Anyone else focus on youth more than on success?

[Kerguelen]

Is your team making a profit? Or is your board just wanting you to sign players ready for the first team?

My board at Maribor is a little contradicting. They will upgrade my youth facilities whenever I ask because they believe developing our own players is important, but when I ask to upgrade the training facilities so that our players can reach their full potential they reject my request because they want me to sign players who are ready for the first team.

It varies on saves. In my current save with Knattspyrnufelag Reykjavikur we're not making much profit at the monent & they say they can't find the funds, which is very understandable.

I do a save with Fulham every year, and the board always want me to sign players for the first team, and very rarely accept my requests for an upgrade to our facilities.

 

[Impz]

Buying the most disgustingly good wonderkids is the last thing i would ever do with a FM save. Your players are gonna be good as *** no matter what.

You won't know the feeling when your homegrown striker reaches this level by doing that:


That ain't even his prime.

I have to agree on that. Instead of buying a world class striker (I was criticised by the media for having a weak strike force), I depended on my 17 year old regen striker (Roy Houchen) who was 1.5 stars with 4.5 stars potential (now 2.5 stars after 2nd year and 5 star potential) and of course Simone Zaza, and giving exposure to a 16 year old 1 star with 5 star potential (now 2 star and 5 star potential).

Imagine my pride at the third season when I see Roy Houchen beating better strikers like Defoe, Carroll and other England strikers and making the 23 man list for England's Euro 2016. (To add, Jason Steele, Tom Ince made it too!)

Proudest moment of my fm 2014 career for now to see my homegrown talent growing and entering my core players. I have three 4 star potential youth, 1 4.5 star potential youth in the wings.

 

[Andras99]

I have to admit i try to do both. Win every trophy possible, with as much kids as possible. For example, in FM 2013 i managed to win the Champions League with an average squad age of 23 (Terry was still in the team at 36 + Cech at 30 something). I promoted my kids, such as Chalobah, Ake, McEachran, Feruz, Wallace, B. Traore, Loftus-Cheek, Lukaku and bought some too: Ward-Prowse, Shaw, Adryan, Kecskes, etc. Yes, i know these players are "destined for greatness", but they were not, when i started playing them, or bought them. Some other kids i wanted to develop for instance didn't live up to expectations or just had some bad luck with injuries. As many before me stated, i also feel very proud when i win trophies with my young players.
One other career based on this concept, only it's with a smaller team, in my CFR Cluj save. Won Europa League in 2019 with a very young team, started beating the big boys like Barcelona, City away too.
Fun fact: I bought a regen at CFR, and next year when i had my youth intake, surprise: his brother came in , with a 5 star potential