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Raymond Elias Trophy (double winner)

Written by elpenniero

elpenniero has won two Raymond Elias Trophies. (17513796.3)

The Raymond Elias Trophy is awarded to the manager the wins a no prize competition on the England forum, based upon the quality of the best three players promoted from the youth system.

Winning it once is aspirational. Winning it twice must surely involve a system of some sort, maybe some special knowledge, and perhaps some special secret ingredient.

Manager pllsr spoke for many of us when he asked for the winning system to be shared, because it obviously works!

Hattrick Press have tracked down England's top Youth Academy manager, who kindly took some time out in the season break to answer some questions...

Congratulations on becoming the first double winner of the highly coveted Raymond Elias trophy, you must be delighted?

Thanks Bink, much appreciated. It’s always nice to win something – I don’t do that too often with my 2 teams, so it makes a nice change!

Your primary team has scouts based in Northumberland, Channel Islands & Wiltshire. Your additional club has scouts in Channel Islands, Herfordshire & Yorkshire. Please could you explain why you chose to send them to these regions, and how often you move/sack or change them if at all?

It's been a while since I’ve changed any of the scouts to be honest. I opted for regions with fewer active HT players initially after reading some things on the forum that suggested that may be advantageous. I think Wiltshire and Yorkshire were just random picks.

Do your scouts search for any type of player, or are any of them looking for players suited to a specific position, and please could you explain why you have them doing what they are doing?

No – I don’t specify types of players – I just keep an eye out for players that are 15 and have a minimum of an inadequate rating, or 16 and have a minimum of a passable rating. Any worse are rejected. Unless they are my last pick – then they are called up but sacked immediately.

What time of the day and what day of the week do you normally call your scouts, and please explain your rationale for this?

I tend to call as close to their next availability as possible – Friday evening, after the weekly update. I understand the pools are renewed every day but if I forget on a Friday, I just call the scouts whenever I remember.

Your two clubs are based in Devon & Cornwall, yet none of your scouts look for players in the home region. Is this because you've already scouted all the best talent from these regions?

I started scouting in Devon and Cornwall but changed to begin scouting in regions with fewer active player numbers – no other reason.

When you call your scouts, and they tell you about a prospect, what for you is an automatic rejection from the first two scouts in terms of age, all around skill, current skill and potential - and what would they need to tell you for you as a minimum 'bar' for an immediate "accept"?

See Question 3 – however, if I have a solid set of players in my YT and my first pick on a Friday evening is a 15 yo with an inadequate rating, I do tend to reject them in the hope that my 2nd or 3rd call will give a stronger player.

Hattrick Press already published a nice article about Youth Academies here (22542).

Of the 10 various points included there, could you please single out the 3 that you consider most important to your management of your own youth teams, and why?

Younger players are usually better prospects (#4).

I tend to hold out for the 15yo youth players as it simply gives you more time to train them – it’s often a bit of a rush to fully train a 16yo.

The best skill-set doesn't necessarily include the skill that your main team is training (#8).

If a player is looking really promising but they do not fit my first team’s training plan, it doesn’t matter to me – but I will sell that player once promoted ASAP so I can maximise profit. I find it satisfying to receive Mother club money randomly in the future for a youth player I had forgot about seasons later.

Skill levels of promoted players (#6).

Probably the most important factor for me. Uncle Mish’ cycle training videos completely changed my strategy when it came to playing HT and the concept of the types of ideal skills for each position is something I use when it comes to deciding whom my focus will be upon within the youth teams. For example, my current Pennerife Youth Team has a player with a potential of:

Def 5
PM 6
Pas 6

This then is a centre half in the making – with a total “score” of 17 – divide this by 3 and that’s 5.67. My “next best” trainee has potential ratings of:

Def 5
PM 4
Wing 7
Pas 4

This one is perhaps a wing back or winger – total score of 20 – divide by 4 and you have 5.00. Which isn’t as good as 5.67…

I use this averaged “score” to decide whom to focus upon, & whether or not they have a speciality. However, if two players score equally, and one has a speciality and the other does not, the player with the speciality will always have my focus.

What tools or software do you use regularly to help manage your youth team, and is there anything you've read (articles etc) that has significantly influenced or improved your managerial approach?

As said before, Uncle Mish YouTube videos changed my way of approaching the game and gave me foundations to build my strategies. I also use Hattrick Youth Team (https://www.hattrick-youthclub.org/) and Rate My Prospect (https://www.rate-my.academy/) – the Youth Team website is particularly useful at keeping track of how close a player is to improving.

As an anecdotal observation, new youth academies seem to feature and prosper with finding some great youngsters. I've spoken to a couple of (Dutch - who this week won the U21 World Cup) managers who have closed and reopened academies because they think there is something here to exploit. What are your thoughts on this and would you consider doing it, if you felt that your 'luck' had changed, with no decent prospects due for promotion over the coming season?

Honestly – I’ve never even considered it – I imagine I would change my scouts before I shut down the YA and restart.

Some say that you create your own luck. Some say that luck is an acronym for labour under correct knowledge. You've intimated that you've been lucky, but what would you say are the key components that can help the odds to become forever in your favour?

I’m very systematic with the approach (a little pedantic in all honesty) and ensuring I maintain my focus on an individual youth prospect for me is key – you can’t train every player efficiently. Plus – be patient. My youth pulls for Pennerife have been really pleasing over the past 2-3 seasons, but my Pennerbahce pulls not so much. There’s no difference in strategy between the two clubs so there must be a fair degree of luck with it all!

Thanks very much, and good luck for retaining your Trophy this season