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I would suggest an expansion draft to fill out the U21 roster of around 10 trainees maybe? How this draft is conducted is up for discussion. U21 team members can be freely switched between your main team roster if you wish to play them in regular season games. Rookies drafted during the succeeding seasons can also be placed on the U21 roster or main roster as you see fit. A separate training schedule should be in place so both teams will have a chance to be trained. U21 games should generate income (but lesser than regular season ticket sales income) to cover for salaries.

Thank you for your feedback! So you think it's best to have a seperate roster for U21? Don't you think it's possible to just keep 1 roster, which might be easier to manage and implement?

I think it would be easier to manage if you have a separate U21 roster since: 1.) You have separate U21 and regular season games and 2.) Separate training schedules. Although both rosters can benefit from the same training staff to reduce the potential cost of expanding. The U21 draft would be a bit tricky but I suggest it be similar to pre-season draft where you select prospects but not necessarily a team full of MVP and HoF potentials, some would be scrubs, some would be fired but in the end you should get a decent full U21 roster. I hope that helps.

But we don't have a seperate cup roster while we do have seperate cup games right? I'm not sure about a seperate training shedule, but I do think there's potential to change the way training works with a U21 club competition. I think that deserves a seperate topic though, since it's a pretty big subject.

I love this idea. Frankly, this is what should have been established in the first place instead of Utopia.

Another manager game I play has a similar set-up to this idea.

Each manager has a Main Roster and a Youth Roster. After you register for the game, it randomly generates a full roster for your Main Roster and Youth Roster. Most of these players are useless, kind of like the randomly generated rosters for new teams here.

As far as game play goes, in the other game I mentioned above the structure of the youth leagues mirrors the main team. Using my team here as an example, all the teams in USA III.8 would also be in USA U21 League III.8. Promotion and demotion follows the main team, so if I would promote or demote this season, so would my youth team. There is even a Cup competition for all Youth League winners the following season.

A similar set-up would work here.

1) New teams would get a randomly generated main roster and a randomly generated U21 roster. Existing teams would get a randomly generated roster of U21 players.

2) U21 leagues could mirror the existing league set-ups for every country. Youth games could run on Mondays and Wednesdays driving more traffic to the site (meaning more revenues from ads, etc.) as well as giving managers more stuff to do in the game.

Thank you for your feedback and the comparison with the other game! Seems like a fine way to set up too.

How do the players of those team interact? Can players of the youth roster play in games of your main team or are they seperated? Can you have players below age 22 in your main team at all?

Youth players can me moved back and forth between the two teams. They can play in the youth league games and on the main team games as well. That game doesn't have a Game Shape rating but it does have a stamina rating. Play the youth players too much and you wear them out and they play worse. However, the do build up their experience rating faster.

Sounds like a valid way to use here too. I hope the developers have seen this thread and have enough input!

If any others have more feedback, ideas or ways to make this work, let's hear it!

The youth team is also a great way to develop your top rookie until he is ready to play for the first team, that way you don't have to sacrifice your main starters just to get the inexperienced rookie some training minutes.

Having a Youth Team will not be competitive at all, not even for new managers.
A promotion/relegation depends on the A-teams performance, not the Youth Team in your suggestion.
It's purely a way of training another 3-6 players up till the age of 21, without having to sacrifice spots on the A-team.

And if the youth training is not as fast as the normal one, you don't want to waste it on MVP+ talents.
It's a perfect way to fill up your bench or lower division team rosters with adept players, but since the market will be overflooded with those semi-developed 21yo, in a couple of years, no one will get any money by selling since there will be no need to buy them. Market might collapse.

In my humble opinion, a Draft system and a Youth system can't coexist. It's two different ways of adding young new players to the game. You can have one or the other, not both.

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One way might be to change the draftsystem a bit. Drafting players at the age of say 16-17, and instead of drafting them to your original roster, you have a Youth Development Team(YDT) where you can mold/train your draftees a bit further in the areas you want them to develop before you can promote them to your roster. Players can stay in the Development Team up to 19 but can be eligable for promotion at 18. The YDT will not have games to play(stressing the server), only weekly progress reports from your Youth Training staff(No need to add new type of staff, or...?).

This way you could still keep the draft system AND develop your young players a bit(slower than normal) before they join your Team.

OR you get rid of the Draft system that somewhat favors bad teams and create a Youth Team that will favor already good teams and managers. I still don't think youth games are necessary or needed. The main, if not ONLY, focus will be on developing players. Get your tactical skills by playing scrimmages and PL:s.
Main thing is that this training is not as fast and efficient as normal training. So if you want to develop a 140+ TSP player you need him to play A-Team basketball, not Youth basketball. Maximum skill levels and age need to be restricted, limiting the amount of development a player can get before promoting to your A-Team. I think youth players in this case should auto-promote to A-team when they turn 20.

Developing young talent means you need to sacrifice something else. Thats just the way it is in this game, and all manager games.

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If you need to make new managers feel competitive, maybe give them the opportunity to play (or autofill) a Private League with all new managers without the need of Supporter. There they can experiment with players, lineups and tactics against managers in the same situation/development.

(Sorry guys, but nothing to do at work today... ;-) )