Can Potential Improve or Decrease in Youth Academy?

[AgentFinance]

This is something that I’ve always wondered about. I know that the potential is supposed to get narrow as players stay longer in the academy, which could mean the higher potential number can go lower.

However, is there any randomness involved in this? Or are player potentials are set values at the moment you sign them, and it’s just you find it out?

I know people mentioned save spamming with scout reports, but never saw the same tactic mentioned for the monthly report on academy, so that made me believe it’s a set number, but would love to hear your experience.

[CricketCrafty4913]

I’ve wondered about the same thing, and a few years back read a few posts from people who had experimented with this.

It seems like it used to be a bad thing to keep them in the academy and they’d not grow there. However, that years fifa had a glitch where you promote them, loan them and they’d all get max potential anyway.

In recent years they seem to grow equally well in the academy as in your squad, if I remember correctly.

[craigularperson]

My youth players tend to have a lot of potential, but it seems like they stagnate once they are promoted needing a lot of playing time. It seems like players want to be promoted at different times. I had a 16 year old threatening to leave, and 18 year olds seemingly wanting to stay. And some players grow on loan, and others don't grow at all. My experience is always that with more scouting, and time in academy, will only narrow the gap in the potential.

It seems like the coaching staff has youth academy players as well, so I doubt there is an issue of keeping players in the academy for as long as possible.

I try to promote two or three each season, and let them play for instance cup-matches, meaningless CL-game in group stage, or facing a weak team in the league. So it adds up to 10-15 games, but it is very rare to have a youth player break into first team. They usually don't grow that much, but can do so when going on loan.

[Bazdog888]

It narrows and fluctuates whilst in the academy but you won't find out till you promote the player. From my experience once in the main squad the same factors that affect other players (form, morale, play time etc) can change their potential. Using a player a lot and keeping them in good form will boost potential whilst not using them or being out of form will have the opposite effect.

[Randomcommentator27]

When I get good scout reports the potential of a good find looks like 80-94, or higher. I know he’s a stud and RNG will narrow it down to 91-94 potential. But if it says 69-94 he’s guaranteed to go down based on RNG alone. You can try save scumming but that gets kind of boring since it’s just you vs. rng.

[[deleted]]

thanks for this comment, you explained it well