Signing foreign players

So occasionally I look at the Man Utd and the barca threads in the GPTG forum and a lot of time i'm over there i see people who try to make teams of all english players or all spanish players.

At the same time I checked out celtic fc's wikipedia page and they have formed quite a multicultural side. Out of the 33 players listed in their current squad, only 9 are scottish.

In fact they have players from 17 different countries...pretty amazing.

So my question is do you go about signing the best players you can find no matter where they are from, or do you go out and sign the best players you can find who are from the country you manage in?

I tend to play almost exclusively in the British and Irish leagues, and will always try to keep at least 15 of my first team players from those places. The remainder will either be a select few players with ability I can't find or afford from British teams, or young regens I'm either looking to fill those roles, or make a fast buck from.

Usually around the world, although I do keep an eye out for local youngsters specifically as adaptability never comes into the equation.

"I sign the best players I can get no matter where they are from"

I have players from 27 different countries for my Leverkusen side.

When I started with them 5 years ago there would have been much, much less I would imagine as many of the german clubs stick to german players.

The german cup rules make it very hard though as you are only allowed to play 3 non- EU internationals in that game and German Citizenship takes a whopping 2920 days to earn, equivalent to 8 years.

I always tend to buy players from the nation i manage in. Now at Milan I have 12 home grown at the club payers, only 2 of them are non Italian, other 6 trained in nation, and 6 others are non Italians.

Nope, I once had fourteen nationalities in my squad - and that's the way I like it.

Although I'll try to sign the best youngsters I can find in the nation I'm managing, I always end up with something that looks like a UN committee meeting...

(Dual EU nationality is important though.)

"I sign the best players I can get no matter where they are from"

It's important for me to get whatever talent I can into the club, although a homegrown player would take preference if 2 players are very similar.

I like to keep the players that I buy local to the area that I manage in. No particular reason, just a preference of mine. It is at the cost of better players but I think it's more of an achievement to be successful in this way.

It really does depend on the situation. On my long term Everton save (at 14 years now), to start with I just got the best I could as I couldn't afford to be picky. There was a stage where I only had 2 British players in my lineup. But as I started winning things and was in a position where I could be more choosy money and player wise I tend to focus on Brits. My first 11 now has 6-7 Brits in the starting lineup with about 13 in my squad.

i do sign plenty of british players if im at an english club for a reason.... theres plenty of good enough players to sign. if i had a 25 man squad i would probably have 15 british players.

my problem now is im ajax and quite frankly on my save there isnt enough good dutch talent coming through. certainly nothing that would get into my side so im having to buy players from anywhere. though iam buying plenty of 18 year olds so they will count as home grown later on

The poll is too one dimensional.

I always try to have the bulk of my players from the nation I manage in. But of course I will fill out my squad with talented foriegn nationals.

It does depend on alot of other factors also. How much money to spend, reputation of the club, which type of player I require or how many home nationals are in the team.

I like to have around 70% players domestic. Although this isn't an exclusive figure

I only sign English players on free transfers, they are usually too expensive otherwise

I went with option A as I do tend to sign the best no matter where they're from.

A case in point with Betis, I'm currently playing against Rangers CL and my squad is 1French, 7Spanish, 3Dutch, 2Argentinian, 1Peruvian, 1Romanian, 1Czech and 1Ukranian. Of these 18 only the sub goalie was at the club from the start of the game (i.e. I bought everybody else) and he's Spanish. Also I bought in 3 Spaniards, 1 Dutch, 2 Brazilians, and 1 Korean over the summer (all prospects).

Though I usually an fairly cosmopolitan I will buy a Spaniard over a foreigner if there is nothing else to choose from.

Edit: Forgot the American on my bench. Forgive me Ray Maritinez (he's mny favourite).

I try and get players from the country I am in, but on the whole they usually offer crap value for money.

I often find that no matter where I manage in the world, it's much cheaper to sign foreign players.

In my current save game with Hammerfest in Norway, nearly every decent Norwegian players won't sign for me, so I have to go abroad to strengthen my team.

I'd prefer a mostly homegrown side, but to progress quickly that isn't really possible without spending a lot of money, money my club doesn't have.

I ensure that I have a minimum of 7 players in the squad who are from the nation I'm playing in.

In my current game I have in my first team of 22 players (playing in Portugal)...

17 Portugeuse

2 Angolans

2 Brazilian

1 Luxembourger (who is also has a second nationality of Portuguese)

I don't tend to go and get any Jonny Foreigner. Like to produce my own national players.

Will sign the best I can get from anywhere, but I lean toward nationals. If two players are near equal, I'll sign the local guy, even if he's a touch worse.

I sign the best players that i can.

I try to sign the best, no matter where from, however I have an extremely strong preferance to players of the nation I am managing in. In scotland for example, at St mirren, I had roughly 12 of the scotland 23-man squad at my st mirren club. I like nurturing and making this nation amongst the best in the world, even though it's not my real life birthplace, I just like the underdog so I prefer to develop scottish talent, even going as far as to nurture an inferior scottish player to its best over a superior foreign player.

So while I have two argentinians, a frenchman, a brazilian, a german, a spaniad, a dutchman, a swede, a greek, a croat, two russian, plus three english in my first team squad, I still keep sixteen scots in my first team squad.

So I suppose I'm somewhat inbetween, I try to sign same-nationality, yet I'm more than happy to accept foreigners if I have a need that my nation cannot supply, or they are simply too good to pass up upon.

Well when you're playing in the 5th division of Portugal - not many nationalities open to coming to play football for you

Well when you're playing in the 5th division of Portugal - not many nationalities open to coming to play football for you

Lol I feel your pain

Now that I think about it, it definitely does depend on what country your are managing in and where team is in your particular league....

Normally I will buy whoever can bring me success but when I play as a big team I will try to bring in players from the teams nation as the backbone of my squad. In one of my current saves I have achieved 20 for domestic player bias, mainly because I have managed in Australia, Mexico, Argentina, Egypt and USA which all limit the amount of foreigners you can sign.

I never used to be bothered about the nationality's of my players untill i had to contend with the new home grown requirement, so now i try and find a balance of foreign stars and the best from my own nation.

With me now also being the england manager i have invested heavily in youth players mostly english but also foreigners who will be able to gain dual nationality or even become future england players once they are eligible, So hopefully by the time they reach maturity not only will i have a plethora of Domestic talent i will have also brought through a new wave of superstars to the national team!

I have a question for those people playing in England that like to buy players from anywhere no matter their nationality.

How are you getting on with the new homegrown rules that come into force in the second season? Just curious.

I play in Norway, and there's a maximum of 11 non-HG players, so while I MUST sign foreign top players in order to keep winning, I can't just go on and sign whoever I might want.

The workaround is signing younger players, before they turn 19, so they can get the HG status after three years.

Still, I often get carried away with great deals and free agaents, so I end up with 15 foreigners who could easily be starting XI material... Thank god the registration list is flexible and it's open all year long.

With smart rotation and the token injury streaks things work out well.

Still, I do sign all the best Norwegian players, and even go out of my way to play them. Being embarrassingly stronger than the rest of the domestic teams I can pretty much win the league with the B team, so I have room for experimenting.

I tend to buy players from the same TOWN as the club i'm training.

I stick to languages rather than nationality.

In the Asian leagues there's foreigner limits but those 4 foreigner slots can mean the difference so I usually get the maximum number of foreigners allowed for domestic and continental competition.

But if I'm in a league with no restrictions then I'll try to have as many different nationalities of players and the coaching staff.

I usually sign the best players I can afford depending on scout reports.

There was an exception last night however when one of my players had trouble settling in so I asked him for a recommended signing and I gambled on him with no scouting report availible.

I usually sign youngsters from places like spain or italy and try to make them into home-grown players. on my current save at bristol city i have only 5 english players, 1 welsh player and 1 scottish player in my squad but 6 players that are home grown at the club and 8 players that are home grown in the country with a further 4 players set to be home grown at the club within the next 2 years. if possible i do like to have a squad filled with english players but until i get a chairman who is willing to give me enough money to do that then i will just have to continue to sign cheapish young foreign players.

Creating a Team based on foreigners is always easily done because of the 6 month contract rule! Why pay over the odds locally when you can 'buy' free on the foreign market. I always play as millwall and due to money an constant progression I've HAD to rely on the cheaper foreign players. Once I have that success and have the money then I go for the British players, nurturing prospects by offering contracts to U18 and paying the compensation deals.

One thing I will say though, in every Fm game I've played my backline ends up ALWAYS been Italian! Don't know why, is Italy known for producing good center/full backs??

I buy the best players available, but i also try to snap up any good Scottish youth (i play as Rangers only).

I think in my current 2015/16 game ive got 5 first team players who are scottish (3 regens, plus Wilson and Fleck) and all 5 are the most valuable players in the Scotland team.

I tend to have a mostly Scottish, English and Spanish side... i think on my network game in 2009 i had 8 English players in my first XI with the majority being internationals (regens the lot of them).

I stick to languages rather than nationality.

You know I have never actually thought about it like that...

I tend to buy the best available regardless of nationality. I remember one recent save where i think my domestic player bias was about 2.

normaly it would be free transfers whenever possible and a strong core of players from the same nation as I manage in, so far with Roma this means i have only spent about £90milj over 7 sessions of gameing while i have sold players for about £140milj....in fm terms i presume those are low numbers for anyone playing a big club

if i would have played clubs like Real Madrid, Inter, Man City...etc then i would surly have played in character...

Usually, in my Panathinaikos saves, i never buy Greek players.

In most of my saves, i have more than 10 different nationalities.

I just try to have more than 2 players from the same country.

My current first team squad at Cambridge [2012/13 in the Championship]

1 Paraguay

1 D.R.Congo

1 Czech Republic [Loanee]

1 Mali

1 Spail

1 Ivory Coast

1 Republic of Ireland

1 Northern Ireland

1 Hungary [England as second nationality]

3 Wales

3 Scotland

14 England

I have preference towards English players, followed by other British nations, but if I can't find one good enough, I'll go foreign. At the moment my Newcastle team consists of 1 Ukrainian, 1 Croatian, 3 Brazilians, 3 Argentinians, 2 Scots, 1 Welshman, 14 Englishmen. There are an Argentinian, a Uruguayan, a Croatian, a Brazilian, a Spaniard, and 3 Englishmen on my shortlist. I do prefer a mainly English squad, but I will sign whoever I need to in order to find success. So long as my team qualifies for the competitions they are in and gel well together, I don't see a major problem.

Hopefully from my shortlist I'll get the Argentinian and the Brazilian, in place of another Argentinian and 1 or 2 Englishmen.

my stat for Domestic Player Bias is 1

I have players from 26 national teams

My entire Bayern Munich Squad, including Bayern II and the U19s is completely German in 2015. I've managed to sign all of the good current players, then use my transfer budget to try and buy all off the 3 star or above German regens as well every season, hoping that some of them turn out to be first-team standard. I made it my aim at the start to do this just to make a bit of the change to the game. It can be frustrating when you only have 1 fit striker, and you know Lukaku is knocking about on a free transfer but you can't sign him!