Discussion - Training your very own wonderkids?

I just want to share a little bit on the ways of searching and training your very own wonderkids. When I first started playing the game and after one season in, I found a poster talked about how this game would eventually run on regen, so I somehow got obsess with getting my very own young guns and let them rise through the ranks instead of signing the big names, spending million.

Just need to say out first that these ideas/technique aren't mine. I found most of these floating around the forums and this is more of a compile list of things to train your youngsters into wonderkid. And not every players you sign is going to turn out to be wonderkid. There will be a lot of quality players, decent ones for bench warmer, but a handful of wonderkids of your own In my 6th season, I got 3 wonderkids in my team now and a couple of quality players who stay in my first team, and my squad has become the youngest in the league with the average age of 22 on 5th season.

And secondly, my ways of doing things isn't for every team. My guess is that you need to be in a big team with high rep so that you can attract any players you want and somewhere around 20-30M to spend each season on youngsters. With that said, I play R. Madrid so rep and money isn't a problem for me.

So, here are the things that I find that's helpful in finding and training these youngsters:

Expand your scouting knowledge

Just go trigger crazy a bit, sign a few scouts to expand your scouting knowledge so that you will find more players on the search box. And ask your board to get some more feeder clubs to expand the knowledge as well. This is the very first thing you need because if you don't see the players on your screen, you are not going to get them.

Start your scout away

This is the technique I found in one of the forums. Basically, I go to player search screen, then enter a filter of player age younger than 19-20, and value higher than 1M. If you like, you can filter to value 2M and scout them first. That way, you might get some quality players quick. You can then just shift click to select all players who come back from the search, right click and scout away. Use your best scout available when doing that. This is like scouting hundreds of users so it's going to be a season long search, but be patient and be prepare to get tons of junks in your message box I mostly just scroll through it and look at the windows on the right side for the star rating. If the guy has a 3 stars on his potential, he got my attention. If he gets a 3 and a half star, then he's going to be my next signing after I scout him a few more time with different scouts, and get some more opinions.

Deciding who to sign

This is the hard part. If the guy is cheap, and can get him less than 3M, then sure... why not. If his value go up to 10M during negotiation, I either sign him if I he plays in a position that I'm going to need in 4 or 5 years time. And I can look at the age of the kid. If he's younger than 16, then he has 3 years time to develop in my system. So, his attribute doesn't quite matter imo as long as he's decent with a scout rating on his current ability is at least half a gold star. Some regens come out at an older age, so if he's around 18 or above and I cannot stick him in my U19 squad, I pay more attention to his attribute to see if he's good enough to make my bench.

Not just talent from outside, but also from your academy

Also pay attention to your own youth talents coming in every season. Look at them on their coach reports for the star rating. If the kid got at least 2 and a half star on his potential, I mark them as someone who has a future If he has 3 or more, then it means I hit a jackpot! So far in 5 seasons, I manage to get only 2 though through my own academy who's good enough. There's a thread about R. Madrid and Barca getting so many youth talents regens but unfortunately, just not in my case

Not only just players, but also staffs too

When you expect some wonderkids to appear in your squad, you need good backroom staffs too. For that, there are some guide around the forum. I use Coaching Calculator and filter attributes and sign some quality coaches. Almost all my coaching category are 4 and a half or 5 stars.

Start whipping your signing into the next superstar

As soon as I got him in my squad, I put him in a training schedule. I found somewhere on the forms that has a training schedule developed for each position. I use that as a starting point, and start tweaking a bit. Sorry I can't remember the name anymore because I downloaded quite a few to compare them and tweak to my liking. So, I basically have a training schedule for each position and also same for youth training schedule.

Tutor him as well as much as possible

Tutoring helps too, so I do as much as I can. I'm someone who doesn't pay attention to every details in the game, so I just

go ask my senior to tutor them when I remember it or when I see there's a blank on the status.

The kid got to play too.. not just training

One important factor is his first team experience. In my experience, the more playing time he gets, there's a better chance that he'll become a wonderkids. I have a DMC who gets into my first team squad at the age of 17 and he becomes a wonderkid at age 19. I signed him at 2.9M and he's worth 22M now at age 20. I didn't intentionally put him in the first team squad though, but instead Xabi Alonso gets old and I didn't sign another experienced DMC, so I just put him in my first team squad since I signed him, and have him played about 20+ league games a season on some matches I'm sure I'll win. I do the same for a GK and another DMC and put him in my first team squad every since I signed them and they all becomes wonderkids even though they didn't get as much play time as the first one!! And for some other kids that didn't have enough luck into staying in the first team, they are in the U19s and I occasionally grab and start them on my cup matches against some lower division teams. Pair them up with some of your best talents. E.g., if I want my DR kid to play, I put my DL to someone experience. If he's a DC, I make sure the other one is the experienced one. That way, I'm not going to lose the game and my players got match experience. I just make sure everyone of my signing in U19 squads gets 5 matches each season. Maybe more if I like them lol

Even if the kid isn't playing, include them in the bench

With 7 available subs in spanish league, I have at least 3 or 4 youngsters in there. If it's derby match against barca, At. Madrid or championship knockout, I have only 1 or 2. Then, around 60 minutes or so, I start subbing those youngsters into the match to get some play time. Or maybe they might even benefit from sitting on the bench too... I'm not so sure but my playing mentality is always all out attacking, so as long as I have 3 quality attackers/midfielders on my bench, I'm fine with filling the rest of subs with whatever. And if I'm losing, I just sub in those guys and if I'm winning, I put in the kids. My system is that if I'm up 3-0 or higher by 60 minutes, I put in all 3 youngsters. If I'm up 1-0 or 2-0, I sub them in around 70 or 80 minutes just to waste time and make sure I'm only putting in the ST or some AMR AML or AMC.

Decide if you should give him out on a loan

Your players finally graduate and get out of U19 squad. Now, it's time for you to decide whether you want to play him or loan him out. I don't tend to loan my players at all. There's a poster that I read and he said it's better to stick him in your squad rather than loaning. So, for players under 19, I reject all my loans. For players over 19, I don't stick them in my B squad. But it all depends on his position and availability, I sometimes loan them out. If he's only going to get like 4 or 5 matches a season in my first team, I might as well loan him and get him about 20+ on a lower division. But if there isn't much competition for his position, I just let him stay. At that point, his stats matter too. Make your own judgement here that if he's good enough to stay on the bench or start on some matches when he got in your 1st team squad.

Edit: Adding some more notes

Controlling your shortlist

When scouting hundreds of players, what you usually get is having so many unknown players in your shortlist. One problem is that you are getting so many spam in your message boxes after a few seasons about those players and you don't even want to look at them anymore. At one point, I get like 40-60 messages for each continue click during the transfer season that I don't even know what to look at anymore. There are two ways to manage them:

1. Before you start your scouting, make sure there's only a few players that you are tracking. No point in tracking 100 players anyway. As soon as you assign the scouts, go to shortlist, enter the same filter that you did for your player search, click on "Rec" to sort the scout recommendation. All the un-scouted players will be at the bottom. Just remove them. This will give you a cleaner shortlist.

2. The other way is keep going into your shortlist every one or two months and sort the players with the "Rec" column. Then remove every players that has low star rating. This way, you are not missing the transfer message on your un-scouted players. One advantage is that when you see a player getting offered by so many big clubs, you can also jump into the band wagon :-D He might be good lol

Planning which position to sign

At the beginning, I was so tempted to sign just any player with a high rating. If he's a really quality player in your opinion with some established current attribute, why not. But if the guy is your long term investment and hoping one day that he'll be a star, don't over do yourself. Eventually, the problem is that I end up signing like 13 defenders in 4 seasons. The problem is that I end up not having enough easy matches to play everyone every season.

Another is the age that you sign them. If you main player for a specific position is fairly young, let's say 22, and already have another good cover for that position, I don't really see a point in signing another kid who's age 18 or 19 or even 16 because when he get out of U19, your main player is still going to be your star and the kid is just going to left out for most of the match and not becoming the next star. My usual strategy is that when my star player is around age 25-26, I start looking for someone of age 16. By the time he gets out of U19, my star will probably be 29 and close to retiring. So, I have a year or two time to pair them up together, let the team gel with the youngster while developing him at the same time and the youngster can eventually take over.

But again, if you see a youngster who might be the next messi or rooney, sign him away :-D If he's going to be a star at age 20 or so, I'd happily replace my older one.

Star rating isn't your absolute guide to stardom

I read quite a few people who said star rating isn't reliable. They are correct. They compare relative to your current squad. So, if you have a bad player in a certain position, you are more likely to get more stars on the kids that you scouted. I found so many DC with rating 3 and above from my scout because my best DC was Pepe. He's not the great of the greatest, so I get a lot of report that says the kid is going to be better than Pepe. But I never get a report that says the kid is going to be better than C Ronaldo on the AMR, so make your own judgement when signing the player. Maybe signing only those with 3.5 star on DC and looking into 2.5 star and above on AMR would find your real next gem.

Spreading your scout assignment to make quicker scouting

If you have a lot of good scouts at your disposal and they aren't doing anything, why not use them. Instead of assigning all 500 players to one scout, you can just spread them across 5 scouts and that'll make your reports coming in faster because some big clubs grab them. You can also assign different scout with different knowledge on certain nation to scout. For example, on the player search screen, if you click on the "Rec" column, you will get all the players you want to scout at the bottom portion. But if you hold down "Shift" key and click on "Rec" then "Nationality" column, then they are sorted by nationality as well, so you can assign one scout to look at all Spanish, one for Brazilian, etc. That way, your scouts aren't just going to keep flying across the globe.

And finally, here are my signings and how they've developed.

1st season -

Nothing much interesting because there's no regen but here're my transfer anyway on all 6 seasons.

Yaya Sanogo - ST

He's not a regen, but I read him on the news somewhere that he's good :-D So, I just signed him. And I needed 3rd striker just in case. It was either him or neymar but I got him for 9.5M on installment, so I took him. Didn't turn out quite well for the 3 seasons. Getting less than 5 goals a season, coming as a sub or starter. But somewhat decent on 4th season, and become the monster on my 5th, completely replacing Higuain. On my 4th season, about half way through, Higuain isn't getting the form he used to, and Benzema isn't just scoring. So, I started using him as a sub and he's getting a goal or 2 in the 30 mins play time. He ends up starting for the rest of the season with 37(9) apps, 32 goals. That's quite impressive. Even Higuain doesn't score that much in his career in my game.

Here's his stats so far:

http://img715.imageshack.us/i/yayasanogo.jpg/

Miralem Pjanic - AMC

Found him on a good young player guide, so sign him for 20M to replace Kaka. Doing quite well, and my starter for AMC.

Here's his stats so far:

http://img130.imageshack.us/i/miralempjanic.jpg/

Mario Fernandes - DC / DR

My scout recommended him, and I need some defenders to eventually replace Carvalho. Got him for 3.1M. Did quite well, getting 7.4+ rating but I sold him on the 5th season for 7.25M because I think I found a real gem in another defender. Also, he kept complaining about his training workload and it's getting on my nerves.

Here's his stats so far:

http://img706.imageshack.us/i/mariofernandes.jpg/

Luis Fernandes - DC

I signed him just because my scout recommend him and have him on my shortlist, then all of a sudden, every big clubs like Barca, Man U wanted to sign him lol So, I thought he must be good and sign him anyway at age 17 for 3.1M. Didn't make it into my first team. He's a decent player but so many competition for DC and my fear of starting an inexperienced youngsters at a DC position. Loan him out when he turned 19, sold him afterward for 2.9M to Parma. But last time I heard, he's doing really well over there after a season.. He worths 9.25M now.

Here's his stats so far:

http://img525.imageshack.us/i/luisfernandes.jpg/

Total Transfer spend: 45M

2nd season -

This is the season I started scouting a bit. I made a lot of mistakes in signing because this is my first try. Not everyone turned out to become a quality player.

Eden Hazard

Saw him on Yahoo News that he's doing quite so well at Lille and he just got young player of the year award in FM after 1st season, so I just got to sign him :-D paid 30M and giving me 10-20 goals a season with 10-20 assists ever since.

Here's his stat so far:

http://img718.imageshack.us/i/edenhazardf.jpg/

Guillem - AMC

Saw a 3 star scout rating and just sign him for 3.4M. Turned out bad, and stick him on my B squad when he turned 19. Then free transfer after his contract runs out.

David - ST

Signed him for 6.5M at age 16 because of the 3 star rating. Go hyped up in the media and got all excited but when I put him into U19 squad, he got unhappy with me. Can't resolve it and his stats doesn't increase much. So, sell him to OM even before he turned 19 for 7.25M.

Andrew Byram - DR

One of my biggest flop, I guess. Paid 10M for him but he never becomes a superstar I expected him to be. He's just useless compare to my other Brazilian DR who's a gem. So, sold him for 2.5M to Arsenal and my fans got really upset with me though.

Lamine N'Diaye - ST

Signed him for 12.5M from Lyon. Man.. what was I thinking that season, for paying that much on a 16 yr old kid. Didn't quite get his play time because of my 3 main strikers and I'm nurturing Yaya Sanogo. I have a 4-5-1 formation with a lone striker so not much place for him to play. Finally loan him out to Betis on my 6th season when he turns 19. Maybe he'll get some playtime next season because I finally sold Benzema. Huguain is next if Sanogo continue his form this season as well.

Here's his stat so far:

http://img64.imageshack.us/i/diaye.jpg/

Carlos Graziano - DC

Signed him for 3M from Roma. He has the future at the time, but I just signed way to many DC that he didn't cut out to push into the first team. Quite decent though. Got some playtime for a season at 19 but mostly bench warmer. Finally sold him to Napoli for 8.25M. I made a profit :)

Here's his stat so far:

http://yfrog.com/0xcarloscrazianoj

Total Spending: 66M - 33M on youth and made 5M profit. Only 1 player that MIGHT get into my first team. Not a good season.

3rd Season -

Made a couple of big signing because I found them on the forums of good players guide.

Paulo Henrique - AMC

He's not a regen. He's just good according to the forum so I sign him for 15.5M. Doing quite well atm and competing the AMC with Pjanic.

Here's his stats so far:

http://img443.imageshack.us/i/paulohenrique.jpg/

Phillip Lahm - DR/DL

I guess you all know him. Got offered by Bayern for 17.75M, so just pick him up :-D Nothing interesting here coz he's not a youngster. But he's the only player who's age above 25 that I signed.

Felix - DC

My first good signing. After a thorough search, I finally sign him up for 2.8M at age 16. Just got into my 1st team squad on season 6. Interesting thing is that right after he got out of U19, a lot of big named clubs just kept trying to get him. Had to hit quite a few reject button. Not all that great but with Pepe getting to 32, time to feature him more.

Here's his stats so far:

http://img703.imageshack.us/i/felixx.jpg/

William Boumsong - DC

Got it through my scout search among 500 players :-D Paid for 3.4M. Tested him out with a loan right after I got him, and seems like he fall behind his pack. I'm getting so many DC that I barely had a chance to use him. He's still 18 so still one more year for him to become something or he's getting sold!!! :-D I have way too many DC anyway. I signed so many because both Pepe and Carvalho are getting old and I need a replacement in a few years. The rest of them, I just sold them lol

Here's his stat so far:

http://img574.imageshack.us/i/williamboumsong.jpg/

Jordi - DC

He got through my youth academy. Paid $0. My assistant thinks he's good, so I just play him a bit. Now he's in my 1st team squad at season 6. Either felix or he is going to replace Pepe this year.

Here's his stat so far:

http://img46.imageshack.us/i/jordis.jpg/

Michele Acerbis - DL

He was my future plan to replace Marcelo because Marcelo has been complaining about his training workload since day 1, and I just don't like players complaining. So, I'm going to sell Marcelo as soon as I get a good replacement. Lahm isn't getting any younger either. Then, I think I found one in Acerbis 2.2M. Got into my 1st team squad in season 6, mainly starter in Lahm's place. And I loaned out Marcelo to Man U so that my youngsters can get his play time. So far, so good. Not a wonderkid yet but he might be next season. Loving his physical attributes. Here's his stats.

http://img222.imageshack.us/i/acerbis.jpg/

Darren Gimpel - AML

Touted as the next Steward Downing. I was a big admirer of Downing so sign him up 2M. And he gets status that says similar type of player to Di Maria. So, I gave him a lot of tutoring from Di Maria as well as Ronaldo. Get into my 1st team squad as bench warmer on 5th season. Sold Di Maria because I have Hazard already playing on the left wing, and I want him to develop into someone good. My squad policy is that have one good first team player and the sub should be a youngsters so that he can get playing time. If there are too many competition, the youngsters might not make it. So far, getting so many offer from EPL clubs, but I'm going to put my faith on him. He's not doing some magic but hopefully he'll be soon.

Here's his stat so far:

http://img703.imageshack.us/i/gimpel.jpg/

Nem - DMC ********WONDERKID***********

Let's start it up with a screenie.

Got him for 2.9M on some street in Brazil.. What a deal. At that time, Xabi Alonso is getting old, so I just shove him in the first team at age 17 or 18 as soon as I sign him. Had a lot of play time. At age 19, he becomes my first ever WONDERKID!!! Now at season 6, he's worth like 22M. He's going to be my first team regular this season.

Some 2 GK - GK

Signed also some other 2 GKs that's not worth mentioning. Paid 3.2M and 2.1M each. Because of my fear to put a 16 yr old GK on goal for my first team match, neither one of them becomes anything significant.

Total Spending: 52M - 29M on youth but with 1 wonderkid, 4 useful players who might become something, not a bad season after all.

Season 4

I stopped signing known players at this point. Only regens from this point on.

Amandio Mesquita - DC **

I'm still in search of DC to replace Carvalho and I finally found one in him. Missed him last season because of my long list of scouts and just didn't get to him until end of season. Paid 9.5M for him though but he got a 2 star on current ability, so I guess he might worth something. Tried him out after I signed him, but not quite impressive. Can't put him in U19 because he started his career at 19. But what I like about him is his physical stats. 198cm with 93kg. Quite a big player, even on the 3D match :-D So, I keep my faith on him, starting him frequently and eventually, he becomes my starting regular and pairing up with Pepe. I started noticing about him when he started scoring a lot of corners. 1st season - 9 goals. 2nd season - 6 goals. Only conceded 15 goals on my 5th season when I paired him up with Pepe.

Here are his stats:

http://img152.imageshack.us/i/mesquita.jpg/

Fernando - GK *********WONDERKID********

I've been monitoring him for a few season but I signed 2 GK already, so didn't sign him up last season. Finally, decided to give him a try for 5.25M. Can't stick him in U19 anymore when I got him, so I just shove Aidan into my B squad and start to give him some playing time. He came in with very impressive technical attributes (15+ on most) but lack on mental attributes. So, I make Casillas tutor him a lot. Put him in front of goals for some games, and man... that was bad. It's either the other team suck so bad that they didn't get any shots on goal or when they do, they are just hitting the net on the 1st season of his arrival. I see some improvement later and don't want to give him up because of his technical attribute. Start him more often on 2nd season. And finally, he decided to become a wonderkid this season at the age of 20. I think I found a permanent replacement for Casillas now when he retires.

Here's a screenie:

Ricardo Moreno - DMC ***********WONDERKID*********

Not quite impressive after I sign him for 5.5M. Monitored him for half a season and sign him eventually. Have him in the 1st team squad coz he's around 18 when I got him. Tough to make some starting match because of Nem and Diarra. Started a few on 1st season, then I had a problem on 2nd season because I now have 4 Non-EU players. So, I left him out of registry for league games, but I started him every match for Champion league (except semis and final) and cup match. Turned out that he also decided to become a wonderkid as well. Will start him quite regularly this season because he nows get a spanish citizenship.

Here's his stats. Not very impressive but he'll grow.

Bradon Larre - DMC/MC

Decent but found him at age 19. I monitored him for about a season until I finally pull the trigger with 5M. Just same as usual, giving him some play time, but had a hard time getting any because I have 2 young DMC already and have 2 good MC in Ozil and Caneles. So, I trained Caneles into AMR position and put Larre in MC from time to time. If I have some other MC youngsters, I might sell him but for now.. he can be a bench warmer. One notes though... he always kept getting all those interest from all the big clubs across europe, so maybe he has a future after all.

Here're his stats so far:

http://img440.imageshack.us/i/larre.jpg/

Sergio Santamaria - DR

My last signing and only 1M. No verdict yet because he had a 4 months injury last season and dropped most of his attributes. Still 1 more year to go in U19 but there are a lot of interest from other clubs on him.

Here're his stats so far:

http://img207.imageshack.us/i/santamaria.jpg/

Total Spending: 26.5 M and 2 wonderkids + 2 ok players. Not so bad after all.

5th season

Tired of searching so I took a break. Signed a DR for 10.5M at age 21. Had him on my shortlist for like 3+ seasons a while, and he's been to Ajax and Leverkusen. Then he got unhappy and got offered to me, so I signed him up because he's decent enough, and he replaced Ramos now Sorry... too tired of screenie now.

Also signed 2 Turkish players, 1.1M and 550k each. They are both age 19 and I signed the 550k one because my scout recommended him and I have another Turkish coming in. So, 2 from same nationality might make them less homesick, right??? :-D Nothing impressive stat on the 550k guy, but strangely enough, everyone from Europe wants him this season, like AC Milan, Napoli, Juventus, Man U, Chelsea, Man City, Barca, etc etc.... Have 3 and a half star potential but he stats suck. But I'm keeping him anyway because I never had a player with so many interest from so many clubs, not even on my wonderkids.

Total Spending: 12.25M - one useful DR...

Well, that's my story on my signing. Let me know what you think and thanks for reading this long article.

That DMC is one of the best regens I've ever seen. Wow. And you got him for a song...

Some very good players there.

I have just started season 2014/2015 and have 4 wonderkids in my Sevilla side. I didnt put as much effort into it as you did. All i did was sign up very good scouts and send them all over. I only looked at players over 3 and a half stars. The 4 wonderkids i have are all Argentinian and i guess its no coincidence the scout i sent to south america was 20/20 for judging ability and potential ability!

I signed this kid for £3m and he is being tutored by Simon Kjaer.

This kid cost me £14.75m. I was furious because i could have approached him on a pre contract in 6 months but sporting lisbon came in with a £15m bid and i didnt want to miss out!

This guy cost me £4m

This kid cost me £3.1m. Very good attributes but he is very confrontationial!

Bright future for Argentina! All are wonderkids!

Some very good tips there in your OP MidnightSoul, has pretty much everything anybody needs to find great wonderkids.

A lot of good regens here too, perhaps post them in the Rate My Regen thread?

@courbple: Yes. He's the best I ever find.

@Hibserpool: Wow some really nice kids there... I see that a lot of Brazilian and Argentine turns out to be wonderkids. Maybe it's just the way this game is. I also came across an Argentine striker once, but he club asked like 15M so I gave up signing him. After a couple of season in, Benfica sign him for 46M... And now they wouldn't even sell it to me for over 100M... I'm not buying anyway even if I get the offer accepted :-D I have so many ST already and I play a lone striker formation.

@Bracken: Thanks. In my old FM career (championship manager I guess back then)10 yrs ago, I always stopped playing because I don't know how to look for regen. This is my first FM after 10 years, and when I was playing demo, I started to look at the forums to see what changed. I occasionally try out those demo version but never buy a full game. So, I came across a lot of regen thread spread out across all forum sites, and I just want to compile them together to people who struggled like I did, and my original thought was wonderkids are just born with it. I didn't know they can be developed until the last few seasons. A lot of the idea aren't mine (like scouting knowledge, search filter on regens, training, match practice, etc) and I'd love to give credit to them but I don't even know anymore how I found those in the first place :-D

Hibserpool who is your scout that you sent to south America?

My best regen on any FM to date. Had to shell out for him but i just had a good feeling about him. Already a Legend at the club

And his career so far

wow... just wow cal7-11.... I wish I have someone like that... 25 goals on the first season... I've never have the courage to try a ST, DC or GK at such a young age.... like 17??? I don't have that much confidence in someone unknown...

But again, I just signed someone from Germany for 20M at age 15 :-D (I 'd never do that but he got 3.5 star on all my scout reports and worth 4.8M at age 15. Have some good stats and all scout reports say that he is quite fairly determined, will get well into my highly ambitious squad and enjoy the big matches without any real weakness...) Hope he turns out to be like yours. I'd be very happy if that guy just become someone close to him... Beside, I haven't signed anyone for a big sum for a long time anyway, with 250M transfer budget (dammit messi... barca want to sell you for 200M but you wouldn't even negotiate with R. Madrid???) and some 700M+ in bank...

It seems like I need to send a lot of scouts into Argentina to get those wonderboys...

Put your 15 year old regen in the first team! if he does turn out good he will own every record going at the club.

My regen had all 16+ for finishing pace acc dribbling already at 17 so i just went for it and it def payed off, dont think ill find another like this tho just very lucky.

and yeah south america is ridiculous for amazing regens. Def the best place to scout, the scout who found Gonzalez got a nice contract extention lol

That guy is unbelieveable Cal7-11, one of the best striker regens I've seen on any FM. Had a guy who was similar on my Chelmsford save on FM11, but I've lost the save

Also, I agree with you, I always put my best regens straight into the first team squad ASAP, no matter how young they are. There's just no substitute for first team football at a high level.

These 2 regens came through my own academy and both have a 3 and a half stars potential so very excited about them

This I bought and I have more but can't be bothered to post them all up

Hibserpool who is your scout that you sent to south America?

Alexandre Ceolin. Signed him from Athletico Mineiro. I do have the Brazilian league loaded though incase u don't find him.

Another one of my defender turned into wonderkid. One thing I noticed though, for all the wonderkid, they all have reputation of Continental. Maybe reputation has something to do with their status? That's why the more we play them, the higher rep they get and the faster they become wonderkid. What do you guys think?

Another one of my defender turned into wonderkid. One thing I noticed though, for all the wonderkid, they all have reputation of Continental. Maybe reputation has something to do with their status? That's why the more we play them, the higher rep they get and the faster they become wonderkid. What do you guys think?

I think the wonder kid label is based on reputation even more than potential, so being transferred to a big club like Madrid for a large fee would increase chance of said label.

How do you bring through your own wonderkids though with lesser teams, ie Celtic or Aberdeen? In all my years playing FM I've never brought through a player that was even good enough to earn a first team spot and make it his own.

luigiluigi: For that, I don't know. I'm not good at playing with lesser teams. The only way I manage to survive in FM is with load of cash :-D But I guess you can scout through south america continent and grab them while they are young?? But if they becomes wonderkid, I don't know if you can keep them though because there will be a lot of teams just keep splashing cash to buy it off you, even in my R Madrid team. I just have to keep hitting reject but with a lesser team, you might not be that lucky. Every season I hit reject, my player wants a renew contract and a raise....

Thanks for the reply, but you missunderstood me. Im Not wanting to buy wonderkids, but bring my own through my academy. Celtic have good facilities and I hire good coaches, I should be producing good young scottis starlets no?

Another good (but time consuming and manual) way to find "wonderkids" is to use the newgen list below:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/116539-Newgen-dates-chronological-list

Simply go to the country on the relevant date, i.e Brazil on 2nd January, and pick a club say Corinthians, go to transfers, then history and select youth players from the drop down list, this will now show all the newgen players into the club, scout the players, then simply click the arrow button next to the team badge to move to the same screen for the next team. Simply do this for all the teams in the country and you will usually find 1 or 2 players who might be worth purchasing. Repeat for as many countries as you like, although I stick to the traditional major footballing nations that i like, i.e Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Brazil and Argentina

Depending on how in-depth you go this can be very time consuming and monotonous, but sometimes it proves to be worth the effort...