact, that one 5* kid would be more important than the five 3* kids that we would have yearly. That's it. If that one kid is Professional enough and has decent enough hidden attributes, that's good enough. P.S. Never used an editor to see the CA/PA. Used average ratings (of the same or better leagues) to determine if a player is good enough or not.

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, scouting has been on my list of things to test for ages, haven't had a chance yet. I'm planning to do a follow up video where I will try focusing just on the top newgens. Stay tuned!

[@platinummad4701]

My wild guess regarding personality traits passed by the head of the youth intake is not that he affects the overall stats of your players but rather he takes one or two players "under his wing" tutoring them how players tutor eachothers and that creates the slightly better average. I base this in the comments he makes about of how he tutored a certain player to have his mentality.

[@ebfm]

Hey bud, that's actually a great point you make. I didn't consider the possibility that the HOYD will tutor some kids more closely than others. I'll have to go back and take another look at the data.

[@BlueWoWTaylan]

So, the main changes are, a good Head of Youth development is there for the Personality of the newgens so it is always better to go and find those Model Citizen/Professional HoYDs. And for the actual ability, you need Youth Coaching most of all and the obvious National Youth Rating which you cannot help much with ( since there are some who see their nation's Youth rating even declining after winning the WC ) So that 'Dynamic Youth Rating' needs more testing.

[@ebfm]

You got it. It seems that HOYD is mainly for the personality, the other variables are for the CA/PA.

[@BlueWoWTaylan]

@@ebfm Have you tested if the nation knowledge of the HOYD matters at all? Say I hired a 'better' HOYD that have no knowledge of the nation I am playing at and he is just gaining 'Nominal' knowledge before the intake, compared to the previously 'worse' but complete knowledge guy I had. I wonder if that can affect the intake

[@ebfm]

@@BlueWoWTaylan Hey bud, I also thought about testing this but I can't. There is no option in the editor to edit the scouting knowledge of the HOYD 😒 In my tests, the HOYD for AZ Alkmaar was Paul Brandenberg who had 'extensive' knowledge of Holland. The editor does not allow you to change this value.

[@BlueWoWTaylan]

@@ebfm One thing I can think of is picking a HOYD that has no knowledge of the nation you are testing. Then editing him to the exact stats/personality of the HOYD you are already using for the test. So then, you have one with Extensive knowledge and one with none. Dunno if that works but that is one way I thought of. Now the question that becomes, how early you need to 'add' the other HOYD for the test for it to affect the Youth Intake of that season.

[@TableTopWolf1984]

Seeing the game broke down like this just confirms everything that I've basically had a feeling on for years, think for the last 4 years I've just focused on getting a model professional HOYD, an getting everything up to 20 facilities wise, but then its still unfortunately down to luck an your club reputation

[@ebfm]

Luck is defo a big factor, but there are still things you can do to stack your chances! Sounds like you've been doing the right things (Model Pro HOYD, 20 Facilities)

[@pWndConan]

Would love to see a deeper dive into Youth Rating of Nations and if it actualy changes with performances of National Events or if it is a Fix Value :) Also how to build up a Nation in general?! Love your Content! so informativ

[@lunak72]

Hey max. Great to see another video from you - always looking forward to it. One question. You tested, if the rep (reputation) of HOYD had an inpact. But what about the clubs rep? To me it would make sense, if the rep of the club would have an impact. In real life I think most young players would choose real madrid over a midtable team in la liga for example, even if they are like 10 years old. What are your thoughts?

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, few others have also suggested club reputation also being a possible factor. I didn't think of it! I shall have to test it out.

[@jenlan1991]

Video idea: create teams with the same facilities, staff, tactic, training, etc. but one of the teams has players with higher attributes. For example every player in Team A has 11 and every player in Team B has 10. How much of a difference is it really when it comes to results? You can also check other values like 1 vs 20, 10 vs 20 or 19 vs 20. Is the difference between 10 vs 11 the same as 19 vs 20 when it comes to match results? Love your work!

[@ebfm]

Hey mate, such experiment won't be too hard to set up. Will give it a go when I get a chance. Cheers

[@jenlan1991]

@@ebfm that's great! Thank you! :)