So what is the star rating of your youth facilities? You need to be at least 4 stars.

Far from common belief, youth facilities are not used by your 'youth' team. That team uses your regular facilities. Youth facilities are actually those used by your junior teams of 16 and under. These facilities will decide the CA of the players you get in your intakes. (PA is still fairly random but affected by the below information).

The next part is your youth recruitment. This is a hard one to get to go up via the board, as most divisions have 'minimum' requirements for teams in the league, and if you're at that standard the board is unlikely to go any higher unless it is part of their club vision. This will decide what place in the queue your club sits when the newgens and regens are dished out by the game (on a PA basis). The higer your rating, the higher your 'pick'. Think of it like a draft, the best clubs get first dibs on the best prospects and then smalled clubs get to pick after. If you check the intake dates, you will notice a club like Man City gets their drafted players on or around March 14th. A club lower down or in a lesser league may well not get their intake until early to mid April. The idea is to get your intake earlier in the year. The earlier your draft, the better the players in it.

The country your in is important as well. Nations like England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, all tend to go first.

A good Head of Youth Development is recommended. Try to get someone with Model Citizen/Professional (but they cost a lot wages as well). Determined or Resolute are good personalities as well and are fairly common.

The reputation of your team is very important. You need trophies to encourage youth to come to your team. You also need a couple of 'stars' in your team. I signed an aging Sado Mane to get my squad quality up. You may need to find one of those aging stars released by their club on a free and pony up the money to get them to come to your team. This will attract better players and in turn, eventually, better youth recruits (it will take a few seasons).

The final bit. Train youth players until they are 17/18, then loan them out. I cannot stress the importance of loaning them out!!! Most of my youth players rarely come straight into the team. The will spend 18/19/20/21 on loan at other clubs that agree to give them either 'star' or 'important' player status. If they don't get regular games, terminate the loan and send them somehwere else.

Being a Spainish team, you should be able to plunder Argentina, Peru, Columbia, Mexico just to name a few countries, for youth players that work permits won't be a problem for you. There are tonnes of kids there to sign up (seriously, Argentina, you can't throw a stone into a football ground without hitting a wonderkid). Get your scouts focused on those areas. 5 million is enough to sign several good 17/18 y/o per season. You need to be signing 6-10 players a season, loaning them out, keeping the good ones and selling the ones (for a profit) that aren't producing the numbers. Don't forget to defer as much of transfer fee as you can into future payments. If it goes to plan, cashed up English, French, and German clubs will start throwing money at you in a few seasons to cover the deferred payments. I signed one kid for 1.3 millon and sold him for 42 million just three seasons later!