Youth academy or scouting network?

• Since 2023 the scouting network uses the same pool as the academy and shows a preview of the youngster before you choose. Since 2024 the candidates are shown all together.
• A well-kept academy yields more (average TSI of promoted players about 710), but a neglected academy yields much less than a scouting network (155 vs 490).

Current value and potential value

For every skill a youngster has two values: the current level and the maximum potential he can reach in the academy. They are written separated by a slash: 4/? means current 4 and unknown potential, ?/5 unknown current and potential 5.

• A skill always turns yellow when it reaches its maximum, even if it had not been discovered and even if the coach does not say so in the report.
• Every value has hidden decimals: Playmaking 5/6 can be 5.3 with a maximum of 6.7. No skill goes above 8.1; for youngsters who are "born keepers" the maximum is 7.9 in Goalkeeping and 6.4 in Defending.
• On arrival the specialty and the personality may also be unknown. Personality decides how many fouls the youngster commits and how much he weighs on team spirit when he is bought or sold.

Primary, secondary and osmosis

In the academy you choose two trainings at once, and the youngsters train right after every match, not at a fixed time. Besides making them grow, training reveals unknown values.

With the same primary and secondary (for example Playmaking + Playmaking) the youngsters in the right position get 133% in that skill, but the report reveals no potential.

What each type of training is worth

Percentage of a full training, for those in the trained positions. Playmaking is worth 50% on wingers, Winger 50% on wing backs. Scoring and set pieces also gives +22% to the set pieces of the taker and the keeper. Individual goes from 40% to 100% depending on the skill picked (see part 2).

Slower than in the senior team

Weeks of primary training to raise Playmaking from 6 to 7. Calculated with the Hattrick Youthclub and Hattrick Portal tools.

Youth training slows down with age, by about 0.275% per week. At 17 the primary training is worth about 40–45% of the senior team's (coach level 4, two level-5 assistants, 10% stamina). This is why delaying promotion is expensive.

The coach's report

It arrives right after the match. Every sentence has a precise meaning, even the ones that look vague: Hattrick Youthclub has a page that explains them all.

It always contains

• the current value of a skill of a youngster trained with the primary;
• the potential value of a skill of a youngster trained with the secondary (missing if primary and secondary are the same);
• the skill-ups of all youngsters, for the skills whose current value is already known;
• only one maxed-out skill. If several reach their maximum, the coach mentions one, but they all turn yellow.

Sometimes it also contains

• the potential of one of the top 3 untrained skills of a youngster;
• a comment on the overall potential, on a trained skill or on an untrained one;
• the reveal of a specialty, a comment on personality or on an above-average performance;
• advice on training ("he should train…").

Useful rules

• Promote as soon as possible. After 17 years and 10 days the market value drops a lot: promotion is never delayed, except by a few days.
• The promotion bonus. On promotion the youngster gets a small extra training: a skill close to a skill-up can pop, if it would also have popped with osmosis. Check it with the Supporter training estimate or with the Hattrick Youthclub calculator.
• At least 11 youngsters in the squad. With fewer than 11 players you cannot promote anyone. To play, 9 are enough.
• To sell, you must promote. A youngster cannot be put on the market straight from the academy.
• For individual training what counts is the position where the youngster played most minutes.
• Youth injuries are updated every day at around 03:00, HT time.
• The most useful CHPP tools are Hattrick Youthclub and Scoutrick (formerly Rate My Academy).

League and scouts

• A 16-team league (30 matches): fewer seasonal breaks, when the restart can be delayed to fill empty slots.
• Playing between Saturday and Tuesday morning, after the weekly update and before the senior team's match: a youngster who has just been promoted then gets two trainings in the same week.
• Always three scouts, unless you have serious financial problems. The academy costs €5,000 per week plus €5,000 for each extra scout: with three, about €320,000 per season.
• Look for "any player": asking for a specific position lowers the chance of finding strong prospects.
• Scout before your youth match, as soon as possible after the weekly update: the 112 days also count the time of the pull, so the youngster can be promoted before the senior team's match and train on Thursday straight away. That scouting early gives better youngsters is not proven.
• Some groups of managers all scout in the same small region (the Italian "Cagliari" project, before it "Aosta Valley"), to remove from the pool more quickly the youngsters rejected several times.

What the scout reveals

Each scout proposes one youngster and you can sign only one. Almost everything stays hidden, but the scout randomly reveals a few pieces of information:

• the age: 15 years old in one third of cases, 16 in the other two thirds;
• the specialty: present, absent or unknown. If he says there is none, the youngster will never have one;
• the current and the potential value of two skills, chosen among the 3 with the highest potential;
• the overall value, in one third of pulls.

The overall value is the sum, over the 3 skills with the highest potential (set pieces excluded), of the average between current and potential value.

• For the same comment, a low current value is good news: the same average needs a higher potential (4/6 and 3/7 are equivalent).
• Very different youngsters share the same range: an "inadequate" can be 5/5/5 or 7/6/5.
• A youngster with no overall comment and no low potentials can still be strong. One reported as weak or inadequate will not be a phenomenon.

Scout comments tier list

To choose among the youngsters proposed. For the same comment, the 15-year-old is always worth more.

Choosing the prospect to invest in

Training is set on the best youngster in the squad and then adapted to the others. To rank them, look at all of these together:

• the promotion age: he must be completable within a few days after turning 17;
• the scout's comments, using the tier list above;
• three sentences from the coach: "has an exceptional maximum potential", "is one of the best players this youth academy can produce", "could have a bright future". They mean he is one of the top 3 of the squad by overall potential: discover his potentials straight away. If the sentence comes for a fourth youngster, one of the previous three may have been overtaken;
• the specialty: without one, a youngster is worth much less. The most sought after are Powerful, Quick, Unpredictable and Head;
• the potential HTMS, the estimated value at 28 (Foxtrick, Hattrick Youthclub). It only counts the values already discovered, so it underrates youngsters who are still unknown.

Individual training: what you get by position

Each youngster trains only one skill per match, picked according to the position where he played most minutes. If a skill that is already yellow comes up, that match's training is lost.

Study by albertocorrez on over 4,000 reports (2018); glynzales's measurements differ by 1–2 points. Set pieces are probably overestimated: the scout never reveals them, so they come up more often in training reveals.

How much individual training gives, skill by skill

In % of a full training. The speed depends only on the skill picked, not on the position: if Playmaking comes up, as secondary it always trains 41.55%, whether the youngster plays inner midfielder, winger, defender or forward. glynzales's 2020 estimates were somewhat different.

Lineup and match

• Play with 8 outfield players. The report reveals the potential of one of the top 3 untrained skills of a youngster on the pitch: with fewer youngsters it is more likely to hit a key prospect. Youth matches have no cards. Once the values you care about are known, go back to playing with 11.
• Always Play creatively: it adds one special event per team, and a youngster can trigger his specialty's event even if it is not known yet. The coach will not say so: you see it in the match report, or Hattrick Youthclub and Scoutrick flag it.
• Defensive inner midfielder and forward without orders can trigger the Powerful event: put the youngsters with an unknown specialty there.
• Do not play to win: in the academy it is useless. Choose the lineup for training and for discovering values.

Match ratings and weather

A high rating (6 stars or more) is a signal not to ignore, but read it knowing how it is built:

• Passing weighs a lot for every outfield player: a high rating can come from high Passing with a low position skill.
• On wingers a high Winger does not necessarily lead to a high rating.
• With equal skills, forwards get at least one star more than the other sectors.

The weather can give away a hidden specialty. Technical, Quick and Powerful players get ±5% on their rating:

One coincidence is not enough: ratings swing from one match to the next anyway.