mccollio09
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The main aim of this thread is to help you to buy good and upcoming players and make sure that they achieve their potential. This thread starts off quite basic before we go into advanced stuff about core, primary and secondary attributes, individual training regimes, best tutors, good loan moves, individual slider tweaks.
Throughout this thread, I will be giving specific player attribute examples to help illustrate my thinking.
Obvious wonderkids: These ones are normally highly priced, and their potential is obvious for all to see. Examples include Lukaku, Sanogo, Babacar, Neymar etc etc. I'm not going to waste my time on these types of players, because basically, you all know them, and so long as you give them game time, they WILL achieve their potential. These are clearly your category A transfer targets.
Unheard of wonderkids: First off, this will cause debate, an unheard of wonderkid to you might be a well known player to me, and vice versa. The main difference here is price and research. To find these gems (which I thoroughly advise on doing), you'll have to load some of the less mainstream leagues, possibly even looking further down the divisions. Some examples I would name here are: Lee ***, Joakim Eyde, Victor Wanyama, Gil Blumstein, and anyone else I've named on this list. With a bit of TLC, as will be explained later, these players can become just as good as the known wonderkids.
The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hydes: What I mean by this (and they're a dime a dozen) is a player who has got absolutely fantastic attributes in one column, but they completely suck in another. Just take a quick look at any number of youngsters in the Uruguayan league and you'll notice that generally, their technical stats are very good but that their strength is nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, and contrary to popular opinion, these players are amongst the easiest to train. Example: Matias Jones
Players that are great for a different position but aren't even orange for it: Pretty rare to find these guys, but it does happen, more often than not turning up via your own academy. These players require a lot of work, but can still become stars.
The latter three categories are the type of players I will be looking at.
Where you can trust your scout: When he tells you a player has a PA of at least 3.5 stars, you can generally accept they will be a good signing. Where he tells you a player has a PA of 1 star, they will either never come good, OR they will take so long to come good, it just isn't worth the effort.
Now then, as you have probably figured out, that leaves a rather grey area of 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3 star potential abilities. I will argue here, that your scout is nearly ALWAYS wrong and nearly ALWAYS takes a pessimistic view on how good a player can become.
Proof? You'll find below two regens I took a look at and ignored what my scouts/ coaches told me (sadly I never saved these, so you'll have to take my word on this):
Sébastian Metz, signed aged 15, 20/20 scout at the time told me he would reach 2 star potential... Now 22 in the screenshot and signed for Inter Milan:
Throughout this thread, I will be giving specific player attribute examples to help illustrate my thinking.
[*]Youngster is a bit of a generalised term isn't it? Who are you talking about?
[*]I would class youngsters you could buy into the following categories:
Obvious wonderkids: These ones are normally highly priced, and their potential is obvious for all to see. Examples include Lukaku, Sanogo, Babacar, Neymar etc etc. I'm not going to waste my time on these types of players, because basically, you all know them, and so long as you give them game time, they WILL achieve their potential. These are clearly your category A transfer targets.
Unheard of wonderkids: First off, this will cause debate, an unheard of wonderkid to you might be a well known player to me, and vice versa. The main difference here is price and research. To find these gems (which I thoroughly advise on doing), you'll have to load some of the less mainstream leagues, possibly even looking further down the divisions. Some examples I would name here are: Lee ***, Joakim Eyde, Victor Wanyama, Gil Blumstein, and anyone else I've named on this list. With a bit of TLC, as will be explained later, these players can become just as good as the known wonderkids.
The Dr Jekyll and Mr Hydes: What I mean by this (and they're a dime a dozen) is a player who has got absolutely fantastic attributes in one column, but they completely suck in another. Just take a quick look at any number of youngsters in the Uruguayan league and you'll notice that generally, their technical stats are very good but that their strength is nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, and contrary to popular opinion, these players are amongst the easiest to train. Example: Matias Jones
Players that are great for a different position but aren't even orange for it: Pretty rare to find these guys, but it does happen, more often than not turning up via your own academy. These players require a lot of work, but can still become stars.
The latter three categories are the type of players I will be looking at.
[*]Yeah but I've just looked at some of the examples you've named and my scout report says that they only have 2.5 star potential and you said they are wonderkids (whine whine whine)
[*]Using your Scouts (Scouting a player blind - attributes hidden):
Where you can trust your scout: When he tells you a player has a PA of at least 3.5 stars, you can generally accept they will be a good signing. Where he tells you a player has a PA of 1 star, they will either never come good, OR they will take so long to come good, it just isn't worth the effort.
Now then, as you have probably figured out, that leaves a rather grey area of 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3 star potential abilities. I will argue here, that your scout is nearly ALWAYS wrong and nearly ALWAYS takes a pessimistic view on how good a player can become.
Proof? You'll find below two regens I took a look at and ignored what my scouts/ coaches told me (sadly I never saved these, so you'll have to take my word on this):
Sébastian Metz, signed aged 15, 20/20 scout at the time told me he would reach 2 star potential... Now 22 in the screenshot and signed for Inter Milan:
Want me to go even lower with a scout report? Ashley Bentley from my Derby academy aged 16 at the time: PA rating according to my scout: 1.5 star. Also now 22 and signed for Aston Villa.
Rule number 2: Not only can your best scouts be wrong, they can also change their mind:
According to the same scout, Metz' current ability has gone up to 2.5 with a potential for it to be 3 stars. Remember that to begin with, he was only supposed to reach 2 stars. How much do you want to bet that my scout has got this new report wrong too?
Mccollio's Suggestion:
So far, there is evidence to suggest that scouts have their faults, and that the 20 judging current ability, 20 judging potential ability stats are not as fool proof as they seem. My suggestion is just to use a scout to canvas a certain region/ country, thus enabling you to see the stats of more or less every player in the given region. Do not buy a player based purely on what you scout says, use you head, take a look at the player attributes and decide on instinct if they are worth a purchase.
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