Hello and welcome to my FM 2013 Guide, how to scout top players and wonderkids. To gain success in Football Manager 2013 you need top class players. Its great having super tactics and brilliant backroom staff, but you need someone to put the ball in the net. There are many FM13 hints and tips for scouting, but I will compress them all into one easy to read guide.
Backroom scouting staff
Before you even begin searching for players, you must have an excellent team of scouts. Johnny has written a guide on how to assemble the best scouting team, so I won’t go into detail. Just remember when you search for players, the ones that pop up on your list are as a result of your scouting range and knowledge. Poor or limited scouts equals very few players to search through.
Try signing as many scouts as possible with knowledge in varying countries, you need a vast network and can check your progress from the ‘scouting’ screen. This ‘Scouting Overview’ shows your scouts, their assignments and knowledge which is a very handy tool.
I recommend asking your ‘chief scout’ to set assignments and update you on their findings. He’ll make sure every area is covered, you can do this through the ‘staff responsibilities’. I would however set two scouts to constantly search Brazil and Argentina for under 18’s, believe me you don’t want to miss a thing over there. Anyone wondering how many scouts they should sign, there is no limit nor minimum, it depends on your board, club stature and how much effort you are willing to put in.
Now you should be getting a steady flow of reports to sifter through, you’ve completed step one so lets move on.
Filtered search
This is probably how you find most players, so don’t take the filter options for granted. Below are the different searches I tend to do using the ‘add condition’ tool.
- Transfer listed players — once every couple of months
- Contract expiring in 6 months — On the 1st of January every year
- Players under the age of 17 — every month
- Attribute specific search — probably once a fortnight
The transfer listed and contract expiry filters are very obvious and easy to do, but I’ll explain what to look for in the last two bullet points.
Players under the age of 17
If you already have a good scouting network the best of these players will already have a report, making life very easy as you bypass anyone with a star rating under 4. However, for the ones without a star rating I suggest hovering over the ‘i’ icon to the left of their name so you can see a snapshot of their attributes.
This search is mainly used to find regens and top young talent, so all you can do is use your own judgement, if a player interests you then request a scout report and take the inquiry from there.
When looking through such a list for regens I suggest paying attention to those with exceptionally high determination and work rate, they have the best chance of reaching their potential. Work rate and determination doesn’t equal high PA though so always get a scout report.
Attribute specific searches
Rather than look through one long list, why not search for the key attributes you want. Decide which position you are searching for, but do not add the position into the filter as a condition (some players may not show up if that position is their secondary one.)
Now pause for a second and just visualize what would stop you signing a player in that position. Does he have to be under a certain age? If so add the filter. Do you like players that are quick and if so how quick? The list goes on, basically add a condition for every vital attribute. Below is an example of a filter I may use to find my poachers with Newcastle.
— Age, is at most, 21
— Pace and Acceleration, are at least, 14
— Finishing, composure and dribbling, are at least, 13
— Off the ball movement, is at least, 12
You can apply this logic to almost any search, these filtered searches don’t always work, but they are good to use from time to time. What will find you amazing regens is manually searching, so lets move onto that.
Manual search for real life players
When doing filtered searches the only real way to order the list is by player value, so you are probably missing out on a lot of great players who are very cheap. You can’t realistically scroll through an entire list, so let me tell you where to search for top talent.
- Top under 21 and under 19 National sides
- Medium reputation senior national sides such as Romania and Poland
- Youth teams of top four sides in England, Spain and Italy, Germany, France and Holland
Manual search for FM 2013 regens
Most people love this part of the game, unearthing the perfect gem. To find the top FM13 regens before anyone else you need to know where to look and when, I’ll’ begin with the where by listing the most likely clubs to develop top regenerated players. The list below is vague and doesn’t cover everyone, because lets face it a top regen could appear anywhere, but I think this will provide a good starting point.
— Check every single top flight club in Argentina and Brazil.
— Check the best six teams in Spain, Italy, England,
— Check the top three clubs in France, Holland, Portugal and Germany.
— Then check sides like Dinamo (Croatia), Chivas (Mexico), Atlas (Mexico) and Universidad Catolica (Chile).
This list below provides FM 2013 regen dates for the most important countries. Search the nations above a day after their respective regeneration dates shown below.
| Country | Date of youth intake every year |
| Croatia | 8th March |
| France | 8th March |
| Germany | 8th March |
| Russia | 8th March |
| Scotland | 8th March |
| Switzerland | 8th March |
| Ukraine | 8th March |
| Turkey | 8th March |
| — | — |
| England | 13th March |
| — | — |
| Belgium | 18th March |
| Czech Republic | 18th March |
| Italy | 18th March |
| Portugal | 18th March |
| — | — |
| Mexico | 23rd March |
| — | — |
| Holland | 25th March |
| — | — |
| Spain | 28th March |
| — | — |
| Argentina | 2nd April |
| — | — |
| Chile | 19th September |
| — | — |
| Brazil | 20th September |
| — | — |
| Norway | 1st October |
| — | — |
| Most of Africa | 3rd October |
| — | — |
| USA | 26th December |
That’s about it really, yes you do need to use common sense and make a lot of effort with your searches, but using this FM 2013 scouting guide should teach you everything I do to find the gems of FM13. If you want an easier answer, just visit the Scouting Network. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.
nikozolo
14 ноября, 2012 at 21:56
A very good article. May I suggest doing a search for the scout «Moggi». He is somewhat young, has an ‘obscure’ notoriety and some fantastic PA/PP as well as determination. Quite useful for central and southern europe, namely france and italy.
Conor Joseph Donovan
15 ноября, 2012 at 02:16
I have that scout in my save! :)
nikozolo
15 ноября, 2012 at 09:02
Youre a smart man lol
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 11:41
Thanks for the info.
Benjamins_World
8 августа, 2013 at 14:13
Hi. I’m a noob to fm. But am really enjoying it. So realistic and in depth. Sorry for this amateur question but when im searching for certain coaching staff or when i select certain teams i can sometimes only see the manager and director in staff and like 1 or 2 players in a team. Can anyone answer why? (in the search section i have unticked «unrealistic transfers). e.g. when i search for yaya sanogo nothing comes up. Or coaches such as bernhard petters. Nothing. Any help appreciated.
Darren Smith
8 августа, 2013 at 19:27
Glad you are enjoying the game, it only gets more addictive the more you play :) What you are experiencing is a result of a small database. When you start a brand new game, you have the option to select which countries and what size of database. I usually load England, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Argentina with a large database. The game limits what you can see depending on what countries and database size you load basically.
Benjamins_World
9 августа, 2013 at 00:49
Thanks Darren. Can i change this setting on my existing game or would i have to start a new one?
Darren Smith
9 августа, 2013 at 09:53
No problem, as for the second question you would have to start a new game to change the database size. You can add and remove countries/leagues but it won’t update until the end of the season and you can’t adjust the database size.
Bjørk Lange
16 ноября, 2012 at 10:48
It is quite unrealistic that Luciano Moggi is willing to sign for bad rep. clubs and for such low wage as he is a former legendary Sporting Director of Juventus, and is very known in Italy because of the huge Calciopoli scandal, sometimes even known as the Moggiopoli scandal, which lead to Juventus being relegated to Seria B by force. But he is indeed very good, and I have also signed him to my local danish club AGF which is just ridiculous :)
nikozolo
16 ноября, 2012 at 23:40
I signed him for Newcastle United. Just figured he saw the kits and thought he was home :p
Johnny Karp
15 ноября, 2012 at 11:48
World-class guide, nicely done ;)
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 12:04
Cheers Johnny.
Mariano
15 ноября, 2012 at 13:06
amazing , this was what I was waiting for, thanks a lot darren!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 18:06
No problem Mariano, I hope it helps.
Gaurav Chaddah
15 ноября, 2012 at 15:11
Great guide mate, I’ll be sure to take a few notes.
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 18:07
Thanks Gaurav.
hagi
15 ноября, 2012 at 15:28
where is that filtered search ?
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 18:13
Click the arrow next to your name at the top of the screen, then hover over search and click players. That is the filter search screen where you can add different filters.
Adam D
15 ноября, 2012 at 18:12
When looking for youth players I tend to do 2 (sometimes 3) indepth searches each year. Try to have a scout in as many regions as possible but I double up on important ones like S America and Central EU.
Then go through each region, filter to max age 16 (or 18 in some areas with few players) and ask for a basic scout report on the top 100 players that the player search brings up. If they already have a scout report from regular scouting then go further down the list. In important areas I do multiple searches for specific countries too, so for example in S America do 3 searches; one for Brazil, one for Argentina and then one for S America excluding Arg and Bra.
It does lead to a week or so of getting 60+ new messages in your inbox each day, but I just scroll up through each report with nothing more than a glance and use the shortlist to filter. Remove anyone 3 stars or less, ask for 3 match reports on 4.5/ 5 stars, and then use my discretion on 3.5/4 stars.
It can be time consuming (No doubt it could probably be streamlined) but as long as you have scouts out in the field building up your country knowledge you unearth almost every potential talent each year, even if you can’t afford to buy all of them. Knowing the regen dates for each country lets you stagger some of the searches too so you get the chance to snatch up players before they sign pro-contract arrangements.
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 19:44
Yeah there’s many ways you can do it really, just depends on how many players you intend on signing and how particular you are I guess.
DocHoliday
15 ноября, 2012 at 18:42
Is there a «fast» way to get scout updates on players? Or a way to better manage your scouting pool? During the March regen period I couldn’t get scouts to check out the players fast enough before they were already snagged. I only have 9 scouts, so that could be an issue but is there some other way to blast through a bunch of reports? Or do I just need to better filter before scouting them?
I was selecting — Scouting -> Assign Scout -> Scouting Pool -> Report Card Only.
Darren Smith
15 ноября, 2012 at 19:46
Go into your individual scout and assign him the duty of scouting Brazil or Argentina only reporting on players under 17, do this around the regeneration date. It still won’t get the players reported on quick though as the scout has to scour the area. Just manually look through those countries.
DocHoliday
15 ноября, 2012 at 23:17
That’s another idea too — will try that out when Brazil pops next. Thanks!
Nathan
18 ноября, 2012 at 01:32
Might want to make an exception for Africa — in FM2012 I found a lot of quality players who were given a 2 star rating by my scout… only to have a 4 star rating when I signed them and develop into some of the best players around. Weird… but they’re very cheap as well so worth the punt. In those cases I think it’s best to look at their attributes, not the scout report.
Darren Smith
18 ноября, 2012 at 10:13
That all comes down to your scouts though, if they lack knowledge of the region then they probably won’t have an accurate report first time of asking especially if the player isn’t well known.
Gavin Ward
22 ноября, 2012 at 02:58
In the 2012 version, when scouting for wonderkids, I would review players that were valued 750k and above. However, in my first batch of youth players, I have one player who apparently is a one in a generation type talent, yet he is only valued at 35k. How should I adapt my manual Wonderkid search going forward, particularly English and Brazilian players?
Darren Smith
22 ноября, 2012 at 14:22
You can’t, SI have made the valuation more realistic, to be sure you need to search through all the talent.
Oli
26 ноября, 2012 at 01:17
Alright. Any ideas why all the players in the youth teams in Brazil are greyed out? I set my game up with Brazilians leagues viewable and large DB.
Darren Smith
26 ноября, 2012 at 11:43
Not all the players will be greyed out as you play a few seasons but to see more you must load the league as playable not view-able.
Oli
26 ноября, 2012 at 17:51
Legend.
Darren Smith
26 ноября, 2012 at 18:58
No problem.
Thomas
13 февраля, 2013 at 17:51
Can anyone tell me, why the «player search» only shows quite a few of the players availible for my club? Etc. It only shows 40 Belgian players and I have Belgium as a playable league and unchecked the «unrealistic transfers» box.
As I recal the player searcg engine was quite large and usefull in the older versions of FM.
Thanks
Darren Smith
13 февраля, 2013 at 18:52
It all goes on your scouting range, scouts and general knowledge…the search tool will only show what your club has a knowledge of, not every player in the game.
Thomas
13 февраля, 2013 at 19:01
Okay, thanks for the quick reply.
I will try to follow most of your guidelines.
Cheers
lorenzo
25 мая, 2013 at 02:30
Hey!
I have a problem. Namely I waited the 20th of September because of the Brazil regen date, but I didn’t see any new young guns in Brazil clubs. I checked the U20 teams of Brazil clubs in 18th of September and then checked the same teams in 20th, 21st and 22nd of September and still only the same names in U20 teams …
Darren Smith
25 мая, 2013 at 09:34
If you waited for that date in the first season then maybe there will be very few but come September in the second season there should be quite a few.
lorenzo
26 мая, 2013 at 00:50
Ok. Cheers for that.
lorenzo
29 июня, 2013 at 10:13
Hey!
What’s the deal with all he brazilian regens? I found a few good ones and signed them, but they can only join me when they turn 18…
Is it only with Serie A teams all is it a general rule that they can’t leave before turning 18. Same thing happened with Halinovic also..
Darren Smith
29 июня, 2013 at 13:31
Thats just the rule in game and real life. It counts no matter which country you are bidding from.
Eliram Noam Ozmos
25 августа, 2013 at 15:47
please please help me with this — Football Manager 2013. i have a great scouting team. iam managing Real Madrid and my Under 19 team is off the hook! but i got this big problem — my scouters already has an assignments so when i set new assignments for them — they dont start it. even if i click the «restart» button, still they do what they did and dont start my new assignment. what can i do??
Darren Smith
25 августа, 2013 at 15:53
Cancel the old assignments so you only have one assignment set for them and make sure that your chief scout isn’t assigned the responsibility of assigning assignments to scouts in the staff responsibilities screen.
Eliram Noam Ozmos
25 августа, 2013 at 17:39
the problem was that i did not have that «cancel» option but i found out that it was because i fired my chief scout!
i remembered it because you wrote to see that the chief scout doesn’t control new assignment.
once i hired a chief scout, i had the option to cancel their old assignment,
thank you very very much!
Darren Smith
25 августа, 2013 at 22:20
Good, I’m glad you solved the problem.
Batty's Boots
13 ноября, 2013 at 22:55
Question for Darren or Jon, are the regen dates for FM2014 the same as they were for FM2013?
Darren Smith
14 ноября, 2013 at 18:47
I’m not sure TBH, we’ll have to check at some point.