The Story of Manager A and Manager B

nicosantos76 talking about 2 managers who are both not investing in Little League:

Winning Youth leagues doesn't help improve your finances at all. But winning matches with your seniors (especially advancing in the International Cup) does give you a lot of money. Each day we have more and more users wondering what's the point of buying a u-21 (Youth) player. Let's pretend we have 2 managers and both managers are great at buying and selling players, and that neither of them invest a cent into their Little League.

Manager A buys only awesome-experienced players with great skills at a relatively low price. He doesn't spend a cent on u-21 players and makes no investment into his Little League. This doesn't hurt him at all since he's not expecting to draft anything and his economy won't be hurt at all by not paying for training and being relagated to the 4th amateur division by losing every game 14-0. Manager A has a full budget for buying ready-to-play players and can afford to pay them high salaries as he will have no more than 30 or 40 players and he will buy/sell an extra player only if needed (because of injuries or a given rival team). As Manager A is great at buying and selling he doesn't earn (or lose) a dime for his trades, despite the old player's tendency to lose skills and reduce in value by getting older. He bought them cheap, so he can deal with selling them cheap. He just needs to remember to avoid keeping a player for too long.

Manager B buys mainly youth players and they will, eventually, become his senior players, so he goes for high potentials and interesting current skills. He also buys some senior players, but as he enjoys training and improving players he tries to find players aged 28-30. As Manager B invests money in buying youth players he has a limited budget to buy senior players. He's going for a long term strategy of developing his own players. He has 30 or 40 senior players, and another 30 or 40 U-21 players.

Now let's make a comparison: Manager A has a better senior team than Manager B because his finances were invested there. He advances 3 more rounds in the I.C. (International Cup) than Manager B, making an extra 100k in the season in I.C. tickets sold; he also gets good sponsor bonuses because he wins more matches (and by a bigger goal difference=clear win). Let's say this gives him an extra 100k a season. And last but not least, he has a better team ranking and an easier draw for next season's I.C. making it easier to advance even further in the I.C. next season. He also will have a better Flair rating because it will be easier for him to play offensively as he has better players than most of his opponents. Flair is quite important in FK, so his income for tickets sold are 20% higher than Manager B's, and thus earning an extra 100k. Conclusion: This makes Manager A earn 300k more a season than Manager B, of course the numbers are fair from being exact, in fact it is more likely he's earning more than that compared to Manager B.

While Manager A has no u-21 players and is now reaching 7th amateur division of the Youth league, Manager B succeeded to be second in the highest Youth league of the country. Manager B took 20,000 advantage of this as he sold some more tickets. So now Manager A has dropped to a 280,000 difference of money in his favor. Manager B sells each season some of his recently-promoted senior players in order not to overpopulate his senior team and be able to deal with a 60 to 80 player's squad salaries. These players that he sells, you may be tempted to think, earn him a lot of money: Plain wrong. The managers who want to win a senior league buy experienced players, and those who care about their u-21 team buy players with high current skills when they're still u-21. So if you sell a player when he's no longer u-21, his value is lower than if you had sold him in his last (playable) u-21 season. As he's not ready for the senior team and he can't play any longer in u-21 squad, potential buying managers of the player are very conservative about how much they will spend in a long term investment like that.

So let's say he earns 80k by buying u-21 players and selling them when they're recently promoted to senior players (80k is the final result after taking from the profit all the money spent in salaries and training of these u-21 players). This extra 80k Manager B earns is then compared to when Manager A keeps a player for his senior team and sells him when he's older than 29. Manager B really loses more money, but as in this example, since he's great at buying cheap u-21 players he just loses 80k by selling his now 29 years old player in high form.

So I think it's a smarter choice to be Manager A. I was reluctant at first but now I'm convinced because:

- Experience is very important (maybe too much) in FK and older players are more experienced and they don't have enough negatives, like getting injured more often or having serious problems to keep his CO high enough to be able to play a full match.

- Winning or losing u-21 leagues doesn't make the slightest difference to your economy while winning senior matches makes all the difference in the world.

- Training a player, developing his skills gives you much less money than the one you lose by not winning more senior matches. The bonuses for winning senior matches are too high and the incentives for developing a player are too short. Having u-21 players means paying $200 for over 50 player's training, salaries are quite high because they're too related to the value you buy them and high potentials. U-21 players don't come cheap.

To summarize, something must be done because nowadays u-21 teams and leagues are something we care about for the joy of it, but the price we're paying for this joy is too high and those who keep their money away from u-21 players are making a difference in the game. I'm very aware now of the benefits of being Manager A, but I still would like to be Manager B and care about my u-21 squad without being so much penalized for that. Am I asking too much? Thanks for your time.

response from ddraig

a) Little League is the worst investment these days, the only reason I really invest is to try to get some good players for my (patriotic) home nation. Most of the players I do draft are players that might be able to play in the U21s, but not my senior team. I have more control over what I get on the transfer market. I do draft the odd player from LL that I don't think I could buy on the transfer market, but these are very few and far between.

b) Buying youth players is the best investment. This is where I'm at odds with the original point I think. You can buy 15 yr olds reasonably cheap, but buying 16, 17, and 18yr olds can be better value because people often ignore them. I've picked up lots of bargains in this way, and sold them for profit or had them develop into my team. Some don't work out, but if you buy sensibly then you're generally in for a profit or a fantastic-value senior player.

c) Buying older players can be good. I generally only buy older players to cover gaps in my squad, but they're ready to go and don't need too much investment generally. However, as they get older they're less valued, which means resale is lower, and their wage is generally higher even if their original transfer value was lower. It's also much more difficult to get hold of a really good senior squad player (by this I mean National Team/International Cup class), and if they are around even old ones cost a lot. These players lead to the 4k+ wages that also have a direct impact on the teams in your league, by pushing up everyones wage bill.

I think again it's personal choice, and I'm sure if I looked at it in more detail I'd be surprised by what I saw. However, the main goal is to compete and win, and there are a lot of good teams which use various player strategies. I'm sure you could argue that each one has their benefits, and looking at 2 different teams they'd be better at one strategy or the other because they know how to value players better using that strategy.