Should international call ups be based more on performances?

I know it's a debate that pops up in real life from time to time but I think it needs improving in FM. I am guessing it's some combination of CA and reputation that mainly get a player called up for international duty. I have a striker who my coaches only rate at 2 stars. Last season he scored 45 goals in 51 matches with 20 assists and an average rating of 7.69. He was the main striker of a team that won the league, got knocked out in the semi-finals of the CL and lost in the final of the FA Cup. During the season he scored the winner away to title rivals Arsenal, a hat trick against Man United at our ground, both goals to give us a 2-1 win over Barcelona at the Nou Camp, scored the equalising goal in Madrid to make sure we came away with a 1-1 results against Real Madrid.

At the moment he has had two U-21 caps and that is it. I find it ridiculous that a player who has scored this many important goals has not even been given a chance for England. Anyone else have any players that constantly play out of their skin yet never get called up for their country?

nope, i got there with blackpool, had Scott Sinclair and Matt Phillips play, England got to the final, Sinclair got in the world XI (amd cost me a chunk of my wage budget on the new contract as a result )

Well, he obviously does well in your system where you have the time to mold each individual into his role, but international football is a bunch of guys getting together and in a short space of time getting to some sort of loose understanding with guys who play in the other end of the country, or even around the world. Some people just can't perform out of their club system. Real life example could be someone like Antonio Di Natale, whose scoring record with Udinese the last five years has been immense. Capocannoniere two out of last three years and yet Prandelli was very reluctant to use him until he had almost no other options.

I think player performance needs to be taken more into account for a lot of things, not just this. At the moment, it feels like everything in the game is based on reputation and CA. If other teams actually took notice of how players perform, perhaps the bias in the match engine towards certain types of players wouldn't make the game as easy for the player.

Such a change would be devastating to me. I coach an MLS club that is based in Canada with an eye towards amassing talent for the Canadian national team. Part of this process involves raiding Brazil for players that likely won't get called into the senior team (though after a few seasons I pick through the Brazilian U-20 team and snatch up promising players that are still on Youth contracts.) Carlos Andre, a freebie signing for the past two FMs, is the player that I sign first. He's coming off a season in which he had 20 goals in 23 games for me and a 7.66 rating (league stats.) In a previous game I had going, I actually developed him to the point that he was signed by Wolves to play in the EPL, but he never came close to playing for Brazil (though he did star for Canada!) Conversely, in my original FM12 save, I had a Brazilian newgen (the next Adriano) that I signed to Vancouver FC straight from the U-20 squad. He was the first player I ever had that averaged over an 8 avg./goal per game for the season, and he actually managed to make into the senior Brazilian team while playing in MLS (and amusingly being named best European-based Brazilian player.)

I suppose international call-ups should be based on 3 things: performance, strength of play (i.e. league reputation) and lastly, CA/PA. Performance should be the most important factor when weighed against the quality of opposition, meaning a Brazilian playing in the eigth division of Puerto Rican football and averaging a 10.0 per game likely wouldn't get thrown into the mix until he's proven himself at a higher level.