Picking up scouting knowledge by being mates with people.

So yeah is this how it works? I'm best mates with Collins John and so have some knowledge of Holland and Liberia. Roy Keane is also helping with my knowledge of Ireland but I'm not actually mates with him, praised him on doing well at his current job and he praised me back but have only noticed this knowledge a couple of seasons later.

Yes, this is nice feature. Whenever I start a new game I always look at the manager rankings and find a young manager with a high rep from one of the more obscure footballing nations. Praising him 1-3 times a year (depending on your starting rep) will earn you his friendship and shared knowledge. I recommend looking at your club's world knowledge to see where you lack knowledge, and then finding a manager from that nation to befriend.

Works with players too, hence Collins John.

Think of it this way - let's say your the manager of Barcelona, and you're old captain has just become manager of someone smaller, like Malaga or whatever. Given that you're inevitably going to have better scouts etc, and be looking for different players, you could recommend a few to him. Alex Ferguson recommended a few players to Roy Keane for example.

It's the game's way of attempting to simulate that, and I quite like it.

Not only with managers though. I apparently gained some pretty good knowledge of Ukraine when/after Dmytro Chygrynskyi and Marko Devic both signed for me at Wigan.