Scouts! Is there any point to ,em?

I have scouts scattered all over the world and U.K. and yet very rarely do i get any highly recommended players. My scouts all have over 15 and some on 20 rating for judging players potential and current ability. Of the few that do come highly recommended i could quite honestly have picked them myself as the players are top rated and with other clubs with no intention of leaving or joining my club. My only criteria setting is that they are less than 28 unless i am looking for a certain position and then i may factor in a few more points.

Am i missing something crucial in the picking of my scouts or in the setting their missions. Quite a lot are up for contract renewals and i feel like binning the lot as they just just seem to be on a world tour jolly up at my clubs expense.

That's interesting, scouts tend not to recommend players who have no interest in joining your club.

I'll get some good players from them.. i normally have them set for regions and to the countries i have loaded to search for players no older than 18..

Yet my scouting network seems always to be really inefficient.. don't get me wrong i get some players but i think i miss the bigger picture when it comes to scouting.. for instance even players from that specific U-21 national team are masked unless i go there manually even though i have 100% knowledge of that country..

I have scouts scattered all over the world and U.K. and yet very rarely do i get any highly recommended players. My scouts all have over 15 and some on 20 rating for judging players potential and current ability. Of the few that do come highly recommended i could quite honestly have picked them myself as the players are top rated and with other clubs with no intention of leaving or joining my club. My only criteria setting is that they are less than 28 unless i am looking for a certain position and then i may factor in a few more points.

Am i missing something crucial in the picking of my scouts or in the setting their missions. Quite a lot are up for contract renewals and i feel like binning the lot as they just just seem to be on a world tour jolly up at my clubs expense.

What club are you playing as?

If you are a top club playing in a continental competition every year (especially Europe) you will already have a good team so the players that are scouted will only be around similar at best ie around 3*

In my experience a scout might give a player a rating of say 4.5 stars.

Then if you sign a better player or win the league or win a major competition (increasing your rep) the scouts rating of the player might go down.

For lower league clubs I've been recommended players with 5 stars that I wouldn't consider for a relegating battling prem team.

I have scouts scattered all over the world and U.K. and yet very rarely do i get any highly recommended players. My scouts all have over 15 and some on 20 rating for judging players potential and current ability. Of the few that do come highly recommended i could quite honestly have picked them myself as the players are top rated and with other clubs with no intention of leaving or joining my club. My only criteria setting is that they are less than 28 unless i am looking for a certain position and then i may factor in a few more points.

Am i missing something crucial in the picking of my scouts or in the setting their missions. Quite a lot are up for contract renewals and i feel like binning the lot as they just just seem to be on a world tour jolly up at my clubs expense.

I usually search for players myself but a lot of times my scouts introduce me to players that I have seemingly missed.

Luckily for me, I think the best 2 newgens I have signed were found by my scouts.

i can often find better youth prospects by searching through national u-19/u-21 sides, but my scouts have found me some good players over the years

Funny enough - in an experiment using FMRTE.

I signed scouts with really good stats - world class and all that.

I scouted nations, leagues and individual teams for about a season.

I then checked FMRTE for the best youth players. Exported that to a shortlist and loaded it up in Football Manager.

Out of about 30 players only 4 of them had been scouted.

Keep in mind I targeted the leagues they played in, and their actual clubs that they played for.

To make it even more interesting, some of the players already had interest from other clubs.

So I took over those clubs, and again I got the scouts to scout the clubs, leauges and things like that.

Guess what, not one scout came up with a player that the club were interested in previously - like the scouts got amnesia once I arrived. For some reason the scouts were completely blind to the talent that they had initially found.

Scouting in FM is fooked. Random results. And I expect better from Scouts. I know players who made it to the premiership after being discovered playing in the local field in the lowest football league in Ireland at the age of just 14.

How can scouts miss sooo many good players when you've even specifically targeted the actual club the player plays at??? And no it wasn't just one scout I sent - I sent a few to the club. I had to actually ask for a scout report on the player before the scout got his blinkers off.

Wow Eugene that's some serious experimenting there...

You should know that scouts' evaluations are relative to players in your own squad. If you have no left-back, then they might give a rubbish one 4.5 stars because it's a position that you need to fill. Contrastingly, if you have 4 world-class central midfielders and a few bright youth prospects, they might give a youngster a maximum 3 stars despite having clearly high potential.

@OP

If I had one bit of advice for you: Focus your scouts more. I had all mine set to roam the world for many seasons, and excluding the occasional gem, they were fairly fruitless in their efforts. Constantly finding decent players, but I'm wanting wonderkids.

I noticed a high proportion of the world's talent at the time (~2025) was from Brazil and Argentina specifically. So I simply took my 4 best scouts, and told 1 to go to each country and 2 to roam South America and suddenly they're uncovering gems like you wouldn't believe. Identify in your game where the good players are coming from, and send your scouts there; stop wasting their time in St. Kitts and American Samoa.

Chuz:

I know that the scouts report based on your own team and the potential of the team. But it's slightly wrong that I can't find some of the best potential players in the game, yet the AI can and does? Leaves you at a complete disadvantage as you can only go by the scouts reports.

Like how come whenever I have a very good young player nearly every top team, from Barca to Real, Inter to AC, to Man U to Arsenal always always seem to be making bids for them?

As soon as I see any of them make a bid for them I know they are good players. But I took over Barca for example and scouted my own team the scouts would miss that player and give him a low rating. So I wouldn't bother trying to sign him.

You can't scout specific clubs any more, can you? Apart from Next Opposition scouting of course, but that doesn't work the same way.

Does determination not also play an effect in your scouts? I always employ scouts with the usual stats and a high determination. I find that they tend to look a little bit harder and find more players especially in smaller nations.

scouts are hardly in perfect in real life so why would they be in FM? someone recommended chris kiwomya to arsenal once and look at how he turned out

I hate scouts..

Why?

1 . They don't tell you if a player is young enough to become homegrown

2 . They don't tell you if you will have to pay compensation, and so they give you a wrong price that you will have to pay for young players

Well i am okay with the current scouting system.. It gives occasional gems as a result, which is a normal way the things work... If the bigger clubs like Man Utd with their in game 18 scouts picks up every gem. What will go to the other teams...

Moreover I agree with this scout's determination thing and relative scouting. While managing smaller teams i have seen scouts changing the players rating depending on my team strength just within 2 month summer window (scout gives rating relative to current team strengths and weaknesses). Other than that as with genie scout we can see the growth rate rating too, which isn't in the FMRTE as i think; FMRTE expt. have limitation. What i want to say here is "So what if scout know that those player will never reach their full potential, that the team needs" ...

edit: i would like some1 do sm expt.on the scouts without team knowledge with those having a great deal of knowledge...

I wouldn't say that scouting is completely borked, because I've found my fair share of players that way.

There's never a substitute for manually searching for players, though that approach does take a very long time.

I wouldn't say that scouting is completely borked, because I've found my fair share of players that way.

There's never a substitute for manually searching for players, though that approach does take a very long time.

find the maually scouting to be wonderful. i'm a wenger type of manager who loves to find gems and breed them at the club (right now I have to because I'm playing swedish first division and the newgens there's no good..) But after sitting a while scouting you have unvoluntaried missed dinner and it's bedtime.. Time goes by fast when playing FM

Not saying it's completely borked. It's just the AI has the skinny on all the best young players all the time. And the Human manager even with the same scouts can't find those players.

Seems a little fooked to me?

That's interesting, scouts tend not to recommend players who have no interest in joining your club.

Sorry. You could well be right on that point. The not interested bit perhaps comes up if i send a scout to look at a player from backroom advice.

Still miffed with my scouts though. Just had my top lad at the World Cup and he is telling me that the 2030 version of Kaka or Messi could add something to my squad or words to that effect. "Jeez mate state the obvious why don't ya". Where as i,m hoping he will turn up some Ugandan Whizz Kid who i can buy for a stick of celery and a mule.

Not saying it's completely borked. It's just the AI has the skinny on all the best young players all the time. And the Human manager even with the same scouts can't find those players.

Seems a little fooked to me?

i've not found this to be true in my saves. i can and do find better players by searching myself, but my scouts have always been pretty good at finding the best prospects, even if they do miss out on a few every now and then

I always search the major nations myself but for the more obscure nations and regions like scandanavia and eastern europe I use my scouts, they've found a fair few gems this way and imo scouts are definitely worth it. I'm a rich club and employing 15+ scouts doesn't break the bank.

I hate scouts..

Why?

1 . They don't tell you if a player is young enough to become homegrown

2 . They don't tell you if you will have to pay compensation, and so they give you a wrong price that you will have to pay for young players

1. its a simple rule, with some very low level basic maths you can surely work this out on your own

2. they tell you what they think the club will accept which ofcourse is not accurate.

they are only there to identify potential talent or research an older player etc.

and in general ofcourse they miss some players or every team would know about every player which isnt plausable, i generally find the scouting fine once ive had my network set up for a season or two and improve the knowledge base

I might be wrong, but I'm under an impression the quality of scouting is closely linked to club rep and and scouting attributes are not that important.

While in Championship my scouts were never able to find a players with PA higher than 140. In League 1 - 130. Strange, because I could easily sign PA < 160 players when searching manually.

yeah that seems to be the case aswell, but its only comon sense i guess in lower leagues they only recommend lower rep players, would be annoying if they were recommending messi to notts county or what not

When you send scouts to other countries, your club gains more knowledge of that country.

When you search for players using "Player Search", more players from that country will be shown.

I have picked up a lot of players and regens becuase Ive scouted a country a lot and have good knowledge of it.

When you filter out unrealistic signings in your short list, you may miss out on loan signings who "May" be interested in a loan move.

Your scout reports will show you that the player may sign on loan even tho he's been filtered out.

Your scout gives you a decent idea of the tranfer fee's. At least you'll have a decent starting point for negotiations.

Your scout gives you details of your next oppenent.

Your scout lets you know if a player will improve..... Some players/regens look great, but there are no PA points left for improvement.

Scouts give you some idea of hidden personality traits, consistency and adaptability.

Is there any point to scouts? Well they aint perfect but I'd say Yes!

i've not found this to be true in my saves. i can and do find better players by searching myself, but my scouts have always been pretty good at finding the best prospects, even if they do miss out on a few every now and then

Use FMRTE to find the best young player in the game.

Get your scouts to go look at that league.

You might see that other teams have Minor/Major Interest in him.

Take over those teams that have a minor (or major) interest in him and ask the scouts to scout that league and see if they come up with the same player.

Not saying it's completely borked. It's just the AI has the skinny on all the best young players all the time. And the Human manager even with the same scouts can't find those players.

Seems a little fooked to me?

I think this is great, the worst thing for me is that if i manage my supported team, manchester united then after 2 or 3 seasons, even with the debt i have £150m in the bank and a squad that i cannot strengthen due to a mass of wonderkids already purchased.

The AI on the otherhand has players in the mid 30s as the backbone of their team replacing them with rubbish players for fees which arnt large but too large for that player, makes the game pointless after 3 seasons, in real life the challenge of maintaining the success of the club with a huge debt which is growing would be a lot bigger than it shows on the game.

So even though this may be a problem / bug, i welcome it

Not really sure what your point is here?

That the scouting system being borked isn't a bad thing, could make the AI more competitive against the human player