How can I get the best out of my scouts?

My fellow managers, I could use your help/advice on this one:

I have 18 scouts at my Liverpool save. By aiming to establish a worldwide scouting web, I assigned each of them to a region and the only requirement is that they scout players up to 18 years of age. I have signed good scouts, with high attributes (all of them have above 15) in the categories of judging player ability and potential. The problem that I want to address is in terms of the results that my scouts report. Of the 18 only 5/6 have returned with a list of players scouted and half of those contain only five to 10 players (from Central America, South Africa and Scandinavia). The rest of them cannot find anyone worhwile. Mind you that I have for example European scouts assigned to Asian, African, or American regions, as well as the Carribean and Oceania, thus their knowledge of these areas is/was limited (doesn't it change over time?) Should I focus on Europe, South America and maybe Africa and therefore have all my scouts in these regions? Are the other regions a lost cause? Afterall, I know that finding wonderkids from the Carribean or Oceania can't be easy and doesn't happen all too often, but not even one 1,5/2 star player, not even from Asia with all their population, or from Australia who they did have a couple of decent-good players in Kewell and Viduka? What method do you use? Do you have your scouts assigned to regions or nations and if it's the latter, how do you choose which nations to scout and which not? Do you have more than one scout assigned to the same region/nation? By the way, I have medium database.

I have the same problem at spurs where my scouts cannot even find me any players in serie A but if I say scout Italy they find me players between 16-21. To me there is something wrong with scouting this year.

My scouts are set to find players of all ages so they should find players at clubs like AC MILAN.JUVENTUS,INTER,ROMA but they come back empty handed,thats not right.

Play to the Scouts strengths - if the scout has a high knowledge of africa, put him there, which will help - obviously the better scouts will find more players - some times though, i guess its luck of the draw.

What's the point in searching for under 18s? Search for all then filter by age. Might find a fanastic 19 year old.

With 18 scouts you can afford to "waste" some of them scouting Asia, etc...

I normally don't bother scouting outside of Europe and South America. There isn't much point using one of your few scouts to scout a continent where you haven't loaded up any leagues and are using a medium or small database. There just aren't many players there, maybe a couple of hundred in the whole of N. America for example. You might pick up a wonderkid, but in the rare cases my scouts have found someone decent and reported back another big club has already found them and bought them.

I prefer to send any "extra" scouts out to follow U18/19/20 leagues in the big footballing countries.

Scouting has always been tough in my opinion. I have read everything I could find here plus on the net and came across some things that seem to help:

Attributes - seems that not only do you want high attributes in current and potential ability, I alos look for high marks in determination and also in working with youngsters. Seems that with high determination, they seem to keep looking harder in their areas plus working with youngsters seem to help find the younger players. Man managemnet seems to be important bt I cant figure how it is used

Another attriuite that seems to work well is adaptability. If you have a scout with no knowledge of Afriuca and send him there, he wont do well but if he has high adapatability, it seems that helps him work better in a country that he doesnt know.

Also remember that players they recommend are compared to your team. Im playing as Man Utd and very few players are strongly recommended. I think it also factors in who would or would not sign for your team. Lionel Messi would be a great signing for any team yet chances of him leaving Barcelona are almost nil, so they dont recommend him

I send my scouts to search regions as it seems to wrok better as they cover more area than by just setting a certain country. As a scout looks for players, he will gain knowledge there so sending him back more than once, Im guessing, should help him get better knowledge of the area. The medium database will affect you some as you wont have as many players loaded so the talent isnt as big. This affects the quality of players plus quality of staff you have access to.

A lot of this is jus my opinion of course but it does seem to help me find some good payers. Hope it helps you in someway

Good luck

What's the point in searching for under 18s? Search for all then filter by age. Might find a fanastic 19 year old.

Well I already have a strong side and I like my squad being young and if I got a 19 year old he should have to play instantly, but there is no room. This is why I am looking for 14-16 year old players at the moment, in a few years when for example Torres gets 33/34 I'll have my next first team striker ready, coming from within my Liverpool team.

Thanks Rocky0, I'll have a look at my scouts' other attributes that you mentioned, what you've said makes sense.

I don't get how my scouts can't seem to find any good players in leagues/areas where I have loaded up many players [i'm using the Retain Players file available on this very forum].

I've sent a scout to follow Italian Under 20s League, and I have maybe got 20 reports, all of mediocre 2* 2 1/2* players [and I'm Rosenborg, not Barcelona...]

Then when I try to scout for Free players (value 0), all I get is a bunch of players who have been on free transfer for ages, but no youngsters.

Not even in nations where my scout has perfect knowledge, he can find a lot of good players if I specify a criterium...

Last, but not least, I want to get a Scout Report (with stars) for EVERY player he might have scouted, instead of a random-ish choice.

I mean, if I tell you "Scout for a Dutch goalie aged 15-19", I don't want to get 4 reports (of horrid players) and then finding out there are like 50 Dutch goalies aged 15-19, some of them actually very good...

Scouting needs more direction and less "randomness

I usually only use scouts mainly at England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Brazil.

I use the rest for South Europe, Eastern Europe, but I never used them for Asian or African country.

Btw, how can u have 18 scouts? I'm Man U and they limit my scouts to 12. Besides, 18 scouts is waaay too much. Although scout's wages are small (compared to player wages) but you can use the money for something else, don't u think?