Your scouting network

Pretty much every pre-season is the same for me, i'll spend quite a few hours manually looking for players using search or manually scouting U-21 National Teams around the World.

And i really don't enjoy it, besides not being realistic it's quite boring just picking a massive list of players and going through hundreds of reports by mass scouting.. so what i'm looking for is for tips to make the network more efficient in finding potential players so that i can just have a good shortlist to pick from, my scouts will find the rare gem now and then, but when i see a really good player that i let slip away for like 200k from a somewhat unknown club just frustrates me.

So, besides obvious stuff like using transfer rumours or players recommended from the ass.man or backroom, what else do you do? For what it's worth here is what i normally have.

-A Scout for each league(or at least the top ones) scouting all players under 18 or 19 and the youth competition from that country, once they are finished, they will scout 3 matches from all the top prospects found.

-Scouting main youth competitions, U-19 and U-21 Euro Championship and Qualifiers, the African one as well and the World U-20 Cup

-A couple of Scouts roaming on main regions with no age restrictions to find good developed players instead of just prospects

-Maximizing scout knowledge with feeder clubs,scouts and staff

1st July every year, filter everybody under 18. Assign all my scouts 5 players, remove from the short-list anybody with less than 3.5 stars, or that's too expensive or in a position I don't need players in and will not need in the near future. Same thing in January. Apart from that my scouts do absolutely nothing all year.

Giving this a bump hoping it will have a little more input this time and also to add a couple of thoughts since i've stopped using player search at all and now i need to rely on my scouting network to work at it's best and i still get the feeling that i don't get the most out of my scouts.

-Scouts attributes, besides the two obvious ones in JPA and JPP what are people thoughts of adaptability and determination? Generally scouts with low determination seem to not improve a lot and decline faster so i look for high determination ones, i don't have any actual evidence about adaptiblity but it seems that it helps scouts getting knowledge of a region faster.

Do people just ignore these two attributes or do you look them up as well?

-Scouting regions vs countries, which do you people normally use? I've recently started using regions with roaming off and it seems to kind of work though it is annoying when they are scouting a large country that doesn't really have that many players and seem to waste their time there, so scouting countries might be better for this reason.

-Retaining scouting knowledge, is there are any attribute that helps retaining knowledge of a country longer? Frankly it's a mechanic that i don't really enjoy since you normally have mostly local scouts at your disposal and if you send them abroad they eventually won't retain knowledge of a area too long and just have to keep "re-learning"

Any input will be appreciated.

i have a very serious advice but i wish NOT to start a war on pro and against genie scout...

use genie scout. It is THE machine for scouting. YES of course it gives away the CA and PA that many people consider cheating but other than that it is an AMAZING scouting experience. I have used it in some of my saves and i have to say that many times i felt like a scouter. it gives so many possibilities and choices. anyway, i myself do the big scouting during july and january

i have a very serious advice but i wish NOT to start a war on pro and against genie scout...

use genie scout. It is THE machine for scouting. YES of course it gives away the CA and PA that many people consider cheating but other than that it is an AMAZING scouting experience. I have used it in some of my saves and i have to say that many times i felt like a scouter. it gives so many possibilities and choices. anyway, i myself do the big scouting during july and january

What is the genie scout? :s

What is the genie scout? :s

3rd party software that can be used to search your save-game's database for pretty much any player you want by scouting any attribute you want including PA/CA

I only sign players that are recommended by scouts, coaches or ass-man or that have been offered by an agent (trial first). I can only scout UK & Ireland and France anyway..

I hate scouts. They always find these good players from obscure places, then tell me I can't sign them because of work permits.

And you know what, they're always right about those work permits...

What is the genie scout? :s

google it my friend and you will find out pretty easily !

I hate scouts. They always find these good players from obscure places, then tell me I can't sign them because of work permits.

And you know what, they're always right about those work permits...

Ahhh, the pitfall of managing in England.

i have a very serious advice but i wish NOT to start a war on pro and against genie scout...

use genie scout. It is THE machine for scouting. YES of course it gives away the CA and PA that many people consider cheating but other than that it is an AMAZING scouting experience. I have used it in some of my saves and i have to say that many times i felt like a scouter. it gives so many possibilities and choices. anyway, i myself do the big scouting during july and january

Its quite clearly cheating and I have no idea how you can ever enjoy a save after using it.

Giving this a bump hoping it will have a little more input this time and also to add a couple of thoughts since i've stopped using player search at all and now i need to rely on my scouting network to work at it's best and i still get the feeling that i don't get the most out of my scouts.

You shouldn't expect your scouts to spot all the talent, you will miss good players on a regular basis and this is fairly realistic.

-Scouts attributes, besides the two obvious ones in JPA and JPP what are people thoughts of adaptability and determination? Generally scouts with low determination seem to not improve a lot and decline faster so i look for high determination ones, i don't have any actual evidence about adaptiblity but it seems that it helps scouts getting knowledge of a region faster.

Do people just ignore these two attributes or do you look them up as well?

I tend to look for them as well, as you say they seem to help a little.

-Scouting regions vs countries, which do you people normally use? I've recently started using regions with roaming off and it seems to kind of work though it is annoying when they are scouting a large country that doesn't really have that many players and seem to waste their time there, so scouting countries might be better for this reason.

Scouting regions just doesn't work for me. They seem to waste time and not find many players so I always scout countries.

-Retaining scouting knowledge, is there are any attribute that helps retaining knowledge of a country longer? Frankly it's a mechanic that i don't really enjoy since you normally have mostly local scouts at your disposal and if you send them abroad they eventually won't retain knowledge of a area too long and just have to keep "re-learning"

It seems scouts can retain knowledge from five different countries, any more and they lose knowledge. They also possibly lose knowledge over time which is fairly realistic as if they haven't scouted a country for over a year they'll be lots of different players they haven't seen.

I tend to limit my scouts to around five countries that they can visit once a year but this does depend on size - For example I have one scout scouting France, Portugal & Spain while another is scouting Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark.

i just send my scouts looking for players under the age of 21 and sign the ones that would be quality signings.

i just send my scouts looking for players under the age of 21 and sign the ones that would be quality signings.

Do you not give any consideration to strengths, weaknesses, personality, how they fit into your squad etc?

i have scouts roaming the different regions, ontop of that i have specified coaches that only scout youth in the UK and central Europe, i also scout all the youth tournaments and every international tournament. I used to get quite hung up on it, but now i just set up scouts and catch youth when i can, i do miss quite a few youth players, but i accept thats part and parcel of being a manager, it would be very very boring if i caught every single good youth player there is going.

The agents are a good feature for finding players, especially if you have a good relationship with one. I find a lot of good youth through them, or having a quick look through teams offered players are from.

thankfully i have never remembered the dates the regens are made, i think that would ruin my game knowing exactly what date to look out for each year.

Do you not give any consideration to strengths, weaknesses, personality, how they fit into your squad etc?

I must say personality is not something i give much consideration too, except for my defenders, going forward im happy to sign any kind of player if i think i can make them fit, not always successful mind!!

I have a couple of methods. I send as many scouts as I can afford to just about everywhere in the world. This inturn increases your scouting knowledge and the amount of players that appear on the player search screen. Then sort by age/attribute/value etc.

At the start of each year (at the point when the newgens appear at each club) I will view teh u19 squads of all the top leagues and then sort by age so the youngest are at the top. I also have the players value in view. Most kids are worth less than 10k in just about every league, so any player who sticks out in terms of value gets a look. Then I look at the players description any that are 'promising' get scouted.

It's incredibly time consuming but it just about garuantees that I get first pick of the best youngsters. It's not very realistic tbh.

Thanks for the input Cougar, i think i might go back to scouting countries as you say scouting regions sometimes seems a huge waste of time, my only exception seems to be Scandinavia where my scouts seem to find good prospects from all the countries, when i send them to eastern europe or southern europe they always seem to waste a lot of time on large countries and don't end up finding anything useful.

Ideally i think it's better to have let's say a spanish scout on the surrounding countries like Portugal,France(besides Spain of course) then maybe a German scout looking for talents on Germany,Netherlands,etc, though at the moment since i'm managing in Scotland most scouts i can sign are Scottish or English but with time i guess i'll attract more and more scouts as my reputation increase.

Also something i started doing recently and forgot to mention is to send a scout look for a position that i need, sounds something extremely basic but i've always overlooked that option.

Ideally i think it's better to have let's say a spanish scout on the surrounding countries like Portugal,France(besides Spain of course) then maybe a German scout looking for talents on Germany,Netherlands,etc, though at the moment since i'm managing in Scotland most scouts i can sign are Scottish or English but with time i guess i'll attract more and more scouts as my reputation increase.

Thats something i now pay more attention too, where my scouts are from, i used to sign anyone if they were good enough, but i now try and spread the nationalities about, it increases your knowledge a lot faster.

Ideally i think it's better to have let's say a spanish scout on the surrounding countries like Portugal,France(besides Spain of course) then maybe a German scout looking for talents on Germany,Netherlands,etc, though at the moment since i'm managing in Scotland most scouts i can sign are Scottish or English but with time i guess i'll attract more and more scouts as my reputation increase.

I try to do this as well but so far with little success as most of the scouts that apply are the same nationality as the country I'm managing in.

Also something i started doing recently and forgot to mention is to send a scout look for a position that i need, sounds something extremely basic but i've always overlooked that option.

I've never been certain how this works tbh.

Does it not just restrict the number of players that the scout finds?

For example say a scout finds 100 players playing in varying positions, if you had limited him to just strikers would he have only found say 25 players (and not mentioned the other 75 who weren't strikers) or would he have found 100 strikers?

I've never been certain how this works tbh.

Does it not just restrict the number of players that the scout finds?

For example say a scout finds 100 players playing in varying positions, if you had limited him to just strikers would he have only found say 25 players (and not mentioned the other 75 who weren't strikers) or would he have found 100 strikers?

From what i've seen he would have found 100 strikers.

Let's say i send a scout to England without any restrictions, he just comes up with the 200 players or so that he found, if i send him to look for strikers only he finds like 150 strikers, there is some overlapping on results surely, but you will actually get more players of that single position.

It's kind of the same thing with age filters, when you send them to look for all players or just players under-20.