Summary of "How To Get The BEST Youth Intakes In FM26"
Storyline / Purpose
The video’s “story” is a guide to how to maximize your chances of getting the best possible youth intakes in Football Manager 26, specifically to help you produce a “golden generation” of wonderkids for your club’s academy.
It’s structured like:
- Start with key concepts (youth intakes as a lottery, ratings being relative to your club/league)
- Then walk through the biggest controllable factors (facilities + youth development staff)
- Follow with semi-controllable ideas (reputation, affiliates)
- Then address myths (first intake being best; nationality/reputation myths)
- Finish with “under-the-hood” nation factors (youth rating + game importance)
Core Gameplay Concept: Youth Intakes Are a Lottery
- Youth intakes are not guaranteed outcomes.
- The goal is to increase odds, not ensure a win.
- Youth intake quality is relative to your club and league level—star ratings mean “best for your level,” not necessarily “Premier League quality.”
Biggest Controllable Factors (High Impact)
1) Club Facilities (Major Driver)
In Club → Facilities, there are 4 facility categories:
- Training facilities (NOT youth intake-related): used by all players in the save (youth and first team).
- Youth facilities (YES youth intake-related): used by youth teams (e.g., under-14/under-15 and similar).
- Youth coaching (YES, youth intake-related): affects players who are already in the youth pipeline.
- Youth recruitment (YES, youth intake-related): expands the scouting “net” for young prospects.
Key takeaways:
- Improve Youth facilities + Youth coaching + Youth recruitment to raise intake potential.
- Use Club Vision / Board Requests to request upgrades (subject to finances, your club performance, and board priorities).
2) Head of Youth Development (Major Driver)
Go to Club → Staff → Coaching team and locate Head of Youth Development.
The staff no longer uses a simple 1–20 rating; it uses word-based performance, but you’re looking for strong indicators in:
- Judging Player Potential
- Judging Player Ability
- Working with youngsters
Additional important traits to watch:
- Personality: ideally good/positive. A poor personality profile for the youth lead can “rub off,” leading to worse youth professionalism/determination.
- Preferred formation: youth players are more likely to fit the formation preferred by the youth lead.
- If your youth lead prefers 4-2-4 / 4-4-2, you may see more players aligned to those roles.
- Matching this to how you want to play improves development and future game time (though players can be retrained).
3) Responsibilities Bug / Oversight When Hiring (FM-Specific “Gotcha”)
If you hire a new Head of Youth Development, the game may not automatically assign them to youth intake duties.
What to do (check this):
- Go to Club → Responsibilities
- Open Advice & reports
- Ensure the task like “Bring him through the next generation of youth players…” is assigned to your intended Head of Youth Development
Otherwise, the default may fall to another staff member (who could be much worse), harming your intake.
Secondary Factors (Medium Impact)
4) Reputation (Mostly a Tiebreaker)
- Reputation doesn’t massively override facilities/staff.
- Instead, it acts as a tiebreaker when two clubs are otherwise equal.
- Higher reputation can slightly improve odds, but only meaningfully when other factors match.
Ways to raise reputation:
- Win games
- Win competitions
- Progress the club internationally
5) Affiliate Clubs (Often a Meaningful “Odds Increase”)
In Club → Affiliates, relationships can:
- Share scouting knowledge
- Increase international presence
- Allow affiliated players to train at your club
- Potentially influence youth intake, including producing foreign prospects
How the video suggests using affiliates:
- Use Request new affiliate
- Pick the option that supports recruiting foreign youngsters
- Over time (especially as you stay longer at a club), approvals become more likely
- Add multiple affiliates to increase variety of intake prospects (more “lottery tickets”)
Myth-Busting Section
Myth: “Your First Youth Intake Is Always Your Best”
The video argues this is a misconception, explained by relative star ratings:
- In your first season, your club may be weaker, so academy prospects can look “amazing” relative to your squad.
- As you improve (league climbs, better players arrive), the comparison bar rises.
- So later intakes can still be just as “good,” but they appear less like a “golden generation” because they’re measured against better internal squad quality.
Under-the-Hood Nation Factors (Cannot Fully Control)
6) Youth Rating of a Nation + Game Importance
Each nation has hidden values affecting youth talent:
- Game importance (how much football matters in that country)
- Youth rating (1–200 scale)
General implications:
- Football-heavy nations (e.g., Brazil/England/Germany) tend to have:
- Higher game importance
- Higher youth rating
- More wonderkids
- Nations with lower youth rating/game importance (example given: China, Gibraltar) produce fewer top prospects.
Youth rating changes over time:
- It can take decades to rise meaningfully.
- You’d need major national performance improvements (e.g., club success internationally) to drive it up.
Also mentioned:
- Economic factor of a country can help via resources/facilities (economic rating 1–20).
Key Strategies to Summarize (Action Checklist)
- Improve Youth facilities and Youth coaching (not training facilities for youth intake).
- Improve Youth recruitment to widen scouting reach.
- Hire a strong Head of Youth Development with:
- Excellent judging potential
- Excellent judging ability
- Strong working with youngsters
- A good personality
- A preferred formation that aligns with how you want to play
- After hiring new youth staff, confirm in Club → Responsibilities → Advice & reports that your new Head is actually assigned intake responsibility.
- Use Affiliate clubs (especially those that enable foreign youngster recruitment).
- Don’t assume first intakes are automatically best—star ratings are relative to your club’s improving level.
- Accept that some outcomes depend on nation-level youth rating/game importance.
Gamers / Sources Featured
- Thomas Brock (example Head of Youth Development in the creator’s save)
- Philillip Tapalovic (example of a staff member who may take the default responsibility assignment when responsibilities aren’t updated)
- The creator references Sports Interactive (as the source that confirmed certain mechanics over time)
- Mentioned footballers as personality examples:
- Mario Balotelli
- Clubs/leagues used as examples:
- Borussia Dortmund
- Arsenal
- Stockport County
- Oberhausen
- Example player named:
- Aane Chukwa (used to explain relative star ratings)
- Mentioned affiliates/teams:
- BVB North Texas
- Bieriam United
- Maronei Stallions
Category
Gaming
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