A Proposal: Scouting Overhaul and Academies

I believe most people would agree with me that the game’s scouting system is, in most regards, the same as it was a decade ago and therefore, outdated. Unless there are plans to change it in FM2011. The last real changes that I noticed were the introduction of Country/Region Knowledge and Roaming Scouts. It’s been discussed before, but I am going to go over it once more. Hopefully with some new ideas and an organized manner. I realize it's too late for implementation into FM2011, but if no major changes have been made, then perhaps SI can look into it for FM2012.

Non-Player Attributes

First, I recommend changing the non-player attributes. It’s time to evolve from the simple judging current and potential ability. I suggest Judging Technical Ability, Judging Physical Ability, Judging Mental Ability, judging the potential ability in each category, and Judging Character (loyalty, demeanor, maturity, ie the non-visible attributes). This corresponds to the subsets of player attributes and player character.

The Scout Report

With the new attributes, the scout report should change dramatically. Since the scout is rating both current ability and potential ability, there is more to report. I suggest retaining the five-star scale in which three stars means the player’s ability is on par with the players currently in the squad. Rather than the player being rated on a whole, each subset of skills is rated against the current squad. The blue current ability stars for youth players would be removed and replaced with a new potential ability stars.

Potential ratings change slightly. The five-star scale remains, but is altered. A three-colored system is introduced containing red, gold, and green stars. The red stars indicate likely decline in attributes. Gold stars indicate stability. Green stars indicate growth. When a scout judges potential ability, he takes age, attributes, and non-visible attributes into account. With this, the scout reports back whether he thinks a player has room to grow, has peaked, or is on the decline. In addition to this, the number of stars indicates the rate of growth, stability, or decline.

If a scout rates a player with one red star, he believes the player is on a slow decline. A player rated with five red stars means the believes the player’s decline is rapid. Likewise, five gold stars indicates the scout believes the player’s at peak and is likely to be there for a while, while fewer stars indicates less time remaining at his peak. Five green stars indicates a lot of room and likelihood for growth, one indicates a little room for growth.

The scout will indicate an estimate for

A) how long it will be before the player reaches his peak (green star);

B) how long the player will remain at his peak (gold star);

C) how many productive years the player has at the level of your club (red star).

Tactical Knowledge and Adaptability should be important attributes as well. Higher Adaptability allows a scout to get on the ground a go faster in a new country, ie shorter turn around between start of assignment and first report back. Higher Tactical Knowledge allows the scout to identify the best formations and roles for a player.

Scouting Staff/Chief Scout/Automated Assignments

I think it would be great to for the manager to have the ability to hire a Chief Scout. He would act as the lead scout and, in addition to your assistant manager, provide an opinion on scouted players. Similar to how the assistant manager can arrange/manage friendlies and manage youth/reserve contracts, the Chief Scout can be tasked to manage where the other scouts are assigned (no more restarting scouting assignments). In addition to the abilities I described above, it would be good if the Chief Scout had high Man Management (control those underlings).

Third Party Services

For managers at clubs with minimal funds or positions for full-time scouting staff, this a cheaper option. The scout assignment screen will have a button that allows you to hire a third-party scout service. The manager first selects which agency to use. There may be a few world-wide services, but mostly there will be a regional and national services. Then the manager indicates age ranges, positions he desires, and for how long the service will be hired. The longer the service is hired the larger the returned shortlist will be and more thorough the scout reports will be. The shorter the length of hire, the more likely you are to receive transfer-listed, for loan, and free transfers. I don’t know about the pricing and what not. That could be arbitrary, cheaper than a scout in the short term, but repeated use ends up being more expensive.

Another caveat of this is that the service is paid 10% of the transfer fee, in addition to the hiring fee. This is not applicable to free transfers. Let’s say you use this service and negotiate a $10,000 transfer. On top of that, you’ll pay $1,000 to the service.

Academies

After suitable maintained knowledge of a country or region is attained, scouts should recommend suitability and likely success of an academy in a nation or region. At the next opportunity, in lieu of requesting a feeder club, the manager can request the establishment of an academy in a country or region. If multiple scouts recommend countries or regions, you may choose one of the recommendations.

Upon request, the board examines the suitability, financial viability, and politics behind establishing the academy. If they approve, they provide a list of cities in which the academy can be established. The cities are already supplied in the database with population ranges. This could be provided. Higher population means a broader base to draw talent from and a slightly higher chance to find better talent.

The academy and your team has a free transfer agreement, meaning no fee needs to be agreed to sign a player from the academy. Other teams may poach talent and any fee goes to the academy. The more money they make from player sales, the less money your club has to pay to maintain or improve the academy.

I see the academy as a second but external U-18 team for your club. This would max out at 18-20 players, starting elevens and five subs and a few extra for injuries. The team will first be filled out with grey players. When the country the academy is based in generates newgens, the academy team would be filled out. Each following year, newgens would fill out the squads to account for promotion from U-16 to U-18 or transfers out of the academy. Players ineligible (Born prior to 8/31/XXXX) to play U-18 become unattached players if they are not signed by another club.

All great ideas....

come across a fair few ideas like this on these forums.. hopefully SI take some notice and take action by FM2012

Since FM is supposed to mimic the real footballing world to a certain extent, are there any such third party scouting services already available right now?

Good ideas, like most of them. See you made an effort their. Scouting im sure will be addressed in FM11, Id be shocked if it werent since most poeple are demanding it.

Since FM is supposed to mimic the real footballing world to a certain extent, are there any such third party scouting services already available right now?

IMScouting.com comes to mind immediately. Most of the Premier League use it aswell as thousands of clubs across the world.

There will be more high and low-profile ones aswell.

how can you judge someone how long he will be on peak?

It's a scouts guess in regards to the player's injury history, his physical and mental abilities (Natural Fitness, Determination, Work Rate), and the level at which your club is. It's nothing scientific, just the scout's opinion on how long the player will best service your club.

It's basically an alternative to saying "This player is unlikely to improve."

A heavy injury history and poor attributes like natural fitness, work rate, and determination will result in a scout's opinion that the player will not be at peak very long.

:DI think this is a great idea, I like the overseas academy idea the most, hopefully someone from SI sees this