BuzzerBeater Forums

we're going to be lucky if our NT will be able to keep challenging for the European second round in the futur. I know several managers who are quitting the game, so our 'active' managers will be dropping down to 150... Considering that it takes 16 teams (let's make it 15 for calculations sake) per division, that means 10 drafts... Considering that the BBBL and II rarely yeild good trainable players, that means taht we'll have 5x 18y guy's with MVP or better potential per generation.

If they all get trained, we might be able to keep our NT up, but ofcourse that rarely is the case. So the old model that Joe made his run in the BBBL, with Belgian talent at the core, is about to fall apart.

I've been considering bottoming out for 2 or 3 seasons, get top prospects and sel them afterwards after 1 or 2 seasons of training, to make sure that the talent is somewhat guaranteed, but that is going to be too boring for me.

As it stands now, futur BBBL top teams will be those who get one or 2 good Belgian NT players, combined with great foreign talent... So yh, our nation is in the middle of a very annoying position.

Joe, have you got any idea how the Czechs keep getting decent talent in there system? we might need to try and addapt the Czech model, problem is that multiple teams will have to be willing to make that attempt if it is to work...

Problem is, trying to train more than one player for the NT is pretty annoying when it comes to planning. This is almost no variation from the established model allowed if 3 players are following the same path.

I have my hands full with Frans and Gaethofs, I won't take another player to train on top of those. If I buy another belgian player, that will be one who has reached his potential or is too old to be trained.

Well since a long time I have an idea, but this would need all managers or at least 10 managers to take part at best 20.

I would like to introduce something like an academy for young players.
The idea is quiet simple every team would need to get at least one young national player, this would be coordinated by the national coordinators(=C) (most likely Joe :P). The C would direct players to each team in order that we have at least 2 players by position being trained. Ideally everyone would get 18 year old players so we could advance season by season and having a real competitive U21 roster after 3 seasons, then we would advance in order to train the players to get a competitive NT and maybe make the impossible possible.

Naturally this is easier said as done this would need a lot of players to be motivated and a lot of coordination. Setting this up would even take 1-2 seasons and we would need to get a bit lucky in the draft. For the NT this may become really hard but for U21 this is certainly possible. And what does it really take? Come on guys training 1 player is not asked too much

i think you can bring that problem back to the GM's. back in the day, LoD (and i commend him for that decision) decided to have most communication done in english. because the Flandrians aren't good enough in French and the Walloons generally aren't fluent enough in dutch to be able to fully understand the communications (plz don't feel offended if you are fluent in both languages btw!)

however, many have complained about this because it's not the "nation's" language, which ended up with the walloons joining the french forums & the flandrians going for the forums from the netherlands. Thus our community rarely worked together, except at the BBBL lvl. best example of that is the fora. which fora is the most active one? the BBBL one. BBBL forum is probably responsible for 75% of the use of all the forumposts in Belgium! So that kinda makes it hard to get others interested. It kinda is a shame. and because there is so little interest in the fora, the same goes for the U21/NT. many don't understand the benefits from it or how it works. And in all the other countries, there are many new scouts. here in belgium, we have relied on the same guy's time and time again. I'm surprized you didn't burn out a while ago. i sure did. i probably should help out again, considering that my team won't be doing a lot of stuff for now. i'll be on vacation during the off season, but should i return on time, feel free to ask for some help on the new 18y olds. i guess it's time i started dragging some weight again.

You helped me already a lot in training question, and also explained me how you believe aspiration works (do not forget that this is no sure and many managers have different opinions)

Maybe we should develop a Belgium help forum in which we could discuss all those kind of question and could help new registered managers to better understand the game and maybe we will not lose that many users.

I have just one question; for some countries if you acquire a player he will have a notification on his player side considering he may be for some value for the NT/U21, how does it come we don't have that for Belgian players

And I would add that the base is much too weak! An example: in our DB there are currently... 12 18 year old players. 12!!! Fortunately we also keep the 19 year old players from the draft, because you imagine the U21 coach who will have a maximum of...12!!! players to make his 18 men roster!? It's not serious. And don't ask me more time, it's the 25th season I'm busy with our NT. It's really time that new users step up, especially to scout the players between 18 and 21 year old. I have decrease the number of players catched by the draft script to have a better monitoring on these players (because to the low number of scouts we have), but I'm really wondering whether it was a good idea...

Disturbing and alarming situation...
and certainely thinking not all of these 12 will reach the high skill levels necessary for U21. When I was scout we were happy if we could lead 30% of these youngsters towards U21 levels (1/3 of the managers wasn't responding to our calls and about 1/3 were not good trained despite our efforts). Let us hope some lower skilled 18y olds out of the database will also be trained to fill up the gap.
In extra I'm happy to read Joe also took in some 19y old drafts; their starting skills can be somewhat higher and they can have future nevertheless their age (managers who are doubting about this should have a look at my 19y old draft Harm Van Caeyzeele, who was able te reach U21 and now is in the running for a NT-spot as back-up PG).

To keep Buzzerbeater Belgium alive and kicking... I'm also prepared to take back up my scouting work and help so the Belgian U21/NT. (just don't give me 30 or more youngsters to do the folow up... this is too much to bring to do a good folow-up and bring to a good end).

Furthermore, keeping NT players in our roster for lower divisions isn't that evident... Hugo and my trainer are taking more than half of my weekly income and I have hardly enough cash to buy me a new trainer, what at the moment is an urgent matter! Money to buy a promising high potential 18y youngster is missing, so draft or 19y olds are the only options at the moment (hard to see 2 seasons ago a high skilled worldstar 18y just picked before my turn and then spoiled...)