Tips on scouting for transfer list

[DarthRambo]

I am so overwhelmed! I set up to scout every position I use and any attribute. Then just add the good players to the short list that seems ever growing to now a long list instead. I have no clue who to scout or look for. Any tips on keeping it much more simple?

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[ImmortalMindz]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

There are basically two options: either use the in-game systems or use a third-party site like SoFIFA. Since there's huge limitations to the in-game system, I use both. (For realism and a challenge, be sure to hide potential ratings in SoFIFA.)

The first step though is to identify what you're looking for and this is entirely up to you. Where is your starting 11 weakest? What is your squad most lacking in? Are there types of players and positions you want to prioritize? Are you looking for budget finds? Are you going for youth?

If you're not sure where to start, just identify the weak links in your starting 11 and reserves, then either use the GTN Scouts to search for that position or use SoFIFA to do some preliminary scouting and then scout them in the game.

It's definitely a challenge managing the shortlist and you'll want to remove players from there when it makes sense to do so. I've made the mistake in the past of adding too many so I'm trying to be more selective. (We should have different tabs on the shortlist for different positions, ugh!)

Honestly, this aspect of CM is really poorly conceived and implemented, so you'll need to figure out what works best for you. The more you play, the more you'll get the hang of it. Good luck!

[jmb5310]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

Can't disagree w/ anything said above. I, too, use a combination of SoFifa and the GTN. I made a very specific post about this on another site that I'll add here. I haven't updated some of these links for FIFA 23, but I may in the future, but this gives you an idea of how I constrain myself.

"As we near the arrival of FIFA 22, I wanted to put my thoughts on paper as to how I would like to generate realistic transfer targets and player development. I’ll consider this my one-stop shop for trying to remain genuine in my pursuit of targets. I’m starting in League One with Sheffield Wednesday (examples throughout), but I feel that League One & League Two (and potentially the National League!?) would be run almost exactly the same way.

TRANSFERMARKT

First, let’s start with historical data. Transfermarkt is such a valuable resource. I’ve done some previous posts about how the pandemic affected spending in League One, and that was slightly premature. You will see here that only two teams spent any transfer fees. I’ll link to my old post here to show the average amount of transfer purchases, loans, and frees. I would like to follow a similar player acquisition spread.

RULE #1: No transfer fees prior to Championship promotion
I also like to use Transfermarkt to see where to target players. There may be an interest/tendency to seek out talent across the globe, but it’s fair to say that lower level clubs do not have the funds or the scouting bandwidth to unearth all of these hidden gems. So I look at Transfermarkt to see what types of leagues the club combs for talent: Sheffield Wednesday and Darren Moore Transfer History

As we see here, the club tends to stick to players that are exiled or released from Premier League Clubs, Prem U23 sides, or the Championship. Very few one-offs here, at least at this stage.

RULE #2: Stay within the scope of your league for player acquisitions.
Once a team enters the Championship, they can expect a bump in revenue from television deals. Typically, it’s in the range of $8M, I believe. So you would expect newly promoted teams may actually try to acquire players. However, it appears that that is not the case, potentially due to the pandemic.

Of the 24 clubs, ten made acquisitions that required a fee. Of the three newly promoted clubs, only Blackpool made a splash and that was sub-$1m for Lawrence-Gabriel. So if I am going to keep with this historical precedence, but also have an outlet for at least one potential acquisition, I’ll stick with what I said when breaking down EFL Finances.

RULE #3: Only able to acquire players via transfer fee after 3:1 ratio of income (ex. Sell off $6M in players, can bring in $2M)
I’ve done very little research into the Prem League, but luckily u/NerdyOutdoors has with this research project. So once I reach the Prem League I will follow these acquisition guidelines.

RULE #4: Follow u/NerdyOutdoors acquisition guidelines in the Prem
GOVERNING BODY ENDORSEMENT (GBE)

New to English football in 2021, the GBE is a new calculation system that makes acquiring non-English footballers much more difficult. Gone are the days of Brentford or Norwich unearthing players that were unknown to launch the respective club to the top of the league. I have created a very simplistic GBE Calculator for use in FIFA. There are opportunities for exceptions, but I will not personally entertain exceptions until promotion to the Prem League.

RULE #5: Non-English footballers must exceed GBE point threshold
An added note to the GBE, no authorization, to include British Isles (I believe), for transactions for players that are younger than 18. So…

RULE #6: Youth Academy can only consist of English players
Another sidebar for the YA. I want to utilize an actual starting XI in the YA, so I will force myself to fill a starting roster and not be full of 90 potential CAMs.

GLOBAL TRANSFER NETWORK and ANALYTICAL SCOUTING DEPARTMENT

Now we can get to the acquisition of players. Prior to promotion to the Championship, I’ll only look at frees and loans. Once we get to the Championship, I can start to look at potential transfer fee targets. If I’m going to simulate what an analytical scouting department does with my limited resources from FIFA, I need to think a bit outside the box. There are two ways that I’ve considered doing this: Machine Learning and Sim Scores. The intent is to update both of these once the FIFA 22 dataset becomes available.

The ML idea is to set a baseline value for your squad and find players that would improve most by being a part of your club. The future intent will be to filter so that you can see who the best players for your club may be and then also limit yourself to certain countries. Consider this a WIP.

The SIM score is a way to find similar, cheaper talent to a player/playing style that you like to utilize. My favorite example is Ivan Toney. If you were in the market for a similar player to transform your club, enter “I.Toney” into the spreadsheet, sort Sim Score from A-Z and you’ll see several options that have a similar playing style and potentially at a significant cost savings.

I also did a miniseries on important attributes for specific positions, here’s the attack positions. If you were inclined to see which attributes were most highly valued at each position, you could attempt to target players that are already developed or more advanced in those areas.

My goal in this aspect is to unearth a player not unlike Andy Robertson, LB at Liverpool. If there is a way to find a player that explodes on to the scene to push my club up to the Prem League and then I could potentially sell to fill a multitude of holes on the club, that would be a dream scenario.

RULE #7: Add an Analytics Department
KEEPING AN EYE ON UNIQUE DEVELOPMENTS

Sheffield Wednesday have an interesting niche in that they appear to be targeting players that are in need of a second chance that had a ton of potential years ago. They recently signed Saido Berahino and were linked to Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Ravel Morrison. So there is a potential window for adding players like, say, Jack Wilshere or maybe even Reece Oxford that would fit in this mold.

They also have a connection to players that Moore coached at West Brom, not unlike Berahino. So I may look to add players like Jonathan Leko, Rakeem Harper, or Romaine Sawyers. Maybe even someone like Brendan Galloway.

RULE #8: Keep a tie to the real world
So I think that’s all of the thoughts I wanted to blab on paper. Any ideas that you have to keep things in the realm of possibility? Surely, wage caps / restrictions are a part of it. But would love to hear any thoughts ideas from you that I could borrow! Looking to do ONE fully immersed manager mode in FIFA 22 and looking to make it as comprehensive as possible! Cheers!"

[DarthRambo]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

Can't disagree w/ anything said above. I, too, use a combination of SoFifa and the GTN. I made a very specific post about this on another site that I'll add here. I haven't updated some of these links for FIFA 23, but I may in the future, but this gives you an idea of how I constrain myself.



"As we near the arrival of FIFA 22, I wanted to put my thoughts on paper as to how I would like to generate realistic transfer targets and player development. I’ll consider this my one-stop shop for trying to remain genuine in my pursuit of targets. I’m starting in League One with Sheffield Wednesday (examples throughout), but I feel that League One & League Two (and potentially the National League!?) would be run almost exactly the same way.



TRANSFERMARKT



First, let’s start with historical data. Transfermarkt is such a valuable resource. I’ve done some previous posts about how the pandemic affected spending in League One, and that was slightly premature. You will see here that only two teams spent any transfer fees. I’ll link to my old post here to show the average amount of transfer purchases, loans, and frees. I would like to follow a similar player acquisition spread.



RULE #1: No transfer fees prior to Championship promotion

I also like to use Transfermarkt to see where to target players. There may be an interest/tendency to seek out talent across the globe, but it’s fair to say that lower level clubs do not have the funds or the scouting bandwidth to unearth all of these hidden gems. So I look at Transfermarkt to see what types of leagues the club combs for talent: Sheffield Wednesday and Darren Moore Transfer History



As we see here, the club tends to stick to players that are exiled or released from Premier League Clubs, Prem U23 sides, or the Championship. Very few one-offs here, at least at this stage.



RULE #2: Stay within the scope of your league for player acquisitions.

Once a team enters the Championship, they can expect a bump in revenue from television deals. Typically, it’s in the range of $8M, I believe. So you would expect newly promoted teams may actually try to acquire players. However, it appears that that is not the case, potentially due to the pandemic.



Of the 24 clubs, ten made acquisitions that required a fee. Of the three newly promoted clubs, only Blackpool made a splash and that was sub-$1m for Lawrence-Gabriel. So if I am going to keep with this historical precedence, but also have an outlet for at least one potential acquisition, I’ll stick with what I said when breaking down EFL Finances.



RULE #3: Only able to acquire players via transfer fee after 3:1 ratio of income (ex. Sell off $6M in players, can bring in $2M)

I’ve done very little research into the Prem League, but luckily u/NerdyOutdoors has with this research project. So once I reach the Prem League I will follow these acquisition guidelines.



RULE #4: Follow u/NerdyOutdoors acquisition guidelines in the Prem

GOVERNING BODY ENDORSEMENT (GBE)



New to English football in 2021, the GBE is a new calculation system that makes acquiring non-English footballers much more difficult. Gone are the days of Brentford or Norwich unearthing players that were unknown to launch the respective club to the top of the league. I have created a very simplistic GBE Calculator for use in FIFA. There are opportunities for exceptions, but I will not personally entertain exceptions until promotion to the Prem League.



RULE #5: Non-English footballers must exceed GBE point threshold

An added note to the GBE, no authorization, to include British Isles (I believe), for transactions for players that are younger than 18. So…



RULE #6: Youth Academy can only consist of English players

Another sidebar for the YA. I want to utilize an actual starting XI in the YA, so I will force myself to fill a starting roster and not be full of 90 potential CAMs.



GLOBAL TRANSFER NETWORK and ANALYTICAL SCOUTING DEPARTMENT



Now we can get to the acquisition of players. Prior to promotion to the Championship, I’ll only look at frees and loans. Once we get to the Championship, I can start to look at potential transfer fee targets. If I’m going to simulate what an analytical scouting department does with my limited resources from FIFA, I need to think a bit outside the box. There are two ways that I’ve considered doing this: Machine Learning and Sim Scores. The intent is to update both of these once the FIFA 22 dataset becomes available.



The ML idea is to set a baseline value for your squad and find players that would improve most by being a part of your club. The future intent will be to filter so that you can see who the best players for your club may be and then also limit yourself to certain countries. Consider this a WIP.



The SIM score is a way to find similar, cheaper talent to a player/playing style that you like to utilize. My favorite example is Ivan Toney. If you were in the market for a similar player to transform your club, enter “I.Toney” into the spreadsheet, sort Sim Score from A-Z and you’ll see several options that have a similar playing style and potentially at a significant cost savings.



I also did a miniseries on important attributes for specific positions, here’s the attack positions. If you were inclined to see which attributes were most highly valued at each position, you could attempt to target players that are already developed or more advanced in those areas.



My goal in this aspect is to unearth a player not unlike Andy Robertson, LB at Liverpool. If there is a way to find a player that explodes on to the scene to push my club up to the Prem League and then I could potentially sell to fill a multitude of holes on the club, that would be a dream scenario.



RULE #7: Add an Analytics Department

KEEPING AN EYE ON UNIQUE DEVELOPMENTS



Sheffield Wednesday have an interesting niche in that they appear to be targeting players that are in need of a second chance that had a ton of potential years ago. They recently signed Saido Berahino and were linked to Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Ravel Morrison. So there is a potential window for adding players like, say, Jack Wilshere or maybe even Reece Oxford that would fit in this mold.



They also have a connection to players that Moore coached at West Brom, not unlike Berahino. So I may look to add players like Jonathan Leko, Rakeem Harper, or Romaine Sawyers. Maybe even someone like Brendan Galloway.



RULE #8: Keep a tie to the real world

So I think that’s all of the thoughts I wanted to blab on paper. Any ideas that you have to keep things in the realm of possibility? Surely, wage caps / restrictions are a part of it. But would love to hear any thoughts ideas from you that I could borrow! Looking to do ONE fully immersed manager mode in FIFA 22 and looking to make it as comprehensive as possible! Cheers!"

I like this for lower league teams for sure. I like rule 3 a lot. I watched this video and this one said not to sign anyone who is more than 1 overall higher than your best player. I think following that rule alone keeps my transfer list short and easy to target positions of need. Also if your team is 1 or 1.5 stars then only have 1-2star rated scouts. Only 5 stars if team is 4.5 or 5 stars.

I also like your idea of fielding a starting XI in the youth academy. That definitely limits you from stacking up outrageous talent. I will go through who I have now and if I have duplicate of a position I'll release one.

Question on that. Do you only have 11 total or reserves too? Do you acquire only positions you field in the formation you use? So no RW if your formation uses RM instead?

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[jmb5310]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

Id say, treat it like a normal squad. Clubs have reserves on their U21 team, so 2 GK and a backup CB and FB, for example.

You wouldn’t go into a game with a starting 11 and 7 CAM subs, though!

I think you can/should be a little flexible with formations so don’t restrict yourself so much there as YA players can switch positions.

[V1nn1e]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

What I find difficult is identifying players for the future - without using a third party system. My fist team are all 73 or higher, but I’d like some young players no higher than 71 to develop. Besides my youth team, does anyone have any tips when using the in game scouting instructions?

[V1nn1e]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

Has anyone come across any players from the libertadores or sudamerica teams found by the or scouts and by player search?

Just wondering how it’s working with only Argentina available to send scouts to.

[Trapdoors Exist]

Re: Tips on scouting for transfer list

I would add that overall ratings can be misleading, so you don't want to myopically go after guys just because they have a bigger number. It's important to figure out how you want to setup and play first, then go after players who fit that system, which means digging into their individual ratings a bit.

I like to play a back 4 with a high defensive line and aggressively press in the other team's end, so I need CBs with lots of pace to be able to cover ground quickly when other teams get a breakout. If I were playing with 3 CBs in a back 3/5 setup, I would be more willing to sacrifice speed for stronger passing/dribbling skills, since they would have less ground to cover and would be more involved in buildup play, etc.

I actually ended up selling off a CB with a higher overall rating because he was too slow. I had a guy on my bench with just about as good defensive ratings, much worse ball skills, but a lot more pace. He ended up being a much better fit for how I wanted to play, even though the other guy had like 3x more value on the transfer market. The higher rated player was much better with the ball at his feet, which was driving his higher overall rating, but that was pretty meaningless to me given the way I want to play.