FM 13 - Signing wonderkid style youngsters is very difficult

[hyborian]

I really cant understand that policy of SI and the players who support it with irrelevant examples with players from premier league etc. This thing is totally unrealistic and it never happens in real football. No team of average reputation or lower would ever deny offers of millions for some teen talent even if he is a wonderkid. Here in Greece for example, Olympiakos who has no financial problem and is dominating the league and all champions league revenue sold Kyriakos Papadopoulos, an obvious wonderkid, at the age of 17 for just some hundred thousand euros. More realistic for me would have been to produce less wonderkids generally in the game so they can justify the big value. It seems really unrealistic to have to pay tens of millions for players that emerge pretty often in every kind of place.

[ScottGooner]

I agree the scouting is far too good. It needs to be scaled back a bit and even with a 20/20 scout it should take a while before he gets an 'accurate' report of a player. I doubt this would happen but I'd like it if you couldn't get report cards of players on other teams unless your scout has 'seen' them play games first.

[tajj 7]

I really cant understand that policy of SI and the players who support it with irrelevant examples with players from premier league etc. This thing is totally unrealistic and it never happens in real football. No team of average reputation or lower would ever deny offers of millions for some teen talent even if he is a wonderkid. Here in Greece for example, Olympiakos who has no financial problem and is dominating the league and all champions league revenue sold Kyriakos Papadopoulos, an obvious wonderkid, at the age of 17 for just some hundred thousand euros. More realistic for me would have been to produce less wonderkids generally in the game so they can justify the big value. It seems really unrealistic to have to pay tens of millions for players that emerge pretty often in every kind of place.

I don't think any of the above examples are irrelevant, you also have to remember that part of this is the problem that you can scout potential wonderkids before they have played any significant football. So the game then compensates this by inflating their prices. Most of the examples above are for players that have had a season at best of lower league football and still went for millions. Walcott, Bale and Oxlaide-Chamberlain all went for fess of £10 million plus based on a very short amount of appearances, however everyone could see their potential talent.

Luke Shaw is another promising young Southampton player, and there have been rumours of £6 million + bids for him despite the fact he has only played 1 first team game.

Premiership clubs won't know about a greek youth team player who's played no first team football, in the game you can so the game compensates for this by making the selling club very reluctant to sell. Seems a fair enough way to me to do it. It's basically to stop you picking up a regen from another club straight away as this would never happen in real life.

You can still pick up bargain youth players though, if you keep an eye on the player he'll probably become much more available a little further into his career.

[zeke]

I actually think it is good thing that these inflated prices are in place. It was way too easy to buy tons of +A class prospects for prettty much nothing.

You can still find quality regens and players for lower tags but it takes much more time.

Personally like this new "feature"...

[hyborian]

I don't think any of the above examples are irrelevant, you also have to remember that part of this is the problem that you can scout potential wonderkids before they have played any significant football. So the game then compensates this by inflating their prices. Most of the examples above are for players that have had a season at best of lower league football and still went for millions. Walcott, Bale and Oxlaide-Chamberlain all went for fess of £10 million plus based on a very short amount of appearances, however everyone could see their potential talent.

Luke Shaw is another promising young Southampton player, and there have been rumours of £6 million + bids for him despite the fact he has only played 1 first team game.

Premiership clubs won't know about a greek youth team player who's played no first team football, in the game you can so the game compensates for this by making the selling club very reluctant to sell. Seems a fair enough way to me to do it. It's basically to stop you picking up a regen from another club straight away as this would never happen in real life.

You can still pick up bargain youth players though, if you keep an eye on the player he'll probably become much more available a little further into his career.

Actually u prove my point. u see that even big talents from England wont cost 35millions as talents from very low reputation leagues might cost in FM. And Kyriakos Papadopoulos was mentioned for purporse. He is a very well known player who is only 20 years old and a defender which means his cost usually is lower than forward players. Even so his value right now is almost 20 millions as u can see here (http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/kyriakos-papadopoulos/profil/spieler_58489.html). Schalke didnt have to pay 35 millions to buy him. They paid 2millions and they gave those money to a team thats well established and not some 3rd division strugglers. Especially in this era of global financial instability, no team would ever deny these sums of money for unproven players however their potential. It just doesnt happen.

[ScottGooner]

But regarding Schalke and Papadopoulos, it's not like a Schalke scout turned up on the 4th of April checked out all the new kids for that team/league and then had an accurate picture of the players potential.

[hyborian]

That doesnt change the fact that transfers in real life do not cost as they do in Manager. Its totally not realistic. Can someone find a real transfer of a wonderkid who cost 35million euros when he was at his first steps in some low reputation team? I dont think so.

[Wanson]

I don't see the problem. In my game my scouts find about 30-40 players under the age of 23 that are rated at 4.5+ for potential. Most of these don't have a min or max asking price set by my scouts. These are the ones that are impossible to buy cheap. But if you scout a player early enough, you can get really good wonderkids for fairly cheap. Here's one example:

Here's another

and two more

So it's not that hard really. The key is to get in early. I start looking around the time I get new youth candidates in. I check my scout reports every couple of days and make offers for players that have my scouts have assigned a max AP for.

Arlindo is amazing BTW!

[ScottGooner]

True the fees are high, but regarding Papadopoulos I'm sure Schalke scouted him a few times before they signed him, after all he was at Olympiacos for 3 years. Whereas in FM I'm sure some human managers sign the 'good' regens for peanuts within days of their creation.

[milnerpoint]

That doesnt change the fact that transfers in real life do not cost as they do in Manager. Its totally not realistic. Can someone find a real transfer of a wonderkid who cost 35million euros when he was at his first steps in some low reputation team? I dont think so.

Can you find me one example where a club has offered £35M for a low reputation kid? If we're going to play the realism card then you have to look at it from both ways.

[Dperry]

In the real world, if they are 14 to 16 then they are still at school with families who are responsible for them and their wellbeing. FM is pretty unrealistic in this regard because a 14 year old child is not allowed (at least in the EU) to be traded around the world in million pound deals without express permission of their guardians. Clubs in the real world have a genuine responsibility of care to their players and must act within the law. An entire family might have to relocate abroad and no amount of money may be sufficient to persuade a family to do this.

From page 6 of Obstacles to free movement of young workers - European Commission

Football

Article 19 of the FIFA Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players provides that international

transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18.

Three exceptions to this rule apply. First, if the player’s parents move to the country in

which the new club is located for reasons not linked to football. Second, the transfer

takes place within the territory of the EU or EEA and the player is aged between 16 and

18, subject to the new club fulfilling a number of minimum obligations including the provision

of education, training and accommodation.

See also "New FIFA laws governing teenage transfers"

Fifa has drawn up a new set of controls limiting the transfer of teenagers, which aim to protect young people from being exploited by football clubs.

From January 1, all international transfers involving players under the age of 18 would first require the approval of a committee that will investigate the circumstances of the move.

I'm not suggesting that any of this is actually coded into FM but its a believable reason why a club might reject an offer for a player when the financial incentives seem enormous.

[iknowniknuk]

They are rediculous regens.

[Wanson]

They are ridiculously good! These are the best out of a lot of regens that I bought. Obviously, not all of them are this good. As I said - my scouts find about 30-40 players under 23 with a potential of 4.5 stars. I have very good scouts and a vast scouting network (currently 53%). Of course, after buying some of them my assistant and other staff may not think they are that good. I think 40 potential wonderkids world-wide at any particular time is about right. I also think that it makes perfect sense that clubs won't sell on the cheap - why should they. I know that if it was me and that I got a brilliant player through my academy, I wouldn't sell on the cheap either.

[fmFutbolManager]

Wanson, I think the point is that if you're some lower league Hungarian side holding onto a 15 year old, even though you're being offered the GDP of Hungary itself, then it's a little unrealistic.

I'm just angry because as Parma, I have a £800k budget, losing money and cannot sign any potential starts for the future, either to play or sell to survive. In previous versions I could sign a few 4.5* players for maybe £200k each a season, develop them and sell on for £10m a pop when they're fully developed to keep surviving, but now I cannot even do that.

[Smurf]

Wanson, I think the point is that if you're some lower league Hungarian side holding onto a 15 year old, even though you're being offered the GDP of Hungary itself, then it's a little unrealistic.

I'm just angry because as Parma, I have a £800k budget, losing money and cannot sign any potential starts for the future, either to play or sell to survive. In previous versions I could sign a few 4.5* players for maybe £200k each a season, develop them and sell on for £10m a pop when they're fully developed to keep surviving, but now I cannot even do that.

Do you think that's realistic?

[Stomalomalus]

Have you ever thought that a good starting point might actually be looking into the player first?

In real life, teams just don't scout this player once and then bid for him. No, they scout him countless times and also talk to the club. In FM you don't have some of these features because it's a game, but you can talk to the media and to the player and then you can strike a deal after prolongued scouting. Like in real life. It's a good thing.

[IWWROCKS]

Do you think that's realistic?

I think its realistic he can't do that now. How many teams actually buy youngsters just for a profit? Even Arsenal dont intend to, there players just get unhappy and demand to leave. I'm pretty sure 95% of managers, who's job is to work with the budget they are given by financial people much more equipped to balance books than them, would not spend there precious transfer budget on someone who can make them money in the future. It'd be on someone who can make them better in the future. If they end up leaving for a big fee in the future I fail to beleive that was the intentions all along.

[conshaldo_bonaldo]

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.

The end bit is spot on. I do think thats partly the case though. In fm12 i scouted a nation twice by accident and one guy didnt find any good players but the other unearthed a gem and they were both great scouts.... It should be more like that. It shouldnt be so easy to find players who arent realy on the footballing map yet.

[tajj 7]

Actually u prove my point. u see that even big talents from England wont cost 35millions as talents from very low reputation leagues might cost in FM. And Kyriakos Papadopoulos was mentioned for purporse. He is a very well known player who is only 20 years old and a defender which means his cost usually is lower than forward players. Even so his value right now is almost 20 millions as u can see here (http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/kyriakos-papadopoulos/profil/spieler_58489.html). Schalke didnt have to pay 35 millions to buy him. They paid 2millions and they gave those money to a team thats well established and not some 3rd division strugglers. Especially in this era of global financial instability, no team would ever deny these sums of money for unproven players however their potential. It just doesnt happen.

No, your missing the point entirely.

Whilst it is unrealistic for clubs to reject £10 million + bids for 16 year olds, it's also completely unrealistic that A. You would find them/scout them and know they will be world beaters and then B. that any club would let you bid £20 million for a player who has played no professional games.

It's a game at the end of the day and unless they completely change the scouting system to a much more complicated and ultimately probably annoying system that is more realistic, this is the best way of stopping human players hoovering up the world's best youth products for peanuts. It makes the game more normal in the long run.

As I said in a previous post they are just making it difficult for you to sign highly rated players as soon as they have been generated and I think this is sensible. Your example of Kyriakos Papadopoulos, is exactly what I am getting at, he wasn't signed the day after his 16th Birthday, he had a few years development at a professional club first, made a few first team appearances, appeared at Greek Youth level and then was signed by a bigger club. If you notice in the examples posted above, the same happens in the game, a 5 star rated player will be unbuyable right after he is generated but once he has been in the game a while, maybe made a few appearances he will become more available.

[Wanson]

Wanson, I think the point is that if you're some lower league Hungarian side holding onto a 15 year old, even though you're being offered the GDP of Hungary itself, then it's a little unrealistic.

I'm just angry because as Parma, I have a £800k budget, losing money and cannot sign any potential starts for the future, either to play or sell to survive. In previous versions I could sign a few 4.5* players for maybe £200k each a season, develop them and sell on for £10m a pop when they're fully developed to keep surviving, but now I cannot even do that.

If you look at my post you will see that 3 of those 4 were bought for under 1m. So there's no reason you couldn't do the same. Maybe 4* players would be more in your budget?

[Overmars]

The better way of blocking the human manager from acquiring cheap young stars would be to involve more high reputation clubs in the search for these kids. Sometimes the prospects just seem to sit there, waiting for the human to buy them, while other teams blissfully ignore the potential. It would also help if scouting was less precise with regard to potential so that these decisions involved more risk.

[hluraven]

The better way of blocking the human manager from acquiring cheap young stars would be to involve more high reputation clubs in the search for these kids. Sometimes the prospects just seem to sit there, waiting for the human to buy them, while other teams blissfully ignore the potential. It would also help if scouting was less precise with regard to potential so that these decisions involved more risk.

Fully agree with both points, and would add that more randomness in how players develop as even if you get them IRL you never know whether they will reach their potential.

[sirgiorgio]

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.

Messi was actually sold by Barcelona to Inter when he was 17, but he refused to go.

Balotelli was bought (actually, it was a loan to buy) by Inter from Lumezzane for no more than 2-300k.

Cristiano Ronaldo was bought by Juventus with a simple player exchange with Salas, but Salas didn't agree terms with Sporting and the deal fell through.

Del Piero was sold by Padova for no more than 7-800k. It was an outrageously high value for a youngster, and Padova chairman still recall how surpised he was when Juventus chairman (Boniperti, a notorious penny-pincher) didn't even try to lower the price.

If a second division side in Norway had a kid with Messi's talent and potential, they would start an auction and eventually sell him for the higher offer. It's their interest (monnnnney!) and the player's interest (You know, Norwegian Messi, yesterday Real and Barcelona called and asked for you, but I told them you're not available so you'll go on playing with Tom, Dick and Harry forever. Aren't you happy?)

The truth is:

No, your missing the point entirely.

Whilst it is unrealistic for clubs to reject £10 million + bids for 16 year olds, it's also completely unrealistic that A. You would find them/scout them and know they will be world beaters and then B. that any club would let you bid £20 million for a player who has played no professional games.

Also, players values are useless and don't mean a thing. I want to buy a player. He is valued 120k. I offer 1M. The club rejects the offer. This means the player is valued... more than 1M! I offer 1.5M. They reject. Value: more than 1.5M. and so on. The way it is now, it looks like they are objects with a price tag in a shop window, you enter the shop and the clerk tell you: "they're not on sale, sorry..."

Theoretically, a simple, yet realistic solution is possible:

1) get rid of the "value" and re-introduce "availability"; if a player is unavailable a manager may declare interest and, if he got a positive response from the player, he may start talking with his club;

2) make scout reports for lesser known players less immediate and more in-depth ("Dear scout, I think I found a rough gem: take your time and tell me everything you know about him");

3) if a second division side in Norway had a kid with Messi's talent and potential, everyone in the football world should be aware of that and dozens of clubs should try and sign him. And one club eventually will.

[Sarmatian]

Indeed. You should be able to buy young players for peanuts, exceptions are those coming from big clubs or well established youth academies. On occasion it's ok if the club wants much more money, if the player is valued really low and a really big club comes after him, like if he's valued 100k and Man Utd wants to buy, they reply the price is 3 million.

I can see Barcelona rejecting a 15 million bid for Messi back then, but low league Hungarian side rejecting bids of 10, 15 and 20 millions for a kid??? No way.

In general, scout reports should be much less accurate and unpredictable, getting more accurate as the player matures and plays more matches. In reality, even older players became huge flops. Mateja Kezman was heavily recommended to Chelsea by the same guy who recommended Robben and turned out to be a flop. And he was in his mid-twenties then and has been among top goalscorers of Eredivisie for a few years. Ok, one could argue that he never got a proper chance, but still.

Solution is to give even the best scout a huge margin of error when the kid is really young and hasn't played enough matches yet. If by 16, he's one of the best players in the club, playing and scoring consistently like Ronaldo (original Brazilian Ronaldo), scouts should be able to accurately assess his potential. If he's 16 and hasn't seen a competitive match yet, it should be a gamble.

[Macshimmy]

I think they have taken it too far in this one. I just approached a kid from Dundee United's production line (I am Derby County)

who my scout rated 4* potential - Championship quality defender.

He's 16.

He has no agent.

He wanted £10,000 a week! (on £30 at the moment)

I offered £1000, and he broke off the negotiations.

Too far.

[Swell86]

I think they have taken it too far in this one. I just approached a kid from Dundee United's production line (I am Derby County)

who my scout rated 4* potential - Championship quality defender.

He's 16.

He has no agent.

He wanted £10,000 a week! (on £30 at the moment)

I offered £1000, and he broke off the negotiations.

Too far.

I'm having trouble with this as well. When I manage to get a reasonable offer accepted for a young player, far too many of them demand ridiculous wages that I can't, or won't, pay.

[Widzew]

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.

no name? Im pretty sure Anderlecht is a regular qualifier for the champions league. Hardly a no name club that would kill for 5 mil.. if this young talent of theirs helps them reach champions league each year then that means what.. 9 to 10mil?? hardly worth taking 5mil from you for him

[Govnar1]

....Scouting is too powerful in the game...

Amen to that! And to add insult to injury development is so predictable and easy.

[Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. PA should be completely hidden in the game.

IRL you have NO IDEA what this could finally be.

IRL PA to scouts/managers/coaches would be a combination of age and CA!!!

[Romanista.]

Indeed. You should be able to buy young players for peanuts, exceptions are those coming from big clubs or well established youth academies. On occasion it's ok if the club wants much more money, if the player is valued really low and a really big club comes after him, like if he's valued 100k and Man Utd wants to buy, they reply the price is 3 million.

I can see Barcelona rejecting a 15 million bid for Messi back then, but low league Hungarian side rejecting bids of 10, 15 and 20 millions for a kid??? No way.

In general, scout reports should be much less accurate and unpredictable, getting more accurate as the player matures and plays more matches. In reality, even older players became huge flops. Mateja Kezman was heavily recommended to Chelsea by the same guy who recommended Robben and turned out to be a flop. And he was in his mid-twenties then and has been among top goalscorers of Eredivisie for a few years. Ok, one could argue that he never got a proper chance, but still.

Solution is to give even the best scout a huge margin of error when the kid is really young and hasn't played enough matches yet. If by 16, he's one of the best players in the club, playing and scoring consistently like Ronaldo (original Brazilian Ronaldo), scouts should be able to accurately assess his potential. If he's 16 and hasn't seen a competitive match yet, it should be a gamble.

the thing with the scouting report is that it should be impossible to scout players that have never ever played a game in their lives. a just created regen 15 year old should play 20-30 games before his attributes slowly start to show. your scouts must go to watch games of these players and slowly reveal the attributes match after match. with the introduction of FMC, SI now have a great opportunity to bring in a realistic scouting model for the real game, keeping the current scouting system for FMC for those that dont have time, kids, or whatever.

[turnip]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. PA should be completely hidden in the game.

But it is.

Your Scouts seem to make an educated guess based on exactly what you mention - how old the player is and how good he is - and sometimes they get it wrong. Coaches, too.

[Smurf]

Plus if the coach or scout has a high JPP and a low JPA then the Player Potential star rating is lessened based on the coach/scouts evaluation of their current ability.

The vice versa is also true.

[Welshace]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. PA should be completely hidden in the game.

IRL you have NO IDEA what this could finally be.

IRL PA to scouts/managers/coaches would be a combination of age and CA!!!

IRL the potential a scout would see would depend on a lot...

age, intelligence (ability to learn, listen, attitude etc), natural ability, fitness, natural fitness.... the list goes on. In game, we have PA which in essence is a good system.

[tajj 7]

I think they have taken it too far in this one. I just approached a kid from Dundee United's production line (I am Derby County)

who my scout rated 4* potential - Championship quality defender.

He's 16.

He has no agent.

He wanted £10,000 a week! (on £30 at the moment)

I offered £1000, and he broke off the negotiations.

Too far.

Thing is how many 16 year olds do you see transferred IRL? Your asking a young kid of 16 to move hundreds of miles away from his family and friends to play in a different youth team on a youth contract (as he won't get a full contract until 17). It's also hardly a giant step up from Dundee to Derby, maybe if it was Liverpool or Man Utd.

16 year olds generally stay in the youth team they are developed in unless a massive club comes in for them where they know that it will help their development. Remember most kids that age, their parents will be like their 'agents' and in most cases they will look out for their childs health and happiness first over money. When they start getting into the first team, get a professional contract, then they might think about transfers, more money etc. Same applies in game, they have made 15, 16 year olds difficult to buy which I think is fair enough. Once they get to 17, 18. 19 and are full time professionals they become easier to buy.

[Da Beezer]

At least they should reduce the stars. Ten levels are far too many and makes for a too precise of a judgement. I mean it's unrealistic for a scout to see such a a difference between level 9 and 10 (4,5 stars vs 5).

Five stars would be enough and you would find it a lot harder to find these super-talents.

[Dundalis]

No, your missing the point entirely.

Whilst it is unrealistic for clubs to reject £10 million + bids for 16 year olds, it's also completely unrealistic that A. You would find them/scout them and know they will be world beaters and then B. that any club would let you bid £20 million for a player who has played no professional games.

It's a game at the end of the day and unless they completely change the scouting system to a much more complicated and ultimately probably annoying system that is more realistic, this is the best way of stopping human players hoovering up the world's best youth products for peanuts. It makes the game more normal in the long run.

As I said in a previous post they are just making it difficult for you to sign highly rated players as soon as they have been generated and I think this is sensible. Your example of Kyriakos Papadopoulos, is exactly what I am getting at, he wasn't signed the day after his 16th Birthday, he had a few years development at a professional club first, made a few first team appearances, appeared at Greek Youth level and then was signed by a bigger club. If you notice in the examples posted above, the same happens in the game, a 5 star rated player will be unbuyable right after he is generated but once he has been in the game a while, maybe made a few appearances he will become more available.

I'm sorry what? Do you think that irl, scouting and seeking young players in lesser known countries do not occur? I think you are a bit misguided if you think that. I also think you are coming at this from the point of view of a big club in a big league. It actually occurs frequently with big clubs at mid tier leagues. It may not be big Premier League clubs for example, one of the larger Danish clubs may very well scout the lower league Swedish clubs and come across such a talented 15 year old. And they very well may and from what I've seen regularly would make offers to try to bring them in (how often to you see teams like Ajax or PSV in Holland sign fantastic young players on the cheap no one knew about, then after a few seasons of good performances on sell them for massive prices to big clubs in one of the big three leagues?). It happens frequently, IMO, particularly in the second or third tier of european football leagues.

Another thing about scouting people don't seem to understand is it's not about a scout simply going to a match and coming across some wonderkid they are simply lucky enough, right place, right time to see. Scouting is networking. They might hear about a kid via a local scout from an opposing team in the same league as the lower league club in the obscure country where the wonderkid resides, who speaks to a club official, who speaks to another teams official, who speaks to a scout, who speaks to another scout who mentions it to your teams scout. Or it could be an agent initiating things. I bet teams with heavy scouting networks DO hear about obscure talents in obscure leagues if their talent is such to cause any attention, even solely within the teams league he plays for. Now the thing is scouts at big clubs would hear hyperbole about an enormous number of kids around the world, so whether they actually spend the resources to go and scout them is a different story. But I think they would be aware of far more than people think. But the scout at a top club in a mid tier league probably is more likely to devote resources to checking out this wonderkid from the obscure league. And they may, and I'm sure do make attempts to bring them in, and for far cheaper than what prices are quoted for young english players. In the game if your an Anderlect or FC Copenhagen for example, or another big club in a mid tier league, you could not do this.

In fact the first thing that would happen with a wonderkid from a lower league division of an obscure league is that he would likely be snapped up by the top club of that countries first division. Then the footballers journey begins. But as I understand it, that first step could not even happen because the obscure countries top club surely could not afford millions of pounds for this player.

[Jamman]

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.

They did sell though didnt they.

Walcott for example went for 12 million, yet you wouldnt have valued him at 250k at the time either.

If a player is genuinely worth 250k and you offer 10 million you should have a very good chance of getting him if its from a small club.

Barcelona etc may be a different matter as they arent as in need of the money.

[milnerpoint]

They did sell though didnt they.

Walcott for example went for 12 million, yet you wouldnt have valued him at 250k at the time either.

If a player is genuinely worth 250k and you offer 10 million you should have a very good chance of getting him if its from a small club.

Barcelona etc may be a different matter as they arent as in need of the money.

There is no real life value like there is in the game, and the value in the game is a rough market value based on several things. This is a common mistake people make, the value on screen is purely taken from rep, PA/CA and contact, it doesnt take value to the team into account at all, and obviously never should.

But in FM terms, Walcott a relatively unknown player, playing in league 2, id be very very surprised if the game would value him more than £500k.

[Wiitastic]

bought a 6m rated wonderkid gk for only 10m. So im some instances, you can be very lucky aswell.

[sirgiorgio]

There is no real life value like there is in the game, and the value in the game is a rough market value based on several things. This is a common mistake people make, the value on screen is purely taken from rep, PA/CA and contact, it doesnt take value to the team into account at all, and obviously never should.

But in FM terms, Walcott a relatively unknown player, playing in league 2, id be very very surprised if the game would value him more than £500k.

"It's a common mistake" because is confusing and useless. It's perhaps a bit insulting to consider players as objects, but ultimately it's the market that makes the price. If a player has no offers, he's literally priceless, either in a good or in a bad way.

(Price + yearly wage) / years of contract * remaining years of contract. That's how you calculate the value of a player IRL, more or less. For instance, I bought a player for 10M, has a 5-year contract worth 5M per year and two years remaining. His value is (10 + 5) / 5 * 2 = 6M. Players from my youth teams are valued 0, because I didn't buy them. SI can't simulate that because, for obvious reasons, they don't know how much a club spent on every single player in the DB. But in the end, SI couldn't care less about a player's value, as it's only useful when clubs present their yearly balance sheet. It's the price that matters. And price can't be decided a priori, and it's only relatively based on his CA and PA.

This is how it really works:

So, I received and offer for one player. Does he want to move clubs? If the answer is yes, there isn't anything I can do but find other clubs who may want to buy the player and sell him to the higher bidder. If the answer is no, then I can refuse the offer, declare the player unavailable and live happily. If the answer is no, but I need the money, I can declare him unwanted and force him to move.

What about the Dof/manager who wants to sign the player? They literally bet on a player. The size of the bet depends on various factors (transfer funds, how many other players I want to buy during this transfer window, how many teams are interested in the guy, how do I consider this player, a backup, a rotation player, a prospect, etc.)

This happens for Messi, Ronaldo or an unknown teenager from Norway. As stated numerous times, the problem with the game right now is that both the buyer and the seller know that the Norwegian teenager will become as good as Messi, while irl you can only wait and hope.

Calling Walcott "a relatively unknown player" might be true for everyone outside the "World of British Football". Everybody else, from Sir Alex to the Luton Town physio knew about him and his talent. If Southampton sold him to Arsenal for 10M it's because Wenger made the better offer. It is said that Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham made bids for him, of course his price grew exponentially.

But Michael Essien, he played for Liberty Professionals in Ghana. Imagine you are the chairman: would you refuse an offer for him from an European team? And imagine you are Essien: would you be happy if your chairman refused the offer?

[Herbert Fandel]

They did sell though didnt they.

Walcott for example went for 12 million, yet you wouldnt have valued him at 250k at the time either.

If a player is genuinely worth 250k and you offer 10 million you should have a very good chance of getting him if its from a small club.

Barcelona etc may be a different matter as they arent as in need of the money.

You are placing too much importance on the 'value'. It isn't really meant to be indicative of much. Just like I have a player 'valued' at 2 million, but I can't sell him for 200k.

SI have also said the values of youth are kept artificially low to prevent the human user for bypassing scouting by filtering high-value youth, which is a positive step.

[tajj 7]

I'm sorry what? Do you think that irl, scouting and seeking young players in lesser known countries do not occur? I think you are a bit misguided if you think that. I also think you are coming at this from the point of view of a big club in a big league. It actually occurs frequently with big clubs at mid tier leagues. It may not be big Premier League clubs for example, one of the larger Danish clubs may very well scout the lower league Swedish clubs and come across such a talented 15 year old. And they very well may and from what I've seen regularly would make offers to try to bring them in (how often to you see teams like Ajax or PSV in Holland sign fantastic young players on the cheap no one knew about, then after a few seasons of good performances on sell them for massive prices to big clubs in one of the big three leagues?). It happens frequently, IMO, particularly in the second or third tier of european football leagues.

Another thing about scouting people don't seem to understand is it's not about a scout simply going to a match and coming across some wonderkid they are simply lucky enough, right place, right time to see. Scouting is networking. They might hear about a kid via a local scout from an opposing team in the same league as the lower league club in the obscure country where the wonderkid resides, who speaks to a club official, who speaks to another teams official, who speaks to a scout, who speaks to another scout who mentions it to your teams scout. Or it could be an agent initiating things. I bet teams with heavy scouting networks DO hear about obscure talents in obscure leagues if their talent is such to cause any attention, even solely within the teams league he plays for. Now the thing is scouts at big clubs would hear hyperbole about an enormous number of kids around the world, so whether they actually spend the resources to go and scout them is a different story. But I think they would be aware of far more than people think. But the scout at a top club in a mid tier league probably is more likely to devote resources to checking out this wonderkid from the obscure league. And they may, and I'm sure do make attempts to bring them in, and for far cheaper than what prices are quoted for young english players. In the game if your an Anderlect or FC Copenhagen for example, or another big club in a mid tier league, you could not do this.

In fact the first thing that would happen with a wonderkid from a lower league division of an obscure league is that he would likely be snapped up by the top club of that countries first division. Then the footballers journey begins. But as I understand it, that first step could not even happen because the obscure countries top club surely could not afford millions of pounds for this player.

What? that's not what I said, what I actually said is that you wouldn't be able to Scout a 15 or 16 year old and know he's got massive potential IRL, especially on ZERO first team appearances. Scouts might be able to say yeh this player has got some potential based on him looking a lot better than his peers and other attributes (such as age, intelligence, physical attributes etc.) However you can IN THE GAME, both selling and buying clubs can assess a youngster with scouts/coaches and instantly rate his potential higher than anything in the current first team. If you get your youth crop through and your head of youth development says X player has the potential to be the best player in a generation your not going to sell him easily are you, even if his current value is only £200k, apply the same logic to the AI.

Youngsters move around youth clubs, bigger teams will effectively steal players from youth set ups as young as 9 from other clubs because there is no real contractual issues here, but FM doesn't reflect this movement, it only deals with players in official youth teams on youth contracts. IRL no one knows how good these players are going to be, and buying a youth player for a high fee based on a handful of appearances would be a big gamble for most clubs. Look at Jermaine Pennant, he was signed at 15 for £2 million despite no professional appearances, he's become a decent top level player but not what Arsenal probably expected forma player they spent a record fee for trainee on. Yet people here are offering £10 million plus for similar level players, why? because they know they won't get a Pennant they'll get a top level player out of it worth far more than £10 million.

So without a hug change to the potential ability system and the scouting system SI have implemented changes that have made stealing the 'next guaranteed Messi' from a club for pittance a lot more difficult by reducing youth player values to a uniform level and making selling clubs reluctant to sell even for big fees.

[Kraiden]

I don't think players like Lukaku went for 5 million at 17 years either... it's only realistic it's now like this imo.

[eskim0kiss]

Player valuations are pointless.

If a player is valued at 125k yet when you make a transfer bid for the player the club want 7 million then the value of the player is 7 million.

[Hugsy]

Ain't that nice, now i cant sign newgen in my poor team, SI took the best part of the game. And dont give me this realism thing, this game is far from reality in every area.

[Barkermush]

I agree that there should be some middle ground here.

In real life, I doubt a team in a low ranked nation would reject an offer of £20m+ for a player based on potential alone, who's yet to prove anything. (Oh wait, this player has x amount of potential, but may never even reach half of his potential.. but even so, give us £32 million instead.. £20 million is nothing to us.)

Obviously well known players, like Lukaku-Neymar are going to demand more, but surely not unknown young regens, who haven't even played a single competitive first team game for their club?

Or maybe I am just naive?

[Hugsy]

Agreed, for well-known players, its fine, but for that newgen with 16,17 years, who havent played any games, it should be minimal...People say that we shouldnt be able to scout these players, but thats SI faults for making the scout the way it is.

At least for me, thats what i aim for in FM, to build a low rep. team with youngsters....and now i cant even do that

[PoolFan]

At least for me, thats what i aim for in FM, to build a low rep. team with youngsters....and now i cant even do that

BINGO! This is exactly my point, this approach has ruined a really fun aspect of the game. Its obvious that SI did it on purpose because they cannot come up with a decent system for the AI managers to build squads. So instead of working on this, they hamper the players of the game. It's a complete joke.

The realism argument is pointless, if you want to talk realism then lets rip this 'GAME' to shreds because it is NO WAY realistic. I'm just SO annoyed how IS have used a hammer to crack a nut here, it makes no sense whatsoever. The fact that the SI developer seems to have gone quiet is even more annoying.

[PoolFan]

So without a hug change to the potential ability system and the scouting system SI have implemented changes that have made stealing the 'next guaranteed Messi' from a club for pittance a lot more difficult by reducing youth player values to a uniform level and making selling clubs reluctant to sell even for big fees.

Hey guys we can't really do this right now so instead we are going to ruin a really popular aspect of the game, as a stopgap. What kind of logic is that?

[PoolFan]

You are placing too much importance on the 'value'. It isn't really meant to be indicative of much. Just like I have a player 'valued' at 2 million, but I can't sell him for 200k.

SI have also said the values of youth are kept artificially low to prevent the human user for bypassing scouting by filtering high-value youth, which is a positive step.

You are not getting it are you. This isn't about the value, this is about nonsense clubs not selling a 15/16yr old who is playing in their reserve team for more money than the ENTIRE club is worth.