Suggestion - scouting in 4 stages

Stage 1: Basic report card

A very basic overview of the player’s strengths and weaknesses, possibly in the form of a radar graph that’s already available now in a player’s profile, or just a simple horizontal bar chart. No numbers, just a visual guide.

With all categories, the score would effectively be an average of the various attributes in brackets, and there’d obviously be error margins depending on the ability of the scout.

Physical [strength, stamina, natural fitness; agility, balance]

Aerial [jumping, heading]

Speed [pace, acceleration]

Mental [decisions, anticipation; work rate, teamwork, aggression, bravery, determination; influence]

Defending [tackling, marking, positioning]

Attacking [passing, creativity, flair, crossing; dribbling, technique, first touch; finishing, off the ball, composure, long shots]

The scout would give you his opinion on the player’s ability and potential, but it would be a very rough estimate and influenced heavily by a player’s reputation.

So at this point, you’ve got a very rough guide to the player, but you should have enough to know if you want to take a closer look…

Stage 2: 2-3 game report card

After watching the player in action for a few games, the scout would then come back with a similar report, giving you an overview of the six main categories (this time they might be a bit more accurate), but also with the option to break some of them down in to sub-categories:

Physical:

-- Conditioning [strength, stamina, natural fitness]

-- Athleticism [agility, balance]

Aerial

Speed

Mental

-- Intelligence [decisions, anticipation]

-- Drive [work rate, determination, aggression, bravery, teamwork]

-- Leadership [influence]

Defending

Attacking

-- Creativity [passing, creativity, flair, crossing]

-- Skill [dribbling, first touch, technique]

-- Forward play [finishing, off the ball, composure, long shots]

Again, you don’t get numbers, just a visual guide (a horizontal bar graph, or something similar).

The scout might also give you an idea of whether or not the player takes certain set-pieces (free-kicks, pens, corners) for his team. Again, you’d have the scout’s opinion on the player’s ability and potential, which would be a bit more accurate this time but still influenced by reputation.

At this point, you should have a good idea of the type of player you’re looking at, and whether it’s worth allocating a scout to follow them for a bit longer…

Stage 3: 2-3 month report card

After a scout’s followed a player’s progress for a few months, you’ll get another report that further breaks down the categories, giving you a graphical value (but not a number) for each individual attribute listed above.

You’ll also have a value for each of the different set-pieces, and a basic guide to the player’s personality (the same thing we have now: ‘professional’, ‘very ambitious’, ‘balanced’).

Again, the scout will give you an opinion of the player’s ability and potential, but this time it should be a lot more accurate, and very little to do with reputation at all.

At this point, you should pretty much know whether or not this is the sort of player you want to sign. But for the cautious managers out there, there’s one more step you can take:

Stage 4: Season-long report card

If you follow a player for a whole season, the scout will come back with a similar breakdown of each of the attribute mentioned above, but this time he’ll expand on their personality a bit. You’ll get a graphical indication of some important hidden attributes such as their injury proneness, consistency, big match ability, ability to handle pressure, etc.

Again, you’ll get a guide to their ability and potential, but this time it should be even more accurate.

I should say that the different categories, and the attributes that make them up, are obviously a matter of opinion. But I chose them just to illustrate the idea.

They'd obviously differ slightly for goalkeepers, but I'll let you use your imagination for that

This is just a very rough outline of how I think the scouting could be improved. Feel free to add your own suggestions...

It's interesting, and well thought out, but frankly, I think most people are too impatient to have a system like that, even if it's a more realistic one.

It's an interesting suggestion but i doubt many people scout a player for more than 4/5 games before deciding wether to buy them or not.

I personally wouldn't really want to have a scout spending a year scouting just one player. I imagine this would greatly reduce the number of players you would be able to scout.

Seems brain-blurringly complex. Kudos for the thought gone into it though.

I don't think the scouting is too bad as is; aside from the actual judgement of the scouts.

It's an interesting suggestion but i doubt many people scout a player for more than 4/5 games before deciding wether to buy them or not.

I personally wouldn't really want to have a scout spending a year scouting just one player. I imagine this would greatly reduce the number of players you would be able to scout.

Sure.

But there'd be no need to scout a player for more than 3-4 games, most of the time. That would be enough to give you a fairly decent impression of the type of player he is, his strengths and weaknesses, and how good your scout thinks he is.

But of course, there'd be a small element of risk. So if you wanted to spend big bucks on a player, you might consider spending a few months watching him to get more information.

At the moment, I can get a simple report card o n a player within one day, and often know all of his attributes, his personality and positions straight away. I rarely get the sense that I'm taking a bit of a gamble on a player.