What is your scouting strategy ?

First the choice of scouts :

- Do you favour the CA/PA ratings, the countries known, or the reputation ? Any other criteria ?

- Then when a scout is missing one of the three criterias, which one(s) will you skip ?

- Do you try to get as many scouts as possible or you mind the wage budget ?

Then the scout assignments :

- Same question, what criterias (ratings, countries, reputation) will you favour to send your scouts ?

- Which assignments do you usually give ?

- How many scouts do you give assignments to ? Ideally I would send 10 scouts away but then 10 scout reports to read every other week is... becoming too much, so what is your limit ?

Alright thanks for your feedback :o

- Do you favour the CA/PA ratings, the countries known, or the reputation ? Any other criteria ? Totally depends, if im in the lower leagues then the CA/PA is the only real factor, in general though I will filter by CA/PA to start and see what comes back and work from there.

- Then when a scout is missing one of the three criterias, which one(s) will you skip ? Knowledge bas every time.

- Do you try to get as many scouts as possible or you mind the wage budget ? Wage budget, I wont spend more than 1/5th of my player wage budget on scouts and will hire noone that is asking for more than 1/4th of what my next best (similarly statted scout is) I also will not pay compensation for a scout.

Then the scout assignments :

- Same question, what criterias (ratings, countries, reputation) will you favour to send your scouts ? Same answer as before?

- Which assignments do you usually give ? Maximum age 21 usually, but if it's for a particular position ill use that.

- How many scouts do you give assignments to ? Ideally I would send 10 scouts away but then 10 scout reports to read every other week is... becoming too much, so what is your limit ? I feel it pointless to have scouts that are not scouting, every single scout is out, in my wolves save is have 31, 20 on world tours, 10 scouting nations and 1 scouting the EPL

I have two different approaches depending on the team.

Smaller teams I get the best scouts I can (no more than 3 because of money) and have them scout regions with the active leagues. Usually I'm looking for established players. When I'm good enough I moved to the following approach.

Big team I sign as many scouts as possible. All with minimum of 19 for PA or CA. I only ever sign 2 CA coaches, the rest have to be high PA. No lower than 19.

CA coaches get one region each (usually UK & Ireland and Central Europe) looking for players who are at least 21.

1 or 2 PA coaches scout UK & Ireland U-18 at most and the U-18 league in England and Scotland. The rest scout central Europe U-18 at most and the different U-18 Leagues.

The whole point being I don't want to miss any talent in the active leagues. I know that players get created all over the world, but this system has worked like a peach. My automated scouts find plenty of talented youngsters, while I use my CA coaches to manually scout established players I'm interested in.

I don't really read scout reports. I look at the bottom where it says decent, fairly good, good.... and only really click on players who are fairly good or better. Take a quick look at the stats and take it from there. I visit the player search once a month and sort by Potential Ability and give the +3 star players a look. I very rarely look at 2.5 star players unless I can get one that's developed well for 2-3 million (rare but it happens). I tend to develop them, loan them out then sell them making me a very good profit eventually.

First the choice of scouts :

Filter by potential and see who will come to me, I'll go for determination too if I can find a guy thats got the two scouting attributes too. Only sign unemployed ones too.

Potential > Current (I can judge myself) > Determination

I never pay them more than £200-300 a week at most, besides I'm normally only allowed a couple. By the time it lets me have more wage budget isn't really so much of a concern.

Then the scout assignments :

I often set myself some sort of restrictions on players to sign, like playing in Portugal only sign players from former Portuguese empire.

No fancy options, just find me some players, I'll look through them later.

When I'm in a situation with a small number of players about I'll ask for a scout report for every single one. For example desperate for Greek youngsters in Greek league, scout all of them, so I'll assign 100-200 per scout then on the shortlist delete anyone less that 2.5 stars. I usually have a "headscout" the one with best stats that I use to look over the highly rated ones again and then I can take a closer look.

Usually try and get the best CA/PA that's possible. Potential just above slightly though, as you say, I can judge myself on their current ability but still needed.

Depends on what club I'm at, if I'm at say League 2, probably 2 scouts. Premiership, probably 4.

Never have that many though because if I'm honest, don't think I need that many. I personally like to search around leagues myself at times as well, so I usually send the scouts to find younger players across the world really. Just send them the main areas like South America, Scandanavia, South Europe etc....most players you want at an old age, you'll find them on player search or to be honest, (without bigging up my knowledge!) I know about them from real life. There's rarely a player good enough for Villa let's say that I either haven't seen on previous FM versions or know about in real life.

- Do you favour the CA/PA ratings, the countries known, or the reputation ? Any other criteria ?

CA/PA only to begin with (Perhaps with a little consideration for determination/motivation). With bigger clubs I try to get a good spread of country knowledge as well.

- Then when a scout is missing one of the three criterias, which one(s) will you skip ?

Reputation, never consider it.

- Do you try to get as many scouts as possible or you mind the wage budget ?

With big clubs that can afford it I'll be on the limit. With smaller clubs it depends what I feel they can afford and where I can scout

Then the scout assignments :

- Same question, what criterias (ratings, countries, reputation) will you favour to send your scouts ?

I favour the countries that I have playable first and then the bigger reputation ones. Finally others that are closest to the country I'm playing in

- Which assignments do you usually give ?

Specific country ones mainly with a scout covering maybe around five that he can complete within one game year. With bigger clubs I'll also have some regional scouts to cover the likes of Africa & Asia rotating them every so often

- How many scouts do you give assignments to ? Ideally I would send 10 scouts away but then 10 scout reports to read every other week is... becoming too much, so what is your limit ?

One scout on next opposition, one left spare to give second opinions and the rest all out scouting. I only get scout reports in my inbox from the one giving the second opinion though when I aslk him to scout specific players.

Ok thanks for the replies. My turn (you can give your thoughts as I am not sure my strategy is good)

First the choice of scouts :

- Do you favour the CA/PA ratings, the countries known, or the reputation ? Any other criteria ?

I used to favour reputation for any staff. Since recently I only favour ratings. However, I ll make sure first I cover as many countries as possible.

- Then when a scout is missing one of the three criterias, which one(s) will you skip ?

Reputation

- Do you try to get as many scouts as possible or you mind the wage budget ?

Yes. However the first season of my saves I might be minding the budget

Then the scout assignments :

- Same question, what criterias (ratings, countries, reputation) will you favour to send your scouts ?

Here I favour the ratings. I think the quality of scout reports in terms of number of players found rely on scouting knowledge (countries in your overall scouts). But quality of scout reports in terms of player reports rely on the scout quality.

- Which assignments do you usually give ?

I send my scouts scouting the world. So I don't need to rebalance their regions to visit (lazy mode).

- How many scouts do you give assignments to ? Ideally I would send 10 scouts away but then 10 scout reports to read every other week is... becoming too much, so what is your limit ?

I usually start a save by cancelling all scout assignments, then once I have 5 good scouts in PA/CA I give them their assignment (all at the same date, important^)

What I don't understand is that even when I have the best scouts and possible knowledge in the world, I still miss wonderkids in the making. I will find them early, but after they ll have joined an EPL team (I play there), so they will be valued easily at 40k, which is already the max price they could be valued at even if they are not even 21 yet.

Also despite my scouts are supposed to scout the world they will very often spend ages on a specific region, even if they don't find anybody because it's a crap region for football, and they will scout only crap regions for a while (the whole year for some of them).

Last thing some scouts find loads of players, other find none. Does it depend on the scout quality or the region he sees ? I think the region. In that case, it doesn't mean the scout is bad does it ?

Scouts should have as high CA/PA as possible.

I usually send them to major regions (europe, south america). If im at a big club i sometimes send them to other regions as well but i dont remember ever finding any players there (bazillion asian and african regions..why are they even separate regions?).

I only look for under 21 year olds, since I dont care for older players. I use scouts only for my youth squad.

At the beginning of the year i scout for new regens. (actually twice a year since some countries generate them in the winter) I just sort by value and scout those that are valued most. (you can do this even later in the season since not all players are known to you) I then manually sort by country and scout those from smaller countries since they are usually valued far less and can still be potential signings. I also check for new players under 21. Smaller countries for some stupid reasons generate much older regens.

It really depends in which league im playing. If im in a lower league most players are out of my reach and i cant even scout most regions. I usually check national teams at the end of the year and offer trials for those players that are out of contract.

Do somebody exactly know which countrys belong to which scouting regions? When i assign a scout to South America i know he will scout Argentina and Brazil. But when i want him to scout Croatia, do i have to put him to Eastern Europe or South Europe. If i look in an atlas both is possible. Is there a list or can i watch it in the editor?

Do somebody exactly know which countrys belong to which scouting regions? When i assign a scout to South America i know he will scout Argentina and Brazil. But when i want him to scout Croatia, do i have to put him to Eastern Europe or South Europe. If i look in an atlas both is possible. Is there a list or can i watch it in the editor?

Here's a quick list:

http://fmdiscussion.com/forums/topic/11310-scouting-regions-guide/

My scouting strategy is:

-Scout Under-20 Competitions and all players no older than 18 on most of the leagues i have active(can get a bit boring to restart always after they finish).

-Scout particular regions(South America,South Africa,Eastern Europe) to find all players no older than 18 again.

About scouts i value CA/PA first, then determination and i don't think it was mentioned but i believe that adaptabilty is also important when sending a scout to a region he isn't familiar with.

i look for scouts with high pa/ca

try and send scouts to mainly countries where i know i can pick up some cheap bargains, like turkey, scandanavia and south africa. also scouting brazil is a must

My scouting strategy is: CLICK A LOT! CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK "OHHHH HE LOOKS GOOD" SIGNED

Rarely have to use the player search or scouts.

That way you'll probably spend too much money.

Here's a quick list:

http://fmdiscussion.com/forums/topic/11310-scouting-regions-guide/

Thanks for the link; that's really interesting.

It's also sometimes completely nonsensical. Spain, Portugal and France are in the Central Europe group, and yet Andorra is in South Europe? How does that work!

Click on the name of the country somewhere in the game. When it comes up click on Information. Look for the Region field.

Stat wise i look for scouts with CA/PA over 17 and determination/adaptability over 12 as i believe a scout who isnt dertermined to find talent isnt worth the money. Reputation doesnt matter to me.

One thing ive never been sure on is do scouts andcoaching stats improve over time?

Assigments for a prem team are usually 1 next team, 1 Prem league, 1 UK&Ireland + scouts loanees, 1 English under 18s. Then 2-3 scouting central europe, 2 scouting south america and then 1 east europe, 1 scandinavia, 1 central america and 1 south europe.

I think that scouting a nation would be better than regions but i can get lazy and forgot to renew their scouting after they have finished a nation so i always end up chhosing a region due to the roaming.

I scout players and find the one's I like. Especially young players 15 - 21 and I subscribe to them. I wait and see if the big teams are going in for them, like the really big teams. And if they are they are more than likely not bad players, so I snap them up.