The best way to find awesome regens in FM 13 & 14 without RTE’s

by Chappers  7/07/2013 | 5:36 0 Posted in Best Stuff, Football Manager 13, Tactics, Wonderkids 

Managing your favourite team is the stuff of legend, a dream that comes alive through the magic of Football Manager.

That dream is reignited after a couple of seasons when regens start to become the top transfer targets for every team across the world. Some young whippersnapper with stats coming out his arse bum and has the potential to set the league alight.

Unfortunately for me, my mindset is one of negativity towards regens, a double-edged sword if you will. Let me explain.

I’m a bit of a purist Football Manager player, one that likes to progress youth and regens but also one that feels the ‘magic’ diminishes from the game when those youth and regen players that have reached their potential are filling your squad. But for those 4-5 years in the middle, there is nothing better than regen hunting, discovering a gem in the rough that even Arsene himself would be proud of.

I want everyone to be a part of that mystery, that inquisitiveness that can quickly turn to a childlike excitement if you find the next Messi.

For that reason alone I have put together the techniques that I use to find the best regens on the game, without cheating with RTE’s.

I may be taking a bit of a ‘punt’ here but I am guessing SI won’t overhaul the game in the way I think it should be and so these practices will work on FM 2014 too. (I’ve been using the same tactics since about FM 08).

First off, you must have the right scouts

The first step to finding awesome regens is having the right scouts.

It is a common mis-conception amongst newbie’s to the game that scouts are only for scouting, they’re not. Not only do they evaluate and point out the key credentials of any would-be signings but they increase the range/knowledge in countries and continents across the globe, in-turn increasing the amount of regens (and other players) that show up in your results.

As a starting point if you’re a top-level team you need to have the right scouts under your employment, scouts that cover the main countries across the globe that produce high volumes of regens.

For me this entails Brazil, Argentina, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, USA, Ivory Coast, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.  I don’t know if these are the ‘official’ places that produce the most regens, but for me these are my gut instinct about the countries that produce the best, after several years and hundreds of seasons in the game.

You need a scout for each country, in other words one that is native or has a more than 75% knowledge of that region. Secondary to that knowledge is the scouts skills and both identifying current player ability and potential ability, note that at this stage, scout stats are firmly secondary to the knowledge he/she possesses.

Heres one of mine, for Holland.

 

So once you have a nice collection of scouts for those regions mentioned, you are ready for the next step.

Get the search criteria right

The next step is to actually start searching for the regens you crave, here though, don’t be tempted to streamline your approach, don’t be tempted to search for all players under a certain age, if you’re looking for a defender add that position and the same for all of them.

Heres the search that I use if looking for a midfielder.

 

Make sure that you do not ‘check’ ‘unrealistic targets’ as many regens start on youth contracts or are not listed on transfer and loan list so unless you have 100% scouting in that region, these players will be filtered out.

Typically I find that using ’20′ as the max age gives you a good start, its rare that a regen starts the game older and usually if so they are the ones that clubs just won’t let you buy anyway.

When you have your results you need to select show ‘attributes’ and for midfielders and strikers, go for ‘technical’ as below:

 

Now,  your list is getting towards where you want to be, as a default it is probably showing the players listed in order of ‘value’ unless you have previously selected something else.

What you want to do now is either highlight the most important stat for your ‘perfect player’ or just flick through, pushing each stat to the top individually and having a scan through the top few dozen players looking for ‘blue numbers’.

If I was looking for a central midfielder passing and first touch would be first on my list, attacking midfielders would see me looking more towards technique and dribbling but obviously you want an all rounded player.

You can find some cracking gems doing this but you can also be fooled.

Scouting the right way

When you have found a regen or ten, the next step is to scout them which is something that I see done completely incorrectly by so many people, especially on Football Manager 14.

You have just spent thousands recruiting a scouting network that knows the regions, use that ability to get the most accurate scout report, I have seen scouts vary by 2 full stars, just because of regional knowledge.

Use a specific scout who has knowledge of the regen that the player is currently playing in. Do not use one based on nationality.

What to look out for on a report

Dealing with your scout reports become second nature once you know what to look for, they are fairly basic and to be honest i hope there is more ‘depth’ to be added to these come FM 14 but anyway, the key components here are matching a few bits of data together.

Firstly, do you trust your scout? Secondly does the regen have the current ability to help your team or the future potential to be a star? Lastly is their any frightening ‘stuff’ on the report?

As a standard, I never sign a regen or youth player unless he has a potential of 4.5 stars. The only time I would sign a potential of 4 stars is if the player is good enough to play regularly for me straight away. You will find out why in a minute.

Be sure that there is no ugly traits of the player your scouting, for example I tend to avoid anyone who ‘lacks consistency’ is poor in the big games and is ‘injury prone’. All of these will affect how effectively the player reaches his potential, which after-all is the reason you are looking to sign him.

Understand the ‘flex’ effect

The ‘flex’ effect is a name I just made up, literally this minute. But this effect is a real thing, its something that needs to be addressed.

When signing a regen or any player for that matter the ‘flex’ effect is what the real potential of the player will be if you a) played him every game, b) played him regularly or c)put him in the reserves or sent him on loan.

The flex effect swings both ways, if you for example sign a player with the potential to be 4 stars and play him often, he could easily ‘flex’ to be 4.5 or even a 5 star player in the future.

On the other hand, a young player who isn’t given time in the first team, tutored and trained specifically to hit his prime, he won’t do so. His potential could drop by 2 stars, (most I’ve seen).

It is easy to get it wrong

Stats can be deceiving, they can ‘cloud’ your judgement, lots of blues on one player can be a huge distraction that leads you to make an un-informed bid, check this dude out:

On first inspection you’re thinking “what a find”, young, stats all-over the place and cheap at that, perfect.

But look closer, this guy is an AMC, apart from decent technique and flair he just isn’t up to scratch for that position. At 19 you would want a much better passing, finishing, creativity and positioning stats for an AMC, not to mention better pace and acceleration.

Your cause isn’t helped by a scout telling you this dude could hit 4 stars, he couldn’t, as he wouldn’t perform at a level high enough for you to play him consistently enough to get to that level.

Here’s what you could have won

If you get it right the rewards are certainly there, here’s a couple of awesome regens that I have found using the techniques above. Fingers crossed that you guys are ready to find some cracking regens when FM 2014 comes out, as soon as its available for pre-order you can find it here.