Hi-Potential, Free agents

This always gets me paranoid.

Here and there I would scout a 2-3 star CA, 5 star PA player who is out of a contract, and was let go on a free transfer. No major injuries, good attributes, good ratings/stats for prior seasons, decent wage request, etc etc.

Seems like a good signing, however my mind keeps telling me that something has to be wrong! I must be missing something! I would add to the shortlist, 3 months or so goes by, still not picked up. It wouldn't be in some obscure league either - the last example I have is in the 1st div. in Norway (which is a playable league, so teams are more active in the market).

All-in-all it looks like a great signing, however, why aren't any other teams interested? If this player was truly a hi-potential, surely other teams would show interest, but.....nothing! There has to be something that I'm missing!

Anyone get get this / feel this way?

My biggest problem with them is the wage request they all want Key Player Star money. None of my teams can afford. Scout him a few more times especially with your best scout if possible......then sign him.

Probably a combination of several factors:

A) Too many players in your database compared to number of playable teams. This leads to some players simply not having anywhere to go as teams already have enough players of a similar standard in that position.

B) Reputation. Some players have a high rep compared to their actual ability which leaves them in limbo. They won't sign with teams of a similar ability level while they are simply not good enough for teams of a similar reputation.

C) Money. More or less the same as reputation. They ask for too much money from teams that are at a similar level and teams that would be willing to pay the wages see them as overpriced compared to their skills.

I've picked up a handful of these. I love when they get available on the market, and if they have the right personality and aren't injury prone I sign them on board.

I think often it can be the wage demands that put other teams off, but usually these players are more than good enough to play in my first XI, so for me that's fine.

I am totally with Cougar2010 first point here - Your game world can quickly becomes flooded with players. There will always be an element of this no matter what leagues you run, there just isn't enough clubs around to take in every player. Sometimes you do find real talents that haven't been snapped up and this is surprising but then you need to factor in Reputation and the players demands along with what is as best poor AI squad building for the most part.

Probably a combination of several factors:

A) Too many players in your database compared to number of playable teams. This leads to some players simply not having anywhere to go as teams already have enough players of a similar standard in that position.

B) Reputation. Some players have a high rep compared to their actual ability which leaves them in limbo. They won't sign with teams of a similar ability level while they are simply not good enough for teams of a similar reputation.

C) Money. More or less the same as reputation. They ask for too much money from teams that are at a similar level and teams that would be willing to pay the wages see them as overpriced compared to their skills.

I'm not clear how more players appear without playable teams. Is it due to the leagues loaded?

Is there a key to loading just the right leagues so this does not happen?

If I have a save with this problem, say its 2030 or so, and I want to "fix" it, can I un-load, say, Brazil and load, say, Russia to help, since Brazil is probably generating many top players, and Russia maybe has money to spare?

Database & playable leagues is an issue in the first couple of seasons, once you have got a few seasons into your FM save there will have generally been a certain amount of balancing gone on.

If you loaded too many players a lot of them will have retired and youth teams don't generally get overfilled so much.

If in doubt... offer him a trial, then you can get your coaches to run the rule over him too

Database & playable leagues is an issue in the first couple of seasons, once you have got a few seasons into your FM save there will have generally been a certain amount of balancing gone on.

If you loaded too many players a lot of them will have retired and youth teams don't generally get overfilled so much.

I have never seen any balancing.

If you choose a large db, and load too many players, then there will also be too many players generated to replace them. I'm pretty sure it persists indefinitely, although it may not appear so since they are generally becoming unemployed sooner.

What team are you playing as?

In short, yes, it is almost a cheat how often these players are available, even with small databases. The larger the player pool the worse it gets though.

I've seen Courtois, Stegen, Gundogan to name a few, recently leave there clubs with no other teams interested. Just how the game is and doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the player.

What team are you playing as?

I'm playing as Mantova, currently in the Serie A. I always like to start in the Lower Leagues and bring them up

So with that being said - it's 2019 now - a lot of time for changes in the database, I suppose.