retired_crazybonejr

Oh I agree, it's not all that common. It's a poor example, but there are those born there who may go back, either late in a career, or if they're sitting on the bench and not playing in another country.

arman920

My wifes family are all Belfast & football mad, 2 of my nephews trialled at County league level while on holiday with us in Sussex & my son played many a park match in Belfast.

Rl scouting links are far too tenuous to be accurately replicated in the game, I think FM allows too quick an aquisition of scouting knowledge in general.

It would be no problem for honest citizens such as us to define our own scouting links, sadly the "others" would mortally abuse such a facility.

retired_jmathias

Regarding scouting.

How many jock scouts are there in lowest divisions in UK & Ireland? As I don't know, I can relate to real LL football in Slovenia (below second division [yes, Slovenia has more than two tiers. Four or five actually, depending on a region]).

Fifth tier [Amateur]. No scouts there. Players are "signed" based on who knows the "coach". No foreign players there.

Fourth tier [Amateur]. Unlikely more than 1 "scout" per team, whose only task is to go to youngsters matches and try to convince the blokes to join their team. For a sandwich after every matchday and some compensation (if budget alows). Scouting Slovenia only here.

Third tier [Amateur to Semi-pro]. Finally some resemblance of real scouting. However, no one, but couple of teams that live near border can afford to SYB. Even if they could, there is no player in Croatia, Hungary, Austria or Italy that would join third tier team. Thus, scouting Slovenia as well.

Second tier [Semi-pro]. SYB in full range here. However teams limit their scouting area to ex-Yugoslavia territory and Hungary. Other nationalities players are playing in second tier, but that is only due to them being offered to teams here.

First tier [Semi-pro to Pro]. Definitely SYB and scout Eastern Europe. From other countries, I think there are some Smaba boyz (3 in the league or something), a Japanese bloke and an Italian.
That is it.

To sum up, I don't think that either signing foreign scout or even sending him abroad below 3rd tier in Slovenia would be realistic. And as I checked scouting options that the board gives you in FM for second tier, I would say it is realistic enough. Sure, there will always be an odd team with more or less money, but average is about right.

Thus, I believe that FM assigns constrains realistically enough for LLaMas to follow it.

retired_pmetzger1

Playing the online clan in SD3 I can tell you that most of us can only scout Scotland, but Chris, at Berwick, is allowed England too.

creative36

Reading one of the local rags this morning, the back page main headline is about my local Ryman Second Division side signing a former Under-20 Ghanaian striker from a team in the Spanish 2nd League.

I guess the point is that real life 'scouting' depends on a wide range of factors from which SI can only pick a few.

Limiting team's scouting by country is a good idea in principle, but there are too many oddities to make it sound so far. My Italian team can scout Germany but not Slovenia, for instance. Splitting teams up into Regions does in fact sound like a logical step forward - the only question being where unattached players come in.

Back to my earlier example, I'm sure that this Gbanaian didn't turn up on a scouting trip by my local team, so either the player himself, his agent or hell, even a member of his family who lives nearby (which is possible) mentioned to the manager that he would be willing to join. That's the kind of rare, random occurence that happens at the lower levels of football and it's something I'd like to see a bit more of.

retired_ikolo

I agree that you shouldn't get players from all around the world but shouldn't your nationality affect it a bit? The silent Spaniard in the PL gets alot of spanish players and the cocky portuguese manager gets alot of portugues players. So wouldn't you agree that on lower levels it is kinda like that? A scottish coach in England would maybe know 1 or 2 players that he would call upp and they would move with him to a new full time job in some factory in the area while playing for the local team.

The only thing I think the game lacks is players who don't have contracts in the local area (relative to the stature of the club, ie top division team in England would have a local area of the world but a lower league team in west London would have west London as the local area) would randomly apply for trials at teams. That's how it happens in real life. If a factory worker moves from one city to the other he would get to try out a few practices with the local team and see if they would sign him.

retired_deborah13

I would humbly suggest a scouting system based on actually assigning scouts to single games. In real life what other way a scout has to uncover a player if not by watching him play in a game? Certainly not by looking at him in practice expecially at the lower league level where scouts are part timers. With the game mechanincs as they are now, scouts can find players from multiple teams in a single week and that, in my opinion, is not very realistic. So i would like a system where you can send a scout to watch specific games with different expenses based on the distance from your hometown. Cheers.

KingsbayYHPE

Nah, what I said was, in previous incarnations, I employed a Scottish Scout and sent him to scout Scotland only, and only once a season, to mimic what would be my own knowledge and contacts in Scotland.

retired_berrysale

I still think it's more dependant on the club's finances.

Scouting different countries needs to be addressed in a different way.

I think LL clubs can afford scouting other countries as long as the scout agrees to stay in a cheap hotel.

It could cost 50 Euros per night to stay in some hotels. Add a cheap flight carrier onto it, then the cost can already be over £100 plus the scout's expenses.

Not bad for one weekend trip, but the scout will be looking at one player.

Scouting more players in the area would cost a lot more. The bottom league clubs probably can't afford it.

Going up to league 2, however, they probably can.

I think it depends much more on the finances of the club

retired_bcollier2005

Something similar happened to me in a corrupted save ... I ended up at Merthy Tydfil in Conference South, and was able to scout both England and Wales.