BuzzerBeater Forums

In order to attempt to improve the quality of the England U21 team, I thought I would create a post to provide some help and guidance with training that will benefit new and existing managers with training players for the U21 team.

Why should you train players for the NT/U21 teams
1- Increased merchandise income
2- Save money on the transfer list
3- Potentially big profits
4- Improve knowledge of BB

1- Increased merchandise income
When your player is in the gameday squad for the NT/U21 team, you receive a merchandise boost of up to 15% of that player’s salary for a home NT/U21 player (up to 10% for non-home nation players). This is based on the ranking of the team at that point. This can provide a significant boost to your income over the course of a season.

2- Save money on the transfer list
By training your own player(s), you can save money on the transfer list by not having to pay for another player for your team. Some players cost millions, and you can save a lot by training those players yourself!

3- Potentially big profits
A well-trained young player can have a high sale price due to potential to improve further and potential longevity of using that player. You can buy mid-level potential 18 year olds just after the draft for as little as 10-50k. These players can be sold for up to 1m by the time they finish their U21 season!

4- Improved knowledge of BB
Training young players is a great way to learn more about BB, such as game shape management, training speeds, elastic effect, importance of skills etc. I believe training is a great way to start in BB while you’re learning how the game engine works to help improve your team as well as creating a sellable asset.

While I can’t guarantee that your player will play every week, or even that they’d make the 18-man squad, if they are trained well and offer skills that are useful for the team there is a high chance they will get chosen.


How to train
For a player to receive full training, they need to play 48mins (45 for aged 18/19) at the specified training position over the course of the week in the games on Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday. For example, if you are training Outside defence, your trainee will need to play 48 minutes (45mins if 18/19) at PG over those 3 games in the week. So you can train 3/6 players a week if you wish.

You should always look to do single position training for each skill where possible. Training 1 on 1, Jump shot and rebounding only allow a minimum of 2 position training, so if you are training those skills that 2 positions is what you should go for.

Trainer/Youth trainer level
You should look to have a minimum of level 4 (advanced) trainer and youth trainer (for 18/19 year olds) in order for your players to develop at the best rate possible. Obviously, the higher level the better depending on what you can afford.

Training plans
As for a training plan, that is position/player build dependent. Generally, a perimeter player will start with 1 on 1 forwards training as this trains the most overall skills and provides good elastic effect for later training (elastic effect will be explained later). While inside players it is generally better to focus on the inside skills from the start. For more specific training plans feel free to get in touch.


Last edited by arrowspg5 at 9/3/2024 7:31:58 AM

Factors that affect training speeds

There are 4 factors that effect the speed of training for skills: age, height, trainer level and elastic effect.

Age- Each season a player becomes a year older, and each season their training speed declines slightly. The decline isn’t too bad up to age 21, but you will begin to see a significant difference by the time a player reaches 24/25.

Height- Some trainings are affected by a players height. Shorter players will receive faster training while training Outside shooting, Outside defence and Handling. Taller players will receive faster training with Inside shooting, inside defence, rebounding and shot blocking training. All other trainings (based on the Coach Parrot spreadsheet) are not affected by height.

Trainer level- as mentioned above, higher level trainers train faster than lower level ones. Level 4 trainers are seen as the best ‘value for money’ in terms of their salaries are pretty low and offer reasonable training speed (estimated at 0.97 multiplier).

Elastic effect- The elastic effect takes effect when a related skill is higher than the skill being trained. The most common example of this is Outside defence training being increased if Handling is higher. Here is a list of the skills and related skills for elastic effect:

Jump shot- Jump range and Driving
Jump range- Jump shot, outside defence and driving
Outside defence- Handling and Inside defence
Handling – Driving and Outside defence
Driving- Jump shot and Handling
Passing- Handling and Driving
Inside shot- Inside defence and Jump shot
Inside defence- Shot blocking and Inside shot
Rebounding- Inside defence and inside shot
Shot blocking- Inside defence and Rebounding

Game shape management

Having high game shape is crucial in BB as it has a big effect on how well a player will play. You should always aim to maintain game shape to be at 8/9 (strong/proficient) in order to ensure your player can perform at their best. If your player has less than that (other than the first week of a season when it is reset to 7) it’s very unlikely your player will play that week.

To maintain game shape at a high level, you should aim to play your player between 48-75 minutes a week over the Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday games. It also helps if you have a massage specialist doctor and/or a sports psychologist as these help reduce the effect of game shape drops for poorly managed minutes.

U21 Skill requirements

Here I’m going to try and cover as many player builds as possible and the skill level I would consider the minimum they would need to make the squad.

For perimeter players, the minimum potential to reach these builds would be 6 (Allstar), however I would recommend a minimum of 7 (Perennial Allstar). For inside players, 7 (Perennial Allstar) potential would be the minimum to reach the build required but I would recommend a minimum of 8 (Superstar) potential.

Point guards/Shooting guards

Defensive/Playmaker- 15 Outside defence, 12 Passing,
Outside scoring- 14 Jump shot, 10 Jump range, 13 Outside defence, 9 passing
General scoring- 13 Jump shot, 13 Outside defence, 9 Passing, 10 Inside shot

Small Forwards

Outside scoring- 14 Jump shot, 10 Jump range, 13 Outside defence, 9 Inside defence
General scoring- 14 Jump shot, 12 Outside defence, 11 Inside shot, 9 Inside defence
Inside scoring- 13 Outside defence, 13 Inside shot, 11 Inside defence
Defence specialist- 15 Outside defence, 12 Inside defence, 9 Passing

Power Forwards/Centre

Inside scoring- 15 Inside shot, 14 Inside defence, 12 Rebounding
Outside scoring- 10 Jump shot, 13 Driving, 13 Inside shot, 13 Inside defence
Defensive specialist- 14 Inside defence, 13 Rebounding, 17 Shot Blocking

These are the generic builds I look for in a u21 player. In addition to those skills, having high secondary skills is also important, but not essential. It should also be noted that these are minimums I’d like to aim for, and for us to reach the top level we should be aiming for higher than these.

If you want any more help with training or if you have any questions feel free to drop me a BB-mail and I’ll get back to you when I can. If anyone would like to offer their time to help the U21 team with scouting, training plans, messaging managers please let me know.

This is a great post on the basics of training and why every manager should be looking to invest time and money in training. For me it is the most enjoyable part of the game; investing years into seeing your players develop to push your team to promotions and league titles, represent the U21 and NT and return some of that cash you've invested in merchandise through NT representation and presence on leaderboards is what makes it all worth it.

One thing I think that is worth adding to the training section is how investing in the Gym infrastructure can also boost training. If anyone isn't aware, a Gym can be built under the 'Team Infrastructure' section of the Arena page to further enhance training, depending on what level of Gym is built. There are three levels of gym ranging from Level 1 (cost of £200k to build) to Level 3 (cost of £1M to build). Depending on what level of gym you have depends on the number of 'cross-training' slots that are available for your trainees, so level 1 has 1 cross training slot of 10% and level 3 has 3 cross training slots of 10%.
Note: it is worth noting only trainees who have qualified for training receive this cross-training boost.