Scouting Talents Without Judging Potential

Probably one of the best and most insightful things I have read in a long time took place in a secluded part of the SI fora. It's about how you can scout top youths without the use of the judging potential skill. Potentially, if you get this right, this means you can start your academy in the very first season, when the competition for the top youngsters is less fierce.

Apparently, it's all about setting up the right filters. As the world is quickly swamped with newgen players, you can't go trawling through long lists of players, so you want to set up good filters as fast as you can to start scouting.

One of the tips I picked up, was filtering on wage. Most newgens appear with a wage demand of 200 quid. The ones with higher wages generally have a better chance of becoming better players, if they possess the proper stats as well, so filtering on wages is a smart idea.

Naturally, wages alone are not an indication of a players potential ability. It could just mean his current ability is quite high, but his development chances are limited, which means you still have nothing useful to work with.

We also have to look at certain stats. As I stated in an earlier blogpost, players with decent values for Work Rate and Determination are far more likely to live up to their PA. There's less need of splashing loads of cash on top PA players if there's not a very big chance of them living up to that potential. Looking at these two mental attributes will give you a pretty decent idea if a player will be able to live up to his potential.

One last important thing to look at was basically natural fitness. I suppose that makes sense, especially if you're in the development business for the long haul. You don't want a youth with top stats but who tires after 45 minutes of football, so it is important they have the natural fitness to develop their other physical skills.

Summing it up, these are the things we should be looking at in a filter:

• wages: over 200 quid;
• determination: 10+;
• work rate: 10+ (preferably even 15+);
• natural fitness: 10+.

I put this theory to the test by looking at several teams who were signing the top youths very early on in Miller Beta. Teams like the Tallinna Piraaja and AZ Bruntsfield were reknowned for picking up the youths even in season one, before JP skills were unlocked and when I look at the players they signed who turned out great, they all seem to match the profile described above. So yeah, I think this might help out a lot of people.