Giving youth experience in friendlies

[Jamo23]

In light of Liverpool playing Rangers in a friendly last night, obviously to give fringe players a game, it got me wondering about doing the same to youth players.

Myself being a Liverpool fan and no doubt going to be playing as Liverpool, we have a lot of good prospects in the demo and I'm trying to give them game time.

I know that first team football is the best way of developing a player, but do friendlies count the same as a competitive match? If so, I could be organising friendlies like this mid-season on a regular basis.

Can anyone confirm if playing young players in friendlies helps their development in any way?

 

[W4FC B3N]

First team game time always helps, especially if there are experienced players in the line up. OBviously don't use your top players in mid week friendlies, but your fringe players who are pretty much deadwood but have epxerience. It's not something I do but it does definately help.

 

[Jamo23]

First team game time always helps, especially if there are experienced players in the line up. OBviously don't use your top players in mid week friendlies, but your fringe players who are pretty much deadwood but have epxerience. It's not something I do but it does definately help.

Its not something I've ever considered, but considering Liverpool don't have european football this season I reckon its worth trying

 

[Isildrae]

I started doing this when I took over managing HSV in Germany. Instead of a reserves team, they have an
under-23s which obviously means that anyone over that age who isn't in my first team, never stays match fit.

I've also in the past arranged friendlys once a week with my feeder club. I've done this with the reserves as well as the first team, especially if my feeder club is in a country and I don't have that league active. This I imagine will
become less of a problem now that you switch leagues on and off easily. Still it means that if you have several
players playing, in Belgium for example, to get EU citizenship, you can make sure that the feeder club gets games and not just rely on AI simmed games.

I don't know for certain if this has more of an effect - with FM who really does? - but at the very least I find it handy to have lots of games for my strikers to re-find their goalscoring streak. If they are struggling, I immediately stick them in one of these friendliest, they score a couple of goals and they are usually back on form.