FM 13 - Signing wonderkid style youngsters is very difficult

Anyone else have a problem signing unknown but obviously highly talented youngsters? For example I am trying to sign a kid who looks great, his value is 120k and he plays for Anderlecht. I ended up offering 5million and they didn't even bat a eyelid. There's lots more example of young players with really low values that I can't get no matter how much money I offer. I don't remember previous versions of FM being like this. I can understand paying over the odds for a young talented player, but the prices are kinda silly.

Surely it's a good thing if the AI aren't selling off their wonderkids for peanuts. I'm guessing it will be easier for the Human manager to build a better squad long term though.

Dennis Praet?

Bare in mind that the value is just an idea of his worth based on what he's achieved so far.

Anderlecht on the other hand know his potential and have no intention of letting you buy him cheap or at all.

Like when real life managers come out and say 'it'll take a massive bid for us to let him leave' .. it's a way of stopping any bids coming in, but even those managers have their price.

Dennis Praet?

Bare in mind that the value is just an idea of his worth based on what he's achieved so far.

Anderlecht on the other hand know his potential and have no intention of letting you buy him cheap or at all.

Im talking about regens here, not regular players. Seems wrong that I offer 5 million for a kid worth 125k and it gets regected by some no name Hungarian side.

I was just speculating, but the point is... there's a good reason you want him, he has potential right? the team who own's him obviously knows it and will want their just compensation for it ... just like irl.

I was just speculating, but the point is... there's a good reason you want him, he has potential right? the team who own's him obviously knows it and will want their just compensation for it ... just like irl.

Well I see your point but this was never the case before in FM. Going by what your saying you will never find any gems anymore because no matter what the team they will want hugely inflated prices over the players value. Part of the fun of FM is searching out and buying youngsters.

Course not, you misunderstand me, or maybe I misunderstood you.

It's all about reputation. I'll use Dennis Praet as an example.. he's only 17 and only valued in game at £250k . But will never go for anywhere near that figure as he has a relatively high reputation to go along with his high PA.

That's not to say however that you can't snap up a kid from obscurity in the portuguese second division with the potential to become a top player for £100k or whatever if his reputation hasn't risen much yet.

I'm hunting a regen valued at £3.4m, and to find out how much i had to pay for him i didn't give up. When i offered £20m they sugested £34m. I could probably get it down a bit from £34m, but the amount would still be astronomical!

This must be a bug? No way a 17 year old LB is worth that kind of money.

Another crazy one is a AMC valued at £475k. They want £38m.

This is repeated every time i find a good regen. *sigh*

Some will be very highly valued but there are some players which can be found for a 'fair' fee. If the user can stockpile all the best youngsters really easily then the game would just be far too easy - if they're setting those kinds of values essentially they are saying 'not for sale'.

As the poster above stated what team would turn down 20m for a young AMC valued at 475k? I could maybe agree if the player was at a decently popular side but most of the regens I find are at low reputation clubs, then when you take into account the vast majority arn't anywhere near the first team (In reserves or U19) how can this be deemed in anyway realistic.

From the tone of your post it seems SI is well aware of this and is using it as some sort of artificial device to hamper human players from buying really good young players without spending 30+ million on each one even though they are playing in reserve teams for small clubs. If this is true then I am very disappointed as it makes a mockery of finding 'wonderkids' which for a LOT of people is very important part of the game.

Some will be very highly valued but there are some players which can be found for a 'fair' fee. If the user can stockpile all the best youngsters really easily then the game would just be far too easy - if they're setting those kinds of values essentially they are saying 'not for sale'.

Thanks for the quick reply! Good to know it's not a bug, and I just have to adapt. Nice challenge

It can be tough, but definitely not impossible. As Arsenal I've got 3 4.5 star youngsters coming in that I got for 5m, 3.5m and 2.8m, and I already signed a 5 star youngster for 500k from the Eredivisie. I know the scout reports aren't always accurate and not everyone will develop well, but it shows that it's possible to get potential stars on the cheap.

Thanks for the quick reply! Good to know it's not a bug, and I just have to adapt. Nice challenge

I think it's totally ridiculous, say your are playing lower premier league club and one of your scouts unearths a fantastic looking 16yr old playing in the reserves of some lower league greek side. You put a offer in for a million, it gets declined, you raise it eventually to 10 million which is more than the entire net value of the club and it still gets declined. At this point WTF is the point of even trying to find these sort of wonderkids when the only way to get them is by offering absurd amounts of money in many cases more than the entire club is worth.

That to me is not a challenge it's a weak arse attempt by SI to hamper the player because the AI managers are useless at team/squad building.

It can be tough, but definitely not impossible. As Arsenal I've got 3 4.5 star youngsters coming in that I got for 5m, 3.5m and 2.8m, and I already signed a 5 star youngster for 500k from the Eredivisie. I know the scout reports aren't always accurate and not everyone will develop well, but it shows that it's possible to get potential stars on the cheap.

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Maybe it's something to do with database size? Fewer potential stars causes value to rocket? I dunno if that's even a possible problem, but I don't know how to explain it.

there was a regen in my beta save, 14 yrs old, his club wanted in excess of 15mill, yeah his stats was good but i was never going to offer that

Some will be very highly valued but there are some players which can be found for a 'fair' fee. If the user can stockpile all the best youngsters really easily then the game would just be far too easy - if they're setting those kinds of values essentially they are saying 'not for sale'.

Which is a good thing...I would love the option to funnel my wage/tranfer money into youth upgrades and try to build from within..ala Dortmund.

there was a regen in my beta save, 14 yrs old, his club wanted in excess of 15mill, yeah his stats was good but i was never going to offer that

It's just beyond stupid and obviously a artificial thing that SI seem to have implemented because they can't get some decent team building AI going for the CPU managers. I understand that maybe they should be a bit more expensive but when you are talking tens of millions of pounds for youth team players in no name teams that haven't even barely kicked a ball it's just silly.

It's just beyond stupid and obviously a artificial thing that SI seem to have implemented because they can't get some decent team building AI going for the CPU managers. I understand that maybe they should be a bit more expensive but when you are talking tens of millions of pounds for youth team players in no name teams that haven't even barely kicked a ball it's just silly.

But no one would spend multimillions on a youth player when thet could buy an elite mature player for the same or a lesser amount.

But no one would spend multimillions on a youth player when thet could buy an elite mature player for the same or a lesser amount.

Isn't that the point. If young wonderkid style players have a artificially inflated price, then it defeats the object of looking for good young players that everyone used to love to try and find as nobody can buy them now.

i have no issue with spending a bit of money on a young player, maybe up to 7mill if i consider the stats worth buying for, but once it got near the 20mill mark i wont spend it, most i have spent on a single player in the last 4 fms was in the beta, for vidal of juventus and thats only because i consider him one of the best in the world! and that was 40mill

What people are forgetting is that this goes in irl too..

Man utd will target 30 youngsters a season and get their interest either thrown out the window or given a ridiculously large fee involved the same as in the game. Of course you won't hear about it all that often.

But look at the examples of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Phil Jones, Ronaldo and the biggest of all.. Labyad. There are loads of examples of clubs inflating their prices beyond reason in order to keep players.

What people are forgetting is that this goes in irl too..

Man utd will target 30 youngsters a season and get their interest either thrown out the window or given a ridiculously large fee involved the same as in the game. Of course you won't hear about it all that often.

But look at the examples of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Phil Jones, Ronaldo and the biggest of all.. Labyad. There are loads of examples of clubs inflating their prices beyond reason in order to keep players.

that is correct, being an arsenal fan i see us do it all the time, we signed jermain pennant for £1 mill when he was 15/16 and it was never heard of at the time for such a young player and now u see wallcott, bale, oxlade all being brought for high value, because clubs dont want to sell them, if the guy in my game was 16 i probably wouldntve had anything bad to say about it but he was 14 and just came into the game and they wanted almost 20mill - crazy figure

I Especially get frustrated when people say they've used a 3rd party tool to scout a 14 year old and seen he has 190 PA or some such and then scratch their heads and complain that the players team want millions for him...

Well, of course they will, he's clearly one of the best young players around.

no no no as far as im concerned thats cheating, i found this guy by doing what i do every year in the game, when i get youth intake i send scouts out to the main nations and set their seach to no older than 16, and thats how i find the good kids, on fm 12 i did this and i had 1 team in the end with 9 wonderkids in the 1st team line up which involved bargain buys and serious training, how it works now with the training i dont know how it will influence stats enough to be able to make a team like that again

I Especially get frustrated when people say they've used a 3rd party tool to scout a 14 year old and seen he has 190 PA or some such and then scratch their heads and complain that the players team want millions for him...

Well, of course they will, he's clearly one of the best young players around.

You are completely missing the point, what difference does it make how you find the players in terms of this whole discussion? The talk was about the fact that it seems wonderkids are stupidly difficult to acquire, how you find them doesn't matter.

Explain to me how a second division side in Norway would ask for silly amounts like 10/20Million for a youth team player who hasn't kicked a ball. When you then consider that the club as a whole has a value WAY less than the amount they want it makes no sense. Where's the logic here, 'yeah we want to keep this 15yr old who hasn't kicked a ball for us so we decided to turn down more money than the entire club is worth'.

The whole thing makes zero sense.

You are completely missing the point, what difference does it make how you find the players in terms of this whole discussion? The talk was about the fact that it seems wonderkids are stupidly difficult to acquire, how you find them doesn't matter.

Explain to me how a second division side in Norway would ask for silly amounts like 10/20Million for a youth team player who hasn't kicked a ball. When you then consider that the club as a whole has a value WAY less than the amount they want it makes no sense. Where's the logic here, 'yeah we want to keep this 15yr old who hasn't kicked a ball for us so we decided to turn down more money than the entire club is worth'.

The whole thing makes zero sense.

The problem with the premise is the first part...if the kid hadnt kicked a ball in 2nd division Norway then how could he have been scouted? Or, if he had been scouted, then there should be a massive bidding war, shouldnt there? As far as the gaming experience, it would probably be better to just edit them into your game.

You missed my point... it's not how you found him.. it's that the player in this example I was giving was a world beater, I was making no comparison to you or your situation.

And yes, IMO if a second division side in Norway had a kid with Messi's talent and potential come through, I'd expect them to hold out for what they could..

Scale this down as you wish.

Try and sign an unknown player with a pa of 130 or 140 which is about average for a premier side and see what you have to pay.

The problem with the premise is the first part...if the kid hadnt kicked a ball in 2nd division Norway then how could he have been scouted? Or, if he had been scouted, then there should be a massive bidding war, shouldnt there? As far as the gaming experience, it would probably be better to just edit them into your game.

thats why u send scouts to look for young players, set a max age like 17 and then you can look at the search function, pick a few stats u want, ie for a defender, tackling/marking/heading/jumping, if these come up half decent with a few other stats you scout more, its the way its always worked for me, but on the old fm you could set up your own routines than can work on certain things so much better

i dont know how to see players pa's without going into an editor and that doesnt appeal to me, i just sign 20/20 scouts but even they can get it wrong, ive seen a player who was given 2 stars turn out to be my best player for arsenal in my game

I think Bababui was on the right track: Scouting is too powerful in the game. We shouldn't be able to find new-gens the day after they are "born" and have an idea of how good they are. That is in every way wrong. Until scouting is redone and becomes a bit more realistic (slow, nebulous, uncertain, perilous) then even with the value-inflations it is still far far too easy to spot talent before the AI has re-valued them.

As far as realism I do agree with Poolfan though: What club is going to refuse a bid more than the entire value of the club? Some of the value-inflations this year have gone past reality and taken a left turn onto Fantasy Bvld. Sure, there will be efforts to hold onto the "Messi" types of player to get some further value from them, but how many lesser clubs are really able to do that?

I just nicked two 4.5 star potential players (I'm at a top club) from Real Madrid for 1800k in youth fees because their club failed to spot them in their youth pool and put them on long term deals. I waited a month after Spanish newgens are born before even looking at R. Madrid. I was too busy with the 6 other 4.5->5-Star potential kids I found in England, Mexico, and Portugal. I have 8 kids now signed before July 1 for a total outlay of 18.5m. These aren't "maybe they'll be good" players, they're future world player of the year players.

The "trick", such as it is, is to scout a country just after their newgens are "born" (see here for a website with dates), then scoop them up before they've signed long term deals. Even without that bit of foolery I've found that at least a few of the newgens are not valued too highly. For instance I found 3 great Russian kids this spring. Two of them were at top clubs (CSKA, Spartak) and these clubs wanted 20m and 4m respectively. 20m is just loco, but I put the 4m kid on the back burner because he looks amazing. Yet, down the street from these clubs I found the third wonderkid was at Lokomotiv Moscow and had been revalued @ only $60k. So there's a 300x difference in valuation just within that league for promising players, which means that if you look hard enough you can still find great bargains anywhere. Yes they might be mixed in with unrealistically marked-up kids that you really want, but the valuations are not linear. The 60k kid is every bit as good as the 20m kid.

I can live with it.

I think Bababui was on the right track: Scouting is too powerful in the game. We shouldn't be able to find new-gens the day after they are "born" and have an idea of how good they are. That is in every way wrong. Until scouting is redone and becomes a bit more realistic (slow, nebulous, uncertain, perilous) then even with the value-inflations it is still far far too easy to spot talent before the AI has re-valued them.

As far as realism I do agree with Poolfan though: What club is going to refuse a bid more than the entire value of the club? Some of the value-inflations this year have gone past reality and taken a left turn onto Fantasy Bvld. Sure, there will be efforts to hold onto the "Messi" types of player to get some further value from them, but how many lesser clubs are really able to do that?

I just nicked two 4.5 star potential players (I'm at a top club) from Real Madrid for 1800k in youth fees because their club failed to spot them in their youth pool and put them on long term deals. I waited a month after Spanish newgens are born before even looking at R. Madrid. I was too busy with the 6 other 4.5->5-Star potential kids I found in England, Mexico, and Portugal. I have 8 kids now signed before July 1 for a total outlay of 18.5m. These aren't "maybe they'll be good" players, they're future world player of the year players.

The "trick", such as it is, is to scout a country just after their newgens are "born" (see here for a website with dates), then scoop them up before they've signed long term deals. Even without that bit of foolery I've found that at least a few of the newgens are not valued too highly. For instance I found 3 great Russian kids this spring. Two of them were at top clubs (CSKA, Spartak) and these clubs wanted 20m and 4m respectively. 20m is just loco, but I put the 4m kid on the back burner because he looks amazing. Yet, down the street from these clubs I found the third wonderkid was at Lokomotiv Moscow and had been revalued @ only $60k. So there's a 300x difference in valuation just within that league for promising players, which means that if you look hard enough you can still find great bargains anywhere. Yes they might be mixed in with unrealistically marked-up kids that you really want, but the valuations are not linear. The 60k kid is every bit as good as the 20m kid.

I can live with it.

spot on.

Scouting has always been easy if you know how.

but your last few sentences in that post is exactly my point to the OP .. of course some kids are going to be valued through the roof, the clubs don't want to lose them. But at the same time, that doesn't detract from the fact that if you dig deep enough, you'll find brilliant players all over the place, for a decent price...

I'm hunting a regen valued at £3.4m, and to find out how much i had to pay for him i didn't give up. When i offered £20m they sugested £34m. I could probably get it down a bit from £34m, but the amount would still be astronomical!

This must be a bug? No way a 17 year old LB is worth that kind of money.

Another crazy one is a AMC valued at £475k. They want £38m.

This is repeated every time i find a good regen. *sigh*

If you had a wonder kid who the game "valued" at £150k would you let that club sign him for that amount or a few times more? What would you accept?

People need to stop comparing the value of the young players with the amount that the AI will sell them for. SI have designed it so that young unproven players will all be valued relatively low. This stops players scouting the players above a certain value, who are obviously the best young players in the game.

If I had a young player that was labelled a wonderkid, I'd keep him until he was worth so much to someone or if a huge offer came in before he was fully developed. Although I do agree that some clubs should budge when it gets upwards of 5M.

What people are forgetting is that this goes in irl too..

But look at the examples of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, Phil Jones, Ronaldo and the biggest of all.. Labyad. There are loads of examples of clubs inflating their prices beyond reason in order to keep players.

Still Walcott already established in the first team, receiving hype all over didnt go for more than 5£ mill rising to 12. OX established first teamer as as well, national hype = £15 mill. It doesnt make sense if an offer for a really good kid at 16, but not deemed good enough for the first team for the obscure hungarian, norwegian or croatian club, gets rejected it its not £20-30 mill. Its not realistic. For me this is not the right way to "correct" the games flaws that its easy for the human to stock pile talent. It would be a better solution to instead making it harder/more random when you are scouting to "see" these talented players.

It gets ridiculous when you offer a value, say 10m for a 15 year old kid and they reject it.....when the club itself is only valued at $2m PLUS you offer then 50% of the next transfer sale.

I don`t mind paying massive dollars for young players at high profile clubs as that is what you expect, but an unknown austrian side>?

Well said Hursty. I find the game so much more accomplishing when i develop from within. I'd much rather develop the youth facility with the 5 mill some people spend on an unkown quantity like some regens.

It gets ridiculous when you offer a value, say 10m for a 15 year old kid and they reject it.....when the club itself is only valued at $2m PLUS you offer then 50% of the next transfer sale.

I don`t mind paying massive dollars for young players at high profile clubs as that is what you expect, but an unknown austrian side>?

Its actually ridiculous to offer 10 mil for a 15 year old. In the real world there are no guarantees 15 year olds develop. SI really need to make the transfer market closer to the way it really works: Top dollars paid for established players.

Its actually ridiculous to offer 10 mil for a 15 year old. In the real world there are no guarantees 15 year olds develop. SI really need to make the transfer market closer to the way it really works: Top dollars paid for established players.

To be honest in that situation your board should step in and just stop you making the offer.

I think essentially if clubs are rejecting ridiculous bids for players then they don't want to sell, simple as that.

Not every club will just accept a ton of money thrown at them. I think it's fine as it is, you shouldn't be cherry picking other teams youth talent form all over the world, the valuations are stopping you doing that and make it harder.

Doesn't mean you can't pick up top quality youth players if you work for it. I just signed a 5 star potential English CM from Middlesbrough, he came up in a news item about being middlesbrough's youngest ever player, I took a look at him, got him scouted and offered him a contract as they hadn't offered him a long term one. Paid £1.5 million in compensation. My DoF has signed about a dozen players of similar level ability for me, the most he paid for one player was £2.9 million and that was for a player who already was rated 2 star current ability and was a first team regular for his club at 17. The bargains are out there you just have to work for them.

I have not got into the game as I only have the demo but this seems a good compromise to me as FM12 was too easy. After 2-3 seasons with a top team you'd be the best there was and your youth would be unstoppable because you could pick up 100 top youngsters for next to nothing. So SI have gone a bit too far the other way in the search for realism, making the prices a bit too much. So be it, if that's what it takes to make the game more difficult, so be it.

In FM12 you could stockpile the worlds best young kids far too easily, in 3/4 seasons you could sign two full teams of kids that would be brilliant, buying them all for buttons as well. Im very glad to see they have done something about this. There is no reason to think that a club doing well finacially, with a happy player on their books, will want to lose their brightest prospects for anything less than a fortune, this was a big problem in most previous versions of this game. I would NEVER sell my top prospects for any sum of money, not unless the board accepted the bid above me, i wouldnt expect the AI to be any different.

Clubs have been trying to sign Neymar for years now. He's not going anywhere unless for a huge price

From what i toyed with (moderator can tell if thats right)

I seem to find the inflated prices on clubs who have a philosophy of growing the kids from their own academy as a top objective , how i know i add myself in some ocassions to see the objectives from the board i had a hunch that this have a bit of a incetive in this too

From what i toyed with (moderator can tell if thats right)

I seem to find the inflated prices on clubs who have a philosophy of growing the kids from their own academy as a top objective , how i know i add myself in some ocassions to see the objectives from the board i had a hunch that this have a bit of a incetive in this too

That's good if true.

yep

In FM12 it was relatively easy to grab young players for a bag of chips...now it´s ridiculous expensive to grab one

We need a middle ground in there

OP is just pissed that he can no longer take advantage of poor AI. he talks of hungarian lower division teams....his example?? anderlecht, a top belgian team. how much did lukaku go to chelsea for? Poolfan, if you had one of these players in your team, would you sell them for less than 10million?

There are some linked issues.

1) It is far, far too easy to find and identify talented youngsters. Scouting is covered well above, but it is far too accurate, too quickly.

2) Talented youngsters fail to develop far less frequently than IRL. IRL it is probably under 5% of the top under 16s who actually become world class players. In FM it is over 90% probably. Obviously figures are not exact, but it is that sort of scale.

3) AI Squad building is not at human level.

4) While most teams IRL would not sell their best youngsters, everyone has a price. No real life team would turn down £20mil for a 14 year old, but that is because a 14 year old's development is so unpredictable. In FM, it is clear the day a regen is created who will be the best players barring very occasional mis-managerment/injury

5) It is unrealistic for a very minor team to reject offers higher than they would get from all income for 10 years put together!

6) The "value" in FM is an irrelevance and cannot be used in these discussions. It is a vague tool with no meaning.

7) How many human managers would sell the player they are moaning about in the opposite situation.

All that said, IMO having over-high required values for a minority of players is a better solution than the previous where any poor human maanger could stockpile the best youths in the world for next to nothing, and win forever.

While I haven't really noticed this, If it is the case I think it is a good thing for the realism of the game. In previous FM's, it has been too easy to stockpile great youngsters at a very small price, and long term the impact is even bigger.

For example, I am currently playing a swindon save on FM12, I got to the Prem within 2 seasons (using Genie update) and have won league, Uefa cup and FA cup in second season. This has been purely based on the squad I have been able to build. I have spent a total of 55 million on transfers for the entire game. The core of this has been on youngsters at 100k-2m a pop and these players, within a season and a half are now international class players and I am regularly getting bids of 20-30 million for these players. Some of these players that I bought at the time had already had international caps and there is now way in current football climate that youngsters that have full international honours are going to be sold for nominal fee's. It just doesnt happen.

You only have to look at the high fees the bigger clubs have to pay when prising a youngster away from a club. So I think and would hope that this is something SI have improved. Having said that, the fees that are being quoted in this thread to seem a bit excessive.

I think it is much better in FM13, it was far to easy in FM12 to buy young players with great potential for peanuts.

From what i toyed with (moderator can tell if thats right)

I seem to find the inflated prices on clubs who have a philosophy of growing the kids from their own academy as a top objective , how i know i add myself in some ocassions to see the objectives from the board i had a hunch that this have a bit of a incetive in this too

Well what you will find is that a clubs have tendancies ( as you mention) , which can be seen in the editor actually.

Also managers themselves have tendancies, as well as chairmen etc.

Tendancies that can include leaning towards playing a certain style of football but also of course, lean towards buying youngsters etc.

So yeah, it will effect the rep (for example.) of youngsters (they'll get played more etc) and therefore their sale price and real value to the team will change aswell.