Youngster/Wonderkid hunting struggles + transfers

[eXistenZ]

So obviously there are a lot of wonderkid lists out, or the guide/videos on how to set up your scouting to find these. However, what they fail to tell you, is that after finding these players, it's borderline impossible to sign them. At least in my experience.

I'm halfway through the 3rd season with NEC, from the dutch 2nd division. After winning promotion in season1, I had an absolute stellar year and became 3rd in my first year of top flight, qualifying for europa league. I mostly saved the money i earned, expanded the staff etc... and improved/maintained my team with free signings and loans. Long story short, I have 4M in spare  cash, with which I would like to find some young potentials for the future. As south americans are overpriced I asked on a discord what a good region is for €200-300k talents/wonderkids, and scandinavia was proposed

 

So first reports come in, one recommendation really tops it. a 17y old midfielder with decent stats and good personality, playing for a midtable club in denmark, value 28k. Made an enquiry (rejected), and then made an offer of 350k with 30% sell on fee. I'll let you make a guess what the non negotiable counter offer was:

 

If you guessed anything below 105M, you were wrong. and this is a recurring pattern. Not just in this save (spotted a french kid in Ligue 2, value 40k, asking price 25M), but in previous careers as well. Unless you're an established top20 world club, you can not do reasonable business with anyone. The AI will barely match the value of your players, even if they have 4 years left on their contract, you're lucky if you get 50% for it.  I perfectly know the pulling power big clubs have but at the moment it just feels like you're just getting ripped off on all sides. By the big clubs who don't respect the values of your players, and the smaller clubs who feel free to put prices on average players equivalent of your club's transfer budget for the next 4 seasons.

 

So I must be doing really wrong, or not understanding certain hidden mechanics. Or my scouting is wonky/ has something missing. I have no idea. but it is really frustrating as I have no idea how I am supposed to make progress/money in this situation. I will gladly read/try your recommendations

 

Oh and the danish kid? a pa of barely 130, which makes okay-ish for the dutch top flight. It's not something you lure Ajax with.  I dread what they AI will ask me if i find a real wonderkid.

[HUNT3R]

The simple answer is that these clubs aren't looking to sell their brightest talents. Or at least what they consider to be one of their brightest talents.

You're going to have to try and unsettle the player to make the club re-consider selling or move onto the next target. It makes it easier if you scout as you're see the potential transfer cost or you'll see that the club isn't looking to sell.

[eXistenZ]

2 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

The simple answer is that these clubs aren't looking to sell their brightest talents. Or at least what they consider to be one of their brightest talents.

You're going to have to try and unsettle the player to make the club re-consider selling or move onto the next target. It makes it easier if you scout as you're see the potential transfer cost or you'll see that the club isn't looking to sell.

I don't want to sell my players either, but I have to suck it up when a club comes by and offers at most 2/3 of his value.  Yes I reject it and then I settle on a fee with the player( and its never one that is more than double his value, but I've never seen this happen to the AI. I've only been able to unsettle a player once, and even then I still had to pay 4x his value. Im definitly not gonna pay 4000x someone's value.

Id love to move on the next target, but almost all the talent I scout is "doesnt want to sell" and comes back with this ridiculous counter proposals.  At this point scouting is a waste of money and time. Unless there are some scouting tricks I'm not aware of.

 

 

[AurioDK]

Hunter is right, most clubs who produce talents like f.ex. Danish FC Midtjylland either prefer to loan them out or sell them for a specific amount. Check out their sales and you will see that they wait until the player reaches a certain value, due to Danish club economy I doubt a transfer any time soon will exceed 10 million euros and that´s a very high estimate. Most talents are sold for around 2-5 million regardless of what their market price indicates.

This is however difficult to replicate in FM and there is a sort of standard response from clubs which often puts the price far too high, this goes especially for small clubs who would normally sell for lower because of their economy. FC Midtjylland would never ask 100 million for a youth player, that´s unthinkable.

On that note, it is possible to find gems at low cost, low cost usually means a few million. These would be the ones interested in getting a foothold in European football, South Americans f.ex. It takes a long time to scour the market propperly and FM simply can´t replicate the real word nor can you expect it to, it tries and does a decent job at times.

FC Midtjylland also has no competition when signing youth players, it´s not like FM, all their "recruitment" is done silently with people working in Africa. Another thing you really can´t expect FM to replicate.

Edited February 9, 2021 by AurioDK

[HUNT3R]

13 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Id love to move on the next target, but almost all the talent I scout is "doesnt want to sell" and comes back with this ridiculous counter proposals.  At this point scouting is a waste of money and time. Unless there are some scouting tricks I'm not aware of.

 

I don't use the player search and so I have to rely on scouting to provide the information. I can assure you, it's quite possible to get players who are affordable.

It was key in my FM20 save when I placed a limit on wage spend (capping it at ­£90k/week) in France before, very cautiously upping it to £125k/week for 1 player. That's competing against Lyon and PSG who spend £200-400k/week on top players. On the transfer fee side of things, for 4 or 5 seasons, my highest single transfer was only about £15m, concentrating on younger players, so under 23. That's a team that I built up to eventually win the league and CL. Not all of the transfers were perfect, as some didn't develop as anticipated, but they were sold on for profits and that money used to buy more prospects. It took a season or so to full get the conveyor belt going, but was really satisfying.

If it's well known wonderkid list type players and it's not working, scout around? Not everyone will want to join you. You're newly promoted, so could well be seen as having a 'lucky' one off season. It takes a bit of effort but you can find talent in FM. The real trick is to find wonderkids before they are by the media (so well known by then) labeled as wonderkids. Saves a lot of money.

[AurioDK]

One tip is to use the minimum fee release clause and search youngsters with one in their contract, you won´t find many and you will probably need to pay for a scout package for a month during the transfer window. But just one gem can change the finances of a small club.

[eXistenZ]

19 minutes ago, AurioDK said:

Hunter is right, most clubs who produce talents like f.ex. Danish FC Midtjylland either prefer to loan them out or sell them for a specific amount. Check out their sales and you will see that they wait until the player reaches a certain value, due to Danish club economy I doubt a transfer any time soon will exceed 10 million euros and that´s a very high estimate. Most talents are sold for around 2-5 million regardless of what their market price indicates.

This is however difficult to replicate in FM and there is a sort of standard response from clubs which often puts the price far too high, this goes especially for small clubs who would normally sell for lower because of their economy. FC Midtjylland would never ask 100 million for a youth player, that´s unthinkable.

On that note, it is possible to find gems at low cost, low cost usually means a few million. These would be the ones interested in getting a foothold in European football, South Americans f.ex. It takes a long time to scour the market propperly and FM simply can´t replicate the real word nor can you expect it to, it tries and does a decent job at times.

FC Midtjylland also has no competition when signing youth players, it´s not like FM, all their "recruitment" is done silently with people working in Africa. Another thing you really can´t expect FM to replicate.

And where would you find gems that are more like 300k?

[XaW]

6 hours ago, eXistenZ said:

So I must be doing really wrong, or not understanding certain hidden mechanics. Or my scouting is wonky/ has something missing. I have no idea. but it is really frustrating as I have no idea how I am supposed to make progress/money in this situation. I will gladly read/try your recommendations

What ground work did you do here? Did you just look at the scout report and his attributes and offered some money? If so, I can understand the response. Way back in the day, the AI had the option to just flat out refuse to even look at your offer. Then there were a lot of comments around like "Everyone has a price, if it's high enough they would sell". After a while, there was a change, the AI no longer stopped you from offering, but instead asked for silly money as a way of saying "We are not interested in a sale here, and if you really want him, you are going to have to pay way above what anyone would find reasonable in any way". So that's pretty much what's been done here. They are telling you to sod off and find someone else to look at.

My question to you though, why are you taking this as a "pay or never buy" reponse? This is just the initial start of a much longer process for buying a player. Have your scouts follow him for a long time, talk about him in the press. Offer a public locked bid a bit over his value, that they will likely reject. If the kid then starts making a fuzz about it, your hand just got a whole lot stronger.

If you have ever gotten frustrated the AI are bidding low offers for your best players and have to handle the fuzz, you know that sometimes you have to sell in order to keep your house under control, the same happens for the AI. Make the kid want to leave in order to join you, and the AI will have to reduce their demands. Maybe you'll find and agreement, maybe you don't, that's part of the business, but they asking for £105m is not the end of saga. Use all the tools of the game, and you can get both talents and superstars for a decent fee. Not always, of course, but some times.

[santy001]

There are players who are horribly under valued because the AI doesn't get them right in their assessment, but your staff are also likely to miss it too.  

The best ever striker I've had on an FM game (besides FM2009 when I was doing shady training shenanigans with Keirrison) was a player who was a £1.2m signing by my DoF who no one rated and injuries forced me to use. Ended up having a few seasons scoring 100+ goals.

Looking at attributes for what you're after, and remembering that the right spread of attributes can dictate a world class performer instead means you can find value elsewhere.

[eXistenZ]

15 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I don't use the player search and so I have to rely on scouting to provide the information. I can assure you, it's quite possible to get players who are affordable.

It was key in my FM20 save when I placed a limit on wage spend (capping it at ­£90k/week) in France before, very cautiously upping it to £125k/week for 1 player. That's competing against Lyon and PSG who spend £200-400k/week on top players. On the transfer fee side of things, for 4 or 5 seasons, my highest single transfer was only about £15m, concentrating on younger players, so under 23. That's a team that I built up to eventually win the league and CL.

If it's well known wonderkid list type players and it's not working, scout around? Not everyone will want to join you. You're newly promoted, so could well be seen as having a 'lucky' one off season. It takes a bit of effort but you can find talent in FM. The real trick is to find wonderkids before they are by the media (so well known by then) labeled as wonderkids. Saves a lot of money.

I'm sorry, but this just reinforces my belief that unless you are a big club, scouting is a waste of time and you just need to get lucky with the youth academy to make money. 125k a week is my entire wage budget, not something I can spent on a player.  I don't waste my time with players that don't want to join, so thats not the issue here.

 

And in this case it's a regen, so not a well known wonderkid (and a pa of 130 doesnt even make him a wonderkid), but it somehow justifies 105M asking price. So yes I foud him before the media does. Doesnt help me with that asking price. And like said, it's a recurrent pattern

[eXistenZ]

3 minutes ago, XaW said:

What ground work did you do here? Did you just look at the scout report and his attributes and offered some money? If so, I can understand the response. Way back in the day, the AI had the option to just flat out refuse to even look at your offer. Then there were a lot of comments around like "Everyone has a price, if it's high enough they would sell". After a while, there was a change, the AI no longer stopped you from offering, but instead asked for silly money as a way of saying "We are not interested in a sale here, and if you really want him, you are going to have to pay way above what anyone would find reasonable in any way". So that's pretty much what's been done here. They are telling you to sod off and find someone else to look at.

My question to you though, why are you taking this as a "pay or never buy" reponse? This is just the initial start of a much longer process for buying a player. Have your scouts follow him for a long time, talk about him in the press. Offer a public locked bid a bit over his value, that they will likely reject. If the kid then starts making a fuzz about it, your hand just got a whole lot stronger.

If you have ever gotten frustrated the AI are bidding low offers for your best players and have to handle the fuzz, you know that sometimes you have to sell in order to keep your house under control, the same happens for the AI. Make the kid want to leave in order to join you, and the AI will have to reduce their demands. Maybe you'll find and agreement, maybe you don't, that's part of the business, but they asking for £105m is not the end of saga. Use all the tools of the game, and you can get both talents and superstars for a decent fee. Not always, of course, but some times.

Except everyone I offer tells me to sod off and find someone else so it's a dead end.

The reason I take this as a pay or never buy response is simple: it's 10x his value, along with a 30% profit from next sale. Im not going higher than that. Especially for a kid that will not  be that amazing. The day I get 10x the value of a player with a percentage fee from the AI, I'll jump butt naked in the snow, you can quote me on that

Like mentioned , Ive almost never been able to unsettle a player

[XaW]

17 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

The day I get 10x the value of a player with a percentage fee from the AI, I'll jump butt naked in the snow, you can quote me on that

Well...

So, yeah, value £185k, sold him to AI for £7.25m (potentially £11m) + 50% of next sale. Now, jump in that snow!  

[eXistenZ]

13 minutes ago, XaW said:

So, yeah, value £185k, sold him to AI for £7.25m (potentially £11m) + 50% of next sale. Now, jump in that snow!  

except I said it has to happen to me. And obiously that is an amazing regen, hardly comparable with what I'm trying to buy

 

Just loaded up the game, went through  all hot prospects of danish first division teams (mentioned on their club page)and asked their agent + checked the PA in the editor. None was above 130; all of them were interested. of those not "not wanting to sell", the asking price was at least 50x their value.  The best one was a 4k value where the asking price was 500k.

 

 

[HUNT3R]

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

I'm sorry, but this just reinforces my belief that unless you are a big club, scouting is a waste of time and you just need to get lucky with the youth academy to make money. 125k a week is my entire wage budget, not something I can spent on a player.  I don't waste my time with players that don't want to join, so thats not the issue here.

Then I didn't explain well enough. I can buy players for peanuts (less than £10m and often under £5m) and for cheap wages that anyone can afford. In my CL winning team, I signed very good prospects for around £4k / week or less. 

It's possible to get cheaper ones, of course, but as with all youngsters, it's not going to be possible to guarantee that they'll turn out to be superstars.

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

And in this case it's a regen, so not a well known wonderkid (and a pa of 130 doesnt even make him a wonderkid), but it somehow justifies 105M asking price. So yes I foud him before the media does. Doesnt help me with that asking price. And like said, it's a recurrent pattern

It's not an asking price. They do not want to sell. They don't know he's 'only' 130 PA. They think they have the next Eriksen, so they are trying to hold onto him.

--

Scout around. You will be able to find decent young players.

[eXistenZ]

16 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Then I didn't explain well enough. I can buy players for peanuts (less than £10m and often under £5m) and for cheap wages that anyone can afford. In my CL winning team, I signed very good prospects for around £4k / week or less. 

It's not an asking price. They do not want to sell. They don't know he's 'only' 130 PA. They think they have the next Eriksen, so they are trying to hold onto him.

--

Scout around. You will be able to find decent young players.

And is it possible to find decent prospects for 500k or less? And if so where? I was recommended scandinavia (and i did a bit in south america where the base prices are even more ridicuolous)

 

I'm not trying to win the CL atm. I just want to find players that will either become good for my side (Eredivisie midtable/subtop), or I can sell on with a profit.  I havent done much economics in school, but I do know its very hard to make a profit on something if you overpay 100x on it originally. 5M is my entire budget, you're just reinforcing my beliefs that it's pointless to scout for smaller clubs.

 

In my current squad I have a RB who in my opinion is the next Cafu (he is definitly playing like it). i don't want to sell him either Don't think that its gonna help me in the next transfer window to make 10x his value on it.

Edited February 9, 2021 by eXistenZ

[HUNT3R]

14 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

And is it possible to find decent prospects for 500k or less? I'm not trying to win the CL atm. I just want to find players that will either become good for my side (Eredivisie midtable/subtop), or I can sell on with a profit.  I havent done much economics in school, but I do know its very hard to make a profit on something if you overpay 100x on it originally. 5M is my entire budget, you're just reinforcing my beliefs that it's pointless to scout for smaller clubs.

 

In my current squad I have a RB who in my opinion is the next Cafu (he is definitly playing like it) Don't think that its gonna help me in the next transfer window to make 10x his value on it.

Like I said, you can find players who are cheaper. They are there. You can sell pretty much any young player on for a profit. Buy them young for cheap, develop them, sell them on. It was mentioned above, but look for players with a good attribute spread. One or two may even be good enough to become a first team player, even if just a squad player.

We all have different budgets. At the club I am managing now in FM21, I also have a small budget. So I adjust accordingly. I try to get cheaper youngsters for around £300k max. I'd go up to 1m if they're first team ready (or close to) already.

You don't get any guarantees that players will come good. Not when they're 300k or 30m. If a club asks 100x the value, move onto the next target. You're trying to bargain hunt and if you are doing that, it's never a good idea to be overly focused on one or two players. Cast a wide net and sift through the players. Get a few you can afford and who have a decent spread of attributes that gives you some confidence that they could be useful and develop well. Then it's a matter of seeing if they improve in training and eventually either giving them first team chances (at your club or on loan) and keeping an eye on their development. If it seems like it has stalled, looking at the last 6 months or so, it's possible they peaked. If they keep developing more and more, then you may have a gem.

That's why scouting is such a good tool. Your scout tells you whether a club would consider selling or not, so there are no surprises. If they do consider selling, you have an idea of the cost as well, so you can decide who is affordable, but still decent enough (attributes-wise) that it's be a good transfer for the club.

[Spurs08]

2 hours ago, eXistenZ said:

I don't want to sell my players either, but I have to suck it up when a club comes by and offers at most 2/3 of his value.  Yes I reject it and then I settle on a fee with the player( and its never one that is more than double his value, but I've never seen this happen to the AI. I've only been able to unsettle a player once, and even then I still had to pay 4x his value. Im definitly not gonna pay 4000x someone's value.

Id love to move on the next target, but almost all the talent I scout is "doesnt want to sell" and comes back with this ridiculous counter proposals.  At this point scouting is a waste of money and time. Unless there are some scouting tricks I'm not aware of.

 

 

Why do you have to suck it up? There's four reasons normally why someone has to - a) because the player doesn't have long left on their contract and won't renew, b) because they're unsettled and causing discontent in the dressing room, c) because you don't actually want them and are looking to move them on, or d) because your club's in financial trouble and needs the money. And if you try to buy a player in one of those circumstances, you're very likely to get a decent deal. But I'm guessing if someone comes in and offers you a reasonable amount for a wonderkid, perfectly happy to stay, with several years left on his contract, you'll just say no - which is effectively what the AI is doing here.

In terms of unsettling them, make sure to declare your interest in them as a top target. Send your scouts to watch their games repeatedly. Go to one of his matches yourself! Ask one of your highest-reputation players - or even better, one who's friends with your transfer target - to promote your club to him. And preferably, do this over a long period of time - the longer the better. It's not guaranteed, but I've got a pretty good track record of making players want to move when I do that.

[XaW]

42 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

except I said it has to happen to me. And obiously that is an amazing regen, hardly comparable with what I'm trying to buy

Kind of feels like moving the goal posts, but fine.

42 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Just loaded up the game, went through  all hot prospects of danish first division teams (mentioned on their club page)and asked their agent + checked the PA in the editor. None was above 130; all of them were interested. of those not "not wanting to sell", the asking price was at least 50x their value.  The best one was a 4k value where the asking price was 500k.

You say that, but you haven't done any of the leg work? Try bidding for a player, say double the value and lock it in place. I'll expect they will reject, but wait a week or two and look at the profile of the player. If he is unhappy with anything, you should be able to get him for a decent enough fee. If not, your team isn't seen as a major step up for him, or he has some other reason to not want to join, like being extremely loyal or professional or something like that.

You can't handle this like going into a supermarket and asking what the price of apples and then have to pay or not. You have to bargain, and reject, and then come back later and asking for a lower value. There is a whole ton of things you can do, that you haven't even touched upon in any of your posts. If you have time and effort, you can get players quite cheap, but if you want them NOW, you'll have to pay. This mirrors the real world, the ones who does the leg work can pick up bargains, but panic buys are much more risky and quite often much more expensive.

That said, there could well be issues in the system, and if you think you have a bug, then report it in the bugs section of the forum with a save game uploaded to the SI cloud and let the devs have a look. But quite frankly, what you have described so far just seems like the game is telling you they don't want to sell and you not wanting to try to change their mind.

[mp_87]

I think, in various ways, you're trying to run before you can walk unfortunately.

Reality is that this is still a very small budget in order to attract players, especially if you're trying to hoover up young players. Clubs who take this approach speculate to accumulate, you don't really have much room to do that. You will have to keep slowly building up your finances.

Completely agree with what @XaWsays regarding transfer negotiations. You have to play the long game, have a plan, and lay the groundwork for a transfer and even then it sometimes doesn't work, but equally sometimes does. FM is moving away from a game though where you just pick a player you want, put a bid in, and have him signed all within one day.

But then, even three seasons in, I doubt you have the reputation to be a stellar destination for players, so they may not even want to join if you can get the right bid together. A small-ish club from Holland quite possibly won't tempt players from eg. France or even from fairly similar standard league/rep such as Denmark. I tend to think of more my nations place in the food chain, rather than my clubs if that makes sense. Pick obviously smaller markets that should be easier/cheaper eg. some of the Eastern European leagues or African ones.

I also find that quite often youth players aren't interested in signing if they've recently signed up to a pro contract with a club, so they might not pressure their current employer into selling.

Lastly, I'd advise to stop looking at PA, or at least revising expectations. For Eredivisie someone of circa 130PA could become a really solid player and performer. If you develop him, get him game time and get performances who knows what you could sell him for in future? Clubs doing the 'wonderkid' approach don't just take gems, they take the lesser players too to develop and sell and bank the money. If you're turning your nose up at players like that, especially early on in your game, well you will be fishing in a very small pool of players.

Long story short, you have to be patient. It's a slow build.

[eXistenZ]

1 hour ago, mp_87 said:

I think, in various ways, you're trying to run before you can walk unfortunately.

Reality is that this is still a very small budget in order to attract players, especially if you're trying to hoover up young players. Clubs who take this approach speculate to accumulate, you don't really have much room to do that. You will have to keep slowly building up your finances.

Completely agree with what @XaWsays regarding transfer negotiations. You have to play the long game, have a plan, and lay the groundwork for a transfer and even then it sometimes doesn't work, but equally sometimes does. FM is moving away from a game though where you just pick a player you want, put a bid in, and have him signed all within one day.

But then, even three seasons in, I doubt you have the reputation to be a stellar destination for players, so they may not even want to join if you can get the right bid together. A small-ish club from Holland quite possibly won't tempt players from eg. France or even from fairly similar standard league/rep such as Denmark. I tend to think of more my nations place in the food chain, rather than my clubs if that makes sense. Pick obviously smaller markets that should be easier/cheaper eg. some of the Eastern European leagues or African ones.

I also find that quite often youth players aren't interested in signing if they've recently signed up to a pro contract with a club, so they might not pressure their current employer into selling.

Lastly, I'd advise to stop looking at PA, or at least revising expectations. For Eredivisie someone of circa 130PA could become a really solid player and performer. If you develop him, get him game time and get performances who knows what you could sell him for in future? Clubs doing the 'wonderkid' approach don't just take gems, they take the lesser players too to develop and sell and bank the money. If you're turning your nose up at players like that, especially early on in your game, well you will be fishing in a very small pool of players.

Long story short, you have to be patient. It's a slow build.

Well I won't deny that i'm eager. But it has a simple explanation: I had an amazing last season on which I want to capitalise, because it might not happen again next season.  I know I'm not the big dream of young players, hence I'm automaticly discarding players that won't be interested. But that doesnt matter if you get doesnt want to sell or a horribly inflated counter offer.  i'm not looking for the next messi, I'm just going along with what my scouts propose (managed to get some really good ones that manutd let go for some reason). At the moment it just feels that scouting is a terrible waste of time and money, and it definitly didnt feel like that in older games. For the money I need to spend on these youngsters, I basicly can also get an established eredivisie player of 26 but who doesnt have growth potential or much resale value

 

I normally don't look at PA, i was just so baffled by a 105M counter that I just had to check, and whether its a recurrent pattern, which apparently it is. I would love to cast a wide net for several players, but if i can barely afford two with 70 recommendation, then its not really an option. And yes there are 200+ bigger clubs than me, but i'm really curious how you ment to play it if you're even smaller. then scouting feels an even bigger waste.

 

ill redesign some scouts to africa and eastern europe, cause scandinavia is a complete bust at the moment. At the moment it just feels that you need to overpay massivly, and at the same time you only get crumbs

[XaW]

@eXistenZ - I don't understand why you are ignoring all the options several in here have suggested for you. You are focused on the counter offer without doing anything to change it and complain about scouting and how it wastes money. The scout will often tell you what they are likely to want for the player initially, and if the scout suggests they are unwilling to sell, then you know what you are up against. This has nothing to do with scouting, the scouts will tell you what you can expect.

But let's turn it around, to offer another view. What would you accept as a fee if you were the Danish club and NEC wanted to buy? Would you sell him for his value? Double? x10? What would you think were the appropriate for NEC to offer you for him for you to accept? Why should the AI accept anything less?

Also, if you truly think it's impossible to do, upload your save, and let me know the name of the player and I'll have a stab at buying him and see how low I can get it. I might fail, but I might also succeed and if I manage it I'll let you know how I did it.

[FlorianAlbert9]

Imho in something the OP is right. 

Is totally unrealistic that some small clubs (above all in minor nations) ask for a price so high. A club with at best a balance of 2M, cannot ask for 100M and refuse offer that are near its total balance.

Said that it's absolutely possible sell players for very high value (and it's a lot easier that in real life).

Generally i found good cheap players in South Africa.

Now, that I tried to buy some expensive players (for my status) like Jelic for 4,6M - that would be hard to sell to a greater amount of money (also 'cause maybe he could be a fail)
But if you stay under 1M, it's easy.

(ah i Forget to say, i always buy only U18 players, max 19yo if very strong)

(at starting MTK have a balance of 1,6M, now 64M. - almost all for selling players- i have only 464 tickets holders - i won 1 one the Ligue, 1 silver medal a Conference League in my only time a reaching the stage. and now i'm in EuroLEague - i Lost to qualify fo gs in CL)

Edited February 9, 2021 by FlorianAlbert9

[Spurs08]

32 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Well I won't deny that i'm eager. But it has a simple explanation: I had an amazing last season on which I want to capitalise, because it might not happen again next season.  I know I'm not the big dream of young players, hence I'm automaticly discarding players that won't be interested. But that doesnt matter if you get doesnt want to sell or a horribly inflated counter offer.  i'm not looking for the next messi, I'm just going along with what my scouts propose (managed to get some really good ones that manutd let go for some reason). At the moment it just feels that scouting is a terrible waste of time and money, and it definitly didnt feel like that in older games. For the money I need to spend on these youngsters, I basicly can also get an established eredivisie player of 26 but who doesnt have growth potential or much resale value

 

I normally don't look at PA, i was just so baffled by a 105M counter that I just had to check, and whether its a recurrent pattern, which apparently it is. I would love to cast a wide net for several players, but if i can barely afford two with 70 recommendation, then its not really an option. And yes there are 200+ bigger clubs than me, but i'm really curious how you ment to play it if you're even smaller. then scouting feels an even bigger waste.

 

ill redesign some scouts to africa and eastern europe, cause scandinavia is a complete bust at the moment. At the moment it just feels that you need to overpay massivly, and at the same time you only get crumbs

I kinda agree that the £105m thing is a bit silly. But basically what happened is that a few years ago, clubs wouldn't make a counter-offer like that, they'd just reject the bid. People didn't like that and said that every player has a price, so now they nearly always make a counter-offer instead. But these are the ones made when they simply don't want to sell the player, don't see any good reason to sell the player, and just want you to go away.

People have given you some ideas on how you can try to attract those players. You know they're already interested, but that's not enough - you need the club to sell too, and that means you need to get them begging for a move and threatening to throw their toys out of the pram. If you go to Eastern Europe and try to sign a high-potential player with years left on his contract, you're probably going to run into the same issue unless the club is cash-strapped. You'll still need to unsettle them, it just might be slightly easier to do so.

[JordanMilly]

As others have said, it's entirely possible to sign cheap, decent prospects. I'd 100% suggest looking less at the star ratings (since they're subjective and can be incorrect) and more at the attributes. For example, I've signed this guy:

How much do you think I paid for him?

Spoiler

I paid nothing, signed him on a precontract for £5.5k/w, and he's 5 star potential (175 PA).

It's just about keeping an eye out for a bargain, potentially being okay with retraining people (I want to turn this guy into a midfielder), and have a look at Africa, Asia, etc, where you might find some great high potential players for dirt cheap.

[eXistenZ]

45 minutes ago, Spurs08 said:

I kinda agree that the £105m thing is a bit silly. But basically what happened is that a few years ago, clubs wouldn't make a counter-offer like that, they'd just reject the bid. People didn't like that and said that every player has a price, so now they nearly always make a counter-offer instead. But these are the ones made when they simply don't want to sell the player, don't see any good reason to sell the player, and just want you to go away.

People have given you some ideas on how you can try to attract those players. You know they're already interested, but that's not enough - you need the club to sell too, and that means you need to get them begging for a move and threatening to throw their toys out of the pram. If you go to Eastern Europe and try to sign a high-potential player with years left on his contract, you're probably going to run into the same issue unless the club is cash-strapped. You'll still need to unsettle them, it just might be slightly easier to do so.

the issue I am experiencing is that 70% is "sod off", 29% is unreasonable (my entire transferbudget or more for someone who isnt garantueed), and I have no idea where the remaining 1% is. i'll redirect some scouts an hopefully have more success. Like said before, Ive been very unsuccesfull in the past in unsetteling players, its about a 1 in 50 succesrate.

 

@JordanMillward_1With respect, you're borussia dortmund. you're top of the top5 leagues in europe. offcours you have huge pulling power, reputation and money. It's not applicable to smaller clubs (as I alluded to before, ). My whole transferbudget is probably what your star player earns in 3 months.

[JordanMilly]

2 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

the issue I am experiencing is that 70% is "sod off", 29% is unreasonable (my entire transferbudget or more for someone who isnt garantueed), and I have no idea where the remaining 1% is. i'll redirect some scouts an hopefully have more success. Like said before, Ive been very unsuccesfull in the past in unsetteling players, its about a 1 in 50 succesrate.

 

@JordanMillward_1With respect, you're borussia dortmund. you're top of the top5 leagues in europe. offcours you have huge pulling power, reputation and money. It's not applicable to smaller clubs (as I alluded to before, ). My whole transferbudget is probably what your star player earns in 3 months.

However, finding people who are running out their contracts and can be approached on precontracts isn't impacted by what team you're playing. A great many of those players are running down their contract because they haven't been promised the level of first team football they want, and in other saves I've found that a number will be happy to come into a team in a lower reputation league if they're getting first team football most weeks than they will be to go to a big club and rot in the reserves.

Hell, as you said, I'm Dortmund - I still get like 50% of attempts to buy clear wonderkids returned with a "sod off". It is all about either searching out bargains, or putting the time into unsettling a player to prompt them to request a transfer.

[eXistenZ]

Oh no I don't deny that. I'm in my 3rd season and the only money I've spent is 190k on an experienced left back. Others have been free signings, including one from dortmund and 2-3 loans. For me they are good, some with very good potential that will definitly bring me a big wad of cash in the future for my stature. But the chances of me bringing in a player on a free that is that young and already  very good, are much slimmer. I might find players like that, but it's very unlikely they will be free AND not already being sniffed on by almo small, but still bigger clubs.

 

Just saying that as dortmund you have way more pulling power and margin for error. When I'm gonna do a milan save after the patch, I'll throw my scouts around and sign a lot of these type of players, or sign brazilians for 3-4M, just because it hardly can fail.

[HUNT3R]

2 hours ago, eXistenZ said:

the issue I am experiencing is that 70% is "sod off", 29% is unreasonable (my entire transferbudget or more for someone who isnt garantueed), and I have no idea where the remaining 1% is. i'll redirect some scouts an hopefully have more success. 

I have been at Rijeka for 3 seasons. I only rely on scouting. I don't even do my own scouting - I just go through the reports. This is what I have done (and I've been offered mid to lower table Dutch jobs, so in a comparable position) with around 5m total in transfer budget each year and around £160k as a wage budget.

 

1st season:

He was 18 at the time and cost £950k. He's still improving. He's even played for the national team already. He has knee ligament issues, so I am looking to cash in when the opportunity presents itself. Played over 55 matches for us, just in the league alone, during the 3 seasons so far.

 

 

This guy was 27 (so in his peak) so he doesn't qualify as a wonderkid, but I got him cheap (£350k) and he's worth 1m and has played over 70 matches for us in the league over the 3 seasons. He's 30 now and with that value, I can still make a profit even if I wanted to sell now:

4

 

 

This guy was expensive (£1.4m) but 20yo at the time and was a first team regular from the start. He's still improving and wanted by teams in the Premier League, the Championship and Serie A. When he initially was signed, he had a 3m release clause and teams got close to triggering it, so I offered a new contract with no clause and a wage comparable to other first teamers.

 

 

2nd season:

This guy (he was 19) for 400k:

He was doing quite well in season 2 (6 goals in 6(11) apps in the league) and 3rd season he fell out of favour a little because of other talents. He's not progressing as much anymore unfortunately and I think he's going to go on loan for a season before I decide what to do with him.

 

I also bought this guy at 19yo for 875k and sold him at the end of the season (he became unhappy etc) for 2m plus add ons and a sell on %:

 

3rd season (the one I just finished):

I signed this guy on a free at 24yo. So he was free and only 3.4k/week in wages. He was my top scorer this season. He may not be a teenage wonderkid, but I got him cheap, he's improving, doing well and I could sell him for quite a good profit. That Agility and Dribbling is deadly though, so I think I'll keep hold of him for now  :

 

 

Bought this 20yo in Jan, so he's only been at the club for 6 months and I haven't thrown him into the deep end.

 

 

Also bought a young GK for 500k in Jan and played him in a few first team matches:

 

Will any of them turn out to be big names? I have no idea. I should be able to profit in most cases and even if I don't, they're playing regularly, so they're useful to me. I am hoping all of them turn out to be very good players, but I will have to wait and see. 

My transfer activity for the 3 seasons: ( 1 - 7m in / 8.75m out ; 2 - 2.8m in / 8.25m out ; 3 - 2.2m in / 7.75m out ) so we're making money overall in the transfer market and it's really helping the finances of the club. We've gone from -97k to +6.5m in the 3 seasons.

Just by the way, this is the first time I see the actual attributes. I hope I don't remember too much. This is what I see in my game:

[Sloak]

53 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

Oh no I don't deny that. I'm in my 3rd season and the only money I've spent is 190k on an experienced left back. Others have been free signings, including one from dortmund and 2-3 loans. For me they are good, some with very good potential that will definitly bring me a big wad of cash in the future for my stature. But the chances of me bringing in a player on a free that is that young and already  very good, are much slimmer. I might find players like that, but it's very unlikely they will be free AND not already being sniffed on by almo small, but still bigger clubs.

 

Just saying that as dortmund you have way more pulling power and margin for error. When I'm gonna do a milan save after the patch, I'll throw my scouts around and sign a lot of these type of players, or sign brazilians for 3-4M, just because it hardly can fail.

Replying to you seems meaningless as you’ve either argued or ignored every piece of help and logic that’s been given to you, but I’ll take a shot. FM is designed to be played as a big club, often in the prem, and If you don’t do this you can’t run your club the way premier league clubs run theirs.

I love playing outside the Top 5, but you have to come to an understanding, especially if you’re playing outside the top 5-12. You’re at the bottom of the food chain in Europe. You can’t get easy deals off of clubs in leagues lower than you because they will rarely produce them, and clubs in leagues above you far outweigh you in financial and reputation power. In real life, these clubs build from within, on scraps from bigger clubs, and from other continents. It would be different if you were playing in the 5-12 range, you still can’t really get deals from the bigger leagues, but you can buy from similar leagues and ones abroad with a much larger transfer and wage allowance. Clubs in Portugal, The Netherlands, Russia, and Turkey have way more money and are higher rated, meaning they’ll be looking for the same players you are with more ability to make the purchase.

Think about clubs like Ajax, Basel, RB Salzburg, Partizan, etc. Clubs that dominate their country in terms of youth recruitment/development and in the league. All of these clubs stand above their contemporaries, yet only Ajax actually purchases young talent, the rest primarily grow from the youth ranks. You have to think about your competition. You either need to look for 16/17 year olds abroad who you can buy before the big clubs find them, or realize you won’t be buying any wonderkids anytime soon.

My advice would be to look for end of contract and free players <25 and build strong squad depth. You will be able to sell players, and once you have enough money to actually acquire talent (750k will get you 1 hood South African, 2M or more is necessary for South Americans) you can invest wisely on players who need a lot of development.

You will be 99% unable to find a young player good enough to play on your first team for 350k. Almost every European club will be able to pay that fee and most will be higher rep than you. You need to get free players in, sell them for a profit until you can safely invest, and then pull the trigger on players who will need years before they get spinning but have a high potential. If you don’t want to accept that, fine, but that’s how it works in FM and in real life.

[eXistenZ]

@SloakSorry but I find that tone not very helpfull and neither your post.  Ive never said I want a first team 18y old for 350k. Or that I am running my club as a Prem club.

I said I asked around in a discord what a good place is for talents with that budget, I was redirected to scandinavia and was swatted by ridiculous asking prices. And again. And again. And again.  Combined with low offerings for your own star players, this is extremely demoralizing and frustrating. Ive also already said I focus on end of contract signings, but that  as a smaller club its more difficult than Borussia Dortmund. Again, this is not something that bothers me, its normal.  I actualy take some pride in the results Ive come up with, with basicly no spending.

But you obviously dont read the posts properly, as I said that finding these players usually isnt an issue. getting them much more (litterally the first paragraph of my opening post, but hey why read that....). Ok I realise that 350k isnt going bring me much, but its hardly realistic either that a midtable club is blowing everything on a possible talent

 

@HUNT3Robviously has some better settings for his scouts than me. So I'm glad to hear those settings and where I can improve.  Im definitly not ignoring advice, I am just telling what happens in my game (which is 70% sod off, and 29% go mortgage your stadium and maybe come back then)

For example, I see in my assignment to Africa,  it says "squad player", despite me never putting that in. how can I change/fic this?

Edited February 9, 2021 by eXistenZ

[eXistenZ]

4 hours ago, XaW said:

@eXistenZ - I don't understand why you are ignoring all the options several in here have suggested for you. You are focused on the counter offer without doing anything to change it and complain about scouting and how it wastes money. The scout will often tell you what they are likely to want for the player initially, and if the scout suggests they are unwilling to sell, then you know what you are up against. This has nothing to do with scouting, the scouts will tell you what you can expect.

But let's turn it around, to offer another view. What would you accept as a fee if you were the Danish club and NEC wanted to buy? Would you sell him for his value? Double? x10? What would you think were the appropriate for NEC to offer you for him for you to accept? Why should the AI accept anything less?

Also, if you truly think it's impossible to do, upload your save, and let me know the name of the player and I'll have a stab at buying him and see how low I can get it. I might fail, but I might also succeed and if I manage it I'll let you know how I did it.

Sorry I missed this one. I have no issues with the scouts themself, I dowith the result they produce. Again, this might be due to my setup, hence Why i asked what the general advice is on those..

 

Most of my players are fairly young (I actually have the lowest age at 22.5 in the division i just noticed), but I would never ask for 4000% of their value. If they said 10M (which is 150% of the club value), I would say, thats fairly bonkers, but that at least some starting ground and reasonable for other clubs, maybe this kid really is amazing. My best player is worth 5M with a 4y contract. If a club came around with 15-20M, I wouldnt be happy, but at least its a reasonable offer (offcours, the best i got for him was 6 untill now....). I don't think thats unrealstic. What the AI sometimes ask is. Or there should be a proper look at valuations.

[XaW]

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

Sorry I missed this one. I have no issues with the scouts themself, I dowith the result they produce. Again, this might be due to my setup, hence Why i asked what the general advice is on those..

Most of my players are fairly young (I actually have the lowest age at 22.5 in the division i just noticed), but I would never ask for 4000% of their value. If they said 10M (which is 150% of the club value), I would say, thats fairly bonkers, but that at least some starting ground and reasonable for other clubs, maybe this kid really is amazing. My best player is worth 5M with a 4y contract. If a club came around with 15-20M, I wouldnt be happy, but at least its a reasonable offer (offcours, the best i got for him was 6 untill now....). I don't think thats unrealstic. What the AI sometimes ask is. Or there should be a proper look at valuations.

I can understand, but the £105m is pretty much a "not for sale" sign. So that value is not what they will sell for. If you bid £20m I'm quite sure they would accept and if not I'd log it as a bug!

If you read up on a few of the posts I've written here, I've touched upon the advise I have. Scout the player for a long time (even after 100% knowledge), talk about them in the press, make sure you have a decent bid rejected, and there are more tools you can use. And sometimes you can pretty much never get a player for a decent fee, that's just the name of the game. What I'm trying to get across here, is that the first quoted negotiation is only the start, not the end of discussion.

I posted above I got £11m from Chelsea for a player worth £185k. That was not their first bid for him. They gave me much smaller offers, and I think their initial one as below a million pounds. When I rejected there were talk in the media and eventually the player came to me and asked to leave for Chelsea. So I tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant about it, so I knew I had to sell. So I tried to get other teams involved and offered him out (NOT PUTTING HIM ON THE TRANSFER LIST!), to garner some interest and soon I had bids from Man City as well. So I gamed them against each other and finally I got the massive bid from Chelsea and Man City didn't want to raise it more so I sold him to Chelsea.

So I did the leg work for selling, and got a good fee. The same thing can you do when buying, there are tools for maximising sales price as well as minimising the purchase fee, it's just a matter of effort and trial and error to see what works best in which situations.

[jim owen]

11 hours ago, XaW said:

Well...

So, yeah, value £185k, sold him to AI for £7.25m (potentially £11m) + 50% of next sale. Now, jump in that snow!  

Wow i dream of having a regen come through that good, how many stars was he when he first appeared in your youth intake? did you put him straight in the first team?

[XaW]

1 minute ago, jim owen said:

Wow i dream of having a regen come through that good, how many stars was he when he first appeared in your youth intake? did you put him straight in the first team?

Let's see, this is the screenshot from the intake.

And here is his profile when I got him.

I chucked him straight into the first team, but I also gave him a lot of rest so he didn't play the big games, or whenever his heart wasn't full. Other than that he played a lot.

[jim owen]

1 minute ago, XaW said:

Let's see, this is the screenshot from the intake.

And here is his profile when I got him.

I chucked him straight into the first team, but I also gave him a lot of rest so he didn't play the big games, or whenever his heart wasn't full. Other than that he played a lot.

wow that truly is a golden generation. The most i've ever had at intake was 2 stars, and that was a one off

[XaW]

Just now, jim owen said:

wow that truly is a golden generation. The most i've ever had at intake was 2 stars, and that was a one off

Yeah, it was a good intake, but the team I had was quite crappy, so it looks better than it was. I've had loads better intakes over the years playing the youth challenge, but the Haitian is one of the better ones I've gotten.

[Christmas]

17 hours ago, santy001 said:

There are players who are horribly under valued because the AI doesn't get them right in their assessment, but your staff are also likely to miss it too.  

The best ever striker I've had on an FM game (besides FM2009 when I was doing shady training shenanigans with Keirrison) was a player who was a £1.2m signing by my DoF who no one rated and injuries forced me to use. Ended up having a few seasons scoring 100+ goals.

Looking at attributes for what you're after, and remembering that the right spread of attributes can dictate a world class performer instead means you can find value elsewhere.

I'm not sure that referencing ME glitches in past FMs is the best way to make this point.

In FM 11 I had Leigh Griffiths score 100+ for me in EPL with Peterborough, rated as 2 stars and signed on a free.

I agree with you that a lot of the AI pricing is on CA/PPA rather than targeted attributes, I just don't think your point is your point.

[sporadicsmiles]

Maybe it would be better to go back to the AI simply refusing to negotiate for players it does not want to sell, to avoid confusion.

The fact is that if a club does not have a financial pressure to sell, they will not sell. Unless you pay over the odds. Take a young player they think will be a star. If you offer 500k but the AI thinks they will sell him for 10x that in a few years, they would be mad to accept. They are better holding on to the player and selling when he is older and shown more promise, and thus is worth more. The same way I am not selling a good young prospect for 500k when I see him as being a star in the future. I think the AI logic could be a little better with their counter offers, but asking for 100+ million is just their way of saying no, and is that way because players complained about AI never negotiating and just rejecting every offer. 

As others noted, it is entirely possible to find good bargains using scouting and even the player search. For example, in my Deportivo save I picked up the players who fell through the cracks are Real and Barcelona. I picked up a CB, a MC and a STC who went with me from 3rd division to La Liga. They are not world beating wonderkids, but I bought them all for less than 500k, and they are collectively now worth upwards of 10 million. The key is to identify and target the right player at the right time.

[eXistenZ]

On 09/02/2021 at 21:16, XaW said:

Yeah, it was a good intake, but the team I had was quite crappy, so it looks better than it was. I've had loads better intakes over the years playing the youth challenge, but the Haitian is one of the better ones I've gotten.

Well We've diverted a bit from scouting to youth intake.

Weirdly enough, i have found indeed a young english gem that was on a monthly contract that could almost  immediately be slotted into my first team. Except he was a DoF recommendation, which kinda reinforces my belief that scouting is not really helpfull for youngster hunting, or I've got some settings horribly wrong.... Like said, I'm not trying to find the next Messi who can slot into my team immediately (whcih would be nice), I'm mostly looking for the hidden talent of 17-18y olds that I can train up for 2-3y. I'm pretty ok at spotting out of contract reinforcements and signing them. but this is also a fair bit easier, as you get recommendations for them anyway (and are fairly easy to look for in player search). And it's that kinf of free signings that clear up transfer budget that I want to use for the future

 

i don't think I'm doing something terribly wrong with these settings? for example west africa

max age 19

scouted potential at least excellent.

ongoing

 

[AurioDK]

You can also turn the tables around, my current PL Wrexham side has lots of a crappy youngsters and only the absolute crappiest want to go there on loan, so maybe you just aren´t finding much because there is no interest.

 

One of the best methods I have found is to scour through "players to be released" and manually search for national youth teams to see if someone is interested, that however takes time and effort. The youth national team manual search is daunting but that´s how I found some of the best youth players for my Wrexham team.

[HUNT3R]

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

i don't think I'm doing something terribly wrong with these settings? for example west africa

max age 19

scouted potential at least excellent.

ongoing

Have you looked at players 19 and younger in your own team? Do you have any who are at the very least definitely rated as having excellent potential? I have zero players. Excellent potential means a minimum of 4.5* potential if I'm looking through my team.

Now you're taking that to West Africa, where you (I very sure) do not have 100% knowledge of the area and even if you did, I don't think you'll find any, anywhere. I advised earlier in the thread to cast a wide net and then narrow down who you want. 

No player that young has a definite PA rating from scouts/coaches so to want to nail down a minimum PA that high for a player that young and when their exact (according to a coach/scout) potential is that unclear, is just a bad idea no matter where in the world you send them or how good your scouts are.

 

[eXistenZ]

54 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Have you looked at players 19 and younger in your own team? Do you have any who are at the very least definitely rated as having excellent potential? I have zero players. Excellent potential means a minimum of 4.5* potential.

Now you're taking that to West Africa, where you (I very sure) do not have 100% knowledge of the area and even if you did, I don't think you'll find any, anywhere.

Yes I have 2 5stars potentials but thats the intake from last season, so they are way off of being in the squad. Its because i prioritised youth development as well, because I do these long saves.

But stars are relative based on your current squad strength, no? So out of 20 regens, more of them will be higher rated for a dutch midtable club than for madrid or dortmund. So i don't see anything wrong with asking for scouted potential of 4.5?

I have a scout with some knowledge of west africa, and high adaptability, so thats is the correct way i assumed?

 

 

oh btw, I did found some barcelona/madrid regens with low release clauses, but got countered by 1y extensions

 

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by eXistenZ

[HUNT3R]

3 minutes ago, eXistenZ said:

But stars are relative based on your current squad strength, no? So out of 20 regens, more of them will be higher rated for a dutch midtable club than for madrid or dortmund. So i don't see anything wrong with asking for scouted potential of 4.5?

I have answered this:

Quote

No player that young has a definite PA rating from scouts/coaches so to want to nail down a minimum PA that high for a player that young and when their exact (according to a coach/scout) potential is that unclear, is just a bad idea no matter where in the world you send them or how good your scouts are.

You will struggle to find such a player.

The players are too young for a staff member to be that sure of their future. You'll always get a range, like 3.5* "definite" (according to the scout) with the rest unsure and he could be as good as 4.5* (which is "excellent" PA), but that clearly means "excellent PA" is the maximum the scout thinks he will be, not the minimum. 

What you're asking for is extreme and the complete opposite of casting a wide net to find youngsters with decent potential. You told us you don't a Messi necessarily, just decent prospects, but what you're asking for is the opposite, imo. While star ratings are relative, if you're going to get a youngster as good as that, he'll have a high CA for his age and so all the big clubs will know about him and he'd have a decent rep too. You're going to struggle to attract players like that. You'd be competing against the best and biggest clubs in Europe.

You said yourself - you're looking to discover hidden talent. Cast that net wider, get the reports in and then look for players who stand out - players with good attribute spreads (as a few advised) that seem to have a good chance of succeeding.

[eXistenZ]

44 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I have answered this:

You will struggle to find such a player.

The players are too young for a staff member to be that sure of their future. You'll always get a range, like 3.5* "definite" (according to the scout) with the rest unsure and he could be as good as 4.5* (which is "excellent" PA), but that clearly means "excellent PA" is the maximum the scout thinks he will be, not the minimum. 

What you're asking for is extreme and the complete opposite of casting a wide net to find youngsters with decent potential. You told us you don't a Messi necessarily, just decent prospects, but what you're asking for is the opposite, imo. While star ratings are relative, if you're going to get a youngster as good as that, he'll have a high CA for his age and so all the big clubs will know about him and he'd have a decent rep too. You're going to struggle to attract players like that. You'd be competing against the best and biggest clubs in Europe.

You said yourself - you're looking to discover hidden talent. Cast that net wider, get the reports in and then look for players who stand out - players with good attribute spreads (as a few advised) that seem to have a good chance of succeeding.

 

I guess my wording isnt the best, as English isnt my native language, and the game uses "decent" as 2.5 stars, which is offcours not what I'm looking for, my apologies.  It's decent as in" not potential ballon d'or winner, but will still strengthen/compete in my team in 2-3y with good development"

 

I totally understand and accept that the old and new wonderkids don't want to join me at this stage, hence why i'm looking a shelf lower.  But if my scouts could find players like my DoF found for me (3* CA - 5*PA), who joins with some incentives, that would be great. Even 2* CA would be a good start.

 

I find it a bit counter intuitive to search for 3.5 minimum potential players, as the plan is to grow as a club, and become more established domesticly and continental. By then, those 3.5 potentials will have faded to 3 stars or lower, won't play as much as other (bigger) talents, and fade away on the bench or the B team. I see it happen to my original youth squad when I started a division lower. Why not skip that step and start on 4* potential? Like said, there are more players out there for me that are 4* or higher, than for bigger clubs.

[HUNT3R]

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

 

I guess my wording isnt the best, as English isnt my native language, and the game uses "decent" as 2.5 stars, which is offcours not what I'm looking for, my apologies.  It's decent as in" not potential ballon d'or winner, but will still strengthen/compete in my team in 2-3y with good development"

English isn't my native language either. I try to use terms in the game as much as possible to avoid confusion. So what exactly are you setting as the assignment then? You used the word "excellent" when referring to the assignment, which by game definition is 4.5*, so you want that is the minimum potential.

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

I find it a bit counter intuitive to search for 3.5 minimum potential players

Why?? 2.5* is about average for the level you're at, so even setting it at a minimum of 3.5* means that, at WORST, you'd have a player who is much better than your team stature right now. That's the worst case scenario, assuming the scout is correct, since that is the MINIMUM potential estimated. As I said, with players that young, scouts will have a lot of uncertainty over their exact potential.

Scouts can be wrong, so don't take star ratings as gospel either. Even if you manage to get that unicorn player with minimum 4.5* who does want to join, even then your scouts could be badly mistaken. There are no guarantees.

1 hour ago, eXistenZ said:

Why not skip that step and start on 4* potential?

As someone said above - running before you can walk is the reason. The other is that it is entirely possible that, for example, a 3.5* minimum PA, 4.5* maximum PA player has 4* PA. He also might have 4.5* or 3.5*. It's also possible he only actually has 2* PA.

Also, why the need to cap who you're looking for at 19? At 20 and 21, for instance, scouts will be more sure of potential (but it's still opinion) so you'd have a more accurate estimation. I just picked up two 20yo players (450k and 775k) with enough ability and potential that they're going to push for a first team spot very soon. They're marked on the screenshot.

Gashi will probably rotate regularly and Bulat just edged him, but Gashi is new so will get time to adjust first.

My GK and Ivkovic are great prospects for me and I have high hopes - even they aren't 4.5* minimum potential.

Here's the rest of the guys who aren't on the bench:

I found most of these players (excluding Botos, Cumic and Soldo who were at the club when I got here) by scouting. Letting my Chief Scout set his own assignments and I sift through reports. Or I scout someone doing well against me.

So it really depends on your assignments and that's why I asked again. These players are all possible to find. They're probably (most likely) not going to be superstars. These are the ones that I chose from all the reports (and there were a LOT) over the years and I am keeping tabs on them so I know who is progressing well and who seems like they've stalled. As you can see, 4 players have notes on them and I've noted how well they're still progressing. Ibrahimovic was top scorer in the league that I loaned him to (how could he not be, with that name) so I am watching him carefully. 

Like I said, looking at those stars on paper is great and it looks like a good bunch for the future, but there aren't guarantees. I've noted how Vugrinec has stalled a bit. He could have reached his peak. Fillinger and Urminsky have big injury issues. I'm loaning out Djurak, who was an amazing prospect once upon a time and made appearances in the first team. He hasn't progressed enough, so it's his last chance to show me he has it in him.

And yes, I have an AMR as my first choice DL.  

 

[eXistenZ]

Isnt the average 3 stars? As you don't have 0 stars, so the range is 0.5 to 5?

 

I'll expand the age range and lower the requirements, 4.5* was indeed too ambitious.

 

 

Although I have to say, I have discovered that seeing your free signings becoming worth millions is bringing me greater joy

[turnip]

Signed on a free (this is him when he joined), sold after a season for £9m + 50% of next fee, to Spurs. Currently worth £18m and is a Wonderkid.

 

Signed on a free, sold a year later for £600k + 50% of next fee - which I already cashed out for £8.5m because I don't think he's good enough to sell for more than £15m. 

 

I could go on... and on... but you get the idea.

I have 17 players at my club rated as 4.5* PA or more (including white stars) who didn't come through our youth system. 4 of them cost £8m combined, the rest were basically free. It is possible to find good young players, for cheap, but it takes time and effort.

[Britrock]

The important thing to realise is that if they come back with a valuation for the player, whatever that valuation may be, they are actually somewhat interested in selling. At that point if you increase your offer, their's will start to come down. Obviously they're not going to sell their superstar for peanuts, but the mere fact that they haven't told you to get lost and have sent back a valuation is always progress in my eyes. Then it's just a battle to see how low you can get their valuation and whether you see that as viable. But definitely don't see a valuation of £105m and give up, that's just the first step in a negotiation!

[HUNT3R]

16 hours ago, eXistenZ said:

Isnt the average 3 stars? As you don't have 0 stars, so the range is 0.5 to 5?

Even if it is, does it matter that much? 2.5* tells you it's a "fairly good" rating for the first team. 3* is a "good" rating for the first team. I'd compromise and say 2.5 is the lower end of your team and 3* the top end. It's splitting hairs though and not relevant, imo.

A player like this is someone I could take a chance on. Cheap, both in transfer and wage cost and already at First League level at only 18. Because of that, he could have a lot of potential and the scout agrees. He's only 18, so as you can see, there's a LOT of uncertainty - 2 entire stars. I almost went for this kid, but I am a bit overloaded on the wings in terms of possible future prospects and the ones I have, have better attributes. This kid could turn out better than any of the ones I have, for all I know.

Here's what (or rather who) is giving me a massive headache right now:

 

 

 

Normally, I don't pay more than 1m for a transfer. Malo, in an earlier screenshot, cost me 1.4m and went straight into the first team.

This 19yo striker will cost 5.75m - as you can see he was transfer listed for not wanting to sign a new deal as he has a year left on his contract. That's 4 times more than I have felt comfortable enough to pay in the past. My transfer budget is 9m, but with my business done, we're sitting on 12m and I brought in improvements. The money is there. He won't even cost much in wages. I have 2 players on 10k and 9k / week. The others range between 3k and 7k / week, so he'd become one of the lower paid regular/rotation players.

Last night when looking at him, I thought - no ways. He's going to cost too much (that was the 6.5m screenshot) as it's way more than I usually pay and I have 8 players (including 2 youngsters) competing for 3 forward spots. Today, I'm seriously considering it.

He plays for a team who finished 5th out of 10 (we finished 3rd) and he scored half their goals last season and he already has 3 goals in 2 matches in the league and the same in the Euro II this season. You can see in the comparison, that he'd be one of the best players in the team as well. He has attributes in the right places (green is very good and yellow is good) and he's tall and young so could still grow to be more of a force in the air too.

You can see I have Notes on him too. They remind me regularly to check up on him and see how he's doing and what the potential costs could be.

Now, while the others I've posted in this thread were calculated gambles, this one seems like a sure thing (could still be wrong though!) but the evidence is there. I am not a fan of him being one-footed, but would get his technique focused on and hopefully that improves.

Let me go back to him being transfer listed. He's listed because he isn't willing to renew his contract, with 1 year to go. I'm in the CL (well, the qualifying rounds) but it's hopefully something that would swing things in my favour.

-  If I put in an offer now, I am sure I can get him but I will be minus 5.75m.

- If I wait a bit, he might be convinced to sign a new deal and then I lose out or someone else signs him. It's not that much money for teams in the bigger leagues.

- If I wait until there's 6 months left and try to get him on a Bosman, there may be other teams sniffing by then who'd love to get him on a free.
 

Currently, only my former club, Gaz Metan, is interested. Surely though, the bigger clubs will come soon. There's no reloading. If I lose out, I lose out. We'll be fine without him. How good could we be with him though...

That's one of the situations in FM that's very exciting. Making big decisions like this.

 

[Freakiie]

The U19 category is arguably by far the hardest place to go bargain hunting. Clubs see these players as their young prospects that they do not wish to let go and with most players having relatively recently signed their first professional contract they tend to not be interested in a transfer either. Of course there's still plenty of bargains, but you have to filter through a lot of players to find those, telling your scouts to only come back with "Excellent" PPA players is the exact opposite of that.

If you want to go bargain hunting, look for players with only 1 year left on their contract. Top clubs tend to transfer list their youth players that they deem as not good enough/not wanting to sign a new contract in their last contract year, generally around May/June, and you can pick up very good players for very low prices. Of course, expect some major competition as these can be very interesting players for a lot of clubs with their low price tag. Heck, in general keep an eye out for transfer listed players if you're interested in a bargain.