Weirdest Ways of Finding Players

[180SG]

So being inspired by my Road to Glory save with Red Star FC in FM21, I thought I'd replicate that gimmick with Torremolinos in FM22(I've been there IRL), which was simply to find quality players whilst spending little money as possible. In steps these two guys from my old save, who both came from the Spanish U19 Division 1(which you can access if you have at least La Liga Santander loaded up), from clubs who are independent from the Spanish League structure(Kelme and Damm). It happens to be that there are many more of these(and in Portugal), and they manged to produce 2 players for me, one which I would've considered using at Striker once he returned from loan, and the other who made 100 Appearances exactly and was prolific playing on the left wing. And this all made me wonder:

What are the the most uncommon and non-obvious methods of finding players that you have used before? Did you find any players that became important in your team?

Post them below because it is good to freshen the sub-deck of scouting methods from time to time.
(oh and both the players shown costed absolutely nothing.)

Edited December 29, 2021 by 180SG

[djmrboy]

In the first international call up after the youth intake (March in the UK) I check all senior and U21 international teams for their youngest players. If any of the new youngsters are particularly good they will have been called up to one of their international squads and so you could find them there 

[180SG]

15 hours ago, djmrboy said:

In the first international call up after the youth intake (March in the UK) I check all senior and U21 international teams for their youngest players. If any of the new youngsters are particularly good they will have been called up to one of their international squads and so you could find them there 

Remember it is "uncommon" ways of finding players, because it's obvious that you should be checking national teams for good players. However, there are decent players that I've loaned or bought before who come from low ranked nations. You wouldn't initially see Lichtenstein, San Marino or Andorra for producing decent players, but they should be checked more often because of their ties with Switzerland(FC Vaduz and some other Lichtenstein based clubs), Italy(The extinct San Marino Calcio, and it's replacement, Cattolica, amongst other reasons) and Spain(F.C Andorra) respectively. That is the reason some players will appear in the senior setup after a few seasons as they've been impacted by better youth facilities and youth coaching in more advanced countries.

[DannyFM87]

I like to put my laptop behind me, hit random letters and scout whichever players pop up...

Edited January 10, 2022 by DannyFM87

[achortagus]

Interesting question. Lets see if some of the methods bellow would be considered uncommon:

- In player search, filter players with max age of 18 and at least 1 international cap. (good world knowledge and packet needed)

- Scout players from world-->transfers-->youth intake. (maybe add them to shortlist first to trim the garbage, because there are A LOT)

- Scout players under 18 in search, wanted by big clubs, without even checking their stats. If i could actually filter only players wanted by some of the big clubs, would be great

- On player search again, show clauses as column and sort by player value. You can find some good deals with small clauses.