The Talent Factory La Masia 2.0 | Football Manager Challenge • Passion4FM

A Football Manager Youth Development Challenge Focusing on Developing New Promising Talents

There is nothing more satisfying than developing your own players – turning your promising young talents into one of the best Football Manager wonderkids of your save – experiencing your youth progress into world class players.

In this Football Manager Challenge which I’ve entitled the Talent factory La Masia 2.0 you will only focus on youth and player development rather than match results and league position. Here we turn attention to targeting under-18 talents and increase the importance of the yearly youth intake making the Football Manager regen dates one of the most anticipated days of the season calender.

football manager youth development challenge talent factory la masia

The Aim of The La Masia 2.0 Talent Factory Challenge

Your mission in our Football Manager Youth Development Challenge is to pick any team from any eligible nations and leagues in FM 2015, preferably a minor club where the training facilities needs to be upgraded through the first seasons in order to improve the players current and potential abilities progress, and turn the club into a world leading talent factory with excellent levels of both youth recruitment and junior facilities, a team (starting XI) of only home grown players and where the club makes the least money on purchasing players but the most income on selling them.

The basic idea behind this FM challenge, is that you shall trust your own youth intake putting extra effort in how you can get the best regens from the yearly youth intake rather than buying expensive players. Like Arsene Wenger of the old days, you shall try to spend almost to nothing on buying players depending on the level of freedom you will give yourself from season to season at your save.

The main goal of the Football Manager Talent Factory Challenge is to achieve the best possible results with the players you’ve developed yourself. Personally, there is nothing more satisfying than to see your developed players be called up for the national team. So in this Football Manager Challenge the mission is to produce new talents and nurture them into players who can compete at national level for the years to come.

How you succeed (or fail) with youth development and player development comes both down to the youth intake and the potential of the regens coming through the youth intakes and your skills in player management and individual training. What influences the quality level of the regens from the annual youth intake is an important questions to gain success. This little secret will be the mandatory to finally field a first team XI of only home grown players developed and nurtured from your managing club.

I guess you have already starting to wonder which club to be. We have not set any regulations on this, so you can use any starting league and club, but obviously the lower league and club you start with, the harder it will be. Being Barcelona won’t be as big a challenge as for example AFC Wimbledon or München Lions. Personally I would recommend a club with average or below training facilities so you can make the most impact on the club through your managerial tenure, receiving a similar reputation as Johan Cruyff, when he overhauled the youth sections of Barcelona into the similar platform of the world re-known Ajax academy.

Apart from having training facilities you need to improve, the club can exist of an high amount of under 18 players from the very beginning. This would only make it more fun in my eyes as you are producing players of real life giving you a chance to establish one form of acquaintance to them for the future.

The starting transfer budget or wage budget doesn’t matter when selecting a club to manage as the aim is to become financially stable by selling players developed at your academy.

Examples of other future goals to aim for and reach after;

Get as many of your players to be called up and feature in the national team of the nation you’re playing in

Have one of your players trusted with the captaincy of his national team

Earn promotion to the top division or win the top division with a team with an average age of 21 years old or below

Get your team to win as many trophies as possible, even the Champions League or similar cups, with only home grown players

Have one of your youth products win the Player of the Year award (continental and domestic), or even the World player of the Year

Get 3 or more players selected in the Team of the Year (continental or domestic)

Finally it would be a great achievement to see one of your players win the Golden Boot as the top scorer at World Cup and or World Cup Best Player

The Talent Factory La Masia 2.0 – Rules and Limitations

The Main rules and limitations of Talent Factory La Masia 2.0 are all focusing on some of the same grounding as the Barcelona and the Ajax academy. These rules and limitations are not set in stone so you might alter them to your own preference but in order to comply to the highest level set, you must strictly follow the rules set by us.

New this time we will provide you with 3 levels to choose from; easy, medium and hard. This shall hopefully make it more challenging according to which club you choose and your own abilities in terms of player and youth development.

Easy Level

Transfers are allowed, but you can only buy worldwide players under the age of 21. This means that buying one or two wonderkids bargains are allowed in order to help the team on its way to a starting XI of only home grown players. No other restrictions in terms of hidden attributes.
In-going Loans are allowed of players under the age of 21.
You can sign players over the age of 32 as long as they don’t cost more than 20% of your transfer budget. These players will only be used for tutoring and shall therefore not record more than 25% of the total appearances throughout a season
Upgrading facilities must be done if possible before spending this money on purchasing a player or upgrading other features of your club, such as building a new stadium or allocating more staff wages.
You can, however, improve the clubs backroom staff by signing better coaches, scouts and etc.
You can be assisted by your parent club and take advantage of being a feeder club. The parent club can send out players on loan to you on their own initiative, and you CAN ask for specific loanees yourself.
At least 2 players under the age of 21 must feature in the first team starting line up for every match, if possible.

Medium Level

Transfers are allowed, but you can only buy domestic players under the age of 18. This means that buying players from a foreign region is not allowed. When buying new young under-18 talents from the playable nation you will need to target players with a high degree of versatility trying to field players with the ability to play in 3 positions.
In-going Loans are allowed of players under the age of 18.
You can sign players over the age of 32 as long as they don’t cost more than 10% of your transfer budget. These players will only be used for tutoring and shall therefore not record more than 10% of the total appearances throughout a season.
Upgrading facilities must be done if possible before spending these money on purchasing a player or upgrading other features of your club, such as building a new stadium or allocating more staff wages.
You can, however, improve the clubs backroom staff by signing better coaches, scouts and etc.
You can be assisted by your parent club and take advantage of being a feeder club. The parent club can send out players on loan to you on their own initiative, but you can not ask for the loan yourself.
At least 3 players under the age of 21 must feature in the first team starting line up for every match, if possible, while at least 1 U18 players should feature in or around the first team squad for every match. Here you can give more under-21 players a chance in cup matches or ‘unimportant’ matches.

Hard Level

Transfers are NOT allowed. You have to rely on your own youth products in order to compete – this means what you get from the annual youth intake. The first team squad might automatically have a lower average age than a normal club, and therefore the challenges of competing within the league will be higher.
Buying one or more Promising Talents and future wonderkids is a big NO-NO!
In-going Loans are not allowed, but you can send out players on loan to improve the chances of first team appearances at a higher playing level. This rule or limitation will depend on your first team squad size and squad depth.
You can only sign players over the age of 32 as long as they are at free transfer or unattached. These players will only be used for tutoring and shall therefore not record any first team appearances throughout a season if possible, but rather feature as a strong presence for the reserves team.
Upgrading facilities must be done if possible before spending these money on purchasing a player or upgrading other features of your club, such as building a new stadium or allocating more staff wages.
You can, however, improve the clubs backroom staff by signing better coaches, scouts and etc, but focus shall be put on signing a good head of youth development staff, reserves and under-18/19 manager.
You can not be assisted by your parent club, but can take advantage of being a feeder club sending players out on loan if the squad size is over 21 players.
At least 5 players under the age of 21 must feature in the first team starting line up for every match, if possible, while at least 3 U18 players should feature in or around the first team. This means that a total of 5 Under-21 players will receive an equal amount of first team appearances throughout a season.

Do you take up the challenge to try to recreate a talent factory similar to La Masia? We’d like to promote Football Manager stories who use our format of this unique Football Manager Challenge. Please Contact us!