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VetleGunnarsen
When I watch videos on player development, they all emphasize that first-team football is crucial for development. By that logic, U18 and U21 teams seem pretty useless—or maybe I’m just misunderstanding the point.
I also wonder if this applies to B-teams that are playable, like in my Getafe save where Getafe B has reached the second division of Spain. Does this count as first-team football?
PoorJack
Yes, it's about player development… and you're to develop a player in an academy before they can turn into professionals. It's like… you don't just throw everyone into universities, but you do need to study and develop, going through primary school and high school first.
Players:
Players need to learn and develop and become decent enough, before they can gain match experience. For example, if you don't have the stamina and are out of breath after just 5 mins on the pitch, you're not going to learn anything in a match!
Yes, first-team games bring you the best match experience. The fact is that you can't have 40 players on the bench, and obviously, you can't make 20 substitutions in a game. Let alone how the result is… there's 90 minutes in a game, how do you share the playing time among all the players?
So, the questions is: Let the youngsters sit at the stand and watch the senior members play every week, or Have the boys play against other players of the same level… which can benefit them more?
Clubs:
From a club's perspective, you do need to evaluate if any youngsters are good enough to make the first team. Sadly, not everyone can become first-team players, or even play football in lower leagues.
Yes, first-team football is crucial as you said… and as mentioned above, game time is limited, and I suppose you want to give it to your best young players, right? Having U21 and U18 may help you identify your best prospects, so you can allocate the best possible resources to them. This way, they can improve further and you've a better chance to develop them into star players.
Besides, some leagues have restrictions on the number of players sending out on loan. So, you just need to find some game time for your young players within your club anyway…
Management:
Next, if you're in the management, do you prefer a first-team of 50 players OR 3 smaller teams which have different objectives and are managed by dedicated staff? For example, in U18, you may focus more on building their physical attributes, while you can start teaching tactical stuff in U21.
How about training needs? A 16-year-old academy player, who comes to training after school and prepare for examination next week, can't possibly handle the same workload as a professional first-team player...
Also, here is another benefit of U21 or U18 teams: If you happen to have first-team members recovering from injury, they can play at the reserves to build match fitness before being ready for some first team action.
In summary, it's like education… universities are crucial, but if you want to develop great students and graduates, you don't just do things on the top level. It's important to build a solid foundation first, starting from the bottom, i.e. primary and high schools… I won't say they're useless.
In FM's case, if you're to build a great football club, it starts from your academy. Without great academies, where do all those talents come from? OK, you may simply sign prospects from other teams, but without building a decent academy, where do your train them?
Well, by all means, you can experiment by sending everyone to your first team, and ignore the U18, U21 and others. Then, see how it goes…