One of the good things of having a fast ticker in Rubysoccer is the fact that some people take a more long term view on their teams’ construction. There are a few good examples of teams planning mostly for the future, developing young players to their maximum and sometimes even sacrificing results now, to win later.

I have been trying to do a hybrid: I’ve signed a few promising young players – all I could muster – and I’ve also signed a few veterans with solid skills to try for a better campaign in the current season.

Strangely enough, I managed to acquire a very good MC, for a ridiculous price, I suppose because he’s already 30. But he’s still a great player all around, the kind that we see selling for millions in some transfer markets. I have a good core of veterans, and a good developing squad of young players waiting for their opportunity. At least on paper!

But then I started looking around at other models of success around, specifically in the Portuguese league, which is where I’m playing: Benfica won, surprisingly, the title with a squad composed of under 23 players. Right now, Benfica’s older player is 23! So, I’ve been looking around and found that most successful teams are already starting younger players, and ditching veterans for very low amounts.

Which makes me think I may have followed the wrong approach, especially after supposedly forming a solid team and already having lost to a recently promoted team in the Portuguese Cup.

Am I using a really bad tactic (which is a distinct possibility), or should I be starting my young ones instead and get rid of the vets? Is there anything in the code that prizes playing young players over older ones?

If that is so, I think that’s a little unrealistic. Good teams are generally comprised of a mix of young players and veterans alike, sometimes just mainly veterans (AC Milan is an example). I also agree with someone’s post around here, that not all skills should decline with age. Physical skills do decline with age, but mostly technical skills may improve with age, depending on the player’s type, sometimes even with some correlation: faster players tend to develop other skills so their careers last longer – passing, control, etc.

I’d just like to see veterans being more valued in Rubysoccer, so it doesn’t transform into a teenager footballer’s game, as much as I like that people are planning long term instead of always trying to just win now.

The problem is we know that our players are doomed to lose their skills starting at the age of 31. This is psychology: “Ahha, my great all-round MC will decrease skills in 1 season, I need to get rid of him now…”

People sale great players to acquire promising youths. But I think in a couple of seasons all of us will be full of very good young players. And the whole dimension will be filled with stars. WHy ? Because currently it is enough to play 30 minutes in a friendly match to improve. I think if it were more difficult to improve without playing many many official matches, we wouldn’t face this problem soon. Or even ever !

Nice posts guys. Here are my comments:

1) Player age has no influence in the match logic, except for the fact that older players get injured more easily than young ones.

2) I think people are over reacting to the old players skill decreasing process, I think that is likely to change when old players give some kind of bonus to the whole team due to their experience. In real life I’d like to have some experienced players in my team to play an international competition for instance, so the bonus makes sense.

3) Indeed, youths are developing too fast. The minutes system suggested in another topic in combination with the match competition bonus (or penalty) will “fix” that.

Great comments guys!
cheers

Sorry but i dont get this " youths are developing too fast" thing. I mean i have players still improving after playing 80+ games even at the age of 20. How is that fast? I dont know maybe i have been unlucky.Off course in real life it can take longer but would you make the game boring to make it more realistic?

Another thing is that when you start playing you have no choice but put your faith in young players because only crappy teams with no capital are available to manage. If you already have a decent team i think its ok to sing a veteran to improve your team, especially if that player can put you in the hall of fame. Even Arsene Wenger signs veterans like silvestre :p

By the way i support the idea of players developing more playing official games than friendlies and playing more minutes. Maybe its best to make the process harder but not longer.

Cheers