Playing the futures market

When setting up your initial squad it's a good idea to buy a couple of the best teenagers you can find. Two is plenty because unless you are going down the road of youth development, young players won't contribute too much in the first season and if they are any good a significant amount of your initial £500,000 budget will be spent on them. Many managers start off with this strategy, but kind of give up after a week or two and sell these young wonderkids on for a quick buck.

The trouble with this strategy is nobody has any money in the first two weeks. Selling is the easy option. A much better strategy is to hold onto the player until the conditions are perfect to sell. I'll explain with an example.

I get probably two offers a day for Gai Assulin, the young Israeli Barca player (pictured). Best offer so far, and we're still in season one, is £1.5m. He cost me £85k in my initial squad (17% of my budget). But as someone so young, he is going to be popular with youth focused managers for a number of years yet. Yes I could cash in now, but £1.5m isn't buying much on the open market. Most £80k AF players are listed for £1m-£2m - not good value (12-25 times AF). However what if I find a youth manager who has two 21 year olds, oh say Ryan Babel and Christian Maidana for example. He could sell those guys at the end of the season because they can't play youth football next season. Or he could trade them to someone like me who is sitting on arguably one of the best 17/18 year olds in the game who will give him 3-4 more seasons at the U21 level. I get two ready made first teamers, who I could sell for even more money than Assulin if they don't work out - or more than likely I keep as first picks. Babel and Maidana are probably worth £1m in AFs, Assulin currently £130k - but 22 year olds are worth nothing to youth managers.

Youth managers are often irrational in their pursuit of wonderkids. They will spend far more on potential ability than current ability. Will Assulin ever be better than Deco? Probably not. Is he worth more than Deco? Probably yes - if you are a youth manager. Our role is not to question the sanity of those youth managers but to make a tidy profit out of them.