Worrying Observations on Regen (and their transfers)

i devote a lot of time in my fm games to scouting, taking some 'pride' in finding youths to pillage and so forth. now with regens supposedly better in this game my interest of course perked up. so i am now nearing the end of my second season with napoli, i have 9 scouts, all devoted to working all day and night, scouting various parts of the world and such, but the worrying developments i've found are very close to home.

one of the highly recommended players i was given was a 'simon fahy' - a regen playing occasional first team football at everton, given a rating of 3 stars for CA and 5 for PA. that's not really that exciting, fair enough. what startled me was that he was 19 years old. i had a peek at his history; he came into the game in '2009' with St Pats Athletic. played 8 games for them getting a rating of 7.83 before making a £30,000 move over to everton. interesting.

a few weeks later, the same scout who was scouring uk/ireland came back with a new highly recommended player. a 'sebastien rodrigues' who had ousted both agger and skrtel as the first choice partner to carragher in the game. wow. not bad for a regen in my very second season? his age? 21. he has had 6 caps for belgium already. his history? he came into the game during 2009-10 into 'charleroi' before making a FREE transfer across to liverpool without playing a single game! what the? how had liverpool found a WORLD CLASS centre back without him playing a single game of football? how had he gotten to such a high standard as a player already? they bought him for £0. his value now? a few months before the end of his FIRST season as a footballer? £9.25m

at the same time of finding this guy i noticed a very good DM in my opponents squad called 'Silva' of livorno. 18 years of age, 3 for CA, 5 for PA. came in 2009 as well to some brazilian team, played 6 games and made a £1.1m move to livorno where he has taken up first choice DM/MC duties.

i was slightly annoyed by what seems to essentially be AI magically finding players that would in no way be discovered by a player of the game.

by the way, i found a 4th example as i was continuing on with the game. this time in germany. HSV picked up a 20yo AMC from AJAX! of all places, for FREE and he's been tearing it up since, proving himself to be quite a VDV replacement. why would ajax let this very high prospect of a player go? on a free? what is going on?

perhaps i just don't know how to find players as 'early' as the AI does? how do i scout the whole world so quickly?

by the way NONE of the clubs in the 4 examples i've cited are affiliated to each other so this isn't a feeder club situation either.

aside from this, another observation i've made is i've not come across a single either footed regen yet, 3 of the 4 are a 'x-foot only', the fourth has a reasonable weaker foot. ALL the regens in my napoli u20s are single footed as well. none of the ones i've picked up are any better than 'fairly strong' for the weaker foot either. of course this is just anecdotal suspicion i'm too involved in my napoli game at the moment to start a new game, holiday for ages then use some sort of a 3rd party device to research that properly but what have you all noticed?

Maybe this is a big issue for you but personally, IMO, there are far more worrying problems with the game than having a realistic playing history for regens.

Personally, I like the fact the AI is able to improve themselves with great regens - regardless of how they scout them

The single footed issue is not something I have noticed yet, I am only at end of second season, but that certainly sounds more of a problem

Maybe this is a big issue for you but personally, IMO, there are far more worrying problems with the game than having a realistic playing history for regens.

Personally, I like the fact the AI is able to improve themselves with great regens - regardless of how they scout them

The single footed issue is not something I have noticed yet, I am only at end of second season, but that certainly sounds more of a problem

There are far more worrying problems - so you dismiss it?

Why are you even playing FM then? You could be out solving world peace? *rolls eyes*

I would be if i wasnt so addicted to FM again.

But come on it history of regen players - I think maybe it depends on how in depth you play the game - to me it is not an issue whereas to the OP it obviously is.

Just I find it more frustrating that the post gets hit a ridiculous amount of time each game or the fact that goals just fly in during stoppage time !

The young Irish guy seems sensible. Everton got in early and picked him up on the cheap. Same with Livorno's DM. One of their scouts in Brazil spotted a good player, and they got him before he built up a reputation and the associated price increase.

As for the Ajax youngster leaving, well, probably he couldn't get a place in the first team, so, when his contract expired, he went elsewhere for regular football. Either that or Ajax just got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened (Eto'o anyone?).

The only one which really look unrealistic to me is the second one, the Liverpool DC.

But it's not that far stretched. AFAIK, Man Utd's young right back Rafael never played any senior club games before joining them, and in his first season, he's challenging for a first team place.

you've missed the point completely. i don't care about the history of regens.

it's the fact that AI seem to be able to get ready made AI quality players who we as, players of FM would have NO chance of ever finding in the time scale they do. additionally in situations like 'S rodrigues' i mentioned before, Liverpool have found a 10m rated player having bought him FREE the very season he came into football, it's pretty ludicrous.

yes, there are a lot of bugs with FM but this isn't something that should be ignored

I've noticed that not all regens are "born" at 16 years old. In my game, there's a 21 year old regen with 177 CA and 200 PA that is playing for Bordeaux. His history only shows 2 seasons which means that he was generated at 19 years old.

Yeah it does seem unfair that AI unearth gems earlier than we can. But it may just be a case of bad luck rather than them getting to every high PA player first.

Couple of things to have a look at if you haven't already:

1) Did you click on the row of data that said 0 appearances, as the summary just shows league appearances which if he's from a country you haven't got loaded will always show 0, if you click on it it gives you a breakdown at the bottom of the screen and he may have played some friendlies/cup/youth international games. You say the Liverpool one has 6 caps for Belgium already, were they or any u21 appearances made before they signed him? If so that might explain where they spotted him.

2) The scouting knowledge of the buying club may be high for the country that they are buying the youngster from, I've often found that a single Italian scout will instantly know of a lot of promising youth players before someone needs to be sent off to scout the country.

Ive noticed the same as OP.

But Ive changed the way I look for youngsters.

Instead sitting and wait for my scouts to throw me something I just manually look into nationals U21, and then scout the players I like most.

I do that every 6 months or so, it works well for my poor reputation club.

The young Irish guy seems sensible. Everton got in early and picked him up on the cheap. Same with Livorno's DM. One of their scouts in Brazil spotted a good player, and they got him before he built up a reputation and the associated price increase.

As for the Ajax youngster leaving, well, probably he couldn't get a place in the first team, so, when his contract expired, he went elsewhere for regular football. Either that or Ajax just got it wrong. Wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened (Eto'o anyone?).

The only one which really look unrealistic to me is the second one, the Liverpool DC.

But it's not that far stretched. AFAIK, Man Utd's young right back Rafael never played any senior club games before joining them, and in his first season, he's challenging for a first team place.

the ajax youngster only 'generated' at the start of 2009/10, then moved for free during the same season?

rafael didn't play any first team games no, but he wasn't a half way down to finished product when he first moved, nor is he an international starter / club first choice / already a world class player (prospectwise yes he is of course) in his FIRST season. incidentally, rafael and fabio moved to man utd in january of 08 and have been playing reserve games since, developing as players

with regards to the everton / livorno, can you please give me examples of when any player moves to top divison football first team action after playing 6 or 8 games in an obscure league or a lower league south american side? (bahia, serie b in brazil)

Yeah it does seem unfair that AI unearth gems earlier than we can. But it may just be a case of bad luck rather than them getting to every high PA player first.

Couple of things to have a look at if you haven't already:

1) Did you click on the row of data that said 0 appearances, as the summary just shows league appearances which if he's from a country you haven't got loaded will always show 0, if you click on it it gives you a breakdown at the bottom of the screen and he may have played some friendlies/cup/youth international games. You say the Liverpool one has 6 caps for Belgium already, were they or any u21 appearances made before they signed him? If so that might explain where they spotted him.

2) The scouting knowledge of the buying club may be high for the country that they are buying the youngster from, I've often found that a single Italian scout will instantly know of a lot of promising youth players before someone needs to be sent off to scout the country.

just had a look for the liverpool DC and he's had 2 U21 appearances, and i manually checked fixtures to see that BOTH of these 2 u21 appearances were in march, as in, after his 6 full caps.

Sorry to have missed the point, as i say, for me, I like the fact that the AI gets these players - there are so many amazing regens to scout that the AI rarely picks up on that the fact they get these players somewhat balances this out.

Mate, I'm sure you have found some very good regens before any other AI teams have.

At the end of the day, in the real world you can't find out about every hot prospect.

situations like 'S rodrigues' i mentioned before, Liverpool have found a 10m rated player having bought him FREE the very season he came into football, it's pretty ludicrous

So a player who was free, being worth a lot after one season?

Wayne Rooney

Jack Wilshere

Carlos Vela

Bojan

Just to mention a few. These are all kids that got scouted and brought to the club they started out at!

i have an excellent squad and an excellent crop of youths to blood in as well to go with that. the trouble with the situation i've described is that us, "REAL" players have NO ability to find regens that are generated as 'older' players coming in at the ages of 18-20 who have already developed heavily as players whilst AI teams can somehow figure out their existence before ANY professional games to limited (under 10) and pick up players who's current ability is already at a top division level for free, within a month of them existing as players in FM09.

iamjerome, what leagues do you have "Playable"?

One thing I noticed form previous versions of FM was that regens from unplayable leagues tend to come in with a much higher age - 18 to 21 - than regens from playable leagues, which can range from 14 to 19.

So a player who was free, being worth a lot after one season?

Wayne Rooney

Jack Wilshere

Carlos Vela

Bojan

Just to mention a few. These are all kids that got scouted and brought to the club they started out at!

i see your point but there is a difference between players such as rooney, who came in to prominence vs arsenal in a EPL match, and bojan who has been highly touted as the next barca genius since he was 14, aka players developed at their own clubs to liverpool picking up a 20 year old player who hadn't existed in the game previously but just happens to be of world class quality?

wilshere falls under the same line as above, trained at arsenal and they watched him grow. vela was picked up at arsenal years ago, has been loaned out for two seasons since and this season has shown ability at full flight. not quite the same either, see?

Make your scouts search for 16-18 year olds mate.Also scout U-21/19/17 Competitions,my scouts keep on getting a handful of players all the time.Maybe thats how,they all got such good youngsters.Because I seem to get them.Another Important thing is,expanding your scouting knowledge,getting scouts from different countries,and sending them to their countries,have got me a handful of good regens,,maybe thats why these clubs got such good players

iamjerome, what leagues do you have "Playable"?

One thing I noticed form previous versions of FM was that regens from unplayable leagues tend to come in with a much higher age - 18 to 21 - than regens from playable leagues, which can range from 14 to 19.

The way I see it, when these regens are generated they have merely 'joined' the club. They'd have years worth of amatuer football behind them that would have built up their reputation and get them known...

Yes, that is me just rationalising a 'flaw' with the game...

Make your scouts search for 16-18 year olds mate.Also scout U-21/19/17 Competitions,my scouts keep on getting a handful of players all the time.Maybe thats how,they all got such good youngsters.Because I seem to get them.Another Important thing is,expanding your scouting knowledge,getting scouts from different countries,and sending them to their countries,have got me a handful of good regens,,maybe thats why these clubs got such good players

i have 7 regens in my u20 who are all potentially 5-6 star players, but they are all 17 or under, the highest CA rating for them is that one of them has 2. i have no doubt in a season or two's time they will reach similar standard. my issue is that i have no method to find 'ready-made' regens of ages 18-21 from non-playable leagues who are obviously snapped up within a month by AI teams; scouting regions takes a good few months. i take half a season every season to find regens from all over the world to flood my reserves/youths with before cutting the less mentally gifted ones.

The way I see it, when these regens are generated they have merely 'joined' the club. They'd have years worth of amatuer football behind them that would have built up their reputation and get them known...

Yes, that is me just rationalising a 'flaw' with the game...

The way I see it, when these regens are generated they have merely 'joined' the club. They'd have years worth of amatuer football behind them that would have built up their reputation and get them known...

Yes, that is me just rationalising a 'flaw' with the game...

I've noticed that not all regens are "born" at 16 years old. In my game, there's a 21 year old regen with 177 CA and 200 PA that is playing for Bordeaux. His history only shows 2 seasons which means that he was generated at 19 years old.

As already mentioned, the thing I find really disturbing about good regens, is that, something like 80% (or more?) are single footed players.

Either the 16-17 year olds as well as this new FM2009 crop of 20-21 year olds.

This is what SI should concentrate on and realize that something wrong must be going on.

If you want to snap up regens quickly, search for 'no club' in the quick search thing and then all the players at the end will be regens.

Similarly, scout all the teams under 18s you can handle.

This sounds like another side to a problem highlighted in a couple of other threads - top clubs are releasing real wonderkids on a free - one case in point being Bojan available on a free at the end of the first season, but there are loads of others. So iamjerome is noticing the same phenomenon relating to regens. In th other threads SI recognise that it is a serious problem and are looking for evidence in the form of uploaded savegames.

iamjerome - here is the thread SI are monitoring - please read and contribute your findings:

htthttp://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=82996p://

are the regens you've picked up automatically first choice top division players then?

i have 7 regens in my u20 who are all potentially 5-6 star players, but they are all 17 or under, the highest CA rating for them is that one of them has 2. i have no doubt in a season or two's time they will reach similar standard. my issue is that i have no method to find 'ready-made' regens of ages 18-21 from non-playable leagues who are obviously snapped up within a month by AI teams; scouting regions takes a good few months. i take half a season every season to find regens from all over the world to flood my reserves/youths with before cutting the less mentally gifted ones.

My squad's average age after 3 seasons of scouting is 24.I still have some of the older people,but they are notthing much more than squad players.I had signed these youngsters,and then sent them out on loan for the first season.Some that is,there were 2-3 players who did start off as squad players when I signed them.After a season,most of them were ready for the first team squad,but I did not play them very regularly,7-10 matches,and their average ratings were the same,as older squad players,so I gradually changed the squad,into a young one,and now we are title challengers

on my old save i had 2 world class fullbacks and a goalkeeper. 3rd season. 3rd season, they were 19 years old, and they replaced my premiership defenders and goalkeeper. I had Ustari playing for me in goal, this new goalkeeper was rated as 'can be potentially a lot better than ustari'. This is the same Ustari who plays for Argentina all the time and has amazing stats.

I dont have the new one but in the last version I would go to player search and have a look at all the wanted young players, then when you clicked on who they were wanted buy you could probably tell they would have a high PA if say Liverpool or Inter etc wanted them, and a lot of times you could bid for this players after scouting and offer say 600k when he is only worth 100k and the big club that was interested would not match the bid, tkaes a bit of time searching, but found some good young players this way.

It's hard to argue the fact that a young player being totally unheard of and lacking any sort of history becoming the first choice DC at Liverpool.

Last regens never developed properly, this year they come splashing into the world scene and take it by storm seemingly overnight.

I've noticed that not all regens are "born" at 16 years old. In my game, there's a 21 year old regen with 177 CA and 200 PA that is playing for Bordeaux. His history only shows 2 seasons which means that he was generated at 19 years old.

this is because on your game save you have not picked france as a playable league so they dont have an under 18's league so regens will come at there late teens. basicially if you haven't picked a playable league then regens from that country will come in at any age

this is because on your game save you have not picked france as a playable league so they dont have an under 18's league so regens will come at there late teens. basicially if you haven't picked a playable league then regens from that country will come in at any age

Interesting...he actually came from a Costa Rican team and then bought by Bordeaux for free. But I guess I'll have to modify my scout filters.

only england/italy/spain, i hadn't thought of that actually. very interesting, and with some obvious extrapolation in thought you can see some explanation for the players i've described.

Yep.

I suspect that's it, then. Them moving on a Free sounds ludicrous, but if they're regen'ned on a rolling month-to-month contract or something silly, then that explains it all too well. It also explains why I'm not seeing it, sort of.

Since figuring that out I've decided to make my "standard" save-game start up with

- Argentina

- Brazil

- England

- France

- Germany

- Holland

- Italy

- Portugal

- Scotland

- Spain

all active/Playable. (Plus whichever leagues I might intend to manage in that game.)

That's probably taking care of the "worst offenders" on this line (in my save-game's universe); if some Japanese kid comes along with a reasonable Japanese international stats and a "born on" date of age 20 and a free transfer, it doesn't spark my interest.

Can you take a quick look-around and see if any of the England/Italy/Spain regens look equally wrong to you?

interestingly enough oldest regens i can find in those countries are all 18 (just finished 2nd season) (and as such, not all that developed; expected of course)

Good; I think that's "as expected": they've regen'ned at ages 15-17, and are now 18 years of age. Sounds perfect. Any of them showing odd Free transfers?

nothing too out of the ordinary, just a couple being surprisingly let go (but that's covered under the bojan thread above) etc

I'm not sure it's a case of the computer getting "first-dibs" on the regens- I'm using Toronto FC in my game, and at the very start of the game I plundered the Canadian-based teams playing in the US and was able to find several regens to sign within a matter of days, without ever suiting up for their original team. One of them is even a starter for my team now, with no prior history of playing football.

This is a ridicolous flaw in the game, and I've alot of examples that proves this. Since I found out about this I dont use the scouts anymore, I have just registered the spawn dates of regens in a textfile and manually go through the clubs in the countries top flight division. By doing this I've seen alot of quality regens moving for free between top clubs, which seems really dumb.

The prime example though is this player,

http://bildr.no/view/311142

This guy was -released- by his club on the same day he was generated. I mean, come on? The club that released him had around 10 players in their first team sqaud (I've loaded all players from Paraguay), so I can come up with a plausible reason for why they would release him. And Im sure that if I hadn't found him, he would get picked up by an AI team or he would retire. Which again is just dumb. I believe that in my save he's got caps for his country and scored 11 goals in 7 games, including 4 on his debut.

I cant understad why anyone would release him.

And this is just one out of 10-20 players like him being released on generation day and this have occured to players playing for higher reputaded teams in Holland, Italy, Spain etc. Mind that I have not loaded any leagues except England, but I have loaded all players from these countries.

If anyone want more horrifiying examples, Im happy to show.

http://bildr.no/view/311142

Strange why he was released - but even more strange why he would come to Fleetwood. Mind you - why the hell is he in your U18 squad, given that he won't be eligible to play for them due to his age? And also - why the hell haven't you offered him a proper contract?

2nd nationality as to the work permit, and I was in League One when I got him.

As for the contract Im not sure what happend? The screen is from the same day he arrivied and when I didnt see him in my first team I thought it was another bug, but searched for him and found him in the U18's, offered him a proper contract and which he accepted and haven't thought about it since ;>

And he can use both feets!

Hmrf, just got this guy

http://bildr.no/view/311322

for £0... He was valued at £2.9 mill, but was transfer listed and the asking price was £0. He was generated 10 days before this picture was taken and was listed three days later. My bid was accepted with no additionally fees. Was wierd that they didnt ask for some percentages of the next sale, but obviously they didnt rate the guy. My 20\20 scout says he has the potentional to be a leading Premier League star.

If the young 'un who went to Liverpool, in your example, was offered a contract by them and accepted then that will list as a free transfer. There was probably some compensation paid but not all that much.

If you were 17 playing for a small club and Liverpool came knocking, would you go?

Of course, that still leaves the question of how these players are found but it's more than possible that they had scouts find him.

If the young 'un who went to Liverpool, in your example, was offered a contract by them and accepted then that will list as a free transfer. There was probably some compensation paid but not all that much.

If you were 17 playing for a small club and Liverpool came knocking, would you go?

Of course, that still leaves the question of how these players are found but it's more than possible that they had scouts find him.

Hmrf, just got this guy

http://bildr.no/view/311322

for £0... He was valued at £2.9 mill, but was transfer listed and the asking price was £0. He was generated 10 days before this picture was taken and was listed three days later. My bid was accepted with no additionally fees. Was wierd that they didnt ask for some percentages of the next sale, but obviously they didnt rate the guy. My 20\20 scout says he has the potentional to be a leading Premier League star.

I'd retrain him to left back.

This is a ridicolous flaw in the game, and I've alot of examples that proves this. Since I found out about this I dont use the scouts anymore, I have just registered the spawn dates of regens in a textfile and manually go through the clubs in the countries top flight division. By doing this I've seen alot of quality regens moving for free between top clubs, which seems really dumb.

The prime example though is this player,

http://bildr.no/view/311142

This guy was -released- by his club on the same day he was generated. I mean, come on? The club that released him had around 10 players in their first team sqaud (I've loaded all players from Paraguay), so I can come up with a plausible reason for why they would release him. And Im sure that if I hadn't found him, he would get picked up by an AI team or he would retire. Which again is just dumb. I believe that in my save he's got caps for his country and scored 11 goals in 7 games, including 4 on his debut.

I cant understad why anyone would release him.

And this is just one out of 10-20 players like him being released on generation day and this have occured to players playing for higher reputaded teams in Holland, Italy, Spain etc. Mind that I have not loaded any leagues except England, but I have loaded all players from these countries.

If anyone want more horrifiying examples, Im happy to show.

care to share the spawn dates?

Heh, utorrent and a downloaded movie file...

Heh, utorrent and a downloaded movie file...

What about it?

The spawn dates are as follows (dd/mm);

argentina 01.08

armenia 07.06

austria 25.06

azerbaijan 07.06

belgium 30.06

bolivia 19.09

brazil 02.01

bulgaria 01.07

chile 01.01

costa rica 19.09

croatia 20.06

czech republic 30.06

denmark 07.07

ecuador 19.09

england 24.06

france 20.06

fyr macedonia 07.06

germany 20.06

ghana 15.01

greece 20.06

holland 07.07

hungary 20.06

italy 30.06

ivory coast 15.01

mexico 20.07

moldova 07.06

nigeria 15.01

norway 20.01

paraguay 19.09

peru 28.01

poland 30.06

portugal 20.06

romania 01.07

russia 27.12

scotland 20.06

serbia 10.07

slovenia 01.07

slovakia 29.06

south africa 15.07

spain 10.07

sweden 27.12

switzerland 20.06

ukraine 20.06

uruguay 01.08

This is not all the countries in the world, and if you havent got the leagues loaded or loaded all players from that country you may not get regens from that country to spawn in clubs (only free transfers). In addition, regens only appear in the top flight clubs if you havent loaded the leagues.

Nice list! Might want to add England though (same date as Scotland I believe)

As far as the "How can other clubs pick them up before I can" issue - assuming that the AI clubs are set up to "scout" for new players - then a logical explanation of how they pick the regen up after only a few days of being in the game world would be that they just happened to have a scout looking at his club / league set up at that exact time. The same would work for the player - if you have a scout searching for example Eastern Europe at the approx time when that area gets its regens, he might go to Croatia and stumble across a future Croatian star 2 days after he is generated. You then look at his scout report the next day - and immediately make an offer before anyone else notices the guy - offer accepted, and bam, 10 days after generation, you have a brand new star Croatian in your squad.

So if you really want to find those new stars early in their FM lives, you will need to make sure that you have a scout searching the right countries at the right times.

Hehe, yeah, you're right! England is added, but its 24.06 in my game. I believe that the regen spawn dates are different when you have the leagues loaded and therefore, in my game, Scotland and England have different dates. So be sure to check the leagues you have loaded as they may differ from my list.

RobinGoodey;

Yepp, that would be a plausible reason, but what I dont get is why AI clubs that spawn these wonderkid regens dont rate them good enough to even give them a decent contract? In my current Fleetwood game Bordeaux produced 2 wonderkids at the same day, both were picked up by other AI teams (Roma and Standard respectivly). But, as I have them shortlisted, I saw them rejeceting probably 10 contract offers each before others came sniffing. And I found this so wierd that Bordeaux wouldnt give them proper contracts, both were wonderkids, rated by my 20\20 scout as leading Premiership stars in the future.

And a year later Monaco released a player, who just as good as the other two, after 9 months of contract rejections. Just as wierd, it was a quality winger with 15+ in all the right areas. The guy was picked up by Maccabi Haifa a week later on their first attempt!

My save is floods with quality regens who are not rated by their original team and when I get to the Premiership I'll be rolling in the kids and be the next Arsenal ;> Its a nice flaw!